Guild Wars 2

Since not one class is supposed to be a healer or a tank and everyone is supposed to contribute as a group, what can you do for your group? Ideas like reliable consistent regeneration, blinds, heals, weakness. What can you do to help your group stay standing.

If everyone contributes a small part of passive/active damage mitigation will these be enough to make the encounter feel more controllable?

Ideas like thief with venomous aura combined with leeching venoms causing heals

Or guardians and warriors providing regeneration and weakness to reduce damage and provide healing with shouts and banners

spamable blinds to keep big attacks from hitting players.

Lets drop the glass cannon builds and make up team composition ideas for survivability.

Guardians can pull out some pretty good self healing for supporting the group with minor group support. Somewhat selfish on the healing end but still provides useful boons to the group allowing the guardian to stay up and fight. What else is there?

Initial thoughts on survivability and group sustainment focus on:
Aegis, Regeneration, Protection for boons (maybe even vigor for more rolling)
Blindness, Weakness for conditions

On longer cooldowns tends to be:
Fear, immobilize, and to some degree chilled (for running away and not getting hit by melee)

How do YOU bring things to the table?

Quick list I made running through the different trait calculators, mind you these are primarily heals, other utilities such as blind or blocks still apply but I did not intensively search each profession just yet. Was hoping to get educated players from each profession showing what they can do besides damage:

Warrior
Banner Regen and protection

Guardian
Boon/meditation self heal/shout regen/protection

Thief
Venom group application/venom heal/venom might

Engineer
Bomb heals

Mesmer
phantasm heals

Elementalist
water skill heals

Necromancer
deathly invigorate and transfusion for heals

Ranger ??? How much do pets support group?

As a guardian i look out for my self. In doing so i pass around buff’s such as aegis/regen/condition removal’s. I also have skills such as blind to take care of attacks that might level the party. In general i go into a fight with the mind set if im not watching out for my self no one is. Due to that i carry skill’s that tend to support my group members in ways they them self’s dont realize.

good call I forgot about condition removals, I did notice some fights were having a reliable way to wipe conditions helps survivability a ton

as a Guardian i run a build based around Empowering Might which is quite simply designed to buff the dmg of the whole party whilst bringing supportive utility skills.

The only way to not provide support to your group as a Staff Elementalist is basically to stay exclusively in one Attunement and cry about how you don’t have traits for the other 75% of your skill bar. Without using any traits or utilities, you’ve got:

- 5.5 useful combo fields (1.5 fire – Burning Retreat isn’t terribly reliable as a field – 2 Water, 1 Ice, 1 Lightning) along with one Blast Finisher and two Projectile finishers.
– An AoE Chill, an AoE Stun, a line-AoE cripple, and a ranged Immobilize, a ranged Blind, and a ranged Knockback.
– A direct heal in a fairly small AoE, and a Regeneration and condition cure in a massive AoE, in addition to a small heal on the Water element auto-attack.
– AoE swiftness, which also cures snare conditions.

With Utility and Elite skills, you can throw into the mix another Blast Finisher or two, Elemental summons that can chill, grant Swiftness, heal (fairly effectively) or stun enemies, Conjure weapons that party members can use if their weapons aren’t particularly suited to the task at hand (best example: Ice Bows against Burrows in AC), or have an extra AoE storm skill that can repeatedly inflict Blind or Chilled.

Once you throw traits into the mix, you can constantly be throwing out AoE Might, Swiftness, Regeneration, and Protection (in particular, Protection can be active upward of 80% of the time, if you’re diligent and do everything you can to extend its duration), you can add on a condition cure and a ~10% heal every time you switch to Water Attunement, or short group-wide Stability on switching to Earth, and you can add heals, Blast Finishers, and AoE Blinds to every dodgeroll.

Once you start building an Elementalist with an eye toward group support, nearly everything that you do feeds back into making your entire party more effective.

Edit: Also worth mentioning:
A Warrior specced for Shout Heals with a full set of Runes of the Soldier basically gives every player within shout range the equivalent of an extra Healing Skill every 20~24 seconds, plus cures everybody in range of four conditions in that same time frame, while providing a constant 3-6 stacks of Might, ~50% uptime on Fury, breaking stuns for everybody in range, and inflicting 10 stacks of Vulnerability on the target.

Warriors can go a banner regen/protection route, or a healing shouts/condition removal build. Warbanner is also amazing for pinch situations where you really need to ress someone (or multiple people) NOW, or just for group damage.

Guardian has aegis, wall reflection (reflection is always awesome and can make some dungeons cakewalks), awesome condition removal, quite a few blinds, aoe blocks, area denial, protection, retaliation, etc. Staff poops out tons of might.

Thief has venom sharing, large AoE stealth (great for ressing), regen on stealthing people, decent pulling ability (when scorpion wire chooses to work), and can have permanent blind/poison/weakness depending on how you play/trait, group boons on steal. Blinding Powder is just all sorts of awesome against troublesome mob packs.

Engineer can easily maintain tons of stacks of vulnerability with grenade builds while also dishing out tons of both direct and condition AoE damage. Traited turrets can bring tons of CC, and elixir gun is amazing for group support. Supply crate and Elixir R are also awesome.

Mesmer’s Time Warp is pretty much pure awesome. They’ve also got AoE stealth and portals if you like skipping stuff, reflection (again, always awesome), great condition clearing, and boons galore.

Aside from the water fields, an Elementalist can pretty much solo maintain permanent regeneration and protection on a party if traited and geared for it. They can also have a ton of combo fields to play with. You can do some neat pulling stuff with the arcane abilities, too. Condition removal/regeneration on water attunement, might on fire attunement, heal/condition removal on roll, protection on earth attunement, constant weakness with earth staff 1, etc…

Can’t really say much for Necromancer and Ranger, haven’t really tried them or taken too much note of them.

There’s tons of ways to support your group without having to trait specifically for it. It can be as simple as switching what you have in your utility slots. It’s absolutely ridiculous how many CM parties I’ve been in with a Guardian/Mesmer who refuses to use Wall of Reflection/Feedback. You don’t have to be thinking about how to keep your party alive and going 24/7, but dear lord if you’re a Thief, please don’t take that oh so awesome for world exploration Signet of Shadows into the dungeon if you’re not even going to use the thing to blind.

I have noticed a lot of elementalist support focus since release. I heard a lot of griping at first because they were nerfed from where they were in the beta weekends, but now staff elementalists have found a great niche, especially as bunker types in sPvP. As you said everything relies on switch attunements at the right times.

That said, the two more known support classes are the only ones to post. Guardians and Elementalists. Good info but not the only ones out there! One guard or elementalist cant’/shouldn’t do it all.

Hammer guardian and earth elementalist can keep protection on for a good amount of time, I think warrior can keep weakness on fairly well but haven’t tested it extensively myself.

Protection (30% reduced incoming damge) + weakness (50% of attacks are 50% weaker) = approximately 80% damage reduction on 50% of the attacks and 30% on the rest

THAT sounds like a lot of survivability but can we keep weakness and protection up sufficiently?

good compilation omgwtflolbbl =)

I do tend to feel restricted on my guardian thinking I have to trait a specific way to make my group support more effective. I swap out wall of reflection on fights that have a lot of ranged for sure though.

I think this is one of the areas where you really do see the difference between random groups and organised ones. When everyone’s all out for themselves, you can still complete the dungeon, but you’re prone to wipes, endless OMG Y U NO _______ and disagreements over every little thing. In an organised group where people communicate then this shows in the support they bring to the table as well.

Elementalists, Mesmers and Guardians in particular I think are awesome to have on dungeon runs, as long as they’re not trying to be glass cannons. As a Necromancer I have multiple roles – meat shields to occupy mobs (for all the complaints about the minion AI being broken, I can’t say it hasn’t come in handy in CM to occupy turrets and TA to occupy hounds/husks) and a lot of condition-related stuff. Absorb all conditions from party members, turn their conditions into boons and so on. I think everyone can work together to make dungeon runs a whole lot faster and easier but a lot of the people in PuGs are just looking out for themselves.

CMF.5461:

I have noticed a lot of elementalist support focus since release. I heard a lot of griping at first because they were nerfed from where they were in the beta weekends, but now staff elementalists have found a great niche, especially as bunker types in sPvP. As you said everything relies on switch attunements at the right times.

That said, the two more known support classes are the only ones to post. Guardians and Elementalists. Good info but not the only ones out there! One guard or elementalist cant’/shouldn’t do it all.

Hammer guardian and earth elementalist can keep protection on for a good amount of time, I think warrior can keep weakness on fairly well but haven’t tested it extensively myself.

Protection (30% reduced incoming damge) + weakness (50% of attacks are 50% weaker) = approximately 80% damage reduction on 50% of the attacks and 30% on the rest

THAT sounds like a lot of survivability but can we keep weakness and protection up sufficiently?

Hammer guard can keep protection, Im thinking the symbol affects anyone who stands in it with protection, and Ret up perma on the group as long as they stand fairly close. Which as long as everyone isent glass cannon they should be able to do not to mention the more people taking damage the more damage is reflected back onto the mobs.

lcpdragonslayer, thanks for the necro input. As I forgot the condition damage from earlier and SiNoS reminded me necromancer become a great boon to the group….ok that pun was totally intended and used in the corniest way possible.

Just how good are the necro pets, they have good self survivabilty or damage? I don’t play necro so not sure about them.

Sounds like necros are the judo/aikido form of fighters that turn enemy damage into positive benefits for themselves!

Warriors:

CC wise:
1. Hammers- 4 out of the 5 skills are based on controlling the enemy including knock backs and knockdowns.
2. Mace- Perma weakness to make sure that the enemy does only glancing blow. Mace/shield gives you 3 interrupts to interrupt important skills. Off-hand mace- AoE Knockdown
3. Swords can immobilize/cripple an enemy. If you see a low hp friend being chased by an melee enemy, use savage leap + hamstring/flurry then the friend will get away.
4. Axe/Greatsword has a ranged cripple or immobilization if traited.
5. Longbow- Immobilize
6. Rifle- Ranged cripple or immobilization if traited
7. Physical skills for further CC skills.

Supportive wise

8. Condition removal(Must have soldier runes to be even more effective), healing, and offensive buffs with shouts.
9. Banners for more buffs and regen.
10. Battle Standard for a group resurrection in case your teammates are stupid enough to stand in front of the Howling King’s spirit scream.
11. Fire field + Arcing shot for might stacking.
12. Stability helps a lot when ressing against enemies that knocks downs.
13. Endure pain helps a lot when ressing a friend against a hard hitting enemy.
14. Entire minor tactic trait line is dedicated to ressing a dead friend.
15. Warhorn removes cripple, immobilization, chill to groups and grants vigor(Gives them more dodge per minute). The Trait lets you convert one condition to one boon

awesome list runeblade.

By the way I’m taking these things and compiling them into my own little spread sheet to see if I can figure out how they intended us to group versus just every man for himself =p Good input all.

I am here to represent RANGERS. Typically I support my people in a number of ways:
1) If I spec my engineer for traps I support via crowd control (chilling, crippling, entangling, etc.). Also almost every trap provides a combo field for whatever element trap it is.

2) The third ranger heal is a nice AOE and healing combo field, also removes conditions. Really it is the only heal worth using.

3) Depending on what pet you use; I for one use my jungle stalker the most. He has an AOE roar that adds 5 stacks of might to anyone in the vicinity.

**Really the best support role a ranger could play is a spirit ranger. Spirits are supposed to provide awesome boons and crowd control secondaries. Unfortunately due to the poor implementation of spirits they are the furthest thing from a viable choice.

Lol no worries. The only one really worth summoning in any dungeon is the elite skill flesh golem and possibly Flesh Wurm in a dungeon like CM. Has decent HP, does decent damage, and you can make it charge forward to aggro mobs. Staff skill #2 also heals not your minions but anyone standing around the target so you can basically give nearly constant HP regeneration to all melee players. The 6~9 skill slots are better used for condition-related skills.

Lorana.2468:

as a Guardian i run a build based around Empowering Might which is quite simply designed to buff the dmg of the whole party whilst bringing supportive utility skills.

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Full Berserker gear, 6xStrength runes, traits are 0/15/20/30/5

Major traits are:
Signet Mastery
Purity, Retributive Armour
Superior Aria, Empowering Might, Pure of Voice
always run 3 shouts, Stand Your Ground, Hold the Line & Retreat, Renewed Focus elite because i hate the Tomes.

use Greatsword/Scepter&Focus.

im not fond of going the same spec as just about every other guardian out there going full cleric Alturistic Healing build, plus i run dungeons with a guardian built this way anyhow, im there to dish out damage, remove conditons that also apply short boons and buff the party with high amounts of Might, especially if someone is giving me a Fury boon.

though you would probably be better off using Knights Gear for such a build, it’s up to you, personally im fine in Berserker the permanent Vigor from all my crits keeps me alive.

I absolutely agree with this setup, been running similar one myself. I have two sets, the AC set with the 6 piece bonus for Aegis grant to party on use of elite skill, and the CoF berserker set for damage/crit. I run the courage tome for low level instances if the team is lacking in HP, the Wrath tome for bursting down burrows on Path 3 AC and Renewed Focus for most other tasks, it is especially useful for Giganticus Lupicus when you don’t have the time or the range to stop and use a tome, it also gives you that 3 seconds invulnerability u can use if your stability is down and you are stuck in his gross green bubble. I very much wish other guardians did the same, good to see someone else doing it. Empowering Might is a must, an awesome trait. And utilizing your shouts and virtues is great for the party.

Brazensage.1328:

I am here to represent RANGERS. Typically I support my people in a number of ways:
1) If I spec my engineer for traps I support via crowd control (chilling, crippling, entangling, etc.). Also almost every trap provides a combo field for whatever element trap it is.

2) The third ranger heal is a nice AOE and healing combo field, also removes conditions. Really it is the only heal worth using.

3) Depending on what pet you use; I for one use my jungle stalker the most. He has an AOE roar that adds 5 stacks of might to anyone in the vicinity.

**Really the best support role a ranger could play is a spirit ranger. Spirits are supposed to provide awesome boons and crowd control secondaries. Unfortunately due to the poor implementation of spirits they are the furthest thing from a viable choice.

Don’t forget Point Blank shot.

4. You can shoot PBS at an enemy trying to defeat your friend and then resurrect him.
5. Nature Spirits provide buffs.
6. Elite Nature spirit mass res your friends.
7. Shortbow’s Crippling shot for ranged cripple in case you see clothy staff elementalist friends being chased by an enemy. Concussion for a daze or stun for a ranged interrupt.
8. Ranger’s sword lets you swoop on an enemy and stun them for more CC.
9. Winter’s bite for Axe CC.
10. Off-hand Axe + Healing spring. If you get low hp friends on the healing spring, stack on them and use whirling axe to mass healing bolts on them.
11. Longbow + Healing spring to support your warrior friends with regeneration.
12. Entangle more CC.
13. Warhorn provides nice damaging buffs for friends

Sweet some ranger updates.

What it sounds like is that rangers give more damage stops via stuns/dazes and pushbacks.

Minor buffing via spirit pets but not “as” effective as they could be.

Very single target control oriented it seems, sounds like you guys could use some buffs or we need to learn to play them better. I finished leveling my guard so this might be my new challenge to L2P this game better!

edit—-
oh just read your post about fields and finishers, and it makes rangers even tricker than I thought. Pop a light field and then bounce an axe around for some burst healing.

This goes along with another mechanic I saw about ranger pets, foraging for weapons in combat such as feathers or “muck” to create new combo fields. Sounds like rangers go for more emphasis in creating combos for the group in various ways.

Representing Mesmers here I played a monk for 5k hours in GW1 and LOVE to support other players. Also, I love to run dungeons. I consider myself support more than anything. I don’t go glass-cannon- I’m actually quite the opposite. Since I’m learning every dungeon and have started to know what I can and can not do, I frequently tank the mobs. I also do the following:

I’m always the first person on someone who is down. The second they go down, it’s Mirror Image, Phase Retreat, jump to them with Blink, and start to get them up. The reason for the 3x clones is F4 Distortion for 3 seconds if I get attacked while reviving them. If they’re in a mob, I’ll pull the mob away with Temporal Curtain, and lay a Chaos Field on them- maybe even my AoE Weakness as well (Radiation Field).

But besides reviving people,

Grouping foes. This provides quick kills for my team. I have a good understanding of the pull function of Temporal Curtain. I’ll group the foes together against a wall, then Swap (Sword #3), which’ll Immobilize them and jump me to them. After I’ve immobilized, I Freeze them by swapping weapons (Superior Sigil of Hydromancer), then lay down my AoE Weakness Asuran Skill.

And of course the other mesmer benefits,

- Portals to skip Dungeon Traps (i.e. CoF, Arah)
- Time Warp
- Temportal Curtain for group swiftness
- Veil + Mass Invisibility for running in Dungeon (i.e. TA)

What else is there to do in a boss fight once you get your three illusionary Phantasmal Warlocks out? :P

Perfect, I was just thinking on my way to work that we hadn’t had any indepth mesmer input yet and here we go.

It sounds like mesmers have a lot of direct control over mob and group placement as well as mobility.

I have used the portal skips a few times and those saved time for sure, and time warp is everyone’s friend as mentioned earlier.

I did notice mesmers have pretty good ability to reapply blinds and with that confusions, so good amount of damage reduction and damage return/thorns type damage while supporting the group as well.

I play a P/P Condition/Elixir build on my Engineer. While innately selfish, the Toss Elixir abilities do help out quite a bit, and I typically use Supply Drop as my Elite, which helps out with healing. The main issue with Toss Elixir as my support is that the boons of each are random. However, one of them does convert a condition into a boon, which is pretty handy. I know I could build more towards support, but I do offer a little bit of help.

I am currently building a support warrior by using:
Survivability for myself, thoughness/vit trait and build
Regen on banners
Extended banner time
Placing banners for buffs
Using shouts
Bow for combo finisher and the F1 for combo field

And my mesmer isn’t really team support build, but it does nice too:
Using staff with condition trait/build for dps
Staff has bounces and aoe that buffs team
Feedback people to prevent damage/put down combo field
Time warp ultimate
Focus for phantasmal warden and curtain