(edited by Minion of Vey.4398)
Anet hate healing...
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you should never have any more than 500 healing power, because the stat scales badly on almost every ability that can heal and suffers dimishing returns after 500.
and you should never be using Merciful Intervention, it’s easily the worst ability Guardians get, massive cooldown, terrible effect.
Gw2 is a “no dedicated healer” game… ok… but it doesn’t means that there is no healing system at all.
Yes, this is one of those things from Gw1, where you had some vocal feedback that it could take forever to kill a PvE or a PvP because of healing while fighting, and in some cases it really did. Obviously this is something they acted upon for GW2 and made it imo (and I could be wrong) to a point where team healing/repetitive healing in general doesn’t work the way one is conditioned to. So what do we do? We learn what is being offered and adjust.
The flip side to this is, GW1 you could have elongated PvE battles because of heals, but now for GW2 some encounters they just boost HP way up on the enemy and thus you get the same effect, so it could be debated what’s the real gain here? I personally preferred GW1’s handling of it, I could have seen some tweaks vs seemingly an overhaul. But I adjust.
Gw2 is built around net needing dedicated healers. Who are you playing with that I so bad you have to do nothing but heal. I run shout build warrior occasionally and it’s good for heals, you can be a heal class, so what you are asking for is to do nothing but sit back and heal? Why?
Bi Furious [Fist] YB
as long as you run with enough DPS in the party to make up/carry your lack of contribution. then i dont see anything wrong with it
this does require rage timers though. anet will want to prevent this
…but if all you do is support you’re a waste of space.
In your opinion. For are all Berserker gear, max DPSers also a waste of space? If they aren’t, then so aren’t players who love support skills.
I believe in no roles, including DPS, so I believe there’s no such thing as a waste of space just because one person chose to heal a lot (as it doesn’t mean such player is not contributing or damaging the enemy.)
The difference is that the base effectiveness of DPSing is very high in this game while the base effectiveness of healing/support is very low. So focusing on DPS = viable, focusing on healing = gimp. It’s like studying for a test…if you choose to study the topic that makes up 10% of the test you’re hurting yourself far more than the person studying what’s on 50% of the test and both are worse relative to the person who studies everything a little.
I mean no offense, but what you are saying is basically, play DPS, or be ineffective. However, “DPS” used to be a “trinity” role. Therefore, you actually believe that DPS is a role, and the other two are “dead”. So, instead of a trinity, there’s only one “viable” role, a “unity” of sorts: “DPS”. Couldn’t disagree more-which is OK too.
In short, and again, in your opinion, DPS is what matters, and everything else is amounts to “gimping yourself.” Many, many, many players currently agree with you, but I don’t believe that’s what ANet had in mind when designing GW2 combat. There are so many good team players that aren’t “fully DPS” (of course, there ARE good team players that are also DPS). You are trying to force the DPS archetype as the only viable (or “effective”) way to play the game, when there aren’t any supposed specific “trinity” roles, INCLUDING DPS.
I can’t relate to the test example, because DPS =/= the whole test content. In fact, it’s just part of the test-you make it sound as if “knowing DPS” means “mastering” the test, which even you must realize is untrue.
My “evidence” is simply this: an engaged player thrives with whatever playstyle he/she chooses (what I believe GW2’s combat is about), not with what’s supposed to be the “one, proven way” to play (DPS, in your-and many others-eyes.) Big damage numbers don’t tell the whole story, such as having fun, player skill/creativity, etc.
In short, players that have fun with supposedly “gimped” builds may in fact do better than with “effective” DPS builds that don’t suit them at all. Thus, “Healing” and
Support are not “maybe” viable-they are viable if the player knows what he/she is doing.
Feel free to wholly disagree, of course.
as long as you run with enough DPS in the party to make up/carry your lack of contribution. then i dont see anything wrong with it.
Not having a full DPS build doesn’t mean that you are not contributing-this is the main flaw of the DPS or die crowd. It isn’t as support “types” can’t also attack while they spread boons and heals.
No I just think Anet hates certain player and certain player types. I think that has been quite evident in the nerfs in both open world loot and personal profession and skills.
Also look at what armour ect is left out as well that points in the same direction.
Just my 2p
I suspect in part that the thinking come from event/mob farming, where you need to do a certain level of damage before the mob dies to be awarded a drop.
Also, while running solo during the PVE leveling you can rarely compensate for less DPS by upping defensive measures. This because defensive sources are on much longer cooldown, and have a much shorter duration, than offensive ones. So your best bet there becomes stacking defensive with offensive, like how the guardian provides boons with their attacks and can trait for healing when doing so.
That, or get very used to running in circles with a ranged weapon (preferably some kind of AOE auto attack).
In essence, DEs and soloing do not demonstrate that anything but DPS can be viable. And this notion will carry on into dungeons and other organized group experiences.
you should never have any more than 500 healing power, because the stat scales badly on almost every ability that can heal and suffers dimishing returns after 500.
and you should never be using Merciful Intervention, it’s easily the worst ability Guardians get, massive cooldown, terrible effect.
You should never state your own opinion and preference as “facts.” It’s OK to not like Healing Power because it scales poorly (otherwise, it could be too powerful and have some people want “healers” in their parties). It’s your right to play whichever way you want. But from there to say it’s never “right” or others to have more than 500 Healing Power is just Forum/Friends/Youtube hearsay-MANY players use healing builds to great effect.
Merciful Intervention itself, I don’t use it much even though I like Healing Power. It works, I just much prefer other skills instead. Someone out there may be using it effectively, though.
IMHO, if we weren’t supposed to stack 500+ Healing Power, it would be more obvious than just the bad scaling. Yet they still allow us to gear up for Healing Power, even beyond 1,800+. “All things have a right to grow.”
I am sure ANet can modify the current system to make dedicated healers more viable. But it is going against their design philosophy.
They are trying to make a game where movement and reactionary skills are used to mitigate or completely block incoming damage instead of a traditional attrition system where you are constantly ‘dying’ and you need someone else to keep you going.
I like the fact that a warrior can solo lupicus or a mesmer can solo Kholer/spider queen (look up the youtube videos). They did that by skillful use of their dodges/blocks/reflects/distortions. Healing is only used as a crutch for when they messed up. I think that’s ANet’s design philosophy.
Does this type of gameplay lead to a more fuzzy definition of combat roles? Yes it does. And does it lead to a less cohesive party experience. Maybe.
I think this system widens the range of the party experience. You can have an extremely chaotic group or a extremely efficient group. Whereas in the traditional system, the scope of the experience is more narrow.
That is not to say the traditional system is flawed or bad. It is just a different type of gameplay that perhaps appeal to a different type of player.
There are a couple of things I can add to this: 1) healing makes a HUGE difference. I was instancing with a group of guys I know and, playing a healing Ele in the group, they had a much harder time completing their runs without me and 2) Rezzing in this game is like a big heal in others. If you trait / signet / etc. for the rez, you can make an enormous difference – the only downside is that, with a couple of minor exceptions, you have to teach people how to “die well”.
Healing as a dedicated profession is very difficult (impossible), but being a good utility player makes all the difference in the world.
I find it fascinating that all these people who say engis have the highest heals in the game really haven’t mentioned if they tried it after the last patch with that huge nerf we received to the EG. Because I have and it’s a huge loss.
Secondly. we do have complicated heals just look at the turret and the sheer number of regens that we have, way too many, most of which don’t have an instant effect from use. (there’s only two heals that affect others that do without traits.)
And finally, almost none of our heals regens or otherwise scale with +healing on armor. So no we’re not getting the most out of them we could be getting. Until they make kits scale we’ll still be second class even in healing. OR has everyone forgotten what Ele’s can do.
Balance Team: Please Fix Mine Toolbelt Positioning!
You should never state your own opinion and preference as “facts.” It’s OK to not like Healing Power because it scales poorly (otherwise, it could be too powerful and have some people want “healers” in their parties). It’s your right to play whichever way you want. But from there to say it’s never “right” or others to have more than 500 Healing Power is just Forum/Friends/Youtube hearsay-MANY players use healing builds to great effect.
if 500 is the softcap for healing power then he’s correct and that is a fact lol
it’s ok if you want to gimp your build, but when you’re min/maxing a character every little point counts, and if 500 is the softcap, then having anymore is bad
Did some quick testing just now with a staff ele against a black bear (level 16-17 only, but just to look at the numbers). Sure, the main attack heals, but the AOE is so small that the bear had longer range on his auto attack and i had to move in closer once it stopped to attack me. And i needed both that heal, the regen from 5 points in water magic and water staff 3 to keep up with the damage it delivered on me. Sure, i could be hopping back and forth between water and fire, but i could just as well stay in fire and drop the bear faster, much faster.
IMO, the way the numbers are stacked in the ele attunements shows how ANet is thinking about DD, support, control and DOT. DD is fast and decisive, support more or less only delay the inevitable, control do anything but as you can’t really use it to take control of the battlefield because the cooldown way outstrip the effect, DOT is a slower relative to DD in that it needs to ramp up while DD do massive damage from the word go.
End result, your best defense is a massive offense. This especially when the game throws more than one mob at you as you can barely deal with one using anything but DD.
I’m playing GW2, the game where pure healer/support role is not viable. You are in denial even though you are posting a thread about how it’s lacking. How do you not notice that?
No, guardian can do it.
Guardian can have all support/healer spell… all Healing Power gear… traits and build focused on healing and support.
Actually no they can’t. Most traits and abilities, even in a pure “healer” build, do not affect healing. In addition many of those heals are on long cooldowns while DPS abilities, guess what, are on short cooldowns. You can constantly DPS. You can’t constantly heal. If all you’re doing is healing, most of the time you’re sitting there twiddling your thumbs and the rest of the time the heal values are fairly low so you’re not worth the spot in the group.
You want to change the fundamentals of a skill to suit a playstyle that does not exist.
Your argument is that targeting a friendly target is not a playstyle in the game.
clicks a friendly target
HOLY CRAP! I CAN CLICK PEOPLE!
The reality is that the style does exist. It doesn’t exist for the specific skill, but it can be adapted as such. You can thus adapt a skill to allow selection of a friendly target.
And with due respect to the purists who think the “trinity” is dead in GW2, it’s not. The selection of how we build our characters is to take damage, deal damage, or help others. The only game that managed to actually change the “trinity” is City of Heroes. GW2 has done nothing but blur the lines by allowing damaging specs to also have access to self heals and group heals on switch.
There are no spells that function through targetting friendly players.
The spells can be clearly adapted to function in that manner. That is what the OP is about—adapting the current mechanics to assist in making a viable healing/support role.
Except the OP already says that guardian and elementalist are viable healing/support roles (lol).
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