Guild Wars 2

Since Nov 15 Patch not only healing is limited to 5 people but every single AoE support skill in the game is. If you’re partied and in a huge zerg in PvE or WvW it might be the case none of your party members gets your buffs. In fact you might even end up not getting buffs/heals yourself.
Since GW 2 doesn’t allow accurate applying of support as in other games this change pretty much destroys all the support builds there are and therefore reduce variety in the game.

ANet should at least add priorities to their support skills (if not revert that whole change back). The caster should always be affected as well as the party.
If it was just healing it would probably be okay but applying this change to every group supportive aspect of the game can’t be intended by ANet.

Discuss.

I noticed this too and was very annoyed that my aoe heals in events are now just useless.

I was already annoyed by the small radius that buff skills have. It’s practically like you have to be standing on top of someone for them to get a buff. Are they that afraid of a support type becoming required? I know they cut out healers and tanks but I thought support was supposed to be a viable way to play. Over and over again it seems the game is telling you that going pure dps is the best way to go.

I agree that the buff limit is annoying. As an Altruistic Healing Guardian who relies on buffing others for healing myself, this greatly hampers my tanking ability. Granted, in any situation where you would have more than five other players around you to get buffs, they generally wouldn’t need it and/or would also be getting buffed by others besides me. For example, in a zerg, I buff five people with two buffs each, giving me ten bursts of healing (72 heals per buff per person with AH). I get healed, and five people in the zerg get my buffs. Say there is another AH guardian in the zerg. He does the same, and more people get buffed and he gets healed. The point I’m trying to say is that if EVERYONE got buffed, a zerg would be absolutely unstoppable, and it isn’t that bad at the moment anyways.

• Mesmer Clones
• Ranger Pets
• Elementalist Golems
• Guardian Spirit Weapons
• Necro Pets

Will all steal your buffs and healing. It’s silly and frustrating since they don’t even benefit properly from them. Kitten, mesmer clones can’t even benefit from the regen and fury that they should be getting from traits.

Hmm, that is odd if you are in a party your buffs should only work for the party not go around randomly. If this is not the case than limiting those abilities to 5 targets is a bad idea.

Amonde Daneren.2380:

• Mesmer Clones
• Ranger Pets
• Elementalist Golems
• Guardian Spirit Weapons
• Necro Pets

Will all steal your buffs and healing. It’s silly and frustrating since they don’t even benefit properly from them. Kitten, mesmer clones can’t even benefit from the regen and fury that they should be getting from traits.

I came across this last night in 5v5 sPvP. There was a random Minion Necro in my team. I casted Shadow Refuge with me being at the edge of it.
Result: Necros+minions got stealth and I was still visible. -______-

Yeah this wasn’t a good change, it went from 1 exteme to the other (to much – to few), without some sort of smart healing/buffing system it can be very hit and miss in who gets what. And as you say, the fact that the caster can sometimes not even get their own things makes no sence at all.
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This needs looking into ASAP, now i don’t think it should go back to “unlimited” but with the current system we have, it certanly shouldn’t be just 5.

Thanks, Arenanet, for ensuring that Mesmers, Minion Necros, and Rangers never get invited to a dungeon again as soon as more people figure this out.

Vendris.4201:

Thanks, Arenanet, for ensuring that Mesmers, Minion Necros, and Rangers never get invited to a dungeon again as soon as more people figure this out.

Imagine if you got a group with a couple of them – 3 clones, a pet and a minion – they could take every single heal/buff and the main party could get nothing.

The silliness. Oh and it’s not like my ranger ever got invited to a dungeon anyway -_-.

I dislike not being able to just swiftness a crowd of people when we are walking along very slowly with an NPC. Since i made my ele initially because it had some semi okay support healing skills for things like that it really stings.

Its beyond absurd, in harder fractal levels I want to be able to accurately buff and heal my group and not waste my healing on minions. This ensures that Minion Masters, Rangers, Mesmers wont get spots on teams, because they make it insanely hard to survive. This move is limiting the choices of alot of people not only those that like to play support roles.

This is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard of in a game. If my buff/heal hits someone, they should get it.

This means there is almost no purpose to playing a support class in a WvW or tPvP situation, and classes that have pets are now less desirable for some groups.

Please fix, Anet.

I’m actully shocked more people aren’t posting on this, it’s a pretty big issue that needs looking at ASAP (even reveresed until a better heal/buff system can be made).

In certain situations it’s actully game/group breaking.
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Also note, this isn’t just something that needs to be fixed/changed in groups – it applies to anything when other players are around (DE, WvWvW, PvP – basically every aspect of the game).

Please increase the cap to around 10-15 or add in smart targeting so that actual party members are prioritised. This buff is getting extremely frustrating, especially when pets are eating Light of Deliverance heals, or when applying run-speed shouts. On a similar note, please stop the Jade whatever in FotM from targeting ranger pets and wasting everyone’s time.

Agree this needs to be changed.

It would not be a problem if support skills could be actually targeted to players, or to your party. But since they can’t, ArenaNet has to make it so these skills are actually effective.

The quickest way would be to bump up the cap to 15.

The best way to change it is that non players (AKA pets/NPCs) dont count toward the 5 target cap. If they cant do this, change it to 15 otherwise goodbye mesmers and minion necros.

Guardian with the staffs empower skill (1650 HP for people near) and spirit bow + virtue of resolve and I was completely the events healer. More guardians should have played healer and we would do lots better.

Thrumdi.9216:

The quickest way would be to bump up the cap to 15.

Yeah, basically enough to cover any amount of pets/summons a group might have with them in a worse case setup.

For example (off the top of my head), a 5 man group could have:

Guardian – 2 spirit weapons.
Mesmer – 3 clones.
Ranger – 1 pet.
Necro – 1 minion.
Guardian/Elemental – main support.

That’s a total of 12 that would have chance to recieve heals/buffs and 7 of those aren’t the players. And the above is a small setup, with certain builds that would go even higher.

Welcome to ‘Time Warp’ problem since launch.

It should prioritize party members. This is badly needed.

It’s also an issue in dungeons with NPCs and pets stealing party buffs.

It works fine in dungeons and small groups.

I have to say, on my guardian, who heals everytime he gives a buff, it used to be amazing, perhaps overly amazing, in big groups, like a portal-bomb in wvw.

Poof, I’d be apparently alone in the lords room, almost dead to invisible attackers, pop one buff, and be completely full again. Each virtue of courage was a complete heal.

This current setting post nerf was not a good solution, but I can see they needed to do something.

This change requires smart targeting. Anet needs to ensure that my heals and buffs aren’t eaten by pets and such.

mulch.2586:

It works fine in dungeons and small groups.
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This current setting post nerf was not a good solution, but I can see they needed to do something.

That’s the catch, it works fine only with certain setups and with other setups if you are lucky, this is due to the lack of smart healing which means anything and everything can take a heal/buff – from NPCs/spirit weapons/minions/pets etc aswell as players (and with players, high health players over low health players). Due to this the 5 max limit is terrible and needs to be changed (and fast).
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I agree it needed changing, unlimited healing/buffing was pretty crazy (more so in WvWvW zergs) – it’s just that they went way over the top with the nerf and took it from amazingly overpowered to shockingly underpowered (and borderline broken).

So the general concensus is that the reduction from all to 5 isn’t what’s bad, it’s the priority of buff assignment that is. If priority goes to self, then party, then allies (excluding clones, golems, hounds, spirit weapons, minions, pets, elementals, etc) then we’d be fine.

I think that this changes impact hasn’t been fully felt yet due to the number of people doing the events. Trust me I’m unhappy with the change as far as WvW goes since it basically destroys support healing…

Wow I’ve seen dungeon groups looking for members that must not play with any kind of minion. ANet is destroying the entire game in almost every aspect :/