Guild Wars 2

I really like playing support, but any heavy support build here not only tends to be subpar (in most cases) but they’re also slow gameplay wise and not at all as hectic and fun as the typical healing playstyle in MMOs. Not to mention the fact that the lack of non-group heals etc. makes the supporting less personal. (This all from a PvP perspective — both in this game and in others).

Am I really the only one who feels this way, or have others sharing my sentiment done the sensible thing and accepted that we’ll never get that in GW2?

i miss a certain types of healing (such as discipline priest PVP healing via WoW: WotLK), but not others.

support builds i’ve tried are effective, however. guardian, elementalist, engineer, etc.

I prefer how GW2 has their own twist by breaking the Trinity There may not be healers but that means every Profession can support each other individuality.

i can understand what you are saying, but if i wanted to play a healer i would play a game that supported healers instead of gw2.

just like if i wanted to play a loot based game i would play one instead of gw2.

i think the biggest problem most people face on this forum is that for some reason they refuse to play the games that are available that support their preferred playstyle, and instead for some reason want gw2 to be changed to suit their needs.

You’re right. There definitely are effective support builds, but the majority of the classes cannot expect to actually heal (which in itself is fine, since that’s the way it’s always been). My main gripe is that the support builds in this game are incredibly boring compared to the healing I’m used to from previous MMOs. I want the hectic feeling where your reaction time is tested because reacting half a second too slow means you kittened up, and where you’re managing multiple heals (or similar abilities) on short cooldowns across multiple targets, and all the while have to pay attention to the fight to read what’s going to be needed where etc.

If there’s anything like that in GW2, please point the way.

Oh, and, I do have a lot of fun when playing with the guild, and I definitely appreciate the effort of removing the trinity. I really think that’s a good thing too. I just have trouble finding a build/class that really suits my playstyle. I would like there to be something in the game that suits that playstyle, without destroying what they’ve already done.

I did not mean to say “Plz gief healorz!” I simply wanted to know if I am the only one who truly misses the playstyle they (in my experience) entailed.

I dunno, my elementalist in water spec does a decent enough job of keeping people heal. Decent… not Trinity system awesome job of healing but definitely better than most other classes can pull off for their teammates.

That said- I do NOT miss the Trinity system. At all. I praise this game and Arenanet daily for stepping away from that overused and extremely dated system. For once I finally feel like I’m not playing a game that’s trying to be WoW.

Fritz.5026:

i can understand what you are saying, but if i wanted to play a healer i would play a game that supported healers instead of gw2.

just like if i wanted to play a loot based game i would play one instead of gw2.

i think the biggest problem most people face on this forum is that for some reason they refuse to play the games that are available that support their preferred playstyle, and isntead for some reason want gw2 to be changed to suit their needs.

Some of us were just expecting something else, I read the no trinity stuff, so wasn’t expecting healers or tanks, I was however expecting more hybrid, more varied and generally more complex classes.

More along the lines of support / hybrid classes in other games, eg – loremaster/captain in LOTRO, or chlorodom in Rift, etc, what I got with GW2 is largely DPS classes with a heal and a bit of utility tacked on, that can be changed a little bit by having a bit more CC or bit more healing (but not a level that approaches hybrid/support in other games), etc, but overall very samey and very simplistic.

In regard to the OP I somewhat agree and I don’t even have a huge thing for playing healers, merely that I am missing the variety in playstyle that healing gives.

And no I don’t expect GW2 to change, their whole class system is based on a sort of dumbed down MMO approach that is sort of FPS/MOBAish, which is why I’m downloading something else as I write this.

honestly, if you are really paying attention to the buffs and debuffs going on around you it can be pretty exciting. At least for me. My engineer has 3 blinds on 10, 15 and 25 sec CDs. I don’t heal but I prevent a heck of a lot of damage from happening.

Sylosi.6503:

Fritz.5026:

i can understand what you are saying, but if i wanted to play a healer i would play a game that supported healers instead of gw2.

just like if i wanted to play a loot based game i would play one instead of gw2.

i think the biggest problem most people face on this forum is that for some reason they refuse to play the games that are available that support their preferred playstyle, and isntead for some reason want gw2 to be changed to suit their needs.

Some of us were just expecting something else, I read the no trinity stuff, so wasn’t expecting healers or tanks, I was however expecting more hybrid, more varied and generally more complex classes.

More along the lines of support / hybrid classes in other games, eg – loremaster/captain in LOTRO, or chlorodom in Rift, etc, what I got with GW2 is largely DPS classes with a heal and a bit of utility tacked on, that can be changed a little bit by having a bit more CC or bit more healing (but not a level that approaches hybrid/support in other games), etc, but overall very samey and very simplistic.

In regard to the OP I somewhat agree and I don’t even have a huge thing for playing healers, merely that I am missing the variety in playstyle that healing gives.

And no I don’t expect GW2 to change, their whole class system is based on a sort of dumbed down MMO approach that is sort of FPS/MOBAish, which is why I’m downloading something else as I write this.

every game you mentioned was a wow clone that used the holy trinity.

i dont think “no trinity” means what you think it does.

I liked being a healer in other MMOs more than any other role, but I particularly enjoy it in GW2. It’s not a game where you’re standing still and mashing 3 over and over to keep a boss from killing your tank. You have so much more you can do, and probably need to do, to keep people up and running that it ends up being a much more active experience.

I agree with the OP, I have been a healer in any game that would let me and so naturally it saddens me to not fill this fill this role here. To the people saying go play another game: I like this one, that is why I am playing it. What is the harm in wishing it would let me unleash my inner medic?

Sylosi.6503:

What are you on about? I specified support / hybrid classes (which is what teh classes in GW2 are hybrid, just very simplistic, very samey hybrids), that they are in a game with DPS, Tanks & Healers is irrelevant.

clearly he didnt play the games you mentioned and he wanted to use the “wow clone” phrase as if WoW somehow created the standard of gameplay that existed before it was ever even in development

@Fritz
No one is saying they want a WoW clone, just that we miss being a healer. No one has suggested or demanded the game change, just having a friendly discussion on what we like to do. Please stop bringing up WoW and trying to make this look like a QQ thread.

thanks

^^ EQ1 really kicked it off.

Prot monking would be so much fun in this game.

Makes me sad just thinking about it.

Fritz.5026:

eq never had the same impact on the current population of gamers that wow has.

you ask anyone who plays games today if they played wow you will get a response of “yes”.

you ask about eq and they will be like “huh? what is eq??”

Just because it didn’t impact them directly doesn’t mean it didn’t have a huge impact on what you play now / the genre across the board. But there’s no end to the amount of folks who have no idea of what came before WoW (not you personally, just saying), and what made it what it is to begin with.

Regarding the OP… the problem I see is that in this game, you can sacrifice survival skills for damage output, and you will see a pretty significant increase in how hard you hit. But going the other way (sacrificing dps for heal power etc) doesn’t give you the same sort of result. You certainly nerf your DPS, but don’t really see a proportional gain in the healing department etc.

Perhaps thats intended, but it’s also probably why you feel that you’re missing that role.

I’d kill for the healing potential of the DAoC primary healing classes. Take away all the buffs, all the CC, all the utility, spread/group heals and just give me the capability to contribute something other than a few weak as kitten CC moves and damage.

Hyena.7963:

I liked being a healer in other MMOs more than any other role, but I particularly enjoy it in GW2. It’s not a game where you’re standing still and mashing 3 over and over to keep a boss from killing your tank. You have so much more you can do, and probably need to do, to keep people up and running that it ends up being a much more active experience.

Let’s be honest, this is completely wrong. Compared to trinity MMO’s GW2 combat is very bland. I hate trinity as much as the next guy but I play thief and really, depending on my build I either mash 3 (yes, that is all a unicorn build uses, death blossom.) Or I mash 5 and 1 in my backstab build. There was so many more buttons in WoW on my rogue that I could go on for days saying how I had much more utility, healing, etc. to say there is more to combat in GW2 is a blatant lie or simply a misunderstanding on your part.

Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy GW2 A LOT. The actiony combat is fun, but it’s also very limited. Maybe it’s different for other professions, but I hardly have any combo fields of my own and the ones I do have cost a large amount of resources or have insanely long cooldowns like shadow shroud… Maybe if they made all the passive effects in our traits into more skills that we actually USE then skills wouldn’t be so limited/boring.

On topic: I miss healing too. Specifically monking in GW1. Very hands on, had to focus on the field intensely and I just love that kind of play.

atropos.3074:

Just because it didn’t impact them directly doesn’t mean it didn’t have a huge impact on what you play now / the genre across the board. But there’s no end to the amount of folks who have no idea of what came before WoW (not you personally, just saying), and what made it what it is to begin with.

when we talk about modern automobiles we generally dont even mention the model-t even though it was the forefather of all modern consumer vehicles.

people talk about modern vehicles that people know and understand.

in a similar fashion when we talk about modern mmo games we generally just go straight to the 1000lb gorilla of wow.

why bring up the old ancient that only old timers remember?

You can still play a healer?

Roll a full water elementalist with the proper weapons and you can still heal people, calm down.

Katostrophe.3274:

You can still play a healer?

Roll a full water elementalist with the proper weapons and you can still heal people, calm down.

Try it sometime.

PvP is too mobile, you rarely get more than one tick of any heal spell. PvE the bosses hit so hard you’re completely ineffectual.

atropos.3074:

Regarding the OP… the problem I see is that in this game, you can sacrifice survival skills for damage output, and you will see a pretty significant increase in how hard you hit. But going the other way (sacrificing dps for heal power etc) doesn’t give you the same sort of result. You certainly nerf your DPS, but don’t really see a proportional gain in the healing department etc.

Perhaps thats intended, but it’s also probably why you feel that you’re missing that role.

I doubt that’s the only reason why. As I said, my main issue is that the support builds I’ve been able to come up with in this game play out completely different, and not in a way that satisfies me. They all basically come down to rotating in a few group heals or w/e while otherwise doing your best to assist dps — there’s nothing dynamic or hectic about it at all.

The only other means of supporting I have found is CC (a condition necro with chills is the closest I have managed to come to my preferred playstyle) and some guardian skills. Unfortunately the guardian skills are again basically chucked on top of whatever else you’re supposed to be doing, since they operate on too long cooldowns (and are too few) to become a main part of your gameplay [EDIT: let me clarify this — I certainly don’t mean that they cannot be central to your build, only that they make up a small part of what you’re actively doing]. And when it comes to CC the necro gets closer than I expected (and as a WvW player I escape some of the more annoying problems we necros face in TPvP), but it’s definitely not the same.

On that note, have you managed to come up with something that comes close to satisfying the playstyle you’re missing?

Fritz.5026:

when we talk about modern automobiles we generally dont even mention the model-t even though it was the forefather of all modern consumer vehicles.

people talk about modern vehicles that people know and understand.

in a similar fashion when we talk about modern mmo games we generally just go straight to the 1000lb gorilla of wow.

why bring up the old ancient that only old timers remember?

we also dont compare features from other cars and call its a Mercedes clone. as if Mercedes invented bluetooth or all wheel drive. We all have an understanding that the market and demands evolve thus automobile companies evolve to please the market and what they come to expect.

so this also applies to mmos.

I’ve never had a problem going full heal on my ele in sPvP. Its the only way I play. You just have to pick your heals properly. Don’t drop your rain right when everyone is running to a new point. Do drop it, however, when you are fighting at a point. Make sure to lead with the geyser- don’t drop it where they are standing now but where they will be standing in 1.5 seconds.

I can honestly say I LOVE playing healer in sPvP.

Fritz.5026:

in a similar fashion when we talk about modern mmo games we generally just go straight to the 1000lb gorilla of wow.

why bring up the old ancient that only old timers remember?

Because often the topic is what does and doesn’t work, or why a certain trend is good or bad in the genre, so it’s helpful to have a bit of perspective when talking about such things.

Veenix.5248:

Fritz.5026:

when we talk about modern automobiles we generally dont even mention the model-t even though it was the forefather of all modern consumer vehicles.

people talk about modern vehicles that people know and understand.

in a similar fashion when we talk about modern mmo games we generally just go straight to the 1000lb gorilla of wow.

why bring up the old ancient that only old timers remember?

we also dont compare features from other cars and call its a Mercedes clone. as if Mercedes invented bluetooth or all wheel drive. We all have an understanding that the market and demands evolve thus automobile companies evolve to please the market and what they come to expect.

so this also applies to mmos.

thats actually wrong.

many lower priced cars are in fact clones of higher priced luxury vehicles.

they try to emulate the looks and stylings and offer it at a more affordable price.

this is getting way off topic though and either you completely missed my point or you were just being obtuse.

I can understand why the game doesn’t have targeted heals, but I don’t understand why Healing Power doesn’t scale as well as Power or Precision, when it has the same stat budget as them.

Tolmos.8395:

I’ve never had a problem going full heal on my ele in sPvP. Its the only way I play. You just have to pick your heals properly. Don’t drop your rain right when everyone is running to a new point. Do drop it, however, when you are fighting at a point. Make sure to lead with the geyser- don’t drop it where they are standing now but where they will be standing in 1.5 seconds.

I can honestly say I LOVE playing healer in sPvP.

Again, I’m not saying there are not effective healing builds out there — eles and guardians being two of them, supposedly engis can do it as well. I can’t say I have managed to try them all, but I have come to the realization that none of them will play out like I want to play. I refer you to my previous posts on this matter.

Veenix.5248:

Fritz.5026:

when we talk about modern automobiles we generally dont even mention the model-t even though it was the forefather of all modern consumer vehicles.

people talk about modern vehicles that people know and understand.

in a similar fashion when we talk about modern mmo games we generally just go straight to the 1000lb gorilla of wow.

why bring up the old ancient that only old timers remember?

we also dont compare features from other cars and call its a Mercedes clone. as if Mercedes invented bluetooth or all wheel drive. We all have an understanding that the market and demands evolve thus automobile companies evolve to please the market and what they come to expect.

so this also applies to mmos.

And yet if 50 brand new movies all appeared over the course of the next year featuring a mage, a couple of short guys and a few warrior/ranger types all trying to battle their way to a mountain for some purpose or another, we wouldn’t get bored of watching them and call them Lord of the Rings Clones?

There is a firm difference between a utility tool and an entertainment mechanism. Watching something, playing something, listening to something… it’s all entertaining the first 10-20 times, but after a while it gets old. And when it gets old, the value of that entertainment mechanism becomes worthless. Cars, on the other hand, remain useful even when we tire of them. Their purpose isn’t to entertain us, it’s to transport us.

MMOs are entertainment mechanisms, not cars. If every MMO clones each other’s features, such as the God awful holy trinity system that only 3 or 4 people on these forums seem to miss, then we’ll get mighty tired of them really quickly and they will lose their value entirely.

atropos.3074:

Fritz.5026:

in a similar fashion when we talk about modern mmo games we generally just go straight to the 1000lb gorilla of wow.

why bring up the old ancient that only old timers remember?

Because often the topic is what does and doesn’t work, or why a certain trend is good or bad in the genre, so it’s helpful to have a bit of perspective when talking about such things.

the thing is these arguements tend to be invalid based on one major flaw.

if things and trends are working in one game, and thats what people want, they will go play that game.

they are not looking for a cheap imitation of that other game, and trying to be that just means you will fail. anyone who has been around the last many years has seen countless clones just wind up doing very poorly. the clones never exceed the original and just end up being poor copies.

if a game today wants to succeed it needs to come with a different approach and offer gamers a new experience they cant already get somewhere else.

thats what gw2 does.

I can understand why the game doesn’t have targeted heals, but I don’t understand why Healing Power doesn’t scale as well as Power or Precision, when it has the same stat budget as them.

Because they had problems balancing healing in the first game, and rather than learn how to do so, they chose to make them weaker than DPS from out of the gate, and then nerf them even more within a month.

Tolmos.8395:

MMOs are entertainment mechanisms, not cars. If every MMO clones each other’s features, such as the God awful holy trinity system that only 3 or 4 people on these forums seem to miss, then we’ll get mighty tired of them really quickly and they will lose their value entirely.

I want to point out that nobody is saying bring back the trinity. We’ve said that we miss the playstyle that the typical healer has offered us before, and that we expected a more varied and dynamic forms of support when we read “no trinity.”

Most of us are also still having fun with the game; this is simply a discussion about what we expected, what we are missing, and maybe how we can get close to it.

EDIT: Also:

Prot monking would be so much fun in this game.

Makes me sad just thinking about it.

Amen to this.

GW2 is a game that suggesting active dodge and minimize damage taken, nobody responsible for your own survivability. But you can always choose to support your allies or not. Within this concept, healing will be the biggest obstacle, because when there is a way to out heal the damage taken, the dps will no longer need to care for their own life, they will blame the heal for not healing them in time rather than realize they are standing in a wrong position. And if there is a main healer class, every party will ask for a healer and every non healer class will drop their own support skill and go for full dps. This will eventually going back to the holy trinity system.

The separation of roles in GW2 are “being targeted and stay alive” “not being targeted and do damage”, “not being targeted and do support”, and every class is able to and eventually run into any of these roles. How you make your build to survive and become useful in these role is up to you.

What exactly is evil about the trinity? I missed that part of the discussion.

I mean, I know that “Patchwerk” style fights bore some people. But GW2 doesn’t have those.

And I know that in some games, tanks and healers carry too much weight because not everyone wants to perform those roles, and they have shorter wait times to join dungeons in a certain game. But since there’s no LFD queue in this and you can clear dungeons with any combination of five competent players, that’s not relevant here either.

I only play PvP. I do not need dozens of abilities. All my points are still valid. We really are not (no matter how much you seem to think so) saying that we want healers in this game.

PS> I never played WoW either. Though a lot of players can easily share references about WoW, some of us simply cannot — and therefore are not, so trying to interpret everything we say as if we are talking about WoW is probably a bad idea.

RebelYell.7132:

What exactly is evil about the trinity? I missed that part of the discussion.

I mean, I know that “Patchwerk” style fights bore some people. But GW2 doesn’t have those.

And I know that in some games, tanks and healers carry too much weight because not everyone wants to perform those roles, and they have shorter wait times to join dungeons in a certain game. But since there’s no LFD queue in this and you can clear dungeons with any combination of five competent players, that’s not relevant here either.

Like my latest reply said, when there is a proper healer class, most people will drop healing or support skill for extreme dps. Don’t you find many posts complaining the lack of survivability in many classes? Because most people playing the game and wish for max damage only, all the gear building is about full berserker gear, right? Because many players are relying their own survival onto some healers. If there is a healer class, every dungeon run will ask for a healer. When there is a proper healer, the dungeon difficulty will have to fine tuned and foes give bigger damage, and therefore a tank class will be needed, finally all party will become X+X+X+X+healer, it will lower the flexibility of party mixing. Thats the logic behind GW2 to remove healer and tank so any random player can make party.

One more thing, Anet give us trait slot, why don’t we are fixed to one major trait skill but rather we can tweak the major skill on the unlocked slot? It is to give us flexibility when playing with random players, we can mix and match for a better party performance. All of the current GW2 mechanics is for the most flexibility class combination in making party. Therefore in my other thread “New GW trinity idea” is suggesting this kind of role building, remain most flexibility to mix and match with any random players.

They didn’t remove the trinity. They simply made 2/3 weak, gave you a dodge and let the derping begin.

They did remove the trinity, the trinity isnt needed at all. If you want to play that way, you play it because you like it, not because you are an overpowered tank or healer. If you want to soak up damage and hit like a duck..then go for it..max healing power and toughness and you will never die, you also will have issues killing the bunnies that walk by you. If you want to be a healer, then mitigate damage…you’re not just patching guys up, you are slowing the enemy down, weakening the enemy so its hits are not as big…no you dont have the same Healing per second..because if you want to go that way you are supposed to also invest in the abilities that hamper the enemy from doing damage in the first place.

Totally agree the above.

Healing is a way to keep your allies alive, but preventing a 3k harmful damage deal to your allies equal to a 3K heal and it is better because it is also prevent allies from dying if they don’t have 3k health. But doing so require a higher skill than simply smash the healing skill after the damage done. It requires a better reading to the battle condition. imho this is another GW’s focused idea.

@Daiva:

I understand you miss your healing gameplay from other MMOs and you, as many others, would love to have some of those mechanics you liked here. Also I do understand you made this post as a channel for a friendly chat about the topic but still I may ask you about this: to what point?

Really… Topics like this one serve no purpose other than incite flame wars. They are about mechanics that don’t and won’t ever belong to this game so we can’t even say it’s a suggestion of some sort. They bring haters and fanboys together to bash each other opinions to death on, mostly, unfriendly ways.

I’d really appreciate if people stop making posts like this. I know it’s a selfish request, and people are free to post anything they want, but would be so much better if we could focus on pertinent matters.

Now just to contribute something to the topic:

My feeling is that people who like to support don’t understand the fact that, here, every single player have tools to mitigate lots of damage as well as heal themselves. Obviously support had to be toned down somehow, or survivability would be over the top. Yet I think we still have certain builds that do a hell of a job supporting their allies. You just have to accept the fact that you won’t ever be as good here as you were on other games with a trinity model at supporting, mostly because a part of this job was given to each and every player so they could take care of themselves.

What people don’t seem to understand is that I’m not talking about wanting trinity healing. I’m talking about wanting the same gameplay. This could’ve been achieved with some sort of support/semi-heal profession like the guardian (without having to make it into a stronger, or even as strong a, healer overall than the guardian), if it had been done differently (see my above posts), or maybe by some whole new idea that provides the same challenges and opportunities.

The reason I made the post was to see if I was alone in missing the gameplay, not the super strong healing. As I’ve said before, I’m happy that they’ve moved beyond the trinity. Of course, there’s always a small, utterly suppressed, hope that if many people agree with me, ANet may consider bringing something to satisfy us into the game in at a later stage. That hope, however, can, and probably should, be ignored.

Daiva.2394:

What people don’t seem to understand is that I’m not talking about wanting trinity healing. I’m talking about wanting the same gameplay. This could’ve been achieved with some sort of support/semi-heal profession like the guardian (without having to make it into a stronger, or even as strong a, healer overall than the guardian), if it had been done differently (see my above posts), or maybe by some whole new idea that provides the same challenges and opportunities.

The reason I made the post was to see if I was alone in missing the gameplay, not the super strong healing. As I’ve said before, I’m happy that they’ve moved beyond the trinity. Of course, there’s always a small, utterly suppressed, hope that if many people agree with me, ANet may consider bringing something to satisfy us into the game in at a later stage. That hope, however, can, and probably should, be ignored.

Try water spec elementalist, if you spec into healing, you can still able to make a good healer. Communicate with your party members so that they know you will focus on their health rather than damaging foe and i am sure you can make yourself shine again. Don’t forget protect your allies is also equal / better than healing, the more you understand this, the more you can be a good healer.

I like how GW2 removed those kinds of roles. That being said, I see a problem in the balance regarding support and other playstyles (e.g. the ridiculous scaling of the healing stat). I like to play support from time to time – in dungeons, I usually switch from my dps pistol engineer to elixir gun and love it – but it really feels a bit lacking, as much as my tool bar elixir tossing in map pve content. But as the balancing of the classes and skills has only just begun, I do not think it´s impossible we will see some buff to support ability in general.

I get the point the OP is trying to make, no matter what type of load out you bring on your character, “supportive” things are not what you do 24/7. However, that is what they tried to get away from.

I also think if you can broaden your view on what “support” is, that might actually help you a lot. In most trinity games you would have your go to heal, your heal for spikes, your fat and expensive heal, and some form a way to reduce pressure on your team.

In GW2, it’s spread out all over the place. Instead of only using heals and shields to reduce incoming damage, you also need to utilize blinds, blocks, weakness, and what not. To be a good team player that focuses on lessening the pressure your group takes, you want to do it with both offensive and defensive maneuvers.

I also understand that it’s not to everyone’s tastes, but I’ve always liked proactive measures to heal/support your team over reactive. Think the old prot boon monk vs LoD monk or Disc Priest vs Holy in WoW. One focuses more on preventing the damage to be taken in the first place while the latter focuses on refilling bars. I find the former more rewarding to play and it seems way more effective in GW2.

Lastly, if you’re looking for a more traditional healer, Water Evasive Arcana elementalist is probably the closest thing. Precasting eruption (blast effect), casting water field over it, dodge rolling into it while in water attunement with some +Healing gear yields some seriously fat heals. That is why they’re one of the best bunker/support specs right now in tPvP. Two water blast combos + cleansing wave is a lot of healing.

I also disagree on the needing to be on the ball with reactions, I always time my Aegis (Virtue + Retreat), Mace block to help my team avoid the one-shots. Without cast bars in this game, this means you NEED to be aware of the animation at all times. A well placed Wall of Reflection, Shield of Absorption can also mean between two allies going downed from a ranged assault or faceroll and bulldozing said ranged mobs.

TLDR: The more you narrow what you define as support, the more you will feel limited in this game. There are a lot of ways to help your team and reaching the same results as having a “healer class” in this game. You just can’t pool all of it on healing bars.

@Rebel Yell: There is nothing evil about the “trinity”. I played tons of games with that concept, still follow one and probably will play more of them in future. Some do it badly, some do it well. But the thing is: there are allready like a million games following exactly that concept. I rather have one game of the genre that is different as I can always choose from a large amount of competitors when I feel like playing “standard”.

I miss PvP healing. The best way to frustrate someone is to run up and heal the player they are about to kill :-D

How many times do I have to say that it’s not the actual healing or w/e that I’m missing. I’ll say this again: it’s the hectic support playstyle, where reacting half a second too late means you kittened up, where you have to manage several short cooldown abilities across multiple targets, and still read the battle flow to be able to react. It’s the slow pace and impersonality of the support that is making me miss healing — not the lack of green numbers. As I said: the closest thing I’ve come is a condition necro with chills that’s barely putting out any heals; I understand perfectly well that there are other ways to support. Healing in PvP in other MMOs I’ve played is an adrenaline pump that I have not managed to find in this game, while at the same time satisfying my fluffy rabbit inside that wants to help my lovely allies.

I’ll let this rest now, unless someone comes with an actually relevant response — be it agreement, suggestions on how to achieve it in GW2, or some highly suspicious psychological essay on how I can get this desire satisfied without playing that way.

I’ll say this, though, to help the discussion move forward, or maybe die if people have said all the relevant things they want to say: You’re absolutely right in most of the things you’re saying. It’s just that it’s not relevant to what I was saying.

Banner warrior is about the best I’ve been able to do. I know that water ele’s, guardians and engi’s can all do support healing. But the healing you do for the group is pathetic compared to their own healing skills.

I think people have better luck creating a tank spec than they do attempting to create a heal spec in this game.

I also miss healing. There are times I wish they hadn’t removed it from the game although I understand their reasons for doing so.