Guild Wars 2

Play with an ele and blast finish their water combo fields. Thieves can do a pretty crazy amount of healing with a water field and shortbow. Find more ways to heal.

If you think it’s dumb to have to have someone else around for this to work, you wouldn’t heal without other people there in wow either so it’s no different

Forum doesn’t allow for quoting again…anyway.

@Daiva – The game allows for several support playstyles with healing tweasted in it. Try to find them. So you shouldn’t “miss the playstyle” of a healer/support class. Since you are talking about PvP I will jump the gun and assume what you are actually mising is the feeling of the god kitten immortal healer that could tank 20 people on him while typing with one hand and doing self-calming things with his other.

You want examples of such healers? GW1 monk – check, RIFT cleric / chlorolock – check, Warhammer DoK/WP – check. This game doesn’t need this ilk….and there is always the response “but we are not killing anyone so we should at least be able to heal yourselve and the party” which ends up making them completely immortal to single DPS even if you try to CC etc. No no no and again no.

if you want to heal, make a water trait specced elementa list, use scepter and dagger, and put ur 30 water trait slot on “cast cleansing waves when dodging” (forgot the number) earth has endurance regens and fire attunement with scepter has vigor buffs, get gear with healing on it and just keep rolling and spam number 5 ability in water attunememt, shud heal for 2.5k each roll and each number 5 skill.

nidwin.6731:

@Daiva

Give the Mesmer a go. It’s the most dynamic of all the possible heal/support toons out there. But you won’t be able to heal before level 60-70 although.

I thought guardian was supposed to be the game’s star supporting class? Makes them both viable in PvE and PvP since players need boons and protection in both situations. Like I said elsewhere here, be a strong support tank (ele has a lot of resources, I really don’t have experience other than thief and ele and from beta warrior and necro) so that you can’t be ignored. “Ignore the tank” is why WoW instituted capture the flag objectives. Understandable, since people other than high burst damage glass cannons want to be useful in PvP too.

DoK’s and WP’s only tank 20 clowns. When they face non-clowns they die like everyone else, only it takes a bit longer. It’s a healer after all. Same here in GW2 btw.

And just saying, in case none has ever told you.
Top-end game play

Zealot >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Dok.
Just saying to make sure we go on with the RIGHT information.

@Daiva
Roll a Mesmer sweetheart and judge for yourself. Just level her up with crafting till 60-65 so you can start healing on her.

@Agemnon
Both are very strong support classes, Mesmer and Guardian, if played as support classes.

Deffensive wise heal/support Guardian has slighly the edge but Offensive wise Mesmer beats everything. It’s linked to some of the Mesmer very strong support tools, while being a decent healer and still pumping out a large amount of dps for a support toon.

My problem goes beyond missing healing and goes back to the nerfed trinity. they tried to remove the “trinity” but they didn’t they just broke it every part of the trinity is here. they just don’t have the same amount of emphasis as one another. In PvP its not as bad but in PvE it is horrible IMHO.

Guild wars still has tanks. If you sPvP you already know this. Bunker builds are insane. they are nearly impossible to kill but deal so little damage they cant kill either. The tank builds are in the game. you just don’t see them in PvE because there is no aggro management skills. Doesn’t change that tanking is not only a viable way to build your character but very effective too.

Healing is just nerfed beyond belief. You can still heal allies but its borderline useless. No matter your build, your class, or your gear you cannot keep an ally alive in PvP or dungeon content. You can at most help them keep themselves alive. Your healing on them will pale in comparison to their self mitigation and healing. No matter what you cannot fully support your allies. Its no wonder that the best healing builds focus on self healing and bunkering.

Then there is DPS… which everyone is. There are tons of DPS specs, gear, traits, and skills in this game. So much so, that DPS is almost all that is talked about. It has become the most important PvE part of the trinity hands down. the issue is how much damage can you deal while keeping yourself alive for as long as possible. This is the main build every class is looking for and why not? when the developers decided that the only thing that matters is DPS of course that’s what the players do.

I often run dungeons with groups of competent players and this is something I’ve noticed from day 1. The nerfed trinity means we are all oblivious to each other why? because we don’t need each other. As far as I’m concerned they may as well be NPCs. We are all DPSers with self healing and situational survivability. I don’t heal them, tank for them, help them. Why? Anet designed a game where we are all self sufficient and don’t need each other except for more DPS.

In good teams we don’t even communicate. Everyone runs in kills the targets and keeps themselves alive. In bad groups some people have a hard time keeping themselves alive. In those groups we do the only helpful thing we can for them. Res them. If they are really bad we just ignore them and let them die. Heck I was in an AC once where I soloed the final boss while my entire team constantly died and ran back. the kicker about that is any good player with a decent build can do that! No one can tank for you anyways, tanks aren’t needed… No one can keep you alive, healers aren’t needed… No enrage timers, DPS is a race against boredom. I’ve never turned away a person in a group but I cringe whenever I see a staff ele who wants to be a healer stays in water Attunement and is a fraction above useless to the team.

We don’t need each other and I miss that so much about other MMOs. I play with friends and my wife and there is no strategy, there is no “this is your job this is his job” instead we just run in, kill everything, move on. I play a Guardian and a Ele my ele being my main, and yes I can buff my team with boons (that’s the support part right?) but I would be using those same exact combos and boons if they were not there at all, just to self buff. The fact that they are AOE is just a bonus. It makes the PvE so 1 dimensional because they’ve painted their way into a corner. We all have to be able to take a hit because we can get aggro at any time, we are all healers at least for ourselves, and we are all DPS. This is why nearly every boss has a 1hit KO move, because without it we wouldn’t even interact with one another in the dungeon. And once you learn how to avoid it it means nothing to us.

As for the trinity hate… I wonder if it has to do with WoW using the “trinity” and WoW being popular to hate in the MMO community. I know people like to say that Even EQ used it but even more so I cant help but think almost every party based RPG, MMO or Single player has used it since forever. My D&D parties have Tank types heal types and damage types, and most P&P games run similarly. Nearly every console J-RPG that comes out has the trinity. It works well, and has for 30+ years. I’m not sure what this new hate is exactly.

when ANet said they were getting rid of the trinity my first thought was “Awesome!” I thought that they meant they were going to get rid of class restricted trinity. I wanted to play my Mage tank so badly and I thought “FINALLY!” If they set it up that there were tanks healers and DPS, added in the control archetype, with the easy to obtain gear system. and every single profession could spec into every single archetype. That would have been great. instead we are all just DPS.

Daiva.2394:

@Ravenblade
You do have to pay attention to the health bars in other games, but it’s more like having them in the back of your mind than actually staring at them. If they take priority over watching the actual battle, you were doing something wrong, at least in PvP (I can’t speak of PvE).

Yes, sorry, I was talking from PVE perspective. PVP is a different matter. I will probably release my PVP healing experiences in my memoirs under the title ‘As I Gazed Into The Abyss’. I jest but in PVP I usually healed a tons which is a tricky thing because in order to do it well you will have to focus a lot on health bars as well only that they are in the field now. I didn’t do so bad there though because when I did I got mostly positive feedback, I used to play as all four healing classes in WoW. Mainly as Druid though. Still I really don’t miss it as much that I wish every game would be like that game. I like to finally be able to strike a balance between actual healing support and offense here, if I ever felt the craving to play a pure healer again I would just rather go back.

As for dungeons, I am a bit surprised they actually were designed the way they are now. Perhaps they should make dungeons a lot more interactive. Say you have a zone with traps and you need someone to deactivate them while two others go and pull simultaneously a lever to open a door but everyone has to fight some elite there first.