Guild Wars 2

The reason why i post this here is because:
1. I’m seeking suggestions for builds i may have missed that are fun as a support
2. wanted to sort of rant about how boring the support role can be with the play styles available now, but no hard feelings since it’s never going to be fixed anyways
3. wanted to thank Anet for the introduction of Ventari Revenant

and i wasn’t sure where to post this.

I understand that gw2 wanted to scrap a healing class as a whole since people complain that a healer class was essential in gw1 and players had no fun since they HAD to play the healer.

Of course as a player like me who loves to heal and keep my allies alive gets no fun but i fully understand that you can’t keep everyone happy so i went with the flow

HOWEVER with the support choices now such as the banner warrior, shout warrior, shout guardian, i feel that their gameplay is really monotonous. Warrior, put down all three of your banners and done, just spam weapon skills. Shouts; Use all your shout skills to buff allies and heal (sure the three shouts heal alot, but you just spent all three of your utilility skills. You’re now just a sitting duck till your CDS are off), now what?

My point is…. is that playing the support really isn’t as interactive as other play styles. Some of you may disagree as you’re having a lot of fun with these builds but i can’t bear pressing all my utility skills mindlessly over and over again. I enjoy gw2’s lore and WvW gameplay to simply just quit and move on to another game. Also i have a mac…. so this is probably the only good mmo i can play.

Which is why i’m here now seeing if maybe i’m the only person and if maybe there will be some changes?

I’d also like to ask people to share some of the support builds they found fun

and THANK YOU for bringing in Ventari revenant… but it’ll be months until expansion comes out so….. yeh… i need a new build in the meantime ><

If you are not contributing support in a group environment you are pretty much just dead weight.

Peruse around for some guardian hammer builds. The one I have now is something i found through progressive tweaking, and I seriously like it.

Yargesh.4965:

If you are not contributing support in a group environment you are pretty much just dead weight.

haha of course! i guess i didn’t really specify what exactly i found boring. What i meant was if i could support my allies in a more interactive way. not just press utility skills and then wait for CD then rinse and repeat. Which is why i’m excited for Ventari revenant! you move your tome around to heal and you can cc big crowds and have to move around to pick up shards for heals! Supporting the group yet having fuN!

You have Fields and Finishers which are more interactive.

More specifically:

• Blasting Fire Fields gives Might (and potentially Fury if you’re an Elementalist).
• Depending on what you do to Water fields you can heal and cleanse.
• Blasting Ice Fields gives Frost Armour (10% damage reduction).
• Laying down a Dark field gives allies the ability to Lifesteal while Blasting Dark Fields inflicts Weakness.
• Smoke Fields can Blind and Stealth, as well as projectiles passing through them miss.

This is the main problem with GW2 atm. There are no tanks, supports or anything else other than DPS. In GW2 you are FORCED to play DPS,, if you say you HAD to have a healer in GW1 parties. It’s the same thing. You don’t really have to do it. But everyone does it, because the other options are not viable.

CoRtex.2157:

This is the main problem with GW2 atm. There are no tanks, supports or anything else other than DPS. In GW2 you are FORCED to play DPS,, if you say you HAD to have a healer in GW1 parties. It’s the same thing. You don’t really have to do it. But everyone does it, because the other options are not viable.

Some call it a problem, others call it the main draw of gw2.

Also there are different roles in gw2, you just don’t understand them. While every one does damage, the roles differ in

- crowd control
- group boons/enemy conditions provider
- reflects
- combo fields + combo finishers

Each class can provide some of those with different specs even most, but no 1 class can provide all of them at once. Are they required? No, but they make the game a lot easier. Try running a fractal 50 without a guardian and elementalist. Fun times.

What i meant was if i could support my allies in a more interactive way. not just press utility skills and then wait for CD then rinse and repeat. Which is why i’m excited for Ventari revenant! you move your tome around to heal and you can cc big crowds and have to move around to pick up shards for heals! Supporting the group yet having fuN!

errrrr

isn’t “moving your tome around to heal and cc’ing big crowds” the same as “press utility skills and wait for their CD”?

maha.7902:

What i meant was if i could support my allies in a more interactive way. not just press utility skills and then wait for CD then rinse and repeat. Which is why i’m excited for Ventari revenant! you move your tome around to heal and you can cc big crowds and have to move around to pick up shards for heals! Supporting the group yet having fuN!

errrrr

isn’t “moving your tome around to heal and cc’ing big crowds” the same as “press utility skills and wait for their CD”?

no not really. The tome requires timing and “hitting” as many allies as possible with your tome and you’re constantly having to focus on where your tome is going to maximise your healing potential you also have the choice of bursting your tome for burst healing.

and using wall of reflection requires timing to use when a boss is actually using their projectiles, retreat requires timing to block a relevant attack, a warrior needs to place their banners in the more relevant fights rather than every trash mob, a thief needs to place their smoke screen during a mesmer/guardian’s reflect downtime and so on and so forth.

“hitting as many allies as possible” literally just means using a utility skill while around people, I don’t get how that is so exciting when you do that anyway. guardian tome can burst heal as well.

you literally could have just said “I find healing more interesting than the support options currently present in the game” but instead you’re trying to make it sound a lot more awesome than it actually is, when what you’re asking for is already present in the game.

This thread is about how fun or not fun support playstyles are, not about how useful they are in the current pve meta.

I agree that support is currently not very fun. I mean, timing and positioning your reflection is cool, and combo fields/ finishers can lead to some interesting rotations, but other than that, you’re simply going to melee range and throwing your PBAoE support skills to your allies, many of them that are fire-and-forget or even instant-cast. It’s not exactly… the most satisfying playstyle.

Sure, for players that like going offense with secondary support, which is how the current pve meta is more or less defined, they won’t mind. There’s plenty of other things that make it funnier, like damage rotations, timing some crowd control effects, or the pure satisfaction of seeing high numbers over your opponent’s head, etc. But for those players that wish for a more supportive/ less offensive playstyle (note: this does not means that I’m defending a holy trinity setup), the playstyle is simply not very interesting.

Fortunately, anet realizes that. Ventari’s tablet and staff seems to have a very elaborated playstyle based on support. Tablet positioning, delayed heals, your token anti-projectile field – which you can even move, healing shards on the ground that need to be catched, etc.

I hope to see more fun and elaborated playstyles around support (and crowd control too) in the future. Stuff that makes you spend more time supporting or controlling that merely dealing damage, but while still making combat as fun and as interesting.

Guys, you’re missing the point. From what I’m reading, OP is talking specifically about dedicated healers as a support role.

Unfortunately, the GW2 is designed, it can never happen in PvE. If we get some changes to healing power and maybe regeneration, then it might eventually become viable in PvP.
If you want to play it despite its weakness, I guess you could check out WP’s healing Elementalist build.

DiogoSilva.7089:

This thread is about how fun or not fun support playstyles are, not about how useful they are in the current pve meta.

I agree that support is currently not very fun. I mean, timing and positioning your reflection is cool, and combo fields/ finishers can lead to some interesting rotations, but other than that, you’re simply going to melee range and throwing your PBAoE support skills to your allies, many of them that are fire-and-forget or even instant-cast. It’s not exactly… the most satisfying playstyle.

Sure, for players that like going offense with secondary support, which is how the current pve meta is more or less defined, they won’t mind. There’s plenty of other things that make it funnier, like damage rotations, timing some crowd control effects, or the pure satisfaction of seeing high numbers over your opponent’s head, etc. But for those players that wish for a more supportive/ less offensive playstyle (note: this does not means that I’m defending a holy trinity setup), the playstyle is simply not very interesting.

Fortunately, anet realizes that. Ventari’s tablet and staff seems to have a very elaborated playstyle based on support. Tablet positioning, delayed heals, your token anti-projectile field – which you can even move, healing shards on the ground that need to be catched, etc.

I hope to see more fun and elaborated playstyles around support (and crowd control too) in the future. Stuff that makes you spend more time supporting or controlling that merely dealing damage, but while still making combat as fun and as interesting.

Cant engi do something similar with medkit utility?

maha.7902:

and using wall of reflection requires timing to use when a boss is actually using their projectiles, retreat requires timing to block a relevant attack, a warrior needs to place their banners in the more relevant fights rather than every trash mob, a thief needs to place their smoke screen during a mesmer/guardian’s reflect downtime and so on and so forth.

“hitting as many allies as possible” literally just means using a utility skill while around people, I don’t get how that is so exciting when you do that anyway. guardian tome can burst heal as well.

you literally could have just said “I find healing more interesting than the support options currently present in the game” but instead you’re trying to make it sound a lot more awesome than it actually is, when what you’re asking for is already present in the game.

i suppose so. My opinion is definitely very biased. But out of all the things you’ve mentioned that was one skill per class. Every class has one skill that supports somebody in someway since it is a team game in pvp and in WvW, it’s no surprise. However what i really seek is a support play style that can do everything from ccing, to blinds and reflects and or heals as you mentioned above ^^ This is just one of the selfish things that i’ve always wanted in gw2 and i mentioned in the post that i am aware that i doubt anything would happen ’cause of one person, so i was wondering who else thought the same way i do.

Hwarang.4789:

maha.7902:

and using wall of reflection requires timing to use when a boss is actually using their projectiles, retreat requires timing to block a relevant attack, a warrior needs to place their banners in the more relevant fights rather than every trash mob, a thief needs to place their smoke screen during a mesmer/guardian’s reflect downtime and so on and so forth.

“hitting as many allies as possible” literally just means using a utility skill while around people, I don’t get how that is so exciting when you do that anyway. guardian tome can burst heal as well.

you literally could have just said “I find healing more interesting than the support options currently present in the game” but instead you’re trying to make it sound a lot more awesome than it actually is, when what you’re asking for is already present in the game.

i suppose so. My opinion is definitely very biased. But out of all the things you’ve mentioned that was one skill per class. Every class has one skill that supports somebody in someway since it is a team game in pvp and in WvW, it’s no surprise. However what i really seek is a support play style that can do everything from ccing, to blinds and reflects and or heals as you mentioned above ^^ This is just one of the selfish things that i’ve always wanted in gw2 and i mentioned in the post that i am aware that i doubt anything would happen ’cause of one person, so i was wondering who else thought the same way i do.

mesmer with healing mantras and feedback seem to be what your looking for

However what i really seek is a support play style that can do everything from ccing, to blinds and reflects and or heals as you mentioned above

then why don’t you play guardian? they literally do all of those. elementalist can as well. and engineer.

so how does “dedicated support” differ from the scenario you describe now for a game that expects support skills from everyone in group? You just want a trinity game, then say it.

But there is hope for you. GW2 is succesful, but probably not as succesful as NCSoft thinks it should be. This leads to corporate pressure. Which will lead to desperate measures damaging the design integrity of the game – as possibly now seen in ventari expansion stuff. At some point, certainly someone at NCSoft will have the grand insight "WoW still has XX subscriptions, it is a “trinity game” as I was told, and I heard some people in forums would like that, make it so".

This will of cause lead to a very disjointed game design, the many players who liked the unusual approach of the original system will leave or at least be very dissatisfied. You will be happy because now the game finally has become like every other game that was available to you all the time, but you just couldn´t fathom how every game doesn´t have to be the same. Enjoy a then even more failing game with ever bleeding resources and all the fun that goes with it. A growing list of bugs that are never being fixed, rushed content, you name it – have fun :P

Support with classic builds:

CC warrior (hammerstun) max conditdurration with stun leangthening
Shoutheal (condiremove) any healing based armor with runes of the trooper
Symbol heal guard any healiung based armor with symbols specced build
Shout remove guard any healing based armor with runes of the trooper
(Water) supprt ele any healing based armor with runes of the monk
well /transfusion necro any healing based armor
Stealth support (res) thief (runes of mercy?)

soon: regen ranger and many others.

There’s a Guardian build I run in WvW…

A sigil refreshes my dodge roll on every kill, and my dodge roll heals allies in an area for 1500ish. I’m wearing a hybrid of Cleric and Magi for healing power. I have enough precision to proc Empowering Might which grants Might to my allies (and it heals me through altruistic healing). I went 0/3/6/4/1 so that Justice is also refreshed on every kill and does an AoE blind and grants 3 stacks of might to allies (which also heals me through altruistic healing.) Between the altruistic healing and the dodge rolling, I rarely have to use my self-heal for myself.

After every kill I’m dodge rolling towards allies to heal them, and I can hit F1 to blind enemies frequently. I use 2 shouts and the summoned spirit bow. Before a big fight, I will pull out the bow and call down a healing rain where I think the biggest part of the fight will be or the obvious chokepoint where people could get stuck… and it heals for 135 x tons and tons of hits.

Soon I will only have 3 traitlines and will have to give something up, but will get 2 more grandmasters to compensate.