Guild Wars 2

I’ve always been a huge fan of support type classes in all MMO’s (my favorite being shadow priests in WoW, BC) and one of my favorite things about Guild Wars 2 is how robust the class system is. I appreciate how every class can go in so many different directions and still be useful.

Currently I have a late 60’s guardian and I’m going defensive heals (mace+focus, staff) and I’m really enjoying it.. but my altitis is creeping in and I want a more offensive support alt to play. I never die on my guardian, and no one around me ever dies… but that includes the mobs I’m fighting too, and I just want to wreck some face while providing support. Instead of going through every class forum and asking the viability and thoughts on each class, I’d rather get a general consensus from everyone.

If you play what you consider a support (defensive, offensive… basically trying to help others instead of focus yourself) what class do you run, and how do you like it? Alternatively, if you’re an offensively centered player, have you ever had a support who truly shined? And what are everyone’s thoughts on support in GW2 in general?

Warrior. They have banners and shouts for support, and can wreck as good as anyone with a weapon, especially melee. You can even do both at the same time.

Elementalist can play a great support/synergy style game as well. I as an ele partied with another ele and 2 guardians and we had every buff under the sun while being unstoppable.

Its a good class to learn the combo system with too, as staff gives you combo fields out the wazoo and offhand dagger has some good blast finishers to play around with.

Engineer when focusing on kits.

Bomb kit can heal if traited for it. As well as putting down fire and smoke field.

Elixir gun is all about support, including light field (but much more than that).

Pistol-shield offers support as well.

Several options, and you don’t necessarily lose all damage by doing it.

you’ve got what you need, brodood, in your guardian. without a doubt, the guardian is among the best standalone force multipliers around. in addition, you can provide the best support your team can ever get: dead enemies, through your fantastic DPS.

skills to note:

spirit weapons – if you’re a guardian, learn to use these things. seriously. i can’t believe they haven’t been nerfed yet, but it’s gotta be because no one uses them. if you trait for them (heavy investment in zeal, and there are two more first tier traits that affect them), they become unkillable, commandable pets available in almost every single fight. the hammer and sword will allow you to provide substantial sustained DPS at the longest range available to the guardian. the shield is AMAZING in projectile heavy situations, and the bow provides a powerful AoE heal as well as team condition removal. the learning curve comes in that they bob along kind of awkwardly, and you have to plan your play around their positioning, but once you catch on they become some of your most viable utilities. combined with the greatsword, you will be able to burst for ridiculous damage, control reasonably well, and provide combo and buff support for your team.

while your spirit weapons are doing damage, you can focus on general team support, especially through:

symbols – symbols are found on most of your mainhand weapons, except for the sword. these too can be traited heavily (also in zeall, so they synergize extremely well with spirit weapons) to inherently damage, apply vulns, and heal allies. they can also be made larger and longer lasting. the hammer even has a symbol built into its autoattack chain. they provide fantastic AoE support of almost every kind, and usually come on short cool downs.

shouts – shouts provide instant buffs to everyone in a broad range. combined with the altruistic healing trait it makes you an unkillable (as close as it gets in GW, anyway) support monster. if you want to support offense, you probably want “Stand Your Ground!” or “Retreat!” (kind of ironically named, but retreat does work both ways). they’re on short cooldowns and can be traited shorter and for condition removal, at least.

empower – this staff skill deserves an entry of its own. you can reliably place 14 stacks of might on your ENTIRE team. that’s insane. if you can coordinate, just mention that you’re taking it and to look out for it, and get two or three players to spike their damage under that empowerment, something is going to die. in addition, it provides a sizeable heal at the end of its channel. again, combined with altruistic heal, this is a full heal for yourself, and a nice buffer for your teammates to use their bursts. AND it’s on a short enough cooldown to use it almost every fight. famazing.

if that’s not a decent enough start for ya, keep asking. i’ve got almost 200 hours guardian experience.

Gilandred.9870:

Warrior. They have banners and shouts for support, and can wreck as good as anyone with a weapon, especially melee. You can even do both at the same time.

^This. Banners are something I rarely see unfortunately because they are not very useful for solo PvE but for group events and Champions they help a lot.

I usually drop them in my skill set before a DE since it doesn’t matter how much DPS your throwing individually when 20 other people are also DPS

@Gilandred & Masaki:
I’ve had a warrior sitting about for a little, I actually went the infamous signet build for funsies, but I was also unlocking banners and eyeing them up and down as I was running around lol. While I haven’t used banners yet (that much, anyway) the only thing that bothered me was a mobility issue… Same as ranger spirits and necro wells, I was worried about laying down a banner and then not getting use out of it if anyone ran out of range. I’ve heard incredible things about the elite banner. I’ve also heard you can go a shout healing build (that I never looked into.) Warrior was the last class I actually looked into when I was new to the game, and I was so surprised by their kit that I’ve got one I won’t delete because I want to play her eventually.. heh.

@Magoslich:
Ele’s were the first class I actually rolled, both in the beta and launch. Once I got used to how to actually play the game, I really enjoyed bouncing from attunement to attunement as the situation called.. The only thing I really found unsettling was that I didn’t think water was as sustainable as my guardian is. Even though I have 20? skills at my disposable at any given time, only having 5 water spells (instead of say, 10 if you swap weapons on another class) made me feel too… unspecialized I guess. I know I’ve heard ele healing is great, and I haven’t looked over them as much as other classes, it just makes me feel uncomfortable.
As for supporting instead of healing, I also felt I was doing pure damage instead of really supporting anyone else. Nothing wrong with that, but not exactly what I was looking for. Doesn’t mean they aren’t fun; I really enjoyed mine and am looking to playing one in the future… and who knows, that could be tomorrow

@Kimbald:
Engineers…. ohhh boy. I don’t know what it is, but I’ve tried and tried and tried to roll them, and I just can’t seem to commit to them! :c I think they feel like the most unique class, delving furthest away from what I’m used to from MMORPG’s because of the kits. I want to try them, I thought if I was going to roll one I’d do elixirs, but… I don’t know so much about them because I’ve had such a hard time trying to get into them. Some classes just don’t click with you immediately, you know? Still… I haven’t even really grouped with them and would love to hear more about what you do.

@Kuroi:

Here’s my guardian build at the moment :
http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#mccczV0zMogvFoMgvFm9cxpMcqzs

I’m really glad you’re so excited about guardians. I don’t think my OP did my guardian justice: I really enjoy him in party play, more and more so as he levels. At lower levels I felt like I had a lot of healing, but nothing else; I felt like a glass healing cannon with little condition removal… However, I’ve read around and switched myself up which bulked me up, and the levels are providing me with plenty of condition removal. Our healing elite is SO powerful and I love the access to daze and protection from it. With mace + focus and staff I keep up a massive amount of protection and regeneration which makes a huge difference.

I tried spirit weapons earlier in my levels and I really liked the bow, but I ended up switching my utility skills and found what I’m enjoying.. I’m happy to hear how strong they are though, because for a little I was convinced that’s what I was going to spec into lol. Maybe I’ll have another look for leveling and soloing purposes..

I actually wish I had access to more symbols because I love the short cooldowns on them (generally.) Would be neat if we had more utility ones (because I actually can’t think of any ones at the moment that don’t come from my main hand / offhand…)

I’ve seen a lot of traits revolving around shouts, too. I only use one in my build, but I love it so much (Hold the Line..) I’ve also used “Save yourselves” in conjunction with contemplation of purity, but my only worry is then I’d have to pick either Hold the Line or our +healing signet, and it’s a tough decision for me…

Lastly, empower lol. That’s the ONLY reason I run my staff! It’s INCREDIBLY powerful, and using it together with Virtue of Justice with Inspired Virtues to grant everyone even more might and burning on hit… I feel like the other staff skills are mediocre to poor (that auto attack makes me shudder.. wish we could get the mesmer’s staff auto attack) but empower is so strong, especially during larger events where I can empower a large group of people chilling together. I wish I could see a DPS parse for that.

Thanks for the replies too guys, I’m glad to hear them. Would love to hear from others!

here’s my build. if you’re still levelling, you can probably find something with higher overall DPS, but as far as dungeons go, this really hit the sweet spot for me.

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-9g-Z;1RFF80V37HV90;9;4T;0T959A;42894z

what makes this awesome for me is that with a few minor tweaks you can have heavily traited shouts instead of symbols, and you can switch zeal traits around easily to focus away from spirit weapons depending on how many you want to take. obviously if you have all three up like i do usually, you want those four spirit weapon traits. but superior aria and pure of voice are both available without resetting trait points, as is the DPS friendly zeal line.

also, the staff is one of your greatest tools as a whole. it’s autoattack might not be the strongest but against larger groups of enemies (especially in DEs) it truly shines with its massive hit area. it is also the perfect range to let you stand right behind another frontline player and support them with your autoattack while you’re piling on boons. symbol of swiftness, esp with the build i just posted, is your only targeted symbol, and with 2h mastery will be on an extremely short cooldown, and if you take zeal, applies vulns and damage. again, phenomenal for placing at the front line while you’re about 600 behind. i cast that orb everytime it comes up, and again works perfectly as a gift to those fighting on the front line (or blown up immediately to nab some health for yourself). obviously empower is amazing, but line of warding can be one of the most useful skills in the guardian’s arsenal. it’s also probably the hardest to use. but against highly mobile mobs, it’s godsend. use it to heard it mobs for your own empowered whirling wrath or to let your team drop their own nukes on them. use it to buy yourself some time to cast empower and turn the tide of the battle, or use it to save a downed ally. its self root and cast time are what make it difficult to use, but if you can practice it in safer DE’s it pays dividends in chaotic dungeon encounters.

and yeah, i agree. i want to know exactly what kind of numbers i’m responsible for when i cast empower in front of a dragon haha.

Evelynne.5830:

@Magoslich:
Ele’s were the first class I actually rolled, both in the beta and launch. Once I got used to how to actually play the game, I really enjoyed bouncing from attunement to attunement as the situation called.. The only thing I really found unsettling was that I didn’t think water was as sustainable as my guardian is. Even though I have 20? skills at my disposable at any given time, only having 5 water spells (instead of say, 10 if you swap weapons on another class) made me feel too… unspecialized I guess. I know I’ve heard ele healing is great, and I haven’t looked over them as much as other classes, it just makes me feel uncomfortable.
As for supporting instead of healing, I also felt I was doing pure damage instead of really supporting anyone else. Nothing wrong with that, but not exactly what I was looking for. Doesn’t mean they aren’t fun; I really enjoyed mine and am looking to playing one in the future… and who knows, that could be tomorrow

If you didn’t feel like you were supporting on Ele you were doing it wrong. We can basically do everything because we’re so versatile we have something for every situation. I suggest going over to the Ele forums and poking around a bit. There are some good threads and people are always helpful when people ask questions. Basically yes we can heal and we can heal a lot, we can also cleanse the group, we can also provide a ton of CC’s (offensive or defensive support, however you look at it), we can provide Swiftness, Protection, Regeneration, Might boons via various means to our party quite frequently, we can provide combo fields to create those affects as well as enable our party to produce other various effects like burning, fire shield, vulnerability, daze, chilled, etc. We can also provide a good amount of damage, both straight and condition damage. If played and specced right we also have a lot of ways to keep ourselves alive. I’d say Guardian and Ele are the two best support classes.