Guild Wars 2

I am the type of gamer that likes to take things kinda slow alot of people are already getting great things in the game like legendaries and ascended armor. I have eight characters one of each profession. I have two level 80’s one level 56, and the rest are from nine to eleven. I really understand about the dedicated healer thing in other games, but there was one major problem with that. Good dedicated healers will not help people unless they are pro. This I can understand also, but how do people get better if all the dedicated healers will not help them. I played guildwars for over six years, have three gwamm’s , and really did not like healing I was ok to a degree on it.

The reason I like to take my chars a bit slower is so I can learn as I go what they are capable of. My Ranger for example everyone seems to kinda hate their pets abilities. I love my pet because it does more damage per hit than my short-bow can. I can also send my pet out alone to kill things without me being near the target. My thief well I had trouble at first died quite a bit but learned to kinda take things out one at a time. Of course when I did that I still lost half my health per fighting one foe. I changed some things around and I now can somewhat tank anything up to a veteran abomination. When I am in a larger grout I use bow the trick is to use the signet while fighting and u can stay up pretty long. The signet is not fool proof, but it does a nice job of keepin her alive.

Now on to what this is about I am bringing my mesmer up in the game she is the level 56 from earlier. I look at my traits also look for ways to stay alive. What is really nice is the traits not only help me keep healed it also helps the team. Putting out clones and such gives 2 seconds of regeneration to all allies in the area. This may not be a type of direct heal you are used to but it helps a lot. With other part time healers in the group people can last longer some of my traits not only heal but remove conditions.

What I am saying is just because you cannot be a dedicated healer do not give up on a new game that you could love. The Idea of Guildwars 2 was to be different from the crowd. If people think this is a WoW clone they are stupid just because it has a persistant world similar to WoW makes it a clone does not make sense to me.

JemL.3501:

Atleast you dont get bashed now that the party gets wipped or you dont have to say: please can you get out of the void zone?

The blame-game only works on inexperienced/new healers. For one, the healer knows who screwed up and why the wipe/death happened(doesn’t matter how much u scream bout heals, I saw you were standing in that aoe because knowing where everybody is and what they are doing is part of my job). For two, good healers eventually get in good parties with other good players(who know what they are doing and don’t play the blame game). For three, healers do it to themselves. I had a brief dps career recently and saw so many healers who apologised to me after I derped and died(I spanked each and every one of them for it, healers should rly learn that not every bad thing that happens is their fault and that taking the blame for smth that wasn’t your fault to begin with is what makes others think you are a bad healer…the tank and the rest of the dps…they don’t know what really happened because it’s not their job to know it so if you say it was your fault, they believe it….even if smb else screwed up).

Necromancers make amazing healers http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fQAQNAodWjQaN7daSb87JAJFWf9kiu3m6R5pjOA;TwAgzCmoMyYkwIrROjkGt2YsxGjZDA

Sylv.5324:

I’ve noticed that folks complaining about lack of teamwork also are the same ones refusing to change their playstyle.

Folks, please stop being hyperbolic and refusing to learn the new system. If you understood the new system, you’d know how players can work together.

Except due to the system you don’t need to work together to anywhere near the same extent as you do in many other games, nor is it just teamwork as a whole as such, it is more specific, things like communication, someone on the forums summed it up pretty well a while ago, which roughly went “In GW2 any vaguely competent group can complete any of the dungeons without saying a word to each other”, in many other games communication is key for difficult instances, because you actually have to rely on people.

Sylv.5324:

Saying, “But I like to be the one to keep people alive!” is in no way about teamwork; you’re actually trying to STOP others from working together to keep the group alive.

I don’t think it is simply about “being the one keeping everyone alive”, there are other aspects, play style for instance, even set up as a “healer” in GW2 you still spend a lot time DPS, many of your heals or cleanses are by-products of DPS skills, it is only a small change in style from a more typicaly build, where as in many other games healing is a complete change in style from DPS.

Same goes for multitasking or awareness, there is nothing in this game that requries the same level of multitasking or awareness as certain healers or certain support roles in other games I’ve played.

The classes in GW2 remind me more of glorified Diablo classes, where they all bascially DPS, but with tools to survive on their own such as a degree of healing, some CC, a bit of utlity, etc,

They have less variety and are less demanding than the most complex classes in some other games, some of us miss that variety and level of multitasking / awareness. (As a plus point they are generally more demanding than some of the faceroll DPS classes you get in other games)

Morningglory.7395:

Hello Guild Wars 2.

Since I logged in on the game i was verry surprised,
The graphics where good, no quests and stuf and a verry good comunity-based gameplay.

But a little problem for me was; i couln’t be a healer.
Healing yourself, yes. Others, no.

Before i start playing this game i played World of Warcraft. I liked the game but became sick of doing quest after quest after quest.

De good side of that coin was healing. EVery race could heal (like we can do too) but in a different rate. you got Healing Over Time healer, Instant healers, or Area Of Effect healing. I really liked that (not that i want go back) and it’s a shame everyone can heal himself so they don’t need supporting people like me to help them (other than killing the enemy)

Actually i hoped Arenanet had something to offer for every player, onfortunatly not for me. I am not complaining about leaving the game (when that was the case i would have left without saying that) but i just hope Arenanet will think about this.

Yours Faithfully,

This doesn’t mean that you like healing, it means you like supporting your friends and you also enjoy feeling needed in groups. The Guardian would be the best choice for you.

Except due to the system you don’t need to work together to anywhere near the same extent as you do in many other games, nor is it just teamwork as a whole as such, it is more specific, things like communication, someone on the forums summed it up pretty well a while ago, which roughly went “In GW2 any vaguely competent group can complete any of the dungeons without saying a word to each other”, in many other games communication is key for difficult instances, because you actually have to rely on people.

Thats a failure of the game designer.

It’s the job of the game designer to give players a set of tools to support eachother. It is the designers job to build an envirnoment that forces the players to use thier tools to support eachother.

The dungeon designers at Arena Net aren’t very good at what they do… yet.

The profession designers at Arena Net has to make sure that every class has a tool kit with support utilities.

Class’s in GW reminds me of that line from the Incredibles.. "Once everyone is super… then no one is… "

xiv.7136:

No healers, no tanks. Don’t ask for stuff that would ruin the game.

LF2M healer and tank for hours and hours and hours and hours, no sorry, no.

That is reason i left GW2, and boy i enjoy to be tank again! U just dont get it, dont u? Btw, every time i was runnig fractals i was tank..

edit: I hate to dps, other games i can choose to be tank, healer or dps.

People play healers because it’s relatively easy to do. Sorry, but I played a healer for a long time and it is easy to do. The lure of playing a healer is the guarantee of a raid slot. Plain and simple. But only for so long. Eventually everyone memorizes the content to such degree and outgear it to such degree that you literally can do it without any heals at all. So, what changed? Players learned where the fire was. Players learned to move. Players gear got better and the mobs got dumber. Healing becomes redundant. So in essence, you never really needed the heals… you only needed to pay attention. GW2 is training wheels off. Responsibility for your own actions. Stand in fire… you die. Die enough, you learn not to stand in the fire. Eventually you don’t stand in the fire and guess what, you never even had a healer there. How is this possible? Unfathomable.

Healers can easily DPS… healing is about DPSing your fellow players with heals. If you can spam heals, you can spam DPS. So just imagine yourself healing the mobs to death. I will heal you to death… you will die to my heals. Take that, you evil mob you. If you think healing is any different than DPS, you are wrong. It’s exactly the same thing only you are focused solely on your teammates instead of the mob. The only difference is that you aren’t guaranteed a slot because of some role you are playing. Heals and DPS are the same. Just different spells. Spam away.

You’re in luck, sir. GW2 allows certain classes (almost any, except thief of course – they hate thief) to be able to constantly and greatly heal, tank, recover, block, regenerate, protect, while being able to deal insane damage.

pmiles.3489:

People play healers because it’s relatively easy to do. Healing becomes redundant. healing is about DPSing your fellow players with heals.

Go on youtube and check a good Monk in RA on gw1… It’s all but spamming heal. And definitely less redundant than any DPS build…

Alipius.4783:

pmiles.3489:

People play healers because it’s relatively easy to do. Healing becomes redundant. healing is about DPSing your fellow players with heals.

Go on youtube and check a good Monk in RA on gw1… It’s all but spamming heal. And definitely less redundant than any DPS build…

No matter how much skill it takes to heal its still nothing more than a glorified game of whack a mole and an often thankless job.

Sylosi.6503:

Except due to the system you don’t need to work together to anywhere near the same extent as you do in many other games, nor is it just teamwork as a whole as such, it is more specific, things like communication, someone on the forums summed it up pretty well a while ago, which roughly went “In GW2 any vaguely competent group can complete any of the dungeons without saying a word to each other”, in many other games communication is key for difficult instances, because you actually have to rely on people.

If by “working together” you mean perform a very, very simple set of rote tasks, then sure. Calling that real teamwork is a stretch though. Most trinity games just split encounters into 3 separate mini-games. The “DPS minigame” consists of putting spamming a rotation and not getting hit by incedental effects. The “healer metagame” is playing whack-a-mole with health bars while not getting hit by incedental effects. The “tank minigame” is spamming a rotation and dealing with a special set of boss skills designed to kill the dps, and created solely to justify your existence in the game.

The trinity is designed to be very simple and inflexible. It’s easy to know your role because each individual player isn’t really responsible for much. It’s also very boring for those of us who have been deep into progression in multiple games in all 3 trinity roles.

Those of us that find “support” in this game more fulfilling than healing understand that when roles are fluid, understanding the ebb and flow of combat matters more, and your decisions and teamwork allow for more control over the outcome of the encounter than “spam rotation, don’t stand in fire, collect loot”.

The flaw in this game isn’t the lack of the trinity, it’s that leveling and DE zergs don’t show people how to function in a group setting. That seems to be a problem across most MMOs though… Most of the dungeons got nerfed down to where people could clear them with little teamwork instead of letting people adapt to the system as well.

Either way, I can’t go back to playing trinity games anymore. The combat system has spoiled me. I miss raids… but not any of the games that have them.

you could be a support guardian or warr if you prefer the healing gamestyle, it’s somehow similar

Silentsins.3726:

Those of us that find “support” in this game more fulfilling than healing understand that when roles are fluid, understanding the ebb and flow of combat matters more, and your decisions and teamwork allow for more control over the outcome of the encounter than “spam rotation, don’t stand in fire, collect loot”.

The only difference I see in GW2 is that instead of don’t stand in fire, it’s dodge roll out of fire.

All this stuff about ebb and flow of combat is just empty filler words that don’t mean anything.

Morthis.3968:

Silentsins.3726:

Those of us that find “support” in this game more fulfilling than healing understand that when roles are fluid, understanding the ebb and flow of combat matters more, and your decisions and teamwork allow for more control over the outcome of the encounter than “spam rotation, don’t stand in fire, collect loot”.

The only difference I see in GW2 is that instead of don’t stand in fire, it’s dodge roll out of fire.

All this stuff about ebb and flow of combat is just empty filler words that don’t mean anything.

Dodges, support, and defensive skills are finite. It’s more than any one player can handle in challenging content. Teamwork matters at that level of play. That’s the point. There’s a difference between “empty filler” and a failure to understand.

There are healing and tank specs in the game, they just don’t work quite like your standard healing and tanking. Which imo is a good thing. Guardians make great tanks, just gotta know what abilities to lay down and when.

Silentsins.3726:

Dodges, support, and defensive skills are finite. It’s more than any one player can handle in challenging content. Teamwork matters at that level of play. That’s the point. There’s a difference between “empty filler” and a failure to understand.

All these principles apply to any modern MMO. It’s not just one player doing everything while the rest is afk.

There’s a difference between having a valid point and simply trying to use fancy words to make the point sound valid.

Volomon.9147:

wookie slayer.4259:

GW2 is not for gamers it is a CASUAL SANDBOX of an MMO there is nothing to keep people who like challenges other than how long can I grind.

It’s definitely not a sand box that’s an insult to all those sand boxes out there.

I too am use to being a healer and a buffer, but I assumed that these things would not be needed. They are needed, the mechanic of falling to the ground and needing to be picked up constantly makes everyone in the game feel like a failure. That’s not heroic. Just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should do something and in this case I believe this game still needs healers and buffers or at least improve everyone’s survivability.

I hate the fall down mechanic down because I see it as a crutch for the game. A quick solution to getting rid of trinity.

I actually disagree with the need for healers, and I agree with downed state being a crutch.

Given the way the game is now, with everyone having a means to heal themselves, mitigate damage, and avoid damage. It is up to the player to make smart descisions to come out of a fight.
You cant dodge role every time you see a random attack, you cant run into a group of dungeon mobs alone and expect to tank, and you cant sit back, and stand in place and expect to be carried through any type of content like other MMO’s.
Getting ride of dedicated healing( by dedicated healing I healing that is able to outheal burst dps or dps from multiple sources) it has forced people to play the game to survive.
Its forced people to be aware of boss situations ( dodges, healing, blocking, etc.)

If you make a build that has no defense.
Your going to die, often.
If you make a build that at least has some defensive utilities or weapon moves
You will do fine as long as you pay attention and play the game.

Snowy.9580:

Raf.1078:

Play how you want to, but there is no actual “need” in GW2 for 1/3 of the Trinity.

.
The down side of it all is the fact that even with guildies and being a social person that wants to play with others the dps only thing isn’t much fun in dungeons where it soon becomes “Kitten you all, your on your own! I’m looking after number 1!” …How friendly! Nobody cares, and it’s making player look selfish and greedy (imo).

I actually like it that way
why should other people be forced to take care of someone else?
Isnt that kinda selfish " needing" to be looked after constantly by others?

see I always found playing DPS boring, hit auto attack and read a book untill the mob is dead not the sort of play is not for me, I always enjoyed being a buffer / healer (I played 12 year of Everquest as a Cleric or Enchanter).

Yes in GW it is a bit more active with dodge, but is it really that much of a challange to see your standing in a fire field and press V? all the while not slowing down on spamming DPS or else someone will accuse you of not contributing to the efficiancy of the group?

I would just like to be able to so something more than give 2 -3second buffs and DPS.

now saying that I think they almost have it right with the way they made the elementalist and thier Fire/Water/Earth/Air and to a lesser extend the Trait system…

let people pick what type of style they want to play .. want to be a healing? … click a button and boom your the healer! or spec your character for Tanking, or DPS. (to a much greater extent they they do now)

Let people build thier characters into the style THEY want to play

Akiko.2364:

I would just like to be able to so something more than give 2 -3second buffs and DPS.

And as an ele you can.

You can destroy projectiles, grant aura’s to allies, create water fields, CC the enemy, apply conditions to the enemy, provide some off healing to allies, create combo fields, and use blast finishers to help you allies ( assuming that one of them put down a water combo field you can heal them around you with that.).

As an ele you can do pretty much do everything.
Support, DPS, and Tank.

All in the same build.

What you cant do is hold someones hand.

Akiko.2364:

I would just like to be able to so something more than give 2 -3second buffs and DPS.

This is the only game I’ve ever told people “learn to play” in.. because of comments like that. There’s plenty. Figure it out.

Tumbero.3945:

no need of that class of healer, is useless and you will never learn to real survive with it.

Not really sure where you’re getting your information from joe-bob. I played a disc priest in wow and could whip anyone’s asset - yes, a weak, lowly healer like a priest could whip your asset any day bub. Perhaps you just either suck at the game or were rude to the healers and that’s why they didn’t heal your sorry self. I don’t know but I’ve been playing probably from before you were in diapers and the only time a healer doesn’t heal is when they’re dealing with annoying fks.

mavet.3047:

Tumbero.3945:

no need of that class of healer, is useless and you will never learn to real survive with it.

Not really sure where you’re getting your information from joe-bob. I played a disc priest in wow and could whip anyone’s asset – yes, a weak, lowly healer like a priest could whip your asset any day bub. Perhaps you just either suck at the game or were rude to the healers and that’s why they didn’t heal your sorry self. I don’t know but I’ve been playing probably from before you were in diapers and the only time a healer doesn’t heal is when they’re dealing with annoying fks.

Or maybe he just doesn’t like the standard trinity or dealing with arrogance of “I’m the healer, do as I want or screw you” which is pretty common in games where they are required. Lot of reasons possible beyond the ones you give in that arrogant display. Just because someone doesn’t like something does NOT equal unskilled. He’s right though, the standard trinity is not needed. There are ways to still do the roles of the trinity in a semi-dedicated way, just you need to do more in addition. The only issue I’ve seen in that regard in this game are from people who can’t adapt to something new.

wookie slayer.4259:

GW2 is not for gamers it is a CASUAL SANDBOX of an MMO there is nothing to keep people who like challenges other than how long can I grind.

WvW is a Sandbox yes, but the rest of the game?

Akiko.2364:

Let people build thier characters into the style THEY want to play

No, because if you build for pure healing or tanking or DPS and neglect all other aspects of your character, you throw the balance of the game and take away my ability to play the style I want to play.

Trinity games are balanced in a way where the enemy is matched up against the toughest any player can be, the most damage any player can do and the most damage any player can mitigate. Currently, there’s a vastly different balance paradigm.

What happens in your proposed future? You give players the ability to get MASSIVE healing power numbers or skills that scale with healing power better. How would that not trivialize a number of encounters or mechanics as currently balanced? You no longer have to worry about avoiding the boss’s big alpha strike because your healer can pick up your slack. And how do you balance them? Are you going to take away their ability to do as much damage as they currently can?

What about tanks? The damage dealt by bosses would need to skyrocket in order to even threaten the kind of tank that people are requesting.

And how does this effect me and the rest of the people who cower in fear of the lot of you blowhards? The kind of damage that enemies would need to do in order to threaten the tank / healer combo would DECIMATE people who are playing balanced builds. Currently, if I miss one dodge on my Knight/Soldier combo geared characters, I’m usually hurt pretty bad, but it won’t end my fight. Change that attack so that it now threatens characters who are built with “Super-Soldier” class gear that is ALL Vitality and Toughness and my hybrid is going to be one-shotted immediately.

We can’t have both crowds happy here. If dedicated roles creep into this game, they’ll kill the people who want to be balanced and well rounded. And the honest truth is that we were the target audience so we by all rights have precedent. Leave our game alone.

pmiles.3489:

So in essence, you never really needed the heals… you only needed to pay attention.

Yes, it’s true, of course raid encounters get easier with better gear and experience. That’s why a decent team doesn’t stop there, they do heroics or go for raid achievements. And then it’s time for the next tier or expansion.

Omega.1473:

Akiko.2364:

Let people build thier characters into the style *THEY* want to play

No, because if you build for pure healing or tanking or DPS and neglect all other aspects of your character, you throw the balance of the game and take away my ability to play the style *I* want to play. Leave our game alone.

Blame ANet for that - THEY got rid of the trinity and if someone wants to play as a healer type, then let them. I didn’t realize this game had fascists in it...

Kuari.8106:

mavet.3047:

Tumbero.3945:

no need of that class of healer, is useless and you will never learn to real survive with it.

Not really sure where you’re getting your information from joe-bob. I played a disc priest in wow and could whip anyone’s asset - yes, a weak, lowly healer like a priest could whip your asset any day bub. Perhaps you just either suck at the game or were rude to the healers and that’s why they didn’t heal your sorry self. I don’t know but I’ve been playing probably from before you were in diapers and the only time a healer doesn’t heal is when they’re dealing with annoying fks.

Or maybe he just doesn’t like the standard trinity or dealing with arrogance of "I’m the healer, do as I want or screw you" which is pretty common in games where they are required. Lot of reasons possible beyond the ones you give in that arrogant display. Just because someone doesn’t like something does NOT equal unskilled. He’s right though, the standard trinity is not needed. There are ways to still do the roles of the trinity in a semi-dedicated way, just you need to do more in addition. The only issue I’ve seen in that regard in this game are from people who can’t adapt to something new.

No, clearly Joe-bob says: "no need of that class of healer, is useless and you will never learn to real survive with it." This is utter crap and that was my point.

well you can be a support/healer player you just have to find out the proper build it i for example am a healer/buffer in WvW as Warrior now thats something not many had seen in other MMOs. and i assure you my support is noticeable healing 6k hp every 10 seconds (sometimes more) to the zerg.(wich gets all sieges aiming at me often >_<)

mavet.3047:

Omega.1473:

Akiko.2364:

Let people build thier characters into the style THEY want to play

No, because if you build for pure healing or tanking or DPS and neglect all other aspects of your character, you throw the balance of the game and take away my ability to play the style I want to play. Leave our game alone.

Blame ANet for that – THEY got rid of the trinity and if someone wants to play as a healer type, then let them. I didn’t realize this game had fascists in it…

The trinity isn’t some sort of “given”. They made a conscious decision to get rid of it. There’s nothing to blame them for because there’s nothing wrong.

Its not fascist to argue against a change that would completely ruin this game for me. The game is as close as how I would like it to be right now and any move or compromise away from that will be the mark of the end of my time here.

mavet.3047:

No, clearly Joe-bob says: “no need of that class of healer, is useless and you will never learn to real survive with it.” This is utter crap and that was my point.

This “Joe-bob” (really, your immaturity is astounding?) phrased what he said poorly and you took it the wrong way.

He wasn’t blaming healers or saying they will be easy or useless. He was saying that if you had to rely on a healer to keep you alive in this game, YOU are useless because you won’t learn how to actually take care of yourself. If you rely on a healer as a crutch, you won’t bother to dodge or learn the fights.

As is, you can survive anything in the game without a healer. If they add a healer and don’t rebalance things, the game will be too easy because we already have a full toolbox available to survive some crazy things. If they do rebalance things for the presence of a healer, then your average balanced-build player is screwed and can’t survive without one.

That’s the end of the story, there’s no other argument to be made.

Silentsins.3726:

If by “working together” you mean perform a very, very simple set of rote tasks, then sure.

Simple role tasks? The last game I raided in was LOTRO, I played a loremaster, a support class, the level of awareness, multitasking and general complexity was way beyond the simplistic excuse for PvE in GW2, some of the stuff I had to do on my loremaster:

- Keep stun immunity up on the tank (sometimes tank healer also)
- Keep up debuffs, often multiple mobs.
- Cleanse people
- Off heal
- Sometimes keep one, occasionally two mobs perma CC’d.
- Drain power from bosses/mobs and feed power to healers, captains, etc
- In any spare moments do some DPS.
- CC, debuff, peel any mob that decided it wanted to go after a healer.
- Finally whilst doing all of this, I would mange a pet.

The same goes for the healer I played, a Runekeeper, which was largely based on HOTs, again required much more awareness, multitasking, etc than anythign in GW2. (And to be fair any DPS class or tank in LOTRO, there is a reason healers and certain support classes are regarded as the most demanding to play in most MMOs)

The same even goes for the tank, a warden, but you’d probably have to of played one to understand why.

The last MMO I played was Rift I didn’t do much PvE in that, but I did plenty of PvP, my favourite build was a chlorodom, again it was way beyond the simplistic play you get in GW2, trying to heal, cleanse, debuff, CC, cope with idiot team mates that LOS of themselves, etc, whislt beign constantly focus fired, it is just on another level compared to the simplistic DPS oreintated stuff you get in GW2 (and of course DPS in general).

Silentsins.3726:

The flaw in this game isn’t the lack of the trinity,…

I agree you don’t need a trintiy, but the way they’ve done it, very simplistic glorified ARPG classes where everyone can effectively look after themseleves with little variation is simply not that good, it is an anti-teamwork design, it is a design that lacks variety, especially for PvE.

I also don’t think their design lets them push the difficulty of dungeons either, I thik the tolerances as it were for success or failure have to be larger than your typical trinity based system.

Which is why most people I know who like hardcore PvE, have gone back to games with raids, even putting aside some of them miss the healer/support/tank playstyle, a lot of them miss the tight level of performance / teamwork they actually need to compete the instance.

Nekroseth.5186:

Totally fully agree.

The game needs ROLES.

The game has roles. What it doesn’t have is a single, static “tactic” for all situations that replaces reacting & positioning with a mindless script that every follows.

Solori.6025:

Akiko.2364:

I would just like to be able to so something more than give 2 -3second buffs and DPS.

And as an ele you can.

You can destroy projectiles, grant aura’s to allies, create water fields, CC the enemy, apply conditions to the enemy, provide some off healing to allies, create combo fields, and use blast finishers to help you allies ( assuming that one of them put down a water combo field you can heal them around you with that.).

As an ele you can do pretty much do everything.
Support, DPS, and Tank.

All in the same build.

What you cant do is hold someones hand.

I do agree with you, elementalist is one of my favorite class’s for it versitility but if I do all the things you suggest we have already seen several people comment in this thread alone that doing anything but maximizing your personal DSP is cutting into the efficiency of the group and would result in them never wanting to play with you again…..

Akiko.2364:

Solori.6025:

Akiko.2364:

I would just like to be able to so something more than give 2 -3second buffs and DPS.

And as an ele you can.

You can destroy projectiles, grant aura’s to allies, create water fields, CC the enemy, apply conditions to the enemy, provide some off healing to allies, create combo fields, and use blast finishers to help you allies ( assuming that one of them put down a water combo field you can heal them around you with that.).

As an ele you can do pretty much do everything.
Support, DPS, and Tank.

All in the same build.

What you cant do is hold someones hand.

I do agree with you, elementalist is one of my favorite class’s for it versitility but if I do all the things you suggest we have already seen several people comment in this thread alone that doing anything but maximizing your personal DSP is cutting into the efficiency of the group and would result in them never wanting to play with you again…..

That’s a load of crock. Unless you’re joining an elitist Fractals grinding group or a dungeon running group full of morons nobody is going to complain about you playing support.

Smart players know the value of support in making runs smoother and making up for individual deficiencies. I’d rather take 45 minutes on a dungeon path because we had a few support characters but have a more fun and relaxing time than have a 30 minute run with 5 straight Berserkers frantically dodging every which way living on the razor’s edge.

Akiko.2364:

… that doing anything but maximizing your personal DSP is cutting into the efficiency of the group and would result in them never wanting to play with you again…..

It´s not a problem to maximize your DPS on a well balanced group. In a well balanced group it will be very welcome, kill a boss faster will be better than hours of taking and mitigating damage.

The problem is that it´s a new game with lots of players that don´t understand why they have to work in groups than to be the supersoloman and save the world alone (die Batman!).

The time more people know how to make the front/mid/backline efficiently there will be always space for full bunkers/ full support/ full dps.

Edit support =/= healer

Omega.1473:

Akiko.2364:

Let people build thier characters into the style THEY want to play

and how does this effect me and the rest of the people who cower in fear of the lot of you blowhards? The kind of damage that enemies would need to do in order to threaten the tank / healer combo would DECIMATE people who are playing balanced builds. Currently, if I miss one dodge on my Knight/Soldier combo geared characters, I’m usually hurt pretty bad, but it won’t end my fight. Change that attack so that it now threatens characters who are built with “Super-Soldier” class gear that is ALL Vitality and Toughness and my hybrid is going to be one-shotted immediately.

We can’t have both crowds happy here. If dedicated roles creep into this game, they’ll kill the people who want to be balanced and well rounded. And the honest truth is that we were the target audience so we by all rights have precedent. Leave our game alone.

Balanced builds? check each class forum, recommended builds are 30 – 30 .. and put the other 10 into something or other because you cant get anymore into the first two…. load up on +Power gear and go blow things up… DPS is King and Queen and basicly the only game in town.

I dont see any balance here at all.

Volomon.9147:

wookie slayer.4259:

GW2 is not for gamers it is a CASUAL SANDBOX of an MMO there is nothing to keep people who like challenges other than how long can I grind.

It’s definitely not a sand box that’s an insult to all those sand boxes out there.

I too am use to being a healer and a buffer, but I assumed that these things would not be needed. They are needed, the mechanic of falling to the ground and needing to be picked up constantly makes everyone in the game feel like a failure. That’s not heroic. Just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should do something and in this case I believe this game still needs healers and buffers or at least improve everyone’s survivability.

I hate the fall down mechanic down because I see it as a crutch for the game. A quick solution to getting rid of trinity.

Volo have to agree with you, it’s definitely not a sandbox it is however a grind fest with the addition of some things like RNG, DR, lower loot percentile, etc. you know what damaged other game titles and pushed their gamers away en masse and caused sub games to become F2P in less then a half a years time, but who needs history right?

Omega.1473:

That’s a load of crock. Unless you’re joining an elitist Fractals grinding group or a dungeon running group full of morons nobody is going to complain about you playing support.

Smart players know the value of support in making runs smoother and making up for individual deficiencies. I’d rather take 45 minutes on a dungeon path because we had a few support characters but have a more fun and relaxing time than have a 30 minute run with 5 straight Berserkers frantically dodging every which way living on the razor’s edge.

oh I agree, but just read through this thread… its an opinion experessed by several posters here.

Akiko.2364:

Omega.1473:

Akiko.2364:

Let people build thier characters into the style THEY want to play

and how does this effect me and the rest of the people who cower in fear of the lot of you blowhards? The kind of damage that enemies would need to do in order to threaten the tank / healer combo would DECIMATE people who are playing balanced builds. Currently, if I miss one dodge on my Knight/Soldier combo geared characters, I’m usually hurt pretty bad, but it won’t end my fight. Change that attack so that it now threatens characters who are built with “Super-Soldier” class gear that is ALL Vitality and Toughness and my hybrid is going to be one-shotted immediately.

We can’t have both crowds happy here. If dedicated roles creep into this game, they’ll kill the people who want to be balanced and well rounded. And the honest truth is that we were the target audience so we by all rights have precedent. Leave our game alone.

Balanced builds? check each class forum, recommended builds are 30 – 30 .. and put the other 10 into something or other because you cant get anymore into the first two…. load up on +Power gear and go blow things up… DPS is King and Queen and basicly the only game in town.

I dont see any balance here at all.

Wow….that’s just wrong in so many ways.

A) The official class subforums here are a cesspool full of mouth-breathers when it comes to builds. All they know are “FULL BERSERKERS IS LEET”.

B) Take a look here: http://www.reddit.com/r/guildwars2builds
or here: http://www.guildwars2guru.com/forum/27-vigil-academy-pve/
or here: http://www.guildwars2guru.com/forum/70-hall-of-heroes-pvp/

There’s so many varieties of builds its ridiculous. For every person who says “go full glass cannon” there’s 3 others who come up with completely different suggestions.

Bunker builds are everywhere, condition builds are INCREDIBLY common and the pricing of cleric’s gear on the market is heading north.

Do we see a lot of glass cannons out there? Yeah. But that doesn’t always mean they’re right. People like big numbers because they think it makes them look big. In reality, a lot of them are the cannon fodder in WvWvW who get dropped by AoE crossfire.

If somebody doesn’t care about anything but maxxing their own DPS that person is probably not a good player. I guess if all you are doing is zerging DE’s that is fine but otherwise…

Maybe there are groups with 5 glass cannons running fractals 20+? I doubt it though.

edit – i say this though i’m currently playing with an engineer at 0/30/0/20/20 with full zerkers armor and full knight accessories, but that’s because i’ve been running 0/0/30/30/10 for a while in full healing armor for dungeons and i wanted to a change of pace for a couple of days.

I think you CAN be a healer in this game. One thing you must take note is you CANNOT only just heal. You have to heal + give buffs + damage. It’s not like the old trinity where you don’t hit the mobs at all, and simply heal everyone. You can heal everyone, but you have to contribute damage as well (as well as support stuff like conditions, boons, knockbacks/blocks/daze/stun/stealth/etc.)

Morthis.3968:

All these principles apply to any modern MMO. It’s not just one player doing everything while the rest is afk.

There’s a difference between having a valid point and simply trying to use fancy words to make the point sound valid.

That was a very compelling viewpoint and totally worth more than a stock snarky remark.

Sylosi.6503:

Silentsins.3726:

If by “working together” you mean perform a very, very simple set of rote tasks, then sure.

Simple role tasks? The last game I raided in was LOTRO, I played a loremaster, a support class, the level of awareness, multitasking and general complexity was way beyond the simplistic excuse for PvE in GW2, some of the stuff I had to do on my loremaster:

<3 fellow lotro player. Ran a burg and a guard through server first and second completions of every raid from the watcher onward, and ran RK, champ, and hunter through all those instances as well.

The thing about the trinity system is that support roles become an outlier over time. They’re hard to balance and less flashy. As power creep happens, the dev team eventually takes the easy way out and pushes the support roles toward either DPS or healing, even for a “soft trinity” like lotro. Look at the direction that lotro is headed and tell me that is not happening.

Sylosi.6503:

I agree you don’t need a trintiy, but the way they’ve done it, very simplistic glorified ARPG classes where everyone can effectively look after themseleves with little variation is simply not that good, it is an anti-teamwork design, it is a design that lacks variety, especially for PvE.

I can tell you from firsthand experience that regular pve content was a lot harder between BWE2 and BWE3, and even the story instances were more challenging the first 2 weeks after release. Part of the issue of tolerances is how quickly they can expect people to adapt to their new-fangled system, and how much they’re willing to work against people’s expectation of what is familiar…

…then 5 or 6 people pop up and complain that it’s too easy. Either way, it’s impossible to be all things to all people. All I can say is that instances are completed much faster and with less wipes via teamwork. For example, our regular guild group does this:

The Mexican Cookie.3690:

You sit behind a wall or pillar to Line of sight mobs then spam PBAoE/AoE support and damage. GG you won GW2 dungeons.

… except if you replace “pillar” with “defensively built player who knows how to bodyblock” and you have a ranged squishy doing the pulling, you can clear most trash groups in seconds. I’m looking forward to more complex encounters out of this game, since I already enjoy the foundation.

Akiko.2364:

I do agree with you, elementalist is one of my favorite class’s for its versatility but if I do all the things you suggest we have already seen several people comment in this thread alone that doing anything but maximizing your personal DSP is cutting into the efficiency of the group and would result in them never wanting to play with you again…..

Those people are not the ones to party with-they are the wrong players for your playstyle. I dutifully ignore them. I have never had a max DPS build-and probably never will, no matter how non-leet, “inefficient” that’s supposed to make me. Ignore what you feel is ignorance, and play the way you want-people will appreciate what you do for them while you enjoy yourself, as opposed to try to meet an artificial, “efficient” meta playstyle (I.E. “DPS”-which ironically some people see as the “only one role left”, ignorant that all 3 roles have been diminished, not JUST that of the tank and healer.) There are many players that feel like you out there, so go play with those who want to have fun rather than just do things as fast and possible, “to win.”

penatbater.4710:

I think you CAN be a healer in this game. One thing you must take note is you CANNOT only just heal. You have to heal + give buffs + damage. It’s not like the old trinity where you don’t hit the mobs at all, and simply heal everyone. You can heal everyone, but you have to contribute damage as well (as well as support stuff like conditions, boons, knockbacks/blocks/daze/stun/stealth/etc.)

The old trinity? Like, how old? Last century? Because in the last 5 years any healer in any game I played had to heal+give buffs+debuff enemy(negative buffs and often removing buffs)+dps+anticipate attacks. And that’s just a small fraction of pve, pvp is usually even more demanding. You try keeping 24 people alive in a pvp situation while every enemy is trying to get you and then tell me how “simple” it is. Seriously, people who never played a healer shouldn’t talk about what it is like….

I’ve actually found that playing staff Elementalist attuned to water is very similair to playing a wow healer except it’s a lot more fun and challenging

With combo, anyone can be sort of healer.
If you can create any combo field (especially water and light), others can use combo finishers to heal/buff others. If you can’t, you can simply use your combo finishers when the combo field is built. Everyone can be a healer. Everyone can be a tank. Everyone can dps. You may say, we always have multiple healers, multiple tanks in GW2. This is far more interesting than the traditional Trinity system once you find out how it works. Even a ‘tank’ can contribute so much healing for everyone!

I’m pretty glad that they chucked the trinity (despite having been a healer in every other game). Was doing fine in a dungeon today, was usually the one resing my comrades, using time warp at key moments, cleansing, interrupts and knockbacks, etc.

And yet, since I wasn’t a guardian, I wasn’t support enough, and they wanted yet one more guardian.

I bailed before the whining went on and on. I was doing my job, I’m not going to switch classes because people can’t do theirs.

pmiles.3489:

People play healers because it’s relatively easy to do. Sorry, but I played a healer for a long time and it is easy to do. The lure of playing a healer is the guarantee of a raid slot. Plain and simple. But only for so long. Eventually everyone memorizes the content to such degree and outgear it to such degree that you literally can do it without any heals at all. So, what changed? Players learned where the fire was. Players learned to move. Players gear got better and the mobs got dumber. Healing becomes redundant. So in essence, you never really needed the heals… you only needed to pay attention. GW2 is training wheels off. Responsibility for your own actions. Stand in fire… you die. Die enough, you learn not to stand in the fire. Eventually you don’t stand in the fire and guess what, you never even had a healer there. How is this possible? Unfathomable.

I’m pretty sure based on your comments that you’ve never actually played another MMO. And if you have no doubt you never managed to get a decent group with all your healer hate.