Guild Wars 2

TL;DR Equipment with no offensive properties should not exist in Guild Wars 2.

With HoT Anet added some new equipment stat combos; the one that really stuck out to me was Minstrels. Because it had no damage increasing properties on it. No condition damage, power, precision, or ferocity. Another example is Nomad’s. Now that isnt to say all armour without a Major stat in offense shouldnt exist. I think that heavy armour/vitality with a minor in power/condition damage works great as a bunker/upkeep.

I don’t believe equipment with no offensive capabilities should exist in guild wars 2; They simply do not belong. I think newer players might get the wrong idea of how guild wars 2 “meant” to be played and the lack of a trinity system is something that takes getting used to. These newer players might go for Nomad’s armour in hopes of becoming a support character without understanding that they are actually hurting their team.

I main a warrior (soldiers/zerker hybrid) and thief (valkyrie/zerker/knights). About 2 months ago i created a guardian in hopes of playing him as a support/upkeep build so I got him a set of Nomad’s/Clerics gear and ran a couple of dungeon paths just to see how it handled. I knew the damage wasnt going to be that great, however I didnt realize just how much it would hurt the team. My presence up-scales events and makes them last longer due to my inability to deal damage and can even fail the event because the timer may run out, especially in new content and upcoming raids which are going to be hard-coded to assume you have a full 10-man team.

The Healing stat is just a complete waste of a minor (or god forbid you got a major) prefix. It is much too weak to really do much healing on its own and only serves to increase the duration of a fight. What makes support roles viable in guild wars 2 is their utility skills which have condition cleanse, boon application, boon stripping, etc.

I really enjoy seeing build diversity (even though I personally don’ see much in gw2) because it means people created something unique that they enjoy playing. I think mixing and matching armour stats is probably the best way to go about creating a consistent build that can survive and deal damage. I hate the zerker meta and in the new content I can see who is full zerker because I constantly have to pick them up and we lose a lot of potential dps. The same can be said for players who play in full support roles; they become a non-factor in defeating the boss.

Hopefully if some newer players read this post they will understand that full support/no damage roles do not work as well in guild wars 2 as they do in other mmos. Feel free to build you nomad’s and minstrel set, but makes sure you also bring some dps to the fight.

Im sure I missed some points I wanted to mention, but I did touch on most of what I wanted to say.

They have their space in other parts of the game.

Also healing power is in a bad scaling place

If your going to attempt to refute my point give me an example. Also Healing power has been in a “bad scaling place” for three years now, so whats your point exactly? keep a useless stat that misleads players?

where do they have their place? new content pve gets upscaled HARD with even a few extra people and anything that is hard capped with a small number of people (fractal/dungeons) your a liability. PVP is almost required to have damage because of the way everything is normalized. A bunker build doesnt work if it does no damage because you will get chipped little by little, you need to retaliate eventually. WvW maybe? if your zerging i guess everything dies in 1 hit when its got 50 people hitting it at the same time.

Stop zerging all the time

If you’re dead you can’t contribute, thus the importance of healing (and focusing healers like menders) becomes obvious.

Atmos.8105:

Stop zerging all the time

you completely missed the point and I was pointing out the 1 time I could see it being viable, slightly. I was in a sense defending your point.

Agemnon.4608:

If you’re dead you can’t contribute, thus the importance of healing (and focusing healers like menders) becomes obvious.

Yes I pointed that out in my initial post that if your dead your useless, however healing stats are not the optimal way to go and are missleading newer players. You are better off getting toughness and vitality. My thief and warrior can survive on their own without the help of a “healer” on me 24/7 while maintaining dps. The problem with “healers” is that they upscale events and don’t contribute with killing.