Guild Wars 2

PaxTheGreatOne.9472:

Dinks.2478:

Same conversation, different title. Support is already in the meta.

Let us see the current top META builds.

Staff Elementalist. Support = Blinds, CC, Might, Vulnerability, reflects/projectile destruction, condi removal/heal if needed.

Mace/Torch GS Guardian. Support = Blinds, Heals, Blocks, Reflects, Stability, Mobility, Quickness, CC, Fury.

Sword/Sword Sword/Focus Mesmer. Support = Boon stripping, reflects, Quickness, Slow, condi removal, stealth.

D/D S/P Shortbow Thief. Support = Stealth, Reflects, Blasting, CC, Blinds.

Phalanx Strength Warrior. Support = Banners, Might, Fury, Vulnerability, CC, 150 Additional Power to nearby party members, Instant res banner.

No Dinks That’s called Debuffing and Booning, and some general utility,

Support is more then Booning alone.

If croud control, buffing, debuffing, reflecting isn’t in your opinion support then i think you have no bloody idea what the hell do you want in the end.

This is either trolling or stupidity. (or you wanna convince people that your hipster-builds are legit – which is stupid)

healing is a very small subset of support – are military medics the only personnel considered “support”?

this game doesn’t have a very strong need for external healing, by design, and the healing power stat has always been an oddball because of that.

Narrrz.7532:

runeblade.7514:

I think Healing Power should tie in with reviving player.

In a Dungeon scenario, if 1 player goes down, a zealot geared player can res faster than 4 players without healing power.

That won’t actually help in the least.

I forgot to mention that the base revive heal would be nerfed uniquely. (Each subsequent player that is ressing will have their res heal nerf by 50% for each player. (I don’t feel like going into more details.)

With that in mind: Not really. A cleric player can lower the skillcap needed to run the dungeon considerably. Since it ties into a stat, anyone can run zealot gear and pug dungeons. Full Zerk players can still speedrun it. But for pugs, all it needs is one player with healing power or the run will be very frustrating.

Narrrz.7532:

healing is a very small subset of support – are military medics the only personnel considered “support”?

Healing skills, gear and specs however is a very substantial subset of features in Guild Wars 2.

If they had put different mechanics in the game instead of all of those nobody would be asking for healers.

Remember, none of this discussion is about adding something new, it’s about letting people use what’s there.

TexZero.7910:

PaxTheGreatOne.9472:

Now back to the topic:

---

USING and USEFULLNESS of attributes:

1. As is now we have Power which scales ALL physical dmg
2. As is now we have Condition Dmg which scales ALL condition based dmg
3. As is now we have Precision which scale criticals which are a guaranteed 150% of normal dmg HIT
4. As is now we have Ferocity which scales the 150% critical hit to be maximum 240+% in some builds
5. As is now we have Toughness which can mitigate all damage by 15-45%
6. We also have Condition Duration and Boon Duration which is no longer related to armors and builds or Traits for that matter and is now only found in runes and food. (Unless you’d consider Givers’ Weapons or Armor.)
7. As is now we have Vitality which only adds 10 hp for every point to a maxed 20000 points
8. And we have Healing which will affect healing, regeneration, and partial vampiric lifesteal, in numbers like follows:

You goofed hard here.

Toughness reduces all incoming physical damage, not all damage.

Conditions and Siphons(health gain) ignore armor rating/toughness entirely.

Condition Damage scales by damage, duration, lack of enemy vitality

Correct. Luckily somebody reads stuff. I’ll correct it

Though this isn’t about toughness but healing…

Frediosz.2718:

PaxTheGreatOne.9472:

Dinks.2478:

Same conversation, different title. Support is already in the meta.

Let us see the current top META builds.

Staff Elementalist. Support = Blinds, CC, Might, Vulnerability, reflects/projectile destruction, condi removal/heal if needed.

Mace/Torch GS Guardian. Support = Blinds, Heals, Blocks, Reflects, Stability, Mobility, Quickness, CC, Fury.

Sword/Sword Sword/Focus Mesmer. Support = Boon stripping, reflects, Quickness, Slow, condi removal, stealth.

D/D S/P Shortbow Thief. Support = Stealth, Reflects, Blasting, CC, Blinds.

Phalanx Strength Warrior. Support = Banners, Might, Fury, Vulnerability, CC, 150 Additional Power to nearby party members, Instant res banner.

No Dinks That’s called Debuffing and Booning, and some general utility,

Support is more then Booning alone.

If croud control, buffing, debuffing, reflecting isn’t in your opinion support then i think you have no bloody idea what the hell do you want in the end.

This is either trolling or stupidity. (or you wanna convince people that your hipster-builds are legit – which is stupid)

I play how I want, at least I try to…, Like you wish to do.
I also accept some places do not need my zealot or celestial builds.
That’s why I have zerker on most classes as well. But I have seen it been there and done that. I am mostly building Sinister builds for the last year tbh, luckily I have 17 lvl 80’s. But back to topic:

HEALING =/= croud control, buffing, debuffing, reflecting or is it?
And CC and debuffing or reflecting isn’t covered under healing and boon duration now is it?

I already stated active defence is more prevalent in PvE and healing has less influence. Mitigation is very important but I’m not talking about mitigation.
I’m talking about healing power, heals, lifedrains, regeneration and boon duration.

But understand: saying Reflecting, Debuffing or CC has anything to do with healing or boon duration make me wonder who the actual troll is.

Why are -you- pulling posts out of context?

Brother Grimm.5176:

TexZero.7910:

Or its actually not a problem. The problem lies with the players who have an antiquated mindset that you need healing power to be an effective support.

^THIS^

Explain to everyone WHY there must be a need to put points into HEALING POWER?

So why Healing Power exists ?

Normally if you want to improve your offensive capabilities you put points into power, precision, etc, right ?
So normally, if you would like to improve your support capabilities, you should put points into healing power, boon duration, etc … Isn’t this logic ?

Wouldn’t you think the system is weird if you were “forced” to put points into healing power to improve your offensive capabilities ?

The problem lies with the players who have an antiquated mindset that you need power to be an effective damage dealer.

Explain to everyone WHY there must be a need to put points into POWER?

You see ?

Until anet stop making changes to increase the damage done by builds and nurf damage instead nothing will change.

Stopping a single person generating 25 stacks of might is easy, they just haven’t done it yet. Reducing peak damage is also possible, just put a cap on all attacks as to the max damage that can be done per hit.

You could also, as a stat gets higher, reduce it’s effectiveness. While you are on max bonus crit damage to 100%.

Then, perhaps, people will realise they can do other things than just damage with their stats.

Problem is, unless someone has a really poor build, they are probably overpowered as it is.

And the reason people don’t like necros in dungeons and fractals is they assume necro = minions = unwanted aggro.

Serious.7083:

Until anet stop making changes to increase the damage done by builds and nurf damage instead nothing will change.

Stopping a single person generating 25 stacks of might is easy, they just haven’t done it yet. Reducing peak damage is also possible, just put a cap on all attacks as to the max damage that can be done per hit.

You could also, as a stat gets higher, reduce it’s effectiveness. While you are on max bonus crit damage to 100%.

Then, perhaps, people will realise they can do other things than just damage with their stats.

Problem is, unless someone has a really poor build, they are probably overpowered as it is.

And the reason people don’t like necros in dungeons and fractals is they assume necro = minions = unwanted aggro.

Necro’s are shunned due to people claiming they do not brink much group utility (“selfish build”) even though thay can bring utility, problem sis most people have nice builds and rotations on other characters whcih are more effective and well known.

Ranger is mostly shunned due to the infamous bearbow shooting the stack with LB 4 casing a truly big mess. though ranger can bring decent utility as well as well as perma regen and or waterfields.

Minions in dungeons are not very nice true but MM in dungeon is REALLY REALLY out of place.

I do not see whay 25 stacks of might, perma fury and all other dps buffs (banners, empower allies, and so on should be looked into …. I personally do not like caps (= very unimaginative) and most dmg boost comes from stacked multipliers….
+10% night, +10 scholar, +10 xslaying sigil +10% x slaying potion = +61% dmg… not counting traits…
might: 750 added power will add ~20%, banners and empower allies add another 10%
total being 212% boost, though we still didn’t add traits.

But How is this post related to healing , improving healing scaling or boon duration?

Narrrz.7532:

Rauderi.8706:

It’s certainly something to keep in mind, but a blanket statement doesn’t really cover the how and why. Not a ‘strike’ so much as a ‘balancing concern.’ Done properly, both could be appeased.

The question is, is there a ‘properly’? The way the game works now, healing is useful (but not essential) for pvp & useless (and unwanted) in pve.

If your aim is to fix it for pve, you’re either talking about bringing in a dedicated healing role (see: unwanted) or just generally making healing more powerful in the hopes that people will at least include some level in their build (see: useless)

trying to change it for pvp is an even more dangerous game. It’s not game changing now, for the most part, but i’m certain that more than a few matches have been decided by one team having a healing-focused player. I’m not sure dedicated healing is any more welcome in pvp than in pve; as soon as you buff it enough to be powerful, it becomes required, and then the random queue system either falls apart (No healer on our team; GG ANet) or needs to be completely rebuilt so that it will search out a player with one of the healing power amulets for each team (which will probably affect queue times)

Maybe there is another option i’m missing but i think that any change to healing power is going to be for the worse. I’ve posted extensively in my own thread (which i won’t plug here unsolicited) about how i think that healing power is a broken attribute which does not belong in the system we have in place – it would be much better as part of the trait system, or as a fringe benefit of vitality (or both).

Then again, maybe an obvious solution does exist, and i’m just too narrow minded to see it. /shrug

Removing healing power is also a change to healing power. :P
I’m not claiming to have the ultimate solution, but something needs to happen to the Healing Power, and probably Vitality.

One of the big problems we run into is how do we perform the conversion?

If Healing Power stays, is it because the scaling was tweaked? It would have unintended consequences in PvP, I think. The meta would adjust, obviously, but it’d be a kitten-storm of kittening for months on end. And bunkers were an issue apparently, indicated by the ‘tweak’ they put on turrets. (I’m.. actually pretty mad about that, but whatevs.)
I’m actually not a fan of re-scaling Healing Power. It’s a lazy solution.

So, thought goes, perhaps Healing Power in all of its weakness should pull double duty. That’s where the Boon Duration wish comes from. Lots of classes got their boon durations shredded, and Giver’s gear is garbage, so it seemed like a great way to add utility to a stat while enhancing support and restoring our busted boons.
Not to say it would shatter a meta, but it would give more incentive to filter in HealPow in a gear piece or two. The max-efficiency crowd would still gun for Berserker, since a few second seconds on a might stack wouldn’t mean anything for dungeons. The spot I’d be a smidge fuzzy on is the effect a possible +10% duration would be for PvP. 0.3 extra seconds of Protection doesn’t seem like a huge benefit. :P

Or, we obliterate Healing Power altogether. (And, quite frankly, we probably should. Good game design demands it.) But what does it get replaced with on gear? What happens to Nomad/Cleric/Zealot, except maybe a double-click choice? (It worked very well after the Magic Find removal.) Does Healing Power get rolled into Vitality, making defense even more viable in PvP? Does HealPow just stop mattering and all the healing skills base out at static values?
Even as someone who plays lots of heal/protection-oriented roles, I could get behind dumping Healing Power, I’m just not sure what the right approach is to compensate for the change and what would be best for the game.

Rauderi.8706:

<snippityopteryx>

Removing healing power is also a change to healing power. :P
I’m not claiming to have the ultimate solution, but something needs to happen to the Healing Power, and probably Vitality.

One of the big problems we run into is how do we perform the conversion?

If Healing Power stays, is it because the scaling was tweaked? It would have unintended consequences in PvP, I think. The meta would adjust, obviously, but it’d be a kitten-storm of kittening for months on end. And bunkers were an issue apparently, indicated by the ‘tweak’ they put on turrets. (I’m.. actually pretty mad about that, but whatevs.)
I’m actually not a fan of re-scaling Healing Power. It’s a lazy solution.

So, thought goes, perhaps Healing Power in all of its weakness should pull double duty. That’s where the Boon Duration wish comes from. Lots of classes got their boon durations shredded, and Giver’s gear is garbage, so it seemed like a great way to add utility to a stat while enhancing support and restoring our busted boons.
Not to say it would shatter a meta, but it would give more incentive to filter in HealPow in a gear piece or two. The max-efficiency crowd would still gun for Berserker, since a few second seconds on a might stack wouldn’t mean anything for dungeons. The spot I’d be a smidge fuzzy on is the effect a possible +10% duration would be for PvP. 0.3 extra seconds of Protection doesn’t seem like a huge benefit. :P

Or, we obliterate Healing Power altogether. (And, quite frankly, we probably should. Good game design demands it.) But what does it get replaced with on gear? What happens to Nomad/Cleric/Zealot, except maybe a double-click choice? (It worked very well after the Magic Find removal.) Does Healing Power get rolled into Vitality, making defense even more viable in PvP? Does HealPow just stop mattering and all the healing skills base out at static values?
Even as someone who plays lots of heal/protection-oriented roles, I could get behind dumping Healing Power, I’m just not sure what the right approach is to compensate for the change and what would be best for the game.

That’s a lot of good pondering about all this, and raises a few good issues.

So it sounds to me like extra Boon Duration would be mostly useless in both PvP and PvE, unless you piled it to the sky, at which point it’s either OP (possibly in PvP) or doubly useless because you have to give up so much offense for it in exchange for so little (in PvE). You might be able to fix some of that by reworking some boons, but that’s another kettle of fish.

Rolling HP into Vit is probably OP for PvP unless the scaling is changed a lot; what about PvE? My understanding is that both Vit and Toughness are marginal in PvE anyway, and when you do mix some in (to survive bad pugs, etc), you usually want Toughness over Vit. So it seems to me that maybe this just tips the scales the other way, which might not be all bad.

Eliminating HP, and making outgoing heals mostly static (plus things like Sigil of Benevolence, and maybe an added Benevolence boon), plus maybe making incoming heals scale with Vit (or with max hit points) could work. Both that and the “roll it into Vit” proposal have issues with existing gear sets. What about eliminating it, but replacing Healing Power on all gear that currently has it with some amount of Boon Duration?

Out of all of these, I think maybe “dump it, possibly to be replaced with some other tricks” sounds like the most attractive option.

So your reason for why Healing Power should be a stat you should HAVE to increase to be functional in the game is simply so it has a reason to exist? Note that the default values on a LVL 80 DOES effect your healing abilty so that in of itself is a reason for it to exist. I’m not saying it could not use some tweaking as it has a less than useful status currently, but the ultimatum of “change it or remove it”, are not the only options here (leave it alone, is absolutely valid as the only people it is annoying are those that want to play “Healer” in a game that does not need a dedicated role for this).

Again, I ask in simple terms, WHY does the game design NEED to force players to put points in HEALING POWER?

On a side note, SUPPORT =/= HEALING so tying your desire to make a dedicated SUPPORT role a “thing” in the game does not mean that HEALING must be changed. As stated before, your desire to force dedicated roles into a game that does not currently need them, is what needs changing.

HEALING =/= croud control, buffing, debuffing, reflecting or is it?

Healing ins’t equal with cc, b, db or ref because every char and class can press ‘6’ on their keyboard to heal. There are no dedicated healers in this game and for that i praise the sun.

And CC and debuffing or reflecting isn’t covered under healing and boon duration now is it?

Buff duration is under “buffing” section, there are builds that enchance duration and those are good, working ones.
Healing in under “6” key.

I’m talking about healing power, heals, lifedrains, regeneration and boon duration.

From which 4 are under healing.
Which are minor because of that “6” button on every class and no dedicated healers.

But understand: saying Reflecting, Debuffing or CC has anything to do with healing or boon duration make me wonder who the actual troll is.

Question is why you only wrote reflecting, db and cc but no buff. Because buffs and buff duration go in pair and their duration is enough.
This again shows that its all about healing.

Why are -you- pulling posts out of context?

Because you try to hide it but its clear that its all about healing and you are whining that you can’t be a bootleg cleric from D&D.

Deal with it, people can heal themself and will rather have something that they can’t do in their group like additional buffer, someone to immobilise, scare off enemy, conditioner or additional DPS (which is also a support – killing enemies faster results in taking less damage – dead enemies ain’t biting anymore) then bootleg healer that most of the time is useless due to their awesome build just because everybody CAN and WILL heal themselves.

There are far more important things to adress then your bootleg clericing desires.

Frediosz.2718:

HEALING =/= croud control, buffing, debuffing, reflecting or is it?

Healing ins’t equal with cc, b, db or ref because every char and class can press ‘6’ on their keyboard to heal. There are no dedicated healers in this game and for that i praise the sun.

And CC and debuffing or reflecting isn’t covered under healing and boon duration now is it?

Buff duration is under “buffing” section, there are builds that enchance duration and those are good, working ones.
Healing in under “6” key.

I’m talking about healing power, heals, lifedrains, regeneration and boon duration.

From which 4 are under healing.
Which are minor because of that “6” button on every class and no dedicated healers.

But understand: saying Reflecting, Debuffing or CC has anything to do with healing or boon duration make me wonder who the actual troll is.

Question is why you only wrote reflecting, db and cc but no buff. Because buffs and buff duration go in pair and their duration is enough.
This again shows that its all about healing.

Why are -you- pulling posts out of context?

Because you try to hide it but its clear that its all about healing and you are whining that you can’t be a bootleg cleric from D&D.

Deal with it, people can heal themself and will rather have something that they can’t do in their group like additional buffer, someone to immobilise, scare off enemy, conditioner or additional DPS (which is also a support – killing enemies faster results in taking less damage – dead enemies ain’t biting anymore) then bootleg healer that most of the time is useless due to their awesome build just because everybody CAN and WILL heal themselves.

There are far more important things to adress then your bootleg clericing desires.

I actually grew up with tabletop RPG-ing and while I think you have right to have any opinions you want, I never got used or fell in love with playing D&D and I stayed mostly in cyberpunkish genres.

My problem is you can heal certain classes 100% with 1 push of a button. which lowers the skillcap. I’m looking at gurds with 15k healing under 2 buttons and 2 dodges even without healing power. while they only have 11K Hp in zerk mode.

And the suggestions made previously still is no move to the trinity, no dedicated healers

Just a nerf to base healing and scaling improvement and a boon duration on healing effectively creating a support attribute from an attribute line.
An Attribute line NO-ONE who’s objecting in this thread had any wish to use. Allowing others who ARE interested to regain 30% boon duration they had before the june 23 patch and get a bit more worth from heals and regeneration.

And buffing is ONLY related to healing with regards to REGENERATION. All other buffing including regeneration would be buffed by these suggestions.

For people willing to ignore this we will raise the skill cap a tiny amount. reducing your base heals by 25-40% wouldn’t be a big problem in 99% of the cases.

And If I want to be a bootleg healer I can already, so please do not stress yourself

My zealot water ele could heal up to 1250 Hp per auto. Which was nerfed to 960-1000. which was a ~15-20% reduction like most of my other healing build suffered at 23 june, not counting the loss of 30% Boon duration on all regens and other boons.

I ‘ll be honest: trying to offend me with off context remarks like you did, is not constructive critisism and I’m asking you to keep comments on track please.

PaxTheGreatOne.9472:

An Attribute line NO-ONE who’s objecting in this thread had any wish to use.

Sorry but I like to use healing power but I’m not supporting the need of any buff right now!
As I said when I’m not sure if people need or not healing (like anonymous FFA PUG groups) I enjoy running heal build, on top of granting other boons. But if I now the people and they don’t need or don’t want heal then I simply change my build. When HOt will be released, I’m sure there will be a lot of people who won’t be able to outdps the new content without losing any HP and will be happy to exchange 5 or 10 % of group DPS for a 20 % (minimum) buffed group regeneration.

That said you can’t just compare the loss of 100 points with the last patch because many profession were granted a new trait boosting their heal to other (it is baseline for water now). It is somehow a big boost for heal build and heal gear.

Sure 30 % were lost but I do think it is a good thing to try to get them through itemization (both gear and rune). And the fact that a berserker group is still able to maintain 25 stacks of might with a 100 % uptime or some healing build granting Regeneration with 100 % uptime show that boosting boon duration is still not required.

Eh…I still thank the content has to warrant the need for HP on the Meta (if that is still the topic of this thread), but I do want to spit ball. Regardless is the devs read the threads(which they do), reading constructive thoughts is fun, mostly.

I haven’t been able to read a lot of the HP to vitality merge post/threads, so If some one could bullet point one real quick(I did see the one w/ 1% HP per 100 Vit, so not that one).

What if HP was rolled into toughness as a sub stat (Ferocity->Crit Dmg) and it could be called Recovery? This way, players/classes with healing abilities, don’t have to trait to HP, but players can trait to receive MORE, when someone(including themselves) pops
a healing ability.

Spit balling
-Players trait for Toughness and Recover(y) increases by a static amount/percentage; “recover” better than those who do not.
-Tougher player=better self heal
-Tougher player=better incoming heal
-Tougher player=better/more defense against conditions(never thought conditions((or crit dmg for that matter)) should trump bring as much power as possible, but that’s just how I perceive it)
-Tougher player=better effect from regen(literally can’t synergize any better w/ “recovery”) but doesn’t effect any other boons, or boon duration of regen

Problems
-Rework to toughness (to accommodate the new secondary effect)
-Rework to all gear involving HP
-All the reworks effect on PvP/WvW(honestly didn’t think to deep into effects)

Like I said, this isn’t thoroughly thought out, so feel free to point out flaws, tweaks or let me know if this idea has already floated around. I did probably forget some kitten I had thought about while typing, but I’m checking in from work, so…you know.

P.S. Q:Shouldn’t you be working at work? A: Shut up, ain’t kitten to do today.

LTREEVEY.2348:

Eh…I still thank the content has to warrant the need for HP on the Meta (if that is still the topic of this thread), but I do want to spit ball. Regardless is the devs read the threads(which they do), reading constructive thoughts is fun, mostly.

I haven’t been able to read a lot of the HP to vitality merge post/threads, so If some one could bullet point one real quick(I did see the one w/ 1% HP per 100 Vit, so not that one).

What if HP was rolled into toughness as a sub stat (Ferocity->Crit Dmg) and it could be called Recovery? This way, players/classes with healing abilities, don’t have to trait to HP, but players can trait to receive MORE, when someone(including themselves) pops
a healing ability.

Spit balling
-Players trait for Toughness and Recover(y) increases by a static amount/percentage; “recover” better than those who do not.
-Tougher player=better self heal
-Tougher player=better incoming heal
-Tougher player=better/more defense against conditions(never thought conditions((or crit dmg for that matter)) should trump bring as much power as possible, but that’s just how I perceive it)
-Tougher player=better effect from regen(literally can’t synergize any better w/ “recovery”) but doesn’t effect any other boons, or boon duration of regen

Problems
-Rework to toughness (to accommodate the new secondary effect)
-Rework to all gear involving HP
-All the reworks effect on PvP/WvW(honestly didn’t think to deep into effects)

Like I said, this isn’t thoroughly thought out, so feel free to point out flaws, tweaks or let me know if this idea has already floated around. I did probably forget some kitten I had thought about while typing, but I’m checking in from work, so…you know.

P.S. Q:Shouldn’t you be working at work? A: Shut up, ain’t kitten to do today.

Toughness is the huge defensive workhorse, so it doesn’t need any more utility or power. Out of the defense stats, it’s the most desirable.

Vitality is seen as a counter to condition damage, and Toughness magnifies survivability. “Effective Hit Points,” as it were. If your toughness mitigates, for example, 40% of more damage than normal, then you’re only taking 60% in comparison, which means your effective HP per 100 per 10 points of Vitality is actually worth 166 HP. (100/60%)

Healing Power is a sustain component which counters both direct and condition damage. Its potency is again magnified by Toughness. But, it’s also the weakest and least desired defensive stat. It’s limited to a degree by Max HP, as you can’t overheal, so timing and amount of healing is important to avoid wasting it. Most fights are by attrition, so healing is designed not to let you go on gaining HP forever (unless you’re boss-awesome with dodges/blinds/all that good stuff), so it reinforces the weakness of Healing Power.

Vitality is mostly a passive starting point, and Healing Power grants a marginal +15-20% boost to healing numbers if one is really focused. That’s why I’m more inclined to add Healing Power to Vitality, so the combination feels more potent.

Rauderi.8706:

Vitality is mostly a passive starting point, and Healing Power grants a marginal +15-20% boost to healing numbers if one is really focused. That’s why I’m more inclined to add Healing Power to Vitality, so the combination feels more potent.

It will have the opposite effect unless the healing power scaling is crazy high in which case you’ve cause a balance nightmare.

What limits the effectiveness of healing power is that for every point of bonus vitality a player has you need 1.5x more Healing power.

As is healing power is already stupidly strong (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6DKZ45a0VU) case made…. I’d love to see a zerker stand there and take it and not die.

I really would like to see how the original design of attributes for this game was.
Like a chart or diagram.

Reading all this threads is really entertaining and instructive, but with every new analysis I see the “attribute system” of the game makes less and less sense in my head.

If “trinity” had any true strenght, it was being comprehensible.

There seems to be some “basic unbalance” in GW2 system: condi doesn’t have a direct counter like power does, while all the time modifiers barely exists, and the CC simply doesn’t have any relation with attributes at all.

The oddness of the system extends everywhere in the game mechanics: why to eliminate the “trinity” while keeping the 3 level armor convention?

I… I don’t know what to say. My obsesive but (thanks god) lazy internal “game ingeneer” feels totally defeated right now.

Ardid.7203:

There seems to be some “basic unbalance” in GW2 system: condi doesn’t have a direct counter like power does, while all the time modifiers barely exists, and the CC simply doesn’t have any relation with attributes at all.

Condi cleanse and bonus vitality and healing are all direct counters to condi.
Toughness, dodging, blocking, blinding, and healing are all direct counters to physical damage

By counter I mean something that effectively counters another thing in the same level/moment.

Toughness IS a direct, specific counter attribute to Power.

Dodging, blocking and blinding counter “attacks”, so effectively they avoid the effects of Condi as much as they avoid direct damage from Power. But they are NOT attributes.

Vitality absorbs any damage, including Power and Condi (but not limited to that… vitality also absorbs “envirormental” damage, like falling, sand rivers in Dry Top, fractal’s ambient agony, glint plane damage, etc).

Healing recover Vitality, so it doesn’t “counter” anything really.

Condi cleanse DOES directly counter Condi, but it also is not an attribute. It is not even affected by any attribute.

I kinda feel this system is “all over the place”…

Ardid.7203:

Vitality absorbs any damage, including Power and Condi (but not limited to that… vitality also absorbs “environmental” damage, like falling, sand rivers in Dry Top, fractal’s ambient agony, glint plane damage, etc).

Actually, all those scale to max hp, so vitality doesn’t really affect them. Someone wearing Carrion doesn’t survive a fall that would have killed someone in Rabid gear.

Just thought of another way Healing Power could be put to good use, and it would still encourage skillful play. We just recently got a stamina nerf via Vigor’s 50% reduction.

So I wonder what it would be like if stamina recovery got a bonus based on Healing Power. Crazy thought, and probably overpowered, but it’s worth thinking about.

Rauderi.8706:

Just thought of another way Healing Power could be put to good use, and it would still encourage skillful play. We just recently got a stamina nerf via Vigor’s 50% reduction.

So I wonder what it would be like if stamina recovery got a bonus based on Healing Power. Crazy thought, and probably overpowered, but it’s worth thinking about.

Again – too strong in pvp, too weak for pve.

After rereading the entire thread it seems that there is still a simple fix here.

Vitality gets an internal logarithmic buff to healing received
—meaning the higher you stack Vit the bigger the heals are incoming to you, with a sharp upturn near the Vit cap.

Healing Power gets tied to boon duration (forget every other spitball I threw in this vein on page 1 please)

Effectiveness of the #6 key on all classes gets reduced by something like 30-50%

In effect:

-A character who stacks Vitality, gets a #6 key that works pretty much like it does now.

-A character who stacks healing power gets,
——a. increased boon duration
——b. increased effectiveness of self heals, roughly 3/4 of the self heal of a vitality player.
——c. increased outgoing heal effectiveness which stacks with the incoming buff from vitality.

the scaling of these options will certainly need to be tweaked, but I’m reasonably confident that these simple changes, will result in an overhaul of the defense stats and make them a viably option in all game modes.

I don’t really support combining the two (vit and hp) as the only fix. it breaks a lot of gear sets, and because of how expensive Zealot is to make, I spend a huge chunk of change (real world and in game) getting all the kitten watchwork sprockets… and if you make those selectable to some other gear that does not have the flavor…. I personally would be upset by the change (and before you say it, my opinion does not override the legions of players in this game, and I am aware of this.)

I’d like to mention that the changes proposed here better define the synergy of the play styles provided by, say, carrion, nomad, and zealot

The Zealot is a ‘glass cannon’, who when cracked, can act quickly and repair itself and others.

Carrion is a strong condi build, who when healed by the zealot can keep on keepin’ on, but without support from the Nomad or the Zealot, can’t take the heat like a toughness stacker, but can survive a mistake.

The Nomad is a strictly support and survivability set. It keeps itself up, and buffed longer than the others. But it’s complete lack of damage output means that a good ‘glass cannon’ can still win a fight against it by attrition, because eventually the cannon should run the nomad out of cool downs, and open them up to efficient burst.

Also, a thought occurs to me as I typed the ‘play style definitions’ above…

If all the changes I suggested were made, there should probably be an internal healing reduction to incoming healing based on toughness, simply because they take less damage.
—-Their self healing, or #6 key, should not be affected by this, but the incoming healing from other zealots and nomads should be reduced, and the effects of self applied regen should be reduced to help the balance of PvP.

Narrrz.7532:

Rauderi.8706:

Just thought of another way Healing Power could be put to good use, and it would still encourage skillful play. We just recently got a stamina nerf via Vigor’s 50% reduction.

So I wonder what it would be like if stamina recovery got a bonus based on Healing Power. Crazy thought, and probably overpowered, but it’s worth thinking about.

Again – too strong in pvp, too weak for pve.

And I think the nerf to vigor(less dodge) is actually a way to increase importance of support heals when HoT drops. Not saying that people will spec for HP, but if they are making “better” A.I., nerfing mitigation(loss of boon duration including this new vigor change), nerfs and tweaks to dmg. Mix that with the release of not-so damagey oriented specs. I think Anet is just as ready for a more inclusive meta, as many of you. Only difference is, the time they spend on GW2 is not wasted.

BrokenGlass.9356:

After rereading the entire thread it seems that there is still a simple fix here.

have Vitality have an internal logarithmic buff to healing received

have Healing power tied to boon duration (forget every other spitball I threw in this vein on page 1 please)

reduce the effectiveness of the #6 key on all classes by something like 30-50%

The problem there is that you are kindof arbitrarily forcing people to take those attributes, rather than making them contribute attractively to the current balance.

It’s a solution, i grant, but i personally would prefer the current ‘problematic’ situation to this fix

As long as not every fight has enough pressure applied to need that kind of thing, that’s still OK: you get a case where, say, Dungeon A is best done by five zerk/sini/assassin glass cannons, and it’s all about dodging or mitigating the spikes; but Dungeon B is best done by a group with either a dedicated defender or a group with plenty of pressure-survival mixed in because the enemies pressure more and spike less.

Narrrz.7532:

BrokenGlass.9356:

After rereading the entire thread it seems that there is still a simple fix here.

have Vitality have an internal logarithmic buff to healing received

have Healing power tied to boon duration (forget every other spitball I threw in this vein on page 1 please)

reduce the effectiveness of the #6 key on all classes by something like 30-50%

The problem there is that you are kindof arbitrarily forcing people to take those attributes, rather than making them contribute attractively to the current balance.

It’s a solution, i grant, but i personally would prefer the current ‘problematic’ situation to this fix

(yes, i’m quoting my own post)

Right now, people do stack toughness for pve. (i’m people right?!)
They do take vitality, although the more informed players don’t stack it to nearly as great an extent.
Healing power, however, is almost entirely absent. You don’t really die to conditions in pve, and vs direct damage, toughness’ effect on increasing the effectiveness of healing is just so much greater it’s ludicrous – 45-60% per 1k toughness vs 15-25% for HP.
Essentially, if you understand the game mechanics of pve, you have no business using healing power. at all.

Adding boon duration or increasing the scaling on healing isn’t likely to ever make healing the go-to choice for pve. Its application is very limited (1-2 skills for most classes; 3-5 in best case, those being the classes with a much greater number of accessible skills, ie Ele & Eng) and it only extends survivability if you can already survive the levels of incoming damage you’re taking (if you get hit by a 1shot mechanic, 10 million healing power won’t do a thing for you).

This is the foundation of my case that Healing power is fundamentally broken as an attribute; The harder the content, the more healing is needed but the less the healing power attribute is useful especially compared to the other defensive attributes.

If the goal is to make it useful/viable/worthwhile in pve, the adjustment to scaling required to make it attractive compared to other defensive stats is so high that it would break it entirely for other game modes.

BrokenGlass.9356:

Effectiveness of the #6 key on all classes gets reduced by something like 30-50%

How about, no.

Again nerfing players innate healing is the wrong way to go about this. Changing the core of the game to promote healing, just brings us that much closer to the trinity. The entire reason heals are as good as they are is to promote self reliance so we don’t need outside healers.

TexZero.7910:

BrokenGlass.9356:

Effectiveness of the #6 key on all classes gets reduced by something like 30-50%

How about, no.

Again nerfing players innate healing is the wrong way to go about this. Changing the core of the game to promote healing, just brings us that much closer to the trinity. The entire reason heals are as good as they are is to promote self reliance so we don’t need outside healers.

except that ’zerk groups maintain scholar bonuses…

BrokenGlass.9356:

TexZero.7910:

BrokenGlass.9356:

Effectiveness of the #6 key on all classes gets reduced by something like 30-50%

How about, no.

Again nerfing players innate healing is the wrong way to go about this. Changing the core of the game to promote healing, just brings us that much closer to the trinity. The entire reason heals are as good as they are is to promote self reliance so we don’t need outside healers.

except that ’zerk groups maintain scholar bonuses…

Might be because they are making use of active damage mitigation tools. You know using the combat system as it was designed to be used.

I apologize if someone above already posted this… however this game was specifically designed to “not have the traditional MMORPG ‘holy trinity’ of tank, dps, and healer”.

So they made it so that nobody could heal, or even pure tank for that matter. And everyone had DPS options.

IF they buffed healing, which is a fair contention, they would “break their pledge to not have a holy trinity”.

The Master.2893:

I apologize if someone above already posted this… however this game was specifically designed to “not have the traditional MMORPG ‘holy trinity’ of tank, dps, and healer”.

So they made it so that nobody could heal, or even pure tank for that matter. And everyone had DPS options.

IF they buffed healing, which is a fair contention, they would “break their pledge to not have a holy trinity”.

“Not have the traditionnal holy trinity” doesnt mean tanks and healers are missing. It means tanks and healers arent required in any content.
In fact Anet tried to replace it by another trinity, DPS/control/support. And if support is not heal, heal is support.
So some classes, when specialized in support, should tend to be playable as “healer” (a la gw2, not 100% dedicated healer ok). And in fact, Ele and Engi can (and some other classes in lesser extent). But the PvE content is so trivial and the healing power so worthless, this support style is useless. Not because Anet wanted that, but because Anet failed.

Scipion.7548:

The Master.2893:

I apologize if someone above already posted this… however this game was specifically designed to “not have the traditional MMORPG ‘holy trinity’ of tank, dps, and healer”.

So they made it so that nobody could heal, or even pure tank for that matter. And everyone had DPS options.

IF they buffed healing, which is a fair contention, they would “break their pledge to not have a holy trinity”.

“Not have the traditionnal holy trinity” doesnt mean tanks and healers are missing. It means tanks and healers arent required in any content.
In fact Anet tried to replace it by another trinity, DPS/control/support. And if support is not heal, heal is support.
So some classes, when specialized in support, should tend to be playable as “healer” (a la gw2, not 100% dedicated healer ok). And in fact, Ele and Engi can (and some other classes in lesser extent). But the PvE content is so trivial and the healing power so worthless, this support style is useless. Not because Anet wanted that, but because Anet failed.

I think it’s more that they underestimated just how much damage could be negated through skillful play. They put in obvious, telegraphed, high damage mechanics but then found that even the normal boss damage could largely be mitigated & healed through.
Not wanting to punish everyone in order to arbitrarily force reliance on healing isn’t what i’d call a failure, just a design decision.

keeping healing power as an attribute when the current design doesn’t reward investment in it, that’s what i’d call failure.

Scipion.7548:

“Not have the traditionnal holy trinity” doesnt mean tanks and healers are missing. It means tanks and healers arent required in any content.
In fact Anet tried to replace it by another trinity, DPS/control/support. And if support is not heal, heal is support.

Well I am not entirely certain this is accurate representation of gameplay… nor is this logic “official by Anet”. A better understanding would be “mobility; and more mobility”

But the PvE content is so trivial and the healing power so worthless, this support style is useless. Not because Anet wanted that, but because Anet failed.

PvE content scales with player participation in some cases. If many players the encounters can get very hard and players can be 100-0 quickly in cases. Given how Anet doesn’t want this to turn to “healers being used to heal this”… instead focusing on “strategic gameplay” (mobility; dodge or otherwise) it is unlikely they would buff healing. Otherwise with strong healing in comparison to other MMORPGs you would have a meta shift to “tank/healer” as combat would be easier with a “tanky” character being healed with DPS players.

In other words… if healing ever was in line with other MMORPGs the “holy trinity” meta would instantly be formed… if intended or not. And because they insist upon not making this possible they will do everything to avoid this… making healing in this game ineffective.

Scipion.7548:

The Master.2893:

I apologize if someone above already posted this… however this game was specifically designed to “not have the traditional MMORPG ‘holy trinity’ of tank, dps, and healer”.

So they made it so that nobody could heal, or even pure tank for that matter. And everyone had DPS options.

IF they buffed healing, which is a fair contention, they would “break their pledge to not have a holy trinity”.

“Not have the traditionnal holy trinity” doesnt mean tanks and healers are missing. It means tanks and healers arent required in any content.
In fact Anet tried to replace it by another trinity, DPS/control/support. And if support is not heal, heal is support.
So some classes, when specialized in support, should tend to be playable as “healer” (a la gw2, not 100% dedicated healer ok). And in fact, Ele and Engi can (and some other classes in lesser extent). But the PvE content is so trivial and the healing power so worthless, this support style is useless. Not because Anet wanted that, but because Anet failed.

You say they failed, i say they hit the mark dead on.

Outside healing isn’t required for any content, and yet it’s still entirely possible to make function in all content and game modes.

The core and crux of this is people feel its weak, and that weakness is in fact by design.

They never wanted healing or a dedicated source of it to be a primary thought, or even check box for completing content.

What they set out to do was have minor aspect of each component of the trinity in every profession. Everyone brings something to the table to assist the party in some fashion.

The only other problem being brought up in this thread is the notion that people cannot play x build because of y metagame. Again a non-issue as all they have to do to play x build is play x build and ignore y metagame entirely.

There are several groups of players who already do this, but its the select minority who come on these forums to complain about the meta that seem to not understand how to form their own groups and play with people who share in their mindset.

Narrrz.7532:

keeping healing power as an attribute when the current design doesn’t reward investment in it, that’s what i’d call failure.

Yes this is fair observation: However it is intended by Anet nonetheless. A cost for not having the trinity therefore.

TexZero.7910:

The core and crux of this is people feel its weak, and that weakness is in fact by design.

They never wanted healing or a dedicated source of it to be a primary thought, or even check box for completing content.

What they set out to do was have minor aspect of each component of the trinity in every profession. Everyone brings something to the table to assist the party in some fashion.

Yes but remember not everyone has been playing GW2 from launch. They are not “aware” of Anet Policy on how the game was intended and are looking at it from an uninformed position: “Noobs” if you will.

They are expecting a WoW-style game in a game that was intentionally designed to be anything-but. The only failure here I suppose is that ArenaNet doesn’t “remind people” about their design strategies over and over again.

Until such time… you will see “noob” threads like this one pop up over and over. IT is best to simply not let it get to you that much or your head will hurt lots.

Indeed it is so…

TexZero.7910:

As is healing power is already stupidly strong (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6DKZ45a0VU) case made…. I’d love to see a zerker stand there and take it and not die.

This video is about 90% boon uptime and 10% healing power.

Chorazin.4107:

TexZero.7910:

As is healing power is already stupidly strong (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6DKZ45a0VU) case made…. I’d love to see a zerker stand there and take it and not die.

This video is about 90% boon uptime and 10% healing power.

Yes, and healing power doesn’t exist in a vacuum. The total package of passive defense and active healing represents an extremely powerful mix. So suggesting a buff to healing without considering the total implications to the game is absolutely ridiculous.

A few things to clear up.

I don’t want a trinity. At all. (Hold your misconceptions till the end please.)

Even if you buff healing by some odd 300% (I don’t want this) you still aren’t at the trinity…. why?

AGGRO.

The only class with a taunt that I am aware of is ranger… and its on the pet… and we all know how quick they (even bears) die under fire.

Mobs get upset with you for being top dps, application of the most conditions, proximity, ammount of toughness, target swap built into AI and damage dealt, including damage from AoE and cleve.

So no matter how much they buff anything, there cant be a trinity.

Now could there be a “holy binary?”

I hope not.

This tread isnt about “how to make healing power manditory.”

It isnt about “how to make healers (as in non dps. Eg: WoW’s ‘holy’ priest.) viable in all content”

Its about how to make healing power worth taking

Ferocity is worth taking… but do we all use it?

Toughness is worth taking…. do we all use it?

Are ferocity or toughness manditory?

Some of you are gonna say yes to ferocity… but sinister disagrees with you.

I already ignore the meta. I’ve found very few “meta” players I want to group with twice.

I want the state of the builds in the game to be such that when people look up “how should I build my dude? Cause I lack the creativity to come up with something.” They should find more than one build.

Also that build has a high skill cap.

So if you run with your ’zerk friends and all keep up 25 might and scholar bonuses, more power to you. Literally. (See what I did there?)

I want to be able play what I want. I also want to be able to help people with no creativity, or skill from having a bad time all night.

I don’t want to force you to take stats you don’t like, or think are sub optimal.

I want healing power to be a worthwhile option. And it is now… in the way conditions were befor june 23rd.

Aye, that’s what I’d like too. Having a bunch of options that are so obviously garbage that nobody would even think about using them isn’t my idea of good, even if there are a few that I really like too.

(Full disclosure: most of my toons are actually mostly-zerk, so this is not about wanting to buff my pet build or just pointless contrarianism.)

BrokenGlass.9356:

A few things to clear up.

I don’t want a trinity. At all. (Hold your misconceptions till the end please.)

Even if you buff healing by some odd 300% (I don’t want this) you still aren’t at the trinity…. why?

AGGRO.

The only class with a taunt that I am aware of is ranger… and its on the pet… and we all know how quick they (even bears) die under fire.

Mobs get upset with you for being top dps, application of the most conditions, proximity, ammount of toughness, target swap built into AI and damage dealt, including damage from AoE and cleve.

So no matter how much they buff anything, there cant be a trinity.

Now could there be a “holy binary?”

I hope not.

This tread isnt about “how to make healing power manditory.”

It isnt about “how to make healers (as in non dps. Eg: WoW’s ‘holy’ priest.) viable in all content”

Its about how to make healing power worth taking

Ferocity is worth taking… but do we all use it?

Toughness is worth taking…. do we all use it?

Are ferocity or toughness manditory?

Some of you are gonna say yes to ferocity… but sinister disagrees with you.

I already ignore the meta. I’ve found very few “meta” players I want to group with twice.

I want the state of the builds in the game to be such that when people look up “how should I build my dude? Cause I lack the creativity to come up with something.” They should find more than one build.

Also that build has a high skill cap.

So if you run with your ’zerk friends and all keep up 25 might and scholar bonuses, more power to you. Literally. (See what I did there?)

I want to be able play what I want. I also want to be able to help people with no creativity, or skill from having a bad time all night.

I don’t want to force you to take stats you don’t like, or think are sub optimal.

I want healing power to be a worthwhile option. And it is now… in the way conditions were befor june 23rd.

the core problem is that a strengthened healing power attribute still won’t be ‘worth taking’ for pve. There’s no real condition pressure in pve, and all classes have sufficient access to condi cleanse to (mostly) deal with the little that there is.

Toughness is simply a far, far better investment point for point – your 300% numbers aren’t far off. that would equate to about a 50-60% boost to base healing strength from an investment of 1000 points – about where toughness is now (toughness is actually even stronger than this, proportionally, at the 500 point mark). Given that toughness also extends your vitality buffer vs direct damage, it’s still going to be a preferable attribute until/unless we see conditions becoming an overwhelming force in pve, which would, to me, feel like an arbitrary forced change to attempt to strengthen vitality and healing relative to toughness

Of course, that 300% increase can’t apply to pvp. Healing is already, if not ‘strong’, then at least viable and useful, so a change of this magnitude would require separate healing power ratios for pve & pvp. As i see it, if an attribute is so dysfunctional that making it balanced requires a multiplier edging towards an order of magnitude difference between pve & pvp, it’s time to rethink that attribute.

NikeEU.7690:

Yes, and healing power doesn’t exist in a vacuum. The total package of passive defense and active healing represents an extremely powerful mix. So suggesting a buff to healing without considering the total implications to the game is absolutely ridiculous.

There are a lot of problems with this video if you are using it to somehow justify an argument against a boost to healing power. In fact you could have a whole thread on mob AI, terrain exploitation, mob abilities, healing power, guardians, the protection boon, boon duration increase, boons in general, etc etc. But ultimately this video shows a corner case(and pointless) scenario, i can drive a nail into wood with a rock. The rock isnt going to break down and need replacing, but you know a nail gun is probably a better tool because efficiency is a key component to look at. It takes this Guard over an hour to complete the dungeon, or you could go get 5 zerks and roll through the dungeon efficiently in 5-10mins.

The problem ultimately stems from building the game engine around small group combat and then piggy backing that engine into a WvW scenario. Having a bunker tank warrior/guard who can push into numbers is useful in WvW. Having that same bunker in sPvP is broken when it requires 3 or 4 players to get him off point.

The 3 game modes WvW, sPvP and PvE are vastly different, they are not alike at all and no amount of Anet trying to group them together is going to make that change. I understand why they have the same mechanics(99%) across all 3 formats due to costing of constantly updating 3 different game modes.

There are some core mechanics built into the game already that can be used however to adjust healing power. The outgoing healing bonus to other players being the main one. This means if you want to bunker on point you are still left with what is currently available, as outgoing healing will not help you. It will only add extra healing to your group. Boon duration is the other main one, if you want to spec into healing power having it provide some boon duration would be useful. How much is of course open to debate.

The other side of this coin is poison, which can help reduce overall healing effectiveness. There would be a lot more emphasis or play and counter play around applying poisons/clearing poisons.

Chorazin.4107:

NikeEU.7690:

Yes, and healing power doesn’t exist in a vacuum. The total package of passive defense and active healing represents an extremely powerful mix. So suggesting a buff to healing without considering the total implications to the game is absolutely ridiculous.

There are a lot of problems with this video if you are using it to somehow justify an argument against a boost to healing power. In fact you could have a whole thread on mob AI, terrain exploitation, mob abilities, healing power, guardians, the protection boon, boon duration increase, boons in general, etc etc. But ultimately this video shows a corner case(and pointless) scenario, i can drive a nail into wood with a rock. The rock isnt going to break down and need replacing, but you know a nail gun is probably a better tool because efficiency is a key component to look at. It takes this Guard over an hour to complete the dungeon, or you could go get 5 zerks and roll through the dungeon efficiently in 5-10mins.

The problem ultimately stems from building the game engine around small group combat and then piggy backing that engine into a WvW scenario. Having a bunker tank warrior/guard who can push into numbers is useful in WvW. Having that same bunker in sPvP is broken when it requires 3 or 4 players to get him off point.

The 3 game modes WvW, sPvP and PvE are vastly different, they are not alike at all and no amount of Anet trying to group them together is going to make that change. I understand why they have the same mechanics(99%) across all 3 formats due to costing of constantly updating 3 different game modes.

There are some core mechanics built into the game already that can be used however to adjust healing power. The outgoing healing bonus to other players being the main one. This means if you want to bunker on point you are still left with what is currently available, as outgoing healing will not help you. It will only add extra healing to your group. Boon duration is the other main one, if you want to spec into healing power having it provide some boon duration would be useful. How much is of course open to debate.

The other side of this coin is poison, which can help reduce overall healing effectiveness. There would be a lot more emphasis or play and counter play around applying poisons/clearing poisons.

Well said.

Also, Anet has proven the effectiveness of a buff to PvE but not to PvP… as with how confusion funcioned before june 23rd. In PvP confusion had half the effectiveness it did in PvE content. And comming from a confusion shatter mesmer, I can say… the fix worked well and I could (and still do) take virtually the same build into pvp and pve and not feel too strong in one, or too weak in another.

Im waiting to see what they announce at PAX, because they have outright said they will be announcing core game mechanics changes.

And to the poster a page or two ago who mentioned the remnants ‘Veteri’ spec as not needing a buff. You are correct. After looking at the traits in the calculator, so many of them buff only outgoing healing, that I’m rather sure the outgoing healing buff is a big part of how to handle this.