Guild Wars 2

So, I’ve been gone for god knows how long because I couldn’t stand the zerg mentality and the all dps run around like a chicken with your head cut off game play. So I left for games where I could be a true tank or true healer once again. Now I am wondering can one be either of those things in this game yet or is it still be like a DPS with it’s head cut off routine that really just seems like a giant cluster-@%#$?

Healing is used in very small cases and mostly just for condition cleanse stacking. Currently the mechanics don’t work well for group healing. Most mobs either out dps any healing you can give or bosses straight out 1 hit kill.

I still roll healer builds, but no, they aren’t generally ideal compared to dps.

I really don’t suggest doing tank or healer, but if I were to do it, I wouldn’t just rely on the heal/tanking the damage, you need to use damage mitigation such as reflect, block, protection, tanking the damage will outdps any heal/armor. The reason why people go Zerker is that you can still use all the damage mitigation to avoid dying while doing alot of damage.

So to sum it up, healing and armor won’t be enough in any case, you still need to mostly rely on your utility, protection/reflect/absorb/block for the heavy damage, and tank the smaller attack.

That’s sad. looks like I’ll stick to WoW and Rift because I can’t stand the inability to not heal or tank when someone is going down. It’s to much of a zerg mentality of just throwing damage at something with no real mechanics for me to have any fun. Tha and I’m still upset about Anet just blatantly lieing on their manifesto and making the game have that vertical progression (remember now when I left, it was after that November patch.

I totally understand how you feel, I have always played a Tank so I rolled a guardian in gw2 but even though I can’t tank the raw damage for my allies, doesn’t mean I can’t help them, the only difference is in the way I do it, put a wall of reflection so they don’t get hit by projectile, give them Aegis (block) right before the boss charge up his attack, blind the foes before they attack, put a wall they can’t cross to hit them before they reach us.

It’s different and it’s not something everyone would like and I can see that you gave it a try, it’s a shame you didn’t enjoy it as much as I do.

I like it personally, after 10+ years it’s refreshing to play a MMO where DPS classes are not laughed upon when they search for dungeons/instances and stand around for hours whereas tanks and healers instantly get invited.

I won’t say it’s a perfect system but it works for me.

On December 10, each profession received a new healing skill. The majority of these were designed to aid in group healing, or at least to be more effective when playing in a group.

Other than that, there is no true “healing role” in group play. Instead, you have “support”, which consists of healing, condition removal and dealing out boons. Combo fields and combo finishers really help in this role.

Note that any profession can fulfill such a role, although some will be better equipped for it than others. Also note that all professions are still expected to contribute to DPS to some extent, regardless of any other roles they may fulfill in group play.

Guild Wars 2 uses a different setup of group roles than most other MMOs, and I want to argue that this has mostly been successful. The fact that some players interpret this as “Everyone is DPS, and there is nothing else” does not detract from this.

zMajc.4659:

I like it personally, after 10+ years it’s refreshing to play a MMO where DPS classes are not laughed upon when they search for dungeons/instances and stand around for hours whereas tanks and healers instantly get invited.

I won’t say it’s a perfect system but it works for me.

As a warrior i cannot count the times a ranger/necro/engi got kicked from a group, simply because they are considered not effective enough.

Trust me, its exactly the same thing

Ath.2531:

zMajc.4659:

I like it personally, after 10+ years it’s refreshing to play a MMO where DPS classes are not laughed upon when they search for dungeons/instances and stand around for hours whereas tanks and healers instantly get invited.

I won’t say it’s a perfect system but it works for me.

As a warrior i cannot count the times a ranger/necro/engi got kicked from a group, simply because they are considered not effective enough.

Trust me, its exactly the same thing

It’s actually worse. Instead of leaving one group out, its the opposite. People only want one group. Leaving the numerous others in the dust. As a Tank/Healer/Support player in most MMOs, I am not feeling the love. I still support in ways I can, but its not the same at all. =/

I play a warrior/guardian/mesmer mainly but i never, ever kicked anyone from group because of their class, only for playing seriously badly, but yes i seen many “NO RANGER/ENGI” group descriptions.

It could easily be fixed if they tweaked the unwated classes a bit or simply gave them some dps group support skills.

Some professions are harder to play well, and there are some balance issues. It’s mostly a problem of player perception. If “everyone” believes that warriors, guardians and mesmers are the “best” (meaning easiest) professions to play to maximum effect, then by default all other professions must be “bad”, and such players refuse to associate with them.

This is 80% the problem of closed-minded players, and there is only so much a game developer can do.

For example, in the early days of Guild Wars 1, nobody would consider inviting a mesmer to a group, as they were considered dead weight. It took over half a year for the learning curve and understanding to sink in that this squishy debuffer could deal more damage than most others, if played well. There were little to no balance changes to the professions during this time.

Jornophelanthas.1475:

Some professions are harder to play well, and there are some balance issues. It’s mostly a problem of player perception. If “everyone” believes that warriors, guardians and mesmers are the “best” (meaning easiest)

That’s not why Mesmers are counted among them. They are considered ‘optimal’ in certain setups (3 warriors + 1 guard + 1 mes) because of their elite and reflects. They are considered one of the more difficult classes to play and particularly to level (though I disagree about the latter), which is why so many of them get boosted and crafted to max, and then only used in that dungeon setup.

They’re actually close to the bottom of the class chain in terms of numbers, IIRC under Warrior, Guardian, Ranger, Ele and Thief. You see a decent number of them earlier on, but halfway through the level curve, they just get dropped as folks reroll something else.

zMajc.4659:

…
It could easily be fixed if they tweaked the unwanted classes a bit or simply gave them some dps group support skills.

Classes pretty much are different from each other, because they are based in different class mechanics. This mechanics although different are balanced between themselves and cannot be boosted to situational encounters. So the way to solve it, imho is by the use of conditional mechanics.

Bosses/Mini Bosses should have/be (could be randomly added when starting of a Explorable mode path):

- Immune to melee damage, +5-10% damage received from ranged attacks;
- Immune to ranged damage, +5-10% damage received from melee attacks;
- Damage halved from Bleed, Confusion and Torment; Double Damage from Burning and Poison;
- Damage halved from Burning and Poison; Double Damage from Bleed, Confusion and Torment;
- Immune to Movement impairing effects;
- Immune to control effects;
- Immunity to all damage except under a specific condition;

You get the picture.
Using this kind of boss and miniboss mechanics, the use of 5xWarriors, maybe isn’t the best DPS combination to end the dungeon!

/cheers

If it wasn’t for their utilities Mesmer would get shafted in exchange to a class with a more stable dps.

Engineer is just tedious to play. With grenades, you’d be pressing 1 like nobody’s business.

Ranger is just 1 tweak away from being a popular class. If only sword auto doesn’t root you, it would be so much easier to dodge in melee.

Ath.2531:

zMajc.4659:

I like it personally, after 10+ years it’s refreshing to play a MMO where DPS classes are not laughed upon when they search for dungeons/instances and stand around for hours whereas tanks and healers instantly get invited.

I won’t say it’s a perfect system but it works for me.

As a warrior i cannot count the times a ranger/necro/engi got kicked from a group, simply because they are considered not effective enough.

Trust me, its exactly the same thing

I cannot count it either as a Mesmer/guardian but it forms a tiny portion of my experience, and most if those parties tended to suck in terms of attitude so you wouldn’t want to play with them anyways.

Besides, that’s a whole different problem to the anti-DPS trinity class picking. It’s class balancing, which happens in every MMO (if you happen to be the worst DPS class, hahahaha gl getting into a party).

5x warriors never was the best DPS group out there.

It’s just dumb pug mentality that hurr durr warriors are the best because 100b.