Guild Wars 2

Hello all!
This post is about non-raid PvE open world content/combat and how support (namely, healer) specs could fit into underpopulated zones.

Overall Design:
More allied NPCs (aNPC) roaming throughout Renown Heart regions.
aNPCs actively engage combat with enemies/structures whose deaths contribute to Renown Heart tasks.
aNPCs deal and receive zero damage when no players are around.
aNPCs deal and receive considerable damage when players are around.
aNPCs damage values scale down with each player in the area … or…
aNPCs damage values scale down for every x amount of Power, Condition Damage per player in the area).

Completing tasks that require one to defeat enemies or destroy structures can be difficult for lone players specced to heal/support. If Supports were accompanied by active aNPCs that did the damage for them, then potentially Supports could complete these tasks at an efficient pace.

The inspiration comes from skirmishes between Seraph and White Mantle forces in Lake Doric. It feels incredibly rewarding to play as a Healer in this setup because success comes from defeating the enemy and keeping your allies alive. However, I have often found that these skirmishes are outside of the Renown Heart regions and not many opportunities like this are present elsewhere in the world. Also, the Seraph forces don’t do a lot of damage, so defeating the White Mantle as a Support takes a bit of time.

Another example is also in Lake Doric. Just north of Lakeside Bazaar when the Bloodstone Bomb and Mauler event is up. Seraph forces charge one by one toward the event only to do miniscule amounts of damage and die fairly quickly (mostly because they don’t actively defend themselves).

If these Seraph forces were to scale as described above, then Supports could potentially complete the event efficiently without needing a few players to help. All the damage would come from the Seraph forces and the Seraph forces would be sustained by Supports.

Arguments for the Overall Design components
(1, 2, & 3) aNPCs will help Supports complete tasks, events, or just make the Support-experience enjoyable. If the Support is looking to do the Renown Heart task, aNPCs will be available and active within region so Supports can obtain credit toward the task. aNPCs will take and deal zero damage with no players around so that an opportunity will be available once a player does come within range.

(4) Once a player is around, the aNPC will begin to deal and take damage. If the player is a support, they can sustain the aNPC to increase the overall allied DPS output. If the player is a DPS, then the aNPC can die or whatever and the DPS will have no trouble killing things.

(5) aNPCs will scale down with every player around (probably starting at 3 players) so that aNPCs aren’t too effective. This means that at 1 player, aNPCs will deal 100% damage, 3 players : 50% damage, 4 players : 33% damage, etc. I don’t think three Supports would have a problem defeating enemies even if they’re all Minstrels (?), but how likely is one to be an open-world situation like that?

(6) aNPCs will deal considerably less damage if the players within the area have high damage stats. Since all lvl 80 players have 1000 Power, aNPCs could scale down by x% for every 1000 Power, and so down-scaling would occur with each player until the aNPC deals 0% damage. But if players around this aNPC are specced into Power or Condition Damage (and possibly Precision, Ferocity, Expertise), then the aNPC will do even less damage. DPS players don’t need additional allies to kill things.

All feedback is appreciated! Hopefully ideas like this will be implemented for future maps/events and will encourage players to play support specs in open-world content if they want to.

Also doing some events outside the “kill stuff” would be helpfull. For example the “mushroom events” in the second HoT map you had quite a nice diversity, in one event you had to break a set amount mushroom, in the next one you were supposed to rez die small mushrooms while fighting off enemies but also could just heal them up while stunning the enemy….. thats what my druid did all the time. So having events with different approaches would be nice….. and for the next expansion I kind of expect that.

But I would also not be to unhappy if they used lake doric as a blueprint on how to create “battle/siege themed” maps. Because with every character you could solve the events a little different: With my Reaper I just jumped into the frontlines and AoE the hell out of them. With my Daredevil on the other side I jumped always at an isolated target (mostly ele or mesmer) to focus that down and prevent it from casting skills. And the druid approach you already mentioned.