Guild Wars 2

Will we ever see tanking and healing in the game or will it just be throwing dead bodies at a boss until he dies always? Not everyone enjoys being a dps class, some like to heal and tank, your game dosnt allow that(yes i know there is healing and tank specs but 0 agro control and 0 targeted healing its just aoe.) I’d also like to know when you plan on balancing your game from just being ranged classes/specs? I picked a warrior to tank/melee not use a rifle or bow……

I’ve only ever done the level 30 and 40 instances and on story mode at that, I spend most of my time in WvW. However, I find even on the NPCs there if you sit in melee range and don’t move you will keep aggro. Those who get aggro and don’t want it can back off, then you’ll retake it. Not sure if that helps.

As for healing, yes it’s AoE, but it’s there. However you have damage debuffs, blinds and stuff available to help – one 4k damage attack avoided via blind is equivilent to 4k worth of single target healing so to speak. Act instead of react.

everyone tanks, heals and does dps

you’re basically crying because your porsche doesn’t fly like a cessna. if you want a game where you only do 1 of the 3, wow does that and will always do that. it’s boring. it’s predictable. it requires less attention and skill.

no

If you’re just throwing dead bodies at a boss, then you’re doing it wrong, I’m afraid.

Everybody in the party has a hybrid damage/support role. You mitigate damage through buffs (such as protection), debuffs (such as weakness), and controls, then avoid what you cannot mitigate and heal what you cannot avoid.

And yes, you can play melee. You just can’t stand there and take hits to your face.

I hope never. I like the insanity.

Well, everyone knew that it would be this way…. But I must agree that being a melee class and have to use ranged weapons is not fun. Like a giant guardian running around with a scepter….. Well, but I think that melee classes can try to stay melee, it just takes more tactics, instead of staying in front of bosses and let other healing classes heal me… You have to time your evades and run a little more to have the right skills in hand to stay slaying your enemy. New mecanics demand new tactics. And, when you have a good party and get used to it, its just someone falls and the others come to get him up. If 2 people get to help 1 downed guy it gets much faster…..But yeah…its different.

No holy trinity is one of the huge features (and the BEST feature, imo) of the game. Don’t expect to suddenly see them implementing this. The lack of a holy trinity makes this far better than any MMO out there, I think.

Also, what Sulmith Greysin said. Everyone does everything. I play an elementalist. I dps, I heal (quite a lot, actually), I even “tank” a little. It’s much nicer not having all these pre-defined class roles and being able to do whatever I want. I especially love just grabbing 4 friends and doing a dungeon, rather than going “Well, you can’t come because we already have a warrior, go roll a priest.”

I’m loving this new format. It’s a little chaotic, but it’s refreshing. I went from WoW to Rift to TOR and they all have the exactly same battle system, which is fast approaching 10 years old. It was past time for a change and, as much as GW2 battle system might not be perfect, it’s different and feels new. I really hope that Anet never ever implements a rigid trinity system found in pretty much every other theme-park MMO out there.

While some classes are better suited to ‘heal’ or party support, the game was intentionally designed to kill the tank and spank model. Yes at times you can do it, but when you pull up to a champ don’t bother you can’t do it.

Water ellys make for great healers as do guardians, and every class has ways to build the char to help out a party or buff themselves. At the same time if you just stand in the strongest attacks the boss is doing you will go down no matter how much effort they are putting into keeping things going for you. There is no monk and there is no ‘hate’ for purposes of drawing agro. Unless I’m in the game, everything seems to go for me, so everything in the game hates Grim …

There is a form of tanking and a form of healing in this game it just isn’t the same as most games. I can tell you from experience that having a nice high defense person dancing around an enemy in melee is really helpful. Also having someone dropping Protection and Regen at the right times, pulling conditions off people, can be REALLY helpful.

That said… thinking that you can “tank” in this game by standing in melee and just mashing keys is the wrong way to go. Tanking is about dodging, interrupting, immobilizing, crippling, blinding, Aegis. This is why a lot of people interchange tanking with control for this game. Most importantly though, you need to recognize that your job is to help kill things, you can’t JUST tank. A good tank will be rezzing people because they can live through the hits for example.

You can “tank” but what you cannot do is stand in melee 100% of the time and rotate through a rotation and expect to live or be useful.

I tank and heal all myself – I don’t need to rely on healers. It opens the door to blame others for your lack of skill anyways remember these comments “WTF WHERE WERE MY HEALS!!!!”

Was it really the healer? I played a tank and a healer most of my 7 yrs in WoW and let me tell you those 2 classes took the MOST abuse.

Here in Gw2? That is all gone. Its up to the individual to handle his own business and I love that. I run a tank/support/heal spec most of the time and I take alot of punishment. I can stay in fights quite a while, but when i need to dodge, I do and when I need to run and change out to ranged, I do and when I need to heal I do. I don’t need to rely on anyone else. If I fail – I am to blame.

Fighting in this game is so much more versatile – I wouldn’t have it any other way.

The idea they have tried to fool people into thinking, that the game takes “more skill” to play because of no heal/tank and added a dodge feature, is just laziness on the part of the developer, and sadly too many people have bought into this idea. They can slack on mechanics, which they obviously have. I agree with Prophet, why would anyone make a kittened ranged class like a warrior or guardian when they wanted to be melee. Its just a lack of a classic mmo game feature that a lot of people like.

Chances are the answer is no. A) Because GW1 did it B ) Because it is a major selling point of the game C) Because a lot of people love it.

Individual player skill now comes into account… and unskilled players hate that. All the “skilled” raiders from other MMOs are coming here and suddenly being accountable for their own skill, their own survival, and not being able to be carried by ANYONE through the instance. If they suck, it shows. Now all the self proclaimed "skilled’ raiders are practically being called out publicly by the game mechanics and… well, they hate it.

Personally? I love this system. It’s an amazing design and I’m glad to know it won’t ever change. WoW, however, does still have the trinity for anyone who just can’t stand this system.

It’s like you people read a forum post, then immediately start your own thread to “discuss” some statement or comment from the previous post.

It’s maddening.

No there will not be Trinity specs in this game. The devs said as much, several times.

Jerakor.1678:

There is a form of tanking and a form of healing in this game it just isn’t the same as most games. I can tell you from experience that having a nice high defense person dancing around an enemy in melee is really helpful. Also having someone dropping Protection and Regen at the right times, pulling conditions off people, can be REALLY helpful.

That said… thinking that you can “tank” in this game by standing in melee and just mashing keys is the wrong way to go. Tanking is about dodging, interrupting, immobilizing, crippling, blinding, Aegis. This is why a lot of people interchange tanking with control for this game. Most importantly though, you need to recognize that your job is to help kill things, you can’t JUST tank. A good tank will be rezzing people because they can live through the hits for example.

You can “tank” but what you cannot do is stand in melee 100% of the time and rotate through a rotation and expect to live or be useful.

Wow good post! I do just that too- I find myself rezzing people a lot in big fights because I am the only one that can. Pop ignore pain and hit my shouts for heals and I can stay down and rez someone no problem. Sometimes the outcome of the fight is decided by that one rez… because in turn he rezzed others and we succeeded.

The Claw of the Ice Dragon we were fighting last night fears people over and over. My shouts totally negated that mechanic and I did it from range. People were like omg thank you thank you thank you!!!!

Greatdark.4652:

The idea they have tried to fool people into thinking, that the game takes “more skill” to play because of no heal/tank and added a dodge feature, is just laziness on the part of the developer, and sadly too many people have bought into this idea. They can slack on mechanics, which they obviously have. I agree with Prophet, why would anyone make a kittened ranged class like a warrior or guardian when they wanted to be melee. Its just a lack of a classic mmo game feature that a lot of people like.

lack of features is what i thought the last time i afktanked heroic DS in wow. push what lights up, pay attention when DBM makes noise, make sure to push deathstrike a lot

i’ve noticed a lot of people who broke into MMORPGs with wow think wow defined the genre. wow has no RPG elements and since you can push a button to get a group of people you don’t need to talk to and still “complete end-game” it’s not even an MMO really. it’s a game lobby. it belongs on xbox.

the people who will spend money in this game do NOT want that. if we did we’d be afk in sw or org right now with the 200,000 other people who are logged in. bet there are 100,000 people who are so bored right now they’re spamming something about thunderfury and arguing about whether a 360 degree turn is a circle or not

to kitten with that

I want someone to blame when we wipe :<

Right now am blamming who doesn’t rezz teamates and feels bad, I WANT HEALERS!

Sulmith Greysin.5124:

everyone tanks, heals and does dps

you’re basically crying because your porsche doesn’t fly like a cessna. if you want a game where you only do 1 of the 3, wow does that and will always do that. it’s boring. it’s predictable. it requires less attention and skill.

no

Every single class is dps, with a bit of support and control tacked on at the last minute. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but some people like to specialize. One of the few things that I dislike about GW2 is this lack of specialization. Specialization also doesn’t inherently make things boring and predictable. For example, in a game that caters to support roles the different play types can be arbitrarily complex. This negates the “boring and predictable” argument. The implied “go play wow” isn’t helping either. If I was willing to hop on a kitteny gear treadmill to participate in pvp I never would have bought GW2. I give mad props to ANet for including the level/gear-up feature for spvp, it is my absolute favorite part of this game.

With an organized group of people together you can moderately simulate some of these roles. For example, one person in your group takes Toughness/Vitality traits and plans to take the majority of the damage from a boss fight. Of course it doesn’t have a set aggro table but with proper placement you can take the aggro of a boss for the most part. It may turn and hit other players and they can use what they have in their arsenal to avoid that damage.

I am actually glad that the roles have been taken away in a sense. I would much rather be rolling around on the ground dodging things and taking care of myself instead of only doing one role and being unable to help take damage from a boss or heal my teammates.

It just a different type of battle system. Just because a game doesn’t have tank/heal/dps doesn’t mean it is wrong. It’s just different..