(Beware! Wall of text following)
Many discussions are going on in these forums, and thx to those, confronting myself with other players, i have recently stopped a bit to think about what the game offers and how it could be improved to suit more for the “pro play”.
I personally hate QQs so i would like to open a constructive, QQ-free topic, where we can discuss about how to raise the pvp skillcap (thus improving effectiveness of teamwork in a teamfight) without making the game hard to learn for new players.
[Dont jump on me if you dont agree with what i’ll state later on, lets just try to point out something good, cause if Anet actually tells some truths, they do read and talk about good threads. ]
Taking out the holy trinity…
As was stated on other topics, GW2 took out the holy trinity, which was a good and brave step away from the usual formula. Some can dislike the idea or love it (i would love it), but seems like the holy trinity, and its innate teamwork factor didnt get its proper replacement.
By taking out a dedicated healer role, all professions needed some self-sustaining abilities, and the support role could spread on every profession rather than being focused on one or two of them; this could be really good, cause it could bring a great variety of setups in different teams. Any profession should be able to cover different
roles with different builds, thus increasing the variety of the encounters in a match.
Fact is that all this possible variety isnt happening, we mostly see same classes built and playing in the same way, specially at higher pvp levels. I was asking myself why ? Is it cause ppl lack of creativity ? I dont think so, at least I dont, in every game I step I always take my time for buildcrafting experiments.
In the time i spent in this game i tried every profession and a kittenload of builds, and not just the most used, i deeply explored many classes possbilities, untill (quite soon actually) tried out some full-support oriented builds.
Cause you know, if there can be full dps builds, tanky builds, why not full supportive builds ? Someone should be allowed to choose a support build for his team setup and his actions should actually be as decisive as a dps spec.
An interesting question to put is “When are you really decisive in the flow of a battle?” (not considering game mode for now, just a basic teamfight), probably the common answer would be, when i burst down my target (or stomp it).
…left us with tanks, busters and…. what about support?
Support doesnt feel to be such a decisive role, infact you dont see crowds of support builds running around, why ?
What i think should happen is: player X is getting focused -> call for help -> allies protect/heal/support him.
This just cant happen here for a simple reason, by the time you say “i’m – getting – focused”, unless you are a bunker you are probably down already. So here start the race to who burst more, focusing on the target, this leads to building bunkers that are able to survive against burst builds.
From what stated above seems like support can’t be effective for a matter of “low expected time to live”, <<dont bother healing allies, by the time you unleash your ‘powerfull’ heals they’ll be down already>>.
Yeah i know, lately i spoke like the only form of support is healing, yet its also preventing damage, cleansing conditions, applying boons; But many skills able to provide that kind of support has really a short effect compared to their cooldowns, or to say this better…. considering how quickly an ally can be downed, trading dps for support doesnt look a good choise.