Guild Wars 2

3 quick questions

1. Do you like having no dedicated healers?

2. Do you wish you could play a dedicated healer(because that’s your play style)?

3. Do you feel the game achieved balance by taking out dedicated healers?

Personally, my play style in every MMO I ever played (SWG, SWTOR, Warhammer) was dedicated healer/some damage.

SWTOR is free to play now, see you there soon <3

Jason Segel.2908:

3 quick questions

1. Do you like having no dedicated healers?

2. Do you wish you could play a dedicated healer(because that’s your play style)?

3. Do you feel the game achieved balance by taking out dedicated healers?

Personally, my play style in every MMO I ever played (SWG, SWTOR, Warhammer) was dedicated healer/some damage.

SWTOR is free to play now, see you there soon <3

1.) I Like having dedicated healers. I enjoy playing the class. This game is limited in its just a DPS vs DPS game. I get bored only playing a damage dealer.
2.) Yes I wish I could play a healer. But as ive found out, even though playing a gimped healer GREATLY helps my team and we win much more, I get no points in sPVP or WvW. So whats the point.
3.) The game isnt balance, everyone knows that, so the obvious answer is no.

Anet are very inexperienced MMO developers. We need class diversity cause not everyone likes to play DPS all the time like you – (Anet Devs). Having no tanks, no healers, no support and only DPS only serves to have less players in the game, makes pvp and pve more boring cause I cant switch to different roles, and balance has NOT been achieved.

MMO Experiment = Failed.

This game was designed ground up for DPS playing casuals. Thats why there is no gear progression, so casuals who join in once a week dont have to worry about some guy having a piece of gear a little higher than theres.

Problem is in any MMO, is if there isnt gear, nobody will show. sPVP is fun for awhile, but it gets old fast.

1 – Yes
2 – No
3 – Yes

At this point, the deal is done. healers cant come into the game.

i like no healers, at least, it doesnt bother me.

I was sad that players in my guild from a previous game, in some cases didn’t come to gw2 because they liked playing dedicated healers.

1) Mix feelings ( i use to play healers in various games , for 9 years till now)

2) Yes i would love that .
Still i get anxious and make huge mistakes when i try to attack some1.
Plus i feel sad when ppl die right next to me

3) Dont know .
Based on the last Dev video , their aim is to bring all classes UP(exept the bunker Ele , they didnt say the word <<town down>>for the rest of the classes . Plus with the nerf of aoes , <<down state>> will be our <<safe net>> in a mortal combat-twitch game i guess)
We will see the final results on May

1) yes.
2) no
3) sure

I dont like the way stealth is done but all things being equal the game has pretty good balance.

It sucks not being able to do good fights because
no healer.
lack of healers.
too many healers (rare)

healers are niche archtypes that generally have cruddy combat skills.

in daoc my buddy played a cleric named “mercy” he had the worst heals but could hit like a truck. then they nerfed his combat and he quit.

1. yes and no, It would make adding some other gametypes a bit easier but on the other hand fights with healers could somtimes drag on for a while

2, yes somtimes but i also enjoy switching it up to dps

3, its just a different kind of balance, it has defiantly made the game feel more action oriented and fun because you cant drag on a fight as long.

1. Yes
2. Who says it can’t be done? Altruistic Healing Bunker-Guards are effectively Clerics :P
3. We shall see. Game’s still relatively young.

Thank god there are no dedicated healers. there are never ending battles already.

1) Yes, no more waiting around and easier to solo.
2) Don’t feel the need, there’s other ways to support.
3) Well enough. I akin GW2 to more a brawler then an RPG.

Good luck with Swtor. Its free-to-play model is severely gutted.

1- yes
2- no
3- yes

I don’t feel like playing another WoW system where players can spec themselves to be purely unkillable.

I would prefer dedicated healers, BUT you cant add them at this phase to GW2.
It would be wrong to those who dont like em and require too much change.

I found playing gw2 i miss the holy trinity a bit, but this game is what it is, i think of it more like leauge of legends than an mmo.

Jason Segel.2908:

1. Do you like having no dedicated healers?

2. Do you wish you could play a dedicated healer(because that’s your play style)?

3. Do you feel the game achieved balance by taking out dedicated healers?

1. Sure. It’s different. In theory the whole “Every class is viable and can play how the player likes to play” is awesome. Sadly that’s just not true. At all. Even remotely.

2. Meh some days sure, most days I just don’t care. Honestly my role was always the main tank, and my best friend was a healer. Except AoC where I fell in love with the bear shaman so we swapped roles and he tanked instead while I healed.

3. Nope. Balance is pretty bad overall. Of course I absolutely do not accept “We balance around having a dedicated GROUP” as good balance. If there’s not 1v1 balance, then balance fails imo. Of course every MMO seems to fail at this too so it’s par for course. Always ends up being “L2Roll (the right class)” if you want the best overall success in PvP in these games, regardless of if it’s actually a class you want to play or not. : /

I wish support does more than they do right now…. in terms of “the ability to assist” in any way/shape/ or form; I think GW2’s – “assist gameplay” – could be built on a lot more and not just being always about “taking leadership roles in dungeons & PvP” (I don’t find that part of teamplay particularly interesting as most of the time it leads to players not wanting to play with impatient/ignorant teamates..).

For the benefits of the majority of pub players I think their groups would benefit tremendously from implementing a ‘logic flow to the way team combat works’ so that at least players understand how to go about playing a role in their classes (that’s the nice thing about the builds in MMOs… it’s a way to play the game which won’t be nitpicked by most pub players, there’s no way to blanket a player playing support that doesn’t do either heal/debuff/buff/ or [redirect damage away] for their teamates).

1-yes
2-yes, I love playing a healer.
3-no, I feel it made balancing harder. However, overall things seem to be going decently well as far as balance. A trinity is easier to balance, in my opinion, because the ones with the most important skills are also the easiest to kill.

In GW2, damage and survivability trade off at a 1:1 ratio. Thus, bunker/burst. I don’t like that aspect of it—I wish there were more choices than just offense or defense. In a traditional trinity, there are characters with low damage AND low survivability, and yet they’re still important—a third dimension, outside of the sliding scale of armor to damage.

tl;dr—having no healers is fun because it means everybody gets to do everything. Also, team composition is much more flexible (no mandatory healers). Unfortunately, it’s also harder to balance and more binary.

I would play a pure healer anytime. Right now without a dedicated healer, burst classes have it easy, and there is no teamplay capable of countering a burst.

However, the way the game is designed, you won’t see a healer.

Jason Segel.2908:

3 quick questions

1. Do you like having no dedicated healers?

2. Do you wish you could play a dedicated healer(because that’s your play style)?

3. Do you feel the game achieved balance by taking out dedicated healers?

Personally, my play style in every MMO I ever played (SWG, SWTOR, Warhammer) was dedicated healer/some damage.

SWTOR is free to play now, see you there soon <3

1. Yes, it is the best idea that arena.net had implemented
2. No – cant imagine why someone would play such a boring position
3. Yes, since healers are there to buffer the incompetence of the other player he is healing, so the only benefit of healers would be less qq from nabs in forums : ), it is especially apparent in pvp (you can make A LOT more mistakes if you run healer/dps than dps/dps in wow for example).

Jason Segel.2908:

3 quick questions

1. Do you like having no dedicated healers?

2. Do you wish you could play a dedicated healer(because that’s your play style)?

3. Do you feel the game achieved balance by taking out dedicated healers?

Personally, my play style in every MMO I ever played (SWG, SWTOR, Warhammer) was dedicated healer/some damage.

SWTOR is free to play now, see you there soon <3

1) No. I miss both the fact that i could play it, and that we had to fight them as a team..

2) Yes absolutely.

3) Yes and No.

1. I like that dedicated healers aren’t required. I can’t say that I don’t like not having them.

2. Sometimes, but usually that is followed by an epic save with some CC and a quick-stomp.

3. I feel like they made it more active. However, burst needs to be greatly toned down.

Also, don’t bother with SWTOR. The F2P conversion hasn’t much for it, especially in regards to PvP.

1) No. I played a paladin in wow and liked that I can spec to 3 different type of playstyles depending on what my guild and arena team needed. It adds a different level of strategy to the battlegrounds.

2) Yes. I miss being a healer sometimes and when combined with a warrior, we can wreck the battlegrounds. I believe Anet left out a large demographic of players who want to purely heal. Bunkers seem to be harder to kill than most healers because taking down a healer requires more cc and better timing than a permacleanse guardian/ele.

3)Not necessarily, because healers have to be considered when assaulting a point. Same as how u need 2+ players to take down a bunker. In a 2v2 situation a healer on either team would need to be cc’d in order to take down his teammate. But I don’t feel it makes a difference having a healer or a bunker.

I understand people not wanting long drawn out fights because of healers, but I don’t want to see 5 sec fights either (esp. if this game is to be an esport). LoL is an esport because battles last around 30mins (fairly long in my opinion) and require different classes (including healers) to achieve victory. I think healers create more teamwork among players because of their high value. If my healer was being attacked, I have to make decisions as to whether I can down my opponent before he dies or I have to peel the enemy off my healer. Or as a ret paladin, I have to burn my only big heal to keep my healer alive.

For a game with no healers there is too much cc,conditions and boons here.

1) Y
2) N
3) Y

SuperHaze.4210:

LoL is an esport because battles last around 30mins (fairly long in my opinion) and require different classes (including healers)

WHAT?! A —→ MATCH <-— lasts about 30 minutes, actual fights/teamfights are between 5s-20s. Not only that, but LoL has no dedicated healers, only support characters that occasionally throw an heal here and there.

1) no, I feel empty without my mortal enemies present in the battlefield, I suppose I can build a new grudge against a new prof…
2) no, being forced into healing because no one else I knew would do it was bull kitten, never want dedicated healers back.
3) Yes, I’ve noticed bad players think the game is unbalanced but I have yet to see anyone worth their salt say so, I think it’s in a good spot.

Jason Segel.2908:

3 quick questions

1. Do you like having no dedicated healers?

2. Do you wish you could play a dedicated healer(because that’s your play style)?

3. Do you feel the game achieved balance by taking out dedicated healers?

Personally, my play style in every MMO I ever played (SWG, SWTOR, Warhammer) was dedicated healer/some damage.

SWTOR is free to play now, see you there soon <3

1. Yes.

2. No.

3. Yes.

And no, you will not see me or anyone sane there soon.
Jumping off the top of a building isn’t cool. You’re going to do it, which is fine, but don’t encourage others to.

1. Y
2. N
3. Y

My main in WoW was a holy pally, who I played for years and years. I loved that character and loved healing, but I don’t miss it at all. GW2 is pretty beautifully balanced, imo, when it comes to still being very challenging without a healer. =)

Yes
No
Yes

Everyone should be playing the game, rather than some health-bars or threat-meter.

1. Yes.
2. No.
3. Yes.

I’m kinda torn on this topic; i’ve always played a dedicated Healer and I really like the playstyle: I like having to closely watch the opposing Players, anticipate upcoming spikes and deny them with good protting/healing, while also trying to heal the team up, remove conditions and having good positioning (it’s always a tension between being as far away as possible from fights not to be spiked, but close enough to heal your teammates.)

I think though, that they could recreate this kind of playstyle in GW2, even without dedicated Healers but maybe moving a little bit more towards Healers would solve some Problems with too tanky builds.

- We have pretty cool skills on Ele for example that require good positioning (AoE-Heals for example, dodge-heal and the boons you give when switching to certain attunements) – if the Healing Ele’s themselves weren’t so tanky, positioning would be incredibly important while playing those Support-Eles.

- Scepter on the Ele also has 2 Blinds, 3 if you run evasive arcanna. If they made blind a bit better (instead of denying 1 attack, deny all attacks during a much shorter duration, like 2-3 seconds), it would also offer a solution to very strong glass-cannon-spikes and it would recreate the huge amount of skill that were required when playing a blinding bihatch, an Infuser or a Protter in GW1 – very fast reaction-time, anticipating spikes correctly, good positioning etc.

- I also kinda miss the tension of a fight where you had a very clear main-target – the monk. Killing the Monks would most likely win you the fights and applying pressure the them and spiking them was key. Killing other classes was viable as well, but often, you’d kill them in certain situations, where they’d overextend or where you were able to CC the Healers. In GW2, this partially exists with softrezzes – you want to kill a necro with the softrez forst, cuz if you kill another player, he’ll just get rezzed by the Nec.

Conclusion: I think a good way of solving a lot of Problems with the current Metagame (very hard to deal with Bunker-builds, but also Spikes of Glasscannons, too less Teamplay-oriented fights etc.) would be to move the current Bunker-builds a little bit more in the direction of dedicated Healers/Protters. It doesn’t have to be too much – You can for example just make it easier for current Bunker-builds, to heal/prot Teammates, while making it harder for them to just keep themselves alive.

Examples:

1) Change Traits/Runes that give boon-duration so that you get less boon-duration for yourself out if it than they give now, but longer boon-duration for boons you apply to allies.

2) Change Healing-Power so it has bigger diminishing returns when you heal yourself, but still heals allies with full force.

3) Change some of the AoE-Heals (for example the dodge-Heals from evasive arcana and Selfless-daring, so they have a bigger Radius and/or a stronger Heal, but would ONLY heal allies, not yourself).

4) Maybe change some of the Leap/Blast-Finishers on a Water-field, so they’ll only heal allies as well and in turn maybe make them a bit stronger.

1 – Yes
2 – No
3 – Yes

I felt completely in love with playing prot-monk during GW1, so ofc I miss them. It works pretty well without them, but I would like to point out, that the monks opened up for a much more complex damage-system than the present one. But yeah: Having to always have monks was an aspect that didn’t work for many people, but naturally wasn’t an issue for me.
Balance in GW2 is out the window though, if you ask me.
The tl:dr-version hence is:
1:Y
2:Y
3:N

1 – No.
2 – Yes.
3 – Yes and No.

I played lots of classes in other MMOs, it was nice that playing a healer gave a totally different playstyle, a level of variety you just get in GW2. I’d also say it was more challenging, having to keep an eye on your guys, keep LOS with them, whilst trying to LOS the opposition, keeping yourself alive (not just with healing, but cleanses, cc, etc), whilst keeping an eye on key people (other healers, support classes, the top DPS guy), whilst of course being foused by the other team, generally required a level of awareness and multitasking you do not need on a DPS (or even DPS classes with a bit utlity / support tacked on like in GW2).

As for balance, in some ways I am sure it is easier to balance, less variety, simpler classes are easier, on the other hand healing smooths out things like burst. I also think in their effort to introduce some variety, they have made some classes that essentially have easier, more effective mechanics, especially for things like burst and that are unbalanceable.

But anyway all I can say is the last MMORPG I played was not noted for its PvP – Rift, yet structured PvP in GW2 has gone down the drain quicker than the Rift equivalent, whihc says a lot.

I think having support builds is a better design. Such as a ele that can heal when attuned to water, and be pretty tanky. But is not dedicated. Gives boons like swiftness, and might, and aegis, and auras, (with combo fields of course).

In my opinion that is a better design instead of a dedicated healer.

1: Yes, it gives each player in a party equal responsibility. Survival shouldn’t rely on a single player.

2: No, I like that I can play with healing/support skills, without having everyone depend on me playing with those skills. It’s the same feeling I get when playing a medic in an FPS. I feel like I can do what everyone ells does, while still offering support.

3: Yes, of curse. I’m not sure how anyone could think any different? If each class plays at an equal level of contribution, you can balance everything across a single line. If everything depends on one or two classes, then balance becomes too depending on those classes doing well, while other classes ends up being nothing more then cannon fodder. So you have to have different levels of balance; one for each role.

1. no
2. no
3. no

easier to get teams in pve but terribad for pvp,

This is an interesting question for sure.

Well my take is its both a good thing and a bad thing. The old tank dps healer system was becoming so old fashioned it mocked itself, and god knows like others have said, we do not need another wow clone at the already busy table.

BUT, and its a big but (my fav), all we have left is dps tank. It seemed that they had some other idea for the trinity, something more engaging and smarter. All they did was remove one, and sort of smear what it did over the other classes. Ele is a good step though, I wished water allowed for more healing, and all classes had a way into support roles on the fly. I think thats what I was hoping for more off, all classes being able to jump into different roles on the fly, rewarding the smart and punishing the not so smart.

Meh, its different enough for now I suppose, engie would make a great field medic type role.

1) No
2) Yes
3) Maybe, but then if each team had equal healers it wouldn’t matter. However this is never the case. So I’m leaning towards yes, even though I loves playing me a heals.

1. No and maybe yes
2. Yes
3. Lol No

I’m going to look at this from a standpoint of the most balanced MMO, which was GW1 (even though it had its faults, still much more balanced than any other). I wanted a dedicated healer, yes. Unfortunately, GW2 is a game where skills are spammable and meant to be spammed, to have a dedicated healer that was skillful to play like in GW1 then we’d have to change the entire game completely. Otherwise you’d end up with a healer like in WoW or SWTOR which are just complete spam.

In other words, I wish they had just made a game with similar game mechanics to their first game so that healer was not only a viable class but not crap easy to play. They didn’t achieve balance, this game isn’t balanced. All they did was remove the ability to spam heals against spam damage, so they’re ahead of WoW, but not by much.

3 quick questions
[YES! EVERY MAN FOR HIMSELF!] 1. Do you like having no dedicated healers?
[NO! NEVER!] 2. Do you wish you could play a dedicated healer(because that’s your play style)?
[HELL YES!] 3. Do you feel the game achieved balance by taking out dedicated healers?

SWTOR is free to play now, see you there soon <3
[I WOULD LIKE TO BUT I NEED TO PLAY GW2!]

I’d forgotten all about it till you mentioned it. 1yes 2no 3 yes

1. split decision : Yes due to I’m enjoying not having to search or wait for heals and I really take responsibility for myself.
No because healers add another set of dynamics to teamplay in a pvp environment especially one like the monk in GW1. PVE seems to my memory have had better fights and boss mechanics in games with healers, imo anyways so far, we’ll see. Some of the bosses you can’t see anything that’s going on so your watching health bars anyways.

2. Yes, if it were available. But it’s not. And it’s not needed. But there are plenty of archetypes I also wish for.

3. Balance? I think it fits their vision or is in route to fit their vision. That’s all you can really ask for. I can’t say for certain everything is completely balanced class to class, but pvp seems alright without dedicated healers. What they need are more modes. Conquest with these few maps are mind numbingly boring at times so then I move over to WvW, which then proves to be pointless at times so I hit pve.

Edited…BTW, I did check in on SWTOR recently and man, can’t stomach it. Looking at this game and then looking at that one…my god, all I can say is that game isn’t pretty. I just remembered it looking a lil better than that when I played it before from launch til about 2months after 1.2 the legacy patch. I remember pvp there was ok, I even liked huttball when many did not. I mained a Marauder and Sorc Healer.

Yes, i do

I like hotjoining without telling myself we have less healers than they do, we lose
I like jumping into dungeons no matter what our team setup is, because all that matter is how my guildmates are good with their respective classes

I don’t want to do RA all over again doing 18 first rounds in a row and quit because no monk > no 25

Now i would also like to be able to hotjoin without telling myself we have less AoE than they do, we lose.

While I definitely understand the idea behind it, I’m torn. On one hand, you can still make a viable Tank/DPS if you’d like, but the +Healing Power trait seems nearly worthless for most classes.
Maybe I’m not understanding it properly, but it seems pointless to stack healing power for the minimal bonuses it gives.

I understand that healers are crucial for many other MMOs, but in GW it seems making a healer isn’t even optional.

Advent.6193:

1. Yes
2. Who says it can’t be done? Altruistic Healing Bunker-Guards are effectively Clerics :P
3. We shall see. Game’s still relatively young.

Altruistic Healing has absolutely nothing to do with healing anyone but yourself.

1)I wouldn’t say that this game needs dedicated healers.

I think this game needs better support roles in general. Particularly in PvP.

In sPvP, support roles are almost useless. There’s too much damage to heal through and you don’t have a big enough effect to really make the sacrifice in damage or survivability worth while.

Most of the time(again in sPvP) it’s more beneficial to your team to just run a bunker and keep yourself alive.

2) Though I do think you should be able to run a heal spec if you desire.

3) It’s not necessarily a problem that they removed dedicated healers. It’s that it’s very difficult to directly support teammates(not by attacking your opponent). The best support you can currently run is either a res skill or a skill that allows you to res them or keep them from getting stomped. Otherwise you just run damage or self survival or a mix of both and everything else is just a bonus.

Scrag.8765:

Jason Segel.2908:

3 quick questions

1. Do you like having no dedicated healers?

2. Do you wish you could play a dedicated healer(because that’s your play style)?

3. Do you feel the game achieved balance by taking out dedicated healers?

Personally, my play style in every MMO I ever played (SWG, SWTOR, Warhammer) was dedicated healer/some damage.

SWTOR is free to play now, see you there soon <3

1.) I Like having dedicated healers. I enjoy playing the class. This game is limited in its just a DPS vs DPS game. I get bored only playing a damage dealer.
2.) Yes I wish I could play a healer. But as ive found out, even though playing a gimped healer GREATLY helps my team and we win much more, I get no points in sPVP or WvW. So whats the point.
3.) The game isnt balance, everyone knows that, so the obvious answer is no.

Anet are very inexperienced MMO developers. We need class diversity cause not everyone likes to play DPS all the time like you – (Anet Devs). Having no tanks, no healers, no support and only DPS only serves to have less players in the game, makes pvp and pve more boring cause I cant switch to different roles, and balance has NOT been achieved.

MMO Experiment = Failed.

This game was designed ground up for DPS playing casuals. Thats why there is no gear progression, so casuals who join in once a week dont have to worry about some guy having a piece of gear a little higher than theres.

Problem is in any MMO, is if there isnt gear, nobody will show. sPVP is fun for awhile, but it gets old fast.

This is a very good answer.

I DO NOT LIKE PLAYING DPS.

and making a bunker/tank with is boring to me.

I like playing healer, and you summed it up good.

1) yes. I only played GW1 and DDO before GW2, and I dislike dedicated healer very much. Too much waiting involved for pve and make pvp strategy more simple – go for the healer.
2) not really. So far I like GW2
3) Yeah, the balance is not bad. People dislike glass cannon but I love them because they die so fast. I guess thats because I’m primary a range player.