Guild Wars 2

@Munchkin.4137
My suggestion is not to OP healing… i’m asking a LITTLE IMPROVMENT cause right now there are usless stats and useless skills.

Your build is good, a lot of guild mate of mine use something like that (i don’t know if is the same or not)… but the problem is still the same.

I use Soldier’s (power/vit/tough) armor and weapons, along with Cleric’s (power/heal/tough) jewelry

Soldier?
Soldier is not an healer archetype.

Why you use it?
Cause all healing power 0.125 is a waste of stats.

As far as cooldowns go, yes, the healing cooldowns tend to be pretty big. But with the trait Aquamancer’s Alacrity, the cooldowns are lowered by 20% to 16s for Geyser and 36s for Healing rain. This still seems high, but you will be switching attunements a lot to give other things to the party, as well as switching to CC as needed. By the time you get back to Water attunement, Geyser will be up. And the next time you come back to Water, Healing Rain will be up.

As far as cooldowns go… 36 (with traits) is far far away…
People can spam damage every 5/10/15 seconds and have traits for increase damage.

So you are FORCED to switch attunement and use others skills just for pass the time, but you are just whaiting for the healing CD… if there were lower CD you would use less attunement swithc focusing on healing.

You are ele… so you have 4 attunements.
A lot of skills to use.
I am guardian… if i go Mace/Shield + Staff I have dead time cause of the long CD… and i can just autoattack.

This and Guardian bunkers. Yeah, we probably won’t kill anything there, but we can hold a point very well due to blasted Water fields and Cantrips.

This is Tank.

TLDR: If you want to heal, you are playing the wrong class.

I like guardian but I’m leveling ele too.

Leeain.2431:

@Munchkin.4137
My suggestion is not to OP healing… i’m asking a LITTLE IMPROVMENT cause right now there are usless stats and useless skills.

Your build is good, a lot of guild mate of mine use something like that (i don’t know if is the same or not)… but the problem is still the same.

I use Soldier’s (power/vit/tough) armor and weapons, along with Cleric’s (power/heal/tough) jewelry

Soldier?
Soldier is not an healer archetype.

Why you use it?
Cause all healing power 0.125 is a waste of stats.

As far as cooldowns go, yes, the healing cooldowns tend to be pretty big. But with the trait Aquamancer’s Alacrity, the cooldowns are lowered by 20% to 16s for Geyser and 36s for Healing rain. This still seems high, but you will be switching attunements a lot to give other things to the party, as well as switching to CC as needed. By the time you get back to Water attunement, Geyser will be up. And the next time you come back to Water, Healing Rain will be up.

As far as cooldowns go… 36 (with traits) is far far away…
People can spam damage every 5/10/15 seconds and have traits for increase damage.

So you are FORCED to switch attunement and use others skills just for pass the time, but you are just whaiting for the healing CD… if there were lower CD you would use less attunement swithc focusing on healing.

You are ele… so you have 4 attunements.
A lot of skills to use.
I am guardian… if i go Mace/Shield + Staff I have dead time cause of the long CD… and i can just autoattack.

This and Guardian bunkers. Yeah, we probably won’t kill anything there, but we can hold a point very well due to blasted Water fields and Cantrips.

This is Tank.

TLDR: If you want to heal, you are playing the wrong class.

I like guardian but I’m leveling ele too.

Honestly you’re fighting a losing battle here, there will never be healers in sPvP, and with all the current issues and bugs, adjusting group healing is no where near the top of the list, and almost anyone who has played sPvP past a few ranks could tell you any major increases in healing would completely unbalance everything. Just look at how strongly the Guardian’s group heal changes the course of a fight.

And the fact that you mention “waiting” for your heals to come back up shows me that you really aren’t playing the right game. Weapon/kit/attunement swapping is part of the bread and butter of good players in this game, people who never swap hit a ceiling very quickly. Saying you are “forced” to wait for healing CD cooldowns is like saying you feel forced to play the game while you wait to do some niche thing that doesn’t work in this game. It’s like playing an FPS and saying you don’t want to shoot people, you just want to go around picking up medi-kits, there’s no point to it, and you’re right, it doesn’t contribute to the team because “support” in this game does not mean healer, it implies the entire gambit of boons, condition removals, haste, stability… you know, “supporting” your team. There are some classes that do this better than others, and having played a guardian as my main before switching to engineer, I can clearly see how “support” and “control” play into good teams, the problem is, nobody bothers to run the balanced builds which are required to make us of these two parts of the new holy trinity, because most people either want to kill quickly or die slowly.

The healing stats are in this game for a similar reason to the Vampire run set… the small heals can be tweaked so that in the course of a fight, you might get 1-2 more crucial moves off than you normally would before you go down, and those could turn the course of the fight, not in any means keep you up, especially in a system with no mana to burn out. Nothing about making healing strong works for this game.

I’m not trying to sound condescening but seriously, if you’ve played to anywhere near rank 10 you should see that what you’re suggesting here is basically asking Anet to change their entire PvP scheme, and you can make your point, but this is one area I can promise you, you won’t get anywhere near the changes you want, because you don’t understand what support means in the context of GW2.

Now look, Water combo fields, if my teammate ele says im puting down a combo field i just give it 4-5 blast finishers all team got 10k heals or even more, and regeneration… isnt that healing ? If you want to heal alone you wont be able to do it, its not the right game, now if you want to cooperate with your teammates thats the way to go. Ele,ranger, guardian can all sucesfully heal with combo fields. Mesmers with ethereal fields can remove conditions.

Ele has 4 atunments and quite long cooldowns so you actauly do sth else not only heal… as GW2 said, NO DECIDACTED HEALER. If you imagine supporting/healing as sth you do alone this is not the game, in this game its team doing the work, not healer, not support.

I wish you read my post up above saying why healing increase is lower then attack damage increase. The damage can be lowered,prevented, and so on. power increased by 1 and toughness increased by 1 willl not change damage, meaning 1000 power extra against oponent with extra 1000 toughness, will act the same, while healing actualy increases survivability.
Healing compliments toughness better, If we increase it more, bunkers become unkillable at all to any burst dps though its close to that allready atm.

Again… all the wanna be dps say no.
All the wanna be healer say yes.

@aydenunited.5729

Honestly you’re fighting a losing battle here, there will never be healers in sPvP, and with all the current issues and bugs, adjusting group healing is no where near the top of the list, and almost anyone who has played sPvP past a few ranks could tell you any major increases in healing would completely unbalance everything. Just look at how strongly the Guardian’s group heal changes the course of a fight.

I don’t know if this is a losing battle.
Something will change… don’t know what.
Right now there are some useless skills and useless stats and there is no contribution.
This will be changed. For sure.

Guardian group healing is good… but can be countered easly cause guardian have to stay still in the position for 4 second. Easy target…
Necro or mesmer can simply melt him during the channel.
Warrior can destroy you during the channel.

And the fact that you mention “waiting” for your heals to come back up shows me that you really aren’t playing the right game. Weapon/kit/attunement swapping is part of the bread and butter of good players in this game, people who never swap hit a ceiling very quickly. Saying you are “forced” to wait for healing CD cooldowns is like saying you feel forced to play the game while you wait to do some niche thing that doesn’t work in this game

I’m not playng the right game cause Anet did some unbalance mistakes like that.

Mercifull intervention – 80sec CD
Sanctuary – 120sec CD
Signet of Mercy – 240sec. CD
Healing Breeze – 40 sec. CD

In addition to high CD, this skills are low performance too… and the healing power bonus is low too.

It is not the wrong game cause altruistic healing skills are been designed… than lowerpowered it discouragin the use.

It’s like playing an FPS and saying you don’t want to shoot people, you just want to go around picking up medi-kits, there’s no point to it, and you’re right, it doesn’t

An mmorpg die if people start thing it’s an FPS…

I’m not trying to sound condescening but seriously, if you’ve played to anywhere near rank 10 you should see that what you’re suggesting here is basically asking Anet to change their entire PvP scheme, and you can make your point, but this is one area I can promise you, you won’t get anywhere near the changes you want, because you don’t understand what support means in the context of GW2.

I’m rank 12. I play crithammer or bunkers…

My rank doesn’t change the fact that healing doesn’t give contribution… some CD are insane and 0.125 healing power is useless, that’s why nobody use it.
Have you ever play healer in the past? Think no…

@Stin.9781

Now look, Water combo fields, if my teammate ele says im puting down a combo field i just give it 4-5 blast finishers all team got 10k heals or even more, and regeneration… isnt that healing ? If you want to heal alone you wont be able to do it, its not the right game, now if you want to cooperate with your teammates thats the way to go. Ele,ranger, guardian can all sucesfully heal with combo fields. Mesmers with ethereal fields can remove conditions.

I know… that is what i’m doing right now… but i don’t want it. I don’t like this playstyle.
I don’t want kill foes for heal party.

Everybody should be free to choose his oun playstyle and a good game should allow it.

I still can’t understand why Anet designed some healing for the others players and than discouraging the use.

I wish you read my post up above saying why healing increase is lower then attack damage increase. The damage can be lowered,prevented, and so on. power increased by 1 and toughness increased by 1 willl not change damage, meaning 1000 power extra against oponent with extra 1000 toughness, will act the same, while healing actualy increases survivability.

So?
Can’t see the problem in that…

1000 def counter 1000 attack = BALANCE

power vs toughness
conditions vs vitality
precision/crit vs healing power

Stats should be equal.
If not, there is no point to choose one or the other and every body will take the strongest one… oh, whait… this is happening right now…
The most used are Vit – Power – Precision cuse Tough – HealPw are lowered.

However… i haven’t ask for 1on 1… I said that 0.125 is ridiculous and maybe 0.3 (is not 1) should be a little bit fair.

Leeain.2431:

Again… all the wanna be dps say no.
All the wanna be healer say yes.

@aydenunited.5729

Honestly you’re fighting a losing battle here, there will never be healers in sPvP, and with all the current issues and bugs, adjusting group healing is no where near the top of the list, and almost anyone who has played sPvP past a few ranks could tell you any major increases in healing would completely unbalance everything. Just look at how strongly the Guardian’s group heal changes the course of a fight.

I don’t know if this is a losing battle.
Something will change… don’t know what.
Right now there are some useless skills and useless stats and there is no contribution.
This will be changed. For sure.

Guardian group healing is good… but can be countered easly cause guardian have to stay still in the position for 4 second. Easy target…
Necro or mesmer can simply melt him during the channel.
Warrior can destroy you during the channel.

And the fact that you mention “waiting” for your heals to come back up shows me that you really aren’t playing the right game. Weapon/kit/attunement swapping is part of the bread and butter of good players in this game, people who never swap hit a ceiling very quickly. Saying you are “forced” to wait for healing CD cooldowns is like saying you feel forced to play the game while you wait to do some niche thing that doesn’t work in this game

I’m not playng the right game cause Anet did some unbalance mistakes like that.

Mercifull intervention – 80sec CD
Sanctuary – 120sec CD
Signet of Mercy – 240sec. CD
Healing Breeze – 40 sec. CD

In addition to high CD, this skills are low performance too… and the healing power bonus is low too.

It is not the wrong game cause altruistic healing skills are been designed… than lowerpowered it discouragin the use.

It’s like playing an FPS and saying you don’t want to shoot people, you just want to go around picking up medi-kits, there’s no point to it, and you’re right, it doesn’t

An mmorpg die if people start thing it’s an FPS…

I’m not trying to sound condescening but seriously, if you’ve played to anywhere near rank 10 you should see that what you’re suggesting here is basically asking Anet to change their entire PvP scheme, and you can make your point, but this is one area I can promise you, you won’t get anywhere near the changes you want, because you don’t understand what support means in the context of GW2.

I’m rank 12. I play crithammer or bunkers…

My rank doesn’t change the fact that healing doesn’t give contribution… some CD are insane and 0.125 healing power is useless, that’s why nobody use it.
Have you ever play healer in the past? Think no…

@Stin.9781

Now look, Water combo fields, if my teammate ele says im puting down a combo field i just give it 4-5 blast finishers all team got 10k heals or even more, and regeneration… isnt that healing ? If you want to heal alone you wont be able to do it, its not the right game, now if you want to cooperate with your teammates thats the way to go. Ele,ranger, guardian can all sucesfully heal with combo fields. Mesmers with ethereal fields can remove conditions.

I know… that is what i’m doing right now… but i don’t want it. I don’t like this playstyle.
I don’t want kill foes for heal party.

Everybody should be free to choose his oun playstyle and a good game should allow it.

I still can’t understand why Anet designed some healing for the others players and than discouraging the use.

I wish you read my post up above saying why healing increase is lower then attack damage increase. The damage can be lowered,prevented, and so on. power increased by 1 and toughness increased by 1 willl not change damage, meaning 1000 power extra against oponent with extra 1000 toughness, will act the same, while healing actualy increases survivability.

So?
Can’t see the problem in that…

1000 def counter 1000 attack = BALANCE

power vs toughness
conditions vs vitality
precision/crit vs healing power

Stats should be equal.
If not, there is no point to choose one or the other and every body will take the strongest one… oh, whait… this is happening right now…
The most used are Vit – Power – Precision cuse Tough – HealPw are lowered.

However… i haven’t ask for 1on 1… I said that 0.125 is ridiculous and maybe 0.3 (is not 1) should be a little bit fair.

I hate to always go back to this, but what you’re looking for… is every other MMO out there, there are tons that let you heal just like you want. This one isn’t one and never will be, I’m very sorry you were mislead to think this game had healers in it. I felt Anet were very clear about changing the trinity from DPS/Tank/Heals to DPS/Control/Support.

Best of luck to you.

I believe the support builds (healing and buffs) are not meant to be a 1:1 ratio when it comes to cooldowns vs DPS. If you survive the initial burst of CD’s with your support buffs, that should give you enough time for the cavalry to arrive.

Why is it that every kitten game, defense never ever = offense. Why put values of armor in game when they mean practically NOTHING? I wanted to do a defensive guardian hoping I’d be very hard to kill but would have no output damage and of course not only am i not that hard to kill i can’t do and god kitten damage so why do you have armor in this game? Hell those bubbles mean pretty much nothing since most stuff goes right through.

Leeain when you say no one uses healing power thats a flat out lie as I have seen many guardians and eles with it so please don’t say things like they are facts. If they make healing power anywhere close to twice as strong it will be OP. When every class can heal/mitigate damage themselves that means they don’t need a dedicated healer and if there is one then its OP, support means more then heals.

support means more then heals

support means more then heals

support means more then heals

People keep trying to tell you this but you just shut your eyes and scream heals need to be buffed.

Because a game where defense = offense is boring to watch and play?

Do you honestly enjoy those bunker guardian 1v1 fights where no one every dies? Despite what people say, when two glass cannons fight each other, whoever makes the first mistake loses.

Go watch people play 3x healer in WoW. Tell me how enjoyable that is.

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I dont think toughness and healing power are low powered, i allready see guardians outheal any kind of bursts, back to full hp 1on1. Any futher increase would ruin burst dps day.

Things i could agree upon is that:

1. Healing needs rewards.
2. Some healing has too long cd’s
3. some skills need wider aoe of heal on guardian, while some healing aoe’s on other classes need reductions.

Stin.9781:

I dont think toughness and healing power are low powered, i allready see guardians outheal any kind of bursts, back to full hp 1on1. Any futher increase would ruin burst dps day.

Things i could agree upon is that:

1. Healing needs rewards.
2. Some healing has too long cd’s
3. some skills need wider aoe of heal on guardian, while some healing aoe’s on other classes need reductions.

These, I agree with.

@Immo.9217
Read all the topic.
Please copy and past to me all the time that me, and other people, wrote that everybody knows support is not only healing… but this is a topic where we talk abut healing.
Thanks.

@Daays.4317

Because a game where defense = offense is boring to watch and play?

Because you play DD.
So you like kill and kill and kill…
I enjoy defence, so for me is boring a game where a rogue or a warrior can kill you in 2sec.

aydenunited.5729:

Stin.9781:

I dont think toughness and healing power are low powered, i allready see guardians outheal any kind of bursts, back to full hp 1on1. Any futher increase would ruin burst dps day.

Things i could agree upon is that:

1. Healing needs rewards.
2. Some healing has too long cd’s
3. some skills need wider aoe of heal on guardian, while some healing aoe’s on other classes need reductions.

These, I agree with.

This is a good suggestion… hold on a second… I wrote the same things 10000times.
CD, area effect, rewards…

So wierd… now you agree? o.o

The difference is that i suggest also (and not only) to change healing power from 0.125 to 0.3 and allow regen to stack x3.
Not 1=1 and not x24.

So, please, next time read all the topic and than answer…
You agree with half of my suggestion.

Galantis.3267:

Why is it that every kitten game, defense never ever = offense. Why put values of armor in game when they mean practically NOTHING? I wanted to do a defensive guardian hoping I’d be very hard to kill but would have no output damage and of course not only am i not that hard to kill i can’t do and god kitten damage so why do you have armor in this game? Hell those bubbles mean pretty much nothing since most stuff goes right through.

Your build is obviously wrong or you’re playing it incorrectly.

Leeain.2431:

@Immo.9217
Read all the topic.
Please copy and past to me all the time that me, and other people, wrote that everybody knows support is not only healing… but this is a topic where we talk abut healing.
Thanks.

@Daays.4317

Because a game where defense = offense is boring to watch and play?

Because you play DD.
So you like kill and kill and kill…
I enjoy defence, so for me is boring a game where a rogue or a warrior can kill you in 2sec.

aydenunited.5729:

Stin.9781:

I dont think toughness and healing power are low powered, i allready see guardians outheal any kind of bursts, back to full hp 1on1. Any futher increase would ruin burst dps day.

Things i could agree upon is that:

1. Healing needs rewards.
2. Some healing has too long cd’s
3. some skills need wider aoe of heal on guardian, while some healing aoe’s on other classes need reductions.

These, I agree with.

This is a good suggestion… hold on a second… I wrote the same things 10000times.
CD, area effect, rewards…

So wierd… now you agree? o.o

The difference is that i suggest also (and not only) to change healing power from 0.125 to 0.3 and allow regen to stack x3.
Not 1=1 and not x24.

So, please, next time read all the topic and than answer…
You agree with half of my suggestion.

I cant agree with regeneration stacks as i am invis based thief, if i stack regen allready, with 3x regen i could stealth for 4 seconds healing 1000 per second…. each 5 seconds. That would be heavy unbalance, very heavy.
If healing power also incrase to 0.3 and 3 stacks of regeneration i imagine immortal thiefs running around with invisibility spec.

I agree with guardian aoe on orb of light maybe and some on breath heal.
Other then that ele needs smaller aoe on healing, and ranger needs his water field fixed too. Make it more potent but shorter in duration

Leeain first read your title it says support not heals… wow

and here is a couple

“I believe the support builds (healing and buffs) " ztun

“very clear about changing the trinity from DPS/Tank/Heals to DPS/Control/Support.” aydenunited

“Ele has 4 atunments and quite long cooldowns so you actauly do sth else not only heal” stin

“This still seems high, but you will be switching attunements a lot to give other things to the party, as well as switching to CC as needed.” munchkin

“Instead of just pure healing you have to account for dodging, blocking, aegis, protection, stability, condition cleansing, etc.. . All of these mitigate damage, and you aren’ t considering any of them.” Division

“The class roles they were talking about were control support and dps. Support is more than “altruistic healing” support is blind, interupts, reflects, boons, and healing.” phys

“There is another dynamic you are all missing out on and that’s mitigation. I think the balance between healing and damage gap is bridged by mitigation i.e. dodge, stealth, block, fear, etc. There is more than one way to skin a kitten, as the saying goes.” munkiman

“The reason no one is answering your questions is because you would just ignore any answers which aren’t the answer you are looking for (which is that in your opinion healing is useless and there is no valuable support).” seether

“This game is all about damage avoidance/well timed cc, not blindly pumping out heals into yourself and your grp” phaeris

“As for you point of regen vs condition damage. Condition Removal says “hi”.” duel

“Totally disagree with the OP. There are tons of useful support skills available to every class. " yasha

from just 2 of the pages

ignore this

You also say support build in your opening post at least 3 times.

This is a topic where we talk about CD, area effect, stats, reward and some wrong mechanics… and is about healing others players.

Not 360° support… but a specific aspect.

Now… if you can get it, is ok.
If you can’t is not my problem.

I have already answered many of those random sentence you quoted.
Read all the topic.

“Read all the topic.
Please copy and past to me all the time that me, and other people, wrote that everybody knows support is not only healing… but this is a topic where we talk abut healing.”

I just did what you asked and I did it on topic as your topic is about support not heals

look at your thread title

No you didn’t.
I wrote many times this is a specific topic. And i asked you to copy and past that.
You just quoted randomly sentences and you are trying to turn this topic in a flame.
Please stop and be costructive.

Support is more then just healing arena net has already stated they wanted to remove the 3 original trinity of dps tank and healer, multiple posters in this forum have also stated this and I quoted a few of them. They are not random sentences, stop ignoring what people are saying when they answer your questions as to why being a dedicated healer is not a option.

If some one open a topic about greatsword, nobody will answer to him “Damage is not only greatsword”… of course is not… so they just talk about greatsword.

If I open a topic about healing, why people keep answer “support is not only healing”?
Of course is not… every body knows it… but now we are talking about a specific aspect: healing

So, i’m not ignoring no one.
People don’t read and keep saying the same things…
I just get bored to repeat 3000 times the same answers.

Read all the topic.
We are talking about CD, area effect, reward, boons, specular comparison, bonus sets etc…

I invite you -again- to read alla the topic and you will magically discover that I answered to a lot of your quote… even if you say I ignored it.

The only good point you claim is that the topic title can be a little misunderstood… a misunderstanding that can be easily avoided if you read all posts.

Now, please, go back in topic and stop unnecessary provocation.

We are talking about Healing CD, area effect, reward, boons, specular comparison, bonus sets etc…
Have you got something to say or you want keep annoy me?

Leeain,

I would definitely be fine with a little improvement on healing, but just wanted to show that what you want to do is achievable. Increasing the healing coefficient would be great, but it would need to not affect the blast heals, as they would become overpowered.

I use Soldiers armor and weapon, along with Cleric’s jewelry. This is because I do not need any additional healing to get my party to full. Plus, since traits pigeon-hole us into a bunker build, bunker stats like Toughness and Vitality are needed. Dungeon-wise, I find that building tanky is a huge asset to the party. As the class with the least health and the least armor, I believe having Toughness and Vitality is pretty much required. I run with pugs a lot, as my guild is very small. People are almost always glass-cannon spec, because that’s what they used to level and they think that’s what will be good in dungeons. And that’s fine. I tank, I heal, I give might, I CC dangerous mobs and bosses, I rez people many many times, I DPS, and I have them moving at max speed whenever out of combat. And because I have Soldier’s gear and Cantrips, I almost never go down. What more could you ask for?

Yes, the cooldowns are still not on a DPS-like level. But I definitely do not agree that you are swapping attunements to pass the time. Healing is not ALWAYS needed. I swap to Water when it is. And I do not believe 10 stacks of might, which equals 350 power to the entire party is a waste of time. Our CC is very very helpful in many fights as well. On top of that, you can perma-swiftness your party, which makes runs go a lot quicker. Sometimes friends need heals. Sometimes they don’t. And when they don’t, there are plenty of extremely helpful ways you can support them.

I realize that your complaints are about Guardian, and I sympathize. This is why I recommended Elementalist if you want a straight healer, and it’s great that you are giving it a try. Yes, bunker Ele is considered a “tank”. But the difference between a bunker Guardian and a bunker Ele, is that all those heals that you are putting out in order to tank can also be applied to your teammates (I know Guardian is like this too, but their cooldowns are atrocious as you have stated, and they don’t have access to Water fields). Which is exactly what you want. If you are guarding a point alone, you will do well. Throw a buddy in there with you, and you got it made, especially if they can blast your fields too.

I would definitely be fine with a little improvement on healing, but just wanted to show that what you want to do is achievable. Increasing the healing coefficient would be great, but it would need to not affect the blast heals, as they would become overpowered.

Well… balance between classes is not my job. I just gave a suggestion.
So, what Anet should do is make a lot of tests, open a beta server (like GOA did with WAR a lot of times) and than after after collecting data and feedback, should make a choice.
If something will be OP, they shouldn’t do it… if not, change it.
But right now is clear that there are some problems with haling… and the worst things is NO REWARDS. T_T

People are almost always glass-cannon spec, because that’s what they used to level and they think that’s what will be good in dungeons. And that’s fine. I tank, I heal, I give might, I CC dangerous mobs and bosses, I rez people many many times, I DPS, and I have them moving at max speed whenever out of combat. And because I have Soldier’s gear and Cantrips, I almost never go down. What more could you ask for?

Ahahah this happen to me too.

I don’t know about Ele… I’m talking about guardian.
This is a “factotum” build… it means that I am not the best one to do anything, I can do a little bit of everything.
With a dedicated build you’ll be better for specific role… a specific build for damage (glass cannon), sacrifices defence, but will deal more damage than a “factotum”.
A dedicate build for tank, sacrifices damage, but you will never die and you can direct a lot of damage on yourself becoming an human shield (with my guild i play like this).
A dedicated build for healing (not generic support) simply sucks… not because this game is not designed for a dedicated healer (there are skils and traits and gear!!), but because cd, area effect, bonus etc are insane.

It’s a question of choice… but some choice are worst than others. :\

Happy to hear that ele is different… i’m leveling it.

Yes, the cooldowns are still not on a DPS-like level. But I definitely do not agree that you are swapping attunements to pass the time. Healing is not ALWAYS needed. I swap to Water when it is. And I do not believe 10 stacks of might, which equals 350 power to the entire party is a waste of time. Our CC is very very helpful in many fights as well. On top of that, you can perma-swiftness your party, which makes runs go a lot quicker. Sometimes friends need heals. Sometimes they don’t. And when they don’t, there are plenty of extremely helpful ways you can support them.

Of course they are not… ele is a factotum class.
Was designed for switch attunements in combat.
I said that some times your party need more heal/damage preventing and you have all skills in cd, and you can’t do nothing… so you have to simply whait for it…
Meanwhile you change attunements so you can help your team in others way.

Damage Dealers classes don’t have to whait so long time for use again and again theirs skills. When a skill is in CD another one is ready, so they can spam continuosly (maybe not the warrior… a lot of people play it sygil and autoattack, but it works and they keep deal damage).

I realize that your complaints are about Guardian, and I sympathize. This is why I recommended Elementalist if you want a straight healer, and it’s great that you are giving it a try. Yes, bunker Ele is considered a “tank”. But the difference between a bunker Guardian and a bunker Ele, is that all those heals that you are putting out in order to tank can also be applied to your teammates (I know Guardian is like this too, but their cooldowns are atrocious as you have stated, and they don’t have access to Water fields). Which is exactly what you want. If you are guarding a point alone, you will do well. Throw a buddy in there with you, and you got it made, especially if they can blast your fields too.

I sow the same things.
Bunker+damage dealer can control a point to infinity.
Defence+Offence is the classic team set.
“All defence” you can’t kill your enemy.
“All offence” you are squashy.
Equilibrium is the key of victory.

Can’t see the problem in this… except when a bunker (all defence) alone litterally melt two or three foes (i saw it).
This is not balanced.

I hope Anet will create classic Area… I hate Control Points.
Classic arena is not for Bunkers.

From all the talk about Trinity, I fail to see how none of the people around here mentioned that GW1 did not have a trinity either.

In ‘balanced’ gvg team. You had Offensive (damage/hex/conditions/buff), Flag runner, a healer and a protector.

I found that balance to be awesome. I no way any class was a ‘tank’.

I think OP is right and should not hesitate to ask for not only more healing but we should all be a little more angry that support not only takes a back seat but is nerfed while dps is steadily being buffed. The ranger class right now, no word of any future buffs to support abilities, combat medic style play, no just buffs to dps, Necromancers have no choice but to be dps because their healing abilities and life gain are quite frankly useless… 27 points of lifegain, give me a break please. Guardians, retaliation nerf, sure that makes sense considering it was one of the few defenses in the game to instagibbing and now they want to nerf bunker builds I hear, sure thats fair we cannot have thieves working to kill someone now can we. Mesmers power crit and condition builds, the end. Thieves, Warriors, well you can understand them being mostly condition crit builds, Elementals and Engineers, well you have a few bunker style engineers I suppose but mostly I see condition set ups.. when I ever do see these two classes. No ranger spirit builds around anymore? thats because they were nerfed, couldnt be instagibbed so they had to go. I have a necromancer alt I refuse to ever play again until they do something fair about healing from lifesteal 27 points with traits and gear apposed to whats is base damage for backstab? How about hundred blades how much is the base damage for that, how much damage does one take from retaliation, these are all trick questions.

If you want to put a stop to zerging make support abilities worthwhile and stop buffing already spammable 10++ K abilities.

I agree 100% with OP. The game is too weighted towards DPS and, with the lack of effective support, creates a fairly one dimensional strategy… “all in, all dps as fast as possible, last standing wins” approach. Maybe that’s why everything feels like a relentless zerg?

Again, this has been said in this topic already….

If you have played or watched the competitive high-end of this game, you would realize that survivability is not a weak point for the defensive builds in this game. Combined with the downed state and crafty team play, players can stay alive for a very long period of time.

It should take a very active player that is aware of the fluid combat situation to stay alive for a long time, again, a 8v8 zergfest is not the way to gauge this.

I think that one easy way to make a step towards fixing “strong heals / support on others means OP support on self in a 1v1” situations and it would follow a format like this:

On self: Protection for 3 seconds, heal 1000 over 3 seconds.

On allies: Protection for 6 seconds, heal 3500 over 3 seconds.

These numbers are obviously just pulled out of my kitten but the concept is what’s important here. Spells having dual effects where the one hitting a friend is stronger than the one hitting you could really help balance this out.

Now that being said i do think that survivability is close to being fine where it is at. Bunker builds are extremely powerful right now and i think a lot of the feeling weak comes from facing spike builds and not seeing a direct link between your support spells and saving team mates. While this doesn’t mean nothing is helping it does make people feel like they arent effective whereas damage is easily seen to be effective in the killing of your target and is easy to gauge. I personally think that the BASE healing on almost every single spell should be lowered with the exception of the #6 healing abilities and the scaling for healing power should be increased. This way you feel as though the stat is actually doing something instead of being a waste.