Guild Wars 2

So I’ve been playing for quite a while, and started getting to thinking, what ever happened to the Damage/Support/Control types? Currently Control is heavy, but usually tied to being a Bunker or an effective Damage dealer. Damage is absurdly high for certain builds (conditions being the worst). However the game doesn’t seem to fill the Support section well. Unless their definition of Support is Bunkers that just troll people and are good at running circles on a little circle and tosses a few knockbacks here and there. (In which case the rest that I say is meaningless, but I hope that’s not the support they mean.)

A few key points I wanted to point out are:
- There is no three way building, its Bunker or Burst (B&B duo)
- Healing power scales worse than damage plus each heal has a long cooldown, so essentially Healing/support naturally doesn’t have a fit right now, its a poorly weighted stat (granted HP+Toughness on a few certain builds can be hard to kill, but generally that’s because those builds also have protection/stability or high evasion too, so be careful to look at the whole package before you say I’m wrong.)
- Support is such a small portion of what any build can do, most are still either Burst or Bunk with the ability to affect allies/enemies in some RELATIVELY small way.
- The most controversial; people actually kind of want to heal… This game has a good way to allow that! It truly does!

Now, the reason I say all of that is I started playing a support “healer” warrior recently, while its not QUITE there yet, it got me thinking… (Build is Mace/Shield+Sword/Warhon 0/0/25/30/15 shout healer) What if healing and support actually became a real thing? Now, I don’t want GW2 to have immortal target ally and press/spam a heal button. No, absolutely not. BUT! What if a single tree for some, if not all, classes had a very defined support tree that gave benefits to healing and boons and the traits gave healing and buffing aspects to normal abilities. Especially with the more defined traits coming along I could REALLY see this working!

Essentially supports could be AOE/Combat healers that still focus on being right there in the fight and doing damage, but they’d obviously do less (like bunkers do) but with a bit less personal defense and more group-wide benefits and their main goal is to actually heal and support their team. (Yes guardians can already somewhat do this, but it could be a lot better if you ask me.)

- Minor traits in “Support trees” would build the base of healing while attacking. These would not be weapon specific, but say auto attack also heals for a portion of weapon damage, but scales with healing power, which heals nearby allies. (Low base, high HP scaling, so its less effective for DPS roles to pick it up and expect it to be highly potent for them.)
- Majors would add supporting and more specific effects.

Examples:
Necromancer Marks now being able to heal for a small amount and applying defensive boons.
Move Vigorous shouts and the banner heal to adept 25 point (merged), Having banners periodically aoe spurt hp, shouts work how they do now, and the new 30 points be that Shouts and Banners healing give regen as well and shouts remove a condition. (Shouts would give like a 5-8 second regen while spurt heals from banners would give a 1-2 second regen.)
And this idea could follow through several characters. Thieves could be poison healers with leeching poisons.

Its just a thought I wanted to throw out because I had high hopes for being a real “support”, and healing doesn’t have to go away just because click and heal does. It still has a place, and I think it would be wonderful and fun.

Try not to be too critical, I know not everyone likes healers, but I think this game has a good groundwork considering what I’m proposing already exists (shout healers), just make it a little… more of a thing for those who enjoy that gameplay. I think it’d be fun.

If you look at http://www.twitch.tv/guildwars2/c/3084216
There’s actually a lot of support buffs coming… tomorrow.

Bunkers should be turned into supports. Any sort of defense/heal thing that can affect other allies should be made to be stronger for supporting others rather than selfishly.

I don’t know how a Bunker role is fun for anyone in a pvp game.

“Ok so this’s guy’s role is to become as unkillable as possible and sit there while people waste time trying to kill him”

“Oh.. fun..”

guardian ranger engi war bunkers are already bunkers and supports.

Knote.2904:

Bunkers should be turned into supports. Any sort of defense/heal thing that can affect other allies should be made to be stronger for supporting others rather than selfishly.

I don’t know how a Bunker role is fun for anyone in a pvp game.

“Ok so this’s guy’s role is to become as unkillable as possible and sit there while people waste time trying to kill him”

“Oh.. fun..”

This exactly. Don’t make healer supports squishy but definitely lower the self benefit and move it into more friendly support.

I love the idea of real support roles.

I think the reason this hasn’t come to real possibility is because too many skills/traits/abilities are too selfish or affect the caster as well.

I think there should be more skills/traits that are only for:

-supporting others
-have a much greater benefit for others
-Give YOU more benefit the more allies you help

I think the dev team should look at the Paragon from GW1 for inspiration

While it created a lot of imbalance in GW1, the way the paragon worked is much more conducive to the playstyle(and direction) of GW2.

If they gave each class some “Paragon Style” traits. You would be able to center a build around them and make a dedicated support role.

Something that’s not necessarily centered around Offense or Defense, but rather aiding those that need help, making them stronger by a large margin, or making yourself powerful because you’re around team mates.

Shout Warrior will be pretty interesting and much more effective at support than the Banner regen stuff we see right now. Spreading Fury to your teammates is a lot more helpful, and getting a free Shake it Off actually ends up being more efficient for condi removal than Guardians with 3 shouts. I’d run that instead of a guardian if my teammates want to do burst and help immob stack.

Staff Ele is gonna be good as a mid support as well with that revamped Earth spell that knocks people back, and buffed heals. I can see a 0/0/20/30/20 build working with Rock Solid and Blasting Staff.

I don’t think anyone has ever tried a Mesmer mid support but with the mantra AoE stuff it’s at least worth a shot. That’s way out of people’s comfort zone though.

jmatb.6307:

Shout Warrior will be pretty interesting and much more effective at support than the Banner regen stuff we see right now. Spreading Fury to your teammates is a lot more helpful, and getting a free Shake it Off actually ends up being more efficient for condi removal than Guardians with 3 shouts. I’d run that instead of a guardian if my teammates want to do burst and help immob stack.

Staff Ele is gonna be good as a mid support as well with that revamped Earth spell that knocks people back, and buffed heals. I can see a 0/0/20/30/20 build working with Rock Solid and Blasting Staff.

I don’t think anyone has ever tried a Mesmer mid support but with the mantra AoE stuff it’s at least worth a shot. That’s way out of people’s comfort zone though.

I was super exicted to see shout warrior being buffed. Though I think they should have probably left the self heal numbers alone and made healing power scale really well for healing allies. So if you stack healing power you actually become much more supportive but don’t gain too much more for yourself.

Just look at how they are improving Transfusion, a trait that gives 0 benefit to the caster themselves, absolutely not a thing, all it can do is heal allies.

The problem is though, how do you make support meaningful without making more things like ::gags:: spirit rangers, who in essence were supposed to be their support mechanic?

Support works quite well right now. Just looking from an Engie perspective, I could quite easily burst heal a group of people, whilst also stacking might and providing CC within the same build.

It’s just that people don’t play those builds either due to conformity, or they haven’t found a way (or the need) to fit them into a group yet.

Make supporting your enemies reactive. Healing Warriors would be PERFECT for that. Especially if they take my idea by turning Tactics into a Support tree. By merging the 2 30’s into 25 traits someone could use a banner and 2 shout heals, which would be really interesting… A Warrior healer currently is like: (with my build)
Pros:
- Small CC, nothing major (doenst use hammer, just mace)
- Some self defense
- Decent self sustain with shout heals/signet
- Remove Conditions with shouts (2 with shake it off)
- Remove conditions with Warhorn
- Give aoe might and fury

Cons
- Decent self sustain, but it is a little less than the Guardians
- Very low damage
- No knockbacks (lol conquest)
- No stability.

Essentially its a healer but is entirely killable. I find it to be very interesting, to say the least.

Now- those who say don’t benefit yourself, I’d tread lightly. Healers with out their heals working on themselves and no true bunker-ness themselves would have them killed by EVERYTHING so easily all the time, HOWEVER Take shouts self heal how they are now, or maybe after tomorrows patch, but have it heal 30-50% more for allies would be very interesting, really allowing “support” to turn the tides in even a small skirmish.

(Heals would probably have to have a 5 target cap for WvW based on healing the lowest %hp in range.)*************

Dirame.8521:

Support works quite well right now. Just looking from an Engie perspective, I could quite easily burst heal a group of people, whilst also stacking might and providing CC within the same build.

It’s just that people don’t play those builds either due to conformity, or they haven’t found a way (or the need) to fit them into a group yet.

The big problem is you can’t effectively continuously heal, which is where my idea for the Support tree comes in. It would essentially make our basic combat allow a steady (but low) stream of healing, while making certain other moves (some of which already exist like engis and shout warriors) to provide the more immediate “burst” healing, which is where the “smart” playing comes in, knowing when to use your heals to their fullest and when to just let your steady heals be sufficient. It has me excited just thinking about it :S

The problem with healing as a support mechanic is this: how do you make healing (in GW2) interesting, and engaging? The only way you can heal “wrongly” is by healing someone who can’t be healed (full HP, in Deathshroud, w/e), or healing in a situation where your healing is reduced (healing “overfills” HP bar, poison cuts healing, AoE heal doesn’t hit 5 targets for its full amount). But that doesn’t exactly leave much left, in fact the only big moment for a healer in this situation would be when your spike healing saves someone from an otherwise “death” blow.

Its why healing needs to be looked at as a side-mechanic for supporting, especially sustained healing, and other kinds of support need to be more pronounced. Burst healing, ways to mitigate damage to others (via reflect, AoE protection, weakness on enemies, etc), offensive support (like venom-shares).

Basically any kind of support that force you to make important decisions (aka, can be used wrongly), and can make a meaningful and noticeable impact on the fight are what they need to push for. Some things do this (venom share, for example, can be screwed up, yet has a huge impact when used right), and others don’t (spirits, summon spirit when in fight and CD is up, job done).

Bhawb.7408:

The problem with healing as a support mechanic is this: how do you make healing (in GW2) interesting, and engaging? The only way you can heal “wrongly” is by healing someone who can’t be healed (full HP, in Deathshroud, w/e), or healing in a situation where your healing is reduced (healing “overfills” HP bar, poison cuts healing, AoE heal doesn’t hit 5 targets for its full amount). But that doesn’t exactly leave much left, in fact the only big moment for a healer in this situation would be when your spike healing saves someone from an otherwise “death” blow.

Its why healing needs to be looked at as a side-mechanic for supporting, especially sustained healing, and other kinds of support need to be more pronounced. Burst healing, ways to mitigate damage to others (via reflect, AoE protection, weakness on enemies, etc), offensive support (like venom-shares).

Basically any kind of support that force you to make important decisions (aka, can be used wrongly), and can make a meaningful and noticeable impact on the fight are what they need to push for. Some things do this (venom share, for example, can be screwed up, yet has a huge impact when used right), and others don’t (spirits, summon spirit when in fight and CD is up, job done).

- Having combat uptime = healing done. So if you miss a lot or have bad up-time your healing would drop/you’d be dead weight basically.
- Most of the healing would be build into the longer cooldown abilities (like shouts) so spamming shouts whenever would just essentially cause you to be wasting healing and not having it when its REALLY needed THUS again, dead weight (since youre not a true bunker, nor are you a dps by any means.) So it definitely has its place.

In fact… In most cases watching when you use your special heals would be LESS button mashing than dpsing currently is… I mean certain builds right now just straight roll across the keyboard, that’s not engaging.

I’m totally agreeing they need to support support-builds more, just warning and adding in that it should be done properly.

Excellent. Maybe we’ll get an Ally-copter in here and she can carry our wishes and dreams to the big-wigs!

Excellent examples of support types from other PvP Games.

Voltar and Genji from Awesomenauts. – Voltar can provide a small robot that generates an aoe heal over time during teamfights, and also can provide a slight knockback against enemy ’nauts. His auto attack also does no damage, but heals allies a small amount. Genji can cocoon enemies, and grant a damage mitigating shield to allies, the shield can also do a small burst heal. Both of them can turn a teamfight into your favor.

Support.

Dark Seer from Dota2 (only hero I am really familiar with). His three moves are; an aoe vaccuum that pulls enemies into the center of the radius, a shielding effect that causes damage to things in melee range of whoever has it, and a speed buff.

Support.

Notice nowhere did I say that these “heroes” are tanky/bunkery/hard to kill. We need more stuff like this that is actually viable.

Hammerheart.1426:

Excellent examples of support types from other PvP Games.

Voltar and Genji from Awesomenauts. – Voltar can provide a small robot that generates an aoe heal over time during teamfights, and also can provide a slight knockback against enemy ’nauts. His auto attack also does no damage, but heals allies a small amount. Genji can cocoon enemies, and grant a damage mitigating shield to allies, the shield can also do a small burst heal. Both of them can turn a teamfight into your favor.

Support.

Dark Seer from Dota2 (only hero I am really familiar with). His three moves are; an aoe vaccuum that pulls enemies into the center of the radius, a shielding effect that causes damage to things in melee range of whoever has it, and a speed buff.

Support.

Notice nowhere did I say that these “heroes” are tanky/bunkery/hard to kill. We need more stuff like this that is actually viable.

Exactly. Though, like I said, I don’t think it would be sufficient if NONE of the support affected the caster too. Just have a BETTER use on others. (we have to survive too, we can’t be just simply burned down and moved to the next or we’d be pretty useless) Just be sure of that. I mean as a healing warrior CURRENTLY, with heals affecting me, depending on the stuns/burst/or heavy conditions I can still pretty easily be knocked on my butt :/

Exactly. Though, like I said, I don’t think it would be sufficient if NONE of the support affected the caster too. Just have a BETTER use on others. (we have to survive too, we can’t be just simply burned down and moved to the next or we’d be pretty useless) Just be sure of that. I mean as a healing warrior CURRENTLY, with heals affecting me, depending on the stuns/burst/or heavy conditions I can still pretty easily be knocked on my butt :/

Played properly, the enemy is having such a hard time with the people you are supporting (assuming they aren’t pants-on-head-kittened), that you cannot be their priority target. But how is this balanced so that support classes aren’t absolutely required? Are there balanced advantages/disadvantages for not having a support role on your team?

Support classes, caught alone, should get severely punished for not fulfilling their role. There should also be different types of support, it can’t all be the same. CC Support, Minor sustained Healing/Cleansing support (obviously we can’t have a dedicated healer in this game), mitigation support, area denial support, etc.

Hammerheart.1426:

Exactly. Though, like I said, I don’t think it would be sufficient if NONE of the support affected the caster too. Just have a BETTER use on others. (we have to survive too, we can’t be just simply burned down and moved to the next or we’d be pretty useless) Just be sure of that. I mean as a healing warrior CURRENTLY, with heals affecting me, depending on the stuns/burst/or heavy conditions I can still pretty easily be knocked on my butt :/

Played properly, the enemy is having such a hard time with the people you are supporting (assuming they aren’t pants-on-head-kittened), that you cannot be their priority target. But how is this balanced so that support classes aren’t absolutely required? Are there balanced advantages/disadvantages for not having a support role on your team?

Support classes, caught alone, should get severely punished for not fulfilling their role. There should also be different types of support, it can’t all be the same. CC Support, Minor sustained Healing/Cleansing support (obviously we can’t have a dedicated healer in this game), mitigation support, area denial support, etc.

Ideally the balance is that a healer would be less personally defensive than a bunker (but more than a DPS) but have little to no dps, thus bringing another DPS could realistically kill off enemy healers quickly. If anything it gives burst roles more of a significant use.

ronpierce.2760:

Hammerheart.1426:

Exactly. Though, like I said, I don’t think it would be sufficient if NONE of the support affected the caster too. Just have a BETTER use on others. (we have to survive too, we can’t be just simply burned down and moved to the next or we’d be pretty useless) Just be sure of that. I mean as a healing warrior CURRENTLY, with heals affecting me, depending on the stuns/burst/or heavy conditions I can still pretty easily be knocked on my butt :/

Played properly, the enemy is having such a hard time with the people you are supporting (assuming they aren’t pants-on-head-kittened), that you cannot be their priority target. But how is this balanced so that support classes aren’t absolutely required? Are there balanced advantages/disadvantages for not having a support role on your team?

Support classes, caught alone, should get severely punished for not fulfilling their role. There should also be different types of support, it can’t all be the same. CC Support, Minor sustained Healing/Cleansing support (obviously we can’t have a dedicated healer in this game), mitigation support, area denial support, etc.

Ideally the balance is that a healer would be less personally defensive than a bunker (but more than a DPS) but have little to no dps, thus bringing another DPS could realistically kill off enemy healers quickly. If anything it gives burst roles more of a significant use.

Oh, I know WE know balance, my question was simultaneously rhetorical and sarcastically aimed at Anet.

ronpierce.2760:

Knote.2904:

Bunkers should be turned into supports. Any sort of defense/heal thing that can affect other allies should be made to be stronger for supporting others rather than selfishly.

I don’t know how a Bunker role is fun for anyone in a pvp game.

“Ok so this’s guy’s role is to become as unkillable as possible and sit there while people waste time trying to kill him”

“Oh.. fun..”

This exactly. Don’t make healer supports squishy but definitely lower the self benefit and move it into more friendly support.

Yeah, sort of how Guardian’s Healing Breath heal works, although it’s garbage, but it’s being buffed this patch isn’kitten

It’s the same reason I love the heals and heal combos I can do on my Engy, I just love being able to actually burst/clutch heal others or save them in some way.

This game sort of lacks a lot of the classic support skills just because there’s no “ally targeting”, they should figure out a way to put more OTHER ally support power in the game.

There’s already a lot of support in the game, it’s just harder to do than in most games so people miss it. For example, smart use of combo fields and downed-state control. It’s also hard to justify building for support only because there are only five people per team and you don’t have to sacrifice much support to also get good damage, survivability, or control, or all of the above.

Also, playing as a solo/carry build is just so good in this game due to lack of trinity. It’s a lot of fun to be self-sufficient.

I do agree that it would be fun to see more abilities that are better for allies than they are for yourself; for example, engineer elixir gun 3 is a cone skillshot that can cure up to five conditions on allies, but does nothing for yourself. IMO, that’s the perfect model for buffs to support in general.

It’s also hard to justify building for support only because there are only five people per team and you don’t have to sacrifice much support to also get good damage, survivability, or control, or all of the above.

This is the problem right here. Support isn’t prominent because there is no incentive to give up good damage, survivability, or control, in order to benefit the team. You benefit the team more by getting 2 (or even all 3) of those traits all in one build.

Hammerheart.1426:

It’s also hard to justify building for support only because there are only five people per team and you don’t have to sacrifice much support to also get good damage, survivability, or control, or all of the above.

This is the problem right here. Support isn’t prominent because there is no incentive to give up good damage, survivability, or control, in order to benefit the team. You benefit the team more by getting 2 (or even all 3) of those traits all in one build.

Well right, but the only way to prevent that would be to make enormous nerfs across all professions so that it would be harder to do everything. I think it would be better to continue improving support skills across the board while making them less selfish at the same time, to prevent power creep.

NevirSayDie.6235:

Hammerheart.1426:

It’s also hard to justify building for support only because there are only five people per team and you don’t have to sacrifice much support to also get good damage, survivability, or control, or all of the above.

This is the problem right here. Support isn’t prominent because there is no incentive to give up good damage, survivability, or control, in order to benefit the team. You benefit the team more by getting 2 (or even all 3) of those traits all in one build.

Well right, but the only way to prevent that would be to make enormous nerfs across all professions so that it would be harder to do everything. I think it would be better to continue improving support skills across the board while making them less selfish at the same time, to prevent power creep.

Not true, make them healers and fill an entirely different role, there is not power creep. They just have a new role and the support “power” grows, and grows a definite place, as long as the support builds don’t become more tanky than true-bunks.

Well right, but the only way to prevent that would be to make enormous nerfs across all professions so that it would be harder to do everything. I think it would be better to continue improving support skills across the board while making them less selfish at the same time, to prevent power creep.

I have no problems with the idea of toning down everything else in order to bring support up. The game needs far less spike damage and bunkering ability.

Darnis.4056:

If you look at http://www.twitch.tv/guildwars2/c/3084216
There’s actually a lot of support buffs coming… tomorrow.

kitten these devs.
They are empowering immobilize…
They are making it stack in duration, they are making it more common… condi removal is already poorly made (extremely niche) and soooo necessary… now its even more necessary…

lsadg;hl;sadglsa;g’a’sdg

If immobilize didn’t stop dodge rolling it’d be fine… it’d actually fit the condi removal setup Anet made where conditions are supposed to be minor debuffs that don’t require, in every spec, many hard counter based answers to it…

lk;sdagh;as;hdsagl;ag;s

garethh.3518:

Darnis.4056:

If you look at http://www.twitch.tv/guildwars2/c/3084216
There’s actually a lot of support buffs coming… tomorrow.

kitten these devs.
They are empowering immobilize…
They are making it stack in duration, they are making it more common… condi removal is already poorly made (extremely niche) and soooo necessary… now its even more necessary…

lsadg;hl;sadglsa;g’a’sdg

If immobilize didn’t stop dodge rolling it’d be fine… it’d actually fit the condi removal setup Anet made where conditions are supposed to be minor debuffs that don’t require, in every spec, hard counter based answers to it…

lk;sdagh;as;hdsagl;ag;s

Yeah, that’s gonna be disgusting, Immobilize is (IMO) the strongest CC in the game. I even called it overpowered on release. It needed to be toned down if anything, being able to boost it with Cond Duration is nuts.

ronpierce.2760:

Not true, make them healers and fill an entirely different role, there is not power creep. They just have a new role and the support “power” grows, and grows a definite place, as long as the support builds don’t become more tanky than true-bunks.

Hammerheart.1426:

I have no problems with the idea of toning down everything else in order to bring support up. The game needs far less spike damage and bunkering ability.

I don’t think Anet will (nor should they) consider pre-alpha level design changes to the game. GW2 has been out for over a year; this is not a good time to suddenly add dedicated healers. Nor is it reasonable to nerf every damage skill and every mitigation skill in the game and start over.

I think that when the forums make suggestions, they should be simple, non-intrusive fixes that would have a noticeable impact on gameplay. It’s not reasonable to expect the game to become something totally different with a couple of patches.

That’s why I think that support skills should generally get stronger but less selfish. That would increase a supportive player’s value without allowing the power creep that allows dumb builds like regen warrior.

NevirSayDie.6235:

ronpierce.2760:

Not true, make them healers and fill an entirely different role, there is not power creep. They just have a new role and the support “power” grows, and grows a definite place, as long as the support builds don’t become more tanky than true-bunks.

Hammerheart.1426:

I have no problems with the idea of toning down everything else in order to bring support up. The game needs far less spike damage and bunkering ability.

I don’t think Anet will (nor should they) consider pre-alpha level design changes to the game. GW2 has been out for over a year; this is not a good time to suddenly add dedicated healers. Nor is it reasonable to nerf every damage skill and every mitigation skill in the game and start over.

I think that when the forums make suggestions, they should be simple, non-intrusive fixes that would have a noticeable impact on gameplay. It’s not reasonable to expect the game to become something totally different with a couple of patches.

That’s why I think that support skills should generally get stronger but less selfish. That would increase a supportive player’s value without allowing the power creep that allows dumb builds like regen warrior.

I think you underestimate what’s already in place, to be honest. Plus Support role was an original part of GW2, it just never hit the nail on the head because damage scales so much better than healing power, so everyone was forced to either be fully bunker with some CC (or a little support) or DPS with some control or a little support. There have been a few “control” builds along the way (necros/warriors mostly) but support hasn’t had much play, outside of maybe a Staff guardian. Its not changing the core, its kind of wishing what was said in the beginning was true all along… (Also Warrior healers already exist, and in a pinch, so does Guardian healers)

Boosting healing power could definitely help….but then we’d be back to the same problem with nigh-unkillable ele bunkers like we had early on in the game.

Hmmm….it would be nice to see something like this balanced out, both in PvE and PvP.

Dahkeus.8243:

Boosting healing power could definitely help….but then we’d be back to the same problem with nigh-unkillable ele bunkers like we had early on in the game.

Hmmm….it would be nice to see something like this balanced out, both in PvE and PvP.

Not if they readjust aoe beneficial skills to be stronger on others and weaker on yourself.

Look at what they did to Guardian’s Healing Breath.

Knote.2904:

Dahkeus.8243:

Boosting healing power could definitely help….but then we’d be back to the same problem with nigh-unkillable ele bunkers like we had early on in the game.

Hmmm….it would be nice to see something like this balanced out, both in PvE and PvP.

Not if they readjust aoe beneficial skills to be stronger on others and weaker on yourself.

Look at what they did to Guardian’s Healing Breath.

Exactly, and that’s what they need to do. Leave the self-portions of things alone and just boost coefficients when affecting other targets.

One thing to keep in mind about “support” is that ANet’s definition seems to be not just heal, but also any kind of boon or conditions that benefits the group. So spreading boons around the group is, in ANet’s opinion, Support. As are conditions that reduce the enemies ability fight, and strip them of defenses. Consequently, removing/converting conditions from your fellow fighters, and boons from your enemies, is also support. Never mind that most of this is not supported by any stat lines, so you can go full damage and still be “support” by what traits and utilities you bring.

One thing I noticed about how support should be played based on the recent changes to ele is that you need to stack closer with your allies for them to benefit your PBAOE boons and heals because of the reduces effect radius. It encourages more melee stacking when fighting since getting out of the very small radius of effect of certain skills will make most if not all of your support skills and if you or your other allies are ranged, well, too bad, you can’t benefit from either ones party boons and heals.

because anet took a stance on holy trinity a year ago, and value consistency over evolution.

JonathanSharp.7094:

It’s true that we don’t want to create a “monk” style healer/support class like we had in GW1, but we DO want to augment the efficacy of support builds.

And you guys are hitting the nail on the head – we want to make it so that some of the support skills help allies more than they help you, but they do it so well that a support role is justified.

It’s a balance between dedicated support and builds that are entirely self reliant. Once the dues settles on the trait fact pass, we’ll be looking at how to improve the support builds with another round of trait improvements for every class, as well as skill adjustments for each class.

Why is it taking you so long to hotfix mesmer fall damage?

ahuba.6430:

JonathanSharp.7094:

It’s true that we don’t want to create a “monk” style healer/support class like we had in GW1, but we DO want to augment the efficacy of support builds.

And you guys are hitting the nail on the head – we want to make it so that some of the support skills help allies more than they help you, but they do it so well that a support role is justified.

It’s a balance between dedicated support and builds that are entirely self reliant. Once the dues settles on the trait fact pass, we’ll be looking at how to improve the support builds with another round of trait improvements for every class, as well as skill adjustments for each class.

Why is it taking you so long to hotfix mesmer fall damage?

Working as intended. >:D

No seriously, never would anyone ever take this trait, and no one ever will, UNLESS it actually does something useful maybe 20k is too much damage, but like.. 5k? that could be worth it.

My question is, how did anyone even discover that bug in the first place. :P Who had that trait :P

I agree that support should become more altuistic in nature. I want to add that there should be a more well defined trait trees in terms of Damage, Control, Support, Survival, and Profession. In addition, armor and weapon major and minor stats should gain more variety that benefits support and control builds. Last I checked, there were 21 possible combinations of armor and weapon stats, and about 10 revolve around ‘raw’ Damage→ increase raw Power or Precision. I can only find 1 weapon type that is based on Condition Duration, and only 1 armor type that increases Boon Duration.

I think making more combinations of stats on weapons and armor could go a long way to increasing build variety and helping with balancing issues.

JonathanSharp.7094:

It’s true that we don’t want to create a “monk” style healer/support class like we had in GW1, but we DO want to augment the efficacy of support builds.

And you guys are hitting the nail on the head – we want to make it so that some of the support skills help allies more than they help you, but they do it so well that a support role is justified.

It’s a balance between dedicated support and builds that are entirely self reliant. Once the dues settles on the trait fact pass, we’ll be looking at how to improve the support builds with another round of trait improvements for every class, as well as skill adjustments for each class.

Well, I understand that it’s easy to tweak something and end up overtuning something so much that you have a balance issue on the opposite side of the spectrum, but we’ve never had an issue of a low dps class being too strong in support. So far it’s either been that a class is too strong as dps or as a bunker. This is even worse in PvE where people only want either a hardcore dps class or a heavy dps class that brings tons of dps-focused buffs. I know that’s a whole ‘nuther can o’ worms, but there has never been much of a calling for a party member with low or medium dps because of how much support they bring.

I’ve been thinking on this and here’s what I think it will take to put a class in a viable support role:

- Normal self-healing, but strong ally-healing
– Very strong group-focused traits in support trees (toughness/vitality/boon duration/healing trees and not power/precision/condi damage/condi duration trees)
– Toned down support available to classes that choose full dps-focused traits and weaponsets
– Consider a talent that does something like increase boon duration when your base power/precision is lower

Right now there is some tradeoff to get support heavy traits, but the tradeoff is weak. Because of this, people that build heavy dps builds can essentially have their cake and eat it too.

I mean, it would be awesome to keep warriors as stun champions, but make them trade off their insane dps to do it. They could then fill a line backer role in a team without being a 1-man army.

I understand that the style of gameplay in GW2 is largely based upon having very self-reliant classes, but I think there’s plenty of room to tweak things so that players who want to play a group-focused build can thrive too.

The major problem with having a support character not be able to support themselves equally with their teammates is that they potentially will be unable to defend against the inevitable “KILL THE SUPPORT” mindset in PvP.

If their self-heals and such can’t protect them against being singled out as THE target during a match, then their support is meaningless and inherently not viable.

Vick.6805:

The major problem with having a support character not be able to support themselves equally with their teammates is that they potentially will be unable to defend against the inevitable “KILL THE SUPPORT” mindset in PvP.

If their self-heals and such can’t protect them against being singled out as THE target during a match, then their support is meaningless and inherently not viable.

That’s why I stressed their support HAS to affect them, just LESS than others (maybe not even a lot less). However! If they are as good at supporting themselves as others they essentially become bunkers that can also keep everyone alive and well, which would be pretty bad. (No Resto Druids for GW2 please)

Say a bunkers defense is a 5/5 and a glass dps is 1-2, support should be at about a 3-4.