Guild Wars 2

So the question is…
If you could have a support with you… which one would you rather have?

Hi guys,

I’ve been away from the game for a long time and am feeling like playing again and I’m also very exited about HoT!

To check all the changes since I stopped playing and play/remember the story was about and how to play properly, I’m start a new character and thought I could ask you guys for your feedback.

I personally like the supportive role in games, things like playing buffer/debuffer/healer.
Say you could have someone follow your kill streak, helping you get your kills, healing, buffing, CCing, etc. Which class do you prefer best to be with you.

Or if you are supports yourselves, which class have you enjoyed the most doing this things? If you can say why or tell your experiences, that would be great too!

Cheers!

Elementalist /15

Basically the only buffer / supporter in this game is guardian or staff ele – still his role is mostly water field and nothing more ;P Guardian can share lot of healing, might and other various boons. He also can save u if he have supporting build so it is pretty nice class for you. Best build would be staff / hammer – hammer due to blast combo finisher and staff to heal and power up ur m8s.

I appreciate the replies.

I’ve been online reading builds and checking the forums. I’ve seen Warriors healing and buffing, Mesmers… even Thiefs?! Things seem to have changed a lot.

I stopped playing right after Fractals were introduced.

Technically everyone supports each other…

…your thief buddy is taking out the guys straying too far from a Zerg, you’re a staff Guardian handing out free boons like Oprah to that thief buddy making his job easier all the while your shout heal warrior friend comes along and keeps your health nice and full dishing out CCs galore. Worried about the warri? No problem coz’ your 1.5k ranger partner is keeping his behind safe. Who’s taking care of the ranger? He’s paired up with an ele dishing out candy boons but wait -
We’re about to get jumped by the enemy?? Not so fast coz that lone Mesmer just so happens to have veiled us in time but we’re still getting our booties prodded and luckily we got a Well Necro on board sneezing diseases everywhere keeping the meanies at bay. Last but not least you got your school girl engie clad in a hobo sack outfit handing out free Girl Scout cookies.. Just kidding. Those weren’t Girl Scout cookies. Those were full zerk/condi nades right in the face of your enemy.

Okay seriously though – support? Guardian is a good option, I prefer a tanky warrior though as I don’t like guard’s health pool being so.. Low in comparison.

Depends a lot on the context you’d play the support role, a zerg, small party or just you and a buddy?

Guard/ele are pretty good in all three, support ele can heal like crazy in small group/duo (no not talking about dropping water with staff). These two classes are welcomed anywhere.

Personally, I’d go with guard for zerging or bigger groups and ele for party/duo (particularly excellent when there is engi/ranger in party).

The other class (I found this most fun) for party/duo is ranger, but it relies on certain build to support, can’t heal as much as ele and suffers in any larger fight.

Gay guy Gabrial (when he was on like 50-100 followed him)

Depends on whether you want to be a heavy or a light really.

I prefer Ele as I can build so many different ways in WvW. So that when I get sick of being the water boy I can go and roam/havoc squad or go full zerk on my staff and pray I caught the enemy zerg without retal.

Guard can work wonders in support and has a fun roaming build, but for me I like to have a lot of buttons to push, and Ele will always have more of those.

Not going to say anything about skill cap, but the skill floor on Ele is definitely higher as you have to learn the proper way to pop your own fields before you become even something of a benefit to your team.

Anywho, I vote Ele because I’m biased towards them, but you’d be just as fine going Guard or even a Shout Warrior.

If I could take anyone in my party it’d be vash’s support mesmer build.

I’d rather have another high-damage dealer to help me kill faster. Nothing supports better than a quicker focus-kill. Boons and heals aren’t going to be better in a 2v2 or 2vX, as the fights will not last long enough for the boons to be more useful than a burst and some CC.

Like when I’m roaming as a thief, the best thing that could support me is another thief, or a GS zerk warrior.

Turk.5460:

I’d rather have another high-damage dealer to help me kill faster. Nothing supports better than a quicker focus-kill. Boons and heals aren’t going to be better in a 2v2 or 2vX, as the fights will not last long enough for the boons to be more useful than a burst and some CC.

Like when I’m roaming as a thief, the best thing that could support me is another thief, or a GS zerk warrior.

I agree that 2 zerkers vs 1 zerker + 1 support is better, but only in 2 vs 2. If you get full party, 4 zerkers + 1 support are force that just steamrolls over anything. In comparison to 5 zerker party, they have 20% lower dps but sustain of balanced builds. 400HP/s regen, even more sustained healing from support ele + burst heals, especially if someone drops water for that ele to blast and some 70-80% protection uptime from ele. It does however require good cooperation within the party for it to work.

When I was testing support ranger, one time me and one other guildie were defending keep in enemy third of the map. Both walls down, they had open access to the keep, spawn close, so what started as defence against 4-5, ended up as 2 of us vs 15 (we ran like chickens at that point). That’s one zerker mesmer and apothecary ranger (oh yeah add npcs too) that prevented enemies from taking their keep back for over 20mins. We wouldn’t manage to do that if both of us were zerkers.