Guild Wars 2

This is a question mainly for the devs. (what else is new) My server does weekly PvE events, namely our Orr Temple runs which tend to draw a large crowd. Because of the nature of these events and the amount they tend to scale up Elementalists are asked to go staff support especially on the Balthazar escort up to the temple from Rally. However I find that when I’m going full support – CCing and Healing- I find my rewards for the events to be much lower if i was going solely DPS if I get them at all. I enjoy being support in MMOs and I’d like to be rewarded for my effort the same as if I was dps. I’ve sent in various tickets in when I don’t get any event rewards at all but I was curious what/if Anet planned to do anything about it. I’ve heard that there will be a buff incoming for support players though I’m not sure what that will entail. Will that change the situation with rewards?

Edit to clarify: I’m talking specifically about event rewards at the end of an event, not tagging mobs.

Rewards?

you know. Karma, XP, bonus chest from events

The trick is not to go support. As an ele, you’re supposed to dps and support at the same time with the same build.

And seriously, 1 well-placed Meteor Shower is enough to get the reward anyway.

In those situations I am indeed doing dps and healing at the same time. One meteor shower doesn’t resolve what I’m talking about with rewards. Especially when I’m talking about events with enough people there to put a map into overflow.

If you’re not going to help out with DPS you shouldn’t be getting rewards. I think that’s fair.

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

If you’re not going to help out with DPS you shouldn’t be getting rewards. I think that’s fair.

But your are wrong.

By healing people and providing support you are allowing them to focus more on DPS rather than sustaining themselves. This way players get work on what they are specialized in: healing or dps. This brings efficiency because the comparative advantage of each specialisation is being used to its fullest.

It is called teamwork.

Zelyhn.8069:

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

If you’re not going to help out with DPS you shouldn’t be getting rewards. I think that’s fair.

But your are wrong.

By healing people and providing support you are allowing them to focus more on DPS rather than sustaining themselves. This way players get work on what they are specialized in: healing or dps. This brings efficiency because the comparative advantage of each specialisation is being used to its fullest.

It is called teamwork.

I agree Zelyhn. Just to add on to that. If no one healed the escorts on the way up to Balth with it scaled up as much as it possibly could it would fail quite quickly. This is why it is requested of elementalists to bring staves to heal the escort and cc the mobs. More broadly I think it’s clear from the changes anet has made that they intend people in support roles to be valued just as much as people who dps. I think they would agree when it comes to event rewards there’s no reason one should get more rewards than the other when they put out the same amount of effort. Of course that’s speculation but I’m hoping that a dev will chime in on the discussion.

munkaybiznaz.8067:

In those situations I am indeed doing dps and healing at the same time. One meteor shower doesn’t resolve what I’m talking about with rewards. Especially when I’m talking about events with enough people there to put a map into overflow.

Then what kind of rewards are you talking about? Even if you go staff (or rather, especially when you go staff), you should get the event rewards easily. Mob rewards is a different story, but the extra mobs spawned by events usually don’t give loot anyway.

So what exactly is it that you cannot get with staff?

Given the high recharge of the water fields you will switch attunements really fast anyway (and if you stay in water for 45 seconds to wait for your water fields to come off cooldown you deserve no loot…). I also found it a lot easier to tag mobs with the high damage and high range AoE spells of an Ele than with other classes.

That said, the way guild wars calculates event participation and loot needs an overhaul. I remember one of the devs openly acknowleded that (but I don’t thinks it’s going to change anytime soon)

Your big healz are water field blasts which you can even blast yourself. Two blasts is easy, three blasts is possible with some coordination of your attunements.

If you are using the water auto-attack to heal then you probably need to stop doing it. I play a support/sustain elementalist and I still get plenty of tags simply by rotating through fire and earth. You want to rotate anyway in order to distribute your on-attunement buffs and trigger any on-swap sigil effects.

This is just my opinion and I’m sure others will have more to add.

You can also provide support and be built for good DPS. I use a modified WvW build in big PvE events, it’s mostly PVT with some zerk with might stacking sigils. I can keep about 15 stacks of might on me at all times while doing nothing but attunement swap. I hardly ever use auto attack. I just lay the big attacks down, swap and repeat all while providing AoE healing, regen, protection, might every time I swap atunements and blast a field. Then I throw down ice bow use skill 4, 3, and 2 before throwing it down and continue with the staff until ice bow is off CD. Throw in a FGS rotation in there and you should be doesn’t some pretty amazing DPS all while providing excellent support.

Zelyhn.8069:

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

If you’re not going to help out with DPS you shouldn’t be getting rewards. I think that’s fair.

But your are wrong.

By healing people and providing support you are allowing them to focus more on DPS rather than sustaining themselves. This way players get work on what they are specialized in: healing or dps. This brings efficiency because the comparative advantage of each specialisation is being used to its fullest.

It is called teamwork.

You know as well as I do that that isn’t how events actually work. IF Anet actually implemented events where healing was necessary, then group events might actually benefit from having lots of clerics, not succeed despite them.

To be fair a cleric is still more helpful than a PVT (who offers neither support nor DPS) but they’ll never be as useful as a zerker.

Nothing is necessary but support does matter. Yes, especially in high level PvE.
That being said you are right: there is simply no reason to use any other gear than berserker anywhere in PvE. Even if you focus on heal and support (via traits and weapons), berserker is better. The reason for this is that no gear is more efficient and synergistic than berserker. Therefore even if you don’t focus on damaging so much, the damage boost that this gear will give you is drastically better than the support and defense boost you could get from any other gear.

So people should try to output support if the build for it, but they should wear DPS gear anyway.

Right and I am in mostly celestial as normally I’m a scepter/dagger fresh air build. Also I’m not talking about tagging mobs here, obviously not doing as much dps with staff I’m not going to be getting as many drops. However I’m speaking specifically about event rewards. You participation in an event grants a bronze, silver, or gold medal at the end of the event giving you karma, xp, and money based on that participation. However I frequently get a lower reward in a support role in these events even though I participated fully, sometimes not getting a reward at all. I think this is a problem especially with anet nerfing berserker and putting more emphasis on support. I’m curious about whether that will make this even more of a problem. Keep in mind this happens especially in events that draw large crowds of people.

munkaybiznaz.8067:

Right and I am in mostly celestial as normally I’m a scepter/dagger fresh air build. Also I’m not talking about tagging mobs here, obviously not doing as much dps with staff I’m not going to be getting as many drops. However I’m speaking specifically about event rewards. You participation in an event grants a bronze, silver, or gold medal at the end of the event giving you karma, xp, and money based on that participation. However I frequently get a lower reward in a support role in these events even though I participated fully, sometimes not getting a reward at all. I think this is a problem especially with anet nerfing berserker and putting more emphasis on support. I’m curious about whether that will make this even more of a problem. Keep in mind this happens especially in events that draw large crowds of people.

Party up with a couple of high DPS players. You should have no problems getting gold medals.

I’m still not convinced that in a broader sense there’s not some sort of inherent problem with the event reward system. Yes you could just say “more dps!” but it doesn’t resolve the issue. As for partying up. Well actually it’s happened in those cases as well. In fact I’m partied up the vast majority of the time.

I support constantly and never have any issue getting gold badges, if you have issues get into a group.

You get much more participation in a group.

As I said earlier it also happens in a group. Which is why I sent in a few support tickets because it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.