Guild Wars 2

Lord Kuru.3685:

No pay for HoT ==> no win.

That’s precisely P2W.

Omg guys, FFXIV has a subscription fee! PAY TO WIN! No pay, no win!

Evan Lesh.3295:

I would totally enjoy a jumping puzzle in HotM

One thing I’d like to see in HotM is a FFA arena. Entry flags you for PvP and there’s a waypoint right at the entrance. Maybe make two arenas – a large one, and a small one. The large one would either be a huge zergfest, or, once the hype dies down, a place where people can conduct duels at a reasonable distance from each other.

It would be nice to be able to practice PvP while I wait in queue for my match, and I also really want the ability to conveniently duel with or against people I know. An arena like this would make dueling and pvp more convenient, accessible, and enjoyable imo.

A neat design for that would be a keep. Something with a large, flowery, fielded courtyard at the bottom with a fortified structure. At the top of the tower would be the smaller arena with a nice view of the HotM. An NPC teleports you to either the bottom or the top. The top and bottom could potentially be bridged with a jumping puzzle.

I don’t really care that much about PvE, so queuing outside of HotM doesn’t mean much to me, but HotM isn’t a very fun place. Being able to duel or participate in larger-scale pvp in a pretty, uplifting environment would make HotM way more fun. I think HotM is good design, and I think the solution should be to make it a place where people want to be, rather than making it as irrelevant as possible.

WvW could be like this, essentially, but the idea as you describe it is likely not going to happen in the pve world of Tyria.

I don’t think that blaming the thief is the right way to go, here. Thief does need to be able to make kills because of how squishy it is. High damage is important to a class with such low-moderate sustain.

I think mesmer is being overnerfed, though. Its offenses could probably use a moderate boost in order to compensate for it being squishier. It will probably end up being outclassed, as it is.

Ithilwen.1529:

Again, I was trying to explore the reasons that appear make people reflexively ask for Mesmer ( and thief ) nerfs.

Yes. My anecdotal experience seems to differ from yours, but I appreciate that you’re performing your conjecture and investigation.

Ithilwen.1529:

So many times, I have been called OP if I managed to win on Mesmer. In my experience, people have no problem in general losing against a warrior or a guardian say.. They attribute it to being out played. If they lose to a Mesmer, it’s because the class is clearly OP.

That’s probably because mesmers are chosen more in the pro-league meta right now, whereas warriors and guardians are basically nowhere to be found. However, there is a fairly significant amount of “dh op” in lowers levels of play. It’s true that warrior and thief aren’t called “op”; this is because they are legitimately underpowered right now.

Ithilwen.1529:

I watched Grouch himself do this on twitch. He lost to a Mesmer on thief. It wasn’t because he got outplayed.. it must have been that the Mesmer was OP. BTW the build that beat him was completely removed from the game in the very next patch.

I don’t really pay attention to the scene, but it would be pretty irritating if Anet’s balance team incorporated some personal bias into their decision-making process.

Ithilwen.1529:

Your personal attack is off topic. My point was and is that Mesmer bruises egos for two reasons; It has an image that isn’t hyper aggressive masculine. and ; It can stop the ego strokes that come from “zerk” style instant kills.

Personally, I disagree. I only play warrior and thief in ranked, so perhaps I differ from the average when I say this, but my only frustration with bunker mesmers is that +1 against them is, or at least was, pretty difficult. I haven’t played much since the minor balance patch, however.

I never considered the masculinity or femininity of the mesmer class. Your observations are… the first time I’ve thought about it regarding any class.

I don’t believe that bunkers should be able to hold 1v2. Being able to hold a single person off indefinitely seems balanced enough, but being able to defend against two people shifted the game to be bunker-focused, which made the gameplay really boring. I prefer quicker fights, where it’s easy to get downed when you’re not careful – I guess that explains my class choice.

In any case, I don’t think nerfing a mesmer’s nukes is the right way to go with balance this January. Tone down their defenses a little more and give them some minor buffs to their offense – I prefer the shatter-based theme the class has. Trying to balance the mesmer into a defensive class for pvp seems unintuitive to me, and it makes the class a bit over-reliant on its elite spec…

Congratulations on beating a weaker team.

Blade and Soul appeals to a different kind of gamer.

Guild Wars 2 is more casual and socially-oriented.

Blade and Soul is less casual and more solo-oriented.

Therefore, BnS will not kill GW2, because they will not compete.

Personally, I like k-mmos, and I am more of a solo player. I will probably like BnS.

Zenith.6403:

I don’t know what long terms goals you have for your own life, but there are people out there who aren’t actually happy to announce that playing some MMO is the thing they plan to do the next five years in absence of more fulfilling hobbies. Calling it grind puts the focus on the mind-numbing activity it is. Cook for 10k hours and you’re a chef. Play piano for 10k hours and you’re a pianist. Farm game for 10k hours and you’ve just wasted your life.

This is silly. Time enjoyed is not time wasted, and the idea of a more valuable hobby is an illusion. Becoming skilled in an activity, like learning the piano, is only worthwhile if the process of learning it and doing it is enjoyable… otherwise I think it would be hard to justify that the pride and prestige of finally being skilled are so pleasurable that, on their own, they were worth spending all that time on.

For many people, GW2 is an enjoyable, shared experience in the here and now. I think that obliging yourself to grind away at a piano or martial art when you would enjoy yourself more with another activity is problematic because it seems like a lot of people put an emphasis on these hobbies as a form of self-betterment, and judge each other based on each individual’s participation in such things. Therefore, a lot of the pressure to do those kinds of things results from a fear of being different, or a fear or people, or a fear of shame. These are unhealthy motivations.

The fact is just that everything is a waste of life. Spend it how you will, and don’t feel guilty about how you spend your time if you enjoy what you do.

I don’t think that thief is in a great place right now, but I think it’s better than people give it credit for. It should be painfully obvious that the largest problem that thieves have is that they’re not in the meta. What kind of idiot takes a thief to a bunker meta?

Solo queued to ruby with only thief and warrior. 55% win rate. Yeah it’s totally fine to play your thief – just don’t suck at it. You’ll have to try way harder to win as much as you would as another class, but if you enjoy thief, then why not?

Skritt are way cuter than Asura, so I am willing to accept your obvious statements of truth.

Five isn’t a lot… you’re probably just not as good as the average player, so it’s natural that you’re going to lose a few before the matchmaking system is accurate for you.

All you can do is be patient. I can say it definitely gets better over time – I’m in ruby now, and I don’t see AFK players, and my matches are usually pretty fair; my win rate is about 55%, now.

I don’t remember how many games it took me before I started winning more than I lost, but it probably took maybe… however many games it takes to get the second pvp title before I felt like I wasn’t being carried when I won.

Stilgar.6437:

thief and war – need buffs. war i could see getting there with couple buffs/tweaks. But thief seems to be in a hopeless state, across all game-modes really. It no longer has a purpose whatsoever.

I don’t think thieves and warriors are very different in how strong they are right now. Warriors are squishy and their offense isn’t good enough to compensate, and thieves are kind of in the same place. They just die before they can impact things like other classes can – however, thieves have more potential to do well than warriors, I’d say, given they have potentially more survivability than warriors if both players are very skilled. Thief has more immunity from dodges, which can more than make up for its lacking defenses in theory, though generally not in practice.

Neither class seems far from being meta-viable, but neither are capable enough in duels or teamfights at the moment. I’d say give warriors heals on their stances, and give thieves a trait that reduces ‘revealed’ duration by half, and give thieves a trait that provides some defense to skills not aimed at them.

DeltaZero.6310:

3. "Whatever “normal” trait you put in the last slot is “powered up”."
If you don’t use an elite spec the specialization you put in the last slot has better effects.

This is a decent idea, but a lot of the places where elite specs aren’t broken aren’t really the numbers… it’s more that they make the class more well-rounded, and give them more utility, and skills. Like, mesmers are tanky now, you can no longer easily kite guardians, who also do more damage… elite specs basically turned most classes into something that has both high offense and high defense. The exceptions are daredevil and berserker – daredevil improved the thief’s defense, but not significantly enough to help the class keep up with the rest in fights, and berserker didn’t do enough for the warrior’s ability to help it survive in teamfights either.

It’s really difficult to balance things when most classes have both high defense and high offense. I think builds should excel at one or another – not both. So, I should be able to have either a tanky elementalist that can hold a 1v1 without being much of an offensive threat (being able to hold a 1v2 indefinitely is broken), but I should also be able to have a squishy elementalist with poor sustain that can burst people down.

What this comes down to is… elite specs should be an alternative. Herald should turn rev into a lower-dps tanky class, whereas it should be a moderate-dps bruiser class otherwise. Herald becomes not an obvious improvement, but something that changes the way the class is played – it offers benefit at a cost. Dragonhunter should turn guardian into a high-dps squishy class, whereas it should be a lower-dps, tanky class otherwise. I feel like dragonhunter is relatively close, but it should be squishier than it is.

So that’s just my thought. I’d like to see Berserker as a class that gives the warrior even greater offense while making it a bit squishier (maybe applying some damage to self for some insane burst capabilities), but this would only be decent if the other elite specs weren’t giving classes ridiculous amounts of everything.

When I go far, it’s because it’s undefended.

No Walking.6349:

5 out of 9 of your classes are near useless

Well that’s just wrong. Maybe in highly coordinated, highly-skilled play, but for the vast majority of players, there are only a few classes holding you back – warriors, thieves, and non-druid rangers.

Dragonhunters and condi Reapers are still alive and well in solo queue.

Chokolata.1870:

Now we have builds that are mobile, tanky, sustainable and do damage.

This is loosely related to esports, but it’s absolutely true and ridiculous. The meta is less than half of all classes, and of those, only builds that have everything – tanky dps with utility. It would be nice to see elite specs get nerfed back down to warrior/thief level.

Fortunately, people are not as strict about the meta as they are in LoL.

Ginaz.3206:

The game matches you up the best it can. The 50/50 W/L thing is a myth made up by terrible players. It does not “try to make you lose” at any point.

Also, you’re supposed to rise by being good. You’re probably not good, deal with it.

Let’s clear this up with a little critical thinking. A matchmaking system pairs you against more difficult opponents when you win, depending on how sure it is about your MMR. It has been speculated that, if it pairs you against weaker opponents, it will pair you with even weaker allies in order to keep things fair. In either or both cases, your win rate should eventually be 50% – if you are a pro, facing off against other pros, or facing regular good players and being allied with slightly worse good players to compensate for your skill, then you will win about half your games.

Eventually, you should settle at 50%. However, early on… you’ll probably win either more or less than that.

Because of this, it’s difficult to progress in leagues, regardless of how good you are as a solo player. Leagues require you to beat the odds – it requires you to be better than your MMR; it requires you to noticeably step up your game. For newer players, this is easy and it comes naturally, but more seasoned players will find this to be extremely difficult without abuse.

The problem with divisions is that, right now, they don’t represent MMR. This makes it just as easy for a terrible player to climb up to diamond as it is for a pro, at least for solo queue. For teams, climbing to diamond and beyond doesn’t necessarily imply skill, either.

What this system does measure is improvement. You are required to get better as a player or team in order to beat the 50% odds of winning consistently, but already being better nets you no advantage. This is why MMR tanking exists, of course.

If you want divisions that measure skill, then we would need to change divisions so that they are a reflection of MMR – not something separate.

Would be nicer if it were as simple as most other classes getting nerfs, but given that power levels look like they’ll not be going back to their pre-hot state, sustain buffs are definitely right on the money for warriors.

Supreme.3164:

why mesmers use bunker builds over shatter chrono? The answer : *Too much damage flying around

So, you think that the solution to bunker builds…. is to make them more effective?

Well, good luck.

Hard to believe the i5 6600k is so much more expensive than the 4xxx-gen CPUs from Intel, considering the relatively small performance upgrade.

I would suggest nvidia’s gtx 960/970. The 960 isn’t perfect, but it’s a lot cheaper and the performance difference isn’t massive. The 970 is certainly no compromise, however.

My experience with thief has been perfectly fine. People don’t rage – they just let me do my job.

Glorious shoulders and shoes, ascalonian gloves, rubicon legs, and priory top.

I was going for.. a “soldier” look with this. The staff feels more like a spear.

The bunker meta doesn’t really exist in Stronghold.

I hope that they make bigger, more strategic Stronghold maps. I suspect that they are more fun to spectate – I think they’re more fun to play, too. Conquest is just not a spectator sport.

Lyger.5429:

Is it even possible to play 52 games in 48 hours? This guy must be trolling

A game maybe lasts 15 minutes including queue time. With that number, it would take 13 hours to complete 52 games.

Gray.9041:

but then shortbow would be more or less useless, which isn’t a good thing.

it’d be nice if we could have nice things without rendering half our class obsolete, but I guess until we get some proper balance, that’s how it’s going to be.

Aye, shortbow would have to be replaced by rifle in order to give the class a decent damage option through staff or dagger. Rifle/shortbow would just suck, likely.

Honestly, I would totally be willing to trade sb5 for more survivability and stealth for the class overall. It feels like sb5 is the reason why thieves are balanced to be weak duellists.

My advice: Solo play emphasizes strong duelling, rather than bunker play.

The professional meta is bunker-based, but solo-queue players are not organized enough to take advantage of it. A good duellist, such as a revenant, should be able to kill most bunkers in solo queue/below the professional level of play.

I think that nerfing the Chronomancer’s defensiveness would be better than destroying its damage and support.

Just remove deja vu.

venusiano.8246:

Bunker mesmer does no damage and cannot really hold points (using distortion prevents points capture). Actually bunker druid, bunker engi or bunker elementalist do the job better.

I hope that Chronomancer is not the only class to see nerfs.

Hollywood Votary.8914:

matchmaking assigns each team an a priori probability of winning…

cant take the OP seriously

Your assumption is that matchmaking is making accurate predictions. Since matchmaking does not account for premades, I believe that OP’s case is possible, though atypical.

Wins and losses are zero-sum, of course. If there are many premades who go on massive winning streaks, then you should expect that there will be some people who are going on massive losing streaks. You should also expect that they will still be outliers as most of the effect will just go into reducing the average win rate of solo players.

That last point is a huge issue. I would wager that most players are solo – or, at least, were before leagues. It would result in the massive frustration that you see.

I think the Sniper is a really neat elite spec idea. It makes the most sense – more sense than Daredevil did.

Personally, I would rather see a greatsword-wielding Blademaster elite spec, focused on having lots of shadowsteps, unblockability, combo attacks, and distortion, but I think the Sniper would be a finer addition to the class for the sake of diversity.

Unfortunately, the Sniper does face the problem that its damage output might be mediocre, as you are still virtually required to take shortbow, and the rifle’s damage will certainly not be as high as the dagger or staff – if it was, that would be poor balance for obvious reasons.

If the rifle had a new sb5 on it, however, it would definitely change things and hopefully allow the class to keep up with the power creep.

Azure The Heartless.3261:

are we really going to consider that a nerf to every other class but ours [and warriors] would be even remotely reasonable for the sake of balance?

Yes.

Lordrosicky.5813:

bunker mesmer should NOT be nerfed. And I dont even know how to play mesmer

If you don’t have much knowledge about mesmers, then your word isn’t very meaningful is it?

If we were trying to balance the game around professional play, mesmers would be near the top of the nerf list.

Instead of proposing power creep, I might suggest nerfs for the top tier classes – in my opinion, they should either be tanky, or have excellent damage, but not both.

Drennon.7190:

-OR- do you just define “major success” by looking at a chart / graph?

Well, looking at a graph to see how much pvp is being done compared to the rate before the expansion would be a pretty good way to define “major success”…

I’m not really crazy about the new elite specs and the meta that formed around them. I think there were a lot of great ideas, but a few of the dominant classes are silly because they are tanky and they also have a lot of damage, so they don’t have strong weaknesses. It’s boring.

The league system was poorly-made, too. I think the ideas for the expansion were all in the right place, but the implementation leaves a lot to be desired.

PvP is okay. I will enjoy it a lot more if/when some of the elite specs are given weaknesses, and when all the classes are overall more balanced. As it stands, you could probably form a distinctive ranking or tier list detailing the hierarchy of the relative power of the classes…

Farmers will be near the top for a while, until better teams come to replace them.

It’s true the league system favours teams, but that’s probably what ANet is going for. You can’t exactly recruit solo guys into your esports league, so … they’re not going to be and are not supposed to be at the top. Solo players will be in the middle or high middle at most.

Now, the system would be a lot better if your placement within the league system corresponded to your MMR… I mean, I understand that ANet wants casuals, noobs, and bads to be able to progress in leagues, but perhaps that shouldn’t be a goal.

SamTheGuardian.2938:

In my calmest, heart-to-heart voice I want to know… How is that good design? Can you justify it?!?

I, personally, absolutely love the League system and don’t think it’s anti-casual at all. Prestige is hugely important to promoting pvp and esports in general, and it makes pvp a lot more rewarding to me. I would be very upset if the League system was revised to take away that prestige.

So instead of complaining, just keep playing. You can get far even if you lose frequently; if you lose frequently, your MMR will go down, and if your MMR goes down, you will be paired in fairer matches.

Agemnon.4608:

The problem there is PvE mobs would take longer to kill,

Your argument is based on… open-world pve? What?

Anyway, another point on thief is really just that mesmers are better at being the stealthy-mobile-assassin type than thieves are. I’ve tried getting into mesmer, and it’s okay, but I just don’t really enjoy the playstyle even though all the tools are there.

Mesmers can have a decent amount of stealth, and they do get deceptiveness and evasion, incredible burst, and arguably insane mobility – not personal mobility quite as much as being able to move their group from place to place, but I’d put it on the same level as the thief’s mobility regarding map control. They get these things that thieves covet while being far tankier and bringing way more utility. It doesn’t really feel like thief offers much that wouldn’t be offered better by a mesmer, in either pvp or wvw (or even pve, for that matter).

Elite specs fixed a lot of problems for a lot of classes, but unfortunately, they made more than a few classes a little too perfect. Mobility, utility, burst damage, and mitigation shouldn’t all belong in the same package for any class – weaknesses are important.

The meta is definitely interesting right now, but it could always be better.

I just hope that ANet decides to nerf the stronger classes, rather than buff the weaker ones. The power creep has required a defense creep, and the very strong classes right now are the ones with insane elite-spec defenses – Chronomancer, and Herald with their active blocks stand out. Next we have the Reaper and Druid, who have ridiculous sustain compared to most pre-HoT specs. Thief and Warrior may be weak, but it’s just a numbers game – you can make them capable of teamfights or duels just by nerfing the other elite specs.

Obviously, nobody likes getting weaker, so the playerbase demands buffs rather than nerfs, but power creep creates an overdependence on active defenses – evades and blocks – and classes have to be redesigned for more of those in order to compensate. Berserkers and Daredevils didn’t receive as much as other classes did with their elite specs in that regard.

This creates a very dynamic duelling environment, and it would be more balanced if Berserker and Daredevil acquired better and more active defenses, but it also makes pvp extremely unforgiving and unfriendly to spectators. If this game wants to be an esport, making pvp more spectator-friendly is about making fights more interesting to watch as well as enhancing clarity and commentary, which means making skills more overt.

tl;dr Numbers are getting too high, thieves and warriors didn’t get enough invulnerability to compensate, power creep is one way to balance things, but it makes the game less interesting to spectators despite making it more interesting to players

Ario.8964:

It sounded like this was sarcasm but I can’t be sure. If it was, well done and I appreciate it. If it’s not, then dude your build has some issues we need to talk through cause that’s not even the most mobile spec out there.

It definitely sounds like sarcasm/satire…

And it’s pretty depressing, too. Decapping is fine and all, but I’d rather take a slightly less mobile class that can do combat infinitely better – like, a Herald! There’s a reason those guys were everywhere last Monday.

StickerHappy.8052:

it’s hard to find a good thief. A lot of the thieves just blame their class for being bad.

LOOK AT THE TIME! IT’S RANT:30!

One problem with this is that thieves shouldn’t have to be “good” in order to match favourably against “average” players. In order to win half the time against average players, you should only have to be average. Right now, thief isn’t a high-risk high-reward class. Basically, it’s just a low-utility class with good single-target dps that has virtually all of its survivability in evasion, which makes it very risky – but other classes do very similar single-target dps while being easier/less risky AND while offering more utility.

So, blaming the class for being bad is reasonable. You can either solve the above problem by making the class easier and more forgiving, as the Herald is, you can solve the problem by giving the risk a good payoff by increasing either utility or damage, or you could solve the problem by making the other classes more difficult to play well.

As it stands, the amount of effort you put into the thief puts out an inferior result compared to an equal amount of effort put into a Herald, or a Reaper, or a Chronomancer.

If you want to balance around the pro league, then reducing the skill floor by making thief survivability a bit easier might be the way to do things. In theory, it wouldn’t affect the pro scene much, especially not as much as making the currently-high risk more rewarding with more damage, but it would help average thieves avoid being irrelevant in most teamfights and duels.

So, are there bad thieves? Sure. But thieves of all skill levels are underperforming relative to their skill group. Bad thieves are less useful than bads from most other classes, and so on.

The alternative to blaming the class for being bad is to blame most other classes for being too strong. It’s basically the same thing with a different perspective plus the additional context of power creep.

I’d suggest nerfing most of the elite specs down instead of buffing thief/Daredevil – really, nothing should be tanky and do damage. You should have one or the other.

[/rant]

Rising Dusk.2408:

Bingo. Besides this, DPS is and should remain important going into future raid wings because it, quite frankly, wouldn’t be hard otherwise.

OP has a point, though. There are ways to make content difficult without timers. You can make really intensely technical fights where tanky gear and tactics makes the fight a little more forgiving in one way, and dps gear and tactics make the fight more forgiving in a different way, without either approach being objectively easier than the other by much.

http://i.imgur.com/FdtJafv.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/egA42zA.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/WcJvggk.jpg

Colour is for artists. Justice is black and white.

Blackdeath.2607:

Guards are currently forced into using staff, retreat and save yourselves all at once just to attempt to keep up. We basically lose a whole weapon slot and 2 utility skills due to this.

Not really.

Maybe if you’re trying to get back to your zerg in wvw, or running through trash in pve, but when you want to actually engage in combat or roam you’d be better-off taking your utilities and a different weapon.

You seriously overrate the ms passive.

I’d prefer a change in the direction of the soundtrack. Most of the tracks are too relaxing/boring – Aion’s soundtrack, for example, was something I enjoyed a lot more.

Karl McLain.5604:

Hi all,
Here’s a list of new stuff we’ve got going as we draw closer to launch…

Dragonhunter is looking pretty exciting! I enjoy the theme of the elite spec, taking the point control idea a bit further by rewarding players who can successfully lure their prey into their traps.

Hopefully, the traps will be worth taking over other utilities now. If not, and if making them even more powerful is unappealing, reducing the risk of using them by increasing their effective range would really help.

Furthermore, in order to help integrate DH, I’d suggest some weapon swap CD reduction. This could just be tacked on to a trait, but to keep it interesting… put some more “action” in Virtuous Action by making using the virtue actives reduce the CD of weapon swap by, say, 5 seconds.

To further facilitate the process of switching from ranged and melee play, a new mobility solution to help players dart in and around the thick of a fight would help greatly. An interesting way to do this would be to have True Shot moderately reduce the CD of Wings of Resolve when landed. This would help keep the skill interesting, too – it’s very simple right now, and this would synergize pretty well with the proposed weapon swap CD reduction on Virtuous Action.

I also support giving Wings of Resolve some minor evasion, just for the duration of the animation. The animation gives you the impression you should be evading things.

Given these proposed changes, a passive +25% movement speed would be excessive. Passives are boring, and elite specs, specifically, seem to be intended towards more skillful yet more rewarding gameplay anyway.

Canakun.8031:

A meta isn’t about being the “only way to play,” it’s about being the most optimal, most efficient way to play. Some people like efficiency, especially when they’re grinding content multiple times.

It may not be about that, but it quickly becomes that in larger games where knowledge is generated and spread very quickly. I’d say most people want to run efficiently, and other people will run according to the meta whether they want to or not because they believe that people won’t want to run with them if they play their preference.

The larger the game, the stronger the influence the meta will have on it – but that’s just based on my anecdotal experience. GW2 is big enough that the meta is very important to consider, and if the current one doesn’t allow enough role diversity, then a change would be a good move.

Canakun.8031:

This is so bizarre though. Why would someone want to play a dedicated healer in a game that doesn’t require a dedicated healer?

Some people enjoy being a strong support. I have a very close friend who really enjoys playing support in games like LoL or other MMORPGs, and she was a bit disappointed by how relatively weak the support is in this game. Supporting her group-members is what makes her feel powerful and helpful.

It is nice, in some ways, that content is easy enough to be cleared by pure dps teams – however, there should always be enthusiast-grade content that requires players to go outside of their comfort zone and operate in a specific role to achieve the highest prestige. One way of designing this is to require players to make use of the support and control specializations that currently and will soon exist – that is, making content that is difficult enough to require a specific composition of roles, while maintaining large class diversity by allowing most classes the ability to effectively fill either a DPS, support, or control role. This will additionally require some more coordination between players. When very different roles are present, communication becomes more important.

There will still be an ideal group composition for each fight – maybe, for the first fight of the raid, you’ll have the easiest time with 3 supports, 2 controllers, and 5 DPSers, and maybe the second fight will require 5 controllers, 2 supports, and 3 DPSers. People should have to switch specializations a bit. There’s nothing wrong with this as long as each class has access to multiple effective roles – so long as every class can fill an, ideally more than one, important niche in what rightfully should be a specific role-composition per boss fight.

Ultimately, the goal is to have challenging content, and for it to be enjoyable. Content that requires multiple and diverse specialists in different roles and thus requires communication and synergy is going to be more challenging and it will feel more rewarding because of that. Some people will get greater enjoyment out of the content because they enjoy supporting more than DPSing.

Other people might be less happy because they might have to go support or control if they can’t find someone else who enjoys doing it – however, one might argue that being versatile and being able to clear content in any role is the ultimate test of mastery. On this note, I have kind of a far-fetched idea: Perhaps, a future raid could have unique objectives that can only be completed by specialist supports, controllers, or DPSers, and the completion of these objectives could lead to specific, role-based rewards. Furthermore, it might be neat to see what a meta-reward that requires rewards from all three categories looks like.

I, for one, am happy to play any role so long as I’m not playing in that role all the time. I enjoy playing all aspects of my class, and I’d hate to be pigeon-holed into any one role forever – whether that’s support, controlling, or DPSing.

[/ramble]