Guild Wars 2

Ohoni.6057:

The market should adapt AROUND the players, not the other way around. Prices should be stable wherever possible, with supply increasing to meet demand.

Around which players?
The ones who are farming an item and want the item to stay expensive?

Atm wealthy players who are willing to spend that amount of gold are buying an overpriced item. Not so wealthy players which are willing to wait can sell their items for more gold. So it helps a bit to close the “wealth gap”.

If pigments would be cheaper other items needed would become more expensive. I don’t know which items are needed but if something like linen gets more expensive it could harm players more than expensive pigments.

Shadelang.3012:

Second: its the fault of the players for trusting people on the internet. For assuming what there being told is 100% true and 100% accurate. And for not double checking what there told. Or even using common sense. It shouldn’t be hard to look at there numbers in game and do a bit of quick math on the spot. Its simple addition and division. And you can even round numbers to the nearest thousand and still get a ballpark estimate

Most people just copyn paste stuff without thinking too much about it.
GW2 offers little help to compare builds which makes it even worse.

I don’t know how much dps build X does or how much build Z does. If I want to compare builds I would have to fight against the same enemy. As Nemesis has said: damage is divided by armour. So you can’t compare dps of fighting against different enemies. I don’t know how “theoretical dps” is measured. GW2 gives no values, so players must have tested them somewhere. When its tested with PVP golems you have to compare those theoretical dps with the PVP golems, too.
To give a very obvious example: fight as a zerk against a mordrem husk should result in lower dps than fighting against ambient creatures.

Nemesis method is a bit tricky. You have to make sure might/vuln/fury is always capped. But also protection, weakness, dodges or a smaller hitbox can influence dps. It should result in “tested dps” value, which is only true against this enemy. Another enemy (for example with another armour, but also with condi-remove or invuln phases – or when you are using potions) will give you a different value.
Imho are also several tries needed to get an average value.

I think dps comparisions don’t really matter that much. Classes are taken for their role in a team. You can replace some classes when you know the content and what those classes do. Replacing a PS warrior with a necro might result in a lack of might. Maybe your ele can compensate it. But this requires a good knowledge of the game, players adapting their builds/equip. Which is difficult in a PUG. I think most PUGs don’t know what everyone in their team is doing. If you don’t know it its difficult to replace a player – you might end up with a lack of stabi and wipe.
Metabuilds usually are “good working” builds, not the optimal choice. In GW1 sabway was for a long time meta. Not because of its speed, but it was a very good working build for nearly every situation. An all-round build. Same goes for “GW2s dungeon meta”, you can see the same teamcompositions in AC/COE/CM/…

Bosses in the past were fast dying, which had a huge influence on the meta. It might change a bit now with raids, we’ll see. Conditions might become stronger – but when many enemies got a condi remove…

Halan.7931:

They don’t do anything useful, just stand between real seller (who gathered the materials or items) and real buyer (who will use the them)

A “real buyer” who is using buy orders to buy from “real sellers” is not buying from a flipper.

Lazy people who are not using sell or buy orders are buying from flippers.
But they profit from flippers. Flipping closes the gap between sell orders and buy orders. For example: an item is bought for 10 copper and sold for 20. A flipper will buy it for 11 copper and sell it for 19. A farmer who sells directly to buyers will now get more money for his stuff. A buyer has to pay a lower price.

John Smith.4610:

What type of instanced content do you see offering marketable rewards that players can take part in on a regular basis?
Fractals

Ty for your clear statements. I’m a fan.

Fractals already exist. Imho Anet should try to increase the amount of attractive content, not to decrease it.
When dungeons become unattractive we need a replacement or fractals will become boring very fast.

There are ~ 25 dungeonpaths. I doubt we will see 25 new fractal maps with daily rewards tied to each map.

Drakortha.6974:

I was thinking, it would be nice if in GW2 all members of a party could contribute to a hearts completion, making completing zones and doing hearts feel more like a team effort

Players asked for it since release.
Having to wait for each other at every single heart completion made me stop playing open world content with a team. It’s not worth it, you’re solo way faster.

Messed up the timer anyway, have to try to fix it.

It says: “are they all [raid wings] gonna be available in 2015? […]”
“No.[…] The first wing you will get some time after HoT ships. We haven’t announced it yet, but definitely long before the holidays. And the second two wings will be available early next year.”

What bothers me is: I like playing in a team, thats why I’m playing a MMO. Open world “zergplay” is like playing solo. Other players could be bots or npcs and it would make no difference to my gaming experience. There is nearly no interaction.
Open world stuff is ok, I like farming some AP, but I prefer to play in a team. Teams only matter in dungeons and fractals. For a three year old game 8 dungeons + 1 (fractals) is not much. You can do all of them in one weekend. It is an “ok” amount for “challenging content” but not for teamcontent trying to satisfy casual, core and hardcore players.

Anet pushed all those kinds of teamplayers into a small amount of dungeons. So dungeons are too hard for very casual gamers – and not challenging enough for others. There should have been a bigger variety of teamcontent since the beginning. Instead we only got fractals in three years and thats it. There was a lack of content at release. And it didn’t got better in the past three years.

Now everyone will focus on raids. Raids can’t satisfy all those different type of players.
They might be too challenging for some players, too easy for others, who knows. But what else do you want to play with your friends/guild? Stuff which can be done solo?
Well…I can also take a screenshot of a place in skyrim and ask guildies to find it….

I think there should also be a variety of different instanced content. Some for players looking for a challenge, some for casuals, etc. More variety keeps content exciting over a longer period of time. It’s like listening to the same song again and again. If there’s a mixture of songs (radio) you can listen to the same song more often without getting annoyed. That’s why I’d like to see more dungeon like stuff. Simple content like AC/COF1 and some more challenging stuff.
I’m a bit afraid of raids becoming too difficult/easy. Or of raids becoming boring very fast, because its the only new teamcontent.

AdaephonDelat.3890:

The live stream that announced raids said the first wing would be out a week or so after release and the other wings would be released after that.

https://youtu.be/tM8cgQ42bMQ?t=958
—>before christmas.

Linken.6345:

Ofcourse everyone should be able to join thats what lfg is for, not get what ever you want.
Thats what your guild and friends list is for.

No. The lfgs Job is it to filter players and bring players of similar playstyles together.
A fast dungeon group is no fun for an unexperienced player. He will feel useles, might miss several bosses because they die too fast, get lost on the way or will fail at skips.
And no one will guide him, explain something or wait for him.
On the other hand: an experienced player in a beginner group might get annoyed.
Both can lead to unpleasent group experiences or even flaming each other.
The lfg is a tool to search like-minded players. Not a tool to force players into groups the don’t fit in.

When someone is looking for players it is his group. His rules. If you don’t like them don’t join. Usually I’m making lfgs like “p1” and I don’t care who joins.
But when I’m looking for an ele, then I’m looking for an ele. Simple as that.
When you don’t fulfill the requirements don’t join or at least ask if I could make an exception. It’s a matter of respect.

That’s why I’d like to see the GW1 options back. For example: I also join lfgs asking for an ele when I’m on my guardian, but I’ll switch after joining. A filter would fail.
With the GW1 options: I’d push “join” and “whisper”. I’d say “Hi, I’m switching to my ele” and then they could accept me. But they won’t have to kick several players out of the group, place the lfg again etc.

Idc about dungeonselling, but we had some troubles finding an ele for AC.
We got like….10-20 lowlevel warriors, rangers etc. After we finished P1 with 4 people we finally got an ele…
I’m not doing AC often enough, so I don’t know if thats normal or we had just bad luck.

In GW1 you can only “ask” to get into a group, the group has to accept your request.
Would like to see the same for GW2:
“glf ele” —> “XY wants to join your group” --> show the same infos visible when already in your group —> accept/don’t accept.
Give us a direct whisper option via lfg tool so players can ask stuff like “is a second warrior ok for you?” without having to join the group.
When you want people to read the lfg: “whisper me: hello world” and accept only people who did so.

Zetsuei.8942:

Also what is the point of AP? To kick out newer players who don’t have thousands upon thousands of AP? Right now we already have people kicking others for low AP because they haven’t played for 3 years.

The daily cap is at 15k AP.
I haven’t seen many groups looking for more than 10k AP. I’ve never seen a group looking for 25k AP.
Most groups are looking for 3-10k AP. A higher cap won’t change this.

JoaoFA.8475:

So what is the point on kicking certain classes in pugs?

Certain classes fulfill certain roles. A guardian is used to bring stabi, condiremoval and projectile protection. A warrior brings his banners and might to increase party dps.
Thief for stealth, stack removal (icebow freeze), blinds, dps.
Ele for dps, blinds, icebows, might, fury.
(edit: its not a complete list, just some of the most important aspects.)
Ofc you can replace one of these classes – but you have to make sure all important aspects are still covered. You need to know what you’re doing.
Most PUGs aren’t. If they replace the guard with a necro they might get into trouble.
Content gets more difficult without might, fury, reflects, blinds etc.

2015. Pleasantly surprised

I think it’s both. Aether is for some players the last dungeonpath missing. And many players got troubles in it but want the aether achievements. Before you spend like 2 frustrating hours in it, it might be worth buying it.

I do aether often with PUGs. Most players are not searching for guides. You can do most dungeons by just entering and kill everything, players are not used to communicate, read chat or think.
Without some explanations groups tend to disband at the ooze puzzle or they spend there like half an hour. The first boss is causing huge troubles, because everyone needs to understand the oil-degeneration mechanic.
The final boss is also difficult when no one melees him or when the holo-luring stuff goes wrong. Some time ago you could often see lfgs searching for replacement players: “aether at oozes/slick spark/final boss”. Got more uncommon, but for a long time like half the aether lfgs were similar. Without explanations aether can cause troubles.

NikeEU.7690:

But if they are going to advertise it as the “ultimate challenge” and all the other terms they have thrown around I certainly would assume they expect it to be challenging.

mmhhhh….sounds familiar:

And when you finish the story version of a dungeon you unlock the explorable version of that dungeon.

Those are intended to be the super hard, very coordinated group style content like Slaver?s Exile, or Fissure of Woe, or the Underworld.

http://www.tentonhammer.com/gw2/sdcc/2011/dungeons-and-underwater-interview

Anet will not introduce content for a small fraction of the playerbase. Challenging means “challanging for the masses”. Maybe like high level fractals, but I doubt it.

Even in a group of friends certain builds cause trouble. If a casual guild decides to go into dungeons they might have a hard time, when they got one beerbow, a summon staffguard, a condi nec, and a scepter fire autoattack camping ele and a rifle warrior.
They might not care if a dungeon run takes them 30 minutes instead of 10. But they care if the die endlessly, the dungeon takes them 2 hours, or they won’t be able to succeed. If they care about this, not everything is viable for them anymore.
(not everyone is able to do every dungeon with every build/setup)

Atrophied.8725:

There is no healing role. There is no tank role. But there’s much more to the game than just DPS.

You are right. I should have written “only dps roles matter”. Everyone has to bring damage, there is no classic support role. But ofc you can bring some support while doing damage.

Lux Dominatoris.3941:

Enjoy the Video!

Most players asking for a viable build are not asking for a theoretical viable build. They are asking for a good build – maybe not the optimal, but still good.
Usually you don’t need to ask for it, it can easily be seen from context.
Especially beginners struggle with bad builds and are not able to do everything with every build. It’s important to tell them which builds are good and which aren’t. The debate about viable or not is just distracting. Someone who wants to play a healer: no, healer is bad in GW2, GW2 is not a trinity game. Only dps matters. Together with a few high-dps chars it might be ok in high level fractals, but in dungeons etc. it is just bad.
Infos like “everything is viable” are not helpful. Tell him his build sucks and he should play a different build. Nobody wants a staff camping guard in his group because “everything is viable”. If he wants to play a healer he should buy another game.

theoutsider.7849:

Fightception. It’s like that in every forum, and its likely to never stop.

No, its not. It’s a sign of a bad community. You can try to have a friendly themebased debate or you can start personal attacks. I can go in every topic here and start a battle about people “craving for attention”. Does it matter if guild XY is doing a run in X minutes? No, but some people are interested in such runs and gratulate. It would be unfair to derail such a topic.

From my point of view: the healing guard topic was interesting. It seems to be an easier way for fractals in a comparable good time to a fullzerk team – except if the fullzerk team is good enough to run without too big fails. I think you posted videos with a similar time, so a healing guard would maybe make no time difference for you. This could have been debated. Maybe the build would be interesting for PUGs – who usually aren’t close to 30 mins. I don’t think it really matters if a good group is able be ~10 mins faster or not. More important from my perspective is: is this build enabling not so good players to do fractals in a comperable time as a fullzerk-team. Less skill required, similar times?
Instead some people started personal attacks and shot the topic down. Not one person, several. It is an indicator for a toxic community, when you can’t even debate alternative ways or more beginner friendly. Maybe its a bad setup. Maybe celestial is better. This could have been debated, tested with PUGs, whatever.
If some people don’t see a reason to debate the topic: don’t post in it. If you think the topic “is craving for attention” don’t spend attention to it and ignore the topic….
The other topic was moved to another section, so it is imho ok to restart it.

Mitch.4781:

Just like they inexplicably removed the beach map from pvp..giving LESS content.

Afaik because of its underwater part. Underwater combat is “not so well” balanced, many players seem to hate it – and there was only one map which contained underwater combat. Not worth to invest huge amounts of development time into it.

Tigaseye.2047:

Playing ranged should be equally viable (and not detrimental to the group, in any way) and the game should be redesigned to reflect that.

Anet would have to redo half GW2 for that. Support has a small range, for example guardian has usually 600 range, PS Warr 600. You have to stay in range of support, you can’t use your range to its max. Anet would have to increase all group buffs to ~1200 or more range. Combofields are sometimes very small, they would need a similar range.
All attacks are aoe, so you want to pull all enemies into one place. A ranged player could mess this up. So Anet would need a different KI which is not stackable – and/or they have to remove all/nearly all AOE skills from the game.
Even Skills like WoR force player to stay close to each other.
GW2 is not a game for people who like to play ranged all the time. Some bosses are even designed to force player into melee (last two bosses in aether for example).

BattleCat.2098:

Why is solo dungeons so strange?

Dungeons are designed to be group content. Ofc Anet could add a solo mode or scaling. They did this with the tower of nightmares and other living story 1 parts (festivial of wind defend something stuff). Scaling was broken, both were way easier solo than in a group. On the other hand: did a story-mission with a friend and it didn’t seem to scale up, which ruined our game experience.

(and btw, keep in mind I want to add solo-dungeons, but NOT remove the group-dungeons. Add more, not remove. Kinda important to keep in mind.)

There have to be different rewards. Like no tokens and gold for doing a dungeon solo. Finding a team and interact with them is a bit of effort. In GW1 you could choose to do stuff in a team of npcs instead of humans. At the beginning NPCs were bad skilled and nearly everyone prefered human players.
With nightfall Anet introduced hero-NPCs which were using a build of your choice. Many players started to bring NPCs instead of searching for human players, for some builds NPCs were even prefered. Later Anet increased the amount of hero-NPCs you could bring, so you were able to form a full-hero-NPC team. You could see people moving into an outpost, taking their NPCs and leaving without even trying to search for human players. GW1 was an old game at this time and hero-npcs enabled players to do less popular content – a good thing. But it killed a lot of teamplay, it became more and more difficult to find human players.
—>implementing solo dungeons could kill teamdungeons.
If dungeons are made soloable, I want to be able to solo tequatl and every other world boss. They just need to give me a personal map and a scaled down boss.

Besides, I’ve said time and again that people keep forgetting the RPG-bit of MMORPG. MMORPGs aren’t games where you are stuck playing with others. They are RPGs with tons of other people around. There’s a huge difference there. You can play solo all you want, just like you can play with others all you want. You can ignore the MMO-bit entirely if you want and go solo, and you can ignore the RPG-bit entirely if you want, and rather do other stuff like PvP, or meeting friends. There is no right or wrong way to play MMORPGs. Other than “If you’re having fun (and not on someone else’s expense), you’re doing it right.”

You don’t need an online game to play solo. There are better RPGs out there with a way better plot, with characters which have a character, which are developing and got some relationship, drama, etc.
An important part of a MMO is the teamplay. Ofc you can try to avoid it – but you can’t expect to see every aspect of a game then. Teamplay is/should be a major feature of a MMO, if you want to leave it out its your choice. GTA is also no driving game, you can play it without driving a car. But you will miss huge parts of the game, can’t even finish the storyline.

Rauderi.8706:

Nor does it offer a solution or point of relevant discussion.
It doesn’t cover why other stats aren’t as potent, which is a valid point of discussion. There have been some recent threads that call for greater value in Vitality and Healing Power, so they have more utility.

From my experience many PUGs struggle in dungeons because their dps is too low.
I think its important to raise awareness for the amount of lost dps a soldiers/cleric/nomad equip, wrong runes/sigil or build causes. Anet has only dps checks ingame, they are not checking if your group got a healer or tank. When your dps is too low you will have a hard time at those dps checks. (spawning grawls in volcanic fractal, burrows in AC,…).
Even your defence like wall of reflection is time based and often runs out when your dps is too low or bosses can use dangerous attacks more often (spurs whirl in aether for example).
A good group with might, fury, vuln can compensate a defensive equip. But other groups don’t have this buffs and will have a hard time, when their equip is too defensive. (not saying everyone has to be fullzerk. But everyone should try to bring as much dps as he can handle to pass dps checks.)

jgcd.6041:

Exponential means it’s raising the damage by powers of a specific number (x to the power of n), not by a percentage. If that exponentially was in the actual wiki post, then that person doesn’t know math as well as he thinks he does.

If you got three 10% mods it is 1,1³ instead of 3*0,1+1.
(the wiki article has afaik some mistakes in it)

Orangensaft.7139:

are you sure it multiplies?

Wiki says so, so yes.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Damage_calculation:
—>
“Damage multipliers are combined multiplicatively. For example the Superior Sigil of Force (5%), Superior Sigil of the Night (10%), a 10% trait, a 20% trait and the (6) bonus of the Superior Rune of the Scholar (10%) combine to roughly 68% more damage (1.05 * 1.1 * 1.1 * 1.2 * 1.1 ? 1.677), not only 55% (the summation). Consequently, combining a lot of multipliers is exponentially effective (”the multipliers increase/affect each other"). "

Khristophoros.7194:

The point of this thread was to talk about how you can ruin your DPS easily by mixing sets in power builds. A lot of people do that and that’s why a lot of PUGs in PvE have low DPS.

Mixing stats is not that bad. For example soldier armour rest zerk should be ok. afaik its like ~25% damage loss, which is ok for a beginner, a bad group or when you’re lazy.

A bad build without dmg modifiers can cause a huge dps loss.
For example a meta guard has atm 7% vs burning, 10% in symbols, 5% for GS, 10% retaliation, ~3% for boons -> ~40% damage in an ideal situation.
Scholar can give 10%, sigil of force+night 5% 10%, potion 10% -> ~40%. Both together ~96%.
Vulnerability is also helpful, in many dungeon pugs vuln is very low – like 5%.

TL; DR: buy good sigils and runes, use some cheap buffood and potions and do a lot more damage.

Sthenith.5196:

I really hate Elitists, the people that require you to do something their way because they want to run things fast instead of having fun. For the life of me, i can’t understand why someone would run the same instance over and over and over for the xxxxth time (yes, there are those over 1K runs (and more i’ve heard)) without actually having fun and with a challenge.

Some people enjoy dungeons and do them again and again because they enjoy them. Or because dungeons are one of the most challenging contents in GW2.
Fast dungeonruns are fun, at least for some people. It’s not only about efficient farming – you’d go into SW for that.
In a fast dungeonrun you have to work together as a team, a fullzerk is way more fragile as a fullsoldier (for example). A fullzerk team will wipe when there is no wall of reflection or blind.
A slow less cordinated dungeonrun can be less fun. It can be fun when things go well and you’re having a smooth dungeonrun, everyone knows his job, etc.
Dungeons are not only done to grind gold. SW is more attractive for farm gold

Civilis.2547:

What should a new dungeon provide in the way of instanced team gameplay that is not provided by an existing dungeon, or alternatively by instanced Living Story content or new instanced fractal content? You’re articulating a demand for ‘playing as a team’; why does that necessitate a new dungeon?

What would new open world maps provide that is not provided by existing content?
—>we don’t need any new content?
New dungeons would provide new content. Content which has not been done 5000 times.

There is no need to play as a team except in teamcontent. Only content which requires a team are dungeons/fractals.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

It is the only source of class discrimination and gear discrimination PVE side. This is contrary to Anets goal of having everyone do anything and everything, no judgement.

It’s Anets fault. In a game in which only dps matters and no healing or tanking (= no trinity) its bad to have different dps. And its really bad have such a huge spreaded dps.
A good group can kill a boss before he is able to do anything worth mentioning it. A low dps group can fight the boss for a really long time making him much more difficult or even fail at some dps checks.

In a zerg you can go afk, it makes no difference. It makes no difference which skill you use or if you even use any. In dungeons it matters. If a guard fails to bring stabi or wall of reflection your team might die. An open world zerg is not wiping, when one player failed to use stabi. In dungeons you need other players which know what to do. Which causes a bit discrimination, yes.
But imho GW2 doesn’t need to be an online game except for teamcontent. Dungeons. Open world stuff could also be done offline with a zerg of npcs. Maybe guild mission are an exception.

Civilis.2547:

I’m trying to understand what the need for new dungeons is.

Some players prefer to play as a team, which is not required in open world. Doing vistas together is a bit….boring, and I think there are more people lfg for dungeons than for vistas.
Killing a boss as a zerg requires little/no teamwork. Other players could be replaced by bots and nobody would realize it.

Quite a lot of dungeons paths are done routinely.

BattleCat.2098:

Or… gasp… are intended for solo play?

They are designed as group experience.
No offense, but I think its a bit strange to ask for solo dungeons in a MMO. MMO are (or should be) teamgames. GW2 offers no teamcontent except dungeons/fractals.

There are other, better games out there which offer solo Dungeons. Skyrim for example. Asking for solo dungeons in a MMO is like asking for autoaim in an Egoshooter. I know many people prefer to play solo, but they shouldn’t buy a MMO then. There are many friendly casual guilds, which will help you through dungeons without rushing or asking you to bring experience or a certain build.
You could even just open a lfg “firsttimer looking for friendly people, no rushing” or something similar – but i recommend searching a guild of like-minded people.

Pockets.3201:

Why make more dungeons when so many of the people that play them are intent on skipping as much of them as possible?

I do the same in open world content. I’m not alone, many people just pass enemies without killing them and some even bring a speedbuff.
Why make more open world content when so many people just skip through it? Why produce event chains like SW when people are using taxis to get into a 90% SW?
……..

SkiTz.4590:

Open world is their focus.
Spamming auto attack, and getting rewards so everyone is a winner and they can also show off their sparkly new dresses to everyone in the zerg. Its a win win for casuals, which is the overwhelming majority in this game.

On the other hand the only teamcontent are dungeons. Open World is singleplayer content.

I’m sure it is possible to play without a healer or tank in a classic trinity MMO. Its just complicated, dangerous, slow – a bad choice. But it is sometimes possible so it is viable? ….
The difference between an optimal build and a “viable” one should be minimal. Which is not the case when you’re talking about a GW2 cleric in a PUG. No one would care, except people going for speedrecords, if those builds were really viable. They are not on the same level as good builds. And thats the problem. Even PUGs which usually don’t care too much about a perfekt run are looking for meta-zerks. These groups are usually not even close to speedruns, most of them only want to finish the dungeon in a reasonable time. Such a group would accept an ele healer, necro healer or monk healer in GW1. Because they are nearly as good as the optimal build and most players don’t know the optimal build anyway. In GW2 they might accept a second warrior instead of a second ele. But they won’t accept a cleric-guard. So: cleric is not a reasonable choice for most groups. It’s a funbuild.
It doesn’t matter what is theoretical possible. Even a full necro team is possible. Question is: is it a good choice? Afaik a guard is not everywhere optimal. But a guard is in all groups welcome, because he is a good choice. A speedrecord-run might replace him, a PUG won’t – they are not playing optimal.

maddoctor.2738:

I didn’t know that DPS roles in trinity games can mitigate 100% of attacks through reflects and blinds either. No, a DPS role in a trinity game does NOT offer the same support as a GW2 “zerk healer”.

Have a look at GW1. It is possible to avoid a lot of the damage so a small amount of healing is enough. You can blind, cripple, block, interupt etc. – similar to GW2. The small amount of healing which is still needed can be placed on players which do also a good amount of damage. So there is sometimes no classic fullhealer. In a discordway for example. (and, ofc, no tank)
And no, playing a fullzerk ele or guard causes a different feeling than playing a supporter/healer in a trinity game or GW1. Even those discordhealers cause a more “healerish” feeeling. And thats what leaves people who like playing supporters unsatisfied. GW2 offers nothing for them. My GW1 warrior can bring more support as a full-dps char, than my GW2 guard can. If I play a useful build, not a funbuild.
—>people who want to play a supporter should buy another game. People who don’t like “fullzerk meta” should buy another game. GW2 won’t change. It has a hack’n slay combat system – and there are even hack’n slays which offer more supportive roles.

In a proficient party that doesn’t take much damage a zerk Healer Guardian will have the same impact as a Cleric Guardian, I guess if the party isn’t good enough a Cleric will indeed be better.

Most bad groups lack dps and need more damage to pass through dps checks or kill bosses before they wipe the team. A no damage build like cleric is a bad choice if your group lacks dps. A bit more defensive might be useful, but not too much as clerics would offer.

Aetrion.8295:

There isn’t even a gear set that gives you Healing, Power, Precision so you could at least get to maybe half the damage of Berzerker.

keepers gear offers power, precision and healing power. But you would still lose a lot of dps. If you go for “support” traits you will lose some more dps, if you use a support rune and sigil too.
Damage mods stack. So its not really a good option to go for a sigil of water instead of sigil of night or sacrifice the +10% from scholars.
You might even be at half the damage, percentage stays similar. But you lose like 7k (?) effective power compared to a fullzerk in fullbuffed team. Which is imho way too much.

maddoctor.2738:

A character in full zerker gear is also a GW2 Healer if he is using skills that provide healing for his team

never questioned that. But this small amounts of support/heal are not enough to satisfy someone looking for a “classic” supporter. DPS roles in trinity games got the same amount of heal/support a GW2 “zerk healer” offers.

maddoctor.2738:

So why is it that a “Cleric” Guard would feel different enough, but a "Zerker Guard using the same skills is not?

A cleric guard would feel different because he would “move” HP bars, his healing would have some impact. You could give another player regeneration and see some effect. A fullnomad tank also feels different than a fullzerk. Even if you use the same skills and traits.

(and I’m not asking to change anything. I don’t think GW2s gameplay is “fixable” without having to redo half of the game and annoy every player. GW2 should and will stay as it is.)

Crossaber.8934:

Don’t you see people are asking for trinity? Trinity force healer to be the medic that bring a toothpick to battlefield, most stupid idea ever.

Most players seem to ask for a trinity because they want to get a different game experience as on a fulldps char. If you’re not doing coordinated dungeonruns everything feels very similar.

From my point of view:
A trinity healer does no damage but is good at healing.
A non trinity healer is good at doing damage and good at healing. This what a “GW2 healer” should also look like.
Now look at clerics gear: classic trinity equip. You deal no damage but get good healing. That’s imho a design flaw. It’s like taking the gun from a battlefield medic.
Such a medic would be bad in BF. And such a healer is usually bad in GW2.
There are ways to implement roles, make them useful. See BF where medics are accepted and useful.
Anet has tried to bring classic trinity healers into a non trinity game – and failed.
Champions of Norrath healer does comparable dps. A medic in BF does comparable “dps”. A GW2 healer does no damage. Which is the reasons why no one wants them in their groups. Healing is good and helpful in GW2. But the lost dps is usually not worth it.
The amount of support a fullzerk meta guard/ele offers is not enough to feel different from playing a fulldps role. It feels very similiar. Especially when you’re running some more casual cele/soldiers stuff and not a specialised fullzerk build (which need more support and teamwork than fullsoldiers).

Yes, you would be a mix of a healer and dps. Which is usually not effective.
This is why I think a healer can be compared to roles like a PS-Warrior/mightstacking.
You don’t need mightstacking (or a healer in GW1), you’re not forced to bring a PS warrior or monk. But you want to bring some.
I was referring to harpers “you don’t have to bring a PS War. healers are required”. I didn’t want to say such a mix of heal and dps would be called dps char, you lose too much damage.

Crossaber.8934:

Non sense, Playing BF game, as a full time medic myself, i enjoy rezzing teammate as much as i love to kill my enemies, being the best K/D ratio player on my team don’t automatic make me not a medic.

If you like rezzing and healing other players in BF, is having a smoke grenade in CoD enough support?
Rushing in with a shotgun throwing a smoke grenade is a bit different than playing a medic who usually tries not to be the first to die.
The amount of support GW2 offers is not enough for players who enjoy playing a supporter —>buy another game.
My GW1 warrior can bring more support than a GW2 guardian can. This warrior would be labeled “dps”.

Crossaber.8934:

The fact is, a medic got the same assault rifle as any as other assault player. Just like GW2, a supportive player can bring tool to aid allies while still able to deal decent damage.

Running cleric equip is more like giving the medic only a knive.

Harper.4173:

GLF PS war means they want a PS war- it doesn’t mean they can’t complete content without one.
Healers in the traditional sense are REQUIRED to complete content – that’s where the difference is.

In GW1 thats not true. Everyone could bring enough selfheal and no healer would be required. But this would cause a huge dps loss compared to 6 full dps chars and two healers (except for some special builds).

maddoctor.2738:

They are also being used in PVE too, to make runs smooth and easy mode (but slow), in PVE it’s a trade between easy and fast, in PVP it’s all about survival.

Atm there are many dps checks in PVE. For example in grawl fractal grawls will spawn too fast for a low dps group.
Skills like aegis or blind support offensive equip way more than slower defensive equip – regeneration is better for defensive equip.
Skills like WoR stay up for 10-12 seconds, not for “50k damage dealt to an enemy”.
Enemy attacks are triggered by passed time, not by lost health.
Long recast skills which can be used only once in a fight profit from a short fight.
Icebow 5 can prevent 100% damage of a boss in a good group – in a low dps group its not able to keep the boss frozen for the whole fight.

We will see if Anet makes fights more challenging and defensive equip more helpful. I don’t think so, but we’ll see.

Crossaber.8934:

Doing damage is a base element for every player, because every player is a soldier, they are supposed to contribute by killing enemies.

Some small amount of support doesn’t turn your “soldier” into a medic.
If you enjoy playing a medic in BF you won’t enjoy CoD “but you got a smoke grenade”.

Other games got the same support elements GW2 offers. On their classic dps chars. Not on their supporters/healers. Trinity games got your “flank, suppressive fire, first aid, decoy, infiltrate, snipe”, too. On their dps chars.

Some people like being a supporter, others don’t. GW2 has nothing to offer for these people.
I pretty sure “no trinity” games are really old. Maybe not in MMOs, but in RPGs which got similar gameplay.
Trinity: dragon age, final fantasy, baldurs gate, breath of fire,… Non trinity: skyrim, zelda,…

btw: everyone is a “soldier” in GW2, yes. But healing power stat gives you the stats of a classic trinity fullhealer. Vita/toughnes of a classic trinity tank. Thats a huge design flaw. When everyone is a soldier, everyone should do similiar dps. Imho GW2 doesn’t need any stats on equip.

Crossaber.8934:

So yes, GW2 does have healer but they are more like medic (well trained soldier but also have medic skill) rather than a hospital doctor the not even able to protect himself.

Something like a “GW2 healer” – for example a fullzerk meta-ele blasting his waterfield – would in other games be described as a full-dps char. Other games also got blinds and other cc on dps roles. That doesn’t turn a dps role into a supporter.

Aetrion.8295:

Instead of working toward a system that moves us beyond forced party composition to a place where you can play whatever you want it’s always just a bunch of DPSers who never want to ask for a tank again trying to have a victory lap without realizing that they are becoming the thing that’s holding the game back at this point.

You can’t heal enemies to death.

You need to kill the enemies, and you need damage for it.
The more the better.
You don’t need healing. Why would anybody wants to sacrifice something needed for something not needed?

Yes, it is fixable. For example champions of norrath (~2004 hack’n slay) got no trinity. Selfheal (potion) is good enough. A cleric (healer) is a good melee class. Not a “fullhealer”. He is a classic frontliner, standing next to the warrior and smashing his mace into enemy skulls. But he got access to a instant aoe fullheal. Healing without sacrificing damage is good in GW2, too. Having to sacrifice damage for healing is bad and the reason why nobody wants a healer. But I don’t think Anet will remove healing power as a stat.

Aetrion.8295:

How exactly is anyone who enjoys going the full DPS route harmed by ideas that try to bring other play styles into the game in a way that doesn’t make anyone depend on tanks and healers?

I think many fear the classic trinity of a tank and some semi-afk-dps people. Such a gameplay sucks. I don’t think anybody is really asking for such a gameplay, but thats what some people are afraid of.
Thats imho the main problem. Its hard to understand each other, because everyone has a different experience. An only open world player does not know about the amount of teamwork and roles in a coordinated dungeon run. A dungeonplayer maybe does not care too much about too simple open world stuff which consists of a lot of 111 spam.
Some players know many other MMOs and can compare which elements are better in which game – others only know GW2.

From my point of view: GW2 has its fans. Bigger changes might cause some people to leave. GW2 is an old game. I don’t think we will see any changes. I think GW2 has very limited options and Anet can’t do anything. They will keep placing more, different shaped AOEs on the ground and thats it.

Healing is only optinional, not required. Healing will never be good when you have to sacrifice damage for it. So: no, healing will never be good in GW2. Maybe unskilled healing on a fullzerk ele blasting his waterfields.

There are dozens of games with those boring roles. GW2 is better cause it is different.

There are also dozen of games without a trinity. Those games are called hack’n slays.
Basically a trinity game is the development of a game without roles. GW2 is a step back to the roots. Trinity supports/forces players more into teamplay. GW2 has very little teamplay, except in coordinated dungeonruns (in which also roles exist).

In GW1 you could easily bring npc healers. And monk, ele, ritu, necro and even derwish could take the role of being a healer. Without the need to buy expensive equip. No need to spend hours waiting, except maybe for some more organised stuff – but in GW2 we wait for guards etc. too.
GW2 has its own trinity. Not healing and tanking, but reflection, stealth, might stacking. No “glf healer” but “glf PS War”. I see no difference.

Elbritil.3817:

sorry, 1 and a half, pure dps and high dps with semi support… all stat combs that aren’t dps focused (in main diredt dmg) is just trash then, for those who are lame to start with the optimal?

Anet early said GW2 would have no trinity. But ofc you still need damage. The more the better, like in all games. So it was clear: max. dps Equip will be the best, if you can handle it.
Healing, toughness, vitality is only good when you are forced to bring them: trinity game. Or when you don’t lose damage when you bring them.

Jerus.4350:

This is what creates the tank role and the healer role. If you could avoid everything, those wouldn’t be needed.

GW1 is a bit different. In theorie you can avoid a lot of damage by positioning yourself in a good spot, kite enemies, make use of blind and cripples etc.
Its hard/impossible to avoid all damage, but you can avoid a lot – which is similar in GW2. So you need some healing. In GW2 we got our selfheal, buffood, small healing of guardian, etc. In GW1 you have to put skillpoints into healing prayers. So you can’t put them into axe mastery anymore. You got, similiar as in GW2, 8 Skillslots which are usually full – there is no room to run ~2 heal skills to heal yourself.
Players fast found out its more effective to run 6 dps chars and 2 fullhealers instead of 8 “allrounders”. You got more damage, more active defense and more healing at the same time. (there are some builds which are different.)
If we could swap out our selfheal in GW2 for a let’s say 33% dps buff and there would be no other healing (buffood, waterfields etc.) healers would become a bit more interesting. Because most people can’t avoid all damage and need healing. Atm selfheal is enough healing. We don’t even need to invest into healing power to bring a strong selfheal.
So imho the lack of healers in GW2 has not only to do with damage which can be avoided or not. Also the strong healing everyone got without having to make compromises plays an important role.
It’s not necessarily a bad thing.
I prefer to compare GW2s combat with a hack’n slay. We got our selfheal, hack’n slays got potions. I won’t run a stat like healing power in hack’n slays.
Healing power is a stat for classic fullhealers, you have to make a compromise to buff your healing. But in hack’n slays and GW2 you don’t have to make a compromise to bring a selfheal which is usually enough healing.

Zenith.7301:

There’s so much that can be done to improve the current features of combat.

I don’t think GW2 combat can (or needs to) be fixed, because there are several reasons which lead to its stacking meta. Anet won’t change all of them.

-stationary fields which force players to stay in them and close to each other to gain advantage of them.
Even a WoR causes player so stay close to each other. (fields are some of the most static elements MMOs have to offer. So static that similiar skills were rarely used in GW1 PVE (wards)).

-Nearly every attack is aoe. Pull all enemies together and stack to profit from your aoes.

-Small ranged buff – stay close to each other. Teambuffs are aoe too.

This dumbs combat a bit down. On the one hand we got a fast mobile combat which feels a bit egoshooter like, which is imho a good thing.
On the other hand Anet killed all classic important tactic decisions, movement, control and many related skills/conditions/boons. Cripple, chill, speedbuffs, knockbacks, fear, range and positioning are less important in GW2 than they are, for example, in GW1.

I don’t think Anet has thought too much about their combat system. I won’t give a class like necro fear as core mechanic, if fear is in most PVE situations not welcome.
It even makes balancing for PVP/WvW and PVE at the same time more difficult.
(other indicators: tons of small effects which are not noticed by players, but sum up. No casual will care about +5% dmg – but in the end he loses like 100% dmg. Magic find as an armour stat. mixed stats on karma armours. Celestial/nomads. overlapping combofields. Dynamic combat combined with the most static elements MMO have to offer: aoes and fields. Dodge as strongest defence, even stronger than most defensive skills with long recasts. Dmg modifiers out of control. Huge damage gap between good equipped players and bad equipped – damage difference by equip, not skill. Many useles skills in PVE-combat. Defiance – looks like a last minute solution “ohhh, players could perma daze bosses”. Stuff like “with +100% boonduration two guards could grant perma stabi if we increase stabi duration from 5 to 6 seconds”. Etc.)

Thaddeus.4891:

But pugs continue to use it because they don’t know better.

Or because its easier for a PUG. Most PUGs know what stacking in a corner means. No knockbacks, fears, everbody stays close to each other, etc. In open fights some guys start to use their knockbacks, move around and out of reach, …
Stacking in a corner is a bit like “stay there and don’t move. DON’T MOVE, YOU #*%§$#”.
Not optimal, but easier to “explain”.

starlinvf.1358:

Guild vs Guild has been on the design schedule since this game started development. And given its importance in Guild Wars 1, there was universal shock and outrage that the mode was not only missing at launch for GW2, but that the majority of guild features were absent for the longest time.

GW1 GvG has nothing to do with those zerg vs zerg fights.
GvG is an 8vs8 mode with a guildlord, NPCs, spike/splittactics, healers. Maybe stronghold goes a bit into this direction. Add a better combat system and it might be comparable. Afaik voicechat in ZvZ is usually more about movement (push in, go right blablabla) and less about “I’m blind” “condicleanse” “interrupt on XY”. Which are basic infos in GW1 PVP. It’s a completly different game, GW2 zergfights have nothing in common with GvG or HA.
GW2 offers nothing which can be compared to GW1 PVP – which lead to an uproar in GW1 PVP Community. I don’t think many of them are still present in GW2. (y, i know: some are)

deSade.9437:

Question open to everyone: how do you stand pugging for long periods of time?

Bring patience.
I’m not a perfectionist and usually I don’t care too much about a run taking a few minutes longer, als long as its no desaster. There are way better players being patient with me, so I have to be patient to worse players, right?
(ofc I’m not always patient, sometimes in a bad mood.)

Random players do random stuff. If you’re seeking for variety: PUGs help you out.
Even bad experiences can be fun after some time.
In one of the last GW1 missions was a warrior rushing through the enemies and aggroing a second group nearly causing us to whipe. Several times. I was a monk and he flamed me for not healing him. To make sure I can’t reach him he even used a speedbuff.
Remembering this guy makes me smile. Good times. When it happend I was angry and it was pretty challenging to fight two groups at once with a guy missing, being in there for the first time, etc. We decided to let him lie dead on the ground and go on with 7 players. But now its funny. Like the leeroy jenkins video.
On the other hand you get the chance to meet nice people. Or good players. Or both.

Some PUGs are also very thankful when you helped them.
It’s, at least for me, a rewarding feeling to know I helped some players out. More rewarding than gold and tokens.

Mea.5491:

2011 Anet: There will be no trinity and we are introducing downscaling so you can help your friends in dungeons.
Expectations: Dungeon run 2/5.
Reality: lvl 80, zerk, 5k+ AP, exp only, fast run, no noobs, no necro, no ranger, ele only, guard only…

What did you expect? No trinity: only dps matters.
Even trinity games are maximising their damage by reducing the amount of healers or tanks.

Since Anet failed to introduce new dungeons more and more players did dungeonpaths very often, get better and start to be more picky. After having done a dungeon like 100 times many players just want to finish the dungeon quick and are not willing to spend more time then necessary in it.

maha.7902:

i honestly don’t get why people want healers and tanks so much.

GW2 has nearly no teamplay except in an advanced dungeongroups. But thats on a high level. Most people are not playing on this level, maybe not even doing dungeons. Anet failed to bring this teamplay elements into casual play.

Teamplay elements are too complicated. For example combofields require some knowledge, are not explained ingame and hard to use. You end up stacking retalation instead of might. Aegis for example can save other players – or avoid like 500dmg.
There should be more strong easy to use teamplay options.

Teamplay elements have no visible impact. Most effects increase dps like 5% or so. Its not “whohoa, I’m hitting like a truck. Thank you player X”. There should be more teamplay elements with more visible effects – timewarp like. WoR is also in a good spot.

Unexperienced players tend to spread out and miss support. An unexp. player is out of reach of a guards F2/F3, a PS-Wars might, etc. Many player even leave regeneration/water fields when they could need the healing. Better indicators and more reach could be helpful (green circles = healing).

Support in GW2 is more on a hack’n slay level. I think the amount of support a guardian usually brings can be compared to the amount of support a GW1 warrior was often bringing…. (Warriors are dps in GW1.)

Roles add different playstyles. Playing a support, tank, dps char feels very different. If your running a fullsoldier warrior or a AH-Anchorguard: it doesn’t feel so different.

On a more casual level GW2 offers very few teamwork. You need it when your running more fragile builds/equip and are optimizing times. But not in open world content as a fullnomad AH-Guard. GW2 has roles, all Anet needs to do is to bring them into casual play. For example might stacking: PS-Warriors are becoming more and more common, they got a visible effect, are effective and easy to use. Anet could do the same for other classes. Like “allies deal +1000 dmg for the next X attacks” or whatever. Something which has a visible impact and feels supportive.
An example of a “fail”: healing usually needs to be fast. Guards new heal-elite has 4-5 seconds cast time. Thats not very helpful. Should be an instant cast, a panic button, would be more casual friendly. I don’t think it would make the elite op. Maybe in WvW, but they could use a longer casttime for PVP and WvW.