when I first saw this thread I thought it was gonna be another troll. But Im astounded that it was an honest to God question about the game amazing.
Each profession is taylored to fit a surtain playstyle while at the same time giving the player the ability to fill any of the three roles in the game. (support, controll, and damage) So if you where one who enjoyed being a healer than you are more attune to support, and because of this you'd probubly enjoy the Guardian, as its playstyle is very much centered arround supporting your teammates.
Support comes in several flavors other than strait up healing. Buffs, sheild auras, deflection walls or bubbles, ect...
Also, very few support skills are 2 dimensional. Many support skills are damage skills that then cause a support effect. such as the elementalists water atunement. They have a projectile that after hiting an enemy will splash healing magic over adjasent teammates. Also many support skills are aoe based, such as the guardians deflection bubble that litterally creates a giant bubble that deflects projectiles for a limited time.
Basically they take your prefered playstyle, and work the other roles you pay less attention to within them. Your not going to find anyone besting a support class in pvp because their class is damage or controll. it really comes down to skill in the role you've chosen.
I know it differs from what some people think or feel .. but I would honestly prefer having my toon be one thing and being specialized and optimal. I could go into why I feel that way but probably not without turning this thread into something I didnt intend it to be.
Yeah when I read your OP I was worried that this thread would turn into a bunch of people saying that you're ideas and desires are basically inferior...and well it kind of did lol .
Honestly, I see your point. I like playing healers sometimes, and GW2 is definitely a deparature from that in that it doesn't look like there will be the specialized roles that current MMORPGs have. There are of course plenty of MMORPGs that do offer the more traditional roles though, AFAIK SWTOR will.
Personally, I prefer the GW2 approach of having everyone be capable of everything rather than specializing. I think it will make gameplay more interesting (for me). Although your opinion is very valid, and I'm sure others share it.
Yeah, I also am a main healer in most games. I am hoping to find a strong support class to see if that fits what i have always loved about healing. I was also under the impression, as other have said, that you could still do some healing just that it would be healing and something else, not your main focus.
"Because we all know the miracle patch fairy shows up the night before release and sprinkles magic dust on the server to make it allllll better." parrotpholk
While I don't mind tanking .. I generally prefer to be a healer. Is that not something you would do in this game?
So you only like to play if you can be the star OR....you have an amazing tolerance for taking a LOT of shit....because that is what those two roles consist of and if you cannot imagine playing the game in a hybrid role or some other capacity, well, it makes me wonder about'cha.
While I don't mind tanking .. I generally prefer to be a healer. Is that not something you would do in this game?
No tanks .. no healers .. no dps... Any class can fit any role
Just because you want to play a healer doesn't mean everyone in this game does. in fact you'll notice that most traditional mmo's out now days lack specific classes such as tanks and healers which makes running raids and dungeons more time consuming as most of the time your party will be standing around waiting for a specific roll ( Healer ) to fill your group.
Guild wars 2 took a new approach to this , by eliminating dedicated tanks / healers and dps you can get groups together easier and faster meaning more time playing and less time standing around spamming chat.
Need I say more ?
Also , there are classes that are more support based and do have group heals / buffs for supporting allies , check the guardian out maybe you'll change your mind.
I know it differs from what some people think or feel .. but I would honestly prefer having my toon be one thing and being specialized and optimal. I could go into why I feel that way but probably not without turning this thread into something I didnt intend it to be.
It's a pretty common misunderstanding, but its not a case of "everyone can do everything all the time". There will still be builds which are much more specialized in 1 aspect over everything else. The difference is you dont have to be a particular CLASS to achieve those things. Its more about HOW you want to perform that role. If you want to be the person who keeps your group alive, every class will have a way of doing so, you dont have to play only a cleric/priest/paladin/etc. Different weapons will give you different skills, and the traits system will allow you to increase your specialization in weapon & skill types.
So for example, lets say you wanted to play the elementalist class, which in most games would be pretty much just a dps class, youre not locked into the role of only being dps. You can go about being a support class in various ways too.
Same with something like a Necro. Youve got options like being just a pure killing machine, or a build that specializes in lifetaps (stealing life from enemies and healing yourself & others), or you can go the route of being a controller/debuffer (preventing the enemy from being able to fight effectively).
As far as the actual healing & tanking aspects go... GW2 is more like protection instead of healing and control instead of tanking. Think of protection vs healing as proactive (stopping damage from happening in the first place through protective barriers, regeneration methods, etc) vs reactive (filling peoples health bars back up after they have taken damage). And think of control vs tanking as crippling/hindering (knockdowns, stuns, etc to prevent the enemy from being able to hurt yourself and others as much a spossible) vs being a meatshield (making th eenemy attack only, and just sitting there absorbing the hits).
Also when it comes to "tanking", you can still be somewhat of a meatshield by putting yourself between your enemy and your ally. Attacks will hit whoever is in the way, not magically pass through everything in their path and only hit the intended target like most games. The big difference is that there isnt a taunt mechanic, allowing you to basically force them to only hit you because you "yelled" at them or called them a name or whatever. If you want to be the meatshield, youve got to be able to react and make sure to position yourself in the best place to absorb the brunt of the attacks. Its going to make being a "tank" very ddynamic and make you have to react constantly to changes in combat, rather than knowing you can just press a button and bam your job is done because the enemy is only going to hit you now.
Well thats encouraging at least, but .. while I think respecs are needed for example .. I would almost prefer a game where there weren't even respecs or dual specs as a lot of games have now. Again I know most ppl dont feel this way .. but what I loved about early MMOs is that characters became much more iconic to some degree. This isn't so much about recognition ... I was never the and never will be the best of the best, but people know you for things. There were reputations involved. This speaks more about the genre in general, but the everyone can be anything at the drop of a hat thing has definitely curbed some of my enthusiasm in this regard. Trying to go with the flow I guess .. but .. we'll see. I'll probably give it a shot .. will be worth the box price for sure .. but I doubt I will enjoy this game as much as others will.
LFD tools are great for cramming people into content, but quality > quantity. I am, usually on the sandbox .. more "hardcore" side of things, but I also do just want to have fun. So lighten up already
There's a reason there's not a main healer. That's because in games with main healers the game is designed around requiring a healer. In one video they even pointed out that there won't be a scenario where you have to invite that guy who's a prick just because he's a healer, they said that they want zero dependence on profession, instead going for dependence on skill and loadout. So someone won't be able to just roll a healer and be able to use that to brute-force their way into groups.
That said.
There will be ways to roll characters which are more inclined to support, but this will be interrupts, area heals, enemy debuffs, and so on. There are no direct target heals in the game. This is because you cannot target an ally yourself. Your area of effect heals will either work by stepping into a heal area (the Elementalist water heal/Warrior banner) or via AI (the Engineer's turret). You won't be able to watch the health bars of your friends and decide upon who needs healing and applyl it that way, it just won't work.
So yes, there are support classes but no healers present in the traditional sense.
While I don't mind tanking .. I generally prefer to be a healer. Is that not something you would do in this game?
That's a perfectly valid point.
But you need to break away from the mold, combat will have nothing to do with your previous experiences.
This is just a guess but i think it will take better team work from the all party and not just 2 players that carry the rest of the team, and also individuals that somewhat make the team work better will be more valued then in the average trinity game.
I'm sure that if you love support, and you're exceptional at it you will have alot of people that will apreciate it, the main difference is that you'll have to be a part of all the gameplay and not just healing, somehow for me that seems harder, more enjoyable and more rewarding as a team player.
While I don't mind tanking .. I generally prefer to be a healer. Is that not something you would do in this game?
That's a perfectly valid point.
But you need to break away from the mold, combat will have nothing to do with your previous experiences.
This is just a guess but i think it will take better team work from the all party and not just 2 players that carry the rest of the team, and also individuals that somewhat make the team work better will be more valued then in the average trinity game.
I'm sure that if you love support, and you're exceptional at it you will have alot of people that will apreciate it, the main difference is that you'll have to be a part of all the gameplay and not just healing, somehow for me that seems harder, more enjoyable and more rewarding as a team player.
See this is what doesn't make much sense to me with how people are describing GW2's combat. How can it be better teamwork if you can't even see anyone's health bars? It sounds like you'll just be healing people sort of automatically as a byblow of using your normal attack powers. That seems more diablo/fps - esque and not very team work/skill oriented compared to a trinity game.
I'm not saying it won't be fun, but if everyone can do everything and the mobs are going to be rampaging around ping ponging between targets then ... chaos. It sounds much less like teamwork and more like individual skill.
And for those that say well you can only heal if you take certain skills, yet there are only weak self heals ... well then who isn't going to take/use these aoe healing and damaging skills? If you don't then you have the same effective holy trinity problem just with a wider number of classes.
You either use those skills all the time or spend time searching for someone who will heal and someone who will, well not tank but protect. And if anyone can do any of these things at need, then again you effectively have the holy trinity because someone in your group is going to need to swap to healing and someone is going to need to be protecting while the others burn down the mobs.
That's sort of what I meant by a wink and a nod when they say "no holy trinity". What they really mean is there's still an effective holy trinity mechanic, but any class can fill any role. Now that I understand. Its also a little bit ironic heh.
I think part of my confusion is that the majority of my info on this game has come from reading this forum. Alot of fans are of course a little too exuberant and expect the best of both worlds. I certainly plan on buying it, but I don't think its going to be possible to both destroy the central teamwork combat mechanic of the trinity and at the same time make it even more teamwork oriented. GW2 seems much more casual and oriented toward solo play with pickup up grouping than I had originally thought. But hey, I like fps games too so I'll probably enjoy it.
While I don't mind tanking .. I generally prefer to be a healer. Is that not something you would do in this game?
That's a perfectly valid point.
But you need to break away from the mold, combat will have nothing to do with your previous experiences.
This is just a guess but i think it will take better team work from the all party and not just 2 players that carry the rest of the team, and also individuals that somewhat make the team work better will be more valued then in the average trinity game.
I'm sure that if you love support, and you're exceptional at it you will have alot of people that will apreciate it, the main difference is that you'll have to be a part of all the gameplay and not just healing, somehow for me that seems harder, more enjoyable and more rewarding as a team player.
See this is what doesn't make much sense to me with how people are describing GW2's combat. How can it be better teamwork if you can't even see anyone's health bars? It sounds like you'll just be healing people sort of automatically as a byblow of using your normal attack powers. That seems more diablo/fps - esque and not very team work/skill oriented compared to a trinity game.
You can see people's bars, but you won't able to really fill the bars of your allies by spamming your healing skills.
While I don't mind tanking .. I generally prefer to be a healer. Is that not something you would do in this game?
That's a perfectly valid point.
But you need to break away from the mold, combat will have nothing to do with your previous experiences.
This is just a guess but i think it will take better team work from the all party and not just 2 players that carry the rest of the team, and also individuals that somewhat make the team work better will be more valued then in the average trinity game.
I'm sure that if you love support, and you're exceptional at it you will have alot of people that will apreciate it, the main difference is that you'll have to be a part of all the gameplay and not just healing, somehow for me that seems harder, more enjoyable and more rewarding as a team player.
See this is what doesn't make much sense to me with how people are describing GW2's combat. How can it be better teamwork if you can't even see anyone's health bars? It sounds like you'll just be healing people sort of automatically as a byblow of using your normal attack powers. That seems more diablo/fps - esque and not very team work/skill oriented compared to a trinity game.
You can see people's bars, but you won't able to really fill the bars of your allies by spamming your healing skills.
Where did you even get the IDEA that you can't see other players' health bars? There are spells you will have that will, for instance, heal the people around you for a small amount. But they will STILL need to sometimes self heal. The self heal is important. Frankly, as someone who has played healers, I rather like it. I'll tell you why. Now if you die because you didn't use your self heal, well then....it's partly on YOU. I am not responsible for keeping you healed while you do stupid things like standing in an AoE or fire or whatever. Personally....I rather like the idea of shared accountability so that healers don't get blamed for everything that goes wrong. We ALL help, and there are no "superstars" or scapegoats either.
While I don't mind tanking .. I generally prefer to be a healer. Is that not something you would do in this game?
That's a perfectly valid point.
But you need to break away from the mold, combat will have nothing to do with your previous experiences.
This is just a guess but i think it will take better team work from the all party and not just 2 players that carry the rest of the team, and also individuals that somewhat make the team work better will be more valued then in the average trinity game.
I'm sure that if you love support, and you're exceptional at it you will have alot of people that will apreciate it, the main difference is that you'll have to be a part of all the gameplay and not just healing, somehow for me that seems harder, more enjoyable and more rewarding as a team player.
See this is what doesn't make much sense to me with how people are describing GW2's combat. How can it be better teamwork if you can't even see anyone's health bars? It sounds like you'll just be healing people sort of automatically as a byblow of using your normal attack powers. That seems more diablo/fps - esque and not very team work/skill oriented compared to a trinity game.
I'm not saying it won't be fun, but if everyone can do everything and the mobs are going to be rampaging around ping ponging between targets then ... chaos. It sounds much less like teamwork and more like individual skill.
And for those that say well you can only heal if you take certain skills, yet there are only weak self heals ... well then who isn't going to take/use these aoe healing and damaging skills? If you don't then you have the same effective holy trinity problem just with a wider number of classes.
You either use those skills all the time or spend time searching for someone who will heal and someone who will, well not tank but protect. And if anyone can do any of these things at need, then again you effectively have the holy trinity because someone in your group is going to need to swap to healing and someone is going to need to be protecting while the others burn down the mobs.
That's sort of what I meant by a wink and a nod when they say "no holy trinity". What they really mean is there's still an effective holy trinity mechanic, but any class can fill any role. Now that I understand. Its also a little bit ironic heh.
I think part of my confusion is that the majority of my info on this game has come from reading this forum. Alot of fans are of course a little too exuberant and expect the best of both worlds. I certainly plan on buying it, but I don't think its going to be possible to both destroy the central teamwork combat mechanic of the trinity and at the same time make it even more teamwork oriented. GW2 seems much more casual and oriented toward solo play with pickup up grouping than I had originally thought. But hey, I like fps games too so I'll probably enjoy it.
I can understand your confusion, you are of course seeing this from a tank - cc - healer view, and from that view you see a clear role for everyone and take that as team work, and it is, but it's not a dinamic fluid team work, it's a rigid system that asks for each individual to do one role and that role alone well.
But what if the teamplayers had to know when to change roles and execute them?
Let's say that one of players gets stunned for 3 minutes during the fight, the rest of the group is supposed to react and change formations/tactics and roles, this is what i mean by dinamic group play, and for me it takes much more skill, awareness and group prowess then the typical trinity gameplay, where what you do is defined by the role you pick and nothing else.
Will GW2 pull it of? I hope so, but there's no knowing for sure.
About the game itself, well, 1st of all as far as i know you can see your group's health, secondly while there are not direct heals there are group heals and area targetted heals.
But the game is not designed towards reactive healing, it's built towards active protection, that's why most classes have disruptive CC or protective counter manuevers, and if it ends up really being like this trinity game play (even revolving trinity like you're stating) won't happen, at least from a "you stay there and heal while that guy does nothing but get beaten up" point of view.
I do believe the game will be more dinamic, more fun and mainly that will take better groups to trully excel, only really coordinated people can change roles on demand, do cc and protection rotations while keeping awareness of where you are on what class combo attacks are needed.
You say the game is going to be more casual, while that might be true if you look at it from the amount of time needed to excel it might be true, but from the gameplay point of view i believe it will trully show a huge difference between people that really know they class and have skill with it and people that only know how to play roles.
While I don't mind tanking .. I generally prefer to be a healer. Is that not something you would do in this game?
No tanks .. no healers .. no dps... Any class can fit any role
Just because you want to play a healer doesn't mean everyone in this game does. in fact you'll notice that most traditional mmo's out now days lack specific classes such as tanks and healers which makes running raids and dungeons more time consuming as most of the time your party will be standing around waiting for a specific roll ( Healer ) to fill your group.
Guild wars 2 took a new approach to this , by eliminating dedicated tanks / healers and dps you can get groups together easier and faster meaning more time playing and less time standing around spamming chat.
Need I say more ?
Also , there are classes that are more support based and do have group heals / buffs for supporting allies , check the guardian out maybe you'll change your mind.
I know it differs from what some people think or feel .. but I would honestly prefer having my toon be one thing and being specialized and optimal. I could go into why I feel that way but probably not without turning this thread into something I didnt intend it to be.
It's a pretty common misunderstanding, but its not a case of "everyone can do everything all the time". There will still be builds which are much more specialized in 1 aspect over everything else. The difference is you dont have to be a particular CLASS to achieve those things. Its more about HOW you want to perform that role. If you want to be the person who keeps your group alive, every class will have a way of doing so, you dont have to play only a cleric/priest/paladin/etc. Different weapons will give you different skills, and the traits system will allow you to increase your specialization in weapon & skill types.
So for example, lets say you wanted to play the elementalist class, which in most games would be pretty much just a dps class, youre not locked into the role of only being dps. You can go about being a support class in various ways too.
Same with something like a Necro. Youve got options like being just a pure killing machine, or a build that specializes in lifetaps (stealing life from enemies and healing yourself & others), or you can go the route of being a controller/debuffer (preventing the enemy from being able to fight effectively).
As far as the actual healing & tanking aspects go... GW2 is more like protection instead of healing and control instead of tanking. Think of protection vs healing as proactive (stopping damage from happening in the first place through protective barriers, regeneration methods, etc) vs reactive (filling peoples health bars back up after they have taken damage). And think of control vs tanking as crippling/hindering (knockdowns, stuns, etc to prevent the enemy from being able to hurt yourself and others as much a spossible) vs being a meatshield (making th eenemy attack only, and just sitting there absorbing the hits).
Also when it comes to "tanking", you can still be somewhat of a meatshield by putting yourself between your enemy and your ally. Attacks will hit whoever is in the way, not magically pass through everything in their path and only hit the intended target like most games. The big difference is that there isnt a taunt mechanic, allowing you to basically force them to only hit you because you "yelled" at them or called them a name or whatever. If you want to be the meatshield, youve got to be able to react and make sure to position yourself in the best place to absorb the brunt of the attacks. Its going to make being a "tank" very ddynamic and make you have to react constantly to changes in combat, rather than knowing you can just press a button and bam your job is done because the enemy is only going to hit you now.
Well thats encouraging at least, but .. while I think respecs are needed for example .. I would almost prefer a game where there weren't even respecs or dual specs as a lot of games have now. Again I know most ppl dont feel this way .. but what I loved about early MMOs is that characters became much more iconic to some degree. This isn't so much about recognition ... I was never the and never will be the best of the best, but people know you for things. There were reputations involved. This speaks more about the genre in general, but the everyone can be anything at the drop of a hat thing has definitely curbed some of my enthusiasm in this regard. Trying to go with the flow I guess .. but .. we'll see. I'll probably give it a shot .. will be worth the box price for sure .. but I doubt I will enjoy this game as much as others will.
I don't see it as everyone can be everything at the drop of a hat.
I see it as, the game will cater more to your individual style of play.
Not only will you have the option of picking your class, but picking what skills you use, the weapon you use changes your skillset, weapon skills change under water and the combos that other classes will be able to pull off together means that PvE and PvP will be very deep.
Well thats encouraging at least, but .. while I think respecs are needed for example .. I would almost prefer a game where there weren't even respecs or dual specs as a lot of games have now. Again I know most ppl dont feel this way .. but what I loved about early MMOs is that characters became much more iconic to some degree. This isn't so much about recognition ... I was never the and never will be the best of the best, but people know you for things. There were reputations involved. This speaks more about the genre in general, but the everyone can be anything at the drop of a hat thing has definitely curbed some of my enthusiasm in this regard. Trying to go with the flow I guess .. but .. we'll see. I'll probably give it a shot .. will be worth the box price for sure .. but I doubt I will enjoy this game as much as others will.
I don't see it as everyone can be everything at the drop of a hat.
I see it as, the game will cater more to your individual style of play.
Not only will you have the option of picking your class, but picking what skills you use, the weapon you use changes your skillset, weapon skills change under water and the combos that other classes will be able to pull off together means that PvE and PvP will be very deep.
This, this. You still have the ability to excel at what you do and being known for that. Perhaps you are a Necromancer who plays a mean dagger and warhorn. Perhaps you are the meanest Longbow Warrior in your guild. Perhaps nobody can work that Earth attunement with dagger+dagger better than your Elementalist. Perhaps you are just amazing at lightning-fast weapon-swapping as a thief and run circles around your prey.
There are still ways to excel at the playstyle of your choice, and distinguish yourself in that way.
But the nice thing is is that if your own team's healer is away you won't have to invite a random person into your team, one of you can just--at the drop of a hat--reconfigure yourself as a healer. ArenaNet has said that outside of combat we can pretty much do as we like in that regard. They did this so that you won't have to sit in front of a dungeon saying "Looking for guy who does this role.", that's the whole bloody point.
Think about it. If you couldn't reconfigure yourself at the drop of a hat, outside of combat, then they're lying about that. And they havn't lied to us so far, they've been up front about everything, even features that they've had to drop/change/include, even if those changes aren't popular. ArenaNet are like Cryptic (and especially Cryptic's Tumerboy) in that they are completely unafraid of blunt candor. They're not going to lie to us, feed us a line, or treat us like idiots.
So whilst you'll be able to make a name for yourself as a person in a role, you will never be required. That's the point. Everyone can heal just as well as everyone else, and a few stat and skill reconfigurations can turn someone into enough of a support character to provide everything a group would need to run a dungeon. To stress it again (as I feel it needs to be): ArenaNet has told us that they did this to eliminate 'LFG syndrome'.
Essentially, you just have some people who reconfig as support people and you're ready to go. The age of people being required based on profession or configuration has passed, it passes with Guild Wars 2, and it's no longer leverage to get into a group.
All I'm saying here is that if you think that you're going to be desirable because you're playing a support character then, according to every video ArenaNet has released, declared by them in spoken and written word, you're going to end up very disillusioned. This is something that everyone will have to adapt to, when five people get together it can be a completely random five people, and they'll just be able to delve into that dungeon or whatnot without any hanging around.
In fact, even if none of them are dedicated healers, but all of them can do a little support, then there's even going to be no need for a dedicated support character. This, again, is the idea. As written and spoken by ArenaNet. If you don't believe it then the interviews and videos are out there, it's one of the major selling points for me so it's hardly something I'm going to forget.
you can buff and support your team using a water build elementalist (aoe heal over time spells), an engineer (stim packs they can run through for heals). i am sure there are other heal-other-spells but we dont know them yet.
you can also divert damage (like an eq2 shaman, gw1 protection monk, etc) by casting buffs - defender class, ranger with a horn, warrior with proper blocking.
you can even do a little of both - tank as an earth elementalist using wards to soak up damage and shift focus to water elementalist to do group heals.
and i am sure i dont know all the proper examples to put in here.
but if you are looking for 3 buttons that do a fast heal, a long cast big heal and a heal over time, this wont be the game for you.
Comments
when I first saw this thread I thought it was gonna be another troll. But Im astounded that it was an honest to God question about the game
amazing.
Each profession is taylored to fit a surtain playstyle while at the same time giving the player the ability to fill any of the three roles in the game. (support, controll, and damage) So if you where one who enjoyed being a healer than you are more attune to support, and because of this you'd probubly enjoy the Guardian, as its playstyle is very much centered arround supporting your teammates.
Support comes in several flavors other than strait up healing. Buffs, sheild auras, deflection walls or bubbles, ect...
Also, very few support skills are 2 dimensional. Many support skills are damage skills that then cause a support effect. such as the elementalists water atunement. They have a projectile that after hiting an enemy will splash healing magic over adjasent teammates. Also many support skills are aoe based, such as the guardians deflection bubble that litterally creates a giant bubble that deflects projectiles for a limited time.
Basically they take your prefered playstyle, and work the other roles you pay less attention to within them. Your not going to find anyone besting a support class in pvp because their class is damage or controll. it really comes down to skill in the role you've chosen.
Classes are still very different from eachother so they play a lot differently.
There is no: tank healer dps but there is: control,support, damage.
Thief will play differently than warrior or elementalist. Sceptre elementalist will play differently than staff elementalist etc.
You can heal. You can't MAIN HEAL, but support heal with some classes.
Yeah when I read your OP I was worried that this thread would turn into a bunch of people saying that you're ideas and desires are basically inferior...and well it kind of did lol
.
Honestly, I see your point. I like playing healers sometimes, and GW2 is definitely a deparature from that in that it doesn't look like there will be the specialized roles that current MMORPGs have. There are of course plenty of MMORPGs that do offer the more traditional roles though, AFAIK SWTOR will.
Personally, I prefer the GW2 approach of having everyone be capable of everything rather than specializing. I think it will make gameplay more interesting (for me). Although your opinion is very valid, and I'm sure others share it.
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
Yeah, I also am a main healer in most games. I am hoping to find a strong support class to see if that fits what i have always loved about healing. I was also under the impression, as other have said, that you could still do some healing just that it would be healing and something else, not your main focus.
"Because we all know the miracle patch fairy shows up the night before release and sprinkles magic dust on the server to make it allllll better." parrotpholk
So you only like to play if you can be the star OR....you have an amazing tolerance for taking a LOT of shit....because that is what those two roles consist of and if you cannot imagine playing the game in a hybrid role or some other capacity, well, it makes me wonder about'cha.
I'm half way serious.
President of The Marvelously Meowhead Fan Club
Well thats encouraging at least, but .. while I think respecs are needed for example .. I would almost prefer a game where there weren't even respecs or dual specs as a lot of games have now. Again I know most ppl dont feel this way .. but what I loved about early MMOs is that characters became much more iconic to some degree. This isn't so much about recognition ... I was never the and never will be the best of the best, but people know you for things. There were reputations involved. This speaks more about the genre in general, but the everyone can be anything at the drop of a hat thing has definitely curbed some of my enthusiasm in this regard. Trying to go with the flow I guess .. but .. we'll see. I'll probably give it a shot .. will be worth the box price for sure .. but I doubt I will enjoy this game as much as others will.
LFD tools are great for cramming people into content, but quality > quantity.
I am, usually on the sandbox .. more "hardcore" side of things, but I also do just want to have fun. So lighten up already
I think it's at least worth trying the game yourself and experiencing it firsthand. It's not like you'll have to pay sub fee or anything like that.
There's a reason there's not a main healer. That's because in games with main healers the game is designed around requiring a healer. In one video they even pointed out that there won't be a scenario where you have to invite that guy who's a prick just because he's a healer, they said that they want zero dependence on profession, instead going for dependence on skill and loadout. So someone won't be able to just roll a healer and be able to use that to brute-force their way into groups.
That said.
There will be ways to roll characters which are more inclined to support, but this will be interrupts, area heals, enemy debuffs, and so on. There are no direct target heals in the game. This is because you cannot target an ally yourself. Your area of effect heals will either work by stepping into a heal area (the Elementalist water heal/Warrior banner) or via AI (the Engineer's turret). You won't be able to watch the health bars of your friends and decide upon who needs healing and applyl it that way, it just won't work.
So yes, there are support classes but no healers present in the traditional sense.
That's a perfectly valid point.
But you need to break away from the mold, combat will have nothing to do with your previous experiences.
This is just a guess but i think it will take better team work from the all party and not just 2 players that carry the rest of the team, and also individuals that somewhat make the team work better will be more valued then in the average trinity game.
I'm sure that if you love support, and you're exceptional at it you will have alot of people that will apreciate it, the main difference is that you'll have to be a part of all the gameplay and not just healing, somehow for me that seems harder, more enjoyable and more rewarding as a team player.
See this is what doesn't make much sense to me with how people are describing GW2's combat. How can it be better teamwork if you can't even see anyone's health bars? It sounds like you'll just be healing people sort of automatically as a byblow of using your normal attack powers. That seems more diablo/fps - esque and not very team work/skill oriented compared to a trinity game.
I'm not saying it won't be fun, but if everyone can do everything and the mobs are going to be rampaging around ping ponging between targets then ... chaos. It sounds much less like teamwork and more like individual skill.
And for those that say well you can only heal if you take certain skills, yet there are only weak self heals ... well then who isn't going to take/use these aoe healing and damaging skills? If you don't then you have the same effective holy trinity problem just with a wider number of classes.
You either use those skills all the time or spend time searching for someone who will heal and someone who will, well not tank but protect. And if anyone can do any of these things at need, then again you effectively have the holy trinity because someone in your group is going to need to swap to healing and someone is going to need to be protecting while the others burn down the mobs.
That's sort of what I meant by a wink and a nod when they say "no holy trinity". What they really mean is there's still an effective holy trinity mechanic, but any class can fill any role. Now that I understand. Its also a little bit ironic heh.
I think part of my confusion is that the majority of my info on this game has come from reading this forum. Alot of fans are of course a little too exuberant and expect the best of both worlds. I certainly plan on buying it, but I don't think its going to be possible to both destroy the central teamwork combat mechanic of the trinity and at the same time make it even more teamwork oriented. GW2 seems much more casual and oriented toward solo play with pickup up grouping than I had originally thought. But hey, I like fps games too so I'll probably enjoy it.
You can see people's bars, but you won't able to really fill the bars of your allies by spamming your healing skills.
Where did you even get the IDEA that you can't see other players' health bars? There are spells you will have that will, for instance, heal the people around you for a small amount. But they will STILL need to sometimes self heal. The self heal is important. Frankly, as someone who has played healers, I rather like it. I'll tell you why. Now if you die because you didn't use your self heal, well then....it's partly on YOU. I am not responsible for keeping you healed while you do stupid things like standing in an AoE or fire or whatever. Personally....I rather like the idea of shared accountability so that healers don't get blamed for everything that goes wrong. We ALL help, and there are no "superstars" or scapegoats either.
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I can understand your confusion, you are of course seeing this from a tank - cc - healer view, and from that view you see a clear role for everyone and take that as team work, and it is, but it's not a dinamic fluid team work, it's a rigid system that asks for each individual to do one role and that role alone well.
But what if the teamplayers had to know when to change roles and execute them?
Let's say that one of players gets stunned for 3 minutes during the fight, the rest of the group is supposed to react and change formations/tactics and roles, this is what i mean by dinamic group play, and for me it takes much more skill, awareness and group prowess then the typical trinity gameplay, where what you do is defined by the role you pick and nothing else.
Will GW2 pull it of? I hope so, but there's no knowing for sure.
About the game itself, well, 1st of all as far as i know you can see your group's health, secondly while there are not direct heals there are group heals and area targetted heals.
But the game is not designed towards reactive healing, it's built towards active protection, that's why most classes have disruptive CC or protective counter manuevers, and if it ends up really being like this trinity game play (even revolving trinity like you're stating) won't happen, at least from a "you stay there and heal while that guy does nothing but get beaten up" point of view.
I do believe the game will be more dinamic, more fun and mainly that will take better groups to trully excel, only really coordinated people can change roles on demand, do cc and protection rotations while keeping awareness of where you are on what class combo attacks are needed.
You say the game is going to be more casual, while that might be true if you look at it from the amount of time needed to excel it might be true, but from the gameplay point of view i believe it will trully show a huge difference between people that really know they class and have skill with it and people that only know how to play roles.
That of course...if Arena.net pulls it of.
I don't see it as everyone can be everything at the drop of a hat.
I see it as, the game will cater more to your individual style of play.
Not only will you have the option of picking your class, but picking what skills you use, the weapon you use changes your skillset, weapon skills change under water and the combos that other classes will be able to pull off together means that PvE and PvP will be very deep.
This, this. You still have the ability to excel at what you do and being known for that. Perhaps you are a Necromancer who plays a mean dagger and warhorn. Perhaps you are the meanest Longbow Warrior in your guild. Perhaps nobody can work that Earth attunement with dagger+dagger better than your Elementalist. Perhaps you are just amazing at lightning-fast weapon-swapping as a thief and run circles around your prey.
There are still ways to excel at the playstyle of your choice, and distinguish yourself in that way.
But the nice thing is is that if your own team's healer is away you won't have to invite a random person into your team, one of you can just--at the drop of a hat--reconfigure yourself as a healer. ArenaNet has said that outside of combat we can pretty much do as we like in that regard. They did this so that you won't have to sit in front of a dungeon saying "Looking for guy who does this role.", that's the whole bloody point.
Think about it. If you couldn't reconfigure yourself at the drop of a hat, outside of combat, then they're lying about that. And they havn't lied to us so far, they've been up front about everything, even features that they've had to drop/change/include, even if those changes aren't popular. ArenaNet are like Cryptic (and especially Cryptic's Tumerboy) in that they are completely unafraid of blunt candor. They're not going to lie to us, feed us a line, or treat us like idiots.
So whilst you'll be able to make a name for yourself as a person in a role, you will never be required. That's the point. Everyone can heal just as well as everyone else, and a few stat and skill reconfigurations can turn someone into enough of a support character to provide everything a group would need to run a dungeon. To stress it again (as I feel it needs to be): ArenaNet has told us that they did this to eliminate 'LFG syndrome'.
Essentially, you just have some people who reconfig as support people and you're ready to go. The age of people being required based on profession or configuration has passed, it passes with Guild Wars 2, and it's no longer leverage to get into a group.
All I'm saying here is that if you think that you're going to be desirable because you're playing a support character then, according to every video ArenaNet has released, declared by them in spoken and written word, you're going to end up very disillusioned. This is something that everyone will have to adapt to, when five people get together it can be a completely random five people, and they'll just be able to delve into that dungeon or whatnot without any hanging around.
In fact, even if none of them are dedicated healers, but all of them can do a little support, then there's even going to be no need for a dedicated support character. This, again, is the idea. As written and spoken by ArenaNet. If you don't believe it then the interviews and videos are out there, it's one of the major selling points for me so it's hardly something I'm going to forget.
you can buff and support your team using a water build elementalist (aoe heal over time spells), an engineer (stim packs they can run through for heals). i am sure there are other heal-other-spells but we dont know them yet.
you can also divert damage (like an eq2 shaman, gw1 protection monk, etc) by casting buffs - defender class, ranger with a horn, warrior with proper blocking.
you can even do a little of both - tank as an earth elementalist using wards to soak up damage and shift focus to water elementalist to do group heals.
and i am sure i dont know all the proper examples to put in here.
but if you are looking for 3 buttons that do a fast heal, a long cast big heal and a heal over time, this wont be the game for you.