Originally posted by FearTHeFro

So would it be safe to say that gw2 pvp is more focused on individual skill rather than team strategy? Not saying that team strategy isn't important but from looking at the skills it seems like its more about how you can play your character than how a group of characters can play together?

 I would say the exact opposite.  Being able to take care of yourself is ALWAYS part of good team play.  People who run out ahead of a group like a chicken with their head cut off tend to due.  Period end of story.

The absolute key to understanding Guild Wars 2 is their philosphy of support (ie. controls, heals, buffs and debuff) and their entirely, absolute and inarguably correct conclusion that overlapping support is by far the most powerful thing that has ever existed in RPGs.

Overlapping support tends to be multiplicative NOT additive.  Thus what you see is support abilties are not that amazing solo.  Thus solo people focus on the idea that everyone is given some ability to help themselves out.

But when a team is using AOE heals + stuns + cripples + AOE forcefield AND concentraitng their fire they would abolsutely kill and uncoordinated group and probably not even come clsoe to losing one person.

Edit:

In other words we, the MMORPG community, are conditioned to see big heals numbers and when we don't we think "Oh that heal is crap".  In a team composed of 8 Elementalists they can ALL throw out a heal that will only do things in a modest way alone AND not be in any position to penalize their overall damage output.  But when all 8 throw out their mediocre heal together you suddenly have all 8 of them healed to full in seconds.

Now throw in something damage resistance buff and your effeective amount has been multiplied.

Anet can't give out support abilities that are that impressive alone.  Because in a group they become ridiculously overpowered when people work together.

So what you have is alot of people dismissing things because the numbers are lower than we expect.  Anet has purposely made them low because they understand how teams work together not the other way around.

Why do you think so many games have instituted crowd control immunities to prevent chain stuns and chain cripples?  Because in group context is becomes too powerful.  Anet does not want to insitute artificialy mechanics like this.

Originally posted by FearTHeFro

...it seems like you could build just a pure healer/support class.

Support role, yes.

Healer... no.  (you can't target 1 person and drop an Infuse on them)

The best you could do for healing would be comparative to running Divine-Healing & Ballad of Resto ... IE:  crappy shout-range heals with longer recharges.  ...you might as well echo mending.

For real support though, there's all kinds of great stuff you can do.  Tons of boons and "props" to summon and combine with other player's abilities.  Tons of different traits to run that CC or proc in supportive ways.  The only thing you CAN'T do really in GW2 PvP is drag out a fight by "clicking on red-bars".   The entire balance of spiking and pressure  in combat is now completely DEPENDENT on someone else eventually dying.  If they allowed the kind of Retro-Active Damage-mitigation that dedicated healers in GW1 provided, then the entire combat system would break down again and we'd be seeing the same exact MB-split & Distortion bullshit that has always plagued Gw1.

So yes you can drag out lots of fights by playing Dedicated Support.

NO you can not drag out a fight FOREVER simply by clicking on the UI instead of actually being part of the fight.

Originally posted by iller

Originally posted by FearTHeFro

...it seems like you could build just a pure healer/support class.

Support role, yes.

Healer... no.  (you can't target 1 person and drop an Infuse on them)

 

The best you could do for healing would be comparative to running Divine-Healing & Ballad of Resto ... IE:  crappy shout-range heals with longer recharges.  ...you might as well echo mending.

 

For real support though, there's all kinds of great stuff you can do.  Tons of boons and "props" to summon and combine with other player's abilities.  Tons of different traits to run that CC or proc in supportive ways.  The only thing you CAN'T do really in GW2 PvP is drag out a fight by "clicking on red-bars".   The entire balance of spiking and pressure  in combat is now completely DEPENDENT on someone else eventually dying.  If they allowed the kind of Retro-Active Damage-mitigation that dedicated healers in GW1 provided, then the entire combat system would break down again and we'd be seeing the same exact MB-split & Distortion bullshit that has always plagued Gw1.

 

So yes you can't drag out lots of fights by playing Dedicated Support.

NO you can not drag out a fight FOREVER simply by clicking on the UI instead of actually being part of the fight.

The only way to have comprehensive support is by having multiple people with support abiltiies.

This is the design of the game.  You want to do support you run with a team of people that has designated a set of people in the team to provide support.

There is no single "designated healer".  There will most likely be a "designated support sub-team".  There may be somethign eqivalent to what GW1 called the "backline" which is a set of 3-4 or so people who have been designated to perform certain coordinated maneuvers to provide defense.

I personally am excited as all get out to be able as an engineer to run around AOE spraying my friends, throwing AOE potions, and dropping crates of bandages and healing kits for friends to run through. It's going to be awesome.

Never thought as an engineer i would have a support role, every time i've thought about engineering it's always been bombs, mines, turrets, and flame throwers! Love these Devs!

Originally posted by gestalt11

Originally posted by FearTHeFro

So would it be safe to say that gw2 pvp is more focused on individual skill rather than team strategy? Not saying that team strategy isn't important but from looking at the skills it seems like its more about how you can play your character than how a group of characters can play together?

 I would say the exact opposite.  Being able to take care of yourself is ALWAYS part of good team play.  People who run out ahead of a group like a chicken with their head cut off tend to due.  Period end of story.

 

The absolute key to understanding Guild Wars 2 is their philosphy of support (ie. controls, heals, buffs and debuff) and their entirely, absolute and inarguably correct conclusion that overlapping support is by far the most powerful thing that has ever existed in RPGs.

 

Overlapping support tends to be multiplicative NOT additive.  Thus what you see is support abilties are not that amazing solo.  Thus solo people focus on the idea that everyone is given some ability to help themselves out.

 

But when a team is using AOE heals + stuns + cripples + AOE forcefield AND concentraitng their fire they would abolsutely kill and uncoordinated group and probably not even come clsoe to losing one person.

 

Edit:

In other words we, the MMORPG community, are conditioned to see big heals numbers and when we don't we think "Oh that heal is crap".  In a team composed of 8 Elementalists they can ALL throw out a heal that will only do things in a modest way alone AND not be in any position to penalize their overall damage output.  But when all 8 throw out their mediocre heal together you suddenly have all 8 of them healed to full in seconds.

Now throw in something damage resistance buff and your effeective amount has been multiplied.

Anet can't give out support abilities that are that impressive alone.  Because in a group they become ridiculously overpowered when people work together.

So what you have is alot of people dismissing things because the numbers are lower than we expect.  Anet has purposely made them low because they understand how teams work together not the other way around.

Why do you think so many games have instituted crowd control immunities to prevent chain stuns and chain cripples?  Because in group context is becomes too powerful.  Anet does not want to insitute artificialy mechanics like this.

Yea I get what you're saying, in gw1 it was really hard to kill someone because the damage was so low, but when you coordinated together and had everyone attack with high damage spells at the same time you could kill people much easier.  Thats why it was always my favorite pvp game to play. Healing was still pretty high in gw1 so the games lasted a lot longer in most compositions.

Originally posted by FearTHeFro

Originally posted by gestalt11

Originally posted by FearTHeFro

So would it be safe to say that gw2 pvp is more focused on individual skill rather than team strategy? Not saying that team strategy isn't important but from looking at the skills it seems like its more about how you can play your character than how a group of characters can play together?

 I would say the exact opposite.  Being able to take care of yourself is ALWAYS part of good team play.  People who run out ahead of a group like a chicken with their head cut off tend to due.  Period end of story.

 

The absolute key to understanding Guild Wars 2 is their philosphy of support (ie. controls, heals, buffs and debuff) and their entirely, absolute and inarguably correct conclusion that overlapping support is by far the most powerful thing that has ever existed in RPGs.

 

Overlapping support tends to be multiplicative NOT additive.  Thus what you see is support abilties are not that amazing solo.  Thus solo people focus on the idea that everyone is given some ability to help themselves out.

 

But when a team is using AOE heals + stuns + cripples + AOE forcefield AND concentraitng their fire they would abolsutely kill and uncoordinated group and probably not even come clsoe to losing one person.

 

Edit:

In other words we, the MMORPG community, are conditioned to see big heals numbers and when we don't we think "Oh that heal is crap".  In a team composed of 8 Elementalists they can ALL throw out a heal that will only do things in a modest way alone AND not be in any position to penalize their overall damage output.  But when all 8 throw out their mediocre heal together you suddenly have all 8 of them healed to full in seconds.

Now throw in something damage resistance buff and your effeective amount has been multiplied.

Anet can't give out support abilities that are that impressive alone.  Because in a group they become ridiculously overpowered when people work together.

So what you have is alot of people dismissing things because the numbers are lower than we expect.  Anet has purposely made them low because they understand how teams work together not the other way around.

Why do you think so many games have instituted crowd control immunities to prevent chain stuns and chain cripples?  Because in group context is becomes too powerful.  Anet does not want to insitute artificialy mechanics like this.

Yea I get what you're saying, in gw1 it was really hard to kill someone because the damage was so low, but when you coordinated together and had everyone attack with high damage spells at the same time you could kill people much easier.  Thats why it was always my favorite pvp game to play. Healing was still pretty high in gw1 so the games lasted a lot longer in most compositions.

It is true that Monks in GW1 could prevent or heal tons of damage even alone.  So Anets previous game is a good bit different than Gw2.

Or is it?  In general the backline in GW1 still gets split into one guy healing, one or two guys tdoing spike protection of some sort, and a few other bits and pieces.

I can't say without the actual list of all skills of course.  But many of these things seem possible, but the key difference is that you do not have a key specialist who is your spike preventer/seconary healer or a key specialist who is primary healer.

Instead they have spread things out some and alleivated some jobs.  Now you don't need a secondary healer because people take care of that themselves to some degree.  Now everyone needs to think about defense to some extent in addition to positioning.

I think the experience of GW1 monks when put into the context of larger fights (ie. WvWvW ) has lead them to evolve to some extent their idea of how to make the team synergize.

If we had GW1 style monks a large zerg may become close to invulnerable.  However from what i have seen their current system, while less specialized, does provide a similar feeling of a need to apply pressure to crack the nut so to speak.  A good team can coordinate a formidable defense and a good team can run a formidable offesne/spike.  But they expect a larger precentage of the team to contribute to both.

Because if you had a Zerg of something like GW1 Monks (or probably worse Rits) I mean that would get silly.  The overlap would jsut get out of hand. 

Will this work out right?  We will see, but I suspect it will be fine.  There will always be people who realy want to specialize hardcore and we will see if they can.

I suspect you will never see a single specialzied person who has a multiple abilities all stacking together and constantly refreshing.  You may see something like an elementalist that does not attack much but instead throws only support abilities like heals and stuns and cripples but is lacking say some of the enhancers (spike protection and damage resistance).  And you may a see a guardian that only does support with some heal, but not enough to spam it, and some enhancers but not control.   I would assume an elementalist would accomplish pure support by constantly switching elements to do so.  I am not sure if a guardian has enough different abilities to do constant support. 

I believe the GW2 devs have actually purposely made having individuals able to spamming non-attacks really hard to accomplish so that there are breaks and gaps in things.

Their refined vision of support is based on the idea that in a group other people can fill in these gaps.  GW1 had very very powerful individual syngeries AND group synergies.  GW2 should still have probably fairly similar group synergies you just won't have such huge individual synergies. 

Essentially they limiting indivdual synergies by power choice and also breaking up the constant cylce of a syngery chain.  Most GW1 synergy chains were things formed a cycle that could be done ad nauseum and fairly often. 

They have eseentially enforced breaks into these cycles because having many people able to do them gets out of control.  And I think also they want to prioritize so that stuff that is this powerful is limited to really good group coordination.

By having an entire syngery cycle executed by one person you only one good player to make that mediocre team unkillable rather than the whole team being good.

In GW1 there were definitely cases where the 1 or 2 monks in that team made a good team great rather them simply being a great team.  Sometimes a really good mesmer could do this too.  I think Anet wants to limit this kind of dominance to things that take the whole or a decent % of the group to execute.  Also this will most likely make mistakes more frequent and make fights have a more dramatic and peaks and valleys.

Originally posted by gestalt11

Originally posted by FearTHeFro

Originally posted by gestalt11

Originally posted by FearTHeFro

So would it be safe to say that gw2 pvp is more focused on individual skill rather than team strategy? Not saying that team strategy isn't important but from looking at the skills it seems like its more about how you can play your character than how a group of characters can play together?

 I would say the exact opposite.  Being able to take care of yourself is ALWAYS part of good team play.  People who run out ahead of a group like a chicken with their head cut off tend to due.  Period end of story.

 

The absolute key to understanding Guild Wars 2 is their philosphy of support (ie. controls, heals, buffs and debuff) and their entirely, absolute and inarguably correct conclusion that overlapping support is by far the most powerful thing that has ever existed in RPGs.

 

Overlapping support tends to be multiplicative NOT additive.  Thus what you see is support abilties are not that amazing solo.  Thus solo people focus on the idea that everyone is given some ability to help themselves out.

 

But when a team is using AOE heals + stuns + cripples + AOE forcefield AND concentraitng their fire they would abolsutely kill and uncoordinated group and probably not even come clsoe to losing one person.

 

Edit:

In other words we, the MMORPG community, are conditioned to see big heals numbers and when we don't we think "Oh that heal is crap".  In a team composed of 8 Elementalists they can ALL throw out a heal that will only do things in a modest way alone AND not be in any position to penalize their overall damage output.  But when all 8 throw out their mediocre heal together you suddenly have all 8 of them healed to full in seconds.

Now throw in something damage resistance buff and your effeective amount has been multiplied.

Anet can't give out support abilities that are that impressive alone.  Because in a group they become ridiculously overpowered when people work together.

So what you have is alot of people dismissing things because the numbers are lower than we expect.  Anet has purposely made them low because they understand how teams work together not the other way around.

Why do you think so many games have instituted crowd control immunities to prevent chain stuns and chain cripples?  Because in group context is becomes too powerful.  Anet does not want to insitute artificialy mechanics like this.

Yea I get what you're saying, in gw1 it was really hard to kill someone because the damage was so low, but when you coordinated together and had everyone attack with high damage spells at the same time you could kill people much easier.  Thats why it was always my favorite pvp game to play. Healing was still pretty high in gw1 so the games lasted a lot longer in most compositions.

It is true that Monks in GW1 could prevent or heal tons of damage even alone.  So Anets previous game is a good bit different than Gw2.

 

Or is it?  In general the backline in GW1 still gets split into one guy healing, one or two guys tdoing spike protection of some sort, and a few other bits and pieces.

 

I can't say without the actual list of all skills of course.  But many of these things seem possible, but the key difference is that you do not have a key specialist who is your spike preventer/seconary healer or a key specialist who is primary healer.

Instead they have spread things out some and alleivated some jobs.  Now you don't need a secondary healer because people take care of that themselves to some degree.  Now everyone needs to think about defense to some extent in addition to positioning.

 

I think the experience of GW1 monks when put into the context of larger fights (ie. WvWvW ) has lead them to evolve to some extent their idea of how to make the team synergize.

 

If we had GW1 style monks a large zerg may become close to invulnerable.  However from what i have seen their current system, while less specialized, does provide a similar feeling of a need to apply pressure to crack the nut so to speak.  A good team can coordinate a formidable defense and a good team can run a formidable offesne/spike.  But they expect a larger precentage of the team to contribute to both.

Because if you had a Zerg of something like GW1 Monks (or probably worse Rits) I mean that would get silly.  The overlap would jsut get out of hand. 

 

Will this work out right?  We will see, but I suspect it will be fine.  There will always be people who realy want to specialize hardcore and we will see if they can.

I suspect you will never see a single specialzied person who has a multiple abilities all stacking together and constantly refreshing.  You may see something like an elementalist that does not attack much but instead throws only support abilities like heals and stuns and cripples but is lacking say some of the enhancers (spike protection and damage resistance).  And you may a see a guardian that only does support with some heal, but not enough to spam it, and some enhancers but not control.   I would assume an elementalist would accomplish pure support by constantly switching elements to do so.  I am not sure if a guardian has enough different abilities to do constant support. 

I believe the GW2 devs have actually purposely made having individuals able to spamming non-attacks really hard to accomplish so that there are breaks and gaps in things.

Their refined vision of support is based on the idea that in a group other people can fill in these gaps.  GW1 had very very powerful individual syngeries AND group synergies.  GW2 should still have probably fairly similar group synergies you just won't have such huge individual synergies. 

Essentially they limiting indivdual synergies by power choice and also breaking up the constant cylce of a syngery chain.  Most GW1 synergy chains were things formed a cycle that could be done ad nauseum and fairly often. 

They have eseentially enforced breaks into these cycles because having many people able to do them gets out of control.  And I think also they want to prioritize so that stuff that is this powerful is limited to really good group coordination.

By having an entire syngery cycle executed by one person you only one good player to make that mediocre team unkillable rather than the whole team being good.

In GW1 there were definitely cases where the 1 or 2 monks in that team made a good team great rather them simply being a great team.  Sometimes a really good mesmer could do this too.  I think Anet wants to limit this kind of dominance to things that take the whole or a decent % of the group to execute.  Also this will most likely make mistakes more frequent and make fights have a more dramatic and peaks and valleys.

 

Good read. I'm all for team-based pvp, it was what made gw1 so fun to me. I think there will be quite the combination of strategies you can do as far as compositions go and it wll be fun to try to figure out what will work. As for me personally ill probably play a water elementalist with a staff because I really like their skills, some nice spiking abilities and some good heal/support spells. They have that glyph where you have 10 seconds to do critical damage. I wonder how good it would be to have a lot of elemental spikers using ice spike+glyph of elemental power and then all coordinadting it at the same time, would be pretty insane. Can't wait to try out that build.

After reading most replys in this topic conclusion is, many still on denial and try be healer class omg i see already people nerd raging and maybe even quiting becouse they can't be support role they want:)

Good luck to all who still think they can stand in the background and play the healer or playing pure dps or think they can pure tank the mobs haha.

First weeks we will see frustration, nerdrage quiting and leerooys pulling mobs or bosses and be whiped constantly hehe

I'm curious how healing will end up after the first few rounds of class/skill changes and balances.

With that said I think damage spike teams with a defensive support and an offensive shut down / cc will be extremely popular.  This is one of the foundational team based builds in Guild Wars 1.  It will just be a matter of finding out what classes and team builds will bubble up as fotm to do this.

Which classes will spike best?  Which classes and builds will provide the best support and how will that support end up showing its face?  What will shutdown look like?  What forms of cc and conditions will shine?  What classes and builds will run interference?  Those are the kinds of questions people should be asking to get ready for Guild Wars pvp.

I keep seeing people use the word DPS, but in Guild Wars pvp dps doesn't count as much as spike damage does.  Of course since direct support healing isn't as strong this might change with GW2, but somehow I doubt it.

Cookies to the first poster that can suggest the first fotm team builds and why they think so.

Originally posted by gestalt11

It is true that Monks in GW1 could prevent or heal tons of damage even alone.  So Anets previous game is a good bit different than Gw2.

 

Or is it?  In general the backline in GW1 still gets split into one guy healing, one or two guys tdoing spike protection of some sort, and a few other bits and pieces.

 

I can't say without the actual list of all skills of course.  But many of these things seem possible, but the key difference is that you do not have a key specialist who is your spike preventer/seconary healer or a key specialist who is primary healer.

Instead they have spread things out some and alleivated some jobs.  Now you don't need a secondary healer because people take care of that themselves to some degree.  Now everyone needs to think about defense to some extent in addition to positioning.

 

I think the experience of GW1 monks when put into the context of larger fights (ie. WvWvW ) has lead them to evolve to some extent their idea of how to make the team synergize.

 

If we had GW1 style monks a large zerg may become close to invulnerable.  However from what i have seen their current system, while less specialized, does provide a similar feeling of a need to apply pressure to crack the nut so to speak.  A good team can coordinate a formidable defense and a good team can run a formidable offesne/spike.  But they expect a larger precentage of the team to contribute to both.

Because if you had a Zerg of something like GW1 Monks (or probably worse Rits) I mean that would get silly.  The overlap would jsut get out of hand. 

 

Will this work out right?  We will see, but I suspect it will be fine.  There will always be people who realy want to specialize hardcore and we will see if they can.

I suspect you will never see a single specialzied person who has a multiple abilities all stacking together and constantly refreshing.  You may see something like an elementalist that does not attack much but instead throws only support abilities like heals and stuns and cripples but is lacking say some of the enhancers (spike protection and damage resistance).  And you may a see a guardian that only does support with some heal, but not enough to spam it, and some enhancers but not control.   I would assume an elementalist would accomplish pure support by constantly switching elements to do so.  I am not sure if a guardian has enough different abilities to do constant support. 

I believe the GW2 devs have actually purposely made having individuals able to spamming non-attacks really hard to accomplish so that there are breaks and gaps in things.

Their refined vision of support is based on the idea that in a group other people can fill in these gaps.  GW1 had very very powerful individual syngeries AND group synergies.  GW2 should still have probably fairly similar group synergies you just won't have such huge individual synergies. 

Essentially they limiting indivdual synergies by power choice and also breaking up the constant cylce of a syngery chain.  Most GW1 synergy chains were things formed a cycle that could be done ad nauseum and fairly often. 

They have eseentially enforced breaks into these cycles because having many people able to do them gets out of control.  And I think also they want to prioritize so that stuff that is this powerful is limited to really good group coordination.

By having an entire syngery cycle executed by one person you only one good player to make that mediocre team unkillable rather than the whole team being good.

In GW1 there were definitely cases where the 1 or 2 monks in that team made a good team great rather them simply being a great team.  Sometimes a really good mesmer could do this too.  I think Anet wants to limit this kind of dominance to things that take the whole or a decent % of the group to execute.  Also this will most likely make mistakes more frequent and make fights have a more dramatic and peaks and valleys.

This is an excellent post (as was your previous one) and asks the right questions in the right perspective in my opinion.  Excellent post!

I'm curious how team builds end up working out with changes to healing.  I wonder how the different areas like WvW versus team arenas will affect builds and balancing.

All the talk of self healing and self sufficiency reminded me of when WaMo teams in GvG were very popular (before they were nerfed).  Very self sufficient on their own and devastating when they could clump on a target.  I wonder how easily self sufficiency will be able to shut down or stripped by hex/curse builds.

Instead of heavy healing support backends maybe we'll see heavy hex backends that ruin the self healing of the front lines.  Then again I'm making an assumption that there will be front and rear lines.

Originally posted by flclimax

 

http://www.guildwarsinsider.com/guild-wars-2-attempting-healer-build/

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3sowfNMAeA

Spot on. Most people dont realise how incredibly small AE / splash heals are. They help, but they literally account for less than 5% of incoming heals compared to 95% self heals.

The lack of strong "heal other" skills makes it a lot easier to balance encounters for a wide variety of character and team builds. Healing skills aren't useless, they can still extend the life span of yourself or your team, but there are other ways to do that as well, by making your enemies less efficient in dealing damage, either directly with conditons or idirectly via boons and mitigation.

Healing skills you can use to heal others are meant to be balanced vs. the other methods of extending the lives of your team mates.

Here is a versatile Engineer support build. You can see there is some healing ability, but it also relies on control, conditions, boons and condition removal to provide support. (You can see the skills associated with each kit by selecting that kit as your weapon).

http://gw2.luna-atra.fr/skills_tool/?lang=en&code=3e9000dre0e1e3hfv00afkpafb4bebikdkh

Here is an Elementalist build with good support versatility. Much more healing than the engineer, but you won't be sitting back spamming heals all day, you'll need to be more active than that to provide the maximum benefit of the build:

http://gw2.luna-atra.fr/skills_tool/?lang=en&code=321080232aaprslm00a0auk0c0m0v131318emevf0f0

Here is a minionless Necromancer Build that uses marks and wells to control the battlefield, while also having traits that maximize use of death shroud. The Build also significantly boosts healing, directly and indirectly through the trait that converts power into healing. Well of blood becomes a decent area of effect heal and the trait that heals nearby allies when ever you leave Death Shroud provides additional healing. You clearly are not a healer, in the traditional sense, but you are extending the life span of your team while bringing additional utility and self-survivability.

http://gw2.luna-atra.fr/skills_tool/?lang=en&code=3810004n88h8lsh934f00up5n5u5u676bh6h7hmhq

Those are just three support builds I've been tinkering with. The differences between support in GW2 vs. other games and especially vs. dedicated healers in other games, should be apparent. I'd add that each build also looks like it would be a lot of fun! :)

Originally posted by cesmode8

Everyone tanks, heals, and dps.

 

John Madden says if everyone tanks, heals and dps's. No one tanks, heals or dps's.

Vince Vaugn says if everyone is special, no one is special.

I look to each for deep insight.

If it isn't a traditional role, in time good players will expect certain player builds to do certain things. It's just the way the world spins.

Looking over the skills, I saw one water elementalist HoT (that also did dmg) that healed for 375 and it was the largest heal I noticed.  I think people that are looking to play "a healer" are going to be very disappointed. There is NO designated healer role. That's just not how the mechanics of this game work. Same goes for "tanks"....no such thing in GW2, so if you're looking to play a role from the trinity in GW2, even dps....you're going to be very unhappy. There is no "pure dps" either, so.... /shrug

Go for it and tell me if it works ok:P

Originally posted by FearTHeFro

I have read that all classes are able to heal themselves and all of that stuff, but does that mean that all groups wont have a designated healer?

 

In gw1 I really liked healing for GVG and HoH with my spiker group guild, and looking at the skills on characters and stuff it seems like you could build just a pure healer/support class.

 

I wonder how good that would be to have 4 people go complete damage and one person go complete heal/support. it seems like that would be pretty good to not have to worry about healing yourself and having one person to heal in the pvp group.

 

Anyone who has done more research than me have any insight on this? Or is it all unknown at this time?

Its been mentioned many times, there will be no Healer, no Tank.

Example: Enemy hits player X for 200 damage, Water spec Elementalist can heal you for 20 hp , congrats you just died.

                  Warrior wants to tank takes 100 damage , Water spec Elemetalist heals you for 20 hp, congrats you just died.

   Dodge and Moving away from enemy attacks is your healer , you control the amount of damage you sustain, if you want to die, stand still, if you want to live, Move away.

Originally posted by HorrorScope

If it isn't a traditional role, in time good players will expect certain player builds to do certain things. It's just the way the world spins.

There's nothing really wrong with that though. The problem arises when only specific classes have access to those builds (i.e. dedicated class roles).

If everyone has the same tools available (although the distribution of tools will differ) then everyone will have a viable role regardless of their class or group composition. That is a great thing.

Originally posted by Torvaldr

Instead of heavy healing support backends maybe we'll see heavy hex backends that ruin the self healing of the front lines.  Then again I'm making an assumption that there will be front and rear lines.

We won't see that because there are no hard counters in GW2 like there were in GW1. While there will still be "lines" due to the fact that some people will use melee/ranged weapons exclusively, I think there won't be that much of a functional difference between the two.

Originally posted by HorrorScope

Originally posted by cesmode8

Everyone tanks, heals, and dps.

 

John Madden says if everyone tanks, heals and dps's. No one tanks, heals or dps's.

Vince Vaugn says if everyone is special, no one is special.

I look to each for deep insight.

If it isn't a traditional role, in time good players will expect certain player builds to do certain things. It's just the way the world spins.

He who knows when he can fight and when he cannot will be victorious.

 Sun Tzu

So adept or die 

Originally posted by FearTHeFro

I have read that all classes are able to heal themselves and all of that stuff, but does that mean that all groups wont have a designated healer?

 

In gw1 I really liked healing for GVG and HoH with my spiker group guild, and looking at the skills on characters and stuff it seems like you could build just a pure healer/support class.

 

I wonder how good that would be to have 4 people go complete damage and one person go complete heal/support. it seems like that would be pretty good to not have to worry about healing yourself and having one person to heal in the pvp group.

 

Anyone who has done more research than me have any insight on this? Or is it all unknown at this time?

Personally, I think the removal of the trinity is one of the best parts of GW2.  I'm hoping that we won't be seeing clone builds everywhere.  That you really will be able to play the way you want, with any number of builds.  It may in fact allow for RP builds to be viable, imagine that.  Not that I've ever been into Role Playing builds, but, I might now.  Imagine getting in a pug to do dungeon X, and not being asked to show your build, or, not getting kicked because you're a _______ and you didn't bring the _______ skill.  I'm hopeful, not certain, that the GW2 world will have a myriad of diverse, effective builds, both in PVE and PVP.  Everyone won't be running to wiki to find out how to make the best build.  They might get some ideas, but, I don't think just a few people will have a corner on "what works best".