Help me understand the game better

[Jorgen.6271]

Dear all,

 

First, I want to say this post is not intended as a complain or a belittlement of GW2 in anyway shape or form. It is simply things I have noticed about this game which I find are either, misunderstood on my part, poorly designed, or went awry from originally designed. So I am going to lay out what I have experienced personally to see if I am playing this game correctly or there are something to be worked on. Here is my background:

 

- Returning player of GW2 from 6 years ago. Had a level 80 Warrior back then.

- I have over 15 years of MMO experience of various publishers, both "Western" and "Asian"

- Majority of MMO I've played follows the "holy trinity", with most of them being "passive" (stat based) mitigation as opposed to "active" (action based) mitigation like TERA or GW2.

 

So with those bias already established, here is my take on current GW2.

 

**Combat and Content**

 

For the most part other than the expected story expansion, GW2 hasn't change that much from my absence. Combat still function the same, my gear is still relevant as "top-end" after all these years, and there is a new introduction of "Builds". And this is where my question starts. **Just how effective "support" builds are supposed to be?**

In my personal observation, not much. I am of course refer to group contents, particularly open world Champions and Fractals.

 

**_Open World Champions_**

 

The only tactic I have witness so far, be it 6 years ago or now, is to employ the "Human Wave". I see a champion, I scream for help on Map Chat and proceed to laugh maniacally as 50 people show up and wash over the champion in a wave of blood and glory. Is the game supposed to function like this? Because if it is, I feel pointless stacking Healing output to support my fellow players when the Champion is so scaled up, just by _existing_ kills a wave of players. When the Champion's auto attack equals instant kill, it really takes away my sense of "contribution". If I engage the Champion in small numbers, I still don't feel like I am contributing because the Champion can overwhelm any Regen I put out easily. Just how am I supposed to enjoy support/healer build in this game?

 

It seems to me in open world anything, I should just go Full Berserker gear and either a) Spin-to-win aka most Greatsword skills and b) scream "Don't pick me, Don't pick me, Don't pick me GTFO!" when it comes to engaging Champions Is this the way to go? Am I understanding this game correctly?

 

I just want to mean something, you know? Instead of being Fodder#10924734653. I want my existence for Open World Champion to be more than "Approach the boss, frantically unleash whatever skill I have, dodge a few times, die"

 

**_Fractals_**

 

I feel that in fractals support/healer see a _little_ bit more effect, but not by much. I keep hearing stories about how support Firebrands can hard carry Tier 4 Fractals with the team face-tanking all mechanics etc. etc. Maybe they are that good... maybe not. All I can say is that I haven't been able to see such a feat. Today, my PuG group wiped multiple times on Tier 3 Siren Reef last boss. We eventually got it done, but we were so burnt out, we didn't even bother to try Shattered (which was the recommended). Now, I wasn't playing a support class then, I was Dragonhunter in full Berserker gear. I know my build, I know my supposed "rotation" and there was a support Firebrand in my group. Everything looks to be fine on paper, considering GW2 is advertised as "play whatever and however you want".

 

Just to get it out there, yes, my group actually obeyed the mechanic, we pull the adds to the center, I drop traps like Dragon Maw, Procession of Blades, and Sword of Justice to cleave down the adds. Problem is then I get aggro from adds and they proceed to burst me down or if I get lucky and dodge, I get targeted by red circles. Now I keep getting this nagging feeling that I am doing something wrong and I am starting to develop avoidance for Tier 3 fractals. I want to try support/heal build in fractals, but from what I have seen so far, it might not be worth my while as I have to build a second set from scratch.

 

I just can't put my faith in other GW2 players as easily as other "holy trinity" games. Hell, I find it hard to place faith in myself that I will help the group to victory. I don't get the sense of "You got my back, bro? Hell yeah!" or "Just call me 'Immortality' because that's what you get when I am healing you" vibe from this game.

 

**Conclusion**

What I am trying to say is that I find support/heal stats and builds rather pointless from my personal experience. I hope it was never intended to be this way, because I really don't like "stack all damage" mentality which this game seemed to be entrenched in. Am I understanding this game correctly or are there things I need to rectify?

 

I sincerely thank you all for reading through to the end.

[AliamRationem.5172]

Hi! You're not wrong questioning the wisdom of taking support builds for open world. You're essentially sacrificing personal utility for group support in a scenario where it probably doesn't matter.

 

It's not so much that you can't generate useful healing and support, it's more that this game is not designed for healers to carry. You can help take the edge off with heals, but it's on the individual to avoid those kill shots.

 

In fact, if you get good at this, almost any champion and even many legendary bosses can be defeated solo. That's the beauty of action combat!

 

[Danikat.8537]

I can't comment on Fractals, but for open-world champions if you want to do more than just damage I recommend learning to use [Crowd Control, aka CC skills](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Control_effect). These are useful normally, but they're especially useful against champions because they break the [definance bar](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Defiance_bar) (the blue bar under their health) and that prevents the champion from launching a big attack, disables them for a few seconds so they're easier to damage, or both. In some fights it's a useful extra, in others it makes the difference between success and failure, so players who have good CC skills and know how to use them are very popular in open-world group content.

 

Healing other players can be useful in open-world content, but it's much more situational. I like having an AoE healing skill available so I can use it if necessary, but I'm not sure being a dedicated healer is practical because generally most people can take care of themselves. Or what makes the difference is having a character with good defence so when everyone else is downed you can run around reviving them. :D But GW2 was originally designed to stay away from the 'holy trinity' design, so there's less emphasis on healing other people in all content, except maybe raids which are done a bit differently.

[SkyCakeLight.3750]

Typed up a massive post before realizing it was way too much! I'll try a much shorter version.

 

If you want to play support in Open World content for either Meta Maps such as Dragon Stand or for smaller-scale bosses such as champions or legendaries, then Support Scourge is by far the best support in my experience. Support in Open World is something I've always been interested in. It's not like how in WoW if I show up on my Mistweaver Monk then no one is going to die due to the sheer amount of healing, cleanses, and the bubble I have.

 

Support Scourge has barriers, minor HoTs, and unique Downed support. Barriers are worth more than raw healing in Open World. If someone has 14k HP and takes 14k damage in a second (very common), then there isn't anything you can realistically do as a "healer". Pretty much just apply Protection and hope for the best! If you drop an 8k barrier on them though, now they're able to survive that burst damage and work out how to remain alive. You can slap a Regeneration on them and Vampiric Presence will help regain that lost health. They will still manage to die in a lot of cases. On to the most important section!

 

Downed Support is the biggest boon. Blood Magic has always been one of many things that keep the Necromancer from being balanced. It will give you unique rezzing capabilities. With the right traits, you will cast a Lesser Well of Blood when you rez (extends this ability to the skill Well of Blood), players can siphon health, they won't lose HP while downed, and you can pull people from dangerous positions to you for rezzing. You may not be able to output as much healing as a Firebrand. But, when they inevitably die (they will), then you'll be there to swoop in and get them fighting again!

 

In my experience of experimenting with this idea over many years and having a point in time where it was all I was concerned with, Scourge wins out over the healing Firebrands, Support Druids, Boon Heralds/Eles, ect. thanks primarily to Blood Magic. You can't keep people from going into a Downed state with how high the burst damage is in a game where glass cannon is the most common build. Might as well support them while they're in that state!

 

Yes, this is the shorter version. As for instanced content, Support Scourge dies off a bit due to player stacking and lower player count (this supports raw healing better). It still makes a great safety net and can make a run infinitely easier. A lot of people don't like the idea of sacrificing a DPS for the spot though since killing a boss 15 seconds faster is a risk they're often willing to take.

 

Edit: BUT! To extend more on my point about comparing it to my Mistweaver in WoW. I feel like I have been impactful as a Support Scourge on meta maps. Even more so on bounty runs. I've also ran Support Scourge with great effect on a speed farming Strike mission. However, it's not the same as a dedicated healing role. People will often not even notice you in PUGs. I've gotten a lot more positive feedback supporting in WoW than GW2 due primarily to WoW having dedicated spots for it. In GW2, support often means more than keeping players alive and is something all players provide at least a little bit of.

 

Not that focusing on healing output isn't useful! It is.

[Jorgen.6271]

Thank you for your kind response. It seems to me, my impression about support build in "Human Wave" situation is more or less correct. The game is less about preventing the death of your fellow players, but how good you are at picking up the pieces when they do die. This really saddens me because the whole selling point of GW2's idea of "whoever can jump in, when and wherever" is nothing more than "throw more fodder at it". It really takes away skill development from players. Why bother getting good like the video posted by AliamRationem, when I can be a part of a death-ball, tag my gold-medal worth of damage and proceed to flop and flounder about in butchered framerate. Or better yet, go afk, everyone knows, I am not really needed... right?

 

I apologize if things to start sounding like a complaint, but the whole situation of this game is simplified to "Why bother?"; at least for me. Why bother learning to dodge when regular to Elite mobs get shredded in seconds with glass cannon builds and gear? Why bother learning to dodge or git gud when I can be part of a death-ball? Why bother, making my life harder than it should be?

 

I desperately wish I am wrong about this game. Maybe I should look into game modes like Raids where an individual player has more meaning in terms of skill contribution, growth, and development.

[LaGranse.8652]

Since this is an action based MMO support players cannot (in most cases) make people who don’t dodge key attacks immortal.

 

Suppors heal the party so they do not die from the attrition of the fight and bring utillity to the group. For example a support could apply aegis before a big attack (if that attack can be blocked) to block the hit for the group.

 

Open world gameplay is not well-suited for this kind of combat because as you mentioned there is a lot of people, and if they die they can just waypoint.

 

You will enjoy playing your support much more in T4 fractals, strike missions, raids or why not try the competative PvP and WvW modes.

[FrizzFreston.5290]

In short: Open world doesn't need pure support, a few basic skills are enough.

Support healing only really becomes more important in Tier 4 fractals, (certain) strikes and raids.

 

As for soloing or engaging Champion by yourself or as Berserker you need to dodge block and such. I run berserker Guardian myself, and have blocks and condiremoval as well as scepter to take a distance. You cannot ever just stand there and take hits. As a guardian also use your blocks.

 

Support in GW2 only makes sense when you know you have someone to support. And since open world is public you cannot rely on that at all.

[Aridon.8362]

Warrior main here, I'll try and answer your questions one at a time.

1-Don't ever gate yourself to be a support as a warrior. Don't let other people tell you to either. That's a personal choice. To begin with there's not much utilty you offer to begin with, a condi clear some minor healing, and a few might stacks? Guardians and Soulbeasts offer more of both.

2- For warrior full berserker is pretty bad for open world when you have a lot of enemies to deal with at once. If you want to be on the safe side figure out a way to incorporate some toughness with might stacks.

3-Do not be a support in fractals, leave the supporting to the actual designated healers of the game, take full berserkers and use dodge. Some bosses are harder to meele in a fractal so use a rifle instead and range them out. If it helps use the condi set, though personally I find it boring.

 

[Teratus.2859]

Guess it depends on the support build, player and the content.

 

I'd chalk your experience up in fractal with the Support guardian to be high expectation.

Did the player mention they could carry the whole group or did you just expect them to be able to because of what you've heard about firebrands?

Either way it didn't work out for your party sadly.

 

As for PvE support has a place just not a key one.

From my almost 8 years of largely Gw2 PvE experience I find that personal survivability goes much further than relying on support players to get you through content.

Specially now with recent power nerfs diminishing the ability to just zerk-rush something and kill it before it can kill you.

Not to mention this becomes a nightmare for melee players who have to fight something upscaled and just get as you said, wiped out by the higher damage.

Frankly I do not like playing Glass canons in Gw2 without some kind of survivability investment, be that a Ranged weapon or traits that help me sustain myself etc

 

Raids, Strikes, Fractals and WvW is where support builds are going to be far more useful if not essential.

But PvE.. not so much, at least not heavy investment anyway.. some support abilities are great to have in PvE without much investment.

Necromancers being able to pull and revive the downed with shroud 4 for example is one of the best support abilities in the game imo, specially when they can also AoE heal at the same time.

 

 

[Danikat.8537]

As long as you keep thinking support has to mean healing and is only worthwhile if you're the one making the difference between another player staying alive or going down, no matter what they do, then yes you're going to find 'support' builds ineffective and rarely useful.

 

If you're willing to consider the full range of support in this game, like providing boons, shared traits and positive AoE effects other professions/builds can't give themselves, _preventing_ damage through things like barriers, crowd control on the boss to prevent big attacks and open up oppertunities to attack them, removing conditions, and so on you'll have a lot more options. It will still depend on what you're fighting and who else is there (which is hard to coordinate for open-world groups) but there will be a lot of oppertunities to contribute significantly to the group with more than just damage.

 

Although, even then don't expect everyone else to notice that it was you doing it. They should notice the effects but are unlikely to know where they came from when they're in the midle of a battle. If the group as a whole doesn't do well enough, especially if they don't have enough CC to break defiance bars when it matters, you'll hear about it. (Contrary to your assumption most players don't consider that "human wave" approach of throwing yourself at a boss, dying and doing it again until you wear them down acceptable, it happens but only if the group clearly doesn't know what they're doing and there's no one to provide direction.)

 

But there's only once in almost 8 years and thousands of hours playing this game I've seen 1 specific person in an open-world group called out as making the difference between success and failure. That was fighting the champion mordrem troll under Amber Sandfall in Silverwastes early on. The whole group went down except 1 ranger, who managed to kite the boss and use [search and Rescue](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/%22Search_and_Rescue!%22) to revive other people until there were enough to get the whole group back up and finish the fight. And it's not that I haven't seen other times when almost the entire group goes down, it's just that there's usually multiple people to get them back up and/or a waypoint near enough that they can just die and come back.

[Luthan.5236]

Yeah ... the CC is a thing. Open World champs upscaled extremely when people have lots of dps and no CC and the CC bar can't be broken. (And when I'm there solo rifle 4 from engineer almost breaks the whole CC bar with that skill 1 use.)

 

Depending on which game mode you play there might be different stuff. I won't recommend it for PvP random groups. But well organized teams might also use stealth and stuff like that.

 

Danikat mentions a lot. Personally I liked in Dry Top the small event where stuff got stolen from skritt and an achievement was tied to preventing a single thing from gettign stolen. Managed to almost solo it when I completely changed the build to CC (engineer has lots of it) and 1-2 other players joined and knew what to do. Upscaled on the other hand with tons of players there for dailies and other stuff ... if often did not work. So I guess those smaller scalled stuff with organized groups offers much more options (that Danikat tried to explain) with the boonns and other stuff. (Can't give any personal experiences there though since I usually avoid dungeons, raids, fractals and prever random queue PvP and the smaller open world skirmishes against champs where it does not upscale that badly.)

[Algreg.3629]

long story short, support is super effective in GW2, but the exclusively outhealing damage on a guy insulting some giant dude's momma routine you seem to be accustomed to is not a thing here.

[AliamRationem.5172]

> @"Jorgen.6271" said:

> Thank you for your kind response. It seems to me, my impression about support build in "Human Wave" situation is more or less correct. The game is less about preventing the death of your fellow players, but how good you are at picking up the pieces when they do die. This really saddens me because the whole selling point of GW2's idea of "whoever can jump in, when and wherever" is nothing more than "throw more fodder at it". It really takes away skill development from players. Why bother getting good like the video posted by AliamRationem, when I can be a part of a death-ball, tag my gold-medal worth of damage and proceed to flop and flounder about in butchered framerate. Or better yet, go afk, everyone knows, I am not really needed... right?

>

> I apologize if things to start sounding like a complaint, but the whole situation of this game is simplified to "Why bother?"; at least for me. Why bother learning to dodge when regular to Elite mobs get shredded in seconds with glass cannon builds and gear? Why bother learning to dodge or git gud when I can be part of a death-ball? Why bother, making my life harder than it should be?

>

> I desperately wish I am wrong about this game. Maybe I should look into game modes like Raids where an individual player has more meaning in terms of skill contribution, growth, and development.

 

To each their own, but I rather enjoy GW2's way of doing things in open world. The events can be zerged, but are often easier with a smaller group of players who know what they're doing and may even be completed by a single player with the right build! There are plenty of other areas of the game where your personal ability matters as well, such as PvP, WvW, raids, and fractals.

 

[Bridget Morrigan.1752]

I can speak specifically to the fractal experience: first of all, healbrands aren't a hard carry in T4 fractals with the team face-tanking. That was always a mistaken impression you had, probably because healbrands are super effective and can create an experience which is MUCH more forgiving than many other healer builds, leading people to exaggerate when they talk about them. Someone earlier in the thread mentioned that the game is action-based, so even the best healbrand is not going to give you the sense of "You got my back, bro? Hell yeah!" or "Just call me 'Immortality' because that's what you get when I am healing you" that you are looking for. It doesn't mean the players are bad. It just means the game is designed to require a lot livelier of stepping around the dance floor.

 

With regard to your specific T3 experience, my question would be this: which instabilities were running in the fractal, and did your team have an alacrity revenant support build also running? Healbrand and alacrigade are meant to be run together in fractals--you can live without the alacrigade but it makes the HB's job exponentially harder, especially because of the lack of alacrity to keep the healbrand's skills off cooldown. Additionally, if you had certain instabilities, that particular fractal can be especially difficult: with "Frailty" on, for example, you'll be running one of the most delicate builds in the game (you kind of already are), and "We Bleed Fire" can eat up a dragonhunter's low health pool real quick. In that way, although dragonhunter makes sense "on paper," it is going to require more practice to get really good at. You wondered if you were doing something wrong, and maybe? But probably everyone in your group is. T3's are just that way: everyone's a learner. It's a weird no-man's land because once people can join T4's, they do, ne'er to be seen in T3 lfg again. This means that T4's are substantially easier even with an added instability and greater difficulty built in, because less experienced players are spread out more thinly among a huge field of players that are very experienced. This leaves only people in T3 who have very limited experience, and experience _does _matter in fractals.

 

And I think what's probably the important thing to consider about support builds in GW2 is that they're not just healing. HB/alacrigade is designed to offer together 25 stacks of might, constant quickness and alacrity, stability, aegis, and a whole host of other things that make you more effective as dps. Heal scourge and heal tempest might offer more immortality, as you call it, in many places, but they're not brought along because they're not doing as much of those other things, at least in fractals.

 

If you're planning on moving into T4's, you're going to see that every successful group has a dedicated healer, the vast majority of successful groups will be running the meta version of quickness/alacrity/healing/stability on two charaters (which will probably move to some other classes someday), and you're going to have multiple experiences of failure and frustration along the way. I wouldn't get too discouraged by all this or assume that the builds are at fault: it's supposed to be hard content, and finding it hard for a while is pretty much the norm. You'll start figuring it out.

 

Whether or not building a support character is worth your while is really a personal decision. You can certainly dps your way through T4's into infinity (I mostly do), but I've also got a healbrand and don't regret it, and I intend on making an alacrigade when the shared legendary gear thing happens. You'll find T4's will fund a rather crazy amount of ascended gear and will get to the point that's there's no reason not to have one of everything if you want it. Learning to play those support characters also might help you understand what you need to do on your dps to take full advantage of the support as well, plus provide insight into others' play (I always notice how people face-tank till their health is a disaster and people are downed, and then suddenly remember that they know how to dodge!). You'll also never be lacking a group if you have a support character.

 

Good luck in your endeavors!

[Danikat.8537]

> @"Bridget Morrigan.1752" said:

> I can speak specifically to the fractal experience: first of all, healbrands aren't a hard carry in T4 fractals with the team face-tanking. That was always a mistaken impression you had, probably because healbrands are super effective and can create an experience which is MUCH more forgiving than many other healer builds, leading people to exaggerate when they talk about them. Someone earlier in the thread mentioned that the game is action-based, so even the best healbrand is not going to give you the sense of "You got my back, bro? Hell yeah!" or "Just call me 'Immortality' because that's what you get when I am healing you" that you are looking for. It doesn't mean the players are bad. It just means the game is designed to require a lot livelier of stepping around the dance floor.

 

This is also an assumption some people make about any profession or specialisation they think of as a healer. I'm not sure if it's people used to 'holy trinity' games, or just misunderstanding how GW2 works or a bit of both. I ran into it when I started doing dungeons on my tempest, people would just run straight into the boss or a massive group of normal enemies, die and then ask why I wasn't healing them and I had to explain that:

1) My tempest is not built as a healer and at no point had they asked me if I was or could be a healer. (Yes all eles have access to water skills, but without the right stats it's not nearly as effective.)

2) Most healing skills are area-effects around the _caster_, meaning if they run away there's almost nothing I can do.

3) No amount of healing in the world would help them if they're going to face-tank everything at once on a glass cannon build.

 

Most of the time they get the idea after an explanation and a bit of practice, but some still have very unrealistic expectations of what a healer will be able to do.