How do we measure Support and Healing builds @anet

I was experimenting on a healing engi build in Lake Doris, running around in the harathi area with a few strangers to see whether the build was viable. The numbers looked promising on my screen but then I asked a friend to come to help me test it once more and realise that it was actually horrible. It was actually a necro boon called siphon health that made the numbers look so great on my screen and that's when it occurred to me that we don't have an isolated area or system to test out support builds.

In Special Forces Training Area and Edge of the Mist, you can check your dps, crowd control and damage effects from runes and sigils, can we also have something similar to test out support and healing builds?

This could be by being able to summon friendly bots (1 to many) to test out:-Healing per second-Boon duration-Area of effect-Support rune and sigil effects-Condition removals

What do you guys think? Are there also more criterias that we can add to this list? Any other suggestions?

I think that would be cool if there was a damaged bot (not sure if there already is one), that'd let you find out your Heal-Per-Second just as you would with DPS; it would certainly help bring to light the effectiveness of other support builds by comparison to the existing meta.

Other than heal, other metrics I'd like to see measured would be,

• CC (per second or burst): this would help us measure utility to some degree
• Offensive (or defensive) boons uptime (shared and individual): this would help us measure the effectiveness of boon applying builds in a party based scenario.

Certainly creating any metric for measuring any of the above would help players assert the effectiveness their heal, support or utility builds bring, in a tangible way.

A side note: it'd be interesting to know what metrics, if any, ArenaNet uses when designing a class, for example, if they say, "this class gives too much might!" how do they justify this?

Considering that DPS meters and similar concepts have been accepted by the ANet team and even allowed as mods, it's kind of interesting that there isn't an equivalent feature for healing.

I understand that we still have something of a weird little thing that claims there will be no more definitive roles or a "trinity" of classes anymore, but with everything pushing more and more DPS and far more punishing attacks, I think it's about time we actually bring healing back into the spotlight.

So yes, I definitely support the OP in this. If we can make healing more versatile and easily observed, players can do better at supporting one another in cooperative play.

(And, of course, we'll also need to ensure that it doesn't turn into the same kind of kitten barrage that is DPS right now ...)

@fluffdragon.1523 said:Considering that DPS meters and similar concepts have been accepted by the ANet team and even allowed as mods, it's kind of interesting that there isn't an equivalent feature for healing.

I understand that we still have something of a weird little thing that claims there will be no more definitive roles or a "trinity" of classes anymore, but with everything pushing more and more DPS and far more punishing attacks, I think it's about time we actually bring healing back into the spotlight.

So yes, I definitely support the OP in this. If we can make healing more versatile and easily observed, players can do better at supporting one another in cooperative play.

(And, of course, we'll also need to ensure that it doesn't turn into the same kind of kitten barrage that is DPS right now ...)

I couldn't agree more, each profession has so much to offer and if this can definitely bring to light the different utilities and support each class can bring- all the more I really hope anet take notes to make this happen.

@senseidan.2036 said:I think that would be cool if there was a damaged bot (not sure if there already is one), that'd let you find out your Heal-Per-Second just as you would with DPS; it would certainly help bring to light the effectiveness of other support builds by comparison to the existing meta.

Other than heal, other metrics I'd like to see measured would be,

• CC (per second or burst): this would help us measure utility to some degree
• Offensive (or defensive) boons uptime (shared and individual): this would help us measure the effectiveness of boon applying builds in a party based scenario.

Certainly creating any metric for measuring any of the above would help players assert the effectiveness their heal, support or utility builds bring, in a tangible way.

A side note: it'd be interesting to know what metrics, if any, ArenaNet uses when designing a class, for example, if they say, "this class gives too much might!" how do they justify this?

Omg, yes CC! That is definitely we need to be able to measure, CC has so become so important at endgame content.