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Removing Healing Spells


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Hi all.

It's always confused me that a game that claims to not have a holy trinity combat system has effectively given us a dedicated tank (chrono) and a dedicated healer (druid) whether intentionally or not. To quote Jon Peters from Anet: “Our professions aren’t dedicated healers, DPS, or tanks because frankly, we built a combat system that just doesn’t allow it.”

Odd, because Druids in particular are effectively dedicated healers. Yes they do damage but the damage they do is so insignificant that it's not even worth mentioning. So now I think to myself, what would happen if you took out third party heals from the game completely. You would still have your personal healing skills, but you couldn't heal someone else in your party. Would anyone be in favour of this, and if so, what do you think we could give support specs instead of aoe healing spells?

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Bringing worthwhile third-party healing (keep in mind that it existed back in vanilla, but the available skills were just bad) into the game was one of the best decisions they could take. Reversing it would almost certainly make me quit. Even if the devs have certainly improved their ability to create interesting encounters and we probably wouldn't go all the way back to vanilla level, I don't expect them to create PvE encounters that are fun when you're restricted to personal healing.

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@CptAurellian.9537 said:Bringing worthwhile third-party healing (keep in mind that it existed back in vanilla, but the available skills were just bad) into the game was one of the best decisions they could take. Reversing it would almost certainly make me quit. Even if the devs have certainly improved their ability to create interesting encounters and we probably wouldn't go all the way back to vanilla level, I don't expect them to create PvE encounters that are fun when you're restricted to personal healing.

Could you elaborate a bit more on that please. I didn't play in vanilla so can't really relate to how was back then.

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Vanilla bosses are still there, just imagine them with a lot less damage then we dish out nowadays. Quite often, they are little more than dodge or die, kill it quickly before it kills you, or a combination of both. Many of them were made trivial by things that are almost certainly not intended, like knocking Subject Alpha into a corner and then stacking inside him in order to avoid his ground AoE. I'm not totally opposed to more action-oriented combat, in which everyone is responsible for their own survival, but then I want to see a) reasonable animations and b) sufficient tools for each class to dodge all relevant stuff. One dodge in 10 seconds is not enough. Daredevil would be in that state right now, chrono in some way, but none of the other classes I play.

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@CptAurellian.9537 said:Vanilla bosses are still there, just imagine them with a lot less damage then we dish out nowadays. Quite often, they are little more than dodge or die, kill it quickly before it kills you, or a combination of both. Many of them were made trivial by things that are almost certainly not intended, like knocking Subject Alpha into a corner and then stacking inside him in order to avoid his ground AoE. I'm not totally opposed to more action-oriented combat, in which everyone is responsible for their own survival, but then I want to see a) reasonable animations and b) sufficient tools for each class to dodge all relevant stuff. One dodge in 10 seconds is not enough. Daredevil would be in that state right now, chrono in some way, but none of the other classes I play.

Oh there would absolutely need to be changes made if they removed aoe healing, with the animations being 1 of them. Right now it's almost impossible to dodge some boss attacks even if you have the ability to because there is so much visual clutter going on in fights. As for adding more mobility to classes, that would be something you would have to look at on a case-by-case basis.

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And those changes are essentially a massive rework of all kinds of different game systems with a giant potential for unwanted repercussions (e.g. what happens to PvP modes when many classes get more blocks/dodges?) in order to achieve ... well, what do you actually want to achieve? Retrofit the game to the vision of a designer from whom I haven't heard anything for years?

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@CptAurellian.9537 said:And those changes are essentially a massive rework of all kinds of different game systems with a giant potential for unwanted repercussions (e.g. what happens to PvP modes when many classes get more blocks/dodges?) in order to achieve ... well, what do you actually want to achieve? Retrofit the game to the vision of a designer from whom I haven't heard anything for years?

You're right, but the reason why I would want to change it is because I don't believe the current pseudo-trinity system we have now works for end-game PvE as it shoehorns players into running a very limited set of comps in order to achieve desired results. Either they would need to implement a full trinity system as in other mmorpgs or take it out completely by removing aoe heals and forcing players to survive encounters on their own without a healer in their back pocket. The other thing that might help with this is to remove the need to stack up all the time during fights. When everyone is stacked up it makes it a lot harder to see a)where your character is in the group, and b)attacks that require you to dodge in order not to take damage. Allowing players to spread out more during fights would make it a lot easier to side-step and dodge boss mechanics and therefore reduce the need for third party healing.

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Personally i think that certain classes are just better optimised for certain duties, especially in Raids. Talking about Chronomancer's we've seen different tankclasses as well, though chrono is the most sufficient one due to the boons it gives. Alacrity and quickness both are mandatory to have if you are looking forward to have fast killtimes. Both buffs increase outdoing dps from other classes that are particularly better at dealing damage.The diversity of builds that we have now, not mentioning that you are always free to test out your own builds, gives us not only the chance to experience how other classes work, thus it grants general experience in all game modes. The goal here should be to play not only one class, but to help out your team by having multiple classes with multiple builds. The mechanics and duties you will have to do in certain instances are the same to do on any class mostly.In any way i wouldn't talk about "dedicated" roles as you said. Talking about healers, we've seen tempest healers (which have btw a higher base heal output compared to druid) and people tend to experiment with ventari healers.

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@Wandering Mist.2973 said:Hi all.

It's always confused me that a game that claims to not have a holy trinity combat system has effectively given us a dedicated tank (chrono) and a dedicated healer (druid) whether intentionally or not. To quote Jon Peters from Anet: “Our professions aren’t dedicated healers, DPS, or tanks because frankly, we built a combat system that just doesn’t allow it.”

Odd, because Druids in particular are effectively dedicated healers. Yes they do damage but the damage they do is so insignificant that it's not even worth mentioning. So now I think to myself, what would happen if you took out third party heals from the game completely. You would still have your personal healing skills, but you couldn't heal someone else in your party. Would anyone be in favour of this, and if so, what do you think we could give support specs instead of aoe healing spells?

Nah, it would eliminate part of the teamplay. The ability to specialize, to have different roles in combat, is part of what makes party play in PvE fun.

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@Wandering Mist.2973 said:

@CptAurellian.9537 said:Vanilla bosses are still there, just imagine them with a lot less damage then we dish out nowadays. Quite often, they are little more than dodge or die, kill it quickly before it kills you, or a combination of both. Many of them were made trivial by things that are almost certainly not intended, like knocking Subject Alpha into a corner and then stacking inside him in order to avoid his ground AoE. I'm not totally opposed to more action-oriented combat, in which everyone is responsible for their own survival, but then I want to see a) reasonable animations and b) sufficient tools for each class to dodge all relevant stuff. One dodge in 10 seconds is not enough. Daredevil would be in that state right now, chrono in some way, but none of the other classes I play.

Oh there would absolutely need to be changes made if they removed aoe healing, with the animations being 1 of them. Right now it's almost impossible to dodge some boss attacks even if you have the ability to because there is so much visual clutter going on in fights. As for adding more mobility to classes, that would be something you would have to look at on a case-by-case basis.

Id rather them going and making new content than reworking everything. A healer is not required its just there if you want a safe kill great players can run the content without healers on the group.

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@Wandering Mist.2973 said:You're right, but the reason why I would want to change it is because I don't believe the current pseudo-trinity system we have now works for end-game PvE as it shoehorns players into running a very limited set of comps in order to achieve desired results.We have four classes who can viably fill the healer role, that's hardly shoehorning. Don't blame the healer role for a lack of diversity, blame the overloaded kit of the druid spec. Once the devs have sorted out how to balance the supportive kits of different classes (it's not only druids, btw), the biggest obstacle for diversity is done for. Just don't ask me when they'll finally do it.

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Druid is only the main healer because players decided to make it so. We usually play with Firebrand healer, sometimes we get an Elementalist healer, and I have a character that's a Healing Herald. You don't need Druid, that's the point. Not every class can become an effective healer, that's true, but we have 4 classes out of 9 that can be set up as dedicated healer. We also have several support classes, but players always ask for chrono. What's indeed funny is that Mesmer can be set up to be the best support class and also one of the best damage classes. I wonder if the next expansion gives them a trait that makes them a healer too.

What I'm missing instead is that every class has at least two ways to play. My thief can only play damage dealer, that's it. There was a point when thief was also useful for stealth, but that was a stupid way to play instances anyway, and dungeons are dead. And even in dps my class is not even in the top 5 of potential output. Similar situation for necromancers and engineers.

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@Feanor.2358 said:

@Wandering Mist.2973 said:Hi all.

It's always confused me that a game that claims to not have a holy trinity combat system has effectively given us a dedicated tank (chrono) and a dedicated healer (druid) whether intentionally or not. To quote Jon Peters from Anet: “Our professions aren’t dedicated healers, DPS, or tanks because frankly, we built a combat system that just doesn’t allow it.”

Odd, because Druids in particular are effectively dedicated healers. Yes they do damage but the damage they do is so insignificant that it's not even worth mentioning. So now I think to myself, what would happen if you took out third party heals from the game completely. You would still have your personal healing skills, but you couldn't heal someone else in your party. Would anyone be in favour of this, and if so, what do you think we could give support specs instead of aoe healing spells?

Nah, it would eliminate part of the teamplay. The ability to specialize, to have different roles in combat, is part of what makes party play in PvE fun.

@STIHL.2489 said:I think not being able to help other players is stupid.

There are more ways to support someone than just healing them. Enchantments are a nice alternative to healing, where you can either add an effect to an individual player's attacks, or add an effect to an enemy when they get hit by your allies. For example, how much a spell that causes your targetted ally's next weapon skill to stun the target. Or how about a spell that causes your targetted ally's next weapon skill to act as a blast finisher. Spells like these would allow support players to still support their teammates, but would also require their teammates to do their job properly, plus if the spells were targetted abilities there wouldn't be such a need to stack up in 1 area. The group could spread out and still gain the benefits of the buffs.

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@Wandering Mist.2973 said:

@Wandering Mist.2973 said:Hi all.

It's always confused me that a game that claims to not have a holy trinity combat system has effectively given us a dedicated tank (chrono) and a dedicated healer (druid) whether intentionally or not. To quote Jon Peters from Anet: “Our professions aren’t dedicated healers, DPS, or tanks because frankly, we built a combat system that just doesn’t allow it.”

Odd, because Druids in particular are effectively dedicated healers. Yes they do damage but the damage they do is so insignificant that it's not even worth mentioning. So now I think to myself, what would happen if you took out third party heals from the game completely. You would still have your personal healing skills, but you couldn't heal someone else in your party. Would anyone be in favour of this, and if so, what do you think we could give support specs instead of aoe healing spells?

Nah, it would eliminate part of the teamplay. The ability to specialize, to have different roles in combat, is part of what makes party play in PvE fun.

@STIHL.2489 said:I think not being able to help other players is stupid.

There are more ways to support someone than just healing them. Enchantments are a nice alternative to healing, where you can either add an effect to an individual player's attacks, or add an effect to an enemy when they get hit by your allies. For example, how much a spell that causes your targetted ally's next weapon skill to stun the target. Or how about a spell that causes your targetted ally's next weapon skill to act as a blast finisher. Spells like these would allow support players to still support their teammates, but would also require their teammates to do their job properly, plus if the spells were targetted abilities there wouldn't be such a need to stack up in 1 area. The group could spread out and still gain the benefits of the buffs.

That's all well and good, but standing helpless as your teammate dies because you could nothing to restore their life, is a really bad way to make a group game.

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@STIHL.2489 said:

@Wandering Mist.2973 said:Hi all.

It's always confused me that a game that claims to not have a holy trinity combat system has effectively given us a dedicated tank (chrono) and a dedicated healer (druid) whether intentionally or not. To quote Jon Peters from Anet: “Our professions aren’t dedicated healers, DPS, or tanks because frankly, we built a combat system that just doesn’t allow it.”

Odd, because Druids in particular are effectively dedicated healers. Yes they do damage but the damage they do is so insignificant that it's not even worth mentioning. So now I think to myself, what would happen if you took out third party heals from the game completely. You would still have your personal healing skills, but you couldn't heal someone else in your party. Would anyone be in favour of this, and if so, what do you think we could give support specs instead of aoe healing spells?

Nah, it would eliminate part of the teamplay. The ability to specialize, to have different roles in combat, is part of what makes party play in PvE fun.

@STIHL.2489 said:I think not being able to help other players is stupid.

There are more ways to support someone than just healing them. Enchantments are a nice alternative to healing, where you can either add an effect to an individual player's attacks, or add an effect to an enemy when they get hit by your allies. For example, how much a spell that causes your targetted ally's next weapon skill to stun the target. Or how about a spell that causes your targetted ally's next weapon skill to act as a blast finisher. Spells like these would allow support players to still support their teammates, but would also require their teammates to do their job properly, plus if the spells were targetted abilities there wouldn't be such a need to stack up in 1 area. The group could spread out and still gain the benefits of the buffs.

That's all well and good, but standing helpless as your teammate dies because you could nothing to restore their life, is a really bad way to make a group game.

I'm sorry, but I can't see how making people accountable for their own mistakes is a bad thing, especially when the majority of damage in raid encounters is avoidable.

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@Wandering Mist.2973 said:

@Wandering Mist.2973 said:Hi all.

It's always confused me that a game that claims to not have a holy trinity combat system has effectively given us a dedicated tank (chrono) and a dedicated healer (druid) whether intentionally or not. To quote Jon Peters from Anet: “Our professions aren’t dedicated healers, DPS, or tanks because frankly, we built a combat system that just doesn’t allow it.”

Odd, because Druids in particular are effectively dedicated healers. Yes they do damage but the damage they do is so insignificant that it's not even worth mentioning. So now I think to myself, what would happen if you took out third party heals from the game completely. You would still have your personal healing skills, but you couldn't heal someone else in your party. Would anyone be in favour of this, and if so, what do you think we could give support specs instead of aoe healing spells?

Nah, it would eliminate part of the teamplay. The ability to specialize, to have different roles in combat, is part of what makes party play in PvE fun.

@STIHL.2489 said:I think not being able to help other players is stupid.

There are more ways to support someone than just healing them. Enchantments are a nice alternative to healing, where you can either add an effect to an individual player's attacks, or add an effect to an enemy when they get hit by your allies. For example, how much a spell that causes your targetted ally's next weapon skill to stun the target. Or how about a spell that causes your targetted ally's next weapon skill to act as a blast finisher. Spells like these would allow support players to still support their teammates, but would also require their teammates to do their job properly, plus if the spells were targetted abilities there wouldn't be such a need to stack up in 1 area. The group could spread out and still gain the benefits of the buffs.

That's all well and good, but standing helpless as your teammate dies because you could nothing to restore their life, is a really bad way to make a group game.

I'm sorry, but I can't see how making people accountable for their own mistakes is a bad thing, especially when the majority of damage in raid encounters is avoidable.

I don't see the point of a team if they can't help each other, if you want to be all on your own then solo. The whole idea of a group is so that people can help you out if things go bad.

You wanna get rid of a "healer" role.. make everyone a "healer", so we can all do it effectively, don't come here and ask to castrate players ability to help each other out.

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@STIHL.2489 said:

@Wandering Mist.2973 said:Hi all.

It's always confused me that a game that claims to not have a holy trinity combat system has effectively given us a dedicated tank (chrono) and a dedicated healer (druid) whether intentionally or not. To quote Jon Peters from Anet: “Our professions aren’t dedicated healers, DPS, or tanks because frankly, we built a combat system that just doesn’t allow it.”

Odd, because Druids in particular are effectively dedicated healers. Yes they do damage but the damage they do is so insignificant that it's not even worth mentioning. So now I think to myself, what would happen if you took out third party heals from the game completely. You would still have your personal healing skills, but you couldn't heal someone else in your party. Would anyone be in favour of this, and if so, what do you think we could give support specs instead of aoe healing spells?

Nah, it would eliminate part of the teamplay. The ability to specialize, to have different roles in combat, is part of what makes party play in PvE fun.

@STIHL.2489 said:I think not being able to help other players is stupid.

There are more ways to support someone than just healing them. Enchantments are a nice alternative to healing, where you can either add an effect to an individual player's attacks, or add an effect to an enemy when they get hit by your allies. For example, how much a spell that causes your targetted ally's next weapon skill to stun the target. Or how about a spell that causes your targetted ally's next weapon skill to act as a blast finisher. Spells like these would allow support players to still support their teammates, but would also require their teammates to do their job properly, plus if the spells were targetted abilities there wouldn't be such a need to stack up in 1 area. The group could spread out and still gain the benefits of the buffs.

That's all well and good, but standing helpless as your teammate dies because you could nothing to restore their life, is a really bad way to make a group game.

I'm sorry, but I can't see how making people accountable for their own mistakes is a bad thing, especially when the majority of damage in raid encounters is avoidable.

I don't see the point of a team if they can't help each other, if you want to be all on your own then solo. The whole idea of a group is so that people can help you out if things go bad.

You wanna get rid of a "healer" role.. make everyone a "healer", so we can all do it effectively, don't come here and ask to castrate players ability to help each other out.

Like I said, there is more to supporting someone than just healing them. The problem with aoe healing, aside from the inpracticalities of having to stay stacked all the time, is that it takes away the other player's need to evade attacks. Why bother stopping your dps to dodge an attack when your healer can just heal through it? At that point you might as well remove the ability to dodge entirely. In traditional mmorpgs the healer role is necessary because encounters are designed for players to take guaranteed hits that they cannot avoid, not to mention the tank is constantly taking damage from the boss. This isn't the case in GW2 and as such healers are just a crutch for teams who don't want to dodge attacks. Shared distortion had similar problems.

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@Wandering Mist.2973 said:

@Wandering Mist.2973 said:Hi all.

It's always confused me that a game that claims to not have a holy trinity combat system has effectively given us a dedicated tank (chrono) and a dedicated healer (druid) whether intentionally or not. To quote Jon Peters from Anet: “Our professions aren’t dedicated healers, DPS, or tanks because frankly, we built a combat system that just doesn’t allow it.”

Odd, because Druids in particular are effectively dedicated healers. Yes they do damage but the damage they do is so insignificant that it's not even worth mentioning. So now I think to myself, what would happen if you took out third party heals from the game completely. You would still have your personal healing skills, but you couldn't heal someone else in your party. Would anyone be in favour of this, and if so, what do you think we could give support specs instead of aoe healing spells?

Nah, it would eliminate part of the teamplay. The ability to specialize, to have different roles in combat, is part of what makes party play in PvE fun.

@STIHL.2489 said:I think not being able to help other players is stupid.

There are more ways to support someone than just healing them. Enchantments are a nice alternative to healing, where you can either add an effect to an individual player's attacks, or add an effect to an enemy when they get hit by your allies. For example, how much a spell that causes your targetted ally's next weapon skill to stun the target. Or how about a spell that causes your targetted ally's next weapon skill to act as a blast finisher. Spells like these would allow support players to still support their teammates, but would also require their teammates to do their job properly, plus if the spells were targetted abilities there wouldn't be such a need to stack up in 1 area. The group could spread out and still gain the benefits of the buffs.

That's all well and good, but standing helpless as your teammate dies because you could nothing to restore their life, is a really bad way to make a group game.

I'm sorry, but I can't see how making people accountable for their own mistakes is a bad thing, especially when the majority of damage in raid encounters is avoidable.

I don't see the point of a team if they can't help each other, if you want to be all on your own then solo. The whole idea of a group is so that people can help you out if things go bad.

You wanna get rid of a "healer" role.. make everyone a "healer", so we can all do it effectively, don't come here and ask to castrate players ability to help each other out.

Like I said, there is more to supporting someone than just healing them.

Yah, but healing is an important part.. I'd rather not have my dungeon and fractal runs screwed up, because my guard can no longer heal simply because someone has an issue with druids as healers.

I stand by what I first said.

@STIHL.2489 said:I think not being able to help other players is stupid.

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@Wandering Mist.2973 said:Like I said, there is more to supporting someone than just healing them. The problem with aoe healing, aside from the inpracticalities of having to stay stacked all the time, is that it takes away the other player's need to evade attacks. Why bother stopping your dps to dodge an attack when your healer can just heal through it? At that point you might as well remove the ability to dodge entirely. In traditional mmorpgs the healer role is necessary because encounters are designed for players to take guaranteed hits that they cannot avoid, not to mention the tank is constantly taking damage from the boss. This isn't the case in GW2 and as such healers are just a crutch for teams who don't want to dodge attacks. Shared distortion had similar problems.

because the best part of this game is freedom to do what you wantyou can form a group with only offensive support if you want. nothing's forcing you to take a healer into your groupand people in other groups can play a defensive support build and help out people who aren't avoiding damage well, for whatever reason

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