Does healing/support give same experience/loot as DPS?

[Hairball.8029]

Title.

I enjoy playing a support class especially in big groups and since this event is happening with more XP gain, I want to fully take advantage!

[Fish.2769]

Short answer, no.

You only get XP/loot for exceeding X amount of damage on X target so the less damage you output the less chance of loot you have. This is why the nerf to Guardian Staff 1 all those years ago crippled the amount of loot Guardians got as a hole and AoE skills/classes are the loot delivery system when it comes to WvW.

[Edu.6984]

If you are flipping an objetive, as long as you stay inside the flipping ring you will get credit. If you do dmg to a guard that died you also will get credit for the capture.

As for killing players and guards, as long as you tag them you should be able to get credit. Doesn't matter if you did 20k dps or 500, you will get the same exp from killing a player/guard.

Tagging is more important than the dps. A very low dmg aoe skill can get you more kill credits than a single target 30k one shot.

[Turkeyspit.3965]

@xDudisx.5914 said:Tagging is more important than the dps

And not all support builds are built equally. Firebrands can tag a lot of enemy players with staff, Tome 1, AoE retaliation and reflects. Compare that to my poor scrapper who has to drop medi-kit to tag anything not willing to stand inside a poison field. I'll play my Scrapper when I feel like being chill or if the group really needs support, but if I'm hungry for bags or XP, no way would I bring in a support.

I wish there was something ANET could do to even that out, but /shrug.

[Hairball.8029]

Thank you all for the quick replies!

[Infusion.7149]

Tips: tag enemies, stand in circle when capping

On support firebrand , use bubble (tome 3 reflect) to protect from projectiles and also tag people. When not in tomes, hit people with mace while pushing (you also get the un-nerfed heals.

On support tempest, staff auto does minimal damage in water attunement but you should be getting tagging credit along with any reflects from magnetic aura.

On shout warrior you should definitely be able to hit things and since it is typically clerics + trooper runes or some variant thereof the power damage is higher than the firebrand builds.

Celestial/plaguedoctor/apothecary/marshal support-type scourge should still be pushing out damage.

I wouldn't advise playing med kit scrapper after patch. The med kit outgoing heal was nerfed at least 30% (50% for med blaster itself, heal bonus dropped from 20% to 7% outgoing with Health Insurance trait , Comeback cure from 4s to 1.5s, Purity of Purpose boon durations cut down to 1-2s, Medical Dispersion field dropped from 50% to 25% which is half) so you only want to use it for cleansing + burst heal not med blaster 1 spam. The dps scrapper can be run close to verbatim with blast gyro swapped for elixir gun (which also allows you to have a stunbreak in small squads) or purge gyro to great effect.

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

Support skills do count but there's still a threshold of damage you must pass in order for them to count, to help prevent leeching.

I have very little if no problems but if you're concerned about it there are many support combinations that don't use full Minstrels. The most common one is probably to wear some mix of Cleric+Magi for healers which gives physical damage a bit below Celestial. There's also gears like Apothecary that have Condition Damage, and boon stacking combinations like Harrier, Diviner+Wanderer, etc.

Just make sure you have either Power, Precision or Condition Damage on every item and you'll be able to tag enemies.