arts&crafts
Member
I havent been following this game much but am I reading it correctly that all classes have a heal? So if i want to mainly be a healer in raids or pvp i can be a thief?
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Guild Wars 2 |OT| Buy Once, Sub Never, Fun Forever
- Thread starter Jira
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The easiest way to explain it is this:
Left side of the skill bar: Determined by equipped weapon(s)
Middle: Health
Right side of the skill bar: Skills unlocked from leveling
All of them can be swapped at any time outside of combat.
AppleSmack
Banned
Yep. There isn't a dedicated healer. All classes have to watch their health and deal damage.
There is no dedicated healer role in GW2. As such, there is no such thing as playing "mainly a healer."
arts&crafts
Member
Ah fascinating.
AppleSmack
Banned
I know a lot of WoW healers disliked this about GW2, but it is just one of the many differences between the 2 games. I was a healer in WoW as well and enjoyed the role but I am ready for something new. Most people consider the GW2 systems to be a good thing, but I guess it all depends on how passionate you were about healing.
01DragonFly
Member
I tried /dance in game
did nothing
was this added recently?
this last stress test , also mailed the deluxe items for those that got that version
From reading about many different PC game launches with GPU developers making last minute drivers for the games, I've learned one thing: Never use the last minute update. It always runs worse, as it's always been barely tested in time. Always.
Yes. More than one.
No. The game is totally different from this for the ground up. Be what you wanna be
LumpOfCole
Member
The latest release drivers (301.xx) are bad for GW2.
The latest beta drivers (304.xx) are good for GW2.
The latest developer drivers (305.xx) are also supposed to be good for GW2 but I haven't tried them.
I hope so. I will be kind of pissed if I see my 690GTX pulling anything other then a solid 60 FPS (I read someone in here couldn't pull a solid 60 with two 680GTXs...).
Is there any way to force normal AA? Would be cool if this was one of the games to use that new nvidia AA method.
The greatest benefit to this is that you never have to say, "LFG NEED HEALER" and wait for an hour before doing a dungeon. Everyone is capable, just gather your friends and play.
Great for everyone but those who get a lot of enjoyment out of main healing. But I guess there aren't that many people like that, which is why this paradigm is so popular in GW2.
For a thief example:
- Put 30 points in shadow arts for +300 more healing.
- Equip gear with +healing stat.
- Place Rune of Dwayna on equipment for +90 Heal and heal other procs
- Set Shadow Refuge for an AoE heal.
- Select traits that improve Healing power (Master of Deception to reduce healing cooldown by 20%, etc)
I will definitely miss support classes. Playing Red Mage the right way in FFXI was one of my favorite gaming experiences EVER.
BattleMonkey
Member
I enjoy the trinity, it's something thats been around forever back to pen and paper games. But yea it's also nice change of pace and helps with finding groups.
This along with a few of the other listed features such as the dynamic events and the combat have me pretty excited. I haven't been following the game much either and never played GW1, but thanks to the wealth of information in this thread (fantastic OP), I'm planning on pre-ordering this in the next couple days.
My only concern is performance at this point. Game looks beautiful from what I've seen thus far, but I'm not certain how smooth it'll be on my rig:
Q6600 @ Stock (2.4GHz)
560Ti (1 GB)
6GB of RAM
To anyone with comparable specs, how was your performance in the beta/stress tests?
Sucking for healers vs. sucking for everyone else. I think it was an easy choice.
thetrin
Hail, peons, for I have come as ambassador from the great and bountiful Blueberry Butt Explosion
Considering most MMO time is spent sitting around looking for a healer, I can't see how that's great for anyone except 10% of the players.
Everyone being accountable and being able to heal themselves (and others depending on the class) makes the game fun for everyone, rather than just a small portion of the playerbase.
Registering on the guild site now and will have to start hopping in Mumble again. Sorry for my absence to those who I played with before. I missed the past few beta weekends for the most part and all of the stress tests since I have to go to the Cleveland Clinic a lot now which is an all day thing. This is the part where I wish I had a laptop and could play when I'm up there.
Add demolitio2 on Steam if any of you guys starting as Norn want to group up or if anyone else wants to play. I'll be in WvWvW a lot again thanks to Hawkian and the crew showing me how to play. I've never been in a guild before in an MMO so it's a new experience for me and greatly enhances the game for sure, lol.
Add demolitio2 on Steam if any of you guys starting as Norn want to group up or if anyone else wants to play. I'll be in WvWvW a lot again thanks to Hawkian and the crew showing me how to play. I've never been in a guild before in an MMO so it's a new experience for me and greatly enhances the game for sure, lol.
2.4 is too low.
I have a Q6600@3.2 Ghz + 460 GTX and I got 20-50 fps at 1650x1050. But I have the shitty driver so...
I had trouble grouping in SWOTR because our server strangely had an excess of healers haha
Thanks, that's what I was afraid of, may try to overclock to 3 GHz depending on what I get with stock.
thetrin
Hail, peons, for I have come as ambassador from the great and bountiful Blueberry Butt Explosion
I think that's a weird byproduct of too many people having serious issues with finding healers in other MMOs, and deciding to capitalize on being a healer.
But I was the best one. I hate managing a ton of skills (I'm more used to turn based or real time with pause RPGs) so only have a few heal skills was great for me.
I lost about 5-10 fps. What's "tanked" for you?
flyinpiranha
Member
Weird. No 6870 on that graph, i thought it was a pretty common card.
What the removal of the trinity can do is open up new ways of doing PVE encounters. MMO makers have begun to run out of new ways to present boss fights and dungeon encounters because they've been basing them around the trinity design for so long. It seems they've just run out of ideas. You can only throw out dynamics that your typical group can handle.
The downed state also opens up design encounters. They just have to be careful to make sure rez n run back doesn't become a reoccuring strategy.
The downed state also opens up design encounters. They just have to be careful to make sure rez n run back doesn't become a reoccuring strategy.
Shrennin
Didn't get the memo regarding the 14th Amendment
Wait, the Blizzard dance was trying to mimic the Party Rock Anthem dance? If so... That wasn't even close.
Also, this stress test was really the first time the game really, really clicked for me. I mean, I knew the game was good, but I just got absorbed into the PVE and I wanted to get absorbed into the cooking profession. So much stuff to do in a stress test that was extended for 2 hours and I still didn't even try everything that I wanted to.
Shrennin
Didn't get the memo regarding the 14th Amendment
Their dance definitely fits them. The Norn have an awesome dance, but I fail to see how the Carlton dance fits that particular race. It's funny though.
aramanKain
Member
they introduced /dance in today's stress test. It was not available in any other build.
Shrennin
Didn't get the memo regarding the 14th Amendment
Okay, the music makes a very compelling case. I think you may be correct.
Also, I think I'm going with Elementalist. I've changed professions so many times now...
LumpOfCole
Member
Sorry to pile on about healers, but I feel like "Awww but I always do X" is one of the main things ArenaNet is trying to fix with this game. So many people have come into Guild Wars 2 threads and asked "I want to play a healer/tank/melee/rogue can I do that in this game." It's not inherently bad to have a playstyle you like; I typically play a mage class or a mage-hybrid when given the choice. But the MMO genre has gotten to the point where the thing people want to know most about a new game is "Can I do the exact same thing in this game as I did in every other game in the genre." That's a problem.
Kind of a tangent here, but it's gotten to the point where anytime I read a preview about a new MMO, and the article says "I played a tank class" I audibly groan. Not because the tank/healer/dps model is bad (although in practice it introduces a lot of game design problems for multiplayer games), but because I've already played that game, and I want to play a new game. There's too much potential in the idea of a massive online persistent world to waste on making the same game over and over.
Now all of the roles that people typically play in MMOs (healer, dps, buffer, debuffer, crowd control, and to a lesser degree tank), or at least the individual actions that make up those roles, still exist in the game. But they are portioned out to all of the classes (to varying degrees). The idea is that any given class is not locked into doing exactly one thing over and over again, but have a variety of options in playstyles. Further, the only way to choose exactly one role in combat is to actively ignore all of the abilities you have that focus on other roles, and this generally makes you less effective. Even if you choose to build your character as a glass cannon, you may have access to a number of skills that can allow you to keep yourself alive, and everyone gets a heal spell. Classes are not designed as melee or ranged, but every class has access to long range and close range weapons, and its often a good idea to keep one of each around for versatility's sake.
You can't play the same role you played in [insert Diku/Everquest/WoW clone here] in this game, because this is a different game. I'm not trying to berate you here; this post is more general advice to people who haven't been following this game and its mechanics quite as closely. But it would be better to not try to figure out how to play a WoW class in GW2, and instead focus on what the different classes in GW2 have to offer, and how to get the most out of them.
The correct choice. Welcome to the brotherhood.
MasonOfWords
Neo Member
GW2 by design limits you to around 10 skills available at a time, so that is less of a problem. Also, most classes can use a variety of support abilities. The one thing that isn't really an option is managing a bunch of health bars using direct targeted heals.
MoonLightWave
Member
That's nice and all, however the only thing I'm worried about is how endgame dungeons will play out without the trinity.
Complistic
Member
They'll be based on the skill of the participants just like the rest of the game.
You can play a mage class in GW2, though. In fact, GW2 gives 90% of the MMO player-base the ability to do exactly what they always wanted to do: do tons of damage and not have to worry about finding healers to enable them to do tons of damage.
Regardless, I totally understand why GW2 is the way it is, and I'm fine with it. I was a little disappointed at first, but I've come to terms with it fairly quickly (within 12 hours, as you may have seen earlier). In particular, this design setup allows for the very large-scale ungrouped encounters that seem to be on center stage in the game. I think that part is wonderful to see, and I'm glad there exists a game where that's much more easily done. But I just do not buy this "GW2 doesn't let you play the roles you're used to" because it does, as long as it's not a dedicated healer or dedicated tank.
I think there are a lot of ways to deal with the "problem" of 90% of the MMO playerbase not wanting to be a healer or a tank, and GW2's way is one of them. I hope to see other ways in the future too. Meanwhile, I'll find my niche in GW2 and have fun with what's given to me.
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