Three roles available for every class?

[sethers656]

Lots of good discussion in this thread that I wanted to jump into.

I am a big min/maxer in most games I play and I cant wait for GW2. No matter how much you try to stop it, people will still min/max, it will just be to a lesser degree. If a person chooses a Warrior trait that reduces CDs for singets by 20%, but they only have 1 signet in their build, it will not be as effective as a build that has 3-5 signets. They are getting more use out of the trait, thus being more effective. That's what min/maxing in GW2 will be all about. Getting the right traits/weapons/utilities to get the most of of your build will be the minmaxing.For my warrior, I will be going Greatsword + 1hsword/1hsword focusing on Bleeding, Crit, and signets. I will be trying to get the most out of every trait and every utility skill.

Now, I am not saying that is the most optimal and effective way to build a warrior. But that's the fun of minmaxing.. I will keep trying different builds until I find the one I find most effective.

[Norg]

Lots of good discussion in this thread that I wanted to jump into.

I am a big min/maxer in most games I play and I cant wait for GW2. No matter how much you try to stop it, people will still min/max, it will just be to a lesser degree. If a person chooses a Warrior trait that reduces CDs for singets by 20%, but they only have 1 signet in their build, it will not be as effective as a build that has 3-5 signets. They are getting more use out of the trait, thus being more effective. That's what min/maxing in GW2 will be all about. Getting the right traits/weapons/utilities to get the most of of your build will be the minmaxing.For my warrior, I will be going Greatsword + 1hsword/1hsword focusing on Bleeding, Crit, and signets. I will be trying to get the most out of every trait and every utility skill.

Now, I am not saying that is the most optimal and effective way to build a warrior. But that's the fun of minmaxing.. I will keep trying different builds until I find the one I find most effective.

Indeed. It's safe to say you won't start seeing solidified builds and expected builds for certain situations/bosses until a few months after launch.

[Deleted]

Tb video:
500 hp every 2 sec > aoe heal > in a 3 yard range > propably by the elementalist > last for less than 10 sec based on the video > try to stay still on pvp and pve, i double dare u !
38 heal per sec > aoe 10-12 yards , in a 5k hp pool
> some classes dont dramatcaly increased , the success of the party

Edit: Look on the video , when they choose 1 of the 3 paths > looks how much damage the mobs does > 500-1500(crit) each

[sethers656]

Indeed. It's safe to say you won't start seeing solidified builds and expected builds for certain situations/bosses until a few months after launch.

I agree. But I definitely think there WILL be builds that are "common". And there will be plenty of min/maxing.

[Squirrelbanes]

I agree. But I definitely think there WILL be builds that are "common". And there will be plenty of min/maxing.

I agree with it too. Everything will be situational ofc, and that means preparing for what bosses and encounters will throw at you.
Taking GW1 as an example, it's like a game of chess in a way...or, probably more appropriately, like a game of Magic the Gathering as someone recently pointed out. It's all about how you prepare for the encounter.
It will be necessary to be flexible and dynamic in those fights with support and conditions and basic playstyle....but yh, essentially...completely right.

[Durzlla]

That's not always going to be possible. Not every weapon is ranged. Not every weapon has defensive options in it. Not every weapon has interrupts. Not every weapon can apply debuffs that make a boss's attacks hit for less. Not every weapon has powerful AoE.

Before you even engage a mob, you can see text under it that might give you a hint as to what kind of abilities you're going to want.

I'm not saying there's going to be a "This way or the highway" mentality. I'm just saying that you're going to be expected to be able to do whatever is needed. If you go into a fight that calls for some kind of interrupting ability, whether it be a daze or a stun or a knockdown, and you don't have one...
You're, imo, bad. You can probably still do the fight your way, and there's nothing wrong per se...
You just might do it better if you were prepared to use an interrupt that you must equip a different weapon for.

You'll notice specifically in the TB video, there's multiple points where he swaps out to different weapons outside of combat. At one point he sets rifle to one of his weapon set, even though he keeps the greatsword as his favorite one.
Later on, when fighting kohler or whatever his name is, he tries having mace/shield at one point, and at a later point he tries rifle (when he realizes how dangerous melee is).


Edit: the fact that you can change up your traits outside of your combat, even though you can't re-allocate points, says to me that this behavior is expected of players.

Well obviously not every weapon is ranged or has defensive properties, i plan on being a ranger, i'm going to be at range half the time anyway, we don't have defensive abilities, we have ways to escape, if an interrupt is need so badly that i'll be required to bring one i can swap out one of my pets so that i can bring one with a stun/daze/knockdown and keep with the weapon set i know and have mastered instead of swapping to some random weapon set i use for boss fight X, and only for boss fight X.

Imo, it's better to play what you know and be lacking in skills that'll make the fight easier then to switch to something you don't know how to use well but is better in that situation. It's like telling someone who plays only dps in a trinity game to start healing for the next fight because we need more healers, you're better off going in lacking an extra healer.

[DrakeWurrum]

Well obviously not every weapon is ranged or has defensive properties, i plan on being a ranger, i'm going to be at range half the time anyway, we don't have defensive abilities, we have ways to escape, if an interrupt is need so badly that i'll be required to bring one i can swap out one of my pets so that i can bring one with a stun/daze/knockdown and keep with the weapon set i know and have mastered instead of swapping to some random weapon set i use for boss fight X, and only for boss fight X.

Imo, it's better to play what you know and be lacking in skills that'll make the fight easier then to switch to something you don't know how to use well but is better in that situation. It's like telling someone who plays only dps in a trinity game to start healing for the next fight because we need more healers, you're better off going in lacking an extra healer.

The only difference between one weapon and another, primarily, is what utility a weapon brings. I don't think you can "master" a weapon in the sense that you're thinking of. It's absolutely not going to be like telling a DPS player to switch to the healing spec he's never used before. It's going to be like telling that Frost DK to spec for Chillblains and kite, when normally he just uses Howling Blast to AoE shit down.

[Durzlla]

The only difference between one weapon and another, primarily, is what utility a weapon brings. I don't think you can "master" a weapon in the sense that you're thinking of. It's absolutely not going to be like telling a DPS player to switch to the healing spec he's never used before. It's going to be like telling that Frost DK to spec for Chillblains and kite, when normally he just uses Howling Blast to AoE shit down.

Weapons are totally going to be playstyles, longbows will be staying at range, shortbows will be diving and weaving around melee, greatswords will be big sweeping aoe in melee range, short swords jumping in and out, it's not going to be as black and white as utility it brings, you're going to need to think of how the weapons work too.

Watch videos of necromancer using a scepter and off hand versus 2 daggers, or a mesmer using a long sword vs scepter and torch, or even sword sword their ENTIRERLY different styles, i can tell it'll be more of a play style choice then a "Shortbows bring conditions and long bows bring damage" choice.

[Dillingr]

I can dig it.

[Norg]

Weapons are totally going to be playstyles, longbows will be staying at range, shortbows will be diving and weaving around melee, greatswords will be big sweeping aoe in melee range, short swords jumping in and out, it's not going to be as black and white as utility it brings, you're going to need to think of how the weapons work too.

Watch videos of necromancer using a scepter and off hand versus 2 daggers, or a mesmer using a long sword vs scepter and torch, or even sword sword their ENTIRERLY different styles, i can tell it'll be more of a play style choice then a "Shortbows bring conditions and long bows bring damage" choice.

Yeah, I doubt they'll be any weapon that does more damage than the next. Maybe more types of damage but the output should be similar between each.

[sethers656]

They have even gone as far to say that the way they balance is not by class, but by class weapon. They treat and balance D/D eles comepletely separate from Staff eles. I do NOT think it will be required to "switch weapons" for this fight, nor do I think it will be a very common practice. When you choose a build, you choose your 2 weapons to work it it. (1 for ele/engineers). If a fight needs an interrupt/slow/knockback/defense then it will be in utility skills and if you really WANT to, then you can use a different weapon.

[Armond]

Good discussion here, but the thing I'm going to nitpick about first is that ANet has used the term damage instead of offense. Not sure how dated that is, but it's the one that's been used on both GW wikis, iirc.

I suspect there's a big disconnect somewhere along the line. I don't think roles should be thought of in terms of "this class fills this role, that class fills that role"; rather, think of them along the lines of skills. For example, a sword warrior has the capability to bring damage, support, and control; however, if all he does is spam 1, all he's doing is damage. That's not very supporting or controlling!

GW2 moved away from GW's stance of "everything is group content forever (unless it's in the tutorial area)". This had a major impact on the builds they made available to players: because combat is determined by damage done, every class must have the capability to deal enough damage to turn the tide of the battle. Builds without this capability are flat unable to succeed in solo combat. By extension, every class and every player is capable of dealing (and, possibly, required to deal) significant damage. If you're not sure what you should be doing, pressing the 1 button is a good start.

In the strict sense, support means "making yourself or your allies better, or preventing bad things from happening to them" and control means "making your enemies worse, or preventing them from doing things", but as Drake went over earlier, there's a lot of overlap. My favorite example is cripple - you can use it on the guy you're trying to kill so he can't run away, or you can use it on the guy going after your friend.

It's going to be very hard to make a build that only fulfills two roles, and I suspect impossible to make one that can only deal damage, but that doesn't mean you're forced to fulfill all three roles. It's just more effective if you do - and while you can get pretty close to making a build that only does damage (disclaimer: I don't traits at 1 am), I don't expect that to be the mark of a skilled player.

As for min/maxing, it's going to happen. The game expects you to be versatile and able to respond to many different situations, so the build that can respond to the most situations (and the most common ones) best will be superior. You can argue that the delta between builds will be smaller than other games, and I'd agree with you, but that doesn't mean that, for example, the greatsword warrior isn't going to do more damage, be more mobile, and overall be more useful than another build. To claim that min/maxing won't exist is to claim that everything about the game is perfectly balanced, and the game is far too complex for that to ever be true. I hope, however, that things will be balanced enough that the ability to use your skills effectively will be more important than which skills you choose to bring - not that your choice of skills should ever be unimportant.

[Hockeyhacker]

Just from reading through some dev blogs I thought it might work where the necro would build a lot of life force up and heal through sharing his health n what not, fears are coo as well.

I still find it amusing people trying to force in some healing build or tank build out of being use to it being the most valid way of staying alive, with how hard things hit in explorable mode dungeons these builds won't really be that good, maybe allow you to screw up one extra dodge every 60-90seconds ish, but even the most durable of characters is still very fragile if you don't dodge the damage, and even the best of healing builds you don't even heal as much as some trash can hit for if you don't avoid the attack.

Either way I would probably make a build like that for soloing content where things don't 1-2 shot you, but in places like dungeons where things are a lot more deadly conditions and control seem like a better thing to bring since snares and blinds would effectively reduce damage intake more then buffing healing could output...

Regardless there is no point to even trying to theorycraft anything till late beta or release since things may be balanced different then where the healing buffing may be as effective as blinding the enemy every 30ish seconds, so "specing" the way you suggested may be viable in a dungeon, but with the current look at the first explorable mode dungeon in its current balancing it doesn't seem like it would help much (heck one person who was at like 98% health got one shooted by a boss in the explorable dungeon for not dodging the attack).

[Repefe]

Some of the most effective team comps in GW1 were about each member having both offense and heals. Discordway for example you have 3 healer/dmg hybrids in 4 man team. I am pretty sure thats what ANET is trying to expand on and why everyone (most) get 2 sets of weapons to switch between in GW2.

Some fights you can do with little defense, some need more. With the switching team can adjust to these.

I can totally imagine when doing a dung you will want everyone to have their aoe heals equipped. Engi the turret, warrior the standard, ele with staff etc. When bad stuff happens everyone pops their aoe at the same time and all is cool.

[Deleted]

Interesting discussion!

I believe a kind of min-maxing will occur, but I hope there will be nothing like cookie-cutter builds, that everyone is forced to use. (Think: "LFM Water Ele for XY")

It would be totally refreshing and a delight to play in an environment, where nobody believes to know better how others should play their class. That a good player is not determined by his choice of traits/weapons/etc., but by his ability to use his own favourite build to maximum potantial and to adapt to different group combinations (where different cross-profession combos are available, classes have different strenghts and weaknesses).

Judging from the people on this GW2 forum I have high hopes for the community :-)

[sethers656]

Good discussion here, but the thing I'm going to nitpick about first is that ANet has used the term damage instead of offense. Not sure how dated that is, but it's the one that's been used on both GW wikis, iirc.

I suspect there's a big disconnect somewhere along the line. I don't think roles should be thought of in terms of "this class fills this role, that class fills that role"; rather, think of them along the lines of skills. For example, a sword warrior has the capability to bring damage, support, and control; however, if all he does is spam 1, all he's doing is damage. That's not very supporting or controlling!

GW2 moved away from GW's stance of "everything is group content forever (unless it's in the tutorial area)". This had a major impact on the builds they made available to players: because combat is determined by damage done, every class must have the capability to deal enough damage to turn the tide of the battle. Builds without this capability are flat unable to succeed in solo combat. By extension, every class and every player is capable of dealing (and, possibly, required to deal) significant damage. If you're not sure what you should be doing, pressing the 1 button is a good start.

In the strict sense, support means "making yourself or your allies better, or preventing bad things from happening to them" and control means "making your enemies worse, or preventing them from doing things", but as Drake went over earlier, there's a lot of overlap. My favorite example is cripple - you can use it on the guy you're trying to kill so he can't run away, or you can use it on the guy going after your friend.

It's going to be very hard to make a build that only fulfills two roles, and I suspect impossible to make one that can only deal damage, but that doesn't mean you're forced to fulfill all three roles. It's just more effective if you do - and while you can get pretty close to making a build that only does damage (disclaimer: I don't traits at 1 am), I don't expect that to be the mark of a skilled player.

As for min/maxing, it's going to happen. The game expects you to be versatile and able to respond to many different situations, so the build that can respond to the most situations (and the most common ones) best will be superior. You can argue that the delta between builds will be smaller than other games, and I'd agree with you, but that doesn't mean that, for example, the greatsword warrior isn't going to do more damage, be more mobile, and overall be more useful than another build. To claim that min/maxing won't exist is to claim that everything about the game is perfectly balanced, and the game is far too complex for that to ever be true. I hope, however, that things will be balanced enough that the ability to use your skills effectively will be more important than which skills you choose to bring - not that your choice of skills should ever be unimportant.

I completely agree on what you are saying. I think almost every single build will be forced to have Damage, Control, And Support. I also think though that the builds you make is how you sway how much you want to focus on these. My warrior build I am making is heavily damage focused, a medium amount of control, and a bit of support thrown in. my ele build on the other hand goes Heavy support, medium damage, low/medium control. Everyone will be capable of controlling, supporting, and damage dealing.

---------- Post added 2012-03-23 at 09:05 AM ----------

Interesting discussion!

I believe a kind of min-maxing will occur, but I hope there will be nothing like cookie-cutter builds, that everyone is forced to use. (Think: "LFM Water Ele for XY")

It would be totally refreshing and a delight to play in an environment, where nobody believes to know better how others should play their class. That a good player is not determined by his choice of traits/weapons/etc., but by his ability to use his own favourite build to maximum potantial and to adapt to different group combinations (where different cross-profession combos are available, classes have different strenghts and weaknesses).

Judging from the people on this GW2 forum I have high hopes for the community :-)

I'm not sure if "LF water ele" will happen... but my guess is any builds/comps will work in story mode, but when it comes to explorable mode, you *might* want to have better defined roles. Maybe have at least 1 control-oriented, 1 support-oriented, and 1 damage dealer per group. I could be wrong here and I guess we will have to wait and see. I just feed you have have people traited/glyphed more for control/support if will help the group a lot more than if everyone is traited for damage.

[Armond]

I still find it amusing people trying to force in some healing build or tank build...

I dunno about that. I dislike tank builds in this game - I can see the clutch use of a shield, but given that literally every attack can be dodged or prevented, I don't think the shield will be too strong. As for healing, I like it - a lot - because it's rare utility (using a powerful mechanic, no less) that's generally given freely on top of damage and/or control skills. The elementalist's healing in water attunement, for example, comes with practically no cost save the opportunity cost of being in another attunement, but that's why swapping attunements carefully is an important gameplay mechanic.

[Deleted]

I'm not sure if "LF water ele" will happen... but my guess is any builds/comps will work in story mode, but when it comes to explorable mode, you *might* want to have better defined roles. Maybe have at least 1 control-oriented, 1 support-oriented, and 1 damage dealer per group. I could be wrong here and I guess we will have to wait and see. I just feed you have have people traited/glyphed more for control/support if will help the group a lot more than if everyone is traited for damage.

That's right for sure. It might depend on how easily one can switch from a more damage-oriented to a more control-oriented playstyle. I admit, I don't know much about that yet, but let's say you have a party of 5 random people you met on a dynamic event. You have fun and get along pretty well, so you decide to give [insert challenging group content here] a try. You look at your party composition and notice a lack of control abilities, as everybody is either focused on max damage or support like buffs and stuff.
Several cenarios could apply now:
1) It is just a matter of weapon switching or anything else, that can be done quickly, and now one of your damage!-guys is able to provide several stuns and slows and you happily set off to beat up some monsters.
2) Someone has to go and see a trainer which takes time and money, but finally your party has several blinds, slows and other weakening abilities available.
3) There is now easy way to fix this lack of control and you have to replace one party member. "LF Control, ranger preferred, for X".

Maybe someone else can provide any insight on which cenario is most realistic?

[Armond]

Maybe someone else can provide any insight on which cenario is most realistic?

From what I can tell, the problem can be solved by weapon sets and utility skills. I don't think any class is incapable of filling a dedicated controller role except in the early part of the game when people might not have a lot of weapons or skill points available. Therefore, some advice: don't trash a weapon type (e.g. a dagger) if you don't have at least one stronger version! If you can dual wield it, keep two of it around. And don't hesitate to buy a lot of different skills.

[sacrypheyes]

*snip*
I suspect there's a big disconnect somewhere along the line. I don't think roles should be thought of in terms of "this class fills this role, that class fills that role"; rather, think of them along the lines of skills. For example, a sword warrior has the capability to bring damage, support, and control; however, if all he does is spam 1, all he's doing is damage. That's not very supporting or controlling!
*snip*

if a healer (mmo other than gw2 implied here ofc) only uses a weapon in melee while he obviously is better at using healing spells, it's not the skills that are at fault...
it doesn't matter how much a player sucks, a weapon skillset in gw2 still brings more or less damage/support/control skills.

boons and conditions are often secondary effects on skills, even the "1" skill for some classes/weapons. so most people will in fact fill at least two roles even if they don't really intend to, the difference will come from how well the group works together (or not) and combines their different abilities (organized chaos@tb).