Three roles available for every class?

[Durzlla]

I believe a character's level is shown in the bottom left, if you ever wonder what a person's level is in footage. :P

If there's a number shown in brackets, that's the level they're scaled to.

Edit: Plus, he actually says he's level 13 at some point. (I actually thought he was 11 at first, but I can't increase the quality of the video :<)

Ah i didn't listen to anything he said in the video lol, IGN bugs me to much to even listen to them anymore xD, however i hadn't seen the ice shaman and i'm not against watching videos by them, just don't like listening to their long winded, heavily biased reviews..

[DrakeWurrum]

I dunno. I didn't find that review biased at all.

[Durzlla]

I dunno. I didn't find that review biased at all.

i wouldn't know about the GW2 one lol, i stopped listening/reading their reviews long ago... as in about a year ago

[Hellspawnxxx]

Problem with your analogy: When a professional sports player plays their sport with some average joes from the street, they don't yell at the average joes for being terrible players or tell them to get on their level. They actually have the sportspmanship to go down to their level, relax, and just play for fun.

If you go into a random pick-up-group with random people you do not know, you are playing at the average street level, not at the professional level. If you are playing with a guild who publicly advertises themselves as being "for fun" "casual" or even "medium-core" instead of hardcore progression (or, god forbid, you check them out ahead of time and notice their skill for yourself before joining), then you are not playing at the professional level, and you knew ahead of time.

Michael Jordan isn't going to join a high school basketball team, and then spend the whole season yelling at every player who makes a mistake because he expected the team to be much more hardcore. First of all, he's not going to join that team to begin with.
Second of all, if he did join one, he'd know better than to expect more from them.

Why does a Pug have to be considered street level play. Maybe people have become to comfertable with Pugs being bad and accepting defeat because bad players refuse to play thier class correctly. I think Pugs should bring thier A game or they shouldnt Que up for battle.

[DrakeWurrum]

Why does a Pug have to be considered street level play. Maybe people have become to comfertable with Pugs being bad and accepting defeat because bad players refuse to play thier class correctly. I think Pugs should bring thier A game or they shouldnt Que up for battle.

Who said street level play means they're bad?

Street level players just aren't professional athletes, and they play for fun.

Just because you are a good player, doesn't give you the right to be a dick to everybody who's not as skilled at you. Michael Jordan actually has the cahones to be humble to somebody who's not him.

[Deleted]

To OP:
Warrior can do melee/ranged dps, tank more than some others, and has great support.. not sure about the healing part though

[Deleted]

I'm not sure if it's been linked yet, but THIS is pretty much the idea.

tl;dr



instead of

[sacrypheyes]

I'm not sure if it's been linked yet, but THIS is pretty much the idea.

tl;dr

i don't even see how it's even close to how things will be in gw2.
why would the "dps" be more in melee? -that's what it looks like in the picture after all
why would support have like crap dps? -also a totaly stupid idea people will have looking at the pic
etc

the one who did the pic just didn't understand a thing of gw2 imo.

[Squirrelbanes]

i don't even see how it's even close to how things will be in gw2.
why would the "dps" be more in melee? -that's what it looks like in the picture after all
why would support have like crap dps? -also a totaly stupid idea people will have looking at the pic
etc

the one who did the pic just didn't understand a thing of gw2 imo.

I think it's an expression of the, well, extreme characteristics of GW2's "roles" made in order to enlighten those coming from a rigid holy trinity concept.

[Deleted]

That's not the point in the pic. it's more to show the basic concept of different roles in a group. A Guardian is melee but he'll do more support/healing then dmg but still do a fair amount of that as well while a warrior might do more damage/control but still can do support.

[DrunkenBeard]

i don't even see how it's even close to how things will be in gw2.
why would the "dps" be more in melee? -that's what it looks like in the picture after all
why would support have like crap dps? -also a totaly stupid idea people will have looking at the pic
etc

the one who did the pic just didn't understand a thing of gw2 imo.

Smaller discs don't mean less effective; Smaller discs mean that you are dedicating less time to that aspect of combat. For example, in that image Player 1 is doing a lot of support with some control, and is more likely only going for damage when there is a good window or opportunity. Player 3 is more about damage and control, with support being an afterthought.

It still won't be exactly like that during real fights, as players are likely to switch roles a lot during the fight depending on how it goes. The best teams will be the ones that are able to quickly adapt their playstyle and make the best out of delicate situations via their toolset. If you're going in with a "I'm support, you're damage" mindset you're going to struggle.

[sacrypheyes]

Smaller discs don't mean less effective; Smaller discs mean that you are dedicating less time to that aspect of combat. For example, in that image Player 1 is doing a lot of support with some control, and is more likely only going for damage when there is a good window or opportunity. Player 3 is more about damage and control, with support being an afterthought.

It still won't be exactly like that during real fights, as players are likely to switch roles a lot during the fight depending on how it goes. The best teams will be the ones that are able to quickly adapt their playstyle and make the best out of delicate situations via their toolset. If you're going in with a "I'm support, you're damage" mindset you're going to struggle.

even then, a damn lot of abilities combine either damage with support (à la ele geyser doing dmg/healing at the same time) or damage/control (like the thief's pistol whip ability) or even control/support at the same time (see engineer's elixir f)

all in all, misleading pic if anything

[Squirrelbanes]

even then, a damn lot of abilities combine either damage with support (à la ele geyser doing dmg/healing at the same time) or damage/control (like the thief's pistol whip ability) or even control/support at the same time (see engineer's elixir f)

all in all, misleading pic if anything

It needs 2-way arrows on the blue circle between the three players....plus little 2-way arrows in each players damage-control-support circles b4 it becomes more accurate.
But yh....think it's more of a representation for those stuck in a rigid trinity concept for encounters.

[jaakkeli]

@jack Correct me if i'm wrong, but are you just saying that min/maxing in GW2 will not be taking a bunch of skills/traits that essentially do the same thing? IE all defensive CD's and all your traits are things that activate when X happens etc.

Not just that but also picking up synergizing skillsets. For example, the Elementalist has traits that increase burning durations, chance to cause burning on targets, damage to targets that are burning and so on. Obviously, these all have synergy with each other and the guy who picks up a bunch of 10 % buffs that synergize with each other is going to be much more effective than the guy who picks up 10 % buffs randomly across the board. If you're going to be spending X trait points in offense, it will be a simple question of min/maxing math to figure out how to get the most damage out of them.

Or how about the elementalist trait that makes you deal +50% damage to stunned or knocked down enemies? That's massive. Probably not so good for PvE but might be great for PvP burst. You can optimize around that: you want to pick your weapons so that you actually can stun and knock down, preferably knock down since stuns are easier to escape from. Then you want to pick the traits that reduce the cooldowns on those stuns/knockdowns. Then you want to pick up some damage buff or a big nuke with a similar cooldown to use on that time window. And so on.

As long as there are traits and skills that synergize with each other, it's generally going to be better to go all out and follow a synergizing build and completely skip investing in most other areas, ie min/max.

If so, i don't think -most- people view that as min/maxing...

"Min/maxing" AFAIK comes from Dungeons & Dragons. It started right from character creation: you had people who wanted to play roleplaying characters with unique attributes (maybe your orc warrior is actually pretty smart and maybe the wizard isn't actually frail) and people who wanted to play "min/maxed" characters who just maximized the attributes that increased their combat power (make the warrior as stupid as possible so you can spend the points on strength, make the wizard as weak as possible so you can maximize his intelligence). Then you started playing and one guy would want to fill their spellbook with a flying spell, a charm spell, an invisibility spell and 6 other cool things while the powergamer would put in 8 fireballs and 1 invisibility to gtfo once out of fireballs...

And as long as a game has any sort of a meaningful build system, min/maxers will be a lot more effective in combat than the people who pick up a bit of this and a bit of that. The problem here is a lot of people come from WoW only and they imagine build min/maxing to be tied to the trinity... but it's not at all about it and the whole min/max powergaming started before trinity games even existed, hell, it started before computer "RPGs" existed.

[Squirrelbanes]

Snippy

Just to play devil's advovate...and although what you say is probably true, particularly for pvp, what will be interesting to see, particularly in pve, is opportunity cost with builds. I think it's going to be heavy in GW2. Min/maxing is fun...but it's easy to talk about optimising in an optimum situation. I'm not sure how forgiving GW2 will be to such concepts, and how possible it will be to optomise in terms of min/maxing.
I personally expect more generalised builds, especially in pve.

[Repefe]

Just to play devil's advovate...and although what you say is probably true, particularly for pvp, what will be interesting to see, particularly in pve, is opportunity cost with builds. I think it's going to be heavy in GW2. Min/maxing is fun...but it's easy to talk about optimising in an optimum situation. I'm not sure how forgiving GW2 will be to such concepts, and how possible it will be to optomise in terms of min/maxing.
I personally expect more generalised builds, especially in pve.

3 hero discord from GW1 keeps comming to my mind ... everyone takes some offensive abilities, some defensive ones and you get nice flexible mix that can take damage and dish it out as well.

[Norg]

What initially bugged be about this system is that I usually think of control as an aspect of "support" as well. But the plain difference between the two from my perspective is that control prevents damage and support makes the characters more resilient to damage.

What I'm most interested in is viewing how people like to down bosses or like to pvp and seeing if that is what shapes their build. Seems like a pretty obvious algorithm to go about building your character but its really not allowed in other mmos right now. If a group needs to down a boss and their current makeup doesnt cut it (i.e. not enough heals, not enough damage) then they just change the makeup of the group, its not a very choosable thing. You only see the options of group makeup once the group out gears said encouter or just becomes experianced at doing it.

Personally, I love to have a lot of sustain and suvivability, in really any game I play, and have no problem sacrificing a bit of damage for it. I'm just hoping that I will be able to do encounters how I want to; the best part of choosing your playstyle is knowing that it's viable.

[DrakeWurrum]

What initially bugged be about this system is that I usually think of control as an aspect of "support" as well. But the plain difference between the two from my perspective is that control prevents damage and support makes the characters more resilient to damage.

I explained this earlier in the thread - all three roles will overlap, and often. Control is simply controlling the enemy, support is simply providing support to your allies (whether it be buffing or healing or protecting). In a way, control is stuff you do to enemies that isn't damage, and support is stuff you do to your allies (in the case of games with friendly fire, it's specifically stuff that helps them).

[Durzlla]

<snip>

now min/maxing as it was in DnD will not work in GW2 period (IE if you want MOER DAMG!! You'll just fall over if someone looks at you funny)someone tried this in a beta, so unless Anet changed something, it wont be good to just min/max... however what you were saying with getting a bunch of things for synergize with your build will probably work extremely well!! However i have a feeling people who do try to be jack of all trades will do just as well as min/max people, but obviously the min/max will be better at what ever they maxed out then the jack of all trades guys...