this is really nothing new, it was posted a year ago. It's why there is no holy trinity in GW2. This is a must-read if you want to understand their philosophy. Please take a look:
6 points which allow the new philosophy
by Jon Peters, Arenanet
So what features of the combat system encourage this profession design? The answer to that is, “lot of things,” so let’s talk about them one at a time.Originally Posted by Jon Peters, Arenanet
1.) Healing Skill slot
Everyone has a dedicated slot on their skill bar where they must place a healing skill. These vary greatly and are an intimate part of the Guild Wars 2 build-making process, but ultimately they are your most efficient and reliable way to sustain yourself in battle. Why did we do this? Because we think it is a more interesting way to create sustained encounters for solo players AND groups while keeping players focused on themselves and their surroundings.
2.) Downed, defeated, and revival
The downed system creates combat situations where fallen allies (and enemies in PvP) are actual strategic locations in a battle. It means that situations can change quickly and players must react to them. From level 1, every profession has the ability to revive everyone else. This means that players don’t have to rely on one profession in case someone is defeated both during and after combat. I said that the healing skill was the most effective way to keep you going in a fight, which it is. However, in a party, what is more awesome than being able to revive someone who was defeated and doing nothing back to being a contributing member of the group again? We did this because it makes combat more dynamic and social—two of the main goals of Guild Wars 2.
3.) Shared boon system
The basic buff system in Guild Wars 2 is a set of ally-friendly buffs that we call boons. There are seven boons: Regeneration, Might, Fury, Swiftness, Protection, Vigor, and Aegis. With the exception of the Aegis boon, these are available to different professions on different weapons and skills. Their duration stacks but their effectiveness does not stack, so two players using Regeneration boon are equally effective putting health regeneration on allies.
This system allows us to simplify the buff system while also making everyone similarly effective when trying to do something that the system handles. The duration stacking also means that you can’t overdo something, but you also aren’t ever wasting a boon when stacking it.
For example, if you put 10 seconds of regeneration on an ally and they already has 5 seconds of regeneration remaining, they will now have a total of 15 seconds of regeneration. More overall health, but not any more efficient.
“…We built this game so that they professions act as play styles, not as roles…”
4.) No allied targeting
This is one of the big ones. There are no skills that specifically target allies. Everything must be done using positioning, ground targeting or other unconventional methods. This keeps every profession focused on their allies in the world, which adds a tactical complexity to the combat. Instead of watching red bars, we want you to watch your allies in the world. Making sure you are dropping ground-targeted spells effectively and moving into position to block attacks on allies is how we want players to defend each other.
5.) Diversity
Being able to adapt to situations is something that we feel makes combat more exciting. In Guild Wars 2, the combination of weapon swapping and skill versatility give each profession the ability to adapt to combat situations and change their role. Taking too much damage as a warrior? Swap to mace and shield. A bunch of adds as an elementalist? Attune to fire. Even within single skills we try and maintain versatility. A guardian that brings Wall of Deflection or an elementalist with Swirling Aura can use them to defend allies when retreating. They can also use it to push into enemy lines, or they can cast it in a timely manner to counter a particularly dangerous enemy projectile and send the effects of that projectile back to the attacker. Being able to rotate roles and cover for other players is another piece in the puzzle to removing dependencies.
example: mobility Elementalist6.) Mobility
Another important part of Guild Wars 2 combat is mobility. We felt that in order to get the dynamic and visceral feel that we wanted combat to have, players needed to be more mobile. A lot of work went into this from animation systems to animations themselves allowing skills while moving. It takes a lot of pressure off of the skill system and puts in back into movement, tactical play, and ground control—the areas where we wanted the game to be focused. Couple that with dodging arrows and double tap dodge rolling and you create a combat system that is more like a first person shooter where finding real cover, flanking and other more realistic fighting techniques find a lot more use. This again de-emphasizes the importance of roles and focuses players on what we intend, which is how their profession plays.
We’ve said this a few times in a few places but I can’t reiterate it enough:
We built this game so that they professions act as play styles, not as roles. Each profession can support, control, and do damage. We believe that this creates more dynamic combat and more distinct professions because there are more play styles than roles.
graphic: http://mesmer.pl
One of the best ways to explain this is with an analogy. In a first person shooter there can be a variety of weapons, from sniper rifles to rocket launchers to machine guns and shotguns. No one looks at these weapons and says, “They’re all the same, they all just do DPS.” Why should an MMO be any different?
That is why we want to eliminate things that we felt were burdens on the game such as:
- Group LF Healer/Tank…
- Party wipes when you lose the wrong person.
- Watching the interface instead of the world.
- Playing with people because you have to, not because you want to.
- Being stuck in the same combat patterns over and over again.
Anyway, I hope this gives everyone a little bit of insight into the combat of Guild Wars 2, the removal of the Holy Trinity, and profession roles.
http://guildwars.incgamers.com/wp-co...vement_Ele.png
thanks Jon Peters
Source: http://www.arena.net/blog/jon-peters-talks-combat
so this was an official blogpost from a year ago, furthermore I want to clarify this a bit myself. Note: this isn't official anymore, rather than observation and knowledge from interviews:
Why survival is so different in GW2
people really have to understand: in GW2 there are no statistical defense stats like the block/parry/dodge-system in WoW. There is no armor that has such stats, you can't build your character that way. There is only armor, toughness and health.
If 2 or 3 mobs attack you simultaniously, you will stand almost no chance. You will have to use defense-skills. Those defense skills can't be spammed in GW2. They have cooldowns. Let's take a look at an example:
Warrior: Mace and Schield (very defensive Weaponset)
Skill 1-5 (Weaponskills)
Skill 1: Mace Smash (damage) -> 2nd hit: Crushing Blow (makes your enemy 10s vulnerable) -> 3rd hit: Pulverize (weakens your foe) -> 1st hit...
Skill 2: Counter Blow (6s cooldown): blocks the next incoming attack, counters with an attack when in melee range, knockdown 2s.
Skill 3: Pommel Bash (15s cooldown): daze your 1 foe 1s (daze = interrupt & prevents using skills)
Skill 4: Shield Bash (25s cooldown): hit your enemy with your shield, stuns him
Skill 5: Shield Stance (25s cooldown): blocks incoming attacks. (can't move, locked in stance)
Skill 6 (Healskill), Skill 7-9 (UtiltiySkills), Skill 10 (Eliteskill), chosen very defensive skills from a skillpool
Skill 6: e.g. Mending (20s cooldown): heal yourself and remove a condition (debuff)
Skill 7: e.g. Endure Pain (90s cooldown): you take no damage (5s & breaks stun)
Skill 8: e.g. Stomp (60s cooldown): launch foes in the air
Skill 9: e.g. Retreat (80s cooldown): grants protection and swiftness to allies
Skill 10: e.g. Battle Standard (120s cooldown): buffs and revives fallen allies
As you can see, it makes no sense to think someone can tank more than 1 mob effectively for a certain amount of time. Defensive skills are very situational (long cooldowns) and have to be timed right, in order to withstand some of the hard hitting incoming attacks.
Skill 2: counter blow: it's only single target
Skill 5: Shield Stance: makes only sense if you guard an other player since you can't move or do anything other than being in your stance blocking incoming attacks.
So bottom line here: if you want to know how this new system works, take a look at the skills, at the builds you are going to make and you will learn:
-) you can't tank like in other games. Defense Skills are situational, not continuous! Your defense-skills last only a very short time and have mostly very long cooldowns. You will have to activate them at the right time!
-) you can't heal other players. Your self-heal is the only real heal-skill in this game, it has 20s+ cooldown. You can't target allied players. You can only give allies boons (regeneration) and passive heals (hit an enemy and heal nearby allies) which have a very small healing amount. Those supportskills have longer cooldowns too, so again, they are situational.
the keyword in GW2 combat is situational
Build-Tool:
http://gw2.luna-atra.fr/skills_tool/...itch=2b630ad31
---------- Post added 2012-02-08 at 10:30 PM ----------
and exactly this isn't possible with the cooldowns in the game, look at my example above. You would waste a lot of potential, if you only spam a skill with 90s cooldown.
---------- Post added 2012-02-08 at 10:53 PM ----------
note:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/HealingHealing refers to the use of skills to replenish health or remove damaging conditions from oneself or others.
Each character has a skill bar slot that must be occupied with a healing skill. The skill in this slot is a self-heal and provides the largest healing effect available to the character.
In addition to a healing skill, some professions can select skills that provide minor healing and traits to improve healing. Note that these forms of healing are considerably weaker compared to a self-heal. Because Guild Wars 2 has no dedicated healing profession, a player can not fully devote themselves to maintaining a party's health.
Furthermore, healing that is not a self-heal usually manifests as area of effect or as additional benefits of area of effect skills. For example, Healing Rain gives a short regeneration boon to those in the area, Water Trident heals allies around the attacked target and Geyser periodically heals people in its target area.
---------- Post added 2012-02-08 at 11:13 PM ----------
why support-healskills won't make you a healer in GW2:
take a look at this:
2:34 Support Healskill
-) the elementalist has a base-health of 2598.
-) the support healskill "Geyser" heals for about 39 per sec.
other support healskills heal a very similar amount.
4:11 Selfheal
-) the selfheal heals for 1175
(note: numbers probably change during beta, still the overall idea behind this won't)
Do you now see the difference? Supporting allies with heals in GW2 isn't the same as in other mmos. Support-healskills are very weak, you can't outheal a bigger amount of incoming damage. Not possible. You are responsible for yourself, you need to use your selfheals! It makes no sense if someone only tries to heal his party and nothing else. You would be wasting a massive amount of potential here.
I think I can't show it any clearer than that.