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[GW2]We're all waiting very, very patiently for class reveals. *twitch*
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I mean think about it. What would the game lose if there was no dedicated healbot class? There's already no tanks. All their talk about positioning mattering in combat supports this idea. Dumb enough to stand in the fire? You die. Getting hit? No worries, by design you HAVE to have a healing skill.
I mean, even looking at the Elementalist preview; when you're in water attunement, everyone around you including yourself gets passive health regen. They mention several of the water skills revolve around healing allies. That's a lot of healing skills for a non-healing class, no? Not to mention Aura of Restoration and Glyph of Restoration for self heals.
And think of all the benefits it would bring. The average Random Arena PvP match wouldn't be decided by which team happened to have a Monk. In PvE, you wouldn't have to desperately try to avoid having monsters hitting healers, without any real taunting or tanking mechanics to make them stop. Or, having to try and find a Monk to do a mission, which is oftentimes impossible.
I honestly couldn't be happier if they announced that they were doing away with healers. It fits their progressive game design ideas and banishes once and for all that cursed "Holy Trinity" class design in MMOs. Then everyone can just have fun leaping around and killing shit, healing themselves and others when necessary.
So.
Hard.
I'm stupidly excited about the persistence and event system. Am having trouble deciding which race I like best; when EotN was released I fell in love with the Norn, and am still likely to be rolling one... but having seen the screenshots I'm now leaning away from the Norn and towards the Charr, or even humans. I'm disappointed there won't be any scythes, and therefore unlikely to be dervishes (the dervish prof was what brought me into GW in the first place; they are so cool), but that's okay.
On the note of professions, I think I might have stumbled across the names of two potential professions?
Nomad (Katy Hargrove)
Gunner (Kekai Kotaki -- I love the way this guy draws women)
These images were posted by ANet artists, and it strikes me as unlikely that they'd be so careless as to let slip such a carefully guarded secret. But still. Maybe?
Some new in-game models. This time for non-human things:
Steam (Ansatz) || Planetside 2 - Vanu (Ansatz) || GW2 Officer (Ansatz.6498)
The skills they've described still sound like they're on par with a standard self heal, they're just forcing everyone to take them (which is good. They're not potent, but they make a huge difference for even a good monk if people know how to use them properly). There's also still competitive esport style PvP. As long as there's coordinated PvP in a party based RPG, you'll need a dedicated healer. maybe not a monk as it currently is, but I guarantee there will be a healing class.
Without it, coordinated PvP will simply become a spiking metagame, and never come out of it. We already had a really long spiking metagame at the start of GW1 because it was so effective until people learned how to run damage mitigation and interrupts properly. And spikes were only countered by effective use of Infuse Health and applied offensive pressure. Without a class dedicated to healing, we're going to see the same thing happen, but probably not come out of it, because there will be no way to effectively counter spikes - effective offensive pressure won't work if your team drops like flies to a spike.
There's also no more random arena PvP. There's 2 kinds, according to their interviews they've done. Large scale PvPvE like alliance battles, but on a much, much larger scale. This replaces Heroes Ascent (it takes place in the mists, like HA), and random and team arenas, since you can apparently enter solo or in a group. It replaces Alliance Battles because it's set out the same - one big map, lots of little objectives for teams to go after. Then there's competitive, esport style PvP which they haven't said much about.
And as a monk player who likes the class and it good at playing it, I'd hate to see it go anywhere. You don't need to 'desperately try to have monsters not hit healers', they just need to learn to kite and have a bit of situational awareness. Waiting on monks to restore energy is also only something that comes from a monk player who can't monk - a good monk will have ample energy managment. I do agree that the difficulty is finding good monks. But, as a monk player, I can also say its difficult finding good warriors, or good rangers, or good anything. The difference is people give up on playing monk faster than they give up sitting in the middle of a group of monsters, hitting some stances to tank and thinking they're playing the class well. Or hitting frenzy, and complaining when they died in one hit to a boss, who naturally hit with a spell at 200% damage (because bosses do have that much extra damage), boosted by frenzys weakness because the monk is bad.
There is a class that uses guns, and it's not Ranger, so probably the Gunner. They said in the combat manifesto that there is a class that can use bows, but not guns (Ranger), and a class that can use guns, but not bows (so, Gunner). Nomad might be the new name for the Assassin - there's still daggers in the game, there's expanded dual weilding, and there's concept art of a human with dual daggers in a crouching pose and ninja like garb. Or Nomad might be the new name for Rangers, since it fits as well.
That's not necessarily true. They said some classes can use bows, some can use guns, and some can use both (and some can't use either). My guess is that Rangers can use both, while other classes (Warrior has been stated to be able to use guns) can use one or the other. I'd be surprised if there's a dedicated Gunner class. There has been more than one concept art for gun-wielding characters though, so it's possible.
Steam (Ansatz) || Planetside 2 - Vanu (Ansatz) || GW2 Officer (Ansatz.6498)
Note that I'm coming at this from mainly a PvE background in GW1, but that I know a fair bit of how PvP works at a higher level, despite having played little of it myself.
The problem I'm talking about with Monks is one of several parts. The first part is logistics and how they relate to game design; to put it simply, Monks are too important. They overshadow every other class in the game in importance; while other roles (interrupt, pressure, spiking) can be filled by multiple other classes, no one except the Monk has the toolset necessary to do his job. Every single party in GW, PvP or PvE, has at least 1 Monk. The same cannot be said for any other class. It doesn't take a genius to see that ideally, every class should be of equal importance if played to their best; as it stands, Monks will still be more important. Wins and losses at all levels of the game are basically dictated by their skills. They are the be all and end all class. This is not a good idea.
Secondly, as far as the loss of their toolkit resulting in a deeply unbalanced, spiking-focused PvP metagame, who says their tools need to go away with them? My original post suggested giving their tools away to other classes, keeping their usefulness, but creating more balanced party composition by doing so. In the same way that Mesmers and Rangers can run interrupt, Elementalists and Ritualists can spike, and Warriors and Necromancers apply pressure, why not let Elementalists, or Mesmers, or Paragons, or whatever other classes they decide to have in GW2, share the functionality? Give them protective enchantments. An Infuse Health variant. Whatever it takes. No matter which professions the Monk's current roles are spread amongst, the result is the same; the diversification of the player base, and the easing of reliance upon several over important individuals in the party make up.
With this proposed model, the various roles that the classes in GW fill (interrupt, pressure, spiking, and healing) would be shared amongst multiple classes, with multiple options for each role in choosing a party. It's a more fair and balanced design, eradicating the Monk class as the party "bottleneck", whose performance influences the other members far too heavily.
Or Heket, as they're known in the GW bestiary.
Also, those models look phenomenal. That said, the models in the first game were pretty good too. I felt the only area GW was a let down graphically was animation. Everything was so stiff and unnatural. I certainly hope they focus more on that this time around. One of the interviews linked earlier in the thread mentioned a completely rewritten animation system, so maybe it's not too far fetched to hope for some improvement in that area.
I want to start an internet petition, that will be promptly ignored by almost everyone, to add Heket as a playable race. If they don't do I am so going to cancle my Guild Wars subscription. </joke>
I actually really like the ratman more, I'm gussing it's some sort of Kobold?
I think it looks amazing. There's a curiosity in its eyes and a personality in the way it is standing and dressed that makes me with it was a playable race.
Steam (Ansatz) || Planetside 2 - Vanu (Ansatz) || GW2 Officer (Ansatz.6498)
Steam (Ansatz) || Planetside 2 - Vanu (Ansatz) || GW2 Officer (Ansatz.6498)
Nothing mind-blowing, mostly dealing with the fallout of previous announcements. However..
Separate skill-bar for Norn shapeshift forms.
Multiple pet classes.
Confirmation of no profession-switching.
Steam (Ansatz) || Planetside 2 - Vanu (Ansatz) || GW2 Officer (Ansatz.6498)
Good stuff. But what I want to know is, in terms of the norn shapeshifts, are they on a timer or do you remain in animal form permanently until you revert back to being a norn and, if so, how will this effect your chosen profession and skillsets?
I suppose there will be some sort of mounted travel, which will be nice.
Mounts in Guild Wars 2 would be the awesome for exploring the amazing vistas of the game and getting around in style.
This is because they are the only class with effective healing. Arenanet tried to alleviate this with the Ritualist class, but it didn't work - their healing was, honestly, half assed. Multiple roles can be filled by multiple classes simply because they revolve around the same core idea - kill shit. However, not all classes can fill the same role, but you don't really notice this in PvE.
If I was running a PvP team, I sure wouldn't bring a warrior for my interrupt character. Nor would I bring one for my flag/relic runner. I wouldn't bring a Mesmer as my frontline damage dealer. The problem here isn't around monks being a sole profession that can do one thing well - it's just that in PvE, it's the only class where this is magnified. Admittedly, in PvP, they are still the backbone of a group, but everyone is as important as everyone else. Monks wouldn't be standing if warriors weren't killing things, rangers weren't snaring enemy warriors, etc. As someone who has played several roles in highish level PvP, monk included, I'm more grateful for a warrior landing a nicely timed Devastating Blow and stopping another warrior from tearing me to pieces than I ever was to be on the receiving end of Words of Comfort as a Crippling Shot Ranger from one of the Monks.
The problem is, in PvP, those other classes are doing other things. A Elementalist midliner is watching for groups he can hit with Deep Freeze, or a runner he can snare with Gale. Warriors are too busy watching for exposed squishies and kiting enemy warriors. Rangers and Mesmers are too busy watching enemy casters for important spells to stop. Monks are dedicating 100% of their concentration on their own party (not the party pane as some people think - a good monk doesn't stare at the party pane) and their general vicinity for warriors to kite.
A dedicated healing class is, quite simply, necessary for the PvP metagame in a class based RPG. I'm not saying monk, as it is now, will be back. But it simply takes so much more concentration than any other class that it's impossible to shift the healing job to another class and expect it to still work. Not to mention it takes a lot of energy to do it. Infuse health on another class? Wouldn't work. Anything midline or forward would get reamed as soon as half their health disappeared.
When you watch observer mode and see monks switching weapons? They're doing that because they have to. Most monk players would start the match with a shield and a sword with -5 energy, so they're on 20 energy. They'll work with that until things get heated, then switch to a +5 energy weapon. If it gets worse, a stave and focus, and if pressured they go to a +30 energy, negative energy regen set. They do this for energy management, and they're the only class that needs to. Putting this sort of intense focus on their own party and energy bar would make any other class a dedicated healer. They wouldn't be doing anything else, and they'd basically be a monk.
As long as the game has competitive PvP, there's going to be the need for a Monk-like class.
Um, actually the problem IS that they are the sole profession that can do one thing well. I'm not sure you're quite understanding what I'm getting at.
I'm saying the Monk's skills should be distributed amongst a few other classes, removing the dedicated "healbot" class. Does that mean that, as you mention, Elementalists will be too busy snaring to heal? Of course not! Just as a Necromancer isn't, say, spiking with Blood and applying degen pressure with Curses at the same time, neither would an Elementalist be running a snaring AND healing build. He'd be doing one or the other.
Imagine it the way Ritualists were theoretically supposed to work. They have Restoration skills, Channeling skills, and Communing Skills. Most builds, will focus on the functionality of one of these trees, whether that be healing, spiking, or, er, spirit spamming.
The most basic way I can possibly explain it, is that Arenanet should give healing skill pools to a bunch of different classes, 2 or more, so the load is shared equally, like every other role in the game.
No they're not. Elementalists are the only good long range damagers. Warriors are the only class that can tank properly. Necromancers are the only class than can run a Minion master build properly. There's plenty of roles that can only be covered by an individual class.
Then there's no point removing the healer class. People will still be playing healers, just under a different profession name. I was never contesting this - just that monks will be back, whether it's as a monk or something else. Whatever that something else is, it will be a dedicated healing class. If they give it something offensive, it will get ignored, because people will just use it as the healer. Smiting Prayers is good. I've run Smiting in GvG and Heroes Ascent, and it worked fine. But other classes can do damage too, and Monks are relegated to healing and protecting.
The most basic way I can describe it is - those classes will, at least in PvP, be used as healers. PvE will scale in Guild Wars 2, they've said as much, so much that a person going solo can survive with just their self heal. you probably will never have to worry about healers in PvE anymore.
PvP doesn't scale. People will be doing full damage to each other and will act smarter than the average PvE mob (at least at higher levels of play), and people will have roles to play on the team. I cannot see this working at all without a class that has a primary role as a healer - it takes a lot of concentration that is simply pointed in the complete opposite direction to everything else you do in the game.
I think we're trying to argue the same thing but in different ways, and I apologize. I'm looking at it from a PvP perspective, where I see the need for a primarily healing class that just does that, while you're looking at it from a PvE perspective of having a healing class that also does other things. They're probably going to do just that, but in PvP it's never going to really get a chance to shine as something other than a healer.
Yeah I think we are both really trying to argue the same thing, and I don't have the know-how to understand how the whole situation would work in PvP. I'm simply speaking from what I see in PvE, from the logistical nightmare of having 1 out of 8 professions REQUIRED in every party, where the others are interchangeable, and where the outcome of the game is pretty much up to them and them alone.
You do make a good point, that the healing tree will always be focused on in PvP, over any other skills that profession might have. Yes, there will always be a healing class in PvP.
But you also mention things like, Elementalists being the only good long range damage dealers, MM Necros being the only good pet class, etc. But that's just it, they are the only GOOD class of their type. Rangers have a pet tree. Rits and Necros have long range damage. Rits have heals. But GW1, as it stands, is so imbalanced that only one profession that fills a certain role is really viable in most cases. To a certain degree, this will always happen; min-maxing is guaranteed, and by however small a fraction, some class will always prove to be the best at a certain role.
I guess all I can say is, speaking strictly from a PvE point of view, that the roles of healing classes need to be spread out BETTER among multiple professions, and reduced somewhat, by giving other classes better self heals and defenses to compensate. This would alleviate an enormous amount of problems with PvE as it stands in GW today.
And like you said, the needs of PvP will be entirely different. There'll need to be someone healing, preventing spikes, and self heals will not be enough against co-ordinated enemies. This is of course, why they'll be continuing the PvE/PvP skill split, where skills function differently. All I'm saying, is the Monk shouldn't be the only class capable of filling this role, which is also what you're saying I think, which means it's all OK?
I never said pet, I said Minion master. There's a difference. Minions need constant maintenance to keep them alive, and that only increases the longer they are alive. A minion master build is totally different to using a pet, and Necromancers are the only ones that can do it.
Ritualists and Necromancers have good long range damage, but they pale in comparison to Elementalists in not only raw damage output but also what kind of ranged effects they can do. Ranged snare? Elementalists got you covered. Ranged Spike? Elementalists got you covered. Ranged knockdown? Elementalists got you covered. Ranged nuke? Elementalists got you covered. Ranged speed boost? Elementalists got you covered. Etc.
Monks are only different in that healing/protection is required in every party. With GW2 removing that from PvE, I wouldn't be surprised if we saw more class snobbery than we currently do from monks, since every class will be as valuable, and everyone will think of themselves as king shit, not just bad monks.
As Arenanet have said, PvE scales now. A solo Elementalist will be able to play in the same area a full party plays, and no get pile drived in 2 seconds flat. They don't need to spread healing across multiple classes for PvE, so it's pointless doing it.
I really, really, really hope we don't see this. it's good for people who play either PvP or PvE, since they will never have to worry about the skills alternate effect. For people like me who like high level competitive play and also PvE questing, it's awful. You play PvP for a few days straight, get used to a skills effect, go into PvE and it does something different, but you didn't consider it before you went out to start playing.
I'm not saying that, I'm saying it's stupid to remove a healing class and spread it across multiple classes when PvP is fine how it is, and PvE won't be reliant on a healing class anymore anyway. If they want to give that class something else to do in PvE since their healing isn't required, go for it. Just make sure it is there for PvP, because it's needed. Like, stick it in plate armour and give it similar weapon abilities as a warrior. A sort of paladin (god I can't believe I'm saying that, given how bad they were in GW1). In PvE it can run around wacking things with a sword. In PvP it can heal things but not be quite as squishy.
With regard to healing professions, I expect there will be 2-3 classes which can attune or otherwise focus more heavily on healing. GW2 may be leaning more towards protection and periodic heals though. Assuming the PvP spike problem is not unreasonable, but at this point we can't say for sure how much of an issue that will be.
Steam (Ansatz) || Planetside 2 - Vanu (Ansatz) || GW2 Officer (Ansatz.6498)
Steam (Ansatz) || Planetside 2 - Vanu (Ansatz) || GW2 Officer (Ansatz.6498)
Your going to probably end up saying that about every class they reveal as they reveal them.
Haha it's a possibility. But I like to play jack-of-all-trade classes, so... actually, yeah, I'm gonna want to roll one of every class in this game. :<
Happens both ways though. Like, the original 55 monk build got Arenanet to kill a protection skill that was used in PvP.
There's nothing wrong with skills being the same in both, it's just a problem of properly balancing them. The reason they ended up doing the PvP/PvE thing was because they ended up with a pool of over 1000 skills and dual professions. They're cutting dual professions, and it sounds like they're going for a 'quality over quantity' idea with skills. Fewer skills, but they're all useful. With this approach, hopefully they can actually balance the skills decently and not have to split them or give them dual functions for different gametypes.
Who doesn't like quality?
Sorry I didn't word that well, I meant quality over quantity. As in, less quantity, but more quality.
Well, the thing is most of the 'quantity' in Guild Wars 1 was junk. it was just there to say on the back of each expansion 'Over 150 new skills!', while only about 20 or 30 of them were worth using, and that includes the new classes skills.
I highly doubt that any individual skills in GW2 will be shitty unless it's more of a thing you should use in conjunction with other skills. Then we simply need to discover what best to use it with.