what about the person who wants to play GW2, but wants to play a healer and did so in GW?
also i always play a healer. not because i'm a pretentious asshole person that OP seems to generalize but because I don't trust anyone else in the healing seat.
if you want to play a healer then find the specific profession you like the most and then spec more into that support trate and weapon combo and you'll be offering a support / heal ish roll for anyone who plays with you.
you can be anything warrior, necro, elementalist, ANYTHING and it will be welcomed and needed in a group setting.
for someone as yourself you feels highly about his skill as a healer and doesn't want to trust that to others I commend you for that which my second explination and experience of the guild I mentioned in my OP was with healers as you describe yourself.
They dedicated themselves to their job and dia an amazing job at it making our experience with them amazing!!
So if you choose to make a Theif focused support then I'm sure anyone who parties with you will be extremely happy I just hope those who join you are as dedicated to their play as you are.
what about the person who wants to play GW2, but wants to play a healer and did so in GW?
also i always play a healer. not because i'm a pretentious asshole person that OP seems to generalize but because I don't trust anyone else in the healing seat.
you can heal yourself.
healing as a mechanic is old and boring now. it's the kind of class that's making lazy players on both sides of the fence. and if it was so universally loved, there wouldn't always be a shortage of them. or of tanks. let's move on. get some action back into the game. live or die by your own merit.
what about the person who wants to play GW2, but wants to play a healer and did so in GW?
also i always play a healer. not because i'm a pretentious asshole person that OP seems to generalize but because I don't trust anyone else in the healing seat.
There are roles that are healer centric, but you won't be able to just sit back and spam healing. Mace guardian and Water Ele immediately come to mind.
If you want to heal roll Guardian, Ele, Engi and spec accordingly.
I'm not seeing the problem? Only people who have done little to no research into the classes. 25% of the ele's kit is heal spells. The engi has a dedicated weapon for healing and can drop health packs. The guardian has healing aura's and bubbles.
The reason there are so many dungeon guides for WoW that state the number of people to fill roles exactly is because these people know their role and how to accomplish it. I am a healer, I have been in raids with melee dps who think they are gods gift to online gaming. Allow me to explain what these player don’t understand, and that is the role of their class.
The Tank draws and hold the agro of the Boss. The Ranged DPS, doesn’t draw agro away from the Tank. The Healer keeps the Tank alive. The melee dps keeps the Healer and Ranged DPS alive. He does not do this by running around the zone like a chicken with its head cut off drawing the agro of every add plus the boss. If the melee dps decides it’s ever man for him self and he wont guard the squishies, the healer is healing Tank and Ranged DPS and drawing boss agro.
Guild leaders are often glad to see incompetent melee dps leave to join guilds were their lack of meaningful contribution is over shadowed by true masters of their role. If a melee dps doesn’t understand their role in a raid and can’t control their hyperactive nature, the group goes from needing one or two Healers to one or two Healers per person. Now I am not saying the OP does not know his role, or am I singling out anyone in this thread. I am only pointing out my experience from the role of a healer.
I bought GW 1, its two expansions, and two extra character slots. But my total game time I believe was less than a month spread out over 1 year. GW 1 is what drew me back to the Matrix Online. GW 1 was a re-tooling of Diablo, and I was drawn to the Lineage 2 style models. I have been reading anti-Trinity threads since the late 80’s, and have come to realize that what this faction of players want is the auto-healing found in console fps style games, anything other will not suffice. Bartle tells us that this player base ( K v K ) shuns its own kind and will not make a self sustaining MMO player base. Swtor has proven that cutting up the healer class and spreading it around does not force other player classes to assume the healer role.
I have not joined he GW2 forums and I will not being buying this game. I do not comment on GW2, I am only here to comment on the Trinity. I know you wont miss me come launch. But those who don’t learn from history, make the same mistakes repeatedly.
Pardon any spelling errors
Konfess your cyns and some maybe forgiven Boy: Why can't I talk to Him? Mom: We don't talk to Priests. As if it could exist, without being payed for. F2P means you get what you paid for. Pay nothing, get nothing. Even telemarketers wouldn't think that. It costs money to play. Therefore P2W.
I have not joined he GW2 forums and I will not being buying this game. I do not comment on GW2, I am only here to comment on the Trinity. I know you wont miss me come launch. But those who don’t learn from history, make the same mistakes repeatedly.
So if the game turns out to be a financial and critical success, are you going to come back and apologize and abase yourself?
Because if it turns out to be a complete failure, I'll totally come over here and apologize for thinking the game was going to be good.
Hopefully you can manage to the do the same if the inverse is true.
its not our traditional trinity in GW2 because they are redifining the rolls but the jobs will be there.
if you want to be a full on healie type you can you just are no longer limited by which class / race because all professions can do it.
Just because you can not target your teammate and heal him does not mean you can't heal your team. AOE Buffs / AOE Heals and AOE Shields will effect your team and will definitely be needed. in a 5 man group we'll find people assigning 1-2 people to drop into a support / healing roll so that not everyone does so which would reduce the dps.
The ability which will allow us to pick which roll we desire and fit into any roll when needed is awesome!!
giving a break down of what tanking, healing, and dps roles are prior to GW2 was defintely off topic but what ever floats your boat.
The gaming industry has floaded the market with promises of next gen mmo's or totally different gaming experience just to let us down as consumers in other areas. I think that might be one of many reasons why some people are just not interested in something that sounds as good as GW2 is coming across... To Good To be True type a deal.
Well...I'm excited about the lack of a trinity/dedicated healer and I've run into some real asses playing healers...but imo your problems stem from a terrible guild rather than something inherent in healers existing.
hard to say how this will be steered in the pvp world!in the pve world .it will probably go hybrid all the time!(self heal)one thing is sure!dedicated healer in pve wont be the norm!same for tanking everybody will be asked to share those load so cost repare isnt to 2 individual but to the whole group over all this is a good move!and will probably be way more interesting on the long run!
hard to say how this will be steered in the pvp world!in the pve world .it will probably go hybrid all the time!(self heal)one thing is sure!dedicated healer in pve wont be the norm!same for tanking everybody will be asked to share those load so cost repare isnt to 2 individual but to the whole group over all this is a good move!and will probably be way more interesting on the long run!
Dedicated tanks and healers are impossible by virtue of long healing skill cooldowns and long cooldowns on damage mitigation skills.
Seems to be an influx of anti-trinity posts lately.
Just curious though, why do people think that just because dedicated healers and dedicated tanks are gone that there is only dps?
conditions such as snares, knockdowns, immobilizers, fear, misdirection, blind, vulnerability, chilled, etcetera are all considered dps now?
what about all of the boons such as regen, movement buffs, blocks, damage reduction, endurance regen, and more
condition removals, boon removals?
There is plenty of stuff to do as support and control oriented builds. In fact, your team will do better if everyone participates in not only dps but also support and control.
The main point about removing dedicated roles is accountability. Everyone is accountable for the group success now.
There is a new trinity called Support, Control, Damage
So players will need to fill roles such as removing conditions, buffing allies, healing etc. Unfortunatly healing only falls into a good category for a few professions and I feel this may turn into the players asking for those certain classes. This is not Guild Wars' fault but falls on the community of players and forcing certain synergy with groups
So hopefully players realize that just about any group can go in, everyone has their own heals and they can trade off controling an enemy while another falls back to self heal a little while.
BULL CRAP all I did was change 3 words of the original post and then HIGHLIGHT for ignorants sake exactly what put everything into context. Just because I highlighted something that would have not been needed if people learned how to read correctly doesn't change ANYTHING in the post. I never generalised all healers and I was very specific of my personal experiences.
People ASSuming and twisting what was actually written just for the sake of causing an agrument...
No you didn't man. You changed some of the wording as well. Reason I know is the main reason I responded to begin with those lines are missing now. Plus you added some things clarifying how you weren't referring to all healers, etc. Should have quoted the original post. Figures the one time I don't...
Feel free to think everyone was twisting your words and gathering wrong assumptions though.
He obviously has noble motives. He wasn't generalizing about all healers, his edits were to simply help us ignorant, learning disabled asses who repeatedly keep reading his actual words and somehow get the impression that he is being insulting.
GW2 looks like it will be unforgiving in dungeons for players who don't pay attention, which I think is awesome. It's going to be rough for alot of players from WoW who are used to following a guide step by step with no ability to adapt on the fly and being carried by healers when they stand in the fire, that's how it went down most of the time when I was healing anyway.
Playing with bad players of any role sucked in a trinity system but good healers and tanks are much more important than good dpsers in every game I've played with a trinity, therefore you notice it more when they are bad.
I predict many noobtears in PUGs and people ragequitting the game early on after some dungeon wipes because it's a "retarded game". The noobs who are willing to take some wipes and learn from them will hopefully be taught how to pay attention to what's going on, think on their own and adapt.
Seems to be an influx of anti-trinity posts lately.
Just curious though, why do people think that just because dedicated healers and dedicated tanks are gone that there is only dps?
conditions such as snares, knockdowns, immobilizers, fear, misdirection, blind, vulnerability, chilled, etcetera are all considered dps now?
what about all of the boons such as regen, movement buffs, blocks, damage reduction, endurance regen, and more
condition removals, boon removals?
There is plenty of stuff to do as support and control oriented builds. In fact, your team will do better if everyone participates in not only dps but also support and control.
The main point about removing dedicated roles is accountability. Everyone is accountable for the group success now.
I think they assume that "Trinity - tanks - healers = DPS".
But you are right, things are more complicated than that here. It is static roles that goes out the window (or "dedicated" if you prefer that term) and that means there will be no static DPS either.
Maybe we should use the popular buzzword and call it "dynamic roles" instead, that might be clearer than no trinity?
Seems to be an influx of anti-trinity posts lately.
Just curious though, why do people think that just because dedicated healers and dedicated tanks are gone that there is only dps?
conditions such as snares, knockdowns, immobilizers, fear, misdirection, blind, vulnerability, chilled, etcetera are all considered dps now?
what about all of the boons such as regen, movement buffs, blocks, damage reduction, endurance regen, and more
condition removals, boon removals?
There is plenty of stuff to do as support and control oriented builds. In fact, your team will do better if everyone participates in not only dps but also support and control.
The main point about removing dedicated roles is accountability. Everyone is accountable for the group success now.
I think they assume that "Trinity - tanks - healers = DPS".
But you are right, things are more complicated than that here. It is static roles that goes out the window (or "dedicated" if you prefer that term) and that means there will be no static DPS either.
Maybe we should use the popular buzzword and call it "dynamic roles" instead, that might be clearer than no trinity?
dynamic roles sounds right. pretty much everything in this game seems dynamic, which is the most exciting thing about it. i think the initial learning curve will seem steep, but in the end i anticipate high levels of fun and interaction.
the point of the OP is this in simple terms so raging nerds can calm the hell down:
You can be a dedicated healer in your party in GW2 but that isn't what I'm saying Dedicated healer = one race one class is the only race / class that can be a healer.
just because you were a good healer doesn't mean this post is about you, infact good for you for doing your class justice. But to act like nobody has experienced what I did and explained is ignorant at best. yes other classes had similar issues but thats a different topic.
its funny how some didn't even read the OP in its entirety or like others who just JUMPED into RAGE at the first sentance instead of reading the entire post in context.
Explaining the Trinity ROLES and GW2 Roles is off topic and has nothing to do with what my post was about.
most of us know what the traditional roles are and most of us have experienced bad dedicated healers. I just explained my specific experiences with bad healers and good healers SPECIFICALLY.
do you have bad experiences with dedicated healers? that is what this post is about not to teach others what the trinity is or what gw2 roles...
Reading one line that says "the reason I'm glad dedicated healers aren't in GW2 is =" and then flaming me for it is asinine because that was the ONLY comment that was generalised but if you add in the specific explination in context like english is supposed to be read instead of nerd raging you can understand that I didn't flame all healers infact my second experience was a great one with great healers.
in simple I'm happy no specific profession is dedicated and that all professions can play all rolls. If you want to discuss why OTHER specific dedicated rolls are good bad or indifferent then we can make a different thread but that is not the topic of this thread. This thread isn't about bashing healers dedicated or not, its about my personal experience with a bad guild and bad healers and why I'm personally happy that dedicated healers are not in GW2.
The problem with the healers and more so with the tank is that if you're not good at it, it's pretty obvious, people start dying. You can be the worse possible damage dealer and in most cases won't affect the outcome of the battle, unless there is an enrage timer somewhere.
GW2 seem to promote a more casual approach to gaming. Since noone can be a dedicated something, everyone can be excused at being bad at ... well, everything. Who will tell if you can't mitigate damage properly, or crowd control properly, or do tons of damage. Noone, there is no way of telling if you're good or bad, since they can't know if you are build for this style of combat. Hence there is no pressure. One body among the many in the sea of dynamic events.
For me, having no defined roles is a minus in my book. Not as big a minus of course so as to skip the game, ultimately I don't mind soloing the game (by myself or in a group), (yes, it does sound weird talking about soloing as a group). Still, you count all the positives and the negatives and you either find the game enjoyable or not.
Like LOTRO that I'm playing right now. I find the avatars horrid, but the game has other redeeming qualities, so I'm staying subscribed for this month at least.
As I see it the real probalem there wasn´t the dedicated healer but the fact that things were so simple that you actually could complete the raids with some useless players. That is really a difficulty issue.
Still, if I was a officer those people would be kicked in an instant. The whole idea is that everyone should contribute to the guild and that lag thing sounds like a bad excuse for plain sucking at playing.
I think having no dedicated healer will feel fresh but no game can keep players who suck and leech on others away. In GW2 they will at least get worse rewards when they stand and being useless in the DEs but it wont keep them away.
IB4 a player focuses his entire playstyle around healing and those recieving said heals love it.
I personally plan on building a support focused spec to support my guild members but with a change of weapons it'll change to what I need for the circumstances needed.
I've always played a Tank / Healer because like others have said I could not depend on others to correctly fill those roles. Finding a good tank or a good healer was always a crap shoot. Finding DPS was a dime a dozen cause it really didn't matter unless an enrage timer was in effect.
We plan on supporting huge arranged groups for w3v3 to help our specific server conquer and be competative. Our commanders will need to be able to fill every role possible and be able to help control choke points and support the groups they control in battle.
Will I need people who spec healing / support? Definately!!!
Tanks are just a flavor of Control, but it has become so dominant that most players have forgotten what control used to mean in an MMO. (I remember MMOs that required deidicated Crowd Control because the tank/healer combination would never be enough to keep up with the focused fire of mobs on a single individual).
Healers are just a flavor of Support, but as with tanks, healing has become so predominant as the required form of support that most players have forgotten what the full range of support can encompass. (Anyone remember when buffs/debuffs were as important as healing)?
Damage has essentially maintained it's diversity over time. Burst vs. Sustained. Area of Effect vs. Single target. Ranged vs. Melee. GW2 maintains that diversity, while also expecting damage builds to bring some level of support and control to the battlefield.
GW2 deliberately over-compensates in order to correct the imbalance and force players to start to consider other forms of support and control.
Some builds can absorb or mitigate more damage than others and some builds can heal more than others, but the tank/healer combination is once again no longer sufficient, which forces players to consider other options.
All professions in GW2 are essentially Hybrids. Different builds will represent different balances between the triad of Damage:Support:Control, but few, if any builds will be able to rely solely on one leg of the triad. In fact, versatility may be much more important than focus in GW2.
Lately I am considering this game more as a coop than as an actual MMO.
This is not trying to flame the game or any similar thing.
Actually, if you had asked me some months ago, I would have said that I had no interested in playing GW2 just becouse there is no dedicated healer. My main in any MMO that I have played has always been a healer. I just love the role. And not having the possibility of playing a dedicated healer was putting me off.
However, if I look at it from a kind of "Diabloish" perspective, then things look really interesting. Few but meaning skills, the non-instanced non-persistent content scales up with the size of the party, randomly generated encounters, and you can do stuff solo at any time but fun and rewards are better with bigger teams. Those things made Diablo a great game and will probably make GW2 a great one too.
And trust me I am not trying to start that so old "it's not an actual MMO" argument, becouse I honestly couldn't care less.
Comments
if you want to play a healer then find the specific profession you like the most and then spec more into that support trate and weapon combo and you'll be offering a support / heal ish roll for anyone who plays with you.
you can be anything warrior, necro, elementalist, ANYTHING and it will be welcomed and needed in a group setting.
for someone as yourself you feels highly about his skill as a healer and doesn't want to trust that to others I commend you for that which my second explination and experience of the guild I mentioned in my OP was with healers as you describe yourself.
They dedicated themselves to their job and dia an amazing job at it making our experience with them amazing!!
So if you choose to make a Theif focused support then I'm sure anyone who parties with you will be extremely happy I just hope those who join you are as dedicated to their play as you are.
you can heal yourself.
healing as a mechanic is old and boring now. it's the kind of class that's making lazy players on both sides of the fence. and if it was so universally loved, there wouldn't always be a shortage of them. or of tanks. let's move on. get some action back into the game. live or die by your own merit.
There are roles that are healer centric, but you won't be able to just sit back and spam healing. Mace guardian and Water Ele immediately come to mind.
If you want to heal roll Guardian, Ele, Engi and spec accordingly.
I'm not seeing the problem? Only people who have done little to no research into the classes. 25% of the ele's kit is heal spells. The engi has a dedicated weapon for healing and can drop health packs. The guardian has healing aura's and bubbles.
The reason there are so many dungeon guides for WoW that state the number of people to fill roles exactly is because these people know their role and how to accomplish it. I am a healer, I have been in raids with melee dps who think they are gods gift to online gaming. Allow me to explain what these player don’t understand, and that is the role of their class.
The Tank draws and hold the agro of the Boss. The Ranged DPS, doesn’t draw agro away from the Tank. The Healer keeps the Tank alive. The melee dps keeps the Healer and Ranged DPS alive. He does not do this by running around the zone like a chicken with its head cut off drawing the agro of every add plus the boss. If the melee dps decides it’s ever man for him self and he wont guard the squishies, the healer is healing Tank and Ranged DPS and drawing boss agro.
Guild leaders are often glad to see incompetent melee dps leave to join guilds were their lack of meaningful contribution is over shadowed by true masters of their role. If a melee dps doesn’t understand their role in a raid and can’t control their hyperactive nature, the group goes from needing one or two Healers to one or two Healers per person. Now I am not saying the OP does not know his role, or am I singling out anyone in this thread. I am only pointing out my experience from the role of a healer.
I bought GW 1, its two expansions, and two extra character slots. But my total game time I believe was less than a month spread out over 1 year. GW 1 is what drew me back to the Matrix Online. GW 1 was a re-tooling of Diablo, and I was drawn to the Lineage 2 style models. I have been reading anti-Trinity threads since the late 80’s, and have come to realize that what this faction of players want is the auto-healing found in console fps style games, anything other will not suffice. Bartle tells us that this player base ( K v K ) shuns its own kind and will not make a self sustaining MMO player base. Swtor has proven that cutting up the healer class and spreading it around does not force other player classes to assume the healer role.
I have not joined he GW2 forums and I will not being buying this game. I do not comment on GW2, I am only here to comment on the Trinity. I know you wont miss me come launch. But those who don’t learn from history, make the same mistakes repeatedly.
Boy: Why can't I talk to Him?
Mom: We don't talk to Priests.
As if it could exist, without being payed for.
F2P means you get what you paid for. Pay nothing, get nothing.
Even telemarketers wouldn't think that.
It costs money to play. Therefore P2W.
So if the game turns out to be a financial and critical success, are you going to come back and apologize and abase yourself?
Because if it turns out to be a complete failure, I'll totally come over here and apologize for thinking the game was going to be good.
Hopefully you can manage to the do the same if the inverse is true.
its not our traditional trinity in GW2 because they are redifining the rolls but the jobs will be there.
if you want to be a full on healie type you can you just are no longer limited by which class / race because all professions can do it.
Just because you can not target your teammate and heal him does not mean you can't heal your team. AOE Buffs / AOE Heals and AOE Shields will effect your team and will definitely be needed. in a 5 man group we'll find people assigning 1-2 people to drop into a support / healing roll so that not everyone does so which would reduce the dps.
The ability which will allow us to pick which roll we desire and fit into any roll when needed is awesome!!
giving a break down of what tanking, healing, and dps roles are prior to GW2 was defintely off topic but what ever floats your boat.
The gaming industry has floaded the market with promises of next gen mmo's or totally different gaming experience just to let us down as consumers in other areas. I think that might be one of many reasons why some people are just not interested in something that sounds as good as GW2 is coming across... To Good To be True type a deal.
Well...I'm excited about the lack of a trinity/dedicated healer and I've run into some real asses playing healers...but imo your problems stem from a terrible guild rather than something inherent in healers existing.
hard to say how this will be steered in the pvp world!in the pve world .it will probably go hybrid all the time!(self heal)one thing is sure!dedicated healer in pve wont be the norm!same for tanking everybody will be asked to share those load so cost repare isnt to 2 individual but to the whole group over all this is a good move!and will probably be way more interesting on the long run!
Dedicated tanks and healers are impossible by virtue of long healing skill cooldowns and long cooldowns on damage mitigation skills.
So, yeah. Everybody has to pitch in.
Seems to be an influx of anti-trinity posts lately.
Just curious though, why do people think that just because dedicated healers and dedicated tanks are gone that there is only dps?
conditions such as snares, knockdowns, immobilizers, fear, misdirection, blind, vulnerability, chilled, etcetera are all considered dps now?
what about all of the boons such as regen, movement buffs, blocks, damage reduction, endurance regen, and more
condition removals, boon removals?
There is plenty of stuff to do as support and control oriented builds. In fact, your team will do better if everyone participates in not only dps but also support and control.
The main point about removing dedicated roles is accountability. Everyone is accountable for the group success now.
There is a new trinity called Support, Control, Damage
So players will need to fill roles such as removing conditions, buffing allies, healing etc. Unfortunatly healing only falls into a good category for a few professions and I feel this may turn into the players asking for those certain classes. This is not Guild Wars' fault but falls on the community of players and forcing certain synergy with groups
So hopefully players realize that just about any group can go in, everyone has their own heals and they can trade off controling an enemy while another falls back to self heal a little while.
I don't think that's what anybody here has said at all. What people have been saying is "everybody has to pitch in on everything."
He obviously has noble motives. He wasn't generalizing about all healers, his edits were to simply help us ignorant, learning disabled asses who repeatedly keep reading his actual words and somehow get the impression that he is being insulting.
GW2 looks like it will be unforgiving in dungeons for players who don't pay attention, which I think is awesome. It's going to be rough for alot of players from WoW who are used to following a guide step by step with no ability to adapt on the fly and being carried by healers when they stand in the fire, that's how it went down most of the time when I was healing anyway.
Playing with bad players of any role sucked in a trinity system but good healers and tanks are much more important than good dpsers in every game I've played with a trinity, therefore you notice it more when they are bad.
I predict many noobtears in PUGs and people ragequitting the game early on after some dungeon wipes because it's a "retarded game". The noobs who are willing to take some wipes and learn from them will hopefully be taught how to pay attention to what's going on, think on their own and adapt.
I think they assume that "Trinity - tanks - healers = DPS".
But you are right, things are more complicated than that here. It is static roles that goes out the window (or "dedicated" if you prefer that term) and that means there will be no static DPS either.
Maybe we should use the popular buzzword and call it "dynamic roles" instead, that might be clearer than no trinity?
dynamic roles sounds right. pretty much everything in this game seems dynamic, which is the most exciting thing about it. i think the initial learning curve will seem steep, but in the end i anticipate high levels of fun and interaction.
the point of the OP is this in simple terms so raging nerds can calm the hell down:
You can be a dedicated healer in your party in GW2 but that isn't what I'm saying Dedicated healer = one race one class is the only race / class that can be a healer.
just because you were a good healer doesn't mean this post is about you, infact good for you for doing your class justice. But to act like nobody has experienced what I did and explained is ignorant at best. yes other classes had similar issues but thats a different topic.
its funny how some didn't even read the OP in its entirety or like others who just JUMPED into RAGE at the first sentance instead of reading the entire post in context.
Explaining the Trinity ROLES and GW2 Roles is off topic and has nothing to do with what my post was about.
most of us know what the traditional roles are and most of us have experienced bad dedicated healers. I just explained my specific experiences with bad healers and good healers SPECIFICALLY.
do you have bad experiences with dedicated healers? that is what this post is about not to teach others what the trinity is or what gw2 roles...
Reading one line that says "the reason I'm glad dedicated healers aren't in GW2 is =" and then flaming me for it is asinine because that was the ONLY comment that was generalised but if you add in the specific explination in context like english is supposed to be read instead of nerd raging you can understand that I didn't flame all healers infact my second experience was a great one with great healers.
in simple I'm happy no specific profession is dedicated and that all professions can play all rolls. If you want to discuss why OTHER specific dedicated rolls are good bad or indifferent then we can make a different thread but that is not the topic of this thread. This thread isn't about bashing healers dedicated or not, its about my personal experience with a bad guild and bad healers and why I'm personally happy that dedicated healers are not in GW2.
The problem with the healers and more so with the tank is that if you're not good at it, it's pretty obvious, people start dying. You can be the worse possible damage dealer and in most cases won't affect the outcome of the battle, unless there is an enrage timer somewhere.
GW2 seem to promote a more casual approach to gaming. Since noone can be a dedicated something, everyone can be excused at being bad at ... well, everything. Who will tell if you can't mitigate damage properly, or crowd control properly, or do tons of damage. Noone, there is no way of telling if you're good or bad, since they can't know if you are build for this style of combat. Hence there is no pressure. One body among the many in the sea of dynamic events.
For me, having no defined roles is a minus in my book. Not as big a minus of course so as to skip the game, ultimately I don't mind soloing the game (by myself or in a group), (yes, it does sound weird talking about soloing as a group). Still, you count all the positives and the negatives and you either find the game enjoyable or not.
Like LOTRO that I'm playing right now. I find the avatars horrid, but the game has other redeeming qualities, so I'm staying subscribed for this month at least.
/ end thread.
IB4 a player focuses his entire playstyle around healing and those recieving said heals love it.
Everything I say is my opinion or personal preference. You may or may not find it useful to your cause but regardless I am entitled to it.
I personally plan on building a support focused spec to support my guild members but with a change of weapons it'll change to what I need for the circumstances needed.
I've always played a Tank / Healer because like others have said I could not depend on others to correctly fill those roles. Finding a good tank or a good healer was always a crap shoot. Finding DPS was a dime a dozen cause it really didn't matter unless an enrage timer was in effect.
We plan on supporting huge arranged groups for w3v3 to help our specific server conquer and be competative. Our commanders will need to be able to fill every role possible and be able to help control choke points and support the groups they control in battle.
Will I need people who spec healing / support? Definately!!!
Tanks are just a flavor of Control, but it has become so dominant that most players have forgotten what control used to mean in an MMO. (I remember MMOs that required deidicated Crowd Control because the tank/healer combination would never be enough to keep up with the focused fire of mobs on a single individual).
Healers are just a flavor of Support, but as with tanks, healing has become so predominant as the required form of support that most players have forgotten what the full range of support can encompass. (Anyone remember when buffs/debuffs were as important as healing)?
Damage has essentially maintained it's diversity over time. Burst vs. Sustained. Area of Effect vs. Single target. Ranged vs. Melee. GW2 maintains that diversity, while also expecting damage builds to bring some level of support and control to the battlefield.
GW2 deliberately over-compensates in order to correct the imbalance and force players to start to consider other forms of support and control.
Some builds can absorb or mitigate more damage than others and some builds can heal more than others, but the tank/healer combination is once again no longer sufficient, which forces players to consider other options.
All professions in GW2 are essentially Hybrids. Different builds will represent different balances between the triad of Damage:Support:Control, but few, if any builds will be able to rely solely on one leg of the triad. In fact, versatility may be much more important than focus in GW2.
Want to know more about GW2 and why there is so much buzz? Start here: Guild Wars 2 Mass Info for the Uninitiated
Lately I am considering this game more as a coop than as an actual MMO.
This is not trying to flame the game or any similar thing.
Actually, if you had asked me some months ago, I would have said that I had no interested in playing GW2 just becouse there is no dedicated healer. My main in any MMO that I have played has always been a healer. I just love the role. And not having the possibility of playing a dedicated healer was putting me off.
However, if I look at it from a kind of "Diabloish" perspective, then things look really interesting. Few but meaning skills, the non-instanced non-persistent content scales up with the size of the party, randomly generated encounters, and you can do stuff solo at any time but fun and rewards are better with bigger teams. Those things made Diablo a great game and will probably make GW2 a great one too.
And trust me I am not trying to start that so old "it's not an actual MMO" argument, becouse I honestly couldn't care less.