24 replies to this topic

[Isms]

I'd like to hear every ones' thoughts on who they think adds the best support to a team.

For me it's up between Ele and Guardian. While the guardian does have his epic tome and great melee support, the tome heal seems to be on a longer cooldown than Ele heals. While Ele heals only seem to slightly top of allies, they can be spec'd to remove conditions in large areas quite consistently, which in many cases are worth just as much point-for-point in hp as the guardian's full party heal. I put the edge slightly in favor of Elementalist until the community learns to effectively use light field combos to remove conditions.

[Kormir]

Isms, on 24 July 2012 - 07:05 PM, said:

I'd like to hear every ones' thoughts on who they think adds the best support to a team.

For me it's up between Ele and Guardian. While the guardian does have his epic tome and great melee support, the tome heal seems to be on a longer cooldown than Ele heals. While Ele heals only seem to slightly top of allies, they can be spec'd to remove conditions in large areas quite consistently, which in many cases are worth just as much point-for-point in hp as the guardian's full party heal. I put the edge slightly in favor of Elementalist until the community learns to effectively use light field combos to remove conditions.

guardian by farr the best support, other profesiions can support good too like a spirit ranger build, an elixer engineer and ele in water attunement but guardian is imo the best support

[Alaroxr]

The Elementalist, Guardian, Necromancer, Mesmer, and Engineer all have good defensive support, and the Thief, Warrior, and Ranger all have good offensive support. However, the defensive and offensive overlap of course.

It all depends on which the situation calls for... trying to say "This is the best" won't work. It's not like healing which can be objectively measured by pure numbers... support is so situational and is so many different things, you can't say which is the best, because no one Profession is ideal for a situation.

For example, on the Spider Queen fight you would want a Necromancer or Mesmer most likely. Against Kholer you would probably want a Thief. In the Graveling fight you would want a Ranger.

--------------

Straight up healing is overrated in Guild Wars 2.

Edited by Alaroxr, 24 July 2012 - 09:49 PM.

[Sausajoooz]

Try not to think of healing being the only way to support, which is what it seems like you are doing if I am correctly understanding your post. Think of all the ways classes allow players to never take/diminish damage. Like Alaroxr said very well, there are different kinds of support, and every class is very capable at pitching in.

[Fiery Lily]

I got to agree: healing is not the only possible support even if it's an important part of it. Debuffing a boss/mob with vulnerability or weakness or chill or whatever is a big form of support. And same thing goes for buffing your allies with protection or might.

I really think everybody running a dungeon should have the quick res utility, really too useful to pass on and overall i dont think pure dps builds would cut it in a dungeon. Maybe would be nice to have one specced that way but 2 is already too much (at least for explorable)...

That said i dont know who can provide the best support: i just know i'm an ele and pretty happy with my support options. One thing to be said though is guardian has access to aegis that only that profession can provide (and mesmers but in a non reliable way if i'm correct).

Edited by Fiery Lily, 24 July 2012 - 10:21 PM.

[Dastion]

I'd say Guardian, they are heavily support oriented.  

Mace/Shield & Staff seem like a good combo for helping keep allies alive while still easily switching between melee or medium ranged role as necessary.

With that said, ele's  might not be as supportive, but they have a ton more flexibility.

[Maxtofunator]

The guardian is one of the better full defensive support classes, because from what I've seen, the elementalist AOE on the water is too small to help out the whole group and the heals are pretty weak, while the defensive abilities that the guardian can do can block off whole areas and help out. The engineer is also pretty good with his supply drop, and the healing turret as well, or if you put the elixers on your skills, you get 8 possible support type abilities to be able to use, 4 of them more for yourself, and then the last 4 to throw down on your group and help out, granting boons and healing, depending on which elixer.

[Drekor]

Guardian is probably the most well rounded defensive support.

[sajah]

The warrior is a good support too, by the way it might be the best last chance in a fight, like when everyone is down, the warrior can just vangeance himself and pop a battle standard to rez everyone.

Shouts and barriers are nice too, especially with a bow/hammer or bow/mace+shield  build.

By the way don't forget that killing is support, warrior's good at that too.

[Darkheron]

Hmm you seem caught up on healing, and if that is what you want to do, you should probably choose Elementalist, Ranger, or Guardian though a necro spec'd for Transfusion is not trivial either.

That said, healing is the weakest support in this game imo.

Just my.02

EDIT: Or Engineer.  I keep leaving those guys out for some reason lol.  They aren't half bad now either.

Edited by Darkheron, 25 July 2012 - 12:17 AM.

[Itharius]

Darkheron, on 25 July 2012 - 12:16 AM, said:

That said, healing is the weakest support in this game imo.

I like to think of healing more as a counter against condition or aoe damage. Giving 300 hps to everyone in your party isn't going to protect against failing to dodge 10k damage telegraphed attacks, but it'll help your groupmates better survive bleed ticks or unavoidable aoe.

[FrancisCrawford]

I'm sure it all depends on the kinds of support, which include but are not limited to:

• Healing & Regeneration
  
• Condition clearing
  
• Keeping Weakness on the enemy
  
• Keeping Protection on the group
  
• Hard defenses (such as missile shields)

A staff elementalist can be awesome at the first three, it seems. Other professions might be better at a different combination.

It also depends on builds. If the same elementalist swaps in Scepter/Focus before a particular room, suddenly there's some strong missile defense, but a lot of healing has been sacrificed.

[Isms]

Sorry if I made it sound like I was focusing on healing. I honestly believe healing to be an afterthought. But I noticed that my experiences involved a lot of party members having trouble keeping conditions off of them, and I feel like a heavy condition-removal class would be invaluable.

[Alaroxr]

Itharius, on 25 July 2012 - 01:32 AM, said:

I like to think of healing more as a counter against condition or aoe damage. Giving 300 hps to everyone in your party isn't going to protect against failing to dodge 10k damage telegraphed attacks, but it'll help your groupmates better survive bleed ticks or unavoidable aoe.

If that's the case, then why not just ask a Mesmer or Necromancer to pick some utilities to counter conditions?

You can have a Guardian/Ele/Engineer focus their entire builds on healing, or you can ask a Necro/Mesmer to simply take 2 specific utilities and still be good at whatever their build is made for.

AoE damage I can understand, but not conditions.

[darkblue]

Let's see ...

Warriors have the imba banner, other banners, shouts (one that remove a condition on every group member which looks great for PvE), heal on shouts, CC etc...
Guardians have great condition removal, a lot of AoE healing abilities, shouts, consecration, their virtues etc...
Eles have water, a ton of AoEs a bit more CC from air etc...
Thieves have weakness/invi/daze/blind spamming possibilities. They are also the only class I know of that can't AoE heal.
Ranger have axe/warhorn, spirits (especially the earth one) or tanky pets, a ulti that can rez, heal and remove conditions etc...
Engi have arguably the best CC, med kits, elixir guns, other elixirs, a ton of AoEs if need be etc...
Necro have the best condition removal, a lot of cripplling, chilling and fear, AoEs, boon stripping etc...
Mesmers have Chaos storm, null field, spammable clones that will tank some hits, wind of chaos spamming, AoE healing from mantras etc...

Every single class can bring some support to the group. Every single class (except the Thief) can bring AoE healing to the group without using a specific rune for that. Most classes can either bring protection or weakness to diminish the damage receive by the group. Most classes can instantly revive their ally.
Every single class also bring at least a potential weakness to the group though (even the guardian). At the end of the day, I'd rather be sure my group is not lacking somewhere like AoE damage then bringing the universal "best support class".

[Alaroxr]

darkblue, on 25 July 2012 - 06:19 AM, said:

Let's see ...

Warriors have the imba banner, other banners, shouts (one that remove a condition on every group member which looks great for PvE), heal on shouts, CC etc...
Guardians have great condition removal, a lot of AoE healing abilities, shouts, consecration, their virtues etc...
Eles have water, a ton of AoEs a bit more CC from air etc...
Thieves have weakness/invi/daze/blind spamming possibilities. They are also the only class I know of that can't AoE heal.
Ranger have axe/warhorn, spirits (especially the earth one) or tanky pets, a ulti that can rez, heal and remove conditions etc...
Engi have arguably the best CC, med kits, elixir guns, other elixirs, a ton of AoEs if need be etc...
Necro have the best condition removal, a lot of cripplling, chilling and fear, AoEs, boon stripping etc...
Mesmers have Chaos storm, null field, spammable clones that will tank some hits, wind of chaos spamming, AoE healing from mantras etc...

Every single class can bring some support to the group. Every single class (except the Thief) can bring AoE healing to the group without using a specific rune for that. Most classes can either bring protection or weakness to diminish the damage receive by the group. Most classes can instantly revive their ally.
Every single class also bring at least a potential weakness to the group though (even the guardian). At the end of the day, I'd rather be sure my group is not lacking somewhere like AoE damage then bringing the universal "best support class".

You forgot to mention the Thief's absolutely ridiculous Venom offensive support.

---------------


Basilisk Venom Your next attack turns your foe to stone.

Devourer Venom Your next two attacks Immobilize.

Ice Drake Venom Chill foes with the next three attacks.

Skale Venom Inflict vulnerability and weakness with your next three attacks.

Spider Venom Poison foes with your next five attacks.

Basilisk Elite, 3 of the bottom 4, and the following trait:

Venomous Aura- When you use a venom skill, you apply the effects to all nearby allies as well.

Plus if a Thief traits a bit more...

• Residual Venom - Applied venoms last one extra strike.
  
• Venomous Strength - When applied, venoms grant 2 stacks of might for 20 seconds.

----------------

This is also to give everyone an idea of what offensive support the Thief has... it's insane.

I'd take that any day over a healer Guardian/Elementalist/Engineer

Edited by Alaroxr, 25 July 2012 - 07:23 AM.

[Kasern]

As someone who has always preferred to play support classes (not just straight up healers, but all types of support from bards to red mages, trap monkey rogues etc) and after BWE1 and BWE2 of testing I finally settled on the Elementalist.

This is the build I was running in both BW2 and BW3 for dungeons and WvW

Staff Support + AoE Damage - aka - The Elemental Bard

http://www.gw2builds...-8.1.11.4.9.6.5


The key to this build is the use of Elemental Attunement in the Arcane line and Written in Stone in the Earth line. With Written in Stone your two Signets (Sig of Resto and Sig of Water) you will be constantly regaining health and cleansing yourself, without ever losing your passives when you need to use your heal or chill someone. Throw in the extra toughness and condition damage, the Signet recharge and Earthen Armour making you one son of a bitch to take down.


But the most important aspect of this build (at least in my experience) is the ability to throw a boon on your allies every time you switch attunements with Elemental Attunement. Add to this Soothing Mist, Cleansing Wave and Healing Ripple and you're easily one of the most important people in your group.


To top things off, Earthen Burst damages and Cripples foes when you swap to Earth, Soothing Disruption makes Cantrips (Cleansing Fire which cleanse you and burns enemies and Mist Form) grant you Vigor and Regen, while Blasting Staff means your Staff AoEs are even bigger than before.

Edited by Kasern, 25 July 2012 - 07:29 AM.

[darkblue]

Alaroxr, on 25 July 2012 - 07:17 AM, said:

snip

Oh I know about the venom build pretty well, I had an argument with GuandglaiKangyi before the beta as I was defending it. The thing is I could not be too exhaustive with every class ... I should have just write venomous aura because it says enough but well.
My point still stands. Every class have access to great support ... and they all provide potential weaknesses to your group depending on their build. Thinking about a "best support class" is not the good way to do it.

[shroudb]

it also depends on the composition of the team.

p.e. permacripplng+(almost) permachilling in aoe with engi is pretty great and ridicusly easy to pull in pve without sacrificing too much from your rest of your build, which for support it would have things like 5sec aoe swiftness with 8 sec cd, removing conditions from teammates at a ridicusly fast pace (something like 5conditions/15secs on top of my head, even more if they use the light field), 2-3stacks of might on everyone, applying poison, weakness, blinds, vulnerabilty and etc.

straight up engi healing is nothing to write home about, 1500-1800hp/medpack isn't great, neither is the 600hp heal and 200hp hot from super elixir close to what a guardian or an elementalist can push out, but all the above toghether? pretty awesome.

a build like that p.e. could pull this while being able to insntly switch from support to a real nice aoe condition dps:
http://gw2skills.net...4lwLbRuukFN2Y2A
(some skills have changed and this is not reflected in the calculator)

[FrancisCrawford]

Kasern, on 25 July 2012 - 07:29 AM, said:

But the most important aspect of this build (at least in my experience) is the ability to throw a boon on your allies every time you switch attunements with Elemental Attunement. Add to this Soothing Mist, Cleansing Wave and Healing Ripple and you're easily one of the most important people in your group.

How close do you have to stay to your allies for them to benefit?

[styken]

Isms, on 24 July 2012 - 07:05 PM, said:

I'd like to hear every ones' thoughts on who they think adds the best support to a team.

For me it's up between Ele and Guardian. While the guardian does have his epic tome and great melee support, the tome heal seems to be on a longer cooldown than Ele heals. While Ele heals only seem to slightly top of allies, they can be spec'd to remove conditions in large areas quite consistently, which in many cases are worth just as much point-for-point in hp as the guardian's full party heal. I put the edge slightly in favor of Elementalist until the community learns to effectively use light field combos to remove conditions.

the best on what? Necro is by far the best class to remove conditions from allie for example . warrior is great to add damage to allies. guardian are great to protect allies. elementalist with is auto atack staff water heal skill is great to heal allies.

no, dont exist only one class great on everything, guardian to remove condition are a joke compared Necros

all classes are great to suport, no one need a guardian to do dungeons

Edited by styken, 26 July 2012 - 09:10 AM.

[Isms]

A lot of good stuff in here, thanks guys. I hate to say it, but its really starting to look like Necro is one of the 'best' (and i say this word liberally) support classes for a dungeon scenario. I understand that every class can support, but from those with experience, it is clear (and always will be) that there are front runners. I saw Necromancer as a clear front-runner in dungeon play when I played with one, didn't even realize how strong they could be with condition-removal. That thief poison also seems rather invaluable; however, I'd expect that to be nerfed. The fact that he can apply his poisons to his group at the start of a PvP match, and they all last until the first fight, tells me that they will probably put a CD on how often it can be applied.

[Kasern]

FrancisCrawford, on 26 July 2012 - 09:01 AM, said:

How close do you have to stay to your allies for them to benefit?

Fairly close. You're going to be generally close enough in the dungeons I've seen so far.

[Sebyos]

Seems to me like every profession brings equal support, but since they are different some will be better in some situations and some other professions will be better the other times. Overall things will balance out.

For example my Necro was amazing at taking the poison condition from the spider queen then putting it back on her, but an Ele giving swiftness during the lieutenant fight was more valuable than a Necro and then a Warrior with straight up dmg and banners to boost the group dps was the best profession during the nest encounter in the library where dps counts.

I'd like to point out that Thief may not be the best support, but it's imo the best control there is. It's not so much about the number of skills to CC, but rather about the incredible duration of them. I mean most of the CC skills work for 5-6 seconds not to mention some lucky CC with steal.

Edited by Sebyos, 27 July 2012 - 03:45 AM.

[mmimzie]

Everyone will have to play a mix of dps and support and some might need to mix in some tankiness. I love necro for a beef condition removing front liner that condition signet with dagger condition transfer is just sexy