Support Guardians and Rewards

[Alaris]

This is probably what I love most about the guardian. Even if you focus your efforts entirely on DPS, you're STILL shedding some goodness on everyone around you. You just can't help it.

The thing is that, and this is imo a valid concern, that guardians are often faced with the choice between helping an ally or tag a foe. Or keep your virtues and be stronger, or share them to the team and make them stronger and yourself weaker. I've made that choice many times, knowing that in the time I put a bubble to save someone, that foe I could have tagged could be dead. Or that by sharing my virtues, I had to play more safely because I could more easily die. Making that choice is gameplay, getting rewards either way is good balance.

If I choose to play more defense/support, yes I can still attack and do damage (and I most certainly will) but again I won't be tagging as many foes as my more dps-centered allies despite that we both contribute to the fight.

I'm not a farmer so it's a minor issue for me if I get a bit less income when I play the way I want to. But I should not have to make that choice in the first place.

I dunno about OP but I commonly see guardians just standing there whacking mobs and the guardians health doesn't go down.

Well, they are tough, but a lot of that is their skills and virtues. A guardian who used his skills can go down pretty quick.

[Raye]

Would you say that you notice a difference in regular play though, Alaris?

[BrettM]

If I choose to play more defense/support, yes I can still attack and do damage (and I most certainly will) but again I won't be tagging as many foes as my more dps-centered allies despite that we both contribute to the fight.

I'm not a farmer so it's a minor issue for me if I get a bit less income when I play the way I want to. But I should not have to make that choice in the first place.

But are we talking individual loot drops or overall event credit? You may tag fewer monsters, but you are probably still tagging enough to get gold credit for the event. So event credit is not really affected by these choices except for guardians following the pattern of doing nothing but bubbles and rezzes.

How would you fix the problem of fewer monsters tagged for individual loot so there's no choice to be made? This isn't unique to the guardian, though guardians may face the choice a bit more often. An ele casting a Geyser or Healing Rain isn't tagging any monsters, either. Nor is any warrior who stops to plant or move a banner, or an engineer who pops a medkit and starts throwing out bandages. So any fix for the problem would have to cover anyone of any profession who elects to use a skill that benefits others without doing damage to foes. But I don't see a solution other than monsters acting as if they were tagged if someone uses a pure-support skill in their vicinity. Which sounds pretty silly to me.

[Alaris]

Would you say that you notice a difference in regular play though, Alaris?

I'm not too concerned with loot, I prefer to have fun.

Even then, I probably would play more defensive at times especially in WvW if I knew I could get credits for kills.

But are we talking individual loot drops or overall event credit? (...) How would you fix the problem of fewer monsters tagged for individual loot so there's no choice to be made?

It's a general problem playing support, I agree. I have the same dilemma with my engineer.

I'm talking about individual loot and in WvW, credit for kills. Event credit is easy to get even playing support.

I would fix it by adding participation for kills if you actually manage to heal allies or protect them, and tweak the amount of heal/prot needed until you can get a roughly equal participation. And I would put a limit to how much you can do this without doing damage, you still need to do some damage... but if you heal you need to do less damage to get your threshold.

Something like that.

[BrettM]

I would fix it by adding participation for kills if you actually manage to heal allies or protect them, and tweak the amount of heal/prot needed until you can get a roughly equal participation. And I would put a limit to how much you can do this without doing damage, you still need to do some damage... but if you heal you need to do less damage to get your threshold.

An interesting thought! However, doesn't it open up a real can of worms? If Player A gets credit for throwing a heal on another player, shouldn't Player B get credit for throwing on a buff that increases that player's damage? Player B is damaging the monster indirectly, contributing to the kill. What about an ele who spends a considerable amount of time placing fields that others are using to kill the baddies faster?

It seems like it would be an accounting nightmare to sort out who placed what fields, triggered what buff on how many others, etc. Shouts, banners, traits like Evasive Arcana, pet squawks (does the ranger get credit?), virtues, and so forth. Then, if you can figure out all of that, you have to figure out which monsters get marked as tagged by that player despite his not having done any direct damage to them.

[Fluffball]

I'm talking about individual loot and in WvW, credit for kills.

WvW seems to hand out kills pretty liberally. I have over a thousand kill credits and that doesn't sound right to me at ALL. I'd guess I've outright killed like 200 other players.

[Alaris]

It seems like it would be an accounting nightmare to sort out (...)

Well, all of that should be included, otherwise people who care about credits will mainly do direct damage, and everyone else will get less contribution for their teamplay efforts. I was given the impression that this was a coop game, we should be rewarded as such.

They already have code to count credits, they need to extend it to support (heals, prots, and yes, damage buffs, control, etc). Once they keep track of all that, it's a rather simple task of doing some stats, figure out some combination rules and thresholds that make sense, and implement that.

Linear weighted sum is super fast, robust, and easy to implement.

WvW seems to hand out kills pretty liberally. I have over a thousand kill credits and that doesn't sound right to me at ALL. I'd guess I've outright killed like 200 other players.

I find that throwing grenades in opposing parties nets me some kills. If you use AoE's a lot, then you're probably getting kill credits because of it. Remember, it's whether you contributed, not whether you finished the foe, that is important.

[Fluffball]

Remember, it's whether you contributed, not whether you finished the foe, that is important.

Ya that's my point. You don't have to do much of anything to get credit in WvW. For example, today I autoattacked a single time and got gold credit for an event.

[Alaris]

today I autoattacked a single time and got gold credit for an event.

I find that hard to believe.

Really? Details.

[shawn]

Just play wvw. It really is generous with rewards and kill credit most of the time.