The newest article for Guild Wars 2 brings us news of death penaltys and healing from one of the game’s designers, Jon Peters.

Let’s talk about healing and the traditional MMO trinity of DPS/Healing/Tank. Well, I guess the big thing is that there will not be a dedicated healing class(le gasp!), which will leave the monk profession either gone completely or as a fist-to-face action hero (One can dream). So what does this mean for your party? Well, for one, you don’t sit around with an almost-full party looking for a healer when you could be out bashing faces in. That’s always a plus in my book. Besides, players get their own special healing skill so who needs a silly healer?

So, if you’re not healing, then what? Support is the new healing, but it’s so much more than just keeping your team alive. “Healing is the least dynamic kind of support there is. It is reactive instead of proactive. Healing is for when you are already losing. In Guild Wars 2 we prefer that you support your allies before they take a beating.” Jon said, and that makes sense. A lot of sense, actually. So, this means skills such as Grasping Earth and Shield Block play a more important role in supporting your team other than just yourself.

“We use our cross-profession combos to fill in the rest of our support. An elementalist can create a Firewall or Static Field to improve the ranged attacks of his allies. A warrior can carry a Banner of Wisdom around the battlefield to increase the power of his allies’ magical attacks. An elementalist might cast an ice spell to freeze enemies, but that same spell might give his allies Frost Armor to protect them from incoming attacks. When you boil it down, support is just the friendly way for players to work together to accomplish a shared goal.”

What about DPS? Well, DPS can never be changed too much. It’s your main damage, but what you can change is how you to inflict it. For example, you have DOT (Damage Over Time), AoE (Area of Effect), and projectile attacks which leave you somewhere between the back line and your target, but the twist is you could have an AoE DOT or a projectile AoE DOT or Kormir-only-knows how many skills could combine for different effects. “Try shooting a spread of seven arrows through a wall of fire–it works wonders for roasting up a set of attacking monsters or enemy players.” Fun times.

As for tanking, well, tanking in today’s standard MMO has become more about taking damage and keeping aggro rather than controlling the field of battle, but GW2 is looking to change that. Already in Guild Wars there is knockdown, cripple, blind, and others that help to control enemie’s actions and hopefully GW2 will build upon that.

“There are a lot of different levels of control, from a simple cripple, to an immobilize, to a knockdown. Each one has its place. The more devastating control effects are, the more infrequently they need to occur, and their duration needs to be shorter. Knockdown is one of the strongest forms of control in Guild Wars 2, but you won’t see a character that can just keep knocking someone down indefinitely, and you won’t see a knockdown that puts an enemy out for so long that they won’t be able to react. It’s simply a tool that players have at their disposal to use at the right times to turn the tide of a battle.”

“You could say instead of DPS/heal/tank, we have our own trinity of damage, support, and control…” says Jon, and I agree, and it sounds fantastic. Using all of your team members to help control the battlefield, for example, a warrior knocks down an enemy chasing an ally elementalist in trouble, then that elementalist can cast Gasping Earth slowing a large group of enemies closing in on the back line while a ranger cripples the group further then to finish it off, the elementalist burns them all? How is that not sweet?

So, what about the other part of the article, the whole “Death” part? Well, in a short summary as Jon puts it, “Defeat in Guild Wars 2 is intended to be an experience, not a punishment.” Long version, is, well, a little more than that.

Since forever I’ve been playing Guild Wars and other MMOs, Death has always penalized me with DP in one way or another. Either DP be lost experience (Diablo 2) or lower stats (Guild Wars) or whatever (Star Trek Online) it’s no fun to die. ArenaNet is looking to make death just a tad bit more fun for players and to do that, it’s introducing a new mechanic called “downed mode.” Instead of being immediately defeated when your health hits zero, you enter downed mode where you have a certain amount of skills they can use on enemies and have a chance to survive, but on the flip side, you can still be attacked and eventually sent into a defeated state where you must be resurrected or res at a waypoint shrine.

So, in downed mode, a warrior might be able to lug a rock at an enemy causing him to be dazed, or an elementalist might cast grasping earth to slow enemies around them, but if you can kill an enemy while downed, you will rally back to life to continue the fight, which reminds me a bit of Borderlands and their own downed mode, which is a great feature. “This potential to rally from the edge of defeat adds greater drama to combat and gives a player some tactical control while in a state where they normally have none.”

But, some professions will have skills that will rally back downed team members, for example, a warrior can use “I Will Avenge You” and kill an enemy who is near downed allies, and the allies will rally back to life. But fret not if you don’t have a special skill, as any profession at any level will be able to interact with a downed or defeated ally to bring them back to life.

What about an actual death penalty? “Players who have recently been downed several times will take longer to revive each time. If no one revives you, you can spend a small amount of gold to come back at a waypoint.” Easy, simple, and clean. I love it. This is probably why there isn’t a dedicated healing class.

Overall, ArenaNet has seem to put a lot of thought into this, and I can not wait to get my hands on it this upcoming PAX, and that’s probably all I’ll be doing in Seattle, but don’t take my word for it (or do so) and check out the full article. It’ll make you excited, I promise.