Littlekenny.4196

I don't know the specifics of the situation but the commander may have been waiting for the enemies to group together in the choke to the lord's room to then pull and spike, or thinking there was enough sustain in the 8 players to kill the lord and force the enemies to push into that choke and kill them there. You downed 4 but as you said they all got back up so it was meaningless.

Have you considered that the commanders plan may have required you and everybody else to work together. If you follow the commander then don't stick with their plan you can't call them inept since you never saw it. If that second time, you stayed on the commander and wiped instead of chasing a thief off tag then it would be fair to call them inept but you didn't give them a chance. Even if it that does sound like they don't know what they are doing, there were around 8 of you and 2 pushed the enemy so there were only 3/4 of the group together which reduces survivability. You never actually gave the commander a chance.

I play on a full server so queues are rare. Also people play on Friday because it's reset, not because it's Friday.

I guess Gandara has to sit in T5 being heavily outnumbered again

I know nothing about a PvE setup, all I know is WvW setups. Firebrand and scrapper are essential also some people try to replace scrapper with tempest which I'm against. Scourge is present for corruption spikes, medium AoE damage spikes, and good single target spikes with the ability to also provide some barrier. Rev provides the ranged spike with perma fury and some might while also having stab roads, great dwarf, f2 party wide damage reduction and reasonable melee damage. There is 1 more slot in a party which could have a chronomancer for strips, pulls and cc, spellbreaker for strips and cc, or an exotic DPS. The class in the exotic DPS slot does not need to provide boons ect to the party but can instead make use of the boons to provide the highest damage and the most downs. Usually this is taken by a DH with some range damage but mostly it's traps, symbol of punishment and sword of justice which allows it to drop damage in an area while moving or using invuln and still putting out damage. Other classes can fit in this slot too such as a berserker for its heavy melee spike with GS and offhand axe or if you want to pump damage numbers in arc then a long bow, both capable of beating a DH but harder to play. A daredevil can also be taken in this slot as a pure melee and beats out all other classes in its ability to create downs(AoE not single target). A soulbeast can also be used here with good damage from GS and axe 5 but most importantly it's ability to leap ahead and catch enemies with an immobilise. Those last 3 exotic DPS are less commonly played, harder to play, and the majority of people will play different builds in different ways and make them look bad so it's a risk for a commander to accept one.

It's not true that ranger and thief are "objectively bad in these specific types of play". You say for ranger that it's because of mostly projectile-based attacks but this is more along the lines of why they are not accepted. 99% of the people on these classes are not adjusting their builds to be more suitable to a larger scale and these are generally more difficult to understand and play. Most thief's I see are using a shortbow or shadowstep which means they will never match other classes but I know that daredevil can be a crazy strong DPS. If a ranger has a bow then they are also not designed for that scale, a GS/axe+axe soulbeast with immobs and damage is and can have a significant impact on taking out a chunk of the enemies.

Basing the matchups on player numbers is worse than on playtime. Just because there are more players it doesn't mean that those players will always be playing so you are more likely to have even numbers although without taking into account which hours people play you can never guarantee even numbers or even remotely close numbers. The hours which people play is extremely important and I don't expect alliances to work well until it's taken into consideration, which they said it would be later on. Take Gandara as an example. The server is full so it clearly has a lot of hours played on it, but it's stuck down in the bottom tiers. This is because of coverage / a questionable scoring systems. Gandara has a significant prime time presence but lacks the off hours presence to compete with the current scoring system.

For open tags the commander would use their commander tag, people would join comms like teamspeak, then form parties usually with people they know or people would message in say chat something like "guardian lfg" to then be invited into a party. A benefit of this was that you would have some strong parties where all of the party members have played together before an know what they're doing instead of veterans supports supporting DPS who are not doing much and veteran DPS being supported by new supports due to the parties being created by the commander or Lt based on class. Also back then you didn't usually die unless you made a mistake so with this and the above, the core of the group was much more important and when fighting something like a guild raid it would usually end up as a battle between the core of the zerg and the guild. Guild raids didn't use the commander tag but just used the target market. Tldr - commanders existed, people joined teamspeak, parties were created usually of players who normally played with eachother, if you needed a party you would type it in say chat.

There is a difference between exotic and ascended but the difference in skill is way way more impact. If you look at the logs as a DPS and actually know how to get info from them (not just damage done), then you can see different groupings of people at different skill levels. The difference between exotic and ascended is not gonna come close to getting you to the next level but once you really know what you're doing it is useful to get a little higher within your group. Tldr - it really doesn't matter if you have exotic or ascended until you are good and know what you are doing, the gear won't compensate for skill.

There is only 1 FB skill which provides resistance and that is in a tome. Their only other access is from durability runes so that is unlikely to cover against a good immobeast when the scrapper can't keep up with cleansing.

I guess so if you are in a group that just pirate ships but I've not been in one of those for a while and if there are more than 4 ranged spikes per melee push I just leave since I won't have fun regardless of class.

Scourge and Daredevil don't fit in the same role. As Sub said, Scourge is a Secondary Damage/Stripper but a Daredevil (if you don't bring the GvG one) would fill the role of Primary Damage and I don't really have Scourge above me in damage or downs contribution when I'm playing Daredevil. Daredevil is capable of creating more downs and even doing more damage than all of those listed classes in 30+ fights. It takes a top tier Herald or Dragonhunter to match it, Scourge shouldn't really compete, and Weaver can beat all of them enemy stays in their AoEs but if you have a lot of movement then their effectiveness declines significantly.

I enjoy playing support Vindicator but it is far from optimal and when facing a good group it becomes less than adequate. I have a few thoughts of changes to help the viability although I don't expect them to bring it to the level of a scrapper. Tree Song Target priority changed to match the target priority of "Shake It Off!" - Tree Song tends to target party members with no conditions on them over squad members with conditions on them. This is impactful in a situation where the firebrand goes tome 2 and cleanses or a party member gets cleansed through overcleansing. The result of this is less energy generation which is required to maintain the healing to the party and for your own survivability. It then has the additional benefit of allowing more overcleansing and overhealing to come to your party while in saints shield dodge (important as the dodge can be enough time for party members to go from 100% to down). Awakening Reduce the energy cost from 35 to 15, increase cooldown from 10s to 15s - (This may be too much of a buff to cele but I'm not knowledgeable on that) currently the only time this should be used is when you are guaranteed to die if you don't break the stun, in which case you have no energy left and your party will most likely die, or if you have too much energy and the FB doesn't stunbreak, which should not be the case. This would allow the skill to be used while maintaining the energy to keep healing although it would still have a significant enough cost to then have to choose between energy meld and tree song. Saint's Shield Additional effect - 15% of outgoing healing applies to outgoing barrier - This helps restore some of the potency of Saint's Shield which was lost in the nerf without buffing celestial. A support Vindicator will have around 100% outgoing healing which would still leave the barrier at slightly less than pre nerf. Dodge duration reduced to 75% of its current duration - The time spent in the dodge animation can be enough time for party members to go from 100% health to down. This reduction will reduce the gap between healing at the cost of needing to survive for longer with no dodge (as the energy regenerates while dodging). Urn of Saint Viktor Remove and replace - The removal of healing makes using this skill suicide and the benefits are very weak. It would be good for this skill to have a low enough energy cost that you have enough left to keep the party alive and it would be good to provide superspeed or a high value boon like resistance as part of it.

From the perspective of playing support in WvW. I think the target priority of Tree Song needs to be changed to use the same target priority as shake it off. In theory Tree Song cleanses the same amount of conditions as shake it off but it practice it isn't close as the skill tends to select party members who have no conditions on them and just applies regen to them. This change would increase the overall cleansing and healing within the squad which would allow overhealing and overcleansing from scrapper or FB to take the edge off the vindicator's party while they are in the dodge animation. It would also more consistently cleanse conditions which results in more consistent energy regen from the skill making the rotation more comfortable and no longer having the entire thing ruined by target selection.

Direct damage requires power, precision, ferocity to do any damage. Condi damage requires Condi damage and maybe expertise to do damage. This leaves a free stat while still at maximum damage. This means the Condi character will survive long enough for the conditions to be of value. It also means that the Condi character can counter direct damage with no loss from toughness while the power character had to make sacrifices to counter Condi. Neither of these things I said as counters nullify the opponent and I see them as equivalent. TLDR - stats give Condi the advantage, don't have stats with Condi damage + expertise + toughness

In that first point, that 8+ years is an exaggeration. The meta 8 years ago was very different to how it is today and imo better than it is today. Shortly after HoT release it was also very different since that's where I quit and on returning to the game I had to forget what I knew to learn the new meta and ended up switching class. I have a similar experience with the other 2 points though except for quitting due to bad changes and returning because even in its current state, I can't find anything that can compete with it.

And you demand a nerf to cele builds so thief's can become the literally untouchable gods of roaming again? I think that's the way you do things with escalating a statement and with the assertion at the end. I demand a hard nerf do I?

That's not fact. WvW isn't PvP. Every good PvP team requires a thief. Yes I think a nerf to the stealth of a thief is justified.

The thief has solid potential to kill. Idk where the idea that it's impossible to kill while playing it comes from. It's easier to kill a minstril guard, than an average skill thief, but you don't need to pay any attention to that guard cos all it's gonna do is cc you and put you in combat. It has no superspeed, leaps, teleports or damage so its not much of a problem. Also I have played a roaming thief and >90% of my playtime in the past year has been on thief.

The thief locks you in combat and get multiple attempts against you by stealthing and resetting. You have to be paying attention and trying to predict where they will move and when they will attack while they just move out of the red circles if you predict correctly which is a big imbalance of focus and skill requirements. There are cele builds which are stronger and just as easy to play but at least they don't waste your time and when you're gonna kill them they die. It also helps to be able to see what you're fighting to learn what they are doing and to know if they are trying to escape or staying to fight.

Idk if people are claiming that thief is the best class at killing but it it is definitely the best class at not being killed and is easier than anything else I've played at it, including warrior. It isn't guaranteed to kill enemies but you only die from your own mistakes. Imo thief is just broken af. I run a staff/staff zerg build (no SA or shadowstep) and still kill stuff when I get ganked while trying to regroup because of the stupid amounts of mobility, evasion, and damage (if you take a damage weapon it does a lot of damage).

It's not better to buff things to become meta. Constant power creep in all directions just results in less control and too much passively happening e.g. how many of the output boons and conditions are deliberately applied at deliberate times? There are very few, and the spam and power creep of strips and cleanses means you're not choosing to strip or cleanse as a reaction to specific boons or conditions but just using them when there are conditions (and just stacking them together with strips on the spike) meaning the power creep results in less control and increases spam and luck.

I disagree that 1 player should have the kit to be able to annoy multiple players for an extended period of time as that is just toxic and when it comes to a t3 keep, people either have to keep hunting the thief and be annoyed, or lose the keep and also be annoyed.

"Every player would rather abandon a fight than die" That's statement isn't true.

Nerfs to sustain too so damage can stick instead of it being spike them to 0% or they're at 100%.