Frayze.4620

Would you mind explaining your second point as I’m not sure I see what you mean here?

You don’t say whether you are looking for a support or damage dealer build? If support just go the classic dwarf/ventari build, twin staff or staff/gs. Vomit out near perma resistance while still doing reasonable cleanse and top tier heals.

Ahh sorry, I saw WvW mentioned and thought it was you. Large groups are running vindi with bow also heralds. Much faster, can apply all damage with movement and some very nice cc as well. Takes away the terrain problems that hammer can still, after his many years now, have at the worst possible times.

This is crazy levels of op. I mean, there’s raining threads asking for small changes, but this just turns vindicator into a self healing, self cleansing, aegis+quickness+might+fury+ superspeed providing monster. There is absolutely no way this should be implemented by anyone sane.

If you haven’t seen vindi or herald running sbow in WvW recently I don’t know where you’ve been but it isn’t the same maps I’ve been on…

I’ll haves some of what you’re smoking 😂

No, it doesn’t. I’m not suggesting a huge new feature release, I’m suggesting existing skills with existing animations and existing balance be very very very slightly modified in order to provide an actual incentive for new support players and to provide a balance between support and damage players that has not existed, despite repeated promises, since the release of the game mode.

This isn't a new topic. There have been posts about this for years with promises that "we are looking into ways of doing it" but still, nothing. I am talking about the continued refusal to provide support players, whether they be heal/cleanse or stab support, with a way to get a similar amount of financial/material reward from playing WvW. This is despite the fact that, in general, squads are much more likely to be lacking supports than they are damage dealers. Couple this with the fact that gearing up as a support which, again in general requires a full minstrel set, costs SIGNIFICANTLY more than gearing up as a damage dealer. In the order of 10x the cost. If you have full leggy gear, that's great. If you've been playing for years and have the resources to get a full set from the get go, again that's great. But what about if you are new to the game or to WvW specifically? In this case the message is basically "yeah, it's going to cost you a LOT to gear for this and then once you DO have the gear, you'll get significantly less than anyone else if your squad will". Why? Why make it like this? Can you imagine going into a PVE raid and being told "Oh, you play healer? Sorry, this raid only gives loot to dps players. Sucks huh?". Nobody would run a support class in that environment. And yet this is what supports are basically told in WvW EVERY DAY. The fix doesn't seem hard to me. Simply add 1 damage to every boon/heal skill. There. Now supports can tag. They can't skew anything that is currently in place as the damage is absolutely negligible, but they can finally tag. Why can't this be done?

*looks down sadly at a dust covered quip, a small tendril of confetti still trailing out of its barrel * -“not today my boy, not today”

So every class should have exactly the same access to every mechanic and mobility skill? Sounds like a real interesting game. Oh I absolutely read the title of your post. I then chose to reply stating exactly why I disagree with basically everything you wrote as well as my reasons for disagreeing with you. I did so in a non aggressive and impartial manner, asking for clarification from you when I was unsure of any meaning either started or implied. You however very quickly tried to attack my grammar, implied I only played WvW for an hour a day with a Zerg (implying I didn’t know what I was talking about) and are now trying to imply that I only play form classes anyway so again, what do I know. I have literally no idea what you mean by this. Ok, I’l as you are now moving into insults, I’ll explain this very very simply, using my own post which you have quoted to try and “catch me out”. I have repeatedly posted in engineer forums giving my opinion that scrapper is still strong and viable. You can search this. However, I also (using your own quote of me) said that scrapper is Which I stand by. You then quoted me as saying Which I also stand by. Not once did I say that vindicator is more powerful than scrapper. Nowhere did I say that it had overpowered skills. The spear is widely known to be terrible and is also having its range nerfed. The hammer has been nerfed massively before I even started playing the class. Literally everything I said about vindicator alluded to how its gameplay was fun. I have not met a single person who things that support vindicator is overpowered in WvW, so I have literally no idea why you are trying to accuse me of this??! It’s again, faintly ridiculous. Again, literally no clue what you are talking about.

If you get pulled and you are solo, then fight them? If you get pulled solo against a group then yes, you are going to die. Stay further away from them. Again - stealth, by itself, does literally nothing to you. Nothing. I have never seen in my combat log “player xyz hits you with stealth for 5k”. This is because it does no damage. So you don’t need to counter stealth. You need to counter what is going to come FROM the stealth. You can try to argue against this but I am giving you literal facts. Which is exactly what I am doing. You, on the other hand, are posting here to give your feedback to both the devs and other players. To clarify then, are you asking for changes because “you don’t like it” or are there any reasons behind this? It is a core part of the class. Technically a necro doesn’t “need” shroud to do damage. Should this be removed? A ranger doesn’t need a pet to do damage, so should these go too? What about a berserker going berserk? Why and how is it overpowered? What do you think makes it so impossibly broken? I would agree with you if we could have minutes long applications of it, but we can’t. You rightly say that Anet have been nerfing it, so what is it about people running faster for three or so seconds is so broken that it needs to be entirely removed from the game mode? So then using your logic, superspeed is the counter to swiftness. Swiftness which can, and is, stacked by multiple classes to basically allow for a group, no matter its size, to have permanent application of.

It makes no difference where the pull happens, your support should absolutely still be expecting it and countering it. So then you have a pretty good idea where they are anyway, what is your problem with it? You have no idea how many hours I do (or do not) play WvW for per day. Trying to negate anything I say with this type of flawed reasoning is just ridiculous. No, but you are saying that it is overpowered and unfair. I am showing that it isn’t unfair by listing the ways in which you can counter it. You are asking for broad, sweeping changes to remove mechanics that you personally do not like from WvW (or the game as a whole? Not too sure to be honest). Ok, so what if the next person dislikes boon corrupt? Should that also be removed? There’s literally no counter to corrupt. You have to cleanse and reapply. So should that be removed? If so, what role does necro have in a larger group? If you remove broken harbinger, what role does necro have in roaming either? I never said you were. This is a commonly accepted expression meaning “one’s”. Again, another commonly accepted expression. “ I don’t like this and I don’t like this either”. I can go grammar wars if you like, I do that kitten for a living. And I see no reason in your post to remove then other than “I don’t like it”. Stealth gives solo players, small groups AND large zergs more options for interesting gameplay and engagements. Shadow step allows a very squishy class with few active defences a way to engage targets or remove themselves from said engagements. Superspeed allows more melee focused comps a way to engage ranged comps more safely. Then why post on a public forum? Or is it that you only want opinions that align with your own?

Yes. Yes. Yes. I say this as someone who exclusively plays support in WvW. If we are on a ledge engaging a Zerg below us it absolutely is my fault if someone gets pulled through lack of stability. In your second example, you make it sound like it is possible for this Zerg to have been invisible for minutes at a time, to get into range without anyone having any clue they are there. This is not the case. If I see a Zerg running away and then they stealth, you can be sure I will start pumping out stability. There’s a REASON their commanders just called for stealth. If it’s to ensure safety then no harm, no foul. If it is to yank a few of my guys off a wall, then not today my good sir. Third one, yes, this is also fair. If you have been playing WvW for eight years and you are still finding this hard to predict, I’m not really sure what to tell you?? If an enemy Zerg suddenly goes stealth, there’s a rather good chance that they are going to engage somehow. So it doesn’t really matter HOW they are going to engage. You need to start pumping out at least small stab. WvW is full of play and counter play. For me, the whole fun and joy in playing support is in trying to predict what is coming to provide that counter. Whether that counter be stability, cleansing or healing. Can you counter stealth? No, but stealth by itself doesn’t threaten you at all. The damage that comes out of it does. So if you are trying to counter stealth in small scale, have a stun break ready, have aegis ready. For large scale Zerg, I’ve already given my suggestions above. In general, I do not agree with your other suggestions either. I feel that it would homogenise all the varied professions we have access to and replace it with fairly boring, generic gameplay. Every mechanic you listed has a counter, part of your role as a support player is in predicting them and doing your best to provide that counter. Are you going to be able to do it every time? No. And that is also ok. A substantially better team comp, or a better enemy commander, or a better call given at a particular moment in a fight SHOULD absolutely be rewarded with a victory, just as there will always be fights you simply can’t win whether that be through experience levels or team size. That does not mean that having the smaller team makes the entirety of WvW unfair.

From the conversations I’ve been having over the past few months, it isn’t just that the meta is tired, it’s the whole mode. Just…give us something new. Anything. A new map would be God-tier awesome. It doesn’t have to be perfect. Reuse an existing map from PVE if you want. Or a living world map. Just, give us something new. We’ve been fighting in the same maps, over the same objectives, in the same keeps and camps for countless years now and it’s beginning to get bit stale. We have exploits to glitch into keeps that are STILL not fixed, that basically allow anyone to completely break how WvW is supposed to work. There are some amazing people playing WvW who are extremely passionate about this fairly unique game mode. None of them are asking for special or preferential treatment. None of us are asking for you, Anet, to make us your main focus of development. We don’t expect you to drop everything else to work in WvW alone. We’re just a bit tired that you like to pretend we don’t even exist.

I started reading this and immediately started thinking “oh here we go again, another cookie cutter mechanist rant”. I started getting ready my normal responses to said rants. Then I stopped and re-read what you actually wrote. kitten. That is, if I may say so, one of the most constructive take downs of mechanist I’ve ever read here. And you know what, I actually find myself agreeing with you with one caveat-if someone genuinely enjoys playing mechanist then there is absolutely nothing wrong with that and they should not be made to feel bad or guilty for enjoying it either. For those that are hammering for something a little more engaging though, I actually couldn’t agree more. Well done, that was a very well thought out post.