Support Guard is Overpowered, Boring to play As/Against

[Kuma.1503]

Support core guard's biggest contritubtion to a teamfight isn't even it's healing. It's the boons and defensive utility. Making good use of that is what seperates a good one from a bad one. 

Well timed stab/aegis/blocks/reflects/ ect. is what the build is all about. You cannot outheal a co-ordinated assault by competent dps. You can give your allies the defensive tools that they need to survive it. 

In that regard, they do slow the game down. They force you to think more deeply beyond "place target on head. CC and Burst target". If there's a support alive you'll have to deal with them and their utility first. 

Naturally, a dps who doesn't like having his bursts denied wouldn't like that, in the same way that I, as a Volibear player in league of legends, wish that Janna/Lulu/Morgana didn't exist. They deny me from doing what I want to do, and are arguably easy to play, but neither of these facts mean that they should be deleted from the game. 

Unchecked bias is all this is. 

 

[Exile.8160]

12 minutes ago, Vancho.8750 said:

You are arguing with a roamer/ganker player from his point of view, supports stop his gank and that sucks for him, and that is  what supports do, they reduce the damage taken by their team in expense of their own output. Most people push for fights which means teamfights and sidenodes but the "high end" players play roaming specs most of the time, and they are in the PVP discord so most nerfed specs, basically deleted from the game, are sidenoders and teamfighters and people just find more and more annoying specs to play on these spots, like minion mancer, would that kitten work if Warrior specs were functional.

At one point there were 3 support specs in the game to chose from Tempest, Healbreaker and Heal Guard they had some interplay between then Tempest had cc and SpB had 2 costly stunbreaks on it, Heal brand can give stability to counter the Tempest cc but SpB removes boons so it counters guard main support, now instead of getting proper balancing tempest and healbreaker got deleted out of the meta and Heal Guard is barely sitting in the game.

I don't think roamer players understand that Supports have to be simple, since they have to be reactive to the Whole team and not just themselves and have to think ahead of time about their position, since they can't win fights by themselves because of the damage output. I don't think they understand that teamfighters should be also simple on the damage application since they have to think about multiple people attacking and how can they attack multiple at the same time while peeling for their support or how sidenodes worked, how it was show of skill to beat the other guy while waiting for a gank for you or the enemy, now every bruiser duelists are nerfed and only bunkers are left to do pillow fights.  
There is kitten all options for sides, there is kitten all suppoorts and there is kitten all teamfight specs, there is no specs to face each other, you get necro and you get guardian cause their core design works on these spots, but for some reason we have so many different roaming specs.     

Excelent way to put it!

[NorthernRedStar.3054]

1 hour ago, Kuma.1503 said:

Support core guard's biggest contritubtion to a teamfight isn't even it's healing. It's the boons and defensive utility. Making good use of that is what seperates a good one from a bad one. 

Well timed stab/aegis/blocks/reflects/ ect. is what the build is all about. You cannot outheal a co-ordinated assault by competent dps. You can give your allies the defensive tools that they need to survive it. 

In that regard, they do slow the game down. They force you to think more deeply beyond "place target on head. CC and Burst target". If there's a support alive you'll have to deal with them and their utility first. 

Naturally, a dps who doesn't like having his bursts denied wouldn't like that, in the same way that I, as a Volibear player in league of legends, wish that Janna/Lulu/Morgana didn't exist. They deny me from doing what I want to do, and are arguably easy to play, but neither of these facts mean that they should be deleted from the game. 

Unchecked bias is all this is. 

 

This.

The amount of healing core guard can dish out got heavily nerfed months ago. It's a deadweight build unless the player actually knows how to utilize the utility to its fullest.

[Math.5123]

8 hours ago, Leonidrex.5649 said:

no, ranger can reset maul by landing a melee skill.
guard can reset their heal by using elite, which you dont have to hit anyone with, you just have to use it
which is the entire point, you press a button, it does its thing and there is nothing anyone can do about it
its how heals work in this game

I'm not really a fan of support guard as I think its very braindead to play, but the elite isn't reseting their heal. 

The *only* hard part about support guard is positioning, because wether you believe it or not; the build is very squishy. Which is why, if you look at the last mAT. Support guard accounted for like half the teams deaths. 

[Leonidrex.5649]

On 10/1/2021 at 4:06 AM, Math.5123 said:

I'm not really a fan of support guard as I think its very braindead to play, but the elite isn't reseting their heal. 

The *only* hard part about support guard is positioning, because wether you believe it or not; the build is very squishy. Which is why, if you look at the last mAT. Support guard accounted for like half the teams deaths. 

I ment the F2 heal.
but I know what you mean, positioning is the only hard part. I agree.
And honestly if people want to play braindead builds that fine by me, but when they not only are the best builds, but also make the game more boring in general, then I have an issue with it.
 

[Gamble.4580]

On 9/30/2021 at 8:21 PM, BlackTruth.6813 said:

To be fair it doesn' t matter what guardians build, its a brainless class no matter how you build it.

 

If Necro gets nerfed guard will be the next kitten at a high chance anyways.

 

If you nurse necro it nurfs grd because necro is grds best friend in any team fight match as it is its best peel for peel

[Master Ketsu.4569]

IMO They should address downstate HP/s in competitive modes before touching support too hard. Right now every support spec is boosted by the fact that Anet STILL has not adjusted downstate for the post Feb2020 damage nerf meta. There a multiple duo builds in the game right now that make it effectively impossible to die unless you are outnumbered simply because the resurrection options are out of control.  

Edited October 4, 2021 by Master Ketsu.4569

[Math.5123]

11 hours ago, Leonidrex.5649 said:

I ment the F2 heal.
but I know what you mean, positioning is the only hard part. I agree.
And honestly if people want to play braindead builds that fine by me, but when they not only are the best builds, but also make the game more boring in general, then I have an issue with it.
 

There are more offenders to this though. Core ranger and weaver are both up there being very braindead to play while giving huge benefits.

[Gamble.4580]

8 minutes ago, Math.5123 said:

There are more offenders to this though. Core ranger and weaver are both up there being very braindead to play while giving huge benefits.

Not everything needs to.be math to play. Simple roles need simple builds. Only 1v1 and burst combos should be on the math lol 

[Leonidrex.5649]

1 hour ago, Math.5123 said:

There are more offenders to this though. Core ranger and weaver are both up there being very braindead to play while giving huge benefits.

I know, core ranger, weaver, guard, support warrior, necro of any kind, scrapper if build right etc etc.
When I fight weaver or all the others I can just ignore them and have fun fighting others, against guard there is no fun allowed.
But in pvp this is a support thing, I feel like they are made to make the game mode as miserable as possible.

[Kuma.1503]

2 hours ago, Math.5123 said:

There are more offenders to this though. Core ranger and weaver are both up there being very braindead to play while giving huge benefits.

Perhaps the others were onto something. Why is it that Weaver, objectively speaking one of the most complex elite specs in the game, is being listed as braindead?

This forum really does hate side noders. I can't think of a single one that has existed in the history of this game that hasn't been listed as brain dead to play. 

If I didn't know better,  people just want side noders gone. Either that or they want them to explode the instant your average roamer touches them in a +1. Weaver doesn't die immediately in those scenarios so people call it braindead and want it dead. How many do we need to kill off before people realize this isn't making PvP any better?

 

Edited October 4, 2021 by Kuma.1503

[Exile.8160]

11 minutes ago, Kuma.1503 said:

Perhaps the others were onto something. Why is it that Weaver, objectively speaking one of the most complex elite specs in the game, is being listed as braindead?

This forum really does hate side noders. I can't think of a single one that has existed in the history of this game that hasn't been listed as brain dead to play. 

If I didn't know better,  people just want side noders gone. Either that or they want them to explode the instant your average roamer touches them in a +1. Weaver doesn't die immediately in those scenarios so people call it braindead and want it dead. How many do we need to kill off before people realize this isn't making PvP any better?

 

 

People hate anything they cant one shot, same as why this post was created. Since side noder are pretty much the meta right now and its hard to 1v1 them specially the good one that can kite forever. 

[Math.5123]

2 hours ago, Kuma.1503 said:

Perhaps the others were onto something. Why is it that Weaver, objectively speaking one of the most complex elite specs in the game, is being listed as braindead?

This forum really does hate side noders. I can't think of a single one that has existed in the history of this game that hasn't been listed as brain dead to play. 

If I didn't know better,  people just want side noders gone. Either that or they want them to explode the instant your average roamer touches them in a +1. Weaver doesn't die immediately in those scenarios so people call it braindead and want it dead. How many do we need to kill off before people realize this isn't making PvP any better?

 

Weaver is not complex what so ever. Having many buttons doesn't make the class harder per say. Weaver more so than ele has to follow a set rotation due to being attunement locked (since unravel sees no play).

 

Going back to the old cele ele days. You basically had an offensive and a defensive rotation. One that went fire - earth - water - air, because it was the way to stack might most efficiently. Then you were stuck in air for about 4 seconds due to air being the strongest auto and the fastest due to animation canceling which yielded the most healing. 

The defensive rotation was much slower, saving dodges until you were in water and sitting in water longer to get water 2 off.

 

Learning these, almost pve like rotations isn't hard. Especially not when you're so loaded with defensive utility that it doesn't really matter when you kitten up.

 

Ele (and to a lesser extent warrior) is only a numbers game. Either they live long enough to not be awful, in which case they are borderline invulnerable; see water weaver, cele ele, diamond heart tempest and to a lesser extent fire weaver. Or they are squishy enough that they don't really see play. There has historically been no in-between. 

One could argue that LR is a skillful ele spec, which I half agree with. But that's due to me hating the design of LR.

 

And to answer your statement due to people wanting side-noders gone. 

I'd love to see side-noders that have the opportunity to kill other side-noders. But thief gatekeeps that unfortunately. No one will ever build squishy enough to get one shot by an SA thief. This leads to everyone being forced to play bunker and just stalling sides.

[Stand The Wall.6987]

buff damage

or buff fb so we have options

[Kuma.1503]

9 hours ago, Math.5123 said:

Weaver is not complex what so ever. Having many buttons doesn't make the class harder per say. Weaver more so than ele has to follow a set rotation due to being attunement locked (since unravel sees no play).

 

Going back to the old cele ele days. You basically had an offensive and a defensive rotation. One that went fire - earth - water - air, because it was the way to stack might most efficiently. Then you were stuck in air for about 4 seconds due to air being the strongest auto and the fastest due to animation canceling which yielded the most healing. 

The defensive rotation was much slower, saving dodges until you were in water and sitting in water longer to get water 2 off.

 

Learning these, almost pve like rotations isn't hard. Especially not when you're so loaded with defensive utility that it doesn't really matter when you kitten up.

 

Ele (and to a lesser extent warrior) is only a numbers game. Either they live long enough to not be awful, in which case they are borderline invulnerable; see water weaver, cele ele, diamond heart tempest and to a lesser extent fire weaver. Or they are squishy enough that they don't really see play. There has historically been no in-between. 

One could argue that LR is a skillful ele spec, which I half agree with. But that's due to me hating the design of LR.

 

And to answer your statement due to people wanting side-noders gone. 

I'd love to see side-noders that have the opportunity to kill other side-noders. But thief gatekeeps that unfortunately. No one will ever build squishy enough to get one shot by an SA thief. This leads to everyone being forced to play bunker and just stalling sides.

So you're not saying Weaver has a flowchart playstyle in practice due to how it's attuments work, similar to old cele ele, but with a different flavor?

I can actually see that. I'm mostly speaking from the perspective of S/d weaver since I find it more fun than focus (I'm aware focus is better)

If we're talking typical fireweaver stuff you might see something like: like Fire/Air -> Updraft > Flame Uprising -> Pyro Vortex-> Earth -> Lava skin -> Maybe blast for might with fire ring and earthen vortex.-> Air -> wait for a bit -> Gale strike -> Earthquake and plaric leap are on demand if they stunbreak -> Back to fire and Pyro vortex while they're CC'd. IThey're dead 99% of the time if it lands and they're out stunbreaks. Loop continues. 
 

Hypothetically speaking, it comes down to whether or the weaver's opponent can force them to break this flow, and what that entails for both parties. In this case, that would mean forcing the weaver to attune to water specifically to access Riptide. That does generally delay the weaver for a bit from accessing some of their higher valued abilities. 

 

That begs the question.. what do you do about it? Reworking Water/Earth and Water/Air dual skills comes to mind. Perhaps turning them into something niche that helps a weaver either stick to thier target or lock them down (a projectile that pulls people in like Warhorn 4 on Water/Air or knockdown on water/earth. Something to incentivise them to attune to water aggressively and introduce some more decision making that makes them break their flow. 

Then balancing them around those new tools so that they need to make use of them to be as effective as they are currently. 

Either way this is all incredibly off topic. When it comes down to it, I still wouldn't call weaver braindead. It's got enough nuance and a high enough skill cap to earn at least that much, even if the skill floor is deceptively low with how durable it can be. 

 

 

Edited October 5, 2021 by Kuma.1503