Best builds in a losing cause?

[jaif.3518]

It's that time of the day when *they* have one or more organized guilds and a healthy pop, and you don't.  They are romping over the map towards your keep/garrison.

 

What's a good build to bring in that situation to help defend?  Yes, I know I can take a roaming build and hit their supply camps...I'm talking a build that has a prayer of being effective in defending against them as they assault. 

 

I was thinking along the lines of a pull (mesmer, dragonhunter); if I can grab someone, then the damage monkeys on my side will shred them.  Are there other builds that can be useful?

 

[Infusion.7149]

Mesmer has low kill potential in largescale due to vicious expression lowering damage against targets with boons. Of course you can portal bomb people not paying attention (as portal has a sound and a large visual) and use mass invisibility but the power damage itself usually isn't there. The backup plan would be to portal people back into the structure if it flips.
Your best bet is likely scrapper as the predominant strategy dealing with outnumbered is to stealth gyro , superspeed, and then melee bomb working with the structures' portals. If you manage to down targets you can drop function gyro on them and hope they are finished. The bonus with scrapper is worst case you can 1500 range on mortar whereas you don't have that option on mesmer.

[LetoII.3782]

Your best bet:

Class: Warrior

Build: Forum

 

Other than convincing Anet to finish The Big Balance Rework and make things a little rougher on support swarms, there isn't much else to do except have your own support swarm.

 

 

 

 

 

[Hogwarts Zebra.8597]

If u simply want to defend your structures burn guard is quite effective. Even though you'll be doing minimal dmg to the actual enemies, siege does not have cleanse so you can usually melt the siege in a couple of bursts. I've often solo held structures against 20+ enemies with burn DH and sneaky use of siege disablers (swap templates to trapper rune build to stealth up, so they can't see you using the disabler)

[Junkpile.7439]

One shot mesmer. Makes you feel good when you kill some slowpoke who can't keep up.

[GoldenPants.1870]

Flamethrower engi if you want to ignore walls and do big dmg.

[Telgum.6071]

DH brings massive damage with traps but placing them can be tricky against a moving blob.

Necromancer helps a lot with corruptions, and Focus #5 deals great single target damage in this boon meta.

Warrior elite banner can finish downed enemies for extreme situations where you have to finish really fast before the zerg arrives to help.

Revenant has good spike with hammer, specially if there are many coordinated. Same with staff elementalist in fire attunement.

[ASP.8093]

Meteor Weaver can get a lot done by just dropping piles of pulsing nukes on gates/chokes. You get tons of bags if your side actually manages to wipe the enemy, too.

If you're PPTing, your typical roaming thief can also be pretty clutch in outnumbered defense, too, just by throwing sneaky Siege Disablers to slow down attackers and porting people back into towers for a super-fast recap without having to burn any precious supply.

[subversiontwo.7501]

This is going to be a bit unconventional and as such people tend not to be very receptive to it, but hear me out here and try to see from where I am comming:

Think less of it in terms of build and more of it in terms of "game". This is an MMO, the game mode (WvW) is also a massive minded component even if you can choose how to play it and it is meant to be enjoyed with friends. Systems wise, it is mainly designed around a power of five.

The best way to deal with overwhelming numbers and more organised groups that play broadly is to gather some friends and aim to play sharply. If you know what one damage build can do you can imagine what up to five damage builds can do. If you are playing against specific opponents, in specific situations with specific goals you can use that as a force multiplier. For example, if opponents have support, run around a map and try to take your objectives but you play in/around objectives and have no intention to play as them, you can sharply counter what they do broadly.

Having that support can be strong but it is also what makes them broad and dull so you can use smaller numbers to match them in other aspects of combat/content and find other ways to stay alive without support (using your objectives etc.). There is some sense of skill floor to that, a threshold into it, but it isn't very high. It is not something just for "hardcore elitists". However, it requires some social cooperation and many players lack that today despite this being an MMO. The same players tend to trivialize what more organised groups do to perform. This is why we can hear people claiming there is more "skill" in sPvP than WvW or more skill in solo-ish roaming than group play, completely overlooking that many of the best sPvP'ers and roamers also have larger WvW (and) guild affiliations.

Most people who come to the forums for help, who come to the forums feeling lost or who come to the forums to complain do not know these things, do not try these things or do not (want to-) understand these things. Good groups on the other hand do. They understand what playing in/around an objective does and does not do rather than complaining about what it does not, they adapt and utilize. That is the best piece of advice I can pass on to you.

Playing solo is fine against fewer opponents, playing solo in a cloud is fine but should also come with the knowledge that most successful clouds are successful because they outnumber in totals or because their average experience level is deceptively high across the cloud and most individual players have limited impact, even if a really good player can have a fair impact in a cloud. Doing it with a couple of friends however lets you be so much more impactful because you can coordinate and focus your damage to overwhelming individual pieces of opposing groups (even if they run with a bunch of support; unless they are far better than you, something else people wondering or complaining tend to overlook).

Ed. One more thing: Be adaptable. If your opponent has numbers but no support, having support of your own can be a force multiplier. If you opponent has support then adapting to that can be a force multiplier and so on. Again, good players know and adapt to this. With that a player with a flexible account (and some competence) can be as useful as an expert on a single build, which adds to why you do not have to compete or be elite to be useful here.

Edited January 1, 2022 by subversiontwo.7501

[Strider Pj.2193]

44 minutes ago, subversiontwo.7501 said:

~snip~

As somewhat of an adjunct:  Focused fire of three to five solid DPS builds can eliminate supports.  You need a person who understands your group’s strengths and the greatest weaknesses of the Groups you are fighting.  
 

That person calling out targets can be extremely effective.

[Dawdler.8521]

In my experience there is only one player that has the most impact on this - the enemy commander being the one that leaves his backline high and dry instead of weaving back. You already know what build he has. And full minstrels supports is coincidentally the worst builds the defending cloud can bring as well. Everyone need to pull their weight unsupported.

[Shroud.2307]

A lot of things can work if you can read the zerg. I find the best way to be a pest is to constantly put yourself in harms way until enough people hate you, then start lurking in the distance to get them to chase you. Make sure your teammates are near by to capitalize on it when they overextend, rinse and repeat.

Honestly, anything works if it has a little mobility, a block(s), and ideally high ranged/burst damage and CC. Beyond that, it's all mind games and baiting. If you're heavily Outnumbered, there just isn't much you can do to fight head on, so your best bet is to thin the herd by playing watch the birdy.

Edited January 1, 2022 by Shroud.2307

[kamikharzeeh.8016]

best thing is to get your people off the slacking part and to form a group with a healthy composition... u simply will never win against a coordinated group, no matter what u bring, if your whole server / map doesn't do teamwork.

 

all the rambos, who think they can alone dmg them off will just die 100 times for 1 kill. in most of the complaint cases here, people aren't even outnumbered, just trying to cloud it for .. reasons.

 

if both groups are clouds, even 50% bigger enemy groups can be unfightable, depending on their individual skill levels. some are easily wipeable on that size still. the difference is, if your cloud has good players, they will swap classes if they see a need and they won't just rallybot enemies faster than u can kill them (major issue at defending outnumbered)

 

anet nerfed the groups so hard yet. sustain, fast damage, stealthing and removing retaliation are absurdly strong buffs for defenders that have happend just "recently", ergo across the last few years.

[KeyOrion.9506]

A pull?  Yes.  A pull.  That also takes into effect that you have a boonstrip to take off their permanant stability?  No pull, if they have stability.  And in order to take their stability, your going to need a boonstrip.  Boons = stability = no pulls = need boonstrip.