Build Diversity and Stability Bots, a WvW Support Discussion

[Vekks.6013]

Hello everyone! I'm a long time WvW player with thousands of hours in the game mode as a primary support player. My total bag count is less than 200. AMA.

 

Jk. Anyway, I wanted to briefly talk about build diversity and why it is important for the game mode from a support perspective. Specifically, to discuss why Support Firebrand is absolutely essentially to every subgroup, why the 5 player cap hurts WvW, and why the game needs other builds to help provide stability uptime. And just to be clear, there are obviously other issues that need to be addressed, but I believe that increasing build diversity helps the game be more inclusive and keeps players engaged with the content.

 

The problem:

Support Firebrand is too strong. Players feel locked in "Firebrand jail" permanently.

The solution:

Nerf Support Firebrand.

The actual solution:

Address why Support Firebrand is strong, enable competing builds and monitor gameplay.

 

Currently, Firebrand is the only specialization in the game with on demand access to large amounts of group stability. In other modes, this is novel, but for WvW gameplay, where Immob/CC spam spikes are the whole of the organized play, this becomes the most powerful ability in the game. To lock its access to a single build is harmful, but to unleash it to every build would be very damaging to the health of the game.

 

Ultimately, WvW balance comes down to two closely related cycling systems.

The stability cycle: BoonGen/Stability Application -> BoonStrip/Corruption -> CC/Immobilization

The boon/condition cycle: Condition Application -> Cleansing/Conversion -> BoonStrip/Corruption

Any changes to builds need to ask how they affect these cycles, because maintaining the balance is what keeps the game mode working. If at any point, stability overpowers the cycle, it will result in unhealthy correction, and require more BoonStrip/Corruption which may damage group composition and game balance.

 

There are two options here, both involve probably scaling back the amount of stability a Firebrand can provide to maintain said balance. That alone would just incentivize groups to run more Firebrands however. So we need to enable other classes to provide good uptime.

 

For this we should look at the niche/underplayed supports. Support aura tempest is an obviously popular option, which sees wide play despite being inferior to FB/Scrapper support. Another newer, more recent support entering the scene since the last update is Ventari Vindicator, which I feel like would be an excellent option to provide stability due to their fairly limited kit. Outside of raw healing and cleansing, VV does almost no boon support or utility. They have a potentially permanent projectile hate bubble, which is fairly good, but in WvW, projectile hate is already spammed, so projectile classes don't see any play in organized team play. VV is  a fun class that many support players would like to play, but they are halted by Firebrand jail. Stability required. Any time there is a new build, this is what happens. I would love to play something else, and I'm sure all of my guild's firebrands would love to take a night off the blue class and get on something different. The problem is they can't. It's not really fair, especially because as support mains, we aren't even allowed rewards via tagging in this game mode. So my preferred solution and recommendation is ultimately summed up to being this:

 

Add some minor stability sharing to Tempest auras

Add major stability sharing to Vindicator via one of their dodge traits, such as Saint's Shield or Song of Arboreum. The latter would open up offensive builds to being able to provide stability as well.

Slightly reduce Firebrand stability access.

 

The other option? Return to 10 player target caps. This halves the amount of stability providers required to maintain, and let's support players rotate off some nights. Probably not in line with Anet's boon/squad comp philosophy currently.

 

There's also a secret third option though, which I would be interested in seeing. Offensive builds providing stability. Let's take a look at warriors for example. Currently, most warriors in WvW are Spellbreakers, and their job is to drop a bubble in the right spot and then they can heck off and do strips or whatever. Not very good gameplay. Strips are good and important for WvW. but can't be the whole of a kit. Spellbreakers have the unique position of probably being the deepest diving yolo build in WvW, and I think this makes them great candidates to be able to grant stability to other overzealous diving frontline classes. 

 

Anyway, curious to see what everyone thinks, and would especially like to hear from other WvW Support Firebrand mains on their takes. I've love to hear back from Medkit Scrappers too about your experience in WvW and if/how you would like to see some of Scrapper's utility get some competing builds (superspeed/stealth/cleansing).

[Boh.4568]

It's an interesting take but it feels too focused on squad play. Giving additional stab sources to offensive classes might create problems to roaming balance, if you find yourself fighting a foe with high pressure, CC spam, high damage/condi AND with reliable stability on top of that. Whereas a support FB left alone is just a sturdy wall with low offence.

[Vekks.6013]

Hey! Thanks, and I agree, most of my experience is in squad play. I do occasionally do a roaming night here and there, but almost all of my experience is in organized, team fighting squad play. That said, I don’t feel, given careful selection and implementation, offensive stability builds would be that harmful to roaming play. Spell breakers for example are a Zerg build and don’t generally have much offensive pressure outside of their strips or hammer cc. Their mobility is also fairly limited and I wouldn’t consider warrior to be a great roaming profession in general. Vindicator is the other example I proposed, which has really good damage potential and some mobility, but is not good at cc/lockdown. Moving some stab into those builds lessens the need to run a FB in each sub for squad play, which is my primary concern because it eats away and excludes players from joining. Having more builds being able to contribute meaningfully to squads means more participation in the game mode ultimately because not everyone wants to play FB forever. 

[Hotride.2187]

Well they nerfed the heals and cleanses and made room for support engi, that didn't end up too well (IMO). Now you run 2 supports instead of 1. Nerf stab and buff another support to give stab, then what, you end up with 3 supports? Adding group stab to offensive builds might be a better option, dunno. But as noted above, what happens to small roaming groups (they already run condi bunkers with support, imagine if the bunkers give stab too...).

Personally I stopped doing zerg fights cause you have nearly no build options and it gets boring pretty quick (I stopped at the time heal scrapper was new to the meta). So I understand where you are coming from. More viable support builds (but not bigger support count in a zerg) would be cool. More offensive builds being able to do some of the support work would be even cooler (anything with less sustain would be cooler). But maybe it introduces an even more broken state where people are dying even less. So dunno.

I do remember one player musing that healing power on guard almost feels like a waste of stats for the zerg (having heal scrapper healing before the recent nerfs, dunno if that changed anything in the blob sustain). Maybe if you introduce builds that have good POWER pressure and good party stab uptime (and not on guard.... its already overloaded...). E.g. hammer rev but with more spiky dmg and more stab uptime. Not that this is the direction the devs are taking wvw into.

War giving party stab as a support would've been my personal choice, since at least it would bring something meaningful to group play, both in roaming and in zergs. I was hoping for a banner with stab (zzzZzzZzz). It having no condi builds (worth mentioning) on spb also makes it a good target to keep roaming safer. Its dmg is also mediocre. But even that is not exactly much choice, guard, engi or war if you want to support. I've no idea how you get out of this honestly, I got out by stopping doing zerg fights - less need to play guard.

Edited July 2, 2022 by Hotride.2187

[Vekks.6013]

10 minutes ago, Hotride.2187 said:

Well they nerfed the heals and cleanses and made room for support engi, that didn't end up too well (IMO). Now you run 2 supports instead of 1. Nerf stab and buff another support to give stab, then what, you end up with 3 supports? Adding group stab to offensive builds might be a better option, dunno. But as noted above, what happens to small roaming groups (they already run condi bunkers with support, imagine if the bunkers give stab too...).

This is a good take and needs to be considered. Essentially you’re right, we don’t want a repeat situation that required more support builds to be run in squad play. Rather, we just want another support option or two to be viable as a replacement for one of the other slots. Or, an offensive option to lessen the burden and allow us to run a 1 support sub vs 2. 
 

as for the effect on roaming, maybe it does shake it up a bit and cause some mayhem on that end. But adding stab support to offensive means you can take a five/ten man strike team that is all damage and run a proper gank squad. I’m not sure what happens there tbh, but I’m pretty sure the roaming meta would survive and adapt.

[Xenesis.6389]

I have no idea why warriors weren't developed to have as much access to group stability as guards were. They are a frontline melee oriented class, they should share this role. But instead they go about increasing the spam rate of all the other boons on every other class, except the most important one of them all for wvw, then tried shoving warriors into a boon strip role, and now into some weird banner bot role. Moronic at this point.

[Littlekenny.4196]

I think an underappreciated part of the firebrand kit is that the mantra is an AoE stun-break which is fairly rare but then it also has 3 charge on a low cooldown putting it so far ahead of anything else. Vindicator alliance stance has an AoE stun-break but it's energy cost will get your party overwhelmed by damage and conditions. That would be a nice place for them to look potentially.

[Riba.3271]

Easiest way to nerf Firebrand isn't touching stability but increasing cooldown of overpowered short cooldown abilities by 20 or 25%.

 

This including:

Guardian || Mace 3 | Mantras | Staff 2 | Justice Tome 3 | Resolve tome 4 | Courage tome 3 and 4 | Flowing Resolve (WB)

Engineer || Purge Gyro | Med Kit 3 | Elixir gun 3 | Hammer 5

Necromancer || Axe 3 | Scepter 3 | "Nothing Can Save You!" | Signet Of Locust

Warrior || Break Enchantments | Hammer 3 | Warhorn 4/5

Elementalist || Lava Font | "AfterShock!" | Dagger earth 3 | Glyph of Storms

Revenant || Herald Swift facet active | Stability road | Tree Song (3s -> 5s)

Mesmer  || Temporal curtain | Null Field

 

The game has just promoted spammy gaming for a long time. For example if Necros and Engis have essentially no cooldown on strip and cleanse, you also need to bring support that is always ready to provide stability.

 

Nevertheless, the meta is kinda fine outside how spammy all metaclasses are and how much excess condition removal there is. I would rather see them make objectives more fair places to fight if you manage to clear all the siege.

Edited July 2, 2022 by Threather.9354

[Labjax.2465]

Ngl, I went from playing ele in WvW (my main) to playing FB exclusively when I go in WvW, cause with the FB I can know I'm providing something useful and the ele it's so tepid and situational. I still prefer ele as a class, but I find it hard to justify playing it in WvW. So just to add to your point about people feeling stuck in one role. Not that anyone is making me, but like... it feels embarrassing and a waste of time to go in there and be like "I'm helping" with an occasional projectile reflect or something and then get downed for the 5th time in one fight. T_T

[Dawdler.8521]

7 hours ago, Threather.9354 said:

Easiest way to nerf Firebrand isn't touching stability but increasing cooldown of overpowered short cooldown abilities by 20 or 25%.

 

This including:

Guardian || Mace 3 | Mantras | Staff 2 | Justice Tome 3 | Resolve tome 4 | Courage tome 3 and 4 | Flowing Resolve (WB)

Engineer || Purge Gyro | Med Kit 3 | Elixir gun 3 | Hammer 5

Necromancer || Axe 3 | Scepter 3 | "Nothing Can Save You!" | Signet Of Locust

Warrior || Break Enchantments | Hammer 3 | Warhorn 4/5

Elementalist || Lava Font | "AfterShock!" | Dagger earth 3 | Glyph of Storms

Revenant || Herald Swift facet active | Stability road | Tree Song (3s -> 5s)

Mesmer  || Temporal curtain | Null Field

 

The game has just promoted spammy gaming for a long time. For example if Necros and Engis have essentially no cooldown on strip and cleanse, you also need to bring support that is always ready to provide stability.

 

Nevertheless, the meta is kinda fine outside how spammy all metaclasses are and how much excess condition removal there is. I would rather see them make objectives more fair places to fight if you manage to clear all the siege.

And what would the effect be?

Oh thats right - bring more firebrands to compensate.

Its a meta hole thats impossible to get out of.

[subversiontwo.7501]

On 7/2/2022 at 2:54 PM, Anscenic.3268 said:

The problem:

Support Firebrand is too strong. Players feel locked in "Firebrand jail" permanently.

The solution:

Nerf Support Firebrand.

The actual solution:

Address why Support Firebrand is strong, enable competing builds and monitor gameplay.

While you're right that "why it is regarded as strong" is the key to its balance, you overlooked the most direct answer and most simple way to deal with that underlying issue:

Firebrands are essential because stability is essential. If you make it so stability is not essential but the game is still playable at all scales you also accurately deal with that underlying issue, at all scales.

Further examples, explanations and pointers on the discourse or misconceptions about "skill" or balance, spoilered:

Spoiler

 

At the end of the day, this is a game with an action combat system that assumes for you to avoid attacks and land attacks with precision. It was never meant to have so many attacking sources of conditions (that's why it had corruptions, that's why confusion used to work differently and that is why stronger conditions were first reserved for stronger attacks or limited to more particular interactions). That is also where crowd-control comes in.

The game never assumed for crowd-control to chain or completely lock opponents down the way it can now. Nore did it assume for it to scale the way it does now (that is yet another reason for why stability worked differently in the past: you were not meant to just spam past it). That is the original conceptual design and balance of the combat system and any perspective from other players here about what is more or less skillful is just drivel if they don't observe those fundamental rules that governed the system.

When people talk about what is more or less skillful with boons here or elsewhere in recent threads they seem to completely miss the mark. It isn't boons that make things more or less skillful. It is group composition that makes things more or less advanced in organisation and far more than anything else it is crowd-control that makes combat far less skillful and scalable. If you rely on it to land attacks and secure kills you are by no means any more skillful than whoever runs around in a group that is so much larger that you have problems dealing with their stability. That's why all the cries about stability and skill are so comical because stability only reverts balance to its natural state, the ability to move and dodge, relying on crowd-control is everything but skillful.

Crowd-control more than anything else is what stops you from being able to fight back at all when it is spammed on you from a superior number of players.

So, again, the best way to deal with Firebrands is simply to return things to their natural state and make stability less essential. Then everything else that doesn't have as much stability or have enough stability to maintain that natural state of balance will be all the more viable. Firebrands do not heal more, cleanse or have better additional functionality (eg., they don't heal more than Tempests, cleanse more than Tempests and things like aegis are not necessarily stronger than auras). The people who pretend anything different are wrong.

Plus, cleanses sits in a similar seat of essentiality. They would be far less important if certain strong conditions (especially crowd-control conditions) were not as prevalent. So at the end of the day "perma" stability is not much of a problem whereas "perma" stuns or immobilisation certainly are large problems. On certain classes and as the game scales up those problems has become very real and actual problems. Some of these things have been addressed and others have not, you can chalk that bit up to how attentative Arena Net have been to balance or WvW overall. It is just a reflection of the game at large.

 

 

Edited July 3, 2022 by subversiontwo.7501

[Labjax.2465]

3 hours ago, subversiontwo.7501 said:

While you're right that "why it is regarded as strong" is the key to its balance, you overlooked the most direct answer and most simple way to deal with that underlying issue:

Firebrands are essential because stability is essential. If you make it so stability is not essential but the game is still playable at all scales you also accurately deal with that underlying issue, at all scales.

Further examples, explanations and pointers on the discourse or misconceptions about "skill" or balance, spoilered:

  Hide contents

 

At the end of the day, this is a game with an action combat system that assumes for you to avoid attacks and land attacks with precision. It was never meant to have so many attacking sources of conditions (that's why it had corruptions, that's why confusion used to work differently and that is why stronger conditions were first reserved for stronger attacks or limited to more particular interactions). That is also where crowd-control comes in.

The game never assumed for crowd-control to chain or completely lock opponents down the way it can now. Nore did it assume for it to scale the way it does now (that is yet another reason for why stability worked differently in the past: you were not meant to just spam past it). That is the original conceptual design and balance of the combat system and any perspective from other players here about what is more or less skillful is just drivel if they don't observe those fundamental rules that governed the system.

When people talk about what is more or less skillful with boons here or elsewhere in recent threads they seem to completely miss the mark. It isn't boons that make things more or less skillful. It is group composition that makes things more or less advanced in organisation and far more than anything else it is crowd-control that makes combat far less skillful and scalable. If you rely on it to land attacks and secure kills you are by no means any more skillful than whoever runs around in a group that is so much larger that you have problems dealing with their stability. That's why all the cries about stability and skill are so comical because stability only reverts balance to its natural state, the ability to move and dodge, relying on crowd-control is everything but skillful.

Crowd-control more than anything else is what stops you from being able to fight back at all when it is spammed on you from a superior number of players.

So, again, the best way to deal with Firebrands is simply to return things to their natural state and make stability less essential. Then everything else that doesn't have as much stability or have enough stability to maintain that natural state of balance will be all the more viable. Firebrands do not heal more, cleanse or have better additional functionality (eg., they don't heal more than Tempests, cleanse more than Tempests and things like aegis are not necessarily stronger than auras). The people who pretend anything different are wrong.

Plus, cleanses sits in a similar seat of essentiality. They would be far less important if certain strong conditions (especially crowd-control conditions) were not as prevalent. So at the end of the day "perma" stability is not much of a problem whereas "perma" stuns or immobilisation certainly are large problems. On certain classes and as the game scales up those problems has become very real and actual problems. Some of these things have been addressed and others have not, you can chalk that bit up to how attentative Arena Net have been to balance or WvW overall. It is just a reflection of the game at large.

 

 

That is an interesting point, so I take it what you're getting at is essentially: if CC spam is addressed in WvW, then stability will lose much of its necessity and so will FB too.

If you suggested how though, I missed it. Any ideas?

I know some games in PvP have a sort of diminishing returns on CC, so it can't be chained on you, but that's all that comes to mind atm.

[Dralor.3701]

DAOC addressed it with pretty hard DR and then straight up immune. It’s been a while since I’ve played wow so can’t remember if you reach immunity but you eventually get pretty big DR on stuns and fears.

[MysteryDude.1572]

Fb can get enough bags , just abuse t1, staff symbol ez , who needs symbol when rev exists 😛

As for the cycle of coruption/rebooning/conditions depends on numbers and scenario as i have noticed 

asuming equal numbers of fbs/necros per squad and same number of enemy in blobfights, rebooning after well/shade bombs is ok

same goes for guild fights in the numbers of 20/30 

in 15/10s the coruption in general feels its kinda higher than booning 

in roaming depends what you fight , some classes have more boons others have more corrupts/strips , some have both, some classes have small strip capability and relly on absorption sigils

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited July 4, 2022 by MysteryDude.1572

[cyberzombie.7348]

On 7/2/2022 at 9:33 AM, Xenesis.6389 said:

I have no idea why warriors weren't developed to have as much access to group stability as guards were.

The Battle Standard banner originally had a skill to provide group stability.

[ArchonWing.9480]

On 7/2/2022 at 5:54 AM, Anscenic.3268 said:

Anyway, curious to see what everyone thinks, and would especially like to hear from other WvW Support Firebrand mains on their takes.

It's not just stability, Guardians have some of the best aoe stunbreaks in the game. Stability doesn't help much  if you're already stunned and Firebrand in particular has a somewhat spammable elite stunbreak.

That's also why "Eye of the Storm" was quite popular but it simply got dwarfed by PoF crap.

Uptime is not the only issue because of boonstrips. The ability to reapply boons is probably the biggest issue in this day and age.

That's why anything that competes needs good AOE stunbreaks too.

Tome 3 is also very overloaded, granting access to resistance, reflects, and more stability on top of the other stuff. None of these things were meant to be spammed en masse; Rev could spam resistance but concedes a number of other things.

Alone this is balanced by a 75s cooldown, but as numbers grow, this scales immensely, and makes it triivial to do stuff like cycle reflects, though I suppose Ventari Revs take this.

Firebrand's dominance is also because it appears someone hates eles.

They should obviously make flamethrower apply group stability. (don't)

On 7/2/2022 at 5:54 AM, Anscenic.3268 said:

I've love to hear back from Medkit Scrappers too about your experience in WvW and if/how you would like to see some of Scrapper's utility get some competing builds (superspeed/stealth/cleansing).

I have no idea why they gave aoe  quickness to Medkit scrapper. But I think group quickness is more common with the last patch? Just no memes like warrior banners. :s

Edited July 4, 2022 by ArchonWing.9480

[Grand Marshal.4098]

Rework Battle Standard on Warrior to pulse a stability stack every 10 sec for 3 sec baseline. 

Shake it Off now is an AoE Stunbreak.

Banner of Defense pulses resolution around the warrior (like a facet) and it's second active effect AoE stunbreaks, gives Prot and Barrier.

Might not be as strong as firebrand, but would go a long way to make warrior a better support option.

Ideally you nerf FB stability duration or intensity in Tome 3 and it's utilities to make suggestions like the above more proper.

[DeceiverX.8361]

Step 1:  Remove AoE ranged CC from all professions.  Sorry Mesmer, but it's better and more fun this way.  You can be compensated and should be useful in other more engaging ways than spamming a button on OH focus.

Step 2:  Remove Concentration because boons are impossible to balance otherwise.

Step 3:  Remove most sources of AoE stability (such as from FB), and reintroduce selfish stability or extremely short-duration AoE stability in a few other classes/builds.

Step 4:  Remove most AoE boon hate mechanics from the game now that durations are actually static and support requires some skilled timing and attention to use correctly.

Step 5:  Bring DH/Engi pull to 900 range because pinsniping would become too easy.

Pretty sure that fixes the stability part of WvW.

 

[Kozumi.5816]

On 7/2/2022 at 8:54 AM, Anscenic.3268 said:

Address why Support Firebrand is strong, enable competing builds and monitor gameplay.

No, nothing should be even 1/10th as strong as support firebrand. Vanilla supports were much better.

Also fix the bug where minstrels and nomad gear is still in the game.

Edited July 5, 2022 by Kozumi.5816

[Dralor.3701]

There is too much CC in the game, it’s been an arms race with stability. A lot needs to be reworked and they really should have focused more on boon strips imo.

[subversiontwo.7501]

On 7/3/2022 at 11:48 PM, Labjax.2465 said:

That is an interesting point, so I take it what you're getting at is essentially: if CC spam is addressed in WvW, then stability will lose much of its necessity and so will FB too.

If you suggested how though, I missed it. Any ideas?

I know some games in PvP have a sort of diminishing returns on CC, so it can't be chained on you, but that's all that comes to mind atm.

The most common suggestion here on the WvW forums is to return stability to the functionality it had before HoT. Then it was a single-stack time-stacked boon that was not removed by CC. This meant you had to strip first and CC second, making the balance of access to CC-abilities and strip abilities easier to manage (for example, the problem with CC-damage combinations that they had to hamfist in 2020 simply did not exist in vanilla because you couldn't just overwhelm cooldowns and win; the same goes for threats at 1200 range because while there is alot of CC at 1200, there are few strips at 1200, making distance management and balance better in vanilla than ever since). It was just a hundred times easier to balance and lets more classes be useful with stability since even if more is better it lets all sources come together. It also makes strips easier to balance. More or less, it makes things less spammy.

Another option is just to nerf crowd-control abilities overall, especially those that works as lines or wards (the 5-skill on alot of twohanded weapons) as well as perhaps promoting the types of CC that move characters around over the types of CC that holds them in place (knockbacks over stuns) since that keeps gameplay more mobile than just piling onto somebody that just has to stay there. It also makes the balance more visible, because people are less likely to notice someone chain-stunned or immobilised in place but they are going to notice bodies flying all over the place. Making our collective awareness of the balance more direct. So they could easily specifically target things like stun, knockdown, float and immobilisation without needing to damage knockbacks, launches, cripples and chills.

Other options relate to what you said in the end there, they can easily improve break- and breakbar mechanics if they want to go down that route of making the game less proactive and more reactive. They could turn stability-abilities into group-break abilities and then give players who get peeled a breakbar or some other kind of grace period. That would mean drastically changing alot of fundamental things in the game though. However, it could instill a feeling of more things being more or less effectual because you can see it land and be countered: rather than feel that opponents are just prestacked. The resources required for that are not really reasonable to expect given the state of the game though.

There are so many ways to do, but all of them requires the developer to care. Guess what our biggest problem is?

Edited July 6, 2022 by subversiontwo.7501

[Zyreva.1078]

Homogenising classes and making them do the same stuff does not lead to better balance and more fun gameplay. The most recent PvE patch is a perfect example. And the same applies to WvW too. Yes, stability is an important factor for support builds, but it isn't the only reason why certain builds are superior. It is the overall package that counts. Just look at soulbeast for example - decent on demand aoe stab, unstripable soft-cc immunity and dmg reduction, aoe healing and cleansing, aoe cc and dmg. On paper it has everything you want, yet it is not considered meta for zerg play.

Ofc you could argue, well, then give everyone not just aoe stab but also all the other nice stuff too, but not only would this be an absolute nightmare to balance (unless you literally make everything exactly the same), it would also remove the main reason to have different classes to beginn with - diversity.

Not every class and spec needs to be good at everything. It just needs to be good at something, ideally in their own unique ways. And there is more to do in WvW than zerging, which opens up a lot of opportunities for specs that are typically not considered meta.

[Kozumi.5816]

31 minutes ago, UmbraNoctis.1907 said:

Homogenising classes and making them do the same stuff does not lead to better balance and more fun gameplay.

But it's what FFXIV does! We must turn GW2 into FFXIV without cat girls or cute outfits for maximum profits!!

[subversiontwo.7501]

On 7/6/2022 at 7:38 PM, UmbraNoctis.1907 said:

Homogenising classes and making them do the same stuff does not lead to better balance and more fun gameplay. The most recent PvE patch is a perfect example. And the same applies to WvW too. Yes, stability is an important factor for support builds, but it isn't the only reason why certain builds are superior. It is the overall package that counts. Just look at soulbeast for example - decent on demand aoe stab, unstripable soft-cc immunity and dmg reduction, aoe healing and cleansing, aoe cc and dmg. On paper it has everything you want, yet it is not considered meta for zerg play.

Ofc you could argue, well, then give everyone not just aoe stab but also all the other nice stuff too, but not only would this be an absolute nightmare to balance (unless you literally make everything exactly the same), it would also remove the main reason to have different classes to beginn with - diversity.

Not every class and spec needs to be good at everything. It just needs to be good at something, ideally in their own unique ways. And there is more to do in WvW than zerging, which opens up a lot of opportunities for specs that are typically not considered meta.

Just to make sure: You are aware that your description of the Ranger in the second paragraph illustrates what you say in the third paragraph as well, right?

I've been trying to tell people here the same thing for ages, however long and convoluted I put it. It is about skill floors and skill roofs (same discussion as the streamers have held in PvE recently). That the meta is about accessability. That the Ranger has all those things that you describe but it is not meta because of its skill floor rather than its roof. That most complaints we see about everything from stability to reflections comes from people struggling with the floor. While the class and its specs certainly is good at something in its own unique ways, even at large scale, assuming one knows how to organise and use it. Also, that everything does not need to be accessible, beginner-friendly, called by a squad lead or fit into a least-work ideal for that leader: basically everything does not have to be meta, it just need to be good at something at every scale. Most, if not all, classes are: That is WvW's fun.

Ps. That also goes for the cloud vs. blob discussions we've had here recently, where whether you are effective with a cloud or not (vs. a blob) is also about learning and experience, same as how learning how to fit into squads or levels of complexity organising squads.

• 1-2-3
• Submeta-Meta-Supermeta
• Ranger-NoRanger-Ranger
• Cloud->Blob<-Cloud
• No leader - One leader - Multiple suborganised leaders (subcalls in parties, havoc parties, etc.)

etc.

Edited July 8, 2022 by subversiontwo.7501

[Mike.3196]

On 7/2/2022 at 5:54 AM, Anscenic.3268 said:

Hello everyone! I'm a long time WvW player with thousands of hours in the game mode as a primary support player. My total bag count is less than 200. AMA.

 

Jk. Anyway, I wanted to briefly talk about build diversity and why it is important for the game mode from a support perspective. Specifically, to discuss why Support Firebrand is absolutely essentially to every subgroup, why the 5 player cap hurts WvW, and why the game needs other builds to help provide stability uptime. And just to be clear, there are obviously other issues that need to be addressed, but I believe that increasing build diversity helps the game be more inclusive and keeps players engaged with the content.

 

The problem:

Support Firebrand is too strong. Players feel locked in "Firebrand jail" permanently.

The solution:

Nerf Support Firebrand.

The actual solution:

Address why Support Firebrand is strong, enable competing builds and monitor gameplay.

 

Currently, Firebrand is the only specialization in the game with on demand access to large amounts of group stability. In other modes, this is novel, but for WvW gameplay, where Immob/CC spam spikes are the whole of the organized play, this becomes the most powerful ability in the game. To lock its access to a single build is harmful, but to unleash it to every build would be very damaging to the health of the game.

 

Ultimately, WvW balance comes down to two closely related cycling systems.

The stability cycle: BoonGen/Stability Application -> BoonStrip/Corruption -> CC/Immobilization

The boon/condition cycle: Condition Application -> Cleansing/Conversion -> BoonStrip/Corruption

Any changes to builds need to ask how they affect these cycles, because maintaining the balance is what keeps the game mode working. If at any point, stability overpowers the cycle, it will result in unhealthy correction, and require more BoonStrip/Corruption which may damage group composition and game balance.

 

There are two options here, both involve probably scaling back the amount of stability a Firebrand can provide to maintain said balance. That alone would just incentivize groups to run more Firebrands however. So we need to enable other classes to provide good uptime.

 

For this we should look at the niche/underplayed supports. Support aura tempest is an obviously popular option, which sees wide play despite being inferior to FB/Scrapper support. Another newer, more recent support entering the scene since the last update is Ventari Vindicator, which I feel like would be an excellent option to provide stability due to their fairly limited kit. Outside of raw healing and cleansing, VV does almost no boon support or utility. They have a potentially permanent projectile hate bubble, which is fairly good, but in WvW, projectile hate is already spammed, so projectile classes don't see any play in organized team play. VV is  a fun class that many support players would like to play, but they are halted by Firebrand jail. Stability required. Any time there is a new build, this is what happens. I would love to play something else, and I'm sure all of my guild's firebrands would love to take a night off the blue class and get on something different. The problem is they can't. It's not really fair, especially because as support mains, we aren't even allowed rewards via tagging in this game mode. So my preferred solution and recommendation is ultimately summed up to being this:

 

Add some minor stability sharing to Tempest auras

Add major stability sharing to Vindicator via one of their dodge traits, such as Saint's Shield or Song of Arboreum. The latter would open up offensive builds to being able to provide stability as well.

Slightly reduce Firebrand stability access.

 

The other option? Return to 10 player target caps. This halves the amount of stability providers required to maintain, and let's support players rotate off some nights. Probably not in line with Anet's boon/squad comp philosophy currently.

 

There's also a secret third option though, which I would be interested in seeing. Offensive builds providing stability. Let's take a look at warriors for example. Currently, most warriors in WvW are Spellbreakers, and their job is to drop a bubble in the right spot and then they can heck off and do strips or whatever. Not very good gameplay. Strips are good and important for WvW. but can't be the whole of a kit. Spellbreakers have the unique position of probably being the deepest diving yolo build in WvW, and I think this makes them great candidates to be able to grant stability to other overzealous diving frontline classes. 

 

Anyway, curious to see what everyone thinks, and would especially like to hear from other WvW Support Firebrand mains on their takes. I've love to hear back from Medkit Scrappers too about your experience in WvW and if/how you would like to see some of Scrapper's utility get some competing 

The core problem with build diversity. 

Stab is way to important and there so much aoe CC that you have to bring one.

Aswell concentration  is to strong and makes so your able to maintain boons longer then you should.

Aswell anet to afraid to make actual changes that impact anything or change anything.

Aswell anet thinking this a casual game when  there playbase isn't casual.

 

My thoughts