WvW Roles for Balance Philosophy

[Xenesis.6389]

So yesterday Anet did a stream and posted their balance philosophy for each area...

They posted the roles for each area, which is a big concern for me with their balancing practice, as they listed only two compared to three for pve(which frankly really does come down to boon spam support or dps) and 5 for spvp(much smaller area but has roles that are also present in wvw). As we all know wvw is now heavily into boon spamming for the boon blobs, I know I know, I'm not going to get into all that again, I've said my piece and understand it's a lost cause.

But I wanted to maybe expand on the roles for WvW because frankly I don't think wvw is just simply a support vs dps when it comes to balancing, especially when balancing for big fights which seems to be Anet's only area of importance. There are just as much roles as PvP, and even more focused roles in wvw, as groups can also get 10x bigger than PvP, and boon combat that requires more specialization. Anet needs to keep these roles in mind while trying to balance classes for WvW.

 

Quote

 

Player vs. Environment (PvE)

PvE group compositions are typically built to maximize damage output through high might, fury, quickness, and alacrity uptime, with just enough support and defense to keep everyone alive.

Damage Dealer

The primary source of damage. Built to maximize damage output, they bring minimal group utility, though they may share some offensive boons in limited amounts.

Boon Support

A hybrid role focused on providing high uptime of key offensive boons, though a single build should not provide both quickness and alacrity. They also contribute to damage or healing in lesser amounts than dedicated builds for those roles.

Healer

A support role that focuses on keeping allies alive through defensive boons and raw healing. They may also provide some offensive boons to the party.

World vs. World (WvW)

WvW group compositions have a similar makeup to PvE group compositions, with a focus on damage dealers to deal damage and support characters to defend them. Stability is always in high demand and is essentially a requirement for every group.

Support

Support is a broad term, and there are a variety of distinct tools that can be the focus of a support build in WvW, including healing, condition removal, boons, crowd control, and other general utility tools. Most support builds bring more than one tool to the table, but it's important that a single build can't excel at too many things.

Damage Dealer

These are builds that primarily exist to deal damage, but they also commonly bring additional pressure tools such as boon removal or crowd control. As fights get larger, area-of-effect damage becomes more important and single-target pressure loses some of its value.

Player vs Player (PvP)

Over the years, we've seen metagames dominated by both team fight compositions built around the support role, and more split compositions built around bruisers or mobility. Ideally, we'd like to get to a state where multiple styles of team compositions are viable.

Support

This role empowers and defends allies. They are most valuable in larger fights where their lack of damage is made up for by other teammates. Most supports are good healers and have access to group condition cleansing, but beyond that, they may specialize more in defense (defensive boons, healing, and cleansing), offense (offensive boons, crowd control, and personal damage), or a mix of both.

Team Fight Damage Dealer

These are damage builds that typically sacrifice some defensive options for more offense, with the assumption that they will usually be fighting alongside a support role. Their defensive tools are more often focused on hard mitigation, with minimal self-sustain.

Bruiser

These are bulkier damage dealers who trade some damage for more self-survivability and crowd control. They are generally good team fighters, but they can also flex on to the sidenode in some matchups.

Roamer

This is commonly a bursty damage dealer with high mobility. They look to capitalize on number-based advantages and end fights quickly. They have some defensive capabilities but are usually unable to stay in drawn-out fights.

Sidenode

The duelist. They're most effective in 1v1s and smaller fights but can sometimes flex into team fights.

 

 

So let's go over this.

World vs World (WvW)

 

Support

This can cover many aspects as stated from Healing, Cleansing, Boon application, Crowd Control, and Utility(stealth, ports, shields). I feel like we can break this down to two or maybe three categories instead.

* Stability Support - Stability application is a role on it's own because it's required by every single group in wvw. One of these specs is required, Guard and any of it's specs but mostly Firebrand, and Revenant could also fill in, there are a few other classes/spec that can provide some minor support of this now as well. This role occupies the number one slot for class needed.

* Healing Support - This would mainly include healing and cleansing, and to lesser extent boon support. This role would occupy the number two slot for class needed.

* Boon Support - This would mainly include providing specific boons and to a lesser extent healing or cleansing, examples of this may be specs that provide a lot of group alacrity, and considering the direction of boon spam that anet is moving for other offensive boons, this may be an expanded role in the future. This could maybe occupy the number two slot for groups, but mostly in other slots for the group.

 

Damage Dealer

As with support there a variety of aspects that cover this role, Single burst damage, Group damage(aoes and cleave), Boon Corruption/strip, Crowd Control. This I feel could also be broken down into other categories.

* Single Damage Dealer - Mainly applies to small group or roamer specs, but as groups get bigger aoes are more required.

* Team Fight Damage Dealer - Aoes would apply to this role, there are a few specs that would fill this role including Necromancers, Elementalists, Revenants, Dragonhunters, because of their arsenal of ground targeted aoe skills.

* Boon Corruptor/Stripper - This needs to be a separate main role, as it's pretty much required to counter boon spam and weaken groups to allow enough damage to get through. Necromancers, Mesmers, and Warriors, would mainly fill this role with a couple others as a minor role. But for these classes it can be the primary role with damage or support as the secondary roles.

 

Bruiser

"These are bulkier damage dealers who trade some damage for more self-survivability and crowd control. They are generally good team fighters, but they can also flex on to the sidenode in some matchups." - Anet

If you didn't know Anet, this exist in wvw too, you'll usually find them under Scrappers, Elementalist, Warriors, and even Willbenders, these are the players you would find weaving in and out of group fights providing a front focal point for the enemy using their many defensive tools to avoid a lot of damage, but also able to stand toe to toe in roaming fights.

 

Roamer

"This is commonly a bursty damage dealer with high mobility. They look to capitalize on number-based advantages and end fights quickly. They have some defensive capabilities but are usually unable to stay in drawn-out fights." "The duelist. They're most effective in 1v1s and smaller fights but can sometimes flex into team fights." - Anet

This exist in wvw too. Pretty much a combination of Roamer/Duelist listed in the PvP section. They are usually bursty power builds which either kill you in a few moves, or able to retreat and reset, or bursty condition builds that can tank damage while their conditions tick away. These are also the players that play the pick role in large fights, kill weakened enemies and get the finishers done.

 

Small Team Havoc

Roamers or even organized players can form up into small groups of 3-5 players which can mirror group roles of PvP. Which is to say, all five PvP roles exist in WvW, plus much more for the larger fights that don't exist in PvP. I hope Anet expands on their considerations of roles in WvW in future balance changes, because it's a much bigger organism than PvE and PvP, and it would be a shame if all they did for the future of wvw is turn it into a giant ball fight.

Am I wrong? Did I miss something? Is wvw ok with just two defined primary roles and everything else just secondary? Add your two cents, let's discuss it.

Edited October 31, 2022 by Xenesis.6389

[Zyreva.1078]

Due to the variety and freedom as well as the lack of competiveness (being "good" or efficient doesn't actually matter) it is very hard to determine distinct roles in WvW, so i can understand that the devs are struggeling with this. Still only considering dmg and support as roles clearly shows a very narrow and biased view.

When talking about roles in WvW we need to look at two categories - combat roles (healing, boons, cleansing, cc, boon strip, dmg, ...) and playstyle "roles" - solo, small scale, mid scale, large scale, roaming or objective camping, ppt or ppk focus, organised or not and so on. Generally the smaller the number of players, the more hybridisation when it comes to combat roles (with cele being very dominant!), the larger the scale and the more organisation, the more room for specialisation, tho builds are usually still expected to bring more than one thing to the table. And there's still more than just dmg and support (unless you classify everyhing that's not dmg as "support", which i guess is what they were doing).

There is also the question whether dueling and GvG should be considered (i think yes, even tho the game mode might not be designed for those activities initially. It's still something players enjoy and it translates well into "regular" wvw gameplay, as it can be viewed as practise).

Edited October 29, 2022 by UmbraNoctis.1907

[TheGrimm.5624]

22 hours ago, Xenesis.6389 said:

Am I wrong? Did I miss something? Is wvw ok with just two defined primary roles and everything else just secondary? Add your two cents, let's discuss it.

 

tl;dr version: need to think about this one and head to the post they indicated they were going to link and drop some feedback there as well.

 

No your not wrong. Was listening to that while working and need to go and redo so without distraction. I agree its complex and am happy they say they are listening to feedback from multiple sources and want to flesh it out more. The question does need to be broken into pieces and then refitted. Example roles and balances need to be defined differently. Roles for example might vary by play type. Large scale roles, havoc and roamer roles may overlap but be quite different. Example large scale DPS players might be the most paper and hard hitting as some Ganker roamers but are built that way since they are expecting to have beside them the most boon passing tanky non-DPS support builds that you may not finding in roamers. Take roamers alone, you will have what people call Gankers, hit and run style expecting to drop their targets in first rotation, to scouts that might use all the same get out of there skills/traits that Gankers might have but be built to tail a larger group. Bruisers looking to push larger numbers and Sustain are similar that are both expecting to run into more and want to drop targets but also be potentially able to get out of there or outlive some of their targets while droppng others. Havocs and large scale builds might have more overlap but havocs might plan more for breaking into smaller pieces so be more general purpose builds. Translation, do agree with them its far from a simple issue.

[lotus.5672]

Wvw most common and popular roles are:

Tower ranger

The five signet mech

Stone heart ele, tempest most of the times, but Ive seen all kinds of ele playing this abomination

Cele harb, literal god of the battleground

The minstrel main. Doesnt matter class or spec, you cant go wrong with this stat combo

Honorable mention to shadow arts thieves, havent seem much of those lately

[anduriell.6280]

yeh we all already knew they are totally oblivious to WvW mode.

I am genuinely surprised about this as one of the most involved  persons i know in the wvw guild combat scene joined the company some time ago. 

[kash.9213]

You're not wrong and it's concerning that while they say Support is a broad term, they also say that they don't want support to be able to do too much at once. Apart from maybe a couple of problematic builds once in a while, support isn't doing everything at once and that wording kind of lines up with your worry that they're trying to tamper WvW down into the simplest form, as if to say it's just not a technically deep as other modes or as important to have the need for nuanced balancing.

[captrowdy.9561]

Yes this concerns me. One could take this as the devs just view wvw as two boon blobs. They did mention in the stream they know here’s other play styles but it was like a brief mention. I like to play in groups with my guild but I really like solo finding small skirmishes. I hope they keep the builds around that are self supporting with offense/defense But with no group support or aoe dmg. A perfect example would be ranger 

[Gehenna.3625]

I doubt it's possible to cover everything that players do in WvW but this version is a LOT closer than what Anet said about it. Interesting that Anet couldn't or didn't come up with this.

And, I don't think skill balancing is enough for WvW as it is. It's not like raids and PvP where there's a fixed group size. And not all servers are WvW oriented as it is, so that creates an inequality as well. I dunno, it doesn't seem like Anet get this.

 

[Stand The Wall.6987]

for zergs its not so much class roles as it is filling in every gap. there are a lot more requirements for wvw zerg fights and with a limited amount of options to choose from you have to make do with what you have. not all roles (lets just call them roles for now i guess for lack of a better word) are so clearly defined as in pve or pvp so there are sometimes unlikely combos. anyway here are the roles for wvw zerg fights:

• healer
• condi cleanse
• boon support (have to have every one)
• boon strip
• damage
• utility (stealth, portal)

most of these are pretty straightforward but when it comes to boon support, there are limited options. i hope anet takes away some boons from some classes and gives them to others so some classes won't be near mandatory and class composition will open up. imo it makes sense to give most of the offensive boons to dps classes and defensive ones to the healers but that might just be me.

Edited October 31, 2022 by Stand The Wall.6987

[Spurnshadow.3678]

This is the post I made under the dev posting.  

 

This post and especially the video gives me very little hope that things will move towards a balance.

 

1)  The above document reads more like what their observations are rather than how they want them to be.  This is problematic because you are adjusting how the game has evolved incorporating all the bad elements of balance.  So you're correcting something keeping possible flaws.  This leads to 

2)  Do we play the same game?  One of the foundations of GW2 is that there WERE NO ROLES!  The only reason roles came about is due to raids.  So are you going back to that philosophy of no roles but distinct in feel or are you attempting to peg classes further into a role?  Which leads to

3)  How old are you guys?  Did you even play this game when it first came out?  Have you had enough time with the first iteration before any expansion so you could get a feel for what the game was like when it launched?  How many other MMOs have you played that have PvE, PvP, and WvWI got nothing but sophomoric intentions from the video and your gonna hit the wall of reality when sitting down to try to accomplish this task.  I really would have liked to have seen a guy with some grey hair and wrinkles rather than someone who looks like they just exited puberty.  

4)  If your goals are to be believed, that would be an insanely daunting task where every profession, every trait, every skill, every weapon would need to be overhauled and most likely nerfed so builds fit your narrow idea of what a role should be.  If the balance philosophy is to be believed, it would require fundamental changes to lots of code, not just tweeks to some numbers.  That usually doesn't happen.

5)  One of the biggest issues with balance is that the balance team and the game mode team are seperate.  It seams that the balance team is always reacting to the game mode team.  I mostly WvW.  That's a great example.  Perhaps balance should be more holistic which is a more complicated issue than what you guys lay out here.

I would love to be wrong about all this, and am always in favor of better balance, but considering how long this game has been out, and how inexperienced you guys are, I'm not holding my breath for any meaningful action any time soon.  

[TheGrimm.5624]

18 hours ago, Stand The Wall.6987 said:

for zergs its not so much class roles as it is filling in every gap. there are a lot more requirements for wvw zerg fights and with a limited amount of options to choose from you have to make do with what you have. not all roles (lets just call them roles for now i guess for lack of a better word) are so clearly defined as in pve or pvp so there are sometimes unlikely combos. anyway here are the roles for wvw zerg fights:

• healer
• condi cleanse
• boon support (have to have every one)
• boon strip
• damage
• utility (stealth, portal)

most of these are pretty straightforward but when it comes to boon support, there are limited options. i hope anet takes away some boons from some classes and gives them to others so some classes won't be near mandatory and class composition will open up. imo it makes sense to give most of the offensive boons to dps classes and defensive ones to the healers but that might just be me.

 

Been bouncing this around between havoc and zerg and they are close to the same overall since we have seen that you can micro-boon ball as you can at the larger scale level. I would break out the DPS to Condi and Power. You want the Power to burst down the other side whereas the Condi is to wear them down and keep them low when they pull back so they can't drive the action. Utility could also be expanded to most mass CC that impacts the other side from free action. Example the best options for a less structured group to fight a tighter packed one is you need to bring more pulls to get them out of their boon ball. That can also be done by slows, roots, knockbacks and such. 

I would also add Sustain which in this game translates to Tank. We will never have Tank walls since we don't have collision but tanking is alive in a limited sense in the game. When a player can hold more of the other side in one place that removes more numbers from another location. Now one might point out that anyone can be made into a Tank with enough boons but the difference comes in when its 1 versus more than one that would define the Tank role. Since it allows your side more opportunity to drop numbers from the other side where they now have less available. In sPvP they didn't want tanks because it makes for slower play and since the numbers are fixed you can't over power the Tank without bring more. In WvW its becomes a tactic to either slow an attack at a location or create a fight elsewhere from where another is going on.

I admit I think their definition of sPvP is more applicable then the definition for WvW when it comes to Roamers. A number of their roles are what Roamers would be doing. Capping the camps to drain supply from the keeps. Tapping objectives to prevent quick respawns. Eliminating targets from getting back to the bigger fights and drawing them off target. Pre-weakening spots to allow quicker access thru fortifications. Eliminating defenses if its just a breach to pre-clear an objective for a larger fight and take. Staying undetected in a breached objective with the goal to grant access to others when the heat reduces. The last being a good example why potentially limiting stealth and portal is such a big deal. Being able to do both with efficiency is an issue. 

More thought still needed but Stand had a lot of good points and outlined it well.

[hugeboss.5432]

I agree that the Anet post under "WvW" was lacking depth perspective. I just assumed the author wasn't super   familiar with WvW battle roles & just wanted to keep it simple & safe (instead of listing stuff wrong).

But yeah... bruisers (aka "melee frontline tank" stuff as i think it is) are still alive, but clearly not needed on the same scale as they used to be (we have healers now, which kinda removed the desperate need of having melee frontline tanks in zergs). Although a lot of the tank players migrated over to the support healer role instead, I didn't. I liked playing as a melee frontline tank, but I don't enjoy playing support healer.. to me, that's even less of the fun. [I was a healer in Everquest for many years... been there, done that].

[The WvW community has just never called these as "bruisers" though. Don't think anyone has actually documented anywhere what the wvw community actually calls the roles commonly assigned in playerbase zergs, so Anet prolly doesn't know what we call stuff either, unless we actually use these terms often enough on the forums]. Always a WiP :D

[hugeboss.5432]

On 10/31/2022 at 11:09 PM, Stand The Wall.6987 said:

<snip> anyway here are the roles for wvw zerg fights:

• healer
• condi cleanse
• boon support (have to have every one)
• boon strip
• damage
• utility (stealth, portal)

 

Could narrow it down (even) further perhaps...

Damage (Subareas: Strike/Condition)

Support (Subareas: Offensive, Defensive, Healer, Utility)

Debuffer (Subareas: Boonstrip, Tactical Conditions, Corruptions, Boonsteal +)

 

 

Edited November 2, 2022 by hugeboss.5432

[God.2708]

On 10/29/2022 at 3:07 PM, Xenesis.6389 said:

So yesterday Anet did a stream and posted their balance philosophy for each area...

They posted the roles for each area, which is a big concern for me with their balancing practice, as they listed only two compared to three for pve(which frankly really does come down to boon spam support or dps) and 5 for spvp(much smaller area but has roles that are also present in wvw). As we all know wvw is now heavily into boon spamming for the boon blobs, I know I know, I'm not going to get into all that again, I've said my piece and understand it's a lost cause.

But I wanted to maybe expand on the roles for WvW because frankly I don't think wvw is just simply a support vs dps when it comes to balancing, especially when balancing for big fights which seems to be Anet's only area of importance. There are just as much roles as PvP, and even more focused roles in wvw, as groups can also get 10x bigger than PvP, and boon combat that requires more specialization. Anet needs to keep these roles in mind while trying to balance classes for WvW.

 

 

So let's go over this.

World vs World (WvW)

 

Support

This can cover many aspects as stated from Healing, Cleansing, Boon application, Crowd Control, and Utility(stealth, ports, shields). I feel like we can break this down to two or maybe three categories instead.

* Stability Support - Stability application is a role on it's own because it's required by every single group in wvw. One of these specs is required, Guard and any of it's specs but mostly Firebrand, and Revenant could also fill in, there are a few other classes/spec that can provide some minor support of this now as well. This role occupies the number one slot for class needed.

* Healing Support - This would mainly include healing and cleansing, and to lesser extent boon support. This role would occupy the number two slot for class needed.

* Boon Support - This would mainly include providing specific boons and to a lesser extent healing or cleansing, examples of this may be specs that provide a lot of group alacrity, and considering the direction of boon spam that anet is moving for other offensive boons, this may be an expanded role in the future. This could maybe occupy the number two slot for groups, but mostly in other slots for the group.

 

Damage Dealer

As with support there a variety of aspects that cover this role, Single burst damage, Group damage(aoes and cleave), Boon Corruption/strip, Crowd Control. This I feel could also be broken down into other categories.

* Single Damage Dealer - Mainly applies to small group or roamer specs, but as groups get bigger aoes are more required.

* Team Fight Damage Dealer - Aoes would apply to this role, there are a few specs that would fill this role including Necromancers, Elementalists, Revenants, Dragonhunters, because of their arsenal of ground targeted aoe skills.

* Boon Corruptor/Stripper - This needs to be a separate main role, as it's pretty much required to counter boon spam and weaken groups to allow enough damage to get through. Necromancers, Mesmers, and Warriors, would mainly fill this role with a couple others as a minor role. But for these classes it can be the primary role with damage or support as the secondary roles.

 

Bruiser

"These are bulkier damage dealers who trade some damage for more self-survivability and crowd control. They are generally good team fighters, but they can also flex on to the sidenode in some matchups." - Anet

If you didn't know Anet, this exist in wvw too, you'll usually find them under Scrappers, Elementalist, Warriors, and even Willbenders, these are the players you would find weaving in and out of group fights providing a front focal point for the enemy using their many defensive tools to avoid a lot of damage, but also able to stand toe to toe in roaming fights.

 

Roamer

"This is commonly a bursty damage dealer with high mobility. They look to capitalize on number-based advantages and end fights quickly. They have some defensive capabilities but are usually unable to stay in drawn-out fights." "The duelist. They're most effective in 1v1s and smaller fights but can sometimes flex into team fights." - Anet

This exist in wvw too. Pretty much a combination of Roamer/Duelist listed in the PvP section. They are usually bursty power builds which either kill you in a few moves, or able to retreat and reset, or bursty condition builds that can tank damage while their conditions tick away. These are also the players that play the pick role in large fights, kill weakened enemies and get the finishers done.

 

Small Team Havoc

Roamers or even organized players can form up into small groups of 3-5 players which can mirror group roles of PvP. Which is to say, all five PvP roles exist in WvW, plus much more for the larger fights that don't exist in PvP. I hope Anet expands on their considerations of roles in WvW in future balance changes, because it's a much bigger organism than PvE and PvP, and it would be a shame if all they did for the future of wvw is turn it into a giant ball fight.

Am I wrong? Did I miss something? Is wvw ok with just two defined primary roles and everything else just secondary? Add your two cents, let's discuss it.

TBH I think Anet had it right by keeping it generalist for when it comes to zerg play. I just wish they illuminated what those aspects entail with more clarity. If we go by your list/system, where do support mesmer or spellbreaker fall? Herald is a mainstay of zergs but it offers as much if not more boon support than most actual supports, is it a DPS or not?

I think keeping it generalist is an important aspect of balance because it's entirely possible WvW somehow pulls a PvE raids type thing where stab (instead of quickness), for example, gets put on every person in the party and so there's no boon duration needed (Balthazar save us if that happens). So is a 'stab support' actually a role in that case? If everyone has that role, is it actually a role?

The lack of identifying non zerg roles though is a much more glaring flaw. Even a call back to the PvP roles with a 'We look at small scale through the PvP role lens' or something would have been appreciated, instead it feels totally ignored.

[Dawdler.8521]

11 hours ago, hugeboss.5432 said:

I agree that the Anet post under "WvW" was lacking depth perspective. I just assumed the author wasn't super   familiar with WvW battle roles & just wanted to keep it simple & safe (instead of listing stuff wrong).

But yeah... bruisers (aka "melee frontline tank" stuff as i think it is) are still alive, but clearly not needed on the same scale as they used to be (we have healers now, which kinda removed the desperate need of having melee frontline tanks in zergs). Although a lot of the tank players migrated over to the support healer role instead, I didn't. I liked playing as a melee frontline tank, but I don't enjoy playing support healer.. to me, that's even less of the fun. [I was a healer in Everquest for many years... been there, done that].

[The WvW community has just never called these as "bruisers" though. Don't think anyone has actually documented anywhere what the wvw community actually calls the roles commonly assigned in playerbase zergs, so Anet prolly doesn't know what we call stuff either, unless we actually use these terms often enough on the forums]. Always a WiP :D

Tbh I think true bruisers went away a long time ago with certain buffs and certain elite specs and we all know what it is. A bruiser used mixed gear ending up in what was a tanky power spec, but it sacrificed things for it due to mixed gear just not being optimized for everything.

Todays tanky cele builds... they're not bruisers. They're just disgusting abominations.

[NotFound.7813]

On 10/30/2022 at 9:26 PM, lotus.5672 said:

Wvw most common and popular roles are:

Tower ranger

The five signet mech

Stone heart ele, tempest most of the times, but Ive seen all kinds of ele playing this abomination

Cele harb, literal god of the battleground

The minstrel main. Doesnt matter class or spec, you cant go wrong with this stat combo

Honorable mention to shadow arts thieves, havent seem much of those lately

Shadow arts doesnt give stealth uptime anyl onger. Thats pretty much why you havent seen many of them lately.

[NotFound.7813]

On 10/29/2022 at 10:12 PM, UmbraNoctis.1907 said:

Due to the variety and freedom as well as the lack of competiveness (being "good" or efficient doesn't actually matter) it is very hard to determine distinct roles in WvW, so i can understand that the devs are struggeling with this. Still only considering dmg and support as roles clearly shows a very narrow and biased view.

When talking about roles in WvW we need to look at two categories - combat roles (healing, boons, cleansing, cc, boon strip, dmg, ...) and playstyle "roles" - solo, small scale, mid scale, large scale, roaming or objective camping, ppt or ppk focus, organised or not and so on. Generally the smaller the number of players, the more hybridisation when it comes to combat roles (with cele being very dominant!), the larger the scale and the more organisation, the more room for specialisation, tho builds are usually still expected to bring more than one thing to the table. And there's still more than just dmg and support (unless you classify everyhing that's not dmg as "support", which i guess is what they were doing).

There is also the question whether dueling and GvG should be considered (i think yes, even tho the game mode might not be designed for those activities initially. It's still something players enjoy and it translates well into "regular" wvw gameplay, as it can be viewed as practise).

By making stanced 5vs5 and 15vs15 tournaments like pvp ones but w wvw stats/balance we would easily know what is good or bad at a competitive lv.

[Strider Pj.2193]

And the @Xenesis.6389, we have this thread (

) 

on the general discussion forum…

 

🤦‍♂️😬🧌

[TheGrimm.5624]

+1 to the OP saying this may not work for sPvP/WvW and that the answer shouldn't be to just stack, agree with that. But I don't think that covers it enough. Take world bosses, how long has been the joke, if they just would have taken one step to the right and the world boss would have won the day as everything goes splat.

[Strider Pj.2193]

1 hour ago, TheGrimm.5624 said:

+1 to the OP saying this may not work for sPvP/WvW and that the answer shouldn't be to just stack, agree with that. But I don't think that covers it enough. Take world bosses, how long has been the joke, if they just would have taken one step to the right and the world boss would have won the day as everything goes splat.

Funny story:  was doing teq the other day on a longbow ranger (because why not) and shifted to in front of teq to avoid more of the red circles in the left side where most people are..  So, one step (actually a few but yeah) to the right and ….  Splat!  Teq stepped right on me, insta down state and remembered very quickly why we no longer stand there before the defense stages…. 🤦‍♂️😉

[Zyreva.1078]

On 11/6/2022 at 6:47 AM, NotFound.7813 said:

By making stanced 5vs5 and 15vs15 tournaments like pvp ones but w wvw stats/balance we would easily know what is good or bad at a competitive lv.

We would know what is good at 5vs5 and 15vs15 deathmatch, but then again, WvW is more than that ...

(Isn't the GvG meta well established already?)

[Custodio.6134]

On 11/6/2022 at 6:47 AM, NotFound.7813 said:

By making stanced 5vs5 and 15vs15 tournaments like pvp ones but w wvw stats/balance we would easily know what is good or bad at a competitive lv.

Well, that would tell us how good the balance works for 5vv5 and 15v15. But large scale would be left out on that (which is the biggest part of WvW when it comes to the more casual players, that also make up a big part of the WvW-population). 
So theoretically, they would need to also do a BvB-tournament, where 50 players fight 50 other players. But getting 50 players for every server organized for a tournament, while taking timezones etc. into account is highly unlikely (but that doesn´t mean it´s impossible).