Is 3 to 4 supports per sub the preferred style of play?

[ChrisWhitey.9076]

Since more and more boon strip was nerfed we have got to the state of play where 3 to 4 supports per sub group is the normal play. It makes sense in competitive play as the longer and more drawn out the fight is good groups make less mistakes and the first mistake a group can capitalism on has a snowball effect. I know that this has been a rare topic but I don't know if there is people that are concerned with mid and large scale content in the forums for this debate but thought I would drop it for discussion anyways.

[Anekto.8391]

Only thing i can tell you from my experience is that before WR on my home server organized public commander squads ( mostly with voice, sometimes without) used 1-2 supports. Firebrands were the go to for every sub and one condi cleanser. If there were more supports than dps players they would get stacked more and if there were less supports than needed for every subgroup then they would either distributed to zero supports for subgroup, 1 support, or focus on core subgroups to survive and let the other subgroups just kinda die or hope they get the overstacked healing and support.

 

Thing is at least it used to be min-max squads are a luxury and most pugmanders have to make do with what they get.

 

Now in WR its basically the same just that i have seen less organization across the board.

[Chaba.5410]

What do you mean by support?  Some roles are more utility than support or damage in my mind.  A firebrand and a healer alone would be support to me.

[kash.9213]

There's nothing to do outside of that so it needs to last long enough for people to vibe with their builds and teams. In open world pvp there would probably be a lot more activity that's engaging but not straight up combat or squaring up but WvW isn't dynamic enough with sieging being the only activity within the maps design but also while sieging is more of a thing that's just in the way of fights for a long time now. 

[MedievalThings.5417]

If you have watched any of the "devs play" streams you would see that the preferred method of play is farming 5 guys over and over with a group of at least 35-40.  Not sure the other statistics matter much to them.  Unless of course, it makes it difficult for the 40 to farm the 5...in that case, yeah, it needs to go.

[Cuks.8241]

What is a support for you? Plenty players on the forums talk about 4 supp meta but I don't think near as many know what it actually means.

I would say there are alot of hybrid roles in current squads.

A support in this context doesn't exclude that one of it's primary roles is dmg. 

[Chiral.8915]

4 minutes ago, MedievalThings.5417 said:

If you have watched any of the "devs play" streams you would see that the preferred method of play is farming 5 guys over and over with a group of at least 35-40.  Not sure the other statistics matter much to them.  Unless of course, it makes it difficult for the 40 to farm the 5...in that case, yeah, it needs to go.

Can you post any of their youtube or twitch streams to review? genuinely curious. 

[ChrisWhitey.9076]

30 minutes ago, Chaba.5410 said:

What do you mean by support?  Some roles are more utility than support or damage in my mind.  A firebrand and a healer alone would be support to me.

Guess I am using PvE logic when defining support. Boon dps is still a support role. In WvW that would make SA burn guard a support role even though it has damage. I can pull up logs from 2022 and compare them to now and as we have shifted away from less dps to more utility the time to kill damage numbers are very different.

[Cuks.8241]

Well as far as I see from my limited point of view a lot of groups run alot of hybrid roles. I'll write how I see it but maybe other groups play another way. Also we still play a more "standard" power comp and it can work out fine, depends against who you are going against.

You will have a minstrel healer. I think scrapper and tempest are the most sought after right now. Heal vindi I think has fallen out of favour.

You will have a guardian or maybe even more than one (yes I said guardian, not FB). Different variants for different comps, a more classical minstrel FB, block DH or a cele FB. Their roles vary between more heal boon focused to more mitigation by blocks and to actually push out very decent dmg.

Cele renegade. This is very common. They really bring alot; many boons, mitigation, strips and dmg.

You probably want this in every sub. Maybe add also Scourge.

Cele scourge. Again they bring alot because they are Scourge after all. From strips to barrier to some dmg and all in between. And of course transfusion. But I'm sure people play other variants to cele Scourge also.

Than you have a bunch of other possible hybrid builds that you might not need in a such abundance like cele spb, chrono which is anyway a swiss army knife. I'm not sure cele reaper fits here, not very familiar with it.

And on top pure dmg.

The compositions are actually quite interesting right now. I think there's plenty variety and this is only from my limited pov. Personally I also enjoy this hybrid playstyle as far as how many things I actually do and contribute to a group. As far as the dynamics of the fight, well that's another story, it can be very much a "Chinese" meta. I like a burst oriented power meta more.

But this will be shaken up with the upcoming nerfs anyway. 

[Hotride.2187]

Best times for me were FB, scourge, hammer rev. Fights were very dynamic, if you slept a stealth bomb by 10 people could delete your zerg and so on. I read 3+ supports and I'm glad I stopped doing zerging. One SPB bubble could wreck your zerg? Good, should've been more careful with pushing into it. Mostly the changes are pulling teeth from the zerg and adding cushions. If I wanted that I'd go do pve.

[Anekto.8391]

15 minutes ago, Hotride.2187 said:

Best times for me were FB, scourge, hammer rev. Fights were very dynamic, if you slept a stealth bomb by 10 people could delete your zerg and so on. I read 3+ supports and I'm glad I stopped doing zerging. One SPB bubble could wreck your zerg? Good, should've been more careful with pushing into it. Mostly the changes are pulling teeth from the zerg and adding cushions. If I wanted that I'd go do pve.

This sounds reasonable. I just want to add zerg with teeth good and all. But a keep should not be easily digestable.

[CafPow.1542]

So many supports. Try to beat that is like beating a walruss to death with a pillow.

[Chaba.5410]

1 hour ago, ChrisWhitey.9076 said:

Guess I am using PvE logic when defining support. Boon dps is still a support role. In WvW that would make SA burn guard a support role even though it has damage. I can pull up logs from 2022 and compare them to now and as we have shifted away from less dps to more utility the time to kill damage numbers are very different.

Yea, as Cuks detailed, and as you mentioned "boon dps", I think it's harder today to define support.  When we say "4 supports", half of those supports are also bringing damage and not exactly what is traditionally considered "support".

Edited 18 hours ago by Chaba.5410

[Gaiawolf.8261]

1 hour ago, Hotride.2187 said:

Best times for me were FB, scourge, hammer rev. Fights were very dynamic, if you slept a stealth bomb by 10 people could delete your zerg and so on. I read 3+ supports and I'm glad I stopped doing zerging. One SPB bubble could wreck your zerg? Good, should've been more careful with pushing into it. Mostly the changes are pulling teeth from the zerg and adding cushions. If I wanted that I'd go do pve.

1 hour ago, Anekto.8391 said:

This sounds reasonable. I just want to add zerg with teeth good and all. But a keep should not be easily digestable.

Increasing the 5 target cap on AOE skills would add some good teeth to zergs. 😄 

Edit: Without the need to reduce supports, since people also like to play those builds.

Edited 17 hours ago by Gaiawolf.8261

[Hotride.2187]

12 hours ago, Anekto.8391 said:

This sounds reasonable. I just want to add zerg with teeth good and all. But a keep should not be easily digestable.

At that time arrow carts actually did something. Cant say I liked it (I liked zerg fights) but a T3 keep was not easy to take from a good cloud, if the enemy world couldnt organize a zerg.

[One more for the road.8950]

13 hours ago, Anekto.8391 said:

This sounds reasonable. I just want to add zerg with teeth good and all. But a keep should not be easily digestable.

We've already had defensive nerfs so the keep inhabitants are not only eaten, but even regurgitated several times before digested unless they manage to find some dentures down in a drawer somewhere to bite back.