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 September 18 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 September 18 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.

[Lucy.3728]

On 9/18/2024 at 7:28 PM, ChrisWhitey.9076 said:

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.

The boonball and/or tankmeta before cele were just that. 1 dmg dealer and 4 support/heal.

The meta before that (when herold was still a thing in meta zerg) it was 2 dmg dealer per subgroup I think. That's when I started playing wvw.

Cele meta was just the best ANet could offer for wvw zerging. But that's just me, I don't like to play heal/support (mistrel). I don't feel like participating. When there's nothing up (enemy zerg), then I feel like a decoration tagging along. I also got less partition counted when I played support chrono (while boonball meta was running). Less player kills for me weekly, less dolly kills etc.

[Anekto.8391]

2 hours ago, Lucy.3728 said:

I also got less partition counted when I played support chrono (while boonball meta was running). Less player kills for me weekly, less dolly kills etc.

I think they increased the rewards supports get by participating in zergs. Like you get for buffing healing more participation? Though maybe support chrono was an outlier depending what you did. If you did mostly comm ports and veil maybe that reduced it being counted as supporting and being a dps.

2 hours ago, Lucy.3728 said:

Cele meta was just the best ANet could offer for wvw zerging. But that's just me, I don't like to play heal/support (mistrel).

Maybe you are not so wrong about it. Though cele will still exist. Also i enjoy cele you basically can low effort be viable whatever you do but thats just me. Others already pointed out its a universal stat comp that lets you do some pve and wvw without having lots of templates gear and what not.

[Chaba.5410]

5 hours ago, Lucy.3728 said:

The boonball and/or tankmeta before cele were just that. 1 dmg dealer and 4 support/heal.

The meta before that (when herold was still a thing in meta zerg) it was 2 dmg dealer per subgroup I think. That's when I started playing wvw.

Cele meta was just the best ANet could offer for wvw zerging. But that's just me, I don't like to play heal/support (mistrel). I don't feel like participating. When there's nothing up (enemy zerg), then I feel like a decoration tagging along. I also got less partition counted when I played support chrono (while boonball meta was running). Less player kills for me weekly, less dolly kills etc.

I recall a meta with a minimum of 2 guardians per party, 1 warrior, and the rest either a util like mesmer or dps like necro.

[Dinas Dragonbane.2978]

Apologies as I am late to the party, but the idea of the majority of these comps being support and typically defensive minded to wait out the enemy long enough they make a mistake is as wise as it is boring. When I was a teenager my dad would play a game of horse with me and my friends, he beat us all almost every time through one strategy: layup shots. It was cheesy and comical for sure, but also made what would have been a 15-20 minute game into 40 minutes or more, which this game never should be. 

While both the horse and gw2 strategies are effective, if they become the complete norm what are we doing to ourselves? Have we already hit a point where there is no going back?

[Gaiawolf.8261]

As opposed to sieges that are over in 2 minutes? Revert the fortification nerfs, and then we can talk about too much support. I'm tired of things called keeps being flipped every 5 minutes. 

Anet: "Let's make fortifications fold like paper."

Support Player: "Fine. I'll do it myself."

Edited Tuesday at 11:58 PM by Gaiawolf.8261

[Anekto.8391]

7 hours ago, Gaiawolf.8261 said:

As opposed to sieges that are over in 2 minutes? Revert the fortification nerfs, and then we can talk about too much support. I'm tired of things called keeps being flipped every 5 minutes. 

Keeps are a good equalizer of skill level and ensure participation for new and old players alike skilled or beginner. Skilled players can cloud a zerg trying to siege, pressure from walls or group or solo kite, pressure them. Newer players can resort to siege engines like trebs, catas and shields and have an impact no matter what they skilled or repair walls. Of course people are more effective in some ways there skilled mortar and treb guys that just know the good spots.

 

So i like the idea of stronger keeps. Yeah and not paper keeps that get flipped on cooldown.

7 hours ago, Gaiawolf.8261 said:

Support Player: "Fine. I'll do it myself."

You mean becoming the bunker? The immovable object? Which the keep should be?

[Gaiawolf.8261]

4 hours ago, Anekto.8391 said:

Newer players can resort to siege engines like trebs, catas and shields and have an impact no matter what they skilled or repair walls. 

There really isn't anything in game to teach them this, so once again it falls on players to do it and teach newcomers. Not entirely a bad thing, but Anet could make it easier or more obvious if this is their intent. Still doesn't help for response time.

4 hours ago, Anekto.8391 said:

You mean becoming the bunker? The immovable object? Which the keep should be?

It was just a Thanos joke, but yeah. 😆

[Anekto.8391]

4 minutes ago, Gaiawolf.8261 said:

There really isn't anything in game to teach them this, so once again it falls on players to do it and teach newcomers. Not entirely a bad thing, but Anet could make it easier or more obvious if this is their intent. Still doesn't help for response time.

There is not alot of hand holding by the game how WvW operates that is true. And Anet left to mode to the players mostly or? At least since recent years? So it was always kind of self organized?

 

I think they said they had a maximum of one(1) dev working on wvw for most of the time lol.

[Gaiawolf.8261]

3 hours ago, Anekto.8391 said:

There is not alot of hand holding by the game how WvW operates that is true. And Anet left to mode to the players mostly or? At least since recent years? So it was always kind of self organized?

 

I think they said they had a maximum of one(1) dev working on wvw for most of the time lol.

1 Dev? Oi! I remember Roy fielding some questions about siege on the forums, so it seems like they have some support from skills and balance beyond profession skills.