New changes to retal hurting Support FB in WvW

[Sonja.3497]

WvW Support FBs unite and count your data! My dear friend Evi and I have noticed an unintentional change as a result of the recent patch that the bonus event is making far more obvious. With the FB change to retal, support firebrands are taking a huge loss in WXP as compared to what a DPS earns in a squad. Example: 3 Hour WvW raid. Two Guardians. Same play time, same bonuses, and, boosters. In the WvW raid (very successful raid) support FB getting only 10-16 bags. In five days the DH DPS got 67 levels. Support FB has gotten 36. Can you please count your data? Post here or send it to womisar.5294 or LadyHawk.5319 or message us on discord. Special event is not very special for support FB. Retal change making it difficult for people to want to play support FB. Even if you start a WvW raid just note how long the raid is, how many levels and bags you make and how many the DPS make. Then send it to us. We are collecting data. Thank you very much.

[Junkpile.7439]

Sounds good to me. Less support means better fights.

[ArchonWing.9480]

As I posted elsewhere, I believed the killing players in particular isn't really the best way of farming wxp or in game wealth. But I feel like it's very hard to post things without bias or any solid metric. So I'm just going to let people look at this and decide. This is from this week.

 

I did not play this week entirely on support firebrand, but nor did I play it on any dps. The only other character I used was a blood  scourge and most of this time on it  was spent small scale which is naturally going to drag down the numbers. I think that evens it out

Also the game does not track sentries or guards killed, so I am going to list the best case scenario for avg wxp per kill. This number is evidentially false. So please keep in mind the value of a kill.

It's also entirely possible I didn't tag the tower lord or something, but I dunno.

Boosters used were birthday (100%)  and heroic (50%). Might have had some downtime on the heroic but definitely not during large fights.

 

Also I don't count my bags; I just open them pretty much after each run. I really hope I didn't make too many typos because I don't want to be bothered to edit this crap. No PvE was played whatsoever this week. Also, holy crap, you can get so much from repairing tower walls lol.

 

Gw2mists snapshot: https://i.imgur.com/ueTc4J4.png

https://gw2mists.com/user/ArchonWing.9480

 

 

 

WvW Status for week of May 14, up to May 19
Item	Qt	Value	Boosters	Call of the Mists	Total
Dolyak	21	50	150%	100%	3675
Camp (Inc Supervisor)	26	230	150%	100%	20930
Camp Defense	4	85	150%	100%	1190
Tower (inc lord)	20	450	150%	100%	31500
Tower Defense	19	150	150%	100%	9975
Keep Capture (Inc Lord)	8	875	150%	100%	24500
Keep Defense	9	200	150%	100%	6300
SM (inc lord)	0	1100	150%	100%	0
SM Defense	0	200	150%	100%	0
Total from objectives					98070
Ranks Gained	30	5000			150000
% of wxp from objectives					65.38%
Misc XP from kills					51930
(Players, Guards, Sentries, etc)
Players Killed					572
Avg XP (kill)					90.78671329
Avg XP (kill) w/o boosters					25.93906094
Liquid Gold	2207
(as of May 14, 2021 9 PM)
Liquid Gold	2348
(as of May 18, 2021 10 PM)
(All from Gw2efficiency)
Skirmish Reward Status	Diamond 2
Est hours spent (Mithril Rank)	9.5

Edited May 20, 2021 by ArchonWing.9480

[hanabal lecter.2495]

 start running some damage stats and using attack skills as well..

[RisenHowl.2419]

the bigger issue is that without retal there's no cost involved in running pure glass ranged classes. it doesn't matter how good your group's sustain is, you're not going to tank 60 meteor showers and 5 acs. There's no reason for people to leave their towers and keeps, which is going to kill this game mode.

 

we're already seeing it in NA both in t1 and t2, 50 people hole up in a structure and rain meteors and siege down with impunity. someone goes down, mist form back inside, repeat. Whoever thought this idea up needs to be fired for incompetence.

[ArchonWing.9480]

@RisenHowl.2419

 

I think that has much to do with turtling (siege, keep buffs, portals)  being too effective. There's also no cure for t1; it's just like that and has long been a siege bunker + cap when other server logs off.

 

Also this week is probably not the best indicator.

 

Anyhow, I think it'd be more interesting if tome 2 and tome 3 gained offensive skills. Probably the 1 or 2 skills since those are typically waste of pages. Now that resistance is greatly nerfed it could be considered as well as making the whole spec more interactive.

Obviously the tomes themselves would have to be a bit weaker. But is it any more boring than 30% of your squad doing 500 dps? maybe.

 

Personally, I would rather lean towards more of a damage meta and perhaps start to scale back on whatever is achieving that much. That being said, it's nice to see staff weaver return to the meta even under such a bad condition atm.

 

I won't disagree with you that retal left a gap somewhere, but the balance should definitely not be around who gets to tag for more spikes and wxp.

Edited May 20, 2021 by ArchonWing.9480

[hobotnicax.7918]

This is great, less support is always great. I hope Anet don't fix this so people actually have to use some part of their brain to play this game.

[Leaa.2943]

This been the case for all support before Firebrand and after Firebrand. Why is it suddenly so terrible because it happen to Firebrand now? If you play support you will gain less loot that is just how it worked during all this years. 

[LadyHawk.5319]

9 minutes ago, Leaa.2943 said:

This been the case for all support before Firebrand and after Firebrand. Why is it suddenly so terrible because it happen to Firebrand now? If you play support you will gain less loot that is just how it worked during all this years. 

Because it is very much less loot and WXP for the FB now since the loss of retal. Yes, FBs get WXP from other areas just like everyone else, but the difference is now even more so. We are asking ppl to send their #s so we can collect some data on this. As it appears now, if you play a support* FB, you are getting even less than what you got before. 
                                              *support meaning just that. you are playing to support the team, not playing to intentionally to try to get tags and increase your kill count. 


 

[RisenHowl.2419]

retal was the main mechanic by which ALL supports got their loot, so this is a bigger issue than it's given credit for. Squads can't function without supports, but there's no longer a reason to play support classes in large scale fights from any individual player's perspective. Especially when you can literally just run dps elementalists for your entire map queue and win every fight by pulling to a choke or hiding in a structure.

 

bags are w/e but wxp, precursor drops, ascended gear drops, etc are all still valued by those players.

Edited May 21, 2021 by RisenHowl.2419

[lodjur.1284]

3 hours ago, RisenHowl.2419 said:

retal was the main mechanic by which ALL supports got their loot, so this is a bigger issue than it's given credit for. Squads can't function without supports, but there's no longer a reason to play support classes in large scale fights from any individual player's perspective. Especially when you can literally just run dps elementalists for your entire map queue and win every fight by pulling to a choke or hiding in a structure.

 

bags are w/e but wxp, precursor drops, ascended gear drops, etc are all still valued by those players.

Good, now to find a way make the rest of the zerg get no bags.

[TheBravery.9615]

stop crying the 'loot' in this game is trash anyway

 

OH BOY CRAFTING MATERIAL

[Shining One.1635]

This thread is reminiscent of the nerf to Wave of Wrath, the reason Guardian Staff was known as the "Loot Stick".

[RisenHowl.2419]

10 hours ago, lodjur.1284 said:

Good, now to find a way make the rest of the zerg get no bags.

idk man, how long do you think you'll last as a roamer once the zerglings all start running roaming builds if they can't zerg anymore? Going off your posts the best you can do is pick off respawns that aren't running roaming builds as is

[lodjur.1284]

34 minutes ago, RisenHowl.2419 said:

idk man, how long do you think you'll last as a roamer once the zerglings all start running roaming builds if they can't zerg anymore? Going off your posts the best you can do is pick off respawns that aren't running roaming builds as is

Guess I hit a sensitive spot.

[RisenHowl.2419]

41 minutes ago, lodjur.1284 said:

Guess I hit a sensitive spot.

nah for real man, what's your plan when people don't/can't zerg anymore? You understand where your content comes from right?

[nthmetal.9652]

15 hours ago, RisenHowl.2419 said:

retal was the main mechanic by which ALL supports got their loot, so this is a bigger issue than it's given credit for. Squads can't function without supports, but there's no longer a reason to play support classes in large scale fights from any individual player's perspective. Especially when you can literally just run dps elementalists for your entire map queue and win every fight by pulling to a choke or hiding in a structure.

 

bags are w/e but wxp, precursor drops, ascended gear drops, etc are all still valued by those players.

That is untrue. I was on a support warrior, and unless you were running the defense traitline, you probably had little to no access to retal. Every now and then you might get it from your teammates, but that was far from reliable. And even with it, I clearly saw other support classes getting way more bags than the support warriors.

 

If we are talking about the fairness of rewards, we have a lot to fix anyway and I'd say retal is and was the least of the problems here. The main issue was and is still (and I know, I keep repeating myself like a broken record player) the way AoE effect are way, WAY better treated by the game, than non AoE effects. The scourges in the squads I join usually get twice the bags of even DPS warriors for example, at least.

Also retaliation

On 5/20/2021 at 4:05 AM, RisenHowl.2419 said:

the bigger issue is that without retal there's no cost involved in running pure glass ranged classes

That is an issue, but IMO the issue is not with retaliation, but once more, it is with the way AoEs are treated. You can't reflect them, and while you can block them, especially the multi-hit AoEs will get their hits through. Then compare the damage numbers to the damage numbers you get on physical projectile attacks, and ask yourself if that's really how you balance things.

And if that's not enough, compare the damage and effects on AoEs to the damage and effects on melee powers, and consider that you can cast ranged AoEs from a "relative safe" distance, while obviously, with melee powers you cannot ...

Furthermore the implementation of retal before the change did not only hurt AoE casters. It would also hurt any multi-hit  attacks way more than single-hit attacks, like the whirling axe. You're way better off with one big hit, than with many smaller ones - and again this was never taken into account properly, when designing such powers, or rather when designing the nerfs for such skills. You could be in full marauder gear and even throw in some toughness and still watch your health drain away to retal. So that implementation before clearly was at least as wrong, as what we have now. I'd say even more.

Edited May 21, 2021 by nthmetal.9652

[lodjur.1284]

21 minutes ago, RisenHowl.2419 said:

nah for real man, what's your plan when people don't/can't zerg anymore? You understand where your content comes from right?

You think people would magically get good just because they removed AoE caps?

 

Wait sorry wrong thread.

 

Right this is the rewards thread, I doubt most zergers play for the actual loot bags, an alternative approach would be to remove them completely and increase reward track gain by a notable amount or similar.

[Biermeister.4678]

On 5/19/2021 at 7:26 PM, womisar.5294 said:

WvW Support FBs unite and count your data! My dear friend Evi and I have noticed an unintentional change as a result of the recent patch that the bonus event is making far more obvious. With the FB change to retal, support firebrands are taking a huge loss in WXP as compared to what a DPS earns in a squad. Example: 3 Hour WvW raid. Two Guardians. Same play time, same bonuses, and, boosters. In the WvW raid (very successful raid) support FB getting only 10-16 bags. In five days the DH DPS got 67 levels. Support FB has gotten 36. Can you please count your data? Post here or send it to womisar.5294 or LadyHawk.5319 or message us on discord. Special event is not very special for support FB. Retal change making it difficult for people to want to play support FB. Even if you start a WvW raid just note how long the raid is, how many levels and bags you make and how many the DPS make. Then send it to us. We are collecting data. Thank you very much.

Then you are not doing enough burning on your ground skills check your traits

[Gotejjeken.1267]

2 hours ago, RisenHowl.2419 said:

idk man, how long do you think you'll last as a roamer once the zerglings all start running roaming builds if they can't zerg anymore? Going off your posts the best you can do is pick off respawns that aren't running roaming builds as is

 

A build doesn't make someone good--a zergling can run a 'roaming build' all they want and still not be any good.  Zerglings don't roam anyway, if there is no tag they afk at spawn (recapping the nearest camp every 4 min) until one shows up.

 

I hate to say it but I feel no remorse for part of the group losing 'bags'--roamer's never get bags because we don't see another living person unless a 'roaming group' comes by that we have to fight 1vX or we hover around a structure that has zergs fighting over it. 

 

Even worse is WXP, as I've been playing WvW myself for almost 9 years and and up until the last 4 months only hit rank 500 because all I did was roam. 

[RisenHowl.2419]

41 minutes ago, lodjur.1284 said:

You think people would magically get good just because they removed AoE caps?

 

Wait sorry wrong thread.

 

Right this is the rewards thread, I doubt most zergers play for the actual loot bags, an alternative approach would be to remove them completely and increase reward track gain by a notable amount or similar.

I think if the wvw roamers were as good as they believe they are, they'd be in pvp trying to fight people that provide a challenge. Instead they choose to gank people running back to their zergs in wvw because it's the only way they can feel like they're good at the game.

You know there's more to rewards than bags right? wxp, ascended drops, precursors, black lion keys... all of these are just as desired by supports as dps. There's no gain in screwing over support players for playing support roles unless the intent is to deincentivize playing support, which is monumentally stupid as the entire game mode relies on them. No supports, no zergs, no one for you to pick off- the meta becomes stale as people sit in towers all day.

 

7 minutes ago, Gotejjeken.1267 said:

 

A build doesn't make someone good--a zergling can run a 'roaming build' all they want and still not be any good.  Zerglings don't roam anyway, if there is no tag they afk at spawn (recapping the nearest camp every 4 min) until one shows up.

 

I hate to say it but I feel no remorse for part of the group losing 'bags'--roamer's never get bags because we don't see another living person unless a 'roaming group' comes by that we have to fight 1vX or we hover around a structure that has zergs fighting over it. 

 

Even worse is WXP, as I've been playing WvW myself for almost 9 years and and up until the last 4 months only hit rank 500 because all I did was roam. 

Do you know how many cleanses and stun breaks a zerg dps build runs? How does that compare to a roaming build? Scorpion wire and immob spam don't do kitten against competent roamers because their builds are meant to counter those tactics, when everyone is running a build that counters w/e cheese you run to roam your content dries up.

 

what do roamers do when they don't have people running zerg builds to pick off? If all you do is roam and you've been playing for 9 years you should definitely have gotten more than 500 ranks. tell me more about how zerglings sit in spawn afk

 

 

[lodjur.1284]

12 minutes ago, RisenHowl.2419 said:

I think if the wvw roamers were as good as they believe they are, they'd be in pvp trying to fight people that provide a challenge. Instead they choose to gank people running back to their zergs in wvw because it's the only way they can feel like they're good at the game.

sPvP is far less skill intensive. I should know.

12 minutes ago, RisenHowl.2419 said:

You know there's more to rewards than bags right? wxp, ascended drops, precursors, black lion keys... all of these are just as desired by supports as dps. There's no gain in screwing over support players for playing support roles unless the intent is to deincentivize playing support, which is monumentally stupid as the entire game mode relies on them. No supports, no zergs, no one for you to pick off- the meta becomes stale as people sit in towers all day.

I rarely if ever gank/pick off people, it's boring. We as an organized group of 2-5 go for as outnumbered fight as possible. It's the only thing that really feel like it's a challenge (not necessarily saying me or my group is the best 5v5 guild in the game, but challenge means more than difficult, it means a chance for your skills to shine, 5v5's skill ceiling in this game just isn't high enough for that (still far higher than zerging ofc)) 

 

12 minutes ago, RisenHowl.2419 said:

Do you know how many cleanses and stun breaks a zerg dps build runs? How does that compare to a roaming build? Scorpion wire and immob spam don't do kitten against competent roamers because their builds are meant to counter those tactics, when everyone is running a build that counters w/e cheese you run to roam your content dries up.

Yet me and my group don't run a particularly CC based strategy, it doesn't work well when you're outnumbered 3:1 and your enemies are 40% support.

12 minutes ago, RisenHowl.2419 said:

what do roamers do when they don't have people running zerg builds to pick off? If all you do is roam and you've been playing for 9 years you should definitely have gotten more than 500 ranks. tell me more about how zerglings sit in spawn afk

 

Almost up at 3k rank, been averaging a few hours a day for 4 years maybe. (excluding the bad year balance wise (2019))

 

 

I completely agree that picking off stragglers to a zerg is only one step above zerging yourself in terms of the skill required to pull it off.

[Zikory.6871]

2 hours ago, nthmetal.9652 said:

That is untrue. I was on a support warrior, and unless you were running the defense traitline, you probably had little to no access to retal. Every now and then you might get it from your teammates, but that was far from reliable. And even with it, I clearly saw other support classes getting way more bags than the support warriors.

Almost all retal came from Firebrands and its comes from almost all of their stab skills. If you had low retal uptime, your support is being lazy or you didn't have a Firebrand. 

If you are getting less bags then a Firebrand on support warrior, then its more likely a you issue. While Firebrands and Scrappers are focused on support skills that do zero damage, Spellbreakers should be stripping boons (does damage) and CC with Hammer skills. Even with the nerfed Loss Aversion and CC damage, Warriors are still hitting players more then Firebrand Scrappers. 

If this is the direction of the game, how loot is distributed in WvW should be adjusted. But this is a good time for support players to start looking at the rest of their skills, it in no way compares to dps but with all the extra quickness squads should have, no excuse for not pressing more buttons.

[ArchonWing.9480]

3 hours ago, nthmetal.9652 said:

That is untrue. I was on a support warrior, and unless you were running the defense traitline, you probably had little to no access to retal. Every now and then you might get it from your teammates, but that was far from reliable. And even with it, I clearly saw other support classes getting way more bags than the support warriors.

 

If we are talking about the fairness of rewards, we have a lot to fix anyway and I'd say retal is and was the least of the problems here. The main issue was and is still (and I know, I keep repeating myself like a broken record player) the way AoE effect are way, WAY better treated by the game, than non AoE effects. The scourges in the squads I join usually get twice the bags of even DPS warriors for example, at least.

Also retaliation

That is an issue, but IMO the issue is not with retaliation, but once more, it is with the way AoEs are treated. You can't reflect them, and while you can block them, especially the multi-hit AoEs will get their hits through. Then compare the damage numbers to the damage numbers you get on physical projectile attacks, and ask yourself if that's really how you balance things.

And if that's not enough, compare the damage and effects on AoEs to the damage and effects on melee powers, and consider that you can cast ranged AoEs from a "relative safe" distance, while obviously, with melee powers you cannot ...

Furthermore the implementation of retal before the change did not only hurt AoE casters. It would also hurt any multi-hit  attacks way more than single-hit attacks, like the whirling axe. You're way better off with one big hit, than with many smaller ones - and again this was never taken into account properly, when designing such powers, or rather when designing the nerfs for such skills. You could be in full marauder gear and even throw in some toughness and still watch your health drain away to retal. So that implementation before clearly was at least as wrong, as what we have now. I'd say even more.

 

Well support warrior is unfortunately considered the most expendable of the bunch as played. They have to go into the most dangerous zones on their own to place bubbles, and this also means they'll always be near an enemy bubble and boons will suck not to mention every necro will be spamming axe 3 and whatever in your face. It wouldn't be as bad if they didn't decide the hammer burst skill should do 4 damage, but here we are.

 

To make matters worse, less coordinated or just more skittish/afraid to push groups may fail to take advantage of your bubble and you'll get nothing.

Edited May 21, 2021 by ArchonWing.9480

[Leaa.2943]

On 5/20/2021 at 11:19 PM, LadyHawk.5319 said:

Because it is very much less loot and WXP for the FB now since the loss of retal. Yes, FBs get WXP from other areas just like everyone else, but the difference is now even more so. We are asking ppl to send their #s so we can collect some data on this. As it appears now, if you play a support* FB, you are getting even less than what you got before. 
                                              *support meaning just that. you are playing to support the team, not playing to intentionally to try to get tags and increase your kill count. 


 

So i ask again why is this different for Firebrand but not for those who played support who never had retal for all this years and there for always had less loot? What makes firebrand so special?