The ultimate support build.

[Christo]

Hey guys, I got somewhat bored of my poleaxe-spamming heavy armored playstyle, I don't care about topping the scoreboards now, this character was optimized for such purposes, now it just won't work for me.

The thing I want to do, even if it won't bring me fame and honour, is support. Support to help my team to victory. It could be either ranged, or melee. What do you guys think, what would be the best support build/equip combo?

I thought about going polearm/crossbow, but feel free to post ideas, I want to create that "support" class I always enjoyed playing other games.

[[ptx]]

Pike is, has been and should always remain the superior melee support weapon.  Ranged? Probably bow, if you can shoot into melees well.

[Christo]

Pike is, has been and should always remain the superior melee support weapon.  Ranged? Probably bow, if you can shoot into melees well.

Yeah, I have a pike in my pocket just to do that sometimes, it can be very fun, I managed to take out 7 guys with it in a clusterfuck once. It's very fun.

About the ranged one, I might try out archery, but the current cut/animation thing tells me that I should go crossbow, but the crossbow has it's own problems with reload time, and it needs too much adjustment for aiming at a distance to be viable all the time, without a lot of practice of course.

[Sir_Ironlake]

I play a crossbow men / secondary 1h shielder

imho good support build:

Crossbow (regular, would love it mwed but will never happen, fast enough to shoot and reload normaly, hs for kill)
Steel bolts
Military cleaver (good dmg and range, slow but im low on wpf so slow anyway, sometimes use warhammer for fun)
Board shield (fits style, takes tons of dmg, enough to survive and fight again in better situation)

Kettle helmet, tunic over mail, mail gloves and footarmor (fits visual style, im a fan of that)  medium armor, will save you more often then not

Skills:
15/21
max ath, wm, ps, if, shield
~70 wpf in 1h
~140 wpf in xbow


Then just play by shooting unsuspecting archers in the head, heavy armor dudes in the head etc. etc. when forced to melee, play defensively and aim to survive, relocate, shoot.
Takes a bit of 1h skill in general to be effective though, since xbow sux so half my kills are melee kills (despite my xbow focused build)

[Christo]

Pavise Crossbowman style? Nice.

I would not like to use shields, they limit me imo. But who knows, I'll think about this.

[Dioxete]

horse archer beating their horses

[Marblecake]

Aye, horse archers seem like a good support class if played well.

I know they annoy the heck out of me when I play cav and are quite dangerous; even as inf I positively hate them.

I think my next char will be one... 

[Stokes]

Imo pike and bow is THE best support build.

I run an 18/18 archer with 90 in polearms and 136 in archery. So far the Khergit bow is my favorite along with the ashwood pike or regular pike. I've maxed out athletics and use light armor.

Basically you stick close to the group and shoot at their pesky two-handers and such. If they get too close to you back up, pull out the pike, and start stabbing: If you're playing it well, (ie, with the group), usually your teammates will be able to finish him off as he tries to get you.

The advantage of pike and bow is that you are deadly at long and medium range, meaning they HAVE to close in on you to stay alive. Since they are so focused on closing on in YOU (who has high athletics and light armor), it gives your buddies plenty of time to hit them in the back. Of course if they *dont* try to close in on you then simply pull your bow or pike out and support your buddies as best you can: And the best part is you don't have to get your hands dirty: pike and bow are both weapons that can bring the pain from a safe distance.

[Christo]

Is the longbow viable as a ranged support now? I don't have experience with archery.

If not, I'm thinking of a 150/50 Crossbow/Polearms hybrid char. 

[Stokes]

You know I chose to do an 18/18 build specifically to try out the longbow. After using all the lower tier bows, I found the longbow a little frustrating to use. Here is the reason: There is a second or so delay between when you let go of the mouse and when the arrow actually shoots. This can be incredibly annoying when you're trying to get off accurate shots.

To be honest I haven't used the longbow enough to determine if that delay can be easily overcome through practice.

I would still suggest going 18/18 and getting at least 6 powerdraw. Then you can play with the longbow and if you don't like it you can use the lower bows with higher PD. With the last patch using a bow 1-2 difficulty lower than your PD increases accuracy.

EDIT: I'm actually gonna play around with the longbow a bit more today to see if it's like I remember: It's been a while.

[Christo]

I see, just asked it because it's maybe the only *powerful* bow I like the looks of, maybe the War Bow is the other one but it's meh.

Time to bring up my two alts I think, One will be a Bow/polearm, other will be a Crossbow/polearm char. Then I'll decide which works for me.

[bruce]

Throwing+pike.

Or some form of polearm/archery hybrid. Crossbowing requires you to spend too much time stationary. The main thing you can do as an archer, and you don't need to be pinpoint accurate for that, is to shoot horses. Secondly, you can make archers on a roof start dodging and so on instead of firing by firing a few shots their way, they don't have to be pinpoint accurate to suppress them.

Throwing is great for support, too, and gets kills quite easily.

[Z_E_N]

Pikes are definately #1.

I would say also a fast character that can flank around enemies so they cant block both directions can be useful as support as well; as long as you team up with a strong character to deliver the heavy hits while you just knock their guard down.

[Christo]

Well, I leveled an archer-like something until level 11, but this isn't for me. The whole playstyle is just.. meh.

I'll try out the crossbow now. Had some fun sniping headshot times with it long ago. 
Polearms will serve as melee help, of course.

[Spawny]

Weird nobody mentioned it yet:

Strength heavy build with english bill.

It's not as long as a pike, but it deals more damage and the overhead is just as dangerous as the stab.

Something nice to go with it:

Darts.

You don't need a lot of powerthrow to be accurate with them and they will hurt (and make them stumble). Great to annoy archers and archers usually can't catch a lot of them without dieing.