I have a couple of suggestions for changing the Bloodlust mechanic based on my experience these past several days.
1) Bloodlust claiming currently favors large groups vs small groups or roamers. Because once the Bloodlust is claimed, even after the side with the buff no longer controls the sites they will still retain the buff. After that it becomes really easy for one large group/zerg to make a circuit of the map center and keep anyone else from establishing and maintaining control of the three sites in order to claim the buff for themselves. This makes small groups useless since the zerg has 2 minutes to decap enemy points which takes a matter of seconds (they don’t even have to claim them, just decap) and resets the timer.
Suggestion: Change the way Bloodlust buff is claimed by requiring the side that wants the buff to claim and maintain control of at least three sites. This would also require a change in that the ownership of the site should not decay naturally. So this would mean that in order to have Bloodlust buff you need to actively defend at least three sites which would hopefully lead to splitting up of the zerg. I would also suggest keeping the 2 minute timer. So once a side claims at least three sites, they will have to maintain control of them for 2 minutes before they receive the buff, just like now. And if at some point they no longer have control of three required sites, they will get a 2 minute grace timer to reestablish control of their 3 sites. If they fail to do so then they lose the buff.
This will also introduce a change in that it will be possible for no one to have the Bloodlust buff. Since currently the only way to take someone’s buff away is by claiming it yourself so the buff is always claimed by someone at all times. But with this suggested change, you don’t need to claim three site for yourself, you only need to keep your enemy from maintaining control of three sites, which is a lot easier.
This would help smaller groups have a bigger impact because they can actively work to disrupt the enemy’s control of their points. Rather than the current situation where once the buff is claimed it will literally take a zerg to retake it. It would also lead people to actually use those cannons you have on each site, currently they are almost never used since there is no point in defending the sites outside of the 2 minute window.
2) Currently having bloodlust buff also lets you get points for stomps. This is a mistake. It has resulted in zergs stalking the center of the map in order to maintain control of the buff rather than leaving it to the small scale fighting. This also has the snowball effect of granting one side the increased attributes and giving them the ability to claim points for killing you. However if you defeat them despite their higher stats, you gain nothing.
Suggestion: Have all stomps, regardless of the Bloodlust buff presence or lack thereof, grant 1 point to your server. Bloodlust will still help with this since having up to 150 extra points on every stat would have a direct impact on the outcome of any fight. This would hopefully also result in the zergs leaving the middle of the map and go back to taking and holding keeps and towers since the Bloodlust buff would be no longer directly tied to the server’s score.
PS: If you read this far down, here is a third suggestion:
3) Make WvW experience account bound already! Everything else from Karma to Glory already is. This would be a huge QoL improvement.
(edited by Skye.4983)