Guild Wars 2

I think the commander focus meta needs a fix.

Possible solutions:
1) Make it possible to hide your wvw rank
2) Give the commander an anti focus buff which gets stronger the more people are ALIVE in his his squad. Like 1 stack of defiance and 2% damage reduction per living player in your squad.
3) Give commander immunity to projectiles and moa if he has at least 10 people ALIVE in squad.

The pirate ship meta is boring enough, but if the opponents spend so much effort focussing your commander it makes the fights even less enjoyable (for him and the rest of your people).

First solution is pointless, its just how you currently describe it on TS, but you can describe his armor. Also there is a lot of player able to recognise the commander just by zerg’s movements. I dont like the direct buff to the commander like DR cause it will be impossible for the commander to know if his moove is dangerous or no cause his HP will moove differently than his squad. 3rd solution is the best i think, but its coming with the Rev … RIP until release :‘(
And for Moa … dont count on it … they’re giving AOE moa to engi ……….

I’m not a military expert, but don’t sergeants to the immediate short-term directing with officers handling the longer range planning?

Appoint a sergeant to serve as zerg pin and take directions from the commander. If he goes down, the commander can take immediate control till the sergeant is back.

[edit: my point, which I didn’t make very well, is that this is not an issue due to a problem with the game. It’s an issue because removing the enemy’s leadership is a good strategy. As such it should be countered not by Anet ‘fixing’ but by players developing counter-strategies.]

Well commander job is tell jokes and scream in TS. If he dies it doesn’t really affect fight at all because he still can tell jokes and scream.

Junkpile.7439:

Well commander job is tell jokes and scream in TS. If he dies it doesn’t really affect fight at all because he still can tell jokes and scream.

Good commanders do not work like that.

GreyWraith.8394:

[edit: my point, which I didn’t make very well, is that this is not an issue due to a problem with the game. It’s an issue because removing the enemy’s leadership is a good strategy. As such it should be countered not by Anet ‘fixing’ but by players developing counter-strategies.]

Its an overpowered strategy which makes the fight even more boring than countering the pirate ship meta.
Its also happening more and more often due to the stability nerf which makes harassing the commander even easier.

It’s a legit tactic and people will come up with countertactics.

kokiman.2364:

It’s a legit tactic and people will come up with countertactics.

Will they? I have been waiting for a decent anti commander sniping tactic for months now. The only thing I see happening is that people contact the enemy commander and make a “contract” to not snipe each others commander.

Malediktus.3740:

kokiman.2364:

It’s a legit tactic and people will come up with countertactics.

Will they? I have been waiting for a decent anti commander sniping tactic for months now. The only thing I see happening is that people contact the enemy commander and make a “contract” to not snipe each others commander.

I am pretty sure “they” will :)

Don’t base your tactics on the survival of a single individual?

GreyWraith.8394:

I’m not a military expert, but don’t sergeants to the immediate short-term directing with officers handling the longer range planning?

Appoint a sergeant to serve as zerg pin and take directions from the commander. If he goes down, the commander can take immediate control till the sergeant is back.

The point is that comm must go in and fight aswell to know how long zerg can stay in 1 place. Also do u really think that during such fast fights u have time to send commends to someone who repeat them in almost no time? Usually guild zergs have 2 commanders, but for pugs it is not such simple. There is a few leader that are commanding good and willing to lead pugs. And the major problem is that when comm die whole zerg is losing it’s head and split everywhere.

So yeah comm need some buff and 3. option is best, but the problem is abuse of it. Let’s say that some players join 1 comm that is main and MT leader and some 2. comm that is Thief and FP leader, then he will be almost godlike and unkillable while jumping on backliners to kill them.

Well if Anet don’t make anything a lot of good comms will just quit leading – it is happening already tho and they will just join some gvg guild that play against enemy zerg without targetting leader.

I have a commander pin, by all means give a special buff for having one on.

kokiman.2364:

Malediktus.3740:

kokiman.2364:

It’s a legit tactic and people will come up with countertactics.

Will they? I have been waiting for a decent anti commander sniping tactic for months now. The only thing I see happening is that people contact the enemy commander and make a “contract” to not snipe each others commander.

I am pretty sure “they” will

Change your look.

There is nothing wrong with this tactic. It is a reasonable tactic, that breaks no rules.

As far as I am concerned, it says a lot about a player, that they demand game changes around what inconveniences them, rather then learn to deal with or adapt to the situation.

kokiman.2364:

It’s a legit tactic and people will come up with countertactics.

Eh? What do you mean people will?

There is already tactics for disrupting commander focus and its all about cooperating with other classes (how odd). Thieves and Mesmers provide stealth to commander to drop target.

I dont really see how Anet can fix this or why they would want to. Its a tactic players use, “exploiting” the weakness of other players that scatter like chickens if the commander dies. The commander in GW2 is currently being raised to the sky as gods gift to man and if he dies everything stop. I think that’s a bad trend. The commander is important, yes, but good groups should have backups. Even better groups know what to do if there is no one that has command.

Besides, doesnt everyone want to stop zerging? That’s what’s being thrown around the forum every day, this promotes zerging, that wont stop zerging, zerging is horrible, zerging zerging zerging. That’s what mindlessly following a tag and not being able to think for yourself if its gone is, right?

And then suggestions like this to strengthen zerging comes along.

Select reserve commander or i guess thats too complicated for sheep.

For once I actually agree with everyone defending this. Do you think Alexander the Great would have complained about pin sniping? Seriously, this is war, war is dirty, and it’s definitely not cheating, so deal with it.

Let me start of by saying that it is not a legit strategy, it is a cheesy strategy………If ANY commander ask you to do such a thing I recommend just leaving the zerg or guild, every guilds/commanders/servers that do such a thing is known to be the worst in game……..So I suggest you dont follow the trail of bad habits……

In my server if anyone points out the opponent commander then the normal reply would even be very harsh, or simply ignored.

For your suggestions:

Hiding ranks wont do anything, it is rather easy to find the commander anyway.

Giving buffs to commanders would not help as well, this will be abused, it creates a bigger field to let people use commander tag to gain alot of health………Even if somehow a single person or 2 in the whole wvw field would get this and somehow it could be a democratic….buff gained by the people, it would still be bad, guild raids would want them……there would be a limit to who can play and who can not……It would simply be a mess….

My suggestion, if any commander ask you to target opponent commander, just leave them, since it is looked very down upon.

zengara.8301:

Let me start of by saying that it is not a legit strategy, it is a cheesy strategy………If ANY commander ask you to do such a thing I recommend just leaving the zerg or guild, every guilds/commanders/servers that do such a thing is known to be the worst in game……..So I suggest you dont follow the trail of bad habits……

So if the whole zerg consists of commanders you can simply don’t attack? :o

If I’m in a much smaller group, I’ll focus the commander if opportunity permits but generally I’d rather just get the elementalists and necros down, maybe that stray ranger in the back thinking he’s safe, but not in the ‘pin snipe’ way that I’ve heard about for the past year, that is cheesy… and doing it when zerg v zerg meet just to guarantee your zerg wins is very cheesy and bad mannered.

No buff is possible just because you have a commander tag, because then you’ll have guilds 15-30 all tagged just for the buff. Only way that could work is if it also had a big negative tradeoff, like say damage and condition damage output is 0 while under it, then maybe but there’s still some serious issues with that…

No, it’s not anet’s responsibility at all. They’ve done what they can, by not showing the enemy who has commander tag. Only thing anet can do is possibly punish the person that parties with enemy to target the commander for them, but that isn’t even normally needed because commander movements are obvious.

Right so focussing a commander in a zerg that is crippling itself by being entirely Reliant on one individual is cheesy now.

Maybe it would help if 99% of the commanders weren’t stupidly easy to spot on purpose.

Lunacy Solacio.6514:

No buff is possible just because you have a commander tag, because then you’ll have guilds 15-30 all tagged just for the buff. Only way that could work is if it also had a big negative tradeoff, like say damage and condition damage output is 0 while under it, then maybe but there’s still some serious issues with that…

multiple people have misunderstood this. the OP’s suggestion is actually a little foolproof, because a player may only be a member of 1 squad. players have to join the squad to grant the buff to the tag.

OP, basing the buffs on living players is pointless. everyone can be alive, but not on tag, and then you have some kind of invincible monster roamer. require players to be within about 3-5k range instead.

are yall serious? if so, instead of asking anet to buff your play style why don’t you evolve it? hmm you know that they are going to burn every cd on your tag do something with that knowledge.

if you know that your zerg falls apart when the tag dies? then have another member ready to tag up if needed. or maybe even have it up as another color ready to go for the switch.

there are many options to combat this “problem”. asking anet to buff the commander shouldn’t be one of them.

BrickFurious.7169:

For once I actually agree with everyone defending this. Do you think Alexander the Great would have complained about pin sniping? Seriously, this is war, war is dirty, and it’s definitely not cheating, so deal with it.

Alexander in GW2?
Maybe a few Justinians, but mostly Ethelreds lol

kokiman.2364:

zengara.8301:

Let me start of by saying that it is not a legit strategy, it is a cheesy strategy………If ANY commander ask you to do such a thing I recommend just leaving the zerg or guild, every guilds/commanders/servers that do such a thing is known to be the worst in game……..So I suggest you dont follow the trail of bad habits……

So if the whole zerg consists of commanders you can simply don’t attack? :o

Post of the day rotfl

kokiman.2364:

It’s a legit tactic and people will come up with countertactics.

for experiance theres always a few dedicaed players trying to be in atention when commander says he is getting spiked for a fast rez when he goes down if spikes gets well succeded or players need to waterblast, block, heal, sbaorb commader to full health, imo guard is awesome as a overall bodyguard job.

Commander focus is a tactic used in larger group combats and is pretty valid imo its not a meta, meta =/= tactic, a few body guards absorving ranger + mesmer pew pew gank migh be good as a small example.

Dawdler.8521:

Besides, doesnt everyone want to stop zerging?

Not really, I literally see 100s of people every day who enjoy zerging.

BrickFurious.7169:

For once I actually agree with everyone defending this. Do you think Alexander the Great would have complained about pin sniping? Seriously, this is war, war is dirty, and it’s definitely not cheating, so deal with it.

I am not sure how it was during the time of Alexander the Great, but there have been times in history where honor played a big role and you did not try to kill the commanders first. It was often frowned upon to kill the king of the opposing faction and often more or less just happened by mistake in the heat of the battle.
But I guess nowadays people find it ok to kill people with drones from thousands of km away, so I am not suprised people like this commander sniping tactics.

The Age of Chivalry existed in fiction, not in reality.
Smart commanders give a grand speech BEFORE the battle from outside of bowshot. Medevil kings died in battle quite frequently.. Usually in a far more gruesome fashion than their troops.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zVfxxsr3PM

Malediktus.3740:

Dawdler.8521:

Besides, doesnt everyone want to stop zerging?

Not really, I literally see 100s of people every day who enjoy zerging.

BrickFurious.7169:

For once I actually agree with everyone defending this. Do you think Alexander the Great would have complained about pin sniping? Seriously, this is war, war is dirty, and it’s definitely not cheating, so deal with it.

I am not sure how it was during the time of Alexander the Great, but there have been times in history where honor played a big role and you did not try to kill the commanders first. It was often frowned upon to kill the king of the opposing faction and often more or less just happened by mistake in the heat of the battle.
But I guess nowadays people find it ok to kill people with drones from thousands of km away, so I am not suprised people like this commander sniping tactics.

i think the only cure to your ails is 100mg of getting good

Yeah, how dare they use their brains and take out high profile targets, commanders should be immortal.

Also any blue haired Charr guardian with a super spikey haircut should be immortal….

Also all super sparkling female norn guardians whose heavy plate armor protects about 0.1% of their body and especially not any vital parts should be immortal…

Who needs ranks and nameplates to figure out the enemy commander? I sure do not.

Just target most stupid looking character. Rumor is that dogs look like their owners maybe commanders look like their characters too.

Malediktus.3740:

Dawdler.8521:

Besides, doesnt everyone want to stop zerging?

Not really, I literally see 100s of people every day who enjoy zerging.

BrickFurious.7169:

For once I actually agree with everyone defending this. Do you think Alexander the Great would have complained about pin sniping? Seriously, this is war, war is dirty, and it’s definitely not cheating, so deal with it.

I am not sure how it was during the time of Alexander the Great, but there have been times in history where honor played a big role and you did not try to kill the commanders first. It was often frowned upon to kill the king of the opposing faction and often more or less just happened by mistake in the heat of the battle.
But I guess nowadays people find it ok to kill people with drones from thousands of km away, so I am not suprised people like this commander sniping tactics.

That’s total BS, honor in war is total fiction, usually imposed on historic events a long time after they happend.

The reason why the leaders usually do not get killed is because they stay away from the actual fighting. This is specifically stated in treatises on how to fight wars since the renaisance period when they describe what a commanders part in war is, and non of the roman sources on war ever mentions a leader fighting heroicly. Even in mediveal fictionous texts like the “nibelungen lied” or “the gral legend” the kings are usually not the people heroicly battling in melee.

So please stop making incorrect historic arguments to support your gaming preferences, stupidity is contagious and some poor kid might get infected.

Bazzoong.7145:

That’s total BS, honor in war is total fiction, usually imposed on historic events a long time after they happend.

I been to a couple real castles one of them there was a guide explaining historic event it had been attacked 3 times once a invading king were slayed battle.
So yes this is true sometimes.

To be honest, I don’t see any problem with commander sniping at all. Just to inform some players here: at the times when the game was launched, no one had commander tags because they costed 100 gold and rich players had 70 silvers in their inventories. But we was still able to fight very precisely and organized. Todays “follow the color pin” easy-mode is just a simplified method of organized fighting developed to be easy enough to be understandable even for casual players with no experience how to fight cooperatively.

Oh, and in before someone will say “omg what??? zerg need a tanky guardian/warrior commander with color pin infront of them to know where to move O.o” … no, that is not true. We had range-classes commanders (with or even without tag) located in our back line too and we was still able to fight and win. It just needs players willing to come to TeamSpeak/Ventrilo/other voice communication application and willing to actually and quickly obey commander’s orders.

LetoII.3782:

The Age of Chivalry existed in fiction, not in reality.
Smart commanders give a grand speech BEFORE the battle from outside of bowshot. Medevil kings died in battle quite frequently.. Usually in a far more gruesome fashion than their troops.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zVfxxsr3PM

That video is nonsense. Bloody eagle cannot be used to kill a king during a battle because it would take far too long. Not to mention historians doubt that it was ever used in practice, but only metaphoric in ancient literature. And if this method was ever used than only for serious crimes like killing your own father or regicide.

Faenar.8036:

To be honest, I don’t see any problem with commander sniping at all. Just to inform some players here: at the times when the game was launched, no one had commander tags because they costed 100 gold and rich players had 70 silvers in their inventories. But we was still able to fight very precisely and organized. Todays “follow the color pin” easy-mode is just a simplified method of organized fighting developed to be easy enough to be understandable even for casual players with no experience how to fight cooperatively.

Oh, and in before someone will say “omg what??? zerg need a tanky guardian/warrior commander with color pin infront of them to know where to move O.o” … no, that is not true. We had range-classes commanders (with or even without tag) located in our back line too and we was still able to fight and win. It just needs players willing to come to TeamSpeak/Ventrilo/other voice communication application and willing to actually and quickly obey commander’s orders.

Again something that works only in theory. GW2 is a casual game and most people fail to stick to the commander even when there is a tag + TS being offered. WvW is not a private map where you can handpick people you play with.

So ehm lets all tag up and be immune for projectiles with tons of defiance on top? Even without all these terrible suggestions i can tell whos the commander or not.

Offair.2563:

So ehm lets all tag up and be immune for projectiles with tons of defiance on top? Even without all these terrible suggestions i can tell whos the commander or not.

Did you even read? The buff would depend on how many people are in your squad and alive + in vicinity (lets say 2500 range). So if everyone tags up nothing would be achieved.

Pin sniping gives some, otherwise useless classes a role.
If i’m on my ranger and I happen to come across the commander I will target hit, since Rangers are only good at targeting one.
It increases the pressure on the commander, and he will need to call more reflects to prevent it (guardian and mesmer use their reflects)
If i’m in my guardian I wont even try and attack commander, but instead cleave everybody and anybody.

Causic.3798:

Pin sniping gives some, otherwise useless classes a role.
If i’m on my ranger and I happen to come across the commander I will target hit, since Rangers are only good at targeting one.
It increases the pressure on the commander, and he will need to call more reflects to prevent it (guardian and mesmer use their reflects)
If i’m in my guardian I wont even try and attack commander, but instead cleave everybody and anybody.

That shouldn’t be the issue most have. Random people targeting the commander and attacking them is going to happen regardless. The complaint as far as I know is that dedicated groups essentially have a team composition specifically to separate the commander and spike them down.

I think it’s funny.

I got kicked from my “hardcore” WvW guild which transferred to T1 during hammertrain/pre-RF buff for suggesting the ranger changes might allow for strategic commander sniping. I was kicked on the grounds that it wasn’t part of “the meta and rangers are trash.”

Now it seems it has made its way into the mainstream and is now a problem? My suggestion to commanders is to deal with it. If your blob cannot function without a dorito your blob has problems and your commander clearly has issues making orders while dead. His corpse is still on the battlefield to make calls if totally necessary while a secondary takes over or your members after training know how to play and what to do independently.

Lol……First of all, this is first a game….the objective is to win in a fights or karma train……If A-Net placed a gun at my head or anyone was in danger like a real war, then you better believe I would have ts or even hack…….But as it is now, I just respawn, thoug rep. Would be worse if opponent or we started to do low tactics like targeting a commander…..

Drink more Ovaltine Potion of Ascalonian Mages.

DeceiverX.8361:

(…) If your blob cannot function without a dorito your blob has problems and your commander clearly has issues making orders while dead. His corpse is still on the battlefield to make calls if totally necessary while a secondary takes over or your members after training know how to play and what to do independently.

^this, and for sure if tactical retreat some one could just pop up a tag for temporary rez or arrival of the spiked commander.
Imo commander gank is a good tatic of delaying enemy group, QQ about commander spiking its the same about QQ when a karma blob gets killed by ac’s shower on EOTM.
A commander isnt alone in the field his party also need to pay in atention, and commander needs to call when being spiked.

By the other hand 3-4 rangers inside a mesmer time warp… target wont even notice downed state lol due how easy to pull heavy damage with LB at safe distance.

Malediktus.3740:

I think the commander focus meta needs a fix.

Possible solutions:
1) Make it possible to hide your wvw rank
2) Give the commander an anti focus buff which gets stronger the more people are ALIVE in his his squad. Like 1 stack of defiance and 2% damage reduction per living player in your squad.
3) Give commander immunity to projectiles and moa if he has at least 10 people ALIVE in squad.

The pirate ship meta is boring enough, but if the opponents spend so much effort focussing your commander it makes the fights even less enjoyable (for him and the rest of your people).

Not hard to find the driver of a zerg. I find them all and it has nothing to do with anyone’s rank.. I get moa’ed just roaming around so why not try and get moa’s removed from game since you seem to have a problem with them.. I’ve give you a tip how to live when you are moa’ed. Turn around and press 5 to sprint away.. Use 2 to leap. All your suggestions would break WvW. Also I’ve yet to see this pirate ship meta so many complain about.. Sounds like you guys are just scared to push to me..

Malediktus.3740:

Offair.2563:

So ehm lets all tag up and be immune for projectiles with tons of defiance on top? Even without all these terrible suggestions i can tell whos the commander or not.

Did you even read? The buff would depend on how many people are in your squad and alive + in vicinity (lets say 2500 range). So if everyone tags up nothing would be achieved.

Yes i read these terrible suggestions. Why not asking for a perma determined buff already?

Those are not solutions they are unfair advantages, commanders are fair game the same as any other player on the battlefield. Pinsniping is a low and annoying way to go about a fight but cannot go so far as to grant unfair immunities to commanders. And in regards to the first idea about hiding ranks, would only work if everyone hid their rank and its not even a guarantee since there are also other ways to tell who the commander is by movement, typically in front of zerg, siege dropper, and certain sigils usually momentum.

Can always form your own pin snipe group to counter theirs, fairs fair.

This arises due to the lack of trinity- which if it existed, the comm would be pre prottted before the battle and focusing him would be a complete waste of time.

Instead we have the blind following of the dorito and chaos as soon as the driver dies- which shows how much like headless chickens wvw is and how dependent on one focus combat in wvw is.

As for sniping the enemy comm, best tactic there is- anyone saying it is ‘dishonourable’ is talking out of their backside, in a real war no comm would be dumb enough to either be so easily spotted or be out front all the time.

As for spotted by rank, then if you want to lead roll a new toon on a new account and hey presto, no longer highest ranked toon running around.

Oh, and stop using the ghost tonic- it just makes it easier to spot you.

Any buff to the comm would be abused.

Besides, why even bring it up, it’s not like they ever change anything in wvw anyway…

Commander focus in general is very lame and cheesy imo. It’s more of kitten where guilds do it then pug blobs though because you actually have better players doing it. Ruins any type of fun in fights for me.

I am sorry, what? So, because you are so bad in PvP that you die when your oversized dorito dooshebag dies, commanders need to be buffed? If you die, because your dorito dooshebag dies, that means one thing and one thing only: you are an even bigger dooshebag. Learn to use your brains, please, and step out of the zerg.

#PvEmasterrace

If someone out there is assassinating commanders… please do invite me over to the party. I will happily participate, solely for the joy of annoying the aforementioned dooshebags.

Baldrick.8967:

In a real war no comm would be dumb enough to either be so easily spotted or be out front all the time.

Besides, why even bring it up, it’s not like they ever change anything in wvw anyway…

Nothing more to say.

I don’t care one way or another. But there a few silly misconceptions floating around the thread.

- This isn’t real war. This is a game meant for entertainment. So while you may believe “this is war, anything goes!” or “in real war, this would be smart not invalid,” there are people who find it as a direct attack on the enemy’s fun. So “in real war . . .” hardly matters in a computer game.

- Maybe on some tiny servers only guild groups are frequently running, but when you have a group of mixed guild pugs, some of them maybe not even from WvW guilds, following a pugmander, it’s kind of dumb to expect them to be able to organize once the pin drops.

That said, I don’t think ANet should take any strong steps to stop it. Some people will talk about honor and not do it, some people will just embrace it, and others will try to come up with ways to counter it. Things will evolve on their own without ANet’s intervention. It’s still kind of a crappy thing to do, but that’s online gaming. That’s why people spawn camp in games, jump someone 5v1, and so on. Not everyone cares about virtual honor or respecting other players. Some just care about winning, because that’s how they have fun, and games are about fun.

If your commander it getting sniped why not protect him/her better if it’s so important?