Guild Wars 2

The problem with dragonbanner isn’t in fights, but when used against small havoc groups trying to put down siege. I doubt very much that Anet ever intended a single defender to have so much power against small groups of attackers.

Sayak.6473:

Seriously, we are about to get our own vial of salt. Dragon banner issues ? Dodge left i guess? Aoe of 2 and 5 skill is really slow.

The problem is not that, it’s the Dragon rage 15k auto attack road of fire hidden under the enemy zergs name tags when you push them cast by a player with a ridiculous invulnerable uptime and a breakbar

Horrendous addition to the game. Adds nothing to the game except frustration

Sadrien.3470:

Sayak.6473:

Seriously, we are about to get our own vial of salt. Dragon banner issues ? Dodge left i guess? Aoe of 2 and 5 skill is really slow.

The problem is not that, it’s the Dragon rage 15k auto attack road of fire hidden under the enemy zergs name tags when you push them cast by a player with a ridiculous invulnerable uptime and a breakbar

Dont forget also hidden by the “less visual noise” optimisation by Anet. Many times I dont even know what AoE hit me, because its not seen on the ground.

Yesterday night I have seen a very valuable commander saying “enough of this”, and leaving. Banners are, dragon especially, not a good addition to wvw. We are already trying to change bunker meta in pvp. Now we have to be bunkers in wvw too? And what happens when the new changes in wvw come? Especially the force ress preventation? I thought it was a good thing but combined with banners and huge borderlands, it will be a disaster.

alain.1659:

Yesterday night I have seen a very valuable commander saying “enough of this”, and leaving. Banners are, dragon especially, not a good addition to wvw. We are already trying to change bunker meta in pvp. Now we have to be bunkers in wvw too? And what happens when the new changes in wvw come? Especially the force ress preventation? I thought it was a good thing but combined with banners and huge borderlands, it will be a disaster.

Yeah, on T2 we had several on the same enemy team running Dragon banner and spamming the fire road everytime it was off cool down. imagine two of them and people not fully able to get near the enemy blob cause of it. Was funny watching the enemy team trying, but it downed so many was interesting at first. However, as one that it had downed, I said enough was enough and left for a bit to EotM.

I really like the dragon banner but over using it, makes the game really boring.

And yes, you do notice not just front liners are bunker setup now, I hope?

what do these banners do. ive been in pvp only lately

WvW only use… and they are like 9K burn that ticks every second from dragon banner… And if you’re the holder of the banner you get a break bar that takes like 2 or more focusing on you to break… and if you have multiple people using the same banner you can wreck a blob… Even if they are “bunker” Sometimes you can avoid it… but If you’re front line and get all your stability stripped from you and the fire road lands and you’re stunned or immobilized in place, you’ll be double down in 5 seconds or less.

Maybe a little exaggerated on the time, but yes… its OP when used with any strategy.

Spurnshadow.3678:

I’ve never had a problem with the dragon banner. Just dodge or move out of the fire, cleanse. No big deal. The centaur banner is much worse with the constant immobilizations. One uses up all your cleanses trying to move, in the meantime, you getting caught in the enemy “bomb.”

I don’t even think the AoE indicator for “Stampede of Arrows” on Centaur Banner shows up. Just little arrows on the ground and in a big fight, that’s a problem. It hits like a truck and it’s on an 8 sec cooldown.

Ya I think this is the final nail in the coffin for me. I play gw2 for wvw and a bit of pvp. I stopped playing a couple weeks after HoT was released because I wasn’t ever a fan of EBG blobbing and that was the only map with people on it. But I came back, thought I’d try again, go to eb, wait it out, wait for change. For a while it was giving me the fix I missed, then banners. And its not only the banners but those commanders that will exploit every broken mechanic in the game right now for….what?

The wvw population is already dying. Everyone keeps saying we know better than Anet about wvw, but its not stopping people from using these bad mechanics. I’ve run with commanders that don’t allow venomshare in their pugs, or corrupt boon against the enemy pin. Its both some of the players that are left and anet that are killing wvw.

Its not the game I want to play anymore, which is sad because I used to LOVE it.

Having played with and against dragon banners a bit now…I have to respectfully disagree that they are an I-win button. They are powerful, yes, though their main power comes not from the fact that they have high damage skills, but specifically because the skills damage more than 5 people at once. But they are hardly all-powerful, and anyone getting 1-shot by them needs to stop running full zerk ele. The game has changed. You can’t run full glass anymore and be effective. Get over it.

They are very clearly designed to be an anti skill-less blob weapon. Any coordinated group worth their salt is not going to have a problem with them. The counters to them are numerous and are generally found in any skill group. Use your focus party to take down the banner carrier quickly (hint: he’s the only one with a defiance bar, pretty easy to find, and if he’s doing as much damage as you claim then he’ll be pretty squishy too). Dodge out of the dragon banner 5 skill (it moves insanely slow and is impossible to miss). Don’t push through a choke that is covered in AoEs. Wear a little PVT armor for crying out loud.

These are anti-pug weapons. Because they hit more than 5 targets they allow smaller, coordinated groups to take on larger, less coordinated groups. That is a really, really great thing, something this game needs more of badly. Yes of course big groups can use them too, but if they aren’t coordinated the banners lose a ton of their potency. And if you find yourself outnumbered against a big, coordinated group using them…go somewhere else on the map (or another map). You probably wouldn’t have had much luck against that group even if they didn’t have banners.

Chaba.5410:

The problem with dragonbanner isn’t in fights, but when used against small havoc groups trying to put down siege. I doubt very much that Anet ever intended a single defender to have so much power against small groups of attackers.

This. This is the major problem, especially with dragon banner 5. It is a 1-shot easy kill against cata rushes that requires even less skill than a siege-disabler (a pretty low bar to cross). Given that the whole purpose of banners is anti-personnel and not anti-siege, I wouldn’t be opposed to disabling their ability to damage siege.

The best way to fix banners is to make the banner effect a pure transformation so no more skills from your class when you have the banner in your hand. This would fix the fact that chron simply brakes the balance of banners. That and set a hard cap of 1 banner per guild even for public banners if your guild has a banner already on that map then no one else can get one.

Having one banner for a guild is not game braking and is mostly easy to counter due to big tell and long cd.

How about instead of trying to work these overpowered gimmicks into a competitive environment, let’s put them in PvE so everybody can be happy? PvE love these overpowered gimmicks and fluff. Keep them out of WvW & PvP.

They’re not needed, stop trying to find ways around to fit them in. They only make larger, organized guilds even more powerful when these guilds didn’t need help in the first place. Rather than tell people to go somewhere else if they bump into larger, more organized guilds using them. How about we just keep these cheese gimmicks out of WvW in the first place? Let’s do more player vs player, rather than player vs environment & gimmicky objects.

gavyne.6847:

How about instead of trying to work these overpowered gimmicks into a competitive environment, let’s put them in PvE so everybody can be happy? PvE love these overpowered gimmicks and fluff. Keep them out of WvW & PvP.

They’re not needed, stop trying to find ways around to fit them in. They only make larger, organized guilds even more powerful when these guilds didn’t need help in the first place. Rather than tell people to go somewhere else if they bump into larger, more organized guilds using them. How about we just keep these cheese gimmicks out of WvW in the first place? Let’s do more player vs player, rather than player vs environment & gimmicky objects.

So that the thing banners are the answer to guilds who do not want to use siege. Its a tool that you can keep moving that lets you deal with groups who out number you or who simply siege in the open field. I would not mind seeing banners that work like catas rams and trebs at one point with the one banner limitation per guild effect.

Wvw is not made to be fair the fact that you can have up-level run with you along makes it an unfair game type but that kind of the point of rvr or even open pvp to take your world with the good and bad to fight other worlds good and bad player too. There no “mlg” going on in wvw you cant even do that with such a high number of players there simply too many factor to balance out and if there was a super balance going for rvr game type your going to need to update every day and removing / take away freedom from players. Its best to keep it fun and not take lose so badly as you seem to be doing. There going to be a cheep build a cheep trick that going to comply destroy you at one point and time but that part of the game type and part of playing vs realy humans with a lot of freedom to play as they want to. This is why we have a game type know as Spvp and is very locked down on what you can and cant use.

Please for the love of all that is wise and intelligent, do not support those kitten ed banners. With all the bunker meta complain these banners will only cause morw bunkers to rise forcefully. See the big picture here. Wvw is already dying.

Jski.6180:

The best way to fix banners is to make the banner effect a pure transformation so no more skills from your class when you have the banner in your hand. This would fix the fact that chron simply brakes the balance of banners.

Definitely agree with this too. I don’t think you need to have a hard cap per guild though, there’s already a cap enforced based on the number of objectives available to upgrade and guilds can only claim one objective per map.

It’s sad that WvW used to be SO much fun, and now I just can’t do it anymore. I want to believe it can/will be turned around, but I know better. I’ll check in from time to time in the hopes of some great ‘surprise fix’, but down deep I know it’s never coming. I’ve already spent the money I would normally drop on gems on premium access to another title.

Yes. What Jski.6180 said. /agree 100%. I’d even go so far as to say remove all buffs/boons from the wielder, maybe reduce the wielder’s movement speed to that of siege golems?

Edit: wait, I have an even better idea… delete the kittening kitten kitten hole kittenin kitten kitten kitten banners

Edit2: I’ve been looking back at a lot of my posts… and a lot of them, like this one, is nothing but poor format and rage.

BrickFurious.7169:

Having played with and against dragon banners a bit now…I have to respectfully disagree that they are an I-win button. They are powerful, yes, though their main power comes not from the fact that they have high damage skills, but specifically because the skills damage more than 5 people at once. But they are hardly all-powerful, and anyone getting 1-shot by them needs to stop running full zerk ele. The game has changed. You can’t run full glass anymore and be effective. Get over it.

They are very clearly designed to be an anti skill-less blob weapon. Any coordinated group worth their salt is not going to have a problem with them. The counters to them are numerous and are generally found in any skill group. Use your focus party to take down the banner carrier quickly (hint: he’s the only one with a defiance bar, pretty easy to find, and if he’s doing as much damage as you claim then he’ll be pretty squishy too). Dodge out of the dragon banner 5 skill (it moves insanely slow and is impossible to miss). Don’t push through a choke that is covered in AoEs. Wear a little PVT armor for crying out loud.

These are anti-pug weapons. Because they hit more than 5 targets they allow smaller, coordinated groups to take on larger, less coordinated groups. That is a really, really great thing, something this game needs more of badly. Yes of course big groups can use them too, but if they aren’t coordinated the banners lose a ton of their potency. And if you find yourself outnumbered against a big, coordinated group using them…go somewhere else on the map (or another map). You probably wouldn’t have had much luck against that group even if they didn’t have banners.

Chaba.5410:

The problem with dragonbanner isn’t in fights, but when used against small havoc groups trying to put down siege. I doubt very much that Anet ever intended a single defender to have so much power against small groups of attackers.

This. This is the major problem, especially with dragon banner 5. It is a 1-shot easy kill against cata rushes that requires even less skill than a siege-disabler (a pretty low bar to cross). Given that the whole purpose of banners is anti-personnel and not anti-siege, I wouldn’t be opposed to disabling their ability to damage siege.

Well said. 15 characters

The banners are pretty ridiculous and, just like Coalescence of Ruin, they often ruin what could have been good battles. Even a single Dragon banner is enough to trivialise an attempt of a push by a smaller havoc group. Very disappointing addition to this game mode.

Synora.8974:

I love the new expansion, WvW, and the game in general. So allow me to elaborate before there’s a misunderstanding:

While there are certainly some issues in WvW, these banners are simply an i-win button for a single person against (like Bearded said above) 50+ people. No single person should be granted that kind of power in a mass scale combat game. Isn’t the philosophy behind a fair WvW strategy supposed to be if, two opposing armies of equal sized players and power fought a battle, the team with better coordination and tactics would come out victorious? Not, who can dragon banner who first.

If I’m a commander and I rally my guild into a 30-man composition with specific classes and builds for each person (a massive amount of coordination), and I march my squad out there to EBG to take on an equally menacing looking army; only to be trollollolled wiped by a single person insta-casting a 25k ground based AoE that’s not even subject to the limits of traditional player cap. Why would I even bother to go back out there to fight them again? WvW would just turn into dragon banners dueling each other.

I mean, Bearded said it above, he single-handedly destroyed a 60+ man group by pressing 5. I’m sure it was fun for him though. So again I ask, what was the point of banners? Are you trying to kill the WvW population?

The point must have been a kind of test;

How much will it take before we can make the people who play for fights in WvW disgusted with the game, so only the people who share our “game mode vision” in WvW are left! Huzzah to the remaining confused PvE players that use WvW for a crafting haven!

mas.7401:

Synora.8974:

I love the new expansion, WvW, and the game in general. So allow me to elaborate before there’s a misunderstanding:

While there are certainly some issues in WvW, these banners are simply an i-win button for a single person against (like Bearded said above) 50+ people. No single person should be granted that kind of power in a mass scale combat game. Isn’t the philosophy behind a fair WvW strategy supposed to be if, two opposing armies of equal sized players and power fought a battle, the team with better coordination and tactics would come out victorious? Not, who can dragon banner who first.

If I’m a commander and I rally my guild into a 30-man composition with specific classes and builds for each person (a massive amount of coordination), and I march my squad out there to EBG to take on an equally menacing looking army; only to be trollollolled wiped by a single person insta-casting a 25k ground based AoE that’s not even subject to the limits of traditional player cap. Why would I even bother to go back out there to fight them again? WvW would just turn into dragon banners dueling each other.

I mean, Bearded said it above, he single-handedly destroyed a 60+ man group by pressing 5. I’m sure it was fun for him though. So again I ask, what was the point of banners? Are you trying to kill the WvW population?

The point must have been a kind of test;

How much will it take before we can make the people who play for fights in WvW disgusted with the game, so only the people who share our “game mode vision” in WvW are left! Huzzah to the remaining confused PvE players that use WvW for a crafting haven!

Ironically, its a test that many hardcore WvWers wanted – no limitation on AoE.

Sensible people knew it would be disastrous but nope, many has been adamant that specific players are supposed to wreck a zerg (be it a meteor storm with no AoE cap or a banner). Bet they are celebrating now. Well, until they are on the recieving end.

Dawdler.8521:

Ironically, its a test that many hardcore WvWers wanted – no limitation on AoE.

Sensible people knew it would be disastrous but nope, many has been adamant that specific players are supposed to wreck a zerg (be it a meteor storm with no AoE cap or a banner). Bet they are celebrating now. Well, until they are on the recieving end.

Nobody asked to test uncapped AOE with such high damage. When you remove player caps on AOE, you’re supposed to lower the damage, not quadruple it. Having played DAOC and know exactly what players asked for, nobody asked for these overpowered offensive & defensive banners that do not even utilize player/class skills.

GG Anet logic & “balance”.

gavyne.6847:

Dawdler.8521:

Ironically, its a test that many hardcore WvWers wanted – no limitation on AoE.

Sensible people knew it would be disastrous but nope, many has been adamant that specific players are supposed to wreck a zerg (be it a meteor storm with no AoE cap or a banner). Bet they are celebrating now. Well, until they are on the recieving end.

Nobody asked to test uncapped AOE with such high damage. When you remove player caps on AOE, you’re supposed to lower the damage, not quadruple it. Having played DAOC and know exactly what players asked for, nobody asked for these overpowered offensive & defensive banners that do not even utilize player/class skills.

GG Anet logic & “balance”.

I cant recall anybody ever suggesting lowered damage in conjunction with unlimited AoE. It was pretty much only the latter discussed, because they wanted 10 peeps to own 50 man zergs.

Dawdler.8521:

gavyne.6847:

Dawdler.8521:

Ironically, its a test that many hardcore WvWers wanted – no limitation on AoE.

Sensible people knew it would be disastrous but nope, many has been adamant that specific players are supposed to wreck a zerg (be it a meteor storm with no AoE cap or a banner). Bet they are celebrating now. Well, until they are on the recieving end.

Nobody asked to test uncapped AOE with such high damage. When you remove player caps on AOE, you’re supposed to lower the damage, not quadruple it. Having played DAOC and know exactly what players asked for, nobody asked for these overpowered offensive & defensive banners that do not even utilize player/class skills.

GG Anet logic & “balance”.

I cant recall anybody ever suggesting lowered damage in conjunction with unlimited AoE. It was pretty much only the latter discussed, because they wanted 10 peeps to own 50 man zergs.

_Everyone_knows that to to increase AOE caps you have to decrease damage. It’s so obvious no one feels the need to mention it.

Everyone except maybe you and Anet.

10 people owning 50 people zergs sounds fine.

10 people owning 50 people zergs because the former pve’d enough for it, well….

Go PvE heroes! They were right. You guys really are into PvE!

Although in all seriousness, there’s quite a few complaints about “pirate ship” which would suggest increasing the damage flying around would make the situation a bit worse? Oh I don’t know. Just a opinion.

I started playing counter-strike again the other night.
It’s old enough that if it was a person it could buy cigarettes; yet there’s still active servers and people playing a lot.

The secret is, they didn’t put in stupid gimmicks.

Hayzed.1507:

Wryscher.1432:

Hayzed.1507:

Dodge? Don’t have a banner of your own? Join a guild.

So you are agreeing with the op? He complains about main counter to a dragon banner is, get your own dragon banner. And your witty response is get your own banner?

At least we are all on the same page I suppose.

Is it OP? Sure but its not like you cant have one yourself, if dragon banner helps your 40man squad wreck a map blob then whats the harm in that?

What’s the harm in that? What if its the map blob with a Dragon Banner…

Crucifier.6457:

Alloy.2839:

How much does a Dragon banner cost? If anyone knows the price for 1 banner, and the approximate price of the guild grind to be able to craft one. Is this P2W?

To get the upgrade your guild needs a fair bit of gold work;

• your aetherium capacity must be 10000 (mine level 2, with level 4 capacity upgrade)
• you need war room level 2
• you need camp, tower and keep claiming upgrades
• your guild needs to be level at least level 27 (so you probably need other unrelated upgrades as well)

The upgrade itself is pretty expensive as well, but compared to other upgrades it’s nothing special.

Once you have the upgrade, you need a level 300+ scribe however, which probably sets one back 500g+.

According to https://gw2efficiency.com/crafting/calculator making 1 dragon banner schematic costs ~3.5g at current prices, so once you have all the stuff above done, it’s pretty cheap to make.

500? Try adding at least 1 zero to that. (Im 400)

However, I love the banners. I love the updates… I think there are some things that need to be fixed, which will be when they do the WvW patch….at some point.

ArchonWing.9480:

10 people owning 50 people zergs sounds fine.

10 people owning 50 people zergs because the former pve’d enough for it, well….

Go PvE heroes! They were right. You guys really are into PvE!

Banners are extremely cheap, only about 3.5g per banner, and it lasts until the objective is flipped. Commanders might drop 3.5g worth of siege just to attempt to capture a keep. Do you complain about pvers using superior siege or high quality food too?

Kitiara.2706:

Crucifier.6457:

Once you have the upgrade, you need a level 300+ scribe however, which probably sets one back 500g+.

500? Try adding at least 1 zero to that. (Im 400)

Dulfy’s guide said that at ~20s resonating sliver prices, you could do 1-400 with 600-750g. Now it’ll cost a bit more that prices have gone back up, but the guide also includes crafting wvw schematics which also means that the money is being invested into upgrades. Scribing is much cheaper now.

Also, if you have a good server community, you should be able to find a scribe on your server willing to craft upgrades for you. I found a couple on mine that are willing to do it for free, but I tip them anyway.

BrickFurious.7169:

Having played with and against dragon banners a bit now…I have to respectfully disagree that they are an I-win button. They are powerful, yes, though their main power comes not from the fact that they have high damage skills, but specifically because the skills damage more than 5 people at once. But they are hardly all-powerful, and anyone getting 1-shot by them needs to stop running full zerk ele. The game has changed. You can’t run full glass anymore and be effective. Get over it.

They are very clearly designed to be an anti skill-less blob weapon. Any coordinated group worth their salt is not going to have a problem with them. The counters to them are numerous and are generally found in any skill group. Use your focus party to take down the banner carrier quickly (hint: he’s the only one with a defiance bar, pretty easy to find, and if he’s doing as much damage as you claim then he’ll be pretty squishy too). Dodge out of the dragon banner 5 skill (it moves insanely slow and is impossible to miss). Don’t push through a choke that is covered in AoEs. Wear a little PVT armor for crying out loud.

These are anti-pug weapons. Because they hit more than 5 targets they allow smaller, coordinated groups to take on larger, less coordinated groups. That is a really, really great thing, something this game needs more of badly. Yes of course big groups can use them too, but if they aren’t coordinated the banners lose a ton of their potency. And if you find yourself outnumbered against a big, coordinated group using them…go somewhere else on the map (or another map). You probably wouldn’t have had much luck against that group even if they didn’t have banners.

Chaba.5410:

The problem with dragonbanner isn’t in fights, but when used against small havoc groups trying to put down siege. I doubt very much that Anet ever intended a single defender to have so much power against small groups of attackers.

This. This is the major problem, especially with dragon banner 5. It is a 1-shot easy kill against cata rushes that requires even less skill than a siege-disabler (a pretty low bar to cross). Given that the whole purpose of banners is anti-personnel and not anti-siege, I wouldn’t be opposed to disabling their ability to damage siege.

I liked your post and it’s making me reconsider what one of our commanders was deeming cancer on a “we’re against a group who is running two of these banners” kind of night. Think his instinct was fight cancer with cancer… whether like “kitten it, everyone get out your longbows it’s pirate ship” or others suggesting time to snipe the opposing driver and keep doing so until the banners were put away.

You’re right that a focus team can and should be assigned to look for the defiance bar guy(s), it can’t be that hard to spot. “OK squad 7 you’re my focus team, find that Platinum Scout with the banner and melt him.” Possible in a coordinated group who better have voice comms and at least some subsquads with useful comps and skilled people, harder if typemanding, pugmanding etc. I guess.

I admit I hate seeing that road of fire rectangles though. Open field not as scary, chokes like bridges and hallways, hella scary. Sure I’ve got PVT and will try to withdraw unless immobilized, stunned or whatever, but plenty of well meaning casual dip-toe-in or militia being along and not necessarily on voice comms or having seen the banner in effect are unfortunately about to be rallybots.

WvW already has a hard enough time drawing new blood, mightn’t it kind of suck to say “this is an anti-pug weapon, since it’s on the field now get lost noobs?” Not saying this is going to drive some kind of closed raids culture, but it can’t help the vitality of the game mode.

Cake.4920:

ArchonWing.9480:

10 people owning 50 people zergs sounds fine.

10 people owning 50 people zergs because the former pve’d enough for it, well….

Go PvE heroes! They were right. You guys really are into PvE!

Banners are extremely cheap, only about 3.5g per banner, and it lasts until the objective is flipped. Commanders might drop 3.5g worth of siege just to attempt to capture a keep. Do you complain about pvers using superior siege or high quality food too?

I’m sorry, but that’s a ridiculous and disingenuous comparison because you’re ignoring the barrier to entry like the cost it takes to get to the level to require the banners. Any individual can purchase high quality food without any prequisites beyond a few gold at chef, or even just use the TP. Furthermore, the difference between expensive food and relatively cheap food isn’t that big of a difference. There’s no requirement of this sort for making siege either.

Not to mention food and siege can be easily made by actually playing WvW.

And sure, I’m complaining because siege and food can be easily done by individuals, so yea the complaints are different. I didn’t complain about +5 in the old days, because an individual could provide it, so yea, try again.

Oh, and by the way, even if your assertion is true, I don’t actually take any pride or some kind of superiority in having “worked” for my food and siege. Not to mention, if they did have out of balance food or siege to that degree, I’d complain the same if not more. If there was a new tier of armor that was 50% stronger than the last, or a 100% condition duration food, you’d bet I’d be calling it out for exactly what it is— a pve based crutch.

And let’s be honest and post a general question to those reading. How many random pve’rs that are just here for the daily capture willing to drop superior siege, when the tower rewards less than the siege?

ArchonWing.9480:

And sure, I’m complaining because siege and food can be easily done by individuals, so yea the complaints are different. I didn’t complain about +5 in the old days, because an individual could provide it, so yea, try again.

Oh, and by the way, even if your assertion is true, I don’t actually take any pride or some kind of superiority in having “worked” for my food and siege. Not to mention, if they did have out of balance food or siege to that degree, I’d complain the same if not more. If there was a new tier of armor that was 50% stronger than the last, or a 100% condition duration food, you’d bet I’d be calling it out for exactly what it is— a pve based crutch.

And let’s be honest and post a general question to those reading. How many random pve’rs that are just here for the daily capture willing to drop superior siege, when the tower rewards less than the siege?

Yeah, I made small havoc guilds for +5 camps and making guild cata with in the old guild system. It was helpful and way more fun than the new system. And actually made you feel like it was important to have guilds. Now, its more like “Oh you don’t really care about me, you just care about guild upgrades and getting people to spend gold and gems to make your guild better” type attitude…

I would too complain especially if they came out with anything that is better than ascended level gear. Worked my tail off and spent large amounts of gold to just get my ascended gear, and if they were to make any new gear that is 2% or higher better than the ascended level gear, I most assuredly would be leaving this game permanent. The one major reason I play this over other games is cause once you gear grind once, you don’t have to do it again unless you just want to. Otherwise, I’d be playing something else instead…

Oh yeah, on a few servers I was on in the past, few commanders ever wanted the followers/pugs to drop siege, it was always the commander’s job. Therefore, even active WvW non-commander players aren’t even likely to drop siege. It is even worst now that things upgrade to fortified really rapidly and anything from reinforced to fortified (gate/wall) takes a long time to break down with anything short of Guild/Superior siege.

P.S. – I miss T3 towers, keeps and SMC having only reinforced gates, but oh, well…

Kitiara.2706:

500? Try adding at least 1 zero to that. (Im 400)

You don’t need to be a a level 400 scribe to make dragon banners, only 300 is needed.
500 gold should get you there. I’m basing my estimate on the dulfy scribing guide; it estimates 768 Resonating Slivers for 1-400, but 423 of those are needed for 300-400.

KayCee.4653:

ArchonWing.9480:

And sure, I’m complaining because siege and food can be easily done by individuals, so yea the complaints are different. I didn’t complain about +5 in the old days, because an individual could provide it, so yea, try again.

Oh, and by the way, even if your assertion is true, I don’t actually take any pride or some kind of superiority in having “worked” for my food and siege. Not to mention, if they did have out of balance food or siege to that degree, I’d complain the same if not more. If there was a new tier of armor that was 50% stronger than the last, or a 100% condition duration food, you’d bet I’d be calling it out for exactly what it is— a pve based crutch.

And let’s be honest and post a general question to those reading. How many random pve’rs that are just here for the daily capture willing to drop superior siege, when the tower rewards less than the siege?

Yeah, I made small havoc guilds for +5 camps and making guild cata with in the old guild system. It was helpful and way more fun than the new system. And actually made you feel like it was important to have guilds. Now, its more like “Oh you don’t really care about me, you just care about guild upgrades and getting people to spend gold and gems to make your guild better” type attitude…

I would too complain especially if they came out with anything that is better than ascended level gear. Worked my tail off and spent large amounts of gold to just get my ascended gear, and if they were to make any new gear that is 2% or higher better than the ascended level gear, I most assuredly would be leaving this game permanent. The one major reason I play this over other games is cause once you gear grind once, you don’t have to do it again unless you just want to. Otherwise, I’d be playing something else instead…

Oh yeah, on a few servers I was on in the past, few commanders ever wanted the followers/pugs to drop siege, it was always the commander’s job. Therefore, even active WvW non-commander players aren’t even likely to drop siege. It is even worst now that things upgrade to fortified really rapidly and anything from reinforced to fortified (gate/wall) takes a long time to break down with anything short of Guild/Superior siege.

P.S. – I miss T3 towers, keeps and SMC having only reinforced gates, but oh, well…

Well, definitely with HoT, it’s been harder for individuals and small/havoc guilds to contribute. This issue goes a bit beyond WvW too.

And yea, I wouldn’t really appreciate having my efforts diminished by yet more pve grinds. Sure, it was sorta amusing planning on what materials I needed, but with 6 other characters still in an exotic/ascended mix, I don’t need to repeat that on the same characters. WvW is for the most part pretty easy to set up. Ascended gear is nice, but not needed. Weapons and trinkets are good enough and somewhat affordable. And food? Well, if you buy the non-80 versions, there’s tons of bargains. Not too hard to have a stockpile of food for months without spending that much.

Finally, as someone that often helps out group of 2s and 3s and sometimes even solo players who are banging their head against a reinforced gate in the southside of the map praying that it’ll go down before that outnumbered buff appears, I really do understand that feeling.

I have nothing against the idea of the banners, to allow a smaller, smarter, coordinated force to take on a bigger one and potentially pull a win.

The problem, as always with ANet, is the implementation.

Oh and barrier to entry, that sucks at the moment, maybe in 6+ months if scribing costs 100g and levelling your guild becomes extremely cheap once most established guilds are done with everything it may suck a lot less. I doubt it though.

I think Anet needs to wipe the banner idea entirely. Having a 20 man group utterly destroyed by a 40 man zerg with two banners, while they already claim the entire EB, then spawn camp us…. Seriously, why? That’s a quick way for people to lose interest in wvw. BP is already out numbered by SF, and this just makes it worse. We’re losing people in wvw. Heck, I think FC gave up, we rarely see them on now.

Crucifier.6457:

Kitiara.2706:

500? Try adding at least 1 zero to that. (Im 400)

You don’t need to be a a level 400 scribe to make dragon banners, only 300 is needed.
500 gold should get you there. I’m basing my estimate on the dulfy scribing guide; it estimates 768 Resonating Slivers for 1-400, but 423 of those are needed for 300-400.

OK, that’s 237.5 gold just in slivers. But there’s hundreds of gold more in other costs to get you there as well. Butt tons of wood, sand, whatever. And this isn’t done in a vacuum. It costs the guild thousands of gold to upgrade the guild hall to the point to unlock this stuff for you’re scribing.

Whoever came up with this kitten just needs to be fired, then beaten in public

Maladon.5760:

Whoever came up with this kitten just needs to be fired, then beaten in public

yep agreed and the person that initially designed wvw should be back in charge. man did i love wvw before the masteries, before the bloodlust stuff, when they balanced wvw differently from everything else…. i ucouldnt wait to log in after work. now anet keeps putting ai in control and comes out with unbalanced stuff like the shield generator, the banners, the cc buffs, the stab changes…and then there is this hideous map…..

ugh i think wvw is over.

yeah i hate the banners, they are so overpowered.
yesterday we were sieging kloven with cata’s and it was a fun and close fight with them jumping out trying to destroy the cata’s and so on…
i’m talking small parties here (it was late at night) about 15v15
just having fun and then suddenly they jumped out again for a other push but now with a dragon banner and we got rekt pretty much instantly, cata’s down, siege ended, GG
now small fight it might be possible if you spot it in time and focus the carrier right away but the dmg was alrdy dealt to us.
in zergs there is no way you can easily focus that guy down when he is always running in his blob.

this was the dragon banner but rly the others are also quiet overpowered and to be honest they are pve items and you should not put such items in wvw

you said you encourage small skilled players to be able to fight a much bigger group, now i want you to try that when they have a banner.

Okay listen I understand that Dragon Banner is a REALLY useful weapon, to make guilds want to work together and level up so they can have access to.

I however have an idea, in regards to making it better..
FIRST- Make a mastery for that kitten allowing it to double field radius.
SECOND- make them a little kitten easier to obtain!
THIRD- Make them hit stronger, my Zerker Rev only takes 6k from Dragons breath.

Anyways that concludes what i had to say. Dragon Banner Better GW2016!!

Oh my. Took a pause from WvW to complete my HOT stuff, re-entered WvW yesterday aaaaaaaaaand was burn-forced into another pause.

slow clap and expressionless face

I can understand that things need to be tested in the field but the current balance of the Dragons Banner is so much below-average, id call it buggy.