Guild Wars 2

Yes another rant post of me. It is already a joke to play wvw with this class imbalance. Now fight someone miiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiles away from their objective claim with turtle banner and you have to deal with cc/condi spammers running around with a breakbar.

Whoever came with this idea i dont know, but i would like to have a chat with him asking if he ever plays this game himself. Outside of a blob. Aka roaming. Bet they dont even know what that means.

/Rant over.

Personally I like the new banners!
It’s just been so expensive to get them so there hasnt been alot of feedback yet.

Don’t take this the wrong way, but if a guild places a tactivator like banners in an objective, you and your server needs to take that into account and adjust your strategy for engagements. They are meant to resolve blob fights and fights in general faster due to them having increased target cap. The banners introduced are one of the very few anti-stacking mechanics that Anet has thrown to us and will serve a higher purpose later in the year when more guilds have access to it. The more they are used (especially in tiers with overstacked populations), the more we’ll see a shift away from the current meta of stacking on one commander tag. Otherwise, it will be simply just be a tug of war between servers who have the most banners. Again, this is an element that requires servers to adapt to. Also, support your ppt guilds as they are the ones who focus on eliminating those nasty tactivated objectives!

Those banners are like the PvE event on the new BLs, it just ensures that the dominant servers with bigger guilds that can afford that bullkitten banner, dominate even more. Turtle banner is still so-so, though imho no player should have access to a defiance bar, it’s just ridiculous and reminds me of the golem week and how clueless Anet really is. Oh and the dragon banner is just lol.

gatsu.2813:

Don’t take this the wrong way, but if a guild places a tactivator like banners in an objective, you and your server needs to take that into account and adjust your strategy for engagements. They are meant to resolve blob fights and fights in general faster due to them having increased target cap. The banners introduced are one of the very few anti-stacking mechanics that Anet has thrown to us and will serve a higher purpose later in the year when more guilds have access to it. The more they are used (especially in tiers with overstacked populations), the more we’ll see a shift away from the current meta of stacking on one commander tag. Otherwise, it will be simply just be a tug of war between servers who have the most banners. Again, this is an element that requires servers to adapt to. Also, support your ppt guilds as they are the ones who focus on eliminating those nasty tactivated objectives!

Yes ok but have you actually seen the range? Last night they had our bay claimed. And the guys were having a BREAKBAR on top of their cc-condi-stability skills on the very east of oasis. There is just no way to justify this to me. Unless people like to use imbalanced cheesy stuff. Oh wait a min..

I just wish we had to do some jumping puzzles, complete several mini-games under a certain time-limit, and complete more map meta-events in order to unlock these upgrades. Because there can never be enough PvE to make WvW fun.

legit, they need to go
it was a decent idea, but that’s all it was
on paper, possibly

how was something that costs a kittenton supposed to help smaller teams fend off larger ones?

the larger team will have an easier time obtaining them, thus can use them even more than the smaller team….

a gold sink into an object that anyone can obtain that helps a fight is obviously going to see way more abuse on the side that doesn’t need it because they have the numbers capable of spending the gold on it

i don’t even

how was this even fully developed and went through all the trouble to come up with ideas and still had absolutely no one tell them how much of a fail this was

we had an even fight of blob on blob and the other blob got so tired of losing they started using banners

worse than open field siege creepers, at least those can be destroyed

Just make the turtle banner give us 100 Stacks of Stability and kill pirateship meta!

ArchonWing.9480:

Both banners are garbage and show a lack of thought and lack of testing of which isn’t atypical for the game, especially when it comes to WvW.

Yea, stuff is “imbalanced” in WvW, but that’s not that big of a deal. I see them as “tools” that anyone can use. Anyone can roll one of dem heralds or chronomancers or whatever the trend is with a good stack of tomes. Anyone can buy some superior siege. Anyone can do the silly laser event. Except this isn’t a thing everyone can use, it’s confined to rich guilds, making it a borderline p2w. People complained about ascended gear giving an advantage, but it was still possible to acquire on an individual basis and wouldn’t change the tide of battle like this. At least the chilling thing has a point in defending structures.

It’s also a lack of creativity. One is stack every defense ability. One is do lots of damage. Wow, that’s such engaging gameplay!

And again, it’s not much of a balance issue as it is a intent issue, of which I can’t read any beyond “let’s put a really expensive gold sink in and not test it out in a realistic environment as well as again alienate people that aren’t in a big guild”.

It’s an extremely disturbing trend in HoT that I see a slow promotion of power creep (inaccessible stats, i heard u liek pirate ship so we put some pirate ship on top of your pirate ship), lack of freedom of choice (Do this content to get this reward, and we won’t let you pick alternative ways), and exclusion (Non-HoT players lose guild buffs) that fortunately isn’t taken to that much of an extreme in most cases that I think really ruins the appeal of this game. This isn’t a step in a good direction.

I think the most optimistic way to evaluate the situation is that HoT was indeed so rushed that the current version of WvW is literally a skeleton model that was never meant to actually be played and we are still beta testing. Hey, I’m trying to be positive!

Well said, as forum specialist are you able to provide this feedback to anet?

Technically, though it’d be a bit more substantial if we had people agreeing/disagreeing with it.

I do not have an issue with the banners. 15min timer, that person can not build/drop siege, and if they are down the banner is lost. Once wvw guilds do enough pvp :P, every server that can at least hold their keep should have a guild with one. Turtle best support, Centaur melee lockdown, and Dragon range dps. I still have not been able to get onto an assault roller yet.

There are major issues with banners atm.

Starting with the break bar, it is not working right:

• afaik the bar is not affected by blind and weakness (needs further testing for other soft cc like cripple and chill as well)
• the regeneration after getting hit with cc starts about 1 second after last cc and appears to be as fast as health regen out of combat
• once the bar is broken, you can stunbreak out of the stun and stay immune to all cc (hard and soft) while the bar is red and regens to full (needs further testing)

The break bar needs heavy work to balance/fix or needs to be completely removed. Bar regen should be 50% slower in combat. Once the bar is broken, the stun should not be breakable and you should be affected by cc as long as it is red.

Moving on to gear and traits:

• power definitely scales with banner abilities (need further testing for other stats, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they do)
• needs further testing, but sigil of fire definitely works with the banners
• certain traits work extremely well with banners (guardian with turtle is unkillable etc)

Gear and traits (and food) should not scale/work with banners. Your other skills (util, healing, elite) should. Alacrity should also not work with banner skills.

Problems specific to turtle banner: (look at image below, skill 1 starting on the left)

• skill 1 is fine (the projectile speed is very slow)
• skill 2 needs: a longer cd (10-15sec), allied target cap (15 or less)
• skill 3 needs: a longer cd (20sec +), shorter duration (3sec or less) -currently most broken of all, can make 10 people perma invuln if there are 4 banners present
• skill 4 needs a longer cd (40 sec +), shorter field duration (8sec or less)
• skill 5 needs: reduced duration of boons (15sec or less), allied target cap (20 or less), enemy target cap (20 or less), reduced radius (currently the area of effect is about as big as a keep lords room in EB)

This combined with removal/balancing of break bar and making gear(stats, runes, sigils) and traits not work with banners should tone the banner down enough to still be usable but not OP as it currently is, making it what is should be, a viable alternative.
I am also of the opinion that you should only be able to have one banner of each type per map.

The carrier should also be more noticeable, especially when using skills.

And as far as the other two banners go, the changes needed are much like this one.

Also note that I might be wrong on a few things (especially about the break bar and how stats/gear affect banners), these things are hard to test for and what I’ve written here are really mostly observations.

Crucifier.6457:

There are major issues with banners atm.

So that’s what a turtle banner is. Good grief, I may seriously have to consider not playing at all until the “big update” drops. Last time I did that, though, I was gone for 6 months…

When you look at the skills, what they do and their cooldowns (not to mention the cost)… you realize its a joke. A complete and utter farce. Someone over at Anet is obviously having a laugh over this. Its as if they set out to not just kill WvW, but to humiliate and torture it first.

ArchonWing.9480:

Technically, though it’d be a bit more substantial if we had people agreeing/disagreeing with it.

Its just more of the PvE mentality pervading WvW development, overpowered siege/special abilities taking away from the actual skill of the players.

No player should have a kittening defiance bar.

Actually, you have a solid and valid point, guys take it from a guy who has raided with multiple guilds on different servers for the past 3.5 weeks of coming back into the game. Turtle banners are ruinning WvW tactics that made WvW a literal fun and playable hell. Now with the addition of turtle banners and the stupidity of the logic that the balancing team has, the way you win WvW is no longer about tactics, because screw tactics, its all about how many people you have on your tag. And I’d not just the turtle banners, its a sum of all the things Anet took away from players, and it’s the challenge of actually working together. You done kittened up anet. You done kittened up.

Crucifier.6457:

There are major issues with banners atm.

Starting with the break bar, it is not working right:

• afaik the bar is not affected by blind and weakness (needs further testing for other soft cc like cripple and chill as well)
• the regeneration after getting hit with cc starts about 1 second after last cc and appears to be as fast as health regen out of combat
• once the bar is broken, you can stunbreak out of the stun and stay immune to all cc (hard and soft) while the bar is red and regens to full (needs further testing)

The break bar needs heavy work to balance/fix or needs to be completely removed. Bar regen should be 50% slower in combat. Once the bar is broken, the stun should not be breakable and you should be affected by cc as long as it is red.

Moving on to gear and traits:

• power definitely scales with banner abilities (need further testing for other stats, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they do)
• needs further testing, but sigil of fire definitely works with the banners
• certain traits work extremely well with banners (guardian with turtle is unkillable etc)

Gear and traits (and food) should not scale/work with banners. Your other skills (util, healing, elite) should. Alacrity should also not work with banner skills.

Problems specific to turtle banner: (look at image below, skill 1 starting on the left)

• skill 1 is fine (the projectile speed is very slow)
• skill 2 needs: a longer cd (10-15sec), allied target cap (15 or less)
• skill 3 needs: a longer cd (20sec +), shorter duration (3sec or less) -currently most broken of all, can make 10 people perma invuln if there are 4 banners present
• skill 4 needs a longer cd (40 sec +), shorter field duration (8sec or less)
• skill 5 needs: reduced duration of boons (15sec or less), allied target cap (20 or less), enemy target cap (20 or less), reduced radius (currently the area of effect is about as big as a keep lords room in EB)

This combined with removal/balancing of break bar and making gear(stats, runes, sigils) and traits not work with banners should tone the banner down enough to still be usable but not OP as it currently is, making it what is should be, a viable alternative.
I am also of the opinion that you should only be able to have one banner of each type per map.

The carrier should also be more noticeable, especially when using skills.

And as far as the other two banners go, the changes needed are much like this one.

Also note that I might be wrong on a few things (especially about the break bar and how stats/gear affect banners), these things are hard to test for and what I’ve written here are really mostly observations.

Nice feedback!

Thought I’d give another point that should be looked at, for ALL banners, especially the Dragon Banner:

The banners are not affected by retaliation.

The banners are ridiculous. They have no place in WvW. So many gimmicks so little map in the new borderlands. The new borderlands were clearly never play tested in any real way. One would think Anet would have learned SOMETHING after the disaster that is EtoM, but no, clearly they didn’t Thank you Mike O’Brien.

Crucifier.6457:

There are major issues with banners atm.

Starting with the break bar, it is not working right:

• afaik the bar is not affected by blind and weakness (needs further testing for other soft cc like cripple and chill as well)
• the regeneration after getting hit with cc starts about 1 second after last cc and appears to be as fast as health regen out of combat
• once the bar is broken, you can stunbreak out of the stun and stay immune to all cc (hard and soft) while the bar is red and regens to full (needs further testing)

The break bar needs heavy work to balance/fix or needs to be completely removed. Bar regen should be 50% slower in combat. Once the bar is broken, the stun should not be breakable and you should be affected by cc as long as it is red.

Moving on to gear and traits:

• power definitely scales with banner abilities (need further testing for other stats, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they do)
• needs further testing, but sigil of fire definitely works with the banners
• certain traits work extremely well with banners (guardian with turtle is unkillable etc)

Gear and traits (and food) should not scale/work with banners. Your other skills (util, healing, elite) should. Alacrity should also not work with banner skills.

Problems specific to turtle banner: (look at image below, skill 1 starting on the left)

• skill 1 is fine (the projectile speed is very slow)
• skill 2 needs: a longer cd (10-15sec), allied target cap (15 or less)
• skill 3 needs: a longer cd (20sec +), shorter duration (3sec or less) -currently most broken of all, can make 10 people perma invuln if there are 4 banners present
• skill 4 needs a longer cd (40 sec +), shorter field duration (8sec or less)
• skill 5 needs: reduced duration of boons (15sec or less), allied target cap (20 or less), enemy target cap (20 or less), reduced radius (currently the area of effect is about as big as a keep lords room in EB)

This combined with removal/balancing of break bar and making gear(stats, runes, sigils) and traits not work with banners should tone the banner down enough to still be usable but not OP as it currently is, making it what is should be, a viable alternative.
I am also of the opinion that you should only be able to have one banner of each type per map.

The carrier should also be more noticeable, especially when using skills.

And as far as the other two banners go, the changes needed are much like this one.

Also note that I might be wrong on a few things (especially about the break bar and how stats/gear affect banners), these things are hard to test for and what I’ve written here are really mostly observations.

Let’s forget about the gear/traits/food issues and just look at the skills. I remember people saying that it would be overpowered in the stress-test.

In its current state:

How is having a healing skill that affects 20 people a good idea on 8 cooldown (Shell-ter)? Then you look at the heal amount and it is just ludicrous. It should be at the bare minimum 15 cooldown and shouldn’t heal half of a player heal. It should give regeneration-level heals.

How is having a 10 target defy pain / well of precognition on 15 cooldown a good idea? That’s basically what skill 3 (Saved by the Shell) is. This should be a twitch skill to save your team (like the warrior banner that resses people) not a “spam on recharge” skill.

With Skill 5’s (Bomb Shell) duration, it’s a “set and forget” skill if you have multiple turtle banners. The recharge makes it less broken though.

morrolan.9608:

ArchonWing.9480:

Technically, though it’d be a bit more substantial if we had people agreeing/disagreeing with it.

Its just more of the PvE mentality pervading WvW development, overpowered siege/special abilities taking away from the actual skill of the players.

I wouldn’t really consider that a pve mentality, at all. I wouldn’t consider it a mentality, as that would imply thought.

If anything, PvE relies on active defense and learning the gimmicks. At least one could claim that a zerker gear person that learned to dodge and read boss movements would do a lot better than one that didn’t. There’s essentially no learning here besides tossing a lot of money at something and just using it.

Before HoT, regardless of how unfair anything was, at least anyone could roll any build, and anyone could +5 supply a keep. Anyone could toss and build whatever overpowered siege there was. But now it’s far more restricted.

One thing I forgot to mention about the turtle banner is that skills 1-4 are castable while moving. While skill 5 does not have a cast time, it has a ~1.5sec animation during which you have to stand still for it to cast, but since the aoe circle is so big it doesn’t really affect much.

I think it’s safe to say that we all agree nerfing banners is a must. Unfortunately I don’t expect anet to do anything till the big overhaul is out.

Crucifier.6457:

One thing I forgot to mention about the turtle banner is that skills 1-4 are castable while moving. While skill 5 does not have a cast time, it has a ~1.5sec animation during which you have to stand still for it to cast, but since the aoe circle is so big it doesn’t really affect much.

I think it’s safe to say that we all agree nerfing banners is a must. Unfortunately I don’t expect anet to do anything till the big overhaul is out.

At least your expectation is the right one. I suspect that the banners are here to stay. The map will remain as it is with the very minor change to upgrading outlined in the post by Gaile, which I might ask, where the kitten is John Corpening? He can’t spend 5 mins typing up and posting that? There is something REALLY WRONG with Anet, why “Early 2016” that could be Feb or March. The response was overwhelmingly positive, yet I suspect we won’t see the changes implemented before February.. I used to be salty about WvW now after HoT I am salty about the entire game…..

It takes a lot to get just one of the banner your not going to see them that often and when you do you out right kill the person holding it making sure they do have another for some time. The problem atm is with chron who can double up the banners effect (though i must say chron and its effect has destroyed a lot of balancing in wvw and i guess spvp).

Jski.6180:

It takes a lot to get just one of the banner your not going to see them that often and when you do you out right kill the person holding it making sure they do have another for some time. The problem atm is with chron who can double up the banners effect (though i must say chron and its effect has destroyed a lot of balancing in wvw and i guess spvp).

Just like guild catas are expensive, but there are guilds that throw them down like candy. I don’t think the crafting cost is going to limit their use…

Not to mention Guild Catas got nerfed for balance reasons. Of course, banners are the new thing in town and they want folks to buy the expansion and spend gold.

ArchonWing.9480:

Not to mention Guild Catas got nerfed for balance reasons. Of course, banners are the new thing in town and they want folks to buy the expansion and spend gold.

Indeed, the Pay to Win is strong in this expansion!

Jski.6180:

It takes a lot to get just one of the banner your not going to see them that often and when you do you out right kill the person holding it making sure they do have another for some time. The problem atm is with chron who can double up the banners effect (though i must say chron and its effect has destroyed a lot of balancing in wvw and i guess spvp).

You have to understand that scribing is a very expensive craft to level. At level 200 (when turtle banner is available) you have a few options on how to get to 225, namely:

• decorations (very, very expensive)
• scribing thesis (expensive low level feasts which aren’t really useful nor would they sell)
• guild karma and exp banner (cheaper to buy with commendations)
• guild ballistas (cheaper to buy with commendations)
• guild arrow carts (cheaper to buy with commendations)
• turtle banner

So your options are either something useless, something expensive or a turtle banner, that costs around 4g each so you end up making ~20 of them to get to 225 (iirc).
You ask me, that’s a lot of turtle banners. Of course I leveled up my scribing back when the guild siege was ridiculous expensive to craft, but even at current prices, buying guild arrow carts and ballistas is comparable or cheaper than making them.

My end point is that any guild who’ll invest seriously into a guild scribe for the purpose of chasing WvW upgrades will make a lot of banners.

I had no idea that turtle banner was just SO OP. I actually laughed when i read those skills. Clearly whoever dreamt up this stuff wants wvw to fail, so they can stop spending any more time on it.

How anyone thinks it’s a good idea to introduce that sort of garbage in to a pvp mode is beyond me- without even thinking of testing it out with real players first.

It’s a bit like the announced (yet to arrive, wait for it, trumpets sounding, wait some more…) changes (which they could but in for a week to test them, but again, nah, let’s throw them in permanently without testing). No thought involved, just make it more and more gimmicky and lock more stuff behind gates- in this case, large guild, loads of cash, high scribe level, so totally favours the larger over the smaller, leading to more imbalance.

I’m glad I’m ‘on a break’, otherwise instead of laughing at the absurdity I’d be upset at the destruction of my main game mode on GW2 (that’s now officially Gimmick (JP) Wars 2).

I understand Anet, you designed some of these things such as banners, keep upgrades, etc.. to help the little guys. But that’s not what really happens. What happens in reality is larger, organized guilds/groups are abusing your new gimmicks to the extreme. Large guilds & zergs that didn’t need help before are now just roflstomping through with these cheese banners. What used to be a test of skill, concentration, and driving between 2 fairly even numbered zergs/groups, now the fight greatly tips towards the side using these banners.

Even in siege combat, what used to be a heck of a long siege between 2 zergs over a defended keep. Now it has become impossible to siege a defended & upgraded keep with equal numbers.

These things such as turtle banners are ruining what used to be good, equal, even fights. You aren’t helping the lil guys or the under-pop server. You’re actually buffing guilds & large zergs that didn’t need help in the first place.

REFRACKINGDICULOUS.

Put the PvE paintgun down, A-Net, and back away from WvW.

JUST. STOP. IT.

Jski.6180:

It takes a lot to get just one of the banner your not going to see them that often and when you do you out right kill the person holding it making sure they do have another for some time. The problem atm is with chron who can double up the banners effect (though i must say chron and its effect has destroyed a lot of balancing in wvw and i guess spvp).

We see both Turtle and Dragon banner in every prime time in the enemy full map zone blob. There is no balancing around currency price (see EVE Online Titan’s….).

What is meant to help the little guy helps the big guy even more. The devs should know this. MMO’s are around for a while.

For developing game mechanics in WvW there should be a basic key rule:
“Does it ruin fights?” If no: go for it – If yes: stay away from it

ArchonWing.9480:

Both banners are garbage and show a lack of thought and lack of testing of which isn’t atypical for the game, especially when it comes to WvW.

Yea, stuff is “imbalanced” in WvW, but that’s not that big of a deal. I see them as “tools” that anyone can use. Anyone can roll one of dem heralds or chronomancers or whatever the trend is with a good stack of tomes. Anyone can buy some superior siege. Anyone can do the silly laser event. Except this isn’t a thing everyone can use, it’s confined to rich guilds, making it a borderline p2w. People complained about ascended gear giving an advantage, but it was still possible to acquire on an individual basis and wouldn’t change the tide of battle like this. At least the chilling thing has a point in defending structures.

It’s also a lack of creativity. One is stack every defense ability. One is do lots of damage. Wow, that’s such engaging gameplay!

And again, it’s not much of a balance issue as it is a intent issue, of which I can’t read any beyond “let’s put a really expensive gold sink in and not test it out in a realistic environment as well as again alienate people that aren’t in a big guild”.

It’s an extremely disturbing trend in HoT that I see a slow promotion of power creep (inaccessible stats, i heard u liek pirate ship so we put some pirate ship on top of your pirate ship), lack of freedom of choice (Do this content to get this reward, and we won’t let you pick alternative ways), and exclusion (Non-HoT players lose guild buffs) that fortunately isn’t taken to that much of an extreme in most cases that I think really ruins the appeal of this game. This isn’t a step in a good direction.

I think the most optimistic way to evaluate the situation is that HoT was indeed so rushed that the current version of WvW is literally a skeleton model that was never meant to actually be played and we are still beta testing. Hey, I’m trying to be positive!

+1. The disparity between sheer size of guilds is completely absurd. My home guild of friends I’ve played games with for almost ten years has gone from being the best havoc multiple servers have ever seen to nobodies who’ve largely left GW2 with the unbelievable cost and pressure tied to guild halls for WvW success. These changes are way too excessive in how they favor massive blob-based guilds, and almost all design decisions for havoc and small group play have been and are continuing to be destructive such as through the rallying rework.

It’s extremely irritating to be told what we’re getting with no information or discussion prior to it. This format is expansive and covers a lot of play-hours for many players. The attentions and willingness to communicate ideas before they’re implemented is imperative before we lose more players due to ANet’s negligence and use of old information and poor implementation strategies caused by a disconnect with the players themselves.

Actually, its a fun banner to use, but its rather annoying too. I seen Centaur, Dragon and Turtle banners used by 2 of 3 sides in WvW on my server. If you’re in a blob you likely will have one, if not two different banners. If your opponent has a blob too, its likely the same way. Its rather interesting, but Dragon banner fire road skill thingy, is a 9k Fire damage hit per tick. Yeah, most people weren’t noticing it and just stood there thinking condi cleanse was enough to save them. 2 to 3 seconds and they’re downed.

Would have imagined this to be a nice tool for commanders. But I guess everything is just exploited, builds, skill bugs, anything to get a cheap win people will do en masse.

This stuff is small compared to blob stacking, blobs only leaving walls when they have more numbers..seige bunkering.

Honestly the biggest problem with fights is still people dying in the first 2 seconds. A L2P issue if you will.

displayname.8315:

Would have imagined this to be a nice tool for commanders. But I guess everything is just exploited, builds, skill bugs, anything to get a cheap win people will do en masse.

This stuff is small compared to blob stacking, blobs only leaving walls when they have more numbers..seige bunkering.

Honestly the biggest problem with fights is still people dying in the first 2 seconds. A L2P issue if you will.

For commanders to run themselves, most certainly not. You can’t drop any siege while using it. Therefore any commander running it has to rely on the people that follow to drop siege. Also, its harder for people in the zergs to follow who has say Turtle banner if they don’t have a tag, unless that turtle banner person can stay on tag the whole time then it helps. Why I say this is because all the banners really are about positioning for the maximum effect. and the invulnerability that you can get from a banner like turtle banner skill, is good but only hits 10 of the closest people to the holder. So it really isn’t that exploitable

And as everything in WvW really is, everything is about learn to play, but add to that, learn to coordinate too. I see people not calling out water fields, not calling out pushes and retreats, not calling out bubbles for shield gens and cata masters, etc. Its rather sad. But people are slowly learning though it has been this case for over a year or more now. (minus shield gens that didn’t exist pre-HoT).

I haven’t used any of the banners personally, or played with anyone using one — my guild was a WvW guild and so was decimated by HoT and thus does not to my knowledge have an accomplished Scribe — but I have run into people using them. Or, more accurately, tried to run away from people using them. The banners are another poor addition to the game mode.

The idea of the banner might have worked if the bearer had to make a significant sacrifice in order to provide benefit for a number of allies. This would largely confine the banner’s use to large fights, as it would be too much of a risk to carry a banner without significant protection. It would still be a case of subordinating skill to gimmickry, and it does not address the cost issue, but it would not have been as dreadful as the actual implementation.

As it is, the banners are preposterously powerful and see use in otherwise even-numbered fights, even in those rare small-scale engagements before prime-times, making one character simply better than any other character it encounters.

As always, any advantage that is reliant upon resources will always be a greater benefit to larger servers and wealthier groups than it is to smaller and poorer groups. While it is true that the banners might assist a smaller group in surviving against a larger group, they also help a larger group further dominate a smaller group. Which group is going to have readier access to costly upgrades?

The banners bring nothing positive to WvW. A banner simply allows one player to have access to skills and abilities that are superior to what another player has and which enable the banner-bearer to kill others easily and be difficult to kill, including adding PvE mechanics to PvP encounters. The banners require a significant investment to obtain, meaning they are available to larger, wealthier groups more than they are available to smaller groups, putting the latter at a greater disadvantage than was already the case. As the banner represents such an advantage, it becomes a necessary element in an arms race, forcing players to invest time and currency — in a game mode that offers little of either — in order to remain competitive. In all but one theoretical case (small group with banner vs. slightly larger group without) the banner exacerbates extant imbalances; this behavior is detrimental to the game mode. The banners must not remain as they are.

I’m assuming it replaces your weopon(s), it dosent seem to do much for attacking. I consider dropping a Bali or AC in a fight much more detrimental. Something I see far more often.

These mechanics aren’t that special and don’t really matter when half the zerg dies on Inc. Sure they could change the invun time or something. Blobbing and population imbalance is still the main problem.

I actually like the banners. They allow for a smaller skilled group to fight larger zergs. The big abilities (turtle bomb, dragon’s breath) can be outplayed if your group is skilled. I only have a complaint with the turtle banner #3 which should probably be reworked because it can’t be outplayed. Everything else is mostly fine.

Please don’t remove the banners! I <3 all the tears.

Tspatula.9086:

ArchonWing.9480:

Not to mention Guild Catas got nerfed for balance reasons. Of course, banners are the new thing in town and they want folks to buy the expansion and spend gold.

Indeed, the Pay to Win is strong in this expansion!

Again, quit being dense, This “pay2win” nonsense is in your head.

displayname.8315:

I’m assuming it replaces your weopon(s), it dosent seem to do much for attacking. I consider dropping a Bali or AC in a fight much more detrimental. Something I see far more often.

These mechanics aren’t that special and don’t really matter when half the zerg dies on Inc. Sure they could change the invun time or something. Blobbing and population imbalance is still the main problem.

It replaces all 1-5 weapon skills on left side of the health bar thing, and adds a break bar to the player that wields it. The break bar when broken will stun the holder for 5 seconds. The healing skill, utilities and elites still work, as long as they don’t replace anything that is on 1-5 keys. If you get into the water, or do anything like say pop Elixir S to go invulnerable. You’ll lost the banner. If you by accident grab say a warriors banner, it will auto drop it the xxx banner in place of the warrior banner. If you do anything that replaces 1-5 keys with blah blah weapon skills (example, Engineer calling an elixir gun for instance), the banner will drop.

Dragon banner is like Offense crazy… The Turtle banner is like Healing and protection boon crazy… The centaur I’ve yet to use myself.

Yet like one poster stated in this thread already. Most people flame at banner users and groups that run people with 1 or more of these banners going, calling us “Pay 2 win” player derogatory names. Personally, I think its a little like P2W, but its easy to break any non-tanky player’s break bar and down them which makes the banner despawn. This is why most will run the banner on soldier stat or nomad stat running builds like Scrapper, DH, or even on sustainable builds like Chrono (but its rarer to see any of the groups I play with use it on Chrono).

BlazeQ.1095:

Please don’t remove the banners! I <3 all the tears.

OMG they should change the name of the dragon banner to “The Salt Shaker”

Simply change it so that the banners work just as they do now… but only work when the owning side has the ‘outmanned buff’. Problem solved.

Tspatula.9086:

Jski.6180:

It takes a lot to get just one of the banner your not going to see them that often and when you do you out right kill the person holding it making sure they do have another for some time. The problem atm is with chron who can double up the banners effect (though i must say chron and its effect has destroyed a lot of balancing in wvw and i guess spvp).

Just like guild catas are expensive, but there are guilds that throw them down like candy. I don’t think the crafting cost is going to limit their use…

Not even close to a real point to be made with your argument. What banners are is you need a upgrade in the guild hall the right level of keep 1-3 and a 15 min cd witch is the duration of the banner it self. So its one guild one banner and that it that alone keep banner a rare thing.

Jski.6180:

Tspatula.9086:

Jski.6180:

It takes a lot to get just one of the banner your not going to see them that often and when you do you out right kill the person holding it making sure they do have another for some time. The problem atm is with chron who can double up the banners effect (though i must say chron and its effect has destroyed a lot of balancing in wvw and i guess spvp).

Just like guild catas are expensive, but there are guilds that throw them down like candy. I don’t think the crafting cost is going to limit their use…

Not even close to a real point to be made with your argument. What banners are is you need a upgrade in the guild hall the right level of keep 1-3 and a 15 min cd witch is the duration of the banner it self. So its one guild one banner and that it that alone keep banner a rare thing.

Well, they already very common in WvW so I’m not really sure what game you are playing? GW2 right?

Tspatula.9086:

Jski.6180:

Tspatula.9086:

Jski.6180:

It takes a lot to get just one of the banner your not going to see them that often and when you do you out right kill the person holding it making sure they do have another for some time. The problem atm is with chron who can double up the banners effect (though i must say chron and its effect has destroyed a lot of balancing in wvw and i guess spvp).

Just like guild catas are expensive, but there are guilds that throw them down like candy. I don’t think the crafting cost is going to limit their use…

Not even close to a real point to be made with your argument. What banners are is you need a upgrade in the guild hall the right level of keep 1-3 and a 15 min cd witch is the duration of the banner it self. So its one guild one banner and that it that alone keep banner a rare thing.

Well, they already very common in WvW so I’m not really sure what game you are playing? GW2 right?

But they are not a good chose to say this is the same as banners. You could make the argument that supple much like calming and t2-t3 (the 2 main banners needs that level of an upgrade tower? and keep) is the limiter of the effect but i think supple is nothing compared to the time and work you need to put into something to just be able to “tactavate” for one of these banners. Banners need more then “gold” some things that are to the point of simply your guild can only have one banner ever 15 mins.

Yes they are strong but having one some what strong person (mind you that person becuse a 1/2 class to where it loses all of its wepon skills so its only the banner effect that makes them a viable class) in a sea of many means nothing beyond that strong person is going to be the first one to be killed. Its a lot easier to see who the banner person is then commanders and commanders sniping is a very viable and some what easy trick to take down groups.

I’m seeing banners fairly often these days. I think they are totally unnecessary in large fights simply because GW2’s combat system already makes that very forgiving and big groups don’t need more handicaps in their favor. In smaller fights, just the defiance bar alone is bizarre especially on some of these bunker HoT builds. When I look at skills like “stampede of arrows” on centaur banner, I just chuckle.

gavyne.6847:

I understand Anet, you designed some of these things such as banners, keep upgrades, etc.. to help the little guys. But that’s not what really happens. What happens in reality is larger, organized guilds/groups are abusing your new gimmicks to the extreme. Large guilds & zergs that didn’t need help before are now just roflstomping through with these cheese banners. What used to be a test of skill, concentration, and driving between 2 fairly even numbered zergs/groups, now the fight greatly tips towards the side using these banners.

Even in siege combat, what used to be a heck of a long siege between 2 zergs over a defended keep. Now it has become impossible to siege a defended & upgraded keep with equal numbers.

These things such as turtle banners are ruining what used to be good, equal, even fights. You aren’t helping the lil guys or the under-pop server. You’re actually buffing guilds & large zergs that didn’t need help in the first place.

If it was introduced to benefit smaller groups why didn’t they think larger zergs would use them? Plus there’s the fact that they are locked behind grinds that only large guilds can afford.

The lack of forethought behind them reminds me of when AC damage was first increased.