Guild Wars 2

A 450 stat advantage (5 stacks of 50 vitality, 5 of 20 each of power and condition damage) over new players or characters is just insane. That’s not much less than the stats provided by an entire set of exotic armor!

Fighting someone who has those stacks in a small group or 1v1 on a fresh alt that lacks them is so one sided it’s just demoralizing. It’s practically just a free win for having more playtime and punishment for trying to use an alt.

You could literally halve those numbers and it would still be a pretty crazy advantage. It really needs to me something much more like 20 vitality and 10 each power and condition damage per stack, and start earlier in the tree with say max 1 stack at skill level 3, 2 stacks at 5, 3 stacks at 8, 4 stacks at 9 and 5 stacks at 10 so the bonus isn’t just one lump of win right at the end with little progression for partial progression.

Really? I roam/duel most of my time in WvW, I don’t have either leech or fortitude, and it’s never seemed to stop me staking/downing (if duel) another player that does have it.

There’s 2 sides to the argument.
One would be that it’s not fair to new players who are at a slight disadvantage statwise.
The other would be that playing WvW for a long time gives some sort of character progression which many people enjoy.
I personally like getting wxp ranks and find it far more enjoyable than the game WvW was when the game launched.
My advice for new players would be to avoid 1v1’s versus players who are bronze rank or better since it takes over 100 wxp ranks I believe to get the vitality stacks, and another 100+ ranks to get the power and condition stacks.
WvW isn’t balanced in any way. If people want to pvp in a balanced environment… sPvP is that way —-——————————————————————>

If you honestly cannot notice a stat difference equivalent to several slots of ascended trinkets or think that is ‘slight’ I don’t know what to say. You might be completely oblivious.

Or just skilled enough that the buffs are inconsequential

I held back on the being uncharitable enough to accuse you of posturing for fake kitten, but I see I shouldn’t have.

down the person and watch their stacks go away

lazorexplosion.9602:

If you honestly cannot notice a stat difference equivalent to several slots of ascended trinkets or think that is ‘slight’ I don’t know what to say. You might be completely oblivious.

WvW is a large-scale team objective based game.
I honestly could care less about your 1v1’ing or how balanced it is.

lazorexplosion.9602:

I held back on the being uncharitable enough to accuse you of posturing for fake kitten, but I see I shouldn’t have.

Lol come duel me stack up as much as you like. Doesn’t bother me.

I tend not to boast about my abilities because I’ve face planted plenty of times, but I can tell you from having friendly duels with countless players who have both those stacks, it really hasn’t presented any insurmountable advantages.

Duel more, you’ll learn to adapt.

It’s something a new player should see and aspire to get or at least aspire to beat. Gear, Stats and skill, if said play gets killed by another and immediately think’s it’s because of guard stacks, I doubt he is that “new”, and if because of that instance he decides to quit the game, then I say good. I rather him not stay with GW2 and become a bitter forum poster.

Your kitten has absolutely nothing to do with balance. You’re not actually discussing balance; what you’re doing is boasting about how much better you supposedly are than other players. Yay for you I guess but it’s completely irrelevant to actual balance.

lazorexplosion.9602:

A 450 stat advantage (5 stacks of 50 vitality, 5 of 20 each of power and condition damage) over new players or characters is just insane. That’s not much less than the stats provided by an entire set of exotic armor!

Fighting someone who has those stacks in a small group or 1v1 on a fresh alt that lacks them is so one sided it’s just demoralizing. It’s practically just a free win for having more playtime and punishment for trying to use an alt.

You could literally halve those numbers and it would still be a pretty crazy advantage. It really needs to me something much more like 20 vitality and 10 each power and condition damage per stack, and start earlier in the tree with say max 1 stack at skill level 3, 2 stacks at 5, 3 stacks at 8, 4 stacks at 9 and 5 stacks at 10 so the bonus isn’t just one lump of win right at the end with little progression for partial progression.

A full set of exotic armor (not trinkets, not runes) gives 763 stat points. In what world is the bonus coming from these two traits (which take 230 world ranks to max both) unfair / “not much less than the stats provided by an entire set of exotic armor”? You also have to consider what giving up 230 world ranks loses you (unless you’ve maxed everything) from other bonuses. Also, fyi, 20*5 (guard leech) + 50*5 (applied fortitude) does NOT equal 450. It’s 350. That’s LESS THAN HALF a set of exotic armor (caps for emphasis / comparison to your original argument).

If you consider two fully geared characters (exotic armor, ascended weapons, ascended trinkets) one of whom has these two traits and the other doesn’t, here are the relative totals:

Without traits = 2541 stat points (this doesn’t include non-WXP traits either, just gear)
With WXP traits = 2891

That means that people who have earned 230+ WXP Ranks and spent 230 ranks on these two trait lines (that otherwise primarily provide benefits against NPCs) gain a 2891/2541 = 1.137 = 13.7% bonus to stats over someone without the traits at all (or someone who decided to max Siege Bunker, Siege Might, Build Mastery, Repair Mastery, and any one of the siege weapon masteries). So before you say these are unbalanced for a large team arena consider what you sacrifice for the relevant benefits.

For a comparison, you know what else gives you a 13.7% stat advantage over an opponent? If you’re wearing exotic gear and the new player is wearing rare gear. You know what differentiates people who wear rare vs exotic gear? Time investment – the same as these trait lines.

They seem fine to me.

The stat difference might be noticeable on a lower ranked server where smaller battles may take place, or more 1v1 battles.

On a higher ranked server where it’s essentially “join the zerg” or “get run over by the zerg”, I don’t think those extra stats make much of a difference.

Maybe if your in a full scale battle.. it may make a difference of you dying in 2.5 seconds instead of 2. IMO, it’s just not worth it where zerg battles are king.

If you want balance/fair fights do spvp not wvw. WvW is never going to be balanced.

LOL maths

Increases power and condition damage by 20
Gain 50 vitality per stack

20 power * 5 = 100 power
20 condition damage * 5 = 100 condition damage
50 vitality * 5 = 250 vitality

100+100+250 = 450

Exotic gear is trivial to obtain from a huge variety of places. What alt of yours needs to step into WvW in rare gear? The leech skills are only available to players who have sunk hundreds of hours into WvW and give a bigger advantage. Playing an alt or being a new character in WvW is being painfully behind people who’ve played for hundreds of hours of WvW on that one character.

You could easily cut those bonuses, still keep a sense of progression and not make it like new players are wandering around with multiple empty trinket slot’s worth of stat disadvantage.

DeadlySynz.3471:

The stat difference might be noticeable on a lower ranked server where smaller battles may take place, or more 1v1 battles.

On a higher ranked server where it’s essentially “join the zerg” or “get run over by the zerg”, I don’t think those extra stats make much of a difference.

Maybe if your in a full scale battle.. it may make a difference of you dying in 2.5 seconds instead of 2. IMO, it’s just not worth it where zerg battles are king.

They make just as much difference in large scale battles, it’s just harder to see with so much going on, and the battle is less likely to be evenly matched anyway. But if you’re in a zerg and have stacks, you are still significantly stronger than the new player next to you.

If someone is terrible he can have all the stacks he wants and is still gonna suck. But put that on a skilled player and it makes a huge difference.

The worst part? All you need to make someone with max stacks of everything run away is not being a free kill, while roamers who don’t spend time building stacks are more likely to engage in hard/outnumbered fights

Having food vs. not is even a noticeable advantage. The leech traits are like being able to eat almost 3 stat foods at once. It’s a massive stat advantage.

lazorexplosion.9602:

LOL maths

Increases power and condition damage by 20
Gain 50 vitality per stack

20 power * 5 = 100 power
20 condition damage * 5 = 100 condition damage
50 vitality * 5 = 250 vitality

100+100+250 = 450

Exotic gear is trivial to obtain from a huge variety of places. What alt of yours needs to step into WvW in rare gear? The leech skills are only available to players who have sunk hundreds of hours into WvW and give a bigger advantage. Playing an alt or being a new character in WvW is being painfully behind people who’ve played for hundreds of hours of WvW on that one character.

You could easily cut those bonuses, still keep a sense of progression and not make it like new players are wandering around with multiple empty trinket slot’s worth of stat disadvantage.

You’re right, I forgot about power AND condition damage, but most builds rely primarily on one or the other and a boost to both is not exactly the same as +200 to one stat. Still, yes, I forgot about that in my math. But giving +250 vitality gains you ONE thing, more base hit points. That offers an essentially one-time buffer during a fight. You’re not also boosting healing/regeneration/damage reduction so all it gives people is a higher max HP – which is useless after you’ve been in a fight for more than 10 seconds. Sure it’s a nice bonus but it’s not making people all that much harder to kill.

And the +100 power and condition damage is slightly more than you get for having three stacks of bloodlust. Neither of these are entirely game changing. Now if applied fortitude also gave either healing power/toughness/regeneration then you’d have reason to complain about that particular buff. Increasing max hitpoints doesn’t do a whole lot for long-term survival in fights. I guess it could help with surviving spikes?

3 stacks of bloodlust gives +60 each, and it requires coordination or domination from many players across three borderlands to get and it benefits new and old players alike. And for that level of WvW coordination you get less advantage than you get from stacks a high rank player gets just by taking a camp.

Unless you’re going to argue that getting 3 stacks of bloodlust also takes equal effort to earning 230 world experience levels (which also require a trade off in NOT getting other skills), I don’t see the problem with it giving less stats.

Turns out, MMOs (almost every one) favor older players. Sorry.

azurerogue.9240:

Unless you’re going to argue that getting 3 stacks of bloodlust also takes equal effort to earning 230 world experience levels (which also require a trade off in NOT getting other skills), I don’t see the problem with it giving less stats.

Turns out, MMOs (almost every one) favor older players. Sorry.

Let me tell you about a town. This town had a tradition. Once a year every one in the town would get together and pull straws out of a hat. One straw was shorter then the others. Whoever pulled the short straw was forced out of the crowd.

The crowd then picked up stones off the ground and threw them at the person with the short straw till he/she died.

When asked why they stoned someone to death every year, the townfolk replied

“Why, that’s just the way it is. We’ve always done things that way.”

…
…

Do you see the problem here? Just because something is ‘tradition’ doesn’t make it right, nor does it mean it shouldn’t be changed.

Jayne.9251:

Really? I roam/duel most of my time in WvW, I don’t have either leech or fortitude, and it’s never seemed to stop me staking/downing (if duel) another player that does have it.

I also run into my friend’s 9 year old son who plays a toon with all the guard killer+defense against guards buffs, food, consumables and it’s never seemed to stop me staking/downing him..

See what I did there?

You won’t win if you run into a player of similar “skill” with those buffs.

I also suggest playing a non-handicap class that abuses broken stealth mechanics and unlimited get out of jail cards to compensates for one’s failings e.g.mesmer. Try playing a warrior after the incoming nerf (without attempting to run away when you start losing). I’m sure you will just kick as much kitten ..

In this game it’s the class/build that makes you..not the skill. Adding stats in wvw and lack of boon duration nerf etc etc in wvw makes the imbalances worse.

I think part of the problem with people dying to people with both stacks is that not very many people can make it to that high of a rank and still suck at fighting. Sure, there are people out there with high ranks that do nothing but zerg, but it the lower tiers where I play, people that are high enough rank to have both tend to be much better than the average at roaming.

OK, yes, Guard Leech and Applied Fortitude give 450 stat points, no argument there. It also takes 115 WvW ranks to get either of those, which at an average rate of one rank per hour means 230 hours to achieve that bonus. But keep in mind that a Superior Sigil of Your Face gives you up to 25 stacks of +10 to your face, for 250 stat points. As for exotic armor (and trinkets and gems), let’s add it up:
Hat gives 32, 32, 45, for a total of 109.
Shoulders give 24, 24, 34, for a total of 82.
Shirt gives 72, 72, 101, for a total of 245.
Gloves give 24, 24, 34, for a total of 82.
Pants give 48, 48, 67, for a total of 163.
Shoes give 24, 24, 34, for a total of 82.
Straight armor subtotal: 1,063. So much for those bonuses giving “not much less than the stats provided by an entire set of exotic armor,” as you claimed in the OP.

A full set of Soldier runes (because I’m looking at my build) gives 215 stat points.
A Superior Sigil of Whatever gives 250 to whatever.
Necklace gives 64, 64, 90, for a total of 218.
Two rings each give 48, 48, 67, for a total of 326.
Two earrings each give 40, 40, 56, for a total of 272.
A rare backpiece (because again, my build) gives 14, 14, 20, for a total of 48.
Gems in each of those six items give 15, 15, 25, for a total of 330.
Accessory/socket subtotal: 1,659 (or 1409, if you don’t have full Whatever stacks).

Grand Total: 2,722 stat points on armor, to which 450 stat points gives a 17% bonus. That’s substantial, no doubt, but by no means game-breaking. There’s still another thing we’re missing, though, and that’s baseline stats.

For this, I’m going to forego theory and just add up what my actual stat totals are. Here is the build I am using, for reference. You’ll notice that I have some items that eschew flat traits for percentage-based things (namely, zerk weapons and a beryl jewel in the back slot, plus a rune of fire in the sword), and I also use ascended celestial trinkets (which provide roughly 10% more total stats, at the cost of spreading them out everywhere, while ascended items themselves are roughly 10% better than exotics). As a brief note on this build’s rationale, it’s not meant for 1v1; it’s meant to make a group better around me, hence the healing shouts and multiple condition clears (as it stands, my 4, 5, 7, 8, and 9 abilities all remove conditions in an area). Instead of fighting the odd guy 1v1, I roll with a small group and keep them quick & clean, specializing in extraction from dangerous situations and big sustain in long fights. I’m basically a bard in heavy armor.

Anyway, these are my actual stat totals before any guard leech or applied fortitude come into the mix:
Power: 1,663
Precision: 1,443
Toughness: 1,720
Vitality: 1,770
Condition Damage: 429
Healing Power: 416
Grand Total of All Stats: 7,441.
Adding 450 to that makes it 7,891, but it’s only a 6% improvement. Still substantial, but even less possibly game-breaking.

Let’s take a new player to WvW who jumps in at level one with no stat gear. Using fuzzy math because I’m reaching the end of my patience (and the bottom of my drink), we can subtract the 2,722 stat points from the 7,441 total to yield a rough 4,719 stat points out of the box. The geared level 80 player is 63% “more character” than the noob, not to mention the added flexibility of filled skill slots and player experience at operating the character. Most of my characters took me roughly 200 hours to level to 80 (my warrior, that build I linked, only took 170-something). So it takes, let’s just say, 200 hours just so you can equip the gear for a 63% improvement, and that’s assuming you can afford to buy it all the second you hit 80, and another 200 hours to get that additional 10% (450 is 10% of the “out of the box” 4,719 stat points), which at that point is only a 6% increase over what you’ve already gotten by gearing yourself.

This is diminishing returns (based on time invested) for endgame content that literally everyone has access to. I’m going to call this balanced and working as intended. Cheers!

Jayne.9251:

lazorexplosion.9602:

I held back on the being uncharitable enough to accuse you of posturing for fake kitten, but I see I shouldn’t have.

Lol come duel me stack up as much as you like. Doesn’t bother me.

I tend not to boast about my abilities because I’ve face planted plenty of times, but I can tell you from having friendly duels with countless players who have both those stacks, it really hasn’t presented any insurmountable advantages.

Duel more, you’ll learn to adapt.

This is the same stupid attitude that lets anet justify ascended gear. A 450 stat difference is big. If you beat someone who has a 450 stat advantage over you, it’s because they are a worse player than you. Great, good for you. You can overcome a disadvantage when fighting worse players.

Now, give an equally skilled player 450 extra stats. Still not a problem? There is no adapting to an objective disadvantage. There is no counterplay to having more stat points.

An advantage is an advantage. I would not consider this as bad as ascended gear for a handful of reasons, but to sit there and say it doesn’t matter because you can adapt to it is idiotic.

Then you got guys like DoctorFaust who see nothing wrong with needing over 400 hours to level and gear a character to a point where that character can be considered competitive.

Lorelei.3918:

Then you got guys like DoctorFaust who see nothing wrong with needing over 400 hours to level and gear a character to a point where that character can be considered competitive.

I feel that my characters all suck but luckily I’m pretty competitive.

Frankly, I hate the existence of vertical progression altogether – the main reason I was interested in this game in the first place was because I was under the impression that there would be none, or at least very little. I wouldn’t even care if WvW used SPvP gear and stuff, but it doesn’t because apparently people like having an advantage over other players just because they’ve played longer.

What’s wrong with costumes and minis? And WXP ranks could just have been ways to give players access to stuff their professions couldn’t get otherwise (portable portal devices, anyone?), but no, it had to be boring stuff like siege masteries and stat buffs that also create an entry barrier for new players.

IMO Bloodlust and ascended gear are both worse than guard leech and applied fortitude.

I would like to see buffs that reward higher population and more PvE addressed before buffs that reward veteran WvW players…

I can take 1v4’s against decent players easily with this kitten, needs nerf

In a perfect world the game would never have introduced any of this gear grind past exotic, but I think we can settle for at least normalizing it

if you are serious about WvW you would eventually get em, if you are serious about WvW you wont care if anyone got em.

WvW never balanced and never will be unless you get rid of foods, utilities, Ruins, Guild Buffs and Ascended/exotic gear if that what you want then better go sPvP.

It’s not a dichotomy where it either has to provide more stats to a build than a pair of ascended trinkets or not exist at all. It can be at the level of a food item, nice but not massive.

The only time those stats are going to make a difference is when you’re both close to downing each other in a fight. Like so close it’s one-two hits away. Just ignore all the fancy maths stuff, they blind you to the true situation – the extra damage points accounts for a minuscule increase in your damage output, and the extra health gives you 2.5k more padding.

To put the damage into perspective, it’s very roughly equal to about an extra 100 damage every 2.5k hit without crits – if you’re lucky.

If you were in a duel and didn’t manage to get your opponent anywhere close to 2.5k health before you died, you wouldn’t have killed him anyway.

These are tiny margins, and they are so rarely a matter of life and death in a 1v1. If a duel was one sided when they started off with the stacks, it will still be as one sided without them.

I want them removed from the game, along with ascended…but the wow crack heads here don’t understand why anyone would want a fair fight…

XII.9401:

Jayne.9251:

Really? I roam/duel most of my time in WvW, I don’t have either leech or fortitude, and it’s never seemed to stop me staking/downing (if duel) another player that does have it.

I also run into my friend’s 9 year old son who plays a toon with all the guard killer+defense against guards buffs, food, consumables and it’s never seemed to stop me staking/downing him..

See what I did there?

You won’t win if you run into a player of similar “skill” with those buffs.

I also suggest playing a non-handicap class that abuses broken stealth mechanics and unlimited get out of jail cards to compensates for one’s failings e.g.mesmer. Try playing a warrior after the incoming nerf (without attempting to run away when you start losing). I’m sure you will just kick as much kitten ..

In this game it’s the class/build that makes you..not the skill. Adding stats in wvw and lack of boon duration nerf etc etc in wvw makes the imbalances worse.

Well I guess you’re saying leaders of various well known GvG guilds aren’t skilled. Ok

There have been about four so far ….

Anyhow, I probably deserve some of the pushback/skepticism because it’s out of character for me to toot my own horn. I guess when I read the OP, saw yet another complaint about something I’ve personally never had issue with, I said something.

Duelling for me isn’t an ego thing (though posts in this thread may indicate otherwise), it’s more about learning and testing out builds/class so that I know the class very well. I also think it benefits my opponent because it’s a learning process for them too. I’ve faceplanted plenty of times, believe me. I’m not some uber player.

But I can tell you, from my experience, and facing some very worthy opponents, that leech/fortitude has had very little effect on the outcome .. at least for me. It could be the way I play.

If you are facing Piken, I encourage you to whisper me, stack up as much as you want, and come duel. Even if you down me, I’ll still enjoy it. It’s part of the process. But don’t be surprised if I down you, stacks and all.

P.S. I thought warriors were the ultimate class in WvW? Which is why everyone was rolling one? (My class has been nerfed so many times, I often spit out pieces of foam). I’ve yet to die to one in a duel. Guards neither. Thieves used to give me a lot of trouble, until I actually rolled one so I could better understand their mechanics. And they abuse stealth far more than a mesmer. Any time I’m faced with a class that keeps pushing me down and stealing my lunch money, I tend to take the time to learn that class well so I can eat once in a while

OP you forgot buttlust!

How many fights did any of you actually have where both of you were of “similar skill”? These are the extremely close fights when you both end up nearly dead at the end before one of you pulls off a tricky move to get the one-up, or the other guy screws up and misses a critical dodge. I roam quite a fair bit and I can tell you that’s only happened a handful of times out of the thousands of encounters. These are the only fights where the stacks would’ve had a clear difference on the outcome in a 1v1. If you’ve lost to one of these fights because the other guy had stacks and you didn’t, well bad luck, just enjoy the fight and move on. Otherwise, don’t blame your own failure on the fact the other opponent just had better stats – you wouldn’t have won anyway and you won’t ever learn anything if you just QQ about it.

If you’re looking for clear fair fights, seriously just go play tPvP. There’s a fairly good chance the guy you just pwn’d in a “fair fight” in wvw wasn’t geared fully, and how do you think he’ll feel about you one-upping him simply because you had better gear?

I’ve got Applied Fortitude, and i do think it’s a stupid idea indeed. Food at least is cheap and available to any new player. That 250 vitality isn’t available until they sunk in hundreds of hours. Segregating the new players on stats when they already come at a disadvantage in experience is a very very poor idea. Sadly, that’s part of Anet’s philosophy turnaround, so i guess it’s here to stay…

By comparison, the siege/supply masteries are nice imho. They come with plenty of improvements on the cheap with just a few points, are more situational, and don’t “scale”: if 2 rams have been dropped, 2 players with the mastery is all you need, there’s no advantage gained for having 50 people with it.

Even 5% bonus to stat gives huge advantage when you place two equally skilled sides in combat.

These ranks bonuses in addition are just insane. It only rewards for being lazy in pvp and zerging around without thinking, but I guess that’s what this WvW is about nowadays.

Add ascended gear in equation and it becomes totally horrible if it wasn’t already.

I really don’t mind about some nice bonuses like siege and supply but personal stat bonuses versus other players is bad. Especially when it’s so easy to get stacks. And don’t even get me started with how op stack sigils are in WvW. They just don’t make sense there..

Even though WvW can never be perfectly balanced I am pretty sure it would be more enjoyable with a little try into that direction. Or if there was stack bonuses they would be actually harder to accumulate and easier to lose. My favorite would be that all stack bonuses both WvW rank and sigils would decrease due time out of combat so you can’t just go kill some easy pickings to increase stacks to max before going out for real.

Mess with my hard earned applied fortitude and I will move to your server and hunt you down forever.

Writetyper.1985:

I can take 1v4’s against decent players easily with this kitten, needs nerf

If you win a 1v4, they’re not “Decent” at all.

Yep, power creep is ruining WvW. But Anet thinks its great so don’t expect a change. In fact, I’ll bet we see some new power creep introduced early 2014.

Lorelei.3918:

Then you got guys like DoctorFaust who see nothing wrong with needing over 400 hours to level and gear a character to a point where that character can be considered competitive.

It’s an RPG. That’s what you do. You want fairness and balance? Play SPvP.

As for being competitive, I jumped into WvW at level 12. At 50, I was killing level 80 characters. Not all the time, mind you, but I was able to do it from time to time with a combination of picking my fights carefully, paying attention to the situation, and analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of their build based on what gear and buffs they had.

There’s more to this game than mere total stat points and player skill – there’s also the rock-paper-scissors-esque elements of different builds.

DoctorFaust.7103:

Lorelei.3918:

Then you got guys like DoctorFaust who see nothing wrong with needing over 400 hours to level and gear a character to a point where that character can be considered competitive.

It’s an RPG. That’s what you do. You want fairness and balance? Play SPvP.

As for being competitive, I jumped into WvW at level 12. At 50, I was killing level 80 characters. Not all the time, mind you, but I was able to do it from time to time with a combination of picking my fights carefully, paying attention to the situation, and analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of their build based on what gear and buffs they had.

There’s more to this game than mere total stat points and player skill – there’s also the rock-paper-scissors-esque elements of different builds.

It really does sound like you want SPvP. Or maybe just an open map mimicking WvW to run around in SPvP instead of whatever random maps are available?

I don’t 1v1 people with applied fortitude/guard leech. It’s madness. Just call a friend, stealth, gank them. Done.

I think it is a kittenty and cheap way to play

That being said, when I come up against someone 1v1 who has 5 stacks of each and I lose, I have an excuse but when I win, it is so fulfilling to have them lose those stacks

It is not like those abilities are hard to get by running around in a giant blob half afk.

Overall the difference is marginal, doesnt take that long to get those abilities and imo, the bottom line is that those two abilities are the ONLY things worth getting if you do not like using siege.

It’s just another form of imbalance in an aready unbalanced system. And don’t be like Anet and say WvW is not supposed to be balanced, that’s just a dumb response.

WvW is naturally unbalanced yes. There is inherent imbalance in WvW yes. That is what they mean when they say its not supposed to be balanced.

But given the natural imbalance, adding MORE imbalance through add on mechanics and content is counterproductive and absolutely ridiculous. And I can’t believe anyone who actually thinks about it for more than two seconds thinks otherwise.

If you want your “fair duel”, go to sPvP duel server. WvW is not about 1vs1, nor it shall be.