Guild Wars 2

So I know I am probably setting myself up to get flamed here for considering a transfer, but I may be transferring to a T1 or T2 server. The main reason behind this is because the server I am on seems to lack hardcore WvW guilds. There really just seems to be a bunch of karma trains everyday with the occasional guild groups. This can be fun, but I am looking for a server with more WvW focus guilds that are strategic and make a difference outside your usual zerg. WvW guilds that run groups everyday, or at least multiple times a week.

So, I know for a fact that T1 servers have lots of WvW guilds, but I am curious to know, is it rewarding to play on these servers? In other words, is it worth it? Say over a T3 server where there may not be much que times, but lack GvG? Is every BL and EB full during NA primetime 6pm-11pm CST?

I think Jade Quarry would be my choice if I decided to transfer to T1. Probably Tarnished Coast if I did T2. I just want to hear what you guys think that are already on these T1 servers.

There is lots of organized action going on in Tier 1 and Tier 2.

JQ does need bodies to fill up their NA crew. For TC, I believe their NA is pretty strong and possibly queued on a few maps. If you are going to transfer as an individual, i’ll say go TC and look for the guild that suits you. If you are bringing a hardcore wvw-er NA crew over, you may consider JQ. Do note that both servers are FULL.

fade.8603:

JQ does need bodies to fill up their NA crew. For TC, I believe their NA is pretty strong and possibly queued on a few maps. If you are going to transfer as an individual, i’ll say go TC and look for the guild that suits you. If you are bringing a hardcore wvw-er NA crew over, you may consider JQ. Do note that both servers are FULL.

As a TC native, I feel other servers would benefit from WvW players more. JQ, despite being full as well, could use more WvW people in my opinion.

The general opinion goes that the only difference between T1 and T2 is population/attendance. The skill cap is pretty much reached in T2.

Considering what we’ve seen transferring down from T1 servers to T2 servers, I would say that this is absolutely correct. They’re just average-skill guilds to us T2ers.

You’re gonna find an overall more organized, scheduled, disciplined experience in T2/T1. I’d personally go T2 because of the cultural differences though. T1 servers get a bad rap for “Drama” and “Politics.”

Also, I would also consider transferring up to T1/T2 in your shoes. Don’t let naysayers dissuade you. If you’re solo, transfer and don’t feel bad at all.

I am at T2, sometimes you’ll get long queues and the fights become a zerg vs zerg most of the time. I think you will be better in a middle tier server not too low but not too high. Try to find a guild first before you chose the server. My guild is considering move to middle tier because most of the time there are so many players that the only strategy and gameplay involved is portal bomb and stack might. A fight between 20×20 is much more fun that 60×60.

More exciting or more rewarding? If massive scale battles are your passion, then yes.

If a battle where your individual contributions matter more, then stay away from the top tiers.

I’m biased, being on JQ, but yeah… it’s a freaking blast. Especially when you have the organized guilds running around with commanders we all know and might consider respecting if they’d only bathe…

It’s definitely not better in t1.

well if looking for servers that aren’t full but still have large WvW guilds check out Ebay we have the big 4 here. also the most active community out there, and you avoid the t1/t2 drama.

http://www.ehmrybay.com

My guild recently recieved a handful of players from Kaineng and their consensus was that wvw on JQ was way more fun than on Kaineng.

Right now you’ll always be able to find a map without a queue, and the maps that do have queues typically do not take longer than 5-20 minutes.

Outside of EB, pretty much every zerg will be led by a guild group and be on the community t.s. to organize and cooperate, at least during NA prime. Often, we will not just have a single large zerg ball but rather split our forces into two separate groups, 1 group led by a larger guild running a pin and leading the militia, and a smaller guild group of 20 or so to cap separate objectives, and collapse to the main group when necessary.

After the trouble with some of our larger guilds JQ is looking for some warm bodies to fill the holes left, we still have all of the skill, leadership, and coordination that kept us in t1 for so long.

/end of sales pitch

Chris.3290:

More exciting or more rewarding? If massive scale battles are your passion, then yes.

If a battle where your individual contributions matter more, then stay away from the top tiers.

I would be more into a battle where my guilds contributions matter more. Meaning I don’t want to roam alone and I don’t necessarily want to be a part of huge zergs all the time, although I really enjoy it for a good while. I would say doing a ~30v30 fight would be my favorite sized battles.

FearTheAmish.8730:

well if looking for servers that aren’t full but still have large WvW guilds check out Ebay we have the big 4 here. also the most active community out there, and you avoid the t1/t2 drama.

http://www.ehmrybay.com

I have a question about lower tier servers after reading this.. Is it possible that lower tier servers should actually be in a higher tier, but are not because they have been restricted from the rating system that is currently in place? Do yall think there will be a huge shift in tier WvW servers once the new system as been implemented for awhile? In other words, some servers are playing above their tier skill level while others are playing below?

Tier 1 isn’t bad at all. I’ve made some negative comments about it in the past, but it’s really been awesome lately. Queues are super long during prime hours, like friday nights or right after a WvW update for example, but it’s not bad at all any other times lately. During the day I can get right on, and on weekends you might get a wait time in a zone or two. As far as trolls and drama go, it’s really up to you if you want to let that effect you. There was one guy acting stupid in map chat last weekend… a bunch of my guild mates blocked him. I didn’t, and haven’t heard from him since, so idk. If you want to ignore it it’s quite easy to ignore in this game. They did a good job on giving you options to limit your exposure to it.

Plus in Tier 1, you know you’re fighting with and against the best of the best. It’s all spread over the zones too, so you can still grab a camp or tower with 5 or 6. You won’t hold it for long once the other side sees you taking it, but it’s still fun to try to steal one. I stole a tower yesterday with 5 other people, and just as this massive zerg was running up the stairs at us we claimed it… it was awesome. Even though they ran through us like nothing, we knew we had really kitten ed them off by taking it!

I can’t recommend JQ though. Go SoR or stay put!

We can queue one map most nights in NA these days, in addition to tkitten queue (which is likely common on most servers; folks love them some EB). As for more exciting… depends on how you personally define it. You’ll see your fair share of large scale battles (we all seem to love 3-ways in garrison… any garrison), as well as smaller skirmishes.

JQ has a lot of smaller guilds that like to run alongside our main zerg force, running strategic moves on our opposition, so there is definitely a lot of fun to be had outside the zerg. As for more rewarding, it definitely feels that way when you’ve wiped a ginormous zergblob double your size When the numbers feel stacked against you, it’s ‘exciting’ and ‘rewarding’ to me to pull off some of the stuff we do on JQ these days

Thor.1756:

My guild recently recieved a handful of players from Kaineng and their consensus was that wvw on JQ was way more fun than on Kaineng.

Right now you’ll always be able to find a map without a queue, and the maps that do have queues typically do not take longer than 5-20 minutes.

Outside of EB, pretty much every zerg will be led by a guild group and be on the community t.s. to organize and cooperate, at least during NA prime. Often, we will not just have a single large zerg ball but rather split our forces into two separate groups, 1 group led by a larger guild running a pin and leading the militia, and a smaller guild group of 20 or so to cap separate objectives, and collapse to the main group when necessary.

After the trouble with some of our larger guilds JQ is looking for some warm bodies to fill the holes left, we still have all of the skill, leadership, and coordination that kept us in t1 for so long.

/end of sales pitch

That sounds pretty kitten spot on for what I am looking for and probably exactly how Anet intended WvW gameplay to be like. Honestly JQ has been my top choice from the beginning so this helps in my decision if I choose to do so.

Pretty good sales pitch if you ask me..

Wolfaen.9461:

Chris.3290:

More exciting or more rewarding? If massive scale battles are your passion, then yes.

If a battle where your individual contributions matter more, then stay away from the top tiers.

I would be more into a battle where my guilds contributions matter more. Meaning I don’t want to roam alone and I don’t necessarily want to be a part of huge zergs all the time, although I really enjoy it for a good while. I would say doing a ~30v30 fight would be my favorite sized battles.

FearTheAmish.8730:

well if looking for servers that aren’t full but still have large WvW guilds check out Ebay we have the big 4 here. also the most active community out there, and you avoid the t1/t2 drama.

http://www.ehmrybay.com

I have a question about lower tier servers after reading this.. Is it possible that lower tier servers should actually be in a higher tier, but are not because they have been restricted from the rating system that is currently in place? Do yall think there will be a huge shift in tier WvW servers once the new system as been implemented for awhile? In other words, some servers are playing above their tier skill level while others are playing below?

I think that’s the million dollar question right now. It’s going to take some time for it to be answered. As someone who has fought against Ebay for far too long, I can tell you they are indeed active and they are organized.

This is a game of coverage

T1 is a lot more about large scale zerg battles than a smaller scale skirmish. Going off on your own without friends can be effective, but most of the time, it will get you killed. (Although most servers employ REALLY good scouts that don’t get caught often)

It can sometimes be laggy, and frustrating. But all the T1 servers use community voips to work together on all 4 maps at once, and to coordinate multiple large zergs.

I’ll simply share my experiences with the two servers I’ve been in T1 with. No flaming intended. This is just my experience, so anything anyone tries to deny is just being dumb simply because this is about my personal experience.

That being said, when I was with Blackgate (from ~September – January), it seemed more of coverage. There were some guilds that had great tactics but no longer play. The current BG has maybe 2 or 3 original guilds since I was there. Nowdays it seems they copy everything my new server (SoR) does.

With SoR, there are many guilds that use tactics and each guild really runs their own zerg in each BL, with PuGs following them. But what I love that SoR does is they separate TS channels by borderland, not guild, which is what BG did. You feel like a part of every guild when using the server TS, and it’s well maintained.

In T1 you get a lot of good fights and strategies, but until Iron transfered you mainly got a lying score simply because it was all coverage. Right now it seems like each server has a different primetime. But, if you’re an NA player, you’re going to get the best strategies on SoR. If you’re an Asian or Oceanic player, then JQ or BG would be your best bet. All I know though is my experiences with BG is that they’re more concerned about numbers than tactics. I left BG because I tried getting my guild to use more tactics but no one listened unfortunately.

Wolfaen.9461:

Thor.1756:

My guild recently recieved a handful of players from Kaineng and their consensus was that wvw on JQ was way more fun than on Kaineng.

Right now you’ll always be able to find a map without a queue, and the maps that do have queues typically do not take longer than 5-20 minutes.

Outside of EB, pretty much every zerg will be led by a guild group and be on the community t.s. to organize and cooperate, at least during NA prime. Often, we will not just have a single large zerg ball but rather split our forces into two separate groups, 1 group led by a larger guild running a pin and leading the militia, and a smaller guild group of 20 or so to cap separate objectives, and collapse to the main group when necessary.

After the trouble with some of our larger guilds JQ is looking for some warm bodies to fill the holes left, we still have all of the skill, leadership, and coordination that kept us in t1 for so long.

/end of sales pitch

That sounds pretty kitten spot on for what I am looking for and probably exactly how Anet intended WvW gameplay to be like. Honestly JQ has been my top choice from the beginning so this helps in my decision if I choose to do so.

Pretty good sales pitch if you ask me..

Well, if we’re fortunate enough to have you come aboard, check out our JQ forums as well and get registered there. If the commanders that post frequently haven’t scared you off then odds are you’ll feel right at home.

xDudisx.5914:

I am at T2, sometimes you’ll get long queues and the fights become a zerg vs zerg most of the time. I think you will be better in a middle tier server not too low but not too high. Try to find a guild first before you chose the server. My guild is considering move to middle tier because most of the time there are so many players that the only strategy and gameplay involved is portal bomb and stack might. A fight between 20×20 is much more fun that 60×60.

We still get 60×60 battles in lower tiers. The only difference is that these fights aren’t going on in all the maps at the same time 24/7. Even if one server can put out, the others generally can’t keep up. Does this make the servers less skilled or more zergy in nature? Sometimes. Not always though. There’s this stupid perception that higher tiers translate to higher skill. If that’s the case, why do players always look to lower tiers to transfer?

They want good fights and they know good fights are to be had here. Small roaming guilds are very common in these tiers, and a lot of them are VERY GOOD at what they do. Higher tiers just have more of these skill groups, which is expected with higher populations. This is a game of coverage. The difference between middle tiers and higher tiers a lot of the time is more a topic on population than player skill. I can tell you that you will be hard-pressed to find better duelists than those in EBay and Maguuma (T5/T3 respectively) while Anvil Rock has the most skilled s/tPvP population. I laugh when people from higher tiers say that the only skilled groups are T3 or higher. They are missing out.

But yeah, back to your 60v60 versus 20v20 problem. Still happens, mate. Sorry to pop that bubble ;(

I feel like I have to pitch in here. Tier 1 is all about zerging. We’re talking massive zerg balls. That said, I think JQ and BG have a few smaller groups running lately. SoR seems to have all condensed into 4 zergs (one for each BL, obviously) during NA primetime. Sometimes they will be nice and let CAPS roam.

For the OP, you really have to experience it before you know if it is fun. As a roaming guild, we find it frustrating a lot of times, but there is no stop in action. We usually can’t play on Friday and Saturday nights though due to the massive zergs and 2 hour queues. During the week the zergs break a little more.

T1(JQ) ultimately drove me to quit the game for a 6 month period. The environment is toxic in my mind. The queues and zergs in T1 made it an unfriendly place to play with a small group of friends.

The group I play with ended up moving to EB in March as a last ditch effort to try and find something fun in WvW, and it worked. I’d listen to Faux on this. Higher Tier, doesn’t always mean better, it just means more people/better coverage.

Just be aware of the Skill Lag, massive zergs and Queues that people have been complaining about in the Top Tier servers.

I cannot speak for T1, or other T2 servers, but I believe T2 is a blast. I am from FA, and we love the fact that we do not have as much coverage as other T2 servers. The other two servers occasionally bring out 80 men zergs and run over everything in the map. I know they are having fun, and so are we when we have to defend (sometimes).

Also, in FA we rarely have a queue. Only in reset night.

There are bad kittens on the forums in all servers, just ignore them and the world will be a better place ^^

Dunno about tier1, but this is tier2’s theme song (you’re welcome for the ear worm, hehe!):

I’ve seen some interesting things in t1 so far that I haven’t in t2. That said, for the most part it’s a coverage difference…. for me that makes it more exciting.

Straegen.2938:

I left T3 because of the heavy zerg nature of the servers. If that is what a player likes, then that is where a player should go. Finding skirmishes in those top tiers can be difficult and small groups will routinely run into 30+ roaming around flipping. If you want the best of both worlds, the mid tiers have a lot to offer.

I really don’t like EBay on the forums, but for a T5 server they really do run a lot of tight WvW focused guilds that I would deem hardcore. Rekz may be kittens on the forums but they run a 20+ man zerg that is as good as I have seen. They also have guilds like GF that are fierce in their skirmishing. GH keeps players in camps and calls in their larger cavalry very well. Very organized and they have some really good players. That said a few do frequently behave very poorly on the forums which IMO reflects poorly on their server overall… sore winner comes to mind and reminds me of Maguuma when they are on a tear.

On these T5 servers, is WvW dead when its not prime time? I am really looking for servers that are always active.

Wolfaen.9461:

Straegen.2938:

I left T3 because of the heavy zerg nature of the servers. If that is what a player likes, then that is where a player should go. Finding skirmishes in those top tiers can be difficult and small groups will routinely run into 30+ roaming around flipping. If you want the best of both worlds, the mid tiers have a lot to offer.

I really don’t like EBay on the forums, but for a T5 server they really do run a lot of tight WvW focused guilds that I would deem hardcore. Rekz may be kittens on the forums but they run a 20+ man zerg that is as good as I have seen. They also have guilds like GF that are fierce in their skirmishing. GH keeps players in camps and calls in their larger cavalry very well. Very organized and they have some really good players. That said a few do frequently behave very poorly on the forums which IMO reflects poorly on their server overall… sore winner comes to mind and reminds me of Maguuma when they are on a tear.

On these T5 servers, is WvW dead when its not prime time? I am really looking for servers that are always active.

Pretty much anything T1 or T2 is always going to have something going on. A lot of T3 servers are gonna be pretty active as well.

Below that, it’s hard to say.

Life is better in the Quarry.

Wolfaen.9461:

Straegen.2938:

I left T3 because of the heavy zerg nature of the servers. If that is what a player likes, then that is where a player should go. Finding skirmishes in those top tiers can be difficult and small groups will routinely run into 30+ roaming around flipping. If you want the best of both worlds, the mid tiers have a lot to offer.

I really don’t like EBay on the forums, but for a T5 server they really do run a lot of tight WvW focused guilds that I would deem hardcore. Rekz may be kittens on the forums but they run a 20+ man zerg that is as good as I have seen. They also have guilds like GF that are fierce in their skirmishing. GH keeps players in camps and calls in their larger cavalry very well. Very organized and they have some really good players. That said a few do frequently behave very poorly on the forums which IMO reflects poorly on their server overall… sore winner comes to mind and reminds me of Maguuma when they are on a tear.

On these T5 servers, is WvW dead when its not prime time? I am really looking for servers that are always active.

I can’t speak much for the other servers but for EBay, our schedule is as follows:

NA Morning: We have commanders, but not the largest organized population. Roaming groups reign.
NA Afternoon: Primetime. You’re looking at a queue or two.
NA Evening: Happy hour. Shenanigans. This is my favorite time to play. One map possibly queued, roaming groups reign. We do everything from thief/mesmer backcapping teams to taco parties (everyone wears blue dorito).
NA Night: Defend what we have. Low population, so I won’t sugarcoat it. We have groups, but they are generally 5-10 person maximum with the occasional random zerg that can’t really be predicted. I’ve seen a map queued until 3AM server, and I’ve seen ghost towns everywhere. We’re building population for this timeslot (which seems to be the case with all the college students finishing finals).

We’re not always active, but there is rarely nothing to do. Even when there is seemingly nothing to do, we have players in Teamspeak 24/7, so there are always people to run with if you aren’t too shy to join their channel and ask to tag along.

Again, this is for EBay which is (technically) a T4 server.