Guild Wars 2

Lets assume all yaks are measured through “speed”, for the ease of argument.

So which is better? Who would win in a fight? The Speedy yak or the fat one?
Maybe you’re thinking its not a fair comparison to begin with. Maybe your thinking one is meant for 1 thing and the other for another thing.

Correct answer: Packed Yaks are better 95% of the time.

Statistics:
They cost the same in mats
Packed yaks: 2.0-3.0x yak speed + twice as much supply delivered
Speedy yaks: 1.5x yak speed

The ONLY reason to use speedy yaks is for guild escort missions. As they give the max movespeed possible for a yak, and packed yaks do not count as 2 on the missions. This can also be a double edges sword if you are doing upgrade missions, in which case you are likely to come out on top by using packed….but there are situations where you maybe just need the escorts or can leave the objective to upgrade on its own at a slower rate.

One final plus to speedy yaks is they move faster making it more difficult to catch them “at times” by enemy players. But this is very very circumstantial, and assumes there is no escort for the yak. If there is an escort for the speedy yak….well you are wasting a player on it (that could otherwise be killing enemy yaks/camps) since they can’t increase the speed of the yak, they are pretty much afking by it. The invulnerable yak upgrade also exists….and players should be using “this” along with watchtowers and nearby roamers to protect the camps and yaks from most threats.

for the nonbelievers I present you MATH:
speedy yaks give superspeed to the yaks, which is the max movespeed possible for a yak. superspeed is 50% faster. So the yaks speed becomes 1.5×. Thus swiftness or applying superspeed does not affect the yak since the max movespeed is already achieved.

Packed yaks grant 2 ticks per objective reached rather than the usual 1 tick. They also give 2x the supply. That said they are stuck at normal 1.0 speed. So how can I say they grant 2.0-3.0x speed? Well we are 2x the tick….so we doing what a normal yak does twice as well….so they are theoretically moving twice as fast. An easier way to visual it is: imagine packed yaks are 2 normal yaks placed ontop of eachother. When you grant these yaks swiftness/superspeed what are you doing? you are giving each yak 1.33->1.5x the speed. There are 2 yaks though so we simply add the output of each yak together and we get a max value of 3.0x speed.

Tl:DR: Speedy does not mean faster! if you are putting speedy yaks on your camps you are doing it wrong. Switch to packed! Its upsetting to me each time I see people putting speedy yaks on things thinking they are helping! Speedy are an inferior product and there is no reason for you to use them (except mbe for guild missions)! Get your moneys worth and help your bl! Play smart!

If you ever noticed on reset how a team had packed yaks on camps all over their team’s bls……its a good indication that you should transfer there! It means they are SMART, and paired with enough people SMART ENOUGH to help them be SMART! Good litmus test when searching for competent bl.

Your comparison is pretty pointless anyway, 1 scrapper can nearly perma superspeed a dolly, two or more can shuffle them inside as fast as possible. Ie packed dollys supported by scrappers would always be the best.

Dawdler.8521:

Your comparison is pretty pointless anyway, 1 scrapper can nearly perma superspeed a dolly, two or more can shuffle them inside as fast as possible. Ie packed dollys supported by scrappers would always be the best.

Maybe read the actual thread next time before you comment, cause I said all of this in the thread and you have added nothing of value to the discussion. Maybe take ur own advice on the definition of pointless before pointing it outward.

The whole point is that alot of people STILL don’t know all this stuff. Its great that you know all this stuff, its wonderful, its truly inspirational how even some1 like urself can know stuff like this. Gives hope to all wvsw players that they can learn the entire game if they only try.

I have to explain the contents of this thread to people over and over and over again. So I thought “hey lets just post it all somewhere like the forums, surely the people on the forums would like to come out learning something rather than just complaining and reading other people complaining. Maybe it can start a trend where people post learning material and we can all become more enriched each time we visit rather than the usual showdown”. Clearly such intent is lost on people though, so I willl return to posting like the meta.

Not bad, but a couple of problems here.

Speedy Yaks can have their movespeed increased by swiftness. The buff on them has the same icon as the superspeed buff, but it is a different thing entirely. In addition, the speed increase is higher than 1.5×. Unfortunately, I’ve been slacking and thus don’t have my personal guild at a high enough lvl to craft Speedy Yaks so I don’t have hard numbers on it yet.

I’ll see what I can do about getting some better data soon…

You also have to factor in distance travelled. As example the run from the SWC to bay is very very short and a fat yak might be a better choice. There less time to intercept so more yaks get through.

On the run from NNC to NET or NWT alpine BL the distance is so very much longer. The likelihood of an enemy intercept is way higher. This intercept is hardly a rare occasion If I am flipping NWC and see a yak icon on the board coming from NNC , if it a slow yak I have plenty of time to finish that flip, trot up towards the yak and kill it before it ever gets to one of those towers.

If you are going to consider people escorting the same you also have to consider the time of those people used to do such as a resource. If they are tied up twice as long escorting a yak then that is time they can not be doing something else like defending a nearby camp that an enemy is flipping. A slow yak escort run from NNC to NET alpine consumes much more “player resources” then one from SWC to bay.

Speedy Yaks is great for Cap And Hold guild missions.

I don’t believe yak speed is 100% by default. I’m fairly sure it’s something like 50%. Speedy Yaks doesn’t increase their speed by 50%; it increases it by 100%. Swiftness similarly increases their speed by 66%.

What the OP wants to measure is Supply Rate/Hour. There are several factors that affect that, including the amount of supply delivered per route, the speed, whether escorted, and whether under threat.

If there’s a pesky havoc camped outside of your North camp, a speedy Yak might escape to Garri while defended by one ally; a packed Yak isn’t likely to survive. If Vale keeps getting flipped, you might only get the first set of yaks off, but without escorts; again, speedy Yaks are more likely to escape.

During any peaceful period, when you can ‘swift’ the Yaks repeatedly, ‘Packed’ getting double supply 33% more quickly is worth 2.66 normal Yaks versus only double for Speedy Yaks.

So ‘best’ depends on your situation:

• Peacetime, no escort: doesn’t matter; double impact.
• Peacetime, escorted: Packed is better by 33% (= 2.66/2) or more.
• Wartime vs Havoc, undefended: doesn’t matter; no supply getting through.
• Wartime vs Havoc, modest defense: Speedy is probably a lot better
• ZvZ nearby: lucky to get any supply through & Speedy has the edge.

Packed are better because although they are identical in terms of overall effect, enemies can identify speedy dolyaks simply by observing how quickly they traverse the map.

Also, you can put swiftness on packed dolyaks to make them even more rapid (I believe the OP made this point).

The ONLY reason to use speedy yaks is for guild escort missions.

… and the Leader of the Yak achievement.

I will always prefer speedy yaks. Upgrading goes so much faster and I can just stand at midway point to intercept enemy players. If I need help I just call the guild. Also you would be surprised how hard a speedy bubbled yak is to kill.

Justine.6351:

I will always prefer speedy yaks. Upgrading goes so much faster and I can just stand at midway point to intercept enemy players. If I need help I just call the guild. Also you would be surprised how hard a speedy bubbled yak is to kill.

Exactly… the upgrade goes based on the yaks in not the amount of supply. I frankly don’t believe the numbers presented anyway. Packed yaks simply are slow and not worth waiting for unless you want to babysit them and speed them up yourself.

Balthazzarr.1349:

I frankly don’t believe the numbers presented anyway. Packed yaks simply are slow and not worth waiting for unless you want to babysit them and speed them up yourself.

Distance traveled has no bearing on anything calculated….

INfact now that I think about it, distance travelled has a very small increased input on PACKED YAKS. If we say that yaks who disappear and respawn in the camp have a “delay” then its apparent that the more yaks doing that “delay” will lead to a an even SLOWER upgrade time.

Inwhich case Thankyou for proving that I’m even more right than I was before.

What level of basic math did you complete? This is before even highschool here.

Sviel.7493:

Not bad, but a couple of problems here.

Speedy Yaks can have their movespeed increased by swiftness. The buff on them has the same icon as the superspeed buff, but it is a different thing entirely. In addition, the speed increase is higher than 1.5×. Unfortunately, I’ve been slacking and thus don’t have my personal guild at a high enough lvl to craft Speedy Yaks so I don’t have hard numbers on it yet.

I’ll see what I can do about getting some better data soon…

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Schematic:_Speedy_Dolyaks

You’ll have to provide hard data to backup any of those claims. Even ingame I’ve never seen a difference in speed with swiftness applies to them. And for you to tell me the ‘yak-superspeed’ is higher than 50%……that will also require hard data to backup.

If an engie applies superspeed to a fastyak we get a similar speed on the yak. If an engie applies superspeed on a fast yak, it has no effect. Similarly if an engie applie superspeed ontop of superspeed is overrites the original superspeed.
Literally nothing ingame supports the things you are saying. You “can” stack swiftness on a fast yak but that doesn’t make it go faster.

I will go ingame and test on fast yaks incase there has been a ‘recent change’ or something has been overlooked. Although this is a very unexpected response, and possible a troll response, I commend you for not being like the others.

Balthazzarr.1349:

I frankly don’t believe the numbers presented anyway. Packed yaks simply are slow and not worth waiting for unless you want to babysit them and speed them up yourself.

This is a great summary of the player-base’s level of intelligence. I made an entire posting proving to everyone superior siege is better bought that made after they called me a liar. What did they do? They believed me, and called me an idiot for saving them money.

I’ve been trying since that post and haven’t been able to document any speedy Yaks. That is, I’ve seen enemy speedy Yaks but I’ve had to kill them and flip the camp rather than taking notes on how fast they upgrade objectives on my BL. No allied speedy Yaks have completed trips while I was watching. This is likely the result of my playing in a low-pop timezone this week.

I’ll have the hard numbers for you asap. I’ve ranked my guild up to lvl 12.9 and am just waiting on aetherium while I farm the obscene amount of leather for future upgrades.

What I can say is that Superspeed is a 100% increase. Thus, it should be 2x speed increase rather than 1.5. You state that the maximum move speed for a Yak is 150% but I do not see this documented anywhere. When I have the numbers on hand, I can settle it. I have not applied Superspeed to a speedy Yak but I have applied swiftness and seen an increase in speed. That’s where my statement comes from but, again, I’ll wait until I have numbers to insist on it. My statement that speedy Yak Superspeed is a different thing derives from the observation that it stacks with swiftness as opposed to normal Superspeed which does not.

Claiming the speed of the yak versus distance travled makes no difference is simply wrong. A person intercepting a Yak has more time to arrive at the yaks position on the map and kill it. Further if escorted it much easier for the same to kill a bubbled fat yak then a bubbled speedy yak. Fat yaks do not have more hit points.

I have participated in escorting and or intercepting yaks many times and in particular those headed to destinations that are near upgrading that either our team sieges or an enemy sieges. It is MUCH easier to ensure a speedy yak gets through than a fat against an enemy actively trying to intercept. That difference in time along with the higher rate can make a significant difference in such instances. A wall breach that happens 10 seconds earlier because FATTY is only half ways there can mean all your outer siege in a keep lost and an enemy now able to port in with mesmers.

When making claims that one type of yak superior to another on ensuring an objective upgraded faster, you can not just ignore the factors that do not fit your case.

Sviel.7493:

What I can say is that Superspeed is a 100% increase. Thus, it should be 2x speed increase rather than 1.5. You state that the maximum move speed for a Yak is 150% but I do not see this documented anywhere.

Well I clearly remember reading it was 50% on the wiki. But its saying 100% now. And I went ingame and the speed times for packed and speedy were pretty much the same.
58 seconds fora speed. 2 min 6 seconds for a normal yak. Applying some margin for error and balancing it out……we can say 60 seconds for speedy, 62 seconds for packed. Also worth mentioning was that the respawn time of a yak is up to 9 seconds (was hard to time but I think its 7-9 seconds. Given that speedy have to make more deliveries…..packed is gonna save quite a bit of time. 5 deliveries vs 10, means 5x less of those 9 second delays.

So when the yak doesn’t have to respawn….speedy has an advantage assuming noone is granting swiftness/superspeed at all to it. Otherwise packed is always going to have the advantage.
There’s no way the speedy yak’s escape speed is a greater asset than 2x supply on delivery. I’ve never seen some1 miss a speedy yak ingame that wanted to kill it, when it wasn’t escorted. And in terms of invading, the dots always kill the yak unless some1 is guarding the yak/area to begin with. Played on many bl and this has always been the case.

IN many scenarios like ebg we have a bl that own their corner but not smc. So half the yaks from the camps are not respawning and half are. But if its half in favour and half against…its still gonna come out to be in packed yaks favour as it was before in the general case where both yaks are equally important. In most cases the yak going to the keep is more important…so packed wins there. In more specific cases the outer tower is want you want upgraded…..in which case speedy would win assuming supply if of no consequence and noone is going to be escorting.

So yeah, there’s another scenario in speedy yaks favour there. So anyone fluent in both types of yaks can technically choose between the two based on the situation. Most situation will come out in packed’s favour, and a handful in speedy’s favour.

So to correct my mistake, and if we generalize a bit:
speedy 2.0x speed
Packed 2.0-3.0x speed +benefits

babazhook.6805:

Claiming the speed of the yak versus distance travled makes no difference is simply wrong. A person intercepting a Yak has more time to arrive at the yaks position on the map and kill it. Further if escorted it much easier for the same to kill a bubbled fat yak then a bubbled speedy yak. Fat yaks do not have more hit points.

I have participated in escorting and or intercepting yaks many times and in particular those headed to destinations that are near upgrading that either our team sieges or an enemy sieges. It is MUCH easier to ensure a speedy yak gets through than a fat against an enemy actively trying to intercept. That difference in time along with the higher rate can make a significant difference in such instances. A wall breach that happens 10 seconds earlier because FATTY is only half ways there can mean all your outer siege in a keep lost and an enemy now able to port in with mesmers.

When making claims that one type of yak superior to another on ensuring an objective upgraded faster, you can not just ignore the factors that do not fit your case.

Well….. then you obviously have no idea what you are talking about. All I read was you presenting obscure scenarios as proof that my argument is biased. Its like me saying my disinfectant kills all the bacteria, and you citing that it doesn’t….that infact it has only been proven to kill 99.97% of all bacteria and I’m making stuff up. In other words, your argument is just banter.

Here I’ll give you an example: the faster the yak moves, the faster it moves towards the enemy coming to kill it, no? Giving friendlies less time to respond. A slower moving yak spends more time by the camps guards and other useful protective areas, a faster one does not. Is this false? Nope! But its meaningless once you think about it….cause you can argue the opposite should the scenario present itself. This is generally why we use ingame experience to fill in the gaps of what is considered reasonable, and what is considered plausible to happen.

And I’ve never seen a non-escorted packed dolyak escape the wrath of auto attacking lol. How is non-escorted speedy yaks dying even a point of debate?

What utter nonsense. It patently obvious in making your claim that a speedy yak is easier to intercept because it comes to you faster, you have no clue as to what you are talking about and lacking in the “in game experience” you claim to have. Your “in game experience” is nothing more then theoretical posturing ignoring the in game situations because they do not meet your model.

Indeed last night this very scenario happened to a tee and it not the first time this occurred. The two camps that were supplying Fire keep were held by an enemy and a handful of us were trying to prevent it from going T3. With slow yaks we could run from the NWC to the SWC and kill every yak headed to that keep even if escorted.

they moved slow and on arrival even if escorted and bubbled even one of us could kill it before it got to the gate. Indeed starting at spawn in DBL i could make it in time to intercept a slow yak moving from SWC to the keep before it could make it there.

2 of us (later 3) were working against around 5 escorting and flipping those two camps for well over an hour and kept Fire at a steady 50 /80. Once the enemy upgraded to speedy in swc we could not longer do that and by time the group arrived to help flip fire back it was close to 70 0f 80.

The fact that we held that supply at a steady 50/80 shows clearly that FAT yaks would have made no difference as we were allowing none to get through because we had time to react. The fact that number went UP as soon as speedy put in SWC shows me all I need to know about your “in game experience”

That sometimes it might be preferable to have fat yaks does not translate to they are always better. There are all manner of variables that come into play at any given time and these have to be factored in when deciding between speedy and fat.

If yaks are 10x as fast as normal does that increase their survivability then? It doesn’t. It just means some1 can wait for a couple seconds for the yak to leave any problem zones and ‘come to them’, at which point they cc it and kill eez. From that perspective they are even easier to intercept and kill. Same is said for when it is escorted, you simply kill the escort and as you go towards the camp the yak respawns infront of you for an easy cleave. Or you simply wait for the yak to come back, which will be before the escort gets back itself. Whereas before the escorter had to simply get the yak a “certain” distance away, which would delay the attacker from getting to it and allow the attacker to be taken out before it caught up to the yak again.
Anyone reading this should realize the fallacy in all these statements I made, for its the same fallacy you have made.

“The faster a yak, the more problems it has.” – Is also an incorrect statement. Yak speed is not an asset nor a liability when it has nothing to do with upgrade speed….you are grasping at thin air to make an argument.

Justine.6351:

And I’ve never seen a non-escorted packed dolyak escape the wrath of auto attacking lol. How is non-escorted speedy yaks dying even a point of debate?

Cause they think I’m more illogical than they are, thus any argument they present is deemed correct in their eyes.

Its bumming even me out a this point.

A bit more info now~

Speedy Yaks is definitely a 100% speed increase.
Superspeed from Speedy Yaks is actual Superspeed and can’t be boosted by swiftness.

With that in mind, and ignoring any chance of assassination, Packed Yaks will be slightly better than Speedy Yaks for upgrading structures. If the Yaks are escorted, the scales tip further.

Speedy Yaks will be much better for gaining points and is probably best employed for that purpose. It will probably still see widespread use for upgrading since it can be unlocked much earlier than Packed Yaks.

As for assassinations, I personally find Speedy Yaks more of a hassle. If they aren’t being escorted, it’s no big deal as long as they aren’t running in opposite directions (see: North Camp). If they do have an escort, there’s just not enough time to kill the Yak in many instances or I can’t survive long enough while the escort attempts to murder me. That said, if you have that level of escorting, it doesn’t really matter which kind of Yak you use.

Sviel.7493:

A bit more info now~

Speedy Yaks is definitely a 100% speed increase.
Superspeed from Speedy Yaks is actual Superspeed and can’t be boosted by swiftness.

With that in mind, and ignoring any chance of assassination, Packed Yaks will be slightly better than Speedy Yaks for upgrading structures. If the Yaks are escorted, the scales tip further.

Speedy Yaks will be much better for gaining points and is probably best employed for that purpose. It will probably still see widespread use for upgrading since it can be unlocked much earlier than Packed Yaks.

As for assassinations, I personally find Speedy Yaks more of a hassle. If they aren’t being escorted, it’s no big deal as long as they aren’t running in opposite directions (see: North Camp). If they do have an escort, there’s just not enough time to kill the Yak in many instances or I can’t survive long enough while the escort attempts to murder me. That said, if you have that level of escorting, it doesn’t really matter which kind of Yak you use.

Generally Yaks are not intercepted by large player groups. It is single roamers that find and kill these things for the most part , at least at the Tiers of play I am at. There a finite amount of damage an individual player can pump out over a time period. While little of that time needed for an unescorted Yak , that time goes up much higher when it has an escort and is bubbled.

If I can pump out XXX damage in 10 seconds against a bubbled Yak and it is has XXX+1 health and is 10 seconds away from that destination then its chances of getting through are higher. The speedier the yak, the further away from its destination that you have to engage ( the exact opposite of the “let it come to you faster” ).

Again I use the REALITY of an enemy holding our fire keep at tier 2 and trying to get it upgraded with three of us in total trying to prevent the same. We held it steady at 50/80 for over an hour , even as the yaks escorted because we had the time to move between the various camps and focus down the yak before it could reach end point. This even if we were downed by a superior enemy force and had to run form desert BL spawn for the same. They switched to speedy at the SWC (which near their spawn and which they would reinforce if we tried to flip) and the number started climbing noticeably.

FAT yaks would not have helped them as it was the lower speed of the YAKS that was giving us that needed time both to intercept from afar, and to apply the damage needed before the endpoint reached.

If I am defending against tier upgrades or am trying to escort Yaks to my own teams keeps and towers to ensure the same and the population of the server low, I want to be on the fastest Character I have, and I want those enemy Yaks to be as slow as possible. FAT yaks dies just as quickly as speedy and while they carry more FAT yaks give me more time to get to them and to kill them when reached. By the same token on such a map, I want the Yaks I escort to be as fast as possible so I can more readily move to put out the next fire.

In other words, if you are on a server that can afford to send 4 or 5 people to intercept a Yak , or that can afford the resources to have 4 or 5 escort said yak Fat might be better.