Guild Wars 2

Changes to Desert Borderlands: Good!
I think ANet did a good job overall, the map is a lot easier to navigate – especially in the parts where it was more problematic before. There’s also a lot of space for open field combat that holds the promise for epic battles.
Some of the new parts remind me a bit of the ruins in Alpine Border: a lot of platforms that allow for nice tricks with teleports and such.
The only concern remains with the northern towers: too far away from any other objectives to be “strategically relevant” (but I posted an idea on how to solve that ).

WvW Reward Tracks: not hype-level material, but a nice addiction.
The progress is very slow compared to the PvP tracks, although we must admit we have other sources of income at the same time while PvPers don’t. The exclusive armor set is a nice addiction and helps giving WvW the status/bragging rights it deserves. The question is: why did this take so long?

Squads can have dedicated scouts: Excellent!
This was a serious problem and I think the adopted solution is very elegant. Well done!

Portable Siege Vendor: Good (but can be improved)!
Not sure if anyone ever asked for this, but it’s actually very useful. Pretty much everyone noted that it doesn’t sell superior siege (maybe for the heroics tokens?) and level 80 food buffs, so that’s something we look forward to see added to it.

Autoloot in WvW: Excellent!
One of the most requested features since… forever.

Balance changes: a step in the right direction.
We are still very far from what I would love for WvW (at least 2 or 3 viable builds/roles for each class), but the fixes to Stability and CC are – on paper – definitely a step in the right direction.
I don’t understand how ANet managed to leave Coalescence of Ruin out when addressing the ranged spike damage, tho.
The power creep is still rampant. As a counter, there’s an overabundance of blocks and invulnerabilities. As a counter-counter there’s a lot of unblockable stuff. Toning down the overall damage would go a long way to better fights and easier balance, in my opinion.

Server Linking: make it or break it.
I think this is the feature that will decide if the changes will manage to resurrect WvW or not. The borderlands only really “work” if there’s people fighting over the objectives: nobody cares about running around for half an hour to find a fight. If there will be fights to be had and fighting will be fun, WvW will probably survive. If not, this will be the end of the game mode.

What’s left out? Well. A lot of stuff.

• Scoring / Nightcapping.
• Access to different stats, ascended gear, sigils and runes without the need of grinding PVE
• Large scale fights skill lag
• Rewards: ANet addressed personal rewards, but there’s no reason to struggle and win a match-up.
• Siege wars still need addressing.

I do recall Anet saying scoring will be addressed after they beta test the current changes. The things that they updated in WvW were the ones most requested by the community so they took prioritization. Also, they did reduce the grind significantly for PvE maps which should help us a bit, but I do agree with your thoughts. As for the other things, i guess we’ll have to wait and see. Overall, I believe Anet did a really good job with this patch and am excited to see future updates now if they follow this same strategy!

What I think needs to change is the cc cap at 10 players. Its a lot harder for a small group to fight a big group when the cc can hit only hit 12.5% of the group with cc. What I was noticing tonight was that these big groups that we were having good fights against before the patch, were rolling over us because we had no way of holding them back. We fight as 20 and we can usually take out 35+ groups and if we had ways of getting separation before they push we could do a lot better but if they pop stability they have at least a full 8 seconds to push. If we had 2 lines from staff 5 on DH we still can only hold back 20 players and only if they don’t have stab. If another a big group was to use the same effect on us we would have our entire team blocked. This change has made it a lot harder for small groups.

OK… good feedback however,

There is a lot more coming down the pipe, this has been confirmed numerous times. What was released in the patch was what they had. I would say save your kittening for another month or so.

Brandon.6194:

What I think needs to change is the cc cap at 10 players. Its a lot harder for a small group to fight a big group when the cc can hit only hit 12.5% of the group with cc..

I agree. This cap gives the bigger groop a much better advantage then the smaller groops. and it makes a lot of static’s and lines usseless. When a big groop is pushing into a chokepoint. they only need 10 heavy people up front with stability and they can run easaly through every cc. all the classes can then just follow without needing to worry to get cc’d

If I’m not mistaken Anet wants to give smaller groop also a chance. I think it’s better to remove the cap on those skills as it’s a better adventage to smaller much organised groops. Then the bigger less organised groops

Brandon.6194:

What I think needs to change is the cc cap at 10 players. Its a lot harder for a small group to fight a big group when the cc can hit only hit 12.5% of the group with cc. What I was noticing tonight was that these big groups that we were having good fights against before the patch, were rolling over us because we had no way of holding them back. We fight as 20 and we can usually take out 35+ groups and if we had ways of getting separation before they push we could do a lot better but if they pop stability they have at least a full 8 seconds to push. If we had 2 lines from staff 5 on DH we still can only hold back 20 players and only if they don’t have stab. If another a big group was to use the same effect on us we would have our entire team blocked. This change has made it a lot harder for small groups.

I somewhat agree, but this problem existed even before: bigger groups always had an advantage because they can drop more CC (so it was a no brainer to strip Stability stacks).

The thing is, with an organized group you usually want to focus on a small subset of the bigger group, trap them, kill them, reset (heal/empower, etc) and go on again. In that, the target limit to 10 is not that bad.

you have mechanics and mechanics, i’m not saying smaller groups do not deserve some kind of buff whilst fighting 20+ more or so.

But do take in account that when you go into a battlefield with a smaller group versus a big group there is always a chance of getting overwhelmed, if you change the mechanics that to compensate for the damage you are taking from a larger group you are kinda falsifying the fight.

In real warfare you take the total damage which is a fact as well you don’t set the parameters to suit your own needs?

Menaka.5092:

The thing is, with an organized group you usually want to focus on a small subset of the bigger group, trap them, kill them, reset (heal/empower, etc) and go on again. In that, the target limit to 10 is not that bad.

When you fighting bigger numbers you can use statics to divide the groop. If 40 people run into the static and 10 don’t have stability. You already achieved something. The first 30 need to go further and have the initial clash without those 10 people. Or those some of those people will uss a stun break. Or the whole groop needs to wait for the cc to be over wich gives you the advantage to outmaneuvre your enemy. Now probably the first 10 hits of a static will be absorbed by the mellee train with stability. then the backline can do without it.

Angel Heart.6739:

In real warfare you take the total damage which is a fact as well you don’t set the parameters to suit your own needs?

in “real warfare” the damage from a bomb is not limited to 5 targets
there’s little point in using these arguments in this discussion

valheru.7891:

When you fighting bigger numbers you can use statics to divide the groop. If 40 people run into the static and 10 don’t have stability. You already achieved something. The first 30 need to go further and have the initial clash without those 10 people. Or those some of those people will uss a stun break. Or the whole groop needs to wait for the cc to be over wich gives you the advantage to outmaneuvre your enemy. Now probably the first 10 hits of a static will be absorbed by the mellee train with stability. then the backline can do without it.

I get what you are saying. What I’m saying is that you need to place your CC better now: if you want to catch the squishies on the back, place the CC around them instead of generally in front of the opposing group. To me, this is what playing organized means…

no the argument matters but WvW is scaled down for the number of players, if you really want insta-kill, remove down state to make it totally realistic damage then go for it.

Make the suggestion?

Brandon.6194:

What I think needs to change is the cc cap at 10 players. Its a lot harder for a small group to fight a big group when the cc can hit only hit 12.5% of the group with cc. What I was noticing tonight was that these big groups that we were having good fights against before the patch, were rolling over us because we had no way of holding them back. We fight as 20 and we can usually take out 35+ groups and if we had ways of getting separation before they push we could do a lot better but if they pop stability they have at least a full 8 seconds to push. If we had 2 lines from staff 5 on DH we still can only hold back 20 players and only if they don’t have stab. If another a big group was to use the same effect on us we would have our entire team blocked. This change has made it a lot harder for small groups.

I agree. They overdid it with the CC nerf.
In terms of movement (stab vs. CC), stab 2.0 and unlimited CC greatly favored the bigger group because they could strip more stacks.
The benefit of stab 3.0 is that it equalizes two groups of different sizes in this regard by putting a relative low upper limit on the amount of hard CC that can be useful in a given period of time. Unfortunately, the new target limit allows numbers to overwhelm the CC potential of smaller groups, once again shifting the favor back to the blob.

While the changes have made blob v blob fights significantly more enjoyable, they haven’t done as much for zergbusting as many people were hoping. This also has a lot to do with the hyuuge amount of damage in the game, though.

edit: I should probably mention that it’s still a massive improvement overall and I’m very happy with the stability buff.

I dont know about tactics in large groups but I am so happy I can actually use my abilities to get out of CC again as opposed to before were I got gated and murdered despite using my escapes and cleanses.

valheru.7891:

Menaka.5092:

The thing is, with an organized group you usually want to focus on a small subset of the bigger group, trap them, kill them, reset (heal/empower, etc) and go on again. In that, the target limit to 10 is not that bad.

When you fighting bigger numbers you can use statics to divide the groop. If 40 people run into the static and 10 don’t have stability. You already achieved something. The first 30 need to go further and have the initial clash without those 10 people. Or those some of those people will uss a stun break. Or the whole groop needs to wait for the cc to be over wich gives you the advantage to outmaneuvre your enemy. Now probably the first 10 hits of a static will be absorbed by the mellee train with stability. then the backline can do without it.

If the melee pop stability to go through one Static Field, you can usually outmanuver them and wait for the first stability to expire, then land the CC again and force them to use the second stability. At that point they are at a huge disadvantage for the fight since you still have 2 stabs to burn and you can pressure them when they need to regroup.

I like all the changes, good list you have there – now I just want the old borders back and all my friends will return to the game