Guild Wars 2

It is the lack of strategy.

Now before you jump your guns, let me explain my reasoning, my major focus will be the AoE cap coupled with server population. I will be relatively brief since many of you are aware of this problem, so I will get down to it;

WvWvW Ultimately boils down to whoever has the higher active WvW population, but it isnt about being smart, it is about who has the most men, aka Zerg. Before we continue any further I will also let you know I main staff ele, specifically zerker fire/air. Vs a Zerg of 70 man (fairly small one, since on SM it can get up to 150-250 non-weekend days and about 350+ during the weekends), a server struggling with no more than 50 men per zerg to 150 peak hour will never stand a chance, no matter how organized they are, how well they know the environment, and how much CC and synchrony they pack

Choke points are a jokes; totally disorganized Zerg of 70 will charge through a choke point while suffering some minor hits, the staff ele offers great deal of debuffs such as a giant stunning cage, a freezing ground, a meteor shower and some nasty ground-based spells…….. which will only affect 5 random people, who might not even be the same ones per tick of damage. Meaning that 65 other will get through despite the efforts of lets say 10 organized members of a team whose sole purpose is stalling for time and taking advantage of the situation, considering those other 9 also have same or similar CC, at most 50 people will be mildly slowed, with the twist that given how it is truly random, you wuld get a mixture that could go anywhere in between 5 to 50 people affected, despite coordinating it all.

Now you might say “part of the strategy” which, is understandable and acceptable (justificable) if you are on the populated server, but it leaves no room for coordinated play, no spartan strategy, no point on going to capture a point from behind a zerg and then choking them at a choking point, because no matter how well you play your cards, it only takes a couple of people getting lucky with the RNG to make everything falls apart.

“But if you remove AoE cap then you would have a team of 5 staff ele locking a 250+ zerg at a way point and nothing could be done about it”, and, I actually agree with you, Zerging IS an acceptable strategy, but only when it goes on a ratio higher than 1:10, right now it is at 1:5, I would even dare to say 1:15 would not be pushing it, because, after all, they can also do the same, they can also use ranged attacks, out of 70+ peole they are bound to have ONE ranged dude who can do the same thing to the 10 people on my side of the map.

Long story short; zerging gets boring after a while, it is frustrating to deal with and have only one way to beat it; another zerg. Strategy is null if you cant press choke points, if you cant work hard to capture a keep and hold it with a well organized team which uses machinery and heavy hitting classes with CC. My suggestion? Increase cap to 10 or 12 people, make AoE damage affect mostly those who are lower in health, CC affect those who are more likely to have CC breakers on CD, bring strategy into this game, not senseless and headless blitzkrieg.

Now, I know it might look like im over reacting and very slightly b|_|tthurt but coming from a relatively small server, it is discouraging that despite our united and synchronized efforts through a special guild only for commanders, TeamSpeak and nearly flawless raid strategies, all it takes is a massive zerg of people running in through the main course and having no way to stop it until they bashed down everything. You might say that maybe they were using a strategy and we are too proud to admit that we lost to a smarter force, but when you see their behavior, their mob mentality, their lack of strategy, the complete cluelessness of their radical movements, you realize that all they are doing is waltzing in, aided by the “swarm effect” in which a few predators might be strong enough, but agaisnt a big school of fish they can only dent their population by that much.

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EDIT I GOT IT! Make outmmanned give the AoE cap increase. I t wont affect the fights for equally matched servers, but for the underdog server they might actually have a fighting chance!!!

It seems like WvWvW could use some NPCs that matter. Imagine if there were towers that did the sort of damage to players the towers in DotA do? They would very much control the battlefield until taken down.

Same with keep defenders. It seems like every time DAoC and GW2 are compared, this is the one place DAoC always wins.

Hmmm. I’d written a post then a forum error ate it. There are at least four ways I can think of to beat a zerg though, without a bigger zerg.

- Smear them with defensive siege.
- Distract, divide, decimate.
- Hit them where they’re not.
- Wait for them to get bored/frustrated.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

1- Smear them with defensive siege.
2- Distract, divide, decimate.
3- Hit them where they’re not.
4- Wait for them to get bored/frustrated.

1- Capped, cant be moved, easily destroyed, needs time and resources to be constructed, by the time you build it, the zerg is gone somewhere else….or on top of you. If you use it on keeps then its slightly better, but still capped, and most definitely overcome.

2-Right now it is the only hope, but even when you do that, by distracting them, you have splitted your own forces, in the attempt to kill them, the smaller enemy cell may still be able to overcome you, while the big part of the zerg will continue at large, battling your split zerg , just to be attacked by the enemy zerg which just destroyed the distraction team. Works, yes, but only 2/5 times.

3 – Once again, splitting own forces, trust me, a large zerg is bound to have som stray elements, a smaller zerg deriving from the big mother enemy zerg might be enough to be able to hold agaisnt your rambo team. Also a good strategy, yes, but unfortunately, if you make a mistake or are unable to take the keep while the enemy is distracted then you have left your server in a bad situation; splitted groups which were already weak together, trying to overcome a big zerg coming their way, all the ways.

4 – Bend over and take it? See, this is what Im talking about, this is unacceptable, just waiting for them to go off for a few hours, until the gather up their numbers and retake the entire server. trust me, the losing server is more likely to get tired and frustrated, to the point of not caring for WVW that much (aka, my server, high population, have not gotten a single queue in WVW since release, not even during peak hours on weekends……sad? yes, server 21/24 on WvW rating, )

Right now we feel powerless regardless of how coordinated, we are bashing our heads agaisnt a wall, a moving wall.

Here’s why I wish my initial post hadn’t gotten munched by the error. I filled out a bit more about this and included why these things are of limited effectiveness . . . except for #4, the only sure way.

Fortus.6175:

1- Capped, cant be moved, easily destroyed, needs time and resources to be constructed, by the time you build it, the zerg is gone somewhere else….or on top of you. If you use it on keeps then its slightly better, but still capped, and most definitely overcome.

If it’s built already and refreshed often so it doesn’t go away, it can sometimes actually work. I give it a 1 in 3 chance, but then I’m not playing on a higher tier and I’m a terrible player overall. I’ve seen it work, and people other than me who do better have made it work.

But you’re right in that it has its shortcomings.

2-Right now it is the only hope, but even when you do that, by distracting them, you have splitted your own forces, in the attempt to kill them, the smaller enemy cell may still be able to overcome you, while the big part of the zerg will continue at large, battling your split zerg , just to be attacked by the enemy zerg which just destroyed the distraction team. Works, yes, but only 2/5 times.

It works better if your enemy zerg isn’t following closely enough, or if you see that they have an issue with staying together. I agree, works less than it doesn’t. When it does? It usually takes the wind out of their sails for a time.

3 – Once again, splitting own forces, trust me, a large zerg is bound to have som stray elements, a smaller zerg deriving from the big mother enemy zerg might be enough to be able to hold agaisnt your rambo team. Also a good strategy, yes, but unfortunately, if you make a mistake or are unable to take the keep while the enemy is distracted then you have left your server in a bad situation; splitted groups which were already weak together, trying to overcome a big zerg coming their way, all the ways.

I’m not talking about splitting precisely. I’m talking about just flipping any soft targets you can while they’re all focused on offense. After the third time someone looks at their camps all on your side, they’re going to have to turn around and deal with it.

Or, well, they could just keep going? Either way, if you’re taking stuff faster than they are, you’re getting better. Bonus points if it’s on their Borderland.

4 – Bend over and take it? See, this is what Im talking about, this is unacceptable, just waiting for them to go off for a few hours, until the gather up their numbers and retake the entire server. trust me, the losing server is more likely to get tired and frustrated, to the point of not caring for WVW that much (aka, my server, high population, have not gotten a single queue in WVW since release, not even during peak hours on weekends……sad? yes, server 21/24 on WvW rating, 6th largest populated server)

I know it’s not an attractive option but it is literally the only solution which actually works 100% of the time. If they got nothing to capture and nobody to fight, then they’ll go looking for a fight. Come back and deal with the cleanup once they move on.

And honestly? I’m on Stormbluff. We’ve been 100k points behind the lead server on our matchup consistently for . . . what, three weeks running? Four? That’s also pretty demoralizing since we see them rarely holding less than 40% of the “pie” for very long. It’s not just the zerg tactics which kill us, it’s the inability to catch up that points gap. I’ve seen people . . . and said it myself, pop in and go “welp, no chance of doing anything but dying today” and leave.

well said fortus..
“EDIT I GOT IT! Make outmmanned give the AoE cap increase. I t wont affect the fights for equally matched servers, but for the underdog server they might actually have a fighting chance!!!”

this is a very bright idea….nice please ANET help this fixed