Guild Wars 2

fefner.5729:

Slamz.5376:

You missed the main reason:

Zerging makes you practically immune to AE.

5 man group = 100% damage from AE
10 man group = 50% damage from AE
20 man group = 25% damage from AE
50 man group = 10% damage from AE
(effectively)

This is because AE can only hit 5 people. So if you’re in a group of 10 and someone does an AE on the group, you only stand about a 50% chance of being hit by it. This is why you see big coordinated guilds all clump up on doors. When there’s 30+ of them, they simply because immune to AE. 10 people can rain AE on the door, enough to instagib an individual, but with 30 people in a shifting clump, the damage gets highly diluted. Attacker 1 hits 5 people but doesn’t hit the other 25. Attacker 2 hits 5 other people but doesn’t hit the other 25. Etc. Nobody is going to get hit too hard, despite 10 people raining AE on them.

It’s just how the game is designed. The enemy of the zerg is AE damage and this game has severely restricted the AE, so the zerg is greatly empowered and can really only be beaten by another zerg.

Anet please listen to this guy, lets get rid of this stupid cap!

the stupid cap that prevents the server from crashing?

Slamz.5376:

You missed the main reason:

Zerging makes you practically immune to AE.

5 man group = 100% damage from AE
10 man group = 50% damage from AE
20 man group = 25% damage from AE
50 man group = 10% damage from AE
(effectively)

This is because AE can only hit 5 people. So if you’re in a group of 10 and someone does an AE on the group, you only stand about a 50% chance of being hit by it. This is why you see big coordinated guilds all clump up on doors. When there’s 30+ of them, they simply because immune to AE. 10 people can rain AE on the door, enough to instagib an individual, but with 30 people in a shifting clump, the damage gets highly diluted. Attacker 1 hits 5 people but doesn’t hit the other 25. Attacker 2 hits 5 other people but doesn’t hit the other 25. Etc. Nobody is going to get hit too hard, despite 10 people raining AE on them.

It’s just how the game is designed. The enemy of the zerg is AE damage and this game has severely restricted the AE, so the zerg is greatly empowered and can really only be beaten by another zerg.

That is the cap from one person’s AoE. If many people drop AoEs on a group many more get hit.

I know I run in a guild group of ALL thieves and when the 5 of us all daggerstorm at once the zerg gets trashed pretty hard.

zzzzzz.

You can get the same amount of xp/karma by splitting into parties of 5, capping supply camps, without being in a zerg.

Of course it’s more challenging, so if you’re looking for a lazy way out, you should probably rethink your involvement in WvW.

I hope those who are for zerging play against the top tier servers, and see how effective their zerg is. GoM used to zerg and still does. SoR just followed behind and recapped everything GoM capped within a few minutes.

It’s a pity people have had this happen to them, and still don’t learn. I’m looking at some of you, GoM commanders.

Mog.1589:

Slamz.5376:

You missed the main reason:

Zerging makes you practically immune to AE.

5 man group = 100% damage from AE
10 man group = 50% damage from AE
20 man group = 25% damage from AE
50 man group = 10% damage from AE
(effectively)

This is because AE can only hit 5 people. So if you’re in a group of 10 and someone does an AE on the group, you only stand about a 50% chance of being hit by it. This is why you see big coordinated guilds all clump up on doors. When there’s 30+ of them, they simply because immune to AE. 10 people can rain AE on the door, enough to instagib an individual, but with 30 people in a shifting clump, the damage gets highly diluted. Attacker 1 hits 5 people but doesn’t hit the other 25. Attacker 2 hits 5 other people but doesn’t hit the other 25. Etc. Nobody is going to get hit too hard, despite 10 people raining AE on them.

It’s just how the game is designed. The enemy of the zerg is AE damage and this game has severely restricted the AE, so the zerg is greatly empowered and can really only be beaten by another zerg.

That is the cap from one person’s AoE. If many people drop AoEs on a group many more get hit.

I know I run in a guild group of ALL thieves and when the 5 of us all daggerstorm at once the zerg gets trashed pretty hard.

Most of the time when a zerg gets trashed from daggerstrom spam, its not the damage from the ds itself, but people with no idea how the skill works and shoots projectiles at them, which doesn’t have a 5 man cap.

Fixing the abundance of resurrections/revives in a Zerg should be priority number one.

At least then you’d be able to grind them down.

Deboog.1847:

5. Badges of honor up the wazoo! If every fight is tilted in your favor, think about how many kills you’ll get!

You rarely get any badges from player kills until you deal a significant amount of damage.

So no, you dont get that many Badges of Honors by just zerging around. Most zerg badges are from tower lords.

Ive earned way more badges from even balanced long lasting battles than from mindlessly zerging.

I enjoy roaming in a team of 3 the best. We’re quick, mobile, and have a decent output for events, karma, etc. However we have to be cautious of an enemy zerg because it’s instant death depending upon the situation.

That being said, I was in a zerg the other night and we hit 30 events in a little under 2 hours. Did wonders to complete the achievement this month.

Off-topic:
Dang, someone necroed a 2-month-old topic.

On-topic:
Gigantic zerging is always fun for newbies, who absolutely have no clue about playing on WvWvW. In fact, I also enjoyed running with a gigantic zerg when I was new to GW2 and WvWvW.

But once you understand the proper way to play on WvWvW, zerging is the worst way to gain badges and bag of loots. It’s less fun as well.

Roaming with a small team (or just a party of 3-5) and defending a fortified tower with a small team (~3-10 people) are better ways to gain more profits (badges and bags) and much funner than joining a gigantic zerg/mindless EXP-karma train.