Guild Wars 2

So I’m a fairly new player, only level 26 but I figured I’d try out the games PvP WvWvW mode. I’d heard a lot about it, read a lot about it and it seemed interesting. Having played a tiny bit of it however, I just really can’t see the point.

It’s one massive blob of players against another, from all I can tell whoever wins is determined by who has more people and nothing else. The game tanks in performance (my machine isn’t great admittedly) and most of the time I go down to conditions and I can’t even tell when I’m being targeted by something in the sea of red names. There doesn’t appear to be any rhyme or reason to what goes on, it’s just like two schools of red and green fish roaming around randomly.

I came in I guess expecting a much better version of WoW’s world pvp zones, or old Alterac Valley, but honestly it just seems like there are way to many people for the game modes own good.

I was on both sides of the “zergs”, winning and losing and I just could not find a single thing compelling about either one. Either I’m dying to things I can’t even see, or I’m doing so little I feel like I might as well not even be there. Some of that is probably due to me only being 26, I know I get level boosted to 80 but I can’t see how you’d still be anything but a massive free kill to anyone that’s actually 80 and fully traited with real gear.

Still I just feel like I must be missing something, as I can’t really see why this type of PvP would be appealing even if I was at level cap with all the right resources. It just seems so mindless and to be honest, pointless.

Yeah many of the times its heavily dependent on zergs. Right now in the meta, the teams are decided by who can maneuver their zerg the best and who can take advantage of the games mechanics the best.

Many other people will do Roaming in WvW. That means running around in smaller groups (anywhere from 2 or 3 to 10) and killing stray players and taking camps.

Being so low level, you’re not going to do too well. WvW is pretty heavily gear dependent.

Here is an example of zerg maneuvering. Look how they use walls, stay clumped up, keep on the move, etc.

Like much of this game, WvW is what you make of it. Those who live by the zerg, die by the zerg. Not that any of this will help your lag if your machine can’t keep up, mind you. That’s an entirely different issue.

But my guild tends to run around in a group of 5-10 and we have a ton of fun, taking camps, getting into small skirmishes and running like hell if we happen to encounter a zerg.

Also, we coordination pretty well and often take out groups of players larger than us.

A well executed zerg is a beautiful thing (and fun too!)

It’s very confusing if you’re not familiar with this type of fighting, but please don’t dismiss this type of gameplay simply as “zergfest”. Sure, the players are using a lot of AoE attacks, but the placement of that AoE is crucial, as is the positioning of the players even when they’re not engaged. There’s a great deal of tactics, skill and organization involved in fights like these, even if it is difficult to spot for those who aren’t used to this style of fighting.

In the opening there’s a lot of feinting, changing directions, false retreats and whatnot as they come together, each side attempting to get the other side to waste its AoE or Veils prematurely.

And when the AoE’s go down the commander has to decide whether to pull his group away from a disadvantageous situation (which you see a lot when Timewarp goes down) or to stay and press whatever advantage he perceives he has.

And this is made harder if the group becomes too split up and scattered, but that tends to happen somewhat as everyone dodges attacks or moves out of AoE toward whatever edge they’re nearest to. And then there are some burst/finisher AoE’s like Ele’s Teleport→Churning Earth that can’t be run out of only blocked or otherwise mitigated.

If the group gets too split up they’ll outrange each other’s protective AoE, giving the opposition an opportunity to pick off stragglers.

Add in terrain differences, siege differences, objective differences (attacking or defending) split forces – some pushing towers, some distracting at another gate, some resupplying to reinforce the main zerg, some split to take supply camps before the tick or just to cut off supply from getting into a tower. Consider builds intended for running supply, scouting, dokyak sniping, dolyak escorting, siege shielding, open field combat etc., and you start to understand the complexity of this war.

Really fascinating to watch and analyze, imho – and even more fun to play.

Here’s some excellent footage from T1 EU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...&v=iwJ34UecxNk

As you can see, it gets very intense.
You’d probably have a better experience by joining your server’s Teamspeak or running with your guildmates. Worth a try, it’s lots of fun

Stack, buff, spam 111111111111111111111111111. Fascinating it isn’t

It’s paintball without the welts. How is it not fun?

Behellagh.1468:

It’s paintball without the welts. How is it not fun?

This might explain might dislike of it since I greatly prefer Airsoft over paintball.

I think most ppl feel same as you about WvW i cant imagine anyones enjoys zergs also its 2013 I have high end pc (i run pretty much everything maxed out @60fps except GW2) and i refuse playing games @ 20-30fps with low settings…

First: Get to 80, it pretty much change everything regardless of your class. A decent 80 engaging a <30 is like beating a little child, unless by some miracle the lowbie happen to be the perfect class counter with the perfect skill layout.

Second: Get a small group instead of running with the zerg. 5 is good, 10 is a bit better, 15 meh maybe too many now. If the enemy run zergs against you, dont fall into the zerg trap of joining your own zerg. A small group next to a zerg is far more powerfull than a small group inside a zerg – flanking is a military tactic for a very good reason. If 20 people attack from the front, 5 people attack from the rear and 5 people attack from the side, the hostile 30 people will scatter and break unless they are very organized. Not to mention its more fun than seeing two 30 man blobs collide in a big mess.

Third: Find something fun specifically for your class. If you’re a Theif, scout. If you’re a Mesmer, portal. If you’re a Warrior… uh well… you can smash something I guess?

EU T1 is pretty much about balling up in one mega-blob and spamming 11111 harder than the other mega-blob.

Fun? Nope…

Karizee.8076:

Here’s some excellent footage from T1 EU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...&v=iwJ34UecxNk

As you can see, it gets very intense.
You’d probably have a better experience by joining your server’s Teamspeak or running with your guildmates. Worth a try, it’s lots of fun

This is not the reallity of EU T1. This is organised GvG with fixed numbers.

Grok.6714:

EU T1 is pretty much about balling up in one mega-blob and spamming 11111 harder than the other mega-blob.

Fun? Nope…

So, why keep doing it?

lordkrall.7241:

Grok.6714:

EU T1 is pretty much about balling up in one mega-blob and spamming 11111 harder than the other mega-blob.

Fun? Nope…

So, why keep doing it?

That’s the point. If you look at how the EU1 ladder looks like atm, you can see that many decided not to do it anymore.
As to the actual question per se – you HAVE to do it in order to beable to compete against the server who does it.

OP should transfer to a lower tier.

OP: at least you got out into the open world my introduction to WvW was being spawn camped…
The fun is what you make of it, but start by taking or defending camps.
You should do that easy with 5 low level (less than lvl 30) players. You get badges, xp and drops. Don’t have 4 other players around? head to Bay and map chat “omg zerg inc bay! about 50”…. you should see a few green dots pop up all around you and then head out to take briar camp (which is probably owned by the enemy 50% of the time).
If you see a zerg approaching, don’t run – just wp back to safety asap and report where and how many you saw.

Don’t go out solo in WvW unless you want to gather, get skill points, pois or vistas (last two only in towers\keeps you own). Don’t go out solo in WvW to look for a fight – unless you’re an uber player with uber gear, you’re gonna get hurt.

Try and sneak in a tower take over with your 5 man group. You fail: oh well… you succeed: high fives all around.

Do some camp ninja tricks on enemy BLs.

Stick with the zerg for as long as you feel comfortable. Maybe you don’t feel like your presence is not noticed, but that’s just the nature of the beast. Every number counts and you can tap yourself on the back for being one of the 50 that just took that camp

There are some things in WvW that has to be done for the team but is not fun at all:
Don’t treb SM for 3 hours
Don’t do supply runs to rapair SM wall that the other team has been trebbing for 3 hours
Don’t escort dolyaks
I don’t mind these tasks because I have enough skill points/xp/karma to last me a lifetime…

Best tip for low levels: be sure to have level appropriate weapons and gear (anything that has +toughness, +power, +health) and buy food!!!

There are 2 major flaws in my opinion:
1- RA system, even if we can at least say there is one now, is poor and non apeeling.
2- With 5 targets AoE limit there is no other strategy than blobing your way through stuff. The more you are packed together the stronger you are against AoE damage.

The rest (lag, queue, meta) has room for improvement but since release it is incredibly better.

siege weapon too weak
balista and arrowcart should be the anti – zerg weapon

Scleameth.6809:

Don’t have 4 other players around? head to Bay and map chat “omg zerg inc bay! about 50”…. you should see a few green dots pop up all around you and then head out to take briar camp (which is probably owned by the enemy 50% of the time).

LMAO
really, that one got me

SchuMidas.4782:

siege weapon too weak
balista and arrowcart should be the anti – zerg weapon

And they are.
Try taking a tower with wellplaced and manned arrowcarts.

WvW is always overwhelming when you first experience it. So much going on. So many names to target. So many sources of damage heading your way. You need to get the feel for it before it starts to make sense. Start by finding your server’s TS/Vent/Mumble/Raidcall server and jumping in comms. That will solve 90% of your problems.

lordkrall.7241:

SchuMidas.4782:

siege weapon too weak
balista and arrowcart should be the anti – zerg weapon

And they are.
Try taking a tower with wellplaced and manned arrowcarts.

Done and redone. An arrow cart can stop 6/7 players.
Nothing stops 80… or maybe 30 arrow carts.

But seriously siege engines are fine. High quality balistas and arrow carts are deal a kittenton of damage. The problem is just AoE target limit. Zerg packs you see in WvW are only stopable with even numbers, when you throw 100 guys on a keep they just bite doors open under siege fire.

innocent ouarior.1954:

Done and redone. An arrow cart can stop 6/7 players.
Nothing stops 80… or maybe 30 arrow carts.

But seriously siege engines are fine. High quality balistas and arrow carts are deal a kittenton of damage. The problem is just AoE target limit. Zerg packs you see in WvW are only stopable with even numbers, when you throw 100 guys on a keep they just bite doors open under siege fire.

Siege are as far as I know not effected by the AoE limit though.

lordkrall.7241:

Siege are as far as I know not effected by the AoE limit though.

Interesting. If its true.

lordkrall.7241:

Siege are as far as I know not effected by the AoE limit though.

I seem to recall them having a limit, but its 25-30ish or something.

Either way, I have seen 2 AC easily stop a 30 man zerg from capping a tower. You only need a little extra support to clean up the mess afterwards.

WvW is ultimately a strategy game. If you are not interested in strategic aspect of it, not interested in your server wining, dont keep in mind simultaneously all what happens on map, where you are needed, what you should do to contribute to victory, where enemy can attack next, how to destroy that annoying treb out there, how to secure supplies upgrade and fortify etc. – its just a dumb big map where you ran and kill people pointlessly. In fact – many of real "wvw"ers dislike those kind of people that come to wvw just for “fun”. WvW is serious business!

Theres a whole metagame you just dont get – starting from strategic situation on map, guilds organizations, time shifts, exciting times with sleepless nights like match resets, switching forces, trying to minimize losses being outnumbered etc. If you dont get all of this – you are only enjoying a small fraction of WvW you could be.

If you really want to enjoy it to the max – get competitive, get dedicated: join an active WvW guild, dont just fight for sake of fighting – fight to win. You think running with the zerg is boring? Have you ever spent hours on lookout monitoring map and informing about enemy movements? Have you run supplies through half the map multiple times just to repair damaged wall or build a vital treb? Have you camped in a corner waiting for enemy doylak to come, so that they would not be able to upgrade while your army prepares for attack? Have you seen ultimate defences with dozens of dozens siege weapons and no choice but to fight through them and win? Spend dozens of gold on upgrades and siege weapons that would be lost overnight? Sacrificed yourself to delay enemy a bit so they woudnt cap while reinforcements arrive?

WvW might be meh as simple run and fight game (however only if you have little clue about it, everyone expirienced will fight any kind of fight he want – from solo to small group to huge zergs), but the main thing about it – its not action, its strategy. Once you get it in your head, you`ll start seeing it entirely differently.

Don’t increase the zerg issue and run with the zerg, find your local small scale guilds/groups and run with them. Ninja some towers, cap camps and fight similar groups of the enemy servers. Just don’t give in to the dark side and everybody will be able to have more fun

If the paths the swarms take seems aimless to you, it probably means that you’re not listening (probably on Teamspeak or Mumble) to the people calling out directions, because those directions are seldom if ever random. They’re reacting to scouting reports and moving to intercept — not least of which because there are at least four major ways even a medium-sized swarm can overwhelm even the most heavily upgraded keep, if the defenders don’t see it coming in time and don’t deploy the right countermeasures.

I’m on a lower mid-tier server, in a large guild, on Teamspeak every night, and after a month and a half of pretty heavy WvW I’m still learning. Yeah, I’m slow. And yeah, I take time to do things other than WvW and that cuts into my learning time. I’m also irrationally cautious. But still, if you spend a month in the Battle for the Mists, you’ll probably reverse your tune; not only is WvW not aimless zerging, it requires more attention and better coordination than anything else in the game. Arah path 4 and tier 3 Guild Bounties pale in comparison to the level of attention and coordination that goes into (for example) keeping at least three supply camps’ worth of dolyaks running while desperately trying to hold two keeps, one of which doesn’t have its waypoint rebuilt from the last time it got smashed. If the defending server, in that case, does nothing but zerg around on foot in one big mob, I flat-out guarantee you they’ll lose everything in about an hour, two hours tops, even if they have numeric superiority — which given that they’re defending against armies from two other servers, I guarantee you they don’t.

And to add to what multivira just said: don’t want to run with a big zerg, and there’s a big zerg crashing around your home borderlands killing small pick-up groups like yours? Take a four to ten person team to that server’s borderlands and run around flipping camps and killing supply dolyaks. Aside from giving you insanely good XP and decent karma and a fair number of honor badges, it also shuts down the repair and upgrade process at every keep and tower. Do it for more than half an hour, and you’ll make them divert some of that zerg back to their home borderlands to stop you, because they can’t let you get away with that for long — and here come your fair (roughly) 5 vs 5 fights. You don’t even need Teamspeak for that (although it helps).

Preacher.9018:

Theres a whole metagame you just dont get – starting from strategic situation on map, guilds organizations, time shifts, exciting times with sleepless nights like match resets, switching forces, trying to minimize losses being outnumbered etc. If you dont get all of this – you are only enjoying a small fraction of WvW you could be.

I do agree on that for the most part but you cannot take actual combat off WvW. Its like saying an RTS is all about macro management and micro doesnt matter.
The is on major flaw in the current state of the WvW when it comes to combat because mass does makes everything and target limit encourages this.

OP, I suggest you do three things.

1.Make a melee/ranged class and a caster class.

2.Get both classes to level 80 and exotic them out.

3. Join a medium to large sized guild that enjoy’s WvWvW. There are guilds out there who can combat average sized zergs.

It takes time, effort and willingness to die repeatedly in coming up with tactics to survive WvWvW and it’s all good fun for many, not everyone.

Tell me more about how awesome zerging is.

Welcome to Blob Wars 2. No, it will not change once you get to lvl 80.

Even these “organised” GvGs are just blobby spam fests. Nothing even close to the extreme precision and organisation you had in Gw1.

the funny things, i have the same question

how is PVE fun?

u kill the same dumb mob over and over and over again.

salluks.6017:

the funny things, i have the same question

how is PVE fun?

u kill the same dumb mob over and over and over again.

So, if you put this together with

how is PvP fun?
you play some sort of virtual sumo match in a colored circle…

and we arrive at

how is GW2 fun?

the answer should be:
It obviously is, else we wouldn’t be playing it!

Its a truly great combat system wrapped around some terrible mechanics and there aint nothing better atm.

innocent ouarior.1954:

There are 2 major flaws in my opinion:
1- RA system, even if we can at least say there is one now, is poor and non apeeling.

What’s an “RA system” ?

My suggestion for wvw is to try and hook up with a guild group. Most guilds will have at least some nights when the allow anyone on the server to join their VoIP or they will run on the server VoIP. If you wanna run in a small group then log onto Ur server VoIP and find a few people to run with. As long as u play near peak time it should be very esay to find 3-6 people to run with

GrandmaFunk.3052:

innocent ouarior.1954:

There are 2 major flaws in my opinion:
1- RA system, even if we can at least say there is one now, is poor and non apeeling.

What’s an “RA system” ?

Realm Ability.

One of the benefits of WvW is that it provides opportunities for all types of play styles. Granted at level 27 your ability to expand out beyond the zerg is limited, but still running with a 20 man zerg may be a lot more rewarding for you, interest and computer wise, then a 70 man zerg.

Once you hit 80 and have some gear, which is easy enough to get specially if you level up running in the zerg, then you can do solo play, group play or just focus on specific tasks, whatever interests you.

I agree with your overall assessment and I do find large zerg fights to be exceptionally boring. I opt to play small man, or coordinated 20 man at most. Anything bigger and I would rather run supplies. That however is my choice, I do not judge or question the fact that others will find that same setting extremely fun, to each their own.

Look at it this way, WvW and Zergs, they are so much more fun than playing with yourself.

Oh man.. that’s totally not what WvW is like for me.

ShaunZ.1098:

Stack, buff, spam 111111111111111111111111111. Fascinating it isn’t

This is pretty much what happen in higher tiers. And in low tiers too when there is too much ppl S::S:S:S:S: …
Bacause the lag u cant use any skill :S

WvW did used to be organized and tactful but since Anet added the ranking system it has become blob v’s blob! Which causes really bad skill delay’s and is not even fun anymore.

Yes there obviously used to be Zerging before but not on a scale like it is now, It’s gone beyond ridiculous.

the size of zergs has not changed at all, the difference is that with culling gone you can actually see all of them now.

They key is, there are a lot of different ways to play WvW that suit different people. Here a few options:

1.) Zerg – self explanatory
2.) Treb or Cata enemy assets (I really enjoy plowing down a wall for my team). This can be done alone.
3.) Scout – works best as a thief that can follow enemy zergs or report on status of towers. This can be done alone.
4.) Yakslapping (killing Yaks)/control points (The sentries with the flags on the map) – These can be done solo for the most part
5.) Ogres/Frogs/Dredge – either helping them to get them on your side or killing them so they abandon your enemy. This can be done with 1-3 person teams
6.) Defense – building siege and staying in defensive positions or running where needed. This can also be decent if you under-leveled b/c arrow-carting from the top of the wall is pretty safe.
7.) Attacking Towers – Requires about a 10 person team. Follow those more experienced
8.) Spamming seigerazor in enemy territory – This is one of my favorite. If you can get 10 people in a borderland where you control nothing, you can activate Seigerazor in your starting area. He gives a TON of siege for free and almost guarantees a free tower. This helps your team by hitting the enemy where vulnerable (if they control an entire map, they tend to get complacent. This pulls reinforcements away from the main battle).
9.) Trolling in the jumping puzzle – some people love doing this b/c it is nice fighting terrain. I hate people that do this, b/c I am terrible at the JP and just want to get the vista!