Guild Wars 2

I am a new player. I am very intrigued with the concept of large scale PVP that is WvWvW. I did quite a bit of searching and reading about WvWvW on these forums and although doing that answered most of my questions, I still have several important questions left unanswered. I’d appreciate it if someone helped me figure them out.

Here goes:

1. It is my understanding that the battles continue 24/7. With cappable objectives on the map, does it not mean that a realm whose peak activity hours de-facto occur slightly later than on other realms has a significant advantage? I appreciate that since all realms are created equal, save for the language filter, their peak activity hours are expected to be relatively the same, but, first, perhaps even small variations (an hour?) matter, and, second, there should undoubtedly be pressure for anyone interested in winning to pre-condition a win by logging in at the right hour. What is the deal here? Are logging hours important or not?

2. I am in the EU and somehow I rolled on Vabbi, the lowest realm of them all in terms of rankings. That was a hilarious random choice. :-) I never had any problems playing on the side of the underdog, that’s not the issue, but only as long as I can still play meaningfully. So, my question is, what is it like to be playing on the realm that always loses (let’s say this won’t change for the next 6 months)? Can you still make a meaningful contribution to the battle? Like, in those 3000:1000:100 scores, are those 100 points the result of meaningful play from the side of the underdog or are they merely random points which every side is bound to get no matter how hard it fails? If I was on any other realm, I wouldn’t be concerned about the rankings at all, every third realm is on the losing side every week anyway, but since I appear to be on the absolute lowest realm, I am wondering.

Apart from the above two, I also thought I’d ask which profession you’d recommend as easiest to learn for WvWvW. From previous MMO experience, I enjoy all styles of play, melee / ranged, tanky / squishy, and I figure I will level more than one character anyway, so this really is the case of what you think is easiest to learn and thus suitable choice for the first character.

Thanks a lot!

1. The server that have most players in off time have a big advantage but kitten its boring, i usale logout if its no enemys in, taking keeps, towers without enemys is not hard.

2. As long as you have a group it should be ok, solo and its way much more enemys and you will die.

1.) you are right as WvW is 24/7 some hours difference in timezones and/or night/morning population are certainly a big maybe even the only factor for winning the weekly rounds or not

2.) at the moment you will just not get that much pve buffs which are reset every week if your server is always third in the ranking so it is not that bad beeing all time third not sure what will happen in future I think I read something about benefits for the winner are gping to be implemented

3) maybe try warrior with one banner as util for group buffs and one ranged weapon on swap also if you are way below real lvl 80 it´s quite normal to die often and fast in wvw so stick to the zerg or bigger groups ;-)

1. No, server population overall is important, if high enough there will be people playing both at prime time and at odd hours. You can log at what times is best for you.

2. Vabbi is one of the lowest populated servers, and it doesn’t look it will do better in this aspect for a while. I would recommend a profession with great escape capabilities since you will be solo/unmanned a lot of time ( thieve, elementalist ). Also, try to not go solo , find a buddy to roam, things are more easy this way.

People who wvw on vabbi will be happy to have you, ask around on the map, you will get more answers then on the forum ( or join a guild ).

Creo.8750:

1. It is my understanding that the battles continue 24/7. With cappable objectives on the map, does it not mean that a realm whose peak activity hours de-facto occur slightly later than on other realms has a significant advantage? I appreciate that since all realms are created equal, save for the language filter, their peak activity hours are expected to be relatively the same, but, first, perhaps even small variations (an hour?) matter, and, second, there should undoubtedly be pressure for anyone interested in winning to pre-condition a win by logging in at the right hour. What is the deal here? Are logging hours important or not?

the realm that has most people on early can take over the map without any enemies already being there to defend and they can upgrade to get defenses in place. the realm that has the most people on ‘late’ can take over the map because there is no one left to defend. yes logging hours are important but i presonally don’t think it’s an issue even if a lot of people consider that game breaking.

i’ve been in games where i’ve led relic defenses under the moto “if we manage to stay awake longer than the enemies, we win by default. if we avoid any battle and just camp ‘that’ keep, we win”

i’ve been in games where certain guilds put alarm clocks at 5-6 o clock in the morning to get online with 1 or 2 groups when there was noone else online to do a raid that otherwise would have taken 100 people when there would have been enemy defenders.

unfair ? not in my book.
annoying ? probably.

you can’t blame an enemy for not having the same working hours as you do, and in the land of mmo’s, the unemployed are king anyway, shrug.

Creo.8750:

2. I am in the EU and somehow I rolled on Vabbi, the lowest realm of them all in terms of rankings. That was a hilarious random choice. :-) I never had any problems playing on the side of the underdog, that’s not the issue, but only as long as I can still play meaningfully. So, my question is, what is it like to be playing on the realm that always loses (let’s say this won’t change for the next 6 months)? Can you still make a meaningful contribution to the battle? Like, in those 3000:1000:100 scores, are those 100 points the result of meaningful play from the side of the underdog or are they merely random points which every side is bound to get no matter how hard it fails? If I was on any other realm, I wouldn’t be concerned about the rankings at all, every third realm is on the losing side every week anyway, but since I appear to be on the absolute lowest realm, I am wondering.

your realm will have ‘some’ points even if your realm loses every single fight and your realm is unable to capture any location.
in a worse case scenario, at reset your realm holds it own borderland and you have points ticking untill you lose the towers and keeps (which might be as short as 15 minutes after reset) after which no more points come in. but that is an ABSOLUTE worse case scenario. even killing an odd dolyak once in a while will get you ‘some’ points for your realm.

Creo.8750:

Apart from the above two, I also thought I’d ask which profession you’d recommend as easiest to learn for WvWvW. From previous MMO experience, I enjoy all styles of play, melee / ranged, tanky / squishy, and I figure I will level more than one character anyway, so this really is the case of what you think is easiest to learn and thus suitable choice for the first character.

that’s a hard question because it’s very opinion based. i’dd say a necro cause it’s a bit of a jack of all trades and has reasonable survivability.

For WvW, all classes have their uses, though the top three in popularity would seem to be Elementalists, Guardians, and Thieves. For overall adaptability, I think Elems have it the best, being able to switch from dueling weapons to a staff for group fights and clearing walls.

For flavour of the month wise, it would seem that good mesmers are a necessity, with all the mass stealthing and portals they can do, at least on my server.

Would be nice to see more necromancers though. Heard they’re good at dealing with those annoying constantly stealthed thieves.

Creo.8750:

1. It is my understanding that the battles continue 24/7. With cappable objectives on the map, does it not mean that a realm whose peak activity hours de-facto occur slightly later than on other realms has a significant advantage?

Yes. The first requirement for reaching tier 1 is having a solid 24/7 presence. I think you’ll find that tier 1 servers are far more populated during off-hours than, say, a tier 4 server (which may fill up during the 8 hour peak time but be largely empty the other 16 hours of the day).

So, my question is, what is it like to be playing on the realm that always loses (let’s say this won’t change for the next 6 months)?

Winning = more time spent zerging around on offense and camping spawn points.
Losing = more time spent manning defense and spawning NPC commanders.

I actually prefer the losing side, so long as it’s not totally overwhelming. 3 people manning well-placed arrow carts can really rake in the loot. (1 arrow cart just makes people back off but 3 will start killing people)

There are perks to being on the winning team but they’re very minor. Check the “B”-key WvW screen for details.

Apart from the above two, I also thought I’d ask which profession you’d recommend as easiest to learn for WvWvW.

Tough to say. Not like any of them are really “hard” (well, I’d vote Guardian for most difficult to play and be any good with). I’d say try staff elementalist if you have a group to run with. Or mesmer. Just in general. Hard to go wrong with clones. Ranger is pretty straightforward but their downed skills suck. I love the flamethrower engineer but it kinda sucks til you’re 60+ and can properly trait for it. Rifle/** warrior is amusing and straightforward.

1. Coverage is king. The server with the best night capping/early morning presence wins most match ups, as clocking huge points every tick from 4am to 2-3 pm is what wins when primetime is even remotely even.

2. Being on the deserted server will get very old very fast. You and your 2-4 buddies will go try cap the nearest camp (fully upgraded) and the scout left there on someone’s alt account will report it in the other server’s ts/vent/whatever. Within minutes you will be over run by 10-30 enemies, who will then hang around at the entrances to your spawn point in the hope you will try and come out again. You might get the odd dolyak or even a camp but it won’t last long.

3. Easiest class to ‘learn ’ for wvw- thief. Go roll one, learn the instawin combo, set your macro up and start clocking up the kills against the lemmings and people that are asleep or don’t notice you due to culling, stealth, etc. Pop stealth and disappear into the distance if it goes wrong, similar to d/d ele running off fast but in stealth! The other classes people mention actually take some skill to learn to play decently in wvw, as a bad mesmer throwing clones out is so easy to spot it’s not even funny.