Guild Wars 2

Anet should really consider removing applied strength and applied fort. All this stat buffing does is encourage grinding, which is exactly what you claim to oppose. I understand the need for small gear gaps to keep people playing, and honestly i have never felt i lost a fight because someone had ascended armor.

But with the threat/promise of account bound WXP, this is just going to increase the amount of trolly builds, mesmer/thief groups and over the top 3 hit wonder power builds. your forcing players to invest their first 250 WvW ranks to be competitive in dps, and survival. it forces players to choose between beneficial WvW tracks like supply master/ram mastery etc. and personal stats.

I do not see the benefit of this,

Bloodlust is awesome. Infact i hope the person whom came up with it got a pay raise (or at least a cuddle from someone). an actively shifting realm buff that takes a small amount of team effort to get, again a wonderful idea, and truly in the spirit of WvW.

Im going to cut myself off here before this turn into a ramble, thank you for reading.

If you arguement is to remove to avoid grinding then also make ascended gear bought with badges even though that is technically grinding aswell…

Also remove all ram masteries and get rid of WxP ranks all together cause what a shock, I have to grind out max AC mastery and siege might too…

I have the ranks yes, and personally I would be pretty kittened off about grinding for it to be removed or taken away from me.

There is so many other things needed in WvW like bug fixes that should be a bigger priority instead of “nerfing” players that attained skills/gear/traits over the ones who couldn’t be bothered doing it themselves.

I disagree with everything. Boarderland Bloodlust is the thing that’s bad. Not investing in offense/defense ranks is a poor decision.

With the upcoming accound bound most people who play costantly in WvW will have those 2 boons, so I don’t see the problem.

- Since wxp was released anet kept making it easier to get
- You need only 230 ranks for both boons
- You can buy wxp with laurels+badges

sminkiottone.6972:

- You can buy wxp with laurels+badges

:O
totally OT but i have really lot of badges and hundred laurels i don t use…
How exactly do i buy wxp with badges/laurels?

LordByron.8369:

:O
totally OT but i have really lot of badges and hundred laurels i don t use…
How exactly do i buy wxp with badges/laurels?

From the laurel vedor

Frankly, anyone who has been playing any character in wvw since wxp was added has 400+ ranks by now.

I’m not even hardcore and I’m almost at 700 on one character and another 25 on others.

Not much will change, but I’ll be able to go try another character with the stacks instead of being stuck on the one character.

I can’t see how you can be pro weapon-sigil stacking and then argue against Applied Fortitude and Strength.

They are both effectively the same thing and give a massive edge to those who stack them. Now that’s not what I have a real problem with. Having an edge because of character progression is ok. But it’s the nature of the skills themselves.

Applied Fortitude simply says “go farm a few guards after you respawn”. Farming Guards is neither interesting nor something that needs to be encouraged. It’s not particularly skillful either. There’s just nothing to it and this condition seems completely arbitrary.

Weapon stacking is in a similar boat. Going around farming mobs to gain stacks just isn’t hugely compelling and does nothing for your realm. Yet this is exactly what stacking weapons ask you to do. They also make downed-state annoying because it wipes all your stacks.

I don’t mind a little power-creep in WvW, but I do mind the form in which it is currently implemented. Neither farming mobs nor Guards in particularly interesting and does not need to be rewarded or encouraged.

I would much rather see stacking weapons removed (they are a no-brainer choice anyway) and Applied Fortitude turned into something that interacts with your play-style.

Something like “heal for 20% of your health upon killing a Guard” or “gain 20 seconds on Swiftness upon killing a Guard” would be much more interesting than what we have now.

Kincaidia.3192:

Frankly, anyone who has been playing any character in wvw since wxp was added has 400+ ranks by now.

I’m not even hardcore and I’m almost at 700 on one character and another 25 on others.

Not much will change, but I’ll be able to go try another character with the stacks instead of being stuck on the one character.

The following is not directed at you especially but it gives me a good starting point about why I don’t like those buffs. So, I’ll use it but please don’t feel like I’m trying to argue against you or anything like that

It may be much easier for zerglings to get levles but as a roamer I tick at around maybe one level per hour if things are going great. After they increased the amount of WXP you get, that is.

Let’s say you’re just a camp caper. A camp gives you around 500WXP if you also manage to tag all normal guards, the supervisor and 2 dolyaks are standing there. To even get one level/hour. This means you have to take 10 camps an hour (or one every 6 minutes). Okay, maybe you get a sentry or the occasional player kill every now and then but then you still have to take roughyl 5 camps/h to get 1 level/h.

You have to be pretty fast to keep that up. Often times camps already belong to you, were just captured by your own server or still have a buff becaus of enemy takeover. So, 1level/h is really more considered as a good to best case for me as a roamer.

Like you said it’s still possible to get the 230 points of course but it’s not like roamers are draining in WvW levels. Even if WXP was as attainable from the start as it is now, I’d have had to play for at least 2h a day since the time it was introduced to get your lv 700 rank. To get the 230 points needed for the buff will probably take me somewhere between 250 and 300 hours in total. Doable – as stated above.

But those two traitlines are just far superior in comparison to any other traitline that it’s almost a must to chose them. This in turn means that I practicaly have to spend roughly 250 hours before I can chose what I think would be fun to trait in.

I know that there are people that will say that I’m free to spec however I want. But let’s be realistic here: Every other line is very situational and far inferior. I can spec in offensive siege. But when I roam I so rarely use any rams, catapults or even trebuchets. And when I’m running with the zerg there are 30 other people trying to get on a few rams. Chances are minimal and it doesn’t even matter if I’m good at it or not. If I’m not, there’s always someone else who has the ram/cata/whatever buff or doesn’t care anyway that he hasn’t and just uses the siege.
With the PvD mentality often found there’s also not too much use in the arrowcart/canon/etc skills imho. Supply mastery could be useful but if you’re not drowning in WvW levels, it costs just way too much and makes too little of a difference to spend a lot of points on it.
Building/reparing things faster also is worth maybe the first few points because that’s where you get the most benefits. But all in all I had maybe 2 situations where I thought that things might have turned out differently if I was able to build faster.

But the applied buffs, those work everywhere and not just every know and then. The buffs make you stronger in a fight. And no matter what you do in WvW you have to fight.
- Escort a Dolyak? Fight of attackers
- Attack a sentry/camp/tower/keep/stonemist? Fight defenders
- Defend a sentry/camp/tower/keep/stonemist? Fight off the attackers
- Do supply runs? Fight the hunters trying to bring you down and cut the supply line
- Run as a roamer? Fight roamers
- Run with the zerg? Fight zergs
- Scout? Survive fights with enemies hunting scouts
- Portal bomb enemy siege? Have enough survivability to make it to the siege in the first place and do enough damage to take it down.

Fighting is just so universally connected with absolutely everything you do in WvW and that’s why I think that those skills buffing you are so much superior to everything else and practically leave you no choice but to chose them. Before they were introduced I was like “Defending ist quiet fun, I’ll spec in arrow carts and canons!”. After they were introduced I realized “I sure love ACs but from a unbiased standpoint I’ll get much more of an advantage out of these buffs”.

And that’s exactly why I don’t like those skills!

Guard stacks, sigil stacks, food, and oil all get ridiculous after awhile. Doesn’t really matter too much for zerging since you’re going to get some guard and player kills eventually as a group, but as a roamer you pretty much have to do / use all this stuff or be disadvantaged against someone who does. So this often means a pit stop at a camp you may or may not want to flip and killing the quickest PvE trash mobs like coyotes and wolves to get stacks.

It’s my opinion that sigil stacks should be limited to 10 and the guard stacks should be toned down to 20 vitality and 10 power / condition per stack, so a maximum of 300 possible additional stat points instead of 700. Just to put that in perspective, 700 is the equivalent of an entire extra set of armor stats, all 6 pieces. Food an oil add roughly another 300-400, or special effects like the +40% condi duration everyone loves so much, because being imobed for 10 seconds, 10 stacks of bleed ticking 130 each for 20 seconds, and perma burn is really fun and balanced.

Simply put if players want homogeneous game play, they should play sPvP. WvW is about using earned levels, bonuses, armor, etc in fights. Optimizing and improving is what this style of fighting is about. Remove that and many hard core WvW players would move onto another game where they can find that style of play.

Besides any ability that adds defense and makes fights go longer is better in my book. Fights are already over too fast in most circumstances.

I hate applied and sigil stacks. Its power creep and an unfair advantage.

Yuki Chuki.2457:

It may be much easier for zerglings to get levles but as a roamer I tick at around maybe one level per hour if things are going great. After they increased the amount of WXP you get, that is.

Well… funny you mention that. I run with a zerg maybe an hour every 2 weeks. The rest I’m solo supply harassing / cap camping. I’m sure there’s a few people on JQ that would recognize me as of late. And yes, I play about 1-2 hours a night, maybe 5 days a week. So spot on there.

I can’t really disagree with you though… it’s a marked advantage. I just am not entirely opposed to it. It’s really hard to have any kind of progression that isn’t…. well…. progressive.

My vote would be to leave the buffs in, but cut their bonuses in half.

And what about the zerg?

A zerg will continue to kill everything in its path, getting their full 25 stacks on kill sigils.
A smaller group will continue to die and lose all their stacks or have none at all.
Yet again the game endorses zerging in order to win and keep your buffs.

I disagree OP.
Rank abilities give us something to work for & feel accomplished about. More should (& will) be added, not taken away.

Remove bloodlust. Our server barely pays attention to it at all. We never have anything other than minor & we generally don’t care. Probly happens by accident or just pure roamer boredom at times.

Break out those fantastic GW2 game designers and give us a tower/stronghold in the center of the bl map with cannons/turrets pointing n/s/e/w, or just bring back the lake.

But no more snow this time. If i have to have snow in my face again, I may just freak out.

Weapon stacking and gaurd buffs aren’t the same. The first you get by missing out on other weapon sigils (which can be a big deal in a close, small man fight) so there is opportunity cost (though I’d say it’s a super annoying mechanic – who thinks opening up inventory and searching for an icon among 50 icons is fun? If your fights are fun and fair, you’ll lose 50/50 of them so in an ideal scenario you’re doin this annoying thing pretty often).

On the other hand, guard buffs aren’t an opportunity cost. Everyone gets them eventually and they help you win fights you shouldn’t have won simply because you played Guild Wars 2 longer than them.

Nope, the buffs are fine. Perhaps even slightly underpowered for the work it takes to get them.

I would be 100% ok with this. It will save me money and time buying/crafting consumables and it will free up space in my inventory.

Malediktus.9250:

Nope, the buffs are fine. Perhaps even slightly underpowered for the work it takes to get them.

Is this the right forum section for you if you think playing WvW is work?

either play wvw as the asymmetrical contest it was introduced as or reinvent it as a completely balanced zone.

ie

leave the buffs , foods, oils signets alone or change all characters into a single prebuilt gladiator profession that is identically equipped and latency locked to the slowest connection….

( can you tell i disagree with the op?) I personally play wvw for the asymmetrical fights.

account bound wxp is coming soon™ anyways so everyone will have the power creep on all their toons and we can complain about a barrier to entry instead of an uneven playing field

@OP Definitely disagree. Just play the game.

I know this much if they ever remove it, a lot of players will rage quit because for many 230 WvW levels were not easy to get much less on multiple toons.

These are roughly the only things useful to roamers in the WvW talent pool…

With account bound wxp, everyone will have Applied Fortitude and Applied Strength buffs so everyone will be equal again.

I’d love to see all the buffs go, sigils, bloodlust, food and applied strength/fortitude.
If not removed, make them at least work like in PvP: you only gain stacks for killing players. Farming mobs before playing PvP is just incredibly dull.

Same for the applied buffs. On top of that I don’t think the applied buffs should be permanent. After killing another player you gain the buff for, say, 30 seconds.

Right now buff/sigil/food stacking makes a whole range of troll builds viable that just should not exist: hyper defensive builds that still deal crap loads of damage. This is a terrible design flaw and makes combat extremely boring.

Of course ascended armour is just as bad and I’d love to see that go to.