Guild Wars 2

Yesterday our server was hit, I think for the first time, by a tactic I like to call a Singularity Zerg. I was wondering if people consider this to be an exploit and abuse of game flaws, or a valid tactic?

Singularity Zerg
A large zerg consisting of many people standing as close to each other as possible, taking advantage of reflection, healing, blocks, repulsion walls as well as exploiting AoE target limits, and causing severe problems on the entire map, such as severe lag, invisibility due to slow model loading, and making enemies unable to use half of their skills at all. You can usually safely approach a singularity zerg, as seen on the picture, they focus on standing on top of each other. The singularity can withstand heavy siege bombardment for long periods of time, and can cut down reinforced gates without siege, even if you aim a catapult at the door.

I have attached screenshots, censored of course, I’m not here to pass any accusations, in case the tactic deployed is not representative of the server. I can’t believe they were not aware they are abusing the above game flaws to gain advantage.

A singularity zerg is nearly immune to AoE and damage, because the damage is spread on random few within the zerg, and they are constantly healing, and reflecting.

But the most annoying thing is you can’t use half of your skills at all when dealing with it, for no apparent reason, the skills just won’t fire at all.

Does ANet consider this to be a valid strategy? If so, how does it differ from dungeon exploits? If it’s allowed however, what is the proper way to counter it?

Melee and stability exists for a reason I’m sure of it!

That’s kinda cool in a scary way.

Dungeon exploits are different because people are using a flaw in the game to counter what anet made the mechanic to be. This balling up however in my view is fine because you do have a max AoE targets/reflect/AoE heal etc for a reason for fights where people are balled up, the problem with it is yes you lag and can’t use all your skills thats a problem on anets behalf this “culling system” which is meant to counter lag so far does not do a great job

The downside of making AOE hit more then 5 ppl, will make it harder for classes that dont have spammable ranged AOE 1200 and up.

That’s exactly why I always disliked that AoE attacks only affect a certain (and low) number of targets in GW2.

An event horizon was passed!

It’s called a survival stack. And can be defeated quite easily if you know how. A mesmer and a Necromancer will do.

2 of us did exactly that.. the result was a circle of death… and very very funny. A few smart ones managed to get out of the circle in time.

All is Fair now so yes it is viable.
WvW is a new open field where nothing is out of bounds
The wild west of gaming – anything goes – may the best/dirtiest exploiters win

Way too easy to counter that unless you run directly into them or unload max dps from range. Mesmer, Necro and at least one other class easily fix the “problem” of this blob.

I’m curious. what if t here was team-based collision?

^ that would be awesome, would love team collision, it would help keep too many people from squeezing into tiny areas for sure too.