Guild Wars 2

Anet,

The recent WvW focused patch was great with one exception. I feel the pip rewards are too high and max out the skirmish tickets much too quickly for WvW focused players. I consider myself a casual player of moderate WvW rank; however, because my focus is on WvW, I am able to max out my skirmish tickets by Sunday with minimal effort and time commitment.

I know I am not alone in this situation because with very casual playtime my entire guild maxes our rewards by the end of the weekend. After that we are just waiting for reset so we can collect more tickets.

As it stands now, I simply log in to play with my guild and rotate leading private raids with some of our other commanders. Lowering the pip rewards might even inspire me to put up a public commander tag and lead a zeg in glorious siege filled battle, vanquishing enemies on the borderlands and conquering keeps. I might even allow rangers into such raids!

Please consider my modest proposal of lowering the pip rewards for all WvW players. I would even suggest a minimal WvW rank before pips could be earned. Rank 500 seems quite reasonable to me. It can be reached with very little effort by even the most casual WvW player.

Karmilla.5071:

Aww cute! Slati had to get his whole guild in here to defend him lul

I had to get nobody to defend me. My good name was being besmirched and the Wolves responded as one would expect from a pack. Wolves stick together!

SgtOVERKILL.4701:

Yeah Slade rules with an iron fist. Verbal abuse and hazing is a real issue in TW. I often times find myself needing therapy after a raid.

-50 DKP for posting on these forums without approval from the TW War Council.

gebrechen.5643:

There is a lot of ideas on the forums for changes wvw needs (and some that it doesn’t need) and I think we should get a bit more constructive if we want to be heard.

Many, me included, don’t believe Anet will ever hear the wvw players, but we can at least try and see for ourselves. So, let’s do this.

Everyone feel free to add some points you think are necessary to make wvw a better game mode

General changes:
- the algorithm Anet uses to determine which server is full and what servers get links
- a transfer lock after recent transfers
- loyalty bonus for staying on servers

Changes on the mechanics:
- lower siege cap
- lines of sight

Quality of Life changes:
- templates to load for switching gear and builds

Balancing for wvw:
- stealth rework in wvw or reworked revealed buff
- deathly chill internal cd?
- condition apply from mesmer rework
- defender runes, perplexity runes rework

Any other ideas? Feel free to post them, I’ll add everything to the list and feel free to discuss it – in a friendly manner

That quality of life change (gear/build templates) would be the single best change to WvW of everything listed in my opinion. I have heard many people across multiple tiers/servers/guilds talk about the same thing.

I am not discounting the other things listed, but if they can only work on a few things at a time, I think this would be a big one.

Chaba.5410:

Aurika.6751:

McKenna Berdrow.2759:

Using exp boosters does not affect play hours and thus does not affect world sizes.

It speeds of WvW rank gains, which were another metric that you mentioned.

Just because something was mentioned doesn’t mean you understood it.

“Rank gains is tracked for comparison purposes since they usually follow a similar curve, but isn’t actually used to determine the world size.”

Thank you Chaba, I missed that part. I was basing my post off of, “Yak’s Bend is among the highest worlds in terms of play hours and ranks gained, which is the primary metric we use to determine which worlds we lock each week.”

However, it being in the algorithm at all should be concerning to people simply because Anet breaks things all the time (red rings for friendly AOEs as a most recent example) and I don’t trust them not to break this and use ranks gains as part of the population calculation.

gebrechen.5643:

White Kingdom.6380:

How was your 6 months on Jade Quarry TW? Oh wait thats right there is no server loyalty and left after 2 months. kitten that is one sweet deal right??

Rumour is that Sladi transfered TW off because he is still salty because JQ and TC double teamed BG in season 2. And now he led the wolves to their retirement home where they slowly perish.

But the wolves with rise again. Tarnished wolves – a WoW raiding guild!

We stayed on JQ for four months. I transferred us off after initiating a coup to overthrow Indo because of him leading us to a wasteland of a server. TW is running private raids of 20-30 man squads 4-5 times a week and would be well worth the investment for DH.

SG friends! I am Slade of the Tempest Wolves [TW]. We would love to join you on DH. Would one of you kindly reach out to me to coordinate our 35k transfer fee?

McKenna Berdrow.2759:

Using exp boosters does not affect play hours and thus does not affect world sizes.

It speeds of WvW rank gains, which were another metric that you mentioned.

Mal, for the special low price of 35K I can help solve all of your problems.

I blame Indo. He is quite fickle.

trueanimus.4085:

If you notice.. that big blob is SBI .. not TC.. we had .. maybe 20 or less on tag (including pugs)

Too bad you didnt post the part where we DID wipe you until you left the map.. that was so funny.. it was basically the same area.. but we did it after SBI left because we couldnt handle two map blobs.. We handeled TW and True guilds though.. we wiped the floor with you…we laughed for almost an hour on TS.. one chick almost choked to death laughing so hard at people calling your guild Transfer Wolves and how your entire group would lunge for me and then they would wipe you.. Loved every min of it btw =)

yes.. dods and tiff DO have alts on JQ (alt accounts they made there sometime back before the xfer) this is a well known fact throughout TC. Actually if you want to get down to it.. we knew you were leaving as soon as he made the alts about 5 weeks prior to you leaving last week.

Oh and yeah.. the [true] guild that was running along side TW is TW members.. specifically a dude named “I TY” and his friends.. as he posted above that yes.. he was the one that use to message me and tell me i died.. Hes a lil Asura thief with pink hair.. i believe… been a while and he has me on block.. (btw.. fun as heck killing you when you jump in to me and take a rapid fire to the face and fall over.. bwahahah) after i blocked and unblocked him. Was going to message him and laugh the other night but .. as i said.. he had be blocked..

So anywho.. Boo freaking woo.. no one cares about you TW… i hear that even people on JQ are transferring off of the server because you are there.. JUST LIKE THEY DID ON TC… thing is.. now that your gone.. people are actually coming BACK to TC LOL..

round and round we go..

Catch me if you can…!!! (while our zerg wipes you from behind ) bwahahaha

I cannot post what did not happen. We wiped one time at north camp when the TC blob had endless respawns. I really do not recall another wipe, including in the area where that video was recorded. We left the map to save our home map, which is also easy to see in the video by looking at the time on the map and where the fights are taking place.

The video clearly shows TC with well over 20 people as the 1st fight goes on. At one point I counted to 35 before I stopped counting.

Again, Dods does not have an alt on JQ. You are wrong and just look silly making that claim. Tan made an alt on JQ a few weeks before we transfered, so maybe you are confusing them. Dods has an alt on BG (many TW do from when TWL was an alt guild there). Tiff has an alt on an EU server. There also were 2-3 other TW with alts on JQ, but again Dods was not one of them.

I Ty was running in TW. The onlly [True] guild person I saw was xxxblazernosnopexxx (or something like that), and he is not a TW member or in our guild. That [True] is a native JQ guild I think and has nothing to do with you. I Ty can be seen throughout the video I linked with a blue (in squad) name and a TW tag.

trueanimus.4085:

Just wanted to say last night was fun guys…

In TC we fought against TW. It was RFG/Kazo with maybe 30 total and TW with at least 60+including pugs … The funny thing is.. the [true]guild with TW would send in their frontline just to kill me. (or a group of 6 thieves which they refused to even allow in the zerg while they were on TC).

I would simply run to the side away from the zerg and sacrifice myself.. while our zerg wiped them out from behind. We wiped their entire map blob at least 6 times.. maybe more… Finally TW got buthurt and left the map.. everyone was cheering for me and sending me tells. It was glorious!!

So yes.. you can kill me 60 v 1 all you want.. I dont mind being a pinata if our zerg can roll and wipe you.. So.. please keep doing what your doing and we will win again next week!

Oh and btw.. i did kill dods and tiff a bunch right after TW xfered.. their alts anyway. They do have alts on JQ.. even if their main is still on TC. Tiff hasn’t logged on in a while though, since that night i killed her by triple downing her. She would drop.. get ressed… drop.. get ressed… drop… awwww dead.. which still makes me giggle.

Anywho.. Enjoy killing me [True] Guild (aka Transfer Wolves lamers) the more your focus on me.. the less you focus on the zerg.. and once again.. i am doing my job correctly. =)

Peace out!

./does the ranger danger dance

Wall of text incoming. As the only nice person in TW, I figured I should respond. Indo may also claim to be nice (but he lies).

Last night TW had 23 in raid when we were on TCBL and at most 10 green names that were not in our raid or voice comms. ODIN and RFG were there most of the time, with some appearances by LXG and a bunch of TC pugs. I recently played on TC and am sure most of those pugs were not on voice comms with the groups you guys had there.

We had one thief in our group, and he is the same thief that is always in TW raids. The [True] tag on the map last night was not TW or TW alts. I’m not saying we would not make such a guild (ask poor Dods about [Dods]); however, last night it was not TW.

As for wiping our “map blob” six time…just no. We did not have a map blob, and we did not wipe six times the entire night, let alone on TCBL. We left the map (after winning a large fight against TC) to defend JQBL from SBI.

Dods and Tiff do not have alts on JQ. why would they transfer their alts and leave their main characters behind? Tiff has an alt on an EU server (since she is from EU), and Dods has an alt on I believe BG, which he has not played since TW transferred to YB ages ago.

Here is a video from one of our guys that shows pretty much everything I said concerning last night’s fights on TCBL. True, I am pretty sure you did single down the guy recording at about 7:30 into the video.

October 27 TW raid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0JH4LlzlnWw

trueanimus.4085:

oh btw Tiff.. Dods etc… im loving the “Terribad Guild” Thing… i feel so famous now with an entire guild dedicated to trying to kill me [True]

I LOVE IT!!!!…

So funny when i kill em too =P … and Transfer Wolves too =) I loved triple downing Tiff the other night just for the heck of it at 1500 range.. made me giggle lol

Made my day! Soo funny you guys.

Tiff and Dods are still both on TC, and Tiff has not logged in for about 2 weeks.

MaLeVoLenT.8129:

Its ridiculous to ask for Jade Quarry to have a link after just recruiting a guild of 50+ players directly from one of your competitors. Your competitor (TC) who you took coverage from needs a link to keep up. You don’t. It’s nearly as if people here ask for JQ to be unstoppable. As if, JQ needs to be in a locked Tier 1 or something. It’s beyond me that you can spend 40k gold and legendaries to get one of the strongest coverage guilds in the game and seriously ask for more in this game state. This alone is why ArenaNet needs to end bid wars and place a serious cap on communities who think they are balancing.

If I were Arena Net I’d have locked you too.

EDIT: And because JQ, just recruited a large guild and caused their server to lock and a competitor to have less coverage I wouldn’t be surprised now, if you received no link and TC kept theirs and stayed open.

The guild in question did not move 50 people over.

trueanimus.4085:

Jana.6831:

“Increase outgoing healing of nearby allies.” from https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Druid#Healing

So yes, it might be that the healing power of nearby allies is boosted.

But: I can blast 6 times in a row – I don’t really need healing power – rather a field that’s up long enough and visible (I often don’t see them).

ETA: But yeah that would boost the blasts as well as it’s my healing power that plays a part in it.

thats the good thing about druids.. when they drop it.. healing spring is a big green circle with flowers in the middle and around the edge.. its pretty kitten hard to miss lol

what i was saying though was that any water field you blast, always gives the same healing to people around it. Having a full healing set would boost my outgoing heals like solar beam and my flower wall.. but i dont think it does anything for my well spring etc in regards to blasts and extra healing, although it does provide the extra heal on top of what you get for the blast, and the blind on hit.. (lingering light) that is really nice on a push.

Most zergs drop everything that have (melee especially with hammer leaps etc) on the push.. If you can blind a LOT of them with the lingering light long enough to get those first few big bombs out of the way, the zerg stands a better chance of living past the initial push.

When combing water field the heal is modified by the healing power of the character that does the blast.

trueanimus.4085:

Honest John.4673:

trueanimus.4085:

Oh and BTW… any class that has a heal does the same amount of healing. If you are an elem for example… you drop a water from more than 600 range and you add NO healing to the people that blast it. It is a baseline heal. Yes.. people who are CLOSE to you (within 600 range) get a small added bonus to the heal you apply, but only while you are in range and it is very very small. How many staff elem do you see that run into the frontline of a charge, drop a water so you get the bonus and then live? None? Thats what i thought.

So.. my waters are just as powerful (if not more powerful for the extra heal on hit and the blind of target) and i can apply that from 1200 range via staff through target heals my staff 1 and 5 wall and i can run in and drop a wellsrping that doesn’t trigger immediately unless someone is taking damage, and groups can set up attacks knowing where the heal will be by leading them to the big green circle!

You understand that frontline ele is a thing, right? My full heal set does so much healing it practically doesn’t even need to be blasted.

Also, what “bonus” within 600 range are you talking about specifically? I honest;y don’t think you’ve ever played ele enough to understand it.

I was talking about water bomb elem backline staff (which is all i see on TC) Even if you are fully traited in water and for soothing mist bonus (which is the 600 range) your waters when you cast over 600 range away, get nothing from your bonus traits other than larger fields. So all your gear/traits are wasted if your backline elem now.

Frontline is a lil different… they should be running fire and earth and tempest. Again.. if your out of 600 range the targets you heal get no bonus healing the same as everyone elses bonuses.. and it only effects 5 targets .. not sure if party or those close to you get the bonus but it has a limit.

There are plenty of frontline eles on TC. My guild alone has five as “mains” and I know OnS has a few. I know GS has run them in the past, but I hav enot been aorund GS in 2-3 weeks, so that may have changed. I sadly am less familiar with the comps of other guilds on the server

Tinfoil hat time. Last weekend when YB was bumped to T1, I saw more Anet tags in WvW in one night than I normally see of them in many months. In one of the earliest fights, YB had three Anet tags in a single group. Realistically though, YB with a link and DK active are strong enough to be in T1 (even if they are boring to fight). I just hope Anet is willing to make the same types of adjustments when YB loses steam.

The login servers came back up, but you still cannot zone into WvW; however, there are people still in WvW from before the login problem.

TorquedSoul.8097:

Aurika.6751:

With that context, your numbers make sense and it has nothing to do with people preferring the DBL.

First, guilds and players moving from one server to the next impacts the rankings but doesn’t necessarily impact the activity. Moving activity from one server to the next doesn’t lower activity. So that three paragraphs of guild shuffling you describe is pretty much irrelevant to global activity volume.

Second, Full guilds coming back and then remembering why they left isn’t much of an endorsement for the importance of the ABL maps. If DBL were such a major contributor to the population loss, I would have expected more players to stick around. What is clear is that this all important group of guilds/players isn’t interested in playing the game unless they get 100% of what they want. I am guessing that even if they are given what they want, they will want something else anyway. It seems to be a theme.

Makes me wonder how much of the player population is being lost trying to satisfy those who will never be satisfied. Its like these people are intentionally trying to sabotage WvW for their own entertainment. Have the trolls be elevated from the forums to the game design itself?

Anet seriously needs to STOP listening to its players and design a game that is actually entertaining. They need to work within the technical limitations and produce something that is appealing from a gameplay perspective.

The biggest problem with WvW is that Anet itself has no vision of the game mode. Its turning into a poll generated catastrophe.

That guild shuffling had a large impact on activity. that is not even debatable. When those guilds moved there was a threat of a tier shakeup, and both BG and JQ started to wake up. Anyone that is familiar with T1 trends for 3+ years now knows BG hibernates when their place is secure in T1. When a server (TC in this case) is pushing to move up, BG will play hard again to secure their T1 spot. In T2, both TC and BG started playing hard. TC to try getting to T1 and DB to stop them.

When T1 and T2 see a huge uptick in people out there fighting it will impact overall activity.

Your numbers are great and I believe there is a lot of value to be found, but there also needs to be interpretation based on what is actually happening in the game world. In the past you though BG was a dead server ready to fall out of T1. People told you they were hibernating and you did not believe them because of your numbers. In the end, your interpretation of the situation was incorrect and the people who said BG was sleeping were right. TC pushed for T1, BG woke up and dominated the T1 match-up, and YB was pushed out of T1 and T2 in the aftermath because as everyone said, only YB cared about PPT until there was a reason to care.

TorquedSoul.8097:

Aurika.6751:

TorquedSoul.8097:

Aileras.9460:

Can you show us the chart please? How did you gather the data for it?

Chart attached below.

Some key points:
4/16/2016: WvW Rewards and DBL changes implemented.
4/23/2016: World linking implemented.
4/30/2016: On 5/3/2016 ABL reintroduced.

There is more information in the patch notes if you want to line up changes to the activity level.

I calculate activity by adding the total kills with the the total capture volume. I define capture volume as the sum of captures as the old 15 minute tick score for each asset captured. For example, every time a camp is captured, I add 5 points, 10 for towers and so on.

It was not the reward track and DBL changes that caused the participation spike. It was the promise of ABL coming back. Many guilds returned to the game during that two week period. Once those people came back, Anet managed to fumble the ball and participation has dropped, but it is still higher than it was during the travesty known and the DBL maps.

I suspect that with the release of one ABL map during the rotation and deplorable cannons (to go along with repair hammers) we will see an even larger drop. There’s only one sever I can think of that will enjoy those two changes, which is Yaks Bend with is siege humping culture.

Every time Anet has done something to please the fight oriented people in WvW they have had a participation spike. Whenever they pander to the PVD/siege/PVE crowd the participation has dipped.

I also do not think capture data is the best indicator of participation. I can bring out a five man team and flip all of the southern towers/camps on 2-3 maps in 15 minutes. They is not a lot of participation…that is five people flipping a lot of stuff because of a lack of participation. If the other servers had participation they could (and used to) prevent that form happening.

OK. So in anticipation of ABL being reintroduced the DBL haters excited played on DBL’s driving up activity levels until ABL was released and then promptly left.

You can interpret the data anyway you like.

In regards to the best way to calculate activity, I use both capture data and kill data. Neither is a direct reflection of how many people are present as only Anet has that info and wont release it. I imagine the correlation of activity to population is not perfect, but I am guessing it is pretty strong.

But believe what you like.

You do bring up an interesting point. That the blobfight (tactics) players will return the game if and only if Anet commits to serving only their interests and ignoring the interests of other play styles (RTS, map based strategic.)

What I do find funny about the blobfighters is that they refuse to accept that the lag caused by such large numbers is not something Anet is in a position to solve. Short of having cookie cutter classes and skills with zero theory crafting, I don’t think they can do it. Meanwhile the small ball gameplay of havoc/RTS play is the playstyle that is possible with limited lag and it is being marginalized.

From a technical side, Blogfights are just impractical. Lag battles are not fun.

It is not an interpretation of data. It is something that actually happened. Several full guilds came back in anticipation of Alpine returning and have since left because of the changes that have happened since that time. Many of those guilds are actually playing Albion Online now. they found the state of WvW so bad that they are in a game designed to be played on a smartphone that is still in beta.

There also was a second big factor that drove activity in that short time period. Several guilds in an alliance moved from YB to TC. That shook up the tiers and caused a lot of activity while servers because very active to secure their positions.

Blackgate (who had been hibernating again at the time) and JQ came back to life full-time in an effort to stay in T1. YB pretty much died though (the alliance had just left and their siege culture did not allow them to win fights when the doors hit back).

In T2 there non-stop fights between FA, DB, and TC. TC was trying to crash into T1 and FA/DB were trying to prevent it. Several former TC guilds led that resistance effort after leaving their home server because of the alliance arriving.

With that context, your numbers make sense and it has nothing to do with people preferring the DBL.

TorquedSoul.8097:

Aileras.9460:

Can you show us the chart please? How did you gather the data for it?

Chart attached below.

Some key points:
4/16/2016: WvW Rewards and DBL changes implemented.
4/23/2016: World linking implemented.
4/30/2016: On 5/3/2016 ABL reintroduced.

There is more information in the patch notes if you want to line up changes to the activity level.

I calculate activity by adding the total kills with the the total capture volume. I define capture volume as the sum of captures as the old 15 minute tick score for each asset captured. For example, every time a camp is captured, I add 5 points, 10 for towers and so on.

It was not the reward track and DBL changes that caused the participation spike. It was the promise of ABL coming back. Many guilds returned to the game during that two week period. Once those people came back, Anet managed to fumble the ball and participation has dropped, but it is still higher than it was during the travesty known and the DBL maps.

I suspect that with the release of one ABL map during the rotation and deplorable cannons (to go along with repair hammers) we will see an even larger drop. There’s only one sever I can think of that will enjoy those two changes, which is Yaks Bend with is siege humping culture.

Every time Anet has done something to please the fight oriented people in WvW they have had a participation spike. Whenever they pander to the PVD/siege/PVE crowd the participation has dipped.

I also do not think capture data is the best indicator of participation. I can bring out a five man team and flip all of the southern towers/camps on 2-3 maps in 15 minutes. They is not a lot of participation…that is five people flipping a lot of stuff because of a lack of participation. If the other servers had participation they could (and used to) prevent that form happening.

drcraig.9403:

EremiteAngel.9765:

The other tiers in NA looks great.
So close and exciting!
But T1…look at the huge difference in score.
2nd and 3rd place depends largely on who BG decides to side with =/

LOL…get a clue please. Beastgate doesn’t choose to side with anyone> If I recall in Season 1 & 2 of WvW Beastgate didn’t side with anyone and demolished the competition. It wasn’t until Season 3 that they lost and that’s because 2 servers ( not naming names) teamed up and traded wins. Like i said, get a clue.

The double team was season 2.

Kilo.2539:

BG too strong.

DB is like the server version of WHOA. They ride the coattails of the better server/guild and claim to be good. The reality is their just full nomad and can sustain until saved by a decent force.

P.S. No one likes you Sladie.. Think it’s your weird, sickly, high pitch voice. IBTL!

Kilo, you sound a little upset. Probably because you are in [FoW] and run with [ME] — two guilds that raid as blobs and run usually run from anything resembling an even fight.

Here is what happens when either your real guild or the one you ride the coattails of actually tries to fight close to even numbers.

The 1st fight in this video is [Me] making a bad life choice and pushing a tower when they don’t outnumber us by quite enough — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kilpIDu2KeA

This video is just DK wiping even with a numbers advantage — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shUSsfLuzJo

The second video has the added bonus of sharing my weird, sickly, high pitch voice with the world. Of course, Kilo is in a guild led by a possible sociapath based on this recording — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T15Yw6EH7O4&index=1&list=PLVr3UCxPCa1O8qMToCCD81kmtv189HroO

Also, for anyone unaware, here is the post that inspired my original post in this thread — https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/What-happened-to-Blackgate/page/8#post6102443

Now I should probably be a cool kid and say IBTL.

I just logged in to see Yaks Bend losing by a mile when the opposite used to be true. Are they spending a lot of time reminiscing about the good ole days (about a week ago) and not much time trying to actually win now that fighting is required?

I am no longer on BG. I still believe if Anet had a WvW tournament right now that BG would win the tournament. YB is full on PPTing right now. BG has many guilds that only form up 1-2 nights a week (including off-hours guilds), and many of them do not even make a hard effort to PPT on those nights. If given a reason to fight, I suspect you’d see a much larger showing from BG across all timezones. Hell, a few weeks back they almost beat YB with only a handful of commanders deciding to do some extra public raids.

Congratulations to YB for winning when everyone else got burned out and disgusted by the changes to the game I guess? It will be interesting to see how YB fares with the upcoming changes to maps (and hopeful fixes to stability).

TorquedSoul.8097:

Reverence.6915:

At this point, I’d rather get 2v1’d again to get action on the maps. BG seems dead because there’s no action, which causes people to log out, cause we’d rather do anything else other than karma training (I tag up for fights, fights end, half my group logs off). Groups from YB and JQ are just karma training empty borderlands thinking they’re hot stuff, complaining about us zerging them down with 10-15 man groups calling them “blobs”, all the while bunkering in keep lords rooms with siege.

Good joke.

If you want BG to play again, bring us fights without siege. Most of us won’t even care if we’re vastly outnumbered.

@Torqued: You seem bitter that BG won’t respond to your requests to push PPT. Guess what buddy, we’re not here to play for you. We’re here to play for us. If you want to play PPT, tag up and do it. Don’t expect someone else, who has no desire to want to play for PPT, to play that way.

Regardless of your perception of my attitude, the fact is that Blackgate is actively driving away PPT players and putting themselves at a disadvantage. Blackgate will never beat Yak’s Bend until they are willing to become like Yak’s Bend.

No amount of server politics will stop the unwashed hoards of Yak’s Bend.

Or, until there is a Season 4.

YB is the only server in T1 willing to mindlessly PPT for no real reward. BG and JQ have been in T1 for years now and have gone through the long hours and PPT focus it takes to win.

Winning is not a function of skill in WvW the way Anet has it designed. It is a function of coverage.

If BG or JQ were given a legitimate reason to win, YB would likely find itself in 3rd. Just look back at what happened when YB 1st popped up to T1 and BG/JQ thought there was a chance of falling to T2. They hammered YB into a consistent 3rd place finish. YB only started to win once BG/JQ deiced they were safe from falling to T2 and let up their effort.

BG does just enough to sustain their place in T1. It is not something new. Before Season 1 everybody was calling BG a dead server that would not win. One of their main off-hours guilds (MERC) even transferred to JQ right before the season because nobody thought BG stood a chance. BG woke up once the season started and won Season 1.

BG did not get the nickname Hibergate for no reason.

My feedback is WvW specific.

I think a lot of the feedback here is forgetting that the Druid is primarily a healer. The staff heal may be small, but it fills the bar fast and the Celestial Avatar can change a fight.

My original plan was to go full Nomad’s ascended gear and be a tank healer for the raid. With the squad problems that was not possible, so I went with full exotic Cleric’s. The amount of healing put out felt very strong. I still assume I’ll eventually want to move to Nomad’s as organized groups start to focus healers (the standard practice in many other games).

The staff does what it needs to do and has some other nice skills attached.

1. - Bread and butter Celestial Bar filler
2. - Used properly in WvW it adds some decent sustain to your groups melee train
3. - I used this for two purposes. 1st, I would flash to my melee group during sustain regroups to do an AOE 3k heal. 2nd, I’d use it for mobility/escapes with a weapon swap to GS #3 to create even more distance.
4. - This was good for breaking up enemy melee trains. it does not need to lock them in place. Just a split second pause for a few people gets them out of the pack to make them easier targets.
5. - This skill is amazing, especially in chokes.

Celestial Avatar healing is game changing. Skills #3 and #4 are very strong at almost all times. The #2 and #5 skills get good situational use. The #1 is a very strong spam filler.

In organized groups the class shines. We had about 20 people with 3 druids and the sustain added was noticeable.

Many people having this problem. It’s reset night and a really bad night for it to happen…

Miss you old friend.

lil devils x.6071:

Aurika.6751:

lil devils x.6071:

Serr.1853:

Why not just say such guild is going blue portal and stand infront of it…not this last second scurrying to get to your proper colour…what tier are you in that you’ve got that kinda time in the first place? As for the bank locations it’s no bother..just be ready 5 minutes earlier, you’re autorun button must be tired right.

That isn’t how this works. You do not just go tell guilds what color they get to be. Different guilds have different play styles, some are defensive and go to the home BL, Some are offensive and take specific different teams and have different objectives pre- planned. This is how things work on Tier 1. Guilds have specific guilds and teams they wish to fight and specific roles and objectives. Guilds ultimately decide what they are going to do and where they will go. and this is not dictated to them. This is discussed and coordinated in the meetings but no one tells a guild what they have to do, they decide that for themselves. It would be ignorant to put a bunch of yak runners on offense and have your offense running defense. No one knows what color your Home Bl is going to be until the color changes. Most are either playing wvw 5 min before it starts or are still coming home from work due to it being NA prime.

Why is it okay to just remove the pitstop area for wvw players taking our only tiny corner of the world out of the game? MANY appreciated using this area, simply because you do not does not mean it wasn’t an important area for the rest of us. Things do tend to get hectic right before reset, but that is expected when you are a top server. Guilds do not just nub around saying " uhh what you want to do?" on reset, they have objectives and plans that are being implemented.

DO you even play WvW? Asking what Tier I am on when it says Jade Quarry in my signature? Everyone who knows anything about WvW knows who that is.

https://leaderboards.guildwars2.com/en/na/wvw

Ser plays on Blackgate and we assign reset maps by color. Tarnished Coast also assigns reset maps by color. That is the other two servers in your Tier doing it the way you say isn’t the way it works.

As an aside, Ser is the main chef for our guild and keeps the bank stocked with WvW food.

Guilds choose where they go, they are not assigned, no one tells another guild what they will and will not do. Guilds often have fights lined up with those on other servers and have their BL arranged ahead of time, including making such arrangements with those on BG and TC so not all of BG and TC guilds roll like that either. . We do not roll that way on JQ , as it makes more sense to utilize guilds due to their own strengths and weaknesses allowing them to shine at what they do best. JQ is not at risk for dropping out of T1 unlike some others in T1. <3
In addition, Playing on BG and asking what tier is even worse. LOL

EDIT: I just spoke to 2 BG guilds and no, they both said they do not choose their maps by color, so not sure what you are going on about.

I do not know what guilds you spoke to, but the well known WvW on BG all select reset map by color 2-3 days before reset.

OnS, Icoa, KnT & KnM, UD, GoF, RISE, SG, kitten, WHOA and the list goes on. I do not know what guilds you spoke to, but the BG guilds that coordinate together all choose by color.

If you knew how Glicko worked, you’d know that no server is currently in danger of falling out of T1. Currently 25 point separate 1st (JQ) and 3rd (TC). There is a 142 point gap between 3rd (TC) and 4th (FA). That gap is too big for FA to even pop into T1 with the randomization formula.

Also, with Ra now helping to dampen the effect of JQs SEA and Rekz about to tranfer down to T2 or T3, JQ might not have the easy ride out of seasons it used to enjoy.

lil devils x.6071:

Serr.1853:

Why not just say such guild is going blue portal and stand infront of it…not this last second scurrying to get to your proper colour…what tier are you in that you’ve got that kinda time in the first place? As for the bank locations it’s no bother..just be ready 5 minutes earlier, you’re autorun button must be tired right.

That isn’t how this works. You do not just go tell guilds what color they get to be. Different guilds have different play styles, some are defensive and go to the home BL, Some are offensive and take specific different teams and have different objectives pre- planned. This is how things work on Tier 1. Guilds have specific guilds and teams they wish to fight and specific roles and objectives. Guilds ultimately decide what they are going to do and where they will go. and this is not dictated to them. This is discussed and coordinated in the meetings but no one tells a guild what they have to do, they decide that for themselves. It would be ignorant to put a bunch of yak runners on offense and have your offense running defense. No one knows what color your Home Bl is going to be until the color changes. Most are either playing wvw 5 min before it starts or are still coming home from work due to it being NA prime.

Why is it okay to just remove the pitstop area for wvw players taking our only tiny corner of the world out of the game? MANY appreciated using this area, simply because you do not does not mean it wasn’t an important area for the rest of us. Things do tend to get hectic right before reset, but that is expected when you are a top server. Guilds do not just nub around saying " uhh what you want to do?" on reset, they have objectives and plans that are being implemented.

DO you even play WvW? Asking what Tier I am on when it says Jade Quarry in my signature? Everyone who knows anything about WvW knows who that is.

https://leaderboards.guildwars2.com/en/na/wvw

Ser plays on Blackgate and we assign reset maps by color. Tarnished Coast also assigns reset maps by color. That is the other two servers in your Tier doing it the way you say isn’t the way it works.

As an aside, Ser is the main chef for our guild and keeps the bank stocked with WvW food.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

rainisword.7860:

Condi’s have always been capped in sPvP and still have an integral part in the meta. They are very strong against certain matchups(condi pressure from double engi is huge). This should tell you enough about how bad it would be in sPvP if there was no condi cap.

Also your math is wrong when calculating the condi’s. 7k dps from 3 condi classes is not really accurate. You have to take into account if they had high might with most condis stacked on them. In that case it would probably be closer to 8 or 10k, not 7. 25 bleeds alone with might can do close to 3500 damage per second.

Let’s look at the math a little more closely:

we’ll assume 100% uptime of max stats of bleed, burning, poison, and 10 stacks of torment. This is far higher than anyone could ever achieve, but it will be a good illustration for you. This of course is assuming no build up time, no cleansing, and no defenses used.

Numbers taken from: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Condition_Damage

damage per second/attack per stack = Base Damage + (Factor * Condition Damage).

Max condition damage with full ascended is currently ~2000 + 875 for 25 might stacks (lower in PvP, but again we will try to help you out by using PvE stats)

Bleeds: 42.5 + (0.05*2875) = 186 per stack = 4650 dps
Burning: 328 + (0.25*2875) = 1050 dps
Poison: 84 + (0.1*2875) = 371 dps
Torment: 32 + (0.0375*2875) = 140 per stack (10 stacks) = 1400 dps

total condition user dps from any number of sources = 7471 dps

I will even throw in the ~300 dps you do from direct damage applying the conditions to give you a grand total of:

7777 dps. Of course when you factor in build up time, and cleanses this number plummets drastically.

This of course is well above what is reasonably possible, but I was giving the edge to condition users.

I won’t bother doing the direct damage calculations. you can head on over to the ele forums where they have done extensive analysis of direct damage builds if you are interested.

Your math used a condi damage number that is ~246 lower than what is possible — at least for a mesmer. One of my memser WvW builds with full might stacks would be at 3121 condition damage.

Bleeds: 42.5 + (0.05*3121) = 198 per stack = 4950 dps
Burning: 328 + (0.25*3121) = 1108 dps
Poison: 84 + (0.1*3121) = 396 dps
Torment: 32 + (0.0375*3121) = 140 per stack (10 stacks) = 1490 dps (2980 if moving))

That makes the damage 7944 (9434 if moving), which falls into the ~8-10k range for damage form the post you quoted. I did not include the ~300 dps for direct damage.

Of course, this is all hypothetical and in reality cleanses make that impossible to maintain for 100% uptime. However, a mesmers can come very close to those numbers during well set up condi burst. They can also stack on 15 confusion for that burst. With the listed condition damage that would add 7475 per skill use.

Confusion: 65 + (0.075 * 3121e) per stack = 4485 damage per skill use. (It would do significantly more damage in PVE).

I do not usually count confusion in damage potential of builds because only really bad players will spam skills once a spike of confusion is sent at them.

Thanks for the duels. I was the Gold Recruit you dueled with the blond ponytail. I was testing a new build, which obviously fails for duels because of a glaring weakness. You were really patient letting me fight you several times while I tested it out. Your change to Mantra of Distraction after the first fight completely shut down a very important aspect of the build and made it clear that while it is a strong group roaming build it is not made for dueling.

Hopefully, we will get some more duels in the near future.

wish.3102:

It’s BG, you’ll have to forgive them, they can’t win an open field fight without cheeseball tactics, sort of like how TC needs 3x your numbers or a superior arrow cart for every 5 players coming at them.

That said, I notice when I counter pin snipe BG (I never start it, but I always end it when Im on) they fall to pieces immediately and their zerg disappears off the map. It’s pretty hilarious.

I know…because JQ would never pin snipe. Except, here is Silver from TWL (on JQ) pin sniping the KnT commander with a snipe group that includes multiple pulls.

This is a guild that is fun to fight against and doesn’t flee from an even numbered fight.

It will soon be 15 hours since reset and BG has still not been ale to get into TC BL. It is not unreasonable to expect at least some sort of response from Anet letting players know that the problem is being looked at.

When there are problems that hurt PVE/Living Story contenct after resets they take the server down within minutes to rectify the problem. There have been many resets where 10 minutes after it starts the servers are taken down to fix a PVE related bug.

Here are three videos of my mesmer fighting zergs. Our commander makes frequent use of mesmers, which makes it fun (and keeps us on our toes!). Some of the fights are against organized groups, but most of them are against a mix of a small guild with a commander+pugs, which is the majority of what we find to fight.

One night of fighting that really highlights the impact mesmers can have on a fight, and it was probably one of the most fun nights of “mesmering” I’ve had. This was originally made internally for my guild, so the audio is TS and game sounds, and there is a bit of swearing. There is less chatter when we have to be more serious, but we still communicate important skill uses regularly. I think we had 30+ on this night, which is a big number for us, but it was about 20 of us and 10 of a friendly guild named EK who we wanted to raid with one more time before they transferred to another server (CD).

Another video with some various sized fights. I am on my warrior for the 1st 15ish seconds of this, but the rest is on my mesmer other than a very short clip in the middle on my guardian (but even then you can see the importance of mesmer skills used by our other players).
Our commander makes frequent use of mesmers and we usually run with at least 2-4. We have different builds depending on the role of the mesmer. As one of our portal mesmer in a zergy tier, I am built pretty tanky. We have other builds for mesmers in other roles (etheral fields, feedback, etc), but we always run with at least 2 portal mesmers.

Aother video with some good fights against zergs. The 1st 1:30ish is on my guardian, and I am on my mesmer for the rest of the video after that. Like the previous video, even in the guardian footage the importance of mesmer utility skills in our group is visible.

My guild tries to run guild only groups (usually ranging in size from 15-25), but we sometimes pick up followers as we put up swords on the map. We also sometimes coordinate with a map commander if needed to bust an 80+ man map blob.

I know I am not the best mesmer out there, but I have fun with it. I make mistakes (like the heal at awesome heal at ~11:20 of the 1st video), but I try not to make the same one twice…or at least too often.

Mez U Up on the Blackgate server.

Nobody unites map chat like that guy.

I’ve been playing a PU build since December, 2012 before it became as popular as it is today and have only made minor changes to my build since then. I actually play three different variations of it based on what types of fights/enemies I’m running into on the night I’m playing.

The build used to be even stronger (before the damage nerf to confusion in WvW). I’m sure it will get some kind of nerf if people whine enough, so I am just hoping the build is still functional after whatever changes are made.

I am hearimg more an more complaints about mesmers in map chat, so it is probably coming. This is what usually happens when a strong build is shared on the forums and becomes overly popular.

Like others have said, the build is really strongest against bad players who don’t know when to stop moving and/or attacking.

My favorite variation of the build is actually getting buffed in the December 10th patch, so I have that to look forward to at least.

But whoever has played a basic PU build would have to agree it is very powerful for the effort it takes. The real question is should it really be nerfed of should other classes be buffed.

I also play a warrior, guardian, and ranger. The PU build is the strongest at 1 vs 3+ for me, but in 1v1 I find a longbow + sword/shield condi warrior is the strongest of my classes for 1v1 by a wide margin. Should that be nerfed too? Some classes builds are just better at some things and I am ok with that.

Zephyrus.9680:

Guardian kites from ele for 2 minutes till its 1v3. Still goes down. Laughs when team saves him. #T1roaming

I had to chase a Mag guardian across the map for three minutes until it was a 1v3 (that became 1v5 a few seconds later). He still gets stomped. He laughed during the chase/fight but was not saved.

Kaga.7629:

Because every fight against Blackgate/JQ/SoR is essentially a 5to1 fight ( and that’s in good conditions) and also because they PvD everything while people are working ( FACT : 100 man just pushed into our garri to retake it against….. 12 ish roamer. At noon eastern on a monday. repeat every day), that means we start from a “paper position” every day.

Pffff Blackgate. Anyone can feel invincible in pvt with +4man dps helping against whatever. It’s not like there’s any effort or skill required. Just cruise control to victory.

The maguuma way involves becoming tougher and harder to survive against more and more ridiculous odds. No cruise control here. The reason our roamers are strong is that they get it done ALONE. That’s why we got that swag.

In fact, i’m quite confident in saying that most BG players wouldn’t be able to handle Maguuma-style difficulty. Because they are not tough enough.

Our objective this week is the number 2 spot. If blackgate will stop playing favorites ( by capping only mag stuff during the day and keeping the points rolling for sos) then perhaps we’ll get it done.

Any way you cut it, the “season” and the “rankings” are a joke. 3 weeks into the season we got word that SOME silver league servers (who shall remain nameless) deliberatly tanked themselves to silver league because they were too weak to try the real deal. and because….. they were scared the rewards for “bottom gold” was not gonna be good enough for them. Ask the silver league guys about it sometimes…

Just last night your guildmates lost a 3vs4 (it started as a 2vs4, but a random joined my team during the fight).

Whenever I run into iLL in an even fight, they die or run away. The one exception has been a thief ran into who actually fought alone.

I’m sure there are good roamers on Mag. I’ve run into AoN and am more careful when trying to 1vs3+ them (which has not been successful to date) and there was a thief from ONI who really impressed me. The guild iLL does not make the list.

Gully.7358:

Snafu.7412:

Sunt.6835:

well let hope we will never have to see Mag for a year or something.

it’s only server in gold league that offer nothing except 1 – 2 roamers per map and disappear very quick …..

You know you outnumber every server out there. There will be no more fun for BG.

It will be interesting to see what our PPT and PvE guilds are going to do when the season is over. All I know is, I would have loved to be on Mag or SoS right now.

So true.

akamon.2769:

@Omnitek – when do you play usually?

to the Mesmer from [MONK] that made me feel like it was my first hour playing the game lol, and stayed extremely classy, thanks for the humbling experience. we need more folk like you! tried to invite/join you for a quick chat but for some reason wouldn’t work. /salute!

Hey thanks, that was me. I just came back to the game after a few months off and mostly have been roaming those new (new to me anyway) center ruins since the weekend. MONK only has two members and I was the only mesmer until late last night when the other player reached 80 on his.

I’m sure we will run into each other again.

I have had a lot of fun in the ruins and think that removing the lake in the center of the map was the best idea Anet ever made.

MaLeVoLenT.8129:

Wotah.2975:

MaLeVoLenT.8129:

Hey JQ. You guys complete me.

I wish I knew how to quit you!

You don’t quit Awesome!

I would quit you.

You cannot trust people with alternating caps in their names. It is a known fact.

Had a great time in some brutal fights with SOR on BGBL tonight. FEAR, WARD, and the others out there (no disrespect intended, I just saw those two most often) were relentless in the time I played.

You guys were relentless in the assaults across the northern part of the map, including garrison. See you tomorrow.

Avenge.1478:

My first day back in WvW since June, and I am greeted by having to command against a BT+RISE+LoTD map zerg :|!

Good fights tonight guys.

Welcome back.

LotD had about 20 people on most the night, and we were mostly working on training some newer members and a new commander.

Most of the night we stayed by ourselves unless responding to an attack on Bay/Briar or helping with an assault on Lake/Hills.

We had fun out there and it let our newer members get some more experience with new builds and such.

LotD (and the people following our commanders) had fun fighting the groups we ran into on JQ and BG Borderlands last night from 7:00pm to midnight EST.

We were floating between those two BLs most of the night and had some fun fights against both servers.

The JQ group toward the end of our night kept some of us on for an extra hour because we were having such fun on the open field fights in the field east of the NW camp.

covenn.7165:

For everything above say 10v10 :

Top tier: Necro, Guardian, Warrior, Ele

Middle tier: Mesmer, Thief

Lower tier: Ranger, Engi

The top tier classes I listed are the core for the most successful guilds.

This post about sum it up for large scale fights.

Orikx.9671:

Shinji.2063:

You know rams have there own cap, troll rams hurt the local cap but not the map cap.

That is completely inaccurate. Rams count towards the total Siege cap. If someone places enough rams you can’t even place an arrow cart to defend. It’s not that hard to siege cap a map either. The only thing that doesn’t count toward that cap is Golems.

This could all change on the 26th since they are changing the timer on siege.

According to this post https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/wuvwuv/Willing-to-share-WvW-details/first#post1190009 there is one cap for rams and another cap for everything else, which would make you completely inaccurate and Shinji correct. I haven’t seen anything released from Anet since then stating if has changed.

A little more on topic — it’s been a fun weekend of fighting and I’m hoping it stays that way throughout the week. As everybody knows, rankings are a coverage game. The best that can be hoped for is fun fighting during your time zone, which LotD has been able to find while fighting JQ and SoR.

LotD would like to apologize for the glitch that occurred at Sunny Hill tower just now (a few minutes ago). The game glitched three people from our guild through the door while we and another guild were attacking with five superior rams.

When they ended up on the other side of the door they announced it in TS and I told them to get out of the tower. The door was almost down and I believe it came down before they got out.

LotD is a guild with 17 years of gaming history and does not condone cheating by our guild. If the members had intentionally glitched they would have been kicked form the guild immediately.

We had a great time in our fights in T1 against JQ and SoR last week. I have the utmost respect for EMP and hope you realize this was not an intentional incident.