Guild Wars 2

RedStar.4218:

Are you sure about this ? Yesterday there was a catapult hitting us through the wall while we were on rams. I don’t recall getting any damage on us or the rams, but we were however knocked back.

I was knock back by a cata behind gate while ramming and thus I assume that damage was indeed dealt. My bad if this isn’t the case. Didn’t really notice since that catapult’s damage is so puny against a ram.

Ptolemy.5086:

Cymric.7368:

I think letting siege hit through the gate is good though because offense had already been buffed too much by the introduction of ram mastery.

2 ac can deal the same amount of damage as a treb and cost 60% the supplies to build so I hardly think a treb behind gate is op.

AC deal puny dmg to rams and easy to destroy by big zerg AOI. It is impossible to compare Treb to AC . Even AC placed inside tower behind the gate is easy to destroy and does almost no DMG to zerg outside. Currently treb is one thing that keep towers from being flip in the same rate as camps. Do you really wonna see every tower change hands every 10-15 min?

Please learn to read. I stated that I do not think a treb behind gate is op and I think offense is too strong right now. If your ac behind the gate is destroyed, you might want to reconsider your ac placement to somewhere out of sight of the gate. An AC deal ~50% of the damage of a treb, hardly puny. I thought that a treb is much stronger too, until I did an actual test. Take a look at the video if you don’t believe me.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/updates/Game-Update-Notes-March-26-2013/1700276

“Catapult damage no longer affects rams through gates.”

Not sure if treb was nerf along with it but for some reason this change had been reverted. Catas and trebs are able to damage through gates now. I think letting siege hit through the gate is good though because offense had already been buffed too much by the introduction of ram mastery.

2 ac can deal the same amount of damage as a treb and cost 60% the supplies to build so I hardly think a treb behind gate is op.

This is a stupid move.

Firstly, even if the sub forum is closed down, ppl will just post in the main wvw discussion forum, cluttering it up. If those threads are closed another new one will simply take its place. If you think closing the subforum will make the trolling go away, please wake up from your dream.

Secondly, most of the moderation I have seen is just plain unnecessary. I have no sympathy to ANet mod’s complain that they waste too much time moderating the forum. Its work that does not need doing. Just give the players the function the block another player on the forums, to down vote posts and the option to hide/see post with too low rating.

Passionate discussions are good. It means that players care about the game. The short sightedness that make you want to curb this activity is astonishing.

To those complaining that they could have won certain fights if down state is not in the game, I highly recommend that you read this article.

http://www.sirlin.net/articles/playing-to-win-part-1.html

If a mechanics is not fun, its a valid reason to complain about it. But if you are complaining just because a mechanics is costing you a victory, then you are never going to learn counters and play to your full potential.

No, I disagree. Taking someone down in a zerg, stomp and get away (or not) is one of the most enjoyable thing in this game.

If you can’t stomp you don’t deserve the win. As an ele you have plenty of knock down and knock backs to prevent the enemy from ressing. Down state is also not unlimited, each time you go down the rez is slower and after the 3rd time you are defeated completely.

King Amadaeus.8619:

SF had more people in week 1 farming the nonsensical achievements. Instead of treating the 7-week season like a marathon, they treated like the other 2-week LS garbage.

So around week 3 we started to see some dropoff, and by the time HoD rolled around the first time a lot of us noticed a much more “soft” showing for reset.

But hey it isn’t the end of the world, I was part of SF when there was nothing to play for (IE: no leagues) when we spawn camped HoD for 7 days straight and made them (by their own admission at the time) quit WvW in protest, awaiting the next week’s match.

I would like to say that HoD has came a long way, but really you just motivated your players to play again and I guess that in itself is a “win”.

This is the reason I have no respect for SF as a server from the impression I fought against them the first 2 times.

When they are winning all their fair weathers come out. http://mos.millenium.org/na/matchups/history/20

When they are getting beaten, even ET show more fighting spirit than them. http://mos.millenium.org/na/matchups/history/22

When we were falling down the ranks together with ET, at off peak hours when we own nothing and start trying to take back our stuff, ET will push too and help take pressure off us. But SF? They don’t even try.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/wuv/wuv/11-30-SF-BP-HoD/936753

The huge zerg that spawn camp us 24/7 1 week ago just mysteriously disappeared.

Props to those SF that are dedicated enough to carry on to fight, but your server just fold too easily when the going get rough.

Oh wow.. never thought ANet will be willing to back track on this. Brought gems in support immediately upon reading the news.

Thank you again ArenaNet.

I don’t think I was hit by fear, Reaper’s Mark and Doom both deal a little direct damage and there wasn’t any in the log. I am sure there wasn’t any spectral wall either.

1x Blood Curse = 1 × 8s bleed
2x Rending Curse = 2x 8s bleed
1 x Putrid Curse = poison
Barbed Precision probably another ~2 x bleed
At 137 damage per stack over 9s thats > 6k

Dhummfire assuming 1900 condition damage and 100% condition duration is ((0.25 * 1900) + (4 * Level) + 8 )) * 6 = 4770.

I hit him with 1 mind wrack and 2 cry of frustration, so at most its 5 stacks, plus maybe 2 from the necro’s runes 7* (65 + (0.075 * 1900)) * 3 attacks, ~4.3k damage. Yeah, you guys are right, this is the part I didn’t take into account.

Thanks for the help, I think I would either need to cc with gs #5 and diversion and ensure that my burst lands or to bring condition removals. And of course, I shouldn’t have used that cry of frustration against that necro.

So, I fought this necromancer and lost in like 10s. I have no idea where all the damage is coming from and that bothers me a lot because if I can’t understand where I am doing wrong I cannot improve. I am posting the damage log and I am hoping that someone can help me make sense of it.

The damage log I posted is from the 2nd fight with the necro, having lost to him once before already. (Can see my down skill in the log) I am at full health, 16.8k hp when I engage, and took only 2148 direct damage. There are the standard bleed, confusion, poison stacks of course, but < 7 stacks from what I notice and I don’t think I was hit by fear. Any help in figuring out where did the 14k damage condition damage come from will be much appreciated.

I think a better way to reduce a zerg’s effectiveness will be to reduce the rate of supply generation at camps. Half the cost of all upgrades, half the supply capacity of all structures, half the rate at which supply camps generate supplies and yak deliver supplies.

With less supplies objectives will be harder to defend, but it will be balanced by the attacking zerg’s lack of supplies. No supplies = no offensive siege. This will limit the rate a large zerg can cap stuff while not affecting the effectiveness of a smaller zerg. It will also boost the effectiveness of small group taking and holding camps.

As for the argument that a zerg can just resupply at a tier 3 keep, firstly, the keep’s supply capacity will have been reduced and secondly with the increased importance of supplies, it will totally be your side’s fault for not taking supply camps, kill yaks and cutting off supplies to those keeps. A small group of 5 can drastically decrease the supply flow in a borderland if not cutting it off completely.

ValeN.3129:

I dont see the problem, most stuff is soooo easy to telegraph.

True, if you are fighting just one or 2 mobs in an open area its not a problem. However in the tower, you are usually fighting a group at once, with ettin hallucinations spawning and spamming their knockdowns, conditions from the spores covering immobilization (can’t dodge when immobilized) with the random fear, mines that restrict where you can dodge to. Endurance quickly runs out and the ccs become very difficult to avoid.

I hardly do pve stuff anymore and the Tower of nightmares reminded me why. Fighting the mobs in the tower solo and I get immobilized, daze, knock back again again and again.

I actually think its good to have some cc, make the skills “stand your ground” and “save yourselves” on my bar valuable. But when these skills are on CD and mobs still have enough skills to chain cc me, that just too annoying. Sure, my guardian is tanky enough to take the damage, survive and kill the mobs, but that experience isn’t enjoyable at all.

I don’t understand. Don’t ANet know that removing the control of a character from the player too often = Bad? This should be basic game design knowledge. Please enlighten me, why does ANet like CC so much?

Righteous.4307:

Perhaps the most interesting thing is that your server will need both. You need roamers/scouts to flip camps, kill yaks, and scout the enemy effectively, but when push comes to shove its going to be the groups that win the lions share of the points for the server.

The main problem with roamers is that there is a diminishing return for fielding too many of them compare to group players. There is always a use for more players to counter the opponent’s zerg, but there are only so many camps to flip and yaks to kill.

It is just a smart use of man power to have some roamers out to complement your main force. After all, having a zerg to kill a yak or defend a camp is just overkill and wasteful.

I had been learning a lot in the bronze league match ups, one thing in particular stand out. All builds have strengths and weakness, if a build is good for roaming, then it will not be as effective in a group fight as a build that is designed specifically for group fights. Its the same the other way round.

A roaming build should beat a group fight build in a 1v1 because a lot of the group fight build’s traits and utilities are not effective when targeting single player and without other players to support and provide support to. However, a 5v5 should be quite even and with 10+, the group fight builds can easily wipe the roaming builds.

Which is interesting when I see posts saying server X’s players have no skills and only know how to hide in a zerg (not talking abt our match up thread but the wvw threads in general). Is it possible that its just a matter of different builds? The group fight guy will naturally want to run to his buddies so that he can be effective and of course, the roamer will not want to engage on that term.

Also is it possible that as we going up the tiers, the ratio of people running group fight builds will go up because big zerg fights are more frequent there, which give the perception that higher tier players have less skill individually?

Raina.3516:

Oh and that solo (HoD?) Mesmer ganking our yaks near and around garrison, You my friend gave us all fits of rage. Well played sir, well played.

That was probably me. You guys did an awesome job escorting the yaks though, I died so many times, especially on the NW camp → garrison route. My goal was not to let a single yak enter garrison, but by the time I left to defend HoD borderland, you guys upgraded garrison to T2 already.

Supplies and yaks are so important in a close match up, its refreshing to ppl paying attention to it.

Just want to post some numbers to help the discussion here.

A paper gate has 375k hp. A normal ram with no mastery deal 1600dps on the gate. So it takes ~234s to take down a gate if ignoring player dps.

A normal arrow cart with rank 2 mastery deal 1155 dps to rams and rams has ~100k hp. So it take less than 100s to kill a ram.

A normal treb with rank 3 mastery deal nearly twice more damage to rams than arrow carts.

All siege deal 15% less damage to golems compare to rams. All superior siege deal 50% more damage. Rank 3 mastery increase ram dps by ~50%.

dps test of siege vs rams and golems:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQQsp5_xBR4

It is certainly possible to defend against normal rams, but against superior rams and rank 3 ram mastery, you will need a lot of pre build siege to destroy them in time.

If a knock back spin your char around, when you blink to break the stun, your camera will spin around too, very disorientating and annoying.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Lazy-Kai-s-Guide-to-PvE-Leveling-Guide-Update/first

This build is probably the easiest to use for a beginning player. The really nice thing is about using an easy build is that you can be effective quickly and focus on mastering mesmer’s class mechanics instead.

After 1000+ hrs with a similar build I still feel I have not mastered the mesmer class fully yet, so despite the build’s simplicity, there is a lot of room to excel with it.

Usually only have queue in EB during reset night and today all 4 maps are queued. >.>

HoD’s pver’s passion for achievement pts is remarkable.

#1: Blowouts, where 1 server outnumbered the opponent too much and there is no mechanics to overcome the odds.
#2: Alt friendliness
#3: Perm stealth not fun to fight against

Nope, I was stationary, stomping the necro.

Not only does it hit more than 3 times, it also seems to be flying very fast, hitting and returning within a sec.

Thanks for all the replies, certainly learn something new.

@DontJudgeMe.3958
Ice wurm: 1123
Blade trail: 9327
Whirlwind: 5717
I only have 16k hp, so its already gg the moment I did not F4 in time and eat all those damage before the 100 blade.

@Writetyper.1985
Its a typical mesmer 20/20/0/0/30 greatsword and sword/sword build with decoy, mirror images and blink as utilities and mass invis as elite. Not sure if I would recommend it to anyone, a lot of active defense, but very little margin for error.

@Player Character.9467
Thats a flesh golem.

So exciting, I wish we can take bets on this. Looks like the odds are favoring kaineng now but if HoD risk it and take stuff from KN, they might well pull KN’s rating down enough into bronze.

@CMstorm.8679
No, I wasn’t up against a wall. I was out in the open, ~300 range from the warrior.

@MiLkZz.4789
Thats interesting info, didn’t know that. Maybe I should /bug it

I am running full berserker with only some toughness from runes. Active defense usage is how I survive, so its important to me to understand how various skills work. Kill or be killed, split second decision and reaction, that’s what make the fights exciting for me

Edit:
@Larynx.2453
I am sure there is only 1 warrior. Maybe its the final hit?

So I downed a necro while his warrior friend is mining stuff a few meter away. I started to stomp and suddenly I was downed in less than a sec and stomped and the warrior went back to mining that node.

I am mainly puzzled by why blade trail can hit me 3 times in a row and how the bladetrail fly so fast that it hit me in between the whirlwind attack. Does frenzy increase the flight speed of the blade trail?

All these damage happen in a second when I stop attacking and try to stomp. I was poping my F4 invul abt 1 sec into the stomp to negate the necro #2 fear but did not even manage to get it out before I was downed.

DR, please take all of KN and HoD stuff so that NSP will be sent to silver league. Give some incentive for Devon (playing in NSP) to make wvw better.

Very nice results. I actually did a test to determine gate hp sometime ago. The 3 sets of data I got range from 375k to 400k hp. The most accurate test is 375,000 hp for bay outer wurm gate (52 hits with superior catapult, 7227 damage per hit). Not saying that your data is inaccurate, but is it possible that different gate has different hp? I would do another test to reconfirm my data again.

For golem’s dps, they are affected by your own power rating. So if you have no power gear, it can be as low as 4000 per hit (reported by my friend with a condition build), and get much higher with full power gear and buffs. (I have seen as high as 5600 for alpha golems.)

Since that no one seems to know the answer to these questions, I did some testing on my own.

Video showing the damage of catapult, trebuchet, arrow cart and ballista on ram and golem.
Test done with 2 ac mastery, 4 cata mastery, 3 treb mastery and 4 ballista mastery.
Estimated ram has ~100k hp +/- 10% by totaling up damage on it.

Siege deal 15% more damage on rams than on golems
Arrow cart dps on Ram: 1155
Ballista dps on ram: 2570
Catapult dps on ram: 482
Trebuchet dps on ram: 2221

Also, I did not record these in a video, you will have to take my word for this :P
Normal gate hp: 375,000 hp (52 hits with superior catapult, 7227 damage per hit)
Normal wall Hp: 450,000 (39 catapult hits, 11566 damage per shot)

Credits to Jeknar from ET for helping build the ram and golem to test on.

Aberrant.6749:

They added LOS to mesmer phantasms to stop people from doing this sort of stuff long ago. I have no idea why these two others haven’t been changed yet.

Yes, these 2 skills should be fixed to be consistent with the rest. Mesmers q.q alot about this change, but they eventually got over it. I see no reason why eles and necros should be exempted.

At the end of w1 we were given a sneak preview of w2. I am not really a fan of platform games and the difficulty I seen make me realize w2 isn’t really for me. After reading the dev’s post, I decide to give it a shot as their effort deserve as much.

To my surprise, the jumping part is actually ok. I had gotten much better at jumping with all the practice. However as w2 goes on, the only word I have to describe it is “annoying”.

Firstly, the mechanics that are affected by lag such as the flower jump pad and the rapids that knock you down. Lag really make those parts not enjoyable. Doable, but annoying.

Secondly, there is the ninjas and piranhas , ANet devs, if there is only thing I have been dying to beat into you guys with a big heavy stick, with SPIKES is this. Losing control of my character is NOT fun. Instant kills from losing control of my character is especially not fun. Losing control of my character is not fun, get it? One more time just to get the point across. Losing control of my character is not fun! This apply both to SAB and general open world content.

And then there is the length of W2. I would like to complete the content, but there is only so much annoyance I can take in one play through after a day at work. The dart traps is a clever idea, but… do you really need 5 levels of it? At some point it cease to be interesting and become annoying instead. I am currently at the gong. I know if I keep trying it I will be able to do it eventually. Sadly, I must say I don’t really feel like trying though. I know I would like to attempt this part again in the future, but.. not really if I have the do all the annoying parts before again. So this is probably as far as I would get in SAB. I must admit that there is a certain satisfaction in figuring out the puzzle and completing it though.

Lastly, I would like to comment on the awful camera. I think everyone know this, but when jumping in tight spaces, the camera is really bad. I know there is little that can be done, but please bear this in mind when designing jumps.

I am really glad that I brought the infinite coin, would never have made it as far if I hasn’t. Also, even the infant mode is annoying too, I did managed to finish w2 on that mode, but with much cursing and swearing.

Blood lust had stop being an issue, everyone is just trading keeps and towers around and pvding. Sore difference is so large and defending so futile that no one care abt ppt anymore. Stats difference is a non issue when no one fight each other. Even the dominating server stop caring abt holding 3 blood lust.

If none of your guys hit the grub, it will at most kill the npc who aggro it and leave. It will only stay and fight if some of you hit it.

Wow YB, now I know why CD made a post complaining abt your golems. I don’t really have a problem with you using them, except… stop littering our keeps with them!

Every time we retake a keep we see a golem, or tow, full health alphas and 1/2 health omegas etc etc. Like they are disposable underwear and you use them and throw away :/

Ok, here is the result. Quite surprising to me, I thought treb and ballista will deal more damage.

Credit to Jeknar from ET for such a good target and Dispensa Shaterhorn from IoJ who was cool and didn’t disrupt the test.

I could clean up and upload the raw footage on youtube if there is any demand for it.

Edit:
For referance, I have 4 rank in ballista, 4 in cata, 2 in ac, 3 in treb

I am interested in knowing the exact damage of the various siege actually, in particular how the damage of 3 acs will compare with 1 treb. Rough estimates just wouldn’t do at all.

Testing done, thank you Jeknar for the help.

This match up is kind of pointless right now, so I am going to take the opportunity to do some siege weapon damage testing. I would like to enlist the help of an ET or IoJ for this.

I will build treb/cata/ballista/AC at one of the borderland camp, you take it back, build 1 or 2 rams and maybe a golem and I will test the siege weapons on it and get the numbers. I am willing to pay the first person who help me with this 3 gold (1g on join, 2 gold on finish of the test). Will be on for 2-3 hr more, please contact me in game if you are interested.

No one? I already have the siege build, just need someone to build the ram and golem to test on.

1) Anyone know how much damage the various siege weapons do to other siege weapons and structures? For example, how much damage does a cata do to an arrow cart, to a wall, to a gate, for both fire boulder and fire gravel.

2) Does the amount varies when use against different siege weapons? (My guess is no, but I am not certain)

3) How much hp does each type of siege weapon has?

4) How much Hp does walls and gates have?

5) Does upgrading the wall/gates increase their hp?

Bunnymancer.6901:

This is incentive for high-skilled guilds to actually form up and get involved. It’s even more incentive for them to server hop to the bottom tier just to push the server to T1 and then repeat.

Too much time makes those that group up not care too much as their efforts aren’t rewarded enough.

One of the worst idea I ever read. Just ask HoD, ET, AR or any of the server who lost their major guilds how much they enjoy the free fall before the ratings correct itself. Of course, those guilds doesn’t care as the ill effect of their actions doesn’t affect them.

Just want to say thank you to all the HoDs upgrading and defending the borderland despite the temptation of ascend mats for flipping stuff. I even saw a wp at bay once or twice.

The current implementation of ascend mat acquisition in wvw is causing everyone to only want to tag the lord and flip stuff. If this farming of ascend mats is abuse enough, it might force arenaNet to reconsider the current implementation. So I am came up with an idea to farm the ascend mats more efficiently.

Idea: Kill the lord but don’t cap the keep/tower
Since that loot is given upon the death of the lord, an organized group can just break in and only kill the lord to get the loot and move on the the next tower/keep without capping. By the time the zerg make 1 round around the map, the first lord should have respawn and can be killed again for the loot.

Pro: No need to wait for defenders to recap. If the defender rez the lord, might be able to kill it again for the loot immediately (Not sure abt this, if it work, maybe can just leave the tower/keep, wait for rez and enter again).
Con: Need good control over the zerg to prevent capping, no wxp, need to be significantly stronger than defender for this to work

Visirale.6097:

HoD… did you legit take our bay or did your thief that somehow got in without gates being down do it? Just curious.

Is this the one where HoD hold lake and briar, got into bay, was push out and started trebbing from briar?

If it is, while the treb was contesting your keep, we use a golem to break through wurm gate and north inner gate. Not sure abt the thief, when the 5 of us cap the keep I don’t think any of us is a thief.

In game name: Aerlinn Cenedril
Play style: Primary WvW, dungeons when need gold
Server: Henge of Denravi
Role: scholar
Playtime: Variable

Just to be clear, I don’t do any high end spvp. When I do spvp I only do hot joins and I am only rank 17. I do however solo/duo/small team roam a lot in wvw fighting unfavorable odds often. I also main a mesmer (although I have a lv 80 of every class), so my opinion will be from these perspectives.

I find down state fun and exciting, because when someone is down so many choices can be made that it is very interesting.

If I down someone, I need to decide, is my mesmer F4 distortion up? If F4 is not up am I able to do a stealth stomp using decoy or mass invis? Is that an ele, thief or mesmer who can avoid my distortion stomp? Do I have enough hp to risk stomping? Is blink up? Should I use it to save a few sec of traveling time to the downed opponent? Can I dodge roll on the way there to generate a clone for an additional second of distortion. If someone on my team is down as well, should I try to stomp or play it safe and try to rez?

Are the opponents trying to rez? If they are is my geastsword #5 on CD so I can do an AoE knockback? If not can I do a F3 daze? Else can I switch to pistol for #5? Are they low enough for me to burst them down instead before they can rez? Do they have stability?

If someone on my team is down and the opponent is trying to stomp, I have to go through the same thought process as above again to prevent the stomp. If no one is stomping, I need to decide, should I try to rez or should I try to down and finish someone off? Do I have enough hp to rez? Do I have F4 on CD? Can I mass invis to save the down person from a stomp and rez?

Then when I am stomping or rezing, I need to time my distortion well as I rarely have enough clones to cover the full 3 sec stomp or the full rez duration. A cc could come in from anywhere out of my field of vision. Can I make it? Especially when this stomp will rally my teammate.

A judgment need to be made in a split second. A correct judgment plus execution can turn the tide of the battle in my team’s favor and an incorrect one can doom us all. I don’t know about the rest of you, but this make the game exciting as hell for me.

This is a really good idea, but I think we should stick to having 3 side (2v2v2). There is actually a better chance of having a fair match up by teaming up 2 servers this way. Probability of 2 very weak servers both on the same side is lower than probability of picking 1 very weak server.

Advent.6193:

Speaking of the concept of “superservers”
So, when are we going to match Dark Isle of Janthaven versus Sorrow’s Terrace of Denravi’s Crossing?

Don’t mind the random Ferg. Someone had to say it

This is actually a very interesting idea. I am sure we can learn a lot from another server by fighting together on the same side.

DH, y no love for your borderland?! D;

lake -> briar -> sunny -> bay -> hills -> garrison -> crag and only 1 defender show up to try to stop us at sunny. There were never more than 3 of us taking the towers and keeps you know.

ParaldaWind.4523:

Cymric.7368:

All I am reading in this post is ppl crying about siege stopping their wxp train, which they justify as “good fights”. Sorry no, defending an objective already have crappy reward as it is. There is no need to nerf siege such that people are even less inclined to defend.

I think you misunderstood. I don’t really care if we take the keep or not, I just miss utilizing the relatively unique terrain and layouts of keeps in fights. It was fun to fight inside outer of garrison. Now it’s just a death trap of red circles.

You see, this is a layer of depth in WvW that will disappear if the siege are make weaker, the control of supplies.

A keep whose defenders refuse to come out and fight will eventually fall because you can cut their supplies, take out their siege one by one with siege of your own and break through eventually. If the lords room is too well siege up, hit somewhere else to force them to move, without supplies they can’t do any significant repairs. When they move you can force them into a battle.

Of course, this course of action will take a long time if the defenders have plenty of supplies. If this happens, its entirely the fault of the attacking side. Why did the attacking side not killed dolyaks and take supply camps to prevent the defenders from upgrading and stockpiling supplies? If everyone want to zerg and no one want to cut supplies, well, you reap what you sow and deserve to have and grinding long battle to take the keep.

The problem imo, is not the siege, its the failure to control supplies.

All I am reading in this post is ppl crying about siege stopping their wxp train, which they justify as “good fights”. Sorry no, defending an objective already have crappy reward as it is. There is no need to nerf siege such that people are even less inclined to defend.

Make sure all party members are out of combat, kill any mob that will not lose aggro. If that doesn’t work still, try to wp back 4 party members until only a single member is left.