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Game Update Notes - December 10, 2013

in Game Release Notes

Posted by: AidanTaylor.3872

AidanTaylor.3872

European Community Manager

LIVING WORLD
A Very Merry Wintersday
Toymaker Tixx and his flying Infinirarium are returning to Lion’s Arch, which can mean only one thing: Wintersday is coming! Sharpen your snowball-throwing skills and pull out your warmest clothes; the festivities are about to commence!
Toypocalypse

  • Protect the gift dolyaks from waves of malfunctioning toys.
  • This activity can now be entered with a preformed group.

Winter Wonderland

  • Navigate the treacherous snowflakes, exploding presents, and narrow ice ledge to earn Wintersday gifts.
  • Toymaker Tixx will now wait at the halfway point and will give players an option to receive a present right away, receive more presents at the end (if players can make it there), or to create a temporary checkpoint.
  • There is no longer a delay to allow all players to attempt and complete the puzzle.

Bell Choir Ensemble

  • Players can show off their musical skills in this rhythm-based activity and earn Wintersday gifts each time they successfully complete a song.

Snowball Mayhem

  • Players can join a team, pick a role, and battle to return presents to their base in this PvP activity.

Tixx’s Infinirarium

  • Group up with friends to help keep Tixx’s toy-making operation under control.
  • All five paths will be available for the duration of Wintersday.

Donation Drive

  • Ho-Ho-Tron (aka Hobo-Tron) and Marcello DiGiacomo have returned, and they’re looking to collect coins and ugly sweaters for the victims of Scarlet’s attacks.
  • After receiving enough donations, they will load up their gift dolyak and make for the asura gate to Divinity’s Reach, dropping gifts for players along the way.
  • Protect the gift dolyak from greedy snowball-throwing skritt to ensure a merry Wintersday for all.

Rewards

  • Wintersday gifts have been updated for the new year. Open them for chances at crafting materials (including the coveted ascended crafting materials), Essence of Luck, new crafting recipes, and more. To show off Wintersday pride, keep an eye out for special rare items such as the adorable Mini Ho-Ho-Tron, the returning Unbreakable Choir Bell, new Endless Tonic recipes, and recipes for the new ascended back-slot items: Light of Dwayna and Shadow of Grenth.
  • The gift-exchange vendors have returned to Lion’s Arch. Players can exchange their unwanted gifts for something else.

Achievements

  • Each of the activities listed above has one or more achievements that can be earned by participating in the festivities.
  • After completing the Very Merry Wintersday meta-achievement, players will be awarded a box containing their choice of either one Wintersday toy miniature or a giant stack of Wintersday gifts.

    The Nightmare Ends
  • Return to Kessex Hills to experience the culmination of the Tower of Nightmares.
  • When entering Kessex Hills, players with an actual level higher than 25 will automatically be redirected to a story instance.
  • Players at level 25 and under may still opt to play the story instance by speaking to Marjory’s helper, Dee, in Kessex Hills.

Open World

  • The lands surrounding Viathan Lake in Kessex Hills have been forever altered by the tower. Explore the region to discover new events.
  • Toxic Offshoots and Seedlings continue to appear across Tyria.
  • Several renown hearts in Kessex Hills have been updated based on the lingering effects of the Toxic Alliance’s tower.
  • The Moogooloo Waypoint and the Meadows Waypoint have been removed.

Rewards

  • Completing The Nightmare Ends story instance will reward players with a new Antitoxin Injector Skin (back-slot item).
  • Finishing the Nightmare’s Aftermath meta-achievement will award players a Tricolor Key.
  • The Tri-key Chest can now be found in Kessex Hills.
  • Pieces of the key for the Tri-key Chest can be dropped by creatures throughout Kessex Hills or can be acquired through trade with Marjory’s helper, Dee, back at Thunder Ridge Camp.

Achievements

  • The Nightmare’s Aftermath meta-achievement will task players with exploring the fallout of the Tower of Nightmares throughout Kessex Hills.
  • Additionally, completing Nightmare’s Aftermath daily achievements will also contribute to the meta-achievement. These are earned by participating in specific The Nightmare Is Over content each day.

    NEW FEATURES AND CONTENT
    Crafting
  • Armorsmith, Tailor, and Leatherworker can now be leveled to a rating of 500.
  • New ascended-material refinement recipes unlock at a rating of 450.
  • Ascended insignia recipes are now available for purchase from master craftsmen and require a rating of 500 to craft.
  • Ascended armor recipes are now available for purchase from master craftsmen and laurel merchants and require a rating of 500 to craft.
  • Crafting discoveries for exotics have been reset to allow for rediscovery that gives bonus experience and facilitates leveling to a rating of 500.

Changes to Rewards

  • Ascended armor can now drop anywhere that ascended materials or other ascended items can be found.
  • Loot dropped by the Karka Queen has been improved; she also has a chance to drop Settler’s insignias.
  • Sentinel’s insignias can now be purchased from the guild vendor.
  • Exotic armor pieces with the stat combos Rabid, Dire, Magi’s, Soldier’s, Cavalier’s, and Shaman’s now have a chance to salvage their insignia.

Structured Player vs. Player

  • Players will now have a chance at receiving Essence of Luck when salvaging PvP items.
  • Players can now earn gold while participating in PvP.
    • There is a 5-gold-per-day cap in Custom Arenas and a 15-gold-per-day cap in Solo Arenas and Team Arenas.
    • Rewards are higher in Solo Arenas and higher still in Team Arenas.
  • Added a temporary vendor to the Heart of the Mists that has items that can be purchased with both glory and gold. The vendor contains the following items:
    • Tomes of Knowledge
    • PvP dungeon armor sets
    • PvP cultural armor
    • 20-slot bags
    • Custom Arena starter kits

General

  • Fixed a bug with the dredge commissar group event in the Dredgehaunt Cliffs that would cause it to run too frequently. With this fix, the event will have a minimum downtime of 20 minutes between runs.

Dungeons

  • Pristine Fractal Relics can be converted to the Fractal Relic currency by double-clicking them.
  • Mistlock Instability on fractal level 37 has been re-enabled.

Items

  • The ascended version of the Triforge Pendant is now account bound and soulbound on use, instead of soulbound on acquire.

Profession Skills
We are introducing a new healing skill for each profession. These skills are locked in both PvE and PvP. They can be unlocked by purchasing them with 25 skill points. When a skill is unlocked on a character, it becomes unlocked in both PvE and PvP.
General

  • Immobilize can now only stack 3 times.

Charr

  • Shrapnel Mine: Updated the skill facts to indicate its proximity radius and explosion radius.

New Healing Skills:
Elementalist

  • Arcane Brilliance—Arcane: Blast the area, hit foes with critical damage, and heal yourself. Healing effectiveness is increased for each target hit.

Engineer

  • A.E.D—Gadget: Activate your A.E.D., enabling the system to heal you after a brief period of time. If you take lethal damage while A.E.D. is active, it disables and heals you for a large amount.
    • Static Shock (Toolbelt):* *Use your A.E.D. to stun an enemy.

Guardian

  • Litany of Wrath—Meditation: Heal yourself. For a brief time, heal yourself based on a percentage of damage dealt to enemies.

Mesmer

  • Signet of the Ether
    • Signet Passive:* *Regenerate health based on the number of active illusions you control.
    • Signet Active:* *Heal yourself and recharge all phantasm skills.

Necromancer

  • Signet of Vampirism
    • Signet Passive: Heal when struck by a foe.
    • Signet Active:* *Heal yourself and mark a foe. Friendly players will siphon life from that enemy.

Ranger

  • Water Spirit—Spirit:* *Summon a water spirit that grants nearby allies a chance to heal when attacking.
    • Aqua Surge:* *Heal yourself and cause your water spirit to heal nearby allies.

Thief

  • Skelk Venom—Venom: Heal yourself. Your next few attacks heal you.

Warrior

  • Defiant Stance—Stance:* *Heal yourself. Absorb all incoming damage for a period of time.

BALANCE, BUG-FIXING, POLISH
Elementalist
The goal of this release for the elementalist was to increase the power of the Earth Magic, Air Magic, and Fire Magic trait lines, while taking away some of the need to go into the Arcana line. This was done by bringing up the base cooldown of attunements so that elementalists aren’t forced to go as deep into Arcana in order to get the old attunement-cooldown percentages. In doing so, we decided to move some of the most powerful Adept-tier traits in Water Magic and Arcana to the Master tier. This was done to avoid power creep that would have occurred by letting players gain powerful effects in the Master and Grandmaster tier of Fire Magic, Air Magic, and Earth Magic and still get the extremely powerful traits in Water Magic and Arcana by only investing 10 points.

  • Fire Magic II—Conjurer: Moved this trait to the Adept tier.
  • Fire Magic III—Ember’s Might: The effect of this trait has been changed. Burns applied now last 25% longer.
  • Fire Magic VIII—Burning Fire: This trait has a new effect and now automatically uses Cleansing Fire when the elementalist has 3 conditions. There is also a 40-second cooldown. Moved to the Master tier.
  • Fire Magic 25—Burning Rage: Increased the damage dealt to burning foes from 5% to 10%.
  • Air Magic V—Soothing Winds: Increased the conversion from 5% to 7%.
  • Air Magic XI—Tempest Defense: Decreased the cooldown from 60 seconds to 25 seconds.
  • Earth Magic 5—Stone Flesh: Increased the toughness while attuned to Earth magic to 1.5 per level (120 at level 80).
  • Earth Magic VII—Strength of Stone: Added a 10% gain to condition damage based on toughness.
  • Earth Magic XI—Diamond Skin: This trait has been redesigned. Conditions now cannot be applied to players when their health is above the 90% threshold.
  • Water Magic I—Arcane Abatement: Moved to the Adept tier.
  • Water Magic III—Cantrip Mastery: Moved to the Adept tier.
  • Water Magic V—Soothing Wave: Moved to the Adept tier. This trait is now redesigned to gain regeneration on incoming critical hits.
  • Water Magic VIII—Aquamancer’s Alacrity: Moved to the Master tier.
  • Water Magic IX—Soothing Disruption: Moved to the Master tier.
  • Water Magic X—Cleansing Wave: Moved to the Master tier.
  • Arcana III—Final Shielding: Decreased the cooldown from 90 seconds to 75 seconds.
  • Arcana IV—Vigorous Scepter: Moved to the Adept tier.
  • Arcana V—Blasting Staff: Moved to the Adept tier.
  • Arcane VI—Windborne Dagger: Moved to the Adept tier. This trait now functions outside of combat.
  • Arcana VII—Arcane Retribution: Moved to the Master tier. Decreased the cooldown from 90 seconds to 45 seconds.
  • Arcana VIII—Elemental Attunement: Moved to the Master tier.
  • Arcana IX—Arcane Resurrection: Moved to the Master tier.
  • The following changes were done to reduce the burden of putting points into the Arcana trait line:
    • The base cooldown of attunements has been reduced from 16 seconds to 13 seconds. The attunement cooldown rate now increases by 1% per point in Arcana, down from 2%. The end result is that attunements now go from 13 seconds to 10 seconds instead of the old range of 16 seconds to 10 seconds.
    • The base global attunement cooldown is now 1.625 seconds. The global attunement cooldown rate now increases by 1% per point in Arcana, down from 2%. The end result is that global attunement cooldown now goes from 1.625 seconds to 1.25 seconds instead of the previous range of 2.0 seconds to 1.25 seconds.

Bug Fixes

  • Cleansing Wave: Fixed a bug that caused the trait fact to display an incorrect number of targets.
  • Static Field: The strike from this skill will no longer be limited by range or line of sight, making it consistent with the stun portion of the skill.
  • Ring of Earth: Added a range indicator.
  • Conjure Frost Bow, Conjure Flame Axe, and Conjure Lightning Hammer: These abilities will no longer go on full cooldown when interrupted.
  • Signet of Restoration: Fixed an issue that caused the skill to heal for incorrect amounts when traited with Written in Stone.
  • Magnetic Wave: Added a range indicator. Updated the radius fact to display the proper distance.
  • Soothing Mist: Updated the trait fact to indicate its proper radius.
  • Conjure Fiery Greatsword: This skill can now be cast while moving.
  • Zephyr’s Speed: Fixed an issue that caused this trait to behave incorrectly with Lingering Elements.
  • Stone Flesh: Fixed an issue that caused this trait to behave incorrectly with Lingering Elements.

Engineer
We wanted to maintain the engineer’s core roles while still increasing build diversity. We also wanted to take out some of the random effects for some of the class’s traits. The biggest change here is allowing Modified Ammunition to work with any skills so that an engineer, regardless of build, can look at putting 30 points into Firearms. By increasing the swiftness duration on Speedy Kits, we hope to allow swiftness to be maintained more reasonably without having to constantly swap kits. This change will also bring down the total uptime for vigor due to its interaction with Invigorating Speed. We don’t like classes having permanent vigor, and this is one of the areas where we needed to tone down the uptime of the engineer’s vigor.

  • Explosives V—Accelerant-Packed Turrets: Moved to the Adept tier.
  • Explosives VI—Exploit Weakness: Increased the health threshold from 25% to 50%.
  • Explosives IX—Incendiary Powder: Moved to the Master tier.
  • Firearms XI—Modified Ammunition: This trait now works regardless of the equipped weapon.
  • Inventions V—Energized Armor: Increased the conversion from 5% to 7%.
  • Inventions VIII—Power Shoes: This trait now works outside of combat.
  • Inventions X—Autotool Installation: Increased the healing percentage from 1% to 5%. Decreased the interval from 10 seconds to 3 seconds.
  • Inventions XI—Elixir-Infused Bombs: Scaling with healing power has been increased by 50%.
  • Alchemy V—Blood Injection: Increased the conversion from 5% to 7%.
  • Alchemy 15—Transmute: Increased the percentage chance from 8% to 100%. This effect can now only trigger once every 15 seconds.
  • Tools VI—Speedy Kits: Increased the swiftness duration to 10 seconds. This effect can now only trigger once every 10 seconds.
  • Tools XI—Armor Mods: Changed this to now trigger when struck instead of on incoming critical hits. Reduced the cooldown from 25 seconds to 15 seconds.
  • Blunderbuss: Increased the range of this skill from 400 to 500 (700 when traited with Rifled Barrels).
    *
    Bug Fixes*
  • Elixir U: Updated the skill facts to display the proper information associated with this skill.
  • Med Kit: Added duration facts to the skills on this kit.
  • Rifled Turret Barrels: Updated Rifle Turret and Rocket Turret to display a damage increase when this is traited.
  • Slick Shoes: Added a duration fact.
  • Grenade Barrage: Updated the skill facts to indicate the number of grenades thrown when Grenadier is traited.
  • Glue Shot: Added a skill fact for pulses.
  • Jump Shot: Increased the radius of the initial damage from 120 to 240 to match the land radius. Updated the radius fact.
  • Mortar: The global cooldown has been increased to 2 seconds, which is the actual rate of fire that it’s able to have.
  • Net Turret: Fixed an issue that occasionally caused the turret to lose its attack when overcharged.
  • Flamethrower—Napalm: Burning duration now shows the proper burning duration when traited with Napalm Specialist.

Guardian
Tank and supportive guardians are in a strong position in many game types. We do feel that damage guardians are not as powerful as they could be. While we don’t want guardians to be as strong offensively as some of the other classes (given their powerful defensive abilities), we opened up more offensive guardian builds.

  • Zeal V—Shattered Aegis: This trait now applies damage instead of burning.
  • Zeal VII—Zealous Blade: This trait now scales with healing power by 2%.
  • Zeal XII—Kindled Zeal: Increased the conversion from 10% to 13%.
  • Radiance V—Searing Flames: Reduced the cooldown from 20 seconds to 10 seconds.
  • Radiance X—Powerful Blades: Increased the damage from 5% to 10%.
  • Valor VI—Retributive Armor: Increased the conversion rate from 5% to 7%.
  • Honor VI—Pure of Heart: Increased scaling with healing power from 25% to 40%.
  • Virtues VIII—Supreme Justice: Decreased the number of attacks from 4 to 3.
  • Symbol of Swiftness: This skill now applies 4 seconds of swiftness per pulse, rather than 8 seconds to players without swiftness and 1 second to players with swiftness.

Bug Fixes

  • Virtue of Justice: Updated the skill facts to indicate the number of attacks required to trigger this skill. Added a fact that indicates radius when Permeating Wrath is traited. Updated the skill to indicate the increased burn duration when Supreme Justice is traited.
  • Virtue of Resolve: Updated the skill facts to display the correct healing when Absolute Resolution is traited.
  • Tome of Wrath—Zealot’s Fervor: Fixed the range indicator so that it will now update properly.
  • Signet of Wrath: Updated the skill facts to indicate vulnerability when Binding Jeopardy is traited.

Mesmer
The bulk of the mesmer changes are focused on two things: 1) Increasing some of the mesmer support traits and condition-removal traits. 2) Reducing the dependency on certain trait lines. The changes to Mender’s Purity and Shattered Conditions as well as the move of Dazzling Glamours to the Adept tier are meant to accomplish the first of these two. The changes to Shattered Strength and Illusionist’s Celerity accomplish the second goal. Before this change, mesmers needed to place 25 points into Illusions for many of their builds. Now they can place only 15 points to get the illusion cooldown reduction, which will give them back 10 more trait points to open up some new builds. Finally, we felt that the mantra-centric traits were fairly difficult to collect. Moving Mantra Mastery to the Adept tier takes some trait pressure off of the Dueling line, allowing mantra mesmers to gain a good trait with only 10 points.

  • Domination XII—Confounding Suggestions: This trait now also increases daze duration by 25%.
  • Dueling VI—Mantra Mastery: Moved to the Adept tier.
  • Dueling VII—Protected Mantras: Moved to the Master tier. Increased the toughness from 400 to 600.
  • Chaos I—Chaotic Revival: Reduced the cooldown from 35 seconds to 10 seconds.
  • Chaos VII—Mirror of Anguish: Reduced the cooldown from 90 seconds to 60 seconds.
  • Chaos 25—Chaotic Transference: Increased the conversion from 5% to 10%.
  • Inspiration IV—Mender’s Purity: This trait now removes 2 conditions.
  • Inspiration XI—Shattered Conditions: Increased the radius from 240 to 600.
  • Illusions VI—Dazzling Glamours: Moved to the Adept tier.
  • Illusions VIII—Illusionary Invigoration: Reduced the recharge from 90 seconds to 60 seconds. Moved to the Master tier.
  • Illusions 15—Illusionist’s Celerity: Moved to the Master tier.
  • Illusions 25—Shattered Strength: Moved to the Grandmaster tier.

Bug Fixes

  • Ether Feast: Fixed a bug that was preventing the heal amount per illusion to properly scale with healing power.
  • Temporal Enchanter: Fixed an issue that caused this trait to display multiple durations on glamour skills.

Necromancer
For the necromancer, we felt that a few traits and skills were too powerful, while others were lacking in efficacy. We brought down some of the raw damage conditions that the necromancer enjoys, while also maintaining their pressure and sustain elements. The necromancer’s mobility will remain where it is currently, as we want the necromancers to focus on sustaining themselves through the use of death shroud, health siphoning, and slowing down their opponent’s ability to act.

  • Mark of Blood: Removed 1 stack of bleed when used in PvP.
  • Spite X—Chill of Death: Increased the trigger threshold from 25% to 50%.
  • Spite 15—Death into Life: Increased the conversion from 5% to 7%.
  • Curses IV—Enfeeble: Decreased the weakness duration to 2 seconds. Decreased the bleeding to 1 stack and 6 seconds. Removed the cooldown.
  • Curses VIII—Banshee’s Wail:* *Increased the cooldown reduction from 15% to 20%.
  • Death Magic 5—Reanimator: Decreased the cooldown from 30 seconds to 15 seconds.
  • Death Magic VIII—Reaper’s Protection: Decreased the cooldown from 90 seconds to 60 seconds.
  • Death Magic 25—Deadly Strength: Increased the conversion from 5% to 10%.
  • Blood Magic 25—Blood to Power: Decreased the health threshold from 90% to 75%. Increased the power from 90 to 120.
  • Soul Reaping II—Vital Persistence: Increased the reduction of life force drain from 25% to 50%.
    *
    Bug Fixes*
  • Dark Path: Added a radius skill fact.
  • Plague: Fixed a bug that prevented both of the spectral buffs from the Spectral Walk skill to be removed when activating this skill.
  • Well of Power: Fixed a bug that prevented this skill from properly converting fear into stability.

Ranger
For the ranger, we’ve adjusted the placement of some traits in order to have more build combinations. For example, by swapping Nature’s Vengeance and Spirits Unbound so that rangers can have spirits follow players in tier 2, players can now opt out of the higher damage output from spirits and still have options elsewhere. We also enhanced some Marksmanship traits and a Skirmishing trait to make power specs more appealing. We feel rangers also currently have too much endurance regeneration through traits. Due to this, we’ve made adjustments to Wilderness Survival traits, and we’ve also brought down the passive effect of Sun Spirit and the active effect for Storm Spirit.

  • Long Range Shot: Increased the damage at the less-than-500 range by 20%. Increased the damage at the 500 to 1000 range by 15%.
  • Marksmanship V—Predator’s Instinct: Increased the threshold from 25% to 50%. Increased the cripple duration from 2 seconds to 10 seconds. Increased the cooldown from 15 seconds to 30 seconds.
  • Marksmanship VI—Beastmaster’s Bond: Decreased the cooldown from 90 seconds to 60 seconds.
  • Skirmishing XII—Moment of Clarity: Stun duration increased from 50% to 100%.
  • Wilderness Survival 5—Natural Vigor: Reduced the increased endurance regeneration from 50% to 25%.
  • Wilderness Survival VIII—Oakheart Salve: Decreased the recharge of this trait from 20 seconds to 15 seconds.
  • Wilderness Survival XII—Bark Skin: Increased the damage reduction from 30% to 50%.
  • Nature Magic I—Circle of Life: Cleared up the text of this trait to clearly identify that it happens when downed, not defeated.
  • Nature Magic V—Strength of Spirit: Increased the conversion from 5% to 7%.
  • Nature Magic VII—Spirits Unbound: Moved to the Master tier.
  • Nature Magic IX—Two-Handed Training: Greatsword and spear attacks now have a 50% chance to grant fury on hit. Each attack will have 3 seconds of fury. There is also a 10-second cooldown.
  • Nature Magic X—Enlargement: This trait now uses Signet of the Wild to trigger. This reduces the cooldown to 60 seconds and allows it to interact with the Signet of the Beastmaster and Signet Mastery traits.
  • Nature Magic XI—Nature’s Vengeance: Moved to the Grandmaster tier.
  • Beastmastery VI—Mighty Swap: The might from this trait now applies to players and their pet.
  • Sun Spirit: Reduced the passive burning from 3 seconds to 2 seconds.
  • Storm Spirit: Reduced the damage from the Call Lightning skill by 33%.

Bug Fixes

  • Trap Potency: Updated this trait to indicate the correct condition duration increase (100%).
  • Path of Scars: Fixed a bug that enabled the skill to be fired at enemies behind the ranger.
  • Whirling Defense: Updated the skill facts to be more precise, adding a separate radius for attack and reflection.
  • Winter’s Bite: Added a weakness skill fact.
  • Hunter’s Call: Updated the damage fact to reflect the proper amount of hits.
  • Call of the Wild: Removed the unnecessary range fact.

Ranger Pets

  • Global
    • The ranger pet health bar now displays the current health of the player’s pet as a raw number. A tooltip has been added to display the current and maximum health.
  • Fern Hound
    • Regenerate: Removed the extra radius fact.
  • Red Moa
    • Furious Screech: Added skill facts for radius and number of targets.
  • Arctodus
    • Rending Maul: Updated the facts to properly represent the two hits from this attack.

Thief
One of the issues we are working on for thieves in this release is the dependence on traits that boost initiative. We did this by shaving a significant amount of initiative gain from these traits while simultaneously boosting the generic rate of initiative gain by 33%. We have also reduced the effectiveness of high-evasion thieves by reducing vigor uptime and adding some cast time to the Shadow Return skill on the sword. This prevents thieves from evading and easily dealing with being disabled (stun, daze, fear, knockdown, etc.). Also, we are trying to improve the survivability of thieves in the Acrobatics line through easier access to the Hard to Catch trait and increased effectiveness of the Assassin’s Reward trait. This will reward thieves who are actively engaged in the fight rather than those who are just dodging over and over again. The change to Infusion of Shadow is meant to stop players from gaining initiative by applying stealth while already in stealth. This should keep thieves from being able to recharge all of their power while idling in a very long stealth. We felt that using a lot of different abilities to maintain stealth is okay, but reusing the same ability over and over for almost permanent stealth was just bad for the game, especially when gaining large amounts of initiative.

  • Increased the base rate of initiative gain from .75 per second to 1 per second.
  • Sword—Shadow Return: Renamed to Infiltrator’s Return. Added a .25-second cast time.
  • Pistol—Pistol Whip: Reduced the aftercast on the first half of this skill by .25 seconds.
  • Deadly Arts VI—Sundering Strikes: Increased the trigger chance from 33% to 50%. Removed the internal cooldown. Decreased the vulnerability duration from 14 seconds to 6 seconds.
  • Critical Strikes VI—Practiced Tolerance: Increased the conversion from 5% to 7%.
  • Critical Strikes VIII—Signet Use: Reduced the initiative gain from 2 to 1.
  • Critical Strike X—Critical Haste: Increased the trigger chance to 25%.
  • Critical Strikes 15—Opportunist: Increased the trigger chance to 50%. Increased the cooldown from 1 second to 5 seconds.
  • Shadow Arts V—Infusion of Shadow: Increased the amount of initiative gained to 2, but only when entering stealth.
  • Acrobatics III—Vigorous Recovery: Reduced the vigor duration from 8 seconds to 5 seconds.
  • Acrobatics IV—Assassin’s Retreat: Increased the swiftness duration to 20 seconds.
  • Acrobatics IX—Quick Recovery: Reduced the initiative gain from 2 to 1.
  • Acrobatics X—Hard to Catch: Moved to the Master tier.
  • Acrobatics XI—Assassin’s Reward: Increased the scaling with healing power by 35%. Moved to the Grandmaster tier.
  • Trickery 5— – Kleptomaniac: Reduced the initiative gain from 3 to 2.
  • Trickery VII—Bountiful Theft: Reduced the vigor duration from 15 seconds to 10 seconds.

Bug Fixes

  • Ink Shot: Updated the damage fact to function with Power Shots.
  • Ink Shot—Smoke Trail: This skill will now return to Ink Shot if the projectile is destroyed.
  • Dancing Dagger: Updated the cripple skill fact to display the proper duration.

Warrior
The overall goal here is to reduce the damage for very high-control warriors. This means reducing some dependency on spending 30 points for the Burst Mastery trait and making warriors spend 20 points in Arms to get the benefit of Unsuspecting Foe. We also reduced the damage on the Earthshaker skill to separate the control from the damage. We don’t mind warriors doing massive damage, or doing great area-of-effect control, but we’re trying to prevent them from easily doing both. We also increased the readability of Skull Crack, which will allow opposing players to more easily react to it. Combustive Shot on the longbow also saw some rework. It will scale better with adrenaline levels and still provide strong burning per adrenaline level, but the raw damage was toned down slightly.

  • Strength III—Great Fortitude: Increased the conversion rate from 5% to 7%.
  • Strength 5—Reckless Dodge: Increased the damage by 25%.
  • Arms IV—Crack Shot: Moved to the Adept tier.
  • Arms VII—Unsuspecting Foe: Moved to the Master tier.
  • Arms XII—Last Chance: Increased the threshold from 25% to 50%. Reduced the cooldown from 45 seconds to 40 seconds.
  • Defense XII—Spiked Armor: Reduced the recharge from 15 seconds to 10 seconds.
  • Defense 25—Armored Attack: Increased the conversion rate from 5% to 10%.
  • Tactics 5—Determined Revival: This trait now correctly displays the amount of toughness.
  • Tactics 25—Reviver’s Might: This trait now applies 3 stacks of might instead of 1.
  • Discipline II—Thrill of the Kill: Increased the adrenaline gain from 1 to 10.
  • Discipline XI—Burst Mastery: Reduced the damage increase from 10% to 7%. Removed the erroneous adrenaline gain fact.
  • Earthshaker: Reduced the damage by 20%.
  • Staggering Blow: Reduced the damage by 23%.
  • Skull Crack: Increased the cast time from .25 seconds to .5 seconds. Updated the animation and effects of this skill to be more clear.
  • Combustive Shot: Increased the pulse duration to 3 seconds. Increased the burn duration per pulse to 3 seconds. Normalized the damage per pulse. Updated the pulses per adrenaline tier to 2, 3, and 4 respectively for adrenaline levels 1, 2, and 3.

Bug Fixes

  • Crack Shot: Added a piercing fact to the trait and to the affected skills when it is traited.
  • Healing Signet: Added an interval fact.
  • Eviscerate: Fixed a bug that caused the damage facts to display the damage levels with Burst Mastery at all times.
  • Uppercut: Fixed the damage facts in regards to Burst Mastery.
  • Earthshaker: Fixed the skill facts to indicate the damage increase when Burst Mastery is traited.
  • Forceful Shot: Fixed the skill facts to indicate the damage increase when Burst Mastery is traited.
  • Combustive Shot: Fixed an issue that caused the field to be created at incorrect locations when the warrior moved out of range of their initial target. Fixed the skill facts to indicate the damage increase when Burst Mastery is traited.
  • Skull Crack: Fixed the skill facts to indicate the damage increase when Burst Mastery is traited.
  • Kill Shot: Fixed the skill facts to indicate the damage increase when Burst Mastery is traited.
  • Berserker Stance: Rewrote the description to more clearly reflect the function of the skill.
  • Battle Standard—Whirlwind Banner: Edited the description and fixed some spelling errors.
  • Determined Revival: Updated this minor trait to indicate the toughness gained.
  • Call to Arms: Added an unblockable fact and range indicator to this skill.
  • Rifle Butt: Fixed a bug that prevented the knockback fact from displaying the correct distance.
  • Signet of Stamina: Fixed a bug that prevented this skill from properly removing all conditions.
  • Shrug It Off: Fixed a bug so that prevented the “Shake It Off!” skill triggered from this trait to properly break fear. Decreased the radius of Shrug It Off to 600 to match the radius of “Shake it Off!” Updated the facts to reflect the trait’s functionality.
  • “Shake It Off!”: Updated the skill fact for conditions removed to display the actual number of conditions removed.
  • Desperate Power: Fixed a bug in which this trait would work while above the intended health threshold.

Structured Player vs. Player

  • Increased the visibility of player nameplates and health bars while spectating.
  • To reduce the frequency of players leaving tournament matches, the maximum amount of dishonor has been reduced to 3.
  • To make Slayer and Conqueror achievements more attainable, we have added additional tiers to the achievements.

BLACK LION TRADING COMPANY GEM STORE
New Items and Promotions

  • New, exclusive faces have been added to the Total Makeover Kit. Three new faces for each race and gender have been added for a total of 30 new faces that can only be acquired from the Total Makeover Kit in the Gem Store.
  • The Collection Expander is now available in the Gem Store in the Upgrades category for 800 gems each. Each Collection Expander increases the stack size allowed for all collections by 250 to a maximum of 1000.
  • During the Wintersday celebration, every Black Lion Chest now contains 3 Giant Wintersday Gifts in addition to its usual rewards. Black Lion Chest Keys can be purchased in the Gem Store in the Consumable category for 125 gems each or 25 for 2100 gems.
  • The new Permanent Snow Globe Finisher is now available in the Gem Store in the Upgrades category for 700 gems. Drop one of four randomly selected, beautifully animated, snow globes on defeated foes.
  • Holiday Gifting Event
    • From now through December 31, players who send a gift to a friend can purchase that same item for themselves at 40% off! Let the sharing begin! All discounts must be claimed by 11:59 p.m. PST on December 31.
  • Improvements
    The Style category of the Gem Store is being streamlined, and the following pieces will no longer be available starting December 17^th^:
    • Bunny Ears
    • Aviator Sunglasses
    • Sport Sunglasses
    • Wide Rim Glasses
    • Boxing Gloves
    • Khaki Cargo Shorts
    • Riding Gloves
    • Riding Boots
    • Riding Pants
    • Layered Vest
    • Cherry Blossom Shirt
    • Ornate Ruched Shirt
    • Country Lace Gathered Shirt
    • Silk Brocade Vest with Shirt
    • Leather Hoodie
    • Casual Hoodie
    • Designer Hoodie
    • Fitted Casual Shirt
      Players who previously purchased these items will still retain the ability to use them.

(edited by Moderator)

SF/HoD/GoM Week of 11/8/13

in Match-ups

Posted by: Colt.9051

Colt.9051

Wow… this SF Dolyak effed me up just now….

Attachments:

Daeaera ~ Leader of Grape Justice! [FGJ]

SF/HoD/GoM Week of 11/8/13

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Posted by: Amarinth.2384

Amarinth.2384

Colt.9051:

Wow… this SF Dolyak effed me up just now….

Beware of our attack Dolyaks. They have acquired the taste for blood. >:)

Representing [Core of Sapphire Aliance] on Sorrow’s Furnace!
My Ranger will Porcupine your faise. :o

SF/HoD/GoM Week of 11/8/13

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Posted by: DisplayName.7802

DisplayName.7802

As promised lol.
Operation Solo Bay became Operation Redinkidink

Attachments:

Basic Banjo

SF/HoD/GoM Week of 11/8/13

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Posted by: Odies.8017

Odies.8017

[MU] Highlights from yesterday, great fights SF and GoM!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DO38lawx2NU

Apologize about the quality!

[MU] Gornok In Victori
Guild Leader
mugw2.enjin.com

SF/HoD/GoM Week of 11/8/13

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Posted by: Baron.8407

Baron.8407

JamboHammer.4397:

ya cuz as a zerker mes u can handle conf, burning, bleeding, torment, plus immob and stunlock and another kid protecting perplexity runes so sad these days its funny how all u “mesmers” say u can handle condi’s so well yet when i ran condi war every mesmer in my path was dead before the fight even started with those 20+ bleeds stacks and 7+ torment stacks plus being a complete and utter tank with massive condi dmg not even burst from a shatter could take me down and if u were smart at all about perplexity runes u are aware most ppl run 40% condi duration makeing there conf last 20 seconds and if u cant clear that being a zerker mesmer ur just a sitting duck unless in ur case u just run away like a little girl and still die to the 4 other condi’s he stacked on u ill gladly duel u if u wanna talk kitten and ill crush u. cuz necros are pretty simple if there not cheese running perplex and even with perplex necros have very little stun and daze so it would be pretty useless and just the fact that u didnt beat him shows u have no right to even call me out little man when u grow a pair let me know cuz ill sit u down on my mes war and thief funny part of ur post is i never died to a shatter mes so i probs killed u alot this week cuz i did fight alot of shatter mesmers lol most of hod and SF know who i am i was from nsp and also ur coming at me yet u cant beat a condi bomb necro? once they let out all there condi burst they are just a sitting duck just pop null field and clean it up and i do believe i never said i had problem with condi builds unless u add perplexity to it cuz if ur smart about the runes ur not just going off conf ur going off all the other condi’s u can stack like burning,bleeding,torment and on top of that the stunlock spam and easily stacked conf from perplexity and ill gladly hunt u down what guild are u from? ill make sure to camp u like i do to everyone else that talks kitten on these forums im over here talking about perplexity being op stacked with other condi’s and u cant even handle a condi necro u add perplexity to any class that can stack condi’s easily and that conf makes u a sitting duck to all the other condi dmg sitting on u. i love how u still come at my D cuz i said null field not arcane thievery and perplexity every skill u use can be rupted causeing 5 stacks of conf each time and there stuns have less of a cd then null field or arcane thievery, ill make sure i got one of my buds hunt u down while im at work and if u lose to him dont even bother to hit me up cuz im training him to become better u lose to him u will deff lose to me and he will tell u that after he stomps u several times. and ur still avoiding the fact that i asked u wat guild ur from and i bet u were one of the 5+ sf that tryed to jump me just now in gombl just to get trolled after 2 of u ran from me 1v2 funny thing is i dont even main mesmer, ill make sure when i come back from work ill kill u with my mes thief and war and i will change to my condi warrior build just for u. im not in the mood to hunt someone down that could be running the other direction if u wanna duel meet me at the eb jp around 9-10pm

I’ve made this into a wordle.

Attachments:

(edited by Baron.8407)

SF/HoD/GoM Week of 11/8/13

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Posted by: Zhentilar.5967

Zhentilar.5967

Man I love all this Smack Talk going on. I am actually surprised to see how competitive Bronze league is. Keep it up guys.

Dropping from Gold to Silver league myself. I have noticed that the lower ranked worlds seem to rely more on siege than open field combat. We generally expect to take on twice our number on the open field to pull out a win, in some cases three times if we catch them correctly.

As pointed out earlier you will probably find MU is a little more organized than other guilds at this level. They have had time to refine their tactics open field, training new recruits shouldn’t be a problem. Run this build, drop this when we call for it, and stay on the target at all times.

Not kittence you have done this for a week.

(edited by Zhentilar.5967)

SF/HoD/GoM Week of 11/8/13

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Posted by: clint.5681

clint.5681

I dont even know whats happening in this thread anymore

Rangir Dangir – Ranger | Mr. Ragr- Guardian| Sneak Stab – Thief | Mr. Ragir- Warrior
[url=https://] [/url]

Guard Leech, Applied Fortitude Brokenly OP

in WvW

Posted by: Lorelei.3918

Lorelei.3918

azurerogue.9240:

Unless you’re going to argue that getting 3 stacks of bloodlust also takes equal effort to earning 230 world experience levels (which also require a trade off in NOT getting other skills), I don’t see the problem with it giving less stats.

Turns out, MMOs (almost every one) favor older players. Sorry.

Let me tell you about a town. This town had a tradition. Once a year every one in the town would get together and pull straws out of a hat. One straw was shorter then the others. Whoever pulled the short straw was forced out of the crowd.

The crowd then picked up stones off the ground and threw them at the person with the short straw till he/she died.

When asked why they stoned someone to death every year, the townfolk replied

“Why, that’s just the way it is. We’ve always done things that way.”

…
…

Do you see the problem here? Just because something is ‘tradition’ doesn’t make it right, nor does it mean it shouldn’t be changed.

SF/HoD/GoM Week of 11/8/13

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Posted by: Shiver.5903

Shiver.5903

Odies.8017:
beyonder.9735:

O god [MU] how much more do u wanna brag?? u guys come from T1 come down to bronze where its quite obvious most of the servers/guilds down here don’t have the knowledge or experience of BG/JQ or w.e other top tier servers u guys have played in but then transfer and do all this “amazing stuff” and then rub it in.. but i mean how good are you really if you had to transfer down to bronze and pick your fights where u know work is needed in most of the servers down here big time.. not to mention its a whole guild of you guys that made the move. thinking about the givin situation im really not so impressed anymore… but i guess keep trolling the forums to boost your own ego.

Hey beyonder.9735,

I’m sorry that you got frustrated with our posts on these forums but the main reason to do them was to get SF to come out and fight and they did. We were not here to brag or “thump our chests” as some people say.

We did not transferred the whole guild down here, only 5 MU came down to HoD to help the server in training in all aspects of WvW. The rest of MU members now have come from HoD and never have fought in the “top tiers”. We were sick of the tier 1 ques and tactics and wanted to move down to help a server.

So next time you make a troll post about your frustration do the research before making false accusations and also my account name is here and I’m more than welcome to talk in whispers.

I hope SF as a whole is having as much fun as we are and take this as a way to improve your tactics. We are also more than welcome to talk and help out as much as we can.

Good 3-way fights in Garrison and Vale-Bay-Briar area on SF at NA primetime.

The SF zerg blotted out of sun, but you did not falter HoD! Not that your own zerg was not impressive, but it seemed to us SF had brought ’The Mother of All Zergs" on the field yesterday.

Also gratz on moving down MU. Not many do it, but it helps in the big picture of making WvW more competitive, and there is plenty of fun to be had in Bronze.

Anyways good stuff everyone, see you around.

- Your trustworthy thief from [ASH]

SF/HoD/GoM Week of 11/8/13

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Posted by: Tongku.5326

Tongku.5326

At least you guys arent complaining about our FARM people, its our “newbie” training tag that we do every so often, so you know if you see them, expect them to be what they are.

Some guys in our last match were so hard up on our little FARM we run about once or twice a week it was pathetic. They were so raging, and on top of that they were supposed to be serious WvW guilds

SF has gotten some individual person transfers from upper tiers for the largely same reasons, but we have never had any large guild hop down to us and stay. Only guild that did was VS, they were cool, they said upfront they werent staying, just goin to hang out and do some WvW for a month or 2. So they said what they were going to do, and did what they said which is all right.

It’d be nice to get an off-peak time transfer, but on the other hand, we dont want temps or fairweathers or rather “lagweathers” sorta speak.

Heavy Deedz – COSA – SF

SF/HoD/GoM Week of 11/8/13

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Posted by: Mercabre.7123

Mercabre.7123

Great fights all around today! SF BL was insane.

Thuefore | Rieaz, Mag [VLK]
Grammar aside I probably have a point in there somewhere.

(edited by Mercabre.7123)

SF/HoD/GoM Week of 11/8/13

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Posted by: borrok.9267

borrok.9267

Odies.8017:
beyonder.9735:

O god [MU] how much more do u wanna brag?? u guys come from T1 come down to bronze where its quite obvious most of the servers/guilds down here don’t have the knowledge or experience of BG/JQ or w.e other top tier servers u guys have played in but then transfer and do all this “amazing stuff” and then rub it in.. but i mean how good are you really if you had to transfer down to bronze and pick your fights where u know work is needed in most of the servers down here big time.. not to mention its a whole guild of you guys that made the move. thinking about the givin situation im really not so impressed anymore… but i guess keep trolling the forums to boost your own ego.

Hey beyonder.9735,

I’m sorry that you got frustrated with our posts on these forums but the main reason to do them was to get SF to come out and fight and they did. We were not here to brag or “thump our chests” as some people say.

We did not transferred the whole guild down here, only 5 MU came down to HoD to help the server in training in all aspects of WvW. The rest of MU members now have come from HoD and never have fought in the “top tiers”. We were sick of the tier 1 ques and tactics and wanted to move down to help a server.

So next time you make a troll post about your frustration do the research before making false accusations and also my account name is here and I’m more than welcome to talk in whispers.

I hope SF as a whole is having as much fun as we are and take this as a way to improve your tactics. We are also more than welcome to talk and help out as much as we can.

Actually I learned tremendously of how zergs should function intelligently. I think most of SF is having a lot of fun here. The soul fact that our zergs have stopped being zombies(the ones I’m apart of) is awesome. Granted, that isn’t to say that HoD is better in any way, but it seems as though HoD came in strong with numbers and tactics while we being complacent had unorganized numbers and limited use of tactics. I think the battles will get better because of the tightening up, and I was promised cake at one of your keeps. Or assumed there was cake there… Probably promised.

Teef master race

SF/HoD/GoM Week of 11/8/13

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Posted by: Odies.8017

Odies.8017

Sorry for all of the jabs on the forums SF but we wanted you to come out and fight and we got our response. You guys still need to work on some things but keep it coming and can’t wait for next week also.

[MU] Gornok In Victori
Guild Leader
mugw2.enjin.com

SF/HoD/GoM Week of 11/8/13

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Posted by: villenio.1289

villenio.1289

LoL keep up the great fights SF

Plz take the trolling as motivation for next weeks match up. As fuel for ur fire.

Its the fight of the 2013 and we want u all to keeep on trucking. Show us no mercy!!

Villenio [Dx]

SF/HoD/GoM Week of 11/8/13

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Posted by: clint.5681

clint.5681

TeamBattleAxe.3901:
clint.5681:
TeamBattleAxe.3901:
Mercabre.7123:
styx.7294:

Look, I understand, Henge of Denravi wants to feel kitten but I am going to give you tough love. It’s ’cause I care.

“Slowed down?” More like tucked tail and hid under the rug. NSP tried to do the same but got called out on it, and their roaming guilds that don’t normally care about PPT actually rose up to carry their server to silver. I still like my pals on HoD and SF, but as whole servers, you’re still a bunch of cowards for tanking to dodge silver league.

Ahh we never had a chance at silver, we were rank 20 before the leagues started and hadn’t been above rank 18 since august. Not sure why you threw our name in there. Complaining about HoD not going to silver will get you nowhere anyway since only a set number of servers could be in silver at one time. So either you would have got NSP or IOJ or HoD but you would have been complaining either way.

My apologies, there were three servers accused of tanking at the time and I think I got SF mixed up with KN (who ended up just being hit with massive population drops instead of actually tanking).

Either way, I’m definitely not complaining. Most of our matches will be against tougher opponents anyways and I much prefer that than roflstomping servers below us. I do, however, question the testicular fortitude of players who would rather dip than play. Why play a game if there’s no challenge to it? To each their own, I guess. I can’t see any fun in buying a game, then immediately setting it to Easy and feeling good about succeeding at it.

Ahh i feel you, thats why this match is more interesting for me than the last 3 weeks of rolfstomping the rest of bronze.

Rangir Dangir – Ranger | Mr. Ragr- Guardian| Sneak Stab – Thief | Mr. Ragir- Warrior
[url=https://] [/url]

SF/HoD/GoM Week of 11/8/13

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Posted by: Storm Sunstarr.8470

Storm Sunstarr.8470

This league fight has made a lot of people re-evaluate their universe in WvW. New strategies and play styles, extraordinary forum warring, and heaps of bodies on the ground. As they say, you can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs:

Attachments:

Aurora Sunstarr, leader of Sunstarr Clan [Suns]
Sorrows Furnace
“Youth and strength can always be overcome by old age and treachery!”

SF/HoD/GoM Week of 11/8/13

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Posted by: doublebb.6574

doublebb.6574

Hey HoD and SF, Anet is talking about you guys!
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/world-vs-world-midseasonreport/

They also mention the week where DH came right from behind FC and took 1st (by camping out GoM’s bl for a few days straight but hey, whatever)

| Kyroen~Sylv Thief | Resliana Oryk~Norn Warr |
| Im Dying Im Dying~Sylv Mesmer (in progress)| Oh Wait Im Fine Nvm~Norn Necro (in progress) |
Gate of Madness~Proud Officer of [ASH]

SF/HoD/GoM Week of 11/8/13

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Posted by: Tongku.5326

Tongku.5326

Seraphx.4152:

Being the main Asian guild in HoD, a lot of times we couldn’t find a good enemy group to fight with. Not only in this matchup.

But this is the first time we do this, sending 10 Omega…
No hard feelings SF, we are just bored.

Yea its coverage wars.

by
[Dx]

Yup, we knew this long before this match started. It is you guys that wins the league for HoD. Otherwise it would be tight and exciting. On the other hand, we had some awesome fights during prime time.

The HoD hammertrains are very well coordinated, effective and deadly, we will not be able to work out a counter to that for a while, though we have some decent ideas and tactics in the workings, time is not on our side

Heavy Deedz – COSA – SF

(edited by Tongku.5326)

SF/HoD/GoM Week of 11/8/13

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Posted by: Tongku.5326

Tongku.5326

Hi all

Just wanted to clear up a few things about us, CoSA, and our coverage. CoSA is 3 guilds with different reqs.

1. Red=PvE / PvX / Casual WvW. This is primarily a PvE guild requiring 95%+ rep time. The only exceptions we make to this are if you are doing our servers FARM training event, if you are in TTS and need to be on a different server (guesting) for appropriate event, or if you are an officer in different CoSA and are doing administrative work between the sister guilds. CoSA Red uses VOIP, however, it is preferred, not required.

2. CoSA Blue has an appropriately geared, trained, coordinated and very good zerg busting group, but unfortunately it may not seem like it when going up against us because we are all mixed up if we run larger then 20 people. CoSA Blue has people from other guilds often runing with us many of whom are Blue members so they can switch to rep and use guild chat for communication purposes, consequently, the rep reqs for CoSA Blue are much lower then those of CoSA Red or Green. Blue is dedicated to WvW, and if having people rep other guilds to strengthen the server goes to that end, so be it.

3. CoSA Green is between the 2 above, it is in constant flux and tends to be the starting guild for brand new WvW players.

4. CoSA likes to play together, no matter which branch. We are on 1 VOIP and often have reps in other guilds VOIP for coordination.

5. The reason we stay on 1 map is simple. We have Queues during NA prime time, and we are unable to hop maps preserving our core group. If we can not switch maps and have our core stay together, we will not do so. Note that this was not the case before leagues started because tehre were no ques.

6. Our core group, regardless which branch they come from, are properly geared etc. but our other players may or may not be and when you fight us, this does show up. Although our PVE players are actually working on their gear sets etc. it will be a while until they all catch up at best. This is a long term gain for our server which is currently still “in development”. Once done it will be a different story

So if you were trying to join CoSA and got turned off by rep reqs, then maybe you joined wrong CoSA for wrong purpose ? Should have asked before hand right ?

Heavy Deedz – COSA – SF

SF/HoD/GoM Week of 11/8/13

in Match-ups

Posted by: ptitminou.6489

ptitminou.6489

Bllade.1029:
Solstice.1097:

In NA Bronze league:

HoD has the most total 24/7 numbers

SF has the strongest NA Prime force

DH does not outnumber HoD. Maybe on a particular map or a particular time of day but in general, no that is false.

I agree with this completely. Here’s my take on it, unbiased as I can possibly be.

HoD’s coverage (overnight guilds) and an extremely strong reset night, has ALWAYS gave them an advantage over any server in Bronze league, but as far as prime time goes SF is a monster.

Now what HoD’s prime time basically boils down to is multiple WvW guilds working in unison with each other, small to medium WvW guilds.

SF has CoSabut as someone stated earlier (which I believe was a CoSa member), they are usually only in one place with everything they’ve got; but its one hell of a force to contend with.

The only reason SF won’t be able to keep up with HoD is because a lack of oceanic coverage. If they could recruit some oceanic guilds, SF and HoD would be a dream match in bronze league.

As far as skill level goes, I haven’t had much confrontation with GoM this match so I wouldn’t be able to say, but SF has shown some pretty great coordination.

Would I say the average HoD player is better than SF? No.

Would I say SF vastly outnumber HoD? No.

But what I would say is that HoD’s WvW guilds and their leaders have an absolutely amazing response time, and a great synergy when coordinating with one another. That’s where I believe most of HoD’s success lies, is in the willingness and cooperation of it’s WvW guilds.

I would also say that SF’s success lies in absolutely dominating at prime time through huge groups of coordinated players, judging by the way they move so tight on the commander i’m assuming you guys are also on a VoiP. That’s very impressive, if there’s one challenge here on HoD it’s getting pugs to move and fight like a collective force. SF has got that down pretty well. I think SF has also got a lot of great commanders and I can only imagine how frustrating it must be to get such a large group of players on the same page.

So all in all here’s to the most competitive match HoD has had in Bronze league, been a lot of fun, GoM i’m sorry you guys got put in the middle of this, I hear that DH match up was so close people were pulling all-nighters to see you guys on top. I hope we all should be so lucky to get a competitive match-up like that.

Hi, it was me who said that CoSA only can be at one place. I am in ICE/ICED though you will see me a lot with the StaR crew. I will never join a guild that requires that I rep them if I dont feel like it or feel like running with another guild… which means I only have 1 guild for now since this server has too big an ego trip for the success it actually has.

As a server, we are not all on the same VoIP which hurts us a lot. Judging by HoD response times, I would be very surprised to find you on different VoIPs. We are. There is a TS set up like T1, then there is mumble, one group uses ventrilo, and then there is the Spanish TS and of course this one random transfer guild that came in using raidcall. Pugs drag us down for the most part here too, they arent even in 1 of those VoIPs… if anything we offer choice! Not only is it hard to get them to listen, but you have to also try en espanol, since we are the biggest Spanish server. If MU keeps it up, perhaps some commanders will get a clue and stop supporting those in the wrong gear. Imagine how strong a force CoSA would be in PTV gear… you’re trembling now, aren’t you?

We went for the SM achieve yesterday and saw how bad your pugs were. However, it seems you lot did great in getting them to gear properly, our pugs still think PTV is for tanking in PvE ( we have never downed Tequatl as a server ). One thing you must improve in I guess is training them not to hide behind siege (it rarely works anyways) – look at how Yak’s Bend does with almost equal numbers. That’s where hiding behind siege leads.

kitten kitten kitten kitten kitten kitten kitten kitten kitten kitten kitten kitten kitten kitten
Because censorship is the most important part of the MMO business.

SF/HoD/GoM Week of 11/8/13

in Match-ups

Posted by: King Amadaeus.8619

King Amadaeus.8619

Bllade.1029:
Solstice.1097:

In NA Bronze league:

HoD has the most total 24/7 numbers

SF has the strongest NA Prime force

DH does not outnumber HoD. Maybe on a particular map or a particular time of day but in general, no that is false.

I agree with this completely. Here’s my take on it, unbiased as I can possibly be.

HoD’s coverage (overnight guilds) and an extremely strong reset night, has ALWAYS gave them an advantage over any server in Bronze league, but as far as prime time goes SF is a monster.

Now what HoD’s prime time basically boils down to is multiple WvW guilds working in unison with each other, small to medium WvW guilds.

SF has CoSabut as someone stated earlier (which I believe was a CoSa member), they are usually only in one place with everything they’ve got; but its one hell of a force to contend with.

The only reason SF won’t be able to keep up with HoD is because a lack of oceanic coverage. If they could recruit some oceanic guilds, SF and HoD would be a dream match in bronze league.

As far as skill level goes, I haven’t had much confrontation with GoM this match so I wouldn’t be able to say, but SF has shown some pretty great coordination.

Would I say the average HoD player is better than SF? No.

Would I say SF vastly outnumber HoD? No.

But what I would say is that HoD’s WvW guilds and their leaders have an absolutely amazing response time, and a great synergy when coordinating with one another. That’s where I believe most of HoD’s success lies, is in the willingness and cooperation of it’s WvW guilds.

I would also say that SF’s success lies in absolutely dominating at prime time through huge groups of coordinated players, judging by the way they move so tight on the commander i’m assuming you guys are also on a VoiP. That’s very impressive, if there’s one challenge here on HoD it’s getting pugs to move and fight like a collective force. SF has got that down pretty well. I think SF has also got a lot of great commanders and I can only imagine how frustrating it must be to get such a large group of players on the same page.

So all in all here’s to the most competitive match HoD has had in Bronze league, been a lot of fun, GoM i’m sorry you guys got put in the middle of this, I hear that DH match up was so close people were pulling all-nighters to see you guys on top. I hope we all should be so lucky to get a competitive match-up like that.

I think that pretty much sums it up, and is just about as accurate as you can get. Refreshing to see an unbiased post that at least acknowledges your servers strengths and weaknesses while doing the same for other servers.

As opposed to the classic: “Your server is bad we have superior coordination” jargon that you mainly get on these threads.

Mag Server Leader

SF/HoD/GoM Week of 11/8/13

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Posted by: capmasterflash.5690

capmasterflash.5690

Brick Tamland.6507:

Nice try seed.

My boy Back Stabbed! I’ve been loving seeing my picture in all the [MU] screenshots.

Great fights GoM and SF!

Also, nice post Blade. While I agree with everything you said, I don’t think SF’s WvW guilds require the same level of detail in build uniformity and group composition that some of the HoD WvW guilds do. Back in tier 1 and 2, you really had to looking to find somebody walking around w/ glass armor on. I find that in Bronze league there is a movable feast of squishy bads roaming about.

[MU]- my name is red
Asura Thief/Ele
HoD

(edited by capmasterflash.5690)

SF/HoD/GoM Week of 11/8/13

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Posted by: Bllade.1029

Bllade.1029

Solstice.1097:

In NA Bronze league:

HoD has the most total 24/7 numbers

SF has the strongest NA Prime force

DH does not outnumber HoD. Maybe on a particular map or a particular time of day but in general, no that is false.

I agree with this completely. Here’s my take on it, unbiased as I can possibly be.

HoD’s coverage (overnight guilds) and an extremely strong reset night, has ALWAYS gave them an advantage over any server in Bronze league, but as far as prime time goes SF is a monster.

Now what HoD’s prime time basically boils down to is multiple WvW guilds working in unison with each other, small to medium WvW guilds.

SF has CoSabut as someone stated earlier (which I believe was a CoSa member), they are usually only in one place with everything they’ve got; but its one hell of a force to contend with.

The only reason SF won’t be able to keep up with HoD is because a lack of oceanic coverage. If they could recruit some oceanic guilds, SF and HoD would be a dream match in bronze league.

As far as skill level goes, I haven’t had much confrontation with GoM this match so I wouldn’t be able to say, but SF has shown some pretty great coordination.

Would I say the average HoD player is better than SF? No.

Would I say SF vastly outnumber HoD? No.

But what I would say is that HoD’s WvW guilds and their leaders have an absolutely amazing response time, and a great synergy when coordinating with one another. That’s where I believe most of HoD’s success lies, is in the willingness and cooperation of it’s WvW guilds.

I would also say that SF’s success lies in absolutely dominating at prime time through huge groups of coordinated players, judging by the way they move so tight on the commander i’m assuming you guys are also on a VoiP. That’s very impressive, if there’s one challenge here on HoD it’s getting pugs to move and fight like a collective force. SF has got that down pretty well. I think SF has also got a lot of great commanders and I can only imagine how frustrating it must be to get such a large group of players on the same page.

So all in all here’s to the most competitive match HoD has had in Bronze league, been a lot of fun, GoM i’m sorry you guys got put in the middle of this, I hear that DH match up was so close people were pulling all-nighters to see you guys on top. I hope we all should be so lucky to get a competitive match-up like that.

[VLK] – No one ever complains about bad Thieves, they die.

SF/HoD/GoM Week of 11/8/13

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Posted by: babazhook.6805

babazhook.6805

The perception that a person from SF might have in the field that HOD numbers greater is more often then not their seeing a group from another Bl arrive in the nick of time to save the day.

This means of course those other Borderland numbers drop.

I have also noticed that different servers put a different emphasis on each Borderland. While true to an extent of every server the eternal battlegrounds draw the most numbers. While this makes for huge zerg fights and while one must remain competitive in the eternal battlegrounds , too much numbers allocated to that battleground could do more harm then good if it comes at the expense of your others.

Realistically one can not measure the true numbers on at any given time unless one is on every borderland at the same time at any given time as every server will bounce with numbers from borderland to borderland. Where one server might have an advantage over another is how many people are WILLING to leave the Eternal Battlegrounds fights to help out in another region when the call goes out.

There have been times on HOD where no one was willing to leave the eternal battlegrounds fight , and other times where an entire guild and more will pull out to help. The latter happens more often then not.

Those 20 extra bodies fighting over stone mist which has swapped hands 15 times over during the day when looking at simply the number of points scored, will have a greater overall effect on that score if they shift instead to another borderland.

If of a sudden the number of HOD fighting over stonemist drops by thirty and shows at the SF homeland to defend a keep, it does not mean SF was “outnumbered at every fight”.

There have been many times a handful of us rotate dying in a lords keep due to overwhelming numbers, hanging on just long enough for that help to arrive. Yeah we die but we know help is coming. I watch that chat and see the “hold on a few more seconds we will be there” and I do all I can to survive.

I have seen 10 or 15 and more of the enemy leap off the walls of a keep they hold and flee when the gates go down and a larger HOD force enters. This tells me they are not expecting help.

SF/HoD/GoM Week of 11/8/13

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Posted by: clint.5681

clint.5681

I think what he was saying is that HoD had no reason to field as many numbers against DH as they have against SF since you weren’t a real threat to them. So keeping that in mind we could very well be fighting a different HoD than you fought a few days ago since I assume they came out the gate taking us seriously.

That being said it was a competitive weekend HoD and it was fun and you have given my server stuff to think about and shown us more ways to improve. The few times I was on this weekend I saw some interesting tactics and you do seem to have a guild or two that specializes in zergbusting.

Rangir Dangir – Ranger | Mr. Ragr- Guardian| Sneak Stab – Thief | Mr. Ragir- Warrior
[url=https://] [/url]

(edited by clint.5681)

SF/HoD/GoM Week of 11/8/13

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Posted by: Solstice.1097

Solstice.1097

In NA Bronze league:

HoD has the most total 24/7 numbers

SF has the strongest NA Prime force

DH does not outnumber HoD. Maybe on a particular map or a particular time of day but in general, no that is false.

SF/HoD/GoM Week of 11/8/13

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Posted by: Sko.5048

Sko.5048

King Amadaeus.8619:
Sean.8274:
Sko.5048:

We also had a number of our guildies (FKB) stay up all night this past weekend. It has been quite a push.

Coverage aside, I think this matchup is the most balanced by far. Cosa and the SF crews definitely give our WVW guilds (FKB, MU, VLK) a run for our money. SF is also pretty savy at supply control and nabbing camps just before the tick. I think we’re all learning a lot from each other.

Here’s to 10 more days of fun!

Yeah, I am pretty sure BC commanded for a good 18 hours straight Saturday->Sunday

Does anyone else find this ridiculously sad? Why would you stay up all night and day for a game other than having a legitimate addiction issue?

My (honest) advice to anyone on ANY server is to play hard the time you are on for, have fun, and do not worry about PPT/Scores….You all have a finite amount of time you will play this game, why waste that staying up all night worrying over something that is largely controlled by forces beyond you?

Meh, we’re all playing the same game, albeit to varying degrees. I know a number of friends who think that simply playing an online computer game is “sad.” To each his own.

Bigbadsanta – Yes, the I’m that big norn thief in HOD that looks like Santa Claus.