Guild Wars 2

Kinda difficult to stay frontline as Mesmer without relying on some kind of Minstrel’s/Boonshare build. But your power will be poor.

I’ve tried to circumnavigate this by theorycrafting a Commander’s/Distortionshare build with your power sitting just under 2500 as well as your armour, but condi’s are still very much a problem. And your health sits at a lowly 16k.
I’ve also experimented on Power/Healing Power/Distortionshare but, again, condi’s still manage to wreck you and you’re left with a low health pool and low armour. (I’m tempted to give this build another shot after a tune up maybe. The idea of landing a devastating 3-Clone Shatter, whilst replenishing loads of health is super appealing)

Currently, however, I’m working a fresh spin of an old Phantasm build I used to run. So far I’m sitting at just over 2500 Power, 2200 Armour, 19k Health, 54% Crit Chance and 206% Crit Damage. Again, I’m using Signets for the Distortion and Condi Clear. (Note: iDisenchanter can remove an extra condi if you spec for Illusionary Inspiration) As for Armour/Trinkets, I’ve used Marauders for Armour and Zerkers for everything else. And I’m running Dolyak Runes for the Vit/Toughness.

Just two glaring cons with this build:

1. It’s Core Mesmer, so you’ll need a Scepter for clone upkeep.
2. Everything is Ascended with full WvW Infusions. (Mighty on Weapons, Vital on Armour & Precise on Trinkets)

Finally, I haven’t spec’d for Heal on Shatter in order to ensure damage from my Phantasms with Protected Phantasms, though I suspect I’ll probably need to change this.

Improved LFG

How do you even improve on “Where’s the Tag?”, “Join Squad pls.” or “Join us in TS/Disc!”??

McKenna Berdrow.2759:

Hello everyone,

Many of you have been inquiring as to why we made the decision to remove the crafting stations in WvW. We made this decision because we have been seeing an increase in queue times with world linking. Upon observation we found there have been players taking up space in the maps who are only crafting and not participating with their teams. However, we’ve been listening to your feedback today and we wanted to let you know that we will be adding a banker to each team starting area in EB, Alpine and Desert. Thank you for the continued feedback!

Yes! Thankyou!

Yaaay now I get to lose all my stacks if ever I need to get to a bank without having the T3 a Keep. Thanks ANet. Swell job.

Tumult.2578:

KalasDelRio.8921:

GG to everyone thinking they’ll just be able to AFK the reward track in WvW. You’ll only be giving Anet a reason to reduce the inactivity timer, which they probably should do come to think of it.

And it’d be hilarious if they actually did. Afk for one tick = booted from WvW and no points for participation.

Yeah, none of these Pve’rs are smart enough to use all your supply everywhere building worthless seige. That’s not an issue is it. Even if that seige wont defend when there’s no supply to repair.

The fact that we’re even discussing the pontentiality of PvE’rs trying to ruin WvW over this just goes to show how petty the complaint is. How can they expect Anet to take the matter seriously if all they’re going to do is throw a tantrum and ruin things for others if they don’t get their way?

GG to everyone thinking they’ll just be able to AFK the reward track in WvW. You’ll only be giving Anet a reason to reduce the inactivity timer, which they probably should do come to think of it.

And it’d be hilarious if they actually did. Afk for one tick = booted from WvW and no points for participation.

Y tung.1942:

There we go again, a typical WvW guy who has this in his/her mind ‘’If I want to make a PVE LEGENDARY I have to do pve so you pve people also have to suffer and do WvW to be fair’‘.
In the first place we’re talking about pve legendary, if you only care about WvW why would you even consider going for it at the first place? So far I have not yet seen any only focused on wvw guy being able to afford a legendary by just doing wvw (gold wise). Since you barely get any gold from doing that stuff. I’m pretty sure you’ll find a lot of wvw people who has a legendary that actually either spent real life money for gems/gold exchange or went into pve to get the amount of gold they need for the gift of fortune/precursor. So at some point you’ll have to do pve anyways unless you are ready to spend some RL money.

Yeah we literally have no other choice but to go into PvE to amass gold for Legendary weapons. However, if we were given the chance to get decent amounts of gold solely in WvW I guarantee a lot of us would do just that. The Gifts however are a different ball game. Do you really think WvW players want to run about in PvE to get the Gift of exploration? Why can’t we have a vendor to be able to get that easily?

Oh yeah, that’s right, ’cause you have to earn it. Same deal applies for this Gift now. 500 badges was easy to get if you just ran the eotm train. Which you can still do now btw.

All I see here is: “Boo hoo! I can’t show off my shiny PvP badge in WvW eventhough it isn’t even relevant to WvW.”

WvW doesn’t care about your badge.

Aeristoreine.9351:

Please revert the change and allow us to purchase the gift of battle from vendor with badges again. This change was totally unnecessary. Why force people to play wvw through this way? If you want ppl to play wvw, then make a change so desirable that people wants to play it. Not everyone is interested in wvw and not everyone will therefore read the patch notes under wvw.

First you stopped legendary development and now you make things harder for us. Good job ANET, you are losing players very quickly.

The components needed to make a legendary aren’t supposed to be easy to get, so attaining the Gift of Battle via the reward track seems perfectly reasonable to me.

We asked for the reward track and we’ve been complaining about Badges being redundant for ages now. But just because now its a little harder to get something and you have to actually put a little effort in, you suddenly want it the easy way. You people baffle me.

Besides, the time you spend here moaning could be time spent grinding that reward track.

Yo have you seen the Vote Results though? It’s currently 61% in favour of keeping the DBL and the poll needs 75% to remove it. Wind your neck in bro.

Wolfvox.7854:

Not everyone uses the forums. Not everyone responds to the polls. I even know some avid WVW players who knew nothing about the polls.

Tyler Bearce.3427:

We chose to target active players for polls, because they are actually playing WvW and thus have the largest stake in the result. Many inactive players may never come back, or come back only briefly. We don’t think it would be fair to let the votes of those who have quit playing shape the result for those that are still playing.

Dunno about you man, but I’ve been getting in-game mails about these polls. And if people are too lazy or stubborn to sign up to the forum to cast their vote, then that’s just too kitten bad. Evidently they don’t care about WvW as much as they say they do.

Just seems to me that there are far too many people kittening about these polls when this is the most communication we’ve had from the Devs ever. Just cast your vote using the polls and take part in re-shaping WvW, or don’t vote at all and keep on kittening from the sidelines.

It depends on what build your running I suppose. I used to run a Condi build with Mirror Images so whenever I initiated a fight, I’d pop my F5 ability followed by Mirror Images & my F2 ability to land an instant Confusion burst. Then the F5 ability would kick in and allow me to play that burst all over again.

It’s only supposed to refresh the skills you’ve used in the short time before the second part of the ability activates.

Well played! That group was easily over 8 players. If anything that was three-times the size of your party.

Gaile Gray.6029:

So, good news!

• You (collectively) spoke.
• The team listened.
• Things are changed for the better, judging from the large number of votes in favor of this switch.
• Obviously, this is not all that’s coming, but it was a matter of importance to the WvW community, and it’s a good start, eh?

This is excellent news!

Glad to finally see this recent communication paying off already. Let’s keep it going!

Mike O Brien.4613:

Hi all,

This is a great thread. It’s constructive. We’re all reading it and referring to it in team discussions.

As we said in the AMA, our top internal priorities have been population balance and rewards. From this thread, your top five priorities are, in order:
1. Stability & skill balance
2. Fix or revert DBL
3. Rewards
4. Population balance
5. Scoring

Yes, we will take the feedback and make stability, general skill balance, and fixing/reverting DBL our top priorities. We’re not currently working on scoring and that has to be a longer-term project.

Karl is working specifically on WvW-focused skill balance. He’s looking for the wins for WvW that don’t screw the rest of the game.

We’re investigating whether to fix or revert DBL. They’re both a lot of work. These next couple days will be your last chance to give feedback before we make a decision, so speak now or forever hold your peace.

I want to reiterate that everything we work on either ships in April or starts beta-testing on Live servers in April. We’re locking down dev work for the April release soon — next up is localization, QA, integration and regression testing — but we’ll extend the deadline for WvW skill balance.

There is one thing that doesn’t need to get wrapped up into the April release: Friday night resets. That doesn’t require a Live build. We’ll do it.

Mo

I’m so glad to have read this! Things are definitely looking to be on the up. There’ll probably be a bunch of naysayers not wanting to get their hopes up but consider mine well and truly up there!

100% Friday resets!!

Gaile Gray.6029:

Thanks. I mean that: Thanks. The variety of and the thought behind the suggestions — whether details are expressed in this thread or stated as a synopsis of other shared comments or written elsewhere in the forums — really will help the team.

KalasDelRio — As you could tell from Mike O’Brien’s comments in the AMA last week — synopsis here — there will be more communication and more meaningful communication. Yes, I believe there will be discussions with forum members as changes are being contemplated, although of course that will come from someone actively involved with the development of WvW.

Sviel — I would recommend hope. Yes, I’m naturally an optimist, but I believe there is true cause for hope, too.

iZakari — Agree, except “constant” and “continuously” may be difficult. If someone is talking about the game, they can’t be developing the game, and we all agree development is key. I’m thinking “frequent” or “regular” have a nice ring to them. Agree?

Baldrick — current information gathering enhances what the devs already have gleaned from their own gameplay, observation, tester input, and forum commentary. It’s not a new initiative. Devs are assigned to WvW, you can be assured of that. (Just as you can be assured that no one has ever spoken for me but me. I’m the same person who joined ArenaNet in 2000, and I’m the only one who uses this name. Whatcha think, I’m a made-up identity, a la Betty Crocker? )

Loosmater — Thanks for the faith. I will try to live up to that. I won’t be the person making the changes — and the devs of course are the important element of all this — but I will endeavour to help with the comms side of things!

Thank you for the reply. Seeing your presence in a thread which is rapidly growing in importance and brimming with ideas is reassuring to me as well as many others, I’m sure.

Hi Gaile – Kind of an off-topic question:

What type of communication from you guys can we expect to see as a result of these threads? It’s great that you’re watching them and have taken the time to let us know that but, going forward, will we be informed of ideas and suggestions you’re actually taking from them before the team implements any future changes, if at all?

With that said, here’s my top 5:

1. Changes to the Desert Maps then rotate with the Alpine Maps:

Whilst I appreciate the idea of the Desert Maps providing new features and gameplay options, there are significant changes that need to be made before the WvW community as a whole will accept them; Less vertical, Less gimmicks, Revert Waypoints, Nerf Siege, etc. I also understand the issue of not simply just being able to switch the borderlands back to the Alpine Maps, however. So until such a time comes when the maps can be rotated, the changes toward the Desert Map should be deemed as high priority. This will be the most direct way to show that things really are on the up for WvW.

2. Rewards & Loot

The payout for WvW has forever been an issue, especially for many of us who only play this gametype. Maybe a Rewards Track, similar to sPvP could be the way forward? Naturally the most favorable answer would be anything that makes it sustainable to play WvW only, without having the venture into PvE for Gold/Gear. Karma could work here as the current WvW Karma Vendors hold nothing of value for hardcore WvW players. A revamp of those could be a viable option.

3. Separate Skill Balance for WvW

WvW’s combat approach is vastly different to anything you’ll find in PvE and somewhat PvP (Except for roaming maybe). Yet we constantly feel like we’re at the bottom of the bucket when it comes to skill balancing. Oftentimes we’re coerced into finding manageable workarounds for the Meta that seems governed by PvP or PvE, with almost no regard to how they might affect things in WvW. Splitting skill balancing (like in GW1) between PvP/WvW & PvE, with more of a thought on how changes will affect the large-group combat, seems like an ideal solution to me.

4. Tournaments

Quarterly, Bi-Annual, something, anything? Whilst it’s great to run around all week, bashing our faces into doors, walls and practically everything else in WvW, it wouldn’t hurt to have some sense of achievement every once in a while. I’m asking for something that will create memorable moments within WvW, that will keep players coming back and entice new players to join in. PvE has the Living Stories and sPvP has their own Seasons. But don’t you think it’s time for WvW to have its’ own Superbowl? Something that we’ll all look back on with pride and definitely look forward to in the future. Maybe a season format similar to MLS or BPL with pre-set fixtures pitting completely different servers against each other in order to promote population balance. Either way, we need something to happen so that the game-type doesn’t stagnate.

5. Communication

Probably the most important priority in many cases. I don’t want keep harping on about it but for the longest time, we in the WvW community have felt neglected and forgotten. Hence some of the unfavorable responses we’ve had to several threads like this and the salt thrown toward the Devs during the recent AMA. But things are going to change as you’ve said, which is great. However, you really should consider how it’s going to change where communication is concerned. As you might have gathered, after being fed so many previous promises and hearing nothing or changes being implemented that we never wanted, the WvW community is rather skeptical of changes. So maybe devising a more concrete form of communication back and forth between us should be something that is discussed when looking to save WvW. I guess this one also ties into my question above.

(Please note that these are not in order of priority.)

Hi there Rhego,

I believe you might find you new home in [KILL] on Sanctum of Rall. We’re a recently reformed guild from the remnants of [Bard] with a lot of old players returning for the expansion as well as a bunch of new players.

While we are a PvX guild, the majority of our members spend a lot of time in WvW and consistently run ridiculous amounts of hours to cover our low server population. We currently have 3 very experienced WvW Commanders that tag up daily and run medium-sized havoc groups, as opposed to massive zergs, as well as a few other Commanders who are still learning the ropes (myself included). We are working hard to boost our NA Prime time numbers, as it has taken some hard knocks with a few guilds having left the server recently, but we don’t expect this to be an issue for long.

In terms of numbers, we are sitting at around 70 members but a lot of these members rep other guilds and only rep if they’re running with our tag, which we’re fine with. The core membership actually sits somewhere around 20 or so. Where communication is concerned, you will always find one of us on our Server’s Team Speak. We do have a dedicated channel, however, a big factor that should be mentioned is that we are very close to the members of [OMEN], another guild on our server who are just as dedicated to WvW and other guilds such as: [EVIL] & [ecto]

Communications and relations between our two guilds are relatively close-knit, with a lot of members repping them both. We’re frequently both in the same channel on TS and often running together in WvW. (One of us may run Havoc, whilst the other leads the PUGs)

With HOT soon coming out, we will be shifting our focus towards Raids and the other new content, but that won’t replace our main WvW focus. sPvP isn’t exactly a main focus for us but there are many players on the server that partake in sPvP and I’m sure it wouldn’t be difficult to form a team when you’re settled into the server.

If you’re interested in checking us out, contact me in-game we’d love to welcome you to [KILL]

Hi there Reaper,

Just wondering if you’ve seen the [KILL] tag around at all on SoR?

We’re a recently re-formed guild from the remnants of [Bard] but with a new PvX focus instead of just WvW. Admittedly, we do run a lot in WvW and have 3 or 4 very good, and well respected, Commanders but due to a lack of numbers we mostly run as a havoc group or just roam in pairs.

In regards to PvE, we have a few members that run daily Dungeons and Fractals as well as World Bosses. Plus, with the new content coming, we’re definitely going to be focusing on Raids and World Events.

We’re recruiting a lot right now but we’re pretty laid back on repping, especially since a lot of us rep other guilds on the server as well.

Send me a message in-game if you’re interested, we’ll probably invite you to join us in Teamspeak so you can get a sense of what we’re like.

Axolotl.9028:

Truthfully, it’s impressive that you guys were able to hold the scores within a couple hundred up to the 100k mark, even taking the lead at times. You’re bound to burn out when you’re playing those long hours and are often outnumbered. But you did prove that SoR is more than capable of competing with tier 5 servers, it just needs to expand its WVW community so it doesn’t rest on the shoulders of a few small to medium sized guilds, as it’s just unreasonable to expect them to be able to keep that up.

I’m glad that we managed to make an impression. It’s exciting to be getting recognition for the hours we put in. (Even if we did slack off towards the latter end of this week) And, again, you’re right, we do need to improve our WvW numbers. Sadly, however, I don’t think that’ll happen anytime soon unless, of course, Anet decide to announce another tournament. Because the only thing that seems to draw people towards a Bronze Tier server, these days, are WvW Tokens and the prospect of fights. And the former seems to be the more desirable of the two.

Deathdom.8250:

Ok. I take back whatever I said about SoR having equal coverage and numbers. For a brief moment, I actually thought T5 would be balanced again.

In all honesty, over half of [Bard] haven’t been running as hard as we usually do this week and I suspect that’s the same for most other players in WvW. But you’re right, we don’t have the same numbers or coverage. Still though, I’ve noticed that number slowly creeping up what with the expansion announcement.

And with all the hate that as been flying around this thread for the old WvW community, I have to say that in the last 2 months since returning, the guys in WvW have been completely different. The mood has changed drastically from what it used to be and there’s a much better relationship between the ‘hardcore’ WvW guilds and ‘casual’ guilds. Rarely do I see our TS empty or without at least one group of people running in WvW and that includes people from both ‘hardcore’ and ‘casual’ guilds.

I think the main difference is that the community finally feels like an actual community again. There are no egos to deal with and there’s no segregation between guilds, it’s extremely easy to be able to hop into a channel with players from another guild and quickly feel as if you’re a part of the team and valued as a fellow member, rather than just another player on the same server.

So yes, Sanctum of Rall’s history in WvW my have been marred, somewhat, by various things in the past but what really matters now is that we’re growing again and having fun whilst we do so. There are still a few who are focusing on driving the server up the Tiers but I believe the general consensus is that we’re just happy to be active in WvW once again.

I don’t see why they can’t just rotate between the new borderlands and the old borderlands. Obviously the old BL’s will have to be updated with the new improvements to dolyaks and the additions of the shrines and such. Maybe have it on a six-week rotation or something. That’ll keep things fresher than introducing new borderlands every 2-3 years or so.

Add my name to the “From the UK and stuck on the last file” list. O.o

Just finished playing for the night (UK) on SoR BLands during a defensive cycle. Definitely one of the busiest cycles for me in a long while. Had a great time too. Reminds me of when SoR was first climbing up through the WvW Tiers!

Name: Mezmeri Sin

Server: Sanctum of Rall

Playtimes: 12pm-Late (Weekends), 6pm-1am (Mon & Wed), 9pm-1am (Tues & Thurs) (all times are GMT)

Role: Scholar (I’m hoping to learn how to play all styles of Mesmer in WvW)

So as you’ve no doubt gathered from the title, I’m looking for a mentor to teach me to play effectively in WvW.

But if you’re an Ex player, surely you know how to play already?

Well I use ‘Ex’ quite literally. I don’t mean that I haven’t played in a month or two and I need guidence on the latest meta and such. I haven’t played WvW since about April of last year, which, in terms of PvP, is more than long enough to warrant much of my previous WvW experience next to useless.

The reason for my lack of play was due to me being hacked. I lost my pure WvW Ranger toon and I was devastated because of all the man hours I’d put into it. Unfortunately, I couldn’t recover my account because they also hacked my email account. Long story short; I bought a new copy of GW2.

I only recently starting playing GW2 again just before Halloween and I made a conscious decision to avoid WvW for fear that I’d give up playing again. But PvE just doesn’t cut it for me. I need to be back on the frontlines again, flipping camps, seiging keeps and generally smashing other players.

But I’m terribly out of touch with the current style of play, joined by the fact that I am now rolling a Mesmer and I’ve yet to test her out properly in WvW.

So I’m looking for someone who can take me under their wing and teach me how I can get my Mesmer to kick some kitten.

I’m located on SoR and you can contact me in game as Mezmeri Sin

Thanks for taking the time to read through this, assuming that you did. Any and all help will be much appreciated.

P.S I’m not opposed to the idea of going back to basics. If that’s what it takes then I’m for it.

I was literally just about to delete this thread and re-post it over there. I’m not one to use these forums much so I didn’t see it sooner.

But thanks for the advice. I’ll definitely be sure to experiment with my Mesmer.

Despite our ‘win’, if you want to call it that, I’ve been highly disappointed with WvW this week. Hats off to those few Yaks that fought on and tried their best to be a pain in our kitten though, It was fun duking it out against you guys.

I can’t see why people are judging servers by skill or dedication at the moment because until the free xfers stop, (and I can only hope that happens soon) we’re not gonna know which server is the best, Since guilds are just going to keep hopping every time they hit queues.

ANet needs to hurry up and start charging for xfers O.o