Guild Wars 2

Dear Anet, why must you take an already underwhelming game mode and make it even more kittening bad? Is this an actual joke?

I completely agree with you in regards to players preferring to blame matchmaking/bad team mates or whatever instead of looking at themselves. I’d love to be able to record my own games and look over them but I’m too much of a scrub to figure out how to make OBS record without lagging out for 2s at a time. (Also, before going into this I feel like I need to emphasise that I accept that I make mistakes too, sometimes really stupid mistakes. I know when I play badly or when I lose focus. If I screw up in a fight I’ll apologise or give myself a mental kick to wake up and start playing properly.)

Unfortunately I can also completely empathise with people who are angry about the matchmaking system and who do rage at their team mates. I’m usually not the type of person to call my team mates imbeciles, but I’m afraid sometimes the matches I get are just too kitten stupid.

Last night I had a particularly crappy experience and lost almost a tier, so now I’m just above gold tier 2. In one of my matches we had 2 necros, me being one of them. I asked the other necro if he could switch and he said no, he needed necro wins for the PvP wings and had apparently only played 1-2 games on necro. I explained he could switch back to necro if we were winning, he said “cool, thanks, I didn’t know that” and proceeded to spend the game accomplishing nothing.
Another match, their team has a condi zerker on close to stop our thief decapping, our druid decided to camp close to stop the enemy thief decapping. Except he didn’t, he either died or was too busy afk auto attacking mid with lb to notice.
One game was a complete throw when the only person who came to help defend lord was a kittening s/d thief who just so happens to advertise himself as best thief EU.
Oh, of course, who can forget the game where we won mid so our ele afk’d there whilst the enemy team played sides and we had no support. I’m not exaggerating when I say this, this guy just stood on mid, blissfully content at his supremacy in stoically holding a 1cap whilst his team tried to 4v5.

This isn’t bronze, this is T3 gold. Whilst I appreciate that gold isn’t exactly ESL, surely the players that I’m getting matched with should know better than this.
It’s not that I complain about idiots on forums and don’t try to change the tide of the game, but there’s only so much I can say in /t to try and direct people, or even do. I can’t stop a hero DH rushing far after winning mid and dying to 2-3 respawns. I can’t stop 4 people going close after winning mid to kill that 1 guy that respawned the earliest and decapped far, leaving me wide open to getting ganked on mid, no matter how hard I kite and stall. I can only ask them not to, but it seems the people I get matched with do not give a kitten .

Ben K.6238:

Aside from running a few cleanses (which is compulsory in the current balance situation) ghost thief problems are easily solved by dropping a stealth trap and sitting on it.

I find it hilarious that people think a valid counter to ghost thief is ensuring you carry stealth traps and also at least 10 supply for the stealth trap at all times incase you’re unfortunate enough to come across one. No build should require you to carry certain siege and supply to have a chance at countering it, get out of here with that kitten.
As Offair said, any game studio or even developer with a brain would see the issue with this build straight away, but no, not our special snowflakes.

Depends a bit on game mode (spvp or wvw) and build of course, but yeah, I know your pain. In terms of spvp, I always push mid but unless I’m confident in the support I’ll be given, I tend to hide/line of sight or stall behind slightly. This usually works for me in that the enemy team is forced to pick another target and hopefully start blowing CDs on them(realistically, it’s usually warrior/engi/ele/dh on mid as well in this meta and they can definitely handle it).
It’s really frustrating that whilst we’re supposed to be strong in team fights we need constant babysitting and it sucks that we basically have a free target over our heads, but the best you can do is try to position yourself in the best way possible.

https://www.twitch.tv/noscoc/v/14607911 wtb Moa stab pls

Pretty much the same happens in WvW every now and then, enjoying some laidback zerging when I get pulled and completely shut down by CC savagery from some roaming guild.

Unfortunately I don’t see Reaper getting superspeed anytime soon just because Anet is so insistent on sticking to theme and “purity of purpose” lmao. That being said, the idea of getting resistance if we’re afflicted with any sort of crippling condition is interesting because not only does it still tie in with the whole slow but steady killing machine theme that was given to Reaper, it also does help to counter how easy it can be to kite shroud.

flow.6043:

NekoNoKoi.9137:

It’s a bit more than just my word against yours. I am not the only one to think you’re wrong.

You’re the only one here who’s being this condescending.

And nothing I’ve said was off topic. You on the other hand started to attack me personally. So when you say “contribute to derailing the thread”, that’s 100% your contribution.

So are you not going to duel me in game?
That’s too bad. But you’d probably lose anyway, I have really high AP after all.

Like I said, I’m more than happy for you to whisper me in game and we can talk properly. This thread is about how to beat thief, not ways in which thief counters necro.
See you in game o/

flow.6043:

NekoNoKoi.9137:

As I said before, how long you’ve played is not always an indicator of skill. Speaking of what is statistically likely, the possibility you requested I consider is statistically unlikely. Maybe you just have different ideas of what a good thief is based on personal skill level. Of course, you may have had some really successful fights vs good thieves where you you won, but stating that you’ve beaten every thief in such a superior manner is like saying “yeah, I beat Sindreneer/some other skilled thief in a duel” and conveniently omitting all those other times you got farmed. Either way, you haven’t had a stunning victory or even beaten every thief you’ve ever encountered, unless your 1v1 track record is negligible.
Oh well, at least I got a laugh out of you managing to beat every thief, yes, even the good ones, “in such a superior manner”, so thank you for that.

Needless to say, I have indeed beat Sindrener and every other popular thief you can think of several times in a 1v1, simply because I’ve played long enough to have encountered all of them lots of times.

I’m so glad you lived up to my expectations of just how amusing you would turn out to be.

But of course, you took what I said to literally mean 100% winrate against every thief ever.

No, actually, I accounted for that by suggesting you lost the other times. Obviously. You did say that you’ve beaten every thief you’ve fought though, so I presume you’re either one of those people that won’t stop dueling until they win or you just stalked all the thieves you lost to.

No, obviously I meant that I’ve had arranged duels on several occasions in which I won most fights. Or I had single chance encounters which I also mostly won.
The losses among those fights, however, were never ever because that opponent had a build advantage over me.
In fact, most times I used to hold back my elite skill and sometimes even some more utility skills in addition to that, just so I would even the playing field by giving myself a handicap. And yeah, you’ll probably think again that those opponents must’ve been bad, but they weren’t.

I’m surprised the apparent sheer weight of your ego wasn’t a handicap. Perhaps it’s just the bravado in your writing.

Anyway, it’s your word against mine at this point.
If you still don’t believe me, and if you’re on EU, I’ll gladly take yours or anyone else’s challenge to a duel.

It’s a bit more than just my word against yours. I am not the only one to think you’re wrong. The existence of this thread alone, as well as the replies in it, confirm that. I think you should definitely post a video of you winning in such a superior manner so we may all learn the errors of our ways.

Anyway, as hilarious as this is I don’t want to contribute to derailing the thread even more, it’s always good to share tips. I think I’ve said all I have to say on the matter and if you’d like to say something regarding this, do feel free to message me ingame

SpellOfIniquity.1780:

NekoNoKoi.9137:

flow.6043:

NekoNoKoi.9137:

I’m guessing you don’t play necro. That, or you’ve managed to find yourself some seriously garbage-tier thieves. Congrats.

Or third option: I’ve been playing necro for a long time and I actually know what I’m talking about.

It’s almost akin to saying that AP and skill have a direct correlation. To an extent they do, but not entirely. To be honest I’m not entirely sure if you’re trolling or not, but then again I’ve met some very interesting people on these forums, so someone thinking that a necro will have the upper hand over a thief on an even skill level fight doesn’t even surprise me anymore.

Actually, no, wait, you’re right. I can see a new playing trying out necro likely winning vs a new player trying out thief, at least until the thief learns how stealth and dodges work.

Flow knows what he’s talking about, and one of the few Necro’s I’ve spoken with that actually knows how to use Life Force. Which is a depressingly rare find even among people who have played thousands of hours on Necro.

I’m not sure that I 100% agree about Necro having the upper hand against a Thief but I do agree that it’s far less of a one sided thing than some people seem to think.

I’m afraid he doesn’t. I respect your opinion, but there comes a point where no matter how much you have a right to your opinion, sometimes you’re going to sound silly. Necro does not have the upper hand against a thief when on an even skill level. Thief can harass and shut down a necro just like dh can harass and shut down a thief.
On another note, great ideas I didn’t actually consider waiting for a thief to heal before trying to land a big hit, which is silly because I’ve noticed that a lot of the time thieves use their heals as an extra dodge or endurance replenishment, as well as healing if need be.

flow.6043:

NekoNoKoi.9137:

flow.6043:

NekoNoKoi.9137:

I’m guessing you don’t play necro. That, or you’ve managed to find yourself some seriously garbage-tier thieves. Congrats.

Or third option: I’ve been playing necro for a long time and I actually know what I’m talking about.

It’s almost akin to saying that AP and skill have a direct correlation.

That’s pretty ironic coming from someone who said I’d base my entire dueling experience on fighting trash players.

When you say that necro has the upper hand against a thief, that is exactly what you are implying. There is no irony here.

flow.6043:

NekoNoKoi.9137:

To be honest I’m not entirely sure if you’re trolling or not, but then again I’ve met some very interesting people on these forums, so someone thinking that a necro will have the upper hand over a thief on an even skill level fight doesn’t even surprise me anymore.

Alright, let’s assume that I’m not trolling. And let’s assume that in my long time of playing necro (which you would know if you weren’t completely new to this forum) I’ve spent a considerable amount of time in WvW and PvP. Wouldn’t it be statistically likely that I’ve come accross really good thieves at least a few times?
Now when I tell you that this infamous unbeatable thief doesn’t exist from my point of view, would you conclude that:
1. I’m being dishonest?
2. I’ve somehow managed to avoid meeting all the good thieves?
3. Or would you consider the possibility that I’ve actually managed to beat every thief, even the good ones, in such a superior manner that I can confidently say: Anyone who fails to do the same has some other problems that aren’t inherent to the respective class.
And if that’s true then either I’m right about necro vs thief, or you’re right but I’ve just out-skilled all the players I should’ve lost to.

As I said before, how long you’ve played is not always an indicator of skill. Speaking of what is statistically likely, the possibility you requested I consider is statistically unlikely. Maybe you just have different ideas of what a good thief is based on personal skill level. Of course, you may have had some really successful fights vs good thieves where you you won, but stating that you’ve beaten every thief in such a superior manner is like saying “yeah, I beat Sindreneer/some other skilled thief in a duel” and conveniently omitting all those other times you got farmed. Either way, you haven’t had a stunning victory or even beaten every thief you’ve ever encountered, unless your 1v1 track record is negligible.
Oh well, at least I got a laugh out of you managing to beat every thief, yes, even the good ones, “in such a superior manner”, so thank you for that.

flow.6043:

NekoNoKoi.9137:

I’m guessing you don’t play necro. That, or you’ve managed to find yourself some seriously garbage-tier thieves. Congrats.

Or third option: I’ve been playing necro for a long time and I actually know what I’m talking about.

It’s almost akin to saying that AP and skill have a direct correlation. To an extent they do, but not entirely. To be honest I’m not entirely sure if you’re trolling or not, but then again I’ve met some very interesting people on these forums, so someone thinking that a necro will have the upper hand over a thief on an even skill level fight doesn’t even surprise me anymore.

Actually, no, wait, you’re right. I can see a new playing trying out necro likely winning vs a new player trying out thief, at least until the thief learns how stealth and dodges work.

KrHome.1920:

NekoNoKoi.9137:

I’m guessing you don’t play necro. That, or you’ve managed to find yourself some seriously garbage-tier thieves. Congrats. I picked up thief a while ago but started (trying) to play it properly 2 days ago and even in that short amount of time, necros are generally np unless I get too impatient and yolo into reaper’s shroud. It’s just so simple – burst, kite around shroud (or just damage it down if they have a very low amount of LF), headshot heal, burst, rinse, repeat.

I main thief and necro (~2500 sPvP matches on each class plus hundreds of hours of WvW Roaming).

The meta thief wrecks the meta reaper. True! But there are tons of options if you use your brain. Meta thief loses all of his efficiency if you run Paladin Amulet + Dagger/Warhorn. His attacks tickle you while you autoattack him to death.

Ever heard of Speed of Shadows? Thief ports away when you are in shroud? Just Death’s Charge in the opposite direction and leave shroud! See how he tries to catch up in that small 7 second window you are vulnerable while you are dropping Marks at your feet.

Not to mention Core Power Necro whose Lifeblast 2 shots kiting thieves.

I should have mentioned this before, but I’m talking specifically about roaming/duelling in WvW. If I remember correctly, I have about 2k PvP matches and a bit more experience roaming than hundreds of hours.
From my experience it’s rare that a thief would use a port like Shadowstep to get away from shroud. That’s a waste of a great skill. They tend to dash away or stealth up and dance around the sides. Therefore in that situation, I don’t think the thief would have a particularly hard time catching up to you, probably dashing through your marks, porting to you once you were out of shroud or just shadowshot once hes in range. Alternatively, even if the thief did take 7s to catch up to you and you went back into shroud, he could simply kite around again/switch to shortbow and kite (you can’t destroy projectiles forever with ds2) and generally keep depleting your life force. Of course it’s easy to theory craft like this and it’s different in a fight, but that’s what I would expect.
I am not saying that a necro vs thief fight is definitely a loss for the necro, but if the thief knows how to play then it’s usually pretty difficult to turn the tide in your favour.

KrHome.1920:

NekoNoKoi.9137:

KrHome.1920:

Necromancer is pretty balanced in terms of duelling (unlike e.g. Thief who will never win vs. a competent Dragonhunter – even if he runs Dual Pistols).

Necro is so well balanced, next patch will only need to add a permanent target onto any necro in a PvP environment. That is currently all we are missing.

We’re talking about duelling.

Yes :o Although then again, something like a guard won’t really need a target for the necro in a duel, the necro will probably kill themselves on traps or in frustration trying to get through the insane block/condi cleanse.
Speaking of which…

- If they pop stability or convert all your conditions to boons, you can place a well under them to make them pay for their insolence

I love it.

KrHome.1920:

Necromancer is pretty balanced in terms of duelling (unlike e.g. Thief who will never win vs. a competent Dragonhunter – even if he runs Dual Pistols).

Necro is so well balanced, next patch will only need to add a permanent target onto any necro in a PvP environment. That is currently all we are missing.

cont. -Regarding D/P thieves: Lots of them will usually put down a black powder, heartseeker into it and then steal 1-2s later + try to backstab. This can be very predictable, especially at the start of a fight, and if you dodge the steal then there’s an important skill on a ~20s cd. Also, in a fight try to place marks or damage onto the black powder (but be careful of the blinds it applies) – this will make stealthing up without accidentally hitting you more difficult, and you might also be hitting them in the meantime.
-If they run the bound dodge instead of dash then it’s a little easier as they can’t clear chill on dodge, screwing up their movement and skill cds. However, bear in mind that bound deals damage and can deal up to 4-5k (in my experience at least). If they play D/P then they’ll use bound to stack stealth by dodging into the field – place marks or attack around it and hope they accidentally reveal themselves.
-It’s also possible to engage by using shadow shot and spamming weapon stow so that the damage doesn’t go off, leaving them invis, behind you and ready to backstab. If you get blinded with no damage then that is possibly what’s happened – keep moving or dodge/use Suffer to hopefully transfer the blind to screw their burst up
-Be careful not to spam skills too much. Pulmonary Impact is one of those brilliant traits that both rewards and punishes spamming. If they spam headshot 2-3 times they’re either very low or out of initiative, which I’d say is a good time to return the favour. Also, if they start using it, don’t continue spamming, you will die. Be careful of when you use your heal as well, as a good thief will try to interrupt it. Something with a long cast time like Consume Conditions is especially vulnerable to interrupt since it also has such an obvious tell, so maybe consider getting stab from shroud first.
-If the thief is spamming heartseeker then you’re in luck, they’re probably bad. However, if you’re low on health then be careful as it can deal a bit of damage.
-If you come across a vault spam thief then chances are they’ll spam 3-4 vaults, waste all their initiative and generally go down like a sack of potatoes, unless they port away. Dodge the vaults, they can hit over 10k. That being said, I haven’t really encountered many vault spam thieves lately, possibly because it’s such a one trick pony build that tends to fail drastically if you’re still fine after the 3rd vault.

In general, I’d recommend you do try out the classes/builds you struggle with, just because I think that there’s no better way of getting experience vs something you struggle with than actually playing that build yourself. You get to see how it works, what it’s like to play, what you need to watch out for when you’re playing that build and that knowledge and experience will help a lot. Don’t get disheartened if you still struggle vs thief, it is a tough encounter for a necro. Good luck!

flow.6043:

I’m surprised to see you say this.
However, in a straight up 1v1 on even skills there’s absolute no chance a thief could have the upper hand against a necro. It’s a more even fight against mesmers, but still necros have the advantage in this matchup.

I’m guessing you don’t play necro. That, or you’ve managed to find yourself some seriously garbage-tier thieves. Congrats. I picked up thief a while ago but started (trying) to play it properly 2 days ago and even in that short amount of time, necros are generally np unless I get too impatient and yolo into reaper’s shroud. It’s just so simple – burst, kite around shroud (or just damage it down if they have a very low amount of LF), headshot heal, burst, rinse, repeat. Get caught off guard? Port away, stealth, heal, start again. A necro cannot catch a thief, especially since the Dash dodge removes chill, our supposed way of slowing enemies enough to keep up with them (brilliant balancing Anet, bravo)

@OP In terms of fighting thief, if they’re good then there’s unfortunately a very high chance that you’re not going to win the fight. Either you somehow survive or they just wait out all of your skills and kill you. All you can do about that is hope and pray for good balancing that will never come. However, there are some things that can be helpful to know (from my experience) Off the top of my head:
-If you run staff, don’t spam all your marks on top or around you. All it takes is one dodge (of which thief has plenty) and all your marks are wasted. Use them wisely. Putrid mark can hit pretty hard if you’re zerker, as well as transferring any condis you may have, and the fear mark can be a good way of interrupting or stopping a burst, providing they don’t dodge it. I find the bleed mark a good way of forcing out dodges, and when they proc (regardless of whether they dodged it or not) it’s a good way of seeing where the thief might potentially be
-If you run GS then good luck, although I have beaten thieves with it before. I mainly used the blindfield as a brief period of respite and also when they stealthed up to negate a potential burst. The pull can be pretty awesome but is easy to see. You probably won’t hit gravedigger but when you do, it’ll be worth it (especially if they’re under half health)
-When it comes to reaper shroud, Executioner’s Scythe can make for a pretty solid lockdown, as well as the huge potential damage depending on the thief’s health. If I know they don’t have a stunbreak ready and I hit it, I’ll usually follow with shroud 4 to apply poison + damage or auto attack
-Also, if you’re running Blighter’s Boon and Spite then you can regen a rather kitten amount of health by auto attacking in shroud, as well as stacking might at the same time. However, be careful of interrupts if they’re running Pulmonary Impact
-Overall, if you’re a zerker necro then remember that you do deal a lot of damage to thieves. They’re generally very squishy and almost everything you do will hurt, especially shroud auto attack
(1/2)

Terissimo.6852:

“On My Mark!”: This skill now applies revealed for 4 seconds in addition to vulnerability.
Is this a joke? Why only 4s tho? Should be 6s like sick em. I didnt tested it but im sure we cant even dodge it and its insta cast so there is no counterplay to it, as usual.

3 base dodges, possibly more depending on whether you run Channeled Vigor or Signet of Agility (2 skills that seem pretty common in WvW), or Withdraw. Ports on shortbow (since it seems most people use that as their second weapon), or staff evade skills. Probably running Shadowstep, so there’s that too. Not to mention you also have a pretty low cd block. If you don’t panic and spam dodges, you’ll probably be fine.

Terissimo.6852:

Its definetly well designed, anet. You are keep destroying our class and Im not even surprised.

With all due respect, the addition of reveal to that skill will change mostly nothing. No one is going to run this, unless maybe they’re duelling a thief, in which case refer to my first point. I understanding it seems like Anet is just adding more and more ways for already annoying classes to have an easier time against thief, but like I said, you won’t find warriors running this – I certainly haven’t since the patch hit. Whilst I can’t attest to how many guardians run their reveal, in my experience rangers generally don’t run Sic Em either.

You’re right that it’s definitely well designed though. Anet seem to love taking skills no one uses and adding some random gimmick or buff to them in some weird attempt to make it usable. It’s lazy design that generally fails to make a skill better imo, just like the necro axe buff.

RodOfDeath.5247:

So 90% of the time you’re really into pve, right?

Colin, why hast thou forsaken me?!

Jana.6831:

The 3 corners on EB aren’t the same.

This is largely irrelevant as I am not talking about eb, I am specifically talking about the dbls.

I’d say green and blue are easier to defend than red. There you already have an advantage/disadvantage. The strongest server would usually get green but green gets less points for what they’re doing than red. Don’t know if you have been around when GH fought to not rank down which was out of our hands because the servers in other tiers were going to bypass us because of the red-blue-green PPT earning difference. We had to have ~500 PPT 24/7 as we were green. We were mayor bullies that week.

No offense, but also irrelevant. An interesting point, definitely, but irrelevant to the discussion. You should make a thread about it and then we can discuss that there.

Jana.6831:

Now you have: biggest server is green and gets the DBL. They’ve got 2 blobs, one for EB, one for the BLs – so they will pressure the ABLs while 10 of them stay on the DBL to defend. The morale of the lower populated server will go down regardless.

At no point did I suggest locking the dbls to one colour. In fact, this whole thread is about how I think that is silly.

Jana.6831:

The issue is more complex than just switching colours. And yes, it would be a nice change but in the end it wouldn’t change a thing, because of the reasons listed above.

If you had only read and understood what I’d written, you’d see that it literally can be that simple. I’m not saying that my way is best (i.e. just randomizing allocation or having a set rotation), but if you stop overthinking it and making points that don’t really address the issue, you’ll find it can be quite simple.

With all due respect Jana, you have some valid points and ideas but I feel as though you’ve either misunderstood or just ignored the main point of this thread.

I’m sorry: I’m usually picking points I agree/disagree with – I’m not answering on whole walls of text :P

Unfortunately you’ve picked up on points that aren’t really relevant.

I really don’t want to get this thread locked down because some mod deems it to have gone offtopic as I’d really like anet to consider something like my proposal, so can we maybe stick to discussing the main point? Thanks

Jana.6831:

Changing red is a bit more complicated than that – in fact the whole issue is a bit more complicated than that – but ok, I accept that you don’t want to hear about it – you’d rather expect a magical change that won’t happen.

How is it more complicated to simply randomise the allocation of dbls, or to have a set rotation, than it is to start implementing changes to server populations and getting rid of the tier locking you mentioned previously? All I am suggesting is that the dbls are not set to be given to the red server but randomised/etc and I highly doubt it’s a more complicated procedure than solving the population issue.

Jana.6831:

NekoNoKoi.9137:

Jana.6831:

But anyway: Not being red wouldn’t change a thing – sorry. It would just slow down the dying process by a margin.

I disagree. I think that if we changed how the dbls are assigned (i.e. make it random, or just have a set rotation so that it’s always red, blue, green or whatever) then it would already make WvW more bearable. Of course it wouldn’t counteract GH dying, [..]

So you agree with me, ok

No, I disagree. You said it would change nothing, I said it would make this game mode more playable and more fun. Technically you disagreed with yourself by saying it would change nothing, but then going on to say that it would slow down the dying process, but hey, pedantics.

Jana.6831:

ETA: No matter what you do, if anet keeps their Tier locking police up – that was it – GH is dead. We were a bunch of weirdos without commanders even before, now there’s 2? 3? guilds left. We have no chance to ever get our hopes up.
Maybe that’s why they deleted T6, because RoF was in the same position and if they delete T5 some other servers will be dying as a consequence and so on and so on – it will never stop.

I’ll repeat myself once again and say that I did not make this thread in order to save GH or to balance the population. I made this thread because the concept of the losing server being punished every week by being given the dbls is ridiculous. Nothing more.

Edit: I agree with you about the tier locking policy, but it’s not really the point of this thread.

Jana.6831:

We’re usually 5 – I guess that’s not enough

But anyway: Not being red wouldn’t change a thing – sorry. It would just slow down the dying process by a margin.

I disagree. I think that if we changed how the dbls are assigned (i.e. make it random, or just have a set rotation so that it’s always red, blue, green or whatever) then it would already make WvW more bearable. Of course it wouldn’t counteract GH dying, we’d need a lot more changes for that, but that’s not my point – my point is that it makes no sense for dbls to always be red, and it’s also not fair that they’re always given to the red server. I am not saying that such a change would fix WvW (if that’s even possible anymore lmao), I’m saying that it would help make it more enjoyable and also give us at least a tiny bit more of a fighting chance.

Diku.2546:

NekoNoKoi.9137:

Diku.2546:

Using mixed borderlands would probably be fair & work better if everybody’s Home BL was set to DBL…while Enemy Entry point BLs were set to Alpine.

What? No, just randomise which colour gets the dbls. It’s literally that easy.

I agree. It’s literally that easy & this would work, but it’s a “short-term” solution…imho

“Short-term” solutions that band-aid the problem tend to create built-in limitations to what the future design can evolve into.

Our current WvW game design is flawed & needs to address these “built-in” limitations in order for it to evolve into something larger in scope…imho

Just adding my 2 cent opinion…you can continue the discussion. I’m hoping for a more long term solution.

That’s true, it’d be a short term solution and it wouldn’t necessarily change the issue of population being completely screwed or how bad the dbls still are, but it would certainly make it more manageable. As someone that plays WvW daily (although less now, because this is getting too annoying for me to enjoy anymore to be honest) I can attest to seeing far less roamers nowadays on GH than before, and I do think that being permanently given the dbls contributes to that because no one wants to play on them, not only because we generally dislike them, but also because they’re too big for our population.

Jana.6831:

And the locking is a problem as “bigger is better” – there’s no reason to stay on GH, so guilds and people will transfer or quit. The DBL is an additional problem, but I don’t think any of those who left will come back just because we have a chance not to be red. The DBL should’ve never been brought back – but that’s another story.

Of course they won’t come back, but that’s not the point- the whole point of this thread is that red should not be permanently stuck with the dbls. That’s the point I want people to comment on.

Diku.2546:

Using mixed borderlands would probably be fair & work better if everybody’s Home BL was set to DBL…while Enemy Entry point BLs were set to Alpine.

What? No, just randomise which colour gets the dbls. It’s literally that easy.

Jana.6831:

But some guy from anet said they wanted to lock tiers and to make it so that only certain servers can fight each other – so working as intended, I guess.

It’s not so much about the tier locking, in my opinion. The issue here is that we’re constantly given the dbls because we lose and that helps in making us lose even more, for reasons I’ve already outlined. Of course, server population balancing is an issue as well and GH is suffering a lot because of it, too.

I play WvW almost exclusively in this game – about 90% of the time I’ll be roaming, maybe raiding. Unfortunately the server I play for is Gunnar’s Hold, and as some of you may know, GH suffers from a dying population and constantly being outnumbered, since our links more often than that do absolutely kitten all. Despite half our time being spent outnumbered on not only the enemy bls (which is to be expected I guess?) but also EB and our own hbl, we’re still a host server for even tinier servers like Vabbi or Fissure of Woe that contribute far too little to make a difference, simply because of their size. Just to make it clear, I’m not trying to blame or insult these servers at all, it’s not their fault that they were linked with another small server, and it’s a shame that the players of Vabbi (who we are currently linked with) are also probably not enjoying WvW as much either. We should NOT be a host server at our current size, we’re far too small and we simply do not have the capacity to defend anything even during prime time.

Anyway.

Because of the issues I’ve just outlined (there are more, such as guilds leaving etc), we constantly lose. As a result, we’re constantly red, meaning we get the dbl, and every time this happens i find myself amazed at how bizarre some of your decisions are, Anet. Despite the dbl vote debacle you handled the situation pretty well; some people like the dbl, so fine, keep it as one map. But why would you enforce this map on just the red server?! One of the main reasons why GH loses so badly is because we’re just too small and too underpopulated to have a chance at defending such a big, spread out map. Coupled with the fact that most of GH (from my understanding) despises the dbls, you leave us with little choice but to lose, time and time again, every week.

As a result, I think that the only option here is to simply randomise which server gets the dbl each week. It simply isn’t fair that one server has to have this bl every week, especially when that bl contributes so much to why we lose this badly in the first place. Thanks for reading o/

Silverkey.2078:

Finally:

• boon corrupt and death perception nerfed: yes. But this comes naturally because I otherwise increased defenses and damage. For example, currently boon corrupt is what is keeping the necromancer viable in many game modes. Basically, it is an absolutely OP feature (especially corrupt on scepter AA, cmon!) which makes up for the absolutely underpowered rest of the necromancer. So since I buffed (I believe) many things in the rest of necromancer, I need to nerf (as in, make it not OP) boon corrupt. This means the meta necromancer is neither stronger nor weaker, but non-meta builds are more viable.

Lol
Corrupt boon is not an “absolutely OP” feature in any way whatsoever. You corrupt boons, half the time they get replaced by even more boons. Corrupt boon does NOT in any way whatsoever make up for necro being completely underpowered, it merely lets us be a tiny bit useful, just barely.

Methuselah.4376:

Spectral Walk:
-Spectral Recall lasts 30 seconds not just 8.
-For 8 seconds, any direct damage is instead absorbed as Life Force

I agree with a lot of your ideas, but I like this one the most. 8s might be a bit OP, but having that skill absorb any incoming damage as life force (similar to the Glint heal) is an interesting idea

Anchoku.8142:

revealing stealth

Wait, what?

kappa.2036:

Traits
Blighter’s Boon: Increased the health gained from this trait by 50%.

Yes please

kappa.2036:

Weapon Skills
Death Spiral: This skill now will teleport you to your target.

Honestly, I’d much rather prefer it was a leap, maybe like Ranger GS with an evade as well. Necro desperately needs more moveability in order to both chase the enemy and to also kite/run away. Making this a port limits the kiting/running aspect of that completely.

kappa.2036:

Skills
Spectral Armor: Using this skill now will allow you to become a ghost, evading attacks for 3 seconds. Gain life force (5%) every time you evade an attack while this skill is active. This skill no longer grants protection.

I love the ghost idea behind this Although I think you should be given a % of LF regardless of whether you evade an attack or not, as well as still being a stunbreak of course.

If you sit back and think about it, this is pretty normal for anet. They have good ideas (server linking) but they usually implement those ideas horrifically (GH+Vabbi). In this case, they didn’t take into account that by linking low population servers with high population servers, people would transfer to those servers for a cheaper fee. Obviously they knew that would happen and that they’d make a fair profit from it, but apparently the population change following a re-linking wasn’t something they considered, hence why we are now faced with servers that far outnumber us even at prime time.

Couple that with the mass exodus that seems to have happened (and might still be happening, idk), well, there’s not really much point in even trying to defend things anymore. Barely anyone on gh gives a kitten about DBLs so our home border usually has hills and bay at t3 belonging to the enemy servers.

Maybe if anet introduced a limit to server transfers so that you could only transfer once per 2 server linkings, or maybe if they just paid more attention to WvW…kappa.

“Oh no, I’m only the apex PvE class, relevant in all raids, fractals and more as the most powerful entity in the game.”

You’re joking ,right?

I think GS should definitely have some sort of leap, preferably something like the warrior 3 with an evade. Would also be nice if the autoattack speed was increased, as well as the speed of Gravedigger. The damage is great, it’s just you won’t be hitting it unless the enemy isn’t very good or gets unlucky

SpellOfIniquity.1780:

It’s hard to explain how I feel about it, but in my experience, it requires so much less effort compared to core Necro that I’m inclined to call it faceroll. The Stability, cleave and better Life Force gen just make it exponentially more forgiving than core Necro and allows for much easier multi-target management. If I were to try any of what was seen in the video with core Necro, I’d have been shredded in seconds. Not being able to tank CC’s or cleave opponents when they’re grouped together would be my undoing. As a Reaper? Smooth sailing.

>mfw someone gimps themselves by playing base necro and calls using elite specs ‘faceroll’

Reaper is in line with the other elite specs, I totally agree, but that’s not what I was trying to say.

Not really. Reaper vs a Daredevil on the same skill level is a fight the Reaper shouldn’t be winning. Reaper vs Berserker, also a tough matchup imo. The one thing Reaper used to have that stood out like a Daredevil’s mobility or Berkserker’s damage was chill dealing damage, and that is now gone.

Anyway, I didn’t mean to start a thing over it. Just that any time I switch to Reaper (using mostly the same build that you are, with more toughness and less vitality) I feel like I could 1v5 all night long.

You won’t be 1v5ing on Reaper unless you’re lucky and get bad opponents. That is literally it. OP kited excellently but if the enemies were halfway decent he’d most likely be dead.

EDIT: Also, I’m not one of those people who thinks being a power build means you’re a better player or something. I enjoy condition builds and some of them take a lot of skill to maintain proper condition pressure. Believe me if you dug deep enough in my comment history I’m sure you could find me defending it. There’s nothing hard about being able to 1 – 2 shot someone even if you’re squishy as all heck. You kill them before it matters how squishy you are anyway.

“I don’t think playing a power build makes me a better person, I just think playing base Necro makes me superior because it’s not as strong as Reaper. Also I want people to know that so I’m criticising OP for playing what Anet gave him when in reality, my opinion is largely unnecessary here”

More on topic: Amazing kiting OP, I wish I could keep cool like you do in those situations! I’m considering using spectral walk instead of spectral armour on my zerker roaming build just for the extra swiftness and potential jukes, just can’t quite get used to it

What scares me the most is that Anet might see this thread, not read it and all the posts clearly against keeping DBLs and say something like “After careful consideration we have decided that, due to not everyone wanting the DBLs gone, we will keep them and instead work further to improve them”.
There is no easy or quick way to ‘improve’ them, I’m sorry. It’s far too huge, far too complex in terms of levels, far too PvE-ish and the tower/keep bosses are just too gimmicky and strong. When we asked for WvW to get something new, I don’t think most of us meant guild hall-built upgrades (which discourage very small guilds/roaming guilds, by the way, because where are we meant to get the materials?), the completely stupid banners, cloaking waters etc.
Sure it may be possible for a small guild to get these materials, but in the end why would we? If it takes so long to get into the only map worth playing, EB, because it has a 50+ man queue most of the time because no one wants to play on the DBLs.
Going back to ABLs may not necessarily fix WvW completely or bring back all who left already, but that’s an argument for getting rid of DBLs in itself – people who play WvW are leaving this game for others. Please don’t push the rest away too.

Fat Disgrace.4275:

Lol play a different game then. I prefer the old maps just like everyone else does. But we won’t get them back so just get on with it.

Roaming on bl does work if you knock on enemy keeps, and belive it or not, real players not npcs come. if defenders come then we get fights but I agree it’s no where as busy as it use to be back in the old days.

“Lol play a different game then” No. That logic doesn’t work, it doesn’t get you what you want. Why would you settle for something like that when you have Anet finally asking us for advice, willing to listen to us? Asking us what we want to be done to revive WvW. That is exactly the last thing you should be saying right now.

Fat Disgrace.4275:

sephiroth.4217:

Fat Disgrace.4275:

The new maps are no where near as bad as people make them out to be. Ofc at first it was a bit a shock and I wasn’t that impressed with the size or the gimmicks in it but time does help you over come it. Quite enjoying roaming now (not solo, 2-5 people)

pff. not quite the same lol. you can ignore said guy, or you can adapt and accept the new map.

Why should we have to accept terrible design and mechanics? I paid for this game and for the expansion, I’d quite like my money’s worth rather than settling for something I currently hate.

You’re in T1. Of course it’s going to be like this. If you look at a lower tier server, you’ll see that these BLs are an actual wasteland because probably around 98% of players just do not enjoy them.
Also, as someone that moved to a higher tier server (Gunnar’s Hold → Piken) where there’s usually a 50 man queue on some nights for EB, I can tell you that the only time I set foot in these BLs is when my queue is far from 1st place. It’s either that, EOTM or PvP whilst I wait.

Anet, please. PLEASE get rid of the desert borderlands. You can’t fix them without removing the oasis event, making them much smaller and much less vertical so you may as well just scrap them. The alpine borderlands were superior in every way imaginable. Honestly, I think that the lack of people on the new borderlands attests for how people feel about them. Sure, there may be some that enjoy them but the vast majority would rather they were gone, as can be seen from the forums and reddit.

Cerby.1069:

I ask that they increase it to 2 points per kill. Then after a trial period look at increasing it to up to 3 points per kills….etc.

Ganks are good things.
Being more cautious with your life is a good thing.
Spawn camping is a good thing.

Whenever the enemy camps outside our spawn and people complain about it….I just laugh. I go one of the 2 side routes and go about my business. It’s like fish complaining about getting caught in a net as they intentionally swim straight into them.

If you don’t like it join a karma train bl or organize a group within your own bl so you can karma train or just play when guild runs are going on….you have plenty of options to combat that which you don’t seem to like/appreciate.

I’m a little torn between writing out a proper response to this or simply sticking with “are you a kittening kitten?”. I’ll go with both.
1) Ganks are not good things. You’re just a kitten. Ganks promote a toxic environment and lead to a false sense of superiority. All too often I see full try-hard mode thieves and mesmers (or a heavy class with thieves) running around ganking, using full evade one-trick pony builds. You stealthed, outnumbered and killed someone. Very wow. Much well done. I hope your kitten grew half an inch.
2)“Spawn camping is a good thing” – No, it’s not. It’s (as someone in this thread said) a vulgar and meaningless display of power and greater zerg size. All it does it contribute to a toxic environment yet again and breed anger. Sure, you could go another way but have you ever considered that newer, or less experienced players, won’t know about those other routes? They’ll likely just rage quit and not try wvw again, and understandably so.
3)“join a karma train bl” – Oh yes, lets just kill off the smaller servers completely. What a smashing idea. Have you ever considered that some servers just don’t have the population to start up their own karma train? Actually I can tell you from experience that they don’t.
4) Are you a kittening kittened?

RedBaron.6058:

When ANet is finished with milking all the gems they can from player server transfers they will introduce the megaserver system to WvW.

Until then they will just keep following the gems sales charts closely until the graph line representing gems used for server transfers dips dramaticaly…

Jokes on them, I paid with gold…Although I feel like I should just buy 10k gems to hurry the process of leaving the current clusterkitten than is wvw and the new bls.

An unequivocal yes. Hell yes I want the old bls back. I don’t (and won’t) play the new bls. I’ve tried over and over again to get into them but it’s just impossible because they have so many flaws. It’s like anet completely forgot what wvw is about and went overboard on design > functionality.

-Far too big. Just far too big, seriously.
-Far too complex and with too many levels – this makes it almost impossible to navigate if you’re unfamiliar and quite frankly it’s just not necessary. Sure, the odd cliff is fine but you don’t need them all over the place, everywhere.
-Just really crappy to fight in due to above reasons
-Why on earth are the hills and bay wps contested on your home bl constantly?
-Speaking of hills and bay – they’re far too big, making chasing down people hiding in them a pain in the kitten.
-Taking towers etc is a pain if you’re a roamer because camps are miles away and the lord fights make solo capping ridiculous. Solo roaming certainly wasn’t dead in the alpine bls, but it sure as hell seems to be now.
-Please just get rid of the oasis event.
-Too many seemingly pointless functions such as the rocks that come out of the ground (they don’t do much realistically), random cripple, random stealth for no apparent reason

Anet, the alpine borderlands were great in comparison to the current ones because they were simple, they were of a good size and towers were spaced out well. There were no bs canyons and cliffs and it was almost always easy to fight without having to worry about getting knocked off. Eotm is more fun that the desert borderlands, kitten.

Faux Play.6104:

Learn to carry afkers. The more you lose the more you will get on your team.

Nicely trolled, 10/10

It’s a shame that anet deals with things in this way instead of taking the time and effort to implement changes to stop this kind of behaviour. Don’t punish the guy that AFKs and ruins a match, just delete the post naming and shaming the guy because boohoo, we wouldn’t want his feelings to get hurt. How about a day long ban for afking in a match?

ronpierce.2760:

Fivedawgs.4267:

ronpierce.2760:

Fivedawgs.4267:

ronpierce.2760:

Fivedawgs.4267:

Firebird Gomer.9563:

ronpierce.2760:

The reason I ask this is, if the above are both true, first off, people need to get out of the mindset that “Ranked” is for everyone. Everyone is welcome to apply, but not everyone will be effective in a highly competitive arena. That’s FINE. There is no reason to hand-hold people in Ranked, that’s what Unranked even exists for. People who want 100% fair matches, remember unranked exists. It may suck to hear, but Ranked simply isn’t a reward track and isn’t intended to be. It is a competition, and as such, it wouldn’t be a competition if everyone won or if it was divided up into baby, medium and high tier (which is effectively what averaging MMR does), because it becomes unfair for the higher tier players who have to fight only higher tier players while lower tier players rise in ranks by fighting other bad players.

The point your missing is that for many people Ranked is the only way for people to get a Legendary backpiece. So if Ranked isnt for everyone why “AGAIN” did Anet put it behind the League matches.

Nope the point that is missing is that fair games do not purposely match higher skills players against low skilled one. (Which is our current system). True, ranked is supposed to be competitive but where is the challenge when you constantly match good players against bad ones?? Wouldn’t a mix of good and bad players be more competitve than having good players on one side and bad on the other???

Competition is to weed out the bad and push forward the best, not Face the best against the best and the worst against the worst ending up with a High-Division comprised partly of the top portion of good players and partly of the top portion of bad players. That’s what ends up happening when you try to “even” team MMR. Bad people get carried up and good players end up getting held down. That’s not competition, that’s how Unranked works, and SHOULD work, as that is the “fair” platform. Ranked is not and shout not be the “fair” platform, as far as getting to legendary.

And anyone who puts the time and effort into it should be able to at least hit sapphire, regardless of skill level.

Wait, if competition is to weed out the bad and push the best forward. Then why is the system setting best against bad? So,the best have to be teamed with other best to get segregated from the bad?? Is that what you are saying?

No, the reason this happens NOW is because they’re trying to push higher MMR out of lower Divisions quicker. It sucks now, but given more time as players hit Ruby/Diamond, the lower tiers will actually look more like that, worse players versus worse players, and the best will be all facing eachother in Diamond.

The problem is that everyone starts at the bottom, so it causes a lot of unfair competition, but the only real way to eliminate that is to give higher tier players early-season Boosters (which has been discussed already somewhat).

Right now, yes, it’s bad. But as more and more players fight out of the low tiers, the low tiers become comprised of a lower quality player pool overall and fewer higher tier players.

Now, the other thing is; there is always bottom barrel. Those people will have to realize Ranked just maybe isn’t for them… But yes, ANYONE can get Sapphire with enough time. That time has yet to be spent. I didn’t say anyone could hit sapphire in a day, I said anyone who spends the time should be able to hit Sapphire by the end of the season if they try hard enough. That’s the simple nature of not being able to lose pips early on, and tiers later.

You do realize that not all high MMR players are getting push outer lower tier apace right? The fallacy of your paragraph is that you don’t realize that even at High elo best player will be group together against not so best player. Instead of your skills,the system is segregating people into divisions. Idk how you are enjoying such a system.

And anyone who put the time will get in ruby. Anyways, all I am saying is that there is a better way to do it. Losing 15 or winning 15 games in row is just WRONG dude. It’s doesn’t matter how skilled someone is, you can’t have one sided winning it all and the other losing it all. If it was based on luck alone, I would have no problem but in this case the system is unfairly favoring one side over the other.

Losing 15 times in a row would be “wrong” if the system was built to be fair (Unranked). Losing 15 times in a row means nothing in a system designed to be competitive. Get a team that’s even somewhat good, and you should not have that issue.

“Get a team that’s even somewhat good” Oh, please. That’s not a solution, in fact thats just a terribly flippant way of handling this. That’s almost as inane as saying “learn to play”.

Yes, please! It can’t be fun being farmed at the start of a season and honestly, it just turns new players to pvp away.

Okay, lets take this step by step.
1) Perfect balance isn’t achievable – I didn’t say that at any point. It certainly isn’t possible with anet having one team for pve and pvp content, something which continues to baffle me.
2) “Balance is definition of boredom” – There is balance and then there is OP. Not even OP, but grossly OP, and that in itself is actually boring. Due to this lack of balancing certain classes will run the same kitten thing. Necro? 10/10 condi, no question about it – I’ve yet to see another zerker necro in pvp. Guard? 10/10 traps. Revenant? Most likely Glint + Shiro combo. I barely see Mallyx.
3)“If Anet will react to every kid tear” – Oh boy. That’s the issue here pal. Anet isn’t reacting AT ALL. Have you not noticed that it’s not just me complaining about this? Also, 1v3 is entirely irrelevant to this, although I have seen scrapper tank mid 1v3 for ab out a minute. That’s not mildly OP, thats ridiculous.
4) “Some build are better then other” No way! I think you’ve missed the point. Once again, there’s builds that are better than others and then there’s builds that are so good, taking anything else is just not possible because you’ll most likely get eaten alive.
5) “Man up, get better and learn to lose sometime” I’m not even going to bother with this one, nice try though

EDIT: Typo

Anet, I just don’t understand. You’ve made so much money from HoT (I presume), but you’re going to lose it all buying bumper packs of tissues to soak up the salty tears from your players. Seriously. You nerfed chill and bristleback ever so slightly in response to outrage but it’s not enough. If anything it felt like more of a “eh just give them some number tweaks to shut them up” No. That’s not good enough. Chill is still kitteningly OP, as are a multitude of other classes/skills.

I play power reaper (because I don’t enjoy condi and neither do I enjoy playing something that is as grossly overpowered as condi reaper) and honestly, condi reaper is ridiculous. I don’t even need to explain how its ridiculous because I’m sure plenty have said it already, so I’ll keep it short and sweet for this one : nerf conditions

Dragonhunter! Generally not that bad in 1v1 I’d say, or when WvW roaming but when in a closer quarter combat situation like PvP (think fighting on point), its completely insane. Anet, I wish I could post a compilation video of all the times I’ve tried killing a DH on the treb in Khylo, because I honestly can’t describe the sheer kittenation of that class. At what point did you possibly think that it would be a good idea to allow traps to recharge after being cast as opposed to being triggered, and at what point did you think it a good idea to make them last ages AND do stupid amounts of damage? Not to mention longbow. TL;DR; fix your traps, mid point fights are aids

Scrapper sustain is also something that I marvel at continuously. Just how? How is that a thing? How is daredevil a thing? I know its been established that you don’t play your own game, but surely even on paper certain things are clearly too OP to even consider implementing.

P.s. before anyone comments with “l2p” or something else completely inane and useless, remember that not all of us are esports. Thanks xo

Sorry Anet, but these changes do not bring me any hope whatsoever. I appreciate that this is meant to be a “sneak peak”, but these changes are worth little to me. In fact, some of them will just make WvW even worse in my opinion – why would you make it so that you can’t revive a dead person whilst in combat? I understand the logic, but I personally think it’s just a terrible idea with potential to be abused by trolls.

You only mention one thing about the new BLs, which is the cost of catapults. Whilst I agree with this, I personally think that the main issue with the new BLs is that a (seemingly) vast majority doesnt’ like them. We just don’t like them. They’re huge, they’re far too vertical and although they’re pretty, they’re impractical. I feel like they’ve killed the attraction of small-scale or even solo roaming. I’m not about to build a cata to take something by myself like I once did because it’s just too much time spent running back and forth from a camp across such a large map.
Ideally, Anet would bring back the Alpine BLs as well as keeping the new ones, but then again that’s not going to happen.

It just seems to me that there are things more problematic than those you’ve addressed so far. WvW is dying, if not already dead in some smaller servers and these changes are too little too late. I do hope to see more.

Thank you OP for posting something that’s been on my mind for a long time, and explaining it in such a great way too. It’s just a shame some people have predictably ignored what you’re saying.
I’m thankful that I have a guild to run 50s with, because the amount of tryhard elitists I see in LFG for that fractal tier is ridiculous. They all post “need 1 war ps 2 ele 1 guard 1 teef” and its just so silly to see. You don’t -need- that setup. You don’t -need- to stack at a certain spot or exploit.
People just don’t understand that they’ll finish their run fine with a necro or ranger or whatever else, and when they don’t, I can’t help but laugh because it just shows they don’t actually know anything about playing the game, only stack in this corner, stack might, pull boss and ice bow kitten mode. It’s really very pathetic.