Guild Wars 2

I hope someone has said this already in these 7 pages, this isn’t rocket science. Why not allow players to resume their pip status exactly where they left off when they logged off? They will start with whatever level of pips they had when they last logged off. No one has to go afk to wring out their reservoir. Am I drunk?

Quenta – Black Talons [BT]

Great early game commander. Liked to drink good whiskey and sing, like here: “https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twRXCZXFCL0”

Shout out for your retired WvW commanders from the past 5 years. Thought it would be cool to take this trip down memory lane.

Char Name. Guild(s). Say a few words in their memory if you wish.

R.I.P

Well the more we bring it up, the more likely they’ll think about it.

National events like Presidential Debates (8pm EST) and Oscars (4pm EST) and World Series (7:30 EST) all start way earlier than reset (10:15 EST).

joneirikb.7506:

Short version, ANet set down the foot, said you’re not getting it earlier, due to their release schedule of patches for friday if needed. Several threads ongoing about this, last one got locked. You’ll have to search to find the full stuff.

In short, just be glad it isn’t saturday.

How long ago? Maybe that was the old, obstinately top-down regime. The tone has changed recently.

Friday reset on NA servers currently happens around 7:15, 8:15, 9:15, or 10:15 pm depending on your timezone.

But it seems like many players are ready and waiting earlier than that, even PST players like me. That’s a waste of good reset time.

Would you prefer that reset happened an hour earlier in your timezone?

(Daylight Savings adds a little complexity, but it would be easy for anet to change the reset time by an hour when the clocks change by an hour)

In the 5/31 poll Anet asked WvW players if we want desert and alpine borderland maps to be available simultaneously, or alternatively if we want just desert or alpine to be available one at a time and rotated every 3 months.

The problem is that Anet has already decided by default. They said that the maps will be rotated every 3 months unless a 75 percent majority vote to change that presumption. Not a simply majority, not even a super majority, but 75 percent.

I’m a big fan of Tyler and the new democratic approach Anet is taking, but don’t let this polling turn into joke. If Anet picks a default outcome before we even vote, and we need a 75 percent majority to overcome that presumption, then polling becomes a farce.

With respect,

So Awesome.

Are there new folks running WvW at Anet? Because recently you all have become way more attentive and responsive to what most WvW players want. Keep up the good work!

I’d like to see the WvW builds people are using and also ask what specifically you like about that build—-frontline or backline. I’m just looking for ideas.

BrickFurious.7169:

Go ahead and dislike the new map, I don’t care. It certainly isn’t perfect, it could definitely use some tweaks (I’ve posted before that yaks shouldn’t be optional for objective upgrades). But please don’t pretend that the new map has anything fundamentally to do with the decline of WvW populations. And please, pretty please, with a cherry on top, don’t try to speak on behalf of the “WvW community” anymore.

Fair point. I’m certainly not the WvW spokesperson. I guess I could have instead said “based on a fair reading of the WvW forums, a true majority of the WvW community dislikes the new maps.” Its okay to paraphrase the WvW community, right?

For those of us super nerds with 3000+ hours of WvW, the percentage of haters is even higher. My current guild only runs on EB, and that seems true for all the other t2 fighting guilds.

Just read the forums, its an unpopular map.

Sinbold.8723:

Have you seen what a charged lodestone sells for on the TP lately?

Shadow, are you sure that’s it? Do you think the cost of leveling up scribe so we can build guild AC’s that cost about 10 gold worth of materials has anything to do with it? The fact that we can’t +5 a camp as easy as we used to, and had already unlocked that by spending influence and it is now behind a crafting wall, along with the vitality, toughness, and other boosts we’d built before? That we can only claim one objective PER GUILD, not per map like we used to, making our oh so expensive upgrades less effective?

Your signature says FA- I’m on Ehmry Bay. Your server helped me develop a love of WvW, so if you quit I have to honestly say I’ll miss you. We may have even killed each other on the field at some point and hooted at our team mates about it. Yeah, we agree we don’t like what Anet did, but I’m still running around the borderlands when I play, trying to learn all the spots for tricky cata placements that can hit outer and inner, where I can blink and where I can’t, where the AC needs to go and where it should never go, and the treb, and the bali, and the shield generator (which is actually kinda cool), and you sound like (not sure you’re still playing in the borderlands) you’ve given up. I have a favor to ask: please don’t give up. Come flip some camps, shrines, and keeps, but direct your outrage at the lousy way they designed scribe.

Okay, okay, you won me over with your charisma and respect. I’ll keep trying to like the new maps for the guys like us who just want a good WvW experience again.

Sinbold.8723:

O geez! Don’t give’em any ideas!!!

Dunno what server you’re on, but the 2 servers mine is against seem to like flipping our stuff and defending theirs. Spend some time running around and familiarizing yourself with the map- it’s not THAT bad. But a lot of the population has been pulled away into the new raid, it would seem, so their participation in WvW hasn’t been what it used to be. But as I said, there ARE people playing on the new borderlands.

Oh, and when you check it out, try flipping an air shrine with your MF boosted- they drop charged lodestones. I’ve gotten 2 so far, and have seen several others get them from air shrines. Good luck!

The existing WvW population doesn’t care much about lodestones. A lodestone is a crappy pittance to get in exchange for a decent MMO pvp environment.

And the population has not been pulled away by raids. They have been pulled away by a poorly designed wvw map that no one cares about anymore. You’ll find them in different games, not in pve raids.

The WvW community hates the new maps. We told you we would during beta for a host of reasons.

Remember when fights happened on the borderlands? Remember when players cared about upgrading and defending and attacking stuff? I do.

So the question you should be asking yourself is how long will you keep the unpopular new maps before pulling the plug on failed content?

My prediction regarding the change to waypoints:

more ninja pvd, fewer waypoints, more running, more scouting keeps, fewer battles, sadness, HoT optimism, HoT disappointment, join the other 90 percent of WvW players who have already quit the game.

Nymph of Meliai.6739:

The other day, I noticed that on Jade Sea borderland there was a que… upon getting on the border, we were outnumbered, so I assumed some people must’ve left allowing me to get on the borderland… but then I went to our home borderland and noticed that as I left, there was a que again for JS borderland, and when I got back on borderland we were outnumbered… I tried this a couple of times and got someone else to check too…
We had a que for a borderland where we were outnumbered.

My guild calls those “fake queues.” It usually happen when there is a legitimate queue on a map, and then a blob of friendly players from that map suddenly leaves to go blob a different map (often following a float tag). For a short while it will appear as though there is a still a queue on the map, but there isn’t, players can enter instantly and even be outnumbered.

Because anet doesn’t care about server balance.

Numbers and timezone coverage are everything to score. Server culture, skill, etc mean almost nothing. But for 3 years anet has done almost nothing to balance numbers and coverage. They could have, for example:

- made it free to transfer to low-population servers and MUCH more expensive to transfer to high-population servers to encourage even distribution of players
- added points per kill to reward zerg-busting skills
- weighted PPT so that objectives are worth more during NA hours and less during off-hours

These are just a few ideas off the top of my head. There are many more i’m sure.

But instead we have a situation where giant servers are paired with tiny servers on the same tier for months at a time, eventually killing the smaller server. That is what SoS and FA are presently facing in tier 2, and both servers are now struggling to stay alive and avoid complete implosion, hoping that the expansion will change things. It sucks.

Even just one old borderland map would minimize the risk that the the new borderland map will kill the WvW culture of GW2—a very real danger.

Like many others, I’m afraid the new map is going to turn WvW into EotM primarily because of the size-to-objective-to-population ratio. Enemy encounters will be far less common or necessary.

Until the new borderland has proven its quality, please preserve access to at least one of the existing borderlands for those who play WvW primarily to fight other players.

Thanks

Another question is how did a game maker devoted to PvP Esport alienate the pvp users?

Answer: By ignoring the PvP community and WvW.
Most PvP players oscillate between the Mists and WvW. But WvW has been a low resource priority from Anet from day 1. No new WvW maps = no new fun. No GvG Arena = guilds turning WvW in to GvG arenas and complaining about ***jamming when ppt guilds play as intended (and the game is called “Guild Wars,” how is there no GvG!!!).

For **** sake, people are going to Archeage for PvP. For PvP!!! The combat is terrible in Archeage!!!

Don’t worry though, Golem Mastery is coming!

I am little embarrassed by all the balance-patch whining coming from fellow eles in this thread and others. Talk about looking a gift horse in the mouth. Eles are already totally viable in PvP, and now we’re getting pretty incredible buffs that open up even more powerful builds that may even be OP and still all you can do is complain. Some of you wieners won’t be happy until eles get some kind of god mode that makes them invincible. LTP.

With love,

This has been such a fun match-up. Great fights in FABL last night. Looking forward to our servers’ next encounter.

Not sure what all this “bandwagon” talk is about. FA has been holding in tier two (aka Gold League) for over eight months.

“Bandwagon” is an overused insult.

Also, all servers do a fine job and have good players. Its just a series of tubes that divide us. Its easy to lose sight of that in these sucky forums.

Just a reminder TC, in recent months you have been the blob vs. smaller servers far more often than the other way around. Its all part of the ebb and flow. Just take your turn with grace.

This screenshot is from when I was on FA earlier in the year. You had superior numbers most of the time, and we were stuck with you for MONTHS.

I spoke in person to a certain WvW developer back in February, and I was able to tease out that new maps were only at the concept stage (artists drawing pictures for ideas) and not to expect any new WvW maps in 2013.

It is really unfortunate that the WvW team is under-staffed and under-resourced because WvW has desperately needed new maps since about a month after launch. Seems to me like WvW players have been leaving the game in fairly substantial numbers throughout 2013, probably due to lack of new content, and there might not be a whole lot of PvPers left to enjoy the new maps by the time they finally arrive. It really is a shame.

Same problem for me. I’ve played hundreds of spvp matches, and I can see the rankings of all my guildmates, but I am nowhere to be seen on the spvp leaderboard. The other leaderboards (WvW and Achievements) work correctly, but not spvp.

I got a precursor (trident, boo) somewhere around 25k kills. But some of my guild mates have picked up really valuable precursors.

In my experience precursors seem to come most often from tower/keep lords. Just anecdotal evidence though.

I don’t think signets are worthless. I’ll make two points:

(1) As someone else has already said, Signet of Earth is a great immobilize. I’m running S/D these days, and many of my biggest skills are tough to land. But using SoE I can immobilize a single target and then wreck him with all my fire skills in succession, killing most players. So single signets can be a critical part of a viable build. Also, the extra 170 toughness is awesome.

(2) I think there are viable signet bunker builds that use 3-4 signets. Trait earth, use Written in Stone and signet recharge reduction. First, this gives you much better healing power because you gain the active and passive benefits of signet of restoration. And all the other signet passive/active effects are great too. I’ve played around with builds like this and they can be absolute tanks that retain killing power. Its just going to take people a little while to warm up to the signet potential because signets have been disfavored for so long, and many of the buffs are really recent.

If the patch notes are accurate, you will see a lot more staff eles out there. They are already one of the best builds for WvW zerg fighting, and if cast times are shortened, staff eles will be the undisputed leaders in AoE dps (which they may be already). Who knows, we may even be able to win 1v1 situations

The Elementalist trait Arcane Energy is supposed to grant a 25 percent refill to endurance whenever a signet is used. But it does not work unless an enemy is targeted. This must be a bug because not all signets affect enemies (like the healing signet). Why must players have an enemy targeted when using a healing signet to get the benefit of Arcane Energy?

Frost aura is advertised as having a 7 second duration. And the aura lasts 7 seconds when an aura skill is used.

But when frost aura is achieved by blasting an ice field, it only lasts for 3 seconds. Not sure if this is a bug or by design.

kaiserneon.8427:

Hello there, I have a Necromancer who is built for Chilling. I use:

2x Superior Runes of Svanir (+25 Toughness, +20% Frozen Duration)

2x Superior Runes of the Ice (+25 Vitality, +20% Frozen Duration)

2x Superior Runes of Grenth (+25 Condition Damage, +20% Frozen Duration)

along with a Focus which has:

Major Sigil of Chilling (+20% Frozen Duration – which in itself is a bug!)

So altogether I should have stacked +80% Chill/Frozen Duration (gotta update these tooltips, guys). However, my slot 5 skill, Spinal Shivers, which applies a 5 second Chill by default, is lasting just shy of 7 seconds, leading me to believe that the chill duration bonus is only being extended by the offhand Sigil and one of the set bonuses for a total bonus of 30%. My Necromancer also has a Staff whose slot 3 skill, Chillblains, is having its 4s Chill effect extended by roughly a second, where it should at least be getting two more seconds due to a 60% bonus without the Focus Sigil applied to it. Chills applied by Blind using the Chilling Darkness trait are hardly applying Chill that lasts longer than a second as well.

Also, the tooltips for the Chill skills don’t update to reflect the additional chilling bonus, further mystifying the issue and making it difficult to determine exactly what could be causing this problem.

I’m not sure if this is intentional or not considering that condition duration Runes simply did not work at all prior to the recent March 26th patch, but I would appreciate it if the team at ANet investigated it or if other community members who have experience with these runes could give me input. Thanks everyone.

Yep. I’m having the same issue. Chill duration is not increased by Runes as promised.

Chill duration is affected by the consumables I use (Pizza), but not by my Runes:

2 x Superior Runes of Svanir (25 Toughness, +20% Frozen Duration) and
2x Superior Runes of Grenth (25 Condition Damage, +20% Frozen Duration)

I have tested extensively. Its not just a problem of tooltips: the actual effect of chill is not increased at all by these Runes. I’m not sure why the Runes are working for the previous poster but not me or OP.

Please help.

Proud of FA for its performance against two “Full” servers. Keep up the good work!

When I run my guardian, I obviously wish retaliation was higher.

But when I run my ele, and I drop all my AoE’s on an enemy zerg that is grouped up behind a gate in WvW , it can cause 20k+ in purely retaliation damage in about 5 seconds. I have to drop my AoE’s and immediately use every heal I have, and sometimes I still go down from retaliation. If retaliation were higher, there would be too high a price to pay for using AoE on enemy zergs.

WvW population across servers seems thinner now than a few months ago. Interest appears to be waning, and I don’t think its due just to arrow carts. You can only play in the same little sandbox for so long before it gets boring. We needed new maps, not WXP and traps.

The PvPers are leaving already, and the rest will follow when the next decent MMO comes out.

povV.5681:

gellor…OH GELLORRRRRRRRR….jus droppin in to say hey : ) looks like you guys are well on your way to tier 1.

They’ll need JQ to implode first so there is a vacant spot in T1. No way they’re getting past T2 in their current form. http://mos.millenium.org/matchups#NA

TC and FA have become the salty old gatekeepers of T1. Better bring a whole lot of momentum to get past us!

Is it just me or does WvW participation seem lower across all servers these past few weeks/months? T2 doesn’t feel as populated as it once did.

Seems like the TC server we faced just a few weeks ago is returning. TC took a break the same time DB came into T2 and I started to wonder if DB was ever going to see the powerful numbers TC can bring.

Some of us on FA have been a little surprised that DB beat TC the last couple weeks, and a little dumbfounded that we beat TC too. I still think TC has the highest PPT potential of all three servers and could take green if it decides to.

Hickeroar.9734:

Spets the MilkBandit.9031:

zergs are whats breaking the game… not the siege.

I keep seeing people complain about zergs…but no one has a good reason why they’re bad.

I love running in small groups and I love running in zergs. They’re both valid, and very fun, ways to play the game.

If zergs were ever affected to the point of being non-viable, people would leave the WvW game in droves. Why? Because zergs are fun and important to the process.

Exactly. And Anet devs have said that they envisioned huge, epic battles for WvW. That means clashing armies (zergs). There are supposed to be zergs in the mix.

1) I had this same experience with the ele when I first started. It felt like a glass bb-gun. Frankly the ele is really hard to play. It takes a lot of practice to get good. I have over 2k deaths on my ele Some of us have gotten really good, and it can make the class seem OP, but the truth is that the ele baseline stats are pretty crappy.

2) There are not many viable ele builds out there. That is why so many people went with Daphoenix’s bunker build. They couldn’t kill much, but at least they could escape with this build. With recent nerfs, this build isn’t even that great at escaping/chasing anymore.

3) Survival advice: If you are having trouble with survival, ditch the berzerker armor and celestial gear and focus on toughness instead. Knights are my favorite. My current build has 2500 toughness and 3200 armor (overkill in most situations but great for WvW guild fighting)(its a 0/0/30/10/30). Toughness is much more important than vitality. Toughness makes every hp you have stronger, which greatly increases survivability and the value of your heals. With high toughness, each hp gained through a heal will be a much stronger more valuable hp. Speaking of heals, switch in and out of water attunement as quickly and as often as possible. Switching into water is a heal, so attune to water, hit your water skill heals, dodge once for the evasive arcane heal, and get back out of water as quickly as possible so you can switch back into water again 9 seconds later. Repeat. Switch into earth for a second too even if your earth skills are on cool down just to get the protection buff.

TheGuy.3568:

The time we spent on ele I have to say doesn’t matter. the fact is this is a game with PvP changes in the meta are to be expected. You may feel bad or cheated but know its part of the game.

I agree with pretty much everything you said. I only cited the time I’ve spent on my ele to point out that I know what i’m talking about when I say that 1v2 is rare with a d/d ele, and people have a false idea about how awesome the d/d is. I have enjoyed my time very much as an ele and I don’t feel cheated at all.

Lenn.6347:

this forum is like a whole new level of embarrassing, one slight nerf to a build that had way too much going for it did not kill your class. if a slight nerf “killed” it for you, you have no business playing said class, as you never really liked it to begin with.

admit it, if it was “killed,” you’re just another bandwagoner with just a desire to beat people in the easiest, quickest manner; frankly, it’s kind of pathetic.

*Sigh, i’ll bite. First, to be fair, its not one slight nerf, its been a series of medium nerfs. Second, as I explained above, our class did not have “way too much going for it” in the first place. The d/d was tough to kill and that’s about it. Third, I don’t see many people claiming that the ele has been “killed.” This is a thread about how to adapt to the nerf. And many of us are not bandwagoners, we picked ele at launch without knowing anything about it because we like playing mages with AoE. Finally, speaking of pathetic, like most other critics here you are not even an ele, you are an uninformed troll. What’s the matter? Were a few ele’s able to escape from you thief? Come back when you’ve rolled an ele. I think you’ll agree that the hype is unwarranted.

Trebbing arrow carts and other trebs is not my idea of a good time. So i’m playing a lot less WvW since the patch.

I like my PvP to involve actual combat. You know, when players use those skillbar abilities at the bottom of the screen.

dat bunny.5074:

I have know idea why you guys are all crying. You guys had a nerf, please join the thief class where they have had a nerf every update. Ele is still a great class, you guys just cant solo 5 players anymore and run away if things look bad

I blame Daphoenix and his Fall 2012 d/d videos for this perception. Many thousands of people watched him harass a bunch of upleveled noobs in WvW with his bunker build and cried OP! [like the thief above who has not rolled an ele but has nevertheless come to troll a d/d thread with claims of 1v5] Ordinary players would have shrugged off Daphoenix’s pathetic damage, forcing him to flee (the only thing d/d was truly good at). Even the noobs he was harassing didn’t die. And i’m sure he has a lot of videos where he was taken down by 1 or 2 other players, they just aren’t posted.

Anyway, eles became an “OP” class overnight and have been overrated ever since. But the truth is that the d/d was never as good as advertised, it was just annoying because of its survivability, and now its mediocre at best.

Those of us who have put 1000+ hours of pvp into our d/d ele will tell you that winning even a 1v2 is extremely rare, and virtually impossible if the other two players know what they are doing.

1) Played around with a 0/0/30/10/30 scepter/dagger signet build. That was alright.

2) Created a guardian, which is so awesome. The more I play it, the more it seems superior to the ele in pretty much every way.

Had a great time tonight on FABL hanging onto our tattered paper Hills. The thing was swiss cheese for hours. Lots of fun fights in there.

Lance.5892:

Caliban.3176:

Heijincks.9267:

Caliban.3176:

Heijincks.9267:

The only problem with this is that there is only a couple areas I can think of where a counter treb cannot be countered, but that is a separate issue altogether.

Other than that, why can’t the attackers counter the counter treb then?

But then it is just treb warring back and forth and no more fighting and not everyone can be on the trebs at the same time so it becomes boring. This is not a solution.

In terms of realism, this is proper. Siege in real life can take months before any progress is made.

In terms of battle and WvW itself, keeps/towers aren’t the only objectives available. You’ll still see large scale battles, just not necessarily at keeps/towers (at “worst” case scenario). In other words, you still get what you want.

Don’t bring realism into this, that’s stupid. If it were realistic then my shield of absorption would stop all arrows because arrows are projectiles. Mesmer feedback would destroy anything that Arrowcarts can do. I would like that.

flame rams also wouldnt die in 40 seconds to an arrow cart!

And arrows would not pass through gates, hitting rams.

pulsecodesgnl.3470:

Shadow Gathering.5649:

Mif.3471:

Quenta.2978:

Game sounds bad. Siege Wars 2 was bad enough, but now arrow carts get a massive buff? Can’t wait.

Leader of a zerg guild hates new anti-zerg mechanic.
Working as intended.

Arrow Carts are not anti-zerg. They make it so more people are required to take an objective. It encourages zerging.

You’d have to have a zerg greater than 50 to hit the AoE cap for Arrow Carts, it is definitely an anti-zerg mechanic. Low AoE caps are a zerg mechanic. They make it so more stupid people using a crappy strat are required. 2 AC’s with 100 man cap rather solves that problem though, and encourages you to siege in intelligent ways instead of roflstomping your way through a gate.

When siege is buffed, it means that fewer people are required to defend a structure because they can rely on siege instead of numbers, conversely MORE people are required to attack a structure to overcome that buffed siege.

That’s why the arrow cart buff is not an anti-zerg mechanic, it forces more zerging.

These new arrow carts are ridiculous. And with the range buff, its hard even to know where the arrows are coming from.

The response will be trebbing the snot out of everything before going in. It will be a protracted turtlefest.

You over-did-it on the arrow carts Anet.

“mouth cowards”

Brilliant. I’m going to borrow this.

To date, Anet has done nothing to provide viable alternatives to the ele bunker.

The reason so many of us rolled bunker build in the first place is because there is NO viable alternative. If you don’t have at least 1/2 of your trait points in water and arcane, your build is going to suck. Period.

No one is using signet builds or glyph builds. No one is maxing out the fire or earth trait lines. In short, a huge portion of the ele’s build potential is untouched. And its because all those options suck. We tried them all. And after getting rolled for months, we were forced into a bunker build with crappy dps that really only works well against bad/glass players (see Daphoenix’s videos). The bunker build was great for survivability and mediocre for most other things.

And now, thanks to the nerf bat, even the bunker build is starting to suck. We have needed viable alternative builds from day 1, and Anet has done nothing about it.

TC and FA need a divorce and a vacation. And its coming!

TC and FA have been pitted against one another 15 times by my count. Neither of us has ever faced any other server that many times. This takes a toll. Relations are strained to say the least, and it seems clear that we all want a long break apart.

But relief is on the horizon. All indications are that TC will break into T1 within about a month’s time. And they might stay up there.

I hope that by pointing this out some of the inter-server frustration will subside. We’ll be rid of one another soon. We’re not stuck together for all eternity. In the meantime, try to hold it together. Bury the hatchet if you can, and end on a civil note. We’re all just a bunch of gamers.

Sunspots.9861:

Pervin.5036:

ghtchill.7613:

Laugh. How many of us KN are there tonight? I haven’t checked yet…

From what I’ve seen so far in KABL, you guys have maybe around 20 in there, but control most of the map. TC is having too much fun going after FA to bother with your stuff.

That’s what happens when you try to use our spawn tower to farm militia.

I’m sorry, I normally don’t respond to this type of thing, but you and me and all the people we were running with tonight all know that your account of tonight’s events are inaccurate. We were not “farming your militia” in that tower. FA initially won the tower in a 3-way battle involving BT, PINK, and a Kain group. Later the Kainanites left and CERN joined PINK. CERN and PINK operated in two large cooperative groups, attacking constantly (see photo). In short, TC had a large organized force present the entire time that FA had the tower (45-60 minutes). If you recall, FA actually won a series of amazing fights between organized forces. It was awesome. You are a poor historian my friend, at least in matters of WvW where emotions can get the best of us.

Here are before and after screenshots. You will notice that our opponents were not “militia.”