Guild Wars 2

Wanna piggyback on what reverence was saying. This is going to sound elitist. I’m ranking bout 8-10 levels an hour without booster. I’m a vet already rank 2700 roughly. My guild is small scale usually no more than 5 people and we don’t run tag ever. When you’re the one farming bad players/builds, know the flow of the map (i.e timers, how long it takes to get to places, and the best ways to move around the map) you can farm WXP super fast. You can’t take a crap in W3 w/out gaining some wxp for it, it ranks super fast if you’re on the move and not dying every 2 min because your running some garbo PVE build and have no situational awareness. My point being GETGUD and you might be shocked how fast you can farm levels just by playing the mode in a smart way not just getting on another PVE tag and getting farmed.

Getgud means first and foremost class/build. I’m seeing a bazillion pve ranger/thieves players right now ya’ll gotta get with it that medium class is garbo in W3 always has been. Ranger can be useful but it’s niche and you’d need a coordinated group to put it to good use. Seems to me alot of these players have not died in awhile and are risk averse which in this mode gets you killed. W3 is not a casual gamemode like the rest of this game (outside raids and ranked) you will get farmed by even below average skill groups if you’re kitten ing around. There’s a ton of other map/player stuff that’s key to winning (gaining WXP) like good siege placement spots, best paths, likely enemy paths based on map awareness, where good chokes are, good exits when you’re outnumbered, peeling for teammates in trouble, when to res people and when to let em’ die for the bigger picture battle, wall pulls, counter siege measures, group positioning, map politics, I could go on and on. There’s alot to learn and when you do you’ll see it levels pretty fast IMO.

Epi has existed 5 eva. It was NOT a problem pre-hot condi spam everywhere and the lifting of the cap. Those are the things that kittened it up. It’s just too EZ to spam condis it’s beyond epi and it’s boring gameplay. In the early years of this game condis were a debuff countering boons not some damage spike tool.

Frankly the skill is perfect lore for necro and it would certainly make condi necro weak if it were significantly nerfed. Best solution IMO would be to limit the spread number of each condi for example, 10 bleeds, 5 poisons, 5 burns, etc. etc. Another possibly difficult change would be to make an ICD on the player being epi’d so they couldn’t be epi’d by multiple necros at once causing these giant spikes. This would at least give SOME counterplay while keeping the skill powerful and in-line with necro’s “condi control” playstyle.

I’ve necro mained for like 4 years in W3 it’s one of the better classes for all things W3. Obvi zerg fites it’s amazing backline damage midline if you go reaper. Havoc size it’s arguably the most powerful class in the game (just ask any1 who’s faced TREX), and 1v1 they fair very well most the time.

2 main points.

1. In group play you need a babysitter mostly guardians are used. You need a boon bot mostly for stab and protection. You are a a literal glass cannon if you have a decent rotation and have good group play but without a stab/prot bot you’re gonna get CC’d and blown up by decent players.

2. Yes some classes have some builds that are basically impossible to beat 1v1 on necro. A good warrior will beat you almost every time, a good condi mesmer or runaway thief build is probably going to get you every time. Basically any1 who has a build focused on hard CC or mad condi application you’re in trouble. The condi you can’t disengage from so you’ll likely die (if you didn’t kill them first) after your transfers and heal are on CD.

You’re never getting mobility on necro it’s not the class design. Be happy with the stab you get from reaper shroud cause you ain’t getting that either. I try to cover the weakness somewhat if I’m small man or solo with runes and/or food.

MaLeVoLenT.8129:

Super Kruegs.8967:

Mal’s that guy convinced him having fun is what makes him happy when really it’s kittening on someone else that really gets him off.

Sure you could just make your guild’s experience better by moving to a different server, but the real fun is the salty tears of strangers so let’s move 9 guilds to the server we know the rest of community will disapprove of most. It’s not wrong, evil, outside the rules, or an attack on our way of life. It was simply underhanded, unnecessary, antagonistic and cowardly. The kitten alliance is run by older middle aged men who’ve been through game cycles before. They stopped having fun playing games a long time ago it’s all about greifing and “power plays” now bois.

tldr: ANET still ruined GW2 that’s not on any player but some players are less than helpful when it comes to considering the experience of others.

We don’t play for salt, its just a side effect that makes us laugh. This is also not about power. If it were Why would I give up all my power on BG?

Enjoying power plays is different than having power. My guess is in some way you like the process more so than the power that’s why you keep doing it. IDK your motivation I just know what went down in T2 both times and it was all the things i mentioned above.

Mal’s that guy convinced him having fun is what makes him happy when really it’s kittening on someone else that really gets him off.

Sure you could just make your guild’s experience better by moving to a different server, but the real fun is the salty tears of strangers so let’s move 9 guilds to the server we know the rest of community will disapprove of most. It’s not wrong, evil, outside the rules, or an attack on our way of life. It was simply underhanded, unnecessary, antagonistic and cowardly. The kitten alliance is run by older middle aged men who’ve been through game cycles before. They stopped having fun playing games a long time ago it’s all about greifing and “power plays” now bois.

tldr: ANET still ruined GW2 that’s not on any player but some players are less than helpful when it comes to considering the experience of others.

Gotta agree with others above. IMO the only reason you were beginning to see a spike in DBL population before the change was because the 19th patch brought back alot of people with stab changes being the big thing. That combined with ever growing EBG ques meant people basically were forced into DBL until ABL came back “soon” as advertised. We’re seeing much smaller EBG ques now and ques on BLs again it’s pretty obvious more people in-game like ABL.

I’m going to try to explain why vets of W3 like alpine better.

First some obvious above mentioned things with more context.

Less gimmicks aka mass invis areas, rock walls, random damage in keeps from npcs and stuff on walls, and some tedious work involved with that (taking/holding 3 shrines). These things take away from the free flow of action against the other servers.

Strategic value of towers. There is none on DBL and people may scoff at the idea of being able to treb a keep but it’s not really about taking the keep it’s more about how the defender cannot bunker they must take out attacking siege by actually leaving the keep and attacking another structure the attackers hold. You can gain a foothold easier against superior numbers and actually be a threat.

Second let’s discuss the strawman that is ktraining. Ktraining is a either a mutual actions (servers avoiding each other to cap structures) or one server has much larger numbers and takes all the things. This happens on both maps either way. One could argue the best Ktrain map is actually EBG but since there’s almost always players on EBG it happens less. So in that context the real question is which map allows the smaller group to be more impactful and in that respect from both a fights/ppt perspective it’s ABL. Small mans can gank keeps easier on ABL and small mans have more open space to kite out larger groups allowing them a better chance to win fights. Chokes are killers for the smaller group most the time a more open field area favors a the more skilled group.

For me the biggest reason ABL is better is because of what i call flow of fights. The map does a wonderful job of allowing even the most noob of players to get to where fights are. It also allows your most strategic places to be quickly gotten to to be defended. Home camps are easy to WP back to and get to before it flips. On home BL both N towers are easy to get to fast to defend, and for away maps your hills/bay are easy and quick to get to defend. You can actually defend your key camp (NN,SW,SE) to push an upgrade on keeps no matter where you are on map. Bottom line you see swords on you most important points and you can wp and get to them IN TIME to defend.
Garri WP is so prefect if you have it you don’t even have to be on map to defend hills/bay if you have one scout on your home BL, likewise if you can WP an enemy keep. Defense is way better not because of keep layouts but because you can actually find the attack point and get to it in time to stop a rush.
Fights are the same. On home bl you can push south so fast if you wipe you’re back in the action within a minute or two. People can get back into the fight faster if they have to WP. Havoc can move freely and quickly move through the center of the map to throw off defenders or choke off reinforcements to the keep your main force is attacking. Nothing slows you down ever getting back to the fight that’s not an enemy player. Fights people like ABL better cause frankly there’s not many places to hide from a more skilled group. You can’t really avoid people on ABL if they’re looking for you.
W3 is a unique gamemode in that it doesn’t need ANET to make it interesting it just needs players. The epic RvR is what makes it great not pretty map or lots of options to get in and out of areas. Those are just things that limit me finding my enemy. DBL may be a better PPT map the problem is most vets know most matches are over before they start from a PPT perspective so might as well have map that let’s us find fights more easily. It’s not that we don’t want to evolve to new tactics it’s that there’s too many tactics to reasonably defend/find if your enemy is actively avoiding your group.

Seems to me we got 2 main issues from the lower tier players ques and playstyle.

IMO the former works itself out. In the past guilds adjusted raid nights and servers worked together to try to assign guilds to certain bls for reset to keep it as smooth as possible. Hype will calm down and it should go back to reasonable at least.

The latter is really something that will hopefully be worked out more with the recent 19th patch. What i mean is broken cc/stab with power creep meant small man play got killed. The upper tiers for a long time had lots of 15-20 man guilds and even lots of havoc 5-8 man guilds. This all went to kitten and many of those guilds quit or went casual, and that’s why you see so much blobbing. As guilds come back and recruit again you’ll see more smaller groups and hopefully with it less lag and crappy playstyle. The power creep is little strong still but overall IMO we’re going to see smaller skilled groups being able to do work again in W3 and with it a much better experience. ANET is trending in the right direction on so many things right now including less pve, less gimmicks, less rando damage in keeps, nerfing/fixing broken skills like gunflame, working to fix stab/cc to kill pirate meta, better rewards, better AI tools like squads, making WPS matter again, and with these changes we’re going to see lots of people coming back. Ques are the downside but it’s def. better than ded gaem amirite?

bloodletting wolf.2837:

Super Kruegs.8967:

bloodletting wolf.2837:

Aeowia.7214:

bloodletting wolf.2837:

Aeowia.7214:

Dusty Moon.4382:

Just remove them – problem solved.

This. Was asked since… forever

By mostly T1 players because of Yaks Bend.

It’s just as bad in T8. I’m new to tier 1… but it’s not just YB, anyone uses them, kills the fun. Then wonder why nobody comes back “for more”… Thinking is hard.

Funny I can’t remember the last time I died to an AC. If a tower has too many ACs you build an open field treb so they have to come out and fight…. Using more than one tactic is hard.

Lel. Then they counter your treb with a mortar or another treb inside the structure. You can also build a balli to counter it from another location, or build an AC in another place that can’t be countered by your open field treb. Siege humpers will always have ways of countering your outside siege cause they have access to the same siege and much easier access to supply all while having walls/gates to protect them from actual players. Countering siege with siege doesn’t create fights it creates siege wars which is always fun amirite?

If you are building an open field treb somewhere that their siege is already facing your build site you are doing it wrong. Walls to protect them lol. Ele’s can kill most wall siege. If you want to not use siege from the wall you have to jump up on the lip to get yanked down.
There is nothing wrong with AC’s in EB but in the cancer bl I will agree with you.
I do have a question, why do people complain so much about AC’s instead of shield generators and tractivators? In my opinion those two things do far more to make fights not fun than arrow carts do.

Wrong facing right facing either way it’s boring. If you’re inside the keep and you get killed by an ele or necro you’re bad IDK what else to tell you. There’s literally a wall between you and them get off the kitten wall. If you’re talking about siege placement there’s almost always a vertical option for ACS that make it impossible to be killed by any toons and take out offensive siege. It’s basically 1 1/2 classes that can kill/damage siege on walls and the one (ele) has to be playing staff and other isn’t really good at killing folks on walls (I mean if you’re gonna sit in wells you have bigger issues) anything outside of cannons which most classes can do also.

Either way one could make the case (and I will here) that less defenders shouldn’t be able to defend against many more offenders it makes a stale game. Why should 5 siege humpers be able to defend against 20 attackers? Now imagine that same scenario with even numbers it makes offensive gameplay near impossible, and at best super boring countering siege sites all raid. That’s the issue with HOT and buffed siege weapons. There’s no fluid gameplay. SMC is pure gimmick now, the BLs are PvD or foiled by a much smaller defensive force. It encourages PvD not PvP as taking anything defended is at best too difficult and at worst painfully boring. If it’s worth defending (AKA fortified keep) defenders should come. If you don’t have enough defenders you shouldn’t be rewarded for your lack of coordination and/or population by OP defensive siege.

To answer your question people do complain about tactivators/shield generators it’s just filed under “HOT gimmicks” not siege. There are issues with ACs everywhere the damage is too op when traited especially with condi builds. I think most W3ers would like to die at the hand of another player who outplayed them not some casual perched on an AC coat tailing. It’s not like GW2 is a hard game there’s 2 weapons, 4 utilities, and one elite skill. ACs are EZ mode win so it causes salt with people that attempt to take the combat system somewhat serious.

Lastly there are effective ways to kill offensive siege without defensive siege. If you have one person with a smoke field and 2 other people that understand blasting you can usually stealth up enough to get to the siege and get a burst off on it. Sure you might die but this is RvR. If you portal stack and push out with 3-4 people you can usually disrupt a siege and eventually stop it even if the other server has more numbers. Have a melee player push out as a distraction then have your range players bomb the siege, or disable, or pop a tag to rally people, or call out in your TS/map chat the attack. There’s so many non-seige options but people are too lazy to get gud at the combat system they just like their 1 button bag machines.

bloodletting wolf.2837:

Aeowia.7214:

bloodletting wolf.2837:

Aeowia.7214:

Dusty Moon.4382:

Just remove them – problem solved.

This. Was asked since… forever

By mostly T1 players because of Yaks Bend.

It’s just as bad in T8. I’m new to tier 1… but it’s not just YB, anyone uses them, kills the fun. Then wonder why nobody comes back “for more”… Thinking is hard.

Funny I can’t remember the last time I died to an AC. If a tower has too many ACs you build an open field treb so they have to come out and fight…. Using more than one tactic is hard.

Lel. Then they counter your treb with a mortar or another treb inside the structure. You can also build a balli to counter it from another location, or build an AC in another place that can’t be countered by your open field treb. Siege humpers will always have ways of countering your outside siege cause they have access to the same siege and much easier access to supply all while having walls/gates to protect them from actual players. Countering siege with siege doesn’t create fights it creates siege wars which is always fun amirite?

I was a driver for a havoc guild in NA T2 for a looong time. My best times were camping N camp on enemy BLS back when Alpine was a thing. Nothing like camping a North camp on an enemy BL against a PPT tryhard server like TC or YB. They feed bags until finally whomever the map commander is finally decides the hapless crys in map chat are too much to deal with and roll N camp with 30+ to clear a havoc party.
Even then if you played it right you could stealth up and get out without dying and be back pestering again in no time.

ANET obvi broke the gamemode with power creep, CC spam, Stab nerf, siege buff, HOT gimmicks, and the new crap map.

That being said YB is the parasite that kills it’s own host. Yes ANET provided siege but most people fall somewhere between fights (w/out siege cover) and PPting to “win” the game. YB as a culture simply does not understand the value of competition and from that standpoint they contributed to the breaking of tiers and other servers. It’s a server that simply likes to be online to win not to be good to win. A server that despite it’s reputation as tryhards is actually quite casual at it’s core outside it’s raw logged in hours.

This is evident in subtle ways the main ones being how their rise coincides with a mass exodus of real hardcore guilds because of ANET’s above mentioned failures, terrible builds, and an almost cultist dependence on a few hardcore commanders. One must have a worthy adversary to make a great fight worth having in an MMO and in that sense people simply refuse to play with YB because they refuse to be an adversary in large scale PvP. Outmanned or equal numbers will always result in bunkering/siege only to emerge after numbers are more in line with their open field skill level.

If you siege hump only to abandon your structure at breach and when siege has been countered you never really fought. You simply took siege pot shots behind your wall and backcapped once your siege was broken. The entire server culture is actually quite delusional about how good they are at W3. It’s mostly casuals masquarding as pros because of saltyness related to not understanding how the combat system works in large group play and a refusal to put in the work to get better at it. In that vein they see themselves as superior in ways that many vets consider first day lessons like siege placement, scouting, supply counts, understanding of ded TZs, and getting on one tag to take structures.

They measure the success of their “tactics” through the PPT scoring system which the vast majority of the community has dismissed long ago as a metric for good W3 play and server performance. In a sense wining a game no one else has been playing for quite some time. This would all be fine if there wasn’t so much pride associated with such an autistic worldview.

YB doesn’t actually take it to the enemy they lay in wait for people to log and bunker when there’s a fight to be had. This creates tiers that are just not fun to play in as it’s more of a fight the third server as YB sieges you both. This playstyle is particularly cancerous in off hours. It causes a PPT cascading effect and effecting the experience of the next TZ while threatening the stability/viability of servers with lots of NA players and not much off hours. NA’s that would be good matchups and provide good fights but can’t be in tiers together because YB is PPTing at least one of them out of the tier at all times.

Over time the hostility of vets towards PPT play meant many with this YB gene went to consolidate (aka bandwagon) under the YB flag. As the game’s population dwindled because of delusion of the PPT scoring system YB was rising through the ranks picking up the “best” players along the way. One would think such hardcore competitive PPTers would like facing YB not quitting or joining them. One would think the absolute best challenge for a PPT guild/players would be to face YB and PPT this thing out. But alas they aren’t competitive because PPTing isn’t competitive it’s an almost universally recognized broken metric.

Everything ANET has done to nerf the original W3 population buffed YB playstyle which then in turn feedbacks on itself into an endless cycle of players leaving the game.

State of the game 3/23/16

robotempire.2451:

Super Kruegs.8967:

It’s a 0/10 map anyone not seeing this is either on dat ANET sack or are some outlier group of W3 players. The VAST majority hate it and frankly it’s currently destroying the game mode (along with other things like insane fast auto upgrades). W3 players are really ape folks who are pretty simple minded and you’d think it would be easy to make us happy. Like give us EZ access to RvR and we’re happy. LITERALLY nothing else matters. It seems like they tried too hard actually. I’ve said it before i wonder what it’s like to be the team head that made this map. Imagine spending ALL that time on this massive map and when you release it literally 99% of people hate it. Does he look at his bank statements and be like “Yo the checks went through I didn’t waste my life or anything on that map?”, Or is he like ,“ANET stole my skills and used them to ruin an entire gamemode” as he’s sitting on a couch with his therapist crying into a pillow like a kindcade victim in Jessica Jones.

what

Simple: Give us RvR. A place to fight where we don’t have to run super long to get back into the fight if we wipe/die. It’s actually quite EZ to please W3 players ANET doesn’t need all the gimmicks (vertical maps, shrines, barricades, center events, jump pads, etc. etc.) They simply need to make a map with some flow and some objectives and people will be relatively happy. Alpine was not a complicated/large map and lots of people loved it. EBG is not some super immersive map you come out of your keep and most the time there’s fights right outside leading into SMC. They swung for the fences (and struck out) and all they needed was a single. If they had just tweaked Alpine into 3 different(ish) maps they would have made the community happy AND probably saved tons of time and effort.

It’s a 0/10 map anyone not seeing this is either on dat ANET sack or are some outlier group of W3 players. The VAST majority hate it and frankly it’s currently destroying the game mode (along with other things like insane fast auto upgrades). W3 players are really ape folks who are pretty simple minded and you’d think it would be easy to make us happy. Like give us EZ access to RvR and we’re happy. LITERALLY nothing else matters. It seems like they tried too hard actually. I’ve said it before i wonder what it’s like to be the team head that made this map. Imagine spending ALL that time on this massive map and when you release it literally 99% of people hate it. Does he look at his bank statements and be like “Yo the checks went through I didn’t waste my life or anything on that map?”, Or is he like ,“ANET stole my skills and used them to ruin an entire gamemode” as he’s sitting on a couch with his therapist crying into a pillow like a kindcade victim in Jessica Jones.

Only 2 months to grind a guild upgrade you already had pre XPAC. SOOO fun!!!! GG ANET

Is it really that big a deal HOW we grind HPs? People who have 80 alts pre hot know how to play those classes they just want their elite spec why did you have to make it AIDS souldbound? Is there some fear people in PVE will be all like "oh snap i can grind HPS faster in W3 than carebearing I’m out this magumma map? Like would that ruin PVE or something? Even if it did would it be so bad having casuals coming into W3 for that grind and god forbid enjoying the gamemode for whatever reason? The bank space alone is AIDS for people with alts now. Make it currency and account bound kitten it’s not like you’ll be ruining Grindwars we still have Grind halls to waste all our other mats on instead of theory crafting. It’s no wonder everyone is so casual now working a comp requires you to master the TP just to fund the experiment.

It is PAINFUL that ANET can’t make the simple changes that would get people into W3. Even if they’re all PVE carebears at least we (as vets) would have some scrubs to farm.

#1. Rewards: Put the rewards on par with PVE rewards. Example take fortified SM get champ bag, chest and bonus chest for fortified status.

#2. How bout making Guild hall upgrades related to W3 attainable through playing W3. Why the kitten must i farm PVE for W3 upgrades? It’s dumb there’s like 2-3 examples of PVERS having to come to W3 for their upgrades (EOTM gets it done anyway) why must we carebear to get our upgrades? lvl 37 guild status for +5 supply is insane.

#3. Bring the urgency of the next tick back by giving rewards for each tick. It’s simple just like Mag maps. Were you around for the tick? how much did you contribute to our tick? Here’s your relative reward.

#4. Buff players drops nerf PVE all together. Less mobs, less gimmicks (laser that unloads on all gates really?), Buff defense rewards to slow the ktrain EOTM feel, bring back PPK as part of the score. Get rewarded more for being good at PvP and less for being a pug peasant ktrainer.

#5. Nerf siege into the ground and eliminate some of the in-keep stationary siege that has zero skill like cannons and mortars. 2k burning ticks from some casual 5k distance away from you on a mokittenoes not encourage good play. 10 stack bleed on 3k damage cannon shot is waaay too much damage when you’re already power creeping like a boss with new xpac.

There is this misconception among the devs that W3 players are also big time into PVE. It’s not the case W3 is endgame for many players just like PvP. They might have a leg to stand on if there wasn’t dozens of other pve maps and scores of other PVE gamemodes for people that are into PVE.

I’m somewhat torn on this cause I’m not sure if it’s the CC/Stab debate or the ranged damage creep debate.

I feel like it started with zerker LB ranger, then necro changes that made glass pretty much uber optimal, then mesmer got buffed, then dmg. condis got buffed (burning/poison especially), then engi mortar got buffed, etc. etc.

Not sure what’s worse a a frontliner getting stunned kittened with CC or the HP melt one second later from a zerg that’s 80% backline. You can run full PVT hero and you still melt there’s so much damage all over the place now in zerg fights. If you get to an enemy backline it’s a murderfest so maybe it is the CC/stab debate, but I’m not sure if it’s just the fact that bads can pretty much just AOE dmg. dump on top of themselves on any melee push therefore making any kind of sustained fontline push into larger groups (one where you actually get outs not just downs) very difficult.

Please consider nerfing all siege damage to players while you are at it. I think we can all understand siege v structure or siege v siege but the damage cannons, acs, ballistas, and mortars do to players is ruining good PvP and players ability to counter siege with skills. Especially consider nerfing the condis of these siege items like dat insane mortar burn and cannon chill.

Why not make it so there’s more to do as players to counter siege, not make siege steroids? Like a ladder you can build to get into a structure without siege for once. or just a scale the wall option, or some weapon set that wrecks siege faster. Like anything that makes W3 less siegewars and fosters destacking the blob for more effective/fun strategy. I mean spam golems with no supply lol. If you need to get rid of badges just sell things worth having with badges besides trinkets and a bunch of stuff i can’t salvage if I don’t like how a build works out. I don’t think anyone would complain about pricing most regulars are sitting on tens of thousand of badges they’re basically karma at this point.

It’s been green BL for weeks IMO. at least 3 in the YB/FA/SOS match. We stayed out of YBBL for weeks and now SOS is green so we stay out of SOSBL because everyone has connection issues.

Sktlightmoon gets it
I know for the lowers tiers it’s hard to get just how intense W3 was in T2 for like 5-6 months. I mean literally almost any NA guild you came in contact with could melt you in 5 seconds if you weren’t on your game. Even off hours had KH and NV, EA you get rolled no matter what your standing behind. Fortified WP keep is just more bags to these guys being imported from other maps. HOPE could sit in 6 superior ACs fire and sustain pretty much forever. You had to learn how to fight cause there wasn’t a piece of siege or wall fortified enough to stop these guys from breaking in if they didn’t have another guild to fight somewhere on the map. I’m talking 20 guys rolling 40 man pug blobs in siege fire.
But these were the people that mastered the game, hell some of them practically invented and re-invented the meta for the whole game mode. The top 5-10% I’d say. Eventually the game just got old to them. They had mastered all there was and after 2 years of playing hardcore to be the best they could they burned out. The competition dying killed off many other guilds and off course the random T1 purging we all go through.
What these SOS people are trying to say in maybe an awkward way is that there is still a lot of people left in T2 that played in that era, and many of them like myself are now training newbie scrubs and growing our new guilds that will hopefully be the new open field fight guilds of the next generation. And IF you’re interested in this type of thing T2 is the perfect place to get your feet wet right now.
There will be no 2v1
FA will work SOS in the off hours to try to help you
SOS for all its faults is a server that won’t bunker they will fight, and they recognize the importance of allowing players to play how they want to play.
SOS/FA don’t need transfers we need a third server and we’re rolling out the welcome mat.

There will be no 2v1 vs the third server. We don’t do it now with MAG and we won’t do it to whoever comes up. FA/SOS death match in progress. It’s not complicated we very much dislike each other.

T3 does sound kind of awesome I have to admit. Relative balance across 5-6 servers all with slightly different personalities and coverage, and my boyfriends TUNE.

Fact is though guys someone is coming up. I can understand a server’s desire to not be here and have your OCX/SEA TZs destroyed by months of getting zerged down. Let me say in our defense (T2) there will be no 2v1 vs the third server. SOS/FA is to the death and has been for months. SEA is much better now with SOS losing both their really good W3 guilds to T1. OCX is still a mess but it’ pretty well known SOS will more than likely lose 2 guilds to T1 leaving them with mostly pugs and fairweathers in OCX. They lost NA guilds too. FA PST is going to try to keep the SOS PST zombies in check till late PST-early OCX. So long story short SOS is really a shadow of it’s former self from just 2-3 months ago. FA won’t wreck you where you don’t have coverage, and will be focusing SOS as much as we can to try to bring the Tier back into balance.

Just like to add that MAG/FA don’t play the tryhard game anymore. In our extensive research on how to beat K-train off hours over-stackers we came to a shockingly simple solution…. deny them karma. At a certain point in the night say 11:30PM PST-12:00AM PST we simply stop playing the game till SEA/EU, and anyone that is on will not try to take anything bigger than a camp. TC OCX/SEA is gonna be so bored by Tuesday they’ll be dreaming about T1 again if not already.

Have fun and stomp baddies join NV…

If you play PST 7-12 [WS] Wyld Stallyns are recruiting. We only play W3, but don’t require always rep. Contact me in-game or go to wyldstallyns.shivtr.com to apply.

This is the guild that taught me how to W3, which then lead me to create my own guild. Back in 2012 when training pugs and winning the PPT battle actually meant something RET was the guild on FA to learn the basics if you were a noob. Thanks for the good times guys. De sade is/was a great leader, Zoel so funny and sarcastic, and Stawker quite possibly the biggest troll I’ve ever met online. GG guys GG.

Didn’t read all the comments, but from what I did read there’s just one big thing missing. Boon stacking will always be the reason why condi builds are useless in anything bigger than 5v5. The three stat position is pretty weak when you consider the access to AOE boons these classes have. Just look around when you’re in W3 you’ll see easily 60-70% of players are running Warriors or Guardians. Warriors don’t HAVE to have a massive crit chance with 50% fury uptime. Guardians don’t even need that much power if you have 2 of them together and they can get 24 stack of might on a15 sec. cooldown (and a decent AOE heal). Unless there’s poison involved both can out regen most bleed stacking. With protection a condi build is doing like zero direct damage. Aegis blocks condi application along with direct damage, or how bout vigor and just dodge spam out of the all that condi spamming. Stability negates fears and other soft CC.
That’s not even mentioning clear condis on shout, purging flames, etc . etc. You can trait into lower shout cooldowns for moar boons more often. Boon stacking and AOE condi clear is the reason why Condis outside of very small scale fights are just not on par with power builds, and I’d argue aren’t really even that better in smallish fights just depends on your class. Certain classes will struggle with condis (mesmers, and eles), other will just laugh them off no matter how they build (necro is the best example).
Most medium and large groups (10+) don’t even run -condi food they just bring another guardian.
If you nerfed AOE boon application it would change the whole meta overnight. Or if they somehow made boon ripping a viable strategy. Most people just don’t get it cause it takes an organized group build comp to synergize it. All people are looking at is damage numbers. Nerf crit. damage it’kittenting too hard. Well what boons did they have? Nerf condi damage, ever consider how much might that condi caster had when he melted you in 10sec.? Or that they had fury so they were proccing sigils, and traits like crazy. Any good group is gonna be considering how to get 100% stability uptime, not how can we get an epic kitten ton of condi damage on this zerg. The reason is Boons not conditions are what kills people and allows you to survive group fights.

FA brother. Plenty of small man PST guild can do. How do I know? WS been doing it for a year now. Hit me up in-game if you have questions. FA is T3ish now, maybe jumping into T2 on occasion, but for the most part T3. Generally speaking small man guilds in T2/T3 are very rare. There are some noted exceptions (HOD’s ASTC, MAGS FCTR, SBI Abyss/Beast). We spend most our time farming pug zergs, and ganking structures.

SOS mostly baddies with a night crew that PVDs for 10 hours a night in T2. SOS is a baddie server for the most part. With EP gone who’s good that’s left HOPE maybe that just got there? There NA is filled with baddie zerg guilds like ZOD and CNB. Their PPT is derived directly from holding their own in NA with numbers and gaining PPT with a massive PVD campaign at night. Can’t do that in T1 too many PPT tryhards with ACs and massive float blobs.

geekanerd.4123:

No. But there was a serious underestimation of how thick HoD rolls OCX into SEA. FA has little OCX coverage. I’ve seen HoD’s sea of red early am server time and it’s impressive. I mean, they’re kittenters through and through as far as fights go, but you don’t need to be skilled to throw 50 bodies against a hard point until it changes colors. It’ll be up to FA NA to make up the difference, but I think it’ll end up being close one way or another.

Oh, and count down until this thread is locked.

^^ This all day. FA is weak as kitten in PST/OCX and pretty light in SEA. YB is too so HOD is basically PVDing for 12 hours till EU. Just look at MOS for the first two days 2AM server on Sat. +45 FA tick. Last week IOJ was beating us OCX half the time. FA simply does not have a PST/OCX/SEA numbers anymore they all went to MAG, SOS, or BG before the season started and we were weak before that. With the NA being thin out for the season there’s no transition bleed over anymore too. In the last say 2 months FA has lost HOPE, RET, FEAR/RETR, AGG (I know nomads), MEOW, SERN, ONE, TUNE, NV, GODS broke in two, BOMB disbanded, the list goes on.
My guess is the HOD train stops at SOS cause you can’t PVD that blob night crew, and SOS NA will wipe them so hard. Maybe DB could compete cause SEA and all but I doubt it the numbers at this point are insane from HOD. When your queing pretty much 3 maps through OCX that’s solid T2 coverage right there.

Fluffball.8307:

Super Kruegs.8967:

without our celebrity EU commander that left the game recently

Oh no who left?! The only one that springs to mind as “celebrity” is mouse click boom.

I’m NA, but due to a weird schedule I’ve been playing EU/SEA times lately, and [GLOB] has been absolutely rockin’ out non-primetime coverage.

Tyrion of BOMB and BOMB hath ceased to exist. New guild KPOP is what’s left. Solid guild still, just not getting 40+ in TS for all of EU, and NA

Straegen.2938:

etrigan.4213:

I really hope HoD is everything people say they are.

I actually hope they can pull off a win against us.

I doubt it, but here’s to hoping!!

I am not sure HoD can beat SBI, IoJ or YB much less FA. We do have a very strong population though and will fair well against any server without solid 24 hour coverage. Can we beat the hardened large skill groups… I am very interested in finding out.

We do know this much, HoD is probably a lock for at least 5th place. Where it settles between 1st and 5th is anyone’s guess at this point.

This is where they could actually pull it off. IF they have solid 24 hr. coverage they can win OCX/SEA. NA will be wipe city for their blobs but being week 2 and riding high I would imagine they could keep NA PPT pretty close with even numbers and siege, plus a third server that will have numbers in NA. Meaning FA EU would have to come up big, without our celebrity EU commander that left the game recently IDK if EU could dominate enough to make up for the HOD night time PVD. If HOD can have say 50 in EB and 20ish anywhere else in OCX/SEA they could easily dominate half the time.

OP your gripe is with ANET. There is no GvG mode, so they do the best they can with what tools they have available. It’s impressive the scene they’ve created on their own.

With lower tier guilds moving up, player attrition, and “GvG Utopia” T2 is much the same T1 was months ago. Coverage wars, blobs, “skill groups” having to nuthug to compete with massive pug blobs of 50+ all through NA prime all the week. I know some lower tier server players are concerned with their server dying, but i can tell you from experience T2 is not that great up there. First off you need to run a guild group of 25+ just to compete numbers wise. Then the bad guilds will nut hug other guilds if they get wiped a couple times with even numbers. It devolves into a lag induced arms race very fast. There’s an epic kitten ton of siege in keeps and towers now cause it’s the only way 20 guys can defend anything vs map ques. 20+ Omega rushes are the norm and you can expect at least one a week from each server, and then refreshed for the rest of the week as defense tools. The only roamers left are perma stealth thieves, troll mesmers, and Nike warriors. Just saying it’s not grass isn’t really any greener up there. Without EP SOS is almost all baddies, like TC used to be, MAG has no good roamers left and basically guild group nut hugs all the time to counter SOS blobs, DB is all baddies but is in gold because of off hours coverage they’ve always had. And T1 is all those things times 5.

Fought AD and friends a couple time during leagues best small guild group we’ve ever fought. I can only imagine the absolute destruction you guys lay down on BP baddies. Great videos. Personally I think power is more viable but condis in the hands of a good necro is very powerful too as these videos show.

1. Necro
So many bugs. Few viable builds. Just terribad in PVE. pretty bad trait lines.
2. Ranger
So bad in W3 it is literally mocked
3. engi/thief: Basically all the medium armor classes just don’t have the utility for good team play.

FA List

[ACE] Acquire
[APS] Amici Per Sanguinem
[ATK] Always Attack
[BKB] Black Knights Brigade
[BOMB] Bomb On Me
[BURN] Accelerant
[CL] Por La Razón O La Fuerza
[FEAR] Feelings Aren’t Required
[FTF] Five Thousand Finishers
[GLOB] Ectoplasm Ltd
[HOPE] Spirit of Faith
[Meow] Meow
[NV] Night Vision
[PRO] The Protectorate Of Aspenwood
[PVP] Players Killing Players
[RAM] Zerg Dog Trash Guild
[RET] Reticle
[RET] I Retribution I
[uA] Unreal Aussies
[UM] The Unholy Mackerels
[WS] Wyld Stallyns

You would be FA gods!!!! We have OCX/SEA/EU but we lack the leadership in those times. You’ll have very talented organized guild groups to run during those times, but most will never tag up. FA is filled with talented guild groups, but does lack people willing to tag up and lead the pugs. This is not to say we don’t like pug commanders or guilds that do tag up, just that most the current guilds had their time doing that and are more than willing to pass to someone else ready to step up especially in the timezones you play in. I won’t go on and on but i will say from what you wrote you are EXACTLY the piece of the puzzle this server needs, and we’d love to have you.

The reason FA (my server) can manage to get all these guilds and still be third and seemingly out of this match up is 3 fold:

1. Our Ocx took a hit: UA from my understanding is dead and what’s left has merged with others like SERN and MEOW. NV also went through a merger then collapse with CORE when they came over. From what I’ve seen they’re still not the same guild they were (and CORE is dead dead). The success of NV was the backbone of our strong ocx. As others have mentioned we are strong early NA through prime but that late NA transition into OCX is really bad pretty much only a couple guilds left that run in that time (HOPE, SIC, WS) we lost a really great IMO underestimated guild to guess who TC (TUNE). I miss my sweet ums especially when they smash my little asuran head in
So long story short from the end our only potentially dominate PPT timezone is early to prime NA. The rest is competitive at best from an FA standpoint.

2. BOMB no longer runs daily EU raids so we have almost no organized force outside DPS then. When you have almost no SEA and EU that’s a huge gap when the other servers have a decent amount of people on. It’s important to consider what guilds we did get transfer wise. Some really great guilds like FEAR and RETR, BUT and here’s the kicker, they all pretty much play at the same time early NA through prime. Even go back to the pre seaon 1 new guilds and they are almost ALL NA. FEAR, RETR, CORE, FTF, PVP, TFS, ATK, GLOB and guilds that came back or reformed RAM and GODS these are ALL NA guilds. Only non-NA that’s here and not during leagues is DPS and they are an FA guild that came back.

3. Server culture: I know people will say not this “we only play for fights” talk again but this server really does not PPT. If it makes you feel better we are just PPT baddies. Almost never see anything upgraded, Almost never siege anything, many of us will not stop fighting to save anything we just let it go and try to recap it later, map chat is basically for trolling not for calling stuff out, Most of “skill groups” play enemy BLs for fights not any sort of map control or upgrading of our BL, etc., etc. It’s how we get all the good guilds to come here though. No one HAS to PPT or is expected to. In fact the few PPTers left are trolled to no end. Guilds can do what they want, and this server is currently positioned for the best fights to be had. T2 is the best place for guilds groups to get a good challenge but not blodded and not get crap by PPT try-hards. Our server culture is what allows us to turn it on and off anytime we want basically. We have a huge talent pool that if motivated (like for example is there was a chance we could drop to T3 for an extended amount of time) i believe could even in it’s current capacity compete with both the other T2 servers. We just don’t give a kitten about PPT as long as we keep getting fights and can play with like minded people. SOS has not broken T2 and i believe would still get roflstomped in kitten just mad cause the aren’t the clear PPT big dogs anymore in T2. Though i will agree current TC is far from its T1.5 past.

Yup T2 where it’s at right now. Great fights, little lag, almost no ques and best of all I haven’t seen an AC in 2 weeks. That being said i think we’re pretty balanced and anyone thinking of moving should be considering T3 especially if you’re NA/OCX. Welcome to the newbies no mercy will be shown have fun out there

LetoII.3782:

The percentage of posters in this thread from BlackGate is lol
“OOooooOoHHh PPT discuss!!!!!!

^^^ ahahahahahahahaha truth

Stackgate gotta problem as they lust over a “thing” that no one else gives a kitten about anymore. Everyone needs to understand that the “I play W3 for fights” is the mentality that COULD save this game mode. IF W3 players play for PPT the stacking will continue and the game play will continue to get worse. Only when players decide to play for fights will the transfers DOWN begin, therefore creating the balance ANET decided was not worth their effort. We’re getting closer as T2 is getting really competitive with some guilds coming down. T3 is still pretty much a mess, but the more weeks stackgate blows out T1 the more boring it gets which will hopefully lead to a further exodus of JQ and SOR guilds down. I know for a fact FA is actively telling NA/OCX people to go down to T3 servers, and from what i hear with their new guilds recently acquired SOS is doing the same. Eventually stackgate guilds will have to realize that if they actually want competition on the battlefield they too will have to get off the PPT junk. Don’t let these PPT peddlers try to tell you otherwise, PPT is pointless and only a reflection of a servers fairweather PVE population and coverage. W3 is a fantastic game mode but two things have slowly ruined it #1 Anet and its refusal to make it a priority #2 Stackgate for ruining other communities by buying guilds out and actively recruiting guilds when they already were the dominate server, PPT whoring, and the contempt they have for other players and guilds that want to play this game mode the way they want.

[/quote]TC invented beating up on smaller population servers. You’re doing it in this match up. Before leagues it was almost universally thought you had the second or third highest population of all the NA servers. Not that we care we love all those TC baddies filling up our 20 slotters with those sweet RP bags. We won one week after you guys got beat up in gold, but i think it’s pretty safe to say without a massive EU push for seven days straight we can’t win with all those early morning golem rushes. We have a decent OCX advantage, but beyond that it’s more TC most the time even on non-holiday weeks with all those fairweathers back. Happy holidays TC we gave you what you love the most our PPT!!![/quote]

Not unlike FA lording it over the T3 servers a few weeks ago, huh? What was that? A 7 week winning streak?

Match-ups are what they are. Make the best of them..or not. Whatever you prefer.

TC has been in the very same position you guys are when facing a couple of T1 servers. The thing is…we like those kinds of battles. [/quote]

Holy kitten read before you post. I said in the post we like fighting TC cause BAGS!! WTF does 7 weeks of silver have to with you guys being a better populated server? Only servers that got the FA smack talk was SBI case they’re babies on the forums as we all know, and yak’s cause they called out people one week.You guys are the ones that care about our PPT. We are “making the best of this match up” (whatever that means) by as a server not caring about the PPT and having people be with their families and the in game people just having fun not defending anything. And your last point wow just wow. Let me clear you’ll never be in the same position as FA cause your a bunch of Role playing PPT kittens. We are polar opposite servers, hence the rivalry.

Of course you just want fights – silver league ones where you can overwhelm the smaller servers. ;-)
[/quote]

TC invented beating up on smaller population servers. You’re doing it in this match up. Before leagues it was almost universally thought you had the second or third highest population of all the NA servers. Not that we care we love all those TC baddies filling up our 20 slotters with those sweet RP bags. We won one week after you guys got beat up in gold, but i think it’s pretty safe to say without a massive EU push for seven days straight we can’t win with all those early morning golem rushes. We have a decent OCX advantage, but beyond that it’s more TC most the time even on non-holiday weeks with all those fairweathers back. Happy holidays TC we gave you what you love the most our PPT!!!

I will miss TC lovin that PPT in the forums. OMG guys you here SBI will pass us in the rankings? Our “excuses” are getting lame. I guess we all figure the TC map zerg will be there after the holidays just like it’s been there pretty much since the beginning for GW2. don’t worry your little ppt loving minds we’ll be back, or we won’t and you’ll get to fight T1 again, either way I’m sure we’ll all play on our schedules not yours. /yawn

Hmmm these cases are def. borderline. This will be a tough case and I don’t envy the parties involved. Although open siege fields is strictly forbidden siege to protect other siege is allowed. This case may go to the FA supreme court to be decided. We may have a conflict of interest with the god emperor being a RET founding member. He has stacked the court so it will be an uphill battle for the prosecution.
Personally I agree with Tibstrike the common understanding of open field siege is when two zergs are poised to combat in the open field one side drops and AC or ballista. This a tactic is used by “baddies” to overcome their talent gap with the other zerg. It’s a cowardly act that brings shame to a guild and its server. Stay tuned.

I too would like like to know who are these FA baddies dropping open field siege. Pics or videos would be ideal so we can convict them in FA court. Open field siege is a crime punishable by banish. We must hold these baddies accountable for the sake of our reputation.

Brando.1374:

Methods.4023:

Downed state needs to go just in wvw for one reason. Its causing separation within the server. More and more guilds are running by them selves and untagged in wvw because they don’t want people following. Most guilds feel anyone not in their guild is a rally bot and this is where the problem is with downed state in wvw .

Zerglings should stay with the zerg and leave guild only raids alone. Stop trying to mess with the guilds game mode!

This. Or join a real W3 guild get the kitten in teamspeak and L2P. There’s so much that goes into a good guild group no one wants some random around kitten up the plan.

munkiman.3068:

Super Kruegs.8967:

So you create a broken game mode with massive population imbalances. Then you take away pretty much the only way to get fair fights in this broken game mode. The forums are great for setting up fights weather those fights are duels or GvG or open field encounters. This forum helped players semi fix this imbalance on their own by setting up their own fights. A competitive game-mode will create trash talk and rivalry which is good for this game. The best players will want to be the best by fighting the best. Anet just made this way more difficult. Why not as mentioned many many times make it 18+ with a fat disclaimer and let people go at it. If people want to care bear they don’t need to come here. I love when a guild/person smack talks on another server it gives us something to go after in-game when the match up is already over. I’ve made friends on other servers out of respect after we’ve had it out on these forums and in-game. I know for example i don’t like TC because of who they are as a community, and i only know that cause of these forums. But i have respect for certain people as they’ve stepped up to a challenge and proved they are a worthy opponent. It gives servers identities. TC is role players, Mag is the trolls, SOS and IOJ have great Aussie communities, FA likes to scrap and trash talk. It gave the game more depth and meaning as PPT is clearly no indication of skill only coverage. It let people fight out their differences and to get better. Two thumbs down for this move.

My biggest problem with this first bit here “So you create a broken game mode with massive population imbalances.” IS:

I’d much rather read a bunch of crazy ideas about the fix for this than use it as an excuse to keep the match-up thread going. Also, broken is a pretty harsh term, there are far less broken bits to wvw than pretty much anywhere else in the game, this is IMO, it’s not like i’ve counted them and made graphs. But, it definitely feels that way.

I just can’t see a fix for population imbalances that won’t get exploited or end up making things worse. I think the hope is that they would have balanced out over time, but that’s obviously not happening.

It’s the most broken ignored part of the game. PvP was worshiped from the beginning as an attempted E-sport and PVE gets new content every 2 weeks. The server populations are IMO more unbalanced than ever. The tiers are so far apart it’s not a even funny. Anet has done nothing to create more balanced match ups all while there’s been many suggestions on how to do that on this forum. Hacks in almost every match, how long have people been complaining about thieves and mesmers hacking into towers? A clear loot/gold disparity between the PvP modes PVE. Same BL and EBG map for 18 months. Hammer train/heavy meta only getting stronger while other classes like Ranger are literally a joke. Can’t kick people from party, can’t add people to party who are outside of W3 without typing their name out. I could go on, but I’ll spare you the wall of text.