Guild Wars 2

@Deli The AOE limit to 5 people (of most skills) is what I am referencing. I don’t believe this limit was in place right after launch which is the reason there were long, drawn out fights without always having a decisive victor.

Also, I don’t think voice coordination has really added any “strategy” to WvW in terms of head to head fighting. There is no way to get the zerg in any kind of military formation. From my experience it is always just blob warfare nowadays (mainly because of the 5 target limit of the AOE spells imo).

Don’t get me wrong, I am not against people traveling in groups. That actually makes sense and is a good tactic (even in the real world). What I don’t like is the stacking/clumping and how it mitigates damage.

Well, I actually don’t think its the conditions that are the problem for me per se. It’s just the random way that AOE dmg seems to work. I think most AOE spells have a limit of 5 ppl that it hits and so that’s why people clump so much to avoid a lot of the damage in large fights in WvW. So what happens is that some ppl in a fight end up dying instantly (because they are the unlucky few that took multiple AOE’s to the face) while the others, that are also in the AOE mind you, take no damage at all and come out unscathed!

I actually see this a lot with warriors in large zergs. At one time I would have like 3 warriors spin through me and be downed instantly but at another time, I have 3 warriors spin through me and I take no damage (because the guy in front of me took all the damage). To me this feels weird and frustrating.

Hey guys, I just wanted to get a feel for what people think about the current state of WvW.

I will start the thread by sharing my thoughts.

Back when I started playing (pretty much right after release) WvW was really fun because you would have very large, drawn-out fights that occurred over a big area. After the nerfs to AOE damage however, it seems that the fights changed to much quicker and more concentrated zerg clashes.

I have only played a little WvW recently but I think it is not as fun as it used to be right after the launch of the game.

The way that AOE damage is inflicted for one seems to me very counter-intuitive and frustrating. It is weird having meteors falling on you and lightning striking everywhere and you are taking no damage while the guy next to you just instantly keels over. It is also frustrating if you are that guy that instantly keels over because there doesn’t seem to be any counter play to that. You just basically got screwed by RNG.

I also don’t like that the fights are so quick and so decisive (in my limited experience). You hardly get to use any skills (and there doesn’t even seem to be a point to dodging) when you are fighting in a zerg and the only thing that determines which side wins is which side had the bigger zerg.

Now, I am sure there were good reasons why Arena Net decided to make the changes they did which resulted in this zerg-centric focus in WvW. However, I personally do not really like the way things are right now in WvW. Perhaps some other changes to AOE damage can be made so that it still discourages clumping (which I think is the primary reason for having AOE damage in the first place is it not?) while still not being overly strong when stacked? Maybe like not allow two of the same skills to stack in the same area or something. Or maybe there are some other changes that can be made to de-emphasize stacking in WvW that is not related to AOE.

Anyway, those are just my thoughts about the current state of WvW and you can obviously disagree with me. So, what do you guys think about WvW? Do you like how it is currently being played? Do you think zergs are fun? and what kind of changes do you think can be made to make it more fun (without adding extra features/content)?