Guild Wars 2

I don’t normally bump things, but this needs a little love. My guild returned to DR after about a 5 month hiatus on another server. Our original thought was we were going to wait out the server changes on our ded server because this was where we started. We came back and were blown away by the progress DR made in our absence regarding communication and coverage. No longer do we only have people on EB and DRBL, we have a little bit everywhere and people aren’t afraid to map hop to come help if a larger zerg is bashing on a keep gate in one of the maps. It’s really impressive and I think this is one of the reasons DR managed to get to T7 and is going to solidify their spot there. If you’re looking for a new server I encourage you to check out DR, it’ll be worth it.

You heard me. I hosted a server March Madness PvP Tournament and we want to grow it this year. Anyone and everyone can play. There are, however, some rules, of which are the following.

— Thou shalt form a party of 5 by no later than Sunday, February 28th.

— Thou shalt not forget the date Sunday, February 28th as NO LATE ENTRIES WILL BE ACCEPTED TO THE TOURNAMENT.

— Thou shalt mail X Factor.2641 a 25g entry fee for the team (5g a person) and your teams roster by no later than Sunday, February 28th.

— Thou shalt compete in the tournament (which starts after Sunday, February 28th) to the best of thine ability so that your team wins the cumulative gold amassed from all the teams in the tournament (prize is subject to change, last year it was winner take all but if we have a lot of teams I might factor in a 2nd/3rd place prize).

— Thou shalt remember that if a guild has more than 5 people that wish to participate, they can provide more teams… prior to Sunday, February 28th.

— Thou shalt only be a member of 1 team which will participate in the tournament… which will start post- Sunday, February 28th.

— Sunday, February 28th.

But srsly… a month is plenty of time to get people for a party and get 25g. Generally the matches took place on the weekends and they were the best 2-3 matches. This event isn’t server exclusive so if you know people on other servers, get the word out. This should be the biggest PvP Tournament of the year outside ESL! Last year we had 7-8 teams I believe, let’s try for at least the same.

Also the reason guilds can have more than 1 team is because the guilds don’t have unfair advantages. The teams are the ones who get the reward, not the guild. What the team does with said gold is their prerogative, but a team from a guild that provides 3 teams has the same odds as a team from a guild that produces 1 team.

Anyway you can post in here that you will be participating (it’s encouraged to get interest) but your place is not finalized in the bracket until I receive the gold and your roster.

Let’s have a good tournament guys!

The Build

Okay I don’t know that I understand all the mechanics of the Revenant but if how I understand things is how they are, this is what I have and why, feel free to tear it apart with your more vast knowledge.

The Traits

Invocation
Invoker’s Rage - This trait is almost a waste the way I have things set up now and I will explain why later but it’s not terrible to have if you decide to change something with your setup later on.

Cleansing Channel - This condi cleanse is nice, you aren’t going to have as many condi cleanses as say, a guard, so you need them where you can get them.

Ferocious Aggression - This is nice and will pretty much permanently increase your outgoing damage.

Invigorating Flow - As a driver, you need the heals where you can get them so this should speak for itself.

Empty Vessel - Stun break… nice! It’s a minor trait so it is what it is.

Roiling Mists - This is what makes or breaks the build based on how I understand it. I understand it as, under the effect of fury you have 100% crit chance. If that’s not true the rest of this is only mediocre.

Retribution
Enduring Recovery - … k.

Close Quarters - Ideally should help against those pesky pirate ships or your roaming pew pew ranger.

Unwavering Avoidance - Nice little stab after rolling which could help if you roll right into a Static Field or Unsteady Ground or something.

Retaliatory Evasion - Now you get retal in addition to stab after a roll, you’re welcome.

Determined Resolution - Could save your kitten with Close Quarters if you’re trying to peel off and people are trying to range you down.

Steadfast Rejuvenation - Hurray extra healz.

Herald
Crystal Harbinger - Actually more necessary than you think, one of the shield’s skills is pretty solid. Both are actually.

Hardening Persistence - Extra toughness? Yes please!

Vigorous Peristence - Why not???

Shared Empowerment - Because sharing is caring and caring is love, and you’ll get hella might for your party.

Envoy of Sustenance - Comes in handy even though this isn’t optional. Very nice to passively stack might.

Elder’s Force - You’re going to have a few passive boons on you at all times, might as well hit harder while you’re doing it.

Gear
Soldier’s Gear aka the WvW standard with runes of the Water for the increased boon duration… helps more with the passive stacking of boons.

Trinkets are Cavalier for the extra Ferocity, Power, and with the major stat of Toughness.

Weapons are zerk with Energy sigs on both sets and Cleansing on the Shield with Battle on the Hammer. That’s personal preference really, but the cleansing is nice for another condi removal.

The Breakdown
The build works as follows: you will be mostly in Glint. You will also have Facet of Strength up pretty much all the time, this will stack between 15-20 stacks of might for you and your party passively thanks to Envoy of Sustenance and the Water runes… permanently. During fights you should also pull up Facet of Darkness. This is the bread and butter. If that GM trait for Invocation works as I interpret it, you’ll have perma fury which means perma crit chance which is why none of the gear is precision outside the zerk weaps. Perma-fury also is why Invoker’s Rage is kind of a waste. If it doesn’t work this way… oh well. The problem this brings up by running those two facets is it only regenerates your energy at 1 tick per second or whatever the timer is. So don’t passively run your heal if you don’t plan on autoattacking the whole fight. Not to fear though, your shield #5 gives you hella mad healz and protection from everything while it does it. It’s pretty solid. Only switch to Jalis if you need that 5k heal or feel like going stone or need some immediate stab. Whilst traversing the map you can run Facet of Elements for speed and Facet of Chaos at the beginning of a fight before Facet of Darkness for some quick CC and damage.

That’s pretty much it, I’m still learning the rev but this seems pretty solid if that GM trait works as I think it does, if not… /thread.

Hadan.2841:

X Factor.2641:

Hadan.2841:

So now that we have established darkjean is a keyboard turning kittenter and kyro s just a 1 push guild….who wants to throw DJ on her back and run our own ktrain on her wit me??

You still play O.o ?? What happened to “I’m taking a break, this isn’t fun for me anymoar, see ya in hell”?

Who are you again?

Some rando you hated on DR for no apparent reason. I only ask because last I heard you were getting shredded on CD and stepped down from [Krew] to take a break. Glad to see you back on though!

Hadan.2841:

So now that we have established darkjean is a keyboard turning kittenter and kyro s just a 1 push guild….who wants to throw DJ on her back and run our own ktrain on her wit me??

You still play O.o ?? What happened to “I’m taking a break, this isn’t fun for me anymoar, see ya in hell”?

Loosmaster.8263:

You need to fix your siggy too…

Thanks for reminding me!

Spirit Ritulist.9315:

Clemy.8290:

So what you are saying is that you lie your way onto a server so that you are welcomed, all the while having every intention of ditching them a week later? The true nature of Dark Jean, ladies and gentlemen!

Would it surprise you if I said this wasn’t the first time Jean has joined a server then ditched them 1-2 weeks later? I believe this is the 2nd or 3rd time. I’ve lost count

No one on DR is laughing about FC back when I was on DR I relished any opportunity I had to fight FC as the matchups were with Siege Furnace or Empty Terrace at the time and as a NA guild that would run 20-30 at the time we pretty much had nothing to fight except guards and doors so fighting another server that had a decent NA group was always a great pleasure.

Other than Jean, DR has a nice community I swear. Just check the forums Jean was banned from them so you’ll be able to experience the rest of the community.

-[SA] Spirit

Good guy Spirit…

But I must agree, DR isn’t terrible, it just needs some srs help. Here is a link to the DR server website you can check it out for yourselves… just remember that I, Darkstar, am the one who posted the link and not Spirit not that it matters… Darkstar: 1 – Spirit: 0

Lol we’re two people who are promoting DR and we’re not even there anymore… this amuses me.

Sweet Sanity.8593:

TMW we on FC wish you luck in finding a less toxic and pretentious server with more to offer than DR.

To be fair we didn’t mind lol. TMW is big enough that we were just able to hide in our little corner and play with ourselves when stuff went down. But we appreciate your well-wishes, it was always an honor to fight FC. You guys forced us to get better at fights which, inevitably, prepared us for this transition so thank you for helping get us ready.

Bee Tee Dubs, TMW has never done a GvG before but if you ever want to, just pm me and I’m sure we can set something up in Edge with the proper time scheduling. You only improve by playing against teams that are better than you so we’d like to get ourselves out there a bit to refine our skills.

Blade Of Gandara.6738:

. . . Goodbye TMW are you guys gonna be more active now on other server?

That’s the hope! Our guys needed a change of scenery and we hope to find that on IoJ. So far they’ve been nothing but welcoming. We also left because we’re looking to improve our personal skill level as a guild. So who knows maybe after we’ve refined ourselves my guys will want to return to help out but it’s really up to them. Or we’ll remain on IoJ and eventually, down the road, DR may rise in ranks and we might square off someday

And thank you to Father and Maki and everyone wishing us well! Gibby I know you wanted us to come to BP sorry bae <3

redzerofighter.2381:

Kyro only active guild on DR? So you don’t even acknowledge TMW and AXME that’s on your server? Guilds that can actually fight as a group whereas your guild just run around mindless dunno what to do. I give props to TMW and AXME since they put up some good fights but none to you and Kyro simply cuz all you know how to do is spam /laugh and stack 5 AC’s to defend a gate.

Ferguson’s Crossing been in t8 for quite a bit, but at least as a server, we’re connected and active as a community. We grow slowly, but growth is growth. Dunno what you gonna offer for a server when all you do is spam emote half the time we see you.

While we appreciate your compliment, TMW transferred over the weekend to IoJ. We will no longer be fighting you in T8… maybe in T7 though. Maki always provided good fights and we enjoyed them while we were there but we decided it was time to go. I do agree that AXME is a promising new guild though that you all should be mindful of. Also GIT does a lot more WvW than they’re given credit for and many will look to them to help carry the server more than they already have as well.

Alright well… I just came to update you on TMW’s whereabouts so you don’t keep looking for us in DR’s WvW

A server mate shared this with me last night. Whether or not this was after the other servers went to sleep doesn’t diminish the fact that DR hasn’t given up. If we can’t win against the server blobs of FC we’ll wait until they go to sleep to take stuff, we don’t just run back to PvP and hope the next week will be better because it won’t be. There’s no going back so the only way we can go is forward and that’s the mentality of most of the people on DR right now.

What we need are those people who are willing to help us keep this stuff that we take. We need the people who are going to keep fighting the other servers during our off hours. Last reset we found out that the #1 T8 server had to pretty much throw their entire map blob at one of our zergs to stop us, and that’s when we had 3 groups running around so we were split up. DR hasn’t given up but we sure would appreciate some reinforcements.

The Mist Wardens [TMW]

The Mist Wardens is a semi-hardcore guild of well-meaning chaps on Devona’s Rest who love to do the WvW thing. We are founded on the premise that everyone has a job, we are not a team of individuals, and there are no “heroes” when we run as a guild.

I say that we are semi-hardcore as we only really get down to brass tacks two nights a week for WvW (subject to change). During these two guild raids it is not uncommon for jokes and casual conversation to be made whilst traversing the map, however we do go into combat mode once the going gets good. We do run in WvW outside of raid times but they are not as serious as scheduled stuff.

In addition to our WvW endeavors we do fancy dungeons and peruse JPs and slay world bosses from time to time. Quite often I see much of my roster in PvP with each other as well. We are a close group of guys and gals and would love to have you in our ranks as there’s LITERALLY a spot for everyone. If you like to get serious in WvW, join us on our raid nights or for some structured PvP. If you like to kitten around, join us literally any other time. If you like PvP just post in guild chat, if you want to do a dungeon… same thing. All you have to do is ask and someone will likely jump on the opportunity to accompany you.

Our Guild’s Requirements and Expectations are as follows:

Thou shalt represent thy holy Guild with the exeption of when thou art actively doing something with another guild (i.e. raiding, missions, dungeons, etc…)

Thou shalt treat thy fellow gamer as thou wouldst expect to be treated. This doth mean that thou shalt not engage in the act of “trolling”.

Thou shalt be inclusive in The Wardens and become a valued member of thine guild.

Thou shalt have fun in the manner that best suits thyself.

If you have any questions at all please pm me or also contact my officer: Mordaek (I don’t know his account numbers… gg)

See? How can you not come here after those moving testimonies? But yes we promise you’ll feel welcome and valued

Get it? Dedvona’s? It’s the joke… anyway.

Anyone who keeps up with the WvW rankings knows that Devona’s Rest sunk last fall and has stayed in T8 since. With guilds migrating to higher tiers and disbanding for other games this is to be expected. At first spirits were high and people were all gung-ho about reshaping the server structure. However after months of getting our teeth kicked in in WvW those spirits have been dampened and more people have left.

Don’t let this dissuade you from thinking we have no one in WvW. We still have very strong NA Prime presence (among the strongest in T8-T7) but after NA Prime goes to sleep no one is around to receive the torch and keep running with it. That’s what kills us. Everything gets capped in off hours and our score dives. It’s demoralizing to see that for months on end.

So this is a callout to guilds (specifically OCX, SEA, and EU guilds) that want to help reshape a server and help structure it how it desperately needs to be structured. We are not without our drama to be sure, but no server is. To prove to you that we still have SOME fighting spirit, we have not yet sank to 24th in NA and are sitting firmly in 23rd. We just need some more coverage to help us rise to where we want to be.

Devona’s Rest Website is our server website if you care to gander at it.

If you’re interested in helping a server and being the heroes that Enrique Iglesias sings about in the shower please message me in game or mail me on this site.

Alternatively you can send a PM or in-game mail to ThunderGuppy.2907

If you weren’t on FA I’d say TMW always has its doors open to people and, while we aren’t the best at what we do (admittedly said from the leader himself) we enjoy every bit of it and we love to learn new things… but alas we’re on DR.

I finally found where to post feedback so here we go…

Regarding the Revenant - Super fun class to play I know what my new driver class is when HoT comes out I will say though that you’re going to have to adjust some of the skills or you’re going to have a lot of people QQ-ing about that stuff in WvW. For example the Stability skill with the paved road essentially can give permanent Stability with it’s 5s CD and 6s Duration. Don’t get me wrong I loved playing the class but I’m just pointing out some things that might scream OP in the future and addressing them now so that, if you decide to make the changes, you can do it without OVER-NERFING the class because people don’t want to get squashed by some ranged hammers. Although with the recent changes to Stability it’s not as OP as it could have been so kudos and I see how the new Stab changes nerf that skill quite a bit.

The PvE - I’m sure people have already said this a lot but there was an FPS drop. Now granted I play on a laptop so my FPS is always lower (hovering between 15-30) but there were times, specifically when the particles were a-flyin’ that the game got kind of choppy on me. Other than that I liked the instances and the interaction (i.e. your character talking outside of cutscenes).

Specialization (lvl 80 xp bar pop-up thing) - I didn’t get to explore that that much because the merchants for the linguistic stuff were not available at the time however that, from what I read was kind of cool and I can see how that can make a different PvE experience for people who trait that differently.

Overall - The Stress Test didn’t have a whole lot to do but that wasn’t that big a deal because I know that it wasn’t supposed to. It was a good test, I enjoyed it, and hope I get asked back for the next one

I shall bump this because, well I did make it. Anyway come on over we don’t bite, promise… well I don’t… can’t speak for adrielle…

Here’s the way I see it… if you’re going to go into a competitive playstyle such as WvW, then why not actually get competitive? No one goes to WvW to PvE and those that do are blind to the countless PvE maps at their disposal that are much more beautifully laid out and diverse than any WvW map. The few that do enter a WvW map to PvE are the ones that say “WvW is stoopid and how hard is it to ‘Stack and Push’” and all that jazz… There’s stacking and pushing in any form of WvW, the only difference with GvG is that it’s a siegeless fight. Problem? None.

I support the GvG movement but as my sig says, I’m on DR so I can’t be GvG-ing VOX… right now anyway and I have to whip my guys back into shape after being gone a few weeks but feel free to contact me as well if you’re looking for another guild to fight.

Looking For Small/Mid-Sized Guilds and Individuals for WVW

Tired of being a small fish in a big pond? Tired of playing second fiddle to the Blob guilds on your server? Looking for an opportunity to fight/play your way with other guilds who are willing to collaborate/associate and not dictate?

[DR] is looking to build a fresh community comprised of many guilds and individuals who can work together to take the fight to the blobs. You bring your tactics and talents, your play style and goals, and we’ll build a community together that thrives on using them to complement the different abilities of the other server guilds. Zerg Busters? PPT first? Fights above all? Our vision of the future pairs you with others who can help make you more effective and raise the fun factor for everyone. As a server mainstay, your guild will help develop the tactics and coordination processes needed to make [DR] effective and, even more important, highly irritating to the big blob guilds.

We’re seeking partners that can look past the brute force approach and work to build a server that uses cooperation as a force multiplier to impose our will on the enemy. And while we know this will not be an easy process, we believe that with the right people, committed to each other and the larger goals of the server, we can become fearful teams that use skill, maneuver and cooperation to impose our will.

The [DR] environment is still a friendly place and, to be honest, everyone is working together more closely than ever. We have groups and individuals that consistently win against much larger competition. Come be a part of something unique, something that isn’t the meta, something that you can help make. We welcome guilds of any size. All we ask from any guild, or individual is that you come with an attitude of cooperation and willingness to help us rise as a family. It’s all about the fun.

Interested? PM me or send me some mail or respond to this post to start a discussion:

… That’s what the server has written up for you all… it’s what they wanted me to post. Now it’s a little heart to heart up close and personal time. The unedited version, if you will.

You may or may not have noticed that DR has been sinking in the ranks as of late. I can tell you exactly why: people left. It’s the universal problem with any game, people just move on. Then some that stayed didn’t like the absence of people and left for T1 like a lot of the population of other “non-T1” servers, thus creating a bigger gap. The problem now is that, while we have the remaining loyal few, they are just that, few. We don’t have the coverage to hold leads like we once did.

If you were to bring your guilds and ideas to DR to help the rebuilding process, your efforts and time would be most valuable and appreciated. This isn’t something that any one guild can do and say “We’ll bring back the server before you can say ‘Jack Robinson’”, this is going to have to be a team effort of cooperation. It’s going to take some time, but if you’re willing to gut it out and do something that’s actually hard in the game, then come on and try out the DR life. We’re all pretty friendly, welcoming people. We aren’t without our problems to be sure, but every family gets into arguments every now and then, that’s how you know they’re close. If you want to be a part of that community, family-building, warm fuzzies in your tummy type of ordeal, then definitely contact either me or someone else on DR!

Lupini.6938:

I could log in yesterday, but it’s been a couple hours of retrying now from south central Wisconsin. Perhaps they just don’t like the Great Lakes region?

Must be a regional thing… I’m in mid-Wisconsin and I haven’t been able to log in for the past few hours either… sucks because I was working on upgrading our keep in EB and taking down a tower with a catapult… and now we might have lost the keep and you can bet the wall is repaired again…

Sorry OP… gotta side with the masses, if every game was just about rushing and stomping something mindlessly people would lose interest quicker than they already are. Gotta be smart and anticipate that stuff. The more you know the map and use your head the less it’ll happen to you and the more you can laugh at the fools who aren’t ready for it and I’m an Edge commander so this is coming from a guy who’s had more than his fair share of wipes from Spectral Walls before I got smart and had to tell people to buff stability before rounding the next corner

I have never been thoroughly impressed by new features to GW2 but this… this is good… color me impressed.

Ya done good ANet… ya done good…

Wow… I’ve only seen a handful of people saying Ranger… I’m appalled. Anyway here’s my list…

1) Ranger
2) Thief
3) Engi

These are based on the precept that you know what you’re doing with these classes. Engis can kite and deliver conditions that make Necros think dirty thoughts. Thieves are extremely bursty and have stealth to boot. Rangers are super evasive and have high sustainability AND can deal some significant condi damage, although not quite the caliber of an Engi who kites well, if you spec them right.

I’m waiting for uberkingkong to see this and say “JQ is the only REAL server” or something like that…

Tristan.7430:

This map is only used for farming wxp and leveling alts.

Wxp should be awarder only in real WvW where people fights for objectives. In EotM comanders avoiding fight and run only karma train. When enemy group farm them twice they switch overflow and run karma train again. So they can recieve xp for caping empty stuff.

I’m not sure if you’ve actually done EotM OP but, as an NA EotM cmd AND an old WvW cmd when my server needed help, I never avoid fights. Granted I don’t go seek them out like some bloodthirsty bag farmer but if I see an enemy zerg I will engage or if I see them about to take a keep and we’re in the area we will try and steal it from them. I know a lot of commanders like this.

Also, unless your a commander, if you just run around ktraining the whole time, your zerg will get bored and will leave. To keep them in the instance you have to shake things up. Straight ktraining is monotonous and no fun for anyone. I usually get an average of about 5 actual battles in a match with some skirmishes here and there, and you know what? We still do well.

You said it yourself people go there to level alts. Would you rather eliminate EotM like you suggest and put all those rally-bots in WvW where PPT actually counts for something more than a supply drop? EotM is WvW Lite where people can go to experiment with their classes and builds in addition to leveling them and getting rewards. It is fine just the way it is and I’m not your typical ktrain commander.

I’m a commander and I approve this message.

The Mist Wardens is a guild now recruiting and looking to build its community! We are a newer guild with an established active player base, a website, and a VoIP. We accept players of all servers and you will be welcomed with open arms and maybe a virtual lap dance from yours truly. We are big into helping new and returning players grow and understand the game better and just have a great time in guild chat. It’s a very friendly environment and if you don’t believe me send me a letter and I can shoot you an invite so you can see for yourself why we’ve had such success right away in this guild!

Just curious to see if other people are having matches where the ghosts are the actual players decked out in all their gear with their weapons and skills… this kind of makes it unfair to the survivors who already have a hard time surviving. I figure it’s still the first day of Halloween stuff so I won’t gripe about it I was just wondering if other people noticed this and if it could get fixed. Danke!

Reanne.5462:

Katahdin.8714:

How would you propose to make it better?
Any other match up would be worse if your server is at the bottom of the tiers.
People are not going to transfer to low tier servers, at least not enough to make a difference.

I hate to say it but currently there are only 2 potential solutions:

1) ANET merge lower tier servers and make all those server residents mad

2) People on those servers that want to play WvW transfer to servers with better WvW game play.

To be honest, with mega servers, it really doesnt matter what server you are on for PvE. There is no longer any identity in PvE because we are all one big community now.

I think one thing that needs to be done is to remove the Tick. Why should a server gain points while the other one is sleeping? Is that how you win a war?
“U.S. Forces are holding a town in Iraq, the Taliban is just hanging out in their caves sleeping, But since we are occupying that town, we’re somehow winning the war?”

There should be a scoring system based on taking objectives, not taking an objective, and gaining points because there is no one around to take it back.

example:
DR takes a tower = 35pts, HOD takes that tower back = 35 pts, DR successfully defends that tower = 60 pts. There could be variations in the scoring where if you defend the same tower twice w/o it being taken, you get bonus points.
They already have the “defend the tower” event system in place.

Changing servers because your server has a low population, is not a solution to unfair matchup problem. That just highlights the idea that it doesn’t matter who wins, as long as “I” am on the server that wins. But we can’t all be on the server that wins. I am not complaining that our server loses, I am kittened off that we lose by twice our score, as well as the other server losing by twice their score also.
If I can go in, and have fun, with a chance that this week we will come out on top, because of better game play. Not because we had more people online.

I assume you are HoD… For what it’s worth it’s not fun on our end either for many of us who wish to see closer match-ups. So yes a majority of us are in agreement.

I am in agreement with this, IMO Siege Disablers need to have a limited number of targets (1 or 2) because it’s just silly when you have five rams up on a gate but, since they’re all clustered together because of their limited range and the surface area of the gate, they all get disabled by one Siege Disabler… and then it happens twice which is plenty of time for an enemy zerg to retaliate and come roflstomp you.

DR is a great place to be for WvW. Everyone seems to know everyone for the most part and it really helps build the community that was intended for the game. Recently we’ve had a few guilds leave our server that were heavy in the WvW department. Either they left for a different game or they transferred after the season.

The guilds that remain are extremely organized and large enough to hold our own. If you transfer you will definitely be welcomed with open arms due to the few guilds who had left us and there will definitely be a place for you in our WvW community because of it.

uberkingkong.8041:

Hamster.4861:

Lets forget the fact that there is a single, notorious exploiter on CD, neruson-san , who is an equal opportunity harasser. This is very much his style.

someone who suggested that they go to the JP to check there clearly doesnt play much WvW, since Siege has been un-deployable in the JPs for months and months and months, and months.

The Trebuchet in the screenie is on the edge of the map, where it can only be accessed or countered by utilizing exploits of some kind.

Well if its still going on, its not an exploit because I’m sure the game masters are well informed of this, and not saying anything because fact is, he aint exploiting and the game master doesn’t want to come to forums and be like “hey its not an exploit, hes in the jumping puzzle”, because obviously you’ll go gather up a massive raid force to take out 1 guy because yall scared to investigate. I’d laugh hysterically if it wasn’t CD and some random dude from the other world, trolling to make you all mad and flame CD for them exploiting. Cuz yall seem to automatically assume something without investigating it seriously, taking multiple pics while hiding in the keep isn’t investigating, you gotta take pics from all angles and prove without doubt its off the map if that’s what you strongly believe. Automatically assuming something as in, ‘has to be CD’, ‘has to be an exploiter’.

Just wait till you get to T1 if you ever do, thing is, your server probably isn’t used to fighting worlds that use tactics, and your just use to the same worlds doing the same thing, maybe that guy trebbing you was from a T1 server like JQ, were they learned a few tricks, to just confuse the heck out of you and leave you in your garrison scared and mind blown.

All I gotta say is if any of you guys make it to T1, be prepared to get mind blown by crazy strategies and tactics, of course the number one server Jade Quarry is the master of the art of war.

And you know this how? You are so quick to dismiss the possibility of an exploit as you so eloquently put it “without investigating it seriously”. Enough of your “holier-than-thou-I’m-from-JQ-you-don’t-know-anything” attitude. I can say that too because it could be some people from my server and if some is exploiting it I’ll be the first to come down on them which is why I want to make sure it’s not an exploit. So if you have nothing intellectual to say, than say nothing instead of boasting about “If you guys were T1 you’d get roflstomped lololol.” It has already been established many times that JP can’t be used for siege. If you’d like to continue to argue this matter take a screenshot of you setting up siege in the JP, then you can rub it in my face all you want but until then, find a new explanation instead of clinging tightly to your old one.

P.S. From what I hear TC is kicking your butts this week… I thought JQ is the master? No one likes someone who is a kittenbag to other people boasting he’s the best man, otherwise people like me come along and play Devil’s Advocate.

uberkingkong.8041:

Told you guys before its in the JP. Instead of whinning how about you go inside the JP and get to the top and kill those people. That way you can take a screenshot too to show if its CD or whoever as well.

If CD is really as big and bad as you say them to be, than how come they not T1 with powerhouse servers like Jade Quarry?

No exploits here, just people who too afraid to enter the Jumping Puzzle. All I see is two screenshots facing the JP and people hiding in there garrison like they cant handle combat outside there base, making accusations that its a CD using exploits.

You ever heard of people setting up a treb, trebbing you from the other enemy location, its called diversion, they trying to get you to think its the other team attacking you, so you attack the other team. This is what could be a diversion, since people rarely go into the Jumping Puzzle.

Looks like you aren’t reading the chat my friend. JP siege no longer allowed, so before you go insulting people calling them cowards to go fight CD and check out the JP it might behoove you to learn your facts

Aitadis.8269:

It would help if you could prove it’s CD by screenshoting the player or getting the name by right-click blocking them. You have provided no proof that it is a CD player and this is the first I have heard or seen anything like this, it could be DR. Bay is on DR side of your map this week, although since it does seem to be hacks it most likely doesnt matter. This didnt happen in any CD matchups during seasons so I doubt it is us. And as for Wraith’s accusations, provide SS’s or names, not that it really matters, anet doesnt ban WvW exploiters, they only delete topics about them. Also if it happens again add me to friends and ill go to the jumping puzzle and try to get the guys name from my mini-map if he is infact from CD, that’s the most we can do.

Also in b4 delete.

Based on the fact that DR has been on the complete defensive this week (because you guys have been kicking our butts), it’s doubtful it is DR. Now obviously I’m not monitoring that map all the time so I could be wrong but I doubt very much that it is a DR player. The real question though is “Are they in the map or not?” because if they aren’t then it doesn’t matter who it is, they get reported. If they are in the map then it doesn’t matter who it is either and… well… lay on. I’ll keep my eyes out for anyone talking in team chat mentioning anything about it though, I don’t like being associated with cheaters.

Filovirus.6258:

Except the “MegaZerg” tactic haven’t existed for real for months, and the “rogues and hit and run and chaos tactics” in Bronze tiers don’t exist either….

It’s just washed down WvW with no one around for above 70% of the day (no, flipping a WHOLE border your color with 5/6 people without anyone coming to defend or 1/2 people at most isn’t “chaos/rogue/guerilla” tactics, it’s empty maps….and PvD).

The problem is that for rogue/chaos/guerrilla tactics to exist, the “zerg” is required, to be able to occupy/hold the majority of the ennemy, otherwise your “chaos” squads can’t exist they get crushed every single time they make a move by 5/10 times their numbers.

And the people down there like their the way it plays sooo much they keep trying to get people there to rise up the ranks, and start chestbeating like madmen and explaining how “great” they are and how they do all better than other EVERY.SINGLE.TIME. a server is bandwagooned ?

(see RoF multiple times, Bt last time, RoS before that, and so on and so on, and so on).

Oh and on a side note, a really high chunk of people are ready to move, on RoS and other bronze servers, the nearly only reason they don’t is always the same : “not moving without my guild/friends”.

They aren’t against merging either. And to be honest, the whole “yeah those people from those server are bad, don’t want to play with them” is (most of the time) coming from people who have moved servers more than half a dozen times, and even were on those servers at some point and STILL have friends there.

It’s mostly bravado/ways to justify the fact they jumped ship.

But, once again, the problem with Bronze is that it isn’t WvW at all, because there isn’t the numbers for that.

It’s empty and dead maps most of the day, with 80% of PvDing (or even more, because the rest of the day is that for a good chunk of the time due to the vast difference in numbers, meaning it’s one way mu).

Bronze T7/T8 (and even t9) was nice WvW 1 year ago… but it has the activity we see on mid/top silver servers now.

Bronze right now is a desert with a blip on the radar 3/4h a day.

edit : ho and kuddos on your hypocrisy and intellectual dishonesty.:D
I love the whole “hey stop telling people on tiers you aren’t how they should play -i’m in bronze – then gtfo and transfer if not happy – i’ll be transfering out soon – ahah, it’s why you are saying what you say so you are to be ignored”.

Between us 2, one is pretending a dead game mode, that can’t be player for 18+h a day, with nobody around (when it designed to hold 340+ players at a time, on each side, and have under 20 on each side for that much a week it’s called dead, not “low pop” sorry to burst your bubble) is exactly what they like/want, the other just want back what was promised to players by anet at the start, and was real and was how it was played in Bronze till just after S2 (that is only a few months back you know).

Yeah i’m pretty sure i’m the one trying to force others to play like i want, and not how the game is supposed to be played and how it was promised to be played.

I’m not responsible for the state of Bronze’s WvW, Anet is, so as a player (who actually sharded money for the game) i’m entitled to ask them to fix their mess, or a least give the players a way to correct it by themselves, without having to reward Anet (aka pay them) for screwing it up and destroying bronze WvW with their stupid transfer pricing politic coupled with rewards encouraging stacking back with S2…..

WvW was fine overall till that point, it’s broken overall since them. I “wonder” what changed between those 2 points… go figure.

Not entirely sure if you’re edit was directed at me because I’m not transferring and I’m silver… so… not sure if I should answer that. All I’m saying is that you aren’t going to find the same style of WvW play on a T1 server as you will a T8 server. You can argue that however you want but at the end of the day you just won’t. That’s all I was saying was that, people should find a style that suits them. I was also saying not everyone in lower tiers thinks it’s a good idea to server merge. So is it right to try to get ANet to force them to do something they don’t want to when you could just transfer yourself to a server that you want to try out?

No intellectual dishonesty there just laying out the facts and playing Devil’s Advocate. And like I said, I’m silver tier so I’m pretty neutral because I’ve seen our servers “dead hours” where we have maybe four people on EB and our “active hours” where we have a megablob and there is a queue.

zen.6091:

As for commander burnout, every commander has their reasons. Too much of a time commitment, second guessing pugs wearing you down, half the group raging after a wipe, no one helping you lighten the load with some individual initiative, etc. The players in WvW do an amazing job of making the most simple task more complex than the Apollo space program sometimes.

This is exactly why I started this thread is to bring this issue to attention and possibly get some new commanders in the swing of things so the old commanders everyone knows don’t burn out and leave.

As for map changes, I’m not so sure I agree with you. One of the reasons I left WvW for EotM was because it was getting monotonous being on the same maps over and over again. EotM is a beautiful map and I love pugmanding in it with all it’s unique stuff (until people start complaining that EotM is a ktrain). Maybe once I’ve done EotM enough that that becomes a stale map to me I’ll put focus back in the WvW maps but I would like a change-up and I think other commanders would like the same.

Basch.1347:

Deli.1302:

I find that the best people to solve this issue are the celebrity commanders themselves.

Once you’ve gained celebrity commander status on your server and are able to rally large numbers onto your tag, you should be using that as an opportunity to give newer, lesser known commanders some exposure to the crowd. Train new commanders and let them lead the group that you’ve rallied. Pass the torch, so to speak.

This way, the celebrity commander doesn’t always have to be the one commanding which helps prevent him/her from burning out and in the mean time new commanders can rise up and eventually be able to rally large numbers by themselves.

If only it were so easy. The thing about seasoned commanders is that they know the field. I’m not talking about map politics either. I’m talking about knowing the people to whisper and who to talk to to get things done. I can easily jump down a few channels in TS, talk to someone for a short bit, then jump back. I’m also 100% familiar with TS3 and have CCOMs set up, etc. The portfolio of skills and knowledge that a commander needs to have to be decently organized and good is quite large. And quite frankly, many don’t care to learn them, knowing how difficult or stressful that it can be.

So I wish that others would tag up. My favorite moment is when I ask if anyone wants to take over my 20 to 30-man group on TS, a solid militia group made up of people from various good guilds and <80% of them on TS (which is a difficult thing to achieve), and all I get is crickets. I particularly enjoy commanding, but I much prefer leading competent people who know what they’re doing and require minimal commanding to get them to behave in the right fashion in a fight.

Pugmanding is too prone to burnout and utter frustration. Most, including myself, just go on pugmanding kicks for a short while, then go back to playing soloely with their guild group, running untagged, avoidng the use of siege.

But even training a new commander within a guild will give that commander experience to deal with pressure of pugmanding. I am in complete agreement with you but, as I said and you have said, it’s prone to making commanders burn out and the only ones who do and pugs will follow are the celebrity commanders everyone knows. This causes those commanders to command more and more until they leave like you said.

So the question really is where does the new tag start? Obviously running with the commander to learn the ropes helps but how do they effectively start down the path towards commander superstardom? I was going to suggest that when commanders think they’re ready to take charge of some people, start in your BL if you need to clean up. It’s a little easier than EB and the battles are few and far between. It is a good place to start.

I hesitate to say become an experienced WvW pugmander by commanding in EotM because not many people are looking for WvW in EotM just karma. It is however an effective way to become accustomed to speaking with people not in a VoIP program and keeping them informed. It’s also a good way to get used to map reading as everything moves around very fast in EotM and you constantly have to be paying attention to what’s going on so you don’t get caught unawares.

But where do the new tags start? Thoughts? Ideas?

Reverence.6915:

It’s even harder for pugmanders playing outside of NA prime. I tend to be able to rally a decent size zerg for OCX prime (in comparison to our competition), but that usually peaks at around 25 people before dropping off when SEA starts as guilds start their raids. When other people try without a guild group behind them, they’re lucky to rally 10 players.

People like familiarity. If you tag up constantly, then people will recognise your tag and follow you.

T’is true, and maybe that’s one way new commanders can get involved but it also is on the zerg to accept the tag and help if the tag needs it and not to simply criticize. As a human race, we’re very good at criticism however that’s not doing anyone any favors when trying to get new commanders to become veteran commanders. Constructive criticism sure but simply saying “Commander fail” or “Noob Commander” isn’t going to get anywhere and it won’t save the veteran commanders form burning out. It is very much a team effort but yes, tagging up on a frequent basis does make people remember you.

Grimkor.9147:

Not sure how anyone would know my server unless I just don’t know the forums well, but I’m on Yaks Bend and I do find the people there to be a good group at least during the times I play. I haven’t done much yet so I don’t have a lot of play time to pull that opinion from yet. I just tend to follow the blob and hope we meet another blob and have a war.

I haven’t done EotM yet.

I was generalizing, servers in general know and recognize their players so they’re usually more forgiving. EotM… different story

Sreoom.3690:

I am a new Commander….bought the Pin before the 200g price raise…I’d like to pin up and work as a subordinate to a more seasoned commander…I wish we had the capability to have a more robust command and control system….a primary “General” with 3-4 commanders under them.

That sounds like a great idea that you should coordinate with a commander of your server. Your signature says you’re JQ so I can’t imagine you have a shortage of wvw-ers. If you have a commander in your guild just run with him/her and maybe serve as a “dispatch” meaning if the Big Kahuna commander is in EB and your BL needs a little tidy-ing up, you can be dispatched with some people to go take care of it. I don’t know how JQ works because that’s a Gold ranked server but yeah coordinate that with some commanders you feel would be more receptive to trying that out.

Grimkor.9147:

Hello all. I got the game on release, but had to step away because of real life work and that eating up all my time. I only point this out because I think I really am the random pug guy that was referenced. I can’t speak for everyone obviously but I personally don’t care who is leading. I didn’t come back and jump into WvW only to follow a dorrito around the map, and I honestly didn’t know what that meant for a day or so after seeing it.

As long as the group is having fun and getting into some good fights I don’t see it as an issue that the person leading the group doesn’t have the icon above their head. I think the players will rally behind anyone who is making an effort.

That’s an optimistic viewpoint. Having been a commander for some time now, I can say not all people are so “forgiving.” I’ve definitely led my zerg to plenty of wipes and also led them to cap most of the map in our color. In my experience, a vast majority of people on GW2 tend to be “fairweather players” that will stick with you once it’s great but as soon as you make a mistake, will claim they’ve been against you from the beginning.

The good news is that on your server, people are a little more forgiving because it’s actually more of a community than EotM where I do most of my commanding now. This allows for more forgiveness for the tag and for more people willing to help.

Btw… “kittenange” is supposed to be “change”… good censorship anet… :p

ArchonWing.9480:

Oh yes, that is quite an issue. My server is utterly helpless without a tag and if not for people spending tireless hours commanding it would have easily went under. That has unfortunately led to burnout of many fine wvw’ers who sadly have grown resentful of followers, although this is true of many dedicated wvw’ers who care about winning. In the end this has lead to my server— SBI— being unable to retain serious wvw groups that are willing to uphold this burden on many occasions.

You guys certainly held your own during the season when we were matched against you, I tip my hat to you good sir

You all know what I mean, at some point or another your server has had a commander that has been able to rally people and run effective WvW groups and everyone in the server knows. I can think of 3-4 such commanders from my server like this.

Then something happens, the commander just disappears. One of the main causes of this is that the commander simply gets burned out. It’s one of the reasons I don’t command in WvW much anymore, the monotonous grind eventually just burns you out as you HAVE to command for an extensive amount of time on the same stale maps. In most cases the commanders then either change servers or leave the game entirely. So how do we resolve this?

Well, obviously one of the answers is ask the devs to shake up the maps a little kittenange them and what have you. But until that happens, if it ever does, what happens then? I was thinking about this and thought to myself “Self, with all the people who bought tags before the feature patch while they were still relatively cheap, how is it that a commander has to work things by him/herself?” I’ve seen one commander moving between EB and the BLs because no one else tags up. So why aren’t people tagging up then if we have so many tags and so few commanders?

Well obviously a tag does not a commander make. I also am aware that some people got the tag as a “just in case” they ever want to try it. Now I don’t know how it is in other servers but perhaps one of these solutions to “Commanders getting burned out” is to simply train new commanders. Even if they start at “second-string” commanders they are there to tag up if the current tag needs a break.

So please, if you have a tag but are not sure whether to use it, contact your local commander and follow him/her, watch what he/she does and ask any questions you have. And please, if you see a new tag or someone who recently got one with questions, answer and be as helpful as possible, everyone wins. Obviously they aren’t going to be your server’s best commanders overnight but every commander starts somewhere so just be helpful and welcoming and give them a chance, save the current commanders from burning out. And remember, ask not what your new commanders can do for you, but what you can do for your new commanders.

I’m Asthelion Darkstar and I approve this message. (felt necessary)

One of the things that is a problem with this, and people I’m sure have said this already I just don’t have time to read all the posts, is that having higher tier-ed servers and lower tier-ed servers provides diverse WvW gameplay. If you don’t like a lower tier server WvW with the havoc groups and “rogue squads” hit and run and defend where you can tactics, then you can always move to the upper tier servers where the name of the game is “megazerg” and vice versa. A lot of the people in the lower tiers like how they do their WvW and a lot of people in the upper tiers like how they do it too. Sure you might never see Eredon Terrace or whatever lower tier-ed servers you have in Gold Rankings, but the people there like how they play and they don’t really care. They accept it and continue to play how they know how and like to. Being a Silver ranked server I have to say that I do like my mix of running in the blob and running havoc, it’s all personal preference.

Pinkamena Diane Pie.8054:

Nightshade.2570:

John listened and watched and picked up on some things that werent even complained about to him (like his siege trolls post).

I think this sums things up, we complained about siege trolled way back when at launch, and continued to do so.
We did get a reply from a mod: They cannot controls a player’s play-style.
We then gave up on complaining about this.

But for John to not even know about this annoyance shows there isnt much communication going on between the WvW devs and the WvW players’ concerns. (Not counting infractions and bans of course).

Sorry but as the saying goes, I’ll believe it when I see it.
And “We cant talk about it” is not seeing, it’s just blowing smoke.

And dont forget the FCT made posts here asking people for their opinions, a few people gave their honest opinions and got infracted for it! Those threads are almost like entrapment :P

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjo8MklCiLI&t=4m16s
Let’s all laugh and cry together with Matt shall we!
If this doesnt make you lose faith in the devs then you really must be in denial!
I mean seriously, even off the record, we cant talk about it, thats just BS!
It’s like a kittening joke to them!

I think that was the point of the devs getting off their shiny thrones to get in the trenches with us during the season. You’re right they didn’t know the frustrations of their players. I mean yeah we complained and made threads but they didn’t really know what it was like because they didn’t play with us up until now. I think now that they know what’s going on, and what we go through as players of their game, they might be a little more apt to listen.

They likely didn’t do the “Adopt-A-Dev” to pat themselves on the back and say “Good Job devs now let’s go look at our awesome colored doritos.” More than likely they did it because after their feature patch (which was not as “feature-y” as some might have liked) they wanted to see how we took it, what more we want, and to experience it from our POV. Arguments can be made for how “we’ve been asking for the same stuff now for two years” but until the devs actually got to experience it firsthand, I don’t think they realized exactly how badly we wanted the changes. Hopefully this little exercise will steer them in the right direction.

Valentin.2073:

X Factor.2641:

Ah see, you may not know this, but my unofficial name on DR is the Zerg Magnet so where I go… acs and blobs of red names follow… spirits can’t keep up but alright that’s cool that I’m not going crazy… small world!

I’m more of a ballista + cata type of commander. I make sure no ac is gonna hurt my spirit babies.

Catas and trebs are the new rams, I’m convinced

CONSTANTINES.2630:

Anyone have a nice condition ranger build ? And what gear should i wear as a condition ranger ?

Valentine may be able to answer this better than I can considering he’s running one now whereas I am not but here’s my rough build for you.

Conceptual Build I’m Pulling Out of My Butt for You

So if you want to run a condi ranger with max condition application you may consider the Spirit Ranger. For this you need to trait into NM. Not arguable, you need the Spirits Unbound to be able to move and be tougher. Consider using the following spirits:

Sun
Stone
Frost (although I heard people complaining about a frost spirit nerf post patch so it would help to know what that’s about)

Traits
We talked about NM, for more survival you may want to consider WS and then have Marksmanship be your “dump stat”. Because you’ll be applying conditions faster than a zerg killing an unfortunate roamer, power isn’t really as prevalent so something like this might be worth consideration:

2/0/6/6/0

Gear
The "go-to* gear that I think of is Settler’s. A lot of people give it a bad rap saying it’s “noob” gear and whatnot but for a prototype condi build, it’s a good place to start. Settler’s gives you Toughness/Condi/Healing. This is the stuff of survival, let the people say what they will, you’ll be the one who’s standing over their dead bodies. If you go full set of Settler’s this gives you just over 2k Toughness which is a good foundation for survival stats so you can play around with your trinkets a bit more and weapons.

Weapons
For condi weapons you really only have a few choices: sb, axe, dagger, sword, torch. I wouldn’t go a/t because that gives you no evades, which as I mentioned in the OP is a crucial part of ranger survival. If I were going to use this build I’d try s/t for the main and secondary either a/d or sb depending on how I’m feeling. S/t gives you evades and sb and a/d each have one.

Trinkets & Weapon Stats
Because we have that 2k toughness you can play around with your weapons and trinkets a little more. Keeping with Condi Damage focus you might consider Dire for more toughness and vitality or Carrion for more power. Up to you really.

Sigils & Runes
For sigils I’d go with Sigils of Bursting and Sigils of Battle perhaps. Bursting adds 6% directly to Condi Damage and Battle gives 3 stacks of might on weapon swap… never a bad thing. Alternatively you may look at Sigils of Energy instead of Battle which restores some adrenaline for more evades if you want that.

For Runes I’d probably go with Traveler’s or Water. Traveler’s increases Condi Damage as well and at the end increases movement speed by 25% passively, which will help considering you can’t have Signet of the Hunt in the spirit build. The reason I say Water might be worth consideration would be for the Healing and for the chance to remove conditions. You don’t have a condi remover in this build so having that can greatly help.

Edit: Engineer might be worth looking at too… Condi Damage AND Toughness…

Conclusion

This build is very conceptual but if you want I can use the build editor to try and make it for you. Like I said though, Valentine might have a little more know-how considering he’s running one right now and I’m not. This is just my blueprint on what I’d be looking for.

Hope this helped!

Valentin.2073:

X Factor.2641:

Valentin.2073:

pretty good post.

btw, i command in wvw using a spirit/condi/bunker build. it’s a frontline ranger build and it could take a lot of damage while giving a bit of support to my allies and also causing insane condi damage.

I feel like I know you… But that’s cool, spirits have never really worked out for me but I cmd with a BM build so to each his own.

we are from the same server. i was that ranger who was co-commanding with Nem last week. it was a lot of fun. i was able to cap the whole EB while i was commanding last week. lol

anyway, spirit ranger is awesome as long as you avoid the arrow carts. lol. i have used this build to command both small and large scale groups. imo, it is the best support build for rangers.

Ah see, you may not know this, but my unofficial name on DR is the Zerg Magnet so where I go… acs and blobs of red names follow… spirits can’t keep up but alright that’s cool that I’m not going crazy… small world!

Valentin.2073:

pretty good post.

btw, i command in wvw using a spirit/condi/bunker build. it’s a frontline ranger build and it could take a lot of damage while giving a bit of support to my allies and also causing insane condi damage.

I feel like I know you… But that’s cool, spirits have never really worked out for me but I cmd with a BM build so to each his own.

Bandit.8279:

Razor.9872:

One can also make a very strange, but very good support/utility/shout ranger while in small parties. But other than that, you pretty much covered all the build types.

Agreed. I ran a support/spirit ranger for a while. Found it to be pretty fun for general PvE group play.

I also think rangers are not all that selfish when compared to the necro class. Rangers have spirits, pet buffs, war horn #5, healing spring and SoR (along with a couple of other utilities) that can directly aid a party.

Obviously it would depend on how exactly you have constructed your ranger which is why I said when compared to “pretty much” every other class. There are exceptions but there are also selfish guard builds so there are exceptions to everything.

But yes you are correct I didn’t name all of them I was generalizing, which is never a good thing. Thank you for calling me out on it