Guild Wars 2

Kinda disagree with the assumption that bad commanders get big zergs. I think a lot of it can be down to how fun the tag is to follow, not necessarily how good a fight commander they are.
I sometimes think of the best tags are twitch streamers or radio DJ’s. A good voice, humorous, usually has a music bot in chat, and keeps the zerg moving. Just a pretty fun and relaxed way to spend some free time.

Of course, people harbor some unrealistic expectations when you tag up. As someone else said, make clear your objectives, and don’t tag up if you’re not ready to accept criticism.

Hi Ben,

There are a number of guilds which run at that time zone. English language ones are largely Singaporean or Philippino, but are a lot of good fun. There’s always at least one blob to fight, whichever server you’re on… but you’re rarely going to find anything more than one map queued (usually EB).

I would’ve certainly expected to see at least some in BG. Maybe asking in /team would get an answer – they might just not be running on that particular day.

Otherwise, I know for a fact there are some on FA, DB and JQ as I’ve found them quite recently. Maybe someone from those guilds might get in contact with you via this thread, or try posting in the ‘looking for’ section of the forum.

BattlePing was becoming quite unreliable, and I was having to hop between servers every day to try and find a reliable connection. When my subscription ran out, I just tried a competitor and found it worked far better.
It also probably helps that they have a server in the same city as me.

Trying not to sound like a salesman for them and I’m sure most GW2 players aren’t in China, but practically speaking, the game is unplayable without it on.

Anyway, they all have free trials, so just pick one and have a go.

I get similar issues, but I’m based in China.
With the use of tunnel software, it becomes absolutely fine (have used both battle ping, and now use WTFast). Steady 200 ping.
Perhaps get a free trial and see if that helps at all.

Of course, I know people report similar experiences from even in the US on these forums, but that’s what works for me.

I’m flabbergasted by this. You are able to play this game mode for absolutely nothing. Free. And if you paid for the original game, you certainly got your money’s worth.

The examples of being “pay2win” you give, I can quite easily overlook – needing to adjust code to make an exception for non-HoT players being able to use gliders being the prime example – when the introduction is clearly stated as a test for the game mode.

Lack of WvW updates in the past… sure. But they’re trying now at least.

It is entirely reasonable and rational for Anet to include new features in expansions. If you don’t want to pay for them, then don’t. You can still play a bucket load of content, and can still be competitive and contribute meaningfully.

If the attackers have the supply to set this up, then all power to them, frustrating as it is.

I’m quite happy that fending off such an attack really requires a sizable force to get out there and fight. It has always been quite unreasonable to me that 5 people can hold off 30+ for so long.

What never gets mentioned as counter-play to this is to prevent the opposition getting enough supply to even do this. Supply traps, and capping camps whenever possible helps greatly. Defensive trebs to drain supply.

Even if the enemy is WP’ing to another map to get supply, you can do a lot to disrupt them… but if there are 30 people banging on your door and you only have 5, then all you should expect to be able to do is slow them down.

Pretty interesting thread, and my interest was peaked after a couple of players following on FA running troll tags as we didn’t want them to join squad without joining TS3 (they didn’t want to install it).

A commander with a squad of 30 plus can be incredibly busy, and if they’re taking their raid seriously, have every right to insist upon everyone in squad being in TS3 if they want. My own eyes tell me that players not on TS3 die far more frequently than those following voice comms. I can understand why it’s easier to just have a blanket rule – be on TS3 or don’t be in squad.

It’s a shame that the commander didn’t have the time (nor decency?) to deal with you in whispers and understand your disability. But from running a tag, I can understand why it happens. Commanders are checking the map, replying to their own friends, following scout reports, and also trying to have fun themselves.

It would’ve been ultimately preferable to run with the zerg separately (you’re a guardian after all – it’s not like you lack stab), and over time remind the tag you’ve been running and ask for an invite. Engagement and positive attitude really does help, including with the tag’s guildies who may be helping out with squad management.

For those complaining that WvW TS groups are horrible places with vulgar people talking about things you don’t want to hear about, consider this. By joining a squad, you are indicating a willingness to play with another group of people. Yet by refusing to join TS3, you’re refusing to engage with these people in any meaningful way, which obviously comes across pretty badly. I understand how it prompts arguments – it’s like the kid in the playground wanting to play ball but not wanting to be friends with anyone.

As dozens of others in this thread have said, you’re under no obligation to play with any of these people, and nor they you. If you don’t want to communicate, roam, flip camps, run solo. And those people matter more than zerglings.

Don’t often post, but wanted to agree wholeheartedly with this. The best experiences I’ve had in WvW have been with a group of friends. Pug groups are great, but the game mode is so much better when played with an added level of organisation which can only come from playing with the same group regularly i.e. a guild. More experimentation in the meta, more sense of inclusion, more fun playing with friends, more sense of purpose in a group, more ownership of achievements, more competitive WvW match-ups.

Please, as Chaba says, explore design solutions which encourage and suitably incentivize guild play in WvW.

Mark Katzbach.9084:

Guys, the last update was on Friday. Today is Monday. Contrary to popular belief, our developers have lives and families that they would like to live and see respectively.

Believe me when I say that we will provide an update as soon as we have an update to provide. Until that time, your continued patience is appreciated.

I worked at a private language school for many years. Students only had time to attend on the weekends, so that was when I had to work, unfortunate as that may be.

I understand more than most that your devs have lives, but you are providing a service to a player base who have by far the most playing time on a weekend. Generally this works fine, as you try to get content out of the door on a Tuesday so that it’s working regularly by the weekend, and the game runs itself.

I think your post is a little kitten y though considering the circumstances. I’m sure even you can see how this at least appears to be an ‘easy’ fix for a player-base who have been starved of new content for a long time now, let alone the controversy behind not giving weapons to the many players who finished sixth yet fought as hard as anyone else.

I hope that this delay allows your devs to reconsider the distribution, and give those players who finished in sixth to get one weapon if they’d finished their meta. Otherwise, get it out of the door, and avoid rounding off on your players (who were hoping to find new shiny toys to use over their weekend.

There is nothing in any game I’ve played which can match the feeling of working with 20 friends on voice chat, with all skills working together, fighting a similar group. Nothing that can match your group getting on the jump on a group twice your size and having them for breakfast. There are so many amazing experiences WvW can give.

Alas, it takes a level of commitment to reach these experiences, and ideally, there would be better community tools for commanders and guilds.

I digress though. As others have said, without WvW I would’ve stopped playing a few months after launch – it’s more of an end game than any living story could ever be IMO.

Some interesting thoughts in this thread. Here’s my take on it. Bear in mind that I happen to believe that while it’d be lovely if making a legendary was entirely independent work, as other legendary recipes show, there are components such as lodestones and t6 materials which are both farmed and bought from the TP.

Lodestones and other materials are gained by playing the game at a high level, completing tasks that the majority of the player base completes regularly, for example, dungeons and champions. A huge number of people are doing these things regardless for their inherent rewards (and fun of it), and lodestones dropping is a nice bonus to thousands of players every day.

The number of players at the 21-40 (correct level for silver doubloons) to drop is far lower than the number of level 80’s. I know there are plenty of players of that level – I run around with alts as much as the next person, but it’s far fewer than the number of 80’s. That results in far less supply, pushing up the price. Given the inflation of silver doubloons, and that players feel compelled to waste character slots on alts at jumping puzzles, that should be obvious (I’ve outleveled characters intended for farming and completing jump puzzles getting no more than 20 out of 250).

Furthermore, while I agree that it’s wonderful for new players to find one of these things and feel like they’ve won the lottery, the amount one of these is worth is really overkill. It’s clearly out of kilter; a legendary component found strictly from low level materials, and is choice made strictly to crowbar the meaning for the weapon’s appearance (one I actually enjoy), but without consideration for how these will be obtained.

Nobody is asking for silver doubloons to be free, or even necessarily ‘easily’ obtainable. But they should be obtainable by players of the appropriate level, going around and playing the game. Parking alts at jumping puzzles, upgrading t1 materials, and opening thousands of low level bags is not that.

NoxInfernus.2361:

I’m a Mag, but I can’t help to think that some of FA is tanking this to stay in Silver. The fights just didn’t seem as intense Thursday night as they did on Wednesday.
That’s not to say that those FA who took to the field weren’t trying. Far from it actually. It’s just that there was much more quantity and focus earlier in the week.

I’m actually really impressed by CD. They really upped their game during the week after a pretty miserable weekend start. Some of their fights were just as enjoyable (if not more so) than FA.

Finally, I have to say that I’m also really impressed by my own server as well. I’ve seen some excellent growth and tactical maturity with a majority of our Commanders. There are many PvE guilds that have started to show interest in, and make the switch to WvW. Even though our evening coverage could still use work, it’s good to see that some players are willing to make the sacrifice of sleep to try and shore the gap – good team spirit.

Earlier in the week, we were hitting highs where we were hoping we might be able to stage a comeback and sneak back into gold, hence the intense fights and PPT play. Credit where it is due though, Mag has consistently been able to hold top PPT in NA, and the way your zergs dissipate with such strong range bombs had us properly stumped, and were very difficult to pain train.

I can’t help feeling that you guys are going to suffer very badly though in gold league. Your turnout in OCX and SEA was very poor, and had CD not logged on in EU to flip the map away from us, the score may well have been closer. If at any point we can get 600+ PPT against you, most of t1 is going to be a demoralizing wake up call.

I feel like a huge challenge for servers is going to be mobilizing and retaining all the PVE players who come in to get their achievos, and servers who do this well may feel the benefit of an influx of players far stronger than a few guilds transferring. This will be difficult to do when you’re constantly getting trounced, have low morale, and have a fraction of the total points of others. You may have a full seven weeks of this, which is enough to make even the most ardent players burn out. I hope that in FA, we enjoy some good fights, rebuild a little, and feel sure that we’ll be in gold league sooner or later.

Best of luck though. Keep innovating, and enjoy fights whenever you want them.

Thanks for the feedback NewRequiem.

There’s certainly a lot okittenks in the idea, I’ll freely admit.

I’d argue that you’re still approaching the idea from the perspective of GvG being retained for what it is now. In that respect, you could still have that by choosing an unoccupied tower (Lake, Briar, Cliffside, Dawn’s etc). The feasibility of GvG is very much on gentlemen’s agreements between guilds, and that can be accommodated easily causing little disruption to the rest of the playerbase.

What I’d love this idea to achieve though, is to bring in the best elements of GvG and integrate them into WvW.

For your first question, I’ll annoyingly reply with another question! Why would it need to be fair? It can be your whole guild against a larger whole guild. If you think your guys are tough enough, fight on no matter the odds. If not, reject the challenge. I know many organized guilds who would love such a scenario though. The hosting guild also has higher ground, and may even be able to place siege.

I’d agree about being anti-spectator. I’d love the ability for observers to enter the battlements during a challenge to watch e.g. look down from the 2nd floor of Lords room in Garrison. Failing that… someone could make some kind of highlights show of the best fights from the week. They could even have a wily, deep and gruff-voiced commentator on it

I don’t feel any changes to the PPT contribution of towers would need to be made. You’re only able to accept challenges for 5 minutes, which is as long as the Lord’s buff is up (when it’s impossible to cap anyway). If you were to win a challenge, that buff could reset.

Again, if no guild is organized enough to challenge for it, then the structure’s status would be exactly the same as it is now.

Finally, Fuzzion, I’d be delighted if that were to happen. I still think this would be a fun addition though.

Hi all,

I’m a passionate WvW player, and greatly enjoy GvG with my guild. I play daily when possible, and have a blast. Some of my best experiences in game have been in epic keep defenses, a Swiss Cheese SMC, and of course, with my guildies in GvG. While watching the developments of both game modes recently, it dawned on me that part of the problem is that we’re seeing them as separate entities, when in fact the two should be incredibly closely linked.

Let me explain further. At the present, all GvG matches take place in an organized, and very much exclusive manner near the South Windmill in Borderlands. They are as cut off from the WvW world as humanly possible. This is the exact opposite of what it should be, and I believe the answer to this lies behind guild claiming of structures.

My proposal would be something like this:
-A guild WvW group rallies at their own spawn point, and goes to take a structure. Of course, pugs are welcome to join.
-Upon taking the structure, the majority guild present claims it.
-Once the tower is claimed, an NPC appears at the front gate of the structure for enemies to speak to. This would allow other guilds to <strong>challenge</strong> the claimers of the structure inside. The commander would despawn after the Lords’ buff timed out. The commander could decide whether to accept or decline the challenge. If the commander declines, the enemies are free to siege and attack the tower as normal.
-Should the commander accept, members of the challenging guild are allowed to enter the portal. From the owners of the tower, only players who participated in the cap are able to enter. They then GvG for ownership of the tower.
-For keeps, players who are not involved can be ported to the battlements to watch.
-After each match, the NPC respawns for another 5 minutes, for another guild to challenge. The NPC will stop respawning after an hour so normal service can resume.

I believe this would lead to some truly awesome fights. Imagine capping SMC with your 30 man group, and fighting guild after guild from the enemy server as they try to wipe you? The enemy even has to invite people into their own guild to try and take you out? Instead of fighting on a patch of grass, you could fight on the steps of the Lord’s rooms! And the experience as a pug, as you run with a more disciplined guild and find yourself caught up in this? It would be truly awesome, and make claiming a tower for your guild really mean something.

Of course, if you don’t have the man power in your guild, you can ignore the challenges, and once the lord’s buff has expired, there’s no difference to the current gameplay either – just siege up and turtle.

Anyway, just an idea to add some variety and personalization to the current gamplay.

Very few people do CoF1 for the great gameplay experience. People do it for gold, and the best time investment possible.

Pugging with other zerker warriors usually ensures that:
a) the run will be fast
b) the other members probably know what they’re doing, as they’ve bothered to kit themselves out appropriately.

If I’m going to tough out an hour of CoF, I’ll make darn sure that time is spent as efficiently as possible, rather than risk joining the many mixed pug groups I’ve joined who manage to wipe.

Forgive me for not watching the whole vid, can’t at the moment, but does cleansing ire also activate for each pulse of the burning fire field? That would be awesome indeed, and have some great implications for wvw. Would be OP though…

I think it’s fantastic that people are sharing their builds. It indicates that many warriors are having great fun with the class post-patch. I know many warriors, particularly those who lurk in the shadows, rely on these people to help them harness the potential of the class.

I’m sorry if you’re not enjoying the class at the moment, and I think we can all acknowledge there are still some issues. But I’d actively encourage everyone to keep theory crafting and having fun with the class.

Hi Defektive,

Thanks for posting your updated builds. I always enjoy seeing your builds and trying them out, although I pretty much exclusively WvW.

I had a quick question about your hammer build which you’ve dubbed a more dmg based stun build. A lot of builds doing the rounds trying to fill this role sacrifice points in the discipline line in favor of Unsuspecting Foe in arms, and the extra % damage in Berserker’s power. To what extent have you found the increased recharge time making up for this? It seems like it’d be awesome in locking an opponent down, but hitting for considerably less.

Thanks, and will look out for you on shoutcasts!

I just wanted top add my tuppence worth.

Firstly, I really do appreciate the intention to spice up the match ups. I know that at FA, we’d been facing TC/Dragonband/Kaineng for months on end, and variety is good for all involved. I also have a vague awareness of other servers routinely romping home, but not being able to go up, so again, kudos for making a change.

I do feel however, that this change has simply come too late. The previous match up system was so locked in place, that many guilds (and players) gravitated towards the top 2 tiers. This may have been so they could join up with other equally committed players. In my case, living in Asia, I had to join a US server with an Oceanic/SEA presence in WVW, meaning a top 2 tier server.

In allowing players to transfer for free for such a long time, and allowing matches to get so stale, a lot of the WVW playerbase really stacked up the top tiered servers (and the same on a smaller scale the lower you go down the tiers). As a result, many matches with two servers outside of their original tier is grossly one-sided; those servers had been preparing themselves for months for the coverage wars that categorized the old tiered system.

What keeps me playing wvw is logging in and seeing that your server needs help somewhere, and that there’s an awesome battle to join and contribute too. For far too many people, this simply isn’t the case at the moment. When I log in at SEA time zone, I see 400+ PPT, a complete lack of urgency, and my server mates desperately scratching around for a good battle. I imagine it’s even worse for our opponents.

As you’re posting here Devon, I’m sure you’ve seen the many suggestions made across the forum, particularly the one up/one down suggestion. While, as you say, it will bring it’s own problems, but I’d like to ask (the community too), to what extent is the quality of a victory now a contributing factor to forming enjoyable match ups for players? Unfortunately, as many posters here have said, the system as it stands isn’t providing the experience that will keep people playing, and I can’t help but think the answer isn’t to let the playerbase ‘go on vacation’ while the ratings sort themselves out.

The solution I’ll leave to people who may understand the system and maths behind it more, but I’d just like to urge the development team, who’ve made such an enjoyable game, to please act as a matter of urgency on re-evaluating these match ups so that the whole playerbase can log in and enjoy the awesome battles you only get in GW2.

(Disclaimer; I realize a lot of my statements about top 2 tiers are generalizations, and don’t mean to say the players from those servers are necessarily better; some players in our Emhry Bay match ups have brought some awesome fights this week, and I’m sure there are other examples throughout the servers. As a rule though, these lower servers can’t compete with the timezone coverage of tiers higher up.)

Awesome fights at FA BL Garrison tonight. DB, you really threw everything you had at us, and for a little while I thought we might crack, but you just seemed to run out of steam at the wrong time. I guess that’s because TC had taken all your BL though while you were banging your heads against our carts!
Thanks for all the badges though. I’d wish you better luck next time, but I’d be lying

Eastcorn.5901:

Y’know, I was thinking of using that. Then use mending as the heal skill. And warhorn with that trait that lets you turn one condition into a boon using it.

Seems like it would be a decent build for roaming.

Unfortunately, probably not. Even with hammer, sword and shield CC, you’ll find it very difficult to lock down the classes that roam most e.g. mesmers, thieves. Furthermore, if you are able to get them in a stun combo, your PVT armor will likely prevent you doing enough damage to kill many builds.

Personally, for my playstyle, that there are two viable armor sets for a warrior in wv3.

1) Berserker’s armor for glass cannon roamers who try and get the jump and burst down enemies before they realize what’s happening.

2) Soldiers (PVT) for giving you good survivability in a zerg, where your CC abilities can help your group. There are some great builds for hammer warriors on the forums too which utilize Unsuspecting Foe to provide a strong burst attack too.

Of course it’s possible to run a middle ground with Knight’s armor, or a combination of both, but this is at least how I see how to make yourself most effective.

TLDR; soldier’s armor isn’t what you want to go with if you’re roaming.

I think in FA we genuinely do just play for the laughs.

However, nobody at all wants to drop down to t3 (who I’ve spoken to anyway), so I think this week we’ll be a bit more PPT conscious. The fights in t2 are too much fun

I can’t recall from memory, but I think binding roots might not be effected. Please correct me if I’m wrong though.

I’ve noticed a slight increase in hammer warriors as opposed to previously, but I think that’s a natural change from glass cannons after the frenzy nerf.

Just to add my 2 cents to what’s been said before, hammer warriors can be very effective, but against an organized zerg, there’s so much stability that is hard to do much. In addition, landing earth shaker in a laggy environment and on any terrain which isn’t flat can be near tricky, leaving you waving auto attack around, and making the best use of shouts you can. Personally, I’ve found it easier to revert back to GS or axe instead, where at least I can guarantee doing some damage.
Perhaps once the bugs are ironed out of our attacks they’ll be more viable, but I’m already leveling alts now.

Murderin, I have to say I disagree with your assessment.
I find it quite easy and effective to charge into a Zerg first with charge or savage leap, and then pop out my hammer and do some CC, fear me, and cause havoc amongst the enemy ranks. Combined with endure pain and shield block, you can negate a lot of the heat other squishier players may take, particularly if you get in early enough (but not too early

SmoothHussler.6387:

OP dont play with people like those. They sound like they’re treating the game like work.

I think this actually is coming pretty close to hitting the nail on the head. Now I have a fully zerkered warrior, and I sometimes rukittenerg warrior groups. However, when I do so, it is purely to grind out told as quickly as possible. I wouldn’t necessarily call it fun; it can be satisfying, but only in terms of achieving good efficiency, not in terms of conquering new content.
Given that the aim of these groups is to get gold, and time is money, I have no problems with the group construction.

Nobody to my knowledge is preventing you enjoying the CoF content in terms of completing it and enjoying it, and if they are, that’s something entirely different to the 4 Zerg phenomenon.

If you’re not a zerk warrior, and refuse to get on board for these groups, then find another way to make gold, or join a different, satisfying dungeon.

And, importantly, probably have more fun!

Hi Coaxial,
I’ve been running the 2nd build you posted in a thread you posted (ignoring that it said that’d be your last build… guess the warrior itch is too strong?) and having great fun with it in wvwvw. Slowly swapping my knights set to berserker, so can’t wait to see more improvement from that too!
One thing I would say is how vital I’ve found the leg specialist in tactics 10 for immobilizing; slamming the #3 hammer skill to make sure earthshaker land helps prevent it being dodged. I’ll add though that I play from China with a fairly high latency, so perhaps that’s an issue there.
I also didn’t realize you could put shield pash in between the sword swings – great tip to maximize that final slash.
Lastly, while I realize this is very much a ‘smash & grab’ build, I feel you’ll find conditions to be too big of an issue. We seem to have quite similar play styles, and while diving into enemies I sometimes leave with as many red symbols on top of my head as an immune supply camp claimer, and find shake it off to be vital (and my knights still has soldier runes, so FGJ remove them too). Perhaps remove signet of stamina? If you’re getting back to your zerg, you may not have enough time for the endurance regen to fill back up for the extra dodge.

Overall though, I love this build, and have been having great fun jumping into groups of enemies and decimating them; feels far more satisfying than frenzy/100b/whirlwind