Guild Wars 2

“TC easily outplays JQ and BG in NA primetime skillwise”

Good Lord but it is funny how people’s perceptions can be so narcissistic. I admit that I have played at times with BG where we lose fights and struggle, but come on, this is just silliness to make such a statement.

The funny thing about 2 vs 1 is that it should be a standard practice if you think about it. The smart strategy is when the 2 losing servers gang up on the winning one to even out the match. Then when another server is coming out on top, the other two should focus on that one. That way you have much more competitive matches.

The big complaint from BG in Season 2 was that 2 vs 1 was used to fix the match against a single server regardless of if they were ahead. It led to very lopsided losses and took away strategy. If TC and JQ had teamed up to even out the matches and then play balanced I don’t think there would have been much complaining.

Remember – close competitive matches are where the fun is, not lopsided victories. that goes both for the winners and the losers

I hope JQ recovers, I think the BG and JQ matchups make for the most evenly competitive and therefore enjoyable fighting in WvW. A lot of folks complain about blob fights but they just don’t realize what a joy it is fight in a coordinated, smartly led group.

I have had a lot of fun playing in EOTM and have done a fair amount of commanding there. It can be good if people play together using the map chat; problem is that it is hit and miss and there are some commanders that are not very good have that type A personality to take over commanding anyway. There are a lot more fights now then k-trains but it still feels empty in that competitive sense.

As I look back and have to say that WvW is much more satisfying. I had started playing WvW exclusively again a few months before HOT and oh boy was HOT ever a disaster and I finally stopped playing altogether in January. (I did jump on a couple weeks ago for 15 minutes and it was really fun playing in a small PUG squad taking towers and killing enemy on EB. )

My big regret is that I wish I had been playing the first year of GW2, I feel like I missed out on the golden age and I can’t believe they let one of the best game formats die away. I look forward to playing again on a regular basis later this year, I hope things are improved then.

We have been having good fights in EOTM, I haven’t seen much avoidance except for those groups that are clearly outnumbered/outmatched. I had the most fun Saturday night taking over as tag after humiliating wipes only to end up ruling the map and wiping the other groups until they gave up. Of course it became pretty boring at that point, which is why EOTM will never match the potential of WvW with the need for sustained strategy to win a weekly match.

Another problem with fighting in EOTM is it is too easy if you are a WvW vet. I shouldn’t be charging in the front with a glass ele and surviving but that has been the case lately. Only time I have trouble is if the other side is organized with a lot of heavy range pressure . While I love the rush that comes from destroying the other side, I cann’t help but miss the pre-HOT days when WvW was more fun, now it is mainly EOTM for a quick fight fix.

It never ceases to amaze me how non-BG players come up with constant conspiracy theories. There may be nuggets of truth hidden here and there but I bet the constant complaints about BG are mostly driven by the fact that when BG wants to win, they usually can win. Organization, discipline, and a drive to find the best strategies is why BG wins, not these silly conspiracy theories. BG has suffered at times because people burn out and quit, that is why there are hibernations and weakness.

I agree, fire/air/water; berserker gear with runes of strength= fun times in wvw

The most fun I now have with this game is commanding in EOTM and achieving what Coyote wrote is more or less my goal. Sometimes I am more successful than other times as the quality of the PUGS is so random and I never have a guild group with me unlike the ever present HK guild. I can say for sure though that when our zergs get on a roll and start dominating the other colors, the team members love it, even if they don’t do WvW. This kind of action is what gives EOTM the potential to be a gateway to the real WvW vs. being a boring karma train. We just need more people to come there ready to fight.

It is the commanders like Elaina Eldee that ruin EOTM. Nothing in this game is as boring than a pure karma train and it turns people into welfare queens. They all want something for nothing instead of having to fight (earn) it. The attitude of those spoiled PUGs on mapchat is terrible too if they don’t get their free lunch.

Enough of the EOTM is not WvW, it is form of WvW and belongs in this forum, no where else.

It is a place where there are plenty of fights against human opponents, severs vs. servers. It is not as structured or disciplined as regular WvW but it can be as much fun. The hate comments are simply ridiculous. By the way, I do both and enjoy them in different ways.

I was playing a berserker thief, mostly with crossbow, in EOTM and the damage was amazingly high both against NPCs and human players (this with exotic gear). And I am no expert with the thief. I felt like a evil lawn mower that just plowed through whatever was in front of me. It was pretty fun, it will be interesting to see what changes they make or if this is the new game mode.

In the setting I was playing last night, it was more like I mow them down with low risk, again the healing I received from Invigorating Precision + signet of malice was amazing. I admit was downed twice, and popped back up each time, but I was being very aggressive and jumping in the middle of the other zergs at those times in berserker gear. I wouldn’t be that aggressive in the real WvW but it was a lot of fun in EOTM.

I went into EOTM with a thief last night with some heavy zerg fighting and found it to be utterly amazing with the shortbow (only exotic armor/weapons, mostly zerker items). Invigorating Precision + signet of malice kept me alive and zerker build just ripped them. Went with Critical Strikes, Deadly Arts, Trickery. Also, I would just sit on champs and spam cluster bomb for instant 25 might stack and hit them with about 10,000 damage with each bomb, as you can imagine my health stayed at almost 100% the whole time as the setup gave me instant healing during the fight. And this was with my son’s account (helping him build up some karma).

I can only imagine what I can do with my own 100% ascended, Scholar Rune berserker thief (armor ready in about a week). I can see changes coming because it was just too easy. I will also have to see what it is like to fight on the regular WvW maps.

There are plenty of fights on EOTM, especially if you have an aggressive commander. Best bet is to announce that you are interested in finding a PVP group and you are bound to find one that has your interest. One week I joined a small zerg busting guild that was on another server and we had fun. It will be tough to find a cross-server guild that you can use consistently because of the changes in colors every week but you will likely get to know many people if you pursue it.

I pop into EOTM fairly often so I have a better feel than you for what the average experience is like now. I guarantee you that zerg fighting is on “average” more likely and there are enough experienced level 80s on all sides to make it interesting. There are still some sessions where it is a PVD borefest and people avoid fighting but I don’t stick around for those.

Unfortunately, I just get bored with the regular WvW most of the time except for those occasional moments of intense competitive battles. No doubt that regular WvW has better potential, it just isn’t happening for the various reasons people have shared on this forum. I do hate the lack of organization on EOTM compared to WvW but in some ways it is a refreshing change to have some chaos to deal with.

It cracks me up to still see these posts about EOTM only being a k-train, just shows you haven’t visited the place in awhile. That pretty much went away over the last month or so and the k-train is about dead. EOTM is a killing field most of the time now with the benefit of nice PVE rewards on the side. I still split between WvW and EOTM but find that I enjoy the free for all battles on EOTM better. Maybe it is just more fun to see your personal hand in slaughtering a zerg or catching roamers who are sloppy because they are used to killing up levels and not wvw oriented players.

I am from BG and the JQ hatred came from Season 2 when JQ led a coordinated a 2vs1 because BG was considered to hard to beat without a double team effort. Now it has changed because so many have left BG WvW that JQ pretty much wins all of the weekly matches. I have no idea why anyone on JQ thinks they are being double teamed outside of periodic occurrences; it certainly isn’t anything like what JQ did during Season 2.

Then you don’t understand my post. I am talking about the full zerg/zerg battles that occur in EOTM and yes they actually happen more often then a some people here think. I am not talking bag hunting guilds here, this is just taking whatever PUGs who happen to show up on the map and running as a team to whatever extent is possible. It is not babysitting, it is making the most of the group you happen to have at the time.

What I like is when we form a party of lvl 80 heavies and act as the spearhead that blasts into the enemy zerg allowing the weaker players/uplevels to play clean up. It isn’t babysitting, it is just a battle tactic. I love it when you shock and awe the enemy so they start to turn tail, it is all over at that point. I don’t belong to a WvW guild so i just do this with PUGs when I have a chance or even by myself as there are usually some fearless players in the zerg that will follow me in..

I have no sympathy for those who want a synchronized k-train and cry when it is disrupted. It is like a welfare mentality, give me everything I want for my minimal effort. Anet broke those PVE champ-trains for a reason, they are toxic for the players even though they don’t realize it themselves.

There is much more to be gained from a game that challenges you than one that allows you to be successful as a mindless zombie. I actually feel altruistic in breaking this EOTM mindset and I believe that the players who experience successful PVP fighting gain a lot more game satisfaction then the mindless k-train zombies. These people are also the potential feedstock for the regular WvW so it is a worthwhile exercise to bring awareness about his major part of the game.

Now I would draw the line between legitimate defending/fighting and just being mean spirited with portals, killing your own team by destroying bridges, dropping junk food, nasty map chat, etc. I use map chat to get people to accept that the PVP aspects can be fun and that it is the obvious purpose of the map design; the dead-brain karma train is Boring.

I find that people really enjoy a balance of getting their Karma/exp and fighting as long as your group is competitive in fighting. That is the goal I shoot for when commanding although my personal preference is on the fighting side of it.

Lat night I went to EOTM for a short time. There was an EOTM guild commander but OG was wiping the floor with us as it was clearly not coordinated and he was in shock. Poor PVE guys were crying about how we needed to have a coordinated map so they could level up fast and asking for invites to the EOTM guild. Told them to go back to PVE land if they couldn’t handle playing the game as it was designed. The more fighting that takes place, the more chance this map will turn into a fun WvW alternative even if it won’t ever be at the same level as borderlands/EB. Fewer of the wimpy players will come and more lvl 80s will come for the fights and challenge. There is hope.

I am now committing to do just that when I end up in the EOTM karma train map; instead of leaving the map in disgust. Those guys are so nasty on mapchat if you say anything negative about their pathetically boring karma train. Time to turn the tables on them. I will fully siege up FR keep, and using my thief, the champ, and nearby gates, wreck them as much as possible. Only takes a few people that know what they are doing to wreck a zerg in there. I solo’d a medium-sized zerg there the other day.

I can tell you that when I command I have become much more aggressive about fighting the enemy zerg unless it looks unless they have overwhelming numbers and then I look for an opportunity to catch them in a bad position. As long as you are not part of the EOTM guild joke where they synchronize their capping, there is a lot more fighting than in the past.

I really don’t understand the hate WvW people have towards EOTM. I enjoy both WvW and EOTM for different reasons. WvW is more organized and has strong team work with clear objectives but it has become stale and has poor participation as outside of reset night, most maps are empty except for the float team unless it is a push week on BG.

EOTM is a crazy hodgepodge of who knows what you will have when you join in but the chaos is refreshing and the fighting is varied and can be quite fun. I enjoy being a PUG commander and finding ways to kill the other zerg while capping at the same time. I have to say that EOTM would be a lot of fun if the majority were lvl 80s so the fighting was more predictable. My hope is that over time the fighting increases and discourages uplevels who have no idea how to PVP from using it as an easy leveling map.

There are people who defend in EOTM, in fact it can be one of the more fun aspects of the game. Last weekend I happened to go in with my thief just as OG was hitting the FR keep champ. By spamming poison fields, timing a perfect dagger storm, and carefully using the gate to escape and recover I wiped their zerg. One of the most pleasant experiences I have had in GW2. It is also a lot of fun to charge the enemy zerg from behind as they are trying to break down a gate. Even the PVE people have fun when you wipe the enemy, as long as you mix it up with champ bags and Karma.

Playing on Blue just means you need a better than average commander. We have had several successful sessions over the last week and one on Saturday in which we completely destroyed and humiliated OG.

Don’t give up, I find that EOTM can be a lot of fun to play even when you are not on OG. I personally like the challenge of being the underdog as FR or BL as it makes GW2 a more interesting game. Best thing to do is make friends with some good players/commanders so you can find a match with a good commander/zerg.

I actually enjoy the challenge of commanding the PUGs and playing cat and mouse with the zerg hunters on EOTM. Problem is that the PUG s are usually horrible at following directions and you still lose quite a few of them as I and a the few who pay attention get away.

I also like the toughness/precision build. With Knight armor, soldier runes, guard stacks, misc. trinkets, Sigil of Perception, and cheap food/utility I end up with around 2000 health, 3100 armor, 63% crit, 600 healing, 170% ferocity, 1650 power. I use the metabattle 00644 traits mostly with empowering might, glacial heart and 2 shouts. Still not decided on ideal sigils but I have perception and stamina on staff; energy and fire but will likely replace fire with strength on my hammer.

I stack up might pretty fast in a battle and that with the high crit/ferocity helps make up for the low power. Hammer dishes out a lot of pain when in use. AH with dodge rolls keeps me alive without much trouble and I have lots of boons to share with my group.

All I can say about it is I now find EOTM more fun than playing WvW and that is what the game should be about. I think WvW has more potential but it seems stale to me now. BG is so organized and trained that there isn’t a lot of drama except for the occasional epic battle and the participation in WvW is pathetic at this time. I even saw unqueued maps on Friday night which was really surprising.

Meanwhile, there seems to be a shift to a lot more PVP in EOTM then there used to be. EOTM feels more like a free-for-all with crazy unorganized battles and pugs who won’t listen to a thing you say. I started commanding there over the last 2 weeks and while it is a pain in the neck to try and type instructions while fighting, I find the overall experience very satisfying and we have had some crazy fun wipes of the other sides as well as disappointments. Besides, where else can you command as a glass necro and wreak havoc? You just have to have a different mindset and realize that while it isn’t WvW, it can still be a fun challenging gaming experience.

So I was getting bored with WvW/EOTM and decided to dust off my ELE which I never played beyond leveling. I picked up berserker temple armor and threw on some ogre runes and figured I would try it in EOTM knowing that is a much more forgiving place to learn. Build is all berserker with some toughness from trinkets; standard 0,0,2,6,6.

I have had the most fun playing with this build than any of my other characters. I am basically learning to play as I go but right off the bat I had to tag up as commander as no one else was willing and I figured I have enough battle awareness to lead the charge when it came time. I was worried about surviving front line with a glass build but hey, it is EOTM and the other groups are pretty disorganized and tend to run when they see someone charging without fear. What a riot. I really like the freewheeling fights in EOTM and I never had trouble getting focused . The combination of destruction, CC, and healing is fantastic to play as long as you have good battle awareness to keep you alive.

I also picked up defensive gear at least for starting to play in the real WvW as I am not as confident of my survivability there. The problem is WvW has become very stale and I haven’t had a lot of incentive to head back there although I will definitely be trying it out at some point. Plus, the opportunity to command in EOTM makes the game much more interesting then simply following others. I also love the concept of being a glass cannon commander ELE because it would never happen in WvW, at least I can’t see that happening for me.