Guild Wars 2

Had a lot of fun facing off against AM on Gandara borderlands this morning, we both had small teams but the AM we encountered were a slippery bunch, holding a tower and forcing us to defend our keeps. Finally managed to drive them off redlake after a couple hours and one rather prolonged fight (that we lost) against the tower lord. AR showed up briefly but we drove them off and they went in search of greener pastures.

Noted one AR alt-f4ing, a ganking thief in a guild called extreme diablos or something to that effect. Most played fair

If you get stuck in combat mode, find a cliff and jump off it.

If Alt-F4 applying to unintentional disconnects is indeed a nuisance for some people, pin the blame on those who claimed that it was a “legitimate tactic”, willfully contradicting the available evidence and forcing A-Net’s hand. At least some of those responsible for making this fix necessary have identified themselves quite openly on these forums.

This whole match-up I’ve only been on our home (Gandara) borderlands, and a couple times on EBG! As I said, we lost 2 fully upgraded keeps at home once, and a tower, because both AM and AR zergs showed up at the same time.

However, I think we do have one commander (he’s in this thread) who likes to sneak over to AM. The zerg likes to go wherever it can get the most xp/karma/gold, so if AM is vulnerable they’ll go there and quickly roll over everything. Not everything is intelligent and informed strategy…

Re: Krathalos

Don’t forget that thieves, engineers, warriors, and rangers have easy access to quickness.

Still, mesmers probably do win the stomp game, with up to 4 seconds of invulnerability, stealth, time warp, as well as two kinds (blink and portal) of teleportation stomp, all of which can be worked into a single fully viable build. Oh, and we also have a stability mantra and a couple (random) aegis options if you’re into that.

Tortun.5946:

Make commander book thingies cost badges and gold. At least that way if the book costs 100 to 500 badges you’ll know that someone has at least played WvW.

We’ve got a wonderful commander on my server who harasses anyone that disagrees with him to the point of telling people to go kill themselves. Hoping one day it will be removed or he’ll be removed from our server completely.

Maybe you weren’t proposing that as a solution, but I’m pretty sure he has 500 badges.

Ah, I’ll miss the days of kettling zergs with insta-repair walls. I guess we’ll just need better organization to make up the difference though.

Regarding the Alt-F4, I presume that also also applies to using in-game functions to log off or go to the character select window?

To spare anyone else getting an infraction for posting on this topic, thread bump.

Seems to me most of the people are trying to justify Alt-F4 on the grounds that they are encountering some kind of a L2P issue that they don’t want to deal with. Might be people trying to PvE in a PvP zone, or thinking that WvW is exclusively combat-oriented PvP, or hating thieves. They can’t handle it so they accuse the other players of being unfair to justify their own griefing.

dreztina.4820

Maturity, integrity, honor. I’ve been watching you ‘for the realm’ zergers pat yourselves on the back for about 10 years now, and it never ceases to amuse me.
You are awful players who get destroyed any time you don’t have a massive numerical advantage, unless of course you’re fighting other awful zergers. There’s no honor in what you do. You aren’t some great general fighting to save his lands. You’re just a bad who happens to be a little more into the roleplaying aspect of MMORPGs than most.
If I end up in a situation where your numbers are able to overcome my skill, then I have absolutely no problem using my last recourse to deny you a kill that you most certainly don’t deserve. If that’s a problem, where’s the statement from Anet saying they consider it an exploit and want it to stop? As far as I know, Anet has never said a word about their stance on it.

Thanks for inviting me to correct you on the record of my play. I often roam solo, not because I’m looking for a duel, but because that’s often an effective way for me to contribute to the team. It’s been a long time since anyone has defeated me in 1v1 combat, and I often face more than 1 player without any kind of trouble. I’ve accepted duel challenges in the past and come out on top. But if I see numbers I can’t handle, I keep my distance.

I also don’t shirk from making the last stand in the lord’s room, leaping over the ramparts against superior numbers to break a siege, or any other kind of absurdly reckless behaviour that only has a small chance of success. I have the repair bills and the deaths to prove it. If you were wondering, I neither play as a thief nor do I rely on a ranged build.

The difference between you and I (if I am to believe you) is that while we both have a sound grasp of combat, you seem to struggle with the tactics and strategy that are the actual substance of WvW. There’s a reason why this PvP mode involves hundreds of players, a supply resource, fortifications, and siege weaponry.

Are they just going to scrap the star from PvP altogether? Makes it harder to hide, clones or no clones.

AFK.1854:

If there were forums during the Revolutionary War, this is what the British would have sounded like when raging about Americans using guerrilla tactics and not facing them the ‘honorable’ way on an open field. War is dirty, and until this is fixed, expect it. Absolutely nothing wrong with it.

It’s extremely satisfying if you’ve run back over and over and over and over from spawn to whittle away at all their shiny siege without giving them any badges to buy more or having to pay a dime on repairs.

For real? That’s how you’re going to justify it? Guerilla tactics in a revolutionary war? That’s not what you’re doing at all. That’s just spitting on the memory of real historical suffering. Real guerilla fighters caught didn’t have the option of Alt-F4ing to return to their side of the war without any kind of harm. They died slowly and painfully of abuse, disease, and neglect.

This is a computer game, not a war for some cause, and there are rules. There were guerilla tactics in this game before people started stomping Alt-F4. Smart players knew to keep a lookout and how to get away. If you got a zerg to chase you down in the opposite direction halfway across the map, it was worth the silver you paid for repairs. Instead you’re justifying mindless zerging because instead of a collective loss of 50s each time the zerg wipes, there’s no penalty for it to respawn and run back.

It’s disappointing to discover that so many players lack the maturity and integrity to accept the penalties for dying in this game. It’s also detracting from everyone’s game experience – after all, you’re bound to be on the other end of it sometime.

Aren’t you ashamed that, instead of fixing issues that are actually pertinent, or introducing new features, you’re forcing the developers to waste time to address this, all because you can’t accept how the game works?

Skye.4983:

So how is logging out is any different? It is not an exploit, it is coded into the game on purpose. Because it is unsporting? As if rolling over your enemy with a zerg several times their size is very sporting. If I drop and there is no queue and there is only a slim chance of me being rezzed and if there is no tactical advantage for me to remain where I am, such when defending a keep. Then I will log off, relog and be back in the game in 5-10 seconds. Same results as if I was staked, but sans repair cost to me and any reward for my enemies.

Skye, you really believe logging off is coded into the game so that you can save yourself the repair bill? I cry foul. This isn’t a gray area like any of the issues you named, this is explicit repurposing one game function (logging out) for another purpose (avoiding death in combat). As for zergs, this is a team sport. You ever played one, or did you rage quit when someone passed the ball to his friend because that was unsporting? Only difference is that it’s not supposed to be balanced teams 100% of the time, but that’s very clearly supposed to be part of the game.

But in case you really don’t understand, I’ll explain it to you. Let me know if there’s anything you don’t get, I know this might be really challenging to comprehend so I’ll try to put it in simple terms! The reason why logging out exists in this game is so that we don’t have to leave Guild Wars 2 running on our computers 24/7. I know this is extremely difficult to grasp, but bear with me. Running Guild Wars 2 places a load both on the client and the server, so it’s useful often to turn it off. As well, if you’re in WvW, that means you’re taking up someone’s slot while you’re AFK! Additionally, there’s a character select feature, so that you can play alt characters if you want to try different classes and races. Neither of these features were put in place as substitutes to you paying your repair bill. Any questions?

dreztina.4820:

Lyan.6804:

For me ur just a coward, i would say learn to play if u think that all that is meant to be like that, and yeah it is war and for me u do me a favour cause anyone like u that loggs out to not pay repair are mostly noobs cant afford some silver for repairs? or better yet, u think ur bag of loot will matter anything to me? do u imagine how many bags of loot any real wvwer loses cause they die in a zerg and theres lots of loot to pick up? Pls quit WvW ur a shame and anyone else that think they are so pros by doing that.
Worse than doing it is saying were good by doing it… only reason i post here.

So logging out is cowardly, but zerging someone(s) down with a massive numerical advantage is brave and honorable.

I’ll make you a deal, if we ever meet up and I’m running around solo and you’re in a zerg (which, from the sound of it, is always), make sure only one person fights me at a time. Tell everyone else to keep going or wait their turn. If you do that and I die 1v1, I promise I won’t log out.

You may say this is wvw, it isn’t a 1v1 setting. Getting zerged down is part of the game. Well guess what, at least for now, logging out is part of the game, too.

It’s absurd to say that alt-f4 is part of the game, it isn’t. There’s a reason why when you die and have to do repairs and drop loot bags. That’s the game mechanic. It isn’t a contest to see who can hit alt-f4 the fastest. You want to grief others because A-net hasn’t plugged the hole? Fine. But don’t pretend it’s a valid tactic, it’s just poor sportsmanship and you’re reflecting poorly on your server, and if you sport a guild tag, your guild.

It doesn’t matter if you get zerged down, or if you’re fighting 1v1 or 1v2 or 2v2, you are abusing an issue in the game that needs to be fixed. If you got or chased down by 10 players, that’s because you were running around solo like an idiot in an environment full of enemies. If you got zerged down while with others, the fact is that you could have been in the opposite situation with larger numbers on your side.

Don’t pretend for a minute that Alt-F4 is a permanent game feature acting as welfare for your repair bill for you because you don’t understand how to play the game. The same logic could be used to justify orb-hacking or glitching through walls before those were explicitly stated as being exploits, but that doesn’t mean that any of those abuses were valid.

Sounds to me like you’re just another player with an inflated ego who thinks they can walk into WvW and start 1v1ing people. Well, that isn’t what this game is. Nor is it hitting Alt-F4 because your game plan didn’t work out. If you want to keep up what you’re doing, whatever. Just don’t act like you’re not totally out of your element.

AR and AM hit us on our borderlands simultaneously this morning when we were undermanned (and had the fewest possessions, harumph!), each stealing one of our T3 keeps. Ly was AFK for 15 minutes and furious when she got back, and ordered us to start taking our keeps back. Thenorseman came and helped too. We retook them in about an hour. Plus we wiped a zerg inside DB the first time they attacked, I also got two exotics from WvW within an hour

Gandara also has a large PvE population, which doesn’t interfere too much with our WvW core but which helps with the dungeon part. We just came off a huge win against Fort Ranik, the french server which outzergs us and has beaten us repeatedly, through the sheer willpower of some very committed guilds. There’s a thread on it here.

Yeah, I spent several hours this morning when it was quiet escorting bessie, knocking off the occasional thief, and fortifying our forward towers. Sad to see those fortifications couldn’t be maintained through the day, but not too surprised.

I know most of the people who’ve been involved in nightcapping – at least the core group – they’ve been on our server a long time, and this week they’ve been online from the beginning of primetime into the early hours of the morning. The reason Gandara has clawed its way back into a match at least twice is because they refuse to sleep, I don’t know if there are people on FR with that same commitment.

Unfortunately for us, FR always outnumbers Gandara in the morning (yes, the situation may be different at different hours), so those gains get steamrolled pretty quickly. I was online when you rolled over two of our keeps and we didn’t even have enough people to set up and man counter siege. We just don’t have the base to draw on at that hour, hopefully that’s something else we can work on if we ever move up the ladder.

As for FS… There will be those who lose this matchup blame them, they’ve fought admirably and made an impact on the standings. I really doubt there’s any kind of coordination, just opportunism on their part.

Centaur runes do have some added utility in WvW situations running around with a small party, since air runes don’t grant team swiftness. Now, do I really love my teammates that much that I’d give up damage for them? I think my main motivation for sticking with centaur runes is that they came free with my Zhed’s armor.

Tortun.5946:

What little night team we have gives up on wednesdays for some reason meaning anything we do from this point forth is fruitless but we still try.

It’s just a shame that Anet still think it’s fun to cap towers when there’s no opposition on the map and reward folks for that. I don’t mind it just means we won’t go up and face tougher opponents and we can take it easy next week if the score gets too far out of control.

FS were on the ball last night, their numbers are increasing by the day and good on ’em for it!

All the same, we got the drop on FS early this morning and nabbed their whole borderlands because they were asleep. FR wasn’t clued in but I started to see camps turn green so I figured it wouldn’t be long until we lost it all.

The thing is not simply that it would be an increase, but that it would cease to be griefing as it would be an easy way for non-WvWers to get their badges.

Some thief managed to botch using the scorpion wire to pull me off the end of the dark room in the EB puzzle. It was a slight nuisance getting pulled down but good for a laugh getting a kill despite starting the fight with 3000hp.

I’m pretty much full zerker’s running a shattercat build except with 20 in dom as I don’t need the pistol trait. Staff on the swap, following that model, as it’s brilliant for survival.

Most of the condition damage I produce is from shatters, I get a couple might stacks from food and my battle sigil to boost it but I mostly rely on straight power/precision. My OH sword definitely won’t stack conditions the way a duellist or warden might, but with a 12s cooldown I’m using it for 1 hit then shatter fodder. No clue whether it’s an optimal build, but it works for me. Using armor with some condition damage instead just means your confusion stacks from shattering will have more bite.

A more appropriate naming scheme would be “The Turn” → “The Prestige”. Apart from that, spot on. All this conversation about iMage is not particularly on topic.

Agreed that supply used shouldn’t be part of this, as it could lead to misuse of supply.

~2500 kills
~1600 badges

Typical puzzle run is EB once a day with just one character.

I think if there is such a thing, a boost/buff to rewards for WvW participation in the subsequent week is the best way to go. Something akin to the outmanned buff (extra karma, XP, MF) but smaller is what I have in mind. This means that the reward scales with how much you play WvW, and it means you’re motivated to play even if your server is no longer in a winning matchup. Obviously it wouldn’t be available to recent transfers, I think that’s the standard for all WvW bonuses.

Granted, there will be servers that lose week after week, but as long as this isn’t a giant buff it shouldn’t affect their motivation too much (if they keep playing despite constant losses). It’d be a good way to keep servers that have had a recent win, but find themselves in a higher and more challenging tier, in the game.

Another possibility is to make it based off of the highest point gain in the ranking system rather than wins. This would be much better for servers that are stuck in the same matchup every week. Of course, it’d be more difficult to explain to newcomers.

Ah. I wasn’t 100% sure if you were serious, sarcasm often doesn’t work on forums as it’s difficult to get your tone across. I doubt that anyone who really spends time in WvW thinks the grub is a good idea, but I guess WvW isn’t exclusively for that category of people.

Sunspots.9861:

You had me till you insinuated Giant Grubs aren’t ruining the game.

The point is that not everyone agrees on whether things like giant grubs are good or worth keeping, but saying that an event which will maybe draw a dozen people from the blue team (the kind of people who would be zerging anyways) for 10 minutes on 1 map out of 4 ruins the entirety of WvW is surely an exaggeration, no?

To clarify, Zorion, Tortun is not actually thankful for the generalization. He is expressing his view using sarcasm to show his frustration with the fact that you decided to label all players on our server this way. It seems impossible that you had the sort of experience where every player logged off (or logged off after failing to burst you), unless you repeatedly encountered the same players (sounds typical for a roamer, actually).

Of course, we do have a big PvE population, so it’s fair to say that many of our players aren’t PvPers, but saying that everyone on our server does this unless they’re a thief or warrior isn’t fair to all those PvPers on our server who stick it out (and, you know, contribute in ways far more productive than roaming alone looking for a gank). Granted, you’re frustrated, but give some credit to those of us who do fight fairly. I was on for 5 hours last night and didn’t notice anyone logging out whether they were friend or enemy.

Admirable work from FS, holding all three entrances to the SM lord’s room from both Gandara and Fort Ranik. We finally took the castle, I switched maps and checked a little later and noticed that FS had retaken it!

Luna.9640:

On side note after seeing what mess they created with Lost Shore event fail and Fractals i fear that the WvW updates may screw everything that is already shaking with all the bugs and class imbalances and put the last nail to WvW coffin.

I rather would like all bugs addressed than new content.

Maybe that’s what they’re avoiding by taking time with WvW content updates?

I approve of this guide, although I think I’d quit this game sooner than switch servers.

Yes, there’s a bug. But it sounds like you killed it already.

Fort Ranik we’ve faced a few times, if Far Shiverpeaks gets relegated to tier 5 that might be a first, I’ve never played against them before.

Budchgon.2108:

While i do understand this type of gameplay, they must realise that as soon as they leave (work/sleep) all their worrying and stressing/organising will count for nothing…

This is why so often I see players sticking out a defense or attack way past the time they had intended to quit for the day. There’s a lot of satisfaction in seeing something through, especially when you’re having fun striving towards that with people you like playing with. They want to see their server rewarded; their server isn’t just a colour on a map, it’s a community.

And players (myself included) get frustrated when there are others who won’t listen or help, and do things we know (but they may not) to be stupid. Is that fair? Perhaps not. World vs. World is a game that requires team coordination, but not everyone who enters will immediately understand that.

Last night I needed someone to man a golem so that I could portal it to its destination, the only person I found was a complete newbie but I led them around, showing them what supply was and how to build blueprints, explaining how to use my portals, etc. It took time, but at least this person understood that they could help by listening to someone who knew more about WvW.

While we have to acknowledge to people who are playing this more casually that it is just a game, conversely there needs to be recognition that this is a team game and that everyone’s cooperation is important. Even if you’re not that invested, others are, and everyone will get the most out of the game when they cooperate. In the heat of battle priorities sometimes get misplaced, but I think the most experienced players are all to happy to help and teach others.

There will still be arguments that break out when plans fail, sometimes it’s useful for working out where the mistake was to figure out better plans in the future, other times it’s an unfortunate and unnecessary clash of egos. For the people who really do play a lot, I think most ultimately realize they have to work together and that the latter kind of argument isn’t worth it.

Hm, I do feel like of late I’ve been doing more group-oriented content, rather than solo content (did most of my map completion solo). I certainly look upon that initial flurry of exploration fondly, and I wouldn’t want it to be something people miss out on. I mean, that is the GW2 world that is advertised.

Presumably the less-frequented maps have decent activity during weekends, so I doubt it’s an experience that’s completely gone, but it is certainly something the developers should want to keep alive; I think they’ve indicated that this is their intention and it’ll be interesting to see what kind of solutions they can come up with.

3) Getting knocked down by some backstab thief while typing is bad enough without having to read their obnoxious name splayed across your screen [eg. X X G R I M R I E P E R X X]. Anyways, ties into #2 as you can still see which guild is stomping the map.

I think there’s a problem with these numbers, in the implicit assumption that if someone is playing GW2 but not on WvW at a given time, then they’re not invested in WvW. Sure, it might be a decent estimation of the number of 100% committed WvW players, but that is honestly not something I would expect to be a large percentage because this is a game, mainly, for casual audiences. Concurrent numbers are also probably at peak periods (ie weekends), which means near complete WvW coverage is a safe assumption for most servers.

I’m going to illustrate a different approach: Let’s say on average each server has a coverage of 200 across the whole week day and night. Then the number of player-hours/week is 168 × 200 = 33600. Let’s say 80% of players playing WvW do it for 10 hours/week, the remaining 20% play 20 hours/week. That’s 12 hours/week on average, which means there are about 3000 players playing WvW per server. This gives us a total WvW population of 120k who play 10 hours of WvW each week and 30k who play 20 hours. Granted, this can’t be compared to concurrent numbers to determine the percentage, but even assuming a population of 1 million players being active every week (the number I’m most uncertain about), that’s still an estimate of 15% that are more or less invested on a daily basis in this aspect of the game.

I don’t have the numbers, Anet would have them. They have given some small but important fixes to WvW, I assume one of the issues keeping us from seeing anything big yet is that rolling out new mechanics for WvW would be a lot more finicky than simply making new PvE content.

When I was a wee lad, my first game was the original Civilization. I got into the Age of Empires series and strategy quickly became my mainstay, though I’ve also casually played a number of FPS games over the years. I got into GW1 because my AoE friends did, but only got as far as the Crystal Desert in the first game before finding myself left behind and shelving it. I tried WoW for 30 minutes once and decided it was stupid. I never touched any other MMORPG before GW2, which I’ve got into because the same friends who did GW1 decided to pick it up.

I don’t know if I’d have stuck with this game if Asura weren’t in it, the fact that they’re not meant to be taken seriously is great for someone like me who doesn’t care so much for the fantasy aspect of many MMO games. I’ve embraced GW2 the MMO because I’ve come to love the community, especially the one in WvW, that our server has. I also loved a lot of what the Halloween event offered. I did enjoy the exploration and jumping puzzles (both 100% now, the variety of platforming was loads of fun although my only previous experience was Psychonauts, also featuring characters of minimal stature), and I’m just starting to get into dungeons… the new fractals also impressed me.

I was very displeased by the announcement of Ascended gear, I hope it’s something that doesn’t impact the game much. It just seems like it’s totally unnecessary for a game with such a wealth of real content to introduce something so trivial that will simply increase the divide between the casual and hardcore players.

Definitely don’t try to compare skills across classes, the guardian pull is a completely different tool for a completely different type of class. The question is whether or not the focus pull is as big of a problem as you make it out to be, and I’d disagree as it’s easy to avoid putting yourself next to a cliff or whatever, and it’s an important tool for mesmers to make up their deficiencies with.

Pulls fail frequently, often because the radius isn’t actually that large. If someone is standing next to a drop without any kind of protection from pulls, then they’ve made it laughably easy. The other situation where it’s used, where someone is running away from or after a mesmer and they get pulled, is one of the few ways our slow slow class can actually keep pace with people.

The only place I can think of where you can’t avoid standing next to a drop is the jumping puzzles, but naturally everything is fair game there.

I think ThiBash makes a fair point, after all how do we know the nature of this war until we’ve asked why it started in the first place? My bet would be an Asura colonial expedition which resulted in the Charr misinterpreting the benefits of our inquisitve civilizing mission in some way and reacting violently, as they tend to do.

In this situation, a single college spearheading the expedition might find itself embroiled in a conflict beyond its capacity. At this point, it would have to appeal to other colleges, negotiating to give up certain opportunities in exchange for support. It wouldn’t really turn into total war, with someplace like Rata Sum being attacked, the best that the Charr resistance can hope for is withdrawal of Asura from their territories.

There’s this one long-legger who keeps calling us midgets. With that tiny head of his, I don’t think he understands the importance of allocating one’s energy budget appropriately. Having an elongated body with minimal insulation draws a lot of energy that might otherwise be used to fuel a large and powerful brain. Of course, they can’t comprehend what a superficial and replaceable advantage it is to have a greater stature.

29) Thou shalt not clutter team and map chat with thine prolonged, aggressive parlance on the reasons why a particular effort to obtain or protect an objective failed.

You forgot to preface it, “And the Commander spoke these words, saying, ‘I am the Lloyd thy Commander, who brought you out of Eternal Battlegrounds, out of the land of futility. Thou shalt have no other Commanders before me.’”

I thought we had you in the bag, but I’ll make up a nice questionnaire to help you figure it out. I have, by the way, played both races and loved the Asura so much so that after maxing out the first I made a second character of that type who is now already level 50.

What most interests you?
1 point – Logan Thackeray. He’s a strong, hunky male and I need to spend all the time with him that I can.
2 points – Orphans. Someone has to look out for them!
3 points – Unraveling the mysteries of the eternal alchemy, with surprising and publishable results!
4 points – Utilizing inscrutable jargon to obfuscate attempts at cognition by my intellectually enfeebled rivals.

How would you describe the way you run?
1 point – A monotonous stride.
2 points – A shuffle.
3 points – A hypnotizing waddle, it’s rather embarrassing.
4 points – Asura gates and golems are made for a reason. Let the long legs do their exhausting jogging about.

Where do you sleep at night?
1 point – My life has been one tragedy after another and this left me in a gutter.
2 points – I was born rich, so some feather bed in a big city.
3 points – I might catch a couple minutes of shut-eye in the lab hammock after a long night of solving problems.
4 points – I’ve solved the problem of sleep! This new tonic of mine makes it no longer necessary! Side effects unknown.

What is your greatest fear?
1 point – That some monarch who doesn’t care about me might be harmed. We must protect the queen!
2 points – Being something other than average (height).
3 points – Inventing something awesome and not getting credit for it.
4 points – Menial activities. These weren’t meant for me, they’re meant for the bookahs!

You’ve killed your first monster in the game. How do you feel?
1 point – I’m relieved that the cattle are safe.
2 points – I’m concerned about its family. How will they cope with the its death?
3 points – I’m delighted that I proved my superiority over it.
4 points – I’m curious about its characteristics and intend to study this sample so as to extend my knowledge for future challenges!

Done? Add it up:
5-8 points – Human; Life sure has weighed heavy on you, but one day you’ll catch Logan’s eye.
9-12 points – Human; I’m here to give back what Kryta has given to me.
13-16 points – Asura; No challenge shall stand up to the intense scrutiny of my intellect.
17-20 points – Asura; HAHAHAHA I HAVE OBTAINED SECRETS OF EXTRAORDINARY POWER BEYOND THE MINUSCULE GRASP OF YOUR BRAIN.

For more Asura-related inspiration, I suggest reading around this forum. This thread is a good place to start:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/races/asura/Reasons-you-like-your-Asura/first

I think you already know which race is for you, and you’ve identified this in your post.

Humans are too focused on their tribulations and suffering to give any argument as to why their race would be better than the Asura. An Asura, however, is ready at all times to list off their many fine attributes that promise them world domination.

This epic showdown you ask for? It’s humans cowering in fear as the Asura cackle in delight while deploying the might of their technology to enslave that lesser race.

Seems it’s all a matter of perspective, but you might be doing something wrong.

I don’t know what your class is, though it sounds like stability/aegis/invulnerability would help you here. Alternatively, pile damage where the one player is reviving the other, and now you have two downed players! If you still can’t win, well, you are fighting a 2v1.

My impression of Gandara is that it’s a pretty disorganized server, we have some capable commanders but they’re not always around and we lack any really strong guild presence. E.g. there are regularly large groups of people attacking SM without any kind of plan in mind, which always results in failure.

But I don’t think the reason that people go about in what you call a “karma train” is the fault of there being good rewards for capping objectives. The rewards are what bring a lot of people on our server to WvW in the first place. The way the zerg acts on our server is hardly in a way that maximizes karma/XP rewards, what’s usually going on is that people don’t really know what to do so they follow each other. By capping objectives, they do feel that they’re accomplishing something for the server.

A lot of players on our server don’t use the communication tools, so unless you have a commander icon showing them where to go they won’t know. They’ll stick with a fight that has decent leadership, although most of them won’t sit around a keep if there’s nothing to do. But try, if you can, to at least convince each of them to bring 10 supply to help repair defenses and siege before moving on. Not all of them will catch your message, but those who do will accomplish a lot more than one committed player can in half an hour.

Removing the incentives for playing WvW will just shrink the WvW population, especially on servers like ours. If you really want people to defend, you should suggest scaling up incentives for participating in a successful defense. Reach out to as many casual players as you can to get them regularly following the chat and assisting with defense, but recognize that they’re just not as committed to this game as you are, and that’s what Anet had in mind when they created this game.

Addendum… WvW is for all kinds of players. Casual ones follow the zerg, because it’s safer for them, but there’s lots of things for more committed players to do. We’ve had our share of fun battles, and not-so-fun ones, if you want a lot of really organized fights Gandara is not the server for it. Do your best to teach the others and don’t get too attached to your forts, they disappear every week anyways.

You earn karma way faster at level 80. If you see something worth getting, spend it. You could get your armor off the TP as well, but gold costs tend not to scale down (except for level 80 exotics, but this is what you’re saving your money for whether it be armor, exotics, or upgrades) while karma costs scale down tremendously. Of course, it depends on what you have in abundance.

The idea of an “upcoming gear imbalance” in WvW is so very misguided because there is already gear imbalance in WvW, and there is meant to be. Yes, I’m disappointed by the introduction of Ascended Gear, but it is ultimately something that can be integrated into WvW. For those who think an imbalance in WvW was a bad idea to begin with, please don’t forget that WvW is a great place to level up characters while doing something different from the same ol’ PvE.

If you think it’d be better to make WvW into an opportunity for players to level their sPvP gear, I ask this: How will leveling be fair at all for people playing on strong servers compared to weak servers? Yes, there is an imbalance in rewards as it stands, but it would provoke a far worse outcry if WvW performance impacted sPvP standing, which is nominally determined by skill.