Guild Wars 2

Why would anyone transfer to CD out of all of the servers in T4? I mean, anyone in the Quadserver gets the least fights of anyone in T4. When the links get switched around, all bets are off in terms of who ends up in the best matchups.

Both can be highly mobile damage platforms, and you can make a go of roaming using either the new elite or old vanilla specs. Really depends on the style of play you prefer, from what I can see.

I see more competent high damage warrior roamers out there than ranger, but I dueled a skilled vanilla ranger roamer just last night, so it’s possible. Most rangers just go lazy tank druid though.

I’m not sure about blob fighting though. My guess is lb ranger has more to offer there.

It really comes down to the number of bursts the Berserker is able to land, whether he lands Headbutt or not (though that’s obviously a clutch hit, given the damage, adren gain→primal state, and 4s stun).

Arc Divider is a big, spammable hit, and you can usually get a few of those out plus a Decapitate out and all the tricks a vanilla warrior can put out (whirlwind, shield bash, etc) during a single primal state.

If someone can kite/mitigate all of that during primal, then the Berserker’s less of a threat than vanilla. But if they can’t (due to build, class, skill, or circumstance), then the Berserker’s putting out way more pressure in a short period of time than can the vanilla warrior, and that would make it more lethal.

Full disclosure: I run vanilla and win most of my fights, including against berserkers and other vanillas. My favourite warrior opponent at the moment also runs vanilla. But I’ve found opponents running Berserker have more tools to be more dangerous than vanillas of equal skill (even if I’m beating most of them anyway).

Berserker (Def-Disc-Zerk) has much better burst output potential in primal state, but vanilla (Str-Def-Disc) probably has higher damage overall (i.e. over the course of a minute).

So if we’re talking about fighting immobile practice golems all day, my guess is vanilla would win. If you’re fighting real people, my money would be on the Berserker.

What wins actual fights with a high power build is overwhelming opponents’ health pools and defenses, not attrition. Berserker is better equipped to do that than vanilla, imo, it’s just concentrated in the primal state. My guess is that was Anet’s intent, and they seem to have succeeded there.

Tomiyou.3790:

Pointing out those skills is not an excuse to not add more paragraph/animation to Arc Divider.

Telegraph is the word you’re looking for here.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telegraphing_

Eh… I’m getting a mix of quality roamers and streams of loot bag delivery. Tbh, I’m finding a greater willingness to fight from players of all skill levels than I did in my last matchup, where wall hugging and siege humping was the order of the day.

I’m actually enjoying this matchup… feels like I’m playing a healthy mix of Mortal Kombat and a zombie shooter.

I’m on the DH/EB side this round, and was on the HoD/EB side last link.

In terms of movement (in pve, at least), I think Ross has it right with the Sigil of Speed. With Runes of the Pack, it’d be even better.

I actually found the old adrenal system (hold vs use) to be a bit of a bust, tbh. A much prefer the current approach, especially given that we currently lose all adren whether we hit or not.

If the problem with AH is mostly with Berserkers, then maybe emkelly’s suggestion of treating Primal Burst differently is the ticket. He’d suggested counting it as one stage instead of three.

Longbow gets less good the further away you are (except tagging mobs). So if you’re looking for a truly ranged weapon, go rifle.

I agree with the previous poster. It won’t be optimal, but you may find it more fun. So play around with it…. Fun wins everytime.

Crise.9401:

Deniara Devious.3948:

I wish Arenanet would show us metrics, how many players on each server and each map as each tick. This would give us a lot of food for thought!

Wouldn’t we all, unfortunately that is pretty sure thing to not happen, there is something of an unwritten rule about ArenaNet (and more or less gaming companies in general, particularly when it comes to MMO’s) to not release absolute statistics.

The exception to this rule is only when those numbers are impressive enough to be considered a positive marketing tool. From PR point of view relative statistics and vague statements are a safer bet.

We’d love to see it for obvious reasons, but so would Anet’s competitors. That sort of thing is commercially sensitive information.

So the upside is it can give you an extra 35% damage above what you’re doing with Disc, plus any extra might you’re getting. If you use DotE and/or Burst Mastery on Disc, reduce that figure accordingly.

In pve, it should work fine. In pvp, I suspect it won’t be as good because you’ll be giving up….

• Warrior’s Sprint. Unless you have a high uptime of swiftness, you’ll actually have less mobility overall with this build right here. You’ll also have to contend with immobilize a lot more.

• Brawlers Recovery. This may not be a huge loss depending on your other build choices and what you come across, but I personally like BR quite a bit

• Bursting. With Disc, every time you swap your weapons, you’ve refilled a lot of the adren you’ll need for your next burst. BM will add even more to that after your first burst, and you’ll also be able to burst more frequently due to the -15% CD.

• Fast Hands. There are two big things you’ll be missing by losing this….. First, you won’t have as ready access to things like blocks, cc, or (possibly) range when you need it, nor will you have that clutch second burst to drop on someone immediately after the first as often. Second, you also won’t be able get as much out of your sigils.

As for runes, you could go Traveler, but that would come at the expense of a lot of the damage gain you’d be getting from the Strength line, and would only offset one of the costs of dropping Disc.

Pack runes would probably be my choice… you gain a bunch of power and precision (which ties into Blood Reaction), you’ll have 50% uptime of in-combat Rage and Swiftness (which helps offset the loss of Warrior’s Sprint), and you’ll be providing team benefit.

Running them together is a great way to gather data though. Keeping dbl in play has received a surprising amount of support in the polls, and yet quite a lot of people have expressed visceral hatred toward it.

What people say they’d do and what they actually do are often not the same, so comparing what people actually play when they have three options (ebg, alpine, dbl) is useful data that can confirm or reject polling data, and guide Anet’s future development.

It’s not as though it has to be a permanent map configuration, and at least it gives players the option of playing what they want whenever they’re playing. My bias on this is I stopped caring about score some time ago and pretty much just do whatever seems fun.

emkelly.2371:

And both Earth Shaker, and Stomp have overlong animations…but you players never seem to complain about them. look Arc devider’s problkem is not it’s animation, it’s it’s omni directional nature. Honestly it should just hit in a cone in front of the warrior. this would balance it nicely

That might step a little too close to Decapitate though. I actually like the 360 hit, and I’m not personally convinced AD is even that bad relative to the rest of the game.

I wouldn’t be upset if it took a bit of a hit though, and my vote would be for reduced power scaling or (as a second choice) range. The quickness is gone after the first 3s, so you know when the first one is coming and it’s not impossible to dodge it normally. You just have to pay extra close attention when your opponent looks like he’s covered in glowing ketchup.

Balthazzarr.1349:

You don’t understand roaming if that’s what you think it’s only about. When I am Roaming I am NOT looking for players to fight. I am taking camps, taking back camps, taking out sentries so our zergs can go places with less detection. If I have even one person with me then we are hitting and taking towers where we can as well.. Maybe tagging keeps to distract the enemy for our zerg… and so on.

THIS is what WvW is about, and THAT is what Roaming is really about. PvP roamers don’t have any place in WvW in my opinion… but true Roamers that do what I listed above are not only good to have, but very valuable to the commander on the map.

You’re effectively saying, “I want to take camps on my own, but don’t want to learn how to survive on my way there”.

I’ll bet you weren’t able to solo a camp the first time you tried, but you tweaked your build a few times to make it more suited to the task, got some practice in, and now you’re probably flipping camps like a pro.

It’s the same thing when it comes to dealing with stealthed characters preying on you.

You’re dead wrong about what you think belongs in wvw and what doesn’t though. Consider it from the other side… these stealthed characters are eating you for breakfast, keeping you and your friends from taking camps, towers, etc., and they’re generating ppk for their teams too. Plus, they’re also taking camps, towers, killing dolys, sentries, scouting, etc.

Seis.4736:

On paper, AD hits less than AS but being a primal burst, warrs get the extra dmg bump from traits so there you go.

Iirc, AD has something like 33% higher power scaling than kitten its damage on a high power build should be higher even before you start factoring in traits, etc.

gloflop.3510:

Triangulation would be wrong, I agree. However, I did not voice for a triangulation. My example was about making clearer questions. If I think about Switzerland and the referenda there, making clear questions is partly a huge problem. The interpretation varies too much…
Furthermore, I disagree with your argument that anet should not care about the reason for the choice of the players. It helps them understanding what the players actually want and this is the aim of the surveys.

What was unclear about the last question?

And it’s not that I don’t think Anet shouldn’t care why people voted the way they did, it’s that the marginal benefit of probing that would be greatly outweighed by the cost. It also has the starting assumption that people have a clear and accurate reason for their preference.

Teon.5168:

Choppy, you have such a knack for just posting what needs to be said. And in such a well explained and literate manner.

Great post, imo.

Wow thanks, Teon! Much appreciated. I’ve been enjoying your posts too.

gloflop.3510:

Showing how to conduct a survey correctly would take me at least one lecture. I recommend a good statistics book instead.

Just to show one example here:
Has anyone ever asked themselves why there is something called cronbach’s alpha? The reason is that survey participants understand the questions different. Despite the fact that the author of the survey tries to use neutral formulations, this may not be perceived neutral by the participant. Hence, normal surveys use multiple questions for the same topic.

Some surveys, yes. Other approaches combine surveys with more involved interviews with a smaller subset of the sampling universe to better interpret survey responses. Triangulation via non-survey data is better still.

But which approach to use depends on what you’re trying to achieve. On the question of whether to keep dbl in rotation, why should Anet care so much about why people want it when the cost of probing that brings little gain but would inevitably lead to considerably fewer responses to the central question?

Anet is basically holding referenda here, not conducting behavioral research. It’s for that reason that their methodology is perfectly acceptable, and even superior to what you seem to want them to do.

Roxanne.6140:

broken in more ways than one lmao

Fall damage OP?

emkelly.2371:

Except your forgetting that Berserker also has access to normal bursts

That’s what I meant by the last bit, that out of primal adren would be more devoted to getting back into primal rather than normal burst.

That said, I don’t think it’s a bad idea…. In fact, it may be a great way to balance the vanilla warrior vs berserker, plus cut down some of the cheese on some berserker builds. It also has that old school tension Anet used to have over adren (hold it or use it).

Xenesis.6389:

DeceiverX.8361:

SpellOfIniquity.1780:

I’m actually having fun in this current match. All 9 servers that are against each other atm, rofl.

Gate Of Madness, Ferguson’s Crossing, Sorrow’s Furnace
Crystal Desert, Borlis Pass, Kaineng, Eredon Terrace
Darkhaven, Ehmry Bay

The blobs are insanity.

Which is exactly what the format needed: uneven pairings to compensate for differences in individual servers and tiers. I’ve been vouching for this kind of chaos for years, as this is how it was at release, and was genuinely fun. Super serious? No. But fun matters more, because fun keeps people playing since it’s the point of playing games.

Now, if the pairings were redone by other factors such as online presence over time, number of fight events over time, tag uptime, and so on, and then balanced around that data rather than glicko, we’d be looking at some pretty crazy matchups, such as having tons of low-tier servers versus one in T1, and the likes.

It looks like DH/EB are going to be the but end of this joke for 2 months. Probably the effects of t8 servers not wanting to be up in tiers, but wasn’t expecting a 2v3v4 matchup, seems like the wrong servers were chosen for the 2. I’m throwing out that theory out about wanting even servers up and down the tiers. Maybe the 4 servers will manage to break the t3 ceiling.

I’m on EB (well, pseudo-DH now, I guess), and I don’t mind at all, tbh. Frankly, I’ve gotten some good fights out of CD and SF while roaming, fairly classy behaviour (like leaving me to 1v1 or 1v2 instead of getting dog piled by 10, etc).

As long as that sort of thing is indicative of the broader matchup, then who cares about score?

Part of me (the vanilla frosting side) thinks you’re onto something. But, I’m inclined to think this would nerf the Berserker pretty hard, especially if the rationale was applied to other things like CI and BP (I mean, it logically follows).

Even if it just applied to AH though, a Berserker might land three bursts over the course of a Primal State (five is probably max output over both weapons and a truckload of adren). The time lag between all three of those bursts (due to cooldown) would be a big disadvantage compared to core warrior. Especially so when you consider that adren when not in Primal is largely conserved to trigger the Primal state.

You knew they were going to switch up the links. How did you not factor this into your plans over the past few months?

This isn’t Anets responsibility.

SgtOVERKILL.4701:

Thanks anet for ruining WvW for growing guilds and their players with this linking.

Perhaps you’d like them to run every decision past you first? If you can’t grow your guild, it’s not the linking that’s stopping you.

Here’s to good fights, fun times, and (hopefully) more dynamic matchups this time around.

With the exception of 33% (which I’m ambivalent about), I’d say the mobility requests are right on target. Warrior is predominantly melee oriented, it’s mobility is pretty middle of the pack, and a lot of our skills are still hampered by movement conditions.

And, again, Anet can play with the larger data set to see if rank, activity, etc. makes any difference. You can’t do the opposite though, which is why casting a wider net when surveying is better.

Turkadactyl.5308:

Not to necro a thread, but am I correct in thinking this hasn’t yet been fixed? Brought Stomp to VG for seeker control last night and noticed no blasts. Tested it afterwards with a guildie in fire, light, and ethereal fields – still no blast.

The aforementioned balance patch hasn’t happened yet.

Except they don’t. There are massively divergent views among wvw vets about what works and what doesn’t. Moreover time in wvw doesn’t translate into expertise.

And, btw, the direct application of what you’re calling for and your Brexit analogy is restricting the vote to senior citizens….

Yeah, wait a bit. I’m on Ehmry (been there for years) and I don’t even have a sense of where the server’s at. We lost a couple of cornerstone guilds shortly after being linked, so it’s unclear what we look like separate from HoD. Plus, like everyone else, nobody knows what the next pairing and matchup will look like.

Plenty of nice people on Ehmry, though. And there’s always been a, “play how you want, just be cool” vibe about the place. I think that’s still the case.

Heibi.4251:

I was messaged by any enemy player who lost after enticing people to follow him and fight. I won’t go into his chiding, but at the end of the conversation he actually apologized because he was frustrated with part of the match-up. This was many months ago.

But yeah, blocking is the only thing you can really do. That’s how they actually are able to whisper you in the first place – by blocking you first, then friending you. But once you block them that’s it.

Was it a Berserker? There’s a particular salt merchant on NSP who usually whispers assorted complaints and insults when you beat him, especially 1v1.

Arc Divider is actually 3x the range of Arcing Slice.

Scamp.5296:

Choppy.4183:

gloflop.3510:

Surveys are only as good as the person who creates it. They provide an outcome dependend on the question asked and the answers possible. The outcome has to be analysed and interpreted. In our specific case, we can ask many questions but it only provides us with a hint on what the opinions among the players participating is (not among all players). However, it does not tell us anything about why the players voted for what they voted for.

From a scientific perspective, the design of the surveys is simply horrible. I would not allow anyone using the data for a further analysis.

By all means, please provide your scientific critique of their survey methodology.

^^^ NOT productive.

Really? I generally find calling on someone to back up that sort of spurious claim is the best way to put it to rest. Either it’s not spurious, and they can demonstrate it, or else they don’t meet the challenge or they try and fail, showing everyone there was nothing supporting their claim.

Letting it hang out there though… I mean that’s how false information spreads.

If you can bring yourself to run condi, you’ll do much better against that type of rev. Their condi mitigation is pretty terribad from what I’ve seen

Can you be more specific? I mean, I often freeze when I break channel from Flurry→100b (not actually frozen, just prevented from activating 100b), or get immobilized in mid air, but I get the sense that isn’t what you’re talking about.

I believe it does. I mean, it’s still a hit, it just does zero damage. You can proc off of gates and siege, but I don’t think you can off of ambients like rats and cats (drakes, etc proc though).

It’s not really the principle concern though. They’ll have so many opportunities to land that having those buffs up almost all the time is almost a certainty. Your just trying to out trade their damage, so funneling their big hits to times when you can best mitigate, while landing your own when they can’t. They’re way more dangerous when they’re red (like a Hotsauce Hulk), so just be extra careful then.

As much as some people (especially mesmer players) have gotten used to hiding and porting as a standard tactic, Anet originally introduced the stealth trap to help mitigate what was largely seen as a problem. Five mins of Targetting is better.

There’s no way one or two players should be able to bypass the siege process for their side so easily, or suck up a large amount of time for a lot of players just to get them out.

If you’re a mesmer and can survive five mins of Targetting, well maybe that’s a fair gauntlet to run in order to justify the ol’ “stealth and port”.

Yeah, were talking about wvw here. Tbh, I just take extra care when they turn red. You know they’re going to try a burst almost as soon as they enter, and then they’re probably going to try and cram in as many bursts add they can while they’re in primal.

Be prepared to dodge (or just automatically dodge) a split second after they turn red, or use EP if the reason they’re in primal is because you didn’t dodge Headbutt. After they burn their initial burst, try to pay attention to their adren gain to get a sense of when that next one will come and pressure then until you think they’re going to do it again, then mitigate. Or change up your fight style and kite them more while they’re in primal… they’ll generally try to be more aggressive when they’re red in order to cram in the bursts, so give them fewer opportunities so you know when they’ll try to burst and otherwise deny them their precious adrenaline. Whirlwind through them when they get close, toss up shield block if you get cornered, etc. and you’ll find a lot of Berserkers start making mistakes as they get desperate to get some value out of primal.

If you’re not running a warrior, use blinds, aegis, stealth, and any opportunity to range pressure when he’s red.

gloflop.3510:

Surveys are only as good as the person who creates it. They provide an outcome dependend on the question asked and the answers possible. The outcome has to be analysed and interpreted. In our specific case, we can ask many questions but it only provides us with a hint on what the opinions among the players participating is (not among all players). However, it does not tell us anything about why the players voted for what they voted for.

From a scientific perspective, the design of the surveys is simply horrible. I would not allow anyone using the data for a further analysis.

By all means, please provide your scientific critique of their survey methodology.

It does, but I wouldn’t personally invest in it. Use a +20% boon food if you really want and call it good

Hexinx.1872:

Thanks I’ll give it a go… I just want to update my build, but I’m kinda deadlocked as I really enjoy the warhorn, helps with condi clears/blast/and mobility.

fwiw … I hardly use the sword, minus the gap closer every now and then

Ah, in that case you should know that between resistance and condi clear, especially in primal state, the warhorn isn’t really bringing much on that front. Your other sources of swiftness, warrior Sprint, and that speed buffs no longer affect movement skills means you’re not getting much mobility gain from it either.

A blast finisher is nice and all, but not that important, especially in small groups. Besides, once they fix the bug, you can always swap in stomp to take advantage of its new functionality, if you find yourself missing the blast.

Hmmm… I just don’t see the synergy, especially in small group. Your primal sword burst is basically condi, and your hammer is mediocre direct damage.

The value of that weapon comp was really more about group support and then cc before the changes to stab. It does ok damage, but I don’t see it gaining much from the berserker line.

Fwiw, swapping your sword set for a gs would give you almost the same mobility with warrior sprint, while kicking up your killing power by a lot, especially with the berserker line. I know you don’t want to swap weapons, but it’s the only way I can see retaining everything else you want while still working in gains from berserker.

Ikr? Berzerkers are all about those walls of text! I’d like to see better punctuation added to the class as well. :P

(Sorry, couldn’t help myself)

On topic, consider yourself lucky in the damage department. I’ve been regularly eating 10-15k AD. In terms of telegraph,iirc it’s about the same as Arcing Slice, the difference is the quickness speeding up AS when someone first enters the primal state and, to a lesser extent, the range that allows you to be hit well outside of melee range.

I’m not sure what the proper fix is. Cutting down the range and power scaling a bit in recognition of the spammability, maybe, or just getting used to it as the new normal.

lil devils x.6071:

There is something wrong with the approach if the goal is to keep the players who are impacted by the poll results playing the game. If you want those players to keep playing the game, you have to make sure those players are your target audience. If you do not care if those players leave the game, sure it wouldn’t matter. I am assuming their goal here was to increase player population, increase player satisfaction and increase game longevity but if that isn’t their goal of course it doesn’t matter if they get accurate information on that.

Your assertion that there were not significant factors affecting the results is unfounded as you cannot know how many of these votes were multiple accounts and PvE accounts when neither of these things were prevented and we already have evidence these things in fact did take place. Unless proper measures are taken to prevent this and they make new polls, there is no way to be sure eh?

You’re just pilling on more assumptions… About the primary purpose of the polls, and the variance and impact between the results and reality.

You’re also trying to shift your burden of proof about confounding factors to me while still asserting their significance without evidence. You’re also ignoring what I said about post collection controls, which Anet can likely do (and may be doing already) with all of your concerns. They should be able to put arbitrary filters on wvw rank, wvw rank gain within a specified time period, and maybe even exclude additional game accounts tied to the same email account.

That sort of approach is far less clumsy or problematic than what you’ve been proposing, and it leaves Anet with far more data to work with as well. It also keeps things simple for respondants, and it casts the widest possible net for inclusion from a PR perspective. Anet is doing a fine job with this.

lil devils x.6071:

You realize that I first brought this up on polls that resulted in the same results that I voted for right? That was when I first heard people talking about voting multiple times. Anet was informed of this issue with the first poll and did nothing to correct it then. They should have made proper adjustments before even making the second poll…

Stop looking for excuses for them not to solve a problem. We have evidence. They can be provided with the account names of those who voted multiple times if they really want them.

Then ignore the last paragraph of my previous point and make your counter argument. Speaking as someone who actually has a background (education and professional) in survey design, there’s nothing wrong with Anets approach from a technical standpoint, which is why the other guy’s post was flat out wrong.

Your assertion of significant confounding factors from multiple accounts our pve’ers, so far, appears to be baseless. Your proposed solutions have their own inherent problems, and always seem to involve arbitrary standards.

lil devils x.6071:

By allowing players to vote as much as they want and who do not even understand how the game mode will affect the different play styles? Mhmmm..
Being a bit more professional or even as the above poster suggested, hire a professional to assist with the polls could help.

You’re assuming an issue without any evidence of the size of its influence. You’re also assuming they didn’t consult a professional, or have one on staff for the polls. Controls for confounding factors are applied both before and after data collection, and their alert system is an example of a pre-collection control. Another control is their high bar in support of a major change in order for it to occur.

The fact that this latest poll was such a blowout completely decimates your argument here. Not only would this pool of “illegitimate votes” from multiple account holders and people who don’t meet your standard of sufficient expertise have to be between 50% and 100% the size of “legitimate votes” in your eyes, they’d have to somehow, miraculously, all vote the same way.

The methodology is absolutely in line with standard survey practice. Accept the evidence that most Wvw players don’t agree with what you wanted, stop looking for ways to gerrymander the results you want, and move on.

lil devils x.6071:

Cindas.6149:

None of the WvW surveys have adhered to any standard methodology. If you want to simply ask seemingly random questions and have nearly random results, then continue with the current survey formats. However, if you want anything meaningful returned, you should hire a professional.

ref: Survey Methodology – Reliability and Validity
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survey_methodology

Yes, and when someone brings this up .. people want to act like it isn’t a problem. AS I have been saying, from the first poll on here, this is a mess. ( I said that on polls that were decided in favor of what I wanted them to) The way these polls are being done means they should not be used for any type of data gathering or analysis because they are doing nothing to ensure the data gathered is accurate or going to be beneficial to the game.

Except he’s completely wrong. Making a claim and then posting a link that doesn’t even support that claim is not a convincing argument.

Anet’s approach is well in line with standard survey methodology.

Cindas.6149:

None of the WvW surveys have adhered to any standard methodology. If you want to simply ask seemingly random questions and have nearly random results, then continue with the current survey formats. However, if you want anything meaningful returned, you should hire a professional.

ref: Survey Methodology – Reliability and Validity
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survey_methodology

What are you talking about? Their sampling universe includes the entirety of the Wvw population, and they’ve also instituted an alert system to help better target active wvw players. Moreover, they have the data with which to slice the responses into more targeted populations and to determine the statistical significance of those results.

They aren’t random questions and the results aren’t random by definition.

KhainPride.3987:

rofl do i hate core warrior?

I ROAM ON CORE WARRIOR in TIER 2 HAVING 1V5 EVERYDAY and win

Wait, what? You’ve already transferred again?

Swagger.1459:

The current voting process is fine…

Yep… both from a technical perspective and for what the surveys are supposed to achieve.