Guild Wars 2

This is how bad the camping can get.
Even those who are double the numbers of us ‘Campers’ didn’t have the balls to jump down to wipe us so they can do the JP, until we backed off a little.
Baruch also had a good amount of people camping their own invulnerable area..

That image is priceless xD
As mentioned the OS is a PvP zone still, you will have to put up with it unless you bring friends or hop into it while it’s quiet. I don’t like those JP’s are part of achievements though grrr.

Surely there’s somebody with a Screenie of the queues on Gandara?
Must be good for lootbags though!

1) Viz
2) SFR
3) Kodash
4) JS
5) RS
6) ER
7) Deso
8) BB
9) AR

Good luck y’all, may you all unleash your zombies of whatever quantity!

Our Pugs are not that well organized btw, we all know it takes a more than Population to be able to compete in Gold.
During Season 1 we got steamrolled during prime time – it depends how long the Pugs will stay motivated and willing to cooperate besides joining the Zerg.

Stealth isn’t that bad, its just annoying and ingrained into our class. There’s just too many benefits for most thieves to spec into stealth and the shadow arts trait line, it would need a drastic redesign like less nerfs to sword builds and buffs to pistol/pistol specs.
I play stealthless and get round fine, even those high burst d/p thieves and mesmer aren’t much of a problem for me anymore.

What kind of issue are you specifically having that could be related to lag?

Sometimes Disconnects, often Rubberbanding and Skills that don’t work that leads to the infamous line “Zergs only press number 1”

What server are you on?
Desolation

Has there ever been a time when you or a friend are experiencing lag, while others in your party are not?

Nope, it’s mapwide lag that effects everyone of course.

Has there ever been a time where one party in a map is experiencing lag, while other parties in that same map are not?

Nope.

Do you experience the lag at very specific times?

When there are 20+ man zergs from each Server clashing on the map, blobs clashing results in even worse rubberbanding though that even lasts after the fight has ended.

Well IMO the average skill level of the average WvWer is not great, it’s not because of the Zerg mentality though because PvP/WvW is designed to be rather casual.
Certain Roaming “Celebs” aren’t anymore skilled at small scale than those in the likes of the best WvW Guilds just because they run in smaller Groups – alot of players train in PvP and Roam aswell.

While roaming you will face different Builds and Groups of varied Numbers. More often than not you’ll face similar composed groups i.e mesmer, thief, ranger, guardian/warrior and eles, it becomes similar to those Melee Trains that the majority of big Guilds run.

Make sure to bring plentiful supply of food buffs and oils, and get your Applied Strength and Stacks if you have that.
Many may be specced into High Condition damage and or duration, or Damage that let’s them gank unexpecting players easily which can get frustrating.

As a Solo Roamer you will have to be on your toes, not only do you have to watch out for Zergs but also Group Gankers that don’t know Fair game.
We are also excellent Mobile Scouts on the field, Camp/Dolyak Snipers and we can escape even WITHOUT stealth most of the time.

The dueling Scene especially inside the OS is generally alot more organized without interruption though.

But I’ll also say as a well Known Thief Commander on my Server that you CAN be an important part of the Zerg, or even be on the frontlines if you have put together a good Build and play smart enough.
Unfortunately I don’t have a portfolio of Amazing Highlight Videos, but many from my WvW Community can vouch for me. :P

Well being a pug commander and even as a Thief I survive by positioning, sticking together and such. On many occasions though I end up uplevels or Ranged Melee Train heroes that get ahead of themselve. Against larger groups as mentioned they become rally bots no matter how many you have downed, you can try finishing the downed but you’ll often get interrupted – I don’t particularly like the rally system in WvW.

Junkpile.7439:

Problem is that now when transfers are free players transfer those servers that have best chance win tournament.

This. No offence to those who made the decision to transfer beforehand but now everybody else is inclined to join the bandwagon and thus create more queue problems.

It means there’s going to be a dilemma and may bring drama to a community when it could be easily avoided with a better account for WvW populations and a better Pre-Tournament transfer system on Anet’s behalf.

They moved one of the Threads about this which now says it can’t be found.
That says it all about their attitude towards getting this fixed once and for all, even though many more Hamsters are needed to power their Servers.

This is really useful information cheers!
It’s a shame Gandara is stacked due to the free transfers which won’t end anytime soon, so you will be full of queues and lag which you really hate. =\
We need more players to spread out on Servers really.

Hide in shadows cures Bleeding, poison and burning and under stealth if traited into Shadow Arts it cures and regens health.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Hide_in_Shadows

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Shadow%27s_Embrace

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Shadow%27s_Rejuvenation

And whoever suggested Shadowstep is a problem lol. It’s a 50s stun breaker and it’s one of our most reliable ways to cleanse conditions against the conditon meta!
Stealth thieves are easy to counter once you realize their patterns, especially when you go up against D/P thieves.

It isn’t that hard really, just L2P as they say..

x/p is probably the best counter.
As mentioned above Headshot and Pistol Whip can interrupt their flow, and thus give you an window of opportunity to burst them down to low health.

But you also have to be aware of our other ways to access stealth aswell as the shadowsteps which can turn the fight around.
30 in trickery for Sleight of Hand can be used as another interrupt when they try to heal using Hide in Shadows.

^^ maybe that’s a reaction to you getting Deso this week haha!

1. Lag still makes this game unplayable like it’s back in the 56k days playing UT99 and having to aim ahead of you.
2. The lack of value towards Community which I think was one of the purposes of WvW, but Anet makes alot of profit from things such as transfers. Big guilds leaving to stack on one server(s) is a big problem, and imbalances the Populations leading to imbalanced Match-ups – which leads to QQ.
3. Fighting against Servers with almost all day Coverage is tiring and too much of a chore without enough reward.
4. Coordinated Guilds are far superior against most Pug Blobs, no surprise really.
5. Community Commanding is like a job for many, teaching and leading pugs is something I’ve never quite imagine happening in a game.
6. Game still lacks Class diversity in Small and large scale fights. Usually see the same Guild and Roaming Compositions, with same Melee trains and gank specs.
7. Golems give me nightmares. Nowadays they’re dirt cheap and it’s easy to buy stacks of them – even our own Golems make me cringe.
9. Dueling is awesome, but Roaming can be variable where you get ganked or you end up ganking yourself.
10. The updates to WvW have been purely cosmetic IMO, there are still fundamental problems that needs fixing.

Solo roleplaying! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6mYpKAvEwc
Also being chased by an big angry Guild group, which is actually less frustrating than being ganked by a small skirmishing group.

I haven’t played much during Prime Time for a long while, but anyway I just tried it and in the end I was just endlessly rubber-banding.
So then I reset my router and all was okay until I hopped to EB which had no queue on our side but it had some awful rubber-banding compared to the borderland I hopped to beforehand.

If you plan to play stealth-less a full set of Lyssa Runes, Condition duration (Bowl of Poultry and Leek Soup) and condition removal (Bowl of Saffron-scented Poultry Soup) on heal food is your best bet. Even if it’s for PVE it’s good practice IMO.

Before you even suggest that anyone is tanking you should know what you are talking about. Deso is not tanking, we’ve had EotM and LS upates which our population has decided to do instead., even Gunnar’s beat us to 2nd place a couple of weeks ago!

We do usually play for PPT because we don’t have that many Guilds as many other Servers which you may notice during Prime Time and many of us have Server Pride through the times when we lost so many of our WvW Guilds. We do want to have good fights though!

Right now Deso is between the Gold and Silver Leagues ranks where we belong, it’s also because of the matchups we’ve been drawn and thus the rating points we can gain/lose fluctuates.

^^ or just use Omega rockets. I’m just tired of people using it for the wrong purposes.
It’s definitely not easy to defend with lesser numbers even with so many AC’s that you don’t even have enough players to man and even then once the gate breaches the first thing the Assaulting server usually does is clear the siege on the walls.

Not all zerglings are bad players, that is a narrow minded view. Many people Zerg because it’s a more casual play-style after Raiding with their Guild, as even running with a Guild you often go up against huge Pug Blobs.
Even while you are roaming you come across people reluctant to fight solo, those with cheese builds or those who run with their groups ganking smaller parties or solo roamers. Does this mean these are Casual Roamers?

With larger numbers comes the same Class compositions and thus you may see less diversity than smaller groups, and more chance of Skill lag.

Last week for Deso was disastrous from our POV, so far we’ve started strongly compared. It’s been such a quiet for me commanding tonight on EB compared to last week where stuff was reset constantly until everybody else went to sleep.

Constantly Steam-rolling through objectives for the PPT against not much resistance isn’t really enjoyable nor is trying to get close to T3 stuff with tons of siege, although it’s more relaxing and beneficial towards Morale.

There are some people who still play PPT by the book where you cap stuff before the tick, that’s their choice, but I think it’s a pointless exercise when the end of week Score is determined by coverage and numbers.
I’d rather face the likes of Augury in a wvw pov and then Gunnars and Gandara for the fights without any lag. Some incentive needs to be given to spread out the populations and wvw needs a decent end week reward, not just from these competitions.

+1 this isn’t too much to ask for.
And ALSO it would b e nice to have less Chat suppression, you don’t realize how frustrating it is to be suppressed for as little as you can imagine.

I get what you mean in terms of the Big picture, you guys are great to fight against especially during prime time despite Desolation’s own lack of Guilds – we relish the challenge even though most of the time you overrun us.

I’m thinking what kind of Match-Up would suit Deso itself right now where it would be an week with good fights and a close Match-Up that lasts longer than a weekend.
I guess FSP would be a good Match-up for AG but I’m not sure about someone like Abaddon’s Blob.
Is there even a possibility of Match-Ups where it’s not so one-sided thanks to Coverage?

I don’t think anyone would swap for the old Match-Up system which led to stagnant Tiers though..

Annoying by design but not unbeatable.

Just Thieves really?

I wish we could all have balanced Match-Ups but it seems it won’t happen in most cases. Some weeks Desolation has been matched up against “Gold League” Servers which we’ve have no chance against post-Season, even Augury Rock who we beat during the holidays now have superior coverage – it’s quite pointless to worry about trying to compete and defend/upgrade stuff honestly.

Then we’ve had some easy weeks where we’ve been able to Karma Train, which honest get’s old fast.

I have no problem with it now, the only thing I have beef with is that it does not cleanse fear.

@Interceptor I don’t use Shadow Embrace either , looks like with 30 in Acro he should have enough vitality to sustain enough conditions and swap out for Pain Response if needed.

^^ Yeah true and those EoTM pugs don’t look very coordinated as expected, it’s not bad could be against better opposition, of course you can only fight what’s in front of you but that’s my opinion.
I dueled with one of your guys the other night and then got backstabbed by a random thief. =\

Kraljevo.2801:

CrimsonNeonite.1048:

Just had it on EB as Augury and Gunnars clashed inside AR Keep, there’s not much we can do.

It was a mess. Many of us had to bail. Even the autoattack didn’t work.

Yeah, I went to take a look at the Gate and got chased away but I couldn’t even get away without teleporting around even before the gate went down and the fight inside occurred.
This is skill lag at it’s worse.
I haven’t had much problem in any LA overflow in comparison.

I’ve noticed an Influx of Bearbow Rangers in this Match-up at least..

Sword/Dagger EvasionThief, only problem is when you go up against Condition heavy classes our condition removal options are limited unless we put points into Shadow Arts.
Nope none of that Leaping L2P OP “Hai I’m over here, no I’m over here – too late backstab! 222222” Thieves!

I don’t think it’s necessary all the time to follow each and every moment apart from staying in close vicinity once you get past the first push when you need stability and such, what you need is an area to focus damage and ranged should stay a bit further back rather than try to be heroes. Regroup for waterfields and rebuffing if needed.

Easier said than done with pugs though compared to a organized Guild group, who have a tendency to have mind of their own. >.>

Just had this incredibly bad lag on EB as Augury and Gunnars clash inside AR Keep and it was unplayable, there’s not much we can do.

Yeah I can’t it hurting EoTM if you had a balance team Mechanic for the overflows.
Instead of the usual Karma Trains if one side is outnumbered as you see in everyday WwW.

Need more European Forum Warriors even!

Wait for the Spring Tournament. WvW needs to be a competition with a end reward that is actually worth playing for. Playing in this current Match-up system with not much of a reward is what is keeping much of the GW2 player-base from WvW and the fact there is now the EoTM.

EoTM is an instance where you can fight a variation of WvWers besides what you get in your Server’s weekly Match-Ups, but it’s still very much WvW besides the loss of identity you get. You still have Large Blobs running on the Main EoTM and the overflows – the differences are that there are 3h Matches with no PPT to worry about.

Right now it’s mostly Guilds and Players playing for the fights and loot, even then it isn’t as lucrative and the fights you get are a mixed bag with blobbing and Skill lag.
Even the Competitive Scene isn’t headed in a direction that will keep those players interested in that kind of thing in the long run IMO.

And yeah, WvW down to it’s core hasn’t changed much really : You have the PPT system that hasn’t changed and you have the same mechanics that ensures that Players blob up.

In the meantime I should get round to farming LA, cause I’m running low on Gold.

I don’t see as a problem, you have scouts for a reason to react accordingly.
I think a zerg has plentiful ways to manoeuvre quickly around a map as it is, even in the EoTM.
It’s not always safe for us contesters though..

Lag is everywhere in WvW, they’ve needed to do something about it for a while.
Adding EoTM to the Server load or using Servers that can’t even handle the load is negligence.

Well on my Server there are many more who are Guardian/Warrior commanders these days, when in the past we’ve had Engineer, Elementalist, Mesmer and Thief commanders like me.

What’s more important than the Class itself is communication, tactical knowledge and staying calm under pressure. When I say Tactical knowledge I mean things such as usage of Choke points, positioning, knowing how to utilize your zerg and movement.

Having a solid composition of Classes alongside you is also vital towards your survival especially when Commanding against Zergs; you’ll really need some Eles, Guardians and Warriors.

It’s just that it takes a bit more time to become skilled at a class that isn’t a Heavy armoured Class and the time it takes to Theory Craft the right build – most end up rolling a Heavy class so they can command on that.

Yes PPT is a pretty pointless exercise, but I like to do the best for my community whenever I can. I’m sure many people feel the same, although doing this week in and week out without much reward – also with the current Match-Up system, it’s not worth stressing or losing sleep over.
Playing for PPT is not exactly as described though, you have those who Flip stuff before the tick and those who defend and Assault Structures looking for fights.

Fighting blobs and Melee trains can be both exciting and frustrating really due to the Skill lag and the lack of diversity you face. I find that dueling or small scale stuff is a good change of pace from things if you are lucky to find that sort of stuff without interference!
It’s just a shame WvW is so dependant on the Zerg mentality and Coverage.

On one Hand WvWers need to be given better reward, Season One’s reward was a slap in the face towards your Player-Base no matter what people may say about it being ‘Karma’ for stacking on a Server or Tanking down a league.

On the other hand it’ll lead to more queues and lag, at least we have EoTM now but the trouble is people can just Stack on there leading to overflows on one Side and otherwise more Zerg warfare.

Looking at the big picture though, the PPT/Scoring system is so flawed and skewed by Coverage/Population that WvW will never be Competitive enough no matter the format.

I concur, the whilst the Achievement Hunters will be more quickly isn’t the idea of this Competition to bring more players into WvW, to get them interested in being part of their community and to sustain a Server’s WvW population? What should happen is that everyone should be inclined to Participate throughout the season; I don’t mean like those giving them something to Farm though.

The other problem is that no matter the fact EoTM gives players a chance to play an alternative style of WvW while waiting in a queue, it can’t become a cop-out where everyone will just Stack in EoTM like now if your Server has no chance of being in a winning position for enough tickets – unless the cost of certain Reward are kept affordable enough even for those who finish in lower positions.

I’m hoping to see some sort of incentive for Players and Guilds to avoid stacking on one Server. What needs to happen is that Anet must use Data (if they even have that lol) from Season 1 for the entirety of the Season for each Server rather than them proclaiming it brought a population surge in WvW for each Server. That is as you imagine not what happened for every Server, otherwise no matter how you Match-up servers you’ll still end up with many one sided Match-ups.

And then we have the PPT system which badly needs some sort of rework if you aren’t going to make sure WvW populations for each Server is going to be balanced.

This lag :\ Can’t stand EB as it is, but if it even happens on an Fairly Empty map meh.

Let’s see here, Anet has done nothing to stop over-stacking on a server and neither has it done enough to keep Communities together, or to ensure wvw populations are balanced. What they give us a new map where servers can stack on instead of filling one of the Main Borderlands – EB remains populated at least over here in the EU.

It’s new and different, but it isn’t going to replace wvw – it is it’s own instance and offers a different style of gameplay. It brings a language barrier for us on the EU, the only thing most players understand is how to follow a Commander Tag, otherwise you can imagine it being mayhem to organize especially with all sorts of players hopping in for Achievements and Rewards .

Stuff we do daily as dedicated commanders and wvwers is draining, I think it’s great to see such Pride but it’s almost like a second job. Some even complain about Defensive siege yet it is impossible to defend when you face Coverage superior to yours especially with the current Match-Up system.

Us European afaik are getting some varied Match-Ups, we get to face different styles of servers and Guilds which is great, maybe it’s not been so kind for you NA peeps but what we absolutely share in disapproving of is the Coverage Wars.

When Desolation (Tier 4) faces a Server like Jade Sea in Tier 2 (now), by the time the weekend is over the Match-Up is done. All we have to play for is pride, but it is true that it’s not worth losing sleep over when you face superior numbers at certain hours.
We’d all like to fight on equal terms but wvw is generally not balanced well.

Guilds and Players need to be encouraged to avoid over-stacking in EoTM itself, it should be an alternative but not a replacement.
It’ll make the map much more enjoyable overall and differentiate it from wvw, I’d like to see much less Zerging really nevermind PvD and all that.

Anyway, personally I am still finding plenty of good fights over here in the EU on the Borderlands and EB; from Big to Small scale fights despite the introduction of EoTM. Somebody suggested re-designing the Borderlands, but they did – the Bloodlust Areas were actually a good addition apart from the valid QQ over it’s Bonuses given towards a server.

If I were Anet though I’d delay League Season 2 unless they can make wvw a Competition where everyone or most of us is on a level playing field, otherwise it may well just split the player-base even more.

I think even though they may be making baby step towards the right moves you have to question their final thought process when bringing out new content, not only their bug testing >_>
Sorry I got carried away there.

Elitism seems unavoidable even in PVE. It’s true that the greater reward is from PVE, even from the recently released EoTM compared to wvw. Many players I suspect play for the reward (loot, WXP), for the epic fights or to play alongside their Server Community, Guild and Friends.

As least for me I was once a PVE’er who hardly knew much about wvw when I jumped in, now I’m a pretty dedicated wvwer and I feel like a part of my community, which I decided to stick with.

Those who don’t listen and turn who many proclaim as ‘Rallybots’ can be quite frustrating, but I’d like to think most dedicated wvwers, especially commanders are able to keep calm and carry on.

I came across this D/P and P/D Thief the other night that constantly trolled a group of us through stealth.
There is a ways to counter them though, and the thief barely did much damage anyway.

Going up against Zerker or near close Zerker; Invisible, leaping and backstabby thieves, is another problem altogether. But you can also counter them once you recognize their patterns and adapt your Build. It’s not quite like those days when you had Thieves ganking you with Basilisk Venom+Ass Signet+Mug+Stealth+Backstab.

One thing also to note is that Shadow Arts has excellent synergy with Stealth. Alot of the traits among the Acrobatic line is pretty mediocre or useless past putting 15 for Feline Grace IMO.

Personally I wouldn’t be able to stay on a server that didn’t have much a sense of community. EoTM doesn’t have much of that IMO at least, it’s not too unlike EB and the lootbag hunters. I can understand in a way if the difference between Coverage and Population is so large, but I’d expect people to give it a try when they are able to come up with equal numbers at least.
This is not to say I’m against GvGers or Roamers, it’s just my opinion.

It’s close to almost a year since Deso got stuck in Tier 1 for so many months, people got demoralized and alot of people got burned out. Eventually we dropped down a Tier and our community rebuilt after people decided to make the effort, the thing is though if you just drop only to stomp a lower Tier then that is hypocritical really.

EoTM has enough going to differentiate it from normal wvw, it isn’t going to replace wvw in the long run IMO. From running with a blob, running with your Guild or Roaming, after having a short run on the new map I feel the Borderlands and EB are still better designed maps for certain play-styles. No matter how pointless the End of the week Score may be, I feel as though it’s alot more safer for roamers on the Main Maps and alot easier to find Guilds to fight right now.
The one thing I really like about EoTM is being able to play and fight against cross-server friends.

TL:DR: I think using EoTM as a convenient excuse to join the hive-mind to farm lootbags, gain personal reward and terrorize PVE’ers isn’t putting yourselves in a good light.

Part of that problem lies with Anet, especially after the so called reward they gave for those who part in League Season 1.
WvW as a weekly Competition is a joke and the reward we get is lacking despite some of the hard work some of us put in, it can’t be just supplemented by Communities that put together their own initiatives, Karma trains or just EB blobbing.

Woah there, we don’t want ppl to get the idea EXG’s a world completion Ferry :P. We’ll get your POI’s and Vista’s if it’s possible especially to gain some Points (not it’s been easy up against JS recently) but we won’t do it for ones sake like with some of the harder to Flip towers on EB. Even though I ended up doing someone a favour once..

Deso’s night crew is very friendly though, so you should hop onto that train unless you want to roam or otherwise.