Guild Wars 2

Samis.1750:

I only partially agree. You are telling this player that the only play style is to stand at the back of a large zerg and fire your longbow. The amount of bags you get is not entirely relevant as it just means that you tag a lot of players with your barrage. On a similar note, at some point people don’t care about winning or PPT but just having fun.

You can run a condition build and grab camps. A rabid/trap build with some regen will solo camps faster than you. I solo them in apothecary gear with a 0-0-30-30-10 build and I am no great player, though I usually fight in groups.

Your build is also not welcome in organized guild groups who take on larger numbers as you are rally fodder.

However, the OP seems like a more inexperienced player, so overall your advice is sound. Bear in mind that there is no one build and set of equipment for a ranger that does everything. I would try your build if I was running with a zerg, but I prefer to play my guardian in that situation.

(edit: DeadlySynz I didn’t mean to sound elitest, but I am having a lot of fun with hyjaxx’s build running in small groups)

OP: It also my be worth it to try different classes. This way you can have more options.

We actually play on the same server Samis :P

You know what happens to us if we try and solo camps or even do them in small groups? We are pretty much speed bumps at the moment for SoR and BG lol. I’ll be the first to admit, it’s not a build for solo roamers. I try not to do any solo’ing as I’m not built for it, but I have taken a camp in about 10-12 seconds under the build (not counting when the ring pops up but how long it took to take down all enemies.

I do play in organized guilds against similar numbers or larger, and I’ve found the build I run works better because it downs them quicker. One well placed barrage, will usually turn the battle in about 3-5 seconds; it’s not hard to pull off. I’ve tried both the traps and BM build and it just drags the battles out longer. My ranger is built best for Zerg support, even though they do well in organized guild and small group play. Of the small group encounters I’ve been in, we win around 90% of them. The battles don’t usually last more than 10-15s before the enemies are either all downed/dead or running.

It may appear I’m rally fodder, but I actually go days without being downed (playing 3-4hrs a day), while picking up 200 badges per hour :P.

Believe me, I’ve tried the very build you speak of, and I’ve found it’s just considerably slower. The longer we leave the enemies alive, the less chance we have at surviving. I love the build, I just don’t find much use for it in T1 and T2. It did work for me when I played in lower tiers, but I’ve found it to be inefficient compared to a sheer damage build

Samis.1750:

I agree with the above poster to a certain extent. However, I don’t think the build is a good one for roaming or for organized guild play.

It is fine for running with a large zerg.

Like many things in the game, it all depends upon what you plan on doing.

Nope it doesn’t work for roaming at all. I play in T1/T2, and if you try and roam your pretty much run over every 5-10 min so I don’t even bother. It does work for small groups. I’ve tried all the above I mentioned in small groups and all that tends to happen is the battles drag out, where its pretty much a coin flip to who wins. I don’t like to leave things to chance, nor do I have the patience for drawn out battles lol.

A full zerker ranger with one well placed barrage in small group play almost always ends the battle shortly after. Most small group encounters tend to be against other guilds whom I’d think are organized. Under that, the enemies take anywhere from 10k-15K damage with barrage, which pretty much downs the lot of them.

It’s not that hard to stay out of harms way now with our new stealth and point blank shot. The trick is though, learning your enemies movements to actually stay alive. You can only take about 2-4 hits.

Healing spring and heavy damage.. outside of that, in the upper tiers, they bring nothing. Their damage output in zergs is extreme if built properly (and learn to stay alive).

It’s not uncommon for for a front line to drop under a barrage, and it really isn’t something the enemy can defend against outside of not even engaging. However if you try it in anything else other than zerker gear, you mine as well not even bother, the damage is pathetic.

I’ve tried both the traps build, BM build, both with as much damage as can put out, as well as, in full bunker, and both just completely sucked compared to a sheer damage build.

To put it into perspective; I think the amount of badges I accumulate (in a good night) under traps or BM is 50-70 per hour). In a full zerker sheer damage build I average about 200-350 per hour. Not to mention you die a lot less. Stick 2-3 rangers in the back dropping barrage on the enemy zerg, and the battles are usually over quite quick.

The problem is they are extremely underrated when it comes to WvW. People get into this mindset they need a BM or traps build, or heavy on the toughness and healing, or these PVT builds. All of which are no help to the team whatsoever, because they have no decent support skills outside healing spring. The damage output is garbage at best, so they don’t even bring that under those builds.

What they bring is a lot of damage if built properly. When the zerg battles are essentially over in 10-15 seconds after they start, they really don’t need to be bringing condition removal, healing, spirits, boons etc..

I’ve tried them all and the only realistic one that contributes is a full zerker (30/30/0/0/10) unfortunately. Anything else you’ll really not doing your server any favors by being on the map. The trap build is atrocious compared to this as your killing power is just so much slower, so your more likely to get overrun by the enemy.

Beastmaster ranger is really the only other viable build but it won’t work T4 and above as you’ll be run over by zergs every 5-10 min, or whenever you enter a camp.

It really depends on how you want to play; but if your in T4 or above, stick with full berserker build and act as support. If your T5 and below, option for beastmaster if small group or solo roaming is your thing.

Despite what some people like to believe, WvW is a combination of PvE and PvP content. If they wan’t strictly PvP content, there is a sPvP mode for that.

With that said, I’ve mentioned this before to make both defending more interesting and rewarding. It’d inevitably make zergs split up and make it also considerably harder to take down a tower.

Introduce the “Vested Interest” Buff. Up to 5 players can donate 2g within a tower to gain this buff, and this buff remains on them as long as they stay in the tower. If they leave, they must pay again for the buff.

Under the Vested Interest Buff they get:

- 50% increase in damage from all sources
– 100% increase in damage to groups 25 – 35
– 200% increase in damage to groups 35 – 45
– 300% increase in damage to groups 50+
– Groups with 25+ that are hit with siege have their healing effects reduced 50%

- 75% decrease in damage from all sources
- Siege they placed (and are manning) is immune to damage and fires 10% faster
- Immune to all forms of CC
- Gain 25s per tick
- Towers with 5 people under the buff tick for double

What your going to find is people will want to defend, naturally reducing the size of zergs. Zergs cannot ball around towers unless they like being hit for 100-300% damage.

Towers have 3 sides to attack from so they don’t need to be balled up on one side.

I don’t see how you would have time.. Tunnel vision players are usually the ones that go down first.

Perhaps put living world events in WvW. Mega bosses, dragons, mass hoards of NPC’s.

It is WvW which is a combination of PvE and PvP.

There are a lot of things that need to be either removed or toned down in general in WvW.. in this case downed state should be removed, and stealth toned down drastically.

Other things that should be done: Stability, condition, and retaliation duration should be cut in half. Healing effects and retaliation damage should be cut in half.

Aside from that, just removing downed state alone would completely shake up the rankings in WvW.

SoR would probably be a lot better if they learned not to blob around, their 1v1 and small group play is terrible for the most part. It really could use some work.

I don’t think it would be looked down upon if it didn’t cause skill lag.. I’ve often encountered zerg battles of say 35 on 35 and everything is fine…

It when this certain server in T1 insists on mega blobbing everywhere (including responding with 70+ people to 5 guys taking a camp) that are screwing things up. I’m pretty sure they know who they are. The other server in T1 doesn’t quite seem to run with the same numbers and thus lag is never as bad fighting them.

Until Anet figures out how to take care of skill lag, I really think they should be putting some sort of debuff on group of 50+.

Maybe a quick (probably unpopular fix) is to just prevent AC’s from being built out in the field in the first place? Have them strictly for base construction only. This doesn’t fix the fact that players can zoom hack to fire outside the base, but that will at least give the defenders a huge advantage, which they should have.

DevonCarver.5370:

Shimdroid.2765:

Because with this system they can add ranks without touching the existing ones, in the other way you propose they should modify the entire ranking system each time they add a rank.

This is indeed why the system is built as it is. It is also intended to last for a very, very long time. Beyond that, we are going to be continuing to increase the rate at which you gain those ranks.

Given that probably 99% of your WvW population will never even come remotely close to the halfway point of those ranks, your really better off just making it account wide.

These is this little word called discouragement that kicks in, meaning that players have no real reason to level up additional alts in WvW, especially when some classes are far superior to others considering the imbalances. A player is not going to carry the same enthusiasm at rank 50, than they did at rank 2. So unless the plan is to increase the XP to the amount that your true casuals can gain 20+ levels a day, your better off making it account wide before boredom kicks in.

These people who believe that stealth thieves have actual counters to them, need to stop yaking and actually prove it. Post some videos of exactly what your trying to preach. Words mean absolutely nothing. I play a zerker ranger, I can easily 1v1 or 1v2 any thieves, must be true right? I said so, so it must be true..

Post some videos of yourself getting countered in real-time play. Give some commentary while your at it. Don’t tell us to look ourselves, because from what I’ve seen, there isn’t any, so start proving your points, or exit stage left.

King Amadaeus.8619:

• I will say it again*

Why do we think it is fair/balanced for 10 people to be able to hit me simultaneously, whilst I can only hit 5 of that 10? How is that right?

If you want an “offensive AoE cap”, then shouldn’t you have a defensive one to offset it? (Meaning I could only be hit by 5 people at maximum at once)

No we shouldn’t. Why increase server load to handle the defensive buff (in an offensive minded game), when the simplest, easiest, and quickest solution (not to mention the best defense) is to just split the zerg up?

We already know that a rain of arrowcarts does not cause skill lag, so they certainly have the capabilities of treating players AoE like their siege.

I havn’t leveled all classes yet, so I’ll just give examples on how it can be done with the ones i’m familiar with:

Ranger: As I mentioned above.

The subsequent piercing arrow does not trigger splash damage, just the initial hit which triggers damage to 5 neighboring targets perhaps in a radius of 300 (up from barrage’s 240)

Elementalist:

Convert meteor shower into a single target direct hit that say explodes and causes splash damage to neighboring targets in a 400 radius (up from the meteors 360)

Warrior: Auto attack and HB

1 target takes the brunt of the damage while neighboring targets take a percentage. Because their melee, make the base % higher (like 75%). Then can be traited to hit 10 targets and perhaps even exceed 100% of the initial hit.

Same thing with PbAoe, 1 target takes the brunt, while neighboring takes a %. Then if traited, can hit more targets with a higher %.

The key to all this is the cooldowns. Reduce the cooldowns on those particular skills so their damage remains similar to what we have now. I cant remember offhand what the Rangers barrage is, but I believe it’s 30s with no traits. Maybe the new fragmented arrow would have to be reduced to 10s to keep the damage in check. This is where Anet would have to play with the numbers to find the sweet spot.

The question is, turning these attacks into a direct % of the initial hit.. would it be less “calculation heavy”

Not sure if this may work (perhaps Anet could clarify), but removing all actual AoE attacks and replacing them with a single target attack that either splashes or fragments to hit neighboring targets.

The splash or fragmented hit could just ignore defense and hit for 50% of the initial hit. Then maybe increase the amount of targets it can hit to say 10 (or have traits that increase both the target amount and % of damage is inflicted).

I play a ranger so I’ll use Barrage as an example – Remove barrage and replace with a fragmented arrow:

Fragmented Arrow: Fire an arrow that does “x” amount of damage then splits to hit 5 additional targets for 50% damage crippling the targets. The cool down would have to be lower to be on par with the potential damage barrage provided.

Initial hit say crits for 4500 damage; 5 neighboring targets take 2250 damage, simple as that. Perhaps these “new” AoE attacks can be traited to increase the amount of targets hit (up to 10), as well as traited for higher splash damage.

Change the rest of the classes AoE to react the same way. To me, this would seem less calculation heavy, while still (hopefully) maintaining a steady stream of damage, with the possibility of hitting more targets like many would like.

Now, could this work..

Norr.7680:

And after all that Omega Zerg it got them what?

NOTHING

repel, repel, repel, repel LOL

I find this funny too, because SoR is very lucky Anet has kept the rally/downed state in place. If they ever decide to remove it, a certain server may find themselves way down the rankings :P I’ve never seen any server’s front line drop like theirs does lol.

Dawdler.8521:

The AoE cap is a very good thing. Without it, ranged AoE would completely dominate. Just look at the arrowcarts. Does anybody actually like them? Nobody like them. Running mobile arrowcart builds would be the new meta. Just pump AoE into everything. Its already a complete mess if you’ve seen a 50v50 engagement, but at least its an epic mess in terms of combat behaviour. Without an AoE cap it’d be pop oh everybody is dead. Great fun!

Not to mention if you think lag is bad now, the game will be unplayable without the AoE cap.

Thats why the zergs would have to break up, so that’s why the AoE cap needs to be lifted.

Treat the AoE calculations however their siege calculations are done, problem solved. I have yet to see a mass arrowcarting cause any lag, so we know full well if our AoE was treated the same way, it would cause more problem.. It may actually even fix the current skill lag.

Aside from that, it’d create even a greater problem.. Retaliation would wipe the AoE’ers out in the blink of an eye.

Arrowcarts have a 50 person cap.. same with cannons. I assume catapults, trebs, and mortars also follow the same concept as well…

So the technical limitations argument doesn’t fly… why? Have all characters AoE operate in the exact same way as siege does. I’m assuming siege weapons are light on the calculations side and/or already have set values.. I’m not exactly sure. Either way, treat players AoE like siege.

Granted, until retaliation is fixed, having player AoE cap of 50 would be overkill suicide lol.

Put it this way.. it would be the last thing i’d ever put points into. Even if it was the last thing.. Anet will probably introduce a new masteries anyway that are better. So with that, i’ll probably never put points into it.

Made that mistake once before… thankfully they had the free reset. It needs to be drastically reduced and increased to a minimum of 20 supply.

Wow, that is actually a good point for debuffing zergs, and the perfect counter to what I suggested a month ago lol. There will always be people around to grief, which in turn would be more than happy to debuff a zerg lol.

The thing is, the only way to stop zerg play (which Anet doesn’t even want to do), is to give zergs a reason to not form in masses.. Now how do we do that? Perhaps to disallow loot or any kind of gold/karma/xp for objectives met if say more than 30 people are in a given area?

Realistically, the ultimate solution is to just spread the population out across the servers. It really doesn’t make sense that 2 servers have enough coverage to que all maps 24/7, another 2 that are close too it, and another that can half the week. Then leaving others that whenever they join, are always outmanned.

Long term solution? Spread the population out amongst all servers so they are even. Then, you’d probably be hard pressed to find zergs in excess of 30-40 people.

Maskaganda.2043:

yes, please make it so people can spam mindless aoe some more.

In all fairness, the AoE is there for a reason. It’s not meant to be some pretty little picture taking up space on your skill bar; it’s to be used. The problem (like the OP is saying) is one meteor shower or grenade can kill them off. That is not spamming.

Is this a problem? It’s a huge problem, it’s only a matter of time until it gets fixed.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

They dont care. It’s clear they have no interest in WvW. I have no idea why they added it in the first place when its constantly being ignored everywhere else gets new content except WvW…

This to me is the biggest issue. I can’t stand the lag, but I don’t mind spamming 1 because I’ve built my character to do big direct damage. What gets to me though is I can’t heal.

I’ve contemplated traiting into complete beastmastery and regeneration and just stand there while my pet does all the work. At least then I would probably stay alive.

GrandmaFunk.3052:

falolout.2376:

To our chagrin, Anet keep patching WvW with more masteries. If anyone hasn’t already noticed, higher tier servers tend to have higher ranked WvW players. This means that higher tier servers have more opportunity to obtain these new masteries.

Let me stop you right there since your entire premise is false.

every single player in the game has the same opportunity to obtain wxp, and therefor new world abilities(ie: masteries).

there’s no correlation between a server’s rank and a player’s rank

There actually is.

I’ve jumped many servers, and I can tell you without a shadow of a doubt that higher ranked servers (on average) have higher ranked players. Higher ranked servers dont have the casual player base like lower ones do, and therefore play much more giving them a higher rank. Like the OP is mentioning, more access to the higher end abilities.

“the bigger the zerg, the more likely it is you don’t get to tag something before it dies and the more likely it is that the opposing zerg kills you before you get any wxp at all.
this is just one of many silly preconceptions players have about the differences between tiers.”

This is also untrue; in T1-T2, its not uncommon for me to tag 10 targets off a single barrage. As people die, more people get caught in AoE. Couple this with the fact that often the enemies can’t always pay attention to whats coming from the back or they will get flattened in the front.

Take this for example.. as a berserker ranger, I think it took me 7 weeks to gain 120 ranks in WvW sitting in T2, playing on average of 2hrs per day in WvW. I could not duplicate that pace in lower tiers.

hammer.9721:

DeadlySynz.3471:

Liquid.9672:

DeadlySynz.3471:

Anet could solve the point differential made by overwhelming SEA numbers is to just turn of the PPT during the overnight hours. Or at least the overnight hours native to that area. Basically when people should generally be sleeping, the points don’t tick..

Would that make people happy? How might the results look then?

The intent of you post seems honest so I think it deserves an honest response.

The fact is, this game is available to be purchased and played by just about anyone in the world, and because of this, Anet cannot lock out content to the prime play times of one specific region. When a player in North America is usually sleeping, a player in Australia just got home from work, ate dinner, and is ready for some WvW. Not to mention there are people who may work a grave shift, and play during work/school hours for many.

I don’t mean the content is being locked out, it means everything remains the same. Players can do whatever they want, cap everything, siege everything all to high kitten. Fight small groups, zergs, get loot bags, karma, gold, etc.. The only difference, that ticker on the top of the screen reads “0”. That’s the only change.

I would presume, or at least I’d hope those who are in T1 (and who transferred here) are here for the fights, not the PPT. If they’re here for the PPT, they are probably in the wrong Tier. Many other tiers that can be transferred to, to rack up the PPT if they so choose. From what I understand, the general consensus was those who are here, are here for the fights because there are lots of them. If this is the case, then most should not be against shutting down the tick during off hours.

The idea has been kicked around 2-3 weeks ago and did have overwhelming support. Perhaps in the past it didn’t, but now (from what I’ve seen), it does.

Personally, I could care less either way. I don’t measure success or fun by how fast our zerg can run back to a base to defend it, or how our numbers overwhelm the opposition or vice versa during off hours. I measure it by even numbers attack and defending while I’m in the fray lol.

Sea players had no place to go when the game launched but EU players did but you just want to lock out sea for some reason.Also in Na people work around the clock on different shifts so why should their playtime be less valuable than others.

There really isnt nothing anet can do with how screwed up wvw is right now so i wish they would just put in 20v20 battlegrounds already and i would never step foot in wvw again.

Their play time wouldn’t be less valuable than others. I’d say capturing whatever you can, upgrading it, and filling it full of siege for the next group is a lot more valuable than you think.

Before the prime timers log, they try and leave the SEA crowd something to work with, so they can concentrate on offense. Vice versa, the SEA crowd should be leaving as much as they can for the next group to come on.

The PPT is basically a by-product of whats going on and doesn’t need to be ticking during the off hours. It’s not a measure of skill nor a reflection of a servers capability to have large amounts of people playing from different time zones.

People need to ask themselves these 2 things:

1) If Anet does decide to shut off PPT during the off hours, what are the SEA people going to do who have the capability to play during a time slot where it ticks? Do they swap severs? Could this be a possible answer to server population mismatches? For Anet, the quickest and easiest solution to many blowout matches is to just turn off the PPT during off hours.

2) How exactly would T1 look if the PPT was shut off during off hours? On reset night, it was pretty much dead even up until people started logging off. It was close, it was fun (minus the skill lag of course). I can’t speak for others, but I think people have more fun in close matches than they do during the extreme blow out matches that we see.

There is lots of chest thumping going on in this thread (which is fine), but there isn’t much to chest thump about unless your talking about even numbers at all times. This is especially true in cases where those who are outnumbered, still continue to beat the larger zergs.

Twinbros.5372:

To be honest I’m kinda surprised BG and SoR are trying to recruit more people to their servers. Fights with yall suck (purely from a lag perspective) and I much more enjoy our battles with JQ and FA (even though JQ can get a lil bloby at times too) where skills don’t take a few seconds to go off. Adding more bodies to your megablobs would only make fights with you two more unbearable lol.

In the past I’ve considered moving to BG because I wanted to be in “tier 1”, but now that I got a taste of what the fights are like noooo thank you. I’m happy with TC and not having giant blob masses clashing. We get a few good numbers now and then, but the majority of our teams are pretty tame and don’t cause massive skill lags.

If I were on BG or SoR I’d be trying to transfer out rather than recruit >.<

I concur with this as well. I mean, I don’t understand why anybody would knowingly transfer to either of those servers knowing full well the fights are basically a “spam 1” fest as nothing else will probably work.

I’m curious about que times though for SoR and BG (if any of you can answer), how long do you guys wait on average to get in during NA prime time? On TC, I think the max (not counting reset night), time i’ve had to wait was 20-30 min for EB, and about 15-20 for any of the borderlands. Usually I don’t have a que for the borderlands, and EB on average is about 5 min.

Liquid.9672:

DeadlySynz.3471:

Anet could solve the point differential made by overwhelming SEA numbers is to just turn of the PPT during the overnight hours. Or at least the overnight hours native to that area. Basically when people should generally be sleeping, the points don’t tick..

Would that make people happy? How might the results look then?

The intent of you post seems honest so I think it deserves an honest response.

The fact is, this game is available to be purchased and played by just about anyone in the world, and because of this, Anet cannot lock out content to the prime play times of one specific region. When a player in North America is usually sleeping, a player in Australia just got home from work, ate dinner, and is ready for some WvW. Not to mention there are people who may work a grave shift, and play during work/school hours for many.

I don’t mean the content is being locked out, it means everything remains the same. Players can do whatever they want, cap everything, siege everything all to high kitten. Fight small groups, zergs, get loot bags, karma, gold, etc.. The only difference, that ticker on the top of the screen reads “0”. That’s the only change.

I would presume, or at least I’d hope those who are in T1 (and who transferred here) are here for the fights, not the PPT. If they’re here for the PPT, they are probably in the wrong Tier. Many other tiers that can be transferred to, to rack up the PPT if they so choose. From what I understand, the general consensus was those who are here, are here for the fights because there are lots of them. If this is the case, then most should not be against shutting down the tick during off hours.

The idea has been kicked around 2-3 weeks ago and did have overwhelming support. Perhaps in the past it didn’t, but now (from what I’ve seen), it does.

Personally, I could care less either way. I don’t measure success or fun by how fast our zerg can run back to a base to defend it, or how our numbers overwhelm the opposition or vice versa during off hours. I measure it by even numbers attack and defending while I’m in the fray lol.

I like the idea, but as sykkoB said, it probably won’t solve the issue. Sadly, I think the first step is Anet needs to look at all the guilds who transferred in the past 4 months, refund their gems and send them back to their previous servers. Then lock the top 6 servers down from being transferred to. From their, open up free transfers to the lower tiers..

Anet could solve the point differential made by overwhelming SEA numbers is to just turn of the PPT during the overnight hours. Or at least the overnight hours native to that area. Basically when people should generally be sleeping, the points don’t tick..

Would that make people happy? How might the results look then?

That’s the idea! WvW is just that, everything within the world, which includes NPC’s. Except the NPC’s currently in WvW are more like cannon fodder. This is why I suggest having them play more of a role than they do now.. an extra element if you will.

Much like events in the world scale with the amount of people in the area; why not have NPC’s attack bases (like mercenaries). The more people on the map, the more frequent the attacks occur and in larger numbers which would require actual player defense. This is where the strategy comes in, which can also greatly help players that are lacking numbers, if they are smart about it

It works out well for servers with both large and small WvW populations. The large servers have something to do in the “off” hours when their opponents might be non-existent. Those who are overwhelmed have more support from the NPC’s.

I can’t really see a downside to this, other than “I don’t want PvE in my WvW”. That’s what sPvP is for. World vs World should include anything and everything you’d find in “server worlds”

I know this has been mentioned before and the idea has been kicked around here and there. The idea of towers, keeps, and SM periodically becoming neutral as to force players to re-capture their bases. I kind of like the idea, but at the same time, I think it needs a little tweaking to make it viable and interesting.

Suppose all the above bases suffered some sort of internal revolt or a culling attack of a horde of NPC’s. If they are successful in overthrowing the structure, it becomes neutral. Of course, the only way to prevent this is to ward them off. It’s widely agreed that the current NPCs in and around the structures are a joke and easy to take down with even a small group, so lets change that…

Before I continue, I’d say make servers that are outmanned, abstained from having this happen to any of their structures. The more people on the map (from their server), the more frequent these attacks occur against their structures. Multiple structures could be attacked at the same time. The NPC’s also can rally, revive, and heal one another, so with that, these NPC’s need to be made so they can be CC’d from all types. OK, to begin:

Towers:

Suppose a group of champs and 1 legendary cull in to randomly attack a tower. They may or may not drop siege. I think most would agree that siegrazer is a bit of a pain even for small groups, so why not have a half dozen champs with similar power, attack, along with legendary. Enough that the towers siege will be pretty much ineffective, and the zerg will have to come back to help out.

Keeps & Garrisons:

Same as towers, but larger (and more) groups attack. Perhaps keeps get attacked from 2 different points.

Stonemist:

Again, same as the above 2, except the groups of champs/legendaries are now even larger and attack Stonemist from 3 different points.

Why I think this will work:

- Servers have something to do against outmanned ones during off hours
- Zergs will probably be forced to be break up (if they want to keep their bases)
- Skill lag will work to the NPC’s advantage (don’t blob around)
- Servers lacking numbers essentially have allies on the map causing havoc
- 2v1 could get broken up (as much as I like the strategy, many do not)
- New strategies involved to deal with the threats, as well as, ninja’ing
- Works for both who like PvE and WvW. Could draw more people to WvW
- Less populated servers could see a surge in WvW population
- Works for the people who like to defend, as well as, those who like to flip bases

That’s the idea in a nutshell

TL;DR – Have groups of Champ/Legedary NPC’s attack all structures now to add a new effect to WvW

Well it’s been 7 months since this topic was made and most will agree the pets are not only useless but a liability in both dungeons and WvW.

Dungeons: Either being 1 shot by bosses or being pulled out of combat continuously to avoid death, either way, 40% of your dps is lost (name another class with that handicap)

WvW: Self explanatory; pets cannot go into zergs, and the ranged pets continually miss (unless your target is standing still which rarely happens)

Trait into Beastmastery you say? Sure if you want to catastrophically hurt your class in WvW. No matter how good somebody is, or how much they like to solo/roam in WvW, that build’s capabilities is completely inferior to what’s available.

My pet attacks have never broken stealth. Then again, maybe my pet is dead before it reaches the target or they just continually miss? Both separate problems in itself if that’s the case.

Things I would change though: re-instate barrage’s damage to where it was before.. there was no reason to nerf it to begin with.

I think this is a pretty good even match-up so far. I dont know though.. how BG and SoR put up with this skill lag on a regular basis.. it’s enough to drive me insane lol.

Make the ability for downed state to even occur a grandmaster trait. Force players who want it to have to spec for it. Everybody is happy then.

Hmm that’s a tough one.. if were going to take into consideration a class that is both great at solo or zergs, possibly ranger. Their solo abilities are well known, but if spec’d properly, they can do both heavy damage to zergs as well as offer great healing to allies.

If your looking at strictly zerg combat, then guardian is probably a close winner

I suppose it depends on how your playing exactly.. if your a solo/roamer small group player, then don’t expect be hitting those achievements anytime soon. On the flip side, if your on a lower ranked server that may not see enough battles for those achievements to be humanly possible.

Myself, I’ve got about 12K kills in 7 weeks (playing on average of 2-3hrs a night in WvW. I only started 7 weeks ago, spent about 1 week on a lower ranked server, then migrated over to TC after that. Then again, i’ve also built my class as a heavy damage support for zergs, so you don’t find me roaming.

If your seriously trying to tackle achievements and are following that small group / solo roam build, perhaps it’s time to change that

The downed state/rally mechanic is neither interesting, strategic, or skillful. It takes no effort to blob around in a zerg, tag a few things, then have a bunch of possible rally options. Those of you who think it requires skill or strategy to hit a few targets from a group of 30+ are only fooling yourselves.

What some fail to realize is that there are enough things going on in a fight where simply sauntering over to your downed target to stomp them is rarely a consideration. More often than not, a downed target will rally unless at least 2-3 people are focused on them to finish them off, even a glass target. This shouldn’t be the case This is where larger numbers play a huge roll, no matter how bad they are.

Case and point, I play a full glass ranger, I should be an easy target for any 1v1 or small group situation correct? When our server faced SoR, I ended up in a 5v1 situation behind the main zerg battle and ended up downing all 5 of them (and killing 2) before some of the zerg came back to finish off the other 3. Why did I survive while they met their demise? I rallied 3 times in that encounter, because I did something apparently so skillful and strategic according to some people….

I dropped barrage on the front line (like I always do) shortly before the 5 engaged me.. Highly skillful and strategic right???…. This is a prime example as to why it shouldn’t be in WvW.. there is no way I should have survived that.

If rallying/downed state is to stay, then it should be made into a grandmaster trait. Make players build their class around it if they insist on having it.

Blackgate doesn’t need anybody; don’t further the problem of stacking servers by going to any T1 server. These are the types of things Anet has to put a stop to.

With that said, from your list, Dragonbrand would be the go to server. If your looking for a thriving WvW community, then TC, DB, or FA would be a good fit.

Well you do have a point OP, if small groups are to be encouraged, something drastically needs to change in regards to rallying. My preference, removed downed state completely as I feel it has no place in WvW. The rankings would be completely shook up if they did this.

With that said, I don’t see them removing downed state or rallying, but there are things I think they could do to make it so it’s not so abused:

- Stick a debuff on those who’ve rallied or been revived that gives a 75% reduction in all stats for 1 min and only revives with 25% hp. Reduce all healing effects by 75%.
- Give the person who caused the down increased stomp speed and stability

-Stealth + Stomp
-Stealth + Reliably get off barrage
-Stealth + Reliably get off entangle or maximize entangle
-Stealth + Maximize rapid fire (deadly with piercing shot)
-Point blank shot + Wolf’s Knock down + stealth = one frustrated enemy

If your relying on vulnerability in PvE, your doing something wrong. Most mobs are long dead before it’s even a thought. In dungeons, it’s not difficult to keep vulnerability up to begin with, so hunter’s shot was next to useless. The amount of scenario’s the old set up was beneficial was few and far between compared to this new option.

I dont know, I personally felt the vulnerability on hunter’s shot was next to useless.. far better on rapid fire. Though I don’t think it belongs on rapid fire, but more so on our auto-shot. At least were getting closer to that #1 key.

I don’t believe Anet would implement something like this, but at the same time, I don’t understand why it wasn’t implemented in the first place. It’s a currency like any other.

Haltair.3062:

Kam.8109:

I play a ranger and no, I don’t go glass cannon. In order to beat a thief I have to be specifically set up for them, and sorry, I don’t WvW to 1v1 so I’m not going to run an anti-thief build 24/7. With my usual setup if I run into one I can survive and get away, but never beat them.

The problem with thieves is after you can deal with their damage they simply outlast you. They’ll be bouncing in and out of combat, forcing their opponent to retarget them every few seconds, buying them all the time they need to their heal to come off cooldown.

The problem with having a class whose “thing” is that they’re strong in 1v1 situations is that they’re the only class that’s designed with that mentality. I mean really, out of 8 classes they’re the only one designed to kill people? What do the other classes do? Even with a class system as varied as GW2 there’s only so many roles out there. How come this is the only one designed for 1v1 fights?

This forum is rife with people complaining about zerging. Thieves are a huge reason you don’t see more roamers. I’m not saying a huge catastrophic nerf that breaks the class, they just need to be toned down a bit so that other classes can stand a chance of not just surviving a thief but beating one.

I play a p/p thief and no, I don’t go glass cannon. In order to beat a guardian I have to be specifically set up for them, and sorry, I don’t WvW to 1v1 so I’m not going to run an anti-guardian build 24/7. With my usual setup if I run into one I can survive and get away, but never beat them….
I’m not saying a huge catastrophic nerf that breaks the guardian class, they just need to be toned down a bit so that other classes can stand a chance…

Best,

Haltair, one of the twelve shadows

Guardians are made to have a use in group play, thieves don’t have that same use.

If you cannot beat a guardian, then your doing something wrong. I’m a terrible thief compared to others, and I have no problem taking one down. As I described in another post, most thief players are just all around bad players, so perhaps this is a prime example?

LilMcGinley.3890:

Mif.3471:

LilMcGinley.3890:

All is fair in love and war.

No, it’s called match manipulation, and it’s against the user agreement.

22. While participating in Plaver-vs-Player (PvP) gameplay, you will not participate in any form of match manipulation. Match manipulation is defined as any action taken to fix or manipulate the outcome of a match or alter or manipulate the rankings or ratings of the ladder.

PvP = sPvP. That means throwing matches to raise someone else’s rating on the Leaderboard and has no merit in WvW as you don’t have ratings or a ladder. And wasting supply has no direct relation to winning or losing a match.

There are ratings… and yes supply or control, or access to it does have direct relation to losing a match.

You take 3 evenly matched servers, give 2 of them access to supply, while the other one has no supply.. take a guess where they’ll end up. Unless your aware of some super ability that no one else is aware of that allows players to take down walls and gates of heavily siege’d up structures requiring no supply…

Then again, I’d say 9 times out of 10 where we see this type of thing going on.. it’s to grief or they are just plain bored. The vast majority of the time, I highly doubt it’s to try and give the other servers an advantage.

Straegen.2938:

I don’t disagree with the sentiment but I think ANet needs to find a solution that encourages players to distribute populations beyond limitations in their engine.

One would think the ridiculous que times and skill lag would be reason enough to distribute themselves to lower servers. Then again, one would think (knowing full well what the top servers were like), that whole guilds would know better not to transfer to them..

I suppose it’s best to ask these guilds exactly what was going on in their heads at the time they decided to transfer to one of the top 3 servers. You know what they are like.. there have been continuous threads in regards to the skill lag and que times.. sooooo.. why on earth would they move there as opposed to a lower server?

As Zickory said.. we don’t even know if this is a population issue. There was skill lag tonight in a small group battle. The thing is, this had not happened before on reset night when there were 300 players on the map.

I do know the lower servers do not suffer the same problems as the higher servers so population is a factor, but I don’t think it’s the whole factor

I laugh at the people who honestly think those stealth traps were built to counter a thief. Does this same rational apply to AC’s and their toxic shot with revealing stealth? Come on now, do you really think Anet added something that costs 15 badges, 500 karma, and 10 supply was meant to counter a thief? Do you think Anet specifically added that 5th AC mastery ability for 75 world ability points to counter a thief?

Neither of these were meant to counter a thief, though they can technically be used as such. You can also technically swim across the ocean if you wanted to, but it really isn’t an effective measure to reach the other side. One is far more effective at revealing whole zergs that are veiled, and the other seems it was made to stop groups from mass/veil reviving.

Then you have to ask yourself this; what other class/build exactly requires a chunk of badges, karma, and supply to stop? What other class requires a mastery of some sort that requires 75 ability points? Stop and think about that one for a second before even considering that either the stealth trap or toxic shot was meant as a counter to a thief..

If your built for 1v1 or small group play, thieves shouldn’t be a problem. The problem is, if your built for 1v1 or small group play in WvW, your not only hurting yourself but your server’s chances as well.

Basically a catch 22; do you play the selfishly or not. Unfortunately for thieves, if they try to spec themselves in anything outside of stealth/roam/1v1, they are just an all around bad class, even in the hands of great players. Anet built them this way unfortunately, and they don’t seem inclined to change it just yet.

Just know this, if you come across a stealthed/roaming thief in WvW, all they are doing is kittening their own server over with that style of play instead of actually attempting to help them out. Contesting waypoints makes little to no difference. Ambushes are next to impossible as most people tend to travel in packs. When you roam alone, you almost always get run over by a larger group.

Anet basically needs to rebuild the thief class from the ground up, as right now they are pretty much an EZ mode class for bad players. A bad player can be godlike with a thief, and such, most thief players are just all around bad players to begin with.

When you compare similar types of trinkets together between ascended and exotic, the numbers are tiny.

Berserker exotic amulet / exquisite ruby Jewel = 115 Power, 79 Precision, 8% crit damage
Ascended equivalent = 126 Power, 85 Precision, 9% crit damage.

Add in whatever +10 infusion.. and you get the drift.

In sPvP battles where players are using the same class with the same type of build and are equal skill levels, it may make a difference. In PvE it won’t be noticeable. In WvW, it comes down to bigger numbers and who gets the jump on who first.

Granted I’m sitting on 160+ laurels I think.. I figure I’d wait to see if actual armor will be available for them if the skins look better.

Dual.8953:

XII.9401:

Dual.8953:

Jscull.2514:

EZ mode class- allows bad players to feel like they can compete.

Put the same player on a warrior/guardian, and see how good they are in open field without stealth. TERRIBLE.

Nice troll comparing Thief to Guardian (aka the most carried class in the game) give a Guardian a hammer and a staff and they will not die. I’m almost always the last man standing on my guard, because all I have to do when my low is hit staff 4 and I’m good as new. How’s that? I don’t even need stealth to reset the fight.

Mhmm if he was a troll then why didn’t you respond to his warrior comment? Oh wait..he’s right..

Oh really now? Wanna open that can of worms do ya? Okay I’ll bite.
Even though Warriors are bottom in TPvP, they’ve overall still got it better than theives, trumping even the Guardian in PvE, and being overall more useful in WvW. Name one role besides Solo roaming in WvW where thieves are actually wanted?
GW2 is a game for teamplay, and thief is always near the bottom in any team situation.
In fact, if you took solo roaming from thieves, they would be the bar none worst class in the game.
In any case, he invalidated his point by stating the number one most requested class across all modes isn’t easy mode. The class I’ve actually heard brag that they can afk fights. The class that’s welcome in almost every party in every mode. A class that I’ve played and never felt challenged in the slightest on. I mean seriously, of Guardians found a good roaming build, that’d be it, there’d be absolutely no reason to role any class other then a Guardian.

This is the problem, this is why their stealth abilities need to be drastically toned down while given more diverse builds that are actually useful. Thieves are basically pigeon-holed into this build, which in fact is the most OP build in the game across all classes, bar none. Do they really have a choice if they want to be somewhat effective in WvW? Not really. I’ve seen thieves try to operate in both team fights and zergs with minimal stealth and they are beyond terrible.

Anet’s fault for building them that way. They essentially need to be completely rebuilt from the ground up, much like the Ranger.