Guild Wars 2

I play an engineer main (warrior is my 2nd most played profession) and I agree that engineer hammer is overpowered at the moment. I rarely see engineers choosing rifle anymore and pistol/shield engis are all gone. Scrapper hammer engi is literally > core engi in spvp/WvWvW.

Warrior hammer still offers more CC than any other weapon set in the game, but engineer hammer just has too much goodies:

good DPS, might stacking, reflect, triple leap, whirl finisher, block, 1200 ranged AoE stun and lighting strike. Merely adding a 2 second CD to one of the skills is not enough. The triple leap needs to be changed to just 1 leap and several skills need 2-5 second CD increases or reduction of damage (utility + DPS at same is too much).

After these changes I think engi/warrior hammer would be in balance. Warrior hammer doesn’t need damage increase, since it offers so insane amount of CC. I don’t like that one weapon offers both insane amounts of CC + good DPS. You just can choose one.

But other warrior weapons are currently in sad state:
- warhorn (the numerous nerfs made it so weak, Arenanet should consider reverting the changes or at least make warhorn #5 more useful e.g. make it more offensive instead of just giving a short AoE weakness)
- off hand axe needs something more, maybe a reflect or evade for axe #5

I have a completely different wish list:

1. Make medkit #1 useful, make medkit #2-5 faster & less clunky
2. Make the siege rounds GM trait increase mortar #1 range to 180-240 to give it reasonable chance to proc projectile finisher from the mortar fields (now that happens way too rarely)
3. Make elixir gun #1-2 1200 range, like they used to be with rifled barrels trait. This would also give us 1200 range underwater weapon (currently engi is the only profession who doesn’t have 1200 range underwater)
4. Reduce CD of several gadgets to make them more competitive or give their toolbelt skills more utility. Currently slick shoes is the only gadget in meta.
5. Rework/buff underwhelming traits: Energy Amplifier, Medical Dispersion Field, advanced turrets, Automated Medical Response, Autodefense Bomb Dispenser, health insurance, Stimulant Supplier, Gadgeteer and Shrapnel.

Nerf top list:
Hammer has too much goodies on it, making almost every engineer select hammer. Hammer offers the best power based DPS, might stacking, reflection, evade, block, triple leap finisher, whirl finisher, ranged AoE stun and a lightning combo field.

Remove triple leap from rocket charge to just 1 leap, increase Electro-whirl cooldown to 10 s.

Tim.6450:

That’s so stupid, now the auto attack that can deal
up to 8.5 seconds of blind or
up to 17,25 seconds of weakness or
3 stacks of vulnerability for up to 17,25 seconds or
up to 5,25 seconds of SLOW or
up to 17,25 seconds of poison or
up to 5,25 seconds of chilled or
3 stacks of consusion for up to 5,25 seconds or
up to 1,75 seconds of FEAR or
up to 17,25 seconds of crippled or
3 stacks of bleed for up to 17,25 seconds
in a realistic pvp setup on top of it’s base effects
That’s broken.

This is just ridiculously overpowered for an auto attack.

Sigil and rune changes are good, but a lot of underused runes and sigils would need attention.

The amulet changes are really bad. This will delete a lot of builds from the game and lead to less diversity. Marauder was already the most common amulet with celestial. Now we will see probably even more marauder + mercenary amulet using blocking, evades, traits and boons as their defense, just like we have already witnessed with builds like the marauder scrapper hammer engineer.

I am strongly against this. I want more build diversity, not less. In worst cases I have been experiencing matches which have 6 dragonhunter guardians (3 DH on both sides). Having such extreme class stacking is detrimental to the spvp scene.

It is obvious that the new elite specilizations are indeed stronger than the core class. In fact I rarely ever seen an enemy mesmer without chronomancer, ranger without druid, necro without reaper or engineer without the hammer etc. But you can still win and sometimes even decide the match if you play a so called “inferior” build, if you know what you are doing. Hundreds of hours of experience on playing so called “bad” build > better build with less experience if you play at medium to low levels, like most of us do. I admit that at the very top, you are forced to use the best builds, since the margins are so small.

I am often playing myself old school sw+wh/lb warrior in ranked. Despite I always solo queue, I still have 59.26% win rate in ranked and over 60% win rate in leagues (this stat is now disabled, so I cannot check it). I don’t remember the last time I saw another warrior play such old school build. Sometimes I see other warriors, but they are all using greatsword and/or rifle. I hope Arenanet will soon do something about warrior sustain without forcing us to choose berserker, the base spec sustain should also be buffed. At the same time, scrapper engi sustain is too high compared to the damage it can dish out. Engineer is my main, but I don’t want the core engineer sustain to be nerfed (then it would reduce build diversity and forcing everybody to choose scrapper to be competent). The specializations brought the massive power creep, which now needs to be toned down across the board.

Josh Davis.6015:

Aside from skill adjustments, another way we can adjust balance in PvP is by looking at the runes/sigils/amulets that are available for use through the customization panel.

Well, currently the most popular spvp amulets are:
- marauder (power, precision, vitality, ferocity)
- celestial (all stats)
- viper (power, condi, precision, expertise)

In WvWvW soldier stats (PVT) have been dominant in zerging situations since 2012. In WvWvW roaming several condition combinations, like dire+perplexity, have been very prevalent, but they have never been allowed in spvp. In pve viper and berserker are the most sought after stats now. Celestial requires might stacking to give enough DPS, nerf might stacking and celestial is fine.

I would want Arenanet go back to their earlier system, where each amulet can embed a gem which can different set of ability scores attached to it, thus you can create a combinations e.g. berserker amulet with soldier gem, which would lead to similar results like marauder. I know this makes balancing more difficult, but allows greater flexibility. I use also combination of runes in WvWvW (e.g. 4 runes from set X and 2 from set Y), which is not possible in spvp.

Here are my suggestions to fine tune overused runes and sigils:

Superior Rune of Durability
- gives too much tankiness to otherwise fragile builds
- remove protection from 4th rune

Superior Rune of the Hoelbrak
- reduce might duration to 10% (from 30%), the -20% condition duration is extremely strong itself, making Melandru runes almost redudant

Superior Rune of the Strength
- reduce might duration to 30% (from 45%)

Superior Rune of the Krait
- remove torment and poison from 6th rune effect (activating elite)

Superior Rune of the Perplexity (missing from pvp, but extremely common and abused in WvWvW roaming)
- change 4th effect, next attack causes 3 stacks of confusion for 5 seconds, when using a heal skill, cooldown 30 s
- change 6th effect, gives only 3 stacks of confusion for 5 seconds when interrupting

Superior Sigil of Fire
- cannot trigger same time with other crit proc sigils, like sigil of air
- combined with sigil of air allows fairly durable builds hit extremely hard on crits

Superior Sigil of Air
- cannot trigger same time with other crit proc sigils, like sigil of fire

Superior Sigil of Doom
- give 4 second of poison (instead of 6)
- allows too long lasting poison

Superior Sigil of Energy
- give back 33% of endurance (instead of 50%)
- allows extra dodge on too low cooldown

Superior Sigil of Geomancy
- give 2 stacks of bleeding for 8 s (instead of 3 stacks for 10 s)
- current version allows too large AoE condition spam for very little

Superior Sigil of Intelligence
- gain fury on weapon swap for 5 s (cooldown 10), the current version allows 100% crit chance with zero investment to precision, which allows tanky builds to hit too hard

Some other sigils and runes, which are currently too weak, should be buffed slightly.

Examples of underused runes: Rune of the Citadel (drop bomb is kinda superficial, replace with something fitting to name of the rune, like -15% condi duration), Rune of the Speed (traveler and pack runes are better), Rune of the Rage (fury alone too weak). Rune of the Lyssa has been subject to multiple nerfs and it is rarely used. Give it minor buffs e.g. 2nd rune will give +10 % condition duration instead of current +5 %.

Examples of underused sigils: sigil of nullification (increase to 100% chance),
sigil of incapacitation (increase to 100% chance)

I could go on and I probably forgot many.

I hear you, Hap. And it was nice you were commanding short time on Deso BL this reset. Unfortunately no good fights, enemy outnumbers us greatly. Thus Desolation is no longer “very high” population server, but only “high”. The only “very high” servers in EU are: Baruch Bay, Jade Sea and Seafarer’s Rest.

The best thing Arenanet could do is give us the original maps back and revert many of the changes e.g. get rid of banners and auto upgrades (supply & human interaction should be required).

I simply don’t think that will happen. Instead they will be force feeding us that abomination called desert borderland and think that gimmicks like those banners make the game mode more “fun”. They think “let’s just give more time, players will adjust” and they are too blind to see that the player base is bleeding badly and many moved to other games.

Nope.

I still have 57.89 % win rate in ranked and 59.57% win rate in the leagues, despite I always solo queue and my 2nd most played profession still is warrior. I generally get matched against slightly higher division teams than mine and enemy often has 2-3 premades, while our team might be totally random.

Warrior currently lacks sustain, but if it is given much more sustain, some of its burst potential should be looked upon at. I don’t want warrior to be turned into “easy mode, I win”, like e.g. revenant currently is. Either you choose sustain or high burst or sustained damage, but you should not have both. The meta at the moment is bad, because certain builds have too much “goodies” at same time, the main offenders are: tempest ele, chrono mesmer, hammer scrapper engi and druid ranger. You can still outsmart them by playing for points, but you must acknowledge your weaknesses and not think you can 1 vs 1 win them all.

The proposed changes sound good.

Now if we could please have a real solo queue.

I have never even duo queued and the main reason why I don’t play more spvp is that I am sick and tired of having to play against partial premades (2-3 in same party in opposing team is typical).

Yesterday I did 3 warrior matches in ranked, 2 wins: 500-180, 363-500. The 3rd one was a narrow loss with a bit of bad timing on our side: 500-473. *Enemy was using meta builds and had a higher ranked team, so I actually gained a pip despite the loss in score.

Today my first game was 4 vs 5. Well at the end of the match (for last 30 secs) our 5th team mate joined the game to type “sorry disconnect”. Despite being matched against higher ranked team and 3-premade we won easily with 4 randoms. I rushed at start for mid, then circled around to see they have 4 there vs our 2. With full adre I rush in. I used rampage to stomp 3 of them. Securing mid at start is very important. Enemy team had 1 warrior but I won him easily in 1 vs 1 duel at their far. In fact duels against other warriors are generally the easiest to win as warrior. So we took full 3 point cap (risky with just 4). The next game was also win 326-500. I did yet another 3 player rampage stomp at mid.

Timing your rampages is crucial. Play a tanky warrior build, but know your limits. Warrior sustain, besides condi cleanse, is weaker to the top tier builds: chronobunker, scrapper engi, condi revenant or tempest ele. You have less blocks, protection and evades. You should know when to fight, when to run and most important hold those points sometimes even if means losing your life. IF you can hold 1 vs 3 long enough it is usually advantage for your team.

I always solo queue.

I attached a screenshot with the old school sword+warhorn/shoutbow build I am using.

Some verticality is needed as a completely flat map would only server well for guild-vs-guild (gvg). Eternal Battlegrounds has enough verticality and the old Alpine borderlands was balanced as well. The new Desert BL has way too excessive verticality and gimmicks in general.

I don’t think Points per Kills (PpK) is a good idea, because it is favors the side with larger numbers (it is far easier to score kills if you outnumber the enemy group) and it would make solo roaming even more harsh experience for those who don’t rely on stealth and/or teleports for escapes. Ideally WvWvW should cater many different play styles from solo roaming to full zone blobs. The new Borderland was supposed to make zergs to split, but in reality I haven’t seen that happen. When there is a lot of players the lag is worse than ever because of the central oasis event. We used more split team tactics in the old Alpine border. Now there is so few players that with just 2-4 players on the entire map on our side, that split team isn’t that effective, unless you talk about capturing camps (soloing a fully upgraded camp is still fast and easy).

Making PPK score higher related to the rank is a much worse idea. We have had already had more than enough commander focus firing/moa enemy commander. Now this would turn the game mode even more into a troll fest.

Points per Stomp (PpS) is better than PpK, because it requires you to stomp to score a point instead of spamming your auto attack and poison fields etc. at the downed enemies.

Serious side note: Both PpK and PpS can be abused.

I vote strongly against PpK and mildly against PpS.

EU or NA?

Here in EU we have a funny situation, EU rank 1 server has outnumbered “buff” on all 4 maps at same time (I took screen shots to prove it). And it doesn’t happen just once, it is on almost all the time, day after day.

On the positive side, there is rarely any queue, besides a possibly short queue to EB during EU prime time. The borderlands are dead, unless you count prime time where enemy servers have zone blob/zerg, which are player-vs-door (pvd) everything. Outside the busy hours the action is on EB and each side can muster around 20-30 players at best. Those who like roaming + small scale blobs actually might like this situation. At least there is 24h7 action in EU tiers 1 and 2, but it really shows the game mode is dying.

I would have thought that during Xmas vacations there would have been more players, but there isn’t.

Ins.7139:

WvW needs to be easy to get into, fairly easy to learn and compete but hard to master. That way a steady influx of players will keep the game mode active 24/7 instead of prime time. Over complicate or raise the skill bar for trying to compete and you alienate some of the population and thus people go play something more rewarding.

Exactly! ^^

WvWvW does NOT need more things to make it more complex. The new borderlands are less beginner friendly than the old Alpine map, which was more straightforward and easier to travel. We don’t need the shield generators nor more siege. We definitely don’t need more pve elements, like the shrines. We don’t need more choke points or places where to fall down to your death. We don’t need more gimmicks. WvWvW should be both casual friendly and easy to access by beginners yet at the same time offer indefinite challenge for the best. I know it is very hard game design choice to achieve.

What WvWvW has been lacking is:
1. balance (has been asked for countless of times)
2. rewards (why WvWvW rank up chests gives us green items and still experience points gained in WvWvW don’t count for any masteries or anything else)
3. server side optimization (fixing the lag)
4. recently also players. Having the outnumbered “buff” on us almost every single time I play is NOT funny anymore (that buff is pretty much useless when enemy scouts/babysits every possible objective with siege + superior numbers)

Now the best thing for Arenanet to do to revive WvWvW is very simple:
1. Change scoring so that taking objectives from the leading server (determined in real time) gives more points. This is far better than Points-per-Kills, which favors the side with the biggest blob/zerg and ganking.
2. Copy spvp reward tracks to WvWvW and make them so that just 2 hours of normal play will complete one track. Also each rank up chest should guarantee at least one rare. There should be more items, like ascended back piece, you can purchase with WvWvW related currencies + gold + laurels.
3. Reinstate the Alpine border instead of Desert BL.

The officially suggested changes (in another thread) are more or less harmful, besides the upgrade change (current auto pilot upgrade is bad).

Gliding would not solve the issues with the earth keep nor fix the issues that the keeps are simply too big. Gliding would also bring a lot of potential exploits, but aerial combat isn’t exactly the strong selling point of GW2. Why to waste so much energy and time trying to fix a map which is NOT fun to play in?

Just bring us the Alpine borderland back (with lake and everything).

Ouch. Super Mario 64 has much more views than Guild Wars 2 and Super Mario 64 was released in year 1996 for Nintendo 64.

My son is still playing and loving Super Mario 64 on original N64. And gamers of his age (5-10) love to view others playing good old Nintendo games (from 8-bit NES to N64). So there is demand for spectator sports if the game is fun enough, even if the game has relatively crappy graphics and is several decades old.

Revert the Maps to Alpine (original one with the lake, not ruins).

Lucifer.7289:

Community issues factor in why people are not playing the new borderlands. Most WvW players from 2014-present are mostly pve focused players. Let’s be honest none of you people want to break the mindless, non skill “zerg” meta.

Desert Borderlands promote splitting your brainless zerg into smaller groups in order to progress. Which means you have to use your brain and have knowledge of your class and how to react when outnumbered or in a smaller group fight vs being brainless sheep mashing your head on the keyboard in a large zerg.

Desert Borderlands would be great if certain features were re-worked, rest is up to the WvW community to learn to adapt. I hear all this BS from Wvw players on how competitive they are yet they refuse to adept and fight in non zerg environments, just shows how non competitive people in WVW really are.

This is dishonest and disrespectful towards the player base. Your analysis that majority of the 2014-present player base being pve oriented maybe holds true for your server, but not for servers like Desolation. I can see that the same old core players, which have been on Desolation (some might have been on other servers but came back) are still there, while some simply quit the game entirely (don’t play pve or spvp anymore either). I am talking about hard core gamers, who play for Points per Tick or do WvWvW zerging and roaming every single day. The only big difference is that most of the players now migrated to EBG, because that is the only map worth playing which remains. I personally used to play on home borderland before HoT. I very rarely commanded or played on EBG. Now I am a EBG player as there is simply way too little action on the borderlands.

The two EU servers which are probably best adapted to the new maps are Desolation and Baruch Bay. At Desolation we use split team tactics, at least when I am playing. Nevertheless it doesn’t change the fact that the new Desert borderland maps are unsuited for WvWvW and no small changes will fix this issue. The old maps made much more sense both defense and attack wise and it too less time from A to B, meaning faster paced overall, which is what most players like (the new maps are a bit slower to flip objectives and travel). The new keeps are way too big. The old Alpine borderlands had much more fun fights and epic defenses, even 3-way fights.

Most WvWvW players wanted a simple map, with no gimmicks and they asked for less pve. And more balanced match ups. What did Arenanet give us? More imbalanced match ups. More gimmicks, like turn yourself into fiery hound, become invisible in blowing sand or take no falling damage, more pve (all those shrines, which are very easy to solo, but so boring… sighs). Of course the core player base feels alienated.

Unless the original borderland comes back, WvWvW will remain to be half-dead. And the more time goes with the new borderland forced upon the players, the old players might never make a come back. Thus this forcing of the new map is one of the key reasons which is killing the game mode. This is way too little, way too late. Period.

Points per Kills (PPK) might actually lead to less fights as players might safely hide inside their towers and keeps or lead to more zerging since it is safer to be part of a large group than solo roam. In fact this change is seriously detrimental towards solo roaming without stealth or teleports. Does Arenanet really want to kill solo roaming for anything else than thieves, mesmers, stealth trappers and stealth gyro engineers? This change will also favor larger group over smaller ones. If you have 5 players and enemy has 20, what are you supposed to do?

I am sad and angry of Arenanet addressing the many other serious issues now plaguing WvWvW:
- rewards still suck compared to any other game mode. I have countless of times suggested copying spvp reward tracks to WvWvW and make them so that normal 2 hours of play would lead to a completion of 1 reward track. Also make WvWvW rank chests give a guaranteed rare and increase the rate of ascended drops, which happen now extremely rarely, like once per half a year!
- experience points gained in WvWvW don’t count for anything! Let players pool their exp for HoT or Tyria masteries!
- revenant hammer #2 (CoR) still needs to be toned down, general profession/specialization balance is bad for WvWvW. You can do these changes without affecting other game modes, in other words make WvWvW specific changes, which don’t affect pve or spvp.
- tons of bugs introduced by HoT (players hitting through the gates, keeps and towers being contested by pve creatures)
- reset night on Saturday is lacking players, Friday was much better time for reset
- the new Desert BL is NOT fun at all, Alpine BL was way superior

Time is ticking. Next Spring WvWvW will die.

Excellent original post.

I command and play on EU rank #1 server. Despite we are receiving new players, the total player base is slowly diminishing. There is rarely any queue to any map. Only Points per Tick (PpT) type of guilds and players remain. I can just imagine how dead WvWvW is on lower tier servers. Long gone are the days of epic borderland defenses and fights.

Sadly I don’t think Arenanet will listen. They will be forcing the remaining players play on the Desert borderlands with the existing upgrade system. Most players simply don’t like the new BL map and hate the central oasis event, which can make the entire map lag very badly.

Upgrading structures doesn’t require any human interaction (bad) and guild upgrades require massive pve grind (bad). You can still hit through the gates. Revenant hammer #2 (CoR) skill is still totally dominating the meta. Many objectives are still being contested by the guards attacking pve creatures around them. WvWvW rewards are still a bad joke. Experience Points (exp) in WvWvW doesn’t count for anything!

The positives with the HoT WvWvW were these:
- faster moving dolyaks
- sentries finally make sense
- synthesizer nodes (ya! you can do something while scouting inside a keep/tower besides refreshing siege)
- limiting condition duration foods to +/- 20% (but now the addition of 15 % boon duration + -10% damage received foods once again players overpowered food)

This is a step towards right direction.

Coalescence of Ruin needs more adjustment for WvWvW. It can hit like a truck (due traits triggering at same time) and through the tower/keep gates as well. There is a separate thread about it in the WvWvW subforums. CoR is generally considered the most overpowered skill in WvWvW and so many warriors etc. have rerolled into hammer revenants.

Please try to make similar small balance changes every week. We cannot wait till February 2016.

My humble suggestions for warrior:
- reduce the untraited cooldown of “To the Limit!” to 25 s (20 s traited CD), reduce the base heal by 10%, giving warrior a viable burst heal
- increase the base heal of shouts by 200
- revert warhorn nerfs (conditions converted to boons with quick breathing trait, warhorn #5 is weak now with reduced vigor, either revert that or give the skill lower CD)
- reduce out of combat adrenaline depletion rate by 33%

This would make support/bunker warrior a bit more viable again, yet not overpowered, like chronomancer mesmer or tempest auramancer ele are now. The adrenaline change would benefit any warrior build.

We have had too much power creep, so please do targeted nerfs.

Some traits since the June 2015 trait rework are still overpowered and some are underpowered, but the biggest offenders are the HoT elite specifications and revenants. Tone them down. If one weapon/skill does a lot of damage, it shouldn’t do lots of CC or utility at same time. At the same time some underused skills and traits could use a small buff (easiest is reduction of CD/ICD).

Warrior needs some added sustain, which could be easily done by reverting warhorn nerfs, adding 200 to shout base heal or reducing “To the Limit!” untraited cooldown to 25 seconds, giving warriors a sorely needed burst heal.

lorddavito.2395:

It’s quite simple why the warriors and thieves are out of place atm. If you’d watch any of the ESL / League matches you will notice it’s not about pure dps anymore. It’s about bunkering the kitten out of your enemy while every player has a role of SUPPORT, if not heal, then boon-wise. The only reason warriors and thieves are out of any meta team is because they do not give as many boons/heal as other classes can atm.

The damage is still viable and fine, it just lacks support and boons.

Exactly!

Some of the most blatant elite specs and revenants need to be toned down a bit. I hope Arenanet doesn’t buff warrior damage. Warrior has always been capable of some insane bursts and the sustained DPS is good enough. What warrior needs is some added sustain, not too much, but maybe around 10-20 %. Now even if you spec all the defensive traits + utilities, your warrior isn’t that much of a bunker compared to better options and that is a problem. The group utility is mainly just shouts + banners + warhorn. Shout base heal was nerfed in June 2015 trait rework. Warhorn has had multiple nerfs (less vigor, not converting conditions into boons anymore with quick breathing). Warhorn is weak at its current state, making almost all warriors drop it and choose shield instead. Shield is a selfish weapon with no group support.

I would want to see bunker and/or support warrior as one viable choice, not just see warrior as +1 role or burst + flee kind of bruiser.

I rarely play at night, because I have a full-time daily job, but last I had trouble falling asleep. I was in EBG all the time, since the borders were all more or less green (Desolation color). There was reasonable amount of action at night. At first we had just 5 guys around the commander when enemy had 20. It was actually nice time for solo roaming and trying to defend things vs bigger enemy groups.

Then Art from Deso Nightcrew [ROCK] tagged on and our group grew to 25+. We took everything on the maps, despite the enemy defense. I think enemy gave up, after Desolation started to tick well above +500. Our tick went to +690.

In other words if you want to enjoy almost no opposition from late night (4 am) to early morning (9 am), then Desolation is the server for you. I wish there would be more opposition. On the other hand Desolation prime time would really need 1-2 big fight/gvg oriented guild to challenge the opposition. Then we could perhaps have more interesting fights and gvgs on the borderland maps, instead of PuG blob clashes in EBG. I am more into the latter though, Hap commanding yesterday evening prime time in EBG was so much fun. His laughter is priceless.

Desolation has probably the best 24h7 coverage of all EU servers. But the fact is our prime time is weak. We often have outnumbered “buff” on us on 3/4 maps (usually the borderland maps) in prime time. We have several guilds raiding, but our 5-15 player guild teams cannot match the size of 20-30 man enemy teams. Almost all the gvg guilds left our server.

On the positive side you don’t have to worry about queues, besides the usual 1-15 player queue to EBG in the peak of prime time. Even during reset there is no more queues. 3 out of 4 maps is always without a queue. There is always action in Eternal Battlegrounds from earliest morning till noon, afternoon, till crazy night hours. Almost always PuG commanders to follow. The typical size of Desolation “zerg” in early morning till early afternoon is about 20 players plus few roamers around the same map. Most players are not from UK, but can understand/speak some English.

Jim Hunter.6821:

Deniara Devious.3948:

Merge the lowest servers with some medium population servers would do the smallest harm. What are the opinions of those players who will play on very low ranking servers, like Blacktide or Underworld?

The queues have been long gone. Even on EU tier 1 it is pretty empty. Desolation rarely has queue to any map and there is always 3/4 of maps without queue. Outside prime time you can maybe see 10-20 of us in EB plus similar amount of enemies and few players on all the borders.

There is no point in merging servers until they sort out all the bull kitten they introduced with HoT.
Merging servers without fixing the problems will just drive more people from the game.

You misunderstood me. I would also want WvWvW being reset to what it was, but I don’t think it is going to happen.

I still hope we would get the original Alpine borderland (with lake instead of ruins) back before it is too late. The player base is bleeding on every tier, even on EU rank #1 server.

Now Arenanet is probably thinking, “let’s give the Desert Borderland a few more years time for players to adopt to it”. They really don’t understand that the majority of players didn’t like the changes, Desert BL is simply way too different from the original maps and there is NO way to fix it as that would require complete redesign of the map. Also the automatic upgrades were a big bad change as it just encourages off-time capping and creates even more imbalanced matches. With the rest of the changes I am fine with. Actually the sentries now make more sense and it was a good change that consumables are limited to +/- 20% condition duration.

Merge the lowest servers with some medium population servers would do the smallest harm. What are the opinions of those players who will play on very low ranking servers, like Blacktide or Underworld?

The queues have been long gone. Even on EU tier 1 it is pretty empty. Desolation rarely has queue to any map and there is always 3/4 of maps without queue. Outside prime time you can maybe see 10-20 of us in EB plus similar amount of enemies and few players on all the borders.

Replacing WvWvW servers with alliances or megaservers is a bad idea.

Many players didn’t hop from server to another, but stick to their server through the bad times. The emotional ties are big, because you might have spent literally thousands hours and thousands of gold for your server. Nevertheless the we should discuss some server merges, because 27 servers is clearly too much for EU. Can any player on the lowest ranked servers comment how is the status now? Is the game dead outside few hours?

Agreed. The original post summarizes the specializations well.

This is the worst meta so far. Way too much burst, crazy condition stacks, while some specs have crazy amount of evades, blocks, invulnerability and/or crazy healing. Basically it is also pay-to-win, since all the top teams rely on revenant or the elite specifications, meaning that without HoT expansion you cannot have a highly competitive team build. Arenanet’s original statement was the elite speciazations would bring something different to the table, but not be more powerful than the original specilizations, but this simply isn’t true, except for warrior’s berserker (which doesn’t see much play outside gunflame/rifle one trick pony).

The trait change in June 2015 already was already a huge buff to some professions, like mesmer. I hope Arenanet will now tone down this power creep. It would also nice if they would slightly buff warrior sustain to make it viable support profession again, besides being hit-and-run bruiser.

Short answer:

Removal of servers and replacing them with guild/whatever alliances would be bad choice.

Many people have no idea how many thousands of hours and thousands of gold some people put into making their server community. Many enjoy the PuG side of game, no need to belong to any guild (except for guild upgrades/influence). Yet not PuG with huge bunch of people (EotM color division is too large “community”) but with the same players day after day. I would call it friendship, but friendship within the same server.

Ironvos.9014:

It would be so awesome that it will probably never happen.
But really WvW is terrible right now.
Playing with a vanilla character is downright suicide.

How is so?

I am still playing vanilla engineer, vanilla warrior etc. in WvWvW, even though I have full hero point unlock on these characters. I know scrapper > engi in roaming. But berserker is kinda pointless in WvWvW. Shout support warrior still makes sense in zerg settings in WvWvW.

I am very well aware that the new elite specifications and reventant are overpowered in spvp. The leagues don’t have any spvp top teams using vanilla specs. But in WvWvW it is more about group work, coordination, siege etc. than pure offensive power your character can output.

I would want the old original WvWvW maps back for all servers. Arenanet, please give us such Christmas present.

ArchonWing.9480:

So do I have you folks right on this?

• Wxp is a account bound system. It makes very little sense to soulbound it, because in theory you could play 90% of a level on characters you need masteries for you wanted to gain mastery for, but as long as you ding your level on a character that doesn’t, you won’t, which defeats the purpose of supposedly playing the character you want to gain masteries first. This already waters down the concept of so called character based progression.

• Laziness is a red herring because account bound or soulbound does not reduce the total amount of hero points required. If you have 8 characters, you’ll need 2000 hero points total regardless of what you do. Furthermore, due to how WvW works, you can’t just bring any alt onto the battlefield in any given time. It is irresponsible because unlike in open world, you double downing can greatly ruin a fight thanks to the rally mechanic. One good example is someone that wants to bring a druid in a big fight; a lot of commanders aren’t going to really appreciate you running with them as base ranger for long periods of time. If someone had wanted notaries to unlock a HP account wide, now that would be greed.

• As an aside, WvW has some of the worst rewards based system. There may be a perception that it also a rather bad place to gain masteries yet unlike pvp not having the masteries actually matters. Furthermore, it is still faster to go to Vedant brink and just do them there assuming you have some degree of Central Tyria mapped. Key word: opportunity cost and direct comparisons to pve cannot be considered fair.

• If your rebuttal consists of “go to pve”, then I think that is evidence that the system in World vs World is not very good. Workarounds are generally suggested to get around something that isn’t working properly.

That is an excellent summary. I would like to add one important thing:

Experience gained in WvWvW currently doesn’t account for anything. Maybe later Arenanet will add some WvWvW related masteries, but in the meanwhile it would be nice to direct experience gained in WvWvW to either Tyria or HoT masteries.

I know it doesn’t make sense, but the current mastery system doesn’t make sense either. How is killing spiders in HoT pve maps teach you gliding or Nuhoch Lore?

WvWvW definitely needs more incentives to play it, not less!

GROMIT.7829:

Only one server i see doing good out of this and this is a predictioni made months ago was Baruch Bay because of thier guilds running 15-20 men at all times in 1 or 2 groups and sometiems up to 4-5 groups which no server can competewith in terms of coverage, now they’ll be the first to admit at how terrible at fighting they are but because of the social dynamic within thier server they are rising to top spot.

Baruch Bay (BB) is rising up, but don’t underestimate Desolation. We might intentionally tank at some point to get more varied match ups, but current our strategy seems to work great point wise. There has been lack of competition and it is actually good to get real challenge. We often have very small teams: 1-3 players capturing everything from camps to towers and keeps. Surely so small groups cannot match BB’s 15-20 player groups and we will probably once again have outnumbered “buff” on 3/4 maps, but eventually they will log off.

Chaba.5410:

Serious question. How was it in GW1 with the expansion classes? The reason I ask is because I didn’t play as much GW1 and never bought the expansions but my sister did and I remember that the accounts mixed.

GW1 had better skill balance. Only when Eye of the North and Nightfall were released the game balance started to get a bit worse, but even then they managed to balance 1000+ skills better than GW2 is doing.

GW1 had better pvp game modes: proper guild-vs-guild, Team Arenas (sadly Arenanet deleted them), Random Arenas, Heroes’ Ascent, Alliance Battles etc.

GW2 has better pve.

This was a really bad and unneeded change. Now there is even less chances to defend a keep/StoneMist Castle. Previously you could at least tell in map chat “timer 45 seconds”, meaning that in 45 seconds the keep/SMC portal is open for about 3 seconds.

Truly stupid and sad change indeed. Luckily I have used proof heroics to 3 of main characters full masteries and guardian is 90%+ full.

This least needs more soul bound stuff. My expanded bank + bags are already full of this. This game needs easier way to play alts, not discourage playing your alts.

One important notice: experience points are still utterly useless in WvWvW. You cannot use them to unlock any masteries. Thus I have just 6 masteries so far, because I don’t enjoy pve much and I haven’t completed any of the new pve maps. I wish I could use my WvWvW earned experience for either Tyria or HoT masteries (designated by players or give some jugs of liquid exp).

I like the name Classic WvWvW. It perfectly summarizes what many players want. Almost every WvWvW player I know wants the original maps back. Some stopped playing because of drastic changes, which alienated the core gamers. Some only play in Eternal Battlegrounds, since that is the only remaining map, which offers gaming experience which is at least similar to the original experience.

For comparison: Counter-Strike (CS) was first released in 1999 as Half Life 2 mod. In over 15 years CS remained surprisingly faithful to the original and still gathers very wide gaming audience. I don’t even want to draw comparisons how many views CS:GO youtube videos and Twitch streams get compared to GW2 videos. Despite fierce competition in FPS genre, CS continues to be popular.

In over 15 years the gamers haven’t grown tired of the CS maps. Most of the new CS maps are not full of gimmicks, but follow the proven keep it simple stupid (KISS) formula of the original maps. I know there are several CS games: 1.6, source, Global Offensive, but nevertheless they play more or less the same. If Valve would have done Arenanet and replaced the beloved CS maps with a massive map, which is full of pve events (shrines, oasis), overbuffed NPCs and takes long time to find any enemies, I am sure CS would have lost major share of players and the rage would have been massive.

Arenanet has simply went too far with the new mechanics and maps they have released since launch in Autumn 2012. Bazaar of the Four Winds in July 2013. That was the 1st pve map with increased verticality and gimmick mechanics. Traversing was made into the primary challenge instead of defeating smarter and thougher enemies. Now HoT pve maps have both and I like the latter, but not the former. Since the Bazaaer map we have had lots of other maps with similar design: Dry Top (pve), Skyhammer (spvp), Edge of the Mists (“WvWvW”) and Heart of Thorns (pve) and the new Desert Borderlands (“WvWvW”).
Skyhammer, EotM and Desert BL have all met with lots of criticism from player. There was lots of good feedback from the Desert BL beta, but Arenanet developers chose to ignore those very valid concerns. Now there is no denying, the WvWvW player base has diminished.

I am playing Desolation, EU rank 1 server. You might think we are stacked to the brink. Last time when I was raiding prime time with my guild we had the outnumbered “buff” on us. Enemy server had much bigger blob (we had 13, enemy had around 40). We still managed to get some objectives. We changed to another borderland, once again outnumbered “buff”. Usually there is NO queue to any map. The EBG queue is often bugged. E.g. yesterday it showed “queue”, but when I clicked it, I got instantly in and we had (you can guess…) outnumbered “buff” in EBG. This is NOT a healthy situation. EU rank 1 should much more players. I can just barely imagine how empty the other EU servers are outside their busy hours.

Now almost every single new map seems to follow this formula:
- lots of verticality, very much 3D
- difficult to learn, difficult to traverse ( = horrible for newbies! recipe for shrinking player base!)
- emphasis on mini games (as if the game designers don’t think the main game is enough e.g. adventures on the HoT pve maps).

I am totally fine of some pve maps having these features, but Arenanet please do NOT force all gamers into just “one design”, which is very different from the original. One of the best game producers of Finland once told me a very good advice, which I tell to my game design students: “Often gamers want more of the same”. In other words, they don’t want drastically different content, but more and more similar content. This is true for all entertainment from films to music, games to books. That is why sequels are so profitable business. If you can make the sequels similar enough to the original you will be financially successful, despite some critics might complain “doesn’t add enough to the original formula” (what critics like and what sells is another story).

Yes. Reapers do have weaknesses: relatively slow projectiles at very long range (1200+) and low mobility.

But I still feel reaper does too much damage and chill application. In a group fight if you get immobilize or stun, gravedigger will eat you and the radius is large enough to cover most enemies at point.

Gravedigger has way too high dmg multiplier (3.0x ?) for a very low cooldown skill. Deathly chill is kinda okay GM trait. Damage per second from chill is at balance since chill doesn’t stack, but the chill duration from the build is simply too long.

Executioner’s Scythe does a bit too many things for one skill: high dmg, stun, chill, ice field.

PS. Comparing reaper vs revenant and auramancer tempest ele is not fruitful. Not everybody plays those two (overpowered) specs. Infact elementalist has one of the best condition removals in the game + diamond skin. I think both the common glint/shiro herald revenant + auramancer ele also need to be toned down. Right now some of the overpowered specs are so powerful that they have pushed otherwise valid builds out of the meta.

dgzsl.3568:

What do you mean by not enough people? Isn’t there Iron Triangle and RKO and Chronic Insanity and Thousand Lake Alliance(?) thingy? As far as I recall most of them has left to deso just to get easy zerg there

The Iron Triangle [IRON] is one of the original big guilds of Desolation. They left Desolation for some NA server considerable amount of time ago, but have come back already long time ago.

Thousand Lake Alliance [TLA] has been as long on Desolation as I remember. TLA never left Desolation, even when Desolation had difficult times.
TLA does “Worlds Fighting” (feat. Sharm) Guild Wars 2 Parody Song
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0RmvEVmLybs

RKO Legion [RKO] moved from SFR to Desolation.

Chronic Insanity [CI] is one of the most important PpT guilds of Desolation.

We have of course many other WvWvW guilds. Da Pa Train [PT] is probably the biggest community guild at the moment.

But still on many hours we have the outnumbered “buff” on multiple maps. Trust me, enemy often has more players on several maps. Desolation gets the EU #1 rank, because we have players on all time zones (by far the best coverage) and tons of PpT oriented players.

CrimsonNeonite.1048:

Deso is full of Community guilds, one GvG guild and the rest more casual or PPT guilds, who still believe in the competition, without any competition left.

There’s still no queues apart from EB, or depending on commander.

If you’re a pug who only wants to play casually, with no pressure to join a guild to improve, I guess it’s an okay place to be.

This is absolutely true. HoT + the collapse of SFR killed the competition. Just look at the current EU tier 1 match up. In less than 14 hours Desolation has almost 30k point lead.

Desolation has fairly weak prime time. We often have outnumbered “buff” on several maps at same time. It is just that Desolation is stacked with Points per Tick (PpT) type of players and guilds. On the positive side there is always action, always PuG commanders to follow and many of the PuG commanders are really great, even though Deso probably has the most stubborn PuGs in the world (rarely on tag, always love to skirmish). Thus Desolation is the ideal EU server if you want casual 24h7 action. And yes, Desolation is still “full”.

Short answer:

Auto upgrade system, which doesn’t require human interaction. This often leads to match ups where one server totally dominates because of off-time capturing. I play on Desolation, EU #1 server. We are completely dominating our match up, as we did the previous weeks as well.

Old Alpine BL map got replaced with overdesigned Desert BL map, which few players like and most hate it. Too much gimmicks and pve in it, too slow and complex to traverse with way too massive keeps. Much less fighting vs other human players, in fact you can play on BLs for long time without seeing any other human players. The central oasis event makes the entire map lag very badly and the mega laser is way too overpowered.

Capturing objectives is now slower due most objectives being fully upgraded and having more defenses and more powerful NPCs and lords. Things feel like slow motion compared to old & hectic WvWvW. And of course we got load of new bugs e.g. projectiles going through walls.

WvWvW guild upgrades were made ridiculously expensive, requiring guilds to grind crazy amount of pve. The WvWVW rewards are as bad as before.

Moving reset night to Saturday to was bad idea, at least for the EU servers.

I would pay $$$ to get the old WvWvW back. I mean revert all the changes and get the original maps back (without the ruins, the lake had so many fun fights).

I want Original Alpine borderland with lake + Eternal Battlegrounds.

Shelve and completely redesign the other maps.

Greatsword is already by far the most widely used warrior weapon. And main reason for this is forceful greatsword trait, which is by far the best weapon related trait. So overpowered that it is limiting warrior build diversity.

I would recommend first looking at underused weapon combinations and traits. I really don’t want to turn warriors into GS or nothing profession.

So basically if you haven’t bought the expansion, just don’t play at least not in the competitive level!?

All the old classes are using the new overpowered elite specs. GW2 has truly become pay to win and this will surely (and rightfully) aggravate a lot of players.

I have already posted in another similar thread (NA Pro League meta) that Arenanet should do something about warrior’s sustain. The nerfs to warhorn/shout base heal etc + lack of trait to give +20% boon duration really don’t feel justified in this current meta. NA Pro League at least had several thieves, but neither NA or EU Pro League has any warriors.

This is more than enough proof that the new elite specs are overpowered compared to the base classes. GW2 has truly become pay to win. Arenanet lives in a fantasy land if thinks serious gamers will consider this as eports, based on these statistics.

And also for the love of warriors, please do something for their sustain! Now we have zero warriors in the top. Warriors have access to tons of CC and potential for great burst, but the death of sustain warriors (mainly shoutbow completely out of meta) is a bad thing. If warrior selects all the defensive traits and utilities, it should be tanky as hell, but it isn’t and that is the biggest problem now. Shout base heal is a bit too weak, warhorn is weak at its current state. Warrior lacks a trait which can give it +20% boon duration (inspiring presense could do it). Berserker trait tree lacks defensive options. Forceful greatsword is still too overpowered trait, limiting warrior’s build diversity. Offhand axe is still kinda meh and rifle is one trick pony with berserker/gunflame.

The funny thing is: Despite Desolation is the ONLY server which is “full”, we often have the outnumbered “buff” on us. Both enemy servers have clearly bigger blobs and nowadays a “blob” often means 20-40 players.

Desolation is winning by a large margin, because our server is has the best coverage and we are stacked with Points-per-Tick (PpT) players. Of course we have commanders who just want to fight, but we surely have commanders and guilds who mainly play for points. I am one of them.

I personally hate the new borderlands, but it seems other servers hate them even more. Desolation seems to be the only server in EU which has adopted to the new borderlands. At least we got players to do those events and capture stuff. This + the coverage gives us the massive point lead.

During prime time Desolation can create a short queue to just 1 out of 4 maps. So this is what it means to be “full” in November 2015 in this game. Never a queue to all 4 maps.

Forceful greatsword has always been a problematic trait. Master level, giving both 20% cooldown reduction on gs/spear, but also might on crits with no internal cooldown is huge. I really don’t understand why Arenanet needed to add 10% unconditional buff to this, because overpowered traits like this limit build versatility. My suggestion: remove this 10% buff, but keep the trait otherwise as it is, since warriors are not in that good spot in meta.

Now everybody and their uncle is running GS. In spvp/wvwvw roaming GS/hammer is probably the most common warrior build. In pve GS has always been by far the most common weapon used by warriors.

In my opinion GS does not need any buffs at the moment. I know GS #5 (rush) is hit or miss, but the weapon offers both massive DPS, decent burst, lots of mobility, ranged cripple, evade, permanent fury (with arcing slice) and might stacking (with forceful greatsword). Instead I would hope Arenanet would look at other underused weapon related traits and warrior weapons.

Warrior has several other weapon combinations which simply suck:
x/axe (axe/axe, mace/axe, sword/axe)
axe/warhorn
mace/warhorn

Sword/warhorn has one niche usage: running. All the warhorn nerfs really made it a weak weapon. Rifle with berserker/gunflame is one trick pony.

This leaves warrior with several solid weapon of choices:
greatsword
hammer (still the best AoE CC weapon)
longbow
axe/x
x/shield

sword/x and x/sword are okay at their current state in meta.

I hope the underused/weak weapons and weapon combinations would be addressed. I know a lot players will come to this threat to defend their favorite weapon: greatsword, but it really doesn’t make sense to turn this game into greatsword wars 2. Reapers made most necros use GS and GS has always been #1 weapon of choice for mesmers.

Arcade.8901:

Maybe they use GS based builds because all other options are trash ? Not because GS is so OP as you think ?

By relocating it you will Ruin PVE Phalanx build.

IN sPvP, and Roam, you will just kill core warriors bruiser build.

I was merely asking just adjust forceful greatsword trait and no other changes to GS. Keeping the thread at master level is the best choice. But in this thread we had another player commenting that it doesn’t matter if it is GM or master as you take the entire tree anycase. Of course it matters, just like you demonstrated.

I am still worried that warrior is now being pigeon holed into GS builds, GS/hammer probably being the most popular of them. When it something is “too good”, it limits all the other builds of the same profession. For example thief is still the best 1 profession in this game, mainly because of SB #5 and the great synergy D/P gives. In every game mode from pve to spvp and WvWvW roaming D/P + SB is by far the most popular thief build. We cannot buff thief without adjusting thief’s amazing ability to engage and disengage, or thief would be overpowered. Right now D/P + SB loses 1 vs 1 against most other meta builds, assuming roughly equal skill level. I don’t know daredevil builds that well, but they don’t seem to be that life threatening alone. There are no valid bunker builds for thief and buffing the utilities and traits would easily make D/P SB thief too strong, since they take shadow arts + shadow refuge, which are both defensive on the nature.

I know my suggested buffs to warrior of course wouldn’t bring it up to the level of dagger/focus celestial auramancer elementalist or druid ranger when it comes to healing and sustain. And dragonhunter guardian would still own warrior on 1 vs 1. DH guardian has simply too much DPS for the CC it brings. I would suggest serious nerfs to DH traps and LB #2, #4 and #5 damage. You have to think all the balance suggestions in the context of the original post in this thread and not merely as band aid fixes to one profession in the current meta.

It is also valid question to ask: why nobody on their right mind is using mace/warhorn or axe/warhorn? In my honest analysis warrior’s warhorn is weak at its current state, even when it is traited with quick breathing.

I am still standing with my original analysis. Warrior has potential for very good burst, but currently it lacks sustain even if you take all the defensive traits + utilities. And we cannot increase the sustain much without shaving off some of the burst potential or warrior will be overpowered like it was long time ago.

nicknamenick.2437:

Looks like you hate GS/burst builds and just want Shoutbow build back..
Warrior needs help not nerfs, and nerfing that 1 trait for GS makes no sense AT ALL. also it doesnt matter if its master/GM or even adept.. you get full trailine anyways.

Of course it matters if it is GM or master level. GM level traits compete with other GM level traits!

Forceful greatsword trait is completely out of line with other master level weapon related traits. In fact I would argue it is better than axe mastery, which is in the same tree. I didn’t ask any other changes to GS now. So calm down, I am not asking to nerf it to ground, but just adjust this trait a bit. But when I go to spvp I see a lot of warriors using GS, when I go to pve, almost all I see is warriors using GS, when I go to WvWvW, I see tons of warriors use GS based roaming builds. So if one weapon dominates so much, this clearly ain’t a sign it is balanced well!

It seems you hate shoutbow a lot, but can you suggest any other viable warrior build, which has a lot of sustain? In my honest opinion warrior needs more viability to sustain builds. Warrior has potential for massive burst and it has access to tons of CC, so it certainly doesn’t need either of those. To my observation the shoutbow has completely fallen out of meta. I see much more GS/hammer warriors than shoutbow nowadays, not to mention DH guardians, herald/shiro revenants, reaper necromancers, druids, auramancer eles and scrappers. My suggestion to increase the base healing of shouts by 200 isn’t massive change. Warhorn really was nerfed a bit too much. And the adrenaline depleting speed affects all warrior builds.

This is a good list of balance changes. I would also like to see some underused old traits and skills buffed.

And there are some old pre-HoT traits, which are simply too strong e.g. forceful greatsword is already too good for a master level trait without the 10% unconditional dmg buff. Make it GM or remove the 10% bonus.

Warrior is in a problematic state now. Its sustain was nerfed many months ago and it simply cannot keep up with the damage and CC from new elite specs and buffed traits. At the same time Arenanet should be careful not to give warrior too much sustain as warrior is capable of some insane bursts. I would like to keep these high burst builds high risk and reward.

Warrior would need to have some of its nerfs partially undone e.g. increase shout base heal by 200. Warhorn #5 feels weak now and almost all warriors select shield instead of warhorn. Maybe allow traited warhorn #5 inflict chill or simply revert most of the warhorn changes?

Warrior needs a trait giving it “+20% boon duration” in some of it’s minor traits. A good candidate would be Inspiring Presence in Tactics line.

Adrenaline depletes way too quickly out of combat. Make it deplete 33% slower.

On the other hand the burst skills have too low cooldown. Increase the base cooldown 2 seconds. This is to promote skilled play, instead of spamming burst skills.

Making fast hands as base line would open up tons of warrior builds, but I feel it is simply too good for baseline. And I have spent 2nd highest amount of hours as warrior.