Guild Wars 2

Sean.8274:

“They have also been designed with the expectation that a player who spends the whole tournament in the Edge of the Mists can achieve the meta.”

So everyone who contributes nothing to their server in terms of the “tournament” still get all the rewards? This is the stupidest thing I have ever read…. Might as well just hand out rewards for logging in and doing whatever the hell you want for during the weeks of the tournament.

Because some servers WvW is incredibly limited and trying to complete the meta on them is almost impossible?

If we are on the subject of easy rewards, whats the point in even having the tournament? At this point it is just a question of whether BG or JQ wins, giving them easy rewards. Do you really believe that just because a server has more people they should get better rewards?

This whole tournament is a terrible idea and the one thing you’re going to complain about is people on lower servers actually being able to complete the meta and get some loot from an event they have ZERO chance of winning?

Nope. They need to address the actual WvW problems before tournaments can be held. This tournament will actually make the current problems worse. Instead of destacking servers to foster competition they are insuring that servers will be stacked further. At this point they either need to address the population/coverage/scoring issues or just go the EotM color route and combine all servers into a single matchup.

If this tournament needs to be held then make it purely bragging rights. Keep the rewards for achievements since that will get more people into WvW(good) but remove any rewards for winning as that stacks servers(bad).

skullmount.1758:

Distaste.4801:

It is very simple, servers that win more will fight other servers that win more and servers that lose will fight other servers that lose.

Example using the the first 3 tiers with wins being worth 3pts, 2nd 2pts, and 3rd 1pt.

Round 1:
BG wins: 3pt
JQ 2nd: 2pt
SoR 3rd: 3pt

TC wins: 3pt
SoS 2nd: 2pt
FA 3rd: 1pt

Mag wins: 3pt
SBI 2nd: 2pt
BP 3rd: 1pt

copy /paste error?

More of a slip from 3rd to 3pt, but the point got made I hope.

jojojoon.8607:

Well, in sports, there’s always a favorite to win the entire tournament. For example, in football, the year the patriots was undefeated in the regular season, they should have won the superbowl that year but was upset by the giants. BG is the odds on favorite to win this tournament. The difference is that in sports there’s a higher chance for an upset, while in wvw, it’s unlikely the favorite will be upset unless there’s a prolong 2v1 occurring or of other unusual circumstances like intentionally tanking or holidays.

The main difference is that in football you ALWAYS have the chance to win. You have the same number of players and it comes down to training, skill and tactics; all of which your team controls. In WvW there are servers that have ZERO chance of winning and it’s not in their control, they don’t even have half the players of other servers and even if they 2v1’d they wouldn’t win.

TeamBattleAxe.3901:

Hmm, looks like we’re going to see some wildly blown-out matchups unless there’s some provisions in place to modify the Swiss structure.

Just for fun, using this week’s scoring as an example, you could potentially see a Week 2 matchup between Jade Quarry, Eredon Terrace, and Sorrow’s Furnace since all three servers would have a 1-0 record. HOW FUN WOULD THAT BE?

I’m assuming it would be weighted by current tiers so the 2nd week would be JQ vs TC vs Mag, however week 3 would be JQ vs DB vs ET unless tiers are so weighted they overcome actual points.

This whole thing is an absolute farce. No one wants to play in a tournament where they know the winners. This is like a hockey tournament where there are 2 NHL teams, 4 junior teams, and then mostly pee wee teams. Tournaments only work when the difference between players isn’t a massive chasm. ArenaNet needed to work on population and scoring mechanics, not picking a new tournament ruleset.

It is very simple, servers that win more will fight other servers that win more and servers that lose will fight other servers that lose.

Example using the the first 3 tiers with wins being worth 3pts, 2nd 2pts, and 3rd 1pt.

Round 1:
BG wins: 3pt
JQ 2nd: 2pt
SoR 3rd: 1pt

TC wins: 3pt
SoS 2nd: 2pt
FA 3rd: 1pt

Mag wins: 3pt
SBI 2nd: 2pt
BP 3rd: 1pt

The next round is going to be:
BG vs TC vs Mag(all 3 pt)
JQ vs SoS vs SBI
SoR vs FA vs BP(all 1pt)

Basically the higher tier servers then get a free win. So the next match will be:
BG(6pt) vs JQ(5pt) vs TC(5pt)
SoR(4pt) vs SoS(4pt) vs Mag(4pt)
SBI vs FA(3pt) vs BP(2pt)

After another round it will be:
BG(9pt) vs JQ(7pt) vs SoR(7pt)
TC(6pt) vs SoS(6pt) vs SBI
Mag(5pt) vs FA(5pt) vs BP(3pt)

The problem is that there is no tournament system given the current state of WvW that won’t result in terrible matchups and this one is no different. ArenaNet keeps trying to force tournaments and competitiveness on WvW, it simply isn’t in a state for that to happen. The disparity between the tiers is HUGE and that plays out in a tournament via horrible matchups. A tournament where you already know the winners is just a farce, the only question right now is whether it’s JQ or BG in 1st place, the rest don’t even matter.

Romek.4201:

1000? lol

way to cheap

i dont play wvw anymore for months now and even i have 1300 badges just from AP Chests – and i always use the 25 when its daily and i buy amulets for twinks with laurel + badges

something like 2500-5000 would be ok when only can wear it in wvw

but when its the normal ascendent gear than just now – it is so much more worth than some badges^^

I play WvW several times a week and never buy anything, I only have 3000. There was a point a while back where they buffed badge drops from players and they were really easy to get, but I think they have since nerfed that. The only people that would be swimming in badges are the loot hammer train groups.

Current ascended gear is too costly putting it out of reach of most players. This is especially true with ferocity coming up and the risk of making gear that is no longer that great.

Wintel.4873:

I think this is mainly just an issue with Elementalists.

While I do agree that the variance between base hp is huge, classes have been balanced with defensive mechanics to make up for their low base health. Thieves have stealth + evasion + stuns and guardians have blocks + high armor + strong heals.

Meanwhile Elementalists seem to have nothing other than 1-2 extremely weak healing skills in the water tree, that’s it. I think it’s time that Ele’s were boosted up to 15k base health. It would be a HUGE help in PvE to stop getting insta-gibbed by elite mobs. The number of times I’ve been downed due to 1-shot unforseeable damage is ridiculous to the point of being unfair…flat PvE damage values means that I get repeatedly downed while another class gets to survive.

It’s not funny watching warriors laugh in the face of the kind of damage that would destroy an Ele, not when they can still do great damage and have the option to go ranged. If I wanted Holy Trinity I would go back to WoW.

The problem is that stealth, evasion, blocks etc aren’t balanced against health/armor. In order for classes to make up the difference between them and another armor/health tier they need to spec specific ways. Thieves need to pick up evasion traits, stack toughness/vitality, use stealth utilities, and get stealth traits. Same goes for mesmers, there is a reason PU is the most popular. Guardians need to spec for heals and warriors get blocks too.

The problem is that the lack of overall survivability of most classes due to stat imbalance is forcing them into survivable specs. All I want is each class to have to make the same sacrifices in order to gain survivability or damage. Currently some classes can get both without any real sacrifice and others have to sacrifice way too much.

King Amadaeus.8619:

3k armor, 3k+ attack, 30%+ crit chance, 70%+ crit dmg, all easily (very much so) attainable with Warr/Guard…

Why wouldn’t you play one?

You can do better than that on a warrior! 3.2k armor 3.4k attack 40% crit(60% with fury), 90% crit dmg, and 22k hp. All that while ticking for 400 hp/s from healing signet and then there is adrenal health, dogged march, cleansing ire, and with condition reduction runes/food you have like 98% reduction on cripple, immobilize, and chill.

Allie Murdock.8152:

We will be removing all rank requirements for the Gift of Battle in the February 18th build and further evaluate what those requirements will be. We do not currently have an ETA for when rank requirements will be reinstated.

Please do not remove the requirements. Do not give in to whining about PvE players having to do PvP to get their legendaries. WvW players ALWAYS have to do things they don’t want to do to get skins, gold, gear, etc. I think PvE players can suffer for a few hours in WvW to get the proper rank. If you do give in then you better stop ignoring WvW pleas. Where is our ascended armor/weapons that don’t require crafting or PvE? How about WvW actually gets some good looking skins?

I think the fastest ever was like 2 hours through crafting.

Back when I was leveling all of my toons I would craft to level 20ish. Kessex Hills centaur train until 30. Get caught up on story(35) Then go do the big centaur event in harathi that everyone zerged. If you pop food, xp booster, and the XP booster that lasts 60(?) seconds unless you kill something, you could get HUGE XP off the centaurs due to bonus XP. I’m talking 1.5k xp per centaur, it was awesome. Like 2-3 runs through it and you gained 10 levels. Then back to crafting for 20 levels. Catch up on story, then go down to Straights at the one event chain with the arrow cart defense and escort or all the way to cursed shore for penitent. Usually ran about 20-30 hours.

Ironvos.9014:

Servers aren’t shackles, they are communities.
Having wvw like it is now in EoTM at release might have been possible, now however it is much too late for such a change.

By removing servers we make everyone a community as a whole. It would force guilds to work with new guilds week after week, building even more relationships. Servers have the negative problem of also breeding hate and fostering a toxic environment. Just look at pretty much any WvW dealing with Blackgate. Servers are also the reasons for the tiered matchup system that I think we can all agree does not work well at all. When servers have zero chance of winning they stop trying and that just further kills the WvW population. We’ve also seen how important server communities are with HoD, ET, SoS, SBI, etc that all had a mass exodus of WvW players(some community huh?).

Servers are most certainly shackles to the progression of WvW. The only positive they bring can be had without them and that just leaves the negatives. It’s time to get rid of them.

The color system needs to spread to old WvW maps. The current system is just awful. Server pride is not something most people care about and that is the ONLY reason to continue with server matchups as they are.

What I like about EotM is they are at the very least trying something new. WvW was stale the minute it released because it’s way to simplified. Anything that gets ArenaNet trying new things is great. The major bad things about EotM are the funneling, knockbacks, and hammer trains. There are certain areas on EotM where it’s not a simply case of watch where you’re standing so you don’t get knocked off. Hopefully they will do a new map that isn’t so knockback friendly or perhaps just reduce the knockback/pull distance on EotM specifically. The power of hammer trains is just incredibly hard to counter without an extremely organized group, what they need to add is a “crowded” debuff that either reduces your damage by 75% or makes you miss 75% of the time, that would kill WvW stacking. One more thing that does need looked at are the keeps that have the archway over the gate. While the arch protects the oil(good) it gives the enemies a safe place to sit with without AOE raining down on them(bad). It also means that any defender that gets pulled off the wall at the gate is destroyed because they need to then run under the archway through all the enemies then around the corner to the entrance.

If it’s purely for WvW it’s going to be a mixed bag. If all you want is zerg WvW then BG/JQ/TC would be the big 3(SOR is a sinking ship). BG is full and has been for like 2 weeks so chances are slim that you can transfer there. However if you don’t really care about winning WvW(it’s purely bragging rights) then EotM isn’t a bad choice and doesn’t require you spend money to move servers. If you want roaming then it’s going to be a lower server, which you’re already on.

If it’s PvE then just guest to BG or JQ, no sense wasting gold, gems, or money.

Honestly the only real reason to even have servers anymore is WvW matchups. As soon as they can find a viable way to go to the EotM color system servers won’t be necessary and we won’t have the low pop servers that are very high anymore.

GW2 is alt friendly for leveling but after that it quickly punishes you for having more than one character. Want the commander tag? That’ll be 200g per character thank you! You only get 1 daily and thus 1 laurel, which at 35 laurels+ per item can quickly turn into YEARS to gear out all your characters and specs. Then you’ve got exotics/runes/sigils that all add up to a whole lot of gold farming depending on the number of characters and specs you’re wishing to support. Then of course legendary weapons are soulbound. Finally you’ve got character bound World ranks, which are set to change sometime in the future.

Bond.4602:

Tongku.5326:

Bond.4602:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Stability

And while playing on my engi, necro, or mesmer, which stability do i have on a 7.5 secs CD to counter traited earthshaker ? Do you think we all run around with pocket stability granting guards in tow ? Want me to start spamming stability cooldowns from wiki for any class other then War, Guard and maybe earth traited ele for you ?

O and when I do play my guard, it’d be nice to trait something kittening different then AOE stability spam which I basically have no choice but to run cause of the kittening earthshaker.

ES is affecting whole game in a negative way cause everyone that runs against or faces meta HAS to build to counter it. There are no their abilities / skills in the entire game that come anywhere close to affecting such a large portion of playerbase in such a negative way.

On top of all that, there is a lot of screaming to nerf necros, the only current team hard counter for hammer train, once that happens, what then ? Are we all just going to roll ES warriors and spam that crap at each other ? Is this where the game is heading ?

I’m sure you have enough endurance to dodge every 10 seconds, Earthshakers is probably one of the most telegraphed skills in the game.

Are we talking 1v1 to zerg v zerg?

People were talking like there is no counter to cc, there is. I’m not saying earthshaker isn’t broken but then so are other skills and areas of the game. Anet look like they are trying to work on the mellee trains with ferocity debuff. We will have to wait and see.

Dodge in this game is a crutch for poor game balance. Instead of actually balancing skills it just gets tossed under the “but you can dodge it so it’s fine” argument. Dodge should be a tool to help win fights but not a catch all balance excuse. All skills should be balanced around the fact that they are going to land every time they are used. This is especially true in WvW considering that in many fights you need to dodge other things on top of the OP skills that are fine because you can dodge them…

Ferocity has zero to do with combating melee trains directly. It is purely about getting critical damage changed into a stat point instead of a %. The only reason there is a nerf really is because current gear has too much crit damage due to them only being able to add a whole percent. So once the change hits all that extra rounded crit damage goes away that’s where the nerf is. It’s not a direct assault on berserker or melee, it does impact them but it also impacts all gear with crit damage.

You post asks what this nerf solves, stat imbalance. Crit damage has been imbalanced since day 1. 1% of crit damage was not equal to a certain number of points of another stat. This is exactly why people started doing the 3 piece of berserker and 3 piece of another. The % crit dmg on one piece would be worth 16 stat points where on another piece of gear it was worth 12. This fixes the problem and naturally causes pieces of gear that had % crit dmg worth more stat points to lose crit dmg.

This far from a mistake. The real mistake was allowing crit damage to be a % stat to begin with. This is just fixing that mistake.

Celtus.8456:

Best move would be to work on converting all of WvW into a green/blue/red battle, not a server one. Borderlands/EBG are already dead for most servers (outside of certain prime times). Edge of the Mists should stay active nearly 24/7 because of its design. The other maps should be converted over.

Very much this. The only reason to even keep the current system on old maps is server pride at this point and lets be honest, we’ve seen how important server pride is when a server collapses and guilds leave like rats leaving a sinking ship.

TexZero.7910:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/wuv/wuv/Some-ANET-interfered-with-our-GvG/page/13#post2930071

To which the immediate follow up was a sneak preview of EoTM followed by this

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/wuv/wuv/Edge-of-the-Mists-FAQ/first

EoTM was to have more GvG esque skirmishes that was undeniable.

As per your other point, yes i know it’s only the “2nd” time. However its the second time too many. WvW should have its own goals and unique rewards / ways to get legendary / ascended items. At no point should they be forced into playing other game modes. This is something that comes down to the core of what they were shipping play the game and enjoy the modes you want to enjoy. For some reason we’ve had a drastic 180 degree turn into play all the modes development mentality and that’s just not cool. It only causes frustration and stagnation within the community and leads to less interesting and developed content because they have to focus on 3 aspect instead of 1 awesome story.

I’ll emphasize these are my personal opinions on the matter and this is what i’ve noticed based upon the recent patches have been shipped.

EotM was NEVER about GvG. No where in those posts does it mention EotM being about GvG. The only thing even remotely close is they were using guilds to test it, that does not mean it is for GvG. Obsidian sanctum was the devs answer for GvG. EotM was designed as a map for those either in queue or on a server with low population, that’s the reason it pools all server populations.

How do you propose they add content for all portions of the game without leaving anyone out? If it’s just put in content for all three at once then you’re easily looking at triple the development time. Are you okay with updates every 6 weeks that barely give much content? I’m pretty sure you would be quite upset given that you’re here complaining that you didn’t get PvE LS and it’s been 2 weeks since the last PvE update. The fact of the matter is that in order for you to get your LS every 2 weeks others had to suffer. Now that it’s their turn you’re making a big stink about being forced into playing a game mode you didn’t want. Then you say that WvW should provide all the things that WvW players are forced to do outside of it? I didn’t see a crusade for equality when the shoe was on the other foot.

Honestly just wait 1 week and 6 days and you’ll be back to smacking scarlet around and WvW players will get neglected for another 6-12 months.

Nuzt.7894:

sphonz.3129:

It’s pretty easy to dodge the turret attacks or bring stability.

Sure it is, if your not engaging a large zerg where … you know, your stabilities and dodges are needed. Lets not forget some classes are playing with 2-4 seconds of stability while others are having a great time with 10+ sec. The turrets need to go.

And why would you stupidly engage an enemy zerg when they have turrets around? Heaven forbid that terrain and positioning be something you need to be aware of in battle. You know the turrets can be killed too right?

The NPC’s and turrets help deter the problem in old WvW maps where things are basically unguarded. Soloing a camp is commonplace and having it flip every 5 minutes like clockwork is an absolute joke. When a single person can take a garrison it’s just plain dumb. At least in EotM you need some tactics and forethought instead of “Zerg it!”. I ran around EotM last night with 2 buddies in the enemy back lines. It was really fun. We even found the turrets and it was both surprising and awesome that there is some actual defense against attacks in enemy territory.

If you want 100% fair fights go play SPvP.
If you want little PvE interference play the old WvW maps.
If you want WvW where NPC’s aren’t something you can just shrug off play EotM.

I actually agree with this. Last night we had like 15 commander tags rolling around in a zerg.

Suddenflame.2601:

To everyone complaining about Random Number Generator (RNG) and grind in Guild Wars 2 (GW2): You guys need to play more Massively Multiplayer Online Roly Playing Games (MMORPG). Lets take a Free-to-Play (FTP) game such as Forsaken World (FW) for instance. To get any where in the game you need certain items to progress. The RNG in that game is so bad that many people use the in-game botting system to farm the items that they need. Basically meaning your character needs to be logged in for days on end (24/7) just to get items that you need.

World of Warcraft (WoW) a subscription based MMORPG that makes you spend weeks to months performing raids to get best-in-slot gear. This is repeated often for new best-in-slot gear is added often. During these raids it is not guaranteed that you will get the piece you need. Some raids you can only perform once a week making you wait for another chance (hence chance) at getting the piece you need. To get other items in the game you need to compete with other players (as drops are not shared between the players) to grind to get items since drop rates are low to force you to grind.

Perfect World (PW) is similar to FW (made by the same company) but has even worse grind and drop rates to the point you have to kill monsters for hours or even days just to get items for a single quest. You basically sit there for hours killing a specific mob in a specific area for hours to months (depends on how lucky you are) just hoping you will get that one item.

In GW2, precursors are pretty common as evidence by the number of people with legendaries in LA. Also, money is easy to obtain in GW2 where as in WoW, FW, and PW money takes forever to obtain. WoW, FW, and PW require you to grind for long periods of time inorder to obtain enough money to buy anything useful.

So if you want to complain go ahead, but I suggest you play Forsaken World and Perfect World first and make the comparison. By saying GW2 is grindy or has terrible RNG makes most MMOs look like bloody nightmare. By saying GW2 is grindy or has terrible RNG you are making a comparison of a form. If you want to say GW2 is grindy which MMORPG has less grind? Which MMORPG has better RNG?

WoW, FW, and PW are worse on these two points so if your making a comparison with these games you are insane! Just for your information I have never gotten a precursor in 1500+ hours of playing Guild Wars 2.

There is a reason most of us aren’t playing PW or FW, their developer is known to make extremely grindy games geared towards the asian market.

Now WoW was actually less grindy than GW2 currently is. Putting aside the week lockouts, you would still spend a whole lot less actual game time to achieve your items. Even if you figure 3 hours per raid, 24 epics per raid and 40 raiders(got even easier to gear with only 25 people) you’re looking at needing ~600 epics(15 per person iirc). That is 25 raids or 75 hours. Now you’re going to toss in RNG but once tokens were added this wasn’t nearly as bad. You can also look at other areas as well because the best gear didn’t just come from raiding, PvP offered quite a few items that were up near the top as well and could be easily obtained in much less time. Just assuming you got it all raiding it’s 5 hours per item. When I went back to WoW for BC I leveled 1-70 and was fully geared in BIS items in 4 months. BC made things every easier since it was now a 25 man raid and still 3 epics per boss. That would take the time down to ~50 hours.

Lets just look at ascended for a minute. Just to level all 3 weapon crafts to 500 and 1 armor type you’re looking at 550g. At even 5g an hour of farming that’s 110 hours just to be able to craft the stuff you want. Then you have the armor/weapon costs at 60g per piece of armor and 40g per weapon. 3 weapons would put you around 120g and 6 pieces of armor would be 360g for a subtotal of 480g. Combined with the cost of grinding to 500 crafting that’s 1030g. Going back to that 5g an hour you’re looking at 206 hours for an entire set of gear.

So 206 vs 75 vs 50….hmmm. Even if RNG in WoW literally doubles or the time you still get your gear faster.

jojojoon.8607:

Smokee.1754:

Nuked.2360:

nirvana.8245:

BG has the most EU coverage. They have several guilds that raid during this timezone. They also complain that there is nobody to fight. And that it will be difficult to get onto BG at present because they are always full. So a reasonable alternative would be JQ. They have some guilds that raid in EU. They regularly outscore their opponents in the timezone despite having less guilds in the EU timeslots than BG. Prior to leagues SOR had the biggest EU coverage, however, since their semi collapse they experienced alot of EU players leave. SOR still has the strongest NA (albeit inconsistent at times) and it is East coast based so its more common to see NA players logged on during EU timezone so SOR is still an option but moving to SOR with their implosion is still a bit of a worrying move because nobody knows how much more they will lose.

JQ doesn’t regularly outscore anyone in EU this was what happened for one week it does not make it true as illustrated by the fact BG still ticked 300+ most of last week when it got to mid EU prime. If your looking for an EU guild/crew to run with you could try JQ or SoR both have a small EU guild or two out there.

BG had ppt leading 2 times during EU last week out of 7 days. Hardly makes for a EU dominance.

The EOTM map is getting released tomorrow which means that Season 2 should be starting soon. The biggest complaint of Season 1 was the horrible queue times and the EOTM map which serves as an overflow map for people waiting in queue should alleviate this issue.

With that said, since Season 2 is approaching and BG anticipating this, it looks like BG is starting their pre-season “We are underdogs” campaign. This was exactly what happened last year. Before pre-season started, BG would intentionally tank a few matches and then start the “We are underdogs” or “We are the weakest T1 server” propaganda on the forums to help with recruitment. Once season started, BG would play normally again and roflstomped all servers during Season 1 and weeks after the season with 24/7 coverage that has not been seen before since the old HOD days. Not even JQ and SOS during their winning streak could boast of having 0 coverage weakness.

Both JQ and SOR servers and the ZD guild were fooled during Season 1, so I doubt they would be fooled this time around. Anyone who still believes the “BG are underdogs” nonsense going into Season 2, please give my friend Chuck Norris a call because he has some excellent land to sell you in the Atlantic Ocean.

There has been no date set or timeframe on Season 2 that I am aware of and at best you’re looking at April after part 4 of the LS is released and they roll out the feature/balance patch. Even then a lot of WvW players don’t want a season 2.

So if you think BG is really starting to tank it’s scores 2 months ahead of time of a maybe possible but unlikely release, you might want to invest in some tin foil. BG is currently back to winning last I looked after taking a week off for Wurm/marionette. EotM might cause some population drop as everyone wants to play new content, but that should be equal a crossed all servers.

Also the on BG being the underdog, it was all JQ and SoR making those claims before season 1 started. ZD knew what they were getting, I believe SoR and JQ turned them down iirc. So the blame lies solely with the JQ and SoR bravado that led them to believe BG suddenly died a week or so before season 1 and that buying, sorry getting, a few guilds would give them the win.

Just off the top of my head the dire stuff are:
Amulet: Alpha Conduit, Stargazers pendant, Traveler’s amulet
Rings: Ring of Blood, Traveler’s ring
Accessory: Fang of Tequatl, Vallog’s Demise

So all I’m getting from this thread is exactly what has been said since launch, berserk builds scale to stupid amounts of damage are the exact reason why WvW is now about bunkering. Even with a 10% crit damage nerf this won’t change much.

The food problem is just a symptom of the greater issue, the poorly planned out and balanced stat system as well as the laughable condition system. The food was 40% because there wasn’t really another source of condition duration and conditions are countered by cleanse, obviously the longer the duration the larger the chance that it gets cleansed where a 40% power build increase can’t be countered nearly as easily. However that just leads us to the bigger problem.

The major problem with conditions at the moment is they are too available for all classes. This means that you can get 4-5 damaging conditions ticking on you and it becomes a burst instead of what conditions are supposed to do, which is attrition. If we make it so classes only have access to 2 damaging conditions then the burst problem isn’t nearly as bad. Of course now we are left with a ton of cleanses in the game and 2 conditions simply isn’t enough since entire stacks will be cleared quickly. That means cleanses need either reduced in effectiveness(only 2-3 stacks per cleanse) or specified(only cleanses bleeding or burning). If we reduce the effectiveness then we also need to reduce the number of stacks that can be applied since some can reach 25 stacks in seconds and 4k-5k damage per second is a bit much. Finally we would need some equality amongst all the conditions, Normalize the damage between all damaging conditions, let them all stack, and make sure they have secondary effects. Make poison 5% healing reduction per stack, burning removes 1 boon every 3 seconds, etc.

TLDR: The food is OP now, but the overall system is broken and needs an overhaul.

Vespirisa.1497:

SpellOfIniquity.1780:

Half of BG are wurming. And they still beat SOR.

You expect us to beat BG? We lost like half of our guilds.

Very true, but you still had a better presence in NA primetime from what I saw. Heck most of the time when I was playing it was JQ and SOR tag teaming BG so that might have influenced that perception. Last night was SOR trying to take BG borderland garrison from cliffside and JQ coming up from water gate. Then in Eternal it was SOR attacking the backside of our garrison and JQ coming in the front. Made for some really fun battles that raged for a good long while though

With EotM coming it will be interesting to see if BG goes for the win or takes another week off.

Why even try to balance servers at this point? It’s a futile effort because as soon as you do get it balanced someone will transfer, a guild will quit, or something else will happen that unbalances it. What we need to be doing is moving past the server system and creating a massive WvW three way battle between all servers. The current WvW system is bad and has been since launch. From PPT to coverage it just has way too many issues to be even be close to a fair system.

I actually hope that EotM is actually the testing ground for a mega-WvW. Although they will need a formula to determine which color gets what servers, but given that they do have the data(we have seen it) it’s entirely a possibility. This would really take away the “coverage” problems. They could even tack on a “merc” system where if one side somehow gets outnumbered people could become mercenaries for that side until it balances out.

Ashabhi.1365:

I am going to reserve judgement until I have actually seen it and played it myself, but my initial take on it is that you will now have 3 types of game play:
1. PvE
2. PvP
3. EotM (a blending of PvP and PvE)

I don’t see this as a bad thing. I am sure there are a lot of other people out there who are like me, and dabble in both PvP and PvE, but find that exclusive maps are just missing that little something to make it perfect…

Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy the hell out of both PvE and PvP, but the EotM looks like it’s right up my alley.

I likes a lot of PvE with my PvP.

There really isn’t going to be much PvE in this update at all. There might be some PvE mobs in EotM but it is not going to be the PvE experience that PvE players want. The complaining from PvE players will be nothing short of epic, especially since last LS update left them dependent on other players for achievements.

There will be a certain subset of players that enjoy both zerg battles and PvE that will enjoy this patch, but I fear the complaining from purist WvW players and PvE players will be a great deal of players. Also the ArenaNet factor is never to be forgotten! As awesome as an update can sound on paper they always find a way to completely ruin or marginalize it.

Spiky.8403:

Sucks I had to skip this one. Anyway, great job!!!

What makes me worried though, why such talented people as these posters above from Desolation have killed wurm only two times yet? Really, you guys can obviously play with closed eyes with many unexperienced pugs running around trying to level up and still kill it without trying. How comes only 2 kills yet?

You got something very wrong, “kill it without trying”. Killing the wurm is still a huge effort, one most want a break from once it’s finally dead. Even more so once they figure out the loot is not proportional to the effort. Then of course you have PUGs that swarm a server/guild like buzzards when a kill is even mentioned, this is the same reason TxS needed an overflow. They can completely ruin an attempt by not watching DPS or not doing the mechanics of the fight at all. Then finally you have the bug factor, which can render an attempt useless and the RNG on head flopping(unless I missed a hidden mechanic behind that) that can really hurt DPS.

K U T M.4539:

Distaste.4801:

I would go for the following.

Rally only on spiking.
Spiking gets pushed back by damage.
Downed abilities do not cause the pushback.
Rezzing gets pushed back by damage.
Rezzing applies reveled.

This way if you down an enemy in the middle of the fight they stay downed until either they get rezed, get spiked, or their teammates spike someone. Since damage would push back spiking/rezzing it would be a risk to try and do so in the middle of combat. Pushing back spiking due to damage also counters the stability issue a little bit.

No one would ever get spike again, rofl

I spike all the time without taking damage from a non-downed source. The point is to make spiking/rezzing a more concerted effort. In a big zerg vs zerg fight it is certainly going to make spiking/rezzing extremely hard, but that’s sort of the point.

Taisia.2813:

Ken DeBoer.9268:

Please no more currencies.

All due respect but this is needed badly. I did Teq more than 200 times now perhaps on different characters and never once did I get a mini and only once an ascended chest. And I am one of the luckier ones.

A supplementary system based on tokens is being respectful of people who put a lot of time into these encounters. Anet is late as it is to implement this IMHO.

Better yet. We make the bosses like heart events. When you finally fill the heart you can just buy the stuff with karma. The devs remember karma right? The supposed universal currency that allowed players to play the way they want yet still get rewards?

Knowing ArenaNet though it would be 50 laurels, 250 ectos, and 2 million karma for a single ascended item. Want the minipet? Quadruple all that.

Necro- Dhumfire on DS #1 is bad and certainly not worth 30 trait points. It is a massive damage nerf and does not synergize with condition play at all. Stop trying to throw everything into DS, until we get some actual sustain DS is our only option and having all our eggs in one basket is just terrible. Are you going to remove the last changes you made that nerfed other skills in order to compensate for dhumfire?

The necro trait lines are still an absolute mess. Take Spite where Dhumfire resides, the only things in that line that really helps a condition necro is the 30% condition duration and dhumfire. Now with dhumfire being destroyed there is absolutely no traits in that traitline that I want on my condition necro, but I’m forced into it if I want 30% condition duration. The same can be said about all the other trait lines too, redo the trait lines.

Thief- They needed a lot more than a poison field nerf. How about survivability outside stealth? Or group utility? Just so many things that need rebalanced/changed from traps, venoms, stealth. What about fixing the huge stealth up time with leap finisher + smoke field? There was an easy fix posted somewhere, just swap dagger #3 with dagger #2. Or you could make it give a buff that gives you a 50% chance to evade a hit or heck just give a 2s distortion.

Warrior- Still not enough. All healing skills should be balanced around a certain HP/s. Currently healing signet is well above others even after this nerf. Combined with adrenal health and a bunch of other passive effects that warriors get you don’t seem to be living up to your own balancing standards. You’re balancing the necro’s dhumfire for more counter play yet there is almost no counterplay to much of what makes warriors so strong.

Mesmer- Reverting the DE change is fine, but you offer no fix to the problem you yourselves acknowledged. With dual sigils now in 2hand weapons and the cooldown changes you’re going to bet DE will be more abused with Energy sigils than ever before. I am fine with lots of clones but when combined with on death effects and stealth it is too much. Again considering counter play this doesn’t make much sense. The easy counter is kill the clones but the on death effects make that very penalizing. If the mesmer depends on clones dying then the counter would be don’t kill them but DE takes that away since they can kill their own clones. The only other option is just kill the mesmer but Stealth+PU, blink, and a bunch of other abilities make that quite hard. Something needed changed and if you’re not going to nerf DE then something else needs put up instead.

This definitely needs corrected immediately in a hotfix.

I would go for the following.

Rally only on spiking.
Spiking gets pushed back by damage.
Downed abilities do not cause the pushback.
Rezzing gets pushed back by damage.
Rezzing applies reveled.

This way if you down an enemy in the middle of the fight they stay downed until either they get rezed, get spiked, or their teammates spike someone. Since damage would push back spiking/rezzing it would be a risk to try and do so in the middle of combat. Pushing back spiking due to damage also counters the stability issue a little bit.

Ljiona.9142:

Should have seen them when orbs were still in the game.

You should have seen JQ, SBI, HOD, SOR, FA, GOM, CD, SOS, etc etc. EVERY server had hackers yanking orbs. At one point since transfers were free the hackers would transfer to enemy servers and hack the orbs just to cause backlash for that server. It was an effective tactic and I know GOM at the very least was destroyed because a few hackers gave them a reputation.

Unless you see multiple guilds doing such activity blame the exploiters/hackers doing it and not the server. I thought this lesson was learned but apparently not.

Junkpile.7439:

Well it can’t be worse than normal www. At least maps are full and blobs can’t jump map to map and cap empty objectives.

Oh it certainly can be. If you look at the map you’ll realize that it is a great big funnel. So not only will roamers run directly into zergs, there will be no avoiding them. At least on normal maps you can see the zergs coming and get out of the way. Also, I don’t know how much zerg fighting you’ve done but enclosed spaces are going to be less than fun with a full zerg vs zerg battle, AOE’s will rule supreme and I don’t even want to think about the melee trains; it’s like shooting fish in a barrel.

DiogoSilva.7089:

P2W means that you are using real $ to become better than other players. It’s completely unfair and ugly.

Is this a dangerous precedent? Yes. But is this new mining pick P2W? No way. It’s the opposite, actually. You are spending a massive amount of gems to get more conveniently a material that you could otherwise get for much cheaper from the TP.

It’s convenient fluff.

The only reason the sprockets are currently cheap is because you can still get them. Once Scarlet is gone the major source of sprockets is gone too. The prices start to go up. Suddenly have an extra 20% chance to get sprockets is quite lucrative, giving anyone who has the pick an advantage.

keoma.5210:

Deniara Devious.3948:

Every profession should have some strong and weak areas. If one profession is the best or second best in almost all the areas, why to ever play the other professions?

Please link me the warrior build what is the best, or second best in each and every area of the game.

He didn’t say there was one build that did it all, he said that warriors have access to builds that can all be the best or second best. Other classes are very limited in what specs they have that are competitive. Warriors can build for healing from shouts, banners for group utility, extremely high DPS, conditions, etc. All of which are equal to or much better than what other classes can offer.

Xenon.4537:

JoxerNL.3752:

NO thanks, no need for this elitist wow bs in this game.
GW2 is open world everyone can join in, don’t like it? go back to wow.

This is a very weak argument. It’s obvious by the amount of participation that people like these large group effort fights, and the game can only benefit from having stronger ways of organizing large groups, which is what I’m asking for. Please stop wielding the term “elitist” like a cudgel to smash what you don’t like. It doesn’t form good discussion.

And what would your stronger ways of organizing entail and what would they accomplish?

Build check- Pidgeon holing people into certain specs
Gear check- Same as above
Instancing- Segregating the community so those that don’t want to join a big guild/alliance can’t participate?

Those things will foster an elitist community and give rise to big guilds. That is not what this game was designed around. I understand people want some harder content, but do not try and push instanced raids into the game or you will potentially ruin it. How? Well besides the elitism it breeds it then becomes an issue of rewards. “We did a hard raid and got greens and yellows! Rabble! Rabble! Rabble!”. Suddenly raids are where you must go to get good loot, then new tiers of loot because Raid X is harder than Raid Y. At that point the entire casual nature of GW2 is gone. It is Raid or Die, WoW 2.

Instead lets build hard content that doesn’t depend on certain gear or builds and doesn’t have mechanics that trolls can ruin. We can keep things hard but without exclusion and elitism.

Considering this event was supposed to be for casuals it’s just poorly balanced/designed.

1. It is yet another DPS > all event. From killing the champions that race up the lane to killing wardens it’s all about DPS. This leaves any support or survivability build out in the cold. The easiest way to make those other builds viable is to remove the hard timers. That way the support/survivable builds could slowly kill their champs and still beat it, it also gives people a better chance to learn the encounters without having to rush into it.

2. Not breaking a chain is punishing. The easy way to do this would have been to just make more and more mobs spawn in lane defense so the ultimate failure can rest of lane defense. This gives the server as many tries to break chains as their defense allows.

3. No way to help teammates on other platforms. This should not have been released if this was not possible. There are plenty of mechanics in place in the game that would have worked to allow this to be possible. The easiest would have just been to have a bridge between the adjoining platforms and when the champion is beat the walls go down allowing you to cross it. Tequatl jumpers would have been fine too, teleporters, just not making the walls obstruct, etc.

Anyone of these getting fixed would have made the event much more casual friendly. I’m not looking for “easy” encounter or loot, but you need to make it so it’s at least a 75% success rate. On most overflows I’d bet it’s closer to 20% and IMO it’s actually getting worse. A lot of the more experienced/equiped players are now focusing their attention on the wurms leaving mostly casuals to marionette and the results are going from 3-5 chains to 1-2. I had an overflow lane last night with 25 people that could barely kill 2 of the lane champs, heck sometimes we didn’t.

Likes:
1. Small scale battles(roaming)
2. WvW daily
3. Open field zerg fights

Dislikes:
1. Too simple/too easy. Everything gets taken far too easily. Garrisons should take a lot hard work to take, keeps should take awhile as well, and camps certainly shouldn’t flip every 5 minutes. The Supply mechanic is too simple. Make players mine ore, chop trees, etc for supply. Make trebs/arrowcarts/etc use supply to fire. Allow them to hire NPC’s to do it as well. That gives the solo player an objective to kill enemy Players/NPC’s so they don’t get supply. Let players setup defenses that mean something and are class specific. Engineers could setup auto-turrets and landmines, rangers could setup traps and have roaming(Hard) animal guards. Necros could do condition marks and necro pet guards. Thieves could do traps and stealthed scouts, and you get the picture. Basically add variety and depth to the gameplay instead of simplicity.

2. Lack of Reward on the personal and meta level. There is very little to actually work towards as a goal in WvW. If you do win a match up you get nothing for it. The best you could possibly get for a reward is an extremely rare drop from a player/guard/keep. The marks of honor are absolutely worthless and always have been. I can earn gear/money in PvE far far FAR faster than WvW and I die a whole let less doing it. Let WvW be lucrative but plan accordingly to prevent farming/enemy collusion.

3. Scoring system. There is no weighting based on population and that leads to certain times of the day having points that are worth a lot more towards a win than others. This promotes off hour coverage as the easy way to win. Since there is a limited population of off hour players and they like playing with others that play in their time slot this often leads to domination of said slot and tons of points for relatively little effort.

Other things that need to be looked at:

Servers- just merge them already to concentrate the remaining populations. Just allow sign-ups for each of the colors(allow guilds/groups/etc to signup all together) while also controlling the populations between the colors to keep things fair.

Anti-stacking/zerg mechanics-
Crowded debuff- Make it so if too many people are around you it becomes harder to hit enemies
AOE limits- if AOE’kitten more then people would spread out but make damage reduced for targets over a certain number.
Buff duration splitting amongst all allies(20s for 1 person, 4s for 5, etc)

Map size- I know it’s a technical limitation, but figure out how to make them much bigger.

WvW pve events/mobs- make them more like Alterac Valley in Vanilla WoW. Players can farm mobs for drops to then craft or turn them into useful events that are tools for the players to use to gain an advantage. Farm leather for airships that will drop bombs on an enemy keep. Farm elementals for powder and have the asura turn it into a giant siege elemental. Plenty of possibilities here. All mobs in the zone should be useful towards WvW in someway.

You have a few options really.

As a power necro you could team up with a hammer guardian as wells+ring of warding could be absolutely devastating. Depending on how the guardian specs this could give more dps pressure or survivability(heals, blocks, protection). Warrior is also a great option for DPS pressure to end fights quickly. I don’t really see elementalist being a good fit simply because power necros mean DS and that means no heals. Not saying it couldn’t work but wouldn’t be optimal.

As a condition necro you could team up with another condition spec and utilize epidemic. I’d say either mesmer or well played engineer could fit that position. You could also run with tanky dps(warrior/guardian) that keeps up pressure, keeps the enemy busy, but is survivable enough to allow you to stack conditions. Elementalist might be a decent fit here as you won’t be spending a ton of time in DS except to setup condition burst.

I don’t really see a thief as being the best fit for the necromancer. The necro can’t really take focus fire and since the thiefs survival is dependent on constant stealthing it leaves the necro to get focused.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Distaste.4801:

I think all classes should have the same base health and armor choices. There is no logical reason that I can find that justifies the current base armor/health values. Melee clearly isn’t the reason for heavy armor as all classes have melee. Mobility isn’t the reason either as warrior is highly mobile. The only reason certain classes have certain armor is purely based on aesthetics, the health justification is just a big mystery. Once we get all classes on an even playing field we can actually start getting some balance in the game. At the very least there is ZERO reason that justifies having some classes start with 291(armor) stat points and essentially 757 more stat points(vitality).

If anyone wants to try and make a case for why the current base health/armor values are where they are then by all means. However, beware that I can almost guarantee there will be another class/spec that will call it into question.

Because it would break the game. I do think that some need to be adjusted but some classes have WAY more defense than others built into the classes – Warriors for example – Immunities, mobility, Passive Regen. Now if a Necromancer was brought down to say Thief level – with the fact they have NO defense, yeah they wouldn’t stand a chance in ANY fight….

You just prove the point. Warriors have tons of defensive capabilities but still get max health/armor where the necro only gets health. Does DS truly warrant the light to heavy armor discrepancy on top of immunities, mobility, regen, and high damage?

Don’t get me wrong if they equalized the base health values and made all armor classes available to each class it would upset current balance. The problem is that current balance isn’t great at all and it’s continually trying to band-aid balance the stat discrepancies inherent from the base values. If we can set the base values as equal then we open up a huge variety of builds for all classes and can truly balance the classes based on survivability, dmg, mobility, etkittenil then classes will be pidgeonholed into going up certain trait lines and getting certain gear just to get enough vitality/toughness to survive against moderate DPS builds. Don’t even get me started on the trait line stat issues either! It’s just plain bad design.

I think all classes should have the same base health and armor choices. There is no logical reason that I can find that justifies the current base armor/health values. Melee clearly isn’t the reason for heavy armor as all classes have melee. Mobility isn’t the reason either as warrior is highly mobile. The only reason certain classes have certain armor is purely based on aesthetics, the health justification is just a big mystery. Once we get all classes on an even playing field we can actually start getting some balance in the game. At the very least there is ZERO reason that justifies having some classes start with 291(armor) stat points and essentially 757 more stat points(vitality).

If anyone wants to try and make a case for why the current base health/armor values are where they are then by all means. However, beware that I can almost guarantee there will be another class/spec that will call it into question.

Thedenofsin.7340:

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

Leuca.5732:

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

as in, some profession will have an easier time against certain professions, and a harder time against certain professions.

But you think warriors should be good against all professions, and be the easiest to play.

errr no.
i think warriors are good against those who deal puny damage.

You are very, very wrong. Every single good player left (all 5 of them) playing this game will tell you that.

Warrior is completely broken in this game. The March balance patch is their last shot to show the community they know what they are doing. After that, it’s 4.4.14 and this place will be a complete ghost town.

If you think ESO is going to be any better you’re sorely mistaken. As much as I want a new game to play since ArenaNet seems oblivious to game balance at best, ESO is not going to be that game. Considering it will also have a subscription and cash shop subscriber attrition will hit that game like a ton of bricks, think SWTOR.

Chrispy.5641:

Avaria.3857:

Can someone please direct me to a section of these forums that isn’t for boo-hooing and complaining?

Does such a paradise exist?

edit : Also, I bet Blackgate kills the Wurm first.

I doubt it. It’s increasingly difficult to field a map full of people that are there to do whatever is necessary to kill it. Instead it’s a lot of people that want to ride the coattails of others for “free” loot. There is a reason it took BG longer to kill marionette.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Qaelyn.7612:

Depends on priorities, really. If the goal is to make an event only people perfectly prepared and gear can complete .. if they get lucky and it isn’t ruined by a handful of inexperienced players or even griefers.. then yes, it’s well designed.

For typical players? It’s a shame.

You are incorrect. This evening we had a very poorly prepared group, and only one commander (me), but we still made it. We did not have an optimum amount of players. Most players were probably not perfectly geared, and we had to explain the mechanics to everyone in map chat. A lot of them were casual players. We did not use Team Speak.

Everyone gave it their best, and we prevailed. It really isn’t as impossible as you make it out to be. Yes, it is hard (perhaps harder than it needed to be), but perfectly doable by casual, unprepared players.

And that could come down to pure dumb luck. I had the same type of group last night and we couldn’t even get 3 chains down. Sometimes it’s 1 player on a platform and that’s basically game over. Sometimes it’s things bugging out(circles not appearing). Other times it’s group composition on the platforms as melee can’t attack at some points due to AOE or other attacks. I honestly don’t see it being doable by casual/unprepared players without a whole lot of luck.

Sometimes it’s not exactly the lack of skill or thought that causes the failed attempt. Last night I was doing the 3rd warden and the bombs weren’t putting up red circles until halfway through the fight. Someone even mentioned the same thing happening in mapchat. Needless to say but the bombs are an instant down and I was at least lucky enough to not have a bomb land on me while downed. Then of course you might have a platform with only 1 person vs a champion. That is extremely hard to pull off for anyone in the game considering the timer.

The thing I find hilarious is that for the devs wanting to move away from the zerker meta they sure continue to build things that are DPS races. Remove the timer and just make it that if an entire platform dies then you fail, otherwise it goes until you complete it.