Showing Posts For ElDudemeister.5108:
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Note … if you are part of a server that will be facing Dragonband next week, then let me say that WvW is super-boring and you should probably farm in Cursed Shore for the week instead.
Massing is the only viable ‘strategy’, i use the word strategy loosely here, and are just plain boring.
I used to think this was true before I joined a WvW guild. We rarely form a zerg unless it’s important.
We will split up into teams of 5 and each team winds up with their own “job” (which of course changes as the tactical situation on the map changes). Some will be watching a keep, some will be escorting supply yaks to that keep, others will be flipping camps in an enemy borderland, maybe a team will be harrassing enemy supply/reinforcement lines, we usually have at least one small team just sitting in strategically important supply camps with ballistas. We have people running supply to nearby or strategic battles, groups assisting other commanders’ zergs, people sweeping held keeps for mesmers, people just building and refreshing defensive siege. I could play WvW for 10 hours a day and still not wind up doing every job that just my guild does when all we’re trying to do is hold one keep.
And it gets even more interesting when we are laying siege to a keep … cutting off supply, killing reinforcements, building trebs, defending them from counter trebs with a squad of eles, watching for stealthed suicide groups, taking and holding tactically important towers, raiding supply camps. That doesn’t even get into the feints and distractions meant to sew confusion about our actual plans.
Zerging is the only tactic if your commanders suck. And, yeah, we do that too when we get bored except we zerg in style (show up on your borderlands, quietly build a bunch of golems, try to take a keep or two without drawing orange swords and alerting you that we’re even attacking, and then jump onto the map that your zerg just left once you figure out what we’re doing).
For me, WvW got more interesting when I understood the overall strategy better. The zergs are certainly important, but they’re like “WvW 101.” But I can assure you that if you suck at running with a zerg and supporting it, you are going to suck at the rest of WvW. IMO, everyone should spend their first month or two in WvW just running with zergs and seeing how they operate in different situations. Basic training, if you will.
Once paid transfers start, we should know within a few weeks where servers “belong”.
My guess is that within two months we’ll be so tired of fighting the same opponents for the 4th consecutive week that the boards will be alive with (probably the same people) begging for free server transfers to make it interesting again.
@Dudemeister.
I saw some of you guys running around last time I was out and about. Hi! =)
That said. I am already in UhOh. Very successful, lots of communication, strong presence in WvW. I have no guild issues. The guild is great. I have server issues. Dragonbrand is just to darned crowded for my taste.
It has gotten crowded. I’ve been on DB since the very first hour of the first beta weekend, so I’ve watched it fill up. I frequently log on and have no kittening clue who half of the commanders are.
UhOh is an awesome guild. I used to be in [Epic] with a lot of the commanders and they’re still some of my favorite people on the server. One thought may be to spend more time in other servers’ borderlands. Our BL usually gets a queue, and your guild can fill up Eternal Battleground by yourselves on your WvW nights, but that still leaves 2 others maps that need attention.
If you are into WvW, I’d hate to lose you from Dragonbrand, especially if you are out there supporting Traiche, Miss T, Lady V, and the other super-awesome UhOh commanders. We have such a fun group. Our challenge right now is that we’re growing so fast that we haven’t figured out how, as a server, to effectively manage that yet although we are trying! This may or may not be a meaningful analogy to you, but I work in high-tech in New York City, and Dragonbrand feels like the exciting, explosive-growth phase of a tech startup.
If you’re truly done with DB, then I’m sorry to see you go but we have some guilds that are eager to come on board with us so I guess you’re making room for someone who wants to be here as your final parting gift to UhOh and DB.
We have all sorts of communities on Dragonbrand. I’ve seen brazilian guilds, taiwanese guilds, australian guilds, and US/Canadian guilds. Sounds like we’re missing a French guild! We have people playing around-the-clock, and I think some European guilds would be a great compliment.
And perfect English isn’t a requirement to say “10 invaders heading to garrison with golems!!!!”
Are you in a WvW guild? We have several, all of whom handle exactly the stuff you are looking for, we just don’t talk about it. While zergs are a big reason our server has moved up the tiers, just as big of a reason is the hard work of our WvW guilds who handle the highly coordinated small squad stuff.
During this matchup, here are some tasks that I’ve personally been a part of:
1) flipping enemy supply camps as part of a raiding party of 5
2) stationed on a keep (by my own choice) for a night, letting the rest of my guild (and the rest of the server, if needed) know when and where to defend and when more supply was needed for building projects
3) bunkered down in a strategically important supply camp with 5 or 6 guildies and held it against incoming zergs (80 badges on reset night!)
4) put together yak escort teams of size 2-10
5) roamed enemy territory with a team of thieves and warriors to cut off supply, hinder reinforcements, and cause diversions to distract enemy zergs
And this is all on Dragonbrand. And what’s more … it’s been this way since I joined Elephant Ambush [EA]. Before I joined a WvW guild, yeah, it was zergfest 2012 and it started to get old. Fortunately, we have the reputation of being one of the least “zergy” servers out there, and we are complimented on our ability to manage attack and defense by our opponents virtually every week.
Also, winning the matchup is likely to be more important, as ArenaNet has said that they intend for the outcome of the WvW matchup to have a material impact on the server, so you are literally thinking of transferring out at exactly the wrong moment. You actually sound like just the right fit for the Dragonbrand WvW community, you just haven’t found your place in it yet. You’re already here, and you’re here at a time when guilds are desperate to join our server. Why not hook up with a WvW guild?
EA is recruiting. You’ll find us over in the guild recruitment thread or just PM me and I’ll send you over to my guildmates that set people up with invites. I’m sure Pro, Duel, UhOh, Krew, WE, BP, or any of our other WvW-focused guilds have a spot for you, too, and may be a good fit.
We also know that we have too many people with commander tags on at the same time. It’s definitely a problem we are trying to manage it. Having a lot of fun, motivated people is a new problem for us.
Zergs don’t stick around towers for more than 30 seconds after capture very often.
Zergs tend to stick around about as long as their commanders do.
I’m not sure if this is a quip at me or just a statement, I’ll assume the latter.
It was definitely not directed at you, it was a general statement about leadership (both in WvW and in life). I know you wouldn’t blame your zerg for doing what they’re supposed to since I’ve run with you dozens of times. I also know that you understand that if a zerg fails it’s the leaders fault because … that’s what leadership is.
Zergs don’t stick around towers for more than 30 seconds after capture very often.
Zergs tend to stick around about as long as their commanders do.
That Bluevale fight sure was crazy. I ran in there hoping that we’d be able to hold out for 10 or 15 seconds, but we lasted a little while longer.
I’ve been enjoying this matchup a lot. It certainly feels like we are getting double teamed during the NA prime time hours but probably every server feels that way when they’ve got 2 other servers with full zergs in their borderlands.
I’ve found both Yak’s and EBay to be tough, relentless opponents with creative strategies and strong members carrying them out. Thanks for the matchup, everyone.
Well goodbye Maguuma and hello DB, welcome to YB v EB v DB taking everything while we work and sleep! It will basically be YB v EB during our NA prime time and DB owning the map for 12 hours vs no one! Good times for all!
You keep thinking that… DB is going be there during prime time. it’s going to be a good show down this week.
It was supposed to be a surprise, RockOn.
I may have to leave borlis, and change my homeworld. All of this fighting is just becoming too much.
Stick it out. This is an especially rough week for BP and DH, and it’s an unusual week all around. I wouldn’t judge the server or the people who are sticking with it based on this week’s thread.
I’m glad you moved over when you did, Springy. This week we need to really be figuring out how we’re going to all work together when next week comes. If we don’t, a lot of the new guilds on DB are going to get annihilated this weekend by the level of competition that we expect. Now that DB has queues pretty constantly with all of the new guys, we need to make sure that this all works FOR us (happy, productive zerg) and not against us (n00bs clogging the queue and not being organized enough to defend). This week has proven to be an unusual week, so we should take advantage of it and get our collective stuff together.
It’s great to have you guys on board, now we have to get you up to speed.
I would sum up this week by saying that it hasn’t gone the way I thought it would.
they don’t bother to watch the score board like the DBers did
We are still watching your scoreboard (in this thread).
Here’s the pitch for Dragonbrand. I seriously think we’re an up-and-coming t2 or t3 server in the making. We have a night crew that’s one of the best in the game, and our day crew is really starting to bulk up in both size and sophistication. We’re not 100% where we want to be, so you will still find yourself in some desperate situations (we had a time this week where all the territory our server had was a keep, a tower, and a camp in EB, and we had to figure out how to just survive). The people on Dragonbrand are fun and genuinely like WvW, and there are a lot of us who are happy to help onboard new people about how we do things.
The best part of Dragonbrand, though, is that we are basically a PvE server. When I am out levelling alts with my wife, we never see empty zones and the “big” events like dragons get a zerg that makes our WvW zergs look like scouting parties. You can die almost anywhere in the world and you will probably be rezzed within 10 minutes.
If you think you might want to give DB a try, contact me in-game. We have a couple of WvW guilds who are recruiting heavily now, so I’d be happy to connect you with one of them
I’m looking forward to having EB back, but losing DB kind of sucks. I haven’t found any roamers from DB, but at least their zergers put up a fight. I’ll dive into the middle of a Yak’s zerg of almost any size without fear, but I check for a few tags before I go into a group of DB.
We are visiting t5 temporarily due to the vagaries of the ranking system’s math. But our prime-time crew (generally our weakest link) got so much better over this week that I don’t see us staying there very long. We’re definitely not the same server we were a week ago.
A lot of us were excited to move up a tier and test ourselves against you guys and we did. We saw where we were truly strong, and we saw where we could use some work and we’ve been working hard on those aspects.
See all y’alls soon.
Phur,
Before you leave Dragonbrand, come back out to WvW a couple of times. I know I haven’t seen you there in a while, and our prime-time crew strengthened considerably. We really upped our game once we found ourselves in a new tier.
We were competitive all night last night, and two nights ago we took almost the whole borderlands of Maguuma (1st place in the matchup) during their prime hours and were 2nd in points per tick during what has traditionally been our weakest time and this is with Maguuma and Yak’s Bend both openly teaming up on us. We’re coordinating attacks across servers during primetime, we had a queue on our borderlands last night, we’re working hard to get better inter-guild communication going, our sieges are getting more sophisticated, and we’ve been learning how to move people and supply between maps so that they can be where they’re needed.
We fought our way from the bottom of t5 up to t4, and we made such a strong showing that both other servers are ganging up on us during prime time and we’re still making a respectable showing (we’d be winning except that NNK is taking a break to get ready for the new year). You were the first commander I knew in WvW and you’re a good guy, and it would be great to keep you on Dragonbrand where we both started.
Maguuma. They are tough, relentless opponents. We have to come up with some pretty creative strategies to make progress against these guys and their at times overwhelming numbers. In addition to their massive zergs, they’ve got a couple good WvW guilds, most notably AoN. They’re the first crew that made my guild sit up and take notice, and with good reason.
I’m having a good time against Maguuma and can’t wait for the rematch.
Dear DB players, we from NNK guild
Because its coming to year end now and some of our guild members need to rest / many stuff need to do for coming new year…we felt sorry cant accomplish the goal, we need to have some rest for a few days and do more training to improve our tactics
You guys are awesome. Take some time to rest.
We will definitely be back in this tier again. I have to say that even though they are winning, Maguuma has been a LOT of fun to fight against. I don’t think I’ve ever scanned an incoming enemy group for one particular guild before, but I am always on the lookout for the AoN guys. They are like vampires or something.
Did DB have this much of a issue with people from your server exploiting last week or is this a new thing?
I only started checking these forums last week, but the Borlis Pass guys accused us of cheating. We wrote it off as epic kitten because they came in so confident and, after a few close days, we ran away with the score and figured it was just sour grapes. I was around for several of the instances where they claimed cheating and it was just our server’s mesmer tactics.
But I’d have to say that it’s likely that there is exploiting going on although I don’t recognize most of these guilds, but I’ve now see exploiting twice with my own eyes at the hills keep and at the garrison. What I can say, though, is that our main WvW guilds (the ones that will be here 6 months or a year from now no matter what tier we wind up in), don’t cheat and would happily report someone for doing so.
We definitely appreciate help rooting out exploiters. If you guys have evidence, feel free to hit up the people from DB who are posting to this thread and we might be able to narrow it down further and help report. We love our Dragonbrand community, we love WvW, and we love to have a good, clean, fun competition with other servers. I, personally, have run with Grit [LION], En Rohbi [DUEL], and our excellent commanders from NNK and FIST, and they all seem aligned with this “no cheating” thinking. Also, I am part of EA and I can say that, from our guild chats and Vent conversations, we are very very anti-exploits. We all worked hard to make our server’s WvW tough and competitive, and we want our reputation to be as a tough, competitive server, not the dirtiest players around.
Here’s the pitch for Dragonbrand.
We have an extremely strong night crew and our NA prime-time crew could use some more people. Our NA prime-time guilds are probably among the toughest and grittiest guilds in the game that have developed into very strong defenders with the ability to flash out of our towers and keeps and take on larger zergs and win. Our night crew regularly takes over 90% of the maps and these guys have figured out how to efficiently attack enemies simultaneously. Dragonbrand has a lot to teach. We have strong mesmer tactics, some of the toughest WvW fighters around, and a host of strong commanders who have differing styles and specialties.
If you like to PvE, we do too. When levelling alts, I rarely see large empty spots on maps. We have an active PvE community and you will run into fun, helpful people everywhere you go. I’ve seen a couple instances of guilds clearing temple of balthazar and holding it open.
Because of your prime-time location, you guys would be able to come in and have an immediate impact on a server that is doing well but missing a few pieces in order to compete on the highest levels.
I’ve never even gotten an exotic drop anywhere than karka chest and map completion, so WvW is just par for the trash course for me
I’ve been getting them, too. I’m not sure how long this has been happening, but reappearing dead because of the “Alt-F4” change that they made has been really annoying.
It’s been a fun and competitive matchup this week. I’m glad it was so good.
The accusations of cheating, spying, and double-teaming, and exploiting are signs that we all want to win and we think our servers deserve a shot a the #1 spot. It’s been fun tangling with DH this past month and I hope that your server can pull itself back together quickly. And BP has definitely been a shocking competitor. There were a couple times this week when I took a look at the score and almost threw in the towel.
To paraphrase one of the best movies of all time: The DH and BP we killed this week in WvW are some of the finest human beings we will ever know. After we rotate back to PvE, we’re gonna miss not having anyone around worth shootin’.
Some things make me laugh. Like when someone mentions my paranoia and then goes on to be paranoid about ‘spys’.
It’s not really paranoia when you guys are here openly admitting that you are sending people to other servers to take screenshots of their chat windows.
Does Dragonband got an united community?
There’s no formal community organization on our server, but most of us who are in the trenches daily or several times a week know each other and know most of the commanders, and we all get along. Our WvW guilds are friendly with each other and their goals are to win and to have fun. I haven’t seen what any other servers are like and I doubt I will. The de facto Dragonbrand community is awesome and it’s a lot of fun, even when we’re in a distant 3rd place.
Dear Borlis Pass,
You haven’t won yet.
Love,
Dragonbrand
The definition of “in combat” is probably a little vaguer than you guys think. I left the game last night thinking that I wasn’t in combat, but probably due to the culling changes that were recently added that cause enemies to be invisible until it is too late to see them, I woke up dead in Lion’s Arch this morning.
Bring your “A” game and fear the night.
I’m going to echo some of the sentiments others have posted. I really like the idea, but it’s possible that something in the execution wasn’t perfect. It seems like people generally agree that prioritizing the rendering of enemies makes sense, but I have definitely noticed a SIGNIFICANT increase in the number of times that enemies just appear around me, too late for my to do anything about it. That may just be a less-than-optimal implementation of the new algorithm or maybe I just have more crud in my computer’s memory this week, but I like where Arenanet is taking this. And I like that they’re willing to try this kind of thing and see how it works. WvW is a lot of fun, and it’s great to see people taking our fun so seriously.
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