Guild Wars 2

If you learn how to trigger it, you’ll learn how to avoid triggering it, and I don’t want you to learn that.

Something happened to WM? Are we sure? Maybe they just split up and are taking a few weeks off? When Kain came through T3 the waves of WM was the reason they wiped the floor with us. If they are altogether gone, I don’t see Kain in T3 for long. That means fights for green in T3, and that’s cool.

In anticipation of DB moving up I’ve gone ahead and done WvW map completion on the characters that I care about because DB’s future with respect to color and caps is uncertain. We all know numbers and coverage is what’s important, but we don’t know where DB stands in T2. It’s been nice being green for several weeks on end. T2 is going to be 24/7 zerg balls, and that’s a bummer because I like to roam now and then.

Kript.3291:

so much for ‘better competition’

I figured JQ WvWers thought more than one move ahead. Perhaps not. DB is slated for Tier 2 next week, against servers that trounced us on their way through T3. There will indeed be a challenge. Maybe not T1 skill-level challenge, but surely a numerical one.

The ratings are the great equalizer. A server gets trounced and it moves down. A server trounces and it moves up. Maybe it happens too slow. Perhaps some of you recall AN wanted WvW matches to be two weeks long! Mismatches would be annoying for less time if they were only 24 to 48 hours…I agree with you there. In that case, they’d probably need to lower the cost of seige and upgrades to make them more worthwhile.

Anyway, the fact is each server is currently in its position based upon merit (i.e. numbers). It’s a reasonable assumption that each higher ranked server has progressively (not linearly) higher WvW numbers. The fact that there is a larger gap between 7 and 8 than there is between 8 and 9 is unfortunate. It means that tiers fixed with 3 sides may not lead to reasonably even matchups, even over several weeks. Optimal matchups would take WvW population into account, not just the record. Unfortunately population on a given server changes from week to week so population-based matching would be difficult.

Right now I’m in a place where I don’t feel bad for Mag at all, given the QQing over the last few weeks on the forums. However DB (my server) has been in the same situation, while FA and TC were in T3 before SoS went down. Being outnumbered, as you say, is not as fun, especially if it’s week after week.

EnRohbi.2187:

povV.5681:

Elano.2014:

How do Maguumans build a treb in the safe zone, right outside of the spawn in Mag BL?

we got the idea from db doing it last week

But you taught us how to do it over a month ago

Please don’t. We don’t need the “you started it” wars again.

Is there a sign-up on DB? I don’t think we’re hardcore enough for that. I believe that if RE decides DB isn’t fulfilling for them and they leave, most of the rest of us will wish them good luck and we’ll be happy to settle back to the top of tier 3. Maybe running a server like it’s the military is needed to reach #1. Our DB guilds have already demostrated that’s not what we’re here for.

I know very little about what really happened, but it sure seems like there’s a lot of drama on JQ. I’d leave to a more welcoming server too.

Intruiging! DB is happy to have a boost to our NA presence. Hopefully whatever drama existed stays on JQ, and doesn’t bleed over. DB is rather laid-back and content with its current guilds, and we like to focus our animosity at our opponents.

Solo, I walked my necro up on 3 [Me] in YB BL with just my minion army in tow. At a distance they saw me, they hopped up and down, then as soon as I started running toward them, they ran toward the nearest friendly camp so they could have some NPC backup. /disagree.

No, two wouldn’t stack. I’ve never seen more than 14 or so in Mask’s videos. I think you’d get 20 only with external help.

How close can you get? Mask uses boon duration runes. The might duration runes have higher duration. Might-stacking sigils also help. Using Mask’s build I get about 7 stacks out of combat, but about 12 in combat if I keep everything up. Certainly not 20, but at least in the mid-teens should be possible.

kerona.3465:

He might mean who is online at the moment, because he clearly had more before. Either that or they’re all mesmers with 3 clones up constantly :P

He said 15 transfers so far. No mistaking what he said. Hey if he had a zerg of 40 people, it’s possible that it was lead by 15 EMP with 25 non-EMP followers. It’s difficult to discern that. In my case, we had a huge zerg retaking Bluebriar and the entirety of EMP split off from the zerg to do “flank practice”. It was 15 people max.

Perhaps you’re right and the commander in EMP itself is wrong. One is more authoritative than the other, but who cares, right? I guess we should expect to see DB in T2 next week with this influx. Maybe we can compete there with the new folks, or maybe we can’t. I don’t see this new playerbase being able to compete in T1, which means eventually those guilds who transferred in will be searching for greener pastures elsewhere. Maybe we’ll see Mag in T3 again some day (I hope not, too much QQing about SEA and other numbers whining on the forums for my taste).

Several weeks ago Mag threw the T3 match and many Mags claimed they preferred the better roaming environment of T4. I too like roaming, and I’m concerned DB and T2 is going to be 24/7 zergs.

kerona.3465:

Eviator.9746:

Some in-game chat from a commander on EMP. There’s at most 15 EMP transfers right now, with lots more coming. So rB (above) and EMP will increase our numbers, but it’s not a huge factor yet.

There is a zerg of EMP floating around. Our whole guild laughed when we saw the number 15. Someone is being lied to. But yeah, more will come.

Where? Was it DB BL within the last hour? Because if so I was tagging along with them, and 15 is an accurate number. Lots of others, from many known and unknown guilds, were following them.

Some in-game chat from a commander on EMP. There’s at most 15 EMP transfers right now, with lots more coming. So rB (above) and EMP will increase our numbers, but it’s not a huge factor yet.

It’s speculation based upon ANets past history of eliminating Engi’s good builds. For all we know ANet actually considers HGH balanced.

Fix? Retaliation is a pretty good defense against burst specs. Saved my bacon against thieves and shatter mesmers several times. So if they “nerf” retaliation, they better nerf burst specs too.

Why are we giving them ideas? Yeesh.

In before “they don’t read our forum anyway.”

All the frustration of this matchup is taking its toll. DB is rightfully ranked #7, Mag #8, and YB #9. Only major changes in WvW population is going to change that. Unfortunately that means Mag and Yaks are going to be facing this same scenario for the foreseeable future. I’d rather this thread devolve into the typical “X is awesome because we kicked Y’s butt”, than continued population and coverage comparison posts.

Cheers to the small group of Mags and one YB dueling in south DB BL! I have yet to win one, but it was fun.

A lot of the above posts are moot. The OP was looking to solo-level in WvW against caravans and camps. Giving builds and playstyles doesn’t help because many builds won’t work at all until level 30, and will work rather poorly until level 60 when GM traits are reachable. So for most of the leveling process you have to build and gear rather hybrid-like, which means you’re going to have a tough time against those veterans, and in fact even normal mobs. I had an epic 5 minute fight with a dolyak with my vastly underleveled engineer a while back. I wouldn’t even think about approaching a camp…

I also found that even if you are somehow able to constantly circle the map PvE’ing without running into invaders, with the XP you get from these events you level an estimated 5 times slower. The big XP comes from towers and keeps, but that necessitates a group and some time. So if you are in WvW to PvE, you’re actually much better off actually PvEing in PvE world by a large margin. I know the idea of helping your server seems appealing, but the extremely slow XP rate is going to start to get on your nerves.

I ran with a very mobile zerg, tagging everything in sight, and leveled at least 5 times slower than I do in PvE. Hey if you love WvW and dislike PvE, then it doesn’t matter how long it takes. As for me, I wanted to reach 80 and be effective ASAP. Auto-attacking for 150 sucks.

I just love watching these. Makes me want to move off my tier 3 server so that I can solo. Here the smallest group size is about 10.

Grind My Gears

15 chars

Efface.8460:

I seem to remember YB shutting DB down for the week, a couple months ago….

Wonder what happened since then…

maybe some theory craft gamers could happily explain

I’ve looked back at the matchups on millenium and the only time in the last six months YB and DB were in the same tier and YB beat DB, it was by only 2,200 points and we were both beat by Maguuma. That was back in late December, and based upon the subsequent matchups, YB lost a bunch of players to transfers, and DB gained some.

Since free transfers ended, both DB and YB servers have gained a rank, which is commendable, but fankly most likely due to SoS losing big guilds and moving down. Because Mag and YB swapped between tiers 3 and 4, I’d say those two servers are rather evenly matched. There is a fairly large gap between those servers and DB, and then there is another large gap between DB and both FA and TC.

Assuming we don’t see any large transfers from a tier 1 or tier 2 server, we should expect to see DB stay in tier 3 for a long time, winning consistently thanks to its vast night (SEA?) presence. Mag and YB will be fighting for second place. I seem to recall Mag’s NA presence being quite large, so those two servers will be fighting heavily during that time, with DB doing it’s best to hold on to its upgraded keeps and towers with somewhat but not vastly lower numbers. I can tell you I’m not looking forward to Mag trolls on the matchup forum…it’s hard to stay motivated to keep up when there’s 150 new posts per day, 80% of them Mag.

Who knows what’s going to happen with SoS. How many guilds there, seeing SoS continue to sink, will jump ship? Most likely it will jump to tier 5 or 6. I believe it could easily compete in tier 4 with its current population, but I just don’t think it will keep its current population.

There is a little bit of BSing going on here, for those who are intellectually honest. Small heals are meaningless against multiple mobs because you lose the health you would gain during the heal casts. That is, unless you’re running away, which happens from time to time when you get in too deep, so I get that. I’ll give you FT #2, but better not aggro more than 3 things because you’re going to get repeatedly hit several times with FT’s short range.

Blinds are great, but they are not constant and they don’t do much damage, so while you may blind the heck out of your 5-6 mobs, when the blinds wear off you still have 5-6 near-full-health mobs to contend with. The amazing pre-nerf smoke bomb was a notable exception, but that’s a thing of the past.

Ever since I leveled a necro and thief I think I got a little spoiled. Not too much skill juggling. Then I leveled a mesmer, and that was like playing the piano if I aggroed more than 2 mobs…so I didn’t. Now that I’m back to engi again, it’s the piano all over again. I know I could go explosives…that’s what I did for my first engineer. This time I wanted to try something different.

For now I’ve settled on a Rifle-Tools/SD build using EG and TK for added utility. I’ve learned how to tackle several mobs with a decent amount of survivability, but it takes a great deal of concentration. Here’s a typical opener “rotation”:

1-F4-3-8-3-2-F3-7-2-4-F2

That’s:

Hip Shot – Surprise Shot – Blunderbuss – Tool Kit – Pry Bar – Box of Nails – Throw Wrench – Elixir Gun – Elixir F – Acid Bomb – Healing Mist

Like I said, playing the piano. All mobs at this point are below 50% health, and I’ve got to work around all the cooldowns to finish them off.

If you like smaller groups, I think you’ll find T4 more appealing. It’s rare to come across a small enemy group who isn’t being followed by 10 to 50 others. It happens, but it’s rare. NA prime time is going to be zerg fights here, which is fine if you like that kind of thing.

Well I went rifle/power and I actually felt even weaker! But I stuck it out until I got SD (lvl 20), and now it seems good enough to move forward.

Richard Nixon.6573:

Just a friendly reminder- DB certainly doesn’t deserve to be in tier 3 without our SEA presence. But on the flip side, Yaks don’t belong in tier 3 without their NA presence, and SoS doesn’t belong without their Oceanic (and NA?) presence.

Complaining and whining that a server wouldn’t be doing half as well without the majority of their population… is just… ugh. Can we at least think about our whining and arguing before we type please?

It’s not about when a server is strong, it’s when it’s weak. When someone comes on here and says “we’re outmanned 24/7 because server X always has 60-man zergs in all maps” (overexaggeration), they need to be set straight. DB is winning because of SEA, and SEA only. The rest of the time we struggle to muster enough troops to keep half our BL (midday weekdays) or we’re going back and forth (NA primetime). So the conversation is not about what tier we belong in, it’s an attempt to accurately compare populations throughout the day.

Yeah, that’s how I’m doing it. It just feels like a chore compared to the other professions I’ve leveled, and not much easier than my first engineer when I barely knew how to play the game.

Well everyone has confirmed my suspicions, that leveling my 2nd engi is going to be a chore, and that it would be worse trying to do so in WvW. I’ll try out the PvE Tools/SD build, and if that doesn’t work for me I guess I go back to the staple explosives build. I’ll probably re-evaluate P/P when I get higher level.

tl;dr: Engineer feels weak even the second time through, even with much more skill. Suggest a leveling path for me please.

I guess I’m frustrated. My first engineer to 80 was my first character to 80, and during that time I felt things were a little rough just because I was still learning the mechanics of the game and the profession. Now that I’m working on my 2nd engineer, I’m getting annoyed. Things seem to die slowly, and hit me rather hard. I’m good enough now that I hardly ever die, but the engineer feels just as weak as it did 7 months ago.

I have 3 other 80s. Leveing thief and necro in PvE was fairly painless. Mesmer spent a good amount of time in WvW, and quite effectively. The engineer is a PITA … everywhere.

Yeah, the grenade kit is still the best, followed by bomb kit even after the smoke bomb nerf. I wanted to go conditions but those kits are mostly power-based. Of course both have power and condition components, making a hybrid spec more reasonable. But it’s hard to spec hybrid when you’re level 17. P/P isn’t that fun in PvE when you have to fight 3+ mobs all the time, and for that matter neither is the Rifle. Turrets post-buff are better for sure, but it’s so darn annoying to have to pick them up after a fight, move forward, then wait. Flamethrower never has and never will have a good damage to survivability ratio, at least until Juggernaut. Elixir gun doesn’t have enough AoE. Toolkit might work with turrets after I gain several more levels, but then it’s back to “pick-up and wait”.

I wanted to level my engi mostly in WvW, both zergs and small groups. With my engineer I’m lucky to kill an ambient creature in WvW with 1 shot! I had an epic 5-minute fight with a dolyak at level 5.

Well, can someone recommend to me a leveling path (stats, traits, weapons, and kits) that will improve the experience? Perhaps something that will help me be at least slightly more than a meat shield in WvW?

Mister Mustard.7203:

If hypothetical nonsense were pertinent …. ???

Context is important. That’s one life lesson for free. You’re welcome.

The context is that DB’s non-asian time-slot is rather low population, so any opponent who claims otherwise need only listen to…people on their own server.

santi is right. Without our asian population, DB would be tier 5 or worse. NA weekdays mid-day is a veritable ghost town. I was on GoM before, and it felt the same, except on GoM it was like that 24/7.

santi and anyone on DB say without night-capping DB wouldn’t have enough for the next tier down, let alone this one. Tken and lonusX say DB has overwhelming numbers all the time. I wonder who is right?

As I’ve said before, that would be an idea I fully support. I think AN took the easy route to balance. But balance of some kind was indeed appropriate.

In WoW when they made significant trait tree changes, they refunded everybody’s traits. I wonder if ANet is intentionally trying to avoid that kind of thing. It’s is hard to believe that after seven months, AN believes all of the traits are properly placed and just need minor balance tweaks and bug fixes. But that seems to be the case for now.

Tken I’m not sure how long you’ve been around. Until SoS came into our tier, we got 2nd place 6 weeks in a row to Kain, FA and TC. During that time DB may have had a good enough night presence to keep us in 2nd, but we were completely outnumbered for most of the rest of the day.

tl;dr: We’ve played against T2 servers and got wholluped.

tl;dr2: Jump on DB BL at midday weekdays and see just how many DB you can find. I bet it takes you 30 minutes to find 10 people.

I have no reason to lie. I’m not part of a big guild, and I’m telling you that DB keeps losing its BL while I’m on, and I keep dying. Not exactly self-flattering remarks.

Edit: I just looked back and I was wrong. It was actually 7 weeks in a row in 2nd place when a current T2 server was in T3.

I can attest that for the 8 hour window when I can play, DB has no queues, very few commanders, and 6-20 players per map at any given time. That’s during NA midday hours. Two weeks ago that was about when YB would bring good numbers and take more than 1/2 the map, and we would struggle to rally a force to slow them down (and fail to do so). Last week neither server put up much of a fight during that time period.

Suffice it to say, without our night-cappers, DB would be tier 5 at best. For that reason, I sincerely appreciate the large guilds we have, even if I never get to run around with them.

doquiel.5371:

@ Eviator – healing turret doesn’t work as blast finisher. Interesting info on the flame turret overcharge, but it is really useless for this application as I am looking to do this out of combat. As for the suggestion of putting detonate mine down before the smoke bomb, again that negates the blast finisher for deploying the mine, not sure what you mean by ‘suggestion … is right’, if you could elaborate that would be great. As for you having done 18s, that’s great news, unfortunately all you do is describe the blast finishers and not the rotation you used. I am aware of the blast finishers that are available, what I’m looking for is detailed rotation information for a rotation that works, and would proved the 18s you suggest you’re able to provide.

I also didn’t do too much with the flame turret after I figured this, because my tests were also out of combat. I actually never tried it with the mine, turrets always seemed faster to me because you could set it up beforehand. Throw mine is a blast finisher? Or just the Detonate mine?

Here was my rotation:

Setup:
6: Deploy healing turret
7: Deploy rifle turret
8: Deploy rocket turret
9: Switch to bomb kit

Timed preparation:
F4: Drop Big ’Ol Bomb
4: Drop Smoke Bomb
~: Switch to Pistol/Shield
0: Enable ground-targetted AoE for supply crate

After smoke bomb goes off:
Big ’Ol Bomb goes off (1 blast)
0: Drop supply crate (1 blast)
F1+F2+F3: Trigger turret detonations (3 blasts)
4+4: Magnetic inversion (1 blast)

6-7-8-9-F4-4-~-0-0-F1-F2-F3-4-4

Whew, I made a lot of people mad. I guess everyone who used KR never used it in a manner that is unbalanced, and thus it should never have been nerfed.

/end sarcasm

Your multi-kit build still works. Maybe it’s been rendered slightly less effective. Maybe it’s been rendered slightly less fun. But if you get a kick out of swapping in and out of kits, you can still do that. If your build is destroyed by the change, then your build relied too heavily on an adept-level trait.

Kit refinement defined a few builds. Now it can no longer do that, so those builds are destroyed. Those who liked using those builds are understandably upset. Any nerf, expected or not, that decreased the usefulness of that trait so that it could no longer define those builds was going to cause a lot of rage. Sure, AN could have restructured the trait tree to make it a grandmaster trait. I think what they did instead is the simpler method of handling the balance issue.

Fun, shmun. Don’t kid yourselves, the fun you experienced is 1-shotting people. Intellectual honesty.

Frankly I’m not too upset. Once 100nades became a household name, there were a lot of new fair-weather engineers. Now that it’s gone, we’re a rare species again, to some degree.

I’ve done 18 seconds…once (3 turrets, BOB, Mag Inv, and supply crate). Most of the time I get 15. CrisPeH’s suggestion of putting detonate mine down before the bombs is right. The healing turret can also be detonated for a blast finisher can’t it? You can combo off the Flame Turret overcharge, but only in combat. The field doesn’t activate outside of combat.

Since the turrets can be detonated without delay, the problem you’re having is most likely the amount of time it takes to cast Supply Crate. You have to aim the ground-targetted AoE, wait for the cast bar, then wait for everything to drop out of the sky. That whole process seems to take around 2 seconds. At that point you still have the Magnetic Inversion to do.

Now that I think about it, that was when smoke bomb pulsed once a second for 3 seconds, instead of once every 2 seconds for 4 seconds. It might be easier now.

Sylosi.6503:

If they felt KR was too much for 10 pts, then they should of simply moved it up the tree to 20 or 30 pts.

If Anet had asked me, that’s exactly what i would have suggested. Make KR a build-defining grandmaster trait, and make the spells awesome.

Man, it’s like the only reason to carry multiple kits is to trigger kit refinement! Look, it’s an adept-level trait. You shouldn’t be building your build around a low-level trait. Adept level-traits should be “nice to have” and “synergizes well with the way my character is built.” It should not define a build.

Would you take it over Speedy Kits? Depends upon what you’re going to do with your character. The new skills might be terrific for PvE, and pretty good in PvP in the right hands. But KR no longer defines the a build, and I consider that an appropriate balance change.

I’d say it worked! Now I finally know what I’m getting in to.

DB brought in a huge zerg to its/our BL.

A few minutes later, most went to Yak’s and ALL of YB came to DB BL. DB is looking for a big fight, so go back to your battlelands, YB!

titanlectro.5029:

Eviator.9746:

I tested it before WvW went down. You can throw grenades off of a wall without having to stand on the very edge. But unless you’re right up against the lip, the grenades just hit the lip or the ledge. Throwing it up a wall from the ground works just as it did before.

What changed? You get a green circle as long as the landing zone is in range. Whether the grenades make it to that landing zone is a matter of lobbing arc.

So engineers can do AoE damage to attacking zergs/siege without having to stick their head out? I might need to dust off my Engi.

Not exactly. You can still be hit by AoE. You can’t be pulled off the wall or hit by single-target projectiles since you don’t have to be ON the ledge, just right up next to it. So it’s better and works like any other profession’s ground-targeted AoE abilities, but you don’t have free reign to lob away like thief shortbow.

I tested it before WvW went down. You can throw grenades off of a wall without having to stand on the very edge. But unless you’re right up against the lip, the grenades just hit the lip or the ledge. Enemies can still see and target you. Throwing it up a wall from the ground works just as it did before.

What changed? You get a green circle as long as the landing zone is in range. Whether the grenades make it to that landing zone is a matter of lobbing arc, i.e. will the lobbed grenades hit an obstacle. In other words, very little change, certainly not game-breaking, just quality of life like Ayestes said.

Andele.1306:

They got some pretty major buffs… I mean grenades no longer need LoS.

Joke, right? Cause grenades do need LoS, just the targeting doesn’t.

I just bought one. They’re here! Thanks ANet!

New stat combinations on exotics! Used to be just Soldiers, now it’s Berserker’s, Clerics, Rabid, Carrion, Knights, and maybe a couple others too. Both armor and weapons. Also, the number of badges is reduced, but there is an added gold cost/sink. About half the badges plus about 1g.