Guild Wars 2

Come watch the stream while you sit in queue!
Title says it all.

http://www.twitch.tv/aggression_gaming/

Since I already wrote quite a bit about this in the previous thread (https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/wuv/wuv/Diminishing-return-system-for-wvw-cc-trains/first) I’ll keep this somewhat short.

DR on CC is not needed in GW2. Its that simple. Unlike other games, where certain classes did not have access to stunbreaks, every class in GW2 has access to some form of breaking CC’s, through stunbreaks or through stability.

Since every class has access to ways to break CC, getting hit by a single CC will not/should not influence the fight in a major way. Furthermore, in a 1v1 or even small group setting, the lack of DR on CC allows for experienced players to have an edge on new players. An experienced player will know when to dodge to avoid the stuns/cc and allowing them to not have to blow their stunbreaks. Implementing a DR on CC would close the gap even further between someone who has put in 2000 hours in the game and someone who has put in 50. IMO, if you have put in extra time and can make such skill plays as dodging CCs you should get an advantage over some new player who just eats all the CCs. A DR would take this out of play, since you could effectively eat the CC and just laugh as they try and CC you again.

For larger groups, my opinion and reasoning is addressed in the thread I linked above. Basically, DR is not needed since Anet allows for a boon to be applied that makes you immune to CC anyways. Once again, a DR would close the gap between skill play and mindless play. When you’re engaging a larger group (especially if you’re a smaller group) its extremely important to know when to pop your stability so you get maximum effectiveness out of it. If a DR was implemented, I would prob choose to just eat the first CC or two to gain immunity for the rest of the fight, since this immunity would basically be like perma-stability.

To sum it up, I do not support DR being implemented since it allows for bad play to be rewarded. In any game, good play should be rewarded while bad play is punished. If you’re being hit by a lot of CC and you’ve still failed to adapt, then you are the problem not the CC.

Umut.5471:

this is the main reason of opposition here. ask this to real dedicated wvw players in game, most of the players are not happy with current cc train meta. they can make a poll about it.

How would you define “dedicated wvw players” may I ask? If its close to someone who logs on every night of the week and plays wvw in a guild group format for around 3-4 hours while fighting groups of easily 60+, then you’ve just described the person you’re quoting.

I suggest you look back up at my second post in the thread as it shows almost a direct counter to your idea of a cc train and is quite effective.

Umut.5471:

This makes nonsense, 2/3 of the guild need to play guardian for other classes to be effective then ?(except warrior which has its own long duration stability) We are already using at least one guardian in parties but one guardian(or maybe mesmer) can only grant low-duration stability to party. This can only prevent the first impact, then ? This is like saying play as warrior-guardian to counter cc train. Yeah, death to other classes, play guardian-warrior only in every aspect of the game.

Guardians can give stability to 5 players every 18s with SYG, with the actual duration varying depending. And as I pointed out above you really only need 4-5 guardians within a 15 person group (which is at most 1/3 btw). This would give you a decent amount of stability within the group. If you are having stability issues even with this, I’d recommend taking another look at your group’s guardians setups and seeing if you can increase your stability output. Even if you don’t have stability it is still extremely easy to dodge these CC trains when they try and hammer stun into your group.

That comment about dodging the CC trains leads well into the scatter and free cast strategy. If you are having trouble as a guild group fighting these heavy CC trains, it might be good to check out the idea of death by 1000 cuts presented by a having a focus on backline players. (example here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=unikOUKCheE). While kitten lost the gvg, it is important to see how their movement and constant surrounding of the melee train gave the melee train (CC train) fits.

And I want to point out that my initial post was not a criticism of your play, if it was taken that way, well nothing I can do about that. I was pointing out that any diminishing returns implemented would be silly when you have a large number of ways to counter the CC currently, namely stability.

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

And I do understand that you mention stability in the original post, but this is why Anet won’t put in a diminishing returns. Especially with how they now have boons prioritize party members. If you have 10-15 people of whom you have around 4-5 guardians you should have no stability/cc troubles. If you want to kill those larger groups you have to be willing to put in the extra effect to coordinate within your group of when people will use their stability skills.

A counter to boons would be good kiting. You see a group stack might, don’t just stand there, move back and allow for that might to run out. You’re asking to nerf something that does not need to be nerfed at all. Learn the proper counter plays. If you expect an unorganized group to oll iover an organized group you’re mistaken. And that argument that the organized group would roll over you regardless is just false. You put my guilds 25 people up against your blob, we aren’t rolling over you. We actually do think about everything we do unlike most blobbers..

Nikkinella.8254:

How about putting in a kill counter? Guaranteed rare or exotic or ascended item for every 10 people I kill. This would be great for roamers and siege monkeys alike.

That would be beyond insane. I know I have gotten over 50 kills in a single fight before that lasted 3 minutes, 5 rares or exotics in 3 minutes thats a bit of an overkill. Do I think rewards could be increased? Sure, but I also remember when we got nothing when it came to rewards and I count my blessings.

ko killer.3692:

Thank you for letting me know my lads ran from a fight. I’ll be sure to go off on guild chat to them for running away from fights. See ya on the field

NO not again. I still have PTSD from the last time. We simply forgot that we should take our numbers and multiply by 3 to get the numbers that the enemy thinks we have. It won’t happen again sir I swear.

Good fights in CD borderland SIC and Corp. Was lots of fun especially shaking off pugs.

Lots of fun so far. Best matchup since matchup RNG started if these fights keep up imo.

Good times at Lake on Mag bl a bit ago. Thanks for the good fights there Mag.

Despite being placed against two much larger servers, I had fun this week. Thanks for the fights various guilds from TC and FA (AW, BURN, RET, RAM, HOPE, RE, GODS, SIC) and of course a special shout out to FLOT.

Quells.2498:

Chris.3290:

ko killer.3692:

Oh please, the amount of times my 5 man groups have had to deal with this same issue from TC and FA is unreal.

Yeah, I was actually laughing when TC sent 30+ people to take out 5 of your guys with a cata outside Klovan. They zerg so hard that I wonder if they ever can click anything other than the #1 skill all week long.

I was laughing the whole time I ran away then got ran over by one of the few FA zergs who dared take a TC camp.

Or are you embarrassed that all we have to do is press “1” to beat you?

Considering it was around 40 versus 7 that fight? I would be embarrassed if I were you due to the fact that we actually killed some of you. Here is a tip, mix 6 in with the 1 spam that way you will heal as well.

ko killer.3692:

Escthiil.3210:

Thank you SoS for ever being a good sport and bringing 30 odd plus to zerg 5 people.

It has been fun.

Oh please, the amount of times my 5 man groups have had to deal with this same issue from TC and FA is unreal.

Honestly its part of the game, every side has and will bring a zerg to destroy a 5 man team every now and then intentionally or not. Is it annoying? Of course, but it isn’t going to stop.

So did SoS bl just crash for TC and FA? Cause I know it did for SoS.

Honestly for all this trash talk on the forums, I am enjoying myself this matchup and I’m pretty sure the people I play with are as well. Been having good fights especially over Lake and Hills on Kain borderlands. Its nice facing good guilds on both servers that typically don’t have a blob with them and know what they’re doing.

Darius Glazkov.9750:

thats not my group, we can’t get into the map. but whatever, avoid the engagement. have fun farming a pug zerg with no coordination instead of going up against an actual team.

As much as I hate to get involved in such things, I must point out that the video your guild posted earlier this thread was you doing exactly that, as in farming a pug zerg. Don’t get me wrong I have believe you’d probably win against most FA guilds even numbers anyways but at least don’t be a hypocrite on the same page of the forums.

Anyways, good fights always fun to go zerg diving no matter what server we’re up against.

Thief and eh thief. Shortbow and s/? Along with shadowstep utility and run signet you will be the fastest. Though guardians burst gap closing is second with sword 2 and JI.

Fair warning I ended up crafting 50 levels but its was fun. If you got one try and run with a dedicated group that doesn’t mind you being a lowbie really helps as can be expected.

I recently tried to test this starting from level two on a guardian. I averaged four levels a day with around 1-2 hours of playtime per day during that span. Keep on Mind that was small group camp flipping and roaming. It would ve reasonable to get 8 levels a day especially if you zerg and have a blowout matchup

Edeor.9720:

If you think you can improve your combat skill in WvWvW through playing pvp then you’re the only one who need to l2p.

It seems you do not know how the stats work in W3 and Spvp.

Improving combat skill itself has very little to do with stats. Playing sPvP, while not an exact replica of the WvW environment, will help you grow as a player especially in 1v1’s. Think of it as an athlete working out in the gym and then going to play the game. The gym practice might not be the game situation but it sure does help when it comes to that game situation.

That being said, I find it hard to believe people have such an issue with thieves. If you build correctly (as in 1v1 or small group) you should win the fight against an average thief at least 50% of the time (if you yourself are an average player), which is exactly what you should look for unless you’re building towards a hard counter of a build.

Lastly, I know its been said a hundred times but roll a thief and try out the class mechanics. I’m not saying level it to 80 or anything, but play it long enough to get a sense for the timing of the skills since that will greatly help you as you fight them and time your dodges.

Enjoyable fights tonight on TCBL against TC and KN. TC you guys defended that north camp like it was garrison (better actually when I glanced at the map =P), but we got it in the end. Good to see KN have a presence on that map and by the looks of it was doing pretty well.

Look forward to the rest of the week and the fights to come.

Check out the beastmaster builds or a condition heavy build for ranger ( possibly traps or an evade ranger).
A good Condi ranger with apothecary gear with sword/dagger and short bow (or axe torch) is a very tough 1v1 and can easily win 1v2s if played right.

As a havok squad member of FA, please transfer to TC if you’re looking for a new server for your havok team. It would be nice to fight actual havok teams instead of TC pugs/zerg guilds.
(Not a knock against TC, just looking for more challenges and more havok squads would do that)

Surprised Fort Aspenwood hasn’t been mentioned at least not directly. But in all honestly I’d join SoS or FA (as my sig states I am on FA currently). Both servers I’ve been on at one point both have good communities and a mix of havok/zerg guilds/fights.

In my opinion, a vocal group of people here are calling for a change to a single class for an issue that exists, as other people mentioned, outside just a single class.

Nerf thieves cause they can hit the door and get away? If you die to those npcs on a keep your play is what needs to change. As far as the complaint saying you weren’t able to catch the thief even with 15 people goes, this is a bit of a tactical error on your part. If you had 15 people, you could easily have guarded each door to a keep with ~5 people. Why chase after the guy in a clump (which is just what a good thief would want) instead of just waiting at the doors and destroying him as he approached? And don’t say you couldn’t do this due to stealth being overpowered or magic or omg he has stunbreaks idk how to kill someone whos build has stunbreaks even when I had 15* people with me, since with a small bit of strategy you should be able to spread out and look for the thief and find him.

Lastly, I agree with the idea of swords only appearing at a set percentage for the gate, however, an issue with this would be in how it got implemented. Would the swords appear only for a period of time after the door has been hit below a certain percentage (kind of like now but door has to be 90% or something) or would if a door is below a certain percentage swords will always appear (which would be a very misfortunate bug/problem with this idea)

Going off of the last thing I mentioned above, someone cited before that if this was a real situation having your doors hit wouldn’t cause you to sound the alarm. However, with this idea/thinking, as long as a structure isn’t completely repaired it would/should have swords on it, since if a door is at 20%, even if the enemy has been pushed out mostly, I would be sounding the alarm still. So such thinking cuts both ways.

Seriously try out that signet build he mentions above. Sure you’ll melt if they hit you, but I was messing around in wvw with a friend with it and maxed out at 17k CnD and 32k backstab, which is downright criminal (kind of thieflike really).

If you want something different, you can run a boon stealing build that focuses on stuns and mobility. 10-30-0-0-30. I run that one in wvw since I’m usually in a small group and its nice to be able to cc and boon strip.

1. Play staff ele
2. Trait for greater staff aoes
3. Spam aoes in the zerg while it rushes in (just stand off to the side)
4. ?
5. Profit

In all serious though, think best day I had as staff ele was ~300 badges. Keep in mind that was running with a guild that more or less wiped everyone it faced including others guilds.

If you want more badges take a good aoe weapon/class (guardian is fantastic staff and gs geez) and just try and hit as many people as possible.

Based on what I’ve seen, the revealed duration does not stack, it maxes at 30s even if you hit two traps at the same time.

I run the 10/30/0/0/30, but its only really viable if you’re going S/D for boon stealing and stun on steal. If you’re going D/P or D/D the 30 in the last trait line is pretty much wasted.

Lauren.3061:

Also props to FA – you guys have got some very nasty 4-5 man camp flipping teams that I swear we threw 10-12 bodies at trying to wipe in various camps – and they held on, and on… and on! O_O

Cheers to FA and DB both for some fun fights and moments – really enjoying our matchups! Best of luck!

If you are talking about a certain fight at north camp, we had that must have lasted something like 30 minutes as our two camp flipping teams ended up joining up there and deciding to stay and fight, yes that was most enjoyable. Was especially enjoyable when one of our guardians just stayed around and came back to rez our group.

As usual good fights today, though minor qualm about TC hugging Lake (which they owned)tower on TCBL when they outnumbered us greatly but no matter it is a legit tactic I suppose.

Warrior has a more support spec with Shout Healer or Banner Warrior specs. Both these specs allow for warrior to spread healing and boons to your group with condi removal (shout w/ soldier runes). If you run either of these specs with weapon sets being ?/Horn and Hammer you will be a good support with decent dps for your group.

Overall though Guardian is a very good support class and in most ways outranks warrior within this aspect. However, if you don’t want to relevel to 80 try out a shout or banner warrior spec.

I switched to S/D build myself, but my build is different in a few ways from the one you’re using. My trait setup is 10/30/0/0/30 for steal dmg and a stun on steal. With the third trait line when I steal I get a minimum 4 boons (fury, swiftness, might, and vigor) along with dmg, lifesteal, and a stun. S/D isn’t really a hold still setup. It has by far the most movement capabilities of the specs. With the 2 ability with the immob and the 3 ability with the flank you are able to (and should be) move constantly. Also as mentioned, you should turn melee assist off since tbh it doesn’t assist in wvw/spvp.

If you are looking for a hold still build I wouldn’t recommend S/D, the whole setup revolves around movement on your part, without good movement you are going to not do so well especially if you are speced zerker like I am.

It is possible. When I was really playing my ele I tanked 3 players for an entire match (spvp) more or less (1 was only there for half) along with downing and stomping two who came back after they spawned. It wasn’t exactly easy and tbh I don’t run that build anymore (3 cantrip) because it can do this kind of stuff pretty easily against average players.

Not exactly a full burst build, but I am running 10 (mug trait) 30 – 0 – 0 – 30 (stun on steal) with S/D. Basically its good burst (especially on light armor classes, usually hit around 6k crits on CnD and then 1 ability crits from 3-6k) but it really shines in its ability to take off boons and give them to you. I’ve found this makes up for the lack of survivability that you would normally get from 30 in the stealth line. I am running full zerker armour, runes of the orge, sigils of fire (and sigil of accuracy in offhand) with mix of zerker and valk jewelry. Weapon sets are S/D and SB.

Good fights so far this week TC and DB. Shout out to EA for keeping running back to defend their southeast supply camp on FABL tonight that arrow cart did tip the balance in your favor there at the end.

Anyways good luck and look forward to the rest of this week (especially since finals are finishing)

Good fights roaming around the past couple of nights TC and DB, my guildmates and I have enjoyed fighting you guys. Anyways carry on.

/salute

Based on what I’ve seen, I’d probably nominate VoTF (Vengeance of the Fallen) and Red Guard as the two best open field guilds I have ever seen, on both sides of them. Nothing like getting slammed by one of those guilds on the open field.
Here are some video samples.

VoTF
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_TT1cGj0ks

Red Guard
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dovx_c_OyZQ

thenoobler.7540:

should have seen the grind in LOTRO’s pvp …. took literally years to gain rank at a certain point unless you ahd no life and played nonstop 12hrs a day.

Wait is this the actual Xiir? From Firefoot? And I’ll agree with that, getting those ranks 11+ were a pain. Got to rank 9 on my burglar halfway to 10 and just stopped, but man that green symbol was sexy.

~Renamedsof from FF

I currently run a D/D zerker build with full zerker armour w/ a mix of Valk and P/V/T jewelery and weapons (AC weapons and WvW rings). The trick I found is that I don’t run a full zerker trait set. Currently I run 0 20 0 30 20. This makes it so I share auras and auras give me fury and swiftness. I sit at around 20k health 2.1k power 1.6k prec 1k toughness 1.6k vit, which is more than enough to survive most burst builds and to escape from zergs if need be. My advise for a zerker build is to use the sigil of superior energy (the one that gives you 50% energy from weapon switches every 9s) this makes it so I get 1 dodge every 9s on attunement switch along with near constant vigor due to Arcana trait. As a zerker anything dodges are your friend and the way I run I get a lot of them. The only real 1v1 I’ve lost where I didn’t make an a horrible mistake or get jumped at some point was against a bunker guardian and that lasted for over 10 minutes.

Based on my experience with my ele, its best to use sp/d weapon combo until around level 30. Sp/d gives you that extra range to deal with enemies before they’re right on top of you and from my experience is easiest to deal with multiple enemies with (at least starting in fire attunement due to the nice aoe spike you can do with 2 then 3). As people have mentioned d/d has a bit of a learning curve though one thing that is pretty much a must is dodging (as with most classes). D/D ele has quite a few abilities that are able to close gaps created by dodging easily and constant dodging gives you those extra seconds to get that water attunement off cd. A good trait build I found to run early on was water for the passive regen in water along with the regeneration and vigor on cantrip use along with arcane for the boons whenever attunements are changed. A tip if you’re finding you aren’t able to dodge enough is to use a sigil of energy, best you can afford. I use the superior on my d/d ele and it gives me 50% energy back whenever I switch attunements (with a cd of 9s), which is a lot more dodging and does wonders for you survivability.