After most of TC/FA went to bed, I ran around the BLs for a bit. Those towers are mostly unmanned and not upgraded at all by BG. If you oceanic guys can muster up a dozen guys, you can probably flip some of them for hit-and-run fun.
@Nanashi: Some of you BG guys are really cool. I think one of your guys wanted the vista right outside of our EB keep. I happened to be there, he quickly put me in the downed state (he was really geared hahah), did a /bow, and left me alone to heal up. I was seriously surprised how nice he was.
I think they need to change the design of the trebs. The whole “I safely sit in my treb on my rooftop or SM 3rd floor and press ‘2’ repeated for hours” is seriously a design flaw.
Man, when I got on last night (TC) the only map where we even had anything, Eternal Battlegrounds, had a long queue. The Borderlands had no queue, but were all awful and pointless to even go in.
I tried to do something for 20-30 minutes, but just outside our only spawn zone were 15+ BG players, just camping there. At /most/ there were 7-8 TC players around, most of them too scared to venture out to any location when there was an opening. Had a few openings and only ever had 1 other TC player go out with me, and we would quickly get mobbed by 8+ at any location we attempted to take.
It was awfully boring…
I agree because I was there as another individual and not one of our popular commanders/guild people. Our stragglers morale in the BLs is down the drains.
However one thing I notice is some of these people do not even know there are side exits. They also do not know all the entrances to the various castles or keeps where only 1 entrance is being camped. As a sadistic person it’s fairly hilarious watching people lemming into the camps while I casually stroll outside using another exit. When I finally shout out “Use [whatever] exit instead”, I can just see the virtual blank stares because I’m totally ignored and the lemming process and/or whining continues. I’m kind of worried that we’re losing potential WvWers before they even get their feet wet.
I’m going to play the devil’s advocate here and say some negative things about TC tactics right now. It’s just some simple things that we are not always doing when we should. I would’ve liked to keep these private in TC map/team chat but people don’t listen to just anybody there. I also ended up talking about ballista quite a bit because it seems to be misunderstood by most.
- A lot of people seem to have no idea what ballista skills do, so I’ll start out by saying something here. First counter siege shot should always be skill 3 which does 30k damage. 30 K DAMAGE. Whenever you can’t see numbers on target due to strange dev code implementation, use skill 2 which splashes.
- Ballistas suck against people with room to move about, but will kill stationary siege weapons fast. It takes some getting used to how to place them properly.
- We can’t afford to be cheap with plans and hope to win. All those “cheap” rams and repair costs from failed siege attempts will add up costing more silvers.
- Please consider eliminating defensive siege weapons first before we zerg the a well-fortified place. We rarely do this even though CD was kindly teaching us the entire time last week. It means having a mission that solely focus on downing sieges on unsuspecting defenders. We should consider using counter siege weapon (ballista is my favorite) for this. If you can get a treb/catapult up on a high/hard to reach place, use it to take out siege first, and then kill the wall/gate for bonus. Seriously not the other way around. There are other options to down gates/wall easily when there are no defensive siege weapons. Don’t be cheap because the total repair bill of a failed zerg is quite a bit more.
- Quite often we lose an important location because we only start to build siege weapons when we’re under-attack. That’s normally too late and it’s hard to get supply when you’re under siege.
- Fortifying a location good doesn’t necessary mean more arrow carts, especially when they are placed such that they can be wiped out by elementalists and rangers at the beginning of the siege. Number 1 priority IMHO should be counter siege weapons. They should be built first. Bunch of dudes without siege weapons can’t do much against the gate.
- Some of our better defenders do the following but we aren’t always doing them: catapult(s) behind gate, and catapult/ballista on a high/hard to reach place (rooftops with vistas) to counter rams/catapults.
Please feel free to add/correct anything about this stuff.
I really like the idea of rewarding the guild for holding a keep/tower if it means somebody would stay in it to shout out attacks at least. However it should probably only work if at least one guild person is inside or nearby. Right now people claim a place, put an upgrade on it, and run off with the zerg leaving places unattended for long period of time.
Asura for sure. How can you not like an asura performing rifle 4 against a doyak?
You guys at Anz did great. Sorry about stopping the my OL mortar support towards the end, I was trying to look around the vista hill for the catapults and fell off the wall like the newb that I am. I think somebody took over but I wasn’t sure ’cause I was running back to OL from spawn.
Good grief, I cannot believe that somebody from DB accused TC of playing for 2nd. Look basically both TC and DB acted like opportunists without any sort of long term plan early on. During the weekend in one of the BLs, we TC were actively beating back CD on our side and were close to breaking through into CD territory multiple times. Whenever we started pushing hard forward DB tried to swoop in from behind for easy pickings. It completely stalled our offenses and the worst was that that particular DB force couldn’t even beat our rearguard before our strike force circle back to flank them. I’m sorry, but back then you were in 2nd place with more holdings than TC. If your commander on that day bothered doing the math, he would’ve realized that TC beating back CD would let him attack CD more freely and would’ve let DB get closer towards first place.
Now I’m not going to say it’s entirely DB’s fault because it’s not. TC also ran around and grabbed whatever looked easy. Sure enough it didn’t take long before CD was the clear winner with DB and TC beating each other senseless. So all the fighting afterwards was just for fun. I mean some of our commanders are leading hilariously suicidal missions for LoLs. We are just having a blast doing whatever.
(edited by HenryAu.7523)
Even in WvW the mortar is only good for its skill 5 and the projectile arc that bypass line of sight requirement. Skill 3 ‘Launch Elixir’ combo field has a sub-par 33% up-time compared to the Elixir Gun’s ‘Super Elixir’ which has 50% up-time. It is a utter waste of a skill slot on the open field in most settings. This elite skill is basically a horrible poor man’s version of arrow cart when you really need one.
So if they really want mortar to be a poor man’s arrow cart, it needs either a big damage boost or range increase (arrow cart’s range is 2500). Other-wise it’s fairly useless because it’s gone as soon as a spec’ed ranger or elementalist sees you and target the wall.
I kind of wish there were some kind of upgrade that will provide NPCs to man all the unmanned auto-directed siege weapons available on the tower/keep. Basically things like the flame pot, cannons, arrow carts, and ballista can be auto-aimed by the NPC easily enough. Even if they’re not very good, the day crew would feel better knowing the stuff they pay for will do something at least.
For TC I think our lack of 24 hr coverage impacts us more than just those few hours. It feels futile to pay for the upgrades at the towers (especially) when you know they will be probably become unmanned and taken over during the night. However upgrading camps, towers, and keeps are absolutely necessary imho. The upgraded stuff work together and make the entire region that much stronger. The mighty and upgraded keep can be easily starved and will fall quickly without upgraded tower(s) to protect its flank and the camp(s) in-between. When 3 men in a upgraded tower can stall a dozen invaders, it just gives our zerg(s)/raid groups so much more flexibility to carry out various operations.
Personally I think this is something that TC occasionally neglects and it has cost us a couple of times this weekend already. We can’t even hold on to some things that we should be able to hold before the night crew arrive. However I do believe more and more people are becoming aware of this and are all chipping in for upgrades, so we are improving steadily.
A big shout out to the gang of defenders in CD BL tonight. First it was some really good work under Commander Fel and got us the orb, but after he logged off there was no leader. I was seriously impressed how we worked together and managed to hold onto the orb until Commander Jadon, his PiNK crew and Sharpclaw came and took over. That was some of the best leaderless teamwork I have seen in GW2.
Also props to BD and CD folks for giving us such a good hard fight. I got so scared at one point I ran to another BL to cry for help!
My experience in the Borderlands are just my own individual experience. So it could simply be a playing time issue. We do both agree that we can improve on our defenses. It’s just discouraging to watch everything you worked hard to gain to fall like a house of cards because our zerg is busy getting stuck at a choke-point in front of a far-away camp that isn’t supplying anybody anything.
Anyways I’m not concerned about the point difference we have against DB, I was merely pointing out that TC and DB seem far too busy bothering each other when both servers are so far behind CD.
I know I sound negative, but I’m actually fairly happy with a lot of our progress. I just feel like TC is at a stage that needs to fine-tune some fundamental stuff in order to progress to the next level. Personally just give me a treb or a mortar and something to hit, and I’ll have good time in WvW even if we’re losing.
As a TC player, so far I think the biggest problem TC has lies in the Borderlands. We do not have enough dedicated WvW guilds taking ownership of the maps. Stragglers show up to the Borderlands, stay around for 10 minutes, see that nothing is happening and leave even if they wanted to do WvW.
Not saying that a server needs dedicated WvW guilds in the BLs to be successful, but TC could sure use organizers there. Even when we make a zerg and take a few places, the overall defenses seem awful compared to BD and CD.
There are also no long-term planning, we gleefully run around and smack everything in sight. When retaliation comes from both sides we cry that BD and CD are both scheming against us. I have to say that some of BD movements are not exactly strategically sound for the 2nd place trying to get back to 1st, and are very much reaction based. In the overall scheme of things, BD and TC aren`t quite as calculating enough for my liking. You don`t need greater than 50% ownership of everything to win in a 1v1v1. Although I have to say it`s probably too late now and TC and BD hate each other too much and are both too short-term opportunistic to work together against CD.
Anyways I`m still having a lot of fun. The fighting in EB is very intense and rewarding. I`m learning a lot about siege placement and other neat stuff from the skilled competition.
The icon is great for gathering people and making sure people are seeing you properly. However it also shows up brilliantly on the map, and that means some bored guy sitting there in your keep crafting or whatever could tell his friends on another server where you’re going. So could you turn it off when you’re carrying out a “surprise attack” please? You can always turn it back on for the gathering purpose when it’s useful.
Seriously I have a lot of fun trying to defend against an overwhelming force and to delay the inevitable defeat. However the current rewards are really lackluster for defenders. To defend well you have to do little things like defending your yak’s, doing supply chain run from other safe spots, standing on guard duty, scouting, putting down siege weapons (out of your own pocket) for anti-personnel and anti-siege purposes, etc. None of which really are rewarded at all.
You get a good feeling of a job well-done and that’s about it. If you want XP, karma, and gold, currently defending won’t really give you any. In fact the system is so skewed right now that I want to salute all the players that play for their server in the off-hours delaying the onslaught of a different time-zone server. Serious dedication to their server with little to gain from the current reward system.
Some ideas for WvWvW inspired by the wonderful board game of Small World
in Suggestions
Posted by: HenryAu.7523
WvWvW is a lot of fun but the current system has a bias towards the world that is already winning by a large amount. The hopelessly losing side is actually punished for losing and have an even more difficult time to accomplish anything. In my humble opinion this is strange, and I feel that a key concept from Small World could make WvWvW more fun and more competitive.
You can find a basic description of the board game Small World here:
http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/40692/small-world
Similar to GW2 WvWvW, the basic key to winning in Small World is to occupy as much territory for as long as possible. Without going into the actual details here, the game did really good job to capture the logistical problems a large “civilization” has. The more places you control, the harder it is to mobilize units while maintaining control over all your holdings. Conversely the less territories you control (in a new civilization), the easier it is to concentrate your units and launch attacks in superior numbers. A lot of other games try to capture this idea, but Small World is one of the best at executing it.
In GW2 WvWvW the world that basically controls everything does not seem to suffer from any sort of logistic (or supply) issues. I think the supply feature is great, but it currently isn’t vital enough to the winner in a lopsided fight. The problem really shows up when a the server enjoys an overwhelming presence in a certain timezone, where they stockpile a massive amount of supply while simultaneously upgrading and fortifying all their territories by making a lot of siege weapons. It is not any harder to defend any of the key positions when you control the whole map, in fact one can argue that it is easier to do so compared to controlling only parts of the map. The keeps, towers, etc. won’t fall any faster than before. Your supply level really isn’t being drained hard enough when you are not actively using them.
My suggestions for change would be:
1) When a world becomes hopelessly behind in territory, its players can carry more supply (i.e. more than 10).
2) Killing yaks will leave behind some amount of supplies that the killers can pick up within a certain amount of time.
The basic idea is to allow smaller groups from the losing side(s) to deploy siege weapons easier and quicker. You don’t even have to take over (well guarded) camps in order to get supply. This will enable the losing side to perform asymmetrical warfare (killing key siege weapons or actually taking over keeps, etc.) much more efficiently. When even small enemy groups can do damage, the winning world will have to be that much more vigilant and be potentially spread out to maintain all their holdings. Hopefully this will entice individuals on the losing world to participate even when the world is behind because they can accomplish (events) and contribute to the outcome easier. They probably still won’t win, but it’s better than feeling utterly hopeless and useless in the fight.
Oh shoot, I forgot some important things to consider in my build above.
- Well of Suffering is a Dark combo field and Staff 3 is a Poison combo field.
- Staff 1 is a projectile finisher, and staff 4 is a blast finisher.
So basically just randomly spamming stuff you will be doing combos of: lifesteal, area blindness, poison, and area weakness. They help when you’re standing in the middle of things doing AoE.
(edited by HenryAu.7523)
I’m sure there are a lot of ways to make leveling up easy. My character is only level 41, but here is what I did since level 30 and my path from 30 to 40 was an absolute cakewalk.
I mainly use staff, on the odd occasion I’ll switch to sceptar/dagger.
This is a fairly simple playstyle. You run around and collect around a number of mobs that you’re comfortable with using staff 1. Once they’re packed up just drop all your AoEs on them. Make sure your staff 2 also hit you and your minions as much as possible to give a constant regen. Save staff 4 if your opponent gives you a bunch of conditions. Between staff 4, dagger 4, and heal you have 3 ways to get rid of conditions so it’s really not a big deal.
Always kill ranged mobs first, use your minion blind and knockdown to give yourself breathing room. Don’t be afraid to go DS to soak up some damage, and switch out of it as soon as it’s beneficial instead of running the lifeforce dry for no reason. Remember to keep moving when you do DS 4.
Pets are dumb and kitten So you might have to use their ability (blind/charge) before they’ll do anything. Still blind/charge to KD are good regardless, so I don’t mind. If you are fighting something with a large HP pool, bait/fear it to a wall and have your golem charge at it against the wall. Instead of charging through it and do damage once, it’ll repeatedly charge the monster into the wall for the entire duration of the charge. It does a lot of damage when you can get it working.
Kiting with staff against melee monster is easy. Just put marks in front of you, run over them. Don’t even have to bother with strafing or looking back.
Anyways hope this helps you like it did for me.