Guild Wars 2

covenn.7165:

Israel.7056:

I’ve got 40k WvW kills and god knows how many sPvP kills. I’ve died altogether on both toons a little over 1500 times in 1700 hours of play over 5 months. Am I good at this game?

Wow, that is a lot of deaths. Did half of them come from PvE when levelling up or doing dungeons or something??

No idea. The death count doesn’t give me a breakdown. I’ve died way more on my mesmer than on my ele though.

I meant in the sense that the scoreboard doesn’t necessarily tell us which server has more skilled players or whatever. I agree with what Covenn said. The scoreboard mainly seems to indicate which server has better coverage and higher population.

But I can run around on my staff ele (and even d/d ele) and run into big fights and get tons of kills and usually not die because it’s so easy to get a ton of tags with aoe. I don’t think what I’m doing requires skill or should be impressive to anyone it’s just how the ele was designed.

covenn.7165:

Given the way this game works, I find that using the scoreboard as a measure is the bizarre method. It rewards coverage and population rather than superior play.

I didn’t say the scoreboard matters. But getting a lot of kills in this game without dying much isn’t hard if you run around in a big coordinated zerg all the time.

ritsuko.2863:

I don’t see how the new Blackgate will be able to compete with JQ. It is still Sunday (NA) and as of this timing, BG’s WvW presence has nearly been wiped from all of the borderlands. It will only get much worse during the weekdays.

http://i.imgur.com/ZzX6Cq4.jpg

Yeah I think you’re right. On the bright side I do think we’re in decent position to take 2nd place which will at least give us blue side in EB next week.

Kiltor.9362:

Israel.7056:

covenn.7165:

How many people did you kill since Friday and how many times did you die? That is how I rate success.

What a bizarre way of measuring success.

how it is bizarre? people that are in guilds with less than 5 people most of the time find themselves solo and if they get 50 kills in 1 night and and died 1 time is that not a successful night? what if they have to do that every night. success is measured in a lot of differant ways. but when we are obviously stacked against coverage why care about the points when you can get 5k kills in 1 night and have fun.

To the first question. I dunno, who were they fighting?

I mean if they were fighting relatively skilled opposition and managed to win every time then yeah I’d say that’s pretty impressive. If they were just fighting relatively unskilled players or a disorganized rabble or underleveled people etc then I don’t see how that would be that impressive and I know I don’t consider myself to have really accomplished much if/when I feel like the opposition wasn’t particularly skilled relative to myself.

I’m not trying to say that k/d ratio isn’t something to consider. I’m saying that on its own it doesn’t really tell me much about the quality of a player or their performance over any given time period.

You killed 5k people last night. That’s nice. I got like 1k last night spamming staff skills in big zerg fights on my ele, am I good? Personally I think anyone could do what I’m doing in those big zerg fights. It’s not hard to spam a few aoes over and over until everything dies, especially since they probably didn’t see me half the time because I hadn’t even culled before they were downed.

Secondly, I never said anyone should get too terribly hung up on the end score of a match.

Azaruil.3406:

Not at all. It is a good way of measuring success if you small group or solo.

It indicates how many times you were able to beat your opponent and how many times you were beaten. It is more an indicator of pvp than a raid capping a keep, as your success is purely based on your ability to fight the enemy.

This isn’t meant to take away from the challenges of siege warfare of course. When it comes to that, there is a different measure of success.

I know what a k/d ratio is I’m just perplexed as to how anyone could use that as their prime measure of success in this game either for solo play, small group play, tournament play, siege play whatever.

To me success involves many different metrics, some of which are unquantifiable.

I’ve got 40k WvW kills and god knows how many sPvP kills. I’ve died altogether on both toons a little over 1500 times in 1700 hours of play over 5 months. Am I good at this game?

covenn.7165:

How many people did you kill since Friday and how many times did you die? That is how I rate success.

What a bizarre way of measuring success.

I’m still playing 0/10/0/30/30 with boon duration runes and still loving it. Imo the change to the life steal food is a bigger change to the WvW meta than the ele changes. A lot of high crit glassy builds were finding viability because of the healing they were getting from that food. Now the only classes that can really achieve what I consider to be significant healing are ele and guardian. Ofcourse “significant healing” is a matter of opinion.

The developers may be pushing to change the tPvP meta with this patch but I’m still waiting to see if people stop running double ele comps. Kinda think they’re still worth having tbh.

The thing that really strikes me as odd is that while they did bring down the bunker ele a bit they didn’t really bring anything up significantly to match the bunker ele. Imo Guardian is getting close, thinking of leveling a guardian (or maybe an engi) just in case they get some serious love with the next patch.

It basically just means that I’ll just have to conserve my RTL cd a little more often. The difference between resetting a fight and surviving and/or losing a zerg can be 5 seconds or less.

The RTL nerf is lame but not entirely unexpected. I’m kind of surprised that they buffed frost aura. Is it true that Evasive Arcana Cleaning Wave roll will be uneffected in WvW?

eqpablon.9072:

The issue for him is discipline and l2p. Period.

That’s a much more qualified statement. You might be right. I really don’t know which fight prompted this post so I cannot say.

It seems to me that this issue extends beyond just Bunzy though. I think we need some developer feedback on the state of confusion in WvW. Hopefully threads such as this one will prompt a response.

So much bad argumentation in this thread. Name calling and flaming doesn’t get us anywhere and it doesn’t ever make an argument stronger either for or against.

The problem we have here, imo, is that none of us have any place to start from when determining what should and should not be in the game because the developers have offered no feedback on this issue.

It does seem rather inconsistent that confusion was toned down for spvp but left unaltered for WvW despite the fact that WvW is still a form of pvp but perhaps that’s just consistent with the developer’s intended design. Or perhaps they just don’t want to have to split PvE and WvW. I do not know.

I would really like to hear their thoughts on this.

I’m really more interested in seeing what the developers are thinking on this issue. If we’re lucky maybe we’ll get a response and we can set the issue to rest.

eqpablon.9072:

It’s a discipline issue and a l2p issue. Period.

This isn’t a question of what you think, it’s a question of what the devs think. Period.

Also I’d say that confusion mesmer is not a hard counter to d/d ele because it’s not like a d/d ele can’t beat a single confusion mesmer.

The only time glamour mesmers really become troublesome is when there are several of them in a large encounter. It’s easy enough to avoid one feedback, one null field. It’s pretty tough to deal with six or ten of them being spread in overlapping patterns.

The cheese is in the zerg comp, not the small group comp.

Doesn’t seem like too big of a deal to take SM when the opposition is light. Won’t be that big of a deal if we take it back tomorrow under similar conditions.

This matchup is kinda boring imo.

Supersun.4603:

Now it’s going to be like when Golem-in-a-box was popularized the week before it was banned, and EVERYONE started to spam them.

…except it will be with gears instead

I’ve already seen tons of people doing this I don’t think it was a secret.

Can’t believe they removed GitB but not these. So cheap.

I would say that my experience has been that shatter mesmers can have a hard time with tanky condition heavy necro builds on point. I’ve found the carrion amulet well build necros easier to deal with than the rabid amulet necros just because the carrion amulet builds are typically a lot easier to burst down but both can present some serious challenges on points.

Even with null field slotted, burst shatter mesmer just doesn’t have much in the way of condition removal.

Open field is a different matter but conditions are always going to be problematic for mesmers just because of the way the class is designed.

I understand that people say that patience is important. I agree. I understand that even if the developers wanted to add the kinds of things people are demanding that they have to actually create that content and that that process takes time.

But at the same time I think consumers of any product should be encouraged to point out perceived flaws in a product they’re spending money and/or time on. If Anet’s goal is to make their WvW player base happy then hopefully they’ll read these sorts of posts and perhaps try to communicate with the player base about what is and is not possible.

I have to say I completely agree with pretty much everything you’ve said here.

If you change the incentives of a game you can change the way people play the game entirely.

If player kills counted towards the overall score, and if each kill counted for enough points that on aggregate kill counts could sway the overall outcome of a match then I imagine people would slowly become much more risk averse when playing the game.

At first glance this may seem like a good thing but the most risk averse way to play this game is by running around in very large groups to take advantage of the game mechanics such as culling, downed state, aoe limit and combo fields.

Right now running around with 5-10 people is no big deal because dying to a much larger group doesn’t matter. But if each and every one of those deaths could ultimately impact the final score then I imagine you’d see even fewer small man groups and even more 20+ groups running around.

I think the goal for WvW design should be to disproportionately reward high risk behavior and either punish or add steep diminishing returns for engaging in low risk behavior and I don’t see how adding points for kills absent other major changes to the fundamental game mechanics would accomplish that goal.

For most people getting good at anything takes a lot of time and lots and lots of practice.

But every choice carries with it an opportunity cost. One can choose to allocate their time to becoming exceptional at a game like GW2 but the time that one spends on GW2 is necessarily time that isn’t spent doing something else.

So the question is: why would someone spend lots and lots of time practicing in GW2 when they could be spending it on any number of other games and/or activities?

If you want good GW2 players you have to give people a reason to spend large amounts of time practicing GW2. I believe it is, as has already been said, a problem of incentives.

I won’t pretend to know what the outcome is going to be but I transferred back just because I think this will be a very fun matchup. Looking forward to seeing what happens out there.

saiyr.3071:

Israel.7056:

I think Avatar Dynasty has stumbled onto one of the cheesiest zerg comps in the game. Multiple glamour mesmers spamming feedback and null field. Got to admit it’s effective but if you thought multiple support guardians or d/d eles was cheese wait until you see multiple glamour mesmers.

Oh, I was wondering if that was a tier thing that everyone just did. I think everyone noticed all of that glamour on Friday night, it was nuts.

Well Kylia was one of the pioneers of the glamour mesmer since when I started playing mesmer and when I faced Avatar when they were on IoJ they ran a couple of glamour mesmers. But it looks like they asked themselves “why have one or two when you can have five or six?” It’s a brutally effective spec if there are enough of them because the constant confusion effectively shuts down the enemy allowing the dps to come in and roll everyone. It’s also very hard to keep track of the real mesmers when they’re generating that many clones. The only problem with glamour mesmer is that the spec has room for only one break stun so you really need a lot of support while running it. It’s funny though I hadn’t really seen anyone run that many glamour mesmers until them. I believe it may be the cheesiest zerg comp in the game.

I think Avatar Dynasty has stumbled onto one of the cheesiest zerg comps in the game. Multiple glamour mesmers spamming feedback and null field. Got to admit it’s effective but if you thought multiple support guardians or d/d eles was cheese wait until you see multiple glamour mesmers.

I’m watching BT’s video and it’s hard for me to tell what’s going on since the video is sped up. Looks like pretty standard siege fighting to me.

If this is what you guys have fun doing then by all means do it. Play the game to have fun. We just don’t have fun doing the same things that’s all.

Chris.5024:

We’ve been in tier 3 for a few months now and people who have previously been tier 3 know the deal; roaming with groups of 5-10 (no matter how skilled you are) isn’t effective since you will meet groups of 25-30 on a regular basis.

This isn’t necessarily true. When I was playing on BG we had several large guilds of our own that would usually keep the SoR/IoJ/TC zergs busy while we just roamed with 5-10. Maguuma doesn’t seem to have the numbers that BG does so frequently roaming guilds end up fighting the larger raid guilds by themselves. I’d usually rather fight with 10 and end up outnumbered than run around with 30 or whatever. I do zergsurf sometimes but it gets boring pretty quickly.

Well I think this has been a pretty solid matchup so far. We’ll see what happens going into the week though.

It’s hard to say but I’ve been having so much fun playing d/d ele.

I’m at 30k kills now and I’ve done WvW for several hours a day for months now. The quickest way to get kills is to play a class that can tag large numbers of opponents in large scale fights i.e. necro or ele.

I’ve never been a part of a big guild but I would imagine that those guys have been able to accumulate kills much quicker than I have since they can more easily participate in large scale fights.

I have found these sorts of people in every game I’ve ever played. It’s unfortunate but it just seems to be part of human nature manifesting itself in a virtual world.

covenn.7165:

I think you have the numbers honestly. It is just going to take you some time to adjust to the competition during those hours. I am sure you can do it.

You might be right. I personally feel that the average skill level of JQ and SoS players is above what I was facing in T2. This is not to say that SoR and TC didn’t have good players or that every single player from JQ and SoS is pro but I do feel like I’m really having to push myself a lot harder to get kills everyday. I think it’s a good thing. I don’t know of any other way to improve except through dedicated practice and by facing challenging opposition.

But I also don’t have any real data to look at when examining this situation outside of my own limited personal experience. I don’t even know how many people any of the three servers has online at any given time.

It would be extremely helpful if, for instance, I could look at JQ borderland right now and see exactly how many people they have logged in on that borderland versus how many we have. Imagine if we could look at a record spanning the entire week for all four borderlands. That could be pretty useful information, wouldn’t you say?

Well it doesn’t look like we’re getting kicked out the first week.

I just wanna fight people man I don’t care about having some grand strategy.

There’s no real data available for coverage so it’s unclear how many people any given server has on any given borderland at any given time.

My personal perception has been that sometimes we’re outnumbered and sometimes we’re not but as I said that’s not based on any real data.

Your damage is pretty high but I just don’t find it to be that interesting to see you use churning earth/lightning flash over and over.

This is so awesome. We have so many people in the wvw forums bragging about being really coordinated zergs it’s nice to see a relatively small group zergbust.

I have to say that fighting in t1 has been way more challenging than fighting in t2. The general skill level of both SoS and JQ players seems to me to be higher than what I was facing in t2. I feel like I’m having to give these fights 100 percent and sometimes even that’s not enough.

Here’s to the prospect of BG staying in t1 for at least a few more weeks.

Yeah as in they regularly run around with a lot of people (four groups or more) and they’re well organized and coordinated.

It may still be a little early to say for sure but it now appears as if BG just doesn’t quite have the numbers and/or the coverage to deal with both JQ and SoS. I think we’ll put up a decent fight and hopefully put some solid numbers on the board but we are probably going to need more people and better 24/7 coverage. Having a few more organized zerg guilds would be nice too.

I like shatters and I don’t like anything you’ve said here.

I actually really enjoyed the video. I’m just getting started with the d/d ele myself as an alt project. What’s your build?

I’ve been told that tier 1 has more small man groups running around than t2 does. I hope that’s true.

If t1 is as zergy as t2 has been then one is just as good as another for my purposes. Will be nice having new people to fight though.

It’s amazing how there’s no initiative cost at all to spam vital shot or whatever it’s called leaving cloak and dagger up all the time.

Kinda boring fights but I guess it showcases how simple of a rotation is involved.

Pvp.2758:

Just because Choo has 30 man zergs doesn’t make them a zerg guild. Zerg guilds are guilds that mindlessly run around and try to take everything just because they have the numbers to survive.

Choo has high coordination and can easily kill zergs x3 their size. Something tells me they wiped you one too many times.

They’re good at zerging and beating other zergers. But zerging isn’t really something I’d ever want to be good at.

They’re tactical but it’s hard to tell if any of them are any good individually since they’re almost always zerging.

If they’re all so good that they can easily win when outnumbered 3 to 1 then I think they should just run around with 5 and take on 15 at a time. If I saw them doing that regularly I’d transfer to SoR and apply to join them.

I see that they have value to their server for taking and holding objectives. Kind of like Icoa, KnT, HB, ND etc on BG. Someone’s gotta do the drudge work. But I don’t want to be in a guild that does the drudge work. I want to be in a guild that goes around with just a few people, doesn’t worry about objectives and just focuses on getting as many kills as possible. Zerging is usually pretty boring to me win or lose.

If they’d wiped me a lot I’d want to join them. The only SoR guilds that I’ve seen around that interest me are Laudanum, Vengeance and Caora Dhubh (sp?.) I’ve had some really good small group fights with those guys and they’ve really impressed me. Those guys rarely zerg, they usually have 4 or 5 wherever they go. Those are the kind of players I want to play with.

EDIT: I realized I forgot to mention a couple guilds. I’ve had some good fights with FEAR and CAPSLOCK.

Maharius.4651:

20-30 is a large number these days? Numbers must be well down in WvW for that to be a zerg!

I’d say so. I’m only really interested in running around with 3-5. Maybe 8 or 10 max. Anymore feels like zerging to me and I’m not interested in that.

Christos de Soufre.3802:

I don’t think they can be blamed for having a lot of active WvWers in their guild.

I’m not blaming them for having a lot of people. I’m just amazed that so many people are interested in doing what Pain Train does.

I guess someone’s got to do it though.

Christos de Soufre.3802:

I’ve never seen Choo just zerg around indiscriminately. They do an excellent job of acting intelligently to flip whatever points they’ve set their minds to and an even better (albeit annoying) job of holding what they take.

They run around in massive numbers though. Often times I see them have something like 20-30 people all running around together.

TheDevilWithinU.7092:

Haha I totally agree with you in each and every way.. Most of the zergs that run around do that. They run around spam skills and run around until they die, than they leave when get wiped. Never understood the fun in that.

But you enjoy what Pain Train does?

Doesn’t really seem like it would be fun.

I dunno how you guys do that day in and day out.

TheDevilWithinU.7092:

Dunno. Must give them butterflies I guess.

Maybe. Yesterday I ran around with the BG zerg a bit. We won some fights but I found it to be completely boring and there really wasn’t anything to brag about on either side it was just awful. Most of the time enemies didn’t even fully render before we engaged. All I did was spam buttons there was no counter play involved, nothing of what I consider to be “skill.” I don’t know how any of these big guilds find that sort of gameplay fun, I’m amazed that anyone does to be honest.

Why do people brag about zerging? I don’t get it.