Guild Wars 2

WvW is not just zerging it’s also roaming and the POIs which “aren’t related to anything” are on my route when capping camps on borderlands. So it might be completely unrelated to zergs but it isn’t for roamers. And that is usual wvw as well.

sirian.4981:

If you think thats bad wait till you have to kill the Overgrown Grub in the Eternal Battleground. People will rage at you for even suggesting you kill that mob.

With a reason actually – it’s in front of the blue keep, so unless you’re not blue or the dominating colour who owns everything it’s a risk. And if you really zerg fight that thing the zerg is a good target or your towers and keeps. It is manageable to kill it with 5 or less people (use some siege maybe) so if you ask some friends you might be able to do it.
And yeah that’s no “But the trait system is fine” just an explanation why no one does it.

And on top of this it’s a bump and I actually changed my mind on being fine with having traits starting at level 80 as I realized that back in the day when I still made my own builds (before the trait changes) I always kind of sticked to traits and found afterwards, when looking cookie cutter builds up, that I already had the “approved” best traits for my purpose. EDTA: So I had the chance to get used to the traits while getting used to my class, now I have to get used to my class twice.

Liewec.2896:

good changes are…
they could have done what everyone else does, ya know, release NEW content as rewards rather than taking everything away and pretending its your reward as they did with the traits and now everything else.

When I started this game a year ago I had no idea about asura gates until I met some people who showed me I have been level 18 then. Same with all the other stuff, I wanted to do map completion (although I didn’t know what map completion was I just wanted to know my starter area inside out as I’ve spent so much time there) I couldn’t figure out what the red and blue thingys were. When I did a combo I was in the middle of a fight and clicked the “Hey you just did a combo.. blabla” away as fast as I could because I’ve been in a fight – the description of it is still the same and very poor in my opinion as combos are important to me at least. So everything which you call “has been taken away” overwhelmed me before I hit the level on which it is now either availlable or there are some explanations to it. Unlocking weapon skills alone took me likely longer than the level cap there is now, so in the end nothing really changed. As most of the stuff is still availlable to everybody if they know how, so veteran players.
The trait system is a whole different thing. I hate it too and would still be talking about it if there were great new content.

Ensign: Don’t forget that a fight that takes longer also means that you might get in trouble with the cooldown of your weapon-/skills.

Here’s an idea: Do some wvw/pvp, if you like it you won’t really care about pve anymore but do it as a sport from time to time in full zerkers.

Sokia.3710:

Jana.6831:

I’m usually only in wvw, but then again I should farm some soft wood.

The borderlands maps have soft wood.

Try to survive in wvw as an uplevel =)

I want this on page one again as getting traits is my pet peeve with this game.
I don’t really care whether or not I have my traits before level 80, pve is that easy that I can go without. I’m fine with doing wvw with my other characters although I’m usually only in wvw, but then again I should farm some soft wood. But to think about what build I want my characters to have once they’re 80 and how to get the traits.. makes me grumpy as I know that it’ll be a pain. Either because I have to camp some event for hours or because said event is bugged or because no one knows (including me) how the event works.

Dear Yellow mob Dredge Worker,

I really feel your pain. I’m usually just minding my own business, hopping through the snow, not being bothered by anyone as they know I’m completely harmless and then BOOM all of the sudden a cloak and dagger hits me for 380.000 damage. And I can’t even fight back not just because my status is white, not because I’m dead but because I can’t even see who has hit me.

In despair
Snowbunny
Green Borderlands

Absconditus.6804:

In a dungeon, at least in our dungeons, you want to run from A to B the fastest you can

Has only happened in two dungeons I have been in, TA whatever path and CF3 both time the party needed to be stealthed and both times I was the only person making it through without help as the others didn’t understand shadow refuge. They will make it through the mine fields with enough swiftness eventually though, just easier with stealth.

Absconditus.6804:

For speed, very few professions can do that, only one shines at it. If we’re talking equally skilled players.

Warriors are marginally faster than me and only if they’re traited right. I would get them with S/D probably but that’s the weaponcombo I still need to learn.

Absconditus.6804:

That’s where Warrior outshines the rest

I’m trying to tell you that they don’t. They have some nice attacks and are sturdy. Cool. So like someone else said: If you want to make a pug group go for warriors as a bad player can’t do that much wrong with a warrior.

And that’s it.
Btw: I hate knockback and you won’t harm me with your time warp.

I guess what you meant is quickness which means that people move and attack faster, only few classes can do that and only mesmer’s time warp can give that “boon” to allies.
Yeah insane mobility but they’re not the only ones, but they are the only ones who can outrun my thief. But I wonder where you want to run to in a dungeon.

Swiftness only helps if you want to run away and that’s where GS warriors have “more mobility” than thieves if traited right.

I really like the changes. I don’t care whether or not I have my elite skill at level 15 or 40 or even 80. Part of that is because the april patch nerfs were far worse and effect my game play a lot more: It’s useless to try to do wvw (not EOTM which is fine) as an uplevel and I kind of despair when thinking about trying to figure out a build as the changes made to the trait system forced me to look for a cookie cutter build but unfortunately the weapon combo I’d like to have is really unpopular. So I have to be level 80 anyway before I can start doing what I usually do. But getting to that never took me long, so I take this as a fun ride, the work begins later.

Sokia.3710:

I’ve been saying for a long time that thieves are not overpowered, per se. STEALTH is overpowered. […]Re-stealth is broken, and it will always be broken, particularly for thieves who can stealth easier than any other profession. If you want to stealth for longer you should have to trait for stealth to last longer, not just equip a bunch of skills and combos that allow you to stealth and stealth and stealth and stealth one more time with no drawbacks.

I also main a thief and I know where thieves are except when they use shadow refuge and then run away. So maybe the problem isn’t stealth but that people don’t think when a thief stealthes.

Maybe I am confused but it sure sounded like it.

Leo Paul.1659:

Learn to walk before you run.

Sorry Leo, but you’re wrong. I can make the assertion that you are naturally bald and as soon as people see you they will know whether or not this is true. And I can always have the opinion you’re bald even if I see you with full hair as that is my opinion which may not be changed by facts.

Edit: And as soon as I posted that you two got along So kind of dismiss this post, I was just ARRGHH because of all the hate on the forums and in the game today.

Oh my: Commander tags rank bound: One of my favourite wvw commaders is somewhat 700 ranks below me and it would be unfair if he wasn’t able to use the tag he likes and the different colours serve a purpose: You usually have a “public” zerg on the map which anyone can join. Also a guild group who solved the problem of only one tag allowed by targetting their commander, if they wanted/want to target something else they’d lose the commander. If the main zerg defends something it can be handy to capture another objective, thus a red tag which is then joined by the yellow (guild) tag or whatever. And on my previous server it was really important to watch the tag in combat.
Commanders have no place in PvE: They do: If my screen is full of doritos there must be some world boss up – I usually find hunting world bosses really boring so I have no clue when they’re up. A bunch of commanders remind me.
Guess I’m just so used to a map full of commanders that I really don’t care anymore. If things are serious in wvw though I join a squad.

EDTA: Give them some time until tagging up 24/7 becomes boring. I’m pretty convinced that will happen.

theguildless.1386:

They do. Also, keep in mind there are also fields that would allow you to trigger area blindness and area weakness, so that’s something well done at range too.

And healing and swiftness – my new server has actually no clue about that. They probably wonder why I blast spam each time we stack.

Actually helping new players is the reward for veterans. Players who think they know how this game works but don’t spoil a lot of things, like world bosses, dungeon runs, they demand a class has to be nerfed because they are overwhelmed by it, they demand that starter areas are being nerfed, they demand that food is being nerfed, they demand zerker is being nerfed. So yay for helping (new) players to understand this game – might need some more work though.

I actually like not having to unlock all the weapon skills as I’m playing wvw and often find/found myself in combat thinking “uuuughh well I can use #1, let’s see if I’ll make it out alive” – forgot to reequip different weapons I already had unlocked or accidently salvaged them or whatever. And unlocking new weapon skills didn’t really teach me much to be honest – it usually takes me waaaayyy beyond level 80 to understand my class and all the weaponsets and skills it has.

Vayne.8563:

just try it before you post that’s all.

That’s what I did and I have been able to use all the stuff that had been marked with a “now unlocked” today – did you even read my posts?

Okay, to clarify it for those who tell me to play the game before posting anything: There are new things being availlable each time you level up and I just got the “You are now able to use Asuran Gates” at level 18 – like I wrote in my post, btw. I also wrote that I have been able to use asuran gates before level 18. But appearantly anet wants us to use them at level 18 it’s just not working as they intended – any further questions?

I don’t really know what to make of the new leveling perks, it’s okay, I guess, but I’ve been around for that long that I can’t really judge how it is for new players.
But I just reached level 18 on my necro and would now be able to use asuran gates. I have no idea if this is a bug but I already used them after the patch and in fact they should be availlable at level 1. reasons: Friends level their alts together, one wants an asuran ranger, the other a norn mesmer, they wouldn’t be able to level together until they’re level 18. Other reason: It is impossible to reach the level cap in one starter area alone, the level cap would be 15 for a starter area and with crafting and wvw being availlable at a higher level now there’s no way one could make it to 15/18 without doing repetitive stuff which gives less and less xp.

So you want bigger PvP but don’t like WvW? Then we can’t help you, I’m afraid.

MegumiAzusa.2918:

This is the perfect example of why your thinking is flawed. You think everyone for themselves, instead of “for the guild”. If guilds were playing less like individuals with the same goal on the field but more like… actual guilds that support each other and share stuff… but oh no, I forgot, that would make a dent in your profit :O

Are you sure you mean me?
So I’m talking about what upgraded towers cost and you accuse me of thinking of profit? So it’s evident that I’m the one paying for a lot of upgrades and that I’m not in “a big guild” “which would solve everything”, still you tell me MY thinking is flawed?!
Let me tell you what – on my server which is middle tier, the small guilds pay for most of the upgrades and tower siege. And hey, I’m also sending siege to commanders if they run out of it and yes, they are in the big guilds.
So it’s basically them you should talk to, or just leave it as all I wanted to point out with my post was that upgrading stuff is what is most expensive in wvw. Maybe the guild of the one I was talking to takes care of that, that I don’t know but commanders usually don’t have the time to really run around and upgrade.

Hayashi.3416:

WvW players are ok, some can actually turn a profit off it. WvW commanders are an entirely different story, every single defended tower takes at least 40 silver to bring down, and gives what… 3 silver to the commander?

And this change doesn’t hit the players, but the commanders.

There are also people who care about camps, towers and keeps. A fully upgraded tower costs more than one gold, it’s siege, upgraded camps (which can be a lot if they’re flipped all the time) and the upgrades itself. A fully upgraded keep is about 3? gold? And since the people upgrading it also have to care about it they can’t run with the zerg thus they won’t rank up that fast (no rank chests), they won’t get the loot (no rares or exotics or other stuff to sell). So yes, commanders have it bad, those who care for the PPT have it worse. Just wanted to point that out.

Lynne.8416:

Agree with Astral, the player is not breaking any rules. That player prefers to grief, there are loads of players that do. Nothing you can really do about it except wait for them to leave or learn to beat them at their game. ie have a large group or zerg escort dolyaks and drain the supplies yourself.

Why escorting yaks? He can’t kill them and the yaks are delivering supply into towers/keeps which he then drains, so even with escorting he will get his hands on the supply.
Draining supply before he could do it is also useless as the supply is needed to upgrade and to defend if the objective is attacked – it doesn’t matter who drains it, it’s still gone and not availlable when needed. Happens to us a lot when people think that spending 1200 supply on “Increase Guard Level” while the keep is being attacked is a really good idea – we usually lose the keep because of that.

I hated everything which involved pvp until last winter when I played Snowball Mayhem a LOT (wanted to get the rewards which were only available there) and found that me dying had positive affects for my team as one could troll around for a long time when downed and keep everybody occupied. Since then I don’t really mind when dying although I wish that all classes would have reasonable chances to get themselves from being downed. Anyway: I accepted that I can’t avoid being killed from time to time and that it’s sometimes neccessary to help my team. Having a system which would penalize death a lot more than it’s now would make it harder to encourage (newer) players to get in dangerous situations and I don’t think that is cool. Also I usually die when rezzing someone, so I wouldn’t do that anymore.
So if you think that all these changes would be good for pve then please keep in mind that there’s also pvp and wvw which would be affected by this as well.

Okay, I haven’t been able to log into the forums for a while but I followed this thread to page 3 (maybe someone said the exact same thing I am about to say on page 4, but I have no time to read it right now) and desperately wanted to say something. here we go:
This game has some/a lot? of depth. There are combos which the majority of people don’t know about and I only know the main combos I can make with my thief – some day I will get to learn all the combos my engi can make but complain threads like these are eradicating my chance to get to that because the game is dumbed down so casual players don’t complain (nothing against casual players but those who demand that everything has to go their way).
To food: I started using it last fall to level my new character who happens to be a cook. I have been a pve player at that time and was always broke karma wise. So I had a look at the food there is and found that ice cream gives you a karma boost. So I made ice cream and got some extra karma while the others in the boss train I was running with opted for omnomberry bars to get the extra chance of a precursor (or whatever). Then the marionette event came up and I tried to complete the meta with my thief. I had troubles to complete one boss without being downed because I couldn’t really see the AoE and because that boss had to be fought melee, so I was downed a lot and that champ was I think 4 and it wasn’t certain that we made it that far every time, so I hadn’t had that many chances to try and try again. But there is food which removes conditions when you use a healing skill and thief has got a nice healing skill which triggers a lot. So I have been able to complete the task.
Then there was the Queens Gauntlet and I used food that gives me endurance because I dodge a lot, that’s kind of automatic on my thief, I don’t always dodge only when neccessary.
In wvw when on my thief pre patch I opted for mango pies (heals every second) which worked better for me than the leek soup the others were using. Now I also mostly use leek soup. I die easier to opponents when I haven’t eaten but it has gotten worse since the april patch.
When finding the ice cream I was really happy to be able to get some extra Karma, when beating the marionette champion I felt “like god” because I was so proud that I found a way to complete that without being downed. When using the dodging extra I was relieved that my habit of “dodge-a-lot” doesn’t interfer with my chances to kill Liadri.
Food doesn’t really give you an advantage over others but it helps you to play the game the way you want/like as we’re no machines but humans who have their flaws and strengths. Removing food from the game would force us more to play in “only one way possible” and I’m strongly against that.
And please, using aruments like “Whenever you see a video of wvw the person who wins is the person who has eaten food”, really? How about “Whenever I’m in wvw I…” and people who record their wvw play/use food are experienced players who know the value of food and of armor and of traits and of combos and of counterplay, so the person with no food loses to the sum of it, not only food.

I like Trahearne for the same reasons I like my ranger’s pets – they’re useless but sturdy and keep the enemies off my throat so I can kill them. So kudos for making Trahearne tougher than 99% of the npcs – helped me rushing my mesmer to level 65 story. Who cares if he gets the magic sword – I got my trait!

It’s been a while since I first posted in this thread, I thought about new players back then but realized that I struggle with this system as well when I created a new character. I’m a former pve player who is now only playing wvw. I created a mesmer after the patch, leveled her in EotM and wvw and needed some traits. Most importantly for wvw: condition removal which is a trait for mesmers. Requires100% map completion of Herathi Hinterlands – time consuming and annoying but ok. I then did the Obsidian Sanctum Jumping Puzzle again and yet again once more as I was killed off by someone waiting for me the first try when I was 99% done. I then wanted to try to do a full trait line and had to do the Veteran Fleshgazer mini dungeon. Hadn’t done it before and better don’t ask me to do it with you as I still don’t have a clue. Anyway; I found how to start the dungeon and thanks to the megaservers a lot of people joined and killed the mobs. Then there was a jumping part and we had to find stuff in the dark. I had no idea where to go to unlock the last door, so I jumped around trying to be useful. But I died and when I came back the veteran has already been killed, so I got no trait. The second time around I played it safe and stayed by the door. Sorry to the people who did this with me, I really am. I then had to do some map completion of Fields of Ruin. Completing the map was the easy part, getting there was not. That took me about a day. I then abandoned my quest to complete a trait line, especially as I’m not making friends in pve with my knight’s gear, can’t do a dungeon with that. Since I like GS best (for now), I discovered that I “only had to kill a champ in Mount Maelstrom” to unlock GS training. Since the Megaservers seem to get old I soloed him, took me 15 mins. Which isn’t the problem, the problem is that they have a tendency to reset if one takes too long. So, in short: Anet- this doesn’t work. First of all, it’s really hard to see the traits, it was easier before, I now have to chose trait lines before I can see what the single traits do and it’s hard to keep track of the traits one still wants to unlock. Second: Most of the traits aren’t soloable, unless one is really experienced and even then not everything is soloable. Also: The megaservers will likely desert again after most of the people have unlocked their traits, so there won’t be any help when trying to kill champs or open some heavily guarded chests. I really don’t understand the whole april 15th patch, I guess, it’s like you didn’t think about the impact the changes will have and I don’t know if I’ll have the patience to wait until you realize that the class balance is really off (thanks to the crit damage nerf) and that the “new” trait system is a pain.
Edit: For people reading this, please keep in mind that I’m a wvw player, the nerf did next to nothing in pve since the mobs have been nerfed as well, but it had a huge impact on the balance in wvw and maybe pvp (I’m no pvp player).

I’m not sure if anyone has already pointed this out, so I say it anyway:
New players will need months to get only one of the traitlines done as they’re generally really confused. They will have no option to play with their builds and get to know their class. If they want to try wvw/pvp they stand no chance against the fully ascended geared and traited opponents, especially not since the *nerfed mobs in pve are that easy that they lure the worst players into thinking they’re good so they will stick to pve and/or demand classes to be nerfed.
As someone who has been around for a while I don’t really want to do map completions or jumping puzzles which I already did for each new character, how boring is that?
I don’t really get why traits are now being handled as if they were “only for the elite”.

And I don’t know a solution to this as this game IS amazing, or maybe was – and it wasn’t too complicated, only if you didn’t know about traits, weapon rarities, combos, skills, dodging. Maybe explaining all of that better instead of a popup in the middle of a fight would’ve solved a lot and would’ve spared us all these nerfs (which leads to the above*, that most/more players will never understand this game). Although I do agree that condition damage should have a place in PvE; I never understood why my ranger’s settings were all condi when I went into PvP – confusing.

Harper.4173:

You do realize that even if zerker is nerfed players will hop onto assasin’s and the meta will remain unbroken.

You do realize that the latest nerf has hit assassins a lot harder than zerker, right?
Not zerker has been nerfed, critical damage has and since assassins has got less power but more ferocity it got hit really hard.

Where did the badges go anyway? Usually it was 10 badges per rank chest and now it’s none. I get some by killing enemies, but that’s not enough to buy all the ACs I need. Tried to see if they were still given out plenty in EoTM, but unfortunately my team colour is really bad this week; I wasn’t able to do anything but dying.
I get that there are a lot of people who say badges are useless because they just follow a tag and don’t care about the other aspects of wvw, but to me they’re important.

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

Before Megaservers:
-“This game is death!”
-“Zones are all empty.”
-“No one to play with!”

After Megaservers:
This thread.

I’m glad I finally see a lot of people running around again. If I want to do everything alone I will play a Singleplayer game.

I actually liked to solo everything, but I have been used to all empty zones from other games.
A lot of people probably didn’t know boss trains and how brainless they can be, so now they are surprised. I have been on a server which was/is pretty empty but which had a boss train, so I knew both sides. Don’t blame the people for this.
In my opinion anet did something counter productive here: They wanted us to use different traits but made it harder to achieve them, so new players won’t be paying more attention to traits. Also the zergs fighting down a boss won’t require pressing more than 1111116111111, so changing skills, dodging and so on isn’t that required, so new players won’t be paying more attention to their skills. Nerfing zerker while downscaling all mobs in PvE.. does actually make no sense to me. And I don’t think that people will pay more attention to their builds with the down scaled mobs.
And finally: Why did they even invent thief, a class which was based on critical hits only to nerf critical hits? That’s like taking condition damage away from engineers, power of warriors and so on.
I’m truly disappointed and would love them to take back the latest update and I know that all the time I have spent from then on on this game is lost as I will never have that much fun anymore but only think about how it has been.
And I had a blast leveling my thief, I think I have been a better player back then as I have been forced to use all the tricks to fight the mobs and I have been able to take on mobs which were 4-6 level above me which gave me a lot of confidence. Seems as if now that’s gone, so whatever.

Mugiwara Luffy.1087:

Correct me if I’m wrong but while ferocity reduced the raw damage compared to crit damage, the extra sigil slot for gs and the reworked runes make up for the loss.

Thief, wvw zerg player – Thieves have few options to get rid of conditions, therefore I need runes and traits which are all not in the power line. So there is no way for me to just even it out by new runes or a new sigil (already had two anyway) or to chose other traits as I still need the same ones so I won’t die that easily to conditions.
I have been able to solo roam and to play in a zerg before the update, now I have to chose whether I want to be a zerg thief or a roaming thief – and to me that’s a massive loss.

Go to wvw, the mobs there haven’t been downscaled.
I actually have to go full zerker to be able to survive, before that I have been mostly soldier’s – oh the irony.

Phlakez.5817:

I just want to be sure…
Before patch there were two stats, one for power and one for Attackrating (including base dmg of the weapon), after this patch Attackrating is missing… if i change my legenday to a green weapon, i dont see any changes, except the few stats in power etc…
so is it true that anet forgot to integrate the weapon damage in this new system?
were is this stat now? if this stat is missing, we all lose about 1k AR… this is a huge damage loss… i can now wear a green weapon instead of my legendary or a ascended one?
Is this working as intended? instead of 9k dmg i now do 3k? I know crit damage was nerfed but normal hits also? :o this cant be true…
hopefully i get an officiel answer

I want to know the same thing.
Edit: Sorry for duplicating this post, read that detail after quoting.

No, I’m just playing the game and didn’t want to read pages upon pages to understand one detail. I did that in WoW that much that I hadn’t had any time to play anymore. My builds worked for me without me reading every bit about everything – now they don’t anymore and I was looking for a simple solution. Since people are making threads about how much their damage has changed I guess I’m not the only one who doesn’t know all the maths behind their build. Or maybe you are trolling..

MarauderShields.6830:

if i get your post right, your pre-patch crit-bonus was 97%. since 150% was the base that added to a crit bonus of 247%, meaning your crits did roughly 3.5 times the damage of normal hits. after patch, your crit bonus is 197%, meaning roughly 3 times the damage for crits.
so basically, your crits suffered a 15% nerf

Wasn’t attack multiplied by the percent? That would be 2,5 and 2.
But attack is gone anyway and I’m more confused, but glad they added ferosity so people would understand all of this better.

I was actually hoping that someone would tell me to swap my this gear for that gear

Yeah, sorry, I can read it a million times more, it doesn’t explain to me why my stats decreased. But know what: I don’t care anymore, I’m really not in the mood to be bombarded with “read the patch notes”.
Thanks for your time and I hope you had fun.

So your solution to answer my question is to insult me? Nice!

That doesn’t help me at all, sorry. I have been at 97% cit damage before this update ankitten ow at 197% ferocity – I know that the cit damage before multiplied my attack, so when I was doing a cit hit I had nearly twice the attack as with a normal attack. Don’t ask me what ferocity means and I don’t know where attack went – that’s kind of why I started this thread.

I don’t think I will get the math behind my whole set+traits by knowing that 1% crit damage is 15 ferocity.

Umm.. That wasn’t my question – wrong thread?

The reason for my damage drop might be my specific build, but since I don’t really know all the maths behind it but try things out and see what suits me best; I am lost and have no idea what’s the reason behind the damage drop and how to fix it. That’s why I’m asking you =)
Edit: I’m not full zerker, so there has got to be a solution to get nearly as much damage as before especiallyy since people are saying that they don’t notice a drop.

So thief is unplayable now? As there’s no way I will be able to survive like this.

I’m soldier’s with Melandru runes and mostly zerker trinkets, D/P,D/D and SB all Sorro’s.
Traits are 0/30/20/20/0 – build is for wvw zerg fighting.
My crit hits against sentries (best way to test it) went from around 5k to 4 and even the 5k were bad, I guess.
But I’m too much of a noob to understand all the stuff behind it, so can anyone help me to get my build to what it has been before? Would be really appreciated.

ManaCraft.5630:

People have fun when they are playing against evenly matched opponents.

Actually I’m only happy when we’re at least 2:1, better 3:1 outmanned, otherwise I’m bored. An even fight doesn’t feel like a win to me.

The problem with even sized groups fighting each other is rather simple: The servers would want to have the best shot at the matchup, so all the players in the group would have to give 100%; lvl 80, best weapons, gear, traits.. and would have to know all about the character they’re playing so they can give their best performance.
This would mean that no one would be able to level their new characters, so people would likely only play one character. This also means that new players wouldn’t be welcomed as they still don’t properly know how to play their class.

I don’t think this is a good idea.

Having red keep has it’s pros and cons. We’ve been the strongest server the past few weeks and had SM a lot of times, we lost it due to red keep trebbing, to either red or the other team. We needed to cap the red keep to hold SM – defanging alone didn’t really help and well, capping a keep is almost always a lot of work. They are overpowered but at the same time make themselves vulnerable when trebbing SM. I have never seen the strongest team having red keep, so maybe the colours are according to the rank within that tier and red keep gets this opportunity as a bonus.
I’m not really sure whether or not I think this very trebbing combination is a bad thing, but in general I think being able to treb other structures from other strucures is an important strategical feature of wvw – it means that one better keeps their corner as a further defense for the keep and can get the surrounding towers back if they’ve been capped.
My server has had many “Top wvw guilds” who all left due to our server being a “mess at wvw”. We’re now the same or a higher tier than them. So, leaving a server is a gamble as you’ll never know whether or not the guilds on the server you transfer to will stay and if not you’ll have the same issues like on the server you’ve left = whatever.

Found both of the “Gifts” in the Sylvari home, thank you so much! =)