Guild Wars 2

SafiMoyo.5130:

Unholey.3264:

Allie Murdock.8152:

That is exactly my point. We want to make sure we’ve done everything we can to make the pet desirable before we consider any options for those that don’t want to play with the pet as much.

Does “everything we can” include redesigning and separating pet AI from open-world creature AI? I can’t speak for everyone but I believe most would agree that, while perhaps not necessary, this would be a tremendously helpful starting point.

Can you elaborate? I hear this a lot, that pet AI needs to be separate from mob AI and then suddenly everything would be amazing – but I don’t know why this is. What vision do you have of this new AI that would improve pets from their current state? When I hear this, I feel like it’s akin to someone saying if it’s different, it’ll be better. But different doesn’t imply better, so I, personally, would love to hear the some brainstorming on what the specifics would/should be.

Many specifics have been given in this thread and others…
Here’s some:
- A pet that currently attacks from 140 of it’s target, taking 2 seconds to launch the skill is missing it’s target given it just have to side step. If the same pet starts attacking at 140, but have a 300 range with target tracking it would be able to hit a moving target
- We could get faster casting pets skills if it wasn’t linked with mob AI (eg, I want that might/fear, etc. now, not when the ennemy moved to 600 / is already on me)
- They might be able to see they are going to get a big hit/AOE and get out of there…
- They might be able to better use knockdown/knockback or else. (don’t we love when the devourer gets the ennemy out of Entangle?).

These are just a few things that can’t be worked on right now because of the link with mobs AI. Not necessarily that would be changed, if they were not tied, but still…

1- A class that relies on sustained damage needs to deal more AA damage and damage over time than a class that can burst… Which rangers fail at… it also need to have lots of ways to mitigate damage on demand, which rangers fail at…
- Most definition of skirmishes and skirmisher I read on the internet is about a small, brief, unexpected encounter.
- A WvW view of the skirmisher might be to harass enemies back line, an idea I like, but that is impossible without burst or consequent damage. Thieves are better for “small, brief, unexpected encounter” than the skirmisher…

2- Traps : cleaning up some traits (as discussed in a few posts of this thread) might allow room to have them in a condition branch.
- Otherwise, though it might be hard to keep them in a nature’s theme, they should deal primarily direct damage…

3- Pet : I don’t think the best AI in the world is going to keep them alive in WvW. In some scarlet’s event, it’s already hard to keep one alive 20 seconds – despite the PvE health increase… in WvW zerg fight? No way. I do not want to hurt my pet… but even telling it to attack some random ennemy out of the zergs is not working…

Yep, I say!
Spider will not get to immob you if you’re not staying at one point. Time for it to launch a competency is enough for one player to be well away from the point of impact…
Pet never realizes that the target is no more where it aimed 2 seconds ago… (1 second cast time, plus the time for a very slow projectile to reach its target…)

Many, many people on Augury Rock (EU) complain about excessive lags on EBG… BL’s are apparently fine.
And not everyone is lagging / and/or not at the same time. Like half my guild complain they can’t do anything, but I do fine, and suddenly they are “hooray, it works”, and it’s my turn to be unable to launch anything… Then we all are able to get our skills working, and you see messages from the pug group that they lagg…

Hope that whatever it is that creates that will get resolved before tournament…

Lol, I so have no idea of what is serious and what’s not in this post…
just go me laughing out loud in my office, with my coworkers looking at me weirdly…

Just keep moving, pet is unable to hit moving targets :p

As others says, melee stay with tag, ranged run around…
But they all should aim their damage to where commander ask them… Just making dents on foes’ armors is not useful, concentrating damages helps take off chunks.
Mono target ranged should go for low-health stragglers…

style.6173:

Now let’s just hope those leaked elites were fake too. Those were really bad.

Those were datamined, not leaked… doesn’t mean they will be implemented, as they are, just that they are a possibility….

Guard is being used as a boon trigger most of the time, nut I see it’s low CD to be there to allow to save the pet before it stupidly dies staying in AOE, when pet swap is on CD.
It can also be used so that the pet do not take the aggro in situations where ranger soes not want it to take it.
The one second cast time is, imho, a good balance between the main purpose of the skill (an other pet command) and the boons it allows to get (being a low CD shout)

ilr.9675:

Jocksy.3415:

Send bug reports when it happens – I’m still doing 1,5/2k maul with my hybrid build… don’t think they’d willingly nerf burst builds to lower damages than non-burst…

My “hybrid” used to do atleast 3.5k mauls. …usually more to lower armor glassies.
There isn’t any other class that’s ever gotten as many stealth nerfs as this one in Anet’s history so when someone suspects there’s more, there probably is

My hybrid is not a meta hybrid, have more alterations than power in it (that’s my lazy “tag it all” build, not op at all, but just there for fun) – the “still” (“I’m still doing”) meant for me “about the same damage it usually does when I’m on that build”, not as “it got somewhat down, but I have no problem with it”…

If your hybrid used to do x amount of damage and now is lower, report bug in-game… or screenshot and report in forum… Bug team is not coming on this forum… a message directly to them is going to be way more productive than nitpicking players who saw no difference lately…

phiplayer.2865:

Could you at least tell us if F2 for ranger will be fixed in the next balance patch?

Karl McLain.5604

Ranger:
Ranger pets are receiving a responsiveness pass and will be much easier to command. For example: Activating your F2 skill will now break your pet out of its current action in order to execute that ability.

There you go!

Op forgot to mention how easy it is to loot the temporary pass… I’m never lucky with loots, and already have 3, from somewhat 400 blue bags/5 times doing the LA event…

Really not a big deal :p

TyPin.9860:

. It would maybe also allow those professions that are not that often used as commander to be a viable commander profession.

All professions can be viable commanders, it’s just that people are so used to follow melee commanders that they have to idea how to follow the others…

Followed some great thiefs, mesmers, elem and ranger commander, not all of them being melee build, and they were wonderful fights going on… unfortunately, we see less and less of those, which makes for very plain // all the same // all stack on me // boring fights…

Ever followed a mesmer commander that uses portals to surprise its foes by getting it’s bus right in the middle of their distant without having to first cross the foe’s melee, thus having all its forces still alive? Or a thief that forces the ennemy to use their AOE, or get part of a zerg to fall on it’s bus? The ele’s speed of reaction, as a commandedr, to put down fire field, water fields and so on, instead of loosing precious seconds asking for them while the player has is on CD?

Xaylin.1860:

Food for thought: Spike Trap, Muddy Terrain and Entangle currently represent very redundant skills with very similar functionalities. However, Spike Trap will always be worse than Muddy Terrain for its purpose. What if Muddy Terrain replaced Spike Trap as Trap skill and Barrage was renamed and became a Survival Skill. For example, a lighthning or wind themed area effect would work regardless of weapon choice.

All 3 have their times…
spike trap, I put near entrances in WvW to stop ennemies from entering. it’s also good to show my group a stealthed player tries to sneak in, which buys them one second to react.
Entangle, I use in melee… people don’t see it at first, often waste stability, which we take off, thus allowing controls affected from stability useful.
Immob time of spike and muddy is not long enough for people to waste skills

Muddy, with it’s range, the fact it does not need to be traited to be useful, I use it to help control bus stragglers, or casters, that our gardians can then pack for a burst. 600 range trap would not make it. cast a 600 range trap in front of you while running, you are on the spot when its finally laid down…

Plus, having muddy terrain in survival allows to run it, lightning reflex and entangle, which maximize the use of one trait (reduced CD on survival skills). We already have enough traits we have to take to make our weapons worth using; I sure don’t want to have to go in trap to have a very minimal usefulness in WvW zerg…

I’d rather have base direct damages of traps increased, given the tree in which they are…

My point would be to make the base build less reliant on the pet, while keeping in mind pet is part of the ranger and Anet’s desire to have a synergy between them.

Proposal : reduce reliance on the pet while augmenting group play options and keeping the “synergy” with the pet idea.

a) Have a greater base ratio of damage on the ranger (eg, 90/10 instead of somewhat 70/30). Scale beastmastery to allow for current beastaster’s level of pet damage. That we those who choose so do not much have to rely on the pet, while those who want can.

b) Trait rework.
Unless in beasmastery line, have no trait only affect the pet. Either pet and ranger, or pet and allies or ranger and allies. In order for that not to get “over the board”, it might be “half the effect affect allies”.
No traits should hurt the pet.

c) Skill rework
No skill should have an effect on pet OR master only (except maybe spirits) and need a trait to be useful for the other. Shouts should have an effect on the master and the pet (eg: Guard : Ranger also gets stealth). Same for traps – they shou;d give an advantage to the pet – maybe the opposite of what trap does? (eg: poison gives it regen, spike gives it swiftness, and so on) and signs should affect both; maybe with a reduction of active, making the current duration need to be traited, in sake of balance. Same goes with survival : LR could make pet evade an attack, and so on…

d) Weapons adaptation
Give a direction on weapons. Some should be mainly single target, other mainly multiple targets; not a mix of single target and AoE on all of them. Add some utilities on weapon skills to have “group weapon”. (example : with a blast on maul and something more on #5 (eg: sucessful hit gives some advantage to allies), GS might qualify as “group weapon” (also given they balance #1).
Pretty much everything else is a mix of single/target and AOE. If they make it so some weapons are clearly designed for group (hit many target and give some group advantage) and some for single target (like the sword is), it would open up some opportunities to play in groups for us (given the base damage of each is balanced – not like right now, GS #1 being lackluster and Sword #1 being the only real DPS option), while still allowing for single-target combat. The off-hand (torch/warhorn) might have the ability to press a 2nd time on #4 to have it be AoE…

TL;DR
Shifting base damage back to ranger, while reworking the traits and skills to have a real synergy with the pet (pet and ranger, instead of pet or ranger), would mean that dead pet is no more a dead weight, while an alive pet is still useful, which caters to solo players / small group players and zerg players needs/desires.
Organizing weapons’ skills will allow for a real choice between group play and/or multiple foes situations and solo play and/or solo foes with neutral creatures around.

I don’t understand the “The damage cap is removed” point… What damage cap?

For the rest, I’d rather have some options to which I can assign shortkeys, than try to type “/things” command in combat or give up utility skills (need them to survive).

Many also objected to having experience be used for commander’s advantage…
1- if the experience was only gained as commander,
a) some people would only tag up to get commander experience;
b) it would be a barrier to new commanders (already “old and known” commander are more followed that new and unknown)
2- If it was WvW experience, it would mainly encourage “Wxp farming”. We all know ranks mean nothing. People who frequently scout, most of the time have a broader understanding of all aspects of WvW than people who follow the zerg karma-training…

Though I would have nothing against being able to get a (different shaped) tag bought with WxP, as long as it does not make a commander who have it be at an advantage to commanders who don’t. (eg: could be added to Guard killer or defense against guards – means players need lots of points to unlock it, but does not make the commander who has it the commander to follow, whereas a new branch where "squad member get [exp, defense, attack bonus, or any other bonus], with the last one being the unlock would be a barrier for new commanders)

Supply drop in citadel is a way for EoTMers to say “see, we actually do something for our server”, even if not points…

The point of going in EoTM is not having a supply drop for our server, it’s having fun… The supply drop is just a little plus… And somewhat 400 supply every couple of hours really is nothing…
Not like as if any lead was “well, EoTM is now closing, so let’s wait for our supply drop”…
It’s more like “Oh, nice, take supply here, we can go directly attack a structure”

And, well, a server might have some control, like when a few of our guilds went on it at the same time and regrouped in an overflow…

But really, win or lose, it makes so little difference, that it doesn’t worry me…

If you want to have a role, tag up, drive people, defend/attack, and most of the time, if you organise your troops properly, you win the match :p…

Yoh.8469:

Well, could we get say a pale blue version of that made up?

The reason being is that it could be used by the devs to highlight individual posts, and in this case Proposal posts. Not only would this make them much easier to see, but it would create a positive feedback loop. You would want to use the proposal format, as the highlight would make it easier to see, and thus you end up making it easier to read, everyone’s a winner.

What do you think?

I was also thinking that if the summaries are player-made, they should be highlighted somehow…
I know that when I spent a day or two without looking at a CDI thread, I’ll pass quickly through the pages, putting +1 to ideas I like, but without reading everything, mostly checking for red posts to know how the discussion evolved…

Having some players’ posts highlighted would be wonderful

Otherwise, having a few first posts reserved for updaters to make links to main proposals and sum up discussion could be an idea

About The lost Witch’s question: I love these kind of summary :
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/page/56#post3487339
Though they must be hard work, gives a good idea of what went on if we missed things, or just as refreshers… and it’s easy to look up things for more details
(and all the links catches the eye, so not too hard to find among the other posts)

Send bug reports when it happens – I’m still doing 1,5/2k maul with my hybrid build… don’t think they’d willingly nerf burst builds to lower damages than non-burst…

I do not see friendly fire working with GW2 combos…
GW2 being what it is, in part, by the combo mechanism, friendly fire would make a different game… So, no, I like it as it is and do not see how friendly fire would really improve the gameplay – would just make it poorer – take off a lot of GW2 strategies…

AOE limit as it is now is fine for me. I did not see any real argument of how increasing/decreasing it would help small groups more than zerg.

Increasing it maybe to 10 would maybe help small groups that are less than 10, but will not stop them from getting hit from the zerg’s AoE… Limiting all attacks to one target will not help either, because the small group is still going to get damage from a way greater number of people…

Small groups will always be at a numerical disadvantage compared to zergs. If in old-time war (swords and such), you have 10 people attacking a 50 men troops, yep, they can take some down, but, well, they are not going to win the fight…

Friendly fire would make a totally different game (no combo), so I don’t find this idea pertinent for GW.

Body block, on the other side, would be awsome, as long as ranged attack get curve (not sure how to put it… instead of being in a straight line, it shots in the air and land down). Would mean a limited amount of player can really melee hit one player, would make holding a neck meaningful, and really allow to have a back-line and a front line…

Akisame.9508:

Does any other class loose 30-40% of their damage due to poor AI? Does any other class loose 30-40% of the damage due to targets being up on a keep wall? Does any other class loose 30-40% of the damage due to targets being on the ground while your on a keep wall? Does any other class loose 30-40% of their damage during the ENTIRE zerg battle in WvW? No, only ranger’s have to live with this handicap.

Mesmer’s and their clones are not in a much better position…
I kill mesmer’s clone with my fire trap :o effectively taking off a big chunk of it’s DPS… And clones are useless in themselves, only use fotr them is through F1-F4, and they die so fast in some settings that they are next to useless I’d even say more than pets in WvW, cause at least I can try to avoid melee and AoE to keep my pet alife and use it’s special ability, I can Use a shout to keep it off the battlefield – though loosing DPS, I’d gain support… They cant’t send their phantasms and clones away to still benefit from them…
Even ranger’s untrainted spirits give more advantages in a siege fight that memser’s clones…

I’m not saying we are in a good spot, but we are not the only class who’s class special ability is useless in bus… If mesmer didn’t have portal/veil/time warp, they’d be pretty much where we are at…

Back to ranger :
I do not feel like our damage is the problem (except on GS AA). Overall, it’s ok… I feel that the problem is that developers so much wanted the ranger to have a synergy with the pet, that it’s blocking us in too many areas…
I do not feel that the pet in itself is holding us behind – though I agree that pet is the problem.
Removing some traits specific on the pet, to make them more team friendly would go a long way. Beastmasters traits should go with pets, that’s a given, but other traits in other branches, such as “critical hits grant XYZ to your pet” should be “to your pet and allies”.
+ none of our skills should apply its effect to the pet only.
EG: shouts : pets get to do something, master gets advantage, traits allows for advantage to be shared with team
signet – untraited, apply to ranger, traited (in adept) to the pet; traited (in GM) half of their active effect apply to allies…

But, more skills should affect the pet also – in terms of the synergy… Like traps, it can be that poison trap heals the pet, spike gives it swiftness, ice gives it quickness, and so on.

Just plain taking the pet off and giving us the damage cannot work without a great rework of the class – because most traits are based on the pet being there… If I wanted to play an ranged class with no pet, I would take a petless class. Lots of work needs to be done to make ai-based classes viable in large-scale fights… for me, the first step to do that is to give those classes some ways to not have to rely too much on AI.

Slininstien.7546:

So over the year and a half GW2 has been out, Red Guard, VoTM, and other guilds i’ve enjoyed watching on youtube have retired from GW2 and have stopped recording…

Just so you know… RG is back…

Then just put an ICD?

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Asko.4120:

postponed 3 times already

Hi Asko,

There is no point in the CDI if the members of it are unable to give it the attention it is due. We make a live game and thus ‘things’ come up. Thank you for your patience and I to am looking forward to being able to giving my full attention to the next set of topics.

Chris

I’m both sad and happy that it is postponed – Sad because I look forward to it, happy because it might means we’ll have true discussion. Plus, if a topic owner isn’t working on week-ends, better to launch it on a Monday.

Thanks for the heads up!

RyuDragnier.9476:

Razor.6392:

RyuDragnier.9476:

Wrong on so many levels…no to all of those, ESPECIALLY Shadow Refuge. For Lyssa’s sake man, SR has so many counters it isn’t even funny! You have to stay in the AoE THE ENTIRE TIME it’s out to get the stealth. If you leave it at any time, you get revealed. Meaning enemies can and will use AoEs on you, Fear, Push, Pull, and Knockback to kill the thief inside or force them out and into the open with reveal. It’s way too easy to take out a thief just due to seeing the refuge. If you’re having problems with this skill, there is no kind way to say this…but please, for the love of Ascalon, LEARN TO PLAY!

Obviously plays thief.

Listen fella, the counters that you list aren’t available on demand for every class out there, so it’s pointless to list them as the definite solution because that simply doesn’t work in every case.

And lol what? wrong in all of those? So according to your pathetic noob kitten , healing signet of all things is fine? Why do I even bother with all of these losers…

Let me show all the counters each class has.

Ranger: Spike Trap, Flame Trap, Viper’s Nest, Bonfire, Barrage, Entangle, Storm Spirit -> Call Lightning

Elementalist: Lava Font, Gust, Eruption, Shockwave, Shatterstone, Drake’s Breath, Ring of Fire, Fire Garb, Cone of Cold, Updraft, Ring of Earth, Earthquake, Churning Earth, Comet, Arcane Wave, Glyph of Storms, Tornado

Engineer: Blunderbuss, Jump Shot, Blow Torch, Magnetic Shield -> Magnetic Inversion, any bomb/grenade/flamethrower skill, Throw Mine, Fumigate, Acid Bomb, Box of Nails, Elixir X

Guardian: Symbol of Wrath, Binding Blade -> Pull, Mighty Blow, Ring of Warding (don’t suggest this unless you have a helper AoEing the spot), Wave of Wrath, Symbol of Swiftness, Symbol of Faith, Smite, Shield of Judgement, Shield of Absorption, Zealot’s Flame, Cleansing Flame, Purging Flames, Sanctuary, Smite Condition, Tome of Wrath

Mesmer: Mind Stab, Illusionary Wave, Chaos Storm, Temporal Curtain -> Into the Void, The Prestige

Necromancer: Doom, Life Transfer, all staff marks, Unholy Feast, Grasping Dead, Enfeebling Blood, Locust Swarm, Corrosive Poison Cloud, Well of Suffering, Plague, Lich Form

Warrior: Whirlwind Attack, Earthshaker, Hammer Shock, Combustive Shot, Arcing Arrow, Cyclone Axe, Whirling Axe, Tremor, Stomp, Fear Me!, Rampage

Thief: Clusterbomb, Choking Gas, Caltrops, Dagger Storm, Exploding Venom Sack, Skull Fear, Whirling Axe

Looking at this, the only ones who should be having any kind of problems with dealing with opponents in Shadow Refuge should be thieves and mesmers. But considering most mesmers take either focus on offhand (due to Temporal Curtain providing one of the only sources of Swiftness) or Greatsword, they’re already prepared to counter thieves most of the time. A thief versus thief battle…that usually depends on their builds.

Add to the counters any melee weapon on a damage build…

I too, have the impression OP never played these “to be nerfed” classes…
First, give them choices… Then nerf what is over the board… Just don’t nerf, nerf, nerf into oblivion when the “to nerf” build is the only viable they have…

Yaro.3251:

How they are “very similar”? Botting has clear patterns to test against and is ongoing process so it is [relatively] easy to catch offender red-handed. Hacking? What do you do as a support if the only information you get is “he’s hacking!”? Do you even understand the scope of such investigation in absence of any information except user tag and time stamp?

Take a look at options available in reporting UI. All of them have specific patterns and ways to check validity of the claim. Well, I can’t really comment about LFG abuse, but few types of it I know fall into same category. Hacking otoh is too broad of a topic to have such simplistic way of reporting. It would be horribly ineffective, resource hog and prone to abuse.

Yet I saw a post where a dev said to report hacking as botting…
I would be way less work for them to have a real option to declare hack, instead of having to figure out if the botting claim is real botting or some hacking report…

ilr.9675:

Jocksy.3415:

and you will have no problems.

Clarification on this:
you will not have problems getting on the couple of teams per week that do form up.
You WILL however have lots and lots of problems actually completing the “Content”

Good luck!

We have the right to disagree. Though I’m not much into dongeons, with guildies to tell me where to go when and to do what, no problem.

I hold my tile in fractal (dredge?) thing without dying when the other on the other tile died, while killing the monsters around me and using my pet to take the aggro off the one who activate the door; I hold my place in the fire dome of a dungeon (citadel?), no problem, and the time I went on the monster, it died pretty fast also… I manage my pet so that it does damages without dying (easy, since the PVE health boost), I go from melee to ranged according to my group’s strategy… call out well-timed, heal, and so on…
Except for the time used for the explanations they give me – which is only the one or two first times I do the dungeon with them, we are not slower with ranger or other classes…

The timeline only states

1325 AE Guild Wars 2 story begins.
1326 AE Guild Wars 2 Living World begins.
1327 AE Present day during Guild Wars 2 and the continuation of the Living World.

The fact the GW2 story begins does not means it all happens in the past…

And wiki is fan-generated content; it does not come from developpers or any Anet staff…
I can create a Wiki page that says anything that comes in my mind, it won’t make it true…

Asimo.7256:

.. i think ANET makes Guild Mission just for big guild with huge member …. its not fair for small guild like me and my mates … we got 25 member .. with 12 member active …. when comes Guild Bounty … we always run out time to finish it

all of us has read .. a guild bounty hints at dulfy.net … but it wouldnt helps ..
cause 15 minutes time limiter for us .. is soooo annoyin

from doin 25 guild bounty .. only 2 finished

You have no obligation to do the 3 NPC’s guild bounty…
Anything in the way guilds earn advantages is linked with how many people are online at the same time, doing the same thing (eg. 5 members completing an event gives more points than 5 events completed)…

Smaller guild missions, yes, do not give as much as the bigger ones, but they allow smaller guilds to do missions too…

Never selected any manual targetting option, but it’s usually what happens with ranged weapons when no automatic targetting options are used.
Especially when using bows (ranger), I’m not always targetting the ennemy, wich allows me to fire in their general direction/ where I think they are going, in order to hit them (if firing at them, they just have to sidestep to avoid it)
But most of the time I click target

A trick I learned, that will make it start to cast almost immediately (though it does not make the cast automatic) is to call the pet back (F3) then press F2.
F3 cancels the current animation, while F2 gets “queued” (and often “lost”) after current animation.
By cancelling the animation (F3), you can cast almost immediately F2.

Annoying workaround, but makes almost all skill launch when wanted…

Best advices I can tell you is
1) record yourself playing – analyse the videos
2) get with a friend either in sPvP (if on same server), or in WvW/EoTM, if on opposing servers / opposed colors.
Duel together while on vocal and after each match, discuss what you both did. Maybe ask your friend to do a slow motion of his bursts explaining each step as he does them. Helped me tremendously when a mesmer guildie did this with me. Still getting killed by them :p, but at least I understand how and have a fair chance.

3) Duel in OS – depending on the servers, many there are pretty nice and helpful, we’d group, duel, then we say what we think the other did great / bad… really helps too.

4) For zerg – Know the basics.
With duels, you will learn how to better use your skills instead of burning through them. In zerg, you need the same reactivity in placement and skills/dodges use. But since you are not reactig to what a songle ennemy is doing, reading is on another scale (eg: pop stability when something will stop you – immunity when you have to stay in ennemies AoE’s, and so on)
You will need practice to get to really stick to the commander, and as an heavy, melee, this is the most important part of playing in zergs. I often advise to beginners to just not lose sight of the tag. If they can’t do that and hit, just don’t hit… bad at the beginning, but more beneficial in the long run…

About not understanding what goes on in fights, the more vids you look at, the more fight you take part in, the more you will understand.

The basic mechanics are a pre-combat buff phase, where the bus stacks might (gardians, staff#4 + combo [fire field and explosions]).
Then the buses collides, and the commander will try to get people to burst (get as much damages out as possible) on a precise point to kill some ennemies.
After that there is a small heal phase (combo water/explosion), rebuff phase and back to combat.

All through that, you will have different classes doing different things (gardians passing in tome, wars using rez banner, casters harassing the ennemy bus in the repack/heal/buff phase, and so on)

The more experienced the group is, the faster the buff/burst/heal phases are chained. At some point, like with RG, the phases are all on the fly… might, heals, burst, all are there almost all the time, with no distinctive phase, so it might not be as easy to get to understand as a newbie.

TL;DR version
Improving personnal skill is going to help you in zerg by the better use of you skills, but reading of when to use skills in bus is far from the same as in duels.
You have better chances to get buffs and heals, thus survive, by sticking to your lead all through combat.

Tanzan.4830:

Is this a game with only 2 viable professions if I want to experience everything?

Depends. If you want to do rush runs : yes.
Otherwise, get in a friendly guild, and you will have no problems.

My guildies do not have problems with my main being a ranger, but using LFG is a nightmare… Once been kicked from the group I started before we entered the dungeon… laughable, but not funny…

Though they are not all bad.
Lupicus Ranger’s speed kill

SirDrygan.1823:

Or you can do it like me and do a suicide run….. Got the WvW maps that way…. As for getting the points in garrison and keep, hope your server karma train when your opponents have won for the week.

The point is that Heezdedjim so much enjoys WvW that PvE map completion is a problem…

Lol…
I used to do it while waiting to get in WvW at prime time… Now, I guess I’ll have to force myself to do it at other times… Just one heart or a few POI a day is not too painful…

Overflow hopping is tedious. The map feels like a wvw hotjoin, but it doesn’t have a hotjoin UI to swap maps or even queue for. I would like to queue for a full map my friends are in.

Group with you friends, right click on their name, select “join friend” (or something like that)

Easy to get stuck in a generator while it is being built/repaired/spawned.

Do not forget to use /bug when it happens so that devs can locate the exact problem and eventually have enough data to solve it. Same with getting stuck under a bridge when it’s being built.

Siegerazer costs gold. I don’t know why.

Need a gold sink…

[Unbalanced territories.]
Balance is as a whole… red’s altar and blue’s worm tunnels might give a travel advantage, the travel advantage green gets is not being slowed down in their territory.
It seems pretty balanced, though I agree that green’s having most of its advantages rests on PNJ’s they should do something more than just be there.

Chrispy.5641:

Greatsword is more than powerful as it is with the right skill combo. Does not need a buff. Does not need a nerf either though.

The problem is having to use all signets to have a burst…
All weapon should be potent on their own… and a big burst every 40-60 seconds is nothing. I agree something shall be done to keep burst in check, but not by keeping the weapon’s overall damage under the floor…

Cantur Soulfyre.5409:

“Closed” raids are for those commanders who can’t deal with pugs. Period, that is the only difference. Those commanders may not like that label, and I get why you wouldn’t. But you need to be a very good commander to run a raid with pugs tagging along and still get those loot bags.

Nope, you need to have pugs that are willing to follow, and not run everywhere and nowhere, doing just what pleases them while is not always good for the group (oh, I’ll put out all my aoe’s to tag as much as I can, despite the lead asking for water zones… or lets all go in a different direction, tagging different people instead of doing a burst to effectively bring the ennemy down… or what a great idea to go directly at the lord to get the banana despite the 10 AC raining on the lord’s room…)
Commander can’t be better than the people following (or not following) him…

Some days pugs are great to lead, some other days they’re just hopeless.

Back to topic, the fact my guild raid don’t like pugs is that they overwrite our fields with theirs, even the best of them won’t make the timely dodge our guild members know we will do, thus they fall and rez the ennemy.
If people want to play with us, they should apply to our guild, or get in an ally guild.
We’re not particularly hardcore, feels like a family, but we want to know who is playing with us. I got in a WvW guild, it’s not to play with randoms…

Only went in two WvW guild, the first one having a greater level than the second, but I never got a lead that shouts at guildies.

We do take some time to get started – partly for grouping purposes, but mostly to see who is there, and if anyone needs to change build (we have over 100 members, but only somewhat 20 each raid… sometimes we have mostly our support members, other times we have mostly our DPS members, and some others we have way too much of our CC members, and way not enough of the other ones, so some have to re-spec to balance it out, which takes more than 30 seconds to decide (who will change) and do (for what)).

Most of our members run with the pug commander until enough people got on the map to raid, but when we organize the specifics of the raid, we do have the whole guild at the spawn for 10-15 minutes… Never saw a problem with it, even as a pug, since being organised and having a good balance of support/damages/cc/boons stripping gives guilds the best chances against enemy blobs…

Terrahero.9358:

Great!

Or did you all forget the queue’s? The people kittening about jumping puzzles? The hogging of siege with ZERO masteries because there was an achievement to destroy walls or gates? Burning supply on useless objectives? And oh god the rallybots! Or the utterly selfish behavior, bursting down dollies or leaving people to die?

Did all that just fly right by everyone? Now the PvE zerkerlings can go to EotM and roll around there, and not detriment the actual WvW play.

They should make the achievement to NOT be detrimental to the server… instead of making them accessible through other gameplay…
As others said, yak escort, siege refresh, general scouting would help WvW… and I see no way it can be abused like what happened with wall repairs / doors cruchers, etc.
Yep, that might create some qqing because of not getting on the map to get the achievements, but, it’s the cost of being on a high WvW population server…
Harder for lower pop servers to do them for lack of manpower, harder for higher pop servers to do them because of the number of participants… Looks fair…

Making EOTM a strictly overflow map is not going to help either… people who care for PPT already do not go there…

Making it accessible on OF only would means that only two or three servers can sometimes access it, which would encourage stacking even more…

AR nightimers have not been too much affected by EoTM, mainly because lot of “propaganda” (for lack of a better word) have been done since the beginning of the year to get and keep night players interested in score.
If players can’t be bothered with PPT, why force them to play a way or another? Some servers are going down the ladder, some other that used to lose all the time are going up… hopefully that will bring down the point disparity between servers – especially NA, where tiers are too far in-between.
EoTM is still relatively new… OS took over a moth to get somewhat stabilised – and there isn’t much to do there, compared with EoTM.
Give it time and work on your server mentality to get people back in PPT WvW, if that is what is important for you…

Forcing people into a game mode by making other game mode inaccessible at some points is never going to help.

I love the fact that I can experience somewhat equal MU in EoTM despite my game time, I love the fact that EBG is non-stop action, I love the fact that home BL is more of a defensive map and that the enemies’ BL demand more of an offensive gameplay. Any gameplay anyone wants should be available when that person wants it…

Tl;DR
OF only for EoTM ecourages staking even more;
Players have to do their own propaganda for their servermates to joint in PPT MU;
And people should be able to chose to play the way they want;
Eotm is new, things will settle down – in the meantime, score difference between servers is decreasing

AR have coverage problem… And I am a night player… when we are 10 to hold against servers that have 30+ men bus, plus roaming groups… we keep jumping from one map to the other… to try to defend, to try to get points, to try to not get steamrolled by the other servers…
Shutting off BL is not a solution. Right now we hold mainly because the adverse servers will not try too hard to reset our structures. They take what is easy. If we only had one map, we would not be able to hold them off. Because they would have to get our structures, thus they would be more persistent and all we would be able to do is watch as they reset everything…

Can’t answer you question, but, in the meantime, you can summon creatures and change the skill…

Slyfer.6478:

So.. at the start of season 2 i will be put back into UW if i go onto WvW? Why the server transfers then… i’m confused. If you promote server transfers and then throw us back into the servers we transferred from, what’s the point?

You will not be brought back to UW…

Interpretation :

1- if you play one week on one server (server A) doing 3 achievements, then you spend 4 weeks on another server (server B) doing 7 achievements, then the last two weeks on a third server (server C) doing no achievement
a) you will get 1/7 weeks worth of server A rewards, 4/7 worth of server B rewards 2/7 weeks worth of server C rewards
b) you will get 3/10 of server A rewards and 7/10 of server B rewards
c) you get rewards for server B, on which you spent most time…

For season one,only the first world the player was on was counting; for season two, worlds on which the player played will be taken in consideration for the reward.

Reason why lower rated server usually gets red, middle, blue, and high, green, is that the distance between objectives makes it easier to defend a good chunk for red than it is for green.
In red, appart form Anza, two towers are easy to reach from spwan, two are really close to the keep, and it’s easy to go from the keep to those towers…

On the green side, the towers seem somewhat farther from the spawn, and general design make it so going from one tower to the other takes a bit longer…

So, the reason why the first usually have green with a small chance at blue, the second has blue with a small chance at both other colors, and the third has red with a small chance at blue is that the designe have been thought to give a slight advantage to the losing server…

So no, no color rotation.

Many on my server can’t stand EBG… And many can’t stand the borderlands.
They offer different playstyles, which is ok for me.

Please, let’s keep our BL!

1. Ranger

2. Thief
3. Elementalist

WvW is what players make of it.
There are plenty of tools to allow small groups to break up zergs in EoTM, and many EoTM features have been asked on these forums to help break the zergs.

Examples :
- Destroyable bridge
Carefully almost destroy a bridge, then let part of the zerg pass before destroying it – makes a manageable sized-bus.
- no WP
A small group ca gnaw at a bus, with the time it takes to join the bus back, gives the demanded advantage to small group…
- multiple objectives / advantages – makes defense worth it

Now, if players would rather zerg their way through it… not Anet’s fault… But I mostly saw small groups everywhere on the map, and not much zerging, when I went on EoTM. Depends on which OF I’m on…

The reason is that it’s not fair to take away someone’s kill if you jump out of reach… The first fall is not long enough to get out of combat, but you are out of combat in the second fall.
So it’s all to prevent people from running away using the void when a fight is not to their advantage…

D best.3547:

There are three types of commanders I have sworn to never follow.
1. Thieves they stealth and teleport to much to have a good feeling of what their group is going through
2. Mesmers for the same reason.

I followed thiefs commanders – but none that were specialized in stealth… Most are venom share or just build for tankiness…
Same with mesmers… they usually know they have to make sure their bus can follow them – so few are specialised in escapes…

+ I would have that it is not good that a commander is too tanky compared to it’s bus… it needs to be able to survive, yes, but one that gets too much of self-preservation often is surprised to see itr’s bus dead… while the other would have asked for more stability, more heal, or more anything that the bus will need to survive…

Yop, tested it, and if you WP in first fall, there is no fall damage, but if you wp after (in second fall), you take armor damage.