Guild Wars 2

Keep as is.

Stopping gate repairs is nothing compared to the defenders being able to use AC’s or catapults behind the gate to stop rams. Whilst the enemy can do it too for towers where there is a gap through which you can see, allowing an offensive AC to take out interior AC’s, it is still not as significant as the defensive siege should be pre-setup. Allowing you to take out that offensive AC first.

I ask this then, enemy team of 30 approaches. Sets up with 3 rams. You have 5 defenders inside, but you cannot AoE through gates.

No catas, ac’s, trebs behind a gate then. How to you defend? Rams have enough HP that you would struggle to auto attack it down, and to do so you’re on the wall and vs that many will likely be instant killed by the aoe wall suppression.

Defenders need an advantage, you shouldn’t require numbers equal to theirs to defend. Thats kinda the point of towers/keeps.

Considering how staff is probably the most versatile and best weapon the Necromancer has, an AoE nerf to it would hurt really hard. I can maybe see why meteor shower would be nerfed, as i’ve seen some hit for 4-5k per shower blast, and as there are many meteors in the shower thats a fair chunk. But a Necro hits that amount like, never, and only once with any individual aoe skill, not multiple parts to the aoe.

I can’t see why any aoe aside meteor shower would need any nerf, and even meteor shower ain’t so bad.

No thank you.

I enjoy the epic battles we have in supply camps, those are the best ones. Also I play WvW so I can choose to go in a small team or follow a large one, not so i’m forced into small teams to do certain objectives, which happen to be some of the ones I enjoy most.

Maybe your idea has credit as another game mode, but not as WvW.

Haha epic. Just held vale on JS borderland for 3 pts ticks, and had a good 15 minute fight with like 5 of us vs a huge JS count

Wish I had recorded it lol.

*Just did it at Pangloss too lol. And took ogrewatch from under their noses although with only 5 of us dps’ing the lord down fast enough to stop them getting in is tough. Fun times.

MikeFerguson.8921:

Attic.1562:

Thanks for posting Mike. Would you mind answering another question while you’re at it?

-Is dropping siege blueprints for other characters to pick up an intended function? It seems very bizarre.

It is indeed intended (and bizarre). We would actually prefer to just make the blueprints tradeable, but there are a couple of funky code interactions that happen to make that impossible for us currently. It’s something we’d like to address at some point, but it’s not very high on the priority list currently.

On a similar train of thought, could you not make siege account bound in the meantime as a pose to soulbound? It would stop the need for much of the transfer of siege in that manner, as most just want to put the siege on another character of theirs. Would also make banking it much nicer.

Sorry but people who think jumping puzzles cover the siege, the hell they do. 8 pieces of siege a day, at best (if you do all 4 puzzles). Random siege also.

Because only the regulars and commanders on WvW use their siege, people like myself are using in excess of 30 units of siege a day. Easily. Jump puzzle comes not even close.

All they need to do is increase the drop rate of masterwork items a little to be honest. WvW should NOT be a farm, it is a gold sink, but at the moment too much of one. Masterwork items sell for enough to cover the siege costs if you kill enough.

Of course upgrades still take a seriously heavy toll, and it’s about time they implemented a donation bank for upgrades.

Error code: 42:5:7:878:101
WvW Aurora glade borderlands
Europe

Can I ask, was everyone with the error like myself in WvW at the time of the patch? I was.

Precisely the same issue since the new build a few mins ago.
Talktalk broadband in UK.

Can consistently login fine, it definitely downloaded the patch but I cannot get beyond character selection.

The hell with Jade Sea numbers?

First few days they were last and falling a fair bit back this week then boom, one day they swarm the universe.

It’s kinda fun but a bit frustrating to not be able to really expand anywhere for long at all. Does seem to be a heavy constant JS presence in our BL also.

1) 900 I think. Never used so don’t know how good at that it is.
2) Yes I believe you can, not sure on range though. Maybe worth using spectral walk instead though?

Just hit 80 and i’d like a little help refining what I have put together. Here is what I have now:

Gear: Full knights (power, precision, toughness)
Trinkets: Full knights including gem (power, precision, toughness)
Weapons: Staff + Dagger/Warhorn (power, precision, toughness)

Runes: 4* superior rune of the warrior + 2* superior rune of strength
Sigils: Superior sigil of hydromancy (staff), superior sigil of force *2 (dagger+warhorn)

Traits: 20/0/10/10/30
Major traits

Power tree: 3 sec retaliation on entering death shroud + life/plague blast grant 15 seconds might
Toughness tree: Greater marks
Vitality tree: 15% CD reduction on dagger
Spectral tree?: Death shroud recharges 50% faster, death shroud skills 15% faster, life force drains 25% slower

End result roughly
Attack: 2800 ish (2900 with staff)
Armour, 2900 ish
HP: 20k ish
Crit chance: 38% + 30% crit dam

Utility bar
Feast on conditions
*Blood is power/corrupt boon/well of choice
Spectral armour
Spectral walk

Elite
Lich form

This is just what I put together really, so I doubt it’s optimal. Absolutely love it though! Great class.

*Note, vitality tree is more for the HP than anything to be honest.
*Mainly play WvW with near 800 hours in WvW now, leveled this class 2-80 in WvW like a boss

Just make it so there is no invuln spot on the ground, but only actually in the spawn aka on the hill.

It’s fine having the spawn lead to the camp, as its the same for everyone on the maps. Home team gets titan/spirits/godsword, SW gets vale and SE gets lowlands. All have a spawn exit into a camp. What they don’t all have is an invuln spot outside the spawn like in the SW.

Fix that, and I have no issues.

Here are some things i’d like to see added to WvW or fixed in WvW.

1) Exploits into keeps, eg the path into hills.
2) Zoom applications that allow you to zoom in/out further than normal, allowing siege to do more than it should. Such as arrow carts behind walls hitting well outside of the tower (not just the gate area as is standard).
3) Commanders get a guild squad option, so only guild members can see the flag. Yellow flag to symbolize guild status.
4) /Supplyinfo command to have its radius increased to at least 4000 range.
5) More guild siege to allow smaller guilds to have a greater impact.
6) Elementalists fire attunement staff auto attack fix. Saw yesterday an ele attack vertically (upwards) the treb on the blue keep tower jump puzzle thing, from the floor on quentin lakes side of the wall. Thats nearly 2500 range so the splash doesn’t account for that.
7) Make enemy players appear in a standard armour to you, like in sPvP. Keep allies as are. This should help culling somewhat.
8) Grey out the names of dead enemies so dead players don’t appear as large numbers of enemies in big battles.
9) Try ensure the rendering of name tags if character models remain difficult, then at least we know someones there without tab targeting like a mad man.
10) Dolyak armour upgrade from supply camps, to increase their vitality and toughness.
11) Weaken NPC commander in breakouts and greatly lessen the bubble shield duration over the free siege. It’s unfair to have prepared AC’s on the wall only to lose them as you cannot hit back. Defenders should be given a fair chance too.

Those are my 10 main things i’d like in WvW at the moment.

swilkers.5938:

A premade on vent facing a pug of players just doing whatever. Not really impressive especially against elementalists in a choke point. You probably would have the same kills in a siege situation. Neither are really brag worthy.

Make a 4 man party and do this yourself. I await the video.

It’s very impressive. Most of the time you’ll never pull this off simply because of say, mesmer curtain pulls or something.

Just because they weren’t good (enemies) doesn’t diminish this frankly. Brilliant work there, and they clearly worked very well together. A mass of bad people should still bend that tiny group over.

I messed around a bit, and at least vs the players I was against (bear in mind I don’t actually play warrior, I play thief, necro, guardian, ele and engineer at the moment to lvl 80 and lots of wvw), I found GS +sword/axe effective.

I used a sigil which cripples or chills, on weapon swap on the GS. Sword/axe sigils aren’t as important.

Open with sigil of rage (elite), then the gap closer on sword, bulls rush, axe 5, swap to GS for chill when close enough, then use stomp and 100 blades. Most people are down after that but if not do as you wish. I was using as my 3rd utility balanced stance for stability.

If then you needed range i’d swap one of the weapon sets out for a rifle when out of combat.

One of the most fun classes in the game IMO. Not too bad at all. Not the best like a guardian or something sure, but not too shabby.

@above

Nobody said 1v1 was pointless, everybody said exclusively doing this whilst ignoring all objectives was. It’s necessary to kill someone on their way to your section if you can because camps are possible to solo.

Hats off to JS and AM. Best WvW I have ever had the pleasure of playing since October 1st when I started. And I’ve played every WvW week since that date.

Very happy to see a rematch because it was so good.
Shame about losing bay on JS borderlands last night We had 2 defenders only but we still broke your golems AM! Bwuhaha.

What’s bad tactically about reducing the overall damage to your group whilst also giving significant numbers of boons to many in the stack?

It’s counter-able with preparation or people getting on with the counter, aka a ballista or arrow cart or more. So not broken is it. And an unblocked (no ele swirling winds, thief smoke screen or guardian sanctuary) catapult or treb or mortar shot will wreak havoc with knock downs.

Also ever tried putting the well that corrupts boons down on a turtle if you’re a necromancer? Yeah…

Stop the rubbish about duelers being far more skilled than anyone else lol. I’ve seen many a bad duelist. I’m a team player and fairly good myself too shock horror. I escort yaks, upgrade camps, take camps with small groups, siege places up and command sometimes too. Also chances are most of you duelists just think you’re superior in 1v1 frankly. I’m no top player but vs the overwhelming majority I hold my own.

That out of the way, why should I respect a duel? Especially from some of the duelists comments on here.

1) You don’t respect our choice to kill people
2) Don’t respect that people want to win in wvw
3) Openly claimed you don’t care about the objectives of wvw
4) Insult people going after objectives

Really why should any of us, show any respect in any form whatsoever after that? You take up spots that could be used for someone who does do objectives, whilst actively avoiding them yourself. You can duel in a sPvP envioronment and cause nobody any grief, yet you choose to do it somewhere where queues exist and go against the point of wvw.

It’s almost worth my time following duelists around to bug them out of wvw. At least the ones here, who have shown no respect for anyone else but themselves.

ktith.6197:

I’ve always wondered what the percentage is that you have to do to a mob in order to get credit for the kill. Some have said like a few hits, others have said like 20%. It’d be nice to have a more defined answer on it though.

Fairly sure it’s 10%, wouldn’t take that as fact though.

Honestly these days i’m getting more grateful for naff loot. Keeps PvE players out of WvW who would compromise tactics and such just seeking loot. Imagine the queues if WvW was a loot fest.

It’s WvW not 1v1. Here’s why i’ll jump in and interfere with your dual every time:

1) Enemy wins, now you have a potential dolyak killer on your hands.
2) Enemy wins, possible solo supply camp attempt. Wastes other peoples time to deal with.
3) Enemy wins, they may cap sentries which people on my server will inevitably take back out, wasting valuable time.
4) Enemy wins, ally annoyed I didn’t help.
5) If I help, fight is over faster making another ally on the map available for doing useful things again.
6) Finally a selfish reason, maybe I want easy loot or badges.

It’s rarely logical to allow someone to duel if you’re walking past, because the costs of your ally losing could be significant. If you lose a supply camp because someone lost a duel, how many come back to take it back compared to just me interfering with the fight? Think people…

I play both Necromancer and Thief so maybe I can help, although I do not use your Necro build.

The thief build you’re seeing cleanses conditions on stealth, heals on stealth and probably returns 2 initiative on stealth. They’ll have 15 initiative and very little need to use skills 2,3 or 4 because they are, compared to CnD, ineffective aside specific situations.

That makes them predictable. P/D thieves do one thing basically. Stealth and shoot. Main stealth method is via CnD.

Dodge the CnD, and then they lose 6 rather than 4 initiative. For the ones that regen initiative in stealth also, you negate that opportunity. 2 CnD dodges in a row, and the thief is down to a mere 3 initiative at which point they HAVE to pop a utility stealth. That’s a good 40 sec or 60 sec CD (blinding powder or shadow refuge) blown, and they’ll be back up to 5 initiative + 1 or 2 for standard initiative regen. They can now CnD again but at most only twice (if successful) before running out of initiative. Dodge roll 1, and they must use a second utility stealth (if they have it). You will have a dodge available by the time they used their first utility stealth, hung around 4 secs then shot and 3 sec wait for debuff, so no excuses here. Dodge first one, 0 initiative thief. Have fun

As for ability usage. Try using staff 3 just after they shoot you with sneak attack, not when on usual attacks nor while they’re in stealth. This puts chill on them long enough that they’ll have it still on when stealth debuff wears off, making the dodge far easier to pull off. Use staff 4 also at this point for weakness, and throwing those conditions just put on you back onto him/her. Vs this type of thief crit chance is low so weakness actually does something, albeit not a huge amount as pistol hits for straight dmg are weak.

Save staff 5 for shadow refuge, pushing them out of refuge with that will force revealed debuff and waste a 60 sec utility. Also if they are using this, they are likely in trouble (initiative used up, low hp and need a long stealth for heal), so this is the fight winning move oftentimes.

Utility setup for this thief type:

1) Well of darkness
2) Plague signet
3) Spectral walk

Self explanatory really.
1) Blind them, essentially a free dodge.
2) Send conditions back to them. As their damage is nearly all conditions this is obviously good.
3) Swiftness makes it easier to evade them, also spectral recall is another free dodge.

For your second weapon setup i’d say wait on dagger use until you’ve wasted some of their initiative. Clever use of the immobilise will be invaluable, and don’t try to stack longer chill duration with staff 3 and focus 5 combo, save them for separate occasions in the fight. They’ll cleanse it on stealth anyway, chill is to make your dodging easier.

Once initiative is burnt, jump in there with the dagger, throw a chill on them to keep in range also.

Finally as another resort, if you’re out of dodges and everything, swap into death shroud and fear them to buy that little extra time.

Hope this helps.

Still one of the best WvW weeks ever. 2 days left and still anyone’s guess who’ll win. AG and AM separated by 1k pts and JS only 10k behind the lead. Bloody brilliant!

Also AM, I shall not be giving up Quentin Lake today :P

That would be acceptable too I guess. I just really want the feature in the game implemented in some way. It’s somewhat frustrating for those who want to lead say, 20 people in WvW and not all are on voice coms.

Option: Create guild squad
What it does: Makes you a commander in the exact same way as normal, only you are only visible to guild members and only guild members can join your squad.

Simple yet effective, and would help declutter maps from com icons where people just want to lead their guild.

This matchup is bloody fantastic. Blunders by everyone on all sides, great battles (last night the 3 way for hills on AM borderlands, omg that was good). The scores are tight, and to be honest most of the time there’s never a HUGE points discrepancy in pts per tick. Good fights all, hope this stays this way.

Luke.4562:

Once I suffered 40k damages in 5 seconds with Spectral Armor up, nothing strange here, don’t try to show the problem in the Thief section or you’ll be eaten alive… pirhanas, not ppl they are..

Just consider that if you don’t have 2k toughness you’ll be getting from 5 to10k crits in a row.. and whatever it won’t stop him from dealing you a lot of burst damage..

The reality is that Thief is OP and Necro isn’t; the reality is that whatever you have to adapt the system.
Some Base hints are having more than 1000 toughness every time in Pvp, trying to kite him with snares, slow, chills, immobilize effects (staff will be helpful) and know when to absorb the burst with Death Shroud (consider that engaging a thief without full Death Shroud it’s often an hard game).
Usually when a thief opens on you with Steal and Fear, try to go into Death Shroud and fear him away, or send him the fear with Plague Signet.
Usually when he Shadow Refuge try bombing the area with your Marks (depending on the situation it would be better if you keep mark 4 and 5 for the later fight) and Life Transfer..

After that there is the counter strategy for every possible build in the metagame.. and a lot of painful experience.

Try looking for some Pvp guide, usually there is explained the strategy in better details.

Just a question, did the Thief have bountiful theft traited? It steals a couple of boons when you use steal, therefore you wouldn’t have had protection up

Also some of these damages are greatly exaggerated. I play both Necromancer and Thief, and have troubles countering the other on neither. In-fact as I mainly play the condition thief, Necromancer’s are hell (stop putting my own conditions back on me haha). If you want tips I may make a thread somewhen, as I’ve now played both classes quite a lot.

You’re right as a blanket statement, however certain classes better suite certain builds for certain situations of course.

For example, a bunker condition thief is a nice addition to any 5 man squad raiding supply camps, and is indeed the kind of thief I myself play. However on the flip side, depending on what you are up against, a glass cannon may fair better. I find bunkers far superior verses a defended in any way supply camp. However naturally, in the party of 5 or whatever it may be, verses an undefended one the glass cannon is far superior just for the speed of camp capture.

Additionally in zerg situations the glass cannon thief is, on the whole, better due to cluster bomb. A condition thief in a zerg isn’t as useful until you start to push back, at which point the dagger storm with signet of malice combo proves highly effective. Aside that the raw damage of cluster bomb, as it’s mainly direct damage, far outweighs single target condition damage which in a zerg is easy to cleanse and even if dead, it’s but one target.

Necromancer’s are somewhat different. I think a condition based bunker Necromancer is one of the very best classes in a zerg. Especially when pushing forwards. With the sheer AoE you can put out, and the importance of chill, the Necromancer is just amazing. Fear people off siege weapons from great distance, good life reserves and the blinds. Dear lord a plague form Necromancer group coordinating in a push into the enemy lines, using the blind/poison (even better with the chill on blind trait) absolutely wreaks havoc.

Then again for small supply raid groups the Necromancer is just like the Thief. Bunker condition, lovely for any 5 man group. Better than any GC build verses a defended camp, but any GC build is better vs one that isn’t.

That’s just a couple of examples really showing the differences between classes and within classes. Everything has its place. The trouble is the players that don’t build their class around where they consider themselves spending the most time. Who would spec a bunker condition thief only to run around in large groups? Who would spec a glass cannon Guardian to head up the front of the zerg?

I’m not sure to be honest. I’ve been on when it feels like you have around 40 and the queues start, maybe 50 accounting for those in the jump puzzle. Yet you hear of the map caps at 3 times this number…

I do wonder if the queue is some form of limiting factor whereby one server cannot exceed numbers of another (whilst within certain parameters, eg if another server only has 1 then it ignores the algorithm) by a certain number * their forces.

kitteno.8103:

I’m tired of pointing out that GW2 heavy armor is NOT realistic. You can’t swim or dodge or run in real heavy armor. Battle lingerie is far more realistic than your full metal set.

Oh really? History would like to disagree with you there Here’s the Wiki page as it’s easier to cite on here and i’m lazy:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auxiliaries_

‘In Roman service, both their cavalry and infantry had perfected a technique for swimming across rivers wearing full armour and weapons.⁴⁸⁴⁹’

Under sub-heading ‘Revolt of the Batavi (69–70 AD)’

What’s the issue with jumping Golem’s anyway :S?
And you make a good point, I’ve built some golems in my time to lose it to some F spamming ____ who walks out and gets it killed before doing anything.

Don’t get why you can’t boot them out.

Oh yeah that’s fair, remove a key trait line and probably the best condition removal on the Thief class.

Running into a group of 5-8 of anything will get you probably killed…

As for Thief wars 2. I call BS. I see more Warriors than Thieves. OMG Warrior wars 2. And the comment about Thief players saying the Thief is easy to counter, maybe it is a L2P issue people. Those who understand the class, have no issue countering the class. Those that don’t understand it, do.

Perma stealth and massive burst do not go hand in hand. They are 2 strengths of different builds. And of course by perma stealth I mean 50% stealth on the condition nobody ever dodges a CnD. Revealed debuff people, it exists. And if they are truly perma stealthing (aka CnD timing perfectly on you, or other methods than don’t even hit you), who cares? They’re harmless doing it. And if it’s the CnD method you deserve it frankly, kissing range melee move and you do nothing about it.

I see AM have come out with a powerful start again. EB was a touch nasty for us Gladians, getting pressed from both servers quite hard, and blocking our supply camps very well. Going to be a tough week.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Katsumoto.9452:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

We did get another Poison field underwater as well as a couple new Whirl finishers, a blast finisher, and our one Leap finisher.

That said, the above charts still fail to mention that Bone Fiend attack is a small projectile finisher.

I’m counting land combat only for this I view land and water as 2 entirely separate entities. It’s not common enough to fight on both land and water in the same fight for them to be counted together.

Again though, bone fiend. It’s not the most useful utility for many builds. It’s just not worth taking a sub-optimal utility for a combo finisher.

Worth taking, no. Worth mentioning for completeness, yes.

Doesn’t matter how you cut it. We have one combo finisher on our weapons (or 1.2 as said earlier). Both on staff. That’s what I said from the start. The other finishers are on utilities seldom used in many builds.

The changes proposed would make some interesting play. I really want the emfeebling blood one for the emfeebling blood on DS entry blast finisher.

Considering our condition damage isn’t godlike compared to others, and our direct damage isn’t either, I don’t think it unfair to add a couple of combo finishers to the class.

Kitedyou.1720:

There should either be a re-use timer or it should be disabled during battle.

If you attack from stealth, there is a timer. Wish people would research before posting.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

We did get another Poison field underwater as well as a couple new Whirl finishers, a blast finisher, and our one Leap finisher.

That said, the above charts still fail to mention that Bone Fiend attack is a small projectile finisher.

I’m counting land combat only for this I view land and water as 2 entirely separate entities. It’s not common enough to fight on both land and water in the same fight for them to be counted together.

Again though, bone fiend. It’s not the most useful utility for many builds. It’s just not worth taking a sub-optimal utility for a combo finisher.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

I’d prefer Ghastly Claws (Axe 2) to be a Whirl finisher. Since you’re spinning the axe super-fast, why not?

Not sure I like that one to be honest. It’d be awkward also where the whirl occurs. It also doesn’t really fit the animation of other whirl finishing abilities.

Those charts above kinda highlighted the problem thank you. Just shows that most of our finishers are on utility skills which many builds would find useless. Bone minion blasting, or a well, on a condition build? Well thanks.

The major advantage really to extra finishers, particularly blast finishers, is to allow us to make real use of wells dark combo field with blinds. Blind play with the chill on blind trait, and emfeebling blood on DS enter would be some pretty fun stuff. It’d also help a LOT when dealing with burstier classes which many seem to have trouble with as Necro (won’t pass judgement till i’ve done more PvP/got my Necro to 80 in wvw).

Vodka.3958:

Only save up the gold by killing players in WvW and selling the drops they give you. You can’t use any other source to get the income for your badge. Try that :P

That’s how I got mine

As it stands, it’s a bit ridiculous how good the breakout event is, so i’m suggesting a couple of tweaks to make it a bit more fair. It should give a chance to the team without a presence on the map, it should not punish the living hell out of the defenders though. It’s too costly to justify defending vs breakout at the moment frankly.

Changes:

1) Shield bubbles go down after siege is constructed. I have no issue with it being protected whilst being built, but once built the defenders should be given a proper chance of defending. As is, the tower can be beautifully fortified with arrow carts and such all along the wall, but they get an arrow cart in a bubble and it takes them all out before the shield is down.

2) Weaken the NPC. He’s a tad on the strong side Anet.

3) Give it a proper timer. It should not be a spammed event. Make it have a 30 minute timer at the least, to give defenders the chance to repair and fortify. As is, there’s really no point upgrading say, Briar, because even if you make the defence with massively superior force, they’ll be back in 5 mins and take it.

Breakout, in my opinion, should give weak attackers a chance. Free siege and a big NPC is enough. Free indestructible siege with a overly big NPC that also can be used again every 5 mins or so is too much.

Ele’s need a huge nerf then. They run away better than anyone else in the game when using D/D weapon set.

Gunnar’s Hold.

Good matches vs them, tough fights and a gritty server. Also got a friendly dance and chat with them by Hylek’s on EB in the final hour of a match. Top server.

Just picked up Necro again, played in PvP and started again (didn’t want so many of one race, so made it Asura). Up to lvl 15 again but I think I’ve spotted a small thing the class needs really.

Finishers.

We have but one weapon skill finisher. Here are a couple of suggestions to put some new finishers:

Axe (3): Unholy feast, blast finisher
Dagger (5): Enfeebling blood, blast finisher

That would be more than enough.

Possible addition:
Focus (4): Reaper’s touch, projectile finisher

Reason I post this is because I find the Necromancer huge fun, and nowhere near as disadvantaged as people make out. Some minor traits could do with changing, and I think if this too were altered the Necro (assuming bug fixes are carried out), would be in a nice spot.

Emfeebling blood blast finisher being the most interesting, as it’d make the trait of using emfeebling blood on entering death shroud a little more… fun.

Feel free to discuss, but I think the lack of finisher’s is really hurting the Necromancer.

You want to quit the game because of one class you THINK is OP? It isn’t by the way, kitten easy to deal with Thieves unless you are unscaled, but then it doesn’t matter what class you fight so long as they have a tiny bit of skill.

Even when I play glass cannon ele, which is very rare, I don’t get burst down by thieves. All praise the holy V key.

People would do well to spend time learning the mechanics of all classes before posting about balance.

Ok commander on Aurora Glade here, massive RTS and TBS player also.

First: Zerg refers to Starcraft. Zerg being a race which relies on numbers of units over quality of units to win. NOT numbers over tactics

Even if I were to take what people seem to think a Zerg is on this game, a large group lacking skill, it is often misused. What is wrong with the 25 people who band together, and build siege in smart locations, defend it with defensive siege and take a tower/keep? What is wrong with the large group that readies supply and goes some place where the enemy is not, whilst the enemy is busy dealing with an assault from the 3rd server elsewhere, and lays down some fast rams and breaks in?

This is called smart play. Because of the mechanics of siege and supply, numbers are required to effectively build siege on the offensive. I see so much moaning that a ‘Zerg’ gets a place before you can react. Perhaps that was rather the point? They assembled what was required to take that point on the map quicker than you can react to it. That’s not a mindless tactic.

Second: Why should 5 be able to hold off 30 reliably in any way whatsoever? The opponent has committed far more to something than you have, and because of that they have the resources to build what is required to take what you have away from you. No bloody way should 5 be able to hold off 5-6 or more than their own number, else all you do is make massive stalemates. 5-6 > 30, therefore to take X point you need 50. How often can you muster a full 50 man group? Rarely.

Something can be done to reduce the effectiveness of large group play, fair enough. Increase res time from fully downed (spiked, dead, whatever you want to call it). Perhaps nerf downed state itself in terms of res speed from that state also. Or even HP on down. However it should not stand that a group coordinating to suppress enemies on the wall whilst their siege batters down the wall/gate should regularly be on the losing side.

A lot of people don’t seem to consider that by reducing the effectiveness of the so called ‘Zerg’ all you really do is enforce stalemate situations. Player vs door would become the only reliable way of taking anything, and places like SM or Garrison? Forget about it.

You CAN do things to increase the time you hold out for support, you can sometimes even repel the enemy large group with inferior numbers with appropriately placed siege also.

Things you do not see often enough:
1) Enough defensive siege until the enemy has already setup their own. Of course you’ll be disadvantaged without access to a nearby supply camp as they’ll have taken it, and without siege to deal with what the larger enemy force has now setup. Build defensive siege first and run SWIC’s.
2) Open field siege. Rarely do I see a server hold out for example, the ogre camp choke point on eternal battlegrounds. Yes it can be circumvented, however that’s a good couple of minutes delay plus time to coordinate that round about route. If the enemy doesn’t think of it, then you can hold them there indefinitely.

Rarely do I see a smaller team assemble long range siege open field (trebs, or hell even catapults) and support it with arrow carts of the required number. I once commanded a group about 2/3 the size of the enemy group to setup a couple of catapults to the north of Durious, in the treeline so that enemy counter siege would have to be setup in a position that can be target-able from the ground, and setup 5 arrow carts and 2 ballista’s with them. We held there and nearly took down the wall, only failing because the 3rd server took us from behind and stole the siege

3) Protection of supply camps. How often have you defended a tower/keep that was still wood after hours of owning it, because the supply camps were never yours to deliver the supply. Or you have no supply upgrades on your camps leaving the tower/keep empty when it falls under siege. All so you can rush a supply camp that’ll never make a Dolyak delivery to your bases.

The tools are there for a reasonable numerical difference to be quite likely to win for the smaller side. However it should not be allowed that a tiny group holds reliably vs a massive one else you just get stalemates, and people leave WvW. We’d all be more sorry for that.

Aye won’t blame Fort Ranik, but the LT guild deserves some bad credit. The sheer count of them doing it regularly is ridiculous.