Guild Wars 2

Just wanted to jump in and say hi to our likely opponents in just a little over a weeks time! I don’t think Blackgate is going to pull the big enough lead to gain entry back into Tier 1 this week but it looks very likely it will happen next week.

Anyway hello Tarnished Coast and Sanctum of Rall from Stormbluff Isles! Will be the first time we been in Tier 2 in ages and only the second time ever. I personally think it is about time to fight something other than Jade Quarry/Sea of Sorrows/Blackgate as that has been all we seen for months and after getting to know every guild on those 3 servers rather personally (if you know what I mean) I look forward very much to getting to kill some new faces.

If things do stay as they are SBI will be in Tier 2 the week after next (I don’t think Blackgate can pull far enough ahead to get the points needed for it to happen this week). However that said SBI is not going to collapse, SBI is not some super alliance server like Sea of Sorrows or the old Denravi or Eredon. SBI has been Tier 1 since day 1 and is filled with many dedicated and skill players both guilded and PuG alike. The loss of War Machine, No Peace, Lords of Death, and a few others has hurt us overall yes but it has done nothing to the overall dedication and skill the server still boasts.

I am personally looking forward to Tier 2 it will be a chance to fight 2 servers we have never faced before it will be something new and something fresh. It may be just whats SBI needs to get back into Tier 1 shape as we are still a full server almost 24/7 and just need to bring in people from PvE back into WvW.

If you guys are looking to fight in Tier 1 I would suggest Stormbluff Isles. As it is right now NA Primetime is the weakest time for the server. Please check out the community website, http://www.stormbluffisle.com/ and see if the server would be right for you. If you are looking for heavy competition than Tier 1 with SBI is where you want to be.

There has not been a queue even on the weekend on most maps even EB at times.

Jack Backslash.6287:

I’m not going to argue with my commanders about their tactics (I follow my orders), but if SoS can work better with our guild alliances, we might not be able to take out the dreaded War Machine, but give JQ enough of a beating that we can bring Blackgate back to T1.
Turn the table on SBI and 2v1 THEM! into T2

Have you looked lately? Blackgate is getting beat by both IoJ and SoR. Also you assume Jade Quarry who has been Tier 1 since launch is just going to let that happen.

Wiredgunslinger.5480:

What happened is a tactical error I assume the leadership will sort out for next week. On Saturday morning EST we were up 3k. However SBI literally had their own borderland entirely owned for 8 hours straight. The guild placements were a bit off.

For example WORK was placed on SoS border. I honestly don’t think we were overly needed there. In fact we got so annoyed by all the red on SBI border we went over there for a couple hours…sieged up our supply camp and eventually got our keep and garrisson back.

I believe next week we will see more planned effort put to JQ and SBI borders with a couple more guilds in them. It’s a balancing act….I’m sure JQ and SBI will probably switch things up to.

Perhaps the biggest lesson SoS can take out of this week is that we have to be more flexible about guild map assignments on the fly and be able to adjust appropriately to maps that are getting overwhelmed.

SBI does not have guild map assignments hell I don’t even think JQ does either. We just go where the fights are.

The real T1 match starts next week.

Being one of the very few SBI players that completely skipped the stupid PvE crap and focused completely on WvW all weekend, I don’t care about gold and gear winning is all that matters. I am very upset with SBI’s attendance so far, I know we have a slow showing on the weekends but due to the event this weekend was the worst. I have never had outmanned on all 4 maps for so long and during such high population times.

PLAYERS OF STORMBLUFF PLEASE GET INTO WORLD VS WORLD!

Sea of Sorrows is going to think they are good and pat themselves on the back for winning this week if we don’t LOG IN AND FIGHT! For the rest of this week we need everyone online to WvW. Fractals of the Mists will always be there, farming PvE stuff with always be there, sPvP will always be there. But this first time match against Sea of Sorrows will NOT and we cannot let them walk away with an easy victory.

I know at this point due to no-show over the weekend the point deficit may be too much to recover from, but as long as we keep the score close and maintain a higher PPT than Sea of Sorrows for the remainder of this match we can still hold on to the #1 rank.

To those on SoS who think they are doing great, you have not faced anyone in Tier 1 so far, it’s been PvDoor since Friday night as everyone has been far more interested in Karka than they have been in WvW. Even if we lose this week due to the PvE event you will see the true might of both SBI and JQ next week when we crush you in the rematch!

Every profession needs some manner of being unique and required in WvW. Right now a Thief can bring lasting group Stealth to allow team to bypass defenses and get behind siege and take out it’s operators. Mesmer’s can portal their entire server from one location to another, and even bypass walls and doors if left inside a keep/tower after it has been re-fortified after a siege. Guardian’s can put up shields to protect an entire server from ranged damage, or protect siege equipment from taking damage.

So why? Why can’t Engineer do what Engineers do and use the supply they have on them to repair siege equipment on the field? It could even cost double or triple the original building cost to fully repair it (as in the amount of health on the siege repaired per supply). Engineer desperately needs something to stand out in WvW something to make them unique and desired by guilds.

All I have to say is, PLEASE LET US REPAIR SIEGE EQUIPMENT IN WORLD vs WORLD!!!

Thank you.

Well if limiting the number of people that can use a portal is off the table then here is my list of what other classes need to bring to WvW.

Thief – Shadow Refuge is good but maybe allow it to effect more players at once since portal can work on the entire server, bring a whole new meaning to invisible Zerg!

Warrior – Give their ground shattering skills ability to do more damage to siege, such as Death from Above and Stomp

Ranger – As some others have said, the ability to track other players on the map would be seriously nice, Ranger’s are trackers and really need some way to actually bring that into the game allowing them to track enemy players would make them worthwhile to have in WvW

Elementalist – As some others have said as well with the AoE limit, maybe give them a trait in the Fire line to up the amount of targets Fire spells can hit at once maybe to 10 from 5 would make them a lot more effective against portal bombs and massive groups of enemies.

Necromancer – I have no idea why Mesmer gets the res a bunch of people skill, Necro’s should get something that instantly brings back someone from being fully dead (not downed) maybe make it a small ground targeted AoE so that a group of Necro’s could combat res an entire Zerg if allowed to do so (give it like a 1-2 second cast time). This would make them useful in WvW and not such a joke of a profession.

Guardian – Already good and already very strong in WvW they may not break the game as much as Mesmer’s do but they already are a requirement when used properly

Engineer – Why the hell can they not repair siege equipment??? The profession is ENGINEER it’s what they do! Engineer should be allowed to repair siege after it’s been placed using up the supply they have. For balance reasons maybe make the amount of supply needed to repair something be 2-3 times the cost of building it (the amount of health to supply required). Just give Engineer something to do other than SPAM GRENADES ALL DAY! It would be really nice and make them unique and required in WvW just like Mesmer’s currently are.

When did I ever say remove those skills? The problem is how strong it is compared to everyone else in the game and the fact they can bring both of those abilities at the same time.

Chapel.2706:

Snow Aeth.1937:

So SBI (only when WM is present) can be compared to HoD in its current state.

Why is it alot of people from SBI and the other 2 servers always have to mention WM as if they are the only guild in SBI thats doing something on WvW. I understand they’re seen alot but what about giving the other guilds credit that put in the work day in and day out for SBI. They work just as hard as WM to help us win. They deserve praise too.

Just to give a few names i’ve seen alot (DICE, CaLM, SENT, TwiA, TB, Pact, ect…..)

Don’t forget No Peace [NoPe], SBI’s eternal Eternal Battlegrounds Guild. They are in EB every single day organizing the server on the SBI Teamspeak server and doing what they alwasy do.

There is also Strike Force [SF], who always has 20 some people on the borderlands every single night as well, if you see a random flameram in a supply camp on your borderland it was from Strike Force (it’s their calling card).

at least with name plates or something the zerg would not be invisible, just hard to see..

And this is yet another reason among the many why Mesmer portals need to be toned down, one class should not be able to change the entire tide of battle on it’s own like this when no other class can on their own.

Rottaran Owain.6789:

I don’t think mesmer portals need to be toned down as much as other classes should have something that’s also game changing.

Mesmer portals encourages group communication, and coordination. Lets see some more of that on other classes.

This is something I could get behind. My primary problem with Mesmer’s is that they are just far too strong in WvW. Both Timewarp and Portal make them a MUST HAVE class in WvW compared to every other class, if you don’t have a mesmer with Timewarp and Portal than you are severely at a disadvantage to a group that does, this is both in sPvP and WvW.

What the portal gets used for is NOT THE ISSUE HERE!! What is the issue is that one class has become MUST HAVE and all the others have nothing they can bring that is as strong. Maybe you can argue that the current implementation of Thief’s Shadow Refuge is up there in game changing utility but that skill only effects 5 people not THE ENTIRE SERVER like the Portal can. That is the problem here and why it is too strong.

Either make the Portal have a limit on it’s uses or change the other classes to have something that is a must have and completely changes the way WvW works without breaking sPvP/PvE. As I see it the vastly easier solution would be to just make the portal only work on a limited number of players before dispersing. Make that number 5 to bring it in line with other strong skills like Shadow Refuge and other Boons/AoE Skills or if that is too small 10 people would at least be something…..

REMEMBER: What the Portal is used for = NOT IMPORTANT
WHAT IS IMPORTANT = How strong this skill is compared to every other skill in the game, it changes the entire landscape of WvW. No other skill in the game does this to such a extreme degree.

As with my previous thread on this topic.

Mesmer portal needs to be changed in just the number of people that can use it at one time I don’t care how it is used just that it at current is the strongest skill in the entire game. Please make it 5 players max or at least have some manner of internal cooldown on like one person every 0.5 seconds or 0.1 seconds so you can’t have 100 people instantly.

This game is slowly becoming Mesmer vs Mesmer instead of World vs World

Continued from above (post length limit)

My Ideas:
Underwater Elite Skill – Seriously ArenaNet please for the love of Lyssia, we NEED something other than Basilisk Venom underwater, this Elite already does little and underwater it is even less useful, most if the time it doesn’t even do anything at all! I do not understand why Thieves Guild cannot be used underwater, just give the NPC’s Harpoon Guns and Spears accordingly, also Dagger Storm…why on Tyria can we not use this underwater, Elementalists get their Tornado Elite underwater in the form of Whirlpool, do the same for Dagger Storm.

Sword Mainhand Shadowstep – Would it be possible to add in a way to cancel the Shadow Return aspect of this ability at will? Is the mandatory wait time for Shadow Return a balance factor so that we can’t just use the Shadowstep part over and over? I would gladly take a increase in Initiative cost to this skill if we could cancel the return and be able to recast the Shadowstep part. You can make it that when we cancel the return we do not get the debuff removal or you can even balance it by making it cost initiative to cancel shadow return before it runs out.

Choking Gas – For how little damage this does and how much it costs to use, the poison field seriously needs to last a little longer than it does now. It lasts so short of a time that we can barely even get off a Cluster Bomb into it before it goes away. Even just 1 second longer of a duration would do wonders for this skill. Alternatively we would take 1200 range as fair compensation.

Shadow Refuge – It is VERY annoying that if you leave the Refuge area before it’s dispersal you are immediately removed from Stealth however if you stay in it till it ends then you maintain the Stealth gained. This has to be a bug as the Stealth duration you gain in the field should STAY on you when you leave the field before the field ends.

Superior Rune of the Adventurer – What was the point of nerfing the endurance gain on heal from 100% to 50%? I know it is a minor thing but seriously why? This rune set is already underused as it is and the 6 set bonus was at least half-decent before but now it is laughable.

Basilisk Venom – The grand daddy of useless and underpowered skills. If this was a normal utility with a 20 second cooldown I still wouldn’t use it in it’s current state. There needs to be some serious thought put into the future of this skill as it is by and far the most worthless piece of elite in the game. If the the effect applied properly and lasted for a good bit longer MAYBE it would be passable as a normal utility poison. Thief badly needs a better option for an Elite here.

Thief Class Ability – Steal is fine and is actually a useful and great skill when traited with the Swiftness,Power,Crit Change buffs, or the Stealth for 2 seconds trait. What is not fine is that the Thief in general can’t utilize all it’s playstyles with Steal. Every other class can with their class ability. However Steal does nothing for a Shortbow/Pistol x2 Thief who REALLY doesn’t want to be in melee range like ever. We very badly need a F2 skill that can share the cooldown with Steal but be something useful and Thief defining. My personal idea for an F2 would be some manner of stealth or maybe pick-pocket, a ranged steal that doesn’t shadow-step, this would be VERY useful for Thieves in the many situations where getting into melee range is either impossible or a very bad idea.

Anyway out of all of this I hope ANet takes the time to consider and read over the many issues, bugs, and desperate improvements the Thief class needs. Specially the issues with Basilisk Venom (and consequently our lack of underwater Elite options) and Steal needing some kinda ranged option or secondary F2 skill that can be used in it’s place.

A lot of good suggestions here and a lot of bad ones too.

The good:
Body Shot – totally needs to be buffed or reworked it is a useless ability

Black Powder – It would be really nice if this ability worked just like Blinding Powder does (I mean come on it technically is the same thing)

Head Shot – I love the idea of it being a 100% crit chance ability, it does very little damage so it being 100% crit wont effect damage a whole lot but give it that much needed umph, as it stands though Head Shot is by and far the best interrupt in the game with 900 range and is instant, you can stop someone from healing or stop 2-3 people from trying to finish a downed player if you have the reaction time.

Shortbow Range – Please please please give us a 1200 range option as a Master Trait

Choking Gas – This really needs to be the same range as Cluster Bomb

Pistol Whip – This ability was nerfed way too hard, it now does the same amount of damage as the sword auto-attack just with a long cast time short stun, either buff the stun a bit more so that the entire duration of the sword slashes can land or up the overall damage back to where it was, the issue with this ability as it is with 100Blades is Quickness not the skill itself.

Poisons – They are terrible and seriously need to be looked at, all of them. Basilisk Venom is the biggest joke of a Elite skill in this game, the only reason anyone ever gets it is cause IT IS THE ONLY ELITE WE CAN USE UNDER WATER (this is another concern).

Traps – I agree please address these, they are useless nearly 99% of the game.

And now the Bad ideas:
Cluster Bomb – Dont mess with it, it’s fine, this skill has incredible utility and is very very effective when used properly.

Backstab – Dont mess with it, it’s fine. The positional requirement for this ability makes it kitten hard to land on skilled players, the people that just stand there and take it are the ones complaining. This should be the hardest hitting Thief ability in the game rightfully.

Dancing Dagger – Dont mess with it, it’s fine. If people are stacking near eachother that is their fault and if Ranger’s are complaining about it bouncing between them and their pets then maybe they shouldn’t be standing next to their pet in sPvP all the time, micro manage people. This ability is the only way a Thief can do any sort of damage outside of melee when using Dagger/Dagger it is far too easy to get kited into oblivion and be forced to spam Heart Seeker to close the gap, at least Dancing Dagger can be useful for something.

Unload – I agree with a few that this skill is fine, don’t mess with it if you have problems with it you are not using it right.

Post too long having to double post >.>

All this talk about queue times, as someone on Crystal Desert I been able to get in instantly since reset on all 4 maps. We just don’t have the players these days :/

Every other game with multiple servers has a sub section for each server for it’s inhabitants to communicate on. Why doesn’t the official forums have them, it would be really nice for WvW’s sake :/

No, I will not. The “official” forums should have some way already in place for us to communicate to our server populace as a whole.

No the solution is to bring back in line a skil that outshines every other skill in WvW, not to mention it isn’t even an Elite!

As someone from Crystal Desert watching your server fall apart this week, I sure feel for you guys. Those guilds cough TSym cough that left cause of losing this week are trash no better than Team Legacy or even RUIN I really hope you guys can rally and get people to PvP and crush Tier 4 that way we can see eachother again in Tier 3 when we eventually drop down from the “Get facerolled by Tier 1 leftovers” Tier for a week!

Every other game with multiple servers has a sub section for each server for it’s inhabitants to communicate on. Why doesn’t the official forums have them, it would be really nice for WvW’s sake :/

Limit it to 5 people per use, make it an Elite skill, or limit it to the number of people per second (one per second or something like that so you cant have 100 people instantly).

Ergo Proxy.6219:

My problem with mesmer portal is I enjoy playing both my mesmer and my necromancer. But at the moment there is no real reason to bring my necromancer over my mesmer.

Really even if I level up another class theres just no ability out there that is strong enough to compete with portal.

Its not about portal being “uncounterable” or “Unfair”, its the face that portal pretty clearly outclasses every other utility slot in the game in terms of the options it opens up for a player in WvW.

Either it needs to be nerfed or we need to see engineers with bombs strong enough to take down walls in short order, ect.

This 1000%. The primary reason for Mesmer Portal being a issue is that it is so powerful that it is making that class more desired in WvW over other classes. This is completely against what ANet want’s they have to do something.

Actually Whiran, Tarnished Coast greatly outnumbers us on Crystal Desert during Prime Time. I get the outmanned buff on both Dragonbrand and Tarnished Coast borderlands during the entirety of USA’s Prime Times. There is almost never a Queue to anything at any time with the exception of Eternal BGs having a 10-15min Queue on occasion.

Crystal Desert is by and far a PvE server we have probably one of the highest populations of PvE players in this game. What few of us actually do play WvW, do tend to be a bit more on the organized side of things ever since we got our act together after the 2 weeks of being roflstomped by Tier 1 leftovers.

Mesmer portals are not OP cause of culling or any other issue, they are OP cause the skill has unlimited uses and is not limited to a 5 player party scenario like just about everything else in this game is. If they just make the portal skill only usable by 5 people then that will bring it in line with everything else.

Hell if you want yer fancy tactics still you can just have 30 people 6 groups of 5 with each group having 1 Mesmer in it and then just have all the Mesmer’s lay down their portal entrance. Then the first one runs up like they do now places his portal exit and the 5 other Mesmer’s use that portal than place down all of their portal exits. Ta-da same ambush tactic just with a little more coordination!

I do not care about what it gets used for, what I care about is that it is able to effect an unlimited number of players where as other buffs and effects can only effect 5.

Mesmer portals are not OP cause of culling or any other issue, they are OP cause the skill has unlimited uses and is not limited to a 5 player party scenario like just about everything else in this game is. If they just make the portal skill only usable by 5 people then that will bring it in line with everything else.

Hell if you want yer fancy tactics still you can just have 30 people 6 groups of 5 with each group having 1 Mesmer in it and then just have all the Mesmer’s lay down their portal entrance. Then the first one runs up like they do now places his portal exit and the 5 other Mesmer’s use that portal than place down all of their portal exits. Ta-da same ambush tactic just with a little more coordination!

I do not care about what it gets used for, what I care about is that it is able to effect an unlimited number of players where as other buffs and effects can only effect 5.

Going to keep this short and sweet. The Mesmer portal skill at current is the most overpowered skill in the game by far. Every other skill in this game can only effect at max 5 players, but not the Mesmer portal it has unlimited uses and can even be used by siege equipment.

Please fix this very obviously overpowered skill, it is not fair to every other skill in the game that can only effect 5 players.

Mesmer portal is currently allowing an unlimited number of players to use it, this must be a bug as every other skill in this game maxes out at 5.

There is absolutely no teaming up from Crystal Desert period, I been in WvW all day everyday this entire weekend across all the borderlands and everything we have done was at our sole discretion and for the goal of crushing both servers.

For the rest of the week, I am hoping to further the gap between us and the other two servers. Since next match we will be going up against Eredon Terrace again we are going to need to farm up as much siege, gold, and score as possible. Hope we can get better than 101k total score against them this time.

I am just here to confirm that after last night’s patch/update rendering in WvW went from perfectly fine for me (I have always been able to see around 100 of people on screen at once) to not even being able to see my own party in an area with no one else around but just us.

On behalf of a good portion of Crystal Desert, we don’t hold any ill will towards TC and really yesterday and Friday most of us were most excited to be fighting TC as they seemed a lot more fun than Dragonbrand.

The orb has been stolen in both TC border and DB border. I personally went to CD Border and watched our final orb. The hacker did show up it was a Asura thief and they appeared for about 1 second before vanishing again I was too slow to hit the screenshot button. Luckily me and a few others from my guild were raining 3 arrow carts onto the Garrison’s Orb alter and the hacker was unable to take it. Though I am sure they will try again after this forced WvW reset.

Karma [KA] here as well, ya all know one good thing about the general population giving up is that those of us that give akittencan get in and make a difference. If we can get a good group of 20 or so into a borderland we could easily take back Garrison and from there probably even take the Bay Keep as well shortly after (via Treb from Garrison).

I am always all for bringing the fight, it’s just annoying most nights no one else is willing to as well so it ends up with just me and maybe 5-8 others from Karma trying to do whatever we can against insurmountable odds.

Just no, the guild system in GW2 is outstanding and I wouldn’t want it changed for anything. The days of one guild per character are over finally I can be in a guild with my casual PvE friends and in a guild to compete in serious PvP, never again do I have to make the choice between friends and progression/competition.

Seriously, this change is perfectly reasonable. Heartseeker has been and always was meant to be an execute not a general damage ability. The change to 100%-50% really has no effect at all on any Thief worth anything at all.

From ArenaNet today:
•Score interval increased from 5 minutes to 15 minutes.
•Stonemist Castle points reduced to 35 points from 50.
•Bonus thresholds reduced by half to prepare for one-week matches.
•Castle lord, bodyguards, and capture point for Stonemist Castle moved to the first floor.
•“Harpy Feathers” consumable effect disabled.
•Bridges fixed to make passable for NPCs.

I am really not very happy about the Stonemist changes, I mean seriously the point change is one thing and totally not warranted. But moving everything from the second floor to the bottom floor?!!? So like what the hell is the second floor going to be even there for now? Why are they even doing this? To stop the exploit of attacking the Castle Lord through the bottom floor roof? To stop the whole lining the third floor balcony with Arrow Carts and Balista? I just don’t get it the way it was setup was perfect it was the third line of defense after the inner wall of the Castle fell.

If the point was to fix the exploit then you guy at ANet need to seriously fix the problem in the map not put a band-aid over it like this. As for the other things those are perfectly viable defense strategies and easily countered if you have a zerg that runs past the Castle Lord to the third level first instead of just staying there and dieing. People still love to stand in red circles lol.

Just want to confirm as a Thief this problem happens to my Steal ability all thekittentime. Every other skill I have will work perfectly except for that one, there really seems to be no rhyme or reason to it.

As someone from Crystal Desert who actively goes out of his way to troll people in all of the Jumping Puzzles, I am sorry for your inconvenience. But seriously if you want to do jumping puzzles and not deal with crap like that go play PvE and do those :p

Simple really, because I am a furry there was no other race choice.

The entire point of tournament mode is for a premade group of 5 to play against other premade groups of 5, if you want to play casually that is what the PUB games are for.