Guild Wars 2

iiMulch.2138:

Uhmm how exactly is this a problem?What info is the guy giving away?

Dead guy: Hahaha I am spying on them! Okay guys they are moving about…. still moving about….. now their building arrow carts…. Moving about….

Seriosly, is the dead guy spying your chat or something? He is hardly going to give away valuable intel lmao.

I’ve intentionally gotten myself killed a few times in order to safely scout out towers we were firing trebuchets at. If it’s being trebbed then they know you’re going to be looking at it anyway, so having a corpse there doesn’t really change anything. It turns scouting wall/gate damage into 100% reward with 0% risk. It’s also good for helping people line up siege shots, clear counter-siege, scout supply, keep an eye on defensive strength, etc.

2 silver is the reward for flipping a tower (so dying doesn’t matter), and when your group gets there to crawl through the open wall they just revive you (which gives them a spare body to cap with).

Being able to coordinate with your commanders regarding info like that makes planning camp flips, defenses, pushes etc a lot easier. Doing it without a real penalty is a bit cheesy, but it’s still a tool you can make use of.

Absinth.6917:

My how seriously you and TC take yourselves with such “tenacity and spirit”. Only weeks ago members of PiNK pompously declared that getting CD knocked down a tier was their main objective. And this because someone killed them in JP. Talk about a lot of pent up frustration.

From a game, no less!

I understand what happened here — I name-dropped PiNK, and there’s bad blood in there that I was not aware of. I apologize if I’ve upset or offended you (not sarcasm).

I’ve been messing around with my thief for the past month or so and have been trying to work out a build focusing around granting allies Boons and stripping foes of theirs. I’m still not exactly experienced, so I thought I’d ask around on the forum and see what others think.

I understand that I won’t be bursting heads off or anything, but that’s never really been my play style anyway. I’m convinced that there’s a party support option in here somewhere and I’d like to work it out. Here’s what I’m looking at thus far.

http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#mckzMc0zMmlFMmmahMmG0x0GmRcsbVk

Mainly I’m looking at 36 second cooldown steal and venoms, with the venoms (and my buffs to them) applying to allies. I’d be stacking Healing Power > Power > Toughness > Vitality > Condition Duration. I’m not looking to be a main healer, but rather to add continual stealth, regen/boons and health gains to my allies and at the expense of my enemies.

I’m hoping that the combination of poison, weakness, petrification and boon removal, paired with the multiple ways to apply boons and healing to allies, will be enough to help control the field in a way relatively unique to the thief profession.

For my armor runes I was considering Centaur, Dwayna, Monk, or Water. For my sigils I was considering some combination of any or all of Hydromancy, Energy, Venom, Debility, and Life.

When I heal, I don’t just want to heal myself — I want to be able to constantly support my allies. Centaur runes would give me a little bit extra punch and keep things moving… but if that isn’t needed then I’d have a preference to one of the other rune varieties. Water appears to be the one that’d work best, but Dwayna and the Monk are also viable.

The idea is that I want to be able to get my allies into stealth on demand using Pistol #5 + Shortbow #2 for a smoke field blast finisher combo, or Shadow Refuge for straight up stealth + heal. This means that I’ll be swapping weapons fairly often, and so Hydromancy and Energy sigils seem fairly attractive. I don’t expect to have a lot of crit chance so I’m skipping some of the more useful options (such as Nullification and Purity).

Since I want to trigger on-heal effects often (as I’m leaning toward Water or Dwayna runes), I’m opting to go with Withdraw over the other heals as it has a short cooldown and will help to keep me mobile. I’m not sure if that’s wise, so my healing skill selection is another reason why I’m coming to the forums.

Basically what I’d like to know is if anyone more skilled than myself would consider this viable or even realistic for small group play (5-10 players tops). If not, I’d like to know why and how the build could be changed to work better or more efficiently. If I’m stacking too heavily on steal and venoms, I’d like to know why and how I can diversify my bar to cover more bases and to create more options.

The build would mostly be for PvE dungeons, PvE events, and small group WvW play.

Thieves aren’t overpowered, they’re over-tuned in some areas and under-tuned in others. After playing a thief for a while I’m starting to get a feel for where things go right and where things go wrong.

In short, thieves are too squishy, which makes stealth too much of a free “oh kitten” button. If a thief isn’t timing dodges and stealth activation perfectly, they’re going to get rolled fairly quickly when compared to other professions. The problem is that the thief is, by design, a glass cannon.

A solution is to reduce offensive strength by about 3%, increase defensive strength by about 5-10%, and make stealth less of a maintainable thing — increase a few cooldowns by a few seconds, make revealed last longer, make a few stealth skills last for a little bit less, or any combination thereof. I’m fine with a thief having the option to build as a glass-cannon, but right now that’s the main direction the profession pushes you.

Sure you can play as a more defensive thief and sure you can play as a more mobile thief, but you still maintain a strong punch compared to the options most other professions have access to. I personally would rather be dealing about 3%-5% less damage in exchange for some bonus health or armor, across the board. Stealth has become a necessity and a crutch rather than an option. That’s the problem.

They aren’t broken, they just need tweaks. Removing, limiting or nerfing stealth would make it nearly impossible for a thief to survive most combat encounters because of how flimsy they are. You can’t nerf stealth without changing other parts of the profession. It’s as simple as that. Numbers need to be tuned — nothing needs to be nerfed.

Absinth.6917:

Kerithlan.1659:

Hekatombaion.4320:

Riddickk.7091:

Absinth.6917:

Hek; I agree with you on the squishy, not enough getting yelled at, and the running away/wiped parts. CD is a great server but sometimes we are so disorganized that nothing can be accomplished due to lack of initiative. Our main issue is being reactive instead of proactive….well that and severe tunnel vision….and a sudden outbreak of blue doritos.

All that being said – I’m having a great time and I hope our fellows in arms as well as our current foes are having as much fun as I am.

Merry X-mas and stuff everyone. I hope Santa brings you something nice.

/salute

From an IOJ perspective, both servers seem to be a lot squishier than what we’re used to. There have been times when I(as a GS warrior) would get into your backline and you’d have people just standing there taking it in the face without moving or dodging and they drop in 2seconds. It’s also pretty appearent that most of your server is not used to open world battles because they fold so easily on force multipliers( I.E. dps focus onto a certain position). This problem is exacerbated especially to my guild since we run fairly skirmisher heavy(warriors/thieves/guardians/bomb engineers) because we can just cut a swath through your front line and as soon as 4 or 5 guys go down everyone just turns and runs.

I’ve been saying that for awhile but I’ve got no idea what to do about it. Within a guild you can break tendencies like that but are there any options for teaching the less WvW focused players or even having a zerg commander somehow adjusting that behavior?

TC has been crashing into problems like this from SoR and BG, and what’s happened is our commanders (mostly with PiNK) have taken a few moments to explain why we’re breaking. Slowly but surely more people are getting the hang of it, and we’re starting to hold more firmly.

Just calmly and politely explain why things went wrong and how they can improve, taking care not to single anyone out. Instant change won’t happen but if your server is willing to remain calm and light-hearted about things then it’s a lot easier to adapt.

Actually the reason why TC is breaking is because you have grown used to your numbers advantage doing the work. Now that you are on a level playing field….you are breaking. Methinks you will be relegated to being the tier 3 gateway server soon enough.

What goes around comes around, eh?

I will admit that even though you are losing it isn’t by too large of a margin. Yet.

Merry Christmas to you too. Our numbers have nothing to do with it. Sad to see people still flaming us. Keep on fighting, forum warrior.

Hekatombaion.4320:

Riddickk.7091:

Absinth.6917:

Hek; I agree with you on the squishy, not enough getting yelled at, and the running away/wiped parts. CD is a great server but sometimes we are so disorganized that nothing can be accomplished due to lack of initiative. Our main issue is being reactive instead of proactive….well that and severe tunnel vision….and a sudden outbreak of blue doritos.

All that being said – I’m having a great time and I hope our fellows in arms as well as our current foes are having as much fun as I am.

Merry X-mas and stuff everyone. I hope Santa brings you something nice.

/salute

From an IOJ perspective, both servers seem to be a lot squishier than what we’re used to. There have been times when I(as a GS warrior) would get into your backline and you’d have people just standing there taking it in the face without moving or dodging and they drop in 2seconds. It’s also pretty appearent that most of your server is not used to open world battles because they fold so easily on force multipliers( I.E. dps focus onto a certain position). This problem is exacerbated especially to my guild since we run fairly skirmisher heavy(warriors/thieves/guardians/bomb engineers) because we can just cut a swath through your front line and as soon as 4 or 5 guys go down everyone just turns and runs.

I’ve been saying that for awhile but I’ve got no idea what to do about it. Within a guild you can break tendencies like that but are there any options for teaching the less WvW focused players or even having a zerg commander somehow adjusting that behavior?

TC has been crashing into problems like this from SoR and BG, and what’s happened is our commanders (mostly with PiNK) have taken a few moments to explain why we’re breaking. Slowly but surely more people are getting the hang of it, and we’re starting to hold more firmly.

Just calmly and politely explain why things went wrong and how they can improve, taking care not to single anyone out. Instant change won’t happen but if your server is willing to remain calm and light-hearted about things then it’s a lot easier to adapt.

Jeknar.6184:

Scores for 1:30am on GMT -3 12/25/2012 (7:30pm PST)

PS: I tried to take the SS with the Big Ale Keg present but Santa stole it…

Hey just wanted to say thanks since you’re always posting score updates (and seem to be the most consistent at doing so). Are you also submitting them to http://mos.millenium.org/matchups#NA by chance?

Just a note regarding low-level zone populations: there’s always people roleplaying in them. Even if you don’t like to roleplay, it’s largely confined to /say chat and you won’t come across it often. The point is that there are experienced players in most 1-45 zones at almost all times, so if you find yourself stuck the odds of you finding assistance are relatively high.

Our roleplayers are incredibly kind and welcoming (as long as you aren’t griefing them), so if you’re looking for a strong WvW server that you can also play your alts on, Tarnished Coast is hands down the best in the world.

You can always /shrug and assume she’s transgender like I would. Not a big deal.

Holy hell there is a kitten heated agreement flaming up a storm in here.

Did I miss something, or did you all agree over a page ago that this is bad and should be reported? Did you not all come to that conclusion, or what’s the point in continuing on?

There’s no point in posting this stuff on the forum guys, you’re just stirring the pot and causing drama for the sake of it. You have contact info for the leaders on every server just by reading this topic and looking at who is posting — USE IT. Send them a mail in-game or a message on the forum. Submit a report to ArenaNet using their provided channels. Don’t post it in public where it serves no use beyond getting people to fight.

If you want to start drama and pick fights then do it over things like siege placement, timezone coverage or in-game combat, not kitten that’s going to get you forum infractions (or even banned) and the match topic locked.

The more I think about it, the more I’d be 100% comfortable with it if players had their spirit stand on top of their body when defeated. It’d solve everything as there’d be a lore-appropriate reason for it to happen.

Baron.8571:

I laughed out loud when reading some of this. It is unrealistic that people can spy when they are dead? But on the same turn its realistic that a dead person can res? Please…..lol…..

This game is not based on any type of realism what so ever. Put simply, corpse spying is a valid tactic, and if you have a problem with it, move a couple of screens away from the dead person if possible? There is not much a dead body can tell you that a mobile thief or mesmer cant tell you in better depth and analysis.

Except that resurrection is explained and covered in detail in the game’s lore. Corpses being able to share information isn’t. It’d be different if you became a spirit when you died, but you don’t.

Aberrant.6749:

Dear god the lag has spread to all of EB…

Even auto attack is lagging if I go anywhere near SM -.-

It’s probably just server load/latency errors. You can always clear your system’s temp files to be sure but it honestly has a low chance of doing anything.

Predator.7321:

pot.6805:

Where is everyone on BG? Jeez…

Reporting for duty

I read this in the Starcraft 1 SCV voice.

http://www.hark.com/clips/yqdhzfvtfm-scv-reporting

I’m comfortable with it, just not for extended periods of time. If some guy dies in a tower and is still there 30 minutes later then there’s a problem.

Just make it so that every 5 minutes another piece of armor takes damage/breaks.

Edit:
Or do it World of Warcraft style, where instead of being defeated you die, but still need to be stomped to get sent back to spawn. Same basic mechanic as currently exists (people can still be revived during battles), but without all of the corpse spying.

Doomdesire.9365:

Imo it should follow general siege rules. I hear that there have been problems on some servers with golem stealing trolls.

I distinctly remember Yak’s Bay Hero from last week (or the week before) in Tier 4, hilarious but bad at the same time.

Edit:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/wuvwuv/Yak-s-bay-trying-to-troll-Ehmry-bay-in-wvw/first#post984767

PredatoR.5247:

your a kitten i clearly pointed out what kind of pugs i hate. your still garbage tho, go roleplay at lions arch

Considering that I am also a roleplayer and that I am on the roleplaying server, this isn’t insulting in the slightest.

I’d use Soldier gear on certain Engineer, Thief, and Ranger builds.

PredatoR.5247:

i believe they should concentrate wvw around guilds.
who gives a crap about pugs who do it for monthly / dailies.
They are useless and fill up queue times / get in the way of guilds trying to win.
Jumping puzzles need to be removed from WvW, get these roleplayers off our maps and making queue’s, kitten pisses me off, thanks.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWePEIS6BOQ

You’re completely right, who does care about pugs! Those freeloaders just want jugs of karma, the leeches!

Except no. I pug WvW because the rest of my guild isn’t interested in it. I spend hours escorting dolyaks, guarding camps and scouting suppy/clearing siege because I enjoy the elaborate level of coordination and teamwork that goes on.

I get my PvE daily in Caledon Forest (there’s a huge stack of events/creature variety/gathering nodes around the spiral), and as long as Fractals are a part of it I won’t be getting the monthly.

WvW is fun. I’m a pug. Get over it, and hide your shame — your elitism is showing.

Centrix.4065:

Zynthetic.2954:

Step 1: Make it so you can join the overflow whenever you want (and possibly choose which overflow as well)
Step 2: Make a WvW Eternal Battlegrouds and Borderlands overflow maps composed of random players from all servers, so people in the queue can do something WvW related, and not sit around doing nothing.
Step 3: Allow you to queue for the WvW overflow directly.
Step 4: Remove jumping puzzles from the maps that are used for the actual server matchups, while keeping the ones in the overflow.
Step 5: Move the EB entrance portals to the jumping puzzles into the spawn areas, and add ones in for the borderlands puzzle in the spawn.
Step 6: Watch as people that want to WvW can actually do WvW and avoid queues, and those that want to jumping puzzles can do so without hindering their server.

Optionally, do what OP said and remove badges from the JP chests. Personally, I’d rather them stay unless they buff the drop rate on badges.

I have only 1 desire: To join WvW from character select. I have no interest in loading a map I won’t even stay in for longer than 30 seconds. I don’t know how they would do a queue while in character select, but only then I would want to go to some other non-wvw related map lol

They could handle it similarly to how SecondLife manages logins. Add a drop-down menu next to the shiny “GO!” button with options for WvW, sPVP and “last location” which is where you were in PvE last.

Malvagite.3254:

yet he has dont the incredibly hard achievements like 5000 kills with a shield

How to get 5k kills with a shield in two easy steps:
1. Find a bunch of critters (such as the rats in Beetletun)
2. Hit them with your shield for a few days

That’s it, you’re done! Congratulations! You’ve now completed an incredibly hard achievement, and can proudly say that you’ve smashed 5000 rats with your shield!

Edit:
Less sarcasm now. These achievements are account bound. Just roll out a new human warrior and hit 4 every 25 seconds. If you’ve already got a level 70+ warrior, then walk over to Beetletun with the Shield Master trait on (Defense IX) and do it every 20 seconds instead.

Supply and deny are important parts of the game, folks.

FA has a ton of try-hards. Their motto is “if it’s red, it’s dead” — they will gank you even if you blatantly make it clear that you just want to mine copper or get a vista. You could be naked, unarmed, have no active buffs/skills, and /wave until your arm falls of, and they will still jump you 3v1, dance on your corpse, laugh at you and brag about it on the forums.

Having said that, a lot of FA’s members are also pretty cool and fun to play with. ULTD and PRO are two guilds to look into if you’re looking for organized, competitive, sportsmanlike gaming. Don’t allow FA’s forum warriors and try-hards/griefers to determine your decision — when it boils down to it, they have a few solid guilds, a few solid commanders, above average field tactics and plenty of space for you and all of your friends to join in.

Free bump for the server that I like the least, but that I’d like to see grow the most. Everyone needs a villain and you guys fit the bill.

ShadowSoljer.6524:

Its very clear you should be in school still, Christmas vacation amirite, amirite? The only trouble is figuring out Elementary or Middle school… Tough decisions, but I’ll go with homeschooled. Now, considering I have no idea what this plan is myself, officer exchange would do nothing. If he wanted guilds to join his server I’m sure he would do the obvious and just make a thread like one of the many others outright begging for guilds cough Jade Quarry cough

If that’s a response to me, I’m probably older than you are by almost a decade.

http://mos.millenium.org/servers/view/46#history

Darkhaven has been having a rough time over the past few months, and the past few weeks highlight that. Most of their guilds transferred off to other servers, so they have more or less a handful of guilds, a handful of pugs and a small amount of pride to cling onto.

If the rankings tell an accurate story, then Darkhaven is in line to drop another tier in a couple of weeks. There’s nothing wrong with trying to rebuild your server, and there’s nothing wrong with wanting to be subtle about it. The obvious course of action isn’t always the best course of action — they’re not looking for bandwagoners like the servers with blatant recruitment topics are. They’re looking for a few guilds that they can work with and get comfortable with, and who they know won’t up and leave on them like happened before.

I’m sorry if you thought my previous post was childish, but at least I keep up with other servers and understand what might be motivating them.

Ethersin.3270:

It has nothing to do with my guild or server, so feel free to guess again

As you can see from the rest of my post, it was just an educated guess.

More likely:
“Buh, so like, buh… you guys like, buh, don’t like your servers, right? You want to win? Or, buh, you want to go somewhere else? Then merge your guild into my almighty and glorious guild, buh, Rethesis! Buh, we’re the top guild on Darkhaven, buh! You can help us be a part of the change, buh, and prevent us from falling down to tier 6! Buh!”

Or alternatively:
“U WANT WIN? U WANT MIRRION BADGE? DH 4EVA!”

In other words:
He’s trying to coordinate a recovery effort for his server, which has been slowly dropping in the tiers for the past month or two. He wants to keep it low profile because he doesn’t want to embarrass himself or his server, or bruise their pride, by publicly broadcasting their needs. Which honestly is fine and is admirable — I can imagine morale would be dented after having as hard of a time as Darkhaven has had, so why bruise it any more?

tl;dr
guild poaching amirite and/or officer exchange amirite

cannedflame.3597:

Wasabi Kitty.8247:

cannedflame.3597:

Interesting things have been going on lately…

http://bornoficeandfire.weebly.com/

The above site has the screens that show just the kind of behavior that seems to be prevalent in this matchup, at least with one of our opponents…

So let me get this straight.

You see one example of something and use that to make an accusation against all players from a server, complain about them “talking kitten” and then……… talk kitten about them.

“As far as I’ve seen so far, SoR is a bunch of trolling kids who talk big and then… run to put their noses in the corner.”

If I was on TC, I would be ashamed of having someone like you on the server, making the rest look bad with your hypocritical and immature remarks.

Luckily, you aren’t on TC. Furthermore, I am not talking kitten, because I have proof of the behavior in the screenshot. If you think this is the first time I’ve seen exploitative or asinine behavior from people from SoR, you are just plain ignorant.

We are new to this tier, it’s true. First impressions mean a lot. And SoR sure gave us an impression we will remember… a bad one. Exploiting invulnerable spots is just bad sport.

Seen it just a few minutes ago behind the vale too. Didn’t get a screenshot this time, but if it would satisfy your poor bruised ego, I could screenshot it every time I see it? That might take a while to upload all those pictures.

I am on Tarnished Coast. I am ashamed that you feel the need to get hung up over it.

You could be our greatest commander, our most influential guild leader, or biggest noob or a jumping puzzle troll, and I still don’t care. You shouldn’t be talking about how people are bad sports when you’re slapping it up in front of everyone and stirring the pot. I am very glad that you do not represent our entire server, just like that one guy doesn’t represent his entire server.

It might be pathetic that people resort to exploits, but it’s equally pathetic for you to spray this garbage up in public rather than reporting it and getting on with life. Is any of this really necessary? Move on and carry on winning. Sad to see TC doing this kitten.

cannedflame.3597:

Interesting things have been going on lately…

http://bornoficeandfire.weebly.com/

The above site has the screens that show just the kind of behavior that seems to be prevalent in this matchup, at least with one of our opponents…

Is it really so hard to let things like this go? Just destroy it when it shows up at a gate, or wait for it to despawn. Why do people take kitten like this so seriously? It isn’t as though you don’t know how much health it has left or where it might be going, and it isn’t as though we don’t have scouts to watch for stuff like that.

I really don’t see the point in dragging every little tiny minor thing through the mud, up the stairs and into the limelight. They exploited a terrain glitch — fine, report it to ArenaNet and it will eventually be fixed. People on our server (on every server, actually) do it too — move on and get back to winning.

The simple solution is to take badges and siege out of the jumping puzzle chest and replace the loot with typical chest rolls. Then just make a WvW daily achievement that awards the badges and siege instead. /shrug

Daily achievement could be like: kill 10 players, escort 5 dolyaks, capture 5 objectives, destroy 3 siege weapons.

I think that this would work out well because it promotes good habits without encouraging people to mismanage updates or siege. Allowing any objective to count would get more people thinking about attacking/defending camps, escorting dolyaks will get people in the habit of watching supply routes, and the kill/destroy will just come anyway.

Personally I’d rather have people contributing and getting bonus siege/badges for their efforts than screwing around in a jumping puzzle, but that’s just me. Give people two random pieces of siege, 10 badges, experience and 5s for completing their daily. If nothing else it’ll help people level up if they plan on only playing WvW. Even giving a level’s worth of experience would be fine as it’d still take at least 40 days for anyone to hit 80 this way.

Edit:
The reason why I’m not suggesting defend objectives is because the daily needs to be able to be accomplished solo or in a small group (just like the PvE and PvP dailies). Defending a point happens in 2-3 minute intervals and can be hard to do by yourself, which hurts lower tier and lower population servers.

Comparatively, flipping five sentries/camps is very easily accomplished solo, as is escorting dolyaks and getting player kills. Clearing siege off of undefended tower walls isn’t exactly rocket science either.

Toast.6459:

Horheristo.3607:

Oh god, please don’t….
Can only imagine the headache I’ll get as soon as I turn on the volume ingame at LA.

Leave it as is, keep the prestige only left to number of players who can afford it and eventually get tired of using it.

If you’re really in love with it, you’ll find a way to save the gold for it.

Lol, so those of us who actually want to make music should get screwed because of a couple people who got lucky with RNG and can’t do anything but spam one note?

As for a gift being used in the recipe, Gift of Music would be more fitting. Only problem with that is, the 250 ingots and gossamer would come close to 50g themselves, and the opal orbs would probably push it over.

Dear god no, I don’t want to make a legendary weapon gift for a vanity item. That’s absurd.

Heghemon.9376:

Why the borderlands are full of stupid mobs right in the middle of most used routes?

Honestly… this is a fail, remove them

It’s to train you to pay attention to your dolyaks.

My advice is to jump into the Eternal Battlegrounds (which has a much faster pace than Borderland play) and try to get into a small roaming camp cap group. Small scale skirmishes over camps can be engaging if that’s your thing.

Right now Tier 2 is very, very competitive so if you’re looking for constant action try transferring to Tarnished Coast, Sanctum of Rall or Blackgate. Every time I’ve logged in there’s been a major operation underway, both attack and defense.

Unfortunately.5940:

ykyk.2740:

Arcadio.6875:

A lot of people are unaware TC is gone.

Edit: Hey your signature is similar to mine!!!

We can’t be that hated… =/

Not so much hated as that people were getting bored of the same predictable matchup and battles I think; I know I was at least.
Good & fun fights so far!

All of the kittening and moaning from the past few weeks aside, I just want to take a moment to say that [PRO] was one of the FA guilds that I saw the most improvement in. I hope you guys continue to grow and develop, as you and ULTD were the only ones I was scared of while defending.

Vodka.3958:

Jeknar.6184:

Dr Bryan VanAlstine.4061:

Do better mesmer sweeps, scrubs.

You could have gone OK without the scrub part… Now you are looking like a lame player…

He went high and low looking for the person that “exploited” inside and it just so happen to be himself that stayed inside the keep after it was taken. Dr Bryan VanAlstine is one of our top mesmers and personally getting accusations of exploiting thrown at you when there was no exploit to begin with would surely rile up any individual. If any sort of accusation is going to be thrown then please contact leadership of the guild (such as myself) or a representative. Thanks and may good fortune follow you all!

I’m personally of the opinion that — whether or not you guys were exploiting — you’ve handled this with tact. To me this feels a lot like a witch hunt. People are so worked up over the possibility that someone is exploiting that they’re not stopping to think that there may be other alternatives. It’s always immediately a jump to, “Yo <opponent> stop hacking/cheating/exploiting!”

Guys, backing them into a corner like this is in incredibly poor taste and exhibits poor sportsmanship. I understand that it hurts to lose towers like that, but most of the time it boils down to user error. I don’t blame them for being smarmy or sarcastic with their posts — it’s not needed, no, but neither is the instant/constant accusations whenever something goes even slightly wrong. If you feel that there is a problem, then contact one of them (they’re very open with their contact info, it’s sort of all right there in front of you) and report the issue to ArenaNet using their support channels.

It’s the holidays. Can we please just keep it nice, at least until the week is over? None of our servers are at our peak populations/resources anyway so ultimately this is really a throw-away week when it boils down to it.

Catisa.6507:

Golem rushes LOL, that’s not a real tactic, that’s how people/guilds without tactics buy their way into fortifications.

Golem rushes are a spiritual and religious affair on Tarnished Coast. We invoke the Golem God to bless us with his wisdom, his might and his courage. Our knuckles, he hardens and makes strong. Our dodge rolls, he makes timely. Our shields, he makes impenetrable.

We have failed our great Golem God many times, yet he is merciful and not without compassion. He blesses our footsteps and protects us with his cold, mechanical embrace. A golem rush expresses your love for and trust in the Almighty Golem — any who perform the maneuver without his blessing are heathens and must be purged.

Jayne.9251:

spartanx.1364:

TC Guards their yaks very well! Super fun fights all night long!

TC has a strong affinity for their dolyaks

Woah now let’s not get weird here or anything. We just like our supply.

mangOskittle.6430:

Sigh… let me repeat myself then.

And you would cause an uproar with the people who have already bitten the bullet, liquidated their assets and either bought the bell or sank a lot of gold on the lottery to get one.

You are asking for an item to be drastically changed in value less than a week after people have jumped through hoops to get it.

Irrelevant.

People have been getting burned because they’ve been impatient. People should know by now to hold onto things until the last three days of any event in MMORPGs, just in case something happens or changes.

It is not my responsibility to pay a guilt tax, nor is it fair to expect me to lose out on something because someone else made a mistake. That’s not even ArenaNet’s responsibility — that boils down to user error.

skt.7905:

Necrid.2705:

Glad some people are actually seeing the point of this thread instead of making it a fanboy vs freebie-wanting-hater thread. Kudos to you on your very well-put input. I (quite obviously) could not have said it better.

Kerithlan makes a very good point but it’s not the point you’re making. Yes, the simple RNG nature of the event is fundamentally flawed, especially when it comes to involving real money.

But RNG in itself isn’t forcing you to spend gold or gems in order to succeed. Your greed and impatience for the intangible, and transitory I might add, reward system is to blame – not Anet.

What Mank is trying to tell you is: “A fool and his money are soon parted.”

Unfortunately this is correct. Necrid, it’s important to realize that these items ultimately don’t matter in the long term. You only want them right now because they’re a limited time item, or because they’ll be rare later.

Personally I’ve chosen the path of non-participation on the everlasting tonics, the minipets, any of the rare drop items like the Unbreakable Choir Bell, and — as there was nothing that I could use to improve my character’s design — most of the gem store items.

I’ve had a lot of fun during this holiday. I don’t feel betrayed, and I’m not calling for blood. It’s unfortunate that I likely won’t get my hands on some of the more interesting items that have caught my eye (again, like the Unbreakable Choir Bell), but I’m comfortable with my decision. Random luck is simply not worth my time or resources, as I’m more likely to get burned than I am to score big.

Does it hurt that my collection is sitting empty? Sure it does… but realistically, how often will I be walking around with a bag full of minipets? How often am I willing to find a bank just to switch them out? Will my experience be totally ruined if I’m unable to play songs while watching camps in WvW?

The simple answer is no, it won’t be. I might not get as much out of the event short-term, but long-term everything is going to be okay. I’ll still enjoy what I enjoy, I’ll still find fun where there’s fun to be found, and I’ll still happily putter along as I expand on my characters’ stories.

It’s one thing to have a negative opinion of RNG or to give critical feedback to ArenaNet regarding the event, but to be throwing around insults and demanding that people leave your topic while you stamp around on your soap box is something else entirely. I’m not going to tell you what to do with yourself or how to behave. I’m only going to tell you, “it’s okay.”

Waking.6052:

IOJ is in second place in T3, and TC is in second place in T2.

Interesting.

What’s actually interesting is that Tarnished Coast was ranked 7th for seven weeks. Seems like an omen, considering the week started on December 21 lol.

Looking at just the current scores, Tier 2 is currently the most competitive North American bracket. I hope it stays like this for a while.

00:30 seconds — Glorious news, Tarnished Coast! Yak’s Bend has adopted our faith! Golem God be praised!

This is exactly why the unbreakable bell shouldn’t be locked away from the majority of players, imho. This stuff is incredibly fun and social, and is a great way to kill time waiting for dungeon groups or while chatting in town.

This post I made in a different thread is also a relevant response to this issue, and I’m sure is the same way a large number of players feel.

Kerithlan.1659:

To expand on my previous post a little bit, I’d prefer it if the only thing that came out of the gifts were snowflakes and sweaters/hats/socks. I’d have liked it a lot more if we had to exchange trophies for the skins rather than getting them randomly, but that’s mostly because I don’t like most RNG. Random is fine for some things, but it simply isn’t when there is a time limit or a deadline, or when real cash is involved.

For example, you aren’t going to see a jumping puzzle randomly decide to change itself, as that would either take you to the final chest too quickly or too slowly. Every jumping puzzle is organic and fair because everything you do is under your control, which means that when you fail it’s due to user error.

Failing when you’ve mismanaged your resources or your time might make people feel frustrated or upset, but it isn’t going to make them feel cheated, robbed or wronged. When you fail because of elements out of your control, then it is simply depressing.

Yes we could always choose not to get items or not to open chests or blah blah etc typical generic comeback, but that isn’t the point. I don’t want to choose between non-participation or a gamble/chance. I want to weigh non-participation versus my time, resources and ability/skill, and then make an appropriate decision based off of my circumstance. I personally feel that’s a very mature and fair choice to be asking for.

If you don’t understand that or why more and more gamers are asking developers to move in that sort of direction, then you might be an addict… or a special snowflake guarding your super uniqueness and/or your super awesome lewt.

Cellendhyll.9341:

No it don’t, only projetiles from characters.
Treb, cata, aoe and balista go through it

Good to know, thanks.

@BG & SoR: I understand that you have a lot of history together and probably are at each other’s throats for good reasons, but can we all agree to be nice this week since it’s a holiday and half of the players aren’t around in WvW? This week really doesn’t matter too much because of that.

Let’s have a costume party or something? Forum flaming should be channeled into fun, at least until Friday.

stpetemermaid.5947:

As you requested, Sir, Magister Sieran and I

My tears will never end.

To expand on my previous post a little bit, I’d prefer it if the only thing that came out of the gifts were snowflakes and sweaters/hats/socks. I’d have liked it a lot more if we had to exchange trophies for the skins rather than getting them randomly, but that’s mostly because I don’t like most RNG. Random is fine for some things, but it simply isn’t when there is a time limit or a deadline, or when real cash is involved.

For example, you aren’t going to see a jumping puzzle randomly decide to change itself, as that would either take you to the final chest too quickly or too slowly. Every jumping puzzle is organic and fair because everything you do is under your control, which means that when you fail it’s due to user error.

Failing when you’ve mismanaged your resources or your time might make people feel frustrated or upset, but it isn’t going to make them feel cheated, robbed or wronged. When you fail because of elements out of your control, then it is simply depressing.

Yes we could always choose not to get items or not to open chests or blah blah etc typical generic comeback, but that isn’t the point. I don’t want to choose between non-participation or a gamble/chance. I want to weigh non-participation versus my time, resources and ability/skill, and then make an appropriate decision based off of my circumstance. I personally feel that’s a very mature and fair choice to be asking for.

If you don’t understand that or why more and more gamers are asking developers to move in that sort of direction, then you might be an addict… or a special snowflake guarding your super uniqueness and/or your super awesome lewt.

Dungin.2983:

\If arenanet didn’t have RNG people would literally have everything, and we would have 1000’s of people running around with unbrekable choir bells.

I find absolutely nothing wrong with this in any way, shape or form. It’s a really cool item that says, “hey yeah, I was around on Wintersday, who wants to meet up and be social and play songs together?” Zero reason to make it impossible or frustrating to obtain.

I’m very fine with a lot of the event and I enjoyed a lot of it. The snowball fights were fun, the bell choir was fun, the Infinirarium was fun. My computer can’t handle timed jumping puzzles so I skipped that (which is okay, I did the same thing on Halloween), and Toypocalypse felt a little messy/disorganized but it was still entertaining enough for a few games. I was able to get all of the achievements and my title (minus jumping puzzle), and the toy weapon skins I wanted were abundantly available.

I liked that you were able to turn in trophies for items you specifically wanted rather than needing to roll dice for them, as it meant that I’d have to choose between spending my money or my time for a guaranteed opportunity to get what I wanted. I liked that I had the opportunity to create minipets and thought it was clever and enjoyable, even though I had to pick and choose which ones of the five I wanted the most.

I’m a hoarder and a completionist, and I was completely okay with making small sacrifices like that, because I know that even if I’ve missed out on something I did so of my own volition. I decided not to spend any gems in the gem store — that’s fine, I’ll just keep holding out for some cool town clothes in the future (even though the ones from this event are pretty nice…). I decided which minipets I like the most/fit my characters the best, and I’m comfortable with not getting the other ones.

These are all things that I control and all things that I work towards. They are goals that I can easily measure and track, and I’m guaranteed that my money and my efforts will yield a reward that I enjoy. I don’t like vertical progression in games, sure, but having goals to work toward is important to me. It could be fleshing out my character for roleplay, or it could be performing a feat, or it could be collecting achievements, or it could be collecting enough cash to help my guild improve.

What I don’t like are things that I don’t control. That isn’t because I am a control freak, but rather that I like to spend my time wisely. I like that opening gifts all but guarantees that you’ll get some socks or sweaters, and that turning those in guarantees that you’ll get the item that you want. What I don’t like is buying several thousand gifts, or grinding them out, or somehow obtaining 300-500g in under two weeks when I struggle to make 2g per day most of the time.

I understand the need for players to stand out and feel unique, I really do. I’m a roleplayer and I spend a lot of time tinkering with my appearance or planning out a personality. What I don’t understand is the need some players have to stand out or to feel unique at the expense of other players’ enjoyment. Having a sweet vanity item doesn’t really do anything to help you stand out, unless there are very few of them and you’re the only one in a crowd that has it.

That’s where the selfishness and attention-seeking, ego-stroking, “want want want” attitude comes in. There is simply no consequence to the game or the community’s ability to enjoy it by having items such as this available in some sort of guaranteed way… unless you’re the special snowflake that owns one and feels threatened by others sharing in your enjoyment. That’s what guilds are for.

If I want to exchange 5000 Sweaters or 7500 Hats or 10000 Socks for an Unbreakable Choir Bell, then kitten it let me do so. Make it soulbound even. I’d rather spend 10-20 gold and be guaranteed to get the item that I want than spend 300g and make some random person rich because they were more lucky than I was when I opened a box.

There is a huge difference between giving an item prestige and indulging special snowflakes. I say this AS a special snowflake. Making them RNG super-expensive TP fodder doesn’t make them prestigious, it just makes people “unique” for the wrong reasons and at the expense of others.

This is going to sound like a stupid post, but if it’s a bug report you’re trying to work out, then we’ll need more details. Without a boatload of details to try to reproduce the circumstances, just saying something happened is useless.

Were there any enemies in the tower? What kind of golems did you use? What level of upgrades did the tower have? How close were the golems to the gate? Which skills were you using? etc

It could be a legitimate issue or it could boil down to user error, and we won’t be sure without details.

Ohoni.6057:

This sucks. Another week down, another week in which CD isn’t red, and likely will never have access to most of the needed keeps on the Red Borderlands. This “world completion requires WvW maps too” thing is completely broken.

Don’t be so down on yourself or your server. I was able to 100% WvW solely via my play on Tarnished Coast. Just figure out when FA’s weakest hours are and rally a group willing to control their borderland for a few hours — or at least part of it. CD has the man power to accomplish that with proper leadership and organization, without question.

They’ll probably return the favor during your weakest hours, but such is the nature of the game.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Shield_of_Absorption

Does this not stop catapults/trebs?