Guild Wars 2

Darth.4329:

Yes. SBI is pushing hard now.

I Told you smack talking clowns before… You aren’t facing the true SBI force.

SBI consists predominantly of Americans and thus, Our Major American Holiday effects us far more than it effects you.

Talk all the Smack you want.. It’s not an excuse. It’s a Fact.

I’m excited to meet yaks or Ebay again. Without their puss-mode, scrub alliance….
and without the Holiday week mid match.

You folks are in for a REAL treat : )

While Yaks and EB may have earned their place in the same category as SBI. They simply cannot beat us Straight up.

Straight up is the Full force of SBI vs the Full force of Yaks or EB.

They couldn’t beat us in the past.

Enjoy your opportunistic victory…

Hope to see you both… REAL soon.

Onmicidal SBI.

I’m not exactly sure what your ‘boo-ya’ moment is in reference to. Is it because you are ticking as high as YB and 60 or so higher than EBay? It’s not the first time this week we’ve seen SBI field a competitive team. That’s kind of the point of this whole week. No matter what you do, you still don’t win even though based on past results you should anyways.

If I can’t nominate anyone from my own guild, then I put my nomination in for Goldiy. He’s online leading the troops no matter what the score is or the condition of the maps. He’s been on EBay since day one and been with us through the good times and the bad. He has a never say die attitude that rubs off on the people around him. His commanding is probably a big reason our server has the Home Defense First motto and he’s quick to respond to calls of help from anywhere on any map when it’s needed. He works well with other commanders on the map, never a know it all, never above taking input or learning a new trick from the rank and file, and is not rude or condescending to new players.

Top notch guy and many in our server owe a lot of their knowledge to playing with him.

Galdr Stormsinger.1368:

The terrible thing for EBay is that Yak’s Bend is shamelessly using you to secure victory for themselves. It’s kind of pathetic that you’re willing to let them do that.

Maybe you’re not a sports fan… you may be unacquainted with the role of the ‘spoiler’ team. It’s the longstanding sporting tradition – ‘if we can’t win, we are going to make sure we do everything we can to make sure you don’t either’.

Misery loves company. We were already miserable in this pre-determined league, and now you are our company.

Oh, and make no mistake about it… EBay had already decided we were gunning for you in this matchup regardless of what Yaks Bend did to us based on what happened in the last one. We wanted to make you bleed… who knew it was going to be this effective.

Week 7: Yaks Bay vs Borlis Pass! OH YA! THE PAIN TRAIN CONTINUES!
:|
Or not. That would last for about one hour until Yaks ran out of people to fight. Plus EBay and Yaks Bend have a long history and we truly do love to fight each other. What has happened today is nothing short of amazing. Yaks is the big strong older brother and we always end up with the bloody nose, but to pass up a chance to scrap again would be craziness.

NevirSayDie.6235:

Imagine playing WvW, except the enemy has twice as many people as you and your side doesn’t get to use supply. That is this week for SBI.

I don’t usually request to join parties after people kill me, but I have been this week. I usually say something like “We have 15 ppt, please stop griefing and double-teaming us.” They say, “lol no.”

Please stop defending these two servers. You may not be one of the guilty parties, but it makes no sense to defend stuff like this.

So what you are asking for is the same mercy you showed us on EBay in week 2 of leagues where you won by 300k, relentlessly farmed and spawn camped us in our own BL and told us on the forums we should be grateful to have had the opportunity to learn from the godlike WvW tactics machine that is SBI? Gotcha.

Neither Yaks or EBay is defending the griefers. But we both have people on our servers chewing through supply in our keeps and running golems off of cliffs day and night. Go to the matchup thread and see how many pics have been posted by the other servers too complaining about this. Playing the victim after being one of the most generally abusive and condescending servers we’ve ever faced just isn’t going to fly.

NevirSayDie.6235:

It’s not because they’re double-teaming SBI, it’s mostly to do with the fact that SBI hasn’t had supply, siege, or upgrades in any of its keeps all week due to griefers/spies constantly draining supply from everything.

Right, because SBI is the only one with that problem this week. Also SBI is the only server with ESO invites and a Thanksgiving holiday to celebrate with their families… in fact I believe SBI is the only server who has players with families in this matchup, so it’s a double whammy because you have responsibilities outside of GW2 that we don’t have to attend to either.

Yaks and EBay have been thanking their lucky stars all week that all of these SBI-only events arose on the same week! In fact, knowing that this perfect storm was coming, most of us bought stadium buddies, ordered a dozen extra large pizzas and a flat of red bull on Friday afternoon and haven’t left our desks since reset to take advantage of your misfortunes!

Maladon.5760:

It’s all a matter of perspective honestly. A guild with 5-6 groups is massive compared to most guilds on SBI, particularly guilds who frequent EB. Anyway, as Bannok said, we’ve had some good fights this week. You guys should be commended on your discipline and organization.

Indeed it is . Our perspective is obviously very different. VOID’s core members come from the once-upon-a-time guild pk – which at it’s height was one of Ehmry Bay’s “big 3” WvW guilds at ~450 players and who could post nearly 100 in teamspeak on reset night. In comparison to what some of us use to run with, we are just a small band of merry soldiers.

Kratoro.4879:

why not fight with honour, why cheat,

By “fight with honor”, do you mean please stop standing on your throat so that your fairweathers will come back, and then you can start ktraining through our borderlands again, planting a map-zerg in our inner garrison – not to cap it, but to farm us for as long as we will let you?

By “cheat”, do you mean please stop using the WvWvW 3 way mechanic as intended in order to allow 2 servers that are facing a 3rd server that is more populated and powerful, to be competitive score-wise and make that 3rd server work hard for it’s victory?

How about this, how about you spend less time on the forums crying about the fact that a server that you have previously beaten in league play by 200k (Yaks Bend), and a server that you have previously beaten in league play by 300k (Ehmry Bay) stood up and did something about it instead of just letting you kitten them, and spend more time in Lions Arch and /g chat trying to get all of those people who were so on board with SBI when the good times were rolling to come out and pay back the community for all that free karma, gold and wexp by putting in some effort in the hard times too.

How about that for showing some honor?

Bannok.3152:

Few things I have notice is how dedicated the havoc group are on both YB and EB, you all did a great job. Also the presence of Void and ONE guild blobs shows something SBI doesn’t really have, and that’s a large WvW focused guild presence.

We really appreciate the recognition, thank you.

I just want to clarify something because there seems to be a perception from many in this match that VOID is a large guild… we are not. VOID has exactly 68 members, and if we have 50% of our membership online at the same time for our raids then that’s an extremely good day for us. We usually run 5-6 groups max at peak hours including scouts and havoc support. Granted, we always seem to gather some of the other sexy people from our server along the way, but we don’t quite belong in the ‘blob’ class.

Jubei.4015:

While we at SBI appreciate the picture attributed to our success as being superior, were really still learning a lot. there are a lot of area’s we need to shore up, and being as good as we are now, just means were going to get better as i’m sure all the servers will.
My only concern is that in some way shape or form, servers are going to believe this is the normal way to play is to group up on the larger server, while the current philosophy with server vs server has worked quite well for so long. Maybe I’m a little naïve, but I had not been accustomed to such tactics in the past 1.6 years of dedicated wvw, can someone enlighten me on this?

You should use the quote function, your posts would be easier to read and see who you are replying to.

In regard to the tactic of 2 servers focusing on 1, this is not a new tactic by any means. The only thing is that it’s usually the 1st and 2nd place servers feasting off of the misfortunes of the 3rd place server in situations where there is 1 massively outgunned server in the matchup, or two massively outgunned servers where one of the smaller ones pushes the smallest in hopes of securing second for themselves. You’ve done it, we’ve done it, Yaks have done it… everyone’s done it. It’s nothing to be proud of, but the 2v1 has been in full effect since the beginning of this game.

When WvW was presented by ANet back before the game even launched, their philosophy was that 2 smaller servers would unite to make sure a larger server didn’t walk all over them… to date, this happens rarely because people are opportunistic, and finishing 3rd seems to leave a worse taste in peoples mouths than expected. Be that as it may, you are not the first larger server to be pushed by both servers below you, this is just the first time you personally have been on the receiving end of this particular kick in the teeth.

Personally, I hope that what was done this week serves as a beacon of hope for all of the servers that get big 300k losses handed to them in the future. There is no need to let a larger server simply walk to victory while you quabble amongst yourselves for the leftover scraps of points. Stare the bully in the eyes and kick them in the nuts. Maybe by focusing on the bigger server you swing the tide, maybe you still get crushed… but at the end of the week at least you’ve given everything you had to the battle and you walk away with your head held high knowing you gave them a lot more than they bargained for.

Raven.9603:

Khayoss.2019:

Raven.9603:

Good fights at Orchard (EBL) tonight (midnight-330am EST)! Love you lots e-bay!

-Ranger from [CTDL] (SBI)
-aka the one who kept garri tagged for 3.5 hours

That sounds really, really boring. Someone on your server better send you an abyss dye or something for doing that. I did enjoy watching you die to fall damage once as I was passing through that gate though. That was funny.

I hope they send me something too. It might have been boring if not for the great fights EB players kept bringing to orchard.

Well at least you had that then. Seriously tho, tell your buddies they owe you. That’s some serious effort.

Raven.9603:

Good fights at Orchard (EBL) tonight (midnight-330am EST)! Love you lots e-bay!

-Ranger from [CTDL] (SBI)
-aka the one who kept garri tagged for 3.5 hours

That sounds really, really boring. Someone on your server better send you an abyss dye or something for doing that. I did enjoy watching you die to fall damage once as I was passing through that gate though. That was funny.

Johje Holan.4607:

I was thinking, is this the first actual upset that WvW has ever seen?

Way back when, EBay fell from T4 to T5, and BP moved up to T5 from T6. First time they met BP won. That was a pretty big upset. But Yaks beating SBI here is definitely a big upset as well… Upsets are too few and far between if you ask me though. It sucks going into a matchup and knowing the outcome.

Oh, almost forgot, quick shout out to Abys and Beast (dunno how to do that AE wonky character) for work done in EBay BL earlier this evening. I sat on top of a tower for 10 or 15 mins watching you guys hide around corners and pounce on unsuspecting groups, move together and apart battling GH and the other collection of sexy people we were fielding, and generally raise hell. From a top down perspective it looked like you guys move very well together on the battlefield.

Tachii.3506:

It’s just WvW, take it easy.

JetLu.1874:

Faux Sheaux.6179:

JetLu.1874:

I’d like to know, how a dead, not downed, but totally dead player’s health kept rejuvenating until he rose from the dead. You could actually see the red health bar increasing. Void was the guild. How do I know, because this player actually arose and started fighting. I am thinking that YB and EB are using quite a few exploits in the matchup. Cheating is for losers.

Pop a stealth trap over the dead body. That would have ended it immediately. Then again, it takes less effort to make yourself look silly on the official forums by calling HAX over something that is stupidly easy to do.

You should not have to pop a stealth trap over a dead body, PERIOD. The body is dead, dead as a doornail, dead as a corpse. I cannot raise when I am dead, I have to go to a WP. Like I said, exploit. Cheating is for losers.

So, no one has ever revived you once you’ve died? Ever? Not even once? That’s a truly sad story. Your server and guild mates are jerks… I’d consider getting better friends.

Also, for your reading pleasure: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Revive

:)

Darth.4329:

I’m big on respect… anyone who runs with me or by my tag knows this..
Having said that… It IS still insulting to lose to yaks. BECAUSE SBI IS a better, stronger, more organized server. We not winning at the moment… But not because we didn’t open the week with a huge lead… not because of supply wasting trolls… definitely not because Yaks is better….
But because we are fielding 50% of what we normally do. EBG is almost ALWAYS a 1 hour que… there is no que.. SBI BL is normally QUED.. again.. no que.. The other 2 BL’s are normally medium que.. also… NO QUE.

We are missing ALOT of players. Yet still yaks wants to talk smack like they’ve beaten us straight up. They talk as if They have overcome the big RED SBI MACHINE.
They haven’t. They been beating up on pugs, militia and a handful of Die hard WvW guys.

So its nothing to be proud of but, by all means… brag away lol.

I’m not being egotistical here, I’m being Honest.
Yaks cannot beat SBI with what they have to bring to the table under any other circumstances than SBI being outmanned.

I cannot wait until the next time we meet again…

This is one of the funniest posts I think I’ve ever seen. You basically just confirmed what everyone on these forums outside of SBI has been saying – SBI wins because of their huge population. Way to dagger your own server!

If you guys were the better, stronger, more organized server then not having queues wouldn’t matter. The people sitting in a 2 hour queue aren’t getting you points, the ones already in the BL are. Your opponents you’ve been steamrolling don’t have queues either, so welcome to everyone else’s world. So stand up and take it like you seem to expect everyone you’ve lain waste to should have: with a smile on your face and a grateful attitude for the privilege of being in the presence of such godlike WvW skill.

Sagabatou.1076:

JetLu.1874:

I’d like to know, how a dead, not downed, but totally dead player’s health kept rejuvenating until he rose from the dead. You could actually see the red health bar increasing. Void was the guild. How do I know, because this player actually arose and started fighting. I am thinking that YB and EB are using quite a few exploits in the matchup. Cheating is for losers.

Either invis thieves or mesmers or something else.

This… permastealth thieves specifically. Sometimes when your group comp is short on a specific element, they are valuable enough to actually expend resources to hard res mid battle. That and Claude can be a whiny kitten sometimes and it’s the only way to shut him up.

Thanks for not thinking of that though. It pads our ego when people think we are magic.

Darth.4329:

It’s been a great match up thus far.
Despite the double teaming, trolls, cheats, ESO, and the freaking holidays being right in the middle of this match up.

The cold hard reality is this.. Yaks and Ebay are not seeing SBI’s full force by any means.
Last night I had a 15 player ebg zerg behind me..
EVEN I… was discourage. This doesn’t happen often.

The usual force behind me between 12am and 8am is 55+ and 2 small havocs running side car..

It was hard to get some of the militia to charge into those front lines facing a 40 man Yaks blob that hung out in SM sentry between WC And KG.

Although it was still exciting to see our 15 man blob take out your 40 players several times over. We ALMOST took SM back from yaks 3-4 times having that same 15 lose by only a small margin while small wave after wave of yaks poured in from the north until sbi was dead.

Enjoy this while it lasts yaks…. We will meet again.

hopefully next time isn’t in the middle of a stupid holiday week and a popular MMO beta release…

Onmicidal [Hero] Cmd- SBI

It is plain to see that SBI is not fielding the numbers that they did the last time EBay clashed with them. In all honesty though, don’t you think you have to at least partially chalk that up to the fact that you didn’t exit the weekend with an insurmountable lead? In previous match, Monday to Friday was basically a 24 hour K-Train for you guys. Every morning I’d wake up to the same commander bringing a map zerg into our home BL, cap everything else, then head to Garrison and circle the upper levels for as long as he could just farming people, and then not cap, run off to swap maps, cap a bunch of crap and come back and do it again. I imagine this pattern has repeated itself for every week you guys have been in leagues. Now that you have to spend the morning recapping your own stuff, walking dollys, queueing upgrades and scouting, what’s the appeal for all of those players that were just running around farming?

We have sections of our player base involved in ESO, and it’s a holiday for us too. You aren’t seeing us in full force either. But for us losing a section of a smaller playerbase isn’t further compounded by losing all the fairweathers and ktrain addicts… We didn’t have many of those to begin with.

I mean, I could be wrong because I’m not there on your server to know… but from where we sit, the big difference between last time and this time is that SBI is fielding a formidable force in 1 map instead of many, and there is no room for them to ktrain anymore… The two seem fairly obviously linked from an outside perspective.

DanteZero.9736:

Very nice work EB! I didn’t expect infinite stealth thieves using portal devices to disrupt and capture towers and keeps! Watching [Void] has been eye opening about the level of organization that we at SBI lack.

Thanks. Appreciate the shout out. We’ve been having a good time this week.

We also wanted to give a shout out to the lone SBI soldier that patiently carted supply to his catapult on north Bay last night and tried to bring the door down for your server. We had planned a /salute ceremony for your efforts when you made it in, but unfortunately you got ganked before you could complete your heroic effort. Nonetheless, good sir, know that you have earned Void’s respect for your hard work and dedication to the cause!

grifflyman.8102:

I’ve been WvW since release, and I’ve never seen two servers cooperate as much as Ebay and Yaks are during this match up.

Kudos for the strategy, but it’s a bit despicable when it’s so obvious.

Week 17: EBay, Borlis Pass, Anvil Rock. Sick of a stale matchup with a pre-determined outcome, BP and AR spent the week in full cooperation and coordination to extents that would boggle your mind. By far the best week of WvW that we had in that 3 month stay in the tedious hell that was “Tier 5”.

That was a real pre-arranged, full fledged alliance… what you call despicable isn’t even a coordinated effort. Both servers, it seems, would just much rather fight you than each other if given the choice.

Sorry, fixed image link.
- http://www.freeimagehosting.net/newuploads/udsvk.jpg

Darth.4329:

I never made an excuse for SBI.
I make no excuses.

I’m stating facts. In and 1v1v1 situation.. you’ll see one server fight another and usually a third will take advantage of an opportunity and clean up stragglers.

Never do you see 2 servers blobs run side by side and target the third server.
And that is what we are seeing in every map.

It’s not a secret alliance when its in plain view.

These are not an excuses they’re facts.

Yaks and Ebay have been crushed by SBI every other time we’ve been pit against each other. This is also a fact.

So what’s changed? ESO weekend. SBI is missing numbers.
Yaks is tough on weekends beginning with reset night.

SBI has been spoiled for 5 weeks with easy match ups.
We just need to get back on track.

Anet made far too much room for fair weathers to clog the que’s chasing achievments.
Players who don’t give 2 kittens about working together camp the maps repairing walls that are under fire, waste supply on needles objectives, building siege in bad locations like on outer walls with poor excuses like " its just for the quick kill"

But hey. nothing we can do now about that. It was a stupid idea. But its been implemented.

To be fair though.. YB really seems to have its stuff together this match..
so Props on bring the fight! You’re making WVW a lot more fun for those of us who are here for the right reasons.

SO thank you for that.

EB seems to have a bit more coordinated guilds as well. GJ.. bring it : )

Omnicidal [Hero]

So, question… if we’re obviously allied, how come Yaks crippled our supply lines in your Bay at exactly the right time during an SBI siege – effectively handing you the keep? And How come we’ve been going toe to toe with massive Yaks forces in our home BL for the last 4 hours solid? In an alliance, that would be counter productive. I think it’s more likely that the attitude that SBI displayed in its previous matchups has made itself a target, and because of that your current opponents simply choose to attack you first, then each other.

Joey.2769:

2nd to last sentence is what I’m referring to. I am tired of all the chest thumping just play the game. Everyone gets wiped part of the fun. Everyone will find themselves against better skilled or bigger numbers again just play the game.

I’m not sure how that’s chest thumping, it’s simply a statement of fact. It could be construed as bragging if taken as a statement on it’s own, but in context it says simply that we are no better or worse than you. I didn’t say FA “always” runs (or to borrow from grabemx – tactically retreats) from us or that we destroy “all” zergs. In general, Zergs running from guild groups happens. It’s the Achilles heel of the zerg: They roar loudly when the going is good, but once demoralized they can be forced to retreat consistently, whether it be against even, lesser or greater forces. My statement openly acknowledged that it happens in both directions.

HOPE, for example, inspires fear. Utmost respect for them – they are truly something to behold when they are on their game. They crushed us on first encounter in EBG last night. Does it make you somehow less of a gamer to acknowledge that the server you are currently kicking the teeth into on points may still have guilds that can make your zerg look as silly as you can make ours look?

Also…

Clearly you are sooooo superior that we can do nothing but lay our swords down and pray for mercy.

That would be an acceptable response to our presence. We do accept surrender.

junglizm.5843:

All this screaming about FA zerging, it has been my observation from the small man havoc side of FA that EBay and CD zergs are just bad. Sure when your zerg gets absolutely destroyed by an enemy zerg it is easy to claim they had superior numbers but you also have to take into account the possibility of superior builds, tactics and position.

All this silver league play has brought me to the conclusion that it is not 100% numbers that wins in WvW. Numbers are a factor yes, but these insane blowouts are just a lack of willing offensive pressure from opposing servers.

No, actually these insane blowouts are specifically because of numbers. Go look at the score evolution on MOS. Every night, FA firmly holds a healthy PPT of between 400 and 600 starting some time around 10pm that lasts until 6-8am. Do you lead us in other times of the day? Yes. Would you win without the overnight presence? Yes. Would it be an insane blowout? No, the numbers would be much more reasonable.

As a server, you also have the population to hold a heavy presence in more than one map at a time during primetime hours, and fight on multiple fronts during the daytime/EU hours. That is something that my server is simply incapable of doing. If we queue a borderland in primetime during the week, that’s everyone we have – all eggs in one basket.

You guys can self high five all you want, but the numbers are the numbers. Insane blowouts happen because of numbers and coverage. Zergs wipe to zergs from all three sides of the battle. FA doesn’t have some kind of flawless battle record that you can lord over us.

This post is solely because I take strong issue specifically with your statement that numbers are only a small factor in insane blowouts and that somehow we need to L2P. They are the one and only cause of insane blowouts and there is really no way around that. I’ve never once complained about your servers zerging habits. My guild actively hunts your zergs and we’d be disappointed if you didn’t field them. Do you beat us in the open field? Yes. Do we beat you as well? Also yes. FA is equally guilty of tucking it’s tail between it’s legs and running on sight of the [VOID] tag after a few beatdowns in a row as an EBay zerg is of doing the same against some of your stellar guilds. It happens, it’s the zerg mentality.

I don’t know if this is already on your radar, but the trading post filters have never worked properly for many key items – right since launch – and is a royal pain to actually search through available options in hopes of finding something new.

For example:
Consumable > Food – yields drinks, but no food
Consumable > Generic – yields 0 results
Consumable – Yields 1600+ results.

• Results include actual food items, as well as buff items such as Sharpening stones (which could reasonably fit under Generic).
• Consumables also yields Dyes in its results, which could fit under Generic subcategory, but would fit much better under its own subcategory of Dyes, which could be served to have another sub-filter to search the color pallets (i.e. many RED dies do not contain the word RED in the name).
• Drinks should have their own Subcategory separate from food.
• Siege blueprints also show up under this massive blob of a category… they would be best served to have their own sub-category or be moved to Gizmos, since they aren’t actually consumed but rather deployed.

Armor > Any sub category – Yields related armor usable by all classes. This REALLY needs a light/medium/heavy filter to narrow down results further, or at least a column in the results to order them by.

Gizmo – yields 19 results total, including a couple of Tonics and Potions, and yet there are 32 tonics (25 of which show up under consumables) and 116 potions (112 of which show up under consumables).
Gizmo > Default – yields the same 19 results… kind of redundant
Gizmo > Salvage – yields 0 results… kind of useless

There’s a few more, but Consumables is by far the biggest mess and most unusable glob of information on the trader. Unless you already know what you are looking for, in many cases there is no way to find out what is available to you in that category without referring to a resource outside of the game or sifting through endless lists of irrelevant options. It’s a very user un-friendly system that is in desperate need of maintenance and upkeep.

So my suggestion is to have someone sit down with a list of all of your available items and have them properly categorize them, as well as add a few subcategories to the filters where appropriate to make this a bit easier to get to the information you want. If you email me an .xls file with them I’ll even do it for you…

3way fight for SM 45 mins ago or so was good times, awesome way to end our reset raid. VOID approves of this matchup! Well, at least this kitten kitten does…

edit: silly filter, makes it look like what I said was so much worse than what it was.

So, out of curiosity. Is there a lot of e-high-fiving going on in SBI’s TS or whatever you use to organize when you guys are spawn camping and jumping on the corpses of the people you manage to pull from the portals and steamroll? Or is it more of a sophisticated British ‘Good show old chap’ pat on the back at your job well done?

Just trying to get clear in my head who we’re fighting.

http://www.freeimagehosting.net/4rs7n

:)

That’s a very high survivability build, but I’m not sure that it really contributes anything meaningful beyond keeping you alive. Boon duration is okay if you are using warhorn, but boon support really isn’t a Ranger forté… Obviously even low damage output trumps the glass cannon bursting strategy over time if the cannon dies, but going that low I’m not sure anyone will feel your attacks.

You would be much better off investing some of the gear and traiting into condition damage/duration or power and making good use of piercing arrows. 1k condition damage makes for an effective attack baseline, and 1600 toughness is a good defense baseline.

What do I ‘want’ to see?
1) A completely revamped pet system including new AI and a full pet interface with precise control over our pets actions and skills.
2) New and improved sword and longbow weapons, rebuilt from the ground up. Possibly the addition of a new 1h main handed weapon option.
3) Completely overhauled ranger skill and trait synergies to remove trait dependencies for basic effectiveness of some available mechanics, including a new set of skills that replaces all of our shouts and many new minor traits to replace the poorly designed ones.
4) A properly implemented commander and squad system – not ranger specific, but one of my largest pet peeves about this game.

What do I ‘expect’ to see?:
1) A few minor tweaks to weapon damage and one or two condition changes that will spawn endless argument on the forums with one side saying the changes made us godmode while the other side complains that a minor tweak completely ruined their zomgwtfbbq amazing super secret build and now we will never be good at anything ever again.
2) A revealed buff aimed at screwing thieves implemented on an otherwise completely useless skill that no one will slot anyways, and for all the whining it causes will make zero real world difference to thieves.
3) A major pet HP buff that – if applied to WvW – will make negligible difference to pet survival in encounters involving more than 10 people a side, but will make a half decent ranger completely unstoppable against newer or slower players and all NPC’s and will even further godmode the Ranger’s downed state #3 skill underwater leading to even more tears on the forums that the Rangers single biggest strength – albeit highly situational and uncommon, especially since the removal of most water in WvW – should be nerfed into oblivion. This coupled with the anti thief mechanic above will lead to Rangers being further pushed away from organized WvW activity and further reinforce the communities feelings that we should be off alone somewhere soloing a camp and ruining a troll thief’s life instead of smashing faces with the rest of them.

Sorry… I’m in a foul mood and that’s partially just a vent of frustration at the world in general today directed at the Ranger class in GW2.

Chopps.5047:

Read my post above this: cats and birds will never hit moving targets because they’re intentionally designed not to. I go into detail as to “why”.

Can you give me a reference to ANet stating this in some form or fashion? Or is this opinion based on observation of numbers and effectiveness?

Prysin.8542:

warrior with LB vs Ranger with LB. Win Ranger.
Why? we can spec for better condition cleanse, while retaining better outgoing DPS and survivability. Warrior must spec heavily into conditions for that bow to truly shine, ranger can run around in zerk gear and troll all day long.

Also, you forgot the pet.

I respectfully disagree with this statement. With Cleansing Ire + Burst Mastery the warrior can cleanse conditions pretty much as fast as they can come in from a single target without even using runes, signets or sigils. Also, my warrior in it’s GvG build has roughly 2200 power, nearly 2300 toughness and over31k HP along with regen 500hp per tick before food. There’s really nothing a zerker ranger can do that would make me sit up and take notice. And anyone with some experience playing a ranger, or playing against a ranger can neutralize the pet by taking the fight to terrain that will pose the pets AI challenges.

I’m not even that good at Warrior, I’ve only been playing the class part time for less than a month. So far I’m having a hard time justifying going back to the Ranger though, I can’t find anything was doing on my Ranger that I can’t do better on my Warrior. In this stupid tank build I even solo camps in WvW faster… :|

So my question is this. If the AI required to hit a moving target is so complex and CPU intensive, how come my EQ and EQ2 Beastlords and Shaman, my Vanguard Shaman, my FFXI Beastlord and other pet classes I’ve played over the last 15 years never had such a problem?

Go back to EQ in 1999 and you could type /follow to put your character on cruise control and follow anyone anywhere as long as they didn’t get you stuck on a tree somewhere. You were always spaced directly a foot or so behind your /follow target and never got confused over which direction they may be heading, and barring any speed buff mismatches or terrain malfunctions that got you stuck you could stay that way for an indefinite amount of time.

Fast forward to 2013 and GW2, my pet can’t even follow me around out of combat without charging off in random directions as it tries to follow and perceive and react to my movement as I run across the world.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=8ROD17gjtsE
If it can’t even follow me properly, how does it ever have a hope of following a moving enemy? Compound that with the attack delays demonstrated in Kilirk’s video above, our pets don’t stand a chance.

In the games I mentioned above as well as others, pets also attacked as they moved. If you have interest in seeing them, go google pvp fight videos from them and watch how pets consistently hit moving targets while moving themselves.

Some games also gave you control of several pet skills as well as full pet UI’s that showed health, conditions, gave many pet commands (or allowed custom binding of commands using macros) and it was never a learning curve or control problem for any of the however many hundreds of thousands of players that played them, so again I call BS on the learning curve argument that ANet puts forth on the pet system here.

You can defend it all you like, but the fact of the matter is that the pet system they have implemented is not up to par with games developed a decade plus before it, is not able to keep pace with human opponents, and is not able to compete properly against the content that they themselves are introducing into their game. If it can’t be brought up to par – for ANY reason – it should be replaced with a completely separate mechanic that can compete on a level playing field. Making excuses about how it is hard to do what the players want, or how it works great in controlled circumstances is total crap.

Also, some of the AI required to hit moving targets is actually present in the game already. For example, compare drakes to veteran ice worms. Drakes stop, charge an attack facing whatever direction you happened to be when they started and never think about changing until the attack is complete. Ice works begin channeling their skills facing wherever you were, turn to wherever you are when they are done, and then throw their rocks which then heat seek towards you and hit you on the run unless you actually evade or run out of range. ALL ranged NPC attacks with any kind of cast timer should do this by default game wide, not just our pets. But ESPECIALLY our pets that are expected to face other players should AT LEAST be given this advantage. Melee range attacks should happen without stopping the pets movement, unless they literally have zero activation time.

Don’t get me wrong, I HOPE it empowers the smaller teams. I love running in a 20ish man group and facing 30-40 people. I also love running in 10 man groups and being chased by the hoard all over the map trying to keep em guessing. It’s fun and regardless of points that’s how we will continue to roll. I just can’t see it turning out any other way when I look down the line though, as sad as that is.

If Bloodlust was a result of the Outnumbered buff, and Outnumbered was calculated based on current area as opposed to zone (kind of like orange swords)… we could be having a very different conversation. THAT would empower the little guy.

I like the concept. My problem with the crap pet AI is how much power and utility we lose to something that doesn’t know what to do with what it’s given. I also very much agree that as a core mechanic, it shouldn’t be able to die and leave us mechanic-less. Taking away health and targeting of pet is a great move if you ask me. Make it accent and compliment us instead of the miserable attempt to be the other half of us that it is right now.

Solandri.9640:

I just want my pet to be smart enough to avoid red circles and damage fields. Last night at Tequatl, the edge of one of those poison gas fields caught my pet. The rest of the field was between it and me so I couldn’t use F3 to get it out of the field. I managed to hit F4 to swap it out just before it died. I was congratulating myself and forgot I was auto-attacking.

The new pet walked right through the same poison gas field and died. Arrrrgh.

I had the exact same experience in every Teq encounter I’ve been in so far.This highlights exactly why the pet AI is a detriment to our class. All new “challenging content” is designed in such a way that our pet cannot deal with it. I wouldn’t want the content changed… it’s a lot more interesting than it use to be! But upping HP doesn’t change the fact that our pet mechanic essentially turns us into the one legged man in an kitten kicking contest for everything new and exciting that is introduced. So much of us is tied up in a system that isn’t conducive to the content it’s meant to be facing that we are never really going to be on par with other classes as long as it is in its current form.

Chopps.5047:

Let’s do the math: if you hold bloodlust on full that’s 3 points per stomp. If your server gets 70 stomps, then that’s any many points as an entire tick.

Source: linked thread

To me that still means that anyone who isn’t use to 20v20 type fighting is going to be a hell of a lot better off staying in their zerg because the second they step out of the sea they are going to get crushed and cost their team 3 points. Also, it still seems to favor the higher population servers. If you have 20 extra people to go park at bloodlust while still fielding the superior force running as one zerg on the map I don’t see why high pop servers wouldn’t do that. There is no advantage to splintering down into small 20 man groups and presenting an easier target.

Dedicate a sizable group to Bloodlust points to lock it down, then run in a mindless zerg to collect the fruits of it’s labor, that’s really all I see happening from the larger servers.

In the bottom 12 in NA maybe it’ll be different because their populations are so different from the top 7 or 8, but higher up the ladder I just don’t believe it’s going to give an underdog any more of a chance than we already have.

Having said that, I do see this as a clear way to counter night capping… servers like SoS and CD who have the NA presence of a server that is lower down the chain than them, but the OCE/SEA presence to tick at 400+ every night when there are less than 20 people from the opposing server to do anything about it will find that their points are possibly worth less because there is no one to stomp during those hours. Those matches could see a more level playing field as a result.

Rangers in GvG scenarios is a separate debate… many drivers still have no place for rangers in a 15v15, 20v20 etc and bloodlust doesn’t change that. I’ve seen what a truly skilled and well oiled 20 man can do against opponents even 2-3x their size. It’s nothing to scoff at… Debating ranger’s place on those teams aside, here’s how I feel about Bloodlust.

Extra points awarded for stomps may or may not discourage the zerg. I am interested to see how it plays out, but from the other side of the coin, if your team is giving your enemy potentially 50% of their total score to stomping then safety in numbers becomes even more crucial. My guild has won some pretty incredible fights against T2 zergs, but it’s been 30v50 or 40v70 max type scenarios. When we square off against their real megazergs we are lucky to down 15-20 people before the tide washes over and there is really nothing you can do about it. If you run as a megazerg against a smaller opponent, you give up maybe, MAYBE, 20 points in stomps in an encounter, but wipe the opponent in order to get 40-50 points. That’s a lot safer point production than splitting up and risking encountering a 20 man skill team that can lay waste to your 3 or 4 30 man groups wandering the map separately.

In numbers, you risk giving away less points while still being rewarded for your roflstomping – provided you can train your forces to hold back the AoE on downed and speed stomp instead. As the larger force, separating into smaller groups gives your opponent more opportunity to generate points and level the playing field with player vs player skill. That’s not an advantage one would give away willingly.

Firefly.5982:

Can I get confirmation on the way the tab targeting changes will work? Will players have a higher priority than Ranger spirits, necro minions and mesmer clones? If so I won’t be playing any more WvW or sPvP ever as all three classes rely very heavily on enemies having to target the player purposefully – it would be a HUGE nerf for any PvP content to have tab targeting prioritize players over clones, minions and spirits…

Your question seems to be adequately addressed by the original post. Nothing in there suggests that a player would have higher priority than a clone… they are considered in this context as equal and the same.

JonathanSharp.7094:

Tab Targeting Improvements

• Now prioritizes Champs/Legendary, then players/clones, then everything else

Thank you very much for the communication and heads up on changes coming. I am very supportive of many of the things listed. Pet survivability in large scale encounters is a huge concern for our class and has been for a long time. With the addition of ascended gear in general – trinkets, then weapons, finally armor at some point – our pet gets weaker in relation to our enemies at every stage, so I am glad that this is being recognized at some level.

On the flip side of the coin, making the pet survive pathing through an AoE minefield that it has no intelligence to avoid is one thing, by doing so I am deeply concerned that it makes the pet too difficult to kill in smaller scale encounters. It could even further pigeonhole Rangers into the roamer/camp capper role they are asked to play in WvW if their pet becomes un-killable in 2 or 3 player encounters. I hope that whatever is done takes this into consideration.

The biggest concern with our class, though, is the fact that it is balanced around 100% uptime of the pet – and this balance also assumes that the pet is actually functioning properly in battle 100% of the time as well. Against mobs who use the same AI as they do, they perform just fine, but when matched up with a player, the AI is terribly inadequate. As it is also in the more challenging PvE content which is being released lately – which has been so good it’s gotten a 100% WvWer like me even mildly interested in PvE, but the content is very Ranger pet un-friendly.

Some main issues with Pet AI that you guys really need to take into consideration:
- Players are able to move and attack simultaneously, while pets cannot.
- Pets stop for long periods of time to channel skills, and do not take into account the fact that their target moves while they are doing so (for example, you can outmaneuver drake breath attacks while in a siege golem without dodging… you would have to be a truly awful player to get caught by this attack, or be very concentrated on something else).
- If a pet is preparing to use another attack when you call for it’s F2 skill to be used, it will complete what it is doing first before doing whatever it deems necessary to position itself to start performing the F2 maneuver, and then cast. By that time the window of opportunity is usually closed, and some times after a 2-3 second wait the cool down on the F2 will trigger without them even performing the attack/buff they were requested to perform.
- Pets have 3 ‘skill’ attacks, but we only control one of them. Many of their AI controlled attacks could be incredibly useful – some even moreso than the provided F2 – but guided by the AI are used at times where they do not make a difference.
- Instead of sticking to their target they often are tricked by small elevation and pathing obstacles in combat. Besides being able to hit and move, they need to be able to jump – or warp – up and down jumpable elevation changes to avoid being taken out of combat by the terrain.
- There are more that worry me, but for the sake of brevity I’ll cut the list there….

But it’s not all bad news: In a recent post on the Ranger forums, it was found by accident that Ranger pets all of a sudden become far more useful if an opposing Mesmer Moa our pet – it makes the pet leap/lunge forward with it’s attacks, granting it the magical ability to hit moving targets. This accidental find shows that the mechanics to fix the rangers biggest handicap already exists within your game mechanics. We would really appreciate you reviewing the fact that this elite skill buffs our pet and makes it a viable source of damage against players who don’t stand still, and see what can be done to make this a permanent fixture of all relevant pet attacks.

The base AI should be looked at too on channeled skills so that the targets location is detected and the mob/pet turns to face that location at the END of it’s channel time. Also, if players can channel skills while moving, mobs and pets really should too. Remember, you are tying up to 40% of our damage and functionality to the idea that this NPC can keep up with us, with our opponent, and be effective. It’s not too much to ask that the AI be given the tools it needs to do so… it’s only fair.

Finally, the argument has been made that allowing us to access more of our pets skills would make the learning curve to play Ranger too steep. As a collective, Ranger players call BS on this one because many of us have been playing pet classes in MMO’s for upwards of a decade. We are perfectly capable of learning to control a pet through a full pet UI, and as a rule players who choose pet classes do so expecting micro gameplay… it’s a playstyle we crave. If we have been able to learn pet systems with far more complex UI’s for the past 10-15 years, I don’t see why a new generation of gamers cannot follow in our footsteps.

Thanks for your consideration.

#richpeopleproblems

;)

Last time someone asked this question we got this reply from Jonathan Sharp:

Yes, we care about the forums. We also care about all the classes equally.

That’s about all the communication we’ve received since then too – roughly 2 months ago.

I missed something. WvW league?

Pet gorilla?
Auto attack – hurl rocks. 1200 range. Projectile speed similar to short bow, recharge time similar to longbow. High arc so that it is useful hitting things up to and down from walls.
Mighty roar – grant 3stacks of might to nearby allies, 300 range.
Furious roar – grant fury to nearby allies, 300 range.
Tremor (F2) – Smash the ground with both fists, knocking back and launching nearby enemies into the air. Ground targeted, Blast finisher.

AI to encourage them to stay as close to max range as possible, stay as close to us as possible and skirt the edge of a battle. That would work in a lot of WvW scenarios where our pets don’t contribute.

Rune of the Warrior x6 bonus is said to reduce weapon swapping by 1 second. It works fine without the Warrior’s Fast Hands trait, but in combination with the trait (to reduce weapon swaps to 5 seconds) it does not reduce the swap timer any further.

I tested several times both with and without the trait and with and without the 6th rune to confirm.

Rune of the Warrior x5 + no Fast Hands trait = timer starts at 9 (9.9 I assume…)
Rune of the Warrior x5 + Fast Hands trait = timer starts at 4.9
Rune of the Warrior x6 + no Fast Hands trait = timer starts at 8 (8.9 I assume…)
Rune of the Warrior x6 + Fast Hands trait = timer starts at 4.9

Durzlla.6295:

Well I totally understand needing to tie things down in order to hit them in -some- situations. EXs: Kill Shot, Drake Breathe, 100 Blades, Pistol Whip (the sword part) etc. but for hitting with AUTO ATTACKS? kitten that, I shouldn’t need to chill someone in order to guarantee 40% of my damage is getting through.

Ya that’s the crux of my gripe, and always has been. If the pet is ~40% of my damage, and then I have to make choices in my traits, weapons, and skills simply to make basic use of that damage then that’s poor design and not a level playing field with other classes. That part of my damage output should be automatic, reliable and easy – especially since everything we get is balanced around 100% uptime. If I’m sacrificing in order to make that reality, then that 40% is in reality much higher because I’m giving up my own ability to contribute in order to have my pets auto attack succeed…

Special attacks is a different story. I completely understand having to take action to ensure it’s success. But that too should come with some basic givens, like that your pet will begin the attack when it’s told to, will cast it when the target is actually in range, and will do intelligent things like turn to actually face the target… :|

Dirame.8521:

I don’t know which part of PvE you’re playing but as long as I can keep something tied down, my pet will hit it.

That’s part of the problem… you shouldn’t have to keep something tied down in order for your pet to hit it. It’s an extension of you and your ability. I don’t have to keep something tied down for me to hit it…

That’s the best bug I have ever heard of. I’ve been saying the pets need some kind of cheater code put into their AI to make up for their deficiencies, as it turns out they just need a leap coded into every attack. Then if they could figure out how to make pets lock target when casting offensive based F2’s they might actually be something more than dead weight for the first time in a year.

It’s been suggested before but I don’t know if it will get any traction. ANet has said more than once that giving us control over our other pet skills increases the learning curve of the class too much (which I personally believe is a load of bull, but that’s besides the point).

I’d be in favor of the button combination. Telling pet to swap target would be as easy as re-targeting and hitting the button twice, not much of an inconvenience for a simplified UI that would potentially give us access to another skill. Now if only those skills would work reliably and the pets could also hit the targets we send them to reliably, this idea may be really worth pushing for… :|

It should be adept for sure, I have no idea why it’s master… Warrior’s Empower Allies is the 2nd adept trait on their vitality line. It’s exactly the same thing except power instead of precision. As to what line it’s in, I don’t know about it being in the precision line. I think it is more beneficial as part of a different line. Gives you a crit boost in conjunction with boosting another stat instead of min/maxing precision in one line.

I disagree with the value placed on the Ranger by most. As stated above by others, trap rangers are very valuable in ZvZ, GvG type fighting if you put time in to learn the gameplay. It’s not easy and it requires more activity than the standard SB/LB player is willing to put in.

A lot of Rangers also are still living in a self made fantasy world that would allow them to be effective in large scale combat wearing full zerker gear too, so people who can shrug off their damage come to view the class as an annoyance because we can be ignored until such time as we can be squashed. Someone mentioned not wanting to respec or spend gold to improve via new gear sets… that is probably very true.

Our class has a lot of good things going for it that people don’t appreciate. What drags us down, honestly, is the pet. If the pet AI was fixed and allowed to cheat in order to work properly against players and in common WvW scenarios, or removed in favor of a different mechanic that gave us full control over all of our power, a Ranger in a good players hands could be an elite WvW class.