Guild Wars 2

It is somehow skillful to charge into a zerg and burst some enemies down with your glass cannon build. Or snipe them down from wall. Yet you feel it is not skillful to arrange a full stomp on them. Instead the whole game mechanic must be wrong.

HtFde.3856:

Korgov.7645:

• Require that portal end points have a walkable path between them. No more content skipping.

But then, please, also remove ALL skills from other classes that allow that, like, jumping with a warrior which makes the chandeliers in the jumping puzzle a breeze whereas a mesmer has to do it the hard way.

But this will sureley degrade into: I wanna keep all skills my class has … it’s just them mesmers that I don’t play that need to be nerfed …

I didn’t know warriors can also let entire team skip the jumping puzzles. What’s the skill you are talking about?

Surbrus.6942:

Korgov.7645:

• Player appearing through a portal disables all friendly exit portals in the area for 1 second.

Still has the same issue, however then it just requires the exit portals to be spaced out. I sounds more annoying than anything else, no one wants to play a traffic jam simulator. And again, this would just require even more Mesmers to account for all the incorrectly placed portals.

Sounds like an extremely, over-elaborate way to address culling… and the culling issue wouldn’t even be solved, it would just require a group of experienced Mesmers to bypass for a culling inducing portal bomb.

In my opinion, this would be worse for the skill than simply adding 30 seconds to the cool down. Outside of sPvP the 90 second cool down did nothing but to make Portal more annoying to use, and made it pretty much worthless in some scenarios as the utility slot it occupies is worth more than the 90 second cool down portal (dungeons, bosses, etc).

Forcing people to go single file, outside of portal bombing, only makes the skill more and more annoying to use. If the objective is to make a skill so annoying to use, and not fun, then it should be deleted and simply replaced.

I am not joking around, I honestly believe that the portal skill should be deleted and abandoned rather than see some of these proposed changes. Even though I love the skill, and it used to have a permanent spot on my utility bar (before the 90 second cool down), the skill would be much better removed from the game than trying to make it more annoying to use. Too bad, because it used to be a really fun skill to use.

There would be no portal bombs if the exit portals were spaced out. Culling does not kick in if 20 players step through portal at same time, but evenly spaced all over the map.

Yes I kind of agree with you that the skill is probably better off deleted or disabled than tweaked to fit WvW context.

Come to think of it, a simple solution would be to limit the skill to be mesmer self only. Mesmers would retain the intended function of portals as escape mechanism. All the problems with portals in WvW context would be addressed.

Surbrus.6942:

Korgov.7645:

It is to limit the amount of players that vanish and appear in an area within time frame. This is what is causing the rendering issue.

Limiting amount of players per portal would just be defeated by having enough mesmers to portal the entire zerg. This would also lead to mesmers being in more demand than ever.

Let’s say that 10 people are able to pass through the portal in the 10 second duration which the portal is open (the tool tip is incorrect, the duration is closer to 10 seconds than 20). Entering a portal gives the portal sickness debuff to nearby allies. This just means that the entry portals have to be spaced out more (which they probably are going to be spaced out for convenience anyways. Portal entryways that are too close to each other will slow down the transfer, requiring more Mesmers to make more portals to account for the incorrectly placed portals, as well as more Mesmer are required to best take advantage of the underhanded culling issue.

Fifty people are still able to portal bomb through five portals. Just more Mesmers are required to account for Mesmers incorrectly placing the portals.

Thus, this solution creates even more of a demand for Mesmers than a simple cap per portal.

The solution must then be tied to exit portals in an area.

• Player appearing through a portal disables all friendly exit portals in the area for 1 second.

Surbrus.6942:

As for limiting the numbers of people who can go through the portal, why not simply put a cap on how many people can use the portal, rather than having people go through single file? I don’t really see what this sort of proposed change is even supposed to do, besides being annoying and creating opportunities for griefing.

It is to limit the amount of players that vanish and appear in an area within time frame. This is what is causing the rendering issue.

Limiting amount of players per portal would just be defeated by having enough mesmers to portal the entire zerg. This would also lead to mesmers being in more demand than ever.

Surbrus.6942:

Korgov.7645:

The problem is this: I have never done the jumping puzzle except with friendly mesmer providing me a portal. I would assume same is true for many others, too. ANet might as well remove the jumping puzzles and put the treasure chests next to our waypoint.

Then what do you propose? That Portals need LoS to each other? Why don’t you just ask Anet to delete the skill altogether?

“Skipping content” is pretty much the reason why the Portal skill exists in the first place.

You wouldn’t complain about classes staking Swiftness on you so that you can go from point A to point B quicker, so why complain about the Mesmer’s Portal getting you from point A to point B quicker? Time is a highly valued resource, and the Portal skill is designed to help allies make better use of their time.

As for any talk of Portal nerfs, it’s either fix culling or restrict Portal to x number of allies, so that at the very least it will take multiple coordinated Mesmers to execute a culling abusing portal bomb. also, scrape that 90 second cool down nerf to portal, that is just stupid outside of sPvP.

The main use case for portals is content skipping. Thats why mesmers are in such high demand in WvW. I feel this is not right.

My proposal is 3 part:

• Limit the amount of players passing through a portal in an area. When a player enters a portal all friendly players in the area get 1 second portal-sickness which prevents using portals.
• Require that portal end points have a walkable path between them. No more content skipping.
• Make golems unable to use portals (or unaffected by any boons for that matter).

Bones.5762:

Korgov.7645:

Limiting portals to 5 players only would help the culling issue a little.

Teams would be pushed to bring even more mesmers to portal entire zerg. This would lead to even greater demand for mesmers in WvW. Not good.

It also does not address the other issues with portals. Namely content skipping jump puzzles, bypassing walls and chain portalling golems.

Not sure what the problem is with a mesmer using his utility to benefit the server, people qq about how OP mesmers are in 1v1 scenario, then they qq about how they can support their entire team with portal, I’ve honestly never wanted to say l2p, but seriously l2p, ever since mesmer patch i’ve just been pissed at anet, and stoped playing mesmer altogether, but still, i know how a mesmer works, and i still have a good chance of beating them with my engineer. My chances of beating a mesmer increased from 50% to about 70% because of the patch, mesmer got that much weaker to me.

The problem is this: I have never done the jumping puzzle except with friendly mesmer providing me a portal. I would assume same is true for many others, too. ANet might as well remove the jumping puzzles and put the treasure chests next to our waypoint.

I have no complaints about 1v1. Mesmers are probably the most fun and exiting to fight against.

Limiting portals to 5 players only would help the culling issue a little.

Teams would be pushed to bring even more mesmers to portal entire zerg. This would lead to even greater demand for mesmers in WvW. Not good.

It also does not address the other issues with portals. Namely content skipping jump puzzles, bypassing walls and chain portalling golems.

The increase in portal cooldown only made things worse in WvW. Now my team needs 50% more mesmers to provide the same amount of portals as before.

iorlas.6721:

…and thieves don’t abuse the culling issue? just blows everything you said outa the water.It’s a simple L2P issue.

I believe thiefs abuse the client rendering issue more than server side culling issue. Thiefs prefer to jump on you when you are alone rather than when you are in middle of large zerg.

Beri.3156:

PS. Why don’t u suggest that thiefs steath shud be removed like mesmer portals. Portals and stealths are part of class. You need to learn to deal with them.

Thief’s stealth is an essential part of the profession. Just look through thief skills/traits to see how many are connected to stealth. Mesmer’s portal is an isolated skill.

Mesmers would be more balanced in WvW context without the skill. The main use cases for portals are content skipping, multiplying golem effeciency and abusing culling issue in zerg vs zerg. If those use cases are intended, I would expect to see all professions with portal skill in WvW.

Increasing the recharge time of portals to 90 seconds does seem to miss all the issues in WvW. Now servers just have to bring 50% more mesmers to battle. Then again the profession is growing in popularity anyway.

These would be fix most of the issues with portals in WvW.

• Golems are not allowed to use portals.
• Portal end points must have a walkable path between them. (no more content skipping, be it jump puzzles or gates)
• Only limited amount of players over time can use portal. For example 1 player per second.

Banners in Lions Arch to fly guild banners currently claimed keeps.

A statue erected in Lions Arch of a selected guild member of the best guild during the matchup when your server wins. The best guild according to some rating system, points gained, kills, upgrades bought, etc.

How do you deal with pistol/condition thieves?

Their tactic seems to be just dancing at 900 range spamming Vital Shot and escaping if I manage to get close.

Since portals are so game changing in WvW context, I would like to see some tweaking on them. Things that probably would not have such a big impact in sPvP or PvE.

These would pretty much free Mesmers from their portal slavery.

1. Golems cannot use portals.
2. Only one player per second can move through a portal.
3. There must be a walkable path between portal end points.

Mesmer.

This profession opens up more tactics for your team than any other profession.

• Portal bombs to destroy enemy formations abusing the rendering issue.
• Portals to bypass walls on enemy keeps by hiding inside or by doing a jump puzzle.
• Portals to open alternative supply routes in besieged friendly towers.
• Portal roads for golems (orb carrier) to travel from one side of the map to another really fast.
• Time Warp for doubling golem damage on gates.
• Phantasms to attack sieges inside enemy keeps that no other profession can reach.

Thief would probably suit the OPs desired playstyle more. The profession is not so beneficial for the team as Mesmer. Thieves have the best survivability though high mobility, stealth and rendering issues. You can go safely behind enemy lines and gank enemies running alone or in small groups. If things go sore, you just dance away, reset and try again.

Guardian spirit weapons fail to go through gates and up the walls beyond LoS. Is this a bug then?

A supply camp can be soloed. Been there, done that. I cannot solo an upgraded camp, though. But as you said better players like thieves can.

The key decisive factor is whether there are enemy players defending it. If the supply camp is important for your team, surely you can send 2 guys from your zerg to guard it.

The supply camps are easy targets for a reason. The same reason caravans and sentries are even easier targets.

If a supply route is important, then guard it. Do not expect the NPCs do all the playing for you.

Ideally players would migrate to low population servers which have no queues what so ever. Apparently long queue times are not incentive enough to do so.

Because of portals the mesmers are head and shoulders better then any other profession in WvW. Time Warp affecting golems doesn’t help either.

Greebler.7843:

There is something to be said when all que are full but then when you get into the battle; you are outnumbered 5 to 1.

Are you sure you weren’t dueling a mesmer or a necromancer? :P

Your server’s queue may have been filled with players using WvW as an easy to reach crafting station, by krait farmers or by jumping puzzle fans. Or you may just had bad luck or judgement picking your fights.

On my server we have managed to create a queue on one borderland last week. Back then the odds were even and we were able to put up spectacular fights. I believe the queue system works fine; I just wish for more even populations.

Snowpea.5469:

The easiest solution is to make a keep hard to take no matter how many people are on.

If one server has 100 and the other server has 5, just boost up the NPCs so its still hard for the 100 to get the keep. Auto upgrade keeps to max reinforcement. Give them free seige weaponry & have NPCs on balista ect.

Rewarding a server for not having enough players in WvW does not sound right.

What is high populated server chooses to downplay to get the benefits? Conquer the map and then no-one enters WvW. NPCs will make it hard for other servers to reclaim the land.

Better increase the friendly NPC toughness proportionally to how little of the map your server holds.

Then the highest activity server would still win, but it would have it increasingly difficult to conquer the entire map. Lower activity server can put up a decent fight against the superior forces in the few nodes they still have left. The third server would not gang up against the weakest because it has toughest NPCs.

Xandax.1753:

Korgov.7645:

<snip>
Mesmer portalling entire squad past walls is also too strong ability.

Not if the mesmer didn’t exploit to get inside. If it’s an exploit; ban him. Otherwise it’s very much an organization issue. (baring the issue with the graphics of course)

If skipping walls is intended portals should be available for all players – not only for mesmers. For example as portal gun available from siege merchant.

Portals and Time Warp affecting golems is plain wrong.

Mesmer portalling entire squad past walls is also too strong ability.

Kyus.3812:

Korgov.7645:

Kyus.3812:

jayderyu.3751:

Korgov the problem with your post is that Team C isn’t insomniacs staying up late. It’s people on another part of the planet where the time for them is 6pm to 11pm. ie their primetime hours. Tha’ts not night. unfrotunatly you are a nightcapper as you are taking their hard earned primetime work.

his suggestion isn’t taking there prime time since it would work for any low population hour all he is saying is have a more aggressive rogue npc system that will allow enemies that are neutral to capture camps if left unattended. it would be active for 24 hours a day so it would be in place for everyone. his point is to prevent a map with no one in it constantly ticking points.

i don’t think it will work as a solution but its an idea.

You nailed the point exactly, Kyus.

I was hoping some discussion why it would not work. So far only 2 people who got the point but do not feel it is a good solution for some unrevealed reason.

my opinion on why it won’t work is two fold.

1) the issue is general imbalance over a 24 hour period there is a “day squad” as well as a prime time squad and a night squad. (or american asain european gamers whatever you want to call it). So the NPC’s will always have someone willing to counter them its not like the zones stay totally empty.

the issue in low pop hours is the zones are designed for their player caps. when the cap is reduced whoever has more players gets free reign on capturing stuff. only when the caps on all servers are full is there a true sense of competition.

2) people don’t like getting too much pve into their pvp. if you had an npc faction then this would be an issue for a lot of pvp’ers (not me personally but it would come up). also the current npc guards are controlled by the server that completes their DE. so the more populated server would have these NPC’s too under the current situation.

I don’t think its a silly idea, I just think that it doesn’t address the heart of the problem which is exponential increase in scores from total map control during low pop hours (a point which you agree with). I believe the problem to address is the actual method of accumulating a score. I made a lengthy post earlier about it but no one even replied so I’m clearly a crazed idiot for thinking the problem is in the scoring mechanic :-) .

still it is an interesting idea all the same even if I don’t agree.

Thanks for the critique.

For the first point I should start by saying I am playing on server which is always under the cap. The solution is aimed to solve inequality of player’s time investment’s worth. The solution does very little towards the population imbalances per hour. The server with more players than other servers at given time will prosper – just not quite as fast as today.

I agree with the second point myself, too. That indeed is a weak point of the solution.

Kyus.3812:

jayderyu.3751:

Korgov the problem with your post is that Team C isn’t insomniacs staying up late. It’s people on another part of the planet where the time for them is 6pm to 11pm. ie their primetime hours. Tha’ts not night. unfrotunatly you are a nightcapper as you are taking their hard earned primetime work.

his suggestion isn’t taking there prime time since it would work for any low population hour all he is saying is have a more aggressive rogue npc system that will allow enemies that are neutral to capture camps if left unattended. it would be active for 24 hours a day so it would be in place for everyone. his point is to prevent a map with no one in it constantly ticking points.

i don’t think it will work as a solution but its an idea.

You nailed the point exactly, Kyus.

I was hoping some discussion why it would not work. So far only 2 people who got the point but do not feel it is a good solution for some unrevealed reason.

Kyus.3812:

Korgov.7645:

Houdii.2563:

Why would you wanna limit WvW to certain time periods a day really?

I have not proposed limiting anyone’s play time in any way. No-one else mentioned that either in this thread. You pulled that into discussion out of nowhere.

it removes the ability to score points for anyone playing during 1/3 of a day. this isn’t the solution. the solution is normalising score over 3 daily time periods to a smaller ammount for winning during each period rather than the accumulated totals for holding keeps.

You are drawing a wrong conclusion.

Eliminating daytime (or late off peak hours or the 3rd time zone) players’ ability to gain score for their team is not what it is about. They have equal opportunity to gain score for their team as anyone else.

Houdii.2563:

Why would you wanna limit WvW to certain time periods a day really?

I have not proposed limiting anyone’s play time in any way. No-one else mentioned that either in this thread. You pulled that into discussion out of nowhere.

Cruzyo.7304:

the only solution for “nightcapping” is to remove the area reference (EU/NA and so on) along with a complete server wipe by forcing the players to (re-)pick a new server.

that and only that way you’ll have 24/7 coverage on all servers. still some more some less, but overall way more balanced than right now.

You are forgetting language based servers. The German players come from the same time zone.

There is also latency issue when you are playing on server located far away.

Sure there is something wrong when EU servers are asking NA WvW guilds to transfer to them.

As ANet put it no player’s time is more valuable than another. Those playing at the beginning of off peak hours gain more score for their server than others.

Yes, ANet’s stance is that they are unwilling to do anything about night capping because they can’t.

Right now Team C night team players’ time is more valuable score wise.

The heart of the night capping issue is that day is divided in 3 time zones:

1. Team A + B + C have peak hours. Fighting is equal, everyone is having fun playing PvP.
2. Team A + B hit the bed, but Team C has night team to conquer the land. Team C is having fun playing PvE.
3. Team C insomniacs hit the bed. Land stays conquered for team C until next peak hours.

If we eliminate score gains from the 3rd time zone, the scores would not get so skewed in Team C’s favor.

So how about nodes only stay captured for limited amount of time?

We already have NPCs attacking supply camps, but the guards always defeat the NPC attackers.

Let’s tune the attacks so that player assistance is required to keep the supply camp. Extend the attacks to also hit towers, keeps and the castle.

This would also level the ground for uneven teams as the most dominant team would have to spread forces to maintain conqured areas.

I was defeated and the opponent used /salute for a good fight. It can go that way, too.

If I notice opponent staying dead for extended period of time (for spying or waiting for hidden team member to revive him within keep walls), I sometimes go sit next to the corpse. The asuran sit emote is ace.

Arken.3725:

Korgov.7645:

Are there other abilities which have different functionality in PvE and PvP?

I think this is the first one.

This is bad new direction to go. I would rather have it function the same for PvE, too. Even nerfed it is a good button to press.

Are there other abilities which have different functionality in PvE and PvP?

Trungalung.7850:

Korgov.7645:

Do you mean cosmetic effects like “Your shield looks bigger”? Or off-hand specific buff like “Decreases shield cooldowns by 10%”? Or guardian specific like “Increases Sanctuary radius by 25%”?

Not going to happen, because runes should work for all professions and not all can wear shields.

Look up rune of the ranger and another rune set that has the 6th bonus with shout remove condition.

So it seems. However I didn’t spot any with a weapon specific effect.

http://www.gw2db.com/items/50142-superior-rune-of-the-engineer
(6): +5% damage while holding a bundle.

http://www.gw2db.com/items/53493-superior-rune-of-the-ranger
(6): +5% damage while you have a companion.

http://www.gw2db.com/items/53498-superior-rune-of-the-soldier
(6): Shouts remove a condition.

Our own profession rune’s special effect can be used by any profession.

http://www.gw2db.com/items/53497-superior-rune-of-the-guardian
(6): Inflict 1 second of burning on a successful block.

Do you mean cosmetic effects like “Your shield looks bigger”? Or off-hand specific buff like “Decreases shield cooldowns by 10%”? Or guardian specific like “Increases Sanctuary radius by 25%”?

Not going to happen, because runes should work for all professions and not all can wear shields.

A little rewording would go a long way.

Retaliation – Inflicts damage back to its source; stack duration.

The beef of WvW is not fighting another player. It is waging war with your team against the other 2 teams taking advantage of the environment. The PvP fighting is just the tip of the iceberg.

I would encourage you to give it another chance. This time play together with other players in your team.

@Envy: I would imagine power of the person who has the Retaliation boon. Not the source (me) granting the boon, nor the attacker hitting.

@Emapudapus: Thanks for clearing that up.

If I would get hit for 2000 and Retaliation reflects back 400, I only receive 1600 damage and attacker takes 400.

20% damage reduction and X% damage per second increase. X in my case would be rather high as my own DPS sucks. How is this not awesome? Or did I miss a memo or something?

Power/Toughness/Vitality armor (not head piece) is available from Orr temple karma vendors.

WvW karma vendors sell Power/Toughness/Vitality upto rare level gear (armor, accessories, weapons, but no upgrades). WvW badge vendors sell exotic level gear.

Retaliation – Reflect incoming damage back to its source; stacks duration.

Retaliation reflects damage based on level and scales with power, increasing damage by 1 for every 13.4 power. At level 80, base damage is 267.

Source: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Retaliation

The Wiki article does not mention anything about it being capped.

Shield #5 to push group of enemies off cliffside brings a smile on my face.

I know what is the best course of action in any given situation, how to reach objectives and win wars. They just won’t listen. Not even if I throw a good fit. An excellent fit.

On a more serious note WvW caters for all sorts of players, novices, veterans, casuals, hardcode. Elitism and pouring nerdrage upon newbies and less informed gets you nowhere. You will end up alienating even the good players, too.

If the game isn’t fun why play it. It sure isn’t fun for me if chat is full of “Internet” quality text.

Take a deep breath and think of a more constructive way to get other players going your way.

Very nice and clear table of rankings.

The site could use a web service providing the score information instead of volunteers typing it in.

I haven’t experienced permanently invisible characters after the patch. Then again I haven’t vitnesses big zergs, nor groups of people using portals.

However thieves are still invisible after they become TAB-targettable after stealth. You can see the health bar above and target circle on the ground, but no character in between.

Only way to fight metagaming it is to keep the rewards (World bonuses, titles) low enough.

I am also playing a guardian.

No jump puzzles, 1863 kills, 428 badges. Which is 23%.

I have found it a lot easier to get exotic level power/vitality/toughness gear from Orr temple karma vendors. Even though I spend almost all my time in WvW.