Guild Wars 2

Yep. Have died to this oversight plenty of times.

~ Kovu

As a Ranger, with nothing to contribute to a zerg outside of a water field, I’m sad that a profession with so much wvw utility would demand more. =(

~ Kovu

Hule, while it’s true that the bottom Tier doesn’t have any servers below them and the top tier doesn’t have any servers above them, my server is right in the middle and STILL facing the same two servers week in and week out because the point spread is just too darned high considering the restricted variations.
I feel like BP and EB are turning into the new TC and FA from the days of olde.

~ Kovu

I take towers by myself with siege perfectly fine.
I’m all for getting rid of dpsing gates.

~ Kovu

While we’re at it could we give Rangers some way to be useful in zergs? =3
I hate the fact that I had to level a necro just to run with the guild and be somewhat useful.

~ Kovu

I have a question about wvw matchup selection. The general question may have been answered somewhere, but I can’t seem to find anything on he subject.
Let me start by posting recent numbers so that I can reference them.

Blackgate: 217
Jade Quarry: 213
Sanctum of Rall: 205
Tarnished Coast: 187
Fort Aspenwood: 184
Stormbluff Isle: 181
Sea of Sorrows: 180
Maguuma: 179
Yak’s Bend: 173
Dragonbrand: 163
Borlis Pass: 155
Ehmry Bay: 150
Isle of Janthir: 141
Henge of Denravi: 140
Crystal Desert 138

Okay, so I understand the further your score is away from another server the odds of facing that server decreases. I understand that they’ve shrunk the range of potential opponents lately as well, to reduce the odds of any one higher tiered server beating up on lower tiered servers.

My server is Dragonbrand, and there’s a big gap in points, (10 lower tha YB, 8 higher than BP) between us and any other server. The gap between us and BP is about the same as our gap with YB. Yet I notice we always face BP and never YB. So I look at the scores and ask “why?” I notice that in the past few weeks (since league ended) we’ve always faced servers lower than us. Again, why? (Not to take anything away from BP, they beat us last week.) It seems odd that in 5 weeks or so we wouldn’t face a higher tiered opponent, even once. How is it we manage to keep rolling Ehmry over and over again (13 point gap), yet not once have we faced Maguuma (16 point gap).

Then I look at the number of servers there are above us. 9 total, conveniently divisible by 3. Thinking about it, for us to face a server higher than us there’d have to be an odd server higher than us forced to face a server lower than us due to the fact that there are precisely 9 servers above us, (3 full matchups). The closest example in our case would be Yak’s Bend facing Borlis Pass. There’s an 18 point gap there — that’s pretty high. And since that’s effectively a requirement for my server (DB) to face Maguuma and SoS (which by the way is 17 points above us and in itself unlikely) it seems that it’ll never happen.

Looking at the numbers, SoR has 18 points more than TC — and that’s comparing the bottom of Tier 1 with the top of Tier 2.

My question is, does that mean my server’s matchups are artificially restricted due to the number of servers above us and the score gap?
Does that also mean that Ehmry Bay, who’s 13 points lower than Dragonbrand is FORCED to matchup against Dragonbrand due to the fact that it’s now virtually impossible for Dragonbrand to matchup with Isle of Janthir (22pt difference)?

Because if that’s the case, we’re soon all going to find ourselves facing the same servers week in and week out because you can’t go more than 3 servers down the list without there being some sort of huge point gap that prevents certain servers from facing lower tier’d servers.

Sorry I’m not the best at explaining things.

~ Kovu

Well, these are North American servers. I can promise you you’ll find a good home on any of the top 4~5 tier servers. We all have communities, voice communication and organized guilds to run with.

My server, Dragonbrand often finds itself outnumbered during the early day due to our inflated score garnered by our late night counterparts (SEA coverage). If you’re fond of a lot of small scale operations and sneaking around to try to mitigate damage during EU, then fighting relatively even numbered zergs during NA — Dragonbrand would be a good home for you.

~ Kovu

Are you EU? Dragonbrand needs EU. Badly. The other servers whine about our SEA and sometimes NA — but are stuck with us because our score is deflated due to no EU presence.

WE’LL TAKE ANYONE IN THAT TIMEZONE.

~ Kovu

Keep your eye on the ticker! This one’ll come down to the wire!

~ Kovu

DB has strong SEA and few EU.
BP has few SEA and strong EU.
NA is fairly balanced.

The seesaw is actually quite amusing — but I’ll admit it’s a pain — investing in those keeps just to have them pvd’d during your server’s off hours. If only there was a way to spread off hour coverage.

I’VE GOT IT! limit all maps to 10 people. =D

~ Kovu

Geiir.7603:

Reverence.6915:

Was fighting in the middle of 25-30 people… Got hit with a killshot doing around 18k damage. That kitten needs to get looked at…

And that’s a 1500 range attack. Yet people complain about a 7k backstab….

To be fair, you can see the killshot coming and defensively prepare.

~ Kovu

Rangers
Solo: Great.
Group: Can be useful if played correctly.
Zerg/mass combat: Near useless. Roll something else.

That’s pretty much what I’m reading, and as a Ranger myself I kind of have to agree.

~ Kovu

Ragnar.4257:

The problem is it’s a “one size fits all” approach.

Not all conditions are the same, not all are as dangerous.

+40% duration on blind really doesn’t matter. Nobody would complain about even +100% duration on blind.

+40% duration on bleeds is useful, but not gamebreaking. I’d say it’s comparable to other foods.

+40% on freeze/immobilise/fear is absurdly powerful, and is far stronger than any other food buff.

Incidentally, treating all conditions as the same is what means they can’t balance conditions for large scale fights. Freeze, immob, cripple, blind, weakness, poison, are all still very useful in large-scale, because they only need to stick for a few seconds to have an impact. Whereas bleeds are completely useless in large scale, because they need to stick for 10+ seconds to be effective.

This means they can’t just reduce AoE-cleansing across the board to make conditions viable in large scale, because then immob/freeze/weakness spam would become brokenly powerful. But if they leave things as they are, then bleeds remain worthless.

TLDR: Conditions can’t be balanced as long as they’re all treated the same.

So would you suggest taking out foods that buff all conditions universally, entirely and instead introduce/tweak foods that buff specific conditions? Such as food that increases Blind by 60%, Bleed by 40% and something like freeze, immobilise or fear by only 20%? Just throwing numbers around.

~ Kovu

I can spam a superior AC all I want, 2 rams are still getting through that gate.
If there are multiple ACs in the tower being used — perhaps the rammers should rethink their strategy. … or use iron hide and blast some water fields.

~ Kovu

My main is a Ranger. It’s great for roaming and decent in small group fights. Great for spvp. However in zergs the Ranger is useless, which is why I’ve leveled a necro just to run with the guild.

The fact is, Rangers aren’t good in wvw. They’re a fine profession, but they lack in wvw-related utility. (portals, swiftness circles, aoe damage, group stealth/might etc. Not to mention their blast finisher’s on a 35 second [or 28 traited] cooldown.)

Oh, and pets are useless in zergs because they don’t dodge and aren’t strategic. As far as I’m concerned, Rangers should be allowed to swap pets on no cooldown, they’re not exactly powerful and their abilities still carry cooldowns.

… well, that and 2013 was ‘Year of the Ranger nerf.’

~ Kovu

Of course any nerf to increased condition food would be met with an equal nerf to condition duration reduction food. Figured that’d be a given.
I’m on the fence about this as a whole, seeing all of the condition removal flying around. If it gave +40% to condition damage, that’d be different. That’d be significantly more powerful as that doesn’t get peeled by condition removal and can be felt right away.
I don’t really notice when my condition duration food has run out, so if this were to happen I’d just pop something else.

~ Kovu

Age: 2575 hours over 490 days. (That’s 5.25 hours per day, every day since September ‘12.)
Deaths: 6449. (I DC in large group fights and come back dead sometimes. >.>)
Kills: 21552. (I mostly roam because of said computer issues. This isn’t as inflated by tagging zergs as it could be.)
Achegos: 9995 (Go go daily reset!)
MF: 103

I’ve also done world completion once and built two legendaries.

~ Kovu

edit— also, those of you who are 4k+ on hours realize you’ve been spending over a third of your live for the past year and a half on the game, right? That includes sleep, assuming you do that.

+1

I run condition ranger and lose plenty of battles to zerk. (Warriors in particular because of op regen and that condition immunity ability.)
The thing about condition is that it’s generally not burst damage and most classes have ways to clear the conditions I put on them fairly easily. Try stacking bleeds when they get removed at least once every 10 seconds (most often more often than that). Burn and Poison alone won’t do it for me.

Necros, and Engineers are built to be better at it than me. I can’t spam every condition in the book. Perhaps this topic is more directed towards specific condition classes?

~ Kovu

I am a member of a smaller NA guild on Dragonbrand called [EA] Elephant Ambush. We’re a group of online friends mostly looking to have fun, though during our raids during NA prime 3~4 times per week (though a few of us run every night) we put a lot of effort into helping our server’s PPT as best that we can.

Due to the nature of our server’s weaker NA time we spent a lot of time roaming looking for easy PPT and smaller open field fights. We use teamspeak, and spent much of our time laughing, joking and telling stories. We’re not super heavy serious, though we help our server as best that we can.

We run with about 15~20 on raid nights and half of that on off nights.

~ Kovu

I can’t say I particularly enjoy my server’s position of having an inflated score due to our night coverage. It bumps us up to tiers with opponents that heavily outnumber us during EU/NA. This has scared a lot of guilds away from our server which just makes things MORE difficult for those of us trying to manage massive opposing zergs with small numbers. I don’t imagine our SEA particularly enjoys putting the work into upgrading our stuff, just to lose it to pvd’ers while they sleep.

Remember, it works both ways.

~ Kovu

Am sad. =(

AtlasSi.9130:

I know Ebay accepts but, does anyone from DB accept 1v1s? Been roaming since Sunday and have yet to find anyone willing. :|
I got mad respect for Ebay. Love getting paired with you guys. I get the best 1v1s around.

Do you play anything other than thief?
If so you’re welcome to hit me up any time.
(Except during NA prime, when I’m likely to be running with my guild.)

~ Kovu

Aeros.2046:

If they want to know what happens to DB’s EU and NA after they log…well, its not pretty. Not pretty at all.

To be fair we hold our 1/3rd of the tick through early/mid NA (5-9ish server) — you know, when we have some people online. We were ticking 300~ during NA for a couple hours last night. 6~8 of us from [EA] were responsible for about 60 of that tick.
Early to mid afternoon is just not that time. It sucks when we don’t even have enough people on the map to man siege at one tower to try to delay the train from capping it so quickly. This time of the day we can’t even provide road bump.

~ Kovu

aimode.9680:

Fos.4185:

aimode.9680:

Another boring week for DB’s “pvd” crew.

FINALLY we found some prey to slaughter rather than the squishy [ZoD] from EBay which just hide away every time they see us, even in equal numbers!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eogy2bs1QR8

Typical Ebay BL scenario:

[ZoD]: It’s so boring no one is attacking.
Random pug: /map (shouts) TFV is raiding!!!
[Zod]: OK, who wants to do world events? Let’s just go back after TFV is gone.

To be fair, a similar exchange occurs during BP’s blob of DB BL during EU.
Sure, we’re outnumbered during NA — but at least we can put up a fight. EU I’d be surprised to find 10 of us on any map other than EBG.

~ Kovu

Aeros.2046:

Kovu.7560:

Aeros.2046:

Kovu.7560:

Wow. That exchange in BP Hills just now — best farm in months.
Too bad I dc’d from lag. =(

~ Kovu

It was rough, I hate desperation lords room holds. Suiciding your face into the circle to hold it till the WP timer runs down is just such an unelegant battle strategy. But it worked :P

I hear a similar exchange happened at DB Bay not to long before that.
It’s annoying that we have to walk everywhere, while BP can just teleport around as stuff needs defending — but in the end it’s our own fault for letting you wp everything and for not defending squat.

I got home from work today and we had 1 wp — EB Keep — which was shortly thereafter lost. It’s frustrating.

~ Kovu

Well, that’s what happens when you have a server almost entirely made up of strong Oceanics and no European or NA to counterbalance them. You get put in a tough tier without any force capable of holding things during the North American day and European evening.

Of course, it also means we don’t really have an answer to the massive up level karma train that runs around our borderlands at 5 in the morning. But eh, what can you do.

Yeah, except I’m either sleeping or working at 5AM, so I generally can’t karma train with the SEA. I only get to deal with the kittenty side of the coin. =(

I’m getting tired of hearing “Just wait until they leave the map and we’ll take our stuff back.” That sort of “strategy” should raise alarm bells.

I love our SEA, but I’d gladly trade some of them for some EU.

~ Kovu

mango.9267:

Also with regards to “blobbing”, you haven’t seen anything till you’ve fought SBI, FA, and DB’s SEA. They’ll make our “blobs” look like havoc crews.

All that said, still hoping for a good week, regardless of outcome.

On a sidenote, our SEA isn’t THAT extreme. Any t5 or up server’s NA could take our SEA in number coverage — there simply tends to just less people on the other side of the gates at 5~8AM.

We barely broke 400 against BP early this past morning. Stipulated they’re weekend warriors and tend to pull weekend all nighters — but still. And even that was short lived. Frankly, even you guys steam roll our EU, so all’s fair.

Please stop comparing our SEA to T2~3 zergs.

~ Kovu

Aeros.2046:

Kovu.7560:

Wow. That exchange in BP Hills just now — best farm in months.
Too bad I dc’d from lag. =(

~ Kovu

It was rough, I hate desperation lords room holds. Suiciding your face into the circle to hold it till the WP timer runs down is just such an unelegant battle strategy. But it worked :P

I hear a similar exchange happened at DB Bay not to long before that.
It’s annoying that we have to walk everywhere, while BP can just teleport around as stuff needs defending — but in the end it’s our own fault for letting you wp everything and for not defending squat.

I got home from work today and we had 1 wp — EB Keep — which was shortly thereafter lost. It’s frustrating.

~ Kovu

Wow. That exchange in BP Hills just now — best farm in months.
Too bad I dc’d from lag. =(

~ Kovu

Nuking.4051:

Kovu.7560:

Should I ask the same question of you? Without our SEA we would not be T4.

~ Kovu

Your more than welcome to ask that question Usually the third server in the match up is a NA server so two servers have a prime time that align, thus giving us plenty of combat. While your point tick will be reduced on your off times, it will almost always be split in two. Things are the way they are, was only curious.

Can you say the same for your EU?
It seems to me they’re doing a lot of what our SEA does.
Coverage is coverage. Nothing more.

~ Kovu

Nuking.4051:

Kovu.7560:

12 hours in and the score is virtually tied.
This should be a good week. =)
(Don’t let our SEA demoralize you — you’ll do the exact same to us during EU.)

~ Kovu

No disrespect intended, just asking.. Does your SEA ever get bored with the lack of pvp during their playtime? It has been my experience most people who thrive on pk’ing tire easily of what is essentially pve. How do they keep it interesting?

As someone who stayed up all night through SEA I have to point out that because we owned the majority of the stuff on all of the maps our forces were spread entirely too thin — there were still some good even numbered fights. I even ran with TFV for a bit — they had no more than 15 on them. If all they did was pve they’d have been bored months ago. Anyway, you both obliterate us during EU, and still outnumber us a bit during NA. Should I ask the same question of you? Without our SEA we would not be T4.

Though admittedly it seemed that BP had a lot more on in the early morning than EB.

~ Kovu

12 hours in and the score is virtually tied.
This should be a good week. =)
(Don’t let our SEA demoralize you — you’ll do the exact same to us during EU.)

~ Kovu

Last week any 1v1s I’d attempt would turn into this (image). Roaming certainly has been a lot more interesting this week. Thanks IoJ/NSP for the fun. I have also run into a lot more fellow Rangers in this match up than I’m used to seeing — it’s a nice change — to be able to compare builds. =)

~ Kovu

Nordic Natedog.4360:

Laiboch.4380:

Some of us on DB are going to see if we can organize a under 20 upscale zerg to flip all the maps one of these nights.. Should be some fun stuff

We (IoJ) saw something like this earlier today on our BL. 15-20 (mostly uplevels) DB were trying to take our Bay. At first it was me and another mesmer trying to hold our ground. He jumped on the cannon and I ran around causing havoc and getting them in range. Later we had a nice 15 or so vs 6 of us IoJ inside bay after the wall upgrade finished and pinned them in. I had such a blast.

I was the upscaled necro constantly reviving the people you’d bait into the cannon fire. Couldn’t really do much else — my conditions were ticking for about 98 damage. XD
You did eventually spike me at south gate, inner. Probably for the best, we weren’t really accomplishing anything.

~ Kovu

TC, you can keep FA.

~ Kovu

My Predictions on Page 2

1: Stormbluff Isle
2: Fort Aspenwood
3: Borlis Pass
4: Dragonbrand
5: Yak’s Bend
6: Crystal Desert
7: Ehmry Bay
8: Isle of Janthir
9: Northern Shiverpeaks

Silver League Results In Relation to My Predictions

Fort Aspenwood (1)
Yak’s Bend (3)
Stormbluff Isle (-2)
Borlis Pass (-1) & Ehmry Bay (3)
Dragonbrand (-2) & Crystal Desert (0)
Northern Shiverpeaks (1)
Isle of Janthir (-1)

Stipulated some of these results are skewed based on some of the servers getting easier matchups more often, the results are still certainly surprising. Never thought to see SBI down in 3rd. Nobody saw YB coming. EB managed to tie BP which was unexpected, and CD managed to tie DB which nobody saw coming as well.

The only thing that’s for certain is that FA needs to be voted off the island and up to the gold league if this leagues thing ever happens again.

~ Kovu

What an odd selection of changes.
Admittedly walking in here the only thing I really wanted to see a nerf on was that Healing Signet.

~ Kovu

I’d just like to point out that Dragonbrand isn’t nearly organized enough to determine who gets 2nd place in this match up. We’re just here to annoy both of you and clear your wps while you sleep. =)
Trust me, we’re not 2v1ing anyone.

~ Kovu

Tibstrike.2974:

Uh…DB has an ungodly SEA presence so nighttime is never where FA would pick up points this matchup. The grind will start soon however. We shall see in a few days.

Would you believe it’s not nearly as “ungodly” as it used to be?
A bunch of the hardcore SEA left — even before the great exodus buyouts of pre Season 1. Had they not, we’d be right alongside FA and SBI PPT-wise right now. Our NA has always been unspectacular in numbers compared to the servers we face, due to that night time inflation.

~ Kovu

kitten it, SBI, get out of this thread.
We don’t want it to be longer than ours!

~ Kovu

Sanduskel.1850:

How many guilds did Buygate purchase so that they can pwn OS? Lol.

Lost count. =(

~ Kovu

Chris.4527:

This guy is mental.

Neophyte.4985:

Good lord this is refreshing. I haven’t seen FA talk so much trash since our days burning the bandwagon servers (love ya DB <3). I missed that confidence. It went away when we started getting the clusterkitten that was tier 1. Here’s to hoping you come back to where you really belong. TC has missed its wife.

So what does that make DB? Your aborted child?
Seriously, FA’s been zerging the Silver League for 7 weeks now and calling it “skill and dedication”. Give me a break. You can have your wife back.

~ Kovu

Next time, you can deal with Fort Aspenzerg, and Zergbluff Isle almost every week, and we’ll pick on the bottom feeders to guarantee a 2nd place finish weekly.
Also, seriously, this again? I said it there, and I’ll say it here — l2backcap. Stop blaming other servers for your failures.

~ Kovu

FA talks about burning the bandwagon servers.
I hope one of these days IoJ burns them.

Also, FA’s roamers sucked last week. With rare exception. I can see why they prefer to zerg.
I think the Silver League needs to group vote them up to the Gold League. =D

~ Kovu

Retsuko.2035:

Kovu.7560:

Now if it starts interfering with wvw, that’s something else entirely.

That toxic stuff or whatever was actually interfering with dolyaks.

Now that shouldn’t happen. I get irritated enough when regular mobs (like those bats outside of danelon) interfere with the Dolyaks. I’ve also seen toxic guys take out sentries, which I disagree with.

On the flipside, a little bit of fluff that doesn’t interfere with the game doesn’t matter. I for one enjoy the Citadel being all seasoned up for the holidays — and would love to see them add more aesthetics to the forts and keeps — so long as it doesn’t interfere with the game.

~ Kovu

This instance is pretty much separate from traditional wvw.
Allow the servers to communicate with each other via /say and /map chat in this area. Leave team chat for single server chat only.

That way guilds can more easily organize and communicate gvg setups and all three servers can call off trolls. Have the say/map chats signify which server any one person is from, as I illustrate below.

[IoJ]Starcommando: Hello, how is everyone tonight?
[DB]Tux: I’m doing well, how’re you?
[IoJ]Starcommando: I’m doing great! Looking to get away from the zergs for a while.
[FA]Shadow Bomb: Anyone want to 1v1, or setup a gvg?
[DB]Tux: Sure!
[IoJ]Starcommando: Yeah, sure!
[FA]Shadow Bomb: Great~

It’s no secret that people from different servers can communicate with each other if they really wanted to. In this area — an area intended for pvp/gwg/jumping puzzle — there’s no real point to restrict cross-server communication.

~ Kovu

Server: DB
League: Silver
Enjoyed Season 1: Yes
Should we have season 2?: No

I enjoyed most of the silver league matchups, but I fear this system too heavily favors the high population servers in each league and basically screws over the low population servers (See:NSP). I’m not particularly fond of running into FA blobs and outnumberd buffs on every map outside EBG. (And even on that one, sometimes.) And DB is mid-tier Silver — think of how the low tier Silver servers feel.

Just allow the ratings to adjust the servers. This may cause some repetitive matchups — but honestly I don’t care what server appears above the enemy’s head so long as the fights are fun and the ppt is comparable. The league system doesn’t help, here.

I, for one, enjoyed the old TC/FA/DB matchups week in and week out. The fights were always there and all three servers stood a chance at winning any given week. Obviously people have bandwagoned for league, (which is in itself a problem,) so this particular match up would no longer apply. XD

~ Kovu

Am I the only one who isn’t particularly bothered?
I mean, if you don’t like pve then just ignore it.
Sometimes these things are convenient to have in wvw because I can hit an extra daily without having to go pve maps. Or should I feel bad because I’ll hit the odd harpy/wurm for wxp?

Now if it starts interfering with wvw, that’s something else entirely.

~ Kovu

Furiousbeard.7602:

What does your ranger look like?

Only the sexiest Charr on Dragonbrand.
Even my pet is in awe.

edit- Unless you meant build. In which case 0/0/30/30/20. Condition bunker S/T-A/W with a smidgen of pet support.