Guild Wars 2

I S U P E R S I N I.4761:

Kyus I would agree with you, Although from our point of Few, we love the fight. We love the people on gunnars. It worked very well, It was simply way to low on population.

I can confirm, that KISS and myself would have been accused of Jumping ship to a higher ranked server like every other poor ranked guild wanting to be carried?

We did not want that.

We moved to the same Tier on US for a reason, They are even matched to gunnars hold on EU. We would not get the banter from EU players giving us rubbish talk about why we move, We and you would do whats best for your guild/community.

I know Gunnars would love some American east coast gamers/guild to join them, the sad thing is, USA have lame excuses of lag etc, so they are set in there ways.

The way I see it is, KISS was 90% USA based in gw1, We gave up roughly 1500 members from US when anet announced the EU/US server split. so if EU servers cannot get the support, KISS and its current 1200+ members can most definitely put on a good show for our self and the American gamers, mean while reclaiming some old school members.

for us we kill 5 birds with a brick.
1) No drama,
2) Still have to fight for our server KISS LOVE IT.
3) Night shift America.
4) We will manage to increase our membership as international KISS EU/US
5) the population issue is 100% fixed

6) we do not have to beat on Nidhog and Sheepie (Kidding) forget this one

Anyway I hope you understand. was lots of fun, but way to many guilds moved to winning EU server, KISS fought hard for gunnars for 2 months + since CIR, ThUN & DKR bailed to a high ranked server.

Just remember this: KISS moved to the same TIER as gunnars on US server, Its no progress in wvw for us, We have a lot of pve gammers to please also. However will now be able to Dent opposing teams in wvw, and sleep well at night knowing American’s will be awake deffending.

I hope everyone understands.

Regards Disa

and that is an excellent answer to what I didn’t understand and I’d imagine it will clear a lot of the confusion up to people on GH.

best of luck

Svarty.8019:

Kyus.3812:

moving down to a lower bracket to prove that your wvw focused guild can make a difference.

[..] I have a lot of respect for [this].

No. This effort to garner respect by moving to a lower ranked, but higher WvW population server doesn’t wash with me. It seems like an effort to appear “more moral” or “superior” to the other quitters, but it’s not, in fact, it seems even more pathetic. I’m surprised and disappointed, I thought more of them than this.

I kind of meant moving to a bottom 6 server not moving to a server on the move. If large guilds 100+ in size want to prove themselves taking people out of the bottom tiers is the place to do it if they don’t want to stay wtih their home servers.

IMO though just stay where you rolled and organise organise organise..

there are three reasons to transfer

1) you aren’t getting any opposition what-so-ever of any calibre and are a wvw focused guild.

2) you want to move to win, jumping onto the up and coming server and riding out the victory by increasing their numbers further.

3) moving down to a lower bracket to prove that your wvw focused guild can make a difference.

I can understand the 1st, I think the 2nd is the signs of a guild that likes talking about its victories rather than playing and the 3rd I have a lot of respect for.

I’m not a member of KISS so I don’t know their reason but it seems strange to move from GH during a match up with Abaddons Mouth and Piken Square that was very close and offered good opposition. I’m also bemused by the move to a US server in the middle brackets where they are likely to play against lower populations.

I’d have suggested that if they wanted competition and a focus in developing WvW then Gunnars Hold (from what i’ve seen in the last 2 weeks) is the perfect server for a large guild?

oh well beats me

fivekiller.1432:

Kyus.3812:

the only thing that i’ve heard to the contrary of this is a rumor that yaks give points based on distance traveled??? what i was saying isn’t true is a point increase based on population hitting on the objective I didn’t make that clear.

as far as odd points in the matchup go I was under the belief that the sentries award smaller point ticks for killing and claiming. There is definately no tick for player kills, and I’ve never noticed a champion or npc point increase except for sentries… not sure if sentries points is on kill or points capped at the interval?

i wasn’t participating in the activities but was listening on ts3 to those in my guild testing it. they found sentries to give 1 point per capture no matter how many people participated.

there was one activity that did reward a team of 3 or 4 people 3 or 4 points though and thats the one that was suspect. i believe it was dolyak killing. the only question is whether they just happened to kill it with as many people as points it awards naturally, or if there is some kind of bug or design flaw causing it to give a point for everyone who contributed.

it sounds like you’re just going on what you’ve heard. i can only do the same.

I believe then it is possibly related to distance traveled by the dolyak rather than people participating, definately worth a test.

fivekiller.1432:

Kyus.3812:

this isn’t true, the reason why a guild will have 40 people to all hit on a dolyak at once is to try for random 5 supply drops off of them.

the mechanic is take and hold, this give you a +xxx score what that score is at the interval tick is added to your total.

have you tested and verified this to be the way you say?

the only thing that i’ve heard to the contrary of this is a rumor that yaks give points based on distance traveled??? what i was saying isn’t true is a point increase based on population hitting on the objective I didn’t make that clear.

as far as odd points in the matchup go I was under the belief that the sentries award smaller point ticks for killing and claiming. There is definately no tick for player kills, and I’ve never noticed a champion or npc point increase except for sentries… not sure if sentries points is on kill or points capped at the interval?

fivekiller.1432:

wads.5730:

none of those things contribute to score. your score is completely determined by potential points, which are tallied after every interval. these are holding camps, towers, keeps, and stonemist.

actually some of them do give score.

i’m told that some of those things give a point for each person contributing. that possibly explains why i see tarnished coast taking 40 people to down dolyaks.

try it some time. grab 5 folks and all get kill credit on a dolyak and watch the score go up. see if it goes up 1 point or 5. grab 30 and see if it goes up by 30. only thing i know for sure is it won’t go up by 0.

this isn’t true, the reason why a guild will have 40 people to all hit on a dolyak at once is to try for random 5 supply drops off of them.

the mechanic is take and hold, this give you a +xxx score what that score is at the interval tick is added to your total.

Xenn.3809:

Kyus.3812:

. so here’s to locking down transfers with a fee sooner rather than later!

Hopefully, but not that quick we cannot bolster our numbers a tiny bit with guilds looking for fun fights.

Maybe transfers should be priced according to ranking, in a open market way – lower, free; highest with a high cost.

This was there initial plan (well on population) that lower pops would cost less to transfer too. I’d like to think that announcing a date say 1 month off that transfers would end would lead to mass migration from heavy pop servers. knowing you can move whenever is a bit of a free pass to ride on the back of other peoples success.

still lets just enjoy the rest of the week and hopefully we can have some good prime time fights

Mushy.3964:

You could always move to Gunnar’s (Joke )

I hope you guys on PS can ride this out & I’m sure when you meet a server that ends up winning against you those Guilds will jump again to the new (it server) & you guys can get back on track & come down to fight us @Gunnar’s again.

from a personal perspective I’d always only want to transfer down the bracket should Pikens population become ridiculous with the farcical non pay transfers that are in place. hopefully this won’t happen as the current balance and atmosphere on Piken is brilliant there is a lot of server pride right now. so here’s to locking down transfers with a fee sooner rather than later!

cafard.8953:

And more guilds transferring to PS today… Wonderful…

Do the people transferring realise that there are servers that want more people and that want to go up in the ratings? Blacktide, Desolation, Far Shiverpeaks… all three and probably some other are advertising and looking for more people, why don’t you transfer there rather than the ‘RP’ server?

Honestly, it’s a bit selfish, but the server had found its spot in the lower-mid tiers, was winning some, losing some, had precious little queues, was not looking like shooting up, and I liked it. I couldn’t care less about getting a ‘big boost’ no one asked for. First of all, the Vabbi transfer made a formality of what was a great matchup. Now the bandwagon is getting worse by the day.

May i ask all the guilds transferring: why? What’s the point? If it’s all about bandwagonning and ‘winning’, don’t you think there’s bigger servers higher up in the tiers to do that?

I don’t want to sound disrespectful to all the people who are transferring to piken, I can also appreciate the issues wtih being stuck wtih little to no competition in a lower tier but I do agree with this in some sense.

Anyone can transfer to another server, its the easy road! frankly being number 1 in all of this means nothing zip!! winning in WvW is having a kitten good fight, its also improving, making yourselves play better as a guild or server that is winning, transferring to the new up and coming server is not winning.

I can completely understand the Russian guilds on Vabbi with little to no presence wanting to transfer upwards a bit, but for members of mid bracket servers with organisation already wanting to jump ship is something else altogether.

mjharrison.3209:

Kyus.3812:

the aoe cap actually favors smaller organised groups. The aoe cap is the best thing that arena net included for WvW. it is a great way of controlling and equalising aoe damage.

No it doesn’t. It does however favour zerging. Zergs exacerbate the server culling issue, leading to more invisible enemies and lagggggggy fights that look terrible due to excessive #s of particle effects.

AOE cap is also being routinely exploited in the “turtling” tactic, where zergs stack in a bunch to trivialise AOE damage while maximising healing and condition removal, the latter 2 of which are not capped.

I do like downed state however it requires you to think a lot more especially when out numbered.

As a thief, you should hate it. Even if you manage to pick off members of a zerg and get a stomp off them, even if you don’t die in the process, they will simply rez and continue about their business.

In regards to turtling, you will find that boons and heals actually effect a maximum of 5 people. There is a lot of confusion based around this at present. Many GTAOE buff/heal rings operate on a pulse effect where they reward applications of boons and heals in progressive bursts over time. This has the effect of awarding the heals and boons to 5 people in each burst. this can have the overall effect of awarding them to more than 5 people but they have the overall efectiveness reduced.

If you want to see this work then i’d recommend looking at combo fields with blast finishes. I believe light fields grant retalliation. If you stack 5 people in a light field and blast with cluster bomb you can stack about 40 seconds of retalliation. put 10 people in the field and do the same thing you can stack only 20 seconds ish.

There are a few exceptions these are most notably physical barriers and other moves that offer reflection. Sanctuary, feedback would be good examples.

In terms of AOE damage if you see a turtled group and apply 5 rings of aoe from your 5 people on that group the total damage caused will be the same as if you administered your aoe to 5 seperate targets each all spread out. It simply doesn’t let you actively seek out the targets since the aoe is applied based on the proximity of the enemy to the center of the aoe.

In regards of being a thief and downed state. for one I don’t play a back stab spec I play agroup orientated shortbow aoe spec that has occasional uses in 1v1 1v2 … etc (but not against mesmers its terrible against mesmers).

The reason I like the downed mechanic is that its a mechanic that makes you think beyond just killing someone. I have to think he’s on 10% health but if I down him I can’t finish him so should I back off. or he’s in a downed state but i’m nearly dead so I should dps the other guy then he’ll down me and if he’s not smart i can then finish his friend rally and take him out. sure it doesn’t favor everyone or 1 v more situations but if anyone thinks they are worth their wait in salt in PvP it should be in overcoming these obstacles not in wanting them removed to simply make the job in hand easier.

I also profit from downed state being in an aoe spec, I often wrack up kills on the clueless guys rushing in to help someone bunching up nicely for some cluster bomb spam.

(I do agree it favors zergs though but the answer is adjust your group tactics we have and up to a certain point its comfortable to deal with x3 our number now)

Metalripper.5406:

mjharrison.3209:

aaron.4317:

Downed state is ridiculous for the side with larger numbers.

AE cap of 5 is ridiculous for the side with larger numbers.

The game’s basic mechanics already favors a zerg of casuals, the two mechanics above just make it silly.

This, exactly. Downed state (and rallying) has ruined so many of my 1vXs because my downed opponent rallies because a by-standing mob died, or like last night, i successfully manage to 1v2 2 guys to downed, but get downed myself seconds later from condition damage, then i proceed to get 2v1ed to defeated due to the 3 of us throwing rocks, which rallies both guys. It was a ridiculous end to an otherwise great fight where the 3 of us should have simply died.

Downed state is, without exaggeration, the stupidest and most annoying game mechanic i have ever experienced in 25 years of gaming. It is ruining the otherwise decent PVP in this game for me. It is my #1 hate in this game and i desperately hope it will be removed entirely from PVP zones, or at least rezzing made to break on any damage and no rallying.

I hear you. Enemies rally off monsters, and it’s absolutely infuriating.

Whilst I agree that the downed state majorly favors the larger force, the aoe cap actually favors smaller organised groups. The aoe cap is the best thing that arena net included for WvW. it is a great way of controlling and equalising aoe damage.

I do like downed state however it requires you to think a lot more especially when out numbered.

I run in a pretty well organised unit and whilst there are classes that we do stack more of or in some cases out right prefer, there is an upward limit where this won’t be as effective. We often have a few thieves with us but I have to say that without our guardians our effectiveness is reduced dramatically.

Not to say the idea isn’t good to run as a novelty but I’d suggest that when you go past a 5 man party running all of the same class is probably not going to be that beneficial. 5 man ninja capping thieves though is a definate win! also thieves as a defensive team for keeps is also very very nice 4 thieves + 1 guardian is the combo i’d go for though.

we took out a siege position at redvale with chaining 3 thieves stealth the other day with two other guys in our group worked really nicely.

bwillb.2165:

Jericho.4521:

I don’t like to gloat, but this nerf should have been seen a mile away by everyone. I’d also like to point out that there are plenty of other professions that were already pretty much bottom tier and received nerfs anyways going into release (cough necro, ele, ranger), so I really don’t think this will kill thieves to have to seek some new builds and slightly more complicated combos.

I’d like to point out that the Thief is one of those classes. In beta, thief was considered UNDERPOWERED. Thief has received no major buffs since then. The ONLY major difference in favor of thieves is the rendering bug.

the only thing underpowered about the thief in beta were the people using them. as you said they haven’t changed but in beta 2 I played a backstep spec and it was freaking ridiculous.

I’ll echo my earlier statement that a backstab from stealth that applies damage in this nature needs a tweak to how the attack is shown and declared before damage is caused. I am aware (one of the few it seems) that there are cues for backstab that allow you to dodge but these are clearly not enough at present. opposition players need a bit more to react too so that a backstab isn’t an invisible guaranteed source of damage.

I wouldn’t mind seeing a riposte style move, maybe a block and then a damage spike for blocking similar to the spear.

I misread your first point didn’t see the + change to the – with that being the case, I’d say that what you are doing here is mixing playstyles a bit too much. your getting a bit of pve bonus muddied in with the benefits of holding wvw objectives which is dangerous ground.

I would also say that if a sides holding lots of objectives the negative to that is that it is harder to defend all of them. it is an interesting idea but I don’t see why a side should be punished for being successful against equal opponents.

As to minimising score loss what we have done is minimise the score loss when we don’t have as big a presence in the lakes. we will then win prime time and into the start of the night by a greater margin than our minimised loss the other time meaning we win overall.

winning by not defending means that you gain a benefit by having less people online so by reducing your population to a more dedicated smaller team that team then has an advantage individual to individual over an opponent. whilst this would address some issues the fact remains that if server A brings 100 people and I only bring 50 unless my servers guys are twice as good then we should acknowledge we are at a disadvantage. the other server played the meta game better and beat us.

Any scoring system needs to be non biased on numbers and the lakes have a cap in place to stop it getting out of hand. as I’ve said above I agree there is an issue but its with the scoring system in place and successful populated servers (which mine isn’t one of them) shouldn’t be penalised for having organised themselves.

I’m a thief and I am for a means of adjusting the way burst damage is administered, the stealth burst nature of thief/rogue gameplay in mmo’s is a nightmare for balance, and I’d rather see the class developed further in other directions so that we have some limited burst but other tricks and tools to expand our playstyle.

whilst there are very simple ways of mitigating against backstab spec’d thieves the means of administering this large single target burst damage needs to be adjusted in its delivery. Whilst the skill already has both an audio and visual cue this needs to be a bit more obvious. I believe if the thief was to appear from stealth with a slower timed backstab animation it would give a slightly larger gap of time to block or react.

The backstab build needs to have a larger degree of risk involved in it. whilst many may believe it already does I would claim that if you are doing it right there is absolutely no risk in attempting a backstab burst. I have not played using this spec since the beta weekends and after realising that it was possible to administer attacks that were almost impossible to respond to for the average gamer I decided not to use it again.

any balance introduction to backstab or burst specs would however need to introduce a more well rounded way of using Pistols and improve flanking strike on sword dagger.

I always feel the problem here is down to a choice the individual can make. If they want to have more fun in WvW they have to decide wether to take wvw seriously or tolerate their current performance.

You simply can not enter a wvw environment and do whatever you want and hope to profit from it. If you are not getting the kills, enjoyment, gold, karma, realm points, that you want out of WvW you need to do something about how you play to get that fun and profit out of it.

I love wvw and play in a wvw focused guild, our guild makes a ton of gold from wvw each night, and we get a ton of kills and badges with minor repair bills. the reason for this is we acknowledge that we can’t have 25 members coming online with whatever gear builds and weapons they want and just running around aimlessly. We have WvW minimum requirement builds that have to be in place to synergise together. we have rules of engagement for the nights we play and we roll with set tactics that we discuss at length during our off time (at work etc) on our forums. Now this is a lot of effort and I think that GW2 does offer a lot to players that do not want to go this whole way, but to those in this post that want to enjoy WvW more and are not at present getting anything out of it, acknowledge that you will have to adopt to play a more focused system with your friends/guild in WvW to get the most out of it.

TL;DR The personal reward for this should be your enjoyment if you are not enjoying it then look at how you got about WvW and make some changes.

Ender.4256:

orb cant mouve. they are part of a castle.
cap 1 castle/orb = +5% power and +1% on pve bonus + more point
cap 2 castles/orbs = -5% power and +3% on pve bonus + more point
cap 3 castles/orbs = -10% power and +6% on pve bonus + more points

like that, you have to make choice : win lot of point but harder to defend, or be powerfull, but win less point.

The orb issue was that it made the winning realm more powerful. This still makes the realm in the lead more powerful which was not the objective of the orbs.

Ender.4256:

instead, perhaps do something like that :
600ppl connected : 200 ppl for every server : all is fine ^^ nothing change !

600 ppl connected :
250 ppl for server 1 = 41,6% of total population
250 ppl for server2 = 41,6% of total population
100 ppl for server3 = 16.8% of total population (yes my maths are not totaly true, but you get the point ^^)

so apply a boost (+ or -) based on that value to make low pop stronger, and high pop weaker.

Any system that is based on population % awarding benefits or defbuffs in power is a system that leads to defending by not defending. Quite simply the game has a WvW cap in place in terms of population. If your server does not fill that cap you are not bringing enough to the field it is your servers issue.

My server has limited night and day presence but we have sort ways of resolving this by minimising score loss which has worked very well. Whilst I agree that the system in place favors a 24 hour server far too heavily you can not introduce power adjustments to individuals based on who is or who is not playing on a server, it is just fraught with issues. The solution to making WvW less effected by population and timezone differences is to flatten the scoring system from accumulated keep points using some method.

I don’t know why they put the orbs inside keeps they should have just had an alter near each spawn so you have to go dangerously close to get it back but its not physically protected by Walls and gates.

I love the borderland maps, EB is all jam packed close together and it lends more to hiding behind arrow carts with everybody spamming 2 on their siege engines.

borderlands is where the open field combat comes into its own, you can truly push backwards and forwards across the field more and it has an impact.

I generally see EB as a place for the disorganised chaos (which is still awesomely fun) of WvW between more random players and borderlands as the place where tactics and coordination can truly be implemented and inferior forces can win against larger numbers.

I am 99% sure now that all support boons heals are capped at 5 and when they apply to more what you are seeing is a pulse effect reapplying to multiple people but degrading the strength or reapplications. I will check this tonight and post a video as frankly a lot of whats being said here isn’t true.

Noid.2871:

shouts and heals do not cap at 5 people example.

That isn’t proof. Does anyone have actual proof? Once?

1. Be a warrior.
2. Trait “Vigorous Shouts” (Grandmaster Tactics)
3. Stand in a Zerg/Orr event and shout something.
4. See your screen fill with green numbers.

Obviously that does not prove that people actually get healed. You’re free to argue it’s just a client-side display bug. But then you’re free to get a group of players to stand in the fire in the mists and write “x” in chat when they get healed (don’t forget to check out 6/6 soldier rune while you’re at it). And hey, it’s the mists, you don’t even need to be/know a lvl 60+ warrior for testing there.

Also, just to be clear, a lot of heals/buffs DO cap at 5. Of course, that’s irrelevant if you’re using the ones that don’t.

so the problem here is shouts aren’t capping?? if so then lets just start a list of buffs/heals that aren’t capping as intended. I’ll have a check on a warrior tonight to see if the effect is indeed similar to shadow refuges pulsing.

I seem to be missing something here, but when I play my heals and party buffs etc are all capped to 5 players that favor my party first then proximity second this also includes buffs awarded through combo fields, I have 100% tested this and can confrim this is how it works.

the exceptions are utility skills like sanctuary and wall of reflection that effect an area absolutely. you will find however that the heal effects for these do distribute to 5 people per pulse.

Where i believe most people are getting this misconception is through some of the pulsing aoe buffs. Shadow refuge traited with shadows embrace casts regen on party members.

If you have 10 people 20 people or 30 people in the shadows embrace it awards the same ammount of pulsed Regens each time its used. it does this by pulsing 5 applications at a time repeatedly. if you only have 5 people in the shadow refuge it will stack regen for longer duration. if you have 10 people it will put regen on 10 people but the duration will be stacked less. if you have 20 people I think it will only apply regen to probably 15 of them as I think it only does 3 pulses during its duration but i could be wrong about this.

Sky.9347:

Sifu.6527:

Turtling by itself isn’t game breaking. If a large group want to hold a position, let them. When you’re turtling, you are immobile and even with the 5 hit limit of aoe, you can still kill them with siege and assist.

However, when you combine this tactic with Mesmer portal, the seemingly immobile Zerg can move freely around faster than anyone while gaining benefits from culling issue.

In my opinion, they won’t do anything about Turtling but they may nerf portal. I’m assuming, since balance is cater around tpvp, they will limit it to 5 ppl per portal use.

I think nerfing portal would be a travesty.

Portal is quite possibly my favorite skill in the game – and I don’t even personally use it a lot. I really enjoy skills like Line of Warding and Portal, which have such limitless potential.

Restricting Portal to 5 people would suck.

So this whole Turtle thing. On one hand, I applaud the organizational skill and discipline it takes to pull this off. On the other hand, I think this very specific tactic is abusing a game mechanic and thus something needs to be done.

What’s the point of having the beautiful castles and landscapes to wage epic battles on, if everyone just stands on top of each other?

If this remains as effective as it is now, eventually all battles will become Turtle battles. I really think this would be bad for the game, in general.

With that being said – I absolutely think Turtling should have uses and should remain an effective option for specific situations.

So,TL;DR – Turtling is fine, Turtling being the #1 indisputable answer to all tactical (not strategic) decisions simply because it takes advantage of a game mechanic is not fine.

I agree, the only factor that blights portals is culling, with a fix for this you have back a fantastic utility essential to any group serious about WvW.

I love it when we’re sieging and a portal appears so we regroup and get prepared to drop aoe likes its hot as the opponents bundle through.

Steadfast.5827:

BabelFish.7234:

Capping the AoE boons/heals seems like a viable solution. Only 5 people should be effected just like AoE damage. This won’t effect PvE except for some major DE events like dragons and Cursed Shore (can’t speak for dragons but CS is mainly bots being obnoxious anyhow).

This is already in place.

I tried explaining this also but no one seemed to want to listen.

Azariah.8420:

Math is the same assuming aoe all targets someone not already targeted by aoe, which im not sure it does (could be wrong)

e.g 5 people on EB are hit by a rangers barrage, and 5 people in a BL a hit by a seperate rangers barrage, 10 people get hit However if 10 people get hit by 2 rangers barrages in EB it could work out like 6 people get hit once 2 people get hit twice and 2 people dont get hit at all. depends how the aoe behaves in regards to other friendly aoe and their mutual targets. Im not sure how that part works.

yeah it sort of does work like that its based on proximity and in the circumstances of pulsing conditions like chaos storm it will opt for targets without the current condition rather than buffing on top, when it runs out of fresh targets it will then stack (I am 99% sure this is how it works basing that it works the same as boon application).

The sum total damage though is the same in the situation that 10 people grouped get hit by 2 aoes when compared to two groups of 5 people getting hit by 2 aoe’s in seperate locations, there is no mathematical decrease in damage. their are some advantages such as sanctuary and wall of warding but there are disadvantages particularly from siege and again from wall of warding which could trap groups such as these. also when you stack its very hard to use combo fields effectively.

A weekly hall of heroes would be really nice with statues representing those that topped out in various categories, such as objectives capped, objectives defended. Not sure how I feel about wvw kills etc. I’d rather see any rewards focus around the objective based nature of WvW.

@Azariah,

ha ha no your not ranting its an interesting topic and your voicing a great opinion. its what forums are for. trust me there are people that just don’t know how to discuss things properly on here so its nice to chat out opinions properly like this.

I can see the two areas this topic is split into, organised guilds running close together because its a sensible formation for small 10-25 man guild groups and groups of players just standing on a commander icon to try and nullify the effects of aoe.

I would still vouch that realistically you still need the same amount of aoe to damage the same amount of players regardless of where they are standing the maths does not change in any respect, it only has an effect on the realisticness (definately not a word).

I’d also echo that siege would be the key device to mitigate against this.

Azariah.8420:

@kyus, it is true from a logic point of view, If a drop a giant boulder on 10 people standing under it in real life all 10 get hit by it, 5 dont magically not get hurt because the boulder has a cap. Yet if i stand 10 people under one ranger barrage 5 don’t get hit, even though they are standing in it and are physically no more protected than the 5 that do get hit. It does not make sense, at all.

you claim it is the organisational skills of whoever that makes the tactic valuable, whilst i will agree that an organised group will be MORE effective doing it, an unorganised group can still fair remarkably better in this formation that one not in it against aoe.

As i stated already i dont particualarly care if people do it, myself and my guild dont have issues breaking these things, i just think its stupid that it works as a method for mitigating aoe damage.

Hey Azariah,

I wasn’t particularly singling out your post as one that didn’t make logical sense in the terms of reality just in the terms of ingame mechanics. the only point from your above post that I’d like to point is your middle paragraph that kind of backs up what I’m saying.

“you claim it is the organisational skills of whoever that makes the tactic valuable, whilst i will agree that an organised group will be MORE effective doing it, an unorganised group can still fair remarkably better in this formation that one not in it against aoe.”

I would state that those “unorganised groups” that are grouping up together tightly are in a means organised because they are adopting a tactic built into the game mechanics. they are certainly more organised than the other unorganised groups not doing it and that even includes guilds with voice comms that are not considering the in game mechanics whilst forming up in WvW.

Azariah.8420:

The only issue i have with turtling is the fact that standing IN aoe protects people from it, it just flat out doesn’t make sense, “oh no a barrage of arrows quick everyone stand where they are hitting” :P

Well this isn’t true, and this is at the heart of the argument. AOE regardless of anything else hits 5 people. if you stack two aoe’s on the same location it has the capability of hitting 10 people. if you stack 4 then its 20 people.

The rule is a flat one AOE hits a maximum of 5 if a group of 25 people run bunched up you need 5 aoe’s effectively to hit them all. now some aoe’s tick and pulse which means that they will hit everyone but spread there damage out over all 25. the ones that do one direct hit will only hit 5.

Standing on the same spot does not change any of this its the same if your spread out or if you are bunched up. If you have 5 people standing in a star shape form one another or on the same spot it matters little.

What I think you’ll find is causing this effect to seem more powerful is the guild group forming up are focus firing their own AOE on clustered areas and picking you off whilst being able to maintain guild buffs and as I’ve said before this is tactics! the only solution is saying, “you organised wvw guilds right well I think you shouldn’t coordinate and should run around away from one another all doing your own thing so its fair against all of the other players that run around doing their own thing” and frankly thats just an absurd statement.

whilst I do detest backstab based stealthy thief/rogue builds in pvp as a whole. people need to register that there is both a visual and audio cue before the backstab happens. you can dodge and mitigate it totally. sure its not easy and when in a fight with someone else it can be kitten right impossible but there is a system in place to recognise when this type of attack is about to happen.

Also the AOE from 1 person can hit 5 people. so its not a scenario where you have 50 people trying to aoe a group but only 5 of them are getting hit. each person is hitting 5 people based on proximity or applying conditions to 5 people based again on proximity and who already has a debuff (if it works the same as boons). the reason there is a cap is so that 1 person can’t hit 50 people at a bottle neck. so whilst they are grouped up they are not avoiding aoe damage and there aoe also has the same restrictions.

The reason they are overcoming large forces is because they are both organised and moving around as a solid unit focusing targets and that they benefit from each others buffs constantly and can use other utilities such as walls of reflection and sanctuaries to a much greater effect.

If you want to fight people that are this organised you need to either become that well organised yourselves as frankly you can’t just spread out and all do your own thing in whatever spec with whatever weapon set and expect to overcome really good guilds playing well.

or you can use siege to good effect. cripples from arrow carts and knockdowns from trebs/catapults are fantastic devises to use against organised groups when your team isn’t as well equipped.

One more warning in that if you removed aoe caps you would find these same organised guilds completely and utterly destroying you for the simple reason that they are organised they are well equipped and they will evolve and benefit from whatever system is in place.

I don’t fully understand the whole argument of this topic. It seems counter intuitive. When I play with my guild we bunch up and move around as a tight knit unit so that we benefit from each others party buffs and focus our damage. It takes coordination practise and is a very good tactic to use against the disorganised or larger groups.

From what I can see it seems that the argument is, some guilds have become organised and are coordinating and this isn’t fair because when we are disorganised and all spread out they kill us.

Also there seems to be quite a bit of misinformation about boons and healing and how it applies to multiple people. I can’t vouch for all proffessions but boons apply to the closest 5 people prioritising those in your party. There are many pulsing abilities that apply to multiple people but what it doesn’t do is stack those abilities it will look for someone without that boon and apply it to them. For instance a shadowrefuge that awards regen will apply 1 stack of regen repeatedly to 5 people and will increase the duration as it reapplies. if you have 10 people in the refuge it will apply on its first pulse to 5 people then to a different 5 on its second pulse and then back to the first 5 again.

If you want to see this effect try using blast finishes to apply retaliation with a group of 5 then double the ammount of people to 10 you will see that you can’t provide the same duration for 10 people as you can with 5 by stacking retalliation out of a combo.

Also on the subject of AOE cap I would say remove it and face a whole world of hurt from organised groups and be in a situation where Keeps and other bottle necks are forced into a situation where the only way to take them is to treb / catapult as nothing else will be viable.

gamefreak.5673:

They need to fix everyone’s skills, get rid of traits that do nothing for class’s like necro jagged horror since most of us would rather just turn it off and another example is mesmer illusion trait to allow illusions do more damage. Illusions do no damage and the trait to make there clones do damage is just pointless to have. Other examples of traits like this need to be fixed before trying to balance class’s any further no matter how much it frustrates when i fight a thief. Class skills and traits need to be fixed.

I agree with you completely gamefreak, future updates should prioritise increasing weapon viability and pointless utility/traits to offer a greater range of playstyles.

elements of the thiefs weapon skills in particular could use some work. Pistols body shot and sword dagger flanking strike spring to mind.

I’d probably acknowledge that the thief is at present a strong class and look forward to trying to get a bit more out of it under the new settings. I have never got the objection to balancing (nerf is an awful word in most contexts) surely part and parcel of pvp is getting the most out of your class and having that made a bit more difficult comes with rewarding challenges.

Kontrolle.3514:

If you give a fk about any ladder in WvW, then you are doing it wrong and should play something else.

as blunt as this guy is he’s right. the top of the ladder is where the larger population is. but it has no bearing on doing well. treat every evenings gameplay like an individual competition look at your progress when your guild logs on and look at the state of the borderlands and eb when you log off. thats the competition.

To the Drakkar guys who valiantly played a seriously good defence of their orb at the alter in the north with a ton of siege last night. Well played that was some seriously fun WvW. I’ve really enjoyed the matchup against your server you guys always dig in with so much determination its been fantastic.

I appreciate being a German server you guys are unlikely to see this post but it was some seriously good fighting and it really made an excellent end to HoB’s WvW evening.

We did initially think that you may have hacked the orb out of the keep but based on how you guys have gone about wvw this matchup I fail to believe that you did this and it was clearly bugged out by rogue npc’s in our keep or cleverly via a mesmer.

So from one guy who really enjoyed fighting you guys last night a tip of my hat to you.

Stiv.1820:

Kyus.3812:

Stiv.1820:

The thing is, the more opponents you have around sure you do better dmg but you also increase the possibility that someone around has a root ability up. Getting rooted and focused is death. A few coordinated people will down you in the root even if you insta stealth.

If you want to do it safely you can slot it with haste, shadowstep and blinding powder and only do it when they are all up but now you are talking about using 3 skills to make the most out of an elite.

Does entangle work against dagger storm, I thought that stability would prevent this? if not then the root would be instantly destroyed anyway by my combined groups aoe or probably from a dagger storm hit.

in group vs group wvw dagger storm is very very potent in its present state. The problem with analysing how to beat dagger storm is it factors in a lot of maybes and nearly always doesn’t account for dagger storm being used by a group. coordinating their attack around it. Remember I use this skill I play a thief and it just feels at present like a magic “I win” button. I’m not complaining I like that its potent but I don’t feel like I should complain about other classes when I feel that certain elements of the one I play are out of balance too.

Any ability that roots you works as far as I know. I’ve been rooted and focused many times trying to DS a zerg. My favorite thing to do was to steal from a warrior and DS^Whirl back to back in a zerg but as our server has climbed the rankings this has become impossible. It all depends on who you are fighting.

Yes stacking organised thieves coordinated in voice chat is insanely powerful. No doubt about that.

I believe the root only works if you recieved it before you activate dagger storm if not then you are unrootable. I have certainly avoided numerous roots using dagger storm. one of the other factors that leads me to believe it is on the overly potent side of the elite skills is that for 8 seconds you gain a consistant source of damage stability and a means of protecting yourself from at least ranged opponents. this is enough time to restore cool downs on stealths, heals etc. so it also acts as a panic button. sure it can be countered as it should be but a shorter duration in my opinion would reduce the high upward potential of damage from it whilst leaving its core function the same.

Still ok to disagree and nice to chat it out with someone who doesn’t purely just want to say its fine because its on their class.

I still can’t see why the alters have to be inside keeps, can’t the orb be a more dynamic moving piece and still retain its current buffs. have alters near your spawn area’s to make them a difficult objective but not one that isn’t possible by a small group.

Stiv.1820:

The thing is, the more opponents you have around sure you do better dmg but you also increase the possibility that someone around has a root ability up. Getting rooted and focused is death. A few coordinated people will down you in the root even if you insta stealth.

If you want to do it safely you can slot it with haste, shadowstep and blinding powder and only do it when they are all up but now you are talking about using 3 skills to make the most out of an elite.

Does entangle work against dagger storm, I thought that stability would prevent this? if not then the root would be instantly destroyed anyway by my combined groups aoe or probably from a dagger storm hit.

in group vs group wvw dagger storm is very very potent in its present state. The problem with analysing how to beat dagger storm is it factors in a lot of maybes and nearly always doesn’t account for dagger storm being used by a group. coordinating their attack around it. Remember I use this skill I play a thief and it just feels at present like a magic “I win” button. I’m not complaining I like that its potent but I don’t feel like I should complain about other classes when I feel that certain elements of the one I play are out of balance too.

Whilst a lot of people in this thread have suggested that you don’t balance based purely on WvW I’d like to suggest that you don’t balance based purely on 1v1 either. Dagger storm is an elite suited to 3-4+ encounters. as you increase the number of opponents the potency of this ability increases dramatically. this is best felt in WvW.

there are many replies with how to deal with dagger storming thieves, but much of this applies to a situation where you are clearly able to detect a thief and single him out whilst dagger storming.

I use this ability a lot and frankly when used against large numbers of opponents it is amazingly destructive. it even has its uses in 3+ encounters or simply as a means of escape (though we have many better methods if they’re not on CD, you have inniative). there are also a few ways of protecting yourself during a dagger storm from melee that vary based on build/utility so its not quite the case of backstab and stomp.

I still believe that a small reduction in duration would equate this to the potential power of other elites and would have relatively little impact in other areas of the game.

Starfall.6425:

I enjoy every Piken post about ‘Piken dominating Abaddon always during primetime’. You guys didn’t dominate us always.. you dominated hald the time and the other half abaddon was leading during primetime too. Else we hand’t won with 100k points.

You guys are really strong on primetime, like i already said in this thread, and so it was mostly a back and forth with the points. During last week abaddon had a strong early-shift and we startet taking over all maps at around 7-9 i think. Afternoon you sometimes turned the maps and sometimes we could hold our ground.

If next week is going to be Abaddon – Piken – Gunnar it’s going to be really interesting!

~Starfall

Hi Starfall,

I wasn’t trying to inflame on the good members of AM that want to play competitively my grievance that week was the clear intentional logging during prime time rather than fighting. The lack of opposition during prime time hours was quite shocking to our guilds and hopefully should we meet in next weeks matchup the prime time combat will be hacking free and more competitive. I have no need in throwing +score numbers about just wanted to voice my concern that some of the members of your server weren’t doing the rest of you justice.

look forward to competitive competitions in the future.

Also from Piken Square,

we had a few issues with AM but not really hacking. It was a shame that during the matchups on prime time we were observing large guilds intentionally logging off and trying to wait for us to grow bored and log off during prime time.

we were observing guilds fighting getting wiped by us and then logging only to reappear on mass into the later night. Whilst I accept this is a completely valid tactic, it completely destroyed a week of competition. We are likely to fight abbadons mouth next week and we’d appreciate a contest this time around. Its not fair on the other AM players that stayed around trying to make a go of it during prime time.

so please if you were one of the AM guilds avoiding fights please come and support your realm next week against us during the prime time so we can have some more competitive wvw.

The sight will be back up soon he had a problem in the data center this weekend and is reloading the data to get the site back up.

This is simply not looking further than your nose.

I will agree that a few weapon skill abilities most notably body shot on pistol and flanking strike ws3 on sword daggers need addressing to enhance those sets. but we have excellent elite skills, steal is brilliant and can be as much as a free kill. we have a lot of viable traits and some good group utility in group stealths and heals. we have the best blast finisher in the game that can provide group healing. thrill of the crime is also a really nice group buff.

I notice you are posting largely from a pve perspective, I don’t have a huge ammount of dungeon experience but from that experience I can vouch that we bring constant high safe dps using a shortbow build. and again the blast finisher is very potent in a lot of situations.

I prefer borderlands, EB is too siege orientated. in the borderlands you can get good group on group combat out in the field not hiding behind a ton of arrow carts

Nice seeing another thief doing things differently +1 from me

@Rottaran,

using dagger storm I can probably hit upwards of 40-60,000 depending on timing, this would probably be on a keep defence. whilst doing this damage I have 8 seconds of stability I am fully mobile. Whilst I would agree that I am utilising a reflective ability well at a time where projectiles are unavoidable and the reason I can survive is because of my excellent guild mates buffing me and themselves it doesn’t change the facts of how extremely potent it is on a relatively short cooldown. We have a range of utility abilities some are intended to support solo play and smaller groups like thieves guild for example whilst Dagger Storm thrives in large groups and particularly in WvW. a duration reduction would leave the skill still in an excellent state to be used but would be a start in reducing its all out destructive capabilities.