Guild Wars 2

ekleenex.1654:

I’m preparing my “Goodbye Dearest Kyle” letter, just in case we roll new servers tonight. You’ll forever have a special place in my heart.

Tit-for-tat, I will return the favor.

Thorson.9218:

Thank you for putting it up and to Kyle for taking the time and energy to put it together. I know doing this isn’t easy, but it’s certainly appreciated.

I’ve only been WvW’ing for a few months, so watching a coordinated group like this is extremely helpful in learning group tactics and synergies. Well done.

P.S. Excellent choice of music! :-)

You’re welcome! Glad you liked it, and in response, I have to say that I love your forum signature

I think I’m just about recovered from the editing burn-out that resulted from the nigh all-nighter for Dreams of Dreaming Bay, so hopefully I’ll have another production ready in the not-so-distant future for your viewing pleasure

Amins.3710:

Just a short vid on some of our, Good Fights, Small Group Tactics

Yes, Yes, we’re revealing some of our zerg bust’n moves…. but in all honesty, the more everyone improves, the more fun it is!! Truly.

I mean, at a 26.7% chance we’ll be matched up AGAIN… don’t we all want more “good fights”?

No pun intended…. well… maybe….

Thank you very much for posting this. It’s great to get an inside perspective at how everyone does their thing. Really eye-opening to see how wildly your class comp differs from what we typically run. Also, very nice job and organization on the stacking. Lots of food for thought…

T_T After I catch up on my sleep.

In the interest of credit where credit is due, Wala (i.e. Barristan) was driving, not me! We also have two other guys, Logish and Sammwitch, that do a really good job (they spent some time with ADQQBsty on DR) … alas, it’s a skill that I have yet to develop much talent for hehe :P

Snowreap.5174:

top 10 most likely matchups for EB at the end of the previous match:

Ehmry Bay
6.513540 Sea of Sorrows Crystal Desert
5.389920 Yak’s Bend Crystal Desert
5.021520 Borlis Pass Anvil Rock
4.852530 Sea of Sorrows Stormbluff Isle
4.473900 Borlis Pass Darkhaven
4.179510 Yak’s Bend Stormbluff Isle
4.039240 Kaineng Crystal Desert
3.203920 Kaineng Stormbluff Isle
2.974730 Yak’s Bend Sea of Sorrows
2.789050 Maguuma Crystal Desert

top 10 most likely matchups for EB right now:

Ehmry Bay
9.093890 Borlis Pass Anvil Rock
5.222290 Borlis Pass Darkhaven
4.115510 Yak’s Bend Crystal Desert
4.061870 Kaineng Crystal Desert
3.738830 Borlis Pass Sorrow’s Furnace
3.469150 Maguuma Crystal Desert
3.186380 Anvil Rock Darkhaven
3.166740 Kaineng Yak’s Bend
3.048550 Borlis Pass Isle of Janthir
2.936420 Sea of Sorrows Crystal Desert

-ken

I’m assuming you are expressing these as a percent?

Jinks.2057:

LAD Infinitum.1675:

… By the way, totally been calling since Monday that Anet will troll EBay by sticking you with us again this coming week. I name Tira as my witness!

I said this a when it was first announced

You win :P

Bearing in mind the decent chance that we will be together again in the future, I did want to take the chance to bid farewell to EBay. You guys have been a great catalyst for initiating change on our server, and have never failed to give good fights whenever we came looking. I wrote up a long farewell post like this for AR when we left T6 months ago, but will keep it short here and just say best of luck, and thanks for the fun!

… By the way, totally been calling since Monday that Anet will troll EBay by sticking you with us again this coming week. I name Tira as my witness!

Noice.8730:

Good game guys. Thanks for the Guild vs Guild fights [WFD], [Soul] and [War]

Right back at you, Noice and FTF!

EFWinters.5421:

Tetra Bug.7134:

If you join Borlis your enemies will one day be able to look at you and say, “Oh hey, free loot”

So it’s kind of like being in your guild then?

To be fair, I think EBay tends to view both AR and BP as loot bags in the current match-up. You guys are tough cookies, and I am eager to see what you can do against opponents more your caliber!

For my small part, I’ve been on BP from the beginning. Found my way into WvW as an unaffiliated roamer, and gradually wandered onto the community forum, which has since grown to nigh 700 registered users (including a nice sampling of participants from EBay and some AR). From there, my experience with the game really took off. I’ve hardly left WvW since (what’s this Southsun Cove I keep hearing so much about? :P)

Do we have our fair-share of trolls, drama queens, in-fighting, and spectacular failures? Of course. The victories and triumphs along the way wouldn’t be nearly as sweet without them. We’ve developed a rich and humorous server culture (complete with a secret Brolis Rock Plans and Phases Committee, worshippers of Moose, GOAT farms, Christmas bell concerts, a collection of comical Kalkz hashtags, and many others!) and an even richer assemblage of personalities (this parenthetical intentionally left blank) that makes us, at least to me, a unique and entertaining bunch. It keeps me coming back in the spare time I could be using on any of a variety of other things, anyway

Aside from the fact that this picture is legitimately meme-worthy, I think it also depicts a comical view of the commander / zerg situation in GW2 (it made me chuckle, and I hope you do too!).

KStudios.2850:

LAD Infinitum.1675:

Many thanks to Rekz for the GvG’s tonight. As anticipated, was a great, eye-opening experience. Also, many thanks to Tira for the post-match pointers! Super helpful

I always miss getting to see this kind of stuff… T.T

Worry not, you didn’t miss much beyond the usual (Rekz was very gracious in buying us round after round of dirt naps … I’d imagine their wallets would be empty if not for all the bags we reimbursed them with hehehe. I think we went ~10 rounds, and from what I could see got a grand total of 1 confirmed kill in the final round.

We’ve got a lot to work on, but I think with patience and practice we may one day get there. Certainly with Tira’s input, and many other of EBay’s friendlies, it’s been a huge help

Many thanks to Rekz for the GvG’s tonight. As anticipated, was a great, eye-opening experience. Also, many thanks to Tira for the post-match pointers! Super helpful

Is it weird that I often confuse the word infracted with infarcted? Please don’t get infarcted!

Faux Sheaux.6179:

I read that as “showing off my cute butt” for some reason. I honestly didn’t have a response until I corrected myself.

Made my day.

Expiatus.4210:

Dear ANET,
EBay is to OP, please nerf. I suggest the following skill changes for non-EBay players.

Skill 1: Mental Troll – Causes half of all EBay players in field of view to attack other EBay players. After efect wears off, the player finds the highest cliff and jumps off.
Skill 2: Uber Victory – Kill all EBay players in field of view.
Skill 3: Nuclear Alchemy – Detonate all EBay players in a specific BL. Causes burning and poison for 10 seconds then death.
Skill 4: Turns all EBay players in a battle ground into dolyak mounts. Any player can ride them but movement speed is reduced by 25%.
Skill 5: Sabotage – All EBay built siege units explode when used. Causes burning for 5 seconds, knock-back, blindness and periodontal disease.
Special skill 1: Salt in the Wound – When an EBay players is stomped a dumpster falls on their head.
Special skill 2: Mecha Kalkz – summon a platoon of player operated MadCats.

These changes will help bring balance to T5. Honest.

Thank you,

Expiatus

I wasn’t finding this all that funny, then I got to special skill 2 —> ROFL

What about Camelot Unchained?

Evilzara.6378:

And so far we’re on a huge streak for thread not being closed.

Zara makes a good point … EBay! AR! BP! Who among you is up to the challenge!

oZii.2864:

Rashagal.5867:

To those trying to destroy the truce between BP and AR by stating that AR “gains nothing” from it: perhaps you haven’t caught on to the notion that AR doesn’t really care about ratings

If this truly was the case that AR doesn’t really care then either AR or BP would just give their stuff away to their partners.

If you really don’t care and its about having us lose ratings and you don’t care about ratings. AR just give BP all of your keeps and your home bl. All you do is push Ehmry home Bl and if you lose stuff to BP don’t worry about it by combining your lands as one then you can triumph. This is of course as you say you don’t really care.

Vice versa BP gives all of their home bl to AR so that either BP or AR actually can come in first of course that means faster that darkhaven will catch up to either of you but that shouldn’t matter if you don’t care.

While it may not be explicitly stated, I believe it isn’t presumptuous of me to posit from numerous AR posts discussing the matter that they prioritize fun over rating. Whether or not one is playing for rating, one can’t just ignore PPT and give it all away to an ally. This lacks any long-term fun consideration.

1) AR would drop tier and end up with dissatisfying fights against a bunch of punching bags (a situation that may hit close to home for people on EBay, perhaps?).

2) Position defense, resource optimization, and waypoints are all integral parts of the strategy and fun of WvW, and would all be lost with the abandonment of camps, towers, and keeps.

3) From a “coming in first” prospective, which your argument drifts to at the end of your post, it is also unsound to allocate two BL’s to one server’s control. The coverage that would be required to hold that against the numbers and (more importantly) coordination of EBay is currently out of reach of either of our servers.

Ralathar.7236:

Hughie Wellington.2516:

are BP/AR teaming us? , well maybe they took a night off!

I’ll take a moment to brag about this guy. He’s dedicated and always looking after our borderlands. He also tends to watch and learn all sorts of sneaky stuffs. I have no doubt he had a hand in creating the current point spread (possibly with a side helping of rage).

But yeah, BP and AR have been looking pretty shabby compared to this weekend. I know yall can do better. Wassup guys? Yall burn out just because the event is over? I much preferred yall giving us all sorts of kitten.

As far as I can tell from the posts on our forum, the taking of BP BL (which took less than 10 minutes for all 3 keeps? … props on the excellent coordination, as usual) occurred in the early / mid-afternoon (depending on your time zone). I don’t want to get into the numbers game, but I can say for certain that I’m never on at that time.

To then hold that advantage into the evening is trivial for a server as well coordinated as EBay, even if we were to be throwing double numbers at you. Also, consider that a good portion of our population logs on, sees a double digit PPT, and goes to Southsun.

Reasons? Excuses? Semantics. I had a blast for the hour I was able to squeak into my schedule tonight, and though I’d certainly like to see our server performing better, on a micro-scale I couldn’t be happier. After finals are done this week, I’ll really be pushing for further improvement on the BP side

I do have a question though … do you (EBay) think that the current effort level that you are putting out is sustainable? I know that for a number of these weeks you’ve probably been playing with the “safety on,” lacking any real challenge. Is this a glimpse of your true power unfolded? If so, I’ll say what I’ve said before … if/when Glicko gets fixed, Tier 4:

PaLeRiDeR.5908:

You do make a good point……expect on the whole useage of lapdogs thing. If you are independent and focus on fights and BP calls you a lapdog, they lack the mental capacity to use the term (lapdog being the opposite of what I described above). But if you obey their commands for their benefit only then you are a lapdog. Thats what the term means, that you blindly obey. I for one out old fashioned pride would tell BP what they can do with themselves if they offered my an alliance, especially one that only gave any tangible gain to them. Oh wait, this did happen and all the commanders that were approached on this refused. If you guys are happy with the arrangement then so be it but we just dont see it in the same light as you.

Edit: Just be clear because I know I tend to be sarcastic here, this was an honest view point and I can not deny that we have been claiming bordem. You have made this a more interesting match up on the field.

Just for the record, I am the one that initially coined the use of the word “lapdog” in reference to AR. It was out of line and I have since retracted it. My issuance of that was born out of a confluence of very frustrating … Jimmy rustlings … at the time ;P

All of that being said, I can almost guarantee you that if AR loses rating this week, we (BP) will be the ones to lose it next week. We are so close in terms of ranking and performance that we have settled into a sort of oscillating equilibrium. From a mathematical standpoint, it’s kind of interesting that this emerges out of a system governed by Glicko.

But I digress. Words are wind, so call me a liar all you want, but if it were me in AR’s position, I’d stick with the loose alliance we have going. Rank be darned, it’s just so much more fun now

Kalkz.5297:

LAD Infinitum.1675:

Kalkz.5297:

llkoolaid.8204:

Kalkz.5297:

God I LOVED this Reply, it shuts down the terrible people who thinks themselves GODS. lmfao

Straegen.2938:

EBay has lost in T5 to BP. When their numbers don’t show up, EBay is beatable in this tier. They also talk a lot of smack for a server unable to dominate enough to move up and stay there.

Lets keep in mind both AR and BP moved UP from T6 while EBay are T4 rejects. I don’t like getting into the skill discussion but finding crap EBay players has never been a challenge. Ebay has some very good fighters it is just a shame that their mouths tend to make it difficult to praise them.

- a T4 d00d

p.s : Obama ftw

Ebay may be beatable in this tier, but you haven’t been able to do it for what 9 weeks now?

You’re right Kalkz, Straegen seems really mad in this post. And Obama ftl…

But we’re beating Ebay Bro.

-Borlis Rock

With all due respect, Kalkz, I think it is unfair to say that we are beating EBay. As Faux and others have mentioned, the picture is more complex than that. Based upon the screenshot from MOS that you attached, the conclusion we can make is that AR and BP are doing a better job of exceeding their expected performance with respect to our past weeks’ outcomes.

Great job to one and all. Unless I am mistaken, I think we are all generally having much more fun with the current match-up dynamic, and I hope it continues

With zero respect, 1 week ago i stayed away from ebay all the time and made peace with goldiy, didnt go for any of your keeps, didnt give u any troubles really, just to support your server to move up a tier & make them realize they are so bad comparing to tier 4.
BUT. What we gained off it ?
-ebay moves +9 ratings. 100 more to go … Cool
-ultimate trolling has been increased by ebay forum warriors by 200% (archer and predblah are ahead of them)
-my name has been mentioned in your forums from what i heard “a cowered” ?
-Not putting any efforts to move up a tier, u needed to burn yourselves with daily guilds rides since your pugs are terrible and the only good thing in your server is the Four guilds

So, i said .. Screw it. Time to do a call for Borlis Rock and make this tier a better & fun place for all 3 servers, you are NOT leaving this tier. None of us is leaving

In other words, Lets enjoy 2 more months of borlis rock vs ebay. Dont put hopes on Anet, trust me just dont

You do realize I play for BP, right?

EDIT: Thank you for the kind words, ekleenex, though I am only a small part of the movement to make our server great. There are countless others that also deserve recognition, and without whom we would be nowhere

Kalkz.5297:

llkoolaid.8204:

Kalkz.5297:

God I LOVED this Reply, it shuts down the terrible people who thinks themselves GODS. lmfao

Straegen.2938:

EBay has lost in T5 to BP. When their numbers don’t show up, EBay is beatable in this tier. They also talk a lot of smack for a server unable to dominate enough to move up and stay there.

Lets keep in mind both AR and BP moved UP from T6 while EBay are T4 rejects. I don’t like getting into the skill discussion but finding crap EBay players has never been a challenge. Ebay has some very good fighters it is just a shame that their mouths tend to make it difficult to praise them.

- a T4 d00d

p.s : Obama ftw

Ebay may be beatable in this tier, but you haven’t been able to do it for what 9 weeks now?

You’re right Kalkz, Straegen seems really mad in this post. And Obama ftl…

But we’re beating Ebay Bro.

-Borlis Rock

With all due respect, Kalkz, I think it is unfair to say that we are beating EBay. As Faux and others have mentioned, the picture is more complex than that. Based upon the screenshot from MOS that you attached, the conclusion we can make is that AR and BP are doing a better job of exceeding their expected performance with respect to our past weeks’ outcomes.

Great job to one and all. Unless I am mistaken, I think we are all generally having much more fun with the current match-up dynamic, and I hope it continues

Khayoss.2019:

Noice.8730:

Oh, and teamspeak is required before you can join any of the squads. =)

So that’s 3 of the ‘big 4’. There you go BP and AR, that’s your blueprint for coordination upgrades.

I know there is a lot of insults and trolling in this thread, and there seems to be quite a few ‘wow ebay is so disrespectful’ posts too. But I hope at least the guild leaders of both servers appreciate that we aren’t bad people and over the past few weeks we’ve opened the kimono a fair bit to you two to give you guys the tools you need to survive and best others who take this spot in T5 when we move on.

We have no ill will towards either of your servers, and it would be nice one day to look back at these matchups and know you guys became a more powerful server because of your experience with us, just as we look back to other key opponents that shaped how we play today.

Rest assured, your ongoing insistence on the efficacy of a server-wide commitment to one VoIP has not fallen on deaf ears. The previous attempt on Borlis to unite the server in one TS bogged down in a quagmire of petty drama, but the latest attempt headed up by Varlen/Deltona finally seems to be catching on. We’re all very excited to see where it takes us as we continue to promote usage.

And yes, I think most of us know that you EBay’ers are not bad people. All of my personal interactions with you have been nothing but a pleasure. Sometimes you can be a little rough around the edges on the forums, but every server has that

Ralathar.7236:

Agriope.4523:

Not everyone in Anvil Rock subscribes to this “alliance” bullkitten. Let’s not generalize, thanks.

Unfortunate for those Anvil Rockers. From what I’ve seen Ebay has the server population to make a very close match out of a 2 vs 1. When you infight we take advantage of it and exploit the openings and destroy both of you score wise.

If you want to continue having more success than “Run around with everyone we have and karma train” you’ll back the alliance. You don’t really have the manpower not to back it without being suicidal honestly. Neither side does vs Ehmry, we are a good bit larger than both of you.

Ralathar, I like you. Want to join Luzano and my friends network?

Evilzara.6378:

JaeKeun.5680:

Evilzara.6378:

llkoolaid.8204:

Dovgan.8605:

llkoolaid.8204:

Kodiack.2783:

llkoolaid.8204:

Kodiack.2783:

Ebay just reached a new level of low.

Posting a score of 695 ppt @ 3am.

Your the green server. You have the population of a T4 server, in T5. And your bragging about this @ 3am?

one word. Classless.

-K

hahahahaha

“a new level of low”

Just a few weeks ago you said that in t4 they paint another servers bl completely before bragging about it, but in t5 I guess the garri will do.

Now you’re crying about this…

Hypocritical…

@ 3am.

Ebay was in 2nd place PPT for the first 3 hours of reset. Once everyone starting gong to bed 11pm my time, ebay started to catch up.

Of course, did anyone post screenshots of that?

-K

I’m surprised no one from AR or BP posted a screen shot. You guys did a good job double teaming us in our bl. Of course AR forgot about their own bl. But hey, who cares about home when you can attack the number one server in the match up…

I think you are confusing forgot and don’t have the people. ARBL was running outmanned until AR forces moved off EBay BL. You don’t seem to understand, so I will explain. We can queue up one map on reset night, it was EBay BL last night. On rare occasions AR can queue up a BL and Eternal on a reset night. Of the three servers in this matchup AR has the overall lowest WvW population and coverage. That’s just how it is on AR. The tier below AR had an edge in population and coverage and BP had the edge on AR. I’m curious as to how many maps EBay had a queue on last night(the standard answer is “we only had a queue on our BL, we swears it.”)

On reset night. I would like to see AR or BP come close to that, on any night.

If you ask me, this is kinda close.

GJ you can wipe a T7/8 server.

GJ you can wipe two t6 servers. And we have lots of screenies of wiping Ebay, this is your first time wiping BP or AR.

Hey hey hey! I’d say we are pretty solidly T5 now ;P

Heck of a reset everyone! Just wanted to cut through any potential chest-thumping, brow-beating, and [body part]-[synonym-for-hitting] and give a hearty congratulations to everyone that participated.

Earlier in the evening, I was very proud of what BP and AR were able to accomplish on EBay BL. It was almost the spitting image of Testpig’s now infamous picture (too bad he wasn’t around to see it … did anyone get a screen?). Many thanks to AR for taking the fight to EBay with us, it sounds like they enjoyed it too.

To BP, I think that was the first time we held our garrison through midnight on reset night in a LONG time. Special thanks to the up-and-coming Jynx guild and Warmaster Gibbon for their diligence!

Despite all of that, though, EBay, you guys really stole the show. I went to bed at 12:30, so I guess I missed all the fireworks, but man, congrats. +695 is no mean feat even in the wee hours of the morning. I think we caught a glimpse of your guys’ true potential there … and at least in my estimation, Tier 4 should start bracing themselves (assuming Glicko ever lets you get there).

In the meantime, here’s to many more enjoyable fights! Nice job out there everyone, soldier on!

Expiatus.4210:

Sorenstam Blackrose.8425:

Expiatus.4210:

Pancakes…noobs all of you.
Pancake builds are one dimensional. You need spam traits to make them interesting!
Real pros run a 30/0/0/10/20 waffle build. Plenty of CC.

You run an upscale pancake build?

Yep. The belgium bunker.

Oh my goodness, I nearly just died laughing

Though we may have our differences on pancake traiting, I think we can all agree that a pancake in Carrion is just plain wrong. You should always spec at least a little toughness, otherwise they get too squishy.

PaLeRiDeR.5908:

ko killer.3692:

Archer.1658:

PaLeRiDeR.5908:

ko killer.3692:

I have a feeling Archer just stomped me in Eternal…

Please, don’t feed his ego any more. You dont have to deal with the guy in TS.

Too late………..

I’ll get you Archer

He’s actually a really good guy, if you know how to handle egomaniacs that is.

Agreed, I like Archer.

Oh, and great pic Brah

Luzano.6983:

LAD Infinitum.1675:

Hear that everyone! Party at EBay’s place, and everyone’s invited!

BYOZ

:D

Bring your own Zerg or Bring your own Zara?

I personally like BYOTT.

BRING YOUR OWN TESTPIG TACTICS.

Ps. I are a cyclist not a runner :[ SF sounds like a nice place to bike though.

- L

BYO Zerg is what I intended … I’d be afraid we would run into a shortage if it was BYO Zara

SF Bay Area has a huge cycling community, you would fit in just fine

Hear that everyone! Party at EBay’s place, and everyone’s invited!

BYOZ

:D

RyuDragnier.9476:

Faux Sheaux.6179:

Birdo.1768:

RyuDragnier.9476:

bradderzh.2378:

Kardiamond.6952:

I’m pretty sure those player that you picked up, will switch back to another server once they start losing. They prolly did that before Anvil Rock too.

This is wrong. The people I know that left the server (myself included) had been on anvil rock since account creation. You have lost dedicated wvw’ers that invested time and money into defence, yak escorting, trebing, upgrading etc… You know all those things roamers and normal puggeys don’t care about.

Call us traitors to the server, but never call us bandwagoners or fair weather players. The people you lost left because they care about wvw enough to leave their home to find a place that also cares enough not to think its fine to take back a borderland and leave it all paper to go zerging onto the next map for “Moar Wxp!!!!!!111one”.

…then why did you move to BP?

You aren’t from Brolis Rock so you would not understand…-.-
AR and BP or one in the same and love each other, we are one big happy family. Actually you could compare us to N and S Korea, yeah that’s probly the best way to put it

Who’s North and who’s South? :P

BP is North, and AR is South.

The kidding aside, again, why BP…hell, why even EB? I would understand if you left the tier, but why change servers in the same tier?

North/south is hard to tell, but one thing is for sure … EBay is the US ;P

Looks like somebody decided to rain on the BP PPT gravy train

I had the pleasure (?) of being the only BP witness at the epic struggle between Goat Wall and Richard Z Rahl this morning in front of EBay spawn and, later, behind the windmill. You guys were seriously wailing away on each other. I can at least say watching the first of the 15+ minute rounds was entertaining lol

Likewise, a shout out to Sev from Rekz, who humored me with a duel of our own while we waited. Lasted for some time until we, too, called it off in a draw. Was fun hanging with you guys this morning, thanks for the good time!

Hello Forum Community!

We’ve begun a guild on the Borlis Pass (US) server dedicated to coordinated group play in WvW. From fielding 2 man thief/mesmer squads all the way up to 20+ man zerg breakers, we are striving to build a community of active WvWers to maximize our fun AND our success / effectiveness on the battlefield.

Representation is not required, though we do hope that if we offer the kind of experience you enjoy that you may eventually become a regular rep. While we continue to try and build a core group, we’ll use the guild as a contact list for like-minded individuals looking for VoIP-organized group play.

If this sounds like something that interests you, feel free to get in touch with me in game or here for more information.

Thanks for your time!

Always,
Kyle Finnegan

Jinks.2057:

LAD Infinitum.1675:

Nak.8315:

Shadow Refuge is easily countered with a Fear. The problem is not everyone knows that or is willing to slot a fear over other utility skills.

I wouldn’t call the stealth the worse designed, the fact its not perma stealth is a step up. I just wish any type of ability short of a heal should break stealth. Can’t you use Short-bow and use Infiltrators Arrow escape while in stealth?

You can, but this is something you probably won’t see used much. Infiltrator’s Arrow costs a whopping 6 initiative (half of an un-traited thief’s initiative pool) for a marginal amount of movement. It is far wiser in just about every situation to conserve that initiative for use on skills that maintain stealth up-time.

That, and IA will cause blind on any foes near the destination, giving away location.

Inf arrow removes you from stealth

ShadowStep initial tele removes you from stealth

Setting up returns on your SS’s to use after stealthing is a tactic thieves been using since the game came out.

While I am not sure about IA (I don’t use it due to said initiative cost), last I checked the exit from stealth for Shadowstep was only a client side rendering bug. If you watch your boon bar, you’ll still have stealth and enemies won’t be able to see you, even though on your screen you appear de-stealthed. At least that’s how it used to be…

Nak.8315:

Shadow Refuge is easily countered with a Fear. The problem is not everyone knows that or is willing to slot a fear over other utility skills.

I wouldn’t call the stealth the worse designed, the fact its not perma stealth is a step up. I just wish any type of ability short of a heal should break stealth. Can’t you use Short-bow and use Infiltrators Arrow escape while in stealth?

You can, but this is something you probably won’t see used much. Infiltrator’s Arrow costs a whopping 6 initiative (half of an un-traited thief’s initiative pool) for a marginal amount of movement. It is far wiser in just about every situation to conserve that initiative for use on skills that maintain stealth up-time.

That, and IA will cause blind on any foes near the destination, giving away location.

And, importantly, did you stand and look for more than 10 seconds? Keep in mind, if you just missed a thief with 15+ points in Shadow Arts using Shadow Refuge, they’ll have ~12 seconds of stealth stacked where there will be no visible or audible indications of their presence (aside from triggering hostile traps, auto-attack animations, possibly pulsing blinds if they have Cloaked in Shadow traited, etc.). If they also have blinding powder, tack another 4 seconds onto that. For their mesmer friend, this will total to about 12 seconds.

This means, at any given time, if you just breeze through an area and spend no more than 5 seconds there, there will be NO way of knowing they are there. Hence, you need to spend 15+ seconds in any given area.

All of that being said, unless you have many thieves working in tandem, there is guaranteed to be some indicator of their presence (both visible and audible) when they must next use a skill to maintain their stealth stacks. Ironically enough, I just made a video yesterday featuring Xeviel [GF] showing a good portion of the most important of these indicators:

I continue to find to this day that thieves, along with their stealth mechanics, remain very poorly understood by the general GW2 populace, which is what often gives the impression that they are so OP and/or exploiting. Counter to this, I’d argue that if you know what to look/listen for (see video, above, for a start) and stay actively aware of your surroundings (constantly scanning and utilizing both sight AND sound), sweeping (and trying to stay hidden) can become a tremendously engaging and fun game of cat and mouse. I know I enjoy it, anyway, and have stolen my fair share of a tower or two in some epic “Cloak and Dagger” affairs.

Rashagal.5867:

Kronos Zek.9715:

Maybe if you pay me enough gold I can start training your players how to play. 5g per person per lesson, 1000g to get all of CHAR transfered too.

^Pay attention AR^.

1000g and AR can ship [CHAR] off to troll any server we want! Forget siege capping and teamspeak spying, THIS will be the new meta!

Congrats on the CO tag! You earned it in a way that they should be earned, and I commend you.

Also, the above-quoted post made my afternoon.

ChapDev.7650:

So I did this tactic earlier and it made me consider a question, anyone able to answer it would be great.

Essentially I did a Shadow Step to get behind Borlis Pass in their Garrison(Ehmry Held) on the outer wall, Went stealth and dropped a [Smoke Screen] for the Smoke field combo and then opened a Dagger storm in the middle of the Smoke field to cause Blinding Bolts.

Now what I was wondering as Dagger storm has a bounce from target thing going on in that scenario does the Blind from the combo-field also carry over to the ricochet daggers, if so I found my new favorite thing. If not ah well.

As far as I know, the generation of blinding bolts is separate from the actual dagger attack (and thus won’t bounce). Even if it isn’t, the combo field effect should still only apply to first struck character. But even then, daggerstorm with smoke, poison, or ethereal field can be a real killer.

Missed 1.5 hours at start, got to get on for some great fights in BP BL, that I hope EBay enjoyed too. Even though you had (and still have at the time of my logging) us on the back foot, all of our peeps were having a great time. Looking forward to more of it throughout the week

llkoolaid.8204:

14 pages! The Mods have won…

See, everyone was maligning BP for the posts about the zoom hacks … we were just trying to do our share in the thread closure struggle. It would appear, though, that even at that we fail. I’ll go back to my dumpster now … T_T

But seriously, a whole week without the thread being closed! I am impressed/proud/disappointed!

Faux Sheaux.6179:

ekleenex.1654:

That’ll do pig, that’ll do.

/drops mic

I’ve been waiting for someone to Trotsky that one out…

Errr … I mean …

What!!?! You’z from ErBay?? I’s hate your guts go double team us with AR more!!#$@ And just rollz over us with your no-skill zerg 3x our size (even though we have a queue)!!!

(Kidding … a little self-deprecating server humor to lighten this gloomy thread up a bit. Please don’t take me seriously!)

Luzano.6983:

Great post. Can we be BFFs in game and IRL?

That you should feel the need to ask flatters me greatly; of course we can!

Do you enjoy running? That’s what I do with most of my non-GW2 downtime, so if you do, we could train together IRL!

… assuming you live in the San Francisco bay area, that is. Remote running relationships are difficult to maintain ;P

But don’t feel you have to! And I’m not saying that in the sense of “take it easy on us.” I personally would like to see EBay stick around for a few more weeks. I realize it’s kind of selfish of me to say that, since EBay is bored with this matchup and many from my own server seem to want them gone, but I feel there are still a lot of lessons we can learn that we won’t really get from Crystal Desert if they are the ones that drop. No offense intended to CD, but as I understand it, they would provide “lessons” in coverage, whereas EBay provides lessons in organization and skill … unless CD has groups on par with Rekz / GF / FTF / GH / etc. … anyone know?

Skill, and the motivation to work together and acquire it, is the thing I feel BP needs most right now to grow as a server, and I think we stand the greatest chance of gaining that when matched with EBay.

llkoolaid.8204:

Look I found a walabone!

You didn’t just find a Walabone, you also found a Thanatos! Thanks again for coming to the rally, I could barely organize things I was cracking up so hard with a herd of yaks running around

EDIT: I just read the chat: “Stack on Walabone, he hates that.” lol!

BlueprintLFE.2358:

onagasup.3701:

llkoolaid.8204:

Sanctus.3725:

Dear Ehmry Bay,

Greetings from the guild Exiles Edge [EDGE] from Borlis Pass
You may have heard of us, you may not, and it matters not. I come here to address troubling rumours and whispers I hear in the air. I have heard that Ehmry Bay relies on numbers and not skill, I have heard that Ehmry has much hate agaisnt us from the Pass, and that Ehmry looks down upon Borlis from time to time….

I sincerely hope these rumours arent true, and that Ehmry Bay is not a bunch of zerg minded individuals, I stand agaisnt the Borlis perception of Ehmry, and I must prove that Ehmry is home to as skillful soilders and heroes as Borlis has.

Our guild EDGE, will be venturing into your fabled homeland in WvW from this week onwards, on the hunt for Ehmry flesh, We will be stalking your forces and will KILL any Ehmry we deem fit to stand against us, I wish to disprove the rumours that you need to outnumber us 2 to 1 to kill us, for if our numbers are around equal in a fight, you can never defeat a borlis….please prove this wrong, for I had already sent a hunting party into Ehmry so far, and the rumours appear true….4 of us fighting off 6 of Ehmries proved too difficult for you…

There will be plenty of time for you to prove your skill, and we will be watching….waiting…and hunting…bring your best skill groups when you see the tag EDGE, we will be waiting…of course we welcome the wipe out from your zerg if you deem if a must to kill us by outnumbering us by the droves….

We will be waiting for you….you will either learn to fear us, or learn to respect us…I sincerely hope it will be the latter….

More specifically to Rekz, I have long heard you have developed a skill group for WvW, and I am very very eager to see you on the field, I have long for battle with your guild on equal terms but it seems the other Borlis Guilds such as WAR and WFD have already slaughtered your guild a few times, or so I have heard….come let us test our mantle…

Be wary of us EDGEs on your field Ehmry….we will hunt you…defend yourselves….

Arch [EDGE]
Founder and Marshall of Exiles EDGE

ha, What a joke…. I guess you deemed that lone up lvl to go against your 8 or so…

Its Not A Joke. We will hunt u down One by One.
Here are some of your Fellow member getting slaughter By Us.
So Watch your backs.

Lol this is great. I needed that laugh at work. What do you guys think your gods gift to WVW?! Sweet screen shots, you outnumber every one you fight in those pics. IN FACT I would be embarrassed to post those pics saying that I was a good player or group because of that.

I wrecked a bunch of EDGE members the other day, Your guys inflated ego is hilarious. You will never get anyone’s respect talking trash and saying you are good the. Posting laughable pictures of you outnumbering the people you kill. COME ON now, that’s just common sense

Whoa whoa whoa! I think it was said that EDGE will hunt you down ONE BY ONE. From the looks of the screens, looks like all is working as intended.

(I’m not trying to troll or prolong the flame-fest, this just struck me as a really funny instance of unintended forum humor resulting from an ironic confluence of word choice and screenshots).

:-)

Rashagal.5867:

I’ll +1 to anyone that actually read that novel I just wrote… Jeebus I can’t wait to log back on. I’m so bored right now.

I read all of both of your posts

I am sorry about the lap-dog comment, that was uncalled for, but there is no denying that we (BP) have been focused by EBay recently. EBay admits it, people from AR admit it, I mean just look at the maps during reset last night! ALL of BP BL was green, and I only occasionally saw a camp or tower flip green in AR. You can argue that AR are the better defenders if you want (they probably are) … but so much better that they can keep from losing anything substantial when faced with the same odds that we do day in and day out? I think not. BP and AR haven’t changed that much in the 2-3 weeks we were apart in T5/T6.

Archer.1658:

LAD Infinitum.1675:

Archer.1658:

Stone.6751:

Kioso.4819:

Okay, seriously. The moderators what some constructive conversations in these threads. But we can’t play nice soo.. lets just not have a thread this week, or any in the foreseeable future. Everyone gets it. We all hate each other. Lets take that hate to the field, not behind walls of text.

After logging in and reading what’s become of this thread already tonight, I couldn’t agree with you more. Sadly it really seems to be a handful of really annoying people who ruin it for everyone else and the more reasonable people who just want to have fun are sick of these weekly threads being dominated by negativity.

Its one thing to have a little trakittenalking to hype up competition when its done in good fun, and its another thing to be a sore-loser or an arrogant winner. I guess this is why the threads keep getting locked , which looks likely to continue until some of the repeat offenders are muted.

I found a carebear! These creatures are indigenous to being bad, but nice because of it, they are what you call khao, which is soft white rice in lukewarm water. It has no taste. Befitted to small babies and very old people. It is nourishment that everyone can digest. The world needs khao, just as the world needs people like carebears.

Actually, I feel the same way as Stone does, and when I dueled you on your mesmer (3 weeks ago?) it was 3-1-1 in favor of yours’ truly (and the draw only because I was experimenting with S/D). Being from BP, this thread leads me to believe I am inherently bad … so what does that make you? ;P

Yes you did best me. No excuses.

I am very impressed that you admit this, and want to apologize to everyone for my sudden burst of troll-y posts that came out this morning. I’ve been very frustrated by the glacial rate of improvement on our server, and the fact that, because of it, our stay in this tier is currently not under our control (and because of this everyone seems to conclude our server is “bad”).

I was overcome by Jimmy rustling, I will try to hold my peace better in the future

Alibis.4079:

Completely off topic but, has anyone seen our resident ram builder lately? He seems to have finally vanished. At least, I haven’t seen him or his rams in a few days. Just curious if he’s missing from BP too. Maybe anet finally got rid of him.

I haven’t seen him up to anything destructive on BP recently, however I did see him logged in and listed as in WvW (I have him friended to keep track of him) … so I don’t think he’s gone.