Guild Wars 2

I am on Devona’s Rest in T7. My reasons

PLUSES
1. T7 right now is a fun bracket with even scoring- was a real nail biter last week, and I like my opponents. I like being beaten by skill rather than raw numbers.
2. No queues, except on EB during reset
3. No skill lag
4. Better tactics not based on zergball
5. Keeps, camps can and frequently do reach full upgrade
6. Your participation matters more
7. Smaller population coordinated on TS means you can be social while you WvW without commanders blowing a gasket because you are talking in TS
8. Taking keeps by smacking the door with the zergball instead of siege just doesn’t happen. We don’t have that many people to make any headway on a door. Supply is more of a factor.

Minuses
1. DR has no night crew, so GOM can just cap our stuff because our legendary bunnies make lousy defenders. Sure wish some of you Aussies would come on over to keep Duyyy company.
2. PVEers on WvW map for map completion can swell numbers with unskilled upscales that chase shinies and don’t listen to command. I think this might be a problem that all servers have though.

I go with Justine’s build. I take -20% recharge on glamour, and use Ether Feast, Null Field, Veil, Portal, Mass Invis. Will swap Time Warp if doing a golem rush. Will swap Null Field for Signet of Illusions of doing solo PvE.

I have crafted knights gear, and have used boon duration runes to keep swiftness up almost full time from focus.

I think the central value of mesmers in WvW is for the glamour tricks you bring to the the table. Portal bombing, mass invis, veil are huge. I prefer null field to feedback since I can strip conditions on me in a pinch, or I can strip boons from bunker builds and make them drop. Most don’t stand in pink bubbles and shoot you now, but they will stand in a null field to melee you.

While I could get my crit damage percent up there and have more power in a berserk set, the loss in toughness would mean I faceplant more often in WvW. Damage is not anything to write home about though. I think there are issues with phantasmal berserker (PB) that reduces its damage.

Greatsword is huge for downing cannons, pots of oil, and any improperly placed siege. You get a few PB’s up there and they spin through everything on the wall, downing siege fast. The 3 skill is useful to get things just past the edge you can not otherwise directly target. The 2 skill puts more decoys up there. PB’s on downed people spin through everyone around them trying to revive them.

Focus is important for speeding the entire group. Temporal curtain seems to have no limit to the number it can speed buff, unlike speed buff shouts. Temporal void lets you pull defenders off the wall, or pull people off cliffs to their doom. Focus 5 is Phantasmal Warden, which reflects projectiles. If you get one near your golem or siege, that can help.

When you start off with great sword, and they charge in, you flip to sword/focus and can evade channel big damage with sword 2, or root them with sword 3.

I used to have Dueling IV (cooldown on sword, spear with precision buff) instead of Dueling X (create clone on dodge), but the clone on dodge can pay for itself by saving your bacon.

Shatters are nothing to write home about, but you can still do it.

I used to also have Inspiration V (20% more health on phantasms) but the 20% reduction on glamours is far more important.

GOM and NSP continue to be good opponents.

GOM’s defense of their borderland was good this weekend, with solid turnout to make it hard to take much. Normally they were weak in the day, but not this weekend.

NSP had a really good counter camp team on their BL, arriving before the Supervisor died to roll our force. They got us in NW camp, SW camp x2-3. Started perimeter sweeping before taking camps because of that crew. Apologies to those on S wall for rolling them, but you were all NSP, and we were getting ambushed by you regularly.

Highlight for me was in NSP BL with a DDLG/VP force. We had SW tower. GOM was massed in ruins with cats, grinding down the walls of the tower. I took out 5-10 on a flank through lake to come in back side of ruins. When we emerged from the lake we saw SE tower being trebbed by NSP. Wall was 2 hits from going down, so our crew lined up and stormed in, getting lord down and holding in lords room as NSP crew came in. It was a hard fight but we held and capped. From there we portal bombed the GOM crew at the cats, and cut pressure there. NSP must have been mad because they rolled the paper doors on SE quickly after that.

It was a bit strange with squabbling with invaders in the enemies BL. For instance we got into it plenty with NSP on GOM’s BL, and we got into it with GOM on NSP’s BL.

Looking forward to more WvW this week.

I think the best thing about DR is when you log into TeamSpeak, everyone always greets you with a warm, personal “Welcome User!”

Best advice- go to the pinned post at the top of the page, try out a build in sPvP with the gearing there. You can test many different builds and find the one you like the best.

Why can’t that zerg build catapults out of AC range and pound the wall down? Is it the single neuron used by the entire zerg has been already burned in to stack on the door and build rams in AC fire?

Cameron,

I think the trend is for those who like zergs to go up-tier, and those who dislike zergs to go down-tier. You will not find 100 man zergs on DR. Our idea of epic is 30 people, and we call to arms for 20 hitting a keep. A 3 golem rush is a big deal. This is an alien landscape for many who play in the top tiers.

Keeps last. Upgrades persist through the night. We see camp upgrades actually happen.

You can find small action. There are some highly skilled roaming groups on this server that take on and defeat groups much larger than themselves.

The server is small enough where everyone can use the WvW TeamSpeak server.

I think the kind of WvW environment at DR appeals to a very different kind of player, and it is unlikely we will be swarmed by legions of people looking for zerg on zerg action in response to this video.

Our specific issue atm is night coverage. There is a hole there, and our foes exploit it. Sure would be nice if we could get a few good players to lead and anchor that time.

We do not want to charge up the tiers. We are having a blast.

44 min ago
NSP = 139.5K
DR = 138.7K
GOM = 137.6K

It is close and fun. I am in no hurry to go anywhere.

Agreed it would not eliminate coverage issue. But it would greatly reduce the window of the hole.

Disagree with segregation. All the PvE stuff is unchanged, so all of your friends on the server for that stay the same, and you participate with them as normal. Also in WvW, you would still be on with the same people you play with normally. The only difference is you would have your score more closely aligned with your hours of play. If you have a powerhouse day crew, and a non existent night crew, under the present system you will lose to anyone who can exploit that coverage gap. In a timeslot system, your powerhouse day crew would compete against other powerhouse day crews, while your non existent night crew would have a more fair match against other servers with weak night crews. The assumption here is people want to face similarly skilled opponents and not just lose on the basis of numbers.

In t7 now we have 3 very balanced servers. Two hours ago the score was
DR 136.3K, NSP 136.3K, GOM 134.4K. All 3 servers are having a blast and the people are energized. DR came from t6 and had a huge night coverage issue, and was outnumbered by DH in prime, and the games were not so even. NSP was here when SF was in last week, and SF was crushing the bracket with numbers. SF moved up, DR moved down and magic happens.

The thought was that sometimes the stars align in the present system and 3 servers truely get a good matchup. I think that would be much more frequent under a tiered timeslot system.

You need not fear for my family life. I do put them first. I do worry about others who pull 24hr or more shifts. I think if the game had timeslots, those hard breaks would help.

Some people on your server you may never see, as they are aligned with you, but play in the opposite time from you. I think better contests are to be had by pitting those who play together in the same time verses others in that time slot.

What if the WvW tiers were by timeslot? Divide the day into 2 or 3 timeslots-

2 timeslots: 12am-12pm=slot1, 12pm-12am slot 2
3 timeslots: 12pm-8am=slot 1, 8am-4pm=slot2, 4pm-12am=slot 3

Each server would have a rank per timeslot. So you might be #1 in timeslot1, but number 8 in timeslot 2.

If you were in a 2 timeslot server, at the end of timeslot 1’s time period, people get booted back to Lion’s Arch much as they do on server reset, and the borderlands and EB remain frozen in that configuration until the slot opens again. Reset would reset all time slots.

If you wanted to play more, you would log into the different matchup in the server’s other timeslot. Thus if you are really frustrated with one pairing, you might find another pairing more to your taste.

This would eliminate coverage issues on off hours, and give those servers who have good night teams a chance to square off against other servers with strong night teams.

Hard fought progress established during your day would not be lost to pvdoor at night from ninja crews while you sleep.

You could actually “stand down” and PvE or craft, or spend time with your family when the timeslot you prefer stood down.

Your server would not have to go out of their way to recruit night teams just to remain competitive.

What do you guys think? Would such an arrangement improve WvW?

The bubbly in the Charr hotubs is really as good as it looks too.

If AC range now approaches catapult, there is a big problem. I do not mind higher AC damage. I am so tired of big zergs pvdooring down keeps, and flipping conquests so fast none of the keeps have time to upgrade. In DAOC taking a keep was a big deal, but this game as it was before this patch had keeps and towers flipping easily.

Zergs are a problem in this game, and having the anti-personnel weapon, the AC, be effective against a zergball is good. You now have to break that zergball up into smaller pieces to avoid overlapping AC fire. You also can not now zerg down a door in no time flat.

But this range thing is a concern. The wiki says catapult range is 4000, ballista range is 3000, and AC range is 2500. Are these numbers up to date? If so a ballista and a catapult can go beyond AC range. If AC range is now 3000 or 4000, then that completely breaks the rock-paper-scissors arrangement between siege.

Golems and rams are now ninja weapons. Get in, use them before defenders can man the ACs. To pull off their use you will need to feint to draw defenders elsewhere and rapidly take with these.

My theory is an Anet guy was playing a flamethrower engineer, and got burnt to a crisp on retaliation.

Well hmm. If the waypoint becomes contested (crossed swords), but the keep does not, would not anyone looking at the map just now look to see if their WP is contested? I didn’t get on last night. Who played out there last night knows the answer here?

Here are the notes in case you haven’t read them

World vs. World

Updated confusion and retaliation effects to do the same damage as they do in sPvP.
Added a buff to display time remaining before siege weapons are destroyed from inactivity.
Siege sites are now destroyed 2 minutes after being placed if they receive no supply.
Increased arrow-cart damage:
Increased Fire damage by 80%.
Increased Fire Crippling Arrows damage by 17%.
Increased Fire Barbed Arrows damage by 60% and increased the Bleed duration to 15^^seconds.
The “under attack” notice at objectives now displays 30 seconds after it is first attacked. Does not affect waypoint usage.
Siege weapon blueprints are now account-bound instead of soulbound.
Killing a supply dolyak now awards 3 points to the team that lands the deathblow.
Righteous Indignation now ignores damage from all sources.
Players can now deploy siege sites on enemy walls.
Siege weapons can no longer be built in no-siege areas.
Increased radius of cannon basic shot from 240 to 360.
Lotus Poison (thief minor trait, 15 in Deadly Arts) no longer applies to a trebuchet’s poison shot.
Frost Spirit (ranger utility skill) no longer applies 10% damage buff to siege weapons.
Increased boon resistance of siege golems so players can’t apply swiftness to them with increased boon duration.
Picking up supply while holding more than current capacity (due to a capacity buff going away) no longer reduces the supply down to current capacity.
WvW dialogue will now reopen to the last

My take
- confusion: not sure how this will play out, may give more build diversity
-siege timer: like this, Anet still needs to reward those who garrison and refresh though
-siege sites destroyed: won’t drop plans without supply counts now, suppose it clears clutter, wish there was an easier way to get supply count
-ac fixes: goodbye pvdoor. Rams now are ninja weapons. Big question is can you get the door down before it contests in 30s and gets defenders. Expect to see more catapults and larger forces to take keeps
- contested: delay seems ok. Do not like waypoint working though- makes it super easy to rez on site, to get to site to defend, and eliminates tactics aimed at thwarting reinforcements by contesting waypoint keeps
-account bound blueprints: yay, now all my alts can dump them in my bank
-deathblow on yaks: pretty sure the sharing the yak ethic is going to be killed by this change for the worse
-righteous indig now immune: ok finally
-deploy siege sites: does this mean you can use enemy siege? Or does it mean you can build on the walls? unclear
-cant build siege in immune: ok finally
-radius on cannons: ok fine
-lotus poison, frost resistance, boon resistance: ok if we are not applying player buffs to siege, should not leg specialist be in here too?

On the commander subject, I have followed many a good commander over a cliff, or stood by guarding his flank as he autoran into a cliff wall for a few minutes. Everyone does this because in part of communications. Having to manually reply via whisper to people means you are not steering, and looking at that WvW map obscures your field of play. Anet could solve the map problem by having on its website an updating WvW map by tier so a commander could put that up on a 2nd monitor and avoid the over the cliff thing. People getting in TS would also help with the whispering.

I will have you know that DR counts on the bunnies and snow owls to hold the walls at night. Looks like they need a good stern talking-to.

I am a new commander and am learning the way by observing and emulating those around me who I know are good commanders. The most successful commanders are really very good at getting people working together on the same page and on the same objective. This is often very difficult, since communications are fragmented.

On DR we have a public server wide TeamSpeek channel and you can download the freeware to run it, and pay nothing to use it. We have guild channels set up in it, and channels set up for the various borderlands. You can log right in and know immediately what those commanders are trying to do in that BL or EB, and know where you can help the most. People from many different guilds join in and work together on TS. Yet in spite of this obvious value, many choose not to use TS.

I was able to get some pick up group members in TS last weekend, and even though they were brand new to WvW, we were able to coordinate and play cohesively as a unit via TS. We were outnumbered and evaded the defenders of the borderlands, and I showed them a lot of tricks in the span of an hour that had taken weeks to learn. We decided to try and sneak cap a tower by building catapults. It was going to take 2 catapults to take the tower faster than the defenders could respond, so we began by building one, then moving off to resupply. Along came a small group of PUGs from our own realm who did not know what we were attempting, and they started catapulting the wall without telling us. Before we could return with supply to build the second, they had taken the wall down and wiped on the Lords room, and the defenders were alerted, the catapults destroyed, and wall repaired. The PUGs then had the audacity to blame us for being off at a supply camp when the push started.

This is what frustrates many who command, this breakdown in communication. You have a few who are plugged in and on the same page, while others run off in random directions like a herd of cats. Good commanders are able to herd those cats well, and know when to hold up, and get that cat herd in shape without being suppressed for channel usage.

Clearly tactics and strategy matter, but until you have communications, sound strategy and tactics can fail miserably.

Thank you NSP and GOM for being skilled opponents. I have seen many intelligently run commands from you guys this weekend, and have enjoyed being beaten by skill rather than numbers or by coverage. It is a shame GOM has coordination issues resulting in golem wipes, but that seems that is more of an exception than a rule. SPCA/XOXO- nice open field play, I am not driving a PUG group over your way if I can avoid it in the future. I am in no hurry to leave this bracket as the WvW is so much better right now.

Glad to see T6 is working out for you guys. T7 is a really good fit for DR now. We have a coverage gap at night that can not be fixed until we get more transfers, and IoJ was flipping our map every night when we were in T6. We had a blast last weekend…score is really very even with all 3 hovering within 4% of each other. Had a 3 way battle for SM yesterday that went on for hours. NoQQ and Oink are actually having good matches against roaming groups on T7. From the looks of it, this last move was good for all 6 of the servers.

SF, note that IoJ and DH were doubling us plenty in the T6 bracket when we were in the 2 slot, and we just threw the points to go down to T7 in the end to get away from it and rebuild. You guys have the numbers to deal with it, but their night crew is hard to handle. It is a bit discouraging to groom a keep and get it fully upgraded to wake up and find it flipped in the morning night after night. In T7 keeps are lasting much longer which is a bit more satisfying .

I just want to extend my respect for IoJ commander Mini Me 3. He unerringly lead IoJ to our commanders on IoJBL, and on DRBL. When we toggled down on one force, and toggled up on a decoy force, he unerringly lead IoJ to that decoy force. It is that kind of command that is hard to find these days. I suppose this is what came from all of that behind doors thinking on IoJ command.

But beyond that natural ability to lead, Mini Me 3 shows uncanny dedication to WvW. For hours on end he sits there patiently at the waypoint in the IoJBL, or in our citadel in DRBL. He has nothing to do but auto attack his heal skill. How does he stand all of that tedium of just standing there, hour after hour? One can only admire his tolerance for boredom.

Hey Tuluum,

Not sure what you can really do without a commanders tag and TS/Ventrilo. Your playerbase has to seriously want something more to improve. Right now the mindless uncoordinated zerging is working, and there is no need to stretch. If you can simply throw more and more bodies at the enemy, and run back from spawn after you die for another try, why should you ever need advanced tactics?

You are in luck with respect to DR, which will fight DH (unlike IoJ). We have several commanders who have worked tactics to defeat superior numbers with mindless zerging. Our central problem though is we are stretched for coverage and can not be everywhere at once. If we can defeat superior numbers of you guys often enough so the average zergling starts wanting a different outcome, that may be the spark that encourages better WvW on DH.

It is only when those mindless zerging tactics fail that you will find people open to the idea of doing complex strategies. You then can work to build up coordinated WvW guilds.

The answer to your problem is probably something you wont like. You guys need to go up a tier and get the snot beaten out of you by better organized, equal sized servers. Or you will have to fight and push IoJ out of this bracket so someone else will come up that will give you a fight rather than a wave, and stretch your people with a (2+3) v. (1) fight. At that point your tactics will have to change, and your player base will be in a receptive state of learning.

You can see this sort of thing on the PvE side. You run an instance. You have a brilliant idea on how to EZmode the next boss. Nobody listens and bulls ahead with brute dumb tactics. Only when you wipe are they in a receptive state of learning. Failure is the motivator for better play.

With DH’s numbers the only thing that makes sense is for IoJ and DR to attack DH. When we do this and ignore the IoJ homeland, IoJ goes and stirs stuff up in our borderland. If we defend in numbers on our borderland, the DH zerg shows up there with IoJ helping them out. If we press in EB, IoJ ignores DH and goes for our towers and assets in EB, or attacks our borderland.

The night capping crew the previous night for IoJ took most of EB, and made a point of capping almost all of DR, and laying off DH. Even at night it is clear the favored target of IoJ is DR.

This unmistakeable pattern of laying off DH and going for DR by IoJ is why we say you play for 2nd. You play for second because you never really attack DH (1st place). We don’t really understand it. Did they buy you flowers? Did they whisper sweet nothings in your ear? Are you expecting a love child this spring? It is clear DH and IoJ love is in the air.

Our only real move here is to defend DRBL and push IoJBL. The only time that can end is when it is obvious IoJ and DH have had a love spat and start to fight each other for a change.

Had some fun this weekend. Missed out on reset though. Highlights:

- 3 man squad (Duyyy and Crixus/VP(sp?)) in DHBL for WvW in the 7am-10am time slot. At one point we built 3 golems and rushed and took bay with under 10 people. Managed to be pests keeping much of that map blue with small numbers. Took it a 2nd time with same small crew and treb from SW tower. Ran through busted walls, dropped inner, and came out to find a handful of IoJ past inner gate trying to down us for the cap. I am looking forward to more VP showing up, as they are really clever with small group ops.

-Had a lot of fun with Darkwolvess in EB at Durios off and on all weekend. That DH zerg out there is never ending. Managed to flank/pincher them a few times. The only thing that slowed that DH zerg down was massed siege.

-NE tower action Sun night in DHBL. Had all DDLG group practicing tactics and took down NE doors. Capped but DH zerged hard, knocked down paper doors. Fought a holding action on high bridge against many many (did I say many?) DH, when noQQ rolled up on DH for the victory just as we were going down in Lords Room.

-Hats off to the downed engineer near NW tower that pulled me to his corpse and blew me off the cliff for the win. Never saw that coming. Nice play.

The central differences between WvW and sPvP is in WvW you have supply, siege, and unequivalent level/gear, and zergs. Geared out 80s in full exotics have an edge over uplevels, but uplevels can still contribute. For me the siege and supply aspects are the largest differences, adding an overarcing strategy game of build and capture objectives to the tactical aspect one finds in sPvP. Zergs give an epic feel to an engagement, but it can also really dumb down play to levels that do not retain interest over time. If what you like best is challenging small scale action without level and gear imbalances, sPvP is where you need to go.

If the game does not grab you and you like PvE, you can still
- gear up in exotic end game gear via badges of honor
- complete your daily
- do jumping puzzles
- go for world completion
- contribute to the gathering and experience bonuses for winning WvW

I think a perfect WvW skill would be “salvage siege”. Apply this skill to improperly placed siege and generate a supply pile. Ranks in it would yield more supply. This would let people salvage rams for supply and build siege after capturing a tower/keep, and would let people learn from their mistakes without as much blowback from command. Of course this skill could be abused by a spy just wrecking siege, but one hopes Anet has ideas to stop that.

I have a couple of rangers I use for WvW.

1. Zerker gear/glass cannon/longbow/sb 30/30/10/0/0… have around 50-60% crit chance with around 80-90% crit damage, typically run spiders as pets. This ranger is good for piercing attacks through massed foes. Barrage from LB is the central weapon, useful against those on the walls, or those sieging walls, or in the middle of a pack to slow retreat. If there is any large scale action or keep taking/defense, this is the one I play. I use healing spring, RaO, muddy terrain, speed trinket, condition removal trinket. You must be aware of position at all times, evade and fall back in the face of a threat.

2. SB 20/20/0/0/30 magic finder build with wolves. I run around in MF gear and flip camps, kill sentries solo. I get my daily done on this while putting pressure on undefended camps etc. This guy is not very strong in any kind of 1 on 1 matchup. You can do a lot with a strong pet, sent it in, get aggro, pull it out, pet swap to dump adds, and take out one guy at a time. I went with piercing arrows and faster short bow attacks which allow you to line up several targets and bring them down at the same time.

I have heard of bunker builds (0/0/30/10/30) in which you run defensive gear and let your pet do the damage (typically cats), and you build for regeneration. Your damage is weak and limited to pet burst from jaguar, but you are hard to kill. My experience is they are bad for flipping camps as DPS is so low that someone will likely arrive before you finish. I would much rather run my guardian who in a strong altrusitic healing build with a hammer can put out DPS and survive.

I have heard trap builds are fine where you drag people into your traps, and you use entangle etc. I really hate giving up the run speed trinket, and I really hate not having the condition removal trinket, but I suppose you could dump both for more traps. Entangle is a real game changer at times; RaO means you can avoid CC and get away from bad situations.

I didn’t know Taco Bell had a swim through window.

Well it looks like reading comprehension eludes many on this board, so I will restate my points to Myyo in a way you can hopefully understand

Myro: “Its a game, if you have more players on at one time than others, So be it. Why complain about it?”

1. If you have enough numbers, you can bypass the siege aspect of the game, and just bang on the door. This dumbs down the game, making it boring.
2. If you have enough numbers, no amount of siege, tactics or strategy can hold them off as they keep coming. Pork Chop Hill example was there to drive home what it is like to get rolled by numbers.
3. If you exploit the zoom bug as some on this tier do, you reduce the fortification advantage to almost nothing and victory goes to pure numbers.
4. If you outnumber your opponent, you can start a 2 front war where they only have enough to defend 1 front and you win purely upon numbers.
5. When you have enough numbers, it tends to just degenerate into mob play, with everyone just following everyone else, and no real complexity to the game.
6. A single person killing 2 people of the 10 man group that rolls him gets the same WXP as that 10 man group gets rolling 2 people. This means that people with less skill get rewarded by this game for zerging.

Anyone can take a screenshot of times when they are outnumbered. There are plenty of times when our forces have prevailed against numbers. What gets tiring though is facing the same boring opponent strategy of flooding a zone with numbers until you lose by attrition.

manabevulkan.9527:

VERY GOOD JOB DR for Defending Etharion Hills had tons of fun…..even though we wiped, Wish we had such tenacious and very determined Defenders

I was in DH on my guardian following Darkwolvess flipping camps. We had decided to try hitting DH instead of IoJ to see if IoJ would get the cue to pound DH. The call came that both IoJ and DH were on our map. IoJ was at Bay, and DH at Hills. We were told to defend Bay first. I switched to my ranger, got to Bay and IoJ was through south outer with a treb up on the wall destroying inner (note there was no arrow cart against the wall destroying inner). Vars had a brilliant holding action on the bridge while we were trying to build a counter treb, but the 2 we built had no range on target. Had that treb been able to range, battle might have been different. IoJ surged into inner, and we fought hard with a sieged up lords room for quite some time before IoJ capped.

Was then told to go to Hills, where SE/DH was in force. Tried coming in through west gate and about got ganked by the DH crew on the other side. Managed to get in via S gate to see SE on outer wall laying down massive fire on our wall. Switched from my ranger to mezmer to help on sorties. Darkest who had been in TS doing homework? came on to lead. Around this time word came in that IoJ was now on Garrison. Command pulled some from Hills to defend Garrison, and we had to just hold for time for the Garrison crew to fight off IoJ. First portal bomb we did was countered by SE with a portal back at our gate entrance, and we got nailed hard. Second effort we did better getting up wall further. 3rd effort involving ballista was going well when DH broke through gate. We went into lords and watched SE portal bomb into massed siege fire..it was a bloody mess for DH. We pushed out and won the keep.

Overall I thought we did a really good job holding off the combined attacks of IoJ/DH. Wonder how DH would fare under a similar assault? Probably will not know because DR is pretty mad at IoJ now. Not sure why IoJ wants to squabble over 2nd or 3rd place when they could instead go for 1st or 2nd by attacking DH.

IoJ crossed swords at Bay DRBL at the same time DH crossed swords at Hills DRBL. Looks like we are the hot date at the prom this spring.

I think the more interesting alignment would be (DR+IoJ) pushing DH. IoJ and DR defend their own BLs, and stay out of the other’s BL. One (DR or IoJ) go offensive in EB, the other (IoJ or DR) go offensive in DHBL. This would give DH a first hand experience of having to deal with numbers on multiple fronts, which we experience every week. If DH can stand up to that, well they deserve their place. If they get rolled, well we can all say the only reason why they are 1st is numbers. I think (#2+#3) v. (#1) would be way more interesting than (#1+#3) v. (#2) as it has been.

/agree with Marcol. For us on DH, many times the question is which DH zerg we will try to throw back. Will it be the neverending perpetual DH swarm that resides in EB? Or will it be one of the zergs in the DRBL? If we pull all of our guys to beat down one swarm, the zergs in other places prevail. I suppose the way to resolve this is to timestamp map screenshots showing crossed swords and supplement with in game shots of who is at those swords. DH does get more out there into WvW than DR does. Both sides will be able to produce screenshots of being overwhelmed by numbers, but what is at issue here is numbers across all maps.

@ Tuluum- thanks for the civil discussion. See you out there.

@Acelerion- lol. Hear you. I started making knock knock jokes while manning the ram. The whole siege/supply aspect of this game is fun if you like the strategic aspect. It is sort of like HOMM, Empire or Civilization or any of the other strategy games in which competent use of resources wins campaigns. Siege becomes interesting for me when the enemy is cutting off your supply camps and your depot is near dry, and you have to think about where to put it to make it count. All of that subgame is out the window when someone can AC down your siege through walls with exploits. I don’t really see much point to WvW if the siege/supply aspect is bypassed, as structured PvP would then have more to offer. I really get highly annoyed when the extent of the DH strategy is to have the zerg autoattack the door…come on…no supply, no siege, just millions of people autoattacking a door. We can do better.

@Oozo- that link to girl drama is way too close to the stuff I get from my teenage daughter in RL. I play GW2 to get away from that. If I want more of that, all I have to do is go upstairs and tell her to clean her room, and watch the emo ramp up out of control. Loved your videos the other day btw.

Hey Diamanta,

Your detailed explanation on how to exploit will likely get your post banned. If Anet were to remove all walls from view while you manned a siege engine, then I think you could make a reasonable case that the intent of the game designer is for line of sight not to matter at all for siege engines. The reality though is those walls are there for most everyone except in the mode you describe, which makes it much more likely that you are looking at a bug and you are exploiting that bug for advantage.

There are a large number of people in gaming who think that because the game lets them do X, they should do X, and will continue to do X until they get banned or it gets patched. In GW2 getting banned means shelling out money for a new copy of the game, and Anet profits by doing so, so it might be in your self interest to act in a manner that will not get you banned.

@Tuluum

I get your point of it may be plausible that someone might legitimately place siege there. The thing about reporting though is if the situation is somewhat fishy, you report it. Anet may ignore the first, but after about 10 reports on the same person, well, they might take a closer look. Not reporting it does little to establish a record. I do not equate a report with a ban, I think of it more as establishing a record that may rise to the level of Anet investigation if reports continue.

The catas at the time of the exploit on Bay were in the spot next to the wall to the left of the gate on SE side. There were 3-4 catapults and an AC in that niche next to the wall. There was no LOS on the door from that point, and the arrows from that AC were on the far side of the wall. This was clear case exploit imo.

It did occur to me that if the primary concern was enemy siege having LOS on you, then one might think perhaps that was a good spot. But really anyone in that corner there would have only been able to rain arrows right down on their own catapults or perhaps further back into the zerg at the wall area. My ranger on the wall was able to land 3 barrages into that pack before I got yanked, so I do not really agree with the whole notion of drawing me out for a wall yank.

If the AC is on top of rams or catapults, people still will go to that spot even if the AC was down because that is where the siege is that is battering down the wall/door. The bait value of the AC is low because there is already bait there. A better strategy is to separate the AC from the ram/catapult because they must now decide whether they will try to burn down the ram/catapult while getting arrowed, or take out the AC first and let the rams/catapults pound a bit more.

There are people in T6 using the zoom exploit, and really I think you should just report it if it rises to the level of fishy. You don’t have to be certain it is an exploit. I know for instance one of our commanders got reported for what someone thought was a hack when it was in fact just a portal bomb. We all laughed at the report, and I don’t think anything came of it. Report it and let Anet sort it out.

Tuluum.9638:

Lepew.7890:

So if you see someone in your zerg build one there, take their name please and report. I will do the same if I see anyone on my side doing it.

I cant say I agree with that.

It is a valid placement, hacks not included. A leg specialist traited warrior with one arrow cart can essentially lock down movement in and out of the gate, as well as damage anyone who tries to repair the gate. It allows the siege to be placed directly near the mass of people, making it easier to defend, and it also takes advantage of LoS to the extent that it can even go unseen by the defenders (though it doesnt happen much). Beyond that, it also forces defenders to jump up on the lip of the wall to hit it, making it easier to pull them off and then be consequently locked down so they cant re-enter. Its efficacy in these regards is situational, but there are valid reasons to use such placement beyond hacks.

Tuluum, you do make some good points.
(1) When you are catapulting the wall, there are not a lot of people next to that wall. Most everyone else ranging the wall will be further back from the wall trying to get line of sight. So I disagree with the claim that there are many people next to the wall. You have those manning siege, and thats it.
(2) Lockdown in and out of the gate can be accomplished by an AC further back as well. In fact, putting it just beyond range 1500 will cut down on all fire from the wall, and those people trying to hit it with bows etc will still be hopping toward the edge to range it. This position also can legitimately see people on the wall, siege on the wall and target all of that.
(3) Once the AC fire starts, you better believe people will be looking for where that AC is. This is why we spot the exploits, as we are getting hit well inside the walls with AC fire and can not figure out how. The arcing direction of the AC points roughly to where it is.
(4) Stacking the siege all in the same spot makes it more vulnerable to destruction that does get through. An AC back from the wall but still within support fire range of your catapults does still achieve the same support function, but now the enemy must direct fire at 2 locations instead of one to take it down.

I do agree with the fact that if you are spamming AC fire on top of your catapults, then anyone who gets yanked into that has a hard time trying to get back in. But that can be done from beyond the wall as well. Overall I think it is a poor strategic placement for the reasons outlined above, and I think it is more of an indicator of exploit than it is an indicator of properly placed siege.

@skullmount- sarcasm noted. You are likely better than you let on. I still think WXP should go to good play, not to zerg action. Have you ever had a long drawn out fight with someone else, and realized at the end of it you get the same WXP for that as you would on a lvl1 uplevel chunking a single autoattack on a zerg target? Think Anet is making a huge mistake here rewarding zerging to avoid exclusion.

Every time I move my ranger close to a wall for a barrage, I can not place the ground target anywhere but on edge of the wall as my camera is pinned beneath the overhang. The fact that an arrow cart placed next to the wall can hit stuff on the far side of the wall is hard evidence that hacks are involved. While occasionally people do dumb things and build trebs instead of rams outside of the gate, that arrow cart placement is a pretty decent indicator that they were putting it someplace where it could not be seen, but they had some way of seeing from that position not available to others. So if you see someone in your zerg build one there, take their name please and report. I will do the same if I see anyone on my side doing it.

I have seen it used at Bay when you guys were in the sneaky spot on the SE side last weekend, and I have seen it used to clear inner siege at Garrison. Beyond that I have no personal experience with it. It is rather frustrating because our siege experts put a lot of time into placing siege, with overlapping fields of fire etc. It is a real science. But to have all of that thought and effort be mowed down by an exploit is discouraging.

The entire point of sieging a defensive fortification is it gives you a power multiplier, where every man on the wall is worth many outside. This is a clear and direct way an ordinary player can fight back against superior numbers. Using SAB removes this check on the zerg. While you personally may not be involved in that kind of behavior, all it takes is a few guys who do on a regular basis in key battles to really ruin the whole WvW experience. If you know who is doing this, report them please.

At Bay last night I saw no evidence of the hack. We harried your flank with a sortie, drawing you off piece by piece through arrow cart fire until your numbers were diminished to the point where we could push out and run you back to the outer wall. Had you employed the SAB trick there, it would have cleared our siege and made such a move impossible, and it would have just been a numbers game.

The sad fact is Anet puts fixing SAB exploits low on their to do list, below coming up with new gem store items and the like. It is easy to see why they would as it generates short term revenue at the expense of quality of WvW. The quality of WvW however is going to determine player longevity, and affect how many players keep playing in the end game long enough to make gem store purchases.

Even a simple fix of lifting all zoom restrictions until they could get around to solving the exploit would help, as it would put us on a level playing field with the exploiters at longer siege range.

I understand the point being made by Devon Carver. You do not want people complaining about late arrivals. The point is that a guy who tags a player with a single auto attack as 10 others pound on the same target gets the same WxP as the guy who has a brilliant 1 on 1 , and narrowly wins. For instance yesterday there was a great mezmer I ran into near the center isle who was mixing it up amid the krait and foiling many other players. That guy had skill and should be getting more WXP than a DH uplevel zergling who with 50 of his buddies mowed that mezmer down. The reward system of WXP as it stands positively reinforces the Pavlovian WXP dogs to zerg in large numbers. I like to see great skill reap great rewards, rather than great numbers reap great rewards.

I think everyone at some time or another has had the experience of being rolled by superior numbers. You kill 1, 2, 3, and they just keep coming until you get gang spiked by 5+. You can set up siege and use defenses to counter this, but if they are exploiting to remove that siege, the game once again is reduced to mindless numbers.

Last night in DRBL, there were crossed swords at Bay and Hills at the same time. In both places were DH zergs. At Bay it was a bunch of uplevels with low organization. At Hills there was more organization and less uplevels. Got about 5-10 tops into Hills before the DH zerg just rolled it down. At Bay there was better fighting, and we forced them out. We then rolled them back one keep at a time until we pushed Hills, and the legions of hell unleashed the entire swarm of DH to prevail there. I left the DRBL at about the time that zerg was pressing Garrison, so as to push in the DHBL, where we flipped several camps, and got part of that map blue.

I think what distinguishes (IoJ and DR) from (DH) is this ability of DH to field mind numbingly large multiple zergs that prevail upon numbers alone, and frequently exploit the zoom out bug to bypass siege. I have never seen IoJ exploit the zoom out bug in taking keeps. This is just DH.

If you run into equal numbers of DH, you wipe them. But like the zombies on Walking Dead, they start moaning, which draws other mindless zombies to the location to feed, and soon the area is swarming with an unbeatable mindless zerg that just keeps coming and coming no matter how much you kill them.

I think the cure for this is simple. At the time a kill takes place, count up players in a 3000 radius from the kill point. Add up the numbers on your side, add up the numbers on their side.

WXP = Z * (present WXP)

Z = (number of enemy players)/(number of your players)

So if 10 DH roll a single IoJ player, those 10 players have WXP for that kill divided by 10. If the IoJ player kills off 1 of the 10, he gets 10x WXP.

Over time good skill will rank up, while mindless zerging lags behind.

I am a bit troubled by large zergs that don’t even bother with rams and burn the door down with weapons. I play in the T6 bracket (DH, IoJ), and DH has enormous zergs that do this with regularity. I was in my first zerg large enough to do this last week on DR, and it made me mad. So many people on the door means you do not have to cap camps, nor are you restricted by supply in how quickly you can drop doors…all the strategy goes to the mindless zerg pounding the door.

I would like to see World XP be scaled by the zerg reduction factor, call it Z.

WXP = Z * (Old WXP)

Use a radius, say 3000. Count up all the enemy players, and count up all of your players.

Z = (Number of Enemy Players)/(Number of Your Players)

So lets say you get rolled by 10 players as you solo. If you kill one of them, you get 10x the WXP. Those 10 that kill you get 1/10th the xp.

Determine keep effective player counts. A camp has what, 5 guards? How many for a Keep? Use that for WXP, so soloing a camp is worth more than arriving via zerg to do it.

This means that 50 man zerg of uplevels running through WvW popping camps will not get as much WXP as before. All of those guys who are out there farming WXP will go in smaller groups, and if you get mowed down by the zerg, well you know they get little xp by doing it.

I wanted to tap the talent of this forum for advice on a WvW build that has portal, veil, time warp, and uses focus in one of the weapon sets. The guild needs me on my mesmer for those 3 abilities, and the focus is there for mobility for the whole crew.

I have been running a phantasm build with GS and sword/focus with Knight’s gear and it seems to work well. I have boon duration on my gear to maximize Time Warp and swiftness. Phantasms wreck siege fast and are nice on zergs.

Is there a build out there that works better with those requirements?

Say “cheese” DH

Oh a bonus one. When IoJ chased us off the cliff.

When the machine gun ran out of bullets at Bay (same fight Darkestshadows and Blue mentioned)

Solution: Auto loot to your inventory 10s after spawning a bag you did not yet pick up, if you are alive. Also put guild symbol on the corpse of the foe you killed.

This means you have to survive to loot, but you don’t have to quit WvWing to hunt for those bags that wedged into that crack over there on the hill you just jumped down. It also helps those people who like to brag about kills, because they can pan around, hit a screenshot, and post to the WvW forum here proof that your guild trashed a zerg. This is better than bags because it shows the guild who rolled them, and therefore has greater troll value on the forums.

WvW is the pretty little gem of GW2. I played WoW and Rift, and the sPvP of GW2 does not stand out significantly from that offered in those other MMOs. By contrast the large scale pvp in WoW sort of stinks, and in games like Rift you had to really go to a PvP server for open world to get a similar experience, with much more ganking and griefing. The strategic play of WvW in GW2 is on par with the best I have played to date (DAOC), and has potential to exceed that. A good strategy for a gaming company is to improve your standout area so as to maintain your lead and continue to drive off competition. Rather than try to make sPvP stand out from competitors, I think dev effort in WvW would achieve more lasting gains and draw more people into this game.

My specific feedback is do not get sucked into the nerf parade that happened in DAOC and other games, where the following process happens:

1. player complains about class X
2. devs nerf class X so everything is boring and balanced
3. class y now stands out as more poweful, and becomes class X. Proceed to step 1.

Over time all of the complaining and moaning from the player base for nerfs resulted in a boring gray mush of classes that were not fun to play in my mind.

Focus instead on making large scale strategic play more common. Right now this means making non zerg play more appealing. There are lots of things you can do like

-add refreshing siege to the daily
-add repairing walls/doors in WvW to the daily

This would directly reward those who do thankless but necessary tasks in WvW, and drag more people from the PvE side into the WvW side.

-make maps larger so a single zerg can not defend all

This will encourage sub division of the map and discourage stacking all players into a single zerg for defense.

As you define roaming to be solo yak/camps, I think thief. If things go bad, you stealth, go off, and restart.

When thief is roaming and the zerg happens by, thief can slip off. Thief also has a nice role of scouting locations and coming out alive. Scouts are not of much use if they get spotted and stomped.

While Ranger can take down camps easier, thief can slip off if things go badly or the enemy shows up.

The first rule of Fight Club is you don’t talk about Fight Club.

It was good times last night in DRBL. The DH zerg, after capping the IoJ map came to DR but found us vigorously defending. Most memorable for me was arriving to find DH zerging hills through the north gate. We skirmished between gates well until inner gate fell. Darkestshadows rallied us all in the Lords room, where it took 2 sorties to wipe the much larger DH zerg. We tried then to respond to the DH zerg at Bay, but had no supply and had to fight this time for the south gate of Hills (there were so many DH they hit both north and south end at same time). We wiped that, went to bay, took out the DH golem there. We got portal bombed from behind as we were engaging on the cliff, and cliff dove to rally down in the water. Sadly I got disconnected from GW2 at that point, but it was fun while it lasted.

Hats off to the fine command of our leaders on DR. It is a pleasure WvWing with you guys.

ps. most uplifting thing was spotting a lone thief from a minor guild repairing wall at Bay in the sneaky spot that had been damaged. /hatip

I really dislike an approach that seeks to reduce zerging in WvW by increasing the interface tedium in doing so.

I like how people brand new to WvW can spot a commander sigil, and find the action. This is inclusive, and generates new WvW players that replace those lost through attrition. Also commanders from smaller guilds can fill out a reasonable size group and take down towers etc by sigiling up. Disabling its present functionality would hurt the game.

I would like to see a 4 way toggle on a commander sigil: (1) overt, operates as it does now, everyone on your realm can see it; (2) squad only- any member of your squad can see you, but those outside of it can not, and (3) guild only, where only your guild can see it even if they are not in your squad, and (4) off. This would make the sigils more useful.

The better way to counter zerging is through map design. For instance a larger map in which a single zerg could not respond to defend the entire map would force realms to break up into smaller groups defending zones. Sure they can pick zerg, but they will be beaten by smaller, more nimble groups.