Guild Wars 2

etiolate.9185:

I find it telling that SBI has had an increase in participation since dropping down to a more ‘livable’ bracket. I would conclude that more people play if they feel they have a chance to win or do something of any meaning.

If ANet just removed the score and allowed the map situation to dictate interest then it could help overall participation.

I don’t think it’s the score that’s brought anyone back. It’s the fact that we’re not being camped at our portals most likely. Very few people want to step out into the WvW zone and instantly be targeted by siege equipment.

Does the “D” in DR stand for “delusional”?

Oozo.7856:

Bannok.3152:

Zerg? I hope your not from DR claiming zerg? I

Just because 30 of you get wiped it doesn’t mean that equal numbers or more did it to you. And, yes – compared to other servers I’ve fought SBI is a zerg server.

I think this Oozo guy is a bot, he says the same things over and over

Creepy Silent.9801:

Looks like your fair weather WvW’ers are finally coming out. It’s pretty evident too, on reset night you guys had seemingly very low numbers, and now we are outmanned in almost every situation.

Yeah we were outmanned at reset last week (just like the 6-8 weeks prior) and through most of primetime. Same thing on Saturday. Lately I’ve seen a few more people out there each night but DR can still field a sizable force (I’m generally in EB). We had a few fights where our main force was outnumbered last night around Pangloss.

I think DR has the ability to field competitive numbers in primetime. There are some good fights to be had out there. None of us are going anywhere for awhile so the scoreboard literally doesn’t mean anything. I’m not going to tell DR and IoJ that we know how they feel because we’ve been hearing that kitten for months from the other servers who were zerging the hell out of us at the time. No one wants to hear that. Just get your guys together and continue to fight and we’ll all have fun. I’m fairly certain none of us among these three servers has any illusions of advancing in the tiers. We’ve got all we need right here.

As for the point Gravy is making, I agree. Where the hell were you guys the last few weeks? A few weeks back there were plenty of times we couldn’t even get a breakout event going in EB because we didn’t have 10 people in the zone. As recently as two weeks ago we were being camped in every WvW zone, including our own. Actually getting to use the portal in our keep in EB is a luxury we’re simply not accustomed to. It’s really odd…

SpaceCowboy.1398:

I basically want a ranged build (no pets) that has good survivability and offers real benefits for the team. I also wouldn’t mind being able to roam occassionaly and not be a free kill.

Any thoughts? Thanks!

If this is what you truly want you should stick with your thief. Go dagger/dagger (or sword/dagger for aoe fun) and shortbow. The thief shortbow is probably the best weapon in the game:

1 – spammable aoe attack
2 – clusterbomb, 1200 range blast finisher with bleeds
3 – evasion off of a cc attack (cripple)
4 – poison cloud attack that doesn’t break stealth
5 – infiltrator’s arrow, maybe the fastest form of long distance movement in the game

If your thief is too squishy you need to dodge more. Damage avoidance is better than any armor in the game. Position is very important as well, check your angles before you start spamming clusterbomb.

Group utility is there too. Of course there’s shadow refuge, clusterbomb for clearing tower walls, poison cloud and clusterbomb for combos, you’re also the perfect scout due to extreme mobility/stealth and you do ridiculous aoe and single target dps. Not to mention having the ability to guarantee an initial stomp on any class except guardians.

Grab shadowstep, signet of shadows and shadow refuge and your mobility spikes even higher, especially if you learn to steal defensively. Add in an aoe cripple from your daggers and I’m not sure what else a group could ask for.

Brando.1374:

Thief

SB #2 & #4
Dagger storm

watch bags come in

What he said

Equip Hammer
Swing Hammer a few times
Stand in circle

CrassBippy.4619:

OldRodKS.9758:

I have just over 5000 kills in WvW so far and I have gotten ~350 badges total in all that time.

Sadly, the best way to get badges of “Honor” is by doing jumping puzzles

How is this possible? I have about 8k and over 1300 badges….

Yeah that seems odd, I average a badge every 4-5 kills

ps – you also get 10 for each WvW zone you complete so that’s 40 right there

Or…you could at least pretend you’ve been in a few fights and not run to the forums everytime you win one…

ps – if you didn’t play on Mordred you didn’t really play DAOC, you were a carebear (how’s that for kitten talk?)

Ronin.4501:

I just feel that SBI’s success will come only when all our WvW guilds (and players), both big and small, are putting forth a complete effort, and not hinge on any one guild’s effort(s) alone.

If there’s anything we’ve learned over the past 6-8 weeks it’s that we’re all we’ve got. SBI isn’t defined by one guild or one alliance, we’re the stubborn, defiant people who didn’t jump off a sinking ship. We never take the easy way out, we’ve had the outmanned buff for nearly two months (and we still do in primetime) but we go out there and fight every night anyway.

The Kiwi guys have a large presence overnight, probably the single largest guild presence on SBI at any given time. They’re active on the SBI forums and I’ve even seen them take the blame when things don’t go our way. Their commanders are usually leading the battles at night in EB so they deserve some credit (as all commanders do). That’s not to say small groups like yours and ours haven’t contributed, we’d be dead in the water without all the small guilds fighting way above their weight every night.

Bannok and I are in a small guild too so we understand the value of 4 people going out and getting something accomplished and realize we’d be hurting as a server if those 4 man groups ever went away. I was online until about 4am last night and saw lots of different guildtags and solo players all pulling their weight. People were paying for upgrades and donating blueprints and, more than anything, sticking with the plan. Commanders can’t ask for anything more than that, SBI can’t ask for anything more either. It was really nice to see our efforts pay off again after all this time, even if it’s only for one night.

Trikki.5803:

Jealous much?

Beats the hell out of every other thread where abuse and trolling is rampant. Its a refreshing change.

We’re talking about food in our thread…

Fiorrello.8126:

http://www.thekitchn.com/inspiration-turkish-doner-keba-90131

this is a doner (derh-ner). it trumps any other hand held food item you can bring to the table.

I’ll see your döner kebab and raise you an Archie Bunker (yes that’s pulled pork, mac & cheese and bacon on texas toast with sweet potato tots). Turkish food has nothing on the south my friend…

Pendragon.8735:

Never understand why people get so defensive and try to defend an utterly boring playstyle. We’ve been in matches ticking around 600 due to opponent down times and its boring as heck and there is nothing to be prideful about for sure.

Pendragon.8735:

Why people who like PvP would like rarely ever having strong competition is curious.

Not to put too fine a point on it but the same can be said for rolling around in massive zergs

SmokeyNYY.7841:

Wow 78k. How long did that take?

I’m guessing it took “until right about now”

Thanks Blackgate!

Yes please, anyone got info?

Hubris.7039:

We can’t really say that we have a zero tolerance position on hacks and exploits if we start equivocating. I appreciate that it is a relatively tame exploit but, to me personally, it is more important to maintain standards within our server and thereby maintain our reputation with our opponents.

That way, the next time an issue like this comes up, we can expect to receive the benefit of the doubt and our opponents can rest assured that we will take care of it, instead of using it as a rallying point against us. (So it is not entirely an altruistic position to take, but in fact quite self-interested).

Completely understandable, I have a similar point of view. We’ve seen our fair share of questionable tactics during our stay in the higher tiers (on all sides). Luckily most of the people who tend to do those things gravitate towards the top-tiered servers.

I was just making the point that we’re relatively exploit free in this tier and that’s actually quite refreshing after what we’ve seen.

Hubris.7039:

MeerKat.3792:

http://img526.imageshack.us/img526/1135/gw273t.jpg

How did he manage this?

This is unacceptable.

The Yak’s Bend Alliance is currently looking into this in an effort to discourage this behaviour in the strongest possible way.

(Note: I do not represent the Alliance leadership, I’m just an officer on one of the Alliance’s guilds. I’m just passing along the gyst of the conversation on our forums).

DISC is not affiliated with the YB Alliance. We do our best to maintain a high level of sportsmanship, as our reputation is as great a commodity to us as our rating, if not more.

Thank you for bringing this to our attention.

As far as exploits go this one’s pretty tame though right? I mean, what can he really do there besides kill an afk person or two? I realize that’s not the point but if this is the worst thing that happens during our matchup I think we should all consider ourselves lucky.

Heinel.6548:

I think SBI should drop. They do have a fighting chance at their prime time, but that prime window is just way way too small.

Yeah we probably need to drop another tier or two. Even in primetime we have the outmanned buff most of the time. YB has a lot more primetime people than we do and CD, while having a slight primetime edge over us, has a significant overnight presence that we simply don’t. I’m assuming lower tiers mean smaller populations so hopefully we’ll settle in a spot where we can be competitive again.

That being said, we’ve had some really fun fights this week and even gotten into Stonemist a couple of times. If you judge success by the quality of your fights I’d say all of us are doing very well in this matchup. I think we all dodged a bullet with the ratings reset not being implemented, all three servers could have been in much worse situations next week so I’m happy to have a replay of this week’s match before our departure to the lower tiers.

What if engineers had some siege related abilities:

- Build siege weapons for less supply
- Increased damage from siege weapons when operated by an engineer
- Faster turning of siege weapons when operated by an engineer
- Ability to salvage siege weapons for supply
- Ability to repair siege weapons
- Ability to carry more supply (15 normally, 20 from upgraded camps)
- I would say increased range but I think trebs would mess that up so increased range on everything but trebs
- Faster movement while operating siege golems

ps – I don’t play an engineer but that class needs some serious help and everyone would want one around if they had siege related abilities.

Dabrixmgp.4758:

We lost by 300k last week how is that “alive” I started on SBI at launch and it was so much fun. We always owned every other server in WvW. Now we are worse than WoW alliance. Just went into Eternal Battleground and we controlled nothing and not even anyone else there. Well I guess I have to enjoy it since you cant server transfer for free so I guess Im stuck here.

Last week we were fighting the highest population server in the game. Of course we lost by a ton because they have a ridiculous numbers advantage over us. That’s no secret, SoR will absolutely agree with that statement. However, during those weeks against SoR and TC we had some great fights. Hopefully they’ll agree with that statement as well.

Right now we’re facing Crystal Desert and Yak’s Bend. YB seems to have more people than we do so we’re going to lose again this week. At some point we’ll settle into a tier where our numbers disadvantage isn’t so much of a handicap and we’ll be competitive.

In the past we had awesome overnight coverage and we won because of it. During primetime we often had superior numbers and we won because of it. Neither of those things are real pvp. If you enjoy winning due to population advantage or night-capping SBI probably isn’t for you.

If you want to earn every point on the scoreboard, constantly have the outmanned buff, check the map every ten seconds, get ganged up on by both of your opponents because your points are “easier” to get and have to fight for every inch of the map you control then stick around…we could use the help.

What if you could loot supply from dead players?

Bannok.3152:

SBI is done for? What is the prize for being tier one or winning every week? We been dealt a terrible hand. We probably have the least populated WvWvW force now. We’re doing OK. Tonight we had outmanned all night in EB. We turned it around and flipped SM versus a well defended superior enemy force. It was fun, and was good fights.

Theres no question we’re going to be last place. Thats how it is. We’ll make the best of it and get better doing it.

Exactly, I doubt Stonemist is taken very often by a server with the outmanned buff.

Jumping puzzles are the WvW idiot test anyway

In about 24 hours we’ll have SBI/CD/YB. Hopefully we’ll all get a well deserved break from the larger population servers for awhile. Can’t wait!

Syktek.7912:

1600 gems will get you 22 Gold right now (I have 1600 gems).

Not worth it, specially since I can get 22 gold in a days hard work if I really wanted to.

Who wants to log in to a video game and work though? There’s no way I’d ever farm gold when I can legitimately purchase it instead. I enjoy running around the world doing events and exploring and I obviously generate some income doing that but I don’t want to specifically have to farm. Too much of a waste of time when I can just grab some gems and buy whatever I have my eye on.

Of all the stuff you could legitimately complain about you chose this non-issue. Mine some mithril, make yourself some stat food, play WvW normally, get better gear.

Sins Vorkag.5218:

I be likin’ runnin’ ta two ta three times arr numbers o’ Choo o’ Fear ‘n watchin’ about half o’ so go ta downstate. Ta bad we start losin’ people so dey be revivin’ dem selves.

Gud fights lubs..

Also, ye UDL lubbers where ye be hidin’ at I be seein’ ye thar o’ Stormbluff!

8X ???

Chiolas.1326:

Catisa.6507:

Maladon.5760:

For what it’s worth, there’s an easy fix to this if anyone is interested:

Just use resource weighting to adjust the PPT. At any given time the highest population is considered to be 100% value.

Server A has 100 people, server B has 25 and server C has 35:

Anything held by servers B & C are worth full point values (100%)

Anything held by server A is worth an average of server B and C resource weight (30%, I used round numbers to make the example easy to follow).

So when the 15 minute countdown to the next point tally comes, everyone logs out quick to make sure we get full value … what an improvement.

It would still be better then the unrewarding system we have right now…

How about if a keep is conquered by 60 ppl vs no defenders it ticks for less then normal?

Would depend on how many defenders are in the zone, not in the keep. If there are truly no defenders in the zone (for either of the other two servers) then the conquering server would get very minimal ticks. If they are actually playing against no opponents then taking a keep isn’t really much of an accomplishment and is thus worth less than taking a keep that was defended and subsequently defending vs counterattacks.

However, once the other servers start to show up in WvW, the conquering server still holds the keep and it starts to tick for more as more enemies show up. Basically the offpeak conquerors could still “set the table” for their primetime counterparts.

Catisa.6507:

So when the 15 minute countdown to the next point tally comes, everyone logs out quick to make sure we get full value … what an improvement.

Nah, it’s a bit more complicated than that. The proper time weighting would eliminate obvious spikes or drops in resources. It would be more of a curve that flows up and down throughout the course of the day. Changing the trajectory with a flurry of activity over the course of a few minutes wouldn’t really have an impact.

For what it’s worth, there’s an easy fix to this if anyone is interested:

Just use resource weighting to adjust the PPT. At any given time the highest population is considered to be 100% value.

Server A has 100 people, server B has 25 and server C has 35:

Anything held by servers B & C are worth full point values (100%)

Anything held by server A is worth an average of server B and C resource weight (30%, I used round numbers to make the example easy to follow).

So if server B owns a tower they get 10 ppt for it. If server A owns a tower they get 3 ppt for it. Since server A has so many more resources available they should be able to hold more land than the other two without the match being a complete waste of time for the outmanned servers. This formula is obviously dynamic and would adjust itself throughout the course of the match. Night capping wouldn’t be much of an issue even in lopsided matches because the point values would be diminished if there were no opponents around to defend.

I’m on SBI too and I’m staying. If I were you I’d wait until after this weekend at least. Right now we’re up against a zerg server who outnumber us by a huge margin at all times of the day. We’ll get a better matchup Friday night with servers that have similar populations as ours.

Nodrey.3948:

I remember waking up to a sea of Green one morning and telling myself “Surely, TC will be resisting with every fiber of it’s soul” and instead, a TEA PARTY on a friggen bridge.

Wow, not sure I could deal with that

It’s not really “night capping”, it’s “day capping” in a different timezone

Predator.7321:

Looks like SBI already has given up

There’s a difference between giving up and our 30 guys don’t log on until NA primetime

Will there still be badges in the loot bags?

Furienify.5738:

So, new culling rolling out.

Are your bodies ready?

They aren’t fixing culling just rendering correct?

Absinth.6917:

I can certainly understand some of the vitriol being spewed by certain posters from TC. If SBI had not imploded, and this was a true 3-way fight, then I would like to think that perhaps the tone of this thread would be different.

Hey don’t blame us (SBI) for your poor displays of sportsmanship this week. Adversity reveals character. In this case, we have sore losers and sore winners. Anyone can put on a happy face when there is an evenly constested, competitive match. It’s when things aren’t quite as fun that we see who we really are…and some of you (on SoR and TC) should be very embarrassed about who you really are.

SoR – this is the match you played for last week, well you got it. We know it’s boring but that’s your fault, no one elses. Deal with it.

TC – Of course you’re going to get camped. Think of the message they’re trying to send and see if you really want to respond. SoR is running around in massive groups and camping the respawns (of TC and SBI). They don’t want you out there fighting. They want to discourage you from entering WvW so they can dominate the map. You need to accept this before you walk down those steps. You’re going to get zerged and camped and taunted, that’s the game this week. Know that going in and you’ll be better off.

SBI – I really think we’re in the best position of the three servers this week. On Friday we’ll be in a more competitive bracket for our server size. We’ll still probably be short on numbers but we won’t have to put up with what’s been going on thus far in this matchup. For the rest of the week just know that you’ll be up against 2-5x you’re numbers in any given fight so just take out as many as you can. We’re winning anything close to an even fight so we’ll most likely see more numbers thrown at us as the week drags on.

Also SBI, please don’t come to the forums to complain about being camped or laughed at. It’s happened to all of us in the past couple of weeks and it’ll probably happen even more this week. Our opponents are frustrated so they’re going to take that frustration out on us given the chance. They’re going to kick us when we’re down because that’s really the best time to kick someone. Just get through the week however you need to and be ready to go on Friday night.

Melpomene.2367:

This matchup is so boring. SBI pretty much has given up. It’s a shame what so many transfers to one server can do to other servers.

SBI hasn’t given up, all 30 of us were in EB tonight for several hours…

Bavragor.1043:

Maladon.5760:

Cat Amiss.9463:

Bavragor.1043:

Having a great night in EB, TC have a 60+ group running around or so it seems. They are proving to be a struggle to fight but we enjoy the fights all the same.

SBI despite having a lack of people in EB you managed to fortify Mendon’s and cause us problems at speldan supply camp and then one of our guys had a moment of pure brilliance, I took a few screen shots to help me tell the story.

Screen shot one shows how we pulled the Champion spirit into the camp to occupy the SBI zerg while we then proceeded to skirt around them all (shown in Screen shot two) undetected and drop siege on Mendon’s gate, we got it down to 20% before some of the SBI zerg found us.

We then face smashed the gate down to 0 and had a great fight for the keep lord room however in the end we managed to emerge victorious (shown in Screen shot three).

Lol it was so epic, very fun time there for all us in FEAR

We had maybe 20 people between Speldan and Mendons at the time. The fact that you guys suffered heavy losses and had to use a champion mob as a diversionary tactic probably shouldn’t be cause for celebration but cause for alarm

Still, good fights tonight overall.

The celebration was not so much due to the fact that we took your tower but rather the fact that most of your group stayed to fight the champion while simply ran around you all to your tower.

Yes good fights overall.

We didn’t fight the champion, we finished killing all the people who didn’t follow you to the tower.

Cat Amiss.9463:

Bavragor.1043:

Having a great night in EB, TC have a 60+ group running around or so it seems. They are proving to be a struggle to fight but we enjoy the fights all the same.

SBI despite having a lack of people in EB you managed to fortify Mendon’s and cause us problems at speldan supply camp and then one of our guys had a moment of pure brilliance, I took a few screen shots to help me tell the story.

Screen shot one shows how we pulled the Champion spirit into the camp to occupy the SBI zerg while we then proceeded to skirt around them all (shown in Screen shot two) undetected and drop siege on Mendon’s gate, we got it down to 20% before some of the SBI zerg found us.

We then face smashed the gate down to 0 and had a great fight for the keep lord room however in the end we managed to emerge victorious (shown in Screen shot three).

Lol it was so epic, very fun time there for all us in FEAR

We had maybe 20 people between Speldan and Mendons at the time. The fact that you guys suffered heavy losses and had to use a champion mob as a diversionary tactic probably shouldn’t be cause for celebration but cause for alarm

Still, good fights tonight overall.

I think Maguuma is just working on it’s community right now

Fey.9036:

Maladon.5760:

TheDevilWithinU.7092:

Since we’ve not had one of these ina while.. Score update.

Haha, we own a tent…one kitten tent

if we got a few more we could block of a tower or keep entrance…

Or maybe just a house..

Mystogan.4157:

Well yea i feel that the finisher can help but not as much as a damage thief can because im sure someone else can grab an aoe finisher but even on damage thieves they can carry a Sb on second weapon and still use the finisher im talking lie real heal support with major buffs and stuff. stealth is a big buff but its the only one we can give unless traited in to trickery

Have you ever used cluster bomb in a water field? That’s thousands of points of healing. Or a fire field building up might stacks for everyone? That one ability creates synergy with every other class in the game if played correctly.

Add in our own combo fields, shadow refuge and dps and I’d say thieves are in a pretty good place right now.

Jayne.9251:

Maladon.5760:

TheDevilWithinU.7092:

Since we’ve not had one of these ina while.. Score update.

Haha, we own a tent…one kitten tent

I bet it’s the best tent out of all the entire four maps though. (yeah I know, not helping .. guess I was trying to spin a positive out of that somewhere).

I still want you to repost that Asura Defiant pix. Best thing ever.

Our tent is probably pretty awesome. Mosquito net, double zipper doors, water repellent, you know…classy…and large enough for our entire WvW force to rest comfortably (sleeps 8…)

TheDevilWithinU.7092:

Since we’ve not had one of these ina while.. Score update.

Haha, we own a tent…one kitten tent

The recent exodus has been good for the server. The small group play we have now is very reminiscent of DAoC. Our guild fields a small group of people every night and this recent change in the server dynamic has resulted in more WvW participation than we’ve had since release. The reason is we’re not having to run with and dodge massive zergs, we are free to just head out and kill people. We still have to deal with zergs from time to time but they’re nothing compared to what we dealt with in Tier 1 and that frees us up to break off and do our own thing.

Having spent most of our DAoC time on Mordred, we’ve been craving small, roaming, dynamic group fights for years and now we’re starting to see that. It’s honestly been the best two weeks since release for us.

Bannok.3152:

Bring back pre-casting kittenes!
Agg filter ;(

Wow you really kittened that up! (btw, I really wrote “kittened”, not kittened)

Peetee.9406:

OutspokenAardvark.9781:

For the record, I would pick BG keeping us at 45 PPT for 2 weeks and learn something rather than an inflated server with an even more inflated ego that refuses to bring the hurt out of cowardice.

For the record, we’re ticking at +545 right now and have control of your entire BL. That’s with about 25% of our active population in WvW. Most of our regulars are doing fractals/dungeons or leveling alts.

Two days ago you were ticking at +405 against the same force, what happened?

I’ll tell you what’s happening, you guys are quitting. A lot of the SoR commanders are patronizing you because we want a decent fight to help workout our inter guild coordination. Unfortunately outside of PiNK and AL, you’re all quitting.

You don’t want to be patronized, get back in WvW and give us a decent fight.

Dude you’re gonna get in so much trouble. You’re not supposed to be scoring points right now…

Ponder.3647:

OH MY GOD! IT’S ULTIMA!

You’ve made me homesick.

People today have no idea what pvp is!