Guild Wars 2

EnaiSiaion.8072:

It doesn’t matter that it’s over time, but its damage is not enough for the lengthy cast time…

That’s why you cast it as your running in at your opponent and watch them freak out at all them birds. If you also trait right you will stack a bunch of bleeds from the crits which you will get bunch of. The damage is not to bad either. Hunter’s Call is good ability. The Horn is a great off hand period.

As for the Sword well its kitten fun weapon to use paired with many things! The #1 spam attack is what keeps it from being use a lot imo because the ability is broken and roots you in place. The damage vs speed of the weapon is amazing though, hits hard, fast and can hit multiple targets in front of you. Pop Call of the Wild from Horn and watch you hit even faster, believe me Swiftness actually makes the Sword #1 land faster because of the movement animations involved.

I agree with the OP, the time to get badges seems way off. Last night I was in Eternal for 4 hours pretty much actively fighting in large battles the entire time and only got 8 Badges! So my acquisition rate was 2 per hour. That is absurd.

I also deposited all my money in my bank to see how much I would earn in WvW. At the end of the 4 hrs I acquired 79 Silver, 1 Ecto and maybe 30 platinum and mithril. That is LOW compared to 4 hrs spent in PvE.

So yes I agree A.Net needs to balance out WvW to offer the same quantity of rewards vs time as PvE otherwise it is not fair to those who do not WANT to PvE. I should be able to spend equal time in WvW and each just as much and get the gear I want just as fast.

Oh and A.Net you need to make more WvW skins! The ones you have currently are kinda lame looking for what I have to spend to get and also are very very limited in stats and looks. There should be 5 or more sets available JUST LIKE PVE.

Here is a pic of my ranger Moghz wearing the Human T2 Cultural Armor set which is very Ranger like! My Ranger is also in the Order of Whisperers so I colored the armor the way using Abyss Black, Blood Red and Gold.

I do not mind the variety on the pets and skills etc I just want my pet to not dies so easy from AoE that they cannot dodge.

I also wish some of pets did not have stupid long animations before the skill activates which results in very little actually landing on target in PvP due to player movement.

I also wish my F2 ability would activate on the first press of the button, not 5 presses later.

Lastly I wish my pets names would stick when I swap.

Continued from post above

Healing: I use healing spring because of the group regen, combo field, condition removal and it has good synergy with the Adept traits I choose in Nature Magic. Imo this is the only Heal any Ranger should ever use.

Utility Skills: As this is a signet build you will use all signets. Preferred Signets are as follows:

Signet of the Wild – gives more survival from passive regen and more burst from the active. I tend to use this in sPvP and PvE. CD on active is long so maybe worthwhile to forgo this in sPvP for more survival or mobility up to you really. In WvW I swap this out for Signet of the Hunt.

Signet of Renewal – removes 1 condition every 10 sec (passive) and removes all conditions from you and your allies (active). Also has a stun break on use. Mandatory signet for both builds in sPvP and WvW. I do not bother with this in PvE. I swap it out for Signet of the Hunt.

Signet of Stone – more survival from passive toughness and complete immunity from damage for 6s from the active. I use this in WvW and PvE. It is optional in sPvP depending on what you want be it more survival or more damage/burst.

Signet of the Hunt – 10% increased movement speed passive and 2 stacks of might on active use. I use this in sPvP, WvW, and PvE for the mobility. Tends to go better with the Power build and burst then condition build were you would want more survival.

Elite Skill: For the power build I use Rampage as One for the Stability/Swiftness/Might/Fury which lasts 20s. Vital for burst, finishing a opponent, running through a zerg in WvW etc…. Very awesome elite. I use Entangle in sPvP or PvE if I am running the condition build for high condition damage and CC.

Runes: For the power build you must use 6x Rune of the Adventure for the might stacking/duration incrase this is key! For the condition based build I suggest 6x Rune of the Afflicted for increased condition damage and duration of bleeds & poisons.

Sigils: For the power build you must put Sigil of Superior Battle on both bows to get might when you swap, again this is key! For the condition build you should use Sigil of Superior Agony on the Shortbow and Axe for bleed duration and Sigil of Superior Geomancy on the Warhorn.

Accessories: For the power build I use Knights Amulet & Jewel for more damage and health. I use Carrion Amulet and Jewel for the condition build.

History of use:

I am currently using the power build at max level with great success in PvE, WvW and sPvP. I have also played with the condition build in WvW, PvE and sPvP to great success. Which build to use is up to you, I like both equally and tend to switch off on them. Depends on my mood and how I want to play. Also can depend on team comp, as the Condition build could be a good node holder at near or mid. The power build is built better for damage at mid or roaming (albeit not as fast).

Strengths and Weakness:

Strenghts

Power Build
- Lots of damage both up close and sniping from afar.
- Good burst from smart use of weapon swap, sigils and pet.
- Good CC
- Good survival

Condition Build
- Decent consistent damage from conditions.
- Condition pressure!
- Fast, mobile and can kite like a mother F@#$#%
- You are a tough little son of B$%&* to kill.

Weakness
- Condition removal for the condition based build
- Both builds lack decent AoE.
- Power build can be weak against glass cannon melee.

Rotation:

Power Build:

Use of Signets, pets and weapon swap are key to stack might and keep it up. You want to be swapping ALOT. Swap to Shortbow when skirmishing at close range or to kite melee. If your safely at range use Longbow for better spam damage. If faced with a melee opponent in your face use your Shortbow to get range, swap to Longbow use Point Blank Shot to knock back then pop signets, elite then Rapid Fire shot to blow him up.

Condition Build:

Use Shortbow to kite and apply conditions. Swap to Axe when you can hit multiple opponents. Also make sure to frequently use Hunter’s Call and Call of the Wild for the buffs and damage! So you should be swapping between these weapons a lot.

Thank you for taking the time read this. Feedback and discussion are appreciated.

Hey folks I would like to present to you my Signet builds. I have run these builds with slight variations in WvW, PvE and sPvP. It is successful in all three and I will detail variations for each.

Ranger Signet Build

Power Based Build:
http://www.gw2db.com/skills/calc/ranger#19|0|1242|333|3875|465|1888|30|2344|826|2342|20|1307|1301|0|0|0|0|0|20|2392|2166|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|28047|28047|21055|53499|21055|21055|21055|21031|48788|0|0|0|0|

Condition BAsed Build:
http://www.gw2db.com/skills/calc/ranger#19|0|1242|333|3875|463|5799|30|2344|822|2342|0|0|0|0|30|2351|1356|1381|10|2392|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|28013|28043|49957|49957|49957|49957|49957|25903|48790|0|0|0|0|

Type: Signet based damage builds. You can run a Power or a Condition based build using Signets. I have linked both variations above.

Theory:

High survival or high damage based builds built around the use of the Ranger’s Signets.

The Power based build offers high damage, burst, decent CC and decent survival from lots of vitality. This build also relies on stacking a lot of Might for increased damage. It also has a higher learning curve due to use of signet actives and weapon swaping on a very frequent basis to get the most out of the Might boon.

The condition based build offers even more CC, Survival and better mobility at the cost of burst and high damage. This variant still offers good sustained damage and better AoE then the power build. The build lastly has better mobility with Warhorn then the power build.

So choose your poison wisely both work well and I have tried each and had fun with them with good results.

Weapons:

Power Build: Shortbow & Longbow w/Spear for preferred underwater
Condition Build: Shortbow & Axe/Warhorn w/Speargun for preferred underwater

Shortbow – this is the preferred weapon to use for the condition based build for applying bleeds and poison however it is also the best CC weapon the Ranger has. Consequently this is the better bow to use when skirmishing in close range of an opponent as your damage is not nerfed due to lack of distance.

Longbow – the best bow for burst damage. In the power build you want to swap to this weapon to unload a Rapid Fire or Barrage. Rapid Fire is your one source of burst and you would want to use this after getting a good chunk of might through use of the Signets, Rampage as One and Lynx Pet (stacks 5 might). Do not use the Longbow for sustained damage thru use of Long Range Shot (#1 spam) unless you have distance.

Axe/Warhorn – Best combo for mobility and damage on multiple targets as Ricochet (#1 Spam) will bounce and hit multiple targets. Axe also has a chill for CC from Winter’s Bite. Warhorn offers mobility and utility from Call of the Wild by stacking Swiftness, Might and Fury on you and your Allies. Always make good use of Hunter’s Call as well, it hits hard and fast with many crits to stack bleeds and also has a bonus effect from the graphics causing enemies to get pysch’d out.

Optional Melee - If you would like to use a melee weapon then I would suggest to replace Longbow in the Power build and Axe/Horn in the Condition build with Sword/Horn. You will gain more mobility in the Power build and additional buffs from the horn. However you lose the burst from Rapid Fire. Overall I like Sword/Horn better then Greatsword for damage and evasion tactics. Sword hits faster and almost as hard as the Greatsword. Greatsword is well rounded with good AoE but is underwhelming for damage. Beware with Sword as the #1 spam attack is bugged and locks you in place while performing the animations, so it takes very smart use to get best results atm. When A.Net fixes this then Sword will be far far better then Greatsword.

Pets: For WvW I prefer to use the Devouver pets. They are tanky, ranged, have CC and apply conditions. They are honestly the best pet imo for WvW as they stay alive the longest! For PvE you can use Bears or Devouver’s to tank mobs. In sPvP you want to use the Black Widow and Jungle Spider for the 2 second stuns, immobilizes and conditions. I do like to swap out a Spider in sPvP for a Lynx to give me 5 more stacks of might when running the Power build.

Healing: I use healing spring because of the group regen, combo field, condition removal and it has good synergy with the Adept traits I choose in Nature Magic. Imo this is the only Heal any Ranger should ever use.

Utility Skills: As this is a signet build you will use all signets. Preferred Signets are as follows:

Signet of the Wild – gives more survival from passive regen and more burst from the active. I tend to use this in sPvP and PvE. CD on active is long so maybe worthwhile to forgo this in sPvP for more survival or mobility up to you really. In WvW I swap this out for Signet of the Hunt.

Signet of Renewal – removes 1 condition every 10 sec (passive) and removes all conditions from you and your allies (active). Also has a stun break on use. Mandatory signet for both builds in sPvP and WvW. I do not bother with this in PvE. I swap it out for Signet of the Hunt.

Signet of Stone – more survival from passive toughness and complete immunity from damage for 6s from the active. I use this in WvW and PvE. It is optional in sPvP depending on what you want be it more survival or more damage/burst.

Signet of the Hunt – 10% increased movement speed passive and 2 stacks of might on active use. I use this in sPvP, WvW, and PvE for the mobility. Tends to go better with the Power build and burst then condition build were you would want more survival.

Elite Skill: For the power build I use Rampage as One for the Stability/Swiftness/Might/Fury which lasts 20s. Vital for burst, finishing a opponent, running through a zerg in WvW etc…. Very awesome elite. I use Entangle in sPvP or PvE if I am running the condition build for high condition damage and CC.

Runes: For the power build you must use 6x Rune of the Adventure for the might stacking/duration incrase this is key! For the condition based build I suggest 6x Rune of the Afflicted for increased condition damage and duration of bleeds & poisons.

Sigils: For the power build you must put Sigil of Superior Battle on both bows to get might when you swap, again this is key! For the condition build you should use Sigil of Superior Agony on the Shortbow and Axe for bleed duration and Sigil of Superior Geomancy on the Warhorn.

Accessories: For the power build I use Knights Amulet & Jewel for more damage and health. I use Carrion Amulet and Jewel for the condition build.

History of use:

I am currently using the power build at max level with great success in PvE, WvW and sPvP. I have also played with the condition build in WvW, PvE and sPvP to great success. Which build to use is up to you, I like both equally and tend to switch off on them. Depends on my mood and how I want to play. Also can depend on team comp, as the Condition build could be a good node holder at near or mid. The power build is built better for damage at mid or roaming (albeit not as fast).

Strengths and Weakness:

Strenghts

Power Build
- Lots of damage both up close and sniping from afar.
- Good burst from smart use of weapon swap, sigils and pet.
- Good CC
- Good survival

Condition Build
- Decent consistent damage from conditions.
- Condition pressure!
- Fast, mobile and can kite like a mother F@#$#%
- You are a tough little son of B$%&* to kill.

Weakness
- Condition removal for the condition based build
- Both builds lack decent AoE.
- Power build can be weak against glass cannon melee.

Rotation:

Power Build:

Use of Signets, pets and weapon swap are key to stack might and keep it up. You want to be swapping ALOT. Swap to Shortbow when skirmishing at close range or to kite melee. If your safely at range use Longbow for better spam damage. If faced with a melee opponent in your face use your Shortbow to get range, swap to Longbow use Point Blank Shot to knock back then pop signets, elite then Rapid Fire shot to blow him up.

Condition Build:

Use Shortbow to kite and apply conditions. Swap to Axe when you can hit multiple opponents. Also make sure to frequently use Hunter’s Call and Call of the Wild for the buffs and damage! So you should be swapping between these weapons a lot.

Thank you for taking the time read this. Feedback and discussion are appreciated.

Hey folks I would like to present to you my Signet builds. I have run these builds with slight variations in WvW, PvE and sPvP. It is successful in all three and I will detail variations for each.

Ranger Signet Build

Power Based Build:
http://www.gw2db.com/skills/calc/ranger#19|0|1242|333|3875|465|1888|30|2344|826|2342|20|1307|1301|0|0|0|0|0|20|2392|2166|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|28047|28047|21055|53499|21055|21055|21055|21031|48788|0|0|0|0|

Condition BAsed Build:
http://www.gw2db.com/skills/calc/ranger#19|0|1242|333|3875|463|5799|30|2344|822|2342|0|0|0|0|30|2351|1356|1381|10|2392|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|28013|28043|49957|49957|49957|49957|49957|25903|48790|0|0|0|0|

Type: Signet based damage builds. You can run a Power or a Condition based build using Signets. I have linked both variations above.

Theory:

High survival or high damage based builds built around the use of the Ranger’s Signets.

The Power based build offers high damage, burst, decent CC and decent survival from lots of vitality. This build also relies on stacking a lot of Might for increased damage. It also has a higher learning curve due to use of signet actives and weapon swaping on a very frequent basis to get the most out of the Might boon.

The condition based build offers even more CC, Survival and better mobility at the cost of burst and high damage. This variant still offers good sustained damage and better AoE then the power build. The build lastly has better mobility with Warhorn then the power build.

So choose your poison wisely both work well and I have tried each and had fun with them with good results.

Weapons:

Power Build: Shortbow & Longbow w/Spear for preferred underwater
Condition Build: Shortbow & Axe/Warhorn w/Speargun for preferred underwater

Shortbow – this is the preferred weapon to use for the condition based build for applying bleeds and poison however it is also the best CC weapon the Ranger has. Consequently this is the better bow to use when skirmishing in close range of an opponent as your damage is not nerfed due to lack of distance.

Longbow – the best bow for burst damage. In the power build you want to swap to this weapon to unload a Rapid Fire or Barrage. Rapid Fire is your one source of burst and you would want to use this after getting a good chunk of might through use of the Signets, Rampage as One and Lynx Pet (stacks 5 might). Do not use the Longbow for sustained damage thru use of Long Range Shot (#1 spam) unless you have distance.

Axe/Warhorn – Best combo for mobility and damage on multiple targets as Ricochet (#1 Spam) will bounce and hit multiple targets. Axe also has a chill for CC from Winter’s Bite. Warhorn offers mobility and utility from Call of the Wild by stacking Swiftness, Might and Fury on you and your Allies. Always make good use of Hunter’s Call as well, it hits hard and fast with many crits to stack bleeds and also has a bonus effect from the graphics causing enemies to get pysch’d out.

Optional Melee - If you would like to use a melee weapon then I would suggest to replace Longbow in the Power build and Axe/Horn in the Condition build with Sword/Horn. You will gain more mobility in the Power build and additional buffs from the horn. However you lose the burst from Rapid Fire. Overall I like Sword/Horn better then Greatsword for damage and evasion tactics. Sword hits faster and almost as hard as the Greatsword. Greatsword is well rounded with good AoE but is underwhelming for damage. Beware with Sword as the #1 spam attack is bugged and locks you in place while performing the animations, so it takes very smart use to get best results atm. When A.Net fixes this then Sword will be far far better then Greatsword.

Pets: For WvW I prefer to use the Devouver pets. They are tanky, ranged, have CC and apply conditions. They are honestly the best pet imo for WvW as they stay alive the longest! For PvE you can use Bears or Devouver’s to tank mobs. In sPvP you want to use the Black Widow and Jungle Spider for the 2 second stuns, immobilizes and conditions. I do like to swap out a Spider in sPvP for a Lynx to give me 5 more stacks of might when running the Power build.

The only thing that has bothered me at all in WvW with Maguuma is some not so smart tactics that seem to happen every time my guild hops into WvW for a guild event.

This week and the prior week against TC whenever my guild would hit TC or Yak’s hard we would be close to taking out their keep and then a Mag zerg usually led by [GOON] would come along and hit us from behind preventing us from taking the keep. This zerg would then try to take the keep themselves and proceed to fail.

A few Mag zergs led by [GOON] have even hit keeps we defended at the exact same time as TC or Yak.

Each time this happened was over the weekend when both TC and Yak had pretty much full control of a borderland map. The smart tactic at the time would have been to hit Yak or TC in conjunction with us (Ebay) hitting them albeit from a different location.

In the end both Yak and Mag have superior numbers and presence then Ebay and I honestly did not expect a victory. Ebay shot up far to high in rank due to the over whelming victory over Ferg and Boralis during week 1. We are rightfully falling back down the ranks to settle in a tier that is our match.

Overall I have enjoyed WvW against Mag, Yak and TC because we actually had to fight hard. The first week was booooring against Ferg and Boralis. So thank you to Mag and Yak for making us fight when I am in WvW with my guild.

There already is an incentive to transferring to a lower pop server. It’s called reduced queue times.

All A.Net needs to do is turn off free transfers to High/Full servers and only allow free transfers to Low/Medium pop servers. Simple solution which I think they will do once they fix the guild influence issue and get guesting in.

They should just make a separate currency that is for WvW only. They made Glory for sPvP. Why not make Glory for WvW. You then buy siege, repairs & upgrades in WvW with Glory.

I am sure they can make it so we attain Glory at a balanced rate so it will not be incredibly easy to buy a bunch of siege or upgrades.

Seems like a kitten simple solution to me. Remove badges, implement Glory and have gold mean nothing in WvW just like sPvP.

The Commander Tome was pretty much a big disappointment imo. The idea of a Commander commanding a squad is kinda off and a bit limiting. Commanders command Army’s not squads.

30 people chat, that’s a bit small for what a server can field on a map. The Commander in my guild does not even bother with squad chat and instead use’s /map and /team. It is far more effective to coordinate forces. The only thing 100g and a Commander Tome gets you atm is recognition on the map. That is a big deal but seriously underwhelming compared to what I expect A.Net to develop.

The /squad thing needs to be done away with pronto. Please implement /Company or /Regiment or /Battalion, what you think fits better. This is far more appropriate for a Commander and it should be able to hold the max players a server can have on a map. Any player or party leader (which is a squad btw) should be able to right click the Commander and join the Company. This then enables /Company chat and it should at the same time show the location of ALL soldiers in the Company on the map.

There should also be a UI for this, one that can be toggled on and off. The UI should show all soldiers of the Company and allow the Commander to designate Platoon or Squad leaders who can ping the map, mark way pts etc… as well. The Commander should also be able to assign players to a Squad.

I also think Commanders of a Company should be able to communicate with other Commanders who are on other maps. Actually any player on any map should be able to message a Commander no matter what map he is on to provide intel on those maps. So a Commander badge should show up on all maps when you zoom out to see all 3.

The above is what should happen and what I expect to be made in the future by A.Net and would thus be worth 100g.

haderach.2410:

An example based on no data, just for illustration:

For a 24 hour day we split it into four segments of six hours that do not overlap and each has equal importance on the overall score. While one segment is active, each tick adds the current point totals to counters for each team for that active time segment and the overall point counter (the overall score is just a summation of points from each of the four segments).

At any point in time you can see what the current score for each segment is. This will allow servers to easily recognize where they are weakest and provide individual players with the ability to fight for pride in their most active time segment.

You could even go so far as to do a ramp down and up of total ppt as time segments end and begin to allow for the shift in populations across the world as people log off and come online. I’m not saying the ramping is necessary though, it would have to be based on the data.

In the end, the goal is to make the current system as fun for the most people possible while acknowledging the work and effort put in by large alliances that went for 24/7 coverage.

That’s a decent idea to monitor performance. However I do not propose to remove the score completely just hide for the most part with the final score revealed at the end of the match up.

The point is to remove that demoralizing affect that stops people from even jumping into WvW because they think its “hopeless”. We should keep showing the total points being earned and who has what, just remove the cumulative score.

remm.9357:

Edit button disappears! Just saw that you’re Ehmry Bay too (Unrefined here), guess we’ve experienced both ends of the spectrum enough to notice these kinds of things.

Exactly! I was afraid some players may not understand what I am saying because they have been lucky and have had good match ups for the past couple of weeks.

remm.9357:

I’ve been talking about this concept with my guild, not your suggestion, but just the idea of the score being demoralizing.

To keep morale up, I encourage my members to look at as “we’re all winning, because we’re all gaining bonuses for our server… one server is just winning the faster, and one the slower”, which is the reality of how the scoring works. Reminding everyone that “winning” provides nothing additional while staying in the fight and continually earning points to build up our rewards seems to keep everyone in a better mindset.

Oh I agree, my guild has similar ideas. We honestly do not care about winning overall. We care about our own performance the most. However we do want to be able to jump into a match and have an opponent to fight. That is really hard when the other servers offer up none because everybody said kitten this we are down 500k pts. Likewise we like allies to play with but find it hard when our own server is not playing to much because again many people say kitten this and don’t play because there losing so bad.

Chronologist.9782:

Nope.

Fantastic discussion skills buddy!

zerospin.8604:

The solution is to scale the points gained based on the number of people on each side and the point difference.

The less people fighting, the more points will they receive for each objective.

The less points your side has, the more points will it receive for each objective.

This means small servers will be able to compete with giants, and nightcapping will cease to be an issue. At any point in time during the match, regardless of the point difference, everyone will have a chance to catch up if they only try.

That may be so. However this topic is not going over this subject at all. I am strictly talking about the psychological impact of the scoreboard and the results it is currently producing across the game.

I will repeat the questions I asked in the OP. Those questions should give you an idea of what a good number of servers are experiencing or have experienced while winning or losing.

Does it feel good to see your server taking a beating? Do you feel like jumping into WvW and playing when your server is down by 100K+ pts or hell even 50K pts? For the most part I am sure a lot of you do not want to.

For those that are currently in match ups were you are getting stomped on and destroyed are many players in your server queuing up and trying to rally and fight back? Are the maps pretty devoid of your server mates?

For those that are winning by a huge margin do you enjoy jumping into map only to find no enemies to fight or do battle with? Is that fun?

Selthus.3174:

While a scoreboard can be demoralizing if you are getting dominated or it can dissuade you from making a real effort if you are dominating, in close match ups it can provide the motivation you need to take those last few keeps/towers/supply camps before each tick.

If you log in and have no idea of your current position you don’t know how desperately you need to fight to get that next control point and it may end up causing players to put less effort in to taking stuff.

Just my 2 cents.

You would still have the map and see who controls what. So you can get a vague idea of who is currently winning on a short term basis.

fractalKinesis.8569:

Soon, there will be no losers, only winners. And if everyone is a winner, nobody is.

You clearly did not bother to read the post, gg.

Notrub.6925:

I don’t think in the grand scheme of things it will matter. I am on SBI and will play HoD again next match and the match after and the match after till we all get fed up and don’t play. Unless something else changes there will never be a SBI vs JQ vs ET match. Even if you hide the scores until the end of every match.

Btw, that has to do with 24/7 coverage more than anything else. How does hiding the score fix that?

Yes you are right there are other issues to resolve as well. However this topic is strictly about morale and how the scoreboard affects that. The top ranked servers are not going to experience what I bring up in this topic as much. Those 3 servers are closely matched.

However if you transferred to a server in a match up were a server is getting spanked by 100k+ points you get what I am saying.

If you want to help fix WvW queues you need to first fix the following:

A) The guesting feature

&

B) Guild Influence transfer with guilds

Why? Fixing the guesting will allow those players who want to WvW alot transfer without fear of being able to play with friends who do not WvW.

Guilds that have already completed a lot of upgrades do not want to transfer right now and lose out on a month of progress on guild upgrades.

Its that simple. Fix those and maybe more guilds will be willing to move servers.

Hey folks we have a discussion about this topic going on in my guild forums and and on GW2Guru forums. I thought I would bring it up here for us to discuss as well. I will not give a TLDR summary, so don’t bother commenting if you cannot read and offer up a real discussion on the topic.

The topic is the Scoreboard, yes that’s right the end all be all to who is 1st, 2nd or 3rd. That arbitrary number that says hey your winning or hey your a loser.

Why do I bring this up, well its killing morale across the game. This number that dictates all basically is a psychological killer for those that are losing tremendously and puts the stop to WvW fun for those that are winning. So let me ask you folks this.

Does it feel good to see your server taking a beating? Do you feel like jumping into WvW and playing when your server is down by 100K+ pts or hell even 50K pts? For the most part I am sure a lot of you do not want to.

For those that are currently in match ups were you are getting stomped on and destroyed are many players in your server queuing up and trying to rally and fight back? Are the maps pretty devoid of your server mates?

For those that are winning by a huge margin do you enjoy jumping into map only to find no enemies to fight or do battle with? Is that fun?

I think many of you can answer that above with a simple yeah it sucks.

I am sure many of you have experienced this already over the past couple of weeks. You log into the game check the score and see your losing by 100K pts so you say kitten it I am not gonna bother to jump and play some WvW I will just lose money on repairs and lost siege. This acts as a cascade effect that results in many players not bothering to play resulting in very very boring WvW match ups.

Now I am not one of those people that thinks everybody is a winner. I am not preaching that at all. I believe there should be rankings and match ups and some rivalry. I think A.Net should rank the servers and should post scores. So you may now think wtf is he saying. Well the solution is simple.

Hide the score until the end of the match

This solves the issue! Servers can then duke it out aggressively throughout the week because nobody knows exactly who is winning. This will promote a frame of mind that yes I can jump in now and contribute. Maybe what I do know will help us win at the end of the week. This is a win win scenario for ALL. It removes the psychological killer and keeps the action going for all.

Doing this also will result in a one hell of climax at the end of the week as thousands upon thousands of players across all servers sit at there computers hitting thatkittenreload button waiting for the FINAL SCORE every Friday! When that scores appears and your server wins what do you think your reaction will be? Oh just think of the bantter this will create, it would be glorious!

So what do you think my fellow players!

eCheese.8240:

Keep crying about the imaginary “alliance” EB, you will never get better if you continually play the “victim”.

Lol actually there is not much crying in this thread. Read and comprehend before posting or head over to the HoD, JQ, SIB thread, that there has a ton of crying.

Vanisher.9216:

WvW gear needs at least 3 different sets with different stats options.

Don’t care much about the stats on the gear. It is super easy to get a full set of exotics in this game, buying a set with badges would take your far far far longer then just say crafting one or hell even buying a set on the TP.

What I would like to see is more sets for badges so I can get more gear skins. Currently there is only 1 set compared to what like 8+ sets in PvE and the crap ton in sPvP.

Overall I am happy with WvW rewards minus the amount of badges we get per time spent.

Merendel.7128:

Strange beat me too it but he’s right. If you take out siege as if you are about to deploy it and weaponswap (or die) it drops and anybody can pick it up like a bundle and its now theirs. I’ve actually stolen a few ram blueprints from invaders this way because they died with their hands full of blueprint. So if you really really want to transfer the prints to another character you could find someone you trust. go to an out of the way corner of the borderlands and drop your blueprints for them to hold and then repeate the proccess in reverse for your alt. Still there is really no need for them to be soulbound IMO and not sure why they are.

Hrmm did not know that. That actually makes it even more illogical for them to be soulboud.

OP I agree that EB map is by far more popular and probably because of the equal footing each server has and in large part due to loot. A.Net should balance all maps to offer the same loot.

The map design well I can see your point but I do not see how that can be changed tbh. At least not until and expansion.

Funny thing though is so far for my guild WvW events (we do 3 a week) we have only once bothered to go into EB, mainly because of the queues and lack of players in Borderlands maps.

It’s easy and a good tactic to scout out a Borderlands map and see that there is very little players in it. With that we then pop 50+ of guild members in said map and proceed to storm it and capture many points before the enemy can respond, at which point we proceed to just defend and hold what we took.

In fact this tactic has allowed us to secure more point per minute then the other servers we faced on numerous occasion because they were so concentrated in EB. Sadly when our guild leaves the map at the end of our event we lose it all

Zoula.5139:

Why should it be account bound? Is there any real reason? I’m seeing more and more people asking for things to be account bound instead of character bound every day.

So if you want to play a different character in WvW you can then use any blue prints that were purchased/acquired on another character. Seems logical to me.

Yeah and while were at on top of fixing up some of these exploits they need to fix the Keep Lords walking outside the gates and being invulnerable. This Keep Lord bug twice stopped my guild from taking down a Garrison gate in the Borderlands maps.

Pixel Seven.5472:

Why is siege soulbound to one character instead of account bound? I tried using siege I had acquired from jumping puzzles on my other character and I was surprised they weren’t usable.

Doesn’t bother me much but I just would like to have them stacked in one stack on my bank and use on whichever character I would be currently doing WvWvW with.

Good point and I agree, they should be account bound imo. A.Net please fix.

Godslayer.1203:

Bumping this for truth. There are too many negatives and not enough positives to warrant these points in WvW as part of the achievement.

Negative:
PvE players take up PvP player spots in line.
PvE players in WvW don’t contribute to the purpose of WvW.
Players on low-pop server will have an extremely difficult time completing this – to the point that they may NEVER be able to complete it without moving to another server – which only exasperates the problem further.

Positive
You might convert PvE players into PvP players (who will have to stand inline behind other PvE players to PvP as noted above.

Vicious, frustrating circle.

Good points! I would rather not have PvE players taking up WvW spots just to get some map completion however small that number is or not.

katniss.6735:

What Mog just posted was complete nonsense. See my 2nd pic (directly above his post) for proof.

That pic shows nothing but both servers being out manned and beat by TC which is exactly what I said. Read my post and understand it before commenting on it.

Vanisher.9216:

Well it’s a way better balanced matchup than last one. At least for now.

Totally true and I had soooooo much more fun this week in WvW then last.

Erbun.3564:

Haha the goons can’t do anything that involves thinking past “Let’s all get together and mob”. I’m actually quite amazed that words such as “psychological”, “warfare”, and “the” are even known to them.

Anyways, alliance or not there have definitely been some good fights. Well, atleast from TC. I haven’t seen anything worth while from Goons except for lag. I GUESS that’s a viable tactic.

Still think it’s funny that Maguuma keeps coming after us fighting for second place. Or for that matter why the majority of EB keeps going back after them.

Props to the groups on all 3 servers that understand how 3 way warfare actually works and tries to conduct as such.

Totally agree, my guild ran into packs of [GOON] members many times. They seem to like throwing themselves at are gates and squads over and over only to be wiped out by us each time they tried. They kept trying to take some towers without siege only to fail. Trying to take our keep over and over only to fail, even when my guild was clearly out numbered during some of the fights.

We actually discussed their tactics during our guild events this past week and we were honestly kinda mystified by them, their tactics were very illogical. My guild was pushing TC very hard several times and along comes [GOON] pushing us while we push TC? Kinda dumb if you ask me. Dunno why [GOON] would rally with TC to push us when TC is winning and we were in last place.

[GOON] did a good job making this “troll fake” alliance seem very real to us, specifically when [GOON] was pushing us at the same time as TC at our keep, and hell even that failed for both TC and [GOON] even after almost 2 hrs of the same tactic. Smart thing would have been for [GOON] to push TC.

In the end we all decided they were just not very smart.

Congratulations Maguuma on ensuring your own loss. You could have beat TC had you been smart to ally with the lowest of the ranked and pop’d servers in this match up. Great troll was a wonderful tactic to ensure victory for yourself.

gloombot.3519:

TC has 50%+ more score than us because they field 4x our numbers, AT LEAST, 24/7. It has nothing to do with decision making. We’re simply outmanned.

The only time we even harass Ebay is when you guys harass us (we simply take our stuff back, AKA “harassment” according to Ebay conspiracy theorists)

… or when we want to draw TC’s ridiculously manned zerg into your territories by taking something near your two’s borderlands to cause you to fight each other for a bit, giving us an opportunity to reclaim our lost stuff or take a few of TCs.

You are correct, TC just has more numbers then both of us at all times. Hell you guys on Maguuma even out-number us on EBay. As far as pop goes TC > Maguuma > Ebay.

Its been a tough battle, this week for us on Ebay. Was actually fun compared to the previous week when we stomped Ferg and Boralis by 10x the score. I have not been to active the past 2 days in WvW but was Fri – Monday night.

As of Monday night Maguuma and TC were still allied against us Ebay for some reason. At least on the TC map my guild was playing in this was evident. Why Maguuma was not trying to grab from TC I do not know when you guys are in 2nd. Hell we started Monday night pushing TC in their borderlands. Had Maguuma pushed from the SW while we in the SE then TC would have lost a lot and Maguuma could have gained more score, but for some stupid reason Maguuma decided to work with TC to push Ebay in the SE and our Keep. Really not a bright move tbh Maguuma.

So overall gg to TC for having better numbers and being smart enough to come out on top with the alliance to Maguuma. GG to Maguuma for the alliance with TC that guaranteed them 2nd place against a lower pop server and still behind TC lol. I don’t understand why you guys were afraid of us to begin with. You both out number us anyway. Maguuma would have been better off making an Alliance with Ebay. Then you could have maybe taken TC in pts, pushed them down a rank and you up a spot.

Oh gotta bring this up because it was pretty funny. Monday night in TC Borderlands the battle for SH Keep was epic! Maguuma hitting us from the south and TC the North. Both you guys were throwing your siege and bodies against SH Gates at the SAME time lol and failed.

For about 2 hrs both you guys tried and tried and tried to take SH and the Orb back. With 3 to 4 times our numbers you failed! Was an epic siege and defensive on our part. Hell you even made it to the lord but our balistaes destroyed you guys and we pushed you out of the keep again and again. Just goes to show that a well defended Keep with skilled players manning the ramparts can repel 3-4 times their numbers if the zerg is stupid. Had you guys bothered to use siege you may have taken it at the time. I am sure in the end as the night got later one of you took it back once our players went to bed.

In the end overall this match up has been blast! Much better action, we actually had to fight. So I was happy with this and next week we will probably match up against servers with a pop relative to ours so thank you for that! Cheers to the victor and good luck next week. Maybe next time Maguuma if we match up you may want to consider an Alliance with us against the higher ranked server. Still dumbfounded by that alliance.

Nobody should ever be given some kind of reward for transfer servers. You should transfer servers for the right reasons, namely to get a better queue time so you can see more WvW action. That IS the incentive to transfer.

Now I admit A.Net is shooting themselves in the foot with the Guild Influence thing. They need to get that fixed pronto, I am sure many guilds would transfer to get better queues if it was not for that.

Imo A.Net needs to make it priority #1 to get server guesting in game and the guild influence fixed pronto, like wtf a month into the game and this is not yet fixed?

Once the above is fixed they then turn off free transfers to High/Full servers and offer up free transfers to low/medium servers.

One thing I know for sure, they need to add more sets of cosmetic gear to buy from the WvW vendors and also up the amount of Honor Badges you get. Seems like I am not getting much.

I attended three WvW guild events in the past 10 days. Two for 6 hrs each and one for about 4 hrs. During those 3 events (which had a lot of action) I have acquired 118 Honor Badges that’s about 7 per hr. That seems really low for the time spent in there tbh. So I wouldn’t mind seeing this buffed up.

Yeah I think the “free” siege from these puzzles needs to be nerfed imo. Hell I was one of those doing jumping puzzles every single day on all 3 borderlands maps when my server controlled all three for the week.

Tango.7089:

Mog.1589:

$50 says the standings would be very very different if ALL servers fielded relatively equal numbers at all times of the day.

If the above could be true things would be very different, then it would come down to what guilds were skilled, what were not, who was organized etc… This is the goal A.Net needs to work towards, no matter what and no matter what has to be done to reach it. Until such a time that this goal is reached, which server has the better population at all times of the day will be the winning server in any given match up.

Now if we had match ups between servers with similar or same pops at all times of the day then this could be disregarded, however we currently do not have this.

Absolutely agree, once again, no one is saying late night caps do not lead to our success.

THEY ARE KEY TO IT!

This is the game, this is the strategy.

You think organizing guilds to have 24/7 coverage is not skill based? If it takes no skill then why dont you guys do it???

Stop complaining about how you don’t have anyone on at night and organize some guilds together like the Titan Alliance has done. Then perhaps you can get some crews fighting at night and dont have to waste so much time and energy crying like babies.

You clearly did not understand my post at all. I was saying exactly what you are saying. However at the same time I am saying that it should not be this way at all and that A.Net needs to somehow fix it so each server is on a somewhat equal footing in terms of population balance.

Or at the very least match up the servers correctly based off population data.

Thalantyr.2856:

A decent siege defense won’t be AOE’d down because you’ll have:

a) The siege weapons firing on the people trying to AOE your arrow cart
b) A group of people that are tasked with protecting the area outside the walls to stop the AOE
c) Your own AOE’s raining down on those on the ground who are trying to AOE your siege equipment
d) Guardians and other classes putting up projectile reflects to stop your siege being damaged
e) Your siege equipment in an area where only the edge of the AOE radius hits your siege, rarely hitting it

There are a heap of different ways to stop your siege from being hit. You really need to experiment with locations for siege and you’re bound to lose it time and time again until you either find somewhere great or you start to be more efficient with how you protect it. Can you honestly imagine how impossible it would be to attack a Keep/Tower if people couldn’t take down your siege inside or on the walls!

What is incorrect about these siege defensive tactics is if you are out numbered it will not matter.

A) If you are outnumbered it does not matter, there AoE will the cart faster then you cart can kill them.
B) If you are outnumbered they will be slaughtered fast if they leave the keep/tower/garrison.
C) If you are outnumbered you cannot stand on the walls to AoE down because you die to fast, or in the cast of many walls the “Obstructed” Monster will slay you first.
D) If your outnumbered this will not matter much as they will throw so much AoE at you that you will not have enough Guardians to keep it up much.
E) This is the only working point you have for an outnumbered force and it only applies to some towers/keeps. Most of them you can pretty much hit any siege placed on the wall with AoE.

The thing is you would think that a smaller outnumbered force would be able to hold off a large zerg easily. It should be able to. No zerg should be able to take down a reinforced and sieged up keep/tower/garrison without siege of there own. Fact is you can currently. True this is not always the case, like I said some Keeps/Towers are easier to defend then others due to terrain.

I think OP maybe referring to the actual defensive siege you get from upgrades? Like Cannons, Oil and Mortars. If he is, then he is correct, they can be taken out extremely fast. Saying “position” is key is irrelevant for these as you cannot place their location.

$50 says the standings would be very very different if ALL servers fielded relatively equal numbers at all times of the day.

If the above could be true things would be very different, then it would come down to what guilds were skilled, what were not, who was organized etc… This is the goal A.Net needs to work towards, no matter what and no matter what has to be done to reach it. Until such a time that this goal is reached, which server has the better population at all times of the day will be the winning server in any given match up.

Now if we had match ups between servers with similar or same pops at all times of the day then this could be disregarded, however we currently do not have this.

You are not wrong. The solution presented by OP would cause more issues then it would fix imo.

As Ramanthes said locking servers by Region is the only acceptable solution to fix the issue of some servers having Oceanic players and not others.

The only issue I could see with Region locking is some North American guilds now have Oceanic players in them to help with the night capping. So this would cause an issue now with that aspect.

Pets need a lot of work. That they do.

As most have said they need a HUGE AoE reduction in damage and the abilities they have need to be instant without some build up an animation or rooting them in place.

In the meantime use a Ranged pet, they are more effective imo for keeping damage on a target. Devourers are good in condition builds, are tanky and offer knockbacks. Spiders are good in any build and offer immobilizes/stuns.

In the end I like having a pet running around with me. The skins are nice so to that effect I would not want to see them go, but I wouldn’t care if they seriously made them into akittenminion like the Necro (albeit without using a Utility slot) and just up Ranger survival/damage to compensate.

Build I run for WvW and Leveling, can be used for sPvP with some slight adjustments.

http://www.gw2db.com/skills/calc/ranger#19|0|1242|376|1156|374|5799|0|0|0|0|30|1307|1309|1380|30|2351|1356|1381|10|2392|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|28033|28043|49957|49957|49957|49957|49957|25903|48790|0|0|0|0|

Condition Based Trap build

Summary: High survival condition based build built around traps for CC and AoE Condition damage. This build offers good mobility with Warhorn and has lots of CC potential for kiting melee and staying at range. It also makes you a lot tougher and offers great sustained condition damage.

Weapons: Shortbow & Axe/Horn
Underwater: Preferred is Speargun

Shortbow is the better 1200 ranged weapon for applying conditions and it has good CC. Axe has a bleed and CC, paired with Horn for mobility and buffs. Sword would be okay if and when A.Net fixes the #1 skill or you could use it now if you want a melee weapon equipped. You could also use Torch (for burning) if you don’t care for the mobility offered by Horn. Speargun will be your preferred underwater weapon because of the conditions it applies.

Pets: I use Lashtail and Whiptail Devourers for several reasons. They are ranged, they have a knockback, they apply conditions and they are tanky so they tend to stay alive longer then spiders. In sPvP I would use Spiders because they do more damage and pets do not die as much as in WvW or PvE.

Healing: I use healing spring because of the group regen, combo field, condition removal and it has good synergy with the Adept traits I choose in Nature Magic.

Utility Skills: As this is a trap build you will use all traps. Traps I use are Viper’s Nest for the Poison, Spike Trap for bleed/cripple, Frost Trap for the chill. I prefer Viper’s Nest over Flame Trap because of the -33% healing effectiveness. In sPvP you should swap out Frost Trap for a Stun Break of choice.

Elite Skill: I use Rampage as One in WvW for the Stability/Swiftness. It is just way to useful to help get thru zergs into a keep or to run when you need to run. Leveling I use Entagle for the CC on packs of mobs and damage. In sPvP you could use either or depending on if you want more survival or damage.

Runes: Use what you like.

Sigils: Use any of the Malice Sigils. Your choice on what you want more damage, more toughness, more vitality or more condition duration.

Accessories: Rabid

I honestly do not see a point in arguing which bow is better. People will use what they like to play for whatever reason they like to play it. Each of the bow’s skills sets require a different style of play. Joe may hate LB but Bob my love it. Arguing over that is pointless.

Imo Longbow is good for more a long ranged stationary weapon to dish out some burst damage. Shortbow is great for consistent damage & condition builds plus more kiting potential..

In the end play what you like and what suits you.

At this very moment I am standing at the skill point location on Ehmry Bay server and the NPC is no where to be found. The “event” notification shows up and I see it on the mini map but no Two Eye Ignatl!

Please fix!

Slamz.5376:

• Undermanned keeps are too easy to take.
  This allows a server to quickly begin sweeping the entire map once they gain a population advantage. To address this, rams should be more expensive (you should be loath to drop 3+ rams on a door) but harder to kill. NPC guards should be more numerous and considerably more formidable (DAOC NPC guards were all basically like tower lords in this game). Lords themselves should have literally about 20x their current hit points, if not more. They die way too fast right now. Don’t tweak their DPS, I think, but massively increase their health. (This goes for the orb keepers in the north borderlands as well.)

Gonna call BS on this one. A fully upgrade keep can easily withstand assault by far greater numbers. Two nights ago myself and 6 members others defended a keep against an assault involving approx 40 invaders.

During the 24 hr matches keeps, towers etc… flipped fast because they were not upgraded much. In these longer matches people are actually getting full upgrades in. Which results in a keep that is easy to defend because of defensive siege.

mcl.9240:

You can’t possibly make any claims based on WvWvW participation, since you don’t have access to that data.

The only problems with WvWvW as things currently stand:

1) People log in, see their server is losing, and don’t bother to participate in WvWvW.
2) People get into WvWvW, see their server is losing, and quit WvWvW.
3) People participating in WvWvW on losing servers are disorganized.
4) People participating in WvWvW on losing servers would prefer a game mechanic to solve their problem, rather than put forth the effort to recruit more people on their server to play WvWvW, forge guild alliances, forge cross-server alliances with the other losing server, etc.

I assert there is not a single server in GW2 that has so few people that they cannot field enough players in WvWvW to hit the population cap in WvWvW.

Given that, the problem is not server population. The problem is the number of people on your server playing. Not just when you claim nobody is on and the other server is “night-capping”, but during prime time as well. You’re not losing at night; you’re losing because you’re not fielding enough people at any given time, and the ones you ARE fielding would rather give up than stay and fight.

^ This! Well said man.

nilco.8457:

By what you write I see that you are on a low ranked server not facing any of these problems, as such I will discard your text as utter nonsense.

Actually he has a point. Many people maybe not you, but many people are just complaining because they are losing. If they were on a winning server I highly doubt they would be singing the same song.

Seems legit to me man. Sounds like a good tactic.

So basically all the OPs data shows is that next week we will have more balanced matches. Isn’t that the point of the system?

Data A.Net had was kind skewed anyway since it was based off 24 hr matches just like the OP said. It is also partly why they did not start 2 week matches yet. I do think they could have had some rounds of say 72 hr matches before moving to 1 week.

In the end the system will work it out. The servers with 100k+ leads will move up and fight the other servers with 100k+ leads. Next week could be a WHOLE different story accross the WvW boards for many if not all servers.

TLDR: Be patient, don’t jump to conclusions just yet. Wait to see what happens. The real matches are just beginning next week.

Patience you must learn, yes.