Guild Wars 2

People have no clue. Condition necro is strong but is hardcountered by skullcracker regen warri, that is if the necro didn`t trait 30 SR stability which is only common for power necros, but that`s not the kind of necro people cry about. Since these warriors lose to deception mesmers, I`d say the always blinking, invisible condition mesmers win the trophy.

Best regards

Really well done tutorials, I`m almost a bit grumpy at you for giving away all the neat little necro tricks with awe effect. Just kidding, nice vids, I hope you`ll get the appreciation you deserve for it.

Best regards, gl & hf.

Zumy, they just wanted to give you a close look at their shiny stuff, too. All of them. They are just efficient in doing so.

Well, I assume, the original idea was just to reintroduce brackets, because the randomness of the current matchmaking is causing lots of trouble.

Since going backwards is not going to sell very well (to both, boss and players), someone came up with the idea to tie these new brackets to something what they think every player wants. Give them shiny stuff and sense of accomplishment, they will love it! But it needs to have a fresh name, i mean, since we are inventing something new, let`s call it “league”!

Job done: WvW department happy – new milestone created, solved matchmaking problem without being forced to just redo brackets; boss happy – new milestone created, big league announcement (it`s rolling) instead of just having to announce a reversal of the current matchmaking; players happy – newly tiered matchmaking with less randomness and shiny new stuff.

The rest is just…. finetuning!

A league solely based on population? Come on guys, it`s just a name for the new brackets to make them and you feel better and to give something to the crowds who cry since day 1 for not being rewarded sufficiently for their great achievement of playing on a highly populated server.

Best regards

@ Wemil:

Grow up, dude, my comments and this discussion were targeting possible abuse, not server performance, I was just trying to make a point. Please keep your deluded server-depending ego and fail posts where they belong, big man, thanks a lot.

Does this guy really have that serious issues, that he has to enter a thread completely unrelated to SFR and “clear things up” when his server is not even mentioned? Kindergarten…

@ Ayusaki:

Well, as I said before, people paid 800 gems for a single finisher, I know a lot who bought all of them for 2,3k gems total. Considering the amount of these finishers I see in wvw, I`d guess, it`s not an exception.

The transfer back and forth will cost less than that and give you most probably not only a somewhat exclusive finisher, but title, achievement points and more as well. I know people who own close to 100k gold and would gladly pay 100g just for a few achievement points, especially since these translate to other rewards (account achievement progression) since a few patches.

That being said, I`m not sure about the size of the problem but possible abuse should be prevented if recognized early enough, right?

Unfortunately, the blob meta has taken over all tiers, except the ones where the population is not able to field the numbers needed. Haven`t met a single server in EU that is noticably different in that regard. I`m talking mid-high tiers, that`s what I experienced. Low tier servers have the problem to be almost empty at offpeak hours.

In consequence you decide, walking through empty maps looking for that three enemies around or getting rolled by blobs every now and then.

Good luck anyways.

Thank you, Devon.

That`s all I wanted to hear. I trust you will find a proper barrier to make sure, not everybody in EU gold league becomes Vizunian for a week.

Thanks again and best regards.

What do I have to do in order to get my question concerning obvious transfer abuse answered?

Will there be anything implemented (such as weighted league points, server (il-)loyalty debuffs, intraleague server locks or similar) that prevents people flooding the probable winner of the league during the first week, then transfering back to the home server (within the same league) and benefitting from abuse?

@ Oren:

Being one week stuck is not stopping anyone from doing the next best PvE grind for compensation of travel cost until the transer timer is reset. People have gold en masse since the biweekly living story cycle got introduced. I guess for most it`s just a trade off between gold versus achievement points (assuming this will be one of the major reward benefits of making 1st within your league), finisher and other, unknown benefits.

How many people did spend 800 gems each for trading post permanent finishers? I know a lot. This abuse wouldn`t be far more expensive…

Moon.6371:

Would this mean accordingly, that if a player prior to the start of the league is picking the most probable winner, transferring there for one week, then transferring back to his home server, would secure himself “gold” (1st place) rewards for a season of multiple weeks? If so, please find a solution for that, especially since EU consists of several national servers.

Example:

Day 1 – every french is transferring to Vizunah (the winner of gold league, no doubt about that, they did it just for the pride, now there`s even more incentive…), securing himself top tier rewards, then switching back would mean almost no harm/punishment for him, but corrupting the system heavily.

I`d appreciate reply on this, thanks in advance and best regards.

Quoting myself from another thread to reinforce the importance of this issue…

@ Wild:

Whenever Vizunah wanted to win, they did. In case it gets close, they make their call to arms in pve areas and flood wvw even at the most odd hours of day and night led by very dedicated and knowledgable commanders. No criticism here, it`s just how it went over the past year.

Best regards

Oren.1736:

DevonCarver.5370:

Oren.1736:

Devon, will Gold league players receive better achievements points/final rewards over silver/bronze league winners?

The achievements and achievement points will be exactly the same across the leagues and there will be few, if any, rewards that are different across the leagues. The dolyak stomp is the clearest example. The winners of each league will get a finisher specific to that league. From Gold to Bronze. The rest of the rewards will be more about how you performed in your league, than which league you were in.

Moon i believe this answer in spirit represents how Anet planned out this league system, reward loot will be distinct, but probably not much of a deal for this to be a huge issue. You might end up seeing gold players using this cheese strategy or just moving in advanced back and forth to get a bronze finisher.
Take in mind i guess there are certain questions a rep can and cannot answer – such as sometimes the outcomes of schemes as you suggest, or the second half of my question, which apparently anet thinks is an issue is more up to us to deal with, my speculation hough,

Problem is, I was talking about switching to the most probable winner WITHIN your league, Devon was just explaining transleague issues. Furthermore, he stated, the gold league 6th finisher would receive far less rewards, than silver league 2nd. This is making the issue I was talking about far more concerning, because it implicates, that gold league 6th or 8th is far less rewarded than gold league 1st. Thus, incentivizing abuse…

Lets say, I´m on Jade Sea and would probably hover around place 5-8, what is stopping me from transferring to Vizunah for the league`s first week, securing top rewards for a 7 week long league, then tranferring back to Jade Sea and rejoin my normal wvw scene?

Still waiting for reply…

Kimhyuna.1035:

Moon.6371:

I`m quite sad the troll posts get immediate reply, while the more serious concern is getting ignored. Devon, please answer me.

Your idea of transferring one week to a ‘most likely to win’ server before exchanging back to your original server is a good thing for anet. Why? Those steep transfer fees/profits.

I was under the serious impression Anet is trying to step up their game and doing something for one of their most passionate customer cluster. Bracketing the matchups again is a good thing, I honestly hope they are working on protecting us from such abuse with making their system bulletproof.

But my point is the only remaining question that`s being ignored, one could think, they don`t care…

I`m quite sad the troll posts get immediate reply, while the more serious concern is getting ignored. Devon, please answer me.

Would this mean accordingly, that if a player prior to the start of the league is picking the most probable winner, transferring there for one week, then transferring back to his home server, would secure himself “gold” (1st place) rewards for a season of multiple weeks? If so, please find a solution for that, especially since EU consists of several national servers.

Example:

Day 1 – every french is transferring to Vizunah (the winner of gold league, no doubt about that, they did it just for the pride, now there`s even more incentive…), securing himself top tier rewards, then switching back would mean almost no harm/punishment for him, but corrupting the system heavily.

I`d appreciate reply on this, thanks in advance and best regards.

Huge respect to [ObZ] (hope thats the right tag) for running smallscale, well played. Keep up the good work.

Best regards from the good looking afro asura!

@ mini:

Perplexity runes on necro totally rock smallscale, it`s another dhuumfire (dps wise) and the passive cc absolutely wrecks combined with torment and terror fear. Try running pain inverter (asura exclusive) + 4 perplexity and using chaos armor combo… It makes 1vs3 or more a joke. When we meet BB again, message me for 1vs1, we can have some live testing, in case you don`t believe me.

Best thing that can happen to me is an opponent using it as well, have fun getting the confusion transfered back with my 2k condi damage… add epidemic to it and you will be smiling all day long.

Best regards

@ Alchemist:

Wow, someone being a bit hostile here, ha?

How do you know me and my abilities to play this game? Just because someone hasn`t put X videos on youtube doesn`t mean he can`t be better than you, right? I can guarantee you, there are players out there who you never heard about, but would beat probably 99% of the youtube heroes anytime, anywhere…

Apart from that you completely misunderstood my first paragraph, please read it again and try to not act like a little princess whos lollipop was taken away. I didn`t say any necro suddenly became a better player.

Here I go again, just for you: I said (taking into regard that questions about balance should only be applied to the very best players) that every obstacle can be overcome by just playing better, except at the very top, where the level of play is very similar. So, if you don`t belong to the very top, you don`t have any right to complain, because you could just…you know… improve and beat these crappy necros. If you would belong to the very top you wouldn`t even dare to complain about “being bursted by marks”, you would simply outplay these guys.

My wild guess is, you are probably pretty bad yourself at this game, considering the amount of whine I find in your post history.

English is not my first language, apologies, if my message wasn`t clear enough. I recommend reading Sirlin`s “Play to win” (pretty old article on competitive gaming philosophy that also transfers over to sports by the way), just google it, because he explained a lot better what I`m trying to say.

Best regards

@ Alchemist:

I think you overreact here. I simply go by the principle nothing is OP, there`s just OP players… I learned that attitude while playing starcraft for almost a decade now. It`s PvP, means you`re not only playing your opponent`s class but you play another human being that can be outplayed/outsmarted even if the odds do not favor you.

The MMO community seems to rely on and enjoy the nerf/buff cyclejerk which leads to fotm play and lots and lots of whining even if not justified.

I could be the most crappy player on earth and I would still tell you it is an learn to play/adapt issue because there are people (warriors in this case) who reacted to the strengthened necros and developed counters. A game should never be balanced around subpar players, but balanced for the top ones, because anybody else can just overcome obstacles through becoming a better player…

Best regards

Well, I main necromancer and it essentially gives me another dhuumfire (dps wise). I can`t even stack that much confusion, 3-5 stacks (chaos armor combo + runes) but combined with torment (don`t move) and fear (you will move! if you want or not) in additon to all the other conditions it is quite deadly. It makes engaging me very difficult for single enemies.

I`m loving it, but i prefer to have it toned down a bit. That being said, the confusion duration bonus is still bugged and not working afaik, so i dont even have +100% confusion uptime.

Best regards

@ Alchemist:

You got condition-bursted by marks…seriously? And you have problems with warrior vs necro…really? It`s L2P, believe me, dude. Ask some more experienced warriors on your server for tips… (hint: Skullcracker & GS or sword/shield & hammer).

@ Lola:

I don`t know what to say, a well played mesmer is still one of the most dangerous things to face in wvw. GC Shatter, Staff Condi Hybrids… Do you know your own class? I recommend spending less time complaining and more time playing.

Best regards

I got very sceptical the past months regarding wvw`s direction and expressed it several times on various threads. But I absolutely love the addition of these new objectives and the terrain looked very promising for smallscale.

It goes into the right direction, in my opinion. I just hope they rework bloodlust, assuming it will reward the orb buff, to something more suitable (please no stat buff).

I`m kinda excited.

Hey guys,

Devon mentioned a livetream today regarding upcoming wvw changes. Does anyone know where and when this livestream is going to happen? A link maybe?

Thanks in advance and best regards.

@ sayir & Hickeroar:

In my experience that is just not true, at least on the servers I have been. These veterans you`re talking about very often choose smallscale roaming over GvG because the challenge (imo) to absolutely feel your class and read your target is higher. It is not as predictable, offers a greater variety of situations that have to be faced etc pp. Your role and movement is not as limited and mechanical abitlites (which require to truly master the class) and timings can really shine.

No offense and I dont want to start another discussion, but this is what I am experiencing after 2000h + (WvW and PvP only). It might differ from server to server and person to person, tho. I´m talking just trends.

@ King Armadeus:

Sorry, grammar kitten, I`m not a native english speaker, you know these forums are for EU peops, too. Give it a try and grow up, somehow I knew you`d fall back to insults…

Best regards

Who is making the final decisions regarding such changes in the wvw dev team, is it Devon? This is the most ugly, power ranger blue I could imagine, the old colour was fitting the darkish environment perfectly, why would you change it to something like that?

Thank you, Cactus, for expressing exactly how I feel… This game is so far off from the manifest (“we don`t make grindy games…”), hype and beta videos (where wvw was always very present as an important semi-standalone mode) which made me buy the game.

I used to really appreciate Devon`s responsiveness (and still do, I guess), but the “Trebuchet mastery” introduced just know is so …. disappointing, I almost feel insulted.

Best regards

I was talking about this idea with guildies some time ago as well, Niim. The ruins in EBG are such a great place but so underused. Please bring this somewhere else up (suggestions, whatever), that implementation would be so awesome.

Yeah, since today afternoon I suffer terrible, terrible skilllags even on almost empty maps, heck even in tpvp. Just now I was solo roaming on borderlands with not more than 5 people from my server and without [outmanned], which indicates the map was not full at all, no orange swords or anything and suddenly i wasn`t able to switch weapon sets or heal for at least 4-5 seconds.

ArenaNet, this is not a beta game and we are not your guinea pigs, invest in PTR if you wanna do large scale tests on live environment, its just not acceptable for paying customers. It really is a shame and my playing experience suffers heavily…

Roaming in 5 mans is the only thing i do since wvw release. Played thief for about 1500h in wvw and pvp. I have to say, a 5 man setup with a well trained thief (well trained for group play that is) is just wonderful. Certainly no disadvantage compared to any other group setup.

It`s all about the utilities that provide not only safe stomps but reliable escape/regroup and rez functionality as well. An opposing grp that loses its focus target just for a second is much easier to engage/fight. Precise burst to weakend targets is awesome, too.

Key is, the thief has to communicate his utilities and keep them for his teammates. Overextenders that use their utilities for themself are just plain bad, a thief can escape almost any situation just using his weapon skills.

My 2 cent.

Good luck with that, honestly. I feel your pain and agree to a certain extend. Except, community driven servers is a lot of fun to play on, the downsides are well known. Well, I´m glad there`s both, more guild driven worlds and more community driven ones. I had a very nice and interesting conversation with Oren as well, so no feelings hurt on my side.

Best regards

Where does all the negativity come from, Oren? I was all positive begging for some sense of empathy for the situation. Come and find me and my crew if u wanna get stomped by “faceless and nameless lootbags”. Haven`t seen anything special from DAWN aside from your forum warriors…

Much love to the rest of Aurora, you guys fight well and deserve all the credit for it.

Best regards

Hey guys,

both Kodash and Abaddon are fighting for every point because the rivalry between the two communities is pretty huge. To be matched with Abaddon (and vice versa) was desired by many over here. Lots of players on both servers did several all nighters to make the difference. Too much zerging, but the atmosphere and overall motivation on Kodash is absolute madness (in an awesome way), guess its the same for Abaddons.

Must look pretty strange for you Auroras, i feel for you. That`s not how it usually is, i really hope you can at least pull a bit of joy, good fights and lots of lootbags out of it. Well, the crazyness will last til reset, wish you best of luck with your next matchup.

Best regards

Basically the message is: ignore PvP in WvW, do PvE and Karmatrain all day long (champion loot, hurray)!

I`m disgusted and really, really disappointed regarding the recent changes…

Thank you for the past week, guys. It was a pleasure, hope your larger guilds didn`t get too bored, Millers should`ve provided some action in that regard.

Best of luck for your next matchup.

Hey,

I love watching smallscale vids and as far as I understand, this is supposed to be mainly about smallscale?

Two points I`d appreciate you to change for watchabilty after watching the latest recap:

1. Please use the original speed, it`s already difficult enough to identify group movement. focus targets and skill usage, especially of your mates, in normal speed.

2. The minimap is for me the most important tool to identify how well your group movement and positioning is. Additionally it is far easier to see the relation of your team`s numbers compared to the opponent`s. I really don`t get why you censored it.

Apart from that, you seem to move a lot with the zerg, I`d prefer to see your groups impact infight without support, because the way it is right now, it`s just another zerging vid (no offense, just my opinion).

Best regards

Yeah, I know, I`m repeating myself, but I`m loving this matchup so much! Shoutout to all the smallscalers out there, you know who you are. Great fights.

Best regards

Hey guys,

I`m enjoying this matchup a lot so far. Great servers to be matched with, thanks for the action!

Keep it up, gl & hf!

I think you`re taking yourself and your “expertise” way too serious, Xsorus. It is fascinating how someone is able to (mis-)interprete the “original wanting” (your words) just from my first post, that is commenting on how interesting the discussion over here is.

How in hell do you come to the conclusion that I want GW2 to be basically an RTS where everything is balanced in static manner and how do you know what sense of history I have concerning MMOs? Can I call you Mentalist now, or are you just bitter, that someone is disagreeing with your opinion?

I do get, that you think you are some kind of indisputable institution regarding MMOs but I`d appreciate if you would try to word your response like a grown up without serious personal issues and without telling other people what to do, thanks. One could argue the tone of your post is borderline insulting, passive aggressive at least.

My point is, just because there are leveling elements in RPG (which concern mainly the PvE parts of most MMOs and which are capped at the point where most people start to PvP) doesn`t mean that there should be an endless spiral of advantages handed to the players that had the opportunity to grind PvP for a longer time compared to a newcomer. When people max out and start PvP the playing ground should be somewhat equal.

The reward for playing more is to be more experienced, to have a better clue about the game and its frameworks. A newcomer with excellent mechanics (Micro, Macro, APM, Timings, Positioning, …) should be able to beat an experienced player that is not as good with his mechanics. It`s all about skill, not gear and stat advantage, right? I`m sure, even the PAXA guys (who seem to favor power creep) would agree with me here.

I was stating from the beginning that I`m solely advocating my opinion, and guess what, different opinions make an discussion interesting if people are open for other perspectives. Again, why is my opinion not valid, Xsorus? I fail to see any real argument in your response, just belittleing of MMO gamers…

Best regards

If you argue against someone`s opinion it might be helpful to explain it, instead of stating your opinion as facts with oneliners, Xsorus.

Do you mean MMO players need the carrot on a stick to feel like special princesses, just because they play MMO`s? I don`t think so, in both genres I play to improve myself, my mechanics, my rotations/builds, group play, etc pp. Thats rewarding enough for me and I know lots of players who think similar, why is my opinion not valid, just because it is MMO RPG? RPG stands for roleplaying afaik, not for anything else…

I really don`t get your point, care to explain?

Best regards

I`m just dropping in to tell you guys how much I`m appreciating the discussion in this thread, it certainly is one of the more intelligent threads in this forum with lots of truth in it.

I`m personally agreeing with almost everything Jscull wrote, except the conclusion of giving enhanced player stats to long time players. As an avid starcraft player for almost a decade now, I just can`t cope with the idea of artificially enhancing one`s chances to win a fight just because he/she played for a longer time. It`s against everything what PvP stands for in my opinion.

Best regards

Thanks for the matchup, guys. I met great players on both opposing servers and had a blast fighting them in smaller groups or duels. Special mentions to [ZOMB] and [uMAD], you guys know, what you`re doing.

Good luck for the next match with hopefully more challenging opponents coverage wise (no pun, just to make your nightcrew happy).

Best regards

More stories, please, MistMirage. You do great!

Would you mind adding your server, guild tag and class to the signature, so we can identify your bravery and great achievements? It`s so easy to hide behind anonymity and tell funny fairytales on the internet…

I`m confident, you alone did down three of us with your top level forum warrior skillz, it was just the fourth one that gave you trouble… and the grub of course, we have special arrangements with that bug to help us out on umber, whenever we need it, which is like always, because we are not as brave as you are, my hero.

Best regards

Oh wow, I forgot pikens and desos strong forces of forum warriors doing their best to let even the ugliest defeats shine on the forum as glorious victories. Great job, may the power be with you!

I feel sorry for you guys, I meet you every day on the battlefield and what I see there compared to what you write here is just so far off from reality, I don`t even know what to say…

Nobody stated that we`re some kind of invincible heroes, we`re mentioned often by others, praised often and probably as a consequence insulted quite often. I appreciate the praise, the rest is just sour losers. The opponents who give us the best fights are usually the most friendy and respectful ones.

To any of you internet heroes bigmouthing here: Win a somewhat fair fight vs Buka (I consider being outmanned by 2 or 3 as fair, when we run 5), fraps it and back your mouth up. In case you are not able to, just come back to reality, play the game and have fun without venting frustration on the forums.

Just for the giggles, I fraps a bit of stuff these days and show you superheroes how it looks like from our perspective, yes? I guarantee you, even without cutting, there is just no situation were we lose to similar sized groups of yours, it just doesnt happen in my playing time…

Best regards

@ Neukku:

Faceroll D/P thief feels very special and strong today, ha? Come and find my dolyaks, I`ll release you from that bloodlust stacks… oh wait, you will just 5-2 your way out of it and feel like a pro again, right?

Get some self respect, dude.

I just wish we could enjoy the good fights we have and praise our opponent`s dedication and skillz a bit more, instead of falling back to weak accusations and big mouthing. Aurora offers a wide range of greatly skilled players, I enjoyed the past 8 days a lot (we just arrived on Miller`s).

Miller`s offers awesome gameplay as well, be it small-, mid- or larger scale. Why can`t we just enjoy what we have?

Good luck & have fun.

@ Tsezar:

Please link me to any post where we are bragging…

You are the one being aggressive in here, telling others how bad they are (hey, it must be the build, right?) without even being provoked by anyone. Even after being called out in this very thread I acted quite reasonable, you`ll find more praise (regarding our opponents, yeah right, that happens) from our side than anything else.

Do you guys still enjoy the game? You act as if we took something away from you… I really don`t get your attitude and feel quite sad about it.

Take a break and fight us on the field not with insults and accusations… crazy internet people.

Best regards

I don`t get what offended you, Tsezar. Coarr didn`t even initiate talking about the fight or bragged, it was one of your server mates that just tried to be nice (by the way he seems to know how to play and counter such builds pretty well).

Where does all the negativity come from? It`s all about getting challenging fights, if we happen to find them, we`re happy… same story for you, right?

Best regards

@ KrisHQ:

You forgot to mention the 3-10 aurora randoms fighting alongside you… you forgot to mention the “nice” chitchat you initiated… you forgot to mention that you always waited for us to engage other groups before trying to snipe us… you forgot to mention that it was you who decided to engage us repeatedly (even after wiping seven times in a row)…

You get what you ask for, dude.

@ [team]:

You guys got balls and fought well, despite being outnumbered – respect!

Best regards

Hey,

On EU Kodasch there`s at least 2 top quality smallscale guilds (3-5): Mondsucht [MS] and Morituri [GC]. These guys can wreck havoc on anything that is not a blob.

Best regards

Hey guys,

it`s a pleasure fighting you guys again, great matchup! Thanks for the action, keep it going.

Good luck & have fun!