Guild Wars 2

Ragnar.4257:

If they had wanted to prevent stacking stability for 20+ seconds at a time, and force players to time it carefully rather than spamming, they could have just stopped the duration stacking (4s remaining + 6s from new = 6s rather than 10s)

Why was the intensity stacking also needed? I don’t think it was for the benefit of WvW.

Whilst changing duration-stacking makes players think more carefully, play with a little more skill and rewards good timing while punishing bad-timing, what benefit does the intensity stacking bring? All it does is give numbers an advantage?

You nailed it sir, those are exactly my thoughts… and stab was always rather easy to remove, just with necros corrupting boons into conditions for example…

Many of you might say: ‘but I used my CC and it did not stun anybody!’ …well, yeah thats sort of what stability is for… but I can give some advice: you should keep an eye on enemy and use CC when stab is off cd…

I don’t hear people complaining about missing when they had blind on them, or when enemy evaded, or got out of the range… but when you throw your CC into enemy and it does not work because players who use their brains also use stability on engage, its all gone wrong and everybody complains that the game is broken and that stab needs nerf :/

Stability stacks have nerfed melee classes in WvW significantly, even with precise stab timing and all the skill in the world any blob can remove all your stab stacks in second or two… now when I think about it and in relation to previous comments about BAD players, it would seem that if I wanted to slack in WvW now all I need to do is get range class and CC and pew pew enemy from 1200-1500 range. gg

Sorry for the long post.

Dal.5872:

I also suffer from a bug queueing for maps, upon clicking “yes” to queue there is around a 50% chance the game will just disconnect me.

I have experienced something very similar, when queue pops and I click “yes/travel” sometimes I get disconnect or I am greeted by the message: “map is full! would you like to queue for it?”

Father Busho.2796:

Hahaha i find it funny how guilds, publicly considered “top guilds” now get steamrolled because mellee thinks they can get carried by stability while still jumping in all the kitten on the ground. The fact that 75%+ of a “pro guild group” was always a mellee ball that was able to get carried by spamming shouts/cleanses/stab randomly was ridiculous.
I think now the risk of plainly “jumping in” is much more balanced than before.

Kasteros is right. Even melee takes skills, only thing that is not skill is 1 1 1 1 spam, but every profession does that… I reviewed my guild raids from different professions POV and they were all spamming 1 randomly – but thats it. Thats where yoloskillspam ends. If you are good player you will use all your other skills reasonably.

From my own experience I can say there are certain servers and enemy commanders with blobs who are weak. It does not take much to defeat them. When I have such servers in my matchup I relax, spam 1 and collect my loot. Then strong server/enemy comes along and even with my ptv guard I have to focus the kitten up during the fights and pay attention to everything around me… otherwise when enemy pushes they just steamroll through me. Basically when you make one mistake, wrong dodge, you are 90% dead…

And now its even worse with stab that vanishes the moment I pop it up

There is nothing easier than making a mistake as a melee and die instantly when enemy pushes. When you dont die instantly when enemy pushes you either have very weak enemy against you or you are warrior with defy pain trait (automatic endure pain)

Jski.6180:

Well look at it from the other side its no fun to have most of your ability do nothing to stop a melee from getting to you. Its not fun to have melee able to run away from you becuse they are immune to every thing in the game.

When a war (the only classes that got hit hard and the only all in melee class) gets on a caster the caster should play for it but a war should not get a free pass when getting on that caster nor should the war get a free pass to get away. And that the way of things the War class has needed a nerf for some time it was out right silly for a class to of been so unstoppable as the war class and most ppl saw and asked for something to hit them. Stab update makes you able to some what counter a war.

What ppl do not seem to get is that stab is made to be apart of stun brakes BUT stab was mostly used as an passive invaluably to hard cc not as a stun brake. So there had to be a hit to its after effect. Now there is a good reason to use stab ability as stun brakes and not just spam your stab ability before you get hit with a hard cc. Also Hard cc is doing something even if its just setting up another hard cc. There should NEVER be a time that its ok to walk though 10+ ground skills unless your using an invaluably that is on a long cd and only last for a very short time.

I am really sorry for this but from what you are saying it would seem that you have very limited knowledge about the issue at hand.

Regarding the first paragraph:
Melee unstoppable? How? When? Well yes, they got access to stability, but its never in a way that you can achieve perma stability… Guard has 5 sec stab on 24-30 sec cd; War can have 3 stabs for 10ish seconds, for 40, 60 and 90 second cds – which sounds like War is overpowered but keep in mind that in order to do that they have to sacrifice 2 utilities and a major trait – and all the stabs have long cds.

As ranged all you need to do is either kite till stab runs out or rip the stab down from enemy. Also no melee (unless War is using berserker stance (8sec on 60 sec cd) is immune to soft CC. Seriously man, just open your eyes, look at enemy you are targetting and see for yourself if he has stability = dont use hard CC, see if he has defiant stance = dont dps … its simple, dont face roll your keyboard and expect enemies to die, play smart.

Furthermore, how is stab mainly a stunbreaker? You said: “What ppl do not seem to get is that stab is made to be apart of stun brakes” – are you high or something? Last time I checked my guard I saw this:
SYG: stunbreak
HG: not a stunbreak
Virtue of Courage (as currently used by WvW guards): not a stunbreak
other source of stab which are not really used in WvW that much are Tomes with Elite Focus: not a stunbreak

If I understand it right, when I play my guard I HAVE TO pop stab before engages, its useless otherwise – and not just because its not a stunbreak but because I have other players in my party who rely on me to give them the stab so that they can do their job properly.

There is no free pass for any class to do what they want, and if there is its for a very short time (like war stances). The only such thing is EVADE – making you basically invulnerable for 3/4 – 1 sec => but this mechanic is available to everyone, not just melee classes.

PS: I have been following your posts for a while now and it would seem you have a very weird view of WvW, I have no idea where and when you play to get such impressions and ideas… seriously for most of the stuff you say on these forums I can just say open your eyes and pay attention to whats happening around you and dont just spam spells randomly…

Haralin.1473:

So before the patch how many Engis did you have in your GvG Team? Or maybe ranger or thiefs?

I have no idea where you have been playing sir, thiefs are very, very useful for gvg guilds. Every normal gvg guild has 6 classes in reasonable balance (every class bar rangers and engis). Having said that some guilds did experiment with these ‘unwanted classes’… but its the same with every game mode. There will be classes that are more viable and useful than other – thats just the way it is. Everybody knows reasons why some classes are more ‘accepted’ in wvw than other.

Similarly, some classes are more common in spvp than other classes – every time I look at pvp parties there are patterns there and some classes you encounter more often than others… its the mechanics of the class. So please do not try to use this argument, it is not relevant to the discussion.

Alex Caputo.7863:

What Anet has done is encouraged mindless blob play instead of coordinated strategy amongst players. I found this to be extremely sad and a killer to the game in itself. The GvG scene is all but dead, since now the meta seems to be extreme CC with no frontline, making half the classes NOT EVEN WORTH PLAYING IN THIS GAME ANYMORE. As a result Ns, Syn and i believe Agg have quit the guild wars 2, making this a sad example of what happens when you mess with an already stable system. Losing these experienced guilds and players is a hardstrike on the WvW community.

Same in EU (at least around prime time – that’s when I play), guilds disbanding all over the place or going casual, just doing open raid now and then… blobbing is even more ridiculous than before – its impossible to find honorable opponent these days…

Deli.1302:

You’d have to be ignorant to think that using stability was somehow skillful pre-patch. It was mindless. Any mediocre guild could get a rotation set up and be permanently immune to hard CC. People obviously got too comfortable and now they’re upset they can’t 11111 in a hyper-sustain melee train.

Not true at all mate. Stability was never as powerful as many think. There are many ways how to control enemy who has stability most notably via condition control (immob chill etc)… stability was never mindless or permanent – at least not after the boon duration nerf ages ago where the guards were no longer able to get over 75% boon duration resulting in ridiculously long stabilities…

Not anymore – not for a long time now…

Stab was actually rather weak and only allowed you to push for a limited amount of time. Every guild I know utilized 2 Guardians per party which means that they could have provided 12 seconds of stability every 24 seconds… maybe a bit more with F3 traited… but that’s it. There were always huge gaps where there was no stability and where CC reigned supreme… You just had to wait for the stability to run out and CC enemy when they still got their stabs on cd…

Additionally, there were always boon removal things – necro with focus and corrupt boon could have had ripped 8 boons from anybody in a second or two… recent stab changes ruined melee setups for certain classes and gave an upper hand to range pressure.

Stability was never owerpowered in the first place. Every normal raid group/guild had 2 guards in it, 3 guards max… that way the party was able to cover for other people with stab, such as worker warriors or necros.

The first stab nerf came with reduction of boon duration… while before the patch (I think it was last year in spring) guards were able to get 75% boon duration and in that way 2 guards were capable of what many of you might call MTs owerpowered perma stab…
I assure you this is no longer possible, the guardians can’t get more than 12 seconds of stab from shouts, maybe a bit more from F3 – and that’s it. I have no idea where people who claim the stab nerf was necessary get their info and opinions, stab was never owerpowered, not after the boon duration nerf…
With 2, or even if you had 3 guards, there were still huge gaps where MT had no stability… if you were patient and dropped your line 15 seconds into the fight I guarantee you CCd at least a handful people…

Also, if you are necro, target guard, put spinal shivers and corrupt boon on him and he can have all the stab in the world and he will still die in the first CC bomb… meta guard has one break stun every 24 seconds which he, due to the needs of the party, uses on cd instead of using it as his personal breakstun…

Don’t want to be rude or anything but this change drastically nerfed capabilities of melee setups for certain classes which I think is not balancing imo… I recall that when I started WvWing what I encountered the most were hammertrains – or basically heavy melee setup with only handful of eles/necros/ranged players in general… recently it moved more towards hybrid melee/ranged setup…

But now with stab changes its pure ranged setup, and you can say whatever you want in terms of balancing, nerfing and changing stuff – without melee, the fights are insanely stale, static and non-dynamic, which, in simple terms and compared to what players experience beforehand, means incredibly boring and dull…

Thank you Hamster for doing something for the community/players.

Regarding the ranger issue what is imo main reason ranger is not used in WvW is the same as why there are no minionmaster necromancers – you cannot control the AI pets and therefore in any bigger-scale zerg/blob fight your pet/pets will die instantly. That is fine for necro who can always go condi or power, but for a class that is basically built on the premise you will have pet active and fighting for you it creates a major disadvantage…

Ranger as a class puts some of its potential and strength into pet and when he cannot use pet efficiently then some of his potential is also taken away logically leading to the fact that any other class will contribute more to the team than ranger, in this particular zerg/blob scenario at least…

I am aware of the fact that this might appear a bit anti-ranger but those are the facts

don’t care what they’re changing as long as they are at least changing something; also, since these changes are only temporary, there’s no reason to panic just now, we’ll see how it goes and if it goes bad (which might happen) we can spam the forum then
But yea, I was also surprised and a bit amazed how anet managed to make themselves look good and hard-working (regarding wvw) by calling this temporary testing period ‘event’ as if something ground-breaking were to happen. Looking forward to testing PPK though, might be interesting…
And I also get wvw buff? Amazing! Christmas came early this year! rofl xD

problem with ranks as well as badges of honor is that with introduction of EotM the ranks no longer reflect the amount of time spent in actual wvw, skill of the player etc…. so in order for this to work I’d say there would have to be a system that would be able to differentiate between the ranks karmatrained in EotM and the ones you gained fighting and wvw-ing on the relevant maps… but I dont see how this can ever work…
however I have to say the idea of a bit more appreciation for wvw players is nice, since currently there is literally no way of being able to show the amount of time you spent fighting in wvw for your server and stuff, no titles, no skins, nothing… and the ones that are there can be obtained by virtually anyone like those lame skins and one title given to everybody who did 5 events in wvw throughout the seasons, which is a real shame and downgrades wvw focused players

PariahX.6970:

and lag and disconnects have been more weird than “usual” lately so good to hear it is not forgotten, tho I expect growing LS and seasonal stuff is making it especially worse recently.

Yes, in my experience and from discussions my guildies and I had every LS update always results in mass disconnects from wvw (sometimes even entire map blob dcs – at least on EU servers) and persistent lags/disconnects (up to around 5ish dc’s in one hour) for some players….

<= Grotesque
when in OS the guilds in gvg should not leave the flat round area, thats the rule as far as I know and as soon as one of the guilds runs up the stairs they have cheated and in so-doing lost that round imo; another thing is when they got cc’d out (like banish or something), then its fine, as long as they run back to the battle-area as soon as possible;
regarding the breaking out of combat, if you stay inside the flat part of the OS arena there is no chance you will get out of combat; the only way is to run away further (preferably with stealth) but thats cheating and it is also childish thing to do. you either fight a fair fight and win, or you loose, there is no sense in winning gvg by cheating. its just low that is…

caveman.5840:

thats pretty sad if anet does not have a wvw team anymore

one more reason for me to move on to a new game asap

thats what most of the wvw players are doing right now, just waiting for a new, better game… and as soon its shows up there’s not gonna be any more wvw… and I dont blame those ppl, seriously, 2+ years of ignorance and with changes almost always for worse in wvw… :/ :/

great John, thanks. this is good direction to go – since nowadays every gate has its own personal treb and 2-3 acs minimum, it is good to see nerf for the defense… my guildies and I have discussed this and it just feels that when weaker server decides to go on a organized well-prepared attack, 1-2 guys with siege disablers are able to halt the attack almost indefinitely, and get the blob from another map to defend… thanks

can support what Nokaru said; my wvw guild (stationed in silver) disbanded few months ago so I decided to move to gold league… and now I am getting PMs from old members who still want to play wvw how are things in gold, since in silver for the most part of the day is absolutely empty, fills for few hours around prime time and then the population drops back to a few roams and an occasional zerg in the off hours… cant imagine how are things in bronze, that must be completely empty
and thats why people are stacking in top tiers, cuz the rest is slowly dying off, and if you want to play, you have to go to upper tiers…

Not true at all, defense is already OP imho => it is still possible to hold out 50+ blob with 2-3 ppl on trebs/mortars/ballistas/acs.
Additionally, the siege disable trap can be better used as a defensive element rather than offensive one – yesterday I was part of a golem rush (5 omegas) which would up to this point mean breaching both reinforced gates of a garrison in a matter of minutes – now we were stuck there for at least half an hour due to the constant disabling of the golems.
All in all – no, I can’t agree with you – defense is still more powerful than offense in this game, as long as you use your siege smart and have ppl on the siege who can actually use it properly.
And I am personally very happy that it is no longer possible to res lord from downed state with banner – this once again meant that 10-15 ppl with enough skilled warriors could postpone flipping almost indefinitely – always hated that group of warriors hiding on the other side of the inner wall at watergate in garri just waiting for the lord getting killed and then rushing in and bannering him… one again, in my opinion it just should not be able to hold out with 5 ppl against 50 – you are just ruining the game for those 50 :/

current maps are unbalanced => this is very true, all wvw players know this (it is possible to treb SM from red keep but not from other two etc….)
ofc new map (for example taking whole or a part of pve map) will result in unbalanced map, but thats ok the real problem with having (basically) 2 maps for over a year is that everyone knows where to put siege so that it cant be destroyed, from where to treb keeps etc.. what would introduction of a new maps bring? lots of new options and opportunities for wvw community

awesome ideas Sam, however as previously mentioned by significant number of people here, even though the game is called guildwars (and not siegewars, which it is slowly but surely turning into), I am pretty sure we will not see any of them implemented into the game…
and while wvw community is very loyal to the game it is, in my opinion, the one which receives the least attention from developers (based on the number of bugs reported and still not fixed for a year now, on the contrary with pve-release/living world immediate fixing and repairing….)
also, even when devs do not like gvg that much, when there’s a big amount of players who enjoy this structured way of fights, they should do something about it

WvW focused cz/sk guild [DOOM] currently stationed on Ring of Fire server is looking for a new players to join our ranks;
cz/sk players only;
here is link to our youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0gtMcK_UlGucbYo9Pmol_g
if interested, pm Peterson.8345 or Zerby.9076
Dakujeme a tesime sa na Vas

Ring of Fire server, but recently moved from Aurora Glade;

here is a channel created specifically for lags of one of my guild mates:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLUdqmGLPkhJ3AAJjd-yShflCf-QIllldI