Guild Wars 2

And tell me puck. How much gold did you YOURSELF sink into upgrading towers and camps?

I can say with some certainty its atleast over a thousand for me. Even if it swaps back I probably won’t be helping out with that anymore. Most of the times I upgraded things it was simply because time had passed and no one else had bothered. Partly because it was felt that defending and objective simply had no meaning. After all there wasn’t any point in trying to hold a tower against a larger group unless you had an organized group yourself…atleast in the eyes of the player base.

You seem pretty eager to throw the word PvE around as if it means something. And your last few points its been pretty clear you don’t hold much respect for my opinion. (You aren’t exactly subtle)

I would list my credentials but the simple fact is you wouldn’t care. You have already made your decision. And you aren’t really reading what I am typing except to pick at it. Its pretty obvious in how your replies are now mostly thinly veiled insults.

Speaking of minority. I wonder how much of the playerbase actually CARES enough to come on to the forums to talk about the game. Last I checked the number of people that even got on to forums in the first place WERE the minority. So that in itself has no meaning here.

Sentries doing the work of scouts? No. Its sentries having a purpose and giving scouts the basic knowledge they need to do their job. (This sentry is alive. Meaning the enemies are probably gonna go through X route to get to Y Tower/Keep) it doesn’t take away anything from scouts. Sentries cover TINY portions of the map. But they cover routes letting the scouts focus on routes that AREN’T covered. And telling them what places are more at risk than others.

Structures getting upgraded on there own was purely a quality of life decision. After literally years of a select few people throwing gold in and getting nothing out of it. It wasn’t the Majority that upgraded towers and camps. It was the minority that happened to notice (Hey this isn’t upgrading and its full of supply. Let me do something with it)

Everything else in your post is pure vitriol in the hopes of discrediting the person your talking to. And your not even that good at hiding it.

Puck.9612:

Shadelang.3012:

Puck.9612:

Shadelang.3012:

Puck.9612:

Shadelang.3012:

Edit: Thats the reason I am advocating* for atleast some of the new systems to say. The shield generator especially. If we could have defending the wall from the trebs with say 2 shield gens. The rest of our people would have been free to start making attacks on the tower.

If you had shield generators to completely nullify their trebs they wouldn’t have stuck around for a 2+ hour siege so everything else you said is irrelevant. They would have just moved on to something easy and there would be very little action anywhere. Sounds super fun, I bet people would love to log on for that. That is clearly why WvW is doing so well since HoT dropped.

Think about it, you had a force that severely outnumbered you and it still took them over 2 hours to bust a WP’d keep. That is an incredibly long time for a video game, and you are trying to argue that somehow that wasn’t fair for your side because of the mechanics….. really?

No thats not what I am trying to argue at all. I am not gonna say that we “Should” have won that fight in any way shape or form. We were out manned pretty heavily as you said. What I am saying is that there wasn’t any fun there ANYWAY. We held them. But none of us enjoyed doing it. Which made it less likely that any of us would be willing to go through it again.

I fully agree that we should have lost it. It just makes sense. But a feeling of helplessness if a video game is NOT a good thing.

At this point I’m convinced you don’t know what you want. What exactly would make you feel all warm and fuzzy about losing a keep to vastly superior numbers?
If it’s pulling a lever and having PvE gimmicks like an airship to come and bomb them for you then maybe you are playing the wrong game mode.

Quite litteraly all I have argued against is taking away EVERYTHING that HoT brought all at once. Start with the biggest offender. The map. THEN see if any of the other things are actually issues. You can see what many of the new stuff was built to address. But its hard to see if they actually DO anything to address those problems in the current state of the game. We can get rid of them if their* harmful for the game once we know for a fact that they are. Not just that their* tied into HoT and bad by default.

Edit: I mean hell. Even the scientific method we all learned back in GRADE school taught to change things one at a time or you may not learn what actually made the change you observed.

We’ve literally already tested every one of these changes on EB….. Just to clarify…. EB is a pre-existing map….

Yes. And I and my friends atleast have had positive interactions with most of them. The airship wasn’t some massive game changer unless we made it into one (Meaning it was still our own gameplay that made it into more than just a lightshow). The chill field bought time but was easily counterable and didn’t do much more that limit mobility for a short time.

The auto upgrade system has been a godsend to me. And the yak escort buff made it possible to protect yaks from things like permastealth condi thieves. Forcing them to fight me first. Making escorting a yak actually have meaning.

The shield generator’s help deal with treb spam from red keep. (from the treb locations that cant be reached with aoes) But there still bypassable. And they don’t prevent SMC from being taken by any means. They just make it so that a more personal approach is necessary (Meaning fights are more likely) rather than letting trebs do all the work for you.

Sentries actually have purpose. Which they havn’t since day 1 besides granting a bit of free karma. They were more useful to the enemy team than they were to there own team (Clearing one side of sentries to trick the team they belong to sending scouts there while you hit something on the other side of the map).

The biggest offenders I saw were dragon banners and speedy yaks. Both of which I FULLY AGREE need to be tuned down. Or if they still stay game breaking can be reworked. But there are aspects of the system that are more beneficial than harmful. And its those I want to preserve.

Edit: The Bomb on the supply hut is also once of THE most satisfying things to have work when you watch an enemy zerg steamroll a location you just spent an hour escorting yaks to. Atleast you cost them something for it. Supply if nothing else forcing them to restock elsewhere.

Puck.9612:

Shadelang.3012:

Puck.9612:

Shadelang.3012:

Edit: Thats the reason I am advocating* for atleast some of the new systems to say. The shield generator especially. If we could have defending the wall from the trebs with say 2 shield gens. The rest of our people would have been free to start making attacks on the tower.

If you had shield generators to completely nullify their trebs they wouldn’t have stuck around for a 2+ hour siege so everything else you said is irrelevant. They would have just moved on to something easy and there would be very little action anywhere. Sounds super fun, I bet people would love to log on for that. That is clearly why WvW is doing so well since HoT dropped.

Think about it, you had a force that severely outnumbered you and it still took them over 2 hours to bust a WP’d keep. That is an incredibly long time for a video game, and you are trying to argue that somehow that wasn’t fair for your side because of the mechanics….. really?

No thats not what I am trying to argue at all. I am not gonna say that we “Should” have won that fight in any way shape or form. We were out manned pretty heavily as you said. What I am saying is that there wasn’t any fun there ANYWAY. We held them. But none of us enjoyed doing it. Which made it less likely that any of us would be willing to go through it again.

I fully agree that we should have lost it. It just makes sense. But a feeling of helplessness if a video game is NOT a good thing.

At this point I’m convinced you don’t know what you want. What exactly would make you feel all warm and fuzzy about losing a keep to vastly superior numbers?
If it’s pulling a lever and having PvE gimmicks like an airship to come and bomb them for you then maybe you are playing the wrong game mode.

Quite litteraly all I have argued against is taking away EVERYTHING that HoT brought all at once. Start with the biggest offender. The map. THEN see if any of the other things are actually issues. You can see what many of the new stuff was built to address. But its hard to see if they actually DO anything to address those problems in the current state of the game. We can get rid of them if their* harmful for the game once we know for a fact that they are. Not just that their* tied into HoT and bad by default.

Edit: I mean hell. Even the scientific method we all learned back in GRADE school taught to change things one at a time or you may not learn what actually made the change you observed.

Puck.9612:

Shadelang.3012:

“If the defense is adequate the attackers move on, if the attackers are too much for the defenders they give up immediately. How does this equate to a better system in your mind?”

And how would it be ANY different WITHOUT the new systems? Wouldn’t it still play out exactly the same? Then wouldn’t giving players more tools to use to try to break the stagnancy be a good thing instead of taking them away?

It clearly wouldn’t play out the same way. Your own story of spending 2 and a half hours defending a keep is proof of that. Players were more invested in their keeps before and would do everything they could to fight for them, just as attackers were more interested in breaking their WP’s to take deny them the ability to quickly travel around the map.
The system you are arguing for has failed hard. Yes WvW was slowly losing players due to stagnation but HoT drove off probably a good 50% (or more) of the remaining players. New content should excite people, not drive them off in record numbers.

Sure. I am not going to claim to know teh exact numbers of people that did or didn’t leave (And niether should anyone we simply don’t have the numbers) But I will agree that HOT WvW has fewer players than we did before. But a large part of that was the Desert Borderlands itself. And a self fulfilling prophecy on the part of the players (Lets face it there were alot of us that didn’t even TRY the new stuff before hating it).

The desert borderlands are changing. And after that change theyl be swapped back to the alpine borderlands. Lets See what happens BEFORE we start taking tools away from players. We can see how the new stuff players out with the old maps BEFORE we set up to burn the world down…again.

Edit: As for people being more invested in keeps. I think that was in part simply because people cared more in general. It wasn’t the HoT systems that stopped that. It was weeks of people trash talking the game and down trodding on anyone that might actually enjoy the new content. And months of forum posts acting as a wellspring of misery for anyone that wanted to come and actually talk about the game. We did it to ourselves as much as the game did. A large amount of the population just stopped caring about the game in general. Not just the keeps.

Puck.9612:

Shadelang.3012:

Edit: Thats the reason I am advocating* for atleast some of the new systems to say. The shield generator especially. If we could have defending the wall from the trebs with say 2 shield gens. The rest of our people would have been free to start making attacks on the tower.

If you had shield generators to completely nullify their trebs they wouldn’t have stuck around for a 2+ hour siege so everything else you said is irrelevant. They would have just moved on to something easy and there would be very little action anywhere. Sounds super fun, I bet people would love to log on for that. That is clearly why WvW is doing so well since HoT dropped.

Think about it, you had a force that severely outnumbered you and it still took them over 2 hours to bust a WP’d keep. That is an incredibly long time for a video game, and you are trying to argue that somehow that wasn’t fair for your side because of the mechanics….. really?

No thats not what I am trying to argue at all. I am not gonna say that we “Should” have won that fight in any way shape or form. We were out manned pretty heavily as you said. What I am saying is that there wasn’t any fun there ANYWAY. We held them. But none of us enjoyed doing it. Which made it less likely that any of us would be willing to go through it again.

I fully agree that we should have lost it. It just makes sense. But a feeling of helplessness if a video game is NOT a good thing.

Edit: I am guessing what I am trying to say is. Whether we won or not that situation was still simply unfun due to the frustration of not having an option. I am not even gonna say that shield gens would have magically saved us either. They wouldn’t have. They could have just built more trebs and hit too many walls for us to cover pretty easily. Or brought in golems to smash down the door. But atleast we could have enjoyed fighting the golems before we died anyway.

Puck.9612:

Shadelang.3012:

Puck.9612:

Shadelang.3012:

I guess we remember different games then. Because what I remember was watching the walls on my Garri fall after defending it non stop for 2 and a half hours with absolutely nothing to show for it.

A 2 and a half hour fight for a keep is a reward in itself compared to what HoT turned the game into…
Maybe that’s where you and I differ, I would upgrade and defend things because I enjoyed the battles like this that it led to (win or lose). I didn’t do it just to watch the PPT tick away.
If you want to sit in an empty keep all day and watch the enemy k-train move on by because they don’t feel like dealing with stupid kitten like the airship…. I just don’t know what to tell you… we obviously enjoy different things and will never agree on this subject.
However it does seem like the majority of the WvW player base agrees with me on this subject and prefer fights to PvE mechanics that discourage fights and lead to k-trains, so for the health of the game maybe you should just accept that the HoT system is hurting WvW and quit trying to defend it.

When did I say I want that. I perhaps phrased my point wrong. That was 2 and a half hours of doing NOTHING. of sitting there dumping supply into a wall hoping more people would log on. Because my server simply didn’t have the numbers to succesfully push out. So all we could do was repair the wall the trebs were hitting for 2 and a half hours until they eventually just took and held every camp on the map and we were drained dry.

If it had been two and a half hours of fighting I would have been ECSTATIC. I would have spent the rest of that game session in a good mood likely because that would have been incredibly fun.

But that isn’t what I got. It was 2 and a half hours of frustration. Of listening to my entire server have a mental breakdown in the teamspeak. All because there simply wasn’t anything we could do at that time. We just didn’t have the tools to make a difference.

Why were you dumping supply into a wall that was being trebbed instead of building counter siege, or sending players to go make attempts on their keeps to try and draw them off the map? If you spent 2 hours repairing a wall that is more your fault than it is the games.

Really what you are complaining about there is how unbalanced the matches and populations can be. That has nothing to do with pre vs. post HoT systems. That same scenario can still happen now, it just rarely does because no one cares enough to spend 2+ hours on a keep when the enemy server will get their WP back immediately.

If the defense is adequate the attackers move on, if the attackers are too much for the defenders they give up immediately. How does this equate to a better system in your mind?

We were dumping supply into it hoping more people would log on and join. We didn’t build counter siege because counter siege can’t hit that tower without being hit by the trebs they arleady had build. But hey if we had SHIELD GENS we could have built those behind the wall to cover the build locations until we started counter trebbing. And we could atleast have forced a stalemate.

And yes the same situation could happen. But the attacks then could have tried a heavier assault. Getting up catas for example to hit other walls. Things that would have broken the stalemate one way or the other. Forced atleast a little action.

“If the defense is adequate the attackers move on, if the attackers are too much for the defenders they give up immediately. How does this equate to a better system in your mind?”

And how would it be ANY different WITHOUT the new systems? Wouldn’t it still play out exactly the same? Then wouldn’t giving players more tools to use to try to break the stagnancy be a good thing instead of taking them away?

The population imbalance isn’t something I ever see getting fixed until server mergers are a thing or they bring the megaserver system to WvW. Something last I checked was spoken against pretty heavily. Even if people come back to WvW that isn’t gonna fix THAT issue (People will still cram into kitten. And after that swarm whichever server is winning. So I am going to assume it will be there forever. And assume it as a constant any time the subject comes up.

Puck.9612:

Shadelang.3012:

I guess we remember different games then. Because what I remember was watching the walls on my Garri fall after defending it non stop for 2 and a half hours with absolutely nothing to show for it.

A 2 and a half hour fight for a keep is a reward in itself compared to what HoT turned the game into…
Maybe that’s where you and I differ, I would upgrade and defend things because I enjoyed the battles like this that it led to (win or lose). I didn’t do it just to watch the PPT tick away.
If you want to sit in an empty keep all day and watch the enemy k-train move on by because they don’t feel like dealing with stupid kitten like the airship…. I just don’t know what to tell you… we obviously enjoy different things and will never agree on this subject.
However it does seem like the majority of the WvW player base agrees with me on this subject and prefer fights to PvE mechanics that discourage fights and lead to k-trains, so for the health of the game maybe you should just accept that the HoT system is hurting WvW and quit trying to defend it.

When did I say I want that. I perhaps phrased my point wrong. That was 2 and a half hours of doing NOTHING. of sitting there dumping supply into a wall hoping more people would log on. Because my server simply didn’t have the numbers to succesfully push out. So all we could do was repair the wall the trebs were hitting for 2 and a half hours until they eventually just took and held every camp on the map and we were drained dry.

If it had been two and a half hours of fighting I would have been ECSTATIC. I would have spent the rest of that game session in a good mood likely because that would have been incredibly fun.

But that isn’t what I got. It was 2 and a half hours of frustration. Of listening to my entire server have a mental breakdown in the teamspeak. All because there simply wasn’t anything we could do at that time. We just didn’t have the tools to make a difference.

Edit: Thats the reason I am advocating* for atleast some of the new systems to say. The shield generator especially. If we could have defending the wall from the trebs with say 2 shield gens. The rest of our people would have been free to start making attacks on the tower.

WIth the new rules on down and rallying. Every player those guys killed would have stayed dead as long as they could keep the zerg in time. Since we would have been closer to our spawn our smaller group would get reinforcments faster than their larger one. And when one of ours died it wouldn’t have had this massive effect of “god you just rallied 5 of them”.

With the new sentries the players that werent suited to zerg fighting could likely have spotted many of their* respawns as they ran near the sentry in the ruin and by the southern camps before they hit the lowlands between the lower keeps, and killed them as they were otw to the murderball.

But we didn’t have that option because the tools we needed for it to work didn’t exist at the time.

Dusty Moon.4382:

Shadelang.3012:

Dusty Moon.4382:

Shadelang.3012:

As someone who has probably spent a legendaries worth of gold upgrading towers/keeps with absolutely zero thanks. Reward. Or even respect for it.

Nah. The upgrade system atleast needs to stay.

And the tactivators as well. Those are fun.

The shield gen is the ONLY thing we have to stop the alpine BL karma train from coming back (drop 2 trebs in a tower. Push the smaller zerg away with a bigger zerg. Destroy there keeps walls while they have absolutely NOTHING they can do about it).

Atleast the shield gens will help with treb spam. (You want our shield gens down you can walk into OUR arrow cart fire instead of the other way around). Maybe defending will actually mean something. it sure as HELL didn’t before HoT.

The new sentry system makes them actually useful. They can slow down yaks. And they can give away zergs. Gives roamers a purpose (Hey someone kill that sentry before we get there…no not 20 people god kitten it wheres a roaming group when we need it)

The new yak escort buff is pretty kitten mandatory if we don’t want to go back to how we were with 1 condi thief killing literally every yak on the map even if you have 3-4 people escorting the yak.

Many of there new systems WORK. They do exactly the job they were designed for. Getting rid of some of the WORST parts of WvW. Since there changing the BL anyway (and throwing away likely massive amounts of effort for the sake of pleasing the wvw community(Lol like we are EVER pleased)) lets see how the old map interacts with the new systems BEFORE we get our pitchforks and demand they burn down everything they have ever made.

No you don’t. To stop the karma train, you need actual defenders and ARC’s – that is it. Shield Gens, like the tactivators, are just a crutch. If a keep is T3, gates are hard to get through.

I guess we remember different games then. Because what I remember was watching the walls on my Garri fall after defending it non stop for 2 and a half hours with absolutely nothing to show for it. (Becuase we simply couldn’t reach there towers without being wiped) Simply because they had a big enough zerg we COULDN’T push them away from there tower. And they simply hard rezzed anyone that went down becuase we didn’t have enough people to push them off the bodies.

Numbers meant everything. If they had more than you then they kept you from there trebs and the tower that contained them.

What I said in my post was that I was HOPING that shield gens make a difference there. If we had had those back then MAYBE we could have held out long enough for the enemy zerg to either try something desperate (giving us a chance to actually wipe them) or forcing them to hit another location. Atleast giving us a tiny bit of satisfaction.

I was on a Gari defense on ABL’s many times and the fights would go on for hours. It was a 50/50 chance that the Gari would fall. Most times as a defender we were outmanned and many times we would wipe the invaders and start again (I was on TC and in T1 at the time).

It is the difference that people have decided they don’t like the DBL’s (I think it is actually all the HoT add in stuff people don’t like) and there are no longer fights like that. It is easier to get into Gari from home base, on DBL’s, than it was on the ABL’s as the gates were closer together and the invaders can camp to pick the defenders coming in off.

Shield Gen’s add nothing. They are a crutch is all.

They are a tool. Thats all. How well the tool is used is up to the player using it. And the team that sets them up. Every shield gen build is one less place an arrow cart can be placed before siege cap hits. It gives a form of control when it comes to defending. But its abilities are also limited TO defense and control.

Shield gens are as much a “crutch” as arrow carts. Niether directly pushes the battle one way or the other. But one can be used to take away an opponents advantage. And the other can be used to augment your own. BOTH can be used to trap enemies in kill zones. Each can do either in different situations.

Saying to get rid of shield gens we might as well get rid of arrow carts to. I can actually think of alot of people that would be happy with that.

I disagree that shield gens are a cruch. I feel they fill a needed role in our inventory of siege without stepping on the toes of other siege. And without being directly over powered. They at MOST act as multipliers allowing you to buy time. How much time it buys will still depend on the supporting units you have in place. I.E. The other players and siege you have available. A shield gen alone is worthless on its own. As it can be easily overpowered (staggered treb shots. Even just player aoes). But with other units and players acting together with it it can turn the tide against a larger zerg thats trying to form a breach into your keep.

Edited to take out superfluous crap.

Edit 2: If we were to take out everything that could be considered a “crutch” there would only be catas and rams. No other form of siege. No tricks like stealth traps or supply traps. And the game would be that much more stale. Because people would have fewer things to try in order to beat the odds that are against them.

Dusty Moon.4382:

Shadelang.3012:

As someone who has probably spent a legendaries worth of gold upgrading towers/keeps with absolutely zero thanks. Reward. Or even respect for it.

Nah. The upgrade system atleast needs to stay.

And the tactivators as well. Those are fun.

The shield gen is the ONLY thing we have to stop the alpine BL karma train from coming back (drop 2 trebs in a tower. Push the smaller zerg away with a bigger zerg. Destroy there keeps walls while they have absolutely NOTHING they can do about it).

Atleast the shield gens will help with treb spam. (You want our shield gens down you can walk into OUR arrow cart fire instead of the other way around). Maybe defending will actually mean something. it sure as HELL didn’t before HoT.

The new sentry system makes them actually useful. They can slow down yaks. And they can give away zergs. Gives roamers a purpose (Hey someone kill that sentry before we get there…no not 20 people god kitten it wheres a roaming group when we need it)

The new yak escort buff is pretty kitten mandatory if we don’t want to go back to how we were with 1 condi thief killing literally every yak on the map even if you have 3-4 people escorting the yak.

Many of there new systems WORK. They do exactly the job they were designed for. Getting rid of some of the WORST parts of WvW. Since there changing the BL anyway (and throwing away likely massive amounts of effort for the sake of pleasing the wvw community(Lol like we are EVER pleased)) lets see how the old map interacts with the new systems BEFORE we get our pitchforks and demand they burn down everything they have ever made.

No you don’t. To stop the karma train, you need actual defenders and ARC’s – that is it. Shield Gens, like the tactivators, are just a crutch. If a keep is T3, gates are hard to get through.

I guess we remember different games then. Because what I remember was watching the walls on my Garri fall after defending it non stop for 2 and a half hours with absolutely nothing to show for it. (Becuase we simply couldn’t reach there towers without being wiped) Simply because they had a big enough zerg we COULDN’T push them away from their tower. And they simply hard rezzed anyone that went down becuase we didn’t have enough people to push them off the bodies.

Numbers meant everything. If they had more than you then they kept you from their trebs and the tower that contained them.

What I said in my post was that I was HOPING that shield gens make a difference there. If we had had those back then MAYBE we could have held out long enough for the enemy zerg to either try something desperate (giving us a chance to actually wipe them) or forcing them to hit another location. Atleast giving us a tiny bit of satisfaction.

lil devils x.6071:

gennyt.3428:

You’ll still have EBG to use these awful guild upgrades. If we’re caring about options so much at least give the people who don’t like chilling fog, p2w culling and banners some respite via the BLs.

They need to pull them from EBG too and give guilds something much better instead of this garbage for their money, time and effort put in to earning them. These were just very bad ideas from the beginning that should have never been implemented in actual game play.

Gonna have to disagree here. Things like the chill field made outmanuvering an enemy zerg actually a thing. As there backline gets further stretched behind there aoe clearing frontline. Making it possible to defend with far fewer people as long as you can get organized enough to do it. Instead of just having this blob power through anything you try to put in there path through shear supply count.

The guild upgrades themselves are fine. If they need balancing that can be done. But getting rid of them entirely is just gonna make the fights go stale faster.

lil devils x.6071:

Puck.9612:

TheGrimm.5624:

That said never appreciated it when after spending a lot of coin upgrading a BL to have an enemy K-Train come along and just flip it back.

That’s exactly why that system is necessary. You invested time and effort into the upgrades and you cared about defending them. No one kittening cares now.

THIS ^ If it doesn’t matter if you lose it why defend it? Oh yea.. All of those who took pride in “THEIR” keeps and towers and watched over them had their reason to play taken from them. Their money, time and effort put in to them is why the server responded to protect them.

Far more likely you invested time and gold into t3ing a tower. Desperately tried to defend it. But your cmdr was busy with his own pet project and all your gold dissapeared because the enemy zerg just droppd 6 guild catas and went through the wall like paper ANYWAY. Meaning the hours you spent defending it meant absolutely nothing.

Oh. And no your server isn’t going to reimburse you or thank you for upgrading that tower. Infact if you mention anything its far more likely you will be laughed at. Yeah I sure do miss THOSE days… /s

Something else I want to mention. I hope they do rework some of the towers and keeps. Add some ramparts like they have at garrison. People joke about how rangers are usually useless. And the release of druid didn’t do a whole lot to mitigate that. Part of the reason for that is when it comes to wall fights and fights inside keeps we tend to die rather quickly and our pets are generally useless.

One great thing about fire keep is there are many ways where you can go behind an enemy group and go up above them to shoot down. Giving you a way of contributing when your zerg pushed into them. But the old towers and keeps have little to nothing of that sort. Often the only space where a ranger could fight without getting hit by dozens of reflect fields was on a wall where all it took was a little pressure to push you out of the keep entirely.

Having the towers/keeps redesigned a little to account for more than the melee train and casters might go a long way towards offering more roles for defenders and attackers both. And open up some new strategies. As it is. Its likely going to be back to the days of trying to shoot through a dozen walls of reflections. Only now there are scrapper defense fields and aoe magnetic aura to worry about.

As someone who has probably spent a legendaries worth of gold upgrading towers/keeps with absolutely zero thanks. Reward. Or even respect for it.

Nah. The upgrade system atleast needs to stay.

And the tactivators as well. Those are fun.

The shield gen is the ONLY thing we have to stop the alpine BL karma train from coming back (drop 2 trebs in a tower. Push the smaller zerg away with a bigger zerg. Destroy there keeps walls while they have absolutely NOTHING they can do about it).

Atleast the shield gens will help with treb spam. (You want our shield gens down you can walk into OUR arrow cart fire instead of the other way around). Maybe defending will actually mean something. it sure as HELL didn’t before HoT.

The new sentry system makes them actually useful. They can slow down yaks. And they can give away zergs. Gives roamers a purpose (Hey someone kill that sentry before we get there…no not 20 people god kitten it wheres a roaming group when we need it)

The new yak escort buff is pretty kitten mandatory if we don’t want to go back to how we were with 1 condi thief killing literally every yak on the map even if you have 3-4 people escorting the yak.

Many of there new systems WORK. They do exactly the job they were designed for. Getting rid of some of the WORST parts of WvW. Since there changing the BL anyway (and throwing away likely massive amounts of effort for the sake of pleasing the wvw community(Lol like we are EVER pleased)) lets see how the old map interacts with the new systems BEFORE we get our pitchforks and demand they burn down everything they have ever made.

Editing this to be less inherintly negative:

Most of the things that people seem to think were so great in the alpine borderlands. I have memories that tell me they weren’t that awesome.

Roaming felt meaningless much of the time. Just as much as it does now. But instead there was alot more risk for the roamer in question. If a zerg wanted to chase you down and you were in combat? You were dead. End of story. (unless you could stealth for long periods of time). Atleast the desert borderlands gave ENOUGH exits to any given situation that you could get away from a group.

Also when it came to defending objectives. The only classes that are actually gonna have an easier time here will be the melee train.

Does NO ONE remember trying to defend a wall only to get pushed off by dozens of aoes? Or by continuous arrow cart spam?

In fire keep if someone tries that I can go up onto teh ramparts and shoot down from there. Be they arrows or fireballs. I could still contribute to the defense. One thing I am NOT Looking forward to with the return of alpine borderlands is the days of “well your less useless in open field but once we get behind walls you might as well just wait outside. Youl hurt our team less than when you rally the enemy during a wall push.”

It was also possible for one or two people to completley shut down the entire borderlands for the defending team. Does anyone remember the days where two or maybe even only one condi thief simply stopped all supply generation for a map? With the new upgrade system escorting yaks is gonna be even more mandatory than it was. Simply because all of the yak travel paths are so EASY to intercept.

When it comes to towers its as I said in my original form. Itl go from 2 people being bored pressing 2 repeatedly. To four. As with the new shield generators theres just gonna be 2 more people stuck on a wall than there was previously. Whichever side has the more numbers will be able to destroy the other teams siege. And the other team wont have anything they can do about it.

I am not convinced the old BLs are gonna be an improvement. I may be wrong. And ill keep an open mind going into it. But nearly EVERY good memory I have of the old BLs ultimately has a bad one with it.

And I would like to reiterate what I said in the first version. The roaming fights I might as well have gone to the PvP maps for. Fighting the same people on the same type of terrain over and over again wasn’t interesting after the sixth month of it. Especially when one of the biggest deciding factors was “Is he running condi food or not”

Countess Aire.9410:

Already running the 64 client. Uninstalled and did a fresh install. Still is crashing at DS. So just getting tired of it. Hopefully it can get solved with another graphics card. Doubt it but it could happen. Thanks for the advice Shadelang.

Countess sorry about the long delay from my last message. If you are already using the 64 bit client one thing you can try is to right support a ticket directly. In doing so I would send them either A. A crash message if it is indeed a crash. B. Mention that there is no crash message if it is a crash. C. Mention that it is likely a dc but you feel confident that it is not on your end. But mention where it occurs mostly (if it only occurs in one set of locatiosn or does so more often than others then it is likely a crash) (If it occurs everywhere more equally I would bet more money on a DC in that case). When you do so one thing you can do is send them a copy paste of your system. As well as telling them who your ISP is to see if there are any known connectivity issues THROUGH that ISP

They can probably use that information to make a more informed investigation on your issue. Making it more likely that they will be able to give you an accurate solution. Or if none is available at least a potential cause that you can then check for on your end.

Edit: Also one thing. This may sound obvious and obnoxious. But make sure to check your graphics drivers. And also be sure that you are infact running the 64 bit client (I KNOW how rude this may sound. But I have talked with someone that didn’t even realize that they had to run the 64 bit client through the specific .exe file they downloaded from the website after you drop it into your gw2 folder (makes it into like a 2 minute install) he kept using his old client and didn’t know why he kept crashing)

Werdx.2059:

Orion Templar.4589:

Client crash during the Mouth of Mordremoth fight happens frequently to a lot of people so you’re not alone. I’ve seen people recommend lowering graphics settings or trying the 64-bit client. Those might be okay workarounds, but honestly having the server save your spot for a minute or two when disconnected would be a wonderful thing. GW1 has had disconnect recovery for a long time. I think GW2 should too.

64 bit is a lie.I got one and got settings on 50%,still,there’s no fight in which i am not getting DC.

Whoever told you go 64 bit,told you just to shake you off because they don’t know nothing else to say.

Ignorant person : Try 64 bit

You : Do not have it

Ignorant person : There you go,that’s why you getting crash.

Telling someone try 64 bit is not going to solve anything,not by long shot.Problem is not with you,problem is on ANet’s end.

Sorry because i sound little bit rude,but i am sick of people being smart a**** Telling you to re-log,re-install system,get better graphic card,get better internet and so on…all that for getting crashes in game.People avoid blaming Arena Net,like they are God given,and look what they are doing to us.But its no problem,people are strange,after Justin Bieber spit on his fans from his balcony,they cheered to him more,and nobody did nothing,in matter of fact,they forgave him,after he said “i am sorry” and everyone forgot about it.But next time,he insulted a cop and kittened in bucket in police station…So this story i told you,can relate to Arena Net disrespectful behavior to us,and i can assure you,if they ever say sorry,people will forgive them,and everyone is going to forget what they did.But,are they sorry or not,no one knows…

All it takes is one small xp boost gift,for people to forgive…sadly,we live in times,where person would sell his soul for 10 gold,or for empty promise,with hopes everything is going to be fine.

Do not believe until you see and feel,and you wont get disappointed.That is a lesson i learned from Arena Net after they canceled promise,every 3 months 3 new legendary items,and after 30% of player base gave 50-100$ each just to be able to craft those.legendary items.

Some people care about legendary items,some don’t.Those who care will complain,those who do not like legendary items will laugh at them,while at the same time,they crying for season 3 story on the forums,because they think that’s more important…Everyone in this game thinks his problems are biggest and they have privilege over others,but after all,100 people 100 different opinions and no one can change that,and everyone mocking each other because this guy want this,and this guy don’t want that,so here comes third guy,who laugh at them both,but he cry in the guild chat all the time,about things he wants but never gets

They never promised season 3 story,and they never told every 3 months,new 3 chapters,but for legendary,they did exactly that.

Legendaries are not another free LS or some minor patch update. They are paid expansion feature,which we got scammed for.People for multi million dollars frauds like this,getting locked up for long period of time.It doesn’t matter if its game or any other company,you look at crime,not product.

Do you see police laughing at you when you report vase of flowers stolen,from your house doorstep,or baseball cards?Crime is crime,no matter if one bubble gum was stolen or 100.000.000 dollars.

I am sorry but telling someone to try something that HAS worked for a VERY large number of people is not a bad thing by any standard. In my case. I have not crashed ONE SINGLE TIME since I swapped. I crashed every single time I was in Dragons Stand before that change. I never crashed again after. Your post makes me think you have a bone to pick with anet and a large amount of the population in general. Which is rather annoying in a thread where people are asking for help.

You claim to know that any problems involved aren’t on the players part. Yet you have ZERO way of knowing that.

You also have no evidence to support your claim. And in fact evidence exists against you. The fact that there ARE players that are now playing the HoT maps without crashes of any kind for example. When they are playing the same game as you.

IF they are playing the same game as you. It only makes sense that there is something different. Since your both using the same files (assuming 64 bit or 32 bit system matches here) You SHOULD be getting the same results. Unless there is something wrong on your end. Or something wrong BETWEEN you and arena net. Acting like a forum zealot isn’t gonna change that. Its LOGIC. Find the discrepancy. And you have likely found the problem.

I suggest the 64 bit client to every single person I find having issues with HoT maps. Because it has worked for kitten near all of them. Im not going to claim it worked for EVERYONE. But its pretty comeon that I get mails or whispers thanking me for suggesting it. The rest of your post is a rant. Most of it makes zero sense and has no relation to the subject. And I am not entirely certain why you tried to right in metaphors for a fairly simple subject. Its not like we were talking about abstract concepts here.

THEN for some bloody reason you started talking about legendary weapons. Which has NOTHING to do with this subject. If you want to rant about stuff. Make a different post. And let people who are actually looking for solutions to their problems do so.

Hugh Norfolk.2798:

philheat.3956:

Hugh Norfolk.2798:

What are some suggestions for Legendary Titles?

Dunno If it’s possible, but it would be really cool at the end of s4, having an achievement + title like “Ascension Legend” unlocked only If you reached in every season the legendary division (so you already have all primordial , exalted etc. Titles).

Really “legendary”

Interesting. . .

Alright let’s say that you need to include “Legend” in the title. What titles would you suggest?

Probably titles linked to the name of the legendary backpack for that year. Ascended Legend. for example for this year.

If the backpack for the next 4 seasons is called The Reaver and sports blades that wrap around the players body (which would be SERIOUSLY cool btw with the bladed armor set >.>) and features bladed wings when gliding. (cough wishlist) it could be Legendary Reaver or Reavers’ Legend.

My Sweet Lily.1952:

@Shadelang I believe the problem here is the division crossings. He’s got 3 crossings in 2 seasons, and now he has to get 7 crossing in 2 seasons.

@OP if you aren’t good enough in PvP, you shouldn’t get the PvP Legendary.

Hmm in that case he should be able to once the meta shifts once again. Right now there’s this apparent MMR hell thing he may have gotten stuck in. But anet will likely do something to change the matchmaking in the next season. If it IS his skill level. It means he has half a year to improve. As far as getting better at games go. Thats a LONG time. He could be playing like a completely different individual then if he keeps at it. Especially seeing as you never really stop getting better as far as I can tell (though sometimes you have to go for outside sources to find out what you did wrong).

Why would the achievments reset? They didnt after the first season. Its likely they won’t reset until the NEXT legendary comes out. You probably have the next season as well to finish them if somehow you don’t finish it this time. I got most of my progress done in the first season and just polished off the alternate class achievments in this one.

It SEEMS like your under the impression that the achievments will reset after this season. I have seen no indication that this is the case. Infact as far as I know they won’t until the winter season comes again. Which is where the first legendary backpiece became available. And likely when the second will as well. So you potentially have ATLEAST two more seasons (the summer and fall seasons) to get it again. Unless arena net has given evidence to the contrary.

Edit: what this means is that even if you get stuck in a “deserved” division. By persevering and continuously trying you likely WILL get all the achievments necessary over the course of four pvp seasons. That atleast is what I am getting from this. What this means is that the top PvPers will get the legendary FASTER. But its not impossible for anyone else to get it. It just takes longer and more effort.

Edit 2: One of the ironic parts in all this is that I now have all the parts to make the legendary except for the gift of fortune. BECUASE I spent the last season and all of this season pvping I actually did not have the resources necessary to finish it. And I am now spending alot of time outside of PvP getting the mats I need in order to actually craft the gifts.

Turning the pet into the buff source would make it much more useable for me. Would also make some direct counterplay (a dead pet can’t do anything). It also wouldn’t be so divergent a playstyle from the other ranger builds (easier to fit spirit buffs into a build if it doesn’t confine us into a set location). Would be good for BM builds as well as the standard support builds. And I could see people running even something like full spirits if the effects were actually based on the pet.

Kind of a big rework. But its something I would hope to see eventually.

Edit: Another benefit is that you could have your pet in melee providing buffs around it while your at range. Would further decrease the typical issues with a ranged playstyle for people that prefer the longbow. We already have self might capabilities and can cap ourselves out easily. Our biggest issue is that our ranged dps is lower than our melee by a significant amount. And that its much easier to maintain buffs like frost spirit when your in melee range.

Orion mentioned it but ill go ahead and say it. I highly reccomend swapping to the 64 bit client. Nearly every single person I have convinced to try it has said that it solved nearly all of there crashes. It has been mentioned multiple times in dev posts and there is even a stickied forum post on the subject.

If you have heard about it but refused to swap. I have to assume its out of stubbornness or because your using a 32 bit system. A tool that will most likely fix your issue is available. Try it. You can download the client and simply drop it in your already existing gw2 folder. Run it from there and you should only need to do a small amount of patching instead of re-downloading the entire client.

It is likely that most future maps will have around the same intensity. So the sooner you swap the easier it will be. The only reason that the 64 bit client isn’t automatically downloaded is because it is still “technically” a beta client. However it does not run like a beta client in any way.

Again. There exists a potential tool to solve your issue. Get the 64 bit client from your account settings (top right of your web page). If it does not fix the issue THEN it is likely that something else is wrong.

I wouldn’t reccomend assuming Anet is going to magically expand the limitations of the 32 bit client. It kind of isn’t possible. Forcing yourself to wait when theres an option infront of you is just gonna make you more frustrated and lead to more forum posts like these.

Hmm. As far as core spec vs elite specs go. Take what I am about to say with a grain of salt and judge for yourself.

In the first PvP season I challenged myself to only play the build I enjoyed. Which at the time was considered THE WEAKEST Ranger build possible as far as that current meta goes without going double longbow or double melee.

I played a longbow greatsword marauder Shout (this was before the shout rework) ranger without using the elite spec at all. Keep in mind this was before the aura nerf on tempests so most team fights I spent 70% of the time having my shots reflected back at me by aoe magnetic aura.

I was able to reach legendary using that build and only solo queing. What that taught me is that when it came to PvP knowing your builds strength and weaknesses, knowing how each individual mechanic works and chains together, and knowing how those mechanics interacted with your opponents mechanics (Knowing what you can and can’t fight, HOW you should fight something, and exactly when a fight needs to be abandoned or engaged), were all much more important that what your build actually was.

I did not repeat that challenge with this season. Since shouts were buffed it did not seem like it would have as much “meaning” to me. But what I did do was play a variant of the druid build that was the closest to my original playstyle. And I was able to hit legendary again fairly early in the season.

What I am trying to say is. It is likely not necessary for you to have the meta build in order to reach or even compete at high level gameplay of PvP. What likely IS necessary is an in depth understanding of not only your opponents builds,skills, and weaknesses but your own as well.

If you wan’t to progress without druid I feel that is especially necessary. As druid is a very EASY to use fall back option. And when traited correctly can act as a get out of jail free card in most situations. It just means you will have to win your fights without that easy way out that most rangers are currently going to run. It will probably be harder. But a pure ranger has OTHER capabilities that druids sacrifice. Playing to those strengths will likely give you some significant results.

Wanna say congratz man. I did something pretty similar in the first season though that was with a non druid shout ranger (pre buff). Its a pretty satisfying feeling when ya make it. And ya know your better for it in the long run because you end up learning new ways to fight that you simply wouldn’t have gotten if youd followed everyone elses lead.

So again. Congratulations. Just wait till you get buffed :P gonna be amusing for ya when you destroy people with all the practice you have had PLUS what could be considered a comparable build. I know it was for me when shouts got buffed haha. Good hunting to ya in your next goal.

onevstheworld is correct.

If you havn’t swapped to the 64 bit client I would heavily recommend doing so. It has solved ALL out of memory crashes for not only myself but every person I have recommended it to after they report troubles like this. It sounds like this would help fix your issue. You can find the link for it in your account settings in the client download list.

PLEASE try it. And if it works spread the word to anyone else you see encountering the same issue.

The 64 bit beta client was pretty much released in response to this issue as far as I can tell. Atleast the timing seems to lead to that conclusion. If it doesn’t help its likely a hardware issue on your part. So I feel like trying the 64 bit client would be of use to you one way or another. Atleast so far as diagnosing the problem goes.

sanctuary.1068:

You didnt try to win the team fights, you ran away to fully cap far everytime. If you wanted a distraction you could just have decapped and run back to middle and win the teamfight. Everytime you run far and fully cap it when no one is there, your teammates are undermanned at another node and most likely will lose that one.

Hmm. Thats a good point. I recently rewatched the video myself and I did notice myself doing what your saying.

All I can do is offer my reasoning there. Usually when I pealed off it was when I as facing a combo with more sustain or damage than what we had on point. Or I was low on cooldowns. You are ABSOLUTELY right that perhaps I should have just gotten the decap and made my way back to far. In some cases it looks like I underestimated the sustain capabilities of some of my team mates. Or over estimated there ability to hold on there own.

I feel like having more communication either through map pings or ts would have gone a long way to alleviate that. We were a group of full solo quers so our only real way of judging eachothers status from a distance was through the health/boons they have at any given moment. Which can be a hard judge in a game where reapers,scrappers,druids, and tempests are the norm. An ally or opponent that seems dead isn’t until there actually down and stomped.

Thank you for bringing this up. Ill try to pay more attention to my allies status’ as well and see if I can’t make better judgement calls when I push for a side point after a stalemate. Specifically in relation to whether or not to stay for a full cap or rejoin the team fight.

I want to thank everyone involved for their responses so far. It has given me a lot of food for thought. I’ll try to make some changes in my next couple games to cover some of the flaws you have helped me identify. I really do appreciate you all taking the time to watch my video and letting me know what you think.

To Cover some points you all brought up: I play my build as a roamer (im used to calling it a harasser from other games haha) yet its poorly optomized for damage output. I hope to swap to marauders amulet and change sigils to give me a bit more upfront burst. In order to be able to apply more effective pressure.

There were some times where I used cooldowns improperly or waited to use them. Causing me to lose the point due to things like lack of stability or a lack of stunbreak.

There were some times when lack of map awareness caused me to make questionable decisions on my rotations.

There were times when I chose bad targets. Instead of continuing to pressure a low target I swapped to what I percieved as being the highest threat to ME. Rather than the best target for my team as a whole.

Due to taking Sic Em instead of Search & Rescue I have given up a large amount of my group support. Swapping those out would affect my gameplay rather significantly (pulling of in order to get a telerez instead of continuing pressure or moving to the next point) I am going to wait on changing that until I feel comfortable with my other changes. But I will be looking into that in the future. And if I choose a build that gives up group support. I really feel like I have to maximize on what I DID chose to take. I took a more offensive skill in this case. I should have reworked the rest of my build to reflect that change. (focuses more on the damage role instead of just “Staying alive to fight longer”)

TheBravery.9615:

That was a good game.

Around 10 minutes in, blue capped mansion and clocktower and that seemed to be where it went downhill from there. No one on red seemed to try to neutralize them for a while, and red never couldn’t make a comeback on time. Not necessarily your fault, it’s evident you had your hands full on windmill.

edit/ Yeah, it’s not your fault. Your team was carrying dolten, which everyone else had at least 3x the contribution he/she had.

Hmm on the part with clocktower at the time you mentioned. Would it have been better if I had stayed there to try and contest and leave home to the respawn that was on the way there? By the time my other ally got to mid it was already capped and he was 2v1d. And the druid came to assist the enemy at windmill which delayed that fight long enough for them to win the mid fight.

So. Recently I saw a post where someone posted a video of there gameplay. While not for the same reason as this individual. It got me interested in it as well. (I tried something like this in the past but my recording at the time was….pretty bad).

My goal with this is simple. I have uploaded a video of a match I lost to youtube. The link to it is here.

My build is in the description of the video but I will also place it here.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQJATRnUqA9Ci1CCuCCctglOBDelGT3pO9tAQh7pFMAWYlMtzA-TZRGABGcIAK/JAofZAg2fAgLAAA

My desire for those of you that watch this. Is that you will watch it in full and find my mistakes as well as my successes.

I am terrible at judging my own gameplay. Im too locked into the mindset and that is preventing me from improving.

What did I do right. What did I do wrong. When did I rotate correctly. When did I rotate INcorrectly. Who did I engage properly. Who did I engage improperly. When did I disengage/engage at good/bad times. What could I have done differently.

My goal is to get feedback based on THIS build and toolset. I understand there are other builds I could use. But my goal is to maximize the potential of this one before moving on.

Further information: This match is in ranked play at the legendary division.

I got the permission of as many of hte players in this video as I could reach.

If ANY of the other 9 players involved in this video request that I take down this video. I WILL do so. Simply send me a message with proof that it is you and not a troll.

I hope people see and respond to this. I have hit a wall as far as my skill level goes. And I would like to take this opportunity to move past it.

(originally posted this in the wrong thread. oops)

Something ive been wondering. Is it possible that average QUALITY of the player is lower in the MMR hell. Not just there skill level. But there quality as a PvPer.

What I mean is that in many of the rage posts I have seen people mention that there team just seems to give up. Or that they feel the matches just aren’t worth playing anymore so they sit at home.

What I am wondering is if the People stuck in MMR Hell are stuck in a sort of self fulfilling prophecy.

They get a team that starts to lose. They assume there going to lose. And they stop playing as hard. Or if not them than there team mates. One thing a league can show that doesn’t often show outside of leagues is the willingness of a player to keep fighting past the point that they have stopped enjoying the match. I see it sometimes even in legendary. One side starts to win and the other calls it if they feel they don’t have a chance. Destroying any chance of an upset. While in other games a team that starts to lose can keep playing and take the enemy team out when they over extend getting enough points that they end up winning in the long run.

Is it possible that its just alot more common in the lower MMR’s?

This isn’t a insult post so if it comes off like that I apologize. its just been something ive been wondering about since the stories of MMR hell started. The players in question tend to take it so personally that I feel maybe its affecting there game play patterns as well. Making them more likely to ease up once they realize a match is going against them. Because there losing streak has taught them theres nothing they can do.

Tether Skills. Each tether breaks if the opponent moves more than 1000 range from you.

Tethers proc off your own attacks as well as your allies. But beneficial tethers only affect you even when triggered by an ally.

Tether of Bond: When the target of your tether is damaged. You receive healing per hit. You recieve life force per hit if in Shroud.

Tether of Mockery: When the target affected by your tether is damaged conditions on you are transfered to that target.

Tether of Despair: When the target affected by your tether is damaged. They are afflicted with cripple.

Tether of Warding: When the target of your tether is struck. Gain a copy of every boon they posses with a duration of one second per hit.

Dhuum’s Chains Elite: Tether yourself to any enemies in range. Those players can not move more than 1000 range from you without being pulled towards you. When pulled they are afflicted by chill and 2 stacks of Dhuumfire.

Edit: I forget skills usually come in Six haha. And I made these 5 with the assumption theyd be taken together.

If I had to think of a sixth that works with these while still leaving a gap. I would go with one that produces vulnerability when struck. My goal was to leave boon corruption outside of tethers while still working within hte necromancers theme. ATM necro relies on boon corruption a bit TOO much. So I would prefer to create something with an alternate feel to it.

Acting like it isn’t possible to solo que to legendary is probably not the best way to go.

During the first season I solo qued my way to legendary as a SHOUT RANGER. (Non druid) this is before shouts were reworked so half of them didn’t work properly. I used a marauder amulet and trooper runes.

In this season the vast majority of my games are solo que. I did them as a full zerk druid with trooper runes. Since reaching legendary I have since swapped to a paladin,marauder power RANGER build. I am still performing well in large part due to the fact that I actually deal enough damage to pressure people from ranged without relying entirely on pet burst combos. (Reapers,Scrappers are alot less deadly if you have room to disengage).

If I can solo que to legendary using what are largely considered bad builds. Then it should be possible for almost anyone to do something similar with a good build.

Edit @ Evan. Having something to do during que time would help alot. Even if its just to relieve stress. I can understand not allowing PvE. But enabling us to enter WvW would go a long way. And would also act as a stress reliever of sorts for frustrating matches.

Also one thing you might consider. When entering HoTM you are always sent to the entry gate. However with the opening of gliding in the map there are more places we can reach now. Would it be possible to turn off that transfer so that we can stay at our favorite locations between matches? There is a place with a great view I like to go to. But it takes a bit of time to get there and often doesn’t seem worth it when I am just going to get teleported back to the gate after my next match.

Hmm with this elite spec we went hard core into the support route and group buffing route as well as magic. With the next one I would prefer to go something a bit more personal. Like a debilitation specialist with lots of cripple. Or a self buffing build capable of using the camouflage mechanic (stealthed but moving very slowly or only when stationary) that I have seen others talk about as well.

I almost wish that the freedom of movement traits that druid has had been saved for an elite spec that could be dedicated to that concept. One designed to slip through CCs and debilitations. Unfortunately with druid that would make some traits redundant. (Two elite specs would have very high similarities in traits) I would like to see a trait for ranger that helped deal with weakness however.

Ranger has alot of melee evasion built into our weapons. So having a melee weapon thats more burst dps oriented would be nice. Like something that can deal a high amount of damage. But has some downtime.

I suppose my biggest desire would be a method of stealthing us AND our pet. Even if it was limited or functioned as the elite spec mechanic. I feel we would see a return of some of the glassier ranger builds if we had access to that mechanic. Especially now that reveal is more common.

Heibi.4251:

@Tragic
You’re right – the pet is the main issue. Our DPS is being held down by a robot created by ANeT that doesn’t do what it is really supposed to do. It starts to attack a boss and dies in ANeT’s wonderful one-hit kills they so love. Thus taking out our damage dealing until our other pet comes up and dies in the next hit, and we wait for the pet go and die timer to come back up. Meanwhile our damage output is now reduced. Thanks for the useless drone, ANeT.

If pets had independent dodging and hit more accurately(and lethally) and actually tracked the right target there wouldn’t be too much of a problem.

But ANeT will ignore all this and let the ranger remain broken. They’d hate to fix everything and actually make the ranger truly effective in ALL aspects of the game.

ANeT did truly create a good healing class with the Druid. It made the ranger become two classes in one. But the other classes’ elite specializations didn’t really change them. ANeT just made them more offensive and deadly.

And nerfs – yes, they constantly nerf ranger even when they say they aren’t.

Oh comeon. I was staying out of the topic cause I had already made my post but lets ATLEAST stay honest.

Pets no longer die often in PvE. That was fixed with HoT.

Our Pets DPS is largely fine. The bristleback and smokescale are both reliable PvP pets (they can land there attacks/burst with only minimal help by the player). They can also auto attack with upwards of 3-4k crits with high might stacks (which a bm build can easily maintain). And felines have always done high damage in PvE.

The reason our damage isn’t as high as some other classes is not because of the pet. its because we have access to grace of the land, frost spirit, and spotter. Group wide buffs we have to be balanced in mind for. We also have alot of sustain on our melee weapons. (evades,blocks,movement). Our weapons are toned down yes. But then we can also have 50 stacks of might…(25 for us and the pet BOTH) which is pretty massive. Especially with the new pets and their high scaling.

The ranger isn’t “broken” we work fine in all 3 game modes. MOST of our traits function correctly without unintended effects. All of our skills work. We don’t have any rune or sigil comboes that fail to do anything with our affects. And we are capable of doing what we were designed to do.

Are we THE BEST class in the game? No. But we are one of the top ones. So stop acting like were some bloody martyr being sacrificed for the game. And this is coming from someone that played SHOUT RANGER for 3 years. At least I finally became openly viable for the first time a month ago. But I never blamed the class as a whole for my issues. Or ANET for that matter.

@drarnor has it spot on as far as PvP is concerned. There isn;t realy a dedicated BUILD to countering a reaper. So there isn’t one particular build style aside from maybe scrapper than can go toe to toe with it assuming the necro has life force. Tempests can hold out quite a bit and kill necros that start the fight without Life force however.

Reaper is fairly easy to get into and have a basic level of success with. Thats not saying its OP or that its unskillfull. Reaper has ALOT of room for skill growth. Its just that the most basic level of proficiency with the class gets decent results. Alot like playing a ranger in PvE. High skill cap. But reaching that skill cap isn’t necessary in order to be successful.

His third point is possibly the most accurate. Fighting a reaper simply isn’t FUN for many players. When fighting most builds its about putting your strongest versus there strongest.

With reapers they take AWAY your strengths in order to utilize your THEIR strengths. This means you quite often CAN’T fight a reaper like you would the other classes…even revenant. Corrupts, Chill, Weakness, Blind. These are a necros toys when it comes to PvP. All of which are designed quite litteraly to prevent your opponent from fighting back. Which is EXTREMELY frustrating if your the opponent. As it means your often playing cat and mouse until you can CC the reaper long enough to land a high enough amount of damage.

Largely becuase its a condi heavy meta atm if I had to guess. With so many OTHER reapers around having every tool to deal with condis possible can be a life saver. Meaning consume conditions comes in handy.

Signet of Vampirism is also pretty good due to the corrupts. When your fighting things like reapers with there pulsing stab or tempests/scrappers with there boon uptime having a way to reset might stacks or corrupt stab to a fear is pretty big.

Thats just my take on it however. Necro is my secondary class so people that main necro likely have different perspectives on it.

OGDeadHead.8326:

Shadelang.3012:

<snip>

Be careful what you wish for – what most would like to see are buffs/changes to core ranger, but in true Anet fashion we’ll recieve nerfs to druid instead, to make core ranger more viable.

They introduced druid as the master of healing – they can’t back away from that.

Like I said I am fine with it being an awesome group line. My issue with it is that it is an awesome EVERYTHING line.

To awnser them in order.

As far as balance issues go I would say that druid is far TOO necessary in the current ranger build list. You don’t really lose anything when you take druid that druid itself doesn’t make up for. Which removes alot of the choice involved. Sustain? Take druid. Support? Take druid. Control? Take druid. Utility? Take druid. Its got too much potential that it really overshadows our core lines. And it complements almost EVERY ranger playstyle. Any one trait line complimenting EVERYTHING needs to be relooked at.

Many would argue thats a good thing. But it ends up meaning that our actual build choices we have in order to be considered optimal in certain roles ALL involve druid. Which can be pretty stifling.

I would prefer if ranger got balanced with fewer group focused traits and more personnel improvement/utility methods. With druid having less 1v1 power yet getting those group buffing methods rolled into it. That way theres a bit more ability to actually direct your build in a direction.

Which leads to the second question.

I get enough of that with frost spirit. I have wanted to take frost spirit off my bar in PvE for an EXTREMELY long time. Now even MORE of my bars are taken off by things I can’t get rid of without being kicked. (Glyph of empowerment for example) and my traits are pretty much the same way (Grace of the Land, spotter etc…)

A rangers build in most content is largely decided for him. I spend most of my time in WvW and PvP now because at least there the results you actually get mean more than the POTENTIAL results. It doesn’t matter HOW you killed the enemy team. Only that you did and that you survived doing it. But in PvE people are alot more judgemental. Focusing purely on how LONG it takes to kill something. A ranger who doesn’t take group damage buffs but instead ops for other forms of group support (like guard instead of frost spirit) is asking to be kicked….even by his own guild he may have known for years. Thats because people care more about the potential and percieved results than whether or not the boss actually dies. Druid just becomes one more thing that a ranger HAS to take. And I doubt even the next elite spec will change that. Druid is just way to good. I would guess that even after the next expac unless ancestral grace disappears raids will still demand druids only… and not for the druid himself. But only for the buff he puts on there bar.

On question 3. Most of the old trait lines can be exchanged for druid and see a net gain except when it comes to pure damage. Within druid itself. Cultivated synergy is pretty heavily overshadowed by druidic clarity in PvP and Primal Echoes in PvE. Utility is just way too important in this game to pass those up. But it still has a place when raw healing is needed.

Pretty much all of the tier 2 traits are useful in there niches. Not much to say on those. I do find I take celestial shadow more than the other two however. But then I don’t typically run glyphs.

Lingering light in the grandmaster tier got hit by the nerf bat hard. Hard enough I feel like it needs a functionality change instead of a numbers tweak. Ancient seeds is great in PvP. And Grace of the land is MANDATORY in all PvE builds from what I remember. (Talk about limiting build diversity)

The staff is a straight upgrade on greatsword. More utility. Better movement. More sustain. It lacks burst damage but that can be worked around. It also has NONE of the weaknesses of the longbow thought it is still outclassed in raw damage. I can’t speak for staff in condi builds however due to lack of experience with that playstyle.

So far my experience in PvE/PvP/ and WvW are pretty much the same. There isn’t anything a ranger can do that a druid can’t do more efficiently. And the players around you know it. As an experiment I went through the entire first PvP league as a non druid ranger. All the way to legendary. The sheer list of insults I recieved on a daily basis I could probably make a book with. The druid outclasses the ranger that much…especially in the eyes of the community. I did the diamond division with both team and map chat turned off for most games.

In PvE its pretty much the same. If your not playing druid good luck getting into any for of organized raiding. Your simply not wanted. And if you ARE playing druid you had BETTER be playing the cookie cutter build with all the mandatory goodies pumped in. There is no room for experimentation or personnel enjoyment in the eyes of those around you.

Ditto for WvW.

In conclusion. The druid is AMAZING. It is great for the class. And its largely what keeps us relevant in GW2 as it is today. But it is so kitten BINDING that there is a part of me that wishes it never got released at all. If I sound bitter throughout this post. Its because I feel like druid cut out alot of potential simply by having too MUCH potential.

That…doesn’t sound very reliable. I think anet has a list of retailers but that atleast isn’t one I am familiar with. I could of course be wrong. But id do more research on the subject before jumping on it.

I think anet has a list of liscenced retailers on there site somewhere. It may be a good idea to start with finding that atleast for now. But atleast as far as that goes. I would go with the “If it sounds too good to be true it probably is” route and double check EVERYTHING before you buy from there.

One of the MOST common solutions to this problem is swapping to the 64 bit client. its not automatically downloaded since it is TECHNICALLY beta. However it runs just as well as the 32 bit client and solves pretty much all Memory related crashes (which the dragons stand crashes usually are)

You can download the 64 bit client in your account settings under content. I give this advice to every person that complains of crashes and almost all of them say this has fixed it.

https://account.arena.net/content

edit: simply drop what you download into your gw2 folder BEFORE running it. that way it won’t have to reinstall the game. If you do that it will only install what is necessary and then will run just like the 32 bit.

edit2: don’t expect any magic solution for this crash if you continue to use the 32 bit client. From what I have read by devs on the subject the 32 bit just can’t handle what happens on those maps and runs out of memory. Which is what causes the crash. But if a dev that happens to see this could clarify it would probably help make things clear >.< I am a user not a maker after all.

Edit 3: there is also a stickied post at the top of this forum that can direct you to info on the 64 bit client.

If you look on reddit they announced in the AMA thats happening RIGHT NOW that the live beta tests for WvW will be happening after the april release.

Edit: This is straight copied from the paragraph

After the April update, we’ll start live beta-tests of improvements to WvW. Our goal is to be very incremental and visible with the changes we’re making there, so that players are involved every step of the way. Further on, we’ll launch the next raid wing in May or June, then Living World and the next quarterly update.

Exedore.6320:

But you lost. In the event of a tie in team scores, personal scores are used as a tie-breaker. I believe it’s the team with the highest personal score wins.

Im not debating that we lost. Thats true. But its also extremely frustrating when you play in a super close match and have nothing to show for it. Even worse when you lose progress by the turn of a second.

Your probably right that personal score is used to determine the victor in these cases. I have ZERO problem with that. The only issue I had was that despite both teams playing just as well (as far as the conquest game mode is concerned) one team gets lowered due to the chance of a second.

But as I said in the edit of my above post. I acknowledged that there probably ISN’T a solution that can work in this case without diminishing one or insulting the other team.

And also its not worth arguing about. Which is why I ALSO said to feel free to ignore this post.

Many of the mobs in HoT feel strong the first time you fight them. But keep at it and learn what each mob does. Usually each mob has 2-3 skills it can use as well as a clear theme.

Learning the characteristics of an enemy mob grp is gonna be one of your best tools going into HoT. Each “type” of mob is clearly defined from the others both in attack pattern and visuals so you won’t have to worry about confusing them.

If its your first time fighting them you aren’t gonna wanna run in guns blazing. Think about what that specific mob does. What its pattern is (youl learn it pretty quick) and slot skills that let you deal with it. As a fellow ranger I PROMISE you you have the tools to stop it.

I got through HoT almost entirely solo. I got all the masteries I needed without other players to guide me along. It IS possible.

People saying that HoT is group or zerg only are quite frankly wrong. Its just EASIER in a zerg or group. But then so is everything else in life.

Some things you can do.

If your running around in zerk gear try swapping to marauders. Marauders inscriptions are very easy to make. And that extra health does make a difference.

Make sure your build has some defensive methods included. I typically run a shout ranger with trooper runes using NM BM and Druid. But before I had druid unlocked I ran NM WK BM to just as much success. WK and NM especially have great defensive options. And NM can boost your offense quite alot as well as giving you Natures Ward to mitigate getting hit. WK will improve your endurance regen as well as giving you protection on dodge.

Shouts give you two very good defensive utilities as well as a powerful offensive one. And the ability to self might to an extreme degree as well as a source of stability. All of which help keep you alive and make sure you deal the damage you need.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQJATRnUqA9Ci1CCuCCctgBMh6vhGoi9DfBe8eZL8AoknlG-TRRWAB3oEEg9HqV9niV+VquAA-e

something like this is a well rounded power build. Enough damage to get the job done. And plenty of cooldowns to cover you when things go kittens up.

If you don’t have those two pets you can look up online how to get them. But pretty much any pet that has a mixture of CC and damage (like canines or spiders) that won’t die super fast are good ideas.

I get your frustrated but it really does just take practice and a bit of dynamic thinking. Even just changing how you engage the enemy can make sure that most of them die. (start the fight by CC Locking them to keep from acting against you).

Dawdler.8521:

Take a picture and post it on the web because Charrs in ties are cute as kitten.

Oh. Wait. Nevermind.

Note. If there were chars wearing ties I would be significantly less peeved. So this could work too.

Would it be possible to make it so that BOTH teams progress? Or atleast have the “losing” team NOT lose progress? I understand that its a rare occurrence. But its still pretty disheartening to get NOTHING for matches like this

Edit: On further contemplation I realized there really isn’t a solution that would be “fair” to both parties when it comes to the effort they put into the match. I havn’t been able to think of a good way to resolve this that wouldn’t diminish the efforts of the winning team or kitten off the losing team just the same as now.

Feel free to ignore this post.

Thank you for the replies you two. And I appreciate the advice.

Remaking this post cause hte previous version was full of salt.

I am looking for methods for a power necro or reaper to go head to head with a condi reaper or necro. Any tips or advice would be welcome. I have tried multiple builds so I can’t point to just one as the one I am currently running.

I am 90% sure they do. I remember this discussion in the past and I believe the result was that it DOES target players first. But based on which players are closest to the center of the aoe.

Edit: its possible that that is only for friendly aoes (aoe heals etc.) but the second half should still be true. So holding the enemy player in the center of the aoe will guarantee it will hit.

Storms Fury.9307:

5k is unacceptable.

2-3k is acceptable.

End of Story.

And no…no its NOT the end of the story. Its exactly that attitude that gets entire play styles BUTCHERED. You can NOT simply make a blanket statement on balance. Or on ANYTHING in life. It doesn’t work.

There are so MANY variables involved in this skill that you saying this is LUDICROUS.

Its a channeled ability. Meaning it doesn’t even have a noticeable effect at first. It has to COMPLETE the channel successfully in order to even launch the attack properly. If you pvpd for even a few games you should know how easy it is to have something like that be ACCIDENTALLY interfered with.

It deals more damage close up than further away. Meaning your 5k statement is only true at POINT BLANK RANGE. The further you are away from it the less damage you will take. Also it shows you don’t even know how much dmg the skill actually does. It can do way more and way LESS damage depending on the build…boon uptime and proc use. (Like whether there running BM. Whether the ranger is above or below 90% health for the alpha training damage boost. Whether the pet has quickness to make the attack more likely to hit. How many stacks of vuln are active)

The skill is a medium speed projectile. Meaning it can be STRAFED. the f2 does not track after the shot has been fired like the auto attack. The auto attack acts like the necro life blast in a way in that it can turn to hit the target a little bit. The f2 does NOT do that after the shot has been fired. Only the initial aiming tracks (as its firing. But once the spine leaves the body its unguided). This means that moving at an angle towards or away from the bristleback (wider angle if your moving towards) will make sure NONE of the rounds hit you. Also since it is a projectile the projectiles themselves can be REFLECTED and DESTROYED.

Since its a multi hit attack things like weakness have a much higher chance of mitigating the damage. So even if your getting hit. Applying weakness to it as its firing WILL keep you alive. Or you can just stun it. Or fear it. Or launch it. Or knock it down. If the druid is going for a max damage bristleback f2. The pet WILL be in melee range.

And now we get to how its best used. The bristleback f2 is best used after the opponent has been locked down. Or when there commited to an offence. At ALL OTHER TIMES this skill is unlikely to have a significant effect. This skill is entirely about its POTENTIAL burst. Making sure it lands is the job of the druid just like every other potential burst skill in the game (things like wells,meteor shower, etc… things that take time to have there full effect or require multiple effects)

The ONLY reason you have ANY excuse to dieing to a bristleback f2 alone. Is if your being pinned by CC. In EVERY other situation you got outplayed because you simply weren’t paying attention or didn’t think to save something for what you HAD to know was coming.

Nearly every ranger/druid in the game has the bristleback. Its like the old wolf. Back hten everyone fighting a ranger new they had a pocket fear. Now you know every ranger has a pocket burst. Whether you do something about it is up to you… or you can keep making one size fits all statements without any backing. Im done.

SqualZell.7813:

Storms Fury.9307:

5k is unacceptable.

2-3k is acceptable.

End of Story.

Dodge once and it becomes 2-3k

Move at a 45 degree angle to it and be comes 0

Its been adjusted already…Its a channeled ability…It’s damaged is reduced MASSIVELY by the use of protection…weakness…evading…ccing the pet while its channeling (puts it on an extended cooldown)… Reflection (negates it 100%)…

It also deals less damage the further away you are from the target (the skill spreads the shells out over distance. Making this more of a shotgun spray than a machine gun and like a shotgun its most powerful in close quarters compared to a rifle(the auto attack is closer to a rifle)). The projectiles can be strafed causing you to take minimal damage.

I usually take less than a thousand damage from a bristleback burst. And that is largely because I know what to look for (I have used them to kill people and in the past been killed by them). All it takes is to learn what it does and how to mitigate it.

Exactly the same as evading things like mirror blade for example. The first time you get mirror bladed its like “HOLY kitten what just happened” but once you learn it it stops being scary. Theres a dozen things you can do to stop it from functioning that are EASY.

Figure out how the skill works and youl realize you probably have a dozen things in your armory to stop it from hurting anywhere NEAR as badly.

…Or you can stand in it and die…that works too.