Guild Wars 2

And took a few pictures. With a bit of exposure and colour editing, I think they turned out really well. The one with the sunken ship is now my desktop!

As long as you were in combat with someone before you logged out, they will get the XP + loot.

You shouldn’t be logging out just because you think a player “doesn’t deserve the kill.” Most times, people find it more satisfying when they think they made you rage quit anyway. You’re not preventing a win, you’re just being a baby.

But hey if that’s the way you want to play it all the power to you. Just know that if you do it too often, some players will start to bully you for it, I’ve seen it happen.

I understand the frustration. I pretty much gave up on solo roaming a year ago. If I were more skilled or if I were a Thief or Mesmer, I might still be doing it. But as it stands, solo roaming requires more discipline than what I have. You need to be able to end fights extremely quickly and to have a high enough level of skill to deal with multiple players effectively. If you’re not skilled enough to do this, or if you’re not able to immediately disengage like Mesmers and Thieves can, you’re going to die so often it’ll just become unenjoyable and frustrating (at least for most). As much as a lot of people hate it when someone runs away, I don’t usually blame them. For all you know, they’ve been blobbed a hundred times already and probably want to not die for a few minutes.

I used to have a lot of fun solo roaming in low tiers as a Necromancer. Populations were low enough down there that I could get a lot of 1v1/X and either win or at least put up a good fight. Now, you rarely find anyone by themselves and even if you do, you’re likely to get +1’d/blobbed at the worst possible moment.

Don’t get me wrong, losing is a part of the game and WvW isn’t designed with 1v1’s in mind. I understand that, but solo play is just so difficult now that a lot of the time it’s really not worth it.

Personally, I’ve long since taken to scouting as a substitute. It’s not really “roaming” because I’m not putting myself in nearly as much danger but it still has some of the good qualities. I basically circle our side of the map protecting our territory and stalking zergs that come near our side to pick off anyone that’s too slow to keep up.

If you want to roam, you should find some friends you can trust to do it with you. Solo roaming is pretty well dead. Of course, there are still people that do it but it’s either sheer determination or a lot of patience that keeps them going. Neither of which I’ve got, lol.

Adapt and evolve! Good luck.

A few of my ideas are as follows:

Well Of Darkness
__________________________________________________________________

• Cooldown increased to 60 seconds
• Pulsing Blind and combo field removed
• Duration, cast time and radius remain unchanged

New mechanics

Well Of Darkness now functions similarly to a Smokescales “Smoke Cloud.” As long as you are standing inside the well, all incoming attacks will miss. This does not effect other allied players.

Vampiric Rituals increases the radius and duration of Well Of Darkness instead of adding siphons and Protection.

Unyielding Blast
__________________________________________________________________

Shroud skill 1 now has an explosive PBAoE effect that can knock targets back once every 3 seconds. This effect is represented by a dark cloud quickly emanating outwards from the source.

Speed Of Shadows
__________________________________________________________________

• Movement speed increase has been removed

New mechanic

As long as your target is effected with a movement impairing condition (Cripple, Immobilize, Chill) and you are in Shroud, you gain 1 second of Super Speed at 2 second intervals.

Soul Comprehension
__________________________________________________________________

Gain 2% Life Force for every condition applied to you.

Signet Of Undeath
__________________________________________________________________

• Active skill no longer revives fallen allies
• Cast time reduced to 3/4 second
• Recharge reduced to 50 seconds

New mechanic

Activating this Signet will sacrifice 15% of your Life Force to convert it to health.

Plague
__________________________________________________________________

New ability

“Petrifying Plague” Add Slow to your Plague

I hate to break it to you guys but it’s like this in every tier. One of the three servers always has a significant coverage advantage. Sometimes the difference in population is larger but the problem is the same. Two of the servers can only compete at certain hours while the third server has enough activity to compete at any hour. Maybe they don’t always have a commander but they always have enough people they can band together if they need to.

Mag for T2, YB for T3 and NSP for T4. All of them have tons of active players when the other two servers are sleeping and even more when the other two servers are awake. Either they outnumber the other two servers by a ton during off hours or they outnumber the other servers by a little bit during prime. Either way, they’re always at a coverage advantage.

It’s everyone’s fault for stacking one server all the time. Move your guilds to losing servers for a change to create some semblance to balance. Maybe then ANet won’t have to intervene every month.

Well Of Darkness still needs a hugely reduced cooldown and/or additional effects.

I appreciate that they tried to buff it not long ago by reducing the cooldown, but it’s just such an insignificant well, even when traited, that a few seconds don’t make enough of a difference.

I had an idea for a way to rework it but I could bet money it would be brokenly OP.

Anyway, my idea was; Reduce the duration to 3 seconds, remove the Blindness and combo field, revert the cooldown, leave cast time and radius as they currently are and change the functionality to behave like NPC Smokescale’s Smoke Cloud.

When we are standing inside the Well Of Darkness, all attacks miss us for the duration. Which means Necromancer now has an Invulnerability as long as it is standing inside the well.

Probably not the best idea but if you have some of your own, please share. This well is decent in WvW zerging but outside of that, it’s just such a boring and unrewarding skill. I would really like to see something done with it but this was the best idea I could come up with.

mordran.4750:

corpse jumping, laying siege on corpses, whispering enemies after dying, tbh. everything signs of a really pitiful character. I never get the kittens spamming whispers, emotes and jumps on corpses. Winning in GW2 is more often than not a matter of the dumbest cheeese build and not of personal skill anyway.

About the same way I feel.

I try to avoid mockery or sending hatemail although my short temper does get the better of me at times.

For the most part, I save emoting or siege burials for those really special individuals that I see doing it to everyone else or someone who’s just trying way too hard to kill me. Examples being: This Gold rank Sylvari Thief from [Caps] who emotes at everyone he kills. I killed him a few times and did it back to him to see how he liked it and of course he sent me a bunch of angry whispers. Or this Warrior who chased me down on my Ranger, I escaped from a zerg with 10% health then this guy chased me across the map. Only reason I emoted after I won was because he chased me from frigging Mendon’s to the Anzalias sentry…

You should never feel good for making someone else feel bad. If you’re going to mock someone, at least try to have a good reason other than “they killed me before so I don’t like them now.”

Shadelang.3012:

SpellOfIniquity.1780:

@ Those defending Druid; Swagger, Shadelang, RyuDragnier and others, what do you guys consider to be OP?

Giving examples, what are some things that you consider over tuned and in need of adjustments?

If youd like to discuss that in a relevant thread feel free to post one on the subject. But it has nothing to do with the OP and the discussion at hand except as an attempt at diverting the subject to something in your favor (its pretty obvious what your trying to do whether you see it as a bad thing or not).

If you want to make another thread of what druids percieve as being OP you can probably get dozens of responses from varying skill levels in the ranger forums if you post there. What youl probably find is that people think that whatever kills them is automatically OP. Becuase many people aren’t able to acknowledge that they might be less skilled than they think they are. Or because they aren’t willing to admit that they don’t know how the class/build there fighting works and there too embarrassed/prideful to actually try to watch what there opponent does and figure out HOW there skills work.

Pretty much exactly how MOST (not all but definitely the majority) of the posts in this thread sound.

Yes, I wasn’t trying to be discreet about my intentions. My point is that I’m sure it would be difficult for you to describe something that you consider as being OP without Druid being able to match those standards. Just go ahead and think of something you think is over tuned and see how the meta Druid compares.

You can also read the comments on Metabattle here where many people say that you shouldn’t be losing any 1v1’s with this build.

As I’d stated much earlier in this thread and was completely ignored; I don’t think Druids should be gutted. They don’t have a place in zerging so they need to have a place in roaming. Every profession deserves to be represented somewhere and Druids excelling in small scale combat is perfectly okay. I just think that a few things should be adjusted so that they’re not next to impossible to kill in a 1v1/2. It’s absolutely okay that they’re strong but they’re a little too strong at the moment and I have a hard time believing anyone can disagree with that with a straight face.

@ Those defending Druid; Swagger, Shadelang, RyuDragnier and others, what do you guys consider to be OP?

Giving examples, what are some things that you consider over tuned and in need of adjustments?

Since the Skirmishes update, I’m almost positive that either queues are bugged or ANet reduced maximum population size. Maybe I missed the notes where it said that but lately, there have been queues on maps that are definitely not full. Either that or a ton of people are AFK somewhere.

I’m currently waiting in an EBG queue of 20 people. I switched characters and just before I left, we had 1 commander with 25 people tops on the tag, maybe 10 people that I could see at the hill waypoint and another 10 or so at keep. No guilds running that I’m aware of. I immediately noticed queues coming up after the patch when it seemed like there were far too few people to be putting a queue on it.

Of course there are roamers and such but something just feels off about the population caps lately. I apologize if I’m just imagining things or if I completely missed a patch note but I could almost swear that it’s buggy if it wasn’t intentional.

Oh this is nice (:

I had a good fight with a Dragonhunter yesterday. Unfortunately I don’t recall the server or the guild because I had a million and one things on my mind that day…

I do remember accidentally pulling NPC’s near SMC though and for that I’m sorry. I /bow’d and left when I won and it was fun because the fight didn’t end in .5 seconds and neither of us tried to run away. I enjoy fights that last a little while and where both players stick it out to the end.

And this one wasn’t really a “good fight” but I want to say thank you anyway to the two [RICH] Thieves that both saved me then killed me, lol. Was roaming about near Ogrewatch and kept finding myself outnumbered so I was trying to LOS people. Then a Druid put me in combat before I could leap over this ledge and well, things didn’t go very well after that. I managed to turn the fight around and down them but by that time I was left with only 5% of my health. Then the two Thieves came by, finished off the Druid for me then for some reason they jumped on her corpse but not mine :P. I probably would have downed anyway had they not come by but it was just kind of funny how it was both a “yeah!” and a “kitten …” at the same time.

This one also wasn’t really a “good fight” but I want to props the [Obey] Mesmer that rekt me a bunch last night. I’ve fought many condition Mesmers/Chrono’s but this guy was definitely one of the best ones I’ve fought. Had probably the most nasty Confusion bursts I’ve ever seen. Although he was /laugh emoting and being a bit of a jerk, I still respect the obvious skill.

Swagger.1459:

-snip-

Ohhhhhhhhh, that guy! It took me a while to recall what you’re talking about but now I remember.

Yes, I don’t deny that I’ve said some rude things in the past and that I’m not a great player. I know who I am and what I’ve said. But I don’t appreciate the semi-personal attacks being used to reinforce your point. It has little relevance to the conversation other than to put me in a negative light. I have a short temper and it doesn’t justify the things I’ve said but most times I apologize if I do get fired up on someone.

I think I’m pretty reasonable with claiming things are OP since I rarely ever do. I have a strong sense of self awareness, I know my limitations. I was blaming that Druids build because it’s everywhere. If something is OP, it tends to overshadow many other builds. Again, take old Cele D/D Ele for example. It had; low stats that were amplified by boonstacking, decent mobility, good cleanse, good damage by maintaining boons, great sustain and good CC. Druid has all of this as well as; more mobility, better cleanse, better sustain and stealth to top it off.

Yes, the YB Druid is quite good. I’ve said as much more than a few times when I’ve seen people fighting him. It doesn’t change the fact that the build is OP. You can still be a good player playing a broken build. I’ve played it, I know how to fight it, but it’s unfun to fight because it feels like I’m fighting the build and not the player. It has nothing to do with me not wanting to improve and everything to do with not wanting to feed his ego. I would have to outplay him a lot harder than he would have to outplay me if I wanted to win.

Straegen.2938:

Overpowered isn’t defined as any class/build that has no weakness to another build or builds in a cage match. Overpowered in this context means a significant advantage against most other players of similar skill using other builds.

In this case, the current Bunker Druid builds when played by a decent player are extremely difficult to beat. They are dangerous to non-bunker builds, can stalemate most bunker builds and can typically make it to any door on a map simply by running and stealthing even with multiple players trying to kill them. They also have a fairly shallow degree of difficulty to play.

Sometimes people disagree, it’s a fact of life. There’s no need discuss things further since for both of us, these are just opinions. Times like these, I stop myself from continuing a conversation because I don’t see it going anywhere but down. I’m not going to derail a thread to defend myself or to defend things not entirely based on fact. I understand that I’m being stubborn I just hope you understand that my complaints are very unlikely to make a difference. Maybe that will bring you some solace.

Swagger.1459:

SpellOfIniquity.1780:

I’ve got to hand it to all the Druid mains in this thread, their determination to defend and disprove is admirable. Faith does often happen to be blind, however. No evidence or facts will change their minds so it’s very much a waste of time to argue.

When ANet steps in, and they will, we’ll see how the discussions change.

Not trying to be disrespectful, but you are a diamond rank player who mostly roams and duels on vanilla builds that sends “hate mail” (your words) to players who don’t duel the way you think they should duel. You also refuse to get better, and when encountering good players like those Druids on YB, you give up and don’t bother trying.

You assume it’s the build that carries players but it’s not, it’s skill that makes or breaks any profession. Anet is not going to “step in” and make up for lack of talent and lack of competitiveness just for the players, like yourself and the op, who rather blame the profession or build instead of improving your own builds and skill sets.

I don’t know about the vanilla necro you run, but you use a vanilla zerker ranger, not druid, with lb and gs… Using that build you can’t hang with skilled players on meta builds, so you purposefully disadvantage yourself and complain on the forums instead. As mentioned before, you are dueler who assumes encounters need to fit into your box of rules, but wvw doesn’t work that way. Either adapt or don’t, but don’t complain about things that are in your hands and expect Anet to fix it for you.

I never duel, actually. I enjoy watching them, though.

And I rarely ever send hatemail unless I’m being harassed by someone. I can’t think of the last time I sent a rude message to anyone but it certainly wasn’t any time recently.

I don’t refuse to get better. I can’t get better. I play with one hand because I have motor skill issues as a result of brain trauma in my youth. I’m about as good as I can physically be. I’ve long since accepted that I’m only mediocre at best but that doesn’t mean I don’t understand how to fight things even if I can’t always do it when I’m actually faced with it. As in – I understand it on paper but I’m not always perfect in practice because of poor reflexes. It’s not something I can improve on.

I don’t know where you think you’re getting your facts from but I have never believed anyone should follow “my box of rules.” I’m a scummy player, I bait people to NPC’s and towers, I +1 fights and I use everything I can to my advantage. I would be pretty hypocritical if I expected anyone to play fair.

Also, I play vanilla Necro and Ranger because I prefer to. I find them both more enjoyable and I fully understand that it puts me at a disadvantage. I’m okay with having to put in more effort to achieve a victory if I’m having more fun.

I still stand by the fact that the meta roaming Druid is OP. It takes a degree of skill to play but it is much the same as old school Cele Ele and many people agree. Almost anyone that doesn’t agree is a Druid main.

I’ve got to hand it to all the Druid mains in this thread, their determination to defend and disprove is admirable. Faith does often happen to be blind, however. No evidence or facts will change their minds so it’s very much a waste of time to argue.

When ANet steps in, and they will, we’ll see how the discussions change.

saerni.2584:

Also duelers code of conduct. Those who interfere will be killed and the spectators won’t help. If you think the duel shouldn’t be allowed and interfere, be prepared to face the consequences. On the other hand if you can get the stomp good for you.

I remember one time when a bunch of us were duelling, I had a friend who came by and told me about how a couple of the people there had jumped on his corpse and siege buried him earlier. He said he wanted revenge and I told him he could try but I wouldn’t help. It would mean I’d get killed too and I didn’t want to.

He then proceeds to kill almost every dueller there and casually runs off in to the sunset. It was pretty hilarious watching him destroy like 5 people then just leaving like nothing happened.

More often than not, the people who dislike duellers are the ones who interrupted a duel and got yelled at. Don’t take it to heart if that happens. People can be jerks, there’s no reason to feel ashamed for making a mistake. Walk away and learn from it.

I don’t think duels hurt anything. WvW is effectively sandbox, you can do as like when you like with some exceptions. As long as you’re not griefing, you shouldn’t need to worry about what others think about what you enjoy doing. I do understand that when a map is Q’d and players are duelling it can be a frustrating sight but they’re as entitled to play the game as they like as anyone else. Sure, they could duel in a PvP area or on another map but the same can be said for zergs/guilds. They could just as easily organize fights on other maps or in guild halls, couldn’t they?

I’m really doing a horrible job of defending this hobby but the point I’m trying to make is that everyone should be able to play as they like within reason. Not understanding something shouldn’t mean you disagree with it. I personally don’t like to duel at all because I find it silly how my opponent can change their traits and utilities or entire build before we fight. I don’t complain or interrupt when I see them though because those players are doing what they enjoy and that’s all that matters to me, that they’re having fun.

If you want to live by the “red is dead” mentality, they can’t say you’re wrong for doing it any more than you can say they’re wrong for duelling.

I’m sorry that you feel negatively about duelling but maybe if you participate in some duels or watch a few, you might change your mind. Just remember not to take the game so seriously.

There are lots of people with the maximum rank (10,000). I’ve personally spoken to 5 of them, 2 being on EU, the other 3 being on NA.

While it’s true that many of them got the bulk of their ranks in EOTM, it’s not true for everyone. I’ve spent my share of time there but I have no doubt in my mind that most of my ranks came from “real” WvW and I’m now in the 7,000 range.

Diamond ranks are obviously the most uncommon but usually in higher tiers, they’re not so rare they’re like unicorns. All it is is a passion for WvW for most of us. Some of them are driven for the title so they zerg day in and day out while others, like myself, are just WvW bums who do little else in GW2 besides living in EBG and the Borderlands.

Someone on my server is max rank and has been for quite a long time. How long I’m not sure as I’m not close friends with them but reaching the max wasn’t recent for them I know that much. And I’m pretty sure they’re tired of zerging because I almost never see this person with a zerg. They’re always roaming solo or with a couple friends.

WvW rank, as someone else has stated, means nothing. Some high ranks are zerglings and do nothing but blob while others (and I can think of more than a few) despite being very high ranks, are primarily roamers or small group players. When you don’t do anything else in GW2, your ranks will add up pretty rapidly. I usually go up 250 every month and a half/two months. I would probably be 10,000 by now if I didn’t scout and roam so much but that’s not a goal for me. To be honest I’m both proud of and ashamed by my rank at the same time, lol.

Just remember that everyone’s different! High rank doesn’t always mean zergling and low rank doesn’t always mean noob. “Always assume your opponent is a genius until proven an idiot.”

Jayne.9251:

The enemy blob knows your solo guild tag.

Story of my life, this one. I’ve had so many people see me when I’m in EOTM going it’s you!

You know you’re a scout when you’re +1’ing so many fights you start to feel bad.

You know you’re a scout when you check live maps at millenium.org when you’re not online.

You know you’re a scout when you’re up to date with the server politics of servers you’re not even fighting.

You know you’re a scout when fight guilds are whispering you to get your help on locations.

You know you’re a scout when you have a mental clock on the decay timers for all the siege you built.

Jim Hunter.6821:

If they add that your pet will only cast it after running to an enemy and then channeling for 6 seconds to give you a 1 sec water field.

Something that works a bit like Smokescale’s smoke field would be really nice but I see your point.

Justine.6351:

SpellOfIniquity.1780:

… I’m never bias…

Yeah me too! We so perfect how could anyone not believe us!

I think from this point on I’ll refrain from acting like you exist. You do you, though.

Small scale, it’s OP, the end.

They are exactly what old Cele D/D Ele used to be but with more mobility and bonus access to stealth.

The best way to hurt a Druid is to interrupt Rejuvenating Tides. Interrupting pretty much anything other than that is going to be extremely difficult unless you have nearly insta-cast CC’s like Steal with Sleight Of Hand, Headshot, Powerlock, Doom or something to that effect. Remember that most of these Druids are running +% Boon Duration which means they’re going to frequently have Quickness on top of being very strong kiters.

In other words, unless you have very high mobility yourself and nearly insta-cast/ranged CC’s, you’re not going to be interrupting these Druids very much.

I like to think I’m fair when claiming something is OP or UP because I’m never bias and I don’t cry for nerfs just because I can’t beat something. Heck, I enjoy fighting condition Chronomancer’s… So that should be a good bench mark for just how obnoxious hybrid/bunker Druid must be.

As I’d said in an earlier post, this build is only effective in small scale and roaming. If it does get nerfed, I think it deserves some buffs as well because it would be unfair to make it crappy everywhere. It needs to have a place for the sake of diversity but it still needs to be tuned down a bit as well. I see this build quite frequently and it’s to the point that I just don’t bother fighting them most of the time. It is not fun for anyone but them and it’s a huge waste of time for exactly that reason.

Not fighting someone/specific builds is a perfectly acceptable attitude if you think it counters you or it’s not fun for you to fight. That doesn’t excuse certain builds from being overtuned, though. You can’t use the excuse “just don’t fight it” every time something is broken.

This just occurred to me and how awesome it would be. Anet, pls.

Hm…

You know, it’s been a long time since I did any PvP just because I hate how much rage and general kittenery goes on there…

But after watching this video, I feel almost inclined to try again. You play exactly the same way I do except I don’t use Druid. Bait the major skills and counter pressure when their cooldowns are ticking. I just figured that in high tier PvP players would be skilled enough to work around this kind of thing. Maybe I should give it another shot to see how high I can climb, though.

UmbraNoctis.1907:

I wouldn’t recommend Smokescale and Bristleback for somebody who hasn’t got HoT – because he can’t use them :p. I also wouldn’t suggest Brown Bear (or any other bear). Those survival skills should be enough condi clear for a LB build that relies on kiting and avoiding dmg anyways. And most condi builds tend to be easy to kite, so you shouldn’t need tons of condi remove.
I actually tried the brown bear on a full glass lb build (MM/SK/BM) once. No condi remove outside of SoR, so i thought, the bear could be a decent addition to my wolf (and of course because “Bear Bow” is cult). But i figured out quite fast that additional CC and dmg from the hound would help me much more to kill stuff, even condi builds. The faster they die, the less chance they get to load me with condis. So hound + wolf are definitely my favoured pet suggestions for a build like this.

You’re definitely right about Bristleback and Smokescale, I didn’t think about that. You also have valid points about the Brown Bear not being terribly useful but in my own personal experience, it has more than earned it’s place. Having two low cooldown condition removals (the bears F2 and Troll Unguent) is really nice when you’re being chased down by condition Chrono’s and Thieves or when you’re being Taunted. More than once I’ve had a Warrior Taunt me and have been able to cleanse it with my bear before they could punish me.

As I’d said, pets are chosen strictly based on their utility since I’m not using Beastmastery with this build. I don’t much care about their damage, just what they can provide for me such as CC’s, boons or other support. Some of the pets I frequently use are; * Bristleback, Smokescale, Wolf, Brown Bear, Pink Moa, Jungle Spider and Siamoth. I prefer to avoid using pets that are too squishy like birds or felines just because without Beastmastery, they die extremely easily even in a 1v1.

It’s true that there’s more than enough condition removal with the utilities I’ve chosen but you can never be too careful when you’re alone, in T2, a high WvW rank and on a profession that most Thieves and Mesmers love to eat. So I prefer to be safe rather than sorry.

EDIT: Sorry for the novel. Hope it helps anyway.

Wilderness Skirmisher

Damage
With Fury and when hitting from behind, this build has 100% critical chance with +7% damage when your pet is active from the Ranger runes and +5% from the Sigil of Force. Prickly Pear Sorbet adds additional Ferocity and the Might on critical benefits from your very high critical chance. The +% damage modifiers and the extra Ferocity are to cover for the somewhat low Power even with 25 stacks of Bloodlust.

Cleanse
Wilderness Survival + Brown Bear on swap are good for condition removal. Although you can only remove 4 conditions roughly every 20 seconds or 8 every 40 seconds, it is still enough to deal with the big offenders like Confusion, Torment and Burn. The important thing to remember is that this build is designed for kiting and is strongest at range. Be vigilant and you shouldn’t have to worry much about conditions as you will often be too far away from your targets for them to put many on you. The condition removal in this build is mostly for those emergencies where you’re caught off guard or are outnumbered.

Sigil, Trait and Stat Explaination
Sigil of Agility + Tail Wind give a nice long duration Swiftness on swap. Sigil of Energy guarantees an additional dodge which is always a safe bet when rolling something with low defenses.
Since this build does not use Beastmastery, pets are chosen based on their utility. Wolf or Smokescale are acceptable replacements for Bristleback but I prefer Bristleback for it’s tracking. Brown Bear is used strictly for condition removal and NPC tanking. It’s condition cleanse is on a low cooldown with a short cast time and can be used while you are CC’d so it’s a pretty handy ability.
Marauder amulet, Precise Infusions and Assassin Longbow were chosen to bring Precision to 70%. With Fury, Hunter’s Tactic’s and Spotter, this will bring the remainder to 100%.

Usage
Quick Draw + Swoop x2 gives you a ton of mobility when things start to get hairy. You’ll want to use this trait to it’s maximum potential by keeping people as far away from you as possible. Swoop x2, Point Blank Shot x2 or Hunter’s Shot x2 all work very well for kiting and used properly, can make it extremely difficult for anyone, with the exception of most Thieves, to touch you at all.

Because this build is designed for extremely high damage however, that means you’re very squishy. So not only is this build most effective at range, it demands you to be at range for your own survival. Greatsword has a toughness prefix for a tiny bit of cushioning in melee range but you should avoid melee combat as often as you can. If you think you can afford to be close to an opponent, Counterattack x2 from Quick Draw is a good way to both block and get a big hit in. Trust me this skill can really hurt someone! (I’ve seen it go as high as 8k after blocking a Backstab)

When in zergs or small groups, you should be poking people to find who is the most squishy. At max range, this build is capable of hitting glassy opponents for up to 4k per Long Range Shot and 18k Rapid Fires. Quickening Zephyr + Rapid Fire will kill 90% of unsuspecting Thieves/Ele’s before they know what hit them as long as you’re intelligent about using it! Bait their dodges and heals then counter pressure the heal. If in a zerg, you should be 3-shotting staff Ele’s no problem. Just remember to watch out for reflects, have a stow weapon button handy because you’ll need it.

The tldr of this build is that it’s glass and it’s designed to kill glass. You have the advantage of range and mobility. As long as you see your opponent before they see you, you should win most of your fights. You have enough condition removal to survive a moderate burst, enough mobility to get away from gankers (tip: Hunter’s Shot -> swap -> Swoop x2), extremely high ranged damage capable of killing, or severely wounding other players in only 1second and you don’t need to rely on any boons!

It’s not very creative and it’s extremely risky to play but I have a ton of success with this build. I always giggle a bit when another Ranger tries to Rapid Fire me and it does maybe 70% of my health but when I do it in response, I kill them because I crit more and my damage is higher.
I’m guildless and often scout/roam or hangout on the outskirts of zergs and this build serves me well where ever I choose to use it. Primarily stalking enemy zergs and pew pewing the fat kids which is very fun because I can stay far enough away to avoid being in too much danger and if the zerg turns around, I can disengage quickly enough that no one will bother to chase me.
If it’s your first time playing a full glass Ranger, you’re probably going to die a lot. It’s certainly not a build that requires a high degree of skill but it does require a lot of understanding of your own personal limitations. You don’t have a whole lot of buttons or combos you need to know but you do need to know when to use those skills. So be sure to get familiar with your thresholds and once you do, you’ll be a force to be reckoned with.

Also I just want to brag a little here but I’ve had more than a few Rangers whisper me in WvW asking how I play without Druid and asking what my build is so I must be doing something right :P.

Medium professions are better in small scale than large scale. That’s their place. They have lower cooldowns and better self-sustaining skills. That’s why Druids/Rangers, Thieves/Daredevils and Engineers/Scrappers are always such powerful roamers. Mesmers/Chronomancers are the odd one out because they also do well with solo/small scale.

Every profession can roam but these four in particular are the best suited for solo/small scale because of the tools they have access to. They cannot function nearly as well in zergs because of one or both of the following problems; They lack cleave, their group support can be easily outmatched by other professions.

These four might generally be an easy kill when in a zerg but they should be feared when met alone. They have their place and their place is in small scale combat/skirmishing. It is incredibly obvious that they were designed for such combat when you look at many of their skills. Ranger ever has a traitline called “Skirmishing” and Mesmer “Dueling.”

With that said, I absolutely agree that the bunker Druid is a pain in the behind. But if they’re not needed/are ineffective in zergs, they need to be effective somewhere.

Also while we’re discussing roaming; Be sure to remind yourself that roaming does not demand “fair fights.” If you can’t beat something, either don’t fight it, gank it or kite it. You don’t have to fight anything, only what you choose to. This is a team based game, remember. That doesn’t mean the bunker Druid isn’t overtuned (because it is overtuned) but it does mean you have a choice on what to fight.

A few tips to help you in the future:

• If you are in a small group fight; Poke the Druid to see what kind of build they’re running. If they’re squishy, it might be a good idea to focus them down first. If they’re not-so-squishy, just be sure to avoid the pet and leave the Druid alone until the other players are defeated. Pressuring the bunker in a small scale fight is generally not a good idea.

• With the bunker/hybrid Druid, the pet is their main source of damage. Killing the pet first is the best way to neuter the Druid. That said, if they are running Beastmastery, it can be easier said than done. Focus on kiting the pets around to exploit their poor AI and tracking. Smokescale’s auto attack is very slow and easy to avoid and Bristleback won’t move unless you go out of it’s range. Also watch out for their pet swaps because their pets will often come out buffed with Quickness.

• Interrupt Tidal Rejuvenation. Celestial Avatar skill #4 should always be interrupted. This is the skill that places a waterfield around their feet. They will not be attacking when they cast this skill but when it is allowed to fully channel, it can heal them completely if they have even a little bit of healing power. I can tell you from experience that having that skill interrupted is a major uh-oh for the Druid.

• Stay on top of them while they are using staff or longbow. Most of their attacks will miss you if you can do so.

• And lastly, just don’t feed the troll… If you see a ghost trapper Thief, you’re not supposed to fight them. Same can be said with bunker Druid. It is literally not worth your time because if they are at least mildly skilled, they will be next to impossible to kill. Call some friends or don’t engage.

There are a few things I think Druid needs to have adjusted but if it receives any nerfs, it needs a few buffs as well. Making it invalid in zerging and roaming isn’t a fair choice. You can’t solve all your problems by nerfing them.

What area of the game?

If PvP/WvW, Strength.

If PvE, Scholar.

Why?

In PvP/WvW, you will rarely be above 90% health and you will likely be receiving Might from other players if you are in a group. With Strength runes, it will be easy to maintain multiple stacks of Might, probably up to 25 stacks if you’re in a zerg. Your health will fluctuate a lot while you’re taking damage during fights but you will maintain the +5% damage from the Strength runes’ sixth bonus as well as many stacks of Might.

In PvE, you will certainly take damage but in many cases, it’s a lot easier to stay above 90% health with intelligent footing. As long as you’re familiar with what you’re fighting, you shouldn’t have to worry too much about being in critical shape maybe with the exception of raids. So you should be able to keep the +10% damage boost active quite often.

For the record, I use Scholar runes on my Necromancer for PvE and I don’t run Berserker gear in WvW.

Jim Hunter.6821:

Menaka.5092:

Jim Hunter.6821:

Only made it about a quarter of the way through the book you are writing before I got tired of seeing the same common theme in all your ideas which is basically “bring a blob”.

Your ideas seem better suited for eotm than they do for WvW.

I don’t get your point: nobody defends in EOTM.
My idea is: siege counters siege and slows down the attackers. If you want to kill the attackers, you need people. If you don’t have people to defend, you lose the objective.

And that’s why your suggestions sound like they should be in eotm. Making blobbing even more rewarding than it already is doesn’t help WvW.

Ac’s won’t stop a superior force unless they are stupid or to lazy to commit. Making rams stronger by having multiple people man them makes small groups less effective.

If the only way to get things done is by blobbing harder you will only end up with more people quitting when there is no tag running, more bandwagoning to the bigger servers and more k-trains without resistance.

How would this improve WvW?

You know what always leaves me scratching my head when people complain about AC’s?

Why can the players not devise a more constructive way to approach a defended objective?

“Can’t ram it, too many AC’s. Can’t cata it, too many AC’s.”

I’ve said this many times, the attacking force almost always has the advantage of resources. If something is well defended – whittle it down. You don’t need to crack a structure within 60seconds of attacking it unless there’s a massive enemy blob that you’re trying to outpace. In which case, you might want to plan your attacks more carefully.

There are a lot of players who love to sit in towers or keeps with AC’s and there are a lot of commanders who are very aggressive and will rush to anything they see that’s contested so that they can wipe what ever is attacking it. A lot of people try to brute force things, drop half a dozen rams/catapults and tank the AC’s. Others try a similar strategy but pull off when people are taking too much damage. Both things incredibly basic/one dimensional and a huge waste of time.

As the attacking force, you have resources. You can run to supply camps, you can choke their supplies, you can bait the offending zerg elsewhere. It takes time and strategy but why is that a bad thing? Why is everyone obsessed with nerfing siege and defences when all it’s going to do is further promote karma farming and brainlessness?

People seriously need to start looking at WvW as a strategy based format and not a race against time. Sure, there will be times when you’ll need to beat the clock but for the most part, it should be about trying to figure out how you can outsmart your opponents instead of how many rams you can throw. Why do players consider it “boring” when they can’t get inside a structure right away? Is it not fun having to use your head? I suppose that’s more of an opinion so it’s not really valid but my point is that reducing the effectiveness of defences is only going to make WvW even less strategic.

Some what off topic here but when I command in EOTM, I love it when I can’t just tear something open. When I have to think more carefully about how we’re going to approach something. That’s why 90% of the time when I tag up, I do it when we have less than 20 people on the map and Outnumbered buff. Because I know it’s going to require me to do things other than throwing rams and running circles around the map. I’ll have to consider what the enemy commander wants; do they want bags? Do they want to protect what’s theirs? Are they a newbie and just want XP? I’ll have to consider what both sides will be attacking so that we’re not caught with our pants down; Will red zerg be here when we attack this? Is blue zerg defending that? And if there’s defensive siege, I have to think of ways to counter it; Eg just this morning, blue side had prepared AC’s and cannons outside Forge wall and pushed us off when we tried to attack it with Siege Scorpians. I was happy about that because it meant I had to come up with a plan. I distracted the blue zerg by contesting an objective of theirs, I took our zerg to capture something else, we circled around and built ballistas to kill their siege then WP’d home and came back again. It takes longer but again, I don’t see why this is a problem. It should be fun to have to use your head. But apparently most players just want to remove the middle man entirely so they can slaughter each other all day or get XP with no resistance, both of which would get repetitive and boring very quickly.

So personally my vote is to leave defences just the way they are. I would even be in favor of buffing defences to further promote strategic play on the offensive side. It would need to be very precise buffs however or you would risk making defence so desirable, it would be all anyone would do. You get my point though I hope.

Also this isn’t directed specifically at you by the way, Jim. Just the topic at hand.

Nyta.4769:

No reason to think it has to add clutter. I can think of a couple ways for Anet to do it without introducing clutter. One is to add “WvW Rank” to the Titles drop down menu, and it could list your rank under your name as your title. No more cluttery than any other title.

Another option could be to give your character portrait a border like the NPC borders. Vanilla ranks get no border, bronze ranks get a Veteran border, silver get an Elite border, gold get Champion, platinum could get some fancier version of the silver border, maybe mithril could get a gray, simplified version of the legendary border, and diamond could get a diamond-y version of it. It would require someone to click on you to see your rank, but it would still be a way to show it outside of wvw.

I like both of these ideas a lot.

Any match with JQ or DB sucks because if you sign on in the morning they own 95% of everything. I don’t mind being outnumbered but I don’t like not being able to play at certain hours of the day because there’s a megablob that defends anything you touch until enough people sign on to fight back. They will literally sit at the spawn in groups of 20+ and just push anyone off the map who tries to do anything about it and it’s lame.

I enjoy fighting against the odds, it’s why I never transfer to a winning server the times that I move. But there’s a point like what happens in the mornings that it’s not fun no matter how you slice it.

I agree.

Although WvW rank isn’t exactly a test of skill, neither is PvE mastery level. I know plenty of players who are proud of their rank because for a lot of us, it shows that we’ve stuck it out for the worst of WvW’s history. We’re the veterans of the Mist War and I think something small like a title (Silver Mist Walker, Platinum Mistwalker, etc.) or a badge next to our names shouldn’t be out of the question.

Rank means very little but every time I climb another 1,000 I get pretty giddy. Just hit 7,000 yesterday and being able to show that off some how would be nice.

This isn’t strictly a Ranger/Druid problem. Everyone is just innately tanky now and the skill floor is abysmally low.

I still play core Ranger and Necromancer in WvW both small scale/solo and zerging and do just fine against most players, although it is definitely an uphill battle.

Personally, I find it more rewarding to beat players when I’m at a disadvantage. But there are many, many times where I also hate losing based on the build I’m fighting and not based on my skill. For example; I was fighting this Dragonhunter a few days ago who was trying to LOS me (as if he didn’t have enough of an advantage to begin with) and I wound up sending him some hatemail because I was frustrated that he was trying to cheese me when he really didn’t need to. It was my own stupidity for being stubborn but sometimes people just amaze me at how easy they want their wins to be.

Everyone’s different though so just because I can’t relate to it doesn’t mean it’s wrong.

Sorry that you’re feeling how you are. I gave up on my Necro for quite some time because I felt I was at way too much of a disadvantage without Reaper until I put a build together that has been working really well. So I can understand how it sometimes feels like the class you’re playing isn’t worth it anymore.

Honestly though, small scale stuff in WvW just isn’t what it used to be and that’s all there is to it. Everything is either insta-gib or so stupidly hard to kill it’s boring.

Oil is extremely strong but it’s also stationary which means it’s easy to avoid in most cases.

I think a fair change would be to make it so that you do not need to be touching the pot of oil to use it. Instead, place a lever or button inside the structure on the ground, similar to how tactivators are placed, that you can use to operate the oil from afar.

This would eliminate any risk of taking damage on the players part without making the pot of oil more difficult to kill. Oil dies fairly quickly as is if enough people are focusing it down and as I’d said, it only has a very small radius of effect. I think it would be absolutely fair to remove the risk of taking damage while using it. It’s a totally different story with things like AC’s and cannons that can hit many different places however.

And stealth is broken against everything else. Because once you stealth, you’re 100% invisible and could be farming nodes during our fight for all I know.

Get over it.

Cerby.1069:

Giant Flat Meadow for fighting. Done.

I’ve wanted this for a very long time. Most people don’t care much about score anymore. Of course some still do, but a good chunk of players would prefer to have fights instead as it’s more rewarding and more exciting. You don’t need a complicated map to blob v blob, just an open field where you can kite a bit. The pit in Obsidian Sanctum where GvG’s happen a lot is a perfect example and I would really love to see more wide open fields in WvW. There are a good number of places that are relatively void of trees, creeks etc. but still not enough. Bulldozing down that huge pyramid thing in the middle of DBL would be an awesome spot for blob v blobs.

UnitedChaos.8364:

Most pets have a difficult time hitting moving foes, with the exception if moas..

Moa’s // hit moving targets better than most other pets?

I’ve been using Pink Moa a lot lately (WvW) and really like the daze. I don’t usually pay much attention to my pets damage unless I’m using Beastmastery so I hadn’t noticed whether the Moa was hitting often or not.

Just wanted to ask if it’s commonly known that Moa’s // hit moving targets better?

I’m 50/50 on this to be honest.

Necromancer is a naturally tanky profession. It has high health and lots of access to damage reduction as well as many possibilities for sustained game play such as many of the traits in the Blood Magic tree.

With that said however, Necromancer has worse sustain potential than many of the other professions with less access to sustain focused abilities. Mesmer, Elementalist, Guardian, Warrior, Ranger, Engineer, they can all sustain in a fight better than a Necromancer and Warrior doesn’t have a whole lot less health than a Necromancer + even more access to damage reductions.

Although Necromancer can build Life Force in many different ways and can, on paper, use it to shield it’s health – it scales poorly with more players and does not interact well with the health it is supposed to be protecting.

I’m not sure that I feel Necromancers should have access to invulnerability but I do think we should have access to some form of blocks at the very least. The high health and potential to protect our health bars with Shroud is what is supposed to be the reason behind not having access to invulnerability or blocks. But if that’s the case, our options for sustain need a massive buff. Spectral skills need hugely reduced cooldowns, Blood Magic and Death Magic need to be far more potent, minions need to be more effective, cast times need to be adjusted, etc.

Necromancer is a powerful class but it’s weaknesses are a lot more apparent than some of the other professions weaknesses.

Hexinx.1872:

Well I think Spell’s write up is a good general overview to help players understand what is going on around them in WvW, as well as any map chat communications, and provides various styles of playing WvW.

I appreciate the compliment and I just want to say that it’s very difficult to cover every possible aspect of WvW in vivid detail. That’s why I was brief/basic and unbiased so as not to over complicate things.

I’m not certain where you read the things that you did, OP, but if that was what you got from anything I had said, it was obviously not my intention. Everyone has different perspectives, it’s not possible to appeal to every individual view.

To put WvW as simply as possible: It is PvPvE and the matches are a week long. You can fight players, you can fight NPC’s, you can do things separate entirely such as building siege or repairing structures. Aside from that, WvW is a free country. You can do as you like, when you like. Play solo, group or large scale, it’s truly up to you. Your contribution can make a small difference or a large difference depending on what it is you’re doing and how you’re choosing to do it. Just know that there are many nuances and nomenclatures that you will need to get yourself familiar with and experiencing them for yourself will always be the best way to do so. No guide can provide you with all the answers so you won’t find one. The one I wrote was only a framework for those that do not understand so that they may have a foundation to create understandings of their own.

EDIT:

Also, about #8, “help everyone, don’t expect help”, that should go for every tread of life. Not just GW2.

You help people as an act of selflessness. You should never expect anyone to help you because help comes out of the good of someone’s heart.

If I’m roaming in GW2 and I’m fighting another player while an allied player is near by, do I expect that allied player to help me? No. They don’t need to help me at all if they don’t want to and they shouldn’t have to.

Depend on only yourself and accept help as an act of support not as an act of necessity. “Do unto others as you would have done to you.”

It’s a bit of both.

Some people make alt accounts so they can read the enemy’s chat, sabatoge their supplies and waste their tactivators.

A lot of people blame “spies” when there really wasn’t anyone spying too, though. Their zerg gets wiped so “someone must be spying” when in reality they just don’t want to admit that they were being careless about their movements on the map.

Sometimes it’s spies, sometimes it’s trolls, sometimes it’s people making excuses because they don’t want to admit defeat.

But yes, there absolutely are spies in WvW and it’s a very scummy thing to do. We had one from TC last week that was wasting all of our keep supplies and even stated in chat that he was from TC.

Jana.6831:

SpellOfIniquity.1780:

That’s kind of my point about EOTM. Many of the people who say that it’s a karma farm map probably haven’t set foot on it in a long time. That, or only once in a very rare while.

I didn’t mean to derail the thread, I just wanted state that OP’s experience in EOTM is actually fairly accurate as it’s not a whole lot different from real WvW anymore. The PUGs are worse (because a lot of them are new to WvW/new to the game), there’s no teamspeak and scouting isn’t quite as common, but there are still lots of fights, roamers, sometimes guilds and commanders who don’t care about XP at all and just strictly go for killing the other zerg.

I can’t speak for Jaye but I know thet EotM NA and EU have been different back in the day. And the general mentality on NA is vastly different than the mentality on EU. EU: “Server xy nightcapping? Sucks but whatever” NA: “THEY HAVE A BETTER COVERAGE!!! THAT CAN’T BE I’M TRANSFERRING UP!!” We’re currently against a server who’s got no linked server, I think last or second last tier EU and they really crushed both our other servers who both have linked worlds with their 100 man blob yesterday.
Btw: OP doesn’t state whether they’re NA or EU

Yes the coverage hate and bandwagoning is a bit out of hand on NA. I transfer often myself but have almost never moved to a winning server. I just look for a happy medium between challenge and effective. I’ve settled on Mag for now as it has good fighters and potential to fluctuate between tiers for varying types of matches. I’m a minority though as I don’t have a guild nor do I care about score/nightcapping. I just look for a place I’m comfortable and having fun. I actually prefer to be outnumbered because I love to play the role of the squirrel. Poking at huge zergs and making people chase me out of their comfort zone then killing them behind a rock some where.

I was on EU over a year ago and the roaming skill cap was always much higher there. I considered moving back to EU not too long ago but I decided to spare myself the frustration of a crappy ping.

And yes very true about not mentioning whether NA or EU. I probably got ahead of myself but my points still stand.

LeCreaux.3087:

I jump in and out of WvW depending on whether there’s fun things going on. Sometimes that’s a zerg, sometimes a group taking territory, sometimes solo. I like WvW when it’s playable.

When the other team is running unbeatable numbers then I just leave WvW and do other stuff. In the big scheme of things WvW is pointless fun. So when it’s fun, I do it.

What I never have understood are the players screaming obscenities in voice chat, map chat, and enemies sending whispers. GW2 has some the most casual gameplay around. How do players get so angry in such a casual game?

You’re what people call a fairweather. You leave when the odds are against you.

That’s fine if that’s how you want to play but that’s why a lot of WvW veterans hate PvE players. Because they don’t pull their weight, they just leave the map when things get hard and it only makes things worse.

Jana.6831:

SpellOfIniquity.1780:

Ah, I did not know Jayne was EU. In that case, my statement that EOTM has changed may not be relevant. On NA at least, it is much less K-train focused than what it used to be. Maybe on EU it’s still the same as it’s always been, then.

No idea, haven’t been there for a few years – but it was different back then because when I came to EU and was a low silver rank people wanted me to duel a warrior “Nah, I can’t he’s got a high gold rank – he’s way better than me” – then he played unfair in one duel and I had him down in 3 strikes. Basically the rule was: The higher the rank the easier the kill. I guess they’re still karma training while the rest is in real WvW.

That’s kind of my point about EOTM. Many of the people who say that it’s a karma farm map probably haven’t set foot on it in a long time. That, or only once in a very rare while.

I just want to defend the fact that EOTM is more like WvW training wheels than it is an avoid all combat k-train thing (at least on NA). I remember when EOTM first started out people would avoid other zergs to farm loot and sometimes co-ordinate with the other teams to make it more efficient. It has long since evolved beyond that and much of the time, commander’s are extremely aggressive and looking for as many fights as they can get now.

I didn’t mean to derail the thread, I just wanted state that OP’s experience in EOTM is actually fairly accurate as it’s not a whole lot different from real WvW anymore. The PUGs are worse (because a lot of them are new to WvW/new to the game), there’s no teamspeak and scouting isn’t quite as common, but there are still lots of fights, roamers, sometimes guilds and commanders who don’t care about XP at all and just strictly go for killing the other zerg.

Jana.6831:

Jayne.9251:

So …. If somethings defended its avoided for an easier flip.
Eh you can see where I’m going on this.
It’s not wvw.

Jeknar.6184:

Honestly, it sound a lot like WvW…

DeceiverX.8361:

Going to have to sincerely disagree. That pretty much captures the NA experience for the past three years.

Jayne and I are on EU – and my experience is as well that we’re trying to get to the fights and not to avoid them. There are exceptions, sure.
And there you have a “PvE vs WvW” problem again: We’re brushed with the NA solutions although we don’t have the same problems.

Ah, I did not know Jayne was EU. In that case, my statement that EOTM has changed may not be relevant. On NA at least, it is much less K-train focused than what it used to be. Maybe on EU it’s still the same as it’s always been, then.

Jayne.9251:

So …. If somethings defended its avoided for an easier flip.

Eh you can see where I’m going on this.

It’s not wvw.

If the offending force is too large to deal with then yes. I was avoiding blue because they were triple our size. We wiped them once because I was smart about when I decided to engage them but otherwise, we couldn’t handle them open field. Our zerg was 20 and theirs was 60.

And I had specifically said that I agree it’s not the same as real WvW. The point I was trying to make is that EOTM is no longer a constant k-train. There are lots of fights there now and lots of intelligent strategy involved when one or more offending forces are looking for fights.

Wasn’t trying to change your mind. Just wanted to let you know that the community there has changed a lot. I enjoy it a lot more now that players actually want to do things other than farm XP.

Jayne.9251:

SpellOfIniquity.1780:

Jayne.9251:

OP thanks for the perspective.

Next time might I suggest trying wvw instead of EoTM. Two very very different styles of play.

What makes wvw great is a sense of teamwork. EoTM hardly anyone plays strategy, it’s basically just a different pve champ train map.

In wvw you see the same faces every day and get to know them. You learn their strengths and who to trust. If X is hitting Y, you know that Joe Guardian is epically good at killing off their siege. Jane Elementalist can read a map and predict where the enemy is going. Fred thief does one better and actually trails the enemy, calling out their movement so our team can intercept them. You don’t get that in EoTM.

I just want to point out that many people who consider EOTM a champ train probably haven’t done it in a while/don’t do it very often.

While I absolutely agree that WvW and EOTM are two entirely different things, EOTM has changed a lot since the days of K-training everything. There are lots of fights in EOTM and lots of fight-focused commanders as well. Since the EOTM rewards were reduced, people stopped focusing so hard on that loot and instead started to treat it a bit more like real WvW.

It’s a bit like WvW on fast forward to be honest. There are more frequent captures and more frequent fights. Just the PUGs are a lot worse and commanders are hit and miss. Sometimes the commander has no clue what they’re doing, sometimes they’re semi-experienced, sometimes they’re so good they dominate the entire map.

The stigma of EOTM being a PvE map is no longer relevant. You should give it a few tries some time. You might get a few bad tags but when you get a good one you’ll see what I’m talking about.

Does any defend? Last time I was in there, nobody did. It’s night/day difference between the two modes, simply for that alone.

Often, yes, although in somewhat of a different way.

In WvW, there are usually scouts/small groups of people that will defend. Sometimes the commander + full zerg come to defend but that’s usually only when a large group is attacking.

In EOTM, there are scouts as well but there isn’t much they can do to stop attacking forces. So when something is attacked, 90% of the time the commander + the full zerg come to defend. Eg. last night while I was commanding, we had to completely avoid blue side of the map because the commander on blue side was aggressively defending their entire area. If we so much as set foot in there their zerg would run us down. This happens quite often but again, depends entirely on who’s commanding. Some tags like to protect their stuff, others don’t care.

But yes there is absolutely defending, it’s just less of a small scale thing. I know and recognize specific players in EOTM that are always scouting. So if I happen to see that they’re not on my team a certain week, I let the map know that those players will be telling their commander about what’s happening.

This skill has an obnoxiously long after cast that I could swear was never there prior to HoT. I need to turn off my auto attack while in Shroud so that Life Blast doesn’t interrupt Tainted Shackles and the cast time states it’s only 1/4second. I literally need to mash the skill so that it doesn’t stop casting/get interrupted. Would be nice if this skill could be looked at for a possible bug as I’m really tired of how wonky it feels.

Jayne.9251:

OP thanks for the perspective.

Next time might I suggest trying wvw instead of EoTM. Two very very different styles of play.

What makes wvw great is a sense of teamwork. EoTM hardly anyone plays strategy, it’s basically just a different pve champ train map.

In wvw you see the same faces every day and get to know them. You learn their strengths and who to trust. If X is hitting Y, you know that Joe Guardian is epically good at killing off their siege. Jane Elementalist can read a map and predict where the enemy is going. Fred thief does one better and actually trails the enemy, calling out their movement so our team can intercept them. You don’t get that in EoTM.

I just want to point out that many people who consider EOTM a champ train probably haven’t done it in a while/don’t do it very often.

While I absolutely agree that WvW and EOTM are two entirely different things, EOTM has changed a lot since the days of K-training everything. There are lots of fights in EOTM and lots of fight-focused commanders as well. Since the EOTM rewards were reduced, people stopped focusing so hard on that loot and instead started to treat it a bit more like real WvW.

It’s a bit like WvW on fast forward to be honest. There are more frequent captures and more frequent fights. Just the PUGs are a lot worse and commanders are hit and miss. Sometimes the commander has no clue what they’re doing, sometimes they’re semi-experienced, sometimes they’re so good they dominate the entire map.

The stigma of EOTM being a PvE map is no longer relevant. You should give it a few tries some time. You might get a few bad tags but when you get a good one you’ll see what I’m talking about.

I have never played any video game for rewards. I can’t speak for others but loot is a secondary concern for me. I play video games for the experience and the excitement. I don’t care about material gain as in many video games, you only “need” a limited amount of loot to help you progress (higher level gear, etc.)

I would be lying if I said better loot in WvW wouldn’t be nice. It’s always nice to have more money. All loot is to me is an inconvenience as it currently is. It fills my bags with crap I don’t need/want with little value and I’m forced to empty my bags every hour or two. I would play WvW as much as I currently do even if there were no rewards at all.

As I’ve stated in the past, I don’t know what the proper solution is to fix the WvW population or many of it’s other problems so I refrain from complaining. Unless I have a way to resolve these issues, I’m not going to kitten and rant because it’s not going to help. All I can say is that I, personally, don’t give a flying fart about loot and I know at least a good percentage of other WvW’ers feel the same. So if you’re wondering why many of us still play WvW, it’s because we enjoy each other’s company not because we’re holding out for something better.

When I do PvE, I get bored within an hour because I don’t know anyone. It’s like going to the mall versus going to a small-town coffee shop. You go to the mall and there are lots of people you can socialize with but it’s different people every time you go. In the coffee shop, there are some different people and some familiar people. I recognize dozens of people when I go to EOTM and EOTM’s community is a lot more diluted than “real” WvW. So I still go there because there are friends there and new friends I can make. Of course I can make friends in PvE as well, it’s just that it’s rare I run in to the same person I was talking to yesterday when I go back.

I don’t know… I play for the social/bonding aspect and the randomness of combat. I like to feel like I’m a part of a community and WvW has that. I like to do things at my own pace, my own way and WvW allows that.

- Before I finish, I just had an idea although probably a bad one. What if in WvW they halved the loot gain but instead tripled the amount of Rare quality loot. So most times you get loot, it’s Yellow tier instead of Green or Blue. You wouldn’t get as much loot as you do now but the loot you get would be more valuable. Maybe it would make WvW a good place to farm Ectos? Just going off the top of my head here but if loot is what PvE’er want, maybe this would be a good way to entice them?

Dawdler.8521:

SpellOfIniquity.1780:

For the sake of example; If there are 3 superior AC’s aimed at the side wall of Klovan, all of them manned prior to a zerg arriving, that zerg won’t be able to get close to the tower. They’ll probably need to build catapults way out in the swamp. How often are people inside the tower, on the defensive siege and prepared for an attack though, realistically? Very rarely.

Have you ever played against German servers?

Realistically, every tower. With 6+ ACs, not 3.

I haven’t but in my experience, it’s rare that any defensive siege is manned before something is attacked. Sometimes there’s a scout or two inside and the zerg usually moves on to another objective instead of committing.

I do agree that getting near a tower with multiple people on AC’s is obnoxious, I just feel that in my many hours of WvW, it’s uncommon for said AC’s to live longer than 60seconds thanks to Meteor Shower doing like 9k a hit and Temporal Curtain pulling people right over and off the walls.

I like how all last week Mag was all “Mag incoming T1 hype” then DB drops down and now people are more like “why tf is a T1 server down here?”

DB are about the same as TC, they just have some better guilds and way more SEA coverage. They still have bad PUGs and not many roamers. At least FA has solid PUGs/roamers to compete with the rare times they’re actually doing anything. Most of the time they seem to be non-existent, though.

I want TC back, personally. Not the greatest fighters but they give it 110% and they don’t quit when things aren’t going their way. I enjoy that they always come back for more instead of wiping once or twice then hiding on a different map like a lot of servers do. I also enjoy that they don’t have a SEA blob like DB that builds 3+ Shield Generators to protect their 6+ Rams against all 5 of us defending our keep (what happened this morning). Because you know, it’s not over kill at all.