Guild Wars 2

zedapoc.1493:

WvW roaming is very much the epitome of “the school of hard knocks”.

Best thing you can do is join an experienced group and learn the ropes before going it alone like you have…vets in wvw can smell noobie blood like sharks.

Also, keep in mind that enemies can see your wvw rank and buffs/debuffs. Weak links can easily be identified and focused down. My friends and I regularly go into fights saying things like “silver invader Druid is terrible, blow him up first.”

Although most of what you say is true, rank, buffs and character appearance mean absolutely nothing.

A lot of the time, yes, you can tell who is going to be experienced and who isn’t judging by these factors alone. But a quote I live by is “always assume your opponent is a genius until proven an idiot.” I have met many players who were below Bronze rank that were extremely dangerous, most likely because they spent most of their time in PvP and wanted to try out WvW (or were on an alt account). I know of one Thief in particular in fact who is on FA that’s like, Champion rank, not even Bronze, and the guy is absurdly good. He knows his class inside and out and I regularly watch him kite groups of 10+ people around.

So although yes, you can usually tell someone is a noobie just by looking at them, don’t let appearances deceive you. I always approach an enemy expecting more players to join and expecting them to be more skilled than me no matter what their rank or how they look. I’m always ready to escape if I find I’m about to be overwhelmed by numbers and I’m always ready to learn something new if my opponent is impressively good.

You probably already know this but others in this thread might not. So it’s not necessarily directed at you.

I’m just going to chime in here and say that Deathly Chill is currently OP. I’m not going to give examples or explainations because I know how the community here works.

I truly am not sure how to balance it without making it useless but it is in it’s current form, incredibly broken. That said, I would much rather see condition bunker Chrono put in it’s place as it has been a huge offender in the roaming scene for ages. It doesn’t matter their level of skill, they’re just obnoxious and next to immortal if they’re at least half decent. Unlike Reaper where a decent, or even a good one, can only tank for so long before they hit the ground.

To be honest, I’m not complaining either way. Whether it’s fixed or not, there will always be those face roll builds out there. As soon as one thing becomes irrelevant, another takes it’s place. Either take the tools necessary to fight these builds or don’t fight them at all. The best thing about WvW is that you don’t have to fight something if you don’t want to. And especially in the case of Reaper, it’s not like they’re going to catch you if you decide you don’t want any of it.

PS. in case anyone cites my signature, I primarily play vanilla Necro. I do occasionally play Reaper, but only in zergs (because Stability), but I don’t personally enjoy it. And from experience, I can say that the level of faceroll is at least an 8.5/10. Mash shouts -> Shroud 4 -> GG. Extra GG if you’re taking Reaper runes, Geomancy and Hydromancy sigils.

This post = More loot, more XP, nerf things lemmings hate.

Rewards are nice but they don’t fix or even improve WvW. The players who hold the mode together aren’t going to stick around for more greens and blues.

Sviel.7493:

@SpellOfIniquity
I’m interested in your vision of perfection as it’s very different from mine. I want to try and understand it better so that I’m more adept at figuring out ways to make the actual WvW more fun for both of us.

In this 24/7 death match, would population be controlled automatically or would it retain the server system? That is, are servers part of your vision or is it just the death match that’s key?

Servers would stay, tiers would not.

I like communities and the different personalities that each server has. I feel like if there’s no objective other than killing each other, you at least need the incentive of fighting for something.

To be clear, I’m okay with how WvW is and I don’t mind if it doesn’t change. I don’t make a lot of complaints because if I’m not having fun, I’ll stop playing. But in my ideal GW2 world, WvW would be 100% PvP focused. Solos, duos and squads dotted around the map each fighting for the glory of their server. GvG’s and roaming would flourish, lag and boon spam blob meta would die.

EdwinLi.1284:

coro.3176:

While we’re dreaming, I’d like to ride around on a dinosaur wearing a mecha-suit.

I would it not call dreaming since the F skills (F1 to F5) have a lot of potential to be changed in different ways to introduce new unique functions for each future elite specs.

One way it can be changed is to change the Main weapon equipped such as Rifle, Pistol, Shield, and Elite Spec weapon into new set of skills unique to each weapon.

Another could be that it is changed into a type of Kit system with each F skills from F1 to F5 being a type of unique kit for the new Elite Spec for a Kit focused Elite Spec.

There are plenty of ways the F1 to F5 skills can be changed in future Elite spec to suit different play styles that both depend on Kits and not depend on Kits but it is up to Anet which playstyle they want to introduce.

I think a mech-pilot type spec would be really fun and could make good use of the Toolbelt mechanic.

Let’s say there are 6 new skills we can slot in our utility bar and each of them are mech-suits. They function just like kits, we can enter or exit them at will. We keep our utility and weapon skills but our Toolbelt skills are changed to the suit specific role. Let’s say for example one suits role is mobility and each Toolbelt skill grants some form of Swiftness, Superspeed, leaps or shadow steps. You trade off your “normal” Toolbelt skills while you’re in the suit but can leave it at any time to regain access to them.

I dunno, just brainstorming with you, lol.

Sviel.7493:

If you implement a ‘negative to escalating combat sizes’ as a literal negative buff, people will be upset to see other players join them. It would not be hard to do more harm to a party with your presence than good if you’re new. Anet has also stated they’re not going down that path.

Instead, we should look for ways to make smaller combat sizes naturally more beneficial. SpellOfIniquity’s idea doesn’t allow for this as it’s just pure combat and thus numbers are always a boon (unless you include a negative buff). This is where objectives come in. Depending on their number, what it takes to accomplish them and how spread out they are, they make splitting up into smaller teams a better choice in many situations. You have leeway in the details of the objectives but removing them altogether isn’t going to work.

Valid points. As I’d said in the edit, I came up with it all on the spot, so I didn’t take the time to think through all of the consequences. I considered a lot of variables but 10 minutes of writing isn’t going to cover all the bases.

Since the OP was asking for our own personal ideas on a “perfect WvW”, my own is basically a giant 24/7 team death match. I’m not personally interested in capturing or defending things, I just want to fight be it large or small scale, though preferably small. Large blob v blobs can be extremely fun at times but the lack of effort needed makes it boring after only a few hours.

It’s a shame that there doesn’t seem to be a happy medium where players avoid blobbing but no one gets excluded.

I love WvW but the combat in GW2 is far more entertaining than siege wars. Maybe if objectives were much, much larger with fixed siege and multiple floors, it might be fun to battle your way through the gauntlet. As it stands, it isn’t usually much of a battle, nor does it feel very rewarding, to capture an objective. Huddle in a corner trying to outheal all the arrowcarts and PvDing is pretty much as exciting as it gets.

A map roughly the size of DBL with no objectives, only obstacles. Hills, forests, lakes, etc.

Everyone killing everyone 24/7. Only safe places are spawns and “recovery camps” which are circular capture points that function similarly to supply camps but without NPC’s and a weak wall surrounding it. 10 players can destroy the wall in 30 seconds, 30 can destroy it in 10. Prevents turtling but still gives a place to hide/regroup if things get hot.

All sides are granted a buff called “Versus The World.” The more allied players you are with the more damage you will receive. This buff begins to stack when more than 10 players are travelling together.

Every two hours a “Killing Spree” begins. This event lasts for only 5 minutes and marks every players position on the mini map. Being killed during this event times you out for the remainder of the Killing Spree (maximum of 5 minutes if you are killed at the very beginning) and the winning side is granted access to a “Charr Car Parlor.” Entering this shop allows players a one time Charr Car use that ends on death. This shop can be destroyed by enemy players but spawns in random locations.

There are 3 oasis on the map that any player can use. Entering the water randomly heals one player on the map for 100% of their health with a 60 second cooldown. The player healed has a chance to also be the player that enters the oasis. More than 5 allied players entering the water at the same time instead marks these players on the enemies map for the next 60 seconds.

EDIT: I wrote all this down on the spot so I’m already having second thoughts about some of it, namely the “Versus The World” buff. I’d like something that prevents people from blobbing up and mowing down smaller groups or it would be a really crappy game mode. Everyone would move to one server like we have happening now but it would be twice as boring. I’m not sure a buff that causes you to take extra damage is the right choice but something that deters people from the hive mind at least. Small scale skirmishes happening all over the map would be really cool to see and play, imo.

Dawdler.8521:

Ever considered going apotechary/celestial and p/p instead? Yeah you loose some boon duration and obviously power/precision, but you get twice the healing power and condi dmg. Also not as easily kited.

I drop Hammer for Rifle + the Rifle trait sometimes if I know what I’m about to fight. Good Druids give me a lot of trouble if I get stuck in Hammer so I usually try to avoid that if I can. Since I have pema-Stability and Might, Overcharged Shot doesn’t effect me and Jump Shot can crit as high as 9k. To be honest, I prefer Rifle over Hammer, but Hammer is better in most situations ( + Rocket Charge through Regenerating Mist F1 is really nice ).

I’ve tried Pistol/Pistol and Pistol/Shield with this build and same stats, it doesn’t perform very well \:

I might give what you suggested a try at some point because I like to tinker with builds and such. So thanks for the heads up!

Build

Pros:

• High Healing Power, great sustain
• Lots of cleanses, great against condition builds
• Perma-18 stacks of Might just by holding Flamethrower, easy to reach and maintain 25
• High, almost 100% uptime on Quickness if rotating weapons properly to proc the sigil
• Enough condition damage to maintain damage via Burns through Endure Pain, Signet Of Stone or blocks
• Basically immune to CC
• Very strong sustained damage if you can stay on top of your target

Cons:

• Easy to kite if you’re not careful
• You’ll probably stalemate anyone who’s semi-bunker
• A Necromancers boon corrupt wet dream
• No burst
• Low mobility (although stealth uptime makes it acceptable)
• Anyone with high Retaliation uptime is going to be a pain (literally)

I recently changed the stats of my hammer from Celestial to Zealot’s and it felt like it was the missing piece. Made a huge difference in overall performance and I felt like sharing with anyone who’s looking for a fun build to try out.

By no means do I claim it to be great, I’m certain there are much better FT builds out there but this one has served me very well. I can successfully 1vX rather easily and I pretty much laugh at all condition builds with the exception of Reapers. It’s great for zerging and hauling in loot, great for small group heal/stealth support and decent for 1v1’s although anyone who’s good at kiting can really make it suck.

Dawdler.8521:

As a sidenote when someone “oh yeah we totally killed 40 people with our 15 man guild!” it was probably like 25-30 people in the enemy group and 5-10 randoms around the guild, lol.

I agree with everything you’ve said but I feel like gloating a bit and adding another example to the ones you’ve already provided.

A couple weeks ago 2 friends and I (3 of us, 1 Druid, 1 vanilla semi-tank Warrior, 1 glass Berserker) wiped a group of about 15 – 20 in EOTM. Following your example, they were caught off guard because a number of them were in the scorpian transformation attacking the red keep wall. We downed nearly half of them before they could react, got a few fully defeated, retreated to stealth and recovered, then finished the rest.

Of course yes, it was EOTM, but it was a group triple our size and our own group wasn’t on TS.

It’s easy to demolish a large group if you catch them with their pants down and don’t over extend.

Depends entirely on the circumstances, really.

Short answer is yes, long answer is no with a maybe.

An organized guild of 10 – 15 versus another organized guild of double or greater numbers will not work out in favor of the smaller guild regardless of how bad the larger one is.

An organized guild of 10 – 15 versus pugs has potential for working out in favor of the guild but only if one of two things happen. One: The guild is experienced, stays tight and knows their positioning. Two: They cloud formation properly (split up and focus bomb targets).

Since the release of HoT, having only one or two more players can make a huge difference due to power creep. Smaller groups can still kill larger groups but it is much less often that this is done in an organized manner. And what I mean by organized is that the guild is sticking together instead of spreading out. There are generally too many threats for a smaller group to deal with no matter how skilled they are if they’re facing a zerg nearly twice their size.

Focusing targets can be done by roamers, you don’t need a guild to do it. There is skill in doing it properly but honestly as long as the larger group isn’t focusing single members of the smaller group, the smaller group should win simply because they can reset and recover more easily.

tldr: Cloud formation versus larger group = easy, effective and as long as the smaller group knows how to focus targets and avoid being focused themselves, can work in many different scenarios.

Organized and running in a tight ball = not so effective unless very skilled with positioning, sustain and eliminating downed players. More often than not, the smaller group will lose regardless of how good they are because they simply won’t be able to negate all the damage coming their way.

Net Shot

• Fire a net that tethers up to 3 targets to you, periodically immobilizing them.
  Release the net to apply a longer duration of immobilize.

Net (6s): Periodically apply immoilize as long as your target(s) is within range.
Immobilize (passive) (1s)
Interval: 3s
Immobilize (activated) (3s)

Blunderbuss

• Fire a cloud of shrapnel that causes more damage the closer you are to your foes. If you are within the range threshold, stun your target.

Slightly more damage, bleed removed
Slightly more damage, bleed removed
Slightly more damage, bleed removed
Slightly less damage but adding a 1 1/2 second stun to up to 5 targets within the radius of the attack. Let’s say it’s a small radius, something like 120, to prevent it from being an OP stun machine.

Overcharged Shot

Same as it is but make it pierce up to 3 targets.

Jump Shot

• Blast the ground, damaging nearby foes and leaping to your target gaining Stability. Gain an extra stack of Stability if you hit your target.

Same effects as it currently has but add 1 stack of Stability for 3 seconds on cast and an extra stack if you hit something.

The second half of Mesmers #4 focus skill, Into The Void has a relatively large AOE pull effect. If you’re standing in the right spot, it can pull you from as far back as the stairs. Any time you’re standing on the wall of a structure when it’s being attacked, you should be extremely wary of pulls and other AOE’s. In fact, you should probably not stand on the walls at all.

Setting your field of view to maximum can allow you to place AOE’s, such as Meteor Shower, in places you usually cannot with normal FOV. For example, you can shoot arrow carts over tower gates with your FOV set to max.

Chaba.5410:

SpellOfIniquity.1780:

some of us enjoy both the large and the small scale regardless of how uneven it can be at times.

Having both large and small scale is the diversity that makes WvW healthy. I’ve seen those choices become harder to obtain as guilds leave.

I still see plenty of small scale and many of them are guilds. The problem is that they no longer seek to attack similar sized groups, to test their metal against larger sized groups or to see if they can snipe an objective while the enemy isn’t looking.

Either they’re ganking solos or they’re running from blobs.

There are two reasons for this:

• HoT power creep made having one or two extra players a big difference.
• Automatic upgrades on objectives and powerful defensive upgrades.

Unless you massively outskill the offending team, you likely won’t defeat a group that’s twice your size anymore. Though that was once a thing that happened regularly for guilds that knew how to do it.

Automatic upgrades and things like emergency waypoints or watch towers have made taking anything without a blob nearly impossible. Attacking objectives used to be a good strategy to draw some action. Smaller groups could bait pugs in to defending and if played right, they would be able to defeat the pugs and take the objective before a full sized zerg showed up. Now, watch tower, invulnerable structure, shield generators and emergency waypoints prevent that. It’s either drop 9 superior catapults, get inside and capture ASAP or get blobbed to death.

Now on to the subject of GvG instead of GvP (guild versus pug).

I’ve already addressed the fact that there are more than a couple options for guilds to challenge each other without (or with little) outside interference. You don’t need a safe zone in EBG or a full map to yourselves. I might be misunderstanding but if you’re asking for a full map, that’s pretty funny. What are you going to do there when there aren’t any guilds to fight? Ktrain? Seems like a pretty huge waste of effort for the devs to me.

I understand that guilds dislike pugs interfering, I understand that constantly being outnumbered sucks. Having more options for guilds would be cool, but I think improving on the ones we have would be a better choice rather than exclusion (meaning, “NO PUGS ALLOWED”, which seems to be the environment that you want).

Can I just ask why people play WvW (world versus world), a large scale mode, and constantly complain about the scale or suggest ways to make it smaller?

It was designed to be blobby. It’s not Party versus Party.

I understand wanting more options for guilds and that’s okay but, please keep in mind that some of us enjoy both the large and the small scale regardless of how uneven it can be at times. Some people like the chaotic mess and a challenge rather than the sterile sportsmanship environment that GvG’s enjoy.

Here’s a better idea.

Let’s make a portal in guild halls. When you enter this portal, you will be given 3 options:

• PvE mode
• WvW mode
• PvP mode

Upon selection, the rules for said mode will be applied and you will be placed in your guild halls battle arena with a manually adjustable player cap.

For PvE, PvE damage, skills, etc. will apply. For PvP, same story but with amulets. For WvW, same story, etc.

You don’t need a new map. You don’t need your own map. You don’t need to exclude people from the thing they came to WvW to do. To float from place to place without anyone telling them what to do.

I’d honestly argue that guilds are one of the worst things to happen to WvW rather than the best. Since 90% of them yell at people, try to take control of the map and throw a fit if fights don’t go exactly their way. Oh no… You were outnumbered… Uh oh. Better cry on the forums that we need a place to have our special little tea parties because we don’t already have multiple places to do so (cough, guild halls, cough, obsidian sanctum, cough, private PvP lobbys, cough, empty borderlands).

EDIT: LOL, the amount of people that are complaining about blobbing… Really, guys. This is why cups of coffee have to say “CAUTION: HOT” on them.

Losing sucks and so does being mocked for it. The thing with competitive games is that there are always players who will take pleasure in the suffering of others. In fact, the same can be said for many treads of life.

These people may or may not go unpunished for their actions but that should be none of your concern. Since this is after all a video game that we’re talking about, the only thing that should matter is your own personal enjoyment (so long of course as it does not impede the enjoyment of others).

If you find that you’re not enjoying what you’re doing, but you’re still doing it, there are a few likely scenarios.

1) You have nothing better to do.
2) You actually do like it but you choose to focus on the negatives despite being drawn by the positives.
3) You just like to complain.

You could be any one of those 3 or you could be none. I’m not psychic. All I know for certain is that I’ve been in your shoes and so have many others. Losing, confused and not getting the answers you want. If you’re as experienced as you say, then there is probably little I can tell you that you don’t already know, and that’s okay. There are much better things you could be doing with your time than playing video games, stirring in your seat and being miserable.

If it makes you feel any better, I have 11 thousand hours in this game but I’m still terrible because I have impaired motor skills. That’s something no amount of practice can fix. Do I let it stop me from having fun? No. I create builds that cushion my poor reflexes and co-ordination and I find ways to improve on what I already know.

Anyway, if you truly are done, good luck. I apologize if I came off as snarky but I genuinely hope you find something better to do.

I didn’t vote for the map and I rarely go anywhere besides EBG, I do like the DBL though. It’s fun to roam on when you can find other players there. If more people liked it, I might go there more often. Unfortunately it’s usually a ghost town and there’s nothing to do but solo flip towers.

The aesthetic and terrain of the map make it ideal for kiting and hiding from larger groups. The size and gimmicks make it frustrating. I would be in favor of another map with similarly complex terrain and unique objectives but only if it’s smaller and doesn’t have these shrine and keep buffs, events and HoT jungle mobs.

Choppy.4183:

1. People regularly complain that Anet staff never talk to them.
2. Anet staff leave posts asking people to be cool to each other.
3. People respond by giving Anet staff plenty of reasons to not talk to them, because, reasons
4. gg

It legitimately makes me sad to know that I’m in the minority when I say I play this game to relax and have fun. Seems like far more people have so little to worry about in their daily lives that they just look for reasons to be upset and GW2 WvW is a perfect candidate.

Not liking how the devs handle the game is one thing but the sheer amount of entitlement and berating that happens any time a dev appears in a WvW post makes me really disappointed in this community.

Swamurabi.7890:

This begs the question, are there other classes that need to adapt their builds on the fly depending on the opponent? If not, then there still needs to be some work done for the Necro class.

Specifically on my Necromancer, though also a vanilla Necromancer and not a Reaper, I always change 2 – 3 of my utilities before a fight depending on what I’m about to fight.

With my other 3 characters, their utilities are pretty much useful against anything, eg. Endure Pain, Lightning Reflexes or Elixir S. My Necromancer’s utilities don’t always have a point unless they’re being used against the right thing which is why I find it worth the effort to switch things out if I have enough time to do so.

I think you can swap out utilities before a fight on any class to gain an advantage but for the most part, it’s probably only going to be one instead of a few.

Jim Hunter.6821:

On small scale I see far more thieves, DH’s, war’s, rangers, ele’s, engi’s, and rev’s running power. The only classes that I see running condi the majority of the time are mesmer’s and necro’s, and even then a really good power mes is a lot scarier than 90% of the condi mesmers I run into.

When I do run into condi ranger’s, ele’s, engi’s, rev’s, and war’s they are a lot easier to handle than their counterparts running power for various reasons depending on the class, lack of mobility, not enough cover conditions, etc.
For example a warrior without GS is going to have a much harder time landing his burst to proc things like cleansing ire and adrenal health, if he decides to take a bow to guarantee the procs he is limiting his mobility.

A condi thief might become more tanky but if you have adequate cleanse and you don’t blow it early they are manageable. They are also easier to run from if you can’t handle the condi’s. Plus it’s also pretty easy to pull off a non glassy power thief post HoT.

Condi necro might be a little overtuned at the moment but it still suffers from lack of mobility, so if you can kite it and wear down it’s shroud bar it’s a winnable fight. Condi mesmer is something that needs to be addressed but that’s a class problem, not a gear problem.

Spurnshadow.3678:

Swear to god, there are so many bad players in this thread.

1: You shouldn’t be cleansing condis as soon as you get them. Wait until they are threatening your health.

2: Whatever build you’re running, no matter how good you are, there’s a counter build to it. If you running no or almost no condi clears, and you fight a condi class, you will most likely die. If you change your build to deal with that, then you will be on a more even playing field and then, depending on your skill, can kill him.

All I hear is people who just don’t want to adapt and have anet change the whole game for them so they can win against a condi class. Time and again, there is thread after thread for Anet remove this, Anet remove that, with very little justification. I never, ever have seen anything more than anecdotal evidence in these. The fact that there is so much dissention to the OP and any thread asking to nerf dire/trailblazer should, maybe, let you know that the problem is you, and not Anet.

Do there need to be a few minor, and I stress minor, tweeks? Maybe, and I’m sure some devs are constantly looking at things, but in a sterile environment.

All this right here, +1. Thanks for continuing to fight the good fight against the lemmings.

Offair.2563:

Sometimes i really wonder wtf is wrong with NA and their t1 drama.

EU be like: NA is so bad. EU is so great. Anet just hates us and loves NA. We don’t have problems but we need help.

It’s not my favorite profession but it’s the only one that I feel completely comfortable with. There aren’t any skills, rotations, builds, etc. that I feel confused about or have difficulty using. It all just comes naturally and it’s one of the bigger reasons I enjoy Engineer.

Besides that, it’s because Engineer feels like a bunch of classes mixed in to one. From build to build, playstyles change so drastically that I feel like I’m playing a different class at times. I enjoy that I can keep myself entertained with the profession because if I get bored of a build, I can switch to something else and get a whole new feel.

Also, I just really love active professions/builds that require high APM. Every so often I’ll play with 4 kits at once just because I find it engrossing.

FYI, if you stealth before you’re in range of being detected, this also works with sentrys, you can pass without being marked.

Only if you stealth after you’ve been marked, will your position continue to be tracked.

SneakyTouchy.6043:

I think they should remove the autoproc defy pain at 50%. Anything more could be overkill, but it certainly is way too tanky with zerk.

I play Warrior without Defy Pain in WvW and the difference is massive. Having two safety nets, Defy Pain and Endure Pain, makes a world of difference in outnumbered situations or when you get caught off guard.

Maybe reducing Defy Pain’s proc to 25% health instead of 50% would be better so at least if they’re stacked with a couple conditions it can work through that defense. But overall I agree that Defy Pain is a bit overkill. I challenge Warriors to play without it and to see how much more often they find themselves eating dirt.

I play an oldschool vanilla Static Discharge Engineer and most Warriors aren’t too difficult to fight, although I cannot fight them on point.

The good ones are an issue, absolutely, but most of them are predictable Headbutt → Hundred Blades / Eviscerate / Skullgrinder → Whirlwind Attack, etc.

I’m easily able to predict, block and deny them their Adrenal Health, kite out of range for their follow ups and burst through their entire health bar down to Defy Pain proc. The hard part is lasting through 2 Endure Pains because they’ll usually pop Endure Pain when Defy Pain runs out to buy themselves time. These fights are usually very close, either they barely win or I barely win.

The point I’m trying to make is that with 1 block, 1 invulnerability, 1 stealth, no defensive traits, no condition cleanse and poor mobility, I’m still able to beat most of them with proper attention to skill Q’s and predicting follow ups.

Truth be told, I think the only reason I ever manage to beat them is because I can deal such massive damage in such a short frame of time. But a lot of professions can say the same with better defensive options and more optimal counters.

Warriors are definitely strong and I wouldn’t argue against a shave here or there. I don’t think any heavy nerfs are necessary however as it’s all about paying attention and not face tanking damage where you can avoid doing so. They hit hard but they’re easy to read, make use of your advantages and bait their immunities. They’re little more than a violently clawing kitten once their defenses are spent.

More waypoints seems more logical.

How about putting a couple waypoints in open space, meaning outside towers or keeps. To prevent kill farming, give players a 3 second window of invulnerability upon using the waypoint so they can quickly waypoint out if there happens to be a zerg waiting there.

EDIT: After looking at the map I think only 1 extra waypoint would make a big difference. Maybe only who ever controls the middle is able to use it. I marked the current waypoints with green X’s and the new one with a red X.

Go big or go home – players deal siege damage and siege deals player damage.

Stack on gates and walls to melt them, no structure is safe.

Siege scales based on player stats, healer builds can get huge heals from treb #5 on zergs, glassy builds can one shot groups with cannons, etc.

Most people hate when Anet adds these gimmick weeks but I find them fun. Ridiculous or not, it’s a fun change of pace and it’s only temporary. I’d totally be fine with another trollish event that makes 75% of the playerbase angry because they can’t take a joke.

Condition stacking Thieves isn’t hard. Read the trait description carefully, “remove conditions when you evade attacks.”

Once you’ve applied a few, sheath your weapon and stop attacking. Let the conditions do their work, rinse and repeat. Most of them will panic mash their dodge or kite.

Since I see in your signature that you’re a power Reaper however, I’d suggest entering Shroud as soon as they get near you, using #2 which should Blind them on the initial stun which will deny them the lockdown, then see if you can bait them in to spending more initiative by skill cancelling. Go aggressive after that and keep your eye on their return spots from Infiltraitors Strike so you know where they’ll port to.

It’s hard to give appropriate advice since every fight will vary so greatly depending on the circumstances. Practice makes perfect so if you’re having trouble with them, either ask one if you can duel them or look for ones to fight.

Because I enjoy it.

After many hours of both playing WvW and browsing the forums, I’ve pretty much concluded that I’m in the minority for this.

I don’t care about score. I don’t care about winning, fights, PPT, KDR or otherwise. I don’t care about defending or capturing or what ever else.

I enjoy WvW because I enjoy socializing with server and guild mates. I enjoy that I can roam, I can scout, I can zerg, I can do what ever my heart desires without anyone or anything to tell me to do otherwise. I can play what ever class I want, I can play what ever build I want, I have nearly total freedom.

There are things in WvW that frustrate me, sure, but I don’t expect it to be perfect. Much like I do with a lot of things in life, I take WvW for what it is and I look on the bright side. What’s the point of always being upset? If you have constructive criticism, give it. Make a thread with ideas and be sure to consider all the variables. Your thoughts may or may not be heard by ANet but if it slips under their radar it doesn’t mean they hate you, they hate WvW and they’re not listening.

People are such drama queens. Yes, WvW has problems and yes, ANet doesn’t do a very good job at maintaining balance or keeping our interest. But at the end of the day, it’s still just a video game and it isn’t here to be a substitute for happiness. Enjoy it for what it is and give feedback where necessary instead of pouring your hopes and dreams in to a better future for the game (and probably your life) then getting mad with ANet and the world because things didn’t pan out the way you imagined they would.

This is how I wish ANet treated us.

apharma.3741:

Kovu.7560:

I run a 25 might stack power boon rotation build and I’ve never hit another player for 10k with either smokescale or bristleback. Even when the attack(s) actually hit. And yes, you can simply sidestep a bristleback’s f2 along with most other pet attacks. Its super annoying. Smoke assault is an exception, its nice when my pet rotates into that. Can’t control the timing on that for a coordinated burst, though.

~ Kovu

Actually you sort of can, the smokescale will pretty much use it off cool down which is 20s. Say you switch from bristleback to smokescale it will use smoke assault almost immediately, this means whenever you switch to smokescale usually the first attack it does is smoke assault even if not it does it pretty soon after switching to it.

It’s part of the burst my friend usually does when he’s playing druid, will force out cool downs with bristleback and then swap to smokescale for the smoke assault as it never misses unlike spike barrage.

Yes, it’s possible to manipulate pet attacks depending on where they aggro. I intentionally keep mine on passive so I can better control their attacks. Sending in canines at a certain range for example it will always start with it’s knockdown attack, same with Smokescale. I usually keep it on passive until my target tries to kite me then send it in at a specific range so that it immediately starts off with Smoke Assault to keep pressure up.

The laptop I use averages about 40 – 80 FPS in WvW small scale and in the 30’s in large scale with most settings on medium – high (with character model limit/quality on lowest in zergs).

It performs great and doesn’t overheat, though it does get warm, it’s not excessive. What impresses me most about this particular laptop is that it doesn’t appear to have a vent for the fan, if it even has a fan in it… And yet it’s a low-end gaming laptop and it never gets very hot, aside from when I first bought it. It used to get REALLY warm but after a bit of use it’s gotten much better.

ASUS K501UW-AB78 15.6-inch Full-HD Gaming Laptop (Intel Core i7, GTX 960M, 8GB DDR3, 512GB SSD)

Turk.5460:

Kovu.7560:

Lol @ people who die to ranger pets.
Seriously, sidestep the pet. You don’t even need to dodge.

~ Kovu

Kovu, It’s hard to sidestep smoke assault, which can do well over 10k damage in a short amount of time, even if the ranger himself doesn’t have a lick of power. And if you are a melee profession, the projectiles of bristleback’s F2 aren’t something you can sidestep – and can also do well over 10k damage in a very short timeframe, again, without the ranger having any power.

Pets need to scale to Ranger stats. So if the ranger is condi, they should choose a condi style pet (vamp up some pets to fill this role), rather than being in full dire/trailblazers, then have a bristleback/smokescale doing insane berserker-stat style bursting as well.

Maybe add healing pets that would scale off of healing power for a support role.

Excluding when Smokescale’s Smoke Assault was bugged, I have never seen it do more than 7k on a player.

Bristleback is the one that you need to watch out for, and it can be reflected. With enough Might, it’s F2 can do some nasty damage but much like Rapid Fire, it’s a channelled attack and they’re projectiles.

Both of these pets can potentially hit hard, yes, but 10k is a bit of an excessive exaggeration. Smokescale isn’t even a DPS pet if you look at it’s stats, it doesn’t have strong offensive stats, it’s just hands down, the best pet at sticking to it’s target.

Just like you do with Mesmer Phantasms, you should always be paying attention to the pet during a fight as much as you are paying attention to the Ranger. As far as I’m concerned, most people hate Ranger pets because they can’t just ignore them anymore. They’re a threat now and that bothers people, but they’re still perfectly balanced. Unless you want to go back to those 32 hours where Smokescale could do upwards of 80k damage with Smoke Assault.

apharma.3741:

SpellOfIniquity.1780:

Justine.6351:

OriOri.8724:

RodOfDeath.5247:

I fought a condi warrior the other night, longbow mace/shield. Fight lasted like 4 hours because of the bunkering and extreme crutch their build tree offers.

Real men play death shroud necro.

But everyone knows that Necro is the hardest thing to kill, easiest class to play, and most faceroll because you get a second life bar! (/s)

Necro isn’t the easiest kill, its the most reliable kill.

Necromancer is a lot like Warrior. It’s skill ceiling escalates exponentially the better your opponent is.

It’s easy to pick it up and go but against people who know what they’re doing, it becomes a lot more difficult and requires a lot more baiting due to cast times and tells.

I had a literal 10 minute long 2v1 just yesterday, that I really wish I recorded, that I ended up quitting and walking away from because the 2 couldn’t kill me and I couldn’t kill them ( bunker support Guardian cleansing and buffing a glassy Berserker ). The Warrior kept feeding my Life Force attacking me when I had Spectrals up and the Guardian kept reviving the Warrior every time I got him down.

Kind of unrelated but I just wanted to state that if you can manage your Life Force properly and you’re not completely overwhelmed with players (not getting zerged to death), Necro can be amazingly hard to kill. It’s all about proper usage of Shroud and Life Force management but you very rarely find people who do it properly.

You forgot the having shroud when going into fights aspect, or rather when a gank duo jumps you just outside spawn. I see so many necros dying because they haven’t had chance to build any LF before someone engages on them.

Very true, yes. I will literally not go near an enemy player if I’m at 0% Life Force and I feel naked, like I have no weapons equipped, without it, lol.

I often drop my Shroud to 20 or 30% for duels but otherwise, when roaming about or zerging, I won’t go in to any fights without killing some ambients or building Life Force somewhere first. People who don’t play Necro, or don’t play it often, don’t realize how much of a disadvantage you’re at without it.

I’ve been playing a semi-bunk Necromancer for about 3 years. I say “semi” because I don’t have any Healing Power in my build but it’s still very defensive in nature.

Excluding the times when skills were bugged, like Gunflame when it hit twice during beta, I’ve never been crit by another player for higher than 9k and I have 3.3k armor as well. I’ve also never been one shot from full health by anything, though I have had my health bar blasted through by good shatter Mesmers before.

Arc Divider is pretty ridiculous mostly due to it’s radius. So while I agree that it’s a bit overtuned, I’m still inclined to believe your story is exaggerated. As many others here also feel.

Check your combat log the next time something like that happens. It’s possible you were hit by more things than you think. For example, Sigil of Air/Fire or Sigil of Hydromancy. All of which can crit as high as 3k, further adding to any other damage you’re receiving.

Justine.6351:

OriOri.8724:

RodOfDeath.5247:

I fought a condi warrior the other night, longbow mace/shield. Fight lasted like 4 hours because of the bunkering and extreme crutch their build tree offers.

Real men play death shroud necro.

But everyone knows that Necro is the hardest thing to kill, easiest class to play, and most faceroll because you get a second life bar! (/s)

Necro isn’t the easiest kill, its the most reliable kill.

Necromancer is a lot like Warrior. It’s skill ceiling escalates exponentially the better your opponent is.

It’s easy to pick it up and go but against people who know what they’re doing, it becomes a lot more difficult and requires a lot more baiting due to cast times and tells.

I had a literal 10 minute long 2v1 just yesterday, that I really wish I recorded, that I ended up quitting and walking away from because the 2 couldn’t kill me and I couldn’t kill them ( bunker support Guardian cleansing and buffing a glassy Berserker ). The Warrior kept feeding my Life Force attacking me when I had Spectrals up and the Guardian kept reviving the Warrior every time I got him down.

Kind of unrelated but I just wanted to state that if you can manage your Life Force properly and you’re not completely overwhelmed with players (not getting zerged to death), Necro can be amazingly hard to kill. It’s all about proper usage of Shroud and Life Force management but you very rarely find people who do it properly.

It’d sad that it has taken me this long to realize it, but I think I’m going to finally stop commenting on the “nerf condi’s” threads.

Let the kids complain and hope that someone is listening, but no one who actually knows how to play cares. Which is, I hope, exactly how ANet feels as well.

Condition bunker Chronomancer. Not the standard condition Mes/Chrono, the one that’s more on the defensive side, likely with a bit of healing power, Restorative Illusions and things like that.

This build isn’t quite as common as the standard condition Chrono which isn’t as bad to fight. The full bunker one is just absurdly difficult to kill while still dealing incredibly high damage and personally, not worth the effort to fight.

Other than that, I don’t think any particular builds or professions are OP. Just specific skills and traits that I dislike and might personally find to be overtuned but not necessarily so in the name of balance.

Depending on what you play, different things are going to mean different challenges. WvW is poorly balanced, we’re all aware of this. That doesn’t mean X is OP because it gives you a hard time, though. And asking for nerfs all the time isn’t the right way to figure out why you’re having trouble. Practice and discuss with friends until you understand what the issue is.

Some classes have strong condition builds. Said classes should have specific skills/traits adjusted. A nerf across the board isn’t what’s necessary.

Strong power builds are far more plentiful and effective than most condition builds. Just because condition Chrono and ghost Thief are meta in roaming and condition Reaper in zerging doesn’t mean conditions need to be nerfed for everything.

This is about the equivalent of saying “I got hit for a 20k Gunflame, Ferocity needs to be nerfed and we need more blocks.”

While it is true that in some situations, conditions will come more quickly than you can cleanse, it’s not like this situation doesn’t exist when against power builds. There are times when you don’t have enough dodges or blocks to get away from how much damage is coming at you yet this isn’t a complaint anyone ever seems to make.

This is just the same old, people have time to think about their mistakes before their mistakes kill them, that has been going on forever and why so many people hate conditions. You don’t die instantly, you get to hate yourself and the world before your health fully evaporates.

expandas.7051:

Straegen.2938:

It is sad when DB map chat became excited because Mag was taking garri so we didn’t have to see that ANet tattoo on garri. This game breaks my heart sometimes and this week after the last one is certainly trying.

Last of my guild to play and tonight I find myself wondering why I keep going.

That’s really disheartening to hear. Correct me if I’m wrong about this, but the point here isn’t so much about whether or not developers can play or should play in WvW. I think you’d be hard pressed to find any active WvW player who DOESN’T want more developers to be active in the game mode. The trouble here is more on the PR-side. Doing something like this has terrible optics. Is that really how you want your organization, company in this instance, to be perceived? The answer is obvious.

Say someone invents a new sport that becomes largely popular. Said person doesn’t possess any super human powers nor do they have any influence over the rules or score. But said person is also not allowed to play the game they invented, because what ever team they choose to be on, the other team feels insulted.

How is that fair.

I understand how ANet claiming things can aggravate people but how many of us are adults here… I mean really, more people need to act like it. Their guild flag being on anything or them being on any servers doesn’t mean anything. It’s just people being offended for the sake of being offended.

ArchonWing.9480:

It’s just a game bro.

This is forgotten by many far too often.

Oh noez! ANet plays their game sometimes! We can’t have them claiming things or existing, that hurts my special fuzzy feelings!

I’m slowly working on a video compilation of frontline zerging without teamspeak, without squad and for the most part on non-bunker builds. When I finish, I’ll happily share what playing properly looks like and how much less of a threat Epidemic and other conditions are compared to direct damage and CC’s.

Cleanses cannot save you if you aren’t in the right position in the first place. It’s like standing in fire and trying to drink water to put the fire out. You need to recognize what positions are safe and which are unsafe. It takes practice but anyone can learn to develop an eye for this if they pay attention to it.

Choppy.4183:

So I imagine you’ve got the underdog build in just about all of your matchups. That means every win should be that much sweeter.

That’s a big part of why I prefer vanilla builds on all of my characters. I prefer to work for my wins over feeling like they’re given to me.

Some good tips though, thanks. I’ve been getting a bit better with it but as I and yourself have both said, there are some match ups that feel pretty one sided. What I’m enjoying about it though is that landing a couple skills at the proper times is highly rewarding. I’ve two shot a couple squishies since I started using it and oh I cannot tell you how big the grin on my face was each time it happened. With Merciless Hammer and Sigil Of Impact, Fierce Blow does upwards of 10k on people while they’re CC’d and Backbreaker hits pretty darn hard, too.

Practice makes perfect so all in time I’m sure.

Since the buffs, I’ve found myself really enjoying hammer. I use a vanilla Warrior build so I don’t get to have fun with the buffed burst skill but the #2 and 3 damage increases are pretty significant and fun.

Speaking in terms of WvW roaming, would anyone mind giving me some pointers on how to properly use the hammer in 1v1’s? I’m familiar with Warrior but hammer isn’t a weapon I’ve used a whole lot prior. I know the sheathing technique to bait dodges and such but it’s just such a slow and predictable weapon that I’m sometimes having trouble hitting people who are actually skilled players.

I understand there probably isn’t a lot anyone can say but I’m still curious what kind of advice I can get from anyone who knows how to use this weapon. Nuances, niches, etc.

Obviously s/he was just angry, which I’m sure you know as well.

That said, Warrior does have some pretty broken builds, in my own opinion. I’m not sure about enough so to warrant any major nerfs but I wouldn’t argue if someone said X is pretty OP.

The build I’ve shared here before is what I run in WvW. It absolutely has clear counters but honestly, most things can’t do it effectively. The only things I have much trouble with are good D/P Thieves, Thieves using Deadly Arts (the Poison on Steal pretty much makes my high armor irrelevant) or well played Dragonhunter’s. Although if I get them low enough to proc Signet Of Might, it usually ends pretty quick after that. I’m not sure that the build is OP but I honestly feel that it’s borderline at minimum. I can facetank a ridiculous amount of damage and my opponent only needs to mess up once to take fatal damage. With 3.5k armor and 20k health, I can still crit upwards of 10k on Eviscerates (although I’ve been using hammer lately instead, which still hits incredibly hard when traited).

Pictures of the stats below, with the foods I use here and here

EDIT:
After reading the other comments I see I mistook the subject of this thread. I don’t have anything witty to say so I’ll just leave my initial comment for shaming.

QuickRain.4735:

if played to the skill cap? for zerg value?
Guard
Rev (Midline/ and or Support)
Druid (If played at skill cap otherwise putting at the bottom above thief)(support)
Ele (support)
Necro (Dps)
Warrior (Dps)
Mesmer (Support)
Thief (who cares)

Guard
Rev (Midline / and or Support)
Druid (support)
Ele (support)
Necro (Dps)
Mesmer (Support)
Engineer (Frontline support)
Thief
Warrior

I agree with your arrangement for the most part but I believe Warrior is worse than Thief to be honest. They’re just meatshields now and 95% of them will be glassy providing nothing other than a few seconds of damage before they die or need to retreat and recover. Thieves can have a lot of use if they’re played properly but most people will stick to the backline and do nothing of value. Since we’re talking about to maximum potential, a smart and skilled Thief can easily assault the backline, grab stomps, provide Venom support and with the right build, even one shot commanders (there are videos of people doing this on Youtube).

Also you forgot Engineer. They are definitely a mixed bag in terms of support but they can provide it in their own ways and quite effectively if done right. Although Engineer’s support is more valuable in smaller scale than large, they can frontline quite effectively, provide a decent uptime of Superspeed, good cleanse, good heals, lots of CC and can self support without needing to be in a sub-squad with a Revenant.

I’m not trying to disprove anything you’ve said as again, I mostly agree. I just think that a couple of these classes need to be swapped around if talking maximum potential. I’ve seen a zerging Thief sniping backliners and revive supporting and I’ve seen/been frontline Engineer. It can really make a difference but you won’t see it often enough to notice most likely.

Exciton.8942:

Direct damage can be mitigated by armor.
Condition damage bypass armor but can be cleansed.

Seems pretty balanced to me.

It is but people don’t want balance. They want to be able to pretend conditions don’t exist because it hurts their special fuzzy feelys when they get punished for not putting condition removal and management in to their builds.

All my characters are built for personal sustain because I do a lot of roaming. I never make a build without condition removal or some form of condition mitigation. You know how often I have trouble with condition builds? Very rarely unless I’m caught off guard or the player is flat out better than me. Every class has the option to invest in condition clears or mitigation and everyone can use runes and/or foods that reduce their duration. But how many people do that do you think.

Artaz.3819:

Adding a condi reduction stat adds build diversity to the game.

It would allow for 100% condition damage mitigation with foods, traits and utilities. Then add gear stats on top of it and there you go, immune to conditions 100% of the time if you so choose to build that way.

I understand that it probably would not be optimal and that not everyone would do it but do you happen to remember old Diamond Skin? Or the Engineer trait that did the same but at low health instead of high? Those things were changed because they didn’t have counterplay. If you were a condition build you were kitten out of luck against these things. Imagine if Toughness and Protection were more effective than what they currently are and that it were possible to stack up to 100% damage immunity with traits and food.

It doesn’t matter if conditions are difficult to fight. They can still be fought and there are plenty of options to help you when fighting them. Allowing everyone the option to be completely or nearly completely immune to conditions isn’t healthy game design. A lot of people may dislike conditions but a lot of said people are simply not good at fighting them or are too stubborn to take the proper measures to do so.

Conditions are a part of this game weather people like it or not. As far as I’m concerned, they always will be. Stop trying to persuade ANet in to removing them or giving you options to 100% ignore them and start getting better at fighting them. Just like in real life, you can’t expect someone to hold your hand through everything.

Famine.7915:

I wonder how kitten a person must have been to initially get “25+ ALLCONDIINDAGAEM!!” And still get epid to take down 5 of his own allies.

Downed and about 2 seconds from defeated.

archmagus.7249:

SpellOfIniquity.1780:

archmagus.7249:

Here’s a fair Nerf for Epidemic:
-Reduce range to 800, effect radius to 300
-Increase cast time
-Cap number of condis to 5, and transferred duration to 10 seconds.
-Cannot target siege, pets, or minions.
-Cannot transfer fear or taunt.

tldr = Remove Epidemic.

Did I mention it’s still unblockable?

A fair nerf is reducing the radius to 360 (the size of Meteor Shower) and reducing the range to 900. Not taking away everything that makes it a threat.