Guild Wars 2

Puck.9612:

Bet you a dollar any new specialization gets locked behind a new currency

Oddly that logic makes sense. Leveling is part of these games and having players insta-level every new specialty in seconds because they banked thousands of proofs is a bit strange.

I do confess that I did insta-level my Revenant with tomes and managed to unlock all the specialties through WvW before they closed the loop hole on soul bound proofs. I also confess that I have horded a few thousand proofs just in case.

Climbing a 100k+ gap in Glicko between tiers at this level is a lot more difficult than just PPTing for a couple weeks. Generating 30k is very difficult and 50k is almost unheard of at this level. Each week it becomes more difficult to sustain a score as Glicko scales the scoring towards stability and its opponents. It can take a couple months to bridge that gap and even then it would likely take a T1 server to falter a bit with a lucky roll or two.

Reverence.6915:

BG also has many micro guilds. The only difference is that they work with the rest of the server, so we end up achieving greater results. My own guild was once in this position, only it has grown now to the point where we can no longer be considered one of those micro guilds.

Many on YB want smaller fights spread across the maps and purposely avoid blob on blob pirate ship meta because they don’t enjoy that type of fighting. BG/JQ on the other hand often embrace blob v blob fights at least during NA prime. Neither side is right/wrong here just two different ways to approach the game. As for greater results, YB is doing very well winning WvW weeks playing the game as it is scored and by most accounts enjoying it thoroughly.

On most servers if you aren’t in the blob, you are “hurting” the server. On YB if a player wants to defend, scout, skirmish, roam, etc they are welcome. Players rarely get scolded for doing something else and are not asked to leave a q’d map to make room for an “elite” guild. This does mean a large portion of the population simply will not show up for a YB zerg which almost always leaves PUG commanders at the mercy of a more unified BG/JQ force when the maps are q’d. On the other hand, YB does get a lot more players willing to build, fortify, maintain and defend than the other servers.

I personally think the map commander system is unintentionally horrible, created laggy, all about the build near skill-less fights and is the ultimate downfall of WvW. Certainly an unproveable opinion though.

lil devils x.6071:

Yes, the problem is even when we send commanders over to YB to try and teach the pugs to not be one push material, they still die as fast as they can and run back to PvD. LOL

YB currently consists of too many smaller guilds that want to do their own thing to forge a unified zerg with larger guilds. That isn’t a problem that needs to be solved at least from the perspective of many YB players. YB is doing very well and by most accounts enjoying the game quite a bit.

lil devils x.6071:

Yes, we sent commanders there to teach them how to fight so it could be fun.. It was terribly hopeless trying to make YB try to fight. They wont change builds, classes.. nothing It was just pitiful TbH. We sent commanders to TC to do the same when they were in T1 as well, and they were not great but still a ton better than YB.

I am not sure pitiful is the word I would use to describe a server that consistently wins a game based on how it is scored. and here we are… YB is “winning” each week and seemingly enjoying WvW possibly more than the other servers. You can keep stating there is something wrong with that mindset but ultimately YB is extracting what it wants from WvW despite a small handful of enemies QQing over their tactics.

Course I really don’t enjoy large zerg pirate ship meta fights and hate the lag they generate. I like roaming, scouting, skirmish and join in the larger fights as needed so in that regard YB is a near perfect place for me at the moment.

lil devils x.6071:

You are SO far off on defense… If you think it is hard, you are not doing it right. It is simple really, You have a scout. The scout calls for the zerg when the other two servers start trebbing your keep from both sides… Your zerg fights the other zergs. If you are worthy to keep it, you will fight and win, if you are not, the winner takes the spoils and it was a good fight and everyone had fun in the end. No need for an asinine amount of siege. LOL

Defense is difficult when the numbers aren’t relatively even which is most of the day. Defending when a large force attacks and a friendly force is nowhere to be found is very difficult.

If a server wants to hold their objectives through the hours when the outmanned buff has been up for so long it feels permanent, hours of scouting, refreshing and planning are key to holding them. Even then if the enemy has a commander that knows how to siege and has a small amount or persistence, they will take everything a side owns.

WvW is often as much about tactics as it as about brute force and I derive a significant amount of enjoyment holding off a substantially larger force with a smaller one because the opposing commander isn’t as tactically adept.

Liston.9708:

Well of course there was no siege after we / BG cleared it… Maybe the right term was holed up in SM, which we have done as well. We port when we don’t have the numbers on tag – even when we are queued. Btw EBG is ALWAYS pugs for YB so you cant blame them right?

I think that is what a lot of posters in this thread are missing. When a server has the numbers they push and open field. When they don’t they use defensive measures to even the fight as much as possible. Doesn’t matter what server I have been on or against, that is almost always universally true.

The exception revolves around a large organized guild up against a PUG zerg which will favor an organized guild 99/100 even when outnumbered. A YB force is always a PUG zerg for better and worse. If anything the few open field commanders that YB has deserve some kudos for driving a motley group that can barely stay on tag into a BG group fielding 2-3 major guilds.

lil devils x.6071:

What? It has NEVER been too hard to defend. Defending has always been the easiest thing to do in WvW. There is just no reason to do so. Why defend when you can keep having fun fights in the field w/o ACS and get all the bags you want or PvD , kill some NPCs and get a chest? You dont get reward for defending anything. And Let’s be honest here, to actually win means you avoided fights, PvD and siege humped better than the other team.. Do you really WANT Bragging rights for that? Hell that makes you want to put a bag over your head.

WvW is a game with a scoring system. Do I want to win the game I am playing, yes. Do I want to create arbitrary rules to justify losing, no. Do I feel the need to brag when I do well, no. What is fun to YOU or ME may not be fun to others.

As for defending, defense is one of the most difficult aspects of this game. It has no short term rewards, there are entire structures that are effectively defenseless against well placed siege, requires servers to do unrewarding periodic maintenance, requires players willing to constantly scout, servers with less population logged on are at a tremendous disadvantage and any significantly larger force without an idiot commander can take any objective with a minimal amount of persistence. Defense is difficult which is why so few servers do it well or even attempt it. If it were “easy” everyone would do it.

shagwell.1349:

That’s not what YB normally does or what the siege loving of YB is about.
If it was YB’s SM, they would have left as the inner gates went down to jump to JQ or BG bl to get some stuff or had sieged up 2nd floor.

We have all been up against a T3 SM loaded with siege, had to spend hours knocking the doors/walls down and gone for hours in two and three way fights in SM. We have all been on the receiving end of Air Ship Defense, Cloaking Waters and Chilling Fog.

It is utter horse crap that somehow BG and JQ doesn’t use those same tactics or that YB doesn’t defend its objectives even after the gates go down. YB doesn’t always have an answer for a large unified force as it rarely can muster one of equal size but that doesn’t change the fact that they try and win any way they can… just like every other server that plays this game.

lil devils x.6071:

• Yawn* Better off playing pokemon than spending 6 hours mindlessly wasting time playing siege vs siege. Actually turning on the stove and touching it over and over again would be more entertaining than that…

Complain about ACs doing too much damage so it is difficult to cap defended objectives then proceed to gripe about PPT not being fun and grumble about PvD.

If you don’t like ACs or defenders, go to EotM. Yeah can’t do that because only scrubs play there. If you want pure group on group fights without the pesky objectives, you can go to Sanctum. Oh yeah almost nobody goes there.

Please stop showing up to a baseball game then complaining that it isn’t football. Oh and this thread was started by one of the biggest PvD commanders in the game. Nothing wrong with PvD but don’t try and twist a request for more PvD into something else.

How this thread reads to me…

Minority Vocal non-YB Player: “We don’t care about PPT scoring.”

Minority Vocal YB Player: “Then why are you complaining about us scoring more?”

Minority Vocal non-YB Player: “Because you take our undefended structures and defend your structures.”

Minority Vocal YB Player: “If you don’t care about the score why is this a sore point?”

Minority Vocal non-YB Player: “Because we aren’t listed as the winners despite our superior play.”

Minority Vocal YB Player: “So you are sore because you don’t like the rules and scoring system of the game you are playing and invented your own?”

Minority Vocal non-YB Player: “Yeah, so stop playing the game the way it is designed and play it the way we think it should be played.”

Minority Vocal YB Player: “No thanks, I think I will keep winning the game we are playing.”

NotKalkz.1286:

Attacking a defended objective is supposed to be difficult and require tactics. Showing up and beating their heads against a gate or wall while under ACs doesn’t mean ACs are OP.

No Dear YB Siegecreeper, Your ACS can’t be cleared even with Ele metors, Hump more

Kalkz you just made my point. Next time build a ballista, counter ac or a treb first and clear the siege. Having followed you for a long time on BP and fighting against your zerg on YB, I know exactly what you do. Show up and if it is easy flip it otherwise move on or come back with a half dozen golems (something you don’t do much anymore). YB is taking advantage of enemy server’s laziness.

Stop being siege meat bags and put a little thought into a flip when it has defenders.

Trapper thief is near impossible to kill with the massive stealth uptime. Scrappers are also ridiculously tanky able to withstand a half dozen attackers when built for it.

These nodes have made WvW significantly less expensive. While I would appreciate a faster method, I am not going to complain about something that takes seconds that I can typically do while the objective is flipping.

If TC wants to move into T1 and T2 wants the larger pop server to move up, TC has to PPT non-stop. Breaking through Glicko is a bear. YB was basically crushing T2 for months before they moved up.

Many a mentioned feature has come and gone with no work being delivered to the users. I hate to be pessimistic but my guess is things at ANet are geared toward delivering another expansion pack for an infusion of money and everything else is going to be way down the list including promises.

Shazmataz.1423:

Aeolus-just go and try take a keep or tower that YB owns and wishes to defend…I think then you might get Moon’s point.

Most of the time neither BG or JQ even try to clear defensive siege before attacking. They drop their attack siege right next to the objective and stay on it till it is destroyed or they get in. Then they move on.

Attacking a defended objective is supposed to be difficult and require tactics. Showing up and beating their heads against a gate or wall while under ACs doesn’t mean ACs are OP.

I can appreciate the effort and the beauty in the aesthetics. Unfortunately it is a train wreck in the design.

While not absent of form and function the map is an example of just how little the ANet designers understand this game mode. In fairness, virtually no other MMO has made it this far so huge mistakes must be nearly unavoidable.

mulzi.8273:

Today is an example of how YB plays: YB has Stonemist, and BG jumps into EB and attacks Stonemist. YB, after a very light token resistance, decides to zone out into a different map and captures as much as possible to pad their ppt (right now they have all of Blackgate map after BG just took smt). Once BG leaves EB to take back their map, YB zones back to recapture stonemist.

YB simply does not have the capability to go full force against the larger guilds on BG. As stated many times, YB doesn’t have a large organized fight guild. No commander can lead a group of PUGs against a guild like Sekz and consistently win.

What YB does have is a lot of smaller guilds that keep to themselves and do their own thing. This leads to a lot of PPT as YB spreads out but also means there are very very few map rallies. Simply put YB does not typically have a force that can take on a large BG guild as well as their PUGs in one unified force. Most of the time they augment with siege to defend WPs otherwise they backcap and wait for the big zergs to get into a poor position.

YB plays the way any server with its guild structure would. BG plays the way a heavy guild server would. Neither is any better or worse just two ways to enjoy playing a game. If BG wants to square off against organized large guilds, it probably needs to head to T2.

RodOfDeath.5247:

Scoreboard
JQ 215 246
YB 266 079
BG 270 006

Yeah… BG is blobbing hard this week and it is pretty fantastic. I don’t know if it Spring Break or the rumors about temporary new accounts on BG is true but I don’t care. I hope BG keeps this level of play up.

As for any large guilds wanting to xfer into T1, probably best to go to JQ at this point to even things out a bit. IMO even fights are the best fights… nobody likes to get blobbed over and blobbing over everything isn’t fun either.

Chinchilla.1785:

Sadly, in regards to mastery of staying up in tiers and PPT…there isn’t anything magical or amazing that any particular server does/has done. The way a 24/7 game stands now is this, if you have more coverage you will score higher. It doesn’t have to do with any particular display of skill on the battle field, or having any form of “server community.” Anyone that is unaware probably has not been playing WvW for very long. As moving up tiers has always been the willingness (or the excitement value) to cap objectives (undefended or defended) with the numbers across all timezones.

I agree with the coverage statements as YB has decent coverage through most of a day in comparison to BG/JQ and PPT has a direct coverage relationship. That said, YB has managed to keep its PPT and population numbers up despite not having a large organized guild and running entirely via PUG zerg which is unique at this level. They have also fostered a culture of refreshing siege which is also somewhat rare these days.

The YB of today is really only possible because of WvW population attrition. Its ability to sustain PPT in this environment is especially impressive to me since most servers crater long before they make it into T1 much less sustaining that for months afterwards. Having been on several servers and seen various modes of gameplay, YB is one of the more unique… not my favorite cough Mag during the GvG era cough but still fun nonetheless.

Oh and I enjoy the BG/JQ fights as well as respect their various talented players… even QQ… even QQ when they are relentlessly chasing me half way across a map.

It already takes two superior ACs with players that have mastery to actually kill a non-scrub player somewhat slowly. They are also extremely easily countered on most walls. Basically any reduction in their ability would make them relatively useless against a larger force and allow for easy flips of towers and keeps.

Easier to navigate, easier to scout (checking the current BL keeps is a massive pain), more areas for open field fights and most towers were important to hold.

Also, I knew I could almost always find a good skirmish fight if the defending map had a WP in hills or bay since it basically allowed three server spawns to be very close to each other.

BG PPTing and zerging hard this week. Not a complaint as I have enjoyed the fights even if the roaming has sucked a bit. I just wish their zerg was a bit less organized because picking stragglers off hasn’t been easy either.

LoneWolfSpectre.6412:

tldr; YB stop placing so much kitten siege. Its great, you can hold a keep forever and ever. But you’re not acclimating to your highest potential of some great fights. I get it when the enemy runs big. place siege down. But the enemy isn’t ALWAYS bigger than you. :P so avoid the siege more often.

So long as YB is decentralized, it will never have a strong open field. When a commander has 5 guild mates and 30 PUGs against a 30 man guild with another 20 pugs, rolling into that is just suicide. Every server at various times of the day is faced with this scenario and almost every time they will avoid the larger force, fight on a wall, etc.

YB has mastered fighting without a large unified force and has somehow managed to stay in T1 and PPT win most weeks which is a feat not possible a couple years ago. Basically it boils down to why should YB play BG’s game when it does not have the same resources?

mulzi.8273:

I disagree with this. When two zergs meet, BG/JQ usually stacks up, stacks might and prepares to push. YB either runs into the newest structure or drops multiple siege. there are exceptions to every rule of course, but that is the norm.

It is the norm because BG has large organized fighting guilds that tend to dominate EBG during NA Prime. Outside of NA prime, they scatter, get mowed down and run into towers and build siege like every other server when they are out gunned. The only time I have seen this not be the case on any server was in the GvG era particularly on Mags but those days are way behind all of us.

BG is not some mythical fighting server full of epic top tier players the likes no other server has seen before. Pretty much every server is the same as every other server and the ebb/flow of fighting changes based on populations, guild organizations and PUG commanders. Both JQ (Kalkz if he is still on JQ) and YB (DK) have excellent PUG commanders but YB doesn’t have that old school Agg or similar fighting guild.

As I have said before, YB is decentralized lacking a dominant guild. The downside is that it is difficult to rally against other large organized guilds. The upside is that YB isn’t prone to collapse when a large guild logs for the night. Same basic game play as every other server.

BG is just like all the other servers that I have faced. When a big guild group shows up they blob down whatever they can. If they don’t have a large guild group running on a map, they PvD just like everyone else. Oh and there is nothing wrong with flipping objectives if that is what a player likes to do. I roam but I generally don’t gripe about players enjoying the game the way they want.

As for the fighting thing, YB lacks a large organized guild. It is not fun to continually run pugs into a group like Sekz and get bag farmed. If YB had a large organized guild I am sure the style of fighting would be different but finding 30 man guild groups is pretty rare these days. Only so much a commander can do with fewer zerg numbers and no control over their builds.

As for the siege thing… everyone sieges and about the only difference between most servers and YB is that YB refreshes their siege more consistently. It is expected when facing larger numbers or more organized game play. Servers try and “win” with the tools they have and that has been a pretty big constant on all the servers I have played on (NS→BP→HoD→Mags→YB→TC→FA→YB)

If you want a “fix” to the problem allow treb splash damage to hit through the wall. The same trick with shield gens would also work. I personally think walls should be wider allowing for siege to be placed outside of Meteor Shower requiring attackers to build counter siege.

Sviel.7493:

Disablers are a delay tactic, not a tool for destruction. Even if we ignore the lopsided danger in tossing them, they are not a viable means for defense unless you have a comparably sized force on the way…which brings us right back to the most populous server k-training everything with impunity.

Disablers are very effective against close up siege. A small group of players with a full set of supply can often keep siege locked up for extended periods of time. Not much can stop a significantly larger determined force as they can simply keep building in varioius locations until they take the objective but it isn’t difficult to frustrate an entire zerg.

Not sure I understand the problem. If catas are too close they are vulnerable to easy throw disablers. If they are back from a wall, trebs and often counter catas hit them pretty easily with some exceptions (looking at you Klovan, Durios and Wildcreek).

Well BG is humping the PPT this week. I suspect spring break has allowed them to maintain a very high population. Looks like when BG has players and coverage they do exactly what YB and pretty much every other server does.

The new WP system along with emergency WPs on the old BLs would work pretty well.

“Back in the day” the WPs ended up being perma-contested and only offered a few seconds after the timer before they locked up again. Basically zergs had to run from spawn or wait for the window to WP. The new system isn’t much different except the emergency WP is on a much longer timer.

Roaming in T1 on EBG is very much alive. I do it pretty much every night and have constant fights. Sure the fights often escalate into more players but that has always been the case in my experience.

Sweeping was barely tolerable when the keeps were bite sized and the builds didn’t have massive amounts of sustain. Now running down a stealther is nearly impossible in the giant BL keeps without them being marked.

It is OP still. Very OP actually.

Metabattles is mostly outdated. IMO run with a crowd in the style of play you want then ask someone that plays your class that is doing well. If playing in a large guild, they usually have very specific builds for you to run.

YB plays the game with very little map chat or Teamspeak drama. Occasionally a commander gripes on Teamspeak that they cannot rally a large enough force to directly engage JQ or BG zergs as both those servers have large organized guilds but that is about the extent of the YB drama. Having been on several other servers, YB is about the most laid back of them all except for maybe Mags during the GvG days or TC during the role playing years.

I don’t know what JQ or BG is like but having faced them on TC in T1 for a while and listening to the chest thumping back then from a vocal minority, seems some things never change.

For now you can find me trolling BG and JQ players as my small guild roams around the map.

Alpine was a much faster map mainly because players didn’t have to intricately know the map to traverse it. Another major advantage of Alpine at least to the defender is that keeps were easier to check so when swords popped it didn’t take a particularly long time to figure out how serious the attack was. In the new BL finding the location of an attack can be a real chore as the keeps are massive, multi-leveled and the map has dozens of relatively hidden attack spots any of which can easily be missed by a scout.

Add those two together and basically by the time a scout spots the attack and a server responds, a keep can be flipped. In Alpine that was incredibly difficult and took great timing along with a superior force.

I won’t even get into the fact that defenders could portal from map spawn to just in front of inner garri allowing for a near instant reinforcements with one mesmer. Also traveling from map spawn to lords room in hills or bay wasn’t a much longer distance than garri spawn unlike the new BLs.

Aeolus.3615:

Nothing… more basic mmos do siege wars better than Gw2 by miles…

It is sad…

A huge portion of GW2 WvW players have been waiting for a better RvR MMO and it has not appeared. There are MAYBE some on the horizon but GW2 is still the premier RvR/WvW engine.

15 man is a zerg outside of NA prime at least in T1. For running skirmish, I am pretty sure an entire party of DH is probably the most optimal party a team can build. Between the leaps, pulls, traps, DPS, invisible fences, blocks and general sustain from the DH line an entire pack of them coordinating can pin snipe, leap into a back line, pull across the pirate ship, etc. Nomad builds when coordinating are hella tanky and spike some solid DPS together.

Yes. We see this on the small scale where features like tower radar and veteran scouts highlight enemies on the mini-map. That feature alone has brought more fights together than any other in recent memory. The entire PvE portion of WvW should be driving that sort of engagement.

BG for better or worse clung to the old school of heavy guild play. As guilds have slowly exited or diminished in GW2, BG suffered accordingly. YB still thrives because it is really a collection of roamers, PUGs and skirmishers. I believe this in turn hastened both JQ and BG attrition because YB zergs tend to disengage rather than become a bag farm to to better organized guilds. If a big BG guild shows up on a map they can dominate a battle but end up losing the PPT war and find an opponent that simply evades them until they gain an advantage.

The odd part to me is the top points server (YB) has no massive guild and no guild stacking. The game changed a while back at least in T1. Sure YB struggles to compete against organized guilds in open field but its overall decentralized power structure allows it to adapt to general player attrition better.

Running many more havoc groups invariably frustrates zergs because they spend a considerable amount of time chasing smaller groups and losing objectives. Basically if you like to blob fight with big guilds, going against YB has to be annoying as hell. Course Chris going against Sekz in EBG during NA prime is no picnic either.

I really dislike an entire damage class that can generate high DPS with only one stat and completely bypasses another. My condi thief doesn’t even bother with duration it relies completely upon interrupts and high condi applicaiton. This allows that build to maintain high power and vitality while still dishing out heavy condi DPS. The fact that 80% of build damage bypasses toughness is a massive boost. The build is beatable but 95% of fights are easily won simply by dodging and timing an interrupt or two.

PierPiero.9142:

Problem of wvw is that it is only a big blob where only power of “numbers” make the difference.

Roamers and havoc squads actually generate more PPT per player than zergs. The way YB keeps up the PPT when they are out manned is splitting into multiple groups and back capping like crazy. Zergs are very inefficient PPT generators unless a side is T3. The problem is few servers have enough commanders and communication to coordinate attacks. The few that do (such as YB) punches PPT much higher than their population.

Ability to build up a team using all available resources and unleashing on an enemy horde whether that is small, mid or large scale combat. The need for various roles creates more diversity allowing for a lot of various styles of play and builds compared to say sPvP.

Boons and more importantly sustain is quasi-OP in small scale fights and nearly useless in zergs at least for melee. Pirate Ship is a real thing because of the stability nerfs and 25 stacks are utterly useless at least in T1. If DH didn’t have Wings of Resolve virtually no zerg on zerg melee action would take place.

I knew the lower tiers were in rough population shape but a commander running a 10 man is havoc at best and probably more like skirmish. Not a good sign when a T1 skirmish group would most likely annihilate a T5 squad.

Rather than reward players for flipping an objective and PPT for holding one, I suggest the game engine creates specific objectives or tasks every 15 minutes. At each interval, the game engine would create specific objectives for each faction based on current populations and their dominance. The objective system would stretch a server to take, defend and guard multiple objectives meaning coordination would be more important than zerging. It would also allow a less populated server compete with a larger one by giving them easier and fewer objectives for the same points. Most importantly the objectives would be shared among the servers which would increase the levels of conflict between them.

While the cost to transfer does suck, move if you aren’t enjoying playing on that server. Server loyalty is one of the most pointless things I have ever heard of in a game. Every server has a lot of great players and moving exposes you to new ways to play the game, new friends to make and new enemy tactics to help you improve. Even better if you can bring some new knowledge and experience to a new a server.

Getting run over week after week is not enjoyable to most. Go to an established server that shows up each week (any of the T1 servers fit that bill IMO) and enjoy a more vibrant community. It is a game… play it like one.

Dawdler.8521:

Actually it synergize extremely well with itself if you go final salvo and gyros.

Almost nothing in the scrapper trait lines synergize with one another. Gyros can be shared but they aren’t multiplicative. A class like Tempest can aura share so while the class is pretty mediocre 1v1 (aside from full bunkers being REALLY difficult to bring down) two or more on top of each other is substantially harder to kill and can dish out decent burst if they are communicating.

Dawdler.8521:

Not too long ago I had an awesome 2 scrappers vs 3 tempests fight. Scrappers won >.<

Three decently played bunker Tempests should not be killed by two Scrappers. Scrappers are tough and slippery but lack the spike damage necessary to bring down a well played Tempest much less three fighting on top of each other. My guess is the Tempests were not running optimal specs, were not particularly skillful and likely were not on voice chat together.

Ultimately DH, Reaper, Scrapper and a few other classes all require their opponents to over-commit to win. They also lack long range escape. Sure a Scrapper can stealth and superspeed for a few seconds but without the big teleports, is easily caught. For this reason they aren’t in my favorite for small scale roaming. They are however pretty great for skirmish crews.

We run two thieves one heavy condi/interrupt, one heavy burst. It is a very strong combo with tons of escape to avoid larger groups and extremely fast travel. I would say we win 9/10 fights we are in with even or better odds. If we run into lessor skilled players going 5v2 is very doable. Given that both of us are “old”, I can say the combo would be even more effective in younger hands. We can also effectively eat the tail of large groups which few classes can reliably do. Pretty fun to blow someone up in the middle of a zerg and get away unscathed.

As someone mentioned two mesmers/chronos are also extremely strong.

Necro/Reapers are thief food. I haven’t died to one in weeks as they are too easily kited.

DH is solid but lacks escape so when a fight turns they bite it. Their travel time is horrible and a condi thief blows them up easily. Typically we consider DH mainly good in zergs and general door huggers.

Ele/Tempest make solid roamers and two of them are a complete handful to bring down. The toughest fight we get into is when two Tempests are stacked on top of each other as their condi/healing is strong and they can still spike solid damage.

Scrappers are a solid pick but don’t synergize with other classes outside of the stealth gyro but still a strong roamer.

Warriors are mostly laughable unless you clocked by a Gunflame. One awesome attack doesn’t make for good roaming though.

Druids are surprisingly good with the right build and skill. Ultimately though we tend to run them down as they do not handle interrupts well.

I agree with the sentiment but this has been in the game since release I think. The problem is not all veteran creatures count and it isn’t particularly intuitive. None of the vet creatures in EBG count. The vet spider in the new BLs don’t count either. It has been this way for a long time with HoT carrying on in that tradition.