We roam and skirmish in T1 on EBG and love it. There seems to be tons of pickup fights and roaming to be had.
An MMO mouse is overkill and IMO not as good as a typical gamer mouse with a handful of buttons. If you have the dexterity, MMO mice are fine but I suggest getting something that fits in your hand well and has a couple extra buttons.
Something to consider is the Action Camera which can free up the right click for dodge. To make that work you have to remap your mouse right click to a keystroke but modern mice generally allow that.
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Step in the right direction. I would still like to see a forced port when dead and no rallies in WvW. Downed players could only be brought back with player help.
The current system is skewed heavily toward population being more important than skill.
My bet would be on No.
Mentioned before by others but a free Xfer in the Birthday Gift would be appreciated.
Over the years I have advocated for a “Crowded” debuf that causes 15+ players in close proximity to run a bit slower, have slighly reduced range, suffer a small DPS penalty, etc. This debuf would scale so 50+ players would have a larger debuf than 15+ players versus 10 players or less seeing no debuf at all. This would even the scales a tad against out numbered groups and bring a bit more strategy to large scale fights.
It would be interesting to see the code around this. My guess is that it has or will have an IF wrapped around it that limits PPK to players worth actual WvW experience. I can see Out Numbered servers not adding to the PPK as well.
I have said this in other threads before but it is very likely their development is on rails of sorts. Big changes like upgrading the old Alpine map to work with the new map changes is probably a pretty big deal requiring a substantial development effort. Since they are probably already way behind on their WvW delivery schedules going back and updating a map is likely very low priority if it is even on their schedule.
Possibly they have told us the truth all along:
They HAD been working on the overhaul for an entire year, and planned to release it just after HOT. BUT…. the changes they showcased with the expansion were so poorly received that they’ve ditched their plans and are going back to redesign yet again. (That may not be the worst outcome.)
My guess is their development time table for WvW upgrades slid a few months. They probably put what was mostly working into HoT and delayed the other work until they had more time to finish it.
Development timelines are mostly guesstimates since it is nearly impossible to properly estimate development effort. They probably shot for most of the WvW work to be in HoT but likely just had to pull the cord and do a partial delivery.
I don’t think they contradict each other. It reads to me that they will have fewer new content updates and more adjustments to existing systems than previous years. The big content they are developing sounds like it will be for a (guessing here) 2017 expansion pack.
Much like HoT and the Chinese release they will be working on Expansion Pack #2 as well as expanding on already existing content. So fewer Living Story style updates and more class balance updates. Updates to world events and tweaks to pre-existing seasonal content are more likely.
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PPK is something that should have been in WvW since release. Glad to see them put it in but I do agree this doesn’t detract from the other WvW issues.
I am older but still several years from my 60s, I can say our reflexes will never rival that of the young’uns around here. However, reflexes aren’t your main problem. Until you switch from mouse clicking to keyboard you are always going to be at a massive disadvantage. Clicking is by far the slowest way to activate skills.
I suggest you completely stop clicking abilities. It will take a while to get used to it and you will die a lot at first. Once you get used to it your skill level will rise dramatically even with “old” reflexes.
I also suggest reassigning your 6 through 0 skills to keys near ASDF and bind some to your mouse. For example my heal is C, elite is E, Utility 1 is Q, Utility 2 is Back on the mouse, Utility 3 is Forward on the mouse, weapon swap is scroll wheel down, next target is scroll wheel up. Left Shift makes for a good dodge key and you can even use Caps Lock which I bind to Clear Target.
Load up some Typing of the Dead for some quality keying practice.
Assuming you are playing North American I would head to T1. All the servers are going to be fun if you play NA Prime. Outside of NA Prime go YB or JQ.
BG is out-manned most of the day and hugs EBG during NA Prime. They tend to play spoiler between JQ and YB but occasionally have to eat two larger populated servers roaming their side. BG has some of the strongest roamers/skirmishers in the game.
JQ has the most coverage but also plays the old zerg style game play during NA Prime with few guilds running outside of the main banner. They can dominate a map pretty much any time but since they aren’t typically spread out their PPT suffers.
YB is pretty spread out and goes for PPT. YB is often out manned on EBG during NA Prime but rallies pretty well and sometimes has an EBG queue. YB has nearly the same numbers/coverage as JQ just at different times of the day. YB’s weekly success lives and dies by a handful of very strong commanders.
Balance patches are part of their long term strategy and this patch was discussed weeks earlier.
Keep in mind development is not a zero-sum game. Multiple teams work on multiple projects and just because we have an upcoming patch with some features/changes doesn’t mean they aren’t working on a completely different line of changes for a game mode. I believe the WvW changes are coming just as sure as I am they will likely disappoint. In the meantime, I am glad they are addressing the big Bunker elephant in the room.
The new elite specs are powerful and fun to play. T1 is a lot of fun right now especially if you like skirmish. Everything else is pretty much the same or worse than a couple years ago. Is HoT worth the entry price, yes if you like PvE. Yes if you like PvP. Maybe if you play mainly WvW.
I am believe WvW is aging its population out so it will likely never be better than it was/is. As we lose players to other games and time in general, not enough new players are coming back. If you want to enjoy some large scale battles and a relatively active T1 scene do it now because in 12 months WvW will likely be empty most of the day even in T1. That is pure speculation though.
The balance patch probably won’t be seen for a few weeks. That said, I have some hope that it will level the field a bit against some of the heavy bunker builds coupled with strong DPS we are seeing right now.
If the thief gets a bit more bursty and the sustain is toned down, there is some hope that thief may once again be feared by all.
What? They’re are plenty of non Elite Specs players out there that are dominating.
In zergs there are some solid non-elite specs but anything mid to small scale is completely blanketed by elite specs. I haven’t seen a non-elite spec win a duel, 1v1 or skirmish in a long time. When we see one, we obliterate them since they are generally easy targets to blow up.
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Well, I get it. JQ and BG both have done exactly what YB is doing right now, it just…. happened 2-3 years ago. So, that’s why we’re kind of over it? It wasn’t a great time for you guys to hit T1, because we’re all very very beyond this stuff. We had amazing scouts, crazy siege placements/refreshing, siege training… you name it. Now, there’s no point. Was there ever a point? So, yeah, nothing new.
“Back in the day” T1 servers filled all the maps so the strategy was to fight it out usually blob v blob. T1 is now playing with far less population than it has ever seen. To say JQ/BG has played this version of the game before hasn’t been true for either server for a very long time if at all.
When he doesn’t play YB don’t win.
When any major guild takes a break in T1 (or any tier for that matter) their respective servers struggle to keep the PPT up. FoW and DH is particularly important for YB because their BL strategy is effective and generates a lot of PPT. Again not sure what the point is.
BG and JQ have concentrated in EBG cause they largely hate the desert BL, YB are not doing anything innovative just not concentrating on EB.
I think we are saying the same thing. Just a note though that YB breaking down its singular zerg which was effective before WP changes and new BLs is actually innovating as in doing something different than typical established methods. In this case YB is likely approaching WvW as ANet intended for better or worse.
As for DK playing a lot, he definitely can and does play in long spurts but not sure what that has to do with this topic. He also goes on fairly long runs where he doesn’t play such as just after the HoT release when TW was on YB.
The staff has easily interrupt-able evasions especially on Vault. Building around its evasion capability works right up until someone knows when to time the knockdown/stun. Even then chewing through the bunker heavy meta with a staff is often an exercise in futility. Trying to kill a decent Tempest is like watching paint dry and hoping the paint can doesn’t suddenly land on your head and kill you.
All of NA WvW could easily fit in 2 or 3 tiers now. In another year, probably one with no Qs. I hate to say this is a moot argument but….
What I do know is that T1 during NA Prime has some pretty epic roaming and skirmish. Last night was a blast… especially when that small JQ zerg turned to wipe our 3 man. Been a while since a small zerg chased us a short distance across a map.
Not going to insult YB or anything but I really hope that YB slowly realise how pointless PPT is in T1 because let’s be honest here, no other servers are going to break the T1 wall at this point, ever.
Bring back 3 ways fights!
YB disperses its man power over all the maps rather than concentrating it on one. They tend to get rolled by the big BG and JQ zergs which play the old style Alpine game play of map hopping with one large force to defend/attack. YB adapted and plays the way ANet likely meant WvW to be played with multiple commanders running on multiple maps rather than one unified group. YB is also doing a excellent job with the siege refreshes and keeping scouts relevant.
I do agree it ultimately doesn’t matter but as long as people enjoy the PPT game, I say go for it.
I speculate that JQ is the only server left in all of WvW that consistently has a queue on EBG. BG and YB both have very small queues on the rare occasion that there is even a queue. I don’t remember the last time I saw one over 30.
Scapper = Block, Block, Block, Stealth, Block, Block, Block, Invuln, Invuln, Invuln, Stealth, rinse and repeat.
Bunker Scrappers at least in WvW take 3+ player to bring down and are very dangerous while doing so. Putting a reflect, lightning field that stuns, leaping attack and a block on a single weapon with range was an OP situation waiting to happen. The only thing holding them back is that there are 3+ other Elite specs that are just as bunker with more DPS/Utility.
The Dare Devil with SB and SS is by far the most mobile class in the game by a mile. Nothing can catch that build even a Shiro Rev. Mix in even a small amount of stealth and a player can be out of visible distance before they unstealth.
I have to purposefully slow down to string out opponents otherwise the gap becomes too great for them and they run back to the herd.
Dare Devil is a largely ineffective class except in numbers. Chronos are oddly the same way as they are built to amplify a small groups effectiveness. The reason they flock together is that their numbers are designed to wipe out smaller groups quickly, surprise equal sized and blow them up or run from larger groups. Given the zerg heavy meta, these sorts of groups have become pretty standard.
I know if you see one of my guild there is probably another waiting around the corner or hidden in stealth. As Admiral Ackbar once said: Its a Trap! I say the same thing when I see a Chrono and a couple of DH. You just know that a Gravity Well is about to be sitting right over a ton of traps and the DH are about to launch a pull.
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No more imbalanced than my ele throwing 3-4K fireballs that hit in an AoE or the lava font, necro life blasts that regularly could do that much, while piercing and with 100% critchance and amazing autoproc of chilblains which can literally one shot anything glass.
Thing is the ele has to go full glass in light armor and low HP to make that happen. The necro also in light armor has no escape. The problem with the Rev is that it wears heavy armor, has good HP, great utility, decent escape, strong sustain AND hits like a truck from 1200 often with an AoE attack. They also have one of the best skirmish bunker condi builds running in the game right now.
In general ranged DPS should always have a big survivability trade off. A player wants to hit from far away especially with an AoE, they shouldn’t also be hard to kill up close. The staff ele is a near perfect balance. To dish it out they are vulnerable up close.
Roam or skirmish and leave the PvE to the blobs is the new meta.
There was a time GvG could have breathed life into WvW but that scene is all but dead now. I don’t think it can come back even with GvG friendly add ons. Besides, ANet has been very anti-GvG in WvW including a known ANet employee actively trolling a GvG event while using their ANet tag.
One of the best commanders I have run with built a very comprehensive guide. It is out of date now but a good bit of the guide is still very applicable.
http://www.borlis.org/forum/m/7734425/viewthread/6805656-dtc-justices-compilation-wvw-guide
Go Pink Army!
Not in there but a neat “trick” for keeping the tail under control is to do a slow circle with a zerg so those in the back get to catch up and the zerg keeps moving. Much better than stopping since zergs that aren’t moving tend to cause players to chase rabbits.
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Yeah not impressed by anything coming. Don’t know what the hype with Crowfall is dosent even look very RvR.
CU is being developed by some of the original DAoC crew. It is more of an old school MMO style and not very action driven which is a drawback to me but I am sure others will appreciate a throwback MMO playstyle.
Crowfall has some of the biggest MMO industry legends working on it including Koster of SWG fame. At its core the officers of the company making Crowfall have extensive open world PvP backgrounds and it shows in the way the game works with avatars (toons) effectively being gear and matches having a variety of victory conditions and duration. The game is also action oriented more so than even GW2. IMO Crowfall is VERY ambitious, has some big names that have made some very successful MMOs and is far enough along to believe they can deliver.
Both games are coming from independent studios which could easily run into financing issues down the road but as we have seen with Everquest Next, nobody is immune from that pill.
Once that map was released into Beta, aside from minor changes it was set to be in HoT. Development efforts are typically on rails months out so once it got to Beta it was going into production after they shook most of the big bugs out. It is likely some of the developers probably had the same reservations but it was just too late.
The Deserted map was a screw up in design that likely happened long before it was developed. If it was going to go through a major overhaul, it would have been at the beginning of development long before a user actually saw it.
The chests were account bound but the items inside the chest weren’t, that was clearly an oversight on their part and pretty much everyone knew it. The way they fixed the issue was to make it MUCH faster to earn Elite specs playing the class that has the elite. They also made superior siege purchasable via those extra hero points so they aren’t completely wasted.
I have been a pretty vocal critic of ANet the last year or so but this isn’t a real problem IMO.
Meta is bunker and AoE spam. The thief has neither. They also have very few group based buffs making them dead weight in most fights. Highly skilled players running certain builds can be effective but those same players in meta builds are beasts.
The thief class is a selfish class that while fun to play at times isn’t team oriented.
Complaints aside don’t bring a knife to a bunker fight.
Because catching one of the slippery kittens is a feat. Oh and for some reason people are still sensitive about getting ganked a couple years ago when thieves were actually dangerous in 1vX and skirmish.
Waiting for the US version of Blade and Soul to hit in three weeks. Our crew is doing a play through of the latest Grim Dawn release until then.
Few of the non-elites can hold up under 1v1 pressure. Both the Tempest (ele elite) and Chronomancer (mesmer elite) are really solid in 1v1 right now. The Tempest is more bunker less DPS. The Chronomancer is high evade, slippery and in some cases high DPS.
If you have an old school D/D Celementalist those are still relatively solid to play.
I have a counter question, I’ve yet to understand why people flame thieves. Can you explain?
The thief class has always been a selfish class with little team synergy. In the past this was forgiven since it could down even the toughest players in solo fights and obliterate players in skirmish play by picking off wounded or players not paying attention.
The meta then changed to heavy bunker/sustain with strong AoE. The thief has neither that are effective. The massive amount of AoE has made getting up close to most builds difficult. If they know you are coming and are reasonably skilled, extremely difficult.
This highlights the basic nature that the thief is mostly a solo affair built around escape.
Non-Dare Devil thief class is very crappy right now across the board. There is a condi variant that can do well in WvW if the enemy isn’t running strong cleanse. The class can +1 and decap on some maps reasonably well but a Dare Devil is better at both IMO.
Even as a Dare Devil, the class under-performs. The meta has changed to bunker with heavy AoE application and thief has virtually no access to either. The existing bunkers also have few counter play options beyond just being flat out better than the other player by a large margin.
Someone stated that they preferred the current meta to previous thief dominated metas
It really sounds like some players are still bitter over what thieves used to do to them in solo play two years ago since they bring it up in just about any thread related or not.
And no, you didn’t merely claim “bunker” builds dominated the current meta, you QQ’d you couldn’t kill them without focus fire and that you no longer engage them, guess what this is nothing new, if you came up against a d/d cele ele in the last year or so unless you were on a specific class/build or they were terrible you would not kill them,
Builds that counter other builds have always been around and should remain that way. Unfortunately, the current meta is generating a large number of builds that have no distinct counter play. My comments are about a large portion of the current population running builds that fall into the why bother category. They cannot kill me, I cannot kill them without a numbers advantage. A single class that is dominant in some portion of the meta will likely always be the case but we aren’t talking about a single class or at least I am not.
Using the D/D Celementalist as a point of reference. When they were at their peak usage, there just weren’t that many of them as they were only one build (lets also keep in mind the Celementalist had known counter play). Today we have several classes and builds that perform better than the Celementalist did with far fewer defensive holes and similar DPS. If there were 4-5 other classes during that time with the same bunker/DPS capability, a thread similar to this would have appeared.
LOL, repeating what you said and ignoring the point
Funny because that is exactly what you are doing. You keep creating straw man arguments while I am trying to have a discussion about the current bunker meta.
Yet you apparently have not worked out that they balance this game on PvP and more recently PvE raids as well, and not WvW, and that the meta for smallscale in WvW has always been a result of that, has never been even vaguely balanced in any way, and will only change when they balance for PvP next.
I think we can both agree ANet will likely not read nor do anything about meta from most of the WvW forum posts. I post merely for cathartic reasons and hopefully to gain some insight from other players about how they handle the “Rise of the Bunkers”.
Oddly the Druid is a far better roamer/skirmish class than GvG or large scale WvW. Other classes still bring the water fields and dish out substantial damage better. GRREENNN seems to be the effective meta these days as in Guardian, Revenant, Revenant, Elementalist, Elementalist and Necro, Necro, Necro. Only need Guardians in there to keep front-line enemy zergs honest.
In the past a T1 server moving down would doom T2 for that week. I think BG moving to T2 for a week or two probably wouldn’t be that bad. BG doesn’t really have a persistent population any longer and they tend to surge on one map during NA Prime. If any of the T2 servers are q’ing during NA Prime on any night, they can probably handle T1. With a few exceptions q’s on YB are non-existent.
If BG did move down, they might smell blood in the water and all log in for that time proving me wrong though. The same could be said for a server moving into T1. A lot of players are dormant and that could bring them out to the detriment of a less populated server.
A player typically gets a defense reward every three minutes doing this. It isn’t much though. Unfortunately many (most?) persistent trebbers are running a macro on a second account. So while you are actively defending a tower they are having fun playing and earning rewards while a second computer/account is auto-magically trebbing. This used to be less of an issue but with free accounts it is a fairly constant action in T1.
I enjoy large scale play but I think it has become choke point heavy, ranged AoE heavy and lets circle each other for a long time affair. Feels more like a grade school dance than a fight sometimes. These tend to only end decisively when one side has a substantially larger force.
With that in mind, what would happen if players received a “crowded” debuf when more than say 15 friendly players were in close proximity to one another. The debuf could scale as more friendly players crowd into the same area. The debuf would reduce range, overall DPS, reduce speed and scale toughness. Not a lot just enough to create more intense close quarter fights and balance the scales a bit between differing group sizes.
Thoughts?
Tons of roaming in T1. During NA Prime, you have to pick your fights and know which guilds are running gank (as in you see one but get flattened by 2+ mine included) but IMO that is half the fun of roaming. I routinely flip camps solo and get plenty of fun fights just by wandering to the other side. There are zergs to dodge but unless you have made a name for yourself zergs generally don’t chase roamers. Outside of NA Prime, it is generally really quiet and aside from an off hour group running around roaming is all there is.
The only person coming out with nonsense arguments is you, I’ll take one example as your illogical contradictory argument is getting dull, this:
I presented my opinion that bunker builds are beginning to dominate in WvW. If that doesn’t may sense to you, I cannot help you understand it any better.
So when we discuss thief, you claim it is lacking because of its relatively minor use in large scale, yet when I say exactly the same for say engy that you are whining about, a class that overall has been the least used / least meta in WvW, we get nonsense like “WvW is more than one game mode. Scrappers are excellent roamers”, pathetic.
I was pointing out that scrappers and chronos are current meta bunker classes and dominating their area of play including duels, skirmish, 1v1 and in the chrono case has great utility in zergs. You are rambling on about classes that aren’t current meta.
There is no discussion presented, you are crying about your perceived view of an imbalanced meta that you don’t like, in a game mode that has always had imbalanced metas and gets virtually zero consideration from Anet when it comes to balancing, this is why I ask if you are a new player.
Again my point is that several class’s dominant builds are bunker based and are becoming prolific in WvW. Not just one class, not just one style of WvW play but across the board bunkers are becoming the new meta.
As for being new, I have over 3k hours in WvW, have played since beta, am a platinum something, have 6 digits in the kill category (long way from UD though) and I engage in most styles of WvW play including duels, 1v1, skirmish and zerg play although I do roam more than anything else. I haven’t done GvG in a while but that scene sort of died out. I do not claim to be a great player especially at my advanced age as I am closer to dying of old age than being born by a good bit so my reflexes are poor compared to players 30+ years younger than myself.
What? For the majority of this game, thieves have been far the most used roaming class, to the point at times against certain servers you would face more thieves when roaming than every other class put together, that is known as ‘dominance’.
You are pointing out one single aspect of WvW that a class once dominated. Thieves never dominated like Warriors in their time which anchored skirmish, sprint roaming and the back bone of hammer train all at the same time. That is domination. WTF a thief from a couple years ago that dominated a small portion of the game mode has to do with my original point about bunkers becoming dominant across the board is beyond me.
Clearly a learn to play issue if you think a class that has generally been exceptional at +1, had one of the strongest skills in the game at saving other players in small scale, has been in focus party in GvG most of the time, etc has not been strong in skirmishes.
Aside from venom share thieves (which is pretty weak relatively speaking) they contribute no field support, no group buffs and their group stealth is abysmal. This is true today and it was true in the GW2 beta. +1 capability in WvW is like kittens on a bull. The maps are too big and rarely do players try to defend nodes making +1 marginal at best unlike sPvP where a thief can move from one defended node to another quickly to help balance fights.
As for large scale, in that case why are you crying about engy/scrapper & mesmer/chrono, the first of which has been and still is surplus to requirements for large scale and the second one is of niche use for utility or focus party and is vastly outnumbered by necros, guards, revs & eles (and previously warriors).
WvW is more than one game mode. Scrappers are excellent roamers and solid skirmish group support. They can hold nodes and take them when defended. Chronos are fantastic across the board and while not a backbone zerg class their utility in large scale is excellent. Their power in skirmish is probably the strongest of any of the new elites as their group evasion is insanely good.
LOL, this game has a low skill cap, the only thing that ups the skill really is conquest mode PvP, WvW is a total joke, roaming or stupid 1v1 duels are rock, paper, scissors, of course that 90% of WvW players basically can’t play the game might give you the delusion combat skill matters, it doesn’t, if you have two competent players what decides the matchup in most cases is just the build or RNG in this “highly” skilled game.
Agree to disagree. I am not sure what successful MMOs out there have a substantially higher degree of skill required to play than GW2. None that I know of have RvR or WvW and virtually none have competitive PvP on this scale. Oh and MOBAs don’t count since they are not an MMO and most are glorified RTS play.
Again learn to read, I wasn’t justifying anything, someone simply stated that they preferred the current meta to when thieves dominated, you started goign on about thieves in the current game, I stated that was irrelevant to what the guy said.
Bringing up a ridiculous straw man argument and insulting me personally doesn’t contribute anything to the larger discussion presented. Bunkers and sustain are currently on the rise in all facets of WvW game play. Not just one class, not just one form of play… all parts of WvW. If you have some information that contributes to that discussion I would enjoy reading it.
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I would say anyone can pick two roles, though most want to keep the berserker meta alive by running marauder or zerker gear… However, the best builds for WvW have to have sustained and power mixed in. Find the balance, and get the skills necessary to do the two roles, and you can’t easily be beaten. Few I’ve noticed take the time to learn how to do it though and are easily wrecked…
I think of it as more primary and secondary in terms of efficiency. A build should not be highly efficient at DPS and Sustain. A build should be able to have high sustain but the trade off is say mid-range DPS, little control and no group buffs. The problem we have now is a handful of builds aren’t trading anything off. They retain their sustain, tank, dps and control in some instances.
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