Guild Wars 2

rhodoc.2381:

More serious fights than the pugblobzerging in EB

How true this is… EB on practically every server I have been on is the training ground. BLs hold more value, generally have tougher fights and attract more seasoned players.

Either Mags or SBI should probably land there. For some unfathomable reason the toughest fights SBI has seen in weeks is BP and EBay both of which no longer stand a chance with their massive influx of people. They simply have not drawn a hard matchup and their score is currently artificially low as a result.

I would love to see a Mag/SBI fight next week and hopefully the “winner” will see a T2 rank. DB has fallen too far in my mind to hold onto a T2 ranking.

Given the easy schedule SBI has seen I suspect they will draw a lower set of servers again and Mags will likely end up in T2… not SBI’s fault but the RNG isn’t being very R.

5 ascended trinkets, 3 ascended weapons, guard leech, applied fortitude, 25 stacks of bloodlust… When I am running full tilt, I certainly have an advantage over a casual player. When ascended armor hits if it scales like other items in the game, I will have a HUGE advantage over other players.

I don’t really have a problem with eles doing this, but other classes should have more viable wall attacks as well. It is pretty ridiculous that most bow attacks cannot peg something on a wall.

Places not to be T2 and T6. T8 has pretty much always been screwed. This assumes nothing else changes in the way points are tallied.

hands down warrior… similar thief play style for better or worse. Mesmer or elementalist maybe. If you want a challenge, ranger.

Mango pie pre-condi dominance because it was cheap and effective. Now hard to imagine not running lemongrass.

If you want to completely avoid the giant ones then T6 and lower is where you should head. If you want a little zerg, good skirmish and decent solo play, BP/IoJ/CD/YB all have a bit to offer in each category.

Appears the shine is off the ruins now. Not that nobody does them but during our prime I am seeing few fights. My guess is there are virtually no personal rewards for doing them so it becomes a labor of love rather than a rewarding experience.

As for leagues… well the listened and broke them up into 3 divisions so kudos for that. I am going to keep an open mind.

All the world bosses drop dragonite so head over to gw2stuff.com and hit the events for a few hours. Doing 5-6 events a day will easily hit the 500 necessary for the weapon in a week or less.

Wanderer.3248:

Nice idea separating the servers, but how would you handle guilds?

By embracing guilds as the basis of WvW. IMO, guilds should be able to create alliances with other guilds and declare war on other guilds. At reset guild alliances, guild war declarations, typical guild play times, typical guild play hours and other factors would be mixed together to create X number of WvW match ups that are as balanced as possible. The system would never repeat the same guild match ups and would never put warring guilds on the same side. This allows for a nice variety every week. All rewards and points would be guild based and would be reflected on a scoreboard both weekly and all time.

This solves most balance issues, creates variety in the system and allows guilds to strut their collective stuff against all other guilds in the world.

Beri.3156:

5 rank difference aint that big either. 5 rank difference is weekly thing in EU and nobody cry about it like peeps in NA.

Well thats the difference between NA and EU. EU seeks for fights while NA seeks for PPT game.

I say hell no for shorter match ups for leagues. 1 week is just fine how it is.

You have absolutely no idea how NA servers operate or the competition gap between our servers. Also every time one of your T1 servers has dipped down to fight a T3 server over the last couple months they obliterated it.

Course in your region you get three league divisions so I guess there isn’t as much to complain about.

If it were that easy, huge zergs would be unbeatable. As it is large skill groups routinely beat big zergs. Make a mistake against a group like Agg and… bam… everyone is dead. Even when a zerg overpowers these skill groups the skill groups often rise back from the dead and deliver defeat.

There are a lot of tactics in open field combat beyond stacking. People do like to skip over that fact to make some sort of irrelevant point though.

Obscure One.4357:

They’re going to get nerfed. With as much confusion, bleeding, burning, poison, and might I can stack up on my Engineer, the build is flat out uncounterable. Condition clears? Yawn. Just a slower death. Multiple targets? All the interrupts I use are multi target (Supply Crate, both shield skills, Air Blast) and Static Shot, pistol #3 that inflicts confusion and blind, bounces.

This build is probably the scariest thing in solo/roamer WvW right now. A decent player commanding it is a REALLY hard fight since there are so few counters to it. It is heavily bunkered so direct damage is tough, has better range than just about any other build, no class has enough CC to keep the conditions off and while its damage isn’t epic when a player hits cooldown the fight is all but over since the conditions pile up. Maybe another condi-bunker can take one down but even that I am not so sure about.

UnknownFreak.2805:

Well the reason for the AoE Cap is due to the number of calculations to do.

…

I didn’t check the math but I share the same sentiment. Complaining about it reminds me of people who complain about traffic. I don’t think they realize they are part of the “traffic” problem. The immediate “fix” to this is pretty simple… stop complaining about it and transfer to a lower tier.

Chopps.5047:

How can there be a ranger video of a 23k [Maul] (jubskie’s sticky on ranger forums has a link to the 23k Maul thread and video) yet thieves here saying they only get 5k backstabs. That’s ridiculous. Thieves have a troll build they can practically 1 shot anyone with—out of NO where— and it probably uses Valkyrie gear and power stacking.

Yes it is possible for a Ranger to spike a huge shot even bigger than a thief (in theory). However it is only one shot and if dodged, blocked or the target is hardened it does a fraction of the damage and leaves the ranger ridiculously vulnerable. Also going this route forgoes most condition removal.

In contrast, thieves don’t have utility skills that essentially double their damage on one hit. So comparing one hail mary shot from a different class and applying to a standard skill in another simply doesn’t work.

I am sure the glut of transfers for better rewards has already made leagues a success. I like to think that wasn’t a design consideration for leagues, but it sure is going to be a nice bonus to the coffers.

Gamadorn.2659:

No….he’s saying other games have been doing calculations like this…also on a large scale and they don’t even cause a hiccup in the server…

Usually calculations are a nominal part of processing for a server with good power behind it….it’s just in this game, it seems to tax the server to high hell when these calculations are done…he’s just saying…we know its hard and not easy…but could you please find a way to make it work

I completely disagree. There is no game (that I am aware of) that has complex combat (fields, boon/condi stacks, dodge mechanics, positional damage, etc) that can handle this many players. DAoC is probably the closest and it is more akin to a text based MUD compared to the combat in GW2. Basically no game (that I know of) has rich deep combat and 100+ players running around.

Also calculations are only part of the issue. Virtually all multi-threaded systems have wait states while they sync data. These wait states (somewhat akin to internal lag) cannot be easily coded around. So the servers are trying to resolve dozens if not hundreds of inputs in sequence per player per second, compressing the output and distributing to all other players. The more sequences the more computation, wait states and lag. It is all a balancing act and none of it is simple.

Disclaimer: I am also a developer along with some others listed above. I do not have inner workings of MMO development so my opinion is at best an educated guess based on my own n-tier, over the internet, high capacity multi-user, multi-threaded environment which includes thousands of active users and databases topping several terabytes.

I get condi should be a natural counter to overly armored players but allowing heavy damage on defensive skills with no cool down is bad… really bad.

I think an argument could be made that doors AND walls should upgrade at T1 and T2 and T3. Walls and doors should probably have more effective HP as well, but removing ranged damage seems unimportant.

KOK.2650:

DAMAGE DONE = 1030(Ascended/lengardary weapon dmaage) * 4300 (power ) * 2.4 (backstab skill coeficent) * 200% (traits ) * 2.7 (Critical ) /3000 armor = result an 19133.25 backstab. Pretty near to 20k if you ask me.
Source:https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Toughness-not-mitigate-backstab-damage/first#post1692134

Also you forgot to add food buff so I think the 400% modifier and 3.8k power is possible

First off your math is wrong somewhere (my guess is you are multiplying two modifiers instead of one):

((1030 * 2.4 * 4300) * 4.70) / 3000 = 16.7k

Even considering that the numbers listed above are exaggerated. A 4.7 modifier is practically impossible. I would like to see how it is possible actually. Most plateau around 3… maybe 3.5 but that likely comes at the expense of power. 4300 power is possible but again it will likely effect the modifier and does require Bloodlust, World Bloodlust, full Might stacks, Guard Leech and food. Also most of these complaints do not include Ascended damage because it hasn’t been around long (a week or so). Basically you are plugging numbers in that have little basis in an actual WvW fight. I have been playing for thousands of hours and have NEVER seen this damage output outside of a lot of conditions/boons flying around.

A solo thief walking around with 25 stacks of might, 4300 power and 4.7 modifier… show me how because I will roll it in a second just to see how it plays.

220 WvW levels is not “easy” at least outside of the upper tiers especially for roamers. The vast majority of players T3 and below are not even a Champion yet. Removing the very real and tangible rewards for WvW leveling may somewhat level the solo fights but that incentive is a powerful motivator for a lot of players which is a very good thing.

Bloodlust buff… eh. Really nice to have and probably should be chopped in half but I don’t feel strongly one way or another. It hasn’t really effected my K/D ratio significantly.

Tricare.2946:

You mean like this? Last clip.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7AkX6q_kV-s

This is the one. It is as effective of a build and play style as I have seen since they nerfed pets.

I sometimes feel like a bottom in this ANet GW2 relationship. I want to stop but somebody always needs killing.

Lord Kuru.3685:

Allegiance gives people a sense of community and belonging. Why do people have allegiance to their hometown sports team? I think it’s very similar.

So players on sports teams shouldn’t go to other teams even if the play is more fitting and the pay more lucrative?

Stay if that is important to you. Move around if you want to broaden play style experience and enjoy different aspects of WvW play. Allegiance in a video game is a self imposed limiter. I do like seeing a server grow over time, but ultimately I want to sample from the WvW smorgasbord. Getting upset in general (not saying you do) about other players moving is just silly.

One could make the argument that increasing the value of the winning team objectives and decreasing the losing teams would make for a better match overall.

I would argue that the system itself is fundamentally flawed and most changes at this point are cosmetic.

It should be. Piling on in case it helps ANet rethink the implementation.

They should not be… IMO the server concept for WvW shouldn’t exist at all. As to why, my guess is because it was the easiest to implement.

Varkin.3419:

It would be suggested that Anet allow free transfers to the lower tier (less populated) servers when this concept went into effect. People originally transferred to the top Tier servers because they were winning, in direct relation to population.

While a relatively simple fix, it doesn’t seem to work in the real world. When we had free server transfers, we ended up with servers like Kaineng. A massive guild transfered to a bottom tier server and began to plow through every tier. Rather than spread out, players flocked to them because they got a lot of easy wins and easy rewards.

I still think ANet needs to realign populations weekly which can only be done by abolishing the fixed server system in WvW. A player’s guild would be assigned to a matchup and a player would be locked into whichever guild they represented at reset during WvW. Guilds would then be distributed as evenly as possible based on play time, play duration, alliances and variety. This would prevent constant blowouts and create variety in WvW each week. Changing the points accumulation to guilds and posting that on a scoreboard would also actively encourage guild participation.

Obscure One.4357:

That said I still have evidence of a 20k backstab even if it’s the unicorn of backstabs, it exists, and therefore arguments to the contrary of it’s existence are simply wrong. Thieves are doing this, and I’m just one guy who took a screenshot of it.

Not only a unicorn but seemingly impossible without some ridiculously rare bug/hack/event. If that happened to me, I would report it to ANet cause something went horribly wrong in their calcs. It almost looks like a legendary hit you only with thief skills.

I would add that this outlier is anecdotal to stealth and BS as a whole and should not be used as evidence to condemn those mechanics. If this were something that regularly happened, then it would be worth addressing but I have never seen anything like it in near 2k hours of WvW play.

style.6173:

Because unfortunately, most people are fair weather band wagon jumpers. You see a lot more people transferring to higher tier servers than to lower tier servers.

Much respect to anyone to has transferred to a lower tier server.

What is the point of server allegiance? The only allegiance most players should have is to have fun and sometimes that requires a transfer.

Thanatos.2431:

A well coordinated group of smaller players can’t dent a zerg at all because their damage is randomly spread out while they stand together. But if that zerg was more dispersed, then a smaller group could spike down targets because the cap does not come into effect.

Aside from the many other reasons for keeping a cap in place, if they did remove it the zergs would simply run a net formation. 5 players will never (barring extreme circumstance) be able to counter 50 cap or no. The concept that 5 players should be able to bomb 50 players is ludicrous. Removing the AoE cap and leaving AoE damage as it is today will NEVER happen. It cannot happen for performance AND balance reasons.

Thanatos.2431:

Zergs won’t magically go away, but they will be far more enjoyable to fight against and less effective because they can’t exploit a game mechanic.

Again zergs don’t form mostly or solely because of AoE cap. Higher rewards, players easily brought back from death, easier to follow, etc all combine to make zergs attractive to a lot of players. Stacking is just a tactic zergs employ… removing that tactic will only change the zerg’s tactics but not the zerg itself.

IMO, keep the AoE cap and unlock the control cap which would likely improve performance and counter stacking without creating absurd class DPS.

I am still surprised these posts are being made.

In duels, thieves are below mediocre with the current WvW settings. In open world solo, the only players who need to worry about an unbalanced thief fight are group oriented builds, up levels, wounded players and players who need to work on their skills.

In solo fights and duels: warriors and condi-bunkers currently dominate. No decent roamer/duel build that isn’t on cool down/wounded should be on the wrong side of a thief fight going in.

Madora.9340:

Crit?

Crit lives in the modifier portion. Some examples of potential Thief modifiers:

• 150% base crit
• 100% crit multiplier
• 5% Dagger Training
• 10% Exposed Weakness
• 10% First Strikes
• 7% Side Strike
• 20% Executioner
• 10% Fluid Strikes
• 10% Lead Attacks
• 5% Sigil of Force
• 5% Flanking Strikes

In reality a 300% modifier is pretty much top of the line. Even at 300% the thief has to give up either power or survivability. I did a 400% to illustrate just how ridiculous a 20k BS would be.

((806 * 2.4 * 4000) * (4 modifier)) / 3000 = 10.3k

Sanduskel.1850:

Or there is a bug with the combat mechanics allowing much larger hits.

I listed bug in my original post as a possibility.

The queues on some match ups would be ridiculously long. Imagine a server with a weak NA Prime and strong Oceanic against the inverse. Players would be queued for hours and simply quit. There are times when maps in the lower tiers have less than 5 players on the entire map.

IMO the solution to the WvWvW imbalance is to eliminate the server concept completely. Instead guilds would be pooled each week allowing guild alliances, guild war declarations and guild rewards (as opposed to server rewards). This would allow ANet to realign populations on a weekly basis without the player suffering a prolonged uneven server matchup. We would also see fierce guild rivalries and a constant shifting of alliances that would have a lasting impact on a players guild.

Shenanigans! Black powder hitting for 1.5k?!? math:

• (84 * .25 * Power) * modifiers / Toughness

lets go crazy here:

• (84 * .25 * 4000) * 4 / 2000 = 168

As for 20k BS… again the math proves it is virtually impossible (a thief with 4k power and 4 on the modifier is buffed to the gods with a perfect strike):

• ((806 * 2.4 * 4000) * 4.00) / 2000 = 15.5k

against 3k toughness

• ((806 * 2.4 * 4000) * 4.00) / 3000 = 10.3k

In these cases, IMO the combat log is flat out lying and likely clumping several hits from multiple sources into one, some chopping has been done or a bug/cheat is in effect. It is also somewhat curious that a medium health pooled player soaked up 36k damage in about 2 seconds and didn’t die.

UnrepentantProcrastinator.7420:

Titanic had a better soundtrack, imo.

Whoa there… GW2 has problems but the soundtrack isn’t one of them.

Swamurabi.7890:

Straegen.2938:

Imagine the league when you will be facing T4 servers instead of T2.

We don’t have to imagine, that’s the problem.

Not this week, SoR is running against T2. In fact SoR has only ever fought one T3 server and no T4 servers. JQ is exactly the same and BG has never seen a T3 or T4 server at least in recent memory.

Our (T4) experience with a T2 (DB) a few weeks ago was a massacre with DB nearly doubling our score. DB is now almost getting 4x by a T1.

What is about to happen in the leagues is completely unprecedented and based on past experience, a tough haul for T3/T4/T7/T8 servers.

AoE has zip to do with zergs… stacking yes… zergs no. AoE cap or no, zergs will still exist considering 50 people can cap something faster than 5 with equal rewards for everyone.

If they could remove the AoE cap, they would have to reduce its overall effectiveness. AoE is already the highest DPS in the game and would be ridiculously OP with the cap removed. The AoE cap for better or worse is also a governor on DPS. It is not like they would remove the cap and let that same damage effect everyone the same way. No way does it make sense that a single AoE hit should spike 150k or more DPS.

My guess is they think changing up the system may refresh it and adding in rewards will bring more players in. Both are probably accurate, but a lot of animosity has developed from players who have been routinely mismatched.

Points don’t really matter at least until league rewards are tied to them. Bloodlust which does effect the score most likely only influences it a small percentage.

Imagine the league when you will be facing T4 servers instead of T2.

Solo roaming I have seen a new one out there that is the speed ranger. By far one of the fastest sustained classes I have seen in the game. Faster than speed warriors and with pet can out pace my thief which is an accomplishment. The rangers mained the sword and damaged via condition damage. The sword is the primary mover (not the great sword which could make it even faster I suppose). It does take some practice but the second sword skill can move a player about 900 every 4 seconds (when traited) at a sustained rate. Plug in a fear/immobilize pet and very few builds can keep up. Even if they catch you, they have to deal with a fear/immobilize, lots of evades and the ranger is sitting on all skills ready to activate.

Hopefully someone has posted a solid build if not I would try the typical condi-heal build and practice open field movement with the sword.

Skeletor.9360:

What a BS post.
The terrain is good? No it isn’t…its a huge problem. Limits escape routes. Allows a zerg to hide within.

? There is virtually no reason a zerg would go in here other than to reset the points. No (significant) WxP to be had, no (significant) server points, a zerg cannot cap the buff alone, far from anything points wise to cap… why would a zerg even wander in and stay?

Besides that, there are also a half dozen or more escape routes from every cap point.

With all the new buffs and changes to conditions, the solo/skirmish fight duration has radically shortened. To me this is a step in the wrong direction. I am not as sure about zerg fights since I am not in them as much. GW2 WvW had a few great things going for it:

• Relatively easy access to top gear accessible by most
• Non class buffs accessible by most
• Fast paced but medium-long duration fights

Sure some fights in the old system would end quickly for a variety of factors but now it seems most fights go that way. There is so little back and forth now which leaves less room for skilled play. The more players involved the faster a fight is over. One decent call target from a skill group is like a bunker buster bomb being dropped on a player with virtually no escape since the incoming condi/control/DPS is astonishing.

Not sure what the fix is aside from improving defense and reducing offense on a global scale. I don’t think it needs to be a massive over correction but maybe a series of changes that make middle ground builds (something between bunker and GC) more enjoyable.

I hate to pile on since I wanted this buff to work out, but skill groups just got A LOT more powerful when the buffs are up. WvW isn’t meant to be balanced but adding so many new buffs into the mix (ascended, orb, guard killer, guard defender) has accelerated fights into the “what just hit me cause I died before I saw it” mode.

Not sure this would be a good idea. Thursday is typically a dead day on most servers I have played on since the match results have already been decided. Moving that to Friday would likely cause a lot of Friday players, who can frequently can stay up late, miss a solid night of fighting.

Love the area, layout and fighting. However, I have to PvE or WvW zerg to keep up with T7 mats, WvW levels and cash since this area pretty much stalls my characters advancement. Given ascended weapons require a big chunk of change to make and armor is just around the corner, I feel like going to the runes is an indulgence.

Daendur.2357:

bring some condition remover

Few classes have enough removal to handle builds that specialize in interrupts. We already see it in duels, these runes are seriously powerful allowing bunker classes to almost keep up with DPS in near GC builds.

This rune set not having an ICD on the level 6 ability was a mistake.

No. Some of the recent condition changes need some adjustment but as a class the Necro seems to have finally found its scariness. People used to descend on them for an easy kill, now they have an approach with caution and consider their builds weakness which is as intended.