Guild Wars 2

Dinas Dragonbane.2978:

They were supposed to stop single players, that was much of the point. They made more sense as actual walls than barricades since the zergs COULD just roll over them so easily. Still, people just apparently want a flat zone with no objectives to just fight players and only players. That would just be like a war in Antarctica.

Gosh… A perma chill WvW-map would probably get even more hate than DBL, even if it was perfectly flat !

Dawdler.8521:

It’s pretty much the same thing that need to be done to that stupid kittening performance hog of a stealth fog that cripples gameplay around garri. Sure you could fix it by simply revamping the effect into just simple AoE stealth bubbles around those floaty thingies. But no, I say just remove it and get it over with.

The fog around earth keep doesn’t stealth anyone anymore. Now, it only prevents an enemy from using stealth. The turrets things now apply boons to allies, and movement conditions (I think, I’m not sure…) on enemies.

So they somehow listened to you ! :-)

Dawdler.8521:

Dinas Dragonbane.2978:

Players didn’t like towers having barricade walls though, so they got removed.

The barricades sucked. They punished anything without maxed out power damage and stopped roamers/small groups dead while zergs brought them down in seconds going “lolololol1111111111111”.

It was one of the worst features GW2 has ever had.

Yeah, probably. Yet their purpose, and the overall idea about them wasn’t so bad after all : give a tactical value to towers by forcing attackers to run the whole way around, and risk to be spotted.

The core issue with barricades is they weren’t an effective counter to the ktrain strategy, and I feel like devs should really put their efforts into this, should they design new map functionnalities.

Ryudnard.2587:

I foud that running PPT train is not much rewarding at the moment. It will eventually get flipped back. Can you consider making it INSANELY HARD to get the towers/keeps/castles? This will naturally make the WvW more competitive place.

I agree that PPT isn’t rewarding enough, nor is it considered enough by a lot of players that loot for “epic fights” with no other purpose than fighting. Yet I’m not sure making things insanely hard to cap would be a good idea : overcrowded servers will unleash a massive blob that’ll flip an entire map, and so the trap closes, leaving no possibility for the undercrowded server to ever turn tides.

I think a mildly populated group should be able to take more than sentries or camps, but it’s hard to counter the sheer “effect of numbers” that leads to blobs.

Unless you were considering that, objectives not being the main issue, players will fight each other more.

Ryudnard.2587:

Create a waypoint at towers when fully upraded. Teleporting into the towers is allowed only to those who contributed in claiming/defending/upgrading the towers.

Tower waypoints may be redundant, even if I think it’d help. Teleporting into towers even contested raises the blob issue again.

Ryudnard.2587:

I’d also like to ask to implement a panel showing how individual players contributed in earning WvW points, like that of sPvP, at the end of every skirmish. The players would like to know who’s on the top list roaming, scouting, killing, and commanding. We can commend those with the highest impact by tipping them badges of honor.

There’s a common issue with your “porting permissions” : how do you keep track of that ? Just take the defend objectives daily. It often fails, even if you’re in an objective, actively fighting, using siege or whatever. The only reliable way I found to get it is repair a wall/door while timer is on.
In the “scouting” case, there isn’t even an event for that ! It’d be really hard to imagine a bot that’d understand that being in a structure, taking camps, and sending specific messages (in specific cases) is a particular task to be tracked.
There’s a strong issue in keeping track of “who does what”, but I acknowledge it’d be nice to keep a track of people contributing, and reward them.

Thanks a lot ANet for having listened to your players ! That’s a nice QoL addition !

Frost.5017:

ThomasC.1056:

The tower have not become worthless because of some evil dev’s scheme. It should be remembered they got along with barricades that only the tower’s owner could cross. The other ones had to run all the way around the turret, with a risk to be spotted.
They therefore a huge purpose, yet the vocal majority of players that mistake the W in WvW with whine considered the barricades were making the easy steamrolling of the map too tedious, and so they were removed.
And as the towers can’t be moved without re-doing the whole layout, they stand where they are. In a sense, it’s the lesser of two evils. But it won’t prevent amnesic players to yell DBL’s towers should be the same than ABL. And keep. And layout. And everything actually.

The barriers were meaningless to larger groups though; you could cleave them down extremely quickly. For small groups or solos it was much more annoying.

The old maps you were able to stage an assault on a keep from a tower, it provided an entry point into the map and a point to begin applying pressure to something of significant value. What did the barriers offer again? A few seconds of roadblock to a blob? My what interesting and strategic gameplay that was…

I agree with that. Yet I also acknowledge it was a try in a somehow new direction for WvW (less blobs, more tactics, e.g.) that maybe needed more adjustements before plainly removing them. In a way, it’s more an issue about blobs than about barriers.

Frost.5017:

But its not really designed for small groups or havoc though. The map was designed, in general, to be a defender’s paradise.
- increased cost of guild catas (havoc’s primary tool)
- structure upgrade speed, auto upgrades
- addition of powerful buffs available via guild halls encourage joining and playing with larger guilds (damage reduction, invuln, supply drop, airship, chilling fog, etc etc)
- addition of emergency waypoints encourage groups to stay blobbed up as the e-waypoint allows the blob to respond quickly if needed
- auto scouting/radar for objectives with no defensive counter option limits the ‘point-blank w/ splash damage’ option for offensive siege placement
- strong defensive siege addition in shield gens (which reach and work through walls and gates)

To be even fairer, all of the above also exist in ABL. These are HoT’s additions, and therefore not on topic. Yet, there remains these three :

Frost.5017:

- oppressive keep lord mechanics
- limited approach options to structures
- structures laidout with uncounterable defensive siege placement locations by design

Won’t talk about the first two, which I also think are a pity. The third one is not so bad, considering how ridiculous it is to try to defend while standing on walls or using siege… Quick death granted there.

Namer.9750:

The two fundamental problems with Desert BL are:

1) Strategic importance of various objectives is lacking. The towers are worthless, and in terms of taking keeps, only the camps are useful because there are treb spots to hit the keeps in the camps, not the towers.

The tower have not become worthless because of some evil dev’s scheme. It should be remembered they got along with barricades that only the tower’s owner could cross. The other ones had to run all the way around the turret, with a risk to be spotted.
They therefore a huge purpose, yet the vocal majority of players that mistake the W in WvW with whine considered the barricades were making the easy steamrolling of the map too tedious, and so they were removed. In that sense, they were perfectly fulfilling the purpose they were designed for : have a strategic value for movement. Just like many other so-called gimmicks around shrines that have been removed ever since for the same reason.
And as the towers can’t be moved without re-doing the whole layout, they stand where they are. In a sense, it’s the lesser of two evils. But it won’t prevent amnesic players to yell DBL’s towers should be the same than ABL. And keep. And layout. And everything actually.

Namer.9750:

2) It’s a painful map to play offensively on. With the latest shrine changes, it’s defensive enough and defenders can move around fairly fast: but with movement between the northern half and the southern half being so kitten poor for attackers, nobody wants to go on the offensive on this map with a large, fighty group, and so there’s little to no action, so defenders eventually leave the map leaving it open to ktrainers.

That one doesn’t fit with my experience (as an attacker and a defender). Fast travel when you’re holding shrine also works for attackers when they’re holding the keep. And that allows for a lot of pressure in the northern half of the map, and easy reinforcement to take earth keep from the border, as long as you’re looking after the shrines. There’s almost no need for keep’s WP.

Hello,

I agree that WvW should provide better rewards, access to ascended boxes and gear more consistent than drops etc.
Yet, I’m fondly against a new currency : we already have 3 of them (insignas, proofs, tournament tokens) + ability points. One of these currencies is “dead”, yet it’s the only way to get specific gear… I don’t want to grind again for another currency to get specific rewards, while the other ones are underused.

They better should merge most tokens to clean all these things up. And add better rewards indeed.

I’m also really thankful for DBL. I must even say I somehow regret the time where there was more movement impairing things (like barricades and shrine effects). I can understand why they were removed though. The map is big, and not too intricate, and it’s current iteration is really easy to move around when you bother to learn, and know it a bit. It also has nice ideas of additions like more powerful lords, or “back entrances” in towers. And I agree it’d maybe need more fast travel convenience like a central WP, or a skritt tunnel network between towers.

I almost only play on that one, because I think it’s far richer, and it provides more fun and varied gameplay, instead of just big blobs in open space. I honestly think it was a good job, and a nice try to shift the dial towards more PPT, more strategic gameplay, and not only got head ahead in a blob vs. blob smash. Unfortunately, it didn’t meet some players expectations, and that’s a pity. I really feel sorry for the devs when I think about them reading some really harsh comment about their work, even now, from people that complain about things that have been fixed months ago.

All this map needs is more population, and more players dedicated to cunning strategy, hold keeps, towers and camps, take care of supply caravans, in addition to massive battles. In a nutshell, WvW players.

Well, I’m running on “Anise’s Restroom” server, we’re in red BL, we’re regulary reset, mostly by “Kasmeer’s hairbrush” running blue, but in adequate hours, we can see like 3-4 tags on map, with a fair activity.

So, it seems like some servers actually play in DBL, and this should prevent you from over-generalizing … Even if I acknowledge there’re still population imbalance issues.

Note : no server’s name involved, so no matchup thread.

I’m not sure a mastery stuff would be the appropriate answer to that nice idea. I think I remember the devs saying they weren’t so happy about the overall WXP upgrades, and this could be a possible answer.

As some said, replacing the WXP panel with a tree system is a good idea. I can imagine the following root mechanics :

• Trees would be organized role-wise, as the OP suggested, with things like scout, fighter, medic, siegemaster etc.
• Trees would have a passive branch, that’d provide permanent bonuses, and an active branch, that you’d need to select accordingly to your role, and that’d provide more powerful bonuses, and specific abilities, like special discounts at sellers, ability to buy specific stuff, and why not specific utility skills (WvW traps, I’m staring at you) ?
• You can only change tree at spawn ?

A possibility would be a request confirm :

1. I right click on the invader’s portrait, and select “Ask as friend”.
2. In invader’s contact panel, there’d be a “Friends requests” tab.
3. My name appears in his tab, with a yes/now check thing.

And voilà. It won’t make things easier for hate and salt spreaders, and it’d fulfill the task.

Invidia.9074:

Please tell me you are not going to kill off Jormag/Primordus in a cutscene or something?

(EDIT : added spoiler tag)

SlippyCheeze.5483:

ThomasC.1056:

I agree with SlippyCheese.

Fights tend to be fast, and the zerk meta favored high bursts that could melt almost anyone very quckly, while condition damage was more over time, hence needed more toughness and vitality to reach its full potential. Now that conditions stack intensity, we can also see condition bombs that melt really quick too, and I don’t think that should exist. Issue here is the overall power creep, and the trend to end fights quickly.

Yet, most players don’t want too bunky builds, because fights eventually tend to be boring.

FWIW, I think there is a middle ground that is the “sweet spot” between dying in seconds, and dying after a week (eg: can build enough healing and damage reduction that it’s close to impossible to actually kill someone.)

I’d guess that somewhere in the twenty to sixty seconds range was about the right number to aim for, to balance between the two. eg: full glass vs full glass burst builds at the twenty seconds to kill, full defensive vs full defensive builds at the sixty seconds, and most engagements at the middle of the bell curve with balanced gearing, and ~ 30-50 second fights.

I agree. I’m only concerned that desirable middle ground you’re talking about is rare. Even if I acknowledge I got some of those fights.

There’re indeed 2 extreme behaviours :

• Spikes with more or less surprise effect, preferentially with stuns, then bursts or condi bomb
• Bunkers with huge amounts of cleanse, heals, resistance, boons, stab etc. They’re really long to take down.
  Those 2 extremes aren’t desirable to me, and I feel like some current builds manage to unite those 2.

It may be a matter of game balance, but I also think it’s a matter of players not wanting to be bothered fighting or losing…

Hello,

When trying to sell green items on the trading post, there’re often buy offers that don’t match the minimum price. It’s a waste of time, because I need to check every green items one by one.

My suggestion is :

Add a specific report link in the right-click menu in the TP, so that it’d feed a little bot that’d check whether the item indeed has a best buyer that doesn’t offer the minimum price, and if so, flush the whole buying queue. (as if “offer canceled”).

Such a bot shouldn’t be too hard to code. It may take a little time to browse all the possible green items, but it’d be an eventual nice QoL improvement.

Thank you for your really enlightening videos. I’m a huge fan of hammer “as a concept”, but never could really get my hand on it. Always found it a bit clunky. You opened new paths for thinking ; I’m therefore very grateful.

And I’m also expecting a hammer/bow video soon ! :-)

Jim Hunter.6821:

Straegen.2938:

babazhook.6805:

One more time. You do not need to be in berserkr armor in order to do damage in a power build. Nothing FORCES this on people. You can do plenty of damage in a power build without traiting power, precision ferocity.

No build exists that can take down my condi thief or several bunker variants in other classes I run using PVT. Several classes in Dire can condi down just about any build on all classes including a few bunker ones dedicated to removing condi.

Condi in WvW right now is significantly stronger in small scale on most classes than power and it isn’t even close.

I troll power builds with a non-stealth thief condi build. The hardest hitting builds in WvW have maybe a 1 in 10 shot at bringing me down and that is almost completely reliant on the attacker being an order of magnitude better than my old kitten .

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.

I roughly share the same experience and analysis. In the small scale area, most players run power, with the notable exception of mesmers and necros (and, sometimes, rangers). To me, necros are a pain because of their ability to corrupt, and mesmers, because of their ability to kite, evade etc. But that’s a class design.

I’m curious why the above poster doesn’t like power mesmer. If it’s the same reason why I don’t like them either, it’s because of stunlock. Oddly enough, I see far less complaints about the stunlock+burst sequence that makes your toon melt far faster than condi builds (condi bombs put aside).

I agree with SlippyCheese.

Fights tend to be fast, and the zerk meta favored high bursts that could melt almost anyone very quckly, while condition damage was more over time, hence needed more toughness and vitality to reach its full potential. Now that conditions stack intensity, we can also see condition bombs that melt really quick too, and I don’t think that should exist. Issue here is the overall power creep, and the trend to end fights quickly.

Yet, most players don’t want too bunky builds, because fights eventually tend to be boring.

As far as I’m concerned :

• I understand normalizing condi stats would help read them, but setting base dmg to 1000 instead of 0, and keep slopes won’t change anything.
• Resistance stat should reduce ticks frequency (or damage) and provide no immunity.
• Aegis is irrelevant : it’s a block, it can prevent condi application, or not, just like it can prevent damage application, or not.
• Healing stat should provide a reduction of condi duration (so that it’d apply to every conditions, and not only the damage ones)

But in my mind, the core issues are both the combat system and players behaviour that favor ultra fast fights.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

ThomasC.1056:

On a side note, I think it’s disappointing SAB reward track is autoset when you finish another track. Some of the XP goes to waste, since I’m not interested the slightest in that content.

That’s true of any reward track. It’s an unfortunate ‘feature’ of the system (one that many of us have asked ANet to change).

Yeah, I know for the auto “next reward track”. I didn’t mind that much because I’m using dungeons reward tracks to get some skins and insignas. As it was going back to “Flame Citadel”, which I haven’t done, I didn’t care because that XP would eventually be needed.

Here, in SAB, I just don’t care, so it’s really worse !

On a side note, I think it’s disappointing SAB reward track is autoset when you finish another track. Some of the XP goes to waste, since I’m not interested the slightest in that content.

I agree with you both. The thing is, for now, we’re stuck with prefixes, so we better get the best out of them !

By the way, there’re 2 prefixes that already exist in strange weapons, that I’d like to be spread wider :

• Apostate : Condi Major + Toughness and Healing
• Forsaken : Power Major + Toughness and Healing

I’d definitely consider such stats for some of my toons.

Seraph was an interesting attempt, and I hope it’ll lead to more additions. And this one would be a real improvement.

From a broader point of view, I really like the female version of the new outfit.

Yet, the male counterpart has a leg cape indeed, and looks again like blue pajamas with flowers. And they also have a guilty resemblance with the seer light armor.

It’s a disappointement. I really wanted to buy it…

As far as I’m concerned, not that much.

Reason is linkings create a sudden big population imbalance. Thus, a server that formerly had a big population, and the associated map coverage, could become really less populated from a day to another. And eventually get steamrolled.

That wouldn’t be much of an issue if the matchup system was able to cope with that sudden unequilibrium state, yet it doesn’t ! It takes 4-5 weeks to evolve in the ladder accordingly to the new population balance between servers, and for servers to take into account the new partners.

By the time the matchup system leads to even matchups, a new linking is only a few weeks away…

It’s a real turndown actually, because the linking may create big disappointements and frustration because of the change in numbers. Those bad feelings grow because matchup system isn’t able to create even matches fast enough. And just when players begin to like and enjoy their WvW week again, the linking system breaks it all again.

So : either make 10 weeks rotations (instead of eight), or tune the matchup system to make things evolve faster in the first weeks of a new linking.

Nikkinella.8254:

Electra.7530:

I am a condi necro and I have a very difficult time competing against power builds. I very rarely see condi builds anymore other than the theif. Most necros I come across are power necros. They can burst me down before I really get my conditions stacked on them. If I’m interrupted or stunned by group of players, it’s game over for me.

Players that can clear my condi off can finish me off, though I can keep stacking the condi. But, seriously, I don’t see a lot of condi anymore. Everyone wants fast kill, huge power bursts.

I run around in dire/trailblazer stats and hear people crying and complaining about that. I have to say, stop it. All my 3k armor gives me is the privilege of being the last one standing in the fight and the one taken down by multiple players.

And there’s so much condi clear it’s ruined the burn guardian build. I had a torment herald that was fun for a while, but … clearing that torment off all the time made it very ineffective.

You’re either lying or we’re playing 2 completely different games. Power builds are basically extinct in wvw now. Even for zerging, the meta is all condi now. In roaming, its nothing but condi on every class. I haven’t come across a single player aside from myself using a power build in the past 6 months because of the fact condi is so overpowered and zero risk/high reward now. If you’re not lying, then what server are you on? Because I may have to transfer there if you somehow are in the one place that isn’t infested with cancer.

I play on Augury Rock (EU) and I share Electra’s experience. I mostly do small scale, and here’re my encounters :

• Warriors : only power headbutt stunlock builds.
• Guardians : rare in small scale, but still bunky power builds
• Revenants : very rare ! Hammer glint/shiro
• Thiefs : stunlock builds, but condi builds are indeed making it back
• Rangers : kite builds, but I saw some condi rangers
• Scrappers : very rare
• Necros : rare, and power builds most of the time
• Chronos : condi or power
• Eles : rare. Still the fresh air thing.

Most of the time, small scale = warrior/thiefs/chronos encounters. Maybe it’s a server thing, or it’s just the time needed for the trend to spread, and for player to adapt their gear and gamestyle.

Or it’s just me, because my own experience has roughly no statistical relevance, the very same way everyone here posting “I saw this, so everybody’s running it and it has to be nerfed because I lost” has no statistical relevance at all.

Dunno…

There’s this thread in the PvP subforum.

They’re working on them obivously. I’m not sure there’s a similar work for the PvE/WvW area, but who knows…

zinkz.7045:

ThomasC.1056:

See ? Intense Zergs and blob fights are somehow mentioned, but they’re not the main focus. The focus is objectives, PPT, keeps, siege, supply caravans, etc.
I understand you’re unhappy about it, but it’s their design, and if you don’t like it, you may either leave the game, or stick to Alpine, which of course you can do every week.

Not really, they sold WvW on the “masive battles” that is why most people play a PvP type game mode, objectives are merely there to faciltate that, just like they are in SPvP, LOL, DOTA, the bomb in CS, etc..

The issue here is not how they sold the game mode, but how they are selling it. I quoted the official website. I’m sorry it doesn’t meet the way it was sold, but I can do nothing about it. You better not stick to the shiny promises and hype train if you don’t want to roll down the endless disappointement cliff WvW seems to have become.

zinkz.7045:

Unfortunately the PPT aspect in WvW is so fundamentally flawed in design due to population/coverage rendering it meaningless as a competition, poor map design (all of them) producing mind numbing play for anyone vaguely sentient and so on, that large numbers of players basically ignore that aspect and simply play for the “massive battles”.

Which is why the DB map is the least played, has the least kills/deaths on it, etc, because it is harder to find and quicky get to fights and it is easier to avoid fights than the other maps, so it basically appeals to a minority of players who consider hitting doors with no opposition as “gameplay”.

I agree on both parts of that analysis.

Which leads me to an actual bigger issue. In my opinion, DBL was a try to shift the dial towards “more PPT”. Like the piles of junk you had near towersthat have been removed because they were “movement impairing”. Environmental effects (air blowers, walls, stealth near earth keep) have also been removed because of the “movement impairing” yells.

Of course they were ! That was the design. Issue is whenever ANet tries to implement a more PPT map, by creating it in such a way that’d deeply wound the omniblob gamestyle, a noisy bunch of players that are still sticking to their fantasies about what WvW should be in their opinion, yells so much that ANet seriously considered the option of flushing all their work down the toilet.

So that’s the “original sin” WvW bears. ANet currently advertises it for the PPT part (and I don’t care about the way it used to be advertised) while a whole bunch of players just want “epic battles”, ie nobrain faceroll their keyboard in a zerg.

To conclude : I’m not fond of the zerg playstyle. Yet I’m not popping a thread every week asking for ABL to be removed because it favors that playstyle (not that much, but eventhough). I admit it : I enjoy DBL for various reasons, the lack of blobs there being one, even if I’m not so fond of desertic landscapes.

So please, DBL-haters, allow me to have fun, just like I’m allowing you to have fun by not caring that much about the way you’re taking WvW, as long as it doesn’t prevent me from having fun with the way I’m taking it.

Thank you.

Swagger.1459:

Aphs.9528:

It’s proof that there should a revote .

All you are proving is that you are needlessly complaining about a topic that had an official poll with official results, and that you don’t like the outcome so you’re going to make up stuff.

I don’t know what I’m the most amazed at…

1. The fact this topic still pops while anyone who doesn’t enjoy DBL can perfectly do WvW without needing to run it.
2. The fact people are seriously asking for a new poll, and at the same time, ask anyone who could say (in their imagination of course) they want to keep DBL to be forbidden to vote.

Maybe this should be set as a poll ?

Turk.5460:

I love roaming in the DBL. I think its a great map, and I don’t have to deal with blobs unless I band together with other roamers and attack a keep. DBL is fine, and I hope they make a third map that is just as detailed.

and then :

Ballistic.2570:

I dislike DBL and avoid playing there if at all possible. It’s really difficult to navigate and if you die in a fight there is no way you’re getting back to the tag.

It also seems really PvE heavy. Like the person who designed it had no interest in big fights. Seige Wars is not my idea of a good time, unless I want to go semi AFK while listening to music on a night capping crew.

I play WvW for intense Zerg/Blob fights and in my experience they are in short supply on DBL.

This is interesting because it seems like the very same design choices are the reason why DBL is both liked and disliked. Which eventually means that it’s your personal taste, and not an absolute design flaw. Then there’s the question whether the design meets the player’s expectations.

Now, for more specifics :

Ballistic.2570:

It’s really difficult to navigate and if you die in a fight there is no way you’re getting back to the tag.

If I were ironic, I’d say somthing like “git gud”. I’ll just say learn the map, learn the paths, and do your best not to die. Even if it includes avoid fights or disengage.

Ballistic.2570:

Like the person who designed it had no interest in big fights. Seige Wars is not my idea of a good time, unless I want to go semi AFK while listening to music on a night capping crew.

I play WvW for intense Zerg/Blob fights and in my experience they are in short supply on DBL.

So, let’s have a look at what ANet says about it in the official site :

In this massive war, three huge armies—each representing their world—battle for control of the castles and keeps, raid enemy supply caravans, and clash in open-field battles on five massive maps in week-long matches and seasonal tournaments.

The three Borderlands maps and a huge “neutral” center map are loaded with objectives that are worth points for the team that claims them, and successfully holding those objectives will make them more powerful over time. Players can band together to lay siege to castles, raid enemy supply caravans, clash with other players in truly massive battles, wreak havoc behind enemy lines, or build mighty weapons of warlike trebuchets and siege golems.

See ? Intense Zergs and blob fights are somehow mentioned, but they’re not the main focus. The focus is objectives, PPT, keeps, siege, supply caravans, etc.
I understand you’re unhappy about it, but it’s their design, and if you don’t like it, you may either leave the game, or stick to Alpine, which of course you can do every week.

Ghost.7032:

I will keep this short.
Anet remove or nerf the condi cause in wvw there is no piont to roam or to have fun fights anymore. This is what wvw is now 1 enemy spam a stupid skill. You, remove condi, resistance, heal. Your boons got removed. Heals, restistance, remove condi. CD. Game over. Your scwered.

Either give resistance a longer stack and cannot be removed. Or give more condi removal to other classes and not only DRUID!! Or bring back the good old days where small group was be possible to wipe blobs (with no high condi damage!!). Because now there is 0% chance to wipe blobs

Fix the game… thank god..

I will keep this short.
Anet remove or nerf the stunlock cause in wvw there is no piont to roam or to have fun fights anymore. This is what wvw is now 1 enemy spam a stupid skill. You, breakstun, stability, heal, dodge. Your boons got removed. Heals, stability, stunbreakers. CD. Game over. [You’re screwed] (fixed typos).

Either give stability a longer stack and cannot be removed. Or give more stunbreakers to other classes and not only GUARDIAN!! Or bring back the good old days where small group was be possible to wipe blobs (with no high CC!!). Because now there is 0% chance to wipe blobs

Fix the game… thank god..

Disclaimer :

• I said “Guardian” because it’s the first profession with stunbreakers that went through my head. There may be better solutions.
• Works also with power builds. Actually, I roam a lot, and roughly only see power builds.

Really nice ideas and work.

Just to be sure, you’re using utility skills to shatter your illusions ? Is it a plain dismiss, or has it got side effects ?
Also, you’re saying trickster blades replace shatters. Do blade command skills also trigger the “on shatter” traits ?

Hello,

Thanks for opening that thread because I’m in roughly the same concern.
I’m not so fond of power rev (even if I enjoy staff and hammer), but I don’t like sword so much nor do I like the legends.

I currently run a mixed damage build that’s not so bad, but I’m thinking of investing more into condis so that I become more effective.

That’s why I’m thinking of the Mallyx+Ventari legends. I’m also more of a small scale WvW player, as wall as generic PvE (open world, story, sometimes).

Here’re very specific questions :

• I’m seeing the apothecary stats as something really interesting. There’re also the settler stats, that are more toughness, and less healing, compared to apothecary. I suppose it eventually leads to more or less the same, but are there any big things to be expected from the change ?
• How about the seraph stats ? It seems like it’d fit with a Mallyx+Ventari build, but I don’t seem to find how to use them. The precision thing may be useful with condis on crit stuff.
• About the rune, I’ve got some choices :
  • Some rune that procs a condi on heal (so that it’d synergizes with Ventari), like Balthazar, Perplexity or Torment. The idea would be to keep some condi pressure even when using the tablet.
  • Rune of the undead, which would provide more sustain, while helping with the condi stat
  • Rune of the nightmare, maybe ? Always helpful in condi builds.
• Mace + axe is the usual stuff for a condi build, and I’m used to it (and I like them). There still is the usual issue : what alternate set ? Something like mace + shield for more sustain ? Any other weapon would be more of a trouble because of lack of power. Only staff, maybe, for the “toolbox” thing ?

Thanks for your answers !

When you look at the EU tiers, it feels like nonsense. Tier one in 1-4-8th… what happened ?

There’s that server who lost a big part of population due to new linkings. So be it !
Lost first matchup. Been steamrolled the whole 2nd matchup. Steamrolled = on the ~80 skirmishes, that server never gone 1st, gone 2nd like 5 times, and got third the rest.

And that server went up in T1 ? What kind of sorcery is this ? Are the poor players doomed to being crushed again ? Is that the new definition of “fun” ?

I agree with the option.

As far as I can understand expensive materials may take time to cancel, when you’re doing just mats refining, or things like fulgurite, that you usually set for a big amount, it should go faster.

I can understand a design choice in making ascended mats like deldrimor or damask time gated (even if that annoys me), but I truly can’t understand other things being “bore gated”. And all that immersion argument is pure nonsense. There’s no change in in-game value when you put things “bore gated”, so players are just wasting their time.

Or, as Khisanth said, I’ll set 250 fulgurite, and go brew some fine tea. Do you want some ?

I play in the small scale scene, mostly roaming, so I won’t talk about the average zerg composition.

I see less and less condi builds, with one exceptions : condi rangers. I seem to be seeing more and more of them.
Most chronos I see are power chronos, and have been for some times now. The other classes are either not there (can be for valid reasons of course) or power builds, with sometimes an insane amount of stunfest (DD and berserker), and whatever happens, an insane durability too. As Jacion says : marauder+durability.

So maybe it’s more a matter of trend, or servers, or maybe the time you’re playing ?

I think it’s a really good idea !

It doesn’t actually need to make that much of a story, because you can implement that idea at different levels.

The most basic one is a cosmetic one : you’ve got NPCs to fight with, the overall story wouldn’t change that much, and only lines of dialog would change. And if those dialogs belong to the category “Answers to the commander” or “Commenting what’s happening” there isn’t any combination issue as would occur with the “NPC’s talking to each other” category, and that’d make the work grow exponentially. That one would really be a great addition to the living story or the campain.

Then, we can also imagine the story change accordingly to your team, like, if Taimi’s not in, then you’ll have to work another way to the dragons etc. Sure that’s tempting, but that’d indeed be tons of work for a MMO. For a solo game, yes, it makes sense, but maybe not a MMO.

Ookamikun.6472:

ThomasC.1056:

Ookamikun.6472:

I like how Champions Online did it. When struck with a successful CC, you gain a Defiant stack. A stack adds 10% chance to be immune from CC. The player will continue to gain a stack for each successful struck CC. If finally the player resisted the CC, the stack vanishes.

Not sure it’d be really useful because the stunlock trend doesn’t come from CC being long, but being spammed.

If you look at daredevils, or centaurs, or giant bloodstone elementals with little bombs, or Grella or so many other examples, they spam a lot of CC’s, hence wrecking stability stacks, and stun breakers available.

Such a system wouldn’t help against that many SPS (stun per second :p), and same goes for food.

But it does prevent spammed CC since in Champions Online they tend to occur too. In CO, the Defiant buff remains there and even goes up until you resist the CC, which then resets the Defiant buff stack.

I don’t know Champions Online, I’m therefore not sure I clearly understand the system.
As Astralporing stated : “And then you get CC’d again”.

The issue with what you’re saying is a resistance system is worthy when CC’s and scarce and significant. Meaning that they won’t be spammed, yet used at strategic times. If it fails, the caster has its fight-flow disrupted, which is nice.
Issue with GW2 is CC’s last a split second, but can be cast one after the other in a split second too.
So, with your resistance thing, you won’t be victim of… what ? 1/3 of CC’s cast at you ? That leaves you vulnerable for the rest of time.

So, I join my voice to Solstace’s : CC should be strategic, and not spammable. CC should disrupt the fight pace, and not forbid the fight.

Swagger.1459:

To prevent chaining of Hard Control skills in WvW….

…Every time a character breaks or recovers from a Daze, Fear, Float, Knockback, Knockdown, Launch, Pull, Sink, Stun or Taunt, that character becomes immune to all ten of those effects from other players for 10 seconds.

You’re very welcome for this super idea!

I agree with this idea. Well, maybe not 10s. I’d say 2 or 3 seconds.

My point on this is : hard CC should be ways to disrupt the fight pace. They should never forbid the fight. So, once one player is disrupted, there should be time to realize and take appropriate measures. Yet that time shouldn’t be too long, so that there’d be a “ability to come back from disruption” player’s skill to develop.

On another hand, some builds have made themselve such a duty to spam CC’s (not even talking about PvE here) that the immunity needs to cover the time to spamm all skills.

Svarty.8019:

This idea would make the game a more enjoyable experience.

Because CC is all-powerful, you can’t even read which ability got you killed in the combat log. How are you supposed to improve as a player?

You’re doing it totally wrong !
Actually, when you’re stunlocked, you’ve got all the time you need to read the combat log ! You can also browse another website, or answer some mails… You just can’t do anything else, so just use it ! ;-)

Orpheal.8263:

Don’t you find it weird too, that Anet has done in all those freaking 5 years so far just only ONCE a bigger update on Upgrades? 1 single Balance Update to Upgrades, and in 99% of all other Cases they do nothing else, but only Number Changes on Skilsl and Traits.

Do you seriously believe, that this is a good way to balance a massive Game, like GW2, by doing only Number Changes on Skills & Traits and ignoring mostly all of the rest of the Game Mechanics that play a big role in the Combat System?

I can’t be seriously the only person in this whole forum here, who finds this method of balancing very wrong.
Especially when Anet showed us already multiple times that they also do not fear to make more impactful changes to parts of the Combat System if they think its neccessary – they just redesigned the whole Trait System like 3 times in 5 years!!!

For that they had the time and the ressources, but for all other core combat mechanics ironically they didn’t have had it.
Who knows, maybe they thought in all this time, that these things absolutely have no priority at all and are unimportant – (…)

That part also bewilders me.

About the traits, let’s just say there was the initial thing, that worked more or less. Then, they updated it, but it was clearly worse, so they updated it again towards the current system, ok for 3. Could have been 2, but one missed, which can be understood.

For skills, I remember there’s been, say 1 or 2 big revamps of functionnality for some skills, more or less at the same time than changes of trait systems, now that I’m thinking of it.

So, I suppose they had a lead that focused on the core system, and they actually worked on it, but for some reason, they switched their objectives, and let the opened work in its current state, whereas it was needing more improvement and balance.

And I’m not even talking about even deeper things like CC and conditions.

I empathize with the OP’s concern. Roughly before HoT’s release and the unveiling of the elite specs system, we were told the overall layout was there, and that it’d allow a faster developement. Elite specs are supposed to bring flavour and diversity.

I agree that they’re bringing more diversity, yet also a kind of power creep. The issue is, if the next ones come too late, they’ll totally shadow the current ones because “they’re new”, and maybe “better” too. My fear is : when GW2’s time will come, we’ll only have 2 Elite specs lines in the hero panel.

I understand (and mostly share) Orpheal’s concern too, but the very idea of elite specs makes no sense if there isn’t a fair amount of choice at a given time. Otherwise, they feel like half baked profession updates, which they’re not, and which I wouldn’t want, because I also hope for a core combat system and profession revamp that’d make more than 20% of vanilla viable.

That said, I’m mixed feelings about the cash shop thing. Maybe the “more elite specs” thing implies to disconnect them for expansion packs, so, why not in the cash shop ? But I’m not very sure about all this.

Ookamikun.6472:

I like how Champions Online did it. When struck with a successful CC, you gain a Defiant stack. A stack adds 10% chance to be immune from CC. The player will continue to gain a stack for each successful struck CC. If finally the player resisted the CC, the stack vanishes.

Not sure it’d be really useful because the stunlock trend doesn’t come from CC being long, but being spammed.

If you look at daredevils, or centaurs, or giant bloodstone elementals with little bombs, or Grella or so many other examples, they spam a lot of CC’s, hence wrecking stability stacks, and stun breakers available.

Such a system wouldn’t help against that many SPS (stun per second :p), and same goes for food.

XTR.9604:

Since they got rid of those idiotic rocks popping up in front of me and added the ruins, I actually don’t mind playing on that map now. I’d still rather play on Alpine, but my group has been finding a decent amount of fights in red BL even in T4.

Now they just need to get rid of that mist stuff that stealths enemies and I think it will be golden.

The mist stuff that stealths is also gone. It’s been done in the very same release. The mist in itself is still here, but it doesn’t stealth anymore. Yet, it prevents “you” (i.e. if you don’t own the keep and ruins) from using stealth.

Hello !

I’ve been asking for the same, so I feel the urge to support your demand.

Aerodrome is nice because it has :

• Nice landscape
• Possibility to summon selected enemies
• Possibility to add environmental effects.

Yet aerodrome lacks the possibility to freely select gear and stats. The idea isn’t to test the build you’re currently running, but the build you’re thinking for the future, without the need to craft or buy anything.

Very nice concept and nice work overall. I like it a lot ! :-)

Hello again,

Sorry for bumping my old thread, but it took me longer than expected to have a glimpse at the raid training area.

It doesn’t fit what I’m asking. Sure, you can summon foes, and add some effects, and that’s a nice thing.
Yet, it misses the free stat selection, which is compulsory for a test and training area. PvP roughly has it since you can switch amulet easily, but my idea is for PvE/WvW.

Moreover, considering something close already exists, I think it may be easier to create. Raid training just misses the stat selections. Everything else is fine. Except maybe the need to be in a squad. Raid-wise, it makes sense, but test-wise, it doesn’t.

mtpelion.4562:

They should have copied the “Resolve” system from The Old Republic, which was a pretty creative solution to CC and allowed intelligent use to be rewarded.

For those unfamiliar with the Resolve system:

1. You have a Resolve bar that has 1,000 points. You can see it in your UI, and enemies can see it in their UI.

2. All CCs have a point value (hard CCs have high values and soft CCs have low values. Long durations have high values and low durations have low values). These CC points are subtracted from your Resolve bar when they are used against you. For example, a 3 second Stun would subtract 600 points from your Resolve bar, while 8 seconds of cripple would subtract only 400 points.

3. When your Resolve bar reaches 0, you gain 10 seconds of unlimited immunity to all forms of CC, during which time your Resolve bar slowly refills back to 1,000. Any current CC is not broken automatically.

This system rewarded coordinated and intelligent CC use and punished CC spamming. it also rewarded intelligent use of Stun Breakers.

This is the defiance bar system that’s used for champions and some bosses. As much as PvE may not need it that much, I really feel like it should be enforced in PvP areas (including WvW).

I totally agree with Svarty. From a PvE point of view, there’re many veterans or bigger bosses (centaurs, jade armors etc.) that liberally stun and toss and overall forbid the fights.
In WvW, it’s even worse. High CC builds like berserker, some chronomancers, some DD or guardian totally forbid you to do anything and stomp you in the process, which is no fun at all.

Stability is no use, considering the way it works currently. In the previous version, it was a total immunity, and such stunlocks couldn’t happen as easily.
Stun breakers are roughly no use, because of the amount of CC you get : you can’t break that many stuns.
Dodges and blocks may help, but you can’t use them when you’re locked, and when the stunlock is an opening, then you’re doomed.

So long in itself has no meaning.

Why is it so long ? Because fights are so fast ! The whole fighting system, including CD’s has been designed with the idea of longlasting fights. Therefore, long CD (for weapons swaps, or for some skills) is a way to say how relevant they could be for the fight, as “turning tides” events.

Yet, the overall trend the game has taken for ages is now to have fights as quick as possible, and skills with high CD get dismissed for the very same reason. And that’s also the reason why switching weapon’s CD feels long.

Straegen.2938:

Siege invariably gets reset, is too expensive to spam and is a time sink with no in-game reward. Besides a T3 is no better than a T1 in the eyes of the score so keeping a WP in garri is all that is needed to keep a BL in check.

Recent changes have been made so that a T3 is worth more PPT than a T0. So, point-wisely, players should defend.

Now, on topic : I acknowledge it’s really hard to have some help from EBG. Roughly, I feel like BL’s have their own communities (especially DBL), so it gets more of a “matchup question”, i.e. when the matchup is interesting and even, people come and play, yet when people get steamrolled at any time of day or night, players tend to wait for the next week.