(edited by Thrumdi.9216)
I observed the the same thing in our BG/TC/FA match Friday night. The huge zerg guilds couldn’t get their members in, so there was much more small group skirmishing than there usually is on reset night.
It really renewed my faith in the game, though I shudder to think how it will be when queues are “fixed”.
Find a good guild for WvW. With my guild, I am having the best time ever in WvW.
Viz is easy beat. Just don’t sleep or work.
I know there was a financial crisis in the EU, but you folks are still richer than the average Chinese penal colony occupant.
Solution: use your Euros to hire enslaved Chinese gold farmers to play EU T1 off-hours.
PROBLEM SOLVED.
When population and number of organized guilds reaches a critical mass, servers go zerg.
This is just the result of the game mechanics.
We had some of the best fights last night in T2 BG/TC/FA that we’ve had all year. Why? The massive zerg guilds couldn’t get in because of the queue bug. I shudder to think what will happen once it’s fixed.
GW2 is a game with a specific “core principle”: everyone has to feel included, equal. No griefing, no exclusion no “L2P n00b”. No required builds, no “item/skill check before we go in”. That’s how it is in PvE – that’s how it is in WvW.
That’s why WvW is NOT (and I keep repeating in) intended for competitive PvP players or guilds. WvW is intended for the casual PvXer that goes into the borderlands out of boredom and wants to join a fight. These PvXers are their main target public – you are calling them “mindless idiots”. Tough luck.
The current form of WvW is not made for you. Every move they made in WvW was clearly intended to make it funnier and easier for the “mindless idiots” you are bashing. They might add some form of “competitive large scale PvP” later in the year but meanwhile you’ll have to cope with it.
That might be their intent, but it is not the result.
The game might be made for dumb zergs, but it has been taken over by smart, guild zergs.
Surely it can’t be any fun for the average player to portal bombed, gray-barred and feedbacked to death before they can get a skill off?
(edited by Thrumdi.9216)
I feel your pain. The exact same thing happened to Tarnished Coast.
We started out as a server of small and medium-sized guilds in WvW. The zerg guilds were looked down upon and laughed at. But who is laughing now?
It’s innate in WvW design: once a server reaches a certain population and number of organized guilds: it goes zerg.
There have been many threads elsewhere discussing how to allow space for other playstyles than zerging, but I’m not sure how optimistic I am they will be implemented.
Our guild currently uses an Enjin guild hosting website, but we are evaluating moving to our own self-hosted domain and site.
I wondered what the best Content Management Software out there would be to use for this purpose. I notice there is quite a range in use by other guilds: Wordpress, Drupal, Joomla etc.
We would want the standard tools like forums and a place to post news.
Could anyone share their experiences in this area?
crossed swordes are only shown if 5 or more ppl from the same server are infight, including NPCs but not pets
Really? I didn’t know that. I wonder why my fights are interrupted so often. I guess its just bad luck.
Oh well, thanks for clarifying that.
That maps are just so small and travel so easy that the zerg is usually just minutes away.
So any fight that is not over in a few minutes will usually be happened on by other people.
Removing swords would be better for the small group fights of 5+, but until the map size is increased (if it ever is), those looking for small group action aren’t going to be happy.
ANet said they are aware of this, at least on the PvE side of things, and have said they are planning a fix. Their opinion is currently AoE does too much damage in comparison single target attacks, so they are going to nerf individual hits in AoE somehow.
Not sure if or how this will affect WvW, but it probably will somehow.
The orbs should be returned as an objective in the BL’s, but they should not give stat buffs to the holders. This just created a snowball effect.
Most people shoot down this DAoC stuff without taking into consideration that they might just like it too.
God forbid people want to make guild wars a better game by looking at “the game” that laid some of the best frame work in the genre.
Yeah, but I already know I enjoy WvWvW as is. So why would any sane person risk losing something they enjoy in order to try out something different, because it would make someone they’ve never met happier?
Obviously that “best frame work” is a subjective assessment based on how you enjoy playing a game. Right now, in my limited experience, GW2 has the “best frame work.” My opinion in this matter and yours are equally valid.
Because almost everyone who is good in PvP and doesn’t foolishly Zerg around is leaving the game?
Okay… So I should want to change the game to accommodate a bunch of players who don’t enjoy the game as is, when I do, so that I keep more of those people around, at the expense of potentially not being able to enjoy it myself, and losing the people like myself who enjoy it as is?
If you’re not a good Pvper then yes. Guild wars 1 was much better about rewarding skilled play. This game is amazing in WvW if you suck at Pvp in general.
It doesn’t have to be either/or.
Jairon has raised these concerns in other threads, and I believe they were addressed. The rational argument is allow different types of play, not eliminate the one you don’t like.
At the moment, zerg-play overwhelms all else. WvW needs to get to a place where solo, small group (<10), mid-group and zerg are viable forms of play. There are some niches where the others can operate (e.g. small Thief gank squad), but overall it’s the zerg or bust.
A Game of Zergs.
That is what WvW has become.
Once a server reaches a certain population, and a certain number of organized guilds, everyone goes zerg.
It’s been outlined in countless other threads why, and for those reasons, running one or two big zergs most of the time is the most efficient way to win a map.
All the small guilds we started playing WvW with on Tarnished Coast are pretty much gone. Even the original medium-sized guilds who started with us are beginning to see attrition. Because a zerg is what you need to get things done on a map, they draw in the players.
I hope it can be turned around soon, but I fear it can’t, as the changes would be fairly drastic. But, GW2 probably has about a year’s window until The Elder Scrolls Online launches. Can they get it done in that time?
That’s my point – there is one dominant server – so the logical thing to do is for the other two to gang up on them.
I have a feeling you’re right though – stupid human nature, we’re nothing but animals that happen to have large brains. Too bad we revert to our hindbrain way too often – better to attack the easy target and maybe we won’t come in last rather than cooperate and take on the challenge of the big guy.
The way tiers and scoring works discourages alliances to take down the top dog. It’s all about protecting your rank so you don’t drop down a tier, or even a single rank (so you don’t get a worse starting spawn). This usually means the 2nd place team attacks the 3rd place team to keep them down and earn easy points.
If there were more benefits for territory control, besides the points (and the useless PvE buffs) then perhaps you would alliances forming.
As it is, the only alliances that have been reported have been in the high tiers where 1st and 2nd places cooperated to preserve their standings.
There should at least be a way to have a different trait setup for underwater.
As it stands now, you trait for one build, and your entire skill line could be unusable underwater (Physical for Warriors, Consecrations for Guardians), gimping you severely.
This kind of class imbalance in WvW is a bad sign.
I actually can’t remember a RvR style game that had an imbalance this bad. Though, to be fair, the ones I have played have been fairly mature, with imbalances ironed out.
Has anyone else, with experience in RvR games, seen an imbalance this bad?
I agree with the person who said to make the maps larger. My friends and I (who played DAOC) have always agreed that the WvW maps were too small. It makes it really easy to zerg, which has it’s time and place, but zerging is just so strong right now. It’s really hard for the smaller groups.
A lot of people I know are waiting for this WvW patch to make or break the game for them. I’ve burnt myself out on GW2’s PVE content, all I have left for myself is it’s WvW.
Will making the maps larger actually help to stop the zerg, though? I don’t understand the reasoning, here. Unless more waypoints are placed around the maps, it’ll take just as long for a defensive force to arrive as it will for the attacking zerg- It’ll be even worse because your response time is delayed, even.
This isn’t to say I wouldn’t like larger maps, but I don’t see how it’d solve this particular occurrence.
Because of small maps and waypoints, it is more efficient at the moment for one zerg to zoom around the map to trouble spots. (In addition to other factors favouring zergs such as the Downed State, AoE Limit etc.).
But if the map was larger, and travel more difficult to those outlying points, then there would be a benefit to splitting up the main zerg, and having smaller forces patrolling it. And I would imagine those wanting small group action would gravitate to that zone, while those wanting the zerg could stay in a more concentrated central zone.
Hopefully they change these things. Is it make or break? No, but they definitely need to improve on some things. I’ve been harping on what you mentioned for months now, which I’m guessing you have as well
/brohug DAoCvets
Actually, I have to admit I haven’t.
I can remember, just after launch, a few long posts by DAoC vets predicting exactly this problem. At the time, I discounted what they had to say, because in the early days of the game, with lower WvW participation, zerging was not yet a problem. There was still enough space for small group action.
But they were right.
On Tarnished Coast at least, as people shifted from PvE to WvW and we moved up the ranks, the maps got small, and the large zerg guilds got organized. It’s gotten to the point where it’s not worth logging in to look for small group fights. It is more rational to do something else.
I agree with the person who said to make the maps larger. My friends and I (who played DAOC) have always agreed that the WvW maps were too small. It makes it really easy to zerg, which has it’s time and place, but zerging is just so strong right now. It’s really hard for the smaller groups.
A lot of people I know are waiting for this WvW patch to make or break the game for them. I’ve burnt myself out on GW2’s PVE content, all I have left for myself is it’s WvW.
Will making the maps larger actually help to stop the zerg, though? I don’t understand the reasoning, here. Unless more waypoints are placed around the maps, it’ll take just as long for a defensive force to arrive as it will for the attacking zerg- It’ll be even worse because your response time is delayed, even.
This isn’t to say I wouldn’t like larger maps, but I don’t see how it’d solve this particular occurrence.
Because of small maps and waypoints, it is more efficient at the moment for one zerg to zoom around the map to trouble spots. (In addition to other factors favouring zergs such as the Downed State, AoE Limit etc.).
But if the map was larger, and travel more difficult to those outlying points, then there would be a benefit to splitting up the main zerg, and having smaller forces patrolling it. And I would imagine those wanting small group action would gravitate to that zone, while those wanting the zerg could stay in a more concentrated central zone.
Every time someone wants AoE caps removed, I want them to explain to how the game doesn’t devolve into a bunch of Eles spamming AoE?
Reduce the overall damage that each person in an AoE circle takes to a level were battles are not dominated by Ele spam.
But just make sure the small group and the big group can inflict the same amount of damage to the same amount of people inside the circle This means zerg clumping would be broken up, and the small group could break up a small part to take on.
I would rather have an AoE like now that actually does same damage, than a real AoE that does no damage at all and is pretty much useless like i have seen on other games.
The best option would be to let AoEs hit as many people as possible but give AoEs scaling damage. It would deal the most optimal damage to five people, then scale down slightly until reaching one (because we don’t want it to have equal damage to a single target spell, but still want the Area effect to be an advantage) and scale down further with more opponents.
Something like this.
1: 80%
2: 85%
3: 90%
4: 95%
5: 100%
6-10: 75%
11-15: 65%
16-20: 55%
21-25: 45%
26-30: 35%
31+: 25%
The problem with this is that it still disadvantages small groups in WvW vs. large groups.
It means that a group of 20 will do 100% damage against a group of 5 players. But, those same five players with only do 55% damage against the group of 20.
The results are already borne out in WvW: zerging overwhelming all other forms of play.
You can also try Warrior with longbow, with the traited range increase.
I personally think it is the best bow class in the game (no pet like ranger, and better range than thief).
There really is nothing else out there in any MMO even close to as good as current WVW in GW2.
Feb update is just a bonus really, ongoing fixes.
The only thing on the horizon is Elder Scrolls Online, to be released sometime in 2013. It will have WvW very similar to GW2, but who knows how it will turn out. So for the moment, GW2 is it.
I will say the combat in GW2 is immensely fun. Honestly the best I’ve encountered in an MMO. The classes are also excellent, and finding builds and synergies that work for you very rewarding.
However, the play in WvW has deteriorated drastically over the last 2 months. It has essentially become big zerg vs. big zerg to the point where small group vs. small group has gotten squeezed out.
This is what has me worried, because if it doesn’t come back, I’ll go looking for it somewhere else. Not sure there is much they can do in one patch though.
(edited by Thrumdi.9216)
First and foremost, I’m not even agreeing that zerging needs to be fixed because to fix something you need to accurately define it.
Ask 10 people and get at least 5 different definitions on what constitutes a zerg. The only commonality I find among the various definitions for zerg is that one side was heavily outnumbered.
Second, I see a lot of comments stating that lifting the AoE cap will resolve zerging. In this context it seems to be defined as a smaller group could take out a larger group if the cap was lifted.
However, as the larger group would still be able to AoE and bring more AoE to bear being the larger group, I fail to see how this would fix so called ‘zerging’.
I must be missing something.
Currently, because of the 5 man limit on AoE, a 5 man group attacking a 20 man has actually been handicapped to 25% of its ability. The AoE of the 5 man will only hit 1 in 5 of the 20 people.
But since the small group only has 5 people, the 20 man group operates at 100% ability. The AoE of each person in the 20 man group will hit every member of the 5 man group, since they are under the 5 man limit.
In effect, the AoE limit is a double whammy. It reduces the attack effectiveness of small groups against large, and increases the effectiveness of large groups against small. Under these circumstances, it is inevitable zerging becomes the main tactic.
Removing the AoE limit at least puts small and large groups on the same footing, which is all people are asking for. Just the chance to make an impact against the zerg. Perhaps to wipe one if its not too much larger, or your small group is much more organized. At least to feel you are having an effect.
If that can happen, then small group play will be feasible in the game again, because small groups will make a valuable contribution (instead of PvE’ing camps). This will lead to more small groups fighting each other, which is currently missing.
Of all the problems of WvW, zergs aren’t one of them. People that often complain about zergs often find themselves in zergs. A small group of 10 players could EASILY wipe a mindless zerg that you’re complaining about of 30+. Tactics are far superior than numbers. The only issue with numbers is if you have enough to participate in the maps or not.
Playing as a zerg as a guild isn’t much different than playing as a PuG. Those big guilds that allow anyone in are hardly different than a PuG zerg except they’re QQing on VOIP together.
Play with strategy, have everyone know their roles, and you’ll wipe anyone.
This is just not true.
Play on a high tier server, fight a big guild zerg of 25+ and tell me it’s no different than facing off against a PUG.
The big guild zergs are indestructible except when fought with another big guild zerg. This is a combination of tactics (use of portals, coordinated flanks etc.) and game mechanics (the AoE limit, culling).
And because the big guild zergs are so effective it forces everyone on high tier servers either to join or follow them. It forces out any sort of small group play.
I’m simply trying to understand you playstyle. What is fun for you?
I enjoy strategy/tactics > fighting skill. I enjoy holding out against a challenge, I do. But not in open field, or non strategic points. During one tower siege, as a defender, all I did was lob cows out into the field and destroy enemy placements with a treb. It was minor, but I was able to contribute to the larger goal of holding the tower. However, I understand that if I was out in the open field, I would have died. At times, I’ve just run supply to repair walls. Again, I’m cool with that. I enjoy contributing to the larger strategic goals. The problem I have is that if gank squads are given too much power over zergs, then there’s no way for a guy like me to get where he needs to be, in order to be useful.
I believe that there are a lot more folks like me in WvWvW, than there are of you. We will never become skilled in open field PvP. Will are not necessarily skilled tactically, or strategically. But we are willing, and we want to make a contribution. It is not enjoyable, in any way, for you to farm us. If we get to a place where every time we leave spawn, we are likely to get farmed, we just will stop contributing our bags. I understand that this makes me a “casual” or a “baddie,” etc… But I believe that WvWvW was intentionally built to allow me to contribute.
I don’t think those who want small group challenges are proposing an either/or situation.
There has to be a solution that allows zerg play for those who want, and small group confrontations for others.
The problem now is that the zerg play overwhelms everything, driving out all other forms of play. You either join the zerg, or get stomped by the zerg.
PvE has various levels of challenges for those who desire them, from easy landscape mobs to the Fractals. There is no reason WvW can’t have the same.
If enemies are trying to ress a downed player just throw a random CC and start stomping right away, you’ll probably finish the enemy before his mate recovers.
If you are afraid of having your stomp interrupted just cast an invulnerability/stability/barrier/whatever right before (or during) the stomp and the enemy will be as good as dead.
If you don’t have any of the above on you skill/utility bar, or you just spam them mindlessly during the combat leaving you off guard when you have to finish of the enemy, you still have to learn how to play in WvW/PvP.
The downed mechanic is a part of this game, so please stop whining about it.
No one is whining.
We paid our money based on the promise that in GW2 you could “play it your way”.
But at the moment, for many reasons including the Downed State, small group play is almost impossible in WvW. Sure you can PvE a camp, but good luck finding another 5-6 man group to test yourself against. A zerg will be arriving in 2 minutes, thank you very much.
Now, it might be that Anet designed WvW to make small group play impossible. Fair enough, but then that is a case of false advertising. And they should come clean and admit it.
Zerging is caused by players not wanting to lose. What will happen is everyone splits off in there 5 man grps. team A brings there 5 but team B doesn’t wanna lose so they bring 6. Grp A goes screw this and brings 7. ect ect
Also world Pop.
Only reason peeps QQ about zergs is cus they dont win. Find a guild that works well with each other and you will start to hav fun as u smash the mindless sheep.
Agreed, zerg busting is the way forward. Leave your pre/cri/pow builds at home and team up with 10-15 of your guildies and charge into a 50-man zerg. You will die, alot, but it is oh so satisfying when you get the hang of it.
The zerg is dumb, slow and panics real easy.
Actually this is no longer true. Anyone can wipe a PUG zerg.
But on the higher tier servers the zerg is smart. It is usually made up of 25-30 members of the same guild. These groups are almost indestructible (because of tactics and game mechanics) except by another big guild zerg.
This is why zerging is having such a negative impact on the game.
The only way to win now is to join a large guild to zerg, or follow it. It has almost completely crowded out sustainable small group play.
And that, my friend, sucks bad.
Actually, Role-playing is the origin of the game you are playing right now, specifically the Dungeons & Dragons pen and paper game made in the 1970’s.
This is the easiest thing that Anet can do in the immediate future to stop zerging.
Remove both the big orange swords, and the gray swords over contested objectives. These were training wheels that were needed in the early part of the game, but have outlived their usefulness.
If a zerg cannot rely on the map for its reconnaissance, it will be forced to split itself up to be sure it has forces in various areas to respond quickly when intel does come in.
Small groups will be important again in all tiers because without the swords it will be far more possible to take objectives without being discovered. Small groups will also be needed for reconaissance. With more small groups criss-crossing the map, there will be more opportunity for small group PvP instead of zerg vs zerg warfare.
To be sure there are still other issues encouraging zergs like map design, the Downed State, no Trinity, and the 5-man limit on AoE (to name but a few).
But, removing the swords is the quick fix we need to stop the hemorrhage of players because of boredom.
(edited by Thrumdi.9216)
Lol, always complaints about stealth classes in MMO’s
There’s a pattern.
Yeah, I’m surprised Anet added it to the game. Shadowstep would have been enough for the class to feel like a thief or assassin.
I dont care if it didnt fix it…i care that its worse…stop trying to justify how BAD this is.
The other way wasn’t really better, it was just friendlier to solo, and small group players because stealth bombs were extremely effective due to the culling/rendering issue.
They just kind of flipped culling on its head with this patch, and put the advantage in the hands of the much larger groups.
That said, I’ve never seen a game with this bad of an issue, not even Aion was this bad.
If this is the case, it will only encourage further the current zerg play in the game.
And zerging is just killing the fun.
They can take the siege out of the jumping puzzle, but they can’t take the zerg out of WvW!
I really appreciate all the replies, and the advice that has been given in this thread. From what I can see the replies break down to these, so I will try to answer them.
1) PvE events like capping camps are very important to the server victory.
Agreed, but they are still PvE, and on the higher tiers a zerg follows inevitably, meaning the resulting PvP is not worth sticking around for.
2) Move to a lower tier server.
The problem with nothing for small guilds to do is a result of the map design and the combat systems. It is incipient as soon as the WvW population reaches a certain size. There is no telling if a lower tier server will become flavour of the month to the large guilds and suddenly start experiencing these problems. Paid transfers won’t stop this, as transfers to lower tiers will be cheap.
Also, our guild has been on the Unofficial RP server Tarnished Coast since launch and there is no way we can move it.
3) Examples of non-zerg groups doing well in PvP.
All the examples given of guilds like Red Guard doing very well are in 10+ groups. As I said in the OP, these 10+ groups (I gave the number around 15) can do very well against PUG zergs, and other 10+ groups like them who are also hunting zergs. However a guild group under 10, say around 5-6 just cannot do those things.
4) Use Siege to Defend Keeps
Using siege can be fun, and so is defending keeps. However, using the 3 skills on the Ballista does not compare to the satisfaction of playing your class to the fullest against a good opponent.
5) Join up with other small guilds to get enough to be an anti-zerg group.
We have gotten together with some of our close friends from other small guilds on the server on various reset nights. It is usually a blast. However, getting together an anti-zerg squad like Red Guard on an ad hoc basis like this is just impossible. I’m just skeptical a cross-guild group can reach that level of coordinated play.
If there were objectives that encouraged PvP for groups in the <10 range, that would be great. And it is strange it doesn’t exist in WvW, because that small group content is what PvE is all about in GW2.
(edited by Thrumdi.9216)
No, if, ands or buts about it. Guild Wars 2 WvW sucks for small guilds.
By small I mean those guilds that field under 10 people a night, and who want to engage in PvP activity appropriate to their numbers. (And not for example be the nucleus of a larger zerg. There are many commanders from smaller guilds, at least on my server that are successful).
In the past, in response to this criticism Anet said there are camps to cap and sentries to take. However, this is a PvE solution, and not what small guilds are looking for in WvW. And in the case of a camp, there is no sense waiting around for the PvP to come because it will be a zerg that shows up to take it back.
This has happened because play on the higher tiers has become centred on guild zerg group vs. guild zerg group. There is pressure for smaller guilds to merge into the larger because this is what it takes to succeed in the new environment.
It also gives the larger guilds a say beyond their numbers in how maps should be run. If a smaller guild doesn’t like it, they can’t go off to a corner of the map and do their own thing, because the zergs will be there as well. The only solution is to go to another map and hope the large guild there is not having a negative influence.
For mid-size guilds, say those fielding 15+ a night, it is possible to be an anti-zerg squad, though only against unorganized Pugs. But again this is out of the reach of smaller guilds who want to operate as a unit.
How did the game end up like this? Map design is one factor: they are small, and people happen upon each other too easily. Mechanics like the Downed State allow zergs to rez their members too easily. Even lack of the Trinity contributes, as you can’t take out the healers first, and then work on the rest.
How to fix it? Here I can only guess, but here are some easy changes first. Bigger maps might allow small groups to move about easier and hide. Making nameplates less visible, allowing small group more surprise.
The harder changes involve the combat systems, and here I think drastic measures are required if the dominance of zerg play is to be reduced.
Just reducing the hp of the Downed State in WvW isn’t enough, because anyone can rez. And with enough hands in the zerg, even defeated players are on their feet soon. The most direct fix is reintroducing part of the Trinity and allowing only certain classes to rez. Once those classes are down, attrition takes its toll on the zerg. If that is going too far, make it so defeated players cannot be rezed in WvW. They have to respawn. If the hp of the Downed State is reduced somewhat, making spikes quicker, a small skillful group could find its way to victory.
As has been said in countless MMO studies, it is the social ties that keep people involved in a game. But in WvW, small guilds have a problem creating those ties because they can’t do anything together. And in fact, the current situation actually eats away at those ties, by pressuring people into larger guilds. For those who don’t want to be in a large guild, the only solution often is simply to stop playing WvW.
TL;DR: GW2 WvW sucks for small guilds.
I agree flesh golem does indeed stand around half the time. And because it gets delayed reaction couple with slow movement speed, it’ll never catch any moving target in combat.
Well, Doc Frankenstein’s monster was pretty borked, but somehow I don’t think that’s what Anet had in mind.
I’ve mostly played Guardian (support) and am now branching out into other classes. The big choice in DPS is obviously Condition or Burst.
I’d be interested to hear which type is better in WvW and why.
(Please keep the discussion civil).
Are we gonna be able to find out how long people have been offline?
This would be difficult to reconcile with the “Invisible” play mode where you are not visible on friends or guild lists.
ANet clearly wants people to have some anonymity about their play time, and that includes to members of the guild.
(Though I suppose they could exclude those members who go invisible)
My advice would be to try both for a while.
Then while you are on the other weapon analyze if there any situations where you wish you had the skills of the first weapon.
Also watch out for times where you are standing around doing nothing. Think about what skills you could use in that situation.
Those questions can point you in the right direction.
Necromancer is probably the weakest profession in WvW at the moment.. Hopefully we get some buffs.
What is this I don’t even….
Necro condi bombs cover the world in badge farming insanity. Necros are AMAZING in group combat. Flat out terrain denying, hp dropping nuclear bombs in wvw.Well considering I was covering staff, and not the utilities (except for minions). Necromancer Epidemic is pure damage. No support. No control. We have no support other than our under-powered, huge cooldown wells.
There is no power build for Necro, there is no tanky build for Necro. We can provide extremely minor healing to our allies and we can only cure conditions with a 60 CD well with ticks 5 times and with an extremely buggy signet.
Not sure how you see 4 marks as being terrain denying and HP dropping nuclear bombs when all they do is 3 bleeds, a chill field and a potential area weakness, topped off with a 3/4 second fear..
I don’t even play Necro, but isn’t there a signet that continually transfers conditions from allies to you? Then obviously you send those conditions to the enemy with the off-hand dagger or other signet.
I mean, that’s what I get from reading the class specs.
The trait itself suggests the devs designed (low) dps banners as a possibility. Why even have it exist if banners are pure support? Why even have damage for banner 1 and 4? Just look at it:
- tactics and discipline have 3/5 support skills 2/5 damage skills
- strength and defense have 2/5 support skills 3/5 damage skills
This pretty much says you can go either dps or support with bannersYou could change powerful banners to pulse a weak aoe every 5 banner skill uses.
Now THIS is an idea. Personally I like banners. They are clunky but provide great support. Even without the healing trait they provide a decent aoe buff and group speed+charge plus variable #2 ability. Changing the banner damage on summon (which we can all agree is very weak and even if it did like 4k dmg would still be on a patheticly long cooldown) to a pulsing condition, something like weakness or stacking vunrability would be pretty sweet. And gives you incentive to throw one down in the thick of the fighting.
That makes it so not only is the banner inspiring to you and your allies but
demoralizing to your opponents. Flavor win and usefulness win!
Resurrecting this thread to add my vote to AoE conditions on banners.
A continual low-level pulsing AoE vulnerability on a banner (2-3 stacks at most) would be great.
And it really would communicate the idea of demoralizing the enemy with your standard.
Free transfers went on far too long. ArenaNet are unlikely to ever admit this. My take is that they were gnashing their teeth waiting for guesting to be sorted and had to suck up free transfers as an aspect to this.
Paid transfers are long overdue (by about 5 months).
The funny thing is that the servers based on a solid community have very little to worry about, regardless of their position in the tiers/league table (in my opinion). Ultimately I believe these server communites will become the long term winners in WvW, although it may be up to a year or more after GW2 launch before this is readily apparent.
The servers that lose will be the ones that failed to build decent integrated social WvW structures to retain the playerbase needed to win over a long period of time.
This is what happened in LOTRO’s Monster Play (which was a two faction PvP system).
The two longterm PvP servers were Brandywine (the oldest server) and Landroval (the RP server). “Landy” became known as the place where you PvP’d if you didn’t want to deal with too many kitten.
Sound familiar?
Thank you for the advice. I’m actually moving over from Guardian because the 5-man limit took a lot of the enjoyment out of playing that character.
I guess my other question would be this.
When the banner regen refreshes, does it always refresh on the same person? Or could it “hopscotch” around from person to person potentially spreading the benefits around to more than 5 people?
maybe min-maxed healing stat is too powerful and need to be kept in check.
Healing in GW2 is currently broken because of the 5-man Heal Limit.
What this means is, if you have over 5 people in the radius, who your heals target will be random.
There is some randomness at the edges in GW2. Certain classes like Mesmer or Engineer have some skills that have random results. There is a difference, however, between having randomness as a flavor, and an important system like Healing having randomness in it.
So there is a lot to be said about the theory Anet is discouraging investment in Healing gear. It could mean they are going to revisit the 5-man limit and remove the randomness it introduced.
I’m not holding my breath though. This would take a major redesign of the combat system. (In my opinion, I’m not a Professional Game Designer).
I am just leveling a Banner Warrior, and had a question about the Regen grandmaster trait in tactics.
Is this Regen affected by the 5-man Heal Limit?
For example, if 5 people are clumped around the banner getting the Regen, and a sixth person runs in, will he be S.O.L.?
They don’t want you to play support.
They don’t want you to play defensively either.They’ve said multiple times that they want offense to be > Defense.
Basically if you look at the direction of how they’re pushing the mechanics/patches they want zergballs all rolling glass cannon burst specs spooging all over each other.
No one is asking for Defense to be made better than Offense.
All the OP asks is: remove the randomness from Defense, specifically the part of Defense that affects others.
Randomness has no place in a competitive game.
I absolutely agree. All I’m saying is that I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for it because all signs point to BURSTLOLZERGORGTFO
Gotcha, we’re on the same page. I expected the reactions to this post would be “No Trinity” blah blah blah blah. When I posted about this about a month or two ago, it was.
I wonder if the drop-off in WvW participation in the last month or two has come (in part) from the 5-man heal limit and its randomness.
It could be that an entire segment of support-oriented players just don’t come out to WvW anymore, where they can’t play at their fullest. They can still do that in a 5-man dungeon run.
I know I almost stopped playing my Guardian at the end of last year. I couldn’t put my finger on it at the time, but in retrospect it probably was the 5-man limit. It really was like they cut off your arm, you keep going through the motions, and wondering why it isn’t working, then you suddenly realize its gone.
(edited by Thrumdi.9216)
They don’t want you to play support.
They don’t want you to play defensively either.They’ve said multiple times that they want offense to be > Defense.
Basically if you look at the direction of how they’re pushing the mechanics/patches they want zergballs all rolling glass cannon burst specs spooging all over each other.
No one is asking for Defense to be made better than Offense.
All the OP asks is: remove the randomness from Defense, specifically the part of Defense that affects others.
Randomness has no place in a competitive game.
I really hope the 5-man limit on area heals is a temporary measure because it sucks.
Why? The randomness.
When you use a group heal spell, you have no idea which one of the 5+ people beside you really will get it. Will it be that guy about to die? Probably not.
The whole point about playing support, why it is so satisfying, is that you save that guy who is about to die.
Now, you can go on about “no trinity” blah blah blah blah. But the truth of the matter is, DPS can pick who they can target. But. Support. Can. Not.
“No Trinity” blah blah blah blah. Support was designed as a legitimate role in GW2, along with DPS and tanking (read: area control). Again, which one of these has no idea who their skills will target? Oh yeah, Support.
Do you see where this going? Unless something is done to reintroduce the blanket area heals, the only solution to the randomness of support is Targeted Heals.
Yeah, I know, this undermines the entire design of ArenaNet’s combat system. But their original design lead to the introduction of tactics they did not like, namely, turtling and clumping. To get rid of these tactics they broke Support i.e. they choose to degrade the experience of a subset of WvW players instead of everyone affected by turtling.
Do I have faith in ArenaNet’s ability to fix support in WvW without introducing Targeted Heals? I’m not so sure. I can’t see any way to do it without reintroducing turtling. On the other hand, they are Professional Game Designers.
For the moment though, GW2 does offer the best WvW/RvR out there. However, if another game came along that did Support better (with or without the Trinity blah blah blah blah), I think it’d be tempting for those disappointed with Support in this game.
(edited by Thrumdi.9216)
Does Vulnerability affect Condition Damage, or just Physical Damage?
Actually, I believe both Tomes had stability during Beta, but that was removed because it ended up being OP.
Should it be reintroduced? The dynamic of games changes over time, and it may no longer be overpowered in comparison to where other classes are at, or how those classes are played.
Can’t tell you whether the answer to that question is yes or no though.
The Hammer autoattack #1 skill grants the protection boon on the third strike in the chain. This is a 33% damage reduction.
If you trait correctly in boon extension, and maybe get some boon duration runes, you could have almost continual protection just by clicking on a mob once to start the autoattack.
The #1 skill 3rd attack also lays down a light field, which you can combo periodically with the #2 skill for a Blast Finisher, creating Area Might for you. The rest of the skills on the Hammer are CC and wouldn’t have to be used that much. Get the 2h cooldown reduction trait, and you can spam #1 and #2 over and over again.
You might also want to look into retaliation if you are not going to be dodging hits. Boon duration runes will extend it, as will some traits in the Virtue line. Retaliation will inflict damage on mobs when they hit you.