Guild Wars 2

1. Overhaul Bloodlust to coincide with outmanned buff and population present /per map. Details can be found in many ideas in this and many other posts and via metrics. Give it small boosts to many areas, make it helpful but not overwhelming.

2. Overhaul the outmanned buff, again give it low helpful bonusses but not overwhelming or game breaking.

3. Adjust transfer prices based on WvW population per time slot and per server rating, drastically. Make transfers to T1 cost 5k-10k gems, free to lowest servers, all else in between.

4. Stop rewarding stackers that server stack with features such as new maps etc. They have made their poor decisions and need to live with the consequences of their own poor choices.

5. Adjust PPT score to reflect actual effort in capping and holding an objective. Give less points for taking undefended objectives and almost no points for doing so on an empty map. Likewise with holding it. Undefended objectives should give very little points because they take very little effort to take.

6. Adjust rewards for defense to coincide with rewards for offense. This will go a long ways to address many problems in the game.

7. Introduce a “superior force” debuff. Opposite of the outmanned buff.

8. Adjust waypoints, remove capability of building waypoints on enemy Borderlands and in EB building them in enemy captured keeps, while making making remaining waypoints harder to contest. This will greatly increase mobility of defensive groups, especially on their home BLs, as it is currently it is the opposite where it takes defenders longer to get back to defend then it takes opponents to go on offense.

Before Traveller Runes, many people ran Runes of the Centaur or Runes of the pack, I used the pack myself, my 2 armor sets are currently Runes of Traveller and Runes of Melandru. The Runes of the Pack and Runes of the Centaur help, but arent nearly as good.

There are also much cheaper runes of Speed, but since you set on zerk stat bonusses these will not be good for you. So its a choice you have to make. Mobility has its price, but for most of us that have switched to travellers, we will not go back, its that good.

Hi O.P.

I agree with you 100% and disagree with the poster above. He/She obviously has never ran frontline or he/she would understand that anything based on shatters/clones/phantasms/pets/minions is utterly and completely useless. There is a HUGE difference between going organized vs organized group and uselessly text/map chat plinking from the back.

Skirting around the zerg isnt an option unless you are backline or roaming. Any trait points invested into clone generation, shattering, clone dmg, clone health, or effects from shatters are a complete and utter waste. I have found only 2 things that semi-work for these situations.

1. Focus #5, when traited, you can pop it on opponents backline its reflect will tag all the targets trying to shoot through it and it still will hit within its melee range. It is subject to less server lag because it is immobile, so you can get it out where other clones/phantasms cant.

2. The ilock, you can pop it at long range and it kinda stands there doing a shot or 2 to its target before it or target dies and if traited will give you a nice heal which is quite important.

Rest of them, useless.

However, I disagree with you about an invulnreability idea because conversely, in PVE (many dungeons, for example Lupi phase 1) there are bosses where you need to immediately shatter. An invulnreability and preventing a shatter would be so detrimental that you would have to switch out of GS entirely. So while this might fix one aspect of the game using greatsword, it will break another.

Only thing I could do on my part is switch GS to staff, chaos storm field bouncing auto and ilock are far better for tagging and frontline then GS anyways. And Staff#2 is basically a free spammable stunbreaker irrelevant if generates a clone or not or that clone hits its target or gets shattered, cant go wrong with it.

So to sum it up, if you are running GS in frontline, you simply arent playing correctly anyways due to lack of your best stunbreaker, GS is at best roaming or PVE weapon. Perhaps it will change in the future as it would be really nice to have good ranged DPS weapon, but for now, just dont use it or stay kitten are the only 2 choices.

Nick.6972:

Alright, here’s the build I made today.
Dont want to make a separate thread.
Any fixes/suggestions?
http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQNAR8dlUgCCHHSNEfIFh9BBWLATBGz41DKmwIC-jEzAYLBZCCA9BiIAn9KiGbtlIasNgqsxUlAqTUlris/IoA-w

I’ll probably use Traveler runes once I get money.

This build is fine if already have frontliners, if you are runing DPS / support from mid or rear. However, it lacks group stability, so even while in the backlines you still have to have another guard to pick up the slack and provide it for your group.

As a frontliner, it lacks armor, lacks health, and lacks mobility. You have zero swiftness generation and zero stability, even self. You will even get owned by necros and hammer warriors in 1v1 and small group encounters.

Renewed focus is also kinda waste because your baseline virtues do not give you anything extra, nor your allies, you are far better off runing a tome.

So, its pretty bad. A mediocre roaming build at best, pretty horrid for organized groups as other guards are necessary to pick up the slack for you.

Hi O.P.

I ran this last night just to see on guard, mesmer and my ele. Simply put, we already have far superior tools to heals and cleanses, I see very few people runing around with this heal as their main.

The only use of this heal will be against specific duels and known small group opponents, if its on your bar at any other time you are just gimping yourself, and you cant switch skills while in combat or while they have an active usage CD going.

For these reasons I just dont see it as any problem whatsoever. Very few people will run it as their main heal. It had absolutely zero effect on us last night.

I agree with you, however, conversely you should not be able to contest a keep/castle by simply “tapping”. Tapping mechanic needs to be removed from the game or drastically altered.

Fully upgraded gate guards should have stealth detection and be fully capable to wipe a small group of players (up to 5), The said keep/castle should become contested if there is at least 2% or 3% damage done to the said gate/wall, not just single hit, that is ridiculous.

Also, once you break the outer and inner gates and are fighting inside, many times the keep/castle becomes completely uncontested again so that you have to find a gate to keep tapping mid combat, while the keep/castle is obviously contested because there is a big battle going on inside. This needs to go.

Went from about 2-15 min que for EB to being outmanned in EB at prime time. Although I have to say this is a bad match up which is so boring for us that many have simply decided to go PvE.

P.S. I have ran this on guard, mesmer and ele.

So far this heal seems to kinda suck.

I tried it out yesterday in WvW group comp with the following conclusions that reflect not just me, but literally everyone else that was runing it in my group, there were 5 of us:

1. Its base self heal is too low, we already have far better and more efficient group heals available.
2. Does not cleanse bleeds burning, chills, etc., therefore it us nearly useless to use as a cleanser because you still use and run your regular cleansing tools.
3. Its group heal and cleanse is also too low, those of us that run support already have better tools both for group healing and group cleansing, making this absolete from the ground up.

So in WvW, unless you are roaming and going specifically against a confusion or torment build, this is kinda pointless. It is right down a hindrance in fully organized groups as we already have so many better tools to achieve same purpose.

The only time I see this being used is perhaps on some selected dungeon encounters (not even whole dungeons), and future PvE content where the “toxin” condition will be far more frequent and much more powerful requiring this skill.

Hi

kinda hard to tell the total numbers from that. It looks like it would be good for midline or backline, still not enough armor / health. To give you an idea, when I go frontline I tend to run between 3100-3300 armor with 21-23k health totals depending on buffs, guard stacks etc. Frontline is not about doing nay DPS, its about utility and survivability. All you need is to tag your targets. Bulk of DPS is done by mid and rear. Staff is still best for front line, you have AOE tag, AOE buffs, and its auto attack while very weak, bounces for tags.

My mid line and roaming build sits around 2700-2800 armor and 20k health, I run GS / Staff on it about half and half.

Also 2 things, you rely on shatters, they will not execute due to insta death of any illusions as well as terrain restrictions in getting to their targets. Anything clone, phantasm, shatter based is completely gutted in a large scale battle, or even a 20 v 20 when its really fast.

May want to switch out of Restorative Illusions, go for Temporal Enchanter if you will keep 30 points in Inspiration. Also, going for group builds, the absolute #1 thing on your utility while runing with your group if up front will be veil. All else comes after that. Veil, how soon you can recast it, and how long it lasts is far more prescious and useful then timewarp + all other utilities put together. A well executed veil makes or breaks a fight, its recast during an engagement, twice over.

Mental Torment is also kinda useless in this situation, again relies on clones, phantasms which will not even get to their targets.

Deceptive Evasion is great for small scale, but completely irrelevant in large scale, you need as many passives as possible, your 2 dodge rolls will be used up right off the bat going over arrow cart fields or just keeping up with your commander hopping through aoe fields, the clone as the rest will just insta melt in a fraction of a second. What will keep you going is client side ticking regen, prot, aegis, otherwise you will just drop and if lucky, not be rally bait.

If I could, I would get rid of the points in my build in the dueling line entirely, but unfortunately that sword #2 is just a necessity.

When you build for DPS in these sort of fights, your main stat is power. Even necros do, hehe, and they are a lot more condition dependant then we are. Crit and Condi dmg is less relevant. If you want to do mid or backline DPS, scale down on the drit and go 30 points into Domination. Also via power, staff becomes more usefull, regardless of condi dmg. Always run sharpening stone in addition to food buffs, which further scales it up the more toughness and health you have.

Hi

I run my mesmer mainly in organized groups 20+ and run dungeons / fractals. I have settled on my own build for it which suits me and my playstyle relatively well.

The build is not spectacular while roaming, you will not be winning 5v1s with it like with other builds dedicated to the purpose, but you can still win 3v1s on rare occasion and 2v1s quite often.

In dungeons, particularly higher end fractals, 38s and 48s, I do OK in damage, not as good as my war of course, but still not too shabby while providing a great deal of utility.

Main weapon sets are Sword / Focus (zerk stats, sigils are Force and perception) and Staff (PVT stats sigil: generosity) for WvW, switch staff for GS (zerk) for dungeons / fractals.

Default utilities are decoy, null field, feedback, mass invis, however I often switch around to blink instead of decoy, and veil or portal instead of feedback (depending on what my commander asks for) and Time Warp instead of mass invis.

I do have some different gear pieces which I switch and adjust as needed per situation. I run 6x Superior rune of the traveller at all times, including on armor pieces which I switch, so that when I do so, I retain the full rune bonusses.

Build itself is 0 10 30 30 0 http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-N;4VPVz0273VV71;9;59TT;23;019B137;9;8FvcFR7A

Gear wise, I run a 4 pcs knights and 2 pcs valk set as default, switch chest and legs to full zerk for dungeons / fractals. Back piece is ascended zerk, amulet is ascended zerk.

Acessories I switch between zerk, PVT, celestial depending if I do PvE or WvW roaming or WvW group, same with rings. I use the celestial pieces if I need to throw a little bit more healing into my mix, PVT for organized group wvw, and zerk for PvE.

I tend to stay away fro mall things relying on illusions in WvW, simply because of the fact that in group combat shattering, generating clones, their pathing and all that is completely and utterly useless due to server lag. You clones will not even get to their targets to shatter, they will die as soon as spawned or simply not even get to their targets. The only exception to this is the ilock which I pop on a passive target such as a gate or alike and let it sit there without it trying to run to or engage the opponents. The reason I do that is because it provides me with a really nice area passive regen as long as its up. The regen ticks client side regardless of server lag.

Sword #2 I use very often for what it does which you are already familiar with. Sword #3 I use lag permitting, its good if it goes off.

Focus is integral for CC and projectile reflection, the wardens do a ton of damage as well on smaller scale fights, and have an anti-lag advantage in that they are less subject to server lag because they are immobile, so sometimes they can be usefull even in very large scale battles. When traited your line of wardign acts as a wall of reflection, which also tags your opponents for more loot. And of course you can pull people with it

Staff #5 is great for both offensive and defensive purposses, and staff#2 is a free, spammable stunbreaker, cant go wrong there, even if your clone doesnt pop it still gets you out of harms way on ultra low CD.

Runes of the Traveller, its kinda like having most of divinity’s bonusses, a little bit short, but the 25% speed passive ….. see other threads about it, once you switch to it, you will never go back to any others except maybe melandru in super hard fights. Any other runes, you’re just wasting your gold because ultimately you will arrive at these 2 after you try out everything.

This build also gives you and your group TON of chaos armor due to the lower glamour CDs, lower CD on blink, port and veil and timewarp, all critical in WvW group fights.

In addition, you will often generate protection/regeneration/aegis whenever you stealth. This is huge in zerg busting, without this, you basically have to run melandru runes and thus greatly impare your mobility.

So if you want to be more of a roamer or just backline plinking text chat type, go with any variations of what is posted above. If you want to be on VOIP, organized and be able to hang with the front liners, you need something like this. For the past week I have also been playing with replacing of my decoy with the stability mantra, my verdict is still out on it kitten far they both seem to give me roughly equal benefits all considered.

Hope this helps a bit.

Server Population Imbalance can be split into 2 categories:

1. Overall WvW population imbalance
2. Coverage gaps

There have been many good ideas posted on these forums about how to deal with these, if I was in the devs shoes I would do the following:

1. Drastically adjust transfer prices based on a server’s WvW standing, overall population, and coverage to the point where it would cost maybe 6k to10k gems to transfer to T1 while it would be free to go to the bottom 3 servers, scale others in between as appropriate.

In addition, adjust this further based on average timeframe the transferring account has been logged in. For example, if the account has been logged in for 3-4 hour periods, 3 times a week in WvW, and it happens to be an off-hours (coverage gap) hours for target server, then the transfer price would be further discounted.

If account has been logged in during transfer target servers prime time, the transfer costs should be increased.

2. To deal with coverage gap, I would compeltely overhaul the outmanned and bloodlust buffs as follows:

Give outmanned buff a 1% stat increase per each 10 or 20 people that the outmanned players are outmanned by. This will give some but not overwhelming stat advantage.

Give bloodlust buffs additional 1% stat bonus per 10 or 20 people that the team is outmanned by. This would result in some very interesting new tactics / strategies by lower pop servers as well as provide some bonus to the outmanned side.

3. I would adjust the scoring system (PPT) so that any objectives capped / held on an outmanned map by a superior number of players gives less points per the said cap / hold.

This would go towards both simply being unable to cover all maps as well as address the coverage gaps.

Talewin.3820:

Why not simply merge the bottom 3 servers into another mid range or mid/low wvw server and link that to the PVE worlds to form 3 new wvw servers. Bam! instant fix on numbers and servers are better balanced. Heck i would even be ok with DR,AR, and GOM all being merged to make 1 wvw new sever that might be able to complete. with the higher ranked servers.

Then they will just get scabbed again for people to transfer to T2 T1, even some T3 for the silver league wins and you are back to square 1 over and over again until there is nothing left but only 3 servers.

The only solution is to drastically adjust transfer prices, maybe 3x as much as they are now to T1, free to the bottom 3, scale the rest as appropriate. And the upper tier people really need to get involved in their communities and put an end to the practice of stealing population from servers who already are having problems.

Well, I would leave it alone in PvE, in WvW I would make 4 changes to it:

1. Do not cleanse conditions on being downed, let them tick.
2. Allow only 1 person to rally per death of an opponent instead of whatever number it is currently.
3. Do not allow rally of off mobs, unless its a Guard / Lord / Supervisor, and even then this would be subject to point #2.
4. balance some of the profession rally skills a bit better and downed traits better so that people who invest trait points into it at cost of other traits will actually be able to get back up significantly easier.

problem is that there are so many warriors in the game now, that their numbers already are like having 2 heavy classes. If you add another class/profession, this will become greatly unbalanced.

Overall, as most people here, I like the rally mechanic in the game. The only adjustments I would make to it is in WvW for mob tagging, and in PvP / WvW to make it harder for whole groups to rally of off rally bait.

Or rather, reduce the effects rally bait has on organized groups.

Thats it really. rest of it is fine “as is”

Cassiel.8762:

Hi guys, I’m planning to run a zerg support build with hammer/staff and shouts/WoR. Is it better to go for ptv or clerics? Is empowering might + AH the best for survivability or are there any better alternatives?

Hi

As stated above it really depends on your particular group and circumstances. I personally abandoned the most popular builds and switched to 0 0 30 20 20.

I of course run AH, reduced shout and reduced consecration CDs. The 20 points in last trait line is critical as it lets me rock 4x group stability.

When in group fights, pop F3 (stability 1), then stand your ground, then Renewed Focus, then F3 again, then Stand your Ground Again.

Utility wise I like runing with Signet of Judgement, Stand Your Ground, Wall of Reflection and Renewed Focus, although I switch them out sometimes I use Hold the Line in place of WoR or purging Flames or Hallowed Ground in place of the signet or WoR, it depends.

Gear Wise I run armor 5x PTV with 1x Clerics and 6x melandru runes
Rings are clerics, accessories are celestial, backpiece is PTV, amulet is knights

Weapons are PTV, mainly staff / hammer, but occasionally I go staff/ GS or staff / mace focus (note, mace focus are clerics instead of PTV)

With this set-up I end up with around 550ish healing, 3300-3500 armor, and around 21-23k health, as I do have some misc jewelry and pieces I switch to adjust my stats a bit. Exception is my mace / focus which I use when we are short on healing. With appropriate sigils and a single trait adjustment (the +250 healing on mace) I can get my healing to about 1100-1200 range at cost of about 150ish armor and 1.5k health.

If our group has difficulties with conditions, then I will switch to GS as my off weapon, as whirl finisher on light fields = cleansing bolts, and heres a kicker for you, WOr is a long lasting easy to see light field, and your GS 2 is an almost spammable whirl finisher. If you have 2-3 guards doing this along with couple other people in your group you will not have any troubles with conditions.

Overall, I would say survivability = priority 1
group Stability = priority 2
cleansing = priority 3
healing = priority 4

this may be different in your group if you lack eles or your rangers and engis dont use and blast water fields.

Also, you may or may not need just a little bit of precision, I personally love using Sigils of Generosity which have a 60% chance to proc per crit. So they proc good even at low crit rates, but in my set up I do need just a little bit of precision, hence the 1 knights and clestial jewelry and I do switch out of them, do not always run them. Your set-up may vary.

On my server, we have about 4-5 main VOIP groups running, depending on match up, if itsserious game face time, we will have 1-2 people in multiple VOIPs and help relay what is happening, also, often times we will have 1 person running with other groups/guilds so that person can let us know exactly and precisely what is happening at any given time.

This really helps in coordination. We tried using a single VOIP but as we are getting more and more people in it, hardware capability is becoming an issue, so it is better doing it this way.

I am currently in bronze league, you know what is wrong and what drives this whole population imbalance ? I’ll give you an example, which is currently happening on my server.

We have a new commander in our wvw, he made a guild and he does OK, not spectacular, but not horrible either. His sole purpose is to make a huge guild and then transfer off and take more of our population away to T1 / T2. This guy is from T2 and wants his server to be T1.

I cant call him out in the forums but I would love to. He and his are exactly and precisely the problem.

You want to have less ques ? How about getting involved in your community and stopping this sort of crap ? take some initiative and do something about it, talk to the guild leaders on your server, organize an anti-transfer ant-scabbing campaign.

The que problem is not just on a-net to fix, but on you and your community too and even more so. Stop your scabbing of the low tier servers.

Hi guys

To all the AR and Kaineng people: This match up sucks and I’m sorry, really.

Those of us that have been on SF long enough know very well what its like to get rolled due to numbers week after week, after week for couple months straight and we understand your situation. I have no blame towards anyone for this except a-net and their stances on this issue.

Also, FYI, above posts are correct when they say SF is full during NA prime time and lacks coverage. We apparently got some transfers, I do not know if they will stay, I suspect most will go back to their home servers once they get their meta achieves or the ques there die down a bit, + our own PvE population came out + fairweathers due to what they see as easy pickings. So yea, its stacked against you pretty bad.

As a server, we still will not have good coverage during weekdays off-peak hours. We are strong during NA prime time (3pm – 11pm server time), beyond that we only have a skeleton crew at best, if that, especially Monday to Friday.

I know you have lost a lot if not all of your highly organized WvW guilds, I highly recommend for 2-3 people to temporarily transfer out to a much higher server, join / run with an organized guild, then come back and help you out. This will get your ball rolling again. Once you start wining fights (especially open field) and especially when there are 20 of you that can consitantly wipe up to 40-60 opponents, this will get more of your PVE ers and casuals in and snowball from there, but beware, it is a long process which will take months, do not expect to see results overnight.

Anyways, try to have some fun as much as possible under these circumstances.

COSA Red, (Core of Scarlet Alliance) is currently recruiting (as of Oct. 27th, 2013) PvX players, this branch of our guild does everything across all game modes and tends to be more casual oriented although we do have some dedicated people that simply like to run on their own schedules and play whatever they want, whenever they want, rather then adhere to a more hardcore style schedule.

Please contact us if interested.

SF is currently looking for some weekday and night time people. We are basically full 3pm-11pm server time, but still have an incredible coverage gap beyond that.

Beast Sos.1457:

I just did map completion for the second time and for the 2nd time i didnt get my gifts. I went to Chantry of Secrets but nothing. I hope someone can help me solve this problem!

Hi

Something is absolutely bugged. I would take the screenshot and open a support ticket on it via the support section, so you can send the screenie to them, along with character screenshot from character selection where it says “map completion 100%”

1. Player caps are fine, you have to think longterm, not short term, rememebr, next patch is coming out on the 29th and I am willing to be a lot of the PvE influx will all of a sudden disappear from WvW, you have to wait a long time until things are stabilized before messing with things such as player caps or you will be caught in a never ending flux.

2. Arrowcarts – they need to be reworked not removed. Currently their LOS mechanics and the ability to be exploited by nearly everyone via video adjustments is what is breaking them. Or, alternately, there needs to be a counter mechanic implimented that can deal with the above problems, and is used exclusively for the above problems.

3. Strongly disagree, in fact, I would like to see the cost of these increase, they should not be “spammable” as they are now.

4. yes, they need to have a mechanic to redistribute the WXP points.

5. I do not see any issues whatsoever with laurels, they are very casual and just happen to complete by themselves via regular gameplay. Really no issues.

6. Increasing rewards for defense is somethign many people are bringing up time and time again, yes, it would make the game more interesting. Devs could also use it to further improve PvE vs WvW reward system as a whole at the same time, kill 2 birds with 1 stone.

7. The contested mechanics currently in game leave a lot to be desired, however, they would need to be designed in such a way as not to minimize importance of scouts sitting in keeps / towers. This is very hard to balance out.

8. Lord bannering needs a cooldown, if it gets bannered there should be like a 10 seconds debuff that will prevent it from being bannered again and again. We recently had a garison fight where opposing server logged on their warrior alts and kept runing into lord room, the lord kept getting bannered literally once every 5 seconds for like 15 minutes straight, it is rediculous.

9. Commander functions need to be implimented and according to Anet, at some point they will be.

10. Min / maximizing your team takes some skill and dedication in itself. Gear isnt cheap (Travellers rune set for roaming build for example). While class balance needs to be adressed, how would you adress it without affecting the skill/dedication of the players that do dedicate themselves to the group / community / guild as a whole ? Would you make them meaningless ? That would be an extremely wrong approach. Also there are a ton of underestimated and underutilized builds now, for example, mesmer chaos fields and aoe chaos procs, engi mortars (or was it granades), that can hit 3rd floor SM siege, etc. What I woudl like to see is a bit improved access to stability to the classes that currently have a hard time with it. Then let things stabilize and see what happens.

I forgot one more but extremely important factor here. Traveling to the fight and runing around looking for one is very boring and just plainly not fun. Fighting is fun.

If you remove waypoints etc. and increase the travel time, you are removing a lot of fun from WvW.

Bri.8354:

What I feel to be a core issue in WvW (at least in low to mid tier; I’m not sure how this affects higher tier servers with more population) is that towers and keeps have too much passive defense and detection. Not only is this a core reason why zergs are beneficial, but it often creates stagnant or hopeless situations.

Keeps have waypoints which allow players to warp directly to an attacked area and serve as a shortcut to defend locations faster. White swords display whenever anything is attacked, making it much easier to respond to attacks. Fortified structures take ages to break into, giving the enemy too much time to react to an attack.

All these factors encourage zerging and discourage splitting into smaller groups. If you have superior numbers you can easily go and overwhelm the enemy and if they try a counterattack it is easily detected and reacted to by the zerg, which then heads right back to attacking. Since buildings, especially fortified ones, take so long to capture and attacks are easily detected, players are encouraged to stick together and use their numbers as a defense, pool together their supply, and focus on taking down 1 building after another via force.

This ease of defense also creates stale game-play where the server with a number disadvantage is unable to make any sort of progress or capture anything other than their own territory due to the enemies ability to respond. Even in near equal match ups it can become stale, with no server able to take anything but the proximity towers, if even that.

I feel WvW could be vastly improved if defense and detection was more player involved.

- What if waypoints in keeps were completely removed?
- What if fortified walls and gates didn’t boost health, but instead increased the effectiveness of repairs and gave players standing nearby a defensive buff?
- What if white swords only showed up when a wall/gate was destroyed, or didn’t show up at all?

All this could make it easier for smaller groups to take towers/keeps and make sneaky and split attacks more effective, which could encourage smaller groups and help prevent stagnant and hopeless situations.

Hi

I strongly disagree with you on this. I play in bronze league so I am no stranger to being outmanned.

I think borderland maps need to be further reworked. On your home turf the defenders should have a big advantage over the entire map over the attacking force, currently it is the exactly opposite due to travel times from spawn. Removing Garison and keep waypoints will make this even worse then it is instead of remedy this problem.

2nd you have 30 seconds before swords show up “as is” right now. In organized groups you can melt an outer gate and be on inner before it shows up on the map, remember, many low tier servers do not have scouts watching at all times.

Furthermore, currently when outer gate goes down, swords often disappear as group moves onto inner, and there is another 30 seconds before they appear again on inner. Anyone relying purely on swords for keep/tower status is just not going to be tehre in time anyways waypoint or no waypoint.

Speaking of scouts, if you go against server that uses them, they are already there and removing swords will have zero effect one way or the other due to scout prescence. Another words, waste of dev resources.

Now, pugs are pugs and do not understand or care for swords, however, that is your personal server / community organizational problem, not a game design problem.

So the mechanics which you speak of and their counters are already largely in the game. EB is fine as it is, Borderlands need to be easier to defend, especially when 2 attacking servers are both qued on your home BL and you have outmanned buff on, and travel/sword restrictions go against that and make this much worse.

Avatar of Belle.9623:

@Tongku tl;dr

j/k. I read it. Thank you for sharing the COSA history. Basically SF = COSA. Got it!

Hi

SF does not = COSA, rather, COSA is a large stable group of people on SF, there are still plenty of other guilds of various sizes that are flourishing on SF and new ones being formed. We will support them and work with them best that we can, some it works out better then others, some it takes a long time to iron things out, but all in all, we will support our server as a whole.

SF also has a very large Hispanic community and a fair share of players from Brazil and Argentina who have their own guilds, we also ally with them for various purposes and go to good lengths in order to breach language barriers as well.

Torch also has its uses in PvE. I used to run a DPS set with sword/torch for lower / mid fractals, various dungeons etc. The #5 is channeled and an AOE cone you can keep on channeling while moving on a relatively low CD. Takes osme practice to get it right, but it does a lot of DPS along with AOE condition cleansing without having to waste trait points on it.

And I love the torch animations on asura.

Craig.2403:

bokunocarrie.7215:

Craig.2403:

bokunocarrie.7215:

clint.5681:

Meh WvW is for pvp not jumping. You really cant get mad at people for setting a trap for people just trying to get AP.

Hmmm. Let’s think about this.

They put a jumping puzzle in WvW. They made achievements for all four jumping puzzles in WvW.

Doesn’t matter if WvW is for pvp, you can get mad at people for being kittens in JPs. Not just people though, SF have always been camping out in JPs looking for easy kills.

They also put in an achievement for kills in WvW, and the jumping puzzle is going to be a great place to farm easy kills. The jumping puzzles were put in WvW to let people have fun trying to get off while there were literally live forces at work against you. ANet PURPOSEFULLY allowed pvp in the WvW jumping puzzles to make it more fun. Don’t get mad at people for playing the game the way ANet designed it

Sorry, I can’t hear you over all the bullkitten spewing out of your mouth.

It’s called being considerate. Especially considering there are PvE people in there who aren’t familiar with WvW and look to other people for help. I know there’s an achievements for kills. I’m active in both WvW and PvE and the only time I’ve ever attacked anyone in a WvW JP is when I was attacked first. For the most part, people are nice in WvW JPs. The only server I’ve ever seen attack people in a JP is (whoa, big shocker) SF.

Bottom line – it’s being considerate. And FYI? Jumping puzzles aren’t exactly easy. So to attack people while they’re trying to do it is just you being an kitten. Stop trying to defend your actions.

#1: I’m from ET. Read before you post angrily
#2: If a person parties me and asks politely to go because they just want the achievement I’ll let them go
#3: If I’m attacked I will fight back. If I die more than once I will call friends. If I still die I will wait half an hour and come back. None of these require complaining on the forums, and is much more productive.
#4: Who ever said I was trying to defend my actions? I never camp jumping puzzles. You’d know that if you actually paid attention to anything I said and read my post.
#5: Yes, for the most part people are nice, but that doesn’t change the fact that the jumping puzzles were put in there for the reasons I stated. Some people actually find it fun to try to get past jp campers. Like I said before, which you apparently didn’t read: there’s a reason ANet allowed fighting in the WvW jumping puzzles, and why after a year after a bunch of people like you complaining, there’s still fighting allowed in there.
#6: If you don’t like people camping the jumping puzzles, DON’T DO THEM. You think it’s a requirement to do them? If you don’t like a part of the game just don’t do it.
#7: Just because you’re getting your kills one way, it doesn’t mean everyone else should get them that way too. Some people don’t like zerging, which is the fastest way to get kills. So instead they take easy kills in the jp.
#8: The WvW jumping puzzles aren’t actually that hard. If you really want the achievement and can’t get it by yourself cause of campers, I’ll port you up. But seriously, stop complaining because people are playing the game the way it was designed.

Hehe

I am all for camping jumping puzzles, its a lot of fun, especially in introduction of pure PvE players to WvW. Camp away, I really do wish we had more roamers on all sides doing it, its such an interesting area to have fights in.

Ugh, what a wall of text I have posted, still a good read though for anyone interested.

Hi guys !!!!

<<<<< Another COSA member

Well, to give you all some explanation, perspective and history with regards to COSA I will post a few things.

I have been on SF since early launch, and a little bit in the open beta before then. When the game launched there were free transfers available. Guilds stacked, came and went onto and off SF at a very rapid pace and our server went from top to bottom to top to bottom again on an almost weekly basis. I and few other players decided to stick it out and not transfer, hence I have left those guilds long ago.

Finally just before the transfers got locked down, 90%+ of the wvw / spvp players have left SF. This has left us with literally 20-30 of us runing in all 4 WvW maps. I kid you not. There really were maybe 20 of us tops. We were getting steamrolled by everyone.

Then Oceanid (our grand guildmaster) and 1 or 2 friends of his formed COSA and went on a recruting spree. We grew to about 200 players and started to organize a little in WvW while still having a lot of new players to the game. Vast majority of our players at that time were brand new to the game and still leveling, gearing (exotics were hard to get back then) and we were still recruiting new players.

Once we reached around 400 people or around tehre a structure within our guild started to evolve, we got some more numbers into wvw and continued PvE with new players who joined us as they reached 80 and finished their PvE content.

Eventually we reached max size and at that time made the 2nd guild, Saphire, under command of Banjo Rodriguez, which later on became WvW centric, whereas COSA RED (Scarlet), remained PvX, incidentally I am a PvX player.

As our size grew those of us that stuck it out and showed some dedication became officers of our guilds and our server started to organize as such. At that time COSA Blue was not that big, it was just starting and we formed a multi-guild alliance for WvW.

As we hang out together with all our different guilds on VOIP, and guild missions merits just starting, we made a decision to help out all the small guilds with theirs, have given them temp invites, ran missions with them etc.

Eventually COSA Blue, has formed to about half its size from all the small guilds as we decided we simply love to play together for all aspects of the game and it is a lot of fun to this day. We help WvW and PVP people with the bewildering world of PvE as well as the other way around. Getting people to open up to other aspects of this game and having fun at it, is a really great thing.

Then COSA Blue went on a recruting spree of its own, and stuck it out while we had the fairweather guilds and people roll in and out of SF continuously. Eventually, COSA Blue maxed out in size just as red, so we made an overflow guild called COSA Green, then some imitation and misc other COSAs popped out. We do not mind them, and in fact play with many of them and have just as much fun

So that is today’s COSA. Yes, we have some very casual WvW players who are kinda puggy, but we also have some extremely veteraned players dating from the days when we had 20-30 of us in all of WvW. And we know all about being the underdog, even though it doesnt seem like that to many of you. Remember, we played and stuck it out and kept on climbing from the very bottom of the bottom of the bottom after all the other people abandoned us for “greener pastures”.

So that is today’s COSA, you will find groups of people in WvW that just come in for an hour or 2 every 3rd day, you will find groups of people that are super organized and can do some serious expert zerg busting (skill lag permitting), golem rushes, siege and stand-offs, and everything in between, with all skill levels in between.

When you see a COSA tag, you just never know which one it is you are running up against, hence likewise with our wins / losses.

Incidentally, COSA has also evolved a very “loose” and “take it easy” atmosphere within itself and has grown in the community.

Last but not least, COSA Red (PvX) is recruiting PvX players, mumble VOIP preferred but not required, along with 95%+ representation.

Resistance is futile …..
You will be assimilated …..

Cat Has Ducks.1982:

Tongku.5326:

Build was 10 10 30 10 10.

The focus of this build was on consecrations and F1 resets so that its available much

When you say F1 resets, are you referring to FoJ renewed on mob kill? If so that requires 15 in Radiance. If not, then I’m not sure what you mean here.

Hmm that may be true as it has been a long while and many things have changed since I ran this, but you can still experiment with something along these lines, with or without the F1 reset per kill, and there are new runes available now too which I didnt have before. The basis still remains the same though, lower your appropriate utility CDs, rely on AH for self uptime, adjust the rest to fit the situation.

Treborlavok.3504:

Aeolus.3615:

roamming on 1vs1 that build is obliterated in few seconds, healing over time do not help if u cant keep your target away from you making him recovering or reseting combat, with those stats its a 2 or 3 seconds combat.

That build is far from being a roamming build reduce the healing and apply on crits with the %boon duration u will be always with boons on wich sometimes can be bad :P, pitty guardian hsa to many countters…

^QFT
For pve/dungeons and high level melee fotm fights… mace/focus or shield is superb with the right build.

Wvw and pvp you don’t want to ever run mace. Your better off running either sword/torch and scepter/focus or scepter/shield and gs. It depends on your build again.

Hi

The above folks are correct, I have had similar experiences overall. Although, when we run a guild group in wvw and are short on healing condi removal, 2 of us (guards) will go mace / heal to help out. The spammable mace symbol + whirl finisher in mid combat is actually really poweful, but still does not surpass water field+blast combo.

So it is very situational in group comp and does not perform well while roaming.

ezhcim.3075:

Im still looking for some help with my guardian.
So far Ive heard many different things that can be summarised into the following 2 stances:
AH is the way to go works well all around do not listen to the elitist Zerkers who only deepen the problems in this game.
AH is outdated and elfish, you can do way better going Zerker, if you run AH you are either a noob or a bad player.
From my understanding AH builds seem to be the way to go for WvW, while full Zerker builds are the way to go for most PvE content. So it seems like both are rather useful depending on what you want to do.
My problem is that Im a player who does a little bit of everything. Im not stuck running dungeons every day, nor do I run fractals over and over at max level. While I spend most of my time in PvE I do not always run within a group. Sometimes I even go to WvW to have some fun.
What I am looking for is a versatile efficient self-sustained build.
I dont want to be the BEST dungeon runner, or the BEST fractal runner, nor do I want to be the BEST solo player or WvW fighter. I want a well rounded build that can perform good in most if not every aspect of the game with little changes in the trait lines. A build that helps my group when I run in a group or a zerg but that can also stand on its own when I go solo.
Maybe a build like this does not exist? so far I havent really been able to find one so I would really appreciate it if some of the guys from the community could shed some light for me and maybe help me find a build that performs close to what I want.
Thank you and all opinions are welcomed!
TL;DR: hear ppl saying AH sucks, and others saying full Zerk sucks for guardian. I dont want to be the best in only ONE aspect of the game but have a build that performs good in most or every aspect of the game with little to no changes in the trait lines, any advice?

Hi OP

I ran a build that largely fits your parameters, it is not the greatest at anything, but just good enough at everything. Ran it for duo wvw roaming with ele, ran it in large scale organized battles, ran it in dungeons, including 40+ fractals and was very successfull with it.

Build was 10 10 30 10 10.

I switched out the traits as needed and adjusted them on “per boss fight” basis in the upper fractals and wvw per activity (roaming vs large scale)

I did however end up switching my rings, some armor and weapons as well per situation. Incidentally, later on I found out this was the very 1st build anyone in the game used to solo Lupicus in Arah, so it can be quite powerful.

The focus of this build was on consecrations and F1 resets so that its available much more often then otherwise for might and burns. gear wise I had a few zerker pieces, knights pieces, PVT pieces and clerics pieces, and as stated above, switched them out as needed.

I ran sword+torch / staff in fractals, scepter+torch / staff when all ranged was required pending boss figth and group comp.

scepter+focus / staff in wvw roaming (since we were a kiting team), hammer/staff in wvw large scale.

utility wise, ran wall of reflection, signet of judgement, hold the line, shield of the avenger, stand your ground, purging flames as needed. switched around some traits as well here and there to reflect the utility choices.

I suggest you try it out for a week or 2 and see how it goes for you. Takes a bit to get used to but works well.

Obsidian.1328:

Please remove the ridiculous new achievements from W3, they are ruining the gameplay in it. WvWvW(W3) has a very strong community and is arguably the finest aspect of the entire game. It’s hallmark being the level of inter-server competition and intra-server cooperation, tier populations notwithstanding.

The introduction of dozens of new achievements has caused not only an influx of new players into the Borderlands who don’t care about the match-up, but it creates a queue nightmare in which very few guilds are getting their members in. This leads to a breakdown of server effectiveness in which the carefully laid plans and group builds become insignificant and pointless.

W3 may have been intended as a PvE light combat zone, but the reality is that the PvP here is the most competitive aspect of the game by far. Trying to force some kind of PvE meta into W3 with these achievement carrots is not only wrong, but game-breaking. Leave the achievement rat-race in PvE; it’s not needed, nor welcome here.

Hi OP

Please speak only for yourself and your guild / community / server if you represent such. Do not falsely assume all of us share your sentiments, because we do not.

We very much welcome the new players this has brought in as well as the rewards provided by these achievements as it is a right step in adressing the disparity between WvW and PvE reward systems.

Forst.5863:

In the last two days I took Stonemist (2 gates) a few times and several towers (1 gate), as you do in WvW.

Yet I only have “1/10 Walls and Gates destroyed”.

So either that thing is bugged or the description doesn’t fit the requirements.

Hi

I was on ram and battered down gates since I have full siege master and full ram mastery, got WXP for it, got the Tower Lord credit, got the credit for the take (circle) and did not receive credit a few times towards the achievement for towers. Overall it took me maybe 15-16 takes before the achievement finally credited me for 10 towers.

It is bugged indeed, but eventually it will give you the credits.

XacTactX.6709:

WvW Season 1 is going to run for 7 weeks, or 49 days. This means we have to get one world rank every day for 7 weeks. The only people who will be able to attain this are regular WvWers, the same ones who are in dedicated WvW guilds. Please be a bit more reasonable with how much gameplay is required, 10 or 20 WXP ranks would be fine, 50 is overboard.

This is from the perspective of a casual WvW player, I have rank 30 on my Guardian and probably rank 50 or so across all my characters. I enjoy WvW a lot and it’s fun to strategize on voice chat (especially in small havoc teams) but I don’t know if I’m hardcore enough for this. ):

Hi

I have gained 37 ranks since the friday reset, I have to admit I spend my weekend in wvw though except some minor stuff and guild missions. I also realize it is largely dependant on the match-up and your server, there will be weeks when you will gain ranks very slow, and other weeks when they will just fly.

But I do not see any issue with this, I expect to be done with the 50 rank AP on Friday reset at furthest. If your server is unlucky for match ups, you will take maybe 2-3 times as long, do not be discouraged, look at it as a longer term goal, get in with an organized wvw group or guild if yours is not, hop onto their VOIP and run with them. Everything will fall into place by itself.

TyPin.9860:

I was thinking about the queue priority. As an almost pure WvW player I am punished atm, because the queues are insanely long. The PvE achievment hunters are basicly blocking my preffered game mode that defines GW2 for me, while they just wanna gather more achievments (of what they have already very much).

So I was thinking (quite egoisticly) about a solution for that until the new Edge of the mists map hits release. Why not order WvW queue priority after the players game priorities? Basicly a player that plays 100% of his time WvW will get a high priority. Players who usually play PvE and are just for the achievments here will have the lowest priority. What this basicly does is that it gives me my game mode back, while the PvE hunters won’t get in WvW, but that won’t be such a big deal for them.

The only thing I am concerned here is what will happen with the players who mix it up and, for example, play PvP, PvE and WvW equally. Because now the WvW players might block their spot. However, they would have other game modes to fall back on, and if the queue priotity is not lineary correlated with WvW game time, it might still work.

You are only screwed, if you want to change your priorities and wanna transition from PvE to WvW… however, the system that we have now is punishing WvW players the worst and will lead for me to quit the game, when I am forced to wait 2 hours in PvE, just to enter a WvW map until the next disconnect occurs.

I dont think its a good idea to have a queue priority, however, if there was one I would like it to be as follows:

All original server inahbitants 1st, regardless of their gaming focus.

All transfers 2nd.

Transfers should be given further priority within themselves from the oldest to the newest, so that those that have transferred most recently get to go in the last.

Togashi Jack.9531:

So, for the majority of my year+ in Guild Wars 2 I’ve been playing PvE. I’ve had a rare stint into PvP and WvW, but the latter two were relatively unfulfilling. Recently, I joined a new guild that has a significantly larger WvW presence and the WvW Seasons happened to come about at the same time. In the short time that I’ve been going around since the season started I can honestly say I’ve had more fun than any previous stint in WvW and will likely stay after I’ve completed achievements.

Seasons and the new guild have given me motivation to explore and rediscover this content that I’d long ago decided I didn’t care for. I’m thrilled to say that I was wrong and will keep WvW as a part of my regular Guild Wars 2 play.

Hi

Great to hear, you sound exactly like a lot of people in my guild, in your WvW journey you will stumble and maybe some kitten hats will give you bit of a hard time in map chat and on forums such as these, do not be discouraged, just ignore them and “keep on truckin”.

Senninha.4105:

3-5 hours queue at primetime to play some WvW, this whole WvW season is one big mistake Arenanet!!!!!

LOL

keep on scabbing bronze league servers, Y O U R recruitment and scabbing posts are still up.

This seriously really makes me laugh IRL !!!!

We have low que times at prime (5pm – 11pm server time) and no que times at all during remaining time periods. Now is a perfect time to come over if you dont like ques

XenusTEHG.1965:

I cant participate in WvW and do something good for my server because my free spot is occupied be useless, achievement farming kittens.
Arena net you should… no, you MUST introduce leagues only after that overflow border land will be ready.

Thats sensless, how am I and other wvw oriented players suppose to support their servers when the game just dont give them a chance to do it?

My friend tried to enter to any border land for 18 hours stright (!).
You let to random people take places of potential high ranked players and commanders with voice chat.

You introduced WvW leagues but didnt managed this thing, not cool AN, not cool at all.

LOL another stacker on a stacked server QQ, brings me joy

KeeZee.7312:

And they will leave once said achievements are done. Like I said earlier, they have had a year already to try it and like it. Adding achievements isn’t going to change this.

Wrong. It is changing it. Perhaps on your server it does not but do not generalize because it is changing on mine.

You have to realize that it will not be all of them of course, but a certain percentage and focus on that.

What steps have you taken to be a part of that positive change ? Has your WvW guild leader contacted any of the PvE guild leaders and are you guys hanging out in your VOIP ? Are you giving pointers and training the new people ? Are you showing them how to have a blast in WvW ? Or are you just spewing crap at them in map chat ?

Zylonite.5913:

There is no benefits to bringing PvE and WvW players together (other than guild missions).

Please don’t include LS JPs in WvW maps and please don’t include PvP finishers as LS achievement for PvE players.

Just accept the fact that the player base enjoys different aspect of the game and that is the end of it.

The WvW maps are already queued up to the throat and no need to encourage new PvE players into WvW temporarily for some JP and no contribution to the server WvW score.. If a PvE player want to focus on WvW then that is a different story and should be fine and they can follow the commander and what not.

I hope the WvW seasons continue as planned and it is a great addition to the game but please give it some thoughts before adding all these unneeded PvE stuff into it.

Sorry OP, I extremely disagree with you. While there are some minor ques at prime times, 5-10 minutes, that is certainly not a reason to exclude such a vast percentage of players from this game mode.

The only way you are experiencing a very significant overall que problem is if you are a stacker on a stacked server, in which case you are part of the problem not the solution and get exactly what you deserve, likewise with your guild/friends if they are likeminded.

On our server we are very happy to see all the new faces in WvW, many have joined us on our VOIP and plan to become at least regular casuals and are already adjusting their builds, gearing up, etc.

I thank Anet very much for taking the steps which they have to bring in the PvE crowd and expose them to WvW.

Heh

I’m in bronze league. Yesterday at leagues start we actually qued all 4 maps for our very 1st time ever at our prime time for about an hour and a half. Our que times were very short and of course our maps turned all opponents colors overnight due to coverage imbalance, but it was real nice to see so many new faces and have so many new people on our VOIP. I already know many of these players will be returning at least as casuals even after the leagues ended cause a lot of them had fun and found a community that they never knew existed in this game.

This map and any / all issues that can possibly come up with it are utterly and totally meaningless until server population and coverage gap issues are solved.

If you’re on stacked server and going onto a nearly empty map, what will the match up be ? PVE mobs instead of players ? Does anyone actually think that Guard and Lord NPCs can offer a good fight instead of opposing players ?

Likewise, if you are on a server that will have 5-10 people on this map going against 100, what can you do that is actually meaningful for the overall longterm PPT ? Camp flipping and yak killing only gets you so far, you may be able to ninja 1 tower if the scouts go AFK during the entire session at the most. Rest is pre-determined.

I got over 20 ranks just last night (had 3 boosters though) and expect to be done with this one in 4 days, 5 tops via regular, everyday WvW gameplay. I do not see any problems whatsoever unless you get one of those match ups where 2 servers just get spawn camped on all maps and yours is on the short end of the stick, in which case, simply go PvE, come back next week.

Guard – improve staff #2, the orb

War – make DPS and survivability more trait dependant so you cant be near top of both at same time but have to sacrifice some of one for the other.

Mesmer – get rid of portal entirely or set it on an F5 skill

Ele – lower the CD and increase duration on earth armor but lower its effectiveness.

Necro – fix condition builds to be effective vs bosses such as Teq and many others

Thief – increase survivability and utility in PvE only while reducing overall stealth in WvW / SPVP at same time.

Engi – dont have one yet, but will soon

Ranger – dont have one yet

Nice to see new people, yesterdays Leagues reset rocked, bump for more

Faux.1937:

Ive been playnig guardian for a while now and I loved it, but with this new patch, my warrior is looking more and more useful… With just as easy Condition cleans with shours, healing … from shouts, good regen skills, might stacking and loads of fury, compare to guardian IDK what to pick. I know guardian can add some more condition removal and some blinds. But with the New patch, what should the new guardian fotm and dungeon build be?

Ive tried hammer, staff, sword with focus, shield, torch set ups, Ive done blind spam and even additional crit/might stacking, but I guess I just cant find the good balance with dps and team support.

Help me have fun with my guardian again

Hi

I play both war and guard. War does far more damage, used to do average 24-26k on GS rotation and 28k on rifle rotation, sometimes higher, sometimes lower, but those were are the numbers. I used it for gold farming, outdoors event farming, etc etc. All that stuff got super boring after about 6 months and I stopped playing. farming and farmer builds suck major kitten .

Came back made a guard, what a completely different style of play and fresh change. I finally got my guard geared out fully, full zerk gear with traveller runes, full PVT with melandru and 3 sets of ascended jewelry, PVT, clerics and zerk.

Also got a jugg, 2 ascended staffs (1 zerk 1 PVT), Acended zerk GS and a trident

As far as builds go for upper fractals, I have played all the high dmg cookie cutter crap, as well as 0 0 30 30 10 for a while, both are a bit boring. Currently I kinda go back and forth between 3 different builds.

0 0 30 20 20 for full heals support
30 0 0 10 30 for DPS and mad buffs

and a very weird one of my own creation 10 10 30 10 10 <<< my favorite for tough content.

The reason I like this build is because of its flexibility. It isnt focused on 1 weapon or 1 set of skills. I can switch around some jewelry, 1-2 major traits and utilities and weapons, and go from a mac 10 machine gun to a pretty hefty hitter. It relies on lowering the CDs on your utilities, as well as constantly resetting your F1. I can burn and stack migth almost non stop in many fractals on top of delivering zerk DPS while having decent support and good survivability. There is no reason to sacrifice one for the other.

Some fights I also switch to sword / torch, instead of GS. torch 5 is an excellent source of damage and cleansing at the same time on a low CD, sword 3 does pretty well also. This set lacks utility but provides what it needs to.

My advice to you is ignore all the cookie cutters and full zerk, experiment and find a fun build for yourself.