Guild Wars 2

Well done to YB on taking SM with your 6 trebs tonight

As is often the case, too many TCers were fighting or standing in pointless places, and we were unable to muster enough people to AoE or countertreb your trebs at OL. We also wasted a lot of supply repairing the outer walls that should have been used to defend the inner gates. We also retreated to the lord room instead of defending the inner gates. I think you get the picture >.>

I encourage you to keep trebbing SM every single time TC possesses it – it’s the only way we’ll eventually learn how to respond. ^^

~Nyari Cil, Queen

Let’s not devolve the thread into discussion about the ethics of camping a jumping puzzle :p

That way leads to it being locked. Again. Let’s move on >.>

~Nyari Cil, Queen

Arcadio.6875:

Vagrant, it was actually Dragonbrand in our last fight. HoD was there for your fight with CD last week. But the point still stands, DB didn’t help us very much by being the third server.

Oh, right >.> You are correct. DB had a fairly decent presence the first night, but not much after that. TC has faced both ET and HoD (both DoA) and SoR/BG prior to this match, so the rankings have been very broken for a very long period of time ^^

I’m just happy to finally be in a state/tier where we have servers on a relatively equal footing (CD, TC, FA, YB). Yes, CD is stronger in the AM, and TC tends to have more overall coverage thus far, but winning or losing by around 50K by the end of the week is still a very good match for all involved.

We’ll also have to see what effect the patch has on the following match. I can guarantee TC’s numbers will be down due to the new PvE content, but I’d expect that of any other server in tier 3 also.

Arcadio.6875:

Vagrant.1094:

This Friday, it will be TC/FA/YB as the stats currently stand, and I look forward to seeing how the substitution of CD for FA alters the dynamic.

This will definitely be interesting to see. I think it’s a given that NA primetime will be closer than what it is now. The big question is off-peak. Last week we were up against Yaks. After reset when primetime ended, FA was up by 900. In typical FA fashion, we collapsed overnight. Yaks was up by 110k Tuesday morning. The match ended with them 44k ahead of us. FA dominated Tuesday morning until reset and a lot of our progress was during off-peak. FA was trying to get recruits from other time zones at the time. One EU guild decided to move to FA and was trying to get others to join. There were many rumors about how many transfers we were getting. Yaks players during off-peak claimed they were seeing more FA players. Strangely, FA players were not seeing new people and said they saw less Yaks players. After the start of the current match, some players investigated and found that a lot of the transfer rumors were false. There were only a couple of guilds transferring and maybe a Japanese guild too. The original EU guild that said they were transferring had only just finished transferring after the reset.

Maybe FA really did get more off-peak transfers than we think we did. There were probably a lot of individuals who transferred due to a bandwagon effect and we just didn’t notice them because we were looking for guilds. But I also think a lot of Yaks players stopped showing up over the week for whatever reason. I hope we really did get a lot of transfers so we can be competitive against TC and not get dominated again, but I’m really not sure. We are destroying Darkhaven in off-peak even though Yaks told us DH had some decent coverage at that time, but comparing common opponents (Maguuma and Dragonbrand) it looks like the FA of two matches ago would still have won easily.

I was watching your match (thread) last week

I’m pretty sure it’s the ‘well, we’ve won’ factor kicking in. When you’re ahead by 100K, while your fairweather folks and primarily PvE oriented people will still queue, your ‘regulars’ queue less, and do less, because we don’t need to. We want close fights, or the scrappiness of weeks like those against Blackgate, when we can fight back against the odds and learn new things. Weeks when we dominate offer less incentive for those who enjoy a challenge to play.

The difference to the coming match between FA and TC is that we won’t be stuck with the dead on arrival HoD as the third spoke of the wheel this time around, just like you at FA are stuck with them now. They utterly imbalance a system designed to have 3 relatively equal servers competing. TC smashed FA when HoD were in the tier, and now FA is bopping Darkhaven for the same reason. What I’m interested in is how the score will be when TC can’t just run over FA on ‘every’ map in the morning, because YB should have substantially more presence than HoD ever did.

I still expect some map capping to take place, but I don’t envisage TC ever owning all 4 maps at once. We shall see!

Thoughts on this week:

Firstly, TC isn’t moving up into Tier 2. There’s a vast 80 point differential between TC and IoJ that isn’t going to be overcome until such time as TC has a blowout week in tier 3 (unlikely), or IoJ or SoR suffer from the plague that is mass transfers off their servers, leading to them dropping substantially.

TC doesn’t belong in tier 2. We don’t have round the clock coverage, we don’t possess enough organised and dedicated WvW guilds, and we are still terrible at defending when certain folks aren’t around to ensure that we do.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m pleased that we’re sitting at the top of tier 3 for three consecutive weeks, and I believe that’s where we currently belong, but anyone on any server who thinks we belong or are ready for tier 2 is very wrong

After almost 2 straight weeks of being trebbed from OL when we own Stonemist Castle in EB, I’m pleased that folks are ‘finally’ beginning to understand how to counter that, and why it needs be countered promptly. Our competency rate has risen from about 25% to 40%. That’s still not good ^^, but it’s a marked improvement. There are still a bunch of other problems with SM, but too many to list here :p.

TC still needs to improve drastically when it comes to the defense of our towers, the upgrading of them, and the building and replacing of ‘cleverly’ placed siege. It’s all good and well to pat ourselves on the back for another week where we’ve come out on top, but there are still problems that need to be solved.

To CD: In EB, you tend to run the same offensive strategies, and at least when I, or certain other defense minded people are about, these are easily countered. Your 45min sieges of Klovan at 6am in the morning are good fun, but the pattern is predictable.

Sat morning, when you took WC easily – that was absolutely terrible defense on our part, and you deserved to sit there trebbing Lowlands Keep for half an hour. Again, it was our more defensive minded folk that set up counters to that scenario.

For the record, I’m the engineer who is persistently at Golanta holding up the cap – you folks kill me a lot, but around 50% of the time I and others are able to prevent it being capped long enough for reinforcements to arrive.

To YB: I haven’t really had to defend against your incursions in EB as much as I have CD. As with Golanta, I and others have held up multiple attempts at Rogues. People underestimate just how easy those camps are to hold when you’re willing to die and run back. I’ve watched you make several attempts at WC – often I haven’t required our zerg to handle them. I did enjoy the time you built a treb in the middle of Rogues. I had to suicide run my way into it 4 times to keep dropping bombs.

All in all, it’s been the best match TC has had in a long time, and I applaud both CD and YB’s tenacity. There has been a marked rise in folks exiting the game as they’re about to die in this match, which is unfortunate. I’m sure TC has our own quitters. I just wish certain thieves and D/D Ele’s would accept defeat gracefully. They know who they are ^^

There was one DD Ele from YB that I had a dual with for around 2min outside WC, which I ended up winning after we both went to downed state. That was a lot of fun, and the /bow was a measure of my respect

This Friday, it will be TC/FA/YB as the stats currently stand, and I look forward to seeing how the substitution of CD for FA alters the dynamic.

~Nyari Cil, Queen of EB!

This has been a nice, even match so far. There’s a certain 4-5 hour period in the AM where CD surges, and neither Yaks or TC can counter that, ending up outmanned. Other than that, point gain totals have remained relatively close.

As with last Friday, TC did not lose a tower in EB until around 6am during CD’s surge, by which time all of CD’s had been flipped, and all of YB’s bar Veloka had also. We played horribly in our defense of WC in the AM – 10 people turning up to defend despite us not yet having the outmanned buff. Within 5 min of losing WC, we earned the outmanned buff >.>

I believe my folks in EB outplayed our opponents, holding all our territory while constantly flipping camps and towers, and some very efficient yak sniping. Well done, everyone, and thank you to CD and YB for the fun night, and close match. For as much as we may have had the upper hand over you in EB, you both smooshed us for a good period of time in the BL’s

~Nyari Cil, Queen

You all realise that by continually responding to the one person complaining, you perpetuate his ability to saturate this thread with nonsense, yes? Stop replying

99% of CD/TC realise that TC has stronger coverage during the overnight/afternoon period, and post Friday larger numbers in primetime due to the inevitable decline which comes about as soon as one server gains a significant lead. Similarly, CD has outnumbered TC every night during the US morning period for around 4-5 hours. ‘Both’ servers have periods where large numbers of their people crush small numbers of resistance. Complaining about it, defending it, it’s all silly.

Let’s move on :p

~Nyari Cil, Queen

Nabrok.9023:

Vagrant.1094:

Just as CD started attacking the inner gate of SM, someone bought the patrols upgrade, using up 2000 supply leaving us with only 400.

That would be your usual spy/infiltrator activity. SoR did the same thing last week to our keep, and I have no doubt there are individuals on TC who will transfer an alt to an opposing server and do the same thing. You can generally tell by the timing of the (relatively valueless) upgrade.

Just FYI, it’s not possible to transfer just an alt. You transfer all of your characters at once, you can’t just transfer one.

Thanks, Nabrok! I didn’t know that, as I’ve never transferred anything. It doesn’t change the fact that people will still transfer to commit such nefarious acts, however ^^ (and indeed have alternate accounts, as another suggested).

Score:

TC: 199363 +180
CD: 97350 +440
HoD: 29035 +75

CD have gobbled up everything as they do at this time every day. Delicious!

I can’t speak for the BL’s, but EB never has a 60 man zerg running around. 30+ is itself a rarity in EB.

I agree that certain ‘mindless’ aspects TC displays at times don’t cut it in the higher tiers, which is one of the reasons we don’t belong in them. Our focus on defense needs to ‘drastically’ improve before we stand a chance against tier 2 servers.

~Nyari Cil, Queen

Just as CD started attacking the inner gate of SM, someone bought the patrols upgrade, using up 2000 supply leaving us with only 400.

That would be your usual spy/infiltrator activity. SoR did the same thing last week to our keep, and I have no doubt there are individuals on TC who will transfer an alt to an opposing server and do the same thing. You can generally tell by the timing of the (relatively valueless) upgrade.

However, it’s one of the reasons you purchase ‘all’ upgrades at your keep, and at SM if and when you’re in a position to hold it. SM had been sitting 2 upgrades short of the cap for a long time.

TC played poorly in EB tonight (4pm-9pm PST). Too often these match threads offer only praise for the server one belongs to, instead of well deserved criticism. I was in EB, watching silently the goings on. Too many people place too much importance on Stonemist Castle. Far too much is called out about SM which doesn’t need to be. I’ll keep saying it every night until it sinks in ^^, but SM doesn’t need any call-outs in chat unless people rock up with siege in hand, or it’s being trebbed.

Nor do we need to call out every single non-TC sentry on the map. Sentries don’t stop yaks. Players do.

We spent too much time over in HoD’s territory trying to cap useless towers when we should have been pressing CD up north.

We lost WC (twice) and a fully upgraded Klovan because there were ‘far’ too many people talking in chat and ‘few’ too many paying attention to the information that mattered. It’s a long standing problem in EB.

Whenever we own Stonemist, the majority of players forget about our 4 towers and keep and live at the big castle in the centre of the map, which is entirely unnecessary. We don’t have enough people paying attention to the map, or staying back on defense.

The exception this week was Friday night-Sat morning where I was in EB and actively making sure these things were attended to, via a multitude of whispers, map prediction and people I can rely on to attend to what actually matters

This week, 1v1 vs CD, we can mess about at SM and still, for the most part, retain our holdings, but next week, assuming we don’t jump up into tier 2 and get slaughtered, having everyone mess about at SM when we have it will result in the swift loss of ‘far’ more important towers in our territory. EB is about ‘defense’, protecting your upgraded towers and hurting your enemy by taking and downgrading theirs. Stonemist Castle is both an asset and a liability, and too often folks in EB treat it like the be all and end all of the map, which it is not

CD, you played better than TC for the period of time I was on and watching tonight, well done. I’m hoping we’ll be able to face you and Yaks’ next week on more even footing.

~Nyari Cil, Queen.

I hope you folks at HoD appreciated our refusal to give up Golanta to you every time you came >.>

We’re rather good at the barnyard dance >.>

Great night in EB. I’m exhausted, having been in there since the reset and only now going to sleep, but the plan I asked folks to follow worked beautifully. Thank you to everyone who worked with me tonight

CD, bad luck on the global DC on your 30min siege in the Lord Room of SM the 2nd time around this morning. It was hilariously bad timing for you, and great for us. The first TC defense of SM during the end of primetime was great stuff, however.

For the record, TC hasn’t lost a home tower in EB as I write this. Great job on defense, everyone, and I enjoyed some of the inventive ways you tried to take things, CD. Unfortunately, I’ve learned a lot from the first time we played you, and from playing BG and SoR.

The Queen does not give up her holdings easily

~Nyari Cil, Queen

Thanks to Housin and everyone else in EB tonight – you folks flipped three tier 3 towers before my internet died! A great effort.

~Nyari Cil, Queen.

P.S – Sneaky cats are best >.> <3 you Langor!

Just wanted to say thanks to ‘Tasmus’ from SoR for the civil, polite discussion we had in whispers about goings on in EB, and our respective servers. Much respect to you! ^^

~Nyari Cil, Queen.

Having six commanders on one map is utterly detrimental

At most you want 3 icons at any one time, at least in so far as Eternal Battlegrounds go.

The problem with Commander Icons is the innate assumption that everyone who purchases one is therefore qualified to lead. It simply isn’t true. In EB, TC has certain individuals without icons who are tactically superior to those who show up with them. Over time the regular players of any map begin to learn who is worth listening to, and who isn’t.

I try and teach every random commander that shows up more than once (as I was taught and learned in turn from the person I consider EB’s strongest commander). Some listen. Some don’t

The fact of the matter is that even one Icon Commander can totally derail a map if they’re tactically unsound, slow to respond, overextend, devalue defense, etc etc.

There will always be new folks, and people who blindly follow the blue diamond. It’s the responsibility of anyone who plays regularly to learn which people are worth following and listening to, and educate newer players as to whom they should pay attention to – regardless of whether they have an icon or not

~Nyari Cil, Queen

Uthman.4873:

Also kudos’ to the TC group that broke out into EB, I know we didn’t make it easy for you at all.

Mysticforce.5096:

While we were doing our thing up north, down south TC began to organize in /team chat. Admittedly I did not pay much attention to the specifics – I just saw enough to know they were organizing to retake lost territory. As our infiltration team kept SoR busy up north and out West, TC retook our keep and all surrounding towers.

At some point during all this our out manned buff disappeared. Complaints were no longer heard. Commands were given in /team. We had taken back every inch of our territory and began pushing into ET territory and set up siege for SM.

All of that accomplished in a few hours, starting from nothing, because TC truly does not give up no matter what the odds. You can take our lands, but you will never take our spirit~

There was, however, one thing that remained unchanged throughout the night. We never did have a blue icon on the map.

It’s now been over 6 hours since my team of 5 in EB retook Langor with a sneaky cat, while another team took Bravost. We then built trebs to retake our keep. Over the past 6 hours, we’ve held all three of those gains, while taking and losing my beloved Quentin Lake and Durios.

While we did have some folks with commander icons appear at around the three hour mark, we retook and held most of our 3rd because we worked together and paid attention. It’s really that simple.

I am, to all effects and purposes, a commander. I don’t lead zergs. I rarely leave our 3rd of the map. I don’t have an icon. I do predict movements. I do read the map. I do know how to defend a tower and deal with assaults. When you folks listen to me, we do okay. When I have someone leading around an offensive group to co-ordinate with, we do ‘great.’

So thank you to all those who came to EB tonight, including but not limited to Pamana, Karreck, Housin, Xander and Basil, all of whom contributed to our organisation and defense. I can’t do anything on my own, and I need other people I can rely on to relay information, hold points, defend yaks etc.

Thank you ‘everyone’ The Queen loves you all!

SoR, I hope we gave you some fun in EB tonight, if not the fight you wanted. I had fun

~Nyari Cil, Queen of Quentin Lake

TC’s offpeak coverage has always been superior to any server outside the top three tiers. However, we certainly can’t manage queues on all maps post prime-time, let alone ‘during’ primetime in most cases.

We won last week (and will continue to win when in tier 4 or below with servers of similar ability) because of the numbers that surge into WvW overnight when we’re winning, or have a good chance of winning. Those numbers evaporate as soon as we’ve obviously lost (such as this week).

That’s not to say our tactics (when we’re playing at our best) aren’t sound either – they are. But we are by no means as organised as the current top six servers (JQ, SBI, SoR, SoS, BG, IoJ), and we don’t belong anywhere near matches with any of them

All that said, I learned things (good and bad) from BG, and I’ve already learned something from SoR this week, and all that helps make me a better defensive commander (if you want to term me as such, as I don’t use an icon and rarely leave our 3rd of the map) in EB. So I’m grateful for these lopsided matches

~Nyari Cil, Queen

Felidire.2861:

lol, a green thief just nuked me down to 3k health while I was typing; I tabbed back into the game, dropped him on his kitten and then just walked off without even bothering to stomp him. XD

Felidire, you are my heroine! ^^

It’s moments like these that make WvW fun no matter the score.

~Nyari Cil, Queen

The outcome of this match was known long before it actually started to anyone with an inkling of what’s happened with SoR and ET over the past 2 weeks ^^

Congratulations to SoR on your win – you’ll be up in tier 2 next week where you belong, with the other 4 most loaded servers!

We at TC will be out there, somewhere, over the course of this week making a nuisance of ourselves somewhere >.>

~Nyari Cil, Queen

Spawn camping occurs in every single match where any 1 team dominates the maps. Some servers are worse than others, but every server has folks who will partake in it.

If I have nothing better to do I’ll toggle my walk on and /wave or /bow at people. If they walk or emote back at me, I let them go :p

The only time siege has actually been necessary is vs SoS, where we kept them contained in their spawn for long periods of time due to their massive Oceanic presence.

Good luck to FA and DB vs Maguuma next week. I believe that match should be in FA’s favour, and it will be interesting to watch the score

~Nyari Cil, Queen.

Korynn is nice, if far too tall! I have to look up at her all the time. She really needs to kneel more in my presence. An asset to any guild.

~Nyari Cil, Queen.

The Halloween event has had an obvious effect on all servers in this match up. Logically, you’d expect it to affect TC more, with TC being the unofficial RP server, and that seems to be the case.

With TC already having won the week, apathy also sets in, and the drive to ‘prevent’ FA capping in EB wanes, as opposed to running around behind them and earning silver and karma.

Tougher match next week vs SoR or SoS, should be more exciting. With Sanctum being a FoTM server, I expect us to be most outnumbered. Alternatively SoS’ offpeak crew will do to us what we’ve been doing to FA and DB this week. Either way, exciting stuff.

FA, hopefully we can take you folks on for a third time with a more even population distribution, or stronger third team than DB (with the utmost respect for those in DB who’ve turned out to fight).

~Nyari Cil, Queen

To quote myself:

TC is in the awkward position where our off-peak crew turns out in greater numbers than any a tier 4 match up server could wield, but we’re not as strategically capable as the top ranked server of tier 3. This results in our overnight crew being less and less populous as the week goes on against opponents able to match or exceed our off-peak numbers, to the point that it even effects prime time.

I’m sure you folks at FA experienced the same decline last week with BG. People like to win, and when you’re winning…your numbers swell. When you’re losing badly, they drop dramatically.

Yes, we have the greater off-peak presence this week because the folks who are willing to stay up past their bedtimes, and those who come in for map completion, and the puzzle, and the easy money are all here. So are 2 hour queues.

It’s happened before, and it will happen again. We have the fairweather numbers to outmatch any tier 4 server or below in terms of controlling the map overnight. It’s a matter of retaining those numbers when we can’t just roll over our opposition.

The downside to the blowout in points is what messes up the rankings. We’ll shoot back up into tier 3, and the 7th placed server (at this point SoS or SoR) will likely dominate the offpeak instead, and queues will be back to <15min after Friday night.

It’s still difficult to predict next week’s match up at this stage due to the imbalances in all tiers except 1.

All 3 servers in this match know what it’s like to be on the receiving end of off-peak capping, and DB and TC have dealt it out as well (not sure about FA ).

Personally, I had some of my most exciting moments in WvW last week vs Blackgate, despite never having a chance of winning that match. We all agree that owning 100% of the map isn’t fun, that it imbalances matches, and that it creates a disincentive for certain people to play. Unfortunately, until ArenaNet cuts off server transfers and/or implements a different ranking/scoring system, it’s here to stay.

~Nyari Cil, Queen.

wombat.6123:

Unfortunately the first off peak cycle seems to suggest that TC is fielding more off peak players than FA and DB combined. If this is an indication of how this match will be (even during peak, completely unbalanced in off peak) it’s going to be a little disappointing after such a promising start.

TC is in the awkward position where our off-peak crew turns out in greater numbers than any a tier 4 match up server could wield, but we’re not as strategically capable as the top ranked server of tier 3. This results in our overnight crew being less and less populous as the week goes on against opponents able to match or exceed our off-peak numbers, to the point that it even effects prime time.

I’m sure you folks at FA experienced the same decline last week with BG. People like to win, and when you’re winning…your numbers swell. When you’re losing badly, they drop dramatically.

Personally, I feel you folks at FA played a better game than us for the prime time period in EB tonight. We should have taken Quentin Lake at one point, but failed due to disorganisation, and the several hours wasted at SM was silly!

I do think FA should have relinquished their hold on SM to prevent QL and Durios from falling shortly before numbers began to drop, however. Silly rendering issues aside (5+ seconds to see the person that’s hitting you at Stonemist), your defense was superior to our dysfunctional offense ^^

I’m looking forward to more FA (and DB) aggression on Saturday night.

~Nyari Cil, Queen.

Raven Paradox.1860:

Might as well…

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/100/gw015x.jpg/

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/266/gw016y.jpg/

Guess uh…. guess you guys didn’t hold up Langors so well did ya…

Not tonight

Far too few people in EB, and the lethargy of knowing that a new match was just around the corner had set in.

However, we did build a treb atop the jump tower, and held that against all comers for several hours – an entertaining way to wind down the match. Thanks to all the BG folks who tried repeatedly to deal with us for being good sports. You got a few of us off there and dead every now and then!

We had so few people we couldn’t even get more than 5 to retake our towers, so this was our defensive position for this evening. As those who tried to destroy our treb found, the Queen and her team are awfully good at defending!

Good luck to all you folk at BG in your next upper tier match

~Nyari Cil, Queen.

HenryAu.7523:

TCer here.
Welcome back Odinzu, it’s awesome to see your commander icon leading the fight tonight.
Thanks Nyari Cil, I really don’t know how the heck you can hold on to QL for so kitten long but it’s rather inspiring.

To the good folks of Blackgate, thanks for all the catapults. I don’t like your trebs though.

- Hella Firestarter, Toast Mortar Team member

I’m the Queen of Quentin Lake! I don’t let the peasants invade my Royal Residence so easily!

Sadly, I had to relocate to Langor tonight, but we held that for around 5 hours despite BG throwing the proverbial kitchen sink at it. Sadly, we all had to go to bed. Enjoy the eventual victory, folks from DiE and so forth! It was a fun night.

~Nyari Cil

@ TC I would also like to Thank You for some wonderful fights. You guys have some master defenders who love Quentin. You guys spanked us there for hours. You also never left Golanta alone, a nice piece of work that hurt us in the long run. Thank for many glorious hours of combat.

The Queen of Quentin Lake does not give up her Royal Residence so easily!

Those of us who have defended QL over the weekend have enjoyed holding BG out despite our persistent lack of walls, until such time as the night drags on and our numbers dwindle. It’s been great fun!

QL and the surrounding region is pretty fiercely protected whenever its crew of stalwart defenders are around

~Nyari Cil, Queen of Quentin Lake