Guild Wars 2

Thieves are easy to counter, here goes:

Against all:
Root/stun
AOE

Against dagger offhand:
Blind
Daze

Against glass cannon:
Toughness
Break Stun
AOE

Tadaaaaaaaaaaaa

People keep misinterpreting why the current “zerg” is bad, and ideas such as this which aim to fix the “bad zerg”. 50 people vs 50 people is fantastic, we all want that.

What we don’t want, and what is exacerbated by the culling issue, is the “clump” of players.

People keep using the example of real life armies being a “zerg”. Yes, they are a mass of troops. What they are not, is 50 soldiers taking up the space of 5 soldiers.

As some have rightly pointed out, a lot of this would be solved by player model collisions, but as we all know, that would cause more problems than solve, and we all know that cant/wont happen, so how else do we discourage people from being “shoulder to shoulder” or in fact occupying the same dang point time and space?

It is THAT behavior that ideas like this are trying to resolve, and that behavior will not be curbed by lifting the AOE limit. It was not curbed when AOE had a higher limit, it just meant two large invisible armies of 30-50 people each clumped in a 10 meter radius firing AOE, which needs to stop.

It can’t be stopped by player action (ie, just aoe), this has been proven, it needs to be discouraged with passive buffs/debuffs which direct people to spread out.

This would still result in a large 50 vs 50 battle, but this battle would not occur with two silly balls of players that can’t render each other, it would occur spread across a GASP battle field.

Not true, to move faster, youd just move out of the debuff radius, thus spreading out, thus reducing the bunch up of zergs.

I think the speed debuff is a great idea. If too many people are in the same area, they all get dubuffed to a walk, which would be like marching in close order. I had suggested something similar a while back: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/A-different-way-to-help-with-culling-in-WvWvW/first#post1221544

It’s a great idea, thanks for suggesting it. While an estimated countdown would be hard to accomplish, knowing your place in the queue would be informative and helpful.

I can’t escape the allure of the sb, so it is my off-set in every build. It is better with crit/power.

With Condi build, you have better ways of stacking bleeds and poison. Yes it still does well in Condi builds- but bunching the enemy up and popping caltrops and leaping death blossom is more efficient.

With high power and crit, shotgunning clusterbomb is great for high burst, which is also a better mechanism for taking down groups of mobs or players, since you want them dead fast.. not targeting and focusing you down.

Pair a high crit power build with signet of malice and dagger storm followed by sb clusterbomb for lots of lols.

To the devs/op:

Culling fix will reduce a lot of the kitten.

The only imbalance thieves will have otherwise that needs to be to toned down is d/d gc burst. A venom loaded cnd steal mug and haste heartseeker is done-zo for all but 1 or 2 bunker builds.

All other thieves are vulnerable to stuns, roots, etc, but that gc opener is only vulnerable after one person is taking a dirt nap without the opportunity to react.

Since you said you have a hard time finding dungeons at times, I’d suggest farming events in Orr. Ask on the map for any farming groups for Pen/Shelt, which there always is during primetime. You can make about 3 gold per hour. A basic exotic off the Trading Post is 3.5g, so weigh that against doing dungeons and take your pick.

Orr temples also have armor, which you buy with karma (42k each). Easiest way to get karma is dailies, orr events, and yak/camp flipping or following the zerg in wvw.

It delays the rendering of characters on your screen so you cant see them before you die of AOE, or in some cases, a group of people suddenly see you appear, and they appear to you, and they focus you down.

It has to do with bandwidth and server stuff on their end.

Culling is fine in PvE, but a serious issue in WvWvW which I know Anet is working to solve.

In addition to these fixes in the works, I was wondering if the severe “stacking” players do in WvW has any impact on the culling issue. If the “Zerg” was forced to spread out more, would it alleviate some of the issues, since more people would be farther away? At the very least, the range would mitigate some of the “surprise damage” that a ball of players casting AOE at another ball of players casting AOE can dish out.

What I’m suggesting is a debuff for being in too close a proximity to more than 5 player (or some other number). The debuff could be called “pressed” or “shoulder to shoulder”. It would force groups to spread out a bit, the range doesn’t have to be too large. This would reflect the way large melee battles played out in human history. You never want to be all bunched up.

This would have the added benefit of making the zerg of a keep a harder prospect, since at some point, the group would be required to bunch up to go through a chokepoint, which is exactly the point of a chokepoint for outnumbered defenders.

I think it would also be interesting since it would encourage a large group of people to travel in more of a formation, like armies on the march, which deploy in order. The debuff doesn’t have to be severe, maybe its a speed and damage vulnerability buff, or maybe it’s a debuff that causes fumble or slow skill recharge.