Guild Wars 2

I’m not even sure that everyone started to blob more that much after patch. We just got our blindfolds removed.

I’m judging by the intensity of incoming dmg and cc during the battles which (if you figuratively “turn off the lights”, so to speak) didn’t change that much IMO.

Moddo.7105:

My Thief can BS for 8K and take 350hp from ret, My Eng can shoot same person for 450 crit and get hit with same dmg. This is stupid mechanic IMO. It should reflect back a % of the hit.

Engineer can do 8k damage too, what’s your point? My is that you just do not use low/medium dmg skills with high hit rate on multiple targets under retaliation. With any class. Just simple logic. As you will not cc someone with stability.
It adds a intellect prerequisite to the battle, which I’m all for. Leap of faith right into the middle of the blob followed by whirling wrath is the worst idea ever unless you know that they are just a haystack of clueless newbies.

Mighty Ice Arrow.9268:

Be patient you all get your vistas and titles, but that isn’t more important than the server points

BLASPHEMY!

Can I has a vista?.. (kitten eyes)

:D

Monitoring enemy boons is always a good idea. OTOH, using WW inside enemy raid under retaliation never was one. WW does a kitten load of hits when you are surrounded so you get a lot of feedback from retaliation. Add might and confusion to the picture and you are killing yourself in an instant. Not to say that enemy is not staying still, they fight back.

As of melee, it doesn’t really matter with retaliation if it is melee attack or range. What does matter is a number of times particular skill hits.

Genev.2450:

Teel.9036:

Blobs still up at this hour…!

http://i.imgur.com/TcQ4RXo.jpg

(worst thing is there’s 15 to the right of me outside of the screen, couldn’t zoom far back enough!)

I see myself!
Barely in the screen, a bit off to the distance as always :p

All GHs on this screenshot except one have survived and retreated into Bay safely, I might add. And that one careless m8 wasn’t Amuraag.

ultranawak.7183:

HeidivonderAlm.7460:

the screenshots as a proof of the Zerging of ECL are still missing
;-)

http://img202.imageshack.us/img202/4739/gw092i.jpg
The back of the zerg.

Sorry, i don’t screen every sec, i just play, but i hope some vidz of yersterday will coming.

So the screenshot shows 23 or so enemies and 15 or so on your side. A-a-a-and?..

And dude, what’s up with all the white boxes? Is your video card dying?.. trollface
Way to waste your time for no apparent reason. Nobody should know who was there at that moment on your side. Nobody I say! ))

Leorcyn.1063:

Yaro.3251:

ladyfabulous.1403:

They can’t handle Js solo how would they handle Vs?

I’d take JS (or any T2-3 server for that matter) over VS any day, even if that would mean my server would go down a tier. Just not to meet VS at its current state. Ever.

Because the server that can’t fight just ruins your zerg (and the map you’re fighting for) making you look like a fool ?

Pretty much, except of a coupe of characterizations.

Lelith.2916:

I don’t know what happened before.

As a spokesman you must to. And prepare your official statements accordingly.

ladyfabulous.1403:

They can’t handle Js solo how would they handle Vs?

They are already, just look at mos.millenium.org for past week and this weekend. JS is completely different beast so I wouldn’t compare apples and oranges here.

I’d take JS (or any T2-3 server for that matter) over VS any day, even if that would mean my server would go down a tier. Just not to meet VS at its current state. Ever.

Personally, I’d like it there to be an official alliance against VS, because “Carthago delenda est, Carthaginem delendam esse”.

AFAIK there is and was none between SFR and Deso in current and previous week’s match-ups which is probably a product of general affinity of both servers to great fights and in-game fun, not the meta-game or some insignificant scoreboard. Just, I’d put it, mutual desire to dethrone VS and get rid of it in T1 eventually to make T1 competition look more like what our idea of great WvW is. Or to force VS to evolve, come out of their shells and actually put up fights, not metagame (which is also happening). Whichever comes first.

I have a feeling however that SFR atm has the ability to deal with VS solo if third server would be generally neutral in their target selection and score impact.

The problem I have with that message above by Lelith is that it implies that there weren’t ever any alliances against VS involving Deso’s major WvW forces. Which is just not true.

Sorry but I will have none of this political nonsense and hypocrisy here.

Lelith.2916:

C-i-C for all WvW Alliance forces of Desolation

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIC
Counter Intelligence Corps?

Lelith.2916:

There is much talk of an alliance between SFR and Deso, so I am here to set the record straight.

There is and never will be any alliance between Desolation and any, I repeat, ANY other server.

Wow. Deso’s Ministry of Truth finally appointed a spokesman?

Who are you exactly to talk on behalf of whole server lol?

It is obvious that there cannot be an alliance between whole servers. There may be some coalition between major forces though. Get your message straight, will you.

Aww cmon, everyone has their bad day occasionally. Seize the opportunity to have conversation on what needs to be improved.

And pugs… I mean, really, when you see most of them down within 10 seconds of a fight… Who’s there to blame?

Wandred.4583:

Is this Vizunah Spirit?
http://ipic.su/img/img7/fs/gw642.1363442252.jpg
moar hack please, Troma

Haha, wtf. Actually first time I see a screenshot that is just screaming “zoomhack”. I think one would need to have a breathing mask to pull this off because of the zoom out distance it’d require.

If it wasn’t an ac inside inner perimeter. On the roof for example. But I take it, it was just a ninja attempt on water gate, not some prolonged back and forth.

Moderator.9205:

Hi everyone

Well hello Grim Reaper! How are you today? Up for some sickle swinging?

Raege.1069:

2v1

How it usually goes down in GH:

Ivan: “So… What’s next?”
Boris: “Hey, someone’s reporting VS at Pinkbriar!”
Raid leader: “Screw that, let’s go find some more SFRs, at least they are a challenge. Besides, I see our ally commander moving there, should be OK there. Everyone’s got their chapkas and vodkas ready?”
Everyone: “YARRRRRR!”
Raid Leader: “Aight, move out!”

Raniri.6178:

Z A P P I N G ____________ T I M E
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JF_3_q-6Qag

A ray of light in the realm thread of darkness.

Thanks for a good laugh!

Yaro.3251:

Videos:
Replay of spectator live stream by RUScorp with commentary (in Russian): http://www.twitch.tv/qqtrooper34/b/375675180

BTW,

Too bad only Russian speaking audience would appreciate sparkling humor of hosts and overall atmosphere of broadcasting. We really need more coverage like that. Thanks to RUS Corp and TRoop3R in particular for interesting stream, analysis (though a little superficial) and a good laugh.

“Warthogs attacking Red Guard! GH lured RG into warthogs! Now they have clear advantage because it’s 25vs30!”
Just made my day xD

Cyril.1486:

That was an epic Guild vs. Guild Golden Horde you guys are the real deal. Max respect from me well played. Hope we can do that again for sure the hardest Guild vs. Guild we have had. The Russians are really packing a punch in this game you guys and Za Drots both very solid outfits gj.

My biggest concern was that this match could be ruined by trolls or lags/culling since it drew quite a bit of attention for past week or so. But man if it lived up to expectations. Minor disturbances aside, it was clean, fair and square.

Your focus, endurance, ability to adapt and bench length are truly impressive and that is something we will be working on too.

I don’t think you guys need any additional praising and shout outs. I’m just not that good at it. Victory well deserved, we’ll be remembering this day as one of few that are the reason we are playing this game. Let’s make more of those!

For anyone interested, final score was (GH) 3 – 7 (RG) plus one was called “no contest” due to interruption by VS zerg that went astray. And we even had a lead few times during first half of match.

Videos:
Replay of spectator live stream by RUScorp with commentary (in Russian): http://www.twitch.tv/qqtrooper34/b/375675180

Replay of live stream by Pryda of Red Guard: http://ru.twitch.tv/prydatv/b/375685405 (not from the first fight though)

Shifty.3412:

Skoti.3195:

Intigo.1653:

As for IRON, 2 months later:
“Hey, our GvG team is ready now!”

And that would be a problem, because…?

Because right now all it looks like is making excuses not to GvG after their last loss to WL.

There’s a logical flaw here. “We’ll GvG as soon as team is ready” equals to “We are not ready yet” equals to “we’ll underperform if we’d GvG now”. And you seem to be saying that there’s some other reason that above is covered with. What it could even be?

GH for instance took almost a week off of active WvW roaming not a while ago because after number of fights back then we thought that we do not perform at the level we’d like to and there are activities outside WvW raid roaming and some analysis was required that would help address this issue. And we are not a huge guild that is basically a server’s WvW backbone unlike IRON so it didn’t took a lot of time.

I didn’t see IRON claiming superiority in GvG therefore I don’t see any problem here.

MiLkZz.4789:

Maybe next time we fight we should keep the time and location within our guilds to avoid spectators and put atleast 15min delay on streams

The problem is, there’s one distinct place in WvW best suited for GvG in terms of equal reachability for both teams and distance from WvW object(ive)s.

This is all sad. Worst thing you can have in competitive team activity is for it being situated in open access area. Reminded me some of football footage. Imagine these hardcore fans not constrained by fences and hordes of police.

ethier.3417:

You can ask VoTF who were there. They saw what happened and they backed us up.

I prefer independent sources of information when there’s controversy. Video would provide that.

With all due respect, “Yes you did – No we didn’t” kind of conversation will do nothing to resolve the conflict.

From what I’ve heard, allegedly there were three main issues:
1. Team head count.
2. Spectators finishing opposing team members in the middle of the fight (that alone can turn the tide if done at the “right” moment).
3. Spectators cc’ing opposing team.

Edited: http://www.twitch.tv/magickaiser/b/375319152
What a mess. And man oh man the culling… with spectators from another server already occupying most of “enemy” slots in culling pool, this is just a joke.

Btw, although hard to do it with the video of such quality, head count imo seem right.

ethier.3417:

Thanks for the gvg BuLl friday evening.
I know you felt as though the pugs were joining in, But they weren’t and even desolation guilds who were watching agree’d with us, It was however very messy, With pugs from both servers attacking the Spider Queen Trait point. And a certain SFR player being a pain.

I felt though our gvg fights were even and we deserved to win 3-0, Respect to ex Kaz guild though, You guys are still impressive and well organised even with the guild drama that happened.

I hope we can do it again sometime in a more quiet place with no pugs about.

Thanks for the fights.

I wasn’t there but this GvG produced quite a buzz in the community. I was suggesting BULL guys to publish their video and would recommend you (or any spectators who were recording) to do the same so there’s no misunderstanding and no room for rumors. As it stands atm, I believe many Deso guilds will be reluctant in arranging more GvGs with you.

P.S. This post is personal opinion and doesn’t necessary reflect any of Deso guilds official stance. Including GH, since I’m not an officer.

Oh brother…
You guys have too much free time on your hands to play two games, one of which is forum war

Anyway, since no one seem to have mentioned it, I’d like to thank The Rise guild of Seafarer’s Rest for being tough opponent in actually GH’s first formal GvG this Wednesday.

And of course thanks RG for continuous suspense

Surmaturma.4823:

It is not actually the night-capping that gives edge to anyone – there are pretty much battle ongoing till very early morning but then, you can check the trend from last few days starting from 8 in the morning what happens to green line
http://mos.millenium.org/servers/view/16/

As it clearly shows, at least so far, no amount of primetime focus and PvP pwnage will get you win in rankings over VS.

That gaping hole in SFR/Deso income from 8am today… Man it looks aweful.

Sacrx.6721:

2.5k kills today love it. Action is great GH + WL.

Well, that was painful tbh. But I will not be the one looking for excuses and comparing raid sizes.

Looking forward to meeting you in more, uhm… clean environment.

Kingface.9781:

you are incapable of winning.

You can’t say that as long as VS is red in “Evolution” column. I would agree however that all this trash talking is pointless unless the point is to vent.

Anyway, it is too soon to draw any conclusions regarding match-up perspectives (as if it ever stopped anyone from doing that lol).

You can win fights and brag about it all you want, but VS was showing for ages that it doesn’t directly translate to WvW rankings.

Kingface.9781:

http://img841.imageshack.us/img841/3533/justlol.jpg
And you found the way to do not take it…. just lmao.
Try to merge 3 servers next time.

oh. m’god.

Seem to be so excited to make it to T1 at the finish line…

I wonder what are impressions of all parties participated yesterday on Elona BL in what I would call Black Hole Bay. Things looked really grim for Deso defenders from the start with both Elona and VS attacking Bay’s inner perimeter with huge forces and enviable persistence. However, at the end of 1,5 hour massacre we found ourselves standing tall in solitude on the ruins of keep.

Who cares about clones if you are commander

The way I look at it, survivability aside, determinig factors are essential skills and frontline effectiveness.

1. “If you want to do it right, do it yourself” may sound too extreme, but premise is true. You don’t want to desperately look for mesmers around you with vails/temporal curtains/portals/time warps or guardians with LoW/sanctuary/etc or eles with water field/focus, and then if you are lucky to find them, to depend on them using these skills only when you need them and the way you need them.

2. Every class is capable of being frontliner, but depending on your battle strategy, some of starting rotations may fit better than others. You as a frontliner should have optimal one.

3. As a commander (strictly IMO), you don’t really need mobility in terms of self speed buffs. It is royal PITA for a raid as a whole to keep up with commander who is running like sprinter and blinking away constantly. Usually it leads to most mobile classes/specs with aoe speed buffs to concentrate around you while a lot of slowpokes form huge tail behind. Not the best kind of formation and frequent regroups become necessary evil.

Thank you MoS for the fun on EB tonight. That was easily most intense fight for whole week on that supply camp I forgot the name of.

There’s a couple other things to be said:
1. Ideally you don’t turn on your commander icon during GvG to not attract extra random forces (orange swords are still there though). Considering current state of culling however and a number of spectators that may gather around just to watch, it’s impractical because you’ll have your leader constantly going in and out of culling.
2. Random ally forces usually considered more of a complication for a train when facing another highly organized guild. They most probably do not have fitting gear and builds, they leech healing and boons, they provide extra rally for opponent.

Still, It’s all unfortunate and I hope Anet will give GvG more love in the future.

Suralin.3947:

Collision detection on a WvW scale would grind the servers to a halt. I’d rather not see that happen.

Not only it will bring servers to a halt (which I’m not that sure about), it will take all the air off of battle dynamics and basically freeze them. I understand that the dream of range DPSers is standing still in a safety behind a wall of towershields laying down death rains on the heads of helpless enemies. This however would bring us back to the holy trinity . Next thing they’ll be asking for is a second line between tanks and them consisting of… right, healers. No, not gonna happen in GW2.

If you want your enemies to feel some of collision system benefits, “melee attack assist” checkbox is right there in the options.

Good point. Though there are a lot of people in the raid who warn about level of danger ahead, then it’s just a matter to changing your mindset from “relaxed” state to “focused”. There’s not that many tactical tricks, and good guilds are capable of pulling out most of them.

Can’t see kitten. Was trying to find myself (I was there in Cragtop with pew-pew guard build ^^) but failed.

My advice, spend some time to refine your movie production process and maybe find better tools. I use Play Claw, since unlike fraps it produces compressed video that doesn’t require additional processing, just scissors. Other than that – nothing funky, just Movie Maker occasionally.

For me the ER guild that left noticeable impression is [reno]. I remember one day a while ago, when we got wiped like 2-3 times in a row by them. We had our problems that day with lack of essential classes, absent veterans and group size in general, but hey, who cares, right? Wipe is wipe.

Not to pick one out though, I’m usually in a rage mode while in combat and don’t keep track of guild tags

[UvL] is another tag tat gets distinct call out in our TS when noticed.

Orb running?

Greetings, time traveler! I will take you to our leader.

Camaro Charr.2805:

I nominate:

[HPV], [SIDS], [EKG], [PEA], [CBC], [CMP], [BMP], [CAD], [DOA], [GERD], [ADD], [ADHD], [EPS], [SIADH], [DKA] [Hx], [Dx], [Sx], [WBCs], [RBCs]

[ZOMG] [WTF]

Touche.

Since Deso takes a week off of points game however, there’s not much else to discuss.

vespers.1759:

is this really fun for people? a mess where no one can see wtf is happening. everyone just spam whatever they have and hopes they hit something.

I’d love to see one of these videos with a quality commentary. When I just started taking part in GvG, it was a real eye opener for me to hear in details from a skilled mate what was actually going on on the screen when we were looking at the same RG video. Before that moment, I was basically of the same opinion.

@pedrst.3127, I think nobody would argue with that. Particulary as a mesmer in a train, you usually “outsource” some of your survivability, while providing in turn essential and unique support skills. On the other hand, in a train small mistake in timing or aiming of your skills, depending on your class and role, will get dead a lot more than just you

Yeah, repeating commands is an unfortunate necessity even in more or less organized groups. In a video game, you don’t have a luxury of commanding trained soldiers who listen and execute when you barely finished your sentence, as in real military.

As of your comment regarding “100g buys you nothing”, You can’t seriously suppose that IRON would allow unknown/untrusted people to be voice commanders on their TS. This should have had you at least pause for a second an consider that this person is probably recognised as good commander by community or IRON at the least.

I personally do not support swearing in any form, but I have no problems with it if it has limits (and if it’s not in my native language, I might add). I understand however that your limits may be stricter.

I don’t know if you was in TS when Moorta was discussing lost defence of SM, but he was basically saying “Please bring up anything that you think we did wrong or not optimal. I’m not interested in what we did well, because we need to improve.” This started a conversation about many aspects of WvW including voice communication and commands. Seems like it was a good moment for you to voice your concerns.

Moorta seems to be always open for suggestions, so why don’t you just bring it up next time you’re on TS with him? I even think that you might get considerable amount of support in this.

Loco.4561:

Big 20+ vs 20+ fights factor in less skill than smaller scale engagements. All it involves is discipline and running certain builds that benefit large zergy blobs. I’ve watched RG and other guilds in action, they look like a group of bots. No individuality, it’s just timings of portals, mass invis / hidden veils (to get an advantage from culling) and then spamming AoE. Sure some reactive play may come into it if people want to try and use reflection heavy techniques or confusion bombing. But mostly it boils down to0…who can AoE the most, or who can gain the advantage from the quite frankly broken rendering engine.

But, whatever floats your boat. I personally don’t get the whole follow the blue dot like a robot thing, but some people obviously do get enjoyment from it. But then again, I’ve moved off Piken with some other guilds and am now enjoying less zergy smaller scale engagements.

But best of luck to those still on Pikey, it’s just a shame it’s become so zergy.

Sorry for over-quoting, but I’m too lazy to break it down to smaller pieces.

Winning strategy in any kinds of battles depends (among other things) on what your opponent looks and acts like. WvW by its nature favors large scale (btw 20 vs 20 is not really a big fight in terms of WvW, at least in upper tiers). If you find a better strategy for such environment than accumulating same numbers as enemy has or more and just pushing them around like a giant magnet pushes another magnet, by all means, use it.

Some of guilds found such strategies that work currently best (which you can collectively call “melee train”) and use them quite successfully destroying enemies in numbers as big as a single map can hold while being heavily outnumbered. And 20-25 number is more or less just an empirical minimum of what a skilled group should have to have decent chances of success while taking on tasks of any complexity in WvW.

It still involves “follow the blue dot” as a basic axiom but it very well can change as game progresses.

Large scale in GW2 has so many variables that by no means at this point you can call it mature and settled, and then say what it is exactly that is required.

Now if the comments would change “requires” to “shows most of the time”, I would completely agree. But hey, it requires as much skill as you can show.

All the same things as in other PvP activities. I wouldn’t argue that intensity of personal micro in battles at scale is less than that of small-scale fights. It’s just that I have an issue with “black and white” point of view (small scale is all skill, while large scale is all blind AoE). You can faceroll your way through quick joins and can even win considerable amount of duels/small scale fights if you are against the guy of same level of micro. It doesn’t mean this will work against serious opponent.

I for one am of the opinion that a good sPvP background is prerequisite for a great GvG player.

Genev.2450:

Deepcuts.9740:

Now, the part when people follow crazy, repetitive, swearing and undecided “Commanders” is beyond me.
While on Team Speak, there was a Commander, my God, 3 out of 2 word were "kitten " and 2 out of 3 were “I kill you”. All this in the worst english I ever heard.
Joining a TS server is a very good way of doing things, but if some people think that 100 gold buys them something other than a blue sign above their name…

That sounds entertaining, can you pm me who it was?

And some commanders are really good/fun to play with, i guess you just got unlucky

Sounds like Moorta to me. He’s a great commander who knows every inch of EBG as his own palm. As of passion and, well, swearing – you know, this is a war game, not a 5-o-clock tea party. People get emotionally involved in this thing. And he’s always friendly and patient with allies.
Regarding English – let me tell you, you did’t hear a bit of worst English ever if you think that Moorta’s is. This is international server and a lot of us are not native speakers. I understand Moorta pretty well and that’s all I need.

skupuz.6940:

Your comment regarding stomping or lack there of basically reinforce my argument. When you basically remove a core game mechanic in 25v25, you lessen the complexity of the engagement…

You don’t “remove mechanic”. You simply do not use tactic that is suboptimal in particular circumstances.

Will never be on the level of what?

As someone above said, you can focus on things that produce all the shiny booms on the screen and smash as much buttons as you can as a main tactic. But you’ll lose hopelessly to other teams that are of different opinion. That should be obviously clear.

You still need to track most vulnerable parts of your opponent’s raid and have these parts as priority targets. You still need to counter boons and cc, and for sure you need to know when and how to safely fall back and reengage. Being a 25, not 5 player group against same numbers just makes it that much harder.

Does fight get less personal with scale? Yes, sure. As scale goes up, you focus less and less on single targets, you generally don’t stomp (and do not need to know all subtleties around proper stomping), your skill bar in general looks less like a row of timers. That’s all true. But with scale comes complexity, your skill timing relative to that of other raidmates and synergy in both offense and defense.

Ultimately, GvG is a duel of two giants where you personally control only a part of the body. It doesn’t mean everybody just have to stay together while smashing all buttons. But if your giant acts and reacts as quickly as single player, only with 25x number of skills on skillbar, you have perfect raid. That’s an utopia of course, just analogy taken to the extreme to highlight a flaw in your attitude.

Looking at comments above I’m starting to think that you just don’t see real thing behind all graphical noise.

P.S. I’ve just realized something. While commenting I was referring specifically to the kinds of battles RG had with ZDs. If you got bored by first minutes, with all due respect to all the guilds in OP’s videos, real deal starts around 14:43 of the first video. First, some open field encounters and then pre-arranged GvG.

Enough to say that perspective of crossing swords with you is probably biggest driver for us to continually improve and train.

Looking forward to be part of it when the day comes.

Bunzy.8674:

This is just whoever positions the best, not very entertaining from a skill based point of view.

It is also crucial, but there’s much more to it than just positioning and movement.

saVdoom.2067:

Don’t understand why ZD try to turtle it up making all of them easy targets, besides it seems no one keep the pressure on RG, instead of everyone run to early for a regroup right after the first encounter, and get kittened up while doing it.

Yeah, quick regroup is important for a pulse-like fights that you usually see in GvG. RG does it perfectly, there’s almost no delay. This allows them to be ahead of opponent who is doing basically same push-regroup-push pulses. Regroup time depends on raid classes/builds setup as much as on basic discipline.

CrassBippy.4619:

ill post here what i did there

not to bash, but these videos would be much more interesting if you did small GvG fights to show skill. like 5v5, still kinda cool but its just a mess of twirling damage, not much to really watch

Believe me, there’s as much details, facepalm and omg moments, synergy and skill in 25 vs 25 fights as it is in duels and 5 vs 5.

It’s just that naked (or untrained) eye may not catch all of it, may not “connect the dots” and not be able to reconstruct on the fly what happens tactically at any given moment in fight. It all looks like blob of fiery animation for uninitiated but there’s beauty, skill, synergy and supreme lighting fast decision making in these fireworks.

It’s like watching quality ping-pong. Pon-pon-pon Point! Wha…what? What happened? Was there a ball even? Too much information too fast.

MagnusLL.8473:

Have you seen the numbers in EB alone that both Deso and Elona field every day at that hour?

At what that time? Quote doesn’t specifically state that as soon as clocks hit 1am, all guild raids are suddenly over and there’s only 50 of VS on all the maps. Of course numbers decrease gradually. The point was that off-hour team at its prime is 50 tops over all the maps.

P.S. re Meet and Greet announcemet: Aww, Tap House… Love that place. Too bad I’ll not be anywhere near Seattle any time soon…