Guild Wars 2

It can be easily soloed. Just learn its attacks, they’re all telegraphed and easy to avoid, and don’t screw up with the shards.

Just… A-MA-ZING.

Epic epicness. Great job and thank you very much, ANet.

In the name of my [MM]s, thank you, Dzagonur, for exciting clashes and pushes on the reset. Borderlands aren’t our usual reset target, and we learned some lessons the hard way thanks to your tutoring.
Also, thanks for the lootbags o/

Just letting you know that Balth and Grenth are currently open on Gunnar’s Hold, hop on o/

Aye – but it’s on-the-spot knowledge and experience. Fighters are focused on picking the spot and tactics for that specific, incoming fight; they wipe the zerg and… then what? Do fighters, and combat commanders, have specific plans for hours ahead, involving positioning and overall resources management? I may be wrong, but i doubt so.

It’s actually pretty similar to real war, and there’s a reason the highest command rarely leaves the main headquarters. Objective commanders, as you named them, are more of map managers really, focusing much more on both the current and possible/upcoming map control shift, and as such it’s much more important that they’re listened. I find that best fighters are made of single guilds, or constant parties, or familiar faces – who do not need a commander badge to operate, unless only to signal their location for the ‘main commander’, who could just as well sit in a keep and manage three other ‘field commanders’, who in turn have their own teams of people around them, best if two are zergbusters and one is dedicated to sieging.

To my amusement, they also argue that they’re crushing the enemy spirit – constant downgrading of enemy keeps and towers, wasting their gold and time for upgrades, painting their maps their own colours.
From my and the server’s experience, i’d actually agree with them – it really is disheartening to wake up every day and see you’re down to two camps, flipped by most hardcore regulars. It does take any motivation of upgrading away – sure, at the end of the matchup your gold would still be wasted, but at least it’d help your server get some more points if your upgrades were there for longer. Why bother then?

Avoiding enemies and focusing only on the main mechanics of the format is dangerously close to planting the bomb in CS and then leaving the spot, leaving it undefended, or rushing to disarm one without first clearing out the terrorists around.

It’s an attitude based on long-term goals, and eventual and fictious rewards – the more i can help my server win the matchup.
Why fictious, you ask? Let me counter – what is the reward in winning a matchup, exactly?

Both takes have their strong and weak sides. They work best when combined, but in a conscious, organised way, based on mutual understanding and respect. You can’t win a matchup using only ballistae and carts, and obviously those two siege engines are much better to kill enemies than rams and catapults.
Think of the fighters are the Zergbusting Vanguard that can pave the way for the cappers, the Engineers of Destruction, let them cap while sheltered from flanks, and then have some of the PvP fighters stay for defense.

It all sounds nice on paper, but are there any practical points, you ask? Quite some. Keep in mind the whole essay is based on assuming theoretical extremes, which are almost never to be seen in actual game – we’re all somewhere between. So, what based on that?
Identify and understand your motivation. Are you more of a capper or a fighter? Do you prefer winning here and now, wiping enemies and looting their bags, or do you prefer seeing your server winning matchups? I know you probably like both, but – which one more? Would you forego points at all, having your server end up third with thousands of points to both rivals, if that meant epic fights every day on the way?
Understand and respect other players. This of course goes beyond this little duality we have here. Whether your servermates PvDoor and capture empty towers or they win agreed GvG meetings, they’re your allies and they’re doing something for everyone, even if it’s not seen at the beginning.
Communicate and work together. Find like-minded players to do stuff together, but also communicate with those doing something else. Plan ahead and utilise your skills, of both sides, to help the bigger picture.
See your shortcomings. I’m a point-oriented player and commander. I know i suck at micro level during field fights, especially when it comes to any management. I don’t like burrowing in one spot and defending it for hours, even if it means epic lootbags – and i often trade one of my towers for one of the enemy’s, believing offense is the best defense. There were situations when it lost me, as i simply underestimated or wrongly predicted the enemy numbers and movements.
Practice the other approach. Yeah, you read it – even if you’re a fighter, focusing on wiping enemies, get your team to organise a karma train from time to time, or play one evening like you were following the other extreme – avoid fights and focus only on capping. This will not only help you develop yourself and your team as well-round WvWers, rather than just PvPers, but it will also help you keep a broader perspective of how it all works.

But most importantly – remember you’re all allies, if you’re from the same server that is, and even if someone’s into PvD it doesn’t mean they’re scrubs who need to learn to play, and those who go for GvG at the Orchard don’t just waste your queue slots. Respect, peace out!

Points-motivated players want to crush their enemies in their matchups, but crush them in the week-long point comparison. Outplaying both enemy servers by the tick, not kills, is their goal. They try to sow for the entire week, only to collect their fruit at one moment – when the matchup is won.
They actually tend to avoid open fights they are not sure they can win, and rather than pull off a 20vs30 victory, they’d dodge the enemy team and go elsewhere, just to capture more locations and up the server’s tick. Many of those players actually feel uneasy when PvPing as it is, avoiding any clashes unless they outzerg the enemy team.
Those players PvDoor and see nothing wrong about it, as it’s generating them and their server points, whether it’s sieging only unprotected towers or actually organising an off-peak raiding team, just to paint the map in their colour. Seeing an enemy map or all of EB in their hands is what gives them most joy.

Focused on map control, they check the map more often and generally read it better, predicting enemy movements fast and reliably. Map-focused commanders tend to be great resource managers, with macro overview of the map that lets them manage several teams of players all across the map rather than just flashing their own badge and making people zerg on it.
They usually know many decent spots for sieging, are aware of treb ranges and superior siege strength, and they can use it for both defense and offense. Not as apt at wiping enemy attackers with carts and ballistae, they know which spots are most vulnerable and where to pay most attention, which of enemy siege to take out first – as they already have experience from the other side, too.
One of their marks is the karma train, and a proper one – inviting people from PvE zones to go into a WvW map and steamroll through stuff together, not necessarily leaving any defense behind, just flipping it all. While it doesn’t let them hold anything for long, it does bring more people into the format.

They’re often seen as unskilled and easy to wipe, not making quick use of flanking or portal bombing – you don’t flank a tower, you siege it. They are said to be lousy defenders, losing their towers, even if they can quickly retake them.
They are faced with an epic conundrum when they have enemies at their base, with their map or EB chunk completely wiped out and defended – they try to siege a tower and take it back only to get themselves wiped.
This take generates much less gold and badges, and offers less on-the-spot fun, with mundane and often dull things to do, like escorting yaks to SM for two hours.

An often seen argument supporting WvWing mainly for fights and kills is that wiping enemy zergs crushes their morale, making fair-weather players leave back to PvE, thus effectively impacting the bigger picture.
In theory it is nice, but in practice it’s pretty silly.
I mean, it’s like hoping to win a tournament match because you’ve been focusing one or two enemies for so long that they ragequit in despair. How glorious. Like focusing just one opponent in an FPS game, hoping to make them leave the game and fight 8v7, or 4v3, or whatever the number cap is. I call bad sportsmanship.
But even with that aside, as ‘breaking the spirit’ is in general a valid tactic in any kind of war or skirmish, it just doesn’t work. You may make five people the enemy zerg due to constant wiping, but there are some newcomers all the time. Five will go, five will come. How many people does your server lose due to being wiped in zerg vs zerg fights? Do you see much whining on /t and /m? Or do your servermates simply respawn, repair up and try again, doing something else? Why assume it’s anything different on any other server?

Playing only for fights, for skirmishes with enemy players, is like never capturing any spots in sPvP. It’s like having both teams play terrorists in CounterStrike, and neither ever plant the bomb, just keep shooting each other. Heck, it’s even worse than that – kills in sPvP or CS actually do accumulate points for your entire team, not just loot and some for yourself, whereas they do not contribute to the points total your server ends up with in WvW.

It’s an attitude based on short-term goals, and initial and close rewards – the more i can get, here and now.

People playing mass PvP tend to focus on one of the two possible goals, driving their sense of fun from that format. The goals are not totally mutually exclusive, one can play with both in mind, but they are a pair of connected scales – gameplay-wise, you can’t focus on both on 100%.
While there are players fully dedicated to only one of the goals, most of us are somewhere inbetween, seeing benefit in both sides of the coin. I am basing this little dissertation on the models of extremes of motivations, though, which are…

Fights.
Points.

Fights-motivated players get most fun from epic clashes with enemies. Defeating a much bigger group of enemies with their 5man party. Big fights in open field, two zergs clashing. Long defenses of single locations, often against odds, without paying much attention to what’s happening elsewhere – as long as the defended kee kitten till standing. Zergbusting in any form.
Those people organise duels under the Orchards, as well as GvG meetings, with proper agreements, fielding equal teams and fighting just to prove which side can beat the other to the ground. They burrow in remote camps with siege and farm unsuspecting players who venture there, annoying the hell out of ‘em.
The ’fighters’ are there for the ‘player vs player’ part of the format. They do not care about points or winning matchups. Keeps and towers are only scenes of fights for them, beaconing for enemies, ensuring epic clashes. Winning a battle is enough of a reward for them, but they also enjoy their lootbags and badges of honor, which they often boast about.
‘90 badges in an hour, the fights that night last week were so crazy! Had so much fun!’.

Those players, being actually focused on the inherent PvP rather than any extra mechanics specific to the game, are usually really good at micro tactics and actual ‘gaming skill’ than the ones motivated by points. They like to bust zergs, and they do, pretty often. They master the use of siege weaponry for player killing – not the most apt or dedicated treb operators, but sure as hell they can manage a ballista.
If they roam solo, they are well prepared for it, able to take out most targets in a 1v1 combat. If they run in a group, they are well organised, communicating fluently and quickly, all to ensure their success in each fight against enemies.
That kind of players camp the jumping puzzles, too. They get nothing from it but seeing some enemies wiping the floor, except for occassional lootbag or badge, yet they still can put a lot of time and effort into it. It really isn’t about griefing, not that often anyway – the jp campers really find it fun and enjoyable.

Being somewhat more skilled and dedicated to the ‘actual PvP’, they often tend to scowl at players not following their motivation. PvP with any PvE elements is automatically worth less for them; JQ back in GW1 was seen as inferior, not ‘true PvP’, same as PvE elements found in WvW are often perceived as a bad idea (even the capping mechanic with the lord and all that stuff!). They ‘leave the PvE to others’, focusing on mopping enemies and not capping locations – just because it doesn’t involve fights. By default, then, they are against PvDooring of any kind, and speak of night/morning capping in derogatory terms. No honor, no fun, no point in that – no fights.
They lose the designed gameplay from their sight, not caring about points. They easily waste a lot of time trying to save a single tower while the enemy is taking everything else. They do not think in the macro scale, forfeting overall map control in favour of their own fun from clashes.

The fights-motivated WvWers may be perceived as selfish; their zergbusting doesn’t really bring any points to the server, and even if they do defend a keep for hours, it often comes with a great alternative cost – they could have done something better, point-wise, in that time, like flipping an enemy keep and a tower while leaving only a few defenders behind to stall the enemies rather than wipe them.
They also often ignore smaller things, like escorting yaks, killing yaks, flipping sentries or just scouting the map. No fights, no reason.

Just use binds for targeting (next / closest / previous). At least this cluster now shows you how many enemies you have to fight, as opposed to seeing five names over three toons in front of an invisible zerg of forty.

Guys, don’t you remember the Clocktower designer talking about a new big, changing jumping puzzle coming?
This seems to be it.

You do jps outside in the open world, earn those coins, which you then use in the mega jp to continue. Seems a hard, oldschool platformer, with many traps, annoying death spots and other goodies. Yay!

I’d seriously suggest you go onto Surmia, taking [HT] with you – Ilesyt would love the boost from your numbers, if he’s still around, so you’d have a warm welcome on RoS, and some bigger competition with their enemies than if you moved to FoW.

It were events in [Xaoc] itself rather than Gunnar’s Hold – GH always said it’s not a server for glory seekers and isn’t much bothered about points and tiers. The previous Chaos management, including Champion of Khorne, understood that and they were fine about it, valuing GH for the community factor, trying to bring Chaos closer to it. This changed with internal changes within [Xaoc], going back to the ‘victory at all cost’ mentality, with Khorne leaving them and the server, and then with the existing GH guilds refusing to form up a ‘wvw alliance’ with [Xaoc] who still refuse to join the community site and mumble which already have gathered most of the active GH guilds.

I wish you guys all the best, everyone has fun from different things, hopefully you will find yours elsewhere, but do not put any kind of blame behind your decision on how GH works.

Disable double-tap. Bind dodging to something handy – i have it on mouse scroll.

Zenyatoo.4059:

40-60 if you can.
1-30 – do all the starting zones and personal story. All of these zones are the most well polished, full of events, and offers a nice diverse scenery
30-40 harathi. That’s really all there is to say on the matter. Go after a big reset (that resets all the events) and it’s one of the most fun zones in the game
Skip 40-60. These levels are really unfun. The zones you have available are a poopy coast, and some broken ascalon zones
60-80 has mount maelstrom and fireheart rise as starters. Both of which give exotics. Then you have straits, malchors, frostgorge and cursed shore. Not to mention the personal story to catch up on. Giving you plenty to do, and decent rewards for the map completion.

40-60 are imo the worst levels in the game.

QFT.
I have 8 toons on lv80, crafted to lv60 if i could.

http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/473/feature/7244/Guild-Wars-2-World-vs-Worlds-Time-to-Shine.html

With the March 26th update, WvW players will have a whole new way to obtain various racial, special, and other items that were previously only purchasable with karma. With your badges you’ll first buy one component (the stats: Knight’s, Carrion, Cleric, Berserker’s, etc.) and then a second component (the visual look: racial skins, and so forth). Later on, if you decide you want the same stats, but a different look, you just buy a new skin and recombine them.

My question is – will the racial skins bought with badges count towards the Fashion achievements?
I know the patch is hitting tomorrow, but someone who has enough badges and will be checking it, please share your findings

but making commendations unreachable just seems like a decision lacking foresight

You don’t need to complete a bounty to get commendations. Just kill ONE champion.
Go with a t3 bounty run, choose the easiest to find champion (no scouting), find it, kill it. Get commendations for everyone. Fail the bounty.
Do and complete t1-t2 to slowly wrack up merits for new sources of comms.

Gasoline.2570:

Tier 1 is too hard as is, do self research man. You might find something special.

This is where i stopped reading the rest of the thread.
There are countless 5~10 man guilds, in total and not necessarily online at the bounty time, who complete t1 with no issues. I have a befriended 10man guild here on GH that succeeded several times in a t2 hunt, no prescouting.

I am afraid it’s more a matter of (a) wanting to bite more than you can actually chew (can’t do t3? do t2 – half as many targets, same personal rewards, almost as many guild merits; i mean, what’s the fuss?) and/or, sadly, (b) l2p.

I’m the guild leader of a pretty big guild – with up to 110 members online and representing during guild events, including guild missions. We started doing bounties when we had 70 people online for them, tho, and our first bounty run was t3, completed with 8 minutes to spare. Ever since, our every t3 merit run was succeeded with 7~9 minutes to spare, and the only problem has been culling and fps drops.
Doing a t3 with 20~25 people is VERY possible, with no VoIP coordination and with kittenty targets, like Gendarran, Marches or Southsun – but you should prescout. Dulfy’s site has been a great help with everything gw2-related and she’s been rightfully honored with having an NPC named after her in the urban fractal – make use of the knowledge and plan properly ahead.

If you do not have 25 people online for a scheduled, earlier-agreed bounty time, just do a lower tier one. If you can’t even do a t1, whatever you try, because you’re not skilled enough or don’t have enough people even for that, join forces with some other small guilds and get more people on board, at least for the missions – everyone will be happy.

I mean – all in all, it’s like crying that you can’t solo a dungeon, how unfair it is that it’s designed for a 5man team; and how you don’t have enough guildies for SE3, which no pugs want to ever do to help you. It’s like whining that you can’t 3man liberate the Grenth Temple – just because you don’t have more people available, so it should be handed to you the way YOU want it, ignoring the way it’s designed.
Some stuff here is soloable, some needs grouping; some groups are small, some have to be big. Deal with it and go with the game how it’s designed, that way you’ll enjoy it much more, not banging your head against a wall.

We’ve set up a Gunnar’s Hold-only guild database, feel invited to add your GH-based guild there!
http://gh-guilds.p.ht

Done fotm32 on a guardian, gs / scepter+focus, but using mainly the gs. Had no big issues with going melee most of the time – just don’t waste your dodges and blocks, and when you go berserker on stats, bring defensive utilities and traits. Use proper food and potions of X slaying, too – the potions help tremendously.
And i can’t agree about high fotm not yielding decent drops – had many exotics from fotm26+, not to mention the cool fractal skins. Many rares, cores and lodestones, too.

Still, it’s really down to the fact that if you’re playing an MMO for rewards, you should rather play one of the Zynga games. MMOs are unique because of their social take, and GW2 is simply great fun to play and explore, without being reward-oriented all the time. The graphics are stunning, the gameplay is awesome, mechanics mostly are really decent and enjoyable, and the social aspect certainly has great potential.

It’s not about the virtual pink circles or virtual gold unless you make it so, and if you do – yeah, i guess you will get bored and frustrated fast.

Sounds decent, but then – what’s in it for you? Seems like you already have everything up and running and don’t need my guild to join you.

Our current members would surely benefit from having you on board. Our PvP regulars – and you – would have more familiar faces to play their favourite format, to train and have fun with. It’s all for mutual benefit.
We also hope that unifing the EB players a little bit more would boost our server’s performance on that map. Sure, there’s the server Mumble and the /team chat, but actually playing in one guild introduces a whole new level of communication, cooperation and bonding – especially that, if you ever feel like it, you could set the course of our EB regulars from time to time, actually taking part in our planning and coordination.

Wish you guys were playing on my server. We have no one to take care of EB most of the time!

Get your friends, pack your things and hop onto Gunnar’s Hold – the best server out there =)

We have dedicated WvW players - see that lone silhouette at the inner gate of the red keep? That’s Catinka, leading the assault against Abaddon’s Mouth in EB.
We have tournament die-hards - still learning and developing that side, but we’re really getting there.
We have a strong and active PvE backbone - done the last few t3 bounties with 8 minutes to spare!
We are organised via our guild forums - with scheduled weekly events, and all the important links – all in one place.

If you still have any questions, feel free to contact me in-game at drkn.3429 – i’ll gladly answer all and any concerns

We’re very much alive and doing really well

We’re also still open for newcomers, single players and small guild merges alike, retaining our laidback, PvX mentality.
Within it, we’re currently (re)developing our WvW and tPvP sides, and while being open for everyone we’re especially looking for regular PvP players now.

Are you a WvW regular focused mainly on the Eternal Battlegrounds? Is your small guild roaming through EB on a daily basis? Are you a tournament player – current or aspiring?
Stay a while and listen

As a guild, we’re focused on EB. You’ll find our members in the Borderlands, too, but most of them are roaming in EB all day long, including some of the most EB-experienced and skilled commanders (every GHian playing on EB surely knows Catinka).
While we’re not the best out there on the micro level, like actual field tactics (but we’re working on that, too), we already have quite decent coverage, numbers-wise, and good macro management, with solid base and a lot of potential to build up on.

On the sPvP side, we’re still figuring out our core team; having one join us would speed it up and help the others out dramatically.

But you’re a zergish PvX guild, you will surely want me to join your zergs in EB all the time, and use your VoIP, and join all your events, even those boring PvE ones. Why should i even remotely consider joining you?
- we will not press you to abandon your current focus – if you prefer to flip remote camps rather than roll with the commander’s zerg, we fully respect and appreciate that;
- we will not require you to get into one Mumble room with other guildies; we do not require VoIP usage at all, in fact, and if you are using some other VoIP with your friends or constant party, that’s fine with us!;
- you will not be required to join all guild events, either – just those you can and want;
- no one will expect you to invite other guildies into your constant party, either, if you do not want it – no pressure to include anyone but your friends in your parties if you don’t need nor want so.

I’ve discussed the big vs small guilds issue, and partially presented how it’s tackled in [MM], in a thread on the GH forums, if you’re up for some more reading.

Ok, sounds nice, but… if no one is required to group up and do stuff, and i can keep to playing with my current friends, using our current VoIP and doing our current stuff, why should we join you?

Opportunities.
We’re a true PvX guild. 30+ WvW regulars, ~10 tournament players, strong PvE side, established and stable structure and organisation. We take the weight of guild management off you, so you can enjoy the game the way you like the most, and we bring you all the extra teams to join up if you ever feel like doing something else.
Even if you’re a WvW regular, or a tournament maniac, you might want to tackle the other PvP format from time to time. You might be interested in doing Arah explorables. You surely will love how easy it is to get guild commendations here.
And if this is what would float your boat, you could always help us with the PvP organisation. Everyone has a say here, even newcomers, and we appreciate people with their own initiative, ideas and plans.

Tried boon removal?

With some careful min-maxing, there will always be ‘the one best’ build for PvP, even if only on paper. PvE side, tho, is much more forgiving and allows more variation – lets you play what you actually like, most of the time, rather than what you need.

They go cross-mode to make the format transition easier. If they split skills, and among three formats, you would have to learn 24 ‘professions’ rather than the real 8.

Balancing stuff with sPvP in mind actually makes most sense, too.
Everything works in open PvE, period. Get your gear, learn mechanics, make use of resources and you can breeze through open PvE with anything; heck, you can even autoattack most of the time.
Dungeons? That should be about team builds and coordination. Dungeons were already dumbed down and almost all of them are easily doable with any pugs, while at the beginning they were supposed to be there for some more organised PvE groups.
WvW? It’s mostly about wise use of siege weaponry, sieging and being sieged, as well as open group fights. Sure, there are people who will roam, but if you want to roam, set up a toon that has builds good enough for it. Keep in mind, too, that by design WvW is not about solo roaming, dueling or GvG at the southern camp. You can do those things, but the game won’t be balanced with them in mind.

That’s about your idea of how the balancing works. That said, there is no balance out there at the moment – mesmers rule supreme in both PvP formats, and warriors steamroll through PvE – but every team can get the job done, except for several spots in the game that are being worked on (i don’t imagine 5 necros getting through Arah 4, sorry). A 10man ranger party can be deadly in WvW – you still have a variety of builds, and synergy and coordination are much more important in this format than just your own build.

One of the devs mentioned some time ago it’s partially a technical issue, as every bit of condition information has to be processed by servers, and having conditions per monster capped at 25 helps with general strain on the servers. There are gazillions of conditions flying at the same time there already, and possibly kittens of conditions is what contributes to the ‘skill lag’ during big events and SM rushes.
Another issue is PvP balance. Do not say something like ‘put a conditionmancer and a direct damage dude together’, it’s not a 1v1 issue. Conditions, even with the current limit to AoE, would simply wipe zergs (especially that party condition removal is also capped at 5 targets). 50 stacks of bleed, poison, burning, – all with ~1400 condition damage, and you’re dead in no time, along your friends. More so, condition builds are actually really strong in the current sPvP meta, being effective against thieves and bunker builds.

I can get up to ~17 stacks of bleed on my necro, each popping for 130~155 dmg (depends on food and might from Blood is Power). I cannot maintain 17 stacks on my own, but i don’t really drop below 10.
I still outdamage that with my warrior and guardian, at least in PvE, but there’s one thing you guys are overlooking. Even if you can get 2000dps with your own bleeds and 2800dps with warrior’s autoattacks, and those numbers are just figurative, with conditions you simply throw your bleeds at your target and can do something else. You can heal up, use utilities, support party, or add some raw autoattack while still hitting. A warrior, while having higher dps when fighting, has to stop dealing damage from time to time altogether.
If you’re built for condition damage, throw some support in and drop that support once you’ve outleashed all your conditions. You’ll see what i’m talking about.

Agrios.1957:

I currently play on SBI, is there any american server with the same feeling of Gunnars? I am leader of small PvE guild, being in an american server that is more PvE friendly would be awesome.

Never heard of one, i can only say that Gunnar’s is trying hard and succeeding at being a true PvX server

Players of FSP and DL – remember, 8pm tonight in Hoelbrak, GH!

We’d like to invite all WvW players of Far Shiverpeaks and Drakkar Lake, our current’s matchup opponents, for a social get-together in Hoelbrak, Gunnar’s Hold, this Friday at 8pm GMT. Fun and contests (with prizes!) ensured. To quote the event’s organiser, Lippsy:

We will be holding a end of match celebration this friday at 8pm GMT+0 in Hoelbrak on Gunnar’s Hold. We hope you all will make use of the guesting systems to join us there.

Why Hoelbrak you ask? The answer is simple. KEG BRAWLING.

We will start of with some boxes of fun and then try some keg brawling at 9pm if you are all game ^.^
Since we will be in PVE we can also talk and joke together which we were unable to do last Friday. We will also have no nasty party crashers ^.^

Same prizes as last week are up fro grabs (hopefully people will enter this time :P)

There will be prizes for the following:

3 ectos for the best screenshot of you as a statue (medusa effect you get from the mystery box)
3 ectos for the best screenshot of people line dancing
3 ectos for the best costume brawl screenshot
3 ectos for the best keg brawl photo

Also, a small reminder about tonight’s Balthazar & Grenth temples liberation. Be sure to hop in at 8pm today if you nee obsidian shards!

http://i1243.photobucket.com/albums/gg552/gw2mm/12%20-%20MMs%20Birthday/gw460.jpg

A bit over a year ago the first founding stones of Midnight Mayhem were set. While the game is only six months old now, we played in all BWEs as a guild and we started forming up much earlier, working on the guild’s overall structure for quite a while now. Thus we had our first birthday party held four days ago in Divinity’s Reach.
We all had great fun and the only party pooper was culling – we had ~60 people there and couldn’t see them all, even on the strongest rigs and lowest settings. Apart from technical difficulties, everything went really great and i personally thank each and every of my guildies not only for coming together tonight, but also for being there, forging up one of the best groups to be in.

Some screens: http://s1243.beta.photobucket.com/user/gw2mm/library/12%20-%20MMs%20Birthday
And a very special happy birthday: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDtZ9JRF0n0

http://img831.imageshack.us/img831/9840/midnightmayhem.jpg

With up to 90 concurrently active members in the evenings, and stable 25+ off peak time, we’re more than ready for the guild missions. Our first guild bounties will be held this weekend and we’re all very excited to play them, raiding together in open PvE.

We’ve recently reorganised our guild events system, introducing more scheduled opportunities to group up with guildies for both PvE and WvW.
Several people got their Dungeon Master titles playing only with [MM] guildies, never having to pug, as dungeon runs happen daily here, even when it comes to those less popular or harder dungeons.
We’re present at every WvW reset, rushing SM and usually taking it on the initial rush.

Currently, we’re setting up our core sPvP and WvW teams, bringing guildies interested in those formats closer together. We’re especially interested in newcomers playing a lot of PvP, but first and foremost we’re a PvX guild with strong social sense, and we’re open for all nice, like-minded people out there.

At all times, given our size, we’re trying hard not to become a zergish blob of random strangers, and it’s really been working so far. Our take on how big guilds (should) work and why large PvX groups are the best option in GW2 can be seen in a discussion over on Gunnar’s Hold community forums – http://www.gunnars-hold.eu/threads/969-Guild-Missions?p=9159&viewfull=1#post9159

While we’re still open on merging small guilds into [MM], we do expect to become the main guild for everyone joining us, and require our members to represent us considerable most of the time. This also applies to single joiners. We’re building a community here, not an extended friendlist.

If you have any extra questions, feel free to contact me in-game @ Hectic Anorectic. If what you’ve seen so far sounds decent enough for you, visit our guild site – http://midnight-mayhem.guildlaunch.com =)

All these issues center around WvW.
It has become obvious to the WvW community that WvW is far behind PvE and sPvP for support.

My guild ran into culling on our recent get-together in Divinity’s Reach, at an empty spot with no other players. We run into EXTREME culling and fps loss (much worse than i ever experienced in WvW in t5~8) when liberating Balthazar or Grenth temples.
Large guilds will run into culling during guild missions. And as soon as that happens, ANet will be much more pressed to double the work devoted to fixing it.

Fay.2735:

I don’t get why people let kholer and cave troll fight each other. They’re too much fun to fight yourself I love the new troll mechanics!

They drop too much silver to let them fight one another.

Update: it actually seems that the person we were trying to invite hit his guild limit, which is why we’re getting a guild membership error. Checking up on it, but i think i have called for a bug prematurely, sorry.

No refunds for any speed-ups done on the way, full refunds for the upgrade cost itself. No ticket will help you.

You do get a refund for things that are already being researched, but you do NOT get a refund for any speeding up you’ve done. It’s always been that way.

Bug screened in the attached file.

We have all the roster upgrades for 500 slots already, with 321 members atm. It also doesn’t mention anything about the guild roster, but my guild membership limit.

It seems that the number of guilds you are in got mixed with the number of people you have invited to one of the guilds (i’m a member of 3 guilds, invited 2 people, and can neither join another guild nor invite anyone to any of the guilds now).
One of my officers, who’s a member of 5 guilds right now, can’t invite anyone anywhere.

One odd thing about it is that using another account, which is in only one guild, we can’t invite anyone either, receiving the same bug.

Tried with the guild founder account and accounts with all privileges set.

The initial entry into guild missions should be lower – guild bounties, if they were to be the first missions to be done, should require AoW 4, the unlock should be cheaper and shorter, but only t1 would be available on AoW 4, then t2 on AoW 5, and t3 on AoW 6.

The problem atm is that even big and established guilds need to wait 3,5 day before they can experience the new content, already having thrown a lot of influence into it, and medium and small guilds will need months to get the required influence but also the prerequisite upgrades. I realise it’s a long-term plan for guild development and not something that ANY guild should get researched and readily available in a week, but still, the initial entry prerequisites are way too steep, even for big groups.

…which is why we can’t really say if 10 people are enough for a t1 bounty, Anthony

Just done it with a war, engi, ele and two guards – one of which was dead on a button all the time – on fotm25.

If you’re not getting the daily dodges by standard playing, and need to look for specific mobs to get your practiced dodges on, you’re doing something really wrong and might want to take a different approach at dodging, aka use it ALWAYS and EVERYWHERE.
Not aiming to be rude, but you really will have a hard time in both PvP and higher PvE if you can’t dodge properly, it’s the very basic mechanic of this game.

Engis are best at demolishing enemy siege engines from relatively safe distance with traited ’nades. It is a niche role, but a very important one.

I’ve seen a tank spawn in at the same time as I did, and I’ve watched him jump into a group of enemies and just tear through them like they were paper dolls standing in his way.

There are no tanks here.
If you meant a guardian, it’s possibly because he was a lv80 and properly equipped/traited for tanky dps build, and his enemies were upscaled lowbies. While you do get upscaled to lv80 in WvW, you still are weaker than a ‘real lv80’, which is understandable; it’s not about putting you on par, but about letting you experience this part of content early on.
Or he simply jumped into a band of rookies who started running away and dying as soon as they saw him rather than zerging him. Or you saw a guardian jumping at a mesmer and his three illusions, not a group of enemies.

As a necromancer (I’m sure other minion/pet based classes also have this choice) I can sacrifice a minion to equip a signet that allows me to run 25% faster which means I actually move nearly as fast as everyone else around me but given how weak we are without our pets/minions,

Ok, hold on now.
Necro’s pets are very seldom used, almost never i’d say, and certainly not in WvW. Go for staff/scepter+dagger (or dagger+dagger) and wells for mass PvP, or boon-and-condi-mancer for solo roaming. Invest in gear that gives you toughness, some vitality and a lot of condition damage. Do not rely on minions as a necromancer, not in WvW and not in PvE.
But first of all, don’t expect to win many 1v1 fights until you’re lv80 and equipped in properly planned exotics. It’s actually not that much work, much less to hit the max lvl/gear than in most MMOs out there, so don’t fret; also not saying you shouldn’t play WvW before that, just don’t have high hopes, especially for solo play.

Also staff cast times are ridiculous. By the time I place my ring on the ground and cast the spell the player I’m targeting has long since moved outside of it and is usually beating me over the head with their sword.

Marks are about area control. Either try to foresee where your enemy will be in two seconds or put marks at your feet, punishing them for engaging you directly, if you see a melee.

The only way to be somewhat safe is to be in a decent group and I’m sure this is the intended method of play anyway but it doesn’t address the core issue of slow cast times.

You should see some ele autoattacks from something else than a dagger. Man, THAT’S slow. Marks aren’t that terrible.

As a Necromancer (can’t speak for other pet classes)

Necro is not a pet class. Don’t get your customs from other games cloud your vision while you’re here. Necro is an attrition-based conditionmancer. Pets are just a fun option for fooling around atm, sometimes used in very specific sPvP builds.

It’s not like capturing takes 5min – just don’t leave the circle until it has flipped, problem solved.

More credit for using siege equipment that damages an object would be nice, though – ram and treb operators are dull jobs, should be somewhat rewarded.

having that area with its own title of exploration as it is the hardest area to explore period.

Explored WvW with 17 toons, across two accounts (mine and fiancee’s). No transfers.
It was challenging with the first 2-3 toons. It took some time – not talking just about the sheer running from spot to spot, but also waiting for matchup resets to get the needed colour, or a matchup in which my server can dominate enough to cap the spots i still need (hence why i mapped SM on all toons the first time i saw it controlled by my server after the idea of mapping WvW on all toons, even unplayed alts, has occured to me).

But what i mainly did was got into the format and actually played WvW with those toons, mainly in the maps i still needed to explore, and simply ‘wait’ until my spots got captured by my folks. While i can feel for the players with rigs not good enough to handle WvW, and no arguing about that, period, i find the requirement of mapping WvW very healthy and decent in general – kinda forces you to experience the format you’re probably not visiting very often, and it’s kitten worth it actually.

I heard of people organising scheduled ‘WvW mapping events for PvErs’ on their respective server forums, gathering 20+ PvE players who went on a rampage through towers to just get those PoIs they still need. Perhaps it’s time to get involved with your server’s community and organise a similar run, appealing to the PvE players who are in a similar situation like you?

Get social or competitive, or don’t play MMOs, in short =)

Hey folks.

Starting next week, we will liberate the Temple of Grenth in case the Balth one is already uncontested by the time we’re ready.

We also have a scheduled open PvE event for 28.02 – killing the Displaced Ogre and running through the three mini-dungeons in Shiverpeaks. Want more details? → http://www.gunnars-hold.eu/threads/965-28-02-13-8pm-GMT-Displaced-Ogre-and-Shiverpeak-mini-dungeons

shaggy.8123:

Was not able to login for about 3hrs+ on EU server Seafarer’s Rest.
Now i tried login with de-check the “remember password”, manually entered password and worked. No ideea why though…

This actually worked. Worth trying out.

There’s one more problem, and it seems to be corrupted data in the user database. Once i managed to log in, i wasn’t greeted by the usual ‘Welcome, drkn.3429!’ (or was it without the numbers?), but i was greeted by my e-mail address. As i am in-game now, i can see myself by my e-mail address rather than account name, when i hover on myself in the guild roster. No such thing when i hover over my guildies nor when they hover over me.
It seems that the script responsible for account-name/e-mail-address pairing has got corrupted.

drkn.3429:

EU, Poland
Gunnar’s, but that doesn’t make much difference i guess

Build: 16732
Error: 42:1020:9001:4103

Another error now: 42:0:9001:4105

EU, Poland
Gunnar’s, but that doesn’t make much difference i guess

Build: 16732
Error: 42:1020:9001:4103

Ok, so there’s no need to freak out as it’s a confirmed bug and will be, sooner or later, addressed and we are not required to redo all those achievements, right?

Anyway, stuff i lost (by one point):

• Gold Hoarder
• Master of Overkill
• Staff Master
• Scepter Master
  (oddly enough, Greatsword Master is still at 5k, unaffected)
• All You Can Eat
• Miniature Collection
  (again, oddly, Thirst Slayer is unaffected – still maxed)
• Pumpkin Carving (completely reset)
• Centaur Slayer
• Harpy Slayer
• Indiscriminate Slayer
• Bandit Slayer
• Dredge Slayer
• Elemental Slayer
• Flame Legion’s Bane
• Fish Slayer
• Inquest’s Bane
• Nightmare Court’s Bane
• Wurm Slayer
  (again, if it helps, those Slayer tracks have not bugged out and are still on 1k kills: Ghost, Grawl, Krait, Zhaitan’s)

Also, my Lifetime Survivor is untouched.
Just logged, haven’t progressed in any track since 12.02 yet.

Something for WvW players out there – our recent SM rush on the WvW reset night, a successful one i might add:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zq6LcFs92Xc

And something for PvE folks, too – our last dungeon night spent in HotW, with 5 full parties doing all paths:
http://s1243.beta.photobucket.com/user/gw2mm/library/1%20-%20Guild%20Outings/15%20-%2007%2002%202013%20-%20HotW%20guild%20night

We’re always open for nice people, so wait no longer – if you’re looking for a PvX, established, organised guild that won’t go ^poof^ anytime soon, we might just be the group for you o/

Just make all karma account-wide, and still not tradeable.