Guild Wars 2

ArkAngel.7940:

Pretty much any of them. Just avoid the top 4 or 5 servers.

Ha! Touche!

Unless you’re sinking gold into upgrades because you didn’t get the memo, why even care? At least there isn’t some massive, intense three way fight happening because people are actually trying and skill response time gets shot to kitten on the whole map.

The game has serious performance issues period. I’ve never seen anything like this. Ever. It’s an MMO which we were told would be “ready when it’s ready” yet high end machines are getting shoddy frame rates just by standing around in Lion’s Arch with 40 odd other people. That is not good enough. The game leans too heavily on the CPU and arguably is too heavy in general for what it’s supposed to be, they may have overreached aesthetically. It’s an MMO, not the latest shiny single player first person shooter.

GodAmongUs.9713:

Hi. I was wondering if there will be any mage/warlock class. Because I feel that the game really lacks the mystery and the variety of skills they can add. The ele is too much using substantial skills and the mesmer is the opposite. Why can’t there be a classic mage with classic skills like fireballs, illusions, magical seals, calling mythical creatures healing, teleporting summoning storms and such.

Wait, what? There can’t be a “classic mage” because that would render a couple classes redundant. The overwhelming majority of your list of skills are already present in game in some form, they’re just not bundled into one. And what exactly would be a “magical seal”? Did I just fall for a troll thread? :/

joshisanonymous.5270:

Drtrider.6314:

I know about 95% of thieves use shadow refuge to reset fights, and I only see about 5% of players counter it. The sad part is, it’s PAINFULLY easy to counter. One knockback, one pull, and that thief is going to be stuck out of stealth flopping on the floor having no idea what to do.
I think people need to be a little more conservative on their CC skills, and learn how to properly use them.

This too. Shadow refuge is just another bullseye for where to AoE/CC, although a bigger one than black powder. A greatsword mesmer can just immediately knock them out of the circle, a staff mesmer can nearly cover the whole thing with a chaos storm, a mesmer with an offhand focus can pull them out with the 4 ability. There are numerous options even for a class with few AoEs.

When I see a thief shadow refuge on my necro I know the fight is over because I can fear them out and then they’re helpless and low on health. It’s similar for engineers who have an absurd amount of AoE/CC for those situations.

No one should have trouble burning through a thief’s 15k hits with 0 toughness unless said thief has some lightning reflexes (then you would probably be dying regardless of the class that player was on).

Yes, shadow refuge is pretty much a dead give away that the thief is low on health and I relish knocking/pulling them out of it and seeing that awkward couple seconds they just stand there eating my damage and not knowing what to do next. However, there are a few thieves with enough sense to put some distance between us before shadow refuge and that buys them enough time to fully stealth and there isn’t anything I can do about that. There’s a counter to retal, confusion etc but not a single one to stealth and that is a problem(and not those costly and clumsy consumables Anet added).

No it’s not supposed to happen. Some people are exploiting it though.

@ The SoS team pushing in on the BP corner of Eternal a couple hours ago.

You already had us outmanned with a golem on the gate and various other siege, glitching pets into structures to attack siege and siege operators was highly unnecessary and quite frankly, pretty low. Before anyone says, its a mistake, save it, the siege weapons weren’t “accidentally destroyed”, the pets kept streaming in. It’s a game, keep it somewhat classy so people want to stay logged in and enjoy a good fight or two. Thank you.

Kam.8109:

I play a ranger and no, I don’t go glass cannon. In order to beat a thief I have to be specifically set up for them, and sorry, I don’t WvW to 1v1 so I’m not going to run an anti-thief build 24/7. With my usual setup if I run into one I can survive and get away, but never beat them.

The problem with thieves is after you can deal with their damage they simply outlast you. They’ll be bouncing in and out of combat, forcing their opponent to retarget them every few seconds, buying them all the time they need to their heal to come off cooldown.

The problem with having a class whose “thing” is that they’re strong in 1v1 situations is that they’re the only class that’s designed with that mentality. I mean really, out of 8 classes they’re the only one designed to kill people? What do the other classes do? Even with a class system as varied as GW2 there’s only so many roles out there. How come this is the only one designed for 1v1 fights?

This forum is rife with people complaining about zerging. Thieves are a huge reason you don’t see more roamers. I’m not saying a huge catastrophic nerf that breaks the class, they just need to be toned down a bit so that other classes can stand a chance of not just surviving a thief but beating one.

This is that thing that a lot of people would like to avoid talking about. That Anet decided it was a good idea to design a class to irritate other players(gimmicky stealth and this goofy initiative system). We’re not forced to consider builds that are anti any other class (gee, I wonder why?!). I’m not glass cannon either but I’m still seeing 6- 8k backstabs + 22222222, and dealing with skills I can’t use because there is no target. At that point is this what one would call a fight? Just like every class can roam, they can also bring something to the group scene, even thieves, they complain about not taking damage well, no kitten they shouldn’t be on the front lines but they can stomp and wreck the backline etc so the unfair advantage they have in 1v1/small man situations isn’t justified period. The class was poorly designed from the bottom up.

Eypheha.5831:

Congratulations Borlis Pass for putting up such a valiant, although somewhat late and albeit worthless last minute struggle. Your great tactics and valor finally shown brightly in the last few hours. I would however suggest that next time, maybe next week against your those opponents, if you have such great players and are indeed so wonderful, try to come up with a bit more effort throughout the week rather than the sudden fruitless effort you displayed in these fading minutes.

This little condescending `insult sammich` made me laugh. I hope being funny was your intention.

Different does not equal inferior or superior I feel the need to say that again even after I said that each map can have advantages and disadvantages, kind of like the Eternal Battlegrounds keeps, it would require some effort on Anet’s part. Furthermore, nothing in this game is “exactly balanced” and I seriously don’t think any sane person is looking for that so please stop making it seem like varying BLs can’t work. And that is all I have to say on the matter.

lordkrall.7241:

gennyt.3428:

So please tell me what exactly is being balanced with having identical maps? The core design already creates great imbalance, I’m sure they considered that population/coverage issues would happen yet the three servers get the same map when they were not equal to begin with.

Lets say there are three different maps.
Map A is superior to map B and C, that would mean the server with map A as home-border would have a distinct, mechanical, advantage simply because they were lucky enough to get the best map.

Or they could have spent time you know, developing and testing maps each with their own pros and cons. Different != inferior.

Creating a game mode with the propensity for outrageous imbalance like WvWvW then saying the BL maps are the same for the sake of balance does not wash.

So please tell me what exactly is being balanced with having identical maps? The core design already creates great imbalance, I’m sure they considered that population/coverage issues would happen yet the three servers get the same map when they were not equal to begin with.

Bloodwort MacFangho.4638:

The skil lag I’m experiencing is really beginning to get me down – and I’m wondering now if upgrading my PC will make any difference. I would appreciate some feedback on a new build to see if I can improve on things.

My current PC is fine for practically everything I do – work or social. It’s only GW2 that I see problems occurring. It’s a Core2 Duo 3.0 GHz E6850 – 6GB RAM with 500GB HDD and a Radeon HD 3870. I run the game at lowest graphics. As soon as I hit the big Vizunah zerg (and if server 3 is also in the mix) I may as well give up. I’ll just stand there and spam as much as I can until I’m defeated.

So I’m thinking that I should go for an i5 3.4GHz, a 240GB SSD, and 1TB second HDD. Upgrade the GPU to the AMD Radeon 7970. Now, that should be able to handle big crowds and still have high graphics settings.

However, if the skill lag is server related.. then I will be wasting my money. I’m worried that Anet are using virtual servers, and that the technology just doesn’t cut it. Hell, I don’t know.. I do know that this can’t go on though.

Newer rig won’t help with skill lag at all, it’s not our machines, you’ll get better frame rates though. And sadly, you’d be surprised with how sluggish the GW2 client is even on a lightly populated PvE map with a high end cpu and video card (the game is pretty but I think either Anet over did it or its flat out poorly optimized even today).

Vena.8436:

Balance.

That’s it.

/giggle

But they said that WvWvW was supposed to be the opposite of that, what with the terribly lopsided populations and night capping and all

Good fight and decent frame rates. I gotta be honest though, I did skip through the talking to about 75% of the way into the video when the actual fighting starts because I don’t know who these people are and I’m not interested in their politics and there was way too much of that. Just my two cents.

TheAmpca.1753:

And no don’t bring up that lame skill lag argument that is a problem with the servers not zergs. Zerging is a big part of WvW for a reason, it’s all about servers with large playerbases fighting eachother. Servers can decide to put everyone on the map on one commander which is fine. There is lots of counterplay here. For instance you can split your force so that the enemy zerg can only engage one group at a time allowing one force to die while the other is busy taking something…..

Yeah but no though, the maps shrink when the mega blob awakens. There were a lot of times in Eternal Battlegrounds when there were 60+ people rolling around capping everything to the point where we couldn’t get a gate to 30% before they showed up and pummeled us into a smooth gelatinous paste lol. Then they got the gate to 100% in seconds and moved on the stomp the next group on the tower across the map.

I’m not disagreeing that the current outmanned buff is bad however, 25% defensive capabilities to someone specced for damage well help negate the downside of such setups so yes it will can cause balance problems for anyone not hanging with a zerg.

Even 10% more damage would would cause trouble and 10% defensive would be a joke since this game is so damage centric. It will also enforce blobbing even more, small havoc groups will be facing players with 25% stat boosts just because they have a friendly zerg elsewhere on the map? That’s crazy. There is also the AoE limit to contend with.

They had a good thing going in GW1, they could have upped the scale of that and with GW2 combat it still would have worked instead of experimenting with this “persistent world” problem riddled format.

SpehssMehreen.5897:

lol, dude whats your server? and how pathetic of you to play Martyr thinking people care, get together with your guild, get on your servers communicatinos, get a force going, if the enemy manage to reach the entrance of your spawn then move maps and support you server mates on another map where you have a foot hold.

also wtf are you talking about? How dare you claim that anet or anyone has stolen your money by playing wvw? the content IS FREE, you press B and press enter, the only cost you ever had was when you bought the game, most of everything and especially wvw is FREE

You have some reading comprehension problems, when did he say Anet was stealing money from him for playing WvWvW?

airstu.2579:

Scorci.3250:

airstu.2579:

Scorci.3250:

We are so good we ran away and hid behind legendary defenders

Fixed it for you.

sorry we couldn’t handle ur amazing might stacking technique along with your super sneaky movements

do u guys give lessons?

I know you are desperately trying to chest thump, but when even Monkey Shinezzzzzzz joins in on trolling you at your spawn, it might be time to go check out the steam sale for something new.

LOL classic <3. I had a blast! All hail The Shiny Monkey!

Urnbak.5046:

So PVP is not really advisable till lvl ???

and mix it with PVE.

I wouldn’t go as far as to say it isn’t advisable, it just has it’s pitfalls is all(utility/elite skills, traits) but there can still be a lot of fun to be had. Even at 80 without decent setup and some experience you’re pretty much a juicy bag dispenser lol so don’t let your level stop you.

Also I wish to expand part of my earlier statement about servermates resenting uplevels, that is really just some people who’ll actually give you kitten about it, maybe organized guild groups, many others won’t especially if its not reset night.

Defending from walls in WvWvW is laughable and this has been brought up many many times, the walls are thin and the AoEs are getting bigger. The LoS on the walls ridiculousness doesn’t seem to affect the NPC archers though :/

Urnbak.5046:

….

just one other thing, which i know is gonna get some flack what would be the easiest class for an average/casual/middle aged(53) player.
….

I don ’t think there there is such a class, I think it all comes down to whatever you enjoy, you just have to take the competitive environment into account when setting up your character.

As mentioned, running with the zerg is the fastest way to level, drop a few AoEs and tag everything, the rest of your skills can be more support oriented if you want to help out. Make sure you keep up XP consumables at all times as well. I will say this though, being uplevled will make you a target, especially for burst centric players and your servermates might loathe the fact that your death will rally enemy forces and probably cause them to wipe(and that is something you might get flak for).

Repuran.1859:

Making siege trade-able has really made WvW a lot worse for me, golems and omegas are now so cheap that servers like Vinzunah who travel in groups of 50+ just build 4-5 golems outside of each tower and use them to cap. It’s ridiculous.
….

It is ridiculous, so lavish and a little bit funny

So now where are we in WvWvW?

- cheap golems and seige in general
- speed building rank abilities + Mesmer time warps/portals
- 30 sec delay on contested alert
- slow and expensive upgrades + no reward for babysitting the jokes that are T1 and even T2 structures
- waypoints still easy as pie to contest(why not at 95 or even 98%)
- 1 way entry to towers
- “night capping”
- the double edged sword that is the rally system

It ain’t looking good haha.

Deniara Devious.3948:

….
So it is possible to stop the death spiral and make a come back, but it requires hard work.
….

I’m sure new guilds are being formed(or consolidated!), new commanders are being trained, TS servers are being utilized and PvE players being persuaded on other dying servers so this advice isn’t really ground breaking, and it doesn’t really solve some of the serious problems with this game mode. And obviously, people playing through the pain in hopes of sporadic “short moments of glory” isn’t sustainable because servers wouldn’t have this mass exodus problem, and I can’t say I blame them.

PetricaKerempuh.7958:

is there “aoe limit” to rally? like 5?

LOL good question, I wouldn’t be surprised if there wasn’t!

AR is indeed in a kitteny place, even after being bitterly joined at the hip to you guys for weeks on end, I’m sad to see this happen. A chronic pain train is not fun and the lack of foresight on Anet’s part is staggering. Something as arbitrary as server population should never determine the victor of a war. Hopping servers or finding other non WvWvW activities ingame is one thing but I hope Anet realizes the very real possibility of people leaving GW2 altogether(because WvWvW is all they do) and maybe even being leery of or outright avoiding their future products. There will need to be a major overhaul in WvWvW mechanics for low pop servers to be attractive and I wouldn’t hold my breath.

PinCushion.7390:

Renxian.6982:

PinCushion.7390:

If I’m solo, as in not running with a party, then I’m probably dead. But why would I be soloing with a Staff?

This right here makes you smarter than 99% of the thief whiners.

“I was running my zergling whatever build and soloing for no sensible reason and died to a roamer with a duelist build OP NERF!!!111” is like the most common thing I see from most of them.

I won’t paint with that broad a brush and say that 99% of players are complaining because they’re stupid.

I will say that 99% of players are complaining because the Thief profession needs to be rebuilt from the ground up (which won’t ever happen). Not because it’s OP, but because it’s only fun for the guy playing it.

I have fun in small fights, even running my zergling build where I will usually not win. Trying to guess when the other guy’s going to burn his long cooldowns, or trying to knock him out of a heal at the right moment is fun! Except when fighting a Thief. Most of my skills miss. I can’t see the guy for most of the fight. None of my Conditions stick for longer than a second or two. If I do a few things right and get him at a disadvantage he ports away and resets.

That’s not OP. It’s just not fun. I hate fighting Thieves, so I usually just don’t. I can troll just as well as they can. I run staff for a reason. It’s hard to have fun ganking people when you spend your time dodging out of the red circles, chilled/crippled/burning. I’ll never kill them, so I just irritate them until they go somewhere else while buffing/healing my party members. If they focus on me I waste a bunch of their time running away.

The class isn’t OP. It’s corrosive to everyone else’s experience because it’s infuriating to fight. This isn’t the fault of Thief players. This is the fault of ANet for making poor design decisions.

Thank you! Somebody else sees it. It needs a redesign from the ground up for sure but it’s approaching a year and I think we’re stuck with this abomination. It’s puzzling why any game designer would build being a griefer and kittenhole into a class. I’ve killed thieves, I just didn’t have fun doing it.

I don’t think this is something to be afraid of, there will always, always be pugs and pug commanders. But why punish people who want to move as a guild with clumsy grouping? As is it now, its either disjointed 5 man teams or massive, ambiguous blobs. And if your argument is “but guilds already move around tagless”, then why would it hurt to have a guild tag, what would that take from you(the person who can’t see them on the map anyway)?

I know there are still many people getting horrific frame rates with this game, even on low settings. I wonder if they like the steady addition of jump centric activity. I know I kittening hated it before I upgraded, still don’t like it but it makes the wonky camera less irritating.

Fenrir.6183:

This is crap.
You now use your whole supply instead of deciding where to use it. So it might be faster (is it anyway ? haven’t tried, most likely won’t) but you’re forced to use all your supply on only 1 thing. No more keeping 2 or 4 supps for a ram after repairing something just a bit. No more just repairing the gate/wall so it comes back up and keeping the rest of your supply.
And as others have stated, most siege are up in a flash already anyway. Not sure what those ranks are going to achieve. Probably nothing since no one is going to take them.

Am I missing something? You are not forced to do anything, you don’t have to get the ability. What are you really complaining about here?

You know something is wrong when “Just run away.” keeps popping up (which is frankly the worst thing you can try to do to a thief). GW2’s idea of stealth was a bad idea from the start but now it’s approaching a year and Anet can’t abort now. Well why is is bad? Because in a fight, positioning is very important and being able to move unseen throws a monkey wrench in all that, not to mention GW2 stealth has zero drawbacks and it can be frequently accessed by a class with extreme burst and mobility that’s why(but please, defend that if you must).

Should players build their characters just to counter thieves? No, to me that indicates a problem. And personally, I don’t find it fun that while in a small group fight having someone slam me with backstab and then spam 2,2,2,2,2,2 while your group is attacking players they can keep track of.

Zacchary.6183:

Thief has the highest skill ceiling. You absolutely cannot do rotations or facerolls with this profession. Thieves have the highest risk vs. reward if you plan on doing glassy stealth builds. Thieves are squishy and require abusing one of their two survivability mechanics to even last in a fight.

Secondly, the best way to kill a (really) good thief is to play a thief and learn their stratagems (if listening to direct advice fails).

Any thief can be a stealth-humping coward. What separates them from good thieves is all dependent on how they execute and adapt. A great thief, however, will win regardless.

LOL I can’t tell if you’re serious or what.

Pass. I’d rather better grouping options than to have my map clogged up with swarming icons.

I’m pretty certain this has been mentioned before. Wouldn’t it be great to have commander tags specifically for guilds? And also have some target tags like “1”, “2”, “3” so target calling is easier? It would definitely help organized play, those who want to jump in and “pug” it still can and those who prefer concentrated efforts can at least have some quality of life tools. What do you guys think?

darkace.8925:

I don’t care for GvG one way or the other, but I do find it odd that they’ve yet to implement it in the game. The only think I can think of – and call me cynical – is they’re using Structured PvP to test a system wherein they can charge people for GvG tournaments.

I don’t see that panning out then. People will just keep doing what they’re doing now, taking up space on WvWvW maps for fight clubs.

^ “Casual” is not interchangeable with “unskilled”.

That SBI blob milling around in EB yesterday was quite the spectacle, I did feel like I was in an episode of The Walking Dead lol.

Personally, with my fps and skill response taking a nose dive at every encounter, I gladly went elsewhere and I suspect others did as well but at least it was fun for a short while.

stayBlind.7849:

All things have a right to grow.

Except those Centaur. Centaur don’t have a right to grow.

LOL at this.

I’m surprised Anet went that way with it, haven’t met a cool centaur in GW2 yet (R.i.p Zhed Shadowhoof). And that quote made it all the more ironic since it’s part of Ventari’s (a centaur) teachings.

I don’t really care about double teaming, sometimes it makes things interesting. However, the middle server can get kittened because the third server can’t attack the strongest and the strongest is trying to keep a possible threat from the second place server at arm’s length which leaves the weakest to gobble up the remains that the middle server can’t defend. If this is what is happening to you guys, I can understand why you might be upset.

New maps, yes. more maps, no. Randomize maps on a monthly basis.

That’s a little “meh”

I say “meh” because the cost of upgrades(including time) usually falls on a select few. A lot of people just want bags/wxp or just to stroke their ekittens by killing other players whether it’s the zerg or small group/solo flavor. As it is, the actions required for the upgrades to finish are severely lacking in rewards and quite frankly it’s slow and gets boring fast which is why many don’t bother in the first place, simply making paper structures not worth anything won’t solve that. Plus zergs can move fast (those maps aren’t that big), they can just roll through and cap everything with the snail pace of upgrades.

GSSBlunaspike.4153:

Let them believe whatever they need to in order to sooth their ego. Uploaded a pic of our awesome numbers on eb =P

Awww, wish I was there for that. The hilarity in chat alone would have been worth it. I wouldn’t have refused them bags either. >.>

Straegen.2938:

….

The crappy part is a lot of players don’t put any money or effort into upgrading towers so they have little incentive to defend it leaving a few lighter in the purse and sometimes a bit resentful of the upgrade apathy.

Precisely! Paying for upgrades, running yaks and babysitting structures can feel like a job after a while but I suspect most people try to see it through since they’ve invested already. People enjoy having waypoints, merchants, and the shelter of structures but they don’t care how it’s all maintained.

WvWvW is 90% of what I do in GW2, after the first time I’ve explored the PvE map it stopped being fun, I’ve leveled three characters so far mostly in WvWvW and I don’t see that changing for any future characters.

I think some people get upset at lower level players because they believe they’re pretty much “rally bait”, that arrow next to your name turns you into a target and you will have no chance against a geared level 80 player who is competent, you’ll go down and one of theirs gets up. You’d think people would be happy that their server mates at least showed up lol.

Your best bet is to use a ranged weapon and try to bring as many group friendly skills as you can. They stay alive, you stay alive.

Gravy.7589:

…

The amount of times it has been stated in Map chat or in TS that we need more numbers elsewhere and it is completely ignored is kinda staggering. Even more so when EB is qued and we have 10-15 in our bordelands. My favorite is when people ask EB for help and they are berated in map chat. Many of us have simply stopped asking. Been addressed many times on our forums but nothing will change.

Wow, that’s pretty bad, I’ve yet to see someone getting chewed out for asking for help defending, that’s definitely not something you want settling into the server’s culture. I wish I could tell you a way to stress to your peeps the importance of home map for the reasons stated by Aeros and also from a morale standpoint. I guess you guys could to try to consolidate those pugs into some WvWvW centric guilds, it’ll help getting them on Teamspeak as well.

SBI seems to come out in sporadic waves, one min your storming up and down the maps and then you instantaneously vanish and your home map has tumbleweeds, it’s weird.

I might do a few cheapy camp upgrades or donate to someone upgrading a keep or SM if we have a decent presence at the time, otherwise it’s a black hole for my hard earned gold.

The zerg is where it’s at. It’s laughable how prepping defense stacks up against prepping offense in this game. At this rate, Anet might was well just open all the structures and just have them there to mix things up when it comes to using the environment in battles.

zerospin.8604:

…This would give incentive for poeple to siege up towers to the max, and guard them, because they can expect to get their money back with percentage if it stays up for a long time.

The problem I see coming out of that is that you’ll have people draining supplies and there would be so many build sites that nothing will get built lol. There are already people wasting sups at the worst possible times for their dailies.

Yenn.9185:

Why are you trying to instigated flaming on this thread? You just said it yourself, every server has their bad apples. If you wake up the SBI forum warriors, they’d come up with these very examples you accuse them of against you.

If someone who personally hasn’t done this wants to take offense and spout off on their keyboard in defense then that’s their bag, I know I won’t be getting into that, maybe someone else will. I would not defend a Borlis Passinite doing it, I know it left a bad taste in my mouth and I’d like it if we just slug it out and have fun without being degenerates.

Dovgan.8605:

….
On a side note I feel special, I have never been veil/portal bombed as a solo player before by a 10+, way to go BP! You kids tickle me. I am assuming that it was practice though.

I’m sorry but the mental image I got from that was just comedy lol.

Add making hostiles take priority over neutrals to that list. How many times have you targeted a deer or warthog instead of an enemy player?

Dovgan.8605:

General Secretary.3476:

Not to mention you have a lot of skilled players, always nice fight with AR. And on top of that, you keep it civil. Not once I have been /laugh or sit on by AR (happens quite a lot with some servers).
GLHF.

Like SBI?

It’s OK they were probably the worst group vs 1 I have ever fought.

Actually I’ve also noticed this behavior coming from SBI players even when it takes a group of them to kill you (and I’m not a thief!), and for the first time I’ve marked an enemy just to return the favor (and immediately felt slimy for showing such poor form). I know every server has their poor sports but I don’t recall this being a common thing with AR or Ebay even though we were attached at the hip for weeks.