Guild Wars 2

They are both a lot of fun in WvW but I do find myself enjoying my Necro more. I’ve switched from a hybrid build to more of a pure power build (staff, dagger/warhorn) and I feel very effective in group situations. Wells can pump out a lot of damage and are really good at pushing back groups of enemies (my well of suffering crits for 1.8-2k per tick).

You have a more effective ranged option in playing necro than you do as a guardian who is still relegated to more of a medium range even with their scepter.

Shakki.3219:

The base attack doesn’t really help you alot… My Necro got 3488 base Attack and about 3800 with nourishments and the damage is not comparable at all to my thief who got 3300 atk

Are you using Dagger/* for this fight? If not you should be. I’m running a full power build on my necro with 85% crit damage and I would say his damage is more than adequate. Power dagger with wells can pump out quite a bit of damage.

I’ve recently switched over to using a power staff & dagger/warhorn build and am loving it. I don’t shy away from getting into melee fights with soldier classes. I run in with Locust Swarm to help build my life force and add extra damage, pop Dark Pact to root them, drop my two wells, and start going to town with Dagger #1. Wail of Doom from Warhorn is also great for interrupting or just preventing your opponent from attacking for 2 seconds.

You will be build lifeforce quickly so you can easily pop into DS to absorb some damage.

It’s good to know I’m not the only person that’s struggling against these types of thieves. They have so many counters to nearly everything we do. If I get lucky my Well of Suffering and Well of Corruption can put a dent into them, but that’s only if they are bad.

sPvP isn’t a skills-based game either. It’s all about bunker builds and who can turtle on a point the longest.

This game is still very much about certain builds and team comps more so than actual skill.

Unfortunately or maybe fortunately it’s looking like SBI will be heading back to T2 soon. We’ve lost a lot of good commanders and long-time WvWers.

I personally think we need to drop back and regroup and rebuild.

Lavath.8924:

Honestly, I’m not sure what happened. I can recall times on SBI where it looked like a well oiled warmachine (even without WM’s help, though it was certainly noticeable with it). We had commanders that worked together in a strategic fashion. We took locations —AND HELD THEM-- and build up our defenses so that when the opposition came, we were actually prepared.

Now, it’s a bunch of random flipping with zero coordination or control. We have people queuing up waypoints without upgrading the doors first. We have commanders that would rather try to flip nodes in a linear fashion (showing anyone who is watching where our main force is) than take back a keep where a mesmer hid for almost a full hour… only to lose it again in under 10 min.

If we, SBI, drop to T2, I won’t be surprised. I won’t be thrilled, but I certainly won’t be surprised.

I miss the strats and tactics…

The thing is we’ve lost a lot of people and quite a few good commanders that got us to our #1 position. SBI is going through a significant rebuilding period with new commanders. We still need an influx of more players to fight off the numbers of SoS.

You SoS guys definitely aren’t hurting for numbers even having lost PRX.

Florgknight.1589:

So when all your damage goes into a single attack, when happens when I dodge roll or use a block?

Warrior then proceeds to bull charge you and lay the 100B smackdown on you. It’s not like they have only 1 weapon that can do high burst.

fellyn.5083:

Remember in Warhammer Online when your computer had to render hundreds of players in rvr? Yeah…

I’ll take gw2’s culling with playable fps and all the issues it causes over that any day.

That being said Aion actually had a system that handled this really well. They made it so you turned off all the player models besides people for your group and you’d just see the name plates for enemies and other team players. Anet should look into doing something like that.

I was thinking the same thing. In these situations I just care to know that there are 40 people in front of me and not what race or outfits they are wearing.

Mesket.5728:

All servers get to tier 1 and number 1, take a screenshot of it, realize THAT screenshot was the whole prize of being #1 in Tier 1 and quit.

JQ is so far the only server that stood since release in Tier 1, I don’t know why are we still holding there.

Have you guys not fallen to tier 2 at all? It’s been so long I can’t remember.

Seriously A-Net, how long does it really take to add Ascended gear to the WvWvW token vendor? The longer you wait the further behind the W3 crowd falls. We should not be treated like second-class citizens in a game that was built around PvP.

And for god’s sake don’t put the ascended armor in the jumping puzzle. That would be an extra slap in the face.

I’ve had a few instances where I’ve been fighting with people and had them disappear for a second or two. These were non-stealth classes such as warriors. Also, these people weren’t close enough to anyone else to be receiving group stealth buffs either. Has anyone else had this happen to them since the patch?

So you’ve backed them into a corner near their spawn. You’ve basically won already so just leave. It would be one thing if they were able to do this next to a tower, camp, or keep…

alanis.6094:

Was a fun match, despite the consistent outmanned buff. There should be legitimate concern that SBI might drop out of T1 after next week, given that DF:UW is coming out. I haven’t recognized any clans from SoS/JQ that played the original, but several from SBI.

What game is DF:UW?

Edit: Nevermind, I found it. It looks horrible. Graphics look like something that came out 6 years ago and the movements are stiff.

JQ did you guys get an influx of players? I’ve noticed a drastic difference in playstyle and the amount of coverage that you guys have over the past week.

GSSBlunaspike.4153:

Jinks.2057:

Yes I said it, and no you can’t disprove it.

Its just the way it is. It has a place in the game, but there’s no unknown.

It’s called SPvP and TPvP. I don’t see PvP anywhere in WvWvW.

A persons skill in WvWvW is only a measurement in their skill at WvWvW. A persons skill in SPvP, and TPvP is their measurement of skill in PvP.

Now if you want to discuss which one takes more skill, o.k. If I have to quote you I will. Fact is I can’t say that because I’m good at boxing I’m good at taekwondo. I’m good at boxing.

Sorry but this is just silly. Do you not fight people in WvWvW? It’s not all zergs and PvDoor you know. I frequently get in small-scale skirmishes and 1v1s which are true PvP.

I could say spvp and tpvp are nothing but bunkers sitting on points to hold them the longest but then I’ll be generalizing as much as a lot of the people in this thread. WvWvW and s/t-pvp are all pvp, they just require different builds and different strategies/tactics.

Curring.9752:

Personally I don’t think it’s an exploit, if it is then every class can exploit it. Stealth Stomp, Elxir S Stomp, Mist form Stomp ect. So if they do take this away from one class they must do it for all of the classes.

Exactly. Every thief I fight uses pops a stealth to finish their stomp (mesmers can do this as well). Warriors use frenzy for a quick stomp or pop some other stability buff. This isn’t an exploit at all.

The damage from scepter isn’t bad. The problem is, as others have already mentioned, the projectile speed of the autoattack. I basically use scepter in WvW mostly for skill #3 and to hit people that are too far out of range for my GS to hit. Scepter is basically a medium-range single-target weapon which opens up more defensive off-hand options and staff is a medium range AoE weapon with some support abilities (at least I think that’s how to best view them).

Attack #1 on the scepter definitely needs to be sped up.

Guild Wars Fan.3249:

lol…from the SoS point of view, if JQ are hitting you, then we’ll let/encourage them….why would we waste our time attacking JQ when SBI is ahead of us in points?

spawn camping is a very useful tactic too. I wasn’t there for the EB spawn camp, but if I were, I’d certainly be encouraging it! If you can spawn-camp the enemy to the extent that they give up and move to another map, then it makes things a lot easier and frees you up to deal with the other server instead. Not to mention allowing you to move your forces to another map to rinse and repeat.

At the end of the day, there is a scoreboard and it would make no tactical sense for SoS to attack JQ and SBI evenly, when JQ is behind on points and SBI ahead.

I concede that you are correct on this point. It’s just frustrating as heck to be on the receiving end of it :-P

Cirus.5748:

kidbs.8920:

Cover Girl.2580:

PRX is SOS’s version of WM.

WM hasn’t been very active as of late it seems.

If a 60 man WM zerg is inactive, I’d hate to see what an active one looks like.

They were actually large contributors to SBIs points over the opening weekend, you should be giving them more credit.

Oh I do give them credit. But they definitely haven’t been as active as they were in the past.

Leo Paul.1659:

I miss daish. He was really funny. I bet you guys in SBI are motivated whenever he goes online..

I haven’t seen him on at least in EB. I’m kind of hoping that he was just trolling for a few days.

Judas.5432:

Alien.1845:

Da da da Da dah, here comes the ‘team up 2v1’ troll

Hopefully people will let that misconception go….especially in Tier 1. If 2nd and 3rd place are not teaming up on the server in the lead, they are doing it wrong.

kidbs.8920:

It’s been such an obvious double-team that it’s almost comical. Both SoS and JQ spending most of the night just camping outside of SBI’s spawn in EB. No trebs from SM are even active.

Le sigh :-( Well, Rome wasn’t build in a day, I suppose. Hey kidbs, nobody cares. Everybody gets double-teamed at one point or another in WvWvW. That’s working as intended.

Anyway, I’ll see you again tonight, SoS & JQ. Loving this week’s match between us! Don’t let up. Don’t let us win. Make us bleed for every inch of ground, every Supply Depot, every Doylak.

Glhf!

Of course 2v1s will always occur. But there is a difference between 2v1ing strategically to try and take points rather than just 2v1ing to prevent a side from even leaving their spawn. I mean once SBI had absolutely nothing left on the map it would make sense for JQ or SoS to at least grab a supply camp or something from the other side to further their domination.

Anyway, that’s all I’ll say on the matter. It is what it is. We had a colossal failure on our part last night that led to us being camped. We have people that refuse to listen to commanders yet will sit in chat blaming them that everything has been lost.

pot.6805:

kidbs.8920:

It’s been such an obvious double-team that it’s almost comical. Both SoS and JQ spending most of the night just camping outside of SBI’s spawn in EB. No trebs from SM are even active.

LOL you are whining about double teams!

I’m usually one of the first to laugh at the 2v1 whining, but last night was an indisputable 2v1. Both JQ and SoS were sitting at our spawn camping us and turning a complete blind eye towards each other. They had siege weapons lined up at our spawn with no worries that the other side would attack them. No trebs from SM were fired upon JQ during this time, no attempt to take anything from either team was occurring. They were both just sitting outside our spawn having a heyday and being content farming any people that were dumb enough to venture down the path from our spawn.

If you were there then there is no way you would question this.

Cover Girl.2580:

PRX is SOS’s version of WM.

WM hasn’t been very active as of late it seems.

It’s been such an obvious double-team that it’s almost comical. Both SoS and JQ spending most of the night just camping outside of SBI’s spawn in EB. No trebs from SM are even active.

A dev just posted that they will be fixing the camp contesting rules to follow sPvP with regards to stealth, so that problem will soon be fixed.

I think that people too often think that you have to go with one of two specs… all power-based damage or all condition damage. Necros are meant to use both.

Rampager gear Power/Precision/Condition damage works exceptionally well for our class especially if you are focusing on staff and scepter damage. Then you get the goodness of both aspects of our class.

I’m personally using a mixture of Rampager, Knights, and a few pieces of the karma gear that has power/toughness/vitality. In WvWvW this allows me to take maximum advantage of my staff marks and wells.

Reaver.9256:

I vote no. I don’t run dungeons and I don’t want my sword a year from now still being just a few stats. I want it to shoot dragons out my butt or something cool like that. You want boring items forever then go play diablo 3. If your sever is barren come join stormbluff cause the game is as popular as ever here…….

How about you go play one of the many other gear treadmill MMOs instead of GW2. Or they could do what the OP is reasonably asking and makes perfect sense. If you want to run dungeons then your stats only really matter there. Tie the new tier levels to dungeons specifically and keep that treadmill crap out of WvWvW.

If this bothers you then you’re clearly one of those people that wants to use gear as a crutch rather than skill or tactics in W3.

Thobek.1730:

wow this week is completely different from last, seems like all the pvp players are taking a break and have been replaced by pve players. I just stepped out of a BL and this was the conversation

“do thieves have an ability to make you skip the downed state?”
“you probably died too much”
“where is our main force?”
“we don’t have one”
“I can’t build siege is this map bugged?”
“you can’t build in the citadel grounds”
“Can I get a rez I’ve fallen off a cliff”
“where are you?”

seriously, our main guilds aren’t showing up (taking a well deserved break probably) and now the maps are full of randoms. Lets hope we hang in there and not drop down to T2 just yet. But a good beating is what is required.

I truly felt sorry for the commanders online having to deal with these people, it was like herding cats.

Trust me SBI is dealing with the same thing. Well known and battle-seasoned commanders are ripping their hair out trying to get people to listen to them and follow them. We seem to have gotten an influx of W3 noobs (along with some trolls) who don’t understand the goals and think they always know best.

It looks like people have returned to WvW this week on SBI. Last week showed us that we can’t afford to be lazy or take a break when we have a hungry server wanting to make their mark. The battles have been great and we still have a long week ahead of us.

Sorry BG guys, SoS has won our respect. They deserve to be in tier 1.

I will say that this has been one of the worst weeks that I’ve seen from SBI in terms of attendance. We’re missing so many key commanders and players. It’s frustrating how many people have been staying in the fractals this week and neglecting WvW. SoS has the advantage of having a huge guild with over 400 players that are always on and coordinated. I would settle for people just getting their kitten into teamspeak but it’s like pulling teeth trying to get people to do that.

At this point I would say that SoS probably has a more hardcore WvW population than other servers and are hungrier for their first tier 1 win. I’m hoping that next SBI will get the turkey and fractals out of their system and bring back their “A” game. I’m not saying that we would have won, but we would definitely have a much closer match than we are having now.

One more thing… Swirling Winds… WTF???? A-Net you haz some ’splainin to do.

So we’ve gone from “turtle bombing” over the past month or so to a new somewhat broken mechanic of abuse in using Swirling Winds to defend siege weapons and tower/keep walls.

For those who are unfamiliar, Swirling winds is ability #4 for an elementalist that is using a focus. It is a ground targeted ability that destroys projectiles. What is unique about this ability is that it is one of the few abilities that can block siege weaponry attacks (in particular trebuchet attacks). I can’t speak for other tiers in WvW, but in tier 1 all sides have taken to using multiple elementalists to protect key trebuchets and even the walls of towers and keeps from other trebuchet attacks.

It then comes down to a war of attrition and who has the most elementalists on hand who are willing to sit and defend an area for long periods of time. If one server is organized enough and has enough elementalists on who are committed to protecting an area, it pretty much negates any chance of destroying the target.

This seems like yet another ability or mechanic that A-Net has let slip through the cracks. I find it hard to believe that they would intend for Swirling Winds to be so powerful as to negate siege weaponry attacks on a target. This makes controlling a point like Stonemist incredibly important as you can keep all of your trebuchets in one area for easy protection from both ground assault and now other trebuchet assaults.

Previously it was possible to set up a treb out in the field to take out an enemy treb that was placed on a platform in Stonemist, but now you can pretty much forget about it.

I am curious as to what A-Net’s stance on this is and if it is intended or an oversight on their part.

SBI was also very effective last night at countering portal bombs, which was pretty cool to see, they’d portal bomb our portal bomb a second or so after we dropped ours. That takes a lot of co-ordination, and was pretty kitten cool.
[/quote]

Ha ha, yeah that was fun. Trying to figure out where you guys are going to portal bomb us and being patient enough to use ours at the right time. Our coordination these days is rough because it’s like pulling teeth trying to get people into teamspeak. We maybe had 10 people on last night and the rest is us pleading with people in chat to stay on the commander. SoS seems to have more disciplined people in that regard.

It’s been fun.

Christos de Soufre.3802:

Stop crying. After this tier (which they probably planned from the start anyway), it’s just infusions. Six months from now you’ll have full Asc and will no longer care.

For that matter, if you’re losing to people currently just because they have an Ascended back and ring, it’s your skill that’s lacking, not their gear that’s putting them ahead.

And what is to stop them from introducing another tier of gear after Ascended? Maybe you don’t care about riding the treadmill but a lot more of us do care. GW2 wasn’t supposed to have vertical progression based on gear past exotics. We were misled and there is no disputing that.

Why do people from BG continue to post in here? Take your sour grapes and move on. SoS is proving to be a much better opponent than you guys were. I’m sorry that you guys didn’t leave the mark on tier 1 that you thought you would and you certainly can’t blame SBI and JQ for guilds leaving your server. All of those guilds were just bandwagoners anyway who obviously could care less about what actual server they are on.

Good fights from SoS. Hopefully more of our people will continue to show up this week and pull away from the carebear treadmill.

They better quickly add means to get ascension gear in WvW and I don’t mean that stupid jumping puzzle that really has no business on the map anyway.

Can this week get any worse? First we have the carebear event and along with it a new treadmill and now Daish has transferred to SBI. I thought that I would never see that clown again when I left WoW years ago. Now he comes creeping back into my life again like a venereal disease.

Elterzzz.4378:

Kelo.4370:

The real T1 match starts next week.

quit your QQing and bring it on this week! If you say next week, it will not matter since we have already reached rank 1 by then. we want a challenge to the top! not a bypass!
and also stop your excuses… SoS also experienced that same thing against SoR where halloween ruined us to the point we lost everything… we eventually overtook them within the last few days and won the matchup

Yes and SBI has made countless comebacks as well (we’re known for it now). We faced the exact same Halloween problem as SBI is a big PvE server. It would probably be a good thing for SoS to win this week. Then maybe SBI will get fired up again.

There is still time for the patented SBI weekday push though.

They could have made a killing off of charging for server transfers. Think of all of those WvW bandwagon hoppers that transferred multiple times per week.

SoS came into this week fired up. I think SBI and JQ are getting jaded at this point after being in tier 1 for weeks at a time. Sure the carebear event didn’t help. SoS you guys are doing a great job, but you’re not showing us anything that we haven’t seen or encountered already. You guys just want it more right now.

Speaking for myself, I’m not exactly enthused with GW2 after they introduced the new patch and the new gear treadmill. It’s making me quickly lose interest in the game because I feel like A-Net lied about the future of the game. I don’t know if that is affecting anyone else.

GW2 was primarily marketed as a pvp-oriented game. sPvP and WvW were the primary focuses with explorable dungeons as gravy for anyone who cared about PvE. We were told all along that there would be no treadmill. Exotics would be the top-dog statwise and legendary weapons would be nothing more than unique skins.

Now they have changed everything by adding a new level of gear and also making legendary gear better statwise than exotics. Quite simply they lied. They have also shown that they are changing the focus of the game to be more pve-driven. There are plenty of other MMOs out there for people that want to run the PvE treadmill. GW2 was suppose to be a unique MMO and not cater to that crowd.

I can understand that PvE people want a sense of progression. They could have easily achieved this just by adding the Agony mechanic and the new expansion slots and have them only activate while in dungeons. There was no need at all to add the extra stats.

So now they aren’t only appeasing the pve crowd but they are also forcing any WvW focused player to grind the treadmill again if they want the absolute best stats. And before you say “but you’re not forced to grind the treadmill”, don’t be fooled into thinking that WvW players don’t also care about being min-maxed and having the best gear. It does matter and the percentage increase is significant enough that any hardcore player will want the gear.

I play this game for WvW, I don’t want to be forced to run a dungeon to upgrade my gear stats. The fractals are not fun to me at all and it’s apparent that many like me share the same sentiment.

RiversOnFire.3607:

Daish.6139:

Azariah.8420:

Daish makes a lot of predictions(like losing the Halloween week), Daish is generally wrong.

Nobody cares what you say anymore, because the only thing you seem capable of doing is sitting in a map(or the forums) and being snarky. One day I hope to see you contribute something useful to a conversation, but you’ll understand if I don’t hold my breath.

This match has so far been great fun, will be interesting to see how the week unfolds.

Daish just explained whats going to cause SoS to fail

when you know whats causing the failure it helps you improve

if you dont know why your failing it takes much longer to fix the issues

There is one commander—im not going to say who— we all origin sos know about. he is so predictable, when the things below happen, we all know hes around.

1. he was the NO.5 best commander in SoS, well, we have only 5. When he did some dump things, We told him that was wrong. he always reply:" you dont know anything about this game", and one day he said so proudly:" xxx(and he always refer himself as xxx? got 574 total captures in WvW ." I checked mine, I got 700+ and some of my friends got 1000+, but, “you dont know anything about this game” to all of us.

2. he comes in a BL, the next second, chatbox is full of “follow xxx” , “rally on xxx”, “come to xxx”, no matter what you are doing, he asks you to drop it and follow him.

3. he once dropped 2 rams under our own tower gate.

4. if there is an argument between commanders in WvW, it must be xxx vs other commanders.

5. he learnt a new trick. he led 30 players to hills, he placed 4 cate under west wall. It would be a perfect tactic without one fact: there was another wall about 100 yards away which had only 1/4 health… how did he miss that?

6. he changes his guilds tag so often, coz he is too good that no guild would be able to keep him.

7. when he fails, it must be “we dont have enough numbers”. when other commanders win after he left, it must be “they all left this BL”. He actually say that when ppl are so happy for the big vitory.

8.“you must stop attacking red/blue/green, we need blue/green/red to attack green/red/blue”. he controls all.

9. he always predicts: " SoS is going to lose, im leaving for the week." somehow, we always started to win right after he said that. and he always come back in 2-3 days, like he never said anything.

10. ppl folow him because they should follow, ppl dont follow him because they must be stupid.

11. he has a thing with green/blue/redlake and mom.

12. he has patient, he can keep attacking same green/blue/redlake for 4 hrs without taking it. who else can do that?

13. he never cares about what you are doing, for him, you are just following(smart)/ not following(stupid) him. if you attack red/blue/green when he is not, then you extremely stupid. coz of NO.8

14. When we pushing in one BL, we cap towers and a keep and going for next one. he jumps in “its meaningless to fight here, abc BL needs you, all teleport to [xyz waypoint]”

Im not saying the name, but, if you read any of the 14 above to your friends who played long enough in SoS WvWvW, they know who Im talking about.

he is the one. and he wont be around next week. cheers

Lol I remember that guy from WoW. He hasn’t changed one bit. Still making a name for himself in every mmo that he plays (not a good one either). I’m glad he is on SoS and not my server :-P

If I want to do the gear grind I will play a game with real end-game raid content. GW2 was never marketed as this type of game and that is not its strong point.. PvE was always supposed to be secondary to spvp and WvW. Now they have set the dangerous precedent of PvE taking center stage over everything else.

Yeah this week won’t be representative of a real WvW week at all. Too many things are going on that are pulling people away. No side should pound their chest over a victory.

Awesome. I’m not able to play this weekend so now I’ll never be able to find a FoTM group due to people wanting a certain fractal level. This mechanic is going to end up causing a lot of problems. Guess it’s back to Secret World for me.

GADefence.5634:

“ANet said legendaries will scale to best tier avaieble. In other words: as soon as they add asc weapons, our legendaries will change stats.”

What about reskinned equipment that was transmuted?

My guess is you’re kittened. Time to grind that legendary again.

Natural.7013:

More gear progression is the only way this game will last.

For PvE maybe. They could easily ditch the extra stats and just put everything that is specific to a dungeon in the special upgrade slot, and then disable that slot when you’re in WvW or not in the dungeon.

Many people play this game purely for WvW and have no desire to continuously grind for new gear. A full set of ascended gear will give people an advantage over those who do not have it, so it’s not just a matter of not grinding for it if you don’t care. Most WvW players are just as hardcore about that side of the game as any PvE player. An additional 55 points to 2 stats plus another huge boost to a percentage stat is pretty significant.

GW2 is a pvp-oriented game at it’s core, yet they are giving into a smaller group of PvE players and doing exactly what they promised not to do before the game was launched.

I know in my guild, a lot of us just play for fun on the weekend and aren’t too concerned with the score (we bring in our alts and grind xp). We save our serious push for the weekdays. WM generally hangs out in the borderlands so they aren’t “carrying” the entire server. Also, as Vyrance above me mentioned, many of our players are hardcore nuts that will stay up for 12+ hours in WvW, so it’s not just our Euro/Ocean coverage that pushes up our scores at night.

So did all of those obnoxious trash talkers that were posting from BG last week already jump ship? If so that’s just sad. I really wish they would increase the server transfer timeframe to 30 days. 7 days doesn’t prevent bandwagon hopping at all.

JQ, you guys have really stepped it up this week! Good fights!