Guild Wars 2

selan.8354:

To be quiet honest, I don’t understand Anet in this…If you change the orange sword to such a high number, how come 1 person can walk past a gate and contest the waypoint or tower? It should be changed so, that only if a gate takes at least 1k dmg per hit, it goes contested.
Also, I think 25(which is for a lot of servers a zerg), is too high and shoud be adjusted to 15.

Completely agree with this. 15 is the perfect number, just the right middle ground between servers of all sizes.

And definitely need to up the threshold on contesting WP’s. Such a tactically valuable action should require more than just a single player. At least 5, or something equivalent.

GuardianOMS.8067:

What the…. I don’t even….

You may have spies sabotaging your supply. Last week a spy group infiltrated TC and right after we got SM for like the first time ever in T2, they used all the supply to build about 30 superior flame rams in the middle of the third floor of SM. Needless to say, we didn’t hold it long.

Pretty much any time I see flame rams in the open or other siege placement blatantly useless even to WvW noobs, my first suspicion is spies.

Deyja.6745:

We had 2 15 man tactical squads on EB working alongside TV, please do not insult our guild by calling us a zerg. That said I personally managed 280 badges for the time we were running as a guild.

Keep in mind everything in WvW is relative. Vs fully stacked servers like SoR, BG, and KN that’s not a zerg, but it very much can be in other contexts.

Straegen.2938:

I hope Friday night hasn’t been an indicator of the week as we never found any skirmishes and finally joined in with commanders just to have a chance of a fair fight.

It’ll die down some after the weekend when everybody has work and stuff, usually does.

Also, we do Fight Clubs, which sounds like something Mags and DB are into as well, and I’m sure some ~5v5 type skirmishes could arranged if you guys want. Bring that up whenever the Fight Club planning starts, I’m sure you’ll have takers.

Straegen.2938:

That PINK/PiNK/Pink (whatever it is) guild hawking QL, Danelon, etc early on was just a big ole zerg bag farming DB.

PiNK. They’ll be tough, they’ve been squaring off against HB (one of Europe’s best PvP guilds), among others, the past few weeks. Keep working at it, nobody’s invincible, and siege can be the great equalizer.

Straegen.2938:

I really wish there was a tier full of DB sized servers. I like the no queues and skirmish fighting but that system simply doesn’t work well against TC sized servers it seems.

I think there are, but it seems the problem is the Glicko system tends toward stability rather than volatility, making movement among tiers difficult. At least one detailed thread about that .

Now now my dear goonies, let’s not harsh the wa in other people’s threads, mmmkay?

alfista.6094:

So, for example, i’m thinking of switching my home world and don’t actually know anyone on other servers. I have no chance of checking out a server before investing quite a large amount of money for the transfer?

While i understand why you’re suggesting this, the solution you provided would be a bad one. You should discourage people from doing this, not outright forbid it.

No, you just pop onto these forums, reddit, guru, or better yet the server’s own website, tell them you’re considering transferring and ask for a guesting invite. Problem solved, really not that difficult.

Zolihan.8674:

Some unique sets of armour skins that can only be attained through WvW would be a cool reward and a goal to work for. And not just to buy with badges, so people will actually participate in WvW instead of farming jps.

Unfortunately that wouldn’t solve the dual problem DeWolfe and I are talking about:

1. WvW depletes your currency, unlike everything in PvE. Hence you have to PvE to restock your currency so you can afford repairs, gear, food/pots, siege, etc. needed to play the game. Adding more skins would have no effect.

2. There’s only one stat set of armor available in WvW. Adding more skins wouldn’t solve the real problem of needing more types of armor – Berserker, Knight, Cleric, Rabid, etc. Since WvW depletes your currency, you can’t reliably do WvW and save up enough gold to buy the mats to craft gear either.

Either way, to get stuff you need for WvW you have spend time farming dungeons and other PvE stuff, the only reliable way to acquire resources in the game.

Having said that, WvW loot drops were increased in the latest patch, so that might mitigate #1 at least. Too early to tell how much though.

kKagari.6804:

Lmao, I never guested on TC before, but I’ll definitely guest there now!

Then welcome, we have the best cookies, lag, and overflows. Enjoy

Thrumdi.9216:

So, guesting = Trolling?

Not universally. For example, there are RP’ers on other servers b/c of guild affiliation, friends, etc. who guest over to TC to RP with their RP buddies. Definitely not trolling, and brings all the things we value to the community, and not enough of them anyway to cause the lag, overflows and other issues that the general PvE farming zerg brings.

And not even all of the ‘PvE farming zerg’ are trolling either, just a vocal minority. But we can deal with them, unrelenting humor usually shuts down trolls pretty well. It’s the technical issues – overflows, lag, etc. – that are the problem players can’t do anything about.

Kumu Honua.2751:

You sorta brought this all upon yourselves.

You made the bed, now lay in it.

Just to clarify, not all of TC made this bed, just a vocal, enthusiastic, and perhaps naively excited minority, mainly on Reddit. Most of TC didn’t even know it was going on and weren’t involved in it, especially the RP’ers who tend to hang out elsewhere (either in-game or places like here), and are now bearing the brunt of the problems (not just the lag and overflows, but ‘lol kitten’ type harrassment).

Kumu Honua.2751:

I don’t think it’s right to force a guest into overflow. They have every right to the content on the server they are playing on as you do. They paid the same price.

Up until the end of free transfers that may have been true, but not anymore. People who pay to be on a server have more right to the content on that server than non-paying guests from elsewhere.

And most who have been on the server since before the end of free transfers didn’t pay in money, but did pay in commitment and investment into the community.

And I’d say it’s even less right for guests to force natives into overflow. Both are ugly, but one is clearly the lesser of two evils.

You don’t want lag? Guest to any of the other 23 servers for YOUR PvE needs.

Pretty sure ANet would consider that not working as intended.

Dunan Atreides.5436:

Can’t we have a rotation of three servers a month or something as “official” PvE servers?

This way at any given time, you have two other options where it’s guaranteed that there’ll be an above average amount of people. The monthly rotation ensures that all the servers get some sort of activity, and no one server will be burdened by extra people for more than a month.

It might be even better to just focus guesting on the 3-5 least populated servers. They’ll have the most headroom for lots of guests and least chance of overflow, plus their native players may actually appreciate the company and the more frequently opened Temples.

But given the experience of TC, Blackgate, and SoR (two other servers with similar guesting problems to TC), I don’t think it’s a great idea to have a random rotation that will still include the highest pop, already-full servers, when the low pop ones offer more chance of a real win-win.

Unlisted patch note: Quantum WvW, branching map theory, has been implemented.

SugarCayne.3098:

I’ve always been impressed with how TC presents on the forums. You guys seem to really love WvW, but you aren’t these chest thumping thugs I see so much of in other threads. I just wanted to say you left a good impression on me, and I may just transfer off my current T1 server to come help you guys fight. I’m getting pretty tired of how toxic things are in that tier anyhow. I can’t see that changing any time soon either.

We would be very glad to have you, and anyone else seeking a happy respite from a toxic atmosphere elsewhere. Come join our merry band, our few, our happy few, our band of brothers (and sisters).

Bump. Still recruiting, especially NA offpeak (Euro, Oceanic, SEA, etc), but NA guilds welcome too.

Against T1 servers, even in NA peak we could use a little more oomph on our two opponents’ borderlands.

NA Offpeak we need more coverage everywhere, and any Oceanic/SEA/Euro guilds joining us would have the run of the place, the ability to get all their guildies into any and all maps, and top tier competitors to fight and improve against.

Completely agree with OP. It’s really annoying having to farm the same dungeons over and over for anything other than boring P/V/T gear when all I want to be doing is WvW.

WvW is dynamic and exiting, dungeons are boring once you’ve done them a few times. FotM is a promising concept (gradually increasing difficulty and mechanics), but not fully realized and even then it won’t be remotely as fun as WvW.

Until ANet implements OP’s suggestions, they’ll never fully live up to their mantra that players should be able to play the game however we want.

SoggyFrog.4170:

I dropped a summary on the gw2 reddit, please let me know if there’s anything I missed or could clarify:

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/18wb2i/when_the_wvw_ratings_break/

And upvote, of course.

Saw this on reddit, fully support fixing this, for both the T8 players and the game itself, came here to bump. Please fix it ANet.

/bump

The wiki is getting really annoying, almost to the point it’s not worth updating anymore. The mods are being overzealous about DRY , even in cases where a little abbreviated repetition could drastically improve usability, and good information like yours gets randomly rolled back or overwritten. There’s a big WTF going on with it.

Awesome, thanks everyone!

Awesome, thanks guys!

I love 30/30/0/0/10 mantra power but have a hard time surviving with it in certain situations, like CoF1 brazier room or CoF2 guarding Magg from Assassins near the end. How do you handle those?

A phantasm build is popular, high damage, decent survivability (swap out Signet for Portal on the flaming boulder cave).

I’ve also been using this hybrid Phantasm/Shatter build lately and like it better, for two reasons: I can’t live without Illusionary Persona, and this build lets me swap traits and utilities on the fly depending on the encounter.

For example, that’s the standard version of it, but when I do that crazy event at the end of CoF 2 where you have to guard Magg from Assassins, I find it better to change the build to better support that encounter (eg, burst down the Assassin with GS and buffed Mind Wrack, Desperate Decoy for surviving/kiting in between Assassins).

Kasama.8941:

I use Signet of Inspiration and the focus with a Sigil of Speed on it. Both Signet of Inspiration and Sigil of Speed stacks, and Sigil of Speed doesn’t have any recharge, so I can ramp up quite a lot of swiftness during a fight.

I don’t recommend using runes to get swiftness, as you miss out on quite a lot of damage (Rune of the Undead) or utility (Rune of Lyssa).

Does Sigil of Speed proc on Critters?

I’ve run CoF 1 twice the past two days on my guardian. I run an AH variant with Staff + Hammer. Both times when I got to the final fight, I found once combat had started I couldn’t weapon swap till the fight ended. The other Guardian in my group last night had the same thing happen.

I /bug reported it, but is this a known bug and are there any workarounds?

Xavi.6591:

Your are probably thinking of Compounding Power (Illusions III) where it is “3% more damage for each of your active illusions” which does increase shatter damage. Thus when you shatter, the first clone shatters at 9% more damage, the second at 6% more and third at 3% more damage. IP isn’t affected by this trait though.

That could be it, thanks. Glad we got that clarified too.

Dastion.3106:

Ha. Good to see someone benefited from that thread, and that you skipped the bit where I messed up my probability test of critting with multiple Illusions. The per damage amount for each Illusion is almost always the same, any variances are due to rounding (I.e you may have two Illusions deal 333 and the third deal 334), Vulnerability Stacks falling off or being added, or the Compounding Power trait.

IP does a lot for Shatter builds, that extra ‘guaranteed’ shatter from you really helps counter the unreliability of Shattering. It’s less helpful if you don’t go into Melee range, but iLeap (when it works) and Blurred Frenzy make doing so mostly safe. Even then, the on-demand 1s Distortion is worth the trait alone.

Haha, thanks again for figuring that out and posting it. I added a link to your thread on the wiki, and a summary of the results, since there was no info on this anywhere. And strangely I couldn’t even find your post with the forum search, had to do a google site search instead. Much obliged.

Anyone create a gear set to make their thief look like their Thieves Guild and/or Ambush Trap thieves? Wondering if it’s possible to make a Mesmer Thief.

Great, thanks for the clarification, all questions answered then!

neomccoy.2657:

When this week is over lets gather and group hug somewhere!

That’s what appledainty’s Thursday cross-server Dolyak Parades are for

The one thing I’m not sure about here is, I recall reading somewhere that multiple illusions do not evenly split shatter damage, the way Dastion just averaged them together. Rather, #1 does less damage than #2, and #2 less than #3, and #3 less than IP self-shatter. And the actual damage amount each does changes depending on how many illusions are shattered.

At least that’s what I recall reading in the thread I’m still searching for. Though on the other hand I would have though Dastion would have seen that in his combat log when running his steady weapon tests, and mentioned it. So… not sure, going to have to test this myself later when I get a chance.

I found that too, but it’s still kind of vague since it has no discussion of how IP scales shatters per Illusion.

However, after a bit more searching (actually had to use google to search the mesmer forums for this), I found the answer – actual steady weapon target dummy testing. Conclusion:

“[Shatter Damage] W/O IP
1 Illusion: 135 × 1 = 135 (~49.45% of base Max Damage)
2 Illusions: 103×2 = 206 (~75.46%)
3 Illusions: 91×3 = 273 (~100%)

[Shatter Damage] With IP
0 Illusions: 135×1 = 135 (~49.45%)
1 Illusion: 135×2 = 270 (~99%)
2 Illusions: 103×3 = 309 (~113%)
3 Illusions 91×4 = 364 (~133%)
…
So on top of all of the other benefits, you drastically increase the scaling of Mind Wrack from approximately 49%/74%/100% to 49%/98%/111%/133%. Don’t believe me? Go try it out.
…
[IP] is a 100%/50%/33% damage increase [for 1/2/3 illusions, respectively] depending on how many Illusions you have."

Thanks to Dastion for figuring all that out.

I know IP does more damage than the individual illusion shatters, and I know I’ve seen this information somewhere, but can’t find it now. Searched these forums, checked the wiki, searched reddit, no luck. Anyone know?

Thanks all, much appreciated. Too bad, would have been awesome.

xxxzavulonxxx.8413:

Our match is moar fun anyhow.

AoN and BT > RE.. you guys were not much of a challenge to kill.

Your argument has merit. You must be right. Congratulations!

Dhampyr.2104:

Xinthai.6175:

We only really have one or two active guilds (that are mostly casual afaik) during Oceanic. That’s our weak point. Once SEA gets on we go back to full force.

Ah, thanks for clarification. I had the impression (from other threads) you guys had hordes of hardcore folks at all times of the day.

Appreciate it!

You might thinking of JQ, for which that characterization is very true.

I noticed the Mirror healing skill can reflect massive boulders hurled by giant worms at you, but can it reflect Treb shots if you time it right? Can’t hop on and test this atm, so asking instead.

PopeUrban.2578:

So yeah, I’m pretty proud to be in the TC militia, simply because it’s a proof that a collection of small groups, working together for a common goal, can actually do pretty well for themselves.

TC militia is amazing. They come out and fight tooth and nail no matter what the score is, even when getting steamrolled. That heart and grit is one of the main reasons TC made it to T2.

Some other servers, when they get beat down, they start slinging blame and acrimony at their server-mates, and drama, transfers, etc. TC just rolls with it, laughs it off, and keeps on going. /salute

Puz.8529:

Btw, anyone else noticed that there is now culling in pve as well? I never had that happening before (I think)!

Noticing that too in Orr. No significant change in WvW, albeit a little less predictable, and culling in PvE now too.

ANet already offers an option in settings menu to color all players gear the same as their WvW color. I wish they’d just add an option to normalize the gear and character models as well.

8 professions * 5 races * 2 sexes = 80 gear/char permutations. Have a default character model for each race/sex, and use the WvW Invader’s gear for all the gear skins. Cache those in RAM and load them first instantly, then replace with custom gear/models as able on a lower priority.

Foss.4830:

Like I said in a previous post. Our pugs have alot to learn :P

Pro-tip: Call them ‘militia’, not ‘pugs’. They’ll fight better.

Blade.9317:

Hmmm… I am not sure about BG adopting this guy for a mascot. He seems to be too much of a bad boy. :P

What, this guy ? He’ll do just fine ;D

Ninya.3942:

You guys should take the ghost of Amy Winehouse

That is so wrong, yet so funny, I’m already rolling on the floor. Can tell this is going to be a hillarious week on this thread.

Liquid.9672:

TC has been making a great showing this week and are getting some excellent numbers into WvW. I think they were hungry for some actual 3 server WvW after what happened to SBI when they were in T2.

Heh, pretty much this. Nice to have the balanced three-way back for a change. Going to be interesting next week if Kaineng replaces FA in T2 though.

/returns to lurking

ANet should tweak the paid transfer prices to take into account not only where you’re transferring to, but also where you’re transferring from.

So for example, transferring from a High pop server like JQ to a Low pop like ET would free. Transferring High → Med could be slighter more expensive, say 300 gems. Low → Low = 600 gems. Low/Med → Med = 1200 gems, and Any → High = 1800 gems.

That would add more incentive to balance server populations.

Thanks!

….need more characters….

I know it includes Portal and Timewarp, but what build, weapons, and other utilities? Phantasm-oriented build or something else? Thanks!

Yup, all legit problems, as is lack of OH and missing nameplates as Del mentions.

Solution: Clones are just shatter spam bombs for shatter builds, or placeholders in phantasm builds until you can overwrite with a phantasm. Don’t leave them up long, don’t rely on them to confuse halfway decent enemies, and don’t use a build that relies on them being up for any length of time (which I never really see anyway).

Only exception might be condition builds that rely on clones with ranged attacks continuously applying conditions (Staff, Scepter). Ymmv.

Chamone.6890:

Even easier, just make the effect stack duration like most other stuff in the game.

+1. Simpler, easier to implement, hence more likely to actually get done. Either one would be a huge improvement.

Thanks all, glad to know they can both be used.

I would love Improvisation if it limited itself to only utilities you have equipped, but it kind of sucks that it can reset, say Traps, even when you don’t have a trap equipped.

There’s a discussion over on reddit about people not using consumables in dungeons, and how valuable they are (-10% incoming dmg, +10% outgoing dmg!!!) , and why people don’t use them.

One of the reasons why is that they just expire and people don’t notice and forget to reapply them. As is, using consumables is too ‘micro’, as in micro-management required, counter to ANet’s philosophy of ‘Play the game, not the UI’, and spend your time having fun rather than ‘preparing to have fun’.

So, a suggestion for solving this problem:

Add two slots to the H panel, maybe near your gathering tools slots, for food and consumable items (pots, stones, crystals, etc). Drop a stack in there, and it consumes one and starts the timer counting down. After 1hr (or whatever the particular item’s duration is), it automatically consumes the next and starts counting down again. After all stacks are consumed and timer runs out on the last one, you lose the buff and have to refill the slot. Include a little checkbox in the top right corner of each to toggle both the buff and timer on and off, so you don’t have to keep swapping them in and out to enable/disable.

Thoughts?

Mystic Toilet. Confirmed.

Thanks. One has a 30s cd and the other a 45s cd, so I’m guessing the cd comes from whichever proc’d?