Guild Wars 2

Lost my last bit of interest in WvW the moment i heard Xaoc was transfering over. 3 Options now: Stay out of WvW at all, transfer to one of our enemies or another tier. That from someone who has been on GH since prelaunch.

GH is now back again, playing the numbers game. This time with the numbers on their side.

Dungeon: (Fotm, AC, Arah)

Weapon: Staff
Utility: Lightning Flash, Armor of Earth/Cleansing Fire
(heavy knockdown/heavy conditions), Mist Form
Elite: In terms of Elite skill i am as oblivious as the poster above me

WvW:

Weapon: Either dagger/dagger or staff
Utility: Same in dungeons, atm experimenting witch Arcane Shield (easy
counter for bs thieves)
Elite: Switching to Tornado when i am near cliffs :-)

For healing always Signet of Restoration

@Writetyper: Stop mentioning that. Its exactly what i have been thinking over and over again and the only real counter-argument would be that Arah gear is the most awesome-looking gear and worth every hour you spend in there. Which it isnt imo. Funny thing. I am actually doing Arah cause i am bored with WvW atm and too lazy to level my ranger. Yes we need better rewards for that. /endorsed

Because i like healing my party with the staff skills like i mentioned in my post. It may be different if i werent mainly specced for party support. But running with pugs i prefer being able to throw some heals for others when i deem it necessary.

And i thought i was the only one thinking guards and warrs are a bit too well-performing in pve and pvp. Nice to hear. I agree that class balance is really bad especially when it comes to roles in dungeons. On the other hand people are usually making up for it by performing quite horrible on these classes. In the hands of a decently skilled player though…

Playing staff support with condition removal and using my own combo fields: Ele is a blast in Arah, AC and FotM (have done only those). Decent damage, high survivability and support. (PVT armor and clerc trinkets. Sigil of Life, Bowl of Saffron-Mango Ice Cream food. Attunement swap to water is a 2.5k heal for everyone standing close to me.)

preparesfortheflames Hate how people call for at least one warrior or guardian in every dungeon i did or lfg i read.

Started doing Arah 6 days ago. Some wipes at Lupi (3 or 4 ?), always pugging. Got 700 tokens now and seriously: If hes the worst endboss in the game: Lol. He demands your attention, if you make mistakes you will get punished. What else should a boss do ? He even tells you when hes about to spawn a grub.

Thx for the info about Magnetic Aura, my support ele using staff will definitely remember that. (Even survived taking on Lupi alone after the rest of the group was dead and ran back. Evasive Arcana +Geysir +Healing rain +Eruption + Signet of Restoration + 3 stun breakers, one with stability = a lot of room for mistakes when you fight him for the first time. Imo staff is way better than focus for people who never fought him before. From what i remember swirling wind is stationary while you can move with magnetic aura. In combination with everything else staff has to offer i prefer staff.)

If Lupi resets midway through the fight you either used something like Mass Invisibility or Shadow Refuge on the whole group or your group stood too far away from him and stopped hitting him.

Its acually funny how often skipping and exploiting seems to INCREASE difficulty. Had my share of “omfg why not do it the normal way its much faster than skipping”-moments in arah. Stupidity-increased dungeon difficulty. Its a strange world. And yes i have had people in fractals who wanted to exploit as well. Level 6… Wish i could give them their rewards for the dungeon and make them stay away from it.

Got the same problem. I had 2 Superior Runes of Orrian drop from a chest in Arah and those 2 are soulbound. Wish i could use them for my ranger, useless for my ele :-(

Amount of working brains in this vid: 4

Great. So this time we are getting the bandwagoners ON our server. I am already missing the times when the fair-weather-players jumped OFF our server. Since I cant stop those guys from transferring I at least wont be silent about that topic. Stay where you are. Dont want you here. * holdshisstaffhigh * “You shall not pass/transfer !”

Endorsed. Now pls close this thread for providing constructive ideas. Cant have this.

Only trouble is swamp with people who dont have condition removal or swiftness. Suit/Elemental are an annoyance but not really “hard”. Did you read any guides ? From my experience, once you know the right tactics, most dungeons in this games become significantly easier. For finding a party i can highly recommend

http://gw2lfg.com/

No need to register or something. Just remember that you cant run with people from an American server if you are on an European and vice versa.

Running dungeons wth inexperienced people CAN be a big problem. I am currently running Arah paths 1-3 and several times i have people coming in like “Well i just turned 80 and now i want to try out a dungeon”. Trouble is: Most PvE content up to there wasnt really challenging. Most classes can level in full berserker gear. Mobs die fast so survival isnt that important. So you get people at lvl 80 with full berserker gear very often seemingly unused to dodging attacks at all. Taking them along on a dungeon not only means that you have to explain tactics – which i am always fine with. The problem is when you have to make up for their inability to dodge in combination with berserker (or even better mf) gear. Being a support ele means that by rezzig a player from downed state the group is not only missing one dps but also my support. Which for a inexperienced group is usually necessary (Dont get me wrong. If someone gets seriously focused in this game, all suppport in the world wont help him stay alive. No burst healers here. Healing is basically the act of rezzing from downed state so everyones a healer. Though with decent support you can at least help players avoid a part of the dmg . /rant end) But i have to rezz them cause i cant rely on the others to pay attention to their health bar AND those of their teammates.

Now mind me, i am writing this with my recent arah runs in my mind. I will still keep taking inexperienced players with me there, simply because i know how annoying it is to be told “experienced only”. But to ask for “experienced only” in places like AC is really ridiculous. Explaining the strategy to destroy burrows takes you about what ? 20 secs ? And then its all about dps. To make it even easier you can avoid Kohler completely. Instead of asking for “experienced only” people should say: Requirement is to find your dodge key on your keyboard and not run glass cannon armor if you have never ran a dungeon before. At least most inexperienced players tend to listen to advice cause they value the fact you take them along and dont want to make mistakes.
To those i say: Inform yourself before you run the dungeon. Being prepared for what you are going to face is important (lupicus-grubs-necromancer traits-urgh). Bring time. You know you are new to this so dont expect to be as fast as experienced groups.

Oh and about experienced players: On my fist run of Arah path 1 i looked the tar boss up on wiki and told the group (all experienced players) after we wiped: “It says we need to keep him burning so he doesnt spawn adds”. That was quite some news to them. :-)

tl;dr “Pros” : Dont be lazy, occasionally take along inexperienced players. Even if its just to show how “awesome” you are. You werent born experienced either.
“Newbies”: If someone takes you along, try to make it as easy as possible for him. Inform yourself about the dungeon and listen to what you are told. Bring time and survivability/survive abilities ;-).

@ Benjamin: From what i read last quarter of 2013. Cant come fast enough.

As Anet considers WvW as part of PvE the nerfs to affect WvW will also affect PvE. Lets face it people: Everyones tired of how eles equipped with a staff are able to easily survive running glass cannon gear meanwhile totally destroying everyone in PvP and PvE and being god amongst mere mortals in the hands of a good player. Those guys definitely need a nerf. Staff is simply to strong in every part of the game. Just watch this staff ele easily soloing Arah path 2:

Do i need to mark this post for sarcasm and irony ? Just in case an Anet employee happens to read it and actually believes what i said above ?

WSR are clearly doing their best. Its a shame they got fewer numbers because otherwise this would be the perfect matchup. Whether trebbing SM is suicidal or cunning, at least those guys are persistant. If you cant win you can at least be a pain in the back. Seems we share a motto^^

Yeah i am sorry i expect people to not repeatedly run in and out of invulnerable spots that are clearly not intended to be there. After all this is GW2. Why expect decent PvP behaviour in something like WvW. Lesson learned.

To the RoF guys currently abusing the invulnerable spot at Bluevale Refuge ( GH bl): Seriously ? Are we really down to this kind of poor behaviour ? I thought this was something only occasionally occured and very few players do but 7 at the same time including several from the same guild… If you dont want to fight pls stay out of WvW. Play single player games and use godmode cheats.

That said, thx to the other guys from RoF. Bay was lots of fun for my staff ele. Keep (it) coming :-)

“We recently ran small tests on Live to help us move towards eliminating as much culling from WvW as possible. The results have been promising, and we have a number of additional culling features in development. If all goes well, our hope is 2013 is the year culling ceases to exist, or is as minimal as possible in the WvW experience. ”

I marked what makes me worry in the post. Firstly they ran “small” tests. They obviously did run small tests before they published the game and didnt discover what a probem culling is. Second thing is how vague the statement on the fix for culling is. 2013 ? Call me pessimistic but this sounds to me like they consider the possibility that they either might fail or that the fix can also take till December. Not a pleasant perspective.

Also paid server transfers are a promise they have been making since the game went live. Infusions gear for WvW players ? No word on this. Lower prices for Invader gear ? Nothing. And no badge-love for people going support.

Over all this theres the label “coming soon” hanging. As ususal.

I passionately love the open world pvp WvW can offer. I want WvW to get fixed. But i have learned to be cautios towards the statements of gaming companies. :-(

Combined with glass gear, a focus, d/w and wells this was the power build i used for roaming and dueling on my necro. Excellent choice for 1 on 1. But shhhh dont tell. People might realise axe is a good weapon. :-)

Let me try to remember what i usually do. Running toughness and vitality gear and a confusion build staff + sword/torch. Decoy and blink for uilities. Traited for clone creation on dodge.

All given he hasnt taken me by surprise. He runs at me. I got sword and torch ready and once I think hes close to 900 range I use decoy. thiefscratcheshead. This is the moment i often try to use moa on him from stealth though success rate isnt that great. Illusionary leap. Immobilizes him and then sword skill #2. Dodge and torch #5 if I get lucky it will hit him before he stealths. When he stealths i instantly pop Cry of Frustration which due to my confusion build gives him some really nice stacks. Stealthing myself with torch #4. Wait for him to come out of steath and instantly retarget using staff #2 and #3. If hes close I put staff #5 on my position (chance for aegis or retaliation on me and some nice conditions on him). Dodge and shatter on him. This usually is the decisive point of the duell. Lots of them are dead by now. Some heal up others use shadow refuge. Against healing i use blink about 2 secs after they stealth directed into the direction they disappeared. Shadow refuge is argh. Still if i havent used my Chaos storm so far i put it on top of SF. Then sword #2. I think i had one or two who came back for another round which is dangerous cause at that point i wasted lots of useful cds. I’d say 70% are dead after the first seconds and 25% decide its not worth the effort and run. And the last 5%: Well. Happens. At least they had to work for that kill which they arent used to imo. Its a boring build. Just hope they fix culling some day. Too many free kills/badges for those guys.

First. I support your idea of illusons not disappearing after opponents dead as long as the player who cast them is in combat mode. But everything else you suggested i cant support.

Moving skills like portal and veil into the shatter slot seems weird for me. Shatter skills are exactly not a duplicate of each other. They all have different applications, though each of them delivers the “on-shatter-boons/conditions”. Mind Wrack is direct damage, but all others are control. Cry of Frustration gives your enemy the choice between a) ignoring the condition and getting damage for every skill usage
b) cleansing the condition c) stop attacking
Two of this options means you just forced your enemy into a reactive playstyle.
Diversion is even better. It stops your enemy from using skills at all.
Distortion grants you up to 3 seconds of invulnerability, allowing you to negate burst, secure a stomp or reach save ground.
I think all these abilities qualify for being called unique class mechanic.

Atm i feel the power a well-played mesmer gives you stands in an appropriate relation to the effort you put into it. I confess I am a supporter of complex classes, but mesmer definitely isnt the most difficult class. It may seem more complex in comparison to the current thief- and warrior metabuilds, but seriously: I think you can expect people to be able to press more than 3-4 keys in a game without overburdening them.

Its always interesting to read the forums and see how others feel about a class. My first real necro wvw build was inspired by a post on this forum. It was a power build with Dagger/Warhorn (ah the days when necros had no speed buff) and axe/focus utilizing wells. Though many on the forums claimed this kind of build was weak i was doing pretty well with it, even winning 1 on 2 with guardian + warrior. Later I tried a condition specc with epidemic and it was a blast in group fights.

CHIPS. There are lots of people with tons of boons on them in wvw. On my server i see lots of d/d eles and tank guadians putting up huge amount of buffs. With decent timing and positioning: Corrupt boon + epidemic = watch them and bystanders melt.

Team support ? Theres more than one possibility to support your team.
Weakness is a dmg decrease for enemies. And it allows your allies to hit enemies more often because those cant dodge as often.
Chill decreases movement speed, a) hindering your enemies to damage fleeing allies b) allow allies to catch up with fleeing enemies (thieves hate it :-) )
c)reducing damage by increasing enemies skill cd.
Fear on staff is an amazing crowd control skill. You can use it to make a small group of enemies stopdoing whatever they have been and turn around and run. Yes only for one second but think about the confusion this usually creates.
Bleed is useful as most people in WvW only react to instant high dmg. Bleed hurts lot especially when you dont watch your buff/condition bar closely. Which lots of players dont.
Poison doesnt just moderate dmg over time. It also reduces the effectivity of healing skills. So when you see an enemy low on health you put poison on him and voila – you just reduced his heal by 1/3.
DS is a second health bar. Say you put lots of conditions on that glass cannon guy but now he is close to you dealing his high dmg. DS buys you the time you need by allowing you to stay alive and even deal some damage to him while your conditions tick away. And you can fear him away meaning your #3 is a stun you can use to interupt his attack dealing most dmg (say 100b on warr). And the conditions still tick away.

In fact most conditions are stealthy boons. Boons you put on allies to strengthen them. Conditions you put on enemies to weaken them. Necros DO have lots of team support. Its just a bit more subtle than a guardian popping lots of boons on himself and his allies.

Dont know why people on this forums insist on attacking each other personally just because someone has a different opinion.

• Always have a stunbreaker on your utility bar, if possible a teleport. Nothing
  is more funny than watching a 100b warrior pop his frenzied faceroller into thin
  air. Well, maybe a guardian doing his ballet dance far away from anything he can
  damage.

• Always bring at least one decent condition removal to battle.

I.e.: Its a utility bar. Try having something useful in it. Damage isnt everything.
You cant deal damage if you are dead.

• Been said before but needs some elaboration imo: Flanking even when done
  with only 3 people can make whole zergs falter. Even better if you are mesmer.
  Nothing scares people more than the “we are surrounded”-feeling. Which leads
  to >Always try to hit the squishy backliners first. While killing that heroic tank
  in the frontline may seem to be demoralising the enemy, killing some people in
  the backline who use him as a distraction to nuke your forces is way more
  useful. Dont worry, there will be lots of people focussing the tank.

Phantom your idea would require a redesign of most downed skills since they are meant to prevent a quick stomp. So imo increasing the time it takes to rezz downed players is the way to go. On a side note: I wish dead players couldnt be rezzed. Thats even more annoying.

Cant argue with Raincrow on his points. Sometimes i feel theres little difference in time-to-kill between GW2 and Planetside 2. High burst enables any PvE player who takes a PvP player by surprise to beat him and feel like a pro. Thats the current state of WvW. Its hard to measure individual skill in a game that zergy and bursty. Saddly its atm the only option for open world pvp. Sad panda :-(

Still Jackie’s group is small, organised and they are beating zergs so I am enjoying this video very much :-)

Cant count the number of times torch Prestige saved my back. Torch for fights, focus for pulling people down walls and cliffs and speeding myself up. Then quickly switching back to torch. The confusion from the #5 also benefits your build. So yes, for me torch feels more useful. No doubt others can make focus work better for them. Its a matter of personal style.

Rejoice. Through faith, SM is currently a beautiful blue and fully upgraded :-)
(Sorry for using an Oblivion reference.)

Aletheia Atropos

Dont care about last week any more. But now we finally got a nice even 3-sided match theres zero reason for anyone to make an alliance. Points dont really matter imo. Time to have fun bashing RoF and WSR. Lets have fun. Victory on the battlefield is more important than victory on the scoreboard, thats what GH has learned and i for my part play for that only.

“A multi-projectile finisher has the same effect as a projectile finisher, but only 20% chance of applying the effect; the exceptions are Vulnerability and Confusion, which are 20% both for single and multiple projectiles. "

from: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Combo

Thats why. Only 20% chance for confusion. Otherwise i would run staff and pistol offhand. Chaos storm+ duelist = ouch :-)

1200 range to create the clone if you have engaged an enemy. If you are further away the illusion wont spawn.

@ Neandramathal: No need to be sad. Getting our garri last night while we were busy getting spanked at hills was quite clever. We only noticed you seconds before garri flipped. And you almost got wood as well. Been watching you guys in the last days. My respect for your groupfighting techniques. Lots of fun watching you even if its my own people you bash :-)

Guild Wars Fan.3249:

“Look at how uber I am! Running around in a setting where teamwork is the driving motivational factor in builds, I’ll bring in my 1v1 optimised build and then show everyone how much better I am than them by claiming there is some kind of fairness involved. Knowing full well that I’m only going to fight 1v1 to 1v4 or 5, when the other guy(s) are optimised around 5+vs5+ in general. […]
But wait! To top it all off, what I’ll do, is I’ll cry about how unfair it is that a whole heap of them (who are playing in WvW together in a large group – perhaps intent on taking a keep/objective) turn up and roll over me – again, despite the fact that I’m choosing to play solo in a multiplayer environment!” […]

You are making it sound like people are completely selfless in bunching up to zerg in this game. Most people I meet in WvW arent geared towards team support. Whether i am roaming or running with a zerg, currently the most used gear and builds are berserker and high dmg. Not selfless team support builds. Lots of people run in a zerg to hide their own incompetence. A zerg is an easy way to get badges without having to face the risks of getting toe-to-toe with an enemy without help and being forced to rely on your own skill. “The more we are the smaller the chances we get killed and the more likely we roll over everything in our way”. WvW rewards zerging way too much instead of forcing people to split forces.

For people making builds for 5+ vs. 5+: Whats the difference ? Aoe dmg and heals only hit 5 people. Support classes will still be useful when fighting 2,3,4,5 vs 1.

Guild Wars Fan.3249:

[…]or are you trying to tell me that he didn’t know he was in WvW and that what he was doing was denying other people loot/badges. […] I don’t see you or wild bill running around killing people or stealing from people IRL because that will force the government to put more money into law enforcement. […]

Hm in RL people dont get rewarded for say ganging up in school and bullying other pupils. You dont give a school gang a medal for community effort when they do that. So why should they get rewarded here ? – I know this is a very provocative question but if you bring in RL then you should also think about your own behaviour or the behaviour of a zerg. You talk about teamplay. From my experience this always includes some kind of fairness even towards yor enemies. If thats the case for you, think about it: Why should 10 people ganking a single one get a badge/loot for that ?

In this game dying usually is the price you pay for being too lazy to adapt. If you are too lazy to learn how to avoid the damage of a 100b warr and then kill him you die. If you specc into glass cannon and stand around without doing anything a Bs thief will kill you. The sad thing about the whole thing is that those 2 builds in combination with berserker gear are rewarding bad players by allowing them to beat other bad or unsuspecting players with ease. Fast. With close to no personal risk. Making it unnecessary for the thief/warr to face a prolonged fight where they would have to use their brain and adapt to their opponent. Doesnt apply to just those 2 classes but these are the ones that get named most of the time when it comes to high dmg and annoyance. These builds are carrying a big number of bad players rewarding them not for being good but for playing a “good” build. The real issue of wvw is the high reward you get from using high dmg low survivability builds and gear.

You simply cant work out a skill rotation/combo and then use it in a fight and always expect it to win. A fight is dynamic and so should you be. That is what slic does. He takes advantage of positioning (a very important part of his playstyle) and his knowledge of people and classes.

Keep doing your stuff Slic. I am enjoying your vids very much. And for zerg people whining about getting no medals for killing a single player – lol.

I disagree – FS only needs better tracking. And Daecollo and Teabaker if you want to bash bunker d/d eles again pls go to the Ele forums.

To all AG attacking GHs in the JP. I will keep kicking you off cliffs if you dont stop. Hope you guys enjoyed your trip down. Yours sincerely, a GH ele.

I would support that idea. I dueled many people and i would have liked to thank them for the nice fights. I have never been insulted by anyone before they removed the account names from the report function. And theres still “Block” About people focussing well-known people: In a zerg that really doesnt matter much. And when you are roaming and a whole group is busy trying to chase you: even better. You are distracting them from doing something more useful. For people whining on the forums: You will never stop them from doing that. I cant remember any forum post in swtor where people complained about specific players though.

He is AFK. No need to say anything more.

Most annoying thing on a low tier server is that you can hardly find decent opponents for small fights. Trashing instagib thieves and 100b warrs is as much fun as being one and instagibbing others i guess.

been playing about 350 hours of wvw. quite sure i got more than 1k badges so far. And i usually dont run with zergs. That said my 1 on x regularly net me badges. But i agree the costs for WvW equipment are clearly too high. Needs an urgent fix. Anet is neglecting WvW quite a bit.

Dont forget Earth Armor. Stability can be a live safer. I only say AC explorer and the nice knockdown from certain mobs. No fun lying on the floor and seeing your health drain fast. Lightning flash is also helpful when lying on the floor.

teg.1340:

Guess what? Other classes have to stack toughness and vitality to gain necessary survivability.

In case you dont know: those are the stats you never find on a thieves equipment. Never mind…

lOKI.8152:

For my balanced stats thief (again s/d) stealth is necessary to survive.

And i agree with Tulisin

As someone called for a bunker eles experience fighting glass cannon BS thieves, heres mine.

1) Since i play d/d ele i have never died to a BS glass thief once. I can just soak up the dmg and heal up. Yesterday i even managed to dodge the steal + cnd (trust me i was as surprised as the thief^^). And no i wasnt fast enough to hit the print button ;-)

2) My main char since prelaunch was a thief (s/d). I totally disagree with the OP about the nerf to stealth. This would kill the thief class completely. Stealth is a survival tool for thieves that is indeed necessary to survive. Most people cant understand this because atm they get killed by the BS thief who either kills them extremely fast or, if he doesnt, can easily get away from them/reopen the fight. For my balanced stats thief (again s/d) stealth is necessary to survive.

3) What needs to be done is some scaling to the burst dmg in this game. Even as a bunker there are several skills that hit you for a very high amount of dmg. This doesnt attribute to one class only but to several. The hig burst dmg in this game makes it very often burst>skill. If burst gets a scaling i am fine with bunker nerfs.

4) Culling: Theres a big problem. Anet has stated they can fix this issue. I have heard from others they cant and wont tell because they fear people will quit the game. People say they dont want thieves to be nerfed (at all or before) culling is taken care of. My point is: If culling is here to stay it has to be taken into consideration (in WvW) and then there must be found a way to scale thieves stealth (again in WvW only). But definitely not to a 10 sec cd on stealth. For those fighting against thieves in smaller fights or 1 on 1: tab targetting saves lives. For people who like zerging i cant give any tips. I occasionally do zerg diving on my ele and i can say idc whether its a BS thief that kills me then or the 20 other enemies focusing me. Its part of the “fun” playing in a zerg.

Same problem. Disconnected at the end of the 3rd part of lvl 1 fractal and couldnt rejoin. Extremely annoying and killing my fun.

This is just ridiculous

No they certainly havent nerfed my favorite weapon set since BWE3 when i first played this game? I mean S/d has never hurt anyone…ok it hurt lots of people… but still ? Need to check this out. THAT was really unexpected.

Great. RTl is still buggy as hell. No fix to self-cc and getting dmg when using it downhill on uneven ground.