Guild Wars 2

Ready Up Episode 35 is up on youtube now which provides some more context to the patch notes we were given. It is less than 6 hours long.

This is what Karl had to say about Radiant Retaliation (5 hours 12 minutes in)
“And then the last but not least Radiant Retaliation

Um, this is to help those who like to run more Condition style builds.
I’d say this is more of a Rabid build, or even it does pretty good damage if you have a Carrion amulet equipped, as well in PvP. Or that style of build overall.
Its always… and from… um…

The condition damage ticks get pretty high I gotta say."

I really liked the Necro changes… at least the ones that pertain to me.

• Siphon traits work in Death-shroud
• Bloodthirst made baseline
• Unholy Martyr life-force doubled from 5% to 10% and had a bug fixed.
• Marks got several buffs
• Plague Signet now recharges in half the time.
• Shrouded Removal now removes conditions while you remain in shroud.
• Blood Magic minor prevents allies from bleeding out in combat.
• Only takes 1 dagger to get 25% movement speed and you also get faster dagger recharge.
• Banshee’s wail is now in a much more accessible place for me, but it does compete with giving Siphoning to allies.
• Unyielding Blast increased from 4 to 5 targets.
• Vital Persistence merged with faster shroud skill recharges

I’ve been constantly changing around between 0/0/6/6/2, 0/0/4/6/4, 0/0/6/4/4, 0/0/2/6/6. With all these changes I can be nice and happy and content with Death Magic, Blood Magic, and Soul Reaping.

They’re right, Retaliation isn’t something you consider just in terms of single-target dps numbers. People tend to think that way because on their screen they see the Retaliation damage they do… they don’t see all the Retaliation damage they caused by granting it to allies.

A thief backstabs you for 10k… you hit him for 350. A ranger Rapid Fires you for 7000… you hit him back for 3500. A soldier Engi flamethrowers you for 3k… you hit him back for more than 3k. Retaliation can do 3.5% incoming damage… 50% incoming damage… or over 100% incoming damage…

Now take all of those wildy varying damage percentages… and consider them on not only yourself, but on the allies you’ve buffed and every attack that lands on every one of them. The guy spamming AoE on your entire group could be taking 1750 per pulse from multiple pulsing attacks active at the same time. The actual damage output of a Retaliation skill/trait can be massive when the ground is covered in red-circles.

Radiant Retaliation is very punishing to certain attacks and very lenient towards others, but built right it will be something people will HATE to fight against.

My math is reduced 33% because: “In PvP and WvW, retaliation damage is reduced by 33%.” I included that part.

No, Radiant Retaliation isn’t working. My math is showing what it is “supposed” to do based on the numbers it had before it stopped working. I tested it just this week after that patch to fix the weird WvW interdimensional shennanigans (if you don’t know what that was, a lot of people missed it… but apparently some people were wandering an alternate maps where walls were down and they could hear enemies but not see them, and rangers and their pets were in different maps… seeing a pet running around without a ranger is weird. It was weird.)

One reason to take Rabid is to take on-crit Might like Sigil of Strength or Empowering Might. If you are benefitting from both the Power and the Condi then it can be good. And maybe another crit-sigil like Torment, Blight, Earth, or Incapacitation… or Blood if you want some extra sustain).

Radiant Retaliation is a way that full-condi Guardians (yes, I meant to say that) like Dire/Rabid/Settler/Shaman can have a secondary source of damage other than Burning (Dragonhunters will also get access to Bleeding). It isn’t for hybrids. It actually encourages you to get as much Condi as you can because every point of Condi is worth 2 points of Power.

• Without Radiant Retaliation: Dire/Rabid/Settler/Shaman will do 179 retal damage.
• With Radiant Retal and 1000 Condi: 230
• With Radiant Retal and 1700 Condi: 299
• With Radiant Retal and 2300 Condi: 358 (doable with undead/food/crystals/sigil/signet)
• With Radiant Retal and 2750 Condi: 402 (12 stacks of Might from Empower and 3 stacks from either F1 boon or Empowering Might.)
• With Radiant Retal and 3000 Condi: 428 (in WvW it is common to stack 25 stacks of Might before a fight.)

How much better do you think the scaling should get?

Will Radiant Retaliation be fixed in this patch? It has been completely non-functional since October. Would be nice to get a patch note since it is a GM trait.

I made a second thief specifically for constant pistol/pistol/pistol/pistol pew-pew with weapon swap reduction runes and quick pockets.

If Ricochet is really gone, then there’s going to be a very sad gigantic norn thief with giant pistols who likes to pew constantly. His headband can only hold so many tears…

Radiant Retaliation Retaliation scales with Condition Damage. 198 + (0.15 * Condition Damage)

1. A GM trait that has been 100% non-functional since October 2014 (damage always scales with Power)
2. Never once acknowledged as broken by Anet.
3. Hasn’t been fixed in more than a dozen updates and dozens of hotfixes.
4. When mentioned in previous trait streams, they said “no change.”
5. A fix is not mentioned in the patch notes for the big update.
6. A GM trait that requires high condition damage to do anything.
7. A GM trait that requires significant uptime of Retaliation to be worthwhile (not provided by the trait).
8. A GM trait that is competing directly with a very popular condi-damage trait that got merged with another trait to burn on block.
9. A GM trait that is competing with a GM trait that got buffed to provide high uptime of Retaliation and Vulnerability (from signet Light Auras).
10. A GM trait that boosts a source of damage more fickle than Confusion… (weak against slow attackers, OP against flamethrower users.)

Radiant Retaliation – no change? no buff? possibly even no fix? I like the trait and plan to resume using it… if it works that is.

“Shelter will not be getting a skill category. It would probably need to be adjusted in someway if we did do it – and it’s fine where it is right now.”

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/June-23-Specialization-Changes/5149118

No mention of a Radiant Retaliation fix.

Sad that a grandmaster trait that’s only a year old can stop working for the last 8 months and never be mentioned a single time by anet despite half a dozen threads about it. A stealth fix would be a slap in the face, as if the problem wasn’t even worth mentioning.

But a harder slap would be if it is still broken.

Question #1 Will Retaliation damage be affected by Vulnerability?
Question #2 Will Radiant Retaliation be fixed with this update? (It hasn’t worked for 8 months.)

Wondrouswall.7169:

I would really like Spirits to have a ground target so I can place them EXACTLY where I want them.

A trick to placing spirits and pets exactly where you want: New pets will appear in the first open pet spot around you. If your current pet is in spot 2, the spirit will appear in spot 1.

Pet spot 1: Front left
Pet spot 2: Front right
Pet spot 3: Back left
Pet spot 4: Back right
Pet spot 5: Further front left
Pet spot 6: Further front right
Pet spot 7: Further back left
Pet spot 8: Further back right

PaxTheGreatOne.9472:

Well taking down a reinforced door with dagger stabs will be much more realistic then just setting it ablaze…

I can imagine a door not reacting to confusion, but who knows.
Bleeding is the deteriorating effect of cutting things up and I can see a door being tormented, poisoning, can be done with toxins but also with acid… (yes, evil…) acid will eat the door. (doubt it will be feared though, stunned, nah….)

I wonder if Retaliation will do more damage to targets with Vulnerability (in-case the door ever decides to hit back).

Anyway, the clear way to stop PvDooring is to have all your rangers switch to Retalbear.

With experimental turrets you can drop a net turret at your feet, get swiftness and immediately pick it back up while running. Much more awkward to do that on the run with ground targetting.

A straightforward question:

Since “vulnerability will increase both direct damage and condition damage taken by an afflicted foe” will players with Vulnerability take more damage from Retaliation?

Right now I’m leaning towards slightly higher damage and a 1 second cooldown per attacker as the better middle-ground damage option.

• Constant incoming attacks result in constant, steady retal damage.
• Enemies have time to react and decide to stop attacking.
• The type of skill doesn’t matter, 1 hit per second… 3-hit chain… or rapid fire… no discrimination against Flamethrowers (at least in 1v1).
• AoE attacks could still result in large damage, but at a steadier rate that is easier to react to.
• The percentage of damage returned will still vary wildly, but as a source of damage it will be much more reliable overall.

Recipes from Drytop and the Marionette.

The Blog Post said the changes to Confusion were to find a middle ground which wasn’t “far too effective” in some combat situations and wouldn’t “perform very poorly” in others, and allowing “for a more consistent result.”

That doesn’t sound like a bad goal. It isn’t bad that Poison makes you rethink when to use your heal. It isn’t bad that Confusion makes you rethink spamming 1. It isn’t bad that Torment makes you reconsider running away. Is it bad that Retaliation makes you reconsider using a Flamethrower?

It might be.

Tomorrow or in an upcoming week, we are likely to get a blog post describing various Boon changes. It was revealed during a Ready Up that Quickness is becoming a boon, but I don’t think it was ever officially announced. The changes to condi’s could very well motivate changes to Might and Regen, and maybe they will tweak the Stability changes. So they may already have Retal changes in the works.

Using Retal on a flamethrower user just feels cruel =(

If you are so bored… take it to the cat cave.

GW2 Secret Easter Egg With KITTENS | Cat Room
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYWGpDyCuAE

Imagine if Protection prevented exactly 250 damage on every incoming hit.

• The thief’s 10k backstab would still do 9,750. “Protection is absolutely worthless”
• The soldier engi’s 3k flamethrower spurt would only do 500. “Protection is way too OP.”

Retaliation may return less than 2.5% damage (backstab) or more than 83.3% damage (soldier flamethrower). The Flying Fickle Finger of Fate Award goes to…

Sorin.4310:

What would you suggest as a change to retaliation?

Option 1: Add a new constant effect while under Retaliation
(a reliable effect to offset the unreliable, like the Confusion Change)

1. Chance for incoming attacks to be glancing blows
2. Chance to reflect conditions back to their source
3. Increased Armor
4. When you are struck, your next attack causes vulnerability (1s cooldown).
5. Something more interesting than those

Option 2: Change the way it deals damage

1. Once a second, anyone with a damaging condition on you will also take 1 hit of Retaliation damage (just 1, no matter how many conditions).
2. Retaliation is made more like an Aura… 1s cooldown per attacker, but the scaling is increased.
3. Retaliation is made more like an Aura with a 1s cooldown per attacker that causes a Punishment condition that deals damage over time.

Option 3: Change the damage it does

1. Normalize it to a percentage based off Power. 80 Power = 1%. 1000 Power = 12.5% 2400 Power = 30%. Even that is probably a little high.

Option 4: Give everyone flamethrowers

1. I’m telling ya, Retaliation is really, really, REALLY good against Flamethrowers.

Blog post justifying Confusion changes:
" In some combat situations, this is far too effective, such as against a very rapidly attacking character. In other cases, it performs very poorly, such as on a slowly attacking boss."

The EXACT same wording could be used to describe Retaliation. Is Retaliation going to remain exactly the same, where you can do 250 damage to guy hitting you with a hammer and 2,500 damage to the guy shooting a flame-thrower at you?

Confusion changes:
“When confusion is placed on an enemy, it will not just slowly drain their life over time but also damage them when they attack. This allows for a more consistent result, as some foes attack quickly but others only once every few seconds, wasting potential damage. We believe we’ve found a happy middle ground where confusion retains its original design intent but will be useful in more areas of the game.”

Confusion too fickle… Retaliation just fine?

Source: https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/combat-changes-dotsanddashes/

Natir.7364:

I’m new to Guild Wars and I was curious on a few things. I’ve been doing WvW and I noticed that there are no notifications of when something is under attack or has been taken. What was the reasoning for this?

This game has those things.

How Spirits work:

• Every 3 seconds the spirit pulses a 1000 radius effect.
• That grants the 5 nearest allies (players prioritized) a 6 second duration passive buff.
• That buff allows the player a 35% (70% traited) chance to trigger an effect when they hit.
• Once triggered, THAT PLAYER has a 10s cooldown before they can trigger that effect again.
• Cooldown is only an issue if the same players get the buff again and again.
• If 5 different players are in proximity every 3 seconds, the passive buff can trigger for all of them once.
• If the same 5 players are in proximity every 3 seconds, they can each only trigger it once every 10s.

How Dead Spirits Work:

• Spirit corpses continue to pulse the passive buff for another 9 seconds after death.
• For up to 15 seconds into the spirits cooldown, players in the area will still have the passive buff.
• Activated abilities can be triggered more often if the spirit dies really quickly (trigger on death) than if the spirit stays alive to use the 40-45 second active skill.

Spirits buff an area even when dead… stay in the area and you’re good… leave the spirit behind, and you’re not. Most people see a smushed spirit and call it worthless. I see an area that still has buffs for 12-15 more seconds (with a 20s cooldown). It is hard to get other people to learn how to use this area when most rangers don’t know what’s going on.

If this isn’t on the backburner, I wonder what else is. I hope Radiant Retaliation isn’t too lonely back there.

You can mine resources with all kinds of fancy doodads and geegaws… but repairing and building is rather plain.

Question #1: Would you like to see new repair/building mallet skins added to WvW?
Question #2: How would you like to see them obtained? Available to all? Or rewards that show you are an experienced repair/builder guy?

One of the following will happen to giver’s gear:

1. Improved stats (Gear is getting higher stats with the trait change.)
2. Be replaced (A new set of stats that doesn’t include condi/boon duration… perhaps Heal/Tough/Vit or Heal/Tough/Pre)
3. Be removed, and no longer be craftable (You will have the option of choosing a different stat combination)
4. Remain as it is, but no longer be craftable (An extremely weak and extremely rare, forgotten combination)
5. Remain as it is (No change, but much weaker considering other gear got improved stats)

Spirit weapons have the shortest durations, but just making them last longer doesn’t help when they die so fast. Minions/turrets/spirits/illusions can all be traited to be tougher and to have effects upon death. Spirit weapons can’t. Spirit Weapons also have the highest cooldowns of the non-elite pet skills.

Spirit weapons need to be more reliable to have such harsh drawbacks… or they need to have these drawbacks cut down.

Ideally having a whole bar of spirit weapons should FEEL like having an extension of your weapon skills over in your utilities… a reliable knockdown, a reliable AoE Vuln attack, a reliable Weakness/Retal attack, a reliable healing rain… but the sword will often miss, the hammer will only go halfway to the target, and who knows where the shield will end up. Rain is nice as it is.

The gold issue still exists because the same selfless and responsible people popping upgrades are often the same ones building and refreshing defensive siege.

Defend events should have a high chance of rewarding you with one of the following:

• Siege Disabler
• Supply Trap
• Stealth Trap
• Regular/Sup AC Blueprint
• Reg/Sup Treb Blueprint
• Reg/Sup Ballista Blueprint
• Reg/Sup Shield Generator Blueprint
• Siege Repair Kit

If the world of the future is going to be run by clocks, they could at least have the decency to put the clocks on the game maps themselves, instead of having our lives interrupted by the constant question: “what’s the the timer on ______?”

“Its difficult to tell from this vantage point whether they will consume the captive Tyrian men or merely enslave them. One thing is for certain: there is no stopping them; the clocks will soon be here. And I, for one, welcome our new chronometric overlords.”

They didn’t say, but the 50% bonus damage trait really only helps the hammer and sword command skills. Everything else is better off with the burning on hit trait. 50% bonus damage is a fixed amount and very low. Burning on hit is something you can boost with condi-damage and burn-duration.

• Hammer of Wisdom untraited chain: 192 + 192 + 291 = 675 damage (hits 3 targets)
• Hammer of Wisdom chain traited for 50% more damage: 288 + 288 + 437 = 1013 damage (hits 3 targets)
• Hammer of Wisdom traited for heavy, heavy burning on hit: 192 + 1862 + 192 + 1862 + 291 + 1862 = up to 6261 damage (hits 3 targets)

“A timer on the “Defend the tower” event immediately begins. Each time an allied dolyak caravan arrives at the tower, the timer will decrease by five minutes. "

This line from the blog post says the upgrade events will be called, “Defend the Tower.” which suggests:

• The 3 minute defend events may be gone.
• The rewards for the defend event could be substantial since it is a very long event.
• “Stopped Them Cold” achievement will take much longer to get unless it is being reworked.

If they aren’t reworking achievements for the new WvW changes, then you better hurry and get all your defend event achievements finished now before they become 10x harder. Right now you only have to defend for 3 minutes…

Ardid.7203:

Miyani’s goods, eh?
So, nothing useful to me, with the occasional exception of augur’s stone.
Argh… that sound so… useless. So I will have tons of a currency I hardly use, in exchange for losing a lot of the skills I do use most of the time?

I’m in the same boat.

• I don’t need to upgrade mats… because I need mats of various tiers to make ascended gear.
• I don’t want to gamble away my ectos and shards which I need for Ascended. Since I have no intention of making a legendary, every mystic clover would be a loss.
• I am not rich enough to spend 250 ectos and 750 orichalcum ingots on a single exotic forge skin.
• The ascended back pieces are semi-affordable… 50 ectos and 250 tier 6 mats, but all but one of my characters runs around without a back-item showing, and books and quivers would not fit most of my characters.
• Infusions are way, way, way, way, way too expensive for the effect. ’nuf said. And I can get WvW infusions which would do more for me anyway.

Ascended gear and superior siege is all.

Herr der Friedhoefe.2490:

I have no doubt there are some smart people out there already looking at ways to build a commander overlay with objective upgrade timers. That’s just a matter of time.

Seriously though, have Anet said exactly WHY they are making this change? Why would they destroy the roamer camp flipping and yak whacking game style? Right now “deny the supply” is an important part of game play.

Exactly what metric are we not living up to, and how will this change help that metric?

Most of the proposed changes are to avoid points of conflict between players by limiting player ability to make bad decisions. They explained why upgrades were separated from supply: one player may be trying to upgrade and another player may want to use supply for siege. I don’t think they really explained why yaks were removed as a requirement for upgrades.

They claim that keeping supply lines clear will be more important (sentry crippling yaks), and escorting yaks will be easier (Protected Caravan Buff/Sentry Medkit), and killing yaks will still be vital (denying supply/delaying upgrades). They are really encouraging you to pay attention to yaks… ignoring the fact that yaks are much less significant in the overall scheme of things.

And it is highly likely that you will be required to unlock all core specializations before you are allowed to unlock an elite specialization on that character.

So 465 for core + whatever for elite. I’d expect 100 or more for elite.

How would it affect gameplay if current achievement lines were implemented instead as Reward Tracks?

Example:

• 10th yak killed = small loot bag
• 20th yak killed = bag with transmutation charge, tome of experience
• 30th yak killed = small loot bag
• 40th yak killed = champ loot bag
• 50th yak killed = small loot bag
• 60th yak killed = bag of superior siege
• 70th yak killed = small loot bag
• 80th yak killed = champ loot bag
• 90th yak killed = small loot bag
• 100th yak killed = 1 new exotic weapon box with unique wvw skin

Here’s what would happen:

• People would complain about kill-stealers and people selfishly not sharing yak kills.
• People would camp near camps and yell at people who try to actually flip the yak-farm.
• No yaks would get into any structures ever again.
• Upgrades would grind to a halt, all money spent on upgrades would be a waste of money.
• The people trying to do the dolyak escort track would be really upset because that one takes several minutes to advance and can fail at the last second. Killing yaks is so much faster and easier that’s what everyone would do.

The point is: If any of the WvW achievement titles/tracks seems possible and worthwhile… people will actively farm it, usually to the detriment of other players.

Right now, the natural state of everything is paper.
Your goal is to upgrade it… by controlling the map, controlling the supply lines, and putting in time and money and defending when necessary. Getting a structure upgraded is an accomplishment and with it a sense of ownership. When the enemy fully fortifies something on your borderland, it shows that effort was put in. If the enemy has everything fortified, it means a long-term domination of all the supply lines as well as the structures.

In the future, the natural state of everything is fortified.
That’s the inevitable state that everything is slowly creeping towards if no one intervenes in a specific amount of time. Anything not taken in X hours will be fortified with full services, guards, and mortars. If you discover something fully fortified on your borderland… a havoc group might have flipped it hours ago and there might not have been a single enemy on the map since. The only thing fortify means in the future is that your side didn’t have enough people on to reflip everything in the last X hours.

How is this change to be perceived?
You can see it as a complete reversal of the natural order resulting in huge shifts in player attitudes. Or you can imagine that every server now has a benevolent invisible hacker fly-hacking from structure to structure ordering all our upgrades for us in a timely and courteous manner, and our structures now have secret mine tunnels underneath providing enough supply for upgrades to happen.

Anet says the upgrade changes were because “players had the ability to make decisions that weren’t meaningful or fun.”

The point of upgrades is clearly… to upgrade. But it also had a more nuanced strategy… denying supply to the enemy.

Countless times, I’ve been the one to burn all the supply out of a keep/tower/camp right before it flips… sometimes even having to rez the quartermaster to do it. The reason is… I’m the guy who watches the map, calls out swords even if there’s no one else on… and I go to respond. If the zerg is taking a structure and there is nothing in the world that can save it… I have that little piece of defiance. There is SOMETHING I can do. I can swoop in and pop an upgrade and deny them hundreds of supply instantly, which can slow their advance across the map.

It may not be meangful to you, but it is meaningful to me.

As someone who likes experimenting and coming up with new builds, it can be quite stifling to have stat combinations out of reach. I spent a lot of time trying for keeper recipe drops and nearly broke the bank getting all the rest of the keeper recipes I’d need back when they were still dropping. And that was only for 1 armor type.

And I’m not going into fractals. Never again.

The ready up said that they want to limit the ability of players to make bad decisions. Wherever there is a bad decision to be made, there is usually a strategic decision possible as well.

Bad Decision: Popping merchants during a long, drawn-out keep siege.
Strategic Decision: Popping merchants when the circle is flipping and all hope is lost to deny them hundreds of supply.

Bad Decision: Popping a camp upgrade when the commander just said that he’s taking his zerg to that camp to resupply.
Strategic Decision: Popping a camp upgrade when it looks like the camp will be taken (to deny them supply).

Bad Decision: Letting enemy yaks get through to objectives with defenders inside.
Strategic Decision: Letting an enemy yak get through to an undefended objective so there is more supply inside when you take it.

Right now, a solitary defender can deny attackers a ton of supply by popping an upgrade. To achieve the same goal in the future, that solitary defender will have to spend an exhaustive amount of time building worthless siege or dumping supply into a wall to achieve the same goal.

In short: WvW will have less strategic nuance and Zergs in the future will get tons of extra supply from objectives because you can’t actively order upgrades that burn tons of supply.

Radiant Retaliation still broken in beta too.

Bug Report: Radiant Retaliation didn’t work in the beta either.

Energy Cannon/Oasis Event: (every 3 hours)

• “Don’t waste supply repairing the paper gates now. Wait until they finish the laser event, THEN use supply to repair after it gets vaporized.”
• “Don’t take keep supply below 700, we will need it to repair the gates in 20 minutes if we lose the laser event.”
• “Don’t bother flipping stuff now, the laser event is coming up and they will just zerg it and all our paper doors will be down.”
• “Ok, we have enough cores to finish the laser event. Everybody else spread out and get ready to take everything. When everyone’s in position, we’ll fire the laser.”
• “I spent 30 minutes trying to solo the laser event, then an enemy zerg came and finished it fast. Grrraaaah!”
• “We can’t stop them firing the laser with their numbers. We need at least one person in each tower to at least tack up the gates.”

It was fixed last week but not announced.

Incentive
Create a WvW exclusive version of Volunteer’s Blessing/Call of the Mists. When your server is doing very badly, offer players on your server a WvW exclusive buff if they join the WvW fight on any non-EotM map. This would be based on ppt/score, not on population so it would stack with Outnumbered. (Players already in WvW would get it automatically.)

Ignorance
Ignorance could be treated with match-specific notifications. When one server takes over first place, you could have a notification like, “Stormbluff Isle has taken the lead from Henge of Denravi in the Mists War.” When one server has achieved 400+ ppt dominance, you could have a notification saying, “Maguuma is dominating the Mists War.” When one server falls below 50 ppt, you could have a notification saying, “Sea of Sorrows is being crushed in the Mists War” (You could turn these notifications off in Options.)

The issue of Identity is much trickier…

(3rd Party Program) Clock Wars: Time Management FTW
The change to upgrades makes time a crucial factor. The change to waypoints limits mobility, which makes commitment choices more important. We’ve already seen an impact from 3rd-party overlays affecting decisions because of RI timers… what’s going to happen when everything is based on a timer? Let’s now hear into the future…

Where to Attack:

• “No, we don’t have time to flip this keep before it upgrades, we’ll go somewhere else.”
• “Leave the Fire Keep alone for now, we have an hour to take it before it upgrades again. Other things are more urgent.”
• “Retake them in the same order they were taken, otherwise one will have time to upgrade.”
• “Remember the 20 minute rule… if you haven’t flipped it back within 20 minutes, go somewhere else ’cause they can just stall till it upgrades.”

When to Attack:

• “No, don’t flip this yet, they will be able to flip it back before the tic.”
• “We only have 5 minutes to flip this before it upgrades, pvdoor hard!”
• “We’re hitting Air Keep at 6 o’clock. 20 minutes will be enough to flip it before it fortifies.
• “What’s next on the schedule? Ok… Air Keep by 5:40, Fire Keep by 6:00, then we’ll try and get Earth Keep by 6:15. I think we can get them all before they upgrade.”
• “If you ignore the schedule, you are just allowing them to upgrade and making it harder on us. Stick to the schedule!”

When to Defend:

• “No, we won’t come defend, its still 30 minutes away from an upgrade, just abandon it.”
• “Upgrade is in 7 minutes, stall, stall, stall!”
• “There’s no way they’re getting in before it upgrades. We’ll come wipe them when we’re done elsewhere.”
• “Can we get a stall team to Fire Keep? 15 minutes till upgrade, we want to make sure and hold it.”
• “EVERYONE GUARD THAT YAK, if it touches the gate, the walls will upgrade!”

Daily Schedule:

• “Why does the enemy always have our borderland fully fortified at 6 in the morning?”

(3rd-Party Program) Clock-Wars:

• “No, we don’t have time to flip it before it upgrades, we’ll go somewhere else.”
• “No, we won’t come defend, its 15 minutes away from an upgrade, just abandon it.”
• “No, don’t flip this yet, they will be able to flip it back before the tic.”
• “We only have 5 minutes to flip this before it upgrades, pvdoor hard!”
• “Why does the enemy always have our borderland fully fortified at 6 in the morning?”

If the rewards were too good, it would draw in too many casual players and hurt WvW gameplay. WvW has limited capacity, and the people who play it are playing it because they like it, not because it is the fastest way to get rich or has the exclusive weapon skins.

I think that Anet’s original plan was for scouts and roamers to farm T6 mats near objectives when things were quiet. Arctoduses in the northeast, spiders in the south, minotaurs in the west…

Take for example Northeast Camp:

• Capturing Camp = 0.04% of a World Experience Rank.
• Defending Camp = 0.017% of a World Experience Rank.
• Killing Player = 0.000-0.012% of a World Experience Rank and chance at player loot.
• 1 World Experience Rank = ~25s and 2 pieces of loot, probably green
• Killing 4 Arctoduses and a Vet Arctodus = significant chance for either Potent Blood or Powerful Blood.

As a scout/escorter/roamer (missing out on those high wxp capture events), you are likely to make more money killing a random bear every once in awhile than you get from WxP ranks. I wonder if the new borderland will have anything similar to Chider…

Stealth fixes like this are the reason I check Radiant Retaliation after every patch. And every single patch brings disappointment.