Guild Wars 2

Reset my traits tonight and bought all exotic cleric’s gear. Tried it out in WvW. I probably have a lot to learn and practice with this because I’m getting dropped like a rock. Head into battle 1v2 or 1v1 and my health will stay up for the first 10 seconds and then I’m dropped over the next 10 seconds.

ArcticRed.3068:

I play both aswell so im realy surprised you didnt know that you can dodge through the ring.

I didn’t realize what it was at first. I was fighting 3 and I’m used to seeing lots and lots of rings on the ground, mostly I can ignore them and dump conditions when they really stack up. My first thought was to zip away. The second time I hit the wall I forgot I could dodge through.

Relentliss.2170:

How to deal with dd eles? The good ones. I can’t seem to touch them.

Touch – meaning catch or kill? I play both guardian and d/d ele. You won’t catch an ele if they want to get away, just too many options to get away and burst distance. When I’m fighting on my d/d ele I want to draw the fight out since I’m doing smaller damage but good healing. We have 2 knock downs, so stability is good to have. Also, our largest damage dealer is the churning earth which has 5 second cast time, obvious animation and a long cool down. It can be dodged if you time it right. Also a lot of the damage is from the bleed stacks it puts on, so purging conditions is pretty good too.

One of the most memorable times I had fighting a guardian was when I tried to zip around a group of 3 that were capping our camp. I saw he was a hammer guardian and I thought, meh, I play that and I don’t think anything can stop me. Instead I focused on the mesmer which I thought was the greatest threat. He did hammer 5 + JI and I didn’t realize what he had done. I saw the ring on the ground, saw him right next to me and kept trying to zip out of the ring. I didn’t realize what was happening till I died and then looked at the combat log to figure it out. I can only imagine he was chuckling.

fivekiller.1432:

d/d eles with 0/10/0/30/30, PTV gear and clerics jewels put out a LOT of damage with all that power stacked up with 100% uptime on fury and none of it is conditioned based. they are also very tanky with the amount of evasion, self healing, and toughness/protection/boons they have on them.

very few people run condition elementalists. the ones you would notice ripping apart your ranks generally are the ones not using conditions. (not to say conditions aren’t viable, but this power ele is one of the strongest builds in the game for both large group and small group combat)

Yep, that’s what I’m running on my D/D Ele I use for WvW. The mobility is awesome. I wouldn’t say it’s a lot of damage, I think the most I’ve ever seen pop up on screen is 4k crits, but my goal is to draw out the fight as long as possible. The amount of key presses and space used is way more than on my guardian though. I can whittle anyone down over 10-15 minutes except a bunker guardian which usually end in a draw. I heard one WvW fight club bunker guardian v. d/d ele went for 25 minutes. I really like the movement in combat too, very fun to play. Only profession with a chance to catch an ele is the thief and it depends on who stuff is on cool down when starting the chase.

6-9 more matches before a February patch hits.

DemonCow.5328:

Necromancers, guardians and warriors are so overpowered, I can’t instantly kill them with my glass cannon thief and if they cc me, then I have almost no chance in a fight, it just isn’t fair.

Then there are the elementalists, they can just soak all of the damage with all those boons up and and that water attunement, and even if I manage to down one, they just pop back up and run inside their tower/keep so their friends can res them. Even if I burn all of my initiative trying to kill one, they can just run away and I can’t catch them.

I’m guessing you are being sarcastic. I have an 80 guardian in full exotics, crit hammer build and I’ve been 2 shotted by thieves lots of times. I also have an 80 ele D/D full exotics and thieves are the only class that can catch me. It’s 50/50 whether or not I get away depending on what cool downs are active. I’ve been 1 and 2 shotted by thieves without ever seeing them many, many times since on my ele I mostly roam solo scouting. Down state 2 is pretty good, but only near a tower/keep. I play exclusive WvW and I manage to get saved by down state 2 maybe 15% of the time. Mostly it’s just a couple second delay till I’m finished.

I think unless you play a non-thief class and roam solo or 2-3 people you probably never notice the thief problem. Largest hit I’ve ever seen my ele D/D do is about 4k and that’s on a long cool down, has an obvious animation and a 5 second cast time.

Aberrant.6749:

I haven’t had a single issue with culling since their last patch/fix to where your foes now appear before your allies.

This makes no sense. They changed the culling for a trial for 2 weeks, everyone complained it was worse, so they reverted it. The culling now works the same broken way it did when the game came out.

I think there are a lot of frustrations with WvW and Ron (if I may presume to speak for myself and him) are expressing frustrations. Posting here in the official forums is kind of hoping that the game makers will read the frustrations and possibly respond to them either by writing back or changing the game.

Some frustrations are due to the game itself:
- culling, the attempted fix months after release was horrible
- patches a few hours after reset – 3rd or 4th week in a row now
- transfers partially fixed with the 7 day wait
- lack of exploit fixes, took way, way too long to fix the exploit on the east BL keep

Some frustrations are due to server populations:
- very frustrating to spend 6g on upgrades just to have a 40+ zerg roll through and flip them
- not enough people that I know WvW when I do, being in a group helps negate the 1v1 with thieves situation
- being spawn camped because you can’t get more than 5 people on a map
- same match ups week after week

Some frustrations are due to player issues:
- very frustrating to try and get away with Ride The Lightning only to realize I had an enemy behind me targeted and I zip into the zerg instead of away
- lots of players don’t seem to read the map chat and continue to take needed supply
- it’s hard to figure out how my gear/traits/skills are doing without more feedback from the game (stats, etc.)
- frustrating to watch a position get taken while your defensive siege sits unmanned

I’ve experienced a lot of these things. For me the game is still pretty fun, but the boredom is creeping in. I’d like ArenaNet to at least address the issues that they can control and have been mentioned over and over again. The video they posted on the Feb update does none of that.

There’s a reason they put in holiday events. The majority of players like the change up, it breaks things up a bit from their regular routine. It’s frustrating that the same hasn’t been done for the WvW aspect of the game. The dynamics of having actual humans as an ingredient for WvW only goes so far.

I think most players are working on their side of things. I’m trying to learn my profession better, practicing with different setups, etc. I’m also trying to encourage more people I know to WvW and also making friendships with the other regular players I see. I’d just like to know that ArenaNet is doing their share, but so far I haven’t read, seen or experienced anything of the sort.

Draygo.9473:

My engineer loves thieves

Supply drop is OP. And if that thief has no defensive stats, ill down him before he breaks the stun/immobilize chain.

When you see a thief run at you, then stealth, you should be prepping a defensive ability right away, such as a block, protection, or gtaoe stun at your own feet.

On my gosh, this is too funny. An engineer?

Couldn’t agree more with Cover Girl and Ron. So many issues left unfixed for so long. The mechanics of WvW are okay, but it’s getting boring after almost 5 months of the same thing.

And I love, love, love when people come on and defend thieves. “All you have to do is x, y and z. I kill thieves all the time. I never get hit for lots of damage from thieves.” Those comments just make my day.

Flint.5620:

Well i don’t care what DB has to say about cheating. I just watched a 20+ players storm the DH water gate, climb around a reinforced water gate and flip the keep in under 1 minute.

Time of event 11:30 PST.

Have some dignity DB. There may be a few good players out there but what i just watched was anything but.

I really hope they didn’t cheat. I just hopped on and saw DH taking everything back. Didn’t try to defend just in case we didn’t take it fairly.

Flint.5620:

Well i don’t care what DB has to say about cheating. I just watched a 20+ players storm the DH water gate, climb around a reinforced water gate and flip the keep in under 1 minute.

Time of event 11:30 PST.

Have some dignity DB. There may be a few good players out there but what i just watched was anything but.

Are you sure of the time it happened? It’s only 10:30PST right now.

nalenb.1425:

Ninya.3942:

Actually we came in through a door at 10% cause I had scouted it when it was down. I noticed both BP and DB in there and told our commander who had just taken hills and he brought our zerg over. Once inside BP and DB took us out and we had to go regroup.

It’s just that we took the above situation, plus the comment above yours, plus the fact that we didn’t see a single red dot on the BP BL all day yesterday, plus everyone being up all night, and we got a little crazy yesterday.

Oh, plus the fact that I know we are being double teamed. I played for 12 hours yesterday and every time I saw a DH or BP player they tried to kill me. I’m playing a female toon too with a nice outfit. And still every single time, both teams tried to kill me. They would even try to chase me down to do it. If I wasn’t an elementalist I don’t think I would have gotten away. DH and BP should be ashamed of themselves. What has WvW come to when I can’t stop by your tower to check out what upgrades you have made and how much supply you have? It’s a very neighborly thing to do. Shooting me on site? That’s just rude.

Ninya.3942:

Actually we came in through a door at 10% cause I had scouted it when it was down. I noticed both BP and DB in there and told our commander who had just taken hills and he brought our zerg over. Once inside BP and DB took us out and we had to go regroup.

It’s just that we took the above situation, plus the comment above yours, plus the fact that we didn’t see a single red dot on the BP BL all day yesterday, plus everyone being up all night, and we got a little crazy yesterday.

Also last night was super fun in the BP BL. I jumped from my BL to BP and there weren’t even 10 of us to start the event. We ran around trying to cause enough chaos to pull BP from our BL. Finally after begging people in guild chat to come over we got 10 and took the tower with the event. From there it seems like more and more people showed up. Ended up with a ton on the map taking everything on it. Again, the power of individuals shines through for me.

Also, a shout out to our commanders and WvWers who stayed up all night and day yesterday to take the lead. I saw most when I logged off at 1am on still when I logged on at 8am. I know them by name and usually don’t see them during the day but they were on all day encouraging, building, defending, etc. It was so motivating that I stayed on all day too.

To: The Order of Digital Knightz [DKz]

I was in the BP BL last night and Stargrove camp. Our commander says “Anyone at Hills? I just saw 3 run from the supply camp toward that direction” I saw no swords on Hills, but I figured I was close so I ran over. Nothing at all. I was standing on the NW gate when I saw 3 run by. I told him so, that they were just heading by, looked like they were on their way to Stargove and altered our guy there to get ready. Commander says “Okay, just wanted to make sure they weren’t setting up catas” I thought, no swords here, but I should check just in case. I rounded the corner on the wall and saw 3 catas at the wall. I thought wow, didn’t we just take Hills with 3 catas but I swear they were all built, not 2 built 1 not. I then noticed a second later that I didn’t get the little cog icon when hovering over them. Swore a couple times, jumped down and destroyed all three (with another DB player).

I can’t believe I almost missed this. Thank goodness for an alert commander.

However, how the heck did 3 DKz build them? That’s about 125 supply for 2 1/2 catas for 3 guys or about 4 trips each. That’s some serious dedication. I think they were a guardian, an ele and one other. I honestly felt bad destroying them since they had such a great plan and great dedication.

Dark Aidget.3879:

Why? Because this is supposed to be fun.

And in that vain, nice job to BP trying to take our (DB) BL Bay keep this morning. If I hadn’t looked in the very corner I never would have seen the 3 catas you had on the wall. Now, I might not have been the only one on DB to notice, but I love how 1 person (no matter their level) can make a huge difference in WvW. Standing guard, working siege, running supply, so much for anyone of any level or ability to do. Best part of GW2 for me.

- Abbish – Dragonbrand

Tuluum.9638:

One thing especially, and that is encouraging new players to continue participating in WvW. As it stands, it can be an incredibly hostile environment if you dont know what you are doing. It would be better to encourage and educate rather than just insult and yell.

We will see what happens.

It’s so very hard to introduce new people too. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve typed out the basics. New players generally don’t want to go to the forums or get on voice to learn the basics of WvW. I wish there was a way to save a macro of the basics and then just whisper and hit a key.

- Abbish – Dragonbrand

And do you have any synergy between your builds? Have you built yours in relation to have those other players or would you feel just as comfortable running with a pug zerg or roaming by yourself?

Same build as the video from a month ago or have you changed things up?

Best one I had was not knowing it was a D/D ele, we both hit RTL and then Updraft at the same time. Was like fighting a mirror.

I’m using a combination of PVT/Clerics/Carrion and I like it a lot.

Are you in constant communication with your party members? i.e. do you think you’d be able to pull off similar things in a pug group? I’ve about the same build, gear and tactics, but I can’t pull off this. I’m thinking it’s because I’m on without any guild mates and chat is way too slow.

Had fun today trying to defend Bay in our (DB) BL from DH (epp? guild). I swear I hit one guardian 8 times with a canon only to see his health only drop to 75%. Arrow carts seemed to have no effect on anyone. Great coordination and support of each other. I really like the prolonged battles no matter how they turn out.

Same thing as the OP for my guardian in WvW. My ele is much harder to play with all the attunement swapping, but the ability to get away from zergs or to catch a runner is great.

I came onto the forum today looking for WvW advice to play my guardian again. Lots of differing advice that I need to try out. Hopefully I can find a good balance of fun and play style.

Interesting. I didn’t realize we got points for anything but holding positions.

I was wondering if Anet could do something on the server level. Make the lowest 3 servers into one when you enter WvW. So we’d become Darkbrand or Dragonhaven automatically without switching servers.

There’s a max of 695 points to split. They take a tally every 15 minutes, so a max of 2780 points can be earned in an hour, or 5560 points in 2 hours if you hold everything on every map.

Iplaytokill.1674:

Commander Solo here, from DH, GoF guild.

I’ve been reading through this thread since Friday, and it really saddens me to see all the flaming, the anger, and the resentment that’s built up. A few nights ago I was talking to my guild leads about how Darkhaven and Dragonbrand would make a perfect 24/7 coverage WvW server. And I still think if we joined in one server, DH’s NA and DB’s Asian/Oceanic would make a great server.

Please try to treat each other with respect. We can be enemies, and fight each other, but it’s still a game, and it’s still respectful to show sportsmanship.

I’m on DB and I was just thinking the same thing today.

Cheers to NSP trying to take Sunny today on DB BL. I came in just as we were attacking your 3 trebs. What I want to know, is how you managed to get 300 supply up the hill for the 3 trebs with only about 15 people? On DB sometimes we have trouble building 2 rams with 20 people in our group.

TheFreshBrew.1958:

Wow.

A DB player getting frustrated after you PVDoor entire maps because you can’t defend what you’ve taken after Easy Mode Night Capping? I.Almost.Feel.Bad.For.You.

There’s been some epic battles during NA day and evenings and its been fun, I don’t deny that. But… to pretend The Score isn’t the result of OverNight EasyMode, is just denying reality.

So, instead of being ‘frustrated’ because you can’t defend what you easy mode, be happy that you had it in the first place.

Not sure what I said or did to deserve this comment.

I play during the day not overnight and nothing is easy mode for me. I try to defend the best I can. I paid my $60 just like everyone else. I’m having fun defending whatever we have when I have time to get on. I’ve liked all the battles against NSP and DH no matter the numbers. Yes I get frustrated losing upgrades and siege I worked on. But overall I’m having a lot of fun in WvW, so much so, that WvW is pretty much all I do.

Wintuo.1356:

No server has a PvDoor time, every server has completely trashed on themselves for not thanking the few who do play when the zerg sleep and this happens in every matchup of every tier. Please take some time out of your day to thank the 10 or so people per map that do their best to hold what the zerg has earned

Thanks for the great post. I’m on DB in the morning MST where I often get frustrated trying to defend, upgrade, place siege, etc. while having so few numbers. Posts like this make the frustration go away.

Was a great match, the closest of all the matches in NA. I had fun playing on DB at all hours of the day and night.

I tried twice since the 12/3 update to finish someone in WvW in MF but was unable to. If I started the finish and then switched to MF it would cancel the finish. If I started MF first I couldn’t press F to finish them, the tooltip thing never even showed up. Has anyone else seen this or am I just missing something. I’ve only tried it twice or so since 12/3 so I might be mistaken.

@Creslin, also relating to your WvW forum discussion, do you run with a set group or are you able to pug a small squad? How are you communicating with the other members?

I tend to run with pug groups and there’s no coordination between players. Before one of the big WvW guilds left our server a month ago I ran with them and they had great communication and coordination, down to the level of coordinating the builds used by different players to gain synergy.

I don’t get it. DH says DB is a PvDoor server because we have people at night. But in the morning they PvDoor and it’s okay? I was just on DB BL now, and they rolled into our upgraded garrison with about 30 people and a golem against our 4. We lost an upgraded keep in < 3 minutes due to numbers. I just don’t understand how either that’s not PvDoor or that it is somehow okay because it’s during waking ours in EST.

brandon.6735:

Soooooo 8 of us in NSP held off a DB zerg then a DH zerg on Bluelake tower right now. This was in DB BL. Just want to say good job.

I’m on DB and I wasn’t there, but isn’t this awesome? This is why I play. You see the zerg roll in, you yell for help, you are running around doing everything you can, and you manage to hold them off. Quite a good feeling. Hard to even explain to people who aren’t playing.

2. Get boon duration runes on your gear…boons are your lifeblood as a D/D Ele, increasing their duration allows you to stack more might, and keep up your other boons longer, making you more powerful in general.

So 2 runes of water and 2 runes of monk? What about the other 2 runes? Something like Undead for the toughness?

@creslin “Also, if this becomes popular, I will consider making videos to demonstrate some of the things I list below.”

I would really like this. Maybe with commentary as solo, zerg running, and small group? I’d be willing to donate some silver to the cause ;-)

Crunchy Gremlin.5798:

I have heard of it being effective but it did not occur to me to use it to defend the keep walls and doors.

What else goes through the door without getting the ele killed?

I’m able to stand at range behind the door and every staff targeted aoe will go through the door. With atunement swapping I’m able to keep aoe on the door 100% of the time.

From memory, that’s fire 2 + 5, Air 5, Earth 2 + 4, Water 2 + 4 (plus a drop of 3 + 5 on friendlies repairing the door).

Creslin, are you running with a set group or a random pug group you find? How are you communicating? On my server (DB) I’m either alone or with a few other random people with no communication (I swear half the people on my server don’t read the chat). Do you just react to what the other party members are doing or are things coordinated (again using some communication)? Like your d/d post over on the elementalist’s forum, I’d love to see suggestions on getting a small group together and then tips on running with a small group.

We got rolled for about 5 weeks in a row, so these last 2 weeks have been great. DH and NSP have both been great. It’s really fun to try and hold off 15-30 with just a few in a tower and a bunch of siege. Back when we got rolled people just gave up and didn’t bother to even try to upgrade or place siege. Now although the coverages from all 3 servers are different, every time I’m on all our people are trying. I just wish I was making more gold during WvW to pay for more upgrades and siege.

How about some tactics on roles? I think our movement abilities make us great scouts. I often to try scout out the next objective and relay that info to the commanders.

Also, when in a group facing another group, I almost always target the enemy back lines. The ability to RTL through the front lines, disrupt the back lines, and then teleport to safety is great. Typically I target a back line enemy, RTL, air 5, air 3, earth 4, fire 3, fire 4, fire 5, water 5, teleport, mist form. I’m usually back behind my lines at half health at that point depending on the numbers of enemies. Granted we are in a lower tier, but it usually has the effect of forcing the back lines to drop their support of the front lines and to back up thereby leaving the front lines in a worse spot.

I love the ability to get into towers while they are under attack too. Getting into the tower near the citadel is easy. Target enemy near gate, jump down cliff, RTL, mist form to tower portal.

After being rolled by EB a few weeks ago, it’s nice to read these comments.

Toble.2968:

Um… No.

Thank you NSP for pushing in behind DH from the camp, you saved are hills and are clearly double teaming with DH, despite the fact you just rolled in behind them and helped wipe them.

We are so double teaming.

Ah even better. Didn’t see NSP there at all. Anyways I thought it was a great battle. It’s so much fun to run across the map, get there just in time to try and help make a difference.

I’m on DB and of course we are double teamed. It’s a 3 way match. DH and NSP are each double teamed too. Personally I hope they send all their troops and siege into the puzzle, makes our job taking their points easier.

BTW, last night’s clutch save by us (DB) at Hills on our borderland was great fun. They had the lord down but couldn’t quite cap before our reinforcements arrived. They (DH?) took down the outer wall and inner wall quickly with 3 catas before we could get help on the scene.

If we have the same matchup next week, can we just have a truce and go in a big circle flipping things? One giant 3 server karma train.

Tynan, I’m on DB and I usually play between 7pm and 2am MST and I’d have to say DH seems to have more people on at that time. However, it’s not that unbalanced during those times for NSP, DB or DH. I don’t think any of us have queues and there’s lot of great back and forth in WvW.

The videos make Churning Earth + Lightning Flash look easy. I really need to spend some time practicing it because a lot of times I’ll teleport but then churning won’t go off.