Guild Wars 2

Mamya.7830:

Hi Scanz , last night when we saw INVI around we OSC really wanted to have a proper fight with you guys . We tried several time to badge off and port to warcamp in order to have the right numbers . After engaging you couple of time in numeric advance due to the randoms still following us we left sfr border cause it was no fun for us and unfair for you =)

Wish more SFR guilds would take this approach because other than OSC only CoN seem to be interested in trying to have fair fights.

Hopefully see you both on the battlefield again soon.

I think it’s unfair to call a guild raid with 30-40 people a blob. That is simply a large guild group. It becomes a blob when there are multiple guilds running together and you have to question why do this? Are you so unskilled that you need to rely on another guild to carry you?

INVI had close to 30 people last night on Kodash and then SFR borders, which is a fair number yet we struggled to do anything because SFR (and you have admitted this yourselves) blobbed the hell out of us. Fair play to OSC and Fry, initially it was clever what you were doing, but we stupidly fell for it over and over again. However, the rest were just ridiculous and resulted in a very boring evening of WvW.

At one point the SFR blob was just staying around Greenlake and Water. Every time myself and only one or two others went to re-cap Water, 50+ SFR would come running along. What’s the point?

So please, if you are a guild group then just try to do your own thing because it is simply not fun constantly having 50+ blobs of multiple guild groups chasing you. It’s not even fun being in a blob, there’s no skill or challenge involved.

The Hammer.5960:

Wow… people really complaining about 1v1 getting interrupted in WvW.

For a start this subject so so kittened I’m holding back the rage, so I hope I can retain some form of gentlemanly conduct for this.

WvW is not the place for finding 1v1s. If you really want to you can usually find a duel by the windmill at south camp, but roaming on your own and getting your knickers in a twist because your 1v1 (rarely is it a fair 1v1 I might add) get interrupted is quite frankly the height of stupidity.

If I’m on my warrior for example, I’m built for team fights. I have zero chance against someone built for roaming, duelling. I’m cool with this though… I will usually just try to escape and if I don’t then it’s GG, respawn, go a different route to find my guild or objective or whatever.

If you want to show off your solo skill, go Spvp. Either that or go ahead and try in WvW, but be prepared to get interrupted during your gank/duel.

WvW is and has always been group orientated. 1v1 will escalate to 2v1, 2v1 will escalate to 2v3. It’s exactly the same upward spiral as we see with the silly ‘omg more than 10 players stop blobbing!’ complaints.

Escalating from 1v1, to 1v2, to 2v2 and so on is fine, but when you are doing such small scale skirmishes and a group of 15+ just come along and wipe the enemies it’s pretty kittening lame.

Aphix.9846:

scanz.4536:

Well that is sadly a choice you have made, not ANet. If you were to carry on playing on your Necro then you’d get 320 chests over the course of your next 160 ranks. ANet have handled this one well imo, as they could have chose not to reward retrospectively at all.

It’s not handled well at all. What they’re doing is making it even harder to start an new character (nearly everything in this game is soulbound). I would have been happy if we get no chests for the ranks earned before the patch tbh. Now they’re forcing me to play my necro for another 2 months if I want my hard-earned chests. Yeah well done indeed.
Could have just mailed me 160 chests, would have kittened up the economy, but I dont really care about it. Second choice is to make the world ranks account wide anyway, or at least the chest rewards account wide, meaning my rank 1 warrior would get 2 chests for the next 160 ranks.

Yeah, well handled.

Anyway, opened 8 chests so far, 8 greens.

What? In what way have they made it more difficult to start a new character? What hard-earned chests are you talking about? They’ve barely been active for 24 hours.

Before the reward chests were introduced, the World Ranks were still character bound. If a new player comes into WvW now they’ll start being rewarded for going up a rank with 1 chest per rank. If you continue to play on your Necro which is at rank 160, you’ll be rewarded with 2 chests for the next 160 ranks you gain. In what way is this either unfair or making it more difficult to start a new character?

You’re behaving like a spoilt child. You have no divine right to the 160 chests you would have got if you were to progress through those ranks after the update, but ANet has provided you with the option of obtaining them retrospectively. It is your decision to start a new character that means you miss out on those, no one elses.

Using your logic, those who had put in hundreds of hours into WvW before the Ranks were even introduced must have been livid they were not automatically given World Rank of 500.

Darkman.1257:

There is an unwritten rule here on SFR. If it’s RED, kill it.

Ooh these SFR broke the rule then, as they couldn’t catch and kill a little old Ranger

Aphix.9846:

Curo.2483:

Aphix.9846:

I’ve got 4 greens so far.

A bit off-topic: I’m rank 161 on my necro yet I don’t plan to play on it anymore, maybe just a few ranks, since I leveld a new char for WvW. Am I really forced to play another 160 ranks on my necro just to get my ‘missed’ chests ??
Or did Anet actually think of this and made it so no matter what character I play I still get 2 chests for 160+ ranks.
Hopefully it’s the latter, I can’t comprehend the stupidity if they didn’t make the rank backlog acc bound.

Anyone know how this works ?

Let me spin it in a different light for you. If a new player gains 160 ranks, they will get 160 chests. If you now gain 160 ranks, you will get 320 chests. You have an opportunity to get 160 chests that someone without those pre-existing ranks will never have.

I have just recently gotten more involved in WvW, so I’m only rank 19. My future efforts in WvW will be on a similar level to your future efforts in WvW, however you will be benefiting twice as much since you got into it well before I did.

By the way, I’m trying to make you feel better, not trying to argue with you.

Yeah, but that’s not my problem, I’m talking about NOT playing on my rank 160 necro anymore, but starting a fresh new char. As far as I’ve heard, I will never get those 160 chests unless I force myself to play on my necro again. Since currently the World Ranks are character bound (which is bad as well imo).
I am not bothered about having to earn another 160 ranks for the chests because I surely will, but just on another character.

Well that is sadly a choice you have made, not ANet. If you were to carry on playing on your Necro then you’d get 320 chests over the course of your next 160 ranks. ANet have handled this one well imo, as they could have chose not to reward retrospectively at all.

vanensang.1389:

Was fun meeting some duelists which respect fairfighting on Deso and SFR this morning/noon. I’d kindly embrace some more fellows like them. Getting chased by 5, 10 or 25 players if roaming solo is boring aside the maplead.

Come on, let’s have some fun fights instead.

^^ This. Why does a group of people chase 1 player miles across the map? Last night I had about 6-8 SFR chasing me all the way from the sentry outside Vale and Bay to Longview and for what? They caught up with me once and failed to kill me. Another thing, why do people always interrupt a 1v1 or 1v2? If it’s clear as day a small skirmish is taking place then just carry on doing whatever you’re doing and leave them be.

DaveVN.5987:

lol cool down boy, the second text was pointed out to the ppl keep saying “SFR never blob” when we have players here saying we do blob up at times..

Lately the most “SFR never blob” with screen shots came from INVI so it feels like you guys are against SFR and leave Kodash out of the picture..

I have nothing against INVI, you guys are fun to fight

Most of the SFR posters on here are the main culprits of complaining about ‘blobs’ and give the impression their own server never does it. It’s sad really and yes some have said (be it in this thread or past) that “SFR don’t blob”. Would love to know what SFR class the ‘groups’ that have been on Kodash border for the past couple of hours.

People just needs to stop pointing fingers, realise everyone does it and that everyone should try not to because ultimately it is not fun and can cause serious lag.

Away from the ‘blobbing’ rubbish, this match up has up until today been very enjoyable and have had a lot of good fights with both servers. It’s a shame it took both SFR and Deso so long to escape Tier 1, especially now the match-making will change this week. Be interesting to see what that brings, fingers crossed not Vizunah

Darkman.1257:

Big shoutout to INVI for yesterday’s fights on Stargrove. It was very refreshing. It was a very intense fight for me. I sincerely hope we will meet more often. Cheerio !

Back to buisness. This discussion about blobb this, blobb that is meaningless and pointless. Everyone blob from time to time, don’t you get that ? There are no servers who “never blob” there are situations when even 3 roaming groups sandwitch someone in one place, they do blob then right ?

Yes, thanks for the fights and hopefully we can have more.

Back to my picture, it was tongue in cheek and referring back to my last post where I stated everyone blobs and people need to stop singling out individual groups/servers. Many SFR posters on here speak like they’ve never ‘blobbed’ in their life and it would be a sin if they did, which is pathetic.

For what it’s worth, the picture actually shows a huge presence of [iddQ] and [Rise], with a few followers from [BooM], [BOOM], [FD], [VG], [ECL], [TwoX] and [TCH]. I’d certainly class that as a ‘blob’.

As for INVI, they actively try not to have pug followers when on any of the borders in order to keep it a guild raid, but yes on EB will often try to lead the pugs.

Let’s play a game.

How many guilds can you count?

a) 2
b) 3
c) 5
d) 6+

The whole “you blob”, “no you blob”, “NO YOU BLOB” ‘debate’ is very boring. The fact is everyone does it, particularly on EB.

For what it’s worth, INVI were not on EB until late last night. INVI ran on the borders (mostly Kodash) and with no tag up. Yes some pugs still followed and if they are good enough to follow with no tag then fair play to them. Some joined TS as well, which is appreciated and it resulted in having a lot of fun (especially up at Godsword ). You can’t expect people to tell pugs to go away.

Repuran.1859:

Great commanding by Ins on EB just now, probably the best commander of PUG’s I’ve seen. You managed to pin us back into our keep for ages (SFR) and stop us from sniping a few t3 towers.
I was the annoying ele who kept interrupting you with ride the lightning.

Those were some epic fights on EB the past couple of hours. Fair play to everyone for not running or hiding, everyone stuck with their commanders and fought to the end and it was great fun.

In fact, the fights we’ve had on EB and any of the borders this weekend have all been very good. Not sure what all the moaning is about in here. Even when being clearly outnumbered and after numerous wipes, we’ve still been coming back for more. No running or hiding and to be honest this applies to all servers in general.

Keep it up, tier 2 is a breath of fresh air for us Deso players

salluks.6017:

Sovta.4719:

Our (Desolation) commanders are really working 24/7 last few weeks, we are really getting strong!!!!!…..flipping items and controlling LA zergs….Seriously where did (almost) all good commanders go?

to Sanctum of Rall on NA :P

Yes, all the ‘good’ blob commanders transfered to NA whilst sabotaging the Deso community, so please stay there.

Kthxbye.

Greatsword is good for tagging in zerg fights by using #1 and Maul, providing you do not use auto-target and are able to survive in the middle of the battle. My build allows me to do this and provides an escape route through Swoop. Combining Longbow’s Barrage with jumping into the middle of things with greatsword tags more than a trap build I used to run.

Here is a signet build I use for group and zerg warfare;

http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/ranger/?6.4|1.1g.h4|3.1g.h17|1c.7r.1c.7r.1c.7r.1c.7r.1c.7r.1c.7r|2s.0.21j.0.31j.0.21k.0.31k.0.2s.0|u4ab.0.k4a.k59.0|16.8|4i.4x.4p.4r.54|e

I switch out Eagle Eye for Piercing Arrows when it’s obvious a full on zerg battle is approaching and also Muddy Terrain for Signet of the Hunt when roaming. You could probably swap the armour, runes, trinkets, sigils and food to incorporate some healing power.

Luimes.4281:

If 3 french servers get locked in 1 server they can nicely PvD without ruining the fun of other servers

Can you imagine it, neither of them will know what to do. All 3 trying to PvD during unsociable hours will result in chaos and fights on the maps. They’ll be confused and completely hopeless. Please make this happen ANEt.

Deniara Devious.3948:

Ins.7139:

As for impossible to get people on TS, we do ok in EB and managed to get 70 on TS Saturday prime time.

This evening we had the outmanned “buff” on us ALL the time at Deso BL. I am sure we didn’t have 70 Deso players on our map.

It’s just not worth going onto any borderland map other than Deso at the moment and even that can be torture when outmanned. A group of 10 of us tried to have some fun on all 4 maps the other night, but everywhere we went a 30-40 Elona or Viz group would turn up to wipe us the moment we attempted to cap something. It’s really difficult for Deso outside of EB at the moment and no queue on any borderland map (5 mins max for Deso border).

Thankfully it looks like we will finally drop a tier after this week. Although we probably need to drop 2 or 3 and hope some of our old guilds come back. Wishful thinking…?

Lag has been terrible since the latest patch, rubber banding all over the place even when away from fights and on relatively empty borderlands.

It is not just zombies we have to worry about anymore because there is a new infection and it is spreading fast… the VVrex bug.

Leorcyn.1063:

If I was a commander with 20 people behind me and I saw a huge 60-man zerg, I’d tell everyone to port. Or to run in a tower and use 3 ACs.

Why would you port? If you’re organised then a group of 20 can wipe the zerg and it’s more fun fighting than it is hitting a way point. Basically porting for the sake of a few silver in repair bills, so lame.

Ins.7139:

suprNovae.5410:

We hoped for more entertaining fights on EB and at the beginning it was pretty laggy but this night turned out to a very amazing one! Much respect to the pug zerg of Desolation this night. You always showed the will to fight and you were really organised compared to other pug zergs.
Just out of curiosity… which guild did the leading pug leader belong to? (recognized a few guild tags everytime)

There was 2 of us leading from INVI, we tried VS’s strategy of running a Melee Group commander (myself) and a Ranged Group commander (Haley Targaryen). Was our first time trying it and I think we managed to get 60 people on TS, was going really well till you guys turned up and was a constant thorn in our side haha

Well played though looking forward to more.

You both done a very good job and we certainly missed the 2nd/ranged tag when Hayley had to take a quick break.

Have to echo what has mostly already been said; so far it has been great having Elona in the match-up. They have freshened the tier up a bit and are bringing some really entertaining fights, particularly [GD] on EB last night. Let’s keep this kind of action up all

The damage and range combined is just way over the top. Needs a fix asap.

whykt.9578:

We’d like to say that IRON has officially moved to Sanctum of Rall NA T1. We were born and bred on Desolation and had a fantastic time there since the game started. We really needed something new in WvW to bring our players back, so I hope that you will understand and there are no hard feelings.

Keep fighting the good fight and best of luck with the rebuilding, I’m sure you’ll make us all proud. It’s very admirable that the brave Desolation players and guilds battle on, I wish you all the best in the weeks/months to come.

Our sister Iron Hall PvX guild (300 members) remains on Desolation and we’ll miss everyone there, HF and GL

It’s a shame IRON’s reputation on Desolation has now been tarnished through petty childish acts. Still, there are some good people amongst IRON and cannot disregard the fun times they brought to the server in WvW, so all the best to the decent society within IRON.

Some fun little skirmishes outside SFR spawn on Viz border just now. Not sure why some of you were hiding in your tower though…

Elona must be so upset that they’re coming back up to tier 1. Poor guys, but at least we get a different opponent. Do wonder if we’ll see the same tactics by Vizunah as the last time Elona were in tier 1…..

The Rooster.2615:

Ran this tonight in WvW and was pretty pleased. I was routinely tying up groups of 2-4. I seem to run into trouble with conditions fairly often though. Considering seeing if the lemongrass soup helps.

Great for solo play. But I’m still feeling a bit lacking in terms of what I bring to a group. Although that’s more of a ranger problem and not a problem specific to this build.

Getting a bit bored of this accusation now. A good Ranger brings plenty to the group, particularly in WvW.

Gorath.5076:

It would be better to fill that GvG slot with a Guardian/Warrior/Ele/Necro …

Great response, I’m sure it really helps him out.

It’s a nice idea, but simply won’t work I’m afraid. The spirits still aren’t that great despite recent ‘buffs’ and if they were then they’d just be targeted and downed quickly by an organised group, particularly in GvG’s. Using Signets, Entangle and Muddy Terrain with great sword and longbow/shortbow would be better.

Here’s my build: http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/ranger/?6.4|1.1g.h4|3.1g.h17|1c.7r.1c.7r.1c.7r.1c.7r.1c.7r.1c.7r|2s.0.21j.0.31j.0.21k.0.31k.0.2s.0|u4ab.0.k4a.k59.0|16.8|4i.4x.4p.4r.54|e

Swap Eagle Eye for Piercing Arrows, also swap Muddy Terrain out for Signet of the Hunt when you’re roaming outside of fights.

Give them an ammunition limit.

Any chance someone could post the build from the video here? At work so cannot access YouTube and this seems to be generating a lot of discussion around the forums

Witzard.6829:

scanz.4536:

Because it never happens? If Viz are equal numbers then they run away. .

Haha.
Don’t talk about things you don’t know, my friend
Especially if it’s the same as the “oh my god we’ve never blobbed, VS is the only server in the game blobbing” we heard before
I could tell you about the time we wiped groups 2x bigger than us with pugs. But how does it help the metagame here ?

Well I’m talking from my experience, which was whenever our 10-15 man group came across Vizunah in equal numbers then they’d run away into a tower/keep or wait for the blob to help them. Would only ever engage when they outnumbered us and that seems to be a common theme amongst those who speak of Vizunah’s play style – we can’t all be wrong, can we?

Not to mention you’d face different opponents every week, who would bring new ideas, tactics and styles for you to learn and deal with. The WvW game needs more variety, not facing the same opponents for 6+ months.

Qwixx.5923:

Sega Mega Dave.4195:

You have to love Viz.

I have never seen a server lacking so many poor players. They need at least a 3 to 1 advantage to not get wiped out, I’ve seen them call the help of a zerg against a handful of players.

Add to that they run away and hide in towers until they have the huge ball of lag along with them. Truly awful players.

They then spend all night capturing on an empty server so they can upgrade everything ready for the following day.

Pathetic but you only have to look at who they are to see why they do this.

I mean really do you find this fun? If so you really must be some of the most boring people on the planet.

Pathetic and they are happy to ruin the tier for the sake of a win.

Anyway I look forward to seeing a group of 30 of them runaway from a group of 15 later.

Why don’t talk about times when our pugs groups have beaten your guilds groups with equal number ?

Everything you said is valid for you too at some times, it works in both way.
The only difference is that in our difficult times we have not abandoned the match-up loosely for reject the blame on you.

Because it never happens? If Viz are equal numbers then they run away. The only people I’ve seen on Viz not to do this is WL.

The difference is that one of the reasons the guilds and players have left Deso (and SFR) is because Viz play an unnecessary boring game. Yeah we get it they play the game the way it is meant to be played, the way ANet have designed it as a 24/7 battle with no score adjusting during unsociable hours. However, that does not make it the right way or the fun way.

People keep asking Viz the same questions which I’m yet to see a logical answers to; What fun is there in staying up all night with no opposition? Where is the fun in running in a huge ball of lag only being able to use #1 attack on your weapon? What is fun about sitting inside a tower on an arrow cart? Why do you not come out and fight in the open? I know the last one is starting to change somewhat, particularly on EB, but the rest still applies.

Until Vizunah start to change their ways then quite simply no one wants to play with them and that’s not something I’d be proud of. Being the #1 server in Tier 1 should bring respect and make people want to fight you, but it’s the complete opposite because of the way you play. It is boring.

zarak.2314:

scanz.4536:

WvW in Tier 1 is dead. WvW on Desolation is dead. Desolation isn’t going to drop down to Tier 2 anytime soon because of the terrible rating system. ANet will do nothing to help with this issue because they don’t see any problem with it and they’ll potentially continue to rake in money from people buying gems to transfer servers. Not only that, but they really couldn’t careless about WvW.

If you’re a WvW player on Desolation then sadly it really is time to hop servers, become a PvE hero or simply quit the game. At the moment the final option appears to be the most popular of them all.

Same on SFR mate all dead.. a few try to rebuild the server but no way that’s gona happen. I just wonder all those guilds that leave for T7/8 what so fun in pvp if you don’t aim to be the best?

I would agree, the lure of Tier 1 being Tier 1 should attract the best guilds and players. At one point it did, but ANet messed that up. So those guilds and players have no choice but to spread themselves across servers in lower tiers, just wish all guilds with this view could arrange a meeting to fully discuss it in a fair way.

naphack.9346:

scanz.4536:

Nice idea Xsorus. Do like the builds you continue to come up with for us Rangers, but my only issue with them is that you make use of racial skills which are not available to all of us. Would like to see a bit more vitality and at least 3k armour, could probably drop the crit dmg/chance a bit for this.

I actually like that fact.
Why do something everyone can copy? Racials are used way too rarely anyway.

I wasn’t criticising, just stating it as more of an annoyance because I do not have access to the skill on my Ranger.

WvW in Tier 1 is dead. WvW on Desolation is dead. Desolation isn’t going to drop down to Tier 2 anytime soon because of the terrible rating system. ANet will do nothing to help with this issue because they don’t see any problem with it and they’ll potentially continue to rake in money from people buying gems to transfer servers. Not only that, but they really couldn’t careless about WvW.

If you’re a WvW player on Desolation then sadly it really is time to hop servers, become a PvE hero or simply quit the game. At the moment the final option appears to be the most popular of them all.

Ajaxx.3157:

scanz.4536:

^^ Yup, it’s a ghost town on the borders from Desolation’s point of view.

Still funny to go into BL’s and see 20-40 VS players cuddled together on a sentry point for that WXP :P

“eeeeeeeu ma geeeoood, weeee ave som thing toooo teeeake” [read with a French accent for full effect]

Yup, popped on to Deso border late last night to find a 30+ group of Vizunah running around capturing our towers whilst we were outmanned and providing no defence. I honestly don’t understand what fun they’re having whilst doing that. I probably had more fun being the only person in Longview and killing 1 of the 30+ of them knocking down the gate and then charging up into the lords room

Nice idea Xsorus. Do like the builds you continue to come up with for us Rangers, but my only issue with them is that you make use of racial skills which are not available to all of us. Would like to see a bit more vitality and at least 3k armour, could probably drop the crit dmg/chance a bit for this.

^^ Yup, it’s a ghost town on the borders from Desolation’s point of view.

Why are people trying to kill all organised and skilled play in this game? :’(

graverr.6473:

Defending against a big zerg was completely doable before patch.Happened every day and it was perfectly easy for 10 players to defend a tower against 60 for 2- 3 hours.The only difference was that the defenders had to actually use or posess a brain instead of just droping an arrowcart and completely negate 90% of possible tactics.Now is treb or gtfo.
IF you have a large zerg trebs won’t be a problem.However if you only have a 10 – 15 man group you can aswell log off cuz u wont be seeing any action except flipping camps every 10 minutes.
Terrible change for anyone that does not run a 60 man blob and completely gamebreaking for small teams to groups consisting up to 4-5 parties.

This is what I don’t understand about the people supporting this change, most of which keep mentioning “karmatrains” and “zergs”. The people this change has hurt the most are those who run in small groups.

Ours for example, 10-15 people at the moment, will struggle to have any substantial impact because of this. Before, we’d be able to hit a tower with rams and more often than not cap the thing or come close to capping it before the main enemy zerg would come to defend it. This was our role, hit towers quickly to either cap them or distract the enemy away from our main force. It’s what we enjoy doing, but frankly will struggle to do anymore because now just 2 people with arrow carts can pretty much take us out or at least destroy our rams before they’ve even been built. “Build catas or trebs”, yes because that’s so much fun… We’ve been pretty much relegated to flipping camps at best and even those are being covered by arrow carts.

It is encouraging zerg play, not splitting up the zerg as so many people continue to try and say.

Kebab.4013:

So…..

From patch the 26th of March
to patch the 30th of April.

something happened that required arrowcarts to be buffed with 100%+

Anybody got some ideas?

ANet consulted Vizunah on how they could improve the WvW game?

Rangers don’t need to go full tank to survive longer than some other professions. We have so many evades and skills that provide us with protection and regen (both health and endurance) that smart play will reward us with less dying- obvious statement of the week?

My build is in no way full tank, but I do have 3k armour, 20k health, use Signet of the Wild and Stone, vigour regen and protection on roll, all of which enabled me to pretty much solo the end boss in the Molten Facility whilst the rest of my group played a game of ‘who can rez the most’ .

thefantasticg.3984:

Nope, still ain’t using signets. I lose too much in other skill lines to make the active signets useful… still.

How do y’all that use signets have your traits lined up?

Here is my signet build that I have been using for a good few weeks now and absolutely love, especially after the latest patch with the reduced cool downs. Requires a certain play style and learning when to activate the signets, but it’s a lot of fun playing in bursts, i.e. longbow attacks at range, suddenly switching to greatsword to apply more pressure and then retreating back to range if need be.

http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/ranger/?6.4|1.1g.h4|3.1g.h17|1c.7r.1c.7r.1c.7r.1c.7r.1c.7r.1c.7r|2s.0.21j.0.31j.0.21k.0.31k.0.2s.0|u4ab.0.k4a.k59.0|16.8|4i.4x.4p.4r.54|e

Depending on the situation I swap Eagle Eye for Piercing Arrows when in WvW and for Spotter in Dungeons/Fractals. Also when roaming in WvW with my group I will use Signet of the Hunt and then swap back to Muddy Terrain before engaging with the enemy. If you’re roaming for small fights like 1v1’s or 1v2’s then you’ll probably want to keep SotH to activate the damage buff and combine it with Maul. You can obviously change the armour runes and food, but I mainly play WvW and find the -condition duration to really help my survivability.

Kript.3291:

First, you don’t want to replace a bad meta with a worse meta. Yes, zerging is bad, it’s stale, but bunker down in tower and let the arrow carts replacing the zerg is even a worse idea. I don’t see mashing 1,2,3, is any better than zerg vs zerg.

Very good post and I fully agree. However one thing you fail to mention is the fact it has not just added a worse meta, but pretty much killed off small guilds/groups having an impact on the battle.

I personally run in a small group, at the moment only 10-15 of us and we would frequently attack enemy towers quickly through the use of superior rams. This would assist our main force who were elsewhere on the map by making the opposition either choose which point on the map they defend or splitting their force up to defend both. With the arrow cart upgrades this is effectively impossible for us now because as little as 2 people on arrow carts inside the tower are able to deal a tonne of damage on both us and the rams – it was possible to destroy these with regular arrow carts and aoe if you took too long to build, but now they will often be destroyed by upgraded arrow carts before you’ve even had a chance to fully dump your supply on them.

So whilst it has introduced a terrible ‘bunker’ meta, it is still encouraging people to increase the size of their group and basically create the largest zerg they possibly can. ANet need to come out and basically hold their hands up here, admit they have not fully looked into the impact this upgrade to arrow carts would have and revert this change asap. By all means re-think it and introduce some sort of arrow cart ability line later on, but this is quite literally killing off the WvW game for people who were already struggling to find reason to continue with it in its current state.

FractalChaos.6539:

A significant numerical advantage will still win you the fights….

Like I said at the end of my post, “This will in turn force people to increase the size of their group, so once again encouraging people to run in a ridiculously sized zerg.”

Sounds fun, doesn’t it?

Those supporting this change are only looking at it from a defensive point of view. Yes, it’s great that it now requires less people to defend a tower/keep from an oversized zerg through the use of powerful arrow carts. However, how is a small sized guild/squad meant to have any success in attacking a tower/keep? 2 or 3 people will be able to hold off a group of 10-20 with no problem whatsoever with the new upgrades. This will in turn force people to increase the size of their group, so once again encouraging people to run in a ridiculously sized zerg.

Caliban.3176:

I suggest you start farming Orr, it has everything you look for.

That is too much of a challenge.

Zephyrus.9680:

Except for servers with recent big population changes, the current matches are the most balanced they could possibly be. I don’t see the point of resetting tiers as it would just ruin most matches for weeks.

Have you checked the ratings recently? There is almost no fluctuation in the tiers because the rating system has reached a point where it is extremely difficult for servers to move up and down – servers cannot drop tiers when actively trying to do so. Not sure I would call this balanced at all and it’s certainly not enjoyable from where I’m sitting.

Been running a signet build for a good few weeks now and love it, mainly for WvW. Requires a certain play style and learning when to activate the signets.