Guild Wars 2

30min timer before siege despawns, you just need people to hop in them for a second to reset it and you can keep them forever.

Not sure about siege cap but there is one AFAIK.

Kwajo.3541:

As long as there is a counter to it, it’s all good.

You can also counter the cata with good ram positioning, at least if they aren’t shooting over the door.

Probably decided it was too rewarding for how little effort was required, so disabled them.

5,900 + 5,800 + 11,900 = downed, last ability 11.5k overkill.
If you hit someone for 200,000 damage they don’t instantly lose both regular HP and their downed bar, the ~ 180,000 overkill just vanishes.

Rest taken while downed, ~20k damage + overkill from last HS.

Upgrades for towers on up are very much worth it; they delay the attackers long enough that you can mobilize to defend it. Supply camps you can usually leave with just improved deliveries since the others don’t do much of anything.

That said, you should be defending your camps. You can stop attacks on many of them if you have good battlefield coordination – some like Orchard are pretty much a lost cause, though.

that math neglects to factor in boon duration, which many eles have at 50%+ from arcana/runes.

Kristof Bowen.7345:

Weapon swapping for the Elementalist would effectively double the number of attack skills they could use in combat. As it is, the Elementalist has twice the number of attack skills in combat then the other classes besides Engineer due to its loadouts which work in a similar fashion to the Elementalist’s attunements, except that they take up precious utility skill slots. The Elementalist has plenty going on for it, if you gave them weapon swapping you are effectively giving them a huge buff which they don’t need at all.

IMO it is an interesting idea to be able to weapon swap in combat, at the cost of being able to attunement swap – so you can specialize in one element (with 2 weapon sets) but are unable to access the other elements while in combat.

I agree in combat weapon swapping for 2×20 abilities would be impossible to balance for varying skill/commitment levels.

above list except for stability.

bug thread

Bountiful Power — Function bug
Supposed to do more damage for each boon on you, but stability doesn’t count for increasing damage.

it has had a 9s ICD (same as every other weapon swap sigil) since beta. Don’t ask why that hasn’t been put on the tooltip.

was thinking of testing it, can’t say I’m surprised it actually worked!

Paranoid.9542:

Stealth abilitity is powerful in WvW because generally people are increadibly unobservant. Stealth to the back of a pack and shoot them from behind and most people dont even notice till they are about to go down.

Also I suppose it might vary from server to server, as I dont notice more thieves than any other class, probably even less. We had about 30 people in our guild online last night and I believe we had 4 thieves total.

its not that they don’t notice, its that you don’t kittening render. Stealth is completely broken in WvW currently and I personally rolled an alt to avoid abusing it. IMHO anyone using stealth in WvW is just as bad as the kittens who glitch into Bay Keep.

Wasselin.1235:

Every single staff skill except burning retreat shows a cast bar now. Was it always like this?

Windborne Speed definitely was nerfed, I think lava font/gust were changed as well but I’m not 100% certain.

DiogoSilva.7089:

For whoever is going to play guardians and thieves now: those two professions were nerfed in this patch and, you know, everything points for more guardian/ thief/ mesmer nerfs in the future. Although the glyph sucks because of the casting time, the effect itself is actually being toned down to other professions’ revive skills. Also, outside of whirlpool’s justified nerf and bug fixes, elementalists haven’t changed at all. Unlike mesmers phantasms, guardian’s retaliation, thief’s pistol whip, ranger’s crossfire, which were all nerfed.

backstab thief wasn’t nerfed, quickness is untouched, rendering after breaking stealth is still laggy.

Not in patch notes:
- 1/4sec cast time added to some previously instant cast skills such as Windborne Speed.

alternate design of this mechanic:

- add OOC weapon swap
- add an arcane major trait that both swaps the OOC requirement from weapon swap to attunements and also makes the arcane trait line cooldown reduction apply to weapon swap instead of attunements.

Probably a bit complex and unlikely to be implemented.

tluv.5821:

You can’t go afk, to whoever said that. The game will kick you out after 15 minutes.

I’ve heard that setting heal or other skills to autocast prevents getting kicked for being afk. Hopefully that is fixed soon ish.

Kardiamond.6952:

Rats isn’t mean to be an insult. Rat have a bad reputation, but they are actually great creatures. They are leaving something that is about to sink, there’s nothing wrong in that. I have difficulties accepting it, since myself I can’t do that, some kind of pride about our server, and love of being the underdog.

IronWolf is right, once a server hold the maps, the two others servers cant come back. We can’t build supply fast enought to defend our tower.

Every Green tower is fully upgraded most of the time, so we have to use everything to get inside. Once we have it, it seems like green call out every players they have in others borderland, and come zerg it. We can’t stop it. We don’t have supply yet.

We will just fight guerrilla style until the end.

I thought we had another big guild around? I didn’t see them for quit some time. Not sure they are still there.

I agree that ANV was the reason we were still in that tier, but that mostly because they had half the server in their guild. I didn’t see much strategy except take very supply and zerg with the blue dot. But it was still better then everything else we had.

zerging for xp/karma is all you can do when the score is 700-0 and you don’t have the manpower to defend anything against what the enemy fields.

Friday evenings have been the only time any sort of strategy has been possible, unfortunately. Faithleap/Dreaming Bay this friday was particularly fun

getting rewards for losing doesn’t make it fun if all you want to do is play the game.

does it work with Zephyr’s Focus (+100% endurance regeneration while channeling)?

there is nobody left on Anvil Rock doing WvW except ANV, it really just isn’t fun anymore.

I don’t care about winning or losing, I care about being able to play WvW. When the score is consistently something like 650-20-20 for weeks on end (and looks unlikely to change, since there is such a large gap between rank5 and rank6 servers) and there is nothing to do except PVE flipping towers/camps for xp and karma, nobody has fun.

if only eredon terrace hadn’t screwed up the matchmaking :P

well, I found the guy for you

Isn’t there a ram “sweet spot” where you can hit the door but not get hit by a cata’s aoe through the door?

Slamz.5376:

I can’t disagree enough with yertle.

Hill has one cannon overlooking south gate that can only be hit by specialty attacks (1500 range). It has an interior cannon that can hit the inside of the north gate (destroying all rams). Cannons there are a huge benefit.

Bay keep interior cannons tend to be good because with the water, there’s not a lot of good places to build siege or to fall back to out of cannon range short of just sitting in the water. Bay also has exterior wall cannons that most people forget about and can be snuck up to in order to destroy siege from behind.

Stonemist has cannons up by the mystic forge area (where people build trebs) that can support the ground attacks and I think only one of them can even be hit from the ground at all.

Garrison is more debatable. There aren’t any particularly interesting cannons there. But Hill and Stonemist are no question — cannons are huge there.

Stonemist, I have no idea to be honest. Never done anything there. Same goes for the rest of EB.

Hills – why not get 2 arrow carts + catapult behind the door and defend at a fraction of the cost? Pushing this keep without trebbing from the northern supply camp or sneak attacks (neither of which cannons help to counter) is a literal uphill battle.

Bay – cannons here are not very useful. Outer ones will be shut down by a moderate sized group because they are in such a precarious position and so easy to kill – assuming they don’t just treb you out from garrison or SE tower.
Inner ones will never have anything to shoot because you’ll either get trebbed from various areas in outer Bay (NW elevated area, bridge, outer walls, etc) and slowly lose the attrition battle, or force them back out of the keep.

Garrison – lots of suicide chokes here too. No particular reason not to just use arrow carts, though. Trebs at the Northern towers are also pretty common to make an opportunity to push; and again only wall upgrade helps that.

Cannons are just too easy to kill/shut down for how much they cost to build, when you could just upgrade walls + build a few siege and have equivalent defences vs zergs and much better defence vs trebs – not to mention the heal to full that may or may not save your bacon.
If arrow carts weren’t so cost efficient cannons would be worth building.
Are they worth getting eventually? Yes. Just not as 1st (or probably 2nd) upgrade.

http://imgur.com/KPgXe,j5LJg,4gBdR#0

this the guy? had 7min left on buffs at 12:53pm pacific (few min ago). Sorry I didn’t include the character while pulling up report screen, couldn’t track them down after.

• not commenting on whether this is or is not legitimate usage of game mechanics *

If he is still there, AFAIK you can get his account name by right click > report > and it should show acct on that window.

Will send some people to look for him

Right now? which borderland?

I’m fairly certain that efficiently blitzing objectives in WvW is the absolute fastest way to level in the game outside of Crafting, netting you ~ 3 levels/hour. Probably ridiculous karma, too.

And yes, CRFT are pretty much the new TFO. To be honest though, it really doesn’t matter since it isn’t like they are taking anyone’s queue spots to PVE blitz in WvW.

Cannons are not worth upgrading first, ever. They are decent once the upgrade actually finishes, but are extremely easily killed due to their vulnerable position on the wall unless you have large amounts of siege (arrow carts, catas, defensive treb, mortars) to back them up. The supply used on the upgrade goes further if you use it to spam mass siege, repair the wall/gate, or get the wall upgrade (which only costs 500 supply vs 400 for cannons). The repair to 100% on wall/gate upgrade completion can easily save your bacon – it would still be worth rushing without this huge extra bonus.

It makes me sad to have someone unknowingly sabotage the defense of a recently captured keep by draining supply on a Cannon upgrade.

I’m sure good organization expedites the assimilation of opposing colors, but it is just redundant when you have 50 people vs a dozen.

It is a bit sad that the tiers of servers have such large disparities; it doesn’t bode well considering matchmaking seems to have been designed to force constant flux between brackets.

About the orb, it almost always vanishes from the map after being dropped. After a couple drops it can despawn completely and so respawn at top – its also very hard to tell whether it vanished or someone picked it up.

Indeed you will, but we’re fighting for that orb + keep until the last man.

Hard to fight on 4 zones when all but 1 major WvW guild left to get carried elsewhere.

Thief and Elementalist both have a skill that lets them glitch past both inner and outer walls of the Bay keep. Don’t keep any shinies there without heavy watch.

Really old, not sure why it hasn’t been fixed.

Macovan.3650:

Rusty.8697:

I was wondering earlier….is the Angry Army Militia the overflow guild for the not so good players? I spank them 2v1 regularly with a 3 orb deficit.

Angry Army Militia has a small number of active WvW players, and majority of those WvW players are not lvl80 yet. Talking about quality, I have won a 1v5 fight against AR guys (didn’t pay attention to a guilds they were in) about 2 days ago, 2 of those were true lvl80. Don’t even know how many 1v2 and 1v3 fights I have won against AR players (there are too many to remember). But I’m not saying that AR players are inferior, just because those guys were. And yes, I am in Angry Army Militia.

To be fair, stealth is currently completely broken in WvW to the extent where I’ve been playing an alt ele rather than playing my thief main until its fixed.

Hard to kill an enemy who never renders, huh? In other games you’d have to hack to accomplish something similar.

Is Fear affected by condition duration? Stun duration? Nothing apart from specifically fear duration?

I was unable to find any indication of what applies to it.

Thanks!

not sure why i can’t quote, but i can’t.

@elithrar you do not need a 2nd player if you’re an 80 thief. Caltrops + Signet of Malice + Dagger Storm + some sort of aoe (Pistol Whip, cond. Death Blossom, det’d Cluster Bomb) lets you quickly and easily solo supply camps in either glass cannon or tankier gear.

@wanting 1200 range for thief, just no. Unnecessary power creep.
edit: IMO venoms kinda preclude having 1200 range. +300 range on Basilisk/Devourer/Ice Drake would be huge. The only way to fix that would be doing something really funky with venoms + 1200 range weapon, which just won’t happen.

(copied from WvW forum thread, not sure if this was posted both places – thought I was replying to Thief forum one)

WvW as a Thief makes my kitten hard.
1st of all, dagger storm is ungodly OP in WvW until anet fixes the culling issue – jump off the wall for auto smoke bomb passive (or HiS / whatever) and pop dagger storm; 90% of the time you won’t even render before finishing your 10k damage PBAoE. There are very few skills in the game that hit more than 5 targets, and Dagger Storm just kinda owns everything in range. A coordinated bum rush that includes a few storming thieves is absolutely devastating.
Thief wall poke is mediocre, but this is an extremely overrated aspect of what you’re doing overall in WvW. Cluster bomb with squishy gear hits hard (easily 5k+) at 1200-1500 range. Poison AoE from shortbow is also decent for wall denial. Scorpion wire is pretty good, too.

Now, what thieves truly shine at:
1- Scouting. Thieves are slippery and fast, perfect for watching flanks/checking marked towers/scouting supply camp raids before they arrive. Having eyes everywhere on the map is crucial.
2- being uncatchable. People say ele/warr can catch up to a thief? They can’t, unless you get caught really badly due to poor play. Worst case, you use stealth to juke them. If any class is going to lead 5 enemy invaders on a merry chase across the map and into 50 friends, its a thief.
3 – Killing people. Pretty obvious. 1v3+ is possible with cooldowns (if low levels are mixed in).
4 – Soloing stuff. Thieves can easily take out supply camps, cannons, and dolyaks ANYWHERE on the map safely and easily if nobody responds. If people do? Just run, they can’t chase you down before combat resets and you waypoint to spawn (or just keep running.)
5 – scorpion wire and chain CC like devourer venom and stealth shortbow auto combined with extreme map traversal speed make thieves ungodly good at catching people and pinning them down until backup arrives.
6 – fast movement speed for supply running to build siege/repair gates.

tl;dr A lot of Thief strengths aren’t as obvious if you just follow the zerg around defending/assaulting head on. Their real strength is in surprise attacks, skirmishes, raiding, and scouting.

@Hadan I’m 99% certain I spotted a Borlis guy holding the orb at the guard just outside the supply camp south of Bay, before he went into the camp with it.

GG fun fight, I’m happy its 3 way fight and not 2 way this week

edit: pretty irritating how the orb vanishes from map after carrier dies – seems like half of the attempted caps end in an MIA orb. Never know if it bugged or someone ( whether friend or enemy) walked off with it.

WvW as a Thief makes my kitten hard.

1st of all, dagger storm is ungodly OP in WvW until anet fixes the culling issue – jump off the wall for auto smoke bomb passive (or HiS / whatever) and pop dagger storm; 90% of the time you won’t even load before doing 10k damage PBAoE. There are very few skills in the game that hit more than 5 targets, and Dagger Storm just kinda owns everything in range. A coordinated bum rush that includes a few storming thieves is absolutely devastating.

Thief wall poke is mediocre, but this is an extremely overrated aspect of what you’re doing overall in WvW. Cluster bomb with squishy gear hits hard (5k+) at 1200-1500 range. Poison AoE from shortbow is also decent for area denial.

Now, what thieves truly shine at:
1- Scouting. Thieves are slippery and fast, perfect for watching flanks/checking marked towers/etc. This is not very important, UNLESS you’re in a guild or some other coordinated WvW group.
2- being uncatchable. People say ele/warr can catch up to thief? They can’t, unless you get caught really badly due to poor play. If any class is going to lead 5 enemy invaders on a merry chase across the map and into 50 friends, its a thief.
3 – Killing people. Pretty obvious. 1v3+ is possible with cooldowns (if low levels are mixed in).
4 – Soloing stuff. Thieves can easily take out supply camps, cannons, and dolyaks ANYWHERE on the map safely and easily if nobody responds. If people do? Just run, they can’t chase you down before combat resets and you waypoint to spawn (or just keep running.)
5 – scorpion wire/other chain CC like devourer venom and stealth shortbow auto combined with extreme map traversal speed makes thieves ungodly good at catching people and pinning them down until backup arrives. Warriors work for this too I think, though.
6 – fast movement speed for supply running to build siege/repair gates.

Wanted: Rogue orb & the pedestal it once stood on.

edit: not sure about the NSP part, but someone destroyed the altar and flew off with it.

MasterofKhaos.8903:

NSP: 366,801
AR: 98206
FC: 71639

Way to keep fighting until the head AR and FC, you had us pushed back bad last night, but most of us NA guys stayed up past 5AM to ensure we regained our footing in EB and didn’t lose SM. Anyways great fight, we could use more people with that type of dedication in NSP.

GG despite the score. AR definitely can’t match NSP over all 4 zones, but the 1-2 zones we fill have been back and forth and a ton of fun.

I think we’ve come a long way as a server this week; better communication, pub herders put in place (Commanders), and many special tactics learned.

I won’t be surprised if we bury whoever we’re up against next.

Many upgrades require a certain amount of supply to be available, and not just trickle in later. Improved supply deliveries is one of those, requiring 100 supply to currently be in the camp before you can order it.

Time/Claiming have no bearing on these upgrades.

confirming orb mysteriously vanished from our fortified keep and is now in Northern Shiverpeaks hands.

Shameful display. Not like we weren’t outscored 5:1 and down 2 orbs before this happened.

Liav.7598:

Not sure if this has been mentioned yet.

The evade frame on Death Blossom really, really sucks. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been in the middle of the air, and get smacked to the ground by a knockdown, or CC’d in some other manner.

I have no idea what’s causing this, but it is seriously irritating. I think the evade frame is just not synchronized properly with the animation, and it’s very deceptive.

I agree it can be pretty irritating, but the skill does have a consistent window of evasion about halfway through – I assume its not during the entire skill for balance reasons.

Athel.2076:

Bugs/Issues: Aquatic Weapons

Harpoon gun
Ink shot:
Bug: Frequently detonates immediately on use.
Issue: Frequently causes monsters to evade/become invulnerable if the monster has moved when you detonate the shot.

Escape:
Issue: Launches player in random directions, often straight down or straight up to the surface. Difficult to “aim”.
Issue: Often causes monsters to evade/become invulnerable.
Issue: Also causes you to get caught inside walls at times.
Bug: I’ve yet to see the trail of poison caused by this ability work.

ink shot – I think it detonating early is just you double clicking to queue a 2nd cast.
escape – This skill is tough to get used to, but it does reliably send you away from your target in x/y/z. I also have never seen the poison trail fail to work, but it is extremely narrow.

Exactly what SubjectZero said – misses occur (apparently) randomly on heartseeker regardless of range, including dagger autoattack range.
I have also only noticed this since a day or three after heartseeker nerf patch.

Observed numerous times in both WvW vs players and PVE vs a large variety of monsters.