I am really sorry that your mass recruiting didn’t create long term, dedicated members for your community. I know, its a shock to think fickle, bandwagon, players from other servers wouldn’t just set roots and be content. We are all as surprised as you are.
Is what it is, all the “T1 or nothing” people that were on SoS moved to BG, so any lingering bitterness towards the players that originally bandwagoned from DB to SoS should be directed elsewhere. All we have now is the usual pug players and a few assorted guilds that are just out to have fun, which seems to be pretty much the case with DB and YB too. This is the part where a guy who doesn’t really know how to play the guitar at a campfire starts singing kumbaya or something =)
I’m sorry if the night capping is skewing the score, but please do keep in mind what SoS has been through the past few months. Every single “hardcore” WvW guild besides TSym transferred, and the casual pugs were also showing up in much smaller numbers, with the usual bad apples doing nothing but being negative. It’s been week after week of being hopelessly uncompetitive in T1 and watch thing fall apart. Now that we have a chance to win something again, spirits are better and the pugs are showing up again.
In the meantime, just enjoy the game and don’t worry about things you can’t control. If I’m not mistaken, this matchup is at least more fair than when FA and TC were bouncing between T2/3. Unfortunately, do the instability in T1, there will probably be a server falling apart in T1/2 on a regular basis that ruins otherwise competitive matchups on their descent, i.e. things will never settle as they should.
My experience with T1 NA was on the weekend during NA prime time, every map basically bogs down the same static fights with all three sides controlling their corners of the maps. The only major ppt variations are a home borderland controlling an extra keep, SM, and camps. The battles for keeps are almost always ultra-zerg, face-rolling lagfest. One server quits by Monday, and then the game becomes fighting for their territory during NA, plus the most Euro / SEA / Oceanic coverage.
So yes, in that regard non-NA coverage does have the effect of playing kingmaker, while NA coverage seems to be increasingly more about fighting other guilds and extracurricular activities.
i am sorry that people are apparently hurt now that guilds chose what they felt was the best for THEIR members. if the server doesn’t make members of guilds happy.. the guild has to work towards that end.
This is the core issue with transferring. I don’t blame guilds for doing what they think is best for the group, but it’s my observation that virtually every guild that has left SoS has made a hasty decision after no more than one night of consideration. Some spent no more than two bloody hours discussing it. Some let groupthink skew their decision making process. Many have, or still have yet to transfer to servers that will be in the same predicament SoS was in no more than a month or two, and those that are still playing will probably repeat the same process of poor decision making.
(edited by zen.6091)
For instance this quote. People think way too small scale, too short sighted, and too “ermagerd he kilted me”. One of the truly powerful things a thief can contribute to WvW is that a really small number of thieves can SHUT DOWN supplies in a borderlands.
….
Has it occurred to you that there’s a lot of down time in between flipping camps and yakslapping? Even more so now that the supervisor buff is fixed and flipping a buffed camp is virtually impossible without massive lifestealing.
The “problem” with the roamer type thief is that shadow refuge is the easiest get of jail free card in the game, aside from the combination of skills D/D eles can use. This allows you to enter virtually any 1v1 or 1v2 with little fear of actually dying, provided you also have roll or shadowstep to stunbreak and clear out of a burst. So when I’m out yakslapping, camp flipping, or scouting, I will take on any player and if they would have beat me, 98% of the time I’m still on my merry way doing whatever I was doing.
This also enables thieves (and D/D eles) to play very aggressively and for some people at least, actually learn a lot more about PvP and improve their game. With other classes it’s just not worth it to spend 3 minutes walking to the other side of the map and then have a trip back to the WP if anything goes wrong. Shockingly, deep in enemy territory, other players have snares making it impossible to leave combat, and 1v1s have this strange tendency to become 1v10’s in a hurry. That’s why my fully leveled and geared for w3 guardian and engi never leave the garage unfortunately.
(edited by zen.6091)
So were did all the SoS guilds end up going anyways?
A large number of the “hardcore pvp guilds” couldn’t take losing 2 or 3 weeks so they transferred to Blackgate.
I think it was:
FoE
Aggression
Merc
ND
Atac
VI
DR
WorkMight be more.
Ons and VotF too, although VotF had only been here like a month.
And please tell me you are the naked Asura ele always running around…lol.
There will probably always be bad blood between us and FA, and maybe some of that competitive spirit isn’t all bad. But truly, if there was any server that was near the same situation TC is in, its FA. One night in Tier 3 was enough to show me that you guys don’t really belong in T3 anymore than we do, and I think I’d much rather be beat in Tier 2 than relax in Tier 3. As much as I’d hate to see another server die, It would be really great to have a FA/TC/Kain matchup. Cya guys soon.
Ha, I remember the FA / TC thing from back in my days on YB when we were always the weak server in that T3 matchup. Unfortunately now it looks like SoS is clearly too weak for T2, but it will take 2 weeks to shed enough rating to fall to T3. There I think we could could find more even competition and rebuild some…but two weeks is an eternity for people that are still on the fence about transferring.
I would honestly support anet making transfers free to T8 servers with an uncompetitive matchup to help you guys out some.
You should transfer to FC…I heard it takes 20+ people from JQ to kill you. LOL! You’d be unstoppable there!
I wasn’t implying that I personally would transfer to T8. I would support transfers being free to T8 servers that are stuck in a rut so that it might entice some very casual players to transfer there with no monetary penalty vs. transferring somewhere else.
Whatever the case is, it’s not fair at at all that the T8 servers are stuck in a position where #1 loses rating by winning and #2 / #3 can’t possibly hope to win.
Thanks ANET, I mean, last month it was soooo hard to take an hour out of my busy schedule and run 5x CoF p1…….
It is hard to do when your guild doesn’t do PvE, you don’t have many (if any) friends that do PvE, and you’ve never done a dungeon which means pugs are likely to flame / rage you. The only reason most of the dedicated w3 population does achievements is for laurels…for ascended jewelry…that was added to the game to satiate PvE players.
Fun night, ggs BT and PD.
I hope we don’t have an ok week in T2 and then totally fall apart like SBI did. The zerg sizes in T2 seem much more reasonable and the quality of competition is good.
The problem with FA is…I am Fort Aspenwood, legendary Kurzick melandru’s turtle tank griefer guy. Those Luxon dogs wouldn’t even make it to the juggernaut before all the monks rage quit.
(edited by zen.6091)
On FABL…can honestly say the Talon guild is equal to anything I’ve seen on T1 during NA coverage. Should be an interesting week with good fights, hope we can keep moral up.
I get the feeling that this new gear is going to require an insane amount of badges to obtain, and those of us who don’t zerg all the time getting maximum kill tags or do the JPs every day will be screwed. I started saving badges in mid Jan and have 1250 from 20-30 hours of actual WvW play a week…that better not be one piece of armor that looks like a clown suit on a Charr.
I would honestly support anet making transfers free to T8 servers with an uncompetitive matchup to help you guys out some.
Notice how Frank still keeps fighting after Chong Li activated blinding powder…
http://youtu.be/k0YDuSLXcX8?t=4m52s
That is how you deal with thieves you can’t see, it’s that easy.
I’ve never bought into the smaller model = less visible train of thought. I play a charr thief and don’t feel like I’m singled out any more than thieves usually are by other thieves or players hoping to get revenge on on a thief. In fact I often (or at least think I do) use this to my advantage…oh look the big dumb charr thief! I will start heading for a resource node, or randomly stop while using look behind…then bang —> infiltrators strike, c&d, 3s daze, dmg, ur dead with a big invisible cat stomping you.
I have however noticed that a lot more noob / casual players tend to pick the asura race and female medium classes in particular. An asura ranger or female human thief / ranger is almost always a free kill. If you see a fully leveled charr mesmer on the hand, run far and fast!
(edited by zen.6091)
It will be very interesting to see if all the guilds transferring from SoS to BG this week can make it over in tact, bolster their numbers when they get there, and compete with JQ.
I’ll be glad to watch the continued madness of T1 as a casual observer rather than participant. Every serious w3 player should have the chance to play at this level for a little while, and then get the hell out with their sanity.
I won’t argue strongly either way, but at least give it a chance before being absolutely certain it’s a terrible change. Don’t upgrade towers beyond stone walls and reinforced gate, or waste a bunch of gold / supply pre-placing defensive siege. View the game as a whole more dynamically with towers if they are flipped more often now. The same may go for the borderland bay and hills keeps if you are unable to keep them scouted.
Do I need to explain to you the difference between defeating a T6-T7 opponent this badly and defeating two other T1 servers this badly?
lol…you are fighting an SoS server that has now lost 10 guilds and an SoR server that has very weak European coverage. At this point, JQ continuing to run up the score with pvdoor is doing SoS a favor by assuring that we will fall to T2 this week, and giving SoR an excuse to rest up because they are already locked into #2 for next week.
I am skeptical about BG being able to charge right into T1 and compete with JQ, but maybe they do have a chance if players on JQ are becoming so intoxicated with imagined success. The players that become genuinely high on winning, running around beating their chest like morons are always the first to quit when the going gets tough.
With BG moving up and SoS going down eventually, there will be bigger coverage gap between tier 1 and 2. It will make tier 1 more competitive at least. The servers may change but the pool of players remain much the same.
In the longer run, it will be better for Kaineng and SoS as they don’t have to worry about european coverage anymore. A more balanced matchup is actually coming for tier 2 once BG moves up.
I’m not so sure we’ll (SoS) be able to stay in T2, or even T3 after all the smoke settles. Losing Agg and FoE made us totally uncompetitive in T1, losing MERC, ND and VoTF will kick us out of T1 and make it an uphill battle in T2, and losing the AoI alliance (ATac, Work, OnS, VI, DR) leaves even more question marks. It’s not a pretty picture, but I hope we don’t tank as bad as SBI and IoJ did. If we do I guess it will be the biggest losers tier….lol.
Well, in the end the real winner here is Anet. They just made a few hundred bucks.
^ qft
I never got to know ND or VoTF very well, but MERC was a lot of fun to play with. Great group of people all around.
This business of ravaging servers to stay competitive in T1 will have to stop someday, it’s simply not sustainable for w3 in the long term. But at the same time, no server can compete with JQ right now unless they get a massive number of new players and some guilds that are ready to fight. It’s not an easy situation for people that want to compete.
As an individual, the only power you have is deciding whether to keep feeding the transfer beast to stay competitive in T1, or pack it in and enjoy a lower tier.
There are really players that are skeptical about 5 mans being effective? 5 players just generating one extra camp on tick produces more points per player than any other configuration. They can also generate hidden points from yakslapping and flipping sentries. Denying supplies to structures that are not fully upgraded makes it easier for other teams to take them. Ganking players trickling out of a WP to help defend something your team is attacking helps, heck sometimes just having a group in the right spot will dissuade pug players from even trying to get there. Forcing a larger group to root out or defend against a 5 man is numerically efficient.
Many things for a 5 man to do, not to mention there’s a lot of seasoned w3 players who find this style of play more exciting and personally rewarding than zerging. Not more rewarding in a monetary sense of course though since the big zerg guilds get far more tagged kills and bags.
On the rare occasion you manage to down an ele, and are able to freely move to their final resting place after mist form….savor the stomp =]
Excellent summary. I just want to correct one mistake:
The engineer’s first downed skill, throw junk, is a 900 ranged attack, which inflicts a random condition on the foe….The 3rd engineer downed skill, booby trap, plants mines around the engineer. Pretty useful, but you die anycase if you get chance to use it.
I wrote the post describing the #2 and #3 cool down skill for every class, and the engi mines come from the @ 25% health sub-trait in explosives . The #3 skill booby trap does cause a blowout, you rarely see engi’s survive downs that long through if they are not helped in WvW.
But yeah, engis have the worst downed state for WvW, closely followed by necros, then warrior, ranger or guardian, then the “tricky” classes, thieves, mesmers, and eles. I rate mesmers higher than thieves just because the clone does confuse many noobs and their primary downed skill is so powerful to force a stomp. Eles of course have the best downed state by far since they can run, jump, move into water (incredibly ridiculous), or pass through gates all while invulnerable.
I have advocated for a generic downed state for all classes in practically all QQ downed related threads. It’s not fair for the “tricky” classes to have such measurably better survivability downed. Hell, the extra engi downed trait doesn’t even help the engi…it drops something useless for allies! Not sure what the consensus is in the tPvP community, if it even still exist, but last I checked the downed state was a serious grievance there too.
Stomping crash course for all classes—
Tricky classes
Thief – Main skill teleport, just start stomping, then move to teleport location. Second downed skill is stealth, just wait for it to end at same location after a few seconds, and keep attacking in the meantime. If the thief happens to put down a shadow refuge right before they die, they will be invisible for 10-15 seconds. Make sure to keep spamming the area with AoE or CC, and wait there if you see a very low health thief go stealth under a log cabin animation basically.
Ele – Main skill mist form. Start stomping, follow, stomp. They can move quite far and through gates, and are invulnerable while moving though. Second skill is useless.
Mesmer – Main skill clone (and also short invis). Start stomping, first character to appear is clone, second is the real mesmer. CAUTION, downed mesmers can stack a ridiculous amount of confusion if you try to auto attack them dead. Always go for the stomp. Second skill also does a kitten load of damage. Make mesmer dead asap when downed.
Control classes. All can be bypassed with stability or invulnerability. All but guardian can be bypassed with stealth, unless someone else is stomping too with ranger.
Necro – Main skill single target fear, second skill pretty much useless.
Guardian – Main skill pushes all nearby foes back. Second skill can heal the guardian very fast to a rally, so get them down.
Ranger – First skill dazes all stompers, but it needs to be targeted (unlike guardian). Second skill heals the ranger very fast, so get them down.
Warrior – First skill single target KD, second skill rallies the warrior for 15 seconds. If they pop vengeance just run away, the job is done.
Engineer – First skill interrupts and pulls one target…to the engineer. Second skill is a blowout. By far the easiest stomp…poor engis.
The zerg meta, be it guild zergs or random zergs, will only end if more objectives and more points are added to maps making it impossible for 1 or 2 large zergs to cover everything. People will still do it, and the bad guilds will still want to run around face rolling in the field, but it will at least open the door to actual use of coordination and tactics being rewarded with more points.
Whether it’s the truth or they don’t have the resources / budget, anet has already said larger maps are impossible. That’s fine, there’s already huge swaths of EBG and the borderlands that are effectively not used right now. Replace all the npc camps with new game mechanics, replace the quaggan island with a new game mechanic. There’s 3 areas on EBG and 3 areas on borderlands that are underutilized just off the top of my head. Even more areas could be thought of in the nooks of the maps.
Better yet, utilize these areas and do it dynamically based on the map player count so empty or lightly contested maps are not generating too much ppt.
Most of the people defending the current system are those who already have full exotic sets, and in many cases ascended garbage too. It’s just human nature to want people to climb the same mountain you did, no free rides. I would love an sPvP / GW1 PvP style system that dispensed with the pointless grind, but obvious anet doesn’t see WvW that way…lord knows what they see.
I am saying this as someone who has 3 toons with full good exo sets, probably 50 total exos, all earned the honorable way…ripping people off with TP schemes between WvW play. Two of my toons have barely even ventured outside LA and rata sum, execpt to finish dailies and get stuff from a few karma merchs. I wish someone from anet would read this and realize how totally ridiculous it is.
And yes, the crit damage in particular is getting way out of hand. One of the main reasons there is so much QQ about BS thieves. I am currently doing all the painful daily and monthly “achievements” to reconfigure gear a bit so my thief can go from 96% CD to 104% with no loss of other stats, in fact a slight increase in vitality. Just perfect, exactly what WvW needs! I can kill the poor (in time and gold) scaled players in 3.1 seconds instead of 3.2.
lol man you got so “outplayed”.. People are actually arguing these should be allowed, lol.
Same morons that furiously defended spy kits and golems in a box…oops I just broke my promise to never speak the words golem in a box again. Apparently in the minds of the carebear brigade, things like this are “fun”.
Pretty decent idea, but here’s the problem that everyone who’s played games with map votes, knows…half the players don’t vote, and half the players who do vote, they vote stupidly for a map with no votes or the map you just played two minutes ago. The point is they don’t vote or really think about their vote. A voting system is simply not going to work except maybe on the most organized servers when most of the map pop is a few large, organized guilds.
I’d much rather see a system where guilds automatically get commander icons based on influence earned in WvW. A refund would be nice too, but good luck with that! Add in a system where commanders can say how many players they want, and you simply right click on the map icon to join squad until it’s full. Periodically the squad would reset when the commander has been out of combat for awhile to drop people no longer operating in the squad.
It would be great to see all PvE cons evaluated, and a cooldown added to pie. Skale Venom is the most popular one with many players using it all the time…what else is there to say besides weakness is a sparingly used condition because it is very powerful 1v1 and in small group combat. Also, Skale Venom does not work with all weapons, so there’s not even a facade of an “everyone can use it, so it’s balanced” argument to be made.
I am saying this as a thief with 500+ omnomberry pies and skale venoms in my inventory too. It just gets old after awhile having to pump cons and knowing that they are a silly one up advantage. What would be great is if WvW had its own food recipes, maybe even a few consumable items too that are fun, but not over the top in effect.
It should be obvious that thieves, particularly solo and small group roamers are the most likely to be using cheats. That doesn’t mean it’s more likely for thieves to cheat, it means cheaters are more likely to use the thief class.
I use to be an anti-cheat admin for FPS games in defunct CAL league and also for TWL, so cheating is something that I am particularly sensitive to. The current cheats, which anyone can easily see a description of with google searching on public forums, can do distance hacks (see players and tags at long range, through terrain), give unlimited endurance, toggle higher FoV, toggle speed, plus all the teleport and climb exploits most everyone has seen.
Here’s one thing that tipped me off to cheaters I was (unknowingly) playing with. With the endurance hack, some cheaters will use the power of inertia trait + orrian meat stew food for 2 stacks of might on every dodge. If you see anyone constantly generating more than 6 stacks of might from dodging, they are cheating.
This seems to be one that players using the exploit don’t even try to hide since no one monitors boons in combat and doubts can be rebutted with"I’m using orrian meat stew!". Add in a slight speed hack that is tough to spot, and a cheater has increased their survivability and ability to do damage immensely with hardly anyone noticing. Adding in the uncatchable trait (caltrops on dodge) amps up survivability even more.
As for legit thieves, main hand sword thieves with shadowstep can close a huge distance in less than a second, 2700 to be exact with shadowstep —> infiltrator’s strike —> steal, then return from infiltrator’s and / or shadowstep in stealth. Being an initiative skill, infiltrator’s strike / shadow return is also repeatable with no cooldown, range 600.
Run with a big “field” guild, GC build, might stacks from fire field, 25 stacks of bloodlust, run through veil, smash all keys doing big AoE damage, pick up all the bags. You are now a an honorable pro at WvW with the badges to prove it!
I voted worse, it was just terrible for the first few hours of playing. Nothing was rendering before melee distance and frequently non-theif players would not render at all in combat regardless of the number of players.
For some reason disabling “best texture filtering” and “high-res character textures” helped me out there. If you have either of those options checked and rendering as worsened, I would at least try disabling them. It’s still the same craptastic culling system, but at least it’s not significantly worse than before.
Culling has nothing to do with your computer.
Culling is done on the server, not on your computer. It does not matter if you have a good gaming system, a super computer, a commodore 64 or a monkey with a crayon…
You’re absolutely right with all that, but something did change with model draw speed. I’m just guessing that something is wonky with the placeholder models that are supposed to draw faster than the full player model.
Disabling best texture filtering and high-res character textures helped me out a lot. Draw speed is now more or less as before. Nothing has changed with thief rendering or mass use of veil, but it’s tolerable.
Today was the first day I’ve been able to play because of the queue issues, and culling has been worse than ever. I have a 7950 with the latest beta driver and a 2500k @ 4.8 GHz, so it’s not a system limitation. Even in small groups now players are not rendering at all, slowly, or in random locations, and it’s like every large group is coming out of a veil…full scale zergs even worse yet.
What is going on here?
It’s way more fun when you let conspiracy theories play out for at least a page before shooting them full of holes.
At any rate, the technical problem is pretty disappointing after resetting the rankings, and will an have effect (perhaps a huge effect) on post-reset placements.
(edited by zen.6091)
Anet is hoping to sell more gems when poor casual players are forced to transfer to low pop servers so they can play at all.
That would easily make them zero money and kill WvW. They aren’t that stupid. This is clearly a bug, and you can get a lot of people on a map, it just takes a lot of patience by those stuck in multi-hour nonsense queues.
Milking another $20 from some players before they quit wouldn’t be so terrible. I agree it’s not likely, but when there’s no communication from anet, it leaves the door open for any sort of wild speculation.
Even on T1 the queue times have been far, far longer than they were last week when all the actual mass transferring took place. Something is either technically wrong or anet is hoping to sell more gems when poor casual players are forced to transfer to low pop servers so they can play at all.
The organization and optimization skills of the European guilds that are now in T1 NA is impressive. However, the attempts at quasi-GvG in the field look more like a very dumb version of HA from GW1, which itself was a gimmick laden format. They shouldn’t be faulted for trying since GvG is bizarrely not part of the game as an official format, but I do wonder if this style of play will be positive or negative for WvW in the long run as more large guilds organize to play like this. Is it an improvement over the usual mindless militia zergs, or just that on steroids?
I enjoy playing a balanced S/D thief the most because it can be highly effective at most everything. It can hold it’s own in 1v1 and small groups, easily scout (and troll small groups while scouting), and in zerg combat it’s a lot of fun to disrupt rezing and finish off lows using infiltrator / tactical strike. Then when the zerg is about to break, you are in perfect position to activate ballet dancer mode and ensure no one gets out alive.
I just tested it again. They go through some lips, jump over others, and get blocked by some. I couldn’t see any reason for the differences.
Yes … they go all of 100 units further than traited grenades or longbows. Big deal. As slow, visible, and easy to block/avoid as they are I don’t see how that makes them OP. What’s the difference between a half dozen rangers/engineers focusing a poorly placed siege or a half dozen players using GiBs for the same purpose? Not much.
Meh, last golem box post I’m going to make. Does it not diminish the value of grenadiers and LB rangers if anyone can sit on a wall in relative safety pumping golem boxes, regardless of LoS?
I wish I had made a video of what happened on EBG last night in valley (JQ keep). There were many streams of golem boxes coming from multiple directions on inner. In the chaos of busting into an inner keep, you simple cannot dodge them all, realistically use WoF to protect, or go rambo to hunt down everyone dropping them right away before you even have a foothold inside. There might have been people dropping them off the vista steps too. Mind you, JQ was pushed pretty quickly and never had the supply to siege up inner with actual siege.
Please consider the logical escalation of this (everyone employing them as a defensive strategy) and realize why they had to be removed…yes WvW is supposed to be fun and often amusingly gimmicky, but it doesn’t have to be that degenerate.
The golems float over wall lip obstructions and home in at unlimited distance.
LOL. I love it when people make stuff up to support their position. The mini-golems will NOT jump over any obstruction, and that includes the outside lip of the top of a wall. They also do not have unlimited range. Read the tooltip for gods sake … the range is 1600.
Yes, they do jump over wall lips that obstruct movement (i.e. prevent pulls), and also fly right down for hits that most skills do have LoS for. As for the range, I’m not sure how range is calculated with vertical distance as well, but they definitely go further than traited grenades or longbow attacks.
I’d reiterate from the post just about cons that WvW specific cons that are designed for WvW could be a fun element to the game, provided they are not ridiculously expensive or over the top in effect. The people defending the golem boxes though obviously were not part of a siege where streams of golems were flying off a wall while the users were immune to pulls and in some cases to any damage at all.
The golems float over wall lip obstructions and home in at unlimited distance…yes it’s easy to deal with a few users throwing them, but when many players are throwing them from differant directions (think inner keep walls and lord rooms) it is / was totally out of control. Use your heads…they are essentially mobile siege that bypasses normal defensive siege mechanics (requires supply, stationary, most AC’s and ballistas with good visual range can be destroyed or counter sieged).
This is getting totally out of control and demands an emergency patch for removal. All I have heard on TS tonight is “kittenING golems in a box”, the times I go check out out teams on sieges, there are 6+ JQ guys doing nothing but pumping golem boxes. The people defending this seriously need to have their heads examined.
I mostly agree with Pannonica, but at the same time, I won’t beat around the bush in saying this thread was inspired by how I see RG playing the game. Everyone, or at least almost everyone, in their guild will be using pie + oil + skale + even the stupid blessing buffs. Do I fault them for playing with maximum efficiency? No. Even if they did not abuse veil or use all the cons, they would still dump truck 95% of disorganized zergs in the field.
The point I’m getting at though is senseless power creep, i.e. if someone else is using cons, then you have to use cons too or be at a disadvantage. I realize this is not tPvP, and a balanced game will never come close to being reality, but there needs to be some sort of restraint. I would be all for a whole line of 400 level food that is cheap and WvW only with all sorts of stat combos so you could tweak your stats without new gear. I am not for the special effect food that is clearly too good, and all all the other kitten (like skale venom) that is totally ridiculous.
I’m not sure when anet designed WvW they really thought players would be using cons all the time as a purchased advantage, or that the advantage would be significant. It has however now reached the point where entire guild / zerg groups will use omnomberry pie (or ghost), 6/4 stones or oil, and skale venoms. Entire groups will even use mage potions to either help disguise their profession and weapon set in combat, or just annoy people.
The cost of cons isn’t that much, around 6s / hour for omnomberry ghost, 5/3 oils, and skale venom if you craft…even less if your group uses trays to charge up. It does however force everyone to use them, or else you are playing at a disadvantage. For instance, spinning like an idiot with daggerstorm through a mob of players I may get 4k+ in life stealing from an omnomberry ghost. In 1v1 or small group combat, 4-5 life steals is around a 3k health advantage, they lose 1.5k, I gain 1.5k.
The skale venom in particular is the one that alarms me because of the weakness that can tip the scale in combat, the exploit with doors, and that it works with some weapons while not with others, so there isn’t even a facade of fairness if “everybody” uses it.
Anyway, this isn’t a QQ thread, I am just wondering if this is this is really a fun plus for the format, since you are free to use any cons you do or do not want to use, or something that is having a negative impact.
Pretty good fights last night on SoSBL. I am not sure if it’s luck, coordination, or a bit of both on our side sometimes. JQ was very close to capping sunny at one point, which is usually a clusterkitten trying to retake, even with paper walls, if it is properly siege capped. BG’s first golem rush on garrison took us totally by surprise shortly after that; we had zero siege built in lord room and less than ten players when the inner gate was melting.
The logical solution is to have a generic downed state in WvW (all classes same skills) with faster stomping. I might even go so far as to make the downed player revealed for a period of time and the first stomper immune to damage while channeling, but not to CC. This would definitely encourage more aggressive play and less boring zerg plinking. It might encourage more gank type builds too, but that would also place a higher value on defensive skills and skill use rather than safety in numbers.
(edited by zen.6091)
I’ll be perfectly honest, one of the main reasons I switched to a thief main is ez mode non-combat speed for the often mundane task of rapid response to threats, scouting, and generally doing a lot of walking.
I would strongly caution against the outmanned buff being too good, because it may encourage more 5 man gank squads than actual objective taking. The problem is more with what a small group of 5-10 players realistically can do other than camp raid…and on the higher tier servers, they are often very good at squashing even that as a means to generate a few ppt and annoyance.