Threather.9354

> @"ollbirtan.2915" said: > I'm not sure which mobility creep are you talking about in spvp. In it's current state, spvp has almost zero build diversity, and a select few classes that are viable. The only truly 'mobile' class is thief since mesmer portal has been nerfed. Holos and war can be fast but that's not an issue. sPvP is a contained mode - a small arena, 5 players, 3 nodes, and questionable side objectives. With current 'close to zero' build diversity, the last thing sPvP needs, is another so called 'balance adjustment'. It sounds like thats what it exactly needs if it is so stale and has almost zero build diversity.

> @"ollbirtan.2915" said: > Please keep sPvP out of your 'balance suggestions'. We already have a broken mess of a game mode, so just don't. > As for WvW, I would agree to toning down the amount of AOE superspeed that scrappers produce, but reducing SS to 66% in WvW is a terrible idea as it widens the rifts between the 3 game modes we have. Well, I am sure you have better solution then. Tbf Superspeed doesn't matter in PvE and maybe reducing the mobility creep in PvP would be a good idea as well

> @"Dawdler.8521" said: > > @"Threather.9354" said: > > > @"Dawdler.8521" said: > > > Yet some people would *still* move superfast and some move superslow because some people can get speed buffs in their builds and some cant. > > > > > > There is no "fix" for this except uniform speed with no available buffs whatsoever. > > > > There is, making swiftness (Abundant buff and pretty much available to every class) the highest available shareable speed bonus. Not that I am not saying superspeed is bad and we should go as far as removing it but sharing it with over 15% upkeep from 1 player is kind of overkill. Right now it is just close to permanent instead of being short term reactionary tool > That doesnt make any sense whatsoever since its **not** available to every build in abundance. > > That every class has it somewhere on some skill is irrelevant because once again, exactly as I said, *some people can get speed buffs in their builds and some cant*. Yes and one requested thing is to reduce AoE superspeed, not personal one

> @"Yasai.3549" said: > > @"Justine.6351" said: > > > To be fair, > > Free +250 and up is too much all stat. > > > > 100 is fine little buff > > 200 is an advantage > > 250 or more is obscene > > > > Just precision would give +12% crit chance @ +250. > > It's just too ridiculous to factor in conditional stat buffs into theorycrafting, and ultimately into actual meta compositions. > It's almost the same as wildly exclaiming how much DPS Hammer Backline Rev is gonna deal in a zerg when in actual practice, their Hammer 2 has the worst target-hit registration in the world. > > I mean, hell it could be + 1000 all stats, but I've never seen +1000 all stats save anyone from being pushed off the side of SMC's top floor. > (Huge exaggeration but that's just to reinforce my point on how silly it is to claim that conditional stat buffs have a hand in dictating build meta) This thread wasn't about that, I already said that my choice of words was poor. Point was that claim buff is too strong and reduces possiblity of good fights and linear difficulty finding/setting up such. Not a single sentence outside title indicates that it might have affected build meta. I mean it did affect gameplay meta (not build meta) a lot with objective camping guilds and no commander/siege defending being abundant with defending group almost always winning a fight EDIT: The only reason we still see so many subpar AoE build players hurrdurring outside squad even though they should be pretty much useless is caused by how great the 7% bonus for offense and 10% for defence is from claim buff making up for lack of boons. At keeps it is even stronger.

> @"Dawdler.8521" said: > Yet some people would *still* move superfast and some move superslow because some people can get speed buffs in their builds and some cant. > > There is no "fix" for this except uniform speed with no available buffs whatsoever. There is, making swiftness (Abundant buff and pretty much available to every class) the highest available shareable speed bonus. Not that I am not saying superspeed is bad and we should go as far as removing it but sharing it with over 15% upkeep from 1 player is kind of overkill. Right now it is just close to permanent instead of being short term reactionary tool

> @"Ovalkvadratcylinder.9365" said: > Wat? > > I mean you said it yourself. This is entirely based on the assumption that there are two equally strong blobs. I have never in seen that happen since launch. > And I still don't know what thread is about... Do you wanna talka bout build diversity or the claim buff? Those seem like two subjects in need of two separate threads. > And maybe you can make a thread about how kitten the pirateship meta was pre-hot aswell? I mean the changes to stab prob had a bigger impact on the game mode than anything you've mentioned so far. > > I guess another quesiton is; how do you link the introduciton of the claimbuff to change of meta? It seems like a leap too far. If anything you could prob argue for a change in player behaviour around keeps and towers and evne then you havent provided anything substantial really, but, not once have I and the guilds/theory crafters I talked to taken into acount the claimbuff when figuring out whats most effective in a fight or ameta changeing build for a certain class. Tbf I do agree that maybe claim buff affecting meta wasn't best way to phrase it as it doesn't have much to do with builds per se but rather how people act and how little competitive fights there are. Win a fight at your objective? Go to enemy objective and get crushed. So people and guilds just tend to defend. Point was that if your teams are closely matched, in old meta you could go little bit closer to enemy spawn or push their tower and theyd have little bit easier time leading into better fights. But instead there is this massive jump between any objectives where you lose 400 stats and 25% MS and enemy gains those. So if you're equally skilled groups that can have nice fights, guild or blob, claim buff will often be the deciding factor within the fight, and even if you manage to defend an objective often you're stuck defending as you don't stand a chance against enemy at theirs. This is completely different from old meta where group on the offensive swapped with one or two good players joining the map. These days if you're defending side taking more than 1 push to fend off the enemy on the map then you're going to defending side always and there is no hope out from there. And if your teams are equally matched, even going to easiest enemy tower on the map usually leads into crushing defeat so the logical solution for both sides is just to defend. This leads into boring meta where: You're either defender server 90% of the time unless you're willing to get one pushed and completely reliant on enemy coming to you to get content, or you're attacking server that has veterans with better builds and ton more experience than their opposition farming pugs like its a lab farm. There is no such thing as being equally strong to enemy in this meta as it just leads to stalemates, thus bandvagoning to super strong servers became only way out from being reliant on enemy hitting your stuff to get fights and not living in constant stalemate against enemy servers. TLDR; I chose my words poorly as claim buff didn't affect build meta per se but made the game so that near equally matched enemies end up in a stalemate instead of having ability to choose hitting easier enemy objectives for more thrilling fights. And for one to play offensive they have to bandvagon to a server already full of veterans

> @"ArchonWing.9480" said: > Umm, no. > > Cutting edge meta builds are based off of open field combat, skrims, and gvgs, not fighting in structures. > > Yes the claim buff is dumb, but this is a lot of conjecture. The line is much more reasonably drawn with the introduction of Firebrand because that is when guardians went full minstrel. And to drive home this point, all dps guardian builds today are core guardian or dragonhunter. > > Warrior going minstrel has much to do with the damage potential of hammer being sacked, destruction of defense, and rework of tactics. > > Engi going minstrel has much more to do with the addition of purity of purpose and med kit being viable. There was almost no role for Engi before that besides stealth. > > The idea that any of these build changes relied on keep buff being a major factor, is well, to put it nicely, misguided. Point of the post wasn't that the 2 things aren't linked. I was just combining 2 graphs, both of which I had idea about today to reach the non believers, into 1 post. So the linking factor is the fact that there is a graph.

> @"Stand The Wall.6987" said: > it would be nice if balanced builds were viable again. for cele, i wouldn't add in condi/ boon duration buta bit more power. the game really needs much better 4 stat combos that support balanced builds, such as +power (or condi) +heal - precise -vital (or tough). it would be awesome if we could just have gear that added points into a shared pool that we could then assign to each stat as we saw fit (with limits ofc). Issue is that they added legendary gear into WvW. I would have liked them to implement double, triple or quadruple amulet system where only half your stats can be minstrel/trailblazer/dire etc and another half would have to be cele or 3 offensive stats + 1 defensive. Or not add minstrel in the system at all

> @"Infusion.7149" said: > You're not factoring the effect that marauder and other 4 stats (minstrel) had. > > Also remember karka potions which are still not removed from WvW. Minstrel and marauder existed during HoT meta also. And marauder and valkyrie+bersk builds are between berserker and soldier

> @"hunkamania.7561" said: > Current system is terrible and supports turtle gameplay.. The game was actually better when the keeps were paper. Indeed, in the past commander could tag up and start with 5 players then hit unupgraded SM spending 30 min taking it and in the end they might have 15 players which would be enough to hit side keeps on borderlands. So gradually grow up instead of this "discord announcement for instant 35+ people" meta where any guild sized group will just avoid upgraded objectives because they would be beat by any similarly skilled group near enemy territory. The combat balance isn't great either due to superspeed upkeep and reduced damage making any ranged burst strats obsolete. Basically current system is ran purely on commanders trying to relive their glory days and almost no new leaders are sprouting because starting small and having no existing relationships from old days to feed off is such a pain. And this leads into having less groups to work with or defend against. Yes, SM is below T2 sometimes for an hour but that means enemy will most likely still have massive group around. Imagine having such luck that you log in exactly at that hour and enemy massive blob still isn't around. WvW is dying exactly because the timeframes to have good time are so narrow, of course one can ignore the timeframes but that won't make his time any better. Another issue with this forced discord blob meta is that the moment one tags up and announces it on discord, he takes part responsibility to provide good time to those 40+ people, it isn't just "we want to play the game at the same time" anymore but more about the one man show. The weight that responsibility carries is very heavy and hard to accomplish in current meta with its mapstate distribution. Of course every player showing up on the map also shares little bit of responsibility to provide people around them good time, in their own unique way that complements their personality, and guidance as well, but most people don't understand that as they didn't publicly announce that they are doing so. So people are split doing blobbing or solo roaming, nothing relevant inbetween, outside that theres only socializing and guilds farming pugs with 0 losses on their side.

Overall they made WvW super easy by introducing fast upgrading, massive defensive combat advantages and messed up siege balance. Of course there are only mindless zerglings left in the game after 5 years. Why start use your brain if only thing left in the game is to zerg around onepushing some PvE players doing their weekly pips? All the arguments against increasing upgrade Times is "playerbase doesnt want a challenge". Duh, no1s gonna log in regularly for a challenge in a gamemode that stripped it away years ago. Example: want to snipe dollies? 1 guy can just log in minstrel and make the Dolly unkillable due to introduced 90% damage reduction. Point proven, one way of playing the game was removed for absolutely no reason, like 50% damage reduction woulda been enough. In summary people who like using brain, havocing, running in small groups and upgrading will play a game that allows them to do so, and they do log in time to time to check of the game is fixed, but with current balance they will never stick around. So having playerbase that doesnt mind bad balance doesnt mean it shouldnt be fixed. You cant expect small groups to enjoy the game first and then make balance enjoyable for them.

> @"SweetPotato.7456" said: > Delivery to EBG Keep is double the time that of tower, since the yak doesn't go directly to the keep, they has to go thru the tower , again it all boils down to strategy. The Yak has to go to keep before respawning and keeps are fed by multiple camps. So keeps actually upgrade faster unlike what you suggest.

> @"Pemberly.6305" said: > Somewhere in the distant past, folks complained that servers with 24/7 coverage had an advantage over servers that also had good numbers but only over a time zone such as NA-East. So, as I recall, and maybe I'm wrong, WvW was changed so that what happens over a single skirmish matters to the overall scores. > > Are we asking to change it back? Remember, 80% of war score is PPT. Coverage issues are not so urgent at this moment, even though relinking system is quite laughable with some combinations being full+full, and full+very high while others have easily 30% less players. New scoring system is also separate from the problem at hand and it will still be at place to halt these big PPT servers. If you ask me, relinking system should be halted (with reduced tiers) and population algorithm fixed as it causes other set of problems in lowest and highest tiers but upgrade speed and claim buff affects all tiers and is definitely more urgent to get fixed. Point of these changes would make it so that having fun with a smaller group separate from main tag, or even lacking numbers, would be more actionrich and you would have more power to make a difference. Logging in wouldn't be 90% choosing between T3 objectives and trying to frantically gather a blob to have a chance to assault one but rather more T2 and T1 objectives. This would also give people more reason to log in at off-hours even when there isn't a commander, because it wouldn't just be unstoppable blobs from enemy side. You can just observe how uninteractive T3 SM is on EB with billions of people hiding on walls with siege farming any incomings with ease every day, this happens on lesser scale at side keeps on borderlands as well.

> @"Dawdler.8521" said: > > @"Threather.9354" said: > > Support smaller groups > You know what happened yesterday, when I was tagged with my guildraid of a whooping 3 people? > > When we went to the enemy T3 spawncamp because it was an obvious target for our little group, there was already 2 on our side there capping it. > > They said "lol why are you even tagged ppt noob". > > I said "if you would have been tagged I wouldnt have went here" as my group could have gone down the other side of the border. > > They just lolled. > > Moral of the story is that this a **player issue**. And I wasnt even tagged specifically for the little raid - I tagged up because our spawntower had been taken by the enemy 10 minutes earliet, no one did *anything* about it... and we had *our* kitten catas still up on it from earlier. So I sat on one and tagged up. And I chose to stay tagged after, But apparently, that is a **big no no** if you are in a small group. > > *Players* discourage smallscale, not Anet. > *Players* are ineffective at controlling a border, not Anet. > *Players* scoff at killing dollies as something they dont have to do because someone else does it (right after they tell roamers to gtfo off the border so the zerg can scrim), not Anet. > > Whatever Anet does, it wont change players. It isn't ununsual for everything to be T3 outside south towers these days: - Even if someone wanted to run with smaller group, best they can do is flip camps because the upgrade status of objectives. - Majority never wanted to play with small groups, it would beat the purpose of it. You have less than 5 people in squad? Point is supporting people who want to play with each other or start small either by scouting or havocking. Also helps commanders build up numbers gradually without wanting to off themselves instead of relying on this instant queue mentality. - Point would be for these small groups to have more timeframes to battle over upgrading objectives instead of these objectives zooming up to tier 2 in less than hour and Tier 3 in less than 2. This would give scouts more action too because nothing is more boring than dead home bl with just a few camp flippers. - Needless to say, most people that start the gamemode or commanding at start, wanna take it easy and chill sieging some stuff with occassional fights. This is to learn the basics. But the map state virtually forces your first time commanding session to be on discord, or feeding clouds on eb, outnumbered to do much. - Yes, most people don't like the idea of eating snails, doesn't mean government should do everything to stop it. Only supporting non snail eaters (blobbers in this case) by banning snails would be a failure as running smaller is a quite a popular kink because combat is more immersive and less laggy while there being less pressure on one.

> @"archmagus.7249" said: > > @"Tiagoht.7549" said: > > Next change based on the cry of the players: removing the only feature released for wvw in the last 10 years. The warclaw > > Sure. PvE gets mounts and WvWers complain about not having a mount, and now that you have a mount you want it removed? Next you're going to say that we shouldn't have gliding. Indeed, gliding in its current form is very badly implemented due to the incombat movement speed and safety it gives compared to attackers. So following should be done to gliding: - Can't be activated in combat If that is unreasonable, then at least the speed should be cut down within combat. No more wall/high ground camping with 100% safety even if enemy is right next to your face please.

> @"Luthan.5236" said: > WSR/SFR was not that bad to fight against ... at the weekend. But now during the week they seem to have tons of players - either they have players from non-european timezones or people that don't go to work (students, etc.) to pla all the day. > > Best suggestion would be to have both of these servers without a link in the next phase. If you look at the tiers/rankins ... Desolation and Gandara are marked as "full" but without a link. And in much lower tiers. (Which means they actually would deserve a link more.) It doesn't matter, full unlinked servers won't go above tier 4 in current system. Its just depressing to play with 60% of players, commanders, scouts and guilds of any servers linked together. You have 1 weak timezone and all enemy stuff will be tier 3 in the current upgrade system, then you have to bash against them while outnumbered. Its why population should be calculated as total of activity on the linking. Its just weird having 2 full servers in rank 1 winning 90% of skirmishes linked together and 2 "supposedly even bigger servers" unlinked full in depths of lowest tiers regardless of how much they try. Current system just punishes having a fun server that enjoys WvW as it is: 24/7 gamemode with groups of various sizes, Desolation and Gandara were exactly the poster boys of that, not some overstacked linkings relying on double the numbers, roaming around sm with 40 people from noon to 3 am and instant queues as soon as some comm tags up.

To be lone wolf and feel relevant, you have to be better than enemy players either skillwise or choose the easiest spec ever. Thief id stay far away from as new player because it actually requires knowing what cast times, tells and CCs enemy classes have, else you will be CC locked and bursted by any mesmer, ranger, ele, thief or necro you meet. Something like spellbreaker, reaper or holosmith is much better because they are bursty, bulky, less prone to be CC locked, skillspammy and as long as you have reactiontime to stunbreak/cleansing sigil you will have lot of success. If you wanna have easy time starting up then stick to some boomer burn guardian/healbot no skill stuff that only kills noobs but you can't really come in the game expecting to beat better players. Do note that any smallscale skirmish that you take with your servermates is quite doomed if enemy has some minstrel supports and you have none. How to learn the game: Buttonsmash, die, figure out what skill you pressed wrong or where you mispositioned. Repeat until you don't die. Human brain and mechanics will adapt to anything that causes discomfort, such as dying, over time. But do note that your build and class has limits so improving choice of those is also important. For single player, to be most useful for the team, is to upgrade things by claiming and defending the camps while also keeping eye on any enemy group that hits your objectives. Overall, I do not find it healthy for anyone to only commit to choose only "Squad" or "squadless/partyless" playstyle because the mapstate and your own desires vary. So stick with what you want to accomplish, which most likely is upgrading and defending home borderland when starting up. Sometimes this requires joining squads and other times leaving them. And some days you just wanna take in few hours of constant EB action. 50 man squads are overrated since PoF was released (bad meta), but lot of people are lonely and take scraps.

> @"Dinas Dragonbane.2978" said: > This rune has changed little the past 8 years, funny how now it is op? Have some fun theorizing a counter at least, siege obviously would do wonders as would condi, since cleanses would prioritize players over cleansing their golems. - Condis useless against players that actually pay attention to their party menu and do cooldown management since they added resistance in game (HoT) - The rune received 2 major buffs: from being hit chance to being proced on cooldown and 125 ferocity (which all dps runes didn't get, like scholar lost 5% damage for 125 ferocity, golemancer runes got it free) - Overall nerfs to other sources of CC/damage/support and introduction of firebrand mantras and shade skills (that often hit less than 5 targets) It is just that the golem has stayed the same while every other skill got bad and the rune is actually competitive statwise even without the golem now. For example 5% damage from scholar runes for like 10 players in your squad with like 60% upkeep is nothing compared to having army of golems soaking 20% of enemy damage, hindering enemy vision and AoE ccing stuff. Lets be frank, no1 even knew the golem had 50k hp until recently.

Haha. Just this week I realised this Rune is pretty good and was gathering The dungeon tokens to test it on my staff thief. Cat is out of the bag already. Tried to create a creative guild to test these kind of things but failed so props to these guys for not just dps meter humping What people dont realise is that the 60k HP HP Golem can absorb full burst from 3 people meaning those people will hit 4 people instead of 5. And if you add The fact that all you lose is basically 5% damage scholar bonus that isnt high upkeep in fights where it matters while getting ton of CC and less mantras wasted, the golemancer runes are taking the top spot as dps runes alongside speed ones. One reducing targets Enemy hits, another increasing ones you do