Dinas Dragonbane.2978

Is this large or small scale? In large scale figts downs barely seem to matter as 85% of the time those are dead in the repeated aoe on top of them. In small you have to play smarter but securing stomps or cleaving well makes way more difference there.

The game has added in more ways to kill people with each expansion, downstate has stayed relatively the same since 2012, if you are still having problems against stationary targets(except ele mesmers and thieves, and underwater but wait all wvw players suffer there) that have 4 skills available to them, no advice on these forums is likely to assist you, call for that deletion.

> @"SypherZent.3684" said:

> This seems like a punishment for a new player.

It is a punishment for a transferring player. Just part of the system as you said you understand, sorry there is no new player get out of jail free card to play here, but your first transfer was free at least, that is the bonus to being new.

Hammer with shouts, as they changed our shouts to commands some time ago. Shouts should be based around an effect around the ranger and a second(likely different) effect around the pet, making pet survivability and cohesion with your pet be a focus to maximize support/damage/whatever.

Must be wary of nerfing core ranger weapons.

On the pet note i must say they are nearly all due for an overhaul. Smokescale has seen multiple nerfs but is still a top tier pet. Close to 90 percent of pets go unused because their skillsets are from 2012(at the least). It is no wonder people wanted a way for rangers to drop the pet.

Platinum for me, am platinum rank, lead a relatively smallish casual havoc guild three nights for about 2-3 hours each night. We always go for enemy borderlands and attempt to get outnumbered and keep it as long as possible

Just wait until the expansion pack where we can get the bunny thumper ranger. It will likely be line it was in gw2, so it will run a pet based hammer(pet gains boons or special effects if attack hits and pet is alive). Since ranger shouts became commands they will get pet combination shouts, such as remove 1 condition around the ranger and another around the pet, or allies around ranger gain protection, around the pet gain 10 might.

 

However give. This would be a good large scale spec based on pets being alive in large scale battles...we will see(that is if this is what they go for even).

> @"Cyninja.2954" said:

> > @"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.

>

> Right, which part of the changes in the wiki did you exactly miss?

None

 

Your claim that the rune changed little in 8 years is strait up false (with the essential change that makes the golem spawn guaranteed on fight engage being a major change).

 

It changed little in 8 years. I never found it hard to get attacked in wvw by one or more people and that has stayed constant for 8 years.

> @"Threather.9354" said:

> > @"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.

 

Golems aren't players, golems don't show up on party menus.

Those buffs were so major it took years to figure out?

Skills got nerfed yes, that is nothing out of the ordinary. We should probably just keep nerfing things until there is nothing out of the ordinary.

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.

> @"Justine.6351" said:

> You are right, it is rarer nowadays in other camps. While the npcs havnt changed, you know what has? The players.

Hi, we are still talking about NPCs, not players. We are talking about apples and you keep bringing up oranges. Time to convert this to be about it all in general. Npc strength and behavior is under par, and average player behavior is also under par. For those concerned with defending camps, the guards put up barely more effort than 99% of the population at actually defending them. For those concerned with attacking your behavior must exceed the npc intelligence, plus those defenders trying to watch the map. It is not very hard to tip the scales in the favor of attackers or defenders. The use of traps is nearly always overlooked to help defenders, but the real problem is usually the apathy people have...because it is just a camp. If camps were a little more important in the short term would that change opinions?

Is there a way to adjust npc guards to help smarter play on both sides? Maybe the quartermaster can have an ability or interrupt able skill for a short range marked where you either kill it fast or must interrupt it to stay unseen. Just ideas to improve all produce since just talking about apples is not for everybody

> @"Justine.6351" said:

 

> You have never come across people putting golems and ballista in camps to defend? Or people laying mark traps in chokes? Or having a flood of people exit citadel to defend north camp? Must not roam much.

 

Hi, we are talking about npc guards, which are at every camp. Camps where people build golems are a rarity, but are usually seen at that same north camp that gets flooded with defenders.

 

> @"SpellOfIniquity.1780" said:

> If you don't care enough to scout objectives, you don't care enough to keep them.

I am kind of leaning more towards it's too easy for me to take an objective. Ironically enough the only times I really care about defending objectives are the se and sw camp of borderlands, trying to upgrade the nearby tower while sieging the nearby keep, only because we are in the area. Anything else is never worth the time attempting to guard because they fall so easily, so don't bother upgrading even when those guild upgrades can be free from skirmish chests.

 

But in any case your comment still applies, 90% of the time I don't care enough to keep them, and it seems nearly every enemy server never seems to care enough to keep them because it's too easy to sneak nearby and flip it before they can react, hence my argument. I don't want them doing too much but they barely do ANYTHING currently, but again that's just my opinion(of the last 7 years, the first year they were fine).

This is a very interesting post, thank you for spending the time! They should sticky this as it is a fairly short summary of the big WvW changes that have happened over the last few years.

> @"subversiontwo.7501" said:

 

> Links were meant to be a temporary fix, not a permanent fixture. They were added because Anet noticed that the low tier servers were dying while they were working on ... drum roll ... Alliances.

After links had been out about 6 months they were already seeing the flaws in that system, flaws which would carry over into their alliance system they were working on. The fact that some of the largest servers had multiple large guilds willing to underperform near the end of a link in order to raise their chances of getting a link or a better one put a huge roadblock to making alliances balanced, which was the ENTIRE POINT of alliances. How do you counter balance a choice that many players willingly play less or not at all in order to achieve a stronger link for the next matchup? How about those players not playing their main accounts but alt accounts which are very easy to obtain nowadays on a different server during this period, artificially buffing that server's population and weakening their chances for a better link next matchup? How do you counter balance mass transfers to link servers? Would they find a way to make winning matter somewhat, or a way to not have servers intentionally get 3rd to drop a tier or 2nd to stay in a certain tier?

All of these questions were things alliances were supposed to combat and at least contain, in order for there to be better server balance. Links seemed to become a permanent feature when they realized they had no idea how to make alliances that could even begin to reign in some of these situations players would willingly create in order for some sort of advantage.

 

> Desert Borderland? The problem with Desert Borderland is not that it is a new map. The problem is that it is a bad map. The map is bad because it was likely designed by designers who did not play WvW and did not understand the fundamental gameplay of WvW. The same goes for EotM by the way. There is absolutely nothing wrong with EotM the alternative mode, with colors, the overflow map idea or whatever else. The problem with EotM is that it is a bad map for WvW gameplay. It's not particularily difficult to make a good map for WvW gameplay. All they have to do is look at EBG and shift some objectives and textures around. There is absolutely no reason to try to reinvent the wheel when you sit on a working recipe and then be all befuddled about it.

Now here we go! Desert is my favorite map, because of all the options it has compared to both EBG and Alpine(I am not going to bother talking about EotM at all). Desert created more speedbumps for all players, zerg down to solo. Towers and Keeps actually helped control a larger area especially on its release, but there were multiple options of getting through, around, or even over like the fire keep. The initial extra walls were meant to help towers actually control a pass, similar to where somebody would build an actual tower. Don't have the manpower to smash it down or capture it? Go around! Of course players that hated that fact voiced their anger, makes total sense. Unfortunately they were filled with all the rage of a political debate. I like Alpine, and EBG is a very good map, but my opinion there are not enough options because of the close proximity of everything. Much like they add specializations, weapons, and utilities to classes with expansions, if I were to compare maps to something like ranger, I would probably have to say alpine would be a bearbow, ebg a celestial core ranger, but desert is a hybrid soulbeast. That's how I feel with my maps, but at least half the population that speak about WvW on the forums do not feel the same way.

 

> What's next, reward tracks? The changes to rewards have been universally appreciated by the WvW playerbase. That people complain about rewards only has to do with how much more time consuming and less protiftable it is compared to the reward systems of other modes. You say that were are unthankful and unhappy, but why should we settle for less? Why should we settle for so much less? It's not like the other modes are only twice as good. It is far more than that. Imagine how easy gold transfers would be if we were also making 30g/hr or how easy it would be to kit a fresh character if our crafting resources dropped at a pace of 2-3 hours for an ascended weapon.

We are in the best position we have ever been. If you only WvW the reward tracks give you pretty much all you need unless you are playing 10 games at once and MUST MAX EVERYTHING ASAP. If people could make 30 gold an hour in WvW, what would that actually do? How would the game change?

 

> If I, you or anyone else would go in, make a halfhearted attempt at something and then give up - it is most likely that our boss would step in and suggest that we never gave it a proper try. You get spit if you deserve it, whether that is a bad post or bad a job done. I don't get praise at my work if I do a bad job.

I totally agree with this here, but even their top people don't seem to know what to do with WvW. If you have ever worked in a job where you deal with customers, we as the WvW playerbase have reached that point where we are THAT customer. You know, the one who comes in mad with something they got last time because it didn't work or was spoiled or blah blah blah...which is exactly like the time they came in before that, and before that, and before that. Yeah they still deal with us because we're customers and that's their job, but we kind of get the minimal service compared to the customers that come in and are actually a pleasure to deal with.

 

> Ed., since I'm a nice guy [here are references to everything I mention](https://imgur.com/a/6qKw6mu) (2015 reddit AMA with Colin, 2016 reddit AMA with Mike etc.).

>

> Even this: Look at what people are saying even four years ago, people like Intigo from RG who since long have quit this game and his guild turning to myth, it's the same stuff [people say today](

). [This meme from this week]( ) is almost identical to the concern raised in the first link, which was from november 2012.

>

Thank you for being a nice guy! :) In my opinion, WvW has been the best part the game has to offer, which is amazing considering how much time the devs have put into it since release. I personally want things to improve as do we all, but the WvW community's wants rarely intersect. A post comes up and then that post turns into a multi sided argument just like WvW is(as if that's the only way we know how to handle things, HA!). Overall we ALL want the mode to get some love, more love....even if some of it is bad love I would take it in hopes there is some good in there, my point earlier was we as the community just shoot it all down.

> @"Justine.6351" said:

 

> Uh yeah that's kind of our point. It takes experience to counter roam but not a lot to be effective and knowing who is going where. David is certainly someone with much experience and understands our angle on it.

Was it not clear that I feel they are too weak? I like his idea of being able to iron guards camps again, because as I was saying they die too easily, and as I was corrected

by KrHome the actual circle defends the camp better than the guards do. Yes the circle defends the camp better than the guards just because it takes more time to cap it solo than it does to kill all the guards. I have never thought of it that way until now but it seems strange.

 

> @"Justine.6351" said:

> I disagree david.

> Maybe their skill set could be improved but beyond that they serve their function in today's game. To flag a camp so that nearby defenders have a chance to respond. Not for people from garrison to run all the way to south camp to defend. With "marked" being available as a counter roaming tool it's just not appropriate at this point.

 

They are totally worthless nowadays, it's easy to capture a camp within the 30 second window BEFORE it even gets flagged on the map. They used to be speedbumps but pc's are MUCH more powerful nowadays, even on some tank builds. The only players that have a chance to respond are any heading there to begin with or if it's a non 80 player trying to take the camp.

Whoops I forgot mounts, and gliding...but that doesn't really change any part of my post, HA! God that makes it even worse.

> @"Yolaus Kriff.3465" said:

> I really hoped for some tidbit of info during the anniversary stream to give me hope. Nothing. Why can't any dev even throw us a bone?

Any bone they throw at us(the wvw community) is quickly devoured because we are like a pack of hungry dogs, and then we want more and turn on them when they don't have any other bones. What was the last big thing they did for us...links right? How many people complain about that now? The thing before that...reward tracks and pips. Aren't there people constantly posting about making those better because they "suck"? Okay then let's go farther back....the desert borderland. The thing they actually spent lots of time on packaged with HoT and guess what, a lot of the community bitched to high hell saying it needed to be deleted. Why would they make ANYTHING for us at this point? Lots of the WvW community have repeatedly spit on what they have done for us(or even tried to do)so I don't think they want to touch WvW at all and cannot REALLY be blamed for it at this point.

 

> @"Flee.5602" said:

> > @"Blocki.4931" said:

> > Game isn't built for that. I don't think it will work out quite like you imagine it if they slapped another system on top of it.

>

> I can't think of any trouble.

 

More lag most likely, just try to imagine the server doing MORE during a big zerg battle.

> @"Len.1879" said:

> > @"Zawn.9647" said:

> > > @"Len.1879" said:

> > > Boons are an integral part of the game. Especially while conditions as their counterpart are still in play, this suggestion makes relatively little sense. We already have huge problems with stability when the guards are not on their toes. You can expect WvW to be a giant pinball machine when stability is deactivated altogether. No, thanks.

> >

> > As downstate is and yet there's a no downstate week every now and then.

> > It's not like the OP is asking to remove boons from the game. 1 week won't kill you, I promise. You would be ok

>

> I don't think you understood what I said. Without stability literally every CC will bounce whole groups around the area. Necros with spectral ring would have some fun, for sure, but for everyone else that would be a terrible time. It's at the same level at "let everyone have just 1 HP for a weekend, come on, it will be fun!".

 

Welcome to what happens when your havoc group gets caught, it is nothing new.

Don't worry though, it will be the week of the stunbreak meta!

Give reason for condi builds to use other stats, like precision. On crit sigils are so so, but the condi on crit traits got nerfed in the last big balance. If condis got nerfed some more but gained more potential condi application on crit...you might see a change. This was how I ran a condi necro in early 2013 before dire- carrion armor, giver weapons, rapid jewelry(crucial for at least 35% crit chance). Which was all to proc sigils and the bleed on crit trait.

Sheesh just take out stats from gear completely, but keep the ability to have one stacking sigil. Which stat do you want? Hehe

> @"XenesisII.1540" said:

> Meh I think linking actually delayed some of the problems, of course it came with it's own set of problems, but I feel like at that point there was no choice.

 

But it did come with WvW reward tracks! Unfortunately with that at release of links you couldn't fully tell how much activity linking brought as the reward tracks gave it a false boost of population for a while.

 

 

> We also had the desert borderland come out, which did damage on different fronts. That map drove players out of wvw, and even to this day has a hard time getting players to defend it like they would an alpine map. It's a terrible map to defend and a lot of the community relations tend to come from players working together in defending, whether that be scouts alerting players(automated with watch towers), or upgrading structures(again automated), or getting commanders or guilds to help come defend against big threats, smaller guilds that helped in those purposes also started to die off.

 

When WvW was desert only it also had none of the reward tracks mentioned above, and if you wanted guild hall upgrades you HAD to go to pve or even pvp to get them, plus WvW players are lazy and don't like to learn tricky maps.

 

 

> There's no pride in defending or winning, winning means nothing, defending a paper tower means nothing, defending a t3 structure means nothing, winning a match means nothing, getting out of a tier means nothing, getting to be the tippity top server in ranks means nothing, the prestige for any of that stuff clubbered to death by coverage. Something falls, you back cap it in 5 mins and move on, and the dedicated defenders efforts of 2 hours wasted in a span of a couple mins. Just today I watched a t3 tower fall because the commander was busy taking a camp on the other side of the map, we didn't have as much as the attackers but no real effort was made to defend. These are the bonds that use to tie players together for a purpose in wvw.

 

So much this, my guild would always try and be in an enemy borderland causing trouble, but if there was real help needed at home we would go because I knew the players there putting in SO much time and gold to upgrade our home borderland.

 

> The communities have always had the potential to grow before and after links, the problem is whether or not the players actually want to bother, but the fact of the matter is a lot of them don't anymore.

 

Again too true, where people would hit a wall moving up server tiers in the old days and could only get stronger through server organization(which with more organization brought more players to the server). Now which is easier, server organization or transferring to a cheap link? The fact that large guilds do this sometimes regularly should be a big warning.

 

Overall very nice post...I love it all except for the desert comments, I enjoy the map for everything it used to be, and still today even though it's only a shell of its original self.

 

 

Waypoints should only be usable if

1. You are currently invulnerable (at your spawn, waypointing to another map)

2. You are dead.

3. It is an emergency waypoint.

 

That said I feel like keeps shouldn't have perma waypoints especially since we have mounts. If you go deep into enemy territory you should be willing to fight for your life and not map out at the first sign of competition. This is all just my personal opinion though.

> @"ArchonWing.9480" said:

> > @"Dawdler.8521" said:

> > > @"SpellOfIniquity.1780" said:

> > > Personally, I hate when roamers have healers with them. I feel like a big part of roaming is taking risks and looking for tough fights. When you have a healer you can be a lot more careless, especially if you're not often engaging in outnumbered fights, you can just rely on your healer carrying you through everything. But that's just my perspective and it doesn't mean it's bad/wrong to roam with a healer, the same as it's not "not roaming" to be in a group.

> > I dont really see what "taking risks" and "looking for tough fights" have to with anything.

> >

> > Which of course bring up interesting questions that also relate to this percieved definition of roaming and small groups:

> >

> > If 2 roaming players engaging in combat is literally the foundation of PvP, why is sPvP still allowed to be called PvP when its 5v5?

> >

> > Am I still a PvPer if I engage in a 5v5 in WvW?

> >

> > When is it no longer PvP? 6v6+?

> >

> > Or is it still PvP with 25v25, or 50v50?

>

> I would compare it to poker. If someone only plays when they have aces, then nobody will give them any action, because that's hardly any fun. Usually a player that is known to take more risks is going to invite more action.

>

> To get back to WvW, sometimes my friends invite me to their party. The thing is that they run all deadeyes and literally nobody wants to fight that and I don't really blame them either. That creates some issues where there is no action.

>

> It's the same reason if a group only runs as a map queue, that people aren't going to bother fighting them at all unless they also have a map queue.

>

 

Quite possibly the best post in the WvW forums that also applies to multiple areas that WvW has problems with: transfers, tanking, blobs, guild comps, class representation, normal classes that roam, what a gold mine