Garfried.7295

All of this kind of depends on how OP defines competitive WvW. If you mean competitve fights, EU is more suited. There is a more active GvG scene, and servers tend to divide into fighting servers and ppt servers. If ppt is your game, then NA seems to be better for OP.

That beetle/griffon race idea is really something i would love to see in game. Being able to host time trial competitions for our beetle racing guild would be so amazing!

Many of these comments adress the feeling that a 10man big shade will make scourge stronger. I agree, but I miss discussion about how this idea came around.

The devs decided to try and nerf it by making you make a choice with placing shades. Either you place shade in range, which will deny you acess to cleanse and barrier, but you gain a ton of offense potential. Or you self cast which will give you all the effects but around yourself. Here is why that is not an actual tradeoff.

Typically, wvw builds are made with giving a class a niche role that allows the player to focus on peforming that role as optimal as possible. For scrapper it is cleansing and healing, for revenant it is high impact ranged damage and passive boon generation etc. For scourge, it is boon corruption and spike damage. Making a change that makes it easier for the scourge to perform that role will be a buff, no matter what tradeoff there is. The lack of barrier amd cleanse can easily be compensated by the classes that are supposed to focus on this (guard, scrapper, tempest). If you want to make a tradeoff for scourge, make the tradeoff focus on different applications of the scourges offensive roles. E.g., you could make sand savant decrease the dmg output of shade skills (when used in range). Or make it corrupt less. This is the direction that should be considered by the balance team.

> @"Excellent Name.9574" said:

> Due to the game design any sort of balanced class viability is a pipe dream, that is something Anet will never be able to get right. Unfortunately this invokes the creation of the so called Meta builds, not just in WvW but in any co-op game type like PvP, Raids, Fractals...

>

> What "commanders" in WvW do not get is that people cherish their freedom and the right to choose whatever they want to play and no ammount of bullying into Meta build will change that.

>

> The shining example of that approach's downfall is Vabbi. Vabbi comms have been warned by players during the last 1.5 years that "exclusivity" won't work and will backfire sooner or later. I won't name any names but few commanders over there were so thickheaded they could not see it coming if it hit them full frontal...and here we are Vabbi is almost dead WvW wise, players just can't stand playing under those terms and with those kind of people. The sooner the elitists get this the sonner will WvW get better.

Vabbi was killed because of several factors, but the elitist attitude was not one of them. In fact, the elitist attitude was what made vabbi one of the biggest success stories in history of wvw.

The idea was simple: many veteran commanders and players were sick and tired of carrying players that dont want to take a little bit of effort and research good builds or join voice comms. Over the years, on every server the ratio between fighters and casuals shifted more towards casuals, and many fight oriented commanders quit because its annoying to tag for people that dont want to put in some effort in, themselves. Vabbi had always been the laughing stock of eu wvw and people joked about starting project vabbi for years, organizing a mass transfer to create a new server. But after the fighting community of piken collapsed, this was turned into reality.

After the initial success of vabbi, many players came to vabbi. Many adhered to its core values; which was to show that you want to contribute to the fighting effort by bringing a viable build and join voice comms. Some, however, came to get carried all over again.

Then a point was reached where so many people left the old main servers that the old servers themselves became linked. For 4 months, vabbi was linked to fsp, which had become a server filled with casual players since all of their fighting community was gone. This defeats the purpose of making a separate server to get away from the casual players. This, combined with many players bandwagoning to the rising WSR, and some drama between some members of vabbi, was what killed the server.

This should not detract from the fact that vabbi was the dominant fighting server for well over a year, because it was made and sustained by players who shared common goals and values. Saying that an elitist attitude is what killed vabbi is a misunderstanding, its what made it succesful in the first place.

> @"Naxos.2503" said:

> > @"Garfried.7295" said:

> > > @"Naxos.2503" said:

> > > Indeed, and that is why I dont join the squad. I'm an add, and that's good enough for me. I've rarely gotten shot down by defending a gate with my flamethrower. Knowing the effective distance is generally good enough. Mortar arcs, which makes it difficult to counter when you defend a wall, since there arent many weapons that can target Upward with a bell projectile.

> > >

> > > Again : Not saying I'm the best WvW player there is, I'm saying I get kills, I successfully defend and I've won 1v1 engagements, as well as several group engagements (that I obviously dont say I won, my build doesn't get much from groups, nor they from me aside from poison, chilled and CC).

> > >

> > > The way you seem to describe is that everyone needs to roll with the exact same builds and exact same skills, to achieve maximum efficiency. That's predictible. And more to the point, this changes every time there is a new balance patch. My build is stable, it hasn't changed since Path of Fire (for holo skills) and since Heart of Thorns (for most of the other engineer skills). I can rely on it to stay the same.

> > >

> > > I'm not denying that support is how zergs battles are fought and won. I'm Simply saying I dont Need to conform to meta level of efficiency to get results. I would fare far much worse if I tried to be Something that runs counter to my instincts as a player, either going for a scourge condi that I cannot play well, or for a power holo that I probably could, but find dull. I find enjoyment in playing a condi holo and that means I get creative and fight with more zeal. You probably think that's malarkey and not quantifyable, and that's fair enough. You do you. I do me. I get results either way, otherwise I wouldn't progress in WvW. I've been increasing my WvW experience steadily since I started using my build, when I would otherwise not touch it.

> > >

> > > For that matter, I also use a reaper minionmaster build and generally get solid results with it when roaming. That's another thing neither of you mentionned : It isn't all about zergs. There are other roles one can fulfill that doesn't require a ton of players, and the build changes in that case. I only follow zergs when I've held an objective and the other zerg is fighting to defend their objective. Thus there is very little for me to defend against. People need to think outside of the box more.

> >

> > So your build doesnt have to be changed after a balance patch because it was useless before the patch and after the patch. I fail to see the logic behind playing such a build at all.

> >

> > You're ok with being add, because you still get kills from tagging enemies in the fight. To me, this is again a euphemism for leeching. Stop rationalizing your build and admit that your playstyle is effectively leeching. If you are ok with that, so be it, i cant change that about you. But i don't want to play with people who think this way.

> >

>

> It would be leeching if I couldn't get kills on my own, which I can, thank you very much.

No you can't.

> My build is not touched by balance patches because it's balanced. Nuance. Metas purposefully exploit imbalances to achieve results not expected by developpers. That's what Meta is.

>

Meta is based on synergies between classes that have been balanced specifically to have this purpose. How is aoe stability, provided by firebrand, to facilitate pushing an exploit?

> @"Naxos.2503" said:

> Raid argument, and insulting to boot. Neat !

>

> I can defend a gate on my own against rams, I can snipe stuff on the Walls and layer them with condis, I can face off against non-constant-evade/invulnerability. My mortar can strike at zergs well beyond their range. I'm running a viper gear kitted specifically for condi. There isn't a single skill in my setup that Doesn't give condi at long range and in a large cluster of players. I have access to several CC skills that deals Condi ontop. I fail to see where you derive how I'm not efficient, considering you havent seen me in action, Simply because I mention "Non-meta".

>

> That gentlemen, is toxicity : Calling out Something based on mere mentions, without even seeing how it's being used. I'll not say you're ignorant as you says I am though, I prefer to say you Simply haven't seen how I play, and thus you cannot judge.

>

> Are there more efficient ways I could play ? Doubtlessly. Do I want to ? No. Lack of variety is the death of fun. WvW is tactical, you want to be tactically flexible, which means throwing "Non-Meta" builds that yield results into the mix is what tip the scales in many engagements. Meta builds are made in comparison to each other more often than they're not. Long distance condi is overlooked, Far Far Far too much.

>

> Mortar poison and ice in the middle of a zerg just before an engagement is one quick way to help your own zerg, by cutting their ability to heal, and Breaking up their zergs in various directions. Flamethrower is exellent at defending gates. Mortar in general can keep players off of Walls, Grenades are good in closed space. All of these deal condis, all of these I can use with a flexible rotation. I've given Thoughts about how I use my skills. Which is unlike many who Simply follow what's written on a page, and half understand what they're using or when they're supposed to use it. Accept that there is a place for "Non-meta" or not, I dont care. I keep on trucking, and unlike many WvWers, I actually defend what is taken. I'm not one of those who Simply follow for easy points and loot. I've successfully fended off a zerg on Redbriar with only 3 people against 20 for 8 minutes, long enough for our zerg to come, because again : that is how WvW is meant to be played.

>

> If that makes me ignorant, then Indeed, Ignorance is bliss.

You once again demonstrate that you dont know anything about what makes wvw build useful. Clearing rams through a gate? You will get yoirselves killed to aoes placed on the gate. Shooting things on a wall? If the enemy is on a wall they are not strong enough to fight you anyway. Last time i checked, "tactical flexibility" is a euphemism for not effective enough.

There are times when it is absolutely necessary to fight and wipe the enemy server. Wvw builds are tailored to do this. Whether it is roamer builds to fight other roamers or zerg builds to fight other zergs. Your build does nothing to this effect. Poison and condi in range is instacleansed, meaning your whole build can be countered by one scrapper pressing a low cooldown cleanse skill. Grenades are reflected.

You say youve given thought to how you apply your rotation, but your thinking only serves as a way to justify playing an ineffective build. Think about what makes large scale fights run the way they do. Pushing power derives from support classes sustain a forward push. Ranged pressure comes from ranged classes with high impact power damage to oneshot targets. Necros provide corrupts to remove stability and protection so the damage applies and amplifies. These things all work together; approach, corrupt and kill. Your build just kind of floats around that, without doing anything that coordinates with what the rest of the squad does.

> @"nthmetal.9652" said:

> > With the mentality of everyone should be able to join any squad you are basicly the guy that wasn’t invited to a party that shows up anyway without a gift but still expects free drinks and snacks.

>

> With one exception: If I was kicked from the squad, it means I was in the squad. It likely means it was open. So I basically was invited. Only then to be told GTFO.

> If a squad was open, have an open mentality. You don't want that, create an invite-only squad. No need to kick people, no need for drama.

>

>

You tell me i have no right to demand people to play a certain build, but at the same time you tell me how i should control my squad when i command. You don't get to have your cake and eat it too, don't tell me how to play the game. If i command a squad i also have a say who gets in and who gets kicked.


I grinded my behind off to get a sub 44 time, yet im still not rank one? Can arenanet please add a real leaderboard on which i can see the entire top 10, so i know what time i have to beat? Or can a dev tell me what currently the fastest time is on the EU server? Thanks!

Just want to say that while the track is difficult, if you get the hang of it its actually quite fun to race it. The entire track can be done at high speed and its fun to keep on improving your time. The thing with an easy track is that its not that hard to get a perfect time, whereas here it forms a real challenge. With practice, you can even hit sub 45s.


While i think its a fun track, that doesnt mean that i think its a bit of a shame that it is doesnt seem like the map was really designed to fit a race track into it. Nevertheless, i think for a first try its not so bad, but i hope that we will see dedicated maps with tracks with future festivals (wintersday?)

My last issue: on the leaderboard you can only see your friends time, but i would also like a top10 or top20 leaderboard. Currently, if you are rank 2 but you dont have rank 1 in your friends list, you dont know what time you have to beat. Also, a reward for getting the fastest time should be that you can show it off a bit ;)

Glad that the right decision was been made, and good to see that arenanet highly values their partners, content creators and customers.

I'm one of those what you call "build nazı's" on Vabbi. No matter how well you think your build is thought out, in reality it is very bad. There are many veteran players on Vabbi that are able to understand figthing meta and understand the difference between a build that feels useful and a build that is useful. Currently the large scale fighting meta builds are very well discussed and defined.

Part of the reason why vabbi is strong in open field fights is because many of our players accept this and try to contribute to the best of their ability by playing the meta builds and making sure the squad composition is well-balanced in this regard. As such, most Vabbi commanders consider people that insist on playing off-meta builds as toxic influences that don't want to contribute to the fighting ability of the zerg or the community. As a result they don't accept them in their squads. If you really want to play your build instead of contribute to the best of your ability, you are free to do so outside of it.

Many things already have been said, both in favor of the new system as well as arguments against it. A big concern for some is that existing communities will be lost and that casual or newer players will be alienated from the more hardcore playerbase.

To counter this, i would say that especially for these people, there will be many new opportunities. A large pvx guild with players spread over all servers can now enter as one larger group, which has been a wish from many of these guilds for a long time. New players are incentivized to join newbie-friendly guilds that have more experienced leadership that can show them the way. Where older communities once were, new ones will grow.

To me, the most important thing is that in the end, people want something to fight for. With a more balanced matchmaking, maybe we can see some of that competitiveness that was in this gamemode return.