When was the prime of WvW and why did you enjoy it?

[Ryudnard.2587]

For me, it was right after they laucnehd GW2, when Henge of Denravi was an unstoppable monster in NA region. I don't know where these guys came from. They were so f-ing hard to play against. I don't think it had much to do with the fairness/balance/skill/competivenss or anything, it was just that... every bordlerand was full 24/7.

[RedShark.9548]

Started playing wvw like 1 year after release, pretty much the time before hot was released, shortly before stability was changed to stacks (think that was shortly before hot).

When warerfields were blasted to heal the zerg, when you ran worker hammer sword/horn warrior. Had a blast. Now im rarely playing, my leader left due to pirateshipping being boring AF. guild falling apart, played some time in another guild. Its just not what it used to be, the bubble is popped. Its just boring overflown with dmg, you die in one mistake, explode in nit even a second.

 

The worst thing is, that i cant play any other mmo, because they ALL feel clunky compared to gw2, even games praised for fast cimbat like. Black desert online, just no, soooo slow

[Loosmaster.8263]

During the Tournament seasons. There was a purpose for winning. Also map completion, lol.

[Kylden Ar.3724]

Before HoT and the start of inexorable power creep.

[alain.1659]

For me it was before the infamous talent and condi overhaul, big patch before HoT. The builds were fun, there was a rock-paper-scissors kind of a balance. It felt fun and good. Some of it is definitely nostalgia but most of it is not.

[DanAlcedo.3281]

Pre HoT was the best.

HoT was the worst.

PoF is okish

[Klipso.8653]

Season 1 was the best time I've had in WvW

[SloRules.3560]

During focus party days, before Stability rework.

[subversiontwo.7501]

I'd say that there have been three different periods that I have enjoyed more than the others.

 

Mid and late Vanilla as well as mid HoT.

 

Early vanilla was, at least in the EU, rather barren. Guilds were small, pickups were few and maps mostly roamed on. No one really knew much of everything and even the slightest organisation made you very powerful. After a while however, guilds started to trickle in and pickups became more common. It brought about a rather fun environment where you had the first regular zergs, fighting (PvX) guilds, more dedicated WvW guilds (with budding GvG) and plenty of roamers of all sizes. That was fun because everybody could fight everybody to a higher degree. People spent less time thinking about the type of opponent they faced (2013).

 

Late vanilla was essentially the first time guild play was getting "codified" with the 25-man meta and focus parties. That was also fun, mostly because those guilds were still sizable and bridged the gap between roamers and pickups. However, it was mostly fun because it was fairly well balanced and had a very inclusive impact on classes. When guilds forgot how to run focus the leather classes lost what little recognition they had in most pickups and players just stopped learning how to play like that. When guilds still ran focus it also had a positive impact on pickups (2014/15).

 

The last bit I enjoyed was mid vanilla when the pirateships had gone and guilds were starting to break up the bunker meta that had pre-existed. This was very much for the same reason as I enjoyed the 25-man focus meta. The, then 15-man meta, that followed was actually rather inclusive in terms of classes and builds with a sizable variety and tournaments where guilds all ran different comps that later rubbed off on pickups (2016/17). All until the late HoT condi meta hit that later carried over into early PoF.

[Stand The Wall.6987]

pre stab nerf and condi stacks.

 

there were basically no op things. coordination mattered. roles were more defined. people didn't get 100-0 by some cheap rev pressing 2 skills.

[Deaeira.2651]

Roughly the year before HoT - finally the worst Mesmer bugs got squished and scepter became useful. The most memorable moment was when, after more than a year of losing every matchup, Vabbi ended up second (still remaining rock bottom for a long time and staying in T9).

[Safandula.8723]

I started to play a bit after pof was released, and blobing still sucks dick. Red carpets of doom everywhere. Roaming wise it's hard to tell. I like mounts but they surely need some tweeking, to work properly. But rn we can see much more build and class diversity, while roaming

[GDchiaScrub.3241]

When I still had Sigils of Demon Summoning. Now it's devoid of purpose since I have to use builds and items that make sense.

 

D:

[ArchonWing.9480]

The peak started in 2013 after the "You're violating my game mode" incident, causing anet to create the Obsidian Sanctum. The touranemtns led to their own problems, but it still gave off the impression that they were going to do big things with this game mode.

 

The peak ended in 2015 with the release of Heart of Thorns which basically violated the game mode. The power creep had made the formerly unnecessary Stab Nerf much worse. People had to grind pve maps for specializations that were pretty much required to fight, small guilds were destroyed with the advent of high guild hall costs and with it overpowered banners (later nerfed), watchtowers, fortified nonsense, and the most unpopular version of the Desert BL.

 

The worst part of the balance changes, namely stab and condi were made because uhh.... special types in pve wanted their builds to be buffed so they'd stop being kicked for being bad from instances. It didn't work and they still got kicked, and all we had was ruined wvw as collateral damage. This is not uncommon but in addition to everything else, made it particularly bad.

 

In addition, I felt HoT had taken away things people had and locked them as a pay feature. Guilds are the obvious thing here; people basically had to rebuild from scratch. But the most soulless, blatant example of this is the change to the waypoint system which was changed solely so they could add the emergency waypoint mechanic. WvW had more or less became abandoned, in the hopes that raids and esports pvp would be the future. And you all know what happened with that.

 

Honestly, I'd classify it as an extinction event. Many people would never return to WvW, or only play small bits at a time. For shame, really. 2016 was pretty much the Dark Age, though things would get better eventually.

[Gop.8713]

Rn. I know more and can play more classes, and I get into fewer fights that I don't want or with ppl that don't want to fight me. Even the wall def nerf has been helpful in that it shifted my focus from things I can't do like defend structures without help from team to things I can do like kill ppl :)

[HazyDaisy.4107]

Early 2013 - Fall 2014

 

If I'd known half of what know now then I'd have appreciated those times more.

 

 

[Natar.3671]

Before specialisations happened and dumbed down build diversity. When the roaming scene actually still existed, and we could go zerg busting 5v25 if played well.

 

The powercreep introduced with HoT was honestly a mistake. Heck I even remembered that Colin(? I don’t remember his name) said that elite specialisations will be a sidegrade and not a necessity for players. HoT sure showed us the truth of that statement

[Tinnel.4369]

Yesterday, ~4 pm MST. I survived a bunker condi mirage.

[gavyne.6847]

pre-stab changes for sure, things were more balanced and we even had less skills lag.

[XatraZaytrax.2601]

It was the first couple of years of the game. I belonged to a guild with very talented people and commanders, and a server of people who really cared about the game ET. We didn't roll over everything, but each encounter was planned and even as a pug you knew what everyone was doing and expected to do. I could always find a small roaming team to have adventure with -- mostly Oceanic people -- who are a lot of fun.

 

At the time I and a teammate specialized in sneaky cata, taking keeps for under the noses of our enemies while the zerg provided distractions.

 

Then there was the time near the end of my WVW golden days when all of the ET commanders tagged up one night -- which was a big deal at the time because the tags cost 100 g per character, which took forever to farm so there wasn't many commanders and the group included the daytime and nighttime shift. It took all night -- for me -- by 5 a.m. we flipped all four maps red and drove off the enemy -- who'd been creaming us for months.

 

Then there was the time me and a small group were flipping camps in EB before an update. An asura enemy with an Anet logo was running past as we went to take Speldans Clearcut. We all stopped what we were doing and ran after and killed them. Someone said that they thought we'd just killed an Anet employee -- at the time we weren't sure -- and were afraid we would be in trouble.

 

So many good memories of that time.

[Stand The Wall.6987]

> @"GDchiaScrub.3241" said:

> When I still had Sigils of Demon Summoning. Now it's devoid of purpose since I have to use builds and items that make sense.

>

> D:

 

you and your demon summoning lol.

just stahp.

[Anput.4620]

Any time before mounts.

[Bish.8627]

First 6 months of WvW, not as much meta, not as much blobs though there were zergs, fights were more spread out and the best part. People made their own builds, I ran around on a condi warrior sword and bow, or bunker with soldier stats and focussed on cc while others did the damage.

 

You saw a lot more fights that were unpredictable and fun, where sometimes even overpop groups got wiped by good players. I do enjoy WvW still now, but the whole invinci blob mechanic is kinda boring, just favours massive overpop servers.

[Hitman.5829]

Before HoT and before the change to traits was implemented. I remember those fight that could last for minutes instead of seconds.

I also remember that you could come up with so many different builds and choose the traits that you wanted instead of being forced to pick 3 trait lines.

 

Whoever came up with the trait change thing must be the most hated dev in GW2.

If you think about it, the game is declining instead of progressing. Nowadays you can only play with 3 trait lines instead of using all 5 to experiment more builds!

[Spartacus.3192]

Before HOT definitely and to be precise before the June 2015 trait system overhaul which started the trend of removing build diversity and catering even more to casuals.

 

Im with you 100% @"Hitman.5829"

 

what was great pre June 2015 was you could pick 2 master traits if you didnt like any of the GM traits, or 2 master adept traits if you didnt like the master ones in each trait line. The build diversity was awesome.