Constructive Feedback Regarding The Current State of WvW

As we move closer and closer towards the implementation of alliances, I wanted to take a minute and compile a list of things in WvW that could be improved upon or changed, in a constructive manner. This list will include things such as the current fight meta of WvW, scoring, and structural upgrading/defense, mostly focusing on topics the majority of players can agree upon, with some of my opinion mixed in as well. Big boy wall of text inc.

• BalanceBalance is an integral part of WvW, from the smallest of roamers to the largest of mapblobs. Even if you ppt all day you will eventually have to fight whoever is attacking or defending. Even though balance isn't the responsibility of the WvW team, it should in my opinion take precedence over other matters. Even with the slow burn of players in WvW, you still have groups logging in everyday because they enjoy the combat, they love the combat system of gw2, and no other game out right now really does it like guild wars does. Unfortunately Path of Fire brought with it several specs that are just unhealthy for the game mode from a design standpoint. It's very doubtful that these classes' problems can be fixed by a simple numbers tweak, and it seems they'd need a redesign on some of their core mechanics. I know something like this probably isn't feasible in interest of keeping the classes feel the same between PvE, PvP, and WvW, but it'd go a long way towards making the game mode feel more balanced. I appreciate the work Raymond has done to keep WvW going, but balance is such an important part of the mode, and a larger focus on it from Anet would be appreciated so much by all players.

1. ScourgeMuch of the current meta's problems can honestly be attributed to scourge. Having a class that does 10 target cap on a large portion of it's damaging attacks makes it near impossible to push any competent group. The high amount of corrupts it can provides is unnerving, especially with the scepter buff several months ago driving even power necros to take up curses for the added boon rip. It's high area denial and boonrip potential has been universally agreed upon to be unfun to fight in many capacities. I propose at the very least another look towards devouring darkness, and it's boonrip potential, and a suggestion that may not be feasible but would be much appreciated would be the removal of the PBAoE shade around the scourge. It feels bad whether you're roaming or zerging to be punished so strongly for pushing your enemy, and is a big contributor to the pirateshipesque meta we've had since PoF dropped. I'm sure others have even more suggestions to lessen the power of easily the most popular zerg class in the game, but if scourge is adjusted its counterpart firebrand would need to be touched as well.

2. FirebrandFirebrand isn't necessarily a problem right now, and in fact is the only real counter to the obscene amounts of boonrip and damage scourges can put out, with it's 10 target stab and high master of all trades support output. But the fates of scourge and firebrand are tightly intertwined, and if one is to be touched so must the other. As it stands now since the changes to boon mesmer and superspeed nerfs engineer experienced, firebrand has become really the only support you need in a group. Look at any other support and think "what if this was a firebrand instead?" and you'd find that a firebrand would be the better choice in nearly every situation. Sure you may want a condiclear/immobilize tempest, or a superspeed purity of purpose holo, but neither of the 2 classes come anywhere near to the versatility firebrand provides. The combination of an instantaneous rez, extremely high healing effectiveness, high stab uptime, the only real provider of large scale aegis, and serviceable cc makes it a little too powerful, especially if scourge was to be nerfed. If scourge is to nerfed firebrand would have to closely follow behind. Keeping its strong points of MI res, high stab uptime, and oodles of healing effectivness and aegis would be a good thing for the class, but the sheer amount of boons such as regen and prot that it can output, as well as its strong condi clear in resolve would need to be looked at if scourge's corrupts were to be looked at. No one wants to return to the melee ball neverending fights meta of HoT, but a good medium between it and the hard ranged gameplay of today would be much appreciated.

3. RevenantRevenant is surprisingly in a good spot, which is something I didn't really expect. But if the other 2 juggernauts of WvW are to be nerfed revenant would need some sort of adjustment as well. In my opinion the damage of rev is in a good spot right now, where the problem lies is in how fast and easy the damage comes out. Even scourge has to wait 15 or 20 seconds before they can shade spike again, while revenant's high damaging abilites have extremely low cooldowns. A look at phase smash and Coalescence of Ruin's cooldowns may be in order, But if scourge and firebrand get adjusted many of the oppressing issues rev has today may not be a problem if groups are able to simply push through the damage towards the stack. It would have to be something that is closely looked at after scourge and firebrands' effectiveness are looked at.

4. Mirage, Soulbeast, Deadeye, and RoamingMost of the issues with large scale combat right now are attributed to the sheer dominance of the above 3 classes, so here I will go into the roaming side of things, and how these 3 classes have hurt the viability and fun of roaming for many people. Many of the ideas here will be my own more than overarching ideas most WvWers can agree with. I included them all in the same section because I believe they all suffer from the same issues, design that hasn't necessarily taken WvW into account. Mirage and it's ability to break stun/dodge while stunned, high mobility, the power of infinite horizon, and it's extremely high and constant condi pressure makes it an honest to god chore to fight whenever you encounter one. It's simply not fun at all to battle, as most of the fight you'll be watching your UI to find the exact moment you need to strike due to the high amounts of visual noise mirage gives out. Mirage cloak needs to be looked at, possibly a reduction in its duration from 1s to .75 or even .5s, and ICD on infinite horizon, a reduction in the sword ambush leaps distance or a cooldown on ambush skills in general would take great leaps towards making the class more enjoyable to battle, while keeping it's strengths.Soulbeast simply just does too much damage, for the EXTREMELY high amounts of sustain and mobility it has. The ability to cover 2400 range extremely quick with sword and the owl pet, 33% reduction to both condi and power damage from dolyak stance, sic ems insane 40% damage modifier, and extremely high access to protection and stability makes it even more draining to fight than mirage sometimes. We've all been sniped by a soulbeast or two, instantly dropping from 100-0 in a matter of seconds with little to no counterplay. The addition of soulbeast has seriously hurt many people's enjoyments of roaming, as it simply has too many rewards for very little amounts of risk. A higher cooldown or range decrease on owl pet's beast ability swoop, the removal of the 33% damage reduction from dolyak stance, a look at it's obscene amounts of protection available from Companion's defense and moa stance, and a drastic reduction or removal of sicem's damage modifier applied to the player would let the class retain it's high damage from range without making it obscene, while also making sure it isn't an unkillable melee juggernaut.Deadeye has been touched upon many times, and I feel Anet's really close to making it a strong but balanced class. I urge anet to look at both core and daredevil thieves with the same enthusiasm they looked towards deadeye while they were reworking it. However deadeye still suffers from the issues that both soulbeast and mirage do, that issue being extremely high reward for very little risk. Being able to remove reveal on demand, an extremely easy access to immobilize, and the ability to stealth on dodge makes it irritating to fight, even if it's not exactly overpowered. I suggest anet moves some of the strengths it has from stealth towards making it more survivable in combat. Stealth is fine to reposition or drop aggro, but attacking someone once then sitting in stealth for 12-15s waiting for an opening to oneshot is extremely annoying to fight. Another pass on the dodge on stealth trait and deadeye elite, as well as the inital damage of malicious damage would be much appreciated.

• ScoringA couple years ago Arenanet introduced the skirmish mechanic, wanting to curb how much nightcapping effected the gamemode while still allowing players in those timezones to contribute to their server. The system was fine on release, but having not been touched for so long the cracks in the system have been revealed. I can't speak for EU, but several servers in NA have been able to maintain their current standing by simply playing around their enemies' playtime. PPT shouldn't be discouraged, people have the right to play the game however they want, but currently PPT and nightcapping lends itself to victory way too much per week. Some form of primetime system, where for example whoever takes 1st place during the 3 skirmishes in primetime gains 2 or 4 more victory points would make sure a server can't climb the tiers solely through nightcapping and off hour ppt, while retaining the importance of objective control and PPT.

• Stuctural upgrading and tacticsAs it stands now the advantage defenders have has become a little bit ridiculous. The inclusion of all matters of t activators, buffs on every keep and tower you claim, and the addition of shield gens and mortars have skewed objectives a little too strongly towards the defenders side, the biggest offender of this being SMC. In my opinion siege on the third floor of SMC is extremely unhealthy for the mode. Having trebs, mortars, and ACs that are near impossible to hit in any reasonable capacity makes SMC a nightmare to recapture unless a focused effort form both servers is used, or nobody is online for the defending server. It's also extremely easy to upgrade structures very fast now, a dedicated group can t2 a keep in as little as 30 or 40 minutes. A look towards the current state of tactivators and how structures update would be much appreciated.

As it stands now these are most of the problems I have in the mode, and I'm interested to see how my fellow mist warriors think of the current state of WvW as a whole. I hope anet puts a little more focus on WvW in this time between expansions, and keeps in mind the effect any new elite specs would have on WvW.

TLDR: Scourge and Firebrand are way too dominant and stifle any competition in their roles, Rev is alright but may need a look at its cds if scourge and fb get nerfed, Soulbeast mirage and deadeye are extremely unfun to fight against and have too much reward for how little risk they have, nightcapping accounts for too much of the current score per week and encourages simply playing when your opponent isn't awake, and the defense of structures has gotten a bit too easy and out of hand, especially SMC.

I think the main problem with wvw balance is the power creep. In zergs you could bring other supports up to the level of FB by giving them access to group stab/aegis/prot, but then the amount of boon spam would make sustain way too powerful. On the other hand you could bring other classes on par with scourge, but then there would be so much aoe spam and corrupts that most fights would just be even worse 1push battles. Any attempt at balance right now inevitably causes an "overpowered meta" because damage, healing, and boon output is so high. That being said, i dont think specific class balance is terrible right now, since other classes like weaver, scrapper, daredevil can still do very well.

As for roaming, power creep has made most builds into some variant of a 1shot gimmick build, it just happens to be that mes, thief and ranger are the best at it. Even when i roam with something like core guard or power rev, i will 1 shot people who arent paying attention, and arent in full minstrel gear. Pretty much every class running the standard marauder roaming gear can become a 1 shot build. The reason why POF classes like mirage and deadeye seem the worst, is because they were likely designed with the power creep in mind, and have much needed access to more evades, stealth, invuln, mobility etc.

@Caysadia.7405 What a great constructive feedback. I'm a veteran wvw'er who never posts, it's nice to see a detailed and well thought out post. The current state of WvW is on point.

@Caysadia.7405 said:Soulbeast mirage and deadeye are extremely unfun to fight againstIts not coincidence you know. What, you think we bring all this OP for fun? No, we bring it to have a fighting chance between skilled players on top roaming classes.

Regarding nightcapping, that doesnt really exist anymore, the days of ticking 600+ PPT and more net gain in points in 4h than the other 20h is a thing of the past. There is 12 skirmishes a day and each skirmish is of equal worth. Whether the server have population to win during certain hours have nothing to do with the scoring system - thats a population and server issue.

Don't think scourges are a problem at the moment, in fact the last 2 weeks fighting boon ball blobs has shown to me that there isn't enough boon rips going on, when some of these organized guilds take a map blob with them and go to town around the map with nothing to stop them because you need an army of scourges to dent them. As much as I hate CoR for it's ridiculous damage on very ridiculous low cooldown, the reason why we have high damage abilities is to get around all the protection and regen spamming, all the reflects and blocks and invuls. Like everything is set to the extremes, everything needs to be toned down on both sides.

Before we can talk about what's wrong with balance we have to talk about what we think balance ought to be. In the absence of some teleological point of reference the whole balance debate is meaningless imo.

@Israel.7056 said:Before we can talk about what's wrong with balance we have to talk about what we think balance ought to be. In the absence of some teleological point of reference the whole balance debate is meaningless imo.

A good point of balance would perhaps be one where most or every class has SOME sort of role that they bring to the table that nothing else really can in a useful capacity. A good example of this was engineer pre patch where it may have been a worse support than firebrand, but it brought superspeed to the table and therefore many guilds ran a scrapper mostly for the superspeed. You're obviously going to have classes that are the best at dealing damage or doing support, its the nature of the game, but a class shouldn't shut out all other options. We went from Guardian Warrior Elementalist Necro to Guardian Revenant Necro in the span of two expansions, who knows maybe soon zergs will just be guardians and necros. You'll never have every class being required 100% for a group, but having 4/9 or even 5/9 be good and viable in large scale combat would be nice.

@"Bort.8647" said:I think the main problem with wvw balance is the power creep. In zergs you could bring other supports up to the level of FB by giving them access to group stab/aegis/prot, but then the amount of boon spam would make sustain way too powerful. On the other hand you could bring other classes on par with scourge, but then there would be so much aoe spam and corrupts that most fights would just be even worse 1push battles. Any attempt at balance right now inevitably causes an "overpowered meta" because damage, healing, and boon output is so high. That being said, i dont think specific class balance is terrible right now, since other classes like weaver, scrapper, daredevil can still do very well.

As for roaming, power creep has made most builds into some variant of a 1shot gimmick build, it just happens to be that mes, thief and ranger are the best at it. Even when i roam with something like core guard or power rev, i will 1 shot people who arent paying attention, and arent in full minstrel gear. Pretty much every class running the standard marauder roaming gear can become a 1 shot build. The reason why POF classes like mirage and deadeye seem the worst, is because they were likely designed with the power creep in mind, and have much needed access to more evades, stealth, invuln, mobility etc.

my man, "balance" doesnt only constitute buffs. You can nerf things too. Nerfing scourge and firebrand down to the level of other classes is the answer.

@Caysadia.7405 said:

@Israel.7056 said:Before we can talk about what's wrong with balance we have to talk about what we think balance ought to be. In the absence of some teleological point of reference the whole balance debate is meaningless imo.

What guild do you play with?

@"DonkeyHaxor.4052" said:my man, "balance" doesnt only constitute buffs. You can nerf things too. Nerfing scourge and firebrand down to the level of other classes is the answer.

I agree completely, thats what I meant when i said the amount of damage, healing and boons is way too high. Everything, especially FB and scourge needs to be toned down.

@Israel.7056 said:

@Caysadia.7405 said:

@Israel.7056 said:Before we can talk about what's wrong with balance we have to talk about what we think balance ought to be. In the absence of some teleological point of reference the whole balance debate is meaningless imo.

im all over the place brother

@Caysadia.7405 said:

@Israel.7056 said:

@Caysadia.7405 said:

@Israel.7056 said:Before we can talk about what's wrong with balance we have to talk about what we think balance ought to be. In the absence of some teleological point of reference the whole balance debate is meaningless imo.

EU player, mostly pugging? I had a similar conversation with an EU player a week ago give or take. He was saying the meta was 3/9 there as well.

@Israel.7056 said:

@Caysadia.7405 said:

@Israel.7056 said:

@Caysadia.7405 said:

@Israel.7056 said:Before we can talk about what's wrong with balance we have to talk about what we think balance ought to be. In the absence of some teleological point of reference the whole balance debate is meaningless imo.

NA player, been surfing around servers and guilds for awhile

so your main issue is 'balance' or what you precieve as such, indeed balance is one of the most important things in a 'competitive' mode.however you talk about balance in an encounter and not balance in the mode.no matter what you change about the professions, there is no reason to engage in a balanced fight when you strive to perform well in WvW. WvW is not a deathmatch, killing is not the primary objective. profession balance for WvW has to provide each profession a role within the mode, but they do not have to be balanced for insolated encounters.what is very unbalanced in WvW however and IMO the reason why WvW is not played to win but everyone does what they please: the teamsize/coverage. i dont think that alliances will be able to fix it, they alone wont even come close to it. however they are a step in the right direction.i understand why people do ask for encounter based profession balance, afterall many do not play to win the match but to win the encounter ahead. but i dont think the game should try to balance for anything else but the mode itself. if that seems impossible, change the mode design.

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@"Acyk.9671" said:1/ ScourgeThis spec suffers from a design problem. The fact that taking the defensive shade (Sand savant ) is always better than the offensive ones because of target cap is a problem while having F2 to F5 activate F1 is another. I could see some changes like those ones (just examples) to make gameplay more interesting:

Devouring darkness: Reduce radius from 360 to 300, Increase CD from 10 to 15s, Keep 3 corrupts on target and change to 2 on enemies around.Path of corruption: Revert change in Scourge to 2 corruptsDhuumfire: Make internal cast time 3s instead of 5s in PvP/WvW.Sand Savant: Change it to so it's only "Barriers affect 10 allied targets in a 300-360 radius."Manifest Sand shade: (Should be base for the 3 grand master traits Range only), 1 at the same time, 240 radius, 5 targets, 6s duration, 20s recharge time (Shouldn't last 10s and be 300 radius like right now because it occupies the field too much while 3 shades at a time makes it really spammy, 180 is bad and 3 targets is unpractical).Nefarious favor: make it melee only and not activate F1Sand Cascade: Make it melee only and not activate F1Garish Pillar: keep it the way it is (range + melee, affects F1 and 5 targets), add 1 torment on itDesert Shroud: keep it (both range + melee, affects F1 and 5 targets)

2/ FBIt's quite allright right now with all the nerfs it has taken this year which have corrected the design flaws of having 3 tomes on the same spec.1 FB covers perfectly stab on your group and 2 FB/grp is an overkill imo which is only seen on NA servers. Tempest covers regen+ prot better anyway.On the other hand a F3 chapter 4 nerf on radius from 360 to 300 would be nice. Any more nerfs would make 2 FB /grp mandatory which is bad for comp diversity.

3/ Herald

It's actually the most needed nerf atm after the nerfs to support in December. Spamming this high damage has become a problem and the main culprit is damage modifier.First, Anet need to fix the bug with Major Grand Master and Ferocious agression because their damage modifier are additive right now instead of multiplicative as they should.On top of it, Major Gand Major should be nerfed so its damage modifier is only 10% when active upkeep and Targeted Destruction could see a change from 7% to 5%.Hammer might need a power ratio reduction on their skill but i won't go into detail.All those nerfs at once might be too much but you see my point.

4/ Ranger

Those are changes i posted in another topic that i think are needed to reduce the over performing duelist abilities of Soulbeast while providing some more team work:I will still suffer from a lack of non duelist nor projectile weapon beside GS.

Swoop (bird SB mode): Reduce leap from 1200 to 1000Lesser signet of stone: Reduce invuln from 5 to 3sUnflinching Fortitude: Reduce invuln from 4 to 3sPet's prowess: When merged, Reduce ferocity and speed from 300/30% to 250/25%Sic' Em: When merged, Reduce Damage and Speed from 40% to 25%Moa Stance: Reduce base duration from 10 to 8s, boon duration from 66% to 33%, 25s CDLeader of the Pack: Reduce personal duration from 150% to 125%Increase allies' duration from 50% to 75%, keep 5 targetOR keep allies' 50% duration and make it 10 target.

I don't know about druid, it needs a buff. What about 1 stab when entering or exiting Celestial avatar?

I don't have time to do the rest but let's say:chrono's nerf was too focused on PvE and less as needed in WvW. Maybe they should sightly buff inspiration signet?Mirage has too much damage for the amount of self sustain it hasDeadeye has too much damage for the range and amount of stealth/disengage abilities it hasDaredevil's vault does too much damageWar needs a nerf on Lesser endure pain from 4 to 2,5s, reduce cast time on WoD and decrease radius from 360 to 300Tempest could use frost aura on MH dagger or Focus

If changes are rightly made, holo and reaper could get into the meta for large scale

I really like your proposed changes to scourge, its a much more elegant solution than what I was proposing. Im a little hesitant to see firebrand be left in the state its in if scourge gets nerfed, maybe its something that needs to be seen if scourge ever gets changed. Other than that I agree with all the changes here

All they have to do is give other supports more access to stab if they want them to be more competitive with fb. It's really that simple.

@Israel.7056 said:All they have to do is give other supports more access to stab if they want them to be more competitive with fb. It's really that simple.

No, it really isn't. That is going to create a meta where its infinite stability and we have the same problem we have now except its a boon ball. The solution is to NERF the amount of things firebrand can do.

@DonkeyHaxor.4052 said:

@Israel.7056 said:All they have to do is give other supports more access to stab if they want them to be more competitive with fb. It's really that simple.

If they can't give stab they can't be subbed for firebrand. If nothing gives reliable stab no one can push it's as simple as that.

Firebrand would get zero play if it didn't have as much stab as it does. Healing doesn't matter if you don't have stab.

This game is really not that complex.

@Caysadia.7405 said:

@Israel.7056 said:Before we can talk about what's wrong with balance we have to talk about what we think balance ought to be. In the absence of some teleological point of reference the whole balance debate is meaningless imo.

Theoretically, if each class had its own Boon that it was the sole supplier of, every class would potentially be sought after. If they also restricted all applications of such to 5 target max, you would have a much more strength/weakness system built into the game/group system. Certain Boons like Swift would still be available for every build etc, but have each class unable to give full uptime on those separatedly.

Heck, they could even bring back combo fields! Have a separate one for each class, and make specific boons only available for using combos! Imagine how pugs would die if your only access to Stability was through blasting Light fields from guardians? (Yeah, that's not going to happen)

But yes, too much work, and too much people screaming no to big changes to the game.

Anyways, just saying that the current system been bloated too much, and needs a complete strip down, cleansing, and build it up from the start again.

@"MUDse.7623" said:so your main issue is 'balance' or what you precieve as such, indeed balance is one of the most important things in a 'competitive' mode.however you talk about balance in an encounter and not balance in the mode.no matter what you change about the professions, there is no reason to engage in a balanced fight when you strive to perform well in WvW. WvW is not a deathmatch, killing is not the primary objective. profession balance for WvW has to provide each profession a role within the mode, but they do not have to be balanced for insolated encounters.what is very unbalanced in WvW however and IMO the reason why WvW is not played to win but everyone does what they please: the teamsize/coverage. i dont think that alliances will be able to fix it, they alone wont even come close to it. however they are a step in the right direction.i understand why people do ask for encounter based profession balance, afterall many do not play to win the match but to win the encounter ahead. but i dont think the game should try to balance for anything else but the mode itself. if that seems impossible, change the mode design.

All over, I have to agree with everything you said.

Encounter: However I still think it is worth to reduce/remove the power-creep so classes can actually play, and not just watch characters explode on the screen. And hopefully that each class could have at least 1 semi-decent build for both Zerging and Roaming, without getting told to go level a class they really can't stand. Outside of that, balance doesn't really "matter" as much.

Mode: Can only agree. And I strongly suspect this was part of the idea they had with EotM to test out how players reacted to 2 hours matches instead of week, obviously that wasn't popular. So we're essentially stuck with a game mode that is honestly impossible to balance due to the week system/points and ranking.

(WvW as a Strategy-Game-Design reminds me all too much of an old largely unknown multiplayer-RTS game called Command & Conquer - Sole Survivor, where X players played, got a random unit from the C&C game, and found other players on the map and killed them. Imagine the fun of getting infantry 10 times in a row, when your opponent started as a flame tank)

all we need is balance shuffling every month, not once a year.

Scourges are easily, and I mean Easily dealt with by both rangers and revs, to the point scourges are all but nullified in groups. The fact that commanders don't want rangers of any sort in their parties is more a reflection on the commander and player mind set vs the balance.

The only support aspect of the firebrand that needs toning down is the stab application. Wall of reflection also needs a heavy handed hit, other in the form of drastic increase in cooldown time, or it only reflects "x" amount of projectiles before disappearing.. such as 5.

The rev's damage is fine, and so are it's cooldowns, the whole energy issue takes care of that. The one aspect that needs to go on the rev is it's high amount of group healing support which causes a mass amount of sustain. This makes some groups completely unkillable that make use of it.

Don't need to say anything about Mirage, most would agree this class needs to be completely kneecapped and gutted. It provides no group support whatsoever, so it's potential in WvW is limited to griefing other players. Deadeye isn't far behind on that one; however, Deadeye can likely help keep the scourges at bay, just as rangers can.

@DeadlySynz.3471 said:Scourges are easily, and I mean Easily dealt with by both rangers and revs, to the point scourges are all but nullified in groups.

I dont know about this one buddy

FB has too many skills added to the class but because of this you need classes like scorge. Its about as "22" as can be you MUST go after both classes in the same update to fix them in wvw.

Revs problem is all of its big skills get culled when any thing else is going on to the point that there dmg and skill are comply lacking any tell for ppl. Its border line game exploitation.

The other classes are not as bad and have high weakness that can be dealt with by using the right class but FB and scorge are way overpowers but because of each other. As for rev it just exploring the game because the skills are too flashy and get culled most of the time.

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