The speed of gaining WvW Ranks

Now, in another thread I read someone saying how "34 WvW ranks could be gained in one evening of karma train".

I'm really quite intrigued by how that is possible. While I mostly just visit WvW for the dailies, I still often end up playing a bit longer there then intended. Let's assume an hour or two in WvW every evening. Often, despite capturing objectives, joining zergs (as an Ele, so hitting lots of enemies and all) or just roaming, I end up with only a rank or two added by the time I leave. Mind you, I don't have the boosters to throw around to keep up the WXP boni all day every day.Overall, after playing somewhat actively in WvW for more than 1 year (at least), I'm still only at rank 1'110. Most I ever made in one day were around 35 ranks, during the no-downed-state boost-weekend (back when RoS was linked with Vabbi being the main server). Obviously I used boosters that day.

I assume a karma train just runs around and caps objectives, I also assume there's always objectives to be capped around - as in, there's an enemy zerg doing the same and they don't hinder each other by defending or fighting. Perfect setting ... ?

Anyway, I went and looked at the numbers required to get those 34 ranks: 34 * 5'000 WXP, so 170'000 WXP in total. Assuming you run all kinds of boosters and rounding up a bit because of the random WXP consumable drops and such, let's just say you end up with 300% WXP boost (not an event weekend). Or in other words, you need only 1/4th of the WXP to gain those ranks: 42'500.Going by the wiki a camp brings 200, a tower 400, a keep 800 and sm 1000 wxp.So, you'd need to capture 213 camps OR 107 tower OR 54 keeps OR 43 sm. That is quite a lot. Of course on a perfect evening you'd not just be flipping camps, but even if you assume every objective to on average be "worth 500 wxp" (due to NPCs and occasional enemies), it'd still be 85 objectives you need to capture. It sounds like quite a lot to me. That's only 34 ranks and it's with full boosts all the time. That's at least more like a whole day, rather than just an evening, it feels like... (Without boosts, you end up with over 300 objectives needed.)And fighting enemies doesn't give a ton of WXP after the first time killing them, since it's dependend on how long enemies have been alive, as far as I'm aware.

It's really starting to feel incredibly tedious, especially because I'm no fan of stupidly running from objective to objective and because there're also few commanders who do such on the server I play on. Also I just don't have an endless amount of boosters available either.

So...Am I doing something wrong or is ranking really that slow? Do I misjudge the amount of objectives you can flip on a perfect run?How do you rank up faster? Or do people really just spend this much time in WvW to get to the higher ranks?

I think the more attention you pay to it, it goes unbearably slow. When I find myself just enjoying the mode I don't even realise I rank up quite a bit. Even my alts are catching up now. I just ensure that I always have T6 participation, and if possible at the very least a guild enhancement wvw xp booster (only if you have HoT) and maybe the experience booster for amulet infusion (from wvw laurel vendor) if you can't get anything else.

I don't think he stated any hours timeline only in one karma night...which to me personally could mean from 6pm-3am with little breaks to stretch legs and eyes.

As the saying goes - A watched kettle never boils.

With the boosts those 34 ranks is really just the eqvivalent of a dozen ranks. Its takes some work sure, but you know those guardians/scourges in chat linking 40+ lootbags in one zergfight when your scrawny kitten got like... 3... yep those are the ones that get the ranks.

You also have a chance for random drop wxp consumables including the keg which instantly gives 5 levels, these are mostly dropped from defeating players (you can also get it out of the box of wvw supplies).

Birthday/Celebration booster: 100% (start making alt characters even to park them to get the birthday gifts)Wxp booster: 50% (from various sources, including black lion stuff, or randomly from the box of wvw supplies)Guild boost buff: 10%Wxp enrichment infusion: 10%Guild objective aura: 10%Outnumbered: 25%Bonus event: 100%

KIlling zergs while capping stuff gets you a lot of wxp.

Make sure you have the WvW wxp item in your amulet, make sure you have the right food, oils, banners, guild hall buffs and any boosters (cele, or xp, birthday) tag everything and anything playing a dps class will get you more levels and more bags. Even tho I am typically a support character (FB) I get at least 10 levels for about 3 hours of play time.

@Syrus.2174 said:I assume a karma train just runs around and caps objectives, I also assume there's always objectives to be capped around - as in, there's an enemy zerg doing the same and they don't hinder each other by defending or fighting. Perfect setting ... ?

Anyway, I went and looked at the numbers required to get those 34 ranks: 34 * 5'000 WXP, so 170'000 WXP in total. Assuming you run all kinds of boosters and rounding up a bit because of the random WXP consumable drops and such, let's just say you end up with 300% WXP boost (not an event weekend). Or in other words, you need only 1/4th of the WXP to gain those ranks: 42'500.Going by the wiki a camp brings 200, a tower 400, a keep 800 and sm 1000 wxp.And fighting enemies doesn't give a ton of WXP after the first time killing them, since it's dependend on how long enemies have been alive, as far as I'm aware.NPC guards also give quite a bunch of WXP and you also missed the dolyaks/sentries (this can more than double the WXP from camps that you assumed). optimally you will do so in a small - medium sized group of like 5-15. if you get more people you usually slowdown in movement, scale up the lords too much and most still wont build more than local siege cap. if your server has larger zergs with the attention of the opposing zergs, you wont get much resistance. also try to build your siege on a little hidden, unusual spots so that you can use them multiple times.

Karmatrains yield more WxP. There is a reason people used to farm eotm extensively. Killing enemies is fine initially, but keep in mind that wxp from killing enemy players is proportional to how long they have been alive (meaning if you keep farming the same over and over, you will get 2 wxp per kill, if any at all).And, while 34 ranks within a day is doable, it is certainly far from the norm. A realistic number of ranks would be 3-7, depending on playtime and server.

You are on a PPK-oriented server/link (I'll assume you're still there). The best way for you is to participate in all the fights you can get into. Queue early into EB (especially next week) and hulk smash everyone.

@Dawdler.8521 said:With the boosts those 34 ranks is really just the eqvivalent of a dozen ranks. Its takes some work sure, but you know those guardians/scourges in chat linking 40+ lootbags in one zergfight when your scrawny kitten got like... 3... yep those are the ones that get the ranks.

The problem with that is, I'm usually someone who gets at least 2/3rds of the bags those people get - but I remember one time we were defending Bay and then pushed the enemy towards their spawn, mostly continuing the fight around Briar, in several zerg on zerg encounters we mostly wiped them, only lost once or twice. Despite this taking quite long and a lot of killing going on, the reduced WXP after wiping them the first time meant I still only got around 1.5 ranks at most in the whole encounter. And it lasted at least half an hour. It was a bit frustrating when I noticed that after the fighting was over.

Of course with boosters that might've gone better, but boosters don't boost the WXP drops from what I know.

It's just that I feel like I invest a lot of time into WvW, and don't really see much progress in the ranks. Sadly there just isn't a big zerg on zerg or karma train going on all day.

Well, it's not like it matters past rank 1400 anyways. You will have maxed out most important things by 1000 and I don't even remember what rank up chests even give\; 2 greens?

It's all about dem pips.

@Dawdler.8521 said:With the boosts those 34 ranks is really just the eqvivalent of a dozen ranks. Its takes some work sure, but you know those guardians/scourges in chat linking 40+ lootbags in one zergfight when your scrawny kitten got like... 3... yep those are the ones that get the ranks.

Yeah, as Firebrand you get lot of bags but not much more exp, per hour or so I make 1 rank with all the boost I have

@ArchonWing.9480 said:Well, it's not like it matters past rank 1400 anyways. You will have maxed out most important things by 1000 and I don't even remember what rank up chests even give\; 2 greens?

It's all about dem pips.

True and not true. To me, rank 2000 is the goal for the armor. And it's just a bit frustrating to play so much and gain so little.I could imagine that in earlier times with more activity it was easier to rank up, but then again, where I am there usually is quite a decent level of activity.

Imagine those of us that played thousands of hours in the mode in order to gain.... Nothing?

Except fun. Which is what a game is supposed to be.

If working your way to rank 2000 is ‘such a grind’, then maybe do something else?

There are parts of the LS I haven’t done, there are raids I don’t do, and there are APs and mastery points I don’t have. Because I choose to play something fun.

@Syrus.2174 said:

@"ArchonWing.9480" said:Well, it's not like it matters past rank 1400 anyways. You will have maxed out most important things by 1000 and I don't even remember what rank up chests even give\; 2 greens?

It's all about dem pips.

You do not need rank 2000 for legendary. Only the sublime mistforged which doesn't do anything different from the regular mistforged but have LEDs so people can shoot you down faster. It also takes over 9000 (literally) tickets and the tickets are going to be a bigger bottleneck than anything else one could imagine.

If you really do want it, then also buy the https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Box_of_WvW_Supplies which ironically doesn't come from doing wvw itself, but rather the ley-energy converter and the guild hall.

Four WvW levels an hour is very fast and that is typically done with BDay Gift with a PPT Commander. Basically if anything is reasonably defended, WxP grinds to a halt. If SMC becomes a 3-way, WxP grinds to a halt. Most of the Diamond players have 5k plus hours in WvW so long term a player is looking at one WvW level per hour over the long haul and probably 2-3 when they focus on it.

It can be done faster typically in off hours when a server is dominant enough to flip keeps at will and the other sides are able to flip them back quickly. Sometimes during event weeks servers will avoid each other and not defend to generate max WxP for everyone... those runs are crazy good WxP. The days of massive WvW level gains on EotM are gone.

By "one evening" they obviously mean 12 hours of following a tag and leeching of kills and objectives. I did 30+ ranks on saturday this way. Boosted up, celebration booster and 2 or so hours of the 12 hours playing on outnumbered.

Don't forget: It's an MMO ... the people here have a very distorted view on what's a sensible time investment to put into a game.

Ktraining for hours on end sounds like soooooo much fun......

Well sorry, but when the "most efficient" method still takes hours and hours (even with boosts!) of playing the game mode in an almost questionable way in regards to what it is intended to be played like, I don't see how that is not "too slow" overall. The reward is just too little for the time put in. And karma training all day long just stops being fun at some point, I play WvW for the fights as well as taking objectives. But the most efficient way of karma training does definitely not include sieging a defended objective.

I just think a more reasonable rank-up speed while playing the game mode how it was intended to be played, with fights and players engaging each other, instead of just hitting doors all day, wouldn't be bad.

About the hours in WvW, I might not have 5k, but it surely is more than I'd like to have, considering this topic. And I'm only 55% to my "goal" so far.Actually, I pretty much gave up on wanting to reach that goal, as by the time I get there, either I'll be so "burned out" of the game (mode) that I stop playing the moment I did it, or the game is dead anyway, seeing how long it's taking.

From what I gathered my question is answered: karma training would be the fastest way. I don't think anyone does that on the server I'm on, people seem to avoid "ppt" as if it were the plague anyway most of the time. I think it could be fun to do every now and then, but not every day.

I just enjoy playing for a goal. But with the goal this far out of reach, there's little point to having it. At some point I just start asking myself what I'm even playing WvW for then, because, sure, the fights are fun, but without progressing to somewhere, it becomes dull sooner or later.

And the tickets aren't a bottleneck for me at the moment, I currently have almost 11k, rarely ever use them, which is why they keep stacking up. Probably should figure out what to do with them...

It was just a bit astonishing to me to see so many Mithril or Diamond ranked people around, made me wonder if I'm doing something wrong or whether they actually just played WvW and only WvW for the last 5 or 6 years. I can still enjoy the game mode when there's activity around, but I had to drag myself away and do other things in the game after finally realizing how long this takes.

@"Syrus.2174" said:Well sorry, but when the "most efficient" method still takes hours and hours (even with boosts!) of playing the game mode in an almost questionable way in regards to what it is intended to be played like, I don't see how that is not "too slow" overall. The reward is just too little for the time put in. And karma training all day long just stops being fun at some point, I play WvW for the fights as well as taking objectives. But the most efficient way of karma training does definitely not include sieging a defended objective.

I just think a more reasonable rank-up speed while playing the game mode how it was intended to be played, with fights and players engaging each other, instead of just hitting doors all day, wouldn't be bad.

About the hours in WvW, I might not have 5k, but it surely is more than I'd like to have, considering this topic. And I'm only 55% to my "goal" so far.Actually, I pretty much gave up on wanting to reach that goal, as by the time I get there, either I'll be so "burned out" of the game (mode) that I stop playing the moment I did it, or the game is dead anyway, seeing how long it's taking.

From what I gathered my question is answered: karma training would be the fastest way. I don't think anyone does that on the server I'm on, people seem to avoid "ppt" as if it were the plague anyway most of the time. I think it could be fun to do every now and then, but not every day.

I just enjoy playing for a goal. But with the goal this far out of reach, there's little point to having it. At some point I just start asking myself what I'm even playing WvW for then, because, sure, the fights are fun, but without progressing to somewhere, it becomes dull sooner or later.

And the tickets aren't a bottleneck for me at the moment, I currently have almost 11k, rarely ever use them, which is why they keep stacking up. Probably should figure out what to do with them...

It was just a bit astonishing to me to see so many Mithril or Diamond ranked people around, made me wonder if I'm doing something wrong or whether they actually just played WvW and only WvW for the last 5 or 6 years. I can still enjoy the game mode when there's activity around, but I had to drag myself away and do other things in the game after finally realizing how long this takes.

Eotm ktrains, purchesable wxp potions. That made Diamonds reach their rank much faster.

@Syrus.2174 said:whether they actually just played WvW and only WvW for the last 5 or 6 years.

Like, it never occurred to you that anet would want to reward players who spent all their time in one game mode? We exist too. I've essentially been given a lame gold watch after being with the company for 25 years and you're a watch collector who started last week asking about how I got it. Hate to break it to ya buddy

@Syrus.2174 said:It was just a bit astonishing to me to see so many Mithril or Diamond ranked people around, made me wonder if I'm doing something wrong or whether they actually just played WvW and only WvW for the last 5 or 6 years. I can still enjoy the game mode when there's activity around, but I had to drag myself away and do other things in the game after finally realizing how long this takes.

Mostly this ^ Whilst the early Diamond Legends farmed EoTM there are people that rank that did it purely in wvw now. I've said it before and people laugh but kill at least one guard at every objective you go by, kill every yak, if you want small fights run round smc wall killing archers - fast wexp and people will try to stop you. As someone else said, a small group doing those things can bring wexp very quickly. Mix it up with hopping on a zerg toon and make sure you bomb the right places for the max loot from that.

And do remember that some of us have played wvw for years and years. To hear someone complain about rewards, effort and grind when we play for fun makes me wonder why you bother in the first place. There's armor to be had in pve and if that's what you prefer then that's the armor meant for you.

Hint, it's when you are "fresh" zerg v zerg. As soon as you keep hitting that same zerg after an hour...well, it falls off the cliff.

Early Diamond Legends did not farm EotM all that much, they specifically kill traded in Obsidian Sanctum taking turns in a semi-organized naked rumble. At the time, it was an AP farm or perhaps title farm. I don't know, I didn't take part in it.

@"Artaz.3819" said:Hint, it's when you are "fresh" zerg v zerg. As soon as you keep hitting that same zerg after an hour...well, it falls off the cliff.

Early Diamond Legends did not farm EotM all that much, they specifically kill traded in Obsidian Sanctum taking turns in a semi-organized naked rumble. At the time, it was an AP farm or perhaps title farm. I don't know, I didn't take part in it.

I think you are confusing your wvw urban legends. That was the early Ultimate Dominators ;) Man I must've been SO busy in two places at once.