Warclaw Praise Thread - Yes, It Is Healthy For WvW

Made this thread because there isn't enough straight flat out praise for the Warclaw.

I absolutely love the addition of Warclaw to wvw. In previous years I would always chose to play spvp over wvw because wvw felt "slow to get to the next action." Yes, it's true. Even during earlier years of the game, when wvw t1 servers had extremely high population at any hour of the day, wvw always just felt slow in terms of staying in the action. Now that population is a tad smaller today, even during peak hours it can be slow to find the next action, and during off peak hours it's even worse. But then the Warclaw happened.

Now that the Warclaw is in play, I find myself actually wanting to go wvw. I can hop into a map at any hour, and very quickly rotate around a map to look for action. I did a timed run on a Berserker Soulbeast build while starting at the south camp in an alpine borderland, and then rotating around the map counter-clockwise while capping each supply camp, all the way back around to the south camp. Along the way I had 4x 1v1s and killed the harpy & veteran wurm. This run took only about 11 minutes to complete, thanks to the Warclaw. <- This is what I'm talking about, that's engaging gameplay. For me, it is boring if that run were to take 20+ minutes, and half of that time spent was just walking somewhere, with no actual combat happening or any objective going on that I am actively completing. Walking for elongated amounts of time in a pvp mode, is boring. The Warclaw has changed this. I feel the time spent traversing maps is now just right, between the Warclaw and the Glider.

I also find that the Warclaw rewards strong roamer play, which needed to happen for several reasons. A good Roamer can kite much larger groups by himself now if he is careful. It also allows the good Roamer to more easily pick off stragglers from some zerg or small group, and then get away before being caught. This does a handful of very healthy things for the game mode, that everyone who is reading this, should think about:

• Wvw up until now was dominated by large zerg play. Zerg play is still the stapled tactic of the game mode sure, but it isn't so oppressively dominate after the Warclaw addition. Now, even if 3 players are greatly out numbered in a given map, they have a chance to rotate around a powerful zerg or even many powerful smaller groups, and actually get something done in that map, even if it's just hitting supply camps. Before Warclaw, staying in a map that was so greatly outnumbered like this, was like getting hired in as a bag delivery guy. <- This was no good for encouraging players to stay & play. The more dominant a server became in terms of population, it just create this snowball effect where people didn't even want to try against it because.. why would they? They couldn't move around a map without getting caught. The Warclaw changes all of this in a healthy way. It encourages try hard players to stay & play, because it enables them the mobility required to work around larger populations. Everything about this is healthy for the game mode now, and in the long run.
• Zerging players are now much more strongly encouraged to "stay on the pin" than they ever were before, due to the much stronger methods of hit & run strategies from Warclaw Roamers. This is excellent for 2x reasons. 1 - Boy is it nice to see players stacked tightly on the pin. It makes things easier for the commander and everyone in general. 2 - For all of the reasons listed in the first asterisk. Roamers needed to be able to more greatly threaten heavily condensed zergs like this. Again, it's all about giving players incentive to stay & play. The class diversity for Roamers provided through the sheer baseline mobility of the Warclaw needed to happen.
• And even for the players in the Zerg, the Warclaw baseline mobility allows something like a FB or some Necro build, that doesn't have many mobility skills, to keep up with its zerg if it falls a bit behind. It also just plainly expedites the player's mobility for getting back to the commander, if they wipe and must respawn. Look, I know some of you are hardcore wvw guys & gals who have played the same way since year 1 and you've gotten used to that, but don't let that make you biased due to nostalgia. Try to imagine if you were a new player to the game and you were looking at two different possible game patching scenarios: First you're looking at a trailer that shows small groups or zergs moving across wvw maps quite slowly, and while they are doing it, they are constantly stacking around corners and buffing each other with swiftness and throwing symbols down for swiftness as they run, and frantically use weapon attack skills for small boosts in mobility, and this all happening when there is no combat whatsoever and no objectives being complete. Every player that is part of a group must "hold hands" as they meticulously speed up or slow down, and try to pay attention to which players need a symbol under them for swiftness and which ones do not. And this is all happening while slowly walking somewhere together. Then you watch a trailer that shows 40 players in a zerg following a commander and they all have Warclaw mounts. You immediately notice that every player is moving significantly faster towards the objective and that they are all moving the same speed. There is no confusion as to if anyone is being left behind because they didn't receive a swiftness buff or because they didn't have weapon mobility skills. No, everyone is smoothly and much more quickly moving to the next scenario of action, together as a group, without frantic skill usage and moderation of who is holding who's hand. Try to think about this without the bias of 7 years of wvw play. Imagine you are a new player viewing these two trailers for the first time. Which trailer looks like the smoother, better game design, that makes sense?

I feel like any debate about balance concerning the Warclaw, should stay within the realm of its skill utilities and possibly health pool. Any complaint outside of these two things is ridiculous, because the Warclaw has done nothing but help enhance & balance the game mode, in terms intra-class mobility and giving more power to low population out-manned situations, encouraging a greater portion of the population to stay & play. This is all healthy my good dudes. Careful how you complain about Warclaw.

The warclaw is the worst thing ever brought into wvw, it totally destroyed the purpose of roamer classes. I’m sure you “blobbers” like it because you get to your zerg faster when u rallybot all the time, but if you are a roamer it sucks when u can’t pick the fights u want. It’s fun getting chased by 10 people, 1 keeping you in combat while the rest mounts up and fucks you up. They need to nerf the warclaw, so it just is a transportation tool with low hp pool, and not going faster than the 33% swiftness speed.

Should have posted this in the PvE section.

The motives are good. The impact isn't. Whether Warclaw is good, bad, or indifferent for WvW is entirely a matter of opinion. There's nothing the pro-claw people can say that are going to convince the anti-claw constiuency or vice versa. At best, one can hope to reach people who are giving it time to decide or people who are willing to have an open mind.

Titling a thread, "Warclaw ...Is Healthy For WvW" just antagonizes the anti-claw folks and doesn't speak to those who are still figuring out what they like or don't like. It's no better (and no worse) than the "this is the end of WvW" threads or the polls to remove.

If the goal is truly about praising the Warclaw, then... well there's no reason this couldn't have been posted in the existing threads set up to do so. It's not hard to find them.

You know those three points are completely contradictory, right?

You cant argue that players are now "much more strongly encouraged" to zerg on tag and how easy it is to run with them while at the same time arguing it means less "oppressivly dominating" zerging compared to before. Smallscale and zerging isnt connected in terms of balancing. Both can improve, both can be worse. IMO its a zero sum patch - zerging is exactly the same, small scale is the same unless griefers arrive to "watch" on their mounts which they are totally not going to use to stomp anyone downed and solo roaming is just lollygagging around against opponents that are 90% likely to be worse than you. Business as usual.

@noot.8641 said:The warclaw is the worst thing ever brought into wvw, it totally destroyed the purpose of roamer classes. I’m sure you “blobbers” like it because you get to your zerg faster when u rallybot all the time, but if you are a roamer it sucks when u can’t pick the fights u want. It’s fun getting chased by 10 people, 1 keeping you in combat while the rest mounts up and kitten you up. They need to nerf the warclaw, so it just is a transportation tool with low hp pool, and not going faster than the 33% swiftness speed.

I dont think Trev is a blobber (not you're average blobber anyway)... Ive been living in the mists since the stability change brought in the pirate ship META and hes quite active there, legendary or high plat I believe.

Like Trevor, warkitty spiked an interest in WvW for me again but my interests revolve around 2v3 sort of fights of which I cant find in WvW anymore since warkitty... Really need a dismount skill IMO but wether we get it or not isn't a fuss to me anymore.

Games change, sometimes its best to change games.(and clearly anet wants to take WvW a different direction or dismounts would have been live with implementation or hot fixed faster than Rangers WHAO quickness fix)

If a dismount skill becomes available and 5 mans in PvP becomes a thing again, then this game that Ive enjoyed for 10k hours will be something I can keep enjoying but until then I wish players like Trev the best of luck.

@"sephiroth.4217" said:clearly anet wants to take WvW a different direction or dismounts would have been live with implementation or hot fixed fasterForced dismount is unlikely to be something that can be done quickly, hotfix or not.(I'm definitely curious as to why it didn't occur to them to include it in the first place. The point is: having deciding otherwise... or having not even thought of it first, means they'd have to create the new mechanic, test for balance... and that's not quick.)

I don't mean that you should change your mind about Warclaw or its impact on WvW, only about reconsidering your expectations about what's likely to be happen "soon" versus soon.

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:

@"sephiroth.4217" said:clearly anet wants to take WvW a different direction or dismounts would have been live with implementation or hot fixed fasterForced dismount is unlikely to be something that can be done quickly, hotfix or not.(I'm definitely curious as to why it didn't occur to them to include it in the first place. The point is: having deciding otherwise... or having not even thought of it first, means they'd have to create the new mechanic, test for balance... and that's not quick.)

The company I work for currently just went through something similar hence my expectations. We intentionally left something out to favor employers over employees and only implemented the software due to employee backlash. We did considor putting this in at release but our goal was to make sales to employers and give them all the power.

My assumption is based off that, a business running as a business, but our office is filled with professionals and I make the assumption that Anet is too.

@sephiroth.4217 said:My assumption is based off that, a business running as a business, but our office is filled with professionals and I make the assumption that Anet is too.This has nothing to do with professionalism. It has to do with how easy or hard it is to create a new mechanic that doesn't create more problems than it's meant to solve.

@sephiroth.4217 said:

@"noot.8641" said:The warclaw is the worst thing ever brought into wvw, it totally destroyed the purpose of roamer classes. I’m sure you “blobbers” like it because you get to your zerg faster when u rallybot all the time, but if you are a roamer it sucks when u can’t pick the fights u want. It’s fun getting chased by 10 people, 1 keeping you in combat while the rest mounts up and kitten you up. They need to nerf the warclaw, so it just is a transportation tool with low hp pool, and not going faster than the 33% swiftness speed.

When I roam, I roam solo normally, unless some people want to follow me. I roam on a Berserker Soulbeast with the highest possible damage that one can front with pve stats/food&utility. I see no difference in combat dynamic with the Warclaw, though I could be biased due to the high dps spec that I run. When opponents rush at me with a Warclaw, the ultra Vulcan cannon style damage from Berserker Soulbeast chews through the 10k health bar instantly, then CCs the opponent on his dismount, actually granting me an extra CC while the rapid fire finishes it's damage on them and I approach with melee 1 shots. Honestly it seems easier to kill people due to the dismount CC, than it is if they approach dismounted to begin with. I mean, I don't see where the hate is coming from considering that it's a free CC if your build deals damage at all. 10k health with no prot or aegis or any defenes at all is nothing. Also someone mentioned being kept in combat by a warclaw while other people ooc were able to run them down? This isn't new in wvw. Seriously.. the very same thing happens without Warclaws. The difference WITH Warclaw is that every class equal mobility while on Warclaw. All they have to do is pay attention and not get themselves in a bad situation that could have been easily avoided with the Warclaw to begin with. And it doesn't "Destroy the purpose of Roamer classes" that's silly. When players dismount to attack each other, a Thief is still much faster than a Scourge, end of story. I am not directing this towards you or your response, just speaking my mind in general ^^ don't take it wrong way please.

When I do actually zerg around, I like to use Scourge. Boy is it nice to have a Warclaw for getting back to the Commander who is across a map, if I happen to wipe. Before the Warclaw, it was too easy to be ran down by groups of roaming Thieves & w/e was with them. It was kind boring tbh, waiting in the spawn point for either your Commander to WP back to you, or just enough of your squad had died to where it was safe to follow them out. Sometimes I'd just leave wvw because of that type of wait time. Boring man, just boring. With the Warclaw I don't have to wait at all. I can just wisely traverse through the map and avoid gank squads, unless they've really done their homework in figuring out how to cut me off. <- Again, this is what makes people like to stay & play, consistent engaging action and opportunity to succeed. What makes people get bored and leave is sheer wait time before any opportunity to be successful at all, because that is in no way engaging or fun. It also eases things up for the Commanders out there, because they know players can get back to them, without needing to WP over as an escort to rally, due to gank squads with superior mobility.

I love that mount, kick ass addition to the game. It made wvw great again.

@"Illconceived Was Na.9781" What exactly are these problems that everyone is talking about? I've read through some of these threads, but most of what I'm reading just seems like general complaints based off of annoyance that something different is happening. I'm not seeing many well thought out or explained actual reasons why Warclaw is "ruining wvw." I've seen more people WANT to go into and play wvw lately, than I've seen since the old wvw tournament seasons. <- that is no embellishment, that is completely true. All of which are stating to me the same reasons that I have stated, but in shorter words. You know, about how the game mode feels good, if you can stay in the action.

@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

@sephiroth.4217 said:

@"noot.8641" said:The warclaw is the worst thing ever brought into wvw, it totally destroyed the purpose of roamer classes. I’m sure you “blobbers” like it because you get to your zerg faster when u rallybot all the time, but if you are a roamer it sucks when u can’t pick the fights u want. It’s fun getting chased by 10 people, 1 keeping you in combat while the rest mounts up and kitten you up. They need to nerf the warclaw, so it just is a transportation tool with low hp pool, and not going faster than the 33% swiftness speed.

Maybe I should give SB a shot rather than trying Thief, my Tempest couldn't handle it all which is why I tried Thief before throwing in the towel on the matter.. I tend to only play things I find fun..

As for complaints I generally agree, most is hot air but from my standpoint a DD Tempest has absolutely no chance of dismounting someone which is why Im so keen for a dismount skill... What good is magnetic leap if the mount keeps on running away? what good is sustained mediocre damage compared to 10k, immunity to CC and condtions? Thats my complaint on the matter, I dislike playing thief but feel like its the only class at the moment that I can use to reliably dismount someone.Nothing in a DD Temp kit works at all vs a mount.

@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

@sephiroth.4217 said:

@"noot.8641" said:The warclaw is the worst thing ever brought into wvw, it totally destroyed the purpose of roamer classes. I’m sure you “blobbers” like it because you get to your zerg faster when u rallybot all the time, but if you are a roamer it sucks when u can’t pick the fights u want. It’s fun getting chased by 10 people, 1 keeping you in combat while the rest mounts up and kitten you up. They need to nerf the warclaw, so it just is a transportation tool with low hp pool, and not going faster than the 33% swiftness speed.

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:

@sephiroth.4217 said:My assumption is based off that, a business running as a business, but our office is filled with professionals and I make the assumption that Anet is too.This has nothing to do with professionalism. It has to do with how easy or hard it is to create a new mechanic that doesn't create more problems than it's meant to solve.

I get that I do, but everything is planned before production. They would have gone over the impacts it would have had both presently and in the future but ultimately they had an idea and that idea was to sell to thier biggest playerbase, which is PvE.(with great success too, just look at all these posts belittling players for wanting to do combat in open world PvP area, most have even incorrectly labelled players as gankers just because they killed someone)

Its sad but its also life. Best we can do is take our business else where and support games and companies who value thier players, as I said before, games change and sometimes its best to change games.(Anthem is a prime example, horrible at release but atleast they've been dropping fortnightly patches to address players concerns)

I just hope the player base they are selling too can be as loyal as the WvW and PvP players who have been around for 7 odd years because thats who they are kittening on right now.

@sephiroth.4217 said:

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:

@sephiroth.4217 said:My assumption is based off that, a business running as a business, but our office is filled with professionals and I make the assumption that Anet is too.This has nothing to do with professionalism. It has to do with how easy or hard it is to create a new mechanic that doesn't create more problems than it's meant to solve.

So, the thing I was most concerned about with the mount introduction was going to be the speed of ‘fixes’ to problems that were bound to come.

They have pushed out a lot fairly quickly, which is a pleasant surprise.

If the upcoming ‘tweaks’ get pushed out within the month, I’ll be fairly content.

@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:@"Illconceived Was Na.9781" What exactly are these problems that everyone is talking about? I've read through some of these threads, but most of what I'm reading just seems like general complaints based off of annoyance that something different is happening. I'm not seeing many well thought out or explained actual reasons why Warclaw is "ruining wvw." I've seen more people WANT to go into and play wvw lately, than I've seen since the old wvw tournament seasons. <- that is no embellishment, that is completely true. All of which are stating to me the same reasons that I have stated, but in shorter words. You know, about how the game mode feels good, if you can stay in the action.You really ought to read my post before responding to it. I don't actually mention "problems."

You've established that you have grown to love the impact. Surely you can see that other people don't agree, so you're just restating an opinion that isn't shared by everyone.

I've seen more people WANT to go into and play wvw lately, than I've seen since the old wvw tournament seasons.Take a step back and you're realize that's a classic case of confirmation bias.

I'm not actually addressing your conclusion. I'm saying that the manner in which you've stated your opinion is preaching to the choir, for which there are already existing threads.

Are there any site with a chart/graph showing WvW's active population?

Lul, all those "Warclaw is great for roaming, it makes all classes more mobile so that they can engage in more fights around" makes me laugh so hard. I think there was already a thread with attached video showing guy dancing around on mount and dodging all the stuff so he can't be dismounted. And thats the truth, so far after Warclaw release i encounter mostly same roamers which i encounter usually (same names/guilds), so nothing here changed, but what changed is that everyone else are just running away on their kitties and if Im not on some kind of ranged/many-gap-closers character (for example teef or mesmer) its almost impossible to catch them (if they have at least 2 brain cells working of course).I agree, mount speeds up things, but also cuts amount of fights by (imo) over 33% because people will just mount up, dodge dodge dodge, and even sometimes immediately WP away. Clap clap, thats what i call entertaining gameplay. So yes, I ll say that mount is a good update but when ANet will make some kind of dismounting traps and also add dismounting effect to (for example) skill 1 of Warclaw. Until then its a clownfiesta, if I was given 5g for every guy that avoided fight because of his gracious mount, I would probably be able to buy 1 or 2 legendaries straight from TP without touching my present wallet.

Everything on the warclaw is subjective. Just like every nerf/buff in this game. I believe we will see some sort of dismount in the future however I don't believe it will be exactly what everyone wants. I personally like anything that gives me mobility so I can get to where I want to go faster. But I understand how this has ruined what some people had fun doing in WvW.

Only real idea I've had on this which in my opinion would be nice is have an option in the settings that allows you to be easily dismounted. When toggled on players get an addtional 10% xp and reward track gain while in WvW.

I am all for changes coming to WvW, but a bad change is a bad change. Anything that discourages people interacting with one another is a bad change. I can respect the fact that they wanted to shake things up, but when it makes certain play styles obsolete, or has a negative impact on the game mode as a whole, we have to be able to walk those changes back. I think Anet agrees with this with their upcoming refinements to the mount.

@"Eramonster.2718" said:Are there any site with a chart/graph showing WvW's active population?

Not directly. There are some proxies for measuring participation. Unfortunately, I can't recall anyone who has kept historical records to allow us to compare today's activity levels with e.g. last year's. The closest is looking at wvwstats.com, which tracks activity (although that isn't defined that I can see) and doesn't seem to have been updated in over a year. (e.g. for blackgate: https://wvwstats.com/history/1019/1)

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:

@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:@Illconceived Was Na.9781 What exactly are these problems that everyone is talking about? I've read through some of these threads, but most of what I'm reading just seems like general complaints based off of annoyance that something different is happening. I'm not seeing many well thought out or explained actual reasons why Warclaw is "ruining wvw." I've seen more people WANT to go into and play wvw lately, than I've seen since the old wvw tournament seasons. <- that is no embellishment, that is completely true. All of which are stating to me the same reasons that I have stated, but in shorter words. You know, about how the game mode feels good, if you can stay in the action.You really ought to read my post before responding to it. I don't actually mention "problems."

I've seen more people WANT to go into and play wvw lately, than I've seen since the old wvw tournament seasons.Take a step back and you're realize that's a classic case of confirmation bias.

I believe you've taken what I said out of the context of what I meant.

1. Of course I read your response. Do you think that these discussions I create and maintain in the forum are done by not reading other users posts? It's not about if you said there were problems or not, obviously there are problems that people are talking about all across the board. I simply asked you a question, because you generally have the ability to sum up forum situations in a short amount of words, and I would have trusted your response, but you did not give one. This was a similar feeling to all of the other people complaining about various aspects of Warclaw, who make posts with no explanation at all behind their stance. IE: "This Warclaw is OP" Well what do you mean? A statement without any sensical or reasonable explanation behind it, isn't really worth anything. Right now, @"sephiroth.4217" is the only one who has given me a sound and reasonable statement as to what is wrong with the Warclaw. So sound in fact, that I was able to completely understand his stance on the matter, considering his experience playing Elementalist, and coming from that standpoint, I couldn't disagree with it. And he did it, without being rude at all.
2. I'm restating opinions? How many posts have you made or responded to on this topic? This is my first one, and it will be my only one.
3. "Take a step back and you're realize that's a classic case of confirmation bias." w/e You didn't answer me when I asked you a sincere question of "what exactly are they complaining about" and you still haven't given any actual statements of your own. You're just aggressively attempting to discredit my statement. A statement where someone took their time to well explain their opinion. Hey, I never claimed I was 100% correct in my stance. I simply dropped my 2 cents worth and said "this is how I feel about it." If you disagree that's fine. Throw counter points all you want that's fine. But know that it isn't classy to come into a discussion with only the intent to point finger and toss labels, without ever partaking in the actual discussion at all.
4. "I'm not actually addressing your conclusion." Well that's quite obvious. I'm just trying to figure out why you're even posting in here if you don't want to actually discuss about the discussion at hand.

@Excursion.9752 said:Everything on the warclaw is subjective.

^ And after this truth was stated, nothing else needed to be said in the forum, outside of everyone's own subjective experience, for the sake of Arenanet's feedback.

Thank you.

@noot.8641 said:The warclaw is the worst thing ever brought into wvw, it totally destroyed the purpose of roamer classes. I’m sure you “blobbers” like it because you get to your zerg faster when u rallybot all the time, but if you are a roamer it sucks when u can’t pick the fights u want. It’s fun getting chased by 10 people, 1 keeping you in combat while the rest mounts up and kitten you up. They need to nerf the warclaw, so it just is a transportation tool with low hp pool, and not going faster than the 33% swiftness speed.

This,most of my buddies are dissapearing because of the current state of wvw.

@Kylden Ar.3724 said:

@noot.8641 said:The warclaw is the worst thing ever brought into wvw, it totally destroyed the purpose of Ganker classes. I’m sure you “blobbers” like it because you get to your zerg faster when u rallybot all the time, but if you are a Ganker it sucks when u can’t pick the fights u want. It’s not fun getting chased by 10 people, 1 keeping you in combat while the rest mounts up and kitten you up when I used to harass players with my 1v1 PvP ganking build that they were not built for. I need them to nerf the warclaw, because I can't just gank people running back to the tag anymore.

How can you even change his words from Roam to Gank when you see He's the one stating getting chased by 10.

Twilight zone.

@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:I'm just trying to figure out why you're even posting in here if you don't want to actually discuss about the discussion at hand.There are already plenty of threads on this topic, including some started in praise and some in disgust. I posted to point out that title and the rhetoric used isn't conducive to doing more than preaching to the converted. If that was your goal, great: mission accomplished. If you had other plans, I hoped that you would reconsider your tactics.