If we want balance for WvW we're going to have to force the issue.

So, we need to get a popular streamer to do all the raids, ignoring mechanics, cause they can just power thru by virtue of existing as a team of Scourges, FBs, and Scrappers.

They have left scourges untouched as the meta for 8+ months, and now with Scrappers backing them up with FBs it's even worse.

And then the raid will be surrounded by a cloud 2-3x their size of thieves, mirages, soulbeasts, DHs, holos, spellbreakers, random zerglings etc that gank them 1 by 1 until they cant sustain anymore.

Then what? Who do we nerf?

Here is some sage advice ... it's a fool's errand to performance balance the game over all the classes and options. There isn't any 'forcing' Anet to do anything.

Don't pretend a few bright spots are an exception ... there has always been. The only difference is what classes take up the position.

@Dawdler.8521 said:And then the raid will be surrounded by a cloud 2-3x their size of thieves, mirages, soulbeasts, DHs, holos, spellbreakers, random zerglings etc that gank them 1 by 1 until they cant sustain anymore.

Then what? Who do we nerf?

you know wvw doesnt work like that. An squad of fb, scourge and heralds can not be beaten in the actual state of the game. It does not matter how many random zerglings you throw at them, if one fall it gets resurrected instantly.

Until the action key to revive downed is removed there is not going to be a place for anybody else in wvw.Roaming is dead, long live the blob!

@anduriell.6280 said:

@Dawdler.8521 said:And then the raid will be surrounded by a cloud 2-3x their size of thieves, mirages, soulbeasts, DHs, holos, spellbreakers, random zerglings etc that gank them 1 by 1 until they cant sustain anymore.

Then what? Who do we nerf?

You really think that blob won’t wipe the others regardless of being able to revive or not?

It’s always been a numbers game.

The blob is king

A little dishonest since scourge has been gutted by patches.

Back when deathly chill trailblazer reapers were trashing WvW I made a joke about making marks pulse. Enter left stage, Shades. I apologise.

Necro staff and the shade mechanic need to be rewritten to not be on-point ranged lingering-aoe spamming bots.

@Justine.6351 said:A little dishonest since scourge has been gutted by patches.

Back when deathly chill trailblazer reapers were trashing WvW I made a joke about making marks pulse. Enter left stage, Shades. I apologise.

Necro staff and the shade mechanic need to be rewritten to not be on-point ranged lingering-aoe spamming bots.

Scourge may not be OP everywhere else but they are obsurd in wvw and need toned down aoe spam wise very badly.

@Psycoprophet.8107 said:

@"Justine.6351" said:A little dishonest since scourge has been gutted by patches.

Back when deathly chill trailblazer reapers were trashing WvW I made a joke about making marks pulse. Enter left stage, Shades. I apologise.

Necro staff and the shade mechanic need to be rewritten to not be on-point ranged lingering-aoe spamming bots.

Hmmm. "toned down badly". What would you suggest?

@Voltekka.2375 said:

@Psycoprophet.8107 said:

@"Justine.6351" said:A little dishonest since scourge has been gutted by patches.

Back when deathly chill trailblazer reapers were trashing WvW I made a joke about making marks pulse. Enter left stage, Shades. I apologise.

Necro staff and the shade mechanic need to be rewritten to not be on-point ranged lingering-aoe spamming bots.

That would tone them down very badly.

We have balance:

• all teams have same number of slots per WvW map
• all teams have access to same professions

It comes down to how well your realm/server applies itself within the rules. Blobs can't be easily beaten directly but there are other ways to win.

@Dawdler.8521 said:

@Voltekka.2375 said:

@Psycoprophet.8107 said:

@"Justine.6351" said:A little dishonest since scourge has been gutted by patches.

Back when deathly chill trailblazer reapers were trashing WvW I made a joke about making marks pulse. Enter left stage, Shades. I apologise.

Necro staff and the shade mechanic need to be rewritten to not be on-point ranged lingering-aoe spamming bots.

Lmao

@Voltekka.2375 said:

@Psycoprophet.8107 said:

@"Justine.6351" said:A little dishonest since scourge has been gutted by patches.

Back when deathly chill trailblazer reapers were trashing WvW I made a joke about making marks pulse. Enter left stage, Shades. I apologise.

Necro staff and the shade mechanic need to be rewritten to not be on-point ranged lingering-aoe spamming bots.

Well scourges literally single handedly dictates the playstyle(pirate ship) we see in zergs in wvw,that alone points to a problem. Scourge aoe spam in zergs is obsurd. All zergs are not only surrounded by stacked aoe's from scourge but also always standing in them leading to any melee being g a death sentence other than popping invulnerability skills and jumping in and out. The class has far too much influence in zergs. Any defenders are made almost useless due to scourges doing the same on walls of structures their zerg is attacking blocking off essentially the whole side of the structure their attacking.its gotten ridiculous.

@"Tajiseed.7831" said:We have balance:

• all teams have same number of slots per WvW map
• all teams have access to same professions

It comes down to how well your realm/server applies itself within the rules. Blobs can't be easily beaten directly but there are other ways to win.

I agree to some of that, mostly just detailing/specifying further:

Players have very varying definitions of what balance is or should be. You're taking balance as the mechanical differences between 2 servers, at which point you're correct. But that also means ignoring several other things (largely the population, coverage, and fair-weather effect). Which affects a "perceived" balance more than any mechanical profession balance etc.

Yet most people tend to focus "Balance" around the Professions vs Profession level, and want each Professions to be equal in 1vs1 with every other class in the game, for each play-style/role. Now this is completely unfeasible, it would likely take way too much developer time and resources to do this properly, especially compared to what potential revenue ANet believe they can gain from it.

Balance for WvW becomes most important in a macro-level, where each class does have something wanted somewhere in WvW, and no class is completely useless. And that any one class doesn't make other classes useless at that one thing that class does well in WvW. And at the moment, this works, though not perfectly. The Scourge does a lot of crazy things, but it doesn't replace or kick any other class out of its role. Rangers are still one of the best roamers and ganker classes, and scourge doesn't change that. Not saying this is perfect, but it's better balanced than it's been several times in the past.

The Micro-level balance is more important for sPvP, and while it would be enjoyable to get into WvW as well, it isn't as important or critical. Simply because this is WvW, numbers matters more than micro-level balance. It simply isn't important enough for the game mode that a Thief and a Necromancer can have a fair duel, when 20 thieves can zerg down 1 Necromancer just as well as 20 necromancers can zerg down 1 thief.

In order of Priority:

• Game-Mode-Balance (Population, Coverage, Numbers, Fair-weather effect, Defense vs Offense, etc)
• Class-Macro-Balance (Each class has at least one role where it is wanted in WvW)
• Class-Micro-Balance (Each class has a fair chance at any one role in WvW)

So far 1 and 3 is a mess, 2 is decent but could be improved upon.

OP plays the most....OP roaming class in game, and complains about a zerg class? Speaking of zergs, if you are running Scourge as your only DPS class you are doing something very wrong.

A month ago this complaint was about FB and Scourge. Now Scrappers enter the complaint. At what point does the complaint stop? Btw power revs are a major part of every zerg. Can't beat those 10K CoRs followed by 12K Drop the Hammers. I often find any zerg in NA T1 contains AT LEAST a few Spellbreakers, as well as a couple chronos. Dang, it looks like more and more classes are entering into, and contributing to the zerg meta.

So we have FB, Scourge, Scrapper, Rev, Spellbreaker, and Chrono contributing heavily to a zerg, at least in NA T1. That's 6 professions. Hmm, the old days that everyone pines for was dominated by GWEN. Guardian, Warrior, Ele, and Necro. That's just 4 classes. I guess balance is better now than it was then.

@Kaiser.9873 I actually don't play Mesmer much in WvW the last 6 months, been experimenting more and playing more Ranger as it doesn't cost a kitten-ton to regear after every patch, but you go right on with your biases.

The simple fact of the matter is the meta is virtually unchanged with each balance patch since PoF hit. If you don't see how that's a problem for the mode well... ANet's eSports dreams would like a word with you.

@Kaiser.9873 said:OP plays the most....OP roaming class in game, and complains about a zerg class? Speaking of zergs, if you are running Scourge as your only DPS class you are doing something very wrong.

A month ago this complaint was about FB and Scourge. Now Scrappers enter the complaint. At what point does the complaint stop? Btw power revs are a major part of every zerg. Can't beat those 10K CoRs followed by 12K Drop the Hammers. I often find any zerg in NA T1 contains AT LEAST a few Spellbreakers, as well as a couple chronos. Dang, it looks like more and more classes are entering into, and contributing to the zerg meta.

So we have FB, Scourge, Scrapper, Rev, Spellbreaker, and Chrono contributing heavily to a zerg, at least in NA T1. That's 6 professions. Hmm, the old days that everyone pines for was dominated by GWEN. Guardian, Warrior, Ele, and Necro. That's just 4 classes. I guess balance is better now than it was then.

Correct. While Necro and Guardian (in dirrerent versions of class) have always been a staple in the Zerg, we have more classes and diversity than we have had in a long time. (Oh, and a solid Weaver that isn’t a rally boy would be welcome (or at least not shunned) in most Zergs.)

Balanced? Heh,. No.., but class diversity in the Zerg hasn’t been this good in likely.. ever.

@Kylden Ar.3724 said:@Kaiser.9873 I actually don't play Mesmer much in WvW the last 6 months, been experimenting more and playing more Ranger as it doesn't cost a kitten-ton to regear after every patch, but you go right on with your biases.

The simple fact of the matter is the meta is virtually unchanged with each balance patch since PoF hit. If you don't see how that's a problem for the mode well... ANet's eSports dreams would like a word with you.

Moved from Mes to Ranger. Talks about zerg fights.

Push meta has become more and more common. Pirate ship is not the entirety of zerg fighting anymore. Depends entirely on what you have versus what they have, but hey keep going with your own biases

Class diversity in zergs is still a joke. I watched a couple of WvW streams this month, guess what 75-90% of the squads were the same three elites as usual firebrand, herald & scourge, if you think having a couple of chronos, spellbreakers, scrappers, etc making up the other 10-25% on top of that is diversity then you don't understand the concept.

@zinkz.7045 said:Class diversity in zergs is still a joke, I watched a couple of WvW streams this week, guess what 75-90% of the squads were the same three elites as usual firebrand, herald & scourge, if you think having a couple of chronos, spellbreakers, scrappers, etc making up the other 10-25% on top of that is diversity then you don't understand the concept.

What I'm hearing is that chrono, SB and scrappers are so OP that you only need a few of them

@Psycoprophet.8107 said:

@Voltekka.2375 said:

@Psycoprophet.8107 said:

@"Justine.6351" said:A little dishonest since scourge has been gutted by patches.

Back when deathly chill trailblazer reapers were trashing WvW I made a joke about making marks pulse. Enter left stage, Shades. I apologise.

Necro staff and the shade mechanic need to be rewritten to not be on-point ranged lingering-aoe spamming bots.

You are not suggesting anything. I mean, all you say is the usual mantra "aoe spam death spam etc". Concrete suggestions. WHat needs to change? That sort of stuff.

I along with alot of others suggest things which in these forums only serve as fuel for people to disagree with lol and didnt feel like a discussion was only pointing out that their a problem and did not state I had the ideal solution. Saying that not allowing aoe's to stack in wvw from multiple scourges could be an option. Increasing their effectiveness a bit but increasing cd on them by a lot may help as well as not stacking might have them serving as periodic bombs instead of a constant death aoe carpet surrounding the whole zerg.

@Kylden Ar.3724 said:So, we need to get a popular streamer to do all the raids, ignoring mechanics, cause they can just power thru by virtue of existing as a team of Scourges, FBs, and Scrappers.

They have left scourges untouched as the meta for 8+ months, and now with Scrappers backing them up with FBs it's even worse.

5/3/2019:Unending Corruption: This trait has been reworked and renamed Herald of Sorrow.Herald of Sorrow: Equipping this trait turns Desert Shroud into Harbinger Shroud, which removes the pulsing effects of Desert Shroud and instead shifts into a single detonation after a 3-second delay. This trait deals damage, corruption, and conditions in one strike while providing barrier to allies within the vicinity.

11/12/2018:Spiteful spirit, weakening shroud: it will no longer be able to critically hit foes in all game modes.

2/10/2018:Chill of Death—Lesser Spinal Shivers: The damage of this trait has been reduced by 30% in PvP and WvW.

10/7/2018:Dhuumfire: This trait now has a cooldown when used in conjunction with the scourge specialization. This cooldown is set at 5 seconds in PvP and WvW and 3 seconds in PvE.

I listed only the changes that affected wvw. Spite traitline used to be meta. Scourges have been getting reworks and nerfs almost every balance patch, same as most classes.

What streamers? Just kidding. Mighty Teapot had a match about a week ago against a team that had two necro players that would revive their team very quickly. I’m sure this isn’t the first time that this has been shown on his stream or anyone else’s. I don’t think a streamer highlighting it is really going to have much impact.

@Kaiser.9873 said:OP plays the most....OP roaming class in game, and complains about a zerg class? Speaking of zergs, if you are running Scourge as your only DPS class you are doing something very wrong.

A month ago this complaint was about FB and Scourge. Now Scrappers enter the complaint. At what point does the complaint stop? Btw power revs are a major part of every zerg. Can't beat those 10K CoRs followed by 12K Drop the Hammers. I often find any zerg in NA T1 contains AT LEAST a few Spellbreakers, as well as a couple chronos. Dang, it looks like more and more classes are entering into, and contributing to the zerg meta.

So we have FB, Scourge, Scrapper, Rev, Spellbreaker, and Chrono contributing heavily to a zerg, at least in NA T1. That's 6 professions. Hmm, the old days that everyone pines for was dominated by GWEN. Guardian, Warrior, Ele, and Necro. That's just 4 classes. I guess balance is better now than it was then.

Notice how none of the meta classes use projectiles or realistically contribute on melee. Fact of the matter is: ranged ground aoe power damage is king in WvW fights, so that's basically all you see. Everything in the zerg is either dealing that damage or supporting it.

• Ranged power aoe bombs: Scourge, Rev, Ele (scourge/rev making up the bulk of zergs)
• Support: FB, Scrapper (about 1/5 players, keeping the power bombers alive)
• Utility: Spellbreaker (a few players in a group, brings unique moving boonstrip-bubble, but otherwise would be better off on rev/scourge)'

A more healthy WvW meta would have things like:

• projectiles - currently they basically cannot be used in a wvw fight because blobs have permanent projectile cancelling bubbles provided by their supports (scrapper/fb).
• conditions - again, basically cannot be used because blobs have so much shared cleanse, conditions stack and a single cleanse clears the whole stack.
• melee - one ought to be able to get in there with melee classes and fight (eg. staff daredevil, greatsword ranger, power guardian), but currently this is near impossible as you will just die instantly to 5 CoRs at once or scourge bombs

It's not about the specific classes (at least in my opinion). It's about the fight styles. I'd like to see more styles be viable and not just ranged aoe non-projectile nuke like we have now.