MalinBlume.9314

@Jayden Reese.9542 If you like extra chests and reward track progress in a dying game-mode and game, good for you. I think our week off will be better well spent investing our time into something else. ANET is only slowing the decay.

Last straw for me. Off to better games. Peace out.

@"Vayne.8563" Yeah, maybe part of the reason why these guilds left was just not enough attention from ANET into WvW and the constant power creep. Tarnished Coast was strong but the power creep was catching the tail, and EVERYONE's tail. When TC / JQ was around, we had many troubles fighting Blackgate--anyone would... but overwhelmingly. We just didn't have enough "meta classes" to face their blob. But I think we were still strong, being able to beat FA and other groups. Probably being the second best at the time. (After Maguuma alliance dissolution, before FC alliance's creation)

@Vayne.8563 added in Chopsticks. Can't believe I forgot that living legend.

@Vayne.8563 you know if any of the mentioned commanders are still around?

As with all threads that I make, I want everyone to keep it at a settled level and approach it with an open mind. Tarnished Coast right now is not performing the best as it had been 7-9 months ago (and I believe all servers are not doing as great as they have been as before, of course). But back to the topic. Whether you guys will disagree with me or not, Tarnished Coast used to be quite strong the aforementioned time ago. They had the backing of all these guilds:[sTAR][GEM][WL][sKY][DAD][DuDe][NV][RA] And many much more guilds. They even had regular pugmanders like: Morale Officer MisaRallybot SerenityYodaJ A Y C E HikariCaysadiaEmperor ChopsticksAnd an organized server discord. I was on the server at the time, and I daresay they were strong. Of course, there were groups better than us, and there is always someone better than you. BUT, we managed positive KDRs on resets. TORK wasn't even on the server at the time. And not just positive KDRs, but overwhelmingly positive KDRs because I remember [RA] running open, and other guilds would have map queues as well. People were nice and cooperative and all that. What happened to these players? What happened to the strength of the server?

@Fatherbliss.4701 I like your answer dude and wish there were more players like you who like challenging play

@Limodriver.4106fair point. However, all groups / servers have their strong time zones and others don't. They do indeed have strong players with 70+ in comms, which is commendable indeed. Blob up or not, it's still a win. It takes work to bring servers together and get them to play, like you mentioned, as one big guild group. Only few servers nowadays can do an @here or @all call and manage to beat BG at it. Uniting servers and the bond is all part of the effort.

I will say this before anything -- let's keep this discussion to a settled level and come in with an open mind. The question: What makes Blackgate, as a server, so strong? What prompted this question is Blackgate's capability of always getting the highest KDR in their matchup, and being the best, if not second-best in victory points (PPT). Even before the legendary Jade Quarry alliance's creation, and straight after its dissolution, they continued to show strength as a server. The reason I want to open this discussion up is, what can us, as other servers or as players in general, learn from BG to better ourselves? Here are maybe some factors to think of to get this discussion started: Blackgate-dedicated guilds --> Now I'm sorry if I didn't mention a guild here, but I want to mention that the guilds on Blackgate--scarce as they are--are super strong. [XVX] and [RISE] in particular are full of tempered, playmaking players. In this day and age where active guilds are slowly disappearing and even in the olden days, Blackgate's guilds have shown exquisite fighting strength and have gained a reputation because of it.Experienced players --> Back in seasons, out of the three places you could receive--First, second, or third--Blackgate would be the one server constantly receiving gold medals for first. What causes this to happen? Many factors. But we all know that it is the overall practice of a server's players that lead them to victory. The players/pugs/guilds of Blackgate are really good, both in scouting and self-defense. Now one may complain they just run one-shot soul beasts and other overpowered builds. Whether or not it may be true, they still show consistency with a top KDR per matchup. It doesn't matter what class you are playing or what class you play against, in the end, it will all be a part of the KDR board.Cookie --> Yes, Cookie. The famed pugmander of Blackgate whose tales were told from even before 2014. This guy is a legend, basically. But in all seriousness, "The Call of Cookie" can instantly unite the server. The pugs will come on meta classes, REAL reasonable support and damage classes. Why? It is because they have hope in this guy. And this hope is not in vain. He has produced results from many days ago, and many videos are dedicated to him and his glory. He is not a perfect commander, and no one is, in all honesty. His rallies will get 70+, and 70 in comms. Complain as others may, this is still commendable. He gives good blob vs. blob fights and only a few have potential chances of beating him ([wavy]/[DED] blob, [PMA]/[VR] blob, and the mysteriously overwhelming Jade Quarry alliance). The standard is high to be beating Cookie and as large as you have to be to fight him, you cannot ignore the fact that he is actually a good commander.Timezone coverage is all around --> pretty self-explanatory.

players working towards new metas and finding ways to fight each other... how the game "Guild Wars 2" should be played and any fun game. Capping towers, castles, keeps, camps is all part of the game i guess though. Even though WvW is not PVE, it is also not completely PVP-I think the mods strived to put together PVP and PVE all in one within this game mode. What it just lacks is a balanced incentive of both...Players like to grind capping objectives cause' it's safer to level up.Rather than PPK where you could get run over and be wasting your times, or be the one that runs over and farms the enemy. Anet should implement a participation system on the groups that do decide to fight, though. There is too much players wanting to cap keeps and etc. and the PVE/PVP balance is shifted over to the PVE side. Of course, the groups that are better should get better rewards (the winners take more and the losers take less). But it shouldn't mean the losers get nothing. They should get rewards equivalent to at least that of doing PVE like the reason why i play this game over FFXIV is because this game has a game-mode which actually lets you think of how you play and counter your enemy instead of waiting for global CDs and counting on a dead PVP mode. This game also has very little pay to win, like the difference b/w ascended and exotic is literally less than 0.1%. PPK and PPT are both important to the game mode, but i think the balance of incentives needs to be there. People just want PPT over PPK right now, I hope this changes to balance both.

honestly dude stealth has many counters and pros and cons. It's good for small groups and allows them to fight against bigger groups if they get the stealth engage -- but can be countered by engineer reveal or sentry markIf you stealth in a big group with like 50 people on you... It will be MORE difficult to pull of the stealth because of people squirreling or not enough engineers or blasting. I think it's a good mechanic for the game and the fact that it is being used a lot means that people who engage in competitive play appreciate it...Now I know not everyone wants to play competitively but that's just the way things are...In order to survive against these things you just gotta... well... get good and look for ways to counter. And for most games, like league of legends for E.G...to fight overpowered champions like a fed master yi... you just gotta have the skill to do it.That's also the way of life man... you might think "oh man this boss is terrible" or "oh my prof is bad" ... WELL, WE CANT CONTROL THAT. The only thing we can do is read our textbook and find ways to learn on our own and learning how to adapt to our workplace. LIKE EVERYONE IS CRYING LIKE A BABY ABOUT THESE THINGS MAN BUT LIKE SRSLY... IS IT REALLY NOT THAT FAIR?Stealth is available to everyone.If you don't have people who can stealth, play that class.If you don't wanna play it.. then make a guild with people who play it.If you guys still get one pushed... THEN GET BETTER .. DONT RESORT TO SIEGE MONKEY TACTICS.

Well, expandas transferred off from AR/JQ out of thin air a couple of days ago so... I don't think AR/JQ will have to worry about it anymore.

I feel like some, if not, many of us get a feeling of pleasure from winning. I--for one--am a competitive person whether it be in gaming or sports. I FEEL GOOD when I trample others and feel better, and I feel down when I'm defeated (but that becomes another incentive to win... because I lost...) SO A PARADOX... and maybe maybe maybe maybe... Hence the name "Eternal Battlegrounds"... (just kidding) but mostly not kidding tho.We play video games for entertainment... in real life we actually gain nothing. and the most entertaining part... well for me, in video games, is being the best at it. And most of the time, doing what you cannot do irl.

@hunkamania.7561lastly...HOLY CRAP ITS A VR PLAYER.

BTW. For all of those wondering, I DID transfer to Maguuma recently and am planning to pugmand/startup a guild there SLOWLY. It was good to get all of your responses and opinions. I've also been watching some youtube videos of groups fighting and stuff and I do want to improve--pass on this knowledge. THANK YOU EVERYONE.

@"DeadlySynz.3471" Yeah, I'm actually curious about what a good centaur banner player could dish out within a group... never ccome across one before but might be good. As for the RISE i'm tlaking about... of course THE RISE. Primordius Virtus led by "Princess Jarvan" a.k.a. the "Princess of Blackgate" @"sephiroth.4217" yeah dude! both RISE and TBT are extraordinary groups. Actually I remember when TBT used to run around not AS good as they are today but man is it somewhat satisfying to see such a guild group grow (from an outside perspective). Nowadays they go far in GvGs and manage to scare outnumbering groups from fighting them as soon as they see "TBT" tag. Happens on my alpine borderland all the time "13-15 TBT on Redlake Sentry, need players to keep an eye" As for RISE, they're just extremely experienced players. A lot of them have been around for a while but THEY actually think about improving their gameplay. I know many players that have been around for long times but sit around, following commanders like a robot, and getting onepushed 4-5 years into the game still. Jarvan's commanding is intense as I've seen in youtube videos but I kinda find it fun when the commander is hype. GOD FORBID, followed Zog back in the day and his commanding was intense as HECK... off topic, but I think he's actually a decent commander... sadly the people that follow him around keep making the same mistakes and just too lazy to practice for improvement. @"ArchonWing.9480"Well... the call outs for that EBG keep thing was kind of sad at first dude. It was like "eXa EBG keep inc"and then literaly 5 minutes later (which is quite long) someone finally makes a proper callout "at least 40-45 FC on EBG keep, water gate down with 4 golems, eXa mixed with some VR, and other groups"and the sad part was that... these guys kept going back in and falling for their FARM ... they weren't even capping the place yet people were doing the Anvil Rock lowlands jumping puzzle just to build arrow carts.I have to admit I went in once and got on an AC, but was pulled by like 100 mesmers from 1 KM away and instantly bombed by 10 shades.

@Optimator.3589 hell yeah dude. Cookie of BG's main tactic is to skill lag the enemy to death. (just kidding, he actually a good commander on top of that)

maybe just me theorizing but if they DO release the invisible tag again, it will be with other WvW features and as a larger package. MOST OF THE TIME, you wouldn't want to go invisible tag in PVE otherwise you'd get farmed by the raid boss. I feel like this is more WvW tailored since there are many groups that want to run invisible and other things.(and maybe they will re-release this Friday on reset)

@"Chaba.5410" ... welll as much as I'd like to... it's just boring playing siege monkey for 2 hours. I genuinely think this game has a really good combat system perhaps even more than BDO (P2win) and Blade and Soul--especially in PVP. The fact that we need to think about traits and playstyles in order to counter groups with what we have. E.G for necros, taking "close to death" over #3 in spite will sacrifice the shade boonstrip for the extra damage .. but will help you finish your downs and perhaps rally your allies. Or even the ideas of blast fields / combo fields -- in WvW and bigger groups we take advantage of this but haven't yet fully explored it (E.g. with stealth) and many other combinations. I feel like sitting on AC's for hours or building mortars knocking groups back (unless you actually need to) would be... a waste you know. Gotta take advantage of our combat system! And the only way to get better is, like everyone says, to fight groups better than you ... rather than tagging down after one wipe or dodging the enemy group to PPT instead of fight. I've seen it a couple of times on other servers and on my server as well. And @Ni ln.6578 I did hear TW and Dods were returning on Kaineng to revive the server. Also heard Xushin is back on Maguuma with [CTH]

yeah, I'm seeing commonality from everyone here -- forming up a guild and improving with them with players who seek improvement will be nice and yeah as for the above I remember those guilds are quite good, especially in 2017-2018, that I saw from before haha. I just put my own list there from the guilds i noticed have been active and just been nice these days NO salt meant ... but idk about DOC there XD

I notice that dodging is a very common answer here too and I agree--especially in a long term fight. For glassy specs like scourge (which you absolutely need to dodge and survive to do damage later on), is it preferable to take dual superior sigil of energy over other sigils--if not on one weapon. [this is for like a long term fight situation or GvG]

@Cyninja.2954Yes, you're right haha. Most of the time we should be paying attention to the stealths. Actually, what I realized just now is what these groups do when WE stealth is they have an scrapper or two literally on us spamming reveal making our stealth useless. Perhaps it is meta to do the same HAHA, but it's definitely working. @Honest John.4673Di5 is on Blackgate I believe. Not sure if it's Di5 or DiS, but I remember facing them when AR vs. BG and they were pretty good against OnS. @Tiawal.2351Yeah man, believe this reply has a deep message in being patient and all of this being in a game. I am a competitive person and I strive to be better... (which would also increase the efficiency of getting bags). Part of the reason why I like WvW over PVE is because you have to--in most cases-- think of the ways you're going to get bags instead of following a commander like a robot. I feel a sense of accomplishment when defeating others. But you're right, it doesn't come over night and... having these good groups to fight is probably one of the best content right now. Imagine a game without really strong enemies and you would W key everyone XD.

@ArchonWing.9480 yeah, it is quite hard to cloud most of these groups. And yeah... getting farmed in EBG keep. FC had a 2.0-3.0 KDR in EU timezone simply by farming our keep and HoD's and the pugs who sadly kept going in yesterday as well QQ. Is it possible, with enough AC's and other defensive sieges to repel a decent group of 50? @XenesisII.1540 Yeah, #4 is a big one I've noticed our groups have been lacking. On public raids, I see we have like 6 spellbreakers which are really good for boonstrips, but they are instantly corrupted. If it's a quick fight with our comps I'm confident we can take these groups out but in the long term, we'll get out-corrupted with the bubble cooldown being definitely longer than that OP Devouring Darkness and Axe 3 on Scourge. @Dawdler.8521 Yeah dodging is a big thing. Many players I notice play with like 60 FPS and less than 60 ping... but have brain lag. And for that group that beat the 42, it was within chokes a couple of times and their damage just synced really well. I've seen groups like DED and VP pull it off too with like 15 people.Sure they can res on the spot but if it's a tight space and everyone's getting bursted by a synced bomb then well.. it's over. (and if you think about the shade radius, hits 10 people max and wells are pulsing)... and that damage is even worse when they got a really good bubble on you and they bomb you with absolutely no boons, no stab so you're getting feared around with their spike and no time to react to the downs to MI.have to admit though, our group had like 3 soulbeasts which were useless . . . Thanks for all the answers though, I'll keep it mind and be sure to pass it on

never really thought of the above HAHA. but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do to WIN.

EASY for you to say until 5 necros strip you of all your stab, pull you on a mesmer, knock around while getting destroyed by 5 different red circles that are almost in the same place. and the same thing happens to half of your group. and when you manage to survive, you can only give stab to the players who are support and manage to survive -- ... no dmg