Mez.4216

This would actually be a solid idea.

I mean, I could see them possibly allowing players to trade in a stack for some arbitrary amount like 5 or 10. That way it wouldn't massively affect the weekly limit of 365, but it'd be just enough to encourage players to keep and not to simply delete them. That said, they could also just award 20 instead since it'd be somewhat akin to completing your pips for the week and it's fairly unlikely that people would be able to regularly farm 250 Emblems a week.

pretty sure there was mention of them potentially being traded for Skirm Tix in a livestream hosted by Raymond and CMC last year.

The amount of Vigor uptime you can still get as a Mirage, coupled with Energy & Cleansing Sigils, would be broken if we were to keep two dodges. Means you would just spam dodges to negate the already nerfed Power dmg and then literally never die from Condi's.

Keep it up guys. Any change is good change in my eyes. Sure, there'll still be some kinks to iron out after the patch goes live but I like the idea of squashing Power Creep and I'm interested to see how the 4-6 weeks Cadence works out. I think people are overlooking the statement you made with regards to reducing Condi-Stacks, as opposed to listing out every single Condi-skill that was getting a stack reduction. Maybe make that a little more clearer if that's what you're going for, since people are just QQing over their favourite class being nerfed and not really paying too much attention it seems. I believe that narrowing the avenues for damage will essentially dumb-down skill rotations, but that's not necessarily a bad thing as splitting skills between dealing damage and dealing CC should encourage smarter/more organised group-play, which can only be a good thing for WvW. Instead of what we have now, which is: Winds 1, Winds 2, Stab 1, Stab 2, Everyone Else Spam DMG on Winds. Roles within squads are going to be more defined, which will force people to build for those specific roles, rather than being able to Tank everything and still output top DPS numbers & CC & heal & so on & so forth. Final note, I'm beyond happy with the Elusive Mind trait change. The stunbreak was broken as hell and the nerf essentially killed the trait but it's nice to see Mesmer actually getting a somewhat-reliable source of condi-clear. (Especially if you run Energy and Cleansing Sigils)

Perfection

I'm not sure why I'm seeing so many complaints about "Elitism". Will this system promote WvW-focused Guilds to recruit more hardcore members? Yes, of course it will. Will those WvW-focused Guilds end up walking all over more casual Guilds? Unlikely, seeing that both players and Guilds are going to be monitored for how much time and effort you put into the game-mode. Simply put: If you and your Guild play nothing but WvW, expect to be placed alongside like-minded players against other worlds full of like-minded players. This should result in a higher level of WvW play for players/Guilds who enjoy playing at that level. If you enjoy a more casual approach, expect a more casual level of play with other casual players against other casual worlds. It's not that hard to figure out. And if you're a solo player that enjoys playing on a certain server, there'll no doubt be Server Guilds/Alliances that pop up to keep people together. Yes, you might technically have to join a Guild, but that doesn't mean you have to run as a Guild.

I'm gonna need to give this a proper look over tomorrow but my initial thoughts are hopeful for this system. WvW does need something to happen. The big drawback seems to be doing away with the current worlds, which a lot of people have clung on to for the longest time and have built their communities around. Look at GSCH on Sanctum of Rall, for instance. But with the Alliance system, this drawback can mostly be alleviated I feel. I don't think I've ever actually seen a 500-man pure WvW Guild before, so I doubt there'll actually be an issue of not having enough space in an Alliance. I like idea of tracking Participation more thoroughly in order to gauge a player's WvW rating, but would it be possible to add more things that actually count as Participation i.e. Reviving, Healing, Boonsharing for people who play more supportive roles? Also, how will different types of Participation affect a player's WvW skill rating? For instance, Maguuma is known for its' fight mentality so naturally its' players would attain more Participation from killing enemies than some other servers that prefer PPTing. Will killing enemies grant you a higher skill rating than someone who mostly caps keeps? You also mention that Guilds will have to mark themselves as WvW Guilds. Does marking your Guild automatically secure your entire Guild a spot in a World during World Creation? How will inactive members of these Guilds affect population slots within the World the Guild is allocated to? Some Guilds have been known not to play in WvW for the week during unfavourable matchups, what will the repercussions be for intentional tanking like this? That's all I can think of at the moment. Looking forward to seeing the outcome of this dialog :)