Vallun.2071

this is all really nice, but can we get a new WvW map or a new PvP game mode?

Minstrels allows supports to be tanks. Yes I know you can still be tanky as any other supportive stat set, but they have to trade some of their tankiness to make their party survive, or give up some of that support to be tankier. Either way it allows more counterplay to remove minstrels because you can either focus the support who gave up some survivability to keep their team alive (and will need better positioning to survive) or you can focus their DPS who aren't getting pocket healed so hard by a tank that can stand on top of them at all times. Any argument you can make against this can pretty much be negated by the fact that whatever value you see in minstrels can still exist but in a healthier state with one of the more interactive stat types.

I promote build diversity by removing the stat that everyone takes because no one uses anything else when minstrels dominates. I would be promoting zerg support builds like a plague doctor tempest, a crusader druid, commanders mirages, but at the end of the day minstrels is just generally better so i made this post instead

Good way to discredit yourself: "I don't like this person and also didn't read what they said, but I will go ahead and repeat their sentiment anyway"

Celestial already isn't amazing in PvE encounters where you have DPS/Support roles, but where cele is really good is where you can optimize your output by playing a support role while still providing some dps, which will still be good with a slight nerf to all the stats. In open world it will still be amazing to run cele stats with a slight nerf. Remember my suggestion is only nerfing it somewhere between where it is now and where it was before the buff. I'm able to enjoy playing cele builds while also recognizing that they are overpowered and need nerfing. Mostly rev, guard, engi, ele are the best uses for it, but as of late ive found that even a thief and mesmer can use it, and those builds felt nasty to play in terms of how uninteractive they were.

Recently Celestial stats were given a buff from having every stat except boon duration and condition duration to having all stats including those, meaning it went from having 7 stats to 9 stats. While I liked this change and have been making lots of celestial builds, it made me realize a huge issue in the diversity of playstyles that exists in WvW. Celestial is a bit overpowered in small scale World vs World and Minstrel is likewise overpowered in large scale. While that's not too uncommon for WvW to be unbalanced, at least having some diversity is nice. This is why I think celestial should be nerfed and minstrel should be removed. Celestial Doing some quick math, you can see that the celestial ascended gloves give 22 to every stat while any 4 stat combination would give 22 to its minor stats and 40 to its major, so the ratio of celestial to 4 stats is approximately 9 to 6, and when you compare it to 3 stat gear its an even rougher ratio. The balance here is that without any specific specialization in stats you don't fit into a specific role or that sometimes you don't get the most out of each stat because your build will struggle to get synergy if it tries to reach every stat. Also celestial isn't really going to give you enough stats to deal meaningful damage compared to a full damage build or even a full trailblazer build which is still pretty tanky for how much damage it gives. When you look at the damage that celestial gives, even though you have a decent amount of hybrid stats, its still pretty pathetic. However, when used with a build that can generate a good amount of might, the damage skyrockets because of the hybrid synergy from the power and condition damage bonuses. Combined with the boon duration, a celestial build can upkeep quite a bit of might, allowing them to do significant damage especially in drawn out fights which their tanky builds allow them to create. The thing is, its not just the amount of raw stats that celestial gives, it's the variety. The way Guild Wars 2's combat system works, most weapons have the potential to do both power and condition damage, so long as I theorycraft a build that can get synergy from both condition and power damage I can generally get good value out of the damaging stats. Then the defensive stats are very conveniently allocated. Toughness is a really good stat to have just a little bit of because a build with no toughness is very squishy, but a build with a lot of toughness gets diminishing returns on the stat due to its exponential nature. Vitality is the same way, you want just enough health to not get bursted, but also having too much vitality is a waste without sustain. The sustain definitely is there though, healing power scales very linearly, so there's no threshold for too little or too much healing power, however, some classes have better healing power scaling on their abilities which mostly you need to research through the wiki. While some classes like warrior and thief do not have access to great healing power coefficients, there are some basic mechanics like regeneration and healing combo finishers that all classes have access to which do scale very well with healing power. Now here's the part where celestial really goes over the top. The recently added boon duration and condition duration add interesting synergies, but when you realize that the entire combat system has been designed around simplifying buffs and debuffs into specific boons and conditions, you realize that celestial has way more utility than just stats. For example, the weakness, immobilize, and chill condition getting longer duration gives even more potential to debilitate your opponents. Also boon duration doesn't just give you more sustain from protection and regeneration or damage from might and fury, it also gives utility from quickness which makes your animations harder to react to, and it gives more vigor uptime which allows you more mobility and avoidance. While power builds wouldn't necessarily go for condition duration, you can still see how they would benefit from it just from increasing their vulnerability uptimes and such. So as long as you are running the right build, celestial gives great damage over time, sustain, tankyness, support, and even utility. I'm not saying celestial shouldn't have all 9 stats, because I think its interesting, but maybe it shouldn't have so much of each. Instead of being a 9 to 6 ratio of cele to 4 stat types it could be an 8 or 7.5 to 6 so giving 20 or 18 instead of 22 on the gloves for each stat. I still think celestial should be one of the best options for small scale builds, but not by such a wide margin. However, you also have to remember that most of the optimal builds for small scale include shadow arts thieves, nade scrappers, and soulbeasts, but this is mainly because their class mechanics provide them so much utility. For other classes to compete with them, they kind of need celestial, which is why I suggest that some of the changes that were made in PvP be ported over to WvW such as the shadow arts nerfs, the grenade nerfs, and the dolyak stance cooldown increase. Yes, these things have already been nerfed in PvP but not in WvW. If we bring celestial down a bit, and nerf the insane utility of some of the classes that already dominate small scale without the use of celestial, it should promote a lot more variety in classes and builds. Minstrel Obviously the celestial issue isn't much of a problem because in larger scale WvW fights, the composition of groups is much more role based. You have your zerker DPS and your minstrel supports. You don't need a jack of all trades build in your squad because everything is covered by the composition. What allows this very binary composition to exist within large groups is the fact that minstrels allows you to play two roles in one. In the past, there were frontliners who could take the brunt of an engagement, mostly warriors and guardians. Then there were backliners who provided the damage and support, mainly necros and elementalists. While it is great that more classes like revs and engineers exist in squads nowadays that is mostly due to elite specializations. But the diversity in classes is opposed by the diversity in playstyles. There is no longer a need for this kind of backline frontline arrangement because minstrels gear allows your supports to also be the tanks. This is the same reason why minstrels was removed from PvP, to play around a minstrels composition you simply needed overwhelming damage or superior rotations because you can't focus the supports since they are bunkers and you can't focus their DPS because they have an insane support with them. The removal of minstrels would place these support builds on more fair and interactive stat types like plague doctor, clerics, harrier, magis, etc. Because none of these stat types have EVERY defensive stat, there is some weakness to them. This would mean positioning is much more important, because supports can't just sit in the middle of all the damage and keep pumping out their heals. They would need to avoid damage to survive and provide their support which would also make it more difficult to land their heals on their allies. So their allies would also need to have good positioning. This would promote splitting up much more often, because large groups can't just stick together in a big ball if they can't bunker up with minstrels, it may even promote smaller squad sizes. A 20 person squad is much more interactive and manageable for the servers and the average player's computers to handle, and can allow much more diverse play than just zerging and sitting on top of one spot. Some potential arguments against the removal of minstrels: "My guild is 500 players and we often squad up to play together." Just because your guild isn't in the exact some spot as each other doesn't mean you can't be in communication with them and still interacting with them through strategic movements around the map. "I prefer zerg balling in 50 person squads, why remove that potential?" Removing minstrels does not remove tanky supporty builds, it just makes them more fair. There are just some tradeoffs you'll need to make to maintain that playstyle which will allow others to play around you. Just because you like winning doesn't mean you deserve to win. "No minstrels means even more pirate ship because no one will want to push." Wrong, large zergy combat is why no one wants to push, because the team that does not win the engagement gets punished much harder. "Aren't firebrands and scourges more of a problem than minstrels?" When the meta is to stack together, these classes are the best at doing that yes. When there are more varieties of ways to play the game, firebrands and scourges can still be good in larger fights, but not every fight would be a large fight if we promote splitting them up. I could see a slight nerf to these classes too, such as bringing the 60 second cooldown of stand your ground in PvP into WvW (though this may just promote stacking more firebrands to make up for that loss of stability?) This suggestion does make WvW more punishing to play and more skill requirement for sure, which could be harder for the casual player to feel rewarded in, but let's be fair to both sides of the argument and understand that the average casual player also may not be accepted into a public squad because they're not running optimal builds or classes, so I think the trade off is worth it. You still can zerg up if you want but there should be less incentive to do so. TLDR: Provide more variety in WvW play by promoting different size squads and more class representation by removing Minstrels and nerfing Celestial while also bringing in some utility nerfs to some of the overpowered skill: Shadow Arts, Grenades, Dolyak Stance, Stand Your Ground

i like these relinks, finally i can stop being in perma zerg tier

Lately there has been a lot of balance opnions, this is broken, that is broken, but in a lot of cases most people are bashing their heads into a situation they shouldn't be in or one they can certainly play around. I'm not saying some classes aren't broken, because they certainly do, but most people resort to the balance card much sooner than they should rather than learning to handle it. I finished a video series on how to rotate as the four main roles of PvP, and while the videos themelves are long they are mostly just different situational commentaries. If you watch the first 20 mins of each video and understand each role you will be able to adapt to things that appear imbalanced, but actually aren't it is just them finding better places to be at than you.

lynx does give condi and power, but traveler gives a little bit of everything, vitality which gives necros more shroud, precision which scales with condition damage, some condition duration, some power and condition damage, and so on. Both work though

Often I see players playing support builds because they are very powerful for their team, but then these players don't understand the role of a support and the situations where they are powerful. Sometimes I see supports who tunnel vision on objectives without healing their team or supports who try to take 1v1s. I made this video which will explain the priorities of the support role and then showing off 4 builds while explaining the role of support in numerous situations.

I can definitely see that trade off working, because in a lot of situations you have too much shroud or not enough damage, and having zerk and curses will give you much more aggressive potential. However, its going to be much more situational. The best part of core necro is that it can always survive most situations, and just surviving in PvP is giving your team presence (because if you die then they will also die) and because necros tend to be focused and dont have the mobility to create advantageous situations like other classes (maybe you can fight a thief, but a thief will never fight you unless it knows it can kill you outnumbered) it means that the situations where your damage matters can be played around easily, and in the situations where your survivability matters cant be played around if you arent building into blood magic and vitality. So in other words there is more play potential and role independence as you said for 1v1/x whereas if youre in ideal situations always, then your variant is better.

A bit harsh, valluns a good player and prolly didnt waste too much time to make perfect video with perfect enemies.I wont say the enemies didnt play stupid, but yes, sadly you see that daily even at 1600 elo. Scepter dagger for me works way better than expected.Seems like in bunker meta, yo play more slow and pressure wit #2s and swaps, while in power meta you want focus, more survial lifeforce and spam #1.In my posting there is not a single word stating he is a bad player. The posting is about the situations he uses as examples for the builds to work. These are low skill level situations on the opponents side. The only thing I could criticize here regarding him is why you would pick bad players as opponents to demonstrate a build. That doesn't make sense and to me this would be wasted time for the production of the video. Sure the tone is harsh, but think about the bigger picture: tons of bronze division skill level players jumped on the nerf train after he made that minion master video, even though minion master is trash - without any doubt. He was basically provoking nerf demands for things that are already trash on necro. Now it's the same with scepter/dagger and power core necro (both is not viable). S/D is the worst you can run on necro and producing videos that cherrypick situations where it worked somehow, sends the wrong message to the devs and the community. If you honestly care about necro, then you don't do this.It's not cherrypicking if this is how most of the PvP matches are. If I want to find a good match I have to play for many hours or only at prime time. I don't really invest that much time into a simple build video.

Here are two core necro builds I have a lot of fun with and think will be good in many situations for PvP because of how survivable and resilient to focus they are while also having good sustained damage.

If so, then I have a late Christmas gift for you: my guide to learning some of the more complicated combat mechanics of gw2 and getting your character to move how you wish.

builds are in the description

Lately I've been hearing a lot of people discussing rotation and many people will be familiar with the phrase "fight on point", or fight on the flag, or fight for the objective. And chances are if you are reading this, you probably said it too. It's not that this is right or wrong, because without a doubt you should fight for the objective, its a question of how. Fighting for an objective is important, but how you obtain the objective is dependent on many things such as how the objective is obtained. I want to go over a few of the ideas going on in my head when I think of rotation and ideal decision making to help newer players understand there is more than just the objective and maybe raise some discussion on the higher level point of view of conquest PvP. If you need to stand within a capture point there are different roles and methods for achieving that. You can be the strongest person inside it and bully everyone else out, you can be the most deadly and kill everyone else and be the winner by default, or you can even use deception and movement to contest more objectives than others. There are different roles and matchups that you need to consider as well because you may be stronger than a player but another player is stronger than you. in Situations where you arent the stronger one, you want to play a more deceptive role, and in situations where you are stronger you play more aggressive. There are many other objective types such as channeling a buff which will favor players with control effects or also objectives to land the killing blow on a mob, and that would favor those with burst damage. Thats good and all, but the main point I want to make is that in some way shape or form you need to provide presence however your role or playstyle provides it. However, one thing that players can and often do is tunnel vision on their role and forget that performing your role requires you to be alive. Thats right the single most important thing to winning an objective is to participate, and if you die you get sent to spawn you lose that objective or your team has a significant disadvantage. What that means is if you must stand on a capture point to win the objective but that also means you are going to die to someone stronger than you, or being outnumbered, you will do much better not standing on that capture point. I know this sounds pretty obvious but its a very common question. While you should fight for the objective, you give up the objective if you die commiting to it. So in some situations not investing into an objective and playing safer or going to another objective is better than dying for something you cant do. You are not required to fight for the objective 100% of the time, and its actually better you don't because it can be predictable and easy to counter. Its like this ancient chinese proverb that i love to repeat. It goes like this. If you chase two hares, you will catch none. What this means to me is that if you are greedy and try to catch two rabbits instead of being humble with what you can do, you will end up with less than if you just focused on one. The same thing goes for trying to perform a role you arent specialized for or have little experience with. Youd be much better elsewhere even if your team needs this right now. Taking a 1v1 as a support is probably not a good idea, you should be supporting your team. Don't get me wrong though. You should absolutely push your limits and try to fill in your team's weaknesses, but there is a fine line that you need to get to where youre constantly pushing and seeing how much you can get without crossing that line and being punished. And remember others are trying to do this too, so if you have too little presence then they might get away with making greedy plays for free. So while dying is a very large detriment to your team, taking risks is important as well. If you die in the game its just a game you dont die in real life if you die in game. Also sometimes losses can help you improve. How do you think Vegeta became so powerful? Yes he did train under the harshest environments and had a massive ego, but he also got his ass kicked plenty of times. It's usually better to be on the aggressive side than the passive side because you force others to react to you rather than you reacting to them. This is like going first in chess, the enemy is always one step behind you and its a huge advantage. Also all of those things I said about not dying apply to everyone else as well. So if you're scoring tons of kills you can win the objectives because the enemy isn't there to contest it. And if you win the objective youre now at an advantage. All those cooldowns you blew to win the fight are going to be paid off if you win because you end the fight and can get them back for the next encounter. This leads to the snowball phenomenon. If we think of things as a game of numbers. You can have 5 vs 5. If one person is eliminated that becomes a 5 vs 4 which is much easier to handle than a 5 vs 5 so they can score even more kills and eventually it becomes easier and easier to win as you maintain your advantage, or harder and harder to win as you lose more allies. It sounds very deterministic and contingent on the very first kill right? Thats why games put in multiple objectives and respawn timers, so that a losing team can regroup at another objective and still have a chance moving forward. Continuing to fight at a losing objective is going to result in that snowball getting harder and harder to push back the more you get outnumbered. Thats one of the main reasons why you should not always fight for an objective. Thats pretty easy right? Losing an objective just means you should disengage before you die. Theres more. What if youre winning and the enemy leaves to another objective. You can stay and win that objective, but the unaccounted for person can get kills on your team elsewhere and lead to you now being at a disadvantage and now you can't defend the objective you stayed at. The other option is to follow and give up the objective as well to prevent the enemy team from snowballing into yours. Each option has its risks and its rewards, and theres no definitive answer really. It would depend on many factors such as role, timing, and the positions of other players. That kind of complexity is what creates interesting and meaningful situations that keep us entertained, and simply stating fight on point is not going to work out for everyone. But at the same time who has the time to write or read a wall of text in the heat of battle explaining every matchup you can take and when you do and dont need help. Sometimes simplicity is necessary and telling someone to fight on point is better than reciting sun tzus art of war.

Full Script:There are two main damage types in guild wars 2. Conditions which are basically debuffs and power which is a strike damage. Conditions used to be terrible in guild wars 2 before the massive trait rework in preparation for the first expansion. Before then, damaging conditions besides bleeding did not stack in duration, making it very hard for multiple condition builds to work together. Also conditions were too slow to deal damage because you were stacking the duration, making hybrid builds much better than full condition builds. In PvE condition builds were shunned out of groups, but in PvP and WvW they were acceptable for only the small scale fights. It was a very toxic relationship the community had with conditions because they were not wanted because they could not contribute as much in group fights, and the players who did stick to themselves were considered trolls or griefers because they needed to specialize in 1v1s if they wanted to be useful. When damaging conditions were allowed to stack and became an actual threat there was a huge backlash from the community saying that conditions were too strong, and that they bursted harder than power damage. However, most of us did not know how to properly deal with conditions because they were never that strong. Now when the two damage types are more balanced it appears that conditions are stronger because people never adjusted their playstyle or builds to adapt. I will be analyzing some common misconceptions about the two damage types to quell some of the constant bias and misinterpretation of the dynamic between these two. Skill Floor The first topic we'll look at is which damage type is easier to play. Conditions do much more damage if not cleansed and take time to deal their damage, so there is less coordination involved like in power builds. However, Some power builds are much easier to play than condition builds.At a certain level, power builds can become one shot builds, or builds that focus on downing an enemy in one single short burst while sacrificing a lot of their personal survivability. Once you learn the skill combination to perform the burst, the gameplay is rather simple and shallow. If you land the burst the interaction is over instantly, and if you dont land it you either die or run away. Another aspect that suggests the ease of condition builds is the amount of stats allocated toward builds. Power builds use power precision and ferocity to get their damage, meanwhile condition builds only use condition damage and duration. So to maximize a power builds use of damage you need to utitlize three stats and to maximize a condition builds condition damage you only need two stats, allowing much more room for defensive stats, making condition builds tankier usually. right? Wrong. If you simply put full marauder or full trailblazer on a build, obviously the full trailblazer build will seem easier, because its a well rounded set up. If you simplify your build to full marauder and dont take any protection or toughness modifiers in your build you will have a bad time just the same as if you take no condition cleanses against a condition build. And this is the issue I see with a lot of people who take the stance that conditions are easier. They just simply run greedy power builds that have no condition cleanse on them and claim that running condition cleanses doesn allow the full potential of their build and is less fun. To me, dying to conditions or other circumstances i cant control isnt fun. Also a lot of condition builds will trade traits that power builds would use for survivability to deal conditions. For example, a condition thief mightuse the poison trait whereas a power thief would always use improvisation which would make up a lot of the survivability difference in stats. Yes it would simplify the build a lot to run tankier stats and passive damage traits, which would make a condition build easier to play, but thats a choice. I could run a knights holosmith and it would be just as easy as a trailblazer herald. I do think the trailblazer stats are a bit overpowered, but so is the cleansing sigil. Also going full trailblazer makes your build a bit of a one trick, you can be easily countered by condition cleanse because you have no other damage sources. Yes I do find condition builds easier to play, especially in WvW where trailblazer exists, Conditions may be easier to play but are also easier to handle which leads to my next topic. Counterplayability? Power damage is instant, so you can only dodge it and if you get hit the damage is done. but it can be reduced by toughness and protection.Condition damage can be dodged on its application but can also be cleansed and takes longer than power damage to be dealt, but it generally does more damage if it isnt cleansed. It can be ignored with resistance and cover conditions can make cleansing harder. I think without a doubt conditions have much more counterplay to them. However, what people misunderstand is the ease at which they are counterplayed. Conditions add more complexity to situations by increasing the amount of decisions you need to make. You have to not only look at the animations of your opponents and dodge them, but you also need to decide which skills to tank and cleanse or when to cleanse them. Especially when dealing with Torment and Confusion, conditions can also change the way you play and add another level of complxity to counterplay and deciding when to cleanse. In the example of torment, you can decide to stand still to take less torment damage, but that would make you more vulnerable at the same time, so you need to decide if and when and where to stand. Against confusion you take more damage each skill you use, so you need to decide whether to cleanse it or to wait it out, or which skills are important enough to use while confused. These definitely make it harder for newer players, but with practice and awareness, you get the feel for how much cleanse you can afford. Blind and daze are very easy to recognize conditions because your screen turns a bit purple or dark when you have them. It would be nice if there was more UI customizability to allow players to move their buff or condition bar or resize it to make it more visible. This would allow more visibility if players choose it. What people don't acknowledge is that condition builds are usually slower so they require less awareness to avoid, and that power builds use conditions too. If you get weakness on you against a power build, ignoring that and mashing all of your damage out during it will also punish you similarly to not cleansing damaging conditions properly. So you still need to watch your UI against power builds. Another thing that players misunderstand is the representation of conditions through skills. If a revenant hits you with a sword attack you can clearly see how much damage it did to you in the combat log. If a necromancer hits you with 10 attacks that each stack up bleeds, you only see the accumulated bleed ticks. It is harder for people to learn what is actually killing them because the damage of each condition applying skill is separated from the original impact. If you aren't aware of what the enemy build is, its much harder to understand which component of it you failed to interact with, whereas a power build much more vividly tells you when you messed up. This is misinterpreted especially in PvP when people look at the death recap. There are many skills that contribute to a certain condition's final damage dealt to you. With power skills though, you see only how much that specific skill did to you. This leads to a representative bias because they see that burning did the most damage to them over time and assume that is what killed them, but in reality they would have just survived and kept healing and cleansing if the fight kept progressing onward. What might have actually killed them is the power spike they took when they were low which ended the fight before they could react. Likewise you could misinterpret power burst damage as the cause of death when you mismanaged your cooldowns earlier in the fight due to condition pressure. Another example of this is when its a close match in pvp and theres a final winning play by one of the teams that gets them above the other at the last second. Most people call that the winning play because its done in the most crucial moment, but in reality the whole match had decisions and plays to make to even allow the match to be close. You also see people commending a thief for getting kills quickly in a plus 1, but thats because their duelist was pressuring hard enough before they got there, but you don't see that, and it leads to that idea of a representative bias. Its the job of the player they plus 1 to bait out the cooldowns effectively. Thats the beauty of a game designed around sustained and burst damage. If there were no conditions, bunkers would be overpowered, and if neither conditions or bunkers existed, everyone would just run one shot builds. Without all of these varieties and playstyles, teamwork would be much less dynamic and it would very interactive. People love to oversimplify things, and even I am doing that by allowing the debate to exist between power and condition, when hybrid and support specs, and a completely different dimensions of roles also exist. As you can see the job of a balance developer is much more complicated than it appears to us. Hopefully you can see why the two are necessary to a healthy game balance now. Maybe they are both necessary, but perhaps one is unfun or creates an unfun environment with how spammy it can be? Just like a power build, condition builds have to bait out dodges and generally a power build will bait out stun breaks while a condition build will play around condition cleanses. If they just spam out all their high condition damage skills immediately it will just get cleansed.Analyzing the specifics of each playstyle is irrelevant since each playstyle can manifest differently between the classes. A Condition ele may be fun to play against, but a condition thief isnt. But a power thief also isnt very fun to play against either. In general, I would say that what makes a build spammy or uninteractive has nothing to do with which damage type they offer, and more on the interactivity of their animations and resources that are manageable. I didn't want to say it, but generally if youre complaining about condition damage builds, you just need to get good and deal with conditions better. Luckily for you I will link to you in the description a guide I made on how to fight against conditions in the context of condition thief. But the tips in the video can apply to any condition build, So yea watch that video if you wish. I personally prefer power builds and find them more fun. Three of my favorite builds in the game, dash dp daredevil, power reaper, and greatsword guardian, are all power. But I still play condition builds because they can be fun sometimes and it helps me to learn how to play against them. So if you struggle against conditions and find yourself blaming conditions, maybe try one out.

Here's a video I made its pretty long but check out the timestamps. I offer a lot of free to play or core builds for people to try out different roles for each class.

A while ago I made a video to help new players or PvErs get into PvP. Recently I updated the guide and made it text format. https://guildjen.com/2020/07/25/beginners-guide-to-gw2-pvp/

Full script of the linked video:With the new guild wars 2 Canthan expansion on the horizon, one of the features many suspect will arrive is Alliances. Alliances were in the original guild wars factions expansion which took place in cantha, so it seems natural they would finally bring them at this time. Alliances have been long announced for WvW, but it feels like they have been delayed indefinitely. The first real posts detailing how alliances and world restructuring would work were in november 2018. Yea we're in 2020 now. It's been a while, and I think most people have lost sight or no longer understand the purpose or function of alliances. So what exactly are alliances and world restructuring? It's important to understand is that there are two parts to this feature: World Restructuring, and Alliances. Alliances are a group of guilds that decide they want to be on the same server, and the game will put that alliance into the appropriate matchup. Alliances will have a maximum numbers of players and guilds for balance reasons, which means server communities will become smaller. Before alliances come out, players may identify with their server which will have a long standing identity. They most certainly can identify with their guild first, but the guild exists on a server. However, existing servers such as Maguuma, Fort Ranik, Desolation, or Stormbluff Isles will no longer exist because of world restructuring. This is a huge issue as many players find that their community is a place to call home, and a lot of the identity players have built up will be gone. They will be able to find new communities through alliances, and stay with their community if they wish, but that will be limited to a lower alliance cap rather than server cap. But not all players wish to stay with their same server. In fact, I believe many players feel that the game is not as alive as it really is because of how stagnant servers can be. Meeting new people can be a lot of fun and what the MMO experience is all about, and currently WvWers don't get that as much unless they pay a costly transfer fee. This is basically World restructuring, or the deciding of who participates in each world. As this image shows, there will be a number of guilds who opt into alliances, there will be guilds not in alliances, and there will be players not opted into guilds. There will be WvW seasons that people are locked into their servers for, but players will essentially be able to transfer servers for free at the end of each season by opting into another guild. Transfers will also be available in the middle of seasons, but they will cost gems and have many more restrictions.Essentially every season which lasts maybe 8 weeks there will be a reshuffling of players, guilds, and alliances into new worlds which should create a more lively environment rather than having the same teammates all the time. But In a way, alliances and world restructuring are already here in a lesser form. Word linking currently places two or more servers together such as Anvil Rock and Borlis Pass on the same team. These are calculated by population and performance, and attempt to create the same feeling as an alliance. The balance may be better once alliances and worlds are restructured, but for the most part we have the organization here. That is an issue as well though, how does ArenaNet balance something so imbalanced to be as fair as possible. Because world v world is a 24/7 game mode, coverage and time zones are important. Anet has already attempted to remedy this with the skirmish system. This can be thought of as similar to the USA presidential election system which is a republic. Instead of counting every vote, states have their own votes, and depending on which candidate gets the most votes, that state will cast their whole representative vote for that candidate. Skirmishes are a bit different. There are three parties in each WvW matchup and a skirmish lasts 2 hours. During a skirmish the team with the most score gains 5 victory points, the 2nd highest team gains 4 points, and the third gets 3 points, these victory points decide who wins in the end, not the war score. So no matter how hard a server is crushing the other at any point in time, they wont gain more than a 5 to 3 point differential. But also, no matter how close the matchup may be, servers that never gain a point lead over another server will gain much fewer victory points. This gives more come back potential to servers with large gaps in their time zone coverage, and allows World vs World to be an ever persisting game while being slightly more balanced. Skirmishes along with server relinkings are all changes that came in since the start of development on alliances and world restructuring. If you think about it, in their post they mention specifically they are "working on a live game, and so there are always a lot of moving parts." To me this means they are implementing these features into the game to prepare for alliances. So when the switch is finally flipped, not much will change. So if thats the case, why do we still need alliances and world restructuring? Thats because the main issue with WvW is not guilds, or how fun the game mode is. It's the motivation to win. I always found WvW a nice place to chill and play the way you want to, as opposed to PvP which is much more structured and has very clear win conditions. So how do we motivate players to win while also allowing them to play the way they want to? Obviously giving players rewards that are meaningful and based on their performance is good, but its difficult to calculate how much a single player affects the bigger picture of their world. The pip system currently allows players to play how they want and receive comparable rewards, but in the end, the most profitable playstyle is to zerg. Now theres nothing wrong with zerging and i think that every world should have a zerg force that provides the main map presence, but when that is the ONLY presence on the map because everyone has an incentive to do that, then it gets too large, too much strain on the servers, becomes laggy, and unfun. Constructing an omega blob and rushing from 1 place to the next isn't fun and it certainly isn't the best method to win. Rotating around and splitting up will definitely be better if there are enough competent groups, but there is no incentive to win if it takes that much effort. I think many more players would prefer to engage in smaller scale combat if it provided them and their team more. The blood lust on borderlands should be worth war score and give more rewards to the specific players who capture and hold them as this mechanic is already good for splitting up teams because they need to contest 6 different spots. These ruins are also great for varied gameplay because of the dynamic terrain unlike most other places which are just flat ground. It's a shame they dont get visited as often currently because this is where roamers should go to face smaller scale fights. Fights inside keeps and towers are fun, but they can often be gated by... gates literally. Siege and supply are an integral part of the strategy of WvW, but they also slow it down. Often this promotes brute forcing to get through gates and walls that are being defended by players. If smaller to medium sized groups are running around split up, there will be less siege stand offs and more fights that require map rotation and awareness. How can we keep the strategy while making it more interactive? A few changes should be made. Righteous Indignation was initially introduced to prevent trading objectives with the enemy for reward abuse, because it makes the objective lord invulnerable and deal more damage it helps to finish off fights after a team has taken hold of the obective, but why do fights need to be that decisive? The current 5 minute duration can be reduced to 2.5 mins so that groups can split up and threaten to cap more. Siege play can be very interactive, but often most players have no idea how to use it or would rather not spend their resources on it. This often makes people depend on a commander to deploy siege properly or even at all. Siege should reworked completely and removed from the economy. Players should obtain siege from events or supply camps. The siege they obtain there will be limited and only last a few hours before it disappears, so theyll need to make decisions on which siege to use when. The siege should also be accessible through the WVW UI which can be triggered by the special action keybind rather than through inventory. Mounts are nice, but they should be mainly a convenience addition to the game mode. They offer a good stomp utility but otherwise should be less powerful. Their mount engage should do way less damage and there should be a longer cast time to get on the mount to make you more vulnerable if youre trying to escape or chase after leaving combat.With these changes I feel WvW will be much more meaningful and along with alliances and seasons, there can be a truly meaningful reward given to worlds based on their performance. For example all players who earned a certain number of pips during that season will get exclusive skins with better appearances depending on their worlds placement in the season. Or give players specific titles based on what role they played the most, so if you had a high kda then you can get a title of ganker, or if you captured more objectives you can get a tactician title.Are there better changes to create more meaningful interactions in world vs world? are alliances what we really need or is it something else?

0:00 - Burning Nightmare Burning Berserker[&DQIWPTM+EimmAKcAagBqAKsA4gFxAKgAwhKcAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA=]Rabid BalthazarMace/Shield Absorption/Cleansing Sword/Torch Smoldering/Energy Fire TempestMenders RadianceDagger/Focus(or Warhorn) Energy Absorption[&DQYfOhEtMD/HEnQAdBIAAOsAAACQAAAAmRIAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA=] Condi Reaper[&DQgnGhMvIhnBEhIA8RJ0Ab0BcwGmEpkBAxOSAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA=]Wizard AristocracyScepter/Dagger Courage/Energy Axe/Warhorn Courage/Exposure 6:45 - Wombo Combo Staff EleMenders RadianceOR Staff Energy Intelligence[&DQYfOhEtMD/HEnQAdBIAAOsAAACQAAAAmRIAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA=] Staff Thief[&DQUcJiwnBzoKAQwBWABYAVcBVwEZATMBDgEOAQAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA=]Marauder ScholarStaff Revocation/Energy Dagger/Pistol Absorption/Energy Explosives Holo[&DQMGGh0aORooARQBYQEHAV4BigFfAYYA+RKJAQAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA=]Demolisher StrengthSword/Shield Energy Courage 11:24 - Cleave 2 Scourge[&DQgTPTIaPDV+FgAAchYAAHMBAAC9AQAAYBcAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA=]Mender's SanctuaryAxe/Focus Revocation/ Staff Energy/Absorption Firebrand [&DQEqNTErPhlLFwAAUxcAADYBAAAEAQAANwEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA=]Menders RevenantAxe/Shield Energy/Cleansing Scepter/Focus Energy/Cleansing Condi Herald[&DQkDFw4WNC/cEQAABhIAACsSAADUEQAAyhEAABANAAAGEtQRKxIAAAAAAAA=]Sage/Carrion ResistanceMace/Axe Exposure/Doom Sword/Shield Energy/Cleansing 13:00 - Godmode Soulbeast Sic em Soulbeast[&DQQgKwgvNzd5AHgAuwC4AJYBmgClAZYBLhbtAC4eAQAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA=]Berserker DivinityLongbow Separation/Exploitation Greatsword Energy/Intelligence Shout Spellbreaker[&DQILKzM+PSemAHAAagCyACcWqwCoAGoA7gCcAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA=] Menders SoldersDagger/Shield Absorption/Revocation Mace/Warhorn Energy/Cleansing Firebrand [&DQEqNTErPhlLFwAAUxcAADYBAAAEAQAANwEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA=]Menders RevenantAxe/Shield Energy/Cleansing Scepter/Focus Energy/Cleansing 20:35 - Immovable Objects Scrapper[&DQMvFx0nKxnZEioPDhNeASQBjQGVARMB+RKDEgAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA=]Menders HeraldHammer Absorption/Cleansing Renegade[&DQkDKQk9Pz/cEdwRBhIGEisSKxLUEdQRyhHKEQ8RDw4rEgYS1BEGEisS1BE=]Menders Mad KingShortbow Purging/Absorption Staff Energy/Cleansing Burn Guard[&DQEQGi4bGxsDAQMBNgGKAEwBLQFLATUBNwE3AQAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA=]Carrion BalthazarScepter/Focus Doom/Energy Sword/Torch Intelligence/Smoldering

So I know how much you guys love balance and complaining about whats OP, but here's some interesting build/comp ideas I created for 3v3. It goes to show how 3v3 can be balanced, just requires a little bit more thinking and effort. Also I utilize a few underplayed classes like scrapper, berserker, soulbeast, and even thief that many wouldn't think would be viable in 3v3. Maybe 3v3 helps to flesh out the game's class system potential because despite conquest being more diverse due to rotation, it also motivates people to play the optimal rotation role builds. Yes, if you are solo queueing you probably want to play FB or Condi Rev or Necro, but try getting a premade through lfg or friends and making a decent comp you can be good at rather than one you can't be bad at.

My first impressions of 3v3 in Guild Wars 2 PvP are much better than expected and I'm excited to show off some of the potential compositions players can play in this new game mode.In the video I show a pretty standard comp most people will use, the cleave comp, then a more easy version of that, the smite ball. Then lastly I show a mes/thief/ele comp which is a bit more difficult to pull off but very fun to play.

this montage shows a side of roaming that isn't just duels and fighting backpedalers outnumbered

Blocks: Haha yeah oh whoops it doesn't negate any damage when you've been already hit by condition attacks, and oh when you're done blocking there's heaps more! Completely negates power on the other hand.Evades: Funnily enough, when you are on fire, you cannot evade the flames already on you, or evade the blood back into your body when you're bleeding. You can, however, completely evade power attacks that need to hit you several times to do damage.Legit big brain moment here. You also can't negate power damage you've already got hit by. Invulnerability: Oh man it's too bad not everyone is playing a Guardian or a Weaver huh? Oh wait. Since I actually play PvP, I can tell that half the players do now. Other professions, like core thief, quit. Invulnerability that also protects against Power btw. Cleanses: And now for the cheap cheap price of 30s cooldown and one of your utility slots you can remove immediately an entire stack of conditions* until it is reapplied full force one second later by the dragonhunter's fire pulse for 30k damage.I have like 5-6 traits and skills used just for condition cleansing. Death breakdown takes downed state into account where you can't cleanse, but let me guess, you didn't even know that did you?No it does not. Compare any warrior greatsword death breakdown to a condi build and you see the difference. I'm always interested in this point. In most power builds you would tend to see smaller numbers because skills are split by name. For conditions top aggregates conditions onto one group. You know you died to a condition but you have no idea what really applied it. Also because of the aggregation I could have easily be sustaining a Condi match up and the get plussed by a power build and die and the log would show the top skills as condition damage still even though it's not the reason you died at all. Conditions are also harder to read becsuse in the log because you get one hit per stack of a condition on your per second. There are a few more points I could make about the log but all in all it's not intuitive and a lot of the screenshots people post are interpreted incorrectly. thank you for saving me the trouble of typing that out. For those people who want more discussion on the interactivity of condition damage, watch around one hour and six minutes in 1:06:00 into this video to understand a less biased approach.