Riba.3271

Issue is that it is not really a fight right now between groups where attacker isn't MUCH stronger than the defender, defender will win every time. The fighting balance just favours defender too much due to double claim buffs, airships, stealth fountains, lords, combat resets, wall safety (ranged damage nerfs, gliding), mount stompers etc. Right now the balance is too simple: Die once in enemy T3 keep and if you go there again, you will just die again over and over. This hardly makes up for exciting "keep fights". They definitely need to nerf defences to even out the fighting ground, but upgrade times (especially when done with superspeeded packed dolyaks) are also causing another kind of balance problems where before servers needed only 1 active timezone during noon/morning or so to reset things to make rest of the day "playable" for more casual groups, now there needs to be a skilled voice commander pretty much 24/7 to cater for the pugs. TLDR: Defender always wins the fight, due to claim buff, mounts and other stuff, even when with quite a bit worse players making long-term assaults on enemy keeps not worth anyones time. Keeps are not fight locations anymore due to balance, just farming or ppting. Draining enemy supplies/slowing upgrades is lost art because: Upgrading doesn't take supply and is MUCH faster, T1-T2 keeps are already full of supply instead of empty when you start doing itDolyaks are impossible to snipe alone provided theres minstrel/stealth player escorting them. This forces 2 people to run together instead of splitting up for efficiency and even then catching to permasuperspeed minstrel scrapper with massive damage reduction dolyak isn't that easy on a boonstripping build that is necessary to kill such a personCan't do it alone, claim buff makes other roamers beat you at their camps (they don't even need movement speed from runes/build so they can go flat stats)Speedy/Packed dolyaksSentries cover about half of dolyak routes essentially shutting down "outplaying with brain"Roaming is ded, mostly because claim buff and everything being upraded (Attempting T2/T3 keeps with small roaming group has like 1% success rate and even then it won't involve a fight)No breaks allowed, have a 30 min break? Enjoy T2 keep.TLDR: One would need way too much time and effort to even make a dent to upgrading while not even being able to have fair fights (claim buff, spawn proximity). Not fun. Defender can always shut you down by having equal number of worse players. Now I made thread about claim buff and defender advantages needing to be nerfed easier so this time I was touching more minor issue: Upgrade times. I do agree that nerfing claim buff, tactics and supply income to keeps is more important but regardless upgrade times are way too fast even for passive upgrading where you just flip camps on cooldown.

People used to fight for the objectives. Just right not attacking is so overwhelming as everything is T3 in blink of an eye. As if going through the siege isn't enough, enemy has extra stats and movement speed from the claim buff. You go downtate? No problem, theres always a defender out of combat ready to mount stomp you. Then you gotta deal with all the banners, chilling fogs, tanky lords and ewps. It's just that the core balance of the gamemode has been going downhill for a while so fighting pretty much exclusively open field and that is quite repetitive compared to epic extended keepbattles with attackers taking their time taking down defences. Point is, if balance was better, the fighting/guild commanders wouldn't be separate from objective commanders as both parties could have fun doing same things rather than being separated into open field and siege fights.

We all know how fast things upgrade now compared to Pre-HoT outside north towers on Alpine bls. It does rise some issues like if a commander only tags up for 2-3 hours, resets everything, takes a break for a few hours, everything is back up to T3 for enemy again. It is kind of weird that Keeps and SM that took like a dozen hours to upgrade before, can be gotten T3 within 2 hours now. This is particularly troublesome during morning because everything upgrades faster than a group can manage to deal with. Way too frequently people log in and see T2/T3 objectives everywhere and with defending being so easy in this meta, it discourages them from attacking anything. There should almost never be a case where all home borderlands are fully T3. This just causes a stalemate between servers where everyone defends and only joins commanders when they defend for easy bags. People prefer fighting in lower upgraded objectives anyways. This makes T3, even T2, SM kind of a fightkiller. Same applies to side keeps on borderlands when there are too many of them. So here comes my suggestion:1)Make packed dolyaks carry 3x supplies (instead of 2) but count only as 1 towards upgrade (instead of 2: no 4x upgrade speed with speeding packed dolyak anymore)and2)Make keeps require 25/50/100 dolykas instead of 20/40/80 and Castle require 30/60/120 dolyaks. So reasonable 25% increase to keep and 50% to castle upgrade times. Of course this won't have a massive visible impact to how WvW plays out, but at top open-commanding/guild level, it would make a huge difference just based on how WvW feels. More fights, less sitting around.

Alliances will just remove most peoples reason to play WvW: Almost all active commanders that lead 10 hour+/week are loyal to their server. This also applies to off-prime crew and such. Most long-standing servers are still around as main servers because they refused to let the server go down without a fight. Nobody really cares about giving guilds more tools to stack on same place. Alliances just fill the dreams of people who thought "you should be able to vote to kick people out of server" was a good idea. Alliances seemed like a ray of hope during dark times but those times are gone by now and people should just open their eyes and accept the reality that the main-server people left in the game have hardly any interest in putting effort in for some random people that swap every 1-2 months. TLDR; Alliances won't fix anything and just kill the gamemode

but smallscale is already dead. and honeslty, what small competitive guilds wants is fights. jus trunning around ghost capping isn't waht they are looking for.population problem should be kinda solved with the new alliance system. wait and see about this one. Pop isn't really problem on any server (at least on EU). Just amount of tags and guilds. Commanders just don't want to tag up open without being on stacked server because defender wins 95% of the fights at any inner tower/presence of the keep. Rn, it is just servers/guilds mostly waiting to be attacked (yes even full guilds just wait around waiting for enemy to attack something). And the ones willing to attack "for fights" (read: farm) are just stacked guildblobs. But yea I do have some ideas to help smallscale: Make watchtower only activate when tower is contestedMake upgrading objectives require more dolyaks (especially SM), making dolly/camp sniping/defending more important (My recommendation: 25/50/100 dolyaks)Nerf claim buff increasing amount of locations roamers can fight/gankNerf packed dolyaks to carry 3 times more supply but only count as 1 for upgrade (completely busted rn)increase supply costs to guild golems AND generators while also reducing incoming supply to objectives (supply becomes more important and reduces attacker cheese)remove mount stompingreduce cooldown of Lance (dismount skill) from 30 seconds to 15 seconds

Nah. I like having options. This would also destroy smallscale. Nerf claim buff and dragon banner, thats all. Defending harder => More willing attackers => More action for all sides. Balance that favors defenders even more would just reduce the amount of action.For example in our current matchup whole saturday daytime, one server only played when we hit their upgraded stuff. Otherwise they were afk at spawn/keep. They just stand no chance winning any fights when attacking because they're one of the weaker servers.

Yeah man I have now played WvW enough on the Mesmer to unlock a warclaw. I mostly PvPd on this toon. I have a thief main. I would say shattering clones so hard on WvWvW. Since they get killed so fast even before I can blow them up. And when they do damage is so low. Compared to like Ranger or Theif with their massive burst. But I am still only lvl 39. Maybe at 80 with Berserker or Marauder gear. You shouldn't play WvW until level 80, but once you hit level 80 on 1 character, you will get so many tomes of knowledge from WvW that you never need to level up manually again. You need 3/4-stat exotic, and preferably even ascended gear. If you run 2 stat greens, you won't even scale up well. Anyways, mesmer is definitely a cool class. Do try to get chrono for largescale so your shatters can get superspeed when traited. But yeah, id say run full marauder, it isn't that big of a DPS loss (10-15%) but the extra vitality allows you to deal more damage due to surviving longer/tanking retal. Thanks for the great information brother/sister. May I ask you what's the best way to get some marauder gear fast at lvl 80 ? I have about 100k karma saved up and close 400 badge of honor. Had some decent gold to until I decided to lvl LW to 500.You get 1 stat selectable exotic armor piece per week from pips (Warlords armor box, at the end of bronze pip rewards) and can get more from triumphant reward track, you can do some early HoT story achievements for ascended marauder trinkets or LS3/LS4 reward tracks for map currencies to buy stat selectable asc trinkets. And exotic marauder isn't that expensive to craft if you want to level tailoring to 400 https://gw2crafts.net/tailor_fast.html but just leveling the crafting discipline might be little too expensive for a new player. For berserker/knight ascended trinks (until you get the marauder): Accessories are quite easy to get from guild missions (until you work on marauder), using 20 + 250 badges of honor laurels for amulet or do fractal dailies (even low easy t2 dailies give 6 pristine) for 10 pristine for rings. Overall id prolly just buy https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Nika%27s_armor (berserker) stats from TP as soon as you hit level 80 and throw some cheap statheavy runes with vitality on them (Durability or Divinity) and play with those until you get proper marauder stuff going (then swap runes). You will be still quite weak but it is cheap way to get your first gear. Do note that ascended weapon is like 10% boost on damage compared to exotic so you shouldn't except to be strong as DPS without ascended weps (or trinkets).

Yeah man I have now played WvW enough on the Mesmer to unlock a warclaw. I mostly PvPd on this toon. I have a thief main. I would say shattering clones so hard on WvWvW. Since they get killed so fast even before I can blow them up. And when they do damage is so low. Compared to like Ranger or Theif with their massive burst. But I am still only lvl 39. Maybe at 80 with Berserker or Marauder gear. You shouldn't play WvW until level 80, but once you hit level 80 on 1 character, you will get so many tomes of knowledge from WvW that you never need to level up manually again. You need 3/4-stat exotic, and preferably even ascended gear. If you run 2 stat greens, you won't even scale up well. Anyways, mesmer is definitely a cool class. Do try to get chrono for largescale so your shatters can get superspeed when traited. But yeah, id say run full marauder, it isn't that big of a DPS loss (10-15%) but the extra vitality allows you to deal more damage due to surviving longer/tanking retal.

Every server is running 2-4 dragon banners per map now. It is just disgusting. Where are the long-awaited nerfs?

Actually running more guardians is counter to pirateship meta. Run 2 firebrands per party and no pirateship group will beat you. If people didn't have sustain, blocks and stability, how would they push? I take you're on NA, because no one on EU runs pirateship. It is just because NA likes running funky things like Mesmer and Revenant commanders on open tags. Just dodge wells (the middle sized AoEs), its that easy. Btw, dragon banner needs nerfs, it is quite punishing for groups pushing in.

Regarding open field fights in WvW, most well designed builds are viable. Especially greatsword mesmer due to the AoE. Closed spaces, well I hope you have enough experience to not get oneshot as mesmer. Nullfield+illusion of life+blink+gravity well, Id say. I do have to warn you that not many people are able to make mesmer work in this WvW meta. It is hard to survive on despite having quite a bit of boon removal, CC and ress ability. All other classes have ways to sustain themselves.

As WvW player, I think all necro weapons have their use, but I do have some ideas:StaffThe marks have laughable conditions and power damage, it is only picked to track stealth and for some cleanse. It could use some damage buffs. Taking unblockable marks is trolling because you actually want your 0 damage skills to get blocked. Thus only people that run staff are ones that can't rely on their teammates for cleanse. WarhornReduce cooldowns to 24 second (baseline), removing warhorn trait for a real trait. Reduce range of WH 4 to 450 and increase radius of WH5 to 240 so you don't have to stand on top of enemies (bad strat) to hit it GreatswordGravedigger should deal 20% extra damage if hitting targets that are downed or below 50%, it is literally not worth casting over other skills due to having long casttime and same DPS as other skills while doing nothing else. DaggersFeels bad. the 2 skill is basically axe 2 but less range, it should feel more impactful (so more damage or healing). Dagger 4 should be unblockable. The dagger trait could also use a rework. ScepterReliant on running curses and traiting it. Id say make devouring darkness baseline but reduce both damage and increase cooldown of it by around 20% in WvW and PvP. Make the curses trait reduce the cooldowns of scepter skills by 20% Focus/Torch/AxeThey're good as they are

I mean they're entitled to winning nearly all fights after spending so long in the game? Right? :3

Without downstate the skillcap would be way too low. You wouldn't have to start ress instantly or save your CC/boon removal to stop ress for downed enemies. Non-supports would just run round and round without paying any attention to healthbar. Downstate is actually fun as YOU get to decide at your last moments where you want to go down (Most of the time on Node with this balance), hardly anyone elses fault you don't see that your death is coming. Read the map better. In WvW 1 death only rallies 1 player though, so they could look into implemeting that to PvP so 1 bad player wouldn't save multiple downstate enemies. This would also reduce snowballing because often the winner of a teamfight would have 1 or 2 players less on a map.

It is bigger which makes you see things better while dealing and tanking more damage due to your increased MASS! Our server has concluded our Charr raid and we destroyed these mapqueued weak species with less than 30 in squad. Experimental data is on Charr side. What'cha gonna do? Man golems as asuras or run at our teeth and claws with your measly human body? Raawwwr

Watchtowers shouldn't even activate until the tower is contested.

Sure, fun for hour, then everyone logs out for rest of the week. Let me show you some examples about fun event design: Breakbar event: Every player has a breakbar (~3s knockdown/stun worth)"Need a plumber?": All lord rooms are filled with waterUltrasonic: Permanent superspeedTogether-in-death: Special ability skill that allows you to link with an ally, you share incoming damage, barrier and healing 50-50 (based on max health)Going camping: Camps spawn omega golem in them every 5 minutes"Where did the walls go?": All outer SM/keep gates/walls have all mysteriously disappeared.Pretty simple stuff

They need to increase transfer costs to medium servers. People and guilds go to links to save money and be with main server

Double the prices too, maximum income. Comms drop ascended food for everyone and they have their legendary sets, what else would they use their money on?

I've thought of that before, but I feel as though that would encourage ppt servers and groups that keep getting wiped to stay away from fights. PPT servers would just stand in their T3 walls with AC's more than they already do since there's no incentive for them to go and capture, and there's even a greater incentive to not get killed. Part of what keeps this game mode half-alive is the fact that commanders will keep coming back several times in a single night even if they are continually wiped. While certainly not all comms will sit out, there is again greater incentive to dodge good fights if you have a high chance of getting wpied. Also, like you said, tanking would still exist but it would just involve getting killed by the other side, in a situation where both servers are trying to tank out of T1, it just means that neither side would actually engage each other since neither wants to stay. All in all, I feel that such a rule would discourage player interaction and competitiveness more than it already does. Nah, removing points from getting killed would give more incentive to dying, but less incentive to killing. Meaning PPT comms would fight more but fight commanders that rely on PPK might quit the game. But do the fight commanders even care about score? So would the change in PPK actually make them quit? Most I have spoken with don’t give a rat’s young cat about any score.All popular fight commanders from the past played for score partly. Did nightcrews and resetted t3 keeps when necessary and such. Of course the new gen of commanders is little bit more selfish, brainwashed by bandvagoning, but as tradeoff that also means they're bad dealing with siege and upgraded objectives. But yea PPK is the normal source for score rn. Fight servers always win daytime even though they tend to tick less.

I've thought of that before, but I feel as though that would encourage ppt servers and groups that keep getting wiped to stay away from fights. PPT servers would just stand in their T3 walls with AC's more than they already do since there's no incentive for them to go and capture, and there's even a greater incentive to not get killed. Part of what keeps this game mode half-alive is the fact that commanders will keep coming back several times in a single night even if they are continually wiped. While certainly not all comms will sit out, there is again greater incentive to dodge good fights if you have a high chance of getting wpied. Also, like you said, tanking would still exist but it would just involve getting killed by the other side, in a situation where both servers are trying to tank out of T1, it just means that neither side would actually engage each other since neither wants to stay. All in all, I feel that such a rule would discourage player interaction and competitiveness more than it already does. Nah, removing points from getting killed would give more incentive to dying, but less incentive to killing. Meaning PPT comms would fight more but fight commanders that rely on PPK might quit the game.

Guilds and people take way more than 2 months to integrate to community. They should def abolish relinkings. They should do following things: Make so that relinks only happen when the amount of tiers changes (to keep versalitility, This would happen almost never)Make population of link server same as main serverAdjust population caps to match the total of the main + linked serverReduce transfer costs to Very High servers to 1500 gemsMaybe make one extra tier?Won't the WvW pop suffer? Answer is simply NO! because: Open tags will be tagging more often because people around them don't change that frequently and facing similar servers oftenGuilds will feel make friends staying with same server meaning they will eventually start open tagging due to boredom/power of friendshipServers will be more organised due to knowing they're working only for allies, not next weeks enemies also.Right now issues within WvW are: People+guilds transfer too often and there aren't nearly enough open tags. Abolishing link system while keeping amount of tiers low would be best solution.

Imagine, a massive map with big spawn in the middle with 360 degree exit where you simply jump down into water and then skimmer around to Islands where there are towers or dive deep into 1-2 keeps which are in a air bubble with On-land combat. These keeps outers could be trebbed from some of the islands making the islands strategic points. There would be also a few onland keeps on the surrounding land continent and maybe 1 underwater tower. This map should replace EotM or even possibly used as 5th map, if popular, while lowering map caps to reduce lags Spawns being so close to each other and in the middle would mean: Perfect map for fightsYou can also dodge fights by going opposite direction from spawnSame respawn timers for attackers and defendersThe map can be designed bigger due to everything being close to spawnWait, map with some water? But underwater combat isn't balanced?True, They do need to balance bunch of skills and increase movement speed to certain directions underwater. Do note that only 2-3 of the objectives out of approximately 10 would be underwater with onland combat and rest would be on islands or at "the continent" which would be fully on land. Maybe 1 or 2 camps could use underwater combat. Placing siege? Dolyaks underwater?Well simple, just make seahorses, quakkans or something carry supply along the seabed and make catapults placable underwater while the gates are inside the "air bubble". You can also treb outer from land. How deep and how much water there would be?Quite shallow and get little bit deeper around objectives. The water would only cover maximum 50% of the map I am not sold on the idea yet.Quaggan and Krait keeps. Hylek towers. Towers on a volcanic island with natural defences. Drawbridges. Onland fights, underwater memes, epic battles. Karmatrain. Current eotm is dead. Time for A NEW MAP! WITH PIPS! Lets gooooo

I imagine the reason they haven't done this is because they don't want to infest the Gemstore with WvW exclusive stuff and have to refund thousands of people who mistakenly buy them so Id like them to add a Gem Merchant at every WvW spawn instead of putting Siege skins etc, at gemstore. Overall I think they should just upgrade how the guards/lords look on alpine+EB for everyone, not make player/guild exclusive skins. Maybe make the lords bit bigger to help combat clarity. I like idea of gembuyable siegeskins tho.

Stat buff is exactly what needs to be reduced. They can buff ACs or wall/gate Hp a bit to make up for it. No one is saying they should remove it completely because it is guild upgrade but make it like +30 each stat which is already considerable amount. +400/+800 stats for every camp defender and wall camper doesn't only make playstyles favour "Off-hour upgrade then just defend, never attack anything", but also shuts down ways of playing the game for roamers (try ganking someone respawning that has 200 extra vit+toughness inside keep). Do note that attacking gives enemy stats meaning you can hit as much as 1600 stat difference by having "attacker" playstyle. Of course there are other offenders like Dragon banner favoring defender more, mounts being too fast, defenders being able to mountstomp directly after running back from respawn and such. Anyways Claim buff and all these other shiny tools didn't exist before HoT and WvW balance was much better back then, people just didn't notice it when HoT launched because guilds took almost a month to get WvW auras going back then. Objectives also upgraded MUCH slower, had much weaker lords and had way less supply which ment attacking definitely had quite fun balance back then: Defender had some siege, around one respawn and chokepoints, nothing else. There are reason players are stacking on servers, its because to attack objectives you need to be MUCH stronger than the enemy. And just twiddling your thumbs in keep waiting for enemy that might never come to hit your stuff isn't fun. Overall if you're being that much outnumbered, the stats won't help you much, having stronger walls/gate would as you would have more time to kill enemy siege with your siege/damage. You should lose the keep anyways once they breach the inner.