ArchonWing.9480

Except a lot of those things were nerfed within a year.* If someone had only played Gw2 during that year and a half you might have a point. You're deliberately slicing a subsection of Gw2 history where that trend might have been applicable (Hot release to about late 2016), and applying it to WvW in general-- taking Desert BL and defense buffs at its absolute worst, and attempting to paint that as the norm. You also ignored stuff like megalasers that were clearly anti-defense, and also laced with blatant inaccuracies like "limited approach options to structures" which makes me doubt if you've actually visited DBL in the last 8 years. Your statement doesn't even hold water even to someone that starts the game in 2017 due to these adjustments. And we're much farther away from 2017 then 2017 is to 2015. It's also hilarious you actually included emergency waypoints as a buff to defense, since some of us still remember the time when you could freely wp in between defense events in vanilla. Anyhow, this is why I brought up why archaic versions of the game don't matter-- it can be hard to remember. *Example: Catapult supply being reduced within 3 months of HoT release: https://old.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/5yt6j7/when_did_catapult_supply_cost_change/ Literally the first point you bring up gets undone in 3 months. Safe to say, nobody sees that as the norm. In reality, HoT was so volatile and had multiple changes of plans that you can probably take any part of that era and spin into anything you want.

The thing they don't understand is that defense runs on some duties that are essentially janitorial and the burden of this falls under a very subsection of WvWers. The game does not incentivize these things, and even if it did, it's very boring. A good example is the gate repair thing. Yea I get it sucks when some idiot repairs you out, but 50% seems a bit excessive and asked for by no one. So here's the thing, who's going to repair that crap? During an attack, it made sense to quickly patch it out to delay reinforcements, but now it's not feasible until you basically rout the attackers or you have a ton of supply to waste. And you really don't want to be taking groups of people around just to repair walls, which is what a tag would have to do. So many people are just going to be like "kitten it, just leave it like that" Now part of this is due to population imbalance for sure, but mandating tedious tasks and making them even more so doesn't really help matters. Another example would be the siege/partcipation refresh thing. Well, I'm going to tell you that trebs don't fire on their own and some poor soul was probably just on it for half an hour or had a button held down. Either way, it's pretty crappy. So I would imagine a lot of people probably just put down supply traps and call it a day, because they haven't ruined that .... yet. Anyhow I am very literal on "they don't understand" because they just don't do that kind of stuff. They're not going to be the first to scout a structure and do the necessary preventive measures. But then again a lot of so called defenders don't either. So, I suppose I shouldn't be too upset. And then there are other tasks like obscure "safe" siege positions which I wouldn't even bother myself. But it's really not even that. Yea, I know, join a squad, join a guild. What that just means is I don't really feel like helping much outside of raid times, and well... I guess pip farming.

I agree that the lack of notice was a problem and somewhat irresponsible that they keep foisting WvW changes on us. However, in general, I don't think that they should be reimbursing people for every change in the game. Like I just prepped out med kit engi because I heard it was back in vogue and then they slaughtered it in the patch beyond belief-- can I really ask Anet to reimburse me for the shortbow and other gear? Well... I wouldn't say no, but still!

Not when a lot of players may not even have been around during 2015, much less to form this strawman at that time.

Yea but HoT was like 9 years ago. Obviously the map was trash on release much like the expansion and a lot of these things were dealt with. For example, catas were reduced in supply cost, and lords were nerfed. They also had those shrines that made it easier to get around, as well as implementing gliding to reduce the verticality. Now by then the map had already gathered its terrible reputation, some of it deserved. Also this... limited approach options to structures Is a giant ???? considering all desert BL towers are much wider and you can't survey all the walls at a single glance after going on. NWT on desert for example can be attacked from 2 walls from the front, from the waterfall area in the west, and also way in the back. I'm not going to detail every structure but it is ridiculously easy to ninja stuff on desert BL and also a reason why it's so popular for k-trains. A lot of people don't like defending it, because it requires a good deal more effort to even scout an individual structure. I mean I also thought tacts were a bad idea at a time and most of them were toned down already a lot, such as dragon banners. Oh btw, you also left out the oh so popular megalaser event, an event that rendered all these defensive advantages moot in many cases. Now obviously some of these changes had a negative effect on alpine, though at the time desert was supposed to replace Alpine. They eventually brought Alpine back without understanding any of the implications. Finally, what you also conveniently left out about 9 years of power creep. Beyond the roadbump that was the 2020 nerfs, our characters are far stronger compared to the guards that have remained relatively the same until the recent "buff" to the lord. Simply put, it's far easier to kill objective lords then it was before. Even from PoF to SotO, we already see a significant increase in damage, much less from HoT.

Probably the same person who expects to find duels in a keep.

Golems are good for ressing/stomping, but you won't be able to use them to stall anymore. So if you don't have a group, just take the golem away or walk it towards allies. Personally, I don't really see the point in suiciding contest. It's fine to contest if there are people coming in but beyond that it's really just inting since certain groups deliberately delay the cap for kills. It really depends on the nature of the enemy group. And of course the build matters too; shouldn't really be contesting with squishy things though I suppose that fixes itself..

Soo.... just don't be poor? Reliable strat tbh.

It's fine for some objectives such as N camp on Alpine since it was so ridiculously big people could just keep suiciding into it. Another is probably SMC, which needs to flip more really. It feels like an overcompensation for some of them, and honestly it would be irritating to fight some builds that have to be kited. It's probably a buff for my server though, since it'll stop the bots from suiciding in when unnecessary and just feeding. In this current state of the game, suicide contests are kind of a waste of time anyways, and you will generally be spamming damage mitigation/dodges to contest a circle regardless; meaning it has to be done up close anyways. edit: yea smc is not a supply camp. But it kinda is!

That does suck, though I've always run the idea that if I spend, the gold/money's gone forever. Though even in its weakened state, people are going to still want guilds that can offer the buff over ones that can't, and definitely aren't going to want guilds missing buffs to claim stuff. And with so many guilds out there with full buffs, it'd be harder to get people to join if your guild is seen to be poor and can't afford basic stuff. So it's not completely useless. Though a 75% nerf did seem irresponsible, tbh.

Just like in game. That's why they always moan about being "sniped" even though it's blatantly obvious the one that charges ahead of their zerg with everyone trying to loosely follow behind is the tag.

Sounds very familiar. Though on our server we have twice the idiots and wall runners and about half the competent veterans on a good day. I mean I understand not everyone wants to be a tryhard, but I don't understand how they can enjoy WvW being so amazingly useless all the time. Must be some serious copium tanks at play here. Lol. That too. Our group tried to tag up to defend the garrison, nobody would join, so focused on other objectives and groups our size. People started complaining even though they're the ones clogging up the queue and unable to even fire cannons. Ended up just doing the JPs because nobody was taking anything seriously.

It's not a bad idea, though some boons may have to be done per boon just because they are really short. But people want corrupts not necessarily because they hate boon gameplay, but rather just want counterplay and punish people for just eating attacks mndlessly. It's not really a solution as much as Anet deleting a playstyle. That being said, I think this system should be implemented out of combat for sure. Part of the lameness (and not just in large scale) is that people prebuff boons beforehand and try to stealth bomb randoms and then rinse/repeat. I mean as a tactic this is ok, but it's gotten to the point where you're at a massive disadvantage for not doing that and this results in groups constantly repositioning to get the proper edge. It also makes everything so slow paced. This actually used to be worse as I remember many a gvg back then was basically decided by whoever screwed up prebuffs/stealth, and it was so mind numblingly boring to watch. Also I want to consider reducing the intensity of a boon as well. Stacking so much might has always been a problem in the game especially on classes that weren't supposed to stack it so easily.

Ah! Now that you remind me; how about compensating people with that gold sink thing you can buy. https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Golden_Sink Or maybe a Golden Toilet for those with it already, really.

Putting it pretty nicely I guess. A lot of groups (both big and small) don't care about tactics. They don't know how to work for their content. Most of them even just idle in spawn and ask "where is the content", not realizing that scouts are kinda important and then tell them to get off the map because they don't fit on the comp and for some reason has to go on the most crowded maps. Everything has to be handed to them. Though to be fair, this is game wide mentality that is fostered by Gw2 in particular. That I think is the biggest difference between the great fight guilds of the past and the bozos that pass as them currently. A good metric for the quality of an enemy group is how many projectiles get through during an actual fight. A good group should basically allow almost none through while standing still and maybe some while moving. Like yea nobody's perfect but if Engi Mortar kits can freecast on the group and acutally cause significant damage, then their supports really need to wake up. But I guess just take easy fights so we don't need to have that kind of responsibility. And they want to push the game to minimize that kind of responsibility. Oh, you didn't watch your health, or dodge? Nah it's fine, here's a free res, etc. Personally I feel like whatever people want to do, it's fine, but if they want to take it seriously, then they should try to improve and not just do the bare minimum or, even worse, just hide in the background and hope nobody notices one is being carried. And sadly a lot of people play support not because they enjoy the role but rather because it's easier to get a slot and it's somewhat more difficult to scrutinize their performance. Granted, the meta enforcing such a high % doesn't really help matters either. And if they don't want to do so, that's fine too. Just don't have a superiority complex to others that play differently, and definitely don't beg the devs to twist the game to their playstyle.

Lol, what server were they? They probably wanted decent havoc players that knew what they were doing.

In real wars, holing up in a fortification was a disadvantage and generally a last resort because the attackers would cut off supplies and attempt to starve the defenders. But this would take a long time and costly so the attackers would try to get the defenders to either surrender or stop fighting in said castle or whatever. In Gw2 terms, defenders that just hide in a structure lose the PPT war as they lose camps and other smaller objectives. They will also run out of supply and get bored and log off. But as you know, people simply don't play that way anymore. But I mean, the idea is still the same. People aren't going to want to fight on open ground when it makes zero sense to do so, especially when outnumbered and it just seems like just blob guilds can't count for obvious reasons. It's the same reason why you don't fight various builds with strong PBAOE attacks in narrow choke points or tiny capture points where there are no room to kite. It's also why those people get mad when you don't facetank everything and ruin their montage. This is just the same thing in large scale forms where egotistical players think players should just stand there and facetank their burst and that's the true contest of skill. Although in these contexts I like to point out something funny, which is the ancient story of a PPT commander and the salt that ensured. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fabian_strategy Fabius's strategy, though a military success and tolerable to wiser minds in the Roman Senate, was unpopular; the Romans had been long accustomed to facing and besting their enemies directly on the field of battle. The Fabian strategy was, in part, ruined because of a lack of unity in the command of the Roman army. The magister equitum, Marcus Minucius Rufus, a political enemy of Fabius, famously exclaiming: Are we come here to see our allies butchered, and their property burned, as a spectacle to be enjoyed? And if we are not moved with shame on account of any others, are we not on account of these citizens... which now not the neighboring Samnite wastes with fire, but a Carthaginian foreigner, who has advanced even this far from the remotest limits of the world, through our dilatoriness and inactivity?[15] Sadly, your average gamer these days are not so eloquent.

I mean, Guild Halls were kind of a scam to begin with. They took away what people had and sold it back to them repackaged (much like legendary runes), so if anything that's just par for the course. The goal was to sink your gold, and it's not coming back. On a more serious note, the general rule is that you don't get compensation for anything that you've benefited for a period of time; it's just not practical to compensate for every change in the game. And in all fairness, guilds shouldn't be shouldering the cost on 1 person or a few, and I suppose pocket guilds aren't really supported. And in recent times when guild claims are so common, it really is a luxury purchase. Like every time something gets account bound instead of soul, and you always have someone that complains because they bought the same item on 69 characters. It's kinda like buyer beware in these case. But on an even more serious note, they also never admit they're wrong and generally don't even compensate people even when they are wrong. They're remarkably stingy with pixels I suppose.

Well, they seemed to target nerfs at the main builds that seemed to be overperforming-- namely LongBow zerker and Holosmith. Hammer Guardian in particular promoted a particularly braindead rotation even for this game. (namely 1111111 being optimal) so that was never going to fly. It's probably the least harmful way to do it since in any other type of fight, people don't stand in symbols for long. They may have to retool the weapon in the future, yes, but overall it's still probably good to handle the outliers. As for the lack of ranged pressure, that is sort of an argument, but it is highly unlikely Guardian is going to get strong ranged pressure without suffering elsewhere.

lol, that's honestly a generous description. The players you describe don't want a separate deathmatch battlegrounds, because they would probably get stomped in a competitive fight. (Not to mention some are so hated nobody gives them content anyways-- and many hate each other too) Players that exclusively gvg already have what they want-- they don't care about what happens in WvW proper and have an EOTM arena. While I'd actually appreciate a better and more accessible Arena, That issue was solved a long time ago. The more telling fact is the lack of real balance changes geared towards that kind of fight. These players used to be bags but because a lot of the good players left they want to secure their place. What these players want is to reduce the amount of skill expression (aka dumbing down), especially in areas they are weak at. And as much as I hate it myself, laying proper siege to a structure is a skill. The other reason why I wouldn't call these folks "GvG bros" is because usually they never run alone. They're usually holding someone else's coattails, whether it be another guild or even pugs. Because they cannot be considered a proper unit on their own, it's pretty hard to say anyone fighting then is engaging in GvG, but rather GvG plus another G plus random green dots. Yes, sometimes your guild is too small to fight a map queue alone, but the amount of times I've seen your garden variety fight group wipe to about even numbers and then cry to their buddies to bring 40 more, makes me think they don't care for fights, but rather the result of them, aka winning. Of course, I guess their metrics show that your average Firebrand/other support doesn't know what projectile hate is, lol. So you can imagine the level of play we're aiming at. You only need to see how dumbed down pve is at this point too to get the bigger picture.

Servers are too volatile atm to really form a coherent strategy. In general, you would like to face servers that have had a history of being being in the lowest tier because that means if they are not then Anet probably screwed up the relinks (which is like always) so you wanna beat them as hard as you can before they fall back to where they belong. Typical examples on NA are going to be SBI, DB, CD. In higher tiers, you usually target the link (you can usually tell who it is) because it's full of bandwagoners that show up outside of the main server's prime time typically and lack cohesion with the general group. A good example is typically whoever is linked with Mag, because you get a bunch of bozos that transfer them looking for free kills but they can't cloud, and of course there are a number of links that actively air their grievances and refuse to cooperate. I even saw this during alliance week that people were so triggered to even be with them, so ymmv. Like if you're not instantly being pelted by arrows when you enter that range, you know they're not Mag and therefore can pick them off. In general the best strategy is to find out the schedule of enemy guilds and make sure to either end your run 15 minutes before theirs starts, or 15 minutes after it ends. If you can't do this, then find another guild to nuthug, and flame your server if there is none. But I really do recommend always nuthugging something. That way you are never truly responsible for any failures. So instead of running with 4 supports in your party, you want to run with 8. You do this by taking away the supports in the other subgroup. This way you will never die and can flame the other people when they die. That is how you become a great fight group. I recommend you run nomads gear. You don't want boon duration because that helps other people and then they're going to outparse you. Screw that. Of course you will be dependent on the 1 dps to help you tag while you heal them, but again, if they can't carry you, just boot them and find someone else. Also if on Firebrand, run Renewed Focus. Only use Stand Your Ground when you are stunned. Never ever use it for anyone else. In Tome 2, you should only use it when you take damage, and Tome 3 should only be used to pad your damage numbers with reflects. That will help you get more tags too. Remember, by making your party perform worse, it gives you the reason to yell at them more and make yourself look more important. They also won't be able to beat you in the gw2mists leaderboard if you do it right. Best of luck to your title!

Yea, might as well not stop there. The defenders shouldn't even been let into the map in the first place. Every time you enter WvW, you need to display an up to date WvW guild registration card. Also if you try entering on a thief, the game will automatically uninstall. Wait, hmm....

Some class related WvW changes. These at the least seem more decent and is aimed at lowering some of the more dominant dps builds.... not sure if that makes anything else a contender Guardian Symbol of Protection: Reduced the symbol damage coefficient from 0.4 to 0.25 in WvW only. Engineer Photonic Blasting Module: Reduced the damage coefficient from 3.5 to 2.5 in WvW only. Prime Light Beam: Fixed an issue that caused this skill to strike 10 targets instead of the intended 5 Warrior Scorched Earth: Reduced the number of targets from 5 to 3 in WvW only. Mesmer Chaotic Transference: This trait no longer shares chaos aura with nearby allies. It now grants regeneration to nearby allies when you apply chaos aura to yourself. The mesmer nerf was to remove the utterly dumb thing of weakness spam by zergs though at the same time and in typical Anet fashion also kinda destroyed that trait. Guardian hammer was significantly overbuffed and that was inevitable, because it resulted in a spam 1 gameplay. Other things are a bit overdue maybe.

Well if you can't understand why 3 neckbeards aren't willing to fight your side with more than 3 neckbeards directly, I think that's where the problem is.

Honestly outside of the golem changes, most of these changes are inconsequential. A lot of people contesting these days are just feeding bags anyways. My main problem is the reasoning of "making objectives feel better for attacking groups". I want to say that there seems to be a great deal of bias in statement. So in their minds, defending is too easy, even though I would probably wager about 5 gold, that they don't really know what defending is like, and I know where their playtime goes. I would say the biggest problem is requiring people to repair up to 50% to patch something up, and I'm just going to say that I am not solo repairing that kitten. I think at this point, without about 5+ willing to actively defend on the map, that it is a waste of time and your server doesn't want to keep that stuff anyways. So just play accordingly and just ignore every callout that's not a serious attempt at trying to keep it. Just my opinion. That is the intended gameplay anyways.