Nerah.8235

Thanks for all comments! There is a diverse range of opinion on the use of tactics, with some merit on all sides. I think, after a few days of not playing, and just considering the issue, that I have decided just to square the circle here: I just won’t defend structures, which I don’t really enjoy doing anyway, and will allow me to avoid tactics altogether. Then it’s someone else’s problem to figure out when the optimal time to use that stuff might be. ~I’ll just stick to roaming around the BLs.~ Update: received an official warning about the formatting (?!?) for the original post. I think that is the final straw for me, and rubs some added salt in on the way out. If you want any of my stuff, I'll be in Caledon Forest tonight on Solitaire Island at about 7:00P CST, then it's curtains for my toon. See ya there!

Kind of a bizarre response. Increasing the amount of time it takes for a wall or gate to be breached allows for a small defending group to attrition away the attacker's siege and supply so you always want to maximize that time. Invulnerability at 10-20% gives defenders more wall/gate to repair than invulnerability at 80% and the time to do it. Saying that it shouldn't matter because of the number difference between defenders and attackers, that the tower is just going to fall anyway, totally invalidates the point you're trying to make of using tactics at all. If it doesn't or shouldn't matter, why use tactics? I'm saying that it looks mathematically the same? There is the time before the pull (time a), the time of the Invuln (1 minute), and the time to run down the structure after the pull (time b). So, time to breach = time a + 1 minute + time b. In the best case, time a = time b, that is to say, you can totally fix the wall to 100%, probably while under invuln. What i am saying is that for small defending groups, you can't maximize this, cause you are limited by manpower: you will get less fixing done in invuln periods. You use the tactics to guarantee at least 1 minute of additional time (let's assume low or no supply/low man defending). The more dudes defending/more supply, the longer you can run the attrition. Same with shield gens (which we did not have). If you know something I don't, then I'd be happy to hear it. @Jilora.9524 said:Why would I be in the no tactics section. You didn't give a percent or tier of tower when pulled. I don't know which tower. You called out in map not team.You had 8 defending and saying it don't matter what percent you pull it is wrong. It was 1 treb. That is slow. How slow again t0-t1 vs t2-t3 is different. So with 8 even if all 8 stayed in tower you could repair it back to full. Obviously destroying the treb is what you did. Then they built rams w/o clearing oil. That's on them. You pull chilling fog even in towers to thin the back end. I can easily pull 3 or 4 with help and kill as they run up waiting for the zerg. First I thought it was EBG now you say BL so again Idk which BL tower or if you had t3 bay / hills to shorten the zergs walk or was it an enemy BL etc. There's just so much info missing. 8 vs 30 with no help coming is a loss. You delayed them. I could've delayed them longer but still a loss. I said I wouldn't yell at you cause you tried, not perfectly but not horrendously so blame the players that are mad on your server not our replys Here are the facts:At least one treb (they were building other siege, but they didn't finish)Don't remember the T0/T1 status, and yes, this will slow things down a bit if highly upgraded6-8 Defending (initial number was about 5, we gained a few over time)Attackers 20-30 (probably on higher end, was busy at the time, so you'll have to just take my estimate)Roamers destroyed the treb(s), we couldn't siege it, and the blob repositioned/regrouped/Plan B after I pulled invulnThis was on EBG in a tower, not castle or keep; my reference to BL was because I mostly roam around there: EBG too many zergs/you get run overI agree on the loss part (you must have reinforcement to clear a larger group): ironically we were in a tower directly off spawn for our side, but no helpBasically, I don't think i'm nuts, but I think that it is nuts to complain after the fact for a loss because someone had the temerity to try and use some tactics.

I am sick of people that complain about the deployment of tactics in WvW. The tactics are there TO BE USED. Sit right back, and I'll tell you a tale: I was involved in a tower defense last night, against a group of about 30 players (so about 300 supply), with about 6-8 defending. I called out the blob moving in on the tower after they flipped a nearby camp and supplied up. They built a treb (120 supply) in an unconventional spot to siege the tower. We had a supply trap set up in the main approach. As they were clouding and trebbing, I pulled an invuln tactic (figuring that they were getting ready to augment the treb with some closer siege). They (the clouders) hit the supply trap. Again, called the attack on mapchat, since a small group cannot defend against that sort of blob alone. Seeing that the trebbing was getting nowhere fast, the group proceeds to cloud en masse. We pepper them with siege for a bit as they try and figure out what to do: some roamers show up and begin to eat away at the fringes of the cloud (they also destroyed the treb). I am manning the oil pot on the gate--possibly the worst and most dangerous job in the siege. The invluns wear off, so they rush the gate to do rams, and are met by....flaming oil and guards...and are repulsed. They begin to build two cats on the west side wall (50 each). We don't have any siege capably of destroying them. Figuring that we can slow them a bit more, I hit the chilling fog, which will apply chill near the wall base where they are building the siege. We buy another minute. No tag shows up, though we are right outside of spawn on EBG. Figuring the tower is lost anyway at this point--the assaulting group is still pretty large--I start fighting outside the walls, and get killed. I relay in chat that someone should probably use the Dragon Banner as a last stand tactic once they get through the wall. I am actually very pleased that the tower held out for so long: a group that large should have rolled the tower fast. While moving back to tower from spawn, I start getting a bunch of crap that I was trolling the tactics in the tower, and that it was somehow my fault that the tower fell. I may only be a Bronze in WvW, but I gained each of those levels through solo play and roaming for objectives. I have seen structures fall repeatedly, and have captured my fair share. I have low manned (i.e. 3-5) towers, keeps, and SMC. I have a decent idea of how long something can hold out against 20-30 enemies. That structure was toast once the tactics wore off, and would have been toast faster had they not been used. I have seen a ton of towers fall with ALL TACTICS UNUSED. What a waste. Anyway, back to my main point: TACTICS ARE THERE TO USE. At best, they delay a bit. If no tag shows up to help, the structure is probably lost to any reasonably large enemy group. Also worth mentioning that, despite what the interwebz may relay, NOT EVERYONE IS OUT TROLLING TACTICS IN A CONSPIRACY TO MAKE YOUR SIDE LOSE. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose.

Also like that lifesteal from minions/wells and the dagger 2 channel heal are both OVERPOWERED! Jeebus. I remember fighting elementalists not two months ago, getting them to 5% HP, and having them heal back to 100%--repeatedly--like a yo-yo. Damn near unkillable. That is OP! The lifesteal has crap coefficients and the channel forces you to use dagger, which has poor range and poor cleave for a power weapon set.

Wait a minute. Isn't the entire necro design based around the LF pool and shroud tanking? Hasn't this been stable for the entire game (excepting Scourge, which finds innovative uses for LF, but is hated for other reasons). So, everything BUT shroud is powercreeped--making shroud grossly underperform--then the powercreep is nerfed a bit--and now the shroud (which has been stable) is "overperforming"? Bear in mind that core shroud access has already been cut by the SoS nerf, and Reaper shroud by the degeneration nerf. Perhaps the current iteration is the profession's designed intent: shroud tank plus debuffing/boon conversion. Am not sure that any fix is necessary? The class appear to fulfill its designed role. If people don't like this role, then simply walk away from the necro, or stun it: necro has zero movement skills, and little stab/stunbreaks. In sPvP: rotate around it, or get a +1 on it (hello teef!). In WvW: run away from it. Either way, if it gives chase, it gets out of position, and becomes farmable. So easy. This is as a necro main.

Unholy Sanctuary is not that great. Its 1% heal in shroud in pvp modes. It's OKish for core, maybe (?) scourge. Reaper shroud decays so fast that it will do max 20% heal, if you are not being hit for 20 seconds, and have full shroud available. So for Reaper: big burst on you ---> shroud panic! ---> heal ~20% ---> drop out of shroud ---> hit heal skill for maybe another 20% heal ---> other class has most CDs back up ---> big burst on you ---> downstate (you). That is if you don't get hit while in shroud. It can prevent 1HKOs, but you would still need a well placed wurm or be using spectral walk when HIT to really have a chance to recover. If you are really, really good, it is theoretically possible to shroud bait people into bursting you --> unholy sanct prevent death --> counterburst them to downstate with procced shroud, BUT you will only ever get a single shot at this, as if you miss your counterburst, you will be low shroud/locked out of shroud AND low health. So it's a ballsy move.

Yes, power coefficient is essentially zero now (~0.10). You can, however still do damage on CC: run "Curses" --> Insidious Disruption. This option actually got a lot better with the lower power coefficients and lower corrupt output/lower number of cleanses on enemy classes. It makes all our hard CCs hit a bit harder than on other classes, and the damage output is not affected by target toughness. Plus, usually, people will break stun, and then move away from you: the torment punishes them a bit for that.

Not sure I get it. There is plenty of solo end game? You can try and solo any fractal or dungeon, which is a significant challenge, BTW. You can also play WvW and roam, which is a dying art, and greatly needed in most maps (a lot of maps need scouts and camp flippers). You can also solo bandits champions in the core maps, or possibly bounties in the new POF maps. You can also drive map meta events. You would be surprised at how far a single person can push these things (Orr, especially). While none of these are designed for solo play, per se, the above are how i normally play the game. I almost never group up or join squads for anything. I may make my own solo squad for things that require a squad....such as raid training.

Nah, I made the mistake of picking a class that sounded like fun to play, and the further mistake of assuming that it would have a fair shot in a PvP mode: that is "on me". Turns out, ANET decided they didn't need need mobility for "reasons": "purity of purpose", "feel", etc. I wasn't consulted. ANET will never grant this class (or any class in the same boat) more mobility. Historically, I can find no examples of this behavior. They could, however, adhere to the original design goal, which would be nice, and likely would work. As a bonus, it should require almost zero effort, since you would be giving the affected conditions "simpler" behavior, with fewer exceptions. @Bazsi.2734 said: Also, I think it is feasible to simply nerf mobility. Think about it. If a specific case is nerfed (thief), the mobility problem just jumps to whatever case has the next best mobility, because mobility in this game as it is currently implemented is simply too powerful a force multiplier. It increases BOTH offensive power (choosing where and when to fight, being able to hit and run) and defensive abilities (being able to dodge close threats, reposition instantly to avoid hits, or simply flee if things go south). Mobility needs to be a good option, but NOT the most powerful one. ANETs problem is that, up to now, they allow a few incredibly (mechanically) powerful abilities to exist, but spread them very unevenly across classes for ultimately "thematic" reasons. In PvE, this is somewhat dissapointing, but in PvP modes, it strips the agency from the guy on the other side of the dagger, and makes the whole mode suck. ANET tried to "balance" this disparity with the conquest "win" mechanic chicanery, although a lot of people just play "death-match" at this point in the game's life and just go for thrills and kills. If you have ever had a good thief player decide to farm you, then the whole facade crumbles and becomes a huge suck experience, and you realize you never had a chance.

Speaking as a player that mains a class with no real movement ability: I say nerf the teleports, shadowsteps, and leaps. However, I think that the nerf should be rework of all of these abilities so that they are fully affected by soft CC: cripple, slow, immobilize, and most especially chill. Remember that several classes were constructed with the idea of soft conditions dictating/limiting enemy movements. This change would make these slow classes MUCH more viable, and would make hit and runs by faster classes much riskier.

PvE: Need Hard Mode? OK. The open world should certainly be harder, and they should just consider making that baseline. Currently, there is nearly zero threat in most open world zones. Don't like idea of no down state for "hard mode" raids: this would further pigeon-hole borderline support/classes (ex: core necro/scourge) builds to pure DPS only. Besides, some people enjoy playing support, but their playstyle would be gutted under this fix. Also, some classes, (necro particularly) are balanced around the idea of playing around with the downstate. An unintended consequence of the fix would also be to make raids even more toxic/elitist, since there would be no downstate carry, and "hard-mode" players would likely lord it over everyone else. No comment on the rest. WvW: No comment on pips. I don't play for rewards, I play for combat. Balance clearly SUCKS at both small and large scale. The stealth mechanic is terrible for WvW when stacked with big damage, should have been fixed years ago, and is a travesty. I also think that stealth as a whole is not healthy AT ALL, thus strongly disagree with Vallun on a basic level. Playing against a stealth character SUCKS, regardless of the length of the stealths. The warclaw should be a movement tool that introduces some small utility (some amount of cc mitigation), but nothing else. As is, the warclaw adds another health bar, more dodges, stomps, etc. Necro: Core necro shroud fear needs nerfed? WOW! Too strong! It is literally the only set up skill for core shroud. You gotta be kidding me! Also, reaper isn't that strong. It has okay-ish burst, but I find that the burst is not that strong compared to most other classes (any type of thief, any type of memser, any type of rev, holo), and has NO sustain. Reaper lacks set up and movement tools, so most players can easily counter your burst, as it is super easy to see coming.

BTW something like the above would allow ANET to tailor the stealth ability to their vision of the profession. If stealths are for escape or reposition, do the damage debuff and slow effect. If they are for damage set up, do the no stack, plus partially visible on hit, etc.

Stealth would be fair if (pick 2): Stealth de-buffed speed (i.e. non-cleansable cripple) Stealth de-buffed damage (i.e. non-cleansable -x%, where x>20%) Stealth cannot stack, duration increased by at most ONE trait in a profession’s traitlines, and no more than 20% total increase. Stealth applies non-cleansable slow de-buff for entire application period (regardless of source). Damage application causes a 1-2 second effect that causes the stealthed character to be transparent, but not invisible in PvP modes ONLY.

Name these pretenders!! Poseurs!! ?

Low-ball thug rank: 175ish? All solo roaming, almost no Zerg play, other than occasionally defending SMC. Died something like 4000+ times. Have taken all tiers of camps solo, and solo’d (Crankshaft in RBL) and duo’d (many) Towers. Low manned Bay (duo), Keeps (5 man), and SMC. SMC has shout out to the Zergs that pulled enemy defense to outer while 5 of us ninja’d Lord and his krewe.

There are big synergies only if you take all of: bitter chill, chilling darkness, and deathly chill AND WoD or Greatsword (for GS 4). That is fixing all of your traitlines, using one utility, and mandating greatsword. All for some chill and 5 bleeds on 5 targets. The problem is that players will only get one pulse (maybe), and then leap/teleport/shadowstep/dodge. Monsters and anything with a break bar will ignore it and just move out of the area.

The other part of the systems balance issue is the significant (and complicated) interactions between food items--utility items--traits--professional mechanics--stats (particularly concentration and expertise). There are quite a few problems related to just food interactions (i.e. endurance recovery on dodge, damage reduction food, condi cleanse foods). Consumables should be looked at across the board, and nerfed before traits and skills are adjusted.

It is ridiculous that chilling darkness even has an ICD at this point. The effect is NOT that strong with the abundance of (in many cases automatic) condi clears and movement abilities (leaps, teleports, etc.). On Well of Darkness/Chilling Darkness with no ICD, 5 targets would get at most 5 applications of chill each (12.5 seconds total), IF THEY STAND IN THE WELL THE ENTIRE TIME, which NOBODY WILL DO unless they are AFK. Given that the average condi clear now clears out at least 3 condis, and resistance is a thing, I just don't see a problem.

Diversity (i.e. large scale build variety) as described by the OP could--in theory--be greatly increased by decreasing the efficiency of a relatively few types of effects, specifically boon sharing and area denial (cleave) attacks. ANET has started doing this with the Scourge nerfs (i.e. cleave and area denial is now being mitigated). The large scale problem there is that even then, 1) the distribution of these mostly AoE effects among classes is very uneven, so the desirable effect is still only obtainable by taking the (nerfed) classes, 2) and you can just increase your efficiency by stacking up even more. So, a paradox: lessening the effect causes further stacking [in modes that allow it] to get the efficiency back. An even greater problem is that when you nerf large-scale efficiency, you also decimate small scale power: Scourge (for example) is now a sitting duck in small scale, since it was never designed to deal with small scale efficiently, and is now even worse at it. I agree that more attention should be paid to small scale, and much more aggressively (schedule wise). Once there is a bit of parity in small scale, large scale can be tuned a bit more easily, with fewer unintended consequences.

Depends on the context and scale. Power balance between classes seems to mostly be a problem at small scale: a relatively few builds on a handful of classes are so completely overwhelming that they will absolutely destroy any opponent (assuming equal skill) and can comfortably 1vX with a good-to-great chance of winning. This could be due to monstrous sustain, high stealth uptime, extreme movement abilities, constant detargetting, or a combination of these "gimmicks". Not all classes have tools that allow them to do this, which leads to frustration, given that the game is marketed as a fantasy RPG where the player is a "hero". Clearly, having a subpar class that can't really beat opponents reliably isn't "heroic". Professions such as Mirage, Soulbeast, and Holo are very strong in this small scale sense. Build diversity seems to be a more large scale (or macro) problem. There are certain types of abilities that are simply more efficient in a specific content (although possibly less powerful in a general or small-scale sense). Area affecting skills such as Cleave, Heal (area), and Cleanse (area) fall into this category, as does Boon Share. Since classes have very uneven distribution of skill types, some will be overloaded with area-affecting skills, which become massively more efficient with stacking (provided the mechanic is allowed to stack by the system). Professions such as Scourge and Firebrand fall into this category (at least in WvW). Note that the build diversity problem changes based on the specific scenario due to differing efficiency needs in each scenario [i.e. META], while the power issue in small scale is constant (until nerfs).

I make maybe 1-2 gold per night in WvW (night= about 4 hours) including selling mats and drops to the TP. I think right now I am doing the Hero Weapon track on repeat (other tracks might vary). The above is for solo-roam type play: flipping camps/sentries/paper towers/merc camps, some 1vX, soloing group creatures (Overgrown Grub, Champion Nature Spirit, etc.), and "occasionally" following (not typically joining) smaller groups. Don't really zerg. Buying food/utility/traps/siege cuts into the above. I did some PvE during the Champion Rush thing, and was frankly shocked at how much gold I made compared to WvW: I went from maybe 25 gold total (yeah, I am poor) to almost 200 gold without any real effort. Then I spent all of it on increasing tailor skill, so back to like 5 gold. That doesn't count the value of stuff I kept or could not sell (banners, boosters, etc., that I won). PvE is easily 10x as lucrative as WvW without any increase in effort.

This is why I don't post much anymore (well, that and the general futility of it all). Note sure why we are discussing the other signets at all. They are sort of OK'ish. Are they great? No. Are they archaic, underpowered, and sort of all over the place, with long CDs on the actives? Yes. On those points, we can probably agree. I am no game expert. I haven't played since the beta. I don't do spreadsheet analysis of the different build combinations. And I am not going to argue the finer points of the various Signets. I had a sort of "off the wall" idea for a very specific Signet, under very specific circumstances. You don't like it for a couple of reasons. Got it. [You] Also don't like that I mentioned my thoughts on SoV. Duly noted. Your speed boosts mentioned are all valid, but miss the point entirely. I like the permanent, boonless speed increase (I often trait it to get passive in shroud as well). Quickening Thirst only works if you: 1) use a dagger, 2) use Blood Magic, 3) use Quickening Thirst, and 4) keep health above a threshold value. Most people fail one or more of those conditions. Warhorn is certainly easier to use. Equip it and press "5". Unfortunately, it manifests the speed as a boon, which is easily corrupted. Speed of shadows is OK, but only provides a short speed increase, and does it via a boon [see warhorn]. I find, anecdotally, it is better used for the soft condition removal. The only thing that would approach this would be Traveler Runes (all 6) or superspeed (if you could get decent uptime). Anyway, am out.

It is used in support scourge builds to ensure a steady stream of life force to spam shade skills as well as an emergency rez at distance. OK. I suppose it could be used in that manner (doesn't seem optimal, although our friends at snowcrows DO have a healer scourge build that uses it). I will say that I (personally) have never seen a scourge use this signet in this manner, but full disclosure, I play mostly WvW at this point. In WvW the signet passive is not effective enough outside of zergs, and the active is too long cast to keep up with the zerg, so it is sort of like a fish out of water.