Is WvW even active now days? Is it worth the time to get into?

[Blacksheep.8932]

Hello,
I'm a returning player and i've played primarily like 95% of my 4,000h of playtime in SPvP. It's kinda boring now with the 3v3 season and I thought about actually trying wvw.
I have full ascended gear and etc from the stacked pvp rewards over the years and all that. 

Thing I wanted to know though as title says, is it even active enough? Should I transfer to a specific server for more activity? (I've got no problem with that) or what should someone who KNOWS how to play pvp should know before starting wvw?

Thanks!

[Infusion.7149]

I want to caution you that WvW is not PvP.

If you think WvW is PvP you are setting yourself up for disappointment. It is a largescale territory control gamemode where players will try to retain structures: fighting is supposed to be for the structures (to take them or defend them).

What this means is if you are actually concerned about the matchup (which admittedly most people are not) then you will try to get a build that fits into a squad setup or will augment a squad setup. In a PvP analogy it strongly favors group supports (firebrand, herald, scrapper, support spellbreaker, aurashare tempest) and not any kind of bunker or roamer (i.e. non soulbeast ranger, thieves of any kind, 1 dodge mirage memes, any full projectile user). The main difference is a prevalence of chronomancer in current meta where chrono is used for portal and veil as well as bulk boon rip via sword and Vicious Expression triggers on CC.

I would look into the particular server you are on currently and check their discord and gw2mists.com. If it is truly in a bad state then you can consider transferring with the knowledge that transfers prevent you from receiving skirmish reward track progress for two resets.

As far as if it is worth it, right now it really is more than any other previous time. Arenanet has put in skirmish tickets all over the place, dropped the WvW rank required for mistforged armor down to 500, increased rewards across the board for all structure caps, and made grandmaster mark shards actually attainable in a reasonable timeframe rather than at best one mark per 4 weeks. Note if you multi-mode your main focus should be Conflux.

Edited February 25, 2023 by Infusion.7149

[Kozumi.5816]

1 hour ago, Infusion.7149 said:

want to caution you that WvW is not PvP.

SPvP isn't PvP either. This game basically has no PvP.

BGs when? Can I pay $30 for an expac that adds BGs?

[Chichimec.9364]

I generally run for two hours a day with a squad that varies from 25 - 40. We've been seeing a lot of action on our NA server, especially since the recent changes to the reward system. There seems to be a lot more fighting around keeps and towers, with attackers and defenders really going at it. There are roamers that try to pick off any stragglers in our tail as well as zergs our size or larger. There's been some massive three way fights, which gets really interesting. We do see 1v1 or 1v2-3 fights as we ride by, though we generally ignore those, letting them do their thing. So to answer your first question, for our squad WvW is very active right now.

As for advice to an experienced PvP player who is new to WvW, you already know about researching builds, looking for intro guides and all that stuff. The one suggestion I would make to you is - whether you are sociable or solitary - in the beginning at least, look for an open tag and run with them. That will make it much easier for you to get a warclaw and the exp to put points into the warclaw, gliding and so forth. It will also introduce you to the various WvW maps, so you are not wandering around blindly. If a squad is using Discord and makes their channel available, that will make following them and understanding what they are doing a lot easier. If you are not sociable, most squads are fine with you not speaking, just listening. Discord isn't necessary to run with an open squad though. You really can just follow the tag. After a few weeks of following various tags, you'll start to get a sense of which commanders are worth following and which aren't. I hope this helps and I hope you enjoy WvW. I know I do.

[subversiontwo.7501]

2 hours ago, Infusion.7149 said:

I want to caution you that WvW is not PvP.

If you think WvW is PvP you are setting yourself up for disappointment. It is a largescale territory control gamemode where players will try to retain structures.

I'll expand a bit on what Infusion is saying. I'd rather characterise WvW as a large sandbox battleground game mode that is defined by a number of content subsets coexisting and forming a bit of an eco-system. You can choose to play at different scales and at different distances from both objectives and players, but most things tend to contribute to a larger whole.

The state of the game mode has two sides to the same thing as well. The disinterest from the developer has made the players respond in kind. Much content we see today goes through the same routines and convenience. Trying to do something more can be frustrating as a good way to describe things is a bit of sloth. That is my biggest challenge trying to do things that I find fun at least, convincing other players to be more creative, given the state of things. At the same time, that is still WvW's big selling point in my oppinion, that fun is still about doing creative things. That the fundamental sandbox and systems we have here is the best of its kind among competing games. That while there are some major issues that stop us from creating things socially, which need to be solved, and that they cause players to be rather unaspiring, we can still create alot of things here if we can overcome that and that can be rather inspiring. Just getting a small group of friends together who puts a bit of creativity and effort in lets you do quite alot in WvW, still to this day. That's the appeal.

Edited February 26, 2023 by subversiontwo.7501

[Chichimec.9364]

11 minutes ago, subversiontwo.7501 said:

...That is my biggest challenge trying to do things that I find fun at least, convincing other players to be more creative, given the state of things. At the same time, that is still WvW's big selling point in my oppinion, that fun is still about doing creative things. That the fundamental sandbox and systems we have here is the best of its kind among competing games...

While it would probably be off-topic to go much further into this in this thread, I really would like to hear more about what you are saying here. Is there someplace you've talked about it more that you can give a link to?

A couple of years ago, I started following a tag from our linked server who was running regularly at my preferred time. At first I didn't bother with that squad's Discord but I was baffled by what the commander was doing. We would knock down a wall here, then map jump, knock on a gate there, then ride off to cap something totally different. When I finally got in their Discord to see what the heck was going on, it blew my mind. The commander was actually coordinating fights on all the maps at once. Scouts were tracking various enemy zergs on the various maps. We would do a feint on this map to draw an enemy zerg off another map, then go hit their garri, that kind of thing. While we were capping some major objective, the tag would be coordinating smaller groups to take smaller objectives while we kept the bigger zergs distracted. It was like watching a WW2 commander coordinating a whole theater of war. Sadly, I couldn't follow the tag after the relink as I had friends on my then current server. Even worse, I've forgotten which server that commander was on, let alone their name. Still, I do remember their brilliant play on a level far beyond any other tag I've ever run with. That was the most creative play I've seen in WvW yet.

[Xenesis.6389]

1 hour ago, Chichimec.9364 said:

While it would probably be off-topic to go much further into this in this thread, I really would like to hear more about what you are saying here. Is there someplace you've talked about it more that you can give a link to?

A couple of years ago, I started following a tag from our linked server who was running regularly at my preferred time. At first I didn't bother with that squad's Discord but I was baffled by what the commander was doing. We would knock down a wall here, then map jump, knock on a gate there, then ride off to cap something totally different. When I finally got in their Discord to see what the heck was going on, it blew my mind. The commander was actually coordinating fights on all the maps at once. Scouts were tracking various enemy zergs on the various maps. We would do a feint on this map to draw an enemy zerg off another map, then go hit their garri, that kind of thing. While we were capping some major objective, the tag would be coordinating smaller groups to take smaller objectives while we kept the bigger zergs distracted. It was like watching a WW2 commander coordinating a whole theater of war. Sadly, I couldn't follow the tag after the relink as I had friends on my then current server. Even worse, I've forgotten which server that commander was on, let alone their name. Still, I do remember their brilliant play on a level far beyond any other tag I've ever run with. That was the most creative play I've seen in WvW yet.

Well you found like the 1 out of 100's of commanders that would bother with that level of organization, and basically only good for ppting, which like no one wants to do these days.

[TheGrimm.5624]

6 hours ago, Blacksheep.8932 said:

Hello,
I'm a returning player and i've played primarily like 95% of my 4,000h of playtime in SPvP. It's kinda boring now with the 3v3 season and I thought about actually trying wvw.
I have full ascended gear and etc from the stacked pvp rewards over the years and all that. 

Thing I wanted to know though as title says, is it even active enough? Should I transfer to a specific server for more activity? (I've got no problem with that) or what should someone who KNOWS how to play pvp should know before starting wvw?

Thanks!

 

T3 NA, and we had queues on all 4 maps during prime time and queues on 2 others during mid-day.

[Xenesis.6389]

2 hours ago, TheGrimm.5624 said:

T3 NA, and we had queues on all 4 maps during prime time and queues on 2 others during mid-day.

Same, well briefly, was mostly 2-3 queues at times.

Btw saw you at bay on your rev tonight Grimm. 🤭

Edited February 26, 2023 by Xenesis.6389

[TheGrimm.5624]

39 minutes ago, Xenesis.6389 said:

Same, well briefly, was mostly 2-3 queues at times.

Btw saw you at bay on your rev tonight Grimm. 🤭

lol, hope you didn't dance too much on my corpse lol. Trying to figure if I want to rework that one. I admit, 4 Revs, may need to rework one of the those since I still enjoy that one.

[Xenesis.6389]

Just now, TheGrimm.5624 said:

lol, hope you didn't dance too much on my corpse lol. Trying to figure if I want to rework that one. I admit, 4 Revs, may need to rework one of the those since I still enjoy that one.

Oh I only saw you for a couple seconds and then you ran off, think you all went to defend hills.

Semi decent fights around bay and garri tonight at least, other than db had their boon ballers on that map superspeed steamrolling over people. 🤷‍♂️

[Silinsar.6298]

11 hours ago, Infusion.7149 said:

What this means is if you are actually concerned about the matchup (which admittedly most people are not) then you will try to get a build that fits into a squad setup or will augment a squad setup.

There are many tasks for smaller groups and roamers. And often, it would be the better tactic to split big zergs and hit many obstacles at once, but it remains one because of a lack of commanders / people preferring to karmatrain.

 

I reckon as a sPvP player OP will feel more comfortable in smallscale (group sizes of 1-5) first, because sPvP experience translates better to that playstyle and scale of figths.

 

[Infusion.7149]

7 hours ago, Silinsar.6298 said:

There are many tasks for smaller groups and roamers. And often, it would be the better tactic to split big zergs and hit many obstacles at once, but it remains one because of a lack of commanders / people preferring to karmatrain.

 

I reckon as a sPvP player OP will feel more comfortable in smallscale (group sizes of 1-5) first, because sPvP experience translates better to that playstyle and scale of figths.

 

Even if you are roaming people generally organize in parties unless it is just randoms. In a party there will be less support focus , more similar to PvP, but there still is an approximate comp (typically one support or cleanse).

By definition ktraining is hitting undefended structures that are normally T0/T1 : any large group over 25 people normally attracts defense due to pulling orange swords. In addition, it is more difficult for a small party to breach a T3 keep simply due to supply issues, the only way around this is golems or a cata wall that hits inner and outer at once. That said the lord does scale with players so the optimal amount of players will also depend on DPS (i.e. how much of the squad is not minstrel and has +5 WvW infusions).

With the new reward structure in mind:

• SMC - likelihood of cap with small group is low
• Keep - depends on tier of keep and whether there is EWP (emergency waypoint)
• Tower - can be capped on borderlands by smaller groups typically if there is no response but less likely on EBG

Edited February 26, 2023 by Infusion.7149

[Silinsar.6298]

59 minutes ago, Infusion.7149 said:

Even if you are roaming people generally organize in parties unless it is just randoms. In a party there will be less support focus , more similar to PvP, but there still is an approximate comp (typically one support or cleanse).

This seems like a counter point but isn't refuting anything you quoted?

 

1 hour ago, Infusion.7149 said:

With the new reward structure in mind:

• SMC - likelihood of cap with small group is low
• Keep - depends on tier of keep and whether there is EWP (emergency waypoint)
• Tower - can be capped on borderlands by smaller groups typically if there is no response but less likely on EBG

• Yeah, there's no point in going after SM as a small group during active hours. But while it's the biggest, it's also just one of many objectives.
• Hitting keeps serves to deactivate waypoints or drain supplies - generally you'd go for the "hidden" gates / far off treb spots and remain unnoticed as long as possible to make repairs costly, setting up future attacks on a keep. A small parties job isn't necessarily to take a T3 keep, but to soften it up or prevent it from becoming upgraded in the first place.
• On EB or vs the defender on alpine BL you can often sneakily go for the spawn towers while the zergs are occupied. Most (re)spawns will go through keeps and not bother checking towers. And whenever you draw the attention of a bigger group that's an opportunity for your server's main forces to attack something else with little resistance.
• Then there's all the miscellaneous stuff that roamers help do: scouting, denying / draining supplies, slowing down reinforcements,  delaying attacks with disablers, keeping ruin buff up so you get points for kills or just grabbing some points from camps and sentries.

 

WvW isn't just SMC and keeps on EB.

[Infusion.7149]

6 minutes ago, Silinsar.6298 said:

This seems like a counter point but isn't refuting anything you quoted?

 

• Yeah, there's no point in going after SM as a small group during active hours. But while it's the biggest, it's also just one of many objectives.
• Hitting keeps serves to deactivate waypoints or drain supplies - generally you'd go for the "hidden" gates / far off treb spots and remain unnoticed as long as possible to make repairs costly, setting up future attacks on a keep. A small parties job isn't necessarily to take a T3 keep, but to soften it up or prevent it from becoming upgraded in the first place.
• On EB or vs the defender on alpine BL you can often sneakily go for the spawn towers while the zergs are occupied. Most (re)spawns will go through keeps and not bother checking towers. And whenever you draw the attention of a bigger group that's an opportunity for your server's main forces to attack something else with little resistance.
• Then there's all the miscellaneous stuff that roamers help do: scouting, denying / draining supplies, slowing down reinforcements,  delaying attacks with disablers, keeping ruin buff up so you get points for kills or just grabbing some points from camps and sentries.

 

WvW isn't just SMC and keeps on EB.

I actually do not spend most of the time on EBG as I would rather not deal with the queue. It is just an observation that most newer players to WvW will not be giving up their own WvW progression to do roamer type roles especially without warclaw. Softening a keep is something that gets close to no credit in the recently introduced rewards system. Scouting, unless you are in a squad with a scout designation, also gives nothing and actively works against your participation levels. I know because I spent hundreds if not thousands of hours scouting, porting people on mesmer, tagging siege to avoid the siege timer, and also walking yaks to T3 keeps. (Over half the time was spent in havoc squads below 10-15 people and the other half in 30+ comped groups that are sometimes full 50; due to queue I had multiple sets of armor to switch between havoc and squad comp on the fly.) Many WvW guild-free scouts quit after 2017 due to the skirmish tracks introduction.

In fact just last night I helped someone in mapchat that was looking to finish warclaw as far as keep caps. They needed guidance and an actual group to cap a keep, since they had no idea what they were doing. A group of people that are experienced in the mode (especially those not in a fight oriented guild) will be willing to help someone on a WvW squad build not so much someone on a roamer build.

SMC is not required for the weekly currently even if it nets you 5 extra tickets. Keeps are however and killing 50 players is near effortless if you are in a well designed squad or regularly defending a tiered structure against 25+. Going solo or off roaming is making it unnecessarily harder and interacting with your server community at the very least will net you an easier time. You may not play with server guilds but you will figure out which ones are fight oriented and which ones are PPT oriented and that allows you to play off their positioning. Some tags run invisible after all.

My best advice to anyone coming from PvP is to play something that can swap between templates and have a decent squad impact (generally not thief or ranger).

[Riba.3271]

I would suggest to play public WvW during weekends when it is most active, and PvP during weekdays when all the weekend plebs are gone.

Server matters and you kind of need to keep swapping guilds until you find one that isn't flaky.

Some metabuilds are very boring when fights aren't very close, so I would multiclass and stay away from those builds. I won't say which they are, but it will be quite obvious after couple of weeks.

Safest bet regarding activity is going to rank 1 server of your region, they will be winning most timezones. But rank 1 server changes every 2 months.

Edited February 26, 2023 by Riba.3271

[roederich.2716]

WvW is not as active as it was anymore. Many good guilds and commanders have quit by now.

There are only few commanders left who can gain 50 people immediately together the rest carves around with 30 people squads and hopes for the best that more players join to "fight kitten content".

Main problem for squadfights and why these getting more and more unpopular is that there is no actual meta squad fighting anymore.

Atm it goes like this: 

While some Berserker tries to gunflame your commander and  frontline some willbender already ported into your backline causing melee burst inside of them while some holosmith prime light beams your midline from flank and your commander tries to dodge the wells spike comming from straight but he lands inside the dodge and GS5 of some vindicators and freecasting reaper who guessed the dodge direction of the squad.

too many people by now just do "something" to win by any means necessary.

thats why lots commanders are fed up, you have no clean measurement anymore which squad is the stronger by teamwork on and orangised fight of 1200 range -> 900 range -> melee engange.

The players who refuse by now to join guilds or squads run around ebg if they get through the 40-70 people queue to farm smc defense rewards. 

Not worth the time atm. Enjoy upcomming spring weather.