Warclaw Lance - Removes Too Much 1vX Potential - Not Healthy For Low Population

[Trevor Boyer.6524]

This single skill makes kiting while roaming pretty impossible if even a veteran roamer is against 2 competent opponents.

Here is what happens:

1. You become engaged with 2 opponents.
2. One of the opponents keeps you in combat, in which speed penalty applies, and then the situation is worse if you are in enemy territory where your Warclaw moves slower to begin with.
3. The second opponent who may have began the combat as "in-combat" can wait a moment for you to run, putting him out of combat, and then he can easily run you down while the first opponent keeps you in combat.
4. Lance 1500 immediate dismount range is too generous of a mechanic at this point. Not only can the second opponent already easily run you down from being out of combat, but now he can throw a 1500 range dismounting projectile on top of that. So any chance you had of juking & disengaging just enough to remount your Warclaw and leave or kite until CDs come back, is removed from the game due to Lance.

Of course if you were running a Core Mesmer with PU or a Shadow Arts Thief, you wouldn't even need to disengage the situation because you'd have enough stealth to where you could creep around the area undetected until they leave, but this is not the case with 4 out of 9 classes who have no stealth who rely upon mobility alone. For those 4 classes, Lance is not a good game granted balancing effect, it is a straight handicap as a no stealth roamer now that Lance is in play.

Speaking for myself here, and I'm sure a lot of old roamers would agree, this is doing a few things that is not healthy for the population & activity of WvW. Keep in mind that during year 8, we are looking at solo roam, small havoc, militia type situations, and no real big command play outside of particular rare nights like weekly resets:

1. Where an old veteran no stealth class could once confidently move around a map engaging 1vXs and actually win them over time or at least kite for harassment & distraction purposes, now due to Lance, his play potential and even incentive to play at all, is limited to player population. Why would the veteran roamer stay and play the game mode when he is 1 of 5 players in his map vs. 20 on an opposing sever? Why would he stay when the other 4 players won't cooperate? Where is the incentive to stay & play when he knows that it is no longer possible to 1vX due to Lance? It is very fun for veteran roamers to accept the challenge of pushing a heavily outmanned map, when game mechanics make it realistic for a high skill cap to do so. But it is no fun at all to push even a slightly outmanned map, when it is impossible to match the opponent in mobility due to a skill like Lance, which removes his ability to utilize the Warclaw for kiting groups who are of course also using Warclaws. Why try? In years past, strong roamers would stay & play because albeit challenging to 1vX, it is was possible. But now roamers log in and see that they are heavily outmanned so they leave. Why stay? Where is the incentive to play here?
2. All of which leads to militia like "holding" where, when organized tags aren't present, players only attempt to defend what they have and never make pushes. There are times where I've played for hours and hours in a single map, I'm on Borlis Pass btw, and not seen a single objective beyond camps flip. This kind of stagnation is happening because strong roamer play during outmanned times has been disabled due to Lance. Roamers can no longer log in and make impact, so they stop playing. Unless numbers are relatively even nowadays, people just log off or they sit in a tower calling for help all night. This is because it is unrealistic to deal with outmanned situations, due to Lance. A group of 3 guys dies to a group of 10 guys, due to the effect & reason that I already mentioned about in-combat speed penalties & lancing. It's no fun and there is no incentive to stay & play, because small groups can longer kite large groups, strong roamers can no longer make impact 1vX to turn the tide. No one wants to stay & play when the situation is that they immediately die if a group approaches them or are forced to WP away or must sit in a tower and call for help all night. People start leaving the game mode. Where is the incentive to play? Where is the fun in this?
3. Ultimately this results in a game mode where numbers dictate dominance. WvW zerging was always sort of like this, save the rare elite squad that could 15 vs. 30+ and actually win, but that never used to hold true for roaming. Even up until right before Lance was released, a strong roamer could cause significant damage in a map by himself. A group of 3 or 4 or 5 strong roamers could create serious damage in a map and reliably rotate around taking even important objectives. <- This was incentive for people stay & play, because it was possible to champion a map with superior skill cap, and boy was it fun. It was FUN to log in with a group of 5 guys and say: "Alright we can do this" and actually have realistic chances of turning around a bad outmanned situation. We'd get a lot of strong players who would stay & play this way, which in turn would provide challenge for those dominant population servers.

I believe this is a significant portion of the reasons why population is so low in WvW. There is no longer incentive or fun in staying in outmanned situations, because they are virtually impossible to deal with after Lance was introduced. Roamers that normally would be able to push & turn the tide of outmanned situations are now too greatly handicapped to do so. This is because the very spirit of what it means to "Win an outmanned battle in Guild Wars 2" completely relies on mobility and the ability to kite many foes. When mechanics like Lance are introduced that prevent this, players lose incentive to stay & play through outmanned situations because well.. who thinks it's fun to run out and repeatedly feed gank squads that you can't disengage all night? And as such, here is what happens to WvW flow of activity:

1. Guy logs in to play, loads into WvW, sees his server is somewhat outmanned.
2. Guy tries to play for awhile, gets bored fast because no tags are present for his server, no one wants to cooperate, and he can't get anything done roaming alone.
3. Guy realizes there is no incentive to stay & play this game mode when his server is outmanned. Absolutely no reason or fun in it. He logs off.
4. The opponents who currently have higher population are winning easily due to the high population. Their high population begins to cause the players on the other servers to log off in a relatively short amount of time. Why would anyone stay & play when they can no longer kite the larger groups from the dominant population server?
5. Because the competition for the high population server logs off, the high population server no longer has anyone to play against or it is too few to play against to provide fun. So now people from the high population server begin to log off, because nothing is happening.
6. The removal of ability to kite larger groups, has created an effect where if server numbers are not relatively even, players on the less populated servers have no incentive to play so they leave, and then in turn players on the high population server start leaving because there is no competition and things get boring. This is a chain of effect that results in not only "No incentive to stay & play" but more so actually "Having incentive to leave and not play at all." These are the kinds of reasons why the game mode is dying.
7. ^ All of which could be completely avoided, if there were incentive for stronger older players to stay & play, if they thought it was realistic to turn the tide of an outmanned situation at all.

I just really want to stress this again: "The very spirit of what it means to win an outmanned battle in Guild Wars 2, completely relies on mobility and the ability to kite many foes." Arenanet, if players cannot do this, people leave, because there is no realistic counter play to outmanned. The greater the player's ability to counter play outmanned situations, the more player base that would stay & play through such situations. Consider this.

A good start to correcting this problem would be doing something to fix Lance. Turn its range down to 600, 1500 is way too long range. Slow the projectile, make the animation cast longer, give it an extra tell, or simply make its effect a cripple or a slow. Just do something. The implementation of this skill alone has over nerfed probably the most important aspect of what used to keep WvW active, and that was the ability for anyone to log in and actually go get something done as a solo roamer or small group. <- When people no longer feel that this is a realistic objective, population starts dropping through the floor.

[Blocki.4931]

You can't use your warclaw to kite enemies, you can only run away from them because you're out of combat to begin with. :)

[ArchonWing.9480]

Without the lance, it's hard to have 1vanything at all.

Also, pick your terrain. If you're fighting outnumbered fights on open ground, you are going to die. If you have slopes and hills and houses to slide around into, then you can keep a much larger group chasing you. Also dive in the water; you may win fights on virtue of nobody knowing how underwater skills work.

You don't need stealth. But you do need quite a bit of damage mitigation (warrior for example is great at it).

Any class besides necro can get away from your average bozo. But then again I know some necros (usually reapers) that 1vx all the time and seem to come on top too much so what do I know? Now obviously if the 2-3 people know what they're doing, you're going to die, but that's just how it's always been. You got to remember that back then it was easier to 1vxs because we had more pvers and uplevels and undergeared players. Now with exotics being basically free and ascended not being that expensive anymore, you're most likely facing fully geared and metabattl'ed toons at a minimum.

[Trevor Boyer.6524]

@"Blocki.4931" said:You can't use your warclaw to kite enemies, you can only run away from them because you're out of combat to begin with. :)

Example of using Warclaw to kite:

1. A DPS Roamer comes across 2 Necromancers and a Weaver who are taking a supply camp. The DPS Roamer is able to sneak up and blow all of his burst CDs to down one of the Necromancers and then cleave him out into death. By the time the Roamer has eliminated 1 of the players, all of his offensive skills are on CD and the other 2 opponents are nearing in on him, which he knows would be impossible to engage before his CDs were refreshed.
2. The DPS Roamer is used to this routine. He uses a short stealth skill to kill enemy targeting, and then uses his mobility skills to quickly juke and go in a strange direction, just far enough to OOC. This could be a Mesmer or Ranger or Engi or Thief or even Trap Rune using DH.
3. In a world without Warclaw, once his stealth ends, he and his opponents are now OOC, and sheer class/build mobility disengage factor, as well as player skill levels, will dictate if they are able to catch him & kill him or not. This makes things more complex, in terms of what is good at chasing what, and who is good at disengaging who. But in a world with Warclaw, once he is OOC and mounts, the 2 remaining opponents also will mount. This is the inevitability we are looking at, which makes pursuit & disengage more balanced in general amongst all classes.
4. Now, in a world without Lance, the DPS Roamer is looking at factors such as: "Are they in his territory or is he in their territory? Is he moving faster or are they moving faster?" the goal here is for the DPS Roamer to stay mounted and kite just long enough for his CDs to refresh, so he can dismount and go in for another kill, then rinse & repeat the kite, until all opponents have been downed & cleaved out. The only way he can pull this off is by using the Warclaw, because the opponents will surely use their Warclaws. If he does not match their Warclaw mobility with his Warclaw mobility, they will inevitably catch him unless they're significantly inexperienced. The DPS Roamer in this scenario, if he is careful, has real opportunity to win the 1v3. <- This is incentive to stay & play through outmanned situations. However in a world with Lance, this situation is impossible to win outside of being granted outlier circumstances such as some of the opponents being AFK or being so new that they fumble everything they're doing. In a world with Lance, the 2 remaining opponents need do nothing more than double mount and chase. When 1 opponent uses Lance, it dismounts the DPS Roamer before he can disengage or refresh CDs, the other opponent is still on a Warclaw and can easily get close to him to engage DPS pressure while the other opponent catches up. Now the DPS Roamer is out of stealth, out of mobility skills, and his DPS Burst. Unless the DPS Roamer largely outweighs the 2 remaining opponents in skill factor, this scenario with Lance is impossible to win or even disengage from. <- And this is why Roamers who notice they are outmanned and cannot go anywhere without running into 2+ opponents, rarely stay & play nowadays. Even when they form a team of 2 or 3 people, they still run into groups of 5 or 6 and the same thing happens on a larger scale, no kite ability, no disengage factor. This is all because of Lance dismount. It handicaps outman roam situations too much.

Anyway yeah, that's kiting with Warclaw. Before Lance, a good player could actually challenge a group of 4 or 5 intermediates with wise kiting, OOCing & skill refreshing.

[Dawdler.8521]

TL;DRMounts are bad because they force people to fight.

M'kay.

[Trevor Boyer.6524]

@"Jayden Reese.9542" said:You aren't kiting you are fighting not winning right away running mounting and coming back hoping to burst one of the 2 down. Like 7 classes can run if they really don't want to fight where if a necro or guard get lanced or engaged they fight win or fight and die so that's more unfair then your random scenario. I'm sorry 2 guys caught and killed you when you usually get away. My guess is you also play ranger and think 1500 rng kb then pet kd or root is fun for anyone else with lesser range. They when we winning you run and mount and think that's awesome and fair but oh noes you died to 2 coordinated guys and we get a novel to read.

My friend, I think you are missing the ultimate point of my post.

Normally I would have agreed with you before the implementation of Lance. I would have agreed that it would be "a good thing" to force players in-combat. However, after actually seeing the longer term effects of what this is doing to roam play and the overall activity of WvW, I've noticed that it is a problem.

We can't keep balancing the game around the idea of removing high skill cap play so that it is more casual and easy and more even field play for everyone, because that results in a situation where there is no reason to show up to a 10 vs. 20 ball game when you already know you are going to lose, because the only thing that matters is numbers, because you can no longer kite, disengage, and outplay larger groups. If we want the game mode to pick back up some momentum, we need to begin accepting mechanics that allow strong players to do what they do, so that they stay and play during outmanned situations.

Consider this. I mean really stop and think about this from a macro designer point of view, who is trying to figure out: "Why aren't players coming in and staying to skirmish like they used to?" Well aside from many other aspects that could enter this debacle, the glaring aspect to me seems pretty simple, they no longer can. I know it is annoying when 2 good players kite a 6 man squad and eventually win against them, but hey, that's a competitive game. We have to make room and accept the presence of good players rather than asking for game designs that prevents them from being able to stress their skill cap, otherwise people stop showing up to the 10 vs. 20 ball game man.

Unless Arenanet wants to shuffle everyone onto 3 super servers so we all get dense population again, Lance in its current state has got to be changed.

@ArchonWing.9480 said:Without the lance, it's hard to have 1vanything at all.

It would work just fine as a cripple or slow effect at half range even, for the purposes of forcing a 1v1 engagement. The 1500 range instant dismount is too snowbally of a mechanic for larger groups to wield against smaller groups. It just allows a larger group to absolutely shred smaller groups. lately I see more players than ever, form a party or small squad, go out once and get a bad wipe from a group double their size, and then they all leave party don't even try a 2nd time. And we're talking they do this with known PUGmanders even. This is because they know there is no reason to stay there in that map at all, because small groups cannot deal with larger groups now, due to Lance.

[ArchonWing.9480]

@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

@"Blocki.4931" said:You can't use your warclaw to kite enemies, you can only run away from them because you're out of combat to begin with. :)

Example of using Warclaw to kite:

4. Now, in a world without Lance, the DPS Roamer is looking at factors such as: "Are they in his territory or is he in their territory? Is he moving faster or are they moving faster?" the goal here is for the DPS Roamer to stay mounted and kite just long enough for his CDs to refresh, so he can dismount and go in for another kill, then rinse & repeat the kite, until all opponents have been downed & cleaved out. The only way he can pull this off is by using the Warclaw, because the opponents will surely use their Warclaws. If he does not match their Warclaw mobility with his Warclaw mobility, they will inevitably catch him unless they're significantly inexperienced. The DPS Roamer in this scenario, if he is careful, has real opportunity to win the 1v3. <- This is incentive to stay & play through outmanned situations. However in a world with Lance, this situation is impossible to win outside of being granted outlier circumstances such as some of the opponents being AFK or being so new that they fumble everything they're doing. In a world with Lance, the 2 remaining opponents need do nothing more than double mount and chase. When 1 opponent uses Lance, it dismounts the DPS Roamer before he can disengage or refresh CDs, the other opponent is still on a Warclaw and can easily get close to him to engage DPS pressure while the other opponent catches up. Now the DPS Roamer is out of stealth, out of mobility skills, and his DPS Burst. Unless the DPS Roamer largely outweighs the 2 remaining opponents in skill factor, this scenario with Lance is impossible to win or even disengage from. <- And this is why Roamers who notice they are outmanned and cannot go anywhere without running into 2+ opponents, rarely stay & play nowadays. Even when they form a team of 2 or 3 people, they still run into groups of 5 or 6 and the same thing happens on a larger scale, no kite ability, no disengage factor. This is all because of Lance dismount. It handicaps outman roam situations too much.

Anyway yeah, that's kiting with Warclaw. Before Lance, a good player could actually challenge a group of 4 or 5 intermediates with wise kiting, OOCing & skill refreshing.

On which class would you still have missing cooldowns after you disengaged, got on your mount, rode on for a bit, and got dismounted? And you certainly would have most of your offensive ones back. I assume all of this takes at least 30s, meaning you probably have to buy maybe 10 more seconds at a disadvantage.

Btw they are getting rid of the move faster when in friendly territory thing.

It would work just fine as a cripple or slow effect at half range even, for the purposes of forcing a 1v1 engagement. The 1500 range instant dismount is too snowbally of a mechanic for larger groups to wield against smaller groups.

It's also a slow moving projectile that has trouble when you turn, and gets obstructed really easily.

[Trevor Boyer.6524]

@"Dawdler.8521" said:TL;DRMounts are bad because they force people to fight.

M'kay.

1. I said Lance needed to be fixed, not that mounts were bad. Maybe you should TL;DR read the post next time.
2. You gotta have mobility & disengage in a game like GW2. Forcing a small group to fight a large group is no fun for the small group if they are literally "forced" to fight the large group, and are unable to play around them in a game mode like WvW.

[Gop.8713]

Kiting isn't fighting . . .

[Shroud.2307]

Still have a better chance at escaping fights or avoiding unfavorable ones than we did pre Mounts.

Now with Lance, it's basically the same as it was pre-Mount. Either you escape or you get run down by something faster. You shouldn't be able to escape every unfavorable fight anyway.

I don't know, I often duo roam with a friend and I main core Necro, the slowest thing in the game. I can't think of a single time since Lance was added that I was upset about being dismounted by it because I know if I hadn't had a Mount in the first place, I'd have been dead already anyway.

[X T D.6458]

I cant take these kinds of threads seriously. For years we fought each other without these mounts and now people want to complain about a skill that kicks them off the mount and actually forces them to engage in combat in a pvp environment....like seriously... You get this mount with 3 evades, extra health bar, and speed boost, is that really not enough for you? People act as if it should be their ticket to avoiding any kind of engagement with other players. Ive been knocked off plenty of times, sometimes I can get away, sometimes I cant. But I dont get all upset about it and act as if I should be able to run away from enemy players at my leisure. Just stop this ridiculous complaining about something that should have been implemented in the first place.

[Sobx.1758]

If you're on a mount, you're not kiting -you're running away.

[Sobx.1758]

@Gop.8713 said:Kiting isn't fighting . . .

Kiting IS fighting. But running away on a mount isn't.

[Tao.5096]

I agree completely - Warclaw Lance cooldown should be 10 seconds, not 30.

[Gop.8713]

@Sobx.1758 said:

@Gop.8713 said:Kiting isn't fighting . . .

Kiting IS fighting. But running away on a mount isn't.

Is not :p

[DemonSeed.3528]

@Tao.5096 said:I agree completely - Warclaw Lance cooldown should be 10 seconds, not 30.

Lance cd should not be too low to match the single dodge regen, but 10s seems reasonable - I know some would be bothered by this since if there is more than 1 enemy they have a higher chance of being dismounted, but lance should always be thought of in a 1v1 scenario. 1 lance every 30s will not be able to defeat 3 dodges from someone who at least knows when to dodge on their warclaw. Should at least be able to pull 2½ reloads back to back in that time.

[Impling.4170]

Eh, the problems you describe seem moreso due to Warclaw than due to Lance. Warclaw is what allows the slow players to OOC but still catch up to the enemy that is kept in combat. I am grateful for the Lance skill, and this is coming from someone that primarily fights outnumbered due to mostly solo/duo roaming. Lance screws me over sometimes sure, but in the grander scheme of things, this has more to do with Warclaw's current balance (faster speed in allied territory, 3 dodges that recharge quickly) than it does Lance. I think the upcoming Warclaw changes will put it at a much better spot and will be much less of a carry tool for players.

[Dawdler.8521]

@DemonSeed.3528 said:

@Tao.5096 said:I agree completely - Warclaw Lance cooldown should be 10 seconds, not 30.

Lance cd should not be too low to match the single dodge regen, but 10s seems reasonable - I know some would be bothered by this since if there is more than 1 enemy they have a higher chance of being dismounted, but lance should always be thought of in a 1v1 scenario. 1 lance every 30s will not be able to defeat 3 dodges from someone who at least knows when to dodge on their warclaw. Should at least be able to pull 2½ reloads back to back in that time.Why though?

Everyone rant about how they hate the warclaw, the warclaw should be deleted, it should have 1hp so that it's instantly dismounted if someone sneeze on it or look at it wrong.

Yet when you could reduce the cd of the lance to the point where you can literally dismount anyone within line of sight - at best delaying it a short while with some timed dodges - then nooooooooooooooooooo that would be too extreme or that it's too big of a nerf to warclaw use. As opposed to deleting it.

[Trevor Boyer.6524]

@X T D.6458 said:I cant take these kinds of threads seriously. For years we fought each other without these mounts and now people want to complain about a skill that kicks them off the mount and actually forces them to engage in combat in a pvp environment....like seriously... You get this mount with 3 evades, extra health bar, and speed boost, is that really not enough for you? People act as if it should be their ticket to avoiding any kind of engagement with other players. Ive been knocked off plenty of times, sometimes I can get away, sometimes I cant. But I dont get all upset about it and act as if I should be able to run away from enemy players at my leisure. Just stop this ridiculous complaining about something that should have been implemented in the first place.

@Tao.5096 said:I agree completely - Warclaw Lance cooldown should be 10 seconds, not 30.

@Mogwai.4015 said:Eh, the problems you describe seem moreso due to Warclaw than due to Lance. Warclaw is what allows the slow players to OOC but still catch up to the enemy that is kept in combat. I am grateful for the Lance skill, and this is coming from someone that primarily fights outnumbered due to mostly solo/duo roaming. Lance screws me over sometimes sure, but in the grander scheme of things, this has more to do with Warclaw's current balance (faster speed in allied territory, 3 dodges that recharge quickly) than it does Lance. I think the upcoming Warclaw changes will put it at a much better spot and will be much less of a carry tool for players.

@Dawdler.8521 said:

@DemonSeed.3528 said:

@Tao.5096 said:I agree completely - Warclaw Lance cooldown should be 10 seconds, not 30.

Lance cd should not be too low to match the single dodge regen, but 10s seems reasonable - I know some would be bothered by this since if there is more than 1 enemy they have a higher chance of being dismounted, but lance should always be thought of in a 1v1 scenario. 1 lance every 30s will not be able to defeat 3 dodges from someone who at least knows when to dodge on their warclaw. Should at least be able to pull 2½ reloads back to back in that time.Why though?

Everyone rant about how they hate the warclaw, the warclaw should be deleted, it should have 1hp so that it's instantly dismounted if someone sneeze on it or look at it wrong.

Yet when you could reduce the cd of the lance to the point where you can literally dismount anyone within line of sight - at best delaying it a short while with some timed dodges - then nooooooooooooooooooo that would be too

extreme

or that it's

too big of a nerf to warclaw use

.

As opposed to deleting it.

Look at all of this.

This is the commonly problematic points of view that I see in this subforum about Warclaw in general, people acting like it shouldn't be in WvW to begin with and that they'll take anything they can to be able to neutralize its play entirely. In this case scenario, it translates into "Don't nerf Lance. In fact, let's reduce the CD on Lance." Just more ways to remove Warclaw from play. I'm sure this sounds nice to players who are wanting to recapture the feel of 2012 WvW play, and hey, I'm not saying you're wrong. But suggesting such things are coming from short sighted points of view that are not understanding that it isn't that simple. The Warclaw is here now in 2020 and it has mechanically changed things, particularly for roaming. The closest thing you're gonna get now, to things feeling like they did in 2012-2017, is for roam play to be normalized again. For that, you're gonna need to fix Lance. For all of the reasons I've already discussed.

When 1 person gets dismounted with Lance, most of the people still following him are still on Warclaws. What's happening here is that Lance play when 1 person or a small group is trying to disengage many people or a large group, handicaps the mobility of the 1 person or small group vs the many. This handicap is huge as compared to a situation where: "Pre-Warclaw" 1 person or a small group who is running from a large group, has stability and stun breaks and other mechanisms to deal with normal CC play and normal mobility from opponents BEFORE they rid up on his butt. do you see what I mean here? When a person is able to be dismounted immediately from Lance, now he is immediately in combat with a speed penalty, loses his Warclaw speed factor, and is now being ran down by other Warclaw riders that he cannot escape from unless he is a Mesmer or Thief packing a 15s+ stealth build. And we aren't even going into Warclaw reveals yet. In other words, being able to outplay outmanned situations with Lance implementation is virtually impossible in this current patching due to Lance.

When is the last time you've seen a party of 5 consistently beating groups of 10? I don't mean from a sneaky jump, I mean CONSISTENTLY winning against groups that are twice as large? Yeah, it doesn't happen very often anymore, and I'm telling you that Lance is solely responsible for this. I'll say it yet again: "The very spirit of what it means to be able to win outmanned combats in GW2 is completely reliant upon being able to kite many foes." <- Lance play in its current patching has removed this capability from being realistic counter play. This is why you don't see groups of 5 players joining up in off peak hours and trying hard anymore. This is a significant reason why the WvW population is dying.

I know the long time zergers out there have this mind frame of: "Yeah! We should win if we have more people! I should be able to force a roamer into combat vs. my slow no mobility Minstrel Firebrand!" but that is neither balanced nor is it healthy for the game.

[Clownmug.8357]

How can a player be capable of "kiting" until they break combat and remount, but not capable enough to dodge the lance skill?

[RedShark.9548]

You cant fix those issues with the warclaw being in the mode.

You dont have stealth? You get kittened over by mounted ppl chasing you down.

Solo roaming has been no fun for quite some time now, that used to be my main activity, nowadays im not doing it at all.

[Dawdler.8521]

@"Trevor Boyer.6524" said:When is the last time you've seen a party of 5 consistently beating groups of 10? I don't mean from a sneaky jump, I mean CONSISTENTLY winning against groups that are twice as large? Yeah, it doesn't happen very often anymore, and I'm telling you that Lance is solely responsible for this. I'll say it yet again: "The very spirit of what it means to be able to win outmanned combats in GW2 is completely reliant upon being able to kite many foes." <- Lance play in its current patching has removed this capability from being realistic counter play. This is why you don't see groups of 5 players joining up in off peak hours and trying hard anymore. This is a significant reason why the WvW population is dying.How often do we see people winning against twice as many?

Fucking constantly.

Or are you saying that 1v2 doesnt exist anymore?

Even so 5 would never beat 10 "consistently" before the warclaw existed either, if we assume equally skilled and organized players. Even in the glory days of zergbusting guilds going 20v50 and winning "consistently"... that was mostly because the zergs where not consisting of skilled players, nor had anywhere near the meta organisation they have today. Laying the blame on the warclaw for this is absolutely ridiculous. Your point of view on what the "spirit" of WvW is seems to be just another warped take on the grass always beeing greener on the other side. In reality, it has changed very little of actual combat.

[DemonSeed.3528]

@Dawdler.8521 said:As opposed to deleting it.That is a delightful idea!

[Trevor Boyer.6524]

These responses are concerning, as if the players responding didn't play this game mode:

@"Clownmug.8357" said:How can a player be capable of "kiting" until they break combat and remount, but not capable enough to dodge the lance skill?

Because you can't kite & dodge 5 players lancing you with various other unmounted damage also incoming, with 3 dodges. Even 2 players who are in pursuit, is a lot to deal with when you only have 3 dodges vs. 2 lances and whatever DPS comes in when the OOCs get close, dismount and burst.

@Jayden Reese.9542 said:When is the last time you've seen a party of 5 consistently beating groups of 10?

Why the eff should 5 consistently beat 10? You won't see 5 guild beat a 10 guild almost ever but you always see 5 beat 10 now. A 5 man guild group rolling 2 ele scrapper fb garbo stack support with enough dps to burst a couple here and there and live forever garbo is the new theme. Then they can shout about how skilled they are because they beat pugs because they call out targets and hump each other spamming heals while the pugs aren't focusing the right one then the instant pugs down one your whole team collapses.

Have you read anything that I've said at all? The reason why 5 good players should be able to beat 10 intermediate or weak players, is because it gives incentive to stay & play in the game mode during outmanned situations. The only way to do this is through kiting, which Lance has nerfed too hard during outmanned situations. Without this incentive to see realistic opportunity to get something done during a 10 vs 20 ball game, people log off and stop trying = low population issues.

@Dawdler.8521 said:

@"Trevor Boyer.6524" said:When is the last time you've seen a party of 5 consistently beating groups of 10? I don't mean from a sneaky jump, I mean CONSISTENTLY winning against groups that are twice as large? Yeah, it doesn't happen very often anymore, and I'm telling you that Lance is solely responsible for this. I'll say it yet again:

"The very spirit of what it means to be able to win outmanned combats in GW2 is completely reliant upon being able to kite many foes."

<- Lance play in its current patching has removed this capability from being realistic counter play. This is why you don't see groups of 5 players joining up in off peak hours and trying hard anymore. This is a significant reason why the WvW population is dying.How often do we see people winning against twice as many?

kitten constantly

.

Or are you saying that 1v2 doesnt exist anymore?

Even so 5 would

never

beat 10 "consistently" before the warclaw existed either, if we assume equally skilled and organized players. Even in the glory days of zergbusting guilds going 20v50 and winning "consistently"... that was mostly because the zergs where

not

consisting of skilled players, nor had anywhere near the meta organisation they have today. Laying the blame on the warclaw for this is absolutely ridiculous. Your point of view on what the "spirit" of WvW is seems to be just another warped take on the grass always beeing greener on the other side. In reality, it has changed very little of actual combat.

What you're saying about 5 vs 10s is very misinformed and coming from the place of someone who clearly has never reached such a level of play, with all due respect.

A year or two ago before I left [love], which was a powerful havoc guild that emerged originally from JQ, full of spvpers, we used to server hop and go to weak servers and play in them until they reached T1, and then leave and do the same in a different server. We could consistently form 5 man parties and shred groups of 10 to 20, through wise kiting, defensive positioning, baiting, and tactics like stealth portaling all our DPS into the center of a blob and instantly downing like 10-15 people, and this was all before Warclaw. The point being is that these kinds of tactics are impractical to wield anymore, because of Lance. There isn't enough time or counter play for a group of 5 people to disengage and/or kite a group of 10-15 during Warclaw play because of how Lance works. Where did this guild go? You guessed it, most of them quit. They could no longer do what they enjoyed, which was showing up for the challenge of bolstering a weak outmanned server, and pushing & playing hard through outmanned situations to make it T1.

Also, the idea that "We have more organized zergs now than we did in previous years of play" is laughable. Nothing could be further from the truth. Older play had waaaaaaaaaaay more try hard going on. People used to be ultra elitist with guild formed front/mid/back lines, to the point that it was just as bad or worse as raid formation. And those guilds that took it to that level, definitely were consistently winning in 15 to 40+ type situations. I mean if you want to sit here and argue this, it just goes to show the truth behind your experience playing in this game mode.

Again, I did not blame this on the Warclaw. I blamed this on Lance. You should read things before posting. This is the 2nd time I've had to point this out now.

Nothing I am saying in this thread is "hypothetical". Everything I am saying is from a history of talking to and listening over Discord, to the reasons of why players are quitting this game and not coming back. Arenanet is removing counter play mechanics left and right nowadays, way too much. It's no fun to be an 8 year veteran who is only as potent as someone who's played for a month, because the mechanics are that limiting.

[Clownmug.8357]

@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

@"Clownmug.8357" said:How can a player be capable of "kiting" until they break combat and remount, but not capable enough to dodge the lance skill?

Because you can't kite & dodge 5 players lancing you with various other unmounted damage also incoming, with 3 dodges. Even 2 players who are in pursuit, is a lot to deal with when you only have 3 dodges vs. 2 lances and whatever DPS comes in when the OOCs get close, dismount and burst.

So the same opponents that you "kited" suddenly become more competent when you're mounted?