Second, as far as high level open field/gvg play is concerned, the classic hammer train died a long time ago. Even before the stab change, almost none of the top guilds were running a melee-focused strategy anymore. Different guilds do different things, but a common thread among them is that they try to bait out a melee push, then retreat and drop AoE.
The hinge on this strategy is the ability for the range group to effectively retreat. If CC can land you are not retreating.
The question is, will someone find a creative way to get a melee train on a ranged group. That's the thing though, is pirate ship really OP or is it waiting on a counter that is yet to be discovered but exists. A year ago everything was melee train, till someone came up with pirate ship.
As someone who's going to get his first 80 soonish: is there a list of stuff I need to do before the xpac hits? like, things that go away?
The only thing that goes away in the expansion is our sorrow that we are not playing it yet.
But in all seriousness, nothing is being removed content-wise as far as we know. If you want to "prepare", I'd say hoard gold and/or crafting materials, and also collect a stack of xp items to use on your baby revenant. Also, reserve a name for said revenant. And clean out your bank, who knows how much space we'll need for cool stuff in the new world order.
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LuvTheMonkeyHigh Sierra SerenadeRegistered Userregular
There is something very interesting inside of this spoiler pertaining to the expansion:
Bollocks! A fight that lasts 10 to 15 seconds is not a satisfying fight. Fights that go on for 30 to 45 seconds are not "long" fights by any stretch of the imagination. Fights that go on for several minutes are much more fun for the vast majority of players. Yes, your super hardcore GvG/WvW players are going to whine to high-heaven about how boring it is, but those players are the vast VAST minority. The game shouldn't cater to those people. In fact, I would go so far as to say that their skewed perspective on pacing and strategy is far more of a "cancer" to the game than any change that a-net is going to make.
I don't know where you got this "10 to 15 seconds" figure from. Melee vs. melee fights lasted longer than that. Even open field fights where the melee pushed in and stayed in regularly lasted long enough for several regroups and reempowers, meaning 2 minutes long+. I can show you video of a BOMB vs. MM gvg round that went on for seven minutes - the difference is that that's seven minutes of continuous fighting, not seven minutes of in-out flirting while each side waits for the other to make a mistake.
Counters that can only be used by dedicated teams that have well developed builds and operate outside the realms of "normal players" may as well not exist at all.
These counters were not complicated. "Don't use CC when their stab is up" is not complicated advice. Old Maguuma pug groups would run lots of eles, kite opposing zergs until their stab ran out, then use meteornado. It was simple and effective, and they didn't even need to be on teamspeak to do it.
Obviously coordinated groups were better at them, but coordinated groups are always going to be better. That's not going to change and I don't see why anyone would want it to. They earned that ability through practice, experimentation, and communication.
It's not a case of the devs not knowing or not taking the time to find out - that's reactionary mumbo-jumbo and a load of B.S. and you know it. The devs have access to logfile metadata that you and I as players cannot even fathom.
Having access to data on how often such-and-such skill was used over whatever time period isn't gonna be useful unless you have some way to contextualize that information, like a good understanding of how open field tactics work.
In any case, I can't speculate on what inside knowledge the devs have. I can only go off their communications to the community, which are usually frustratingly vague and suggest that they never really thought this change through, which TBH is about par for the course when it comes to anything having to do with WvW. I haven't been inclined to believe that they have some extremely well-researched reason for their changes without knowing what it is. Not since the time Devon Carter told us he buffed arrow carts because Devon Carter personally liked to use arrow carts, then made several strange and entirely unasked-for changes to WvW all justified by vague references to "metrics" that no one ever saw.
Obviously, not the same game and strategies are going to differ, but the whole concept of "stay tight on the Dorito" is, IMO, the real problem. A looser group doesn't have to worry about AE effects at all because not everyone is in the same place at the same time.
In every type of fight bigger than a 1v1 duel effective offense generally comes through focus fire. The only way for melee to focus fire on one area is for them to be physically close together. Many people seem to have an almost aesthetic objection to the sight of many players being close to each other that I've never understood. It's a tactical choice, and I don't see why we would want to do away with it. I don't have any particular objection to either style but I don't understand the distaste for a tight meleeball that so many have.
Second, as far as high level open field/gvg play is concerned, the classic hammer train died a long time ago. Even before the stab change, almost none of the top guilds were running a melee-focused strategy anymore. Different guilds do different things, but a common thread among them is that they try to bait out a melee push, then retreat and drop AoE.
The hinge on this strategy is the ability for the range group to effectively retreat. If CC can land you are not retreating.
The question is, will someone find a creative way to get a melee train on a ranged group. That's the thing though, is pirate ship really OP or is it waiting on a counter that is yet to be discovered but exists. A year ago everything was melee train, till someone came up with pirate ship.
Without getting into the weeds too much, if it's a 1200 range static that lands you can wait out the stun and still escape before the wellbomb gets to you unless the necros are riding right on the melee's ass, which is risky for its own reasons. Also, ranger gank - which more and more guilds are using - will snipe any casters that sneak up too close.
You're right though, it's possible and even probable that there's a counter, or more than one. Putting ranged weapons on warriors and blinks on guardians is a relatively simple possibility.
What if havoc squads became a thing? Get a couple smallish groups together with the zerg that occasionally split off and that engage all the mindfuckery tactics that we do during guild wuvs; flanking, portal/veil shenanigans, try to draw out an ambush, that kind of stuff.
Biggest problem is that you'd need more than one guy in charge of the army. Zergs are popular because you just need one guy yelling orders. If you want to beat something like that by doing something other than just bringing bigger numbers, you're going to have to organize beforehand and have at least a part of the zerg to possess some coordination beyond just follow the durito.
Havoc/small squads don't really work unless your side also has a large force. Otherwise the large enemy force just gets to their objective without getting tied up long enough in the field where you can whittle them down.
People have kind of toyed with the idea of having two drivers, each leading a half-size group, and pincering the bad guys. The former FA commander Whinny used to push that idea. No one's really pulled it off as far as I know, but that may be because no one's had enough faith in it to push through and solve the inevitable small problems.
The immediate risk is that you if you split your players, the big group immediately turns on one of the two small groups and one-pushes them.
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-Loki-Don't pee in my mouth and tell me it's raining.Registered Userregular
I decided to dump 15 laurels from a daily reward into T6 material bags yesterday. Wow, that's quite the boost. With laurel chests throughout the months plus the T6 material drops in the Silverwastes (I tend to get them not infrequently), I think Gift of Fortune is going to be a bit easier to get than I thought.
Havoc/small squads don't really work unless your side also has a large force. Otherwise the large enemy force just gets to their objective without getting tied up long enough in the field where you can whittle them down.
That's why I would think they'd technically be part of a larger zerg, they just take part in more complicated tactics than what the rest of the zerg is expecting to be able to follow.
Think of them almost as like the tentacle arms of a squid that we all love, reaching out and harassing the enemy zerg from other sides. On their own, they aren't too dangerous, and the body is still the real threat, but they can't exactly be ignored either (unless the other side is ok with the fight becoming the next Cannae), and without a clear incoming target, Wells, walls and the other AoE are no longer focused as well as they should be, and that might make all the difference.
People have kind of toyed with the idea of having two drivers, each leading a half-size group, and pincering the bad guys. The former FA commander Whinny used to push that idea. No one's really pulled it off as far as I know, but that may be because no one's had enough faith in it to push through and solve the inevitable small problems.
The immediate risk is that you if you split your players, the big group immediately turns on one of the two small groups and one-pushes them.
Pincer maneuvers like that take speed and/or surprise (or a dumb/distracted enemy commander) to pull off without it turning into a divide & conquer. Considering everyone has the same swiftness, the chances of you getting everything together in the open before the other side can respond is nil. That means surprise, which means unless it's an ambush, you're talking about several mesmers per half-zerg working in concert to be able to set up the veils and portals to get everyone into the right place without the other side quite knowing where that right place is.
Considering the practice and coordination that would take (and not just for the mesmers), I'm not surprised the vast majority would rather just trade shots at 900+ range until someone makes a mistake.
I decided to dump 15 laurels from a daily reward into T6 material bags yesterday. Wow, that's quite the boost. With laurel chests throughout the months plus the T6 material drops in the Silverwastes (I tend to get them not infrequently), I think Gift of Fortune is going to be a bit easier to get than I thought.
Leaf of Kudzu though, fuck. 800g?
Always get the precursor first. It gives you more incentive to go for the rest of it. Caveat: the expansion may add a new a way to get a precursor. So personally I'll be hedging my bets.
I decided to dump 15 laurels from a daily reward into T6 material bags yesterday. Wow, that's quite the boost. With laurel chests throughout the months plus the T6 material drops in the Silverwastes (I tend to get them not infrequently), I think Gift of Fortune is going to be a bit easier to get than I thought.
Leaf of Kudzu though, fuck. 800g?
Always get the precursor first. It gives you more incentive to go for the rest of it. Caveat: the expansion may add a new a way to get a precursor. So personally I'll be hedging my bets.
Some dev posts about those bleed stacks:
Hey Everyone,
As you may have noticed bleeding stacks go above 25 stacks when playing in the demo map. This is not a mistake, rather as we have said for a while now, we know that the current stack cap creates problems for condition players who want to work together. What you saw today was the first test in solving some of these problems. Keep in mind, it is not necessarily final and absolutely not the entire plan. I see many questions about how this will work and how it impacts other conditions, balance, etc. Rest assured that as soon as we have a final plan we will be revealing it and letting you all know exactly how it will work.
Jon
A question:
Do you anticipate whatever solution AreanNets settles on to be delivered prior to HoT’s release like the current stability changes or to be held to coincide with the expansion?
We don’t know yet, but the goal is to have this BY HoT at the very latest. I don’t think we would hold it if we felt it was the right solution, tested it well and felt it was balanced.
So, there might be a massive condition overhaul on the way, and we may not have to wait until the expansion is launched to get it? Nice.
As for Legendaries: I've pretty much sworn to myself that I'm never going to buy a precursor (unless it was with money I got from selling a precursor), and just slowly gather the mats until I happen to have one drop for me. Now that I've more or less finished crafting all the ascended gear for my Engi/Warrior/Necro mains, I've started to see my bankroll and T6 mats start to jump (Used to be I felt wealthy if I had more than 30g, now I'm at over 100g after being down to 70g only about a week ago). I'm pretty sure that if I really wanted to, I could get 99% of the non-dungeon, non-Icy Runstone mats together for most any legendary I want by selling off any of the mats I don't need but unless I'm making Rodgort or one of the underwater legendaries, getting the precursor now is simply out of the picture.
I decided to dump 15 laurels from a daily reward into T6 material bags yesterday. Wow, that's quite the boost. With laurel chests throughout the months plus the T6 material drops in the Silverwastes (I tend to get them not infrequently), I think Gift of Fortune is going to be a bit easier to get than I thought.
Leaf of Kudzu though, fuck. 800g?
Always get the precursor first. It gives you more incentive to go for the rest of it. Caveat: the expansion may add a new a way to get a precursor. So personally I'll be hedging my bets.
Some dev posts about those bleed stacks:
Hey Everyone,
As you may have noticed bleeding stacks go above 25 stacks when playing in the demo map. This is not a mistake, rather as we have said for a while now, we know that the current stack cap creates problems for condition players who want to work together. What you saw today was the first test in solving some of these problems. Keep in mind, it is not necessarily final and absolutely not the entire plan. I see many questions about how this will work and how it impacts other conditions, balance, etc. Rest assured that as soon as we have a final plan we will be revealing it and letting you all know exactly how it will work.
Jon
A question:
Do you anticipate whatever solution AreanNets settles on to be delivered prior to HoT’s release like the current stability changes or to be held to coincide with the expansion?
We don’t know yet, but the goal is to have this BY HoT at the very latest. I don’t think we would hold it if we felt it was the right solution, tested it well and felt it was balanced.
So, there might be a massive condition overhaul on the way, and we may not have to wait until the expansion is launched to get it? Nice.
As for Legendaries: I've pretty much sworn to myself that I'm never going to buy a precursor (unless it was with money I got from selling a precursor), and just slowly gather the mats until I happen to have one drop for me. Now that I've more or less finished crafting all the ascended gear for my Engi/Warrior/Necro mains, I've started to see my bankroll and T6 mats start to jump (Used to be I felt wealthy if I had more than 30g, now I'm at over 100g after being down to 70g only about a week ago). I'm pretty sure that if I really wanted to, I could get 99% of the non-dungeon, non-Icy Runstone mats together for most any legendary I want by selling off any of the mats I don't need but unless I'm making Rodgort or one of the underwater legendaries, getting the precursor now is simply out of the picture.
I agree. I'm extremely close to making Juggernaut (silver dubloons are awful), but with the possibility of giving Elementalists swords...I may think about changing to Bolt and Incinerator. Thinking about making Jugg, selling it and the Dusk in my bank and seeing how far that gets me for Bolt/Incinerator. Not sure yet.
PSN: ChemENGR
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-Loki-Don't pee in my mouth and tell me it's raining.Registered Userregular
Always get the precursor first. It gives you more incentive to go for the rest of it. Caveat: the expansion may add a new a way to get a precursor. So personally I'll be hedging my bets.
I don't need more incentive. I already want it. I had the start of the materials and stuff, so I just went ahead and started on the gifts.
Once done, I'll save and ectos and sell them and other gold farming techniques. If I manage to make the precursor in HoT, then I just have a nice bank balance afterwards.
Hey @Stupid how do YOU feel about the idea of combining phalanx tactics (eg, a frontline of engineers, warriors, and guardians packing Aegis, blocks, & reflects) as a front-line pinscher? When I think about it they WOULD also have to pack stab to be able to push through unblockable shit (static field) but the idea would still be that the front line soaks & bodyblocks the initial barrage so the backline can approach.
Actually, I think Foefaller's idea of havoc squads combined with phalanx tactics might work really well. You have two smaller 10-20 man havoc squads to come up behind a group while the main phalanx group engages from the front :\a
Unfortunately it's like herding cats... still, the rainbow commander tags gotta have SOME use, right? "havoc A on purple havoc B on red main zerg on blue"
Also, you guys aren't taking into account that the stab changes have been a GODSEND for us sPVP players. It used to be that being downed was basically a guaranteed dunk, like, there was no point to the Downed state in most cases, because some motherfucker would come up with stab and that'd be the end of it. Now you actually stand a chance of a res or rally. Furthermore, the phalanx tactics I mentioned really DO work in sPVP; you get a Guardian or Engineer in the front to push a point with a Thief or Ele behind you.
Tbh I think taking some of the sPVP tactics regarding fight survival and point pushing might be wise for WvWvW
man I may need to buy a set of armor specifically for WvW. good thing Exotics are easy to get
mojojoeoA block off the park, living the dream.Registered Userregular
You illuminate a huge problem with mmos. Theres like 4 different game modes in this game and skill work similar across all of them.... spvp it is a boon. Wvw? maybe?
thats all been done tho'
There was a meta a long while ago in t1 of range zerg + melee zerg = whole zerg. It fell out of usage as it wasn't worth the amount of coordination and disadvantage of not being in 1 blob.
I'm not a huge fan of 'pirate ship' meta. rather there be a hammer train so that you at least feel like there's some mixing it up.
Chief Wiggum: "Ladies, please. All our founding fathers, astronauts, and World Series heroes have been either drunk or on cocaine."
It's funny, Necromancer was the ONE class I didn't like in the game for the longest time. I just couldn't click with them but I thought every single other class was awesome in so many ways. Somehow I got to playing a Necro to try and MAKE myself like them...and before I knew it I was level 80 and was exclusively playing with that character.
So...apparently somewhere along the way I started to love Necro. My only regret is I miss my loveable Charr Engineer self. But I have to admit, despite the fact I never, ever like to play human type characters in MMOs, my Norn Necro looks pretty bad ass. I had to resist buying those glowing masks off the gem store.
Speaking of Legendaries...I've been stockpiling everything I've harvested since the game came out. I'm mostly using that to try and level all the craft skills to max (damn you, skill level ~200-300...so much soft wood and iron ore needed across my chars) but one day I do want to attempt a legendary. What is the deal with precursors currently? I've never seen one drop, obviously, or been around anyone when one dropped. I know Sharkey has seen 2 drop, I dunno about you other folks. Do they drop only from specific places, like world chests/event chests/dungeons, or what?
Precursor drops are completely random and rare. Like, black lion tickets are to $5 from a scratch card while precursors are winning the million dollar lottery. It's best to save up gold or wait until the expansion to tackle obtaining one.
Precursor drops are completely random and rare. Like, black lion tickets are to $5 from a scratch card while precursors are winning the million dollar lottery. It's best to save up gold or wait until the expansion to tackle obtaining one.
Do this.
im 2/3rds to finishing eternity. Need that pre and im not going to grind out the moolah.
mojojoeo on
Chief Wiggum: "Ladies, please. All our founding fathers, astronauts, and World Series heroes have been either drunk or on cocaine."
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BethrynUnhappiness is MandatoryRegistered Userregular
For me, Epidemic has always been the best part of Necro.
You feel so great when you copy some ridiculous number of bleed stacks and poison and chilled to 5 people in a zerg.
I'd like another legendary myself but other than the World Completion portion I am sitting at "sweet fuck all" for materials and certainly no precursor. If I luck out and one drops for me at some point then i'll likely try to get it assembled, until then I really need to finish Mawdry and the Season 2 story cheevos..
That's disappointing since I have had 3 scraps drop in my whole time playing. And there's SO many things I want to use scraps for =\
But yes I'll certainly be waiting til the expansion to see if there's another way. I can't even imagine buying one with gold. I've never had more than 200 gold, and that's when I traded some for gems a few weeks ago when the gem to gold prices had gone crazy because of those wings.
That reminds me that I have to buy yet ANOTHER character slot (though I'd hope they give you one extra if you buy the expansion). I had a slot for each class, but I realized I hated the design of my warrior, so I made a new warrior but I can't/won't delete the OLD warrior because she's around 300 in two tradeskills. Maybe there's a race change potion I can buy instead.
I can show you video of a BOMB vs. MM gvg round that went on for seven minutes - the difference is that that's seven minutes of continuous fighting, not seven minutes of in-out flirting while each side waits for the other to make a mistake.
This is my point exactly. Yes, BOMB and MM and maybe a handful of other top-tier guilds have a "tuned" their play like that. Show me a -hundred- similar cases involving non-dedicated players and I'll start to believe you. I'm sure I can find a video where a 100 vs 100 zerg fight lasted less than 10 seconds, too. That doesn't mean that's "normal", it just means it happened one time.
And for what it's worth, just because a fight keeps going for several minutes doesn't mean it was actually a fight. You and I both know that often the fight is "over" long before all the bodies hit the floor and the cleanup can take a minute or two to resolve.
In every type of fight bigger than a 1v1 duel effective offense generally comes through focus fire. The only way for melee to focus fire on one area is for them to be physically close together. Many people seem to have an almost aesthetic objection to the sight of many players being close to each other that I've never understood. It's a tactical choice, and I don't see why we would want to do away with it. I don't have any particular objection to either style but I don't understand the distaste for a tight meleeball that so many have.
The reason people dislike playing in a meleeball is that it isn't fun. It's like being a minion, you don't actually DO anything. People want to feel like they are doing something, and following a tag, spamming specific skills as soon as the cooldown pops doesn't feel like you're actually contributing.
I have always believed that WvW was designed to support multiple small groups of 10-15 running around applying pressure separately. One problem is that the current maps are just too damn small! Even if you had only two groups out there, you would be constantly crossing paths and would be stepping on each other's toes all the time. From what I've seen of the new BL map - and this would be my question for the beta people - the increased verticality means that it is going to take much longer to get form point A to point B, meaning that the map is effectively "bigger".
Another issue is that most objectives are just too easy to capture. Right now, a havoc team of 10 people can capture a supply camp in seconds, and a tower in less than a minute. A zerg of 50+ can take out an undefended keep faster than defenders can arrive. That pushes the meta towards a "hit hard hit fast move on" mentality and gives rise to the pointless karma-train playstyle of EotM.
@Lucid_Seraph Personally, I think the entire "stack till it dies" meta is a symptom of obsolete game design. Most of the mechanics were dealing with today were imagined in much older games and the original devs simply didn't have playerbases that were as large as today. Hell, until WoW, the whole concept of a cap on server population was unthinkable!
One of the many ways to resolve this is to limit the group size, which is why the Stab change works well for sPvP. With a hard cap of 5 players per team (fighting over three objectives) you CAN'T run a "pirate ship", you just don't have enough bodies. Problem is, sPvP strategies don't work in WvW because the obvious counter is simply "throw more bodies at it". A frontline to suck up CC and unblockable effects fails because the other team just throws more of those effects at you. A pincer attack fails because the blob just vaporizes the smaller groups one at a time while you nibble on them.
As long as there is no reason NOT to stack effects as high as they will go, the meta will ALWAYS be: zerg up, pick a target and turn it into dust. The sad part (for me anyway) is that I think the devs actually WANT the playstyle of WvW to be huge zergs. They've always said they want it to feel like you are a unit in a RTS game. You know, the mindless "throwaway" units that the commander just builds ad infinitum.
I think the WvW meta can be made a lot better, and I still think that overall the stability change is a step towards that. If I had to guess, I'd say we're probably going to start seeing some AE effect tuning soon and probably some duration adjustments to CC effects. I don't think it's a coincidence that AE effects are limited to 5 targets, the exact number of players on a sPvP team. Making them affect a larger number would bring sPvP and WvW closer to parity. Alternately, limiting blast effects to the closest 5 players might have a similar effect.
Personally I think all CC effects in GW2 are too short by an order of magnitude. (I also think CC should be treated similarly to Stability in that it should not stack duration, only effect. And since they are binary effects - you're either rooted/stuned/feared or not - 100 stacks of CC should be the same as one stack of CC.) I think they should look at how longer CC durations would shake up sPvP. If the current CC durations are already a death sentence, then a longer duration wouldn't really change anything. If the current duration is not killing people in sPvP then the longer duration might step over that line, and that's bad. CC is not even a factor in PvE right now, which is even more evidence that the durations are too short. It should be common practice to "split" a MOB group with CC.
At least that's where I would be looking if I were in charge.
For me, Epidemic has always been the best part of Necro.
You feel so great when you copy some ridiculous number of bleed stacks and poison and chilled to 5 people in a zerg.
This was better and completely balanced at release when Epidemic affected all targets in range. Booahahaha. Just like how the Death Shroud lifedrain could heal your entire zerg all at once if you traited for it.
This is my point exactly. Yes, BOMB and MM and maybe a handful of other top-tier guilds have a "tuned" their play like that. Show me a -hundred- similar cases involving non-dedicated players and I'll start to believe you. I'm sure I can find a video where a 100 vs 100 zerg fight lasted less than 10 seconds, too. That doesn't mean that's "normal", it just means it happened one time.
Speaking as someone who was in BOMB when that gvg happened I can assure you that neither BOMB nor MM is a top-tier guild. They're improving, and on a good day they're third-tier, but they're nothing like the real top guilds. Here's one guy's attempt at a gvg power ranking for March of this year: gw2wvw.net/topic/march-na-guild-power-rankings You'll see MM way down at the bottom under "honorable mentions" and BOMB not on the list at all.
And I don't see why I should have to provide 100 examples of long fights when you haven't provided even one example of a short one. I have to ask, how often do you play WvW, and when's the last time you played? Haven't you been playing TESO mostly? Your conviction that 10 to 15 seconds was the typical length for an open-field fight before the stab change is so completely at odds with my own experience so I don't even know what to tell you. Fights may be that short if there's a huge numbers disparity, or if one side catches the other completely off-guard, but between relatively even numbers they absolutely did and do last through several regroups.
In any case, like I said in my original post, I don't hate pirate ship meta like some do. But I understand the complaints of those that do. Here's a video that's been posted a lot lately: https://youtube.com/watch?v=SDdumAhUxxA It's TA (the top european guild) vs. LaG. This match happened in February, before the stab change. LaG runs pirate ship and TA WANTS to push in but has to be extremely cautious. What you see in the video is the result of this. Entire rounds go by without melee staying on attack for more than a few seconds at a time. The first round starts at 5:20 and the first kill happens at 8:37. Look on the future of WvW, ye mighty, and despair: 20v20 fights where a player dies once every three minutes.
Typical WvW fights won't ever look like that, no, but what pug blobs do is usually a blurry reflection of what GvG teams were doing six months to a year ago. In the early days of wuv, after release, fights often lasted so long that no one ever actually won - dead players could waypoint and run back from spawn faster than either side could kill them. Are we headed for those days again? It probably won't get that bad, but you never know.
The reason people dislike playing in a meleeball is that it isn't fun. It's like being a minion, you don't actually DO anything. People want to feel like they are doing something, and following a tag, spamming specific skills as soon as the cooldown pops doesn't feel like you're actually contributing.
But lots of people, myself included, DO like playing in the meleeball. The idea that the melee train players are just following instructions and playing by rote will last exactly as long as it takes for the fight to be joined. Once you've pushed in, things get messy fast and suddenly you're riding the knife edge between order and chaos where there are absolutely opportunities for individual skill and initiative to make a difference. If melee train players could be replaced by keyboard macros good ones wouldn't be in such high demand, and guilds wouldn't try to poach them off each other.
I am glad I dont wvw very often, I don't have the time or the desire to try to be some sort of PVP pro, I'll gladly run with a zerg and get a kill or two here and there. From what I am reading its a bit too "serious business"
I am glad I dont wvw very often, I don't have the time or the desire to try to be some sort of PVP pro, I'll gladly run with a zerg and get a kill or two here and there. From what I am reading its a bit too "serious business"
no, it isn't really. At the top level game there is quite a bit of strategy involved. But if you just want to run around a bit and kill people, knowing your class and the basics of others is really all you have to know. Everything else you'll learn as you go. Don't let the strategy talk in the thread deter you from playing wuv, they're just talking about the high end game.
I am glad I dont wvw very often, I don't have the time or the desire to try to be some sort of PVP pro, I'll gladly run with a zerg and get a kill or two here and there. From what I am reading its a bit too "serious business"
no, it isn't really. At the top level game there is quite a bit of strategy involved. But if you just want to run around a bit and kill people, knowing your class and the basics of others is really all you have to know. Everything else you'll learn as you go. Don't let the strategy talk in the thread deter you from playing wuv, they're just talking about the high end game.
The stuff I'm talking about is also for larger fights, with 15+ people on either side. For smaller fights pretty much everything is different.
The sound is hollow, synth-like and according to more experience music people, probably made on a synth keyboard than a real bass guitar. Furthermore, it only has 2 octaves with a third being some weird presets (wtf?).
I had hoped for a good deep bass to play some rock numbers, but I guess that will have to wait
0
-Loki-Don't pee in my mouth and tell me it's raining.Registered Userregular
Well that was a fun addition to the thread.
+1
mojojoeoA block off the park, living the dream.Registered Userregular
I am glad I dont wvw very often, I don't have the time or the desire to try to be some sort of PVP pro, I'll gladly run with a zerg and get a kill or two here and there. From what I am reading its a bit too "serious business"
no, it isn't really. At the top level game there is quite a bit of strategy involved. But if you just want to run around a bit and kill people, knowing your class and the basics of others is really all you have to know. Everything else you'll learn as you go. Don't let the strategy talk in the thread deter you from playing wuv, they're just talking about the high end game.
The stuff I'm talking about is also for larger fights, with 15+ people on either side. For smaller fights pretty much everything is different.
And even then.... it really onl;y applies to super organized try hards.
Plenty of fun to be had just following a dot and working together.
Chief Wiggum: "Ladies, please. All our founding fathers, astronauts, and World Series heroes have been either drunk or on cocaine."
+1
mojojoeoA block off the park, living the dream.Registered Userregular
edited March 2015
So...... theres been some digging in the china client- HEY NOW!
Craft a precurseur via collecting arts.....
mojojoeo on
Chief Wiggum: "Ladies, please. All our founding fathers, astronauts, and World Series heroes have been either drunk or on cocaine."
+1
3cl1ps3I will build a labyrinth to house the cheeseRegistered Userregular
The sound is hollow, synth-like and according to more experience music people, probably made on a synth keyboard than a real bass guitar. Furthermore, it only has 2 octaves with a third being some weird presets (wtf?).
I had hoped for a good deep bass to play some rock numbers, but I guess that will have to wait
I didn't know Guild Wars had musical instruments! This game has everything!
Posts
Currently playing: GW2 and TSW
The hinge on this strategy is the ability for the range group to effectively retreat. If CC can land you are not retreating.
The question is, will someone find a creative way to get a melee train on a ranged group. That's the thing though, is pirate ship really OP or is it waiting on a counter that is yet to be discovered but exists. A year ago everything was melee train, till someone came up with pirate ship.
The only thing that goes away in the expansion is our sorrow that we are not playing it yet.
But in all seriousness, nothing is being removed content-wise as far as we know. If you want to "prepare", I'd say hoard gold and/or crafting materials, and also collect a stack of xp items to use on your baby revenant. Also, reserve a name for said revenant. And clean out your bank, who knows how much space we'll need for cool stuff in the new world order.
I haven't seen that much bleeding since I watched Carrie.
Hey, it's me, Teldra! Did someone say "greatsword"? [Eternity]
I don't know where you got this "10 to 15 seconds" figure from. Melee vs. melee fights lasted longer than that. Even open field fights where the melee pushed in and stayed in regularly lasted long enough for several regroups and reempowers, meaning 2 minutes long+. I can show you video of a BOMB vs. MM gvg round that went on for seven minutes - the difference is that that's seven minutes of continuous fighting, not seven minutes of in-out flirting while each side waits for the other to make a mistake.
These counters were not complicated. "Don't use CC when their stab is up" is not complicated advice. Old Maguuma pug groups would run lots of eles, kite opposing zergs until their stab ran out, then use meteornado. It was simple and effective, and they didn't even need to be on teamspeak to do it.
Obviously coordinated groups were better at them, but coordinated groups are always going to be better. That's not going to change and I don't see why anyone would want it to. They earned that ability through practice, experimentation, and communication.
Having access to data on how often such-and-such skill was used over whatever time period isn't gonna be useful unless you have some way to contextualize that information, like a good understanding of how open field tactics work.
In any case, I can't speculate on what inside knowledge the devs have. I can only go off their communications to the community, which are usually frustratingly vague and suggest that they never really thought this change through, which TBH is about par for the course when it comes to anything having to do with WvW. I haven't been inclined to believe that they have some extremely well-researched reason for their changes without knowing what it is. Not since the time Devon Carter told us he buffed arrow carts because Devon Carter personally liked to use arrow carts, then made several strange and entirely unasked-for changes to WvW all justified by vague references to "metrics" that no one ever saw.
In every type of fight bigger than a 1v1 duel effective offense generally comes through focus fire. The only way for melee to focus fire on one area is for them to be physically close together. Many people seem to have an almost aesthetic objection to the sight of many players being close to each other that I've never understood. It's a tactical choice, and I don't see why we would want to do away with it. I don't have any particular objection to either style but I don't understand the distaste for a tight meleeball that so many have.
Without getting into the weeds too much, if it's a 1200 range static that lands you can wait out the stun and still escape before the wellbomb gets to you unless the necros are riding right on the melee's ass, which is risky for its own reasons. Also, ranger gank - which more and more guilds are using - will snipe any casters that sneak up too close.
You're right though, it's possible and even probable that there's a counter, or more than one. Putting ranged weapons on warriors and blinks on guardians is a relatively simple possibility.
Biggest problem is that you'd need more than one guy in charge of the army. Zergs are popular because you just need one guy yelling orders. If you want to beat something like that by doing something other than just bringing bigger numbers, you're going to have to organize beforehand and have at least a part of the zerg to possess some coordination beyond just follow the durito.
The immediate risk is that you if you split your players, the big group immediately turns on one of the two small groups and one-pushes them.
Leaf of Kudzu though, fuck. 800g?
That's why I would think they'd technically be part of a larger zerg, they just take part in more complicated tactics than what the rest of the zerg is expecting to be able to follow.
Think of them almost as like the tentacle arms of a squid that we all love, reaching out and harassing the enemy zerg from other sides. On their own, they aren't too dangerous, and the body is still the real threat, but they can't exactly be ignored either (unless the other side is ok with the fight becoming the next Cannae), and without a clear incoming target, Wells, walls and the other AoE are no longer focused as well as they should be, and that might make all the difference.
Pincer maneuvers like that take speed and/or surprise (or a dumb/distracted enemy commander) to pull off without it turning into a divide & conquer. Considering everyone has the same swiftness, the chances of you getting everything together in the open before the other side can respond is nil. That means surprise, which means unless it's an ambush, you're talking about several mesmers per half-zerg working in concert to be able to set up the veils and portals to get everyone into the right place without the other side quite knowing where that right place is.
Considering the practice and coordination that would take (and not just for the mesmers), I'm not surprised the vast majority would rather just trade shots at 900+ range until someone makes a mistake.
YOOOOOO Necros may be not awful for single targets?
Always get the precursor first. It gives you more incentive to go for the rest of it. Caveat: the expansion may add a new a way to get a precursor. So personally I'll be hedging my bets.
PSN: ChemENGR
Some dev posts about those bleed stacks:
So, there might be a massive condition overhaul on the way, and we may not have to wait until the expansion is launched to get it? Nice.
As for Legendaries: I've pretty much sworn to myself that I'm never going to buy a precursor (unless it was with money I got from selling a precursor), and just slowly gather the mats until I happen to have one drop for me. Now that I've more or less finished crafting all the ascended gear for my Engi/Warrior/Necro mains, I've started to see my bankroll and T6 mats start to jump (Used to be I felt wealthy if I had more than 30g, now I'm at over 100g after being down to 70g only about a week ago). I'm pretty sure that if I really wanted to, I could get 99% of the non-dungeon, non-Icy Runstone mats together for most any legendary I want by selling off any of the mats I don't need but unless I'm making Rodgort or one of the underwater legendaries, getting the precursor now is simply out of the picture.
I agree. I'm extremely close to making Juggernaut (silver dubloons are awful), but with the possibility of giving Elementalists swords...I may think about changing to Bolt and Incinerator. Thinking about making Jugg, selling it and the Dusk in my bank and seeing how far that gets me for Bolt/Incinerator. Not sure yet.
PSN: ChemENGR
I don't need more incentive. I already want it. I had the start of the materials and stuff, so I just went ahead and started on the gifts.
Once done, I'll save and ectos and sell them and other gold farming techniques. If I manage to make the precursor in HoT, then I just have a nice bank balance afterwards.
When you can see it - they actually replaced the most of the interface with a pack of wolves. Photo evidence:
That's what the wolves are for.
It's true. Photo evidence:
Revenants have an innate class ability to run along the ceiling. Everyone else just falls forever on login.
There's an option in-game to flip the camera so that you're not so confused about the change, but it's only available to revenants.
It's true. Demonstration with my very own can opener:
You'll be much lower once you log in.
Asura are not allowed to roll revenants. They're not removed from the game, per se, but they sure ain't on Tyria anymore.
Was the economy replaced by an all peewee's play house themed one? How many cowboy curtis's for a jambi?
Actually, I think Foefaller's idea of havoc squads combined with phalanx tactics might work really well. You have two smaller 10-20 man havoc squads to come up behind a group while the main phalanx group engages from the front :\a
Unfortunately it's like herding cats... still, the rainbow commander tags gotta have SOME use, right? "havoc A on purple havoc B on red main zerg on blue"
Also, you guys aren't taking into account that the stab changes have been a GODSEND for us sPVP players. It used to be that being downed was basically a guaranteed dunk, like, there was no point to the Downed state in most cases, because some motherfucker would come up with stab and that'd be the end of it. Now you actually stand a chance of a res or rally. Furthermore, the phalanx tactics I mentioned really DO work in sPVP; you get a Guardian or Engineer in the front to push a point with a Thief or Ele behind you.
Tbh I think taking some of the sPVP tactics regarding fight survival and point pushing might be wise for WvWvW
man I may need to buy a set of armor specifically for WvW. good thing Exotics are easy to get
https://podcast.tidalwavegames.com/
thats all been done tho'
There was a meta a long while ago in t1 of range zerg + melee zerg = whole zerg. It fell out of usage as it wasn't worth the amount of coordination and disadvantage of not being in 1 blob.
I'm not a huge fan of 'pirate ship' meta. rather there be a hammer train so that you at least feel like there's some mixing it up.
So...apparently somewhere along the way I started to love Necro. My only regret is I miss my loveable Charr Engineer self. But I have to admit, despite the fact I never, ever like to play human type characters in MMOs, my Norn Necro looks pretty bad ass. I had to resist buying those glowing masks off the gem store.
Speaking of Legendaries...I've been stockpiling everything I've harvested since the game came out. I'm mostly using that to try and level all the craft skills to max (damn you, skill level ~200-300...so much soft wood and iron ore needed across my chars) but one day I do want to attempt a legendary. What is the deal with precursors currently? I've never seen one drop, obviously, or been around anyone when one dropped. I know Sharkey has seen 2 drop, I dunno about you other folks. Do they drop only from specific places, like world chests/event chests/dungeons, or what?
Do this.
im 2/3rds to finishing eternity. Need that pre and im not going to grind out the moolah.
You feel so great when you copy some ridiculous number of bleed stacks and poison and chilled to 5 people in a zerg.
But yes I'll certainly be waiting til the expansion to see if there's another way. I can't even imagine buying one with gold. I've never had more than 200 gold, and that's when I traded some for gems a few weeks ago when the gem to gold prices had gone crazy because of those wings.
Started some key farming today, and the Revanant icon is already on the profession selection screen!
This is my point exactly. Yes, BOMB and MM and maybe a handful of other top-tier guilds have a "tuned" their play like that. Show me a -hundred- similar cases involving non-dedicated players and I'll start to believe you. I'm sure I can find a video where a 100 vs 100 zerg fight lasted less than 10 seconds, too. That doesn't mean that's "normal", it just means it happened one time.
And for what it's worth, just because a fight keeps going for several minutes doesn't mean it was actually a fight. You and I both know that often the fight is "over" long before all the bodies hit the floor and the cleanup can take a minute or two to resolve.
The reason people dislike playing in a meleeball is that it isn't fun. It's like being a minion, you don't actually DO anything. People want to feel like they are doing something, and following a tag, spamming specific skills as soon as the cooldown pops doesn't feel like you're actually contributing.
I have always believed that WvW was designed to support multiple small groups of 10-15 running around applying pressure separately. One problem is that the current maps are just too damn small! Even if you had only two groups out there, you would be constantly crossing paths and would be stepping on each other's toes all the time. From what I've seen of the new BL map - and this would be my question for the beta people - the increased verticality means that it is going to take much longer to get form point A to point B, meaning that the map is effectively "bigger".
Another issue is that most objectives are just too easy to capture. Right now, a havoc team of 10 people can capture a supply camp in seconds, and a tower in less than a minute. A zerg of 50+ can take out an undefended keep faster than defenders can arrive. That pushes the meta towards a "hit hard hit fast move on" mentality and gives rise to the pointless karma-train playstyle of EotM.
@Lucid_Seraph Personally, I think the entire "stack till it dies" meta is a symptom of obsolete game design. Most of the mechanics were dealing with today were imagined in much older games and the original devs simply didn't have playerbases that were as large as today. Hell, until WoW, the whole concept of a cap on server population was unthinkable!
One of the many ways to resolve this is to limit the group size, which is why the Stab change works well for sPvP. With a hard cap of 5 players per team (fighting over three objectives) you CAN'T run a "pirate ship", you just don't have enough bodies. Problem is, sPvP strategies don't work in WvW because the obvious counter is simply "throw more bodies at it". A frontline to suck up CC and unblockable effects fails because the other team just throws more of those effects at you. A pincer attack fails because the blob just vaporizes the smaller groups one at a time while you nibble on them.
As long as there is no reason NOT to stack effects as high as they will go, the meta will ALWAYS be: zerg up, pick a target and turn it into dust. The sad part (for me anyway) is that I think the devs actually WANT the playstyle of WvW to be huge zergs. They've always said they want it to feel like you are a unit in a RTS game. You know, the mindless "throwaway" units that the commander just builds ad infinitum.
I think the WvW meta can be made a lot better, and I still think that overall the stability change is a step towards that. If I had to guess, I'd say we're probably going to start seeing some AE effect tuning soon and probably some duration adjustments to CC effects. I don't think it's a coincidence that AE effects are limited to 5 targets, the exact number of players on a sPvP team. Making them affect a larger number would bring sPvP and WvW closer to parity. Alternately, limiting blast effects to the closest 5 players might have a similar effect.
Personally I think all CC effects in GW2 are too short by an order of magnitude. (I also think CC should be treated similarly to Stability in that it should not stack duration, only effect. And since they are binary effects - you're either rooted/stuned/feared or not - 100 stacks of CC should be the same as one stack of CC.) I think they should look at how longer CC durations would shake up sPvP. If the current CC durations are already a death sentence, then a longer duration wouldn't really change anything. If the current duration is not killing people in sPvP then the longer duration might step over that line, and that's bad. CC is not even a factor in PvE right now, which is even more evidence that the durations are too short. It should be common practice to "split" a MOB group with CC.
At least that's where I would be looking if I were in charge.
This was better and completely balanced at release when Epidemic affected all targets in range. Booahahaha. Just like how the Death Shroud lifedrain could heal your entire zerg all at once if you traited for it.
Ah, the memories. Necro too stronk, yo.
Speaking as someone who was in BOMB when that gvg happened I can assure you that neither BOMB nor MM is a top-tier guild. They're improving, and on a good day they're third-tier, but they're nothing like the real top guilds. Here's one guy's attempt at a gvg power ranking for March of this year: gw2wvw.net/topic/march-na-guild-power-rankings You'll see MM way down at the bottom under "honorable mentions" and BOMB not on the list at all.
And I don't see why I should have to provide 100 examples of long fights when you haven't provided even one example of a short one. I have to ask, how often do you play WvW, and when's the last time you played? Haven't you been playing TESO mostly? Your conviction that 10 to 15 seconds was the typical length for an open-field fight before the stab change is so completely at odds with my own experience so I don't even know what to tell you. Fights may be that short if there's a huge numbers disparity, or if one side catches the other completely off-guard, but between relatively even numbers they absolutely did and do last through several regroups.
In any case, like I said in my original post, I don't hate pirate ship meta like some do. But I understand the complaints of those that do. Here's a video that's been posted a lot lately: https://youtube.com/watch?v=SDdumAhUxxA It's TA (the top european guild) vs. LaG. This match happened in February, before the stab change. LaG runs pirate ship and TA WANTS to push in but has to be extremely cautious. What you see in the video is the result of this. Entire rounds go by without melee staying on attack for more than a few seconds at a time. The first round starts at 5:20 and the first kill happens at 8:37. Look on the future of WvW, ye mighty, and despair: 20v20 fights where a player dies once every three minutes.
Typical WvW fights won't ever look like that, no, but what pug blobs do is usually a blurry reflection of what GvG teams were doing six months to a year ago. In the early days of wuv, after release, fights often lasted so long that no one ever actually won - dead players could waypoint and run back from spawn faster than either side could kill them. Are we headed for those days again? It probably won't get that bad, but you never know.
But lots of people, myself included, DO like playing in the meleeball. The idea that the melee train players are just following instructions and playing by rote will last exactly as long as it takes for the fight to be joined. Once you've pushed in, things get messy fast and suddenly you're riding the knife edge between order and chaos where there are absolutely opportunities for individual skill and initiative to make a difference. If melee train players could be replaced by keyboard macros good ones wouldn't be in such high demand, and guilds wouldn't try to poach them off each other.
no, it isn't really. At the top level game there is quite a bit of strategy involved. But if you just want to run around a bit and kill people, knowing your class and the basics of others is really all you have to know. Everything else you'll learn as you go. Don't let the strategy talk in the thread deter you from playing wuv, they're just talking about the high end game.
https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/hot/Increased-Bleeding-Stacks
Necromancers rejoice, the day you have been waiting for is Coming Soon!
The stuff I'm talking about is also for larger fights, with 15+ people on either side. For smaller fights pretty much everything is different.
The sound is hollow, synth-like and according to more experience music people, probably made on a synth keyboard than a real bass guitar. Furthermore, it only has 2 octaves with a third being some weird presets (wtf?).
I had hoped for a good deep bass to play some rock numbers, but I guess that will have to wait
And even then.... it really onl;y applies to super organized try hards.
Plenty of fun to be had just following a dot and working together.
Craft a precurseur via collecting arts.....
I didn't know Guild Wars had musical instruments! This game has everything!