So as we were dominating this week in T2 i found that a couple of people thought we were ready for T1 and that we would be a force to reckon with.

I will start off and say that we could compete in T1, but as we are we would be struggling :(

But why do I assume such an outcome. It comes down to a few things. 

1. Venom, a must have in WvW.

2. The Utility factor of each class.

3. Organization.

4. Hardcore vs Casual.

Venom

So your probably thinking to yourself, hey I think my thief build is fine, or even hey I don't even have a theif. This ironicly is not what im talking about.

A new consumable has recently been Discovered in the South East corner of the Iron marshes. This Skale Venom can be bought from a vendor that you complete an dynamic event for and is now a must have in wvw.

So what does this Skale Venom do? Skale Venom is a consumable that neither takes your food or tool buff slot its a buff of its own. This Consumable makes it 20% on a crit you will stack weakness and vulnerability. 

So why is this a must need for T1? Well in a SoS zerg 90% of their players will have this venom on, meaning in a zerg fight expect to be permanently weakened and almost have a constant 25 vulnerability stack on you, meaning you hit 50% less dmg and take 25% more dmg.

Utility Factors

So you may of not known this but almost every class has a major utility factor that can be game changing. With these utility a 10 man can easily stand toe to toe with a 50 man zerg who isnt using these and dominate them. 

What utility can accomplish such feats? Well its a combination of 2 major abilities, one from elementalist, and one from theifs :) 

Whirling Winds a attack 4 on your Air focus on elementals creates a giant bubble that completely stops range from entering in it and stops it from working inside of it. This means as long as you shoot things you will do nothing in the fight besides creating fields or using utility skills. This will stop at least 50% of a zergs dmg.

Black power, a attack 5 on your pistol on theifs that creatures a circle that blinds anyone in it every 1 second. This means as long as your in this field your vision will be blinded making you lose target and making it so your unable to see certain people, as well as makes it so you cannot hit with your attacks so long as your in this field(unless you have quickness). 

You may thing that Black power wouldn't be so effective with it being such a small circle, but when all of the theifs in your zerg use it, you'll find that you have a giant field of blindness that can dominate your enemies. This will stop at least 50% of a zergs dmg.

I will inform you that every SoS zerg has and fully abuses these two utility factors.

Organization

Tier 1 is pretty much the definition of WvW organization. And why I believe SoS will be king of the WvW ladder for a long time. They are extremely hardcore WvW players and thus are highly organized in it. 

Just so you guys know, the people who discovered you could use Skale Venom in WvW was Sea of Sorrows, as they have a guild entirely dedicated to finding out new ways to give them an edge.

Hard Core vs Casual

A very important factor in this. You see our server is more casual than the others in Tier 1. In a sense we're the football team that practices 3 days a week while Sea of Sorrows just doesn't stop praticing. Which in my opinion is a good thing.

As an added foot note, Black Gate that moved up to T1 regrets this fate quite a bit. They find it way to competitive and to hard. They would much rather of stayed in T2 where they were on a more even field. Yes they were the strongest of T2 but that wasn't we they liked it. They liked it because both their hardcore and casual players could play in wvw and have fun. Now that their in T1 their casual wvw players hate to play wvw.

So in regard I hope we stay in T2 as for a casual WvW play it is alot more fun. 

I have it from a very reliable source that Skale Venom will be gone very very soon. I was using Skale Venom on my ranger already. Probably why I was racking up more kills on him than my thief.

Venom sounds like something that is going to get a super nerf in the near future. Either removed completely or a ridiculous rise in price. It also sounds like there should be many many more utility factors.

nope i don`t think our server is ready for tier 1 and am amazed we are actualy in 5th place . From what i`ve seen since lauch our server as a whole has very little grasp of stragtic and relies on zerg tactics as well as not working together with other commandeers on the map . most of the servers that have beat us in the past are more then just zerging to win , them employ skrimsher groups to drain our supply, tie up troops in the backfield basicly taking them out of the fight so they can`t help attack or defend . but chase them around lol . they use diversion tactics to split up our forces by attacking multiple targets they may only get 1 but that was the goal to draw defenders all over the map while they capture the main objective . 80 % of the time on any map our server has maybe 1 or 2 supply camps while other team has all their supply camps due to most of our server not smart enough to run backline raiders like they do to us . even tho you see it every day since launch being used against us lol . lots of little things too biggest one is lack of communcation and unwilling of some commanders to work together for the benafit of the server . If we are winning by mostly zerg tactics its not because we are good it`s the other servers are bad as zerg will only work effectivly against servers with no tactics and one that tries to use zerg tactics with less numbers , as tactics will always win over numbers . After 3 1/2 years in warhammer fighting the same people every day in RvR it doesn`t matter to me if we move up to tier 1 or if we are in tier 5 as long as we are having fun and the other side are giving us a good fight . as a close fight wether you win or lose is still a win !

Sea of Sorrows were very impressive when we last faced them. They got a lot of attention at the time from their over-dependence on Portal Bombing in practically every situation, but the true strength they showed back then was the way they were consistently playing the long-game. They weren't out running around randomly taking objectives of convenience for immediate short-term gain. What impressed me most about them was their conquest of the maps was slow, deliberate and methodical. When they took an objective, they didn't rush straight to the next one. They tended to stop and fortify each objective, using them as a bunker with which to bombard the next objective. In this way, if they lost that next objective, the previous objective was already set and ready to immediately restart the bombardment and force us to halt our momentum and protect what we just taken (or risk immediately losing it). It was a consistent pattern. When taking a Keep, Sea of Sorrows almost never immediately rushed forward to the inner gate once the outer was down. They instead tended to consolidate their position. They consistently built siege on the outer walls and used them as a fortified position. Even on the assault, Sea of Sorrows tended to play defence - forcing us to come hit them at their position of strength. They were almost never attacking from one position either, forcing commanders to keep track of multiple gates at once. We've employed many of the same tactics from time to time, but Sea of Sorrows were very persistent and consistent about it. It was slow and inevitable.

FYI. Necros have a well - Well of Darkness - that pulses blind every second for 5 seconds and is one of the reasons I spec in wells with my necro - my wells also siphon health and I can apply 10 secs of vunerability every 3 secs to nearby foes while in Death Shroud and using daggers can apply weakness and vunerability again - and transfer conditions from me to "them". The necro is a great utility weapon when specced for it and is the main reason I play my necro. Sure, I don't have any big explosions, or flashing lightning spells, or guns that go BANG! - but let me drop 4 wells - yes, 4 - even my healing well siphons health from the enemy - and all my marks - except fear (I don't want them running out of my wells) I can gloriously stand in a portal bomb and laugh at the dead - especially if I go all Death Shroud on them and drain health and apply more vunerability on them. BTW - thieves also have blinding powder and smoke bomb that are usually under utilized as utility skills. A thief in our group the other night was using smoke bomb (per the convo I heard) to block incoming projectiles - and Blinding powder stealths allies next to you. I personally love utility skills as they can make the difference in a fight (and also why I hate dps parsers - they don't tell the entire story.) With all of this stated - I still prefer T2 over T1 - we have great fights in T2 - and being on top (T1) isn't always what is for the best - not when you consider the "fun" factor and isn't having fun the most important thing for our family. So in closing... I totally agree with your last statement SuperHero.

» Edited on: 2013-01-20 16:10:28

Morigana you are referring to Smoke Screen for the Thief. It works similar to the Guardian wall of reflection but it blocks projectiles instead of reflects them. It can also block Trebuchet, Catapult and Ballista shot if positioned right. Can activate area stealth when combined with blast finishers and personal stealth when combined with leap finishers. Additionally, projectiles shooting through the screen will bestow blind on the target. It is a very under-utilised and incredibly powerful utility skill on a very short cooldown. I always swap between smoke screen and caltrops on my Thief and encourage others to do so.

Ahhh - Smoke Screen - thanks Elth. Now will someone just get everyone to stop using knockbacks except to throw people off walls/ledges/moutain sides or as a last resort when they are about to die. Knockbacks play total he... err heck - yep that is what I was going to say... total heck with combo fields, AE's, and the like. Please, for the love of Melandru - take those bad boys off your rotation when fighting with a group.

Dismissing our opponents, or the server as being 'bads' about tactics does not seem useful. There are a lot of folks willing to follow if you can make it fun. Please, step up and lead.

I think a lot of us know what it takes to be Tier 1, its just not our playstyle. We are a social gaming community and a family first. We'd rather jump off cliffs and spend time discussing the pros and cons of trebuchet placement because it's fun, and we do have a guild of intelligent people who don't log on to voicechat to be muted and micromanaged for hours at a time. We chat, we learn, and we eat Tostitos (c). Lots of people in our guild have an amazing depth of knowledge about gaming in general and tactics specifically. We do understand that our WvW events are timed capped and the Elders are striving for round the clock coverage through Tuatha alliances so we're not just running in and out a few times each week and throwing ourselves against brick walls. Don't mistake our casual atmosphere and attitudes for ignorance, or lack of desire. Anything Gaiscioch sets it's mind to do, we will be the best at it. Our goal is what everyone reads when they first register on this site - to have fun and build friendships. That's not changing for a server rank :)

As I said i could care less if we are in tier 1 or last place we didn`t have tiers in DAOC or in warhammer and it was fun. Not sure how much longer i`ll be in this game yea its free but needs a lot of work. havn`t bothered to do a WvWvW event in a month now and the WvW is the only reason i even bought the game lol but even tho i havn`t attended a wvw event i`m still in wvw just running solo or trying to get the zerglings to help attack their supply camps and leave the herd haha . ohwell may have to go back to warhammer

I am fine in Tier 2... hopefully we stay here for a while, not sure why Tarnished Coast is doing so poorly... did they loose guilds last week? On a side note... Warhammer? Really? I would sooner stop playing games all together before I would re-install that game.

» Edited on: 2013-01-21 08:19:52

Ohmnom the chatter has been that a lot of guilds bounced servers last week (guess it was free for the last time) to get in on tier 1 or 2. George, I know it's a typo but I keep giggling that Black Power is the thief's special utility skill ;)

» Edited on: 2013-01-21 10:11:39

I'm pretty much of the same mind as Twilah, we're not a hard-core PVP guild and that's not what I signed up for. I want my time spent being social, having fun and laughing in the company of great people. T1 is there for people who want to dedicate all their play time to being the best at any cost. Hard core guilds play hard and punish severely. I like playing games to relax, I don't need a second job. I'll leave T1 to those guilds who don't mind running the risk of burnout. Just my two ;)

I don't necessarily think we will get bumped to Tier 1. There are quite a few strong servers now due to the giant shuffling that has taken place as guilds pick up and move servers to find greener pastures. We really won't know what will happen until this Friday's reset when most people should be settled down in their new homes (servers) and hopefully that matchup will be more even. I'm all for winning a WvW match and having a good time but us steamrolling Tarnished Coast and Stormbluff Isle right is getting a bit tiring.

With the current situation, I think it's safe to say that sooner or later, we will eventually be paying T1 a visit, whether we like it or not. We are dominating T2 at the moment now - all it will really take is a bit of misfortune from one of the top servers (likely Blackgate) for us to sneak in the door. We were much safer in our position when we were ranked 5th. With that said, we might as well be prepared for what to expect in T1 when the time comes. George's post has some excellent information on what to expect, and there's no reason we can't adapt some of those tactics and playstyle for ourselves. We don't need to become ultra-competitive, change who we are, or sacrifice our "fun" to do it. Last time we faced down Sea of Sorrows was some of the most fun I've had in WvW. It raised our game dramatically and we stepped up to the plate - Spartan out portal-bombing the portal bombers (and getting kudos from one of the opposing SoS guilds) was a particular highlight for me. We learned from their tactics and adapted ours to suit. Sea of Sorrows went on record saying we gave them their toughest fight on their way to the top. We didn't need to micro-manage every player to do it. It's pretty much as George says - "we could compete in T1, but we would be struggling". Personally, I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing though. I like the struggle. I like the challenge of devising a counter to whatever advantage my opponent has over me. Facing Blackgate, we accepted we didn't have the coverage to overtake them in points, but we still dove head-first into their forces and had fun accomplishing whatever we could. I suspect Blackgate as a whole didn't have this understanding - after dominating us for a couple of months straight, they genuinely thought that coverage was all they needed to take on the top servers, and that has probably been a strong cause for regret when they were faced with the reality of T1. When we reach T1, as long as we are under no illusions about beating the top two servers, and simply aim to put on the best fight we can muster, I have no doubt that, much like the last time we faced Sea of Sorrows, we will be in for some of our best WvW fun yet.

SoR's population is too casual to be a serious Tier 1 competitor and you do not want to be in Tier 1. I really don't think that most of you folks will want hardcore WvW guilds dominating the queues and telling us "carebears" to "GTFO their map", refusing to work with any of us and basically shunning anyone who doesn't WvW 24/7. Been there, done that, not enjoyable Personally, due to this removal of free transfers, I would like to see a bit more of a "thinning of the herd" amongst the Tier 1 and Tier 2 servers, just to have some variety from week to week with more than 4-5 servers bouncing between spots. Unfortunately, unless ArenaNet makes changes to their current WvWvW matching system, I don't see that the removal of free transfers will have much of an effect on some servers still being top heavy and under heavy queue loads. I just hope that the WvW guilds are taking queue times into consideration and will spread out to the lower pop servers. We'll see by the end of the month, if this has a positive impact or not.

I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss SoR as too casual for T1. I have faith that we will continue to take the fight to the enemy regardless of whether we are winning or losing. Gaiscioch will always remain constant and that is all that matters to me. We've fought SoS before and I have no doubt we can make them work for their points when we get to fight them again.

I've been in "Tier 1" competition. My comment was not opinion meant for debate, its a statement of fact. You think that TW and the other ZeroDrama guilds gave Fog grief about GSCH being "carebear" and wasting queue space? You haven't seen nothing.

I tend to agree with Sekkerlund.... our leaders got a lot of grief that we never saw through whispers. We were asked several times not to run our families events since we were not serious enough to "play the game of thrones" the right way. T1 is the ultimate in the WvWvW community and if your aren't in the first position you are doing it wrong. Those are some way serious people - and they like it that way - let them have it. I don't want our family thrown into that mix and it's not that we don't have great strategists in our family - I have the greatest respect for Fog and Spartan's strategies - I know they work but if we don't take it as fun, we'll lose a lot of our family - and our family fun. Most important to all of our commanders is "Are we having fun?" Just take any of our commanders and see how they work. They don't get mad or kick people (not that they have the ability yet) from squads - they simply state, "OK - It didn't work that time - we'll get better." They take the time to explain the reasons behind doing what we do, where siege equipment works and doesn't work, and that we are occassionally wiping on purpose - just to frustrate the invaders or to help another commander take something on the other side of the map. Girls just want to have fun - and I enjoy the way we play the game now.

I just wanted to add, there's nothing wrong with a very high level of competition in any game and high level competitors are not necessarily bossy people with bad attitudes. Some of the best raid leaders I have worked with were very charismatic and giving of thier knowledge and time because they knew that to win they had to invest in thier soldiers. What it does take for eeryone involved is a high level of organization and preparation. Most of your play time and in game money would go to having the materials your commanders ask you to have when you do participate, whether that is scale venom or upgraded siege or exotic gear. You have to show up when asked and stay as long as needed. You don't have a lot of time to discuss options and answer questions once you're out there - it's move, move, move and don't talk over the commander because people need to hear clearly what is being said since the situation can change in an instant. Usually there were one or two LT's that could talk also. A lot of high level groups I've worked with in prior games mute us not to be rude, but because it ensured no one interrupted, crashed the channel or mouth-breathed into an open mic for five minutes...it does happen. Questions and comments were handled after the event, but under performers were also blacklisted until they could prove they had what it takes, either through upgrading gear or learning more about thier class. It's a different state of mind and can be a very amazing experience when groups do come together and dedicate themselves for a single purpose. If that's what you're in to, then it is very fun and rewarding. It also excludes many people and can make your game feel like a complete job. If you perform well, people won't leave you alone and all the bad guys will want to kill you first.

Let us see how the next few weeks pan out then shall we? I'm not debating anything Sekkerhund and I am well aware of the grief TW caused us. I am one of the commanders that wore the grief, whispers and public abuse in team chat. I resigned to the fact that we don't have enough hardcore members in GW2 to do what I wanted to do in WvW so instead of burning myself out with stress I adjusted my priorities to suit the family. I also have two GW2 accounts, one was on Stormbluff Isle for over three months when they were in Tier 1. That account was purely for learning new tactics and to see just how far they will go to keep their position. When Sbi dropped to tier two I transferred the account back to SoR and let it collect dust. I do not think we are anywhere near close enough for tier 1, I have no misguided illusions about that, but if we do get there in the next few weeks I am still going to be in WvW, you can count on that.

i miss the fun of running small scale skrimsher groups like 6 to 12 etc , i remember in warhammer once my 5 man group killed over 80 order in 2 hours once and another time our 32 person alliance warband + wiped 132 order 2 times in a row back to back lol . its annoying their game engine can`t handle large scale events and have rending issues etc . i have better fps fighting 100 + zergs in warhammer then i have fighting a tower with only 30 on each side here in gw2 . they really need to come up with something better for their WvW i could care less about what tier or ranking we are did rvr for 6 years between daoc and war hammer and had way more fun there and we had no need for sily tiers etc hehe . can`t expect to much from them i guess as their game gw was just a single player co-op they stole everything for their wvw from daoc , they need to go ahead and steal the rest don`t stop halfway ,

» Edited on: 2013-01-22 15:13:05

I apologize if my previous comment seemed tersely short, but I wanted to get my point across without any doubts as to what I was trying to convey. The Sanctum of Rall server, and Gaiscioch, are both highly respected and renowned for being positive and helpful gaming communities. It is our community that is our most prized possession, not our skill and talent at any particular game-play aspect of Guild Wars 2. My concern is that in Tier 1 WvW, community is tossed aside. Just look at all of the servers that have moved into Tier 1 WvW, only to have their communities melt down and self-destruct, then mass exodus and within a few weeks, they are empty shells of bitter leftovers who are angry at those inconsiderate guilds who zerged their server and destroyed it. History is on my side, even as I type this, some of those servers are bleeding players and slowly self-destructing, and it appears that a lot of them are coming to our server. /concerned I do not want to see that happen with SoR. When I moved here, I vowed to assist in keeping Roger's legacy intact, and help to ensure that the Sanctum of Rall server continued as a friendly and welcoming community, despite what was happening to many other servers. Everyone reading this, should feel as I do, because that is the Gaiscioch way. We are a gaming community with the power to affect a positive influence on the server that we call "home". That should be our priority, not whether or not we can be competitive with servers comprised of guilds that could care less about each other, much less their current server. (I hope this post makes sense... for some odd reason, I'm having trouble getting the thoughts out of my head and into text, like I wanted.)

Thanks for the tip on the Venom SHG W3 or not sounds handy stuff to have. T1 ready i know im not heck im not even t2 ready im a badge farm ;) but i try i learn and i improve each week. If i find suddenly im the caboose on the Choo Choo train rather than following Fog because i missed a call to port back its a giggle not an OMG what did i do. I participate rez where i can help and have fun oh and occasionally kill people. If we are winning its nice but i wont loose sleep if if we are holed up in our keep like its Helms deep. I just hope people dont give our commanders too much grief

@Sekkerhund I fully understand your concerns, trust me when I say I have had the very same concerns ever since we shot up from rank 17. The wounds are still fresh believe me. While I do understand and share the same concern, I also have an almost fanatical devotion for our guild and our server. If things go south in T1 and tempers flare, guilds may leave and we may drop in ranks but at the end of the day, we still have our family. Not only that but I am optimistic that regardless of how many rough times we have on our server (and we will definitely have more), we have a very strong core foundation that will always be here, Gaiscioch and the Tuatha are stronger than any alliance will ever be, we're bonded to this server by it's namesake and whether we rise to Tier one or fall to Tier 20 you can bet your firstborn that we'll still be in the mists churning up the mud and making a mess. It doesn't matter what colour we are in WvW, I still bleed Gaiscioch green.

» Edited on: 2013-01-22 18:48:24

yo they have to put more WPs in wvw, too much running after death, and it's not like people can instantly wp over to defend a keep since the specific wp will be contested anyway i think more wps can give wvw a better pacing with added comfort RvR = running V running

I disagree. Running in WvW is where the good action happens. Stragglers and roamers are an essential part of any large scale PvP game whether it is a free for all PvP game like Age of Conan or Shadowbane or a faction PvP game like WoW, Rift or GW2. Adding more waypoints and instant travel remove the good battles that happen in between objectives and essentially remove the need to organise as people will just waypoint in and throw themselves at the enemy like zombies. No thanks.

I agree with Elth that travel is not the problem. A problem I see is that a keep can be captured quickly even if alarms are sounded; defenders do not have enough time to respond. Keep defences need a buff and keep lords need to be more challenging.

cannot find the skale venom you mentioned.. hung around se iron marches for better part of an hour.. completed all hearts in area and did dynamic events.. any more clues as to where or what triggers merchant/ Found it.. ne of the legionnaire Bladechipper heart in SE corner of the Iron Marches map. Not sure what triggers the event as of yet..

» Edited on: 2013-01-24 12:59:54

@ Gowan I used dulfy's map/description to find the skale venom this past weekend. I found Rexavian Redfoot in the middle of 2nd part of the event "Stop the skeik from throwing cursed wall chunks on the shore" (in orange on the map). I think you can find him on the other side of the bridge if the event chain hasn't started. http://dulfy.net/2013/01/16/gw2-useful-and-fun-consumables-guide/#10

Yup use the waypoint that lands you beside the busted cannons near the lake i think its the most se part of the zone. To the nw you will see a bridge run across that and he is by a camp fire with two other nPC's just to your right as you get to the end of the bridge.