I have 4 achievements left to get for the first season of WvW before I get that shiny key of who-knows-what. So far it has been generally easy. Jumping puzzles, a mad karma train with Blackgate, and the usual killings have led to a lot of play and the achievements.
Now I’m onto 3 more easy ones that require a tad more focus to complete. I went about halfway through Ruins achievement just with “normal†play. Repairs too… got about halfway, but I admit I did focus a little when I saw a damaged gate or wall. Finally supply camps too got about halfway in normal Tier 1 play. I will probably finish all three before the week is out.
My final achievement is the one that worries me a bit. I basically have three options: 225 yaks, 225 sentry point captures, or 50 WvW ranks. Now I read and read on how I should be able to complete 50 WvW ranks in a mere weekend. Yet, here I am with most of the WvW season’s achievements under my belt, and I’ve only achieved 20 ranks. I just don’t seem to be getting them that fast, and to me it doesn’t feel like a “sure thingâ€.
Sentries and yaks feel more like a sure use of time, but ArenaNet decided that a relatively large grind would be involved to get either of those achievements. After a few nights of focusing, I’m a little over halfway on both since they kind of go hand in hand.
In a way I think the large numbers are a double-edged sword. The obvious edge is it feels like grind. In normal T1 play Yaks explode if a zerg eyeballs a supply camp, and I am just not good enough to join a havoc squad (which should not be required for major pop. achievements anyway). Yaks have a slight one up on sentries though because much of the time it’s a 2-for-1 deal. The other edge is that players like me are now poking and prodding outside of regular play. There is a sub-game that of the major zergs and squads.
The sub-game are players, like me, that are making a mess of things. Instead of a nice clean signal of information, supply camps are going off at weird times. Sentries are drawing people away from the zerg. People are camping invincible supply camps in hopes of getting a few more yaks. I am seeing different player patterns that really didn’t exist, and it’s kind of cool. But, ArenaNet, it’s still a grind.
Zubon and Jeromai each has a similar double-edged sword take on what these achievements are doing as well. Well worth a read if you haven’t already.
So I’ve been grinding on Maguuma’s Borderlands. This week Sanctum of Rall is more or less dominating Tarnished Coast and Maguuma. I think many major players on our server are taking breaks to refresh before we fight Blackgate… again. (Tune in next week when we cry some more with Maguuma.)
The reason I like Maguuma’s Borderlands is because Tarnished Coast is a better server. This means that objectives close to my home waypoint will flip quickly because Tarnished Coast is just across the strand fighting us for a very close supply camp and sentry. Both servers are also good enough to create on-the-fly havoc squads (I still prefer wolf packs) to cross in to enemy territory and flip the sentry and supply camp on the opposite side. Going around the snow-covered lands, on the other hand, feels so much slower.
Last night I had quite the rhythm of heading out, waypointing back, heading in another direction, repairing a keep wall, waypointing back, and repeating. It should’ve been quite boring.
However, there is something about grinding in PvP, which makes it quite different from grinding in PvE. In PvE the rhythm is going to be the same each and every time. In PvP the grind is punctuated by hits of excitement and fear. I could regale you, adroit reader, with a tale of how I came upon a sudden ruin with two engineers fighting it out. Or, I could tell you about the time Mrs. Ravious and I went to the northern supply camp and defeated three players (shame on them too, we’re a ranger and a necro). How about the time 5 of us came upon a poor charr trying to wait out a supply camp, and he didn’t know which way to flee so he ran in circles.
I like all my WvW experiences. It just takes a bit more to reflect on them. I’m sure for many all of these experiences just gloss over into kill or be killed. However, I wouldn’t be much of a blogger if I didn’t take time to reflect on my experiences.
See you around a pile of dead yaks.
–Ravious
have you tried to buy the drops for WvW badges and laurels? I haven’t, but it should give a few ranks I suppose.
Haven’t thought about that. It’s a good idea, but I am still 30 ranks out. If I was say closer to 10 it might be a better option. Still thanks for the suggestion.
2 laurels and 50 badges gives 5000 wxp, which, on a character who has never earned a single wvw rank, will be 5 ranks. 12 laurels and 300 badges should give you the 30 ranks you need if you have 6 characters who have never been to wvw before, create them if you have to, though with 2.5 weeks left you can probably reduce that requirement considerably.
Very clever!
A less laurel-intensive option: save your thimbles and drops and buckets of WvW xp. Pass them to an alt. Boom, there’s a few ranks.
About the WvW Ranks, I had a birthday booster left and I got rank after rank in the usual zerg-play from eternals. Might be an option if you still have one. Otherwise I totally agree about most of the final ones being grindy.. esp the Dolyak and Sentry ones, but also the Merc-Camps, though later ones also count if you help getting the camp but another server finally gets it, which I only found out recently.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Taste_of_Liquid_World_Experience
= 5000 WXP for 2 laurels and 50 WvW badges = +1 rank
I posted on this theme today as it happens. Certainly a lot of non-optimal team behavior going on, but when your server is dominant no-one really minds all that much.
I got my key on Sunday. I didn’t complete Yaks, Sentries or Repairs. I would say Yaks are the hardest, followed by sentries. Repairs is very easy but can be highly anti-social and you get yelled at if you’re spotted fixing walls that don’t need fixing, and quite rightly so.
I’m surprised you haven’t knocked of 50 Ranks. Depends how much WvW you do, obviously, but I generally average about one an hour if I stick with the zerg and then there are all those yummy WXP drops and thimbles and kegs – I was lucky enough to have two kegs drop in one session – that’s ten levels right there.
Mrs Bhagpuss is just a whisker away from getting the key on her second account but one is going to be enough for me.
My main issue with the achievements isn’t that they are too grindy; it’s that they are almost 100% PvE. It is theoretically possible to complete the entire meta without ever fighting another player. There are only two achievements that positively require it and you can skip those because you only need 15/19.
Next Season I hope they can come up with a way to make at least half of the achievements require that you at least fight other players. I’d even rather see an achievement for being killed 50 times by other players than some of the ones we have now.
hmm, for lower ranks you only need 1000 wxp for level up (later you need 5000 wxp).
Got my key Saturday. Yaks, sentry point captures, and WvW ranks are the 3 I did not complete. Was trying hard on yaks and sentry points but it just takes so many I finally finished key with mercenary camps. Even though those go slowly you need so many less.
Enough time left that I could finish the other 3 but doubt I will even try.
The merc camps have been awful for me. First, there’s usually a queue into EB. Then there’s the extremely high likelihood that the dominant server has already capped the camp, and that you’ll have to slowly whittle it down solo, gaining nothing. (Most everyone else is sensibly off doing way more constructive things.)
Then either an endless waiting time for the camp to go neutral, or you move off elsewhere to do stuff and risk missing the window, because the dominant server is certain to flip it ASAP. Lots of running back and forth between two camps and/or evasion of other roamers, all the while certain that one could be way more productive elsewhere. I’m only at 18 and it’s been exhausting.
It’s looking like World Ranker (48/50) and Dolyaks (191/225) will be the ones to complete first for the chest, while gates/walls (25/30), repairs (265/500) and sentries (168/225) may be opportunistically filled in the coming weeks. I dunno about those dang merc camps…
Mrs Bhagpuss discovered over the weekend that an Engineer using a flamethrower can get an update for Demolition on gates with ease. I found that a Greatsword-weilding Mesmer using Skill 1 and a couple of illusions can do it too although I think it may require someone on a ram to have 15 points in Flame Ram Mastery and use Flame Blast to cast Structural Vulnerability on the door for it to work in a big zerg.
People say you will also get the update just for being grouped with someone on a ram.
No engi, no mesmer, no ram mastery. Neither staffs or hammers or daggers seem to work that well on solid reinforced wood. A good 20 of those have been cozying up to whoever is on a ram and hoping they don’t mind a sudden party invite.
Also tricky if one is asked to avoid orange swords, since that means no hitting the gate, period.
The others have been OCD trebbing, assuming one can find a) a vacant treb, and b) a tower that isn’t going to be invaded by a grumpy T1 server finally getting tired of those rocks being chucked that way. *sighs*
There’s always the last week, where TC becomes in theory the dominant server, but that’s cutting it a little close for comfort. Not to mention, the desperate queues. Ugh.
Try to camp the trebs that can fire on Stonemist, so when SM is turned you can use one of them to crack open the outer walls of it. Often you can hit 2-3 destructible objects. Means 10 to 15 turns of SM and u have that achievement.
Shouldnt be too hard, i play on Kodash, the weakest of the gold servers in EU, we never won any of our matches, only once we were second.
I dont understand why you have to do this grindheavy achievements. I have my key since week 2 of this season and I dont have nearly finished the yaks or the sentrypoints, and I still lack 10 WvW ranks behind my 50