It's not an "exploit" for someone to comprimise their own enjoyment of the game in order to insure a team objective. If there weren't players willing to sit and guard the "home" points then they'd just get stealthed and you'd lose even faster. Those players that choose to guard safer objectives deserve the medals/rewards they get, because they're performing a role.

When should I renew my subscription to play in cross-server warzones?

Positive about what? There's literally nothing to get excited about and BW are still failing to deliver features they've been claiming to be working on for some time now. This update, coming on the back of their supposed "emphasis on PvP" is a slap in the face to people who actually stuck around and they have a right to be irritated, despite the smug PvE backlash.

Speaking from personal experience, the guy who takes the left node/objective at the start of the WZ and guards it until the end of the WZ seeing off a few 1-2 player attacks in the process will have ****** numbers aside from objective points yet has arguably been the most important and team-minded player in the match. You can run around dueling away from objective points, spamming HoT's on everything that moves while ignoring the guy on 20% being chased by 3 enemies who needs burst heals and letting him die, you can run around in huttball completely ignoring the ball itself and just killing whoever you happen to come accross and get great numbers. The only number which matters when determining how useful someone has been in a WZ is objective points because they're the only ones you can't get by being selfish and ignoring the actual objective of the match.

Wow, a thread expressly devoted to how awesome you are. I'm genuinely impressed and I'm glad you chose to share.

Truth is there's no real hard counter if the sin/shadow gets close in stealth and gets the drop on their opponent, though even then arguably a well-geared mara/sent would be difficult as would a pyro PT. Out of stealth in open/group combat though anything not-too-squishy that can keep the sin/shadow more than 10m away can win with relative ease if played well. I think people underestimate the importance stealth and the element of surprise play in a lot of sin/shadow encounters. If you can see the sin/shadow coming and use AoE to get around combat stealth they're no more scary than any other melee spec, also worth factoring in that if you can keep them at range or take half their HP before they get close then the odds are in your favor unless you're squishy, though if the sin/shadow has their stuns off cd that's easier said than done. I don't think sins/shadows are OP I just think they're extremely effective 1v1 fighters, people get hit from stealth and facestomped and cry OP ignoring the ammount of times they've seen shadows/sins get ripped apart in group encounters after achieving relatively little. If you want a solo guard for a node or someone to probe and test defences on the less-defended objective point then sins/shadows are the perfect choice, but in any heavy-conflict area in a WZ you'd never drop a healer, proper tank or sustained DPS spec for one.

Theory threads like this are worthless since virtually nobody is going to play any class to the maximum of its' potential. It's about finding a class that meshes with the way you're most comfortable and experienced in playing, "x" class may do higher DPS but it's no good if you're not able to get behind your opponent or if you're focused on unloading damage instead of using the proper CC in the proper order. You can crunch numbers and say builds are "worthless" all you like, truth is that someone confident and comfortable with that spec will prove you wrong. There's not a big enough gulf between classes/builds in this game for any class to be "worthless", particularly in a team setting. This isn't an RTS where "units" have a fixed level of performance, the ammount of damage your class does to an opponent depends entirely on how well you play that class not on how much damage the individual abilities do on a theory basis. One helps the other but they aren't linked by definition. The main source of information which is used to define class "importance" is usually QQ's on these boards which means you're relying on the opinion of the average player to provide insight into a complex situation. The unfortunate truth (and reason why governance isn't a constant cycle of referendums) is that the average player/person is an idiot who bases his opinions on subjective and uninformed observation. It's the reason that FoTM builds change between patches for no logical reason, the reason that classes like Marauder are seen as "OP" while nobody comments about the impact of guarding healers or QQ's about push/pull abilities in huttball to the same degree. Taking consensus as a guide is a terrible idea.

To my mind, anyone who places importance on any stat other than objective points (and maybe guard/healing arguably) is a bad player. It's not difficult to rack up 20-30 kills with few deaths and do a ******** of damage if you're free of worrying about objectives.

Best and most refreshing post I've seen on these forums since joining. Pretty much describes the experience of most casual PvP'ers along with, I suspect, the majority of the "LOL L2P" community. Kudos.

The price you pay for 30m range. Gap-closers are what you have stuns/roots/snares for, use them.

I love my shadow so much I live in constant terror of what I feel is the inevitable nerf. Currently running Inf spec and amazed that as a mediocre and inexperienced level 2x player I can happily guard a node/turret and see 2 imps running towards me yet be confident in killing them both and keeping the objective regardless of their level. PvE is quite balanced though leaning towards the easier side now that I've got Theran but PvP seems a bit TOO fun to be fair to the people I'm stomping.

This please, I so would.

I can't speak for the 50 bracket but for 49 and under I've done virtually nothing but PvP since level 10 (now 27 having to skip PvE content because I'm overlevelled due to WZ exp) and I've never found it grossly unfair or difficult to take on level 40+ players. Just play to your strengths and be aware of their advantages then counter them as best you can. I can see it being an issue for some specs that only shine with skills obtained higher in their respective trees but frankly that's your fault for PvP'ing on a sub-optimal spec rather than a fault of the system. The buff-to-49 setup allows players to gain PvP experience before they fall into the hell-hole grind that is 50 PvP, also everyone likes seeing their nub char throw out big numbers.

If nobody else takes charge 30s before the start I'm happy and proud to say that I'm "that guy". Coordination and communication are the keys to victory. It's ok though, speaking as "that guy" we don't expect more than 3-4 of the team to be smart enough to listen and work together, to be honest anything between 1-3 listening is about what I expect normally, but it certainly means that "that guy" contributes more to the win than any of the idiots who go rambo or won't guard nodes.

From what I can see it's too many broken promises, complacency in the (potentially market-leading) PvP area and the fact that it's just too expensive in general (initial box price AND monthly renewals while you can't get cross-server WZ queues working?...). The numbers are going to be considerably lower once GW2 hits. They've got a month, tops, to start making major shifts in the PvP setup (PvE, to my eyes, is pretty well-developed as-is) and develop a real selling point beyond "COMING SOON!!" placebos. Also, there's no need for a server per paying customer, really, we're playing an MMO, having more than 2 active players on the same planet as us at any given time isn't going to detract from the playing experience.