As most of you are aware, I have taken on the project of leading the charge to further upgrade our guild hall, starting with the War Room. Even though we might decide to get all of the upgrades in the end, I'm trying to prioritize the order we get them in a way that would benefit our current WvW players. 

In my mind the upgrades fall into two categories: useful and not useful. Useful is further subdivided into three categories: useful for everyone who can claim objectives ( anyone in NPC can do that as long as you are higher than a Green Mamba), useful to leveling scribes, and useful to leveled scribes [i.e., improvements and tactics that scribes could craft that are actually useful in WvW.])

As of right now, this is my priority list (please feel free to leave a comment if you would like to suggest a change):

Invulnerable fortifications (for scribe leveling, also a useful tactic)

Hardened gates (next few are useful when made by scribes for defending camps and towers when sentrying or havocing)

Speedy dolyaks

Iron guards

Guild claiming: Stonemist castle (No, I don't think any of us are going to need to claim Stonemist anytime soon. However, this upgrade is a prerequisite for some other important upgrades.)

Objective aura 7 vitality (Yeah! This will be a major milestone that provides all the important aura stat boosts when NPC claims something. If someone complains that they need the extra 20% magic find from the last aura to properly defend something, tell them to stfu.)

Emergency wp (for scribe leveling, also a useful tactic)

Watchtower (for scribe leveling, also a useful tactic)

Chilling fog (useful tactic)

Guild ballista

Guild catapult

Guild trebuchet

Guild flame ram 

Guild siege golem

Presence of the Keep (extremely useful improvement but can only be placed on keeps, hence the name)

Dragon banner (useful banner, but banners got nerfed so hard they are not an important part of fights anymore. Nevertheless, they are fun to use and towers and keeps have a tactivator that can only be filled with a banner.)

Assault roller (fun but it's either underused or useless. Seems like invulnerable dolyaks is a better tactic for a camp)

Turtle banner (seems like people prefer centaur and dragon over this one)

Hardened siege (useless in my opinion because the first thing people do is take down the cannons, mortars and oils and this doesn't do much to stop them. Plus, the other option for this slot is iron guards which gives the lord more health and armor so it's arguably better.)

Sabotage depot (minimal usefulness in my mind. Has some niche applications.)

Armored dolyaks (useless because speedy is better)

Packed dolyaks (I've seen people use this but I still think speedy is better)

Guild shield generator (this one is an outrageous amount of aetherium)

Objective aura 8 magic find

Airship defense (only useable at Stonemist)

Cloaking waters (pretty useless, only useable at Stonemist)

Turret gates (useless. In fact this is worse than useless-it's actually detrimental because it takes away the upgrade slot you could use for Presence of the Keep which is actually good. Please don't put this anywhere if you like your server.)

We've made so much progress in the last weeks I'm really proud of us. I know the road ahead looks pretty intimidating, but this is a long term goal to be completed when people have extra mats they don't mind donating to the cause. Also, we still have access to the improvements and tactics that scribes make without unlocking them in the War Room. Anyone who has permission to spend claimable upgrades can use the ones deposited in our guild war chest. The majority of the ones in there right now come from choosing the Improvement and Tactic pack from Skirmish chests. This gives you a random tactic or improvement. Almost all of them are worth more than a gold, so it's actually one of the best options to choose from the skirmish chest-if you are going to use them for the benefit of your server and you don't need any of the other options.

Thanks to everyone for all of your generous donations so far. Special shout out to Mold, Fred, Ser, Bone, Pyro, and Khani for their help! (I hope I didn't leave anyone out, I'm writing this at work so I can't look at who donated. I'm super sorry if I didn't mention you!).

See you in the Mists! (Unless you're Oddgo. I suggest you avoid his "hugs" at all costs.)