Guild Wars 2

I actually posted this to my server’s community forums and they recommended that I put it hear if anyone feels like commenting or a rare unicorn Dev happens to read it. Yes I am aware that some of this has already been said this is just my personal opinion on it. I wrote this with as little pre-judgement as I possibly could and looked at this from both a commander and roamer standpoint. Some background, I lead a small guild with actively raids 15 + 5-10 pugs.

TLDR warning…I kindov wrote a block.

General Thoughts on Group Sizing (zerging or havok sized groups)
I am really discouraged about the total amount of supply that is needed to capture an objective. I feel like this map supports both zerging and havok. Havok for all of the smaller objectives and then a zerg for any tower or keep. Havoks would be very useful for either ganking your enemy’s shrines or maintaining your own. As a solo roamer I felt like unless there were 100+ on map you could go for minutes at a time and not see a soul. In this regard I think havoks (3-10) in size would be perfect for slipping by unnoticed and could fulfill the saboteur role.

Keeps:
Unless changes are made you will NOT capture a keep with <20 people in under 30 minutes. Because most of the walls/gates were immune to all but siege it required multiple superiors to make a dent and even that took ages. In my tests I found it was simpler to just make 5 omegas and break down a wall because at least then you could walk your siege to inner (not without sustaining moderate damage due to turrets/NPCs
-Example: Superior rams are needed to break gates, so I say you need 3 per + 1 ballista to take out cannons + oil = 180 sup and you need to do that at least twice! So 360 supply minimum. Being generous saying all members are running perma +5 and guild +5 means that you need 18 people with 20 supply in order to accomplish all this without a retreat to go resupply. This does not account for having any defenders and that you are able to build this all without any of it getting disabled or destroyed by the cannons/guards/turrets.

Resupply runs will be very common so a few well placed supply traps will decimate your enemy as they have to run back 5 mins to get more. I tagged up and lead a group of 10-15 and we got destroyed by 1 (thats right a single defender) and his NPC’s + auto turrets. He didn’t even build siege, he just used the cannons/oil.

Size:
I feel like the size of these maps should be combined into a single instance and have EB as the 2nd map. The population could easily be raised to 300-500 and there would still be loads of room. Now with that many people, mega-blobs would run rampant and I’m not even going to mention the skill lag that would occur but things would never get capped. I will say that I can’t imagine being able to cover multiple maps for any server below tier 2. Yes the maps can be looked at as deceivingly large or moderate in size (remember all the ~5 stories of verticality like Verdant Brink that is in this map). (PS I WANT gliders! I know it won’t happen but man that would be cool especially around the air keep)

Automatic Upgrades/Guild Claiming:
The good thing about automatic upgrades (defensively) is that once a keep gets to T3 and has the invul upgrades….its really effin hard to lose it. You could have only 5 defenders and they can easily thwart multiple attacks/golem rushes. The upgrades were really nice and the guild claiming system while a work in progress is a definite improvement. You can make the temporary buffs (tactics) able to be used by guild members only or accessible to the public. I could see a potential issue with a troll guild claiming a keep and locking the buffs so noone could use anything.
EDIT: Tyler clarified that they are adding a system in place to remove the majority of such trolls.
My favorite tactic was the temporary waypoint (when it worked). I do think that the visibility could be better to understand when defenders could pop these defensive tactics. I would do so in a similar way to Stronghold where at the top near your servers current tick was a small set of icons similar to your skill bar with timers listed (like siege decay). You could pop a WP that would remain uncontested for ~1min to let your forces pile into the map if you needed to wipe your attackers. Otherwise the buffs to gates and cannons is really nice as it prevents a blob from mindlessly PvD forever.

Turrets: (this gets its own section)
The automatic turrets are OP as kitten and broken, they are a T3 upgrade and cannot be damaged, destroyed, or removed. I brought a single omega to a gate to see how Ninja work would fair….I took the gate down to 60% after safely clearing the guards. That whole process took me ~5-10 minutes in which in a normal match someone would have come running to scout around and discovered me. The turrets type of damage range from keep to keep but basically they hit me for ~1-2k ea every 2-3 seconds (while in a golem) with whatever CC the keep corresponds to. Air was 1s stuns, Fire 1s burn, and Earth knockbacks (you literally CANNOT use rams on Earth keep with turrets because you get interrupted every other shot). I tried the same thing with 2 superior rams instead. They melted the siege in ~5 mins. With no way to block other than literally have people stand as a meatshield and try to tank/or reflect the bullet like you would a ballista it was very discouraging.

The Shrines:
These are an interesting mechanic and were somewhat reworked after the first beta. Now in order to receive the benefits you must own all 3. These buffs only work in their respective regions.
Air – No falling damage (even on golems…yes that was fun leaping a golem down 10 stories on a roamer and spinning)
Earth – Stealth while out of combat within the canyons (can you say Thief Shadow Arts zerg)?!?
Fire – Lava chutes, able to run across lava with impunity

I did feel that they need to be tweaked because for instance there were 2 times where I leaped off a cliff and lost a shrine mid-air and promptly died upon impact. This could easy be countered by say add a perma buff while you own all 3 and as soon as you lose 1 shrine give you a 10s warning to get to safety. That way you won’t either die from lava, lose stealth, or squish against the ground.

Siege:
The AC’s used the new LoS system and effectively removes most cheesy placement/camera angles. There were still a few spots that they would not be able to counter without a cata or treb but as long as its not abused I see no issue. Another thing, they reskinned all the regular and superior skins and man are they UGLY! I get that this is a new map and ANET wants to put some new life into it, but the design changes while refreshing to see something else, do not flatter me in the slightest. The only other instance I can think of was Chineese New Year when they reskinned siege to be red+gold, now that was a cool upgrade and a nice visual change. The current new siege skins look like the Zephyrite crash test salvage and I get it your group literally brought some wood and metal and is assembling rams but I think they look lame. (I can deal with it). I will say, the new system when you are placing siege A++. Getting a preview for the direction you are throwing siege with a shadow imprint (Trebs/Cata direction) is spot on, really nice to make sure you don’t accidentally place it backwards and have to spend 30 seconds turning it.

I may add more thoughts later but I think I touched up on most of the information that I observed with my 1 day of playing the beta.

This map needs some work but it is not without praise, they have done a lot of work on it but I think with some more tweaking and listening to us the playerbase (True real 99.99% WvWers that this could require a lot of new tactics and strategy.

Cheers!
-Vrontios
[CREW] Leader
Fort Aspenwood

Tactics:
I felt like this is a very cool and creative use on the whole claiming and defending an objective. Before if a guild had buffs slotted it it felt rather passive and insignificant. By allowing guilds to customize how their towers and keeps are upgraded and therefore defended it allows a greater variation in playstyle.
The default upgrade sequence was the fortified gates (invulnerable to PvD – siege damage only). I would most like always want this go prevent a zerg rushing it. But, there were other upgrades you could pick instead, like having the very strong vet guards gain the “Iron Hide” buff (rams 50% less damage taken). So while I think the most used ones will prevent all but siege damage there were other options to buff objectives. Overall really strong system A+.
My only feedback which I listed above would be to include some sort of obvious tactic timers so that defenders are more aware of what can be popped. I didn’t like that you needed to run to a quartermaster to find out the CD timers. Also I felt like there needed to be an additional NPC in each of the keeps on the inner by the lord and the main supply depot. Right now I could only find them at the edge of the outer gates, so I feel like a 4th? quartermaster should be added near the lords room. I think this makes sense because after claiming you would be near the lords room and could easily pick your upgrade cycle rather than leave a member behind to do this.
-Banners:
- I know that a lot of people complained about the banners but I found them very situationally useful. Yes they could use a little bit of balanced (ICD on skills) but otherwise the break bar and other buffs I think will be very useful for havok or groups <20.

The Oasis Mid Event
Unfortunately I only got to do this event twice but I found it boring. I feel like once it pops all of the roamers, thieves, mesmers, and revenants will swarm it. Armed with stealth, teleports, portals, and shadow steps these classes are the best suited to picking up and running the crystals to charge the cannon. I will say that if you are able to control the cannon the damage is not insignificant. It did from what I saw 50% damage to T3 gates (inner and outer) on our keep so therefore shaved off a significant time of siege. I think time may tell but by bringing your zerg or main force to the middle of the map you may reduce the amount of the so called “long siege” that we will see with these new maps. I know Chaba made a separate post about this so I won’t bother including my thoughts here, she adequately listed my concerns.

Movement Speed/Travelers Gear
Here we go, the big one. Over and over I heard people complaining about how big the map was. Yes it is large but after spending several hours in it I felt competent in my movement and even though I still got lost sometimes that made it feel smaller. I do know that most people took awhile to figure out that if you stop by one of your controlled shrines you got a 40% movement speed buff (I think with 5m duration). With this speed its not like you were flying all over the map but I think if you are doing any long distance running will be required by groups to stop by one of these or flip an enemy shrine in order to shave off precious response speed. In my test I ran gear with and without traveler’s runes. Even though it isn’t hard to get this shrine buff I felt more comfortable with the 25% rune buff. Maybe this was because I was still new to the map and it took some time to figure out but I guess that these will be immensely popular in the beginning of launch when everyone feels slow and doesn’t remember to get the shrine buff.

Mesmers/Thieves hiding
Here we go, with my 2nd main being my Mesmer I am super stoked for the ability to hide in objectives. PU stealth mesmers working with a team of thieves could hide in objectives endlessly! The keeps are so massive that you would never be able to find or hunt one down solo. I will say that ANET thought this threw (somewhat). When an objective is captured a revealed debuff is placed on all enemies within the walls for ~5 minutes (I think). Using this time to locate mesmers and thieves will be vital to ensuring that you don’t have a hidden team ready to flip back your stuff when you leave. I still think that some really talented thieves/mesmers with their teleports and shadowsteps in a good hiding place may be able to avoid death during the reveal debuff. With few people sweeping you could avoid them for this 5 minutes or in that time have your reinforcements get portaled in. I will say it again, I think that some very exciting new tactics will be created for these new maps and the learning curve will be steep. It will take people time to recognize that those small little red dots on your mini map are actually enemy players. By having this reveal buff or the tower scout upgrade to spot your foes on your maps will be very useful to have passive scouts helping keep an eye on enemies.

Keep/Tower Lords
Here we go, the part about Keep/Tower Lords…Man they were fun! I only ran a group of ~15 so I could hardly imagine them scaling up even more. As it stands now any group from a size of 5-50 can melt lords with impunity. Anet really stepped up the bar for this. Now if it is overkill I am not sure but I will say that you will most likely have a very hard time capturing something with 10 defenders fighting alongside their lord. The tower lords weren’t too bad, with 1-2 defenders and our 10-15 man group we took him down and cleared the circle in ~5 minutes. I’m sure with better focusing and teamspeak to call incoming targets you could plan your cc better but this new map really favors defenders. In this time that your enemies are fighting the lord you can bring a solid chunk of your forces back to defend the objective.

Right now, if you are in a map and you hear “Inners 10%….5%….down they on lords, gg” that whole process occurs within 10-30 seconds if they have a normal amount of siege up. Now with these new lords, I was on the other side of the map at Earth Keep on inner ramming the gate down and I heard “They on inner gate, 10%!!!” I actually had the time to say ok guys get ready, keep ramming for another minute. (starting a timer here – 0m)2 minutes went by, ok guys lets all port spawn (3mins) lets run back to the keep (air) (5mins) we arrive to the lord nearly 75% and 2 of their attackers downed (~15 total). The lord as well as the massive HP buff to gates/walls made it so that we have ~5 minutes to respond to our attackers. Now that is a rough example, but I was so surprised that he was so tanky and could hold his own to actually give us the time to pull off our objective, port, and run back all in the time before the keep was lost! That is a HUGE change from the current map design. I know Tyler said that they were looking at the balancing the lords offensive/defensive abilities.

I personally think 5 minutes is far too long to be able to respond to defend something. I believe that if your inner gate is almost down you DROP EVERYTHING to get every single body back to defend your lord (especially if its a T3 keep). I think that a lord should be able to sustain the defense for ~2 minutes, I am not sure how to measure that (have a group of 15 attack him?). That still is not a small amount o time to allow defenders to rally up and push in together to help defend. Keep in mind that our 5 minute response time was without the temporary waypoint. This is a circumstance where I would tell defenders pop that buff! In that 5 minutes, we could have almost captured the earth keep and then with the temp WP arrived instantly to rush our lord and push out the attackers without wasting precious run speed times.

Part 2 complete/

Placeholder for more content (part 3)

It is about time that a superior trebuchet actually looked like a trebuchet instead of a glorified catapult.

Chaba.5410:

It is about time that a superior trebuchet actually looked like a trebuchet instead of a glorified catapult.

Do Guild Trebuchet’s count? Those things look freaking kitten!

Review updated.