Guild Wars 2

From best to worst designed, rank the spvp maps based on your opinon.

Just curious on what the forum goers consider the good maps. Hope it’s not against the no poll rule.

Here’s mine:

Temple of the Silent Storm
Legacy of the Foefire
Battle of Khylo
Forest of Niflhel
Spirit Watch
Skyhammer
Courtyard

Personally I like more spacious maps with room to manouvre. Not a big fan of obstructions everywhere.

What if you like the core mechanic of one the most but hate the layout? Spirit watch mechanic in the forest with the orb at the beach would be my kitten.

Temple of the Silent Storm – It’s not too big, but not too small. Timing the buffs and rewards are challenging and can completely turn the tides

Courtyard – I honestly kinda like TDM. I wish it were in a separate queue though

Forest of Niflhel – Fun map, unless your team never kills/helps kill the creatures. Those things can define victory sometimes

Spirit Watch – Same as Nilfel, but with an orb. It requires skill to balance when the orb needs to be focused and when points do. Usually frustrating when there is no team play around the orb.

Battle of Khylo – Catapults. It can be fun, but it’s not my favorite.

Legacy of the Foefire – Not sure why this one gets picked so much. It’s really open and the extra tasks (killing the lords) is rarely ever done because it’s more worth it to just sit on points the entire game. It would be different if the lords came out and fought too, or something.

Skyhammer – Between this place’s namesake environmental weapon and the cliffs, it’s easily one of the most annoying maps. But gash darnit doesn’t it feel good when you can trick your opponent into falling down one of the disappearing platforms.

My favorite maps in order from favorite to least favorite are as follows:

1. Temple of the Silent Storm
2. Battle of Khylo
3. Legacy of the Foefire
4. Forest of Niflhel
5. Spirit Watch
6. Skyhammer
7. Courtyard

Courtyard would be higher if I could get it out of my conquest queuing. I actually think it’s a pretty fun format (would be better with fewer players per team), it just can’t be merged like it currently is.

Batrle of Kyhlo, I love how it is a little maze-like. I just mean all the buildings and and path ways make it have a lot of density for such a small map. (It could be because I am playing thief now though, and I love abusing all the LoS on this map without much open field.)

I feel we need more dense maps as opposed to big ones. Temple of the Silent Storm is another good example of this.

1. Temple of the Silent Storm
2. Battle of Kyhlo
3. Forest of Niflhel
4. Legacy of the Foefire

The rest just sucks too hard to be mentioned.

Temple
Forest
Khylo
Foefire (just because it’s always the vote winner)
Courtyard
Skyhammer
Spirit Watch

1. Battle of Kyhlo
2. Legacy of Foefire
3. Temple of Silent Storm
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4. Skyhammer
5. Spirit Watch
6. Courtyard
7. Forest of Niflhel (Just because I have very deep hate for this map, can’t stand it and would rather play Skyhammer than this.)

I think Conquest and Team Deathmatch need separate queues so I make separate lists.

Conquest

1. Legacy of the Foefire
2. Forest of Niflhel
3. Temple of the Silent Storm
4. Battle of Khylo
5. Spirit Watch
6. Skyhammer

Team Deathmatch

1. Courtyard

Everyone in the entire world already knows the list:

1. Kylo <- great
2. Niflhel/Foefire <- fun/good
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3. Silent Storm <-meh, OK map
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5. Spirit Watch <- terrible map design, annoying, makes me want to stop playing
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6. Skyhammer <- easily one of the worst. basically all other map flaws put together
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7. Courtyard <- torture in everyway. immediate disconnect, AFK, or exit game

temple is the best map for me by far, those fights underground can be epic, reminds me of how good arenas would be in this game:(

Not been into PvP for long, but why is there so few maps after the game has been out for like 3 years?

I’ll take your lists and flip them upside down. Except for Kyhlo, Kyhlo is awesome. I prefer variety over all else, good maps can go to hell if that’s all I end up playing every time.

1- Battle of Khylo. Love the rain, the nightsky, the buildings… the map design is really great. I wish we could hide inside the houses though
2- Temple of the Silent storm. Because snow <3 and the mechanics.
3- Forest of Niflhel
4- Legacy of the Foefire. Although it the the most picked one.

If I had to say something about a future map, I’d like a dense forest with tropical rain, and maybe environmental mobility mechanics like Assassin’s Creed. Or something like the home instance in Divinity’s reach would be gorgeous.

Oh and i happened to see raining on Foefire at the end of the match once, it was so beautiful.

1. forest – love how it multiple paths leading to some sneaking and skirmishes. Guerilla warfare ftw! Beasts add yet another layer of tactics.
2. Temple – the buffs are great addition, though map favours snipers a lot.
3. Khylo – treb is too easy to approach. For such insanely slow weapon it should have more defenses to prevent enemies from easily blindsiding it and then just come up and take it out.
4. Spirit Watch – i like it alot, if only it wasn’t in unraked quque with Courtyard…
5. Foefire – Sniper map.
6. Skyhammer.
7. Courtyard.

1. Legacy of Foefire
2. Courtyard
3. Forest of Niflhel
4. Temple of Silent Storm
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5. Battle of Kyhlo
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6. spirit kitten
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7. cancerhammer

1. Champions Dusk (Stronghold map)
2. Forest
3. Foefire
4. Capricorn (RIP)
5. Skyhammer
6. Courtyard
7. Kyhlo
8. Spiritwatch
9. Temple

EDIT: forgot two! RIP Capricorn, and Champions Dusk!

Foefire
Kyhlo
Forest
Temple
Courtyard
Spirit Watch
Skyhammer

I am no pro, but I like:

Spirit Watch
Silent Storm
Forest
Khylo
Skyhammer
Foefire

Raid on the Capricorn
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Everything else.

khylo
skyhammer
foefire
temple
forest
courtyard

1. Temple of the Silent Storm
Best mechanic and layout imo

2. Skyhammer
Feels and plays different than all the other maps. I don’t like the fact that you can load traps by the inside of the skyhammer door but I like the fact that its closer than the trebuchet from battle and its feels more avoidable. It doesn’t bother me at all when I get knocked off, I just laugh it off, I play for fun!

3. Battle of Khylo
I like fighting in the streets in this one. Should of been the team deathmatch map, lol
I’m not crazy about the trebuchet being so far away though, feels like if you go for it the other team will get a huge lead in points.

4. Forest of Niflhel
Pretty basic map.

5. Spiritwatch
I like this map but it favors premades significantly.

6. foefire
too open, favors certain classes/builds and the lord mechanic is just a way to end the match early when dominating. When you go for the lord the other team caps all the points and it doesn’t really benefit you that much.

7. Courtyard
I vote for Courtyard all the time but I still hate the map. Its feels like a bad game of red rover. At times it can be fun when groups scatter a bit but most of the time the group with the first kill usually wins and the other team ends up spawn camped.

1. Foefire because it reminds me of gvg
2. Forest of nifhel because of the simplicity
3. Khylo by default
4. Temple of the silent storm. This would be higher if it weren’t a snow covered map. I despise snow very much beyond all logic and reason. Remove the snow and it passes khylo
5. Spirit watch. I just played this for the first time today trying out unranked. Map is far too large for my taste.

I don’t have any experience with the others. I prefer ranked play.

1- Skyhammer : a map where you can still win even if you can’t kill opponents fighting
2- khylo : same than above
3- spiritwatch : same than above, although more tricky and rewarding some build. But the map offers different strategies ( i.e 1 point hold + relic, 2 points + ignore relic, …)
4- temple : tactic play again, buffs can change the outcome of the match.
5- forest : nothing to say, normal map
6- foefire : rewards too much defensive builds. Too few tactics involved
7- courtyard : same than above

The good
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1. Temple of the Silent Storm – great use of vertical space, good connectivity, fun strategic secondary mechanic, good ways to LoS opponents
2. Forest of Niflhel – a good “baseline” for what makes a good layout for the 3 cap game mode, and the longer-to-travel-to ledges on mid are a nice touch, although I don’t like the secondary mechanic of NPCs
3. Battle of Khylo – good layout, very good secondary mechanic, adding the LoS options to the middle ground is a good mixup (usually the side nodes have the LoS options in other maps).
4. Spiritwatch – this map could compete with my #1 if the orb simply disabled abilities/traits, the layout and strategy options are excellent

The bad
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5. Legacy of the Foefire – The worst secondary mechanic of all maps, the openness makes it a turkey shoot for rangers (although this is the very reason why many people love it), the side nodes are imbalanced in that waterfall you can LoS opponent and still contest/cleave/aoe but at quarry if you LoS your opponent you are behind the big rock and not able to contest or pressure in any way
6. Skyhammer – It’s better now that the cannon can be dodged, but the instant death mechanic of the platforms keeps me from considering this map in any serious way. If the platforms did something else, like a 4 sec immobilize or knockdown, this would be an extremely good map

Not listing courtyard since it’s not a serious map even for a deathmatch game mode

1. Temple
2. Khylo
3. Spirit
4. Foefire
5. Forest
6. Skyhammer
7. Courtyard

Honestly i think Spirit has a great team Team Play potential and it’s very understimated.

From my experience in ranked (during the Season) Foefire wins a lot of times, followed by forest. Khylo & Temple are secondary options (sadly)

1. Temple
2. Forest
3. Khylo
4. Foefire
5. Spirit
6. Courtyard
7. Skyhammer

Both spirit and skyhammer are flawed in that their secondary mechanics are not shared by both sides in game modes where team play is frequently absent. They are both mandatory objectives which really can’t be ignored, but require good communication and planning to make the best use of or defense against.

However, the Orb is significantly better than the Skyhammer because it has a risk. The Orb slows the holder and puts a big target on its head. Its location also makes it easy for any player to engage without much sacrifice.

The Skyhammer has no risk to using. It’s location is safely tucked away and easily defended by certain classes. The winner of skyhammer is the best bunker, so it requires a coordinated team effort to displace them. One guy can hold up 2+ of the other team while not even standing on a point. A potential fix would be to place the controls smack in the middle of the map, like the orb. Someone can use it to wreak havoc, but they are much more vulnerable while doing so.

I agree with most that temple is the best.

Then forest and legacy, and then the others are all pretty even.

Temple
Forest
Foefire
Khylo
Courtyard
Skyhammer
Spirit

In the order of most to least tolerance to bad pugs.

I actually like them all except Courtyard and Skyhammer, but I really enjoy the long, drawn out teamfights on Foefire mid-node. Also, the seondary Objective can have a high impact and the Map is overall pretty balanced among the classes.

Not the biggest Niflhel-Fan: I like that the Map is big, but the Node mid is horribly narrow and the secondary Objectives’ impact is too low.

Kyhlo is pretty cool with open sidenodes and a nice secondary Objective, but the mid-node is a bit weird (still better than Niflhel though) and it favours teleports a bit too much.

Temple is also pretty open and big and I like how the buffs can focus the attention, but the smallest buffs are usless and it also favours teleports.

Spirit Watch is IMHO very underrated, I like that the secondary Objective is sth. you just constantly have to think about and the Nodes are fairly open. But again, favouring teleports a bit much for my taste.