Guild Wars 2

So I’ll put this out there first. I am not good at PvP. I am not bad, but I am certainly not good. I’m the average player. I don’t run with a dedicated PvP group, nor am I a part of a PvP oriented guild. I queue up and pug when I do take the time to run PvP in this game.

I thought I’d give this new mode a try while it was available. I must say, I found it quite enjoyable, but it certainly needs work. So I thought I’d come along and throw out the average guy suggestions and feedback.

The Spawns

• Bombers – The first suggestion here is to hide them from the mini-map unless you are close. The second is have them only drop 1 bomb each. If they reach the gate, they drop a bomb, and start heading back to get more or they vanish entirely and you need to spawn more. It needs to be more involved then “spawn and forget” as you wipe out the NPC’s along their way

• Archers – These spawns are useless. They do negligible damage and they die if you sneeze in their general vicinity. Personally I’d rather other supply drop spawn more guards on defense. There actually needs to be a way to fight back if you get pushed into a defense turtle at your Lord. Being able to spawn new Guards would be a viable option.

The NPC’s
These need to be buffed, across the board. The Guards at the first gate go down in seconds, the Veteran Guards at the second gate go down almost as quickly. The “Elite” NPC’s with the Lord do very little damage, attack slowly, and and have nearly the same health as the Veteran Guards. The Lord himself has no ranged capabilities and can easily be kited around until dead.

As I mentioned, I am not good at PvP. Yet I was able to solo the Guards, the Veteran Guards, the Elite NPC’s, have 3 players show up, and dodge roll around while solo’ing the Lord all in a single Bomber spawn from the start. That could be a measure of those players, or an indication that the NPC’s are far too squishy. I like to imagine it’s the latter.

Overall
I played 23 games of Stronghold. I went 22-1, which I must say is just about the best I’ve ever done in PvP. In those 23 games I played matches where we just zerged the Lord right out of the gate. I played matches that lasted nearly the entire time limit as both teams went back and forth. I played ones where people assumed positions and ran supplies, called for defense, alerted the team when in need of offensive help. I even played one where my team did nothing but farm the other team in the middle of the map because as they put it “It’s more fun”.

Regardless of how it was played, the issues I noticed revolved around the NPC’s and the spawns. I like the map, I like the style of Stronghold. I hope to play more of it, and I hope you add additional Stronghold maps.

Thanks for the fun.