I agree this is by far the worse map to date. Now a few things
@MBH This map develops no strategy what so ever, it only promotes zerg orb point or enemy GY and camp. This is how it is in 8v8 and is horrible.
@ Reroll – I realize that not everyone plays hotjoins ( IE: SPvP ) on the same note not everyone does tourny pvp either. For tourny the map works great, it promotes everything the map was intended to promote. Team work, Defend, and point hold. But in 8v8 it is just a cluster Kitten, since tourny play is not the only place this map is in there are valid issues weather you play that style or not.
@Michael – The exploits right now are BS, you can’t us swiftness but you can teleport, you can’t use invul but you can use death shroud. all in all this map is to small for 8v8 to work properly.
@Scrag – The map does not encourage you to just fight for the orb, the map was designed to give us Conquer play style with a capture the flag aspect to it. The same as the Kodan maps brings in key objectives to over turn the battle and Deathmatch style fighting. The problem with the Spirit Watch map is that it is way to small and turns the already existing problem in any SpvP of zerg = win into a must.
My main issue is not with bunkers, as they can be killed regardless, my issue is Arena Net specifically stated in a Vlog interview that they do not want pvp to be, " We are on X map use X weapon load out and build." Although this is what it has turned into with Spirit Watch. You load out all your AoE’s or you load out knock backs and Immobilization for defending orb carrier. In Structured PvP (8v8) out of 30 some odd fights all but 2 of them were as followed.
- Teams rush to orb team A over runs orbs and wins the initial battle.
- Team A rushes to the enemies Graveyard/ Spawn and camps them while two people run orb.
- Team B pushes through zerg camp about 3/4 of the way through battle, to be over powered by higher ground players that spam AoE and attacks. Players attempt to get to higher ground but are thwarted by Higher ground players and ground level players.
- Game ends with a point spread of one of the following
- 0 – 99 to 500
- 100 – 200 to 500
Most of the time I end up in groups that get a 50 – 500 spread and the top points on our side is 35, one time I ended up with 10 points and I actually happen to steal the orb and cap wolf with it. Now that is not the maps fault, more so the players, although the map did promote Spawn camping.
The sad thing in all this is, the map works great in 5v5, as 2 people can not hold off 5 people in a spawn point and it is more strat driven than mash a bunch of skills in a zerg and think your doing something. Although Tourny play is not the only aspect of PvP out there, and the map is present in 8v8, and with the size of the map and how close everything is I feel this map has fallen short to deliver any type of enjoyment for most players. I have even been on the winning team and thought the map was laid out horrible. I personally hated PvP in WoW because of the fact that it was roll my face on a Keyboard while in a large group, while camping a GY so my team could win. Guild Wars 2 offered a better out look and slowly this mentality that you have to Zerg to win has become slowly a turn off. Personally I think all the maps need to be a little bit larger, that way a zerg can take a point but can’t hold all 3. I almost feel that all the PvP maps were designed with 5v5 in mind and not 8v8, which if that is the case can you make SPvP 5v5 then? Cause this recent and every growing mentality of ZERG ZERG ZERG win, which places no personal skill, is becoming the norm for all PvP and is fast becoming the down fall of a great Ideal that Arena Net has had for PvP.
