Guild Wars 2

So right now, this pretty much sums up Stronghold play. I’m pretty sure most of the player base would agree that Stronghold is about three important power play priorities that are essential to focus on for victory. Whichever team does these jobs better, will win the match:

• Fighting for supplies = essential must
• Making Bombers to open gates = essential must
• Killing enemy Lord and defending your Lord = essential must

Stronghold also offers aspects within the match that are unimportant in their current states as compared to the above three priorities. These aspects are so unimportant that they are generally viewed as a complete waste of time and/or supplies or otherwise seen as a distraction from the above three priorities:

• Archer NPCs = a complete waste of supplies and in no way an asset to any circumstance in any match, no matter what is happening. Players summon Archers when the enemy gates are already down and they notice they have a supply or two left, simply because there is nothing else to use the supply on and even then, the Archers aid little to none.
• Heroes = Almost always a waste of time to summon. In the time that it takes for one player to summon, your team is 4v5 and losing the important priority objectives listed above. Once the hero is summoned he is still not strong enough to justify the time spent to summon him and certainly not the time spent fighting over the mist essence which is again, a complete distraction from the three priorities.
• Trebuchet = Time spent on the treb is not time spent on the three priorities. The Trebuchet can sometimes be helpful in terms of defense but by doing this, you simultaneously keep your team in a defensive stature and this is not how to win Stronghold in it’s current state by any means.

Summary:
Considering that the two teams are balanced in MMR and team compositions, the team that focuses on the three priorities and doesn’t get distracted by the lesser important Stronghold match aspects, will win the Stronghold match. The problem with Stronghold is that the match type is littered with unimportant game mechanics. Stronghold would actually have a better feel if the unimportant aspects were eliminated entirely. Leaving just the important aspects: Fight for supplies, Summon NPCs that down gates, Kill Lords and defend Lords. Players would then feel the match as straightforward and not so messy. If the less important objectives are to remain in Stronghold, there needs to be real changes for the match to have a strong dynamic. Mainly the unimportant objectives need to become important and something that cannot simply be ignored when they are used.

My suggestions:

• Archers follow the player that summoned them with normal movement speed and change targets when the player changes targets. Maximum two Archers per player.
• The hero becomes a monstrous juggernaut. Up that damage so he matters!
• Remove the Trebuchet. Add Char Tanks. = Everyone loves Stronghold.

~ Please support Stronghold commentary before HoT releases.

Hey! Good feedback, let me discuss a bit here.

There is one Stronghold feature we all agree on: Archers are not good.

I can’t discuss much on this, as I think the idea of Archers should be changed entirely. Maybe add effects on its autoattack, like a little daze or impairment conditions such as Cripple or Immobilize. That’s another big discussion I would say (hopefully, when the game mode is released we can get more knowledge on it, therefore changes to Archers that impacts Stronghold in the most positive way possible).

Now, there is one thing I partially disagree with and that’s with Trebuchet. (Lol that Charr Tank idea is hilarious. I’d love to see what it does, haha.)

I would argue that Trebuchet isn’t as useless as Archers because it fits a “niche” role. At the start of the match, Trebuchet is brilliant for defending. You either need to be stealthed so they don’t notice or wait on your base, next to the Trebuchet. If they destroy it, too, then you are kind of screwed in a one-man defense.

As well, if you are with a team composition that lacks burst, CC or boon-ripping (which can happen often on a non-organized group environment) getting Mist Essence channels is extremely hard (Trebuchet shots go through Stability and damages/CCs all the guys).

This is important because I disagree on one of your points, Heroes.

I can say that Heroes need some buffing, but they did a good job on diversifying them (Grymm being OP in my opinion Q_Q). A Mist Essence channel gives you 20 points which are really important if time runs out. You can go full tryhard offense and try to kill the Lord, but un-organized groups usually fail to do so and, at some point (at least on my MMR when playing Stronghold) these kind of matches stall until time’s over.

Maybe Heroes should do slightly more damage to Gates, making Heroes compete with Doorbreakers on that aspect and it becomes more relevant to channel Heroes. I mean, when the Essence spawns, fights should occur there!

Now, if I have to suggest anything, it would be to lower supply drops on the enemy base from 2 to 1 and see how this works and impacts the games. It helped inmensely on comebacks (in my experience), but sometimes it’s just too much and it leads the enemy team to stall (not win) the game.

As a final note, I’d wish ANet changes features of Stronghold maps after it’s released. One of the highest potentials I see on Stronghold is that Devs now have more levers to balance the game on: it’s not only classes skills’ balance, but how map mechanics work so, necessarily, you don’t need to nerf a build, but to change what makes the build strong.

I haven’t suggested much, but post turned up being too long cries .

archers should go back to base not assault imo. they might actually be useful there.

had quite a few good stronghold games, didn’t manage to get a full premade for it tho (sure i will be able to next time). i found if me & the one or two people i was partied with played a really strong defense our pugs could win the offense most of the time. seems like a 3/2 Off/Deff split where you try & engage enemy door breakers as far up the lane as you can is best. mini map is so useful in this game.

choovanski.5462:

archers should go back to base not assault imo. they might actually be useful there.

had quite a few good stronghold games, didn’t manage to get a full premade for it tho (sure i will be able to next time). i found if me & the one or two people i was partied with played a really strong defense our pugs could win the offense most of the time. seems like a 3/2 Off/Deff split where you try & engage enemy door breakers as far up the lane as you can is best. mini map is so useful in this game.

You have to limit the number of archers though. No one wants to enter the lords room and see 50 of them there…. except for maybe the hardcore PvE crowd.

I disagree with some of the OP’s statements:

Fighting for supplies is not essential You’re better off grabbing them and avoiding confrontation. A team holding control of the depot isn’t that viable in an even match. Players need to shift out in order to spend supply and the opposing team can just spread out and kill your NPCs. They can also use the trebuchet to break a hold of the depot.

Heroes are weak but are worth points Yes, the heroes are weak. Most die before ever reaching the lord room. Their damage to gates is okay, but can’t be relied upon for a full health gate. However, in a close match the points they award often determine who wins if the game comes down to time. Grymm is about where the other heroes need to be. He has decent survival and his CC in a fight actually helps.

The trebuchet is very good in limited roles For defending your outer gate, the trebuchet is extremely powerful. A couple taps and you’ll kill a pile of doorbreakers. If you have good mobility and can teleport up to the treb, it’s very good for clearing out DBs coming down your lane in a pinch. Since it auto-repairs (this needs removed), it’s hard for opponents to prevent. The problem with the treb is that it can’t easily hit anything between the outer gate and the inner gate. The angle and power is odd and hitting the inner gate takes almost full power. It’s not really worth using for that purpose.

The problem with Stronghold atm is YOLO Blitzkrieg still works. Enlarging team size to 8v8 would fix this but Anet has seemed resistant to that idea from the start. The trebuchet is a great defense tool but is hard to defend alone. At least two more players would be needed on defense to repel an assault of 5 consistently. Currently that’s not possible because running the supply/offense lane with 2 people is inadequate. 8 players just allows more flexibility overall on the team to assign key responsibilities, offense/defense/supply.