Guild Wars 2

RI is a pro zerg mechanic that encourages leaving supply camps undefended, freeing up players to participate in zerg battles.

Now I have nothing really against zergs, but I think the number of targets small teams of people can hit needs to go up – but Righteous Indignation stands in the way. Its a mechanic in place – I believe – to stop groups of people from trading a camp back and forth in rapid succession. However it encourages zerg behavior because camps can only flip every 5 minutes (unless you are a zerg), so a camp with the RI buff is unassailable to a small team.

For example I have a team of 5, including me, we decide to control our north camp. We set up some defenses and defend it from small incursions. Sooner or later a large zerg shows up, blitzes the camp and takes it. They all run off leaving no defenders. We cannot take the camp back for 5 minutes. So we have to focus on other objectives in that 5 min span.

For me, if you don’t leave defenders on the camp you shouldn’t automatically be able to keep that camp for 5 minutes.

If I want to take my group down south in my own BL and take a south camp, it should be a valid tactic to retreat from larger forces, and retake the objective when they leave. If they do not leave defenders they do not deserve to hold the supply camp. By removing RI smaller groups can harass the camps much more easily, forcing the enemy to also leave small groups of defenders or lose the objective.

But then how do we protect against the exploit RI is ment to protect against?
Well we can change the way the DE interacts with the capping of the camp.

Assault levels:
The assault DE starts when an NPC in the camp is attacked.
The assault DE’s level is determined by when the camp was last flipped.
Level 1- 0-3 mins, awards 25% of current rewards for a camp flip
Level 2- 3-6 mins, awards 75% of current rewards for camp flip
Level 3- 6-15 mins awards 100% of current rewards for camp flip
Level 4- 15+ mins awards 125% of current rewards for camp flip
Assault DE’s last for 3 minutes, and now have failure rewards, if the camp is under attack when the assault fails it starts again, at one reward level higher as it is now 3 mins later. (which is why the levels are based on multiples of 3). Killing guards or players reward credit for assaulting the camp, gold credit requires 3 NPC or player kills. Credit is also awarded for participating in the capture circle, as it is now. Dolyaks or their guards do not give credit for the assault DE.

Because camps take time to flip, even if enemies are intentionally passing a camp back and forth, the new reward levels will make it so that flipping a camp back and forth is no more rewarding than the current system. As a safeguard for zergs doing it, you can put a short RI buff on the supervisor that lasts 30 seconds.

RI itself can stay for tower, keep, and castle lords.

TL;DR help small teams, nerf RI in camps.

I have no problem taking over camps by myself or with a friend regardless of RI. It allows me to brush up on my dodging skills that’s for sure.

You are actually buffing zergs because they can retake these camps faster than smaller groups. The RI mechanic prevents circle capping and is a good thing.

Guarding small camps isn’t really fun either.

The mechanics of defense need to be improved in general. At level 2, I’m not going to be defending much of anything. And unless I give NPCs buffs like RI by my mere presence, I’m not going to be defending much of anything as an 80 in ascended, either.

the debuff you propose only hurts smaller groups, as the common zerg just flips it for supply/dolyaks. Smaller groups often do it for the DE reward.

while the buff is annoying, it’s also necesary

This does not buff zergs at all.

Currently zergs can get around RI by spamming lifesteal/retaliation being able to take the claimer RI buff or not.

Small parties behind enemy lines cannot afford to kite claimers around for 3-4 mins while waiting for RI to wear off. And when holding supply camps in your own territory, if an enemy zerg just rolls in and rolls through your camp you don’t have any recourse, you have to wait those 5 minutes out before you can reclaim the camp.

Which means the enemy team can stay in a zergball to control your camps because they don’t need to worry about you retaking it.

Small teams are hurt in WvW the more limited targets are, not the other way around. RI hurts small teams more than it helps a zerg.

If camps didn’t have RI, if a team wants to control a camp they will need some level of defense at that camp, or lose it constantly to enemy havoc teams.

If you want to reduce zergs, reset a camp available supplies to 0 when it’s capped and make the caravans that are produced locked behind an upgrade too.

Resetting to 0 when capped might be an idea, but I don’t think locking caravans behind an upgrade would be a good idea.

Caravans are good targets for small roaming groups so I don’t want to take away from that.

RI is currently preventing the tactic of sending dedicated 5 man groups to singular supply camps to keep them contested. Imagine if 15 people constantly attacked your south supply camps in groups of five, running away when you recapped with a zerg only to recap it right after you left.

In order to counter this strategy you need to either kill the 5 man, or leave defenders. If you kill the 5 man they will be back.

RI currently kills the effectiveness of this strategy and lets 1 zerg maintain 3 camps.

Well, the two ideas were meant as a more general way to prevent zergs. Removing RI won’t do it. The zergs at times don’t care for caravans, they just hit a camp to resupply to siege somewhere. Because those camps often had unused supplies.

If the camps lost supplies on cap and the caravans were delayed somehow after capture, the WvW would have a MUCH bigger emphasis on keeping those camps captured. As such, the RI wouldn’t prevent your 5 man group from doing a lot of damage to their team since after 5 minutes and the buff is done, you wouldn’t have gotten much out of the camp anyway.

I strongly agree with the idea that holding camps needs to be more important than just flipping them. WvW is notoriously light on the pvp and could really use something to make people fight each other rather than npcs and doors. Adding a map control mechanic would be great for those of us that don’t really want to be going all zerg rush kekeke everywhere.

Edit: and of course the more places we have to fight over the more spread out the teams have to be. Smaller zergs all round, unless you like losing.

Moar uncapped aoe solves all the problems. One 5-man group with strategic siege should be able to stop any zerg. Currently that’s not the case …

Uncapped aoe isn’t going to happen for a long time. There are huge lag issues with doing that. Siege weapons are antizerg as is if placed and utilized correctly, arrow carts have a cap of 50 and so do ballista (though ballista are unlikely to hit 50 targets).

Smaller groups should be able to avoid larger groups while maintaining control of objectives like camps. RI prevents that because once the zerg rolls in and takes the camp. You have no recourse. Zerg wins.

If my suggestion goes through, a small group will be able to retake the camp after the zerg rolls it, instead of having to do something else in the meantime.

Dolyaks currently don’t instantly respawn at a camp. And the aoe cap is a different topic and not in the scope of this thread.

Coldtart.4785:

Edit: and of course the more places we have to fight over the more spread out the teams have to be. Smaller zergs all round, unless you like losing.

This is exactly the point of the change I am proposing.