Guild Wars 2

Title stated, I feel like arrow carts are going to be phased out for defense.. making the hardest part of WvW even harder against map blobs. For those that don’t know, arrow carts now have massive LOS, meaning they wont even shoot at a gate from being at the top of the wall. I currently can’t find a way that they’re superior to trebs now because that’s about the extent of what they can do.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/Fix-the-AC-Exploit-now/page/5#post5494565

I am glad ACs are useless now, they are one of the worst parts of WvW

Malediktus.9250:

I am glad ACs are useless now, they are one of the worst parts of WvW

Yep, good riddance.

Chaba.5410:

Malediktus.9250:

I am glad ACs are useless now, they are one of the worst parts of WvW

Yep, good riddance.

YAY! Now you can k-train with out being hit with ac fire..

briggah.7910:

Chaba.5410:

Malediktus.9250:

I am glad ACs are useless now, they are one of the worst parts of WvW

Yep, good riddance.

YAY! Now you can k-train with out being hit with ac fire..

Yea, I’m gonna go ktrain with my 20-man against T3 keeps being defended by 30 TC who won’t push out while another 40 are on my homebl flipping my paper keeps!

briggah.7910:

Chaba.5410:

Malediktus.9250:

I am glad ACs are useless now, they are one of the worst parts of WvW

Yep, good riddance.

YAY! Now you can k-train with out being hit with ac fire..

or you could go fight them instead of sitting on an ac pressing 1

EoTM is the map for most of you guys. You have all your undefended towers you all seem to want right there in one big k-train map.. If you actually die to acs might want to go back to PVE land or actually learn to play better.

Acs actually help you defend when outnumbered yet once again a patch does the opposite of what it was suppose to do. If you are complaining about taking towers and being rained on by acs that only goes to show me you’d rather PvD empty towers.

No wonder this game mode is dying. Not many good players are left in it. Everyone wants to zerg and take empty objectives..

Yup, it’s usually the smaller pop servers, getting mowed down by big blob servers, that relied on ACs to hold off the enemy temporarily until help arrived.

I know a lot hate ACs but they did at least slow the ktrain. And endless map ktrain is mindless.

I like to fight open field, I love duelling, but I enjoyed sieging up simply because it felt like playing chess —- it required learning the physics and anticipating need.

Malediktus.9250:

I am glad ACs are useless now, they are one of the worst parts of WvW

^

briggah.7910:

No wonder this game mode is dying. Not many good players are left in it. Everyone wants to zerg and take empty objectives..

AC spammers are not good players. If I had the choice between defending something with 15 ACs or 15 gvgers I’d take the gvgers every time.

briggah.7910:

No wonder this game mode is dying. Not many good players are left in it. Everyone wants to zerg and take empty objectives..

I don’t want to take empty objectives. I want to have a chance as a smaller force to siege a keep being defended by a larger force who just builds a ton of ACs and sits on them instead of coming out to fight. That’s another reason this game mode is dying: players who don’t want to fight.

Chaba.5410:

briggah.7910:

No wonder this game mode is dying. Not many good players are left in it. Everyone wants to zerg and take empty objectives..

I don’t want to take empty objectives. I want to have a chance as a smaller force to siege a keep being defended by a larger force who just builds a ton of ACs and sits on them instead of coming out to fight. That’s another reason this game mode is dying: players who don’t want to fight.

There are ways to bring them players out but you must learn it yourself.. Not giving away any of my tactics to people who think this change is good.

You are right though that not many want to fight but look at why.. All the so called fixes make it easier to just zerg and k-train stuff.

I miss the days where you didn’t have to zerg everything. Where people knew how to actually counter siege instead of todays way of building acs outside of gates and walls.. Thing is people are stuck in zerg mode and it makes it not much fun to even wvw anymore..

LOL @ the guy saying gvg’ers defend stuff. I might just +1 that post so when I"m feeling down I can look at that and crack up again..

Sorry I’m frustrated if you can’t tell but this is not a good fix at all

briggah.7910:

You are right though that not many want to fight but look at why.. All the so called fixes make it easier to just zerg and k-train stuff.

That’s right. People don’t want to get off their ACs to fight ever since the damage was buffed and AC mastery introduced because they don’t have to. So the opponent resorts to zerging as a counter.

Chaba.5410:

briggah.7910:

You are right though that not many want to fight but look at why.. All the so called fixes make it easier to just zerg and k-train stuff.

That’s right. People don’t want to get off their ACs to fight ever since the damage was buffed and AC mastery introduced because they don’t have to. So the opponent resorts to zerging as a counter.

Wut? lol. No offense, but you think removing ACs will magically make the ktrain/blob disperse into smaller combat groups?

Oh c’mon!

We are getting a bit more of it in EU, but it’s something that has to be agreed upon by both sides .. and that was WITH ACs.

I am just dread that this will green light a mindless rotation around the map, collecting “phat lewt” and not much else to WvW. Not that ACs are the answer to that, but they did kind of become the stall to some defensive play.

All this talk about zergs hiding inside keeps behind AC’s, what about the 5 people who spend a few hours upgrading a keep and are the only ones there to defend it when a zerg comes knocking? Should they not have at least a fighting chance of even delaying the zerg? Or should they just kitten defending off and leave you to PvD in peace? What this change has done is make defending harder for outnumbered servers.

While I hate the excessive AC spam in defense, I would definitely have to sympathize with Joshhh.2076 over here as it may be a lot more difficult for a few defenders to buy time.

when you make defending easy for outnumbered players, you make it miserable for players to take a keep against equal/greater numbers.

30 people against 30 people on a wall with ac support = stupid

Really seems that Eotm could fit better for players who want a simple game.
If enemy did not have ACs, I would be forced to play karma train.
WvW need some spice, but that would not be the right way.

Game balance can’t be made on the assumption that one side is outnumbered. If you server is outnumbered when defending, it’s outnumbered when attacking as well. Any change that helps you do one of those things hurts your ability to do the other.

Coldtart.4785:

Game balance can’t be made on the assumption that one side is outnumbered. If you server is outnumbered when defending, it’s outnumbered when attacking as well. Any change that helps you do one of those things hurts your ability to do the other.

this guy gets it

Coldtart.4785:

briggah.7910:

No wonder this game mode is dying. Not many good players are left in it. Everyone wants to zerg and take empty objectives..

AC spammers are not good players. If I had the choice between defending something with 15 ACs or 15 gvgers I’d take the gvgers every time.

Yes a lot of people would take the 15 players, myself included. But consider this, you don’t have 15 players. You have 2-3 people against 15-20 outside and the only thing standing between their sword and your ribs is a quickly falling flimsy gate. Now if these few guys try to fight, their gonna lose the tower and get the living heck beat out of them. But, if these guys had some siege say, arrow carts for instance, knew how to use them, and a little supply and disablers to boot, they now have a chance to save their tower. Siege isn’t always for people to afraid to fight, a lot of times it for people who are smart enough to know how to win in a bad situation.

If 2-3 could meaningfully delay 15-20 then towers would be 100% unassailable with even numbers.

Blix.8021:

when you make defending easy for outnumbered players, you make it miserable for players to take a keep against equal/greater numbers.

30 people against 30 people on a wall with ac support = stupid

Exactly. I saw this just last night.

Blix.8021:

when you make defending easy for outnumbered players, you make it miserable for players to take a keep against equal/greater numbers.

30 people against 30 people on a wall with ac support = stupid

Back in the day this is what we did (and what another server did with us today – so the knowledge of it shouldn’t be that ancient) :

Build a treb or catas, get the walls down – works best if the enemies don’t have that much supply.
Build either an additional balli to get as many acs as you can down, if that doesn’t work, ask a mesmer to either port and/or stealth you (you can double dodge through the AC fire though if no mesmer is around), get into the keep/tower, get as many ACs as you can out, retreat, do all of it again, cap keep/tower.

Wvw is better than just karma train, people just need to remember that they need to think in this game mode.

I agree that imbalanced situations shouldn’t be a dominant factor, but consider a group of 5 defending a tower against 15. But there’s 10 people on the other side of the map split, up taking objectives and eventually they come to help. That is what I mean by buying time. Otherwise, it’d be pretty annoying if people had to continuously babysit their towers that could be gone if they get overwhelmed so easily. Well, I don’t know, I like the idea of a skeleton crew being able to carry defense, because well, defending isn’t very fun honestly.

Likewise, let’s say you have 40 people on both sides, and you bring a force of 20. The defenders just sit with 40 people in the keep. That leaves 20 other people to attack other things. Oh, and of course if they really insist on blob vs blob waving at each other outside keeps, thankfully there’s usually a 3rd server involved in this nonsense?

And we already have a thread on the top page complaining about the lack of defender’s advantage with walls, so I’m wondering if defending will really be worth it since it already kinda isn’t.

Again, I don’t mind nerfs to arrow carts at all, but what’s questionable is the degree of action.

briggah.7910:

Chaba.5410:

Malediktus.9250:

I am glad ACs are useless now, they are one of the worst parts of WvW

Yep, good riddance.

YAY! Now you can k-train with out being hit with ac fire..

No you can fight enemies while having less chance of being hit by ACs.

Jana.6831:

Blix.8021:

when you make defending easy for outnumbered players, you make it miserable for players to take a keep against equal/greater numbers.

30 people against 30 people on a wall with ac support = stupid

Back in the day this is what we did (and what another server did with us today – so the knowledge of it shouldn’t be that ancient) :

Build a treb or catas, get the walls down – works best if the enemies don’t have that much supply.
Build either an additional balli to get as many acs as you can down, if that doesn’t work, ask a mesmer to either port and/or stealth you (you can double dodge through the AC fire though if no mesmer is around), get into the keep/tower, get as many ACs as you can out, retreat, do all of it again, cap keep/tower.

Wvw is better than just karma train, people just need to remember that they need to think in this game mode.

Properly sieged towers will have ballistas and trebs to defend against those.

morrolan.9608:

Properly sieged towers will have ballistas and trebs to defend against those.

Which you can take out if no one is babysitting them – have been to 4 servers, it’s really rare that someone spends his entire time in a tower – so getthere, build a ballli, get out what you can – attack.

morrolan.9608:

briggah.7910:

Chaba.5410:

Malediktus.9250:

I am glad ACs are useless now, they are one of the worst parts of WvW

Yep, good riddance.

YAY! Now you can k-train with out being hit with ac fire..

No you can fight enemies while having less chance of being hit by ACs.

You mean you can now take down the gate to get inside easier since acs on walls are pointless pretty much atm. You even try an ac to see what they do now or you also die to them so think this change is ok?

I rarely use them and mostly toss them when I’m first one to scout the tower to buy some time but I checked and its broken more than it was before.

Its fine if you think the ac change is good as it just shows me you’d rather PvD easy objectives and move on to where ever the k-trains next stop is..

People with good arguments don’t have to put words in their opponents’ mouths.

Considering all the buffs to defense with HoT, this was a sorely needed change. I’d be quite happy with ANet removing ACs altogether. Just a kittenty piece of siege

Or at the very least, give it a 5 man cap on the AoE like every other AoE skill.

Coldtart.4785:

People with good arguments don’t have to put words in their opponents’ mouths.

Nobody has a good argument that is defending the change besides they want to take easier objectives and any sort of challenge slows down the k-train.

briggah.7910:

Coldtart.4785:

People with good arguments don’t have to put words in their opponents’ mouths.

Nobody has a good argument that is defending the change besides they want to take easier objectives and any sort of challenge slows down the k-train.

Wanting people to fight is not a good argument?

briggah.7910:

Coldtart.4785:

People with good arguments don’t have to put words in their opponents’ mouths.

Nobody has a good argument that is defending the change besides they want to take easier objectives and any sort of challenge slows down the k-train.

The way ACs worked encouraged massive blobs and omega golem rushes to take down structures or smaller groups sniping undefended structures. If a structure was defended, sieged up and upgraded by just a few people, any group smaller than 20 would find it more or less impossible to take. How is that a good thing? Small groups were more or less relegated to defense because they couldn’t take anything defended thanks to the old LoS on ACs. Encouraging smaller groups to get out there to siege structures is a good thing for better fights.

Chaba.5410:

briggah.7910:

Coldtart.4785:

People with good arguments don’t have to put words in their opponents’ mouths.

Nobody has a good argument that is defending the change besides they want to take easier objectives and any sort of challenge slows down the k-train.

Wanting people to fight is not a good argument?

If you want to find people to fight, find people to fight. If you can’t draw an enemy zerg out of a tower while they sit on acs, learn how to do so to get your fights.

You probably won’t even get any more fights either. People will realize that the acs are useless in certain spots now so once gate drops they’ll wp out.. Happens already. If people do not want to fight they will not fight..

The change was suppose to be for acs shooting over walls. Now acs can barely shoot down when they are on top of the wall. The opposite happened.

That’s not what this fix was suppose to do.

Reverence.6915:

If a structure was defended, sieged up and upgraded by just a few people, any group smaller than 20 would find it more or less impossible to take. How is that a good thing?

I’m going to just LOL at this.. I’d say those less than 20 players only know how to ram gates, can’t double dodge ac fire if they got in and probably are lost without a commander tossing their siege.

Thanks for pointing out that higher tiers can’t take anything with less than 20 since its impossible with less.

I’m done for the night. I can’t wait another 9 billion seconds to post because I was a bad boy Only good thing is now I can toss my acs on players I kill since I really have no use for them.

briggah.7910:

Chaba.5410:

briggah.7910:

Coldtart.4785:

People with good arguments don’t have to put words in their opponents’ mouths.

Nobody has a good argument that is defending the change besides they want to take easier objectives and any sort of challenge slows down the k-train.

Wanting people to fight is not a good argument?

If you want to find people to fight, find people to fight. If you can’t draw an enemy zerg out of a tower while they sit on acs, learn how to do so to get your fights.

You probably won’t even get any more fights either. People will realize that the acs are useless in certain spots now so once gate drops they’ll wp out.. Happens already. If people do not want to fight they will not fight..

The change was suppose to be for acs shooting over walls. Now acs can barely shoot down when they are on top of the wall. The opposite happened.

That’s not what this fix was suppose to do.

Are you saying that people jump out of keeps and wp out when defenders outnumber the attackers? I didn’t see that, but I did see defenders build more ACs and ballistae when the gates were down and we pushed in. Clearly we found people to fight and brought the fight to them.

But you still didn’t answer my question. How is wanting people to fight not a good argument? These are PvP maps. They are supposed to encourage PvP.

Has any dev really been far as decided to use even go want to do Arrow Carts look more like?

briggah.7910:

Reverence.6915:

If a structure was defended, sieged up and upgraded by just a few people, any group smaller than 20 would find it more or less impossible to take. How is that a good thing?

I’m going to just LOL at this.. I’d say those less than 20 players only know how to ram gates, can’t double dodge ac fire if they got in and probably are lost without a commander tossing their siege.

Thanks for pointing out that higher tiers can’t take anything with less than 20 since its impossible with less.

I’m done for the night. I can’t wait another 9 billion seconds to post because I was a bad boy Only good thing is now I can toss my acs on players I kill since I really have no use for them.

Do you normally think you can sway opinion by offering strawmen arguments? How do you know they only know how to ram and can’t dodge AC fire? How is a hypothetical situation in any way proof that higher tiers can’t take anything with less than 20 people?

And this is what your idea of a “good argument” is?

I certainly agree that the fix doesn’t appear to be doing what it is supposed to do. You aren’t convincing anyone though that ACs are just fine with your arguments.

Chaba.5410:

But you still didn’t answer my question. How is wanting people to fight not a good argument? These are PvP maps. They are supposed to encourage PvP.

Answer is simple. If you want to find fights you WILL find fights.. If you can’t because acs bother you, you are doing it wrong…

happy now?

Devs already said they intend AC’s to fire from walls and is a work in progress. But is funny to see all these K-trainers rallying together for that PVD dreamz.

Considering a new borderland is coming in about 6 weeks… it’s pointless to cry about ac placements in bay anyway at this point. Just enjoy the final weeks of the maps we’ve had for three years and figure out new siege strategies and placement when expansion hits.

briggah.7910:

Reverence.6915:

If a structure was defended, sieged up and upgraded by just a few people, any group smaller than 20 would find it more or less impossible to take. How is that a good thing?

I’m going to just LOL at this.. I’d say those less than 20 players only know how to ram gates, can’t double dodge ac fire if they got in and probably are lost without a commander tossing their siege.

Thanks for pointing out that higher tiers can’t take anything with less than 20 since its impossible with less.

I’m done for the night. I can’t wait another 9 billion seconds to post because I was a bad boy Only good thing is now I can toss my acs on players I kill since I really have no use for them.

I guess you have no idea how fricken easy it is to take out siege. A couple of staff eles can take out catapults and rams easily. Have another necro there for fear marks and wells and you won’t even be able to use your siege. Put siege at a distance, and they can be taken out by ballistas and counter trebs. Unless you invest in a golems, there’s no way a group of less than 20 will think of sieging a defended structure. Even then, Alpha golems face the same problem as rams, and omegas are vulnerable to feedback and wall of reflection.

briggah.7910:

Chaba.5410:

But you still didn’t answer my question. How is wanting people to fight not a good argument? These are PvP maps. They are supposed to encourage PvP.

Answer is simple. If you want to find fights you WILL find fights.. If you can’t because acs bother you, you are doing it wrong…

happy now?

What’s bothering me is your inattention to what others are saying to you regarding how arrow carts affected fights and how attackers ended up zerging/blobbing more to counter. It is something that has been known for over two years now. How long have you been playing this game? Maybe you unfortunately have only known the WvW meta that came after the buffs to AC.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/Update-on-Arrow-Carts-in-WvW/first

“Arrowcarts now have not managed to disperse zergs. They have managed to make the minimal group size of an effective gathering of players bigger. That means it encourages zerging.”

“You just turned it from AC Wars to Golem Wars.”

“I haven’t yet heard any dev specify that this change was introduced as a counter to zergs. There are dozens of counters to zergs, not least playing as a co-ordinated group with communication.

Zergs as you call them are not going way either. By your own admission you already need twice as many people now just to man a couple of rams so you can rotate them.

The changes have done nothing to introduce more strategies – they instead made the strategies incredibly stale and boring. Build lots of arrow carts when defending. Build lots of trebs when attacking. Sit around pressing one of three buttons or watch someone else do it.

If your hope that zergs will reduce is based on people just being bored out of their minds by the current meta game then I think you actually might be on to something. Less players enjoying the game should eventually mean less zergs."

And… let’s keep in mind that ktraining players can do damage to the gates in the first place. That was never a problem that needed solving by buffing arrow carts.

briggah.7910:

morrolan.9608:

briggah.7910:

Chaba.5410:

Malediktus.9250:

I am glad ACs are useless now, they are one of the worst parts of WvW

Yep, good riddance.

YAY! Now you can k-train with out being hit with ac fire..

No you can fight enemies while having less chance of being hit by ACs.

You mean you can now take down the gate to get inside easier since acs on walls are pointless pretty much atm. You even try an ac to see what they do now or you also die to them so think this change is ok?

I rarely use them and mostly toss them when I’m first one to scout the tower to buy some time but I checked and its broken more than it was before.

Its fine if you think the ac change is good as it just shows me you’d rather PvD easy objectives and move on to where ever the k-trains next stop is..

Some of the best fights happen inside and around objectives not just in the open field.

Turning WvW into EotM… The ol’ bait-and-switch! Off hour PvD rejoice! None shall stand in the way of the almighty voltron!!

I hope they nerf abilities again so guardians can blast through gates in 10 seconds for maximum zerging game breaking fun.

briggah.7910:

Chaba.5410:

But you still didn’t answer my question. How is wanting people to fight not a good argument? These are PvP maps. They are supposed to encourage PvP.

Answer is simple. If you want to find fights you WILL find fights.. If you can’t because acs bother you, you are doing it wrong…

happy now?

You underestimate the lengths to which certain servers will go to avoid fights. Squashing the stragglers that didn’t wp in time isn’t a fight, either.

Reverence.6915:

briggah.7910:

Coldtart.4785:

People with good arguments don’t have to put words in their opponents’ mouths.

Nobody has a good argument that is defending the change besides they want to take easier objectives and any sort of challenge slows down the k-train.

The way ACs worked encouraged massive blobs and omega golem rushes to take down structures or smaller groups sniping undefended structures. If a structure was defended, sieged up and upgraded by just a few people, any group smaller than 20 would find it more or less impossible to take. How is that a good thing? Small groups were more or less relegated to defense because they couldn’t take anything defended thanks to the old LoS on ACs. Encouraging smaller groups to get out there to siege structures is a good thing for better fights.

Oh gosh that’s not true at all in my experience. Even the bigger servers can’t/won’t scout all the time. And most will go where the action is — meaning that if blob A is attacking west side of garri, there’s usually very few on the defending side on east side.

I cannot tell you how many times I’ve solo run supply and cata’d down outer garri on RESET with massive blobs roaming the map. Sometimes smaller groups can get away with a heck of a lot more. It’s amazing, sometimes what you can get done by your lonesome. And it puzzles me why people don’t see this aspect of the game can be gratifying (little guy gets one over on goliath) — heck AR and BB are masters of this.

The problem here is balance, and its something that Anet cannot get right,

You have 2 problems with AC’s if you are 1 or 2 people trying to defend against a blob who can PvD the gate down, then the 1 or 2 AC’s might slow them down until help can arrive, so this update hurts the defenders, so map zergs will be all the more now,

On the other hand, you also have the AC campers, where a zerg will run inside a tower/keep and build 15 AC’s all firing safely on a door to destroy an enemy who cannot target them.

So how does anet get the balance right, who it be better for them to set say 2 fixed special AC’s on a keep that have a different LoS to normal AC’s to help defenders.

This update may actually encourage more open field battles, which I know some servers will HATE that as they love the siege humping easy kills.