Guild Wars 2

So there are a few things I’d like to address here, and get people’s opinions on in terms of what methods should and should not be able to destroy siege weapons placed in specific areas.

1. Skills hitting tops of walls: ANet seemed to think that certain skills should not be able to go through walls, or hit things on the tops of walls, as they added a LoS restriction to Mesmer phantasms. However we still see a lot of AoE abilities on Eles, Rangers, and Necros being able to decimate siege that is placed on the tops of walls. Do you think it was right to nerf one of these things, but not the others? Should siege on walls be safe from everything? Should more skills be allowed to hit things on the tops of walls?
2. AC hitting treb on third floor SM: I’ve noticed this tactic being used a lot more. With the extended range Arrow Cart mastery, an AC placed on the ground outside Stonemist Castle can knock down Trebuchets placed on the balconies on the 3rd floor. Should we be able to do this, or should trebs up there be safe? This seemed to be an intended safe spot for trebs before the increased AC range.
3. The Zoom Hack: I think most of us can agree that this tactic does not belong in the game, and provides imbalance to the use of Arrow Carts. For those that don’t know, this hack allows you to zoom your camera out farther than normal, so that you can see over walls and other obstructions to hit things with AC’s that you normally could not hit. It breaks the game’s mechanics to bring an unfair advantage to people using third party software, and yet we have seen no action from ANet on it.
4. AC is still the ‘go-to’ anti-siege: People don’t even put catapults behind doors to kill enemy rams anymore. Ballista, the anti-siege weapon, is overshadowed by AC completely, due to its single target attack that is so incredibly easy to get obstructed. I don’t want to turn this into another AC discussion, as we have many of those, but in terms of what tactics are used to destroy enemy siege, it sure has its place in this thread.

So nobody has an opinion after 9 days?

1. I personally like that some aoe skills can hit the seige on top of walls, it gives players a method of countering w/o siege of their own, but is still hard to do against well-placed seige.

2. I did not know this was possible, but I have long wished there were a way to take out those trebs. I don’t think its good that the dominant server (which usually owns SM) gets a free shot at 3 keeps b/c they have a treb that can’t be taken down unless a strong offensive is mounted on SM.

3. The zoom hack is mega-weak and I hate it too.

4. I really wish they would do something about ballistas as well. AS it is, they have to be placed on the very ledge (practically hanging off) of a wall to hit anything, but we all know what happens to cannons. There is no place that ballistas can be placed, except in open field and camp defense, that makes it effective. They are certainly useless in anti-seige situations to the point where you wither build an AC or catapult.

Potential fixes for the ballista issue:
a. Have trajectory blocking calculated from a bit higher up (so they can survive a little longer than cannons/not face so much heat when trying to take out siege
b. replace ballistas with mortars (they probably don’t want to do this, for obvious reasons)
c. Include small blocks/stands on towers for ballista placement that makes them just aoe-able (like ac’s) but still able to fire out to catas. In other words slightly change the terrain so they can actually be placed somewhere in keeps w/o instantly melting

No one puts catapults behind doors because it was fixed so that catapults don’t do damage on the other side of the door.

That is catapults only though.

I don’t like ballista for the reason you listed. Probably why a lot of others don’t care to use them for anti siege.

BlackBeard.2873:

2. I did not know this was possible, but I have long wished there were a way to take out those trebs. I don’t think its good that the dominant server (which usually owns SM) gets a free shot at 3 keeps b/c they have a treb that can’t be taken down unless a strong offensive is mounted on SM.

You can take them out without an AC, using other siege, from outside SM.

Curo.2483:

So there are a few things I’d like to address here, and get people’s opinions on in terms of what methods should and should not be able to destroy siege weapons placed in specific areas.

1. Skills hitting tops of walls: ANet seemed to think that certain skills should not be able to go through walls, or hit things on the tops of walls, as they added a LoS restriction to Mesmer phantasms. However we still see a lot of AoE abilities on Eles, Rangers, and Necros being able to decimate siege that is placed on the tops of walls. Do you think it was right to nerf one of these things, but not the others? Should siege on walls be safe from everything? Should more skills be allowed to hit things on the tops of walls?
2. AC hitting treb on third floor SM: I’ve noticed this tactic being used a lot more. With the extended range Arrow Cart mastery, an AC placed on the ground outside Stonemist Castle can knock down Trebuchets placed on the balconies on the 3rd floor. Should we be able to do this, or should trebs up there be safe? This seemed to be an intended safe spot for trebs before the increased AC range.
3. The Zoom Hack: I think most of us can agree that this tactic does not belong in the game, and provides imbalance to the use of Arrow Carts. For those that don’t know, this hack allows you to zoom your camera out farther than normal, so that you can see over walls and other obstructions to hit things with AC’s that you normally could not hit. It breaks the game’s mechanics to bring an unfair advantage to people using third party software, and yet we have seen no action from ANet on it.
4. AC is still the ‘go-to’ anti-siege: People don’t even put catapults behind doors to kill enemy rams anymore. Ballista, the anti-siege weapon, is overshadowed by AC completely, due to its single target attack that is so incredibly easy to get obstructed. I don’t want to turn this into another AC discussion, as we have many of those, but in terms of what tactics are used to destroy enemy siege, it sure has its place in this thread.

Clearing siege on walls with aoe skills is ok(if i remember right phantasems are not aoe skills)

i think there are spot that still are safe up there tho its still ok to have a option to damage to siege hiden away

any hack should be punished but as changing the size of your window of gw2 also gives a diffrent amount you can see makeing it posisble that way without hacking anything makeing it fair game tho anoing to play agienst.

i agree there are to few situations where the balista is worth it

Ballista the skill 4 should be on auto attack / skill 1. Or at least a skill 1 that can be aimed without selected taget… hard to use in zergs if you want to shoot through an opening but the selected target is running through and the ballista is turning in another direction and you need to switch targets.

Skill 4 should be on 1 and spammable(against players) with 3 seconds(or 2 with the mastery at level 3 and faster bolts). Skills 2 and 3 should be targetet skills against other siege units.

4 something special to unlock. Maybe knockback/launch/knockdown something. Or huge bleeding(with manually targeting and 5 bolts).

I believe they should remove AC from the game until they either deal with the zoom hackers or they redesign the AC so the zoom hackers aren’t instant I wins in fights.

ACs need to stay in the game as-is until ANet can globally address how to counter siege up against a wall of a tower or keep and how to counter players on top of walls. ACs are the go-to weapon because they’re the only weapon capable of indirect close-range fire.

It’s too easy to kill siege and its operate that’s not behind a wall or on the back lip of a wall. I don’t think they can stop AoE from hitting things on top of a wall, but a good starting point would be to make Oil and Cannons give their users heavy damage reduction from all sources (at least 50%).

Thanks a lot for the responses, guys!

Exedore.6320:

I don’t think they can stop AoE from hitting things on top of a wall,

This ties in to my comment about phantasms. It was changed so that phantasms could not hit things they did not have LoS to, so I think it would be possible to stop AoE as well from hitting things they do not have LoS to (they = the casting player).

Very nice post OP.I also propose to make all siege undistructible and immune to all kinds of damage aswell as the player manning it and boost their damage to 1shot everything in an aoe radius.

Curo.2483:

Exedore.6320:

I don’t think they can stop AoE from hitting things on top of a wall,

This ties in to my comment about phantasms. It was changed so that phantasms could not hit things they did not have LoS to, so I think it would be possible to stop AoE as well from hitting things they do not have LoS to (they = the casting player).

Phantasms need a target. They blocked that by doing a pathing check. Most AoE is ground target. You target just below the lip of the wall of the AoE curves over. Completely different mechanic.