Guild Wars 2

Lately in WvW I feel every siege weapon has gotten some love and in some cases a much needed or over done buff. The only piece of siege I feel is really lacking is the ballista, which is arguably the most useless piece of siege in the game (minus a few choice spots where the ballista is needed and very clutch obviously). To remedy this I was brainstorming a few ideas with some friends.

1. Make Ballistas movable – Not the same speed as a player mind you maybe not even full range of motion, but they should be able to shift up or back a few feet and turn.

2. Replace Spread Shot – I would recommend an anti siege AOE attack, this is after THE anti-siege siege is it not? So why only have a single attack that does bonus damage to siege? Even if you keep it please make it based on a target currently it is only useful on level ground, to high or to low and it just completely misses the area just laughable.

3. Projectile – Please fix the projectile currently many things that do not appear to obstruct the shot do, which is why this is the cheapest siege on TP and most prevalent in peoples banks. As a commander I have almost 5 stacks of Ballistas but maybe 50 of my next highest siege, this is simply because there is no use for a ballista currently.

The thing about mobile siege is if you apply it to one, why wouldn’t you do it to others? what? you put wheels on the bottom of ballistas, why can’t you do the same to arrow carts?

Although I do agree ballistas are somewhat underused, it’s also reflected by their value on the TP, price is around 19c because no one wants them.

ballistas are crucial for quickly taking out enemy siege i.e. cannons and oil and anything else. also for destroying people coming through choke points.

they’re under-used but not under-powered imo

Solstice.1097:

ballistas are crucial for quickly taking out enemy siege i.e. cannons and oil and anything else. also for destroying people coming through choke points.

they’re under-used but not under-powered imo

Cannons and oil are nearly worthless because no one can even stay on the things when facing a zerg, so ballista being good against them is meaningless.
Then lagfests hamper their capabilities in choke points where they’re supposed to be useful, whereas carts will hit more people and aren’t subject to the whims of the targeting system.

gimmethegepgun.1284:

Solstice.1097:

ballistas are crucial for quickly taking out enemy siege i.e. cannons and oil and anything else. also for destroying people coming through choke points.

they’re under-used but not under-powered imo

Cannons and oil are nearly worthless because no one can even stay on the things when facing a zerg, so ballista being good against them is meaningless.
Then lagfests hamper their capabilities in choke points where they’re supposed to be useful, whereas carts will hit more people and aren’t subject to the whims of the targeting system.

Don’t know about how your server plays…but cannons are crucial if you are sentrying your keeps. Garri and Hills both have inner cannons which can take out rams/alphas at outer gates. Inner cannons at Bay can hit behind inner gates taking out rams etc as well.

As for the OP, Solstice is spot on to what I was going to say.

gimmethegepgun.1284:

Solstice.1097:

ballistas are crucial for quickly taking out enemy siege i.e. cannons and oil and anything else. also for destroying people coming through choke points.

they’re under-used but not under-powered imo

Cannons and oil are nearly worthless because no one can even stay on the things when facing a zerg, so ballista being good against them is meaningless.
Then lagfests hamper their capabilities in choke points where they’re supposed to be useful, whereas carts will hit more people and aren’t subject to the whims of the targeting system.

you dont generally build a balli to take those out when you have a zerg unless some kitten threw rams while oil is up. and actually with oil mastery 3 (and hell 5 too) you can sit on oil for a really nice amount of time while a zerg is trying to kill it.

if you 5 man something or prep for a large scale attack with a small group, then a balli is invaluable for deleting cannons and oil.

additionally, theyre quite useful defensively in any lord room or choke on the way to the lord and in any place where they have sight of the outside of a gate (or wall) but are out of reach of attackers.

take hills south gate, or garrison water gate, or other examples where there are super-high cannons that AoE cannot reach and an AC is not enough to keep people off.

ballistas are a necessity in those cases.

or if there are cannons AND people manning ACs protecting the cannons making it too tough to AoE the walls. a flash-built ballista can save the day.

also the 4 skill can instantly down a group of people. a few ballistas with mastery can down an entire zerg if they get too close.

Sean.8274:

gimmethegepgun.1284:

Solstice.1097:

ballistas are crucial for quickly taking out enemy siege i.e. cannons and oil and anything else. also for destroying people coming through choke points.

they’re under-used but not under-powered imo

Cannons and oil are nearly worthless because no one can even stay on the things when facing a zerg, so ballista being good against them is meaningless.
Then lagfests hamper their capabilities in choke points where they’re supposed to be useful, whereas carts will hit more people and aren’t subject to the whims of the targeting system.

Don’t know about how your server plays…but cannons are crucial if you are sentrying your keeps. Garri and Hills both have inner cannons which can take out rams/alphas at outer gates. Inner cannons at Bay can hit behind inner gates taking out rams etc as well.

As for the OP, Solstice is spot on to what I was going to say.

And since inner cannons can’t be hit by a ballista unless they’re already inside anyway, it’s still moot.

insanemaniac.2456:

gimmethegepgun.1284:

Solstice.1097:

ballistas are crucial for quickly taking out enemy siege i.e. cannons and oil and anything else. also for destroying people coming through choke points.

they’re under-used but not under-powered imo

Cannons and oil are nearly worthless because no one can even stay on the things when facing a zerg, so ballista being good against them is meaningless.
Then lagfests hamper their capabilities in choke points where they’re supposed to be useful, whereas carts will hit more people and aren’t subject to the whims of the targeting system.

you dont generally build a balli to take those out when you have a zerg unless some kitten threw rams while oil is up. and actually with oil mastery 3 (and hell 5 too) you can sit on oil for a really nice amount of time while a zerg is trying to kill it.

if you 5 man something or prep for a large scale attack with a small group, then a balli is invaluable for deleting cannons and oil.

additionally, theyre quite useful defensively in any lord room or choke on the way to the lord and in any place where they have sight of the outside of a gate (or wall) but are out of reach of attackers.

Why would you burn your very limited supplies in a 5 man on making a ballista to take out a cannon/oil? If you’re spotted by someone the much greater concern than the cannon/oil is that they’ll report your position and get reinforcements. And the supply spent on that ballista will make it take longer to finish, which increases the likelihood of someone noticing you.
And I already pointed out that targeting and lag problems make ballista far less useful in choke points than they should be, while ACs are far less affected due to their ground targeting.

Allow ballista to fire without a target. This already would make it 100% more useful.

Solstice.1097:

ballistas are crucial for quickly taking out enemy siege i.e. cannons and oil and anything else. also for destroying people coming through choke points.

they’re under-used but not under-powered imo

so true, and same goes for Oil. Underused, but far from underpowered (in damage terms, i think OIL should get more HP/Be permanent but with longer attack CD’s)

Ballistas are great, and possibly one of the strongest siege weapons in defensive situations. IF you can set it up to hit a choke point, it will do tremendous damage, especially since basic and siege shots pierce (be it a bug or not). It is also really really good for taking down downed enemies before they get a chance to rally. Doing 7-8k damage on a single target sure gets them down fast, before the latest reset, i had 3/5 ballista traits, and i would one-shot any thief, ele, mesmer, necro or non-tank ranger.

gimmethegepgun.1284:

Solstice.1097:

ballistas are crucial for quickly taking out enemy siege i.e. cannons and oil and anything else. also for destroying people coming through choke points.

they’re under-used but not under-powered imo

Cannons and oil are nearly worthless because no one can even stay on the things when facing a zerg, so ballista being good against them is meaningless.
Then lagfests hamper their capabilities in choke points where they’re supposed to be useful, whereas carts will hit more people and aren’t subject to the whims of the targeting system.

If you’re quick on the siege, you can get to the oil and cannons…but usually roamers take them out when nobody’s looking.

Ballistas have their usefulness as countering siege and killing anything in choke points. They are also very handy and fun to use when sniping an enemy zerg.

I’d like to have the mastery improved. I tried this before some skill points reset because I wanted to go for something others don’t use. And I liked that according to description you can fire faster bolts.

Now I saw – acccording to wiki, and I checked myself – that you can just get the same with a superior ballista(which isn’t that expensive with trading post).

So with the mastery at that step you only save a few supplies and money which is not a big deal – you could just invest a bit more and also get higher damage and the same effect.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Swift_Bolt
“Is the exact same thing as Improved Ballista Shot which comes as default on Superior Ballista”

So mastery should be improved. I’d like to see better targeting. If you need to click something far away(ballista has a long range and should be used like that but tabbing won’t work at far away targets for some reason) it is hard to click. I want some unlockable additional skills that can be used like catapult where you choose the direction.

And some more damage and stuff. Bleeding, Chill – like cannons.

Well Ballista is only a good defense weapon if you know that the enemy will breach through the gates sooner or later. We defended hill once with around 30 to 40 people against 70 to 80 for about 3h. We even repped the gate only to 5% on purpose to have enough time to go get some supplyes and rebuild everything so they can attack again. (farm ftw.)
We had 2 superior ballistas, 4 arrow carts and 2 trebs as defense. They pushed over the bridge in inner keep about 10 times and couldn’t break through mainly because ballistas kill downed people near instantly and so they couldn’t rezz their downed players.
So if you have to defend a keep against an enemy face to face and not with a gate between you, ballistas are crucial. (Hill and garrison espacially because of the tight space.)

I don’t feel its useless I feel its under used, and mostly because of the way it is designed. If you don’t feel that way that’s fine, but I know a number of people do and the TP price alone should be enough to show Anet there is an issue.

Ballista are good for taking out other siege and they do alot of damage to them if u can hit them before they are built, What I would love to see is some Anet love to Mortar’s they are Tier 3 and hit with less damage than a cannon or a treb!

Just build an Alpha instead?

Ballista is pretty bad. There are uses for it and situations where it’s needed but how often you need a ballista vs how often other siege is needed really makes ballista worse than the others, even if it is not totally useless.

NargofWoV.4267:

Just build an Alpha instead?

Good luck hitting that treb on the third floor of SM with that golem.

It’s laughable that the description of ballista says that it’s for taking out siege but when attacking a tower/keep that has well placed arrow carts, you can’t hit them with a ballista because it requires line of sight so you end up having to build a counter arrowcart or putting an omega.

Blackelk.3784:

(…)
1. Make Ballistas movable – Not the same speed as a player mind you maybe not even full range of motion, but they should be able to shift up or back a few feet and turn.
(…)

Make any thing with wheels movable, but at the end its does not matter becouse a easy way to counter siege is not being movable and we all know how damage and destroy things fast is important in this game.

gimmethegepgun.1284:

Sean.8274:

gimmethegepgun.1284:

Solstice.1097:

ballistas are crucial for quickly taking out enemy siege i.e. cannons and oil and anything else. also for destroying people coming through choke points.

they’re under-used but not under-powered imo

Cannons and oil are nearly worthless because no one can even stay on the things when facing a zerg, so ballista being good against them is meaningless.
Then lagfests hamper their capabilities in choke points where they’re supposed to be useful, whereas carts will hit more people and aren’t subject to the whims of the targeting system.

Don’t know about how your server plays…but cannons are crucial if you are sentrying your keeps. Garri and Hills both have inner cannons which can take out rams/alphas at outer gates. Inner cannons at Bay can hit behind inner gates taking out rams etc as well.

As for the OP, Solstice is spot on to what I was going to say.

And since inner cannons can’t be hit by a ballista unless they’re already inside anyway, it’s still moot.

insanemaniac.2456:

gimmethegepgun.1284:

Solstice.1097:

ballistas are crucial for quickly taking out enemy siege i.e. cannons and oil and anything else. also for destroying people coming through choke points.

they’re under-used but not under-powered imo

Cannons and oil are nearly worthless because no one can even stay on the things when facing a zerg, so ballista being good against them is meaningless.
Then lagfests hamper their capabilities in choke points where they’re supposed to be useful, whereas carts will hit more people and aren’t subject to the whims of the targeting system.

you dont generally build a balli to take those out when you have a zerg unless some kitten threw rams while oil is up. and actually with oil mastery 3 (and hell 5 too) you can sit on oil for a really nice amount of time while a zerg is trying to kill it.

if you 5 man something or prep for a large scale attack with a small group, then a balli is invaluable for deleting cannons and oil.

additionally, theyre quite useful defensively in any lord room or choke on the way to the lord and in any place where they have sight of the outside of a gate (or wall) but are out of reach of attackers.

Why would you burn your very limited supplies in a 5 man on making a ballista to take out a cannon/oil? If you’re spotted by someone the much greater concern than the cannon/oil is that they’ll report your position and get reinforcements. And the supply spent on that ballista will make it take longer to finish, which increases the likelihood of someone noticing you.
And I already pointed out that targeting and lag problems make ballista far less useful in choke points than they should be, while ACs are far less affected due to their ground targeting.

where i play there often isnt a scout until there are swords

if a 5 man were to walk up to a gate, drop a balli, and shoot things without tapping the gate, its unlikely they would be discovered until after they have 2-3 rams or catas up and have killed the free siege

we dont have the manpower to watch everything at once in bronze. a ninjas paradise.

I like the idea of mobile ballistas if they were like 1/2 the speed of golems. They do have wheels on the model afterall. This would also mitigate some of their LoS problems which is what limits their use so much now.