Guild Wars 2

I have often wondered about the design of the towers from the defenders point of view. I think there should be some means to combat a larger attacking force by a smaller defending force. Often, if I am able to get past 20+ attackers at the front door, I climb the walls only to unable to affect the attack.

In order to hit any attacker, I must jump on the walls edge and hang over to get line of sight. This immediately draws AOE or a pull down. No issue with this penalty, anyone that is fully exposed, should get attacked.

My question is why do I need to jump over the lip to be able to attack? The lip is only 6" high and shouldn’t prevent my attacks.

Also, any seige placed on the walls is usually subject to AOE and gets destroyed pretty quickly or is unmannable.

I understand they want towers to change hands to keep the game pacing, but it seems that 5 or 6 in a tower should be able to hold off 3x their number with proper defenses for some period of time to allow reinforcements.

I almost am at the point where if I see a zerg of 20+ outside a main gate, why bother to go in and defend if there are only a handful of us…

Constructive thoughts on this?

Build siege units in strategic places. There are spots that can’t be hit (easily)
I could probably show you 1-4 of those spots in any single tower.

Place siege a lot and often, you will learn what works.

2-4 people can easily defend against like 20-30 people with the strategically placed arrow carts and possibly a catapult as well.

thanks for the reply maloki. i am aware of placing arrow carts on the inside corner of the walls. Those tend to last longer, although your ability to shoot from that position is hindered a bit.

Catapult inside the front door is also helpful for rams.

I’m not sure the answer, or if most feel those two items are the solution. I just have a hard time standing on the wall feeling the sense that there is nothing I can do to drive off attackers.

perhaps put cannons that are not attackable, but have greatly reduced rate of fire, or require cannon balls from dolyacks…

I definately dont want to see stalemates or slowing the gameplay greatly, I just feel pretty helpless in those situations.

Tip of the day: Make sure to have a party of 5 with you that you can trust.

Make a good decision for when to push out, if you can and attack.

Also arrowcart on hte floor infront of the gate is pretty good, but I tend to not teach enemies this

5v20+ is a bold move for sure I always thought the advantage of having a keep is that you are somewhat protected while defending. This doesn’t seem the case with GW2 as I have to stand on the very edge of a wall to get off a shot.

I do like the arrow cart inside the front gate as i have never seen that one. Your view must be pretty obstructed to fire? That would cover the same area as a cata just inside the gate firing at rams?

aelnova.8590:

5v20+ is a bold move for sure I always thought the advantage of having a keep is that you are somewhat protected while defending. This doesn’t seem the case with GW2 as I have to stand on the very edge of a wall to get off a shot.

I do like the arrow cart inside the front gate as i have never seen that one. Your view must be pretty obstructed to fire? That would cover the same area as a cata just inside the gate firing at rams?

It basically kills the rams quicker.

And stop trying to stand on the wall and firing without an arrowcart, unless you’re a necromancer, or an elementalist, I’d say.

The lips on the walls are definitely the biggest issue to me. You can either stand behind them, and be incredibly limited in range (why not have a defensive buff like protection for staying behind them?) or jump up on them so you can actually have a fair exchange with those on the ground, only to be yanked into a zerg. Not sure why there are so many pulls in this game, but it really puts defenders at a disadvantage.

That small 6 inch wall that stops you from shooting things is also protecting you from getting shot at by strait-line shots as well.

And there is defenders advantage already. NPC guards that spawn indefinitely, wall/door that keeps people. Smaller groups can hold for quite awhile, but they should not win if they are outnumbered heavily (3-4x more). That would make absolutely no sense and would just encourage stagnation and turtling. What would be the point of attacking if 5 people can drive you away on their own?

A small team can hold a tower for a very long time against a lot of attackers- you just need to realise that trying to solo kill them by yourself from the wall isn’t going to work and you are likely to be pulled off/aoe bombed sooner or later.

Worlds need to learn to plan for defences and place and use siege so that when an attack does come the siege is already there and the tower has ample supplies for repairing the gate whilst reinforcements build up and rush the attackers, co ordinated with a push out from the tower.

The problems you are probably having are as a result of no one wanting to defend, no one building siege before an attack starts, people not realising the key to wvw is SUPPLY/dolyaks/camps/escorting etc etc.

PUK on Gandara are trying to educate our server about this by example- holding and upgrading camps, towers, keeps and then staying in them for several hours reporting on movements and fending off attacks with well placed and well used siege.

Six people can hold off 20 with well placed and well used siege at many places on the map, and indeed throwing a bally down just behind an open area fight can also turn the tide (my favourite tactic in EB, so many spots lend themselves to this in attack or defence in the open).