Guild Wars 2

I attempted to advocate a similar idea before, but unfortunately I used some keywords that got my idea lumped in with another large (and derailed) thread.

Anyway, as a former Aion player there is a mechanic in the Abyss that allowed guilds that controlled a fortress to unleash an aetheric blast towards another fort anywhere in the abyss. This nuke usually would severely damage enemy armies and was very strategic. While most of Aion was built terribly, this is one idea that did work.

Now if you look at Skyhammer, the Skyhammer cannon is the focal point of the map and allows field control by allowing the domination of certain sections of the map through a central control panel.

I do not see why similar thinking cannot be scaled up and applied to these new ruins of power that were added to WvW.

My original idea involved adding a Searing Cauldron to Stonemist Castle. The searing cauldron would allow a commander to unleash a bombardment of searing crystals on any enemy fort within EB or any of the 3 borderlands as long as all 3 ruins of power were held. Of course, this ability would come with a long CD.

The Searing effect would severely damage enemies (killing them if they don’t leave the bombardment), destroy all siege, and break all walls/gates of a fort, and kill all NPCs; allowing for an easy take. For keeps the searing crystals would target the inner keep, still forcing allies to breach the outer gate before being able to cap.

I think having something like this would add some unique mechanics to WvW due to the constant threat of a bombardment on a fortified fort or keep if a team is allowed to maintain ownership the ruins.

I was looking for some feedback on this idea; as judging from the playerbase response, some of the mechanics of WvW may need to be changed while allowing the Ruins of Power to still be worth fighting for.

Scorewise, bonus points could be added for kills, forts taken, or other metrics related to using the cauldron/bombardment effect. Bombing keep lords and tower lords would also leave a chest from the dead lords for the allied army to gain loot from (to keep the rewards intact).

GvG and for spectators this would be really flashy, as it would be pretty embarassing and hilarious to see a team about to cap a fort only to be blown up by the searing because they weren’t paying attention to the Ruins.

This way, everyone wins. Ruins are still important, we get a new gamechanging mechanic that makes roamers and GvG more important, strategic play is invoked, and no additional power creep.

Additionally, this makes holding Stonemist more important and will lead to larger and more epic battles for it while smaller teams fight over the Ruins.

Sounds like it would be an interesting twist on WvW once fleshed out. This would make SM pivotal... take it and hold it, and you get an all access pass to a fort of your choosing every so often. You could incorporate this somewhere in the upgrade queue, that way you have to actually invest something into SM and not just take it.