Guild Wars 2

Having guards on yaks provides little protection. If you spend the money to upgrade them, which is required to get more guards around the camp, you should HAVE to kill the guards before you can damage the yak.

I actually agree with this…
As it is right now, the NPCs are next to useless. While I’m not against small strike teams taking out Supply Camps and hitting supply Yaks, there should be no reason why it should be facerollingly easy…

Yeah, on my thief even, I can just outright tank the guards and kill the yak. Don’t even have to use burst and stealth, just tank and autoattack em down. Really sad……

It would most certainly stop one thief from sniping a yak (or at least slow him enough to kill him). Usually we can have two to three people guarding a yak and the thief can burn the yak down almost faster than we can kill him. With the OP’s suggestion, the upgrade can actually serve a purpose.

I agree. Maybe the yak could get the same buff as supervisors right after a supply camp flip. To remove the buff, you must kill the guards.

That said, the guards could use a buff too. It’s not that difficult to solo both guards and the yak. NPCs that used to be a challenge back in beta are pushovers now. With the right gear and spec (and class) you can solo an entire supply camp today.

I’m pretty sure the only thing stopping people from soloing towers is that it takes too long to get inside… (DAOC tower lords were beasts. GW2 tower lords are, for whatever reason, almost completely worthless. That NPC breakout commander could probably solo 10 tower lords at the same time.)

I had a similar idea: make it so that caravan guards (the NPCs, not players that are nearby) able to resurrect the dolyak they’re guarding as long as they’re still alive.
I think it might work a little better than this since you could at least stall the dolyak while you killed the guards by downing it, but would still serve the same purpose of making the NPCs prevent you from killing it so long as they’re still alive.

He said the Yak should get it while the guards are still up.

The NPC guards you get with the upgrade just protect the yak from whatever hostile wildlife it may encounter along its route, and aren’t meant to be a deterrent against invaders. You and your server mates are meant to protect the yak from invaders.

There should be another upgrade for the yak itself like that buff supervisor gets – if yak got hit by a player > buff kicks in for lets say 10-60 seconds depending on % of route it has to complete (closer the target – shorter buff duration).
That said it is still possible to kill/disable yak when buffed but alot harder to kill it by 1 player.

SoNovel.2715:

The NPC guards you get with the upgrade just protect the yak from whatever hostile wildlife it may encounter along its route, and aren’t meant to be a deterrent against invaders. You and your server mates are meant to protect the yak from invaders.

If this were the case, then don’t require me to buy a guard upgrade for the yak, prior to upgrading the camp.

SoNovel.2715:

The NPC guards you get with the upgrade just protect the yak from whatever hostile wildlife it may encounter along its route, and aren’t meant to be a deterrent against invaders. You and your server mates are meant to protect the yak from invaders.

The only hostile thing in the route is the Sentry if your team doesn’t control it… So guards are just useless since your team is suposed to control the sentry.

This is a great idea. As a Yak sniper I +1 the idea of having to kill the guards first. Killing the yak is way too easy for any class, even with people hitting you.

Pretty good point. I always do the upgrade for the guard if I can/doesn’t inconvenience people getting supply for an assault on tower/keep, however the only time I’ve had a problem against guards was when I was still leveling my main and in WvW ( probably below lvl 40 ).

Absolutely the yak should be harder for a single person to kill when defended. I’ve soloed yaks on thief while 5-10 people aoe’d wildly trying to defend (I stopped doing that, it feels like cheating).

As long as players are alive inside the “defend” event area and/or npc guards are alive, the yak should have the “righteous indignation” buff or something similar. The yak should also be hostile (if that can be accomplished without it straying far from it’s route) or the npc guards should have more CC/damage/hp.

Jeknar.6184:

SoNovel.2715:

The NPC guards you get with the upgrade just protect the yak from whatever hostile wildlife it may encounter along its route, and aren’t meant to be a deterrent against invaders. You and your server mates are meant to protect the yak from invaders.

The only hostile thing in the route is the Sentry if your team doesn’t control it… So guards are just useless since your team is suposed to control the sentry.

There are hostile mobs which will kill the yak in EB, not many in the borderlands though.

Thrashbarg.9820:

Absolutely the yak should be harder for a single person to kill when defended. I’ve soloed yaks on thief while 5-10 people aoe’d wildly trying to defend (I stopped doing that, it feels like cheating).

As long as players are alive inside the “defend” event area and/or npc guards are alive, the yak should have the “righteous indignation” buff or something similar. The yak should also be hostile (if that can be accomplished without it straying far from it’s route) or the npc guards should have more CC/damage/hp.

I like the idea of a sentry style ring around the yak also. Maybe the more players inside the circle up to 5 increase yak’s hp/defense/regen/etc? That way a player escorting a yak will actually have a chance to defend it without the yak being unkillable.

Also Dolyaks should have more hit points. It sucks to send people to escort dolyaks because you are giving them an order to get bored to death. It is importent to escort dolyaks but boring as hell and not rewarding. Dolyaks are one of the most valuable resource generators that should be taken more seriously.

I don’t mind 1 person being able to gank yaks.

That could still happen with this idea implemented, but it would be a little less quick and easy for the 1 person.

As it is now though even if i have 2 or 3 people guarding a yak along with guards, a well played thief can still often kill the yak.

Sounds like a good idea to me. it would increase the effectiveness of -player- (this player word is very important) guards such that 1 thief would not be so detrimental to the guarded caravan.

Open field monsters nor sentries will actually kill a yak except for the hylek/dredge/orge/skritt and hatarmi invasion mobs.
Those random kraits or bats and sentries serve to slow down the yak, if there is no actual inference then the yak will be fine. The guard upgrade serves to speed up the yak ever so slightly be removing the combat speed when being attacked by the standard monsters.

For actual defense though, they are next to useless.

Jeknar.6184:

The only hostile thing in the route is the Sentry if your team doesn’t control it… So guards are just useless since your team is suposed to control the sentry.

That is 100% false for EB. All supply camps have NPC spawns which wil kill the dolyak in route without guards.

some examples: Pangloss gets cave bats that spawn, Danelon gets bats/krait or harpies
that spawn depending on its destination, Golanta gets skelks and on and on.

And as to the sentry, it cannot kill the yak on its own. The yak will keep walking while the sentry attacks and eventually the aggro radius is too small and the guard runs back to his post whilst the yak heals up and continues on.

As a guardian that likes buffing yaks that are under attack with my shouts and skills such as Empower (Staff #4), my opinion is that the guards simply get in the way. They stop neutral mobs from hitting the yaks, sure… but when it comes to fights that matter (such as 5v5 yak defense, which I did a few times tonight), sometimes the guards eat a Retreat or Hold The Line that I intended for my allies or the yak.

There is no difference between having guards or not while at least one player is escorting the yak. When the yak is unguarded, it just means that the yak won’t get killed by harpies every so often.

I think the problem is that it’s very easy to kill a yak, yet very difficult to heal/protect a yak. If I’m guarding this thing and a thief pops in to unload burst, the best I can do is tickle the yak’s health back up for a bit while trying to shove the thief back. If I stop to focus on the thief, then the yak dies and the thief runs off.

I don’t get any sort of reward when I defend a yak from getting killed and get it to barely slip by into a tower portal, but the person attacking the yak does get a reward for killing the yak.

I don’t know, I escort a lot of yaks… but I feel that a lot of the system is backwards.

Kerithlan.1659:

I don’t get any sort of reward when I defend a yak from getting killed and get it to barely slip by into a tower portal, but the person attacking the yak does get a reward for killing the yak.

Yeah, that’s because when there WERE rewards, bots were walking the easiest Dolyak routes 24/7 and getting loads of cash and karma while swallowing up space for actual players.

Solid idea, no drawbacks. Please implement this.

While they are doing this, they should also make it so that sentries have a point. Whatever the new setup is, they should be able to stop a dolyak from getting through. Dolyaks just walking past them, defeats the point of them even being there imo.

Definitely would like to see NPC upgrades make a slightly bigger difference, and not just on caravans. Currently it feels somewhat pointless to do NPC upgrades on a lot of things. And while these may be “intended” to protect the Dolyak against hostile NPC (creatures), those are not really going to kill it at any rate, as it will slowly walk out of their range.

I’m additionally not a huge fan of how it is seemingly unrewarding to protect your caravans anymore. You spend time protecting the “slow moving” Dolyak and get basically nothing out of it. During that time you could often claim 2-3 camps, which would actually reward you with some XP, Karma, “Gold” and Badges of Honor. Sure, capturing camps are important too, but it feels really unrewarding to run around protecting Dolyaks, which can be very important as well.

I get that we don’t want bots to take the place of contributing real players, but currently it’s definitely not fun when I decide to take the task of protecting our caravans.

I agree with this. As someone who cough likes to escort yaks, the guards are worthless. (I’m not going to get into the issues with thieves vs. yaks) They should be able to buy me a couple of seconds to defend the yak, but instead the only purpose they seem to do is give an enemy something to rally from when downed.

Chessrook.8643:

Kerithlan.1659:

I don’t get any sort of reward when I defend a yak from getting killed and get it to barely slip by into a tower portal, but the person attacking the yak does get a reward for killing the yak.

Yeah, that’s because when there WERE rewards, bots were walking the easiest Dolyak routes 24/7 and getting loads of cash and karma while swallowing up space for actual players.

I understand why it is the way it currently is. I feel that the current “solution” is a kitten poor children’s adhesive strip wrapped around a missing limb.

Slamz.5376:

I agree. Maybe the yak could get the same buff as supervisors right after a supply camp flip. To remove the buff, you must kill the guards.

That said, the guards could use a buff too. It’s not that difficult to solo both guards and the yak. NPCs that used to be a challenge back in beta are pushovers now. With the right gear and spec (and class) you can solo an entire supply camp today.

I’m pretty sure the only thing stopping people from soloing towers is that it takes too long to get inside… (DAOC tower lords were beasts. GW2 tower lords are, for whatever reason, almost completely worthless. That NPC breakout commander could probably solo 10 tower lords at the same time.)

I broke a few keyboards over DAOC guards Loved that setup out there.

I would rather see the yak get a buff that reduces damage takein by a % for every ally withen its radius. Lets say 10% per. with 2 guards thats 20% reduction, not much and probably wont stop a solo kill. Now if there is a group of 5 escorting along with the guards thats 70% and nearly impossible to burst down without removeing a few defenders. escorting yaks is all well and good but frankly as things are now you need 4-5X the number of attackers to even have a hope of protecting the thing. I’ve seen a knot of 5 people bumrush a yak with 15 escorts, the attackers died but not before the yak did.

I agree after dropping a gold on various upgrades last night I’d like to think it was a good investment, but supply camps turn over so quick. The guards do at least protect the dolyak from spawned creatures on their route.

Yaks are walking target wif no way of defending themselves. Would be great if they can be upgraded to be more powerful wif special survival skills. Will make my day if a yak does a cloak n dagger n backstab a thief to death.

+1 This will make guards now usefull. But can lead the buggy yaks :P

While you’re at it make NPC armys siege towers and keeps, roam around ganking ppl and fliping supply camps. Oh and dont forget some stealthed npcs in JP to one shot lowbies trying to get their dailies done. Then we simply wont need ppl in w3 at all.profit ( is it? )

I believe that the guards are only supposed to be good at protecting the yaks against npc creatures. They will spawn on the yak’s route and kill it if it’s unprotected.

Karolis.4261:

While you’re at it make NPC armys siege towers and keeps, roam around ganking ppl and fliping supply camps. Oh and dont forget some stealthed npcs in JP to one shot lowbies trying to get their dailies done. Then we simply wont need ppl in w3 at all.profit ( is it? )

That’s an excellent idea that supports Player interaction like all the other ideas in this thread….nowwaitaminute! I C WUT U DID THAR. U SMRT.

I like a lot of these ideas…the biggest issues I have right now is that “Defending” is both poorly rewarded and for the most part an ignored aspect of the game. Why?…Because defense is less interactive, only when in offense are truly getting constant interaction, but what happens when everyone’s attacking all the time?…Answer: Look at WvW now. This is one among many ways to improve player activeness in defense and I like the basic idea. I would like the NPCs to get more bonuses or abilities or such when Players are around…

Examples:
Right now a soloer can 1-man a Camp. A good soloer can 1-man a fully upgraded Camp. That is stupid and should not be doable. One answer would be to have 1 NPC aggro’d = every NPC aggro’d, including healing and buffing abilities on the NPCs would be good too. But primarily, I would like for things such as if a Player is in the Camp, and they target someone, all NPCs attack that Target as well. Perhaps when a Warrior is in the Camp, the NPCs gain 3 stacks of Might and Fury(a la the Shout). If a Guardian is in the Camp the NPCs gain Protection. If an Ele is in the Camp they gain Regen. etc. etc…

As of right now, NPCs are always an afterthought…and rarely are they helpful in a fight. That shouldn’t be the case.(At the very least in Fully Upgraded Camps.)

Interesting suggestion.

It doesn’t fit in any current combat scenarios. Players should be able to choose their targets as they please.

It would make the value of the guards much higher then it is today. Maybe above any other upgrade a supply camp offers.

Any profession today can kill a dolyak, with or without escorting guards. Killing guards first would not change that fact. It only makes the scenario take longer.

You should not push forwards Thief vs dolyak+escorting players scenario as that profession is broken.

If you put a regular profession vs dolyak + couple of players escorting the result is most likely a dead dolyak and attacker defeated right after. Seems unfair for the players doing the escort.

If the attacker would have to kill the guards first, the result would be dolyak surviving, a guard dead and attacker defeated. This seems more fair considering the time invested by escorting players.

Alternatively the guards could give the dolyak boons to protect it: Protection, Regeneration, Retaliation, condition removal, maybe even reflective shields. This would make the target selection not so trivial. There would also be some tactics involved for attacking the dolyak when the guards are busy fighting off spawned monsters.

Karolis.4261:

While you’re at it make NPC armys siege towers and keeps, roam around ganking ppl and fliping supply camps. Oh and dont forget some stealthed npcs in JP to one shot lowbies trying to get their dailies done. Then we simply wont need ppl in w3 at all.profit ( is it? )

Yes let’s mock any idea that seeks to improve a terribly lacking aspect of WvW rather than having a discussion. That is much more productive.

I don’t agree with the OP’s suggested solution to the problem but I agree that there is in fact a problem. Anyone that has ever invested time into escorting yaks knows and feels his concerns. Defending yaks is almost comical — most of the time you’re not even defending them, you’re spamming swiftness boosts and hoping that literally no one shows up.

If people do show up, you are almost powerless to preventing them from killing the yak. The NPC guards don’t do any healing, they do ticklish damage and chase people in circles. The yak itself has poor defense and average health, and has no way to heal itself minus out-of-combat health resetting. A single thief, warrior, ranger, mesmer, guardian, elementalist, necromancer or engineer (did you note that I’ve just listed literally everyone?) can kill a yak before a single player can stop them.

No matter what the situation is, unless it’s a ratio of 5 defenders for every 1 attacker, the yak dies. I saved a yak from getting ganked today. How did I do that? Four of my team mates just happened to stumble by and helped me to burst down the attacker before they could burst down the yak.

It takes 20% as much damage to burst down a yak than it does to burst down a player; how is this not worth bringing up for discussion and criticism?

I would support this idea. Usually in the BLs I hesitate to even get this upgrade if I don’t plan on fully upgrading the camp. But I do find it pretty ridiculous you need a 3:1 ratio of defenders to attacks to keep a yak safe. We literally had a team of 5 players and couldn’t stop a d/d ele and a thief from simply taking it from us.

I agree with this, it would make having the guards actually valuable rather than a minor nuisance for the Dolyak attacker, guards aren’t even remotely a problem for anyone.

I rather like the idea of having to kill the guards first. Adds value to spending the money on the upgrade.

I like this idea, also the one that includes player defenders into the equation.

Currently there’s no way to stop P/D thieves from killing yaks. If you are playing against one you basically are forced to give up defending. I think the designers need to decide whether or not defending yaks should be a viable tactic and either make it possible, or removal the event from the game.

Yes, dolyaks should have a buff (Under Defense) or something, and it can’t be hit till both guards are down, too easy to kill with range DPS and dodging the guards.

1. Give yaks a ‘reveal’ skill that uncovers any stealthed player within 1500 range of it as it walks along.
2. Give yaks a 1500 radius that prevents movement at faster than walking combat speed within that radius so d/d eles can’t kite back and forth all over the map and kill your yak without 5 players being able to do anything about it.
3. Give yaks 5 times as much HP points as currently, so no class can burst it down on their own in a few seconds.
4. Yaks take no damage before the guards are killed.
5. A yak being attacked flashes up on the map as soon as the guards are aggroed by a player.

Simple changes that could make escorting yaks with a chance of it actually reaching it’s destination

Victory.2879:

1. Give yaks a ‘reveal’ skill that uncovers any stealthed player within 1500 range of it as it walks along.
2. Give yaks a 1500 radius that prevents movement at faster than walking combat speed within that radius so d/d eles can’t kite back and forth all over the map and kill your yak without 5 players being able to do anything about it.
3. Give yaks 5 times as much HP points as currently, so no class can burst it down on their own in a few seconds.
4. Yaks take no damage before the guards are killed.
5. A yak being attacked flashes up on the map as soon as the guards are aggroed by a player.

Simple changes that could make escorting yaks with a chance of it actually reaching it’s destination

Brilliant ideas, they do need to be more tankier. Their current HP is rediculous, especially since there is a rune named after them meaning Toughness and Vitality…. (See Superior Rune of the Dolyak)

Henrik.7560:

Victory.2879:

1. Give yaks a ‘reveal’ skill that uncovers any stealthed player within 1500 range of it as it walks along.
2. Give yaks a 1500 radius that prevents movement at faster than walking combat speed within that radius so d/d eles can’t kite back and forth all over the map and kill your yak without 5 players being able to do anything about it.
3. Give yaks 5 times as much HP points as currently, so no class can burst it down on their own in a few seconds.
4. Yaks take no damage before the guards are killed.
5. A yak being attacked flashes up on the map as soon as the guards are aggroed by a player.

Simple changes that could make escorting yaks with a chance of it actually reaching it’s destination

Brilliant ideas, they do need to be more tankier. Their current HP is rediculous, especially since there is a rune named after them meaning Toughness and Vitality…. (See Superior Rune of the Dolyak)

Good point..

Without guards Dolyaks will get killed on occasion by the wildlife which seem to spawn in pairs at random intervals along it’s path. Most paths have up 2 different types of wildlife spawn (Although it takes both to spawn on the same journey to kill the Dolyak). However the Speldan-Anza route spawns Bears, Drake & Harpies at random intervals. Sometimes the Dolyak will get none, and other times all 3 will spawn on the Dolyak’s journey. One pair of mobs it will survive, and two will kill it without guards, however if you get all three then the guards won’t save it as they fall behind the Dolyak through fighting the Bears.
The other thing I have noticed is that while in camp, a Dolyak will fight attackers, but once it leaves on it’s slow plod to the first tower it gives no defence while it’s attackers rip it to shreds.
Anyway – The guard upgrade should be made more worthwhile somehow.

Sounds like most of you would like invulnerable yaks and have supply camps take 10 players so you can get back to running around in zergs without having to worry about small raiding groups outmanoeuvring you.

If someone is soloing your yaks, points and supply camps (even towers) 1-2 competent players can easily ruin their day. A 4 person team can easily roam the map and nail solo players. Most solo players will move on to easier pastures or retreat to the zerg if they keep running into small gangs.

BTW walking along with the Yak or standing around the camp is dumb. Move around. Ganking a player who’s distracted while soloing the yak/cp/camp is much easier.

I’m not against the idea but invulnerable yaks seems kind of gimmicky. How about more yak upgrades? You can upgrade yaks with heavy plate armor and have an asuran alchemist riding it that throws elixirs or something.

I agree. Being able to ignore guards and snipe yaks makes the upgrade almost not worth it. Dolyaks should gain invulnerability when guards are present.

Czar Peter.7961:

I’m not against the idea but invulnerable yaks seems kind of gimmicky. How about more yak upgrades? You can upgrade yaks with heavy plate armor and have an asuran alchemist riding it that throws elixirs or something.

Haha I actually really like this idea. Seeing a crazed Asura chucking elixirs or grenades while riding a Dolyak would be funny to watch.

Anet make this happen!