Guild Wars 2

More and more WvW is like zerg vs zerg only.
Smart defense is not possible, the zerg rules. If you do not have your own zerg – you’ll lose all towers and keeps, however they was upgraded.
1. Siege weapons make joke damage to players – 2-3k arrow cart, 4-5k cannon/ballista. Warrior, for example, 7k with one hit, thief 13+ one hit.
2. AOE covers all surface of a wall, no room to set whatever.
3. Damage behind gates – impossible to repair gate.
4. Mesmer’s copies are behind a gate, on a wall, everywhere .
5. NPCs are impossible weak, 3 people can take whole map, including the champion lord (if no enemies ofc).

What to do:
1. Fix damage thru gates, AOE and mesmer’s copies.
2. Make siege weapon much more deadly and expensive.
3. Strengthen tower/keep walls and NPC, 10 ppl should spend for an empty tower rather 2 hours then 3 min.

So it can be interesting tactical and strategy game instead of zergish trains. There will be a sense to upgrade and keep towers, even against over numbered enemy.

Definitions of “Siege:”

1. the act or process of surrounding and attacking a fortified place in such a way as to isolate it from help and supplies, for the purpose of lessening the resistance of the defenders and thereby making capture possible.

2. any prolonged or persistent effort to overcome resistance.

With these definitions, do you think that siege weapons would be stronger trying to defend inside of a keep or attacking a keep?

A siege weapon is designed to knock down the walls and gates of a fortified area. They are not built to defend anything.

If you see that your fort is being attacked by siege gear, the option isn’t just to try to build another piece of siege gear to combat it.

The best way to really ward off people attacking a fortified area (tower/keep/castle) is to go out and fight them. You have the limits of a stationary area, while they can weave in and out of your range to pick your health away. People in the fortification are there to defend it and wait for more people to come drive them away.

It takes a while to get a wall or a gate down, so CALL OUT on the Map AND Team to get people moving. When people hear this, don’t run to the keep. Instead, coordinate a group meet at a certain area and THEN charge the keep.

I’ve seen too many times where people run to a tower only to run inside. Don’t do this. You are limiting yourself to the point that you are more or less just fighting with an arm behind your back. Try to get a group (or more) together at the nearby sentry point (DO NOT take the sentry point over if it’s an enemy. Chances are that was a decoy to let them know people are coming).

Keep defenders, have someone keep calling out info. Let them know how many, what siege gear, what classes, gate/wall health, and nearby threats.

If you’re in the keep, group everyone into parties. This lets you focus fire on someone with the “call Target” command. One more dead means one less person attacking your keep. One more downed person means one more person coming within range that you can down or kill.

That’s it for now.

@Sporadicus

So what about ballista and arrow carts? Those are siege weapons, and they are very good at defending structures. The catapault behind the gate is a little stupid, imho. But the idea that the only way to defend a tower/keep/castle should be to run out and fight everyone is just ridiculous. Especially when you consider that more often than not, the force attacking outnumbers the defenders.

The tower/keep itself is the first line of defense. Being able to hide behind the wall, only exposing yourself when you’re ready to attack is the best way to overcome an enemy who, while outnumbering you, is completely exposed.

The enemy of the zerg is AE damage.

GW2 has crippled AE damage, therefore the game is all about zerging. I can only hit 5 people with my AE so if there are 20 of you on the door, 15 of you won’t get hit. If there are 30 of you on the door, 25 of you won’t get hit. The zerg gets better as you add more people to it.

Conversely, if you split up into nice groups of 5 and run around separately, AE can hit all of you. So nobody does that.

I think Arenanet should seriously consider removing the 5-target limit for AE, at least on players. I think that would change the whole dynamic of the game. Solo defenders with good AE would be murder on zerg hordes trying to face-punch the door down. Splitting up your force might actually be a good idea because zerging doesn’t save you from AE anymore anyway.

Currently I’m playing on Blacktide. It is in the middle of the table.
Europe late evening – 1-2 maps we have “outmanned” buff.
Europe morning – they have.
No chance to do something against zergs. No motivation to enter WvW when your side have less players. I’d say 18 hours from 24 maps are empty from any side.
In the middle of the table!
What next? Join servers?