As it sits i find the current Shrine abilities to be lacking and very little incentive for a commander to seek them out especially while Invaders are at the walls already. The can be some exceptions but it never felt like sending anyone out to reclaim shrines was even a consideration while defending a keep.
Reworking the Shrines – short version is majority of the turrets are merely delaying to an invader offering no use once the enemy is at the gates. other abilities due to the area they affect are more defensive in nature and don’t offer much once your forces have left the keep’s area of influence. Shrines can also serve to give towers more purpose within the map.
seeing as jumppads now use the mushroom tech, Existing jumpads that don’t lead into the keep made universal use. there are many areas around Air Keep that can be a pain, namely if you travel from the south shrine and don’t own that keep its a crazy walk just to get back to the camp. these types of areas should have open access jumppads to help smooth travel time to reduce some switchback syndrome. majority of existing jumppads moved or removed. New launchpads added, connected to shrines.
Air turrets should be on as a baseline. majority just serve as a delaying mechanic with little or no damage. only the most careless players get hit by these making them only useful as a slight delay.
- 1 Shrine launchpads become accessible by your team. these should be placed to allow rapid deployment throughout the airkeep and to access perches. Perches are cliff sections designed to let your force make use of Windfall to drop on invaders.
- 2 shrines Air turrets Controls accessible within various sections of the keep. This would allow defenders to activate a super blast that would travel out from the gates using the cascading tech in a wedge pattern. This would be devastating if a keen scout managed to trigger this as the bulk of your forces where on a bridge infront of gate. Or simply used to push everyone off the rams for a few moments to buy your commander time to arrive.
- 3 shrines Windfall gained. applied to any ally within the effect range of the keep. If the adjacent tower is also held by your team allies within its radius are also given windfall. to be clear this would be the NE and SE towers
The barriers and turrets both serve as delaying tactics that serve little use once an enemy is at the gate. thus little incentive to capture for either side.
- 1 shrine the earth walls and the existing turrets combined to be the new 1 shrine held.
- 2 shrines New Lodestone turrets added around the outside of the walls and gates. each grouping of these would have a Control panel on the walls that would allow a defender to use 2 abilities. 1) pull enemies towards the lodestone 2) push enemies away from the lodestone. If these are placed correctly by anet would require enemy forces to be wary of where they stand or be pinballed by the defenders. may seem innocent but consider when the defensive force pushes out to engage the invaders. one misstep could bring an invader too close to a lodestone leaving them potentially out of position.
- 3 shrines The sandstorm, just like windfall, would gain the ability to spread to the towers adjacent to the keep if held by your team. the sandstorm is fairly lackluster since it is so confined to the keep territory making it feel like a defensive measure that given the gap between its edge and the keep walls can be underwhelming. being able to essentially expand the storm by owning nearby towers could make it feel more empowering and potentially offensive, not just defensive, depending on the amount of territory it ends up covering.
The fire shrine abilities are far more offensive in nature currently than the other 2.
- 1 shrine Fire turrets activate. Control panels inside the keep allow a defender to have turrets summon flame walls across their paths that last several seconds burning all foes that pass thru. obvious damage adjustment to base attack for it being available with one shrine.
- 2 shrine Inferno Egg spawns at keep and adjacent towers also held by team. Eggs altered to persist for a few minutes after losing the required shrines. would allow you to get one more Hound out
- 3 shrine Flame’s embrace. This ability is vary potent but the lava portal aspect is lacking. the current portal are easily countered with marks and aoes being directed at them in case they are used. more lava tubes need to be added. some within the keep walls to allow rapid positioning but also several leading out as well. Some like the current ones nearby(preferably with 2 or 3 on each side to make knowing exactly where the defenders may come from harder) as well as some that extend all the way out to be within striking distance of other objectives along the western side of the map.
The overall point of this is to make Shrines something that should be a consideration or even a threat if the enemy has it. Not like currently where it oft seemed that it was nice to have but commanders rarely deemed worth perusing offensively or defensively.
I was originally thinking about Shrines needing a rework and partway thru realized bloodlust would too – it’s probably worth adding ruins or having the shrines contribute.
- They could remain seperate. there would be only 2 levels of bloodlust and would only apply to alpine. desert would keep shrines. neither would mix.
- They could simply add ruins into the oasis area, either paving it over or adding mini focal areas around the larger structure implying that it is what provides the buff. shrines would be untouched
- same as above but shrines removed. all shrine mechanics become baseline, part of the keep upgrades, or removed.
- shrine mechanics removed. shrine numbers reduced to 5. now function as ruins but less centralized
- oasis gains ruins to bring bloodlust to desert and shrines are reworked to function differently. Giving more offensive and defensive options even applying to adjacent towers if the keeps owners also control the tower.
(edited by Teraphas.6210)
