Guild Wars 2

I think siege is a big part of WvW. Especially to combat the blobby atmosphere of some servers. It used to be a few well places Superior ACs could delay and even drive off a blob with rams or cats. But I’m having trouble putting any siege on walls that matter because of the aoe that seems to reach the ground within the tower or keep. It’s just too hot and the siege melts under that AOE.

Example: I just poured arrows from within Langor onto the gate, it was full, SF threw down rams, the walls were red rings in front of me to the ground and I watched the gate go down and had tons of white numbers but not one kill and not one bag and really it didn’t delay the blob of SF coming through. I saw that siege on the walls would have been useless due to the aoe reaching the ground on the inner wall.

With the one blob server in every matchup that keeps everything paper and siege is key as is supply I think maybe make defensive siege a little more effective or reduce the ability to pop red rings of aoe inside towers and keeps rendering wall siege ineffective.

Just looking to see if anyone else has these issues.

Not sure how you missed this thread, lol, but here you go:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/Fix-the-AC-Exploit-now/page/2#post5400891

defense is not a solo job. you need a team coordinating in TS to respond quickly with cross fire from the keep. get more creative with your defensive placements, plan ahead, learn from mistakes.

It’s not just the AC exploit. Here is another example. I just tried to defend QL and could not stand on the wall, an ele went under the side by the hylek and dropped bombs on me and since we had not supply or siege and SF had 20 on a paper gate I just wanted to see where I could have put siege. I stood on the lip off the wall on this little tower thing and still could not live. Here are two pics. They didn’t do anything wrong and they didn’t drop ACs. But the way the aoe from eles and rangers and the like its still too hot.

Drop an ac by the shed in QL. That way you can cover the gate and the canyon below.

Have another person at the spot you’re at, and pair together to nuke them. If you’re raining down a hail of arrows on top of where that guy to the right is, that will leave the guy up top with the ac free to use it in the spot you are at.

that is a common spot to place ACs so most ppl know to look there and have had practice finding a location to AoE it from below.

youd prolly need 3 ppl to protect ql.

ac on stairs to cover front gate and point blank catas,
treb in rear to counter rams on gate and far catas
ac in lords room to counter side ACs and assist on gate defense

no defense can hold indefinitely. your goal should be to hold until main force can arrive or delay the enemy as long as possible keeping them from moving onto the next tower.

And use superior acs.

About four regular acs = 1 superior ac.

1 superior AC deals with about 5-8 enemy blob — if you have 20 blob at a paper gate, you should have at least 4 superior acs minimally (manned) defending.

I’ve been sieging for three years. It’s a big part of my game. I’ve sieged in T1 for TC and T2 for FA and IOJ it’s challenging especially when dealing with the huge blobs from JQ and YB. I’ve come up with very good places to combat some attacks but the days of defending are coming to an end. Doesn’t seem anything really hurts rams including trebs on inner or catas and ACs do little.

I understand coordination with the commander is key. If one is on. And if he/she has a decent group with them. However, I have noticed that the one blob server in any matchup seems to demoralize the fairweathers and it gets worse. Towers and keeps are paper, no supply available. This only makes the limited siege effectivity a bigger problem. It doesn’t allow fewer in number to combat blobs like in the past. And I can guarantee if the siege was made more effective inside towers and keeps and the aoe reduced outside we would have more challenging matchups and reduce the blob wins the day mentality.

On IOJ we were able to defend Red Keep with 8 of us inside against an FA golem rush. The siege worked but only because it was too high on the cliff for them to get at. Our BL comm came down with a handful and ran among their attack outside and in the end our 15 or so beat their 40 with golems. If they got through the outer gate it would have been over, the walls would have been too hot for any siege to last.

Yeah I normally toss a bunch of Sup Acs but where now, the walls are too hot, the aoe goes behind to the ground on the inside. I’ve been using cats farther back to lob over the walls but then on some places an ele just comes around the side and melts it.

I only use Sup ACs but lately doesn’t seem to have en effect. Like I said, today, even when inside Lang and mastery and spamming a gate that was full I watched it go down, got great numbers, sea of white numbers, not one kill nor one bag and did not take the rams down. I set it off to the side so the eles could not dragon tooth it or any other aoe hit it but it still didn’t delay entrance.

They have said they’re fixing the LOS issue in next patch (hooray!), but what works in the meantime is dropping an AC mid-step on any structure. The LOS from outside does not let them see immediately next to the wall inside, so any AC placed within a structure inside, closest to a wall, is safe. Halfway up steps and you get the over the top of the wall LOS advantage. It takes some practise though getting it midstep.

And yeah, one person on a sup ac will not stop a blob. Five have a chance.

I like the midstep one. Couldn’t set it up at blue keep when it was paper though. I kept trying to drop one all over the steps on Lang side inner but wouldn’t let me and I wasn’t capped. Glad they are are fixing LOS. Would love to be able to defend and level the playing field against 3 to 1 or more odds. Keeping our stuff and keeping the ppt closer will definitely keep people interested in a matchup longer. Thanks.

It takes some practise to get it right. Use the stairs as a “block” and aim at the top of the rampart. Stand below and throw up.

If you are not in the right spot it will not let you drop. It takes some experimenting. Once you get it though, you get it

it sounds like youre trying to do this all by yourself, even jay describes having help.

defense begins with a server mentality. when you call out that your being attacked and the map knows you are defending, it feels worth while save the tower. early arrivals look for ACs to operate and other ways to assist trying to stall for time.

your screen shot shows you play on gom who have been blobbing through bronze for months and thusly rarely need any defense. the best defenders come from those under populated servers.

I had an alt account on ET for a bit and they did some amazing things. It was a privilege to play with them holding out against endless golem rushes 10v30. Even though we ended up losing the keep because theres no fall back, no help coming ever I still felt great about the fight we gave them.

It depends on having a group of like minded players working together.

The problem I ‘m facing is not with the theory of defense. I have that down. But I am always open to new placements or tactics. I watch what works against our zerg and I test out new placements in towers/keeps while on defense. I started out on GOM and moved up to FA and TC, I’ve been doing it for three years and defense is a part of the game I find much more rewarding than blobbing. There is nothing gained by spamming one or by being the 40th man into the lords room. I don’t like to roam ganking people either. I like small havoc groups that can sneak take SMC. I like defending against large numbers. I learned ninja stuff from QQ and Whispered Insanity is one of the best in the game.

The problem I face is the siege being rendered ineffective. Even with a full set of Sup ACs on top of a wall and people manning them the aoe from below is too large. The wall is too narrow. The screen shot gave an example of where the aoe hits from an ele alone. If I had an AC up there it would have not been operable for long. That renders walls undefendable especially with aoe that hits the ground on the inner.

All the rest about call outs, having supply in a tower/keep, siege being refreshed and manned is all great if you have the people but as we all see on all servers that is not always the case. So if a few like minded people want to run supply, siege, upgrade, defend, ANET should help us out and balance things. Try to limit the blobs ability to aoe inside structures. And being that screen shot was in QL there is almost no where to put siege since its basically open on all sides or has cliffs that a well placed bali can strip the walls clean anyway. I hate QL lol

you are right about outside aoe clearing the walls, your mistake is trying to still put siege there.

I don’t siege the walls at QL. I put a treb or cata on the ramp so it has less a chance of being hit by balis from the side or aoe and it can clear the cliffs in front.

Hide the treb at base of ramp near the shed, way in the back. The shed seems to cause issues for targeting.

Treb behind the shed for all towers .. repeat as mantra

its a significant part of general WVW balance, that needs to get changed finally.

Players that are in towers/keeps should receive a “Home Advantage” boon, that is not removeable, which protects them from AoE damage and increases damage agaisnt enemies, that are standing on a lower position, as also increasign the maximum range of ranged attacks due to your higher position.

GW1 already provided this gameplay as total normal gameplay mechancis, so why the hell can’t they simply add this also too into GW2??? its a simple reward for positioning and its realistic, that you shoot your arrows wider away, when you are on an higher position, than standing on the flat ground.
In GW1 you dealt increased damage against enemies, if you attacked them from an higher position than their own.

Walls on which defendign places stand should be ground targetable, they will finally remove the idiotic AOE spam, that makes it completely impossible to defend at all your places, because you get spammed with this aoe crap so fast to death, that you had absolutely no chance at all to do anythign to defend your place, which is the freakign riodiculous reason, why people came up with such braind dead solutions like using Catapults/Trebuchets from behind the gates to defend their place,s because thats the only idtioc way how you can defend your places without that the enemy zerg can kill you or destroy your defensive siege weapons in a matter of seconds!!

Seriously, whoever thought in the design process of WvW that it is OK, that players at defense shold be able to killed on from the walls in a matter of seconds and that there basicalyl should be no safe spots for siege weapons that can’t be easily destroyed by enema ground target aoes like meteopr shower also in seconds, should really think about it, if he/she is right for this job, because this decision was definetely utterly a huge fail design.

When people use siege weapons for defense, the nemy should use the right counter siege weapons to destroy them and not destroy them and all nearby players just in seconds through stupid ground target aoe spam, what makes using own siege weapons totally obsolete in most cases..

When you defend a place, you should have a clear Home Advantage as defending player from your higher position and it should be also possible for defendign players to stand on the walls and actually defend their location efficiently, without having to fear, that you get nuked to death in a matter of seconds, because like a douzen of enemies spam their tons of meteor showers, necromancer marks, cluster bombs/choking gasses, phantasms/mirror edges and what not all at you.

Standign on these walls should negate automatically like all incoming damage by like 90% and should reduce condition durations on you also by 90%, so that you can actually get also a chance to be able to defend your place so long, until your allies have a chance to arrive in time, before its already way too late and the nemy zerg stormed into the lord place and killed it off/claimed your spot, before your own allies are even there…

Zergs have it currently way too easy to claim things too quickly, while defending places is way too hard and unrewarding. Thats something, that should have been fixed together with WvW achievements already from begin on.

But anet absolutely neglected WvW totally after year 1 to the point of totally abandoning it and not caring for it anymore..since after the release of EotM we have until today total content drought in WvW…

your defenders boon would just force attackers to hit empty objectives or bring overwhelming numbers.

a simpler idea would be to change mortar and cannon location or let them be placed by players.

its also a fictional world not bound by irl logic. I enjoy the counter play with siege but the biggest impediment to defenders is lack of supply. your not going to arrive late to a tower defense and flash build a treb. usually best hope is throw a disabler and build an AC and that is just annoying to both sides.

my idea is the tower lord dispenses a siege box to the player who deploys it where is best suited to defend. this makes cannons a viable first upgrade rather than standard walls then gate which is just used so you have more time to fire ACs.

reduce cat and treb supply cost by half, reduce AC hits per skill to half, change all mortar skills to ground target and fire with a high arc so they hit closer targets.

but we all know nothing will come of this discussion but we can dream right?

Synosius.9876:

(…)
reduce cat and treb supply cost by half, reduce AC hits per skill to half, change all mortar skills to ground target and fire with a high arc so they hit closer targets.

but we all know nothing will come of this discussion but we can dream right?

That would make every wall paper… intead of building 5-8catas we could find 12+ due low supply cost.

Defense would be even more useless.

cause guild catas dont exist?

edit:
anyway lets play this out, its not just 1 change of the many I suggested. if you have access to siege that is better able to counter attacks, not just ACs for everything, those cheaper catas would get destroyed just as easily.

scenario is durios defense: 20 attackers build 3 catas at the hill on umber side. deploy cannon on top of stairs corner. cluster of catas get destroyed quickly.

currently if you dont alrdy have a treb pre built this situation is a loss. ballis can still counter a cata easily but they are single target and so youll destroy 1, maybe 2, before the wall drops. the cannon spawns at the gate and even if it wasnt destroyed on first pass its still in a useless position.

Some really good ideas here. Thanks. I’ve used the cats and trebs behind the gates or cats on inner walls turned to defend gates across the keep, I’ve even placed ACs on steps. It’s not enough. I still find that I’m unable to defend the walls of a tower or keep properly when necros and eles drop aoes all over the wall and behind. It’s really sapping the interest from too many people. Most of the time the ever vigilant map watching blob will not allow upgrades. Keeping things paper is the name of the game. KTraining. This is destroying the will of those servers who want to but can’t fight due to lack of numbers and can’t defend due to siege issues.

I’m hardcore WvW. I’ve achieved Gold rank without running endless hours in EOTM. Lately whenever I come into WvW I don’t always see a tag. Map chat is full of issues about blobs and the like. There are really good people who want to play and fight and feel they have a chance so ANET lets give them hope. Complaining about YBs blob or , JQs blob or SFs blob can be stopped with giving us the ability to defend again.

I never found the carnage of PVP interesting or the stacking and spamming in Fractals or Dungeons as appealing as WvW. Now I’m level 57 in PVP, Fractals 30 and I have the Dungeon master achievement. And that is only because fewer of the people I know run WvW. The defense issue means its either a KTrain or you stand in a tower/keep unable to defend properly. I would rather play WvW for the sociability and strategy but even I’m losing interest so I bounce between my alts.

To me the deal is simple. Being that many servers can blob which requires little skill other than spamming aoes onto walls and sheer manpower the siege needs to be the great equalizer. If ground targeted aoe is limited to just front of the walls then our acs can hug the back of the walls and we can stand and use them to defend against the masses at the gate. Remember if a force is attacking a gate they are already at a disadvantage so don’t feel too sorry for them by allowing them all the benefits of not letting any wall siege or behind the wall siege to harm them.

If a place is attacked by 30, which is not unusual and shouldn’t be a bad thing for the game, then how about allowing 10 to 15 of us to defend properly. (3 to 1) ratio should be about right. Let me build siege, upgrade and defend so we can keep our ppt and keep people interested in being on the map.

It’s bad enough that Anz and Mendons are islands totally undefensable by the Red Keep just like Durios and QL. Make it harder to take, penalize the mindless blob tactic and reward thought and innovation.

Yes i hate Anet easy mode gaming were it is pointless to defend becase they fixed so you cant defend if you dont have the same amount off players becase normal AOE skill can hit everywere.

I agree with the OP. If a defender does an A+ job of placing defensive superior siege in the best available places, and the siege is manned, the attackers should have to do an A+ job, or better, to breach the structure.

One more thing is Canon, mortar and oil it should not be able to be destroyed with AOE attacks only melee or siege and a player that use it should get a protected shield that only melee and siege can penetrate, that way oil and canon cod be used for something except time delay for enemy to destroy in towers.

Yeah Shadow, I agree with that. Just like the oil mastery gives you that or rams. I hate that cannons are so easily hit and you can’t stay on them to use them. Blobs are taking over so they need to make siege more important to counteract the blob.

Here is another example of how it is impossible to defend using siege on a wall. This time it’s Langor. About 5 of us were catting to get Blue keep back. YB had rolled our corner again keeping everything paper. We rushed yaks to Lang to get walls reinforced and began catting. Then the YB scout alerted the blob that the sky was falling, 5 FA were on the map.
We dropped ACs on front wall to defend the gate against the YB horde. We were on the ACs as they got to the gate and threw rams. The ACs lasted 20 seconds at best, not one bag, no damage to the rams, and worse yet, not one fatality to a YB blobber.

The ground aoe as pictured in my screenshot makes siege irrelevant and basically useless. Look how far inside the rings reach. How are you to defend and keep people interested in coming to a map? Where do you put the siege? When you can’t level the playing field against a constant blob by using siege then what are you to do? Stop coming to the map? Just back cap and run if you can do it fast enough. Not the case with YB who keeps scouts at everything including sentries and mithril nodes.
Just looking for some balance here. I don’t mind being outnumbered but allow us to defend against the numbers with siege and defensive strategy. Stop giving all the advantages to the mindless blob. It’s killing WvW. It doesn’t take any skill to be one of 40 spamming ground aoe and 1 for a week.

See the right corner near the gate by your character on screen? Drop an AC on the ground there and use the window over the top of the gate to nuke them.

Also, lol, lovely chat window. Yipes.

That’s just how it is now. Unless you have a butt load of superior arrow carts manned 24/7 you have no shot. And when your corner is kept paper and supplies and people are limited then it’s next to impossible to defend. YB scouts are notorious. It’s usually a mesmer that hangs back behind every blade of grass with their finger on the panic button. I’m just surprised they didn’t throw down 5 arrow carts s of their own. They love their open field siege. LOL having 40 againts 5 is still daunting.

Good luck. Unless Anet limits ground AOE by decreasing their ability to reach far over walls like in your picture there is little to no chance of defending on lower tiers. I used to spend tons of gold on defending and upgrading. No longer. I save my money.

[quote=5427233;Jayne.9251:]