TLDR at the bottom.
During 2013 we have seen many changes to the dynamics of sieging / defending in WvW. The two major ones being the introduction of siege enhancing WXP traits and the changes to how blueprints work (combined with achievement boxes). In essence, this has resulted in;
1) Siege weapons and in turn superior siege weapons are a lot more plentiful.
2) Siege weapons are stronger.
Previously, high level siege weapons such as golems and superior rams saw limited use because of their high cost. Playing on Devona’s Rest, I saw a maximum of 5 Omega Golems during my first 6 months in WvW. When the price of such siege drops by 80-85%, and with the high inflation in GW2, it’s not hard to imagine the consequences: Today you can double that number and call it a standard golem rush in that same tier.
Just like with most other parts of the game, it seems that the WvW developers are
disconnected with the implications of risk / reward. This becomes very evident when looking at ram mastery. Previously, the risk of using rams was that you were in a very vulnerable location while doing so. The reward was that it was the quickest way of getting inside a fortification. Through the new traits that is no longer the case. The risk has been mitigated and the rewards have increased. The same can be said for golems. Previously there was a high risk of losing large amount of gold in a golem rush gone wrong. Again, that is no longer the case. When ArenaNet decides on making a WXP trait line for a certain piece of siege, it really does seem like they sit down and ask themselves; what are some of the problems with using this siege? This is completely backwards. I feel that the trait lines are almost always poorly or weirdly motivated.
Anyway, what are the results of these changes?
3) Want to defend a paper tower / keep?
Lets hope you have a bigger blob ready inside because there’s nothing short of a shotgun treb that can defend that gate against 2-3 rams of either quality.
4) It accentuates the problems of night capping.
Having to start the day with paper everything was already painful enough. Now you have to leave an entire zerg in your borderlands because even if you siege up your towers and keeps, you won’t be able to intelligently defend them with a smaller force until they are at least somewhat upgraded.
5) It incentivizes karma trains.
When defending was possible but unrewarding, people still did it. Now that defending is both hard and unrewarding, people don’t do it. The PvP aspect of WvW is almost completely dead. Make sure you are the biggest blob on a map, and if you aren’t then switch to one where you are. After that PvD the crap out of it and swap places with the enemy blob once you are done.
Is this what the WvW development team is driving for? I don’t know, but personally I think it makes for uninteresting game play which rewards the bigger numbers even more than it already did before. To me, WvW would be a much better place if one or more of these changes would be implemented;
6) Change superior siege power to normal siege power, and reduce the effectiveness of normal siege.
7) Increase the durability of walls and gates.
8) Revert or rework the changes in 1) and 2).
TLDR; Siege is too strong, it makes for uninteresting game play.
Nerf superior siege or
buff gates and walls or
revert / rework some of the changes made earlier this year to make WvW more fun.
Fort Aspenwood