Guild Wars 2

Each tower provides a buff to nearby keeps that reduces the damage taken by gates and walls.
The damage reduction increases with the upgrade tier of the tower.
All towers contribute to the damage reduction of central (Earth) Keep.

NE tower T0/T1/T2/T3:

• Air Keep walls and gates take 10/15/20/40 percent less damage
• Earth Keep walls and gates take 5/10/20/30 percent less damage

NW tower T0/T1/T2/T3:

• Fire Keep walls and gates take 10/15/20/40 percent less damage
• Earth Keep walls and gates take 5/10/20/30 percent less damage

SW tower T0/T1/T2/T3:

• Fire Keep walls and gates take 10/15/20/40 percent less damage
• Earth Keep walls and gates take 1/3/5/10 percent less damage

SE tower T0/T1/T2/T3:

• Air Keep walls and gates take 10/15/20/40 percent less damage
• Earth Keep walls and gates take 1/3/5/10 percent less damage

South towers have less effect on Earth Keep since they are far away.

Owning all 4 towers to Tier 3 grants 80% damage reduction on keeps walls and gates. Who didn’t love a good golem rush? This would make it a lot harder and make capping and defending towers relevant and generally “slow down” the pace of flipping borderlands, giving the defenders time to organize.

If every attacker on the borderland focuses on owning his side of the map, this change could focus the battles around the northern towers where the “rubberband effect” (people coming back from spawn) is in favor of the defending team.

This would also provide a more meaningful progression for defenders capping back the whole borderland after losing everything to a zerg (focus on north towers first, etc).

This would favor consolidating your positions (upgrading towers) and defending secondary objectives.

Numbers will require tweaking.

Looking forward to see what you guys think about this

This makes capping towers first the only choice, not just the best choice. It won’t lead to diversity in strategy. I like the goal, but I can’t support this method of achieving it.

Sviel.7493:

This makes capping towers first the only choice, not just the best choice. It won’t lead to diversity in strategy. I like the goal, but I can’t support this method of achieving it.

You could have different groups attack different towers at the same time and then converge on the “downgraded” keep. Seems a step up in strategy to me, compared to “let’s blob this objective and then move to the next one”.

Again, the numbers are there only as an example. I realize 80% damage reduction (after a few hours of defending the towers, tho) is a lot.

Sviel.7493:

This makes capping towers first the only choice, not just the best choice. It won’t lead to diversity in strategy. I like the goal, but I can’t support this method of achieving it.

This. Goal of diversity and more mechanics at play is welcome (probably not to the community as a whole though) to make caps more purposeful and tactical…..but doing so funnels the plans of attack down to a generic path.

HOWEVER, I do not think this is bad for the DBL at all. Infact I think it is a good thing if enemy movement is more predetermined. So defenders know what is going to get hit next rather than having to run around the map chasing after attackers all the time…getting there to defend too late in the attack. With such a system proposed defenders know exactly where to go right off the bat, and real defenses can be erected the way the gamemode wants us to. Should an enemy bypass the plan and go for a keep or different objective…it gives defenders extra time to get there because of the tougher walls/gates.

At first I was against the OP as well but upon reflection I think its good for the DBL. I do not think it belongs in EBG though, infact I would be very vocal AGAINST introduction of such a thing in EBG.

I would honestly prefer towers just be advance staging posts that secure the land toward garri. IE holding them spawn a couple new sentries/guards or something to keep a closer look at the paths, that would be enough. This wouldnt really limit capture in any way, just provide a boon to holding them.

Cerby.1069:

At first I was against the OP as well but upon reflection I think its good for the DBL. I do not think it belongs in EBG though, infact I would be very vocal AGAINST introduction of such a thing in EBG.

Absolutely, I would hate this system in EB. But EB towers are fine like they are, all of them are in trebuchet range from/to SM and the keeps, they don’t need changes, IMHO.

I liked how things were in Alpine borderland: you could use towers to attack nearby keep.

Even if you couldn’t place a trebuchet inside a tower it would be nice if the tower provided support for defending/attacking a side of a keep. For example mortar reaching keep’s gate or proxy catapult locations. For example cannon cover for long range siege attacking keep. Or if the towers provided resupplies closer than supply camps.

The northern DBL towers block supply routes from NW and NE camps to the earth keep today. That’s a lot of points when you hold the towers.

Dawdler.8521:

I would honestly prefer towers just be advance staging posts that secure the land toward garri. IE holding them spawn a couple new sentries/guards or something to keep a closer look at the paths, that would be enough. This wouldnt really limit capture in any way, just provide a boon to holding them.

One of the guild upgrades does something similar, although it’s range is limited.

If I understand correctly you mean more patrols going on around the various paths leading to the keeps so it would be easier to spot enemies moving in the zones around the tower…?

Korgov.7645:

I liked how things were in Alpine borderland: you could use towers to attack nearby keep.

yep, ideally I would change the map layout to allow that again, but that seems like a major rework and I don’t think it’s planned… this idea was intended to make towers relevant “on the cheap” so to say

Korgov.7645:

The northern DBL towers block supply routes from NW and NE camps to the earth keep today. That’s a lot of points when you hold the towers.

I don’t think holding a tower for points is good enough of a reason to cap it. Sure on the long term it’s useful, but there should be a “strategic” reason to cap it, IMHO.

i think both ideas of using towers as a staging area or making them part of a larger defence valid, its actually a great idea to maybe introduce the idea of a greater defence built up around keeps (maybe as part of a greater event?).

It would lead to more fights.

Great idea good thinking keep it up!

Menaka.5092:

Dawdler.8521:

I would honestly prefer towers just be advance staging posts that secure the land toward garri. IE holding them spawn a couple new sentries/guards or something to keep a closer look at the paths, that would be enough. This wouldnt really limit capture in any way, just provide a boon to holding them.

One of the guild upgrades does something similar, although it’s range is limited.

If I understand correctly you mean more patrols going on around the various paths leading to the keeps so it would be easier to spot enemies moving in the zones around the tower…?

Sentries rather than patrols to extend the “view distance” when holding a tower. Nothing worse than going whoops swords in the lord room byebye T3 garri. I am not overly fond of sentries myself but they do their work on a large map and still allow for some counterplay rather than mindless zerging.

Ideally the towers would threaten garri when held (ie within treb range) but lets face it Anet isnt going to move them, that’s a ton of work. What they have done now is minor changes compared to a redesign.

Make it apply to a servers own DBL only? Home court advantage?

Instead of having them protect the keeps, make them protect the Garrison.

Add in something of value for holding the keeps as well to help protect Garrison?

If holding towers and keeps gets your Home BL’s Garrison more difficult to take without a ton of siege, not just a couple of well placed catas and paper walls, then more focus can be placed on retaking/defending towers and Keeps without as much worry about a force popping Garri out from under your nose.

Garrison should be the ultimate prize in a DBL and very difficult to take without weakening it’s defenses by taking surrounding property.

Maybe the keep bonuses could be reducing the amount of supply runs to increase the leveling up of a Garrison.

Daemonne.5018:

Make it apply to a servers own DBL only? Home court advantage?

mmm, could make sense to lower the bonuses for the attackers, or even swap them around a bit (for example, the south tower on their spawn side gives better boosts to the keep on their side, to promote holding and consolidating their presence on that side of the map)

Daemonne.5018:

Instead of having them protect the keeps, make them protect the Garrison.
Add in something of value for holding the keeps as well to help protect Garrison?
[…]
Garrison should be the ultimate prize in a DBL and very difficult to take without weakening it’s defenses by taking surrounding property.

this is a variation that could make sense!

Dawdler.8521:

Menaka.5092:

If I understand correctly you mean more patrols going on around the various paths leading to the keeps so it would be easier to spot enemies moving in the zones around the tower…?

Sentries rather than patrols to extend the “view distance” when holding a tower. Nothing worse than going whoops swords in the lord room byebye T3 garri. I am not overly fond of sentries myself but they do their work on a large map and still allow for some counterplay rather than mindless zerging.

yeah I meant something like this, it wouldn’t give a direct bonus to defense, but facilitate defense in a wider sense because it allows you to scout enemy movements even if you don’t have many players online (or they are not sharing intel in map chat)