Guild Wars 2

Some thoughts on a topic I do not think is the utmost priority right now for WvW, but I wanted to understand if others thought likewise or no.

Its on the topic of supply camp upgrades. I started thinking about it when roaming in WvW a couple nights ago, and I looked at the upgrade gal and thought “I would never buy one of these.” So I started thinking about why I would never buy one.

A recap of the upgrades available:

• Tier 1 – Hire Caravan Guard: Hires one Veteran Guard and one Veteran Scout to escort each caravan.
• Tier 1 – Increase Supply Deliveries: Increases the number of supplies delivered by each caravan from 35 to 70.
• Tier 2 – Hire Additional Guards: Reinforces the camp with two Veteran Cabalists, two Veteran Scouts, and one Veteran Zealot.
• Tier 2 -Strengthen Guards: Increases the level of all the camp’s guards (excluding Supervisor) from 80 to 82.

Why I wouldn’t upgrade:

First, I was in enemy territory. I was mostly running havok, so maybe its fine that I did not feel like upgrading (I expected the enemy to be coming in a short bit to reclaim). But therein is an issue, I also don’t feel like upgrading my ally territory supply camps because of how quickly they fall to enemy havok (defending is a touch boring – wait-wait-wait for some weirdly sized zerg to come in and just take).

Second, I think Caravan Guards are terrible. Any character, even under leveled, I just kill the yak and let the guards disappear before they do much of anything to me. I’ve just never had to think twice about these guys, they are just super easy to ignore and kill yak. Anyone else feel differently? I’m unsure how to fix these without making them gimmickly strong – maybe they don’t disappear until they have no aggro (so they continue to fight after yak goes down… maybe pair with an extra CC on them, they could work someone down a bit more?). Maybe pair them with the increase supply upgrade, and add an entirely new one in T1?

Third, defending supply camps is kinda boring while they upgrade (wait wait wait, god forbid someone comes to grab 10 supply and help a group out by building something, and then you have to wait for more supply so you can trigger the upgrade). Do others feel this way, or am I just looking at this the wrong way? Would it be possible to lower supply cost of these a bit (80) to decrease build time… or just flat out decrease build time?

Increased supply delivery is a must for me. Usually trying to upgrade one tower or another on home BL and without increased supply it’s a motherkittener and takes astronomically longer. The other upgrades I’m fairly meh on unless it’s north camp since that is far more easily defended that the rest, that’s the only one I’ll spend time on fully upgrading. The rest flip hands so often I’d go broke (more so than already am) trying to upgrade them all.

The only other time I’ll drop T2 upgrades is if I know an enemy zerg is coming. Denying them the supply makes it that much longer for them to build anything, means I keep my shinies that much longer. Its worth the 10s to make them wait.

If we are trying to upgrade structures, we’ll upgrade the camps.

If a zerg is incomming and there are upgrades available and the camp is full(usually after structures are upgraded and camp has been flipped several times,) I’ll upgrade to use the supply up.

Make it so caravan and camp guards can revive yaks if they’re within their aggro.

Supply upgrades are essential, as others have said, when upgrading towers. Doubly so in EB when you hold SM. SM needs yaks and double supplies!

Caravan guards are just about essential in EB, unless you have players fulfilling that role, not to protect against invaders, but to protect against CRITTERS. Loads of yaks will fall to nothing more than local fauna without guards to help them. If not on way to first tower, then on way to SM.

So, especially in EB when upgrading, straight away order guards then supply, if not enough people to guard yaks and supply then guards if there are some human protectors. In BLs, maybe just the supply upgrade is OK.

The other “higher levels” upgrades are only useful out of primetime hours, when you are reasonably confident there are only small squads of attackers and no zerg. They can stop a small team capping completely, especially if the camp also has hylek/dredge/ogre support. At the very least they buy time for a response from players. But, if you are expecting a zerg you are right those upgrades are a waste of cash!

As I mentioned in another post before, make dolyak immune to damage untill the guards are killed. This prevents thiefs from killing the dolyaks that easily.

Shademehr.1397:

Make it so caravan and camp guards can revive yaks if they’re within their aggro.

WExp farming time

Honestly the primary advantage of upgrades outside of double supply delivery is that it increases the total supply that can sit in the camp, which is actually quite useful for one’s spawn camp.

Well, you’re forgetting (or not mentioning) that each camp upgrade increases the maximum supply held by the camp, up to 250 total.

Also, if you flip a camp that you don’t expect to hold and your group is already full on supply, hiring caravan guards is a very cheap and quick way to deny that supply to the enemy when they take the camp back.

Having to pay 10 silver for increased supplies every single time a camp gets flipped is a hugely unfair burden on scouts/yak runners/sentries (whatever you want to call the people that get kitten done instead of zerging).

If anything is changed with camp upgrades, this should be first.

Thor.1756:

Honestly the primary advantage of upgrades outside of double supply delivery is that it increases the total supply that can sit in the camp, which is actually quite useful for one’s spawn camp.

That too, but very expensive in prime time when camps are flipping. I’d see it as a side benefit, rather than a reason in itself, unless you plan also on a manned camp guard.

Personally, during prime time I’d take supplies from upgraded and full keeps and towers rather than use higher level camp upgrades. With double supplies and, in EB, caravan guards, supplies used in this way are usually quickly replaced.

Mif.3471:

Having to pay 10 silver for increased supplies every single time a camp gets flipped is a hugely unfair burden on scouts/yak runners/sentries (whatever you want to call the people that get kitten done instead of zerging).

If anything is changed with camp upgrades, this should be first.

As someone who does it all the time you will not find me arguing with that! Paying for tower upgrades and camp upgrades to help them is a very expensive hobby! But vital though.

So a number of real good responses.

I think two things I forgot to mention as to why you would upgrade supply camps that folks pointed out:

• Empty enemy supply camp’s supply when you see their group coming in for supply
• Raise the supply cap on your own supply (an inherent benefit to upgrading supply camp)
• Guards help keep yak’s alive against the aggressive mobs

So that is good info – though the annoyance still falls back to the other things people mentioned (sorry, doing a lot of recapping)

• Supply camps get flipped a lot in prime time
• Costly to upgrade in prime time (a result of the first bullet)
• Seems to be agreement that the NPC escorts are not so hot

I do agree the extra supply amount from caravans is a must, and that is something I would always put on a local camp (though, again prime time its flipped a lot).

Maybe I’m hang up is with the NPC escorts to the yak. I guess I should not look at them as protection from players – instead increased supply cap, and protection from the angry mobs.

Faux Sheaux.6179:

Shademehr.1397:

Make it so caravan and camp guards can revive yaks if they’re within their aggro.

WExp farming time

Hmmm. How about when the Yak goes down, one of those capture circles appears? Once all hostiles in the circle are killed, you can then get the WExp from killing the Yak.

I think the Yak should just be invulnerable as long as its guards are alive. Only once its guards die can it be killed. That’d make it feel like an actually useful upgrade. As it stands, those guards are only good against the random PvE mobs that charge yaks along their paths.

What is one of the guards had an extra CC (knock down… chill?) with a decent cooldown that would promote the attacker to be keen on stability / a well timed dodge.

I wouldn’t want it too intrusive or annoying, but at least raise the skill cap a single person needs a touch to kill those yaks solo / duo.

Don’t know if you guys know, but killing the guards grants 11WXP per guard now, making it all the more tempting to kill them first rather than ignore and kill the yak only.

Danny.6417:

As I mentioned in another post before, make dolyak immune to damage untill the guards are killed. This prevents thiefs from killing the dolyaks that easily.

Another fun way would be guards don’t despawn unless entire caravan party is dead and while alive they can resurrect the dolyack and each other.

Damarus.5938:

What is one of the guards had an extra CC (knock down… chill?) with a decent cooldown that would promote the attacker to be keen on stability / a well timed dodge.

I wouldn’t want it too intrusive or annoying, but at least raise the skill cap a single person needs a touch to kill those yaks solo / duo.

Try playing in Tier 1 against Sanctum of Rall right now. They have an average of 5 players guarding a yak as well as guard upgrades. Giving the guards extra CC makes me cringe, because… how skilled exactly do you want me to be to take down a single yak? Im already getting crippled, blinded and immobolized in front of 5 enemy players and you want the NPCs to bring more CC