Guild Wars 2

You sneak into a keep or tower while it’s being zerged by 30 players. It’s you and 5 other teammates. What do you do to stop them?

Find a choke point. Funnel them in. Build balistas to kill them, arrow carts to slow them and catapults knock them back. Send 1 person back to lions arch to rally more players.

Take off all armors and dance naked in front of them?

30 vs 5? Call for help and start planning an escape route lol. If there are carts use them, mount the cata to shoot at the gate, attempt to repair the gate, basically anything to slow them down until your zerg arrives. No friendly zerg? Move on, it’s lost.

If it’s 5 v 30, the only way you’d stand any decent chance is if you had siege weaponry set (which you should).

Whether you have or not, best course of action is to keep them off the walls / gate for as long as possible (and minimize losses on your side) while calling for help.

You gotta defend until backup relieves you, or they lift the siege.

Well anytime I am outnumbered by way more I teleport back to spawn.

Of course I’ll warn everyone in chat on what is being attacked and how many are attacking it… If there is siege there, then instead of teleporting, I’ll hop on the siege and use it and hope help arrives and if it don’t, then I’ll teleport out.

Arrow cart down the siege if it’s up on the door; portalbomb the siege if it’s far away. If it’s a keep and we have a waypoint, run to grab supply at around 1:30 on the defense timer and port back in when the event resets to repair walls. Have a dedicated person keeping catapult fire on the front door as well.

zastari.1730:

Arrow cart down the siege if it’s up on the door; portalbomb the siege if it’s far away. If it’s a keep and we have a waypoint, run to grab supply at around 1:30 on the defense timer and port back in when the event resets to repair walls. Have a dedicated person keeping catapult fire on the front door as well.

What is portalbombing? And why repair only after the event resets?

He was indicating that you should port when the event ends because the way point is contested while the event is up. I haven’t tried to do it before, but I’m guessing he’s saying there’s a small delay before the next one starts and it closes again.

When an event ends, you have about 30 seconds to port in before the waypoint becomes contested again. What he is saying is, when the timer hits 1:30, run to a camp to grab supply, and port back as soon as that event expires. You have a small window, so the idea is to time it properly.

terrain knowledge, war machine building, taking out weak members. basic strategy

30 v 5

The gate is going to come down. This is inevitable without a flank taking out the zerg.

So, three steps.

1) Stay alive at all costs. Don’t be a hero.
2) Make it as PAINFUL for them as possible. Flamethrower or AoE on the gate, catapult if you can, etc.
3) Focus on defending the choke point AFTER the gate falls. 5 defenders spread out in hard to reach places with siege (especially catapults & ballista) vs 30 attackers squeezing through a choke point is a fun fight. You will probably still lose (almost certainly), but if you are smart and ready for it you can make them pay dearly for their prize.

As a necro I generally:

1) If gate is being attacked: Place marks and rotate wells on the gate, watch all the pretty numbers, wait for the counter zerg shows up, and hope there are arrow carts to take out the ranged attackers.

2) If walls are being attacked: Place marks at mid range targets, try to coordinate people to place conditions on my target. When target has a good amount of poison/bleed I epidemic, watch all the pretty numbers, and see people pull away to get heal. Wait for counter zerg to arrive.

Both strategies only delay attackers (does take out low level/gear players), but usually the delay is long enough for reinforcements to come and properly deal with attackers.

Sky.9347:

2) Make it as PAINFUL for them as possible. Flamethrower or AoE on the gate, catapult if you can, etc.

Interesting. I had totally not thought of AoE ON the gate at all. This is just in case there are melee and/or rams attacking the gate, correct? Or is there something else in addition I’m missing?

Simple.

-Alt + Tab near your Castle Lord
-Open Browser and type “https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/wuvwuv/”
-Tell them how you really feel. Other Term is to Rage quit in Forum.

Have a nice day.

- 6 v 30 . . . Your best bet is to build 1 Arrow-Cart (30 Supply) and 1 Catapult Hitting Door from inside. If your Keep/Castle has Supply then Build more Arrow-Cart.
-While Defending, ask for help in /TEAM.
-There is nothing you can do really. Just pull down your pants and get really to get butt whooped.

Yo, Im Crazy today! is it full Mo0n? Omg

Killing/Wounding anyone close to the gate as well as rams is the purpose. I generally nade spam the gate. It is ideal to have someone on top of the walls to help finish enemies as they will normally move away from the gate when taking a lot of damage, but even that slows their attacks significantly. Ranged aoe’s such as grenades are preferable.

Another useful tactic to slow down their attack is to focus on ram operators when they do not have any ranged siege. If you can down them or even just make them leave the ram to heal up, you are delaying them a good amount.

@JohnnyRockets

Yep, it forces them to either take damage or back up. It goes both ways though, so you aren’t going to be able to get real close without dying. Catapults inside your courtyard firing at the door also provide a steady knockback & substantial damage.

@Azaruil,

Have you tried Flamethrower? I usually with toss all the condition grenades, and then swap to flamethrower. It has enough range to stay safe AND still hit rams that are close to max range away. Your gear & traits might be better than mine, but for me flamethrower does more damage in these situations.

zerospin.8604:

30 vs 5? Call for help and start planning an escape route lol.

Pretty much ^

Oh, and Condition Necro can alone push nasty zerg from gates with his AoE. Not for long, but it can buy some time for reinforcement to arrive.

I actually have not tried the flamethrower whilst defending a gate. I am traited for grenades however so it makes a big difference. 30 in explosives with the increased range and extra nade trait makes a big difference. 50% crit chance while standing still and 60% crit chance if they are under 50% health. Add the occasional fury and 2 out of 3 nades crit for 1100 to1700 add to that the 3rd non crit-nade hit and you’re hitting each enemy for 3000 using the basic nade attack. That’s 15,000 damage per basic nade attack if 5 enemies are close to the gate. Grenade Barrage can hit from 5000-10,000 although it does have a slightly shorter range than the grenade kit attacks. These numbers could also be slightly higher with better gear and precision/crit damage food.

The only danger at that point is the enemy at the gate popping retalation. I have downed myself quite often this way, however due to the large nade range, you can get yourself up without having to worry about their aoe’s killing you.

Problem is the Zerg have 2 targets in one place, behind the door.

Jump of to the side all 6 of you, then try and start attacking and baiting from the side. maybe use 1 or 2 of you to make a few come running, then attack them. You might kill someone, or have a group of the zerg decide to go and fight you instead. The guys at the door won´t notice anything.

With speedboosts and the like you can kite the zerg around and giving them 2 different targets at once might mean they will all die

Azaruil.3406:

I actually have not tried the flamethrower whilst defending a gate. I am traited for grenades however so it makes a big difference. 30 in explosives with the increased range and extra nade trait makes a big difference. 50% crit chance while standing still and 60% crit chance if they are under 50% health. Add the occasional fury and 2 out of 3 nades crit for 1100 to1700 add to that the 3rd non crit-nade hit and you’re hitting each enemy for 3000 using the basic nade attack. That’s 15,000 damage per basic nade attack if 5 enemies are close to the gate. Grenade Barrage can hit from 5000-10,000 although it does have a slightly shorter range than the grenade kit attacks. These numbers could also be slightly higher with better gear and precision/crit damage food.

The only danger at that point is the enemy at the gate popping retalation. I have downed myself quite often this way, however due to the large nade range, you can get yourself up without having to worry about their aoe’s killing you.

I had a feeling that would be the case. My WvW Engineer isn’t 80 yet, so I am not fully tweaked out in killing gear.

My flamethrower love might not be the best in your situation, but I suggest giving it a shot at least! I feel like a beast when I turn away a small zerg WITH rams at our gate that is 50%. Being one of only 2 or 3 people defending, and being able to type /t gate is 50% and stable, is an awesome thing.

Either way though… yea, AoE and spam the crud out of the back of that gate. They don’t know how many people you’ve got back there.

Guardian tome of wrath does an impressive job of getting people away from the gate.

Sky, I’ll definitely give it a try. Running into a horde of enemies and burning as many as I could was my favourite thing to do in TF2, I imagine I should have just as much fun doing so with the flamethrower here.

JohnnyRockets.7593:

zastari.1730:

Arrow cart down the siege if it’s up on the door; portalbomb the siege if it’s far away. If it’s a keep and we have a waypoint, run to grab supply at around 1:30 on the defense timer and port back in when the event resets to repair walls. Have a dedicated person keeping catapult fire on the front door as well.

What is portalbombing? And why repair only after the event resets?

Portalbombing is using mesmer portals to drop your entire force on their siege so they can take it out and port back into the keep before the enemy knows what happened.

If you spec a mesmer for stealth and teleportation, you can run portals to anywhere inside catapult range. Treb range is usually a bit harder and requires some misdirection before you can pull it off.

As for the timer reset — figure it out yourself. It’s a pretty big advantage that I’m not just going to give away.

Azaruil.3406:

Sky, I’ll definitely give it a try. Running into a horde of enemies and burning as many as I could was my favourite thing to do in TF2, I imagine I should have just as much fun doing so with the flamethrower here.

mmmphmphmmm!

And what’s cooler… Airblast is #3 on the flamethrower.

I love blasting JQ off the cliff and laughing as I watch their healthbar go from 100 to 0 instantly a second or two later.

zastari.1730:

JohnnyRockets.7593:

zastari.1730:

Arrow cart down the siege if it’s up on the door; portalbomb the siege if it’s far away. If it’s a keep and we have a waypoint, run to grab supply at around 1:30 on the defense timer and port back in when the event resets to repair walls. Have a dedicated person keeping catapult fire on the front door as well.

What is portalbombing? And why repair only after the event resets?

Portalbombing is using mesmer portals to drop your entire force on their siege so they can take it out and port back into the keep before the enemy knows what happened.

If you spec a mesmer for stealth and teleportation, you can run portals to anywhere inside catapult range. Treb range is usually a bit harder and requires some misdirection before you can pull it off.

As for the timer reset — figure it out yourself. It’s a pretty big advantage that I’m not just going to give away.

Because when that event ends, and the new one starts, there is a very brief window where you can use a contested way point.

EDIT – It’s a time for sharing! :-)

I’ve actually been in a 30 vs. 5 defense scenario before (actually, it was closer to 5 vs. 60). The way we did it was have 2 catapults set up. One behind the gate to shell those trying to break it down, and one on top of the supply shed, strategically placed to hit the areas just outside the front walls.

I had rangers on the ramparts calling out my shots as I shelled the zerg outside. Eventually, they broke off because they were taking too much damage.

2 catapults in the right places can easily defend any tower in the game.

Ultramatum.5162:

and one on top of the supply shed, strategically placed to hit the areas just outside the front walls.

How does that work? Is the catapult aimed at the inner wall and because it’s AoE it hits the outside, or are you placing it up on the wall and the shells actually hit outside?

All of the above re siege. Fundamentally you cannot win, if you kill them they will ressurect their fallen. So all you can do is hold out as long as possible until re-inforcements arrive or your allies can hit a higher value target while you entertain the horde. Little point standing on the ramparts AoE’ings (unless you can hit their siege). So man/build siege equipment. Kill as many as you can as they breech. Slow, funnel and slay.

Retreat back to the take point and die like a man.

Then in team chat spew some whiney “wtf were you guys man we just lost nooblet ridge and all its upgrades….jeez” followed by “where’s our Zerg at looking for group”

Arrow carts. And more arrow carts.

Ultramatum.5162:

I’ve actually been in a 30 vs. 5 defense scenario before (actually, it was closer to 5 vs. 60). The way we did it was have 2 catapults set up. One behind the gate to shell those trying to break it down, and one on top of the supply shed, strategically placed to hit the areas just outside the front walls.

I had rangers on the ramparts calling out my shots as I shelled the zerg outside. Eventually, they broke off because they were taking too much damage.

2 catapults in the right places can easily defend any tower in the game.

If they build their ranged artillery close enough, but chances are, they are at max range, which will be just out of range of our catapult a foot or two behind the wall. It’s still a good idea, at the least you can thin out the door knockers enough to crowd control break fast to the cat shooters which will most likely be around three to four people and dps burn what you can.

In case of Zerg, I’m tripping you.

I usually play a Guardian or an Engineer. Both of em have abilities for shooting fire through the door. That’s effective for stopping a zerg by itself most of the time. Especially if they didn’t come with a catapult.

If I know there’s supplies in the tower, I set up a catapult inside the door. When you do that, don’t just hit the door with it. You gotta toss a couple balls over the door at varying ranges! That’ll keep em from getting comfortable out there, and it’s fun to see a bunch of numbers pop up indicating that you just hit a zerg.

If the other team lays a ram, everybody should focus on destroying the ram. If you’re up on the rooftop shooting the ram, half the time nobody notices you because they’re taking no damage. You bust that ram you end up forcing them to use another one, and half the time again! Nobody brings supplies.

Last night I learned a new trick. I had a guy standing behind me as I threw flame through the door. Somebody on the other side got smart and kept hitting retaliation. So the guy behind me just kept raising me every time I died.

There’s all kinds of things. Good thread, buddy.

There’s very little 5 players can do to stop 30. Sooner or later, they’re getting in.

The trick is to make the siege as drawn-out and difficult as possible for your foes – in which case victory is determined by either holding out long enough for the cavalry to sweep in and save the day, or wasting your opponents time and resources (with populations capped, if you are tying up 30 players with just 5, that’s an extra 25 of your own players free to run amok at other locations for as long as you can hold those 30 up).

A catapult inside, aimed at the inside of the gate is usually a good investment. The AoE damage and knockback extends to the other side of the gate and does a decent job of keeping enemy rams out of action and making life extremely difficult for anyone attempting to assault the gate at close range. Anything else depends on what supply you have available, and the upgrade status of the Tower. Assuming you have the supply, a couple of arrow carts are always useful (placed as far back as possible), and the second Catapult described by Ultramatum sounds rather tempting. Never bother with Cannons or Oil in small numbers – you’ll just be an easy target for AoE and your companions will probably get killed as well trying to res you.

If the gate isn’t upgraded, 30 players will be inside quick no matter what you do, so if one of you is a Mesmer, your best bet is probably for the other four to distract the enemy while the Mesmer finds a good place to hide away and port his friends back inside to retake the Tower after the enemy have left and the Lords buff has worn off. If no Mesmer, try to hide the entire group (if coordinated enough to stack up in the same place, it’s just as easy to hide 100 people inside as 1).

Remove armor. Fight them all to the death!

Wait until they take down the gate, then cycle line of warding with your 4 other guardians, while screaming ‘YOU SHALL NOT PASS’

Its easy.

1. See Zerg.
2. Run from Zerg.
3. Exit WvW.
4. On Friday after reset enter WvW and have fun for 2 days.
5. If your team isn’t dominating by Sunday nite…refer back to #1

CriSPeH.8512:

Its easy.

1. See Zerg.
2. Run from Zerg.
3. Exit WvW.
4. On Friday after reset enter WvW and have fun for 2 days.
5. If your team isn’t dominating by Sunday nite…refer back to #1

Hate those people.

this is actually a rather interesting topic, as this tends to be exactly what i’m doing the vast majority of the time. the recipe for success actually involves more than 5 pieces of siege equipment too. as was stated before, the 2 catapult model is extremely effective. one behind the door, and another one hitting in front of the door, preferably from the side. two different directions of the knockback keep the recovery from becoming a reflex action, and slows them down a split second more each time. from there, you want your other 3 on arrow carts. oil is…… useless, really, since its usually gone before anyone gets close to it. cannons are nice for softening them up as they approach, but once they’re on the door, it’s better to avoid them as much as possible.

now, if they start setting up a catapult at max distance, that’s when it’s time to bust out your secret weapon. the trebuchet. 5 catapults being set up to hit your wall? that’s treb fodder. and, if it’s set up in just the right places, you can either hit your door, or send your boulder over the front wall to destroy their back line.

now, i also recommend putting an extra arrow cart in if your second catapult can’t get the proper angle on the door from the side. you might still be able to tear up their back ranks, but will need the cart to down the people and rams at the door.

though, the first thing you should do is call out for the rest of your team, with appropriate details of what’s going on. they won’t really have to rush there until the gate gets to about 50% though.

and, just in case you aren’t able to break their zerg, bail out of the place when the gate is at 5%. i’ve seen too many people try to solo a zerg, and not even end up being a speedbump on their way up to the keep lord….

Re: Placement of Catapult.

I pop the catapults on top of the supply sheds because it can’t be hit by the AOE from the attackers at the gate, but it can still fire just over the top of the walls and hit the area very close outside of the gate. This placement of catapults is very flexible and has allowed me to successfully defend towers with a 5 man team many times.

Mighteous.9281:

If I know there’s supplies in the tower, I set up a catapult inside the door. When you do that, don’t just hit the door with it. You gotta toss a couple balls over the door at varying ranges! That’ll keep em from getting comfortable out there, and it’s fun to see a bunch of numbers pop up indicating that you just hit a zerg.

Ahh, I see now. I didn’t think about shooting the catapult blindly and letting the damage numbers tell you if you hit. Great idea.

Well, if it’s my thief gank squad that consists of 3 thiefs,a guardian, and a necro I do the following. Have the necro AOE poison, guardian walls behind the zerg so they’re smushed between the gate and wall. 3 thiefs pop dagger storm the zerg in the poison cloud so you get wirlwind with poison bolts combo. If you start to drop, run back into keep. After the dagger storm, pop quickness for fast pegging. If that doesn’t work, hold them off with cluster bomb and wait for help.

Depends on your class setup. 5 backstab thieves? Yay you win! Forget that siege! Siege is garbage compared to your damage! Everyone simultaneously shadow step into the zerg and use Dagger Storm. gg – collect loot and /laugh at invaders.

Any other class? “…plan an escape route”

^ not if it’s 5 DPS speced eles. 5 Meteor storms would WTF pwn

oya! 3k damage mets x 5 XD (idk how much a full glass cannon meteor hits for)

my eles glas cannon met hits for 3k-8k depending on crits ect

Upgrade the tower and keep before leaving the house. Add Siege weapons, catapults, arrowcart etc.. bring some Blueprints with you, and supplies (always).

Don´t hesitate a second, SIMPLY use a blueprint when you are facing a e-zerg (ask in /T). What is the point in exchanging “normal attacks”.. when you can nullify that with just 1 Ballista and Arrowcart?

LOL makes me wonder how well coordinated Meteor Showers + Time Warp + Feedback would work…

Coordination is the X factor. The gank squad i roll with has gone 20 vs 4/5 and we’ve won just because we coordinated.

It actually depends a lot on the situation, as the previous posters have pointed out. Delaying a siege is nigh impossible without pre-existing siege in your keep (this should always be the case).

However, here are some things you should keep in mind when assessing the situation:

Are enemy siege weapons already up?

If no — You have time, ask for reinforcements, check your siege situations, drop a cata behind the door and pull a little supply from your keep if you need it. You also have time to make a supply run to the nearest supply camp (assuming you control it).

If yes — How much and what type? If a single ram, you still have some time. Call for reinforcements, solidify your own siege. Do they have 3 Rams/a Catapult up? You have very little time, start thinking of ways to delay them. Remember: you have an inner-keep, use it and make sure you don’t die.

How much siege the opposing force has up is a big determinant of how your battle will go.

My guild was in a similar situation, it was 12 vs. 40ish on our garrison. We decided to flank the attackers, leaving 2 people in the keep to man siege, and using a Mesmer portal to flank them on the south. Our flank cause half of their zerg to turn tail and run, while simultaneously trapping half the zerg in range of our siege. This wiped out half their force, forcing them to regroup, and by the time they could come back en masse, we were able to beef up our defensive numbers to match theirs.