Guild Wars 2

Right now, sinking time, money, and painstaking effort in upgrading and defending anything is completely pointless. You spend hours upgrading a keep, only for it to fall in less than 3 mins (well, sometimes it can take hour or more, but THAT part of the fight is usually done in the lord’s room and has nothing to do with actual upgrades). Where’s the return for all that time wasted? What incentive do I have to spend all that time and money, when I could just as easily go farm them for bags while they flip the keep, then retake it 5 mins later? Defense event “rewards” are pretty non-existent, yet offense rewards are much much higher. When is the last time you got a loot chest from defending?

IMHO attacking a properly fortified structure should always be harder than defending it. it should require tactics and planning. Not just blobbing up, throwing 2 pieces of siege down, and mowing over the point. While I’m sure the uppity “leet” players will counter-argue this (mainly because they like easy caps, which only proves my point) saying some fights can last well over an hour to cap something, but consider which parts of that fight are you spending that time in? Most always the lord’s room and all that is, is which blob is biggest and who has the most banners to throw down. There’s just no feel of skilled play in wvw anymore and I think the defense-vs-offense issue is one of the things at the heart of it.

It is already viable.
With 5 arrowcart, you can kick 60+ kitten easily.

But I agree, it takes too many time to get upgrade that will be destroy in 3 min at 7am.

purecontact.1680:

It is already viable.
With 5 arrowcart, you can kick 60+ kitten easily.

But I agree, it takes too many time to get upgrade that will be destroy in 3 min at 7am.

If 60 people stand there and get blasted away by arrow carts, every single one of them deserved it for being stupid.

TBH upgrades should be FREE and the rewards for defending should be tenfold. That would be a good start…..

It’s gonna get less viable soon. RIP gate trebs

This is actually a big issue in WvW, gonna keep bumping this so it stays on front page

Once there are better rewards for defending and upgrading is when we will see people start doing it. The problem is that you don’t want to game to turn into a turtle fest, either, where entire servers just stick to their own side of the map the whole game and never branch out, since there is no point to do so.

I agree that the upgrading process is slow and painful, but it IS a lot easier defending than attacking, provided you have an organised zerg. 1 person can hold off an entire zerg from breaking down a gate with just 1 door treb. 2 people can push off an entire zerg and even kill some of them. 3 people and the structure (provided it is sufficiently sieged up) is impossible to take.

This is assuming your opponents aren’t using AC tricks to take out your siege.

Druss.6917:

Right now, sinking time, money, and painstaking effort in upgrading and defending anything is completely pointless. You spend hours upgrading a keep, only for it to fall in less than 3 mins (well, sometimes it can take hour or more, but THAT part of the fight is usually done in the lord’s room and has nothing to do with actual upgrades). Where’s the return for all that time wasted? What incentive do I have to spend all that time and money, when I could just as easily go farm them for bags while they flip the keep, then retake it 5 mins later? Defense event “rewards” are pretty non-existent, yet offense rewards are much much higher. When is the last time you got a loot chest from defending?

IMHO attacking a properly fortified structure should always be harder than defending it. it should require tactics and planning. Not just blobbing up, throwing 2 pieces of siege down, and mowing over the point. While I’m sure the uppity “leet” players will counter-argue this (mainly because they like easy caps, which only proves my point) saying some fights can last well over an hour to cap something, but consider which parts of that fight are you spending that time in? Most always the lord’s room and all that is, is which blob is biggest and who has the most banners to throw down. There’s just no feel of skilled play in wvw anymore and I think the defense-vs-offense issue is one of the things at the heart of it.

Hmmm, I think you need to actually defend it instead of complaining. SBI was in FA’s BL for over 3 hours, with a queue, trying to take FA’s t3 bay. We came so close, so many times, but they could just waypoint in a whole map queue and no matter how many we dropped, they kept coming every time the waypoint openend. They would banner the lord to by time. They would sacrifice themselves in the circle. And they eventually kept it (since we had to go to bed).

We drained their supply from bay, hills (IoJ was attacking there) and garrison (we kept sending a havok squad there). But, they were able to hold on, because they do DEFEND their stuff. They will even upgrade keeps in other BL’s and defend them just as hard. It is truly viable, you just need to actually defend it.

Now, we eneded up not succeeding because people were going to bed, but we did leave a havok their, and then switched to EB and took their t3 SM from them.

TLDR; Quit complaining about defending and actually do it. FA does, and SBI sometimes does. You just have to get the server to actually commit to the concept of defending. You can farm a crap load of bags, and for me, fighting over a keep that is being defended (or even defending a keep from a zerg) is the most fun that I have in WvW. Much better than open field figthing.

Andrew Clear.1750:

Hmmm, I think you need to actually defend it instead of complaining. SBI was in FA’s BL for over 3 hours, with a queue, trying to take FA’s t3 bay. We came so close, so many times, but they could just waypoint in a whole map queue and no matter how many we dropped, they kept coming every time the waypoint openend. They would banner the lord to by time. They would sacrifice themselves in the circle. And they eventually kept it (since we had to go to bed).

We drained their supply from bay, hills (IoJ was attacking there) and garrison (we kept sending a havok squad there). But, they were able to hold on, because they do DEFEND their stuff. They will even upgrade keeps in other BL’s and defend them just as hard. It is truly viable, you just need to actually defend it.

Now, we eneded up not succeeding because people were going to bed, but we did leave a havok their, and then switched to EB and took their t3 SM from them.

TLDR; Quit complaining about defending and actually do it. FA does, and SBI sometimes does. You just have to get the server to actually commit to the concept of defending. You can farm a crap load of bags, and for me, fighting over a keep that is being defended (or even defending a keep from a zerg) is the most fun that I have in WvW. Much better than open field figthing.

Read the bold of what you wrote…then re-read what I wrote. Pay closer attention next time.

Hmm…actually t3 structures with proper defensive sieges and organized force defending are extremely hard to break through unless using omega golem rushes or under heavy 2v1. Against golem rushes, t3 structures usually provide you with enough time once scouted for reinforcement to come to inner to defend

Druss.6917:

Where’s the return for all that time wasted? What incentive do I have to spend all that time and money, when I could just as easily go farm them for bags while they flip the keep, then retake it 5 mins later? Defense event “rewards” are pretty non-existent, yet offense rewards are much much higher. When is the last time you got a loot chest from defending?

I do a lot of defensive play in WvW and I generally look at WvW as costing me gold to play. Unless I spend some time taking objectives, my gold goes down when I play.

One way that players could be rewarded for defensive play is to give them karma based on cost in return for upgrades when they get completed (and possibly exempting the merchant upgrades).

The problem is that if the game blindly rewards upgrades and siege building, players could waste supplies on upgrades and siege weapons that are defensively worthless just to get the reward. This complaint was made during the first WvW Season, where one of the achievements involved using supplies on repairs. Starting an upgrade, building siege, and performing repairs is not always the best use of supplies, and giving a reward for them can encourage people to do the wrong thing.

If they required an upgrade to complete before getting a reward, that would give the player a vested interest in making sure the upgrade completed and thinking about whether they’ll complete before starting them. It still may lead to upgrades being done out of order, but that should be mitigated by the karma reward being proportional to the cost of the upgrade (and time to complete it) so that the order doesn’t matter that much to getting a reward.

Reslinal.2359:

Hmm…actually t3 structures with proper defensive sieges and organized force defending are extremely hard to break through unless using omega golem rushes or under heavy 2v1. Against golem rushes, t3 structures usually provide you with enough time once scouted for reinforcement to come to inner to defend

The problem is that the game doesn’t really give much of a reward to scouting or camping a location, either. Having someone in every camp, tower, keep, and castle to report in as soon as an enemy shows up instead of relying on swords being thrown on the map is very effective and a pre-sieged and defended upgraded tower or keep can be very difficult to take, but in the lower tiers, we often don’t have the coverage to keep someone in every tower and keep and it’s not very rewarding to camp a tower or keep waiting for the enemy to show up.

The one exception that I’ve seen in Quentin Lake. Why? Because I can set up a ballista on the mortar platform area pointing out at the Hylek camp. From there, I can win over the Hylek by killing krait, can neutralize hostile Hylek by killing them, and I can snipe at enemy players passing through the Hylek, trying to take them, or trying to neutralize them. Maybe if they had more to do at other towers like that, there might be more reason to scout and defend them for the team.

defending will be possible when 5 players build 5 arrowcarts and wait patiently for the zerg to arrive. that’s all it takes.

I’d like to see chests awarded for holding a structure after the contested timer runs out. The only thing is though, that could easily be farmed as many people just contest them to pull enemy towards it.

I’d like to see maybe double or triple WvW XP from killing players within X radius of the structure.

I’d also really like the ability to dump your supply into structures as it takes a very long time to upgrade like you said, only for it to be taken in mere minutes. Even longer to upgrade if a zerg comes and kills your Dolyak.
Being able to run the supply from camps to structures and dump them in ourselves would be an excellent patch in my opinion.

A fully upgraded keep can’t be taken in 3 minutes, which is the point, a paper keep on the other hand probably can. The point of the upgrades is to buy time for defenders to come, generally the defenders have a way of getting back to the fight quickly while attackers do not. This is why the majority of the fights usually end up being over the lord’s room and in these fights the defenders almost always win (2v1ing aside). However, without upgraded walls and/or gates, the defenders would not even have the time to respond and would just lose it before the fight even starts.

Berk.8561:

Druss.6917:

Where’s the return for all that time wasted? What incentive do I have to spend all that time and money, when I could just as easily go farm them for bags while they flip the keep, then retake it 5 mins later? Defense event “rewards” are pretty non-existent, yet offense rewards are much much higher. When is the last time you got a loot chest from defending?

I do a lot of defensive play in WvW and I generally look at WvW as costing me gold to play. Unless I spend some time taking objectives, my gold goes down when I play.

One way that players could be rewarded for defensive play is to give them karma based on cost in return for upgrades when they get completed (and possibly exempting the merchant upgrades).

The problem is that if the game blindly rewards upgrades and siege building, players could waste supplies on upgrades and siege weapons that are defensively worthless just to get the reward. This complaint was made during the first WvW Season, where one of the achievements involved using supplies on repairs. Starting an upgrade, building siege, and performing repairs is not always the best use of supplies, and giving a reward for them can encourage people to do the wrong thing.

If they required an upgrade to complete before getting a reward, that would give the player a vested interest in making sure the upgrade completed and thinking about whether they’ll complete before starting them. It still may lead to upgrades being done out of order, but that should be mitigated by the karma reward being proportional to the cost of the upgrade (and time to complete it) so that the order doesn’t matter that much to getting a reward.

Who gives a kitten about a loot chest. You can get bags, bags, and more bags by defending. Also, it is a lot of fun to fight over t3 structures.

Here’s an idea I had:
Create tower heights for each upgrade. So on stone walls, the circular joints gain an extra level with places for ballista a to be placed and more room for arrow carts. Also, it sets up two sets of cannons, one on the bottom, one on the bottom. This would greatly increase the functionality of Ballistas as well as giving more utility for cannons (they get killed way to quickly by blobs in their current state).
Finally, on the reinforced walls, there is a third level. It doesn’t add a third level of cannons, but has a balcony jutting out, similar to what is in SMC, at 2500 range from the ground. This would be good for ballista a which could shoot down on the gate and rams, as well as protected spots for ACs. This would help from destroying siege and would benefit small groups of defenders against large groups.
There should also be an upgrade you can activate for the fully upgraded gate when it reaches half health called Bolster the Gate. It costs 100 supply and reduces the damage of siege on the GATE by 35%. This would help especially in fully supplied keep when there is no Zerg on the map during your servers off time, but there are 5-10 people trying to hold out against a blob

It is already a lot easier to defend than it is to attack. That said, the reason people don’t play defense is because of one thing, it is boring.

can be a bit lame how quickly the keep lord or any of the other npcs like that get killed.
and if you have less players than them they can just treb you and you have to just sit and take it

Reikan.2908:

can be a bit lame how quickly the keep lord or any of the other npcs like that get killed.
and if you have less players than them they can just treb you and you have to just sit and take it

I think this is the biggest problem with upgrading. One way of another, your walls are going to fall. So is it even worth investing time and money into it when you can “let” your opponents get it, and recapture it later for World EXP and a loot bag? Sorry, but I’ll take my EXP and loot bag over SPENDING time and money any day of the week.

The sad thing is that most updates buff offense and make it even harder to defend. Ram mastery was over the top. Just compare how good it is (at t3 even) compared to any other siege mastery. It takes at least three arrowcarts to get to my warrior when I’m ramming on it.

Besides, arrow carts aren’t even all that amazing at defending anyway (even though they are the best option next to counter treb that’s about to be nerfed). Ever since I’ve started playing ele, I’ve been AoEing them down pretty easily. One Meteor Shower (going in Tornado after cast) can take an AC down to 1/4 hp. Ele can pretty much AoE anything up top on a wall, even if it’s placed on the back side of the wall. This is for most structures, that is so there are a few spots, most notably in keeps where AoEing is harder. AC’s on the bottom behind the gate are a lot harder to kill (depending on placement, a counter AC or Dragon’s Tooth ele may be able to get it) but they only do damage to people on the gate and if the commander is smart, he’ll place the rams at max range and then have the ram users stand on the ram at the max range of the interaction thingy to get on the ram. Lets not forget that structures being trebbed can very easily have their siege taken out as well as structures being hit by players in omega golems.

style.6173:

It is already a lot easier to defend than it is to attack. That said, the reason people don’t play defense is because of one thing, it is boring.

Ha. We pushed off about 5 assaults from IoJ (on their bl) at hills earlier this evening. They had 40 to 60 for almost everyone. FA even crashed the party a few times with around 40 of their own.

We probably had around 30 to 40.

I can tell you one thing….It sure the hell wasn’t boring. Maybe the pvd k-train is exciting to you, but attacking keeps that are being defended, and defending keeps, is probably the most fun I have in WvW. It is so much better than open field fighting, where you just run into each other, spam 1, and see who is the last one standing.

Attacking keeps that are being defended, and defending keeps, actually takes strategy. 1 mistake can cost you the whole kitten operation. Supply plays a factor in it as well. It sure isn’t boring.

Anet didn’t designed wvw so you should defend keeps and towers. Anet did design WvW to karma train. That’s how you get the most reward. Most reward given; means how designers wants you to play.
So stop sitting in towers and keeps. Get in 1 big zerg and cap everything… then hob to the next border.

Preferable doing this between 2:00 am and 7:00 am , when everyone is asleep. So you also play for the PPT. Since that’s the best way how to win a matchup

Have scouts. Have a commander who reacts quickly and appropriately to scout reports.

Dutchares.6084:

Anet didn’t designed wvw so you should defend keeps and towers. Anet did design WvW to karma train. That’s how you get the most reward. Most reward given; means how designers wants you to play.
So stop sitting in towers and keeps. Get in 1 big zerg and cap everything… then hob to the next border.

Preferable doing this between 2:00 am and 7:00 am , when everyone is asleep. So you also play for the PPT. Since that’s the best way how to win a matchup

No idea what you are talking about. They seem to have designed them fine for defense. It seems that many servers, and several guilds have no problem defending. It just depends on your personality. If you can waypoint a keep, you can defend it, as long as your server will help you.

Dutchares.6084:

Anet didn’t designed wvw so you should defend keeps and towers. Anet did design WvW to karma train. That’s how you get the most reward. Most reward given; means how designers wants you to play.
So stop sitting in towers and keeps. Get in 1 big zerg and cap everything… then hob to the next border.

Preferable doing this between 2:00 am and 7:00 am , when everyone is asleep. So you also play for the PPT. Since that’s the best way how to win a matchup

No idea what you are talking about. They seem to have designed them fine for defense. It seems that many servers, and several guilds have no problem defending. It just depends on your personality. If you can waypoint a keep, you can defend it, as long as your server will help you.

Andrew Clear.1750:

style.6173:

It is already a lot easier to defend than it is to attack. That said, the reason people don’t play defense is because of one thing, it is boring.

Ha. We pushed off about 5 assaults from IoJ (on their bl) at hills earlier this evening. They had 40 to 60 for almost everyone. FA even crashed the party a few times with around 40 of their own.

We probably had around 30 to 40.

I can tell you one thing….It sure the hell wasn’t boring. Maybe the pvd k-train is exciting to you, but attacking keeps that are being defended, and defending keeps, is probably the most fun I have in WvW. It is so much better than open field fighting, where you just run into each other, spam 1, and see who is the last one standing.

Attacking keeps that are being defended, and defending keeps, actually takes strategy. 1 mistake can cost you the whole kitten operation. Supply plays a factor in it as well. It sure isn’t boring.

^ this

Some people may think defending is boring as kitten but i have the greatest times upgrading/ pre sieging keeps and once under attack i enjoy the view of all people willing to come help defend using all the siege and killing them, or losing it but giving everything we can to defend. Banners, suicide contest runs, guerilla attacks.

All in all lots more fun then PvD or open field fights but on the other hand not as rewarding and PvD, but i play for the fun and not for the rewards, if i did i would play PvE lol

1. Reduce cost of upgrades
2. Raise walls to 1500 range.
~reduces the amount of classes that can hit cannons. Eles/Rangers/Necros can still force skill#1 shots & rangers can trait for 1500 range. However, ground target skills cannot reach in most cases.
~eliminates ultra deadly necro well spam & fears, allowing person to stay on the cannon and actually use it…
~this might reduce ac range a bit but, they would also be un-destroyable from the outside w/o cata/treb fire or higher ground bali fire etc. (unless noob placement of course)

Cannons are pretty tough siege, it takes time to destroy them. The problem is that no one can stay on them w/o being killed. Rendering them almost useless. Even constant waterfields on said cannoneer don’t help in “when blobs attack” situations.
Also why, most people don’t even bother to invest in Cannon Mastery unless they have nothing to do with their points.
Suggestion 2 alone, would add some validity to defense w/o messing things up too much. There would still need to be scouts, you would still have to ‘get there in time’, there would still be plenty of epic lord’s room fights etc.

I suggested an upgrade overhaul in a previous thread: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/wuv/wuv/Make-gates-the-first-upgrade/first#post3754759
"
Agreed. Might turn the tide just a little and add some more epic fights defending structures, giving defenders just a little more time to respond. Also, slowing down the ktrain a tad.
I also agree that pvd shouldn’t be allowed, with maybe, the exception of fire damage… cuz…logical

Could restructure upgrades:
row 1:
~hire merchants
~hire services (bank/repairs)
~hire tp agent
row 2:
~hire additional guards
~raise guard level
~hire guard patrol
row 3:
~build cannons
~reinforce cannons
~build cannon platforms & extend cannon range appropriately (raising cannons to 1500 range, thus also giving rangers more purpose in wvw if traited accordingly)
row4:
~2nd worker
~build mortars
~build wp
row 5:
~gates are resistant to all damage except fire & siege damage
~gates are reinforced
~gates are fortified
row 6:
~infused iron walls (walls randomly ignore/reflect dmg 5% of the attack time, or every 10th hit)
~walls are reinforced
~walls are fortified

Just some ideas.
(The cannon platform idea was suggested by someone else in the recent thread “Cannons destroying rams through gate”. Too good of an idea to overlook
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Defending is fun, and “easier” than attacking, but only when there is actually a fight to be had. Maintaining a constant overwatch on all critical territory is boring, and is not rewarded with loot, which is why it tends not to be done. The lack of will to camp inside of structures contributes to the success of ktrains.

It should be noted that even if you do have a few people camping inside a structure, upgrades and defensive siege are not meant to provide a tiny force of defenders with an indefinite defense against vastly superior numbers. Their purpose is to allow a small force to hold out longer for reinforcements, or to be used in combination with a medium-sized force to offset a large force.

When they see cannons or carts not matter when they are isolated during a 1v50 situation, many players mistakenly conclude that those things are useless. When in fact those things are actually quite powerful, when properly used to support a nominal force of players on the ground. So instead of a 1v50 situation where the zerg can brazenly approach and bomb the cannon, you have say a 30v50 situation where the 30 and the cannon support eachother. The 30 prevent the cannon from being wall-bombed, and the cannon creates an zone within which the 50 cannot safely engage the 30.

Anways, the message here is basically that if you have all of your territory sieged up, and overwatched, and you have several float ops teams ready and willing to rescue structures that come under siege, defense is possible. But that is a pretty high bar to set for a mostly pickup effort.

^Pretty much true.

There’s no fun in just sitting in a tower or keep. An object can be defended if you have time to be there to repel the attack in a quick enough time if not before the enemy even attacks. Basically, lets say you need X number of players in the tower by time T in order to defend a structure. Chances are, if you only have a few people (less than X) sitting in a structure when the attack starts, you won’t be able to get reinforcements in time. Omegas, Superior Rams, and ram mastery all contribute to gates going down faster than ever and usually having your zerg port back isn’t enough time to save the structure unless its a keep or extremely upgraded tower. If you try to keep a lot of people sitting on your side to defend your stuff, you no longer have enough people to flip stuff on enemy sides. Or if it’s a borderland, the map is typically too big to be able to defend the whole map.

Radian.2478:

^Pretty much true.

There’s no fun in just sitting in a tower or keep. An object can be defended if you have time to be there to repel the attack in a quick enough time if not before the enemy even attacks. Basically, lets say you need X number of players in the tower by time T in order to defend a structure. Chances are, if you only have a few people (less than X) sitting in a structure when the attack starts, you won’t be able to get reinforcements in time. Omegas, Superior Rams, and ram mastery all contribute to gates going down faster than ever and usually having your zerg port back isn’t enough time to save the structure unless its a keep or extremely upgraded tower. If you try to keep a lot of people sitting on your side to defend your stuff, you no longer have enough people to flip stuff on enemy sides. Or if it’s a borderland, the map is typically too big to be able to defend the whole map.

This isn’t true. If you have reinforced gates, you can reach that structure from any point on the map (not including extremes of the map where you shouldn’t be anyway) from when it has white swords (contested) to when it gets capped. Even faster if you have a scout and can start moving before white swords show. The only way they can cap it faster is if they have a giant map blob of over 60 people and just build 5 rams, in which case you won’t be saving it anyway unless you got an equal sized zerg (which should have scouts so that you wouldn’t be in this situation in the first place)

Well, many of the T1 and T2 servers get blobs that sized and especially during the tournament right now that’s not too uncommon. Plus the swords don’t pop up until 30 seconds after the structure gets attacked. If your zerg has to take any time to ooc and waypoint and run back in a manner that doesn’t have a super large tail which causes players to get picked off, it becomes tough to get there in time. Not to mention the fact that you won’t be able to wipe them unless you get numbers close to theres which you may or may not have on the map. My server lost a fortified tower yesterday to a blob of 60 that literally ranged dps’d the gate down. They had a treb from 3rd floor stonemist that took down our siege inside and then after we took down their rams with the keep mortar they just dps’d the gate while we had 30 players on. This is for an upgraded structure too. Walls on structures also upgrade before gates so if you want to get something upgraded before it gets blobbed, you have to have a lot of people camping there. Trebbing your own gate is going to get nerfed too which is the only way to defend outnumbered.

Offair.2563:

Andrew Clear.1750:

style.6173:

It is already a lot easier to defend than it is to attack. That said, the reason people don’t play defense is because of one thing, it is boring.

Ha. We pushed off about 5 assaults from IoJ (on their bl) at hills earlier this evening. They had 40 to 60 for almost everyone. FA even crashed the party a few times with around 40 of their own.

We probably had around 30 to 40.

I can tell you one thing….It sure the hell wasn’t boring. Maybe the pvd k-train is exciting to you, but attacking keeps that are being defended, and defending keeps, is probably the most fun I have in WvW. It is so much better than open field fighting, where you just run into each other, spam 1, and see who is the last one standing.

Attacking keeps that are being defended, and defending keeps, actually takes strategy. 1 mistake can cost you the whole kitten operation. Supply plays a factor in it as well. It sure isn’t boring.

^ this

Some people may think defending is boring as kitten but i have the greatest times upgrading/ pre sieging keeps and once under attack i enjoy the view of all people willing to come help defend using all the siege and killing them, or losing it but giving everything we can to defend. Banners, suicide contest runs, guerilla attacks.

All in all lots more fun then PvD or open field fights but on the other hand not as rewarding and PvD, but i play for the fun and not for the rewards, if i did i would play PvE lol

You both miss the point. You need people focused on attacking in order for you to play defense. Most of the time, you will just be sitting in the tower waiting for someone to attack. That’s the boring part.

The actual fight can be fun to defend (if you happen to enjoy just sitting on an AC or treb), but the sentry part is not. Doing the sentry piece is where most of your time will be spent. It is boring.

Naz.2607:

I also agree that pvd shouldn’t be allowed, with maybe, the exception of fire damage… cuz…logical

Sort of off topic, but setting castle doors on fire is not easy/borderline impossible. Most people struggle to even get a campfire going, using dry tinder and lighter fluid.

Fluffball.8307:

Naz.2607:

I also agree that pvd shouldn’t be allowed, with maybe, the exception of fire damage… cuz…logical

Sort of off topic, but setting castle doors on fire is not easy/borderline impossible. Most people struggle to even get a campfire going, using dry tinder and lighter fluid.

Magical fire! That kitten burns like nuclear napalm on steroids! From Mars!!

Not sure where you get this from OP. Defending is important for PPT. A couple of nites ago, Maguuma laid a 5 hour siege on our BL’s West Keep, because SoS refused to give it up. There’s good fights to be had when a server bunkers down to defend.

defending will become viable the same day that Anet addresses hacking (which means never)

Radian.2478:

Well, many of the T1 and T2 servers get blobs that sized and especially during the tournament right now that’s not too uncommon. Plus the swords don’t pop up until 30 seconds after the structure gets attacked. If your zerg has to take any time to ooc and waypoint and run back in a manner that doesn’t have a super large tail which causes players to get picked off, it becomes tough to get there in time. Not to mention the fact that you won’t be able to wipe them unless you get numbers close to theres which you may or may not have on the map. My server lost a fortified tower yesterday to a blob of 60 that literally ranged dps’d the gate down. They had a treb from 3rd floor stonemist that took down our siege inside and then after we took down their rams with the keep mortar they just dps’d the gate while we had 30 players on. This is for an upgraded structure too. Walls on structures also upgrade before gates so if you want to get something upgraded before it gets blobbed, you have to have a lot of people camping there. Trebbing your own gate is going to get nerfed too which is the only way to defend outnumbered.

I sympathise with that situation. EBG is poorly designed and SMC trebs shouldn’t be able to hit outer towers. I personally stay away from that map though and play almost exclusively on the borderlands. I also don’t understand the treb nerf. Just means we have to place 3 scouts in each tower – 1 for supply drain trebbing, 1 for cata to knock off rammers and 1 for arrow cart

when ? when ANET make the reward for defending is 5 times the rewards for attacking/capturing. they can simply make that and increase the time for defending tick….

Defending is very viable, But like recently posted, you need a scout and a commander that responds to his/her scouts
When I’m commanding I try to keep at least 1 scout in each tower that will give me accurate information so I know weather to move the Militia there to defend, after all your scout with the proper seige is your DEFENDER for that keep/tower if he looks after you, you need to look after him that means get to him quickly and do not let what he/her is holding down get lost after he/she works to provide that intel, It’s all about tactics, and mind games, what you feel is going to get hit.. Properly placeing seige in a tower or keep with a competent scout/defender can actually buy you time to finish capping another keep/tower before responding for the save.. But don’t just leave a defender in there, swap them out so they don’t get bored or burned out and always treat them with something special, after all they rely on you as much as you rely on them.

There has been plenty of times I have had my militia inside garrison fighting to cap it from one server, while another server is hitting another of our keeps, and 85% of the time we are able to get the cap and turn around to go save, and I have my defenders to thank for that.

I know it’s crazy but, defending is actually ::gasp:: fun for some people.
And some people play for ::gasp:: PPT!
I know, I know it sounds crazy! It’s like some kind of new age concept or something!
>.>

Unratedx.2794:

When I’m commanding I try to keep at least 1 scout in each tower that will give me accurate information so I know weather to move the Militia there to defend,

The problem is that doing so is that it’s often a boring chore that someone is get stuck doing, not eagerly volunteer for (except for Quentin Lake, maybe, where you can go Hylek and Krait fishing off the back with a ballista). As a primarily defensive player who runs dolyaks, runs upgrades, builds and refreshes siege, and camps towers and camps, I know how important it is but I also know that I get scant reward for my effort in game.

The other problem is that the low-tier servers have is that when you have less than a dozen people on the whole map (or maybe even in all of WvW), it’s hard to cover things with dedicated scouts.

Out of curiosity, do people ever see the Outnumbered buff on high-tier servers?

Naz.2607:

I know it’s crazy but, defending is actually ::gasp:: fun for some people.
And some people play for ::gasp:: PPT!

Absolutely, but some people who feel that way also feel a bit like chumps after finishing up a WvW session with less gold than they started with after running upgrades and deploying siege weapons while watching their zerg joke about how much loot they are getting in voice or map chat. YMMV.

Defending is viable, if you have enough people willing to do it, and players willing and ready to switch maps when the call for help goes out. IMO the biggest problem is just that gates go down too quickly, and that servers tend to not provide enough support/relief to the people willing to scout, build siege, refresh and such.

(Thread drift alert)

Out of curiosity, do people ever see the Outnumbered buff on high-tier servers?

On SBI (T3) we often saw Outnumbered before the tournament on the BL maps, including our own, especially during non-NA prime. Usually when we’d get it on our BL would be when we owned most of the map and it was quiet, then an enemy server would bring in a zerg to try and take what they could. If we could get forces to come in from another map to defend, it would go away. Outnumbered was commonplace on enemy BLs unless you went there as part of a zerg.

Since the season has started, I don’t recall seeing it much, if at all, other than when going to an enemy BL where we have little to no presence. I suspect during non-NA hours it’s still an issue even on our own BL at times.

slingblade.1437:

Defending is viable, if you have enough people willing to do it, and players willing and ready to switch maps when the call for help goes out. IMO the biggest problem is just that gates go down too quickly, and that servers tend to not provide enough support/relief to the people willing to scout, build siege, refresh and such.

(Thread drift alert)

Out of curiosity, do people ever see the Outnumbered buff on high-tier servers?

On SBI (T3) we often saw Outnumbered before the tournament on the BL maps, including our own, especially during non-NA prime. Usually when we’d get it on our BL would be when we owned most of the map and it was quiet, then an enemy server would bring in a zerg to try and take what they could. If we could get forces to come in from another map to defend, it would go away. Outnumbered was commonplace on enemy BLs unless you went there as part of a zerg.

Since the season has started, I don’t recall seeing it much, if at all, other than when going to an enemy BL where we have little to no presence. I suspect during non-NA hours it’s still an issue even on our own BL at times.

It’s actually quite easy to see outnumbered buff, even on BG. Once 2am server time rolls around, our enemy borderlands gets the outnumbered buff. In off seasons, when 11pm server time hits, we shrink down to 1 zerg jumping maps so which ever maps don’t have the zerg gets the outnumbered buff.

Those maps are the best for roaming

Defending is viable as mentioned with good communication between Commanders and Scouts, especially stationary Scouts who can man the cannons when needed – but boy is it boring.

Also you need ton of Superior Arrow Carts and Trebs covering all gates, it isn’t guaranteed you will succeed as you’ll still need coordination, numbers and skill to engage the Attacking Zerg.

Reverence.6915:

This isn’t true. If you have reinforced gates, you can reach that structure from any point on the map (not including extremes of the map where you shouldn’t be anyway) from when it has white swords (contested) to when it gets capped. Even faster if you have a scout and can start moving before white swords show. The only way they can cap it faster is if they have a giant map blob of over 60 people and just build 5 rams, in which case you won’t be saving it anyway unless you got an equal sized zerg (which should have scouts so that you wouldn’t be in this situation in the first place)

Not sure how are things are on more stacked server but at the bottom, fully upgraded keeps can be capped pretty easily. It is Omega Wars! We can’t disengage, wp and run to a keep that is being attacked by 8 omegas, 2 rams, 5 mesmers with TW and, of course, it is t8, we don’t have coverage.

IMO, there should be a cap for golems. Omegas are expensive, sure, but they are an overkill when half of the other server “zerg” is made purely of omegas.

Make upgrades cost badges. Means people upgrading need to switch when out of badges.