Arrow cart was fine, it does not need any damage buff, and i don’t think it will address the issue of zerging meta, instead, it replace the current zerg meta with a worse one: lazy bunker meta.
pre-patch:
The successful defense of any given structures in wvw relies on the synergy of 3 things:
siege users, defenders on the wall, and ground troops.
You need sieges like arrow cart to provide fire support and limited deterrence.
You need the mobility and other useful profession-related skills of the defenders on the wall. (ex. provide healing+ shield to the siege users, plus addtional AoEs)
You need the ground fources to be ready to move out the make a push.
You need ( or needed now with the new patch) these 3 thing to work co-operatively for a successful defense.
You could not defend a keep with a bunch of eles or rangers standing on wall, they will just get torn apart by all the Necro marks.
You could not defend a keep with sieges alone, they are static, and have slower firing rate.
You could not defend a keep with ground troop alone, with all that AoEs half of them would probably be dead when they exist the gate.
I think the synergy of these three is what makes wvw fun for a lot of us. I remember when i was playing with my ranger, i love standing on the wall and use my under-power longbow attacking those invaders. I know a lvl 5 noob with a arrow cart can probably do better than me when it comes to doing damage, and it’s very risky to stand on the wall when there are 10 eles casting meteors shower at me, nevertheless, it gives the battle a certain ‘flavor’ that can not be replaced by manning on a arrow cart and mashing 1,2,3.
This patch is gonna change that, i think.
Anet has buffed up the damage of arrow carts to the point that all you need to do is to have 5 people bunker down in your precious little keeps and use arrow carts to do all the work for you.
Ground troops? nope, no need to have actual face-to-face zerg clash, no more commander urging the pve militia to ‘stack. buff-up, we are making a push’, they will probably be acting solely as the ’ cleaning-up crews’ from now on: finishing those downed enemies and collecting bags.
Defenders on the wall? no need, arrow carts kill the enemies before you even need to heal the lvl 5 noob that’s been using arrow arts. No profession related skills are required, just mashing 1,2,3.
I know some people would say, ’ it kills zerg !.’ It’s stop people from pvdoor’, ‘it give defender a chance to defend’
First, you don’t want to replace a bad meta with a worse meta. Yes, zerging is bad, it’s stale, but bunker down in tower and let the arrow carts replacing the zerg is even a worse idea. I don’t see mashing 1,2,3, is any better than zerg vs zerg.
As for the pvdoor issue or giving defender a fighting chance when they are out-manned, well, of all the options Anet can do they picked the worst and imbalance, one. They could have make the gate stronger, or they could have make those guards npcs somewhat useful (we have a wvw trait line that specifically design for dealing with NPC, i mean seriously? they don’t go down fast enough?), or how about redesign out-manned buff completely? or find a better way to balance out server population and time zone issues?
if buffing up arrow cart’s is Anet’s attempt to address the wvw issues, then i am truly disappointed. I thought you guys were much more innovative than this…
People still play this game because it’s the only game out there that has ‘decent’ RvR (and now Anet is ruining it), they won’t hesitate to quit when there’s a better game, i think it’s a good thing Camelot Unchained is getting kickstart funded.
