I’d like to shed some light on our thinking with this AC change as well as tell you all what we are doing right now to balance it.
Firstly, when siege weapons were originally created, they had the intent of being really good at some things and not so good at others. The arrow cart is intended to be the anti-personal siege weapon. It is intended that arrow carts are all about controlling an area through damage. If you remain in the area that is being hit by the arrow cart, you will die. You can however, move out of the space and/or find a new way to attack the intended target. That being said, they are not intended to be so good against other siege weapons and we are in the process of addressing that right now. We are also addressing their range when upgraded to be more in line with the range of ballistas.
Secondly, this change is going to require new tactics and those tactics include things like using ballista and catapults to destroy arrow carts. With that in mind, we’ve been looking more closely at the numbers of all the siege weapons and there are definitely some changes that need to be made to bring them in line with their intent. We are going to take a holistic pass at siege weapons in the coming months and drop a rebalance of all of them to get them to more closely align with what they should be doing.
Finally, the feedback you all provide is a very useful part of this whole process. WvW is a living, breathing game type and any changes we make have numerous consequences that don’t become fully visible until everyone starts interacting with them and devising new strategies. Our goal is to provide a complex combat space that rewards skill, tactics, and ingenuity and while we haven’t fully achieved that goal yet, I like to think we are getting there.