About Lord Scaling

There seems to be a bug whereby keep/tower/castle lords are scaling with the total number of nearby players, rather than just the number of attackers. This means that when 15 people attack a keep, and 25 defend, the lord will scale for 40 people. Add in iron guards and it's effectively scaled for 80. Such scaling is illogical and imbalanced and is presumably not intended. The range also appears to be very long, such that a zerg passing through the outer northeast gate of Bay keep will already scale up the lord.

Is there any proof to support your claim?

I have noticed inconsistencies at times. Most noticeably the SMC lord. At times it will lose health very rapidly, other times it be very slow. I just always assumed it was due to the amount of damage coming from a group.

I don't have proof, but I can record this the next time it happens.

My guild occasionally tries to steal a keep and will often make it to the lord room before the enemy zerg arrives to defend. So we're there trying to burn lord and the bar is dropping fast... but then it stops. You can feel the moment it scales up as the enemy zerg enters the keep area.

At that moment, you know no amount of dps will let you finish the lord before that blob shows up. You might as well just leave the keep at this point, because your small 5-man group is about to get run over by 40-60. In the past, before the scaling, you could quickly finish the lord and cap the circle before the zerg gets there.

Now ..the fact that the lord scales up from defenders, not just attackers has single-handedly killed the ability to ninja keeps.

I actually noticed something the opposite way, less than 10 and occasionally the tower Lord gets curb stomped far harder than it should based solely on what I've experienced as a rank 3k. It sometimes feels like a scaled up camp boss.

Wonder if something with lord scaling in general was changed intentionally or not.

It has always scaled with defenders as well as attackers. This isn't new...

Yes I think this bug has existed for a long time. But it would seem that many people are not aware of it including ArenaNet.

There were posts on the other forums...

Players scale it up. Honestly, it's an early warning system for havoc teams.

I mean, report it as a bug. But likely it's intended.

It also likely has to do with the breakbar mechanic on bosses. It happens in PvE as well, and is likely based purely on numbers. Likely the mechanic can't be separated so it's now a "feature".

Welcome to WvW.

Do we have hard numbers on each tier of scaling?There's very clearly a big jump at around 10+. The sweet spot, as many know it.

~ Kovu

I don't think its a bug, its just the way it works. As for the sweet spot the quickest I've seen Lords go down is having around 4-5 players.

@Kovu.7560 said:Do we have hard numbers on each tier of scaling?There's very clearly a big jump at around 10+. The sweet spot, as many know it.

~ Kovu

Methinks science is needed.

It would help to test this if we could see the exact hp numbers on the bar.

Problem is even more complex here, the keep lord scales with number of total players in capture keep event range. So for example if you attack bay from north with 10 ppl get to the lord room but meanwhile 3rd server approaches bay from south with 60 ppl, you basically cannot kill the lord as it scales to max. This is how it always worked, it was suggested to change years ago, I've never seen an official reply. Imo ideally lord should only scale by the number of attackers inside inner wall.

lord should be perma upscalled should get even more buffed when x players in range! so the fight cango on for ever.

@Israel.7056 said:It would help to test this if we could see the exact hp numbers on the bar.

Would need cooperation from an enemy server to prevent inadvertent scale up.

Arc DPS would help.

@Israel.7056 said:It would help to test this if we could see the exact hp numbers on the bar.

I think the devs are the only ones that can truly test this in a controlled setting, there are just so many factors involved. The rest is just based on personal experience.

There is a bug and its been in the game for at least 2 years now. Its not generally an issue because you don't really try to kill the lord at the same time you're killing players. Its either before or after a fight. Anyways, from what I can tell, the bug occurs when too many people approach the lord too fast and get into combat with it. This isn't accurate 100% of the time but if you have say 10+ hit the lord all at once, it just bugs out and doesn't scale correctly then dies nearly instantly. I first noticed it in EOTM when a solid map queue hit the champion all at once.

@Blackarps.1974 said:There is a bug and its been in the game for at least 2 years now. Its not generally an issue because you don't really try to kill the lord at the same time you're killing players. Its either before or after a fight. Anyways, from what I can tell, the bug occurs when too many people approach the lord too fast and get into combat with it. This isn't accurate 100% of the time but if you have say 10+ hit the lord all at once, it just bugs out and doesn't scale correctly then dies nearly instantly. I first noticed it in EOTM when a solid map queue hit the champion all at once.

Must say I have never ever seen this in 6 years of capping keeps pretty much daily, regardless of being in 5 man havocs or 80 man zone blobs.

@Dawdler.8521 said:

@Blackarps.1974 said:There is a bug and its been in the game for at least 2 years now. Its not generally an issue because you don't really try to kill the lord at the same time you're killing players. Its either before or after a fight. Anyways, from what I can tell, the bug occurs when too many people approach the lord too fast and get into combat with it. This isn't accurate 100% of the time but if you have say 10+ hit the lord all at once, it just bugs out and doesn't scale correctly then dies nearly instantly. I first noticed it in EOTM when a solid map queue hit the champion all at once.

I thought the same thing, though I won't dispute his experience,

I have comsistently seen the lords bar dropping fairly quickly with our 5 man havoc, then it suddenly slows to almost a crawl.,..

Usually if I don't see green dots, AND we aren't a hit or two away, we run lol. It's early warning for us lol.

@Kovu.7560 said:Do we have hard numbers on each tier of scaling?There's very clearly a big jump at around 10+. The sweet spot, as many know it.

~ KovuImpossible to prove this bug without using 3rd party addon that shows the exact HP numbers. But it is clearly evidient that all players in the area scale up the lords.

So you're saying if your blob of 50 gets into SMC lord room then you can have 15 people covering each corridor with AOEs and then send your mesmer's and thiefs to dispatch to the lord with super friendly scaling?

That sounds wrong.

If you choose to bring 50 people into a lord room that's your commander's choice to balance how many are doing defence and how many are doing damage.

This is definitely trying to have your cake (very high defence) and eat it too (very high attack).

It SHOULD scale based on players in proximity and not attacking players in proximity.

@Strider Pj.2193 said:It has always scaled with defenders as well as attackers. This isn't new...

This. It was stated on the old forums that they were unable to make scaling only be effected by attackers.

@"dzeRnumbrd.6129" said:So you're saying if your blob of 50 gets into SMC lord room then you can have 15 people covering each corridor with AOEs and then send your mesmer's and thiefs to dispatch to the lord with super friendly scaling?

That sounds wrong.

If you choose to bring 50 people into a lord room that's your commander's choice to balance how many are doing defence and how many are doing damage.

This is definitely trying to have your cake (very high defence) and eat it too (very high attack).

It SHOULD scale based on players in proximity and not attacking players in proximity.

It really depends on how you look at it. Defenders should have the advantage, right? Everyone always complains about the walls not doing anything, well this is the lord doing something. He gives defenders more time to react and bring in reinforcements. You could call it morale boost for the lord ;)

Besides, why reward blobbing on offense without working for it? You want to take 80 people in to cap a keep then fine, but fuck it you better bring a majority of those to kill the lord instead of telling a couple of trash classes to kill it while you get your "fights" outside.

I think its fair.

Mechanic´s that existed for years are bugs now.ONLY THIS FORUM!