Siege Revisions

I like it at least as something to be tested. My goal in thinking through this is: Causing more structures to open up and open up faster. More potential for fights. Problem is often the changes that should help outnumbered folks have the opposite effect. Siege based game so I’m not going to advocate taking anything away but I think this is a good compromise to even the field.

@Ben Phongluangtham.1065 said:Hey folks!

A few weeks ago we gathered some feedback on the current state of siege weapons. We've gone through the feedback and have come up with a list of changes. The changes below are the first group of them. We may do additional changes down the line, but these were some of the quickest we could do (didn't require new code/UI). Feedback is welcome!

For something integral to the game I hope for additional changes too. Quick and dirty should at least curb some things.

• You can no longer be hit more than once every .5 seconds by arrow cart attacks.
• You can no longer be hit more than once every .5 seconds by arrow cart attacks.
• Arrow Cart damage against siege has been reduced by 50%.
• The number of targets that can be hit by one arrow cart attack has been reduced from 50 to 25.

With the .5 seconds limit I don't think the max cap change was necessary, but we'll see. Would have preferred 100% reduction to siege damage, but the internal cooldown (assuming it applies to siege equipment) will compound with that damage decrease.

• Shield generators can no longer put domes on other shield generators.
• Shield generator domes no longer destroy unblockable projectiles.

Idk how that will work. Will it say invalid area when attempting to place the dome? Gucci if that's the case.

• Burning Oil Mastery 3 now also reduces condition damage. Damage reduction for both direct damage and conditions has been increased from 33% to 66%.

It'll still be useless without stability/defiance. D:

Same deal with canons.

• Catapult Gravel shot now shoots projectiles in a fan shape.

Welp, I guess we can't glitch one shot people with it anymore.

• Updated Ballistas to make them more reliable.
• Slowed the velocity of Greater Reinforced shot to give it an arc. This should make it easier to hit stationary targets (siege).

What is meant by more reliable or is just the number 3 arc-ing? I don't recall that being much an issue for bali, beyond it needed to do more damage to siege to compensate for siege health increase.

Were you going to address Trebs given how they're more effective defensively compared to offense?

Any changes to other siege that wasn't addressed (they seemed okay-ish to me).

Hm not the changes I personally was looking for on acs, but guess my zerk/mara builds won't complain.The shield gen changes look good, didn't know it would be possible not to put domes on other shield gens lol, (rangers you have one job and that's kill shield gens!), lets see how that plays out.

Were i like the changes overall and also on ac's for keeps and towers it is very one sided. Attackers can aoe walls and take out siege with meteorshowers and torch 5 on necro torch they can pull you 300 times even from the bottom up over the wall. With that in mind it is not uncomon that some defense are made with maybe 15 people defending against 70 and they become very much powerless with the changes since they still have to deal with aoe and constant pulls condi and what on top of walls.

I understand that the changes are made for the stuff that do not need coding, but still it is very one sided and favors attackers. In the end there should be a scaling involved. If you defend with 15 people again 70 you should do a lot more damage with siege then if you defend with 70 verse 70.

I have the feeling that arrow carts will become actually worthless. We'll see how it turns out

@Blocki.4931 said:I have the feeling that arrow carts will become actually worthless. We'll see how it turns out

Probably, at current AC's weren't much of a deterrent to me, I could stand in them all day. Now they'll do less damage to siege which was already not allot of damage. We'll probably see more trebs/catas placed in defense now.

You shouldn't have to rely on siege to do most of the work for you, to defend something with a large amount of attackers. I'm sorry but having 15 defenders vs 70 means you should eventually lose that structure in a short amount of time. I know there are problems with time zone coverage in this game, but they will eventually get better with the alliance system whenever that comes out. But you shouldn't be able to completely hold off 4x your numbers. Players need to play smarter by placing counter siege in better spots, and use the siege in keeps properly like all inner cannons can hit the outer gates, certain mortars are set up in nice spots, like the se mortar of garrison to wg, or the south mortar in red keep ebg that can hit the wg there.

The shield gen changes should help with enemies just spamming gens and bubbles, now they will need to spread them out and it will give the defender better opportunities to destroy them.

Siege should delay attackers until the defenders can muster enough players for defense to push them out, the same goes with tactivators. If you can't get the numbers to defend you shouldn't be able to hold, sorry.

I think all of these changes will at least mix things up. It will probably take 2-6 weeks to get an idea of whether it makes things more fun or more tragic. Or maybe has little effect.

I will try the new changes, however, I will say that I am against them. Those are fine for the Top tier where they are siege heavy andmapped queued most of the time. However at the lower tiers, these are huge detriments where you are usually outnumbered, outgunned, and easily outfought by Mag's blobs (A Tier 1-2 Serverhiding in T4 for kills. Just look at their insane KDR). In almost all cases, it is extremely difficult to get at and hit catapults up against your walls other then with Arrow Carts (With all the scourge bombs, its suicide to be on the wall). Thus you have mostly removed the only defense for a tower, especially if outnumbered.This will be even more pronounced and detrimental with servers without late night coverage. Crystal Desert can barely pull one map Queue during NA. This will just make them a total punching bag for all the other servers. Same thing will happen for the poor T3 server moving up into T2. This almost all favors the servers with the numbers of players. Unfortunately another case of ANET not looking at all sides of the issue.

@"Ben Phongluangtham.1065" said:

• You can no longer be hit more than once every .5 seconds by arrow cart attacks.Does that mean you are limited by only getting hit by 2 ACs at the same time (since they pulse damage every second)?
• Arrow Cart damage against siege has been reduced by 50%.That reduces the ability to kill stacked rams at gates or close to walls A LOT. I think it is too much of a nerf.
• The number of targets that can be hit by one arrow cart attack has been reduced from 50 to 25.Sounds like an OK change.Three nerfs to the AC at one balance step looks like they get "Smiter's Boon'ed". I very much think that the lone AC manned by a single to stop a small attacking party with one or two offensive sieges is absolutely useless now. Rams and catas will outlast the AC fire easily now.
• Shield generators can no longer put domes on other shield generators.How does that work?
• Shield generator domes no longer destroy unblockable projectiles.Good change. I think we all wanted something like that in the ideas thread.
• Burning Oil Mastery 3 now also reduces condition damage. Damage reduction for both direct damage and conditions has been increased from 33% to 66%.Might not be enough without Stability and/or Resistance
• Catapult Gravel shot now shoots projectiles in a fan shape.No increased damage or more CC condi still makes that useless compared to getting off the cata and auto attacking
• Updated Ballistas to make them more reliable.Please explain. Is this the "higher point of projectile location" we suggested?
• Slowed the velocity of Ballista's Greater Reinforced shot to give it an arc. This should make it easier to hit stationary targets (siege).I don't see how that will help with the ballista issue of line of sight ?

As for the cannons and Oil, I agree with GDchia Scrub, Cannons and oils are still pretty much useless unless you have good protection/stability. This need to be not only for them, but players on the walls. Why is it they can be insanely pulled off the wall, but we have to stand on the edge just to be able to fight back? Walls are supposed to be a major obstacle and DEFENSIVE advantage, yet everything is to the advantage of the attackers. at the very least, maybe make Window ports or shields that allow players to put up a defense. ANET seriously needs to get it Devs off their butts and come see how bad WvW really is. We need more defensive capabilities, not less.

@"Pagan Highlander.5948" said:I will try the new changes, however, I will say that I am against them. Those are fine for the Top tier where they are siege heavy andmapped queued most of the time. However at the lower tiers, these are huge detriments where you are usually outnumbered, outgunned, and easily outfought by Mag's blobs (A Tier 1-2 Serverhiding in T4 for kills. Just look at their insane KDR). In almost all cases, it is extremely difficult to get at and hit catapults up against your walls other then with Arrow Carts (With all the scourge bombs, its suicide to be on the wall). Thus you have mostly removed the only defense for a tower, especially if outnumbered.This will be even more pronounced and detrimental with servers without late night coverage. Crystal Desert can barely pull one map Queue during NA. This will just make them a total punching bag for all the other servers. Same thing will happen for the poor T3 server moving up into T2. This almost all favors the servers with the numbers of players. Unfortunately another case of ANET not looking at all sides of the issue.

Yeah, this is something i pointed at as well... But they refuse to give players on walls some sort of hope to be able to fight.At the very least they should give arrow carts a "zoom out" effect so you can aim them over walls, especially with the current nerfs. This will probably make it very difficult to defend walls against even or higher numbers.

Shield gen changes are ok, the rest is meh... Should of put a limited siege duration on all sieges. With the decrease in targets hit by acs this will only mean more arrow carts. Ill have to wait and see how the .5 sec delay turns out. This doesn't seem to solve the core issue which is there is too much siege.

I love changes. I don't care what the change is. Mix it up in WvW. Thank you! Here's my thought of these changes:

• You can no longer be hit more than once every .5 seconds by arrow cart attacks.I think there became a point when the defenders had too many people on arrow carts and that was it- death to the attacker. There is no way around it excepting taking out some ACs before the fight or portal bombing on top of them or using shield gen 5's on the zerg before they enter. This is a good change IMO.
• Arrow Cart damage against siege has been reduced by 50%.I didn't think ACs were killing siege too quickly. There are sometimes an AC is the only way to kill siege, i.e., third floor trebs in SMC from below. I think ACs were mostly doing too much damage to players, not too much damage to siege. However, this was mostly the case because of the massive amounts of shield gens covering the siege which gave the rams/catas force dome, making it immune to AC fire.
• The number of targets that can be hit by one arrow cart attack has been reduced from 50 to 25.This should allow attacks to fight defenders near walls without everyone getting hit as often. I think it's a good change. There was no reason for ACs to hit 50 people. I think the first AC nerf was enough, but this is a sure-fire way to make sure they've been reduced in their damage output overall.
• Shield generators can no longer put domes on other shield generators.This is a lovely change. I know eXa's typical siege method is two shield gens on the left side of a gate, which then rotate bubbles, and then two more on the left side, also rotating bubbles. This allowed for no possible way to disable their shield gens, nor their rams/catas for that matter. This means that every single shield gen will always be vulnerable to siege disablers and other projectiles.
• Shield generator domes no longer destroy unblockable projectiles.This is a fun change. I think we will see a rise of skills like "Nothing Can Save You!" or "Basilisk Venom" (or other skills that make your projectiles unblockable) from dedicated defenders to make their siege disablers unblockable and more effective. In general, besides the buff to disabler's effectiveness, this means that siege in general is more vulnerable when paired with shield gens.
• Burning Oil Mastery 3 now also reduces condition damage. Damage reduction for both direct damage and conditions has been increased from 33% to 66%.Honestly, no one is using this. The only time I find myself on it is when the attacks have been pulled away from the tower by a friendly zerg and I can use it to deal loads of damage to their rams all at once. Or, if I can drain some supply from them as their building.
• Catapult Gravel shot now shoots projectiles in a fan shape.I've never really used Gravel shot because I understood it to be bad. I'm glad it's changed to something else.
• Updated Ballistas to make them more reliable.Terrific. Ballistas are meant to kill siege. I hope they do this better.
• Slowed the velocity of Ballista's Greater Reinforced shot to give it an arc. This should make it easier to hit stationary targets (siege).Perfect. It needed an arc. Often I would have the ballista shot hit a small lip of a ledge and be useless. It's too bad that this skill has such a large cooldown though. If I want to take out some siege, It'd be nice if I could do it quicker.

All in all, great changes. The next piece of siege that changes the tide of battle the most effectively is the cannon. 5k+ hits to 50 people is a lot of damage for one person to do.

This is the best news I've heard in ages! Bravo Arena Net

Shield generators can no longer put domes on other shield generators.This is confusing. Does this means it won't overlap itself? Or if there is a shield gen in the area, the skill won't allow it to cast there?If it is the latter, does that means if a person troll drop a shield generator on the rams, you are gg?

Arrow Cart damage against siege has been reduced by 50%.So, not only shield generator is protecting the ram long enough to break the door, ac is weaken much that it can't destroy ram before it break the door?

You can no longer be hit more than once every .5 seconds by arrow cart attacks.Does that means that if there are 5 acs, only one ac attack will go through every 1/2 seconds? So, if the math is correct. It takes about 30s before people will feel the pain which means 30s more time to setup shield generators or destroy ac with meteor.

The number of targets that can be hit by one arrow cart attack has been reduced from 50 to 25.If the above point is what it is, then why is there a need to make ac even less effective? You already make it hard for ac to kill siege, less effective in hurting people, so now you telling them to spam twice amount of acs to hit same amount of people for way less damage?

I like the outlook of these changes and I am looking forward to see their effect ingame.

To those who still complain to this day about attackers trying to counter them sitting on arrow carts: use stability and learn how to properly place siege, this is entirely a player issue and not a game issue. I NEVER get pulled on walls or die to a wall bomb because I keep my awareness up. Besides as was previously mentioned you aren't meant to hold against enemies that triple or even quadruple your numbers!! You should be delaying to get reinforcements. Structures should not be impenetrable because 15 players just want to sit on siege inside of it and I find your viewpoint to be what causes a lot of boredom in this game mode.

This is a step in the right direction. Defensive play is just too strong right now. I personally think that there should still be changes to invulnerable walls/gate (It shouldn't be a minute long).

Although this is a very good update, I'm still sad that there wasn't any golem changes. Omegas used to be so good but their auto-attack arch was nerfed and it is nearly impossible to hit anything on a wall with it. Hopefully golems become relevant in the future.

@Elder of Time.3279 said:This is a step in the right direction. Defensive play is just too strong right now. I personally think that there should still be changes to invulnerable walls/gate (It shouldn't be a minute long).

Although this is a very good update, I'm still sad that there wasn't any golem changes. Omegas used to be so good but their auto-attack arch was nerfed and it is nearly impossible to hit anything on a wall with it. Hopefully golems become relevant in the future.

Structures are already paper no matter if they are reinforced or not against a full group so no, it's fine on one minute.

Updated Ballistas to make them more reliable.

What does this actually mean?

Nice work. I agree with most of the points. The Arrow Cart damage against siege has been reduced by 50% one is way to much though. If you are outnumbered there is no way to defend it anymore. Now you had a chance with some ac's. With this you are giving high populated servers even more advantage to lower pop servers. Siege was not destroyed to fast so for me this should go. The rest seem like nice changes.

@"Crashdown.7419" said:Nice work. I agree with most of the points. The Arrow Cart damage against siege has been reduced by 50% one is way to much though. If you are outnumbered there is no way to defend it anymore. Now you had a chance with some ac's. With this you are giving high populated servers even more advantage to lower pop servers. Siege was not destroyed to fast so for me this should go. The rest seem like nice changes.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Siege_Disabler

Sounds like some good changes! If I'm reading this right, it will no longer be possible to completely repel any close-range attack with a few Superior ACs. At the very least, we might be able to heal through it - will have to see how it plays.

What is the purpose nerfing ACs that much? They are really bad in their current state (never kills anyone, enemy blob health never goes below 90%).Usually, when enemies attacks tower or a keep, I leave that kitten ac for being too weak and instead drop ranged aoe on them.