Aspenwood improvements (not about leechers)

1) Key NPC are ridiculously easy to kill. In particular both luxon rangers and kurzic mine cleansers need some improvements.
Luxon rangers need interrupts and degen.
Kurzic mine NPC need to stop casting displacement at the same time and start precasting spirits while idling and not when they already dead.
THEY SHOULD NOT BE SOLOABLE.

Likewise luxon commanders (and their kurzic replacement) need improvements in defense department. Making these guys stronger would actually put some meaning into capturing/defending command posts. As of right now capturing command point is useless, since luxons won’t need it until turtle squad is dead and can take it back at any moment. Which is actually makes Gunther's cinematic very misleading.


2) EoE issue needs to be addressed.
Ya-ya, just kill it blah... It is easier to say than do. But the time you see it up it is usually already too late. One turtle siege and 4 luxon wammos dieing should not wipe out whole kurzic base, that’s just ridiculous.
One solution I see to this is to make luxon and kurzic different species, so that damage to kurzic NPC triggers only with death of another kurzic and likewise for luxons.

3) Kurzic juggernaut is pathetic. 99% of the time he roams around with degen on him. I tried supporting him with Windborne speed and healing breeze, but that barely adds anything. Kurzic should be able to push attackers back by supporting juggernaut (like luxons do with turtles), but right now he is just useless. He can pose significant threat to the turtle if gets close, but that almost never happens. The only reason anyone bothers to kill him is because otherwise green gate wouldn't open.

4) Way too many corpses around.
This is simply a heaven for luxon MMs. Decent MM is very hard to kill, especially when he is behind luxon warriors (aka coward gank squad), turtle, minions and other players. Verata's aura has proven to be very ineffective. Mostly because there are so many corpses around for replacement and stolen minions get wiped by turtle in one shot.
I'd say give kurzic necromancers Soul Feast or maybe even Verata's Gaze, so those dummies do something besides waiting to die.

there are dozens if not hundreds of post regarding aspenwood

making their respective squads stop on their tracks or making the turtles no longer use the siege atack would make taking the posts for kurzick have an actual advantage rather than having 3 more seconds before the turtles respawn.

no more need to do anything else than that.

agreed, he can wander off up to the outer gates if a ranger hits him with a single arrow...

if you have a necro, try bringing veratas gaze, all my characters when they do aspenwood they go secondary necro (except my ranger, warrior and monk) and they bring veratas gaze with them, and you know what? it slowly slows down the enemy minion master to the point he is not doing anything, and there are few mms that have gaze to recover their minions.

you mean kinda like this?
http://i71.photobucket.com/albums/i1...w/ccdc41fa.jpg
In case it is not obvious, just second ago gatekeepers were alive. I saw ranger in the process of laying down eoe and charged to kill it. Before I could reach it the whole place just blew up. gg for luxons without even breaking green gate.

The only thing I agree on is the Kurzick Juggernaught issue (they should have two), but im wondering why noones raised the obvious point of imbalance?

Luxons will ALWAYS gain faction faster then Kurzicks when in Aspenwood. This is because Kurzicks have to last the whole match to get their win, while Luxons can storm one side of the gate and win in a matter of minutes. It needs to be changed to make it more balanced, and the Kurzick defences are just not challenging enough.

The Jade quarry suffers more from the same issue you are having with "Capturing areas should not be done solo". You can just send in one nuker to any quarry and in a minute it will be yours. The only difference with aspenwood is that there are enough tasks for both sides to do to be able to solo a mine for capturing. If it takes more than two people to capture a mine while its like half way through the mission progress, then your defenses or offenses are weak.

What are you doing if you let 1 person come up and kill everything? One interrupt significantly disrupts the ability to take over a quarry by every elementalist I've come across (most retreat after you stop their lead AoE attack). And since I take a build with strong melee hate, barrage rangers are usually dead before they know what hit them.

At least the Jade Quarry NPCs try to fight back and do a damn good job of it if anyone comes in range (most warriors are dead or almost dead before they can get within melee range).

Or you could, y'know, play Jade Quarry.

I think the problem with not having certain shrines soloable it would mean that maybe a bit more coordination that usual is needed, now let's face it.. it's a bitch enough to get people to do 4 - 4 splits on the luxon side.... having people pair up to take shrines, that ain't going to happen.

I personally think it's a very fun mission, totally ruined by randomness. I would love for it to be entering as 2 teams of 4... but I also understand some people would hate that (eg. the firestorm rangers that no one would pick). I also think it's a bit crazy that they are areas only accesible by pve toons yet they are largely pvp areas

And yes, Edge of Extinction is absolutely crazy there - if a luxon takes it it's WIN for them pretty much. Considering how fast things die in Aspenwood, EoE will likely already have done it's damage by the time you actually reach it. Plus they can always oath shot/serpents quickness it

...and also Ritual Lord.

I was just playing in Aspenwood, and my ritualist brought Consume Soul just for the purpose of instantly killing EoE. That didn't work. Instant death for my team again. It destroys Gunther before I can even get to it, and that's assuming I can find it in the first place. If fact, I don't think they even have to breach the green gate to kill Gunther with it. I have to walk all the way to the portal, then all the way back to the gate from the other side so I can touch that damn spirit, and by then it's killed Gunther.

The Luxons have absolutely nothing to lose by dying. Someone can bring EoE and their necros can just sac themselves to death to start the chain going. Easy kill.

I've done it many times before, the other flaw is the quick respawn rate. Theres no penalty in dying, you just do it again and again ignoring the players until you ahve captured the quarry. In a single chain, you can take down the entire quarry with one ele.

I've played in JQ since the Preview event, and up until recently I was using an illusion mesmer tot ake down my targets down one by one, by using igrain, you can bypass magical interrupts, really easy to take quarries with persitence.

lol try meeting an EoE, MM and rit lord all in the same game
get blow to bits, whihc raises minions to body block so you can't get to spirit and the rit lord reduces dmg so you can't kill anything

not fun

to bad i need the factions to continue

The only counter - as a bonder - that I've found enormously effective against EoE is to order the entire team behind the Green gate.

...OK, so I've only pulled it off twice. But the look on the rangers' e-faces as they scratched against the gate looking for someone who could die and trigger the spirit (or someone to Oath Shot, even) was absolutely priceless.

You know, insofar as you can deduce what a toon's facial expression is. If I could see them, which I couldn't. But you can imagine!

sounds like you've seen my necro in there... and really, use your head, spirits dont have alot of health, THINK

i give up, enlighten me...

Gatekeepers are still bugged. Someone from luxon side managed to pull them away from the whole room. Luxons just have too many tricks to use.

http://koti.mbnet.fi/laqnix/annoying.jpg

Have they fixed the Luxon warriors bug? When the turtle dies the warriors used to rush into the base and chase anyone they see, you can effectively run the warriors to wherever you like, and until they die, the turtle will respawn.

thats not a bug, thats how its suppossed to work, just as you cant repair the green gate when only the juggernaut dies.

i have seen the npc warriors chase other characters and get stuck somewhere, giving the kurzick an easy battle. bad pathfinding FTW.

I have noticed an issue with the Kurzick "door NPCs" running off. They are supposed to be defending the door, and yet they will run off after some Luxon who just shoots an arrow at them. This can cause then to run straight into ambushes of many forms (traps for one).

I think they should root the "Door NPCs" to the spot. It might seem weird, but it would prevent them from moronically running into a huge group of enemies.

Many of you will say that this just makes it easier for Kurzicks to just bond the NPCs and never loose. Well I think that anyone who can't deal with all those ENCHANTMENTS deserves to loose, their build obviously is flawed.

Also, anyone who thinks I have never seen how hard it can be to kill the Bonded NPCs, I am in a Luxon Alliance. I usually play on the Luxon side. I just want to help even up the game a little where it is somewhat lacking.

it take only 1 ritualist to kill a bonded NPC
it take only 1 necro to kill a bonded NPC
it take only 1 mesmer to kill a bonded NPC
it take only 1 ranger to kill a bonded NPC

1. Kurzicks bond a doorman and make it almost impossible to kill, and get the door open. Several times today, I've lost matches without even getting through the door, do to that.

2. Luxon commanders are bugged. They will not acknoledge they are being attacked by a ranged fighter, so they die real quick.

3. Today, I've watched and have been attacked by kurzicks that shoot or hit through the door, yet luxons can't do that.. another glitch.

You mentioned earlier, that luxons have it easy in aspenwood, on making faction points. I know for a fact, that there are numberous glitches and bugs in the kurzick area that allow you to make alomst triple what a luxon can, yet the complaint is on luxons. Also, Aspenwood is a territory in Echovald, so they changed the peramiters so that it would help luxons, but it is unfair. I've also watched MM on the kurzick side, this day, kill through the door then raise minons.. giving them more of an advantage, and more people for the luxons to kill to get through.

As for the keepers and juggernaugt. The juggernaught is hard to kill, since you get knocked down when attacking. The only defence is Dolyaks, yet still get knocked down half the time. Also, Dolyak slows a character, so the jugger moves away and I'm trying to play catch-up.

Keepers- Fix that bug. I myself find it disheartening to come around the corner and see them outside. It's to easy and they(ANet) were supposed to have fixed this bug.

Kurzicks can port in and out of their lair, attack, then port back when needed.. unlike Luxons. Except for the glitches that get exploited by the kurzicks, it's fairly balanced (with a bit of stretch to the poor imagination)

I don't think ANet should worry about messing anything up, just fix the glitches, and bugs and maybe that will making things better.. but that's just IMO.

enchant removal/well of profane.

never have seen that, proably there is someone opening and closing the door, or maybe someone is at a high place.

i guess you havent seen a luxon MM raising 10 before even breaking the inner gate, yet alone 2 MMs.

are you trying to solo it?, becasue i have seen the juggernaut go down real fast

they are annoying for us too, as sometimes the damn gatekeepers leroy their way out of the green chambe.

what?
kurzicks cant teleport back in, they can teleport to the center of the fort, then to one of the sides of the outside part, but after that, they have to run back inside.