Carrier defense? How much more imbal can it get?!

Apparently apart from turtle defence where the turtle gains extra armor, it also has an ability where melee units take 100 damage and are teleported away!

Didn't notice that in the past, maybe it was introduced in the recent patch. Seriously this is ridiculous. Anet might as well just change Fort Aspenwood so people can just go there and click the Enter Mission button for an instant 600 faction.

Imbalanced? Hardly. You're not even considering that Kurzicks WOULD have had an easier job since basically all they have to do is defend their base. And helping them guard the base is a whole slew of NPCs. Not to mention, that Kurzicks are able to heal/bond the NPCs guarding the gate without any harm to themselves.

Everyone knows it's much easier to defend territory than to invade. That's why they made turtles so strong, to balance things out. And from what I can tell, it seems right. The battle wins/losses have been pretty even.

I wish people would stop crying imbalance without thinking things more carefully.

Carrier defense has always been there, aspenwood is not unbalanced and certainly in no way a represenatation of realworld situations. *sigh*

Both teams have NPC's, both can be healed, and pay attention to the mines & amber runners, as thats where both teams strong & weaknesspoints are.

I'm with generik. Carrier Defence is just lame, put 1 monk healing or bonding turtles and you might aswell just leave. Not to mention the fact they can send 2 in at once, almost constantly! Last time i checked that skill didn't even have a cooldown! During hte FPE i ran upto it and was bounced away 3 times in a row.

omg...

fort aspenwood is darn good balanced...

learn to play, I am kurzick and I am winning alot.

I bet you are kurzick.

You just have to think things through b4 you go posting random flames, the luxons need a boost or two. (i noticed how us luxons are fighting the line back at those kurzicks w00t!)

edit: targeted at generik

interrupt? There are really so much ways to counter this

/agree

and this isn't the place to start talking about realworld situations.

To kill a turtle you just need heavy degen... like it says in the description

/agree x2

If yiou think about it kurzich and luxon are pretty balanced and both have weaknesses.

Silents assasin you aint that bad, for a kurzick that is....

Yes, but likewise a good monk will be able to counter all of that. In summary, Luxon + monk = 600 faction, Kurzick + monk = it depends!

And needless to say there are countless games where you don't get monks.

From my experience, Luxons have 3 monks all the time, kurzicks have zero monks all the time.

When I bring my monk for kurzick then they tell me I'm noob and kurzicks don't need monk.

Imo, the random team stuff is crap. Allow teams of 3 people to enter in a random team of 3 teams of 3.
That way you get 9 people on each side.

THen you have some real strategy instead of the "Who is running amber?", "Where's the monk?", "Someone help me recapture the mine... PLEASE", "/ragequit"

^that is the real problem

The team selection is random. The difference is the Kurzicks need a monk, preferably a bonder, to succeed. The luxons can just bull through with whatever because the turtles give them an overwhelming advantage against a random team.

is it possible to heal turtle?

Yes you can.

pfff... so if luxons got monk you might as well quit and restart...

You are supposed to defend Fort Aspenwood (if you are Kurzick) or capture it (if you are Luxon). In battles you have squads, cadres, divisions, a team, to make you more effective by working together with people you know.

Yet... it's random. Makes you scratch your head.

Jade Quarry is more of a random mission, since it's not too critical to work together as a team. That is, not as critical as Fort Aspenwood.

Today I've just messed around in Fort Aspenwood after reading this, the result:

Was playing as an ordinairy shockwarrior, with a healsig.

Played it 10 times; 5 times Kurzick and 5 times Luxon side ( I'm Luxon myself )
Starting off at the Luxon side: won 3 lost 2, all very very close games.
Then 5 times with the Kurzicks: I thought I'd just go and solo a lonely Siege Turtle with a monk. He's trying to fire, I do distracting blow, keep hitting the monk, interrupt another siege attack, kill monk, go for the turtle, interrupt, keep slashing him, get teleported away, do a heal sig or 2, go again, and interrupt his siege again, gg, turtle dead. I really don't see why you think it's so hard. You are probably playing an Assasin and think you can tank everything at the same time. I also think you just need to learn how to play, learn to team play, or your team needs to know how to play ( the Kurzicks ). So it's either you, or the Kurzick that suck, because I was having no problems to kill the turtle at all.

If you play an assassin right you can take away 3/4 of the turtle's health in one skill barrage (4 skills chained together).

They aren't that hard.

Fort Aspenwood is unfair for Kurzick. I have been playing it alot, and its easy to see the imbalance. I cant believe some of you think Luxons need a buff..
The best way to fix this is to make the turtle siege like a catapult: Can hit teammates.
As it is now, a Turtle can solo the other door, when Kurzicks are trying to kill the other turtle. You can of course send one to kill the turtle, but then the Kurzicks are one man less.

oh yes, bonding/healing dozen of squishies is just as easy as single tank with hunderds AL. For your information they die in two siege hits.
If anything is hypothetical here it is argument for bonding Kurzik npcs.

It is common knowledge that it is easier to defend an area than to attack it. Defence allows you to keep stationary, gives you time to prepare, allows you useage of defensive structures, and many other distinct advantages.

Not all the advantages apply here, but many do.

Why do you think it took so many more troops to overtake a castle than to defend it?

by far best suggestion so far. I'd say make a thread in Sardelac Sanitarium.

Well, in basic military terms; to attack an enemy position takes THREE times the investment of resources than the defender. This does not inherently mean 3 times the manpower in modern terms. It should always be easier to defend than attack. I have found this mission, 4 times through Luxon, 1 time on Kurzick as fairly balanced. Won 2 on the Luxon and won on the Kurzick. My two cents...

Life barrier + Life Bond + Life Attunement on Kurzik gate NPC keeps them standing long. I've done it multiple times. With two bonder monks, Luxon won't be able to get past the outer doors if they aren't equipped with counters for that :P

those terms imply use of defencive terrain, walls, traps etc. Unfortunately it doesnt quiet work that way in GW. Turtle will hit you even if you standing behind the wall or way on top. Strategical position makes no difference since GW doesnt have z-axis.

As for mission being hard for Luxons... Heal turtle + occasionaly overtake mines = easy win. It is not that hard to stop amber runners either when you have bunch of NPC's spamming Covard. And if you simply deny Kurziks amber, Luxon NPC will push thru on their own quiet easily.

The comments of a political nature don't belong, and were deleted. I'd closed this for a moment because after seeing both the original post and the reply on the first page, I'd thought it'd be more inflammatory. But it's not, and after removal of the references, there's nothing really wrong with it, so it's reopened.

We don't allow politics on these forums because they're a breeding ground for flamefests. Please refrain from posting such references in the future.

No need to balance this; perfect already. While I do win a bit more as Luxon, it seems like this:

Luxons need less skill to do well, and usually do similarly well at the mission

Kurzicks need more skill - but when they pull it off, there's nothing Luxons can really do (so it might seem imba to the Lux)

As Luxon, I found that my main worry was reaching the base but since nobody on the enemy team had left, we simply didn't have the DPS to kill Gunther because their monks respawned so fast while we had to run from a mine

Another worry was Kurzick warriors destroying mines, outposts etc with relative ease, cycling through 3 or 4 and killing me as well if they had a little backup...


As Kurzick, I found that if no Luxons left it was a little tricky - but with efficient interrupting you can do very well. The only annoying thing is I often got swamped - I'd be standing at the inner gate with 3 NPC facing down 4 warriors, a turtle to interrupt and 4 or 5 Luxon PCs as well - while my teammates had either left, were at the other gate or were off running amber.

I love this mission as it is BUT if Anet had to change it I say

Let Kurzicks have carrier juggernauts to ferry amber - I'm not talking anything big here, just a juggernaut for each mine that spawns when you cap it and is fairly easy to kill. Of course there would be balancing issues, but the gist of it is let the Kurzicks fight to protect the Juggernaut as it walks as opposed to run like hell to Gunther and leave their teammates to die. That way, if Luxons made a concerted effort they could kill the Jugger (thus destroying it's amber) and make the Kurzicks have to wait for more amber from a new jugger - but at the same time, Kurzicks would be able to stop this by killing the Luxons.

And TBH I don't think you can say 'That's imbalanced, no0b' since you can change the balance fairly easily by changing the Juggernaut spawn position (amber mine or gunther), speed, armour level, whether it has carrier defence, health, damage resistance type etc

Note: this is just an idea for if someone discovers an imba way to win the mission for one side, which hasn't happened yet. I like it because effectively, it could nerf either Luxons or Kurzicks (since Juggers carry the amber, and PCs couldn't?)- and be adjustable according to where the map line is.

I like Aspenwood as it is now, but - thoughts for if someone made a superbuild, anyone?

Oh yeah? Look at the post by Kaguya. Even this person says it's a very effective strategy...and Kaguya is a Kurzick. No one is saying to bond a dozen squishies. That's just ridiculous thinking on your part. All you need to do is bond the ones guarding the gates. It's not hard for a single monk to bond 3 NPCs is it? And I've seen this being done a few times.

Exactly. The smart Kurzicks who had monks and players defending Gunther while a couple others gathered Amber usually won. It was very difficult to kill Gunther with monks healing him and people bashing on you and then running all the way from the mine to try again.

But when the Kurzicks left their base open to gank Luxon commanders or just so focused on killing Luxon players, they often lose. You just have to know what works and what doesnt. I hate to tell people to learn to play, but in this case it applies.

If the whole Kurzick team is in one area aside from the Green Gate, they've got the worst strategy ever. And yes, I'm also referring to the popular "rush one teleport" strategy that is utter trash.

It's even easier to bond 1 NPC, since that's all you need to keep a gate closed. Preferably you bond a Kurzick Elementalist because he has the best skills for surviving - Unsteady Ground, Silver Armor, Ward Against Melee.

excuse me if I call all the above lame excuses. It is not that hard to kill lvl20 caster even if he is bonded. It is pretty hard to kill stupid turtle even without bonds. Your whole point spins around false assumption that "they can do the same". No "they" can't. Not even close.

As for telling people how to play... Protect amber mines! If you do, there is virtually no way Kurzik can win. Every time I won Aspenwood as Kurzik was just because Luxon team for the most part ignored amber runners. When they didnt, we lost so hard and fast it is not even funny.

*Buzzer* Incorrect.

The walls in this mission help considerably with defense; if there was no wall then the Kurzick wouldn't stand a chance. Traps are also available in Guild Wars, and are probably much more effective while defending than attacking.
There are also many skills that are favored by being stationary, such as any spirits and wards. Ressurection shrines that spawn you directly back into battle cannot be ignored. It should also be noted that arrows and projectiles do more damage shooting at a deepening incline, as is possible from Kurzick walls.

There are still more possiblities.

I think much of the reason Kurzick have trouble is simply because many inexperienced players join them. This isn't Kurzick hate, I have a logical explaination for it. Many players seem to join Kurzick join either just for the armor or simply because it was the first of the two areas that they came to in the game, whereas Luxon mostly gets players that actually care about the Faction's background. Kurzick get these players too, but they also get the novice players that I mentioned previously.

What you call lame excuses, a lot of people call effective strategies. Just because YOU don't know how to play effectively doesnt make it "lame excuses" False assumptions? Read your own posts for that.

feel free to teach me.

that turtle is a kitten if hes interrupted....

There have been times where we've just held out, fallen all the way back to Green gate, and just buttoned down. But if you can interrupt that turtle enough, eventually (hopefully) your team will catch up, and kill that turtle for you. You are just wasting your time if you are just bonding that turtle imho.

Ah.. however that's only true if we have static defences that actually justify the use of the long ranged seige turtle. In this case since turtles are so long ranged, they can just be the sitting ducks that you are talking about, escort the turtle, and claim their victory. It is not like we have long ranged defences of our own to match the turtle (think other RTS games).

Your game victory statistics are anecdotal evidence at best. So how many times when you win did you have monks while the enemy didn't? And likewise how many times when you lost did the reverse happen? There are so many variables that are unaccounted for in your sampling that it really makes the data meaningless.

There's nothing wrong with aspenwood - play it for a week before you scream for a nerf. Losing for a few matches (or even a day) doesn't mean that a map is imbalanced, it might mean that your team sucks or that the other team is particularly good.

one problem: there is no preteaming there. Teams composed randomly, so either side can get good team once or twice, but not all the time.
Wanna tell me I suck at it? Well maybe, but do other seven people on Kurzik side suck to?

I'm not telling you that you suck at the map, I'm telling you that your random team might happen to be full of other people who do. Fortunately the same thing can happen to the other side.

Want to win aspenwood easily? Get a guildmate and go bond/heal those elementalists on the doors, it's pretty much GG luxons at that point.

Don't believe me? We held that map for 5 hours straight with that tactic.

now read the first line of what you quoted

Exactly! That's what keeps it fair, you're just as likely to get a crap team as the other guys :P

If you want to get into the same match then get on vent or ts and enter at the same time ^_^