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

I win on the Kurzick side more often than I lose and I guess I'll share my personal plan of defense.
1)Call the gate I am defending so that other defense type characters can go elsewhere or support me. If I initiate a strategy by purposing what I am doing, people tend to follow suit.

2)I run an AoE boon/prot. I can keep an elementalist alive indefinitely if it is npc's only attacking. I can still hold to 20-30% at the first gate if the turtle is supported. The build is near unstoppable can chain on a single target vitually forever and isn't easy to strip.

3)When the first gate inevidably falls I drop back and heal the mesmers, then the other elementalist, then the assassins.

4)Now if things get this far I normally call for a bit of help, normally "Kill turtle purple side" and I protect at they take the purple side. If we win can stop this attack we normally win. I spend time drawing warrior aggro and kiting them into npc's. Sometimes I die, but that isn't to big of a deal...give me a chance to recast a level 16 boon.

5)If we are driven through the green gate, my build can keep a gatekeep alive indefinitely... while kiting and under turtle attacks. As soon as I see they are attacking the gatekeeprs I'm headed back to defend them. I've won multiple games when all has seen lost and two monks spend the last 10% protecting the architect (kite, die, cast boon, AoE, RoF, kite...) to victory.

6)I have not been in a match where we have defeated the opponent once and lost. If you completely kill an opponent, you have enough time to fix the gates and it is normally well past 50% completion, so they have to complete the task which they just failed in less time. If the offensive characters view it this way, perhaps it will seem less intense.

IMO there are only four build types that have any real business playing on the Kurzick side:
1)Passive Defense: Protection monks, bonders and Ritualists: key skills: prot spirit, shelter.
2)Active defense: AOE(area of effect here), nukes, wells and drain skills design to exploit control point. Warriors do almost as much damage a turtles, so some well placed meteor showers are in order These builds are basically useless without some sort of passive defense, but the combination is deadly

3)Turtle killers: Interrupt, drains and monk hate. You need to be able to remove enchants and generally screw with a monk while shutting down the turtles attack. Disable than destroy. I have all the wrong character types to run this build, but anyone with a Me, R/Me or R/N would require about 2 minutes to build something like this. Distortion or something similar is a must to avoid warriors.

4)Runners. Need to be able to solo mine NPC's and self heal. I don't have any experience with soloing the mine npc's, but I figure a 55 monk and any number of warrior or assassin builds would work (maybe not). It is important here to understand when you are need to run and when you need to kill turtles and warriors.

If you find yourself unable to do your job effectively, you are part of the problem. If you read the battle well and build to efficiently fulfill your role, you will win many more battles. All you need to do is force a stalemate as the kurzicks so anything you are doing to waste the opponents time and kill off NPCs is a victory. Take 4 kurzicks who are decent players with solid Aspenwood and 4 relative noobs, and you should be able to beat a team with monks an MM. Luxon monks are inviting a stale mate, which is exactly what you the kurzicks want. Protective Spirit is your friend, learn it, live it, love it.

I play it from bothsides.... I still see the Kurzick side winning more often, starting using prot spirit to deal with siege. I found a love casting SS on tanks through the gate. Follow it with some blood spike....

Anyone else want to complain about how it's all unbalanced? Looking through this thread there are more than a few Kurzicks giving great tips on winning and explaining in detail how it's not biased towards Luxons winning. So this isnt entirely a biased view of Luxon players in this thread.

Sorry but some of you really need to learn strategy before crying foul. Whenever I see Kurzicks lose it's because I see them leaving their NPCs unguarded and they focus far too much on the opposing team's human players. Or they go all the way to the Luxon base trying to gank the commanders. Bad bad strategy.

I know about strategy, but unfourtenely alot of RANDOM players dont. If you could make a team in Aspenwood then i wouldnt "be crying".

So the Luxons can leave their NPC's when we cant?

If you'd bothered to read, you'd understand the problem is not "strategy". Anyone with half a brain can formulate a decent defensive strategy, it's not like there are many options open to you. The problem is that you can't choose your teammates, and thus you can't choose the builds needed.

edited by Swampgirl

I cant see an imbalance in the mission! Im Luxon and always loosing! And in my opinion the kurzicks would get alot further with the odd monk or mesmer in the team! Just a thought (awaiting my flame)
I also like the fact you cant choose your team! It gives a chance for players to fight alongside chars they havent before. Come on guys you might learn a new trick even some elite players

The problem is that Kurzik side requires a solid strategy and a ballanced team team to win, while Luxons need nothing but firepower.
One of the key points here is overtaking amber mines. Problem is that once Luxons take over the mine they start spawning there, which makes it very hard to take it back, and very easy for Luxons to support the turtle.
I know that if I fail to take over the mine three times in a row you can be sure that turtle is already past the inner gate. And if you have two turtles past the inner gates, it is pretty much over for Kurzik. Siege will destroy NPC (who are too dumb to even try to do anything about it) and Luxon gank squad (otherwise known as four Luxon warriors) will finish the rest.

I'm sorry all this talk about strategy is a bullcrap. If you do this and then other guy do that and then another guy do this... Too many "if" for a random team, while the only thing Luxons have to do is to run in a straight line from spawn and attack everything on their way (amber runners in particular)

It's not that the turtles and warriors are too strong. You're trying to outheal their damage with Healing Breeze which is a crappy healing spell for any primary monk.

First of all it costs 10 energy and heals over a period of 10 seconds. In essence ,you can only use it on a single target every 10 seconds because if you cast it on them again it won't have any added healing except from Divine Favor. Also the amount of HP you gain is very slow. You only get 14/16/18 HP per second depending on how much Healing Prayers you have. Basically you're getting 140/160/180 HP heals every 10 seconds. (Can't remember how much it is at 12). Just about every single heal spell can give you better HP per second than Healing Breeze. Even if you aren't a primary monk a Heal Other or Dwayna's Kiss will heal more than breeze does.

This is the build that I normally use but I'm still trying to tweak it so I am not as vulnerable.

Life Barrier
Life Bond
Prot Spirit
Ethreal Light
Dwayna's Kiss
Blessed Signet
Balth's Spirit (or essence bond)
Mend Ailment (or Holy Veil or Life Attunement)

Most of the time it can keep up the NPC Ele unless the Luxons have some crazy build. The Dwayna's Kiss heals for about 190 each time and recharges in 3 seconds (better numbers than Healing Breeze eh?) If people throw things like Backfire/Spoil Victor/SS on you then just Prot Spirit yourself and keep healing through it. Use Ethreal Light as a self heal as neccessary.

I can read just fine, sparky. And you're blaming the so called imbalance on the randomness of teammates? It applies to both sides you know.

It really doesnt take SPECIFIC builds to have a decent strategy, so dont give me that bullcrap about the randomness impeding any strategy. And don't say that all that Luxons have to do is charge in and attack. That's like saying PVP is just mashing a bunch of buttons.

Also, any smart Kurzick will know to bring defensive skills that help out the defense of the fort before going into the battle. If you have idiot Kurzicks on your team, blame them. But dont blame your loss on some imaginary imbalance.

If you can, it's certainly not apparent from your reply.

No shit sherlock, both teams are random, but one team doesn't need certain builds to succeed, or failing that, a much higher standard of play.

But it's true. Kurzicks do need a healer to keep NPCs alive (preferably a bonder). Kurzicks do need either an interrupter or a heavy source of armor ignoring damage (whether it come from degen, attack skills, or what have you), to deal with turtles efficiently. Kurzicks do need more coordination (to know when to run amber, when to defend, when to push).

I will say that because it's true. That's what they do, and that's how they win. There's no need of any coordination besides "run in with turtle". They don't have to run amber, they don't have to repair gates, they don't have to heal NPCs,they don't have to do any of the things the Kurzicks do. Certainly better teamwork helps them, but fundamentally on a random team, with with random (and usually poor) builds, with little coordination, the Luxons have a big advantage.

Why is it that the Kurzicks need smart players who bring the right skills to win, but the Luxons don't need anything of the sort? That is an imbalance, your denials notwithstanding.

No, I'm saying it's much better strategy for the Kurzicks to protect their NPCs instead of leaving them wide open to go all the freaking way to the Luxon base to kill the commanders. If you want to do that then fine. Give the Luxons a victory.

And to Symbol. Im not going to bother with your post. You're clearly looking for a fight. Look at the hostility. Take a chill pill.

What is actually happening in my opinion is that the Kurzicks are being forced to learn to cooperate and play better all around through this mission. Since the Luxons are forced to have a good strategy and coordination to win, you see so many people that have learned the perfect strategies and everything needed to win this mission. The Luxons haven't really learned all that much, since they are not required to learn any strategy or coordination. This would explain why you don't see many people talking about great strategies for the Luxon side.

I believe this mission is imbalanced, and that imbalance is leading to the average Kurzick player becoming smarter/better than the average Luxon player.

Fort Aspenwood is simply unbalanced.

A)Kurzicks have no NPC Monks,which is weird,considering their job is to DEFEND.
B)4 Warrior NPC's,a Turtle that does 300+ damage and a slew of Players versus a door that is guarded by two kurzick elementalists.Oh the Fairness.
C)Kurzick Juggernaut,positively Redengine useless.since,by the time hes actually fighting you're going to lose.
D)The only actual two healers of the whole NPC squad is at the back.Both of which, to a incredibly TERRIBLE job of protectin the Master.
E)The Master is a WARRIOR.
F)A Monk can simply sit in the middle of the Turtle/Warrior NPC's,without much worry.

The kurzick NPC's in general need a complete overhaul.

LUXONS RULE - We don't Have to Stratigize we are trained how to fight as a young child. It is second Nature to us! Not much else to do can't fish anymore ... All this damb Jade in the way!

Basically what I've gotten out of this is that if the Kurzicks have a bad team they lose and if they have a good team they win, and the quality of the Luxon team doesn't really make a whole ton of difference.

This is because there's not much you can do on Luxons except attack, whereas Kurzick have many possibilites to take as far as courses of action.

So basically it may seem imbalanced if your team is always bad if you're on Kurzick. But from a Luxon perspective, they may dislike that they can't really control the situation of the battle due to almost all of the result being pinpointed on the actions of the Kurzick team.

I personally think that placing the politics of PvP egomongers in control of PvE it ruins the game for PvEers and causes conflict amoung PvPers.
Take the controlling aspect of the cities out and allow alliances to own a town, gain benifits in that town but do not allow alliances to lock people out from any aspect in the game.
This will stop the flaming between sides and allow factions to be faught where it belongs in pvp.

FYI i'm Kurzick.

And if i dont go all the freaking way to the luxon commanders, then we win? I'm sorry but thats very wrong. And the Kurzicks HAVE to leave one gate of NPC's, because they need ALL their players to defend one side of the gates!

If the game were Luxon NPC vs Kurzick NPC, then the Luxons would win flawless. Then add a bunch of random players to that, and the Luxons still have the NPC advantage. Kurzicks cant really defend because Amber is needed, and rangers cant just "snipe" the turtles since the turtle is nearly always obstructed when Luxons have breached one of the gates.

I am a Kurzick and think that some of you are big whiners. If you are not winning, it's because your team doesnt know how to play. If you are complaining about how it takes too much strategy for Kurzicks to win, then please leave the game.

At the beginning of each match, I explain the basics to everybody. If teammates still do not follow instructions there is nothing anyone can do but it has nothing to do with imbalance. But when everyone is doing their job we do very well, winning most of the time.

Kurzicks please stop whining and go out and kick some Luxon ass instead.

If a turtle gets through the outer gate, it is possible for a Ranger to solo the Turtle. Poison Arrow + Distracting Shot + Kindle Arrows let's any Ranger stop a Turtle dead in its tracks.

Unfortunately stopping the Turtle does not mean you prevent a gate breach, if the warrior NPCs kill all your Gate NPCs then they still get through. As long as you have some people supporting the Ranger it's not too hard.

True, but 1 monk can keep a gate npc alive for a long time if there is no enchant strip against 1-8 players with the right build, completly blocking them getting in. This is rare though, and pot luck so hmmmm.

I once did this on the inner gate on the elemtalist, from 30 to 100 percent completion against all 8 other players and the turtles and a MM. You have to have certian tactics to stop this, which they did not use.

However once people figure out how to beat that (which is actually too easy its not funny i did it most of the weekend), that advantage will disapear.

Remove the NPC warriors, make the luxons defend there own turtles.

Ive asked this question on other forums, and got no reply. What use are the juggernauts, not much?

Agreed. They are pretty bad at it, and need AI adjusting.
Which is a GOOD thing, when the point is to keep him alive. What are you suggesting, making him a lower AL npc?

And a monk can sit behind the gate healing the npc without much worry.

No, partial overhaul.