Impossible for kurzicks?

I think you'd have a hard time getting this exact team each and every time. If your strategy relies on having 3 monks and 2 ritualists then I'm wondering how often you hit that jackpot. It's far better to think in terms of where players can put their efforts. If you have warriors/rangers with sprints then they should be running amber. Elementalists should be nuking mines and other Kurzick NPC areas to slow the assault. Mesmers/Necros should be on the turtles with degen. Monks can bond mine cleansers. Ritualists can supplement the spirits that the mine cleansers put up. They can also build little spirit fortresses between the inner and outer Orange/Purple gates to help destroy any happless Luxons that get caught there. Rangers should line the walls and help rain down fire on the areas between gates.

Also, t's pretty hard for a single necro to control all the corpses on the field. It's just too situational and since spells do have a recharge some corspes will get used before you can get them. However, if you have multiple necro secondaries then total corpse control becomes viable.

I don't agree with stalling at the green gate. I think it's far too fragile a strategy to pull off for long. It does work when time is nearly expired and the Luxon team has no necro for WoP or is fairly unorganized. However, if the Kurzicks are facing an experienced Luxon team then holding out is very tough.

Kurzicks need to be running amber for the duration of the match. If they aren't doing this then the Luxons can simply march in broken gates over and over. Also, it's a great Kurzick tactic to force the luxons to reclaim mines. It siphons off players from the gate assault. Luxons always have to worry about amber mines and the rest of their backfield. If they don't then they risk having gates instantly repaired and having the turtle squads unavailable. A decent warrior or elementalist can apply a lot of backfield pressure to the luxon NPCs and actually take over these points singlehandedly.

Backfield pressure + Amber running + bonding NPCs >> bonding elementalist NPC at green gate and hoping for the best.

At least in my experience.

EDIT: I forgot to note that Symbiosis is rendered useless if a Well of Profane is achieved around the bonded target. You need total corspe control to make Symbiosis usefull. That's hard to do given the random nature of Aspenwood play.

oh but i naturally meant not bonding only the green gate, but starting at both sides outer ring. you can easilly keep the outer gates untill 30% then inner gates untill 50-60% even with strips, wells then let them come for the green gate untill the end.

for the rest simple harassement of mines, commanders to slow advancement makes it easier but it needs a bigger organisation which for random is hard to ask.

But in all honesty, the thing i would love to see is the npcs being positioned behind the gates and having a simple rit on both sides spamming shelter. It would at least urge the luxons to use some tactics like interrupting the ritualist to be successfull at breaking down the opponents gate.

edit: but for that you have fertile seasons and vital weapon which will add around 400 health if both are up. On top of a shelter and then simple heals will do their work more then enough untill a normal ecnahnt like prot spirit, reversal can be casted again and bonds be reapplied. (and in case of nr spam of the opposition simply keeping less bonds active by same person or 1 dedicated bonders and other one dedicated dwaynas kisser and 1 backupbonder/dwaynas kisser/prot spiritter)

Edit 2 the symbiosis is simply there to make strip/shatter enchantments less dangerous simply by applying a quick enchantment as a fast anti spike/dmgbuffer and its synergies with dwaynas kiss and the monkelite heal (5 energy, -3 energycost if enchanted, 80 heal, with divine boon and life atunement around 250 for 4 energy ).

You make a good point about fertile season and vital weapon. Those are good health buffs.

However, your strategy still relies on getting monks. That's asking a lot given the random nature of the game AND the fact that at least 1-2 players will be AFK leeching during the match.

I agree, there are always ways to win, on both sides. For the kurzick, more often than not the overall organisation of the team is the most important, I can play a monk and I can bond the cleansers, but if there isn't someone in the team running amber, or if the warriors think it is more important to kill the commanders than trying to take out the turtles which are just walking into the base, or running amber then you never stand a chance. I find, if I make sure I take enchantment removal on the Luxon side and make sure the turtles keep coming when they're available it is pretty easy to put the green gate under pressure - no real coordination required.

Yeah... that's the problem... luxons dont need coordination while the kurzicks do... but when the kurzicks are co ordinated doesnt matter how good the luxon team is; they lose. Just have to have a leader go in on the kurzick side- someone who will issue orders, and ppl who will listen to them. Also need an assassin or someone else with speed buffs to run amber. That helps too.

i have to say, i have no problems with kurzicks having a tough time,
i play kurzick in aspenwood regularlary and i say i win about 90% of the time.
maybe it is because i am on the european servers?

"Now if you monks want corpse control, you should bring Necrotic Traversal" I would say if it were not the ONLY teleport that does go through those lovable walls. Someone should bring up that...oversight...in Sardilac but I digress.

Common theme throughout this post: "you need monks to win Aspenwood on defense." True, monks make a very difficult game for the Luxons, but its not just their heals that do this.

They are a defensive built, designed to counteract attacers more than go in and kill stuff. In other words, WITH A MONK ON YOUR TEAM SOMEONE IS ACTUALLY DEFENDING THE DAMN BASE!!!!!!!

Most games I play Luxon. I love to see a Kurzick that

a) spends all his time killing my commanders while my team and turtles are at his green gate. It's very important at that time that you run through my attack, teleport outside your base and run allllll the way to the Luxon side to kill this NPC that is doing nothing for my team at the moment. I and the other Luxons will tremble at your NPC soloing power, stop attacking green gate and run to protect our commander. We will. Really.

b) open a gate to run amber while there are several tanks trying desperately to kill the ele that is being supported by that monk behind the gate. You and I both know that if we can just get a spike going (without TS, vent or any type of synergy that one might expect for a good spike group) that we can kill that ele so the monk is just wasting his time, really. There is no way anyone but a noob Whammo would run away from teh ele NPC to attack the monk. I mean, why kill a healer? they don't do damage so they must be worthless...

c) Kurzick Rangers that cast EoE and Nature's Renewal when that monk is protecting the gate ele. You need to worry abotu castors and, as we all know, the best defense is to KILL EVERYTHING! Nature's Renewal messes up the turtle's monk, making it easier for your phoenix to run up and kill it. And when one turtle dies, the other takes 50 dmg!

d) the new defenders you see in game on Kurzick side. Particualrly with good monks, these people stand near the gate (they don't run amber, they have no cast through wall attacks or disrupts, they're just waiting) and prepare for the inevitable breakdown to let the Luxons in. We know that monk can't hold those turtles forever so its your responsibility to stand there like a stump on a log and wait for him to fail. then you can charge into battle and hold the Luxon offense back while someone runs amber to get the gate back up.

/sarcasm

I stopped monking Aspenwood (Kurzick) after enough teams got me killed enough times and had the grace to chew me out because my gate crumbled while I was dead or rezzing. I stopped running amber after the 10th consecutive (thats right, I counted) game where I was the only person doing it in a group with 3 or more Whammos.

Kurzick teams that sit there and let the Luxons beat on them lose, consistently. I've seen maybe 1-2 games out of a hundred where the Kurzicks managed to win through super defensive play - and those involved a lot of AFKers on the Luxon side.

I've played Aspenwood on the Luxon side quite a bit recently, and honestly there are only two things the Kurzicks can do that I care about:

1) Keeping control of the mines and running amber

2) Killing siege turtles

That's it. When the Kurzick side does those two things, they win consistently - when they neglect to do them, they lose. Simple, really. Keep repairing the gates to isolate groups of Luxons and maintain a NPC advantage. Kill turtles to make those groups crumble and force them to re-start the offensive.

Kurzicks tend to lose on this map because most players approach it with the idea that they're going to duel people on the other team. Luxons might act that way too, but when they duel it tends to last about 10 seconds before the Kurzick gets blown up by a turtle. Yeah, that was really productive wasn't it nubsauce?

The other terrible thing I see done here all the time is attacking the commanders. I have no idea why teams do this. The commanders don't do anything unless the turtles are dead. But what is killing the turtles if you're staging strikes on irrelevant NPCs? I have lost games were commanders died, but in those games the turtles were also getting killed before the second gate and the Kurzicks controlled at least one mine - really we were just getting beaten so badly that it didn't matter. Usually though, commanders get killed by a couple of guys who decide that their mission in Fort Aspenwood is to kill commanders, even when turtles are blasting the green gate and the Luxons control both nearby amber mines. The term for those players is "blithering idiots".

I don't really notice bonders for the most part. The way you break through the Kurzick defenses is you overload one gate and blow through those NPCs quickly until you're wiping out the NPCs in the fort proper. Then when that turtle is getting all the attention you walk the second turtle in the other side and push with both. If one side is bonded, who cares? You break through the other side and dare them to sit there bonding that elementalist while you wipe out the green gate NPCs. Of course if they do fall back to the green gate NPCs you get dual turtles and that plus eight luxon warriors really don't care about a few bonds. Bonds only really get annoying when the Kurzicks have bonds for both gates, *and* the Luxons don't have removal. Of course, in those situations the Kurzicks can't run amber effectively either (yay, you let me in to access your bonder! Thanks!!!), so you have tons of time to break down the bonds.

Granted, bonders are more useful than the average idiot who thinks you win by attacking Luxon players, but that isn't saying much is it?

Peace,
-CxE

Then you haven't seen a decent set of monks... I have had on my monk around 200+ (at 200k faction simply from aspenwood) successfull runs simply bonding one of the gates but also stipulating that at start (simply stating dibs on orange/purple others focus on defense gate purple/orange) and depending on the status of the gate not bonded by me kept bonds active or pulled back to bond green. I never have even encountered a fast enough rush to get done what you suggest. I have been always on time, holding wood, to stop rushes like this and have multiple times held the green gate on my own even with bots/afk-ers. Even if by some miracle the luxon opponents noticed that attacking the bonded ele was useless and focussing on me (prot spirit + life sheath(because i didn't bother grabbing the other preffered elite) works decent together with backup of both gatekeepers healing me, heck i could even happilly cast through backfire...)

But in all honesty the bonds are there not only to decrease dmg dealt but for me more to increase health regained, act as an auto energy regen and decrease excessive dmg to manageable levels. a dwaynas kiss on a life attuned, essence bonded, life bonded , prot spirrited under divine boon fully heals (400 - 500) this npc for an energy investment of 7 while being able to use blessed sig for extra energyregen. And while under heavy siege i can keep this up forever. A rit AND a bonding monk seriously really have no probs at all in keeping him alive. a bonding monk on his own only has a problem when under heavy enchantstrips or well of the profane. But knowing the random character this hasn't happened that much yet (maybe 10 - 20 times).

In any case when the kurzich side has bonders active on both sides then the rest has the time to disrupt controll of the mines, disrupt siege turtles, kill commanders and run amber through the gates not under heavy siege. Which always happens, since the times that luxons really divide their attention on both gates is very very small, especially when they notice that a gate is properly bonded and it seems they'll need more then simply 4 of their people to break through. But in that case, one of the support chars can help out as well. (ele/mo with dwaynas kiss and blessed ligght together with essence bond is actually a decent support char, heck even an assasin with these skills help out a lot). in the end the point is defense and disruption, not offense that prevails.
--------------
And yes melech, a lot depends on getting monks, reason why I stated at the start that having a monk or not makes it a lot easier for the kurzichs and reason why my monk has had the biggest playtime/success over there. But as I told as well it isn't the only thing that works, its just more dumbproof then actually keep on running amber due to the habit of some people to let in other people during the run. But if most people actually stop thinking about making killing builds but defensive builds (so difficult to substitute fw for symbiosis or the other one, or heck even both?) or to include a decent other heal? My point however wasn't that it is jackpot only with that build, but that that would be the best build in prime circumstances. But even under less prime crcumstances it would still be a decent build... ergo a ranger with the 2 spirits (but for the rst using its disrupt shot on the turtles), a rit with vital weapon and a bondingmonk and then heck a simple assasin with dwaynas kiss and the opponents will have a very though time to break through. I wasn't dead set on the exact professions, but on the skills that were brought along, since its those that make the biggest difference. In the end you aren't the only group that is stuck with randomness the opponent side is random as well.

actually, i find prot spirit+life sheath much better than life bond+life barrier.

i use an active prot monk, 13 prot 15 divine, the only direct healing is signet of devotion, and i find it very efficient to keep the ele alive, only problem is when there are necros with degen or eles with inmolate.

mesmers with backfire i just use prot spirit and cast happily through it.

im pretty sure a heal/prot could be more efficient in healing/prot the npc and healing myself as well (at least heal breeze would reduce the degen)

there have been battles where i have been bored guarding the outer gate npc, while my team succesfully held the other corridor.

in other ocassions, when the enemy broke through and reached the green gate, me and a heal monk were able to keep gunther a live for the rest of the match, from like 70% to the end, and all because prot spirit kept him from being killed by the two turtles, and because the enemy always killed me and not the healer, in less than 6 seconds i was back up with full energy spamming prot spirit and life sheath.

Kurzicks have it harder, but hey, every victory i get as a kurzick feels well deserved

not so sure about life sheath, its great but in there it goes down way to fast not to mention no defense against degen. Which is imho why i like using life bond (for overal reduced dmg, prot spirit "to reduce big 400 dmg hits", life atunement 'to give extra big heals', essence bond (e-management) and then blessed sig to have a sure way of getting energy and lastly dwaynas kiss to take care of those cases where degen is kicking hell or emergency major heal)

well, what i like about my build is that it allows flexibility, and in the few cases where a well of profane necro appears, it allows me to keep the npc alive for a few more seconds.

also once the enemy gets in the fort, i can actively protect my teammates as soon as the skills recharge and i have energy and not just babysit only one member, with a bonder its a bit harder, as you have to wait and cast every spell on the same target. and they are a bit costly.

all in all, i have played with bonders with my current build, and when we end with gunther, we usually make it very hard for the enemy to take him down.

everyone to their own strategy, i would love to play with you

Ay reason if i notice a well of profane popping up i keep it to only essence bond, life atunement, prot spirit and dwaynas kiss spammage , at least after it runs out, before i keep to blessed light and dwaynas kiss spamming.

PS: same here

You're absolutely right. I have never encountered a decent *set* of monks in Fort Aspenwood. I have encountered individually skilled monks on quite a few occasions, and in those cases I've had little trouble blasting through the other gate.

Would two good monks be problematic? Sure. But in my experience, two good players *period*, no matter what role or side they're on, wins around 80-90% of the time. Sure each side gets eight players, but a clear majority of those players serve little useful purpose in a match other than to feed the other side faction and XP. The apex of their usefulness seems to be distracting the shitters on the other side, fighting to some useless stalemate over nothing. You only really notice the shitters when you have a bunch of AFKers and you no longer have any to distract theirs and you get a constant wave of them in your face because of it...anyway.

Of the useful functions I've seen on the other team - that is, capturing mines and running amber, killing turtles, and protecting a group of NPCs via bonds or otherwise - the third is significantly below the other two on my list. They are the only one of the three that I can completely play around by attacking the other gate. Doesn't make 'em useless. Just makes 'em less important than a good player doing something else.


Have you found a way to actually make people listen? I've never been on a team where the so-called leaders are anything other than openly mocked. If you have a technique to organize your shitters into actually doing something useful, instead of getting blown up by turtles a lot, then you should definitely be winning the vast, vast majority of your games.


Fast enough? Nothing about fast. You just have to eventually get that turtle through the other gate, and have a turtle parked in their area proper. Only time you're in a hurry is if they have another good player in addition to a bonder - someone who's good at killing turtles or controlling mines - and those matches you lose consistently anyway.

Understand my perspective - from that of a Luxon player on a team that is guaranteed to have at least one competent Luxon player, myself. If I'm up against a team of utter n00b Kurzicks, which does happen a good majority of the time, I'm just going to win without any fancy tactics being needed 90+% of the time. The same holds true when I played on the Kurzick side, half the time the Luxon team is completely clueless and never poses a threat. I honestly have no clue what goes on in a match without any good players.

The only matches that are really interesting are those with a decent number of good players on each side. What I'm saying is that straight up, if the only good player on the other team is a bonder, that I feel I have a significant advantage because he has little tactical flexibility. If the other good player is a warrior running amber or a ranger killing my turtles, then the match is going to be ugly. If there are multiple good players on one team the match is going to end quickly. If there are multiple good players on both teams? Can't say I've ever seen that situation.


I've been in that situation before, playing monk for Kurzick. Sometimes the Luxon team doesn't have a clue and your chaff will keep their warriors busy for the full time. Easy win. Sometimes they aren't as terrible and take down the NPCs. Not as often granted, because odds are the other team won't have a good player, but when they do it's not trivial.


Agreed. Not to belabor the point, but most teams are terrible. Maybe Luxon teams are terrible more often than Kurzick teams, I don't know. You should beat terrible teams.


They have time to, sure. Do they do it? Not terribly often. Give a W/Mo an hour and he'll more likely than not spend it attacking other W/Mos. It sucks, but it's what you have to deal with. If you get even a fraction of what could be done on Fort Aspenwood actually accomplished you're almost certainly going to win.


Well I can definitely understand why you'd think that. I'm assuming you're a decent player, and you're playing monk and bonding a gate, so it should be obvious that in the matches that you win it will often be because you were extremely effective at holding gates up. When I was playing the Kurzick side as a bonder I won games for precisely the same reason. Also, when I was playing on the Kurzick side assassinating turtles we won games because I killed those turtles. When I captured mines and consistently kept gates repaired we won because of that. You get a biased sample because you're a part of it. What you would be better off commenting on is what Luxon tactics are effective, because you are *not* screwing up their sample with your presence.

From playing on the Luxons I'm trying to share what was been most effective, what has made me lose. To reiterate, the most effective things have been aggressive control of the mines, and rangers picking off turtles with degen. This is largely because I've been playing offensive characters - if I was a monk, I might be complaining about bonders a lot more and degen rangers a lot less. Maybe that's the difference. In any case, playing on Luxon offense, bonders, while effective, were not the most effective I've seen out of the Kurzicks. Usually I lose to rangers or other degen characters killing turtles - less so to people aggressively controlling the mines, but that's more because it's so rarely done. Solitary bonders haven't had that kind of impact. Multiple good bonders? Sure. Just have never seen that. Can't be very many random teams that pop up with not only two good players, but two good players on bonder.

Peace,
-CxE

I take my bond monk there alot. My best story is a team i was on that had a person leave within 4 seconds of the start and everyone crying that we lost one. Nobdoy knew what to do. Luxons where at the green gate at 40% and inside at roughly 43%. Me being the bonder bonded up gunther and kept yelling at the rest of my team to stay inside the green gate and only go out for turtles. It took the luxons until about 55% to realize that i was bonding him. So the big bad warriors come up to me and try to kill me. Lo behold i put life sheath on myself and kept recasting it on myself whenever i had the chance. Luxons didnt know what to do so they went back to gunther. Who he then got the life sheath. We ended up winning. It was quite sad for the luxons.

If you have at least 1 monk it increases the kurzick chances a little bit. If you dont then it is going to be real rough for them.

My experience playing both sides shows me that Juggernauts are completely useless.. I've soloed one with my warrior and it was extremely easy. Weeks ago the Luxon side won more often, but lately the Kurzick side apparently has started to win very frequently. Maybe the tables have turned?

they need to lower turtle damage, and remove boon prot monk on gate keeper elementalist crap

I've played on both sides, and agree that the Kurzick side have a harder battle on their hands. I've lost more times when playing for the Kurzick. I continue to fight on the Kurzick's side because I find it more intense, exciting and challenging.

Kurzicks sometimes focus too much on attacking the Luxons and forget about the mines. Most of the time when I've lost is due to being overwhelmed by the Luxon team, gates have fallen and no one running amber to repair those gates (myself included), and the Luxons just steamroll in. The times that I have won is when we had some players help Npcs take down turtles, and some retaking mines and running amber (what I do more of now).

Taking and holding one or both mines is important. Firstly, it provides amber to repair gates - if the gates are repaired there will be additional npc reinforements (those who guards those gates). Secondly, when mines are in the hands of the Luxons, it becomes their resurrect point - so it doesn't matter a great deal that you killed Luxon players because they'll be back very quickly.

The Luxons are a strong force when they're grouped and focused. Going to retake mines can help disrupt this because it makes them split their force to stop you. If they don't split, then you'll have an easier time to take the mines . Once taken, run amber and repair gates to slow their advance - they'll resurrect further away when killed and have to breach the gates again.

And I agree with AW Lore, that a victory as a Kurzick definitely feel well deserved.

I've played on both sides.

Fort Aspewnood.. for me.. is a faction factory. You go there to get some luxon faction. You don't go there to play a mission or a weird random gvg. It's purely a faction farming place.

How to farm?

Make a necro minion master and join luxon side.
From luxon perspective, head to the right sided mine and use the corpses there (people often get killed there by luxons who are charging in, it's the initial battle.

Once you have those minions (get flesh golem too, just for kicks), head over to either gate. Kill whatever comes through with your minions and rotting flesh. If some uber smart kurzick decides to attack you from a higher position, rot him too, he'll drop dead automatically after a while...
Keep pressing forward, but not too fast. Let your minions devour the Kurzicks. Keep doing that until you get to the primary kurzick portal warp thing. Camp that place and keep farming the faction. ABout 2 or 3 kirzicks will keep coming through that gate and get bodyblocked by minions and killed. They'll keep coming so keep doing it.

It might be interesting to have some of your teammates bodyblock the turtles so you can milk some more but after about 3 minutes of milking it's over.

It's a milk.. I mean faction factory. Nothing more than that.
The only time I saw Kurzicks win was shortly after factions release. I had no idea what I was doing and they told me to "just run amber, don't need monks".
I thought it was impossible for luxon to ever take over the fort...

If Kurzicks win today then that is caused by leechers, leavers or err7.
Don't forget, this entire match is played by random people and 90% of them suck.


Mark my words, Luxon faction factory

A Ranger is a massive advantage on the Kurzick side, if they ahev the right build. I use this:

Ranger/Elementalist - You need a Flatbow or Long Bow

Distracting Shot
Posion Arrow [Elite]
Pin Down
Kinder Arrows
Dodge
Throw Dirt OR Troll Urgent
Whriling Defence
Conjure Flame

Using this build, me as the Ranger can keep a single Turtle from moving. Or if you add Savage shot, you can keep once both from moving.

Inturrepting them stops them, long as you keep doing it the Turtles for the luxons is worthless.

In between interrupting them, use Kinder Arrows + Conjure Flame and spam Posion arrow to keep them damaged.

Easy. The key to the Luxons attacks are they every powerful turtles.