Kurzick guide to Fort Aspenwood (v0.9)

[Servant of Kali]

Upier - i am well aware of that. It's one of the many reasons why im not playing Kurzick side. I as well prefer to leech on people stupidity, and benefit from it. Dont know what EoE is? Cool, instead of explaining it to every team, i go Luxon and win in 5min.

Anet needs to take care of leechers AND increase the amount of faction Kurzick get for win. It HAS to be more than Luxon side. Without that i dont see myself playing Kurzick. Which doesnt mean i cant write a guide for poor fellows :)

In my experience Rt Lord can definitely stall the enemy, but as you say its not true safety, just delay. I also bring Dissonance

RLord can stall the enemy enough for them to lose the battle. I was merely making a comparison to bond monk. Dissonance is bad for several reasons but if it works for u, great. I dont use it. Not that i didnt try it but the chances of hitting the turtle are small. Also, if no one down there is shooting the turtle, spirit might not hit as well. On the wall, you might be just a tiny bit outside of turtle range.. so.. bummer. turtle hits you and there goes your spirit. Also, where on earth do you find enough energy to spam 2 dissonance per 1 min? :P Again, if it works for u cool heh.. i tried it and didnt like it.

[Dravyn]

I absolutely love Aspenwood, that being the closest thing to battlegrounds that GW has to offer. However, I do have some issues with Kurzick, which is what I always play.

NPC's - Luxon NPC's are highly aggressive, whereas Kurz npc's are not. Kurz npc's will stand in one spot and let a ranged attacker - player/turtle, etc - kill them with no resistance. One cast from range on a luxon npc will have that npc or its mobile guard *cough* siege turtle* cough* charging into the fight. Its not only the luxon warriors that act this way, the priests and commanders will charge from their spawns for a certain distance to react to threat. Also, luxon npc's have some self healing/healers, ours don't, except for one I think in the green room. None of the gate guards heal.

Siege Turtle - Great concept, but some things about it irritiate me. Point blank siege firing capability..retarded. Spammable 100+ dmg carrier defense w/knockdown and knockback..retarded. Had a turtle last night hit me three times in a row with carrier defense for 100 dmg each hit and THEN fire its cannon right into its own face to kill me. I could see having all that if it didn't have a mobile defensive contingent, but it does, which is highly aggressive. Our only answer to siege turtles in the form of an npc is one lumbering behemoth that moves at the speed of snail and seems to attack twice as slow as it moves. That thing is about worthless.

Respawning NPCs- auto respawn for luxon, amber generated respawn for us..if the gatekeepers are fighting, there's no turning in amber, ie, no respawning npcs. Bad design imo. Once luxon's get to the gates and have killed your npc's, you're left with only the 8 players on your team to contend with their 8 players, their 8 luxon warriors, and their two siege turtles. Because all of theirs automatically respawn.

Other than that, I think its awesome :D Oh, and I absolutely despise rage quitters about as much as afk leechers.

[Servant of Kali]

Juggernaut is useless... i agree. I have never seen that thing do any real dmg. Moves so slow that you can simply walk around it. Since it doesnt have ranged attack, the only thing that should be scared by it are luxon warrior (if they target it) and turtle. And even then lol...

[Harshateja]

I play a kurzick bonder so I do have some background when making this radical mark:

Its very difficult for a kurzick team to win against a team with both a disenchanter and EoE. Though those times are far and few between, the chance for it to even happen has made me stop visiting aspenwood.

The only way I see to balance Aspenwood without changing the scenario or npc stats or etc is to make it a team arena so that there can be more defensive coordination.

[Servant of Kali]

Actually, i still stand by what i said - give Kurzick side more faction when they win. That will solve the imbalance as good players will have a reason to actually play Kurzicks. Right now i need money, so cant be bothered with 20min battles when i get the same amount of faction in 5min on luxon side. Rinse repeat.

Oh, and until leechers issue is addressed by Anet, i cant be bothered either (considering the amount of leechers especially on kurzick side).

These are the true issues, NOT imbalance itself.

[Kalis Pax]

Oh, and until leechers issue is addressed by Anet, i cant be bothered either (considering the amount of leechers especially on kurzick side).

These are the true issues, NOT imbalance itself.

Agreed. I was on one team yesterday that had 4 leechers. I hope they enjoyed their ill-gained faction.

[Sir Jack]

Juggernaut is useless... i agree. I have never seen that thing do any real dmg. Moves so slow that you can simply walk around it. Since it doesnt have ranged attack, the only thing that should be scared by it are luxon warrior (if they target it) and turtle. And even then lol...

If the Juggernaut uses his Juggernaut Toss on the Turtle, his Turtle shell stance is removed for 5 seconds and all attacks seem to be critical. Dealt pathetically low damage with turtle shell on as my ranger (degen with Apply poison though), then hit 2-3 arrows dealing 60 damage. close to 100 when I used Melandru's.

Only use I've seen for the Juggernaut though, and since I'm usually fighting on Luxon side, I completely screw him since I can just walk away when he comes too close.

[Servant of Kali]

Oh come on, juggernaut will take forever to reach turtle.. by that time turtle is probably gonna kill everyone around, so how many in reality are left standing and can shoot at turtle? :) It all sounds good, but most of the time juggernaut dies before even reaching the turtle.

[Ashin]

(1) about the Juggernaut - its like all our npcs - totally pointless and weak UNLESS it has a dedicated player trying to preserve it. His purpose, imo, is to make a siege turtle easier to kill if you are having trouble doing so.

(2) about Dissonance Kali - I agree with everything you said. Huge energy cost, absolutely pitiful AI, and there is simply no way (I have been experimenting extensively) to place it where you will ensure it will target the turtle. However, roughly once or twice per match I get it to target a turtle. And when it does, its a huge payoff imo. If an outer gate is just broken, typically you have some touchers or aoe'ers coming in.. heck even a warrior with healing sig.. none of these folks appreciates getting targetted by Dissonance. So.. for me it is worth it. I don't spam it certainly, but I do deploy it at times and hope for the best.

(3) About Rit Lords in RA - I continue to be impressed with just how much you can contribute to a Kurzick victory as a Rit Lord spamming protection. I have found that with just ONE keeping one side safe (very slow to get through), and THREE people devoted to running amber, you have very good odds of victory. Those are my numbers that I run by. First second I'm in FA I ask who is running amber. Typically one person responds. I tell the group we need three. If I don't hear immediate replies I can be almost certain we will lose. If I hear replies we usually win. Which brings me to another point that I think Kali is trying to get across also..

(4) If you are going to FA as a Kurzick, knowing the odds are somewhat against you, and that your faction gain is slow even if you win, please consider coming with a build that is useful in FA. I don't care if you can kill players well. To be honest, I think you could win FA without killing any players. Please understand that this instance is *barely* a pvp instance for Kurzick. You need to be able to:

a) protect npcs (imo rit lord is ideal, monks of course do well pending build)

b) run amber / capture mine (as Kali said if you intend to capture mines you need to be able to do this solo and quickly, unless there are other players present.. in any event 2-3 amber runners that move as a group is best)

c) interrupt siege turtle attacks / kill siege turtle (to be honest I am shocked at how many rangers arrive at FA and tell me they are not capable of a single interrupt)

d) pre-occupy luxon warriors by tanking them (W/Mo here is your time to shine!)

To be totally blunt and honest, if you are not doing one of these four things, I don't care what you are doing. You are not really helping your team to win. Changing build is very easy to do and actually interesting to see all facets of your profession. I know it sounds elitist or condescending, but now that I understand the impact rit lord can have on FA, I kind of roll my eyes at all the rits that come there with their uber channeling spike builds. Please..

I don't find spamming shelter/union/displacement especially thrilling.. but I do prefer winning to losing. Since I switched to ritual lord in FA I find that I win roughly half my games. All depends on whether we have three people that understand how to run amber, to be honest. Three people plus me slowing down progress at one gate is enough to win in most cases.

Before when I came as channeling I won I'd say about 10% of the time. Coincidence? I'm not patting myself on the back. Its just the difference between doing something useless (killing players that instantly respawn) vs doing something useful (keeping npcs and gates alive significantly longer).

So think about these tasks, and which one you'd like to do / would be best at, and please come with a build that can do one of these tasks well imo. Frankly even if your build could kill any other player in one hit, it still wouldn't do much to win a game of FA for Kurzick side. It might sound harsh, but that's just the reality of this map as I see it.

[Amadei]

Elementalist. I honestly have no idea :) But considering the battles can be quite crowded, i'd go with AoE spells.

I run a boring little flashbot as an ele in Fort Aspenwood - Blinding Flash and Enervating Charge make for completely useless warriors, assassins and rangers. I also bring Gale for interrupting purposes (it doesn't interrupt the turtle, as far as I know, but it's fairly spammable -- mind the exhaustion! -- and once I find out who the EoE spammer is, s/he won't be safe :P), and dual attunement (which sucks if you have Luxon enchant strippers, but there aren't too many of those running around). Playing a flashbot also makes for easy mine-grabbing; blind Luxon longbows are Luxon longbows that pose no threat.

Mesmer. Degens, turtle interrupts.. all work. Perhaps even Crippling Anguish for turtles, but i have no experience with mesmer in Aspenwood so need more input here.

I play a Migraine/interrupt mesmer at FA. Migraine, three interrupts, including Signet of Disruption for the turtle/EoE bot, some degen and Distortion for protection from the Luxon NPC warrior squad.

Bonder monks are your best friend on the Kurzick side. I synced my entrance with two bonder monks a few times last night and we won every time because either the Luxons had no enchant removal, or not enough (I saw a dom mesmer with Shatter Enchant, which is great, but won't suffice because the bondee will have more than one enchant on him). Note that if you have a bonder monk, s/he will be VERY pissed if you open the green gate if all the Luxons are pounding on that last Kurzick elementalist. Do Not Do This, Ever.

The Juggernaut is fairly useless. I play FA Kurzick a lot (like, a LOT. It's funded three 15k armors so far, by gaining faction and selling the amber) and I've seen the Juggernaut turn over a turtle... once.

The biggest cause for a Kurzick loss is people not running amber and not holding mines. The group starts out by getting the purple mine and running back some amber to fix the orange gates, which are usually both down by the time you get back. Then the Kurzicks play like a Luxon, i.e. they go on a mad killing spree and stop running amber. And then we lose.

Look, the Luxons win by killing everything and everyone in their path. It's what they have to. The Kurzicks have to utilise a little more strategy -- they have to conquer mines, run amber and protect Gunther. If they stop doing the first two, they'll have an incredibly hard time doing the latter. I've been in matches where I was the only one running amber and bringing the green gate back up three or four times in a row (we still lost those matches, because, well, one person can't do it all).

I think I should also note that the number of players on the Kurzick side is declining because of all the leechers. The Luxons sometimes even have two districts when there's about a dozen people on the Kurzick side. I know there are times of the day where I just don't want to enter because I see Leechers X, Y and Z in the lobby and I don't want to get stuck with them. It's already hard to win for the Kurzicks and having two or more leechers simply makes it impossible and also a lot less fun.