Fort Aspenwood

[Spazzer]

The update really didn't do anything to "unbalance" FA. Games were rarely, if ever, decided in the last 5 minutes

Of course they were.

[raspberry jam]

Of course they were.

Yes.

I have lost count* of the number of times I stood with the valiant Kurzicks in a last ditch (and last second) defense at, and inside even, the green gate, the vile Luxon hordes pouring in, unleashing the power of both of their great (and greatly hideous) beasts at our poor Master Architect... and yet we won the day. Well, some of the days, anyway.

* So at least ten times. Maybe seven.

[Vela]

FA Kurz side outnumbered FA Lux side last night around 10PM EST by 20:1. There is a reason for that. Just doing FA, I got 80k Kurz factions and almost became a Kurz supporter. Of course, I had to wait through 10+ 'No Ops' each time.

[Simply Kedde]

Coincidence much I guess eh?

[Shadowspawn X]

I did play some FA over the week end a couple of hours Sat and Sun each. Here is what I have found:

1) The Luxons are required to be a disciplined fighting force while the Kurzicks are not. Its just my opinion that some don't have the discipline to win. These individuals get into grudge matches outside of the fort and engage in target fixation long after the target is no longer a threat to achieving the main objective. With the shorter duration of the match this behavior is much more devastating than it was before the update. If the Luxon team comes though the inner purple/orange gate and doesn't head down the steps to pressure the green gate immediately they will lose.

2) Aside from discipline the Luxons must be prepared, this means bringing plenty of enchantment removal for the bonds (rend and profane fill this need nicely) but in 90% of the matches this is missing. Every caster should bring some form of enchant removal not just hope someone else does.

3) Complete lack of healing. A good 90% of my matches involved a Luxon team with no heals. Luxons need firepower and force , but the total absence of any monks is not good.

A reasonably prepared team with some focus on the the objective will roll though in 5 minutes against a bad Kurzick team and give a good Kurzick team a nice run for their money.

I played my both my mesmer and ranger with successful runs no class disavantge for either of them. Also rolled an ele but because of his slow casting earth ele was not good, air was great didn't try fire or water.

[Noa Brightington]

The problem with being on kurz side, you can't just 'turtle'.
Luxon will bash their way in.
If you have a doorbonder worth their salt, yes, they can hold them off, and that's if the luxons don't have an enchant ripper.
But you also have to realize, either the kurz end up letting the luxons bash their way in, and don't run amber, or they have to run amber, which cuts their fighting force.

That's IF their side doesn't have leavers or leechers.
And also if their side doesn't have morons who feel a god awful need to cap the command post.
I swear, I so badly wanna switch sides and KILL whoever caps the posts. And it's ALLWAYS assassins. Every friggin time.
You get an assassin, you can almost garuntee they'll be out capping the posts while you have both mines up front red.
Or even better, you have a mine on your side, and they choose to cap the post as opposed to running amber.

Still, despite all this, I would have to say the kurz have it easier.
I tried playing the luxon side. If you run a monk, the good ones can keep the turtles going. But that means less damage for your side.
I tried doing ele, and could take over mines in 3 spells, but if anyone came after me, I was usually dead meat.
I tried doing as a ranger, but rangers large scale DPS sucks.
I could try running a rit, and some rit spammer/healers are near impossible to take out I've seen. But it's hard to find a good build that you can get used to there.

Overall, I'd have to say I lost far more on luxon side, then kurz.
On one occasion, I've gone against kurz where they had 5 monks, an ele, and a leacher.
We could NOT kill any of the 3 main NPCs, and we spent 2/3rd of the game inside green gate, with both turtles and warriors all active.

[Vela]

The update simply made this arena off-balance. If u get a win as a lux its just a matter of co-incidence. Any semi-bad kurz team will win this by AFKing.

[Sorale]

Maybe Linsey checked the stats?

The data was horribly, horribly skewed here. This is because most of the "decent" population didn't go near Fort Aspenwood; there simply wasn't any reason or reward for playing this. Thus, the majority of the players that went there were... uh... not top quality.

Now that there is, it attracts more "intelligent" people (this is relative), so more powerful builds and smarter players start appearing.

Thus, the obvious advantage that the Blue side has is now magnified more than ever since people are actually taking advantage of it.

[Qanar]

See... All Luxons played FA since it was so easy for them to win there before the update, now they all go crying to their mommy and play JQ...

I love it!

/sarcasm

But yes Im happy JQ gets played again...

[Spazzer]

The data was horribly, horribly skewed here. This is because most of the "decent" population didn't go near Fort Aspenwood; there simply wasn't any reason or reward for playing this. Thus, the majority of the players that went there were... uh... not top quality.

Pretty much. The only people who mattered on the subject really didn't care about Fort Aspenwood at all, so it was difficult to demonstrate the side bias.

Not to mention Leechers, which will be a real problem here shortly thanks in part to the side bias and the fact that you get a lot of faction for losing.