Curse

Vaga · Jan 25, 2008, 05:04 AM // 05:04

I doubt they're going to nerf all AoE options because I'm pretty sure it's too important to PvE who afaik already complain about the past splinter nerfs. If they were to I'm not quite sure how you'd balance it because AoE is always going to do a huge amount of damage no matter how you look at it when you have 5+ NPC's standing in it.

Quote:

What are you trying to nerf about Splinter, if it's not how good it is against NPCs? And if you're in favor of NPC advantages becoming more meaningful, why would you not want to keep the higher number of NPCs?

I assume so that a team who kills NPC's gains an advantage out of it but gains less of an advantage than if there were more NPC's (i.e killing undefended outside npcs). So with AoE options nerfed if you get to vod and have say 4 more archers than the other team they can't just rock up to the stand and kill them in a matter of seconds. Less npcs also makes it easier to do things in the other teams base split-wise. Once again the main problem I see is just that if both teams are the stand when the NPC's arive with equal numbers balling them up and nuking them will still be the dominate strategy so you will still need AoE.

The only real solution I can see is less npc's + good ai.

Riotgear · Jan 25, 2008, 05:16 AM // 05:16

NPCs being hardier at VOD would contribute to emphasis on wiping them out before VOD. If there's anything positive about the recent change, it's the shift towards a sort of mentality that when VOD hits, NPC squishing time is over and the time for NPCs squishing things begins.

There are a number of ways to increase hardiness aside from better AI. Of course, Anet's first solution to it was to increase the number of NPCs, which as we can see, didn't work too well.

HolyHawk · Jan 25, 2008, 07:06 AM // 07:06

I think the point is that bringing aoe is fine, and yes, it's been like this for some time. However, splinter and ancestor's do it too well that other forms of doing that are not really going to be used. It's not about promoting the ending of aoe as a vod strategy, more like being able to choose between other solid options.

Lordhelmos · Jan 25, 2008, 09:18 AM // 09:18

I think they should do 2 things:

~First of all prioritize the AI movement to the flag stand so they don't have gimpy aggro while marching and end up running to africa to chase some cripshot. This kind of stuff ruins VoD even if you have NPC advantage.

~Second of all they should make NPC's heartier against AoE damage. A solution to things would be to add a paragon NPC to the VoD line up. He can spam protective shouts over the VoD archers to make them more resilent to splinter dmg/rodgorts. Also ganking this NPC before VoD can be more rewarding and grant a huge edge during the VoD faceoff. This would also make lord rushes more difficult. Seeing as how everyone hates playing motigons, at least give the class some purpose and let the NPC handle it. Of course his shouts would only affect the NPCs, and if needed, the Guild Lord can be excluded from his shouts.