Keep Defense/Siege Strats With Few/No Camps

Agrippa_Invisus · November 2014

With the camps that exist on the NA server now going to be limited and precious, it's time to start planning out keep defense/siege strategies while understanding you may not see a camp the entire time due to no one having them.

The longer past the patch it gets, the more likely there are only last resort tents or no tents available for you at all. Actively destroying a tent will be huge, as its prevented from generating the 20 additional bodies that are desperately needed.

Well Defended Keeps - Keeps that are vital and cannot be ninja'ed. Last keep to open a gate, last keep for emperor, etc. Only keep a faction has. Etc.

Multiple breaches will likely be needed, probably on multiple sides.
Several breaching teams to slaughter the defenders as thoroughly as you can, and still have a viable force should one wipe.
Gank squads to interdict supply lines.
Own all resources to prevent transit should the keep deflag for any reason.
Extensive use of meatbag and fire siege on flags before attempting push.
First breaching of inner should aim to clear the top of any keep instead of flag pushing. Owning the top eliminates oil as a threat now, allowing for much easier captures of flags.

Defending Keeps -- If you have enough warning and can transit a reasonably sized defense force (say, one raid group) to a keep before it flags.

Scouts. The number one way to keep a keep safe is a real life person sitting in it, notifying everyone the moment enemies appear. This means a player roaming the walls, checking them all, investigating any overlooking resource, and paying attention. The faction that does this the best is the one that is least likely to be back capped.
Disrupt the siege line as much as possible. Take advantage of the time you have before a keep flags and hit those siege operators as hard as you can. Kill them and keep them from getting rezzes. The best siege is the one that never starts.
HOLD THE OUTER BREACH! This is where you can hurt them the most. Multiple oil spots to each side (especially if near a stair case), and room for siege weapons to pound that breach.
Layered defensive siege. There should be siege weapons sitting in both the courtyard and on top of the inner pounding the breach. Getting hit with multiple fire ballistas, meatbags, oil catapults, and then oil from the top will kill people.
The ultimate goal of the defenders is to either hang on long enough for reinforcements or murder enough of the attackers that the defenders feel safe sallying out and killing the siege line so they can repair. Once repairs happen the defenders have a distinct advantage when the keep deflags.
Rez. Rez. Rez. Rez. Rez. Rez. Rez. As long as the defenders maintain control of the area they are defending, they have the respawn advantage by being able to rez their dead. Always rez, even pugs. Always rez.
In the inner, the top of the keep is king. Oils will hit the flags from the top (either the nave in Imperial keeps or both flags in large keeps), and this allows you to gib large quantities of attacks. Holding the top is essential. Once you've killed enough you can clear the lower floors. If you feel your team is good enough, you can just roam the keep killing, but the top floor should always be your rally point to maintain control.
Use the NPCs. Retreat to transit mages if you have to. Hide behind archers. Whatever you have to do to stay alive a little longer and let reinforcements reach you.
Always do wall checks. Check the keep constantly while it is flagged for additional breaches being created. If you have enough defenders to allocate the manpower to do so, kill the new siege line and fully repair.
Do not be afraid to call the retreat. It is better to turtle up inside the inner than to be massacred in the courtyard. If you have only 10-15 people in the keep and 75 enemies are pouring into the breach, fall back and fortify the inner as best you can and get ready to white knuckle it. You might lose the keep with only 15 in the inner, you will lose the keep with only 2-3 people in the inner.

Any other thoughts and suggestions on how we're going to have to change how we think about keep defenses with the 1.5 patch?

Tintinabula · November 2014

who will drop an FC for one spawn? lol

Agrippa_Invisus · November 2014

Tintinabula wrote: »

who will drop an FC for one spawn? lol

Huh?

Tintinabula · November 2014

where was it that I read that the remaining FCs were giving one respawn.(That's pretty useless yea?)

Leovolao · November 2014

No more zerg diving just for the fun of it and no more ninja oils. Think this is the patch that has hurt my playstyle the most, I'm excited tbh. Too bad my download speed is stuck at 50 kb/s. =(

RedTalon · November 2014

You know suddenly glad I always walk around with 200+ souls gems At-least can help more and rise people like a boss

Agrippa_Invisus · November 2014

Tintinabula wrote: »

where was it that I read that the remaining FCs were giving one respawn.(That's pretty useless yea?)

Only the Limited Forward Camps you get from the newbie quest have that.

Erock25 · November 2014

It's definitely going to be a HUGE dynamic switch. No more will we see those tank spec DK/Temp charging in endlessly. I think people are just going to fight at range for extended periods of time and ninja capping is going to be the majority of flipped keeps. I believe the most effective strategy would be to send a skeleton crew to burst a keep and send your majority to take another keep, hoping that the faction you are attacking starts traveling en masse towards the initially bursted keep.

Armitas · November 2014

FC's allowed for mistakes when taking a keep. Without them the strategy will be to maximize your opportunity to flip a keep while reducing any opportunity for failure. That means 20 sieges front and back with combat prayer and procedurally bursting through the keep for a quick flip.

For those times when you can't quick flip it. Those on offense will have to move as a group through breaches to the towers and hole up there with tanks guarding the entrances and ranged dps on sieges. Stay together to rez together while using obstructions to protect from AOE. After inner wall is down push up to the high ground and hole up there with tanks guarding the entrance and ranged dps on the npcs below. Take out the npcs, any players you can and keep caltrops on the corpses and an eye out for rezes.

Defense should be guarding the breach with tanks slowing the way to the towers, sieges on the breech and range fire on the those the tanks slow down. When the inner is down defense should take the high ground and guard the entrance to the top. If the Offense pushes for the flag, defense pushes down after them while they are fighting the flag guards. If Offense pushes up to the top they get funneled into a tight space, with npc aoes dropping on them and player fire.

I think the mid ground between "holeing" up and stopping the "hole" up will be a complete ranged fight with people trying to pull other players into them with DK chains and leash so that when they die they can't be rezed.

Lionxoft · November 2014

Heh, the troll campers are gonna have a field day with this... Although they won't be placing the camps but rather just dying over and over to use them up when it's not necessary.

I guess that's one way to remove them from the game entirely

Sleep · November 2014

It makes it difficult to attack keeps with defence. Attackers can't revive anywhere closed to the keep they're attacking while defenders can just revive at the keep being attacked as long as the keep is not at Under Attack status. Reviving other players costs a soul gem and a few seconds. Not everyone will be revived. Not everyone is going to revive others.

aco5712 · November 2014

Sleep wrote: »

It makes it difficult to attack keeps with defence. Attackers can't revive anywhere closed to the keep they're attacking while defenders can just revive at the keep being attacked as long as the keep is not at Under Attack status. Reviving other players costs a soul gem and a few seconds. Not everyone will be revived. Not everyone is going to revive others.

And this is why you gotta be part of groups or guilds which is kinda what they want cyrodiil to be unless you wanna be ganking those lines solo and risking it to get the biscuit (Y)

Teargrants · November 2014

Since we can't leave camps in keeps, just do what Final used to do. Have Kage on his horse riding circles around the walls of Dragonclaw for hours at a time.

Rylana · November 2014

How to defend a keep without a camp - Dont die.

Its a very simple concept so many people dont understand. They love to stand in harms way trying to be the hero. they dont use siege, they just plink plink away with a bow at a dragonknight below them or stand with their little shield up in a breach.

If players started worrying more about their own survival and that of their teammates, you will solve the biggest issues facing PvP after the camp removal.

EIGHTS · November 2014

Finding enough people to attack. You don't need those plans or any others!
If you don't have enough numbers of man, you should give it up and run!! XD

Nidwin · November 2014

Sleep wrote: »

It makes it difficult to attack keeps with defence. Attackers can't revive anywhere closed to the keep they're attacking while defenders can just revive at the keep being attacked as long as the keep is not at Under Attack status. Reviving other players costs a soul gem and a few seconds. Not everyone will be revived. Not everyone is going to revive others.

That's because you haven't been explained yet how to proceed.

1. You stay at range, as far as possible till siege breeches the outer wall. Pact grouped and all together for heals, protection and rezzes. Defenders won't come out because they need to get rezzed if they fail/die and they will be out of range for getting rezzed.

2. Once breeched, you blob up and charge all at once with full aoe spam and aoe heals and wipe asap whatever stands in the way. You can still rez as a blob, they can't as their rezzers are getting pushed out of range.

3. Focus inner with siege, stay blobbed and out of range of NPC's. Not that hard. Sent one or two groups to gank peeps trying to come back if and when you have enough peeps vs whatever is left of the defending opposition.

4. Once inner breeched focus non NPC's first, as usual but from here on we should all know the drill.

As for what keep to target.

When you outnumber
Nodes first to slow down possible reinforcements. Never take the immediate keep if you can zerg down the next one.

When you're outnumbered.
Ninja the keep that's so far away the reinforcements will never be there in time and focus the middle ones to avoid Emperor push.

You outnumber -> zerg down with the idea 2 keeps in no time. The closest one never first but as the secondary target.

You're outnumbered -> Ninja strategy to avoid Emperor pushes, if possible of course.

Agrippa_Invisus · November 2014

One thing I've noticed works very well --

Be extremely aggressive as the defender of a keep if you've got the respawn advantage. If the keep has not flagged, you need to be hammering the enemy players outside the wall with everything you've got.

Constantly kill their siege weapons, the players themselves, and try to drive them away from the walls. If you can take out large numbers of them at once, you can prevent rezzing on the attackers side and eventually attrition will swing in your favor as you can repeatedly rez and the enemy is forced to run back from the nearest keep/outpost.

We used this to good affect at BRK repeatedly yesterday, cutting our way through zergs and killing anything that threatened the keep before it became an issue.

Gaettusk · November 2014

Teargrants wrote: »

Since we can't leave camps in keeps, just do what Final used to do. Have Kage on his horse riding circles around the walls of Dragonclaw for hours at a time.

Scouts worked wonders in Wabba 1.0. I spent most of playtime during that campaign doing the same thing and setting FCs down when kage,krotha, , or fixate/other condemned would mail me FCs

diskiukas · November 2014

Rylana wrote: »

How to defend a keep without a camp - Dont die.

Its a very simple concept so many people dont understand. They love to stand in harms way trying to be the hero. they dont use siege, they just plink plink away with a bow at a dragonknight below them or stand with their little shield up in a breach.

If players started worrying more about their own survival and that of their teammates, you will solve the biggest issues facing PvP after the camp removal.

Don't die? How this even possible in PVP ? Eventually you will die. I saw even best known players like Hovaling or Braidas die. Are you saying no one can kill you? Idiotic argument.

Teargrants · November 2014

That's an idiotic rebuttal, the argument isn't don't die, it's change your play style so you DON'T DIE AS MUCH. It is very much possible, I usually get around 50 kills before I die, but that's because I spec for sustain instead of dmg. Eventually you will die yes, but the goal is to make your eventual death as costly to the enemy as possible.

Rylana · November 2014

Teargrants wrote: »

That's an idiotic rebuttal, the argument isn't don't die, it's change your play style so you DON'T DIE AS MUCH. It is very much possible, I usually get around 50 kills before I die, but that's because I spec for sustain instead of dmg. Eventually you will die yes, but the goal is to make your eventual death as costly to the enemy as possible.

This ^

i.e. dont be a lemming/hero charging solo into 20 people thinking it will go better than the last time you wasted a camp charge.

Agrippa_Invisus · November 2014

Large scale battles now aren't about being able to wipe the enemy in one fell swoop (which is what you had to do with FCs everywhere -- the hours we've spent sweeping the BRK grounds for tents after a siege attempt are ridiculous). It's now about attrition.

It's about selling yourself as dearly as possible. It's about making sure as many of those other poor *** die for their Alliance as possible before you die for yours. It's the lemmings that slam their faces forward into the foe that aren't worth the soul gems necessary to rez them.

Not paying attention to your own safety has an extreme downside now, as it always should've. It should not be considered a good thing that your character died, but it used to be. Free refill of Health/Stam/Magicka? That's a great deal for 1/20th of a 7,200 AP tent. Free teleportation? Just as great of a deal.

Lord_Draevan · November 2014

I see a lot of people complaining "it's impossible to get to keeps now, gankers are everywhere".
Tip: do NOT take the shortest distance route to the keep. That's almost guaranteed to be where the gankers are. Go off the beaten path! Very few gankers there since most people take the shortest path. You rarely even have to stealth if you take these detours. Though obviously you'll still occasionally get ambushed, but much less than galloping down the quickest road.