what's the most evil type of siege in wvw
flame ram
arrow cart
ballista
catapult
trebuchet
shield generator
siege golem
Okay so this poll was prompted by a distracted thought I had while looking at a ballista blueprint in my inventory, I thought "this mf can be so evil". But there are specific circumstances under which it can be more evil than The Evil arrow cart.
I have no personal beef with the other siege types, but from my experience here's why arrow cart, ballista and trebuchet are pretty much equally worthy contenders for the title of the most beloathed weapon.
We'll view these through the lens of high-end gameplay (big group, experienced, organized in voice chat) and low-end gameplay (small, unorganized).
Arrow cart explains itself, it doesn't matter if your wvw experience is running solo for the first time, or as a veteran with a big squad, once you've had to dance under the ac fire, you know this shit's Evil. It can be dealt with (more on that later), it's less of a threat to an organized group with good heals, but it can shut down most groups that are less organized. Besides, it has large aoe and low cooldowns, making it plain annoying. Everyone hates ac, casuals and hardcores alike.
Ballista can jumpscare you as a solo player, chunking your hp to half or even 0 in one shot. Someone literally says "fuck this guy in particular" and fires at you. However, from a high-end pov, this's silly and inefficient. Ballistae are better used to take down siege like the pesky arrow carts with BRUTAL efficiency. You may have built a dozen acs and other defensive stuff in your keep, an organized group comes in, builds 2 ballistae in a strategic spot with the line of sight on all of your siege, and your defense is gone in a few shots. This's why I think ballista can be evil, but only in high-end gameplay.
Trebuchet kinda falls into its own category of a differently-smelling evil. It's almost harmless in high-end. However, not all wvw action is high-end 24/7. Arrow cart can be annoying, yes, but it's deployed when both teams are active, both you and your enemy opt in. Trebuchet is annoying because only one side may opt in. To pester the other. Some bored solo wanker builds a treb in a safe, unreachable spot (in a tower/keep), and starts poking at your tower/keep from long range, and will NOT stop until you come out and bring the fight to them. It's MEANT to annoy and lure the enemy out. Your team hasn't got enough players online? Say goodbye to your supplies and your walls, then. Ever seen Stonemist walls turned into swiss cheese? That's treb. Repairing the walls is literally useless until the treb's taken down.
Yet another evil aspect of trebuchet is the cow!!!! I must mention the cow because it's sooo damn evil, and funny too. It's a large aoe that puts poison on enemy (reduced healing/res) and drains 1 supply per tick. To be fair, it's easy to notice and avoid, so if you go from 25 to 0 supply because you stood in the cow, it's lowkey on you. Harmless in high-end, as I've mentioned, because experienced players keep an eye on the shit that flies towards them and on their supply too, but it's annoying anyway.
All of that said, I still voted arrow cart since it's evil on every level of wvw gameplay, but it's rather peculiar: the number of players goes up, the threat of ac and treb goes down, but ballista becomes more evil in the hands of a more competent group. It takes a while to siege up a keep well, and there's something darkly satisfying in being able to undo that in a few ballista shots.
Also an important footnote: evil and annoying =/= should be nerfed or removed. These pesky siege weapons are doing their job in a gamemode rooted in player friction, wvw would lose so much flavor if these were gone.
Who knows, maybe someone actually reads all of this and learns something useful!! Thanks for coming to my ted talk hahah.
