Shattered Kingdoms

My gnome merc with one priest healing him could take out out both an outer and inner guardian: And that is without pants.

The reason no one does anything with CRS is because it isn't fun on account of it not even being remotely fair. All that you gain from ganking someone else's relic is preventing them from having access too all of their cabal abilities and also just makes it much more likely that the exact same is going to happen to you.

Your gnome merc with a priest against nobody defending.

Uhhhhh, yeah? That's how CRS works. I would presume that you would be well aware of that.

The outer guardian should be easy. It's only there to be a speed-bump so that defenders have a moment to gather. If the inner guardian is so easy now that you can kill it without pants, then that is an entirely different story. Sounds like it could use some upgrading.

If the inner guardian is so easy, and still people do not care to play the CRS, perhaps there's another hint there.

There was an update a long time ago that heavily increased outer guardian HP and also decreased inner guardian HP, while also making the spawned guards pretty lame too.

As a result, the outer guardian is much more dangerous IMO. Since it has so many less HPs (and as a result less gas blast damage) and the spawned guards don't provide as much of a problem as they used to, it's really easy: But only when no defenders are online. If defenders are online it sucks as always, but no one raids a keep with defenders online anyway because people prefer no risk with a good reward (Chance to gank said relic) to some risk some a little more reward (Chance to gank said relic and also maybe a couple PCs).


I logged in with Pilnor on the test server and realized that a spelled-up gnome merc in mood aggressive wielding a one-handed weapon with no damage enchantments on it, was able to kill an inner guardian in 19 rounds. If we assume that a human barb with a decently enchanted ranged weapon is standing behind him, that's more like 7-8 rounds, and if we assume that we have 4 melee classes, it's more like 4-5 rounds.

If by upgrade you mean removal; I concur.

You don't want to take their relic? Awesome! I mean that sincerely. That doesn't mean there is no point to going and attacking the keep. The relic is bait. But is it intended to be bait for the attackers? Or defenders?

I assume some of you like to PK or else you wouldn't be playing a PK-enabled game. By going to raid, defenders are supposed to respond and then you can, you know, PK them. Of course, if you only raid when none of your opponents are around, you are completely missing the point. Which seems to be most everyone.

The point, however, is that there's no point. Raiding keeps for relics is a deathtrap if other PCs are online, and a cakewalk if they aren't. If you raid someone's keep and take their relic when they're online, it is immensely harder, and while if you win you get to keep their relic, all they have to do is wait until you're offline so that they can steal your relic back. The change to decrease inner guardian HP and nerf the spawned guards into oblivion only made that easier.

As a result, the playerbase has boycotted relic ganking because no one likes logging in to realize that all their cabal abilities are gone when they couldn't have done a thing to stop it, and people would rather just try to catch other PCs by surprise and kill them than opposed to having to give them a bit fat warning in addition to an outer guardian, spawned guards, or inner guardian at their side. "Breaking into" a major city is immensely easier than breaking into a cabal HQ.

The problem is that it's far too easy for 1 PC to defend a keep. You just need a warlock, a scout, a necro, a sorc, a merc with ranged, or to be the MC, Crucible, or Druids, and you can easily stop a group of 5+ attackers.

Hammer kind of gets the shaft when it comes to defending their keep.