Great Hall: Strategy [Experimental]

[Kip]

After reading the experiences of others and doing a few tests of my own, I have placed Ragnash's strategy in the top position.

With the change to the spawns, I always liked the idea of barricading the camera right-hand side. But having faced the same problem as Click, I have never fully had the chance to test it with an efficient team.

I believe the benefits of the right-hand side are that, due to the changed spawns, they only have 1 route of entry. They hit the 2-3 shielders, who stand in the middle of 2 heavy barricades on either side. Deployable shields cover the small walls, thus allowing ammo refill to be spammed. 2 light barricades at the back for archers to fire over shield wall. If all team members don't cross an invisible line drawn straight back to the wall inline with the ammo refill, then in theory the enemies wouldn't even attempt coming around the side and no protection would be necessary.

Chart

[Image: 2zqh6q8.jpg]

My comments: This camp looks the best.  Except for an occasional stray, the nords all attack the front shield wall.  The ammo box in the camp is great for easy medic box spamming.  Ideally, there would be enough shielders to block almost the entire gap (this probably will not happen very often).  Short Heavy Barricades would probably be best placed right of the shield wall with Heavy Barricades behind them.  The S.H.Cades would take the melee hits and the H.Cades would block the ranged.  The main thing to be careful with in this strategy is to make sure no one stands right behind the barricades and draws the nords to attack them.

---

My first idea

Update: I experimented with this; the nords go around the sides and do not focus on the shield wall between the stairs.

Right now, the most popular spot to camp seems to be in the back-left corner of the map.  This spot has some major draw backs.  Two of them are that it is very small and that it is open to nord archers on the left.

Because of this, I would like to suggest a new camp.  It has problems of its own but I believe it is worth trying.  I propose forming a shield wall between the two stairs that lead to the upper bridges.

[Image: greathallbetweenthestai.jpg]

The main advantage to this new camp is that it has much more room, especially for polearms slashers.  Also, because the shielders are facing forward instead of across the hall, nord archers should not be able to hit them from the sides.  Our archers might have some trouble shooting but I would suggest standing on the benches on either side of the shield wall.  (This could be dangerous and might be a bad idea.)

Here are a few potential problems:

• It will probably be easy to drag the nords around the sides.  (I'm not sure how easy.  With testing, I hope to find that they mostly go to the shield wall.  If necessary, a normal barricade could be placed on either side on the yellow line.  That way our archers could shoot over it at any nords on the sides.)
  
• The nords might climb the stairs and fall over the wall.  (If this is a problem, the deployable shields might need to be replaced by heavy barricades.)
  
• Nord archers will be able to shoot from the upper spawn.  (They can already shoot into our current camp in the corner so this should not be any worse.)
  
• Unlike the current spot, there is no ammo box in the camp.  (In my opinion, the current camp is so small that the ammo box is not very accessible anyway.)
  

Swadius suggested this variation:

If you move the green line up to the mouth of the stairs, you wouldn't need the red shields to keep them from coming over. Not only that, but now that the stairs are cut off from the nords, you can put the dep shields on the stairs themselves almost outside of bot melee range. On top of that, you could put two ranged characters behind the pillars on the cat walk up top to shoot at the nords.

[Image: greathallbetweenthestai.jpg]

My comments: I like the idea that archers can stand behind the pillars at the top of the stairs.  Also, by standing between the stairs instead of behind them, there might be less chance of the nords looping around behind the camp.

I'm hoping that people will see this strategy and try it out.  Please post if it works, why it does not, or how it can be improved.  Thanks.

This strategy was first written for version 0.4.4.  As of 0.4.8, it is still valid.
Edit: Added ideas and strategy charts from the feedback.

[clickeverywhere]

I've had the exact same idea regarding this map, and I have attempted using a similar strategy to this (though the team was not coordinated enough to stay within the yellow lines in your figure). It was a monumental failure for us in that attempt.

Of course, I have not tried this spot with a smaller group. Perhaps with a better coordinated team this will work.

[Ragnash]

With the change to the spawns, I always liked the idea of barricading the camera right-hand side. But having faced the same problem as Click, I have never fully had the chance to test it with an efficient team.

I believe the benefits of the right-hand side are that, due to the changed spawns, they only have 1 route of entry. They hit the 2-3 shielders, who stand in the middle of 2 heavy barricades on either side. Deployable shields cover the small walls, thus allowing ammo refill to be spammed. 2 light barricades at the back for archers to fire over shield wall. If all team members don't cross an invisible line drawn straight back to the wall inline with the ammo refill, then in theory the enemies wouldn't even attempt coming around the side and no protection would be necessary.

[Jalau]

nice idea never thaught of it!

[Swadius]

If you move the green line up to the mouth of the stairs, you wouldn't need the red shields to keep them from coming over. Not only that, but now that the stairs are cut off from the nords, you can put the dep shields on the stairs themselves almost outside of bot melee range. On top of that, you could put two ranged characters behind the pillars on the cat walk up top to shoot at the nords.

[Kip]

Thanks for the feedback and suggestions.  I finally updated my post with the new strategy charts.  I have not been able to test any of them with a large coordinated group yet, but I'm still hoping for that opportunity.

[Ragnash]

Ok. Made some adjustments to my earlier stated strategy. I have tested the below strategy with a decent team and it was working successfully. Unfortunately we had a crash before being able to fully test it on later hard mode waves, but with some adjustments it would have worked I believe.

Spoiler

[Image: 2zqh6q8.jpg]

The deployable shields protect the full time healer. They also stop friendly archers shooting on the right hand side and drawing enemies to barricades. The deployables set up behind the shield wall provide shooting platforms for the archers to shoot over the shield wall.

The shield wall can be either a 3 man team with a heavy barricade on their right, I believe the barricade would stay intact as long as every player remains between the yellow lines. We did also have a 6 man shield wall which worked perfectly with no barricade on the right, obviously 6 shielders isn't always possible. As stated I believe the heavy barricade won't be destroyed if players remain in the yellow zone. The heavy barricade on the left side below wall isn't necessary either but if there is an undisciplined player that is occasionally leaving the yellow line, an enemy will every now and then come around the side, having a barricade there will slow their attack down allowing a slasher to deal with him.

I have not fully tested this but I am confident that it will be an effective strategy with a committed and disciplined team. Which should be reasonably easy to set up in a public server with a mixture of players.

[Legend]

well this obviously cant work. "edit : ok it does"

[clickeverywhere]

Haha, it did work when I played with Ragnash and a bunch of other VLKA.

[Murrow]

Haha, it did work when I played with Ragnash and a bunch of other VLKA.

Yeah, that was a fun run. Shielding first waves and only using one barricade on the side. If I recall correctly we made it to Jotnes