Siege weapon

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Siege weapons are environmental weapons in World versus World game mode used to attack enemies and their structures like gates and walls. Whether deployed automatically or built by the players, they are fixed to their build site location, except for Siege Golems, which can be moved. These weapons can only be used by the team that created them; opponents can attack and destroy the objects. Important for both offense and defense in World versus World combat, siege weapons are often the key to winning an otherwise impossible battle.

When placed, a build site is created and requires players to use supply to complete before it is usable. The progress is indicated by a yellow life bar. The build site can take damage during this time, and the more damage it takes, the more supply is needed to reach completion. If the build site is destroyed, the siege weapon and all supply used on it is lost.

Siege weapons can hit more targets than player character's skills can: either 10, 25 or 50 targets depending on the weapon[1] (Contrary to the limit of five maximum targets for player skills.)

Types of siege weapons[edit]

Castle under attack of siege weapons.

There are seven types of siege weapons that players can build. Siege weapons require the corresponding blueprint to place. Blueprints can be bought from various merchants, such as a Siege Masters or the Permanent Portable Provisioner.pngPermanent Portable Provisioner. They may also be obtained as a reward from achievement chests, Skirmish Chest.pngSkirmish Chests, WvW Reward Tracks, and the end chests in the WvW jumping puzzles. Finally, they may be looted as a rare drop from NPCs.

Each type has a superior and guild version available. The superior version deals 50% extra damage at the cost of requiring slightly more supply to complete. The exception is the Alpha Siege Golem, which upgrades to the Omega Siege Golem, a ranged version with improved skills. Superior blueprints are created at the Mystic Forge, dropped from containers such as Superior Siege Blueprint Case, or purchased from certain vendors.

The guild versions are equivalent to the superior version, except they need less Supply to construct. They may be activated directly through guild storage tab, "consumables" sub-section. Activating them in this way places one in the activators inventory, where it will then behave as if you were placing any other siege blueprint. Scribes may craft guild seige. They are also available through Unsealed Mist-Hardened Lockbox.pngMist-Hardened Lockboxes or purchasing through merchants.

Stationary and self-propelled siege weapons[edit]

The available siege weapons are:

Type Supply Cost Range AoE Limit Description
Basic Superior Guild
Flame Ram 40 Supply 50 Supply 40 Supply 360 50 Deals heavy damage to gates.
Arrow Cart 25 Supply 35 Supply 25 Supply 2500 25 Deals lethal area damage to infantry.
Ballista 30 Supply 40 Supply 30 Supply 3000 10 Deals heavy single target damage to siege equipment and infantry.
Catapult 40 Supply 50 Supply 40 Supply 4000 50 Deals heavy area damage to walls and moderate damage to gates.
Trebuchet 50 Supply 60 Supply 50 Supply 10,000 50 Deals heavy area damage to walls and moderate damage to gates.
Siege Golem 100 Supply 150 Supply 75 Supply 225 10 Deals heavy damage to gates. The only mobile siege weapon.
Shield Generator 40 Supply 50 Supply 40 Supply 2200 1 50 Project force fields to disrupt enemy movement and support allies.

1 3300 range for Superior and 3750 range for Guild shield generators.

  • Superior and guild siege weapons do 50% more damage than the standard versions.
  • Superior and guild shield generators have a 50% greater range than the standard version.

Structural siege weapons[edit]

Siege Golem and Burning Oil used to defend Castle walls.

Towers, keeps and Stonemist Castle can be upgraded to have their own defensive siege weapons. These are stationary on the objective and must be obtained as an objective upgrade by safely transporting a certain amount of dolyaks from supply camps.

Cannons and Oil are attained at the Secured upgrade, while Mortars are obtained at the Reinforced upgrade. Once the upgrade is complete, the siege weapons will appear on the objective. If they are destroyed, a build site will spawn after a period of time to allow the weapon to be rebuilt by players.

Type Supply Cost Range AoE Limit Description
Burning Oil 50 Supply 600 50 Deals heavy area damage to infantry.
Cannon 50 Supply 3,750 50 Deals heavy area damage to infantry.
Mortar 50 Supply 9,400 50 Deals heavy area damage to siege equipment and infantry.

Mechanics[edit]

  • The player who placed the siege weapon is considered its owner. While any ally can use the siege weapon, the owner can take control of the weapon at any time.
  • Using the "swap weapon" / "drop bundle" hotkey will cause the unplaced siege blueprint to return to the player's inventory (i.e. the bundle won't actually be dropped nor lost).
  • Character-specific offensive attributes (like power and precision) have no effect on siege weapon performance.
  • WXP upgrades have no effect on siege weapon performance outside of the World versus World environment.

Siege weapons despawning[edit]

Player-placed siege weapons despawn if they are not manned for 60 minutes (15 minutes for Flame Ram). The time remaining is shown by the Siege Decay Timer.png Siege Decay Timer effect on the weapon; players can reset it by briefly manning the weapon.

Build sites for siege initially have a despawn timer of 2 minutes. Every time a player contributes supply to the build site, the timer is reset to 10 minutes.

Structural siege weapons and build sites do not despawn.

Siege weapon map limit[edit]

There are two basic hard limits to siege placement.

There is a limit to how many siege weapons can be placed within a certain radius of each other. 5 weapons (sites or completed weapons) can be set within any 1000 unit radius. If players try to place a new site somewhere within a radius that already has hit its limit, the placement will fail but the player will retain the weapon bundle in their hands.

There is also a hard limit to how many weapons can be placed on the map. This map limit is explained by Mike Ferguson of ArenaNet as "basically anything that is not a ram counts towards one 'limit' for the purpose of this explanation and each team can have up to 100 of these types of weapons out at any time per map. Each team can also have up to 100 rams placed on a map."[2] There is also a cap to the number of golems that can be made, which is a value of 65.[3]

Siege weapon blocked[edit]

While in Sanctuary areas, the Siege Deployment Blocked.png Siege Deployment Blocked effect prevents siege weapon construction.

Related world abilities[edit]

Upgrade Rank Ability Cost
Siege Bunker.png
Siege Bunker
Total Cost: 35 World Ability Point

Reduces the siege damage you take
1 2% increased siege defense World Ability Point
2 4% (total) increased siege defense World Ability Point
3 6% (total) increased siege defense World Ability Point
4 8% (total) increased siege defense 10 World Ability Point
5 10% (total) increased siege defense 15 World Ability Point
Siege Might.png
Siege Might
Total Cost: 35 World Ability Point

Increases damage done with siege-engine attacks
1 2% increased siege damage World Ability Point
2 4% (total) increased siege damage World Ability Point
3 6% (total) increased siege damage World Ability Point
4 8% (total) increased siege damage 10 World Ability Point
5 10% (total) increased siege damage 15 World Ability Point
Build Master.png
Build Master
Total Cost: 15 World Ability Point

Improves your building capabilities
1 Spend 4 supply at a time when building siege World Ability Point
2 Spend 6 supply at a time when building siege World Ability Point
3 Spend 8 supply at a time when building siege World Ability Point
4 Spend 10 supply at a time when building siege World Ability Point
Supply Master.png
Supply Master
Total Cost: 15 World Ability Point

Improve your ability in gathering, spending, and running supply
1 Pick up supply faster World Ability Point
2 Gain swiftness after spending all of your supply World Ability Point
3 Gain improved swiftness when picking up supply World Ability Point
4 Have a chance to recover spent supply when spending supply World Ability Point
5 Deployed siege sites are invulnerable for a short duration World Ability Point
Grand Total: 100 World Ability Point

Trivia[edit]

  • As of the 9th July 2013 update, siege blueprints are no longer account bound, and can be mailed and traded on the Trading Post. Existing blueprints were converted to tradable ones after acquiring a new blueprint of that type.

See also[edit]

Gwwlogo.png The Guild Wars Wiki has an article on Siege weapon.

References[edit]