Curse

tmakinen · Feb 04, 2009, 11:21 AM // 11:21

Valet Parking's Guide to Alliance Battles

1 Introduction

Alliance Battles is one of the player versus player game formats in Guild Wars. In it, three randomly chosen teams of four players on each side fight over the control of a battlefield through capturing and holding seven shrines distributed across the map. Because of the large size of the map in comparison to the number of teams, actual fighting has a reduced role in comparison to most other formats of PvP. An AB match usually consists of a number of skirmishes and extended maneuvering between them. It is entirely possible to play an entire match without even once facing a real player opponent which, in combination with the overall lower level of competence, has prompted some players to disregard AB as not being a PvP game format at all. This is, of course, a misrepresentation of facts. AB is not a ranked PvP game format which averts those competitive players to whom the entire point of PvP is to beat your opponent and have something to show for it. That is a completely valid opinion and the purpose of this guide is not to try to persuade them otherwise. On the other hand I want to make the pre-emptive point that dismissing AB based on lack of ranked matches, randomness and poor players is like chess players having disdain on poker players because of the very same reasons which is just silly. Different strokes for different people. To possibly save some effort, I should start by listing what else this guide is not about:

This is not a guide to playing different professions. You should already be familiar with all professions, their capabilities and weaknesses on a general level and your own profession combination on a deeper level.
This is not a guide to nuts-and-bolts build making. Use PvXWiki templates until you feel confident enough to experiment on your own.
This is not a guide to general PvP. You should already be familiar with all the basic issues related to fighting against a team of actual players.
This is not an entry level guide to AB. You should already be familiar with game mechanics and objectives, and the layout of the five different maps.
This is not a guide to 'fun' AB. You don't need a guide to playing for git and shiggles.

That said, this guide is written to those players who like AB and seek to raise their level of gameplay purely for the satisfaction of enhancing one's skills. While working together as a team is common to all forms of PvP, working together as several allied teams is unique to AB and few players rise to this level of gameplay, especially when many players have difficulties in grasping even the concept of team play. The necessity of proper leadership is paramount in AB and this guide assumes that you are the leader of your team as you should be regardless of your profession if you are concerned with strategic issues. On a very abstract level it is easy to express what you should do, as given by the central tenet of this guide:

Quote:

The secret to winning every fight is to only fight those fights that can be won. A winning team can be recognized by the ability it possesses to start a fight or steer clear as their leader chooses. A winning leader can be recognized by the correct choices s/he makes.

This is not, however, an immediately useful piece of information unless we can determine exactly how to put it in practice. The rest of this quide is used to discuss various aspects of how to implement that tenet, what are the choices and how to weigh them against each other in different situations. The inherent randomness in the choice of your allies raises specific concerns as how to compensate for it and thus to make the randomness work in your favor. Reading this guide won't make you a new Napoleon - you can only hone your skills through actual play but I hope that this guide could point out some issues to which you may want to pay closer attention as you go and eventually formulate your own view on how to play AB.

Several community members have provided valuable feedback during the creation of this guide and I want to express my gratitude to them.

2 Forming a team

The most important part of the fight happens before you even enter the battlefield. While any recipes for a perfect team don't exist, there are several guidelines for making up your team that you'll only ignore to your own detriment.

Every team in AB needs a definite leader. The first responsibility of the leader is to put together the team according to which strategy he has in mind even if that strategy is just 'go out there and hit stuff until it stops moving'. Anything more sophisticated and it becomes necessary to discuss builds as well. There has been a lot of consternation about asking people to ping their builds. Although not asking picked up players to ping their builds is a direct indication of poor leadership, asking them to ping is not necessarily evidence to the contrary. Poor leaders with little insight may demand that people use - even verbatim - whatever cookie cutter build that is believed to be the last word in build making. Granted, some builds that people come up with are truly horrible, others just subpar, and that gives a rough estimate of the skill level of the player in question. That is not, however, the most important issue a leader should be concerned about.

For any player invited to the team the leader should have a general function in mind which the player in question is required to fill, and the only way to verify that the selection of players is correct is to ping builds. If the leader is, e.g., looking for caster hate and the invited ranger is a toucher then the intended function is not met. If the player is unwilling to change builds, another player must adapt to provide the required functionality. If nobody is willing to adapt, a change of either strategy or players is required. In any case, by the time the team enters the battle the leader must know what each team member is capable of doing build wise, since that will affect every decision during the battle. A good leader can make the most out of the limited resources available to him but not even an excellent leader will be able to properly use his resources if he doesn't know what they are. Thus, as a leader always aspire to find out what other team members are running and if somebody refuses to reveal their build their ability to work as a part of the team becomes very questionable. Other obvious red flags are impatience and the perennial favorite, obscene doodling on radar.

Concerning the basic design of your team, you may have heard the maxim that preparing for the best will take care of the rest, i.e., if you choose your build to match the most skilled opponent you might encounter then that will also be sufficient against any less skilled opponents. While this is certainly true, it is not the optimal choice here. Unlike in other forms of PvP where defeat will halt your progress (RA, TA, HA) or lower your rank (HB, GvG) there's no penalty for losing in AB. Quite the contrary, you'll be rewarded just for attending. This has some consequences. First of all, a large percentage of AB players performs poorly because of the lack of natural selection and thus any pressure to become more skilled. Since the allegiance titles can be maxed without ever putting a foot on an AB map title rank doesn't mean anything and cannot even be used to estimate familiarity with the game type, much less skill level.

Another consequence is that faster is always better. Faster matches mean more matches played and more rewards acquired. Even if you are facing a losing match, it's beneficial to get over with it faster to start a new one. When you combine these two the conclusion is that the optimal build is one that specifically targets the average opponent, not the best one. If this doesn't sound intuitive let's consider two builds: build A is fairly defensive but will win 10 out of 10 fights. Build B is much more aggressive at the expense of defense and will win 9 out of 10 fights but every fight will be over in average 25% faster than with build A. If the reward for winning is 1.0 and for losing 0.25 then after A has played 10 matches it has gained 10 * 1.0 = 10.0 reward points. The reward of B for 10 matches is 9 * 1.0 + 1 * 0.25 = 9.25 but since B is faster it has had time to play more matches than A and thus B's actual reward is 9.25 / 0.75 = 12.3 points. Unlike with most of PvP in AB AoE nuking is a feasible option!

There are some specific requirements and degrees of freedom for AB builds. The most obvious is the skill slot left vacant by Resurrection Signet, giving more skill bar real estate for utility, and the utility that reigns supreme in AB is mobility. A large part of every match is spent moving from one shrine to another, and the faster you can do it the more effective you are. Mobility is also the key to meeting the central tenet as given above - the faster team always has the initiative and thus speed boosts and snares have a strategic value instead of a mere tactical one. Every AB team should have skills to enhance the mobility of the team and reduce the mobility of the enemy. This can even be provided by a single team member like a water E/P with "Fall Back!" and snares. As a side note, it could be argued that FB! is the most valuable single skill in AB and if you have two copies of FB! in your team, properly chained, then the battlefield is yours to take.

An alternative is to have personal speed boosts which makes it easier to split as necessary but remember that a team is only as fast as its slowest member. A typical self-IMS team would have a warrior with Enraging Charge, an elementalist with Flame Djinn's Haste, a ranger with Natural Stride and finally a monk with Return (which, although not technically an IMS will allow the monk to hitch a ride on the IMS of other team members). All the given choices provide additional utility besides mobility and this leads to the next point: your team has only 32 skills between the four of you. Implementing all the necessary internal and external functions with that amount of slots requires skill bar compression, i.e., skills that provide several functions at the same time. Well designed team builds even have room for some redundancy to avoid single points of failure. Arguably, the most important measure of redundancy is a condition management skill on a team member who is not the primary target for inflicted daze - a ranger with Mending Touch would be an excellent option. If you can also fit a second hex removal skill somewhere your monk cannot be considered a single point of failure any more.

When considering offense, AoE damage is very useful for clearing shrines and punishing teams that don't understand proper positioning. Sufficient AoE damage can be provided by melee characters (possibly in combination with a ritualist), elementalists (or FC nuke mesmers) or even some ranger builds. When attacking deep, an elementalist is the preferred choice for quickly wiping out enemy gate guards in preparation for an assault (although once you are inside the enemy base melee characters can be sent to gank the remaining guards), other than that the source of AoE damage doesn't matter as long as it can be delivered promptly as needed. If your strategy is to avoid all fights and run around capturing shrines then offense with speed boosts, minor protection and health management is all you need.

If, however, you want to retain the option of engaging the enemy when it's beneficial for you you should bring shutdown skills against casters and physicals. Interrupts are great as always in PvP. Hexes are a feasible option as well because it is quite unlikely to meet a PnH monk in AB and thus it is easy to force a hex overload. Enchantments are used more in AB than probably in any other form of PvP making enchantment removal skills valuable. The usefulness of conditions is a bit more conditional. Blind is a strong shutdown against physicals but exactly because of that many physicals take a condition removal skill themselves. Overall, cripple does the same job as blind and has more utility as an anti-kiting tool, and it's easier to spread around than blind. Daze is the best condition against casters. Because most AB teams that are decent enough to bring a monk still do not have the kind of redundancy discussed above, dazing or otherwise shutting down the single monk is an almost guaranteed way to wipe the enemy team. Then, although not technically a condition, KD is the ultimate shutdown, snare and interrupt all rolled into a single package. A warrior without Bull's Strike is like a ranger without Distracting Shot. Just take it. The abundance of minion masters in AB suggests that you should take Verata's Aura if there's room for it in the team build but don't sweat it if there isn't - MMs lack in mobility and it's easy to steer clear of them.

3 Opening Moves

In many strategy games like chess, there is a relatively small number of feasible openings but as the game progresses the different combinations soon become too numerous to contemplate and one must rely on more general situation dependent reasoning. It is advantageous to study openings to find optimal answers to different challenges, avoid obvious mistakes and possibly take advantage of enemy mistakes. However, when it comes to AB the basic idea is very much complicated by the fact that there are six independent teams altogether and coordination between allied team is very rudimentary (allies won't even see your pings and drawings on the radar). Thus, unless you are successfully synch entering as three alliance teams, you must choose your actions based on not just what the enemies do but also on what your allies decide to do. When the match starts you have about one minute to observe your allies and assess their strength. Identical guild tags might indicate a coordinated team with voice communication. A balanced team is likely to perform better than a completely random one without a healer. Do the teams take deployment positions with confidence or do single players spread all over the place, unable even to agree on which way to start? Do team members chat with each other in a relaxed way or do they use the deployment time to hurl insults across the map? If you believe that there are three decent teams on your side your team can choose a bolder opening strategy than if one of the allied teams raises red flags across the board.

In this section we take a look at specific issues concerning the opening play on each map. Every treatise assumes that by default all teams are of roughly equal strength and any numerical advantage in an encounter is significant for the outcome. They are not given to be mindlessly followed but to illustrate different options that are available for each team when the match begins.

Defending Deep

On your home turf the dice are really loaded in your favor. In addition to a huge NPC and accessibility advantage, there exists a 'perfect' opening strategy in which every encounter is favorable to your side and leads from one winning position to another even stronger one. There are two shrines at your base, by default captured, another two on the sides of the base, by default neutral, and three shrines on the bridge, of which the two resurrection shrines at each end are captured by default and the middle one is neutral. Ignore teleporters and the gate facing the bridge and start by deploying one team on each side gate. The third team does a 2-2 split, each of the split teams taking one elite NPC from a base shrine and joining the side gate teams. When the timer starts, both task forces of six players and one NPC capture their respective side shrines. The single enemy team arriving from their base cannot capture a shrine because of your numerical superiority and will either be crushed or forced to flee. Both task forces then head towards the bridge. A single enemy team met on the way can be destroyed or dispersed. If a task force meets both enemy bridge teams that have colluded into a mob it can retreat back to the recently captured shrine and stall the mob there. Depending on enemy moves either or both task forces then roll the bridge and meet each other either at the center of the bridge or around the side shrine that one task force is defending, in which case the totality of three teams augmented with NPCs will easily wipe the area clean. At this point you will have control of the entire bridge and at least one additional shrine depending on what enemy teams have been doing meanwhile. All enemies are now forced to respawn at their base. The split team may unite and the three teams can perform a corralling sweep to wipe out stragglers, even disregarding shrine capture status as long as the ratio is favorable and both resurrection shrines are properly controlled, and contain the enemy at their base, at which point the game is over.

If you see the two other teams taking side gate positions at the deployment time you may try the strategy described above and call a split on your team. If the two other teams take other start positions (teleporters, bridge gate) you must play along and deploy your team so that a more general strategy is met. At the first stage try to capture both side shrines (4-3 advantage), at the second stage the entire bridge while still holding the base (5-2 advantage) and after that work from there as situations arise. Remember to repair busted gates to restrict enemy movement. Remember that enemies won't be able to use your base teleporters and it may be advantageous to trap a team inside your base and leave it there. The team in question is probably the best enemy team and you can let them have your two base shrines if you can consistently hold four of the five outer shrines which shouldn't be too difficult with three teams against two. If the attackers make the grave mistake of letting you trap two of their teams inside the fort your victory is virtually guaranteed. An enemy team that has successfully entered your base and converted the shrines is quite hard to push out of the base, therefore either trap them in or attack them immediately when they storm the base and the shrine advantage is still on your side.

Defending Shallow

The shallow maps are at the same time most labyrinthine of all alternatives and most straightforward when it comes to opening strategy. The three defending teams should take different deployment positions each. The left teleporter team captures their respective nearby shrine then proceeds to the far shrine which should by then be captured by the enemy. In a normal situation the team should yield to the right after which the following options are available: if the enemy team proceeds past you for a shrine swap you can either attack them if you believe that you can win the fight, or alternatively capture the warrior shrine, then follow the enemy team and capture behind them. If the enemy decides to attack you, stall while retreating towards the resurrection shrine. If you are in danger of getting pincered by the respective enemy team and another coming from the center immediately retreat to the resurrection shrine and disengage if your center team doesn't come to your aid.

The center team captures the resurrection orb shrine then proceeds to capture the resurrection shrine which it should get uncontested. After that the following moves are situation dependent. However, while shrine swap is a neutral move for side teams, the center team should not simply give up the resurrection shrine for the far (ranger) shrine. When you are defending the resurrection shrine you have a positional and numerical advantage thus you should be able to deflect any attempts to take the shrine by a single enemy team, essentially stalling in a local winning position (your two central shrines against the one of your opponent). Only retreat from the resurrection shrine if you are facing two enemy teams at the same time.

The right side team captures the respective nearby shrine and must then decide whether to proceed through the ravine or over the hill. If you take the hill route a fight is very likely to happen but you have the advantage of elevation and a fast retreat route to the resurrection shrine. If you choose the ravine the enemy team most likely goes for a shrine swap over the hill at which point you can capture the elementalist shrine then follow the enemy team and capture behind them. Since unprepared teams can fail in capturing the elementalist shrine you may want to claim the rightmost deployment position to make sure that your right side won't collapse as soon as the match begins. Other than that and a somewhat more restrictive terrain your basic options are the same as for the left team.

Equal Ground

You will often hear that 'mobbing is a losing strategy'. This is true for most situations but for Saltspray Beach it is a winning strategy. If there is a mob continuously sloshing back and forth between the extremities of the map and the opposition plays as single teams going around the mob and capturing away from it, the control of the three shrines at each end will be to a first approximation evenly divided but the central shrine will be mostly held by the mob. In addition to that, the mob can stay on the most advantageous route while the single teams must take roundabout routes which take more time. If in addition to that any single team is inept enough to get rolled by the mob the win of the mob is pretty much guaranteed. It is not hard to see that the default scenario that the map designer had in mind was to have both sides permanently control one end of the map, fighting for the control of the central shrine while the respective resurrection shrines keep respawning and feeding players back to the brawl at the center. It is also obvious that in the described scenario the side that blinks first also loses the match.

Thus, the first choice when you deploy your teams is the basic strategy: do you want to mob or do you want to play guerilla. If it's mob for you, all three teams should deploy on the same side gate (preferrably 'Kurzick' side with ritualist shrines), take hold of the three shrines at that end of the map wiping any enemies in the process, then form the mob and start rolling. Absolutely no strategic or tactical acumen is required and company brings solace. If you want to play guerilla then every team should take a different launching pad. Your first objective is to gain control of at least one resurrection shrine, gaining both is a winning position. Going for any non-resurrection shrine when none of your allies is taking the adjacent resurrection shrine is a mistake. Thus, the central team that deployed through the teleporter should randomly go for either resurrection shrine, ignoring the central shrine unless both side teams are going for their respective resurrection shrines in which case the central team may either take the central shrine and/or help an allied team on a contested resurrection shrine as the situation calls for. The dragon hatchling may look cool but it is not worth ceding the control of a resurrection shrine to your enemy! The team on the side that the central team chooses should either take the closest side shrine or help the central team to take the resurrection shrine if it is contested. The team on the other side should either contest the resurrection shrine on that side, or yield if outnumbered, capture around and avoid getting pincered. Conversely, the side with two teams should try to pincer a single enemy team.

If the enemy decided to mob but you don't the game you can play to your advantage is 'bear and wolves'. One allied team should be permanently assigned to each end of the map while the third stays roaming. The end teams capture their respective shrines while the mob is away and retreats towards their base when the mob approaches. Taunting the mob is a good tactic - the farther away from the shrines you can lure the mob while retreating the better. Once the mob has captured your side and turns away, come right back and reconvert the shrines again. The roaming team is always going in the opposite direction than the mob, capturing unattended resurrection shrines, the central shrine and ganking possible enemy soloers. The roaming team must always bypass the mob from the side of the home base and have a party wide speed boost to avoid contact with the mob. This is again a winning position since the mob will waste time moving between the end points of the map whereas your assigned side teams have less ground to cover. Just be careful when capturing the shrines closest to the enemy base should the mob decide to turn around and pincer you.

Attacking Shallow

Like with defending shallow, there is little wiggle room in optimal opening moves. One team for each deployment area, capture the nearby shrine then proceed into enemy territory. The enemy has initiative and positional advantage and you must read the situation carefully. Starting from the left side, your basic options after capturing the elementalist shrine are over the hill, through the ravine or towards the resurrection shrine. If heading over the hill and meeting enemy there they will have the advantage of elevation. If you can't stand the pressure, retreat to the elementalist shrine before your team collapses. If using the ravine and meeting enemy there retreat immediately towards the hilltop since staying in the ravine will draw the enemy center team on you, resulting to a pincer and an almost certain wipe. If going for the resurrection shrine you must join forces with your center team while neither enemy side team arrives to aid their center team. Regardless of outcome, unmob immediately after the situation is over.

The center team has the largest number of options available at the beginning and therefore the most skilled team should claim that deployment position. These options include temporarily joining either side team which has engaged enemy in a fight and force a wipe, going through the ravine if the left side team is stalling the respective enemy team, then rolling the enemy far side from left to right, or finally, taking the resurrection shrine either by a direct assault if the enemy center team is late, as a joint assault with another allied team against one holding team, or on your own through a move that could be called 'the hook'. As mentioned in 'Defending Shallow', the enemy team that just captured the resurrection shrine has a numerical and positional advantage over you and it would be foolhardy to attack them directly. Instead, if you run to the ravine you are assumed to be heading for the enemy backline and the enemy center team will most likely go for a shrine swap and descend towards the ranger shrine. As you see this happening, take a right turn under the bridge then up the ramp to the now undefended resurrection shrine which you can capture for a beneficial swap. You are now in control of the battlefield and can head in any direction for maximal advantage.

The right side team has the least options after capturing the warrior shrine. If the respective enemy team pushes for a fight, stay in the proximity of the warrior shrine for NPC support. If the enemy team yields to the left proceed to capture the far right caster shrine, then head for the resurrection or resurrection orb shrine as the situation requires.

Attacking Deep

If you already read the 'Defending Deep' part you'll know by now that you are facing a losing battle from the get-go. You must have at least two good and one average team on your side to have a chance of winning, two good and one bad or one good and two average most likely won't cut it. You don't get to choose your deployment point which further restricts your tactical choices, and at least in the beginning you will most likely be outnumbered in every fight. This leads to the first imperative: during the initial stage avoid fights at any cost unless the enemy makes a glaring mistake and tries to fight you at a numerical disadvantage (e.g., by a single team fighting next to a resurrection shrine held by your team). This is made difficult by mobility restrictions - there is a rather narrow corridor around the enemy base and very few alternative routes that can be utilized to avoid enemy contact. Teams usually call for clockwise rotation as a method for coordination of efforts. However, there is an actual difference between directions since one of the side shrines is on a small hill and more favorably accessed and defended by the attacking team than the one on even ground. As seen from the attacker base, the hill is on the right side for Luxons and left for Kurzicks. Therefore Kurzicks in Kaanai Canyon should indeed start clockwise but Luxons on Ancestral Lands should start counter-clockwise!

You will lose if you cannot conquer the enemy base but before you can make advances towards that goal the defenses must be neutralized. Since you cannot stay in one place for a long time without getting into a fight the optimal tactic is to run around the base, capture a shrine when the opportunity arises to get a powder keg, bust the respective gate and nuke one pair of defenders (or both if you are running dual eles) then immediately continue running around the base. Do not enter the base until most of the defenders are dead (they won't respawn) and there are at least two busted gates.

Storming the base is a bold move which demands recognition and it should be done by the best team only, never by two or three teams since that is a huge waste of resources. Depending on how the enemy responds the storming team can gain considerable benefits. If the enemy ignores their base the storming team may return outside and help capturing in what has become a winning position. If one enemy team tries to purge the storming team out of the base it is unlikely to succeed even in reversing the shrines because of numerical disadvantage and the ease of defending two shrines next to each other. This is also a winning position since both inside and outside forces are roughly in balance but the two inside shrines are held by the attacker. A good storming team may stall even two enemy teams for a good time to provide the other allied teams a power play situation on the outside. In any case the storming team should know when to yield and bail out instead of getting wiped. After that repeat the process.

4 Operational Concerns

It is not the responsibility of the leader to teach team members how to play or to think so that others won't have to. Every player should know how to play the slot that they have been assigned and how it works as a part of the team. Every player should be aware of the tactical and strategic situation and anticipate future actions without being explicitly told everything. Why is it then so important that there is a dedicated leader and what is his/her responsibility? The leader acts as an arbitrator in a situation where there are several roughly equivalent but mutually exclusive options. Without a leader, half of the team may randomly go left or initiate a fight while the other half goes right or decides to yield, confusion ensues and valuable time is lost vacillating between alternatives. All other things being equal well coordinated teams beat indecisive teams. As a leader, your responsibility is choose the next path of action. Be decisive and absolutely clear with your intention, even making a bad decision is better than not making any decisions at all. This doesn't mean that you should stick to a decision if a change in situation invalidates it. Changing your decision based on new information is not flip-flopping, it's called pragmatism.

Given the above, there is a clear imperative for every team member: no second guessing! AB is a team game and if you are not leading you should be following. A team with two apparent leaders fighting for the tiller is worse than a team without a leader. Of course, you are allowed to suggest paths of action like temporarily splitting off to bust a gate or gank an enemy straggler but your leader must always be aware of any initiatives and it is in the leader's discretion to allow or deny them as s/he sees fit. This highlights the necessity of good communication between team members. While Teamspeak or Ventrilo is a natural choice for alliance teams, pick up groups seldom have the luxury of voice communication. In that situation, discuss basic issues while forming the team and waiting for the match to start. If you must give further information during the match it is possible while running from one place to another. Besides that typing a few sentences while autorunning doesn't take away from your performance your team members are much more likely to actually read what you type when not fighting for their lives. Other than that the absolutely most effective way to lead your team is through radar drawings. The basic set of 'international hand signs' consists of

ping: notice this
cross: ignore this
circle: come/stay here
arrow starting from team position: move this way
line across terrain: don't go that way

You don't have to be a Picasso, just aspire for simple, clear signs. This strategic communication can then be augmented by tactical calls, most importantly target calling and calling out important conditions and hexes as well as low energy.

One particular issue with radar signs is that they are team specific. This doesn't seem to be common knowledge so it is important to underline the fact: only your own team will see your pings and drawings. So if you have been wondering why all the allied teams are too dense to notice your furious scribbling wonder no more. On one hand this prevents excessive cluttering of the radar and conflicting signalling. On the other, team to team communication is extremely hard during the match when you can't expect that people pay attention to what you write. There aren't any simple solutions to this issue. If you want to exchange strategic information between teams, the best opportunity is to write during the deployment stage before the match starts. However, it is well possible that you don't even share a common language with your allies, in which case you should pay even closer attention to what your allies are doing and compensate accordingly.

On the tactical level positioning is a very important aspect of every fight. On the strategic level the respective aspect is ground awareness. Every team member should at least always tab through all enemy units that enter radar range to get a rough idea of what you are facing. The combination of terrain and holding status of each shrine provides very uneven conditions for fighting. Seek to fight where the advantage is on your side and avoid fighting where it's against you. At a more advanced level, match your movement with those of your allies and enemies so that you retain the initiative and the largest number of options in each situation. While every team member must always keep one eye on the radar to stay aware of approaching friends or foes, the leader of the team must keep an eye on the capture status of each shrine as seen on the mission (U) map, to find out where each team currently is. All players should have their U map open and zoomed out for the entire duration of the match but the team leader must make mental notes to know which way each shrine is being converted. From that and any other available information like extra points indicating player kills the leader must make a strategic assessment of the situation.

A merely good leader then chooses his/her path of action as a reaction to that assessment but an excellent leader anticipates what will happen next and chooses accordingly. A simple example of this would be when you are defending deep and have just driven the opposition out of the bridge and see the nearby side shrine turn neutral. The easiest option would be to go for that shrine but it is a reactive, not anticipative choice. By the time you reach the shrine the enemy team is long gone and capping another shrine while you have to convert the one you reached. This leads to a stalemate where the enemy team is always one shrine ahead of you. A much better path of action would have been to head directly inside your base to see whether the enemy team tries to storm it after capturing the side shrine, and if not, head for the other side shrine to meet the enemy before they get a chance to convert it and stop them there. Reactive play is one of the causes for mobbing especially when you already hold most shrines. Watch the reactions of allied teams carefully to avoid doing something that your allies are already doing. Conversely, if you notice that an enemy team is successfully reading your actions and taking preventive measurements, change your tactics on the fly.

One thing that should be pretty self-evident but still seems to be a totally alien concept to many players is the following: do not die. While there isn't any death penalty inflicted on you personally, your side as a whole will take double or triple penalty. First of all, you are not doing anything useful during a dirt nap or possibly even a good while after resurrection, depending on whether your side controls resurrection shrines on the field or not. Second, by dying you give 3 points to the opposite side. That is equivalent to them holding an extra shrine while you take a break! Third, by dying you break the integrity of your team, making them less effective and more vulnerable to getting killed as well, and in an unfavorable situation it may take a full minute before your team is together again. Conversely, because of these very reasons you should always be looking for targets of opportunity to take down. Breaking the team integrity is disastrous to teams without a dedicated leader since they may be completely unable to find each other for the rest of the match so aspire to do that to your enemies. On the other hand, if one of your team members dies, it is your responsibility as a leader to see that the player finds his way back to the team as fast as possible.

5 Basic Tactics

In this section we have a look at different tactical options beyond the opening play. Although movement itself is not discussed separately, proper movement is essential to all tactics. Keep adjusting your movements to those of your allies and enemies and capitalize on any opportunity that presents itself. When making decisions based on incomplete information, choose the path that provides the largest amount of different options.

Capturing

A significant fraction of time taken to capture shrines is used in moving from one shrine to another. Therefore, when going for a capture you should choose the target according to its inherent value, the distance between it and your current position, the number of further option available once you have captured the target, and of course the movement of your allies and enemies. Concerning your allies, don't overlap with what they are doing, and anticipate their next moves as well. Let's say that you are on a shallow map and together with another team you have just taken the resurrection shrine at the center. The warrior, ranger and elementalist shrines are all controlled by the enemy and your allied team goes to capture the warrior shrine. Although there doesn't seem to be any immediate difference between your choice of taking the ranger or elementalist shrine, the correct choice is the latter. If you take the ranger shrine, once both teams have captured their respective shrines only your team has immediate access to the elementalist shrine and the allied team is forced to go elsewhere. On the other hand, when you capture the elementalist shrine both teams have the option of capturing the ranger shrine and if one of the teams finds some other objective more pertinent the remaining team can easily compensate. Concerning enemies, avoid getting cornered in an unfavorable situation. Other than that, it should be the enemy who is wary of you and not the other way round.

The mechanics of capturing a shrine should be self-evident. Despite this, especially in a situation where two teams fight for the control of a shrine many people make the mistake of wandering outside the capturing range of the shrine. If you must kite, do it around the shrine and use the pillars for cover against ranged attacks. The capture indicator is most helpful even if there are too many players around to make an accurate assessment of the local balance of power. If you can see the indicator you are close enough. If the indicator is going towards your side you are winning the fight. If it's going for the other side you are losing the fight even if you don't have any casualties. You must either kill enough enemies to stop the capture or retreat before it's complete since completing the capture will give enemy a huge local advantage over you (NPCs and shrine bonus) which most likely leads to your team wiping. Seek to utilise this sudden change in the balance of power to your advantage whenever possible. Camping a resurrection shrine is sometimes an exception to the general rule where, once you have killed the NPC you may prefer to let the enemy keep the shrine if you can consistently kill another enemy every 5-10 seconds, forcing them to respawn at the spot, thus providing a constant stream of points. There is always a risk of getting overwhelmed though if enemies killed by other teams start to accumulate to the shrine, so be prepared to disengage at any time.

For some people capturing shrines is what AB is all about and as an entry level strategy circle capturing may provide better chances than totally random flailing. However, a circle capturing team is extremely predictable and easily countered. In a holding advantage all that is needed is to follow them and immediately recapture each shrine, keeping them in a permanent disadvantage. In a holding disadvantage, you move in the opposite direction to catch them at the process of capturing a shrine and wipe them right there, then use the spare time to gain a holding advantage. A typical capturing team is low on defense and most of the damage comes from spells with long recharge times. Thus, if you can pound on the team just after they have expended their salvo you should be able to force a fast wipe without a risk of retaliation. On a more advanced level it is the holding of shrines that is the primary objective. At every situation you must make a choice between going for a shrine held by the enemy and defending one that you already hold. The main concern is that does the tactic that the enemy is currently using enable them to capture shrines faster than you can, or if they are leading, fast enough to prevent your comeback? In any case, if the tactic that you are currently using does not work, change tactics. As shown below, obsessively looking after the shrine holding status is far from the only winning option.

Concerning the relative value of each shrine, resurrection shrines are unquestionably the most valuable since base spawn has a huge time and tactical penalty. Next in worth are in general shrines that provide transferrable bonuses including Resurrection Orbs, Shielding Urns and elite NPCs. Below that are shrines that provide the temporary Battle Cry bonus (while moving around the field you may want to go through an allied attack point even if it is not on the optimal path, just to pick up the bonus) and at the bottom those shrines that only provide a local bonus. Also out of two shrines of about equal worth you should value more the one that you perceive the enemy having more trouble in capturing. Of course, these are just guidelines and you may change the order of preference in some situations.

Fighting and Stalling

Getting back to the central tenet of this guide, although it is possible to play an entire match without fighting against other players such a strategy is seldom optimal. Every time when an opportunity for engagement arises, you should first predict the probable outcome - wipe or rout of either team, or a stalemate. After that estimate the overall benefit of that outcome and compare it to the benefits of your other options. So, exactly how valuable is a kill? If you are currently holding N shrines out of 7 the advantage to you is A = 60 * (2 * N - 7) / 7 points per minute (negative values being a disadvantage). Since every kill is worth 3 points, your side must manage -A / 3 kills per minute to compensate a shrine disadvantage. The values for various levels of disadvantage are: 0 shrines = 20 kills, 1 shrine = 14.3 kills, 2 shrines = 8.6 kills and 3 shrines = 2.9 kills. These numbers are for your entire side, and if you divide them evenly between all three teams, the team specific kill requirements are 6.7, 4.8, 2.9 and 0.95 kills, respectively. As a rough guideline, a coordinated team of four can capture a shrine in 30 seconds, taking into account moving to the shrine, clearing and converting it. If you are trailing the enemy by one shrine (3-4) you can bear the disadvantage for up to 1 minute 20 seconds if by then you have wiped an enemy team. If you are trailing by three (2-5), you must be able to force a wipe in about 30 seconds to get the better deal. If you are trailing by five shrines (1-6) you should consistently force an enemy team wipe every 17 seconds which is not feasible. This shows that fighting is a completely valid option up to 2-5 holding disadvantage if you can force a wipe fast enough.

The situation can be turned around to answer the question: in which cases you should enter a fight you don't expect to be able to win? This is called stalling, and the objective is to tie down enemy units by turtling in the best available defensive position while denying them kills they need to make the fight worth their effort. The first prerequisite is that you have a current or foreseeable advantage. Stalling is always beneficial when you hold more shrines than the enemy and your team can withstand pressure longer than the values given above. Again, remember the difference between per side and per team numbers. If you have an advantage of one shrine you must stall an enemy team for 1 minute 20 seconds to capitalize on that advantage but if you are stalling two enemy teams at the same time, you don't have to last longer than just 40 seconds. While a 2-to-1 fight is always hard, there are some excellent places like the enemy base in attacking deep where to turtle for the required time. Stalling may be useful even when you don't have a direct advantage. Stalling a superior enemy team may give your allied teams some relief and time to reorganize. Stalling two enemy teams in a holding disadvantage situation will give your allies the opportunity to capture freely and perhaps even wipe the third enemy team along the way.

If neither fighting or stalling are beneficial options you should try your best to avoid the fight altogether, and this comes down to mobility and smart movement to avoid getting cornered. If you are forced into a fight against your will then clearly a mistake has happened some time before and you'll be better off in the future if you can figure out what that mistake was and how to avoid it the next time.

Splitting

This is where things get downright messy. An unintended split through failing to follow the leader or getting killed and resurrected away from the team is a serious problem but on the other hand a well executed split can be the most efficient use of available resources. Even when you are forced to split against your will (kills, disconnects etc.) you can turn the situation to your advantage. If you cannot capture a shrine or kill an enemy team, you might be able to lure an enemy team into chasing you which keeps them away from doing anything useful (stalling), might cause them to split as well if some of the pursuers are more single-minded than the others, and you might manage to lure your chaser to an allied team or shrine, or even to your base. You could also help an allied team on your way back to your own while simultaneously being covered against gankers, more on that below. In any case, your first concern is to communicate with the rest of your team so that everybody knows each other's situation and can converge at some point. Whatever you manage to accomplish on the way there is an added bonus.

A typical split would consist of a cripshot ranger or a water elementalist (or a FC water mesmer) left behind the main team to slow down enemies who are following you, or to control a strategic choke point. Other uses for a split are specific tasks like busting gates and/or eliminating gate guards when attacking deep, eliminating enemy solo capturers and/or defending shrines or providing temporary assistance to an allied team as discussed in the 'Power Play' section below. A successful split sets more stringent requirements for both the team build and leadership. All the subteams should be reasonably self-sufficient and able to project enough power to meet their objectives. Each subteam must have its own leader who is able to choose the right tactics for the intended strategy. Communication between subteams is even more essential than usual unless you are satisfied with completely autonomous operations. Although never the first option, running independent subteams doesn't automatically spell disaster either if every subteam is smart enough to make themselves useful. Three very experienced allied teams with a good synergy could go split happy from the beginning, freely mixing and matching players between teams to achieve maximal reach and concentration and specificity of power at the same time. However, this in only a realistic option with synch entering which is close to cheating. In any case, if you decide to split your forces don't loiter around past the usefulness of that particular division but instead converge when and where convenient to gain the full gamut of operative options again.

One very specific application of splitting is team assist. If you are very confident about the abilities of your own team and during the deployment phase an allied team shows clear signs of weakness (random team composition, leechers/leavers, inability to move as a team), you may semi-permanently assign one player of your team to an allied team to make it more robust. You must explain your decision to the team in question and assure that your own team will manage just fine with three players. It is the responsibility of the assigned player to evaluate the performance of the team s/he is assisting and if they seem to manage on their own, return to his/her own team. Team assist is most important during the opening play when teams that get swiftly crushed are likely to get demoralized and leave, essentially losing the game for the entire side. It is also possible that the weakness of an allied team only becomes apparent during the early stages of the match, in which case you may still decide to send one of your team to their aid, as a restricted version of power play as discussed next.

Mobbing and Power Play

As mentioned before, mobbing is almost always bad and even when not totally bad it's still dumb. You can only do worse than that by actually feeding one. However, there is a tactic which I'm calling here power play that may have superficial similarities with mobbing. In a PP situation decisive force is applied to a specific situation to ensure a swift and advantageous outcome. Let's say that you are leading the center team on attacking shallow and after capturing the first (ranger) shrine you can see that the right side team has engaged it's respective enemy team near the warrior shrine. Instead of going directly towards your primary target - the resurrection shrine that is currently getting captured by the enemy center team - you can decide to join your right side team to quickly wipe the enemy team two to one, and if the enemy center team sees this and tries to come in support they will be too late and now face another unfavorable one team against two fight. In either case you have spent 15 seconds of your time to save at least that much of your allies' time and forced a wipe with all the related benefits to your side. When the situation is over both teams can proceed with their own objectives. Compared to a solo move like 'the hook' described above, you will reach the resurrection shrine in roughly the same time but at a much better strategic position. Being able to project force is good, being able to concentrate overwhelming force to a key point is a winning quality. Always look out for opportunities to apply power play, not just because it is so beneficial to your cause but also because of the psychological effect. People who get rolled repeatedly will lose real world morale and when that goes too far into negative people tend to bail out.

A very special power play situation is possible on certain choke points, especially the bridges on equal and deep maps. If you are able to temporarily stop an advancing enemy force on such a choke point so that it piles up and then hit the entire pile with AoE, you may be able to beat or at least fight to a standstill a numerically vastly superior force. Never let mere numerical advantage lull you into false confidence that makes you ignore proper tactics.

Containing

When everything has gone well and you are firmly in control of the battlefield, the last tactic to force a swift victory is containment. While the lines of battle have so far been moving all over the place, during the containment all the three allied teams form a unified front and systematically push all enemy units towards their base with a sweeping move. It is essential to keep the integrity of the front line to avoid leaving enemy units behind it. Once your frontline proceeds past the last shrines you have essentially won. Controlling all shrines and all enemies pushed back to their base the enemy would need a lot of tactical insight to rally their forces into breaking the frontline but at the given situation it is very unlikely that such exists. A well executed containment is the tour de force of AB, leaving no buts or ifs about which side was better.

6 Finishing Touches

Most people treat NPCs in AB as bowling pins, to be toppled over if they are of the wrong color, or ignored if not. This is partially caused by their weak builds - only an elementalist shrine packs enough punch to inconvenience poorly prepared teams (as a side note, most people seem to be unaware of the fact that mesmer NPCs use Backfire according to what equipment players have, so if you as a caster are forced into temporarily operating within the reach of a hostile mesmer shrine always equip your defensive set to avoid getting Backfired. This should become routine just like avoiding enchantments because they will get shattered). However, a smart team can find several uses for friendly NPCs. When pressured, an adjacent shrine with a friendly monk NPC is a huge asset, especially if the monk of the team diverts some attention to keep the NPC alive. The advantage of other friendly NPCs shouldn't be overlooked either, and a frugal monk can usually spare a heal or two to keep them alive and contributing to your cause. Taking an elite NPC into your team is almost always beneficial unless your opponents are so weak that one additional NPC poses a serious challenge for them. Even in that case park the elite NPC a short distance away from the normal ones to prevent AoE nukers from wiping the entire shrine in one go. Although NPCs in tow don't provide much offense they count as full players for converting shrines which is a significant advantage when you are fighting for the control of a shrine or making a split. Use additional bonuses like shielding urns and resurrection orbs to their fullest as well. Since a resurrection orb will raise NPCs as well, it is possible to build up an army of your own on shallow maps if you alternate between a shrine providing an elite NPC and a resurrection orb shrine to raise NPCs killed by the enemy converting the elite shrine. It is possible to collect 4-5 elite NPCs during one match, providing more than just a trivial amount of additional power.

Any asymmetry on the field may be advantageous in proper circumstances so try to be clever. As an example, when you are attacking deep the enemy base teleporters won't work for you so they are useless, right? Wrong. Let's say that you are the monk of a team which has invaded the base and is defending the shrines against a concerted effort to get you out of the base. Your task of keeping your team alive is made harder by melee range attackers who wail on you relentlessly but since you're a smart monk you run on top of the teleporter which does nothing to you - but promptly whisks your enemies away to a hilarious effect!

Last but not least, your attitude makes a difference. Most players see AB as entry level PvP which is more relaxed and less competitive or serious than some other types of PvP. They follow you out of their own volition and raging and derision may well make them reconsider, even in the middle of a match that you might win otherwise but not after half of your team has bailed out. If a player is permanently unable or unwilling to do what is required of him, you can explain that in neutral terms before kicking him/her between matches. Overall, try to be constructive and reserve all but critical feedback after a match since during one people are never in their most receptive mood. If you can keep your cool you'll make the experience better for everybody and may even make new friends which is always more valuable than a couple of virtual reward points here or there. It's a game - have fun but not at the expense of others!

Syntonic · Feb 04, 2009, 12:48 PM // 12:48

Wall of text.

Moral of the story: AB - serious f'ing business.

Quick notes: While you list some decent strategies, some of them are not at all feasible as it requires the cooperation of two of the other teams. The amount of times you can control the other two teams is slim to none. You should focus the guide on your own team and what viable strategies you can take. For example, defending on shallow and taking the path to the warrior shrine, it's possible for that team to hold up with the resurrection shrine and then gank the team that passed them while they are engaged with the shrine. You already have the shrine lead at this point, and then you took a team out of play. Could also work on the other side but I hardly ever take that side anyway and with the underpass/overpass, really need to chase them down. Simple stuff like that would help flesh it out more - if it really needs it.

I'd actually have to read it all carefully to respond to specific issues. Granted, I probably can't bother - I didn't comment too much on Lillith's guide either since the only AB guidance I normally offer is, "Don't suck."

Jaran Cell · Feb 04, 2009, 12:54 PM // 12:54

Great Guide!

I think you brought up just about everything that people will ever need to know about this PvP mode.
Kudos for the effort required to write this and to the immense level of detail with wich it is written.

Don't let the trolls get you down now though, those excuses of existances will certainly try =)

Bobby2 · Feb 04, 2009, 12:59 PM // 12:59

KDs deserve their own paragraph.

Great job!

bungusmaximus · Feb 04, 2009, 01:05 PM // 13:05

I always have some built in strategy that I follow when I ab with groups, but due to the random nature it often becomes improvising, sometimes people act completely unpredictable ^^.

Most important part of the post however is indeed having a (good) strat caller, it helps a sh!tload especially when you play w/o vent.

Usually the teams that are (semi)successful for me are the ones with 1 good caller and 3 positively minded people that actually trust the caller (ie. guild team, I know I know).

I especially liked the tips on NPC's, and I add one on my own: When engaging the necro shrine send in a caster to tank the hexes and run in with your physical last, that way you're more or less clean and that speeds up capping.

To the OP: pretty good read, forgive me for not reading all of it, but lol ive been ab-ing since factions got released so i cba either. Should be sticky nonetheless.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Syntonic

Moral of the story: AB - serious f'ing business.

Yeah well, what sort of gw pvp IS actually srs business nowadays. Bluntly said almost everything is trash nowadays, at least AB's aren't deserted like TA, or just FUBAR like HA (ie don't need Gwen to do my dirty work).

Besides that I seen many seasoned pvp-ers phail harshly at AB, they all got the same excuse: AB is just f**ling around, but I never believe them, competitive people tend to be competitive all the time, they're just not going to sit there and get owned. Maybe they just don't know what the OP knows?

Shayne Hawke · Feb 04, 2009, 01:44 PM // 13:44

I got around to Attacking Shallow until I had to stop, for time constraints. Looks like an awesome guide, and I might share this with some alliance members before they all try to go out ABing this weekend.

glacialphoenix · Feb 04, 2009, 02:12 PM // 14:12

Thanks for taking the time and trouble to write the guide. <3

Lukyboy · Feb 04, 2009, 02:57 PM // 14:57

I AB for quite some time now and still this guide thought me some nice strategies that I didnt think off. Excellent work

Bobby2 · Feb 04, 2009, 04:04 PM // 16:04

Quote:

Originally Posted by bungusmaximus

Besides that I seen many seasoned pvp-ers phail harshly at AB

So true.

Pwnage is only useful when conducted in the right places. So read this here guide.

O Mika Nakashima O · Feb 04, 2009, 05:14 PM // 17:14

tmakinen, great guide

Is your guild recruiting?

bungusmaximus · Feb 04, 2009, 05:36 PM // 17:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by tmakinen

6 Finishing Touches

Most people treat NPCs in AB as bowling pins, to be toppled over if they are of the wrong color, or ignored if not. This is partially caused by their weak builds - only an elementalist shrine packs enough punch to inconvenience poorly prepared teams

The cripple from the ranger shrine comes in handy as well, it's a good opportunity to kite overzealous melee.

There's also a rather large difference in NPC's per map. In deep maps hex npc's are more common, so it can be rather useful to bring more hex removal.

Ec]-[oMaN · Feb 04, 2009, 05:58 PM // 17:58

I seriously thought after reading the title it would include "idling". Perfect one word guide to AB.

Amorality · Feb 04, 2009, 06:23 PM // 18:23

An absolutely momentous guide. I managed to read all of it and I have to say your guide truly highlights the strategy involved in winning AB. For those who think AB is the lowest form PvP seriously need to reconsider, especially after reading this guide you manage to explain the requirements needed for any good leader and not just for the "average" AB player.

As a seasoned AB'er myself (All 2.3 million, don't lol it's actaully quite a lot when I have never touched FFF, of my faction gained exclusively through AB) I have to agree with almost everything you have said and I can't help but give a knowing nod with the depth involved in AB.

It's a shame high end pvp'ers think so lowly of AB, alas they're missing out I suppose.

This should be sticky'd.

Amor

Ec]-[oMaN · Feb 04, 2009, 06:44 PM // 18:44

Quote: