Curse

iamagod1 · Jan 07, 2008, 06:04 AM // 06:04

I know ill be flamed by most for this but still i have to ask.

My guild has recently started gvging, and we have been running a few different versions of balanced. We often have good defence with aegis chains, wards, blindbot eles, but it seems like our offense can't really do anything. We even switched out to a 3 war and one para team trying to add enough damage to get kills, but we still dont seem to get anything killed. I have of course observed all our games and it sure doesn't seem like our offense is playing poorly. Obviously we need to coordinate spikes better, but what exactly is needed to spike in a balanced team? Do you call real 1,2,3 spikes all the time or just ocasionally? How about calling for offense do they just call prime targets as they notice or do they wait till the other war has adren to call.

I guess wat im trying to ask is opinions and input on how our guild can improve its offense, as its clearly lacking.

I btw am a monk, who has little gvg experience so try not to be to mad at me for not knowing how to call a proper balanced spike/coordinate the offense on a balanced team.

Ec]-[oMaN · Jan 07, 2008, 06:11 AM // 06:11

Offense won't be able to do their jobs and actually deal dmg if your midline hasn't taken down their d. In higher lvl of play the offense is looking for small pockets of opportune time to shell out or call spikes.

If your guild is currently doing the following
A)midline is shutting down D
B)monks are keeping offense clean during spike or pressure mode

then your offense isn't too great or the D that is left is just too much to score kills at which point you should look at other tactical ways to make a dent, like pushing flag runners, dual flag running, splitting...

dies like fish · Jan 07, 2008, 06:57 AM // 06:57

Have your warriors read this:
http://www.teamquitter.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=3484

Vanquisher · Jan 07, 2008, 07:48 AM // 07:48

Run a completely spike oriented build for some time so you can incorporate it into playing normally. Then start splitting more so you know how to do that also. Continue practising such things, even if the practise is by running builds geared to do them, so you get accomplished and can use such tactics. The better teams are the ones with players that have been around for quite some time - these things don't come instantly.

17eIvIoN · Jan 07, 2008, 09:51 AM // 09:51

1 thing i noticed, and im still a fairly new player is that i never use to try and avoid hitting the players with prot on, so when you spike try and not converge straight onto the target till the last possible second to avoid prot as much as possible

RhanoctJocosa · Jan 07, 2008, 10:45 AM // 10:45

Dismantle their defence

red orc · Jan 07, 2008, 12:53 PM // 12:53

If you bang your head into a wall you can choose one of the following actions:
1. bring a bigger head and try again (your choice).
2. break the wall first, then run through.
3. run around the wall.

2 and 3 are better options.

Julia-Louis Dreyfus · Jan 07, 2008, 08:25 PM // 20:25

this may see obvious...but my guild lost a few because we couldnt call for shit, helps with practice

download vent
plug in mic
321

Legendary Shiz · Jan 08, 2008, 12:37 AM // 00:37

With three wars and a paragon you're putting your midline in a rough spot if you face a super heavy defensive team. One mesmer isn't gonna be able to shut down everything, and the lack of a ranger makes it a tad harder to push flaggers (though with three wars it should still be relatively easy).

a decent heavy physical team like that will WIPE a team that can't match up with enough defense and doesn't split. if they aren't you probably should get some new players.

Otherwise, if you think that your frontline guys are good enough and just need a bit more support you can consider throwing in a ranger or a mesmer. I don't know what you're playing with the other slot in that three war one para build. If it's an ele, it's pretty obvious why your team isn't scoring kills. Mesmers and rangers do a very good job of (assuming of course they aren't horribad) of shutting down the things you talked about giving you problems (blindbots, aegis chains, wards, etc). If you don't shut those things down, it's going to be significantly harder to score kills.

Sha Noran · Jan 08, 2008, 01:49 AM // 01:49

The hardest thing for any new team is having people calling (both tactics and/or spikes) who are experienced enough to know not only the following information, but also WHY the following information is important, and how to use this information to make the best decisions regarding positioning and attacking the enemy:

(for tactics)
-How long it takes to move the flag from where it is to the stand, at all times.
-How many NPCs your base has alive.
-How many NPCs their base has alive.
-Are there catapults? Are they armed?
-Where is the thief/Who has the thief?
-What build is the enemy running?
-How mobile is your enemy?
-Where are the 8 enemy players?
-In the rock/paper/scissors scheme of things, does our build have the advantage over theirs or not?

And then, the hardest question to honestly answer for many people:
-Are we winning or losing?

It's easy to call tactics when you're winning, but only experience will show your team's callers how to determine firstly that you're currently losing, and secondly how to change your position or playstyle in the short-term in order to make that losing fight into a win.

(for offensive calling/spike calling)
-How does our team kill things?
-What on their team is stopping us from kill them?
-What on their team is killing us?
-Where are my team mates?
-How does each of my team mates contribute to my ability to kill the enemy?
-What skills exactly are my team mates using to help me kill the enemy? Also, when did they last use these skills/when will they be available again?
-Who on the enemy team still has the ability to ressurect allies?
-Where is my flag?
-Where is the enemy flag?
-What is the EXACT Morale situation?

And then, once again, the hardest question to honestly answer for many people:
-Are we winning or losing?

Unlike calling tactics, it's very easy to see when you're losing as the offensive caller because it will seem very black and white. We're dying, they're not, we must be losing. They're dying, we're not, we must be winning... right? Well, not necessarily. Ironically, it's much harder to tell when you're winning as the offensive caller because it can be hard to see the larger picture while focusing on the actual battle at hand.

I personally have done a great deal of calling in all game types for a wide variety of skill levels. From personal experience, here are a few things I would hope you keep in mind:

-It's much more important to be alive than for the other team to be dead. This means that if your ele was off on a spike because he was keeping the Aegis chain up, it's fine; you can always call another spike, you can't always rez.
-Keep a close eye on the radar, and make sure that all your offensive players are in range before trying to call a spike. If you're calling a spike that you worry might leave some of your players out of range, verbally indicate that they should try to make sure to be in range for the following spike.
-If it takes a certain combination of your team's abilities to score a kill, take the time to specifically direct your players as to what you want them to do. For example, if you're not getting any kills off because the opposing team has Defensive Anthem and Prot Spirit on the target, ask your Mesmer to sit on the Paragon and indicate when he's got the Anthem interrupted, then call a spike on your target and make sure to indicate that you'll need an enchant rip on the spike. If your team made you the caller, then they probably want you to help tell them what they should be using their skills on in order to cause victory.
-Don't be afraid of asking simple, direct questions of your team mates if they have information to know. A lot of times people will become nervous or embarrassed if they're messing up or have messed up, but in ALL situations, simple and fast communication is much better than e-drama. If you need to know how your Monks are doing for energy, ask them! If you're not sure if your Mesmer's Shatter Enchant is recharged, ask them!
-If something is going wrong, SAY SO. The hardest thing to do for many, many people to do when in the position of team leader is calling people on their mistakes. Mistakes are ok to make, but if they are not aknowledged and fixed, your team will never improve. If some of your players are very defensive about suggesting that they're making mistakes, then maybe they shouldn't be your players.

Trying to have a single person be both the tactical caller and the spike caller can be extremely taxing for an inexperienced player. It's really much better to have one person, usually a frontline type of player, call the offense, while a more midline person can call tactics. This set up has worked quite well for a great many of the best guilds in the game, and it is ideal for a new team as well.

TheOneMephisto · Jan 08, 2008, 02:03 AM // 02:03

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sha Noran

The hardest thing for any new team is having people calling (both tactics and/or spikes) who are experienced enough to know not only the following information, but also WHY the following information is important, and how to use this information to make the best decisions regarding positioning and attacking the enemy:

(for tactics)
-How long it takes to move the flag from where it is to the stand, at all times.
-How many NPCs your base has alive.
-How many NPCs their base has alive.
-Are there catapults? Are they armed?
-Where is the thief/Who has the thief?
-What build is the enemy running?
-How mobile is your enemy?
-Where are the 8 enemy players?
-In the rock/paper/scissors scheme of things, does our build have the advantage over theirs or not?

And then, the hardest question to honestly answer for many people:
-Are we winning or losing?

I would add to the rock/paper/scissors question, in what situations is our build stronger than theirs and in what situations do they have the advantage, and how do we obtain the situations that we need (whether through splits or forcing 8v8s or w/e).

Also, if you're pressuring you should be constantly converging and spiking. Almost always keep your current target up with ctrl+T so that offensive characters can throw damage onto your targets whenever they have spare resources, and call mini-spikes a lot, whether with the other warrior or with midline support. Every time you have a deepwound available pretty much you should be looking for a quick minispike with as much support as you can get on short notice unless you're specifically saving up for something.

Julia-Louis Dreyfus · Jan 08, 2008, 08:09 AM // 08:09

calling+strats are the most important, even if you have fail players you will be doing better than most guilds in the high ranks. calling and start calling hardest thing to learn imo

Kaon · Jan 08, 2008, 12:21 PM // 12:21

The big answer: Make sure your ranger and mesmer don't suck. Either get them to learn, or get new ones. If that's impossible play paragons!

iamagod1 · Jan 10, 2008, 04:55 PM // 16:55

Wow thanks for all of the advice so far. Quick answer to a few of you yes our guild has team speak (i have vent too but prefer ts).

Hmmm i guess putting a better person on mesmer may be the key for us, i guess i never really realised that one esurge mesmer was what is used to shutdown the entire opposing offense. Got any advice for mesmer playing? At this point ill take all the advise more experienced ppl are willing to give.

One other thing i have noticed is our team always starts out with warriors up front, monks in back standard formation. As the game goes by however we tend to end up in one clumped up ball, while the opposing team is still in formation. This happens as their warriors go into our backline ours come back to help the monks... instant ball.

Is there any way we can avoid this? Should we keep our wars on their monks, or have them come back to help. I guess not being able to spike anything down will give opposing teams the right to run into our backline.

xhappy feetx · Jan 10, 2008, 07:03 PM // 19:03

Quote:

Originally Posted by iamagod1

Wow thanks for all of the advice so far. Quick answer to a few of you yes our guild has team speak (i have vent too but prefer ts).

Hmmm i guess putting a better person on mesmer may be the key for us, i guess i never really realised that one esurge mesmer was what is used to shutdown the entire opposing offense. Got any advice for mesmer playing? At this point ill take all the advise more experienced ppl are willing to give.

One other thing i have noticed is our team always starts out with warriors up front, monks in back standard formation. As the game goes by however we tend to end up in one clumped up ball, while the opposing team is still in formation. This happens as their warriors go into our backline ours come back to help the monks... instant ball.

Is there any way we can avoid this? Should we keep our wars on their monks, or have them come back to help. I guess not being able to spike anything down will give opposing teams the right to run into our backline.

Woah, ok, lets break this down step by step

1) You will never be able to kill anything if you have you frontline linebacking the whole game, you must continue to pressure
2) 1 Mesmer is not used to shutdown the opposing defense, it is a team effort, meaning that you need contributions from all offensive characters
3) Off monk defense is very important, if you don't have the suffiecient support (DA, Party Heals, Wards, Blind, etc.) then you won't be able to sustain the monks energy levels during the game, meaning warriors will lineback, reverting back to point 1)

Basically what you have here is a mess, first off, defense, your team should have a standard 2 monk backline with AT LEAST 2 forms of off-monk defense, I suggest a ward and a party heal at minimum. This will provide much needed relief for the monks and result in your team taking less pressure. Now, offense, killing things in GvG is not as easy as everyone press skills 1+2+3 when countdown ends. You must implement what I call a "Variable Offense" Meaning that you must change your offensive approach many times during the course of the game, I'll talk about this more once I cover the basic stuff that you may have missed. Shutting down the other teams passive defense is the key to lining up kills, make sure you have your mesmer camp there BSurge (if they have one) and interrupt any ward casting attempts, also, your mesmer should know that since BSurge has a 4 second recharge and your frontliners are training his backline he will be spamming it on recharge (At least at your level of GvG). This makes it very easy to diversion, once this is down (and communicated to the team), your team is ready to land some kills or at serious pressure.

"Variable Offense" is the change of offensive strategy over the course of the game, for example, during the first 5 minutes of the match you may attempt to land max damage spikes on their backline to give them some DP and lower their energy levels a bit. Next 5 minutes you may attempt to apply as much pressure as possible, focusing on diverting to key skills and setting up "mini/half/fake" spikes, if you haven't noticed, many skills that take advantage of conditional effects are prevalent in todays frontline builds, i.e. body blow. Your course of action to setup one of these half spikes would be to progressively train the monks for a good time, say 30 seconds, just to hurt their energy, while your mesmer diverts bsurge and anything else he can get from their backline (WoH, RC, etc.) then you can do 2 things. 1) If you are aiming to kill something for sure, to add DP, etc. you have both frontliners converge on a target and one of them uses bulls while the other uses executioners/eviscerate, this will give opposing monks the impression that you are spiking this target, once he gets heavy prot (SB, PS,) or infuse, you jump to a predetermined other target and hit him with max damage spike from all characters. 2) you can setup "mini" spikes between your frontline and midline, here is a basic example: (happens over the course of 3-4 seconds, you must act quickly)
Step 1: Your BSurge gales the other teams infuser
Step 1A) Your non body blow frontliner unloads spike with Mesmer (Esurge only) on midline target.
Step 2: Your Bsurge lands shellshock on Prot monk
Step 3: Your frontliner with bodyblow solospikes the Prot Monk while the Esurge mesmer switches over and hits prot monk with shatter.

this will either get at least 1 kill or put extreme pressure on the opposing team and force them to fall back to support the monks energy. I have gotten double kills from this easily.

Finally, you can spend the 5 minutes leading up to VoD prepping for it, such as switching to dual running to get flag advantage, sending your cripshot (if you have one) to overextend and pressure their flagger, and attempting kill the opposing footies if you havent already.

Hope this helps....

zling · Jan 12, 2008, 01:08 PM // 13:08

how to pick your front line:
a few questions you need to ask yourself:
as a new GvG guild, from our bank of good players, which roles are they most comfortable playing?
are we more pressure or spike oriented?
are we more shutdown or defense oriented?
what does our mid line include?
do we want to split or go straight 8 vs 8 all the time?

now, you have several options for front line characters:
Warrior- Sword, Axe, Hammer, Your All Alone!(YAA). all are good, all have their unique style and give you different options in a match.
Sword- more condition spreading and pressure oriented.
Axe- more spike oriented, can also pressure.
Hammer- more shutdown oriented, can also spike/pressure.
YAA- doesnt really matter which weapon it uses, this char is a ganker, nothing more nothing less. in a 1 on 1 this char is very strong, in any other situation it is much weaker as YAA wont work. could either go after NPCs or enemy flag runner or whatever other situation where 1 enemy char is alone.
Dervish- Avatar of Melandru(AoM), Wounding Strike, Ebon Dust Aura(EDA) Dervish.
Avatar of Melandru- touch hitting, hard to stop character. more pressure oriented but can also spike well. dont forget that the form wont be up all the time so timing your offensive moves is cruicial if using 1 or more of these.
Wounding Strike- deep wound spam, the ultimate pressure machine. weaker on spikes. remember that you must be enchanted for Wounding Strike to cause deep wound instead of bleeding.
EDA Dervish- will usually line back as he blinds melee chars. very good defensive tool(on par with the BSurge), will be a priority target once the enemy realizes you're using it, your monks must make sure he's clean from melee counters so he can continue protecting them from enemy front line, needs 2-3 cover enchantments to make sure EDA stays up all the time. without it you're a very mediocre pressure char, nothing more than that.

Assassin- kind of a half front line half midline char. Assassin builds vary but here are some of the most used builds, even in GvG. 1 thing to note on all Assassins, they have the lowest armor of all front line characters and thus rely on their mobility and team mates for defense.
Moebius Strike, Shadow Prison(SP), Aura of Displacement(AoD), Shattering Assault(SA).
Moebius Strike- good pressure with spike ability.
SP- solo spiker and somewhat ganker. not much else.
AoD- great ganker, mainly used on small splits(2-3 ppl) or as a lone ganker.
Shatter Enchantment- good pressure, can open up targets for a spike, great finisher. note that this sin usually uses an unblockable combo such as Golden Fox Strike->Wild Strike->Shatter Enchantment.

in your case you want to use a 3 man front line. since you're a new GvG guild I doubt your midline(usually the weakest link in new guilds) is much good thus removing a character from it is harmful. however you still have a good option: the EDA Dervish as your 3rd front liner.
as for the 2 other slots. greatly depends on your strategy, ask the questions mentioned above and make your smartest pick.

JR · Jan 12, 2008, 05:33 PM // 17:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by zling

...

YAA has been fairly useless since Mending Touch became popular.

Anything but Melandru as a Dervish's Elite is pretty much garbage.

Assassins are absolutely not front line characters. And I can't believe you are seriously suggesting Shatter Enchantment be taken on one. I will assume instead that it is Shattering Assault, which is also not brilliant. If you are running a sin then you want them to split, period, so you want AoD.

DutchSmurf · Jan 12, 2008, 11:09 PM // 23:09

Quote:

Originally Posted by JR

YAA has been fairly useless since Mending Touch became popular.

It is seeing play tho, so it should be named as an option.

red orc · Jan 13, 2008, 01:38 PM // 13:38

Quote:

Originally Posted by DutchSmurf

It is seeing play tho, so it should be named as an option.

So is mending warrior.

YAA is totaly useless now. Where can you use it ?
on the stand - no, on rt runner - no, on ele runner - no, in VOD it becomes a liability.
If you want to stop someone use crip-ranger for that.

DutchSmurf · Jan 13, 2008, 02:35 PM // 14:35

Quote:

Originally Posted by red orc

So is mending warrior.

YAA is totaly useless now. Where can you use it ?
on the stand - no, on rt runner - no, on ele runner - no, in VOD it becomes a liability.
If you want to stop someone use crip-ranger for that.

So I guess players in guilds like StS and apr have no idea what they are doing then. And besides, you can split with warriors. People have been doing that for 2 years, no idea why you forgot about that. YAA has always been on warriors, why do you bring up putting it on runners?