Curse

Mithie · Jun 27, 2007, 04:19 AM // 04:19

Moderator's Edit: Victory or Death was removed in a previous update but most of the other information is sound.

Hi. I've recently put up a light guide for players just getting into the GVG game mode, along with a few select tips and tricks that are commonly seen. I tried posting it in the Community Works section, but I guess the moderators rejected it because the guide was too rough, too short, or have too many grammatical errors. So I guess I'm going to post it here and see if you guys can help me proof read and iron out some of the mistakes. and maybe help me expand on it a little bit to make it longer and more comprehensive. There's not a lot of stuff in it right now, hence the version 0.5 label, but I hope the community can help it grow a bit.

Ahem, here we go.

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Introduction and Mission Statement

A lot of friends and I have been talking about writing a friendly but in-depth guide to help newcomers to Guild vs. Guild (GvG) battles in Guild Wars get their feet wet and gain a greater understanding of the tactics and strategies that are intrinsic to competitive play.

A simple serach on Gamefaqs and a few of the community forums shows a lack of coverage on this scope, and as such, I’m going to try my best to base this guide on my experiences, which you could certainly disagree with. As such, this is not a guide for someone completely new to Guild Wars, nor is it for a veteran player looking to compete in the top 300. This guide will cover basic player vs. player tactics in the context of GvG, such as kiting and communication, but will also cover GvG specific tactics such as flag running and Victory or Death! Mechanics.

The goal of this document isn’t to cover any specific era or metagame of Guild Wars, with assumption of the theory that the metagame may change but the core strategies and tactics will not, and as such specific metagame dependent tactics will be avoided as much as possible.

I hope this guide will be beneficial to those of you looking to take your games to the competitive level, as well as those of you just looking to get your feet wet.

As of the current version (0.5), the guide is still largely incomplete and help from the community may be required to fill in some of the blanks and correct whatever errors I still haven’t hammered out yet. Thank you for your support, and I sincerely hope you’ve found this guide useful.

As for copyright, feel free to take any portion of this guide and post it whereever you want. I don’t really care if I get credit for it, but maybe a Kudos here and there won’t hurt.

Of course, Arena Net holds all rights and licenses to Guild Wars TM, blah blah blah, as is accordant to GAMEFAQ submission rules.

-Daek

Section 1: The Build, the Skills, the Team, and the Plan

You have eight players and 64 skills. The other team has eight players and 64 skills.
You have a base with a guild lord and a handful of non-playable characters (NPCs) and so does the other team.
You have a flag, they have a flag.
You have a thief, they have a thief (sometimes).

These are the resources you are given, and how you play them is entirely up to you.

While it’s true that there’s no one build that can dominate the metagame (sarcastic jokes about hexes on jade aside), it doesn’t mean that any random build you slap together is going to get you the same distance. A GvG build is different from, say, a Heroes’ Ascent build in that GvG battles tend to last a bit, and versatility and endurance should be your top priorities. While it’s true brute force and gimmick builds will still work with the right players, these builds still need to be adapted to the GvG environment.

The best way to build a team of eight is to make the build around the team, instead of the other way around. What I mean is just simply going into observer’s mode and taking down the #1 guild’s build when you don’t have a player who’s used to playing the class for a key position and putting someone completely new to the position on that position is not going to end well. Understand the limits of the strengths and weaknesses of your roster of players before you decide what build to run. Put players on positions they feel most comfortable and have the most experience playing.

If you don’t have a player in your roster that’s experienced with playing the ranger class, don’t roll a build with a ranger. Remember that your team’s performance is rated at the level of your weakest player, so making sure that everyone is comfortable with the position he is playing goes a long way to forming a solid build.

There are extensive resources out there with recommended GvG builds, and it is not in the scope of this guide to recommend you a build to run. Just remember that any build your team feels comfortable playing has the potential to be a strong build. Likewise, any build your team feels uncomfortable playing is going to be a weak build, even if the #1 guild on the ladder is running it.

It is key that your entire team knows the build inside out before entering a match. By this, I mean at the very least, every member of your team should know what the other seven players are running. This knowledge becomes vital when the players need to be dependent on each other for specific tactics or rendered aid. A monk, for example, can call for a blackout on an opposing warrior that’s two whacks away from full adren, but he can’t do that unless he knows the mesmer has blackout to begin with.
It sounds stupid and elementary, but I’ve played with teams that behaved otherwise, and paid for it.

Pre-plan the responses your build will take in reaction to enemy tactics before you enter the match. Establish how you plan on dealing with splits, who to send back, in what order, and how to coordinate the manuever. Don’t wait until you’re in-game with a base under attack message to argue about who should go back and how it should be dealt with.

Understand the majority of your damage source and how to break through common defenses that could potentially stall your offense. For example, if you are running two warriors and a paragon, don’t wait until 7:00 of doing no damage before discussing how to react to chain aegis and constant blinds. Likewise, if the only hex removals in your build are a veil and a purge, it’s time to talk about what to do if you run into a hex heavy team. Talk it out. Have some discussion. Your build doesn’t need to have a GOOD response to a certain tactic, but a crappy tactic like “well, if they pull x on us, then we’re pretty much boned. Just run around for 25 minutes and hope our lord head shot critical cyclone axes their entire team” is still better than not talking about it at all.

Preparation is half the battle, and if you still lose, at least you’ll know why so you can improve your game. This isn’t to say you have to account for everything that could possibly happen, as improvisation is still a very large part of the game, but at least make sure you’re planned against the more common tactics.

Section 2: Killing the Guild Lord Wins the Game

There are a lot of ways to play the game, but there’s only one way to win it: kill their guild lord. This is not to say you should gun directly for the lord at 2:00 into the game. That’s called a full team wipe. Think of the game as a round of Chess. To force the opponent king into a checkmate, you first have to work your way to him, through position, material, and time. In Guild Wars, these goals can be analogously translated to playing for position, playing for morale, and playing for Victory or Death! (VoD). These goals are not mutually exclusive and good play means keeping all three in mind through the entire span of the game. There’s certainly trade-offs and prioritizing involved, where one goal is persued at the expense of another, but none can be fully ignored.

Playing for position means a lot of things. It mean pushing into the enemy side of the flagstand when your flag runner is running towards your stand, it means falling towards your NPCs when your monks are low on energy and need some pressure relieved, it means putting down a ward vs. foes at a strategic location, it means in position to access their catapult when Victory or Death rolls near, and a host of other things. Knowing when to push, when to fall, when to collapse, when to split, and when to hold is vital to playing well.
Snares, wards, spirits, and teleportation are some examples of tools to help you play for position. The most important thing to recognize is that a team, without exception, plays at the pace of its slowest member. The best way to control where the opposing team is playing is to control the movement of a vital role. For example, if you want to stop a team from falling towards their NPCs when you have the pressure up, maintain a snare or knockdown on one of their monks. Where are they going to go? Nowhere, unless they are willing to sacrifice the monk. Likewise, if you want to push the opposing team off you, begin by pushing their vital roles, such as the monks. If you push the monks back, then their extended frontline will be vulnerable, and will be forced to pull back or take unmitigated damage.

A common tactic to force initiative on position is splitting. Splitting is the act of dividing up your forces into two groups to achieve two different goals simultaneously. One group could hold the stand for morale, for example, while the other knocks out vital NPCs in the enemy base. Some builds are specialized to split proactively, but all builds should be built to deal effectively against splits or have the option of splitting themselves. Splitting can pull off some of the pressure or defense or weaken the opponent team significantly at VoD if they choose to ignore it. However, your team also faces many of the same problems – with one difference: you have the initiative. The general rule of thumb regarding splits is never split if you don’t need to and never refrain from splitting when the alternative is put your Guild Lord under threat.

Position also translates to team cohesion. Casters can’t cast outside their radius, rangers and paragons can’t hit beyond a certain range, and that translates into bad news for melee classes if they over extend beyond the radius of support offered by their midline and backline. It’s vital that the team are always in position to support each other. Everyone needs to know where the wards are, where the traps are, and where each other are so they can respond well to pressure. This is not to say overextension is always unacceptable. Sometimes, melee needs to overextend to push a kill, push a position, or collapse on a target of opportunity. It’s acceptable to overextend as long as the entire team is aware he’s overextending, including the overextender. Communication is vital. Let your team know you’re about to push a kill or push for a flagger.

The occasional over-extension aside, it’s vital that the team moves as unity. If a push needs to be made, the entire team needs to do it, not just the warriors or the midlines. Everyone needs to push as one and fall back as one. Out of position players are easily picked on and taken out.

Another important goal to play for is morale. Everyone starts at zero percent death penalty (DP), but as you take deaths, you start accruing DP. You can reduce DP by scoring kills and capturing the flag, the latter can even net you a hefty +10% morale bonus. Successfully playing for morale involves three things: push kills, stay alive, and hold the flag. The first two will boil down to a whole nest of factors that anyone not new to Guild Wars PvP should be familiar with, while the third is something that’s unique to the way GvG battles work. On every map is a flag stand, usually located in the middle of the map. Sticking your flag in it and holding it there for two minutes will net you a “Morale Boost”, reducing your DP. If your DP is 0, then you’ll get a one time 10% morale boost.

Suffice to say, this is vital to winning the game. Successful GvG builds will incorporate some form of flag running, and the skill exhibited by the flag runner can easily determine the outcome of the game. If the opposing team holds the flag and is getting constant morale boosts, then it means none of your kills will matter, and the battle will rapidly turn uphill. Controlling the flag successfully is intimately related to controlling the position of both your team and the opposing team. Putting the opposing team in a position where running the flag becomes difficult will put your flag running ahead in pace. Failing to do so will cause undue pressure on your flag running and give you a liability that your support may not need, in addition to all the other stuff that’s going on.

Of course, another way to gain morale is to kill the opposing team. There are generally factors outside of the few that you have direct control over for that, but putting the DP on the right targets is something you DO have control over. Spot the vital roles to the opposing build. If it’s a spike team, then no brainer – take down the caller. Put DP on him over and over again until little effort is required to knock him out. For other, more balanced and versatile builds, the vital targets are slightly more difficult to spot, and will depend on communication from the rest of your team to identify. For example, if the opposing team has a particularly good mesmer power blocker shutting down your backline, then trying to put some DP on him should be the first order of business. Likewise, if that particular snare ele with bliding surge is the main element preventing your melee damage from pushing through, then that’s your vital target right there. Monks are, of course, always vital targets, but they are usually harder to push kills on, due to their position and auxillary skills.

The same applies to your team. Identify the vital player in your build and call opposing pressure off him and keep his DP clean at all costs. If you are facing a hex dominated pressure team, then make sure to watch your hex-eater mesmer – both his position and his DP. It’s much better to have heavy DP on one important target than slight DP on three auxillary targets.

The last general goal to play for is Victory or Death! (VoD). VoD happens at 20:00 after the clock starts, and a different set of rules are put into play. For one thing, you do more damage but have less max life. For another, the NPCs in your base will begin to push towards the middle, where they will engage the enemy NPCs. All gates that require thieves or locks will open, and remain open. At 25:00, the Guild Lords themselves will start walking to the middle, forcing the match to be decided. Understanding the inevitability of this and playing to give your team the maximum advantage when it occurs will make or break the game.

The easiest way to prepare for VoD is to add elements into your build that work exceptionally well at VoD. Anything that does area of effect damage is a good bet, and usually helps with offsetting an NPC disadvantage.

But this guide is going to focus more on how to play for VoD during the match itself. One way to swing the favor to your end is to target the enemy’s NPCs before VoD occurs. This can be done by a hard push, or with a split. Unless the enemy wants a re-enactment of Seven Against Thebes, then they will have to respond to such a move. The three most important NPC targets should be the knights and the bodyguard, but archers should not be ignored as they do add a good amount of damage if gathered up. Sometimes it’s necessary to sacrifice position at the stand or concede a morale boost in order to put pressure on the enemy base through a split, while other times it’s necessary to sacrifice NPCs to relieve pressure on your stand.

NPCs have roles outside of VoD. Making the other team pull your footmen or your knights before they’ve put sufficient pressure on you can quickly turn the tables. The extra pressure from the NPCs could be enough for you to make a counterpush or at the very least relieve some of the pressure on your monks’ energy pool, allowing them time to recuperate. Likewise, when you’re on the offensive, don’t aggro the opponent’s NPC’s until you feel sufficient pressure has been applied. If sufficient pressure has been applied, then sometimes aggroing a few footmen or a knight is a good way to burn the opposing team’s monks’ energy by forcing them to watch an extra target and knock out a few vital NPCs before VoD.

At VoD, all the hard work you’ve done in playing for the previous two goals – position and morale – will bear fruit. Good position will allow you to catapult their NPCs (the time to fire is at 20:19 to have the best chance at catching everything) or allow you to snare them in the path of your NPCs before they reach the stand, if they pushed too far without watching the clock. DP is compounded by the decrease in life at VoD, and a target with DP on him will get taken out even more easily. At VoD, the best targets to focus on are their offense. Identify targets using area of effect skills and take them out right away. Move down the offense priority list by targetting their melee, knights, bodyguard, support, archers, shut down, and last, monks – unless when an opportunity presents itself. There will be a lot of targets at VoD and it could get hectic, but that’s what separates a good guild from a mediocre guild. A key thing to note is to relentlessly chew up their damage. Sit on their warriors, harrass their midline, and force their monks to go deep set before yours do.

Be careful of last minute splits at VoD. With no NPCs and all gates open, your Guild Lord is vulnerable. Understand and evaluate the possibility of a split (or even a full team gank) and respond accordingly. Watch out for bodyblocks and make sure your monks are in position to fall to the Guild Lord if a threat is validated.

Play it safe, play it smart, play it well.

Section 3: Roles, What They Mean, and How To Play Them

Monks (backline):

Every team needs monks, well, usually. Usually, balanced builds tend to run two core monks, not counting smiters or whatever. You are the team’s primary source of damage mitigation. Red bars will drop, and you will make them go up again. Generally speaking, there are two ways to mitigate damage – prevention and recovery, translated in game into prots (protection spells) and heals. Generally speaking, it’s much more energy efficient to prevent than it is to recover. Throwing a prot spirit on a target before two warriors and a lightning orb falls on him is always going to cost less energy than healing all that damage over with orison. Prevention is very specialized, however, and will not work ALL the time. That’s why damage recovery is always an important aspect of the game. Bottom line: make sure your monks got both prevention and recovery covered.

Pre-protting is a must. Watch where the enemy damage is focused and be there ahead of them. If you see two warriors converging on a target and you KNOW they are going to release adren, don’t wait for them to get there to start your protting. When there are warriors in play, try to keep a subconscious count of how much adren he has. If you’ve seen him train someone for half a minute without using an adren attack skill, then you know he’s got a full tank of adren and is ready to release. That’s when your finger should be twitching on that prot and watch carefully where he’s going to end up releasing that adren.

Following that same line of thought, watching the enemy is going to be much more important than watching your own team. If you’re getting harrassed by a shut down mesmer, then watch what he’s casting. When you see diversion going off, assume it’s going to come on you and pause casting as it finishes. It’s a good (probably the best) way to not get half your bar diverted. Likewise, your teammates should call out incoming diversions when they see it go off, to save you some work.

The best way to do this is to recognize the animations of certain key spells and abilities and recognize them going off without clicking on the person using them. If you see a broad head ranger run next to you and starting start that lengthy attack animation, he’s not stretching his arms. Throw up your stance or strafe away because there’s a broadhead coming your way.

Know your surroundings. Be aware of where your wards and traps are and be prepared to run through them when you’re under pressure. If there’s a good ranger on the opposing team interrupting the occasional skill, then know where potential cover is, be it that one shack on Warrior’s Isle or the foliage around Weeping Stone. Arrows can’t fly through walls, but your heals can. When you’re not casting, run. Keep kiting and strafing. You never know when an orb is going to fly your way.

Communication is another important thing to keep in mind. Don’t leave your team wondering why everyone’s dead when two seconds ago everything was fine. If your elite is diverted or sig of humilatied, let your team know so they can react accordingly, whether by playing more defensively or start falling back on their frontline. If you have shame on you, call it so the other monk can get it off. If there’s a certain character on the other team that’s owning the crap out of you, don’t stand there and take it; let the rest of your team know so it can be dealt with. Talk with your other monk. Let him know what’s going on. The entire team plays on the robustness of your energy bar, so make sure they’re updated on its status. If you’re low on energy, call it. If you think you’re going to be dipping low on energy soon, call it. If you have to switch to your deep set, call it. Call it, call it, call it. If you think your team needs to know something, tell them. I can’t stress enough how important this is.

Midline:

I won’t go too deep into this class, there’s simply too much variety to talk about. This class includes a variety of support classes like mesmers, rangers, and elementalists. Their roles are legion, but one thing is certain: they lack the armor of the frontline and the mitigation potential of the backline. That puts them at odds in terms of position. Bottom line: you don’t have 90AL and you can’t pre-prot yourself, so pretty much you have four ways to stay alive: W A S and D. Move. Kite. Position yourself where you can adequately perform your role, but always remain in a position where you have enough lee-way to proactively kite away before the damage shifts to you.

If you’re playing a midline character with a bit of burst damage, like an orb, shatter, or e-burn, be on the look out for warriors on the other team frenzying inside your cast radius. Be diligent. If you see a warrior frenzy, punish him for it. Throw an orb at him, shatter his prot spirit, or smack him with a burning arrow. Never let a frenzy go unpunished. While it’s impractical to shift your entire damage potential after one frenzied warrior before he cancels it into rush or dash, you can certainly put some extra damage on him and force him to cancel early.

If you have area specific skills like wards or traps, call out when you put them down so your team is aware of where to kite through for help. If you have multiple wards, don’t overlap them on top of each other. Create figure-8 configurations to increase coverage. That’s pretty much it, really. Every midline class plays out differently in some respects, but they all share certain commonalities.

Flag runner:

You run flags. Your job is to bring the flag from your base to the flag stand, capture it, and maybe help out with split defense and capping catapults. You know Sylvester Stallone in Rambo? He would make a terrible flag runner. Your job may be to run flags, but that doesn’t mean you have to monotonously run along the same road in the same predictable pattern. Call out to your team when you’re prepareing to capture. If you see your team taking a lot of pressure at the stand, double check with the monks before you move in. Make sure they have a decent tank of energy left and can effectively mitigate you through the process. Watch the clock. Always be aware of who is in control of the flag stand and how much time you have to take it back.

If capping the flag means you’re going to die in the process, it’s a bad idea 90% of the time. They’re just going to cap it back and you’ll be dead. If your entire team is mired deep inside your base, and you see a window where you can ninja past them for a cap, it’s a good way to relieve pressure – just make sure you can survive. A conceded morale bonus is not going to lose you the game, especially when you haven’t put any significant DP on any of them, but having a flag runner dead with 60 DP way out in the middle of nowhere can.

You have more roles to play than just running the flag. Whether you’re an ice elementalist, a secondary monk, or a fire elementalist, you can add unexpected pressure and damage when you’re up there at the stand. Make it count. Every time you’re up at the flag stand, make your position known. Snare their warriors, blur them, help your monks get some energy back by healing/protting the team, or throwing in a critical burst of damage on a spike. Your time is limited. Never stay longer than you have to, and risk conceding a bonus.

Frontline and Caller:

This guide, being non-metagame specific, will not cover how to call for a hardcore spike build, but rather try to focus on calling for a balanced build. Usually, the caller is going to be a frontline character, such as a warrior. The reason for this is relatively simple: the frontline is closet to the enemy team and therefore have the best peripheral vision on what everyone on the other team is doing. Another reason is usually the warrior is the one that needs to build adrenaline for damage, and he’s the best judge of when the damage potential is highest.

Calling in GvG doesn’t just mean broadcasting a target and counting down, it also means calling for the right damage at the right targets at the right time. Not every target needs to be spiked, unless that’s the only option offered by the build. Calling for damage, snares, shutdown, and positional blocking are also the responsibilities of the caller. The caller needs to know the potential and skill level of every player on his team, including his own. Knowing how much damage and how fast they can come is vital to calling well.

If you need something special on the spike, like a gale or black-out on the off monk, make sure you call it and give your team as much time as they need to identify the off target in preparation to do what they do. Always pay attention to how much pressure you are taking and how well the monks are mitigating it. Don’t wait until the monks are deep in their highest energy set before deciding to pull back. If your team identifies a threat to you, such as a particularly nasty mesmer or a snare ele, don’t ignore it. Rely on your team to provide feedback on what’s going on from their perspective and always communicate your intentions.

Remember that dead people are ressurected back at base every 2:00. This means if you can take out a key target at 1:55, 3:55, or 5:55, just before the ressurection timer, you can effectively remove that player from play (his team won’t have time to ressurect him before the timer ressurects him) until he takes his time to haul ass back up here. If the key target is, for example, a monk, then you have a good shot at collapsing their entire team. Be aware of this and make sure your damage potential is maximum at these key times and make major pushes or spikes to get that kill and force a “base res”. Adren full at 1:47? Save it for 5 more seconds.

This works the other way too, when you DON’T want an enemy to ressurect back at base. An enemy monk is almost dead and out of position at 5:57? Wait until after 6:00 before you kill him, so his body gets stranded at out of position land, far away from the rest of his team, with no chance of ressurection for two full minutes.

Always look for targets that are out of position, over extended, or simply not kiting. Everyone makes mistakes during a match, but it’s the team that captalizes best on these mistakes that emerge the victor. If a midline is out of position – punish him for it. If a warrior is too over-extended, punish him for it. If a monk is dropping a sig of devo on the front line, punish him for it. Always be on the look out for mistakes on the enemy’s part. A mistake that goes unpunished is an opportunity lost for victory.

Section 4: Common Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

One of the most common mistakes I see when playing with newer guilds is a bad decision when it comes to dealing with an enemy split. The enemy has split. You spotted the split. What do you do? Remember that indecision is just as bad, if not worse, than a bad decision. You don’t have the luxury to talk it out. You have to make the right decision within a rapidly closing time window. Every second the enemy proceeds with the split undisturbed makes your response window one bit narrower, until there comes a time when your response becomes too late, and next thing you know your bodyguard is lying dead with three enemies wailing on your guild lord. This is where pre-planning and experience comes into play. Teams lose to splits because they ignore the split when they can’t afford to, and when they split more players back than they need to. This kind of decision comes with experience, but just remember: if the opposing build is more splittable than yours, always try to force them to 8v8.

Everybody needs to kite. “Oh, but he has snares anyway and will just outrun me” and “I have Shield of Deflection on me and the other monk is watching me so I don’t have a to kite” are stupid excuses not to kite. Even if you’re a warrior – if you’re being wailed on, KITE! Move out of the way! If you’re a little wary about losing position from kiting backwards, then kite forwards or around in a circle. W A S D are the four counters to more things than you might realize. Incoming orb? DODGE THAT. Incoming dervish train? KITE THAT. Incoming blurred vision? GET AWAY FROM THE OTHER WARRIOR! It’s amazing how much stuff you can kite off. Also, don’t wait until the warrior or dervish is right next to you before you start kiting. Start moving as soon as you see that crazy bastard with a hammer running up to you. You might not get a chance to if you wait for him to get close enough to hit Earthshaker.

Don’t park on one character for the entire game if you want to interrupt something. Yeah, your team is screaming at you to D-shot Restore Conditions or divert Blinding Surge, but parking your mouse cursor on him the whole game just makes you a predictable and avoidable threat. Once your target is aware of what you’re trying to do, he can take measures to defend himself against it and make you less effective. The monk can kite behind an obstacle before he casts, and the B-surge ele can just call for a veil 24/7. You becomes a much more valuable player if you tab around a bit switching from target to target, looking for opportunities. Perform your secondary role, like spreading poison or go around denying their monks energy. When you see that animation of the key skill you’re trying to interrupt flash over the target’s head, quickly switch and hit D shot, or count down the recharge time and hit diversion just before the next cycle. Be unpredictable.

Rangers can interrupt everything, including attack skills. Attack skills are actually usually the easiest skills to interrupt. If you see a warrior with full adrenaline rush towards your monk, chances are, he’s closing in to unload. Just when he gets close enough, just throw him a D-shot or savage or something, and voila, there goes his damage potential. Don’t make the mistake of thinking interrupts should only be used on the enemy’s mid and back-lines.

A lot of teams have trouble with dealing with dervishes because of their forms. All dervish forms have a downtime. When that downtime window opens, go crazy and try to take them out. Dervishes don’t have as much armor as warriors, and without their form, will prove much easier to take down.

A team pushes position based on how much energy its monks have. If the monks are low on energy, don’t push too hard. A few ways to allow your monks to get energy is to have your frontline fall on the enemy’s frontline and park them with knockdowns and damage if they frenzy. Sure, you’ll lose a bit of position, but your monks get a bit more breathing room. When faced with a choice of pushing deep to take out a key objective and wiping because your monks are low on energy, and giving the enemy some ground and your monks some recuperation time, choose the latter. Good communication allows the caller to make faster and better judgements when it comes to juggling the monks’ energy with team positioning.

Some teams have a weakest link. Don’t just go around attacking their strong players when you can dismantle them by exploiting their weakest link. If you notice a player on the enemy team that’s clearly not very good at this game, go after him full time. If a mesmer is consistantly out of position, or if a warrior loves to frenzy constantly in your backline with reckless abandon, make him your best friend. Call him out to your team and have everyone watch him for the mistake to happen, then punish him for it. It weakens their monks’ energy pool, and sometimes their weakest link can pull their entire team into making one, huge mistake – the kind you can exploit to win a game.

Don’t infuse an archer or a footman unless you’re pretty damn confident you’re going to win and just want some freebie points. For that matter, if keeping an archer alive means you’re going to drain your entire energy bar, don’t do it. Let the bastard die. Why? Archers don’t kite. Footmen don’t kite. Knights don’t kite, but it’s worth keeping them alive because they actually put out decent damage. Remember earlier in the guide what happens to things that don’t kite? That’s right – free damage. Save your energy for targets that do (hopefully your team).

Afterword

That’s all for now. This just a very preliminary version of the guide that I hope can be expanded upon by input from players much more experienced than I at the game. If you have something to add, please let me know from my contact information below. I know there are a lot of typos and probably even more grammatical errors in this guide, so any help you can give to proof read it would be appreciated. I hope you find this guide useful.

Contact info:

In-game name: Daek Maelstrom
AIM Screenname – bao6

Thank you very much!

Thomas.knbk · Jun 27, 2007, 12:29 PM // 12:29

I saw this on the QQ forums. Nice guide. Must've been some effort.

Cammy · Jun 28, 2007, 06:30 AM // 06:30

Excellent guide. I also saw this on QQ forums. I liked the whole game-is-dead disclaimer at the beginning, but I guess guru forums are a bit more civilized than its qq counterpart XD

bluechestdude · Jun 28, 2007, 08:23 AM // 08:23

an awesome beginners guide. Good job!

chardy · Jun 28, 2007, 03:24 PM // 15:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mithie

There are a lot of ways to play the game, but there’s only one way to win it: kill their guild lord.

you can win the game by getting all your opponents to 60% DP. However since the /resign feature came in most of the time the opponent will ruin your fun

Signet Of Hell · Jun 29, 2007, 06:47 AM // 06:47

Excellent guide. I think what separates this from other guides is that it has, as you said, a more friendly touch rather then an elitist giving lessons. Good job, looking forward the next!

Elrodien · Jul 02, 2007, 03:01 PM // 15:01

Excellent stuff. I think this probably deserves stickied?

olly123 · Jul 14, 2007, 10:11 AM // 10:11

amazing guide i cant w8 to get my small guild in to GVGs, not going for the top spot just for some fun, PVE has turned in to a bore recently. thanx dude

Mithie · Jul 23, 2007, 03:53 AM // 03:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by Elrodien

Excellent stuff. I think this probably deserves stickied?

Well right now I'd just be happy if this could somehow go into community works, but it seems I can't find an active moderator on this site. Everyone I've messaged seems to be ignoring me!

Divyn · Aug 05, 2007, 07:46 AM // 07:46

A good guide, but a little plain. Great effort though, and a good read for the (by Signet_Of_Hell) meantioned reason

Mithie · Aug 20, 2007, 02:37 PM // 14:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by Divyn

A good guide, but a little plain. Great effort though, and a good read for the (by Signet_Of_Hell) meantioned reason

How can I spice it up and make it less plain?

The Pocky Alchemist · Sep 24, 2007, 03:32 PM // 15:32

You get a cookie. A BIG cookie. This is an awesome guide. Ex-freaking-xactly what I was looking for. Thank you so much!!

I'm not sure if this is what Divyn means by "plain", but I noticed it: you've got two different styles moving around in here. You've got a formal style at the beginning...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Formal Style

The occasional over-extension aside, it’s vital that the team moves as unity. If a push needs to be made, the entire team needs to do it, not just the warriors or the midlines.

...and you follow it up with a more snazzy, jazzed-up style by the time you hit the end:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Snazzy Style

Incoming orb? DODGE THAT. Incoming dervish train? KITE THAT. Incoming blurred vision? GET AWAY FROM THE OTHER WARRIOR! It’s amazing how much stuff you can kite off. Also, don’t wait until the warrior or dervish is right next to you before you start kiting. Start moving as soon as you see that crazy bastard with a hammer running up to you. You might not get a chance to if you wait for him to get close enough to hit Earthshaker.

I like them both! I don't think you should change much of this guide at all, just add to it as you get more ideas. I'm so glad I found this, it should go a long way.

iamagod1 · Dec 03, 2007, 09:38 PM // 21:38

You could consider going more in depth on splits and what to do. You mention teams should have a plan, but thats about it. What if your build is a spike that can't split well? What if your team is the one splitting? Wouldn't mind getting more info on splits is all as my team just had our first gvg, and in it we faced a split team.

darkhatter · Feb 20, 2008, 10:08 PM // 22:08

Thank you, I've been looking for a guide like this for a long time.

zigalot · Jul 02, 2009, 09:43 AM // 09:43

1. you must have VENT! http://www.ventrilo.com/. download it and learn to use it, u won't be able to get into any GVGs or gvg guilds without it.

2. Have all campaigns or buy the PVP unlock pack, this will unlock skills from all campaigns. Play Zaishen or RA/TA to build up ur balthazar factions. Save those factions to unlock skills that u need. Usually your guild will give u a build to run and if u don't have the necessary skills, they probably gonna pick someone else. I always keep like 5k balth in my acct just incase i need to unlock a skill.

2.1 - a side note to nbr 2. LEARN TO USE YOUR BUILD. learn the purpose of your build, and know what your role is to the build as a whole. if you don't understand a build ASK!

3. have at least 1 pvp slot open. being able to created weapons/characters/armor is crucial to gvg. having a pvp character will give u these advantages.

4. Join a gvg guild that is for beginners. good guilds will not recruit u, and impatient guild leaders will not teach u. join a casual gvg guild and learn and don't be afraid to ask questions.

5. COMMUNICATION! probably the most important thing in gvg. that is why u can't gvg without vent. make sure you LISTEN to what is being called.

6. KNOW THE MAP. if you enter a match and dont' know the map, ask your guild leader where the enemy base is at, and where the flagstand is at, and other important places liker levers, obelisks, or teleporters.

play and learn. gvg is best taught through hands on experience, this is just tips to get u started.

Div · Jul 03, 2009, 05:17 PM // 17:17

I think the most important thing is that:

Don't think you're "the shit." You're not. You're just "shit."

It's no surprise this is the case with most people. Through many polls, a dominant majority of people believe they are either underappreciated or underpaid for their "talents." It just means people take things for granted.

I've seen countless starters who think they're so good and "deserve" to be in a top 100 guild, and others who simply quit because they think rank 300-500 guilds are too "noob" for them. While there are some rare occasions where that's true, it's generally not the way it works.

Similarly, I've seen teams who just break top 100 or make elims because of luck and/or an overpowered build, and then expect to get silvers every mAT. If they don't they all rage at each other and disband? Good joke.

*lemming* · Jan 08, 2010, 10:21 PM // 22:21

This post needs some updating. PM me if you feel like volunteering ^.^

Corporeal Ghost · Jan 04, 2011, 02:26 AM // 02:26

If you still want this updated, I may decide to tackle it relatively soon.

Mayer · Feb 26, 2011, 03:59 PM // 15:59

thanks for the guide it was actually really helpful