Curse

Lyger · Oct 16, 2009, 11:58 AM // 11:58

Hi there!

I've been playing midline (mesmer) in GvG recently, and I have to admit, I'm having one hell of a time getting my positioning right in the matches my guild and I play. One of the main things that gets shouted at me is 'Stop backpedalling Lyger, ffs!'.

So, here's the usual scenario. I have a warrior train. I'm trying to kite away from it in a circle to my monks. However, I find that in many cases, our monks are pushed forward to heal up the frontline, my fellow midline is off to one side, and in front of me is a sea of dots of the opposing colour. This generally results in me running in all directions apart from forward to try and minimise the amount of damage I'm taking. And I often end up close enough to a monk for my warrior train to pinball off to a monk and unload.

My question is - where the hell do I kite to that won't result in my warrior train pinballing off me onto the monks, or onto the other midline? How do I figure out my positioning to get better at this?

I've been watching GvG on obs mode to try and get a handle on this, but this is a problem that still seems to be sticking with me - so I must be missing something crucial from what I'm watching.

Does anyone have any constructive advice for me, or a link to a decent article on this? I can't be the only one who's come across this when starting GvG at a low level.

Thanks in advance!

warriorsmiley · Oct 16, 2009, 12:20 PM // 12:20

Your playing a mesmer and if your doing your job right your going to be the focus of the other team about 80% of the time.

Here's some advice I have to offer.
1.) Don't give the warriors your back it turns into auto crits.
2.) Learn to pre-kite meaning if you even see a warrior in your area start moving away from it.
3.) Lead the warrior far away from his/her monks bad warriors will chase you pretty far putting him/her way out of position making it that much easy to get a kill on it or it forces his/her monks to push up putting basically the whole team out of position.
4.) Also learn to weapon swap as soon as you see a warrior making its way toward you making you take less damage meaning the monks don't have to waste more energy healing you.

Lyger · Oct 16, 2009, 12:44 PM // 12:44

Thanks for that! I've been using click to move recently, as someone told me that was the best way to get away fast. Would I be better off in the cases where a warrior train is on me using click to move, or using my keyboard to avoid presenting my back to them?

I admit my field awareness is poor sometimes, as I get tunnel vision when causing havoc on the opposition back/midline (I generally run pblock mesmer), so I neglect to pre-kite/switch to defensive set at times. That's something I'm working on still - I'm glad to say that my monks think I am now improving a lot in this respect.

The problem I have with leading the warrior train away from their monks is that it is usually in that scenario where I end up leading the warriors to my backline, just for them to pinball away and unload everything on my monks. I guess I'll have to work on trying to take them off to one side!

Thanks for the advice

Revelations · Oct 16, 2009, 12:45 PM // 12:45

The single most annoying thing I find as a warrior are opponents who prekite. You should be playing spread out around the edges of the field to make it easy for your team to identify where their warriors are headed. This allows your monks more time to preprot, and allows you more time to prekite. When you see their damage heading for you, turn and RUN. Don't keyboard it. Mouse directly away from their frontline BEFORE they get to you. Try and not kite toward your own team, but stay in backline range.

Kiting once your opponent has reached you is only minimally effective compared to the damage one can avoid by not letting frontline reach them in the first place.

warriorsmiley · Oct 16, 2009, 12:56 PM // 12:56

If you find your having a hard time weapon swapping try to stay on your defensive set more. Your on a mesmer so your spells are going to cast faster then normal anyway

Field awareness is a good thing to pick up I know its easy to get tunnel vision especially on a mesmer when your on a roll having the monks eat everything you throw at them then boom you go from like 80% hp to dead in 2 seconds.

Leading the warrior can lead to pinball effect but if your monks are good at positioning they would move out the way or pre-prot themselves. Have faith that your monks know what they're doing. On another note don't be afraid to call for prots like guardian or aura of stab if your not getting it already.

Lyger · Oct 16, 2009, 01:01 PM // 13:01

Thanks guys, that's some great advice there

No doubt I'll be back on this thread a few more times after putting what you say into practice!

Gift3d · Oct 16, 2009, 01:05 PM // 13:05

When i play mesmer i always wind up in front of midline, behind frontline, depending on how far their monks are spread. Not bad enough to be considered within frontline range, though. Not really inside the bubble, but enough so that i don't have to run for more than 1 second to cast on them. I'm never near my monks. I always like to have their monks within casting range so i can easily slap a diversion on the enemy's backline on spikes or whenever inbetween, but that should be a no brainer.

Positioning can be complicated though, and as midline you've really got to know who on both teams is where. For instance if their warrior is slightly overextending to get to you and you're still a good ways away from your backline, i'd make sure i was within casting range of my prot primarily. If you see a warrior coming at you while the enemy's midline is also in casting range of you, indicating there's a posibility of a spike, i'd make sure i was in range of both of my monks.

If you've played a lot of HA you should be very used to spreading out, and although the reasons for doing so greatly differ for spreading out in GvG and HA, maybe it's something less serious you can do in your off-time to practice positioning. Half a bubble away from your allies should give enough time for your prot to do his thing after 1 swing the latest.

kedde · Oct 16, 2009, 02:17 PM // 14:17

The problem might also lie in how the rest of the team synergizes.
Your positioning might be a bit off together with some other peoples.

Basically the team should never really have vulnerable targets in close proximity.

A lot of it is also situational.
If your team has the upper hand you might be able to just call for a guardian and tank a warrior while camping for an interrupt or diversion.

While pressured you probably won't want to lead their frontline all the way back to your own backline while it could open an opportunity when both teams are about even.

Lux Aeterna · Oct 16, 2009, 03:27 PM // 15:27

Your team is probably much too close together if you can't kite without leading opposing frontline into your monks.
Also, prekite, it's a huge huge problem for warriors.
See above.

I Angra I · Oct 16, 2009, 03:57 PM // 15:57

Pre-kite with click to move. If you're snared or the warrior has rush activated or something then it's okay to strafe or something using your keyboard because then you aren't letting them auto-crit you but still not just standing still. Be wary of eating bulls though when you're moving and the warrior has a speed advantage on you.

In terms of positioning in general, it really depends, especially for mesmer. Try and maintain a good distance from your monks and midline in general, so warriors can't fast switch to another target with ease. Maintain distance horizontally rather than forward and back as much as you can also. Use obstructions like the fences at flagstand on warriors to your advantage. Try and create an imaginary triangle or square with your monks/midline that's the size of your side of the flagstand area and always try and maintain that, and see if that helps you understand where you should be positioned. The thing with mesmer though is that sometimes you're going to need to push up hard to get to a defensive midliner who is playing far back (good defensive midliners will sometimes play REALLY far back, behind their monks, to force shutdown characters like dom mesmers to push up really far to shut them down). Always warn your monks that you are pushing up to get in range of things like that, if you do. Being in communication with your monks on if you can push up hard or if you need to play back more passively is really important and will help a lot also.

You also just have to remember that taking damage is inevitable. When your monks aren't under a ridiculous amount of pressure, and you're pushing on the other team, a lot of times it's more important to just be using your skills to wipe them rather than focusing solely on kiting. Your monks will be protting you and healing you, and so even though reducing damage is good, it's not the only thing you should be worrying about. When you have a guardian/warding on you, or you see that the warrior on you is blind/blurred or something, feel free to just stand there for a bit and use your skills more because the warrior won't be hitting you much anyway.

Burton2000 · Oct 16, 2009, 04:38 PM // 16:38

Plus there are some maps where its impossible to kite on at all like burning isle.

I Angra I · Oct 16, 2009, 05:08 PM // 17:08

Quote:

Originally Posted by Burton2000

Plus there are some maps where its impossible to kite on at all like burning isle.

There's plenty of kiting on burning.. running through fire with featherfoot grace

^_^

elk · Oct 16, 2009, 05:14 PM // 17:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by warriorsmiley

Leading the warrior can lead to pinball effect but if your monks are good at positioning they would move out the way or pre-prot themselves. Have faith that your monks know what they're doing. On another note don't be afraid to call for prots like guardian or aura of stab if your not getting it already.

Just a quick question for Lyger. You seem to have the right attitude in listening to what's being said constructively and trying to address/improve. Do your teammates operate the same way?

It's easy to point out 'flaws' in other player's performance but often hard to look at ones self or accept the 'constructive' critisim.

The point Warriorsmiley makes is a good one. While you should be pre-kiting, swapping etc, are the others also doing the same? Are you receiving the necessary preprots? Are they prekiting too?

As someone mentioned, it's a matter of synergy and all 'flexing' together (good individual skills/habits only go so far). Recognizing you are a priority target up front and how you and the rest of the team deals with/ reacts to it is part of what makes/breaks games.

elk

Xenex Xclame · Oct 16, 2009, 07:50 PM // 19:50

It sounds to me like not all the blame should go to you,your monks should be throwing a guardian on you if possible,or ask your ranger to cripple him for you for a few seconds.

Even if you have the "perfect" position it wont matter if the rest of your team isnt cooperating.

eazyduzit · Oct 17, 2009, 01:29 AM // 01:29

people are playing pblock now?

Silent Treason · Oct 17, 2009, 09:47 AM // 09:47

If you're kiting you're doing something wrong.

"Stand Your Ground!"

Lyger · Oct 17, 2009, 10:05 AM // 10:05

Thanks for the extra tips, everyone! I have a lot to remember here, but I'll do my best to put it into practice!

And yes, other people in the team are also happy to look into their own flaws - so it's not like I have an entire guild team just shouting at me! I just realised that I needed a bit of extra direction in how I should be doing this.

From our last few GvG's, I can also see that the backline/midline are all playing bunched up a wee bit too much, so in a way it's no wonder I'm having a few issues with having somewhere to kite to. I need to make sure I'm shouting at people about that a bit more, instead of taking this all on myself I guess. As a team, we're all looking at the worse aspects of our individual play and trying to get better at it, so it's not like there are one or two refusing to admit that an aspect of their play is not up to scratch. I'm pretty sure that positioning has only really been brought up as my problem - but our last GvG tells me it's not actually just me.

Also, it may not help that we are running a pretty balanced build in GvG - though our reason for that is that while a gimmick may get us easy wins, it's not exactly teaching us much. Hence why I'm on pblock at the moment. We did have a phase of playing some gimmicks (we're very low ranked, so it was easy to roll some of the opposition when we did that) - but we also realised we weren't learning some of the key elements of gvg play in the process.

Jam Jar · Oct 17, 2009, 04:16 PM // 16:16

I've always been a strong advocate for click to move, no matter the situation. My reasoning is that the downtime between attacks gives time for prots/evasion. At least personally, I've found that chasing kiting characters is generally pretty useless considering how you won't be able to do any sufficient damage unless if you KD them. And when you do KD, neither click to move kiting nor strafing/backpedaling will matter.

For kiting in general though, my rule of thumb is to move away from whatever is doing damage. Pre-kiting is obviously a must. Obviously though, I think the first problem is that you're most likely heading backwards, towards your monks. If this is the case, midline should start pressuring out the overextended frontline, and you should still keep out of range. Monks should prot in the meantime. If the warriors aren't dumb, they should stop overextending and stop chasing you from either the pressure or the prots.

That's my general rule, but this might not apply to mesmers considering how you may need to be throwing hexes while pushing their mid/back. And I guess kiting is a bit more of a pulling tactic where you minimize damage. If you're pushing, I would assume to stay in range to cast off some hexes and rely on your monks to prot you.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lyger

Also, it may not help that we are running a pretty balanced build in GvG - though our reason for that is that while a gimmick may get us easy wins, it's not exactly teaching us much. Hence why I'm on pblock at the moment. We did have a phase of playing some gimmicks (we're very low ranked, so it was easy to roll some of the opposition when we did that) - but we also realised we weren't learning some of the key elements of gvg play in the process.

Well, I've tried this before and... I haven't had much success. This may only apply to me, but because of lack of experience, my guild was unable to really understand the mechanics, understand what to do in situations, or understand some of the basics. While true, learning by yourself is possible, I think having players well experienced with Balanced will help you a lot more and a lot faster. If you've already got exped players, more power to you.

kedde · Oct 17, 2009, 10:18 PM // 22:18

If you haven't, its quite possible and not difficult at all to get experience players to help you out with all sorts of things.
As long as your attitude and approach is good most people are more than willing to help.
And such help can be invaluable at times.