Curse

sir saber · Apr 16, 2008, 07:05 AM // 07:05

Hi guys, my guild decided to break into the gvg scene and we have copied builds from a top guild and slightly modified it to suit ourselves better.
Here's the build.

[build prof=Warrior/Elementalist][Shock][Executioner's Strike][Bull's Strike][Distracting Strike][Frenzy][Rush][Eviscerate][Resurrection Signet][/build]
[build prof=Warrior/Ritualist][Hammer Bash][Crushing Blow][Enraging Charge]["For Great Justice!"][Flail][Bull's Strike][Magehunter's Smash][Death Pact Signet][/build]
[build prof=Elementalist/Mesmer][Air Attunement][Gale][Lightning Orb][Mantra of Concentration][Glyph of Lesser Energy][Blinding Surge][Ward Against Melee][Resurrection Signet][/build]
[build prof=Paragon/Mesmer][Harrier's Toss][Mirror of Disenchantment][Cruel Spear][Aggressive Refrain][Anthem of Flame][Power Return]["Go for the Eyes!"][Signet of Return][/build]
[build prof=Mesmer/Ritualist][Shame][Inspired Enchantment][Energy Surge][Diversion][Shatter Enchantment][Power Leak][Power Drain][Flesh of My Flesh][/build]
[build prof=Ritualist/Assassin][Dash][Protective Was Kaolai][Weapon of Warding][Dark Escape][Wielder's Boon][Splinter Weapon][Weapon of Remedy][Ancestors' Rage][/build]
[build prof=Monk/Elementalist][Restore Condition][Aura of Stability][Spirit Bond][Reversal of Fortune][Guardian][No Skill][Glyph of Lesser Energy][Aegis][/build]
[build prof=Monk/Elementalist][Word of Healing][No Skill][Protective Spirit][Dismiss Condition][Guardian][Infuse Health][Glyph of Lesser Energy][Aegis][/build]

We have been doing some gvg matches for almost a week now, getting used to our skills bars n stuff, but there's seems to be still some problems in playing it well. Hence, i hope someone w balanced gvg experience could share some insight into how they play this well.
Basically some problems we encounted while playing are,

1. countering splits
In splits map(like frozen isle), where opposing team do a 3-5 split. In such situations, who should we sent back to defend the base?

2.Spiking
Our spikes are not as clean with 2 warriors having to run to the target without shadow steps skills. So how can we improve our spiking efficiency or its it better to go full pressure, or 1 warrior pressure maybe a infuser monk while e other spike another target with the team? will there be enough damage for the last option?

3.Disables
One major problem my team faced against is that we crumble easily when we faced against a mesmer or blinder that is controling our backline and frontline respectively. In such situation, how should counter this? Assign our mesmer on the blinder and mage huntersmash warrior on the mesmer?

4.Guild hall
We are currently using burning isle as our guild hall as most of my guild agrees that it is one of the least un-gankable maps. But is there other maps more suitable for this?

5.Playing the individual roles better
If there's any advice u guys can share on how to play the specific individual roles. Like for the mesmer to cast diversion on the monk during a spike countdown.

Thats about the general problems we are facing now. Any advice to address these issues as well as how to get better would be highly appreciated . Thanks!

JR · Apr 16, 2008, 08:37 AM // 08:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by sir saber

Hi guys, my guild decided to break into the gvg scene and we have copied builds from a top guild and slightly modified it to suit ourselves better.
Here's the build.

Looks good.

Quote:

Originally Posted by sir saber

1. countering splits
In splits map(like frozen isle), where opposing team do a 3-5 split. In such situations, who should we sent back to defend the base?

This depends very much on what they have sent back, and what they still have at the stand.

- If they have sent two physicals into your base (Warrior + Ranger) and now only have one physical at the stand, send back the bsurge.

- If they have very weak offense at the stand but strong on the split send back a Monk.

- Do they have a Monk on the split? Send back the Mesmer with a Warrior and the Rit to shit on it.

It's all about really understanding your build and their build enough to re-balance your team on the fly to counter them on both sides. One mistake a lot of teams make is they will send a split back to defend, but wont bother changing that split up untill it has failed horribly.

Rule number one of splitting: Communicate. One person from each team should be telling the other if they are winning the fight or if they are being pressured down. This allows them to better make the call to send someone from one split to another, or even to swap characters. Even a Paragon can split, with support.

Quote:

Originally Posted by sir saber

2.Spiking
Our spikes are not as clean with 2 warriors having to run to the target without shadow steps skills. So how can we improve our spiking efficiency or its it better to go full pressure, or 1 warrior pressure maybe a infuser monk while e other spike another target with the team? will there be enough damage for the last option?

You definately have plenty of spike damage in this build, but always keep in mind that unless you can perform a clean .5s spike you will need pressure to make spikes go through.

With a hammer Warrior and an axe I would be tempted to spike with the axe and keep the hammer on the other monk, or have it unload on another squishy just before the spike to lure out the big prots/infuses. You don't really need them both on the target, as you say it often telegraphs the spike.

Watch Polly (from [rawr]), he's pretty much had the most practice at scoring kills with this build.

Quote:

Originally Posted by sir saber

3.Disables
One major problem my team faced against is that we crumble easily when we faced against a mesmer or blinder that is controling our backline and frontline respectively. In such situation, how should counter this? Assign our mesmer on the blinder and mage huntersmash warrior on the mesmer?

Mesmer on the Bsurge (provided they don't have Hex Breaker) is standard practice. If it does have Hex Breaker then some people will put their Mesmer on the other teams Mesmer, though I really don't think that is a winning strategy.

Hammer warrior on the Mesmer is a decent call, keep it pressured so it wont go too deep for your Monks or want to stop and cast much.

Quote:

Originally Posted by sir saber

4.Guild hall
We are currently using burning isle as our guild hall as most of my guild agrees that it is one of the least un-gankable maps. But is there other maps more suitable for this?

Do you want to get better at playing against split, and splitting yourselves? Don't run Burning.

It's not a bad choice to be fair, but I think a guild in your position would be better off on a map that gives you a bit more flexibility. Imperial is a favorite of mine.

Quote:

Originally Posted by sir saber

5.Playing the individual roles better
If there's any advice u guys can share on how to play the specific individual roles. Like for the mesmer to cast diversion on the monk during a spike countdown.

It's a pretty straight forward build, most of your skills are for spiking, assisting the spike, or not dying between spikes.

Some tips from a pro european spiker:

Does one of their Monks have Aura of Stability on his bar? Gale him on the spike, and Shame the other Monk. Diversion also works if Shame isn't recharged, but it will take longer to start hurting them. It basically forces a skill disable instead of a kill.

If they have Aegis make sure your Paragon is on top of interrupting that or mirroring it. Make sure your Warrior looks for enchants on spike, and doesn't spike targets that already have prot.

If your Rit is at the stand have him throw Ancestors on your Warrior for the spike.

Mr Fizzle · Apr 17, 2008, 12:53 AM // 00:53

What a decent idea is against the bsurge if you can't seem to get a diversion on his bsurge just inspired his air attunement and as most bsurges he'll just keep spamming bsurge and making him low on energy.

Also means less orbs from him.

sir saber · Apr 17, 2008, 10:27 AM // 10:27

Ooh, tats alot of great advices! thanks mates

Divinus Stella · Apr 17, 2008, 02:18 PM // 14:18

The air ele could do with hex breaker instead of concentration, take body blow on the warrior instead of executioners since your using orb.
For the paragon bar i think its better to give him power spike and cry of frustration, power return wont help the pressure and wont stop them ressing.

You dont really want both warriors spiking the same target, especially since your using a hammer warrior, your best just using the axe to spike and the hammer warrior to pressure and keep the prot on his back while spiking.

Tearz1993 · Apr 17, 2008, 02:20 PM // 14:20

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mr Fizzle

What a decent idea is against the bsurge if you can't seem to get a diversion on his bsurge just inspired his air attunement and as most bsurges he'll just keep spamming bsurge and making him low on energy.

Also means less orbs from him.

Also try to interrupt Orb so its a waste of 15 energy and use ESurge if you have it. If he gets to low enough energy, BSurge should be coming less and less.

Might want to switch either Sig of Return or Flesh of my Flesh for a Res Sig since 3 hard resses is overdoing it a bit imo...

TrippieHippie89 · Apr 17, 2008, 03:24 PM // 15:24

your build seems solid, although i prefer ranger to paragon's in most situations

with the para, as said before...power return isnt helping your pressure out at all, switch to p-spike or cry of frustration to catch sigs

also an easy way to stop b-surgers is to shatter/drain/inspired thier attunement, then pleak one of the following spells

also on the flag runner, this may just be me but i dont like dark escape+dash, dash seems like its more than enough mobility...can't quite put my finger on what's missing though as i dont know much about flagger bars, also for less experienced players hex breaker will probably be of more use than concentration on the b surge

youve got a solid balanced, now all you need is practice, make sure to keep your players on thier core spots, as switching around every game isnt doing anyone any good

good luck

lutz · Apr 17, 2008, 06:18 PM // 18:18

For Mesmers, the key to RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GOing up teams is not to interrupt every skill you see, or even most skills you see. There are only a few critical skills, and these skills are the ones you want to interrupt/Divert. These skills depend on whether your team is on the offensive or defensive.

Skills to Shut Down on the Offensive:
Aegis/Defensive Anthem/Ward Against Melee: This is known as passive defense. This makes warriors angry. Interrupt these. Diversioning one of these isn't as useful, largely because you're only increasing their recharge by a factor of two (most of the time). Bad monks will give away their Aegis by using Glyph beforehand, so watch for that.
Blinding Surge: You want to diversion this. If the other team is bad, their Blinding Surge is probably spamming the skill on recharge, so just count to 2.7 after they use their BSurge, then use Diversion on your Shield Set (so you don't get a half cast). If they have Hex Breaker, PLeak their Ward and shatter/inspire off their Attunement.
Word of Healing, after an infuse: If a monk just infused, they're probably going to Word of Healing themselves back up. If you have Power Lock equipped, then this is a great time to Power Lock the WoH, or throw a diversion on the monk. Even if you Power Drain or Power Leak the WoH, it gives another 3 seconds of time where the RC is going to have to hard prot the WoH and waste energy, or use less efficient heals (Dismiss, Gift).
Restore Condition, if they are pushing in a flagger: Your Cripshot puts Cripple on their flagger. They want to stop crippled. Make them unable to remove it.
Guardian, right before a spike: Self-explanitory. Makes monks use more energy to prot up a target.
Holy Veil/hex removal, if a critical hex is placed on another target: Self explanitory.
Any skill after a monk is Knocked Down: (only applies to bad monks) Quarter-interrupt them after they get up.
If possible, Shame/Diversion monks on spikes and Shatter useful enchants (e.g. Guardian, Spirit Bond).

Of course, the situation always changes. Diverting Monk elites is always good. PLeak almost always does something, regardless of what skill you interrupt, but it's probably better to interrupt something useful. If you have Power Block, any prot skill on a RC is good to interrupt. Every interrupt should have a reason. Interrupting Dismiss Condition is pretty stupid unless you've diverted everything on their bar.

Skills to Shut Down on the Defensive:
Diversion
Shame
Snares (Cripshot, Water Hexes, Ward Against Foes) - especially if you are pushing in a flagger
Big Damage from Casters (Lightning Orb, Shatterstone, etc.)
Splinter Weapon, if you're in a chokepoint, or if it's VoD
Apply Poison (Cry of Frustration, if you have it - only interrupt this if there's really nothing else to sit on)

Tearz1993 · Apr 17, 2008, 07:55 PM // 19:55

^
And getting Spirit Bond by using Diversion a couple seconds (couple meaning like 2?) before the spike.

sir saber · Apr 19, 2008, 07:03 AM // 07:03

wow tat advice on interruption is really useful for my mesmer. And also on how to counter that irritating Bsurge build that is almost 100% in every gvg balance build we face (althou we used it to).Thanks.

Anyways i will consider tripplehippie, Divinus Stella and Tearz1993 advice on the balance build i shall go tweak it, maybe changing
a)paragon for a ranger most likey crip shot(since it will also help during a split)
b)hex breaker for the bsurge
c)take out flesh of my flesh for rez sig on the mesmer
d)body blow on axe warrior since LO being used during spike
e)flag runner swaping dark escape for recuparation?
and will post the updated build again later.
Anyways i got a couple of questions(yet again)

1. We are currently planning to switch to imperial isle and test out JR advice on imperial isle. coz we didnt play on tat map often and we rare relatively newbie in gvg, is there any advice/tactics that is applicable to tat map?

2. Scimages styles for gvg training. I'm tinking is there any match up i can do in scrimages ( maybe 1v1, 2v2, 3v3 or 4v4) to have specialised training for them(i.e training for interrupt - so we have a scrimage of mesmer + ranger vs
2 monks) so we can observe ourself and learn more efficiently even when we dun have a full team. Is there any other alternative training? (maybe go TA with a split team - hammer warrior+Rc monk+mesmer+ranger)

3. Another question will be on calling. I know that most caller and tactics calling will be the frontline shock axe warrior. During gvgs, i observe that our calling becomes mess-up when we are under pressure...it is later deduced that the shock axe warrior has alot of responsibility on him and wouldnt be able to call spike effectively when he have to focus on tactics at the same time (especially when the enemy split n stuff). So im wondering is it beta to have a seperate tactics caller? If i would be to appoint a 2nd tactics caller who should it be(ranger)? What would his role normally encompass?(when to pull back/push? who to pressure who?leading a split?)

4.noob forum question, How to put quotes of others in my post?(like the one in JR where he quotes my question)

Thanks guys for helping me out here. i have to admit gvg is really really hard to play well unlike the other competitive pvp out there.

DutchSmurf · Apr 19, 2008, 10:27 AM // 10:27

Quote:

Originally Posted by sir saber

2. Scimages styles for gvg training. I'm tinking is there any match up i can do in scrimages ( maybe 1v1, 2v2, 3v3 or 4v4) to have specialised training for them(i.e training for interrupt - so we have a scrimage of mesmer + ranger vs 2 monks) so we can observe ourself and learn more efficiently even when we dun have a full team. Is there any other alternative training? (maybe go TA with a split team - hammer warrior+Rc monk+mesmer+ranger)

Having a scrimmage between mesmer+ranger vs 2monks doesn't work, because for the training to be effective, the monks need to be casting like they would in a normal situation. With only a mesmer and a ranger against them, they won't be doing that. What you can consider is trying things like Rit+BSurge vs Rit(or monk)+Warrior+Mesmer. Or, if you drop the paragon, add the ranger instead of the mesmer. More like a standard gank situation, so fight in the base of the BSurge.

Quote:

Originally Posted by sir saber

4.noob forum question, How to put quotes of others in my post?(like the one in JR where he quotes my question)

At the bottom of each post there is a QUOTE button, try using that one. If that isn't what you mean, you can use the (QUOTE=username).....(?QUOTE) command, but replace the ( with [ (and the ) with ] ).

lutz · Apr 19, 2008, 04:53 PM // 16:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by sir saber

3. Another question will be on calling. I know that most caller and tactics calling will be the frontline shock axe warrior. During gvgs, i observe that our calling becomes mess-up when we are under pressure...it is later deduced that the shock axe warrior has alot of responsibility on him and wouldnt be able to call spike effectively when he have to focus on tactics at the same time (especially when the enemy split n stuff). So im wondering is it beta to have a seperate tactics caller? If i would be to appoint a 2nd tactics caller who should it be(ranger)? What would his role normally encompass?(when to pull back/push? who to pressure who?leading a split?)

It doesn't matter what position tactics are called from. You just need the person who can do it best to call tactics. I know [vD] has their tactics called from their ranger, and [ dR] doesn't really have a set, central tactics caller. Generally, though, most lower level teams put their shockaxe as the tactics caller because the shockaxe knows the position of the other team best. However, once you get into higher level GvG, everyone is going to have to watch the field very carefully, so really once you're in that level everyone is in a position to call tactics.

Syron · Apr 20, 2008, 10:27 AM // 10:27

With more and more experience everyone in your team should be aware of the situation and call basic tactics, but for now i'd say have one of your warriors call tactics and have your shock-axe call spikes. (the hammer war may sometimes knock one of the monks during the spike)

It's always important to provide information for your tactic caller, otherwise he won't be able to do his job properly.

Examples:
- your monks should tell (or better shout at) you what prevents them from healing/proting, like the enemy mesmer (especially diversion/shame which can be interrupted) or enemy warriors who frenzy-monkstomp them (especially overextended warriors)
- your midline should inform you about every important spell they've interrupted or diverted, like aegis, wards, diversion/shame, LOrb, etc.
- they should also tell you wether they "just" interrupted or actually dshot something (as it's a 20+ sec shutdown)
- to make things easier for your midline they should provide the number of the monk they interrupted aegis, so everyone knows which monk to watch for another aegis (the other monk ofc)
- if you play with dchop on your axe-war -> same as dshot (even if he himself is tactic caller)
- your flagger should tell your monks when he's going to run through, so they can watch him (= prot + aura him)
- your flagger should shout at you if he gets snared by a ranger or water-ele, so your midline can shut them down and your monks remove the snares.
if they have water-snares, keep up a veil on your flagger to make interruption for your midline easier

In split situations it depends on what you actually split:
- if it's just your ranger or flagger, they have to watch for themselves, as a warrior at the flagstand does hardly know what's going on in your base (or whereever your split is)
- if you send a warrior to split, then he might call tactics for the split, though everyone has to use his brain or your split will fail
- your main tactic caller still should tell you to split offensively (killing archer, snaring/ganking the flagger), defensively (defending your own archers) and who's running flag while your flagger is in the split
- both split-teams (flag and split) should provide information about changes, like change in position (= where your teams currently fight) or change in formation (for example warriors coming to your split)

That's what i can think of right now, ofc there are more things to call, but i hope this gives you some hints on calling

Edit: - always let your team know if your aegis, ward, bsurge, woh, etc. gets interrupted or diverted! Many new players just keep their mouths shut and think their fault (it doesn't even have to be their fault) won't be noticed that way.