Curse

HwN_PwN · Jan 30, 2008, 06:01 AM // 06:01

Hi any tips for a new guild learning to gvg?

Kyrein · Jan 30, 2008, 06:36 AM // 06:36

practice before you try and fight another guild........otherwise theyll most probably own you

Motoko Kusanagi War · Jan 30, 2008, 08:47 AM // 08:47

dont give up when you get owned when starting, thats why alot of players dont like it.

Ray · Jan 30, 2008, 09:42 AM // 09:42

You're gonna lose before you start "winning", also Observer and copy the MOVES you see used in guild battles.

Vonruss · Jan 30, 2008, 10:54 AM // 10:54

HI, My Guild has training nights 2 nights a week and all are welcome to attend,

see this thread for more info http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...php?t=10204763
or this one
http://ocggw.com/forum/comments.php?...page=5#Item_27

Fantastic Pod Cast about the basics to GvG can be found here:
http://ocggw.com/forum/comments.php?...&page=1#Item_6

Basiclly, some generic advice - be prepared to lose and lose bigm, take from those losses, be prepared as a Guild to talk after ever battle about what went right, waht went wrong and how you can improve, the biggest downfall in any GvG Guild/team is loss of motivation due to not being able to see a "light" at the end of the tunnel.

ANy Question you can contact me in Game (IGN Eva Vonruss) or visit my Guilds Webby (http://www.ocggw.com) from a guild that has really developed a strong GvG and PvP interested from with its alliance I am more than willing to help and offer advice where I can

RhanoctJocosa · Jan 30, 2008, 11:30 AM // 11:30

- get every single member of your guild to read the articles by Ensign (ask around or search) and the ones on teamqq.
- ensure every single member of your guild understands every profession and skill in the game, as well as all maps and strategies for each map (and general strategies). again, there are guides/articles here, ask around or search.
- observe as many high end games as you can. try to watch guilds that play similar builds to you.
- before you actually do any gvgs try doing a few 4v4 skirmishes with your main team in different halls (alliance guilds?) and find out how long it takes to bring a flag out, where the paths are, gate locks, npc positioning and how to take them out under time constraints, etc.

gl! D:

DutchSmurf · Jan 30, 2008, 12:35 PM // 12:35

Just play as many matches as you can and don't give up when you lose. Think about why you lost and try to improve at those points. Reading articles helps a little, but just playing and seeing it for yourself works a lot better.

spanktank · Jan 30, 2008, 11:57 PM // 23:57

If u want some real advice here are some pointers :
-Learn how the gvg mechanics work
-Try to find ur own playstyle that fits you and your guild
-Make sure every player in your team understands every profession and their role in gvg
-Find the build/playstyle that fits you and your guild
-Try to boost up your individual skill by lots of playing
-Observe some matches on obs mode so u can learn from it
-After the matches have a little chit-chat about what went wrong or right and discuss what you could have done better
-Lots of practice as a team

HwN_PwN · Jan 31, 2008, 12:43 AM // 00:43

Thanks for all the advice. Well me and my guild talked it over and is trying to run this team build. Please help and say if build is any guild as a beginner gvg guild

2 Wars Shock Axe and dev hammer
1 Cripshot or magebane ranger
1 Rt runner
1 DA or SoR Para
1 E surge mes
2 monks SoD or Rc and WoH
I know its pretty much the same as any other balanced build but is this a good build to start off with?

red orc · Jan 31, 2008, 08:18 AM // 08:18

Quote:

Originally Posted by HwN_PwN

Thanks for all the advice. Well me and my guild talked it over and is trying to run this team build. Please help and say if build is any guild as a beginner gvg guild

2 Wars Shock Axe and dev hammer
1 Cripshot or magebane ranger
1 Rt runner
1 DA or SoR Para
1 E surge mes
2 monks SoD or Rc and WoH
I know its pretty much the same as any other balanced build but is this a good build to start off with?

No DA !
Also if you take a para it leads you to fight 8*8. You will not practice real spliting. I find it less fun, but you can do it.
Anyways choose a build and dont change it. Just learn to get better in a single build. Most new guilds, loose and then say, lets try another build, remember that the problem is not the build, but the play. Stick to one build and get better in it, no matter how much you loose at first.

IMMORTAlMITCH · Jan 31, 2008, 09:07 AM // 09:07

Quote:

Originally Posted by red orc

Also if you take a para it leads you to fight 8*8. You will not practice real spliting.

That's simply not true.

Vonruss · Jan 31, 2008, 09:36 AM // 09:36

Wwll when our Guild Started out we used a DA Para, and to be honest it was great, it was good to be able to use a DA Para with Aegis on our monks,

Offensively we where a little week but Defensively we where very strong and this suited us, as we where able to at least give it a good go, it seemed like we where able to keep ourselves alive longer and really challenge teams which helped our confidence and also gave us a chance to get to play together "AS a Team" and develop our teamwork.

As we got more confident we where able to remove the DA Para, for a SoR Para, and effectually remove all together Running Ele, Mes, Nec even a third melee in its place.

Basically when starting out I think its good to play it safe, stick to basics, learn, and then as you grow slowly remove defense and add in Offense.

red orc · Jan 31, 2008, 12:21 PM // 12:21

Quote:

Originally Posted by IMMORTAlMITCH

That's simply not true.

Mitch is right. If you're not top20, 99% of paragon builds dont split.
You may be that 1%......

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vonruss

Wwll when our Guild Started out we used a DA Para, and to be honest it was great, it was good to be able to use a DA Para with Aegis on our monks,

Offensively we where a little week but Defensively we where very strong and this suited us, as we where able to at least give it a good go, it seemed like we where able to keep ourselves alive longer and really challenge teams which helped our confidence and also gave us a chance to get to play together "AS a Team" and develop our teamwork.

As we got more confident we where able to remove the DA Para, for a SoR Para, and effectually remove all together Running Ele, Mes, Nec even a third melee in its place.

Basically when starting out I think its good to play it safe, stick to basics, learn, and then as you grow slowly remove defense and add in Offense.

DA will only prolong your suffering. You will loose in VOD to the SOR.

Vonruss · Jan 31, 2008, 12:48 PM // 12:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by red orc

DA will only prolong your suffering. You will loose in VOD to the SOR.

Perhaps... but my point was it was given us Game time.. time to play together as a team and develop our team work. Instead of being steam rolled.. panicked.. and not really learning a thing or getting anytime to play a proper game as a 8v8 team.

IMMORTAlMITCH · Jan 31, 2008, 01:19 PM // 13:19

Quote:

Originally Posted by red orc

Mitch is right. If you're not top20, 99% of paragon builds dont split.
You may be that 1%......

90% of the guilds don't split period, this has little to do with paragons, the standard 2w p m r 2mo rt build can split perfectly fine, in fact the partygon is quite a strong character on a split with 3 or more people.

JR · Jan 31, 2008, 05:50 PM // 17:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by IMMORTAlMITCH

90% of the guilds don't split period, this has little to do with paragons, the standard 2w p m r 2mo rt build can split perfectly fine, in fact the partygon is quite a strong character on a split with 3 or more people.

Surely he is far better with the stand team where he will be hitting more people with SoR etc? Having a durable stand team is fairly important to splitting well also.

Signet Of Hell · Feb 03, 2008, 05:42 PM // 17:42

Yep. Taken a topic which was meant to be simple beginners tips and turned it into something more complex then it has to be.

Back to actual purpose - In the beginning, try to play with the same bunch of guys most of the time -this will become how you will always play. Play with that core 8 players, learn how to play with each other, learn each others weaknesses/strengths. Playing together for a long time is ultimately what makes a guild amazing; team synergy. Like others have said, dont rage, that'll be the downfall of your team. Start off simple, scrim other guilds in unrated's and see what you can do to improve your gameplay. Watch Obs for simple things like positioning, movement and simple tricks here and there that will benefit you all. Try to stick with simple builds, remember that your team is only as good as your weakest player, and when you're in a match, try to make sure you arent concentrating too much on the actual whacking of the opponents monks, but try to look at the battle on a larger scale, pay attention to whats going on.

Fire Childe · Feb 18, 2008, 03:23 AM // 03:23

Em, I think it helps to watch observer mode and get an idea of the different maps, how teams navigate those maps and what each team is trying to do.

In gvg theres a bunch of things you want to control and broadly they are as follows:

1) The flag stand. You will probably see many teams can and often do fight with less than 8 dudes in one place at one time and you will often see 1 guy repeatedly running back to base to bring a flag to the stand. When teams are evenly matched, the morale boost for every 2 minutes holding the flag stand makes the difference between winning and losing.

In higher level play, you will see other teams using a combination of things to slow down the opposing team's flag running by bodyblocking their runner, slamming them with slow hexes and trying to push back the other team so their runner cant reach the stand without pushing in too deep.

The flag stand and morale is one of the things you want to control in gvg.

2) npc advantage and ganking/splitting.

npcs are pretty important. If you split and your split team is getting pounded, you can retreat to the safety of your base where the firepower of your npcs can tip the balance in your favour. It is sometimes necessary to heal and protect them and they are a deterrant for other teams trying to push deeper into your base to get your guild lord whilst your team is away.

Ganks are possible early on in maps with guild thieves. If you lose all your npcs and your entire team is fighting far away from your base, your guild lord has no protection and on maps with a guild thief, a small team can sneak in and gank your guild lord while you are miles away.

npc advantage also plays an important role in VoD as whichever team has more npcs when VoD hits (at around 18 minutes or so) gets a +10% dmg boost. As well as having more npc firepower this has led alot of people to say that VoD is really game breaking. Either way, you need to be prepared for VoD and you need to communicate with your team to give them updates on how many npcs you have left, how many npcs on the enemy team you have killed so you can ensure your team has an advantage when it comes to VoD.

Ideally you want to control the flag stand and have the npc advantage before 18 minutes as well as have better team morale (i.e. less of your guys have died than theirs).

3) Ground. You may notice that in gvg many teams organise their players so that in the party window, warriors are at the top of the list, eles, rangers, mesmers etc are in the middle and monks are at the bottom. These are your front, mid and backline respectively. The idea is that your front, mid and back line should be close enough together that your monks can heal your mid and front line. And your backline is far enough back that an enemy team has to push in deep (over extend) to reach them thus making them susceptible. In practise I dont think about it much at all since you just naturally fall into this sort of formation when you play but you do need to be aware of your surroundings as in lower level play you will sometimes see players out of position or so far from a healer that they are easy targets.

If you have to retreat, the ideal way to do so is 'first in last out' - i.e. your warriors are the first in and the last out ot cover your retreat. It isn't always possible to maintain this kind of formation and teams will try to break you out of it, force you into choke points, split etc etc if they cant break your team there and then.

Controlling ground is important as if you cover enough ground that you are on the opposing team's half of the map (past the flag stand) then they will find it much harder to capture the flag and you will find it much easier to keep the stand until you get a morale boost. Sometimes this can force a team to split and try to gank (which in turn forces you to do something in response - usually split as well).

The rest is very very dependant on the situation - you know what you need to control. Figuring out how to control it without losing all your doods is up to you. Voice chat is essential for every member and good communication is what separates good teams from bad teams. When to split, who to leave back in base, when to retreat, when to push for the stand - you must evaluate this all in the game when its happening.

Keep your flag cycling in and out. We have a pre game split strategy but it is subject to change depending on how the enemy splits.

The final general point to make is to not lose a sense of the bigger picture. This is easy when you try to push for the flag too hard or try to kill enemy npcs or play too hesitantly and let the enemy team get morale boost after morale boost.

It takes time, patience and practise to get 8 people comfortable with a build and get the hang of all the maps and develop an awareness of whats going on the field but dont be discouraged. You will lose loads just as we did (and still do

) and just like every team does when they are learning but if you persist, watch replays of your defeats and make notes about what you do wrong and what you can fix, then you will get better with every game.

Also, even though you need a team build, some players are more comfortable with certain skills than others. For instance we have some warrior builds with flail but some of our warrior players just dont like using it and would rather use frenzy/switch stance. You want all your players comfortable with what they are playing within reason. (you still need a build!)

It helps to set up your keyboard and GUI so that everything is easy to reach and all in once place. I have my radar, health bars, condition meters, weapon slots etc all bunched up at the bottom of the screen so I can focus easily on one part of the screen and still see everything thats going on.

I have bound all my keys so they are close together and my most used spammable skills are bound to mouse buttons 4, 5 and 6 for quick access. This type of thing makes a big difference as people comfortable with playing a build will not crumble or panic as easily when things go awry. All it takes is 1 guy not doing what they are supposed to to collapse a team. Its easy to mash the wrong buttons or take too long to use a skill if you arent comfortable with your keyboard layout and take too long to react to whats happening on screen because all your meters and stuff are spread all over the screen. Most actions I do via keyboard shortcuts because its faster than moving the mouse around on screen. After a while you develop a sort of 'muscle memory' and you fingers naturally find the right keys without even looking at the keyboard (so you can pay attention to whats happening on screen!). Its rather like playing guitar in the sense that after a while you dont even think about what you are pressing - your fingers just find the right spot instinctively.

Keep it simple at first. Try not to theorycraft too much and dont be overly concerned about your rank or losing ranks. We learn the most by playing and losing against good teams and then figuring out what they did right and what we did wrong then trying not to repeat our mistakes. We lose an awful lot. But its ok - even the really good teams make mistakes too - they just do it alot less often because they have done their losing streaks ages ago and learnt from many of their mistakes.

You seem to want to run a balanced build so I tailored some of this post to fit it. Even still you need to know what the build is good at, what it is bad at and what you can and cant get away with. The fastest way to do that is to just play it and lose loads but take notes over when and where you mess up.

Try not to get into a mentality where if you have a para on your team you will have to fight 8 vs 8. Those types of judgement calls can't be made in a forum - if you have to fight 8 vs 8 or split (and in what proportion), thats a decision you have to make in game and you need to agree on it quickly and just do it. If its a bad call then what the hell. Its a bad call and you just learned something new.

Also try not to get into this mentality that builds auto win gvgs. Loads of people say sineptitude is broken (and I suppose it is in the hands of a really great team). But there are plenty of top 1000 guilds that play sineptitude really badly and if you were organised, aware and had good communication you could beat them even if your build isn't specced for it.

Edit: Tried to keep things simple but might have missed a bunch of things or am not articulating things properly. Say if something is confusing or badly worded.

newbie_of_doom · Feb 18, 2008, 11:07 AM // 11:07

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ray

You're gonna lose before you start "winning", also Observer and copy the MOVES you see used in guild battles.

Ye like you can copy tactics from observer, gogo. Try not to play anything to tacticful. Take burning isle and play 8v8, once you get better you can play more tactics. If you want to learn really fast you can play BYOB but if you have no experience you will probably fail. GL.

Byron · Feb 19, 2008, 03:33 PM // 15:33

Start simple and work your way up. Trying to play a balanced build without any experience in gvg play is the dumbest thing I could think of doing.

Try easy builds like ranger spike or rainbow spike until you get a feel for gvg play. If you try to run something more complex like balanced or split builds, you're probably gonna get rolled. Don't even worry about the "tactics" the above posts are discussing.