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tastegw · Feb 03, 2007, 03:32 AM // 03:32

GvG Basics - reffering to builds and stratagies

i am only making this post for 2 reasons,

the first and most important reason is:
i will be sending some guild members and alliance members to this url so they can read up and catch a jist of what its all about.

2nd reason is:
for anyone who just doesnt know the basics and hasnt read it anywhere else and just happen to brouse upon this thread.

contents:

1)finding your 8 players
2)making or creating your team build
2b) Flavor of the Month Builds (fotm)
3)assigning roles to indiviuals
4)drawing up battle plans
5)flag running
6)Victory or Death (vod)
7)the after battle disscusion

1:Finding your Core of 8-12 Players:

It is very important who you play with and how the group plays together. If your the creator of a guild or orginizing the team you need to make sure you have a group that can get along and understand each other.
Once you find this core of players and you begin to play day after day with each other simple tasks start to just blend in and the entire teams outcome starts to look more promising.
Alot of you out there can relate to this, as you have come from another game with the same group of friends and are playing GW's together.
It is quite obvious why it is better to play with people you are familiar with than it is to "pug" or guest players to get a gvg battle started. So im not gonna ramble on about that.
So finding your Core players shouldnt be too hard if you allready have a pack of friends to begin with, just plug in the remaining roles with players that you think fit into the mix.
This is so basic but it is one of the most important things that can make or break a guild.

2:Making or Creating your team build:

First you need to sit down and chat with your guild members on what they would like to do with it. Get everyones opinions and go from there.
Second you need to decide what it is that your looking for in your team build (spike, pressure, split, etc..)
After the first 2 steps are completed, you can now start looking into what skills compiment each other and you can map out individual builds and then test and hold discusions on how to improve those individual builds.
After all that, you need to assign your players to these positions, but ill get to that later on.
Some things you may want to consider in your "Balanced" team builds (if that is your style) a few great defensive skills and stratagies that will take a large portion of pressure off your monks.
Anti melee/physical damage skills, effective hex and condition removals, map layout and positions for your players ( no i dont mean stand at point x untill the sun dies).
Try not to leave a major weakness for your team. Speed buffs come in handy for most gvg battles. A player(s) with a "hard" rez ( a rez other than rez sig) , Snares (slow downs) to be used on enemy team.
All of these aspects (and more) need to be looked over and plugged in where needed, NOT WHERE IT JUST FITS.

2b: Flavor of the Month Builds:
Many many players in the community look for websites to decide their team builds. i discourage this act and strongly feel you should stray from this idea of running FotM builds.
The obvious reason is, if your running a build that a large percentage of others are running, chances are, many teams prepare well for your build and it will be ineffective vs these teams.
The other reason is, you and your guildmates will not learn much from running such builds. when you tend to follow the leaders, you will never be one of the leaders. Break out of the box and start the next FotM.
Here is the thing, if you start the gvg battle and your running a certain FotM build, then you see say opposing team rank 4 on the ladder, and they just so happen to be the creators of the buidl your running, you have

allmost no chance at winning that battle, because guess who runs that build better, not you and your guild. So stray away from the flavors and make your own, the reward will feel so much better if you do.

3:Assigning Roles to individuals:

One simply cant say "jane your running the monk" "jim your running the warrior" "joe your running the mage". Ask your members what they are comfortable at playing and make sure they have the needed skills

required and the knowledge on how to run the skillbar.
If Jane is ok with playing monk and warrior but joe cant play monk well but can play warrior, dont put jane on the warrior just because she isnt in the mood to play the monk. Balance it out with your members, have

them practice the builds they are givin in their spare time in pve or Random Arenas. The more experience a player has at his skillbar the team will be that much better as a whole.
Try and mix things up if guild members like to role change. Say Jane and Joe both like monking and both like playing mesmer. have them switch roles from night to night or as often as they wish.
Keep your members informed on skill changes and meta game changes so they can best be prepaired for battle.

4

rawing up Battle Plans:

It is important NOT to go into battle with no plan other than bashing in the other teams face. You need to have atleast 2 battle plans but 3 at best.
Battle plans are your stratagies and tactics. Lets say you choose your first plan to run to flag stand as a team and try to win the flag stand battle and push enemy team inside their base. But when you get to the

flag stand and see that the enemy team is packing a serious rolling build and your not prepaired for it, you then must revent to plan B or skip to plan C.
these such plans can be, split your team and fight them at their weaknesses, move as a group and "run" them around the map picking off npc's as you go, turtling inside your base and waiting for vod push, etc...
You need to communicate with your guild members on what to do in certain situations BEFORE the battle starts. Have a plan to gain moral boosts (witch ill get to next).
When its all said and done and you have your plans layed out for your members, the gvg match will go alot smoother than if there was no plan(s)

5:Flag running/runner(s)

Assign one or more flag runners to the squad. 2 is the best choice because it gives you more vesitility to your team for certain situations. Make sure the flag runner(s) have self heal(s) and a speed buff.
Also make sure they can still dish out a helping hand in battle via DAMAGE and if you can fit in healing or other means of protection for the team that is an added benifit. But nothing is worse than a flag runner all

alone by himself and getting bothered by a enemy player and not being able to do any damage at all to him. you are for sure not going to get to the flag stand in a decent amount of time when you constantly gotta

stop and heal. by atleast doing some damage you can ward off that enemy and make haste at your job.
The benifits of 2 flag runners is all about relay speed and versitility. Runner 1 says he is incoming with the flag and is entering the teams range. Runner 2 takes off to head for base to get another flag.
this will allmost ensure that your team allways has the stand captured. maybe not getting moral yet, but when the time comes it will make it that much easier to get that moral.
Another benifit is, somebody will see the base alot more to see if any enemies are approaching it and can identify what team members need to react to the situation. with just one runner, he/she will see the base

less frequent, and this could cause your team to lose one or more npc's
A typical flag runner should be able to withstand a solo enemy. Snares are highly recommended aswell as speed bososts and self healing. nomatter what the character type, there are options to be looked into.

6:Victory or Death:

As we all know, VoD is started @ 20 minutes into the game (use to be 30 and even higher than that in previous months). You need to have plans ready for VoD for your team. Dont wait until Vod to decide what you

want to do because this can waste some critical time for your team.
There are too many situations for me to go over, just make sure you have a plan for each one. Also, prepare yourself and your team for VoD if you know its gonna come by attemping to kill off a few or as many

npc's as you can. npc's may be weak when facing only 1 or two of them, but put the entire npc team together and they can whipe out a herd pretty quick after vod.
Try and bring some skills that really benifit from VoD, Wastrels Worry comes to mind as one of these skills.
Remember Hexes and Conditions expire alot faster on the Guild Lord and should be greatly considered on what to bring to battle so when it comes time to attempt to take out a guild lord time and effort isnt wasted.
Be Prepared!

7: the after battle discusion:
This one is just simple, if any member on your team feels they need to make a comment about a skill, stratagy, or build, let them address it with the team and fix and discuss the problem(s) if there are any.
Get input from members on how they thought the battle when and what improvements could be made.
When you dont do this, your team tends to fail at the same things over and over and it gets discouraging.
BE COMMUNICATIVE!

if you made it this far thru my ramblings, i congrat you. if you didnt and just skipped to the bottom to get your congrats, then poop on you

anyways, i hope all of you reading this can gain some insights on how and what to do for your future gvg battles.

have a nice day.