Curse

Clusmas · Feb 16, 2006, 10:33 PM // 22:33

So you come up against a build that split the second the gates open. Do you:

a.Split to meet their split.
Stacks of ways you can do this.

b.Forget about the tower for the time being and go for the gank squad.
Forfeit holding the tower with a quick killing of the gank squad in mind. You are left with two further options:
i.Fall back to your base and meet them at the door.
If you do this I think it's pretty much GG. They'll press up on two fronts completely pinning you down. You have no chance of gaining morale and they'll be hovering over that catapult lever incase someone makes a mistake in straying a little too far.
ii.Charge through the tower and follow them around the back way.
A good idea in that it gives the gank squad nowhere to go. It does however involve running through enemy lines which is risky, sometimes suicidal. If they maintain the split though and the gank squad gets ahead of you, there's the potentional to end up in exactly the same situation as above, pinned. What you can end up doing is having the tower squad chasing you down as you chase the gank, or the gank running all the way back around to the tower. Either is good, as it means you'll be fighting 8v8 or 7v7, which is what you want if you are not taking option a.

c.Forget about the gank squad for the time being and go for the tower. NOT recommended.

JR · Feb 17, 2006, 12:00 AM // 00:00

Go back to your base as a team, and push them out quickly. Snare their theif, and if possible kill it after the two minute mark to lock them out for a long period. Then push right back out to the flag stand. This is of course if you are playing a build that has a far superior split to yours.

Warskull · Feb 17, 2006, 01:25 AM // 01:25

Against a good split team you cannot out split them. They are built from the ground up to split. If they execute it properly their split should be stronger than your split. My suggestion is take your time and function as a group. If you drop the thief they can't go into your base. After dealing with the gankers try to take control of the flag stand. Deny them morale boosts as your DP them out. Do not try to win the game quickly. A split team can usually easily delay the game to VoD if they have to. Just control the map and work on getting kills 8v4 when you can.

glenn_rolfe · Feb 17, 2006, 02:03 AM // 02:03

ah yes, the starting split.

There's many ways to handle this, but remember, above all they're trying to create mismatches, and trying to slowly chip away at your noc's to have an advantage at VoD. Or even force your whole team back into the base, sit at catapult and just play the running game whenever you ge near them.

One tactic we've found is to send a healer and someone else (depends on the make-up of their gank squad - anti-warrior or anti-caster with extra heals) to turtle the lord and make it too difficult for them to take out bodyguards and archers around the guild lord. This leaves 5-6 others to go and force into their base and start overwhelming them. This also leaves a greater chance of holding the flag stand too because their runner will either have to camp back with the defense or risk the defense being quickly overwhelmed. In this tactic, you've created a mismatch. And having them turtled into their guild lord because of you being in their base, you can slowly send others back to push out their gank squad, now having complete control of their catapult and being direct threat to their guild lord.

Neo-LD · Feb 17, 2006, 02:04 AM // 02:04

usually you should design a decent split into your build when its being created so that its easier to deal with split teams. One option, if their split is superior to yours, is to split 5/3 and use your 5 to push the stand while the 3 defend the base and use the lord room to reverse their manpower disadvantage.

btw, theres lots of good advice about slaying the guild theif here, but what about matches that are not on warriors/hunters/wizards isle?

Vermilion Okeanos · Feb 17, 2006, 06:39 AM // 06:39

In my opinion, it really really really depend on your build.

Same tactics does not apply to different builds... a simple example would be how are you going to do spike if your build can't spike?

It is a good idea to have a general knowledge of anti-split, but the rest is up to your build's flexibility.

Personally, I prefer reverse offensive. When they send one team to your base, you send one to theirs; the left over would deal with people inside your base, and their left over would be force to go into their own base; therefore, battle progress on the even level if all go accordingly.

Patrograd · Feb 17, 2006, 12:45 PM // 12:45

I think that this must be a playstyle issue. I have seen some teams who can cope with splits while remaining as an eight, but whenever we do it we lose. Whenever we run a counter split however, well mostly anyway, we win.

it seems that when we stay together, and return to "deal" with the gankers, they drop ward foes in a choke point, and charge off into the distance. So we pick up the next flag, and run it. While we run the flag they return, kill another NPC, and charge off again as soon as we enter radar range. In the end we lose a bodyguard, then another then we're stuffed. it seems to us that staying as an eight means that we either surrender the flag, or the bodyguards. Clearly this is no contest, so we have to surrender the flag. Seems a bit lame to me.

If we take a 5-3 split however, and make the assumption right off the bat that this battle is going to VoD we seem to win. The three have only one purpose - to keep the bodyguards, Gl and archers surrounding the GL alive. The outlying archers are sacrificed. they dont leave the area where the BGs are for anything, except perhaps to run the flag as far as the gate (if the other team dont have the cata).

The team of five meanwhile runs the flag, and after capping presses on into the enemy NPCs, returning to run the flag again only after recap. Almost always the nett result of this strategy is one of two things. Either the split squad team comes back together as an 8 and tries to hold the flag, which is perfect, as we just reform and kill them, or, more likely, we basically all stand around not engaging with each other until 35 minutes when they are forced to fight us as an eight. Either scenario is fine, although the latter is extremely boring.

Like i say though, this is almost certainly down to the kind of builds that we run, that we always design with this 5-3 split in mind, and to our playstyle as a team. other teams may find that staying together as an eight as JR suggests is the correct strat for their build and playstyle, but we have found that unless we are playing an exceptional team, or unless we go into brain meltdown (and both things can happen, sometimes together :-)) that running a counter split and creating a mismatch in our favour is the way to go, it gives us control of what is happening, as opposed to running all over the shop playing to their agenda.

Clusmas · Feb 18, 2006, 02:02 AM // 02:02

Thanks for your replies everyone, all very helpful ideas.

Quote:

Originally Posted by JR-

Go back to your base as a team, and push them out quickly. Snare their theif, and if possible kill it after the two minute mark to lock them out for a long period. Then push right back out to the flag stand. This is of course if you are playing a build that has a far superior split to yours.

This seems like a good idea, but what happens if their second team enters your base with consume corpse or traversal while you're chasing the first back to the stand?
Or did you mean try to kill the theif and leave the gank squad floating uslessly while you go out the front way to the tower?

JR · Feb 18, 2006, 01:45 PM // 13:45

Quote:

Originally Posted by Clusmas

This seems like a good idea, but what happens if their second team enters your base with consume corpse or traversal while you're chasing the first back to the stand?
Or did you mean try to kill the theif and leave the gank squad floating uslessly while you go out the front way to the tower?

Pretty much. Locked outside with no way back in the worst they can do is kill a couple of archers on the wall while you kick back at the flagstand. If they have a second means of entering, such as a consume corpse guy, just keep running back and pushing them out. It wont take long before he runs out of corpses anyway. The key I think is playing aggressively; keep pushing them back out of the side of your base and killing their theif just after the two minute mark where possible, this way when you push back out to the flag stand they have no real option but to take you head on or stay in their base while the theif is down. Forcing them into a head on confrontation is probably to your advantage, as your build should be superior in straigth 8 vs 8. And if they decide to stay in their base, then you still get the boosts.

The important thing is not to let them stretch it out to VoD. A split build will almost invariably kill more NPCs earlier on in the game, giving them a large advantage when VoD rolls around and then they can afford to face you at the stand.

Guardian of the Light · Feb 19, 2006, 07:34 AM // 07:34

Split squad is pretty much IWAY for gvg. If you know how to beat them your good, if you don't your @#$%@$# screwed.

subNinja · Feb 19, 2006, 04:13 PM // 16:13

Split? That's the only REAL way to beat a split squad. If you're good you'll know that you have to be prepared for any kind of team. If that means being prepared to use some tactics, well you'd best be prepared. Of course, on the other hand, spike teams and teams which REQUIRE 8 people (most of the gimmick builds) will have to do a lot of moving around (as a group) to try to block a split.

Calin Metallic · Feb 19, 2006, 05:38 PM // 17:38

If your organized enough then split to match them, if not follow JR's strategy.
If you do just push back then the other tower squad can just block you in and you'd be in a very unsafe spot for your backline. (monks/casters)

Patrograd · Feb 20, 2006, 11:22 AM // 11:22

the trick with running a counter split is communication and aggression, as with so many other things in GvG. That flag squad needs to be really brave and go for it sometimes, and they really need to know when the enemy gank team are coming back to reform. If they cant get in there and kill enemy NPCs then its GG, because as JR correctly points out, these days at VoD you can effectively count the NPCs on both teams at 30 minutes and decide the winner based on that. It is worth taking a couple or more casualties in order to kill the enemy bodyguards, especially once you get past about 20 minutes. If you can get into VoD with your bodyguards alive and theirs dead then you should really win, as you should get a morale boost circa 32 /33 mins if you play it correctly.

Even if you cant kill bodyguards, every dead enemy archer is one less threat to worry about in Vod, as it is likely that your own archers (well the majority of them) will have been killed if you split defensively.

The problem with adopting a 'kill the guild thief' strategy is that on 50% of maps there is no guild thief, and most of the gank teams play on either druids or frozen for obvious reasons (lack of a guild thief being one of them, as the guild thief pathing AI is pretty crap and she will often miss "charge" as a result)

Poison Ivy · Feb 20, 2006, 11:30 AM // 11:30

Depends on how they spilt.

If it's a team of 4 thats spiliting, it's best to rush the 4 that are trying to buy time and rush the other team thats assulting your guild lord. Sometimes, things might get out of hand, personally I'd choose a monk and run back to give the guild lord a fast heal, about then the group thats suppose to distract should be dead, and you can defend your guild lord once again.

The more that are going for your guild lord, the faster you need to get back to him.

I had one gvg where we ganked their guild lord with only a Axe Warrior and me (SS Necro) and they had their full team trying to kill ours with 6 of us defending him...best gank ever

TomD22 · Feb 25, 2006, 12:13 AM // 00:13

I'd favour what someone said above - split 5/3 and have 3 turtle while 5 go and pressure them as much as possible, making sure to control the stand enough to deny them morale boosts.

Billiard · Feb 25, 2006, 01:09 AM // 01:09

One thing that I would suggest is running a split squad yourself to see how other teams counter you and what works and what does not. You really need to know how things work from both sides in order to have an effect strategy and effective movment. Once you understand how they tick, you want to take actions which dictate to them what they will do, rather than have them dictate your movement. One thing that you can do is be very agressive in attacking their base/body guards/guild lord. If you send a small defensive squad back they should be able to hold out against a 3-4 man split squad while the majority of your offense will be able to take down their other squad or NPCs rather quickly.

The bottom line though is that your build has to be made so that it can effectively split, or you have to have enough speed boosts and snares that you can punish a team for splitting on you.

zoozoc · Feb 25, 2006, 05:25 AM // 05:25

Yes, camping the guild lord with a healer and someone else is probably the best stratagy to counter a split team if your build has trouble splitting. Though the problem with this is of course the flag runner is wide open to get ganked and they may decide to suddenly leave and gank your main team maybe leaving a cripple shot to slow you down or something. All my guild does is different split teams, and it is pretty hard to counter unless you can split along the lines of how they split. But if you dont have any way of splitting, you are at a bad disadvantage. Really with split it relies a lot on player skill rather then the build. Since it usually ends up being a bunch of 4v4 fights or something of that manner, skill makes a huge difference. The only time our guild has ever lost(besides ppl dropping from err=7) is when the opposing team succesfully split and stopped our offense from killing any npcs and keeping us from getting morale.

ramma77 · Feb 25, 2006, 10:49 AM // 10:49

Dont need a thief.

Consume Corpse or Necrotic Traversal and you're in.

We had someone spilt on us the other night. The 4 they left at the stand were dead in about 20 seconds. Their Guild lord about 2 mins later. Stupidly they didn't come back to help out.

zoozoc · Feb 26, 2006, 06:30 PM // 18:30

Quote:

Originally Posted by ramma77

Dont need a thief.

Consume Corpse or Necrotic Traversal and you're in.

We had someone spilt on us the other night. The 4 they left at the stand were dead in about 20 seconds. Their Guild lord about 2 mins later. Stupidly they didn't come back to help out.

Considering they tried to fight you 8v4, they were a bad split team.