Guild Wars 2

I’m fairly new to pvp (approx 200 unranked games and 40 ranked games). I always queue by myself. I’m playing in emerald tier right now with a condi mesmer build (below). It’s not the all-wells bunker, but it’s pretty survivable. I feel like if I play it well, I can win basically any 1v1 (I have definitely lost 1v1 to more skillful players). I can hold out against two players for a while depending on how well they coordinate their attacks.

Given all that, my goal is to help my team as much as possible. So I usually start the match by telling my team in chat “I can start at home”. If nobody else wants to start at home, I can usually get there quickly and get it capped before enemies arrive (this depends a bit on the map).

From this point, my strategy looks like this:
- If I see incoming enemies, I call it out in team chat and try to hold out as long as I can
- If I don’t see anyone, I try to go to mid and support the team in the fight while retaining the ability to hopefully see anyone pushing toward home and get back to defend

Overall, this works okay. So, finally, here is my question – does this strategy make sense given my build, solo-queueing approach and level? What refinements that would make it better?

Thanks for any advice to help me improve!

Here’s the current build I use:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQNAreWnknBlphVoBeoBEgilnj6sACgDreQP0FFdxynDA-TJxHwACOFAA3f4YZAAPBAA

I would be careful about going mid, rather than sitting on home as a condi “bunker”.

With that small health pool, and no portal, it could be pretty easy for someone to decap home, as you don’t have a whole lot of healing. So rotating out of a fight to protect home is likely to leave you with hefty cooldowns, and little health.

Also, you might consider running sigils of generocity rather than leeching.

You have 40% crit, so it could come in handy on transferring a few conditions.

Honestly though, my biggest suggestion is to learn how to portal, and be more of a condi roamer. Which seems to be what you’re kind of playing at already.

Being a roamer, you generally start off going mid, drop a port. And then rotate to a fight you can +1, probably on home, but you might stay mid if home is a 1v2, or go far for the quick decap.

So, first of all, you can expect some people to come here and give you pieces of advice such as “play a meta build” and such. But you don’t have to worry about that yet: play what you feel comfortable with.

Your strategy makes a lot of sense: you’re not super useful in team fight with this build, and you’re definitely a worthless +1 in a 1v1, but your build looks good in 1v1 and capable of keeping a point capped. So playing home holder is a good idea: with blink, you can prevent a decap from most builds. You could also try to play Portal to prevent any decap, and to offer a useful team utility.

Supporting mid (opposed to decapping far) is a good option with your build because you have a couple of useful team fighting abilities: mainly Chaos Storm, Gravity Well and the Illusion traitline. To be even more useful, you could try to use Medic’s Feedback in the Adept tier.

Good luck. Congrats for being willing to improve.

edit: two answers posted at the same time, two very different points of view :P

Thanks – that’s really helpful!

I really do wish I could make use of the precision in the amulet, but nothing that I’ve tried seems very efficient. Condis usually aren’t the biggest problem for me since the shatters all remove condis, the heal clears two, and I can pop the illusions signet and get four more clears. But maybe generosity is still a better option. Leeching helps both with healing and against diamond skin eles (though that’s usually a stalemate)

I can try the idea of going mid and then being able to rotate to other points and come back. In these pug matches, there isn’t always a lot of communication to let me know where to go. But this is still something interesting to try – thx!

Thx – I made my reply before the second answer. Indeed, two different answers.

Thx much for the input. I have some things to try for sure.

I think when I +1 a fight, I can make a decent difference if I go through my lockdown sequence (continuum shift, gravity well x2, tides of time x2). That can tip the scales.

eldenbri.1059:

Thx – I made my reply before the second answer. Indeed, two different answers.

Thx much for the input. I have some things to try for sure.

I think when I +1 a fight, I can make a decent difference if I go through my lockdown sequence (continuum shift, gravity well x2, tides of time x2). That can tip the scales.

To be fair.
The +1’ing and roaming suggestion should’ve came with a disclaimer:
“You’ll have to shift your build around this”.

The job of a roamer isn’t to cap points, win 1v1s, or to fight fairly in general.
You go in, you do all of your damage and try to get a kill, and then you rotate out.
(generally)

So a lot of defensive things aren’t necessary.
Like shield, for instance.

Although shield isn’t a bad pick either. I still sometimes like using shield when roaming on chrono shatter.

Thx – this is all really helpful for me.

There are definitely cases where I’m orbiting around home, and I’ll see a teammate engaged in a 1v1. I usually try to hop in and dump a fair amount of CC’s and condi (having scepter 3 on a quick cast with malicious sorcery is nice) and then move back to the point. That feels pretty useful, but the off-point fights I can join in are not that common.

1 home 4 mid. Don’t go far. Pretty simple but most ppl don’t get it.
After that READ THE MINI MAP.
only go far if you KNOW you can win the 1 v 1 in 40 seconds or less .

Mogar.9216:

1 home 4 mid. Don’t go far. Pretty simple but most ppl don’t get it.
After that READ THE MINI MAP.
only go far if you KNOW you can win the 1 v 1 in 40 seconds or less .

Why is not going far a good thing?

Seriously is the dumbest thing that gets repeated over and over again in this game. If a team does a 1-3-1 split and you go 1-4. That means you have a contested home, they capped far and you literally would have to kill somebody in 10 sec at mid in a 4 vs 3 to win that point.

Best yet, the person at home loses to the person running a 1 vs 1 build. The other team sent 2 bunkers to mid who support one another so you didnt get the kill there and now your triple capped.

Just like anything else in this game its about winning even number fights and taking advantage of odd number fights. Simply put if you couldnt win 3 vs 3 at mid its your fault not the person who went far. Home got decapped and person lost the far fight. The question becomes how come no one at mid was counting heads and saw you were fighting 4 vs 3/2/1 if you were getting the kills and capped it?

Im seeing so many people in the ruby/diamond rank who have no clue what they are talking about and that needs to stop.

From my point of view as a lower-rank player playing in pugs, I think the tricky thing is that I don’t really know what to expect.

So here’s an example that just happened on Niflhel
- I said I would go home. A couple people said mid.
- I barely get on henge when an enemy scrapper shows up. We battle on the point for what seems like an eternity (maybe 30+ seconds). I finally down him and cap the point.
- Now I look around chieftain has not been killed, it looks like we have 3 on mid and 1 on far. I decide to kill chieftain.
- It still looks like 3 on mid and 1 on far, so I decide to go support mid. It’s too late. The battle has turned and we get wiped.

For me, the trick is that I don’t really know how fights should go, so I probably make some bad decisions. If the group decides to clearly go just 1 – 4, it reduces the number of decisions we need to make.

BTW – thx to some nice play from folks on the team, we ended up winning that match despite having the setback. But often, it feels like an early wipe at mid can be the beginning of the end.

kdaddy.5431:

Mogar.9216:

1 home 4 mid. Don’t go far. Pretty simple but most ppl don’t get it.
After that READ THE MINI MAP.
only go far if you KNOW you can win the 1 v 1 in 40 seconds or less .

Why is not going far a good thing?

Seriously is the dumbest thing that gets repeated over and over again in this game. If a team does a 1-3-1 split and you go 1-4. That means you have a contested home, they capped far and you literally would have to kill somebody in 10 sec at mid in a 4 vs 3 to win that point.

Best yet, the person at home loses to the person running a 1 vs 1 build. The other team sent 2 bunkers to mid who support one another so you didnt get the kill there and now your triple capped.

Just like anything else in this game its about winning even number fights and taking advantage of odd number fights. Simply put if you couldnt win 3 vs 3 at mid its your fault not the person who went far. Home got decapped and person lost the far fight. The question becomes how come no one at mid was counting heads and saw you were fighting 4 vs 3/2/1 if you were getting the kills and capped it?

Im seeing so many people in the ruby/diamond rank who have no clue what they are talking about and that needs to stop.

you go 1 3 1. unless you are a thief you will most likely not get to far before they cap it. Every team send a bunker to bunk home . Any bunker in div3 or higher will NOT lose a 1 v 1 . meanwhile you are 4 v 3 at mid. With the new meta everyone is spaming ae you will lose mid and pretty much get screwed.

Wow. A constructive post in the PvP forums.

I can’t look at your build on my iPhone OP, but from what people are saying you are a condi mesmer. I can tell you that condi mesmers do much better in 1v1 scenarios compared to teamfights. In teamfights, there are too many AoE condi clears. I would take that into consideration with your rotations.

kdaddy.5431:

Mogar.9216:

1 home 4 mid. Don’t go far. Pretty simple but most ppl don’t get it.
After that READ THE MINI MAP.
only go far if you KNOW you can win the 1 v 1 in 40 seconds or less .

Why is not going far a good thing?

Seriously is the dumbest thing that gets repeated over and over again in this game. If a team does a 1-3-1 split and you go 1-4. That means you have a contested home, they capped far and you literally would have to kill somebody in 10 sec at mid in a 4 vs 3 to win that point.

Best yet, the person at home loses to the person running a 1 vs 1 build. The other team sent 2 bunkers to mid who support one another so you didnt get the kill there and now your triple capped.

Just like anything else in this game its about winning even number fights and taking advantage of odd number fights. Simply put if you couldnt win 3 vs 3 at mid its your fault not the person who went far. Home got decapped and person lost the far fight. The question becomes how come no one at mid was counting heads and saw you were fighting 4 vs 3/2/1 if you were getting the kills and capped it?

Im seeing so many people in the ruby/diamond rank who have no clue what they are talking about and that needs to stop.

Going mid as a roamer allows you to go far/home.

Especially as a mesmer roamer, because you have port.

On top of that, your homie on home should be able to hold out decently well, and it isn’t your job as a roamer to ensure mid caps for your team at the beginning.

You are a roamer, you do not fight fair.

So, they did a 1 3 1 split, and you’re mid?

You drop a port mid, rotate home, and destroy the guy attacking your bunker on the home node in a 2 v 1.
that is your job

THEN you drop your port, and rotate someone low from the mid point to the home point, and your homie onto the mid point.

Now you have 2 fresh fighters +1’ing a fight, and home is still being held.

I’ll grant that a lot of games don’t play out this way… Partially just because of lack of player skill.

But a 1 3 1 split isn’t necessarily an advantage.

Splits are rock paper scissors. There is no I win split.
This is why solo q fails. It is ingrained that 1-4 split is the best. This is not always the case and depends heavily on the team comp.
But players find it much easier to blame someone than to adjust the rotation.

Going far is not a bad thing. There is a reason there are 3 nodes in the game. Far is not off limits.

Interpret Interrupt.3824:

Splits are rock paper scissors. There is no I win split.
This is why solo q fails. It is ingrained that 1-4 split is the best. This is not always the case and depends heavily on the team comp.
But players find it much easier to blame someone than to adjust the rotation.

Going far is not a bad thing. There is a reason there are 3 nodes in the game. Far is not off limits.

Yeah, but part of the problem is that capping far in Solo Q is usually kind of pointless.
For the exact same reason you’re arguing against the 1-4 split being obvious.

You have to have a fairly organized team to actually hold far, considering they can 5 v 3/4 mid/home and potentially gain momentum off of that.

On top of the fact that far is where the enemies respawn.

General tips would lead one to assume that far is a node you get a quick decap on, and then hunt for a fight elsewhere/try to gain momentum elsewhere.

My example was the counter of Mogar and saying a thief blah blah blah is a excuse.

Having seen caed crush every class 1 vs 1 on thief would say ohhh if he went far and won it we should have a 3 cap.

Your point of being a roamer means your asking your team to carry you. Dont tell people how to play when your the one who needs carrying. Your portal can be of great use but if you cant help win EVEN NUMBER FIGHTS you are hurting the team.

Again if you send 1 person far in solo que, i simply type a number of people crossing. If no one is crossing guess what we should potentially get the 3 cap. I know alot of people run meta builds but dont understand what makes them META and i see people running clunky builds who dont do much of anything. yet bark orders.

I have to say i love 1 thing about anet match making. I can not count the times people on my team tell me not to go far when i say im going far at the start of the match. They blame me for any misstep. Then the very next match the guy crying and complaining on my team is now on the enemy team and they know im coming. I run to far win the fight and i simple say " must team the teams fault you lost" because if your not winning the 1 vs 1. 2 vs 2, 3 vs 3 and 4 vs 4 of course its somebodys else fault.

kdaddy.5431:

My example was the counter of Mogar and saying a thief blah blah blah is a excuse.

Having seen caed crush every class 1 vs 1 on thief would say ohhh if he went far and won it we should have a 3 cap.

Your point of being a roamer means your asking your team to carry you. Dont tell people how to play when your the one who needs carrying. Your portal can be of great use but if you cant help win EVEN NUMBER FIGHTS you are hurting the team.

Again if you send 1 person far in solo que, i simply type a number of people crossing. If no one is crossing guess what we should potentially get the 3 cap. I know alot of people run meta builds but dont understand what makes them META and i see people running clunky builds who dont do much of anything. yet bark orders.

I have to say i love 1 thing about anet match making. I can not count the times people on my team tell me not to go far when i say im going far at the start of the match. They blame me for any misstep. Then the very next match the guy crying and complaining on my team is now on the enemy team and they know im coming. I run to far win the fight and i simple say " must team the teams fault you lost" because if your not winning the 1 vs 1. 2 vs 2, 3 vs 3 and 4 vs 4 of course its somebodys else fault.

Allow me to insert a League of Legends argument here.

If your team is losing 2 v 2, and you’re the gank.
It’s part of your job to gank and help them win that 2 v 2, by making it a 3 v 2 and laying down your CC on one of the targets, quickly turning it into a 3 v 1.

Now, I agree that simply going far doesn’t mean you’re ruining it for your team.

But over committing to far, and then blaming the team for losing 3 v 3 mid when you could have +1’d, is kind of your fault.

But only kind of.
And I say that because there’s a lot of context that is potentially missing there, that could change my opinion quite easily, depending on how things progressed.

TheOneWhoSighs.7513:

But over committing to far, and then blaming the team for losing 3 v 3 mid when you could have +1’d, is kind of your fault.

It depends on what you call over commiting. Figthting on a capped point or in a clearly bad match-up is over commiting, but if you’re a scrapper holding a tempest there for an infinite time (or even killing him), you’re helping your team a great deal. It’s your team’s fault if they can’t win a 4v4 mid (after your home capper has arrived).

Sorel.4870:

TheOneWhoSighs.7513:

But over committing to far, and then blaming the team for losing 3 v 3 mid when you could have +1’d, is kind of your fault.

It depends on what you call over commiting. Figthting on a capped point or in a clearly bad match-up is over commiting, but if you’re a scrapper holding a tempest there for an infinite time (or even killing him), you’re helping your team a great deal. It’s your team’s fault if they can’t win a 4v4 mid (after your home capper has arrived).

Yeah, that’s why I later edited in a note to clarify what I mean.
"
But only kind of.
And I say that because there’s a lot of context that is potentially missing there, that could change my opinion quite easily, depending on how things progressed."

There are a lot of contexts in which what I’ve said is invalid, you might be helping your team more than +1ing.

Although, on the same note about the tempest.
Would the tempest have stayed on his home node had you +1’d mid? And would +1’ing turn the fight around in mid? (I.E. are you a class that can actually do anything by rotating?)

If the answer to both is yes, then giving up their far cap for mid and your home, is probably preferred.

But if you are the support and they have no other support vs a enemy support its a bad thing.

TheOneWhoSighs.7513:

kdaddy.5431:

My example was the counter of Mogar and saying a thief blah blah blah is a excuse.

Having seen caed crush every class 1 vs 1 on thief would say ohhh if he went far and won it we should have a 3 cap.

Your point of being a roamer means your asking your team to carry you. Dont tell people how to play when your the one who needs carrying. Your portal can be of great use but if you cant help win EVEN NUMBER FIGHTS you are hurting the team.

Again if you send 1 person far in solo que, i simply type a number of people crossing. If no one is crossing guess what we should potentially get the 3 cap. I know alot of people run meta builds but dont understand what makes them META and i see people running clunky builds who dont do much of anything. yet bark orders.

I have to say i love 1 thing about anet match making. I can not count the times people on my team tell me not to go far when i say im going far at the start of the match. They blame me for any misstep. Then the very next match the guy crying and complaining on my team is now on the enemy team and they know im coming. I run to far win the fight and i simple say " must team the teams fault you lost" because if your not winning the 1 vs 1. 2 vs 2, 3 vs 3 and 4 vs 4 of course its somebodys else fault.

Allow me to insert a League of Legends argument here.

If your team is losing 2 v 2, and you’re the gank.
It’s part of your job to gank and help them win that 2 v 2, by making it a 3 v 2 and laying down your CC on one of the targets, quickly turning it into a 3 v 1.

Now, I agree that simply going far doesn’t mean you’re ruining it for your team.

But over committing to far, and then blaming the team for losing 3 v 3 mid when you could have +1’d, is kind of your fault.

But only kind of.
And I say that because there’s a lot of context that is potentially missing there, that could change my opinion quite easily, depending on how things progressed.

Im sorry but the basis for my comment was the start of a match. My previous comments also talk about stalemating a neutral cap point. I typically run a 1 vs 1 build when i run to far which is why i tend to win this match up vs any who decides to try can cap it alone. Also anyone who runs swiftness from the start should be able to get to far before they cap at the start of the match.

Also asking for the +1 in any fight is never a good thing. So if your telling me you have a 3 vs 3 at mid and you lose and we decide to run back again and try and make it a 4 vs 3, the other team wont have someone rotate to mid or have both of them take the other cap point which would only have 1 person there?

Obviously knowing who needs to be where and what is a big issue. In SOLO que you,me and anyone else saying you cant go far is ridiculous. IMO anytime you only play 2 points you are giving free points to the other team.

Lastly bringing in a moba to comment this isnt the best being many consider it a far weaker version moba then dota and the crazy thing is conquest is nothing like a moba.

kdaddy.5431:

Mogar.9216:

1 home 4 mid. Don’t go far. Pretty simple but most ppl don’t get it.
After that READ THE MINI MAP.
only go far if you KNOW you can win the 1 v 1 in 40 seconds or less .

Why is not going far a good thing?

Seriously is the dumbest thing that gets repeated over and over again in this game. If a team does a 1-3-1 split and you go 1-4. That means you have a contested home, they capped far and you literally would have to kill somebody in 10 sec at mid in a 4 vs 3 to win that point.

Best yet, the person at home loses to the person running a 1 vs 1 build. The other team sent 2 bunkers to mid who support one another so you didnt get the kill there and now your triple capped.

Just like anything else in this game its about winning even number fights and taking advantage of odd number fights. Simply put if you couldnt win 3 vs 3 at mid its your fault not the person who went far. Home got decapped and person lost the far fight. The question becomes how come no one at mid was counting heads and saw you were fighting 4 vs 3/2/1 if you were getting the kills and capped it?

Im seeing so many people in the ruby/diamond rank who have no clue what they are talking about and that needs to stop.

That really depends. If you have someone far who can hold the point nearly infinitely and you know you will most likely win both mid and close, then sure, go far. But sometimes it’s just better to quickly +1 person on close, get the kill, cap the point and just make them outnumbered later. There’s no simple answer to it, though. It all depends on many factors.

5 far is an excellent split if you are a premade with a mesmer portal.

you win far instantly, then outnumber mid. easy.

A long time ago in Foefire, a bunker guard said that he would cap home and the rest go mid.

During the large mid fight, I noticed how our home wasn’t being contested yet we had waterfall capped! We were the red team and the guard went far coz he thought waterfall was home. LMAO. It wasn’t meant to work but it did. I left mid fight to cap home as soon as I saw one enemy down and our HP bars still looked ok.

Mogar.9216:

kdaddy.5431:

Mogar.9216:

1 home 4 mid. Don’t go far. Pretty simple but most ppl don’t get it.
After that READ THE MINI MAP.
only go far if you KNOW you can win the 1 v 1 in 40 seconds or less .

Why is not going far a good thing?

Seriously is the dumbest thing that gets repeated over and over again in this game. If a team does a 1-3-1 split and you go 1-4. That means you have a contested home, they capped far and you literally would have to kill somebody in 10 sec at mid in a 4 vs 3 to win that point.

Best yet, the person at home loses to the person running a 1 vs 1 build. The other team sent 2 bunkers to mid who support one another so you didnt get the kill there and now your triple capped.

Just like anything else in this game its about winning even number fights and taking advantage of odd number fights. Simply put if you couldnt win 3 vs 3 at mid its your fault not the person who went far. Home got decapped and person lost the far fight. The question becomes how come no one at mid was counting heads and saw you were fighting 4 vs 3/2/1 if you were getting the kills and capped it?

Im seeing so many people in the ruby/diamond rank who have no clue what they are talking about and that needs to stop.

you go 1 3 1. unless you are a thief you will most likely not get to far before they cap it. Every team send a bunker to bunk home . Any bunker in div3 or higher will NOT lose a 1 v 1 . meanwhile you are 4 v 3 at mid. With the new meta everyone is spaming ae you will lose mid and pretty much get screwed.

What? As someone currently playing Bunker Chronomancer, my role is to contest far, and I get there before the cap without Blink often with an enemy trying to to stop me.

If I’m graced by a wonderful 1v2, I’ll hold it for as long as I can to allow my team the advantage in numbers elsewhere before dropping Portal Entre and kindly leaving.
The other Bunker Chronomancer caps home and then drops his Portal Entre there.