Guild Wars 2

The fact is, we cannot control how good of a team we are assigned to in SoloQ.

If we want to win more than we lose, the key factor is NOT going to be our individual performance in fights, it is going to be how well we help the entire team win the match.

What tends to help the most? Joining in on team fights? Or contesting nodes?

What do you do when you see the opposing team has all three points, and after 30 seconds nothing is being contested?

When I see this, I get quite frustrated, and I go contest a node as quickly as I can. But I feel so limited.

go far all the day and rush enemy lord asap

Talk to the people and try to fixate “roles”
If this doesn’t work then i’d say defend home/help mid

1. Play spirit ranger/hambow/whatever is form.
2. Win.

Silentshoes.1805:

What do you do when you see the opposing team has all three points, and after 30 seconds nothing is being contested?

You can only carry so much. If they are 3capped, and still fighting off point, nothing you can really do. but pretend its 1v5 and go cap stuff yourself.

The role of a home bunker whose aware of home point while supporting at mid is one of the most helpful roles.

A guardian bunker on mid is incredibly useful, provided his team play with that fact in mind, but they often don’t.

I’ve won 6 games in a row as a far point node assaulter Engineer, I actually think this is an incredibly effective way to mess your opponents up.

So, I’d probably say Spirit Ranger at #1, then Engineer assaulting far (and helping other bases of course, you have to be a decent engineer who won’t lose 1v1s, and know to leave far if you are) and Bunker Guard at #3. Other classes do make effective home bunkers too

Best ways to help your team:
1. Say hello to them before the match starts and attempt to work out your team’s opening if possible
2. Control your team’s commitment to far point (“hold two,” “help home,” or “regroup at home” if you have too many people going far; take far yourself if you have the build/situation for it)
3. Win teamfights.

Edit: I almost forgot—since for some reason the forums have repeatedly told people that PvP is about bunkers, some people who will sit on close point the entire game, even if the opposing team has both other points. That’s no different than getting a 4v5 and you must try to convince him to come off home.

Rubik.7192:

1. Play spirit ranger/hambow/whatever is form.
2. Win.

How many spirit rangers on top 50 of solo queue? 1? 2?

I do play a Spirit Ranger, but you cannot win a match by yourself. It’s pretty hard to win a 2v1, even as a spirit ranger. I can hold them off a while, but I can’t take them both down. (If you say otherwise you are just theorizing, and experienced PvPers understand this.)

NevirSayDie.6235:

Best ways to help your team:
1. Say hello to them before the match starts and attempt to work out your team’s opening if possible
2. Control your team’s commitment to far point (“hold two,” “help home,” or “regroup at home” if you have too many people going far; take far yourself if you have the build/situation for it)
3. Win teamfights.

Edit: I almost forgot—since for some reason the forums have repeatedly told people that PvP is about bunkers, some people who will sit on close point the entire game, even if the opposing team has both other points. That’s no different than getting a 4v5 and you must try to convince him to come off home.

Not to nit pick but your edit I don’t understand a little bit. Don’t get me wrong I am not a fan of ever just sitting on the home point for the sake it but are you saying you need five people to take one other point? If you can’t get a second point with four people that means you can’t win an even fight anyway because I almost never see a 5v5 in tournaments. Also, since you can now see your enemy on the map once you leave your home point unguarded they can just take it. The intelligent gamble has kindof been removed versus smart players. Am I missing something? It seems like to me your solution to holding only one point is to send 5 people to attack the other two points or one point. Not sure I agree with that especially now with the map changes.

Rotation is really important to understand. There are three general types of builds that I’ve seen and each have their own strategies for rotation.

1) Burst – you want to be fast when you’re running a Bursty build, whether it’s through RTL Lightning Flash, Portal Blink, GS on Warrior, Rocket Boots on Engi, or Thief SB and shadowstep. This is because you want to be able to reinforce where your team needs it and decap points they leave open.

2) Tanky 1v1 builds – you don’t want to be running all over the map with these builds, you want to protect points you already have and reinforce points you’re contesting and your team needs help on. Slow Spirit Rangers, BM Rangers, Condi Warriors, Triple Kit Engis, Hambow, Condi Mesmers with Settlers and 30 Chaos, D/D Thief with Settlers and Assassin’s Reward/Sig of Malice, etc.

3) Support – you want to “zerg” with your teammates with this archetype. If you’re fighting alone, you’re not helping your team as much as you would if you were 2v2ing and 3v3ing most of the game. Examples of support builds are any Guardian build, Spirit Rangers with Warhorn so you can move faster, Banner Warriors with Warhorn, Staff Ele, etc.

If there’s a balance of effective teamfighting, 1v1ing, and speed in your team comp you’re going to blow them out unless they have a similar setup.

brannigan.9810:

Not to nit pick but your edit I don’t understand a little bit. Don’t get me wrong I am not a fan of ever just sitting on the home point for the sake it but are you saying you need five people to take one other point? If you can’t get a second point with four people that means you can’t win an even fight anyway because I almost never see a 5v5 in tournaments. Also, since you can now see your enemy on the map once you leave your home point unguarded they can just take it. The intelligent gamble has kindof been removed versus smart players. Am I missing something? It seems like to me your solution to holding only one point is to send 5 people to attack the other two points or one point. Not sure I agree with that especially now with the map changes.

Actually the map only shows opponents who are 1) in combat and 2) in sight of one of your teammates, so the other team will have no way to know if you have someone at home point or not, other than counting players at mid.

I’m not saying there should be a big 5v5 at mid every couple minutes, but if the opposing team has their close empty, and 5 at mid, your sidepoint player had better be backcapping. There’s no way that your teammates can win a 4v5 at mid, much less hold out 3v5 while one of the other players takes the free cap at far.

Likewise, if it’s a 4v4 at mid with one person on both side points, the team currently in possession of two points has a massive advantage. The person defending the close point of the losing team should assault far if he has the build for it. If he can decap it, at least the point tick is equal. If he starts winning the fight at far, he might pull 1-2 enemies away from the mid fight. If he kills the other team’s homepoint defender and takes the point, then his team has two nodes.

In some situations, a team might want to have all five players at mid to try to burst through a couple enemies. More often, they will want some players to be playing the sides. The only losing strategy is to try to “defend” one point while the enemy has two; but these forums are so convinced that PvP is about bunkers that people sometimes just sit while their team gets loses all control of the map.

i was at a soloq match yesterday on skyhammer with a mes, a thief, an ele, a guard and me as a spirit ranger. we won 500-499. we were losing points hugely at the start of the match. opposite team had 2 warriors who were killing my teammates relentlessly.

but we were able to catch after we were able to get hold of the cannon. i think that if we were on a different map we couldnt had won that match. having a strong build for 1v1 is a huge help to hold the cannon for as long as it takes. i just told my teammates to zerg on a point that we could contest and have one go to a node that was safe to capture while i was using the cannon to help my teammates kill the enemies who had bunkier builds.

NevirSayDie.6235:

brannigan.9810:

Not to nit pick but your edit I don’t understand a little bit. Don’t get me wrong I am not a fan of ever just sitting on the home point for the sake it but are you saying you need five people to take one other point? If you can’t get a second point with four people that means you can’t win an even fight anyway because I almost never see a 5v5 in tournaments. Also, since you can now see your enemy on the map once you leave your home point unguarded they can just take it. The intelligent gamble has kindof been removed versus smart players. Am I missing something? It seems like to me your solution to holding only one point is to send 5 people to attack the other two points or one point. Not sure I agree with that especially now with the map changes.

Actually the map only shows opponents who are 1) in combat and 2) in sight of one of your teammates, so the other team will have no way to know if you have someone at home point or not, other than counting players at mid.

I’m not saying there should be a big 5v5 at mid every couple minutes, but if the opposing team has their close empty, and 5 at mid, your sidepoint player had better be backcapping. There’s no way that your teammates can win a 4v5 at mid, much less hold out 3v5 while one of the other players takes the free cap at far.

Likewise, if it’s a 4v4 at mid with one person on both side points, the team currently in possession of two points has a massive advantage. The person defending the close point of the losing team should assault far if he has the build for it. If he can decap it, at least the point tick is equal. If he starts winning the fight at far, he might pull 1-2 enemies away from the mid fight. If he kills the other team’s homepoint defender and takes the point, then his team has two nodes.

In some situations, a team might want to have all five players at mid to try to burst through a couple enemies. More often, they will want some players to be playing the sides. The only losing strategy is to try to “defend” one point while the enemy has two; but these forums are so convinced that PvP is about bunkers that people sometimes just sit while their team gets loses all control of the map.

but in soloq u has always the same problem inversed from the other team perspective. its in 90% of matches always the same if u win the mid fight, that ppl start to run to farpoint as soon as mid is captured, where in the meantime 1-2 try to defend the already holding points.
or u has some in your team who constantly runs to farpoint just to loose or to fight for hours and not getting it neutral. then u has the guys who run on the map and fighting stuff for hours, occasional get a kill, no decap and getting killed at some point just to restart again.. so what u do in this cases?

Play thief, use shadow refuge on yourself.

hooma.9642:

but in soloq u has always the same problem inversed from the other team perspective. its in 90% of matches always the same if u win the mid fight, that ppl start to run to farpoint as soon as mid is captured, where in the meantime 1-2 try to defend the already holding points.
or u has some in your team who constantly runs to farpoint just to loose or to fight for hours and not getting it neutral. then u has the guys who run on the map and fighting stuff for hours, occasional get a kill, no decap and getting killed at some point just to restart again.. so what u do in this cases?

It’s not always bad to go to far point after winning the first midfight. Sometimes if you gain the advantage early like that you can just dominate the entire match, whereas if you sit back on your two points the enemy can regroup and come back.

If you have people who are doing things like dying over and over at farpoint, then you’ll have to carry them hard.

Sorrychief that is the sign of a terrible thief that has no idea what he’s doing.

I agree Nevir, far point farming and spawn camping is a good way to sucker silly bads into committing suicide over and over while you have them two or three capped.

NevirSayDie.6235:

hooma.9642:

but in soloq u has always the same problem inversed from the other team perspective. its in 90% of matches always the same if u win the mid fight, that ppl start to run to farpoint as soon as mid is captured, where in the meantime 1-2 try to defend the already holding points.
or u has some in your team who constantly runs to farpoint just to loose or to fight for hours and not getting it neutral. then u has the guys who run on the map and fighting stuff for hours, occasional get a kill, no decap and getting killed at some point just to restart again.. so what u do in this cases?

It’s not always bad to go to far point after winning the first midfight. Sometimes if you gain the advantage early like that you can just dominate the entire match, whereas if you sit back on your two points the enemy can regroup and come back.

If you have people who are doing things like dying over and over at farpoint, then you’ll have to carry them hard.

i know u can push the advantage. but ppl should realize that maybe some teammates want to play it “safer” with an already existing advantage, so to engage a full respawned team with 2-3 isnt clever. so as soon they see, not the full team promotes farpush they should stop..

the mainproblem in soloq is ppl dont look what teammates do and dont think about the enemies plans and stick to own plans regardless of the outcome. no map awarness, no flexibility! thats the mainproblem. in teamq u get kicked for such selfish behaviour and problem is solved for the team.

It depends on their builds. Example would be a D/P SB thief and GS/LB warrior pushing far, with escape abilities that can let them push while pulling out when it gets rough. Between the two of them, they can decap, put pressure and bail enough to let them split up and then pick them off if the thief and warrior work together with a Shadow Refuge ambush.

A Necro and Mesmer without portal or blink, however, have no business going far in a respawn situation because if they are outnumbered they will be roflstomped and have no way out.

Generally speaking, Necro going far alone or without peels is a very very bad idea.

Relentless.7023:

It depends on their builds. Example would be a D/P SB thief and GS/LB warrior pushing far, with escape abilities that can let them push while pulling out when it gets rough. Between the two of them, they can decap, put pressure and bail enough to let them split up and then pick them off if the thief and warrior work together with a Shadow Refuge ambush.

A Necro and Mesmer without portal or blink, however, have no business going far in a respawn situation because if they are outnumbered they will be roflstomped and have no way out.

Generally speaking, Necro going far alone or without peels is a very very bad idea.

u know thats a lol post or? so how many thiefs do u seen in soloq play d/p? how many wars do u see in soloq play gs? how good do u expect they are working together to setup an ambush? in soloq?

i wouldn mind any farpush if the ppl or class is capable of that and disengage if needed. but the reality is different.

I’ll agree that there are some pretty dumb thieves and warriors, but your pessimism is probably getting in the way of you being able to win

The one problem I see with people decapping far points is not taking into account the respawns that stream into the point and make the push unsuccessful. I’m not saying that attempting to take far is always bad, but the inexperienced tend to forget about the respawn timer.

Another thing that really helps players is paying attention to both the map, for teammate and now enemy locations, and also your teammates health bars. Use this information to your advantage and be proactive in knowing when a decap opportunity is available or when you can easily outnumber an opponent and take a point.

Generally, I agree that winning the fight at mid in the beginning of the match can usually set the pace for the rest of the match, and if one person feels like they have to go far, which presents an outnumbered fight, they can ruin the momentum for the rest of the match. If the enemy wins the fight at mid, they have about 15ish seconds to regroup and move onto your home point or reinforce their home, which makes it a lot harder for your team to regroup and go on the offensive.

tl;dr – Map awareness goes a long way in Solo Q.

I’d really like to hear a general strategy for a Burst class and a tanky class that will usually help the most.

When I read this interesting discussion, I wonder if Conquest is just too complex for random players with new players in the mix as well!

There really isn’t one answer to that Silentshoes. As a burst class, I would say call targets when you have a target that is about to go down. A tanky (bunker) class should just do their best to stay on point and don’t let it get decapped or if pushing an enemy point, they should be trying to knock other players off the point so that the point can be capped.

If you are just “tanky” and can’t apply any damage or cc pressure, then you are generally not being much help to your team.

Well to be honest the ‘best’ way is to go onto far point, kill the guy on it immediately then spawn camp him for the match.

You will never improve as a player running this strat however if you want this out of solo q. I suggest running a glassy build that requires smart roaming for that. Hopefully balance will reward players with this attitude in the long run.

Silentshoes.1805:

I’d really like to hear a general strategy for a Burst class and a tanky class that will usually help the most.

When I read this interesting discussion, I wonder if Conquest is just too complex for random players with new players in the mix as well!

if u want to play it safe its really simple. 1-4 split. 1 home rest mid.. or maybe go all mid.. doesnt matter if u win midfight that home is decapped maybe. a groupsupport bunker should always be in teamfights aka mid. a selffish bunker like ingi can bunker on homepoint. and the roamer then decides depending on healthbar of mates and enemies and number where he reinforces. if u win mid u can choose which side u zerg in and get the point before enemy group respawns. then u just hold mid and watch where enemy engages. there are only 2 possiblities. home or mid.. so its easier and the team should always has the advantage.

as soon ur team starts to push far its usually gets to complex cause it depends on enemy movement. thats why i always see teams loosing in soloq, even if they won first midfight and had home and mid.

Maybe some of you who are moving up the leaderboards this week can share with us what your strategy has been that helps your team.

jonnis.2946:

The role of a home bunker whose aware of home point while supporting at mid is one of the most helpful roles.

That’s the only strategy that has worked for me so far. I also ask people nicely in team chat to cap a specific point with varying success.

Play a class that can run the orb, kill treb, solo the npc, bunker a point somewhat decently, and that has good mobility. We all know which classes can do this best.
At the % rating it’s pretty much a given that you’ll be the only one going for secondary objectives while you still have to find a way to hold home.

Given my last matches I honestly don’t know if it makes any difference to call things out in team chat or not. I still do it and since it’s rare that people pay attention I thank them personally if they come and help me. It’s all about positive reinforcement….

Ulalume, that sounds reasonable. Thanks.