Guild Wars 2

So, I have horrific games fairly commonly on stronghold. I’m going to assume it’s my fault, and would love to know if there’s any guides out there as to how to play the game type more effectively, and also if people think that some builds or classes massively outshine others that would not do so in conquest?

I am by no means an expert but I queue with 2 friends on Stronghold fairly frequently now and our win percentage is over 70% but that isn’t saying much with some of the people we find in there… anyhow

We have a basic starting strategy that revolves around nuking mid with 4 while 1 goes to defend the first group of friendly guards. If you keep those up, you can focus on teamfights and let those dudes kill the bombers.

After mid looks like it’s either won or loss, my two friends shift to offense full time, focusing on killing guards, protecting our bombers and securing the champion on their side.

I stay defense and focus on harassing the enemy if they go mid for supply. Also an important part of my job is to hold off the enemy team from getting champ on my side until my team can rotate.

After that, it comes down to timing a 5 man push on the lord. It generally comes after the enemy tries a big push of their own then you have to switch gears to offense and go all in. If you win 1 teamfights off of this scenaro, then you pretty much secured the victory assuming you actually have the door open.

I didn’t think too much about this response but that’s a vague idea of what we do. I didn’t say what our 2 random teammates do, but generally they help mid and D

I would say a general tip from what I’ve seen happen is sometimes people get too caught up in running supply. You can run supply all day and nothing will happen if you don’t kill enemy guards or protect the guards you spawn. Any door breakers you spawn will get one shotted by door guards and other teams defense, if they’re smart, will prioritize archers if their door guards are still alive. Running supply should at most be a job that one person does and others can pop in occasionally and get supply if your team starts winning skirmishes and whatnot.

Another thing I’ve seen is that some people don’t know that when the champions pop there is a 30s timer before they actually come available to summon. This is important because instead of losing 30s by committing to the summon, you could rush some guards or do a quick little supply run while waiting for the timer to get to 0.

I’ve been doing some Stronghold with friends, here is what we do that seems to be successful (against pugs, not organized groups).

Out of spawn gate, throw down swiftness, spawn 5 door breakers (you start with 1 supply initially). Two people run ahead and kill their gate guards, 1 goes their treb or supply, 1 goes our treb and 1 goes defense.

I am usually the one to go to our treb, and almost always the offense seems to ignore me as I treb down their first wave. If they try to fight down at our guards, its even better because I just turn the treb and spam 2 while our defender keeps them occupied. If they come up to me, I try to get as much damage done to their first wave as I can, then hop off the treb to keep it alive and stall as much as possible.

Usually they only send 2-3 players on offense, and you can stall that number for a decent amount of time until the first hero spawn, or they need to pull off because your offense is doing well.

Meanwhile, our door breakers and offense line are pushing their gate. If you break the first gate before the other team, you have a huge advantage. The other team needs to be playing defense, which allows you to choose your push / team fight for when things work out for you.

It doesn’t help that a lot of people have no idea what they are doing, and often just rush the middle supply drops when you should be doing anything but that at the start.

Use that first push to really see how the other team reacts and what they are doing. Do they have a treb player? If yes, you need to kill the treb or any offense you send will be killed in 2-3 hits. If they ignore their treb, all the better for you.

When the Mist Hero event spawns, have some people there. If you didn’t kill their treb and its on their side, you better hope they don’t hop on it. If you have yours and its your side, get on! Mist Hero is a good place to team fight, but keep in mind that damage will not stop the channel, only a knockback or interrupt. If they can pop mass stability they will get a free cap if you cant kill them or strip it.

Usually at this same time, it is a good opportunity to push. Pop door breakers with your mist hero and get a good push as you should have killed a few of their players and now have the champion tanking damage.