Guild Wars 2

So Stronghold’s been out for a few weeks and I’m enjoying it, but I don’t feel that I have a good grasp on its strategy. Are there any decent guides out there for this particular game mode? Does anyone have any general tips?

Blaine Tog.8304:

Does anyone have any general tips?

What I can say… remember that at 12:00 the first Mist Essence spawns on side of “losing” team, then it’s random side (or both sides), I think the rest spawns every three minutes (at 9:00, 6:00, 3:00).

It’s the most important thing to do, since Stronghold is more or less about winning fights over Mist Essences, so you can win on points if both teams fail to slay Lord, also Champions are often crucial for pushing anyway.

Here is a mini guide:

• don’t try to 5man rush the offense lane. That works in low MMR but will lose you the game vs decent opponents
• use the treb. It’s the difference between decent teams and the rest.
• when the heroes spawn, drop everything and make sure your team get the heroes. It’s for the points, not because you get a hero.
• positioning is important. Remember, you don’t have to stay on any point, so don’t try to 1v3 if not needed.
• don’t do 4 defense in lord when they push with 5. Have the last person go spawn DB for a counter attack instead. If you try a 5v5 def in your lord room, you will lose eventually anyway.

Sunshine.5014:

• don’t do 4 defense in lord when they push with 5. Have the last person go spawn DB for a counter attack instead. If you try a 5v5 def in your lord room, you will lose eventually anyway.

I disagree with this one. It’s composition/situation dependent. For example, if you got tankier team with support, I’d recommend to defend with full team if enemies are launching full offense, because some specs require team presence to shine (e.g. Tempest, Druid) and launch counter attack after with free supplies given by enemy team.

Also, your advice is assuming that:
a) there are doors to break
b) there are no guards

While often you could just solo enemy Lord, if there are no guards and doors on your way depending of your build/team composition/enemy team composition… so before you make such decision what to do in overrun situation, you need to fast rethink few things, like:

→ Can our 4 sustain our Lord enough?
→ If so, do they need 5th to bring CC/AoE/ST dmg to win fight?
→ If they can do fine as 4, are there Guards/Doors to deal with?
→ If they can do fine as 4 and there aren’t Guards/Doors to deal with, can 5th solo enemy Lord while rest of team is defending?

If you want to do 5 def, you will never win vs a decent team. They won’t die easily, and your lord will get caught in all the AoE. Even if they die, they can keep coming back. Basically, your team is stuck in the lord room forever vs a decent team, with a risk of instantly losing if your lord happen to be downed during a burst.

Sunshine.5014:

If you want to do 5 def, you will never win vs a decent team. They won’t die easily, and your lord will get caught in all the AoE. Even if they die, they can keep coming back. Basically, your team is stuck in the lord room forever vs a decent team, with a risk of instantly losing if your lord happen to be downed during a burst.

As I said there are many IFs. I’ve played plenty of turtle games with defensive setup, where one team was bascialy not attacking enemies (except of early gate push for points), but securing Mist Essences and turtling their side just to win on points.

As side note, I would like to mention that Lord is pretty hard to deal with when constantly healed by Tempest and Druid, while having option to stealth him by Thief/Mes/Engi in case of downstate.

So never turtle, or sometimes turtle…

Hmm. Seems like the meta is still forming.

I’ve seen two main schools of thought:

1. Go all-in with one defender. The thought is that the defender can use the treb or have AoE which goes through the door and that is enough to kill the initial wave of Doorbreakers. Meanwhile, everyone else keeps the initial DB wave alive and CCs the guards before they can one-shot the DBs. You need a support build to keep DBs alive through burst and heavy condi damage.
2. Go heavy defense with one or two people to clear a path. You start four on defense to break up any possible large rush (the first strategy) and use one very mobile DPS to clear out guards. While the other team is attacking, the floater spawns a few DBs to gradually whittle away the gates. You typically win on points using this method, so channeling mist essence is important.

I haven’t really seen anything else be that effective. A more even split means DBs die on offense or don’t die on defense before they get through a gate. Or your push fails shortly after a gate goes down.

My guild has gone in with half decent players and won with this strat 100% of the time…
Two DH running full zerk, traps, and virtues trait line
One auramancer tempest ele, cele is best amy for its role
Two somewhat tanky heavy condi based builds like chill reaper or burn guardian while running rabid or wanderer’s is great

Basically your WHOLE team goes defense and you don’t even bother with offense AT ALL. DH’s place their traps randomly around your gate and up and down your defend lane. The DH’s just spam away at 2 & 5. With people trapped inside of the guardians traps and #5 your two condi classes finishes them off quickly with their burns & chills. For the 2~3 that don’t die to your initial engagement you just simply have your auramancer ele apply constant auras while the dragonhunters and spam 2 to victory while the condi classes cc (soft or hard) to keep them in range of the dragonhunters.

In Stronghold most teams don’t have any real coordination when it actually comes to a full 5v5 team fight. Your team WILL be able to survive their full assault AND any archers they may spawn. You get FIVE points for every kill your team gets and you will get TONS of them. This is the most fun way to fight in stronghold because you will get CONSTANT fights and win 99% of the time because their full team is likely glass and have no sustain or synergy to win any extended team fight.

Small edit: Have your full team go for the Mist Essence on defense side for the extra points only if it’s required.

Exedore.6320:

I’ve seen two main schools of thought:

1. Go all-in with one defender. The thought is that the defender can use the treb or have AoE which goes through the door and that is enough to kill the initial wave of Doorbreakers. Meanwhile, everyone else keeps the initial DB wave alive and CCs the guards before they can one-shot the DBs. You need a support build to keep DBs alive through burst and heavy condi damage.
2. Go heavy defense with one or two people to clear a path. You start four on defense to break up any possible large rush (the first strategy) and use one very mobile DPS to clear out guards. While the other team is attacking, the floater spawns a few DBs to gradually whittle away the gates. You typically win on points using this method, so channeling mist essence is important.

I haven’t really seen anything else be that effective. A more even split means DBs die on offense or don’t die on defense before they get through a gate. Or your push fails shortly after a gate goes down.

Hmm, this sounds interesting. I’ll give these a shot, though since I don’t have a guild to play with it might be tricky getting teams of randos to coordinate. We’ll see!

Allison The Strange.4519:

This is the most fun way to fight in stronghold because you will get CONSTANT fights and win 99% of the time because their full team is likely glass and have no sustain or synergy to win any extended team fight.

To be honest, that method sounds really boring. It’s nice that there are constant fights, but taking down the Lord is just so satisfying.

hate.3195:

Why gw2 is pushing so hard to be a MOBA? Im sad.

Because MOBAs are fun! What sucks about MOBAs is how snowbally they can be, but even in curbstomp games you’re pretty much stuck playing for 20-30 minutes so it feels like torture. Stronghold interests me because it has a lot of MOBA-like strategy elements but shouldn’t be anywhere near as snowbally, and matches are a lot quicker.

The trebuchet is the difference between good teams and bad teams.

Trebs 2 shot door breakers. One trebuchet can quickly erase an entire assault.

When you organize your team, make sure somebody get on your trebuchet, and somebody is ready to rush and destroy the enemy trebuchet.

Other than that, commit at least 3 to offense at the start, one to defense, and your fastest landspeed character to roaming. The less amount of time that you spend gathering supply and summoning door breakers, the more likely ou are to win.

Load up on CC to win hero channels (support with the treb helps).

Oh, and avoid using Nika. She dies too quickly.

Strat will change depending on what the enemy does, but I’d say for any game you’ll want to have the following done at the opening:

1) Everyone should spawn doorbreakers
2) At least 1 person should run ahead to burn guards (high dps that can knockback 1 guard onto the other and cleave do this best)
3) At least 1 person should run to AoE and CC the enemy team’s doorbreakers.

Depending on where the enemy team goes, you may need more offense or defense.

I would also say that any time you get a mist essence spawn near your treb, you’ll want at 1 person to treb that area to keep enemies from capping.