Guild Wars 2

Hello!

Been playing some tPVP, not so serious but not super casual either, with a couple of friends (we’re usually 3 or 4, so playing with 1 random) for a while now. We’re not great individual players, but we’re definitly not bad either. However, we seem to be doing pretty bad when it comes to actually being able to win games on a regular basis. Sure, we don’t mind losing to good premades etc, but shouldn’t we be able to at least win more pub games than we lose, considering we’re almost a full team?

That’s why I’m asking you. Do you have any tips, when it comes to having a team that depends pretty heavily on the 1 or 2 random players that you play with? What would be the strongest setup, and the strongest tactics? I mean, surely the best thing would be for us to play the most important roles (bunkers, treb destroyers) and leave the rest for the randoms. Or have you had more luck with just running crazy op-builds, crushing everyone together in a ganksquad?

Currently, I play hgh nades engineer (despite it’s current… lack of being good at something important, but I like the playstyle), and the others play Mesmer, Ele/dps guardian/thief, and Ele.

Any tips is appreciated!

Thanks,
Panikak

ps. I’d love to play bunker, but I’ve had a hard time finding an engineer tank build that works, after the last patch…

You definitely need a bunker guardian if you want to win regularly. So talk with your dps guardian and tell him how important it’s to have a bunker.

For kyhlo:

Guardian —> bunker clocktower
Mesmer --> Deffends close point + portal
Ele semibunker—> Decaps far point and tries to hold it neutralaized as much as possible

The other 2 (engineer and random guy) should move (separately) between close point, middle point and enemy trebuchet. You will need one strong DPS to help the mesmer if he is fighting an ele.

If you want to bunker id recommend you to reroll to guardian so you could play: mesmer, guardian, ele, ele/thief, random. A very strong composition.

You will want a guardian bunker, and a fast roamer like an Ele.

The third option is really up to you, but id recommend, Mesmer or necro, or something with an instant res.

Bunker guardian is not needed, a bunker ele will do just fine with all the mobility that follows.
EDIT; But since your team composition already includes a guardian then yea, go with what rerroll said.

Thanks a lot for the responses! I doubt the guardian will go bunker, he hates that, so I guess I will. Sad, cause I really like engineers but currently there aren’t really any viable bunker builds for us… Will try guardian out

Does anyone, by any chance, have a good bunker guardian build? Checked out team paradigm but couldn’t find anything up to date

Sadly with conquest being the only game mode, bunkers are a basic requirement to win. Thieves are actually very underpowered in tournies but if the mesmer can roam with the thief, they can be very effective at assaulting a point.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/New-vid-up-eSports-Gaming-w-Davinci/first#post1778146

Nice, thanks man!

Check out this channel on YouTube. It’s full of amazing strategies, tips, builds and everything PVP related:

http://www.youtube.com/user/GuildWars2Online

Builds are important, but that’s not everything. You can also work on improving your team’s communication and each member’s map awareness and decision making. A lot of that comes with experience.

Do you mean random as in the game assigns you someone? Or just not a core person/somebody from map chat. I’m going to assume the former. If it’s the latter just use normal team tactics and try to teach them what they don’t know.

If they are solo queue and get added to your 3-4 premade here are my tips:

1. Say something in /say chat. Try to get their attention as soon as possible without being rude or forceful. Mention you are a premade on VOIP if you need help convincing them to listen.

2. If they respond, ask them about their build. Try to work around them. Be willing to change profession if needed.

3. If they don’t respond, learn what you can about them. Not only the profession, but weapon set and any buffs you see they have that might indicate a build. Use gear and title cues to estimate their capabilities. They might have just gone AFK at the start, don’t give up on them yet.

4. Try to make sure someone on your team forms an opinion of them. Something like “the pug had a nice daze” or “he should have gone for the stomp.” You should think of being a 3-4 man premade as 1-2 man tryouts. If you find someone you get along with of similar skill, invite them to join your group. Get them on VOIP with the rest of your team. See how well they communicate.

I don’t recommend changing your tactics and forgetting about the extra member of your team. Sure you can beat bad teams as a zerg, but it’s not going to work against a decent team and you’ll learn bad habits.

If a person doesn’t want to play a bunker spec, I wouldn’t make them. Consistently running the spec and then losing to teams that were running bunkers (when we weren’t) is what made me quit. Just know that it’s the easiest way to win, albeit not the most fun. Play to have fun. Playing to win in the game’s current state…es no bueno.

Oh and the holy grail of builds – http://forums.intothemists.com/index.php?/topic/46-top-gw2-tournament-builds/

Hey dude, I’ve been playing as an engineer bunker pretty much since launch. I’m in the workings of making a video to explain how to bunker after the recent patch, but I’d be more than willing to reach you how to bunk on an engineer as soon as I get unbanned on Monday. I’d consider myself one of the more seasoned engineers in the game (1200 tpvp matches on engineer) so feel free to ask me about anything else if you need to. My ingame name is Vöz if you want to contact me ingame soon.

Cheers and best of luck,
Vöz

All I gotta say is tournament is so random right now, I’ve played with a full group of people I met while PvPing and we still play against randoms most of time and judging how random and unpredicatable they will be you cant just have 1 plan, you have to adjust to flow of game. Like my team had crazy issues with this 4 thief team zerging and just heartseeking away, thieves are squishy but when they all help each other stealth and pop out of no where and burst burst burst its tough.

But yeah, don’t let the loses get you down.

As for engineer bunker build, I just started playing engineer today for first time and I somehow became bunker using the default settings they give you, but I use p/sh, with that head bash move, with flamethrower pack, the minimize and avoid attacks for 3 seconds, default heal and the elite where you turn into a tornado but I like turning into a brute. It has so many knockdowns with this build its crazy, I’ve been able to hold 3 guys for quite some time and do good at 1v1ing, its somewhat longer than normal but I outlast them. This build is also good for attacking nodes, by knocking off the guarding guy on the node repeatedly that you neutralize there point and if you keep at it you’ll take it. You can tweak the traits if you like, but I already got champion shadow title and working on genius now so I didn’t really look into the traits too much in depth, but I got to say I’m loving the engineer.

Another thing, that treb is huge impact on the game if you know how to use it well as in know the range to hit every node and places around clocktower, if they never come and destroy it while someone is using it, they are at a serious disadvantage, same goes with if they using theres and you never destroy there treb.

Bunker guardians (Cough)cheese(Cough)

It depends on the map your playing but in general if you are going to control a point it should be mid in order to cut them off and you can have your roamer make sure they have to keep people on there point.

In all this communication is key like calling incs and etas so if you guys are not playing on vent it is a problem cause knowing what to expect is pretty huge. A group of really good randoms that just know what to do can play without but for new spvper vent is a must.

If you still have trouble after that ask another guild thats good at spvp if they will fraps one of there battles for you so you can hear calls and things to get the feel of the communication.

And if your facing pure cheese like 5 bunker specs or all guadian/mes and to a lesser extent thiefs it can make things a pain in the kitten but those are just tactics bad players use to cheese there way by.

Thanks for the replies guys, much appreciated!

We all use voice communication and call out inc’s etc, so that’s not the problem. As much as I hate blaming it on our setup/builds… I’ve felt many times that a strong bunker mid would ease up things so much. Atm our mesmer usually has to bunker a sidebase etc, so it’s not really optimal. I’ve created a guardian now, will try it out and report back.

And also, Voz, will holla at you ingame! Would be fun to hear what build you run and how you feel about it.

Thanks again!