Guild Wars 2

Just wanted to put out some info for players new to the tournament scene and looking for a little more info to help them find success. Admittedly for selfish reasons as I’m tired of pugging and getting matched up with people who have no idea of the differences between hotjoins and tourneys.

So here are some things I feel players could benefit from understanding when entering a tournament

For starters, there are some Basic Concepts that need to be considered –
1. It’s about your team “winning” not about your personal “glory”
2. It’s a conquest match, so any and all actions should revolve around capturing AND holding 2 capture points.
3. Controlling the map is the goal, and the more efficient your team is the easier it is to control and ultimately win.

The roles:
Bunker – team member built to control and hold a point long enough for their support to arrive and help clear the opposition.
Roamer – someone built to quickly travel between points and provide dmg and/or support to help defend and retain control of a capture point.

Some basic rules:
- Only 1 person caps – current capture mechanic rquires only one person from your team to stand on the point to capture/hold it. this should be left to the designated bunker. roamers should not stay for caps, they need to stay moving. screw the 10 glory this is about winning (see Basic Concept #1)

- Only 1 person stomps – if there are other opponents still contesting the point and your teammate has already started the stomp then you should be working on getting the next opponent downed. **Caveat: always dbl stomp warriors to ensure they don’t get back via Vengeance. Providing Haste, Stealth, or Stability is always a good way to ensure a stomp.

- Always Revive – there are no dedicated ‘healers’ in this game so reviving is everyone’s responsibility. when a player is downed they start a new HP pool, reviving is easiest and fastest when they first go down. THe longer they’re down the longer it will take to get them back up. Using Haste, Stability, or Stealth are good ways to ensure the revive does not get interrupted. Also, be sure to interrupt any opposing players trying to stomp your teammates. It’s worth the CD to keep your team’s numbers strong.

- Always call incoming and numbers! – This is how you identify the enemies positioning and weakness in defense. For instance, if they pile 4 people onto a node to try and take it then they’ve left 1 node completely undefended and another node with only 1 defender.

Keys to X-factors on each Map:

Forest – the Mobs are the X-factor here allowing you to accumulate 25pts for your team on a successful “last hit” kill. Stealing helps build a point advantage. Stealing is also easy with high burst and heavy bleed classes that can time the last hit. To avoid getting your mob kill stolen simply wait for bankers, kill them, and THEN engage the mob. Simply: don’t touch the mob till the enemies are dead.

Foefire – there are 4 NPCs in yours/your opponents base that provide 150pts upon successful kill. Taking the opponents close point early and then taking down the door closest is a good way to provide your team with a potential “last ditch effort” to steal the win.

Khylo – the trebuchet here is the key. Using the trebuchet is an easy way to overwhelm opponents assaulting or holding a point. So either using it or keeping your opponent from using it should be a pivotal part of your strategy. Clocktower is also the easiest point to aim for when using the Treb.

I won’t speak on strategy as that changes based on map, group comp, and opponent, but I can guarantee they all by and large account for these things if they have any potential for success.

There’s obviously a ton of other stuff that could be said about tournies but I thought I’d just start with what I felt were some basics.

It’d be nice, for once, to keep a dialog going about playing the game instead of crying about it.

So feel free to add/amend.

Cheers

Nice write up, sounds like spvp is exactly the same as tpvp-or at least what you would hope people did in spvp.

It’s probably worth noting to those people who haven’t made it so far to actually join a tournament:

Despite what everything looks like, you can solo join by clicking “create roster” and choosing “submit” on the pop up. It will match you with other partial teams to make a full one.

As an extra note to the “team winning, not personal glory:” A team win in the first round is worth 200 glory/rank points on top of what you earn in the match as it guarantees you the third/fourth round prize.

You missed the part about taking 1 guardians 1 mesmer 1 theif being needed to have a chance of winning.

Infectious.4836:

You missed the part about taking 1 guardians 1 mesmer 1 theif being needed to have a chance of winning.

Probably because that isn’t true. Guardian is the only class of those which is really necessary. Mesmer and Thief are very strong classes, but you don’t need them. People just cry about them because they lose to cookie cutter builds, and assume that the problem is with the classes, not with their tactics and skills.

Mesmers portal and theives broken burst say hi.

Granted theif isn’t needed, you are running at a disadvantage not running one.

Infectious.4836:

Mesmers portal and theives broken burst say hi.

Granted theif isn’t needed, you are running at a disadvantage not running one.

It entirely depends on the strategy you’re using. Some strategies absolutely need those classes, but not all do.

Excuse me but this here is a No Crying Zone. Take the Theif QQ elsewhere please – there are plenty of options on the boards.

Crucial classes to group comps IMO are Mesmer, Guardian, bunker Ele/Engi. Any class you add after that is just gravy.

Seems kind of pointless to discuss meta a day before a big patch though. Most classes haven’t even seen their full potential yet with all the bugs, broken traits, and whatnot. Super interested to see what tomorrow’s patch has to offer.

good guide

you kinda forgot to mention that entering a free tpvp at peak times will results in getting stomped 85% of the times you enter tho leaving you very frustrated to say the least but apart from that yea thats how it should work.

barti.7685:

good guide

you kinda forgot to mention that entering a free tpvp at peak times will results in getting stomped 85% of the times you enter tho leaving you very frustrated to say the least but apart from that yea thats how it should work.

what did I say about crying in this thread?!?!

Honestly though, I don’t mind facing premades so long as I’m matched up with equally experienced pugs. I pug probably 95% of my time in game and as long as I have a decent bunch of people with me that know how to flex the game plan based on what the competition is doing then we at least put up a good fight, if not steal a win. In fact, I’d go so far as to say I enjoy facing premades because of the challenge. I might be in the minority but I like to pvp because I like competition and if my team is rolling over the opposition there is just no thrill.

In the worst of instances I’ve been matched up with three rank 1’s and a rank <10 and had to face a solid pre made. In which case the only points we got were the ones I gave my team by back-capping because I seem to be the only one who noticed the other exit from the spawn…

Which reminds me: Always call incoming and numbers! This is how you identify the enemies positioning and weakness in defense. For instance, if they pile 4 people onto a node to try and take it then they’ve left 1 node completely undefended and another node with only 1 defender.

This is about pug, so how you going to take a mesmer, thief and gaurd? midas well throw in one more and be a premade.

Other Stratergies. If you go down, or you and the other guys miraculously die and res at the same time (this happens, I’m not kidding) then don’t all go for the nearest point. I’m a bunker and I hold mines, if there is 1 other bunker fighting me we probably wont be able to kill each other, me or other bunkers wont need the whole team to come and stomp that 1 guy.

Battle plan, there is 3 mins before starting a match where you can communicate to your team. Saying your general build (e.g. “DD Tank/Bunker Ele”) will help your team. Try and organise who will go where, e.g. “I’ll hold mine, will call incs, will require roamer on incs”. Coordinate who does what to thier build, there have been many times where I spawn, tell them my build and what I will hold to have no one listen and end up with another guy at mines. So I leave and 2 mins later he says, “I’m not a bunker I can’t hold this point” and we lose the point that I should have been bunkering to start with.

If you don’t have voice coms (usually the case) then read your chat log, people will be calling incs or saying that we need to go to other places.

Don’t glory farm, this is a team game, if you want to glory farm there’s plenty of spvp servers. Winning each round gives substantial glory that should be your aim, winning.

There are strats where you don’t down enemy players, these are really helpful, a dead dps does no damage until he re-spawns, a downed dps does bugger all damage unless you are standing near him, and is less useful then being about to re-spawn. Saving the down is almost always a good thing, just auto attack them if you see the call for help animation then stop attacking. This is not the case against a good warrior unless you know he can’t kill you. This should also be avoided in a battle where the enemy can res, or use res skills, downing then is more situational.

My 2 cents