Guild Wars 2

So I’m doing pvp and I’m trying to kill the bad guys. Sometimes I kill them and sometimes they kill me even though I’m a good guy and this is fine except my team mates keep telling me IN CAPS LOCK TO ROTATE! They whisper mean stuff to me after the game ends. Naturally, I whisper them a clever comeback but they are set offline so I can’t retort. After being told to ROTATE over a million times I’ve been thinking yeah they are right. I asked myself, do I know how to rotate and no.

Let’s say you’re playing a meta druid and you are in Kyhlo. Your dash teef heads home and you head mid. You get into the mid fight and within 20 seconds, your necro team mate gets downed and dies. Your power rev is being focused down after using his glint heal and he’s definitely going down. The other team is nearly in full health because you don’t know how to do damage. You’re in good condition because meta druid is immortal.

Do I try to recover from this losing mid fight and rez the rev? Do I flee away from the mid fight and sneak over to far point? Do I play defensive and hold the one home node that we still have? If I can decap far point, do I full cap or leave it uncapped to go to the mid fight? In this situation, I would just go to far node knowing that my rezzing necro will slowly take his butt over to home node to cut off the bad guys but this doesn’t always work the way I imagine it.

Let’s say we win the mid fight in Kyhlo and kill 3 players. We now hold home and mid point. I see that their power rev is heading to far point to defend the one node they have. Do I attempt to snowball and fight the power rev (on the point that he holds) in a 1v1? Do I bunk mid point and say in team chat that I’ll be holding mid?

Let’s say I’m playing a power rev and we hold the home and far nodes in Legacy. I see that a condi necro is slowly running toward me (I’m in far node) and my team mates won’t be coming in to bulldoze the necro. It will be a 1v1. I see that the condi necro has a sweet pvp title and the Ascension and I’m thinking yeah he’s going to eat me in 1v1. Do I 1v1 him anyway because I hold this node? Do I retreat and try to sneak into mid node?

Let’s say I’m playing whatever and we’re in legacy. We overpower them in the initial mid fight and the next few fights after that because we snowball them. We hold all 3 nodes and we have a significant advantage over them. Despite the fact that their team has fast players (a meta condi mesmer and a dash teef), they don’t attempt to spread out and instead they regroup and sent all 5 into their home node (our far node). I’m hovering between home and mid to cut off any bad guy who tries to backcap us but I can clearly see that we are fighting a 4v5 on far point. My team mates are losing pretty fast and the bad guys will probably bulldoze through me pretty soon. Do I stand between home and mid and yell at my team or do I go into far node to prevent them from regrouping?

Exactly when should you be snowballing and when should you be holding two nodes? When should you be taking the 1v1 and when should you be peeling off to help another node? If you are 1v2ing the bad guys on a node that they hold, are you giving your team an advantage if you just stall these two bad guys for a really long time? Are people who vote non Coliseum maps in unranked sadists?

Rotate is basically a mesh of common strats that you should do as a PvPer.

So basic things like:

1. Try to match numbers on nodes; don’t 4v2 because you’ll lose the other caps

2. Don’t hit on a bunker 1v1 if they own the node, if it’s theirs but you can kill him < 10s then sure

3. Don’t stream into a ‘zerg’ and keep dying, regroup and focus on what you have/can do

4. Let’s say you win the initial mid fight, you either watch for respawns to your home/mid or push far + watch respawns to match numbers. A lot of people just sit mid and lose everything in the process

5. If you’re losing the fight or you know it’s lost and you can peel, break off and decap a node that the enemy isn’t at if possible. If they try to zerg you then you break off again and help your team once they’ve respawned.

I’m sure there’s a better guide out there somewhere but these are some basic rotation strategies. I might’ve left stuff out though since I’m sleepy.

As for your questions:

- 1v1 on your own owned node? Yes. 1v1 vs them on their node, no unless you can wreck them fast. 1v1 on neutral? Sure.

- 1v2 bad guys they own the node? Still good. If you can occupy 2 ppl that lets your team do stuff 4v3

- Snowballing is kinda high level strat, I don’t feel like even half the people in legend can pull it off so I very rarely do this, I always play 2 point strat unless I have pro league player on my team that I know can carry.

- Unranked is a piece of….. ya know. Don’t expect much I can afk games and still win or rotate like mad and still lose.

Dude I didn’t know someone else knew how to rotate, wanna do some q’s together?

That is a great post OP, you clearly describe exactly the kinds of choices we are faced with in many games.

For your first point, in general I would go and take far if the team fight mid was going badly or a thought I couldn’t make a difference at mid. Especially if you are using the “immortal” druid build you should be able to hold far for a while, and can probably even escape back to mid to meet with your respawning team mates if things go south. Although one player actually reported me for going far like that, haha, so get used to the hate tells.

Point two- I usually just try to hold two points, but if the entire enemy team is wiped a fast player really should at least decap any undefended node.

Point three is a real dilemma. I think it depends on the class you are playing. I tend to try and hold the point even against a hard counter and then sneak away when I know I can’t hold out any longer.

If you can 1vs2 on an enemy held point for a fair amount of time I think it is a good idea,
if you die quickly it was a bad idea.

People often scream about poor rotations during a match that is going south, but it doesn’t always mean your team is rotating badly. You can lose because your players aren’t good, you have bad class match ups or for a variety of other reasons.

There are tons of different strategies depending on what your team make up is, what the other team has and how the match is going. Often times the trouble I see is when your team is not on the same page. Different players may be using different strategies- neither is bad but they don’t both work at the same time.

I use a simple strategy where I try to have 2 pts capped the majority of the match. I want my team in even or +1 fights unless we have a good bunker holding a point. I adjust accordingly. If my team focuses on 2 pts, I find we usually win. If we push all 3, that frequently leads to losing 2 pts unless the other team is not equally skilled.

Well its totaly situational…
Khylo example. I would go far and realy taht the respawing team watches not to loose close. Unsually this leads to being outnumbered on their far but if you can just survive and bind them a while all should be fine and your team regroup….
Nr2 i wuld let the reve stand in the void an hold 2 points. pick a positio nwhere you can watch their movements so you won´t get outnumbered somewhere.
For the last example if you would die in seconds then i would disengage, if you know you can hold the node a bit hope for help ….
If i can do a 1:2 and not die i will continue it. Offpoint or their node. This is one thing i personaly can do with my ele build and when the oponents lets me drag two behind me i don´t care dying one minute later …. If my team can´t get an advantage out of this its sad but happens.

Solstace.2514:

People often scream about poor rotations during a match that is going south, but it doesn’t always mean your team is rotating badly. You can lose because your players aren’t good, you have bad class match ups or for a variety of other reasons.

There are tons of different strategies depending on what your team make up is, what the other team has and how the match is going. Often times the trouble I see is when your team is not on the same page. Different players may be using different strategies- neither is bad but they don’t both work at the same time.

I use a simple strategy where I try to have 2 pts capped the majority of the match. I want my team in even or +1 fights unless we have a good bunker holding a point. I adjust accordingly. If my team focuses on 2 pts, I find we usually win. If we push all 3, that frequently leads to losing 2 pts unless the other team is not equally skilled.

Very good points. Rotating so you can have favorable match ups can make a huge difference.

Yup you hear complaints about your lack of rotation all the time. Like the OP I was getting really confused about where to go when. Just when you think you’ve got a handle on things it all turns to kitten again

Fishball did a really good job of explaining. But if you’re looking for more info or a bit of a guide check out http://qqmore.net/video-guide-rotation/

tl:dr Where not to go? Often it’s easier to answer that than “where to go?”

The ideal good rotations is basically

1. you want everyone doing something: if someone is staying home for a long time and no one is coming to him, it’s pretty much a 4v5 and he might as well be afk. that person even at home rather than always standing on the point that person should supervise the entrances to the spawn and there are spots near home u can stand to see where the enemy from their spawn is heading towards.

same thing applies to enemy rotations, if you notice they have a noob minionmancer at far standing on their home, you team can take advantage by simply not pushing far and winning the other 2 points 5v4

2. u want the most winning scenarios. an example of this is in a duel where neither side can kill each other, the one with the cap is in a winning scenario. deaths aren’t always a losing scenario because for example in foefire where it’s really hard to decap mid its still a winning scenario if it’s your cap and u have bunkers that keep coming that wont die. another example is that a death means that class will be near home when spawning meaning in 15 seconds after full dead that person will be able to peel/ decap/ cap home and the person at home can leave sooner.

lets say you have a start where your team is 1 home (which they should win easily), 2 of your teamates is pushing far and the rest of your team is gonna be 2v4 mid, if the 2 mid are bad players who chose to go in and die then complain about their teamates not being there it’s an easy losing scenario BUT, if the 2 simply choose not to commit to the 2v4 it’s actually a winning scenario for your team. sometimes you dont even have to win, you just need to live and over time winning scenarios favoring you to screw over the other team. its winning cuz say your team won 2v1 far and capped both sides, mid can get easily punished for losing numbers mid to go to side point especially if the 2 in your team did not die and rendezvoused with the side teamates they are already out numbered 4v5 for a good amount of time after the guy at far dies.

3. Winning the fight > capping a point (ESPECIALLY IF U CANT HOLD IT), if there is a scenario where for example your capping far as a necro and u see a teamate necro heading towards far to you while being trained by 2 people. it is a terrible decision to stay to cap while watching ur teamate die because your teamate is not like a thief that can just get away and once your teamate dies ull be left with 1v2 on a class that is terrible for it. the teamate can’t do anything about it, it’s in your hands.

Same thing when fighting off point, lets say your in forest of nifhel and you and a teammate are heading towards mid and you know there is an annoying tanky dh standing there waiting for you guys to come. then on your way you guys stuumble upon an enemy necro heading towards mid. heading to where the dh is to take a 2v2 is a WEAK play and takes more effort and probably wont even get the decap anyways, instead just gank the necro off point real quick so that the necro has to waste cds on him self or may even die then if that necro is using everything hes got to get stand on mid you will have either a winning 2v2 or a favorable 2v1.

if for some reason your on a side point with a damage class that shouldn’t be taking duels, if you have to take the duel against like a melee warrior for some reason without help, you are much better off letting them decap (assuming holding it for a few more seconds is the key to victory) while free casting damage on them than staying on the point while taking a duel you shouldnt win if you stay on point because of at least 2 reasons: 1. taking less effort to win a duel for free is always good and 2. so that your hp and cds are still good enough to escape if the enemy is getting reinforcements from their spawn or your lost mid fight.

There are so many specific situations that require experience to know which decisions are optimal. Telling people to rotate doesn’t really get them to understand what you want them to do most of the time. Although winning 1v2 far can be strong, winning the 4v3 is 10x more important.

basic logic: wiping (even as 1 person) on any point very likely leads to an outnumbered fight somewhere else. living to reset is generally always better than dying, waiting 15 sec to spawn plus however many more secs and cds spent to get to where they need to from spawn.

there is still so much more.. pvp too hard \(0A0)/