Guild Wars 2

Hey. I came across a video of Dark Age of Camelot 8 vs 8 pvp and was reminded of something that was very common back then:

Assist train. (http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Assist%20train)

As you can derive from the awesome urban dictionary it basically meant that the group leader would pick a target which a certain part of the group (those not occupied with healing or cc) would also attack.
This would easily work on larger scale clashes as well. The term ‘assist train’ was actually derived from an entire zerg assisting it’s leader.

I understand that this was made particularly easy since there was an /assist macro in DAoC, but something similar is possible in gw2 with the focus target if I am not mistaken?

But from my (surely limited) experience this is not used to the extend (compulsory back then to assist) in gw2 as it was back then, despite both pursuing a similar PvP concept (WvW & RvR).

Do you think this would be a viable strategy for gw2?
Instead of nuking areas with AoE , picking single target and burst them down?

This was popular in GW1 gvg and heroes ascent.

You would see a party of 8 rangers suddenly all face one target and had a aplit second to quickly protect that particular party member from being spiked to death.

5 man parties. And only parties see the target their party selected. So it doesn’t work until squads are more useful, or party size is increased.

ah yeah, i totally forgot about that, thaoo … Focus targets can still only be seen by your party, not by the entire Commander Squad …
And in small scale it is commin ofc. In sPvP at least. But there you have max 3 team mates on the same spot at most times, so you could hardly call that a ‘train’.

The king boss of all time on this score was EvE Online, until the recent patch that nerfed it into the dirt.

It was a technique that only worked with one weapon system in that game (drones), because until the latest change any number of drones could be “assigned” to one person. So in big fights the fleet commander could have an instant, perfectly coordinated alpha with the firepower of 2,000+ ships. And after clicking the FC and “assign,” the other 1,999 players could all go AFK for half an hour until the fight was over. It was great fun while it lasted, and large guilds abused the hell out of it.

Anything that tends to work the same way and is of any use at all would no doubt likewise go away in this game before too long. And people aren’t exactly up on the rooftops screaming for ANet to put even more reasons to run massive zergs into the WvW game right now.

As hinted at in posts above about other games, it would just change the zerg meta a bit from melee train to ranged train, since target swapping would be more efficient with pure ranged damage assisting on the pin. That doesn’t exactly sound like an “improvement” to the current WvW ground game.

Heezdedjim.8902:

1,999 players could all go AFK for half an hour until the fight was over. It was great fun

seems legit. i do have more fun when afk, not on the computer.

oh and @ OP:
a 40 people spike on one player would NOT be fun. no way to counter that.

pza.8024:

oh and @ OP:
a 40 people spike on one player would NOT be fun. no way to counter that.

Well if both sides did it It would certainly add a whole new depth to larger scale WvW.
I mean the bombing of an area with AoE that has replaced the ‘bubbeling’ under the Guardian Refuge of the early days, that is employed by most WvW guilds isn’t much different. I am merely suggesting to make an advance and progress from senseless AoE spamming to focus targeting.
I can only make reference to this, since I haven’t played any other organised large scale pvp MMO that deserves the name:
In DAoC there were ridiculously powerful ground target AoE s (PbAoE) that where used to demolish bigger groups.
But once people got the hang of it these were simply avoided and the casters slaughtered.
But that’s a different game. I am merely pointing out that there are alternatives to zerging and area control through AoE damage.

Its still doable here, you just need to have sub commanders who pick targets for their groups.

The thing that actually weakens that strategy most here is the removal of the /follow command. Being able to autostack a leader and target his target used to make it pretty easy for 8 coordinated people to kill 30

It’s quite common to have a squad of heavy hitters pick squishy targets and kill them in GvGs. It’s also very common in small scale fights to pick a single target to kill first.

Just in general blob battles it doesn’t really happen that much as you’ll need to be in a party that’s willing and effective at this particular tactic. This isn’t likely to happen unless you’re in a group of friends / guildies that work together frequently.

This is a very common tactic in small scale fights. Especially with havoc groups. Pick a squishy, down him/her, move on to the next person

Gorath.5076:

pza.8024:

oh and @ OP:
a 40 people spike on one player would NOT be fun. no way to counter that.

Well if both sides did it It would certainly add a whole new depth to larger scale WvW.
I mean the bombing of an area with AoE that has replaced the ‘bubbeling’ under the Guardian Refuge of the early days, that is employed by most WvW guilds isn’t much different. I am merely suggesting to make an advance and progress from senseless AoE spamming to focus targeting.
I can only make reference to this, since I haven’t played any other organised large scale pvp MMO that deserves the name:
In DAoC there were ridiculously powerful ground target AoE s (PbAoE) that where used to demolish bigger groups.
But once people got the hang of it these were simply avoided and the casters slaughtered.
But that’s a different game. I am merely pointing out that there are alternatives to zerging and area control through AoE damage.

i think you didn’t egt my point.
for an individual player that gets focused down it’s not fun because you just cant avoid such a spike. right now, if you’re good, you dodgeroll, block, throw stuff and so on to protect yourself and you have a chance to come through the aoe with 10%life or so. this is because the current AoE-meta just simply isnt as spiky as a single target blob wold be.
what i’m additionally saying is that everyone else, who is not getting spiked, is not having as much fun, because they’re not losing any HP. With AoE’s everyone gets their kick while trying to survive AND have a chance to survive.

There is no need for assist train in GW2 because everyone’s attack is AE so you just spam your skill and hit everything .
GW2 wvw is dumbed down so you can do it with little to no skill. Watch a DAoC rvr vid you’ll hear how much communication there is . The main assist is calling out targets, healers are calling for peels, CCs are calling out what they are CCing so no one breaks them. In GW2 you pretty much just hear the leader calling for stacking and combo fields.
DAoC wvw is a team effort where GW2 wvw is simply the leader of one blob vs the leader of another blob. The blob members are most effective when they don’t think at all and just do as they are told.