Guild Wars 2

So i have been playing this game since beta/headstart. I can pve for hours on end in this game and not get bored. Off and on I would WvW but all I found myself doing was Zerging. If anyone has played DAoC back with the old frontiers you will know where I am getting at. Every once and a while I have no issue zerging, but on occasions i would like to be able to find 1v1, 2v2, even 5v5/10 fights but it seems whenever we (my guildmates and I) do this and take smaller camps/points to help out around the map that we always end up getting zerged. Does anyone else enjoy the smaller warfare as the Zerg/Zerg are taking the bigger targets? If so are there any “hot” spot (like Emain is DAoC) that this normally occurs?

My time in DAoC was much more memorable due to my set group running around, letting the zergs take over what they will, while handling the smaller groups/points. If this just doesn’t happen it is a shame.

Do the same thing we did in DaoC and Warhammer, form a roaming group and move out. Kill fast and don’t stay in an area after being spotted.

Plenty of small scale fighting, the problem is it gets dull super fast fighting nameless players, or if your side crushes the other sides and they don’t come out to fight.

It is not DAoC for sure. The map isn’t big enough and everyone moves faster. So you are much less likely to find small action.
That being said it is still possible. You need to do the same thing as above poster said strike out and go to places like supply camps out of the way or the tail end of a zerg and you will find some small man action. But you really need to be prepared to be kitten jamed any moment by a large group.

Thanks! I have noticed that and been doing just as said. Just seems the avoidance of the zerg is much less likely which saddens me. I enjoy doing the supply camps in quick smaller group strikes more-so than sitting inside a keep with a broken wall waiting for the trebs to break down the inner wall. But everyone has what they enjoy I assume. Then again being on Stormbluff and the massive population of our server plus the servers we normally face also account for this issue.
I also assume the realm rank system in DAoC also played a big factor in this, as smaller groups could acquire more in a shorter duration, and without that the zerg mentality seems to flourish.

Thanks again and hopefully more smaller skirmishes can occur where skill is the deciding factor!

I miss those kind of small group fight.

I usually never go with the Zerg in WvW, since it’s getting boring to just follow the flow of player and hitting gates.

I usually travel with a friend and we try to kill Zerg left over, other small group or farming players. It’s really hard to find tho.

Especially in EB, since most of the time you are in range of some cannons or siege weapon. It drive me crazy that some players seems to stay all night long on a cannon and do nothing else then cripple me around

And more often then not, you will fall on a Zerg. No point in fighting them, since even if you down one, they will just insta rez him.

This game has so many pro-Zerg mecanism, it’s really hard to find other small group.

Would be cool to have a bigger map, just so the zerg tendancy would spread a bit.

Plenty of things a small group can do.

You’ll have to accept that getting run over by enemy zergballs is going to happen. /shrug Especially with the maps not being particularly large. But that also means you can find lots of action faster, so it’s got positives and negatives.

If the enemy zergball gets you…. well you know where they are now. So move on to the other side of the map. Or go to one of the other borderlands with some siege and attack some keeps.

Follow some dolyaks, watch your supply camps. Guaranteed to result in small scale pvp, and is helpful to your realm. And before you cry boring, think about how much time a roaming group spends just looking around for something to kill…

Zonghui.4570:

So i have been playing this game since beta/headstart. I can pve for hours on end in this game and not get bored. Off and on I would WvW but all I found myself doing was Zerging. If anyone has played DAoC back with the old frontiers you will know where I am getting at. Every once and a while I have no issue zerging, but on occasions i would like to be able to find 1v1, 2v2, even 5v5/10 fights but it seems whenever we (my guildmates and I) do this and take smaller camps/points to help out around the map that we always end up getting zerged. Does anyone else enjoy the smaller warfare as the Zerg/Zerg are taking the bigger targets? If so are there any “hot” spot (like Emain is DAoC) that this normally occurs?

My time in DAoC was much more memorable due to my set group running around, letting the zergs take over what they will, while handling the smaller groups/points. If this just doesn’t happen it is a shame.

Played DAOC for years and yes this is possible. It’s harder to get but possible. The biggest problem is when you do find these fights they are great and fun in that moment in time but when they are over, you realize you have no idea who you fought, can’t talk to them about builds or generate any sort of community/rivalry. That is the main thing that is missing from WvW and I really hope that changes (aside from a WvW progression system they have stated they are working on). It is a small thing that adds a lot of longevity to a game.

Back to your topic, if you are part of a very small group of people solo to 3 or so, I would recommend everyone be a Thief. This is due to their mobility and slipperyness, they are best suited to avoid the zerg. If you have 2 thieves and 1 of any other class, that one guy will be dying all the time to zergs.

If you are talking bigger groups of 4+ then it’s just about group comp. You want a couple thieves for shadow refuge a mesmer or two for hit and run portal tactics, a guardian because guardian and engie & necro for area denial and stuff like that. Groups of 4+ really have to use terrain and portal to avoid zergs.

Your methods are the way to do it. Go on the opposite side of the map from the commanders and take camps. They will attract people but always be ready to bail if the zerg shows up. Coordinated refuge and portal takes care of that pretty well. Another option is the regulate the Eternal jump puzzle. You will help a lot of people out and get a lot of small scale PvP.

WvW definitely isn’t as good as DAoC’s RvR. The maps are too small, there is no persistence. Things like limited number of targets for AOE really limit the few versus many battles. It’s really a poor substitute overall.

arcaneclarity.5283:

WvW definitely isn’t as good as DAoC’s RvR. The maps are too small, there is no persistence. Things like limited number of targets for AOE really limit the few versus many battles. It’s really a poor substitute overall.

Yes this is the biggest problem are the map sizes as well as cross swords, imo GW2 maps are at least bigger/have more objectives than WH did but its still not big enough.

If they their were bigger maps with more small objectives that helped your side but weren’t worth the time for the zergs to goto it would help fix the problem. Right now supply camps are something the zerg needs and the way the camp boss buff works is that it actually promotes zergs

oh DAOC had it’s new frontier and new-new fronteer.

i can only hope that the 3 identical zones were a place holder that was ‘good enough to launch’ and that we’ll get 2 brand new remplacement zones any time soon.

just like i can only hope that we’ll get a w3 advancement system (realm rank like !, not gear grind pls) anytime soon. seen how the advancement systems in almost any other game after DAOC have been horrible, i can imagine that ANet decided to launch the game without it and collect 3 months worth of data to calculate what the effects would have been in gains and advancement speeds of people if it would have been in place. that would prevent having to drastically alter some variables in it if some of their guesses would have proven wrong. avoiding the sort of mistake like "we expected noone to reach max rank in less than a year, but now we found that after 2 weeks some people reached max rank and now we need to change everything because it’s having unballancing effects’ is important.

There are changers coming according to the Reddit AMA yesterday:
——
by ArenaNetTeamin Guildwars2
[–]ArenaNetTeam[S] 19 points 1 day ago
hi nn776,
These are all cool ideas for WvW and you can expect to see some significant content dropping in this area of the game in the near future.
I would like to be more precise but can’t be but rest assured we are working a lot on not just new content for this area of the game but also progression, reward and beacon mechanics.
Chris
—-

It’s similar to Lineage 2’s castle system, but on a much larger scale.

In Lineage 2 you had castle sieges where there were defenders and attackers. Defenders had siege vehicles to break in through the gates and there was an outer and inner gate. When defenders died they spawned inside the castle and the attackers spawned at their flag on the field or at the closest town. If the defenders won than they could tax the local town so when people bought goods they got profits.

The siege vehicles were actually very similar to what’s in WvW. You had cannons that were like catapults and GIANT siege golems (almost as big as the castle) that you used to pound the doors down with.

Castle sieges lasted an hour and happened every week, but you would have multiple castle sieges back to back.

What I do is look at the swords. Look at the possible waypoints for people who have died and are respawning. Choose the most direct route between the two, because people tend to want to get back to the action as fast as thier legs can carry them. Set up ambushes along this route.

It is rare that people will wait at a spawn point for backup.

If you are bg or ioj , find caedas, they usually run in small groups and they are extremely good players as a whole. You want a test, they are a good place to start.

Dolyaks. They get escorted quite often by 2-5 players. This is a good place to find small scale fights. If no one is escorting, keep killing them. someone will show up, and it usually will not be a zerg.

Far north supply camp. On the BL maps this is the most heavily guarded supply camp, as it supplies the gateway to the realms foothold area. You often have 5-10 players there, usually with siege.

Bait and engage tactic. Send 1 or two players toward a tower that has a few defenders. lure them out to your group. Engage away from siege. Players love to outnumber opponants. fool them.

just like in daoc, do not camp an area. The zerg will come take you out. If they have to constantly assess where you are, they will only send contingents to try and deal with you, as the zerg is used to take and defend points.

Scouting is key. Keep a thief out to watch for incoming zergs, they are easy enough to avoid.

Trail and kill. I have run with a faily large guild in wvw, and thier organization can work against the pugs that choose to follow them. They will usually ignore a small group that is trailing them on thier way to an objective. Pugs that do not have the luxury to be on thier voice coms will often stop to engage. The main zerg most always will be told to keep on task and not engage.

I would also like to state that I use pugs to describe a player that mostly plays by themself or in a small group, and is not part of a large guild. This does not in any way mean they are unskilled , or easy targets.

TLDR: there are many ways to fight in a small group. you just have to understand some of the ways wvw works, and learn the habits of the zerg.

Irongut.