Guild Wars 2

I’m just curious what the hard counter to a zerg melee/staff charge/thrust is.

I mean traps are mainly based on condi attacks. The only other type is countered by stability. Zergs have both of these avenues of attack covered generally though. At most you might cause 1-2 seconds in delay of them trampling into you. In terms of a/c and siege placements…..zergs have access to portals to bypass them completely.

So what’s the counter in zerg vs zerg combat?

Also if I’m with some pugs in a group and a zerg about the same size does this charge/thrust. What is the best way to counter (pug vs zerg)?

I’m just curious. I mean if you are larger than the zerg that is charging its generally a case of them charging and bogged down inside ur group and systematically getting eaten (regardless of ur organization level). The zerg’s counter to this is really hit and run tactics to whittle less organized masses down. What is the counter if the zerg is the one that is heavy and huge? Running away obviously.

Reason I ask: I run into a number of scenarios where I’m commanding groups of randoms (pugs). And were up against a guild group. So were just staring at eachother across the field and I’m racking my brain on how we can best counter their charge. If I can get them to kite us we will have avenues for success. If I can avoid having them portal bomb us….we can use siege and height elevations to our advantage. If neither of those options exist and we can’t split them…..what do we do when they charge?

This has been known since the era of hammertrains.

The counter to a melee heavy train is a ranged swarm. You dont stack, you dont push, you just slip away on the sides (or dodge straight through) and hit the rear. There are always people falling behind. As long as you can prevent the train from getting a solid target (ie 4+ kills in a single push), you can slowly wear them down. Kill them one by one until the train itself get so thin it start falling apart. Thats when you push hard.

Dodge to the side, kite and flank constantly, range bomb the backline. Focus all the downed, and never let them rally.

Melee heavy zergs tend to be very predictable in their movement, they charge, and after a short period restack, this is one of the biggest vulnerabilities to exploit. Using terrain to your advantage is also extremely important, know how to utilize chokepoints and how to move around in open field. Melee zergs are most dangerous in tight areas like lords rooms where they will usually run around in a ball, these smaller areas make sustain much easier for them, and harder for pug zergs to move around in.

The biggest problems with pug zergs is keeping people focused, coordinated, and on the commander. You can also use this to your advantage. Sometimes it is better to harass an enemy at every opportunity, picking people off, forcing others to come rez, and bombing them to whittle down their numbers. And knowing your limits is key, dont prolong a fight you cannot sustain with your group, back away when needed so people can heal and survive.

Positioning is king.

Dawdler.8521:

This has been known since the era of hammertrains.

The counter to a melee heavy train is a ranged swarm. You dont stack, you dont push, you just slip away on the sides (or dodge straight through) and hit the rear. There are always people falling behind. As long as you can prevent the train from getting a solid target (ie 4+ kills in a single push), you can slowly wear them down. Kill them one by one until the train itself get so thin it start falling apart. Thats when you push hard.

Pretty much this.

You also have to know that a good organized guild punches a lot higher, than a pug group, in terms of numbers.

Also hiting the back of a guild will not get you anything in current meta, since there is no backline anymore.

Generaly spreading up on open field will wear opponents group down, since you will not wipe and given supperior numbers eventualy prevail(reinforcements, rezes come in handy).

Pugs against a guild group(same numbers) will never result in Pugs winning, unless some pretty crapy guild is against group made of mostly guild players.

If you can get necros to spam well of corruption into them, the zerg becomes vulnerable to everyone else’s crowd control, so long as you can strip stability.

you know the videos where sharks swim in a pile of fishes while the fishes keep distance and dont pack? now imagine they got lazorguns. pewpew. Thats how you do it, if the melee train got nothing to aim at, you can pewpew them from all sides and try to get their tail.

I find the best way to counter the melee zerg is to disperse so they can’t run over/bomb multiple targets. This does require that the majority of players in the dispersal group can handle their own because if the zerg tries to run you over, you need to be able to escape and reposition. There was a great video a couple of years ago now where someone recorded my server (Gandara) deploying these tactics to exhaust a tightly stacked melee group and kill them. It was a good example of how it can work, so I hope it hasn’t completely vanished. We deployed the same tactics last week and its still effective, despite the horrible resistance uptime.

Dawdler.8521:

This has been known since the era of hammertrains.

The counter to a melee heavy train is a ranged swarm. You dont stack, you dont push, you just slip away on the sides (or dodge straight through) and hit the rear. There are always people falling behind. As long as you can prevent the train from getting a solid target (ie 4+ kills in a single push), you can slowly wear them down. Kill them one by one until the train itself get so thin it start falling apart. Thats when you push hard.

This. It’s the #1 strategy for ZvZ warfare, or just blob busting (though that’s a lot harder to pull off).

SloRules.3560:

Generaly spreading up on open field will wear opponents group down, since you will not wipe and given supperior numbers eventualy prevail(reinforcements, rezes come in handy).

Pugs against a guild group(same numbers) will never result in Pugs winning, unless some pretty crapy guild is against group made of mostly guild players.

When I picture open field dispersal like that I just see a tightly packed arrowhead doing circles in a field mowing down sheep with auto-attack spam. The sheep on the outside toss rocks and stuff at the zerg but there is no avenue for focus fire, and the heal and deflect and block renewals are too strong for uncoordinated sticks and stones to do anything.

I can definitely see this working with a way-point nearby though. Where the level of reinforcement is as you described.

Cerby.1069:

SloRules.3560:

Generaly spreading up on open field will wear opponents group down, since you will not wipe and given supperior numbers eventualy prevail(reinforcements, rezes come in handy).

Pugs against a guild group(same numbers) will never result in Pugs winning, unless some pretty crapy guild is against group made of mostly guild players.

When I picture open field dispersal like that I just see a tightly packed arrowhead doing circles in a field mowing down sheep with auto-attack spam. The sheep on the outside toss rocks and stuff at the zerg but there is no avenue for focus fire, and the heal and deflect and block renewals are too strong for uncoordinated sticks and stones to do anything.

I can definitely see this working with a way-point nearby though. Where the level of reinforcement is as you described.

I have seen it employed on Gandara to great success. At one point it was known as cloud formation, where all ranged(gandara always had problems with to much ranged) would simply disperse around the enemy and evade the spearhead like a colony of fish. Sure 1 or 2 might be picked off on every push but they have time to return to the fight with this formation.

There is still commander and melee, it just doesn’t engage direcly, but engages on people that have fallen out of the group, eather by their own mistake or a lucky corrupt.

You also have to know that in pugs a lot more people run zerk gear, that coupled with being outnumbered can realy hurt the guild group, since damage done to whole group is comparable to what is done to an individual in GvGs.

Think of this as defense in depth as opposed to blitzkrieg.

EDIT: But yea, you still need some veteran players on the pugs side to acctuly succed.

Avoidance. Nothing much else I can say…

build a couple of ac nearby and put yourself under their fire …

Just avoid it but most people can’t do even that, I don’t understand why they use a backline build if they can’t even do something so simple.

if those were abunch of boons sharers on durability runes…. it will be hard :\, and if they have good numbers.. well bail out, since most of those rurability boon share walls can even rush trough some bombing point like was nothing, no matter CC u land in fornt of them :\, probably a horde of necros and mesmers removing boons.

the way you deal with it now is with a lot of Mesmer doping mass nul field is most effective way to deal with meta. but hopefully that meta will die with balance patch lol

Simonoly.4352:

I find the best way to counter the melee zerg is to disperse so they can’t run over/bomb multiple targets. This does require that the majority of players in the dispersal group can handle their own because if the zerg tries to run you over, you need to be able to escape and reposition. There was a great video a couple of years ago now where someone recorded my server (Gandara) deploying these tactics to exhaust a tightly stacked melee group and kill them. It was a good example of how it can work, so I hope it hasn’t completely vanished. We deployed the same tactics last week and its still effective, despite the horrible resistance uptime.

Not having a tag and being totally disorganized actually works quite well, I agree. I’ve seen it happen many times and in fact, we did this on Maguuma a few nights ago and completely demolished the map. We had like two dozen people with tags up and we just came at zergs from every angle. As someone said during those fights “you can actively see them being confused about where they should attack.”

The problem is that a lot of players are afraid to die or don’t know how to function without someone leading. Everyone needs to be in a positive mood and willing to work as a team but also as individuals. Otherwise the group will split as soon as there are a couple downed.

Here’s a picture of that night. It was amazingly fun and chaotic. Especially with how our group would just zoom to where ever we saw orange swords, plow through the enemy zerg and zoom on over to the next battle. We were on a rampage and we weren’t on teamspeak or with a defined leader, just all hunting as wolves, lol

Target their ele’s, without water fields to blast the zerg will be easier to beat. The Necro’s will die off without the heals and before you know it the melee ball has no back line…