Guild Wars 2

Hey everyone!

I’ve wanted to open a discussion with commanders across servers about different styles and techniques used to rally militia, the everyday players who are not hardcore WvW battle-seekers or the players who seek to roam separate from the commander.

It would be great to see what approaches have been effective, and which have not in your server and community environment.

The most common analogy used to describe this is “herding cats” and I’m sure we’d all love to hear some of the tricks used by our best cat shepherds. cough nacho cough

My most effective rallies have all started with engaging the map in conversation,
starting with a “good evening/morning/afternoon” and setting a goal for that command, whether it be taking down the back fully upgraded towers like bravost, veloka, jerrifers, langor, aldons etc, or destroying a WP in an enemy keep.

For Example:
“before we leave tonight we’re going to paper this corner and drain it dry of supply so our OCX can roflstomp all night long”

I found this to be effective because it keeps everyone aligned with the same goal in mind. This way when the militia ask questions, they’re normally framed around the goal, and this also makes discussion easier, as the question askers less frequently get accused of noobage.

Another technique that is similar to this one, but less dependent on our enemy being disorganized, was to offer a challenge to the militia, similar to this:

“Hey guys, there are a lot of ways this can work. I can command the way I have been, like we are a disorganized group of cats who are going to scatter the second we hit a zerg, or I can command like we’re all a practiced zergbusting group and we can kick kitten and chew bubble gum. What do you think – insert server – ? are you up for the challenge?

For me, issuing a challenge to the map zerg has worked on occasion, but it has also heartily backfired. Zergbusting with an uplevel zerg is hilarious, but some players really don’t like dying.

I’m looking forward to your answers!

Easiest way I’ve found is to drop some banners and food at a waypoint, link the waypoint and mention “food and banners on my tag”, and the pugs come running like rats out of the woodwork. You then start spamming teamspeak/mumble/raidcall/vent details in mapchat to try get people onto voice comms and start wrecking face.

This is assuming there are players on the map. If there’s only 10 people on the whole map, then it won’t really matter will it? Though that outnumbered buff will help a lot.

I guess different servers will handle it in different ways. With BG, there are certain commanders that everyone knows and will rally to, and there are “commanders” that everyone knows and stays the hell away from. It also depends on the time zone (we have absolutely no one during Oceanic – can’t even queue 1 map, so militia rallying is much harder) as well as guilds that are running – why would you follow a militia commander when there’s a guild that’s tagged up and raiding?

The hardest thing about commanding militia is keeping the zerg together. More often than not, after a single wipe, you’ll lose at least 50% of your numbers, which you then have to build back up with people coming into the map to replace those who left. But then, who can blame casuals?

I usually start off with roaming, get an idea of enemy numbers, build 2 superior arrowcarts in all the towers, then go back to keep, tag up, tell people I’ll be leaving keep in 30s and then start gaining momentum..

Start off with camps, more people will catch up or will want to be involved with taking things, when I get 5 or so people ill +5 a camp, drop some guild catas and start taking a tower…. people will come again for tower exp…. and just keep momentum basically…

Reason for scouting before starting is to pick on weaker server first to build a zerg.

Reason for building my own siege in towers is cause I hate getting to a tower under attack and not having any supplies or siege inside already built and if I can stay on the assault and have 1-2 people man the ac’s and a)Hold off zerg for a while or b) fend off the zerg completely then I can keep building momentum in what I’m doing on the enemy side.

Hamster.4861:

The most common analogy used to describe this is “herding cats” and I’m sure we’d all love to hear some of the tricks used by our best cat shepherds. cough nacho cough

Idk if this is a compliment or a friendly jab, or not even directed at me :P

Anyways, what I usually do is to be consistent during a specific time zone, adding everybody that WvWs to my friend list, which I use as a rally list ( Kalkz taugh me this).

What I do is a have a personnal guild which i save up my rally msg in the guild msg, so i can ctrl+x it and then mass whisper ppl simply by clicking everyone one by one and pressing ctrl+v to paste.

Now, the key to become a celebmander is be consistent and reward your zerg with karma trains. You’ll get popular super fast and get a blob on you, but be aware that these players will leave you as soon as they wipe and they are not good at fighting.

Hope that helps a bit

How to become a celebrity commander:

1)Be reliable. Don’t just turn on your tag whenever you feel like then go several days without doing so. You need to get a routine set up so that others who follow you will know when you will be leading. Consistency is the key!

2)Get kitten done. No one is gonna follow a commander who keeps getting them killed. You need to know what you can and can’t do with the people you have and don’t overextend. You need to know how to cap a keep with defenders. You need to know how to command an open field fight (that means saying more than just “stack” and “bomb”).

3)Have a goal. As stated previously, you need to have a goal that you hope to achieve while commanding. This will greatly help in retaining the militia that are following you.

4)If morale is dropping, do a short karma train. That instantly brings everyone back. Don’t just do karma trains though.

5)No yelling or rudeness. Don’t give anyone a reason to hate you. If you want to be a celebrity commander and more importantly, if you want to stay a celebrity commander, you need to treat everyone with respect.

6)Get thick skin. People are going to rage at you sometimes. If you get emotionally affected by that, you’re not cut out for commanding.

Natronix.9827:

Hamster.4861:

The most common analogy used to describe this is “herding cats” and I’m sure we’d all love to hear some of the tricks used by our best cat shepherds. cough nacho cough

Idk if this is a compliment or a friendly jab, or not even directed at me :P

Anyways, what I usually do is to be consistent during a specific time zone, adding everybody that WvWs to my friend list, which I use as a rally list ( Kalkz taugh me this).

What I do is a have a personnal guild which i save up my rally msg in the guild msg, so i can ctrl+x it and then mass whisper ppl simply by clicking everyone one by one and pressing ctrl+v to paste.

Now, the key to become a celebmander is be consistent and reward your zerg with karma trains. You’ll get popular super fast and get a blob on you, but be aware that these players will leave you as soon as they wipe and they are not good at fighting.

Hope that helps a bit

or fights

Hello Hamster,

I wrote this some time ago in warhammer, where we could have warbands of up to 24 so some of the terminology could be different. I have found that T1 servers like JQ and TC have a lot of commanders who have this attitude towards pugs/militia. I assume that BG too has them (eg Cuddlepie). Without militia a server cannot be in T1.

FW

Here are some tips on how to lead a PUG group. Most folks don’t like to do this because it requires a lot of time and effort. Ultimately, this game is about fun and if you don’t find it fun leading PUGs, don’t do it. Also, you will never have 100% of the guys listening to you, so either put the guy on /ignore or leave him to die in WvW alone. Death is the only lesson that dissenters learn from:

0. Start with scouting and 2-3 man havoc groups, learn the map politics, hit camps, kill stragglers, then graduate towards bigger groups as you find success. Scouting and havoc are building blocks of conducting tactical and strategic warfare.

1. Patience.

2. Patience.

3. Patience.

4. Do not use words/phrases that you wouldn’t use on your mother.

5. Preventing a wipe must remain at the top of your priorities. If you know that your warband might get wiped, prepare your troops by giving them a warning. This is extremely crucial for maintaining morale. If warband morale drops, confidence in your leadership will be shaken and the warband will probably disband after 1 or 2 wipes. In short, having a career with more wiping than getting wiped guarantees a higher level of trust in your leadership.

6. Feed your warband with kills and loot. This will boost morale and increase warband cohesion.

8. If people don’t obey your instructions, don’t be afraid to give warnings. Also, be generous and say “thank you” to your people when they have done a good job. The PUG in your group is also a human being sitting in front of a PC, trying to have fun. Encouragement and firm discipline without using harsh words will build trust and loyalty. You will be able to get your warband to make more complex maneuvers as they grow in experience. The Art of War speaks about a benevolent leader caring for his troops. It’s a good lesson not only for WvW but for real life. As in real life and WvW, your people will know whether you have their welfare in mind or not. Love your troops and they will follow you.

9. If you joined a warband and you have suggestions, /w the warband leader. Do not give suggestions that look like orders, people in the warband might get confused.

Nacho’s rally list is good. He frequently uses it to good effect.

I personally use Player Hosted Eventsto gather my war band. I post it on my server website some time ahead to gather interested people. This ensures that I have people who turn up who are interested, ready to cooperate and sets a time frame for the raid event.

@Fann available for another training session on SBI? Guild grp 20ish.

I think the first part of improving tactics is to have a grouping system that allows flexible group composition and sizes. We simply don’t have the tools for players to organize the way they like. The WvW zones would be much more dynamic with more medium size forces on the map. Meaningful changes to GW2 grouping systems are the single biggest way to improve WvW.

Popping a pin creates a zerg, which limits tactics that private/guild only squads could create. Anet needs to make better functionally and flexibility in the C&S a priority, not an afterthought.

OP: You already touched on the two points I feel are the most important but I want to reiterate them.

1) Have someone relaying major information from voice chat to /m. Yeah I know it’s a little frustrating but no matter how much you spam that mumble channel maybe 10% of people will actually join. Get used to it.

2) Talk about events in future tense. We need to empower militia to be reactive without leadership. Always relay this info to /m. This way even after you may leave a BL someone will see an objective being attacked and say "gosh I recall the commander mentioning “x” might happen and in that case do “y”."

Thanks everyone for the suggestions!

I personally don’t aspire to be a celebrity commander, but I definitely wanted to hear from those who are.

my goal for this thread is to collect and organize information to help new commanders.

With all of the transfers that will be happening in the run up to the tournament, some servers will be in desperate need of new talent to lead, and hopefully the experience of our veterans will help them lead effectively.

Not every server has commanders that inspire other players to take up the dorito, and I was hoping to collect wisdom here for the benefit of all of the new players who are faceplanting against the learning curve.

Bumping for visiblity

A commander I followed last night summed up commanding

Player: GJ commander, ty!
Comm: Pls don’t say that again, do not thank me, thank those who are following me.

This followed a night of breaking the morale of the other server by capping their points, wiping them in open field fights and intercepting their attacks. The night culminated in letting them have a T2 keep at the cost of their T3 garrison. For that, the commander paid back the player who spent a good deal of time and gold upgrading the keep.

Good commanding is not just about being able to delegate tasks but also about appreciating when those tasks are done regardless of whether it was a fail or a success.
He was more of a General than a commander

Another commander I followed tonight spent a lot of time herding cats but the cats wouldn’t be herded. He handed over to another commander who only led those on our teamspeak. Puggers who didn’t follow the dorito or over extended were left behind until the blob circled around. This is vastly different to the other commander. This one was very much a lead from the front and led the charge sort. In this sense, he was less like a general and more like a cavalry commander. The rest of the map mattered little to him unless there was a fight to be had. He attacks towers, keeps and stonemist if it meant it drew the enemy zerg to us. However, front lining like this requires a very rapid response from his zerg and usually leads to very exciting gameplay. I should mentioned that our commander was a mad scotsman so it felt like Braveheart…repeatedly, without the FREEDOM! yelling.

Yet another mad scot that I followed managed to intimidate an enemy zerg such that, even though he was reduced to him and his 6 guildmates with me and the rest of our little ~25 strong zerg dead, they built AC’s and ballistas to hold him off. There were over 25 of them left and they bunkered into the lord room of the keep, we’d taken out at least 30-35 others before being reduced to 7.

The rewards of loot from this commanding style ensures that cat herding isn’t required, but good coordination of water fields, fire fields and blasts is mandatory.

good thread looking forward to read more of what people have to say:)

In light of S2 ending and folks burning out, I figure this could use a bump. New Commanders check it out.

i usually command in eotm (yes, let the hate flow that it’s not commanding, its being a glorified placeholder :P), and i find that the best strategy imo after a wipe or two is to just find a place that one of the other sides is trying to take from us, hunker down, and utterly wreck them. usually boosts morale right back up. also, this whole thread is pretty good, giving me all kinds of tips and help on commanding.

JusticarArkiel.1564:

i usually command in eotm (yes, let the hate flow that it’s not commanding, its being a glorified placeholder :P), and i find that the best strategy imo after a wipe or two is to just find a place that one of the other sides is trying to take from us, hunker down, and utterly wreck them. usually boosts morale right back up. also, this whole thread is pretty good, giving me all kinds of tips and help on commanding.

No room for hate – props for tagging up. keep it up
—- and etom is a beautiful.