Guild Wars 2

Normally; if you didn’t notice most servers lose Supply camps a lot before the points ticks. I spend a lot of my time in EB and around 3-2 minutes left before tally all I see is

/t CampA/CampB flipped

Let’s put this in perspective as most people don’t see the value in supply camps and camp flipping. Generally numbers are the easiest way to represent this. Ok in close matchups much like what you see in balanced T1 play small point differences influence the game highly. Camps are worth 5 points at a tally with 24 camps being available in the entire match. So in all camps are worth 120 points at tally.

This leads to presumably 11,520 points per day at most. In a week? 80,640.

You might be wondering what I’m getting at here; well what I’m trying to say is Supply Camp flips can infinitely help win or lose games. If you pay attention to how a top tier server such as SBI plays; when they flip camps they don’t do it because they can at any time; they do it very methodically with more than one party generally. They almost always cap around 2-3 minutes until points tick this. If you lose one or two camps per tick that’s 5 or 10 points you miss out on every 15 minutes.

So that comes out to be
5/10 Points Every Tick
20/40 Points every hour
480/960 Points every day

Now here comes the real interesting part; those points if you hold these camps for 12 out of every 15 minutes and they get flipped because you didn’t defend them; not only do you lose 5 points but the enemy server GAINS 5 points. If you don’t think about it; this may sound silly at first but the longer you reflect on this every point tick they flip one of your camps simply for the tally points you effectively LOSE 10 or 20 points.

I say you LOSE 10 or 20 points because you SHOULD have gained 5 and not been put behind 5 more; so this nothing more than an effective loss of that.

Put into perspective

10/20 Points every tick
40/80 Points every hour
AND 960/1920 EVERY DAY.

Now these aren’t reflective in score but the loss is still there; as you should have held them. This more often than not proves how important camps are; while towers/keeps/castles can cover this deficit, if you can afford 5 people for each supply camp why should you put yourselves further behind by not properly defending and more methodically flipping camps. Now this isn’t to say that a zerg is stoppable by that small force but a proper defense perimeter can deter them for a slight amount of time. When a top tier server (Such as SBI) defends a camp they have Ballista/Arrow Carts covering it, proving they understand the power of a supply camp.

Let’s not forget losing a camp can easily LOSE you 100 supply since they will flip the camps build siege and steal your supply; and effectively cut off one or more Dolyak spawns. So even outside of point end of tick supply camp flipping is so detrimental to the overall scheme of things.

So here are some pointers for both Offense AND Defense of Camps!

Offense :
1) Pay attention to the time to a tally; this part is really huge, you need to assess if taking a camp at that point is worth it, or if you can even do it in time (Especially if the Mob has the buff)

2) Always pay attention to your map! I CANNOT STRESS THIS ENOUGH! In order to properly assess and time your attacks you NEED to know when camps were last flipped/attacked in order to flip properly.

3) Always move quietly. You have to avoid proccing swords on the map as they reveal your location and definitely sell your intention.

4) Never under any circumstance take the most direct route! You want to be unseen as a small camp flipping team if you travel the road you may accidentally be caught out by tower defenders and other people.

5) Worry about composition. When taking camps you want a small force; but with that small force composition becomes a much larger need. Rangers; Warriors; Mesmers; Guardians; Thieves all classes that are very mobile and can move around the battlefield and offer group swiftness are great classes for this. Mesmers may want to consider running their AoE Stealth Elite for surprise attacks. As for Warriors and Rangers get a Warhorn, there is no excuse to not have a cheap Warhorn in your inventory. Guardians; no excuse to not have a staff in your inventory, same goes for Mesmers with a Focus.

6) Last but not least. Pay attention to the Mob’s buff; if you intend on supply capping and you have the intentions of trying to take camps with buffed leaders Vulnerability and Conditions are huge as conditions are not effected by the buff in strength but in duration.

Defense – What can you do to prevent this from happening?

1) Once again, time and map awareness you want to try to have a handle on where the enemy is watch the map for out of place swords; especially around 5 minutes until tally.

2) Assess your own teams needs. Ask yourself the following questions “Are we going to take a tower before tally?” “Am I really needed to take the tower?” and “Do we have the man power to actually defend properly?”

3) Timing yourself and having good classes for stalling. Thieves; Guardians; Mesmers; BUNKER eles. These are all very solid choices when it comes to defending camps from small tactical group as they can hold people well on top being fantastic at stalling.

Tips and Tricks!
1) Not only does killing Yaks along the way benefit your server directly by cutting off supply but as others mentioned it gives non Tally related points – Psirca

2) Defense Camp flipping! Don’t hesitate to flip a camp in your own territory as soon as possible every minute not flipped in another minute without supply flow!

3) VERY IMPORTANT! Do not linger as well; if you’re out of your territory you’re a walking target!

4) Do not take sentries if you’re trying to secure Camps for points! They are a red flag to enemy players! (Dhar)

With all that being said; I hope those of you who are new to WvW can understand the importance and power of the supply camp and for those who are veterans I hope maybe you learned a thing or two, if there is anything you would like to add or a point I made that you would like to refute post it below and I will get around to updating this thread.

Disclaimer : Do no take absolute paramount in supply camps as they don’t make or break the game but they offer a huge advantage in the overall scheme of things.

Fun facts :
Supply Camp Flipping is the most effective way to make money in WvW
While Camp Flipping you can easily snipe Dolyak’s for extra Money/Experience/Karma as well as help your team!
You can really hurt the other team by stealing their supply!
You feel like your individual actions are much more important than in a Zerg!

Here’s something else to add to the mix.
Killing a dolyak nets you instant points that don’t wait on a timed tick.
Those points are at least 2, some say they have seen up to 6 for each kill.
Dolyaks respawn around every 5 minutes (yes I camped one and watched).

If the enemy gets 5 points for holding the camp and you get at least 4 points for killing their dolyaks every 5 minutes, you get more points killing their supply rather than holding the camp.

~ Sneaky tactics for a losing team Lesson #104

psirca.9452:

Here’s something else to add to the mix.
Killing a dolyak nets you instant points that don’t wait on a timed tick.
Those points are at least 2, some say they have seen up to 6 for each kill.
Dolyaks respawn around every 5 minutes (yes I camped one and watched).

If the enemy gets 5 points for holding the camp and you get at least 4 points for killing their dolyaks every 5 minutes, you get more points killing their supply rather than holding the camp.

~ Sneaky tactics for a losing team Lesson #104

You see I never actually knew that; I only killed Yaks for their direct blow to the supply income. I’ll update it, if some others can confirm it; however killing Yaks does give you supply if you have no and land the killing blow.

Wwow didn’t know ether about the Dolyak.

And thanks Alsonia for this guide, it’s pretty useful to read it.

I don’t like zerging, so supply/tower capping is all I do right now. Your guid will help a lot.

Kardiamond.6952:

Wwow didn’t know ether about the Dolyak.

And thanks Alsonia for this guide, it’s pretty useful to read it.

I don’t like zerging, so supply/tower capping is all I do right now. Your guid will help a lot.

Thank you, this guide actually spawned from a Blackgate forum post of the same nature being tired of losing to SBI/JQ because of poor defense/supply control. I just expanded it a little more since, I pretty much always Supply Cap as well.

I’m not convinced that timing your captures is all that good an idea. If you refrain from taking a camp because there is too much time left in the interval, then you are allowing your enemy to resupply and providing him the funds to reinforce his towers and keeps. Conversely, you are denying your own side the chance to replenish supplies.

I’ve seen improvements take over an hour to complete because of the lack of supplies.

Obed.7629:

I’m not convinced that timing your captures is all that good an idea. If you refrain from taking a camp because there is too much time left in the interval, then you are allowing your enemy to resupply and providing him the funds to reinforce his towers and keeps. Conversely, you are denying your own side the chance to replenish supplies.

I’ve seen improvements take over an hour to complete because of the lack of supplies.

See psirca’s response.

You can sometimes get 5 supply from killing an enemy dolyak, which is nice if you have no camps on a map. But it’s definitely not a viable source of supply for a party. It would be easier to simply hop to another borderland where you own a supply camp and then hop back.

It really comes down to knowing which ones to cap; I’m not saying you should ONLY cap for points but if you only have the time to cap one then you want to choose the appropriate camp to get the most benefit out of it for your team. If you have the time to get two; pace yourself properly and you can knock out two but once again knowing which ones to cap and which ones not to is experience related and paying attention to the map.

Also as psirca said sniping yaks is also very important and every supply camp party SHOULD be sniping the yaks they can without putting themselves in danger.

If the supply camp is defensive and in your territory you need to flip the camp immediately that is supply cut off from your own towers.

Nice write up Alsonia, this will help out all kinds of people. As for blackgate we need to do timed attacks like SBI more often for taking supply camps. I didn’t know that about the yaks either, I always kill them when I see them anyway

Thank you; I want more intelligent and aware WvW players, especially the militia (PuGs)

This was a fantastic read just wanted to let you know I posted it on my server forums with a link to the original post.

Thanks for a great post.

If anyone has anything else to add; I would be excited to add it to the thread!

To the above; thank you!

Bump for awareness!

I am suddenly aware of supply camps!

(jk… good guide Alsonia!)

Tally every second

What “tally every second”

Tally WvW points every second instead of every 15 mins

To quote Bad Boys II, “kitten just got real.” Supply camps are the new Normandy Beach.

Really this is not a suggestion to defend camps, but to take camps right before the tick.

Great read…….

NornBearPig.9814:

Really this is not a suggestion to defend camps, but to take camps right before the tick.

Really, defense should be kind of common sense. Putting people to prevent flipping for points does you good. No point in telling people “HEY DEFENSE IS A GOOD THING” especially considering it should be common sense.

Another no brainer; but if you are going to take the yaks or the supply… don’t take the Sentry first. Skip it.

Sentry is worth ZERO points… sure you get a little xp and karma from it; but it’s also a red flag for anyone looking at the map that you are there.

I heard supply camps have the best cookies..

+1 for this thread.

Dhar.6392:

Another no brainer; but if you are going to take the yaks or the supply… don’t take the Sentry first. Skip it.

Sentry is worth ZERO points… sure you get a little xp and karma from it; but it’s also a red flag for anyone looking at the map that you are there.

Sentry is 1 immediate point to your score.

Killing a sentry should be secondary and be completely situational; if you’re taking a camp to actually use the supply flow then yeah; kill the sentry.

I think this is a design problem.

“Camp flipping” really shouldn’t be a thing. But camps are indefensible — if the enemy shows up with a small zerg, you’re not going to stop them without your own small zerg. The NPCs, including the supervisor, are such total pushovers that against 15 players they might as well not exist. Could just have the circle up all the time and anyone who stands in it gets the camp.

I really hate the camp flipping game but that’s where the points are. Good loot, good XP, good karma, good for your score, but gets old fast and just isn’t interesting as a longterm game mechanic.

Not to mention it makes the upgrades worthless.

Getting this back up there; started a Guild branch designed around this!