Guild Wars 2

Personally, I find small group tactics in WvW to be far more fun than running in the zerg. I’ve stumbled upon some cool strategies, but I’m sure the community has come up with a lot of better stuff. Plus, the discussion could help many of the zerglings break off on there own more effectively.

What small-group guerrilla strategies have worked for you?

To start things off, two tactics I have used:

1. I use 6x superior runes of the centaur to give swiftness to the whole group. This helps us get to the next target faster, and run away from zergs.

2. The Snow Leopard Norn Elite is actually really nice for escaping superior forces. It is good for 3 long stealths in a 30 second period.

(Final Note: Please don’t use this tread to complain about how the WvW mechanics are broken or give suggestions to fix them. Those topics are well covered on other threads.)

Mesmer portals.

x3 Gs warriors
x2 Mesmers
x1 Thief

We call it Mongolian death squad.

Pink Squad over here on Crystal Desert.

We run 3 Thieves and 2 Mesmers.

All three thieves use D/D and shortbow. One is a glass cannon 1 is support dmg and the 3rd myself is Support/Deception build.

As far as the mesmers go they are not shattering as its pointless in wvw and both run time warp. We open our ambushes from stealth and have easy retreat with multiple stealths if needed.

Back capping supply points after the Zerg moves on, attack towers on the far side of the map away from the Zerg. Most importantly we stay mobile and come in from the back to kill siege when our server is defending a tower. Siege breaking is one of the most important things a small group can do because it release pressure from the defenders and most time rallies them to make a push outside of the tower.

I played with a bunch of guys that liked to pick off lone players :P One of us would lure them into the water by ‘running away’ he’d jump in the water thinking he’s winning and find 3-4 of us waiting to kill him XD.

I’d personally like to see some Guerrilla style action more frequently.

Don’t die.

A big part of raiding is morale damage, don’t give them any confidence boosters with your death. Be prepared to run away and use every dirty trick in the book.

titanlectro.5029:

snip..

What small-group guerrilla strategies have worked for you?

Just send a thief.. what else would you do?

Joking aside we regularly run supply camp swat teams to cut off supply lines while we are sieging down keeps. Ranger, Thieves, Mesmers are usually the go to classes, but one of the best swat teams I was a part of was 2 Thieves, 1 Mesmer, 2 Engineers.. lots of control in that team. Combo fields can be pretty powerful here and give a coordinated team a pretty big advantage over people that are disorganized. As a Thief I’m always trying to flank and disrupt the enemy lines as much as possible while making sure I secure the kills with stealth stomps (to me the single biggest factor in small vs larger group tactics.. gotta make them dead dead). Another big point in line with stomping is to make sure you constantly res your downed guys and prevent being stomped. Interrupts, CC, smoke, blind, etc. all help.. it is essential in small group tactics to watch each others backs constantly.

Random guerrilla tactics aren’t very effective and probably hurt your team more than it helps. I see a lot of this.

Where it really helps if it is in conjunction with a siege or defense. If you can block supplies or protect. It helps alot.

Most randoms just hop from one camp to another. It usually never counts for a score and almost never helps the bigger fight.

No question it is fun. Fun and effective is better though.

I’ve always found that you need to have a goal in mind and an escape route pre planned.

Especially if your fighting the zerg. having a few balistas ready to go a decent funnel spots such as a supply camp, or lets say the ruins in front of blue keep ((./wink)) Can help a lot.

Group swiftness, and AoE CC like chill fields, glue bombs, knock back walls, and projectile reflects are a must though. No matter what you have to move fast.

Having people in defined roles such as making siege teams, having 3 people who always build siege together helps a lot. You can drop a bit of CC and a knock back wall and then build a balista or two quickly for extra dps.

You’ll also want to make a decision about stomp’ing. Do you stomp or do you dps? Who stomps? Who assists?

Using a guardian to pull downed players close together and then aoe’ing them can be much more effective than try to stomp them 1 by 1.

But the key is coordination and organization.

Small manning can be alot of fun and it can help the zerg out more then many realise if coordinated right. Cutting off reinforcements, guarding supplies, coordinated flanks, killing supplies. All of these can come into play and work for the server if done correctly. DAoC had 8 mans/small mans always running around doing their own things but when the time came that the zerg needed help from them to coordinate whatever plan was in mind they generally were more effective then the zerg itself.

You would be amazed what a small group of coordinated players can accomplish.

TBH I run around looking for the unprotected supply depot and solo them. Takes a few minutes but in general I get away with it and it can totally screw with their supply chain if the opposing teams are not careful.

I find it easier to avoid detection while running solo and if nothing else…most wont persue one defender 30 yards away making it plausable to do this.

Skirmishing tactics with a small group of guild people directed by one voice on voip. Usually number ~15ppl. party everyone up as much as possible. Always get supply before attacking any bases, always 2 rams on the gate. have someone scout for zergs. Know when to run away. Like if there’s too many defenders or incoming zergs. Best done when there’s a commander led zerg doing other stuff. That way you can operate without picking up too many stragglers.