Guild Wars 2

Hello WvW-ers. I was hoping to start a constructive conversation about the best strategies for countering mega-zergs, as they are a big part of the game right now. I am not looking for crying about there being zergs, but instead for the most effective strategies to outmaneuver them, especially when you may be out-manned. Take, for-instance the case where you have 40-50 on EB, and one opposing faction is maxed out (lets say they have 80).

First, the strengths and weakness of the zerg, so that we might have ideas on how to exploit the weaknesses.
Strength:
-superior force (greater numbers), this is multiplied by their ability to re-res each other as long as they don’t wipe (hard against smaller #’s)
-superior supply – similar to above, except their large numbers mean they can flash-build all types of seige

Weaknesses:
-WASTED MANPOWER – people end up standing around or “1-1-1-1” doors. This is not an optimum use of time and resources
-Slower-response compared to having a few smaller-zergs in different places of the map, the mega-zerg is all concentrated in one area, meaning they aren’t anywhere else.

When the opposing team decides to mega-zerg (i.e. approx 60 people running as one), is it best to:
1.) Try and defend, building lots of siege (if you can get supply), and stall until you get larger numbers to actually neutralize them. Similar to the scorched-earth tactic, you drain your keeps defending them, slowing their advance and making it easier to back-capture later.
2.) Go full-on counter-offensive to force them to either split off to wipe you (taking the pressure back off of yourself), or give up heavily fortified positions on their side while they all “1-1-1-1” away on your doors. Perhaps even splitting yourself into two-15 person groups, or 3-10 person teams to capture their stuff faster than their mega-group can get yours, leaving ~10 people to simply try and stall them on defense.
3.) Switch to a borderland that isn’t focused to try and draw troops away, or hit them where they are vulnerable.
4.) When you are wiped form the map – spamming siegerazer/siegecrusher
5) Other options?? – explain best situation when to use (i.e. 2-1 advantage or 3-1, etc).

I would think that option 2 makes the most sense of exploiting the weakness of the zerg – wasted man-power. While they have large numbers standing around, you could be out exploiting their complete lack of defense. I like to think it is analogous to sacrificing a piece in chess. If you go on the offensive, 1 of 2 things happens – they are forced to split because they can’t handle smaller (but still reasonably-sized teams) with just their stragglers, or they agree to “trade pieces” with you, but at a slower rate (for them).

I am hoping that different experiences from different tiers might help us come up with some viable counter-strategies that might weaken the percieved power of the “MEGA-ZERG!!”

Watch this video:
http://youtu.be/tCAQS_w0Wgw
Start at 1:25 and 5:38 for some classic anti-zerg tactics. Use the zerg’s mob mentality against them; you’d be surprised how easy it is to scatter a PUG zerg once the lead group gets spiked.

The best counter is to split into groups of 9, and attack everything they own at the exact same time. I say 9 because this would allow you to drop 3 rams on every gate they have. But every group needs to drop its 3 rams and be using them at the exact same time, that way the massive zerg can only take out 2-3 groups and the others will take whatever theyre trying to take. This is of course assuming they own a lot of stuff.

wish.3102:

The best counter is to split into groups of 9, and attack everything they own at the exact same time. I say 9 because this would allow you to drop 3 rams on every gate they have. But every group needs to drop its 3 rams and be using them at the exact same time, that way the massive zerg can only take out 2-3 groups and the others will take whatever theyre trying to take. This is of course assuming they own a lot of stuff.

Rams take 40 supply not 30. Also superior rams work better and take 50 supply. I guess in JQ you never have to worry about this because every tower gets zergballed anyway?

The best thing you can do is split into a 10-man group or two and slap dolyaks then filp supply camps when the PPT timer gets < 5:00. You stall all upgrades until you get more coverage and you get 10 points per yak. Bonus points if you can get a crew of solo people to contest as many structures as possible and keep the zerg endlessly roaming around.

Then once you’re done with that you can reflect and cry to yourself that the best strategy in this PvP game is to do the ~Sun Tzu~ kitten and attack NPCs instead of other players.

What I would like them to do is simply merge every single borderland and the battleground into one huge map, with additional objectives to fight over as well. Of course, I’m sure that would result in all sorts of wonderful problems for the codemonkeys, but still… bigger maps would let us have a bit more room to maneuver and avoid the large unwieldy zergs.

wish.3102:

The best counter is to split into groups of 9, and attack everything they own at the exact same time. I say 9 because this would allow you to drop 3 rams on every gate they have. But every group needs to drop its 3 rams and be using them at the exact same time, that way the massive zerg can only take out 2-3 groups and the others will take whatever theyre trying to take. This is of course assuming they own a lot of stuff.

I read your tag. You’re from JQ. If you’d ever played against your oceanic hour you’d laugh at how deeply ironic your suggestion is. I know I did.

Irony aside, so what? You take a couple points with 9 man groups, turn everything to paper, and suddenly there are less locations for the enemy server to need to defend. The 9 man groups will consolodate, and the enemy zerg will continue to roll around and roll over everything. While they do that, they’ll roll through all the paper caps just created.

sdsakuragi.8170:

Watch this video:
http://youtu.be/tCAQS_w0Wgw
Start at 1:25 and 5:38 for some classic anti-zerg tactics. Use the zerg’s mob mentality against them; you’d be surprised how easy it is to scatter a PUG zerg once the lead group gets spiked.

possibly most people have a different concept of zerg.
A zerg is a compact Group of 40-80 players….
Tghose 6-7 spread would be considered skirmishing….nothing more.

A good compact zerg can ignore damage because its spread amongst the zerg and keep moving you can just ignore any form of aoe damage….

LordByron.8369:

possibly most people have a different concept of zerg.
A zerg is a compact Group of 40-80 players….
Tghose 6-7 spread would be considered skirmishing….nothing more.

A good compact zerg can ignore damage because its spread amongst the zerg and keep moving you can just ignore any form of aoe damage….

Depends on the tier you’re in I guess and the times you play at. Usually most zergs we face are in the 30-50 man range and more othen than not it’s fairly sloppy and mindless. The point of the video was tht it’s possible for a small group to scatter/wipe a force 3-4 times as large, even in outside siege situations, using good communication and terrain. Keep in mind that the video was made before the “end of culling” patch so the actual zerg was much bigger than shown in the video, especially in the clip starting at 5:38.

who care about zerg just more loot

Thank you guys for some very positive feedback. I think we can all agree that small teams are going to die to large zergs, but I really do like the suggestions of small-10 man teams flipping things faster than the zerg. Sure, they might wipe some teams, or re-flip paper towers, but that is a key point. If they are wiping, they aren’t attacking. And if they are re-flipping, they just lost ground as they now own paper themselves again. That gives you a longer-term advantage when you get your larger crews back.

sdsakuragi.8170, that was a very nice video of how to coordinate in a small group and use terrain (especially choke points) to mess up a small zerg. Even if your group had wiped, the fact that you could occupy a much larger force for a significant time is very valuable to your server. Once again, while they are messing around in the open against you, they aren’t actually doing anything worthwhile that gains lots of points/position.

To piggy-back on that, teams of 5 can take the choke-point camps (pangloss, hooligan’s, and danelon), set up a few AC’s and effectively starve a zerg (or increase their supply run), keeping them from taking more structures. Warrior’s with Leg specialist would be an amazing strategy here that is highly defensible.