Guild Wars 2

First, great fights last night on EB, FaTe appreciated the great fights and sometimes being outmanned and sometimes not. Sometimes we won open field sometimes we didn’t. Yes the server population differences will impact us week to week, but bring the fight smartly where and when you can. For those who doubt population makes all the differnence Mag started out strong at reset at one of their best coverage times, as the night went on they dwindled and the maps and scores reflected that. We maintained a strong presence is EB, and ok presence in SOS BL.

When we made pushes into TC areas 80 man zergs show up. Two things I noticed. Our SOS BL would spike temporarily in PPT and in map control. As they claimed a tower or two and defended the SM they would withdraw leaving more equal numbers and we could push again rather than play defense. What that means is that if you are commanding and an 80 man zerg shows up and wipes you, you are still helping the cause and don’t lose heart because you distracted those 80 from doing something more productive.

A zerg stacking for 25 might buffs, swiftness, and stealth is never bad and should be done frequently, which makes conditions and hits both hit harder, evening out number disparity. Any commander who says its a bad idea is either crazy or new. When you are in a zerg finish the downed and if you are downed aimed for enemy downed for rallies they can make all the difference in the world.

SoS brings the fights no matter the odds and I’m proud of that. Is there a magic formula to win without wipes? Nope, its going to happen, using good strategies can and will reduce some bad wipes. We need more people sticking to one commander on each map. While there are times for a two pronged approach, when an 80 man zerg is capping something T3, its not the time. More than 2 commanders on a map is just stupid unless they are running together in the same place.

As for some bored folks who left, I wish them well and hope they find what they are looking for. If you are reading this you probably are well versed in WvW. If you are not though, join a guild with a competent commander or 2 and strengthen that guild and the server as a whole. Organization can make up for less numbers, and success will pull in more players which will lead to more success. The next best thing you can do is show up.

Just some thoughts. See you on the field and I hope for more great fights and bags for all.

Atrophied.8725:

NotInTheFace.6075:

Quick question for those who participated, did you feel that some of us were extra squishy or that we were not doing enough damage or conditions? Versus some of the more experienced guilds you faced, were we pretty predictable or surprising? Also how do you handle your heal timing? Thanks in advance.

Not trying to be mean, but you guys were really squishy. Do you have your necros dropping spectral wall on your way in? I felt like I was getting bigger numbers than normal, and people were dropping very quickly.
Heal timing? Er. we have a rotation of water fields, and when nightlight calls for water, we drop one on top of him. :P

Not at all we appreciate the feedback, honestly being our first attempt we threw together 20 members we had online with vent. =) Not sure of how everyone was spec’ed, so we were squishy in your opinion? That does help, honestly I think we were struggling with balancing speed, damage, condition removal and survivability. Do you bother worrying about speed buffs? We tried lessening that focus at the end since we were so close anyway and I think that helped alot against CERN but it definitely didnt change the ultimate outcome. So we’ll need more toughness and vitality across the board when we try again, more guardians/warriors. FaTe focuses on WvW (join us to all SoS if that sounds like fun to you and you use vent, insert shameless recruiting plug), but we don’t have mandatory builds and keep it more casual, but focus on sound tactics. For GvG that may hold us back though. Food for thought.

Any other constructive criticism is always welcomed. Thanks in advance.

Reply to Jeydra
(Throughout this post while I mention FaTe, I do mean FaTe and the few militia and other WvW guild members who helped to accomplish these things by following our commanders)

Last effort I will make to bring more reason and organization to SoS as a whole, by dispelling your myths that many freelancers like yourself hold, and hopefully help you see the reasoning that will lead to more winning.

WvW rewards larger numbers together. Its a fact. You can carry more supplies as a group, hit harder and use more buffs as a group, do more and absorb more damaged, one group can man siege gear while others defend their usage, and finally you can rally and pick up the downed. You can take yak’s, guard posts, and after 5-10 minutes a supply camp solo. A zerg of 40-80 can do that in a split second and capture towers, keeps, and the castle, that is why its a fact.

Example last night on Mag BL FaTe takes a tower and three supply camps with roughly 20 people. TC has about 10 who are in the area and are wiped throughout. TC responds with about 20 as we are taking the 3rd supply camp and are wiped again. We take the second tower TC responds with 30 and we wipe them again. Split up TC retook the first tower, leaving us 3 supply camps and a tower. Finally, they bring 40 we wipe them and retake the first tower. Before we move on a keep they respond 80 deep and proceed to wipe us. What changed? They responded with larger and larger organized numbers. When they were split up and had some off doing their own thing retaking the tower, defending another tower we wiped them and proceeded to take assets. When they worked together we got wiped and with no chance at reinforcements we left them to the retake their stuff while FaTe went to EB to take SM, after a short detour to wreck a Mag guild camping the opening to the EB jumping puzzle.

The long winded point is that numbers make the difference. TC SOR DB ect are all top tier servers more for their sheer numbers than commanders. A good commander will make a difference for sure, but an organized presence of larger guilds, and even more importantly an organized militia that follows the commander on a map will lead to the score you see where they are able to take everything on multiple maps. Fact.

You answer my points on your scenario with questions. That is a problem. If you and the other had been with the commander you would have been able to say what the commander was doing, and helped it get accomplished with time to return to the tower to hit their group 21 vs 25 which is much easier than 15 vs 25 doable but hard. As for hiding in the tower when you have equal numbers and you have a home way point would be subpar decision making.

In your alternative since no supply camps were held, we will give the benefit of the doubt and say they had 70 supply which is 2 ACs. Lovely. Depending on placement( making sure AoE can’t hit them) means you can hit whatever is just in front of the door. They simply go to the outcropping and cat the wall/door down while you sit there until they come take it anyway or are forced to make a run at their seige while they are ready for it and see you coming and aoe you to death.

You will see that SM holding comes with number advantage when FaTe took it against t4 servers like CD we held it all week and could make pushes for more at times and flip entire maps. When populations increase SM becomes a constant target hittable from many points. Even TC has had trouble pushing while they held SM until they reached empty timezones for SoS. FaTe has lead three different takes of it this week successfully, and when FaTe took SM last night with under 40 man zerg, and we called in all the soloers we were able to siege it up and hold it for over an hour with 70 there against a full TC zerg. When we wiped them and guessed they gave up, and went to help Ogre’s TC respond with 10+ alphas to melt both gates in under 2 minutes and cap it (by the way, well played TC). The difference this time, numbers, resources and tactics. All possible through large numbers and organization, not people off killing a useless yak or guard point.

You spent your money on the game, play it how you want, but certainly don’t whine about losing and subpar commanding while you do that and claim to be for the server’s success, while freelancing actually does the reverse. Like a poster said Tag up, walk the mile, until then gain experiencing helping commanders through your actions to be more successful. That is a win/win.