| Name | Beginners' Guide to Guild versus Guild Battles |
| Category | General |
Section 1: The Build, the Skills, the Team, and the Plan – How things work.
The Basics
You have eight players and sixty four skills. The other team has eight players and sixty four skills.
You have a base with a guild lord and a handful of non playable characters (NPCs) and so does the other team.
You have a flag, they have a flag.
You have a thief; they have a thief (sometimes).
These are the resources you are given, and how you decide to use them is entirely up to you.
While it is true that there is no one build that can dominate the metagame (sarcastic jokes about hexes on jade aside), it does not mean that any random build you slap together is going to get you the same distance. A Guild vs Guild build is different from, say, a Heroes' Ascent build in that Guild vs Guild battles tend to last quite a bit longer, and versatility and endurance should be your two highest priorities. While it is true brute force and gimmick builds will still work with the right players, these builds still need to be adapted to the Guild vs Guild environment.
The best way to build a team of eight is to make the build around the team, instead of the team around the build. What I mean is just simply going into an observer's mode and take down the number one guild's build. When you do not have a player who is used to playing the class for a key position and putting someone completely new to the position in that position is not going to end well. Understand the limits of the strengths and weaknesses of your roster of players before you decide what build to run. Put players in positions they feel most comfortable and have the most experience playing.
If you do not have a player in your roster that is experienced with playing the ranger class, then you should realize that you do not want roll a build with a ranger. Remember that your team's performance is rated at the level of your weakest player, so making sure that everyone is comfortable with the position he or she is playing goes a long way to forming a solid build.
There are extensive resources out there with recommended Guild vs Guild builds, check some of the earlier posts that I have made here on Skryer for some very highly recommended builds, and I will throw in a good solid example build at the end of this guide. Just remember that any build your team feels comfortable playing has the potential to be a strong build. Likewise, any build your team feels uncomfortable playing is going to be a weak build, even if the number one guild on the ladder is running it.
It is very important that your entire team knows the build inside and out before entering a match. By this, I mean at the very least, every member of your team should know what build the other seven players are running. This knowledge becomes vital when the players need to be dependent on each other for specific tactics or rendered aid. A monk, for example, can call for a blackout on an opposing warrior that is two whacks away from full adrenaline, but he can't do that unless he knows the mesmer has blackout to begin with.
It sounds stupid and elementary, but I have played with teams that behaved otherwise, and paid for it.
Always plan ahead on the responses your build will take in reaction to enemy tactics before you enter the match. Establish how you plan on dealing with splits, who to send back, in what order, and how to coordinate the maneuver. Do not wait until you're in game with a base under attack message to argue about who should go back and how it should be dealt with.
Understand the majority of your damage source and how to break through common defenses that could potentially stall your offense. For example, if you are running two warriors and a paragon, do not wait until seven minutes in to the battle of doing no damage before discussing how to react to chain aegis and constant blinds. Likewise, if the only hex removals in your build are a veil and a purge, it is time to talk about what to do if you run into a hex heavy team. Talk it out. Have some discussion. Your build does not need to have a GOOD response to a certain tactic, but a crappy tactic like “well, if they pull x on us, then we're pretty much boned. Just run around for 25 minutes and hope our lord head shot critical cyclone axes their entire team" is still better than not talking about it at all.
Preparation is half the battle, and if you still lose, at least you will know why so you can improve your game. This is not to say you have to account for everything that could possibly happen, as improvisation is still a very large part of the game, but at least make sure you have planned well against the more common tactics.
Section 2: Killing the Guild Lord Wins the Game – Priority number one
There are a lot of ways to play the game, but there is only one way to win it: kill their guild lord. This is not to say you should gun directly for the lord at two minutes in to the game. That is called a full team wipe. Think of the game as a round of Chess. To force the opponent king into a checkmate, you first have to work your way to him, through position, material, and time. In Guild Wars, these goals can be analogously translated to playing for position, playing for morale, and playing for Victory or Death! (VoD). These goals are not mutually exclusive and good play means keeping all three in mind through the entire span of the game. There are certainly trade offs and prioritizing involved, where one goal is pursued at the expense of another, but none can be fully ignored.
Playing for position means a lot of things. It mean pushing into the enemy side of the flag stand when your flag runner is running towards your stand, it means falling towards your NPCs when your monks are low on energy and need some pressure relieved, it means putting down a ward vs. foes at a strategic location, it means you need to be in position to access their catapult when Victory or Death rolls near, and a host of other things. Knowing when to push, when to fall, when to collapse, when to split, and when to hold is vital to playing well.
Snares, wards, spirits, and teleportation are some examples of tools to help you play for position. The most important thing to recognize is that a team, without exception, plays at the pace of its slowest member. The best way to control where the opposing team is playing is to control the movement of a vital role. For example, if you want to stop a team from falling towards their NPCs when you have the pressure up, maintain a snare or knockdown on one of their monks. Where are they going to go? They are going nowhere fast, unless they are willing to sacrifice the monk. Likewise, if you want to push the opposing team off you, begin by pushing their vital roles, such as the monks. If you push the monks back, then their extended frontline will be vulnerable, and will be forced to pull back or take unmitigated damage.
A common tactic to force initiative on position is splitting. Splitting is the act of dividing up your forces into two groups to achieve two different goals simultaneously. One group could hold the stand for morale, for example, while the other knocks out vital NPCs in the enemy base. Some builds are specialized to split proactively, but all builds should be built to deal effectively against splits or have the option of splitting themselves. Splitting can pull off some of the pressure or defense or weaken the opponent team significantly at Victory or Death if they choose to ignore it. However, your team also faces many of the same problems - with one difference: you have the initiative. The general rule of thumb regarding splits is never split if you don't need to and never refrain from splitting when the alternative is put your Guild Lord under threat.
Position also translates to team cohesion. Casters can't cast outside their radius, rangers and paragons can't hit beyond a certain range, and that translates into bad news for melee classes if they over extend beyond the radius of support offered by their midline and backline. It is vital that all of the team members are always in position to support each other. Everyone needs to know where the wards are, where the traps are, and where everyone else is so they can respond well to pressure. This is not to say over extension is always unacceptable. Sometimes, melee needs to over extend to push a kill, push a position, or collapse on a target of opportunity. It is acceptable to over extend as long as the entire team is aware he is over extending, including the one that is over extending. Communication is vital. Let your team know you are about to push a kill or push for a flag carrier.
The occasional over extension aside, it's vital that the team moves as unity. If a push needs to be made, the entire team needs to do it, not just the warriors or the midlines. Everyone needs to push as one and fall back as one. Out of position players are easily picked on and taken out.
Another important goal to play for is morale. Everyone starts at zero percent death penalty (DP), but as you take deaths, you start accruing a death penalty. You can reduce your death penalty by scoring kills and capturing the flag, the latter can even net you a hefty +10% morale bonus. Successfully playing for morale involves three things: push kills, stay alive, and hold the flag. The first two will boil down to a whole nest of factors that anyone not new to Guild Wars PvP should be familiar with, while the third is something that's unique to the way GvG battles work. On every map is a flag stand, usually located in the middle of the map. Sticking your flag in it and holding it there for two minutes will net you a "Morale Boost", reducing your death penalty. If your death penalty is 0, then you'll get a one time 10% morale boost.
Suffice to say, this is vital to winning the game. Successful Guild vs Guild builds will incorporate some form of flag running, and the skill exhibited by the flag runner can easily determine the outcome of the game. If the opposing team holds the flag and is getting constant morale boosts, then it means none of your kills will matter, and the battle will rapidly turn uphill. Controlling the flag successfully is intimately related to controlling the position of both your team and the opposing team. Putting the opposing team in a position where running the flag becomes difficult will put your flag running ahead in pace. Failing to do so will cause undue pressure on your flag running and give you a liability that your support may not need, in addition to all the other stuff that's going on.
Of course, another way to gain morale is to kill the opposing team. There are generally factors outside of the few that you have direct control over for that, but putting the death penalty on the right targets is something you DO have control over. Spot the vital roles to the opposing build. If it is a spike team, then it is a no brainer - take down the caller. Start putting a hefty death penalty on him over and over again until little effort is required to knock him out. For other, more balanced and versatile builds, the vital targets are slightly more difficult to spot, and will depend on communication from the rest of your team to identify. For example, if the opposing team has a particularly good mesmer power blocker shutting down your backline, then trying to put a good amount of death penalty on him should be the first order of business. Likewise, if that particular snare elementalist with blinding surge is the main element preventing your melee damage from pushing through, then that is your vital target right there. Monks are, of course, always vital targets, but they are usually harder to push kills on, due to their position and auxiliary skills.
The same applies to your team. Identify the vital player in your build and call opposing pressure off him and keep his death penalty clean at all costs. If you are facing a hex dominated pressure team, then make sure to watch your hex eater mesmer - both his position and his death penalty. It is much better to have heavy death penalty on one important target than slight death penalties on three auxiliary targets.
The last general goal to play for is Victory or Death! (VoD). Victory or Death happens at twenty minutes after the clock starts, and a different set of rules are put into play. For one thing, you do more damage but have less max life. For another, the NPCs in your base will begin to push towards the middle, where they will engage the enemy NPCs. All gates that require thieves or locks will open, and remain open. At twenty five minutes, the Guild Lords themselves will start walking to the middle, forcing the match to be decided. Understanding the inevitability of this and playing to give your team the maximum advantage when it occurs will make or break the game.
The easiest way to prepare for Victory or Death is to add elements into your build that work exceptionally well at Victory or Death. Anything that does area of effect damage is a good bet, and usually helps with offsetting an NPC disadvantage.
But this guide is going to focus more on how to play for Victory or Death during the match itself. One way to swing the favor to your end is to target the enemy's NPCs before Victory or Ddeat occurs. This can be done by a hard push, or with a split. Unless the enemy wants a reenactment of “Seven Against Thebes”, then they will have to respond to such a move. The three most important NPC targets should be the knights and the bodyguard, but archers should not be ignored as they do add a good amount of damage if gathered up. Sometimes it's necessary to sacrifice position at the stand or concede a morale boost in order to put pressure on the enemy base through a split, while other times it is necessary to sacrifice NPCs to relieve pressure on your stand.
NPCs have roles outside of Victory or Death. Making the other team pull your footmen or your knights before they have put sufficient pressure on you can quickly turn the tables. The extra pressure from the NPCs could be enough for you to make a counter push or at the very least relieve some of the pressure on your monks' energy pool, allowing them time to recuperate. Likewise, when you are on the offensive, do not aggro the opponent's NPC's until you feel sufficient pressure has been applied. If sufficient pressure has been applied, then sometimes aggroing a few footmen or a knight is a good way to burn the opposing team's monks' energy by forcing them to watch an extra target and knock out a few vital NPCs before Victory or Death.
At Victory or Death, all the hard work you have done in playing for the previous two goals - position and morale - will bear fruit. Good position will allow you to catapult their NPCs (the time to fire is at twenty minutes and nineteen seconds to have the best chance at catching everything) or allow you to snare them in the path of your NPCs before they reach the stand, if they pushed too far without watching the clock. Death penalties are compounded by the decrease in life at Victory or Death, and a target with death penalty on him will get taken out even more easily. At Victory or Death, the best targets to focus on are their offense. Identify targets using area of effect skills and take them out right away. Move down the offense priority list by targeting their melee, knights, bodyguard, support, archers, shut down, and last, monks - unless when an opportunity presents itself. There will be a lot of targets at Victory or Death and it could get hectic, but that's what separates a good guild from a mediocre guild. A key thing to note is to relentlessly chew up their damage. Sit on their warriors, harass their midline, and force their monks to go deep set before yours do.
Be careful of last minute splits at Victory or Death. With no NPCs and all gates open, your Guild Lord is vulnerable. Understand and evaluate the possibility of a split (or even a full team gank) and respond accordingly. Watch out for body blocks and make sure your monks are in position to fall to the Guild Lord if a threat is validated.
Play it safe, play it smart, and play it well.
Section 3: Roles, What They Mean, and How to Play Them – Know your role!
Monks (backline):
Every team needs monks, well, usually. Usually, balanced builds tend to run two core monks, not counting smiters or whatever. You are the team's primary source of damage mitigation. Red bars will drop, and you will make them go up again. Generally speaking, there are two ways to mitigate damage - prevention and recovery, translated in game into prots (protection spells) and heals. Generally speaking, it is much more energy efficient to prevent than it is to recover. Throwing a prot spirit on a target before two warriors and a lightning orb falls on him is always going to cost less energy than healing all that damage over with orison. Prevention is very specialized, however, and will not work ALL of the time. That is why damage recovery is always an important aspect of the game. Bottom line: make sure your monks have both prevention and recovery covered.
Preemptive protting is a must. Watch where the enemy damage is focused and be there ahead of them. If you see two warriors converging on a target and you KNOW they are going to release adrenaline, do not wait for them to get there to start your protting. When there are warriors in play, try to keep a subconscious count of how much adrenaline he has. If you have seen him train someone for half a minute with out using an adrenaline attack skill, then you know he has got a full tank of adrenaline and is ready to release. That's when your finger should be twitching on that prot and watch carefully where he's going to end up releasing that adrenaline.
Following that same line of thought, watching the enemy is going to be much more important than watching your own team. If you're getting harassed by a shut down mesmer, then watch what he is casting. When you see diversion going off, assume it is going to come on you and pause casting as it finishes. It's a good (probably the best) way to not get half your bar diverted. Likewise, your teammates should call out incoming diversions when they see it go off, to save you some work.
The best way to do this is to recognize the animations of certain key spells and abilities and recognize them going off without clicking on the person using them. If you see a broad head ranger run next to you and start that lengthy attack animation, he is not stretching his arms. Throw up your stance or strafe away because there is a broad head coming your way.
Know your surroundings. Be aware of where your wards and traps are and be prepared to run through them when you're under pressure. If there is a good ranger on the opposing team interrupting the occasional skill, then know where potential cover is, be it that one shack on Warrior's Isle or the foliage around Weeping Stone. Arrows can't fly through walls, but your heals can. When you are not casting, run. Keep kiting and strafing. You never know when an orb is going to fly your way.
Communication is another important thing to keep in mind. Do not leave your team wondering why everyone is dead when two seconds ago everything was fine. If your elite is diverted or signet of humiliated, let your team know so they can react accordingly, whether by playing more defensively or start falling back on their frontline. If you have shame on you, call it so the other monk can get it off. If there is a certain character on the other team that is owning the crap out of you, don it stand there and take it; let the rest of your team know so it can be dealt with. Talk with your other monk. Let him know what is going on. The entire team plays on the robustness of your energy bar, so make sure they are updated on its status. If you are low on energy, call it. If you think you are going to be dipping low on energy soon, call it. If you have to switch to your deep set, call it. Call it, call it, and call it! If you think your team needs to know something, tell them. I can't stress enough how important this is.
Midline:
I will not go too deep into this class, there is simply too much variety to talk about. This class includes a variety of support classes like mesmers, rangers, and elementalists. Their roles are legion, but one thing is certain: they lack the armor of the frontline and the mitigation potential of the backline. That puts them at odds in terms of position. Bottom line: you do not have 90 AL and you can't preemptively prot yourself, so pretty much you have four ways to stay alive: W, A, S, and D. Move. Kite. Position yourself where you can adequately perform your role, but always remain in a position where you have enough lee way to proactively kite away before the damage shifts to you.
If you are playing a midline character with a bit of burst damage, like an orb, shatter, or energy burn, be on the look out for warriors on the other team frenzying inside your cast radius. Be diligent. If you see a warrior frenzy, punish him for it. Throw an orb at him, shatter his prot spirit, or smack him with a burning arrow. Never let a frenzy go unpunished. While it is impractical to shift your entire damage potential after one frenzied warrior before he cancels it into rush or dash, you can certainly put some extra damage on him and force him to cancel early.
If you have area specific skills like wards or traps, call out when you put them down so your team is aware of where to kite through for help. If you have multiple wards, do not overlap them on top of each other. Create figure 8 configurations to increase coverage. That is pretty much it, really. Every midline class plays out differently in some respects, but they all share certain commonalities.
Flag runner:
You run flags. Your job is to bring the flag from your base to the flag stand, capture it, and maybe help out with split defense and capping catapults. You know Sylvester Stallone in Rambo? He would make a terrible flag runner. Your job may be to run flags, but that does not mean you have to monotonously run along the same road in the same predictable pattern. Call out to your team when you're preparing to capture. If you see your team taking a lot of pressure at the stand, double check with the monks before you move in. Make sure they have a decent tank of energy left and can effectively mitigate you through the process. Watch the clock. Always be aware of who is in control of the flag stand and how much time you have to take it back.
If capping the flag means you're going to die in the process, it's a bad idea 90% of the time. They're just going to cap it back and you'll be dead. If your entire team is mired deep inside your base, and you see a window where you can ninja past them for a cap, it is a good way to relieve pressure - just make sure you can survive. A conceded morale bonus is not going to lose you the game, especially when you have not put any significant death penalty on any of them, but having a flag runner dead with a 60 death penalty way out in the middle of no where can.
You have more roles to play than just running the flag. Whether you are an ice elementalist, a secondary monk, or a fire elementalist, you can add unexpected pressure and damage when you are up there at the stand. Make it count. Every time you are up at the flag stand, make your position known. Snare their warriors, blur them, help your monks get some energy back by healing / protting the team, or throwing in a critical burst of damage on a spike. Your time is limited. Never stay longer than you have to, and risk conceding a bonus.
Frontline and Caller:
This guide, being non metagame specific, will not cover how to call for a hardcore spike build, but rather try to focus on calling for a balanced build. Usually, the caller is going to be a frontline character, such as a warrior. The reason for this is relatively simple: the frontline is closet to the enemy team and therefore have the best peripheral vision on what everyone on the other team is doing. Another reason is usually the warrior is the one that needs to build adrenaline for damage, and he is the best judge of when the damage potential is highest.
Calling in Guild vs Guild does not just mean broadcasting a target and counting down, it also means calling for the right damage at the right targets at the right time. Not every target needs to be spiked, unless that is the only option offered by the build. Calling for damage, snares, shutdown, and positional blocking are also the responsibilities of the caller. The caller needs to know the potential and skill level of every player on his team, including his own. Knowing how much damage and how fast they can come is vital to calling well.
If you need something special on the spike, like a gale or black out on the off monk, make sure you call it and give your team as much time as they need to identify the off target in preparation to do what they do. Always pay attention to how much pressure you are taking and how well the monks are mitigating it. Do not wait until the monks are deep in their highest energy set before deciding to pull back. If your team identifies a threat to you, such as a particularly nasty mesmer or a snare elementalist, do not ignore it. Rely on your team to provide feedback on what is going on from their perspective and always communicate your intentions.
Remember that dead people are ressurected back at base every two minutes. This means if you can take out a key target at 1:55, 3:55, or 5:55, just before the ressurection timer, you can effectively remove that player from play (his team will not have time to resurrect him before the timer resurrects him) until he takes his time to haul ass back up here. If the key target is, for example, a monk, then you have a good shot at collapsing their entire team. Be aware of this and make sure your damage potential is maximized at these key times and make major pushes or spikes to get that kill and force a "base resurrect". If your adrenaline full at 1:47, try and save it for 5 more seconds and make it count that much more.
This works the other way too, when you DO NOT want an enemy to resurrect back at base. An enemy monk is almost dead and out of position at 5:57? Wait until after 6:00 before you kill him, so his body gets stranded at out of position land, far away from the rest of his team, with no chance of resurrection for two full minutes.
Always look for targets that are out of position, over extended, or simply not kiting. Everyone makes mistakes during a match, but it is the team that capitalizes best on these mistakes that emerge the victor. If a midline is out of position - punish him for it. If a warrior is too over extended, punish him for it. If a monk is dropping a signet of devotion on the front line, punish him for it. Always be on the look out for mistakes on the enemy's part. A mistake that goes unpunished is an opportunity lost for victory.
Section 4: Common Mistakes and How to Avoid Them – Admit it we all make them.
One of the most common mistakes I see when playing with newer guilds is a bad decision when it comes to dealing with an enemy split. The enemy has split. You spotted the split. What do you do? Remember that indecision is just as bad, if not worse, than a bad decision. You do not have the luxury to talk it out. You have to make the right decision within a rapidly closing time window. Every second the enemy proceeds with the split undisturbed makes your response window one bit narrower, until there comes a time when your response becomes too late, and next thing you know your bodyguard is lying dead with three enemies wailing on your guild lord. This is where preemptive planning and experience comes into play. Teams lose to splits because they ignore the split when they ca not afford to, and when they split more players back than they need to. This kind of decision comes with experience, but just remember: if the opposing build functions better in splits than yours, always try to force them to 8v8.
Everybody needs to kite. "Oh, but he has snares anyway and will just outrun me" and "I have Shield of Deflection on me and the other monk is watching me so I do not have to kite" are stupid excuses not to kite. Even if you are a warrior - if you're being wailed on, KITE! Move out of the way! If you are a little wary about losing position from kiting backwards, then kite forwards or around in a circle. W A S D are the four counters to more things than you might realize. Incoming orb? DODGE THAT. Incoming dervish train? KITE THAT. Incoming blurred vision? GET AWAY FROM THE OTHER WARRIOR! It is amazing how much stuff you can kite off. Also, do not wait until the warrior or dervish is right next to you before you start kiting. Start moving as soon as you see that crazy bastard with a hammer running up to you. You might not get a chance to if you wait for him to get close enough to hit Earthshaker.
Do not park on one character for the entire game if you want to interrupt something. Yeah, your team is screaming at you to use Distracting Shot, Restore Conditions, or divert Blinding Surge, but parking your mouse cursor on him the whole game just makes you a predictable and avoidable threat. Once your target is aware of what you are trying to do, he can take measures to defend himself against it and make you less effective. The monk can kite behind an obstacle before he casts, and the Blinding surge elementalist can just call for a veil 24/7. You become a much more valuable player if you tab around a bit switching from target to target, looking for opportunities. Perform your secondary role, like spreading poison or go around denying their monks energy. When you see that animation of the key skill you are trying to interrupt flash over the target's head, quickly switch and hit Distracting Shot, or count down the recharge time and hit diversion just before the next cycle. Be unpredictable.
Rangers can interrupt everything, including attack skills. Attack skills are actually usually the easiest skills to interrupt. If you see a warrior with full adrenaline rush towards your monk, chances are, he is closing in to unload. Just when he gets close enough, just throw him a Distracting Shot or savage or something, and voila, there goes his damage potential. Do no make the mistake of thinking interrupts should only be used on the enemy's mid and back lines.
A lot of teams have trouble with dealing with dervishes because of their forms. All dervish forms have a downtime. When that downtime window opens, go crazy and try to take them out. Dervishes do not have as much armor as warriors, and without their form, will prove much easier to take down.
A team pushes position based on how much energy its monks have. If the monks are low on energy, do not push too hard. A few ways to allow your monks to get energy is to have your frontline fall on the enemy's frontline and park them with knockdowns and damage if they frenzy. Sure, you will lose a bit of position, but your monks get a bit more breathing room. When faced with a choice of pushing deep to take out a key objective and wiping because your monks are low on energy, and giving the enemy some ground and your monks some recuperation time choose the latter. Good communication allows the caller to make faster and better judgments when it comes to juggling the monks' energy with team positioning.
Some teams have a weakest link. Do not just go around attacking their strong players when you can dismantle them by exploiting their weakest link. If you notice a player on the enemy team that is clearly not very good at this game, go after him full time. If a mesmer is consistently out of position, or if a warrior loves to frenzy constantly in your backline with reckless abandon, make him your best friend. Call him out to your team and have everyone watch him for the mistake to happen, then punish him for it. It weakens their monks' energy pool, and sometimes their weakest link can pull their entire team into making one, huge mistake - the kind you can exploit to win a game.
Do not infuse an archer or a footman unless you are pretty damn confident you are going to win and just want some freebie points. For that matter, if keeping an archer alive means you are going to drain your entire energy bar, do not do it. Let the bastard die. Why? Archers do not kite. Footmen do not kite. Knights do not kite, but it is worth keeping them alive because they actually put out decent damage. Remember earlier in the guide what happens to things that do not kite? That is right - free damage. Save your energy for targets that do (hopefully your team).
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