celegorm_menegroth

Some of these rules should be common sense … some of these are “advanced.” However, these are the rules I’ve put together that have lead me to be successful while running a raiding party. I make no claim that these are “original” ideas, and I am sure that others have thought of much of it. I did try to put together as much knowledge as I could on the topic of raiding in to one place for a reference, especially for new players.

Moonlit Raider’s Rules

The Raider’s Mindset: You are a Pack of Wolves, lead by Foxes. Some may attempt to call you a “zerg.” Zergs are mindless idiotic masses of players who have no tactical or strategic awareness past their own survival.

You are not a zerg, you’re a Wolf. Wolves are predators. Wolves hunt in packs, and they work together.

You are lead by a Fox. Foxes are smarter, more mobile and nimble than their adversaries. Foxes are elusive, cunning and dedicated.

Fight like a Wolf. Be lead by a Fox. Together? A Cadre.

Basic Pack Rules [ Becoming the Wolf ]

• Don’t Chase – Chasing down a single enemy, or even chasing a small group of enemies, away from the raiding party ( or from the party’s intended target ) is a monumental “no no.”
• Stay Tight – Stay in a close formation with the raiding party, or your team if you are acting as a detached squad.
• Mark The Leader – Mark the raid leader, and stay with them as much as you possibly can. If s/he leaves? You leave.
• Run Them Over – If they enemy is dumb enough to get caught in the path of a raiding party, kill them and do it quickly. However, you need to be leave the area just as quickly. Don’t gloat, dance, tea-bag or anything else. Hanging around only reveals your position to his friends and gives your downed enemy time to orient themselves so they can report your direction and numbers when you do leave.

Roaming as a Pack [ Forging a Pack ]

• Form Groups – Work in small units within the raid. You should be hunting together, picking targets if possible and maximizing your damage output.

1. Form a core group(s) at the Citadel or main spawn areas prior to leaving. Encourage people to “tag along” with you group if you come across them during your raid. Splinter off members of that core group to become leaders of these new groups and pass along your methodology to these new recruits.

• Keep Your People Up – If someone goes down your top priority should be to revive them. Avoid leaving a downed player behind if at all possible, but not at the cost of you going down yourself. One of the most common mistakes I see people making is chasing down a single fleeing enemy while someone is still down nearby.

1. If the raiding party is forced to withdraw due to superior enemy players, leave them. But until the order to withdraw is given, get your people up so they can continue the fight. This should be second nature to the vast majority of wvw players, but some new players to the game may not be familiar with it, yet.

• Hit Hard, Hit Fast – Don’t mess around, don’t hold back. Kill things as fast as you possibly can. Don’t just “hit auto-attack and watch the action.” Use your elites, use your combos, use your conditional damage to overwhelm the recap timers.
• Move Faster – Do not hang around any one area longer than you absolutely must, especially if you have been detected.

1. While you are waiting for the capture bar to fill in a supply camp, move as far as you can towards your new target ( ie – don’t stand in the middle of the camp ).
2. If you have one “fast” member of the raid ( a Thief or Mesmer ) the main raiding party should leave the camp two ticks prior to the capture bar filling up, leaving one guy behind to catch up.
3. Mesmers and other classes that can cast haste on groups should focus on those in the rear of the column. Do not simply haste the forward elements continually. This creates an elongated column which will lead to many more problems than a column that is moving fractionally slower.

• During a Siege? You’re a Sentry – A raider’s job during a siege is simple: check for cannons and oil, you build the siege equipment and then you are a sentry.

1. A raider should never attack the door, the wall or any other object. You should not randomly attack the wall unless called on to do so by someone in the raid leadership.
2. The raider should be standing with their back to the door, fanned out in a semi-circle, watching for any response from the enemy. The more raiders that are present, the deeper and wider that pack of sentries should be.
3. When enemies are sighted you should immediately give some basic information: cardinal direction of inbound relative to the besieged target, strength of numbers ( and server, if you know it ) and lastly if they are “coming in hot” or looking to “engaging us.” Coming in hot would mean that the player is trying to gain entry to the tower and must be rendered immobile.

Tactical Considerations of the Pack [ Thoughts of the Fox ]

• Randomize your Advance – While it is actually advisable to hit the supply camps in a sequence, you want to approach these camps from a variety of vectors and keep your entry and exit routes hidden as best you can. If you are spotted upon entry, watch all exit routes and leave by the path of least resistance.

1. Remember, there is nothing to be gained to fight to defend a supply camp. Therefore, don’t stick around any longer than you have to.
2. Defending a Tower is for Idiots. Hit it, take it, and get out.
3. Even if a route takes longer, it is probably advisable if it gives you the advantage of approaching unseen and keeping your flanks clear.

• Establish a Pattern, then Double Back – When you’re going after supply you want to hit the supply camps in the same sequence. Repeat this sequence two or three times so the enemy gets into a habit of “and now we go there … come on, let’s do it again.” Boredom is your ally. Watch the map and when they follow your sequence one step behind you, double back and eliminate their counter-capture party.

1. If you cannot reach the previous supply camp before they can kill it, lay in wait outside of the camp and strike it while the enemy is attacking so you can use the NPCs as your ally.
2. If possible, link your trap up to when quaggs are hanging out to stack the odds in your favor.

• Create Diversions – Information is power. Control the information as much as you can, and gather as much of it as you can.

1. If you’re being followed, or think your movement may have been spotted, use the game’s detection of combat to mislead the enemy concerning your movements. Attack some animals until the swords come up on the map, and then immediately change direction away from your previously intended target.
2. Detach a group from your main raiding party to hit the sequenced target while the main raiding party leap-frogs ahead to another target. This detached party should attack only long enough to create a “contested” state and then disengage to withdraw to an observational point to alert the main raiding party of any response.
3. Strike at sentries or auto-attack towers ( without putting down siege ) prior to actually taking an intended target to gage response time and numbers.
4. Some guilds/servers have been stationing sentries in supply camps for the sole purpose of letting someone be killed to act as an alarm. The unresponsiveness of these players makes me suspect that they are secondary accounts. When these deliberately stationed players are encountered you should assume that you are being watched. If you’re feeling adventurous, you could use this to your advantage – send in a fraction of your raiding party to take the camp in hopes of luring out “alt’s” main character.

• Have Supply, Drain Supply and Waste Supply – Supply is a weapon, use it against your enemies.

1. You should always make sure you have supply so you can build any siege that’s required by the raiding party.
2. The raiding party should take “pit-stops” at keeps/towers that have recently survived a siege to repair walls/doors. The goal is to expend as much supply as possible. This should always occur immediately after the raiding party has been used as a hammer to lift a siege; you want the keep to survive long enough for you to do it again.
3. Never draw supply from camps in “friendly” territory unless absolutely necessary. Take supply from camps frequented by the enemy to deny them of it. Even if it sets them back a couple minutes, that’s that much longer before they have a ballista or arrow cart built. Players also have the tendency to “queue up” for supply if they encounter a drained supply camp, thus breaking up their group cohesion.
4. Similarly, if raiding a tower which there is no reason to maintain control over, drain as much supply as possible so the enemy cannot upgrade it when they recapture it.

Organizing the Pack [ Free the Fox, Run with the Pack ]

• Know a Few Basic Commands – Know the commands, everyone use the same commands and obey the commands given by those acting as “officers” within the raid. You should have two officers ahead of you in the raid: Raid Leader ( the guy with a target over their head ) and your squad/group leader. If anyone else tries to give an order, and you haven’t been told to listen to them, ignore them and stay with your squad.

• Gather Mass – Until your raiding party reaches a critical level of momentum due to success, each time you are forced to regroup you will suffer attrition. Therefore, you should be very careful how/when you assist/encounter groups of allies.

1. As Thurb says, “Don’t Cross the Streams.”
2. Furthermore, you should clearly communicate to your people how to exit that situation and move away as quickly as possible after any action is resolved. ( If possible, your raiding party should be briefed on their exit strategy before the engagement is joined. Make sure this includes such orders as “Don’t enter the keep” in order to keep your raiding party from intermixing with the keep’s defenders. )
3. The longer your parties mix, the greater the chance that people will begin to follow the wrong person and be lead away.
4. Do not engage in larger scale action until your raiding party has a level of cohesion that it can enter into action and then disengage from it at will. To use a cavalry term, you need to be able to wheel about just as easily as you’re able to charge.
5. Remember that your raiding party’s success will be seen by others on the map, and other players will seek to join you. Calling out “Regroups” and “Striking X in 30seconds” will attract new followers.
6. Building a reputation and hitting targets ( especially taking towers quickly ) will instill some fear in your opponents, dramatically so in those less organized. Hitting them hard enough, repeatedly enough, will eventually run them off the map. When they’re off the map? You can take the keep with ease.
7. Hit targets you know you can take, ignore all those you cannot.
8. Striking targets “hard and fast” over a long period of time will wear down the will to fight in your enemies and they will start to become lax with their retaking of targets. When you notice a discernible drop in response time adjust your targets from supply camps to towers.
9. Kicking the malcontent for the greater good of raiding party cohesion is essentially, and will often be seen as warranted by the raiding party as a whole - they want to have success and will see these complainers as unnecessary distractions and poor "team players." They are not committed to the cause and the raiding party is better off without them.

• Officer Structure – Controlling a Raiding Party of any real size takes some work. Breaking people in to groups is only part of the solution. My recommendation for an “ideal raiding party size” is twenty to twenty five people. This may sound rather large, but that’s the point. You want to be able to take any target swiftly, given the opportunity. With twenty people you can drop four rams without worrying about resupply and take an unguarded keep in short order. But, how does that command structure work. Some is straight-forward, other parts are not so obvious.

1. Raid Leader – This is the player who is in charge of calling the shots, picking targets and calling for any change in tactics ( such as Disengaging ).
2. Deputy Raid Leader – One of the disadvantages of the current chat system is that it’s actually rather easy to get yourself flagged as a “spammer” if you’re trying to communicate via text. Mumble solves some of this, but not all, as you will never have every person in your raiding party on your mumble server. Therefore, you need to designate one player in the raid leader’s group to be the deputy. While the general /say can get flagged for spamming, it is still possible for that person to communicate in /party chat. The deputy is then responsible for relaying messages to the rest of the raid as needed.
3. Team Leaders – You want one player in each team who is designated a Leader. They should be experienced raiders, know your methods and be able to convey messages to their groups quickly, effectively and politely. You don’t want hot-heads who piss people off.
4. Strategic Liaison – One player, preferably someone with a good relationship already established with the other major players/guilds who are operational in wvw, should be designated to be the raid leader’s “voice” when dealing with their counter-parts either directly or via /team and /map channels. This should free the raid leader up to make the “moment to moment” decisions about where to go. The liaison should then interject with any strategic decisions/requests made by the other commanders on the map. When necessary, this player will update the raid with specific instructions about directions of approach and withdraw so the raiding party doesn’t “cross streams” with another body.
5. Scout – when the raiding party is required to remain stationary for regrouping purposes it is sometimes useful if one player detaches themselves to scout. The entire raid should be made aware of this so they do not try to follow him, and so the scout’s group ( if he is not already in the raid leader’s group ) can update the raid as to his/her findings.

• Grouping Structure for a 20+ member raiding party.

Team 1 ( Leader + 4 )

Team 2 ( Leader + 4 )

Team 3 ( Leader + 4 )

Team 4 ( Leader + 4 )

Team 5 ( Raid Leader, Deputy, Strategic Liaison, Scout )

If the Raiding Party must split their command, the Raid Leader and Strategic Liaison should take two teams, while the Deputy and Scout take the other two teams. However, they should remain grouped for communication purposes. Individual teams should never be split.

Final Thought for the Pack?
It is vitally important that you keep your raiding party together, and continue to have success on your own. Success of the raiding party should be maintained above the concerns of the map, even defending "vital" keeps.

Hopefully these rules prove useful to others.

Moonlit

I think that one interesting twist would be if the first place team gets that far ahead then the second and third place are automatically combined until things stabilize. That'd, potentially, put the leader in a rather severe numerical disadvantage.

I think that you are on the right premise ( WvW does need some tweaking to make it more viable for a wider range of players ) but I think the problem is two-fold.

One, and the most obvious, is that players are playing it in a way that ... I don't necessarily think that the designers exactly intended. I'm not going to go so far as to say that they're playing the game "wrong" but I get the distinct impression that ... something's just not quite right. The area that I'm talking about is the ability to make so much money/karma/experience from taking control points far outweighs the gains you would get for actually keeping them. In addition, you are not actually rewarded for maintaining a presence inside an area. In fact, remaining stationary in a tower and just defending ( unless you pick a really active tower constantly under threat ) is a "waste of time" if all you want is karma/gold.

Taking and holding ground should be part of the game. There should be some mechanic in the game that encourages you to develop a presence in an area. A long term benefit for maintaining a group at a tower, or even around a supply camp. The game needs to discourage the pattern of having one group of the enemy run around and take all of the camps, only to have ( 5minutes later ) a team from another side run around and re-take them all. Unless there is a real reason ( a siege going on at a keep ) there's no motivation for players to guard a camp ... but there's a huge motivation for leaving them unguarded and retaking them.

I don't think this strategy of abandonment is how the designers thought the game would be played.

Secondly, I think the game maps are ... not quite right for this scale of WvW. They're too small, they're too identical, there's not a whole lot else "going on" on them. I think there is a place for the "Borderlands" style map that's there, now; but I also think that there should be a "Homeland" map beyond it. You can hash out how it's accessed all you want ( maybe you can't get in unless you control the borderlands, or just a keep, or can't waypoint in ) but the bottom line is that there should be a map that is both much larger, and require a greater commitment from an opposing force while at the same time giving the defenders a distinct "home-field advantage." These homelands should also offer some "good hunting" for players, with some neat events and reasons to go there other than simply stand around watching /team.

On the "going on" front, I'd like to see some bigger events happening. Why not have a dragon hit the ruins in the southern section of the borderlands once every few hours. We need some more randomness to the NPC's, too. If they're going to be there, make them interesting. If one side holds an entire map ( or at least all of the towers/keeps ) then the quaggs unleash an invasion force ( something big, with siege weapons of their own ) to strike at one of the towers and occupy it once every thirty minutes. That way, if a map is left completely undefended, within a couple hours you would see some turnover. This would force people to stick around on one map rather than saying, "hey, we took everything here ... on to the next one!" so one giant zerg can roll the entire set of maps in an evening. You'd have to defend what you took .. or the map itself would retake it.

A smaller fix in the same vein for this would be to create two more borderlands maps, each with their own distinct advantages for the "home team." The current one favors the defender in the north. I would like to see two more borderlands maps added so that each of the three is different, and that your "home" map changes every week.

And, while you're making those maps that'll never be made, please make them with a more varied atmosphere. And more locations. Can we get a map with a bunch of tunnels, another one with some fog so it's hard to see in parts.

And on a side note ... I would love it if you could declare a player a "traitor" while you're in a full group, and if the entire group votes on it, so you could attack someone on your own side ... then we could form a "bot-killing squad." That'll never happen, though.

Another side note ... I really like the idea of your loot being sent to a chest next to the asura gates automatically. Then you just need to go pick it up when you're finished playing. Your loot could stay there for 8hrs in case you got booted, but then you wouldn't have to worry about hunting around on the ground for those damn bags every time you get a kill.

I also backed the kickstarter, and I went in for the $25 tier. I mention this because at that price I also got the soundtrack ... which, is pretty cool. And used in an even better way, as I'll explain here.

One thing that I would add to the generally positive vibes of many of the posts is that I really like how the game pits the two worlds against each other in a variety of ways. In one sister's world everything looks happy, carefree ... and is backed by a metal track to support that sister's crazy red hair and punk-rocker look. When you twist over to the other sister the art changes, as you can see in the screens, to make everything look dark and depressing, with an innocent looking sister running around in it. Where in one there were happy signs, now we have skulls and ghosts. But the music also changes, and in this dark world we have a happy whimsical soundtrack using the same melody. I haven't really tried to break it down, but it seems like the soundtrack picks up in the same spot when you go back and forth just like the art. It's a really nice touch.

I've never been a big fan of Mario, and I understand ( in a loose sense ) that the game started ( back in "the day" ) as a Mario clone ... but I wouldn't classify this game as anything like that. Platformer, sure ... but it doesn't feel like Mario when I play it, at all. It is definitely doing its own thing, and for me ( not someone who goes out and plays every platformer to hit the market ... in fact, if I hadn't backed the kickstarter I probably wouldn't have bought it at all ) it's a fun and accessible game.

I would say sometime between 3-4am East Coast US time is when Oceanic players would start logging in, that's 5pm ( or there abouts ) for us. Then for the next 7 or 8 hours you'll see plenty of Oceanic evening players.

Plenty is a relative term.

I'm not trying to encourage anyone to break up. I will once again reiterate that I want to create an internal list of WvW players within the guild so we can locate each other. Think of the guild as a record-keeping resource, and that's it.

The only time the alternate tag would ever be shown would be if there was a large group of us and we wanted/needed communication. This need would obviously go away when/if ANet ever puts in some form of raid chat.

I am trying to make it easier for everyone to locate each other; by narrowing down the list via a "filter" it gives the serious WvW players a more clear picture of who's online. With that clear picture we can form a group faster. Then, by working together, we can create a level of familiarity and group cohesion that will only benefit us moving forward.

You can't get that familiarity by joining up with random zergs.

As for [TOG], I've often seen the tag around during Oceanic evenings, and I would have nothing against joining up with you guys during these events. Anything that gets above the almost mindless zerg-ing is a plus in my eyes.

I've been trying to think of the best way possible to say this for a few days, and I really see a number of ways this could upset people ... so this is a preemptive "chill out, duders."

One of the things that I have been a bit disappointed with in-game is the WvWvW play, from the top down. I see a lot of possibility to do some great things, but I know that in order to do some cool stuff we need more communication and coordination among guild-mates ( and, in reality, more/better communication in the entire zone with players from our server ... but I can't solve that problem ). Communication has posed a problem, a problem which is evident in all aspects of the game for Oceanic players ... simply because we are a significant minority within the guild. That isn't meant to be a shot at anyone ... it's just how it is.

This lack of other Oceanic players is most evident in WvW, in my opinion, because unless you just want to run with the zerg, you need some people to watch your back.

WvW has a lot of potential. There's a lot of things even a small group of Oceanic guild-mates could do ... the problem is figuring out who wants to do what, when. And who is interested. Often times guild chat is silent, and inquiries for things go unnoticed for a while.

We need some coordination.

I want to take a step towards addressing this problem. I think the way that the Oceanic players can be more effective in the WvW conflicts is to identify who is going to be interested on a regular basis ( read: more than a couple times a week during evening Oceanic hours ). Then we need to have some way to communicate with each other ... that doesn't require someone doing a bunch of shouts into the guildchat.

What I've done to take that first step is to create a sub-guild. This is in no way intended to be a replacement for the main guild. It is meant to augment the guild experience for Oceanic WvW players. How do I want to use this? Simple. If you want to do some regular WvW, send me a note and I'll invite you. We get a gathered list that everyone can view ( the sub-guild roster ) and then everyone knows when someone is around. We know who to talk to about WvW without asking the general chat. Direct communication.

When a few of us are on together, let's go run in WvW. Even with five of us together we can make an impact. We can defend a keep, raid supply lines, hunt for stragglers and reinforcements trying to reach keeps under the siege of our zerg. If we can more coordinated, with more players, we can set up arrow carts and surprise attacks behind enemy lines.

All of these things can be done with just a handful of players. Our Oceanic members can do that. We can get the small group together, maybe even as many as 10-15 on weekends. So, let's work together.

Join up in this sub-guild so we know who each other are. Let's form parties when we're on together, run together. When there's a bunch of us, we can temporarily switch to the WvW guild for communication, and flip back when we're finished.

All of this can be done without disrupting the main guild. All of these things would be greatly enhanced by an ingame list we can all refer to.

So, just to reiterate ... I am not looking to subvert [BOMB] ... but I am looking to improve it by banding together with other guild members to form a cohesive WvW force that's operational during the Oceanic evening time-frame.

So what the hell are you guys waiting for? ... drop me a line here, reply here, drop me a line in game. I'll set you up with an invite.

Cel

gw2: Moonlit

My info is on the spreadsheet ... and I think guild invites are working again. I've gotten two from other guilds today.

Hopefully now that the bugs are straightened out I can join you guys ...

If I could offer one tiny tiny bit of feedback ...

There's one thing missing from your Skyrim board.

Replace "Just Visiting" on the Jail tile with something about Lockpicks or Breaking Out ... Or are Lockpicks your "Get out of Jail Free" card?

And I second the above call for an "Arrow to the Knee" reference ... in a Luck card, maybe?

Damn impressive.