Do's and Don'ts of WvW

Do's and Don'ts of WvW

General:

DO:

• Report any enemy movement and their rough numbers to team chat.
• Report own movement if moving in an organized party or squad.
• Call for reinforcement where required.
• Respond to reinforcement calls if at all possible. This is something that we are VERY weak on and need to improve.
• Have supply at all times if at all possible.
• Have at least one siege blueprint, more suggested.
• Fall back to a defensive position when outnumbered or outflanked
• Push through AoE walls and attack on the other side. Dodgeroll as required.
• Revive downed but not defeated allies when engaging the enemy.
• Stall enemy captures by getting into the circle. Any one allied person stops capture progress entirely. Do this to stall for tick, or stall for reinforcements to arrive.
• When running in a group, stick together until the fight fully breaks out. It keeps everyone safe from getting straggler-sniped, as well as presents a formidable wall of red text for our enemy to worry about.
• Take any arguments to whisper. Teamchat arguments both clutter the screen and weaken the morale of the people reading it. It's okay to disagree, it's not okay to be public about it.
  
  DO NOT:

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• Take supply from a keep or tower unless...
• It is under heavy concerted attack and siege or repair needs to happen now.
• It is fully upgraded and supply is within 100 of max (1,600+ of 1,700 in the case of a keep)
• Clutter team chat with random talk
• Insult other people who you disagree with
• Get wiped out attacking an objective
• Claim a location for your guild when you do not intend to stay and defend that location.
• Get stalled at a chokepoint. Any numbers advantage disappears if they can just AoE everyone at once.
• Revive defeated players when engaging the enemy. Takes way too long and removes too many people from the fight. Also makes the reviver a sitting duck.
• Call an objective lost, ever, for any reason. We'll all know when it's gone for good when it changes color. Stating it any time before then in chat typically causes people to quit trying to stop it.
• Attack a force that is clearly superior. If they've got an arrow cart and 5 people defending a supply camp and it's just you, don't attack. Report what you see, fall back to somewhere safe, and wait for reinforcements.
  
  Assault
  
  Dolyaks:
  DO:

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• Always attempt to deny the enemy dolyaks. No dolyaks making it to their structures means no upgrades.
• Use 1-3 people to snipe a dolyak.
• Never be afraid to suicide to kill the dolyak. What your repair bill costs is nothing compared to the upgrade that just got stalled.
• Force the enemy to station full groups as escort just to keep you from killing them.
  
  DO NOT:

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• Let dolyaks supply run unimpeded. This is especially true on enemy borderlands where the northern routes out of North Supply are extremely long.
• Worry about numbers defending if you can wipe out the dolyak fast enough. Again, the cost to the enemy is far higher than the cost to you.
  
  Supply Camp:
  DO:

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• Consider building siege equipment like ballistas and arrow carts to counter enemy defenders.
• Attempt to take with groups of 5 or less.
• Attempt to take when less than 5 minutes are remaining before score tick.
• Pick up all available supply if we do not intend to hold onto it.
• Spam vulnerability and conditions against supervisors who have the Righteous Indignation buff. Vulnerability lowers the effectiveness of RI, and conditions are only wiped every second. With enough spam of both it's possible to take down a supervisor in only slightly less time than if they didn't have the buff on.
  
  DO NOT:

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• Attack a supply camp with less than 20 people if the Righteous Indignation buff is up on the supervisor.
• Have 20 people or more attacking a supply camp unless a tower or keep assault is about to occur.
• Take all available supply when someone intends to upgrade it. Upgrades require supply to be there already, and typically max supply at that.
  
  Tower:
  DO:

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• Have siege equipment and supply. Rams are good on lightly or undefended towers. Catapults are better for a heavily defended one. Ballistas and arrow carts may be necessary for defending the catapults.
• Wipe out all enemy siege equipment that can counter you. Oil drops before rams are placed, cannons drop before people commit to the gate.
• Prioritize enemy players over any NPCs or structures (not including enemy siege in use). If all the defenders are dead, taking a tower is easy.
• Reassess the situation if defense is tougher than expected.
  
  DO NOT:

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• Melee the door. Don't range-attack it for that matter if there are defenders you can be keeping off the walls. The amount of damage done is pathetic and hitting a door tunnel visions you against any flanking enemy forces.
• Stick around when clearly outnumbered. Abandon the assault and regroup somewhere else to figure out what to do.
• Ignore attackable siege. If they have a treb up on the outer wall, hit that first. If their arrow carts and ballistas are poorly positioned, wipe them out.
• Be a sitting duck target for enemy siege. If ballistas are present, continually move around to make them hitting you much harder. If arrow carts are around, try to avoid their range.
  
  Keep: NOTE: All tower assault Do's and Don'ts also apply
  DO:

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• Prevent the enemy from getting a superior position. If there is high ground, take it. If there is a kill-room of defensive siege, put up offensive siege to remove it.
• Consider using a trebuchet to breach the walls and defending the trebuchet instead of attacking the gate head-on.
• Be ready for the long haul. A defended keep takes a while to capture, and if time is of the essence, wailing at it is a waste.
• Take advantage of hard-to-reach gates and walls. Why attack the NE Gate of West Keep when you could attack the NW one? It's much harder to defend.
• Try to exploit any holes in the enemy defense. If they are too strong at gate defense, build a trebuchet and shoot from range. If they are occupied somewhere else, zerg up some siege golems and speed-cap.
• Build siege on the outer wall once breached to support an inner wall assault. At worst, the enemy's own reinforcements are cut off by the built siege. At best, it's critical to taking the inner wall. Repeat for inner to lord's room if necessary.
• Be ready for warning signals that it's time to leave to defend an already-owned objective.
  
  DO NOT:

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• Keep on attacking a keep that is getting more and more defensive forces. Any repel or wipe will immediately cause an organized counter-push into the nearest thing we own. Fall back to a defensive position and wipe out any who decide to chase before that happens.
• Expect a keep to be easy. Even the speed-caps required a lot of coordination to be possible, and the enemy was thoroughly occupied elsewhere.
• Leave a keep to go to the next objective after capturing. Any taken keep needs to be immediately defended against an attempted counter-push from whoever you took it from. Remember that it's for the long haul that a keep is taken.
• Focus on the keep at exception to anything already held. A fully-focused assault on a keep can cause half the map to be lost and the taken keep not held.
  
  Defense:
  
  Dolyaks:
  DO:

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• Realize the importance of dolyaks successfully making it to our towers and keeps. Upgrades don't happen without them.
• Know the routes that our dolyaks take.
• Be paying attention to whether a dolyak icon suddenly disappears from the map.
• Act as impromptu caravan guard if the enemy is attempting to snipe them.
• Remove any enemy snipers from the north of the map.
• Keep attacking enemies from actually reaching the dolyak. CC as required to keep them away.
  
  DO NOT:

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• Ignore our dolyaks. Ever.
• Complain about no supply in a keep or tower without making sure the dolyaks are making it.
• Think that because there is no escort reward that the job isn't important.
  
  Supply Camps:
  DO:

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• Build siege equipment to defend the location. With ballistas and arrow carts (and sometimes even a catapult), 5 can hold off 15 without breaking a sweat.
• Have a dedicated defensive force of at least 5 if we intend to hold onto the supply camp.
• Be looking in all directions for approaching enemies and engaging them before they can rush the siege.
• Upgrade the supply camp as able, prioritizing Increase Supply Deliveries first.
• Resurrect the Supervisor as able. When the circle disappears all capture progress is reset, and they have to kill the Supervisor all over again. This is especially effective if they pulled the NPC to the edge of the circle.
  
  DO NOT:

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• Leave a supply camp undefended. They're too easy to take if no one is there, and they are a requirement to any serious assault by the enemy on our keeps and towers.
• Leave a supply camp underdefended. If zergs of 20+ have been seen taking supply camps, station 10 or more to counter them with siege to match.
• Think that because the enemy isn't attacking now they won't be in the future. Most supply camp takes are either tick-caps (less than 5 minutes on the clock) or deliberate setups for assaulting.
• Think that you are "missing out on the fun" at a supply camp. The enemy will come to you, guaranteed. And when they do you can relish the sweet smell of victory and badges of honor.
  
  Towers:
  DO:

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• Upgrade the tower. Boiling Oil shuts down speed-rams hard, cannons shut down small party caps, reinforced walls shut down a quick catapult wall break, and so on. Ask for donations if funds are tight.
• Build up defensive siege in unhittable locations. This includes catapults facing the gate, arrow carts on the very inner edge of the wall, ballistas placed back from the edge at a height advantage.
• Have a standing defensive force of at least 5 ready to man the siege when attackers come. They can double as stallers against a concerted zerg, or breakers of a speed-cap with a small party.
• Have a scout or two handy to call out approaching attackers to the tower and their numbers.
• Call for pre-emptive defense if it's known that the enemy is heading to you. Defenders already there are far more effective than defenders who still need to get there.
• Repair any damage done to walls or gates during or after the attack.
  
  DO NOT:

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• Leave a tower undefended. Enemies can drop down 3 rams and be in your tower and captured in less than 3 minutes, even with upgrades. Towers can be so ludicrously well-defended that there is no reason not to.
• Ignore the warning signs of an impending zerg when the nearest supply camp gets captured.
• Fail to adjust siege defense to what the enemy is doing. If they're wailing on the gate with rams, break the rams. If they're using catapults, attempt to destroy them from range, or get people together to push into them. If a trebuchet is sieging, get a group together to wipe it out.
• Think that there is no hope when heavily outnumbered. Stalling out the enemy as long as possible almost assures that enough defenders arrive to wipe them out.
• Think that you are "missing out on the fun" while defending a tower. The enemy will eventually arrive, and you can laugh as they get broken into little pieces before you.
• Chase retreating enemies so far away that you don't make it back to the tower.
  
  Keeps: NOTE: All tower defense Do's and Don'ts also apply
  DO:

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• Make the keep a hard target. Nothing will scare the enemy from doing anything to you than to break them into bits the second they try to arrive. Man the siege, destroy theirs, chase them away for a short distance. If they can't even approach the nearest gate without you already attacking them, you're doing it right.
• Have a standing defense force of at least 10 ready to repel or stall any attack.
• Build defensive siege in unhittable locations.
• Abuse height or terrain advantages to the maximum extent possible.
• Discourage the enemy from pushing in by creating AoE walls of death.
• Resurrect the Keep Lord as able. It resets capture progress, disappears the circle, and forces them to kill the Lord all over again. This is especially effective if they pulled the Lord to the edge of the room.
  
  DO NOT:

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• Leave a keep undefended. With enough people, a keep can be speedcapped in 3 minutes or less (we've got proof on this very forum).
• Leave a keep under-defended. This is especially true with garrison. If both teams have zergs handy, it might be necessary to put more people in the keep to defend a two-front assault.
• Prioritize defending other objectives over a keep (unless it's Stonemist). Supply camps can be recaptured quickly by a small force. Keeps cannot and earn far more points per tick.
• Let the enemy get the drop on you. See the warning signs of an attack and be ready for it.
• Assume that because the Keep Lord is dead that all is lost. Numerous keep attacks have been defeated after both gates are down and the lord is a corpse on the floor.

-Retsu 1/24/2014

I am not Retsu, I am posting topics from our other SoR website that is closing down.