World vs World: A player's journey

Malose, on 10 Jan 2013 - 3:01 PM, said:
Guide to becoming a WvW pro in 30 minutes

Are you new to WvW and looking to become a master strategist? Do you want to learn everything about WvW without having to spend tens to hundreds of hours figuring out all the little tricks for yourself? Look no further, we will be compiling everything about FA in this thread so you can go from WvW recruit to master strategist with one simple read. (Not everything in this post is mine and does not necessarily reflect my opinions on some matters).

Video Guides

If you would rather watch videos then make sure to check out these great videos. SummonersWar has made a great video about WvW basics, and although some of the information is a little outdated, it is a great introduction to WvW.
WvW Basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UfFEdkI4q3E


Now that you know all the basics, check out with video by Caen of The ShadowMoon [SM] explaining some of the more advanced strategies used by many coordinated groups and guilds in WvW.

Advanced Strategies: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4P1SRJMPNa0

By now you're on your way to becoming a WvW pro. Siege and siege placement is one of the most important aspects of WvW so make sure you check out this video by Caen of The Shadowmoon [SM] about siege placement.

Siege Placement: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgoTT3yWSXw


Written Guide

Prefer reading to watching videos? At work or school and unable to watch the video? Don't worry, thanks to KinkyWarrior.1879 and his post on the official forums, here is a comprehensive guide explaining a lot of the main concepts of WvW. (Spelling and grammatical mistakes are not mine).

The sections are:

1. Basics
   
2. Outpost Breakdown
   
3. NPC Objectives
   
4. Supply, Supply Camps, Upgrades and Repairs
   
5. Siege Equipment
   
6. Siege Part 2: Superior Siege and Placement
   
7. Squads, Buffs, Bonuses

Basics

What Is World Vs World Vs World?

Well in a nutshell this is what World Vs World vs World is (WvWvW): It is a form of Player vs Player Vs Enviroment in which players go to one of four ‘battlegrounds’ and fight to take control of different ‘Outposts’ against two other severs. With each ‘Outpost’ you hold, depending on the size and importance of the ‘Outpost’, you get given a certain amount of points every 15 minutes. The more ‘Outposts’ your sever controls, the more points they get every time there is a point tally. The winner is the server with the most points at the end of a one week match up.

Outpost breakdown

There are 5 classifications of Outpost in WvWvW, in ascending worth of points: Sentries, Supply Camps, Towers, Keeps, Stonemist Castle.

Sentries: Sentries are points on the maps which are guarded by a single Veteran Guard. They are easy to take with most people being able to solo them quite easily. Potential Point Value: 0

Supply Camps: Supply camps are a small outpost at which Supply Dolyaks and supply spawn at (see below for supply and Dolyaks). They have in them Guards, a Quartermaster and a Supervisor. Supply camps are the second easiest to capture, I have seen it done with as few as 3 people but an non-upgraded camp may be able to be taken with as little as two. Potential Point Value: 5

Towers: Towers are small outpost which are dotted around and have a single wall and gate to defend them. the wall is manned by NPC’s and the Tower Lord is also Surrounded by NPC’s. To claim a tower you must breach the wall and kill the Tower Lord. We Song have breached a tower numerous times with as few as 4 people, but I highly recommend using 6+ to take on the Tower lord and his guards. Potential Point Value: 10

Keeps: There are three keeps on each of the borderlands battlegrounds (one at the east, one to the west and finally a central one), and three in Eternal Battle grounds (South East, South West, North), one for each sever. Keeps are similar to towers in that to take them, you must kill the Keep Lord. The difference is they have a two tier defence; Two walls, Two gates to get through. What is on the inside of the keep varies between each keep. Potential Points Value: 15

Stonemist Castle: Stonemist castle is a unique building, is is about the size of 4 keeps and is extraordinarily hard to capture. Stonemist has Two main walls, each with 3 entrances (one for each server). In between each wall is a massive courtyard. Then there is the second wall which you must breach. Once breached you enter the Stonemist’s interior, a three tier tower. On the bottom floor is a massive room with only a few Npc’s on, on the bottom floor is the Castle Lord also. On the Middle floor you have a load of NPC’s much like the top floor. But also on the top floor there is Balcony’s which extend outward to overlook the courtyard. Potential Points Value: 35

NPC Objectives

Throughout the Borderlands and the Eternal Battlegrounds you will find a little symbol which is two axes, one pointing up and one pointing down. Now these symbols signify an area which means that if you server controls it; they will be rewarded with NPC help. Normally to gain control the event asks you to ‘help’ a certain race such as Quaggans. Normally this revolves around thinning out a particularly aggressive enemy race in the area or gathering something. On the Borderlands you get three Quaggan weather nodes, each associated to a keep. Simply do the event to gain control of them and then the associated Keep outpost will either get a healing storm if the keep is yours or a lightning storm to damage siege and players if it’s the enemy’s. Also on the Borderlands is the ‘Temple Of Storms’, here you kill Krait and stand in the capture ring until it is yours. This one sends a few Quaggan squads to help defend locations on the map such as camps and the gates of some keeps.

On the Eternal Battlegrounds you have 3 of these NPC objectives, situated midway between each server. These ones when captured simply send a squad of NPC’s to help guard the two nearest camps to it. The Ogre camp is between the Blues and the Reds, The Hylek Camp is Situated between Greens and Blues, and finally the Dredge Camp is situated between Reds and Greens.

Note: The Dredge camp when captured will also spawn special turrets which shoot enemy players. These spawn at Nearby towers.

Supply, Supply Camps, Upgrades and Repairs

Supply

Supply is the most important thing in WvWvW, it is what allows you to build siege equipment, upgrade your Outposts and is basically the lifeblood of your server. Supply is basically a currency. You may only hold 10 supply at one single time or 15 if the associated guild buff is activated at the place in which you got the supply, so it normally takes lots of players or one player going back and forth to actually build something. Supply is gathered from Supply Camps, taking out enemy Supply Caravans and taking it from keep stores and such.
Note: Although with that said I hugely recommend only taking supply from camps as keeps and towers normally need their supply for upgrades or for when it comes under assault.

Supply Camps

Now, supply camps get their own little section as these things are a little extra special and need a bit more attention. Why? you may ask. Well, if you don’t have supply camps, you don’t get supply, you don’t get supply, no siege or upgrades, no siege or upgrades? No taking more ‘Outposts’ or upgrading of controlled ‘Outposts’. Supply is the lifeblood of all your siege attempts in WvWvW. Here is how it works.

When you capture a supply camp, every few minutes it will spawn a ‘Supply Dolyak’ and some supply. The supply that spawns may be taken straight out of the store to be used on the front-line or may be used to upgrade the supply camp (see below; Upgrades + Siege).

The other thing that Spawns is the ‘Supply Dolyak’ (Or Bessie as they are now commonly known as on Gandara ) these fellows are also very important. They carry supply, either 35, or 75 when upgraded, to any nearby towers, 70 to 140 to any keeps and Stonemists you may have. They will go back and forth until the Outpost stores are full. They start off as just a Dolyak, but can be upgraded to have caravan guards in. You should defend these peckers with your life. In an extended defense, it is vital to push them through into the keep you’re defending to keep it supplied for repairs.

Upgrades + Repairs

Supply can be used on all types of ‘Outpost’ with the exception of a sentry. Supply is used to buy upgrades. Upgrades require cash and karma to purchase alongside the correct amount of supply and time. For instance an Oil Pot may be mounted above a gate for 50 supply, 20 silver and 100 karma (Values made up). The supply in the store gets deducted over time and will require a living ‘Worker’ Npc to finish. (Personnel upgrades deduct supply immediately)

In towers, keeps and Stonemist you may buy defensive upgrades such as:

Added NPC’s
Simple really, adds guards to walls.

Upgraded walls (Has three tiers) or Gates (Has two tiers)
Upgrades the walls and gates to be stronger… much stronger.

Burning Oil Pots
Drop molten oil on rams and silly players standing under it.

Cannon
Shoots cannon balls for great AoE damage, limited range and aiming.

Mortar
Useful for longer range AoE damage.

Waypoint
Useful for mobility around the map. (Keeps and Stonemist Only)

Now you may be walking through the keep or tower with a bit of gold, and think “Hey! I’m going to upgrade this”. Well there is a kind of an recommended order to upgrading things which I believe goes like this:

Reinforce Walls —> Second Worker(At the same time as walls if supply is available) --> Reinforce Gates —> Cannons --> Mortar —> Fortify Walls/Waypoint --> Any Personnel Upgrades left over after sufficient supply to hold a respectable defense has gathered

Just a little note here; allow for enough supply for the upgrade itself AND enough supply to hold the keep should it fall under attack during the process of upgrading. (This is situational, more than not it is better to fortify keep before getting the cannons since cannons are easily destroyed prior to a coordinated attack. Cannon are effective in lower tiers against uncoordinated players).

Supply Camp upgrades are slightly different. The four upgrades are:
Increased Supply Deliveries. This doubles the supply Dolyaks carry. This should be researched first.
Caravan Guards, which help a little towards the defending the Yak, mainly useful for neutral mobs hitting the Yaks rather than players.
Increased guards, simply increases the amount of Guards at a supply camp.
Increased Guard Level increases the level of all guards in the camp up to 82.
The order for this is really simple; Get the first two upgrades, Deliveries and Caravan guards. Only get the other two upgrades if the camp will be guarded by players for a prolonged time or is a camp that is unlikely to flip any time soon.

Repairs work in much the same way as upgrades with the exception being you have to physically pick up supply and walk it to the gate and then interact to repair the gate. Note that you can repair a gate while it is under attack from inside the keep, and this helps towards a great defense.

Siege Equipment

Siege Equipment requires supply, and siege blueprints bought from a siege master. There are both Offensive siege equipment and Defensive orientated siege equipment. It should also be stated that there is a ‘Despawn Timer’ on placed siege, meaning that they disappear if they are not interacted with for around half an hour. So if your just chilling in a camp/keep/tower and there is siege about, just do a quick lap of the place interacting with it.

Arrow Cart Supply required: 30

Pros: Small, fast firing AoE, Cheap on supply and cash, Great in Offensive and Defensive situations but better in Defensive situations.

Cons: Easily destroyed, weak against anything other than players.

Notes: Arrow carts don’t require a Line of Sight, only a target-able location with your mouse pointer in range. They also have 3 types of shot: 1) A normal Arrow Barrage great for dishing out pain to the masses fast. 2) Crippling Shot Barrage which is great for keeping the enemies in the killzone. 3) Bleeding Shot Barrage, a normal Barrage with extra bleeding!

Flame Ram Supply required: 40

Pros: Destroys gates fast, can dish out burning damage to adjacent players, cheap, great offensive siege.

Cons: Can only hit adjacent players with flame attack, Useful only if built by gate, rendered useless if oil pot is above, Offensive only.

Notes: Gates only! You can’t ram a wall down, the many people I have seen try this… Otherwise a ram does what a ram does, it rams. Can be placed slightly further back to avoid knock back splash damage off of catapults.

Ballista Supply Required: 30

Pros: Medium Cost, Powerful against single targets, small spacing needed, great defensively, Useful also in Offensive situations.

Cons: No AoE (See Notes), Attacks can be dodged by simply moving sideways, difficult to position well.

Notes: Ballistas Require a line of sight to fire. It’s shots are ‘Piercing’ meaning they go through people and hit behind them too, so while not AoE, it has the potential to hit behind them too. So no, you can’t use your fat Norn friend as a shield. 3 types of shot; 1) Just a normal piercing shot. 2) An explosive shot that does minimal AoE and can also be used to hit siege which you cant hit it with a normal shot. 3) Reinforced Shot, does incredible amounts of damage against siege, so a well placed hill Ballista can clear keep/tower defence siege and a a Ballista or two placed in the right place can stop that pesky Golem army you may see from time to time.

Catapults Suppy Required: 50

Pros: Massive damage against gates and walls, Medium Expense, good offensively and defensively.

Cons: Weak health (single handedly destroyed one with a quick flanking assault), short range.

Notes: Now you will be walking around WvW and will likely come across a catapult facing the back of a keep gate. This is because Catapults have splash damage which can destroy rams through gates or knock users off the rams. No one has found an effective use for gravel yet apart from mass chicken genocide so I highly don’t recommend using that option.

Trebuchet Supply required: 100

Pros: MASSIVE range; can hit Stonemist from inside Anzalias Pass, Huge damage output against Walls, Gates and players, can fire dead cows to spread poison condition among enemies. Surprisingly good offensively and Defensively.

Cons: Expensive in supply and cash, Easily Destroyed, Slow turning

Notes: Great for taking out enemy Trebuchets if built up higher or really quickly. Great for knocking down walls and the siege the enemy is
using to defend the ‘Outpost’ with. Cows spread a disease cloud, use it to add more pain to the defending forces or to render a section of wall diseased.

Alpha Siege Golem Supply Required: 100

Pros: Only mobile siege in the game as of yet, has lots of health, absolutely minces gates.

Cons: Massively expensive, can be kited easily due to slow speed, not too hard to take down by it’self.

Notes: Awesome for gate mashing. You’ll see these guys used in Ninja assaults to break in without being noticed. Can be ‘Timewarped’ for fast gate punching (borderline ridiculous). Golem armies of about 15+ can be common but also easily stopped.

Siege Part 2: Placement and Superior Siege

Siege placement

So you have your siege blueprints bought, how to place it? Simple, go into your inventory and double click the siege blueprint and then use the 1st skill to place it with the assistance of ground targeting and a Build site shall appear. Now simply use interact to put supply into the siege if you have any and call others over to do so as well and the siege will be up in no time! I wont talk about specific ‘placement’ locations as there are way too many and I’m sure you will find some or be told in team chat where siege is best used.

A thing to remember when placing siege also, is that the siege spawns facing the direction in which you were facing when you threw it down. This doesn’t matter much on say, ballistas and Arrow Carts which spin around by themselves, but it does on Trebuchets and Catapults. If you need to build a counter Trebuchet and get it up and aimed before the enemy notice then having it facing the right direction is an imperative as siege turns slowly, and it’s a little awkward for you when the enemy has caught you out because your Trebuchet hasn’t turned fast enough.

Superior Siege

Siege weapons can be upgraded using the right recipe in the Mystic Forge. To do this you will need a certain amount of the siege blueprints you wish to upgrade and a Siege masters guide bought from the Forge merchant.

Superior siege is basically just a normal siege but with added bonuses such as extra damage and such. The one exception to this rule is the ‘Superior Alpha Siege Golem. Simply because the Superior Alpha Siege Golem actually becomes the awesome and fearsome Omega Golem. The Omega Golem runs faster, has double the health of an Alpha siege Golem and is ranged rather than melee. It’s number 1 skill shots rockets and is ranged (can also hurt walls too!) It’s Number two skill is upgraded so that you spin around while shooting flame-throwers for an absolute spiral of decimation (Slight over exaggeration but I love Omegas!). It’s Number 3 skill the shield lasts longer than than the Alphas. It’s Number 4 skill is changed to shoot a Barrage of Missiles to cause destruction to siege and player alike. If you haven’t guessed it yet, Omegas are the Big Daddy siege. Useful in most situations but can still be torn down by a single Ballista or a group of smart players. Omegas are also quite expensive going for 5 gold upwards in worth so buy them at your own risk and use them wisely.

Guild Siege

The last type of siege is the Guild siege. These come in the forms of Guild Catapults and Guild Siege Suits. These things are bought for influence by your guild and can be placed by anyone who has access to the use of Guild weapons. These siege weapons act simply as normal siege weapons would bar that they cost 50% of the require supply. 25 supply for the catapult and 50 Supply for the Siege Suit (It’s just an Alpha really).

Commanders and Squads

Now, I won’t say too much about commanders. Commanders are people who have paid 100 gold for the right to title and the ability to form squads. Most likely you will see people running around with their Blue Commander Symbol (Blue Dorito) trying to bring organisation to the forces. Commanders can form ‘Squads’ these are basically parties of up to 30 people allowing them to see Squad attack and defend symbols. They can only be set up by the commander, but joined by anyone. The Commander can then give information such as attack or defend orders on the map or see the Supply level of everyone in the Squad. If you join a commanders squad then that is the only commander icon you will be able to see on the map, even if there are other commanders about.

Roaming and you!

Okay, so you may not be all that into massive battles of carnage and siege weaponry. You may feel roaming is more for your tastes. If you don’t like the massive battles for whatever reason, join a roaming squad, hit camps, hit the NPC objectives, kill reinforcements trying to reach a battle, have a skirmish with an rival Roaming squad, Bunker down and slaughter that enemy army running blindly into your groups Ballistas! You can do it all, it just takes practice and learning. If you wish to do this I recommend going with friends who you play with regularly and are used to working with. Roaming groups are very useful and can be one of the major parts to a siege as well with the cutting of supply lines and such. So if you don’t like being apart of the army, you can still contribute, so don’t feel like you can’t!

Guild Claiming and Buffs

When running around World Versus World you will notice that each capture point has a Guild Claimer. This allows you to ‘Claim’ an objective and if done, will mean your guilds emblem shall be on the Flags about the objective. Claiming allows you a guild to use ‘Guild Buffs’ to help with any battles fought in the area. Buffs are activated by a Guild member of respective permissions and are bought using influence in the ‘Art Of War’ Section. Buffs tend to be Stat boosting; e.g. Vitality +40 but also range to things such as Supply carrying +5. These Buffs are great for World Versus World orientated guilds and can swing a defensive to your favor.

Note: It is common etiquette that the guild who claims a keep will upgrade it and has buffs to activate to help defend it. So be wary of claiming, it can cost your guild quite a bit.

Server Bonuses

So you've been playing WvW for a while now and you start to think…. why am I doing this? Ultimately the reason is your own. On top of this as your Server gets higher score then the more server wide bonuses you unlock. Things such as extra gathering from nodes or critical successes in crafting. You can find a list of the Bonuses by pressing ‘B’.

Tips Section

So you have read the guide and your ready to World Versus World! Here are a few tips to help you out!
Always face the way you want the siege to face when placing.
Always carry supply, always. You never know when you may need to repair or Siege something.
Always try to carry around at least one or two blueprints, who knows, it might be your blueprints that conquer an outpost!
If people get to close to the edge of a wall and you have a pull skill, you can pull them off. (Otherwise known as ‘Wall Fishing')
Always read the chat! It’s helpful to know what’s going on.
Call incoming forces and the locations of large enemy forces.
Experiment with siege placement if the situation permits, you may just find a sweet spot.
Use common sense. If your running with an Army to a crisis location, do you honestly need 30+ people to kill that sentry?
The Environment is your friend. Take advantage of Choke points and high cliffs.
If your being beaten badly and the enemy has loads of siege outside your spawn location, there is three exits, use the alternatives!
Revive. Revive. Revive. Revive. Revive. This is not just a game of skill, you MUST keep your numbers up in a fight, especially if it is equal numbers. (Don't revive if it will get you killed though)

Malose, on 16 Jan 2013 - 1:07 PM, said:
Vertiousit from [HOPE] has been very kind and is making a bunch of tutorial videos for WvW. They are great and we're very lucky to have someone willing to take the time to make videos like this. I will keep updating this list as he makes more so be sure to keep checking the post as I will update them as he posts them. You can also see them in this thread.

Vertiousit [HOPE] Video Tutorials

Tutorial 1: Getting to WvW
Tutorial 2: Supply Camps
Tutorial 3: Tower Siege Placement
Tutorial 4: Improving Siege
Tutorial 5: How WvW Scores works