WvW guide for beginners

Hey guys, after our guild WvW night I thought I would write a guide so that you guys can learn a bit more about WvW. Hope it helps some of you to understand some of the things going on if you have any questions about WvW or anything in the guide let me know and I'll try and help;)


WvW guide

Basics

- Always have 10+ supply on you
- Always watch chat
- If you are with a commander, stay grouped on them
-If you wipe an enemy zerg an some run, don't chase them unless commander does
- Learn the maps. Supply, towers, keep names
-If you are part of a Zerg, do not run if your Zerg is attacked. A small group running away could cause wipes.
- There is an AoE limit of 5 players, however siege limits are higher depending on the type of siege.
-If a structure is captured, don't start upgrades until you are sure it has enough siege inside and not going to be attacked for a long time. Also make sure supply is full and a Dolyak is near.
- AoE, stuns, knockdowns etc are your friend.
- Always carry some kinds of siege on you at all times and be willing to use it to save the commander online from always using theirs. It is expensive placing 20-30 of each kind every couple of days.
- If possible, be willing to upgrade structures. It is expensive but it really helps the server. If you don't know what to upgrade ask whoever is commanding and let them know how much you are willing to spend.
- Ask if you are unsure about anything


Siege

Rams - used on gates, spam skill 1, ignore skill 2

Arrow carts - used against players. Spam cripple and bleeds, use skill 1 while others are on recharge. Useful to slow enemy zergs while dealing good damage to a large area

Ballista - used against players and siege. fires in a straight line an penetrates through enemies. Good for wiping out siege(1st target) and bunched up players. Useful in narrow choke points.

Catapult - used against walls and gates if rams aren't possible. Aim for middle of 2 walls or between wall and gate, will usually hit both. Also useful to knockdown enemy players

Trebuchet - longest range siege to damage walls and gates. At the start will need to ask where to place these. Unless asked, always place inside towers etc.

Alpha siege golem - used on gates, uses a lot of supply to build so only used when speed is needed. Never let an up-leveled player use these 

Superior siege is created using mystic forge and increases damage and hit points of siege. Cheap and easy to make and well worth it. Recipes on wiki mystic forge page.




Points

Points are tallied up each time the timer at the top of the screen reaches 0. The number to the left of these points are the current server point tick (how many points the server will get after the timer).

Supply camp - 5
Tower - 10
Keep - 25
Stonemist - 35

Dolyaks and sentries also give points when killed.


Dolyaks

Dolyaks carry supply from supply camps along a set route to towers, keeps and SM. It is important that these get to structures as you need supply to upgrade structures. 

Communication


Communication is the key to doing well in WvW. If communication about attacks are clear and to the point, those commanding can make better decisions. Whenever you see somewhere being attacked, say in /t how many enemies, which server and if they have siege up. Also mentioning structures gate and wall health if damaged is useful.

If somewhere becomes contested and not noticed, warn the commander and make your way there if you are close. 

If you see a server is outmanned(more later) then let the commander know. Knowing a
server is outmanned is an invitation to take a few towers or more.

Two main channels are used in WvW, map and team. Map is /m, team is /t. Team is often used for important communication, while map more casual. Also /squad is used if you join a commanders squad.


Outmanned

When other servers have more considerably more players than you, you get the outmanned buff. This increases experience and a few other things. It also stops armour from being damaged. 
If you see another server with this buff, let /t know.


Profession tactics

Mesmers

Have portal and veil if possible
.
Portals are used for two things, one is portals inside towers etc after they have been captured, 2nd is portal bombs.

If a tower is captured while you are inside, hide for as long as possible while stealthed. A mesmer portal will save 5+ mins of having to break down the door and also surprise defenders.

A portal bomb is really useful for wiping enemy zergs, especially those dug into a place with siege. Start a portal at your own zerg, run into the other team and place the other end of the portal. Tell the commander if you are able to do this so they can plan and tell you where they need the portal exit and also stack the zerg onto portal.

Warriors

If you are defending, have the elite banner skill ready as it can be used to rez the tower/keep lord instantly, buying a lot of time for your team to regroup before the enemy captures the tower.

In most organised groups hammer warriors are common due to blast finishers to activate water fields as they move.

Eles

Always have a focus on you for swirling winds. If catas/trebs are hitting a wall/ gate, swirling winds can destroy the projectiles before they hit the wall. Having a few coordinated Eles using swirling winds will be able to stop all projectiles hitting a structure.

As an elementalist there are a number of builds which can be very useful in group play. Auramancers, d/d eles, support as well as staff eles all have their uses in WvW and having a collection of each type will improve the overall strength of the group.

Thieves

Have AoE stealth to be able to hide the Zerg if needed, also useful to rez other players and stomp enemy players.

Smoke screen can also act the same as the swirling winds ele skill an destroy siege projectiles

Engineer

Both support and granade builds work well in WvW. Being support helps keep the Zerg alive, while grandes deal good AoE damage.

Necromancer

There are a few different ways of playing necromancer: one is as a minion master, the other is as a condition necro(more popular)

As a minion master it is possible to make a smaller Zerg seem much bigger, while minions use up the 5 man AoE cap.

Necromancers are built to have great AoE condition damage. Causing as much condition damage as possible to as many people as possible makes pushing a Zerg back much easier. Using Epidemic will really help here with spreading conditions

Guardian

Guardians can be played a few different ways depending one how you prefer to play. You can either play as front line tanks who start pushes against zergs or play as support.

If you are front line you will want skills which can cause a lot of stuns, knockdowns etc. as well as walls of reflection and other skills which reduce the amount players can move and damage you as you push towards them.

Support guardians are expected to buff nearby players as much as possible, as well as heal nearby players.

Ranger

Rangers are generally a single target DPS class. They also can deal good damage at range. Killing an enemy commander(can see the icon in buffs) would limit the ability of the commander being able to command. Also if they die, people will try and revive them, lowering the dps dealt by the Enemy Zerg.

Also spirits can be used with siege weapons to increase the damage death by siege while also applying conditions to enemies.

Having arrows which penetrate players while shooting through combo fields such as ethereal fields can stack conditions such as confusion quickly to many people.

Combo fields

Combo fields are a really useful tool in WvW, having a group stack AoE might etc on themselves before starting to attack will give them a large advantage over the other Zerg. If we are running as a guild group we will place fields down to be activated almost always. Learn combos from wiki.


Consumables

Having consumable buffs(e.g food) will give you a nice boost compared to other players. Always try to keep buffed with these as much as possible


Defending against portal bombs

Portal bombs are really useful to a zerg and are really hard to defend against. If an enemy list armoured player runs towards your Zerg stun/slow them and warn people to stop them. Preventing mesmers from getting close is the best way of defending.

If the Mesmer succeeds the feedback can be placed on the first player through, as well as AoE stuns, knockdowns, retaliation etc. Get as much damage on the spot as possible and tell people it is there.


Contesting

Whenever a gate, wall or structure lord is damaged, the structure becomes contested. This is shown by crossed white swords on the symbol of the structure on the map. This can be used to see where the enemy are attacking, however this is not a guarantee as a lone person can tag structures and move on(more on that later)

If combat is happening anywhere consisting of more than 25 people/npcs, orange swords appear at this location. The limit includes all teams. 10 from each server will trigger it. If orange swords appear at a structure, it is being attacked by a large group. 

Always watch for both white and orange swords and warn when you spot either.


Tagging

This is when a person attacks a gate and runs on, causing the structure to be contested. As mentioned above this can be used to prevent enemy zergs spawning at a keep for a couple mins, or confuse the enemy and prevent them knowing where you are attacking.


Mercenaries

In each map there are mercenaries. Borders have quaggans while EB has dredge, hylek and ogres. If the symbol on the minimap is grey, then they can be claimed. If they already belong to a server they will be coloured. Should an enemy own a group of mercenaries, you should wipe them ASAP.


Quaggans can be persuaded to join you by giving them giant pearls. Quaggans in the lake send a group to nearby keeps and create lightning to damage players and siege inside the keep (enemy). The quaggans at the middle of the lakes con be captured by making sure no krait are in the capture circle. Once these are captured they will send a group of guards to capture supply camps.

The mercenaries in EB are between each servers corners. They can be claimed for the server by killing enemy npcs in the area.

Having mercenaries in EB allows you to have them move to the closest two supply camps. The enemy camp close to it can be captured by one person easily with the help of mercenaries. They also contest the supply camp often which may think that we are attacking, drawing players from the enemy Zerg.


Reset nights

Points are reset on Friday 18:00 UTC/GMT (7PM UK time atm), and the following match-up starts around 20 past although may be slightly earlier or later.

These nights are great fun with many rushes to SM and many captures and defends. If you are unsure if you want to take part in WvW, these are the nights to go to for a bit of fun and see what WvW can be like(depends on strength of night crews of opposing servers).

Reset night also gives a good indication on how the week is going to be set out. Starting well and having a few thousand points lead after reset will help with the overall score. Doing well at reset and capturing many towers/keeps/SM will not only level your WvW rank quickly, but also keep structures from being upgraded making it easier for the morning crew.

These usually start with a 3 way SM rush followed by the victor pushing the weaker side. From the start it is important to not upgrade any towers until the supply in the structure is close to being full and a dolyak on the way to add more supply. Also keeping supply depots from being captured is really important.

Reset nights tend to be pretty quick paced and really good nights, so if you can try to join me on at least one


WvW community

Try and get involved with the community outside HoM, gunnars-hold.eu is the main gunnars hold community. Sign up in the website and join our guild on there. It should be listed now (ask if unsure). There are many tips and guides there if you want to learn more WvW tactics



If anyone notices something I've missed (probably a lot) or wants to add anything, let me know and I'll add it to the post Also if I get asked any questions and I think they might be common I'll add a FAQ section to the end.

Nice aduram! This actually helped me alot! Like the thing when you said what different classes are going to act in wvw, one question. Rangers how are they going to att in wvw? I guess alot of AoE. Awesome text!

I'm not 100% sure how each of the other classes would best be used in WvW but will give it a go with some research into common builds etc. Hopefully will help you guys who don't use those already listed. Will add ranger in now for you

If anyone can add to this please let me know so I can add it in to help others

All professions have been added to the guide. Some are very basic and will probably expanded on and maybe linked to other guides specific to each. If anyone knows more common tactics than those listed let me know and I'll update it

Added more to eles, added note about epidemic to necros and also added information about reset nights. Should be adding more to this as well as creating a more advanced guide for when we go as a guild (which i want to be more regular). Will work on these as soon as I have a bit more time

edit: also added a couple more points to basics

Reset time is now 7PM GMT, so 8PM uk time, 9 PM for most of you guys in europe. Would be nice to see some more of you at reset now

Edit: time has changed again so both this and guide changed even better for us to go as a guild