Basin Mainguild v Dark Painter [DP], Anatomy of a Big Win

Saturday, February 17, Basin Amazons played European guild, Dark Painter [DP]. DP was ranked at #346—about 4000 higher than AB. DP is no shot in the dark. At over 100 games played, they have earned their rating. AB has played many, many games. Our rank fluctuates wildly—often depending upon the experience of the person leading and the group following. As such, at times we play as if we’re rank 4000; at other times we have held at rank 700. In fact, we can build up to rank 700 and then fall back to rank 4000 within the space of 48 hours. All this, of course, is just fine. We want people to get involved. We want people to have a chance to discover what the PvP side of Guild Wars is like.

But how did AB, at rank 4000+, defeat DP, a guild that not only outranks us but also performs well in other venues like Heroes’ Ascent?

I offer two reasons: numbers (Eddie’s mantra) and movement (SirBunnz’s Tactical Decision Making).

Now let’s look at the battle. Most of the screenshots are taken from the U map, as this map allows us to see where all players are at specific times in the battle.

Here is the setup.




DP sets up to make a standard opening move: an initial push through the front gate to take out the NPCs at our front gate. We know this move well. We’ve done the same thing on many occasions.

This time, however, we do something different. Eddie has us all line up at the back door—except for Zoomga, our flagger, who’ll run the flag out after the other side caps. Our goal here is to get the enemy’s attention, so the enemy will run after us, leaving the flagstand unguarded so that Zoomga can make the cap in safety.

The key here, as Eddie would say, is numbers. We want to hit the enemy where we have more numbers than they do. If they run out the front and we run out the back, then we have them on numbers. There aren’t as many NPCs out the back door as there are out the front door. We fight them where we’re strongest and they’re weakest. In other words, we use movement in order to lever an advantage.

Now, here’s what things look like with our first push into their base.




At this time, DP starts to send one player back to their base. In the mean time, the rest of the team hesitates. You can see this better on Observe, as you can see the team go both forward, then back. However, you can see it here, too. Notice where the main part of AB is? See how much closer we are to their base than they are to our front gate? This shows the hesitancy.

Their next step is to take the bulk of their team up the middle path.

59 seconds into the game, here’s the situation.




Eddie has dropped back to the middle path. He wants the enemy to see him. He wants them to give us chase. In the mean time, our group has pulled the first knight. All of our NPCs are up. One of theirs is down. The next is on his way. We’re at least 2 NPCs ahead. This gives us a permanent advantage. Remember that once you kill an NPC, it’s dead (except for the Thief).

In the mean time, DP sends a runner to the flag stand. Notice that we’ve not yet capped at nearly the 1 minute mark. However, also notice that Zoomga is lurking on the other side of the bridge, ready to overcap. This will prevent the enemy from boosting. Notice, too, that the enemy is bunched up trying to figure out what to do. This means that Zoomga has a clear path to the flagstand.

In essence, we’re using our positioning on the map to draw the opponents to where we are strong. They’re reacting to us, playing our game. They send a few players down the middle path, hoping to catch our lone runner. Little do they know we want them to do this. We can fall back on them and kill a few before we either push into the middle or withdraw through their base! We have options, and we can move in at least two—maybe even three directions. They, however, have to decide which way we’ll jump, and that gives us an advantage.

3:54 seconds into the game, we’re still doing the same thing. Here’s where we stand:




Note that we have the flag. We’ve killed two of their NPCs at the back door. All of ours are still alive.

The enemy has pulled back into their base, and they think they’re chasing us out their back door. They stop to kill our thief. Here, they do a clever thing. They can see the clock, and they know that they need to kill the thief AFTER the 2 minute mark. If they do so, then we will be without a thief for 2 minutes. This means we won’t be harassing their back door.

But it also means that their entire team stops to kill the thief. This gives us time to ensure that we still have the flag for the boost, and that we can take out some of their archer NPCs by the front door.

Our team has wards, which stand us in very good stead. Our warder put up Ward against melee and I believe Ward Against Foes. Then the warder laid Sandstorm over the wards. This is good deterrent against warriors. As a result, all we had to do was worry about the spikes. Since we fought many battles on the back path, we were fortunate that our wards covered the passage:

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Here, we can use our wards, with sandstorm laid across them, to cover our withdrawal to our base.

We also use our wards to protect our team at the flagstand. Here, Eddie takes us all to the flagstand so that we can prevent the other team from boosting while giving Zoomga the cover he needs to run the flag. At the 7:07 mark, the other team has the flag, but we’re holding in front of it. Note, though, that some squishy named ceolstan is clearly situated outside the wards. Ceolstan flunks Monk Positioning 101.

Finally, the enemy wipes out a significant number of the team just moments before the 8 minute mark. You know what that means? Yes!!!!! It means that we all resurrect back at our base! And guess what? We have a wide-open path to the enemy’s back door. They’re still at the flagstand. We have more NPCs than they do.

What should we do????

Since I've reached my limit on uploaded images for one post, you'll have to read on. http://www.theamazonbasin.com/gw/forums/index.php?showtopic=7566