There are a few ways to run around in Guild Wars 2 World vs. World (WvW) mode. Everybody’s favorite to love and hate is the zerg, which is just a critical mass of players rolling over objectives and against other zergs. It’s disorganized and powerful at the same time. The skilled players not in zerg siege mode tend to join smaller strike squads which requires significant communication and directives to disrupt and slow the enemy as much as possible. Last night I realized that a solo player could be particularly useful as well.
Selfishly I was running around Isle of Janthir’s borderlands with little intention of helping the cause. I had a goal to complete the map. Right now in our matchup the Isle is the whipping boy while my server, Sanctum of Rall, is trying its best to stop Sea of Sorrows from winning too much. It seems like next week us three will be at it again too. Since I had completed Sanctum of Rall’s borderlands, I decided hitting up the losing server’s borderlands would provide easier exploration than elsewhere.
Plans change quickly. I found that like a moth to fire, I was drawn to a zerg amassing at the western keep. Along the way though, I saw a lonely Sea of Sorrow’s guard staring at a vista he would never see. That’s an easy event, I thought, and I snagged the sentry point and rewards. The supply camp to the south (also owned by the Sorrow’s crew) looked tasty as well. Might as well snag that too and see if I can solo it. I didn’t need to bother it alone as someone was already making a mess of the guards, and more Rallish cavalry joined in to capture the site.
Sea of Sorrows were starting to play push and prod out of their base camp against our keep-sieging zerg’s back. Things were ramping up as we built a trebuchet too. I headed the other way up to the centaur camp to get that critical point of interest and accompanying skill point. We owned the eastern keep so the flight north was quite smooth. I headed into the centaur territory without a red in sight.
Just as I was making my way towards the skill point after smoothly snagging the point of interest, a small asura thief from Isle of Janthir started making a beeline towards me. No sense running from one little bug-eye. It’s amazing the volume of information given by something as simple as open moves. I switched to staff and laid down marks to make sure that if he wanted to get near me it would come at a price. Instead of the sure movement I would have expected, the thief kind of stumbled by the marks.
About to mark down my opponent as “unskilledâ€, I hedged my bet anyway and popped in to death shroud to weather his opening strikes. They felt clumsy and mish-mashed. Not at all what I expected from a thief in WvW. With most of my life force remaining, I exited death shroud and took the thief down in moments while a pesky centaur tried to pepper me with arrows. Now my adrenaline was rushing, not because of the fight, but because that dying thief was most likely crying to his buddies that I was poking around in their territory. Before I could get near the skill point, I saw a few more Islanders coming my way. I booked back to save that skill point for another day.
Back at base camp, I saw that the supply camp was again in Sorrow’s name. There were also some fatty yaks ready for the plucking too since they had nowhere to ship their supplies as we controlled the surrounding forts. I headed down, but this time I would be alone. I came very close to soloing the supply camp owing much to the certainty that is the necromancer. Too late I saw a wolfpack of Sorrowsites heading towards me. I popped my speed skill and tried to book it back to base camp. I was in combat; they weren’t. I didn’t pop my speed skill; I popped death shroud by accident. I was toast. But, I was happy. A single person had just peeled off a skilled amount of players from harassing our zerg. WvW is a game of time, and I had just wasted five player’s time for a relatively minute victory.
I ended that night on a happy note. Just through a few untold skirmishes, events, and encounters I had made a few Badges of Honor, enough loot to cover my small repair bill with some extra for the bank, and some stories to share. For the 500 Badges of Honor I need for a legendary weapon, I am very happy with the speed I am gaining the Badges. It feels like it will take months to achieve, but there is progress every time I play around in WvW.
–Ravious
I’ve been trying to solo more often in WvW lately, the zerg can get tiresome. I’d love to see the map sizes expanded and more soloable objectives added to the maps since some of my best nights in WvsW have been while soloing. Taking down larger structures is fun, but roaming around the maps taking over small objectives and getting into 1v1 fights has just been more fun imo.
Not a good pvper, but getting more confident in running around solo on my mesmer, and becoming more knowledgeable about my skills and build, finalising my stat allocations before upgrading from rare to exotic, even if I end up having to run from a lot of encounters. Ran into to some gankers camping one of the skill points, didn’t get away fast enough. Find roaming thieves really difficult, especially the kind that hit backstabs quite hard (100% crit from stealth lets them go pow/vit/tough/crit dmg) and still are really hard to pin down and finish off. One helpful thing would be saved builds, because what I run in the zerg is different (weapons, major traits, utilities) from when solo.
I had my thief out in WvW the other day. Level six and I had to buy her a pair of shoes before I took her to the Frontier because she was running around barefoot. I certainly wouldn’t assume anyone up there (I always think of the Frontier as “up” for some reason) knows what they are doing just because they are playing a class that’s meant to be good in WvW.
Better safe than sorry, and I have grown extra wary of thieves tbh.
I think anyone that has spent more than three minutes in WvW can totally understand your wariness of a Thief. There is no class like the Thief that makes me have my finger hover over my countermeasures to their burst (like Lightning Flash, X (180° Turn) +Updraft or Ride the Lighning).
Duelling people can be a lot of fun, especially when it’s not as easy as your bullying of that thief. Today, I totally trashed another Elementalist which went with a staff with my D/D Ele. That was not nearly as satisfactory as my fight with a warrior just the other day, which took nearly five minutes and a lot of tough work until I finally managed to down (and finish) him. Very close fight.
In my opinion, three players are about the best for capping supply camps. They can kill the guards quickly, easily scare off or intercept single enemies and are still not a large enough force that it’d be a waste (like a zerg of 30ppl hitting a Supervisor with RI on it).
Reminds me of my solo time in WvW. Once I was clearing centaurs for an event. I’d killed 27/30 when an invading Thief showed up. Only he didn’t see me and started to attack the centaur guarding the skill point. I let them duke it out, then joined in when the centaur was at 25% health. By the time the Thief realized what was going on, it was too late for him.
My favorite encounter was against a lone Warrior. I was trying to get a Vista when he showed up and opened with a whirling Axe attack. My Necro’s 25K health pool weathered that but I had to pop Well of Blood. Then I hit 2 on my Dagger to drain his health while replenishing mine. We fought for another minute and when I started to get the upper hand he used Charge and ran off. I returned to my Vista, got it and then saw the Warrior coming back. We repeated the encounter and he again ran off. I wished I could chase him — and remembered that I had a war horn in my inventory. Swapped it in for my usual focus. Mined a nearby Ore and looked up to see — guess who? :)
This time I was ready. When he started his Axe whirl, I used war horn 4 to Daze him. Then I dropped We’ll of Suffering. To keep him in the well, I then hit him with dagger 3 for an immobilize. Then I started spamming 1.
By the time he could move he was down to half health and I still had my heal, so he hit charge and ran. But I popped Locust Swarm and gave chase. The encounter ended with a bag of loot appearing suddenly at my feet. He’d run off a cliff and died from the fall!
I once died to a thief as I had the skill challenge centaur down to 24%. Stayed there and watched as the thief finished off the skill challenge mob and I also got credit for the kill. Nice little perk to an otherwise inglorious moment.