Guide:GvG Runner

GvG guide for the Flag Runner position.

Tasks as a runner

 * Communicate with your team!
 * Be at the right spot at the right time in order to
 * not die
 * not let your team die
 * not let your pit npcs die
 * Determine who deals with a splitting character
 * Don’t run flags unless the other team has people dead or your team is taking very little pressure
 * Don’t run flags when your team is splitting because you will not be able to support your teammates on split – unless the other team is dead or your team is taking very little pressure
 * If you can’t run the flag determine who will run your (next) flag
 * Always make sure someone is running the flag to not let the opponent team get a morale boost for free

How to determine who will run your (next) flag

 * Character with a speed buff
 * Character that can provide a little self-defense like blocks, removing cripple/hex, selfheal, dmg to make a pushing character back off
 * Character that does not require a weapon to do stuff, casters are better at flag running than melees
 * Consider the death penalty on your teammates, have the flag run half way so another one with higher health or armor can run it in
 * Is one of your teammates just in range of your flag? - base resurrection, passing by to regain health from a split attempt – that person has a new job now!
 * Observe what the opponent team is doing with their flag

Why run flags

 * The flag stand is an object central to a GvG map that grants a 10% morale boost to the team that can hold it for two minutes.
 * The Morale Boost recharges all skills, including Resurrection Signets and removes/reduces accumulated Death Penalty.

Defending splits

 * 1 dmg characters splitting – defend with an appropriate dmg character
 * 2 dmg characters splitting – go back yourself with another appropriate dmg character
 * 3 dmg characters splitting – go back yourself with another appropriate dmg character; command your protection monk back or an appropriate second dmg character
 * 2 dmg and 1 heal splitting - go back yourself with 2 appropriate dmg characters

Defending solo splits

 * In case you don’t have a character to defend a solo split with besides yourself, play a better team build next time (the only exception would be a dedicated spike build, such as A/P-spike)
 * Defending solo split dervish
 * Let the knights die, hold up any archer and the bodyguard instead, the dervish will lose all of its killing potential in your pit once the knights are dead
 * If you do so, the derv will have no further killing potential against you
 * Defending solo split elementalist
 * Remove lightning surge as much and fast as possible before the elementalist can cover it with lightning strike, the elementalist will run out energy if you can do it consistently
 * If you do so, the elementalist will have no killing potential against you
 * Defending a ranger
 * Once again, play a better team composition, the ranger is only there to keep you away from your main team

Defending double elementalist split

 * defend with an appropriate midline character, such as ranger, wastrels mesmer or necromancer
 * the elementalists will have their most killing potential in the first 60 seconds of the fight, stand strong and hold through, they will get lower on energy soon
 * don’t fight the elementalists in the open and always have a npc in range to support you
 * try to stay out of the eles casting range as much as possible while still being in healing range of your defence partner as well as the npc that is being attacked
 * if they fall out, don’t follow them outside, eles can fake that they are low on energy. even if they are low on energy, their killing potential is still there
 * call for one of your frontliners to collapse on the split, this will make them to go back outside of your base

Following a collapsing split

 * always make sure to know where the opponent’s split is going
 * don’t let them fool you in case they are ‘fake collapsing’ and returning to your base after you went back to your main team
 * if the split is out of your sight, communicate with your teammates whether they can see the split and where it is heading to. let your main team fall back in case you will be late for the splitter’s collapse

Saving a npc versus saving your own life

 * if it comes to a situation where you can only either save a npc (guildlord excluded) or save yourself – pick yourself. The npc will most likely die anyways after you are dead. Stay alive!

Defending flag push

 * Characters carrying the flag have no extra armor from a shield neither can they get more than the basic energy nor fast cast from a 40/40 set, they are also moving slower with a 20% speed reduction while holding the flag; see
 * Will probably lose the 1v1 against a flagpushing character respectively getting slowed down so much that they need support
 * Ask for one of your frontliners to collapse on the opponent team’s push to force an opponent’s monk to push or the pushing character to fall back
 * If your flag running character is a split dervish, you usually do not need to go back for it since it has great self-sustainability, such as health regeneration, anti-knockdown, cripple remove and maybe even a hex-remove

Common Builds
Healing burst monks with protection prayers feature a good mix of targeted healing, party heals, protection and mobility. In some spike oriented team builds the runner brings a snare to allow his team to collapse splitting characters more easily.

Healing Burst
[build prof=Monk/Assassin HealingPrayers=11+1+1 ProtectionPrayers=10+1 DivineFavor=10+1][Healing Burst][Patient Spirit][Spirit Bond (PvP)][Guardian][Shield Guardian][Cure Hex][Draw Conditions][Dash][/build] Variants
 * Replace [[Spirit Bond (PvP)@11] with [[Protective Spirit@11] against spike builds or [[Shield of Absorption@11] against pressure builds.
 * Replace [[Shield Guardian@11] with [[Shielding Hands@11] and [[Guardian@11] with [[Mending Touch@11] if anticipating a dedicated split build.
 * Main article: Build:Mo/A GvG Healing Burst Runner

Healing Burst/Snare
[build prof=Monk/Elementalist HealingPrayers=11+1+1 ProtectionPrayers=8+1 DivineFavor=9+1 WaterMagic=8][Healing Burst][Patient Spirit][Spirit Bond (PvP)][Guardian][Ice Prison][Cure Hex][Mending Touch][Armor of Mist][/build]

Additional Data
Notes on how movement speed works and movement speed manipulation affects flag running.

Movement Speed Calculation
When altering movement speed the resulting value can be determined with this formula; multiple IMS and snare factors are offset against each other cumulatively:
 * (Altered Movement Speed) = (Movement Direction Factor) * (IMS Factor) * (Snare Factor)

After this calculation the game checks the result for two effect stacking caps; as usual single skills can bypass caps. Note that when offsetting speed boosts and snares against each other the strongest snare or speed boost will overpower all other effects and appear with its full strength if (Altered Movement Speed) is above the IMS or below the snare cap.
 * IMS: 1.34
 * Snare: 0.5

If a character is holding a bundle with an inherent snare effect, a second calculation has to be performed:
 * (Bundle Movement Speed) = (Altered Movement Speed) &minus;([Bundle Snare Factor] * [Movement Direction Factor])

Note that bundles can't reduce movement speed below a minimum:
 * (Minimum Movement Speed) = 0.1 * (Movement Direction Factor)

IMS skill effectivity

 * '''(Effective Speed) = ( [ Altered Movement Speed ] * [IMS Duration] + [ {{{IMS Duration ≥ Recharge Time} + {Casting Time} + {Aftercast Delay}} &minus;{IMS Duration}} * {Altered Movement Speed}]) / ([IMS Duration ≥ Recharge Time] + [Casting Time] + [Aftercast Delay])
 * '''(Effective Speed) = ( [ Bundle Movement Speed ] * [IMS Duration] + [ {{{IMS Duration ≥ Recharge Time} + {Casting Time} + {Aftercast Delay}} &minus;{IMS Duration}} * {Bundle Movement Speed}]) / ([IMS Duration ≥ Recharge Time] + [Casting Time] + [Aftercast Delay])

Snare Effectivity
Due to the flag movement speed penalty being applied after the snare effect stacking cap a flag running character moves significantly slower when snared than other snared characters. Although the absolute movement speed loss is 20% of the base movement speed at most and the absolute snare strength bonus is 20%, the relative speed loss deviates drastically.

Due to the cumulative effect stacking of snare and IMS effects one can't simply counter a 33% snare with a 33% speed boost. To counter a snare a speed boost with the magnitude (Snare Strength)&minus;1 has to be applied, so in case of the 33% snare strength a speed boost of almost 50% is required. This leads to snares usually overpowering speed boosts by a lot. The next list features a couple of factor combinations which are likely to occur during PvP matches.

For demonstrating that snares will likely overpower speed boosts in every case the last example features a virtual movement speed of 352,9% (A/P Spike and supporting him with all speed boosts available to the team. The calculation shows that even with this very short-lived combination it'll be hard to push a flag in against a snare team even over a short distance. A Triple Ele Flag Push will easily reduce the movement speed of this heavily supported runner to 14% – the same result as if the flag runner didn't have any speed boost at all.