User:Godliest2534/Tab GvG

There arent really any strict class requirements like rangers, it's more that you need to be able to do certain things. (This is going to be about balanced by the way - gimmicks just do one or two things well). Basically, you need:


 * Enough defence to not wipe. That's obviously going to change depending on how good you are.
 * A flag runner. You don't have to have a stereotypical defend the base from ganks and run flags, it's possible to run more offensive ones too, although these are by far the most common due to splitting your monks not being a good idea most of the time.
 * Damage. Usually two warriors with midline support should be enough. You need enough damage to keep the other team on their toes all the time, if they aren't under any pressure, you're going to collapse no matter how much defence you take (within reason).
 * Shutdown, both offensive and defensive. Knockdowns, interrupts, enchantment removals, hexes, disables, energy denial are the main forms of offensive shutdown. Depending on playstyle, you need to be able to either take down layers of defence on spikes, ie remove enchants, as well as use interrupts to stop key skills that will stop your spikes from getting through (Guardian, Blinding Surge, Blurred Vision, Ward Against Melee etc) and knockdowns such as Bull's Strike to make the spike target unable to kite and/or one of the monks unable to stop it. If you're playing a more pressure based playstyle, you're going to need a lot more defence, as you won't be able to pressure effectively unless you shut down the majority of their defence, which is where interrupts, disables (Distracting Shot and Diversion) and energy denial are more effective.
 * Defence. Depending on your mentality, you're either going to take just enough defence to survive long enough to wipe the other team, or lots of defence and end up playing a more spikish build. As a bare minimum, you'll generally want two standard monks, someone capable of defending the base from splits (usually the flagger), and maybe some form of minor midline defence, such as a Ward. What else you take depends on player skill and what playstyle you prefer, so that's up to you.
 * Adaptability. You mentioned the maps, and they're a pretty big factor in whether or not GvG builds work. For example, on one end of the spectrum, you have Frozen Isle while is as splittable are you're going to get, and pretty much impossible to fight 8v8 on unless both teams are determined to do so, while on the other you have Burning, which is hard to split on, and has relatively small spaces to fight on, which encourages 8v8 play. In ladder play, which is the most common form of GvG, you need to be able to play effectively on all the different types of maps, as unless you're going to be playing on your opponents maps just as often as you will be on your own. Not only that, but you need to be adaptable in what builds you can go against. While rock/paper/scissors might work reasonable well for farming points in TA and HA, it doesn't really work too well in GvG, so balanced builds need to be able to pressure, defend, spike, split, defend from splits, control movement etc. Which brings us onto:
 * Splitting. As a very basic definition, splitting is what the name suggests - splitting off one or more members of your team to give yourself some form of advantage, such as a positional one, stopping their flag coming in so you can boost, ganking one of their team members while they're alone, or killing off some of their NPCs so that you have a VoD advantage. One of the things you'll probably think is "But if my team suddenly has 5-6 players against their 7-8, won't they just kill us and then deal with the split?", which can be true if you're either totally outclassed by them or splitting badly. The fairly standard split in a balanced build is one of your warriors, your ranger, and sometimes your flag runner depending on whether or not the two are going to need support. Without these, the flagstand team won't do that much damage, but it's also not lost much defence at all, so you aren't going to get rolled within a minute or so if you weren't getting rolled before. Also, due to VoD being the most important part of a match, teams don't want to let you get any NPC advantage whatsoever, so they'll normally send back their flag runner to defend as a minimum, which is why splitting can be useful to push for morale, and depending on how non-euro adventurous they are, they might send back some of their offence, usually a mirror of your split in order to try and get a kill or two. So basically, splitting is letting members of your team run about alone or in small groups in order to gain an offensive advantage, or prevent the other team from doing so.
 * VoD. As I mentioned before, VoD is the most important part of almost all GvGs between teams of roughly equal skill. At VoD, every player and NPC does more damage and has less health. At 18 minutes, the Archers, Footmen, Knights and Bodyguard all come to the flagstand, and at 20 minutes, the Guild Lord comes there too. As you've suddenly got vast amounts of damage coming into play, VoD forces deaths on both sides, which is why VoD tactics are run. The most common one is running lots of defence with a spike and a Splinter Weapon or two, which lets you tank alot of the NPC damage at VoD while farming them with Splinter and your own NPCs, while your buffed up spikes take out their team. Alternatively, you can run an offensive VoD tactic such as splitting, where you take out all of their NPCs, while retaining your your own, and usually having control of the flagstand.
 * Maps. I mentioned before that there's maps that encourage splitting and maps that encourage 8v8, such as the classic example of Frozen Isle vs Burning Isle. There's also some other maps, such as Imperial Isle, which are 8v8 maps that can also be split on very well, as well as pretty others that are slightly biased towards one playstyle in one way or the other. Layout differences aside, there's also differences in whats on the map, such as what NPCs there are, where they are, where the flagstand is, where the flag is, whether or not there's a Guild Theif and Gate Lock, and environmental effects. The main ones are the last two - the Guild Thief allows you to control your opponents ability to split, as if their Thief is dead, they can't split untill the next two minute mark, and when pushing into a base, Gate Locks mean your team needs more coordination so that you don't end up with people locked outside. There's an environmental effect of one form or another on almost every map, each of which gives you a different tactic to exploit, such as snaring people on the ice (and avoiding being snared yourself) on Frozen Isle, killing flaggers in the Acid Traps on Imperial and using the catapults to eliminate NPC advantages or cause badly positioned teams to wipe on Warrior's, Hunter's and Wizard's Isles.