User:The Sins We Die By/1337 Guide

= How to be Elite @ GW =
 * This is for people who haven't figured out yet what actually is the most important concept ever. LOCATION LOCATION LOCATION. It stands in real life, it stands in video games (yes you can carry lessons from one game to another).  Your location more commonly called positioning in video games is the most basic and most important aspect of a toon you can control.  For all of you people who have decided not to believe me already I want you to go play pacman for 10 minutes then come back and continue reading.


 * Now that you realize positionings important lets go over some basic positioning strategy. First of all its often a good idea to scope out what your opposition has if you don't already know.  You really should have a good idea as to what a team is running based on their primary and secondary professions and looking for identifying factors in their weapon sets or sometimes headpieces.  Knowledge is power, another lesson you can take away from this.  If you aren't ocmpletely sure what your up against make sure you stick with the basic formation of frontline, midline, backline.  If you don't understand what that means I guess I'll quickly explain for you...
 * Frontline - High Armor/High Survivability often close combat but sometimes midranged.
 * Midline - Decent Armor/Decent Survivability usually long or mid range support(offensive/defensive), can be close range.
 * Backline - Your team core lifesupport, what holds you up, aka without them you fail.
 * This formation is the guild wars equivilant to the greek phalanx. It can bend as necessary and it offers a quick switch between playing offensive(spiking/ganking) or defensive(linebacking).


 * The next thing about positioning you need to know is very simple...
 * Damagers need to be in position to bring down the enemy.
 * Support needs to be inposition to hinder the enemy/avoid enemy hindrence and damage.
 * Lifesupporters need to stay the hell out of harms way/keep the party's offense going.
 * Some of that may seem contradictory and/or not possible, but you will realize combat has its own wavelength. Your team's job is to keep peaks over the enemy's wavelength and avoid having deep/long troughs.  That part of the combat is achieved through the use of skills/attacking, which varies a bit every month in GW's case.  I'm talking about positioning though, skill use has its effects on positioning and I'll get there.


 * The teams damage wants to be close enough to strike a parties weak links. This is the backline.  Melee has to be in your face, every other dmg source needs to be close enough that kiting makes little to no difference, while maintaining low risk range to the enemy teams damage sources.  While assuming the damage role one of your favorite positions for the enemy to be at is the butt kissing the ground.  This is because the enemy can't kite or use aftercast skills while they are on the ground.  Your prioirty should be to have the enemy's life support like this as much as possible.  At the same time it's beneficial to work your way around a backline and body block them to make it harder for them to retreat further back.  However you won't always be able to maximize damage output by shadowing a monk due to skill effects.  Like I said earlier you need to be where the weak link is.  Skill effects make that weak link shift around and sometimes you have to settle for something less than the weakest link in order to maximize damage.  If you have AoE hit it on bunches when you can.  If you have to target swap anticipate it and get to a close low armor target as soon as possible.  For melee that's more difficult than ranged, unless you have a shadow step of course.  However, be mindful at all times and maintain spacing to avoid enemy AoE.  Don't forget to body block and learn to dictate where the enemy moves.


 * Support has the easiest positioning job in all honesty, due to naturally ranged support role you get to play the middle man and chill for the most part (not really). However, with simpler positioning comes more responsibility.  Support is able to play offensive and defensive roles.  So you better make good friends with your "z" button, because you need to look both ways before you cross the street.  Not only that but you have to be aware of as much information as possible, the more you know what is going on the more choices you can make on optimizing your teams effectiveness or minimizing the enemy's effectiveness.  There's not as much to say here about the positioning beyond make sure you can get to both ends of your formation quickly and kite when you need to.


 * Oh Lifesupport... how loved/hated you are. You get a rough positioning job juggling kiting damage with keeping the party's offense at its peak.  Something to learn quickly is pulling, as enemies tend to stick to you a little more than the rest of your team.  While the enemy tries to squander your attempts to move around you can play a chess match with the close ranged types.  You can attempt to get an enemy out of position deep within your lines where your team can body block and and bash away.  Kiting is your biggest asset when playing lifesupport.  It also helps when your teammates remember to do so as well, while they're particular role is having a trough moment.  Set yourself up behind obstacles to avoid projectiles, avoid knockdowns,  stay away from interrupts, backtrack while snared and melee is shadowing you to avoid crits.  Lots of stuff to think about.


 * I'm done for now.