Wipe

A wipe or party wipe is slang for the deaths or inevitable deaths of every party member. Wipe is short for the expression "wiped out", meaning utterly destroyed.

A wipe in Guild Wars is significant, since normally a party can recover from large losses as long as at least one party member with a permanent source of resurrection survives or can be resurrected himself.

A wipe occurs once all players are dead and no surviving heroes or henchmen have usable resurrection skills (excluding Lively Was Naomei and Restoration). If the party is eligible for resurrection by a Resurrection Shrine, a countdown will appear in the status/score area of the screen.

Consequences

• PvE: In missions and some quests, allowing an important NPC, such as those that appear in the "Allies" section of the Party window, to die will cause a party wipe.
  • Quests/Explorables: When a party wipes, the entire group will respawn at the last activated friendly Resurrection Shrine. If there are no shrines (such as in the Underworld) or if the only shrine is controlled by a hostile Faction (in Guild Wars Factions), the team will instead be brought back to the last town or outpost visited. This also happens in Hard Mode if all party members are dead and have the maximum 60% Death Penalty.
  • Missions: A party wipe will cause the mission to fail and end, and players will be brought back to the mission outpost.
• PvP: A wipe will usually end in failure in most Annihilation maps. In some PvP maps, friendly NPCs may resurrect the players after a certain time frame; however, wipes are still undesired and give the enemy team a significant advantage.

Tips to preventing wipes in Guild Battles

Typically, a wipe in GvGs can mean the loss of many of your NPCs, or worse, the loss of your Guild Lord, and in turn, the match. Common tips to preventing a wipe include:

• Reducing the damage you take. Less damage, less chance to wipe. Seems simple. You can do this by pre-kiting or linebacking if the damage is starting to become overwhelming.
• Slowly pulling back in the range of additional NPCs or into your base when the damage is becoming too harsh. Making sure your entire team flows as a unit, and offensive characters are doing their best to stop the enemy team's damage.
• Increasing your offense or spiking. This is not recommended, but can push your opponent into defensive mode, allowing your monks to gain momentum.
• Pre-protting critical characters before even minutes on the timer (2:00, 4:00, 6:00, etc). Experienced GvG Guilds will spike monks before these times to force them to Base res.
• Forcing your enemy to react and pull members out of their main group by sending some of your teammates to gank.

Notes

• When wipe occurs, the party is resurrected at the last visited shrine or at the shrine near the entry point to the area. To prevent the long run from the start point, it's recommended to visit the shrines along the route (party can also get blessings or bounties on them).
• In some cases, the resurrection timer (which counts down from 10 seconds) can be stopped and wipe cancelled if the surviving party members become able to resurrect others. For example, if they manage to kill a boss and recharge their Resurrection Signets.
• Sometimes, especially in the Northlands, it may be worthwhile to wipe in order to get resurrected near the entrance to the zone, allowing to rezone easily.