Why Can't We Win a War Zone?

[cdstephen]

Imo there should be a slight distinction between melee dps and tanks because of Guard. Guard is what makes a tank and healer pair nearly unstoppable, as it actively *forces* players to attack the tank for any hope of defeating the pair. This allows the healer to heal the tank through the assault until either a) more reinforcements arrive, or b) the tank chips at the enemy's health enough such that he dies.

[Turando]

Excellent write up!

[mclxviii]

Agreed on tank and it was totally my fault. Until yesterday I was playing one as pure melee DPS.

 

I rolled up a fresh Juggernaut yesterday on my Empire server.

 

I decided to play it as a pure tank instead of how I play my Guardian which is melee dps.

 

I was getting nice kills and having some fun and then when I got soresu form and guard I was playing a lot of Huttball and guarding the ball carrier.

 

During one game I had a 50K+ protection score and surprise surprise we won 5 to zilch.

 

Tanks in Huttball especially are game changers. Not as ball carriers, unless another tank guards you which is pure wickedness, but in taking the ball from the opponents or midfield, passing to a player with full health and putting guard on them and watching them /lolscore as you speed debuff and slay the pursuit.

 

As to the /tealdeer comments I invite you to run around hunting kills solo and making it easier for the rest of us to win. I invite that and welcome it.

[mclxviii]

Imo there should be a slight distinction between melee dps and tanks because of Guard. Guard is what makes a tank and healer pair nearly unstoppable, as it actively *forces* players to attack the tank for any hope of defeating the pair. This allows the healer to heal the tank through the assault until either a) more reinforcements arrive, or b) the tank chips at the enemy's health enough such that he dies.

 

Updated Tanker info on Role Specific and Huttball sections. Thank you for the prodding. The reason that this info was not there was that I was playing a DPS Guardian mostly. Being able to shift games dramatically as my new Juggernaut last night opened my eyes to the wonderful distinction between Melee DPS and Tanker.

[RadehX]

Agree with pretty much everything you said.

 

The only thing you forgot is to mention another important class...crowd control and "pain in the ***" classes like the Assassin who are well suited to destroy enemy team cohesion. There's more than just tank/dps/healer

[mclxviii]

There is some general cc stuff in one of the paragraphs about the Voidstar data core raid.

 

There are some general rules of thumb for cc as a stealther especially but I think for a general guide that posting a detailed psy-ops guide to cc'ing in pvp would be a post to itself.

 

One thing that I will stress is that your "from stealth only" sleep cc should be the first priority and is especially useful on the civil war maps on defense and assault when confronting a single target or a number of targets you and your partner can handle.

 

I would also suggest that you use a sleep before a stun to give your opponent a chance to burn their /pvptrinket ability and waste it and lay in your stun.

 

Furthermore I would suggest that you read Rome-fu's stickied resolve guide here:

 

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=61363

 

Ah heck, that is enough to make it worth updating the guide isn't it?

 

/updated.

 

---m

[HBninjaX]

clearing the catwalk as a marauder or sentinel is damn hard with the sheer number of knockbacks

 

"but you should position yourself so you don't fall off the catwalk"

 

no crap! but it doesn't always work out that way and a smart player will know ahead of time that you're going to try that and counter you

[Dasgruberg]

bumping for truth-spreading purposes

[mclxviii]

clearing the catwalk as a marauder or sentinel is damn hard with the sheer number of knockbacks

 

"but you should position yourself so you don't fall off the catwalk"

 

no crap! but it doesn't always work out that way and a smart player will know ahead of time that you're going to try that and counter you

 

But the fun thing is that with smart placement you can leap or charge right back at them. With my sentinel and marauder I love knockbacks. They give me free energy, some moderate damage and 2 to 3 seconds if immobility to hit master strike or ravage.

 

 

I get knocked down ... and I get up again ...

 

Even better is that if defenders are trying to choke the catwalk you get to use your leap/charge you get a free pass past fire traps every 15 seconds.

 

As far as positioning goes as a melee player you have no reason to plant your feet unless you are nursing the full charge of a ravage/master strike. The knockback game is like playing billiards in rts. Work to put yourself in a good angle. The poles, sandbags, barricades and big ole boxes are on the catwalks for a reason. Use them.

 

--m.

Edited February 10, 2012 by mclxviii

[moman]

1. One area/point I never see people write about (and perhaps I should) is mind ******* your opponents. One tactic is to “play noob” or fake the funk, bait people. How to do it is class/role specific. Most players are blood thirsty. Know what this means? They have tunnel vision and are quite predictable. Become their puppet master.

 

Example-let an opponent hit you for a second or two and act like you have no idea how to pvp. Then when they let down their mental guard, you blow cool downs, crits, etc.

 

Example-Alderaan. As you’re running for one of the turrets, keep your avatar facing one direction, but quickly swivel the camera to check if anyone is coming from the sides or behind you. If so, let them. Act as if you are unaware of them, then when they are expecting you to run and cap the turret, wip around and nuke. There is a good chance they have not prep’d their rotation and in better cases, you can send them into a panic frenzy.

 

 

2. Do not be afraid to die. Does that mean run in and sacrifice yourself all the time? No. But dying in the right place and time can turn an entire round in your teams favor.

 

Example-I’m a healer Trooper. I do not do much damage, but I can keep myself alive a bit longer. Healers are best at Alderaan defense. I’ll usually do defense and drop stealth scans. I call incoming. I’ll heal myself while keeping the opposing side from capping. 90% of the time I die, BUT most of the time the reinforcements are able to keep the turret in OUR favor. Conclusion? So freaking what if I died, at least now we have a better chance of winning the round.

 

Example-as a Trooper healer, a big no no is using the green beam. It practically screams, “I’M THE HEALER!! KILL ME NAO!” I use it from time to time to pull pvp aggro. I’ll shoot the beam, get a someone to chase me around a corner, freeze grenade them (or stun them in some other way) followed by getting back to the fight and healing burst healing. If you have good timing, the person that was frozen in now ticked off, thus they come running back to join the fight, only to find that 1 or more of their team members are dead. Guess who is next to die?

 

I could keep droning on and on about this stuff, but at least now you have a basic idea where to to start.

 

Human nature is predicable. Back in the glory days on Battlefield 2142, I could look at an overview of the entire map, pick the weak capping point, capture it and literally turn the entire rest of the round in my sides favor. No, I don’t any video of actually doing this and it only happened a few times, but it IS possible.

 

Take fast paced games like Counter Strike: I do not FPS much, thus my twitch reflexes are not up to par with the pros, but again, these people are blood thirsty and predicable. I would play games of cat and mouse and ended up racking up my share of kills, and even some nice headshotsm over the years.

 

Another note: don’t let your class/role keep you from being effective. As I said, I roll a healer Trooper. There is not much in the way of damage, but I have found a use (in pvp) for just about every ability of my class. I can do damage, heal, AoE’s, etc. The commando is a grab bag of things you can do/use. I was also pvping the other day on my Smuggler in his late 20’s. After just the first 2 rounds of pvp ever as a Smuggler, I was finding ways to mess with/trick people into allowing me to get the upper hand.

 

Bottom line? Be the annoying little brother/annoying little ****. It works. Yes, it takes time, but it works.

 

Overall, do not think as an individual all the time. Pure damage is not the only answer (and can sometimes be the wrong answer). Look at the radar/mini map at least half of the time. Analyze the entire map. The masses move in ebbs and flows.

[mclxviii]

Updated with Floor Balance section.

 

Will update with psy-ops strategies when I make a version change and major update.

 

Looking to do this sometime this week.

 

I also intend to expand the AC specific info once I get each AC or at least one of each AC mirror up to the 30's and flesh out more of their class specific abilities. Pretty close to that right now just need to analyze and collect the info.

 

Thanks for the input.

 

--m.

Edited February 25, 2012 by mclxviii

[vimm]

I think you should change the title. It makes it sound like a whine thread.

 

That's only because almost every thread is, lol.

[darthroger]

awesome thread (aka bump)

 

on my tank i love getting the attention of as many of the enemy as i can and then leading them on a merry old chase away from any significant objectives before i eventually die; you can almost hear the benny hill theme playing as they splash water against my rock, knowing that sometime in the next decade they will erode my health pool down to zero.

 

i feel like the pied piper, but with morons instead of children

Edited February 26, 2012 by darthroger

[dakalro]

The biggest problem I see in WZs is you can't do it all. I can't protect the healer, protect the objective and harass the enemy healers, which isn't even my job as a tank, 12 sec interrupt, a knockback, stun and grip on long CDs aren't enough. There's DPS classes that are a lot more effective.

 

They're just all busy running after red targets. Or busy running after the idiot I'm dragging away instead of capturing. Or too busy not using an interrupt.

 

Just give up and go at least partly premade. The only thing you can count on in WZs is that people will behave in a very predictive way, and it goes for the enemy team also.

[astrocanis]

Why Can't We Win a War Zone?

 

Had an online chat about SWTOR last night. The question posed was "Why can't we win a war zone?" War zones are team player versus player matches.

 

Some of the reasons I shared were comical and psychological. The important ones are behavioral and tactical.

 

Behavioral:

 

In the movies the good guys are the heroes. Ben Kenobi could infiltrate the Death Star solo and complete his mission objective and when he got curb stomped he just became stronger. In SWTOR little could be further from the truth. In the words of an Army Ranger "If you are in a fair fight something has gone very, very wrong."

 

When you approach an objective and it is held by the opponent use your map. It will show you the location of your allies. Do the math. If there are more bad guys than good guys this decision is probably not sound. If there are the same number then it all comes down to tactics. If you out number them then it could very well be you giving the curb stomp and like Santa says it is better to give than receive.

 

Take your hero hat and fold it up and put it safely in your back pocket, this alone, should advance the cause of your faction in PvP. There is good news though. Sometimes one person doing one special thing at one special time can turn the tide in a match but these are actually rare and most often happen when your tactics are sharp and well practiced and your opponents are lacking.

 

Tactics:

 

Tactics that should be kept in mind are general tactics, role specific tactics and map specific tactics. Tactics are what the winning players have down. It is what makes a war zone map go from a fight to a slaughter.

 

General Tactics:

 

Make sure you are ready to be in a War Zone. Get geared. Buy it, make it, earn it, do anything to have at least green level appropriate gear in every slot. Gear makes a difference. The difference between a 20 in random loot gear versus a 20 in a full PvP commendation set is phenomenal. The difference between a 20 in full PvP gear and a 25 to 35 in random loot could be the edge you need to win a fight. Spend your finances on gearing up. Mount training, for example, never killed anyone. Gear gear gear.

 

Kill the wounded. Given more than one target go for the one that you can finish quickly. Even with one hit point they are still doing full damage. Cull the weak.

 

Focus with your team on one target at a time. Focusing your dps on one target at a time strips the advantages of gear, level, abilities, skill specialization and even pure raw skill. All opponents have tricks to kill you. All opponents have tricks to survive a duel. None of them have any tricks to win a 3 to 1 or 4 to 1 battle. Let curb stomp be your phrase of the day.

 

Explore the newbishness of your opponent. If you are fighting and things are going poorly you have two choices. Fight on or beat feet. Retreat is not a bad thing. Retreat can pull your opponent off of an objective. This is as good as a kill if your team mates are following good map strategy. If you can use your tricks to drag a couple of kill crazy players off the objective and open a hole for your team then your death served a purpose. Anything less than dying to keep an opponent off of an objective or to draw them away from an objective is just feeding them kills.

 

Know what the objectives are for the war zone that you are in. In the civil war map, the one with three objectives and the speeder bikes, it is a game of capture the flag. More importantly it is a game of capture the flag and then defend it. In Huttball the objective is to get the ball over the opponent's goal line. The important tools to accomplish this are having the pass the ball icon on your quick bar, passing the ball to other players who are closer to the objective and being a smart curb stomper. For the data core raid map doors are your objective. Fighting anywhere else is helping your opponent win.

 

Be a sneaky healer. Like the punchline of the story of the two campers who were confronted by a bear, "I don't have to outrun the bear, I just have to outrun you." Any time that you can get out of combat use your self heal ability to top off your health and your combat resource. It makes you both a stronger opponent and a less appealing target. Learn the out of the way spots on the map to sneak off to and hide for a quick heal. Learn where the healing power ups are on the map as well. Outrun the stinking bear.

 

Role Specific Tactics:

 

The roles I will discuss are melee dps, tanks, ranged dps, crowd control, and healing.

 

Melee dps: Sell your life for as high a price as possible. Without range and healing your best use is as a human bomb. Pick a target and go off on it. Choose your target intelligently. Cull the weak. If you are effective as a killer, not a fighter but a killer, then you will get rewarded with time to take a heal break. Take advantage of weak targets and targets that do not use their mobility. Count each time you get to use your master strike on a stationary target as a personal victory. You will die but if you sell your life for a high price, fight on objectives and cull the weak you will find that you will have some fun and be a benefit to your team.

 

Tanks: Follow the rules for Melee dps in general but you have some of the most powerful and deceptive skills in the game. Especially in Huttball and in the Civil War maps. Tanks in Huttball especially are game changers. Not as ball carriers, unless another tank guards you which is pure wickedness, but in taking the ball from the opponents or midfield, passing to a player with full health and putting guard on them and watching them /lolscore as you speed aoe debuff and slay the pursuit. On the civil war maps you and any other class can defend an objective long enough for reinforcements to arrive if you use your taunts and guards. Using these will also rack up more medals for you. I used to play with guard and taunts on my right hand bar and ignore them. After trying these out recently I have my AOE taunt and guard bound where I used to have attacks.

 

Ranged dps: You will shine in Hutt ball and the data core extraction raid. You will hold objectives on defense and strip hope away from the other team on offense. When you can fight at the outer edge of your range band. Combine this with getting some elevation and you can kill other players not only without drawing heat from them but without them even seeing you. If you have AOE use it to keep the other team off the doors in the data extraction raid. Focus on both the weak and the ball carrier in Hutt ball. I play all classes and both factions in SWTOR pvp. It is no secret that ranged dps are my favorite for any faction. It is because you can play them to great effect if you have sound tactics.

 

Crowd Control: There is some general cc stuff in one of the paragraphs about the Voidstar data core raid. Your cc, especially AOE cc can be used defensively, for escape purposes, or to thin out the resistance to an assault.

 

There are some general rules of thumb for cc as a stealther especially but I think for a general guide that posting a detailed psy-ops guide to cc'ing in pvp would be a post to itself.

 

One thing that I will stress is that your "from stealth only" sleep cc should be the first priority and is especially useful on the civil war maps on defense and assault when confronting a single target or a number of targets you and your partner(s) can handle.

 

I would also suggest that you use a sleep before a stun to give your opponent a chance to burn their /pvptrinket ability and waste it and lay in your stun.

 

Furthermore I would suggest that you read Rome-fu's stickied resolve guide here:

 

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=61363

 

Healers: You must be patient. Most players do not have sound tactics. Most players do silly things. As a healer remember it is you who has the power to grant life or death to any player on the map. This includes yourself. Keep yourself upright. How can you heal if you are lying on the ground? Learn your maps. Find spots to be in line of sight for those you are healing but out of line of sight for the opposition. Expect to be focused upon. Rejoice when you are not. Keep your dps and your escape abilities handy on your quick bar. Don't get too focused on either your ability to heal or your ability to do damage. There is nothing to stop you from being a 'selfish' healer. If you are a selfish healer your personal numbers will be awesome but your team will suffer for it.

 

Floor Balance

 

"In raiding and plundering be like fire, in immovability like a mountain." -- Sun Tzu

 

With the configuration and the objectives in SWTOR war zones the most important tactic to keep in mind to maximize your potential for victory is "floor balance".

 

Floor balance is a basketball term. In basketball it is quite simple. There are 5 players to a team. Look at the defenders. How many are on the left side of the floor? How many are on the right side? Move the ball to the weaker side, penetrate towards the basket. Score.

 

In SWTOR the maximum number of defenders is normally 8 players. There is a bug that, as of this posting, still exists to allow up to 11 players on a team. The dev team has taken steps to fix players from intentionally getting too many on a side but posted in the recent patch notes that teams of greater than 8 can still happen "on accident".

 

We will assume in this post that 8 is your magic number to read for floor balance. You need to use the tools that the game provides to determine the floor balance of your team and the opposing team. Each war zone has different reads for floor balance. I will outline how I use floor blance effectively on both offense and defense on each war zone map to increase my team's chances of winning the game.

 

Data Core Raid:

 

The key to winning the Data Core Raid is to be balanced on defense and to be unbalanced on assault.

 

Being balanced on defense means having the door objectives covered with at least two defenders at all times. This takes half of your team to do so. The rest of the team should evaluate the balance of the assault and adjust your location to the side that is taking more heat. Effectively done while playing as a team, setting up in the proper locations and getting a decent amount of healing and the assault will never get through the first set of doors.

 

Being unbalanced on assault means concentrating your efforts on one objective. Since the defense has to cover both objectives to effectively defend having all of your assault on one door means that you will flat outnumber the defense most of the time if you play effectively as a team. It also opens up opportunities to defile the defense. If the defense over-shifts to your active assault side they might leave the weak side under-defended or not defended at all.

 

This is how games get won very quickly. If the defense shifts left and leaves no defenders to the right a good player, stealthers especially, can have the objective popped in 8 seconds. At the end of this 8 seconds you should shift your assault to the weak side to support the capture and to stop attempts at resetting the objective.

 

Even if the defense does not overshift an assault that is unbalanced in the attacking team's favor will lead to a fight where the defense is outnumbered. Focus fire as a team. Set up as close to the door as you can but as far away as you can from the defenders respawn until the defense is eliminated then place a player or two on the door and shift to the pillars close to the defender's respawn to stop defenders getting through to the objective.

 

Once past the first set of doors you have the same game going on with the bridge controls. Get to them as fast as possible. You will have players, on offense and defense, who will break off and start dueling on the way to the next objective. Do not be one of these. Get to the bridge controls and set up your offensive and defensive floor balance again as fast as possible.

 

The key to winning the Data Core raid on defense is not killing as much as it is delaying the assault team's progress in completing objectives.

 

The key to winning the Data Core raid on assault is not killing but in minimizing your delay in completing objectives. Indeed killing is important but swift and decisive movement, concentration on objectives and knowing how to use floor balance is just as important if not more important.

 

Galactic Civil War:

 

This is the primo top priority floor balance map. If your team understands floor balance and your opponents do not then your victory is almost assured.

 

The easiest thing to do is to take an undefended objective. It takes 8 seconds of not being hit. Remind yourself that this is not the same as 8 seconds out of combat. You can take objectives in combat but need an 8 second window of no damage. Sloppy defenders will give you this 8 seconds by leaving the objectives to chase kills, get power ups, pick flowers, chase bunnies or whatever they do. No matter what they do to take them off of the objective after 8 seconds of this poor defense the objective should change hands. Sometimes just looking away for 8 seconds is enough when there is an undetected stealther on the platform. If you are defending an objective always keep the objective in view so that you can toss out an attack to reset a capture attempt.

 

The hardest thing to do is to take one of the side objectives, the east or the west, when it is being controlled by the other faction. If they are playing intelligently then they are communicating in ops chat and defenders at other objectives are shifting and and will reinforce this side objective. Also there are speeder bikes in the respawn that will take players directly from respawn to the objective. This alone can make 2 good players as tough to get off an objective as almost any 5 on assault. With reinforcement from other objectives side objectives are crazy hard to get back after you lose one.

 

The most favorable position to be in on this map is to have both of the side objectives and to have four defenders on each platform. With the respawn bikes alone 4 defenders can keep even all 8 of the other team busy enough to prevent a capture. Many players frown on defense though because they think that their personal numbers suffer. They lack the patience to win.

 

Use floor balance when you need to capture an objective. Visually count the defenders. Check your map to see how many of your allies are moving to the same objective. If that number is about equal you have a good chance if you are fast. You also have a good chance to make the defender shift their defense and open up another objective. Count enemies in sight and count your allies on your map before making an assault. Also communicate where you are going in the ops channel if the assault looks like it has a good chance to be successful because of favorable floor balance.

 

Huttball:

 

Huttball has the most complex floor balance of any of the war zones that currently exist. Left and right, up and down, in front of the ball and behind the ball are all important aspects of floor balance in Huttball.

 

If you are on the extreme left side of the field and the ball is on the extreme right you are not playing Huttball. You are dueling.

 

If you are in your end zone and your team has the ball downfield and trying to score you are not playing Huttball. You are loafing.

 

If you are behind the ball carrier padding your stats instead of getting downfield to receive a pass you are not playing Huttball. You are padding your stats.

 

The great equalizer, the great breaker of floor balance in Huttball is the pass. If there are 4 guys on you and you are at ground level and can make a pass to an ally with good health who is alone on the catwalk you have just removed 4 players from the game with one click of a button.

 

The key floor balance element in Huttball is your position in front of or behind the ball. A team of 8 can kill a ball carrier. Any ball carrier. It is just a matter of time until they stunlock and beat the ball carrier down.

 

If your team has the ball move yourself downfield towards the goal and set up to receive a pass.

 

Get past a fire trap. 3.5k dps fire traps are wonderful for shutting off pursuit.

 

If your team mates are on the ball then there will be one or two of your team mates down field from you. Carry the ball as long as you are healthy and can deal with pursuit. If your health gets low or too many defenders jump you pass the ball.

 

Don't be afraid to pass the ball to an opponent if you are weak. Throw the ball to a weak defender so your team mates can come up, quickly kill them, and take the ball back. It is a dirty trick. It is fun. It hurts people's feelings and that is the point of Huttball.

 

Summary:

 

More than stats. More than gear. More than personal skill and ability. A team of 8 players who understand and use floor balance will walk all over a team of 8 who does not understand and use floor balance.

 

Map Specific Tactics:

 

Civil War:

 

There is an American football quote. "Great offenses win games but great defenses win championships." On this map a great push can take an objective and ring up some nice personal numbers but if you zerg around in a pack like 6 year olds playing soccer and neglect defense you won't win matches. Even worse if you stubbornly wear your hero hat all the time you will do nothing but feed kills to smart opponents.

 

Use your map to see where your allies are. If you see three guys on an objective and you have no back up you are just feeding the opponents kills and medals.

 

Learn to count. If you have one objective and your opponent has two then keep two players on defense and send out six to the same objective for a quick capture. If the defense is successful then gauge the opposition. If they have six guys there too then there is an objective out there with just two defenders. Be flexible and move as a group but stinkin' learn to count instead of feeding the other team kills. In basketball this is called "floor balance". Learn to use floor balance to help you take objectives and win games. Floor balance is the single most important tactic on the civil war map and the data core raid map.

 

Communicate. If you are alone on an objective ask for help to defend it. Smart players will come. You get medals and easy kills on defense. You get to curb stomp lone nuts and guys with a hero complex. If there are multiple foes incoming then shout out in the ops channel that you need help. Also don't keep yourself so preoccupied with fighting and ignore ops chat. Good communication and appropriate reaction can make the fight go like you have extra players on your team.

 

Side objectives. If you die on a side objective go back to it via one of the outside speeder bikes. Two people with their act together who can both kill and die in an intelligent fashion can keep 4 or 5 disorganized opponents busy enough to hold the objective until reinforcements arrive. It is hard to take a side objective if you put a big hurt on someone and die and reinforce to the same spot.

 

Middle objective. The middle objective is hard to take, hard to reinforce but easy to keep. It does allow good access to assaulting or defending either of the side objectives. Perhaps the dev's knew how hard it is to assault the sides and made the map like this on purpose?

 

You can get easy wins with brutal assaults and good defense and effective communication if you take the sides. If you learn not only how to count but how to properly react to enemy force numbers and how to curb stomp and kill the weak then it will be no wonder why and how you dominate this map.

 

Data Core Raid:

 

This raid is strongly ingrained in the French language. "Je t'adore" means "I love you (because you are fighting at the door)". "Je te déteste" means "I dislike you (because you are not fighting at the door)".

 

Who is the hottest blonde who ever lived? Diana Dors. You love doors. You love them on assault as they are your keep to rapid victories. You love them on defense because they are demoralizing barriers of rejection to your opponent. Doors, doors, doors. Love them doors.

 

Defense. Be a smart player. Learn to count. If there are 7 guys from your team on one door don't be and idiot and make it 8. Try to balance your force. Keep at least two on each door at all times to focus attacks and cull the weak.

 

Melee. If you are melee your primary job is to keep folks off the doors. Your secondary job is to use your mobility and find nasty ranged players set up in smart places and eliminate them.

 

Ranged. If you are ranged your primary job is to keep folks off the doors. Your secondary job is to find smart places to set up and be nasty.

 

Healer. As a healer it is your job to make your team seem invulnerable. Even better is to just flat make it invulnerable.

 

Know where the power ups are on the map. Know if they are up. Use them if you or your team needs them. Use them if you or your team doesn't need them to deny them to the enemy.

 

Save your crowd control for people trying to chat up your door. Save your, pardon the phrase, pvp trinket to protect your door.

 

Ranged and healers should set up blocking line of sight from the enemy reinforcement area and keep your own reinforcement area at your back. Any smarty who wants to bring an end to your magnificent kill numbers must do so at their peril and with your reinforcement area to their back.

 

In short this means left shoulder to the pillar and back to your spawn on the left side. Right shoulder to the pillar and back to the spawn on the right side. If your melee does its job killing pesky ranged guys and your healers do their job and keep you alive you will be 10 feet tall and bullet proof; you will also keep your team alive through covering the melee and the healers.

 

Once you have killed all the opponents take a count of how many team mates are in the area. If there are enough for defense check the other door. If they are fine come back to middle and deploy to where you are needed.

 

Melee should pick a door and 'own' it. Ranged and healers should be flexible and move to where there is pressure from the enemy.

 

If the opponent places a charge on a door you should seriously consider dying to defuse the bomb. This may suck for you personally but if your team is playing smart your defense will hold.

 

If, despite your brilliant play, a door is breached get to the next set of doors. Cull the weak along the way. Take a heal when you can get one either from a power up or from getting out of combat. If you can't heal then sell your life for the best price you can. Sacrifice yourself to delay enemy progress to give your team time to recover.

 

On defense a delay is as good as a kill. With your mighty defense, team work and mad skills no one should ever get past the first door.

 

Attacker. Be a smart player and learn to count. If there are 7 guys from your team on one door be smart and make it 8. Screw balance. Make the defense adjust to you.

 

Melee. If you are melee your primary job is to kill your way to the door. Focus on ranged players. One trooper or bounty hunter left alive can keep a whole team off of a door. One agent or smuggler ignored can demolish your whole team. Mobility and separation are the best defense against melee players. Being 4.1 meters away from another melee player is awesome. The same is not true of ranged. If there is one within 35 meters they are a threat to your hopes of victory as either an individual or a team.

 

Ranged. Set up so that you have the door in line of sight. Set up so that you cut yourself off from your reinforcement area. Idiots will fight in the area between cover and your reinforcement area. Don't let idiots get ideas to come after you by seeing you do your job. Also if opponents are in that area they will see their doom soon enough and cannot distract you from your job. The job of covering the door is so that melee can place charges and so you can keep entire teams off the task of defusing the charge with your AOE abilities.

 

Healer. As a healer it is your job to make your team seem invulnerable. Even better is to just flat make it invulnerable. If you are a trooper or bounty hunter then you have the secondary job of using your aoe to assure a breach. As an agent or a smuggler use your aoe to assure a breach. An 8 second delay is as good as a handful of kills. As a force user hang back and resist the urge to force sweep to assure the breach unless it is absolutely necessary. Hang back and pop your force speed at the time of the breach to sprint to the next objective before the other team can recover.

 

If, because of your brilliant play, the door is breached haul donkey to the next one. The best time to breach a door is when your opponents are in a state of disarray or locked up in respawn.

 

Huttball

 

I used to play basketball. I went to a camp hosted by a legendary high school coach. "The key to basketball is penetration." This is also the key to Huttball.

 

Penetration is moving the ball towards the goal. As in basketball the most efficient way to do this is to PASS THE STINKIN' BALL.

 

Make sure you have the hot key to pass the huttball on your quick bar. Passing when you are being swarmed is nice. Passing and getting penetration down the floor before you get swarmed is nicer. Pass to penetrate down the field and not in vain hopes to save yourself.

 

The secondary key to Huttball is owning the catwalks. As a melee or ranged or healer you can best serve your team by owning the catwalks. Use your push back abilities to clear the catwalks of foes. A foe in the pit or at ground level when you or your team have the ball on the catwalk is as good as a kill.

 

Also be mindful of moving past hazards to provide your ball carrier an outlet pass that will provide penetration towards the goal. Nothing is more frustrating than having the ball and have no one to pass the ball off to because the team is chasing bunnies on the sidelines.

 

Your third job is to sell your life for as much as possible. If you can drop the opposing ball carrier and get the ball back for your team you have denied the opponents progress and have aided your team to victory. If you are about to die and can get three idiots to chase you into the pit because they are hungry for the kill then you have served your team.

 

Don't forget to heal from objectives or self heals when you can. Basic tactical rules are still in effect.

 

There are many strategies and abilities that you can bring to bear in Huttball but the two key things are penetration and owning the catwalks. If you are playing Huttball with nothing in your mind but racking up kills then you are of poor service to the efforts of victory and a handicap to your team.

 

I cannot stress enough the use of tanks guarding and taunting in Huttball. The ability to give your health to enable another player to complete a team objective is a very tankish behavior and beneficial to a team win. Taunting also helps you rack up protection medals. One good AOE taunt can get you your 2k protection on one life badge as well as adding to your total over all badge count.

 

Why Can't We Win in the War Zones?

 

Not reading this and not practicing good tactics are a good start down the road of constant defeat.

 

I detect military - classic defilade discussion on VS defense. /approved

[Jordgubben]

Nice writeup - thanks!

[mclxviii]

Thank you. It is a living document. I was sneaky and mean to start with. Just trying to share the sneaky and mean and make it SWTOR specific.

 

I was an All American wrestler in high school and worked my way through college beating people up in Big 8 Football. MMO's and FPS is a way for me to stay active in some sort of combative game even though I am now fat and old.

 

It means a lot to me that there are people who appreciate the work I am sharing. Hopefully taking some of this to heart can make the game, in at least the 10 to 49 bracket, less frustrating and more enjoyable to players.

 

Thank you ALL for your positive comments.

 

--m.

[mclxviii]

Sun Tzu on the east and west objectives of the Civil War Map:

 

"Ground which can be abandoned but is hard to re-occupy is called ENTANGLING.

 

From a position of this sort, if the enemy is unprepared, you may sally forth and defeat him. But if the enemy is prepared for your coming, and you fail to defeat him, then, return being impossible, disaster will ensue."

 

Sun Tzu on the middle objective of the Civil War Map:

 

"Ground which can be freely traversed by both sides is called ACCESSIBLE.

 

With regard to ground of this nature, be before the enemy in occupying the raised and sunny spots, and carefully guard your line of supplies.

 

Then you will be able to fight with advantage."

 

Sun Tzu on the Data Core raid:

 

"When the position is such that neither side will gain by making the first move, it is called TEMPORIZING ground.

 

In a position of this sort, even though the enemy should offer us an attractive bait, it will be advisable not to stir forth, but rather to retreat, thus enticing the enemy in his turn; then, when part of his army has come out, we may deliver our attack with advantage."

 

Sun Tzu on Huttball:

 

"With regard to PRECIPITOUS HEIGHTS, if you are beforehand with your adversary, you should occupy the raised and sunny spots, and there wait for him to come up.

 

If the enemy has occupied them before you, do not follow him, but retreat and try to entice him away.

 

If you are situated at a great distance from the enemy, and the strength of the two armies is equal, it is not easy to provoke a battle, and fighting will be to your disadvantage."

[mclxviii]

Started making videos to go along with the "Why Can't We Win a War Zone" strategies.

 

The first two are here at the Plustentoawesome Podcast channel on Youtube.com.

 

Floor Balance

 

Can Lowbies Make a Difference?

 

Will putting out some videos will bridge the TLDR gap?

 

I hope so.

 

--m.

 

www.plustentoawesome.com

 

http://plustentoawesome.blogspot.com/

[mclxviii]

More videos up regarding this topic on Youtube:

+X2A Presents Voidstar Ranged Placement and Tips

 

+X2a Presents Alderaan Ranged Placement and Tips

 

Editing the Huttball Range Placement and Tips video now.

 

--m.

 

+10 to AWESOME is a media empire started by a

crew who love to waste their time in wonderful and

creative ways.

 

Our goal is to make your free time AWESOME +10!!

 

Website: http://www.plustentoawesome.com/

Blog: http://plustentoawesome.blogspot.com/

Forum: http://plus10toawsome.forumer.com/

Twitter: @Plus10toAWESOME

Edited March 27, 2012 by mclxviii

[SweetOldBob]

Outstanding. All I would add would be that if you have a left or right turret in ACW, for ****'s sake don't leave the turret to meet incoming enemy.

[mclxviii]

That is in the Floor Balance video.

 

Two of us were defending east. My partner left the pad. I didn't but I did readjust my position so that I could keep an eye on him out duelling in the snow and watch the objective at the same time.

 

Thanks for the mention of how important it is to stay on the pad on Alderaan side objectives.

 

--m.

 

+10 to AWESOME is a media empire started by a

crew who love to waste their time in wonderful and

creative ways.

 

Our goal is to make your free time AWESOME +10!!

 

Website: http://www.plustentoawesome.com/

Blog: http://plustentoawesome.blogspot.com/

Forum: http://plus10toawsome.forumer.com/

Twitter: @Plus10toAWESOME

Edited March 27, 2012 by mclxviii

[xMercx]

As a Sage I try to group with 3 other sages to faceroll the other team, out of 23 matchs played with that comp we lost 2 games pretty good if you ask me.

 

"I won't lie to you, every single man or woman who has stood their ground, everyone who has fought a Sorcerer has died. But where they have failed, you will succeed"

Edited March 27, 2012 by xMercx

[LightAndShade]

Nicely written.

I've 1 Criticism and 1 Suggestion. Aside from that I think its useful information.

 

Criticism.

You have written too much and too floridly. While I and others enjoyed reading it, the people you really want to read it (who may or may not even read these forums) probably won't want to read all of that (it is a lot), because remember, they can barely communicate in PvP and are probably on average, the younger players of SWTOR (generalisation). You may want to create an abridged version with bullet points, summaries and no Art of War Quotes...thats my opinion anyway. You'd probably be wanting to look at making it a third of the length it is now.

 

Suggestion.

Just a small thing I think you should include as specific to Alderaan. Its a psycholgical technique that I discovered can be really useful when your team is down 2-1 in the node department.

 

Scenario from a republic PoV:

 

You have captured grass. Enemy has captured snow. Both without resistance. Bulk of forces have engaged in mid and any superfluous players from the sides are rapidly converging on mid.

You soon realise that despite your best efforts you are losing the battle in mid (for whatever reason). You are still alive, but 3-4 of the six players who were attacking mid with you have died and the enemy are all alive.

On average, many savvier players will say, 'lets go take snow quickly!'. A decent strategy. While you could argue they should keep going at mid, lets assume that is obvious that the enemy is good enough to hold you at bay. Additionally, lets assume that by the time the dead 3-4 players return to mid you and the 1 other survivor are also dead and the enemy has now captured mid.

 

The situation so far:

You have grass, enemy has mid and snow. 3-4 of your players are converging on snow to try to take it. The enemy has 3-6 at mid having just capped it. Lets assume their team mate has just written in ops chat, '4 inc snow!'. You and perhaps 1 other are leaving your holding zone to re-enter the fray.

 

Question: where do you go?

 

Most people will think they should go help overwhelm defences at snow and cap it. IMHO that is entirely wrong.

 

My technique:

Hit Mid. Hard. Alone or with that 1 other. Ideally you want a tank and a healer. I've done it alone and it works.

Your goal isn't to cap, nor is it to kill.

Your goal is to distract and delay. Try to stay alive for as long as possible.

The reason for this is you don't want the 3-6 enemy players at mid to go to snow to defend, because obviously (judging from your earlier clash at mid) they are strong and balanced and easily capable of defending one node.

Psychologically nearly everyone will stay to kill you before moving onto snow. This might provide your team with the window they need to take snow.

 

Obviously there is a lot that can go wrong, your team may just not be good enough to overcome the 1-4 defenders they have at snow. Or perhaps you get a sneaky enemy stealthier who goes over to grass and ninjas grass or forces you to reinforce your defender(s) there.

 

But from my experience it has worked most times and has turned a 1:2 situation back to a 2:1. And from there, defending the two side turrets is quite doable.

 

Summary/ TL;DR:

When you have grass & enemy has mid and snow, send 4-5 to snow and throw yourself and perhaps 1 other at mid to distract and delay the enemy from reinforcing snow. You will almost definitely die, but it is a sacrifice that is often worth making.

Assumption: There are 3-6 enemies at mid, because they have just captured it following the start of the game and the first big fight.

[Badlander]

OP i will sum up your post. Over 70% of the people who play this game have no clue how to pvp or play their chars. When you have to start writing guides how to pvp and what to do it proves that.

 

But, nice write up. I doubt the people who need to read it will though.

Edited March 28, 2012 by Badlander