Secondary Mechanics Tips & Tricks

Forest of NiflhelForest creatures -

• Forest creatures gives points and the stat boost to the player who scores the last hit on them. This can be somewhat RNG with conditions, so forest creatures are generally taken out by power based burst builds.
• The attacks and CCs of the forest creatures are heavy hitting, but heavily telegraphed. Practice killing them and you can mitigate almost all of the damage. Because of this, forest creatures are generally killed by the burstiest builds on the team.
• In general, you only want to kill your creature after you win a fight, and specifically when nobody who could steal it is in range. However, you also want to snowball the map if you win a fight. In that case, snowballing takes priority. However, if you don’t have a secure enough hold on home and mid to snowball far, it’s a good time to kill your forest creature.
• One way to decap a side node if they have somebody watching the node is to start fighting their forest creature. Either they let you kill it uncontested, or they come to try to fight it and you get to the point. Obviously, this only works if you’re more mobile than they are. Be careful about them waiting just long enough to get there as it dies, since then they could steal it and hold the node.

Legacy of the FoefireGate -

• While negligible in health when hit by your entire team, the gate can give the other team just enough time to respond when you do go for the rush. Because of that, it can be advantageous to kill the gate beforehand.
• One of the best ways to kill the gate before your rush is to win the fight on far node and have the person holding it kill the gate while they watch the point.
• If you are using a portal to rush lord, the gate is close to the farthest you will generally place it. If the entrance is at the midpoint, then you won’t be able to go any farther. If it is at the side nodes, you can generally get the portal just to the stairs.Lord -
• The Lord gives you 150 points, meaning you win if you kill it with more than 350 points, you win.
• The Lord heals when he goes below 50% health. The only way to interrupt the heal is to empty his breakbar. However, if it was broken recently, he will be completely immune to CC. Try to avoid breaking his bar until he tries to heal, since otherwise it can be impossible to interrupt it. If the bar is recharging when he heals, make sure to put Poison on him to reduce its effectiveness.
• The Lord does have a downstate, allowing your opponents to get him back up even after you deplete his health pool. His downstate works just like another player’s. You’ll want to Poison the corpse to slow the rez, CC your opponents off of him, and attempt to stomp. He does have a downed state CC. He uses the Guardian’s AoE knockback a couple seconds after going down. You’ll require Stability or some form of Invulnerability to secure the stomp, since Blind doesn’t work on foes with breakbars.
• The guards with the Lord can significantly hamper your rush. The casters cast Swirling Winds, so projectile based Lord rushes should consider clearing out the casters earlier in the game if possible.
• The easiest way for your opponents to slow down your Lord rush is to get their Tempest there to heal the Lord. You’ll want to avoid this, so you’ll either have to be sneaky enough that they don’t head there immediately or use a portal to escape from a fight with the Tempest into the Lord’s room. In contrast, you can use your Tempest to heal your Lord if they rush.
• As you approach 350 points on the Legacy of the Foefire map, your opponents will begin expecting you to Lord rush. Against random players in solo queues, this might not matter as much. However, against organized opponents, they will begin preparing to defend, drastically decreasing your chances of success. You should do the same as they approach 350 points.
• If you plan to Lord rush, begin to prioritize far node over your home node. Far node gives you easier access to their Lord room. If you win a fight at far node, they’ll be forced either to base or to the mid node to regroup. If they regroup in their base, you can take the rest of the map. If they regroup at the mid node, you can rush their Lord. In contrast, if you expect them to try a Lord rush, never trade your home node for far node.
• One very effective tactic is to fake a Lord rush. You can pretend to push their Lord to get them to panic, leaving nodes to defend it. At that point, you can quickly decap them and gain control of the map. Portal is very effective at this, because the instant they see you go through that portal, they’ll have to start moving if they want to stop the rush. However, you can just wait a few seconds and go back through.
• If you see a Mesmer drop a portal near your base as a Mesmer, try to mirror it and follow that Mesmer around. This removes the advantage portal gives them on their rush and greatly increases the chance of a successful defense.
• If you are winning by a lot, you might feel the urge to kill the Lord to end the game faster. However, this can frequently be the only situation you can lose. You give up map control for a risk on the Lord kill. Your possibility of success should be higher before you rush with a large advantage. A large advantage can be defined as having enough points that you’ll win even if your opponents kill your Lord.

Battle of KyhloTrebuchet -

• The Trebuchet takes some practice to master. Try it out in a custom arena and practice hitting certain spots where fights are likely to take place. It takes about 60% charge to hit the mid node.
• Using the Trebuchet to win fights is generally used as a comeback mechanic. Once you control the map, the meta is tanky enough for you to just hold the nodes, generally. Sitting on the Trebuchet makes it take too long for you to support your allies. However, it is an effective way to take nodes, since it is a very effective way to kill bunkers. Basically, use it when you’re losing to come back against tankier teams, not when you’re winning.
• At some point, you’ll have to kill the person manning your opponents’ trebuchet. Figure out who is manning it by who on their team you see on the map, then send someone who is confident in the 1v1 against that class.
• It is possible to instantly repair your trebuchet with skills like portal and Shadow Trap. If a player comes to fight you at your trebuchet, drop one of those skills and go help out elsewhere on the map. If they kill the trebuchet, wait for your repair kit, grab it, and port back to instantly repair it. If they leave it alive, you can just port back and start firing shots again after they leave.

Temple of the Silent StormStillness -

• Stillness first spawns at 3.5 minutes into the game at 11:30. After that, it spawns every three minutes, coinciding with Tranquility on the 2nd and 4th spawns.Stillness doubles the points per tick you get for each node you hold at the tick. If you control all the nodes, or at least have decaps on them, you can let your opponents capture it and focus on the other objectives.
• There are two holes next to Stillness. You can use knockbacks to knock them into the hole, allowing you to cap it for free or force them to rotate someone else in, giving you an advantage elsewhere on the map.
• You cannot cap the buff while Invulnerable or Stealthed, but you can use projectile hate and blocks to make it easier.Tranquility -
• Tranquility first spawns 6.5 minutes into the game at 8:30 and again six minutes later at 2:30. It always spawns with Stillness, so Tranquility spawns severely spread out your team, since there are five important objectives. This makes comps that can spread out effectively and not rely on each other more effective.
• Tranquility automatically full caps all three nodes for your team and knocks opponents off of the point. It is very rarely a good idea to allow your opponents to capture it.
• Since Tranquility is so important, players will often over commit to it. However, the LoS in the Tranquility room allow for tankier players to easily sustain outnumbered fights. Take an advantage on the rest of the map instead.
• If the other team sends multiple players to cap Tranquility and you can’t stop it, spread out to the side nodes. Stand just off point until they cap it (so you don’t get knocked off), then instantly decap the nodes.
• Tranquility doesn’t reset cap progress on nodes. If a point is about to get decapped as you are capping Tranquility, let your opponents decap it to reset the cap progress when Tranquility is finished capping.
• If you are about to lose Tranquility and your allies are fighting on a node, make sure they know it’s about to happen so they don’t lose their fights because of the launch.

SkyhammerSkyhammer -

• The Skyhammer platform activates every three minutes in the match. A capture point appears behind a portal located at the center of the map. Capturing the node causes two pulses to be fired at all three nodes, decapping them and dealing heavy damage and CCing players who fail to dodge at the right time.
• Traveling through the portal to and from the Skyhammer gives you the Discombobulated debuff, preventing travel through the portal. The first time gives you four seconds of the debuff, with an additional four seconds (up to twelve) for each travel within a short period of time. Basically, you can’t kite people by repeatedly traveling through the portal.
• Knockbacks and launches are very effective on the Skyhammer platform. On top of giving you node progress, there are multiple locations where you can knock players off the platform. This is especially true on the stairs leading up to and down from the the portals. You might want to learn how to dodge jump in case someone tries to CC you as you want to leave.
• To each side of the node there is a glowing platform. If you stand next to it, the platform will disappear a few seconds later, allowing you to cc players through it and off the edge.
• Be especially careful of downed Revenants, since their downstate has a very long distance push, and Ventari Revenants, since they can precast their elite so the tablet knocks you back instantly.
• Once the Skyhammer is captured, you can’t re-enter the platform until it comes up again. For that reason, you don’t want to bleed out players there, since you can’t stop them from self-rezzing after you leave.

Revenge of the CapricornBell -

• The bell is another capture node that spawns in the center of the north side of the map every three minutes (for a max of four captures). Each capture by the enemy team gives them an extra 25 points for each time they’ve captured it that match.
• Players mistakenly focus less on the earlier bell captures, since they are worth less points. Committing a little more on the earlier captures is frequently worth it, since it forces your opponents to overcommit later to prevent you from scoring big points.
• The bell has piles of crates right next to them, just off point. If you’re trying to stall the enemy team by fighting there outnumbered, proper usage of the no port spots on top of the crates and the LoS behind them is crucial.
• In addition to the stairs to either side and the obvious ports up, there are two other methods of reaching the bell. The dock side has a quick three jump route on top of crates, while the bazaar side has a back way behind the node.
• If everybody is already engaged in even fights, it’s possible to decap a bunker by faking an attempt at an uncontested bell. Of course, this requires you to have more mobility than your opponent.

Eternal ColiseumArtifacts -

• The Sword of Reaping spawns every three minutes. When captured, the entire team games 20% physical and condition damage for ninety seconds. In addition, the player who actually captured the buff also gains a minion of Grenth that autostomps anybody you touch who goes down for the same duration.
• The Shield of Life also spawns every three minutes. When captured, the entire team gains 5000 maximum health and 100 toughness for ninety seconds. In addition, the player who captured the buff also gains a minion of Dwayna to automatically resurrect you the next time you go down.
• The actual channel time for the buffs is very short. Most of the time consumed when capturing the buffs is actually moving to the area and up the ramp. For this reason, Thieves are essential on this map. Their mobility, in addition to the fact that you can Infiltrator’s Arrow straight to the top floor, makes them absolutely crucial in securing buffs. Other classes can follow with targeted teleports, but few can take the initiative like a Thief can.
• Capturing the buff closest to your base can be a great way to wait for your teammates to respawn, rather than pushing into an outnumbered fight. Just be sure that you aren’t pushing into an outnumbered fight at the buff itself, although that’s unlikely. On the other hand, you can also capture buffs after you wipe a team to help with the snowball.
• Once the buff is capped, the bottom gates close, and you can’t re-enter. Don’t leave somebody to bleed out in the buff area, as you won’t be able to stop them from self-rezzing.Rally the Crowd -
• After participating in seven kills, players gain access to Rally the Crowd through their special action key. All teammates gain a 50 point bonus to all base stats for ninety seconds. You also lose two stacks for going down and all stacks upon death.
• Note, since most of your kills will involve teammates, your teammates will likely gain access to the buff around the same time as you. Try to stagger the buff instead of just using it the instant you get it.
• The skill is activated using your special action key. Previously, PvP players have had no reason to bind this key. If you don’t want to have to skill click, you’ll have to set up a hotkey in your options menu.

CommentsThis is an updated version of an old guide I posted on reddit. Some things have I changed, and so I did my best to change anything that was incorrect. However, I may have missed some things, so please do point it out if something is incorrect. For example, I removed a comment on not opening on Forest Creatures, since they don't even spawn at the start of the match anymore.