To hold 2 points or to rotate, that is the question.

Long time ago when we were able to queue with teams, my team tactic was to have 3 hold mid, 1 hold home and have 1 float between home and mid and occasionally take far once it was empty....

Lately me and friend have started duo q, just got him to rank 20 for ranked and I have given him a DPS Trap DH build while I run the Magi wet noodle support firebrand, across a multitude of games we only lost mid point once but some people get very angry at us about not rotating but I'm curious why holding 2 points is not a valid tactic anymore?

While my team gets angry about us not rotating, I look at the map and see 2 people fighting 1 on home while our third is dying to 1 person on far which means we are able to hold against the other 3 but yet people are screaming about rotating.... (im not a fan of giving away nodes for free)

So the question is:

Do people prefer to have a duo capable of holding mid or do people prefer that those 2 just follow the group and rotate?This is a genuine question too as we have been climbing ranks quite fast and our competition has gotten a lot better but our team mates seem really salty when we say at the start "we'll hold mid for the game"

(he's brand new to the game but these were our ratings after the first few games, we spent the first 20 odd levels of his rank getting our builds to work and synergise together, my aegis heals while his does damage)

Ooo, you never afk on any node, pvp is like a river, you go with flow or you drown.

Got bored of conq years ago. im mostly on unranked stonghold where the fun is these days. I voted tho! :D (I saw a poll and wanted to vote.)

I mean.. all of the above? If you keep the node the entire time that's great and all, but if your team is incapable of winning sides.. you're going to need to rotate to "carry" them into winning a side node.

Sometimes they will never be able to cap successfully against a bunker druid or something, or the enemy thief will be able to +1 them, or your mindless teammate will go far and die on repeat because they think they're as good as Zan or Sind. If you both just AFK mid and your team is competent and the enemy team just runs into mid and gets 3v2'd forever, sure you'll win more than you lose. But that's not really something you should rely upon.

Because if you rotate you get to KEEP the two Nodes while also preventing the Enemy from having any chance at getting it's own Nodes, during Rotation you are likely to be killing the Enemy players, earning more Points and breaking their own Rotation. AFKing somewhere is not an option as its like waiting for Enemy to easily make their Moves. The Initiative HAS to be yours. Keeping the pressure is what breaks the object.However, it can be extremely Momentum based, it is better to stay Mid than run Far too late. Also depends a lot on what Profession and build you Play. Anyways, Rotation is always the Key. The perfect Rotation starts when majority of the Enemies are Dead so you know where they will be, so you can start predicting their moves and forming response. So keep in Mind to make a wise choice at the Start of the Match.

@"Alatar.7364" said:Keeping the pressure is what breaks the object.

Against a good team, this. If you bunker and don't rotate, then the enemies on respawn can just do a 4 or 5 man pile up on whatever nodes you aren't afk bunkering. "Pressure" is the perfect word to describe how to win conquest, and most man to man competitions; there's bucketloads of quotes from generals on the subject of mobility versus fortification.

Afking on an uncontested node is and always was a terrible idea, which will result in an almost certain loss against any other than the most inept opponents. The question if you play 2 or 3 nodes is mostly decided by your comp. Do you have the stronger teamfight and also a bruiser that can 1vX close until the rotations are made? Setups like this would include Scourge + FB for the Mid Fights and a Druid or Spellbreaker for the second node. If you have that kind of comp while your opponents lacks support and/or tankiness you might be better off focussing on 2 points (decapping an empty node if you have the time never harms though). If your comp is more reliant on roaming, high dps specs like Thief, Mirage, Holo and lacks the necessary support for drawn out teamfights you are probably better off roaming over 3 nodes, creating 2v1s to quickly burst down your opponent before they make the necessary rotations, then possibly abusing the spread out respawn times and snowball the match with high pressure (good opponents will do a full regrp if they see that happening though).

Right now the meta tends towards the second tactic, because many high pressure burst builds are played while support (ie FB) is still relatively unpopular in Solo Q due to the lack of teamplay in random teams, despite being extremely strong in any team that has a minimum of coordination. The prevalence of high dps burst specs also results in a "kill-meta", where most people will happily hand out a decap if they think it secures them a kill (which will obviously result in a recap afterwards).

Note that this refers to Ranked, tournaments with high end teams are a different matter, because rotations, awareness and teamplay are obviously on another level there.

Defending a point is great...as long as it’s actively being attacked. With you and your DH friend camping mid, the enemy team can just ignore mid and win both side points every time since they’re effectively fighting a team that’s short 2 players.

It probably changes on the level of play and team but in solo q rated where you can't even duo after a certain point Imo when you have two points you should just defend those two its the simpleist way. I don't understand the rotation to far point in solo queue when you own two points already you will be quickly overrun by respawns unless you get at least three there immidiately which rarely happens. When you have four or five strangers its best to use the KISS strategy (Keep It Simple Stupid). Unfortunately that rarely works either because people just do whatever they want. I also feel like you should never expect to have more then 3 people on a point fighting for your team except for maybe the initial middle fight and if you absolutely need to cap a point in a triple cap situation becaue the enemy will just go around you and take the other two points if they have any sense if you send 4 or 5 to one point.

people always over think rotation. Sure if one person bunks a pt really well you can win by ignoring him and 5 v4 on the other 2 node. But you know what? in solo que it almost NEVER happens. I can remember maybe 2 out of the 400+ matches I played this season where we won because the team played smart and ignored the 1 pt that's been bunked. On the other hand I think over 1/3 of the losses I had are due to people over extend and went far .

I am not pvp expert but this is what I think:

• if there is no fight on the node you should never afk. By afk you force your team in 4v5 and let enemy team create easier outnumbers. With something soo good at surviving as firebrand I would push solo far and force some 1v1, 1v2 (if I don't have nothing better to do - secondary objectives are good places if you are sure there will be fight).

• Friebrand bunker should always take care of survival of his necro first, death of DH is not as impactful as death of necro. So there is no specific reason to run everywhere together. You should pay more attention where your necro is and what he fights. You should definitely react if he's outnumbered.

• DH in old days was the best on side nodes. Random traps can ruin day for mesmers (I don't know about mirage tho), thief's and other squishy roaming builds.

• Finally killing people should be always main priority anywhere and anytime:1.Dead people don't kill you and your teammates.2.Dead people don't cap, contest nodes.3.Dead people don't rotate and outnumber you4.Dead people drag down always enemy team.

Depends on if they have a thief/mesmer that's focusing on decaps. if so, its not a great idea to leave the point as they will just decap you, costing your team points.

It depends of map, matchups and builds. If you can snowball its different to bunk everything. For me the most important thing is just to have more income than the enemy team has. Means 1 cap more or kills if everything is contested.

The main issue i have is, it seems tons of players believe we need to get mid or the game is lost. I dont understand it, but it is what they do. Better die 4 times in a row in a matchup in mid you cant win than rotate. Weird.

@Egorum.9506 said:Depends on if they have a thief/mesmer that's focusing on decaps. if so, its not a great idea to leave the point as they will just decap you, costing your team points.

Well, here’s the problem with that:

If you sit on the point, that thief will just +1 other side fights instead and the enemy team should be able to control both side points.

If you leave, then yes, the point could get decapped, but that can be handled by a roamed or more mobile person on your team. Meanwhile, you’ll be more likely to win the side points.

@Dahkeus.8243 said:

@Egorum.9506 said:Depends on if they have a thief/mesmer that's focusing on decaps. if so, its not a great idea to leave the point as they will just decap you, costing your team points.

It really depends on what's going on with the map, there are times when leaving the capped point to try for another stretches your team too thin and sets up a snowball. If mid is going down, you running in against 3 while losing a capped side to a decap is just giving them points. If they have a mesmer with a portal on your point, as soon as you leave they'll portal in, decap, then portal back. If they have 2 points and you cap the third, don't leave it- you might draw 2 to your point if their decapper can't solo you making it a 4v3 elsewhere.

There is no hard and fast rule for sitting on a point, there are some scenarios where that's the preferable option. Sitting on a point and screaming I AM BUNKER YOU NOOBS CAN'T CAP ONE POINT all game isn't the right answer all of the time, but some of the time it is. Minus the being an ass, that's not going to help at all.

@Egorum.9506 said:

@Dahkeus.8243 said:

@Egorum.9506 said:Depends on if they have a thief/mesmer that's focusing on decaps. if so, its not a great idea to leave the point as they will just decap you, costing your team points.

Totally agree. There’s exceptions to every rule and these are some great examples.

The situation I gave was:2 people already on home, fighting 1 person. (we owned the cap which I tried to imply by saying is 2 caps not a valid tactic anymore)1 on far dying to another (was the guy raging at us)the 2 of us were fighting 3 mid.I get that PvP needs to flow and rotations are important but I'm starting to think people in my games must require 3 nodes to be successful. We don't afk either, once the fight is over we do weird things like in Nhifel, we move over to the stair area and use knock backs to push people off the stairs then use lines to stop them climbing the stairs n stuff like that. Or if we have time, we head over to the little doorways to reach mid and he traps it and I use lines across it, we're not exactly afk on the node but we'll be sure to do what we can to hold it.

Players have been getting better though, I can't refer to them as lemmings anymore. Does anyone have advice for a good duo comp set up? We won't be going higher than the duo queue threshold, we do prefer to play together but our current set up is starting to show flaws against double scourges and competent players..

"@sephiroth.4217"Long time ago when we were able to queue with teams, my team tactic was to have 3 hold mid, 1 hold home and have 1 float between home and mid and occasionally take far once it was empty....

When I ran a team that had one hold home and two supports at mid (pre-hot) I had two floats/roamers. The necro support (was better at the time) and the guardian would camp mid, another guard at home. Then two people that went to home and mid roaming them. Worked extremely well. The necro and guard were fine alone at mid and could wait it out for the other two to get there. I think two over one is the way to go.

The celestial plague blindspamming necro worked much better than youd think. and sometimes when I was testing it was enough support alone for many teams. Since then traits related to support have been altered/moved to grandmaster with other ones messing it up as well as plague removal. Imagine blind spamming the whole opponents team when your team goes under heavy pressure, it worked so well to buy time for the guard. Both supports ran mercy runes.

I queue solo and usually play a reactive role. Oh and I LOVE POLLS OMG

In the situation you describe there's really not much you can do. If you can hold the point in an outnumbered fight, and the bots on your team can't even secure another node with number advantage, you are on a team with people who cannot be carried. Unfortunately due to low population you will constantly be put on teams with these people. If the poll had an option that said "stop wasting your time, just exit the game and uninstall" I would have picked that.

After winning midpoint at the start of the game, look to protect close before rotating far. Do that and the game should be easy.

Rotate far after taking mid, and you run into the whole team that just re spawned and probably cost your team.

If you see your teammate making a bad rotation, rotate with him or play "triage" where your essentially down a man for a minute.

The answer to this is all or none of the above - you should be reacting to the current field of play at a given moment. As soon as you try to apply a static strategy you are gambling on the opposition fitting in to your chosen strategy. This includes not making bad decisions, e.g as above suggests going far after the other side wipes on mid etc (unless ofc everyone goes close, which is where reaction comes into play)

lol. that poll xD

imo, always rotate.a lot of matches i win with 1 node cap for the entire match. we can't even step foot in other nodes since they have 3 scourges and 2 trap/burn guards thanks to Anet's matchmaking.

• i find that a lot of people obsess with mid and they keep feeding. if you ask them to check their deaths, you're able to see how many points your team is giving free. lol. if one person dies more than 10 times, and you have about 2-3 teammates like that, then it's pretty much over if you can't even hold a node or two
• most think they can hold two nodes but i find that it's not true since one of those 2 is always get decapped or half the time, it's not even yours to hold. so again, rotate and play smarter. think outside of the box to spread out enemies.
• don't get killed is more important than killing enemies. cuz if you die more than you kill, you're still giving them more points. the only time when killing is better is when you can't hold any node at all, or can only get 1. that is when you have to kill them at all cost and try to contest as much as you can to stop them from speeding up the points.