Forest of Niflhel: Please Leave Beasts?

[Omnicron.2467]

I had a recent match in PVP and I was claiming the beasts for the extra points. I managed to steal the enemy beast twice and earned 125 points from killing ours and theirs while my team was mostly on points. I was happy for this, no point in losing points for them, but one player was ragging me hard for going after them at all. He kept targeting me and telling me to leave the beasts alone and that it is easier to win if you keep two points throughout the match and let the enemy get every beast. I can sort-of believe this, I have seen this in Revenge of the Capricorn where the enemy team got all three bells for 150 points but my team still won because we controlled the map most of the time.

So is this an accurate strategy? Just leave the bonus points and control the map?

[aelska.4609]

If it makes you lose a capped point you could have protected, not worth it. Recapping will take a while (probably around the 25 points you've just earned if no contester is there, otherwise way more depending how long is the fight) and will most likely get your teammates outnumbered elsewhere => they will get killed, lose other nodes, give points to ennemies.If it makes any of your teammate outnumbered the time you kill it, not worth it. Same as the first.If you could have uncapped a point instead, not worth it. You are sure not to get stolen an uncap, and you could be that one guy at making the ennemy team outnumbered and implicitly giving it way more points.If you do it anyway and get it stolen, you will definitely be a thrower. That's the worst that can happen, and it is very likely to happen.Otherwise, worth it. But these occasions are so rare that you should better just not think about it at all.

[Alatar.7364]

@"Omnicron.2467" said:I had a recent match in PVP and I was claiming the beasts for the extra points. I managed to steal the enemy beast twice and earned 125 points from killing ours and theirs while my team was mostly on points. I was happy for this, no point in losing points for them, but one player was ragging me hard for going after them at all. He kept targeting me and telling me to leave the beasts alone and that it is easier to win if you keep two points throughout the match and let the enemy get every beast. I can sort-of believe this, I have seen this in Revenge of the Capricorn where the enemy team got all three bells for 150 points but my team still won because we controlled the map most of the time.

So is this an accurate strategy? Just leave the bonus points and control the map?

No, that was just a typical example of mindlessly reproducing a statement he/she doesn't understand the meaning of, probably heard it from some streamer and took it as a holy commandment as is extremely usual with most of players especially the ones who, by definition, have no clue what they are 'parroting', so the point of this is: "Don't go for Beast unless enemy team is wiped and you got good burster (like Reve or Soulbeast) to take it down in matter of seconds, also it is fine to go and try to steal the beast (hence you go for it when enemy team is wiped so this scenario doesn't occur as opportunity for enemy team) when enemy got it low on hp, of course leave the stealing to burstier professions" Outside of those scenarios dont go for beast "just because" especially not when you're winning steadily.

[mortrialus.3062]

Relevant

https://www.twitch.tv/gooeyjellyfish/clip/SuspiciousRepleteMeerkatTwitchRPG

[Drakz.7051]

Depends on the situation though if you won the match you clearly made the right call.

[rng.1024]

General rule: Leave them.

If it's 100% in the bag and at no cost to your score gain or team, go for it. The enemy team always dictates whether a boss kill is a good idea or not, which is why the general rule as you won't know until you get the opportunity.

[yanniell.1236]

@"aelska.4609" said:If it makes you lose a capped point you could have protected, not worth it. Recapping will take a while (probably around the 25 points you've just earned if no contester is there, otherwise way more depending how long is the fight) and will most likely get your teammates outnumbered elsewhere => they will get killed, lose other nodes, give points to ennemies.If it makes any of your teammate outnumbered the time you kill it, not worth it. Same as the first.If you could have uncapped a point instead, not worth it. You are sure not to get stolen an uncap, and you could be that one guy at making the ennemy team outnumbered and implicitly giving it way more points.If you do it anyway and get it stolen, you will definitely be a thrower. That's the worst that can happen, and it is very likely to happen.Otherwise, worth it. But these occasions are so rare that you should better just not think about it at all.

This guy got it. 95% of the time it is not worthy it. And 99% of the people in ranked won't be able to tell when it is worthy and will make the wrong call. Therefore, I did a quick math here, and there is a 99.87% chance the guy saying "don't go for beast" will be right every single match.

[Trevor Boyer.6524]

@Omnicron.2467 said:I had a recent match in PVP and I was claiming the beasts for the extra points. I managed to steal the enemy beast twice and earned 125 points from killing ours and theirs while my team was mostly on points. I was happy for this, no point in losing points for them, but one player was ragging me hard for going after them at all. He kept targeting me and telling me to leave the beasts alone and that it is easier to win if you keep two points throughout the match and let the enemy get every beast. I can sort-of believe this, I have seen this in Revenge of the Capricorn where the enemy team got all three bells for 150 points but my team still won because we controlled the map most of the time.

So is this an accurate strategy? Just leave the bonus points and control the map?

It is safe to go for the beast when:

1. You are running DPS.
2. Your team currently has control of the rotation. In other words, they are successfully holding and actively defending 2 nodes.
3. Your team is holding 2 nodes and has more players on the map than the enemy. IE: Your team has 5 players alive but the enemy team has 1 player who is dead going on respawn timer. This allows you to leave and go take the beast while your team is even number 4v4 on the nodes.
4. No opponents are nearby to potentially steal the beast.
5. An opponent is trying to kill a beast. If it looks like your team will be able to maintain holding 2 nodes while you leave to attempt to steal the beast, it is a good idea to try and steal the beast. But on the other hand, if the enemy team is holding 2 nodes, it is usually a better idea to let the opponent burn time off node, so your team can number advantage retake a node. As @"aelska.4609" already explained, If it comes down to the choice of "Defend or Retake a node vs. Taking a beast" The node will almost always be worth more than 25 points in the end.
6. The game is nearing an end score, say RED: 475 to BLUE: 475, and then a beast spawns. In this very specific scenario, and only in this very specific scenario, the beast becomes a clutch win device for whoever takes it. It is a good idea for a team to leave only who they need on a node to defend it, and then have their DPS rush to take the beast. In some situations, it would be worth sending 5 players to kill that one beast before the other team does. This is because even if they lose the nodes while doing it, the game will end anyway at 500 points.

It is not safe to go for the beast when:

1. You are running a low DPS build. When opponents see your Bunker Scrapper's Icon on the map wailing on a beast, this is generally an open invitation for an enemy DPS to show up and steal the kill. Likewise, many support builds or team fight builds are not good in 1v1s, so after they get the kill stolen from them, then they die to the duelist that showed up that stole the kill. Going to beast with low DPS builds that are not duelists, is a great way to throw in higher tiered games.
2. Your team is losing the map. Dedicating manpower to get +25 points is not going to win you the match when the opponents are holding a double cap or possibly triple cap on you. You have to win nodes in Forest, they are priority before beast. The only exception to this, is if your team just freshly went on a bad wipe, and you are retreating around the corner where the beast is. If you are running a hard DPS build that can kill the beast in seconds, it is worth stopping to kill it while waiting for your team to regroup. Once the regroup happens, you need to focus on retaking nodes.
3. Players are chasing you who have higher DPS than you do, who aren't even trying to kill the beast. Quite often I see players panic while being chased, and they figure it would be a good idea to try and kill the beast before the player kills them. This usually results in the stronger opponent stealing the beast anyway, and then killing the player he was chasing. If you are being outplayed and running past a beast, just keep moving and make your way back to team mates.
4. NEVER leave a node undefended to go to the beast, unless you know exactly where every opponent is on the map, and that is safe to go to the beast for a quick kill, and return to the node to continue defending it before an opponent could rotate to decap it. <- Understanding this comes with general game knowledge of the intra-class dynamic.

^ These are good general rules of thumb, but sometimes these can and should be broken. But the ultimate rule of thumb on this objective is this:

• If you don't consciously actively understand why it would be a good idea to go to take the beast at some given time, if you have to question it, don't do it. Stay in the fight for taking & defending nodes. Let others push the objectives who understand them.

[Omnicron.2467]

Thanks everyone for the helpful advice

[Gamble.4580]

I only go for beasts if it’s a free kill a steal or to stall any other time it can throw the game. All though will admit have had tunnel vision went for beast and games have been lost because of it. Npc play don’t always have to be used infact most of the time it’s to risky to do.

[Yannir.4132]

One of the best times to go for a Beast is right after the first teamfight when your opponents are still on respawn/bleeding out. Assuming the teamfight actually has some kind of resolution, and doesn't just flow from one fight to the next.

[DoomNexus.5324]

It heavily depends on the exact situation at this moment. But both, saying you should never go for beasts and saying you should ideally go for all beasts immediately, is wrong.There are a lot of factors involved which would affect the decision making. You always have to be aware of every enemy's movement and if they are on respawn. You just need to make sure that you don't lose map control because of this (like nodes getting decapped, team mates dying in outnumbered fights, etc) and the probability of getting it stolen is low.. So always check the minimap, if there's a thief near mid and your team mates are half dead there, he will probably notice the beast moving on the minimap and rotate to you as fast as he can and steal it.

One scenario I'd go for beast:I just +1'd a 1v1 on close and won and my mates won their teamfight in mid, so most of the enemy players are either dead or disengaged to far, so there is an extremely low chance to get it stolen. Also since it's non-sensical for everyone to push far just to lose map control elsewhere after the enemy players have respawned, I do the beast with the guy I just +1'd on close. Ez and safe points without overcommiting.

And regarding the capricorn thing.. this can also be used strategically.. If for example your team can sustain the bell fight for long enough vs the full enemy team, you can cap the entire map in the meantime. This happens quite often actually. Because the enemy team often can't spare someone reclaiming the map but also can't really stop the pressure because then they wouldn't have gained anything out of this.

[JusticeRetroHunter.7684]

I’m okay if one person on our team makes attempts at stealing beasts when we have the enemy staggered and know their positions.

What I really can’t stand is when we have 3-4 people go for beast and to ice the cake, get it stolen. Meanwhile the entire map flips into enemy favor...

[Sampson.2403]

I've always thought this discussion (which pops up on the forums pretty often) is always over analyzed. It's pretty common sense when you should and should not go for the beast and in unorganized ranked games its probably a good idea to kill it more often than what people are saying in this thread.

[aelska.4609]

I've forgotten to mention the case where a player dies on the beast.That is by far the most hilarious one !

[Mbelch.9028]

@"Sampson.2403" said:I've always thought this discussion (which pops up on the forums pretty often) is always over analyzed. It's pretty common sense when you should and should not go for the beast and in unorganized ranked games its probably a good idea to kill it more often than what people are saying in this thread.

It's not... I play unranked to warm up and relax, and I see just so many people 2-manning beasts, losing mid and allowing enemy snowball. It's the PvE: "OOOOH OBJECTIVE ON THE MAP" Perspective that fuels this, I'm sure, but there can never be too many discussions for education.

[Vague Memory.2817]

It is very situational. I don't think you can say never go for beasts. It really depends on what is going on. Many times a match has been lost because one team ignores beasts. Two beasts are 50pts. But I've only very rarely seen a match lost when going for a beast; usually in a very close match at the end when you only need less than 5-10pts to win. Deserting a cap in those circumstances is foolhardy since 1 kill and cap pts can win. From talking to people previously about a no beast strategy, this seems to come from the esport days when top teams did this. Unfortunately this doesn't really work well in pugs where people do the most bizarre things and are no where near playing at that level.

[Evil.1580]

I am happy to see that more and more people agree that Mesmers are still super OP - you guys are smart and unbiased compared to those that can only troll the thread with off-topic comments. The clones torment+stun spam and combo of the mobility + stealth is just unfair and toxic for the PvP in general - should be nerfed asap.

[Crius.5487]

The last hit on the beast is the only hit that counts so they can be easily stolen by the other team. If all players on both teams are off respawn and you go after a beast then you are leaving your team in a 4v5 on the rest of the map. Against any half decent team you'll either lose the team fight mid or have home decapped. This is why it's not worth going after beasts unless the opposing team has players on respawn, your team has no one on respawn, you have both home and mid and you can dps the beast down before the enemy respawns. Beasts can be used to get a clutch victory especially if your down 475 to 490 and you can burst the beast down before the other team ticks to 500.

Decap far, steal beast from other team, kill player that was trying to kill beast, gg.

[Chilli.2976]

Give the beasts a stun break bar.