Jadyn
39 Evangelist
A Beginner's Guide to Premade WSG
This is just a draft for now. Looking for some feedback, though I'm not looking for theorycrafting feedback as much as practical experiential feedback. This guide aims to cover some of the stuff that you can't easily find out through theorycrafting. I'd also like comments on the length. Should I shorten things, or is this fine?
A lot of this may seem like common sense, but for someone new to things, or to leading, or even to a twink guild, it may not be as simple as it would seem. This guide is based primarily on my personal experiences leading my guild through many 10v10s, against several different guilds, both stronger and weaker than us. Running a 10v10 match for the first time can be one of the most disruptive things you can do to a guild if you didn't originally plan for it. It's incredibly fun to get a good close 10v10 going, but it takes a bit of work, and guildies willing to take harsh losses and keep going.
For Leaders:
First, you need the "ingredients".
Make sure you can reliably get 10 people on at will. This may seem obvious, but it is something that is important to be sure of, since when you arrange a match with another guild, you are putting your reputation on the line by saying that you will be there with 10 people. Forget winning or even playing well, if you can't field a full team, that has the potential to harm your guild's reputation more than anything else, making it harder to organize games because people will trust you less to show up.
Most twink guilds are pretty casual. What's more, the average twink mindset isn't always compatible with team games. When you're a twink in a pug, you're special, you have an above average effect on the outcome of the game. When you're a member of a twink team, you're one of many again, and don't have any greater of an effect than anyone else; you're no longer special. This can discourage some people from really wanting to play in a match, especially if they're not very competitive, and/or have never been in a 10v10 before.
A good way to prepare for this is to get your guildies used to scheduling a premade. Decide on a time for running a 10-man to just roll pugs, then schedule it and announce it as many ways as possible: in the message of the day, on the calendar, and perhaps even on forums (definitely on forums if your guild has private forums). Once you can get 10 people showing up for pug rolling, you're probably ready to schedule against another team.
The other part is finding another team that's able and willing to do 10v10s. In some battlegroups this is hard or even impossible to get. For this guide we'll assume there are teams available. So what's left to do is to arrange the game with them. The most important thing is to make sure you have a way of communicating outside the game, preferably so that you both queue for the battleground at the same time. Ventrilo is generally the most popular way, but IM is another way too.
Next, "rules".
I put rules in quotes, because the term "rules" is sometimes a bit too strong. "Guidelines" is a better term. If you want to stay on good enough terms with the other team to be able to 10v10 them again, it's a good idea to be up front and open about what consumables your guild plans on using. Misunderstandings can cause drama, which can be entertaining, but can also get in the way of additional games the next time around.
Most people assume you'll be using minor consumables, healing/mana potions, bandages, maybe a few grenades. It's the extremes that tend to cause issues if one team is surprised. Swiftness potions, Arcane bombs, and most of all, Free Action Potions since they're not that hard to get, are the more contraversial consumables. The point here isn't to define what's "right", the point is to come to an agreement with the other team. Just remember that the priority here is to play, not to play only by a certain set of rules.
Now, for actually playing your first game.
First off, don't go in expecting to win. Not to say that you should tell your team you're going to lose. But personally, as a leader, do not set your private expectations high. If this is the first time you and your guild have ever done a 10v10 against another team, and the other team has done 10v10s before, you are at an automatic disadvantage that nothing short of a massive class balance advantage can overcome. What's important is to treat your first few games as a learning experience. Ideally, you want to play a team that is either playing for the first time as well, or has only been playing for a short time. This isn't arenas, just because you do well in 5v5s against said guild doesn't mean you will do well against them in 10v10s.
Most teams go into their first 10v10 playing it like they would against a pug. This rarely works, and leads to a lack of cohesion in teamwork. But imho, it's important to play one game like this before you can start focusing on playing as a team to win. What you need to concern yourself with is making sure your team doesn't get too demoralized by the loss (we'll get into that in the next section).
If your guild doesn't do this, and/or you win, congrats! You're doing better than many guilds did when they first started out. I suggest playing a harder team, or seeing if you can help the other team improve or something. Be good sports about winning, and give them time (if it was their first game too) to recover and be ready to play again.
After the game.
We'll assume you lost the match, since if you won, most of this section won't be important until your first loss. The important thing is to concentrate on learning from the loss. Do your best to direct people's focus towards productive questions: what can we improve, what do we need, what should we do in battle.
(unfinished)
Some basics of strategy.
Not hardcore strategy, just basics on how to direct your team, and some simple plans to have that can substantially help your team in winning games. I suggest only worrying about this after you play a game or two, since experience is a huge help in implementing strategies.
There are three things that generally distinguish a real team from just a group of twinks rolling around in WSG: Coordination, roles, and strategies. These are just cool words for working as a team, having some people specialized for specific jobs (such as a dedicated flag carrier), and having an overall plan. We'll go through them in reverse order.
A plan
Having a plan seems very simple, but can make all the difference. It doesn't need to be elaborate, it simply needs to be generally sensible and flexible, and everyone on your team needs to follow it. It gives purpose to everyone's movements, and unifies their purpose. If everyone knows what the team is trying to do, then they will be better at knowing how to support it. Your plan should include people's roles and should lead to better coordination amongst them.
It doesn't need to be complicated, for example here is the general plan my guild has when going into premades:
"The premade splits into two 4-5 man groups. Group One is dedicated to running the flag, and rides straight to the enemy ramp for that purpose. Group Two is support/defense; if fighting a team that seems stronger, Two will follow and support One until we have the enemy flag in our base. If both teams crossed midfield with the flag, Group One will stay with the flag and wait to cap, while Group Two will attempt to return the flag. If convienent, a few players from Group One will join and help Two for returns."
This basic strategy then can be modified on the fly by the premade leaders. For instance, if on the way back across midfield with the flag we aren't pressured by the other team, we sometimes send Group Two after the enemy FC to attempt to return in midfield. More details come with time and experience, but are generally more about tricks and smart moves than about overall strategy and plans.
Roles
A lot of this is just about defining how you want to group your team, since it is rarely effective to spend the entire game in one solid mass. But it is also about the flag carrier.
I have yet to see a team without a dedicated FC reliably and repeatably win against an equal team with a dedicated FC. It can be done, but if the opposing force has a dedicated FC with a character built for the task, you may want to get started building one for your team. We'll keep it simple, since this is a guide about WSG in general, not about FCing specifically. While every class can function as a FC, the classes that are best suited for specializing for it are Druids, Warriors, Mages, and Paladins. Druids are generally considered the best class to use since they offer a good balance of mitigation and mobility, but other classes have been very successful in the past as well.
Aside from the FC, you obviously want a balance of classes, a balance of dps and healing, and a balance of melee and ranged dps. Generally you want at least one, but often two healers dedicated to supporting the FC, and at least one dps, preferably one with good CC and snare options in order to discourage pursuit. Aside from that, it depends on a team's style. The two major issues for dps in WSG matches are midfield control and burst. Some teams prefer to control midfield in order to win the game, and should balance their dps class choices accordingly (or decide whether to worry about midfield based on what classes they have available). Either way, an FC with healing support needs to be bursted down. Some classes need to focus on their burst as their main role to kill the enemy FC. Others should recognize this and focus more on CC in order to give their teammates the opportunity to deply that burst. A simple example would be the rogue that stunlocks the EFC so that he can't LoS while the rogue's teammate mage casts a fireball from range. Or a rogue using expose armor on the EFC instead of evis so that his hunter teammates can do much greater dps for the duration.
Coordination
Teamwork is really all about practice, and learning to work together. If you have a good basic overall plan that everyone understands and follows, where everyone knows their role, coordination should be much easier. Another big thing is communication. Yes, it's obvious, but it's something that some players simply aren't used to. If you can, get at least one player with each group to call out what's going on at their end. If your FC is nearing death, you should all know that (I'm assuming you have Vent), and be ready to grab the flag again when he drops.
For more detailed coordination, I recommend practicing in arena, where CC is very important to pull off perfectly.
(unfinished)
This is just a draft for now. Looking for some feedback, though I'm not looking for theorycrafting feedback as much as practical experiential feedback. This guide aims to cover some of the stuff that you can't easily find out through theorycrafting. I'd also like comments on the length. Should I shorten things, or is this fine?
A lot of this may seem like common sense, but for someone new to things, or to leading, or even to a twink guild, it may not be as simple as it would seem. This guide is based primarily on my personal experiences leading my guild through many 10v10s, against several different guilds, both stronger and weaker than us. Running a 10v10 match for the first time can be one of the most disruptive things you can do to a guild if you didn't originally plan for it. It's incredibly fun to get a good close 10v10 going, but it takes a bit of work, and guildies willing to take harsh losses and keep going.
For Leaders:
First, you need the "ingredients".
Make sure you can reliably get 10 people on at will. This may seem obvious, but it is something that is important to be sure of, since when you arrange a match with another guild, you are putting your reputation on the line by saying that you will be there with 10 people. Forget winning or even playing well, if you can't field a full team, that has the potential to harm your guild's reputation more than anything else, making it harder to organize games because people will trust you less to show up.
Most twink guilds are pretty casual. What's more, the average twink mindset isn't always compatible with team games. When you're a twink in a pug, you're special, you have an above average effect on the outcome of the game. When you're a member of a twink team, you're one of many again, and don't have any greater of an effect than anyone else; you're no longer special. This can discourage some people from really wanting to play in a match, especially if they're not very competitive, and/or have never been in a 10v10 before.
A good way to prepare for this is to get your guildies used to scheduling a premade. Decide on a time for running a 10-man to just roll pugs, then schedule it and announce it as many ways as possible: in the message of the day, on the calendar, and perhaps even on forums (definitely on forums if your guild has private forums). Once you can get 10 people showing up for pug rolling, you're probably ready to schedule against another team.
The other part is finding another team that's able and willing to do 10v10s. In some battlegroups this is hard or even impossible to get. For this guide we'll assume there are teams available. So what's left to do is to arrange the game with them. The most important thing is to make sure you have a way of communicating outside the game, preferably so that you both queue for the battleground at the same time. Ventrilo is generally the most popular way, but IM is another way too.
Next, "rules".
I put rules in quotes, because the term "rules" is sometimes a bit too strong. "Guidelines" is a better term. If you want to stay on good enough terms with the other team to be able to 10v10 them again, it's a good idea to be up front and open about what consumables your guild plans on using. Misunderstandings can cause drama, which can be entertaining, but can also get in the way of additional games the next time around.
Most people assume you'll be using minor consumables, healing/mana potions, bandages, maybe a few grenades. It's the extremes that tend to cause issues if one team is surprised. Swiftness potions, Arcane bombs, and most of all, Free Action Potions since they're not that hard to get, are the more contraversial consumables. The point here isn't to define what's "right", the point is to come to an agreement with the other team. Just remember that the priority here is to play, not to play only by a certain set of rules.
Now, for actually playing your first game.
First off, don't go in expecting to win. Not to say that you should tell your team you're going to lose. But personally, as a leader, do not set your private expectations high. If this is the first time you and your guild have ever done a 10v10 against another team, and the other team has done 10v10s before, you are at an automatic disadvantage that nothing short of a massive class balance advantage can overcome. What's important is to treat your first few games as a learning experience. Ideally, you want to play a team that is either playing for the first time as well, or has only been playing for a short time. This isn't arenas, just because you do well in 5v5s against said guild doesn't mean you will do well against them in 10v10s.
Most teams go into their first 10v10 playing it like they would against a pug. This rarely works, and leads to a lack of cohesion in teamwork. But imho, it's important to play one game like this before you can start focusing on playing as a team to win. What you need to concern yourself with is making sure your team doesn't get too demoralized by the loss (we'll get into that in the next section).
If your guild doesn't do this, and/or you win, congrats! You're doing better than many guilds did when they first started out. I suggest playing a harder team, or seeing if you can help the other team improve or something. Be good sports about winning, and give them time (if it was their first game too) to recover and be ready to play again.
After the game.
We'll assume you lost the match, since if you won, most of this section won't be important until your first loss. The important thing is to concentrate on learning from the loss. Do your best to direct people's focus towards productive questions: what can we improve, what do we need, what should we do in battle.
(unfinished)
Some basics of strategy.
Not hardcore strategy, just basics on how to direct your team, and some simple plans to have that can substantially help your team in winning games. I suggest only worrying about this after you play a game or two, since experience is a huge help in implementing strategies.
There are three things that generally distinguish a real team from just a group of twinks rolling around in WSG: Coordination, roles, and strategies. These are just cool words for working as a team, having some people specialized for specific jobs (such as a dedicated flag carrier), and having an overall plan. We'll go through them in reverse order.
A plan
Having a plan seems very simple, but can make all the difference. It doesn't need to be elaborate, it simply needs to be generally sensible and flexible, and everyone on your team needs to follow it. It gives purpose to everyone's movements, and unifies their purpose. If everyone knows what the team is trying to do, then they will be better at knowing how to support it. Your plan should include people's roles and should lead to better coordination amongst them.
It doesn't need to be complicated, for example here is the general plan my guild has when going into premades:
"The premade splits into two 4-5 man groups. Group One is dedicated to running the flag, and rides straight to the enemy ramp for that purpose. Group Two is support/defense; if fighting a team that seems stronger, Two will follow and support One until we have the enemy flag in our base. If both teams crossed midfield with the flag, Group One will stay with the flag and wait to cap, while Group Two will attempt to return the flag. If convienent, a few players from Group One will join and help Two for returns."
This basic strategy then can be modified on the fly by the premade leaders. For instance, if on the way back across midfield with the flag we aren't pressured by the other team, we sometimes send Group Two after the enemy FC to attempt to return in midfield. More details come with time and experience, but are generally more about tricks and smart moves than about overall strategy and plans.
Roles
A lot of this is just about defining how you want to group your team, since it is rarely effective to spend the entire game in one solid mass. But it is also about the flag carrier.
I have yet to see a team without a dedicated FC reliably and repeatably win against an equal team with a dedicated FC. It can be done, but if the opposing force has a dedicated FC with a character built for the task, you may want to get started building one for your team. We'll keep it simple, since this is a guide about WSG in general, not about FCing specifically. While every class can function as a FC, the classes that are best suited for specializing for it are Druids, Warriors, Mages, and Paladins. Druids are generally considered the best class to use since they offer a good balance of mitigation and mobility, but other classes have been very successful in the past as well.
Aside from the FC, you obviously want a balance of classes, a balance of dps and healing, and a balance of melee and ranged dps. Generally you want at least one, but often two healers dedicated to supporting the FC, and at least one dps, preferably one with good CC and snare options in order to discourage pursuit. Aside from that, it depends on a team's style. The two major issues for dps in WSG matches are midfield control and burst. Some teams prefer to control midfield in order to win the game, and should balance their dps class choices accordingly (or decide whether to worry about midfield based on what classes they have available). Either way, an FC with healing support needs to be bursted down. Some classes need to focus on their burst as their main role to kill the enemy FC. Others should recognize this and focus more on CC in order to give their teammates the opportunity to deply that burst. A simple example would be the rogue that stunlocks the EFC so that he can't LoS while the rogue's teammate mage casts a fireball from range. Or a rogue using expose armor on the EFC instead of evis so that his hunter teammates can do much greater dps for the duration.
Coordination
Teamwork is really all about practice, and learning to work together. If you have a good basic overall plan that everyone understands and follows, where everyone knows their role, coordination should be much easier. Another big thing is communication. Yes, it's obvious, but it's something that some players simply aren't used to. If you can, get at least one player with each group to call out what's going on at their end. If your FC is nearing death, you should all know that (I'm assuming you have Vent), and be ready to grab the flag again when he drops.
For more detailed coordination, I recommend practicing in arena, where CC is very important to pull off perfectly.
(unfinished)
