Summoners War Guild Wars Guide

Summoners War Guild Wars Guide by KimhariRonso

Introduction

So its been some time since I wrote my last detailed guide and I thought it might be helpful to put one together around Guild Wars. Guild Wars have been around now for a few months and I’m sure we’ve all been getting involved, but in my limited observations I’ve noticed a few players either not enjoying or finding wars frustrating because they can be quite challenging – and let’s face it repeatedly losing is frustrating as f***. I’ve been a member of Malicious for a few months now and we’ve been lucky enough to finish Rank 1 in the global server 6 times, all through a combination of teamwork, communication, strategy and…a bit of RNG. So I just thought that maybe it might be helpful if I were to share a couple lessons I’ve learnt along the way – and who know it might help someone! Please note that some of this content is directed more at the early – mid game players but hopefully there’s some content in here that most players mind find useful

Finding the Right Guild

So it might sound obvious, but the first step to succeeding in Guild Wars, is being in a good guild. What I mean by a good guild isn’t necessarily one that’s packed with Guardian players and tonnes of Nat 5 monster, I think it’s more to do with quality of the guys and girls inside it. If you can find a group of people you enjoy playing with, who are a good laugh and competent at the game, you’re onto a winner

If you can get this great community around you then it provides a great platform for success, you’ll be able to help each other and share little tips and tricks that will really springboard your game. I know when I joined Malicious I was C1 – maybe C2 on a good day, but the more senior players in my guild were able to give me really great specific advice on things like rune builds, team compositions and what monsters to work on. The impact of this has been huge and I can’t thank my guildies enough for this!

I would suggest getting together with people you chat to regularly in channels, having existing relationships with other players really helps.

There’s also the choice here between joining a guild for ‘farming’ glory points and joining one for competitive play. Now I’m not gonna get too much into this debate here as it’s everyone’s own choice…but personally I see zero point in joining a farming guild. I think it defeats the point of this being one of the 2 elements of the game where you really get to test yourself and have some actual fun. Plus the amount of guild points you accumulate fighting competitively is more than sufficient to buy yourself Ifrit Pieces, Rainbowmon and maybe even a scroll weekly. There’s enough farming in this game already.

Guild Wars Offense

General Strategy

So the key to doing well in Guild Wars is actually winning a fight or two. There’s a couple things in general here you can to do improve your guilds chances of winning

• Plan Attacks – Always start your wars at pre-determined times so you can have the maximum amount of players online at the start. You can then determine how strong the opposing guild is and best way to proceed.
• Let your Leader and Vice lead – Something we’ve always found very helpful in my guild is to have either the Leader or Vice manage the entire attack. This means calling a target before you hit them and waiting for Managements approval. They should have enough experience to know if you’re being ambitious or if you’re good to go. This requires an in depth knowledge of every member of this team so something that the Leads will get better at the longer you play together
• Save Charges for Saturday – This is really important if you want to rank higher on reset. If you manage to save up a couple invites throughout the week by not fighting wars every day then you’ll accumulate extra invites. It’s also nice to give yourselves the occasional day off. Typically we save 5-6 invites for Saturday and aim to finish 4 or 5 of them within the last 4 hours. I wouldn’t recommend doing this for every guild as it’s pretty intensive but it shouldn’t be too hard to complete 2 or 3
• Be Strategic – The amount of points you win depends on the difference of your rank and your opponents. Keep an eye on who’s attacking you, if you’re currently under attack by another guild, then its often best to wait for them to finish (lowering your rank) until you end the war as this maximises the amount of points you win. Since the update wars no longer end 30 mins after you knock them below 30% so this makes that strategy much easier simply declare your
• Share Information – If you’ve encountered a defence with a particularly difficult combo or unusual build, then be a team player and alert your team to the dangers.

Selecting Opponents

• Think Ahead – You’ve got 3 battles to fight and as you all know, if you lose a monster – it’s gone. I tend to pick an easy guaranteed win first fight, someone I’m fairly confident win on 2nd and go for broke on third fight. There’s nothing worse than losing one or two of your top mons in the first match-up
• Play to your strengths – You know your teams strengths better than anyone and hopefully know what types of teams you’re strong against. Don’t overreach yourself and pick all the +3 guys just for extra points, at the end of the day if you lose, you’ve wasted a sword and hurt your guilds chances of winning
• Visualise the Battle – When you’re selecting your line-up I like to mentally visualise how I anticipate the first few moves in the fight will go down and this will help you pick the optimal lineup. For example let’s take a common Guild Defence – Veromos Bella Briand. I know that the Veromos is likely gonna be fast, so I’m gonna bring my Darion instead of Bella so I go after ifrit and my def break won’t get cleaned. I know that the Briand is gonna be the pain here, so I’ll armour break him, then I’ll wanna use a DPS like Perna to take him down quickly as possible, but I know if the Briand is above 40k hp then Perna won’t be able to take out unless I get a few violent procs, so I’ll also bring Megan to buff Pernas attack and 1-shot Briand. Sounds common sense but it really does work.
• If You’re Hurting… – Say you’ve lost a couple of your best monsters to dat violent proc and you’ve still got a sword left. With your last fight instead of putting up two half-baked teams, its better to focus your best remaining monsters into the round you’re sure you can win (or at least have the best chances). There’s no shame in taking a tactical draw. It’s better than a loss and taking 0% from the opposing guild.

Battle Strategy

• Protect your assets – Unless you’re going for a speed nuke and you’re sure you can pull it off, always ALWAYS bring a healer into offence. People build their defences to hurt so if you’re unable to shrug off any damage they inflict then you might find yourself losing valuable units.
• ATB boosters are king – Turn stealing with ATB boosters is an incredibly useful strategy in guild wars particularly as many players run slow tanky defences. If you’re able to outmanouvere the opponent it makes life much easier
• Attack order – Generally speaking you want to eliminate the opposing teams DPS monters first to minimise the threat. I tend to usually focus Veromos first also because he can make life annoying. Monsters like Chasun and Chloe can normally be left for last because when their alone you’ve already won.

Useful Monsters

• Chasun – Needs no elaboration or introduction – she heals your dps and buffs their attack. She’s incredible in wars. No substitute. Why don’t I have one yet FU Com2us
• Ramagos – For those of you who watch YDCB videos you’ll have seen first hand how deadly Ramagos can be in GW. When he’s not got 4 monsters attacking him it’s much easier to control the dmg received and he can pick apart entire teams with this right support around him.
• Verdehile – Relates to my earlier point about how OP ATB boosting is in GW. Violent/Revenge Verde with 170-200 speed means you’ll be moving 2-3 times for your opponents every move.
• Bombers – Ever dismay at the abundance of Camilla there seem to be in guild defences? Well bombers are the perfect solution. A decent bomber with atk buff can hit over 20k, most Critmilla have less than 20k hp. Obviously a no go if they are running immunity or Veromos but due to the fact you’ve got two waves to fight you can bring bombers into a surprising amount of fights
• Ahman – I fell out of love with this guy for a very long time – sat in storage unruned for a good couple months – but then I heard from guildmates how OP he is in wars. His heal is perfect for keeping DPS alive and provoke is exceptionally useful and underrated in this format. On the subject of provoke…
• Jubelle – That Dark Vagavond we all last month is gonna be your new secret weapon if you’ve not already discovered it yet. Rune him full revenge with HP/HP/HP and high resit. He taunts enemy dps, halves the crit dmg and then revenge armour break – amazing.

Guild Wars Defence

General Strategy

• Guild Synergy – Your guilds defence needs to work together as a whole, not just a set of 20 individual defences. If you work it so that your defences cover each other’s weaknesses then you’re onto a winner. You’ll want some members of your guild to have defences that are high damage and high threat that can potentially cripple attacking guilds, others you’ll want to be super stall so the guys who have lost their attackers have no hope of beating you. You also want to avoid having too many similar lineups in the guild because if an attacker beats one, odds are he’ll find you and do the same.
• Force your Attacker into awkward situations – Try to make it so that you’re splitting your attackers focus between both your lineups. For example if I were to run Perna in one defence it would force my opponent to bring something that can take her down quickly using their own DPS. Then In my other defence I might want to use a rezzer and a tank or two that they will really struggle to take down without their main DPS. By forcing these situations you really increase your chances of success.

Choosing Your Line-Up

• Avoid Mono-Typing – Generally speaking, it’s a bad idea to have an defence all with the same element. Say I put an all fire defence of Velajuel, Arnold, Perna – Chances are one of the attacking members is gonna be water heavy and be able to wipe me easy. It’s best to have a balance of elements in a lineup so the enemy is under threat no matter what combination they try. A lot of people I run full mono light teams and that’s not too bad however.
• Switch Things Up – If you find yourself fighting the same guilds repeatedly (happens more than you’d think) then people are likely to get used to your lineup and once they’ve cracked how to beat it, you’re easy target. Switch thing up regularly, switch monsters, which wave they’re in and maybe even tweak runes regularly
• Be Strategic….Again – Think about what you want your defence to achieve in the wider scheme of the guild. Do you want to be one that has high threat in one lineup and force a lot of draws? Do you want a super scary lineup that only the opposing guilds biggest toughest guys will attack (therefore pulling them away from the actual threats in the team = more wins) or do you maybe want to make a trap defence that looks easy on the surface but is runed to the teeth and will crush anyone foolish enough to try. The choice is yours and again really depends on your individual monsters and strengths.

Useful Monsters

• Veromos – There’s a reason he is on most defence lineups, he’s awesome. While he in himself isn’t particularly difficult to take care he does require a certain strategy, and this may force the opponent to have a sub-optimal attack for your other lineup hence forcing more draws.
• Chloe – Rune her with Will runes and she can prevent you from being CC’d and wiped easily.
• Fire/Wind Monkey King – Not many of us have Monkey King but he is one of the kings of Guild Wars. His revenge and armour breaks are seriously nasty.
• Draco & Orion – These little brownies make for incredible GW support. Draco bring immunity to the table whilst Orion causes random debuffs that can play havock with attacking teams. They also both bring an AOE def break which can give your defence added threat.

Summary

Guild Wars Is a tricky business to do right but it can be the most rewarding and enjoyable aspect of the game in my opinion. Working as a team to achieve something greater than the sum of it’s parts is a great feeling. You don’t need superstar players, just a group of 30 guys that work well together. I really hope this guide has been of some use to at least a couple of you, I know much of it seems like common sense but I guess sometimes its helpful to have it laid out anyway!