Costume brawl: Beach map

I am writing this because I'm sick and tired of people trying to say that everyone should rush the Center Shrine all the time. I feel that if there is at least something in writing, someone, somewhere will realize what a horrible mistake they are making.

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Before I start out, I would like to clearly describe Costume Brawls to the best of my ability. The ultimate goal of Costume Brawls is to ether:

1. Out-cap your opponent.
2. Out-kill them.

Ultimately, the most one-sided fights you will ever see is usually a by-product of what happens when one team ends up with superior moral control AND killing power dominance within the match.

Now if this is the case, how can a team improve their chances of reaching this level of dominance? Well the answer is slightly more complex that requires circumstances that constantly change within a match. The following should be learned in order to succeed as a team within Costume Brawls.

Here are the facts:

1: When one person moves to a shrine area, one tick of control becomes active. When each person from the same team enters a control point area, one point is added on to this control level. Simply put, 1 tick of control per person. The maximum control level is four.

This means that if you have five members at a control point with no enemies in sight, it is wasting time to have 5 members there. Essentially, you have one person shutdown, doing nothing productive for the team when this is the case. That fifth member could be capping another control point. So why not just split the team 1-1-1-1-1 always? That's five shrines being capped at once! What's the point of sending making 3-2 or 4-1 teams?

2: Well the answer to the previous question is: The more people of the same team at a control point, the more physical dominance your team carries over that control point. What do I mean by physical dominance? Well, for example, if you have 3 people running to a control point and the opposing force has only 2 people running to the same control point, your team has the better odds of winning a potential fight at said control point. It would be in the opposing team's best interest to just let your team have that control point instead of giving 2 points to the your team in hopes of taking that control point. Basically killing and deaths are more important to create and avoid than control over a control point.

So how can your team manipulate this aspect to your advantage? Well you need to know what shrines are most important to your team at any given time. Usually the Battle Cry control point is constantly fought over because it provides the best overall bonuses to the team. It allows your team to cap faster, allows your team to choose when you want to enter and exit combat, allows your team to deal more damage, and it allows your team to use their skills more efficiently. So send in more people to that control point more than another control point, usually. Also physical dominance comes into play when you are in a fight for a control point.

3: The more people within the capture radius of a control shrine, the more control ticks for a team will show up. For example, team A with 3 members at a control point will have a total capping speed of 3 ticks. However when all of team B, which consists of 4 members, enters the control area of the control point, the total of 3 ticks drops down to 0 for team A and 1 tick for team B; 4-3=1. So while the battle is going on between the two teams, team B is already capping that shrine, it is very efficient to capture control points this way. So why not do this all the time, move all your team within capping area and just fight it out within that area? Well the answer is that, when that happens, your team's movement gets restricted (since you want to get that 1 tick of capture speed) so your team is more clumped up and more overall vulnerable to attack.

Also, it is worth noting that some maps have less physical dominance at control points during a given point of time than other shrines. For example, it is worthwhile on the jungle map with the temple to send 4 people to the left, towards the energy control point and one 1 person to the right, towards the health control point. Why? Shouldn't it be split up 3-2? Well the reason why I feel it is more beneficial to send a 4-1 team split than a 3-2 split is because the health control point has no nearby control points that the opposing force has easy access to. They could cross underneath the bridge to get to your one teammate, but your team of four can intercept this attack from the energy control point. Also, your team at the energy control point will always have ether equal or more physical dominance than the opposing force, ether ensuring 2 control points capped and only 1 for the opposing force or a battle for the energy control point that relies on which team has the better skill level. The only downside of doing this is that you would have less amount of players moving towards the battle cry control point, meaning your 1 man would have to try to cap the opposing force's health control point, which isn't all that bad. Why isn't it that bad? Because, when the fight over the Battle Cry shrine happens, your team will have efficent energy capabilities, +240 health to play around with, and a 5 to 1 ratio of moral capping speed to the other team. Anyway, this is an example of what physical dominance can play on a map.

4: How to take advantage of killing and avoiding deaths is a bit more complicated than moral control. The best way to assure this is to only fight fights that you know your team can win. Some general things that can be quickly assessed before entering a fight to ensure victory would be:

1. The team that has the more players within a fight has a better chance of winning.
2. The skill level of the opposing force compared to yours.
3. Where the opposing force's other split team is located can be detrimental to your team's fight (the closer they are, the less likely you will be able to win, depending on if they react quickly enough).
4. Where your team is in correspondence to your position (the closer they are, the more of a chance of winning, if they react quick enough).
5. Where you can retreat if necessary, do you have any exits?
6. What classes would you be fighting.

All of these general things should be flying through a person's head when considering whether or not to pick a fight.

Conclusion
So essentially there are benefits to mobbing, most physical dominance possible. And there are benefits to splitting, most moral control possible. The trick is to find the needed balance.

NOW THAT WE GOT THAT COVERED, we should relate this information to the map at hand:

The Beach Map

Why Mobbing the Center Shrine is a Good Idea

The only time a team should be mobbing the center shrine in this map is when the opposing force has a less body count to your oncoming team, or if you think you can take out the opposing force with sheer effort of skill. Now considering this is CB, where most people don't know how to interrupt or what it even means to kite, my money would be that there is a greater chance of losing if you try to win out of sheer skill.

Why Mobbing the Center Shrine is a Bad Idea

The center shrine alone offers no bonuses to your team. The only thing that the center shrine offers is extra moral. It is basically 2 cap shrines in one. This is beneficial on this map when you have the Center Shrine and an outside shrine capped; preferably the Battle Cry Shrine. Why is this beneficial? It is beneficial because, chances are, you will have 2 shrines capped, to his one. This means that you will be receiving 3 moral to his 1. This is a significant moral advantage. The pressure will be on the opposing force to cap better.

However, if you start a match and one team sends all their chickens to the center basket to camp there, all the opposing force needs to do is to cap the outside shrines in order to keep the pressure off of capping. Each team will be generating moral at the rate of 2 moral ticks per second. However, the benefit would lie to the team that has the 2 outside shrines capped since they will receive actual benefits from these shrines. When this happens a sweep can occur, if the force that is camping the center shrine doesn't do anything about it. How does the potential wipe happen? When all five members of the outside shrine controllers decide to attack the center shrine in force (all members at once). They will have the advantage over the force that decided to just camp the middle shrine, the outside shrines will provide the team with bonuses that exceed the bonuses of the center shrine. It is statistically easier for the team with the outside shrines to win the fight against the center shrine cappers.

Well I see people try to do this and they fail miserably at it! Well that is because those teams generally don't attack the center shrine in force. They send in packets of 1 to 3 man teams against a full team of 5. Who do you think is going to win that fight constantly?

The only time this strategy fails is if the center shrine team far exceeds the opposing team's skill level, beyond the benefits that the outside shrines can give a given team. Rangers, Mesmers don't interrupt anything. Warriors, Dervishes, Assassins can't kill anything. Monks and Ritualists don't use their skills well. Elementalists, and Necromancers don't stop damage or deal support damage. Basically this strategy fails only if a team utterly fails.

Edit:
Ho you meant Kysten Shore..., i'd send 4 at battle cry, 1 center, then mob here while keeping battle cry.
I think every build has enough energy management for the energy shrine to be unneeded

IMO the best way is split 4-1 or 3-2, the big team go through potal but do not go to center, go cap the side shrine instead.
the small team go out the gate and cap another side shrine.

After get both shrines the small team go back to base and enter the portal to join the big team.
All 5 go fight cen at once, with both battle cry and energy benefits it is not hard to win.

But it is hard to do that in pugs team. Most poeple will rush to center shrine and they never listen to you (may b they will call u n00b if u go cap side shrine )

So it is depend on how good ur team is. If most of the team want to rush cen u should follow them (even u don't like that idea) bcos if u split alone while the rest 4 rushing 5 enemies, they will die and u will lose :P

I'd say the key shrine to hold on any map is the Battlecry one.

Which is why I'm making this damn thread.

I certainly agree. However after this happens, and one team erratically wipes, they continue to try to take the center shrine with only packets of 1 to 3 people at a time. Even if they do muster all five members to have a go at it again, the skill level of the opposing team could have definitely been established and it would be unwise to attack said shrine without capping the outside shrines first. It is why you see a bunch of 20 - less than ten matches in this arena.

from my experience, the best initial strategy on that map is mobbing center and maybe sending one person to cap battle cry or energy depending on your team's composition. if you have lots of physical damage dealers, capping battle cry is hella beneficial. if you have lots of casters, capping energy is hella beneficial. i've never won on that map without holding center shrine for at least most of the match, and i've seen amazing comebacks due to a center shrine cap.

what happens when the opposing team only sends 2 or 3 to center...my team beasts them, and then beasts the splits and holds all 3 shrines and it is pretty much game over. if they split from the start, we counter split and it is still game over. the only times i've lost on the beach map is when both teams mob center and a) my team is bad or b) my team can't outheal the opposing team's big damage or c) my team can't outdamage the opposing team's big heals - then it kind of becomes build wars, and holding battle cry and/or energy does not help.

however, map tactics will not make up for a lack of player skill or player tactics. smart split tactics and skillful play win these matches more than anything else, no matter what map you are on.

Had to reply to this one, and nice post Elitist.

Having the 'pleasure' of being in two different notable sync groups, both being top 30 GvG guilds, there was a huge difference in their play style on this map in particular.

The higher ranked guild would do a 4-1 split at the start. Sending 1, a ranger to cap Energy (+20% Energy reduction of SKILLS) and 4 to the Battle Cry (+25% speed buff, +15% attack rate, +15% SKILL recharge reduction). Now, as it's easy to assume here, more often the not, the entire opposing team would rush center, thus granting them +2 pips moral which would equal our morale from having both shrines, and of course the center shrine buff (+10%damage, -10% healing). Every few games the BC cap group would get either a 1 or 2 man gank at BC shrine, which was always nice, then the ranger would portal over once capped, and we'd mob center, control all 3 shrines, and rip through the rest of the opposing team. GG, and GJ.

The other team however wouldn't cap ANYTHING but Center, and I was the biggest scrub on earth for suggesting otherwise. Mob Center and hold it, that's all you had to do. This from a team consisting of 2 rts, 2 monks and a ranger, a team that should have been able to hold it's own against any melee force no doubt (WoW and NM weapon on the rts and 2 pots to drop, RoD and smites on the monks). However, as I tried to say, this was bound to fail eventually. We got absolutely smashed at Krytan against a team that actually had some idea about what they were doing. The opposing team was mainly caster (mes, ele, mo, rt, sin). Again, I was the biggest nub ever to play this game because I couldn't shut down the ele who had me blinded a couple of times and was bombing everyone else (who had WoW on him constantly of course and why not?) while poisoning the entire other team, interrupting WoW each time, and keeping Empathy off myself. NP. I'm on it. So we did more damage, and didn't get the full effect from our healing, while the opposing team was running around with a perma speed buff, with reduced recharge times (so of course my count was a hair off on a couple interrupts go figure- that's a lot of interrupts to count at once btw, but who's counting?) and plenty of energy. Nice. Head back to GvG darlings. You have no idea how to play CB. Which in of itself I suppose isn't any big loss, but don't pretend you have any clue what you're talking about when you don't. f r u s t r a t i o n. Enjoy the Champ points, but please, please, please let me get some more gamer this weekend.

It's not all about the center.

EDIT: I'm pretty sure that people simply don't know what the shrine buffs do IMHO. If you don't listen in game, at the very least read the wiki. It might teach you something. =)

I would say that the biggest reason why this fails is because if you're capping the outer shrines, you're probably doing a 4-1 or 3-2 split. If both groups try to attack the center at the same time, the intelligent thing for a group of 5 to do is to run off towards the group that is smallest, or the group that potentially has zero healing ability.

That would be 1-3 points potential lead that the group of five could gain, maybe in exchange for temporarily losing the center shrine. Once they're done mopping up the first split group, they can turn around and mob the second.

To say then that if the split group has the Battle Cry shrine, they can run avoid that scenario is false as soon as you face an Assassin, Elementalist, or Monk. Once one person gets caught by one of those, there's either going to be a decision to leave a person behind, or for the whole group to turn around and fight. Neither situation really suits the split group.

The thing I agreed most with in your post is that it mostly comes down to guessing your team's skill level when deciding to take or not take the shrine. Past that, it's skill and professions. I was on a streak of +20 with a synced team of respected gamers, and we fought a team of 4 Monks and a Rit. We stormed the center with four while one person went to cap, but that led to us being outhealed and eventually two of us got killed off. The smart team in that case would have held center, but these guys chased us when we ran, allowing us to split them up and eventually time-out the match at a one-point lead.

In my opinion the best way toplay this map is a 4-1 split. At the beginning send a ranger or a rit to cap the energy/battlecry shrine. Then the group of 4 go through see what the other tea is mainly constitant of. If its caster then storm the energy/battlecry shrine hoping to get 1/2 kills depending on how many opponents were capping it, then the 4-1 both goto the middle and ping a target and kill it.

If however it is mainly melee then the group of 4 should goto the middle and hold it, until the ranger or rit comes. he should then proceed to run to the other shrine that isnt theirs while helping kill any close to death targets along the way.

If for some reason the other team is far too powerful and your healers cant keep up with them then split off and just send groups of two running around the map to ca shit and kill any lone targets.

I only play with people i know are good so i cant say if these tactics work for PUG's. But i've beaten many a sync team like this, so i know they work.

Yep. You're right that's where it fails. The thing is, I was addressing the groups that are adamant about capping the center and not moving. Capping the outside shrines then attacking in force dominates this plan.

However, if the split sees what's happening quickly enough, they can react by simply running away or employing retreat maneuvers and go back to their tele, teleport to the center shrine and confuse the hell out of the other team. That's why if you see a split, it's usually 3 to the tele, 2 to the outside shrine or 4 to the tele, 1 to the outside shrine. Just in case something goes wrong, the smaller split can retreat to the tele and to their group if they need to.

Or if you're gud, you can use your skills to effectively retreat to a safe area (your teammates). For example, snare the snarers. Interrupt Elementalists. Remove hexes. Don't let Bulls connect. Try to make millie shot fail. Whatever you can do. Will it be a slow retreat? Yeah, but it's better than anyone wiping, if you can keep it up.