Guild Siege

February 13th 2021

 

In my opinion, siege is the best part of the game! It has endless options and combinations that can be viable to play around with in both GWO and GWD (guild war offense and defense). Rune quality just like anywhere else is always a factor BUT you also can simply just surprise you opponent by building units in an uncommon way in GWD to sneak a few defense wins in for your guild. Also, being LD only, we are already using unpopular monsters to begin with which already gives us a surprise edge.

 

I am mostly going to touch base on how to build strong GWD since that is always the hottest topic. GWO is much more simple since you can manipulate and predict what the AI will do for the most part. So let's get started shall we! 

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Drago, what do you mean surprise your opponent in GWD?

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Let's use a few examples that will help you understand.

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• Let's use our golden girl as an example, Fran. Now what is the most popular way to build Fran? Hands down, it's on Violent probably between 200-250 speed total. So, when you click on a tower and start looking through the defenses, when you come across a team with Fran, 95% of people will automatically think she will fit in the speed criteria I mentioned above. Well, what if you runed her on swift with 300 speed total? That would throw them for a loop since the units they brought to counter her are probably not that fast giving her the first turn providing immunity.

• Here is another example. When people look at Belladeon, they think "ok, this Bella probably super fast on swift as attack booster or maybe mid speed on vio". They would never expect the full revenge Bella that would constantly apply def break on their whole team if they touch her. Better yet, full revenge Bella with 100% resistance. Yeah have fun killing that. 

• Let's use one more example to make sure you understand what I mean by uncommon builds to surprise your opponents. Let's use miho, she has been so dominant in PVP since her 2A update came out. Once again, 95% of people see Miho in GWD and think that she will be on vampire runes since those are amazing on her. You could throw them for a loop and stick her on vio or even just a hard hitting rage set. Imagine 100% resistance on her, her downfall is continuous damage and/or hp disrupt so if they can't apply that, she's a nightmare!

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PVP vs PVE units

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There are many units in this game that are simply just way better for PVP than for PVE and vice versa. Some are just good overall, literally every aspect of the game. It is important you understand this since there will come a point where you will need to choose which units make the cut into GWD and which don't. You can only have 30 units, 10 teams in GWD. When your early/ mid game, yes 30 well runed 6* units alone sounds hard to just have but once you reach more end game and you have 60+ well runed 6* units, you need to figure stuff out. Siege becomes a commitment and you will rune monster specifically for siege which may make your PVE game weaker but that's when you start finding the "PVE monsters" that are just right for a specific job in PVE and give them awesome PVE runes and that way your PVP is not handicapped. 

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PVP vs PVE runes

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To put this section simply, having will runes on as many of your units as you can is plainly superior to not having them in almost any situation. Violent, Swift, Despair, Will, Revenge, Shield and Nemesis are the dominant pvp runes overall. What do they all have in common? RNG! Unpredictability. Violent gives you bonus turns randomly which can turn cycle skills and get you out of CC and so much more. Swift has a great chance to give you first turn which as we know, speed is KING. Despair stuns are just so unpredictably ANOYING, any stripper on despair runes can REALLY destroy any synergy a team has, just as an example. Will runes are self explanatory, you cant debuff or crowd control or attack bar manipulate in any way if the monster your attacking has will runes. Revenge runes are amazing on the right units, a chance to retaliate with S1 is very strong on any unit that has S1 Def break or stun chance especially, and of course on a monster like Verdehile which we can all agree we HATE when he revenge procs! Shield runes are amazing for that extra "artificial" health points on your whole team and also provides another buff which if paired with will runes, can be stripped INSTEAD of the will in some situations. Lastly, Nemesis runes are great for a tanky monster that has AOE healing properties especially since if you do not get first turn, the enemy attacks but does not get the kill on that unit, the nemesis unit is likely to make that unit cut in between enemy turns and get to AOE heal which messes up the enemies strategy.

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Build teams not units

 

Number one rule to be successful in PVP is to build TEAMS not units. What I mean is that you need to pick which 3 units whose skills really synergize with each other THEN rune them as a team with proper turn order and speed tuning. You then need to test your teams yourself to ensure they work as you planned and tweak accordingly. Some monsters simply have bad AI and shouldn't be used in GWD or AD. As an example, Belladeon on defense will NEVER use S3 if everyone on her team is 80%+ hp, therefore using her as an attack bar booster in defense will never work since she will never use the skill even if shes faster thus the importance of testing your teams. 

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It's a great idea to test guild mates teams that have good defense win ratios too. Analyze the teams and try to understand WHY it's doing so well beyond just rune quality. Then you can ether copy/ or replicate something similar but add your own twist! There's nothing wrong with inspiration ;) We are a team after all and your victory is my victory!

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Formula to a great GWD 

 

Threat.

 

Having a lot of threat in a team wins matches. Generally, a good strategy to beat a team is to get rid of the threat. As an example, Khamun/ Theo/ Chasun has been a great GWD since the dawn of time because Theo is a huge threat and with Khmun and Chasun backing him up, he is hard to take down and all he needs is 1 violent proc to more or less kill a unit. Get rid of Theo asap and all of a sudden the team isn't so bad. 

 

Now that we understand threat, how do you produce threat? Well, as soon as there is a defense breaker and a damage dealer on the same team, there is major threat. If there is an attack buffer and a damage dealer, once again that is threatening. If there is an attack bar booster and an ignore armor damage dealer, that's kind of scary too! So, as you can see, there are many ways to create threat. My favorite way to create threat is with control, I like using an AOE stripper, an AOE CC monster followed by some kind of damage dealer. I will give examples of great team combinations later in the guide.

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Every GWD team needs to be exceptional in some way. Ether it be being incredibly tanky with control, crazy fast attack bar booster, 100% resistant team, overwhelming damage, incredible sustain, everyone on will runes and so on. If you just throw 3 monsters together that "should" work well together without making them great on purpose, the odds are they will just be average or below average. Don't stop tweaking your teams and testing and trying different things until your win ration in defense is 2-1 at least. If it's less than that then there is improvement to be made. It could however just be as simple as your guild level is much higher than your own and your rune quality is just not there. 

 

Be patient, this takes time to tweak each team until you get great success. Every great player in SW did not start off great. They all lost countless of times and revamped teams and farmed and farmed and farmed countless amounts of hours before they got to where they are. 

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Examples of strong GWD teams and why

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​So right off the hop im going to say that any monster that has any kind of damage reduction passive or reduced crit or chance of glancing etc... skills is already good here. It adds unpredictability which then increases the chance of things not going right for the attacker.

You really want bruiser monsters in GWD, monsters that can take a hit EXCEPT if you have a really good swift set on a fast attack bar booster which then allows you to get 1st turn and exterminate the opponent's team before they can say " OH NOOO!"

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• FML aka Fran Miho Loren: This is just a nightmare for the enemy unless they can somehow get rid of miho ASAP with a mechanic bypass like oblivion, 2A Prom S1 or Raki S3 kinda thing.

• Fran Loren Elsharion: If you build Elsharion tanky but with slot 4 CD he is hard to take down and with each buff he does more damange and with Fran backing him up and stealing buffs, this is nasty for sure.

• Fran Loren any DD: Honestly Fran Loren and hard hitter that can take a hit is just hard to take down.

• Jeanne Belladeon Xiao Ling: Just make sure they all have 59% resistance and Jeanne is the leader, then the only other major thing is to put bella on revenge. Sit back and watch the defence wins.

• Basalt Zinc Mantura: Make sure they are all on will runes and turn order Mantuara, Basalt, Zinc. You would be surprised how many meta accounts under estimate this.

• Eshir Monte Jubelle: I know you would have needed to be there for Monte HoH but for an example's sake, Monte goes first and reduces someones hp significantly, then jubelle defense breaks then eshir comes in for the kill. It gets a lot of wins for sure.

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I don't want to go crazy with the examples to limit your imagination but the formula it to have a threat on every team. That can be created in so many ways. Just make sure there is crazy control (With a stripper first) OR crazy speed OR crazy damage with will OR just someone so WACK that the enemy would never expect it. Even if you just get 1 win per person hitting, it's still good because your holding the enemy off, even slightly. Siege takes effort and thought to be great at it and if you try to just slip by then you will get "just slip by" results.

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I hope this helps!!!

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~DL

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