sPvP Tips

• Blind downed opponents before you stomp them. For instance if you’re a engineer, drop a smoke bomb on them then stomp, they’ll miss their interrupt.
• If you manage to chill a player right after he’s downed and stomp him, the chill condition will actually slow down the recharge cool down of the interrupt skill long enough to guarantee your stop.
• Start your stomps at the downed players head. This way they will rotate toward you and will have to start their interrupt. Much easier to dodge through.
• Sometimes, it’s a really good idea to avoid stomping downed players to gain an advantage of having enemy players not contributing to their team. This is best done when there are no other enemy players nearby (for example when you killied someone at close and all the other players are at mid/far).The downed player will not only face the 15 second respawn time, but also he will be delayed by the downed time you left him bleeding. However, you must becareful not to allow his team-mates to rezz him. In that case, try to poison the downed player and finish him.
• A dead player can still call a target. Just a nice, helpful little thing to do for your team as you wait for the respawn.
• Auto-Target Toggle. Want to RTL/Swoosh/Leap away from enemies instead of towards them? Turn off auto-target and from now on, click away from the enemy to de-target them and leap away! Get used to calling targets and hitting ‘t’ or the target button to lock on your enemy if you turn auto-target off.
• Most of the downed interrupt skill have a cast time and animation. By learning these you can time your stability/invuln/blind etc to avoid the interrupt. If nothing else, dodging these then stomping again is usually faster than eating the interrupt.
• “AdvanceSkillTarget” in the options is one of your best friends against minion classes… If only it worked with stealth, lol.
• Mini-map and party interface are the most valuable assets given to a player with out voice communication!
• Don’t roam if your class has low mobility.
• If someone blinds you, press 1 a bunch of times to get rid of blindness before you go for the knockdown downed skill. Doesn’t work against d/p thieves.
• If you click where the revive button will be, you will automatically revive when the timer is up
• Downed State Interrupts you can react to – If you see a warrior raise his hand up for a split second, dodge backwards to avoid the knock down. If you see a engineer raise his hand up for a split second, dodge backwards to avoid the pull cc. If a necro puts his hand out and you start seeing a green aura building up, dodge backwards to avoid the fear cc. Guards have a faster interrupt cast, so you have to dodge immediately when you see the hand go up. I usually guestimate when they’ll use it and bait it out since my reaction time is subpar. Rangers have a faster interrupt cast similar to guard, so you would need to dodge immediately as the hand goes up. Same thing with guard, I usually guestimate when they’ll use it and bait it out since my reaction time is subpar. ALSO, the ranger’s interrupt skill is an aoe!—so if you and your buddy are stomping a ranger, it’s better for whoever is targeted to back out so if he does use his interrupt skill on them, only they will be hit. Thieves, Eles, Mesmers do not have any interrupt skills in their downed state.
• When in a fight try to stay aware of certain buffs and time your defense or offense early. Example, you see someone pop a haste buff they are probably going to burst you so get defensive quick. (Always try to have 1 dodge left at least). On the other hand if you see retaliation or protection go up stall your burst a few more seconds (however small the burst may be).
• If you are with an ally who is playing a thief and you get downed, hold off from attacking enemies if possible. Thiefs usually bring Shadows Refuge which will stealth both of you so that you can get rezzed, but if you attack, this will break stealth and leave you open for a stomp.
• You can use any instant cast abilities while stomping and not be interrupted.
• Condition removal is treated as last in first out so if you are a condition based damage class it is often good to “Hide” the damaging conditions like burning/confusion/bleeds by stacking as many other effects on top of it as possible.
• If you have voip try to get your entire team communicating who gets stomped from the other team and when so teammates can make decisions about roaming/pushing/secondary objectives. Keeping track of spawn timers and how many players are on the map and where is one of the biggest keys to improving at Tpvp. If you don’t have voip, try to keep track of the stomps that you can see for your own personal decision making.
• Understand your role within the team. Are you the bunker? Are you the back point defender? Are you a defensive roamer? Or are you an Offensive roamer? You should experiment with all of these play styles to find the one that suits you the most and then practice with it as much as you can. Over time your awareness towards your responsibilities, decision making, and comfort level should improve drastically.

Map tips

• Do not waste your time 1v1ing someone on an enemy controlled node for more than 40-60 seconds if you cant kill them quickly. Disengage and run to another node.
• Treb shots on Khylo – It takes approximately 3 seconds after you hear incoming for the treb to land. You cannot block treb shots—make sure you dodge them or take down that darn annoying trebber!
• Only one person can contribute towards capping a point. In other words, stop following players when they backcap open points.
• After capping a point hide near the point for a few moments to either ambush or distract people who were waiting for you to leave the point and recap it.
• If you control 2 points it is often better to fight “off point” and try to keep the other team from being able to regroup fully. If you control only 1 of the 3 points, try to avoid situations where you are fighting away from the points.
• Secondary objectives like the forest creatures or your treb on khylo should really be treated as secondary objectives. Only focus on these if you have a proper opening (if you just won a big team fight with 3-5 members of the other team off the map and accounted for or if you are a bit desperate and need the boost to try to get back into the game). Not doing this can often lead to improper time management for teams and having people in the wrong place to prevent counter attacks from the opposing teams. Also having forest creature kills stolen is a huge swing for the other team.
• Temple of the Silent Storm Buffs -Since it is the current map I figure this is appropriate. Stillness spawns the first time at 11:30 and gives you double points from nodes you control. Tranquility spawns at 8:30 and instantly gives you ALL 3 nodes. Ferocity STACKS. If you get them both and then blast out 5 kills it can be a very big difference maker. CC can be a huge factor in the group fight at Tranqility – Certain classes specc’d certain ways can CC an opponent off of the buff long enough for their team mate to complete the channel if they plan ahead and execute well. Think about how you might be able to do this. TIP – start on land and knockback, pull or fear your opponent into the water, then you can take advantage of your under water CC’s.
• Foefire: Healing the Lord – Pretty much all ally-type heals work on the lord, even tome of courage. So if you know your lord is gonna get spiked down, whip out that tome and get that full heal channeled while your teammates make their way towards capping, killing enemy lord, or coming to help.

Elementalist

• Elementalists can swap attunements while channeling spells like churning earth or before a dragon’s tooth lands to be under the effect of fury when damage/crits are actually calculated. If you are playing as Scepter/Dagger, you can also swap to air attunement and use your 2+3 abilities to clear blinds that people may put on you to prevent a churning earth from hitting.

vs Elementalist

• Eles do not have any interrupt skills in their downed state.

Engineer

• Drop a smoke bomb on enemies before you stomp, they’ll often miss their interrupt because of the blind.
• Instead of trying to stomp a downed player and probably getting interrupted and and try to stomp again, you can knock the player off point and either let him bleed to death or stomp him while being on point. This is to avoid allowing the downed player to keep the point naturalized and delay you. (This can be done by Big ol’ bomb or Rifle #4)
• The flame thrower #5 is a very useful skill due to it being instant thus can be used while stunned or stomping. So this skill can break the CC chain of hammer warriors by blinding the next attack and dodging out. However, you must already be in flamethrower kit as you can’t change kits while stunned.
• Engineers are not the best rezzers in the game when facing a hard stability enemy player stomping a downed ally. There is a hard technique that can be used in emergency cases (which requires a bomb kit). When you see an ally that’s about to die, try to drop a smoke bomb (Bomb kit #4) at his location. When he dies, try to blast in that area to put both you and the downed ally in stealth. There are a wide choice of abilities used to blast ( Sheild #4, Rifle #5 even tho it’s leap it still works, Detonating a turret), but my favorite being the supply crate, because the downed player will probably need some support  after getting up.

vs Engineer

• Engi Condition Immune Trait – If you are facing an engineer and get a lot of ‘Immune’ messages that means that have traited to be immune to conditions when they hit 25% hp. This means conditions cannot be applied during this hp range—however, any conditions applied before then will still linger. If you are condition based fighter, try to figure out a way to do direct damage during this time and not spam conditions otherwise the engineer will normally stall long enough to regain it’s health.
• Engineer elixir tosses are considered projectiles and can be “blocked” by things like Sanctuary, Shield of absorption, or Wall of reflection. This includes Toss Elixir R so you can prevent the res utility.
• If you see a engineer raise his hand up for a split second, dodge backwards to avoid the pull cc.

Guardian

• Use a sword on battle of kyhlo so you can port back on top of mid point when knocked off it.

vs Guardian

• Guards have a faster interrupt cast, so you have to dodge immediately when you see the hand go up. I usually guestimate when they’ll use it and bait it out since my reaction time is subpar.

Mesmer

• Mesmers have this amazing utility skill called Feedback. Most of us know that it blocks ranged attacks and is cast on targets. What some people don’t realize is that if your targets runs out of the bubble (most likely in sPvP) you can run inside and still get the benefit of reflecting projectiles. This is also a recommended combo field to generate Chaos Armor by leaping through it or giving your allies CA by way of blast finishers inside the bubble. Not only does this utility help against ranged attacks and generate CA for you and/or allies, but it’s usefulness doesn’t end there. You can cast it on downed opponents for the following uses: Thieves – Reflects all of their downed attacks which can be quite strong. Warriors – Reflects their attacks AND their interrupt, making them easy stomps. Engineers – Reflects their first interrupt (and I think down attacks) making them much easier to stomp. When traited it can also be used to blind every class in an attempt to cause their interrupt to miss but this applies to all glamours, not just Feedback.

vs Mesmer

• Fake-Out Stomp vs. Mesmers – If you down a mesmer, you can fake-out a stomp (aka start stomp => hit back to cancel or whatever you use to cancel the stomp => restart the stomp) to bait out the mesmer’s downed cloak/short teleportation skill (skill 2). If you pull it off, most of the time the mesmer will appear within stomping distance and you’ll pull off the stomp. If you have shadowstep or a blink-type move, that’s even better. This could potentially save you a lot of time fighting against downed mesmers.
• Which one is the real one? – Are you having problems discerning between the real mesmer and his clones? Go to options and unclick “Show all enemy names” “NPC Names” and make sure to click “Show all player names” Now you can see the real mesmer’s name tag. The rest is up to you.
• Recognizing Mesmer Sound Effects to avoid Blurred Frenzy – When a mesmer blinks, they have a distinct sound effect (hard to describe but if you have a mesmer you will know what I mean!) If you dodge right when you hear the sound effect, more likely than not, you’ll be evading a blurred frenzy (and the immobolize that comes with the blink).
• If you are fighting a Mesmer and you see a clone come running at you, either kill it or try to dodge. You can avoid the immob this way and severely hamper their shatter combos.
• Mesmers do not have any interrupt skills in their downed state.

Necromancer

• Death Shroud Stomp & Res – To DS Stomp, hit F1 and then your stomp key right after (as if you were rolling from key to key)—It has to be really quick in order for it to register and you will know if you pulled it off if you see the stomping animation. To DS Res, do the same thing on a downed ally. You will pop DS and res. This helps in tanking enemies who spam aoes or like to focus on you while you res.
• Spectral walk+Wurm minion stomping – Similar to how thieves can port in and out to avoid downed state interrupts, a necromancer can do the same by popping the wurm minion some way out of downed player’s reach, then begin the stomp, pop spectral walk, the wurm after, and return back to original location by activating spectral teleport right before the stomp hits. Sadly, the trick is reserved for wvw and hotjoin alone, because they use utilities necromancers normally cannot bring in tpvp.
• Using DS 3 as a stunbreaker, or spike preventer – Whenever you missed a dodge on an important CC, or have been CCed from a stealthed opponent, instantly DS fear the opponent about to spike/excuting a spike. Ineffective against stability-assisted spikes, however. Occasionally also works on mesmers right before they wish to jump after spawning sword 3 clone, but I suppose the effect is limited to slow/bad players, because sword 3 is also a stunbreaker, which in effect makes CCing them proactively useless, and you cannot CC them reactionary because of invulnerability.
• If you use the unblockable marks trait as a necromancer you can completely negate a guardian’s shelter heal if you time your fear marking to land between them activating it and the delay before the heal actually takes place.
• If a necro puts his hand out and you start seeing a green aura building up, dodge backwards to avoid the fear cc.

vs Necomancer

• Necro DS Stomp counter – If you are one of those professions that can interrupt a stomp and you are facing a necro who tries to DS stomp you. Without even scouting whether he has stability on Death Shroud or not, time your interrupt for the last moment of the stomp animation. It could save your life (Death Shroud stability doesn’t last the whole stomp animation). This assumes the necro doesn’t have any boon duration increase. Otherwise consider interrupting them before they are in range of a stomp.

Ranger

• You can use Ranger Pet skills when downed – You can still use them when downed even though they are not in the GUI. So yes, you can interrupt with your #2 skill and then wolf fear and then command the wolf to knock down your opponent then switch pets to something else and so on and so forth.

vs Ranger

• Rangers have a faster interrupt cast similar to guard, so you would need to dodge immediately as the hand goes up. Same thing with guard, I usually guestimate when they’ll use it and bait it out since my reaction time is subpar. ALSO, the ranger’s interrupt skill is an aoe!—so if you and your buddy are stomping a ranger, it’s better for whoever is targeted to back out so if he does use his interrupt skill on them, only they will be hit.

Thief

• Thief ShadowStep Stomp – This one is pretty fun, and there are quite a few ways to do this. Using ShadowStep Utility: Start the stomp, shadowstep as far as you can away from your opponent (behind him is always good) and then return when you are midway dropping down to get a stomp. This is especially good against Guardians. If you are facing another thief, you would save your shadowstep until he teleports. Using Sword & Infiltraitor’s Signet: Use sword #2 to shadowstep to your opponent and start the stomp. Return using sword #2 again and then use the signet to shadowstep back to your opponent. Using Sword & Steal: Use sword #2 and start the stomp and then sword #2 again to return to your original location. Then use steal to blink to your opponent to pull off the stomp. Using Steal vs. Thief/Mesmer: If the mesmer cloaks early but reappears too far or if the thief chooses an unindentifiable location to teleport. Using steal can lockdown on them as long as you have them targetted so you can finish the stomp on them. Using Infiltrator’s Signet: Same effect as using steal.
• Use Shadow Refuge for both rezing teammates and stomping enemies.
• The elite skill Dagger Storm is great for killing the caster minions with reflect on Foefire when going for a Lord kill.

vs Thief

• It’s always better to dps out a thief in downstate rather than stomp him. (Unless you can teleport-stomp).
• Thieves do not have any interrupt skills in their downed state.

Warrior

• Warrior Vengeance Invulnerability – If you are downed as a warrior, popping vengeance will give you a short time of invulnerability. Use it to stomp a player instead of just dpsing him unless they are the thieves/mesmers/eles (hopefully you have sweet revenge traited).

vs Warrior

• If you see a warrior raise his hand up for a split second, dodge backwards to avoid the knock down.