One's Addendum to "Phil's PVP guide"

[daBelgrave]

Have you ever found yourself fighting impossible odds consisting of five carriers or enough escorts to vaporize half your team in a matter of seconds? If so, this guide is for you. When it comes to PvP, there are two ways of playing. The first is pugging, or joining random queues by yourself, and the second is going in as a team, whether pug-made or pre-made. This is the primary difference between the views on PvP that myself and Phil have. He does more pugging, I prefer to go with teams.

My goal in this addendum to Phil's guide is to build on his advice, and explain how to get the most out of teamwork. My experience with teamwork includes leading or being part of pre-mades, pug-mades, and using a wide range of communications, team tactics, and strategies.

Quick Explanation:
Pre-Made = a team where eveyone's builds compliment the others, and team members know how everyone's builds work together. This is very hard to do, and takes lots of practice.
Pug-Made = a team where everyone knows each other, but there is no "planned" synergy between builds. Most of the time you will be in a pug-made.

In both cases, working together can turn an impossible situation into a glorious victory. Or, you might find yourself against a team of similar experience, and end up in a fast-paced, finger-numbing, 3-hour adrenalin rush (2nd best battle I've ever been in!). My goal with this guide, as I get around to writing it, is to improve the fleet's PvP teamwork. Let Phil help you get the most out of your individual setups... I'll help you get the most out of your teammates' setups.


INDEX
Space:

• The "Selfish" vs. "Unselfish" Build
• Cohesion
• Know Your "Role"
• Communication: General
• Communication: Calling Targets
• Communication: Requesting Heals and Buffs
• Communication: Coordinated Efforts
• Basic Team Tactics and Strategies
• Advanced Team Tactics and Strategies

Ground:

• Coming soon!

Generic:

• How to be a Team Leader
• How to be a Team Member

[daBelgrave]

The synergy of a team depends on the abilities each player brings. Escort captains bring abilities that increase the damage they pump out. Science Vessel captains bring abilities that weaken the enemy or puts them out of the fight temporarily. Cruiser captains bring abilities to support their team. Everyone also brings some heals and buffs. These keep players alive longer, but the hard part is choosing the best ones that will benefit you and your team.

With this in mind, one should know the difference between Selfish and Unselfish setups. Selfish setups bring heals and buffs that only work on the player activating the ability. Unselfish setups bring heals and buffs that can be shared with other teammates, and gladly do so.

Unselfish Heals and Buffs:

• Attack Pattern Delta: Debuffs target's attackers (team and self, recommended on Escorts if possible).
• Auxiliary to Structural: Hull heal, hull resistance (team and self, recommended on Cruisers).
• Engineering Team: Hull heal, clears engineering debuffs (team and self, not recommended in most cases).
• Extend Shields: Shield resistance (team only, recommended on Cruisers at least).
• Hazard Emitters: Hull heal, hull resistance, clears stuff like warp plasma (team and self, recommended for everyone).
• Science Team: Shield heal, clears subnuc and other science debuffs (team and self, recommended on Science Vessels).
• Tactical Team: Quick shield distribution (team and self, recommended for everyone).
• Transfer Shield Strength: Shield heal, shield resistance (team and self, recommended for everyone).

Selfish Heals and Buffs:

• Auxiliary to Dampeners: Damage resistance, speed, immunity to repel and disables.
• Polarize Hull: Damage resistance, immunity to tractor beams.
• Reverse Shield Polarity: Converts some incoming damage to additional shields.

Rule:
At the bare minimum, EVERY ship should have Tactical Team, Transfer Shield Strength, and Hazard Emitters. Science Vessels should also have Science Team. Cruisers can pick up a variety of other abilities as well.

As depicted in these lists, it is very difficult to have a selfish setup based entirely on the abilities one brings. Also, the "selfish" abilities can be very beneficial on some ships. As a result, the biggest difference between Selfish and Unselfish setups is not necessarily the number of abilities one can share, but the willingness of the captain to share the abilities he or she can. If you need one of the "selfish" abilities, absolutely take it. They can still be good for keeping you alive.

Rule:
To share abilities, select the teammate who needs your help, and activate the ability. Give freely. You can keep your teammates alive, and they can then return the favor.

[daBelgrave]

How far can you stray from your team and still be a good team player? The answer is very situational, but there are several rules to consider.

Rule:
Stay within 10km of the primary healers on your team. This way you are always within range so they can give you heals when you need it. In fact, it is a good idea to stay within 10km of EVERYONE on your team.

Rule:
No rabbiting! When you start taking a pounding, do not run out of range of your team. There are two reasons for this. First, running takes you out of range of your heals. When they cannot heal you, the enemy can give chase and kill you easier. Second, if the enemy kills you since you cannot get heals, you leave your team at a disadvantage while you respawn. Your death can cause a domino effect.

Rule:
If the enemy runs from the battle, give chase ONLY if you know you can get a quick kill. The longer you are away from your team, the easier it is for the enemy team to kill one of your teammates. In fact, it is best not to give chase, since a miscalculation could leave you dead, and your team disadvantaged while you respawn.

[daBelgrave]

One of the hardest parts with forming a good team is making sure that every team member knows their role, or their part to play on the team. You do not want to enter battle only to have someone act like a recent graduate of the Pakled School of Smart (no offense if you actually are a Pakled). The easiest way to prevent this from happening is to make sure you know the role your ship and captain will play on a team. This is very basic material, but essential for working together.

Quick Explanation:
Your role is determined by your captain abilities and the ship you command. It is generally viable to command ship types outside the general focus of your captain.

Captain Types:

• Engineering: Heals.
• Science: Debuffs.
• Tactical: Damage.

Ship Types:

• Cruiser: Heals.
• Escort: Damage
• Science Vessel: Crowd Control

To determine your role, combine your captain type's focus to your ship's focus. For example, I am a Science Officer commanding an Escort. My role is Debuffing + Damage. This is an especially potent role since I weaken my enemies and hopefully blast them into spacedust. This is because of the synergy between my captain and the ship. Debuffing and damage are both roles that enhance the other.

However, not all "roles" are viable. The captain abilities can lack synergy with the ship type, or straight out create a conflict of interests. An example of this would be an Engineering Officer commanding an Escort. Heals + Damage = WTF?

Rule:
Know your role, but not just that. Make sure there is synergy between your captain abilities and Ship focus. Failing to do this makes you a liability to your team, and ineffective in PvP.

[daBelgrave]

Perhaps the number one requirement for a team in PvP is good communication. This lets the team coordinate attacks, heals, tactics, and strategies. It is also a good way to share information the team needs to know in order for the team leader to make good decisions. When fighting in a pug, communication is generally unreliable, so you can only trust your UI settings. When fighting in a team, you can get communication from other teammates so you are aware of things you might have accidentally missed.

There are two ways to communicate. The first is the in-game chat. Generally you will use Team chat, but in rare instances where you have more than 5 per side in challenge matches, you need to use another channel that everyone fighting with you can use. Unfortunately, text-based chat is unreliable and slow when everyone is engaged in a high-speed battle. Some players alleviate this issue by creating keybinds to send their most common messages across the Team channel. The second method to communicate is with voice. You will need a headset (recommended) or microphone to do this.

Our Voice Communication Information:

• Type: RaidCall (completely free!)
• Group: 6011667

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The benefit of using voice communications is it permits the team leader to make quick pre-battle reminders, ask questions, and gather information needed to setup the team tactics and strategies. Once in the match, it allows the team to quickly respond and adapt to unexpected enemy movements and challenges. Afterwards, the team can conduct a quick review of the battle.

Rule:
Good communication allows a team to function better than if everyone does their own thing.

So what happens if there is no communication among your teammates? For the most part, your chance of losing the match increase dramatically. Everyone does their own thing without any coordination with others. You might manage to get some good focus firing in there, but only if everyone has their UI set to show recently damaged enemy players, and fires on those most vulnerable. You also make it harder for any healers on your team to keep track of who needs the most urgent heals.

Rule:
Bad communication makes it harder to win.

[daBelgrave]

Calling targets is one type of communication no members of a team should ignore. This lets the team know what target to fire at, or if they need to quickly switch to another target.

The most basic way to do this is by using a keybind to announce the current target in Team chat. I use the [-] key.

Keybind: /bind - ChannelSend Team Everyone target $target.

When you do this, every time you press the [-] key you say, "Everyone target <your target>." Everyone can then find that target by looking around, or select you and click on your target.

If you use voice communications, calling targets can become part of a complex strategy (more on this later). The benefit of voice communications is not only that the team leader can quickly call out targets, but team members can mention of a weaker enemy player just returned to the battlefield, so the team leader can decide if the team should once again target that enemy player. There have been many times when, as team leader, I informed the rest of the team to let me know when X returned to the battle, since they were the weak link on their team. I also like to switch my targets quite often, to reduce the benefit of heals in the enemy team.

Rule:
Someone should always call targets. Generally this is the team leader, but they can designate a secondary target caller as well.

[daBelgrave]

Part of being a good team is the ability to ensure everyone gets the heals they need when they need them. How do you know when a teammate needs a Science Team or Hazard Emitters or another heal? How does your teammate know what heal they need? For the most part, knowing the needed heal will be something the primary healers on the team will need to learn by experience.

The most basic way to communicate if you need a heal is to use a keybind. I use the [=] key.

Keybind: /bind equals ChannelSend Team Can I get a heal please?

Each time you then press the [=] key, you ask for a heal. Unfortunately, you still are not giving your healers very much information to quickly decide the best available heal for you. This is where voice communication improves the team heals. With voice communication, you can mention if you need heals for shield, hull, or something else.

On the plus side, you might not always need to request heals. Good healers are good at quickly looking at a teammate, and knowing the best heals for them. If you have a healing role, learn how to look at a teammate's shield capacity, hull strength, and active buffs and debuffs. That will provide the information you need to know how best to support your team.

Rule:
If you need heals, you might need to ask for it. Be specific if possible.

Some Specifics:
Use Science Team on... a teammate who just got subnuced.
Use Hazard Emitters on... a teammate suffering plasma fires.

[daBelgrave]

Successful communicating goes beyond just calling targets or asking for heals. Successful communicating ensures everyone knows what is going on, is able to coordinate their efforts, and conduct complicated or precise maneuvers. This is beyond the capabilities of text-base communication, and requires voice communication.

In some cases, only the team leader should speak. This team member is the one choreographing the battle and making the strategic decisions. If there is too much other random chatter happening, the team leader's ability to communicate timely orders diminishes. Personally, I have been known to order teams to cut the chatter when it interferes, but I still like to have affirmation that my commands are received. This lets the leader know you are paying attention, and gives you a chance to reply if you can or cannot do as requested.

Rule:
Keep excess chatter to a minimum. The lines must be clear for necessary communication.

There are several times when you should announce your status.

• Tactical Officers: Announce when your "alpha strike" is available. Do not use it until ordered.
• Science Officers: Announce when your Subnuc and Sensor Scan are available. Do not use them until ordered.
• Healers: Announce if a requested heal is on cooldown. This way anyone else with the ability can check if theirs is available to share. If there are multiple healers, announce if you're responding to a heal request so the other knows to save their heal.
• Everyone: If your team leader keeps requesting one of your abilities in strategies, you might begin announcing when it becomes available.

Rule:
Communicating the status of certain abilities can improve the team's coordinated efforts.

One of the hard parts with coordinating efforts is the inability to always know which team member is speaking. Ease this confusion, and add your name to the message. For example, I would say "One needs a shield heal" instead of "I need a shield heal." This way the healers know right away who to heal. Otherwise they still have to take the time to look at everyone's shields, and determine who needs it most. Likewise, team leaders should inquire about the status of specific players rather than just a general, "any tacs have an alpha ready?"

Rule:
Use your name so others know who is talking.

[daBelgrave]

Tactics and strategies are difficult in PvP, especially if they use more than one player. Without communication, there is little coordination or flowing of information necessary to ensure every team member fights to the best of their ability. Individuals might be great at employing various tactics, but it takes communication to combine them into strategies.

Quick Explanation:
Tactics = the actions and movements that make up a strategy.
Strategy = the overall plan combining tactics to gain victory.

There are several basic tactics. You will find these in almost any PvP battle.

• Alpha Strike: This is done by Tactical Officers commanding Escorts. It combines Attack Pattern: Alpha with many of their other damage-buffing abilities, such as Fire on My Mark, Attack Pattern: Omega, Cannon: Rapid Fire, and more. There are variants of this designed for cloaked ships or ships using Beam: Overload, but those can be more advanced.
• Quick Debuff: This is done by Science Officers, regardless of the ship type they command. It is a Subnucleonic Beam followed quickly by a Sensor Scan. This wipes away the enemy's buffs, extends their cooldowns, and decreases their damage resistance. Both of these abilities should be done with the highest Auxiliary power possible.
• Crowd Control: This is done in two ways. The first way is by using Science Bridge Officer abilities like Gravity Well, or Tractor Beam. The second is for a carrier to bring along fighters that use these abilities. The goal is to make it hard for the enemy to move or react to your team's attacks, or decrease their defense.
• Spam Control: When you fight against carriers, you often encounter very annoying and constant Tractor Beams, not to mention the constant fire from many directions at once. This can be difficult to survive. By having a team member involved in spam control, you can begin to alleviate the threat of enemy fighters, mines, turrets, and more. Spam clearing abilities are AoE (Area of Engagement) attacks that cause damage throughout an area rather than precision strikes. Some of these are Beam: Fire at Will, Cannon: Scatter Volley, and Torpedo: Spread.
• Healing: Although not directly involved in harming the enemy, healing is a major aspect of PvP. This is generally done by Cruisers or Science Vessels, although Escorts can also share a couple heals if absolutely necessary. The longer one keeps their damage-dealing teammates alive, the longer those teammates have to fight the enemy.

There are also a variety of basic strategies that combine these tactics. Most of these will require at least a small amount of communication.

• Focused Fire: Everyone mentions this, but it happens less frequently than you'd expect. This is when everyone on a team fires at the same target. This strategy is why the team leader calls targets.
• Focused Healing: To counter the enemy's focused fire, your team can use focused healing to keep the enemy's target alive. This is more than just giving requested heals. This is giving almost everything. The end result is the enemy ends up shooting at a near-invincible ship.
• Swift Kill: This takes a combination of two tactics: the Alpha Strike and the Quick Debuff. When the Science Officer debuffs the enemy, the Tactical Officer in the Escort moves in for the kill.
• Overwhelming Crowd Control: Do you command a carrier? If so, bring the fighters that give you the most annoying Crowd Control, like almost constant Tractor Beams. This will slow down enemy ships enough to reduce their defense, or make it nearly impossible for them to utilize their own tactics and strategies. Science Vessels can do similar, but with science abilities.

Rule:
Tactics and Strategies bring together the team into a solid fighting-force.

[daBelgrave]

When a team has a good grasp of the basic tactics and strategies it needs to use, the team leader can begin to implement advanced tactics and strategies. These require communication and coordination among team members in order to work. These are also what you might need to use in order to defeat experienced enemy teams.

These are a work in progress...as in I haven't had a chance to attempt many things yet.

Advanced Tactics:

• Coming Eventually!

Advanced Strategies:

• Multi-Target: This strategy works best if your team has at least two escorts, preferably three. If the enemy team is great at Focus-Healing, your team needs a strategy to divide their healing. This is when you go for multiple targets at the same time. The team leader needs to choose a primary and secondary target. One escort will then begin to pound at the secondary target, drawing the attention of enemy healers. The team leader will then call for a Swift Kill strategy on the primary target, which is a combination of the basic Quick Debuff and Alpha Strike tactics. If a team is extremely skilled, they can divide their fire between even more enemy targets to make this strategy even more effective.