So, today I was playing Voidstar. Level 50 Republic side PUG, nothing too unusual except for some mind-numbingly dumb tactics.

We start out on defense, and I head to the right door along with two or three others. We fend off the initial wave of Imps, and then the entire rest of the team heads to the left door to help defend against a heavy onslaught there.

 

They left a Gunnery Commando to solo guard a door. Do they think I'm a Shadow tank or something?

 

Needless to say, I call the incs as soon as I see them and proceed to get stunlocked to death within ten seconds of first hit. Since nobody came to help me until I was already dead, we lose the door. And then the SAME EXACT THING happens on the second door. Everyone leaves but me, I call for a guard buddy before I even see any imps incoming on my side, but I get stunlocked by three imps, downed pretty quickly, and we lose the door. (Yeah, the Commando sucks pretty badly in 1v1s. We're only useful in support roles.)

 

I guess what I'm asking is if this seems to be a common occurrence (I've never had this happen to me before) and if anyone knows a way to prevent it when asking nicely doesn't help.

You are asking VS only? I think a solo guard is common, but not a non-stealth one. If there is a non-stealth one that looks like they are solo then usually they are really "bait". Sounds like your team wasn't paying attention to who they left over there, just that there was a purple icon on that side of the map (or maybe not even that).

I used to always get stuck guarding solo as a Sage when I'd PUG. I'd still usually guard fine and have a ton of solo kills, but the class is garbage and not what I'd put as a guard strategically. I noticed though if I didn't do it nobody would, and I used to want to actually win in PVP so I'd just do it (and I won a lot even as a PUG).

 

I really hate the map design that you'd even need guards. When I'd premade usually a Guardian would handle guard duty for us, but we'd always be really quick to handle incoming and rotate around. I'd always urge my teams to rotate guard duty, and even the better PUG players will cover on rotations too. It's more fun that way and it's also safer. Nobody actually wants to guard because it's usually boring, and nobody appreciates it. I can't tell you how many times as a PUG some warzone hero would look at my stats and loudly explain "you are a bad" to everyone, while he runs off just padding damage stats (and usually not being effective).

 

The new VS with that wall is a little harder to rotate around but still doable. The other node capture maps are very easy to rotate on.

 

This is why I like Huttball so much. It's the only map in the game not based completely off TTK. Half the ACs in this game are utterly worthless in the other maps. In Huttball every single AC is viable. And the smashmonkeys aren't even just automatically dominant. It's also the only map where if it's a complete blowout, at least the game should be over quickly. I guess the new WZ maybe also is rather fast, but I don't have much exp with it since it never pops anyway. I've played it maybe twice.

You are asking VS only? I think a solo guard is common, but not a non-stealth one. If there is a non-stealth one that looks like they are solo then usually they are really "bait". Sounds like your team wasn't paying attention to who they left over there, just that there was a purple icon on that side of the map (or maybe not even that).

 

Nothing wrong with being bait

I can't tell you how many times as a PUG some warzone hero would look at my stats and loudly explain "you are a bad" to everyone, while he runs off just padding damage stats (and usually not being effective).

 

This is the worst part of being stuck defending a node, it kills your stats....you very well were the reason your team won the match but your teammates will look at your total damage and think you're a noob. /sigh

Edited January 20, 2013 by Darth-Rammstein

I just cannot get rid of this thougt everytime i see an arsenal commando, no matter how hard i try i hear this loud noise in my head: Free kill! I am sorry.

So, today I was playing Voidstar. Level 50 Republic side PUG, nothing too unusual except for some mind-numbingly dumb tactics.

We start out on defense, and I head to the right door along with two or three others. We fend off the initial wave of Imps, and then the entire rest of the team heads to the left door to help defend against a heavy onslaught there.

 

They left a Gunnery Commando to solo guard a door. Do they think I'm a Shadow tank or something?

 

Needless to say, I call the incs as soon as I see them and proceed to get stunlocked to death within ten seconds of first hit. Since nobody came to help me until I was already dead, we lose the door. And then the SAME EXACT THING happens on the second door. Everyone leaves but me, I call for a guard buddy before I even see any imps incoming on my side, but I get stunlocked by three imps, downed pretty quickly, and we lose the door. (Yeah, the Commando sucks pretty badly in 1v1s. We're only useful in support roles.)

 

I guess what I'm asking is if this seems to be a common occurrence (I've never had this happen to me before) and if anyone knows a way to prevent it when asking nicely doesn't help.

 

I was left on my Mercenary to solo guard in the new warzone many times

You know what was the worse? I once had a 'premade' in my team. One would think a premade, that is doing ranked, is smart enough not to leave Merc (healer) to solo guard in, not just that, any warzone.

It is not rare for me to solo guard on my healing Sorcer, too.

In Huttball every single AC is viable.

 

hahaha nice jok...oh you were serious? HAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

This happens all the time on my gunnery commando. And what you do is, DONT BE THE LAST ONE THERE! LOL!

 

Just never put yourself in that position if possible. Stay 25-30m back from whatever objective you are guarding or attacking. When the group shifts move with them. They will be mad at the stealth classes for not guarding, not u if it gets left. And feel free to call out " 'side' is unguarded! "

 

As for a free kill, I find that I can duel down most people 1on1 if equally geared. But many times you get jumped and each person thinks they killed you but it was like 2 or 3 people. Most people dont interrupt and if they do I know what to do in response. I feel like gunnery commando is easy to play but hard to play REALLY well. But if you can manage its not that weak. We just need a root or 2. Maybe a 3 second combat stealth? And we'd be good.

hahaha nice jok...oh you were serious? HAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

 

Three things -

 

1.) Most non-stealth classes don't have the tools to deal with three Imps showing up and stun-locking them, so it isn't just because you're a Commando.

 

2.) Someone else mentioned guarding as a Sorc. I LOVE guarding as my Sorc. Maybe it wasn't this good back in the day, but with bubble stun how it is now, I can keep two attackers pretty occupied and myself healed long enough for help to arrive. I even did it against three attacks the other day (landed a bubble stun on two of them, whirlwind the third, was able to recast my bubble since the first one's lockout was from before the fight, electrocute one of the guys who came out of his bubble, fight a bit 1v1, my second bubble goes off, I'm still at 100% health, etc).

 

3.) And someone else mentioned Guardians guarding. While a Guardian tank has good suvivability, I would hesitate to put a Focus Guardian on a node in CW or Novare. In order to win solo fights (which they aren't even built for, so you're wasting them at a node), a Focus Guardian is going to want to leap to a target. But leaping away from your node is a terrible idea. So, if a smart ranged class attacks, you have to either try to LOS them without getting too far from the node, or risk leaping to them when they might have a stealther ready to plant with your leap down and you possibly about to get stunned/mezzed/slowed 30m from the node.

Commando is actually one of the better solo guarders, not as good as a stealther, but better than say, a melee

If you don't want to guard a door, don't put yourself in a position to guard the door. If I'm guarding a node as a healer and we need heals elsewhere I just say something in ops chat and someone relieves me. Your job as a "guarder" isn't to solo kill everyone who approaches you. Your job is to keep them off of the objective until help arrives. If you can't do that you shouldn't be on guard duty.

Commando is actually one of the better solo guarders, not as good as a stealther, but better than say, a melee

Against an Annihilation Marauder or an Advanced Prototype Powertech, sure. We have the tools to keep them at range and our ability to cleanse their DoTs gives us some extra survivability. But against a stealth DPS like the Deception Assassin or the Concealment Operative, we'll get bursted down pretty quickly.

If you're going to leave a ranged DPS to solo guard a node, you can't do much better than a Gunslinger. Pop Hunker Down, cast Freighter Flyby, and you've bought your team 12 seconds (with set bonus) of stalling.

 

If you don't want to guard a door, don't put yourself in a position to guard the door.

I like guarding, I just don't like having to do it alone because of the Commando's unfavorable matchups against stealthers.

Edited January 20, 2013 by venomlash

This is the worst part of being stuck defending a node, it kills your stats....you very well were the reason your team won the match but your teammates will look at your total damage and think you're a noob. /sigh

 

Yeah, it's even worse if you solo took a node or did it several times. I'd win a lot of PUG matches because I'd go and take nodes by myself, and there were a few players I really liked playing with on PUGs because they'd attack the nodes at the same time as me, we'd just both wind up at a weakly defended node at the very right moment, flip it, and then we'd be ahead because of that. Smart players can judge a situation and the numbers and time it takes to travel and use that to their advantage. Usually you don't even kill the defender(s). You mezz them and position to take it on Alderaan for instance. Even in NC, there are many times you can grab a node without killing the guard.

 

Your stats won't be great but that's so much more effective than sitting in mid with everyone else, not taking the node, and DOTing everyone up or what not.

 

And of course when you flip a node, your teammates really should be heading out to help defend it especially if they see the enemy team moving to go for it. These are things that should be done even on a PUG level, and players that can solo take nodes are a huge advantage to have. But even outside of PUGs, the best premades all have really crappy stats. They have very low deaths, but they don't do much damage or get too many kills, because when you are properly playing you are controlling the field and quickly dispatching enemies, and then mostly just disrupting caps and keeping the field clear. Whenever I see people bragging about 500k damage or something, I know it's a scrubby player and team. You should be getting 150k or less damage spread out for each DPS, maybe on total you're cracking 500k but no one individual should be getting that number.

 

Three things -

 

1.) Most non-stealth classes don't have the tools to deal with three Imps showing up and stun-locking them, so it isn't just because you're a Commando.

 

2.) Someone else mentioned guarding as a Sorc. I LOVE guarding as my Sorc. Maybe it wasn't this good back in the day, but with bubble stun how it is now, I can keep two attackers pretty occupied and myself healed long enough for help to arrive. I even did it against three attacks the other day (landed a bubble stun on two of them, whirlwind the third, was able to recast my bubble since the first one's lockout was from before the fight, electrocute one of the guys who came out of his bubble, fight a bit 1v1, my second bubble goes off, I'm still at 100% health, etc).

 

3.) And someone else mentioned Guardians guarding. While a Guardian tank has good suvivability, I would hesitate to put a Focus Guardian on a node in CW or Novare. In order to win solo fights (which they aren't even built for, so you're wasting them at a node), a Focus Guardian is going to want to leap to a target. But leaping away from your node is a terrible idea. So, if a smart ranged class attacks, you have to either try to LOS them without getting too far from the node, or risk leaping to them when they might have a stealther ready to plant with your leap down and you possibly about to get stunned/mezzed/slowed 30m from the node.

 

Yeah the game has changed over time, no stun bubble in the past when I was active. Guardians were also fantastic in the previous game about a year ago to hold, especially with lower TTKs than now.

 

I like guarding, I just don't like having to do it alone because of the Commando's unfavorable matchups against stealthers.

 

Pretty much everyone has unfavorable match ups against stealthers. Commandos have 4s stun, knockback, a mez, a few AOEs, heal, and most importantly, sticky grenade.

whats worse is in NC when no one wants to guard and the responsible pvper guards the whole match getting 6 medals while those fighting get 15.

On my Sniper 8/10 of my matches I guard our objective, and 9/10 times I solo guard our objectives. It's a piece of cake so long as you know what you're doing. Yet again, the problem Solo guarders tend to have is either not knowing how to properly solo guard (such as leaving someone who has never guarded in their life to solo guard) or their class is just not up to it. Snipers tend to be good all-round (great DPS, average survivability if abilities are used correctly, excellent defenders) so I don't have much problem with solo guarding. I'm so used to it that I've become 70% more paranoid thanks to Stealthers. Every 3 seconds I think that someone might be ninja capping. Edited January 20, 2013 by Chlomamf

I am a Sage and got left on guard duty. Didn't end all that well... LOL.

Trying to slow 3 guys down from the objective doesn't work well..

 

Alot of guarding techniques depend on the situation, what class the enemy is, and how the enemy is moving.

Edited January 20, 2013 by Northandler

This is happens all the time on my gunnery commando. And what you do is, DONT BE THE LAST ONE THERE! LOL!

...

 

I get stuck on guard duty all the time too (and I'm a Commando, starting to see a pattern...). It's not so much that I get volunteered for it, it's just that nobody defends and I'm to only one to turn back and do it. It all comes from the fact that people only focus on DPS now and not the strategy of the game. Like morons feeding kills to A. Hypergates mid while the pylons are undefended. The result is almost always a loss, it doesn't matter how great your DPS was is the opposing team oitmanuvered you while you beat on their tank/healer combo.

 

I think teams send commandos do it because as the weakest class they figure it frees up others to be on the attack. But it's bad logic to have a squishy class with no escape ability defend your most valuable asset. Besidese Commandos are their most eeffective in a group where they can be ignored or distraction fodder.

 

Now on my commando I say **** it . Unless I'm the last person I don't turn back to defend. Leave it to the premade DPS who was the last one on the node to carry the responsibility. If they want to drop the ball for the team its on them , I'm not going to run back from mid just because they want to harvest DPS.

 

Playing as my Scoundrel on the other hand I always defend, stealth is the best defense. Engineer sniper is great too, the 9sec plasma probe on 9sec cooldown is excellent to protect on Voidstar door while you snipe the other door.

this is what i have done in the last couple civil wars in lowbie 10-49

 

i will usually peel to the left node as game begins grabbing the pvp buff along the wall

i will then head to the left node to support cap

after cap i will start moving to the mid node checking the map the whole time

75% of the time the others at the cap will follow me to mid so now there is no one guarding

i then backtrac to the node to solo d mentioning my disgust in ops chat

 

if the enemy team gets the other two nodes and we make little impact then i will solo d for the first 4 medals or so then announce in ops chat that i will be abandoning the solo guard responsibilities to get my other 4 medals (the easy ones to get real quick-- assassin; 2k damage; and those others that rack up real quick when first dishing out damage)

 

sometimes the action results in a turn around others i get wiped and i'll humbly return to node duty to wait out the wz

Edited January 21, 2013 by Daxy

I think I'd rather take the loss then get stuck being bored in a game. If your team stinks it won't even really matter anyway, eventually everyone will wind up defending that one node while waiting out the game to end (this is where leaving early may be the smarter choice).

 

If your team is good someone will cover it especially if they see the node is empty or they see enemy forces moving towards it. Honestly for most of these simple WZ maps, if it's PUG vs PUG especially, you simply don't need to announce incoming or anything else, you should be able to figure out where the enemy is and where they're going just by surveying the tiny little WZ.

 

When it's a voice chat premade vs a PUG you're going to lose anyway, so it won't even matter. If you need to announce incomings and such you don't even have a chance to be competitive, you'll always be reacting too slowly.

I often times end up guarding the node because everyone else runs off and unless I want us to lose I have to stay put...it sucks but most people don't have the attention span to sit there and wait for the enemy that may never come.

if there's a solo non-stealther guard at civil war or hypergates, I'll so cap it everytime on my operative, regardless what class it is (Except if they position themselves smart, which very rarely occurs). I'm comfortable solo- guarding with my BH, since I also play a stealther and know how to counter a ninja-cap, but as I've seen most people don't care about it.

This is the worst part of being stuck defending a node, it kills your stats....you very well were the reason your team won the match but your teammates will look at your total damage and think you're a noob. /sigh

 

No one cares about objective points in WZ it seems