Capping, just don't get it

[Wethospu]

I have yet to understand what's so good and cool in "cap, cap, cap" strategy which most ABers seem to love.

I will first define two strategies:
Capping: Focus on capping, avoid battles
Killing: Focus on smart killing, cap when killing isn't possible

Simple situation:
Luxon squad captures a shrine. Kurzick squad captures a shrine.

Cap strategy: Both run past each other and go cap. Result: Equal shrines
Kill strategy: One squad kills the other one. Result: Equal shrines, points from killing and enemy squad disabled for a while.


According to this, cap strategy is low risk, low reward. And killing strategy is high risk (low if you are good), high reward.


And second thing which I can't understand. Once our side is losing, people start screaming "cap more!!!". If we focus on capturing, we can only win if they fail with killing strategy. And as we are already losing, I doubt they use bad strategies.

[EmptySkull]

Having capped flags gets you points faster than killing.

Winning the Battle: To win a battle the winning side has to accumulate 500 points before the other side. Accumulating points can be done in two ways:

1. Killing players of the opposing faction. 3 points are added per kill.
2. Holding a control point: From the start of the match, every 7 seconds the game checks to see how many control points a side holds. 1 point is added to a side's score for every control point that side holds when the game checks.

In AB capping the flag is the key. It could take a lot longer than 7 seconds to kill someone. And you would only get 3 points. But if you hold 3 flags when the game checks, you get 3 points every 7 secs. And if you hold 4, 5, or 6(which is what you will hold if the opposing team is fighting, not capping) then you get 4,5,6 points every 7 secs.

[Nathardia]

Just killing is bad strategy because you do not gain points fast enough to win. That said, the trick is not only to cap, but to defend or offend shrines when required as well; especially strategically points like the res shrines. Also, avoid fighting the mob, because that's a pointless fight.

[Wethospu]

--In AB capping the flag is the key. It could take a lot longer than 7 seconds to kill someone. And you would only get 3 points. But if you hold 3 flags when the game checks, you get 3 points every 7 secs. And if you hold 4, 5, or 6(which is what you will hold if the opposing team is fighting, not capping) then you get 4,5,6 points every 7 secs.

Ok, what when both teams are capping? Just run around? Isn't that pretty boring and stupid?
And what if you have 8 vs 4 and you could easily kill them fast? Split and go cap shrines?
And what about my example situation?

Just killing is bad strategy because you do not gain points fast enough to win. That said, the trick is not only to cap, but to defend or offend shrines when required as well; especially strategically points like the res shrines. Also, avoid fighting the mob, because that's a pointless fight.

I would be very happy if you even tried to answer to my questions.

[Mog Wai]

I have yet to understand what's so good and cool in "cap, cap, cap" strategy which most ABers seem to love.
I will first define two strategies:
Capping: Focus on capping, avoid battles
Killing: Focus on smart killing, cap when killing isn't possible
Simple situation:
Luxon squad captures a shrine. Kurzick squad captures a shrine.
Cap strategy: Both run past each other and go cap. Result: Equal shrines
Kill strategy: One squad kills the other one. Result: Equal shrines, points from killing and enemy squad disabled for a while.
According to this, cap strategy is low risk, low reward. And killing strategy is high risk (low if you are good), high reward.
And second thing which I can't understand. Once our side is losing, people start screaming "cap more!!!". If we focus on capturing, we can only win if they fail with killing strategy. And as we are already losing, I doubt they fail with killing strategy in case they even use it.

There is lower reward in just killing then capping. The faster you cap the shrines, the quicker your points accumulate. Your opinion that there is low reward in capping is wrong.

[shawn]

I don't think you guys are quite getting what he means.

A luxon team and a kurzick team both cap a shrine. They run circles around each other, and just keep capping over each other. There's no gain.

In the second scenario, both teams cap the shrines like before, but then I get our team to charge the luxons, utterly destroy their faces, cap over their shrine, and then move over to cap the next one. We're up two shrines compared to the previous example.

[Wethospu]

There is lower reward in just killing then capping. The faster you cap the shrines, the quicker your points accumulate. Your opinion that there is low reward in capping is wrong.

Wait an one burning second. What is the other team doing while you cap? Good question in deed.



And thanks Shawn, maybe your better wording will make people understand my first post. :)

[Nathardia]

And thanks Shawn, maybe your better wording will make people understand my first post. :)

That's what I said.

That said, the trick is not only to cap, but to defend or offend shrines when required as well;

This means killing the opposing team; thus not running circles around them.

[Alaris]

It's a good question, but I think you don't have the right tradeoff.

Either strategy will give a tie if both teams are matched in strength. The point here is that you're comparing the rewards for capping vs killing.

Pro's for capping:
1) By avoiding fights, you can run faster to the other shrines and cap them faster.
2) You also can bring specialized builds to that effect.
3) You can also split more.

Pro's for killing:
1) You get points for killing enemies.
2) You can still cap, but at a slower rate.

So in the example, when the capping team meets the killing team in the middle, the killing team will start casting offensive spells. They might kill 1 or 2 opposite team members. But they will have to stop running in order to do so, or even run back towards the shrine they already capped in order to get the kill.

Meanwhile, the capping team keeps the original shrine, and might even have enough time to at least disable the other shrine. Thus they gain a shrine advantage.

So basically, it's not true that you can cap & kill without trade-off.

[shawn]

I have no idea how you figure that you can run faster and split more if you're capping, nor how a "specialized build" for capping is any different from a normal one. Why the hell would you ever not bring a speed boost in AB? By killing people capping certain shrines, you get the Battle Cry bonus which increases your run speed to +25%. That plus the run boosts everyone should have anyway, means there's hardly any time lost killing people and capping their shrines.

And you can "split more?" What? Again I don't see how choosing to kill teams or avoid them has any bearing on this. I don't need a specific 'capping build' to go split off and solo a ranger shrine on my warrior, for god sakes. Hell, you don't even need a self heal for that, just dodge their attacks while going in and/or position a post between them and you.

And I don't care what kind of build you have, you won't get more accomplished by being able to 'split more,' because you'll be taking so many skills to increase your survivability or mobility you won't be able to kill a damn thing. Eg: Know who wins between a tank w/mo and a smart warrior with a good build and no self heal? The latter.

Just.. seriously. What.
"Ok, got that shrine, let's move onto the next one! Oh wait, there's a team that's moving in to cap it! Let's just completely ignore them, let them finish capping it, and move onto the next one!"
Seriously. You have got to be joking me.