Guild of the Week: Team Flamingo [FFs]

Born in the summer of 2006, Team Flamingo [FFs] is a relatively new guild. While they can't boast about a long history, their friendships extend back to prior guild memberships. A GvG-oriented guild, Flamingo focuses on maintaining good chemistry between members both on and off the battlefield.

Fun is the name of the game for Flamingo, and sometimes their odd sense of humor and silly behavior astonishes other players. However, when it comes to a match that counts, Flamingo is as serious as it gets. Members need to maintain a balance of fun and competitiveness, while staying thick-skinned enough to take both good-natured teasing and legitimate criticism of play.

In GvG combat, Flamingo prefers to outplay opponents tactically rather than overpowering them. Because of this philosophy, Flamingo prefers to field teams of split-capable characters, valuing player skill and battle awareness rather than relying on a build or gimmick to overwhelm and surprise opponents. Their primary aim is to succeed through superb strategy and battle tactics, and they believe that variable splits using self-sufficient characters reflects this goal.

For Flamingo, player chemistry is just as critically important as experience in the game. Their play style requires a high level of compatibility and communication. Flamingo members can always rely on each other when they need to. The guild roster is currently ten members, which helps maintain their tight knit team spirit.

Flamingo hopes that in the future they will become even more comfortable playing with each other, and continue to perform strongly in PvP play. They also have high aspirations for upcoming tournaments, and plan on remaining a force to be reckoned with on the GvG ladder.

PvP Discussion:

The build Flamingo runs is constantly changing and developing. As the split metagame evolves, Flamingo evolves along with it. Skills come and go on a daily basis; however, this is the basic pattern from which they design their build:

• Warrior/* - Flag Stand Hammer Warrior
• Warrior/Monk - "You're All Alone!" Sword Warrior
• Warrior/Monk - Eviscerate Axe Warrior
• Ranger/Monk - Burning Arrow Ranger
• Mesmer/Elementalist - Domination Mesmer
• Elementalist/Monk - Water Elementalist Runner
• Monk/*
• Monk/*

The team is not based on a specific split, such as 5/3, or 4/4. Instead, the build is versatile enough so Flamingo can split in multiple ways, tailoring to the situation of any given point in combat. Each character on the team has some form of self-contained Condition removal, with the exception of the Flag Stand Hammer Warrior and Domination Mesmer because they are almost always fighting at the flag stand with a Monk or two. However, in certain situations, the team has split them both off.

Although Flamingo does not have a single designated split planned, they do have a preferred order. Generally, the Burning Arrow Ranger is the first, as he is the most efficient solo character. Next, the "You're All Alone!" Warrior separates from the main team. If a situation requires more support, the Eviscerate Axe Warrior might join the first two, followed by the Elementalist Flag Runner. This four-character group is effective because each one has Condition removal and healing ability. They also have enough damage to deal with most opposing splits.

At the flag stand, the Mesmer and Warrior are specifically designed to kill Monks. The Hammer Warrior has efficient knockdown and damaging skills and the Mesmer has effective snare and shutdown capabilities. Combined, they can kill or shut down a Monk.

One important aspect of running a build like this is to have strong communication between players. There is a big difference between having eight players doing their own thing and eight players working as a team, and when Flamingo has players on opposing sides of the map, this distinction becomes crucial. Each individual player has things they must call, and sometimes not communicating a vital bit of intel can cost the match. In order for Flamingo to keep ahead of their opponents, active communication is very important.

The Flamingo build focuses heavily on split tactics, so each player typically calls his own tactics when the fight is not 8v8. Splits can be called by anyone and everyone. A common situation Flamingo encounters in GvG is when opposing teams overreact to a split. This allows the guild to manipulate the enemy team to gain valuable recovery time between skirmishes.

Member Information

• Handle: Bacon
  Location: Massachusetts
  Preferred Character: I typically play in the midline or as a flagger. I've come to love playing these positions, especially as an Elementalist, even though I originally started playing them because I'm a horrendous Warrior and Monking was too boring for me. I play the E/Mo flag runner in our current build.
  Gaming Background: The only games I've really played extensively other than Guild Wars are some action games.
  Position in the Guild: Officer, official completer of all paperwork.
  Why I Joined: Valk and Phatty whined and cried begging me to join, until I finally gave in.
• Handle: Phatty
  Location: California
  Preferred Character: Warrior. Killin' Your doodz.
  Gaming Background: PvE.
  Position in the Guild: Leader and Ultimate General. I make the capes pretty.
  Why I Joined: I told Farin and Valk that we should make a guild. They said, 'k.'
• Handle: V For Valkier, V Unit
  Location: Delaware, USA (the most EXCITING state).
  Preferred Character: Ranger is ftw. Nothing beats its versatility. Damage, Conditions, interrupts, survivability. I usually end up running around just ganking the other team's base in the majority of GvGs.
  Gaming Background: Played some other PvP MMOs until GW came out.
  Position in the Guild: Officer.
  Why I Joined: Helped found the guild as I was tired of terrible leaders.
• Handle: Farin
  Location: Mexico, Land of Tacos and Tortillas
  Preferred Character: I've been playing Warrior well over a year now and my preferred play style has always been splitting. My favorite skill combos with Warriors are those that allow me to knock-lock targets for 6 seconds straight.
  Gaming Background: The duck hunting game for NES.
  Position in the Guild: Officer, always overextended.
  Why I Joined: I was guildless and I wanted a pink cape.
• Handle: Yue, Your Captain
  Location: Ohio, USA
  Preferred Character: I typically play an Eviscerate Axe Warrior for GvG because I bought a Sephis Axe, some 15k armor, and wanted to play with it on obs mode like any good PvPer. I'd also like to run Skull Crack, but my guildies won't let me. =( Originally, I was on Ranger, my preferred class, but we ended up putting an extra Warrior in the build and I could finally bust out that Sephis Axe. Also, with a Warrior you can just c-space while eating. That way my pizza won't get cold before I eat it.
  Gaming Background: Pong
  Position in the Guild: Officer. And never overextended.
  Why I Joined: Because Phatty gave me 100k and offered a Mursaat Hammer. He still owes me that Mursaat Hammer.
• Handle: Alex
  Location: Texas
  Preferred Character: I always play Domination Mesmer. Anything else is lame. I love Diversion. To me, it's the greatest skill created, and any Mesmer build without it is garbage.
  Gaming Background: I played an action game where I met my first guild, and then I PvE'd in Guild Wars, and now I'm into the PvP.
  Position in the Guild: Officer
  Why I Joined: To spam ASCII art bunnies over guild chat.
• Handle: Iso, Isobel Myrkskog
  Location: Florida, USA - We have flamingoes
  Preferred Character: Monk and designated Infuser of the backline. I'm a big fan of the Protection line of skills, and as an extension of the function of those skills, I'm usually the one yelling at people to pre-kite, spread out, fallback, body-block, take cover etc. Basically anything I see that can help the team mitigate damage in order to better conserve my Energy.
  Gaming Background: Lots of action and some fantasy games.
  Position in the Guild: Officer
  Why I Joined: Phatty promised me FoW armor. He still owes me that FoW armor.
• Handle: Divine Muse, Divine Muse Too
  Location: California, USA
  Preferred Character: One of Iso's partners in crime. I like all sorts of Monk bars. One build I often run is Purge, Dark Escape, Prot Spirit, Reversal, Dismiss Condition, and Holy Veil. I also enjoy Necromancer and Elementalist.
  Gaming Background: MMORPGs.
  Position in the Guild: Officer
  Why I Joined: Who could resist a guild with a flamingo on the cape?!
• Handle: Shawn The Divine
  Location: Nova Scotia, Canada
  Preferred Character: I make the red bars go up, and am usually playing a Monk/Ranger with Zealous Benediction and Natural Stride as a defensive skill.
  Gaming Background: Mostly FPS, action MMOs, followed by Guild Wars a few months after it came out. After going through the PvE once, I started into PvPing and haven't stopped since.
  Position in the Guild: Officer, Guild teddy-bear. Everyone loves me! :-)
  Why I Joined: Phatty and Farin told me to join. Something about love, and not being able to bear being in a guild without me... And they had pink capes! How can you go wrong? Pink owwnnzzzzz!
• Handle: Sunny, Aeemi Oez
  Location: North Carolina
  Preferred Character: I play mid-liner. My specialty is Elementalist.
  Gaming Background: I have over 6,000 hours logged of competitive Minesweeper.
  Position in the Guild: Scrub hanging out AFK in the hall.
  Why did you join the guild: This is a guild? Oh man! Get me outta this thing!!!! /ragequit
• Handle: Anneke
  Broad location: Middle-of-Nowhere, USA
  Preferred Character: Mesmer is my absolute favorite because I like to mess with the rhythm of the opponent and throw him off balance, but I can have fun on anything midline, particularly things that have a talent for making people angry. I style my hair in real life to look more like my Mesmer! She's kawaiii!
  Gaming Background: I played a few Super Nintendo games with friends as a kid (Mario Kart!), and I've played card games for years (Solitaire, Hearts, *Pedro*.)
  Position in the Guild: Officer and official noob. (I'm the new kid on the block.)
  Why I Joined: I couldn't resist Yue.