Introduction
What is a squad?Leading your first squad Squad may seem daunting and overwhelming at first as it requires communication, knowledge of game mechanics and decision making skills. Hopefully, this guide will clear up some questions you may have and give you an overall better idea how to create and lead a squad.
If you have played with friends already or in a smaller group, you should already be familiar with how to create parties. A Squad allows up to 50 people to play together or up to 10 people, depending if you create an open world or a raid squad.
The top left corner, or optionally pressing P, also gives you the possibility to create a squad. If you did not purchase a Commander Tag yet, your options in leading a squad are fairly limited, however you can still create one regardless.
Be aware though, that someone with a commander tag could just take over the lead!
How to get a commander tag?
You can purchase a Commander Tag in various different locations such as Divinity’s Reach, Hoelbrak, Black Citadel or Lion’s Arch. You can also purchase it in the WvW Borderlands or Edge of the Mists. The NPCs selling those tags are either called “Commander” or “Master Strategist”. The minimap will show a book icon on their locations.
You can get a Catmander Tag if you are a big catfan and don’t mind doing a little jumping puzzle.
Each of them cost 300 Gold & 250 Badges of Honor. If you have either of them already, you can get the other one at a reduced cost of 150 Gold & 250 Badges of Honor. Both of them will give you commander privileges so it doesn't matter which of these you get or if you even decide to get both!
Now that you created a squad you will see a Tag over your head. You can change the color of the tag to any of the available options.
You can only get the Catmander Tag in WvW!
Squad Chat
To be able to communicate with the entire squad, regardless of subgroups and roles you can use the command /squad or /d. You can also use /party or /p but be aware that only people in your subgroup will see your messages.
Squad Mechanics
In the squad panel you will find these options:
The game will always assume the Commander is ready. Everyone else will get a pop-up in the middle of their screen. You can see if a player is ready by a Green Tick on their name plate. If not you will see a Red Cross.
You can write whatever you want into the squad message, for example letting people know if it is a training, a chill group, if you focus on reducing downtime, if you are recruiting for a static etc.
The squad message will be displayed to every member that joined the squad in their chat box.
Raid Mode has a 10 member limit instead of 50, and is required to enter raids and strike missions. However, you can enter the Icebrood Saga strike missions without enabling this option, although it has a 10 member limit as well.
As the name suggests, it locks all subgroups for the squad, however you can still move members around into different subgroups as well as Lieutenants. Be aware that a Lieutenant can’t move other Lieutenants or the Commander. Other Squad Members will not be able to move themselves or others.
Enabling this option will allow members of all subgroups within the squad to invite friends or guild mates.
This option will set your squad as private and the Commander Tag won’t be shown for others on the minimap or around the map, therefore people won’t be able to join by clicking on the Commander Tag.
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Depending on how you want to lead and organize your squad, you can allow anyone to join. This affects the LFG as well as seeing the Commander Tag on the minimap.
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You can only allow joining with approval. People will be able to request joining your squad. It will be up to you to approve them or deny them. Denying them will be an automatic kick.
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A "no" will not allow anyone to join but you can still invite selected people (friends, guild members etc) to join your squad.
Right under the squad panel you will also find the option to Broadcast a squad message. This message will be shown on the screen of every player within the squad.
Squad Markers
As a Commander you can also set markers around the area as well as object markers.
These are a great tool to help people with orientation and signalling mechanics (e.g. Sabetha cannons, Matthias fountains, stacking positions, splits, chests in open world, boss spawn locations etc)
To put location markers you have these default keybinds:
Alt+1 for location Alt+Shift+1 for object
Alt+2 for location Alt+Shift+2 for object
Alt+3 for location Alt+Shift+3 for object
Alt+4 for location Alt+Shift+4 for object
Alt+5 for location Alt+Shift+5 for object
Alt+6 for location Alt+Shift+6 for object
Alt+7 for location Alt+Shift+7 for object
Alt+8 for location Alt+Shift+8 for object
Alt+9 removes all location markers and Alt+Shift+9 removes all object markers!
In a 10 man squad it can be very useful if you create subgroup 1, subgroup 2 and subgroup 3. New people will automatically be placed in subgroup 1 upon joining. This makes it much easier to figure out squad roles and distribute them into subgroup 2 and subgroup 3 to make sure heals and boons are covered!
By right clicking on the icon of another player in the squad (any subgroup), you can assign them as Lieutenant to help you lead the squad. They will, however, lose that role as soon as the Commander leaves the squad.
If you do want to leave the squad, you can assign another player as Commander as long as they also have a Commander Tag.
Subgroups
Each subgroup can be seen like a party within the squad. It allows up to five players to be in the same subgroup. For raids and strike missions, you will usually have only two subgroups. Guild Wars 2 is a game where almost all effects, so called “boons”, can be shared with different players, however most of them have a five player limit. They also prioritize subgroup members!
To make sure that each subgroup is covered with the key boons in this game, Quickness and Alacrity, you will want to organize each subgroup like so:
- One Quickness and one Alacrity player per subgroup.
- If the healer in the subgroup brings Alacrity, you will want to pair them with a Quickness DPS.
- If you have a Quickness healer, you will want to pair them with an Alacrity DPS.
To create a subgroup you can simply drag and drop the nameplate of another player below another player’s nameplate. This will automatically create a subgroup.
Keep in mind that can lock subgroups so only you and the Lieutenant can move players into different subgroups. However, a Lieutenant can’t move another Lieutenant or the Commander.
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Place location and object markers.
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Move people into other subgroups.
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Broadcast squad messages.
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Kick players.
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Lock subgroups or move players from locked subgroups.
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Kick other Lieutenants or the Commander.
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Edit the squad message.
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Edit the LFG message or list the squad in the LFG.
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Change squad settings.
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Do a Ready Check.
Now that most of your questions are hopefully answered it is time for your first Ready Check and gaining actual experience as a commander!