Doing Math

I wrote a longer version of this elsewhere... in this thing that's been dubbed "the book of rift" which you can read here if you're so inclined.  As a warning though it's something like 50-60 pages of dense text because I was trying to use words to describe things pictures would have been better for.  That having been said, lots of useful information there.  Anyways... onward, to math.

Basic Assumptions

In most fights the teams start out with even numbers and the goal is to reduce your opponents numbers to 0 while keeping at least one of your own guys alive.  From that basic premise comes this idea of doing math.  Doing math just means counting the number of people in front of you and the number of people you have next to you and coming to a decision based on that information.  If you outnumber your enemy you really ought to be pressing them.  If they outnumber you, your goal is to bait them in and buy time without getting squished.  There it is, math.

Basic math - there's more of us

Chances are good that if things started out with even numbers and you're presented with the chance to fight 2 on 1 or 6 on 4 or some other set of favorable numbers, some poor shmuck on the other side of the field is staring down the barrel of being outnumbered by at least as bad, if not worse odds then the guys you're looking at.  That is to say that if you have a 2v1 it is also likely that somewhere on the field one of your vets is also getting 2v1'd.  In some cases you've got a 6v4 in your favor and somewhere out in the rest of the field you've got one guy trying to hold out in a 4 or 10 v 1.  Your guy will lose that fight and it's only a matter of time.  That also means that should you drag your feet in that 6v4 you have it's going to very quickly shift to an 6v8 or a 6v14 and that my friends, is a battle you will most certainly lose.

Basic math - there's a lot of them

While most fighters probably wish they could be the badass who walks through 50 people all by themselves, most of the time this just isn't a realistic fantasy.  Though you can view my other post on how to fight against bad odds the short version of that is don't do it.  If you find yourself fighting at bad odds or if you find yourself fighting more veteran fighters it's perfectly fine to just stall.  In all likelihood someone somewhere else has a good matchup.  All you need to do is keep the people in front of you from going to help their teammate who is currently in as bad or worse a situation then what you're facing.  Your goal is not to win.  It is not to try and chew through your opponents one body part at a time until they're all gone.  The reason for this is that you're in a team fight so it's not about your personal glory you just need to win at math.  If you stall the people in front of you long enough, eventually your teammates will win other parts of the field and come to help you.

Winning with math

The secret to winning at math is to simply play numbers well and very very quickly.  In the same way that a good vet fights multiple people by fighting them one at a time fast, your best bet for winning a team fight is by outnumbering someone somewhere on the line, gaining momentum as people are pulled away from the person you just murdered, and then snowballing down the line.  Most of the time in line fights you sit there and pick away at each other until one team eventually has enough momentum to crush through.  In those cases there's not much you can do to win at math.  However, on any field where you don't have people lined end to end there's 2 things that you can do.

The first thing you can do to win at math is simply leg people.  A legged person doesn't count towards a teams numbers in the same way that mobile fighters do.  Because a mobile person chooses who they engage and when (assuming that they're willing to move...) they can always either stall to buy time or fight people one a time while trying to take limbs.  Since a mobile person chooses who they want to engage and a legged person can't, when you count numbers a legged person doesn't count in matchups because they always are stuck fighting whatever they're given.  It means that if they're outnumbered then they have to fight that losing fight, and even in a situation where they have advantage, in order to keep the numbers advantage they effectively make their teammates immobile.

The second thing you can do to win math is to work gaps.  If you can hit a group sideways it's going to cause that group to have to fight in two directions which is pretty much always lethal and once you've cleared that group, you now have more of your team to drive sideways into another group.  As you begin to run over piles of enemies you'll build steam from all the people not having to fight anymore.  You can either continue to work angles or you can try to come around your opponents like a set of jaws closing around their flanks, (think pac man eating things or a door closing).  Assuming that you can find gaps, you can also just use a single person and have them stand behind an enemy line.  Even if that person never swings, making noise behind the enemy line will often cause them to turn around and be distracted, making them more likely to die to the teammates you have in front of them.

Angles

If for some reason your team was bad and lost at math you can always work angles to try and make up the difference.  Bhakdar phrased the idea as "death triangles" but the short version is, you hit opponents from multiple angles in an attempt to get them to have to block at two extremes, making them vulnerable to attack should they choose to engage either fighter.  To visualize, your target is the tip of an equilateral triangle, you and your team mate are the other 2 points of the triangle.  In this formation your opponent must essentially block shots coming in at two separate 45 degree angles.  Should they turn to face on opponent then their blocks for the other opponent must now be thrown at 90 degrees, or basically directly to their side in order to engage the other fighter head on.

Stalling

If you find yourself with an enemy team barreling down on you and it's clear you won't win the fight... it's time to stall.  Stalling does not mean simply running away as fast as your legs can carry you.  Stalling also doesn't mean diving into the oncoming enemy horde.  Stalling means keeping your opponents close to your engage range while staying just outside of theirs.  So long as you can keep them from being able to swing at you, you're doing your job.  The only caveat is that you need to be close enough to chase them, should they swing into your team or start running for backs.  Stalling is a very important skill, both for vets and for new fighters.

Lots of us plus few of you means... (putting it all together)

To win at a team battle you need to win at math.  Each person on your team needs to either choose to pick a partner and closeline an enemy from 45's, leaving their teammates at bad odds which they'll soon reverse, OR they must choose to have bad odds and hold enemies at bay while their teammates clean up.  If they choose to engage then they have to do so as quickly as possible.  If it becomes clear that they can't, then they need to return to support their teammates.  If possible a fighter can leg the person in front of them in order to spin off and help a teammate clean up another fight without screwing the guys standing next to them.  A person who opts to stall needs to avoid engages and being either hit in the leg or overwhelmed.  They back up as slowly as they can, but as fast as they need to (usually matching their opponents pace) to avoid being run over.  A person in this position may also do work by sniping legs in order to re-balance the odds if it's close, but generally speaking their best option is to stall without engaging.

If these things are done right you'll win at math, and having won at math in a series of smaller engagements you'll see the cumulative effect of outnumbering your opponents by greater and greater margins as the fight goes on.  Doing math seems like an easy idea... but for whatever reason people have trouble coordinating pushes when they outnumber their enemy.  It remains important for you to use numbers to your advantage and not fight fair.  The longer you can do so the greater success you'll have.  If you want honorable fights, go spar people.

A final word of caution; Beware of stragglers

Just because you outnumber your enemy doesn't necessarily mean you've won (though at that point, good job on having done math well).  There are some people who defy odds (myself included) and will win when it seems like they shouldn't.  If you ignore these people because you assume the fight is over, half of your remaining team can disappear in an instant.  This can happen because your team mistook a corpse for a person who was legged, or because they simply didn't notice the last guy standing who happens to be behind them.  If, for whatever reason, you've got that last guy up and you aren't mindful you may soon find yourself at a disadvantage instead of an advantage.  Especially if that last person is a vet of some skill (which is often the case, since they're the last one living) simply outnumbering them won't be enough.  This becomes increasingly true if you have legged individuals as you're now stuck choosing between fighting without your legged team mates, or trying to move with them while they're less mobile.  If you choose to ignore them then it becomes easy for the last guy standing to fight at better odds, especially if they can continue to leg and separate their opponents.  If you choose to stand together you severely limit your mobility and may find yourself outmaneuvered because of your legged teammates.  But the most important thing to remember is do not go at that person like movie ninja's (one at a time).  Continue to use numbers in order to win.  More on that in a separate post here.

Micromoments

In a big field battle there's not usually one moment that determines victory or defeat (except obviously for when the last guy dies) it's usually a series of small decisions or gambles that have paid off in order for a team to eventually win (the last paragraph aside).  When you choose to outnumber an enemy you have to do so fast.  If you can do this then you add numbers to every fight you get into after the first one.  The problem is you're also making your team vulnerable when you do.  The question is not who has the most numbers at the start, or who has the better fighters, it's a question of who utilizes those fighters and their numbers not only the best, but the fastest.  Speed is of the essence.  You have to make decisions in the thick of battle and go with your gut.  Sometimes you'll be wrong and it'll get you killed but every once in a while you'll change the tide of battle around you when some gamble paid off.  In the end it's better to have made a "bad" decision with a gamble that didn't work out then it is to simply have sat there and done nothing.  Sitting around and doing nothing while hoping your teammates will do all the work for you is the best way to lose.  Whether you're going on offense by outnumbering or going on defense by being outnumbered it is important that you actively choose to do one of these roles because if you don't choose, your opponents will make that decision for you and that will almost certainly end poorly.