Curse

Winstar · Feb 01, 2008, 09:52 PM // 21:52

Not sure if anyone watched SpNv vs Me on obs today, but SpNv appeared to take VoD build to the most extreme sense I've seen it. Met shower and traps be dammed. 2 earth eles with eruption and sandstorm I believe, 3 monks, 2 mes, and a rit. What was this rit doing? VWK tanking NPCs. Anyway, it didn't work, but I thought it was a nice illustration of the state of things.

Not blaming SpNv for trying something, but that they should have to or that this is a an idea that would cross your mind seems to illustrate something is really wrong.

Ec]-[oMaN · Feb 01, 2008, 10:04 PM // 22:04

Yeah i watched it. With the current rotation and that build still un touched GvG is probably in it's worst state since sb/ri, spirit spam, minion hex days. April has come months early guys. New VOD is also a joke...

Wyat Hawke · Feb 01, 2008, 10:12 PM // 22:12

...Wow

(12chars)

Ec]-[oMaN · Feb 01, 2008, 10:26 PM // 22:26

Maybe so but trying to farm npc at vod vs that sin inept build is probably the only choice you have. People have been bitching about how easy it is to farm npcs at vod in the past, thing is right now there is an even greater reliance to do so, aren't we going back wards here? Npc dmg buff+HP buff and no dmg increase to the actual players=much harder to kill those npcs the old way. As of right now NPCs are the biggest factor in a GvGs outcome, even more so than in the past.

Zuranthium · Feb 01, 2008, 10:31 PM // 22:31

If they were wiser they would have made him a Rt/A with Dark Escape. Then he truly would have been able to tank ALL the NPCs.

EDIT: Yeah, I meant Rt/A, not Rt/D.

~Z

Farin · Feb 01, 2008, 11:20 PM // 23:20

what's sad is they lost

Ensign · Feb 01, 2008, 11:25 PM // 23:25

For starters, SpNv didn't do a very good job aggroing and balling the archers. They let the archers progress too far in and start to spread out. They're going to have to work on their cornerblocking skills if they want to farm NPCs at VoD. The ideal aggro point on that map is further up behind the wall, then slipping down towards the corner to get a good body block and hold on the footmen.

Also Ritualists make rather poor tanks; they need way too much prot to survive the monster shots coming from the archers and don't deal nearly enough damage in return. At least put the Vengeful pot on a Warrior to take advantage of much higher base armor from that class; you get good skills like Dolyak Signet as well to reduce the damage coming in to managable levels.

Iotan · Feb 01, 2008, 11:29 PM // 23:29

Quote:

Originally Posted by RaZoO

what's sad is they lost

Their build was poorly put together (Eruption blinds archers making VwK, and that entire rit, pointless) and they didn't play it well either. With 4 healing characters and 2 Ineptitude/Clumsiness spammers (and no physicals) they should not have lost so many archers to Me's sins before VoD.

Smiting is definitely the way to go if you want to just play for VoD since I'm pretty sure the smiting damage will scale as the NPCs' damage scales. Just keep a footman alive and watch him Rambo the entire other team!

Riotgear · Feb 01, 2008, 11:34 PM // 23:34

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

At least put the Vengeful pot on a Warrior to take advantage of much higher base armor from that class; you get good skills like Dolyak Signet as well to reduce the damage coming in to managable levels.

Seeing Ensign advocating the use of Dolyak Signet on a Warrior makes me cry.

TheHaxor · Feb 01, 2008, 11:46 PM // 23:46

Quote:

Originally Posted by Riotgear

Seeing Ensign advocating the use of Dolyak Signet on a Warrior makes me cry.

Unless I missed my guess... he was being sarcastic

I really don't think I missed my guess.

Bowstring Badass · Feb 01, 2008, 11:49 PM // 23:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by Riotgear

Seeing Ensign advocating the use of Dolyak Signet on a Warrior makes me cry.

Seeing him mention that skill at all makes me cry..

Ensign · Feb 01, 2008, 11:59 PM // 23:59

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheHaxor

I really don't think I missed my guess.

I'm being serious. On a lot of maps you don't need much of a 'real' tank since you can use good cornerblocking techniques to only actually take damage from the knights and footmen, and a few of the bodyguard's spells - the archers will all fire into the wall. But on some of the other maps you can't wallblock everything and need a good tank to soak up the damage while you ball and kill the archers. VwK was a good idea but it's not nearly enough against 170 damage Precision Monstershots. You need a serious tank (Kinetic Armor / Stoneflesh Aura or Dolyak Signet / Vengeful Was Khanhei) to stay alive through all that fire until your Eles can farm the archers. I'm partial to the geotank myself, esp. because he can run Obsidian Flesh + Mantra of Resolve to be immune to pretty much everything while holding aggro.

The game in question here wasn't a very good test because SpNv didn't do a very good aggroing the archers, which let them spread out, and had a weak tank that took way too much damage. Me did a much better job of aggroing NPCs, and because of the failure of SpNv Me's archers + Clumsiness was able to farm archers faster. With practice and a better tank I think SpNv's strategy would probably do better long term though.

Div · Feb 02, 2008, 12:49 AM // 00:49

Any posts saying something to the effects of "OMG SPNV IS BAED AT TEH GAME" or "NOOB VOD CAMPERZ LRN2FINISHBEFOREVOD" will continue to be noobpurged, because you obviously have no idea what you're talking about.

AKA if you don't have anything constructive about their build or build decision, don't post. I heard QQ forums likes +1's.

DutchSmurf · Feb 02, 2008, 01:25 AM // 01:25

I think SpNv noticed they were playing against Me, knew which build that would mean and decided to go for VoD farming. Probably made the build in a couple of minutes and in the end it turned out it didn't really work because the damage output was too low. In my opinion fire would have been a better choice then earth. But nice try anyway.

Yichi · Feb 02, 2008, 03:20 AM // 03:20

The simple fact that even mentioning PvE farming/aggrotanking builds to be brought in competitive GvG is enough...

ShadowsRequiem · Feb 02, 2008, 03:28 AM // 03:28

wow I never thought this day would come XD

Wasteland Squidget · Feb 02, 2008, 03:32 AM // 03:32

I'm not sure why anyone would be surprised by this. People on this forum have been asking for the NPC advantage to be more important at VoD for months. It shouldn't come as a shock that making the NPC advantage so critical turns the GvG game into an AI exploitation contest.

The old VoD buff certainly had its issues (321spike chief among them), but at least it made the game about your players. Giving the killing power to the NPCs puts the focus on things like controlling aggro and tanking, since NPCs will happily fire into walls or spam their skills on a geotank.

You'll continue to see strategies like this as long as the VoD buffs remain in the NPCs hands.

Riotgear · Feb 02, 2008, 05:21 AM // 05:21

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wasteland Squidget

I'm not sure why anyone would be surprised by this. People on this forum have been asking for the NPC advantage to be more important at VoD for months.

Giving the NPCs missile launchers has made them no more resilient to AOE farming, and no more prone to splits. In that sense, the update has failed at addressing any of the concerns, and has in fact made them worse. It has not changed the strategies for dealing with NPCs beyond bringing Sineptitude, a build everyone wanted dead after the last MAT, back into viability.

TheOneMephisto · Feb 02, 2008, 05:44 AM // 05:44

This is sad because Tommy did suggest on the QQ forums that the new build would be 6 monks and 2 mantra resolve/glyph energy/eruption spammers.

Winstar · Feb 02, 2008, 06:06 AM // 06:06

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wasteland Squidget

I'm not sure why anyone would be surprised by this. People on this forum have been asking for the NPC advantage to be more important at VoD for months. It shouldn't come as a shock that making the NPC advantage so critical turns the GvG game into an AI exploitation contest.

I don't think people were calling for this when they asked for NPC's to matter. When split as a strategic option is made entirely unattractive by the power of defensive builds at vod the game is not better off. Working throughout a match to gain a npc advantage should earn you a good position at VoD because you setup well throughout the match - I'm not saying this is the only reson you split but is an aspect. An stand oriented defensive build should not be able shrug it off and tank through it all, ball your npcs and proceed to outpower you when forced to fight 8v8.

Split of course shouldn't be as stupid as Sin split is either, and we shouldn't be forced to reduce the game so entirely NPC farming in response.

What everyone wants is for games to be won mainly through player interaction, and this doesn't have to preclude the importance of NPCs, they just shouldn't be this stupid.

GvG seems to be in a shitty state, and I know the dev's are concentrating on GW2, but they can leave us with something playable until then. Balances seem to sort of wildly aimed at a target of fixing various problems but overshooting the mark.