Curse

Aera · Oct 28, 2007, 10:28 AM // 10:28

...observing was just as much fun as last monthly :/

dR errored right from the start

and in the finals the error on supernova's side of course...boooooooring

IMMORTAlMITCH · Oct 28, 2007, 11:32 AM // 11:32

Quote:

Originally Posted by holymasamune

The euro guilds were just shitters that were put on my list because I had nothing better to put. Because seriously, there's only 5ish guilds that are even competing for gold, and the rest are just ineptitude clumsiness sinsplit and bad guilds that got lucky draws.

Basically you're clueless when it comes to euroguilds, no shame in admitting that.

Ego · Oct 28, 2007, 12:11 PM // 12:11

The dR Error was prob the only thing that could have changed any outcome in the Top 16, DF vs SpNv, well DF would have won anyway with their Dual Shields up so not much to discuss there.

Ensign · Oct 28, 2007, 08:47 PM // 20:47

Quote:

Originally Posted by IMMORTAlMITCH

Basically you're clueless when it comes to euroguilds, no shame in admitting that.

Which Euro teams did you think had a good shot at winning the tourney? I can't say that I've been up on all of the roster changes happening in Europe, but my feeling going in was that vZ was the really dangerous team coming from Europe, with nods to vD and EW from the talent they have.

The only other American teams that I thought were dangerous were rawr, simply because they are so practiced at running neo-Eurospike and don't make big mistakes playing it anymore, and DF, because between Chiizu / Champ / Farin their frontline is leaps and bounds better than anyone elses. Round that out with the RenO guild and that's essentially my list of significant threats to win it.

There are a bunch of competent teams following those up but would you pick any of them to win it over the above teams? Sure a few of them would top 8, I'd fit MSI and Call and other similar guilds as teams with a good chance to top 8, but do any other teams have a real expectation of getting through the top 8 to the finals?

DutchSmurf · Oct 28, 2007, 10:04 PM // 22:04

You would think the GvG tournament would be easy to predict and the HvH hard, since I know far more about GvG then about HvH. Turns out I didn't get a single guild right. Also because many options weren't available, but still. Got close a couple of times tho, but close doesn't count. Then I just checked the HvH tournament to see how many I got. Randomly selected some people, got 4 people in the top 8 of which 2 on the correct place. So which lesson do we learn here? Next time, select 8 random guilds instead of thinking about my choice.

Wasteland Squidget · Oct 28, 2007, 10:25 PM // 22:25

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

Which Euro teams did you think had a good shot at winning the tourney? I can't say that I've been up on all of the roster changes happening in Europe, but my feeling going in was that vZ was the really dangerous team coming from Europe, with nods to vD and EW from the talent they have.

Isn't vZ mostly a PuG of the strong European players anyway? They definitely felt like the strongest European guild in the playoffs, but I recognized EW's backline on their team. I don't know the Euro players well enough to know who else they had from other teams.

Ensign · Oct 28, 2007, 10:31 PM // 22:31

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wasteland Squidget

Isn't vZ mostly a PuG of the strong European players anyway? They definitely felt like the strongest European guild in the playoffs, but I recognized EW's backline on their team. I don't know the Euro players well enough to know who else they had from other teams.

I'm not entirely sure what the deal with that guild is, I'm terrible with names. I just know that when I do see them play on obs mode, they do a reasonably good job of powering their opponents down with the good 8v8 templates of the day and containing the opposition to force that fight. Calling vZ a european version of rawr, with a good system and interchangable players could very well be a fair characterization.

moko · Oct 28, 2007, 10:41 PM // 22:41

vZ was mostly a (french) pug. i think it still is also.

i didn't really expect a lot more from the other euro guilds, just vD, but considering their roster is currently messed (2 core players not playing), it was to be expected. they also lacked practise and such.

and my random HvH predictions turned out to be better than the gvg ones, too. pretty funny.

oh and the most hilarious fact -- error in HB final also, haha.

Div · Oct 28, 2007, 11:11 PM // 23:11

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mokone

oh and the most hilarious fact -- error in HB final also, haha.

Murder Za is a hacker! Error in his semifinals game vs Chaos too.

Sinful Doom · Oct 28, 2007, 11:19 PM // 23:19

very sad to see both GvG and HB monthly's turn into error fest's of the past.

moko · Oct 28, 2007, 11:24 PM // 23:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by holymasamune

Murder Za is a hacker! Error in his semifinals game vs Chaos too.

:OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooooooooooooooo didn't know. haha. hilarious. <3

GO ANET!

IMMORTAlMITCH · Oct 29, 2007, 12:35 AM // 00:35

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

Which Euro teams did you think had a good shot at winning the tourney? I can't say that I've been up on all of the roster changes happening in Europe, but my feeling going in was that vZ was the really dangerous team coming from Europe, with nods to vD and EW from the talent they have.

Winning the tourney not so much, but for top 8 there was definately better picks than DoM, vile and MSI.

Quote:

The only other American teams that I thought were dangerous were rawr, simply because they are so practiced at running neo-Eurospike and don't make big mistakes playing it anymore, and DF, because between Chiizu / Champ / Farin their frontline is leaps and bounds better than anyone elses. Round that out with the RenO guild and that's essentially my list of significant threats to win it.

I didnt think Rawr would do so well this monthly cause of the amount of split friendly maps in the rotation otherwise I was pretty sure DF would take the thing quite easily provided they didnt get any err7s or anything. RenO and SpNv I don't think are that strong but they do have asialag on their sides and their sins have proven to be quite effective so they were dangerous outsiders.

Quote:

There are a bunch of competent teams following those up but would you pick any of them to win it over the above teams? Sure a few of them would top 8, I'd fit MSI and Call and other similar guilds as teams with a good chance to top 8, but do any other teams have a real expectation of getting through the top 8 to the finals?

There's a few euro guilds like tard and BSP who are quite solid on ladder usually who kinda dissappointed me this monthly and then there's Badle Gods who always seem to get top 16 somehow even though they're, as their name suggests, bad.

Edit: Oh and vZ got EW's monks because they only have 1 real monk and he couldn't make it. And EW didn't play cause Acid couldn't play afaik.

Darksbane · Oct 29, 2007, 12:37 AM // 00:37

With regards to what you said ensign, i was kinda stumped for my top 8, especially euro guild wise. I would have put vZ top 8 had i been able to. I was reasonably confident of getting top 8 with my guild Clan Detained. My main worries were one of our monks hasnt been playing monk regularly and also the issue of a bad draw but that can happen to anyone. I know we dont always perform consistently but we do pretty well for ourselves. The only 4 guilds i was really worried about beating were rawr, DF , dR and reno considering our history against these guilds and also the fact taht DF is just good and i never know what you guys are gonna do seeing as we never play you.

With regards to other euro picks, knowing vD's current performance and lack of certain players i doubted they would make top 8 and i knew EW wasnt playing either. I doubted frag due to their performance in the last monthly and i also dont rate MSI as a strong choice for top 8 as we usually beat them.

Like mitch i thought BSP would do better being solid on ladder i thought they might step it up dot the mAT also again BG usually wurms their way up to the top.

Seamus Finn · Oct 29, 2007, 05:18 AM // 05:18

Quote:

Originally Posted by Darksbane

BG usually wurms their way up to the top.

Why exactly is Battle Gods joke material with the euros? They run splits, but I wouldn't consider their splits as "lame" as all the sins meta splits. Just curious...

Ensign · Oct 29, 2007, 05:23 AM // 05:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by IMMORTAlMITCH

I didnt think Rawr would do so well this monthly cause of the amount of split friendly maps in the rotation

The eurospike build that they're adept at playing isn't trivial to break up with movement. Between two eles and the tacticsgon, they have an awful lot of redundant defense to move around, which they do rather well; it's pretty difficult to manufacture a good power play when you can strand, for instance, both eles in their base and still have all the tactics defense supporting the stand monks on the collapse. Recall sin splits or iWay-balanced have enough firepower to create something, but most balanced builds that you see run simply do not.

Quote:

Originally Posted by IMMORTAlMITCH

otherwise I was pretty sure DF would take the thing quite easily provided they didnt get any err7s or anything.

They've been the strongest team the last couple months for reasons already mentioned, they've just had a habit of catching really bad breaks in elimination rounds. Their frontline is leaps and bounds better than everyone elses at creating mismatches and taking pressure off their team by stringing out the fight. I didn't think the maps, especially the elimination maps favored them all that much actually; Uncharted and especially Corrupted are great maps for dedicated split builds but aren't all that favorable for the dynamic push and pull that DF lives by, and if they can't create with their physicals things can go very badly. Fortunately for them, that was never an issue this tournament.

Quote:

Originally Posted by IMMORTAlMITCH

RenO and SpNv I don't think are that strong but they do have asialag on their sides and their sins have proven to be quite effective so they were dangerous outsiders.

RenO killed themselves by running fire Eles over the much more dangerous Clumsiness Mesmers, or even the crazy Ride the Lightning / Ancestor's Rage Eles. They're really good at creating with their imbasins though.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Darksbane

With regards to what you said ensign, i was kinda stumped for my top 8, especially euro guild wise. I would have put vZ top 8 had i been able to.

Well it was made worse by all the teams that we couldn't put in the top 8 due to their late qualification. No one could pick DF since they didn't bother to qualify until the last week, amongst other teams.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Darksbane

I was reasonably confident of getting top 8 with my guild Clan Detained.

I think you have to put your own team in your top 8 predictions if you want to take yourself seriously as a competitor, I mean if you don't think you're going to top 8 why are you playing? You have to think you can win any game if everything goes your way.

I know that personally I was really concerned about how well we were going to perform without Daemon for the tourney, as we need to create off of our midline so much more than other teams. Unfortunately we never got a satisfactory answer due to on-load err=7.

IMMORTAlMITCH · Oct 29, 2007, 11:56 AM // 11:56

Quote:

Originally Posted by Seamus Finn

Why exactly is Battle Gods joke material with the euros? They run splits, but I wouldn't consider their splits as "lame" as all the sins meta splits. Just curious...

Because they essentially run the same build since they formed and whenever you get them to fight 8 on 8 they are really bad, their splits aren't as lame as sin split's but dedicated split is still a onedimensional build, especially since it's all they play and even moreso because they don't really collapse and take advantage of numerical advantages.

Instead they just run around and split off again, while at vod sending 4 people into your base and keeping 2 monks + a dervish + w/e character they decided to include for more defense at the stand. It's proven to be quite effective but I wouldn't say it involves a lot of skill.

Of course you would probably disagree with me seeing as your guild pretty much adopted BG's build (But Glimmer of Light on the split dude? Come on.)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

The eurospike build that they're adept at playing isn't trivial to break up with movement. Between two eles and the tacticsgon, they have an awful lot of redundant defense to move around, which they do rather well; it's pretty difficult to manufacture a good power play when you can strand, for instance, both eles in their base and still have all the tactics defense supporting the stand monks on the collapse. Recall sin splits or iWay-balanced have enough firepower to create something, but most balanced builds that you see run simply do not.

True, however I do think the SoD nerf was pretty significant here because it's much easier to spike targets that happen to be outside of wards against them now, their build definately is still strong though but lack of mobility is quite an issue on maps like corrupted, since with teleports sins can basically run all over your base and collapse really easily.

Quote:

I think you have to put your own team in your top 8 predictions if you want to take yourself seriously as a competitor, I mean if you don't think you're going to top 8 why are you playing? You have to think you can win any game if everything goes your way.

Very true, however with the competition this month I never really had any doubt that we wouldn't make it, maybe this is me being impartial but I would rate us above other european guilds people mentioned in their top 8s like BdV, BG, DoM, MSI etc.

Quote:

I know that personally I was really concerned about how well we were going to perform without Daemon for the tourney, as we need to create off of our midline so much more than other teams. Unfortunately we never got a satisfactory answer due to on-load err=7.

Yeah, we had a solid core for the first time in months this time but one of our core monks couldn't play so we did have some worries there, but it turned out to be fine, the only problems we really ran into was japlag.

tava · Oct 29, 2007, 03:47 PM // 15:47

month ago we got owned by 5 errors, and now just by ourselves and not using imbas on a few maps, so couldnt handle with dual shattering or just 2a2me thingy;/

Seamus Finn · Oct 29, 2007, 08:27 PM // 20:27

Quote:

Originally Posted by IMMORTAlMITCH

Of course you would probably disagree with me seeing as your guild pretty much adopted BG's build (But Glimmer of Light on the split dude? Come on.)

Well honestly the dominant euro builds aren't very "skillfull" either. The only foundation being run in the monthly that resembled a difficult balanced was DF build and that was simply because it was movement/offense oriented and required a fast pace and quick thinking. Everyone else is mostly vomiting out defense so they can slow the game down to a pace they understand and spike or running humilty-based cheese builds(and of course the sins). I don't see how that is really such a respectable alternative to set splits.

And what became our corrupted build is something like their main template, but at the stand it's just a 3 melee build with pretty balanced template midliners.

A lot of people laugh at the glimmer build, but I chose it not because of it being a great elite, but for the very specific role it plays it outclasses other options(namely ZB). Due to the nature of warriors needing lots of cleaning and little prot I haven't tested a bar that works better. If we ran sins of course, the bar would be different.

IMMORTAlMITCH · Oct 29, 2007, 08:54 PM // 20:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by Seamus Finn

Well honestly the dominant euro builds aren't very "skillfull" either.

An adaptable balanced build requires more skill than a one dimensional 'gimmick'.

Quote:

A lot of people laugh at the glimmer build

Of course they do, it's terrible.

Quote:

but I chose it not because of it being a great elite, but for the very specific role it plays it outclasses other options(namely ZB). Due to the nature of warriors needing lots of cleaning and little prot I haven't tested a bar that works better. If we ran sins of course, the bar would be different.

How exactly does it 'outclass' ZB? Basically, you will just have to use it a lot more often and your attributes are messed up because you will need healing and prot whereas a ZB monk only needs prot.

ZB is such a good skill on splits because it's a huge heal and it's very energy efficient if you get the energy return (which on a split you will usually get because you can take more risks letting targets drop that low because there will be less damage), the only drawback that ZB has is the fact that it's interruptable, which isn't that hard to avoid by being smart about using it.
Whereas the Glimmer bar has no staying power because.. well.. glimmer sucks.

Seamus Finn · Oct 29, 2007, 09:27 PM // 21:27

Quote:

Originally Posted by IMMORTAlMITCH

An adaptable balanced build requires more skill than a one dimensional 'gimmick'..

I heard 3 2 1 spiking with lots of defense is an adaptable build. By this, I mean if the other team tries anything funny like splitting you chain flags with warriors and wait till VoD where you 3 2 1 spike them... ok.

Quote:

Originally Posted by IMMORTAlMITCH

ZB is such a good skill on splits because it's a huge heal and it's very energy efficient if you get the energy return (which on a split you will usually get because you can take more risks letting targets drop that low because there will be less damage), the only drawback that ZB has is the fact that it's interruptable, which isn't that hard to avoid by being smart about using it.
Whereas the Glimmer bar has no staying power because.. well.. glimmer sucks.

And ZB is a bad skill on split because if the enemy team has a mesmer or ranger they know when you want to use it and interrupting a 3/4 skill becomes much easier. You can try and guardian spam yourself and give the ranger a 50% chance of missing but where is the great energy return now sinc eyou have to guardian yourself repeatedly just for a ranger?

This is really derailed now but oh well. You infer that all splitting takes the exact same characters around and they all need the same kind of support. Since in that build the monk supports 2 warriors you need draw conditions and hex removal, then you need mend touch. Return is pretty much needed as well since you are the softest target. I take a Spirit Bond because its really that good to me. Some will want guardian, but this would end up costing you either RoF or Dark Escape. Dark Escape is obviously great for helping with movement/flag running if you have nothing better to do and more importantly keeps you from dying when you screw up and get hit with a bull's strike. So I take DE over the guardian and now heave the rof slot and the "heal" slot. I can go ZB/Rof, and rangers will basically have a field day with my character, so I go Rejuv/Glimmer and rangers have a much harder time with the character. Rejuv is cancelable, free and usually hits for the 150 heal. Glimmer is a simple skill for pushes the bars up quickly; what it loses in bulk heal at a discount price you get back in how much more controlled the healing is. It functions well with the wars who have a lot of armor and it's adequate for the monk. Since splitting is more about collapsing the staying power of a ZB monk means almost nothing to me. On a flagger sure, since you may have to turtle him against splits etc., but in that specific build I don't find the skill to be so great.