Curse

elektra_lucia · Apr 01, 2007, 01:32 AM // 01:32

Okey from my observation about 8vs8. You certainly do not need to run a spike to win. Whoever says otherwise, is plain and simple -wrong-.

I've seen a lot of icy vein spike, paragon spike, ele spike, and we faced some sort of blood spike. GoLE is certainly not over powered when using aegis. Please do not turn this into a GoLE only thread though.

I have tried out channeling, mantra of flame and GoLE tonight. I found for certain battles each had their advantage of course but for the majority running channeling and mantra of flame worked out very nice. Of course as builds change, running it won't be so useful. I'm bringing up mantra of flame because I haven't seen one other monk run it tonight, yet I found it really useful. I guess people don't like to change their build much.

The icy vein spike was pretty much solved by spirit bond and rof. I did screw up one match (was completely my fault) and we lost vs a team. The spike was pretty quick - but a big purple arrow comes up showing the spike. You really don't need ventrillo for it.

Since there was quite a lot of ele's mantra of flame was nice. We ran lod, rc and divert hex. So we could afford to take out one veil. Just channeling on its own was useful though. My team did not like me taking channeling so I changed but meh

.

For the people worried about spiking. It's so easy to be like ''ok, ballance is too hard I'ma go spike''. Don't give up : ].

The ele spikes - you just have to kite a lottttttttt. Aslong as you are always kiting, it's not over powered in the slightest.

Some teams vs no melee I put up aegis. To see the arrow drop when they gaze. Needless to say if you do not explain why you do this - you will be PM'd abuse.

Personally I like the 8vs8 though. Infusing and any type of monking in 6vs6 was just plain boring. Same for other classes really.

Kali Magdalene · Apr 01, 2007, 02:18 AM // 02:18

I like that trick with Aegis you have there.

Ras Kass · Apr 01, 2007, 02:27 AM // 02:27

So does kiting against ele spikes make you win in kill count?

Patccmoi · Apr 01, 2007, 04:41 AM // 04:41

The problem with balanced was never facing a spike head on. That's fine and most decent balance team will beat them.

The problem is kill counts. When you end up with a balanced team in kill count vs 2 teams with 5-6 Searing Flames, the only chance you have to win is if one of them is completely retarded. Because if it ends up in a 3 way fight, there's absolutely no way you'll kill faster than them.

ZenRgy · Apr 01, 2007, 06:34 AM // 06:34

Thanks for the advice! I really appreciate, those spike builds are terribly difficult to face!

Relambrien · Apr 01, 2007, 07:39 AM // 07:39

Here's my theory for why spikes are prevalent when you can easily win with massive pressure (ala 2 warriors, 2 searing heat, water ele, 3 monks).

It all comes down to one thing. The majority of people in HA (in the first half maps or so) at any point are just plain bad. They aren't able to defend spikes, and they don't have the coordination to be able to run anything but spike. So, since they can kill other bad players easily with spike, and aren't good enough to do it otherwise, spike remains the option of preference to them.

Mantra of Flame is good e-management in HA right now because of all the Searing Flames. Glyph and Channeling both give similar returns too, simply because there are so many more enemies, and positioning (in relation to teammates, ie frontline/backline) is of much less importance. Thus you get a crapload of energy from Channeling.

Against Icy Veins spikes, yeah Spirit Bond > all. I'm pretty sure our resident TA mod can attest to that.

Ele spikes: depends. I faced a Searing Flames spike (yes, a spike), an obs flame spike, and several invoke spikes tonight. The same concepts hold true for SF and invoke, just spread out. As for obs flame...well if you can't preprot and they're coordinated, there isn't much you can do in pure defense.

Kiting can work, but if you're constantly moving then you're not killing. Your best bet is to have some offense that can deal with them. Say an Earth Shaker warrior or something. And casters, don't forget your +armor vs damage type shields.

My guild whenever we faced an ele spike would just immediately rush in and start to pressure them. Two Earth Shakers with To the Limit and Enraging Charge = GG. As far as I know we didn't lose to a single one tonight. I'm pretty sure we lost to one Icy Veins spike that had a faster-than-infuse spike with a highly-coordinated Gaze. Think a Gaze landing, and a quarter second later, the entire health bar dropping to zero at once. They were smart and just spiked out our offense repeatedly so we couldn't kill them.

Besides that...I don't think we were killed by any spike at all tonight. And yeah, 8v8 is ftw. Kill Count is still annoying, but offensive builds > defensive builds. If Anet could find a way to remove kill count without promoting highly defensive builds, I would be one happy panda.

God Apprentice · Apr 01, 2007, 11:17 AM // 11:17

Quote:

Originally Posted by Relambrien

Here's my theory for why spikes are prevalent when you can easily win with massive pressure (ala 2 warriors, 2 searing heat, water ele, 3 monks). It all comes down to one thing. The majority of people in HA (in the first half maps or so) at any point are just plain bad. They aren't able to defend spikes, and they don't have the coordination to be able to run anything but spike. So, since they can kill other bad players easily with spike, and aren't good enough to do it otherwise, spike remains the option of preference to them.

No I think it has to do with double fame, and the easiest way to a kill (even in balance) is to coordinate a spike

Elektra: Agreed on Spirit Bonding an IV spike

Horace The Great · Apr 01, 2007, 12:02 PM // 12:02

Alot of people playing spike only builds now because of double fame.
I do it aswell, i play 5 or 6 SF eles, it's lame.. but it's double fame it's an exception for me.

God Apprentice · Apr 01, 2007, 12:11 PM // 12:11

How is it being double fame an exception?

Lord Mendes · Apr 01, 2007, 12:24 PM // 12:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by Relambrien

And casters, don't forget your +armor vs damage type shields.

This is probably the best tip you can give anyone, especially HAers who seem to take this for granted.

God Apprentice · Apr 01, 2007, 12:32 PM // 12:32

Make sure you run different weapon sets to swap in and out too (negative, high energy etc)

Snype · Apr 01, 2007, 12:53 PM // 12:53

My guild has been running a sort of a spike, although it is much more balanced then many other spikes We've come against this weekend. We used 4 physical characters along with OoA for the spike. While I was playing I was trying to think of what I would do if i was a monk against this spike. I couldn't really think of any sort of counter to it (we were running divert, lod, and woh btw). The only thing that really screwed us over was playing vs spikes in Killcount, where the spike team just eliminated the opposing team and farmed them. They ressed so quickly that we couldn't really get enough kills to stop them.

Any suggestions on what a backline should do vs this build?

elektra_lucia · Apr 01, 2007, 01:21 PM // 13:21

Interupt OoA. That's not really backline job to interupt though. If everyone ran OoA. I think I'd run 2 healers 1 prot (instead of 2 prots 1 healer).

Then use like healers boon or something.

Over all the team kiting, interupting, snaring etc would be very important vs such a build. Excluding your monks you don't really have much defense though.

I guess double fame means people will be more willing to be lame just for a weekend in order to get fame.

ZenRgy · Apr 01, 2007, 02:13 PM // 14:13

If you don't have interrupts in your build, you don't deserve to play anyway so OoA should never be a problem.

Also why are you running 4 physical characters with no RC?

Gimme Money Plzkthx · Apr 01, 2007, 03:23 PM // 15:23

Holy crap, someone else who realized that channeling and/or mantra of flame is better than GoLE a lot of the time! Also, spikes are a problem on killcount. The problem is that you are severely limited in the utility you can bring in a balanced to interrupt a spike, as you still have to be able to kill things quickly on killcount, and interrupts do not deal insane amounts of damage.

ZenRgy · Apr 01, 2007, 05:21 PM // 17:21

A PD mesmer helps a lot more than an extra fire ele or wtf you run imo.

elektra_lucia · Apr 01, 2007, 05:59 PM // 17:59

Quote:

A good PD mesmer helps a lot more than an extra fire ele or wtf you run imo.

I've seen your PD mesmer. It's good. Most arn't like that though and what's more most arn't willing to learn.

A bad PD mesmer and a bad Ele. I'd rather have the bad ele. Mesmers take quite a bit of skill from my point of view. If I'm fame farming for someone, I'd get them to play ele or necro. I would never consider them playing mesmer.

Quote:

Holy crap, someone else who realized that channeling and/or mantra of flame is better than GoLE a lot of the time!

I thought it in 6vs6 but people laughed at me usually. Now 8vs8 is here, people are more willing to accept it. :].

Quote:

Also why are you running 4 physical characters with no RC?

Maybe it was a trick to this question :

Quote:

Any suggestions on what a backline should do vs this build?

Snype · Apr 01, 2007, 10:03 PM // 22:03

Quote:

Originally Posted by ZenRgy

Also why are you running 4 physical characters with no RC?

We ran draw+dismiss. We never had a problem with conditions with the meta tbh.

elektra_lucia · Apr 01, 2007, 10:49 PM // 22:49

blind, wards, daze, hex's + interupts would be nasty for your build then.

Relambrien · Apr 01, 2007, 11:55 PM // 23:55

My guild wanted to do some relaxing PvP so we went ahead and ran a sort of Ritualist spike in HA today. We won Halls on our first run. It's scary how many people can't deal with spikes.

We faced a bunch of spikes on the way there, and even with just two Healer's Boon necros (limited to no prot) we were fine (spirits dealt with the physical spikes, but the caster spikes we could only heal. And we did it easily). Scary how bad people are at spiking.

IMO, HA is a nice place to unwind and play a gimmick when playing balanced in GvG becomes tedious and uninteresting.