Curse

evil joo · Feb 14, 2007, 07:59 PM // 19:59

The skills looks balance, but becomes unbalance when you have a party size of 8....(thats why so many teams are running spikes right now..and will probably be nothing but spikes in the next few months)

there is many counters to spike, but it is not nub-friendly~

please bring back 7vs7!!!! (Ghostly hero counts as 8vs8!!!! w00t)

Death_From_Above · Feb 14, 2007, 08:26 PM // 20:26

Lorekeeper you nailed it. Evil joo why create all the hassil of messing around with party size when the main prob with HA at mo is fact stupid kill count has been implimented kicking out heavy hex and pressure builds which owned spikes. This is what the problem is, anet are trying to fix things with things that only will create more problems. There taking the long hard solution instead of the easy one. One thing i would also like to say is iv tried running balanced builds pressure builds ect. Yes they own an are fine until you get to the map broken tower were you get owned hard core or courtyard where you get owned hard core even more

B Ephekt · Feb 14, 2007, 08:34 PM // 20:34

Quote:

Originally Posted by evil joo

The skills looks balance, but becomes unbalance when you have a party size of 8....(thats why so many teams are running spikes right now..and will probably be nothing but spikes in the next few months)

there is many counters to spike, but it is not nub-friendly~

please bring back 7vs7!!!! (Ghostly hero counts as 8vs8!!!! w00t)

Changing mechanics because something isn't "nub friendly" is stupid. Players can either become better or not; that's up to them, not Anet.

8v8 offers far more versatility and options for truly balanced play, and is far better for the health of the game imo. It's no huge surprise that mechanics designed with 6v6 in mind don't work so well in 8v8, but that can be changed.

TheOneMephisto · Feb 14, 2007, 08:36 PM // 20:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lorekeeper

I was in HOH running my anti-spike anti-meta build... and you know what allowed me to keep the team alive with my monk? We faced 2 ritualist spikes on kill count... i camped inside one enemy team... put up channeling and spammed spirit bond on the monks and the ghostly hero... hell.. i didnt even bother preprotting i just caught spikes with spirit bond... farming energy off enemy teams with channeling allowed me to do this... NO other nrg management in the game available to a monk primary would have allowed me to spam spirit bond the way i did in that match.

Or just get everyone to put on the +10 vs lightning shields that they are carrying, get a couple diversions/interrupts on the spikers, and run around the map then suddenly turn and spike a straggler with everything you have or get another team pinned between 2 teams?

3-way kill maps discourage channeling because channeline requires you to be in the middle of the fray, which you never want to be doing. 3-ways reward mobile teams that can run around and spike or stragglers, or teams that can maneuver so that they can attempt to pin another team between 2 teams, or can get the other two teams into a battle and go in and pick off people. 3-ways don't reward people who sit in the middle of a 3-way fight to the death and spam spells.

Divineshadows · Feb 14, 2007, 10:36 PM // 22:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by lishi

actually you don't have to beat good team to win HoH.

95% of team you used to face got only rc as condition removal.

Counting on your opposition to suck is a good way to set yourself up for failure. Build to win every match.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lorekeeper

He is extrapolating from 1 example of 1 player to then comment on the entire community?

No, my comments are based off of what skills I see from my opponents when playing matches in HA and also from the brief moments I bother to check out observer mode. Hell, I even saw a monk from [EW] playing in halls last night on a team with a bunch of well recognized guild tags using orison. My comments are also based off of feedback I get from other players I have on my team. For example:

me (asking a warrior on my team) -> are any players on their team kiting you?
person playing warrior -> No, they're just standing there casting letting me wail on them.

This is the response I get in at least 90% of the matches where I ask this question.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lorekeeper

I was in HOH running my anti-spike anti-meta build... and you know what allowed me to keep the team alive with my monk? We faced 2 ritualist spikes on kill count... i camped inside one enemy team... put up channeling and spammed spirit bond on the monks and the ghostly hero... hell.. i didnt even bother preprotting i just caught spikes with spirit bond... farming energy off enemy teams with channeling allowed me to do this... NO other nrg management in the game available to a monk primary would have allowed me to spam spirit bond the way i did in that match.

Glyph of lesser energy allows you to use spirit bond enough.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lorekeeper

And since the meta is leaning so heavily towards lightning damage ritualists... mantra of lightning is such a nice skill to run on a monk backline

If by nice you mean complete waste of a skill slot, then yeah I agree with you.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lorekeeper

... the same went for the searing flames meta when nightfall was released... mantra of flame!

Mantra of flame becoming a staple skill on monk bars in a past HA meta only solidifies my point that HA is full of scrubs.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lorekeeper

... and if the rit spike doesnt realise the monks are using this skill... they get huge amounts of energy from the mantras.

If the rit spikers don't realize, then they are scrubs. Counting on your opposition to suck is a good way to set yourself up for failure.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lorekeeper

There really isnt any reason to run anything but mesmer secondary on a monk with the current meta. The current meta is spike... so the current monk backlines needs to run anti spike bars... this means... infuse... a fast cheap self heal... quick spammable prots... and lots of energy management. There just isnt any other better energy management available. Without channeling... monks would find it impossible to keep up with the rit spikes of the current meta.

First of all, almost every rit "spike" I have faced has offering of spirit as their elite. That skill allows them to spam their channeling nukes in quick succession. This makes the rit spike build actually more similar to a pressure build that can spike rather than a spike build. Against the true "spike" builds I have faced, energy on the monks is never an issue. It's only a matter of if your team can disrupt enough of the spike to where the spike can be infused.

There really isn't any reason to run mesmer secondary on your monks in the current meta unless your monks are very good at multi-tasking and take a lot of joy from using power drain and leech signet.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lorekeeper

They dont run migraine because they mistakenly perceive the healing line to be uber powerful... they run it because alot of 3 monk tombs backlines rely heavily on the healing line.

Counting on your opposition to suck is a good way to set yourself up for failure.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lorekeeper

choking gas rangers were used for the following reasons

1) they destroy necro spikers who ball up

Counting on your opposition to suck is a good way to set yourself up for failure.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lorekeeper

2) they let the average player interrupt warders quite reliably (since prediction and reflex interrupts are not things the average player does very often

)

This is like the only valid point you've made up to this point in your post.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lorekeeper

your post is full of generalisations

Yes, I was attempting to summarize the culture that is and has been HA into just a couple paragraphs. An experienced GvG player (or heck even an experienced TA player) could read what I said and figure out why HA is the way it is and dive right into to HA with a certain level of understanding despite never having played it before.

lishi · Feb 15, 2007, 03:07 AM // 03:07

Quote:

Originally Posted by Divineshadows

Counting on your opposition to suck is a good way to set yourself up for failure. Build to win every match.

i don't like that strategy as well , but keep in mind you actually have to kill the team only on 3 maps Underworld, burial mound(scarred earth before) , dark chamber. and on old times you probably was able to skip one or 2 of them.

that build was designed for holding.

it was able to kill , got everthing for running relic , and Strong holding power (the ranger bestial mauling you despite was actually a oath shot spirit spammer during holding)

now like i said i don't like that strategy since i hate holding build... but was a good build to do what it was designed : Hold Hoh

and tell me why orison is crap and tell me a some valid alternative

Lorekeeper · Feb 15, 2007, 04:12 AM // 04:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by Divineshadows

An experienced GvG player (or heck even an experienced TA player) could read what I said and figure out why HA is the way it is and dive right into to HA with a certain level of understanding despite never having played it before.

you honestly think that an experienced gvg player or TA player (With no HA experience) could read those 2 horrible paragraphs of baseless generalisations and be successful in HA? Considering most of the points you raise about choking gas rangers and migraine mesmer was relevant maybe 3-4 seasons ago?!?!

to think that anyone could dive into any form of pvp despite never having played it before... is just ridiculous. Especially with the different maps and victory conditions now present in HA. Remind me to take your posts with a little pinch of salt in the future....

gg...

ps. id advise those same experienced gvgers and TAers to read my posts... theyll get a far more accurate idea of whats going on.

Divineshadows · Feb 15, 2007, 06:36 AM // 06:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lorekeeper

you honestly think that an experienced gvg player or TA player (With no HA experience) could read those 2 horrible paragraphs of baseless generalisations and be successful in HA? Considering most of the points you raise about choking gas rangers and migraine mesmer was relevant maybe 3-4 seasons ago?!?!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Divineshadows

could read what I said and figure out why HA is the way it is

Part of understanding something is knowing its history. Not just how it is now, but how it came to be that way. Its evolution over time. Was it not obvious that I was referencing HA's evolution through time? And when did I say anything about said players being immediately successful? By the way, there are still some teams running choking gas rangers thinking that they are an efficient character. I want it to be quite clear to anyone reading that they are not.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lorekeeper

ps. id advise those same experienced gvgers and TAers to read my posts... theyll get a far more accurate idea of whats going on.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lorekeeper

Obviously you need to be careful about your positioning... farming energy with channeling is a risky thing to do... but if you are used to doing it and you trust your prot monk you can tank large groups of enemies long enough to fill up your energy bar.

Yeah, it seems quite clear that you know what's going on given that on your own teams you run a prot monk and, from inference, a healing monk. Sounds like garbage to me and then you stuff these monk bars with garbage skills like mantra of lightning and channeling. Not only that you talk about monks tanking large groups of enemies. Even most PvE players know better than to have their monks on the frontline. Yep, your concept of how HA should be sounds pro...

The Silver Star · Feb 15, 2007, 10:03 AM // 10:03

Ok, so i have just read all the posts on the last few pages. I am expecting some idiotic comment from Divine because he seems to be one of those people saying "I am teh 1337sauce and what i say is right and what you say is wrong!"

However from reading these posts i can tell that Divine does know slightly what he is talking about however his views are extremely onesided and outdated for the current state of HA. As for saying,

Quote:

garbage skills like mantra of lightning and channeling

well if you are the infuser and you come up againt a Rit Spike, and your prot is dead because its killcount or something i look forward to seeing you get crushed by their spike without Mantra, because me myself would not run mantra however it could be very usefull as for saying it is garbage you are the one talking it. Finally you stated that channeling was a waste of a skill slot, if you think that please find your way back to your Team Arena scrub forum.

Thanks.

(Waiting for a one-sided trash talk reply patietly)

coleslawdressin · Feb 15, 2007, 10:43 AM // 10:43

Quote:

Originally Posted by Divineshadows

Part of understanding something is knowing its history. Not just how it is now, but how it came to be that way. Its evolution over time. ...

Yeah, it seems quite clear that you know what's going on given that on your own teams you run a prot monk and, from inference, a healing monk. Sounds like garbage to me and then you stuff these monk bars with garbage skills like mantra of lightning and channeling...

I won't quote it all but I am going to adress some other things you said too.

When you are talking about Power's old build with the gale/bestial ranger you are completely wrong and I had already set you straight on this in another thread. He used that particular skillset because it worked well in that build...... not because it is "the most efficient character to spread dazed" or some crap. The ranger's other job when holding was to spam fertile season with oath shot, so considering any other character to spread dazed is foolish when the team build required dazed and a fertile spammer -somewhere-.

At times (especially Korean) teams have had success in GVG by taking lots of self-sufficient characters; however tombs is more about the characters having synergy when all working together in the same (usually small) area. Sure, If you take that stupid ranger to RA or something it is going to be a failure. His team build at that time was proven sucessful at holding though. Keeping the meta prot monk dazed allowed you to kill with more defense, ready to hold.

You can't be prepared to beat every team. At that time, even the best teams usually just had a single RC as condition removal. Dazed just wasn't common... A few good teams would ask for a conc shot on the ranger, broadhead arrow was pre-buff, I can't think of any other dazed skills commonly used then. I would always take the risk of running into some random team that had lots of condition removal, because you could still beat them some of the times. If you can't win a match you try again, hope for a better draw, and you should end up holding. Then the team that you couldn't kill before doesn't matter, as the only objective is to survive.

Once some teams began to copy Power's build and some other teams were running 2/3 broadhead rangers, it became common for good teams to add a draw or mend condi on an off monk to save the RC and counter the meta. A year ago tons of good/bad/other teams got by just fine with a single RC monk. Blind was rarely used except dust trap and RC was really a means to heal, not keep wars clean or save people from dazed. Maybe nowadays it is stupid to run a single RC, but a year ago? You are wrong about that.

I will agree with you on some of the stuff about tombs scrubs generally though. From the little bit of pugging that I have done recently, I have seen people suggest really outdated team and character builds. I really don't see people becoming massively more original or more prepared to be good at GVG anytime soon though. Unless, tombs actually became more like GVG it is way too different to actually transition players. Communication is super important at being good in both, but I don't see any of the map changes doing anything towards these goals.

Now time for more nitpicking. Tossing out 2 spirit bonds with a glyph every 30 seconds nets you 15 energy or .5 mana/sec. Would you really need to use 2 bonds before a 5 energy skill? Maybe. Can you get tons more mana when you use channeling? Yes. Now, I was never a fan of ROF/channeling spamming noob prot monks.... Personally, I used to like to run a powerdrain or drain enchant on prot with mend ailment and guardian...... but really calling channeling a crap skill for tombs is a stretch.

The use of mantras is kind of a Yomi Layer thing. When tons of teams were fire henchways mantra of flame became kind of required for lots of PUGs best I know. When we ran a few guild teams then we said not to use it because solid monks could do fine just protting targets correctly. If you can still prot effectively and setup /Me with a slot for defense against a common FOTM, it isn't retarded to consider it at least though.

All of that stuff really depends on the meta, personal preference and the team build, etc. You can't just rule out skills entirely...... I will agree that orison is a bad choice for a lot of monk bars, but it has its advantages too. I am curious what you think is the one and only almighty monk backline right now.

Franco Power · Feb 15, 2007, 02:40 PM // 14:40

mmm Divine, the "balanced" build you made with 2 mesmers, 1 Ele and 1 Rit would get raped by 2 choking rangers. Your warriors would also be made completly useless by wards +Aegis chain, please stay to TA or gvg or whatever don't come here and try to teach r10+ players how to play HA, thanks.

About the channeling comment, have you ever held halls? A monks can get so much energy by just standing around the altar, netting up to 6 energy every time he casts a spell, Channeling > glyph.

Also don't think that every person that plays HA doesn't know crap about positioning, tactics etc like gvg players do, even last night I was telling my monks to stay behind a pillar in dark chambers because we were facing ranger spike, HA players don't just get on vent, throw random comments and press c+space.

Oh and by the way, TA is 100x easier then HA ,because 90% of the teams you face are gonna be wammos/noobs, the times I've done TA, I literally faced 1 team out of 10 that opposed a challenge.

Oh and last thing, those monks that you see from EW on observer, I'm prettu sure that might be Dephria and he's r12, orison is good self heal after infuse, what do you want them to bring? Healing touch/healing breeze?

Peace~

FoxBat · Feb 15, 2007, 03:40 PM // 15:40

Lets be clear. Channeling *was* good on altar maps, which are mostly dead. Not really anywhere else. And orison *was* a nice skill to use with channeling. Just like healing prayers *were* good when both teams were focus firing on your ghostly who was already protted up.

Lorekeeper · Feb 15, 2007, 04:13 PM // 16:13

now i can see this devolving into a TA vs HA flamewar... and im really disappointed that it was initiated by the TA moderator. Coming into the HA forums and posting broad and mostly irrelevant generalisations about the whole community... and against players (including me) who you dont know... whose builds you have no idea about...

shame on you i say.

its one thing to criticise the game mechanics... which is the real purpose of these tests and these threads... but its another thing to ignore the game mechanics and post criticisms of the ''scrub'' HA community... how does this help anet to 'fix' HA?

things like that have no place in this discussion.

*tries to put thread back on course*

well in light of the removal of Kill count from HOH... i think things are starting to shift. I had a few visits to HOH with Leeloof today... running a pure balanced team... and i was very glad to see that we did not face rit spikes all the time. We helped to weed out the rit spikes on the way... flawlessing them on 1vs1 and relic runs etc...

we saw other balanced teams... running earth and fire eles... Shadow prison gnak sins... paragon buffers... last nite i even saw a team of good players running a heavy hex build. (not sure if they reached HOH tho ><)

i had to leave leeloofs team to go GvG but i know for a fact the team was in HOH regularly for about 4-5 hours.

HA is FUN... im having a blast... ive not taken HA seriously for over 6 months and now HA is back on my agenda and the fame is coming in steadily...

meta is evolving constantly...rit spikes are adding more and more defense... necro spikes are disappearing... iway just hasnt kicked off...(yet) or maybe ive just not seen them doing well.

i like the predictability of HA... it allows for very very creative build making... allowing us to take stuff like mantra of lightning on monk backlines to counter lightning heavy spikes... or things like water eles which have never seen much use outside gvg hex builds... and man are water eles annoying if you are running a dual warrior adren spike.

i have 3 remaining concerns.... the last 3... i promise after these are gone HA will be fixed in my eyes.

1) HOH chest drops are pathetic! I dunno maybe some other people can report here that they have had some good drops but ive won a collection of focus items... flames of balthazar... sigils... and staffs... the odd gladius... i think you can remove flames from the drops please! it doesnt take much time in RA to earn 1k faction... even less in TA if you form up with friends... i know all 8 people get the drops now but winning in HOH is now very tough on most occasions... up the value of drops a TINY bit and winning will feel sooooo much better... its such an anticlimax when you have just capped the last relic on murderball... with 1 second to spare... you run up to the chest and... a flame of balthazar drops for you...

2) Courtyard... make this altar holding please. 1 kill count map is enough.

3) somehow give pressure builds using conditions or hexes a chance to compete in kill count maps... (although im tempted to try run one soon to see if i can do it)

lorekeeper

ps i think ill start a thread on the effectiveness of channeling in the new HA see you all there!

Mental Leteci · Feb 15, 2007, 05:05 PM // 17:05

Quote:

Originally Posted by coleslawdressin

Once some teams began to copy Power's build and some other teams were running 2/3 broadhead rangers, it became common for good teams to add a draw or mend condi on an off monk to save the RC and counter the meta.

Let's just make something clear: it's not Power's build since he wasn't the 1st one playing it. Brehon, Sama, well we can just say MiNi used it 1st.

Divineshadows · Feb 15, 2007, 05:36 PM // 17:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by Franco Power

mmm Divine, the "balanced" build you made with 2 mesmers, 1 Ele and 1 Rit would get raped by 2 choking rangers.

You're so full of crap it's hilarious. If the choking rangers actually started to bother anyone on the offense enough (i.e. not able to pull off adrenal spikes cause of choking dorks), then one warrior has disrupting dagger and the other warrior has shock for when they are putting up their preps. Interrupting the preps would probably be overkill and all that would have to be done is stick the melee in their faces to rage on them till they die, because choking gas rangers don't like to kite (even though they should) cause they want to keep attacking. If they kite, then you've still managed to stop the choker from just sitting on one of your teammates and constantly attacking.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Franco Power

Your warriors would also be made completly useless by wards +Aegis chain, please stay to TA or gvg or whatever don't come here and try to teach r10+ players how to play HA, thanks.

Depends. If I pug two really scrubbing mesmers, then yes cause they'd likely do nothing other than just sit on the monks. If there are skilled mesmers on my team, then the ward melee would be the first thing they would be looking to diversion, power leak, power drain, or cry without even having to be told.

I honestly don't know why you would run ward melee in the current HA meta. I'd estimate 60 to 70% of the teams aren't even running any melee. Of those that are using melee, well over half and perhaps updwards of three quarters are using shadow prison assassins with expose defenses. On top of all of this, ward melee is such a commonly used skill in HA over the course of its evolution that any HA player that has played a significant amount of time in builds using melee are very familiar with strategies for dealing with it. Lastly, sandstorm is such a bad skill now that if you did choose to bring ward melee it would be a lower specced ward on some ele of another element or an ele secondary.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Franco Power

About the channeling comment, have you ever held halls?

Yes, many times. With the 8v8 holding format, with the 6v6 holding format, and with the 6v6 new objectives. I played channeling monks back in the 8v8 holding format, but even then I preferred to play a monk with power drain and drain enchantment while letting the other two monks on my teams channel. What was your point?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Franco Power

even last night I was telling my monks to stay behind a pillar in dark chambers because we were facing ranger spike, HA players don't just get on vent, throw random comments and press c+space.

See, this is exactly my point. Good HA players should not have to be told what to do. They should be aware of what the opponent is running, the map terrains, and their skills and know how to leverage all of this together with the ultimate goal of winning. Instead, HA is filled with many players who are mostly familiar with playing spike. They are used to playing a game completely devoid of though where their caller told them what to do and when to do it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Franco Power

Oh and by the way, TA is 100x easier then HA ,because 90% of the teams you face are gonna be wammos/noobs, the times I've done TA, I literally faced 1 team out of 10 that opposed a challenge.

You're so full of crap it's hilarious. The time of day you participate in TA matters a great deal to the level of competition you can expect to face, because it all depends on how many strong teams are being formed in TA. In the down hours, you can expect to face only one good team out of 10. The reason for this is that TA is constantly being injected with teams that had 10 game winning streaks in RA. When not many strong teams are being formed in TA and not many teams in general being formed in TA, the RA teams have a longer life expectancy within TA because they are mostly facing other RA teams. During the more competitive times, you can expect to face about 6 or 7 teams out of every 20 you face that pose a challenge. The highest I've personally ever seen the percentage of competitive teams in TA peak was at about 50%.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Franco Power

Oh and last thing, those monks that you see from EW on observer, I'm prettu sure that might be Dephria and he's r12, orison is good self heal after infuse, what do you want them to bring? Healing touch/healing breeze?

Pretty much anything other than orison. Light of deliverance is a much better self heal after an infuse due to it's same cast time and energy cost and potential to heal multiple people. Zealous benediction is even better with a bit of weapon swapping manipulations to make sure you trigger the conditional effect of getting 10 energy back.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lorekeeper

now i can see this devolving into a TA vs HA flamewar... and im really disappointed that it was initiated by the TA moderator. Coming into the HA forums and posting broad and mostly irrelevant generalisations about the whole community... and against players (including me) who you dont know... whose builds you have no idea about...

shame on you i say.

Eh. At the moment, I play HA and TA about equally. At times, I have played HA much more than TA. At times, I have played GvG to the exclusion of other game types. Of course over time I have played more TA than any other gametype, because it is the gametype that I happen to love the most. TA only got brought up because I happen to be the Team Arena moderator.

I am still free to post my thoughts. If another moderator wants to moderate this thread because I steered it off topic, then so be it but it is not my place to moderate a thread that I have actively engaged this much in.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lorekeeper

its one thing to criticise the game mechanics... which is the real purpose of these tests and these threads... but its another thing to ignore the game mechanics and post criticisms of the ''scrub'' HA community... how does this help anet to 'fix' HA?

My initial post wasn't aimed at helping A-net fix HA. It was aimed at helping the HA players themselves fix HA. If a high enough percentage of players become stronger and better, then a higher percentage of matches in HA will be interesting. How can this not be a good thing?

As for the new game mechanics? I think that they are complimentary to helping players in HA become stronger and better players over time. If they want to try and get better that is. The holding mechanic most certainly was counter-productive toward this end. As for 6v6 vs. 8v8 with the new mechanics, I am a little split on this. It takes a bit longer to get 8 players together, though I'm sure I would feel differently about this if I were in an HA guild again instead of a PvE guild (no commitments ftw). However, designing builds for 8v8 there is much more flexibility on what you can do with it which makes build design much more enjoyable to me. A-net please keep 8v8.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lorekeeper

well in light of the removal of Kill count from HOH... i think things are starting to shift. I had a few visits to HOH with Leeloof today... running a pure balanced team... and i was very glad to see that we did not face rit spikes all the time.

Teams will build with the final objective(s) in HoH in mind. This has always been true and I expect will always remain true even with rotating objectives.

Quote:

Originally Posted by coleslawdressin

At that time, even the best teams usually just had a single RC as condition removal.

So if the RC got hit with deep wound, crippled, and covered with something like poison or bleeding with a melee beating on him, then he would just blow up and die. Sounds like these "best" teams of that day sure were great. I guess I can't really complain, because I'm sure I got plenty of fame from these best team. All I want moving forward for HA are better players and better HA teams overall. Thank you for helping me prove my points.

Franco Power · Feb 15, 2007, 06:00 PM // 18:00

Quote:

You're so full of crap it's hilarious. If the choking rangers actually started to bother anyone on the offense enough (i.e. not able to pull off adrenal spikes cause of choking dorks), then one warrior has disrupting dagger and the other warrior has shock for when they are putting up their preps. Interrupting the preps would probably be overkill and all that would have to be done is stick the melee in their faces to rage on them till they die, because choking gas rangers don't like to kite (even though they should) cause they want to keep attacking.

If I'm the one playing CG, good luck with that. Again you are assuming that every person that plays HA is a scrub that doesn't know kiting and basics like that.

Quote:

I honestly don't know why you would run ward melee in the current HA meta. I'd estimate 60 to 70% of the teams aren't even running any melee. Of those that are using melee, well over half and perhaps updwards of three quarters are using shadow prison assassins with expose defenses. On top of all of this, ward melee is such a commonly used skill in HA over the course of its evolution that any HA player that has played a significant amount of time in builds using melee are very familiar with strategies for dealing with it. Lastly, sandstorm is such a bad skill now that if you did choose to bring ward melee it would be a lower specced ward on some ele of another element or an ele secondary.

Many teams still run wards, Wards aren't just to keep assasins away from your monks, they have a important role on relic runs.

Quote:

Yes, many times. With the 8v8 holding format, with the 6v6 holding format, and with the 6v6 new objectives. I played channeling monks back in the 8v8 holding format, but even then I preferred to play a monk with power drain and drain enchantment while letting the other two monks on my teams channel. What was your point?

My point is, if you feel comfortable with Power Drain then so be it, but not every monk has the skill or needs to watch the health bars and at the same time power drain/interrupt targets, which is why many of them prefeur to use channeling, it's easier let's say.

Quote:

See, this is exactly my point. Good HA players should not have to be told what to do. They should be aware of what the opponent is running, the map terrains, and their skills and know how to leverage all of this together with the ultimate goal of winning. Instead, HA is filled with many players who are mostly familiar with playing spike. They are used to playing a game completely devoid of though where their caller told them what to do and when to do it.

Here you actually right, but since most times I'm one of the callers, still doesn't affect me, although I've gvg'ed with people from [Pink], [dT],[PUFF] etc, and they all seem to follow the same strategy, they don't have 10 callers, usually just 1 person calling tactics.

Quote:

You're so full of crap it's hilarious. The time of day you participate in TA matters a great deal to the level of competition you can expect to face, because it all depends on how many strong teams are being formed in TA. In the down hours, you can expect to face only one good team out of 10. The reason for this is that TA is constantly being injected with teams that had 10 game winning streaks in RA. When not many strong teams are being formed in TA and not many teams in general being formed in TA, the RA teams have a longer life expectancy within TA because they are mostly facing other RA teams. During the more competitive times, you can expect to face about 6 or 7 teams out of every 20 you face that pose a challenge. The highest I've personally ever seen the percentage of competitive teams in TA peak was at about 50%.

See now here I could say the same thing to you, I see many trash/scrubs in HA playing, god Underworld and Burial mounds is free fame most of the times, but that doesn't mean that everyone is like that, there are good/bad players everywhere.

Enough of this discussion for me anyways, peace.

Lorekeeper · Feb 15, 2007, 07:51 PM // 19:51

Quote:

Originally Posted by Divineshadows

Teams will build with the final objective(s) in HoH in mind. This has always been true and I expect will always remain true even with rotating objectives.

Yep... which is great because people building towards murderball + capture the points + king of the hill will be producing some very interesting balanced builds containing the following utilities....

Murderball - requires snares+speed buffs+interrupts
Capture the points - requires team mobility and a bit of solo ability
King of the hill - requires a strong monk backline with good energy management backed up with some good defense from allies. Also requires interrupts.

Im afraid the fact that horrible fotms like rit spikes... iway... vimways... bloodspikes etc etc will never disappear from the face of HA... they allow easy formation of teams for players who just want to play casually... farming fame in small amounts with little effort involved. The level of commitment needed to be put into pvping by playing these builds is tiny.

Its a symptom of the more casual nature of HA... proper builds needing 8 properly decent players are slow to form... complicated to run... its just an issue of practicality for the majority of HA'ers. They dont have the time and they just dont care enough to do anything more complicated.

The best thing the rest of us can do is to ''play the game''... and farm these teams for wins. If they want to make HA predictable by running FOTMs of the same sort ALL the time, theyre making things easier for us.

HA is basically a hierarchy like so....

1) balanced teams run by the most experienced players
2) gimmick fotm teams run by experienced fotm players
3) balanced teams run by less experienced players
4) gimmick fotm teams run by less experienced fotm players
5) randomways

in which the quality of player increases as you go up the hierarchy with the highest quality at no 1)
in which the number of players decreases as you go up the hierarchy, with the most players at no 3) 4) and 5)

That the fotm gimmick players still persist teaches us that no matter how many times they lose to the best of the best... they still gain more fame beating teams lower down in the hierarchy than them because chances are they will face more of the lesser experienced players that they can beat than the more experienced teams that they cannot beat.

i think thats my view on how the HA meta works.

Lorekeeper

Randomway Ftw · Feb 15, 2007, 09:44 PM // 21:44

Divineshadows, you come in here and go off on a tangent about how HA sucks, and how everyone who plays it is a scrub, than you expect people to agree with you that the changes are good.

The fact is that ANET should never have introduced 6v6, and certainly never have made these changes.

Its extremley similar to the 6v6 change, a bunch of people talk about how they love the changes, while in reality more and more people ragequit the game every day. Yet, ANET still refuses to put HA back to the way it should be.

Divineshadows · Feb 15, 2007, 09:56 PM // 21:56

Quote:

Originally Posted by Randomway Ftw

Divineshadows, you come in here and go off on a tangent about how most HA teams suck and how flawed an objective holding was, and how most everyone who plays it is a scrub, then you hope people agree with you that most of the changes are good.

Blah blah blah...typical Randomway rants and flames toward A-net.

Edited for content. Changes in bold. I find it hilarious that Lorekeeper chose the name randomways as the lowest tier on the HA food chain. In my opinion, there is actually a 6th tier below it though that I used to call crapway (things like mending wammos and rebirth monks). Crapway is seen less and less these days (which is probably why Lorekeeper didn't list it but was quite common 5 to 10 months ago) and that's a good thing for the game.

Randomway Ftw · Feb 15, 2007, 10:18 PM // 22:18

Quote:

Originally Posted by Divineshadows

Edited for content. Changes in bold. I find it hilarious that Lorekeeper chose the name randomways as the lowest tier on the HA food chain. In my opinion, there is actually a 6th tier below it though that I used to call crapway (things like mending wammos and rebirth monks). Crapway is seen less and less these days (which is probably why Lorekeeper didn't list it but was quite common 5 to 10 months ago) and that's a good thing for the game.

You may think holding was a flawed objective, but I don't, and many people agree with me, the fact is that every change ANET makes screws up HA more, and people rage quit the game. Your comments are the equivalent of WoW players coming to Guild Wars forums and saying how much it sucks, or vice versa.

There are two things you can believe, the first is that pre-6v6 HA was filled with people running holding builds holding builds, and ANET fixed it by changing the objective of halls, and people flocked back to HA in large numbers, or that people came back to HA to test out the new 8v8 but then ragequit after realizing that ANET had destroyed the game mode with unnecessary changes.

The fact is that people who didn't play HA should not be dictating where it goes.