Curse

log1k · Feb 20, 2007, 05:08 AM // 05:08

.... but now, HA will be back to being dead in no time.

Rit spike is still up in 6v6.

I was in RA, at 7 flawless wins, when the update came and once we won that match, couldnt continue, we had to exit and get new update. Must suck big time for the people that just won halls. Obligation to exit, come back, have to break team because it's now 6v6.

Seriously, what's wrong with 8v8? 6v6 is BAD, when will they understand that?

baaba · Feb 20, 2007, 05:20 AM // 05:20

You will not understand why because you like to play FoTM and do not realize some skills right now are quite broken for 8 vs 8 inside HoH. Mindless spike ftl. When will you understand?

log1k · Feb 20, 2007, 05:39 AM // 05:39

Quote:

Originally Posted by baaba

You will not understand why because you like to play FoTM and do not realize some skills right now are quite broken for 8 vs 8 inside HoH. Mindless spike ftl. When will you understand?

I played LoD/Infuse in a balanced team all week, gg thx bye

lishi · Feb 20, 2007, 05:46 AM // 05:46

Quote:

Originally Posted by baaba

You will not understand why because you like to play FoTM and do not realize some skills right now are quite broken for 8 vs 8 inside HoH. Mindless spike ftl. When will you understand?

then fix the skill , not the team size =\

Wasteland Squidget · Feb 20, 2007, 05:49 AM // 05:49

Given the success of this week I have little doubt 8v8 HA will return. They probably just want to fix the retarded spike skills that dominated everything before they make it a permanent fixture.

Blame the Monks · Feb 20, 2007, 05:52 AM // 05:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by lishi

then fix the skill , not the team size =\

Fix both imo. Rits are dumb, but that doesn't change the other 500 imba spike skills atm. 6 players makes HA less spikeable and thus more fun for people who don't like fotm gimmick spiking.

Long live 6v6.

Thom Bangalter · Feb 20, 2007, 07:34 AM // 07:34

Discord fix is coming, rit spike fix is coming soon after that. I expect we'll see the return of 8v8 sometime after that, because it was very, very popular. I actually went in to HA for the first time since In forever.

CassiusDrehyg · Feb 20, 2007, 08:49 AM // 08:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by Blame the Monks

Fix both imo. Rits are dumb, but that doesn't change the other 500 imba spike skills atm. 6 players makes HA less spikeable and thus more fun for people who don't like fotm gimmick spiking.

Long live 6v6.

Judging from your "OMG I HATE SPIKES" response to this topic, I can see that you probably spent the week playing IWAY, and you are, at the moment, a slash rank deer.

You need to start thinking outside of the box if you want to counter FOTMs. Can anyone say Cry Of Frustration, for example?

Kabale · Feb 20, 2007, 10:28 AM // 10:28

I doubt he has a deer

As for counters, Cry of Frustration won't help you _that_ much against rit spike, considering that their spike skills don't really suffer from recharge as they have so many of them :P Of course it'll slow them down but probably not enough. MoR + Cry of Frustration was the Mesmer bar I built before it was FoTM to run Rits - I pretty much assumed there would be necro spike all over the place due to Kill Count on HoH.

Anyway, the point is that I think Anet still needs to work on some of the 'endgame' mechanics, because whether you like it or not, some builds are just not viable, and most of these are ones that would easily counter the current FoTM(s).

Malibu Illusion · Feb 20, 2007, 11:48 AM // 11:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wasteland Squidget

Given the success of this week I have little doubt 8v8 HA will return. They probably just want to fix the retarded spike skills that dominated everything before they make it a permanent fixture.

Success? Which HA were you looking at?

The first weekend it was up, the districts were around 8-9. Few days later, and for the entire week after that, it was hovering around 3 districts, with as little as 2 being spotted in the International areas. There were also lots of people asking when 6v6 would be back...

Teutonic Paladin · Feb 20, 2007, 02:34 PM // 14:34

"There were also lots of people asking when 6v6 would be back... "

Is this truly a viable argument? When we have 6v6, the 8v8 players are mad and rant. When we have 8v8, the 6v6 players are mad and rant. No matter what, it always looks like the majority supports change to whatever playstyle we do not have at the moment.

Blame the Monks · Feb 20, 2007, 02:43 PM // 14:43

Quote:

Originally Posted by CassiusDrehyg

Judging from your "OMG I HATE SPIKES" response to this topic, I can see that you probably spent the week playing IWAY, and you are, at the moment, a slash rank deer.

You need to start thinking outside of the box if you want to counter FOTMs. Can anyone say Cry Of Frustration, for example?

Let me teach you a little secret about life -- not everyone who disagrees with you is uninformed, unskilled, or inexperienced.

But if you really want to have an e-peen war, I'll let you go first so the bitchslap will be that much more humorous. So the ball is in your court now -- call my bluff and post proof of your e-peen: all pvp titles, all pvp accomplishments, guild rank, etc or you can publicly back down and admit you RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GOed up. Your call.

Bastian · Feb 20, 2007, 02:56 PM // 14:56

Lol! This thread is hysterical - much more enjoyable than all the other 8v8 vs. 6v6 threads.

Also, isn't Blame the Monks in [cow]? Maybe I am wrong, but I can't wait to see the e-peen war - Cassius I think you're gonna get pwnd.

Although, I would disagree with both of you. Spikes aren't that difficult to beat in 8v8. However, there are a lot of overpowered spikes that need balancing. Cry of Frustration isn't going to save you a lot of times either because it really isn't the most spammable skill in the game. I prefer pressure against spike builds - get in there with some warriors, have some ele pressure, have some interrupts, and hope your infuser can save a couple lives. Most spike teams can't spike well with a crapload of pressure on them and once a couple fall, the whole team is done for. Hesitation is your enemy against spike.

Anways, long live 8v8 - I hope it comes back.

Blame the Monks · Feb 20, 2007, 03:15 PM // 15:15

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bastian

Spikes aren't that difficult to beat in 8v8. ... However, there are a lot of overpowered spikes that need balancing.

o_O So which is it? If it is easy to beat, how can it be imbalanced?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bastian

Although, I would disagree with both of you. Spikes aren't that difficult to beat in 8v8.

The "market" disagrees. Spikes were by far the most common build (other than rit spike and ass/ele, what else was there?). Spike is easier to run and can pack more defense utility in a bar. Spike is an easy way to win kill counts (when this mattered). You can also see the threads on why kill count is cheap, etc. All things being equal, a spike team has the advantage in terms of movement and defense over an equally skilled pressure team (at least up until the upper echelons of play, and maybe even then). If spike was really so easy to stop, why would people run it so often? And why did it hold so often?

People can talk on guru how spike is easy to beat all day long, but obs mode shows the lie -- spike clearly works and has been the dominant theme of tombs from day one. I am bored of spikes, I think it is less fun to play as or against, and I think it rewards skillless play. I want to see spikes nerfed across the board, but barring that, I will settle for HA being less spike driven.

Bastian · Feb 20, 2007, 04:03 PM // 16:03

Quote:

Originally Posted by Blame the Monks

o_O So which is it? If it is easy to beat, how can it be imbalanced?

I would like to say that I never said they are "easy" to beat. But on most maps they aren't that difficult as well. The idea is to bring a lot of AoE pressure. I know this may be gimmicky in itself, but in the HA meta is serves the purpose. The reason spikes are great in HA more than anywhere else is because the lack of space available. Countering that with AoE takes advantage of this as well, without relying on spiking, and still giving you some counters to other builds.

EDIT: The imbalance comes from looking at the skills themselves. I was mostly referring to rit spike because having 3 skills that can spike for an uber amount of damage with 5 energy, 1 second casts and low recharges is retarded. Thats why its imbalanced, IMO.

Quote:

The "market" disagrees. Spikes were by far the most common build (other than rit spike and ass/ele, what else was there?). Spike is easier to run and can pack more defense utility in a bar.

I know the market disagrees. I do think the defense on spike teams is what kills them in the long run. Most spikes need their spikers to also use defensive skills which means if you can pressure them enough, more people on their team need time to heal eachother in stead of spiking - or at least spiking cleanly. While they may have more defensive utility, they don't usually get enough points in those attributes to make them as effective.

I was playing 2 warriors, 1 grenths, 3 eles, and 2 monks and we were consistently beating even good spike teams. Dark chambers was by far the hardest map to win on because of the amount of space for spikes to get away from AoE damage. Tactics helped out alot here, but other other than that we had a lot of success against spikes.

In kill counts, the important tactic is to try and pinch the spiking team.

Quote:

Spike is an easy way to win kill counts (when this mattered). You can also see the threads on why kill count is cheap, etc. All things being equal, a spike team has the advantage in terms of movement and defense over an equally skilled pressure team (at least up until the upper echelons of play, and maybe even then). If spike was really so easy to stop, why would people run it so often? And why did it hold so often?

I agree, spiking is an easy way to win kill counts. However, I disagree that spike teams have movement advantages. The most predominent form of spiking in HA was rit spike. This is a very limited build in terms of movement. Again, spiking isn't easy to stop, but it isn't extremely difficult either.

One thing that I find helps against spikes is 1) Don't use anything other than minor runes, 2) Have a +armor weapon set. These two things alone should ensure that an after spike is necessary most times, and a good infuser should be able to catch a spike if the first one doesn't take someone down.

Quote:

People can talk on guru how spike is easy to beat all day long, but obs mode shows the lie -- spike clearly works and has been the dominant theme of tombs from day one. I am bored of spikes, I think it is less fun to play as or against, and I think it rewards skillless play. I want to see spikes nerfed across the board, but barring that, I will settle for HA being less spike driven.

Again, I disagee with the observer mode comment. Since kill count was eliminated from halls, I see less spike teams winning and holding halls. This is the biggest advantage balanced has because they can be mobile and they can split against spikes.

I agree that spiking is boring to play and rewards skillless play. I too am bored with spikes. However, HA will always be a house to gimmick builds - there are too many reasons to run gimmick in HA than anywhere else. However, this in my opinion, is not the reason to remove 8v8. There are many other things that Anet can do to change HA to discourage spiking besides changing the party size.

In all honesty as well, most spike teams are not very good players and usually C+Space their targets. This makes spikes pretty easy to catch, and I like to run spirit bond on my non infuser. Spirit bond pretty much owns any spike besides blood spike. And most teams aren't good enough to not be predictable as to who they are going to spike.

I'm really not trying to be an arrogant ass or anything like that, but I think that people overestimate how great spike is in HA and calling for 6v6 to counter it is not the right answer - in my opinion.

Just my 2 cents.

Blame the Monks · Feb 20, 2007, 05:06 PM // 17:06

Even if everything you say is true, isn't it also true switching to 6v6 would discourage degenerate play, such as spiking?

I think everyone agrees spiking sucks and that 8v8 encourages/allows spikes more than 6v6. The only difference is you think 8v8 HA could theoretically could be balanced despite promoting spikes/gimmicks, while I don't think that will happen -- in fact, I believe Izzy's current misguided notion of balance will mean gimmicky caster spikes/aoe nukes are here to stay as long as the format allows it (Izzy appears to prefer adding dozens of spikey, imba elites to weak casters rather than correcting their underlying flaws). Spikes are clearly not invincible, but I would argue they are the natural response to the map constraints (and team creation barriers) of 8v8 HA.

We tried 8v8 -- it was gimmick after gimmick for 18 months. The mechanics of the final map promoted holding spikes, which was boring and skillless. We tried 8v8 under the new changes -- the mechanics of several maps promoted highly defensive spikes (because the spikes have more room for mass snares on running maps, are less likely to get kill stolen, can spike and run easier than a pressure team that needs time to get kills, and has more room for defense in case they get doubleteamed or are holding). Let's learn from our mistakes -- the map mechanics of HA determine what people will run. IMO, the current map mechanics of HA (if left 8v8) are highly favorable to spikes (and most people agree with me on this I believe). As I don't want to see HA dominated by spike, I want to see this changed. 6v6 will counterbalance this somewhat, which I think is a good thing.

Despite this, I realize that reasonable minds can differ. I have friends I respect who prefer 8v8. I prefer 6v6 and have tried to lay out some reasons why. But why I jumped in this thread is because so many people on this forum are so caught up in the 8v8 rants they can't acknowledge the other side may have a point (and isn't just a pack of deer flashing noobs).

Divineshadows · Feb 20, 2007, 07:52 PM // 19:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by Blame the Monks

I think everyone agrees spiking sucks and that 8v8 encourages/allows spikes more than 6v6. The only difference is you think 8v8 HA could theoretically could be balanced despite promoting spikes/gimmicks, while I don't think that will happen

8v8 encourages more spikes than 6v6 -- I don't think that any sane person would argue this. Inability to properly balance spike skills never really gave a fair test to 8v8. I agree with you though that it is wishful thinking to think that Izzy will ever see the light and learn to properly balance spike skills as every skill balance just seems to inject new errors (or leave existing errors untouched) that have historically occured before:

- introduction of spike skills that are too powerful
- game mechanics or broken skills (energizing finale) that cause infinite enregy for casters
- large networks of passive defense that cannot be stripped/removed

You are dead wrong that everyone thinks that spiking sucks. The vast majority of the HA community is in love with spikes because they are bad at guild wars. They want to be told by a spike caller when to press their buttons and whom the target will be. They are incapable (or otherwise unwilling to) of thinking for themselves and hence overpowered spike skills are their only hope of getting some fame. Seriously, when you PUG a mesmer and give him a bar with water trident as his elite and he fails to use the skill at all on a relic run to knockdown their relic runner or you PUG warriors and they consistently press in too deep on 3-way maps never withdrawing allowing your team to get pincered between both teams, that pretty much sums up how the majority of PUG players are incapable of thinking for themselves in a balanced group.

supaet · Feb 20, 2007, 09:20 PM // 21:20

look, it was 8v8 before, how come it wasn't spike dominant? why? skillful infuser, but in 6v6, no one can spike thus no one will bring infuse and thus infusers got rusty. If the meta favors spike, more monks will pack infuse and become better infuser eventually. Look, back in the days, even a n/mo in iway beats bpsike with infuse. Monks in HA now either suck, or they're not used to catch spikes with infuse yet. And if Anet keep on switching back and forth, spike will dominate 8v8 cause no infuser can practice...

Randomway Ftw · Feb 20, 2007, 09:25 PM // 21:25

Quote:

Originally Posted by supaet

look, it was 8v8 before, how come it wasn't spike dominant? why? skillful infuser, but in 6v6, no one can spike thus no one will bring infuse and thus infusers got rusty. If the meta favors spike, more monks will pack infuse and become better infuser eventually. Look, back in the days, even a n/mo in iway beats bpsike with infuse. Monks in HA now either suck, or they're not used to catch spikes with infuse yet. And if Anet keep on switching back and forth, spike will dominate 8v8 cause no infuser can practice...

A good spike cannot be infused, bloodspike is not a real spike since it takes 2 seconds to finish. People also brough a lot of disruption since interupts were good on altars, and disruption/shutdown did not make the other team win since there was no kill count.

supaet · Feb 20, 2007, 09:28 PM // 21:28

Quote:

Originally Posted by Randomway Ftw

A good spike cannot be infused, bloodspike is not a real spike since it takes 2 seconds to finish. People also brough a lot of disruption since interupts were good on altars, and disruption/shutdown did not make the other team win since there was no kill count.

wrong, a good spike can be infused, a perfect spike cannot, but how often you see that. bring back the old sb/infuse....

you're right about kill count. it needs to be removed.....