Curse

Greedy Gus · Apr 05, 2006, 10:49 PM // 22:49

Indeed, bull's strike is one of the biggest reasons I use rush these days. Sprint definitely still has its place in builds, but to me there is no clear superior choice (it depends on the build).

Ensign · Apr 05, 2006, 10:52 PM // 22:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by reboot

you know

Rush is a superior combat speed buff if a character is going to be spending more time target switching than forcing Frenzy. It's particularly good on Backbreaker hammer warriors, because those really milk the Irresistible Blow, never train a target outside of a spike, and generally have tight energy. It's weaker on a guy with Hammer Bash or Heavy Blow because the lose all adrenaline effect prevents you from using it as a stance cancel.

I'm not a fan of Rush on sword or axe guys, because I value Frenzy more highly on those characters. I do think that the Rush on that Axe guy is pretty unorthodox and I'd like to understand why it was put there, or if it was a mistake.

But Rush a bad skill? That's ridiculous.

Quote:

Originally Posted by reboot

and please explaine why this build has one hex removal while your at it.

Because high level GvG is incredibly hex-light. Most of the hexes that are there are either immune to removal (water snares), or will overpower any reasonable amount of removal that you could run (Shadow of Fear). The only hex that you can fight reasonably right now is Blurred Vision...which, granted, needs to be dealt with. One hex removal is a little too light for my tastes, I'd want to have two myself. But there's really no reason to overload on hex removal right now because it just isn't a relevant part of the metagame.

Peace,
-CxE

Vindexus · Apr 05, 2006, 10:57 PM // 22:57

Rush was not a mistake, that was the skill I used while GvG; please change the build back to Rush.

I like rush over Sprint because Sprint has a 20s recharge. I like to chase someone, Bull's Strike them and then Frenzy out on their asses. Then *BAM* Rush is up again, so more speed buff for me. Rush is up more often for Frenzy cancelling as well.

SaintGreg · Apr 05, 2006, 11:10 PM // 23:10

Quote:

I do think that the Rush on that Axe guy is pretty unorthodox and I'd like to understand why it was put there, or if it was a mistake.

Can you explain a little more on why rush on an axe man is bad? Final thrust + rush isn't great, but there is no lose all adrenaline on the axer, so whats the big advantage of sprint over rush there? Seems like actually being able to keep up with kiting would mean more than just staying in frenzy and not touching them anyways.

The thing I sort of like about rush is that you can build all your adrenaline, be in rush to get over to the target you want to spike, frenzy and unload on him, then rush away immediately. With sprint you have to either jog over to him or not have a frenzy cancel ready after the spike. Rush + bull's strike is also nice as Vindexus pointed out.

Phelann · Apr 06, 2006, 12:55 AM // 00:55

Quote:

Originally Posted by ump

I thought he already explained. If the two opposing edenial mesmers train on the monks, there is enough healing from the two elementalists to survive long enough. Edenial on the elementalist is kind of useless because they have a ton of energy regeneration with Ether Prodigy, plus it lets the monks free to keep the team alive. As far as dealing with warriors, you have a trapper to protect the back line causing all kinds of conditions if the enemy warriors try to go on the offensive. Plus there is Blinding Flash on one of the elementalists and water snares on the other mostly for warriors.

Is that effective enough? o_0? We've tried that before and it hasnt seemed to make as much of a difference as running blood ritual and/or signets on our monks, and just running more offensive characters.

glenn_rolfe · Apr 06, 2006, 01:06 AM // 01:06

don't how much gvging is going on around here, but every 3rd group does the stack of fainterheartedness/life siphon/parasitic bond.
You need decent hex removal in GvG.

wheel · Apr 06, 2006, 01:23 AM // 01:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by glenn_rolfe

don't how much gvging is going on around here, but every 3rd group does the stack of fainterheartedness/life siphon/parasitic bond.
You need decent hex removal in GvG.

Generally if they're using hexes like that, barring 1-2 Purge Signet/Convert Hexes/Multiple Preveils, it's hard to keep the debilitating hexes off of characters because they're covered consistently. Usually the strategy against those teams boils down to outlasting them and spiking out the offending character. I'm not going to say that hex removal isn't important; it is. We just prefer to deal with them in a different manner than removal, whether it's through Ether Prodigy secondary healing Eles or Distracting Blow versus the offending hexers.

Phelann · Apr 06, 2006, 03:14 AM // 03:14

right never mind.

are you getting all of your enchantment removal from monks?

Neo-LD · Apr 06, 2006, 03:44 AM // 03:44

Usually I am very happy with FnlD builds; I almost always like them, and I even end up incorperating some elements into my own build designs. However...

When I look at this build, I get the distinct feeling that its not playing to win, its playing not to lose. It is certainly able to hang with the metagame build for a while... It is fanatically dedicated to hating out enemy warriors, and has a nifty mechanism for surviving through energy denial... but after all that there really isnt much there for offense. The impression I have consistently gotten from top pvpers, specifically guys from iQ, is that playing defensively is almost always tantmount to playing not to lose.

Any team stacking mild warrior hate isnt going to even feel the adrenospike that represents the sole offensive threat in the entire build. It seems as though whatever the enemy offensive scheme, this build is just going to gut it out and heal it back... my experience with relying on healing and hate is that it will work most of the time, but all it takes is one small window where the hate wasnt down thick enough for the other team to muster a quick and clean spike.

So... designed to take any builds best shot... stacked full of hate and healing... little offensive plan of its own... how is this build not playing to not lose?

Builds that play to not lose dont lose easily. But they dont win alot either.

JR · Apr 06, 2006, 08:34 AM // 08:34

Quote:

Originally Posted by Neo-LD

Usually I am very happy with FnlD builds; I almost always like them, and I even end up incorperating some elements into my own build designs. However...

When I look at this build, I get the distinct feeling that its not playing to win, its playing not to lose. It is certainly able to hang with the metagame build for a while... It is fanatically dedicated to hating out enemy warriors, and has a nifty mechanism for surviving through energy denial... but after all that there really isnt much there for offense. The impression I have consistently gotten from top pvpers, specifically guys from iQ, is that playing defensively is almost always tantmount to playing not to lose.

Any team stacking mild warrior hate isnt going to even feel the adrenospike that represents the sole offensive threat in the entire build. It seems as though whatever the enemy offensive scheme, this build is just going to gut it out and heal it back... my experience with relying on healing and hate is that it will work most of the time, but all it takes is one small window where the hate wasnt down thick enough for the other team to muster a quick and clean spike.

So... designed to take any builds best shot... stacked full of hate and healing... little offensive plan of its own... how is this build not playing to not lose?

Builds that play to not lose dont lose easily. But they dont win alot either.

This is basicly the reason we are changing builds now, we didn't feel it matched our fairly aggressive play style.

I do think you underestimate the offensive side of it though, it is a build that we found had the capability to be very defensive but still a strong ability to drop people. Warrior hate was never a huge problem, with the Draw on the Air Ele. We don't see many hexers these days either, certainly not ones which could easily shut down the Warriors.

This is why I thought it might be a decent build for a rank 1000-500 guild to try running, it's totally solid in my opinion, and simple enough to run.

Patrograd · Apr 06, 2006, 08:46 AM // 08:46

Quote:

Originally Posted by JR-

We don't see many hexers these days either, certainly not ones which could easily shut down the Warriors.

I think the reason for this is that people are figuring the best way to shut a warrior down is via blackout or e-denial rather than hexes, which is interesting, as immediately post patch everyone thought hexes and condition spamming would be *the* thing. Hexes and conditions are also easily healed over by any build with more than a 2 monk backline.

We occasionally come up against really good hex teams (We Steal Tags [EVIL] were running a brilliant hex and spike build when we played them on the final night of the season, and Esoteric Warriors have traditionally run a similar type of thing although I dont know if they still do) but in general hex stacking seems to be a HA gimmick build rather than a GvG strategy in the current meta. In GvG teams seem to prefer quick clean kills to the long drawn out degen with fertile thing that seems to be FOTM in HA

JR · Apr 06, 2006, 08:59 AM // 08:59

Quote:

Originally Posted by Patrograd

I think the reason for this is that people are figuring the best way to shut a warrior down is via blackout or e-denial rather than hexes, which is interesting, as immediately post patch everyone thought hexes and condition spamming would be *the* thing. Hexes and conditions are also easily healed over by any build with more than a 2 monk backline.

We occasionally come up against really good hex teams (We Steal Tags [EVIL] were running a brilliant hex and spike build when we played them on the final night of the season, and Esoteric Warriors have traditionally run a similar type of thing although I dont know if they still do) but in general hex stacking seems to be a HA gimmick build rather than a GvG strategy in the current meta. In GvG teams seem to prefer quick clean kills to the long drawn out degen with fertile thing that seems to be FOTM in HA

Yes indeed,

I recently tried to put together a GvG Hex build, but it's just so clunky and awkward. You have two character slots taken up by monks, two by warriors (who is seriously going to run less than 2 warriors?), flag runner. This leaves three character slots left for enchant removal, snares, warrior hate, spike disruption, enough hexes to overpower any removal, and enough energy management to fuel the hex machines. It just isn't flexible enough for me.

Ensign · Apr 06, 2006, 10:14 AM // 10:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by SaintGreg

Can you explain a little more on why rush on an axe man is bad?

I never said it was bad. I said it was unorthodox, and that I didn't understand why it was good. In particular Rush over Sprint implies certain things about how a character is played and what his role is, and I'm not used to seeing that with an axe. Basically I want to know how that guy's intented to be played and how Rush outperforms Sprint in that role. I think Vindexus pointed out a few perks earlier, and I'll contemplate the playstyle bit the rest of the night.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Neo-LD

When I look at this build, I get the distinct feeling that its not playing to win, its playing not to lose.

Overloading on the defensive is not a bad thing, if you're planning to win at VoD. Then the added defense is more valuable due to NPC pressure, and it gives you more tools to survive that long. I don't think this offense is suited for setting up VoD, though.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Patrograd

I think the reason for this is that people are figuring the best way to shut a warrior down is via blackout or e-denial rather than hexes, which is interesting, as immediately post patch everyone thought hexes and condition spamming would be *the* thing.

Basically it's really hard to force hexes onto an opposing team without a heavy degen component, otherwise there isn't enough clutter to overpower removal. The trouble is that degen gets destroyed by a single copy of Heal Party on an E/Mo or N/Mo, and that's an extremely popular character in GvG.

There's some metagaming in the middle around this (they probably don't run a lot of removal because we can't run a lot of hexes, but some moderate amount might be effective if they don't have to stick forever), and low commitment degen is still nice because it can force a character into Heal Party mode while your offense continues to work...but neither can be counted on to carry your build.

Peace,
-CxE

Greedy Gus · Apr 06, 2006, 11:23 AM // 11:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

Overloading on the defensive is not a bad thing, if you're planning to win at VoD. Then the added defense is more valuable due to NPC pressure, and it gives you more tools to survive that long. I don't think this offense is suited for setting up VoD, though.

Without meaning to further hijack the thread, what would you consider a good offense for setting up for VoD? I've never tried to build to that angle.

Legendary Battousai · Apr 06, 2006, 02:44 PM // 14:44

4 W/N: 1 Sword, 2 Axe, 1 Hammer, [all use Plauge Touch] 1 Mo/Me with Strength of Honor to put on all the warriors, 1 N/- with Barbs and Weaken Armor, 2 Boon Prots, and if you can attack the lord at the end, he will die in 10 seconds... but theres probably a good chance your build will be compleatly annihilated by the other team because your build's only purpose is to function under VoD. But hey, I answered the prompt.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

Because high level GvG is incredibly hex-light. Most of the hexes that are there are either immune to removal (water snares), or will overpower any reasonable amount of removal that you could run (Shadow of Fear). The only hex that you can fight reasonably right now is Blurred Vision...which, granted, needs to be dealt with. One hex removal is a little too light for my tastes, I'd want to have two myself. But there's really no reason to overload on hex removal right now because it just isn't a relevant part of the metagame.

Peace,
-CxE

Actually, there are a few high level guilds who use hex spamming builds [IVEX], where they spike with Phantom Pain/Shatter Delusions, and spam paracitic bond on everyone else to hide their spike. They also use a lot of other hexes, but I haven't seen it ran in awhile, but I do know they are there. But basically, if what you say is true, Backfire covered by Phantom under QZ or MoR or anything else to increase rechage = GG monks and you kill the other team's damage with relative ease.

moriz · Apr 06, 2006, 04:40 PM // 16:40

looks like this build might fit WM quite well, considering that they are at their best in VoD conditions.

Vindexus · Apr 06, 2006, 04:55 PM // 16:55

Quote:

Originally Posted by Neo-LD

Usually I am very happy with FnlD builds; I almost always like them, and I even end up incorperating some elements into my own build designs. However...

When I look at this build, I get the distinct feeling that its not playing to win, its playing not to lose. It is certainly able to hang with the metagame build for a while... It is fanatically dedicated to hating out enemy warriors, and has a nifty mechanism for surviving through energy denial... but after all that there really isnt much there for offense. The impression I have consistently gotten from top pvpers, specifically guys from iQ, is that playing defensively is almost always tantmount to playing not to lose.

Any team stacking mild warrior hate isnt going to even feel the adrenospike that represents the sole offensive threat in the entire build. It seems as though whatever the enemy offensive scheme, this build is just going to gut it out and heal it back... my experience with relying on healing and hate is that it will work most of the time, but all it takes is one small window where the hate wasnt down thick enough for the other team to muster a quick and clean spike.

So... designed to take any builds best shot... stacked full of hate and healing... little offensive plan of its own... how is this build not playing to not lose?

Builds that play to not lose dont lose easily. But they dont win alot either.

That's actually pretty correct. This isn't a holding build, but it doesn't quite of the oomph I like to play with, which is why our forum should be cluttered with new builds pretty soon. I like to run around and see people not at full health and that only happens if our Trappers gets a clump of them.

If want a VoD build (you don't btw) then I'd recommend Disease for those Archers, works wonders.

Ensign · Apr 06, 2006, 08:58 PM // 20:58

Quote:

Originally Posted by Greedy Gus

Without meaning to further hijack the thread, what would you consider a good offense for setting up for VoD? I've never tried to build to that angle.

Basically you need an offense that can split well to build up a NPC advantage (sword warriors are good for ramboing the base, cripshotters for picking off guys from the side, etc), characters that get stronger against the NPCs (like reno fire elementalist), and a strong backline that gets strengthened by the additional offense.

Peace,
-CxE

glenn_rolfe · Apr 06, 2006, 10:14 PM // 22:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by JR-

Yes indeed,

I recently tried to put together a GvG Hex build, but it's just so clunky and awkward. You have two character slots taken up by monks, two by warriors (who is seriously going to run less than 2 warriors?), flag runner. This leaves three character slots left for enchant removal, snares, warrior hate, spike disruption, enough hexes to overpower any removal, and enough energy management to fuel the hex machines. It just isn't flexible enough for me.

You only need to run a small amount of annoyance hexes in gvg for them to be effective given the generally poor hex removal. And with the spammability of faint/siphon/parasitic, it's a worthwhile combination if yuo're looking at adding some degen and bufing up your anti-warrior stacks.

JR · Apr 07, 2006, 08:49 AM // 08:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by glenn_rolfe

You only need to run a small amount of annoyance hexes in gvg for them to be effective given the generally poor hex removal. And with the spammability of faint/siphon/parasitic, it's a worthwhile combination if yuo're looking at adding some degen and bufing up your anti-warrior stacks.

The problem I have with that, is the moment you hit a build with more than average hex removal you have a gimped character. All it takes is someone with enough foresight to throw a purge signet/convert or two in a build, and you have big problems. At the same time I realise you can't build to take everything into account, but I don't like having to count on my opponents build being i'll prepared for hexes.