Curse

Ishamael Sedai · Oct 13, 2005, 01:19 PM // 13:19

Last night my guild and I duplicated Lara's ranger spike. We beat some good teams but also lost some. Either way it wasn't anywhere close to as dominant as Lara is. I'm curious why it is hard to duplicate the dominance of Lara's team. I see people run it and it is effective. Teams can win halls with it. But what is it about Lara that it is run so effectively. Is it just a lot of practice where they have figured out exactly when to shoot to counter a slight latency over voice communication? Is my team lacking enchant removal (we have some on the me/n but should we put a drain enchant on all the mo's)? Is it Lara's target calling that is the difference? I'm curious why more good teams with really good players don't run this same build that seems to be so good at holding halls once you take.

Kabale · Oct 13, 2005, 01:35 PM // 13:35

The lag on TS/Vent servers is countered by setting up a bind (in the form of a robot voice) which is sent out to all the players at pretty much the same time (much more accurate than a player saying "spike this target on 3...2..1, etc..). Basically, the target caller would point out a target, press the key to which the voice bind is linked to and all the players will hear the countdown at the same time.

Also, another effective tactic that they might be using is everyone shooting arrows (not their main spike) on one target to attract any prot/healing to that one and then quickly switching to another, meaning the monks have used their prot/heal on the 'wrong' target.

You also have to keep in mind that you are within range of the target, but you'll most likely have plenty of time to do this.

lawman · Oct 15, 2005, 01:38 AM // 01:38

forgive the newbish question, but, what is Lara's Ranger Spike?

I've tried doing a search on here for it, and couldn't find anything.

heist23 · Oct 15, 2005, 02:52 AM // 02:52

i'm guessing that it's the same as the normal ranger spike, which had 5 rangers attack one target at the same time, while running a preparation like kindle arrows. it's more effective than air spike because it can't be affected by prot spirit. one viable counter i heard about was shielding hands, but with 10 seconds and a 20 second recharge (i think) i doubt it.

d4nowar · Oct 15, 2005, 03:15 AM // 03:15

Lara is a freakishly good caller. You have to see it to believe it. Its like... Gah...

tafy69 · Oct 15, 2005, 08:58 AM // 08:58

There are indirect counters to Ranger Spike, basically taking out the ranger or order necro, or just keeping enough of them busy/shutdown/kd so their spikes will fail.

But yeah a good spike will take anyone down before u even click on a heal, but thats the same with any spike team.

Sharpsight · Oct 15, 2005, 10:20 PM // 22:20

Hmm... don't suppose any of you have an ign for 'Lara'? I'd love to run with her a couple times to see how she calls, since you say she's so good.

Edit: nvm... Apparently she only runs with Rank 9's.

romO · Oct 16, 2005, 03:28 AM // 03:28

its a he. and basically what makes the spike so good is simply the players in the group. pRp uses vent and its a simple call. nothing special. all of the players just play together very often and run only that build and eventually you get very good at it. nothing more than practice.

Entropius · Oct 16, 2005, 05:10 PM // 17:10

Anyone can coordinate a bunch of rangers spiking, but pRp has a Me/N fastcaster coordinated with the rangers -- so targets get Lingered right as the spike hits, meaning the standard defensive tricks are useless.

Free Faction fought pRp in halls on Friday, and there was no real way to survive their spike other than being insanely fast on the Healing Hands and Infuse Health -- and even that often wasn't enough. We were playing a spike build, though, and wound up out-spiking them (after blasting their necro every time they raised him). With one of their rangers down, we could just barely survive with good Infuse Health and Healing Handsing. With the nerfing of Fertile and the rise of spike methods that are more efficient than Air Spike, it looks like PvP is leading toward another spike-heavy metagame.

What will deal with New Spike (of all flavors), I wonder, without Fertile spam? Are people going to stop using Superior runes, perhaps, and start loading up on +health items? Monks running Divine Intervention?

Sharpsight · Oct 16, 2005, 05:37 PM // 17:37

I doubt monks running divine intervention would prevent spikes on its own, unless all three monks run it (and are very coordinated). 30 second recharge is just too long to rely on for spike prevention.

Entropius · Oct 16, 2005, 05:40 PM // 17:40

True, but it can help quite a bit. People use Healing Hands, which has a 25 sec recharge and is elite, simply because it counters ranger spike.

For one skill slot, being able to make one spike every 30 seconds fail isn't bad.

knives · Oct 16, 2005, 06:07 PM // 18:07

I find a way to counter the ranger spike is to have a build that does damage that ignores armor, so that you can target things other than monks. The ranger spike can take down almost any target rapidly, and therefore targeting monks is not a problem, and they can deal with a more hazardous target. When I was in an uncoordinated FoC group, we beat 3x ranger spikes in a row because we hid behind walls, sheltering the monks inside a ball. So that made the rangers have to come in almost melee range to attack us. Then we just foced them to death. So its not always the skills you use to beat them, but merely the tactics.

Unless its altar maps, then you might need a bit of infuse health + healing hands.

Ender Ward · Oct 16, 2005, 10:32 PM // 22:32

Quote:

Originally Posted by Entropius

What will deal with New Spike (of all flavors), I wonder, without Fertile spam? Are people going to stop using Superior runes, perhaps, and start loading up on +health items? Monks running Divine Intervention?

Already doing that, sort of.

I was there in the group (Merc Spheroid) when we fought pRp. With so much spike around lately, I decided to use a +60 health staff with only one superior (normally I'd use +10 armor or +5 armor and 20% longer enchants), for a total of 515 health before the morale boost (~580 with it).
I only died once I believe to the pRp spike. With that much of a health buffer, the Infuse Healer was able to save me quite a few times.
Simulating the effects of Fertile through means that cannot be removed by Rend/Lingering, may indeed be the way to go against the spike metagame.

romO · Oct 16, 2005, 11:38 PM // 23:38

well umm. i have healed for pRp before and let me just tell you that if you want their weakness, its that they have no full prot monk. just 2 healers and a double glypher.

Zeru · Oct 17, 2005, 02:08 AM // 02:08

People don't recognize the weaknesses of the ranger spike teams and don't run counters.

The reason why their ranger spike wins so often is that they're a) well coordinated and b) it's frieking hard as hell to kick them off the altar.

Ranger spike isn't as awesome as before though. Before, you could kill through an aegis in under a second. Now, you need to either enchant strip the target or just brute force it with orders. If the rangers do the enchant stripping, the target is obvious if you enchant stack a bit. If a 5th character does it (usually mes/nec), shut him down and you own the build. Same with a guy spamming orders. We never had an issue with those teams who did this because their build rested on a single weak point that was easily exploited.

Ranger spikes are the best thing for the hall of heros. Rangers with stances are so difficult to kill with a 3rd team there who might go after you instead. All it takes is one ranger to be alive and your hero will never cap the altar unless you have shield of deflection or maybe guardian.

The other thing is that people don't run ranger spike counters:
-Triple Aegis
-FC Shield of Deflection
-Prot Booners
-Ward against harm
-Shields Up
-Shutdown on their key 5th character.
-Mass hexes on the rangers and interrupts on hex removal

In gvg ranger spike turns to meh at best. It's a very powerful FOTM build solely on holding the hall by abusing the ghostly hero setup.

Last word of advice: infuse health is total trash vs any good team. Run a prot booner and don't deal with it.

smurfhunter · Oct 17, 2005, 02:17 AM // 02:17

aegis, shield of deflection, and ward against harm are outdated since everyone uses read the wind now, not kindle. and, everyone uses lingering/rend before a spike, so thats also kinda useless unless its an altar map, where those are great on the ghostly. oh and many spike teams use hexbreaker on the rangers, but some really persistant hexing will get past that no doubt.

and personally, i dont think infuse is trash, i guess its an opinion tho...

munkieix · Oct 17, 2005, 02:21 AM // 02:21

How do u make or get a bind?

Sum Gai · Oct 17, 2005, 02:21 AM // 02:21

Shield's Up ftw.

Red Locust · Oct 17, 2005, 02:40 AM // 02:40

Quote:

Originally Posted by smurfhunter

aegis, shield of deflection, and ward against harm are outdated since everyone uses read the wind now, not kindle. and, everyone uses lingering/rend before a spike, so thats also kinda useless unless its an altar map, where those are great on the ghostly.

What are you doing letting a me/n that stands out like crazy, cast a 3s hex? And why is it that aegis and shield of deflection are outdated? They work against rangers and warriors just as good as they always have.

smurfhunter · Oct 17, 2005, 03:00 AM // 03:00

Quote:

Originally Posted by Red Locust

What are you doing letting a me/n that stands out like crazy, cast a 3s hex? And why is it that aegis and shield of deflection are outdated? They work against rangers and warriors just as good as they always have.

first of all i never said gangbanging the me/n was a bad idea, however its reasonable, or at least prudent, to expect the target to be lingered before a spike. this means that any enchantment will be removed. i agree outdated probably isnt the best word for this, but people didnt used to debuff as much as they do now so... idk you could just say "innefective".

and its not a 3 second cast by far, they go me/n for a reason yknow...

oh and especially shield of deflection, unless your psychic you really shouldnt have the time to cast that right as the person gets spiked. now granted you could just preemptively put that on obvious targets, but that just leads me back to the first part of my post