Curse

Seraphim of Chaos · Mar 25, 2008, 08:51 PM // 20:51

We all know that the TA meta currently is pretty bad. To understand where the meta is going, we should first ask ourselves what happened that suddenly shook it up? To me, it all goes back to the creation of the HC a few months ago. The HC monk could dish out very good pressure relief through almost entirely 1/4 cast times (The exception being Kiss.) As such, the old Ranger template just had to go. Then, more people starting running two physicals in their builds to counter
HC/Smite. This lead to our current Me/N. Domination mesmers are also in now due to the fact that people are finally realizing that HC monk can be overcome by them.

This part is a little blurry to me. But now it seems that WoD necros with foul feast are coming in not only because of WoD but also to counter the Me/N. Of course, the transitions haven't been very smooth. Either way, you're going to see a mesmer or a necromancer on teams. So this has caused me to ponder; is the meta going to change or are we stuck?

Also, do you think that the meta would still be W/R/N/Mo if HC was never created?

C2K · Mar 25, 2008, 09:22 PM // 21:22

Quote:

Originally Posted by Seraphim of Chaos

This part is a little blurry to me. But now it seems that WoD necros with foul feast are coming in not only because of WoD but also to counter the Me/N. Of course, the transitions haven't been very smooth. Either way, you're going to see a mesmer or a necromancer on teams. So this has caused me to ponder; is the meta going to change or are we stuck?

The meta changes with every skill balance. So I expect the meta to evolvewith the next skill balance as new power skills will emerge and old power skills will be nerfed. Thats been the cycle in GW since day one.

At the end of last year, we were stuck because there were no skill balances, and people got very comfortable with the meta. Since skill balances are becoming more frequent now, the meta evolves more rapidly, and its going to anger the farmers that were used to the previous meta because their builds will need to change as well.

Quote:

Also, do you think that the meta would still be W/R/N/Mo if HC was never created?

Yes. The HC monk has forced people to deal with enchantments, which were largely ignored beforehand. It essentially nerfed Magebane Shot, because your ranger either has to be very good at anticipating a heal, or naturally lucky. Before HC, no matter what protection your monk had, Magebane was ready to nail WoH, ZB, etc.

I doubt Foul feast has anything to do with effecting the ranger's playability, because people would run Draw Conditions before Foul Feast was buffed. Also, Signet of Midnight+Plague Sending is a very old build thats seeing alot of play because Plague Sending only costs 1 energy.

If Izzy sticks to schedule, there will be a skill balance a week or 2 after this weekend's MAT, and we should expect the meta to evolve again.

Sun Fired Blank · Mar 25, 2008, 09:31 PM // 21:31

Me/N is hardly a surprise. If you played often enough, you may have noticed that several prolific gladiators and groups ran signet mesmers before HC. In a particularly frustrating streak before HC ran amok, my (former?) American group ran into Thunder, Identity, and KFC; each group ran a version of the signet mesmer, and every step in our streak was obnoxiously hard. If people that are relatively notorious for using pac-man glad farm builds and causing meta shifts were using the signet mesmer prior to HC, their discovery by the general population was fairly inevitable, but the recent necro updates for plague skills and rip enchantment probably drew more attention to the signet mesmer.

The WoD and Foul Feast crap is a problem because A-Net felt definitive, target-specific solutions must be insanely powerful in order to make them viable for 8v8. That doesn't always work, and that causes a whole truckload of problems in TA.

Teh Jace · Mar 26, 2008, 12:30 AM // 00:30

Guys take it easy. HC will be dead soon, noobs will stop farming with dual smite and everyone will be happy. The HC era made many lame noobs fairly high ranked but we are counting their last days.

According to izzy's statement HC and spotless skills are currently bugged = ppl have been abusing these for very long time (should they be banned? lol I guess not despite the rules). So we have been playing with bugged skills for months and noone cared. I would call it exploiting, not laming.

I dont like the current TA meta... every player with brain does not. But one thing is sure HC is gonna be fixed, noobs will start QQing, stronger noobs will find their way to abuse smth else. But TA will finally get rid of 50% of the current gayness.

BTW : we have just met g9 gimmickers (lamerz + company) playing balanced build and they were funny. Too bad the only TA party is ur fl list. There are way too many g6+ ppl with skills of g1 thanks to the HC era.

Seraphim of Chaos · Mar 26, 2008, 01:07 AM // 01:07

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sun Fired Blank

Me/N is hardly a surprise.

Surprise or no, Humil Sig will totally rape a team especially if the Me/N team has two physicals. Yet, rangers have always kept them in check. However, rangers are just not as efficient for everything else now. So you either bring a ranger and not get raped by Humil Sig, or you bring a ranger and all you can really do is spread poison against a HC team and hope you Magebane Patient.

Also, who/what are you referring to when you say KFC?

Quote:

Originally Posted by C2K

The meta changes with every skill balance. So I expect the meta to evolvewith the next skill balance as new power skills will emerge and old power skills will be nerfed. Thats been the cycle in GW since day one.

This is true; however, people tend to latch onto old builds. Or at least create variations with a few differences. This effect creates an amalgamation of too many different builds. That is what I call a rock-paper-scissors game.

Sab · Mar 26, 2008, 02:36 AM // 02:36

Apparently Izzy's fine with Me/Ns, which is too bad because they're pretty much the strongest anti-everything template in TA right now. If Me/Ns aren't going to be reduced to the same power as other midline options, then the meta is going to remain as it is.

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/User_...Plague_Sending

yum · Mar 26, 2008, 02:56 AM // 02:56

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sab

Apparently Izzy's fine with Me/Ns, which is too bad because they're pretty much the strongest anti-everything template in TA right now. If Me/Ns aren't going to be reduced to the same power as other midline options, then the meta is going to remain as it is.

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/User_...Plague_Sending

So according to Izzy, Me/N is ok because good ranger can interupt the noobs using it?

So X is not overpowered because player Y who uses X is baed?

C2K · Mar 26, 2008, 04:08 AM // 04:08

Quote:

Originally Posted by yum

So according to Izzy, Me/N is ok because good ranger can interupt the noobs using it?

So X is not overpowered because player Y who uses X is baed?

Izzy is sort of right. Mesmers only run up to you to 1) Blackout or 2) Signet of Midnight. Plague Sending shouldn't be 1 energy though.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Teh Jace

According to izzy's statement HC and spotless skills are currently bugged = ppl have been abusing these for very long time (should they be banned? lol I guess not despite the rules). So we have been playing with bugged skills for months and noone cared. I would call it exploiting, not laming.

No one gets banned for the way the skills work, even if they are flawed. Its not like they hacked the game to give them a slight advantage, its the way the skill was implemented in the game and you could play the build yourself if you wanted to.

yum · Mar 26, 2008, 04:24 AM // 04:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by C2K

Izzy is sort of right. Mesmers only run up to you to 1) Blackout or 2) Signet of Midnight. Plague Sending shouldn't be 1 energy though.

That's bad mes. Mind you, as a cripslash, I tried to disarm the Me/N (good one) everytime before a spike but 80% of what I got is plague touch :/ then plague sending, and vs a good team with that build there is no time to correct such mistake.

Further more there is more thing in that build that can destroy your team rather than just SoM and a smart mes will know when the ranger's interupt is not available.

C2K · Mar 26, 2008, 04:45 AM // 04:45

Quote:

Originally Posted by yum

That's bad mes. Mind you, as a cripslash, I tried to disarm the Me/N (good one) everytime before a spike but 80% of what I got is plague touch :/ then plague sending, and vs a good team with that build there is no time to correct such mistake.

Further more there is more thing in that build that can destroyer your team rather than just SoM and a smart mes will know when the ranger's interupt is not available.

I play melee alot too, and from experience, Plague Touch should die lol.

(well its not that bad). Even if you disarmed Plague touch, its spammable with no recharge. You need Dshot or Dchop to deal with it.

And rangers carry 2-3 interrupts, and only 1 has a 10 recharge while the rest are 5 seconds. Rangers always have interrupts available, the only thing that can stop them is if another ranger or harrassing character shuts them down.

yum · Mar 26, 2008, 05:00 AM // 05:00

Quote:

Originally Posted by C2K

I play melee alot too, and from experience, Plague Touch should die lol.

(well its not that bad). Even if you disarmed Plague touch, its spammable with no recharge. You need Dshot or Dchop to deal with it.

And rangers carry 2-3 interrupts, and only 1 has a 10 recharge while the rest are 5 seconds. Rangers always have interrupts available, the only thing that can stop them is if another ranger or harrassing character shuts them down.

Well, if they bring like 4 things that must be interupted, the ranger has few choices. Furthermore, 99% of the rangers I've been with only have 2 interupt: one 5s and one other 10s.

Sun Fired Blank · Mar 26, 2008, 05:45 AM // 05:45

Quote:

,However, rangers are just not as efficient for everything else now. So you either bring a ranger and not get raped by Humil Sig, or you bring a ranger and all you can really do is spread poison against a HC team and hope you Magebane Patient.

Consider this: why is Magebane completely lacklustre versus HC-smite? That's obvious to anyone. You can't reasonably d-shot anything, your degen is trivialized, your damage output is crap. So you run Magebane anyways? Why would you do that?

Get creative. As long as you have:

[skill]Savage Shot[/skill][skill]Distracting Shot[/skill]

You're okay.

Reading over Isaiah's analysis, I'm not particularly surprised that he's wrong. Just because your average scrub goes one (Signet of Midnight) - two (Plague Sending) on recharge so that average rangers can d-shot Signet does not make it fair. The best of them - and the best are truly sick on it - fake out and tease the ranger so that easy d-shots are a joke. They run up and count you properly, they dance around a body and use it after the ranger has no genuine idea if they're going to use it or not, they use it just before or after the condition expires rather than on spam recharge, they're not averse to a target remaining clean for short periods to fake out a d-shot, and if the ranger manages to d-shot anyways (a truly spectacular feat which never happens), everyone moves back to exploit geometry, and the mesmer just hovers around friendlies to disrupt adrenal spikes. Even a perfect ranger simply can't reflex the signet consistently, if ever. And if you're obnoxious (like me) and you bring Arcane Larceny, the ranger's Mending Touch becomes a nonfactor.

So that leaves you with spot condition removal, and that's not enough to fight constant blind anymore than you can fight ranger degen by mend condition spam. Signet of Midnight outputs even greater volumes of blind than EDA, and you could barely fight EDA using tactical spot removal, so what makes you think you can hack through Signet of Midnight using spot removal? You can use spot removal for openings, but you always fight from a disadvantage if you have no real solution for the signet. And that leaves you four options, most of which suck: Diversion, D-Shot, Signet of Humility, and Foul Feast. Even if you have Plague Touch or Mending Touch on the frontliner, that only lasts for a short period of time, it's unforgivably obvious, it eats up a huge amount of time, and it denies you energy for other things.

The one benefit is that for the most part, everyone has to run the signet mesmer or necro abuse, or they get sent packing, and the stronger teams crush the glad-farming scrubs in an equal matchup.

Seraphim of Chaos · Mar 26, 2008, 11:30 AM // 11:30

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sun Fired Blank

Consider this: why is Magebane completely lacklustre versus HC-smite? That's obvious to anyone. You can't reasonably d-shot anything, your degen is trivialized, your damage output is crap. So you run Magebane anyways? Why would you do that?

Get creative. As long as you have:

[skill]Savage Shot[/skill][skill]Distracting Shot[/skill]

You're okay.

There is no elite that is worth taking besides Magebane atm. This is quite sad because Magebane is omnipotent at best in this current meta. The elites besides Magebane I would even consider would be Cripshot, P-Arrow, or Prep Shot.

Even then, P-Arrow/Barbed and Cripshot will get owned by necro and all three of them are so easily d-shotted its not even funny.

Sun Fired Blank · Mar 26, 2008, 01:55 PM // 13:55

Why is Magebane so formidable anymore? To be perfectly blunt, I'd rather have another elite. You act as though my disregard for Magebane Shot is nearly unspeakable, so I can only imagine your surprise if I told you that I don't run Purge Signet on my ranger, and that I quite frankly don't care that much for Holy Veil, Hex Breaker, Natural Stride, Shadow Arts or Tactics on my monk (and no, I'm hardly one of those people that runs a D-Shot monk in TA. Quite frankly, I think you're stupid if you seriously run D-Shot on your monk, and you're stupidly obnoxious if you run it for comedic value).

I hardly think you're bad if you run these options, but quite frankly, I don't believe they're worth the space. My teams very seldom lose from their absence, and our general performance is tighter for it. If they could be useful again for us, they'd go back into our builds.

urania · Mar 26, 2008, 02:31 PM // 14:31

oic, i guess u hack and make ur interrupts hit through faint, price of failure, reckless and so on and so fort and at the end still manage to win matches without removing a single hex or condition.
2 hex teams are far from rare now, even soul barbs spike is becoming more frequent, congrats if ur monk can keep up without a veil and (at least) one purge.

I ran d shot on monk, i also ran plague touch monk, sorry if u find me "highly obnoxious", but i found d-shotting sigs or apply poison or maybe even the monk's elite highly entertaining. Even tho if takes your focus away from healing ^^'.

its only vs melee heavy teams (and those can be found in abudance in ta now, i admit that) that u might actually be advantaged for not having a decent hex removal on ur team.

Sun Fired Blank · Mar 26, 2008, 05:48 PM // 17:48

No, I don't hack so that my ranger can make interrupts hit through faint, price of failure, reckless, and so on, and so forth. No, I don't win matches without removing a single hex or condition. But contrary to pre-veiling (haha) opinion, a lack of purge signet on the ranger or veil on the monk is not automatically a lack of proper, adequate, and powerful hex removal. Purge is a very strong solution. Veil is a very strong solution. But a lack or inclusion of either is not automatic victory or failure.

I've run a whole litany of weird crap on my monk. And that's a very long list, which includes (off the top of my head): Conviction, Mighty Was Vorizun, Resilient Was Xiko, Glyph of Concentration, Grasping Earth, Teinai's Wind, Power Drain, Leech Signet, Ancestor's Rage, Rip Enchantment, D-Shot, Power Spike, Power Leak, Lyssa's Haste, Waste Not Want Not, Enfeeble, Enfeebling Blood, Defile Defenses, Rend Enchantments, Weaken Armor, Withering Aura.

Some of it was really bad (Lyssa's Haste, Lyssa's Balance, Mighty Was Vorizun) some of it was okay (Conviction, Resilient Was Xiko, Teinai's Wind), some of it could be pretty useful (Distracting Shot, Ancestor's Rage, Waste Not Want Not) but none of it was really better than just using another monk skill or any of the other things that I'm not currently using. If the most useful thing you can drop into an open slot is any of those options, then I'd say that you're quite honestly screwing around.

To be frank, I haven't encountered many teams using dual hex setups, nor have I faced any soul barbs crap in the last month. In fact, over multiple 10 to 30 streaks over the several days (nothing longer, I'm just not that elite), I've run into exactly one dual hex team, and one Wail setup. In the streak I just did, we ran into no teams using dual hexes. That's why I don't run a purge signet or a veil.

Teh Jace · Mar 26, 2008, 06:04 PM // 18:04

at sun : well u obviously dont play during eu hours. But yeah, 2 skills on monk are always optional. Im currently messing with aura of stability n some stance.

FF raped every elite bow attack which inflicts condition as well as killed cslash warrior. And why u need magebane? There are still some shove gay groups with precasted SoD on their warriors around (not so frequent though but if u wanna achieve a long streak u have to think about everything).

We will see what teh meta will be like after the update.

Seraphim of Chaos · Mar 26, 2008, 08:08 PM // 20:08

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sun Fired Blank

Why is Magebane so formidable anymore? To be perfectly blunt, I'd rather have another elite. You act as though my disregard for Magebane Shot is nearly unspeakable, so I can only imagine your surprise if I told you that I don't run Purge Signet on my ranger, and that I quite frankly don't care that much for Holy Veil, Hex Breaker, Natural Stride, Shadow Arts or Tactics on my monk (and no, I'm hardly one of those people that runs a D-Shot monk in TA. Quite frankly, I think you're stupid if you seriously run D-Shot on your monk, and you're stupidly obnoxious if you run it for comedic value).

I hardly think you're bad if you run these options, but quite frankly, I don't believe they're worth the space. My teams very seldom lose from their absence, and our general performance is tighter for it. If they could be useful again for us, they'd go back into our builds.

So I ask what elite your ranger is running? Is it escape and you just happen to have room for rending touch?

zling · Mar 26, 2008, 09:00 PM // 21:00

the ultimate Ranger elite in the HC era is Imho Melandru's Arrows... better than Glass Arrows cause you can count on almost everyone to have all those spotless enchantments and the Monk with HC and stuff of course. it's doesnt really rely on conditions, the Bleeding is just a bonus. and it does heavy damage, add an IAS and you got a formidable damage dealer with interrupt power and very high survivability...
if HC has 1 weakness its heavy damage. conditions and hexes it chews up on. heavy damage it doesnt as it usually lacks some of those important prots due to all the spotless crap...

Sun Fired Blank · Mar 26, 2008, 09:57 PM // 21:57

Actually, I play actively during American and European hours. Over the last several days, I've had very severe lag problems, and I haven't played as much, but I try and fit a decent streak in every day. I'm willing to chalk my experience up to strange draws.

We've screwed with this, as of late:

Marksmanship: 12+1+2
Expertise: 9+1
Wilderness Survival: 9+1

Weapon Set 1: Poisonous Recurve Bow of Fortitude ("Strength and Honor")
Weapon Set 2: Poisonous Shortbow of Fortitude ("Strength and Honor")
Weapon Set 3: Poisonous Longbow of Fortitude ("Strength and Honor")
Weapon Set 4: Martial Weapon of Defense ("Brawn over Brains"), Shield of Fortitude ("Riddle of Steel")

[skill]Prepared Shot[/skill][skill]Savage Shot[/skill][skill]Distracting Shot[/skill][skill]Natural Stride[/skill][skill]Apply Poison[/skill][skill]Mending Touch[/skill][skill]Debilitating Shot[/skill][skill]Resurrection Signet[/skill]