Curse

Sun Fired Blank · Dec 04, 2007, 09:39 PM // 21:39

Hi. I don't know if this is the right place to post this, since I don't post that often in the Gladiator's Arena, so I wouldn't be surprised to get a nasty message in my mailbox or more, but I wanted to poll the community and get an idea on how it felt about this particular damn gimmick. A lot of you that TA with any frequency are probably already familiar with the build, but for those who aren't, here's a simple outline:

W/A x 1:

[skill]Shadow Walk[/skill][skill]Shove[/skill][skill]Crushing Blow[/skill][skill]Dash[/skill]

Stonefist Insignia for shove.

Mo/A x 3:

[skill]Shadow Walk[/skill][skill]Holy Strike[/skill][skill]Stonesoul Strike[/skill][skill]Dash[/skill]

So the basic outline is: Shadow Walk in, Shove, Holy Strike + Stonesoul Strike + Crushing Blow, Dash out.

I wanted to raise a discussion because I think this build is a tremendous level of griefing and build degeneration, and it's fairly idiotproof. It's really hard for a team using it to spike incorrectly, and it's surprisingly robust because it has room for a decent variety of prot and monk elites. It also punishes a lot of mediocre or average teams; a surprising number of monks aren't experienced or fast enough to read the tell and catch the spike, many of those monks have no idea how to properly catch the spike, and the spike is tremendously immune to several prot options anyways. The spike can also be executed from anywhere in range of a target, with fairly minimal tell.

The build does have a few drawbacks, but as a whole, they're kind of minor in comparison. The first is that it's kinda slow; the spike only effectively cycles every 30 seconds or so, so most matches last about five minutes. The second is that an above average team with any form of disruption, be it a ranger or even a linebacking shock axe, or a secondary healer can ruin the spike pretty badly, so it's not autowin to a good team with a standard balanced (R/Mo, W/E, _utility_, Monk), or the RaO pressure build that's been running rampant for a while (thumper, RaO spearchucker, warmonger's rit, Monk).

I'm personally not sure what to think; I think it's lame, and it's kinda clear to me that this build is being enabled less by the damage skills and more solely by the shadowstep dynamic, but it's more difficult for me to vocalize how or if Shadow Walk (or for that matter, all shadowsteps) should be nerfed, whereas I'd be more able to express my disdain and proper recourse for other frustrating skills (e.g. Warmonger's Weapon and Rampage as One). The problem that I see, however, is that I don't know if this is likely to just go away. During prime hours where a larger number of bad PUGs are online, this essentially guarentees a 10 or longer streak in a fairly reasonable amount of time.

I kind of just wanted to get this discussion into the community, and get some ideas on whether people felt this build is genuinely a problem or not. Opinions among the folks I play with are split, but as a whole, I think everyone I play with agrees that it's tremendously griefish; they're just split on whether it's right, wrong, or even effective to glad farm with it.

Divine Slaya · Dec 04, 2007, 10:25 PM // 22:25

I will agree that this spike is very annoying to play against and shows no skill what so ever, but it is beatable.

Monks are hopeless if targeted by this spike because they cannot pre-prot and are unable to heal themselves due to the fact that all of the damage occurs during the knockdown. Another problem is that because the spike is so fast, you must remain in healing distance of your teammates during the periods in which they are about to spike. By doing so you are also putting yourself within spiking distance.

When they spike non-monk targets I find it pretty easy to catch with a ZB/WoH and a draw or removal of the deep wound. It does require quick reactions, but any average monk should be able to catch a few of them.

Most of the teams I have played with recently have brought a Aura of Stability on our ranger. Proper use of Aura of Stability on the monk will kill their build because it makes the spike catchable on every player on the team.

audioaxes · Dec 04, 2007, 11:24 PM // 23:24

dont even need to do all that, need to snare and pressure them inbetween spikes
a cripshot ranger is one of the best at this

but yes its annoying having to change your build to counter lame gimmicks

Turbobusa · Dec 04, 2007, 11:31 PM // 23:31

I haven't played against those, but wouldn't an anti knock down (which is alsways a good addition considering DA assassins) screw up this so called spike?

yum · Dec 04, 2007, 11:50 PM // 23:50

The thing is, after one kill they just run away using dash and may start griefing. W/o anti KD, the monk is pretty doomed. Disruption would do little to help, and even if the monk time Zb/WoH correctly, with 4 optional slots on each char, it is posible that they will KD the monk b4 the spike, which only takes like 1.5 s or less.

It's cheap.

bungusmaximus · Dec 04, 2007, 11:55 PM // 23:55

bleh, didn't have the pleasure of meeting this yet, again shadowstepping gives birth to ultimate lameness. If the warrior is the only one with KD though a diversion on the poor bastard might solve the entire problem, doesn't look very idiot proof to me, just a pain in the arse to kill.

Seraphim of Chaos · Dec 04, 2007, 11:57 PM // 23:57

Hum Sig.

GG

yum · Dec 05, 2007, 12:02 AM // 00:02

Quote:

Originally Posted by Seraphim of Chaos

Hum Sig.

GG

I may as well use SOA to prevent the spike. YAY.

LoL.

Sab · Dec 05, 2007, 12:48 AM // 00:48

It's pretty retarded, though I do run into groups who are absolutely terrible at this build. I don't know how bad you have to be to fail at Shoveway.

If you have a good ping and good reflexes, D-Shot Shove and it's gg. It's easy to see the spike coming, all four of them will wander into your aggro bubble and kite around for a few seconds before they tele. Keep close to whoever might get spiked to minimize the flight time (with a 3/4s cast, you need all the time you can get).

After the spike (whether it's successful or not), have your ranger spread degen and try to D-Shot some monk elites (they usually have WoH and RC). Your warrior needs to snare a target to stall the rest of their from running. If your team is coordinated enough, you can form a bodyblock on a bridge or a narrow passageway, that usually buys enough time to kill whoever's left behind.

And no, Signet of Humility doesn't necessarily work. I've seen warriors starting to carry Grapple to get around that.

And Diversion...err only if you're running a Dom Mes for some reason and the caller is dumb enough to cast through it. Otherwise, one of the three monks will remove it and they'll spike as normal.

It's just a gay build, working off the mechanics of the timer system and shadowsteps. I don't expect the devs will do anything about either.

wuzzman · Dec 05, 2007, 01:03 AM // 01:03

if only teams brought mesmers

Teh [prefession]-zorz · Dec 05, 2007, 01:23 AM // 01:23

I used to run that a longggg time ago, but not with a shove tank...SoJ mkay.

JR · Dec 05, 2007, 05:41 AM // 05:41

Off monk Aura of Stability. They have no enchant removal.

Dzan · Dec 05, 2007, 11:55 AM // 11:55

I cant understand why people run things like this, these builds win so slowly people can't really farm glads with them. You won't get that many glads per hour when each match takes 8 or 9 minutes.

RoF · Dec 05, 2007, 12:11 PM // 12:11

like JR said, AoS on the monk 24/7, if your team isn't bringing this skill, you are destined for failure. Not having this is autolose, as the spike is pretty much immune to protting, the monk cannot save itself without anti KD.

That makes the monk unspikable.

Monks job: watch for the shadow step and when u see it instantly zb/woh the target and follow it with your condi removal -> reversal -> (spike is now over) zb/woh again to heal them back to full, spike stopped. Do not try to preprot anything, (ok maybe you can spam reversals around) because spirit bond wont trigger anyway, and if the spike comes mid cast your zb/woh will not be in time.

R A N D O M · Dec 05, 2007, 01:02 PM // 13:02

well i dont see the problem there, it seems very easy to counter... my guildys were running something with a similar concept to this the other week

[skill]Deadly Paradox[/skill][skill]Savannah Heat[/skill][skill][Dark Prison[/skill][skill]Iron Palm[/skill][skill]Bed of Coals[/skill][skill]Entangling Asp[/skill][skill]Augury of Death[/skill][skill]Signet of Toxic Shock[/skill]
4 of those each takes a target each rolls most teams in about a min, why use the boring monks when you can use that

pah01 · Dec 05, 2007, 01:03 PM // 13:03

off monk aura of stability is really freaking annoying. But then it is a strong answer to a lot of teams in TA right now.

Joe

Targuil · Dec 05, 2007, 01:08 PM // 13:08

That build really sucks. 1 spike/30 sec, shitty pressure. They had time for two spikes until we wiped those. None of spike killed anyone. It's also too easy to spot when they are gonna spike. It was near for sure

. And when they have spiked, they die easily while they're offguard. From what i have seen at least.
I like how i was Shattering assault and bashed those monks down while they threw sod and stuff to him.

Also, you said RaO pressure with RaO chucker? Stunning strike is IMO much better. double daze ftw. Or daze with shattering assault ^^

These kind of dirty spikes in TA wont just work. It's easy to get +20 wins with balanced/ RaO pressure. (I don't like balanced though)

the_deSKtructor · Dec 05, 2007, 04:07 PM // 16:07

Quote:

Originally Posted by RoF

like JR said, AoS on the monk 24/7, if your team isn't bringing this skill, you are destined for failure. Not having this is autolose, as the spike is pretty much immune to protting, the monk cannot save itself without anti KD.

That makes the monk unspikable.

All u have to do is to prevent the kd, no matter if it is aura of stabilty or an interrupt on shove.

Legendary Shiz · Dec 05, 2007, 07:30 PM // 19:30

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sab

It's pretty retarded, though I do run into groups who are absolutely terrible at this build. I don't know how bad you have to be to fail at Shoveway.

If you have a good ping and good reflexes, D-Shot Shove and it's gg. It's easy to see the spike coming, all four of them will wander into your aggro bubble and kite around for a few seconds before they tele. Keep close to whoever might get spiked to minimize the flight time (with a 3/4s cast, you need all the time you can get).

Yeah if you can get the ranger to hit Shove that's the best option, but for baed rangers as long as you can get crushing your monk should have a breeze saving the spike.

TheOneMephisto · Dec 05, 2007, 10:01 PM // 22:01

As others have said, throw out an interrupt when you see shove. Just watch the warrior and keep him targeted, and right after you see a puff of smoke hit dshot. Even if you miss shove, you have a good chance of hitting crushing, which is pretty good also.