Curse

Lady Lorwinia · May 12, 2006, 05:00 PM // 17:00

The typical build I run in TA is a boon prot, shutdown mes, me the bunny thumper, and an open slot usually for an ele blinder.

I need a little help here because for some reason the blame always gets put on me.

I go to take the monk down. When I finish him the monk is screaming at me to take out the mesmer.

And right away the monk gets rezzed and so I can't take out the mesmer.

Then the monk frieks out after the match because I wasn't taking down the mesmers.

So I'm wondering... is it my fault? Or is it the fault of the mesmer who can't disable the monk.

So should the mesmer on my team go after the monk solo? And me after the mesmer/casters?

I also want to know what I can do to get better as a bunny thumper.

I'd really really like to know what me a bunny thumper can do to get better in Team Arenas.

If you could help me solve these problems and give me some good suggestions I'd really really love you guys.

Divineshadows · May 12, 2006, 05:47 PM // 17:47

Your monk is screaming at you? Is this over a voice comm like TS or vent? If you are not using this, then I would highly recommend your team uses one of these voice comms.

Anyway, here is the natural progression I have my teams go through for TA:

1. Start with a plan after looking through the opposing teams' primary and secondary class combinations. Let's say the opposing party has a Mo/Me and a Me/E. Your team could start out with the plan of having you (R/W) on the opposing mesmer and your mesmer on their monk.

2. Quickly recognize the skills and tactics the opposing party is using against you and be able to adapt your plan quickly. Their mesmer is kiting you all around the map while spamming distortion? Better come up with a new plan. Perhaps you would be better off on the monk and having your mesmer shutting down their mesmer. You can ask your mesmer (and your other player) to save a damage skill to help assist on your target if you are having trouble dropping someone. A lot of your adjustments depends upon the skills your team using and the skills the opposing team is using.

3. Try to create mismatches or positional mismatches (where say an opposing thumper gets out of their monk's healing range) that favor your team. Once the mismatch has been created capitalize quickly. Here is a classic mismatch to something your build will encounter quite often: 2 melee, a caster with draw conditions, and a boon prot monk. In such an instance, your air ele can focus on keeping both melee blind all the time, your shutdown mesmer can shutdown the draw conditions player, and your melee player can be on the opposing monk.

4. Avoid getting locked down on a single member of the opposition if things are not going well for your team. Pressing tab often allows you to see opportunities (maybe someone else on their team is much lower on life and you would like to point this out to your team) and keeps you thinking on how to create even better mismatches.

5. Be aware of the strengths and weaknessness of your own build so that you can recognize how your opponent is trying to gain mismatches on your team and do things to counter their attempts to gain such initiative.

6. If your team is being presented with a situation that is giving you problems and you lack any skills on your bar that can help you counter it, then think quickly if there other ways to counter as some of the most interesting counters have nothing to do with the skills on your bar at all.

If your team becomes more successful at creating these mismatches I speak of, then I highly doubt your monk will still be screaming. However, if your monk still is screaming then you may want to offer your monk more support skills spread throughout the team such as a secondary source of healing (heal other, healing breeze, heal sig, etc.), a secondary source of condition removal (draw conditions, mend condition, mend ailment so that your monk does not have to spend 7 energy just to remove blind from your melee player at full health), and a secondary source of hex removal (remove hex, holy veil, inspired hex).

Lady Lorwinia · May 12, 2006, 11:47 PM // 23:47

Thanks so much for that info

BTW now that I know this... what can I do and practice to become a better bunny thumper?

Not sure what I can do to get better as a bunny thumper.

If you could help me out with that I'd be very very thankful.