Curse

CrispyCritter · Oct 10, 2006, 04:13 PM // 16:13

Ok, I'll admit this is a rant. We lost to a spike on Burning Isle, and I'm kind of annoyed. What annoys me is not so much the fact that they beat us, but that we countered their build and outplayed them the whole match, and they still beat us. As JR says, "spike on Burning is 1337 stratz!!!1111"

Our build was a good counter to theirs, having dual blackouts, which we used to disable the spikers. They did manage to kill our strat caller multiple times and DP him out, but I just kept hard ressing him and they didn't bother to spike anyone else. Eventually, we killed their monks multiple times and pushed them back to their base.

We were winning when VoD hit, and their NPCs rushed out to the stand. We also rushed back to the stand to get the cover of our NPCs, and proceeded to get spiked out. If you've ever tried to play against a spike guild 8v8 at VoD, let me tell you, it's not fun. Having 25% less health and 25% more damage basically means that even with disruption, you'll still probably die, especially if you have DP.

This is made worse by the fact that most of the NPCs in the Burning Isle are within the guild lord area, and so it's difficult to take them out until you kill the other team. Of course, it's Burning, so it's rather difficult to split, having to go through the lava and deal with not one, but two lesser flame sents.

I realize that ANET supposedly fixed this once, but even so, the Burning Isle is still the only guild hall in which sub-par teams can consistently win with gimmick builds even at high ranks, especially with spikes. Because of this, I'd like to offer a few suggestions as to how this Isle might be improved:

1) Remove and/or weaken the flame sents.

Even removing just one sent would help a lot, as it would make it much easier to gank. Also reducing the damage done by the sents would help, as currently it seems like only rangers can easily take out the sents, as their melee damage is ridiculously high, and requires a Prot Spirit as well as constant healing for any melee class.

Alternatively, remove both the flame sents and put a gate at the back of the base, that you would need to have the Guild Thief to unlock.

In most maps, ganking is a calculated risk, but on Burning it's all or nothing. I've seen very few teams, even very good teams, successfully split on Burning Isle.

2) Move most of the archers outside of the guild lord area.

On the Burning Isle, most of the archers are inside the guild lord area, and this makes it hard to gank, even if you get a character past the flame sents or break the other team at the stand and push them back into their base. Putting archers outside of the guild lord area would make it easier to kill them, hence reducing the NPC advantage at VoD.

3) Make another path into the enemy team's base.

This path could be a narrow bridge so that it was easily blocked, even by one or two characters. This could be like the vine Bridge on Druid's Isle, where you would need some item, perhaps a lever, to open the bridge. I realize this would require ANET to redesign the map to some degree, but personally I think it needs it.

That's all I've got for now, other suggestions are welcome.

shardfenix · Oct 10, 2006, 09:26 PM // 21:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by CrispyCritter

...the Burning Isle is still the only guild hall in which sub-par teams can consistently win with gimmick builds even at high ranks, especially with spikes.

What? Gimmick builds can't win consistently on any other map ? LIES!

Kai Nui · Oct 11, 2006, 06:28 AM // 06:28

If you're in the real guild Save The Dolyaks then you probably lost against Ephermeral Sanity [Es] who run a spike build with burning isle. Yeah, it's just a good strategy, decent exploit. Only thing I can say is kill them off before 20 minutes or find a way around it, nothing is unbeatable.