Curse

Trinity Fire Angel · Mar 11, 2010, 02:23 PM // 14:23

a number of points i have been thinking about.

1. Dev hammer... why not Magehunter? With all the defensive stances around and the monk will nearly "always" be enchanted... why not Magehunter? W/A Mage?

2. Yes... i have been playing ele blind bot and midline defensive in order to guarentee at least 5 wins... but it is slow. taking advice here from Ghost. must play more offensive

3. not sure if i really enjoy monking. it ensures more wins when you get a boom headshot team..but the number of dual monks and defensive other teammates you get is absurd... see point 2 for my example of what i have been doing

4. i fail at necro. i just realised. i can;t offensive and defensive unless its smite, mesmer or ele.

5. re: corporeal's post. is it ok to run non-standard builds. i was running E/P as a mind blast without the block stance and instead was running 10 in motivation using Aria of Restoration for that 70Hp party heal and to ensure i had enuff spec for my shield set. Is it better to bring a ward of melee or a Heal party for team healing or protection? As an offensive is it better to bring self defense or team defense / heal?

Greedy Gus · Mar 11, 2010, 02:53 PM // 14:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by Corporeal Ghost

Blindbot, on the other hand, is pretty much a recipe to just play for eight minutes every match.

You keep hammering this point to underscore your basic model of how things work, but it's massive hyperbole. As long as you're good enough at warrior, a rare long match is maybe upwards of 4 minutes, and the only way to hit 8 minutes is coming up against a team with 3-4 healers or defense characters that refuse to resign, which you end up beating with a few kills to their 0. This is with any one given damage/disruption teammate, and off-monk defense on another guy to help the monk live. Plus those xinrae rits, air eles, and curse necros still do add to the offense somewhat.

Playing warrior in RA however is certainly not the best avenue for farming glad points, as you need more things to go right in team composition than a lot of buttonsmash damage bars care about. If you just want glads, you probably do want to be on a character that works just as well in non-monk games and follow those ideas about points per hour instead of just looking for max streaks.

When you don't have a monk (and especially when you're facing a similar team), the game is transformed into something completely different where stuff like DPS matters, the first person to run in gets spammed with everything the enemy team has, things that punish you for doing your job are crushing (emp/insidious/xinraes/etc.), res sig suppression determines winning, etc. In general this is the spammers paradise where you're rewarded for bringing in your damage ele or sin.

When you do have monk teams facing each other, it's almost a whole different gametype, where key disruption, positioning, target-selection, and timing actually matter with the slowed pace of the match. If you're playing RA with a warrior, this is what you're looking for, as it's actually a decent place to work on micro and bar comfort that applies to other formats. You're basically looking for a TA setting that you can play without teammates online, where you have to crack the enemy team and keep yours alive, which you get faster at as you get better.

jaximus · Mar 11, 2010, 03:37 PM // 15:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by Corporeal Ghost

I prefer axe for a variety of reasons. Mostly DChop. Although the FearMe Coward bar is pretty sick. It has incredible utility, and linebacks even better than DHammer if you're so inclined.

This bar is also incredible if you can actually run it:
OQATERpO5RAoViKLl9a4jq8TAA

Deep wound, no contest. After that, I'd probably say cripple if your team is good, probably weakness if they aren't.

You're better off with Burning Arrow in RA, simply because you're never assured of having enough damage on your team. Nothing wrong with Magebane, but I don't find it typically necessary. Cripshot is also pretty absurd, but it requires a team capable of exploiting it (unlikely).

No worse than GvG healbots. It's pretty good even at bad spec, although in RA, there are other mitigating factors that may make you not want it.

You put way too much faith in correct weapon swapping. Many people swap to wands/Frenzy to hasten death in a hopeless match in which some random douche is AFK or running a tanking build or some such. Not to mention some of the best players in the game never bothered with it at all. It gives you an advantage, but I'd rather have a guy with good vision and some solid kiting skills than someone with gigantic weapon-swap APM. I promise you the guy that kites will take less damage on average.

i find hammer better than axe for a variety of reasons, you can keep hexers on the ground even if you are hexed up. a dev and a bash through empathy is okay. d chop is amazingly good, and my mind has changed a few times about what is better (hammer vs d chop) and yes d chop is extremely strong, but the kds are just too good in 4v4 to not bring a hammer.

as for coward. it looks sooo good, until you use it. itll maybe catch me once a match, once i see coward, you can pretty much count adren and not kite for the little bit hes got it charged and wants to use it, at this point, the dps is pretty trash and his elite is taken out of the game. bit waste imo.

as for that bar you pinged. i find it to be pretty trash. 1. you dont get sentinals insignias. 2. unless you are running q8 shields (i assume you have a +1str rune to get up to 9) you lose your shield under weakness. d chop is basically taken out of the definite useful spots because your only for sure kd is bash and you have no adren left. plus the frenzy with bash and only rush cancel kinda makes me uneasy. if i saw that id throw damage at you all day until you died or you were too scared to use it again. all those multi spec bars look neat, but you end up being better off with a single spec bar. you lose weapon slots when you run bars like that, so that you cant maximize the damage you do with your weps. axe/ham/defset/whatever else, instead of element/def/phys/alt damage(piercing) or highset.

deep wound is always good, but weakness just shuts melee down. hammers prove to still be able to kill while under weakness and axe can if they get lucky with support damage and d chop a key skill. cripple is strong, but weakness is amazing. you cause so many people who dont spec their shields+1 to lose armor and its ezpz linebacking.

burning arrow is good, but i find being able to shut stuff down much more beneficial for my team. im not saying every ranger should run magebane. if you cant rupt, by all means go burning, but im very comfortable rupting things and twitch woh at will, so magebane is far superior in my hands.

as for guardian, yeah its pretty similar to the gvg heal bar spec, but its still not that good, itll run 5 seconds if you hit the 8 breakpoint, and 6s under your prot staff, any good team with rupts is gonna shove that 1 second cast down your throat and then youll have all those att points wasted, a spot on your bar gone, and yeah, thats not good.

as for weapon swapping. its super easy, and super effective. if a player cant watch the field plus wep swap (it should be automatic, shouldnt even have to think) then they arent a good player. simple as that. its super easy and super effective. if you dont do it, somethings wrong. kiting and wep swap together is the best, i never said you should wep swap and not kite.

snikerz · Mar 11, 2010, 04:10 PM // 16:10

as i mentioned in my OP, identifying a player can be key, same goes for identifying your enemy, say you're a dev hammer warrior and you find the monk is excessively blocking you, the sin is under critical defenses, the ele is spamming distortion, but you see a ranger with no profession, that person is who you want to focus on, probably running couple superior runes, will be easy pickings for you, and the monk wont be able to keep up with the damage you output on such a low health newb, if you got time, you can remind your team to kite the critical defenses sin for 9 or 10 seconds, watching that little yellow arrow disappear so you can unload your bar on the sin.

i recon we should compile a list on being successful in RA and make it sticky, somehow it needs to be a like-minded collaboration

Del · Mar 11, 2010, 04:21 PM // 16:21

Hammers can weaken, deep wound, and due to a belly smash buff, it's also fairly effective for blind, OFC it's better than axe in ra.

Quote:

Originally Posted by snikerz

say you're a dev hammer warrior and you find the monk is excessively blocking you, the sin is under critical defenses, the ele is spamming distortion, but you see a ranger with no profession, that person is who you want to focus on, probably running couple superior runes, will be easy pickings for you, and the monk wont be able to keep up with the damage you output on such a low health newb,

rangers don't need a secondary to block, the ele would obviously be the best target because distortion only lasts 3 seconds on an e/me build, if you can't count to 3, you deserve to lose anyways.

the key point is to figure out which one's a total dipshit that you can force to kite away from the monk.

Grumpy Bear · Mar 11, 2010, 06:23 PM // 18:23

95% of the time in RA I play monk as I get so frustrated at how totally inept other monks are. So when I monk I like to see the following....

Dev hammer war-A decent war can stomp all over the opposing teams backline as well as keeping a war off you back or stopping hexes getting off from a mes or nec.

Ranger-Imo a good ranger can carry a team. Whether it be pison spreading, keeping res sigs down or a mend touch here and there, a ranger can be the key between a win and a loss.

PB Mes-On the rare occasion I play mes I generally run PB. You can shutdown an ele for 11 secs, which is huge considering the high damage output they have which makes a monks life a lil easier. A well placed shame or diversion can make the opposing monk crumble.

B-Surge ele-Its so nice to have the pressure of being trained by multiple warriors eased a bit by a B-Surge

When I load in I really hate to see W/Mo (healing breeze/vig spirit defy pain), R/N (toucher), E/Mo (flare, healing breeze), Mo/ (you just know hes gonna get stomped in 30 secs). Obviously these are sterotypes but more often than not they are correct.

Del · Mar 11, 2010, 06:31 PM // 18:31

Quote:

Originally Posted by Grumpy Bear

Mo/ (you just know hes gonna get stomped in 30 secs). Obviously these are sterotypes but more often than not they are correct.

the first 25 win streak i got my monk wasn't using secondary skills, it was all prot and some healing, and it worked well.

urania · Mar 11, 2010, 07:21 PM // 19:21

consider yourself very lucky.

Del · Mar 11, 2010, 07:31 PM // 19:31

Quote:

Originally Posted by urania

consider yourself very lucky.

yeah, considering 90% of RA monks are retards, i should consider myself lucky i got a very skilled one.

Foe · Mar 11, 2010, 07:42 PM // 19:42

sync with Karla Grey, guaranteed 10 wins.

Other than that id say dont "farm" glad points since its now an ra only title which is embarrassing and nothing to be proud of. Why would anyone want a glad title if they cant pretend its a TA title anymore.

As far as playing ra to get that quick pvp fix. After they merged American Districts with the world you cant even hf fooling around in ra since its 100x more bad ,awful
and retarded.

All that being said RA is the most popular pvp format in the game so wtf do i know.

Codex Rulez LOL

jaximus · Mar 11, 2010, 09:56 PM // 21:56

Quote:

Originally Posted by Grumpy Bear

Dev hammer war-A decent war can stomp all over the opposing teams backline as well as keeping a war off you back or stopping hexes getting off from a mes or nec.

Ranger-Imo a good ranger can carry a team. Whether it be poison spreading, keeping res sigs down or a mend touch here and there, a ranger can be the key between a win and a loss.

you are extremely spoiled by playing with with war that you do <3

i definitely agree that a good ranger is the key to most successful streaks. most of the lame tab hexers or curse necros dont realize how important it is to keep faint on the ranger. d shot and magebane are incredibly strong with the disable.

keeping sigs down is definitely the way to win. if i do run mez, lately its been psychic distraction and generally saving pd for sig control. with diversion, shame, empathy, pleak, shatter on your bar, you dont really even need an elite. seeing as holding sigs down is so vital, i am a huge proponent of hammer bash on the dev bar instead of heavy/yeti because it allows for target swaps much more easily and well as bashing that sig to get you a win.

chaos warrior zane · Mar 11, 2010, 11:14 PM // 23:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by Del

Hammers can weaken, deep wound, and due to a belly smash buff, it's also fairly effective for blind, OFC it's better than axe in ra.

rangers don't need a secondary to block, the ele would obviously be the best target because distortion only lasts 3 seconds on an e/me build, if you can't count to 3, you deserve to lose anyways.

the key point is to figure out which one's a total dipshit that you can force to kite away from the monk.

Why is everyone ignoring the fact that distortion was nerfed and is barely used anymore? At least by good ele's. Mirage cloak is the way to go, and even if its only 50% block chance, aura of restoration will just outheal any dmg. Besides, the melee will probably get off of you anyway. Melee should never go after an ele imo. You will bring his attention to you and be either b surged to hell or blocked.

Del · Mar 11, 2010, 11:17 PM // 23:17

Quote:

Originally Posted by chaos warrior zane

Why is everyone ignoring the fact that distortion was nerfed and is barely used anymore? At least by good ele's. Mirage cloak is the way to go, and even if its only 50% block chance, aura of restoration will just outheal any dmg. Besides, the melee will probably get off of you anyway. Melee should never go after an ele imo. You will bring his attention to you and be either b surged to hell or blocked.

i was sorta responding to his scenario with the distortion ele.

oh, and by good ele, do you mean the ele most skilled at rolling his face on the keyboard?

jaximus · Mar 11, 2010, 11:28 PM // 23:28

Quote:

Originally Posted by chaos warrior zane

Why is everyone ignoring the fact that distortion was nerfed and is barely used anymore? At least by good ele's. Mirage cloak is the way to go, and even if its only 50% block chance, aura of restoration will just outheal any dmg. Besides, the melee will probably get off of you anyway. Melee should never go after an ele imo. You will bring his attention to you and be either b surged to hell or blocked.

i pretty much agree with this, ill charge elsewhere and then jump the b surge when hes not paying attention or just b surged something else and force a kill that way. if hes spamming b surge on me, ill swap to the blind shield + spear and run up close so that in that .5 second window where im not blind i can land dev, then chain up the q knock and usually if you ping that guy a bit, damage assist comes in and you can kill him. otherwise i usually avoid the eles unless my monk is complaining that they are pumping too much damage. if its an e/d mindblaster i avoid it mostly, but if its one of those e/a with double dragon/augury or rtl, ill jump it early and dp it out of the game.

Corporeal Ghost · Mar 12, 2010, 10:50 AM // 10:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by jaximus

as for coward. it looks sooo good, until you use it. itll maybe catch me once a match, once i see coward, you can pretty much count adren and not kite for the little bit hes got it charged and wants to use it, at this point, the dps is pretty trash and his elite is taken out of the game. bit waste imo

Coward is incredible in RA. The DPS is very strong if you run the FearMe-Thrill version. Their entire team cannot play around your Coward every time it's charged. It's usable on more than whoever you're beating on.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jaximus

as for that bar you pinged. i find it to be pretty trash.

You can find what you want. That bar dismantles four-man teams faster than any non-Warrior's Endurance (warrior) bar I've ever played.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jaximus

if a player cant watch the field plus wep swap(...) then they arent a good player. simple as that. its super easy and super effective.(...) if you dont do it, somethings wrong.

Dephria Cadbury is the most famous example. There are others. Weapon swapping is not the end-all you make it out to be. It's easy, and effectively free small boosts to your play, but in the grand scheme, it's nowhere near as important as the fundamentals that people just completely ignore now. Lately, weapon swapping has just become something measurable that bad players can say they do correctly even while their tactics and lack of vision are losing the game.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Trinity Fire Angel

corporeal's post. is it ok to run non-standard builds

You can run whatever you want; it's RA. My personal philosophy is not to run anything that can't either break a monk by itself or allow a teammate of below-average intelligence with a damage bar to force a kill through a monk. Although you will occasionally find me breaking my own rule and running a monk.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Greedy Gus

You keep hammering this point to underscore your basic model of how things work, but it's massive hyperbole. As long as you're good enough at warrior, a rare long match is maybe upwards of 4 minutes...

If you're playing a warrior, you're already following my model. My postulation is that if you're not playing a bar capable of breaking even a bad RA monk, odds are no one on your team is going to be able to do so.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Greedy Gus

Playing warrior in RA however is certainly not the best avenue for farming glad points, as you need more things to go right in team composition than a lot of buttonsmash damage bars care about.

Yes and no. You certainly need different things to go right, things that I find more likely to go right given the temperament of the majority of the rest of RA. That is, I'm far more likely to run into someone who will spam hex removal on me than someone who is capable of breaking a monk. But even if you lose three times as many matches playing extreme offense (be it warrior, some kind of heavy monkstomp disruption, or whatever else), you'll make up for lost time in that your wins will be much faster.

Aside: It's really weird to be arguing from this vantage point as it's been so long since I even so much at looked at someone's title without the intention of laughing over Vent. I still believe it's correct, though, and if it takes hold, it will eventually produce a more-fun metagame.

El Perma Shadow · Mar 12, 2010, 11:22 AM // 11:22

RA was run what you brung type-of-deal back in 05' I hate the current build wars with ra as most people don't know how to run decent builds

Revelations · Mar 12, 2010, 01:16 PM // 13:16

Quote:

Originally Posted by Corporeal Ghost

Weapon swapping is not the end-all you make it out to be. It's easy, and effectively free small boosts to your play, but in the grand scheme, it's nowhere near as important as the fundamentals that people just completely ignore now. Lately, weapon swapping has just become something measurable that bad players can say they do correctly even while their tactics and lack of vision are losing the game.

Despite it being relatively off topic to the rest of this thread I would just like to highlight this because of the epic truth behind it.

RhanoctJocosa · Mar 12, 2010, 03:03 PM // 15:03

Quote:

Originally Posted by Del

i was sorta responding to his scenario with the distortion ele.

oh, and by good ele, do you mean the ele most skilled at rolling his face on the keyboard?

uhhh... any average player now will know how to use distortion properly and won't just spam it on recharge giving you the window to kd chain...

would also like to say, there are so many wars who will try to qstep you but just don't know how to do it and end up doing less dps than they would playing 'normally'. if you can't do it then don't, no point gimping your game by trying to look cool. there are many really good wars who don't qstep

jaximus · Mar 12, 2010, 03:33 PM // 15:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by Corporeal Ghost

Coward is incredible in RA. The DPS is very strong if you run the FearMe-Thrill version.

Dephria Cadbury is the most famous example. There are others. Weapon swapping is not the end-all you make it out to be. It's easy, and effectively free small boosts to your play, but in the grand scheme, it's nowhere near as important as the fundamentals that people just completely ignore now.

first off, your dps is at best equal to the a normal bar, but you lose sentinels insignias so you are taking more damage. not worth it.

as for naming a player that played in time where wep swaps were 'less' important, its irrelevant. in todays game, where the powercreep is to the point where you take so much damage if you dont properly change, or you can gain so much more by properly swapping, i dont see how you can even defend against a simple and effective method of playing the game. and again, nowhere at all did i say to ignore the fundementals...

Del · Mar 12, 2010, 05:40 PM // 17:40

Quote:

Originally Posted by RhanoctJocosa

uhhh... any average player now will know how to use distortion properly and won't just spam it on recharge giving you the window to kd chain...

would also like to say, there are so many wars who will try to qstep you but just don't know how to do it and end up doing less dps than they would playing 'normally'. if you can't do it then don't, no point gimping your game by trying to look cool. there are many really good wars who don't qstep

Uhhhh, auto attack until they use it? DERP DERP DERP. oh, and some wars that "don't know how to do it" are trying to improve on it, no shame in trying to step up your game.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jaximus

as for naming a player that played in time where wep swaps were 'less' important, its irrelevant. in todays game, where the powercreep is to the point where you take so much damage if you dont properly change, or you can gain so much more by properly swapping, i dont see how you can even defend against a simple and effective method of playing the game. and again, nowhere at all did i say to ignore the fundementals...

good job over embellishing the importance of weapon swapping. this sorta reminds me how people on QQ assume you're trolling.