Curse

Corporeal Ghost · Jan 03, 2010, 05:25 AM // 05:25

While attempting to answer another thread, I kept trying to put pieces of this out there and realizing it didn't really belong, and was not concise enough to be read as a side-track. So here it is for the majority of you to ignore anyway. This is a topic that has been theory-crafted to levels I probably will not get to today. Almost all of you have likely read it before. However, the vast majority of observer mode still does not do it. And it stands to reason that if they guys at the top are not taking advantage of this stuff, the guys at the bottom sure aren't. If I get bored enough, I may make more walls of text along similar lines. Most of this has been said out loud before, but the current generation of players does not implement it, so I think it needs to be said again. Also, I'm bored.

Since it will be asked anyway, I'm pretty much nobody. I've been instrumental in microing/carrying several teams with people that literally could not profitably run a Mind Blast ele to winning records, running builds that were generally either underpowered or run contrary to build design (IE, playing lord-camp-eles for collapses rather than lord damage). Two of us had strong arena backgrounds and found that we pretty much won skirmishes when we wound up together for any significant amount of time against anything less than a monk and a runner for defense, making rapid split-collapse play a semi-effective way to hide our bad players. As such, movement and avoiding damage, which is what the majority of this exposé is about, were pretty much life and death. I'm not trying to ego-stroke with this paragraph. I just want to establish some base credibility. If you are better than me, awesome; I honestly couldn't care less how terrible you think I am unless you have a roster of 7, run something that isn't 321paragons or lord damage eles, and don't need microing. Here's the actual wall of text.

Though the metagame has become increasingly hostile to pre-kiting of late--dedicated snare character at stand, more damage coming from midline than warriors, and the death of pressure--pre-kiting is still incredibly useful. It can stop spikes cold if you get the timing right. Pre-kiting is pretty fundamental if you even want to attempt pressure--probably not a good idea in GvG, but it's still viable in, say, Codex--and is extremely useful if you play any kind of split that plays for collapses rather than lord damage, as it allows you to have a credible kill threat on both ends of the field and not explode instantaneously. But even if you play 321paragons, pre-kiting can and will increase your personal survival rate significantly. But it's apparently pretty misunderstood. Even though many people preach it, I can count the number of people I see that actually implement it more than once or twice a game on obs mode on one hand.

The most important part of pre-kiting is the pre. As evidenced by most peoples' play, they think it is the kiting. Late kiting gives warriors free Bull's. Since almost all warriors you see are either Primal Rage or some flavor of hammer, kiting after the fact is either worse than useless (IAS + autocrits) or not an option (you are on the ground). Additionally, most people kite in the wrong direction. Ideally, you want to be kiting away from the rest of your team. Not toward your nearest party member. Definitely not into your backline. You want those warriors to have to run as far as possible when they give up trying to hit you. If you're kiting after the warriors get to you and kiting into your teammates, they are doing more damage than they would be if you had simply put up a shield and stood still. Not only are they getting free Bull's and crits, but they get a free target swap when your monk prots you. This is why you see so many mid-to-high level players tanking damage. It's a viable strategy, but pre-kiting still prevents more damage against anything that needs to be in melee range to hit you. In addition to having fewer swings aimed at you, you will be much harder to spike, because the timing on a moving target is much harder to call. You will also take even less damage than the reduced number of swings imply, as your monks have more time to get prots on you and snares become more effective.

In order to be able to get moving before the warriors get to you, you need them to be more than two or three steps away from you to begin with. This leads to a surprisingly simple mandate: spread out. Your monks will absolutely love you if you can do this. Even if you can't do anything else I talk about in this entire post. If your team spreads out, you will take less damage and your monks will be able to see spikes much more clearly. You'll even have the added bonus of not getting screwed by AoE ever, just by default. Basically, warriors need to change targets to not get absolutely wrecked by Guardian. If you're not standing right next to the lucky sap who got the Guardian, the warrior has to run if he wants to get to you. If no one is standing next to our friend, the warrior has to run if he wants better than a 50% hitrate. So just by putting distance between yourself and your teammates, you're reducing the DPS of any and all opposing warriors. Couple that with running away as they run toward you, and they basically don't do damage.

This all assumes that you are able to watch and comprehend what is happening in the match. If you can't, man up and admit it, and take steps to correct it. You are never going to be able to do more than get microed in a GvG if you cannot watch the field.

Further extrapolating the concept of prekiting--that is, movement and positioning to mitigate damage--we can apply it to the current metagame builds that have no warriors. It is entirely possible to help your monks catch a midline spike just by playing more heads-up. Position yourself out of range of one or more of their spike characters. Use obstruction. Stand uphill from the spike if it's physical-based. Spread out. Swap to shield set when you see it on you. Attempt to dodge projectiles if you aren't snared.

Ex Death · Jan 03, 2010, 05:37 PM // 17:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by IMMORTAlMITCH

Kiting is rather pointless with Primal Rage warriors, switching to shieldset is too when you could just be camping it.

The game has been dumbed down by making shutdown obsolete and buffing skills like Primal Rage, Patient Spirit, making rangers able to do actual (spike)damage, making water eles do insane (spike)damage, adding paragons to the game, having insane armor levels (on monks), etc.

A complete overhaul of skills affected by power creep is in order and even then the tiebreaker would still need to be changed in order to make important matches (is there even such a thing left?) interesting again.

You should still kite sideways against primal rage warriors or warriors in rush.

IMMORTAlMITCH · Jan 03, 2010, 08:44 PM // 20:44

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ex Death

You should still kite sideways against primal rage warriors or warriors in rush.

It's obviously not completely useless to kite against Primal warriors (unless you have Stand Your Ground), but it's nowhere near as effective as it was and should be.

Corporeal Ghost · Jan 08, 2010, 03:51 AM // 03:51

Quote:

Originally Posted by IMMORTAlMITCH

Kiting is rather pointless with Primal Rage warriors...

Yes. Pre-kiting still mitigates huge damage, though, so long as you stop before you could be eating a Bull's if they don't give up. The only thing the IMS really changed about this is that you have to start moving earlier to effectively mitigate damage.

*lemming* · Jan 11, 2010, 11:12 AM // 11:12

I thought we were talking about kiting, not anet's documented inability to balance properly.

Corporeal Ghost · Jan 13, 2010, 04:18 AM // 04:18

ANet's balance policies directly influence how useful kiting is. If balance shifts such that snares and speed boosts are no longer as powerful and pervasive and damage comes from melee range, kiting is indirectly buffed to be much more effective. It is nearly impossible to talk about any aspect of the game without ANet's balance decisions playing a heavy role in the discussion.

*lemming* · Jan 13, 2010, 05:46 AM // 05:46

Quote:

Originally Posted by Corporeal Ghost

It is nearly impossible to talk about any aspect of the game without ANet's balance decisions playing a heavy role in the discussion.

You did a rather good job of it in your opening post.

diabiosx · Jan 21, 2010, 09:24 PM // 21:24

i totally agree with you, I have recently started protting in HA and I noticed that I prot better when people spread out, and my team takes less damage from kiting. I also noticed that some people think that kiting isnt important and just tanks damage, and later blames the monks for being bad.