Curse

bungusmaximus · Feb 05, 2009, 10:28 AM // 10:28

Quote:

Originally Posted by tmakinen

Chess is not a PvP game because you just move your pieces on the board instead of ramming them into your opponent's ear canal? I find your take on the issue silly beyond description

ROFLMBO, a way to make chess more fun. I would just smack my opponent with the chessboard and get it over with. But you kinda hit the nail on the head, AB is 50/50 fighting/tactics, when you only fight, or only cap you're doing it wrong.

GvG isn't just about fighting as well now is it? Good games need more objectives then just fighting, else it's just build vs. build. I see that in TA often, one of the reasons TA is broken is that you can't resort to other tactics then just fighting when you happen to be out-built.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Syntonic

There's only a limited amount of stuff that you are able to do when the other two teams aren't worth their weight. QQing or trying to talk to them probably won't help since they'll disband when they hit outpost or even have some of them ragequit before.

True, a part of the guide only applied when people are helpful. I get teams or allies that don't pull their weight as well sometimes, usually I just try to kill whatever I can and form a new team when I'm back in the outpost. You can't force isiots to be non-idiots for sure.

bsoltan · Feb 05, 2009, 11:37 AM // 11:37

Great guide as always tmak. Hopefully it will benefit some players to looking at the bigger picture and not just at their group of four.

It has also made we really want to play some AB!

Sun Fired Blank · Feb 05, 2009, 06:00 PM // 18:00

The guide has excellent content, your vocabulary is fine, your grammar is acceptable, the organization is clear. Nevertheless, it's extremely verbose and inconcise, and that probably discourages some readers.

It's an exceptional write-up anyways, and I wouldn't let anyone knock it, but if you're so inclined, I would revise it for length. There are tons of places you can easily edit for length; starting from where I'm presently reading, "the integrity of your team" could become "your team's integrity," and "targets of opportunity to take down" could become "opportune targets."

And a more drastic edit might be:

"it is your responsibility as a leader to see that the player finds his way back to the team as fast as possible."
To:
"you are responsible for helping that player quickly find your team."

Rushin Roulette · Feb 05, 2009, 06:44 PM // 18:44

Quote:

Originally Posted by jiggles(edited by RR)

PvP = Player versus Player
PvE = Player vs Enviroment

GvG= Kill Guild Lords to win, which means killing npc's. Which contrary to popular beleif are NOT other people. Which means it is not pvp. Apart from making things easy for yourself, there is no benefit whatsoever in killing the real people. Therefore, GvG is not pvp. If you dont understand that please feel free to make any remarks you care too, i dont give a crap.

Changed your statement a little... lets see that disproved then.

Quote:

Chess is not a PvP game because you just move your pieces on the board instead of ramming them into your opponent's ear canal? I find your take on the issue silly beyond description

I bet Kasparov was thinking about just how to manage that while he was going up against Big (or was it Deep?) Blue

the_jos · Feb 05, 2009, 07:12 PM // 19:12

When I looked at the name on top of the topic I was like.... Oh, I know that name, but from where...
Was a nice couple of AB rounds with Tifa (warrior leading us around the field), Ginelle (Ranger) and an elementalist called Valet Parking with some random monk Perseus.

Nice guide, Valet. Bit lenghty, but that's because it covers a lot.

Makkert · Feb 05, 2009, 07:24 PM // 19:24

Tmaki is recognisable for his lengthy posts, but always good content.

<3 mate.

thinkingofaname · Feb 07, 2009, 12:34 AM // 00:34

Double post..........

thinkingofaname · Feb 07, 2009, 12:35 AM // 00:35

Its a nice guide, forgive me if I didn't read all of them cause it was a bit too long, however I think you could simplify things a bit. I don't know if you touched on these points or not...but I'll give some of my insights to AB:

Note that I write this under the assumption that you want to win...if you just like to fool around or whatever...its a different story

Always play with mini-map open at all times, this way you can tell which shrines you hold at all times, and with some training, you can predict exact where your opponent's teams are and where they are likely to go.

If you are fighting over a shrine, stay within cap range. Often the battle is determined by which side turns over the shrine first.

Team set up:
ALWAYS have a healer. Doesn't matter what strategy you take, a team without a healer is a team asking to be wiped. Do not bring excessive self-heals. Utility such as FB always come first, if you got extra room, place priority on protection (like mending touch, dark escape) over heals (like healing breeze). Remember, your teams needs you to do your job, leave the staying alive part to the healers.

Bring a balanced set up, unless you have some specific team builds. This includes, an AoE damage dealer, a melee, a healer, and a support.

Stay with your team. There are very very few instances where I can recall a successful split, and that's mostly as a last resort to help some extreme retarded allies. An organized team of four can wipe out other teams, cap shrines, defend shrines, stall, and pull a successful retreat. A split team of 1 or 2...don't expect to do anything besides killing some shrine npcs, and fully expect to be ganked while trying to cap the shrine (takes forever).

Since I know you didn't touch on classes so I'll give some useful tips

Ele: Most parties want you as a nuke, but in truth the ele can be quite flexible. Important note: AoE spells is good vs npcs, but fail vs most players, Do NOT think your job is to do damage (to players), leave that to melee. Very important note: at 16 fire, SH + rodgort = shrine wipe, except elite npcs. That is...2 skills, 5 secs, empty shrine. Which leaves you 6 free slots to do whatever you like, if your party want you to nuke, this is THE WAY to go.

War: Your job is to do damage and make things blow up, KD is very useful here because 90% of the healers have no 2nd support. So a KD chain = dead healer = party wipe. Lion's comfort should be the ONLY heal you bring if you want one. If you devote more than 1 skill slot to keep yourself alive, you fail as a war and should not play this class...anywhere in pvp.

Sin: Same as war. Remember the recharge on your chain. Do not be so dumb as to C-space 1234567 the first target you see, and do not over extend. Fake your chain with auto attack on a unprotected target, bait the monk to use guardian then gank the monk. If you are fighting a stanced monk, bait their stance with auto attack, and remember to count the cool down. Also bring a shield set to cover your retreat so your monk doesn't rage quit.

Ranger: bring freaking interrupt. No interrupt = not a ranger. Barrage sucks, please for god sake pick a better elite. Important note: bring a long bow. Long bow = free snipe vs npcs. Very important note: ranger interrupt is largely dependent on the distance between you and your target. If you want to interrupt something, move CLOSE to your target, and remember count recharge for things like WoH.

Mes: Caster hate, melee hate. Quite varied depend on build and team set up. Both illusion and dom are viable in AB. Make sure you have at least 1 enchant strip. Do NOT hex stack on one target, spread them around. Count the recharge on monk's hex removal, prepare interrupt as needed. FC water is also viable. However for nuking shrines, Ele is better.

Nec: same as mes. SR gives you unlimited energy in ab, do not bring any more energy management unless you really really have to. If you are going to be mm, bring freaking dark bond/infuse condition, and use a 40/40 set when casting them.

Monk: you are the healer, or a smite support. A defensive stance or some sort of instant prot is always a must, unless you are confident that your teamates can support you vs KD spike. Have a high energy set ready, and pay attention to hexes cast on you. If you team fail at staying together, do not be a bonder. Remember you cast your prots before a spike, not after...

Rits: support and healer. Splinter is very useful and a valid replacement for AoE damage, along with Arage. Remember the break point for best splinter is at 14 channel. Healing wise, remember you lack prot against big damage, so make sure your teams understands that. Cast your spirit before entering a battle, and do so behind objects if you can to prevent interrupts by ranger.

Derv: same as war and sin. Note that wounding strike is very powerful because 90% of the team lacks heavy condition removal, so your deep wound is likely to stay. Again, if you are using more than 1 skill to keep yourself alive...your are doing it wrong.

Para: FB or god speed is a must on all para bars, idk what build you use. Flail or AR is also very useful. Remember spears do good damage. You may not have the KD abilities like war, but you can still bring very good pressure. Ranged deep wound is to be feared.

Hope this adds to the guide a bit.

Flossie · Feb 07, 2009, 01:16 AM // 01:16

Great guide Tmak! And if you play as good game as you talk I gotta give you a chess match some time

Rhamia Darigaz · Feb 07, 2009, 11:14 PM // 23:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rushin Roulette

Big (or was it Deep?) Blue

deep. they're all deep, after Deep Thought. lrn2 hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy.

ManaCraft · Feb 27, 2009, 12:56 PM // 12:56

First of all, congratulations on writing what is quite likely the single best source of information on ABs that I've read throughout my entire GW career. It's a great guide in almost all respects, which addresses just about every single important issue, including the "just cap!!" mentality that is so prevalent in the AB environment.

There is however one thing that I'd like to comment on:

Quote:

Originally Posted by tmakinen

Although NPCs in tow don't provide much offense [...]

If you know how to use the elite NPCs, I would say they can make or break many a battle. I think this deserves mentioning under the "attacking shallow" section, because the elite NPCs are what gives the attacking team reasonable opening options. The left and right team will have access to the elite elementalist and warrior respectively, which makes engaging the opposing left/right team a fairly appealing scenario. If your frontliner grabs the elite warrior, he can apply a not insignificant amount of extra pressure. Likewise, the elite elementalist will offer a decent amount of extra offensive output, perhaps enough to tip the scales in your favor. Your risk assessment when deciding whether to engage or avoid the approaching enemy team should include this fact. Engaging the enemy will, all things being equal, often lead to a favorable outcome for your team.

An additional important detail if your team opens by capturing the elite elementalist shrine is to remember that the opposing enemy group will have finished their cap sooner, and therefore be forced to choose between either the hill or the ravine before you do. When you've finished capturing the elementalist shrine, your team can move in the general direction of the hill/ravine area, but you will see the opposing team coming towards you on the radar before you have to commit to either side. This leaves the initiative squarely in your hands. You can force combat if you want (remember, you have the elite elementalist with you, therefore a favorable outcome is likely) or choose to avoid the enemy team if, in spite of the extra advantage, you deem it unsafe to fight.

On the warrior side things are a bit less dramatic as the opposing group will often be fast enough to have the option of dodging to the left towards the resurrection shrine, thereby denying you the option of combat - but if they linger and/or if you're fast enough to force the fight, you should have the advantage.

- Mana

moriz · Feb 27, 2009, 03:00 PM // 15:00

agreed on elite npcs, especially the elementalist. a level 24 ele, with faster movement speed, good hp and armor, good self defense, and ~20 air magic spamming high powered spike skills? yes, i'll take it. in fact, i'll take it in favour of 99.99% of the AB population.

one thing i MUST stress is the importance of a fast start. by that, i mean all players move toward the starting shrines as fast as possible. this is especially important on shallow and deep attacking maps, where a slow start by one or two players will singlehandedly lose the match, regardless of what happens afterwards. the defending side already have the advantage of having 4 shrines easily capped to your 3. if you have a few laggers who can't seem to run properly, you'll now faced with 4 shrines vs your 3, AND having the opposition on top of you before you finish capping your three shrines... nevermind the numerical advantage.

Lux Aeterna · Feb 28, 2009, 08:02 AM // 08:02

Lol Valet, it was such a letdown trying to find an ele after you the other day.

Quote:

Originally Posted by thinkingofaname

Wordz

Good post

Also:

Press u, open the mission map. Expand it so it fills most of the screen. Close it again.

Now when you need to see where to cap, open your huge mission map and see what shrines are yours, what are enemy, and what have just been neutralized - newly neutralized friendly shrines = enemy group there. You can tell not only where to cap, but where the other teams are.

zling · Mar 01, 2009, 11:19 AM // 11:19

gotta love some of the replies in this thread, all the trolls going out of their caves...
now seriously, this is a good guide, very informative and contains good information.

however this guide is only accurate if your team is good(usually guild teams) and the other teams are also good(rather impossible without synching) so most of the information here about tactics, splitting, etc are irrelevant to most AB matches.

it is still a very informative guide to people who want to take AB seriously and actually learn its ropes, however as you've mentioned the majority of the AB players dont and are just there to either kill time or to farm factions(hence PvE players) thus you see a lot of: Terra Tanks, Shadowform griefers, Mending Whammos, etc.

overall it was a good read and a wonderful source of AB information, unfortunatly it isnt very practical.

Lux Aeterna · Mar 01, 2009, 02:49 PM // 14:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by zling

Terra Tanks, Shadowform griefers, Mending Whammos

Interestingly I deal with all 3 of those the same way: ping my party to the next shrine.

I used to have a rule - "don't listen to Alex (me) = party wipe"

but after my experience with a monk last night, I need to change it to

"Don't listen to Alex = get murdered by a mob 3 times in 30 seconds at the rez shrine, get teabagged and taunted in local chat"

If you have an intelligent party leader, listen to him - or be an intelligent party leader. Select people who seem to have a brain, don't run without a healer, use the mission map, give directions etc.

Jeydra · Mar 03, 2009, 09:01 AM // 09:01

tmakinen will you be free to play some AB games with me in the near future? I want to observe your technique in real time. I added you to friend's but haven't seen you online, so ...

Alleji · Mar 03, 2009, 10:05 PM // 22:05

Nice theorycrafting.

It might be well-written, but in practice large parts of it are useless. Like all of those that are assuming cooperation between the three teams. Nice joke. We're talking about AB here, the place full of mending wammos, fire and palmstrike failbots, and all kinds of other goodness.

I liked the fact that you covered and actually quantified the benefits of fighting other players. I think that needs way more emphasis, because most of the people are unable to understand that the game is not 100% CAPCAPCAP.

For example, it's almost always a good idea to defend the ele shrine because with the extra firepower from the NPCs, you can fairly easily wipe the opposing team. Even if you're defending alone, depending on your build, proper play, and the attacking team's composition, you can wipe them on the ele shrine. As a ranger, I've done this multiple times by grabbing the elite NPC to better position him, interrupts on the ele to prevent initial nukes, and then spreading poison + interrupts on the monk.

Likewise, it's always a good idea to kill enemy fire eles - they have the best capping power, but they're also pretty much useless for actual PvP. So you should take every chance and force them to engage in PvP instead of npc nuking.

There's also defending the res orb shrine: stall the other team as much as you can, interrupt/shut down their damage, etc. When they finally kill the npc monks, pick/drop the res orb on them. If the team you're stalling is particularly bad (aka standard AB team - wammo, fire ele, monk, one other) you can keep this up indefinitely.

Those are just a few common scenarios where intelligent individual play can significantly impact the whole game. Practically, I think including more situations like this in the guide would be more beneficial because people can actually apply them. I would be very surprised if people manage to put your 6-6 split in practice.

tmakinen · Mar 04, 2009, 07:02 AM // 07:02

It appears to me that many people have problems with reading comprehension since that's the only explanation I can come up with when I see comment after comment saying 'your guide is useless because it requires three co-operating teams'. The entire point of the guide is in acknowledging that you may be completely unable to communicate your intentions between allied teams and then exploring ways around that limitation. There are a couple of three team movement patterns but they are only given as examples of possible moves where, if you see a particular pattern forming spontaneously, you'll be able to position your own team properly to maximize the advantage to your side. The passages related to team interplay stress how you should observe and adjust to the actions of all the five other teams. The principles given in the guide will work even when you don't have a common language between allied teams and the more they are applied by team leaders the better coordination between allied teams becomes (it's a swarm type system where group order emerges from simple instructions to individual agents - a school of fish doesn't have an overlord directing it but still an amazing amount of coordination is present).

@Jeydra: we may have incompatible playtimes. As an Euro player I'm usually logged in between 1 p.m. and 9 p.m. GMT, most likely during the last third of that period. Feel free to ask me any time you see me online, I'm content to play anything but W or D though I'm certainly most effective as an E.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alleji

it's always a good idea to kill enemy fire eles - they have the best capping power, but they're also pretty much useless for actual PvP

That's because most eles run fail builds, it's like if a monk only packed 8 direct heals but for some reason ele stupidity is widely tolerated or even encouraged. An ele needs 2 or at most 3 skills to wipe a shrine and the rest should be chosen to benefit the team in PvP.

Jeydra · Mar 04, 2009, 07:31 AM // 07:31

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alleji

For example, it's almost always a good idea to defend the ele shrine because with the extra firepower from the NPCs, you can fairly easily wipe the opposing team. Even if you're defending alone, depending on your build, proper play, and the attacking team's composition, you can wipe them on the ele shrine. As a ranger, I've done this multiple times by grabbing the elite NPC to better position him, interrupts on the ele to prevent initial nukes, and then spreading poison + interrupts on the monk.

Only bad teams are going to attack a defended shrine ... but then, there're lots of bad teams in AB.

@tmakinen: awesome, 1-9pm GMT is 12am to 8am for me. Hurray! Let's see who's more effective at logging on during weird hours lol.

Quote:

Originally Posted by tmakinen

That's because most eles run fail builds, it's like if a monk only packed 8 direct heals but for some reason ele stupidity is widely tolerated or even encouraged. An ele needs 2 or at most 3 skills to wipe a shrine and the rest should be chosen to benefit the team in PvP.

I'll add to that ... an Elementalist needs most of his bar to be able to wipe a shrine alone. If he's not alone, if he has a Monk with him, if he has auxilliary damage characters with him (eg. a Ranger), if he does not need self-heal, if he's in a coordinated team, then yes he doesn't need to dedicate his entire bar to capping.

Fril Estelin · Mar 04, 2009, 07:48 AM // 07:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by tmakinen

That's because most eles run fail builds, it's like if a monk only packed 8 direct heals but for some reason ele stupidity is widely tolerated or even encouraged. An ele needs 2 or at most 3 skills to wipe a shrine and the rest should be chosen to benefit the team in PvP.

I personally carry around 5-6 skills to nuke, the reason being that if I kill NPCs faster, I'm going to get less damage from them and earn a few "valuable" seconds for our team. In AB I don't really care about dying, I know as an ele I'm very fragile and can't survive in competitive situation unless there's a good monk (2 monk NPCs works ok).

What I find sometimes difficult is the balance between solo-capping and staying with your group (which is necessary to get monking). But in many games, it's what gave my team (Kurwick) an edge, because while I'm solo-capping, 11 people are fighting on the rest of the map.

I think you also need to be able to do most 1v1, or at least flee from the ones you can't win. And don't forget that standing next to a shrine may prevent it from being capped, and I've been in many situations where that would stop the opposing team getting the 4th shrine to slowly get in front of us.

For me AB is a multiple-geometry game, there are times when I'm mobbing because it's going to cripple the other team, only a few mins later to start solo-capping again. Or there are times when you follow your team because it's working really well and the rest of the teams stay in teams. Given the variety of this game, I don't think there's a winning strategy per se, you need to adapt to many different situations.

Great guide tmakinen.