Curse

Kaida the Heartless · May 25, 2008, 02:11 PM // 14:11

I'll call out anyone making questionable comments. Top 100 or not. Besides, I've been around the top 100, I just don't follow the X goes Warrior/X Blinds Alot/X Heals You naming convention, so of course my names arn't going to stick. Besides, everyone knows the top 100 have more than thier fair share of retards.

I think anet should remove obs mode for a month with the next update. I herd it has all the 1337 build secrets. Why? I'm crazy.

Kaon · May 25, 2008, 04:21 PM // 16:21

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kaida the Heartless

I'll call out anyone making questionable comments. Top 100 or not. Besides, I've been around the top 100, I just don't follow the X goes Warrior/X Blinds Alot/X Heals You naming convention, so of course my names arn't going to stick. Besides, everyone knows the top 100 have more than thier fair share of retards.

The point is just that you're entire statement was wrong. Calling aka out for it just makes you look extra foolish.

IMMORTAlMITCH · May 25, 2008, 06:16 PM // 18:16

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kaida the Heartless

I'll call out anyone making questionable comments.

His comments pretty much hit the nail on the head, he exaggarates a bit sometimes cause he's Italian and as such a bit melodramatic but his comments were hardly questionable.

Blocks are annoying sure, the 'blockway' meta as you call it was too, but it's pretty much a given that any important match between 2 somewhat evenly matched teams WILL go to VoD.

The team best suited to deal with the whole VoD situation (reduced healing, increased damage and a shit ton of NPCs moving to the stand as well as the unevitable 8v8 fight) will have a much better chance at winning. VoD is the actual problem, reduce the amount of NPCs, changing the VoD/ViO shouts, changing the way NPCs move etc will go a lot further towards having a fun (meta)game than nerfing a few frequently used skills.

Of course both will need to happen, but as long as VoD remains untouched people will just consort to skill migration rather than changing up their playstyle, Rawr winning this monthly tournament is a good example of this.

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Top 100 or not. Besides, I've been around the top 100, I just don't follow the X goes Warrior/X Blinds Alot/X Heals You naming convention, so of course my names arn't going to stick. Besides, everyone knows the top 100 have more than thier fair share of retards.

And I'm guessing you were one of them? Btw, top 100 1 day after a ladder reset doesn't count, neither does buying guilds or joining bought guilds.

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I think anet should remove obs mode for a month with the next update. I herd it has all the 1337 build secrets. Why? I'm crazy.

There's not many build secrets really, pure buildwars (trying to spec the opponent) might win you a few matches, it rarely wins tournaments.

Having a single build that is capable of reaching VoD without too many NPC losses or morale disadvantage and a lot of defense and 'VoD' skills has proven to be a much more effective way of winning tournaments. (See all 5 of Rawr's MAT wins as well as dR's win last month).

erk · May 26, 2008, 01:57 AM // 01:57

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ec]-[oMaN

B surge eles, packing hex breaker and mantra of conc, sorry but making HB a skill so that you can also now take a stance is retarded in it's self. No reliable way to shutdown this mindless midliner with diversion.

If I see hex breaker used I just fire my cover hex first to clear it, main hex, and cover again. It's not like hex breaker is a new problem.

And hex breaker is a stance, they reverted it back to one.

Legendary Shiz · May 26, 2008, 04:10 AM // 04:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by erk

If I see hex breaker used I just fire my cover hex first to clear it, main hex, and cover again. It's not like hex breaker is a new problem.

And hex breaker is a stance, they reverted it back to one.

He did say Diversion, so it's assumed that we're talking about a dom mes. That being said, what 'cover hex' are you bringing on your dom mes? You gonna break his hex breaker with a shame?

Guillaume De Sonoma · May 26, 2008, 06:23 AM // 06:23

Hex breaker made me rage so hard. Wasting diversions and shames to pop it was so stupid. Maybe 1-2 times a game I would get it diversioned and I would yell out "50 seconds to wipe them!"

erk · May 26, 2008, 01:16 PM // 13:16

Quote:

Originally Posted by Legendary Shiz

He did say Diversion, so it's assumed that we're talking about a dom mes. That being said, what 'cover hex' are you bringing on your dom mes? You gonna break his hex breaker with a shame?

Depends on the Elite, if it's an E-surge build them mind wrack usually.

DutchSmurf · May 26, 2008, 01:26 PM // 13:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by IMMORTAlMITCH

The team best suited to deal with the whole VoD situation (reduced healing, increased damage and a shit ton of NPCs moving to the stand as well as the unevitable 8v8 fight) will have a much better chance at winning. VoD is the actual problem, reduce the amount of NPCs, changing the VoD/ViO shouts, changing the way NPCs move etc will go a lot further towards having a fun (meta)game than nerfing a few frequently used skills.

Is there a way to solve the problem tho? You can reduce the amount of NPCs and change the shouts, but you will still end in a 8vs8 fight where defense wins you games. You still have a lord that needs to be killed. You can do changes to his amulet, but teams like rawr will still find ways to play defensive. Only way to solve that will be making a complete new format.

Kaon · May 26, 2008, 03:45 PM // 15:45

Quote:

Originally Posted by DutchSmurf

Is there a way to solve the problem tho? You can reduce the amount of NPCs and change the shouts, but you will still end in a 8vs8 fight where defense wins you games. You still have a lord that needs to be killed. You can do changes to his amulet, but teams like rawr will still find ways to play defensive. Only way to solve that will be making a complete new format.

No you can't. Vodbuilds have always always been the best and most overpowered builds ingame, ever since they implemented the feature. This is almost unchangable, and only beaten by direct buildwars. However, most guilds in the monthly don't seem to either grasp the concept, or bothered to create and practise other builds. Also there is perhaps a slight lack of buildwars options these days, because everything that has to do with offense is considered overpowered, and defense apparantly cannot be powerful enough (see the structural defense buffs and structural offense nerfs since release).

At this moment I don't think there's anything concrete you can do to nerf this playstyle. You could buff offensive skills, and the best thing to do would more or less revert the game to 2 years ago or even 3. But the first would mean a complete change of mindset from Izzy (which means it's never going to happen), and the latter won't happen. Therefore this playstyle will always remain the most powerful and win the most games.

DreamWind · May 26, 2008, 04:28 PM // 16:28

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kaon

At this moment I don't think there's anything concrete you can do to nerf this playstyle. You could buff offensive skills, and the best thing to do would more or less revert the game to 2 years ago or even 3. But the first would mean a complete change of mindset from Izzy (which means it's never going to happen), and the latter won't happen. Therefore this playstyle will always remain the most powerful and win the most games.

Why am I not shocked at the bolded?

Double Pact · May 26, 2008, 04:32 PM // 16:32

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kaon

You could buff offensive skills

Buffing offense (or nerfing defense) has two possible effects:
- Either people are going to pack so many more defensive skills in order to handle the strong enemy offense so that you get the famous blockmeta
- or the meta ends up being IWAY (aka 3Derv-way) and games are over in 5 minutes (which is imo just as bad as games in which nothing happens until vod)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kaon

the best thing to do would more or less revert the game to 2 years ago or even 3.

Keep dreaming

C2K · May 26, 2008, 04:50 PM // 16:50

2 years ago, the game was decided at VoD as well. Don't you remember iQ's VoD build with the GoS + Meteor Shower and the Trapper?

IMMORTAlMITCH · May 26, 2008, 05:18 PM // 17:18

Quote:

Originally Posted by DutchSmurf

Is there a way to solve the problem tho?

I'm sure there is, I'm not exactly sure what this way is.

Quote:

You can reduce the amount of NPCs and change the shouts, but you will still end in a 8vs8 fight where defense wins you games.

That depends, there have been plenty of metagames where pressure builds were very much possible, tweak around with the VoD/ViO numbers, amount of NPCs, maybe even reward teams for subsequent morale boosts.

Highly defensive builds usually rely almost entirely on (adren)spikes to kill maybe try to make this strategy less viable at VoD?

The current amount of NPCs and the damage they deal neccesitates a quick disposal of them and enough defense to tank them without too much trouble for a small period of time (splinter weapon + defense web), if the amount of NPCs is significantly reduced the need for both of these things decreases, maybe also make individual NPCs harder to kill.

Of course I am mostly theory crafting here but I'd love to see some of these ideas put into practice if only for a few days to test and evaluate..

Quote:

You still have a lord that needs to be killed. You can do changes to his amulet, but teams like rawr will still find ways to play defensive. Only way to solve that will be making a complete new format.

Different changes could include a different final destination for the guild lord, improved significance of the flagstand, etc.

DutchSmurf · May 26, 2008, 07:51 PM // 19:51

I think that lowering the amount of npcs, maybe even all the way to 2 archers (guarding each gate/entrance, mostly there to trigger the base is under attack message), 1-2 knight and 1 bodyguard is a nice step. Should be enough to stop ganks in the first 2 minutes, but not enough to be a big factor at VoD.
On the other hands, reducing the amount of npcs like that gives less reason to split too. Which is why I brought up the amulet, since thanks to that a small gank hardly has any chance to kill the lord before VoD. More benefits to the flagstand in my opinion only encourages more fights around said flagstand, so I doubt the solution is there.

The basic question is how you can reward offensive play, without making playing defensive worthless. Since defensive playstyles depend on 8vs8 fights (or getting to those sooner or later), you need to give a reason to split up that can't be countered by just playing even more defensively.

Lorekeeper · May 26, 2008, 08:43 PM // 20:43

I think its still too hasty to discuss wide ranging changes to GW GvG because 1 guild is dominating with a particularly defensive playstyle. Once again I think that StS made an extremely poor build choice for the map and for the opponents they were facing. Last time around they ran a dual paragon midline and simply attempted to beat rawr at their own game. This time around StS tried overloading on frontline offense, unfortunately for them, rawr's build seems ideally suited to soak up that kind of pressure.

The previous matchup, on frozen isle, StS rolled their dual paragon 8vs8 build, on a map that could have allowed them to spec an extremely mobile build, like the one dR ran that even beat Me's sin split.

Imperial isle is difficult to gank on, since the base is quite contracted and allows a small defence team to cover most of the NPCs give or take a few outside archers. This could have nudged StS to running a build that could out 8vs8 rawr's build and make it difficult for rawr to respond by splitting.

A 3 warrior build is not my idea of something that could put a dent in rawr's current build. Weakness spam, dual weapon warding, dual kaolai, smite signet mes? And only a ranger for shutdown? Not even magebane at that.

Id really like to see a guild that is experienced in buildwars to build against rawr and see the results.

And before you say it... GW tournies have always been about build wars, especially the old championships. If you expect to face a certain guild running a certain build on a certain map, you would only be a fool not to use that foreknowledge to your advantage.

Just look at vZ with their condition build for example, without the error would rawr have won?

What if dR or DF faced rawr on frozen isle running their old split builds with the mind blast eles? Whenever i watched on obs mode, dR used to dominate rawr with that build until it the mind blast gankers got nerfed.

Just look at all the matches rawr played in the playoffs.

#2 [rawr] vs #20 [DirT] - new rawr fortressway vs plague signet, pendulum smite monk, paragon pressure build
#2 [rawr] vs #6 [mkay] - new rawr fortressway vs dual para, dual warrior physical pressure build
#2 [rawr] vs #4 [uf] - new rawr fortressway vs plague signet, pendulum smite monk, paragon pressure build
#1 [rawr] vs #4 [StS] - new rawr fortressway vs triple warrior pressure build (without the SoH conjure stacks) with water ele and crip shot ranger, and mo/w with disciplined stance.

Surely they can build better than that?

Double Pact · May 26, 2008, 09:02 PM // 21:02

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lorekeeper

Once again I think that StS made an extremely poor build choice for the map and for the opponents they were facing. Last time around they ran a dual paragon midline and simply attempted to beat rawr at their own game.

Trying to beat rawr at their game is usually not a good tactical choice i think, expecially not on a split-firendly much such as imperial. Mkay tried to beat rawr 8on8 and they got rolled pretty hard...
Although rawr had a strong defensive split, sts was able to kill quite a few npcs and the first two minutes in vod, the rawr monks had a hard time keeping their team alive (despite recup, recov, 2pwk, 2warding). Rawr didn't just play an strong defensive build, they also played it very well imo.

IMMORTAlMITCH · May 26, 2008, 11:52 PM // 23:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lorekeeper

I think its still too hasty to discuss wide ranging changes to GW GvG because 1 guild is dominating with a particularly defensive playstyle.

Out of all the monthly, the only times guilds won that didn't play a hyperdefensive vodbuild was the very first one, which because of the set up I'm not gonna take into account, and the ones were Hand/Me/Uni won with sin split (which is in essence also a hyperdefensive vod build, just plays differently).

I'd say the problem is pretty clear: VoD

Quote:

Once again I think that StS made an extremely poor build choice for the map and for the opponents they were facing. Last time around they ran a dual paragon midline and simply attempted to beat rawr at their own game. This time around StS tried overloading on frontline offense, unfortunately for them, rawr's build seems ideally suited to soak up that kind of pressure.

I don't disagree, a good caster spike would have probably fared best against it, however the question we need to ask ourselves is do we want to keep playing build wars, where you 'have' to play a certain build in order to count a certain (other) build, or do we want to actually play guild wars again, where slight build disadvantages can (easily) be overcome by good plays and where the dominant strategy isn't 'let's just try to keep up as many NPCs as possible , take this to VoD and AoE farm their NPCs'.

Quote:

The previous matchup, on frozen isle, StS rolled their dual paragon 8vs8 build, on a map that could have allowed them to spec an extremely mobile build, like the one dR ran that even beat Me's sin split.

StS is essentially the European Rawr, they might run different builds from time to time, their dominant strategy is still 3, 2, 1 spike and play for VoD (although maybe slightly less so since Acid left), I wasn't surprised to see them play dual paragons on the frozen match at all, but I was surprised to see them attempt a split build this time around, especially on imperial.

dR speccing Me was a totally different situation as sin split needs to get a certain advantage pre-vod to work at vod, it's a lot easier to stop a team from clearing your base than it is to stop a team from defending theirs.

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A 3 warrior build is not my idea of something that could put a dent in rawr's current build. Weakness spam, dual weapon warding, dual kaolai, smite signet mes? And only a ranger for shutdown? Not even magebane at that.

Basically all those skill with maybe the exception of weapon of warding, are too powerful, I don't fault Rawr for using them to gain an advantage, it's the smart thing to do, however claiming otherwise is being ignorant.

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Id really like to see a guild that is experienced in buildwars to build against rawr and see the results.

How would you spec their build? There's no clear counter to it, vs a hex build you bring a lot of hex removal, vs a casterspike you bring a lot of interrupts (CoF etc.), but how do you spec a VoD centered, defensive spike build? Run even more VoD-irific skills? Even if you have the better VoD build on paper it will depend largely on NPC aggroing, positioning etc, it becomes a bit of a lottery in which the team that has the most experience in dealing with NPC farming etc is likely to come out on top, and to be fair, there's not a lot of guilds that even come close to Rawr in this area (dR did last month, but then again iQ was pretty notorious for this as well

).

Quote:

And before you say it... GW tournies have always been about build wars, especially the old championships. If you expect to face a certain guild running a certain build on a certain map, you would only be a fool not to use that foreknowledge to your advantage.

Maybe so, but I wouldn't say guilds like EvIL/WM/Te etc relied on this too much and still they came out on top more often than not.

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Just look at vZ with their condition build for example, without the error would rawr have won?

If anything that was Rawr's stupidity to not even slightly attempt to spec vZ, they knew they were going to play the condition build (or at least were highly likely to) and still refused to bring stuff like RC, Extinguish etc.

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What if dR or DF faced rawr on frozen isle running their old split builds with the mind blast eles? Whenever i watched on obs mode, dR used to dominate rawr with that build until it the mind blast gankers got nerfed.

What if? Frozen was only played in the swiss rounds, the single elim rounds were all maps that are perfectly suitable for 8v8 builds.

Lorekeeper · May 27, 2008, 11:01 AM // 11:01

I agree that it might be difficult to spec rawr,but I dont think we have seen anyone apart from vZ enjoy any real success or ambition to do so. If StS are truly rawr's European counterpart then in some ways a match between them is decided before the gates open, simply because of rawr's unparalleled experience at their own game. In some respects there is some value to being rawr's counterpart, and maybe StS enjoy that aspect of competitiveness, being the underdog that could beat rawr at its own game, who knows maybe one day they will win. On the other hand, its frustrating from an outsiders point of view, because it seems like quite an uphill battle to continue to play this way, when there seems to be great opportunity for teams to exploit rawr's predictability.

From the May monthly I dont think we saw any really effective attempts at doing this, and in some ways I criticise the unwillingness or perhaps inability of these guilds to do so. But like I admitted earlier, its definately not easy, but noone seems to be even trying. Just because its not easy, it doesnt mean its impossible, and you cant surely claim that it is impossible if you dont try a multitude of different approaches to the problem... Id like to see some amibition in match ups vs rawr for a change.

Its interesting to point out the guilds of yesterday and how they didnt seem to rely on builds to win their places as the best guilds in GW history. I guess my only response to that is the length of GvGs back then... 25 or 30 min VoD? Much more time for these teams to try out a variety of tactical moves and more time to continually pile on small amounts of DP on more static builds through unequal split situations. Those guilds like Last Pride, Te, WM, etc were characterised by some very flexible play, and GvGs back then were very different to the stand focused GvGs of today, which is something many of us have discussed in previous discussions about the state of split play vs stand play in GvG. In some sense, VoD being moved to 18min was a huge indirect buff to 8vs8 defensive builds, so I guess that is the one aspect of VoD I would say that has a significant role in this issue. But I dont see how that can be changed, especially when you consider the time constraints of running these automatic tournies.

Im not saying that VoD is perfect, I am just trying to offer an alternative perspective on why rawr seems to dominate so much. Some say its the fact that their playstyle exploits a broken game mechanic, I am just saying, how about someone try to exploit rawr's predictable playstyle? Try?

I cant see anyone really trying, I just see people playing safe builds vs rawr all the time...

And I really dont consider a 3 warrior build with crip shot and water ele a very effective split build for imperial isle... even with teleports on one of the warriors. And trying to outlast rawr's fortress build at VoD with Mo/W backline and just a rit for support? You better make sure you have a substantial NPC advantage...

Ec]-[oMaN · May 27, 2008, 02:42 PM // 14:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lorekeeper

I am just saying, how about someone try to exploit rawr's predictable playstyle? Try?

I cant see anyone really trying, I just see people playing safe builds vs rawr all the time...

This pretty much sums up the guilds of today and those of long before.

DutchSmurf · May 27, 2008, 02:58 PM // 14:58

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lorekeeper

Some say its the fact that their playstyle exploits a broken game mechanic, I am just saying, how about someone try to exploit rawr's predictable playstyle? Try?

I cant see anyone really trying, I just see people playing safe builds vs rawr all the time...

If only anyone would give a valid suggestion about how to do it...