Curse

Killed u man · Apr 29, 2008, 12:27 AM // 00:27

Quote:

Originally Posted by hurric

ya but it's 1 mesmer vs. 3 monks. How much can a good mesmer do that the other 2 monks won't compensate for. Who do you even shut down?

This is where I fail the grasp most people aswell who come here claiming mesmer > Rspike.
I mean, from what I read, it's like this: Mesmer Cry spikes, Mesmer interrupt one spiker, Mesmer interrupt Rit on weapons, Mesmer shuts down the 3 monks, Mesmer takes away channeling from monks.
Sure, as a good mesmer can do most of these in combination, MOST (99%) of the people won't.

And isn't that, by definition, the very meaning of "overpowered"? Something that is stronger than the rest, in such a way that any other build can't beat it?

Where my logic fails me, is where people QQ'ed so much about Bspike and Ritspike (I, up till day, get called ritspiker, meaning the build was concidered very degenerative and OP), and now when U have a nearly as OP spike, aswell as a shtton of defence, it comes down to "pressuring" them down.
Where DOES your definition of OP lie then?

Anyways, as post before, the current new rspike is Dual DA, 3 Rangers and OoV Necro.
The spike is strong as usually, and an unusual ammount of defence. (These 3 rangers CAN fit in dshot on their bars, OR block stances, 1 N/rt healer, 2 monk, 2 DA's)

I might have to concider touching more skills. I'dd have to see tough, because once Dual Shot and Forked arrow both become only 1 arrow when enchanted, weaponed or hexed, it should be fine. (In this builds, it's once again the endless stacking off buffs with "dual"-arrow skills...)

Lorekeeper · Apr 29, 2008, 01:29 AM // 01:29

Quote:

Originally Posted by hurric

ya but it's 1 mesmer vs. 3 monks. How much can a good mesmer do that the other 2 monks won't compensate for. Who do you even shut down?

1) shutdown the prot monk

IF you are facing a good ranger spike and they dont allow you to use diversion/shame that often

i) rend, inspire, or shatter channeling.
ii) then interrupt the monks next attempt to put it up (with powerleak ideally).
iii) whenever you have any forms of enchant removal free, check to see if prot monk has channeling up, remove it.
iv) repeat

IF you are facing an inexperienced ranger spike and they allow you free use of diversion/shame.

v) firstly rend prot of channeling and any cover enchants like veils, then diversion or shame the prot whenever you are free to do so and time these diversions/shames to land just before your caller calls a spike.
vi) when you remove channeling/veil as described above, follow up the removal with a diversion or shame even if no spike is called and you are free to do so.
vii) if you have the time to, wait for diversion/shame to be removed or to run out and try to catch the prot monks next skill with an interrupt. If its channeling or veil you should be able to catch it with an interrupt easily.

Note: I wrote, ''when you have time to'' because these activities a mesmer can do on a prot monk should only be carried out if its primary duties are accomplished... duties which I listed in my guide to shutting down rspike. You might be able to survive rspike without your mesmer achieving all that shut down (since the actual damage numbers in reality are rarely the same as the numbers in that guide) maybe because you are running hard counters to rspike or your infuse is inhumanly fast, in which case you can tell him to concentrate on offensive shutdown on the monk backline rather than defensive shutdown on the ritualist.

2) shutdown the healers

This is not really all that necessary unless your pressure output is so low that two heal monks are able to continually top up bars even without their prot monk at operational capacity. The good thing about shutting down healers is that even tiny amounts of shutdown have a good effect.

i) if you are free to, remove channeling off heal monks.
ii) if you are free to, powerleak heal monks heal parties, seeds, and channelings.
iii) if you are free to, diversion or shame an infuse monk before or after a spike.
iv) if your pressure is mounting and you notice glimmer monks spamming on recharge, diversion the glimmer monk.

It shouldnt be impossible for a good mesmer to achieve these aims, but if you are running a balanced build and you dont have a good mesmer you shouldnt expect to be winning that much anyway. Thats just the way balanced works, with the mesmer being a key component in its versatility in the face of a variety of threats and challenges.

Priorities for mesmers vs ranger spike in a balanced build

1) cry the first spike (especially if you dont have other forms of immediate anti spike defense like bsurge or shields up or eruption - I once hit 3 ranger and a para with eruption while they performed a running spike under a bridge lol)
2) shutdown the rit (as described in the previous guide)
3) shutdown the prot (as described above)
4) shutdown the healing (as described above)
lastly
5) shutdown hard rez after making kills

Things the entire team can do to help pressure

* Dont ball up and give enemy monks good channeling spots IMPORTANT!
* Spread damage among multiple targets, including the rangers depending what kind of damage you have (physical pressure works on rangers aswell as the rest of the team even when they dont have lightning reflexes or whirling ready, elemental pressure should stay on the rit and monks).
* Punish targets that are balled and unprotted to force party healing.
* Call frequent spikes on different targets with or without the availability of a deep wound.
* Call spikes on the prot monk to disallow use of spirit bond (this involves the warrior caller KDing the prot with shock/bulls strike/hammer KD before the prot has the chance to get SB up on itself) and to force an infuse IMPORTANT!
* Gale a monk during a spike.
* Remove channelings from monks (some builds have offmesmer enchant removals)
* Interrupt channelings on monks (some builds have offmesmer interrupts)

Im going to have a look at the lifestealing ranger spike and try to break it down like I did to the TV ranger spike.

Trinity Fire Angel · Apr 30, 2008, 01:40 AM // 01:40

ummm..... i got hit with this last night. my protter protted but got stripped and infuse didn;t help. there was no time for an infuse. it was faster than Base Defence in AB. just a line of hits and rezzing back at the shrine. their ghostly was hitting for 128dmg per hit!!!

without having to mess around with bringing a whole team just to counter r-spike.... perhaps it would be nice to have weapon of warding with a 1/4 sec cast time.... that would have stopped nearly every other spike apart from my own death.

Arya Nibelrund · Apr 30, 2008, 09:05 AM // 09:05

Quote:

Originally Posted by Trinity Fire Angel

perhaps it would be nice to have weapon of warding with a 1/4 sec cast time....

Oh please don't....
1/4 sec cast on a skill that is unstrippable and you can constantly chain it...

Trinity Fire Angel · Apr 30, 2008, 11:49 PM // 23:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arya Nibelrund

Oh please don't....
1/4 sec cast on a skill that is unstrippable and you can constantly chain it...

yeah.. soryy. i am bias towards Rits. At least let Monks have their Guardian back. 1 sec cast on guardian has been pretty shite. for months all izzy has done was strip back passive defence. defence has been stripped back so far and healing boosted to the point, we can;t really defend as well as before.

Ate of DK · May 01, 2008, 04:06 AM // 04:06

You should try playing our (Team Voyagers) r-spike and see what people will do to stop you.

Currently the A/D builds and the W/E builds are all build for spiking.
They have combinations of double Defensive Anthems, Aegis, Blurred Vision, Eruptions or Blinding Surge. Add that the rangers in the A/D build can interrupt spikes and distract preperations. Usualy there is a ritualist and mesmer on position 5 and 6 who use "Weapon of warding" and interrupts. The hex-over keeps spamming spells at your rangers so they fail to hit and do less damage.

Consider that they are positioning behind walls, standing in bugs on bridges which means that you can't interrupt their spells.
Now don't get me wrong, I'm not the one that is QQ-ing about this. Otherwise I wouldn't be playing r-spike with our guildteam.

Try spiking someone from a team who uses combinations of these. You'll see that there is more than just counting 3,2,1, imo. If you play "our" r-spike you will have no "Anthem of Guidance", only 2x "Distraction Shot" and no "Sundering Weapon". Next thing would be that you stop the opponent from ressurection while they try to put up a "Song of Concentration" and use one of their 3 ressurection spells!

We rely on our rangers to take out everything that could destroy the spike and try to break the ressurection chain. Which requires teamwork, imo. And then we haven't looked beyond the maps where killing doesn't earn you the win!

Please try it yourself.

P.S. I'm talking about the Team Voyager r-spike and not the Vanquishing Memories r-spike. They have more serious damage output.

mike7333 · May 01, 2008, 02:50 PM // 14:50

The way is see things, 'deal with it'

There's always gonna be a iway/sway/rspike/hereo way that people are gonna be shouting NERF at, just find their weaknesses and exploit it.

For rspike, just kite, hide behind walls and pray your infuser/prot is half decent.

elektra_lucia · May 02, 2008, 06:23 PM // 18:23

get a better infuser :].

Killed u man · May 02, 2008, 06:37 PM // 18:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by elektra_lucia

get a better infuser :].

Where were you when people QQ'd about bspike or ritspike in GvG? Geez, it's so obvious, ALL this time, HOW could we have not come up with that ourselves?

*leaves room for liberal thought*

elektra_lucia · May 02, 2008, 06:39 PM // 18:39

Quote:

Where were you when people QQ'd about bspike or ritspike in GvG? Geez, it's so obvious, ALL this time, HOW could we have no come up with that ourselves?

*leaves room for liberal thought*

Come up with what? The inability to see the text near the top of your screen saying heroes ascent?

Quote:

Where were you when people QQ'd about bspike or ritspike in...

Not playing monk.

Where were you? Bragging about your lame builds that you make? ^_^. Failllllllll.