Curse

Killed u man · Mar 16, 2008, 05:56 PM // 17:56

Read before posting please. I know as well as any other player that Rspike has been one of the oldest builds. It has always been overpowered, but I think it's time it actually got a nerf.

Atm, there is 2 main builds for RSpike:
-4R, Me
-3R, Rt, P

The main problem forms in the 3 Ranger build. The build still varies alot, but it usually comes down to this:
Forked Arrow + Savage, Sloth's + Savage

Strangly enough they can spike targets (ANY target, including Ghostly + Warriors) down clean with only 3 rangers, whereas the infamous Bloodspike and Ritspike (Which recieved MORE than the deserved nerfs) had 8 Spikers.
This means 2 things:
-The Damage coming from the skills Sloth's and Forked outclasses ANY ritspike skill.
-They, at ALL times, have a secure 3 monk backline, ON TOP OF Wards from the Rt, 4 Hard Targets AND Vital Weapon/WoW.

Ok, so we ALL know the Spike itself is just as overpowered as the old ritspike was (NOT the first one, where you had 230 Dmg Spells, but the Wielder's Strike one).
How do they compare on snares/Running/Holding capability tough?
Let's see what the build usually packs:

Running:
-Hex Breaker on runners
-"Make Haste!" and "Fallback" at 14 command.
-Dshot/Savage on nearly every ranger, however when running a Relic, you obviosly can't use these, but you still have 2 other rangers with these 2 "good" ranger skills.
-Aura of Stability
-3 Monks with Hex Removal
=> Face it, a good Rspike won't get snared, because Ward against Foes is the only thing that CAN stop their runners down. And need I explain this: Dshot > Foes.

Snaring:
-Pin Down on Ranger (Which recently got buffed o.0)
-Icy Shackles/Water Trident
-Ward Against Foes
-Grasping Earth
=> This is enough to FULLY shut 1 team down (Going from Condi Snare to hex as PBAoE), and the Ranger can easily Cripple + Dshot RC on enemy teams. However, if they simply put Hex Breaker on the Back-Up HB, they can change one of the Rangers for a R/E with a second Foes.

What do we know so far? They have a clearly broken spike every +-5 Second, they have the maximum running capability one can achieve in HA. (Echo - Dash doesn't count) Third, Snares are AT LEAST as good as any other build, however, the Pin Down gives the extra condition which often disables monks from stripping of the hex in time.

Now let's look at the holding capability (Capture Points as well as KoTH):
-Strong Spike (Insane would be more appropriate) every 5 seconds, which CAN clean spike a ghostly at full HP. (Ok, they need to have a crit hit on ~4 Arrows, but GftE help alot with this...)
-4 Hard Targets
-Optional Ward (On Rit) + Optional Weapon of Warding (On Rit)
-3 Savage Shots every 5 Seconds
-ATLEAST 1 Dshot every 10 seconds. (I've seen teams back 3 Dshots aswell)
-3 Monk Backline

I gues I don't need to explain ANY serious HA-player how broken this build shows to get when you face them 1 on 1. Sure, a GOOD balanced (Legoway isn't balanced in my books, but let's just assume it is for the sake of it) CAN beat a crappy Rspike. However, a GOOD rspike will spent the first 20-30 seconds of the game D-shotting + Savage Shotting counters. (Aegis? DA? Bye bye) You CAN'T pressure them down: The 3 Monk backline disables ANY form of non-overpowered pressure. So you have to spike them down. However, I would LOVE to see a (Balanced, once again) spike monks with 800 HP + Shield down. On top of that, keep in mind: 3 Savage Shots + Dshots. Any decent Rspike will just interrupt the source of spike damage.

The Climax here came a few days ago, when I saw a really crappy Rspike getting beat up by a Legoway. (R10-Ish, knew a few people on board) The Legoway pummeled away, with precise pressure, the Mesmer was activly trying to shut down 3 monks (Focus on Prot obv. but 3 Monk backline can't be shutdown with 1 Mes), the Fire Ele was hitting atleast 3 people with all his AoE spells. For 10 minutes straight, the Rspike couldn't kill anything, and started to collapse -REALLY- slowly. They hit the 11th minute and BOOM, 1 lucky window of opportunity, the Rspike kills the prot monk CLEAN. They Dshotted a few sigs, Savaged the Sig of Return. Yeah, you can fill out The rest. The balanced players dropped like flies. I gues we've ALL been there. You simply CAN'T beat a good rspike, because you have to choose: Shutdown the insane spike (Which is easily done, because shutting down 1 ranger usually is enough to stop the spike) which disables you from killing them, or shutting down the Heal/Prot, which leaves U open to any incomming spikes.

The ONLY disadvantage Rspike really has, is (Obviously) the fact you got to have LoS. The ONLY thing that keeps this build (Somewhat) in line in the maps to HoH are the Walls which U can hide behind. However, HAVING TO USE THE MAP'S OBJECTS (Walls) to win is just plain sad. I understand movement/positioning is important, however, on maps such as Fetid you're f*cked to say the least when you face an Rspike...
Also with the recent updates, they gave them smalls buffs over the years, concering certain glitches in walls etc. However, it were these glitched that actually kept the build in line.

I gues I can simply keep on going, but in the end it simply comes down to you deciding what overpowered is. If you find an insane 5 Sec-recharge spike, immense running capability + snares, insane holding power + solo survivability within one build "balanced" then that's your choice. Just give reasonable arguements when you post here tough, kk?

Tearz1993 · Mar 16, 2008, 06:02 PM // 18:02

Only reason I'm not sure if it should be nerfed is that it isn't incredibly popular atm from what I've seen.. if it became popular of course it should be nerfed but usually I only see it maybe once every 20 games

llsektorll · Mar 16, 2008, 06:05 PM // 18:05

bring back RSPIKE for the LOVE OF GOD~!

Killed u man · Mar 16, 2008, 06:08 PM // 18:08

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tearz1993

Only reason I'm not sure if it should be nerfed is that it isn't incredibly popular atm from what I've seen.. if it became popular of course it should be nerfed but usually I only see it maybe once every 20 games

I know, but the main reason here is:

-The build is old. Most people got tired of it. Look at Bloodspike: Angorodon's is a 3 Energy Vamp Gaze with 16 more Life Stealing. They ROLL OVER good balanced teams, yet you don't see it that often. Simply because most people "been there, done that".
-It's not easy pugable as shitway... Nonetheless, the reward for skillfull play is way to high in this build...

llsektorll · Mar 16, 2008, 06:14 PM // 18:14

rending touch should be NERFED ... and shitway will go down the drain

Motoko Kusanagi War · Mar 16, 2008, 06:21 PM // 18:21

Um, if you lose to this build your team sucks.

Dual snare hex/condi combo isn't a problem. Keep your relic runner veiled//have the heal monk constantly draw him. There is no prevention on the removal time wise at all. Plus, if you are balanced, don't you have a mesmer that can counter the rit? If your mesmer can't do that, kick him.

Btw, your story wasn't a climax. You didn't state the balanced was winning at all, not that they had gotten kills, just applied pressure. That balanced obviously sucked if they couldn't apply pressure AND spike targets periodically. Its rspike, and perfectly easy to catch. And just because the balanced was r10 or w/e, doesn't mean anything. There are several r12's I wouldn't play with personally. GRIND GRIND GRIND FAMEZ.

As far as getting your sigs interupted... Most viable teams have song of concentration so rezzes interupted shouldn't be a problem. I do believe however that you overestimate the amount of shut down ranger spike has... If 3 rangers can interupt 5-6 rezzes on your team. Your team fails at rezzing.

You SHOULD (runing balanced) have as much shut down as any rspike. Have snares? Hex up the rangers to make half their spike invalid. Have mesmer shut down? Take out the rit and prevent him from weapon spamming and let your pressure take out the monks (which they will have a normal amount of HP w/o the vitals).

Overall, if you lose to rspike. It's your teams fault. And if you don't have the balls to take blame, blame it on BUILDWARSBUILDWARSBUILDWARSBUILDWARSBUILDWARSBUILD WARS

Boogz · Mar 16, 2008, 09:01 PM // 21:01

Quote:

Originally Posted by llsektorll

rending touch should be NERFED ... and shitway will go down the drain

sway is like iway , it's the only way for unranked players to get ranks , coz NOBODY gives party to ppl less than r3 , wich is basically the reason that gimmick spikes exist.

i don't see any problem with ranger spike , it's far from being overpowered , it's inferior to the other spikes that we had on HA , just pressure the other team and you're done

Phe Belladona · Mar 16, 2008, 09:58 PM // 21:58

HA monks suck, 3 of them is no trouble for a dom mesmer... the rank 10 group had a bad mesmer if after 10mins it hadnt broken a 3 monk backline and a fire ele hitting 3 ppl at a time.

but yes rspike does need a nerf its too easy fame. but i dunno what to do all the skills that make it up are individually fine just when you combine all 14 of them it becomes a scary build, so i dunno what you'd nerf unless it was accross the board but that would just make a lot of skills suck... mind you they dont get used outside rspike anyway (except the interupts and sloths)

Killed u man · Mar 17, 2008, 12:26 AM // 00:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phe Belladona

HA monks suck, 3 of them is no trouble for a dom mesmer... the rank 10 group had a bad mesmer if after 10mins it hadnt broken a 3 monk backline and a fire ele hitting 3 ppl at a time.

but yes rspike does need a nerf its too easy fame. but i dunno what to do all the skills that make it up are individually fine just when you combine all 14 of them it becomes a scary build, so i dunno what you'd nerf unless it was accross the board but that would just make a lot of skills suck... mind you they dont get used outside rspike anyway (except the interupts and sloths)

Yes, I know. Most skills individual are fine. (Glass, Brutal, The para bar, ...)
However, together it forms an insane spike. Especially with teams bringing Rigor Mortis nowadays... (R/N or P/N) You HAVE to keep a spirirt bond/guardian on him at ALL times, that's when you're NOT even holding the altar. That's redicilous energy wise on the monks...

Motoko Kusanagi War · Mar 17, 2008, 01:15 AM // 01:15

Quote:

Originally Posted by Killed u man

Yes, I know. Most skills individual are fine. (Glass, Brutal, The para bar, ...)
However, together it forms an insane spike. Especially with teams bringing Rigor Mortis nowadays... (R/N or P/N) You HAVE to keep a spirirt bond/guardian on him at ALL times, that's when you're NOT even holding the altar. That's redicilous energy wise on the monks...

Your monks have channeling. If you have energy problems with energy in halls. Your monks suck. You know why you shouldn't have energy problems even though you are constantly spamming a 10e prot? Because your monks that run spirit bond should run 5e skills that are spammable that give them energy because they are channeling tanking more than 5 targets.

Killed u man · Mar 17, 2008, 02:18 AM // 02:18

Quote:

Originally Posted by Motoko Kusanagi War

Your monks have channeling. If you have energy problems with energy in halls. Your monks suck. You know why you shouldn't have energy problems even though you are constantly spamming a 10e prot? Because your monks that run spirit bond should run 5e skills that are spammable that give them energy because they are channeling tanking more than 5 targets.

Gl getting 5+ targets on KoTH maps... On Cap Points, yeah, you can EASILY get 8-9 Energy back, on KoTH, U MIGHT get a 3-4 people ball every now and then...

You also missed the point where this isn't even necessary for ANY OTHER BUILD. Rspike is the only build where you monks actually have to be baby-sitting the Ghostly 24/7. IV spike is tough, but can't clean spike AND need all (atleast 6-7) to actually kill your Ghostly. Rspike needs to have their 3 Rangers...

wuzzman · Mar 17, 2008, 05:03 AM // 05:03

you know after three years I would expect players to stop failing at the game....

Motoko Kusanagi War · Mar 17, 2008, 08:23 AM // 08:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by Killed u man

Gl getting 5+ targets on KoTH maps... On Cap Points, yeah, you can EASILY get 8-9 Energy back, on KoTH, U MIGHT get a 3-4 people ball every now and then...

You also missed the point where this isn't even necessary for ANY OTHER BUILD. Rspike is the only build where you monks actually have to be baby-sitting the Ghostly 24/7. IV spike is tough, but can't clean spike AND need all (atleast 6-7) to actually kill your Ghostly. Rspike needs to have their 3 Rangers...

You also missed the point where you are talking directly to someone who got r12 over 8 months ago and got a majority of his fame monking/warrior against that stuff and just overall tactics and calling.

It's skill. If you are losing to it, your team is doing something wrong.

No if's, and's, or but's.

Kyp Jade · Mar 17, 2008, 01:52 PM // 13:52

My only problem with gimmicks like rangerspike is the amount of utility a non-balanced build can fit in. Atm, its the best build for koth and relic run. And it doesnt do to bad on cap pts eiether.

Other than that who cares?

Horace The Great · Mar 17, 2008, 03:39 PM // 15:39

The could reduce the damage a little maybe.

And the Hex Breakers on everyone is also annoying, even monks take it now.

Lorekeeper · Mar 17, 2008, 04:31 PM // 16:31

New Rspike is yet another build example that shows Anet up for mismanagement of skill balance.

[skill]Forked Arrow[/skill] was obviously designed to prevent [skill]Order of Pain[/skill] abuse, but then why did they introduce [skill]Brutal Weapon[/skill]?

Are the game designers so shortsighted that they didnt forsee a synergy here?

Sloth Hunter's Shot is a skill that gives rangers yet more access to a high damage spike skill that reduces the number of rangers needed to produce the same amount of damage.

What confuses me always about Anet is that they nerf things in the past, like [skill]Dual Shot[/skill] and the old bunny thumpers that were imbalanced and were clearly a problem. Then a new campaign gets released and introduces new tools that allow players to run the same broken builds all over again, see [skill]Forked Arrow[/skill] and [skill]Rampage as One[/skill].

[skill]Eviscerate[/skill] gets its damage nerfed to prevent axe warriors from having access to such high dmg spikes. Then Anet introduce [skill]Body Blow[/skill] and continually buff skills that inflict Cracked Armour, see new [skill]Lightning Orb[/skill] and new Gwen skill[skill]Shell Shock[/skill] that allow the warrior access to even stronger spikes than ever before. And its not even elite.

Im not really making a comment at the imbalanced nature of these new additions or buffs, what i am making a comment on is that Anet seem to lack a long term vision for skill balance. Nerfing archetypes one day and rebuffing the archetypes back into meta the next. Skill balance should be synonymous with integrity and stability, with the long term goal of there being less and less need for skill updates. You could picture a bundle of elastic bands that have been entwined in a complicated mess. Skill balance at the introduction of a skill set should represent that mess of elestic bands at its messiest stage. Each balance update should represent the gradual removal of the elastic bands from the mess, and eventually you end up with all the elastic bands layed out neatly and individually. Ideally the whole bundle should be avoided through alpha and beta testing, but theres nothing better than allowing millions of players to find imbalances.

What Anet seem to be doing with their mess of elastic bands is removing the purple one one day and adding a red and blue one the next (for those of you who dont know red+blue= purple). Or they get a pair of scissors and cut through the mess of elastic bands at the ones that look the most tangled up... like Ether Renewal for example. They pull out the now broken elastic band and it goes in the bin. Instead of being part of the collection of untangled elastic bands on the table the broken elastic band is no longer useful at all.

The skills that do get balanced, sit neatly on the table, but ultimately they might aswell get cut with the scissors and thrown into the bin if Anet continually add more elastic bands into the mess because everyone is so busy dealing with the ever growing mess of elastic bands that they dont pay any attention to the untangled ones.

But in terms of marketing success, the ball of tangled elastic bands is far easier to sell than a collection of neatly layed out elastic bands. You can throw the ball of tangled elastic bands around and break windows with it, which is extremely appealing to players who only care about that quick fix of gameplay. The collection of neat elastic bands could never break a window, they dont win gold capes while the ball exists, and while the ball of mess exists the players who see the value in a game revolving around those neatly layed out elastic bands will forever be playing in the shadow of the players who are having their own fun breaking expensive vases with their ball of elastic bands.

The ball of elastic bands represents sales success to the masses = lots of money in a very short period of time with little effort required and a dazzling marketting portfolio. Like Dervishes at the release of Nightfall ''Become a GOD''. They sure were GODLIKE in the PvP preview weekend and suffered quite a big balance as a result. But the marketing had achieved its impact.

The untangled elastic bands on the table represents sales could potentially make Anet alot of money by attracting players who desire a unique balanced PvP format which GW above all other options had the potential to reach. They could supplement their non subscription based business model with additional map content or PvE storyline content, there is no need to constantly add more skills to the game. The BMP is a fine example of what they could have done. Sorrows Furnace is another (they could have charged for that but made the greens customised like in the BMP). However the success through that route would not have funded their 2 campain/year development model, but would have suited a development model with longer cycles due to the length of time needed to achieve the sort of balance that might attract huge numbers of PvPers and keep their attention for long periods of time.

What we see Anet doing now, which is extremely apparent in the most recent update is that they want to maintain the existence of the ball of elastic bands. Although they do increase the collection of untangled bands on the table, they continually add more elastic bands into the ball of mess or make changes that have an indirect effect of tangling the elastic bands even further. EG. ViO and Pious assault. Even when they get things right and remove more elastic bands than they add, they dont do a comprehensive enough job that allows the ball of mess to disentangle completely.

There are some elastic bands in the mess that form the core of the ball, and its those bands that reach out and entangle the others to form a larger ball. Anet seems content to peel away at the outer edges of the ball, but that only leaves the possibility for the core imbalances to continue to synergise with other skills. R/D and A/D being best examples.

If you read through the reasons why Anet scrapped Utopia you would learn that Anet themselves had recognised the limitations of their short development cycle system (http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Utopia). This led to their decision to begin development of GWII.

So hopefully they have learn their lessons from GWI and we might see GWII start off with far less tangled elastic bands than what GWI started with.

They have already stated that GWII will have a less complex collection of skills. So there may be hope yet.

TaCktiX · Mar 17, 2008, 05:09 PM // 17:09

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lorekeeper

(Lots of text)

QFT.

12 characters.

Morgoth the dark · Mar 17, 2008, 10:05 PM // 22:05

Quote:

Originally Posted by Motoko Kusanagi War

You also missed the point where you are talking directly to someone who got r12 over 8 months ago and got a majority of his fame monking/warrior against that stuff and just overall tactics and calling.

It's skill. If you are losing to it, your team is doing something wrong.

No if's, and's, or but's.

So you're saying that beating rpsike is just a skill? Right, and 1 man can save the whole group...
I bet you would lost to Powers rspike in old days of HA.
Rspike is just one hell of broken build, but it's difficult to play it so it's not played that much in halls nowdays. If you say it's easy to beat it... than you havent meet a really good / coordinated rspike.
With or without r12.

ZenRgy · Mar 17, 2008, 11:34 PM // 23:34

Quote:

Originally Posted by Morgoth the dark

So you're saying that beating rpsike is just a skill? Right, and 1 man can save the whole group...
I bet you would lost to Powers rspike in old days of HA.
Rspike is just one hell of broken build, but it's difficult to play it so it's not played that much in halls nowdays. If you say it's easy to beat it... than you havent meet a really good / coordinated rspike.
With or without r12.

Rangerspike... hard to play?

la_cabra_de_vida · Mar 17, 2008, 11:43 PM // 23:43

Your kidding me if you think rspike is overpowered. Thats like me saying hexway in ha is overpowered and writing a thread describing how good it is. Your description of saying the mesmer trying shutdown 3 monks is a single point of failure. Its worthless trying to shutdown three monks with one mes. Even if the mesmer had PD'ed one of the forked arrows the spike wont go through clean. Despite what most think, mesmer isnt just divert/shame spam monks. Find out whats killing you and shut it down is rule number one, exploiting the other team comes second.

By the way, Cry of frustration guarantees you a win vs any rspike team.