Curse

Lorekeeper · Apr 07, 2008, 02:10 AM // 02:10

Just because a guild is successful in GvG doesnt mean they dont know how to tomb or HA. And if you dont know the particular guild in question dont presume to say things like ''stick to GvG''. For HA players to tell GvGers to go back to GvG as if HA was such a specialised expertise is quite laughable. There are many guilds who first HAed, before moving to GvG.

On topic -

I think I am siding more and more with Killed u man on this issue now. There was always a fear i had that Rspike would spread into popularity (not counting the old days of dual shot rspike and kindle arrows rspike). A year ago there were only a couple of teams running rspike regularly and successfully, but at that time we had much stronger defense against it and certain skills used by rspike were not as strong as they are today. Truth is, the builds potential was always there, but people just didnt want to run it because to be successful at it you needed to be really good at it. What changed? i think its because of the following reasons:

1) nerfs to defense - watch yourself, shields up, paragon armour with AR, armour buff stack is now limited.

2) buffs to various skills like - rend enchantments, rigor mortis, healers boon, hex breaker, sundering weapon, pin down.

3) introduction of skills like - spotless mind, aura of stability, chest thumper, sundering weapon, shell shock, sloth hunters shot.

4) introduction of cracked armour mechanic.

A clean spike is much easier for Rspike to achieve today compared to yesterday when you consider the above 4 points. Defensively, the 3 monk backline was given quite a substantial buff vs things that would normally cause them extreme annoyance, hexes and KDs.

Yes rspike was run successfully without these skills and mechanics but how many successful rspike were there? Hardly any. Running a successful rspike is not hard. My evidence? Go look in HA for a few hours, go obs some HoH matches, go ask some HAers. They will all tell you that all you see is rspike.

The problem is, its no longer a build that is only accessible to the most dedicated rspike guilds or teams. Rspike isnt a problem when its only run by a small portion of guilds, because its only run by that small portion due to the fact that it is not easy to pull off. Make rspike less difficult to run and more people will run it. Thats exactly what has happened.

i think the following should be changed.

1) rend enchantments - cast time 2s, recharge 30s
2) rigor mortis - cast time 2s, recharge 30s
3) hex breaker - revert to a stance
4) glass arrows - increase energy cost to 10e. (not that necessary)
5) sundering weapon - applies to next attack not 3 attacks.
6) icy veins - move to death or curse line (not that necessary)
7) brutal weapon - cast time 2s or recharge 10s
8) vital weapon - cast time 2s or energy cost 10e
9) forked arrow - recharge 8s or 10s

see what happens with those changes, remove some or add more accordingly.

Grand Theft Ecto · Apr 07, 2008, 02:10 AM // 02:10

About those screenies up there, one must note that any guild that mainly plays gvg will play gvg when 8 ppl (that regularly play) are online.
In addition to that, we could've played better than we did. e.g: Saving all spikes for a minute won't get you far when your warrior is snared all the time while there are 2 recharged veils present

Still, one could advocate that spikebuilds such as rangerspike or a/d spike are overpowered, due to the fact that they don't need 8 good players playing flawlessly/are quite forgiving for mistakes. Screwed up a dual shot spike? Doesn't matter, the other team will still spend about the same amount of energy and you can try again with forked 5s later. This while your defense is capable of keeping you alive long enough without too much hassle. Compare this to bloodspike (and to a lesser extent ritspike) where you WILL die after missing a couple of spikes. Less AR and lower specs make a difference. Q: Why do people still run bloodspike then? A: Because your mom can succesfully run it.

The team they're facing however, cannot afford to make too many mistakes or they have no chance of besting them. While DP racks up, certainly with the powerfull spike they're facing, everyone will just drop dead before the spike even finishes. (DP on the other side will matter less because of a less powerful spike.)

Hearing izzy on rawr cup coverage last night gives one the idea that powerfull offense will be everywhere while defense and DP won't be there to make a difference. One way of solving it, always enjoyed the instagibs rounds in UT.

Sidenote: running amazing stong pressure with like say 3 warriors and 2 cruel spears won't get you far when they're all dead.

Killed u man · Apr 07, 2008, 02:27 AM // 02:27

Quote:

Originally Posted by drevabor

but most ha players a . dont know how to pressure b. dont bring builds capable of dealing pressure

Leave out the "don't know how to pressure" part, I just gave proof.

Ok, builds, let's talk about builds then:

-Hexway can't beat it (Dshot > Migraine, cry is all they rly got on rspike)
-Legoway can't beat it (said it yourself)
-R/D CAN beat it, but everyone resorting to that build is kinda pointless. On top of that, spiking the R/D down is kinda dumb. (Hint, go for the Rit = win)
-Many of my builds are no match for it, no need to point out which ones those are...
-...

These "pressure" builds you talk about exist, I know, BUT you forgot one thing...

HoH is about spikes, NOT pressure... Pressure wins the battle, spikes the war... (Might aswell realize it now)

The most basic example I always use:
Team sends 1 guy to your base on Cap Points, assuming you won't "snare" this guy (Snaring 1 on 1 is pointless, because sure he doesn't get to your base, but you're missing a guy aswell) there is only 1 "reasonable" option for either builds, pressure and spike:
-> Pressure will have to send 1 guy back aswell, thus loosing a guy at center shrine, in other words loosing it to the 3th team. (If both teams lack one guy, the third will cap it by 1 point) In the meanwhile, the pressure is hoping aswell that they can hold their base, in other words, that the guy who they send back can actually stay alive...

-> The spike on the other hand has a far more convienient solution: Spike him down before he even reaches the stairs... Sounds better huh?

WHY would you give yourself the disadvantage of being a pressure build in HoH? (Don't say the warrior can call a mini-spike on him, because that means you do in fact have a spike build) On top of that, with a "pressure" build, try and spike that ranger down who has Lightening Reflexes... Ye, you won't, so you'll have to sacrifice a guy for XX seconds...

I won't disagree on this one:

Pressure Beats Rspike

I know it does, problem is:

Everything Else Beats Pressure

Thus making the only valid counter against Rspike (Besides walls, but nce again, you can't hide them to death) a utterly useless build in HA...

In other words, Rspike needs to be tomed down, so builds that can actually hold aswell have a chance...

ra n d om · Apr 07, 2008, 02:39 AM // 02:39

Quote:

I also realize you might as well post a picture of a good rspike. (Amandla, Cleo (Average) and Dod (average) getting owned by someone. (Non cap points/courtyard)

If the top 2 r spikes of yumisu myomoto aka Daze of Defeat[DoD] and lady cleo aka Team Voyager[TV] are "average" where is the "good" r spike and why fear "average" or less teams running it.

And on another note loseing to a A/D spike even with 2 rangers means your mesmer failed at stripping the A/D or your prot monk has bad field vision. If your prot is descent, a good pressure build doesent lose to A/D spike, if you put out good pressure, not the one with 2 ranger at least. But a good pressure build can lose to a good r spike tho, dont get me wrong.

Killed u man · Apr 07, 2008, 02:53 AM // 02:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by ra n d om

If the top 2 r spikes of yumisu myomoto aka Daze of Defeat[DoD] and lady cleo aka Team Voyager[TV] are "average" where is the "good" r spike and why fear "average" or less teams running it.

And on another note loseing to a A/D spike even with 2 rangers means your mesmer failed at stripping the A/D or your prot monk has bad field vision. If your prot is descent, a good pressure build doesent lose to A/D spike, if you put out good pressure, not the one with 2 ranger at least. But a good pressure build can lose to a good r spike tho, dont get me wrong.

Hmm, The reason why I find Aman's best, is because he's the only one that keeps beating me 1 on 1...

I've fought both you (DoD) and Cleo, and I've won a few times, and lost a few... But Aman's is insane. (Could it be due to the fact they have +-4 R12's? )

Stripping the A/D will do you good one thing: missing +-40 Damage on the spike (which is nothing with for these mammoth spikes)...

Look, The leader of the team was Kain (from Black Spectrum)... He and me are old-school rivals (Pre 6v6 I think even), he's always hated me for running spikes builds, I've always hated him for incorrectly comparing Rtispike and Bspike with sway...
BUT I know one thing, Kain knows how to pressure, and as the guy from the guild said, their warrior was snared, BUT your monks are too busy catching spikes, you CAN'T just use a veil against rspike. (The spikes are to fast/clean to try and keep the warrior clean aswell)

And as a final note, what Lore said (and I know I don't agree with him often aswell

) Rspike recieved many buffs over the past months/years...
I don't need to quote him all over again, he said it perfectly... (Nerfs to defensse ...)
Every wall of defence against Rspike have been brought down by Izzy, even Ritspike (<3 forever) kept Rspike in line (Because Ritspike > Rspike in those days, meaning there was no point in running rspike) BUT there was never any direct buffs to Rspike. (Besides the new skills) It's not like Izzy ever said: "Hey let's all run Rspike this month", it's just the final product of many nerfs/buffs over the past years, and I don't think it's a "minor" problem anymore...

At the moment, there is 2 teams holding HoH, Cleo and DoD. Rspike usually holds ALL night (Various teams tough), and it even comes to show more often during European Active Hours...

Also:

Quote:

stripping the A/D or your prot monk has bad field vision. If your prot is descent, a good pressure build doesent lose to A/D spike

Tell this to ANY top 100 GvG monk and see what they have to say... Pssssst, check the "shadowstep"-QQ thread in the above forum... The reason why they want it nerfed is because it eliminates ANY form of positioning, in other words your prot monk will have to rely on "lucky" prots, because shadowstepping = instakill without a giveway. (No running-up)

ra n d om · Apr 07, 2008, 03:03 AM // 03:03

Quote:

Tell this to ANY top 100 GvG monk and see what they have to say... Pssssst, check the "shadowstep"-QQ thread in the above forum... The reason why they want it nerfed is because it eliminates ANY form of positioning, in other words your prot monk will have to rely on "lucky" prots, because shadowstepping = instakill without a giveway. (No running-up)

Most the prot monks i run with are gvg prot monks and they have little to no problem catching the tele spikes. So either the infuse is missing the few missed prots or the prot monk is not doing his job.

Also forgot to mention one tele spike every 30 secs is nothing. Thats 30 seconds of pressure before you get a "hard" to catch spike.

Jesse · Apr 07, 2008, 03:19 AM // 03:19

lol at all the arguing and debating....

Killed u man · Apr 07, 2008, 03:29 AM // 03:29

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jesse

lol at all the arguing and debating....

Is that a pro or con rspike? ^^

Well, I think my point is proven now (and that's all it about, being right in real life

)

Too bad Izzy gives more about his removed left-nut than he does for HA...

Kyp Jade · Apr 07, 2008, 03:32 AM // 03:32

Quote:

Originally Posted by Killed u man

I won't disagree on this one:

Pressure Beats Rspike

I know it does, problem is:

Everything Else Beats Pressure

Your only half right, ive been trying to put together a condition pressure build for about a week now. I've been crushing most teams in less than 2 minutes with it when people do thier jobs. Some of the better teams take 5-7 minutes or longer. It doesnt take long for pressure to sink in. Even you would call this build balanced, it has no A,Rt,D, or P in it. (except as secondary, if you dont run make haste or song you stand no chance of winning in HoH)

The problem with the build? Oh its quite simple, It dies to sways without a incredible amount of coordination from my midline. Its actually the combination of all of the spirits, taking my time away from doing any physical damage to the team, and mend body and soul. seriously wtf was the dev team thinking making a non-elite restore conditions. Whatever though.

The build is actually quite fun to play, i had 2 half runs up to courtyard and a third up to antechamber with no skips this afternoon, but I'm probably going to scrap the build.

Pressure in this environment (HA, not gvg), doesnt work without shit-tons of raw damage. That is hard to achieve in any build, which is why spikes are so successful, it doesnt take a whole lot of effort to coordinate an all at once massive damage on a single target thing. Pressure on the other hand requires constantly attacking the health bars, and to maintain a good rate of dps too. Current incarnation of sway means raw damage is the only real way to deal with them. Degen isnt the best option due to a few rit spells.

Jesse · Apr 07, 2008, 03:32 AM // 03:32

what does my comment have to do with what you just posted....all i said was lol....try making sense before you post borat

bsp kain · Apr 07, 2008, 08:54 AM // 08:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by Killed u man

So all of you "r-tards" saying you should "pressure" them down, well you guys are calling a R26 guild baed? (Mind the "e")

I call them bad. Only scrubs lose to r spike or sway.

kranius · Apr 07, 2008, 09:55 AM // 09:55

Quote:

Originally Posted by bsp kain

I call them bad. Only scrubs lose to r spike or sway.

this is epic fail

you never lost against rspike ?

Divinus Stella · Apr 07, 2008, 12:36 PM // 12:36

I wasn't playing last night so i dont know how they managed to lose to low ranked ranger spike but it wasnt exactly a core team and Kain playing warrior isnt a good idea, he usually gets killed in acid traps unless he has a monk following him

Whenever we have played against rangers spikes in the past weve just rolled them, DoD is a pretty bad example of a ranger spike but a guild like TV is about as good as they get and ive not lost to them before.

Im not saying the build is balanced, but its not as monstrous as people are making out, like any other one trick pony (bspike, rit spike, SF spike) it allows bad players to win games, when the sole objective of a map is to eliminate the opposing party then your gonna have builds with just a spike, thats why cap points and relic runs are about, they just need to move more maps away from pure 1v1 fighting and more into the realms of tactical play.

Lorekeeper · Apr 07, 2008, 12:47 PM // 12:47

I rarely, if ever, make calls for nerfs by citing examples of teams who are good at what they do. I would never have cited MATH iway as the reason why iway needed nerfing, i would never have cited various bloodspike guilds as the reason why bspike needed nerfing, i would never have cited various shitway guilds as the reason why shitway needed nerfing. I am happy for there to be teams who are well experienced at what they do, and to enjoy success from it. I was quite happy for [TV] a year ago to be one of the only real challenges to my team in HA (amongst few others), because they were dedicated to their rspike even in the face of difficult odds. Back then, rspike was a difficult build to run because you didnt have all the newly buffed spike utility you have today.

Its when a potentially powerful build becomes less difficult to play (and therefore more accessible to a greater number of players) that it becomes a problem. Look at all the various gimmicks that rose to dominance and got nerfed over the years, there are very few examples of builds that were truly unbeatable, they got nerfed because they rewarded even poor players just for the fact they took certain skill bars with them and buttonmashed them against other players who were trying to run something less ''mindless''. Builds that allow poor quality players to compete with better quality players purely because of what they take on their skill bars is bad for a competitive game. These builds spread too far and make the whole experience extremely tedious. Iway didnt need nerfing because noone could beat it, shitway didnt need nerfing because noone could beat it, heroway didnt need nerfing because noone could beat it, they needed nerfing because noone wants to fight buttonmash builds every single match. People ran these builds because they allowed them to punch above their weight. But at the end of the day, its not their individual talent that is granting them that success, its the fact they are buttonmashing extremely effective skill combinations over and over again.

So i really wish people in this thread would stop using the ''if you can beat it, its not overpowered'' argument. Thats only part of the issue here, and not the most important one. There would be no problem with rspike if only a few teams were running it, there are problems with rspike if many teams are running it. And its beginning to happen, rspike is all over HA.

Noone can refute the fact that the build has recieved several indirect and direct buffs over the last year, which i listed in my post above.

Because of these buffs, rspike is less difficult to run and therefore more accesssible to a larger portion of the player base.

Result = rspike is all over the place

Some people might be asking for a blanket nerf of the build. I am not. I am only suggesting for some of the direct and indirect buffs to rspike to be reverted, so that it remains possible to run an effective rspike ([TV] did without all these buffs) but only when run by the most experienced rspike teams.

Lykan · Apr 07, 2008, 12:53 PM // 12:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by Killed u man

proof of fail...

Isnt much to say, we were at the end of a bad nite, with 2 pugs and only half of the team was core anyway. The opposing rangers did their job well, interupting most DA's and the spikes were pretty clean, its not the r spike, we just played a bit baed, everyone has off days

We just got outspiked in the end.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lorekeeper

Just because a guild is successful in GvG doesnt mean they dont know how to tomb or HA.

Pretty sure we tore thru your team in 2 mins last nite tho, but meh.

Barbie goes guru · Apr 07, 2008, 12:56 PM // 12:56

Quote:

Originally Posted by danilovic

They should stick to GvG.

steel phoenix started in ha.

terror of the justice salmon is a smurf of steel phoenix.

Kain is a noob warrior, thats why we lost.

Lorekeeper · Apr 07, 2008, 01:36 PM // 13:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lykan

Pretty sure we tore thru your team in 2 mins last nite tho, but meh.

did you misinterpret my comment as a flame towards GvG guilds? If so please learn to english comprehension.

I dont recall being torn thru by any team in HA last nite, the only major 1vs1 losses i remember were vs rspike. Id like to see a screenshot of your claim cos i seriously dont remember being beaten by FisH last nite. I do remember seeing them in HoH but they got ganked by HaF for reasons i dont understand and my team ended up holding again. Not sure if you wanna turn this into a FisH vs everyone else thread, simply because i have no qualms against them. If you want to change that be my guest.

But in all honesty, i dont care. If all you wanna contribute to the discussion is whoru i>u type arguments /gtfo

Kyp Jade · Apr 07, 2008, 01:54 PM // 13:54

W00T, guru drama ftw /popcorn

btw Kain is good, or would be if his warrior wasnt so fat, he needs to get some real armor for that guy.

Dont know how Fish relate to rspike being OP, maybe its because people from the gvg arena can be successful in the territory of really egotistical HAers. (Though it does work the other way around, as well so GvGers need to stfu sometimes as well, I remember soap rising to top 100 pretty quick last year)
And really you cannot complain about fish being bad at all, they dont run HA meta everytime, which makes them much much greater than most people posting in this thread.

Lorekeepers points about rspike ARE valid, but really the problem with rspike is that rangers were never meant to do damage like that, rspike arose from a bad design issue, and has steadily gotten worse from balancing other aspects of the game. (srsly whose idea was cracked armor /fail)

I wouldnt point to the rangers however being the big source of the problem.
Brutal Weapon
Anthem Envy (in some teams)
Orders
Favorable

Are the problem with the damage. All of those could do with being tone down a little, (except for brutal weapon, which could be nerfed into oblivion) but really the problem of rspike comes from the fact that they can fit so much meta hate in. Hexbreaker on 4-5 people, mantra conc/resolve for the orders guy if they use that. Block stances on every ranger. This has always been the strength of rspikes, and will continue to be so. Dont really thing its a balance issue either, more like bad design from the devs

Divinus Stella · Apr 07, 2008, 02:09 PM // 14:09

I think the problem is Forked Arrow/Dual Shot, without those skills the build would fail, ive seen people attempt spikes with sloth hunters but they are usually a lot weaker.

The deep wound is nasty especially with it being ranged on a 5 second recharge.

Elri · Apr 07, 2008, 07:25 PM // 19:25

Anyone for more popcorn?