Curse

Barkeep · Apr 05, 2008, 02:31 PM // 14:31

2 signet mesmers with plague sending can keep a ranger blind all the time even if he's got mending touch. There is no way you will be able to get both diversions every time. First you'd have to try to interrupt both signets which is as good as impossible. (1 is fairly easy, but against a good mesmer is is already 50/50. Let alone 2 signet mesmers), if you miss one, the mes will be able to send the blind on to you, then you will have to mend touch it and in the meantime the other mes got enough time to blind you, or diversion or sig of hum the monk.

It's not like you are immune to blind because you got mend touch every 6 seconds :/

Lorekeeper · Apr 05, 2008, 02:59 PM // 14:59

So ive been following this thread for a while now and the longer it continues the more i observe that some of you just dont seem to understand the simple and unfortunate fact that Guild wars = Build wars. Furthermore, TA feels the effects of build wars far stronger than even HA because of the limited amount of skills you can bring with you. With my limited exposure to TAing, i found that you would go in with 1 build and somewhere along the run you would encounter a team that was perfectly specced against you. Then you switch out some utility that would help vs this anti-you team and you face another team running stuff your previous utility would have helped you against.

In some ways a limited meta in GW is the ideal meta, compared to a completely open one. In a completely open one you simply could not hope to carry enough utility to counter absolutely everything you might expect to face. The sad fact is, GW lacks utility skills that are broad enough to achieve that aim. Blessed Light remains one of few examples of the types of skills GW needs (and by the sound of things they are hoping GW 2 to have a skill system full of skills with far greater breadth that GW 1). At the moment, GW has far too many ''anti'' skills, resulting in gameplay that revolves around rock paper scissors. Times were better during Prophecies era because the total amount of things you needed to counter were relatively low, bring in Factions and Nightfall and the amount of counter requiring skills and mechanics became far too unmanageable for a ''balanced'' team.

From what i hear, TA has far more of an open meta than HA or GvG. Which is the exact problem you guys are dealing with. One day to the next you dont know what you will be facing, but you can be certainly guaranteed that the builds being run will require a certain amount of speccing against. So the way you approach TA comes into two categories.

1) You run a jack of all trades build - and recognise the fact that somewhere along the lines you will lose to a build that you simply dont have enough spec for. But be glad in the knowledge that you can beat a large amount of teams that arent so heavily specced against you.

2) You can run an ''anti'' build - you analyse what is being played on any given day or week, eg the fotm and you spec as heavily towards it as possible. You might even be able to come up with combinations that allow you to counter a small variety of builds really well. But you must recognise that you might lose easily against teams that do not conform with the meta and a running something you had no preparation for.

Open metas can easily turn into limited meta if a large number of teams identify a particularly strong build being run, they copy and paste and suddenly the meta becomes 'gimmick' infested. This is what HA is like. Im not sure about TA, but it does sound as if it could be vulnerable to this sort of behaviour.

But actually a limited meta is probably the best option out of two bad options, because at least you are more able to predict what is out there and not swing into the dark as you would in an open meta.

My last point will be to simply say that i dont think many skills are balanced around the 4vs4 format, which is unfortunate. If i had my way with the game, i would have included specific skill behaviours for skills depending on where they were being used... PvE, TA, HA etc etc.

So if particular skills are not so easy to deal with in 4vs4 TA, id say that was just the unfortunate reality of GW game balance you need to accept.

You can flame me all you want but that really is the reality of your situation.

Teh Jace · Apr 05, 2008, 03:45 PM // 15:45

@Lorekeeper you are right and I think many ppl already know this.

I used to play TA a lot between gvg matches or if there wasnt enough ppl online for gvg. Also it was a good practising for my gvg role and I could play something else besides ranger (finally).

Then my guild disbanded, many great players quit gw cuz of gay gvg meta and we simply didnt manage to find enough good gvgers who didnt bspike or BYOB their champ points. 2 options left for me - either to get my HA tiger or start TAing. I had good memories of TA and kinda bad of HA so I started TAing.

Everything went fine but there was a breakpoint like 4-5 months ago which turned TA into festival of brainless monkeys. I will never understand the mentality of typical swayer who is willing to spend 12 hours per day in HA earning 1-6 fame per run, then some minutes of waiting cuz of ragequitters and then again... over and over.

Same goes for TA. Too bad an average balanced TA team is likely to lose to retards most of the time. Wtf is wrong with u people? If u enjoy pressing 1,2,3 for xx hours then u srsly need a health care. U are retarded monkeys.

Do u get wet everytime u look at ur swayed tiger emote or lamed out glad8? U are idiots.

Sab · Apr 05, 2008, 04:23 PM // 16:23

I think most TAers already understand Lorekeeper's points, they just haven't bothered putting it into words. People are complaining about R-P-S because right now it's nothing but R-P-S. Compare the current meta to mid-late last year, where a decent balanced team (W/R/N/Mo or W/R/Me/Mo) could beat just about any gimmick at the time. I played TA extensively back then and the majority of our losses were not against gimmicks, but on mirror matches. Now there are some games you might as well /resign before the gates open.

What's changed is skill balances - in particular, the recent Necro buff. The problems with those skills have been discussed in other threads, so I won't repeat what they've said, but if Necros were reverted, I think that would fix a large problem in this meta. There are some other issues, of course, but those generally rely on something that's overpowered in other arenas as well, and I suspect they'll be toned down sooner or later (R/D and A/D scythe guys mainly).

With all that fixed, while TA would still have elements of R-P-S, I'm sure it would be a lot more fun than it is now.

Cammy · Apr 05, 2008, 08:24 PM // 20:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by Teh Jace

Ok we have just got rolled by 2x sig of midnight mesmer with various domi stuff and plague sending and unblockable packhunter. Izzy, WHAT A RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GOING GREAT REPLACEMENT FOR AN ELE THIS RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GOING RETARDED BROKEN SHIT IS!!! WAKE UP OR TELL UR EMPLOYER TO FIRE U!!! EVEN A BRAIN DEAD MONKY CAN DO UR JOB BETTER.

Now we have to use retarded melandru and hope this shit wont spread any further. Gimme my RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GOing money back cuz I didnt pay for this shit.

Yup ran into this as well. Pretty gay.

We managed kills going back in with 3x Mind Shocks with hex breaker though XD

Sun Fired Blank · Apr 06, 2008, 12:58 AM // 00:58

The problem, Dzan, is that everything has very limited tactical significance anymore.

For example, maneuvering around Blackout or Diversion is fine; they're both very powerful tactical skills that should create tactical windows you can potentially exploit. Consequently, their disruptability, limited use, and a proper, measured response both have value. Wail of Doom pretty much shits over this notion. It's powerful enough that you can simply blackout a target for half the match, or use it as disruption for key skills, and it pretty much always resolves. In the same respect, diversion becomes really obnoxious when you have a hexshit signetspam build that can use it on 40/40 recharge and be fairly certain that under consta-blind and hex stacks, they won't get a d-shot or a magebane. In that situation, it becomes the rough equivalent of a high penalty blackout.

You'd think that removing a key hex would be very powerful, and that you could very sizeable deal of grief when you ninja key options like Migraine or Insidious Parasite. And in the mirror matchup versus a balanced necro team, it remains fairly important for you to ninja hexes. The difference is that if hexes from a balanced team get past the ranger, through your basic monk removal, and is overwhelming purge, you're still okay, because you always have some chance to re-establish control, even versus a top-quality team. This creates a chance for dynamic play, whereas hexshit signetspam simply inunduates you with so much crap that if you don't have super-powerful unidimensional solutions and you don't retain control of the board, you're going to collapse. This has always been a problem, but given the overwhelming power of hexshit blindspam, your ability to use a ranger for key disruption is limited. You simply have no meaningful way to keep the ranger clean. And prot? Prot is almost a joke now. The overwhelming amount of cheap removal can almost outpace Guardian, which gets pretty much owned by fairly basic target switching anyways.

Lorekeeper, on the subject of build wars and open versus limited metas, I firmly disagree with your explanation. Limited metas are not the result of "anti" skills, a lack of utility skills, or an expansion of mechanics resulting in a basic inability to cope. They're the result of powerful skills that simply force other skills out of viability, which are amplified by expansion of mechanics and provides greater importance to "anti" skills.

As far as I can tell, you think that a more open meta is likely to be R-P-S because you simply can't be prepared for everything, and that TA probably has open meta because you have R-P-S. In reality, I think TA has a very limited meta that is very R-P-S. I think an open meta is always more ideal, but that R-P-S results from the skill problem that I explained above.

As an example: in HA, I constantly find myself astonished by the simple brute force of skills. Teams insulated by layers of Defensive Anthem, Wards, Weapon of Warding, Aegises, etc., Monks that can potentially operate on a nearly endless amount of energy. I marvel at the streamlining of builds like Sway; I find a certain grace in the design from the ground up. But I find myself even more astonished by the array of punishing pressure skills that can overwhelm or circumvent these defenses, and the spikes that can punch clean through these layers of defense with impunity.

And I can't help but wonder, absentmindedly, how HA would be if many, many of these things were scaled back or altered: Tainted Flesh, Splinter Weapon, Ancestor's Rage, Searing Flames, Savannah Heat, Tranquility, Nature's Renewal, Defensive Anthem, Weapon of Warding, Way of the Master, Wounding Strike, Glass Arrows, Sloth Hunter's Shot, Channeling, Rigor Mortis, Leadership, to name only a handful of skills. If those skills were nerfed tomorrow, would that create a more open or a more limited meta? Do you think the resulting environment would be more fun or less fun to play in? That's an open question; I don't really have an answer.

My line of thinking is very similar about TA right now, but among TA players, I think you have a very strong consensus on problem skills, and a very strong desire for change. I doubt you could find one serious TA player that couldn't give you twenty potential nerfs that would likely create a healthier open or limited TA meta. Furthermore, they could likely do it in about sixty seconds, they could likely get consensus on 75% of those nerfs from other serious TA players, and they could likely do it without negatively influencing HA or GvG.

urania · Apr 06, 2008, 10:13 AM // 10:13

20 nerfs? haha
merely killing shattering sin chain by making least one of their attacks blockable (and perhaps tuning down the damage a bit, or make it conditional) and/or finishing off scythe sins would make me perfectly satisfied =D

Rambo' · Apr 06, 2008, 10:53 AM // 10:53

To answer the thread title: We'll always be stuck with some kind of meta in TA, the nature of the title causes this imo. (Waits to be shot down...)

But seriously, played TA for around 4 hours last night and the only team that would give us trouble are these dual sin+monk builds, they drive me insane...! The thing is 1/3 of ppl are running this crap so you cant go for more than 5 games without coming up against it. I hope they adjust things sooner rather than later as its making TA very stale.

The dual SoM teams are awkward too but ill leave that for another day.