Curse

Double Pact · Feb 19, 2008, 04:22 PM // 16:22

Quote:

Originally Posted by JR

Dark Escape I have no issue with, even Smoke Powder isn't too bad. Return has been terrible.

Positional play used to be a major part of monking. If you went a bit too far out against a good team they would have a knock-lock and adrenspike coming down on your face pretty quickly.

With Return Monks can pretty much run where ever the hell they want. Pre-kiting lost a lot of importance and positional play went out of the window and hasn't really come back.

There was a way to get out of a fu---- up situation, but positionplay still didn't become useless.
It might have become a bit less important but at the same time, distinguishing "a warrior running towards you" from "a warrior runnning towards you which was to be joined by another one plus the midline all using their damage skills" became more important (second situation: use teh sin skillz!!)
Bad monks used their defensive skills on lame fakespikes and stood defenceless (in means of position as well as stance) against the real one, coming up a few seconds later.

With the combination of dark escape+return, it enabled the monks to move fast on the battlefield, thus creating a fast paced, highly tactical game (and don't tell me it didn't... otherwise watch one or two of evil's games)

JR · Feb 19, 2008, 04:29 PM // 16:29

Pretty sure monks having return or not doesn't make a game particularly more fast paced or highly tactical. EvIL played just as impressively with OoB or /Me Monks.

Kaon · Feb 19, 2008, 04:35 PM // 16:35

Double Pact, do you have any idea how gay it is to play as a warrior against monks with dark escape and return? Almost as gay as playing against 1 million blocks with aegis and ward and guardian. Although i would certainly consider no aegis anymore and back to mo/a an improvement, i'd still much prefer a return to boonprots over anything else.

Double Pact · Feb 19, 2008, 08:11 PM // 20:11

I played warrior against Mo/A BL backlines?

I liked to play against both Boonprot as well as Mo/A. The only thing i hated was "block" or "miss", because it was just so annoying to miss 9 out of 10 attacks against a monk who didn't seem to know what WASD meant. (the reason why i started monking^^)

To successfully fakespike and then execute a BL with a mesmer who knew how to shutdown the other was always a pleasure to play for me. (sure it's annoying if you got a 100% kill on a monk and in the last second he ports way out of your range, but it's just as annoying to have a boonprot damn low and with one 1/4spell of each monk, he's up at 100% again...)

Blackie Chan · Feb 20, 2008, 10:57 AM // 10:57

Quote:

Originally Posted by twicky_kid

I find it ironic that 4-6 months ago players were asking for more and more splits to be viable. Now its the meta and again the players turn out in droves to bitch.

Just goes to show you that the players in this game will simply never do anything else but whine about what is the current meta and why it should be changed.

Just play the damn game for what it is. That definition changes from time to time. If you don't like it go do something else.

As far as ATs go players will use what will win. Its hard to come up with something orginal after the game has been around as long as it has with very little change in strategy since Faction came out. Wait for VoD and win. Of course the game will get boring there is no more room for exploration.

Many players have quit because of repetitive game play in pvp. That is not because of the builds we use but more of the rules haven't changed. HoH is the only format that has seen a lot of redesign. With GvG that's just not possible. There is a limitation to what you can within the format. So after 3+ years of playing the same format day in day out you should be expecting the boredom.

And LoD used to cost no energy, right?

deya · Feb 20, 2008, 11:43 AM // 11:43

Quote:

Originally Posted by JR

Pretty sure monks having return or not doesn't make a game particularly more fast paced or highly tactical. EvIL played just as impressively with OoB or /Me Monks.

People obviously see same things different ways.

For me return has always been a lot more than "correcting my bad positioning".

Face the facts, assa secondary on monk sucks balls, but return can give you some advantages you couldn't have with other secondaries, such as better movement in split situations etc. With return you could move a lot faster towards teamm8 who prolly couldn't be saved otherwise! With return you can spend more time on healing teamm8s in split situation when you are about to wipe.

Return is boring skill when used wrong (*cough* Ra monks *cough*), but can give you brilliant tactical advantage when used correctly!

Kaon · Feb 20, 2008, 12:21 PM // 12:21

Quote:

Originally Posted by deya

Return is boring skill when used wrong (*cough* Ra monks *cough*), but can give you brilliant tactical advantage when used correctly!

Yes, until both teams use it correctly, then they both have the tactical advantage and it can numb down the game. To continue on your example: both monks could now return forward to save overextended warriors, effectively meaning warrior overextention loses a lot of value and positionplay.

I loved the tactical ability my guild had a year ago with our aod sin. But i know it was just annoying to play against it, and if both teams had one it was just a dumb.

deya · Feb 20, 2008, 12:31 PM // 12:31

I don't know how jumping monks are dumb or a problem.

Mobility vs E-management, guess which one is better in the end? When things go into VoD, Mo/A's has useless skills in their bar and zero energy management. That's not hard to choise to make and like you can see, basicly no1 runs Mo/A's unless 3rd monk for split or at some cases as there runner (where Mo/D is better anyways).

As in 8v8 pre-VoD return might be a bit annoying when pumping adrenaline but it really doesnt save you from spikes. For that you need to have dark escape in your bar. Running 2 skills to survive on monk bar is pure stupidity and you will eventually get killed with or without it anyways.

Kaon · Feb 20, 2008, 01:08 PM // 13:08

Quote:

Originally Posted by deya

I don't know how jumping monks are dumb or a problem.

Because as a warrior it is annoying to see them escape. Also it is makes the opponent easy to retreat. The monks in a split are so hard to kill as they are very hard to catch. I'd love to go back to boonprots, but that isn't going to happen

.

Quote:

Mobility vs E-management, guess which one is better in the end? When things go into VoD, Mo/A's has useless skills in their bar and zero energy management. That's not hard to choise to make and like you can see, basicly no1 runs Mo/A's unless 3rd monk for split or at some cases as there runner (where Mo/D is better anyways).

Noone runs mo/a because mo/e together with aegis is RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GOing overpowered. Yes, i'd very much prefer a mo/a metagame than mo/e metagame, but mo/a is still gay :P.

Keithark · Feb 20, 2008, 02:07 PM // 14:07

Anyone have the sinsplit team build in gwshack? And no I will not be playing it, I want to see the teams build and am at work so cannot just go on observer. Also +1 for the OP delete Sins from game would make it much more fun in all aspects

DutchSmurf · Feb 20, 2008, 02:23 PM // 14:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by Keithark

Anyone have the sinsplit team build in gwshack?

Depends on which version you want. Lately there have been many. Just the assassin builds alone have many different options. And there are many options for the 3 slots in the stand team too.

Keithark · Feb 20, 2008, 03:11 PM // 15:11

Quote:

Originally Posted by DutchSmurf

Depends on which version you want. Lately there have been many. Just the assassin builds alone have many different options. And there are many options for the 3 slots in the stand team too.

Think the one we face most has 3 mesmers in it if that helps...but just mainly one of the average builds that you would face right now if you came against sinsplit would be great

JR · Feb 20, 2008, 05:16 PM // 17:16

Quote:

Originally Posted by Keithark

Think the one we face most has 3 mesmers in it if that helps...but just mainly one of the average builds that you would face right now if you came against sinsplit would be great

I can give you a quick rundown of a common template:

2 Assassins:
One or two copies of Shroud of Silence, a copy of Rigor Mortis, both will have Siphon Speed.

1 Split Monk:
Monk/Assassin, usually WoH/ZB with Return and sometimes Dark Escape.

2 Mesmers:
Both Ineptitude and Clumsiness, one or two copies of Wandering Eye. One is usually /A to split/flag.

1 Mesmer / Dervish / Ele:
Usually a fairly generic Domination Mesmer with Shame, Diversion etc. Occasionally a Balthazar Dervish or a generic support Ele.

2 Monks:
Healers Boon and Shield of Deflection is a common choice. Healers Boon allows you to pump out powerful Heal Parties to the split aswell.

Dominator1370 · Feb 20, 2008, 08:03 PM // 20:03

Ok, so here's where we stand: we have a problem (sinsplit) and we have a solution (this entire thread and others like it). It seems like it should be pretty straightforward, but we have a disconnect: Anet won't fix the damn thing. Why?
I have a theory.

Now, granted, I'm not an Anet employee, but follow me here: boring defensive turtle-at-the-stand templates were (very recently) a problem. A seemingly logical solution for Anet to implement (and one that was heavily supported among players) was to encourage split play.

They consulted crystal balls, rolled some dice, and ritualistically danced naked under the full moon while drinking smoothies made from the blood of innocents and whatever else happened to be in the pantry. They then proceeded to poke the magical and mysterious black box that is Guild Wars balance with a stick a few times, and there was a big explosion. When the dust settled, they were amazed! Split play!

Of course, it wasn't long before someone realized that the split play we were seeing was a degenerate demon-child who needed to be sacrificed for the greater good. They didn't want to give up on it so easily, though. It was their baby, and they'd worked hard for it. Besides that, looming over their heads is the (perfectly logical) fear that blowing sinsplit out of the water will somehow result in a shift back to boring turtle-play, since after all, they're not sure how they got here in the first place. Since they're afraid of things just reverting to a situation which was widely accepted to be bad, they (understandably) don't want to implement a fix if they feel things are going to go from one degenerate form to another. After all, they wanted to encourage split play, and they got split play. It just wasn't the split play they were looking for.

To put it another way, it's not enough to kill sinsplit, there has to be something to replace it. In this instance, Anet (assumedly) wants the thing that replaces it to be some other form of split play. So, while the way in which we kill sinsplit is fairly straightforward at this point, how do we make other splitting replace it?

tigros · Feb 20, 2008, 08:54 PM // 20:54

There will always be some seed of discontent no matter which meta is currently on... so I guess Dominator is right.

If it's a meta dominated by warriors and monks (let's assume a pressure and a turtle the flag meta), assassins and dervishes will feel left out and complain. If it's a meta dominated by assassins and mesmers (let's assume a split and spike meta), the warriors and eles will feel left out and complain. And the story can go on in any combination and permutation you wanna try it out.

The problem is that the so called "balanced" meta is not that balanced, because it cannot include every profession there is in the game (which is my assumption of balance, taking into account that a balanced team should be, in my opinion, able to counter most of team builds and thus answer to all possible combination of professions), and here, people who cannot see further that this, will argue to remove not 2 (so that in a team of 8 you can have 8 different professions), but 4 of the so called "unbalanced" professions, which are the newest arrivals on the scene.

Also, since these 4 professions will not disappear (I guess guys you have to learn to live with it), all other concepts of "balanced" meta that does not include these professions is not actually balanced, because it favors only specific professions over the others, which means those professions are overpowered or simply best suited for that specific meta.

But meta's will change, and the time will come for the "others" to probably experience their favorite meta... so tides will turn...

Oink The Pig · Feb 20, 2008, 09:00 PM // 21:00

For whoever was looking for a sample build, the Guild Wars website has the skill usage charts for last month's championships, and I think the match report this time had some skill template codes as well, so you can see how Me ran the build. I think some of the less skilled guilds who attempt to run sinsplit start with that as a template. As irritating as sinsplit can be, it is kinda humorous watching someone randomly try to play that particular Signet of Illusions runner.

That said, the team build template is really rather effective, even for bad players. A lot of people complain that the sins are too mobile, but outside of Shadow/Dark Prison and Siphon Speed, they often have no other teleports/speed boosts. With the recent nerfs to speed boosts without a corresponding nerf to Siphon Speed (either a speed reduction or a slight recharge nerf), it seems like that would be a good place to start to lessen mobility without having to touch the shadow steps.

The Mesmers at the stand are pretty problematic. Clumsiness has turned into less of a precision tool and more of a spam hex, and NPCs are far too susceptible to it. Perhaps an AI change with regards to these skills, as opposed to further tweaks to the skills themselves, is what is needed here. Like if Clumsiness/Ineptitude/Wandering Eye is cast while the NPC still has a chance to cancel its attack, the NPC should wait it out. This would make it harder to farm the NPCs and lessen the viability of swapping the Mesmers to the split.

Keithark · Feb 20, 2008, 09:25 PM // 21:25

Quote:

Originally Posted by JR

I can give you a quick rundown of a common template:

2 Assassins:
One or two copies of Shroud of Silence, a copy of Rigor Mortis, both will have Siphon Speed.

1 Split Monk:
Monk/Assassin, usually WoH/ZB with Return and sometimes Dark Escape.

2 Mesmers:
Both Ineptitude and Clumsiness, one or two copies of Wandering Eye. One is usually /A to split/flag.

1 Mesmer / Dervish / Ele:
Usually a fairly generic Domination Mesmer with Shame, Diversion etc. Occasionally a Balthazar Dervish or a generic support Ele.

2 Monks:
Healers Boon and Shield of Deflection is a common choice. Healers Boon allows you to pump out powerful Heal Parties to the split aswell.

Ty....I am at work and this and gwshack are the only sites I can look at when at this computer so any time I ask someone something they say go to wiki or gw.com or something but I cannot do that

Ty for the rundown I been messing around on GWshack trying to come up with something to counter without having to play the build ourselves as I absolutely hate it.

Riotgear · Feb 20, 2008, 09:41 PM // 21:41

They won't fix it is because they're slow, and because the build keeps popping back up in different forms in spite of nerfs. Sineptitude has been nerfed twice now, and yet Sinsplit is turning into the dominant build that is probably going to rock the mAT unless it gets Build Warsed hard. It's always been too good at ganking NPCs, the difference was that when you could grind the NPCs with Ancestor's+Splinter without gimping yourself 8v8, why bother?

The fact that they administered the changes with such violent force is one of the biggest causes of this mess, non-NPC-focused strategies are as irrelevant now as NPC-focused ones were before the changes. The situation has not improved.

On another note, Vampiric Assault letting the Assassins spec 15 DA without gimping themselves is proving to be a major offender.

As far as Clumsiness/Wandering Eye/Ineptitude goes, the problem with the AI is that you can't really give them a "don't attack while this is on you" type adjustment because they'll always complete their current action, and if they're attacking when the hex hits, it's going to trigger, disappear, and then they'll go right back to attacking.

I don't think the Mesmers are really a core problem, Sinsplit teams have been very effective without them, i.e. the stuff SoaP's been running.

Thom Bangalter · Feb 20, 2008, 11:30 PM // 23:30

Quote:

Originally Posted by romO

It angers me to even see people suggesting reasonable fixes to this problem. None of them are going to be enough. The issue isn't just one thing, it's the combination of hexes, teleporting, attack combos, full tank stand team, etc. There should be no change made that leaves any of these aspects "viable", because then the others will still remain and continue to overpower people. They all just need to be obliterated off the face of the earth.

I know this is unreasonable, but sinsplit even existing is the most absurd and frustrating thing that I've ever seen.

throughout this thread people keep trying to come up with reasonable solutions to sinsplit but I've yet to see a suggestion that would actually inhibit the build significantly. health loss? who cares, you probably have a monk with you! A window for monks to catch spikes? who cares, they just want your npcs.

The only solution to the problem is to obliterate the build entirely so that it's not a viable choice. ViO is a seperate problem altogether, because even if sinsplit is nerfed, running around with 'byob' is still a strong enough strategy that you could probably manage to finish top 16 with it if your players aren't retarded.

of course, killing the lolsplits running around that are easy to put together would then leave us with rawrball+spike that everyone complained about for so long, and that doesn't sound like an attractive option.

Riotgear · Feb 20, 2008, 11:46 PM // 23:46

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thom Bangalter

of course, killing the lolsplits running around that are easy to put together would then leave us with rawrball+spike that everyone complained about for so long, and that doesn't sound like an attractive option.

More attractive than staying with sinsplit.