Curse

Akaraxle · Feb 21, 2008, 10:57 AM // 10:57

Quote:

Originally Posted by Yue

Why exactly would a disappearing spike metagame be a bad thing?

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Originally Posted by RaZoO

bring pressure back =)

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Originally Posted by holymasamune

Pressure is now pretty much nonexistent, and it sucks.

This is more or less what happened:

- BOOHOO DEY ARE BLINDING/BLOCKING MAH HITS NERF PLz
- Ok!
- BOOHOO DEY HAV PASSIVE BLOCK SHIT BUFF SHUTDOWN PLz
- Ok!
- BOOHOO NOW DEY TAKE UNINTERRUPTIBLE DEFENSE NERF PLz
- Ok!
- WTF WHY DO DEY ALWAYS BRING MOAR DEFENSE I WANTS TO ROLL DEM IN FIVE MINS BLOCKWAY IZ GAY SHIT /rage
- Let's buff npcs yeye~

=> NPC wars, pressure is useless, spike/sineptitude wins ololol.

Vanquisher · Feb 22, 2008, 11:31 PM // 23:31

Quote:

Originally Posted by Captain Robo

I don't even know what "pressure" is anymore. I'm beginning to get the feeling that when people say things like this, they're just looking for a convenient excuse to hearken back to some good old times and reminisce about builds that are no longer 100% viable.

No build was ever pure pressure, because even old style pressure builds incorporated at least some measure of 321 Spike (I may be splitting hairs... but spike damage bursts have always been the best way to kill someone in this game). If you're talking strictly of how these builds play in order to score kills, this seems like a really loose method of categorizing a build. Not even two months ago people on this forum were lamenting the loss of split builds in the worst possible way... now that splits are back, either nobody cares, or regrets what they wished for.

It is true that Anet brought necessitated splits back in the worst possible way, but if splitting was your favored play style, why complain?

Defensive builds became popular (and still are) as a means to counter and mitigate the damage from pressure-style builds. If Anet swoops in and makes a change which brings pressure back, they will screw it up bigger than anything they have ever done. They'll either mega-nerf defense, or buff offense to a level which makes it even more overpowered than it is now. It will be RED ENGINE GO RED ENGINE GO RED ENGINE GO like you wouldn't believe. It should be plainly obvious how incompetent Anet is, so I'm of the opinion that they should make only a few tweaks from where the game is now, and never touch it again.

Read some of the thread, got annoyed that some players don't know what stuff is but think they do. Here's a list.

Spike is where you don't do anything particularly meaningful apart from count in reverse from 3 to 1 and unload damage at the same time to score kills. Generally because of the linear way of killing you only need a few skills to do it, and can utilise the others to have a lot of defense in your build. These builds are pretty poor in split conditions because they need most of their damage output to score kills, and lack high mobility.

Split is where you rely on gaining an NPC advantage and/or collapsing and forcing numerical advantages in at various points around a map to score kills and utilise that advantage to win. Often teams will play somewhat more defensively at the stand, forgoing morale in order to get an NPC boost.

Pressure is where you rely on sustained heavy damage output and windows of shutdown to score kills. Usually because of the investment required to outpressure defenses you'll sacrifice defense yourself. Again, because of the poor defenses available split can really cause problems to this kind of build. Standard response to split is to send offensive characters back to deal with it. Party healing is the other problem that needs to be shut down.

All three can beat each other quite regularly. Generally when Guild Wars was at its peak fewer teams resorted to a build that relied on one and opted for builds that could accomplish all three aspects of play. KGYU, WM, and EW were the most notable teams that didn't conform to balanced play, opting to pressure, split and spike respectively.

Balanced is as much a playstyle as a build. Mainly because balanced builds are, in the hands of most teams, opt to spike teams instead. It involves the ability to split, spike, and pressure effectively in the same match.

To answer the rest of it, people do like splitting, they like to encourage splitting. What they don't like however, is dedicated splitting, and where splitting has such a ridiculous advantage such as "Victory Is Ours!" being involved in the game.

Captain Robo · Feb 24, 2008, 04:55 PM // 16:55

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vanquisher

All three can beat each other quite regularly. Generally when Guild Wars was at its peak fewer teams resorted to a build that relied on one and opted for builds that could accomplish all three aspects of play. KGYU, WM, and EW were the most notable teams that didn't conform to balanced play, opting to pressure, split and spike respectively.

Balanced is as much a playstyle as a build. Mainly because balanced builds are, in the hands of most teams, opt to spike teams instead. It involves the ability to split, spike, and pressure effectively in the same match.

Thank you for the clarification. I'd always thought of a spike/pressure/split meta as sort of a rock-paper-scissors thing, but I guess that's not really the case.

To be honest, I've been out of competitive play for quite some time now, and I tend to enjoy theorycraft a little too much. Perhaps my memories of what this game used to be have become a bit distorted with nostalgia. At any rate, I think it's a general consensus that shit sucks now.

6am3 Fana71c · Feb 24, 2008, 05:25 PM // 17:25

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Originally Posted by shrouded^god

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Originally Posted by Divine

Guru needs to be more like QQ and have RICH AND SUNNY MELONS DRAMA

Fixed...I agree 110%

Lawl. That thread delivered. Guru needs more e-drama in general.

Vanquisher · Feb 25, 2008, 03:54 PM // 15:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by Captain Robo

Thank you for the clarification. I'd always thought of a spike/pressure/split meta as sort of a rock-paper-scissors thing, but I guess that's not really the case.

To be honest, I've been out of competitive play for quite some time now, and I tend to enjoy theorycraft a little too much. Perhaps my memories of what this game used to be have become a bit distorted with nostalgia. At any rate, I think it's a general consensus that shit sucks now.

Well, it really depends on how well you play it and the map you're on. Everyone always used to be like "can't split on Burning face pressure as balanced or spike as balanced and lose", but a lot of the time you could just camp out with your NPC's and have a few people go kill their lord. If you played well enough defensively you could often scrape wins.