Curse

Elrodien · Feb 05, 2008, 01:46 PM // 13:46

I was wondering when this thread would appear !

We have faced this build a lot recently and its damn hard to beat. I don't think we have any choice but to spec against it and that means guild wars loses to build wars. Again...

Hopefully Anet changes things via a skill balance or VoD change that fixes this, but I'm not holding my breath.

Lorekeeper · Feb 05, 2008, 02:22 PM // 14:22

i dont mind the build wars aspect of guild wars, its only natural given the number of professions and skill synergies in the game... if you judge matches purely on the merit of a build i think you would be hard pressed to find a build that could counter absolutely any possible build you might face.

but bearing that in mind, the sinsplit build has proven a particularly difficult one for some reason... i dont know if its because its not *easy* to shutdown the ineptitude mesmers or whether its due to the high mobility of the build (which multiple snares and ability to collapse) or whether its just not possible to save all NPCs vs the build for the VoD fight (on some maps its easier than others for sure, but on some maps its very hard).

if indeed this is another case of build wars - like it was when fighting hexway with expel hex paragons and purge signets... then the real problem with sineptitude might be that there is no possible counter...

not that im saying there isnt... yet...which is why i created the thread. But if it turns out that there is no soft counter to the build through strategy... AND there are no hard counters to the build through counter building (i saw a bsurge, dual mindblast with bflash, water ele, savannah heat ele, 3 monk team lose all NPCs apart from BG and then lose at VoD yesterday) then skill balance might be the only solution.

then theres another question of how to balance it out properly... i just dont think its time for that... just yet.

If sineptitude doesnt see balancing before the Feb MaT, i think it will be interesting to see what guilds have up their sleeve to beat it...

but then again... maybe the sineptitude guilds will run something else.

rohara · Feb 05, 2008, 03:25 PM // 15:25

i don't think you need to build specifically to counter a sin split, aside from maybe putting HeV on your mesmer and return on your runner. i wouldn't take the chance of build warsing against it.

a standard rit runner can do a pretty bang-up job of saving NPCs from a sin split. often, the sins will temporarily give up and leave when they realize they can't kill anything with you there - a ruse to try to get you to leave the base, so they can sneak back in and kill stuff before you can get back to the base. don't fall for it, just stay in the base and have someone else run flags (cripshot is gud, only leave to support your runner if the sins go for him instead). another scenario...they will make a big mistake and try to kill you even if it means aggroing the knights or bodyguard. they will ultimately lose that battle and have to teleport out. return is gud here, use the knights as your return bitches to stay out of range of the sins. it's a very irritating tactic you can use to force them to pull the knights. either way, one player can quite effectively waste 3 players' time.

good positioning will ensure your survival, and the map plays a big part of it. a well-positioned rit can often save every single NPC on druid's, for example, but its not so easy on other maps. sometimes you'll lose a few archers, but keeping the knights and bodyguard up is a pretty simple task on any map. you can even kill baed sins with WoR and ARage. (epic lulz, VwK farming)

if the stand team is doing alright, you can always call for backup if you'd like to kill their split rather than nullify it. a warrior + the rit is usually sufficient to get a kill (or multiple kills) and push them out, which is a great time to collapse on their stand team (if the map allows it). without monk support, the sins go down FAST.

as for dealing with the mesmers at the stand...as long as spikes are clean and your casters have a spike skill or two, you can DP out multiple targets and eventually just wipe them altogether and win by attrition. keep a veil on your melees so your mesmer and/or ranger can interrupt some of those mesmer hexes, because a dshot or pleak on ineptitude can greatly help your situation and open up a spike opportunity. HeV can help with spikes as well as add some extra pressure.

that's my .02 anyway - that's how my guild generally deals with it, and its much easier said than done, even against scrub teams. good communication is important, no matter what build you're up against. i don't think we've ever played a top 50 sineptitude guild, however, so take that for what it's worth. that tactic has worked for us at the 100-300 or below level without ever building to specifically counter it. also, do not let them boost, at all costs. you want them to be nice and squishy and heavily DP'd, especially if it goes to VoD.

DutchSmurf · Feb 05, 2008, 05:15 PM // 17:15

Quote:

Originally Posted by rohara

...

If it was this easy we wouldn't be having this discussion. I would love to see a rit on his own stay alive against Rigor Mortis+Shroud of Silence and a combo of 2 assassins. Sadly, that just doesn't happen. So far I did notice that the combo often only barely manages to kill something. So instead of the E/D many people are running, maybe an E/Mo is a better choice. Bringing something like Heal Other or even Heal Area maybe.
But the assassins are only a small part of the problem. The real problem comes from the mesmers being the perfect build to shut down warriors and other melee. Except for running things like Hexbreaker or CoP on a warrior it is hard to build against. HeV alone isn't enough by far. So far there isn't a solution for that yet that works with a normal balanced build. At least not that I'm aware of.

wuzzman · Feb 05, 2008, 07:32 PM // 19:32

guru children talking about strategy blashemy.

Diversion, the inept-mesmers. I know its harder then it sounds, however look at it this way, for every second of hestitation inept-mesmer has to take before he starts spamming his pay load, the better off your warrior are. Also you will eventually make them cast through diversion one way or another. So you can start shutting down the other mesmer after you diverted the first one. There is a couple of tricks you can do to force a divert, its not that hard once your mesmer put some thought into it.

Use your ranger and flag runner to keep the sins killing anything in your base. Its really easy for a ranger to hit a sin with savage shot or distracting shot in the middle of its combo. Once you make it a stalemate at the base, they will collapse when they try to send more people back. Its not impossible to keep them from getting npc kills if your using a rit/ranger combo and NOT a rit/warrior combo.

Quote:

Originally Posted by DutchSmurf

If it was this easy we wouldn't be having this discussion. I would love to see a rit on his own stay alive against Rigor Mortis+Shroud of Silence and a combo of 2 assassins. Sadly, that just doesn't happen. So far I did notice that the combo often only barely manages to kill something. So instead of the E/D many people are running, maybe an E/Mo is a better choice. Bringing something like Heal Other or even Heal Area maybe.
But the assassins are only a small part of the problem. The real problem comes from the mesmers being the perfect build to shut down warriors and other melee. Except for running things like Hexbreaker or CoP on a warrior it is hard to build against. HeV alone isn't enough by far. So far there isn't a solution for that yet that works with a normal balanced build. At least not that I'm aware of.

shroud of silence/rigor......geez...thats one slow gank...

IMMORTAlMITCH · Feb 05, 2008, 08:22 PM // 20:22

5 Paragons 3 Monks.

dies like fish · Feb 05, 2008, 08:29 PM // 20:29

Quote:

Originally Posted by IMMORTAlMITCH

5 Paragons 3 Monks.

He speaks the truth.

Div · Feb 05, 2008, 08:46 PM // 20:46

Quote:

Originally Posted by rohara

a standard rit runner can do a pretty bang-up job of saving NPCs from a sin split. often, the sins will temporarily give up and leave when they realize they can't kill anything with you there

You know, kinda like how SpNv wtfpwned HaND's rit runner in a few seconds? O Ok.

Quote:

just stay in the base and have someone else run flags

Even if you do manage to keep up your boat, whoever runs flags will just get jumped and killed.

Quote:

return is gud here

Because every rit brings return...

Quote:

Originally Posted by wuzzman

Use your ranger and flag runner to keep the sins killing anything in your base. Its really easy for a ranger to hit a sin with savage shot or distracting shot in the middle of its combo. Once you make it a stalemate at the base, they will collapse when they try to send more people back. Its not impossible to keep them from getting npc kills if your using a rit/ranger combo and NOT a rit/warrior combo.

At best, that combo can save the boat. But then you lose all your outside NPCs anyways. And when they clear all the outside, then can just run you around or force 8v6's at the stand with your two defensive guys sitting around in base. If your guys try to chase, they can jump your rit and kill it easily.

Quote:

shroud of silence/rigor......geez...thats one slow gank...

Do you play this game?

I mean, maybe your strategies work against the retarded sins at that level (who were probably r1000+ guilds that rode sineptitude to top 500), but against anyone with half a brain, they'd own your defense so hard you won't even notice it.

Son Of The Axe · Feb 06, 2008, 01:40 AM // 01:40

well the para spike IS an option although StS barely won with it as it is against apr.

Although countering a gimmick with a gimmick is....

So we are forced to rely generally on our own pure skill/luck or anet to step in?

wuzzman · Feb 06, 2008, 01:44 AM // 01:44

Quote:

Originally Posted by holymasamune

You know, kinda like how SpNv wtfpwned HaND's rit runner in a few seconds? O Ok.

Even if you do manage to keep up your boat, whoever runs flags will just get jumped and killed.

Because every rit brings return...

At best, that combo can save the boat. But then you lose all your outside NPCs anyways. And when they clear all the outside, then can just run you around or force 8v6's at the stand with your two defensive guys sitting around in base. If your guys try to chase, they can jump your rit and kill it easily.

Do you play this game?

I mean, maybe your strategies work against the retarded sins at that level (who were probably r1000+ guilds that rode sineptitude to top 500), but against anyone with half a brain, they'd own your defense so hard you won't even notice it.

guru children talking about strategy blashemy.

Div · Feb 06, 2008, 02:20 AM // 02:20

Quote:

Originally Posted by wuzzman

guru children talking about strategy blashemy.

I'll admit a lot of it is theorycrafting since top American guilds haven't been running sineptitude. But if you disagree, enlighten me on how you've beaten SpNv, apr, or Me running sineptitude. Until then, I'll continue to think you don't even play this game.

On a side note, I watched Town vs apr hoping to see a nice counter to sineptitude since Mitch and Kaon always have these wonderful ideas that I think may work. Unfortunately apr ran balanced and pretty much led the entire match. I chuckled a bit, because the stupid thing about sineptitude is that it's a guessing game, and if you try to spec it hard, you'll just get rolled by balanced.

Syntonic · Feb 06, 2008, 04:20 AM // 04:20

Didn't Stealing Society win against Me with a balanced build earlier this week in an AT? I know they switched to 5 paragons and 3 monks currently though so that should say something.

Double Pact · Feb 06, 2008, 06:57 AM // 06:57

Me has no skill; cE beat some Sinsplits in MAT as well (with balanced).
Still, that's incredibly hard even for top teams and for non-top 100 teams, it's a nightmare (i'm euro, i can tell)

Beating Gimmick with a gimmick might not be the best solution, but against such an insane build, what are you gonna do??

I Angra I · Feb 06, 2008, 07:09 AM // 07:09

Basically you need to win either at flagstand or on the split and then collapse on the other half over and over again. If you want to try and just hold out with a flagger + possibly one other in the base against their sins, prot spirit/veil your warriors so your ranger and/or mes have an easier shutdown job and try and just power through the ineptitude/clumsiness. If that doesn't seem to work and it doesn't seem like you're getting anything done, try oversplitting a lot of offense on the 2 sins and monk in your base and wiping that, then pushing 8v5 at the stand. Usually it's easier to wipe their split then collapse on their stand team though. If they send a mes on the split, try to go back and wipe their stand team again before he can get back. Pretty much you just have to try to outplay them in terms of splitting/collapsing and capitalizing on the mistakes they make in positioning around the map.

Of course against better sineptitude guilds outplaying them isn't too easy of a thing to do, but it's pretty easy against worse teams that use the build.

wally · Feb 06, 2008, 07:44 AM // 07:44

after seeing StS vs. apr (who pulled off some amazing stuff), some theorycrafting for "balanced build" tools:

1) need to overload the mesmer defense by a) making physical templates more geared towards damage, e.g., crip shot ranger -> burning arrow, b) focusing shutdown on a mesmer (blackout, gale, diversion, pleak the auspicious'd nightmare?), b1) need to have some sort of strategy to force kills through SoD (cunning, guided weapon, anthem of guidance?), c) make your physicals more robust against ineptitude/clumsi (mel dervishes won't miss hits under ineptitude -- pious concentration or pious assault + pre-veil to hit through clumsiness), or some combination of the above.

2) if you can do 1, must try killing npcs at a similar pace as the sin split, which would require a stall split, most likely. said stall split would probably have to be no more than 2 and would likely include a monk. said monk would have to be somewhat specialized, either packing some damage reduction that can be activated quickly (shielding hands, dark escape) and/or some way to remove shroud of silence (CoP, pre-veil).

3) NR/Tranq?

4) some way of dealing with snares on melee since ineptitude and clumsiness are only enough defense if the physicals aren't constant threats (i.e. position matters). not sure here -- possibilities include tele warriors and...?

hmmm will have to think on this more.

Akaraxle · Feb 06, 2008, 08:18 AM // 08:18

Recently I've tampered a little with my rit runner bar, switching from Rt/A [skill]Weapon of Warding[/skill][skill]Dark Escape[/skill][skill]Dash[/skill]
to Rt/D [skill]Resilient Weapon[/skill][skill]Weapon of Shadow[/skill][skill]Pious Haste[/skill].

Besides having to go /D for the skill slot (I prefer /A, but it's personal), the big gamble here is having to drop WoW's utility for a "somewhat hard" counter. It worked fine so far, and Resilient has the added side effect of owning ranger poison, but you can really feel WoW's absence at the stand.

IMMORTAlMITCH · Feb 06, 2008, 09:02 AM // 09:02

Quote:

Originally Posted by holymasamune

On a side note, I watched Town vs apr hoping to see a nice counter to sineptitude since Mitch and Kaon always have these wonderful ideas that I think may work. Unfortunately apr ran balanced and pretty much led the entire match. I chuckled a bit, because the stupid thing about sineptitude is that it's a guessing game, and if you try to spec it hard, you'll just get rolled by balanced.

I had to eat dinner in between AT matches, I came back 1 minute before the match started and everyone was on a fire ele, so I quickly changed to one as well (didn't even see the opponent yet).

If I had been there earlier I wouldn't have gone in with fire eles as apr doesn't run sin split on druids and the build as we ran it was pretty bad (basically Kaon fails at making skillbars).

We probably would have had a good shot if they had indeed ran sin split, as it turned out, not having a melee ward vs teleport spike sucks

In the other matches that AT that we played (we got 2 forfeits) we played sin splits and beat them easily with 'balanced', though admittedly, they were terrible.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Akaraxle

Recently I've tampered a little with my rit runner bar, switching from Rt/A [skill]Weapon of Warding[/skill][skill]Dark Escape[/skill][skill]Dash[/skill]
to Rt/D [skill]Resilient Weapon[/skill][skill]Weapon of Shadow[/skill][skill]Pious Haste[/skill].

Besides having to go /D for the skill slot (I prefer /A, but it's personal), the big gamble here is having to drop WoW's utility for a "somewhat hard" counter. It worked fine so far, and Resilient has the added side effect of owning ranger poison, but you can really feel WoW's absence at the stand.

Dropping WoW on a rit runner is retarded.