Curse

Cass · Nov 27, 2007, 12:13 PM // 12:13

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ado

Buildwars killed HA a long time ago, everyone knows that. Risus, you said you were just kidding about Balanced-way, but in fact you're right. Balanced was pre-set for ages. (2 wars, 2 mes, warder and 3 monks anyone?)

Nice display of ignorance. Balanced is not like those scrub builds not because it has ever-varying classes, but because the individual players require a brain to play it well.

xhappy feetx · Nov 27, 2007, 02:01 PM // 14:01

^^ HA sure is alot better than it was before with Sway, now I can get away with my beloved SF spike....

Vel · Nov 27, 2007, 02:31 PM // 14:31

HA will be totally dead in 1.............2..................3 months if it stays like this.

Heroway and Zergway are mostly played now.
SoJ Sins are still being played.

3 monk backline for so-called balanced has made HA the MOST boring place to be IMHO.

At any rate this game is old and so, who cares anymore.

xhappy feetx · Nov 27, 2007, 05:29 PM // 17:29

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vel

HA will be totally dead in 1.............2..................3 months if it stays like this.

Heroway and Zergway are mostly played now.
SoJ Sins are still being played.

3 monk backline for so-called balanced has made HA the MOST boring place to be IMHO.

At any rate this game is old and so, who cares anymore.

Lets not argue that now, because that will go on forever, I have played since beta and I feel that it is still alive, due to the fact that there are a myriad of things I still haven't completed that I would like to, HA is alive, I don't see as much heroway and zergway is easily countered...

3 monk backlines are a must to deal with the tremondous damage output you are still capable of doing

Lord Natural · Nov 27, 2007, 06:23 PM // 18:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vel

3 monk backline for so-called balanced has made HA the MOST boring place to be IMHO.

3 monks has always been the norm in HA, with exception of 6v6 and the kill count disaster. It was common in 2005, and it's common today. I'm not sure why you're suggesting this is a recent occurance or something. It's really not difficult to overcome 3 monks at all if your team isn't terrible.

Quote:

At any rate this game is old and so, who cares anymore.

Why post then?

ThisIsNi · Nov 27, 2007, 11:14 PM // 23:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by Frank Dudenstein

IMO ... the current HA format/meta is the best it has been in 2 years. I'm bringing this up to maybe spark some interest in some of the top guild/players ... maybe they will give it a try again.

The only thing it lacks now is top-flight competition.

To summarize:

- No more Spiritway. No more Heroway. No more Iway (ok, well, a little Iway but it is fairly trivial), really not many 'annoying-ways'

- Not much 321spike

- Only one ganking map (besides hoh) ... everything else is straight-up

The first Cap-points map, though some do not like it, really does discourage 321spike builds, which I think was the objective.

The rotating HoH objectives, while kind of sucky, really do discourage teams from building for the map, which i think was the objective. Holding for long periods is now extremely difficult.

Sure, there are still some problems ... the maps still overly-encourage AoE, two out of the three HoH objectives are not really fun, etc... but overall I think this is the best it has been in a long while.

So come on guys ... give it a try again...

NOTE: Immediately following this post will be a deulge of "You suck HA is for noobs" posts. I understand the need to feel superior, don't we all... But Anet really has done a good job of fixing many of the warts ... so take my word for it and give a run or two.

Yes, I guess you're right. Three monk backlines is a wonderful thing. I love sitting mashing buttons. Not to mention that it doesn't infact, take skill.

Ado · Nov 28, 2007, 10:55 AM // 10:55

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cass

Nice display of ignorance. Balanced is not like those scrub builds not because it has ever-varying classes, but because the individual players require a brain to play it well.

You misinterpretated my comment. I didn't judge balanced on the level of difficulty to play it. All I said is that balanced was a pre-setbuild like all others. The fact that balanced is the most difficult (and fun IMO) to play, doesn't change that. Everyone was playing balanced with the same build.

I played lots of balanced, but when pugging it was nearly impossible to convince others trying something different. Most guildgroups also ran the typical balancedbuild. I reckon maybe 5% of the HA-population is willing to try out new stuff at a regular rate. Result, you always face the same 4 or 5 builds including pre-setbalanced. No suprises then.

Sure the most skillfull balancedteam will win against another balanced, but you know in advance virtually every single skill they brought. And that's boring after a period of time.

To illustrate the situation. Sometimes I swapped a skill for something else. 9 out of 10 ppl reacted like "dude, wtf, balanced isn't played with that skill! You HAVE to run balanced like this!". And this happened often.

wuzzman · Nov 28, 2007, 04:00 PM // 16:00

balance is an accepted gimmick thats really all. It has predefined roles, with predefined builds, which any pug, if given no other choice, is able to re-roll as. The build for balance with predefined in 2005, thus puggers ran it, and is predefined in 2007, thus puggers ran it. The only difference, there were 7 more builds you can run in 2005, 2 more builds you can run now.

Balance builds in HA has always been about out healing the other team till they either rage quite or die because most likely the other team, usually a "gimmick" build brought no tangible defense and thus they die eventually. With the advent of the splinter weapon, you have in total the equivalent of 3.5 monks, which makes balance easier and has a much bigger margin of error, thus its puggable. J

and oh yeah, old school HA balance builds never really worried about bring 2 mesmers like they did in gvg. No need really, either the other team was iway and died eventually or they also was balance but they didn't feel like fighting for 20 minutes. Bad teams could always stalemate a good team in the old days unless their very, very, very good guild team your against and they probably end up raping you cause they brought a mesmer. Same thing now, the shutdown of the single PD mesmer can be marginalized, just bringing another fire ele. Half the teams you fight won't move out the fire, and the other half that do is smart enough to kill the mesmer anyway.

oh and Ado what I do when i want to switch builds is save the bar I want to run, ping the bar they gave me really quick, and then reload my bar. Usually thats not a problem unless you have to switch your secondary or something.

Lord Natural · Nov 28, 2007, 06:20 PM // 18:20

Quote:

Originally Posted by wuzzman

balance is an accepted gimmick thats really all. It has predefined roles, with predefined builds, which any pug, if given no other choice, is able to re-roll as. The build for balance with predefined in 2005, thus puggers ran it, and is predefined in 2007, thus puggers ran it. The only difference, there were 7 more builds you can run in 2005, 2 more builds you can run now.

Balance builds in HA has always been about out healing the other team till they either rage quite or die because most likely the other team, usually a "gimmick" build brought no tangible defense and thus they die eventually. With the advent of the splinter weapon, you have in total the equivalent of 3.5 monks, which makes balance easier and has a much bigger margin of error, thus its puggable. J

and oh yeah, old school HA balance builds never really worried about bring 2 mesmers like they did in gvg. No need really, either the other team was iway and died eventually or they also was balance but they didn't feel like fighting for 20 minutes. Bad teams could always stalemate a good team in the old days unless their very, very, very good guild team your against and they probably end up raping you cause they brought a mesmer. Same thing now, the shutdown of the single PD mesmer can be marginalized, just bringing another fire ele. Half the teams you fight won't move out the fire, and the other half that do is smart enough to kill the mesmer anyway.

oh and Ado what I do when i want to switch builds is save the bar I want to run, ping the bar they gave me really quick, and then reload my bar. Usually thats not a problem unless you have to switch your secondary or something.

I can't figure out if this post is a joke or if you actually believe this.

Renowned Spartan · Nov 28, 2007, 06:58 PM // 18:58

Quote:

Originally Posted by wuzzman

balance is an accepted gimmick thats really all. It has predefined roles, with predefined builds, which any pug, if given no other choice, is able to re-roll as. The build for balance with predefined in 2005, thus puggers ran it, and is predefined in 2007, thus puggers ran it. The only difference, there were 7 more builds you can run in 2005, 2 more builds you can run now.

Balance builds in HA has always been about out healing the other team till they either rage quite or die because most likely the other team, usually a "gimmick" build brought no tangible defense and thus they die eventually. With the advent of the splinter weapon, you have in total the equivalent of 3.5 monks, which makes balance easier and has a much bigger margin of error, thus its puggable. J

and oh yeah, old school HA balance builds never really worried about bring 2 mesmers like they did in gvg. No need really, either the other team was iway and died eventually or they also was balance but they didn't feel like fighting for 20 minutes. Bad teams could always stalemate a good team in the old days unless their very, very, very good guild team your against and they probably end up raping you cause they brought a mesmer. Same thing now, the shutdown of the single PD mesmer can be marginalized, just bringing another fire ele. Half the teams you fight won't move out the fire, and the other half that do is smart enough to kill the mesmer anyway.

oh and Ado what I do when i want to switch builds is save the bar I want to run, ping the bar they gave me really quick, and then reload my bar. Usually thats not a problem unless you have to switch your secondary or something.

So true. The worst part is, the players who play these builds fail to realise it and the fact that many metas that farm fame nowadays evolved from balanced like the spiritways, thumperways, and dual kd/thumps with 2 sf/sh eles. Players failing to admit = GG.

Lorekeeper · Nov 28, 2007, 08:07 PM // 20:07

Quote:

Originally Posted by wuzzman

balance is an accepted gimmick thats really all. It has predefined roles, with predefined builds, which any pug, if given no other choice, is able to re-roll as.

hmm i disagree... the majority of the builds i make are not gimmicks, meaning, you cant just give the bar to any old monkey and expect them to do much with them... gimmick builds are ones everyone and their grandmothers can play which is the reason why they become so ''gimmicky''. Yes in my build each character has a predefined role... defined by me... are they predefined builds? Depends what you mean... i define wat my builds are... i define wat goes in... of course i must include utility like snares/interrupts/speed buffs etc etc but they hardly dictate the entire nature of my build.

Quote:

Originally Posted by wuzzman

The build for balance with predefined in 2005, thus puggers ran it, and is predefined in 2007, thus puggers ran it. The only difference, there were 7 more builds you can run in 2005, 2 more builds you can run now.

Its possible to run a variety of ''balanced'' builds right now... i just wish i had the players good enough to play them for me.

Quote:

Originally Posted by wuzzman

Balance builds in HA has always been about out healing the other team till they either rage quite or die because most likely the other team, usually a "gimmick" build brought no tangible defense and thus they die eventually. With the advent of the splinter weapon, you have in total the equivalent of 3.5 monks, which makes balance easier and has a much bigger margin of error, thus its puggable. J

I disagree completely... i never design a build with the aim of boring the enemy into resigning or waiting until the enemy team just cant go on anymore... the balanced build in general is designed with the intention of focusing its disruption elements onto key defensive elements on an enemy team in order to allow its offense to score a kill... a proper balanced build is about finesse... about the careful coordination of the entire team... monks keeping the team alive and clean from shutdown hexes and conditions... midline helping disrupt the enemy offense and defense... and frontlines capitalising on opportunities to kill.

Now you wanna know about a build that is designed to bore people to death? Healing balls...

As to ''balance builds have 3.5 monks'' - thats wrong too. Since a very long time i have monked in builds with only 2 monk backlines... like i said in another post... the majority of people in HA have gone back to 3 monk backlines because the sudden loss of the super powerful LoD has exposed the majority of HA monks for what they really are... bad monks.

Quote:

Originally Posted by wuzzman

and oh yeah, old school HA balance builds never really worried about bring 2 mesmers like they did in gvg. No need really, either the other team was iway and died eventually or they also was balance but they didn't feel like fighting for 20 minutes. Bad teams could always stalemate a good team in the old days unless their very, very, very good guild team your against and they probably end up raping you cause they brought a mesmer. Same thing now, the shutdown of the single PD mesmer can be marginalized, just bringing another fire ele. Half the teams you fight won't move out the fire, and the other half that do is smart enough to kill the mesmer anyway.

dual migraine was extremely popular back in the old days of tombs... so were dual surge+mindwrack mesmers.

You honestly think the pd mesmers shutdown potential in a battle is marginalised by bringing another fire ele? Ill tell you something... if my Pd mesmer was wasting his time camping you fire ele i would replace him straight away. What do good pd mesmers do? Remove channeling from monks... diversion/shame monks... PD rezzes and power leak 1-2 second skills (1/2 and 3/4 if they have good ping and reaction times)... IF a team is taking too much pressure from an enemies midline... then the PD mes would switch off monks and shutdown attunements on fire eles and water eles... and divert spammed skills like searing flames or mind blast... maybe power leak the odd high energy skill or two. At high levels of play the PD mesmer's role in a build is far more than how you attempted to summarise it as.

overall... i dont think you have done a very accurate description of balanced play... perhaps your description is more befitting of ''balanced'' play in the mid - lower levels but those builds can hardly be called the true representation of a balanced build in its proper form.

wuzzman · Nov 28, 2007, 08:36 PM // 20:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lorekeeper

hmm i disagree... the majority of the builds i make are not gimmicks, meaning, you cant just give the bar to any old monkey and expect them to do much with them... gimmick builds are ones everyone and their grandmothers can play which is the reason why they become so ''gimmicky''. Yes in my build each character has a predefined role... defined by me... are they predefined builds? Depends what you mean... i define wat my builds are... i define wat goes in... of course i must include utility like snares/interrupts/speed buffs etc etc but they hardly dictate the entire nature of my build.

Its possible to run a variety of ''balanced'' builds right now... i just wish i had the players good enough to play them for me.

I disagree completely... i never design a build with the aim of boring the enemy into resigning or waiting until the enemy team just cant go on anymore... the balanced build in general is designed with the intention of focusing its disruption elements onto key defensive elements on an enemy team in order to allow its offense to score a kill... a proper balanced build is about finesse... about the careful coordination of the entire team... monks keeping the team alive and clean from shutdown hexes and conditions... midline helping disrupt the enemy offense and defense... and frontlines capitalising on opportunities to kill.

Now you wanna know about a build that is designed to bore people to death? Healing balls...

As to ''balance builds have 3.5 monks'' - thats wrong too. Since a very long time i have monked in builds with only 2 monk backlines... like i said in another post... the majority of people in HA have gone back to 3 monk backlines because the sudden loss of the super powerful LoD has exposed the majority of HA monks for what they really are... bad monks.

dual migraine was extremely popular back in the old days of tombs... so were dual surge+mindwrack mesmers.

You honestly think the pd mesmers shutdown potential in a battle is marginalised by bringing another fire ele? Ill tell you something... if my Pd mesmer was wasting his time camping you fire ele i would replace him straight away. What do good pd mesmers do? Remove channeling from monks... diversion/shame monks... PD rezzes and power leak 1-2 second skills (1/2 and 3/4 if they have good ping and reaction times)... IF a team is taking too much pressure from an enemies midline... then the PD mes would switch off monks and shutdown attunements on fire eles and water eles... and divert spammed skills like searing flames or mind blast... maybe power leak the odd high energy skill or two. At high levels of play the PD mesmer's role in a build is far more than how you attempted to summarise it as.

overall... i dont think you have done a very accurate description of balanced play... perhaps your description is more befitting of ''balanced'' play in the mid - lower levels but those builds can hardly be called the true representation of a balanced build in its proper form.

I'm not talking about what you personally run. thats not the issue, that is not even part of argument. Pugs don't run LoreKeeper way, pug's run what they like to call legoway, which is really just a balance build. And Dual Migraine, and Dual Surge were gvg meta not HA meta, and dual migraine was considered a gimmick by gvg'ers at the time. Meta in HA is what the pugs run not what random gvg guilds run for kicks. Some guilds run wammoway in HA is that meta?

I wasn't talking about how leet your PD mesmer is, congratulation, your part of the other half of HA that moves away from the big balls of fire raining down on their feet. I wish there was a clap smiley for this occasion. The fact is any good teams knows to send some pressure at your PD mesmers face, if your PD mesmer hasn't gotten a warrior or a thumper in his face then your not fighting a good team. Did I say PD mesmer is useless, no, annoying is the word for it, any team who has vent tells the local melee to "kill that f'ing PD". Does not having a PD mesmer hurt me that much? I haven't seen a lot of teams fail to make it to HoH because of their lack of a PD mesmer.

Most balance teams, you know the ones that I'm talking about, the ones that pugs run, have 3 monk backlines for the sole sack of brute forcing what you usually leave to a midline caster. Midline defense has become nearly a nonexistence in HA because teams prefer to run 3 monks and a resto/splinter. If balance teams were about shutdown targets the amount of monks needed in a HA team would drop to 2 for some actually ultity besides a snare.

Kyp Jade · Nov 28, 2007, 10:19 PM // 22:19

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lorekeeper

As to ''balance builds have 3.5 monks'' - thats wrong too. Since a very long time i have monked in builds with only 2 monk backlines... like i said in another post... the majority of people in HA have gone back to 3 monk backlines because the sudden loss of the super powerful LoD has exposed the majority of HA monks for what they really are... bad monks.

I think that making the assumption 3 monks = bad monks is not entirely true. During the entire legoway is balance era I ran 3 monks, 1 heal and 2 prot because I enjoyed the utility it offered me more than 2 monks and 2 paragons did. Only recently have I started messing around with builds that have 2 monk backlines, but thats because im going through a phase where I like messing around with builds with loads of midline defense/shutdown. I'll probably go back to super offensive builds someday, but I'm having fun with them atm.

dont feel no pain · Nov 28, 2007, 10:50 PM // 22:50

I miss Iway, it was acauly fun ^^

Vel · Nov 29, 2007, 04:51 PM // 16:51

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lord Natural

3 monks has always been the norm in HA, with exception of 6v6 and the kill count disaster. It was common in 2005, and it's common today. I'm not sure why you're suggesting this is a recent occurance or something. It's really not difficult to overcome 3 monks at all if your team isn't terrible.

Look at the highlighted sentence. In 2005 there were 6 classes. 8 Slots in the party bar. 3 monks back-line left the possibility of inclusion of 5 other classes. However, in 2007, we have 10 classes, party bar still has 8 slots (not suggesting 8 slots to be changed as it is a bigger challenge than anything else). Now explain to me how will you use at least half of 9 other classes given the HA dynamics and have a balanced build that does not ONLY include the HOLY FOUR?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lord Natural

Why post then?

Because, it gave you a chance to ask the question.

Vel · Nov 29, 2007, 04:54 PM // 16:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by Renowned Spartan

So true. The worst part is, the players who play these builds fail to realise it and the fact that many metas that farm fame nowadays evolved from balanced like the spiritways, thumperways, and dual kd/thumps with 2 sf/sh eles. Players failing to admit = GG.

Exactly, remember pre 6v6 days of dual/triple thumper, taint, PD, star-burst ele build? It was called balanced then. I can bet more than half of the teams in HA today won't realize that. They still used hammer bash and instead of rampage as one, they used dev hammer or ferocious strike in NR/TRNQ builds.

masta_yoda · Nov 29, 2007, 10:34 PM // 22:34

3 monk backline has always been an standard, in 2005 up until 6v6. Only reason it went to two monk was because of lod and the defense legoway offered. It is pointless to argue about having 2 or 3 monks because it depends on the meta and build you play anyways.

Personally id support 3 monk backline in ha because unlike gvg you do not have to face 2 teams in 3 way and 2 monk lines can easily crumble if a mesmer shuts one down ontop of all the aoe pressurre and warriors hitting you.

And answering the question of the thread. Personally it has probably been the worst HA has been in 2 years.
Some reasons:
-massive decline in players, although this happens in any game after a while
-massive jumps to halls which is linked to first reason, which many dislike meaning its bad.
-many gimmicks made ha less fun over the past 6 months or so, such as spirit way, ritualist spike, zergway.
-as some have said, i really dont consider a balanced build "balanced" anymore. There are too many factors and skills that are needed in order to win games these days. Such as song, interupts,aoe,snares. Meaning this will lead to a similar build being run by everyone.

wuzzman · Nov 30, 2007, 02:03 PM // 14:03

Gimmicks are not a HA probably. For the various gimmicks builds to be an HA problem they would have to be able to hold Halls. And that has never been the case since 2005. Balance builds have won Halls consistently in worse environments with several more builds then we have now to worry about. Massive decline in players can be linked to almost indefinably to the amount of builds available to pugs. Pug players, 80-90% of HA respectively, link the quality of HA not the variety of maps, or the best HoH mechanics, but the the variety of builds they can run. Puggers like to feel like they have options, and while they might only play in 1 or 2 builds, they still like to know that "maybe I try this build one day and this other build a week from now". You take that away combined with amping up the difficulty of puggers getting into a group and what are you left with? It is the puggers that tell their friends how great or shitty HA is, and while good guild/friend list players who can organize their fellow teammates on a regular basis may occasionally recruit more players into their fold, that is mainly to fill in gaps that exist one when or two of them decide to become irregular.

The "factors" in HA are mostly Map driven for a balance build and less an attempt to counter the latest iway or gimmickway. If it wasn't so then players would storm gvg with those same gimmick builds because the number of guilds with large unorganized base of players that use their HA experience with builds to dictate their gvg is a lot larger then good organized guilds with players that mainly use gvg experience to decide which build to run in gvg. If teams had to bring various counters to the multitude of HA builds then most guilds would run HA builds and stick a flag runner somewhere in it. Instead they run what is currently the balance build for gvg at the time.

In which case AoE in HA is common sense. Often your maps are small, the objective you have to fulfill to win the match often leaves players in huddle together in clumps, and half the teams you face don't bother moving out of the AoE anyway. Then there is snares, and while any good balance team would have at least one way to control the enemies movement, GvG or HA, the relics runs has been the sole reason why HA Balance teams need a snare. Especially now that of all maps I can skip the relic run isn't one of them. The old "body block ftw" doesn't cut it anymore, at least without a snare anyway. Finally interrupts, while I always prefer to bring shutdown instead, interrupts have been important to HA because of the Ghostly Hero. It has become such a epic problem that even builds that have no hope of holding halls insist that their ranger, ele, or SOMEONE bring Song of Concentration, just to counter interrupt spam on their Ghost hero.

Ozlae · Dec 01, 2007, 02:00 AM // 02:00

So, in repley to the first poster: yes HA is in best shape it has ever been in the past 2 years, skill wise. Everyone has the good skillbar, knows what to have for equipment etc. BUT (large one), HA is also becoming stale. There are several builds you can run, either balanced or gimmicked or whatever. Fact is HA is empty like hell. You cant deny it.. run it like 12H GMT.. its UW and Hall skip most of the times. IMO those arent signs of a good and healthy HA. So, no, population in HA has been much better.

I personally hope dat PvP rewards will turn some PvE'ers to PvP but tbh I think HA will be the same: the lower ranks will find a higher and higher starting point and the higher ranks will find their fame going up slower and slower.

axe · Dec 03, 2007, 02:41 PM // 14:41

When Randomways can get CONSISTANT 3-4 consec. wins I would say that HA is the worst it has ever been.