Curse

Riotgear · Dec 02, 2007, 04:52 AM // 04:52

Splinter is good for the pre-VOD game and terrible for the post-VOD.

Solution: Fix VOD. Again.

Maybe make NPCs hardier during VOD, i.e. make them unaffected by the VOD effect?

I Phoenix I · Dec 02, 2007, 05:12 AM // 05:12

The final was pretty interesting.

I don't get why EW didn't fall back to save Acid near the 17th minute though. I only watched the match once, so I may have missed something.

sup was doing pretty good up till VoD. It's a shame that they got rolled in VoD, though. I was hoping for a closer match.

Grats to EW for winning, grats to sup for getting to the finals.

Quote:

Maybe make NPCs hardier during VOD, i.e. make them unaffected by the VOD effect?

Make them affected by the +dmg but not by the -hp?

Riotgear · Dec 02, 2007, 05:54 AM // 05:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by I Phoenix I

Make them affected by the +dmg but not by the -hp?

Change deal 25% more damage to take 25% more damage, make all NPCs other than Guild Lord not affected. How's that?

Wasteland Squidget · Dec 02, 2007, 06:19 AM // 06:19

Wait...so it turns out that AOE is good at VoD? Who knew!

I feel no particular sympathy towards teams who lost to this. Every top team understands that if you don't have AoE, you're at a disadvantage at VoD. With Splinter in its current form, it's easy to bring AoE on a wide variety of templates that fit easily into balanced builds. If you choose not to do it, and are unable to wipe a decent amount of the opponent's NPCs pre-VoD, it was your tactics that were at fault, not the game you were given.

Congrats to EW, and I'm looking forward to future Rawr tournaments.

Thom Bangalter · Dec 02, 2007, 07:13 AM // 07:13

I really don't think there's an issue with vod; I think people just want vod to be exactly like the first 18 minutes, which would be absolutely terrible. Vod has always been an important part of the game that every team should take into account and when teams complain about it I'm always confused as to why.

Riotgear · Dec 02, 2007, 07:18 AM // 07:18

Probably because people are turned off by the idea of the first 18 minutes of the game being a waste of time.

EDIT -- Of course, I agree with Squidget completely, if you don't have a way of mowing NPCs in the current meta, either before or during VOD, you're an idiot. I just think it's a bit too easy to blow up NPCs at VOD right now. Splinter has made gaining an advantage pre-VOD a good deal less significant without resorting to less-flexible templates for AOE.

I'd rather see VOD simply be a deadline, a way to sort of tally the score and bring the game to a close. Using it as an opportunity to score a massive rebound (i.e. nuking the NPCs) is kind of the exact opposite of that. Of course, that's probably wishful thinking given that VOD has been THE strategy for quite some time now.

Wasteland Squidget · Dec 02, 2007, 09:34 AM // 09:34

Quote:

Originally Posted by Riotgear

I'd rather see VOD simply be a deadline, a way to sort of tally the score and bring the game to a close. Using it as an opportunity to score a massive rebound (i.e. nuking the NPCs) is kind of the exact opposite of that. Of course, that's probably wishful thinking given that VOD has been THE strategy for quite some time now.

I would say that vision of VoD is at odds with everything VoD has ever been about in Guild Wars. It has always been a time when the game can rapidly swing in either direction and small mistakes have comparitively huge effects.

Even between good teams, you still see a lot of important stuff happening pre-VoD. NPCs get taken down, teams wipe, DP is accumulated, and res sigs are lost. Sure, a team that's behind can come back at VoD, but it's much more difficult if you were dominated in the pre-VoD game.

Anyway - I'd argue that aggroing the opposing guild lord is a much better way to equalize an NPC advantage than blowing them up with AoE. If your team is at a massive NPC disadvantage, trying to win at the stand is going to get you wiped, whether you have AoE or not. Aggroing the guild lord suffers from no such problems.

masta_yoda · Dec 02, 2007, 09:47 AM // 09:47

Both teams had splinter and ancestors i think,
But the melandru won it for them because he couldnt be stopped at vod

Dextus Ironheart · Dec 02, 2007, 09:56 AM // 09:56

so i heard EW forgot to give their paragon aggressive refrain so he was very depressed about attacking slow

~ Wipe

DutchSmurf · Dec 02, 2007, 11:30 AM // 11:30

Except for most of the matches being boring to watch again (without Asp that is) and again showing how bad the observermode is compared to other games, I liked the way the tournament was set up. Maybe use different days next time tho, so you can give the Titan division some airtime too, making it some kind of 'what not to do' if you want to.
I also don't see a problem with VoD at all, except that is comes that late. Having to wait 17 minutes until something dies isn't fun at all.

v o i d · Dec 02, 2007, 11:50 AM // 11:50

Considering how incredibly boring the finals were, Asp, Scotty and Yue did a phenomenal job with their live coverage. We laughed pretty hard in vent at some points.

Congrats to EW!

Frantic-Sheep · Dec 02, 2007, 01:35 PM // 13:35

Gratz to EW

I was hoping to catch the RAWR cup since it looked very promising but unfortunately couldn't

glad it was such a success ^^

Kaon · Dec 02, 2007, 02:04 PM // 14:04

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

I'm curious to know why you consider the only build you've ever accomplished anything with to be 'such a shit build'.

Rofl, I wonder whether I should even take this serious, but let's just do so because it's fun to nail someone's utter lack of knowledge of the game.

First off, I have no idea where you think that it's "the only thing we ever accomplished anything with." We've played the build an exact 3 times. Can I inform you that we went 7-0 twice, and 5-1 once (losing only to DF) with balanced. Not to mention rickrolling every single guild on the ladder inbetween 4 and 8 minutes for the past 2 months now. This first statement shows you have ABSOLUTELY no knowledge AT ALL what or who vZ is.

Do you even play the same game as me? How can you NOT see the build is bad? It relies purely on degen, which rocked the world when people carried only a LOD with the mainteam, but these days EVERYONE has superpowered partyheal on the flagrunner, meaning it's a lot harder to get to him. Not a single good guild will loose to this build with balanced (then again, there's only few good guilds in the game). The build owned when the game was protbased, but FYI, these days the game is healbased.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

I don't understand how a BSurge/Ward bitch or Paragon instead of a trapper, or whatever other single character you'd want to put there, is the difference between the established metagame build and 'one dimensional brainless bullcrap'.

This build is one dimensional because it is focused on only 1 thing to overpower the opponent: Conditions. Just as hex builds were 1 dimensional. Of course, this isn't much of an issue if the build was good, and there is actually nothing wrong with a 1dimensional build if it wins you important matches (see valander with eurohex, EW with focspike, etc.). But you forget that the build is actually really bad

Oh, and a domination mesmer and midline allow for an adaptive and switching playstyle. Much more so than a tainted mesmer or trapper, eventhough I will never say those roles are can only be filled up 1-way (like trapper going defensive or offensive).

Andrew Patrick · Dec 02, 2007, 07:45 PM // 19:45

GGs to everyone who played, and to rawr and Guild Cafe for hosting the event.

Doji · Dec 02, 2007, 11:11 PM // 23:11

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kaon

Do you even play the same game as me? How can you NOT see the build is bad? It relies purely on degen, which rocked the world when people carried only a LOD with the mainteam, but these days EVERYONE has superpowered partyheal on the flagrunner, meaning it's a lot harder to get to him. Not a single good guild will loose to this build with balanced (then again, there's only few good guilds in the game). The build owned when the game was protbased, but FYI, these days the game is healbased.

I wont disagree that LOD being the single point of failure for any build made degen oriented builds, and even balanced builds in general alot stronger as all you had to do was disable the lod and spread damage. Is "superpowered" party heal the only reason this build isn't viable? Have teams in the past not had similar situations to deal with? You know KGYU and everybody that copied their builds, party healing on the runner just resulted in them losing every single time?

The party healing from what i've seen the last few weeks for most euros teams is still at the stand, just in the form of healers boon/party spam. I guess WOH makes for stronger stand monks vs this sort of thing, but it isn't like you can't disable them in some way given the tools available in your build.

The build still has all the tools you need to push flaggers, and split so its not like you can't achieve something build wise outside of a 8v8 fight.

Ensign · Dec 02, 2007, 11:35 PM // 23:35

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kaon

It relies purely on degen, which rocked the world when people carried only a LOD with the mainteam, but these days EVERYONE has superpowered partyheal on the flagrunner, meaning it's a lot harder to get to him.

You think the build is bad because people put Protective Was Kaolai on their Rits now? I can't agree with that; certainly it helps but it's not the difference between the build being good and terribad. Healer's Boon Monks are more robust and more vulnerable than LoD Monks. Not that I don't think the build has some serious issues - namely, that your own backline is necessarily flimsy in a build that takes time to work.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kaon

This build is one dimensional because it is focused on only 1 thing to overpower the opponent: Conditions.

I agree, but I don't think that's all that different from the other 8v8 builds in the game right now. Anything with an Air Elementalist, for instance, is only going to overpower an opponent with a spike.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kaon

Oh, and a domination mesmer

The difference between Domination Mesmers and Inspiration Mesmers these days isn't as wide as you might think. The only truly unique thing offered by Domination is Shatter Enchantment, which is awesome but fluctuates in value depending on how much emphasis your build puts on spike. Otherwise you're weighing the value of Diversion and Signet of Humility, and taking an assortment of interrupts and enchantment removal. None of the elites matter. Honestly the difference between a Tainted Mesmer and a Dom Mesmer comes more from being bogged down casting Tainted than the other skills on the bar.

Snow Bunny · Dec 03, 2007, 04:40 AM // 04:40

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kaon

Are you saying i'm wrong? Because then attack me on my issues and stop spouting random sentences.

I don't want to have to explain why you're wrong.
It'd take a dissertation to explain it, there's so much to talk about.
But, if I had to, my thesis would read something like,

"In guild wars guru, Kaon makes an explicit error in his assessment of GvG gameplay when he explains that Ensign doesn't have an understanding of game mechanics."

However, if you want something to tickle your personal knowledge, let's start by this: All that's changed is a midline character.

dR made some bad decisions, but, honestly, whatever. vZ should learn better sportsmanship. I recall some interesting behavior on your team's part after your mes err7'd against rawr.

frojack · Dec 03, 2007, 06:30 AM // 06:30

Great stuff Rawr, and gz to EW who are solid as ever.

Kaon · Dec 03, 2007, 10:39 AM // 10:39

Quote:

Originally Posted by Doji

Have teams in the past not had similar situations to deal with? You know KGYU and everybody that copied their builds, party healing on the runner just resulted in them losing every single time?

Oh yes, but remember that heal party wasn't nearly as good back then. Also, the game was still prot based with BL monks and/or boonprots. Next to that, the build had 3 (!) warriors that would cut their way through anything.

When we play balanced, the opponent team also usually has 3-5 people degenning from bleeding and poison, and it's extremely effective, but that is because it gives our warriors and mesmers a better chance to kill. The condition build relies much more so on degen (in the sense that it does not have 3 warriors like KGYU, or a domination mesmer) than the balanced.

The party healing from what i've seen the last few weeks for most euros teams is still at the stand, just in the form of healers boon/party spam. I guess WOH makes for stronger stand monks vs this sort of thing, but it isn't like you can't disable them in some way given the tools available in your build.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Doji

The build still has all the tools you need to push flaggers, and split so its not like you can't achieve something build wise outside of a 8v8 fight.

Absolutely, but it's inferior to a balanced build, and therefore bad.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

You think the build is bad because people put Protective Was Kaolai on their Rits now? I can't agree with that; certainly it helps but it's not the difference between the build being good and terribad. Healer's Boon Monks are more robust and more vulnerable than LoD Monks. Not that I don't think the build has some serious issues - namely, that your own backline is necessarily flimsy in a build that takes time to work.

I absolutely think that kaolai and heal party monks totally screw over the degen, you could clearly see that in your game against [sup]. This makes the condition build worse than balanced, and therefore a bad build.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

I agree, but I don't think that's all that different from the other 8v8 builds in the game right now. Anything with an Air Elementalist, for instance, is only going to overpower an opponent with a spike.

Totally different, because instead of relying the opponent to degen down, you now rely on a mesmer totally obliterating their monks, and cooperating with your ranger to take care of their midline. Also the air elementalist does not need to spike, but aids in the pressure of a single target. We rarely spike anyway (eventhough i think we should do it more, remember our frontline is french).

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

The difference between Domination Mesmers and Inspiration Mesmers these days isn't as wide as you might think. The only truly unique thing offered by Domination is Shatter Enchantment, which is awesome but fluctuates in value depending on how much emphasis your build puts on spike. Otherwise you're weighing the value of Diversion and Signet of Humility, and taking an assortment of interrupts and enchantment removal. None of the elites matter. Honestly the difference between a Tainted Mesmer and a Dom Mesmer comes more from being bogged down casting Tainted than the other skills on the bar.

I could've missed it, but you say your mesmer had powerleak then?

Div · Dec 03, 2007, 11:01 AM // 11:01

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kaon

I absolutely think that kaolai and heal party monks totally screw over the degen, you could clearly see that in your game against [sup]. This makes the condition build worse than balanced, and therefore a bad build.

Any type of pressure build is going to take some time to have effect, whether it be conditions or physical pressure. If you watch the game, most of the engagements didn't last more than 1-2 minutes at the max, and that wasn't enough for their backline to feel the pressure. On the surface it seems like their pots and HP were able to keep bars up, but I'd argue that it wouldn't be able to be sustained for long. If we hadn't blown up so quickly, the combination of HB strips and interrupts would be able to disable and heavily pressure and crack the opposing monks.