Curse

twicky_kid · Nov 04, 2007, 02:26 AM // 02:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by pah01

the reason it hasnt resurfaced is because it is bad

Other than using your elite spot I don't see how its bad. You don't need much in prot to give a decent heal.

It fell out of favor back then because of mass condi builds flooded multiple players giving way to extinguish being used instead. As far as spot removal there is no better option.

IMMORTAlMITCH · Nov 04, 2007, 02:42 AM // 02:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by twicky_kid

It fell out of favor back then

Wrong, it never was 'in favor'.

twicky_kid · Nov 04, 2007, 04:32 AM // 04:32

Quote:

Originally Posted by IMMORTAlMITCH

Wrong, it never was 'in favor'.

Sorry Mitch I forgot you know every piece of GW history. Get over yourself. All you do is say "its bad" and never back up your opinions with anything solid. Just because it isn't on obs yet doesn't mean its bad its just different. Not trying to start a flame war here because I usually never do anything of the sort but I can only read so many post by you calling everything people suggest as bad.

It wasn't used for very long because factions was released and extinguish was a 1/4 cast and could be placed on the runner.

You can run RC on the mes and run remove hex on the e/mo instead of the current Hex eater on mes and draw on e/mo. You can decide how well those combinations fit in your team.

Sk8tborderx · Nov 04, 2007, 06:42 AM // 06:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by twicky_kid

You can run RC on the mes and run remove hex on the e/mo instead of the current Hex eater on mes and draw on e/mo. You can decide how well those combinations fit in your team.

That is just genius, it allows you to do the same thing but a lot worse, why hasn't anyone done something like that?

IMMORTAlMITCH · Nov 04, 2007, 10:36 AM // 10:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by twicky_kid

Sorry Mitch I forgot you know every piece of GW history. Get over yourself. All you do is say "its bad" and never back up your opinions with anything solid. Just because it isn't on obs yet doesn't mean its bad its just different. Not trying to start a flame war here because I usually never do anything of the sort but I can only read so many post by you calling everything people suggest as bad.

It wasn't used for very long because factions was released and extinguish was a 1/4 cast and could be placed on the runner.

You can run RC on the mes and run remove hex on the e/mo instead of the current Hex eater on mes and draw on e/mo. You can decide how well those combinations fit in your team.

You're an idiot, if it isn't 'on obs' then obviously it isn't 'in favor', I don't give a shit what some r9001 guild runs because it's completely irrelevant what skills you use at that level. The only reason I've ever seen people use a me/mo prot was in a nr/tranq build in tombs, so your prots would be faster.

twicky_kid · Nov 04, 2007, 01:22 PM // 13:22

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sk8tborderx

That is just genius, it allows you to do the same thing but a lot worse, why hasn't anyone done something like that?

Its not worse it just shifts the power of you condition removal and hex removal.

Remove hex is 5e 7 recharge. Hex Eater is 10e and 10 recharge.

Draw condition does remove any conditions it just shifts it from one player to another leaving it up to your monk to remove. RC not only removes the conditions but heals.

With that set up you remove the conditions so your monk does not have to and can remove hexes faster for less energy. You can decide if Hex Eater's dmg and enchant removal is worth it for your team's build.

Quote:

Originally Posted by IMMORTAlMITCH

The only reason I've ever seen people use a me/mo prot was in a nr/tranq build in tombs, so your prots would be faster.

I'm not talking about FC prots like guardian.

Advantage of FC RC mes:

Relieve pressure from monks
Fast reliable removal of DW vs spikes
Opens up an elite slot on monks

Disadvantage:

Reduces spike dmg on the mes by using the elite slot
Spec into 4 attributes
Slower cast hard res

You still avoid all points of why its good or bad and still revert to "its bad."

Thomas.knbk · Nov 04, 2007, 02:46 PM // 14:46

Quote:

Originally Posted by twicky_kid

Remove hex is 5e 7 recharge. Hex Eater is 10e and 10 recharge.

Nice comparison, exept the two skills aren't related at all. Remove is a hex removal, Hex Eater is used to have a dual shatter spike with just one mesmer. I'm not saying the hex removal is completely irrelevant, but it's certainly not the main reason to run it. I don't really see why you would run RC on a midliner. Your statement that you don't need to spec a lot to get a decent heal is just wrong. On a mes (your suggestion), you can either spec like 3 or 3 in prot, or gimp the rest of your build. 3 prot makes it start to look like a decent heal at 4 or 5 conditions removed. I doubt you'll remove over 3 more than once per match.
The 'draw' part of draw conditions is pretty irrelevant. I don't think anyone really cares if your ritualist is blind, or there's a deep wound somewhere on en ele who isn't targeted at all. Draw doesn't use your elite slot though, so therefore I say draw > RC on a midliner. Like anyone would've told you.

Quote:

Originally Posted by twicky_kid

Advantage of FC RC mes:

Relieve pressure from monks
Fast reliable removal of DW vs spikes
Opens up an elite slot on monks

Yeah.
If you want to relieve pressure from your monks, there are way better options. Bsurge (or even Bflash) is kinda like a single target prot, exept it doesn't mess up your character. Ward against melee is infinitely more effective, and a paragon will do a better job as well. I know I'm comparing single-target defense to partywide defense here, but that's just the way it is.
Fast reliable removal of DW on spikes is not an advantage of the fast cast prot mesmer. It's an advantage of every midliner with draw.
Frees up an elite slot on your monks? Great. You're losing a ton of healing because you only specced mediocrely in prot, and your mesmer is removing conditions all the time when he could be doing stuff that actually matters (diverting stuff, killing people, you know), but hey, who cares, you've got a free elite slot on your monks!

Quote:

Originally Posted by twicky_kid

Disadvantage:

Reduces spike dmg on the mes by using the elite slot
Spec into 4 attributes
Slower cast hard res

You actually don't realise how big those are? HEV is probably one of the strongest skills in the game at this point. Sure, there are going to be matches where it doesn't do anything, but there are also going to be matches where it's going to be a ton of AoE damage and enchant removal on a 10 sec recharge. I heard that HEV > shatter kills people.
Spreading your atts across 4 lines is bad, but spreading your attention and time between your party and people you should be diverting, interrupting and killing is worse. On a mesmer, this matters way more than on an ele. An ele basically has one and a half offensive skill (orb/bolt and gale), a mesmer has 5 or 6. All the time you spend removing conditions you don't use to interrupt, divert, shame and whatnot.

Quote:

Originally Posted by twicky_kid

You still avoid all points of why its good or bad and still revert to "its bad."

Because it's actually pretty obvious. If you post a searing flames warrior (more armor), or a fast cast boon prot (which is only a small step from a fast cast prot) do you expect people to explain every detail on why it sucks balls as well? Did it ever occur to you people might not want to spend their time on bull crap like that?

Darksbane · Nov 04, 2007, 06:39 PM // 18:39

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thomas.knbk

You're losing a ton of healing because you only specced mediocrely in prot, and your mesmer is removing conditions all the time when he could be doing stuff that actually matters (diverting stuff, killing people, you know), but hey, who cares, you've got a free elite slot on your monks!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thomas.knbk

Because it's actually pretty obvious. If you post a searing flames warrior (more armor), or a fast cast boon prot (which is only a small step from a fast cast prot) do you expect people to explain every detail on why it sucks balls as well? Did it ever occur to you people might not want to spend their time on bull crap like that?

i loled irl at this, those 2 parts more or less sum it up really.

On another note i must go, im off to do RA with my searing flames warrior. What an idea, why didnt i come up with that.

Snow Bunny · Nov 04, 2007, 07:14 PM // 19:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by Darksbane

On another note i must go, im off to do RA with my searing flames warrior. What an idea, why didnt i come up with that.

Don't joke about that.

I went up against a 4 W/R 4 W/E SF/IWAY team last night. They didn't actually do anything....but....I mean....someone actually sat in their chair, and said...
"This looks like a good idea"

And got 7 other people to go along with it.

Sk8tborderx · Nov 04, 2007, 08:06 PM // 20:06

Quote:

Originally Posted by twicky_kid

Its not worse it just shifts the power of you condition removal and hex removal.

It gimps your midline, that is all it does.

Quote:

Remove hex is 5e 7 recharge. Hex Eater is 10e and 10 recharge.

1 does a lot of armor ignoring damage and removes prots, the other doesn't. There is no comparison.

Quote:

Draw condition does remove any conditions it just shifts it from one player to another leaving it up to your monk to remove. RC not only removes the conditions but heals.

It still works great because it reduces pressure from the monks, and they can just use RC to get rid of all the conditions that character now has.

RC on a mesmer is retarded because it keeps the mesmer from doing what they should/need to be doing. Draw works great on an ele because they can remove conditions very fast and it doesn't ever stop them from doing their job.

Quote:

With that set up you remove the conditions so your monk does not have to and can remove hexes faster for less energy. You can decide if Hex Eater's dmg and enchant removal is worth it for your team's build.

AoE armor ignoring damage + AoE enchant removal is always worth it, to think otherwise is just downright stupid.

Ensign · Nov 04, 2007, 08:49 PM // 20:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by Melody Cross

The weakness would be mostly on splits...and those don't happen like they used to. Times were, you would worry about any balanced flagstand team to split if you couldn't kill them. Now its all about the flagger being able to keep said split busy.

Taking the same tired 3 guys and pushing them into the back door is only a small fraction of splitting. Putting pressure on whoever is carrying a flag is a big part of any split strategy, with more immediate rewards and faster execution. Also, depending on the map, putting guys in the back is done to set up a power play or mismatch as much as picking off NPCs. The different split objectives feed off each other as well.

The biggest issue with an LoD runner is that it doesn't fill traditional roles. People can kill NPCs in your face, and he's even more vulnerable than a Ritualist while moving the flag. If they put sins in your back door, you're going to be forced into a set of really ugly splits. That said, when you can get away with it there isn't anything horribly wrong with the character, you just have to go in knowing that he's going to need a lot more support than most runners and isn't going to provide much other than the redundant LoD. It's a tactical burden instead of a tactical asset; you need to be sure that isn't going to haunt you.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Melody Cross

Splitting fails if you make it to VoD now

Splitting has been a resounding success if it's built up even a small NPC advantage or forced boosts in the time leading up to VoD. At VoD, a good split will force the other team to respond to the threat on their lord with stronger stand characters, while the split tends to reinforce NPC advantages by removing players from that fight. At best, a good split at VoD will result in your opponent making a mistake - one of the biggest advantages of an offensive split - and can win you the game outright.

Quote:

Originally Posted by twicky_kid

Remove hex is 5e 7 recharge. Hex Eater is 10e and 10 recharge.

Hex Eater is a 120 damage AoE *Shatter Enchantment*. Remove Hex takes off a hex. The difference is no less than comparing Blinding Surge to Lightning Strike.

The point of that Me/Mo was not the RC, it was the inspired enchantments with fast cast Aegis. Between them that character could do all of the Aegis for the entire team, provided the other team had Aegis as well. RC just happened to be the best elite that character could run, it was not the primary purpose. If it had not been largely obsolesced by Mirror of Disenchantment and the explosion of interrupts in PvP, that character would run HEV over RC, without question.

Melody Cross · Nov 05, 2007, 10:58 AM // 10:58

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

Taking the same tired 3 guys and pushing them into the back door is only a small fraction of splitting. Putting pressure on whoever is carrying a flag is a big part of any split strategy, with more immediate rewards and faster execution. Also, depending on the map, putting guys in the back is done to set up a power play or mismatch as much as picking off NPCs. The different split objectives feed off each other as well.

Obviously, and I won't disagree with you here. Thats what a split wants to do--hopes to accomplish.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

The biggest issue with an LoD runner is that it doesn't fill traditional roles. People can kill NPCs in your face, and he's even more vulnerable than a Ritualist while moving the flag. If they put sins in your back door, you're going to be forced into a set of really ugly splits. That said, when you can get away with it there isn't anything horribly wrong with the character, you just have to go in knowing that he's going to need a lot more support than most runners and isn't going to provide much other than the redundant LoD. It's a tactical burden instead of a tactical asset; you need to be sure that isn't going to haunt you.

That goes to the fact that people weren't--at the time of post--running serious split teams. Meta has shifted in a frankly surprising way. My post was written in a meta in which many teams could "get away with it" because balanced teams were just not build to split properly, and VoD teams weren't geared to split at all. Most offensive splits I saw in obs or while guesting tended to show more disadvantage to the splitting team than to the defenders.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

Splitting has been a resounding success if it's built up even a small NPC advantage or forced boosts in the time leading up to VoD. At VoD, a good split will force the other team to respond to the threat on their lord with stronger stand characters, while the split tends to reinforce NPC advantages by removing players from that fight. At best, a good split at VoD will result in your opponent making a mistake - one of the biggest advantages of an offensive split - and can win you the game outright.

On this point, i do tend to disagree with you. While a team that is built to split will have advantage if a split is forced on an 8v8 team, the early VoD and VoDway's ability to blow up the flagstand NPCs in very little time could--in theory and more than a few times in practice--create favorable flagstand conditions that would allow most of your defense to stay with the lord while much of your front and midline kept what remained of your NPCs alive until the lords walk.

I could just leave this alone, since in the current state of the game, you are completely right. But the old meta is not so very old, and I can easily see it creeping its way back sometime. In a heavy flagstand meta like what we had, I wonder how well dual LoDs will do.

GGs

Ensign · Nov 05, 2007, 09:35 PM // 21:35

Quote:

Originally Posted by Melody Cross

That goes to the fact that people weren't--at the time of post--running serious split teams.

You don't need a serious split team to punish an LoD runner, something as simple as a Cripshot will do. The build has issues with the tired Warrior / Ranger / X in the side.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Melody Cross

Meta has shifted in a frankly surprising way. My post was written in a meta in which many teams could "get away with it" because balanced teams were just not build to split properly, and VoD teams weren't geared to split at all. Most offensive splits I saw in obs or while guesting tended to show more disadvantage to the splitting team than to the defenders.

I'm not quite sure what to make of that. If you're talking about vD balanced (W/W/R/Me/E) then it's certainly built to split offensively, but is vulnerable to containment splits from rawrspike (W/W/P/Me/E), since it has so much defense that it can cover for the weaknesses on an Ele flagger, and they can pull back 4 to kill a 3 man split. iWay balanced (DF) was able to split against rawrspike as it had more guys to send at any point and couldn't be easily powerplayed the same way. Essentially, yes, you do need more split power than vD balanced to split on rawrspike, and that's not trivial to run as you give up a good amount of VoD power to pull it off.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Melody Cross

On this point, i do tend to disagree with you. While a team that is built to split will have advantage if a split is forced on an 8v8 team, the early VoD and VoDway's ability to blow up the flagstand NPCs in very little time could--in theory and more than a few times in practice--create favorable flagstand conditions that would allow most of your defense to stay with the lord while much of your front and midline kept what remained of your NPCs alive until the lords walk.

I don't remember it playing out that way, at least with both teams playing properly; certainly it may have on occasion but if it did it was a mistake. Collapses from a split are much, much more valuable with the VoD buff and NPCs in the mix, and an offensive split at VoD, when you have an NPC advantage, should be done with that intention in mind.

What played out and was a problem in my experience is the ability of a blockway team to tank an entire clip of NPCs for a minute, a minute and a half without feeling it, giving them plenty of time to drop many of the NPCs and build an advantage against the more offensive split teams. It wasn't the split at VoD that let them get an NPC advantage at the stand; it was their ability to forget about the stand, walk the lord into the NPC ball, and still win because of the huge about of blocks and what those do against archers. The change to SoD has largely neutered this problem in my estimation.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Melody Cross

In a heavy flagstand meta like what we had, I wonder how well dual LoDs will do.GGs

Well the thing to realize is that LoD runners are not all that good against balanced in any of the main forms. Against vD balanced they can punish you with guys in the base; against iWay balanced they're going to train that guy back and forth to no end, and against rawrspike LoD isn't that essential since they're just a fancy spike build. LoD runners are good against the flagstand pressure tricks, against hexes or conditions or poop, builds that try and blow you up 8v8 but lose a lot if they have to split. I know we looked seriously at running LoD runners during the double champ point weekend when the ladder was infested with that on Burning Isle. It does perform nicely against those builds, but it's a huge liability against anything balanced.

moriz · Nov 05, 2007, 09:41 PM // 21:41

ensign:
is it worthwhile to spec both a ZB (or whatever monk build) and LoD monk to be able to run, and swap them around depending on what you meet? obviously speccing both to be able to run flags will have some problems, since a monk runner and a stand monk are not exactly the same (although they are similar). i'm just wondering the flexibility of this setup is worth the loss in efficiency.

Yue · Nov 05, 2007, 10:34 PM // 22:34

Quote:

iWay balanced

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~lol?

IMMORTAlMITCH · Nov 06, 2007, 01:57 AM // 01:57

i herd yue runs martyr on his ranger c/d?

Darksbane · Nov 06, 2007, 12:10 PM // 12:10

i hurd iso is really a n/mo

TheOneMephisto · Nov 06, 2007, 01:17 PM // 13:17

Quote:

Originally Posted by moriz

ensign:
is it worthwhile to spec both a ZB (or whatever monk build) and LoD monk to be able to run, and swap them around depending on what you meet? obviously speccing both to be able to run flags will have some problems, since a monk runner and a stand monk are not exactly the same (although they are similar). i'm just wondering the flexibility of this setup is worth the loss in efficiency.

Why would you want a ZB monk at the stand?

moriz · Nov 06, 2007, 01:25 PM // 13:25

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheOneMephisto

Why would you want a ZB monk at the stand?

when i don't need dual LoD, or if i'm faced with heavy shutdown and want to keep one LoD away from the stand. ZB monk is the only one that kinda fits in a dual runner setup.

unless of course, someone come up with a RC monk runner...

TheOneMephisto · Nov 06, 2007, 01:40 PM // 13:40

Quote:

Originally Posted by moriz

when i don't need dual LoD, or if i'm faced with heavy shutdown and want to keep one LoD away from the stand. ZB monk is the only one that kinda fits in a dual runner setup.

unless of course, someone come up with a RC monk runner...

It would probably be preferable to just use dual LoDs at the stand and use your ZB monk to run. If you use the ZB monk at the stand and let an LoD run, not only will the ZB at the stand be pretty useless and the LoD runner won't be able to deal with any splits, but both of them are also going to be less efficient because they have to have the tools to run and stand monk on already cramped monk bars.