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Sep 26, 2007, 11:07 AM // 11:07
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#101 |
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Desert Nomad
Join Date: Dec 2005
Guild: Straight Outta Kamadan [KMD]
Profession: Me/
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People that aren't in top 100-200 guilds (or have never, save for after resets, been in top 100-200 guilds) really shouldn't be talking about what's wrong with GvG.
Twicky_kid, no one cares that your terrible guild can beat other more terrible guilds running a terrible build. You have no idea how GvG is played at mid-top tier. |
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Sep 26, 2007, 01:45 PM // 13:45
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#102 | |
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Alcoholic From Yale
Join Date: Jul 2007
Guild: Strong Foreign Policy [sFp]
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Quote:
This post wins. I've been playing Cripshot ranger recently, only because crip's is unblockable. Other than that...not too many of my interrupts get through. |
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Sep 26, 2007, 01:51 PM // 13:51
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#103 |
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Wilds Pathfinder
Join Date: Oct 2005
Location: A cardboard box in England
Guild: Men Of Substance [YMCA]
Profession: Mo/Me
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And this all starts off with shields up making the first skill they use, Say DA, un interuptable by your ranger. So with that skill (shields up) he has no chance.
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Sep 26, 2007, 03:22 PM // 15:22
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#104 | |
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Jungle Guide
Join Date: Nov 2005
Profession: W/Mo
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Quote:
EDIT; what I mean is that most anti-block skills are too gimpy/unusable. It may be a solution to improve these. Last edited by glountz; Sep 26, 2007 at 03:24 PM // 15:24.. |
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Sep 26, 2007, 03:54 PM // 15:54
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#105 | |
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has 3 pips of HP regen.
Join Date: Aug 2006
Guild: The Objective Is More [Cash]
Profession: W/
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Quote:
Last edited by Riotgear; Sep 26, 2007 at 04:20 PM // 16:20.. |
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Sep 26, 2007, 04:35 PM // 16:35
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#106 |
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Frost Gate Guardian
Join Date: Nov 2006
Guild: Peanut Butter Toasts [pT] Unknown Phenomenon [vK]
Profession: R/Mo
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Really can't stand Paragons, they pretty much ruin game balance.
GolE a close 2nd at the moment. These two seem to fuel just about all the passive defense. Paragons' armor, ability to ranged DPS, use of watch yourself, Shields up etc.., need changes soon. Leadership is just too broken in a 8v8 stand build. Several changes noted in this thread should go under consideration. GolE: Really is just a bad skill for many of the professions. Necro hex spammer, mesmer, SoR Ele, Aegis monks. Without glyph the SoD guy, Sor ele and necro hex spammer become a lot less efficient, at least i'd hope. SoR ele might fall by the wayside or be replaced by other flaggers. Necro hex guy would be much less efficient, and monks could still bring Aegis it would be at a much greater risk. Still not sure how to best balance glyph. But trying to balance the game around glyph doesn't seem to be working |
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Sep 26, 2007, 05:09 PM // 17:09
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#107 | |
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Desert Nomad
Join Date: Feb 2006
Location: USA: liberating you since 1918.
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I think its time to get around the block argument. If you are relying solely on your physicals fighting 7v7 at the stand to be an effective team, then you are going to lose to blockway. Such is the intent.
If your ranger's interrupts are constantly getting blocked, then that ranger should be splitting. Half the template is designed for splitting - why wouldn't you? Quote:
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Sep 26, 2007, 05:21 PM // 17:21
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#108 | |
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Academy Page
Join Date: Apr 2007
Profession: E/
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Quote:
Just because you can beat me doesn't mean you understand how you won better then I understand how I lost. |
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Sep 26, 2007, 05:26 PM // 17:26
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#109 | |
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Jungle Guide
Join Date: Nov 2005
Profession: W/Mo
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Quote:
When you loose, you have to question yourself, your build, and your skills to improve. Most people aren't able to do this. Admitting that you suck is the first step to improvement and thus to victory. |
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Sep 26, 2007, 06:12 PM // 18:12
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#110 | ||
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Furnace Stoker
Join Date: Sep 2005
Location: Guild Hall, Vent, Guesting, PvE, or the occasional HA match...
Guild: Dark Alley [dR]
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Quote:
Quote:
Most of the top teams that do play this game, will know exactically how they beat you better than you'll understand why you lost. |
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Sep 26, 2007, 06:20 PM // 18:20
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#111 | |
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Academy Page
Join Date: Apr 2007
Profession: E/
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Quote:
yes looking at what you did wrong gives you the room to improve, but people have there limits talent, reaction time, time to put in. Being in a top rank guild is (well I assume it is) a lot of work and given that there are real life rewards probably stress. Does the fact I don't want that mean that my opinions on the how to improve the game are invalid? I hope not otherwise it's just not gonna be a very small percentage of the community with a voice. To try and get myself on topic I think that buffs to unblockable attacks and some strategic nerfs to lower the passive defense but more importantly something to encourage more variation in play not sure what but there has to be away to encourage none physical damage dealers into play without making them imbalanced. Not a clue how but it would improve the variation in the builds people play if it can be done. PS i admitted I sucked ages ago |
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Sep 26, 2007, 06:48 PM // 18:48
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#112 |
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Alcoholic From Yale
Join Date: Jul 2007
Guild: Strong Foreign Policy [sFp]
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Mmm...I know a lot of people have problems with SoD.
I've always loved that skill, it taught me active prot, and I know people might disagree with me on that one, but between that and RoF, that's how I fell in love with the Prot line. Defensive Anthem is too much. It has 25 second recharge, 2 second cast time, and a duration very comparable to that of aegis, and it manages itself energy-wise on a para. It's unstrippable, too. This skill is the embodiment of a lack of game balance. I might get hate for this one, but Avatar of Melandru is another skill I have big problems with. Sure, the Derv only has 70AL, and doesn't have the inherent 20AL against physical that warriors have, but for a single minute, with AoM, you have god mode, and a two minute recharge. ----> Add wearying strike, and you have 10 Eviscerates for a minute (every 6 seconds) on a melee that has ~700 health and can't be conditioned. To me that's a failure in game mechanics, despite the 2 minute recharge. GoLE has been nerfed, but not badly enough. I agree with what's been said here. I can't reiterate more than has been done. You don't see it often, but last time I GvG'd (I was a Melandru derv, hence my complaint) we faced a team with a warder subbed in on the hexer. Ward of Melee stacked with DA stacked with Aegis + the SoD made it impossible for me to hit anything, let alone kill. It's this type of stacked defense that just has so irreparably screwed up the Meta. Finally, the blindbot. Tab + 1 = blind all over, you don't even need to pay attention if you feel like it. Blinding Surge is just another failure with stacked defense and bullshit. |
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Sep 26, 2007, 08:02 PM // 20:02
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#113 | |
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Wilds Pathfinder
Join Date: Aug 2005
Guild: Delta Formation [DF]
Profession: W/
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Quote:
DA- Easy as hell to interrupt, perhaps DDagger on warrior or a dervish would be a smart thing, maybe I'm just crazy. Aegis- Depending on your build it's not always easy to deal with aegis once you take into consideration all the other defensive skills. Bring Mirror of Disenchantment and let your other disruption characters focus on something else. Ward- Alright this one is tricky on Mesmer because of its faster cast time. Have your mesmer power leak this guy as much as possible. If it's an ele then just interrupt the ward and strip his attunement as much as possible. SoD- Herd da rendin touch wuz gud. Either switch targets or bring rend touch to keep up with it. Blind is really just an annoyance and it's not as annoying to a frontliner player (or at least to me) as Aegis or wards. Disrupt Aegises/DAnthem and you'll start dealing pressure. If you can't interrupt the ward for whatever reason then punish targets that aren't using it, Mesmers and monks tend to go out of them quite often. If that doesn't seem to work then chase after flaggers and get them to move out of it. Once they start taking pressure (you can tell once targets dont get healed to a 100% instantly and prot doesn't fly around as much) then your monks can focus more on your blinds. Aegis won't be coming up as frequently either due to the monks' lower energy. The problem with all these teams not being able to shutdown all the defense is that they either: a) Don't bring enough tools to take it down. b) Have their tools unfocused and they only get a part of the job done. IE. mesmers trying to diversion bsurge, interrupt aegis, danthem & wards. Granted he'll take some of it down it's usually better so assign targets to your mesmer/ranger/whatever at the mid/lower levels of the ladder. In summary, do what you're supposed to do. If you can't do what you're supposed to do then find a way around it. |
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Sep 26, 2007, 08:08 PM // 20:08
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#114 | |
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Alcoholic From Yale
Join Date: Jul 2007
Guild: Strong Foreign Policy [sFp]
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Quote:
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Sep 26, 2007, 08:24 PM // 20:24
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#115 |
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Wilds Pathfinder
Join Date: Apr 2006
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Bit bored and i havent posted in a while so i wanted to add my thoughts on this topic.
What do i think is wrong with the meta? Well its a combination of several things. 1. Fast Cast Ward against Melee Combo 2. SoR/SoD base defense 3. Shields up + Defensive Anthem Combo 4. Lack of build innovators 5. Lack of real incentive to excel at GvG I think its wrong to say that passive defense is outright bad. The reason why passive defense has gained such negative connotations is due to the nature of passive defense that has plagued the GvG meta for seasons and seasons. Im talking mainly about the old aegis chains and the prenerf anti melee hex stacks. The impact on these slowed the game down considerably, they were a form of passive defense which required a concerted effort to counter. Rangers and mesmers had to watch carefully for casters to put up aegis. But this was not so easy with the prenerfed aegis because its range was not limited to earshot. Flag stand casters could put up their aegis and kite away from potential interrupters, a third aegis was on the flag runner which was basically unstoppable. It gave the mainteam 11+20% seconds of 50% block. The problem with the aegis chain cannot be understood in isolation. It was all about layers of defense. The problem was peeling each layer away. The problem was not having enough shutdown or utility to peel enough layers to force kills. Of course, taking out aegis chains was possible, but in countering aegis chains you still had SoD, blinds, and wards to cope with. The number of layers in the defense was overwhelming. The solution came when the range of aegis was reduced to earshot range. No longer could a flag runner provide a link in the aegis chain on the other side of the compass. Flag stand casters have to stay within range of the enemy in order to catch as many allies under the aegis... meaning interrupting aegis is far easier. The aegis chain has lost its reliability, which would have opened up the highly defensive GvG meta excellently. As long as it wasnt replaced with something else. But it was. The fast cast ward. When the aegis nerf landed, i think the majority of GvG monks were caught with their pants around their knees. They had been spoiled by the previous defensive metas. Reliable Aegis chains... wards... blinds... sod... what more could a monk want? It took some real effort and some bad mistakes for a full team wipe to happen. Monks became complacent, they didnt need to be THAT good. So when the aegis nerf landed... things got interesting. Positioning became important (like it should be), good pre protting became important (like it should be), good SoD monks became important (like it should be). But in the defensive meta... positioning was no problem, everyone was covered by aegis. Preprotting was not so necessary because the amount of passive defense gave monks the much needed time to react to spikes, and pressure was nigh on impossible to inflict. SoD monks had much more time to react to spikes too. The aegis nerf left a vacuum and forced the average monks to face the reality of high level play. But instead of adapting to the new demands, instead of accepting that the defensive meta was a abberation, people tried to find ways of replacing the aegis chains. They couldnt imagine GvGing without the amount of passive defense they had become so used to. And so we see the old MoR mesmers, who used to be Mes/Monk or Mes/Rit for hard rez, changed to Mes/Ele with ward against melee. The ward against melee offers the same if not better passive defense than the aegis chain. Mainly because it is impossible to remove once it is cast. The old aegis chains were partially counterable by enchantment removal. Ward agaisnt melee can only be stopped by interrupt/kd. But on a fast cast mesmer with earth items, interrupting the ward is impossible. Voila... we have the replacement for the aegis chain. The ward not only is a problem for the meta because of the passive protection it provides... which is on par with the old aegis chains... it also encourages ward camping, which means that position play is suffering. Your average top 100 GvG match is incredibly boring to watch and play. Teams are so reliant on passive forms of defense that they happily camp wards until the end of the game. With MoR the casting of ward melee is not so easy to predict because its downtime is lower than its duration. And because it is so hard to counter, it allows teams a comfort zone on the battlefield. The comfort zone makes a job easy for a SoD monk because catching a partymember being spiked within the ward relatively easy. The only time when the SoD monk needs some proper awareness is if a party member ventures outside of the ward. But take a look at the characters who would dare to do such a thing. Frontline characters like warriors and melandrus dervishes - which generally are very difficult to spike out anyway. Or the midline paragon, which generally has over 100 armour and is just as difficult to spike as a frontliner. Its not hard to catch a spike on these party members even if they do venture outside the ward against melee. The only time a SoD will be sorely tested is if a softer party member spends alot of time outside the ward and they are being harassed by a diversion spamming mesmer (notice how i say ''spamming'' rather than a ''good mesmer with diversion''). But if this happens, that marks 3 faults, the first being the SoD monks failure to spot a vulnerable soft party member, the second being the soft party member not being more careful with positioning and the third being the teams inability to stop the enemy mesmer from locking down the SoD prot. The defensive layers have also been augmented by the single paragon midliner who was a rare sight in the prenerf aegis meta. In those seasons if you saw paragons in a build it was usually in twos, so they could replace aegis chains with a defensive anthem chain. But today, the single paragon with defensive anthem and shields up adds just enough passive defense to give teams a bit of protection against any ranged interrupts and a little bit of extra protection against melee. With DA, being outside the ward is not such a risky activity. And the absence of aegis chains has not meant that mesmers have become interrupt fodder for rangers either. The aegis nerf was needed and i applaud Anet for finally hitting it. But unfortunately the nerfed skills that made up the components of the defensive layers that were so popular just got replaced by other forms of passive defense. This is aa unfortunate symptom of Anets inability to balance the bigger picture. Skill balances only tend to deal with problematic skills that are in use and dominating the meta. MoR+Ward against melee was always a possible combination in need of balancing, but it wasnt dealt with because it was not in use. It was not in use because it was overshadowed by the aegis chains. Now aegis chains have gone... MoR+Ward melee is in use. Its a tireless and unnecessary battle against the tide caused by Anets balancing policy. What was needed was a comprehensive look at ALL forms of passive defense. Failing that, Anet need to recognise much quicker that they missed something. Like i said earlier, the aegis nerf was great, but in order to fully achieve the motivation behind the nerf (that being a metagame less dominated by passive defense), the combination of MoR+Ward melee needs to be dealt with too. And maybe the paragons ability to spam high energy shouts like Defensive anthem and shields up. Another problem with the meta is a symptom of the fact that we have lost a large proportion of the higher tier guilds that occupied the top 50 in 2006. For many reasons, which can be argued over forever, the top 50 of today looks very different to the top 50 of 2006. One thing i am sure of, is that the top 50 of today is generally made up of the guilds who were kept out of the top 50 by the guilds who are not gone. Now those older top 50 guilds are gone, the guilds who were kept out of the top 50 have taken their place. I know i grossly oversimplify a complex situation but i strongly believe that the current meta is suffering from the absence of the better players and a dominance of yesterdays meta build players. Just look at the builds being run by the top 50 guilds. Forget for the moment the over reliance on layers upon layers of passive defense because i do realise that has a huge influence on build diversity. Another factor is the lack of real innovators. Innovation in GvG is not easy. It takes a huge amount of experience and confidence in skill for a team to run an innovative build. vD not only maintains number 1 slot on the ladder by running a slightly modified meta balanced build better than anyone else, but they also run different builds from time to time. The Ex-Reno players whos current guild name i cannot replicate, maintain their high rank with non-meta builds which take advantage of their experience in playing GvG, they mainly consist of a very strong split with a highly destructive flag stand team which is extremely difficult to fight against at VoD. Im sure there are a few other examples of teams, like Be Team and their condition build with a smoke trapper, who are not only willing but able to run non-meta builds in GvG. But the overwhelming majority of teams do not. Unfortunately, although these guilds might claim to have the willingness to run something else, they usually explain their reliance on meta builds on the lack of diversity in skills. But the reality, which we can see from the rare guilds who can run non-meta, is that they just are NOT ABLE to run anything else but the most defensive of balanced builds. They are not good enough. They stick to meta because it works, and what works gains them ladder rating and rank. Non-meta builds can work, but they require alot more dedication, and the desire to excel at the game. However, running effective meta builds and farming ladder rating and ranks is the overwhelming focus of guilds out there. What i think has caused this is the lack of any real incentives to actually diversify as a individual player and therefore as a team. In the past the Gold and Silver cape was generally awarded to the best of the best. iQ, EW, vD, EviL, RenO. But with gold and silver capes being awarded monthly, they have lost their value. Fail to get one this month? No problem, you can get one the next month. And the next, and the next. So whats the point of diversifying in build and skill? If it becomes just a matter of time and perseverence, its no wonder that the GvG meta has become so stale. In the past, gold and silver capes were awarded on such rare occasions that guilds who seriously wanted to compete for them had to make sure they were equipped and experienced enough to put all the aces on the table in the seasonal championships because if they could not compete at the level of other guilds they would have a long wait until they got another chance. i really think that anyone who focuses on the tools in the game as the problem with the metagame have lost touch of the other important factors that affect the meta. it is possible to run non-meta. ward camping is meta... so run something to punish the static positioning. run a proper split build, they cant put up wards in two places at once. the amount of teams running dedicated splits is pitiful. the amount of teams running stuff that punishes ward camping is pitiful. If you stick to meta to fight meta, you have no right to complain about it, you are actually part of the problem. Get good enough to run counter meta, or non-meta, prove that it cannot be done, then complain. But until then, dont. thankfully there are a handful of guilds left who can do it. And gosh, they are the ones i like to watch most on obs mode most. /yawn at all the other guilds Lorekeeper |
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Sep 26, 2007, 09:16 PM // 21:16
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#116 |
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Krytan Explorer
Join Date: Nov 2006
Guild: Xxx The Final Thrust Xxx[RIP]
Profession: P/A
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Uh... I may be mistaken, but I believe the "non-meta" builds of vD and Reno that you refer to are just mods on hexway builds that were very popular in the previous meta.
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Sep 26, 2007, 09:22 PM // 21:22
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#117 |
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Ascalonian Squire
Join Date: Apr 2007
Guild: The Chefs of Death
Profession: Mo/
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very nice post lorekeeper
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Sep 27, 2007, 12:48 AM // 00:48
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#118 | ||
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Furnace Stoker
Join Date: Jun 2005
Guild: Quite Vulgar [FUN]
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Quote:
Quote:
Last edited by twicky_kid; Sep 27, 2007 at 12:57 AM // 00:57.. |
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Sep 27, 2007, 01:02 AM // 01:02
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#119 |
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The Cheese Stands Alone
Join Date: Dec 2005
Location: A Chair
Guild: Delta Formation [DF]
Profession: R/
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Pretty sure rank 200 isn't top tier, and being a benchwarmer doesn't count as playing for a top 100 guild. If all the top tier players disagree with something you believe is true, I'm fairly certain there's a reason for it. Like that retarded LoD=free comment. What a joke.
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Sep 27, 2007, 01:05 AM // 01:05
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#120 | |
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Furnace Stoker
Join Date: Jun 2005
Guild: Quite Vulgar [FUN]
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Quote:
And again if you even bothered to read the comment it said "essentially" free. |
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