Curse

Thom Bangalter · May 27, 2007, 06:45 PM // 18:45

Cry has solace, so they own.

Shuuda · May 27, 2007, 06:47 PM // 18:47

But [Cry] are at the top, they must have done something skillful to get their, even if they played so-called "Cheap" builds, they must have played them builds with skill, number one is not an easy thing to get.

v for Valkier · May 27, 2007, 07:44 PM // 19:44

Can we move away from the FFs-Cry/American-Euro rivalry thats going on gd. I dont even think we've ever played Cry before.

None had any problem with iQ, PnH, or EW, because none of them talked trash. They never came on forums and ranted how they are above everyone else, because they knew they ran something overpowered to win.

FFs doesnt run broken things because we found out that you dont improve running broken skills. We ran eurohex for 3 straight days once, rolling past every guild we faced. Half the guild wanted to keep running it, but the other half refused. We finally decided never run it ever again, because we knew that you cannot improve by running overpowered skills.

Restating my question for Jenny again: Why does Cry, so superior to everyone else, not run a balanced build if there are so many builds that can beat gimmicks?

lacasner · May 27, 2007, 08:21 PM // 20:21

Quote:

I game maybe unbalanced, but I don't like the use of the word gimmik, I've always seen it as a word used by those you cannot beat them, or don't take them seriously, in the end, assuming that everyone is on a level playing field, the best should be at the top, it's nature, if [FF] are "undoubtable better" then why are they not at the top? [FF] have access to all them so-call "Broken" things, why can't they just use them against [Cry] and prove they are better?

Exactly, just play with what's given to you, and if you don't like it then don't play, but calling people scrubs and other names doesn't solve the fact that NF skill and class introductions along with a few other factors blew PvP up.

Zui · May 27, 2007, 08:22 PM // 20:22

The Dark Ages of Guild Wars have permanently descended upon this game.

The End.

Ensign · May 27, 2007, 09:04 PM // 21:04

Here are a few tidbits for the peanut gallery, after which you may go back to flinging feces at each other:

While the #gwp and board warrior crowd has been busy bemoaning the death of GW, a lot of teams have been busy playing this game and getting better at it - particularly on European hours. vD, Cry, and PnH have all led a wave of new teams since the GWFC who know how to play Guild Wars and will give anyone a tough match.

Europe has been the gold standard for the game ever since the GWFC. It has had more teams playing, and better teams all the way down the board for the last year or so. Europe drives the metagame, American teams largely mimic and try to understand what is good in the Euro metagame.

HaND didn't exactly come out of nowhere to win this tourney. They've been tearing things up for over a month, drove to #1 on the ladder with their own version of a hex build - from what I managed to observe, the HaND hex build was the most commonly run build in the first round of the tourney. Maybe instead of dismissing them outright because you don't play during their timezone, you should make an effort to watch what they're doing and see what you can learn from them?

Teams pull out tricks in the playoffs. Sometimes it works out well for them, sometimes they get burned. Cry had been running Paragons all tournament, so I don't have to ask why they decided to run them on Frozen...I would like to know what made HaND think that Ritualists would be a hard counter to Paragons on Frozen. Clearly it was a mistake in retrospect, but they have information I don't about the decision that made it look like a good idea.

For those worried about Paragon builds, vD conducted a clinic in the next round on how to wreck it. I don't think that Rit build won anything all tourney so I don't know that there's a basis to care about it.

I was really encouraged by the tourney in general. A lot of new faces showed up to play, and proved they belonged. ATs still need work, but if this is a sign of things to come it's looking pretty good. The tourney was hurt by a lack of a top 8 (a 5-way tie for first decided on a tiebreaker that no one understands isn't very decisive), but I expect that to be worked out by the next one.

You may now resume jumping to conclusions and indulging in your own ignorance.

Peace,
-CxE

Dextus Ironheart · May 27, 2007, 09:18 PM // 21:18

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

Europe has been the gold standard for the game ever since the GWFC. It has had more teams playing, and better teams all the way down the board for the last year or so. Europe drives the metagame, American teams largely mimic and try to understand what is good in the Euro metagame.

QFT - anyways, im bord of flaming/being flamed now, we [Cry] played what we did, don't really care what anyone thinks about it and are getting free gfx cards from a game thats dieing. Seemed like a smart move if you ask me.

Billiard · May 27, 2007, 09:30 PM // 21:30

Okay I just did a major clean-up in this thread. I think there are some good things to discuss here, but I don't want to see any more personal attacks or way off-topic stuff.

Ensign's post is a prime example of how this sort of thing can be discussed by intelligent, mature people who are serious about the game. If you cannot follow suit, then please don't post here.

around · May 27, 2007, 09:32 PM // 21:32

Just out of interest: how did vD wreck paraspike? Multiple 'Shield's Up!' or just outplayed?

lacasner · May 27, 2007, 09:33 PM // 21:33

Quote:

QFT - anyways, im bord of flaming/being flamed now, we [Cry] played what we did, don't really care what anyone thinks about it and are getting free gfx cards from a game thats dieing. Seemed like a smart move if you ask me.

Exactly, don't hate the player hate the game.

Thom Bangalter · May 27, 2007, 09:36 PM // 21:36

hey ensign, maybe america would have better guilds if iQ didn't eat them all?

Billiard · May 27, 2007, 09:46 PM // 21:46

Quote:

Originally Posted by spawnofebil

Just out of interest: how did vD wreck paraspike? Multiple 'Shield's Up!' or just outplayed?

vD had a fairly balanced build. A Paragon with Shield's Up and Watch Yourself plus Aegis on their monks for defense - nothing crazy out of the ordinary. They played very tight though, good positioning to use terrain and cover, isolated on the opposing runner to kill and prevent capping, good mesmer play to mess with Cry's monks.

I plan on writing a more detailed summary later today.

Radiant Dawnstar · May 27, 2007, 09:46 PM // 21:46

Big deal? Good players play to win and paraspike is fun at the same time.

Patccmoi · May 27, 2007, 09:53 PM // 21:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by spawnofebil

Just out of interest: how did vD wreck paraspike? Multiple 'Shield's Up!' or just outplayed?

They had a pretty standard setup except for 1 P/W that was basically the 'anti-paraway' setup that allowed them to take the spike head on. He was chaining Shields Up! and Defensive Anthem and kept WY! up. Since Paraway is a lot of damage that's reduced by armor, WY! alone already gives a pretty good base defense to hold it, and when you chain SU! and Defensive Anthem, that's a lot of time you're covered by an unremovable defense they have no real hope to kill through.

So basically the full build failed pretty badly because that 1 Paragon was there and since they can't really split, they always had him in their face all the time.

Rau · May 27, 2007, 10:04 PM // 22:04

Quote:

Originally Posted by Billiard

vD had a fairly balanced build. A Paragon with Shield's Up and Watch Yourself plus Aegis on their monks for defense - nothing crazy out of the ordinary. They played very tight though, good positioning to use terrain and cover, isolated on the opposing runner to kill and prevent capping, good mesmer play to mess with Cry's monks.

I plan on writing a more detailed summary later today.

we basicly had counters to the idea of their p/w
we had dual shields up to negate him getting energy / shouts up and we had Web of Disruption on 1 of the p/me... for defensive anthem, though due to some unfortunate events our p/me had 500 ms..

basicly the reason we decided to play paraway for the fourth time in the tourney was that we was pretty convinced that even if We couldnt kill, they wouldnt be able to kill us ( previous exp from playing vs meow ) because we only needed a draw to win the tourney. We was the only guild with a 5-0 win loss and a draw would hav given us 1 point therefor giving us a gold shiney cape.
U take some risks and it works out bad or gd, unfortunatelly we didnt hav a 8 monk bonder build setup that wouldt die for 35 min

and we didnt play 'All' matches paraway Esign

Akaraxle · May 27, 2007, 10:17 PM // 22:17

Quote:

Originally Posted by Billiard

Okay I just did a major clean-up in this thread. I think there are some good things to discuss here, but I don't want to see any more personal attacks or way off-topic stuff.

Well duh, thanks for killing my post Billiard. You could've killed the first half, the second made a lot sense.

Ensign · May 28, 2007, 12:16 AM // 00:16

Quote:

Originally Posted by spawnofebil

Just out of interest: how did vD wreck paraspike? Multiple 'Shield's Up!' or just outplayed?

Enough passive defenses ("Watch Yourself!", "Shields Up!", Defensive Anthem, Aegises) to blunt the damage somewhat so you could stay alive. Yes, the Paragons could counter those to some extent but doing so took away from their offense, so it ends up being effective either way. Taking advantage of a lack of active defenses (sure, they had a lot of passive Paragon boosts, but they had virtually nothing to deal with a MoR Dom Mesmer sitting on Dephria's face for the entire match). Making them play the movement game without full-out splits. There were probably subtle things going on that I didn't notice as an observer, but from a strategic standpoint the outline was there.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rau

basicly the reason we decided to play paraway for the fourth time in the tourney was that we was pretty convinced that even if We couldnt kill, they wouldnt be able to kill us ( previous exp from playing vs meow ) because we only needed a draw to win the tourney. We was the only guild with a 5-0 win loss and a draw would hav given us 1 point therefor giving us a gold shiney cape.

I have no questions about playing dual-Expel Paraway on fire, that seems like a perfectly reasonable choice to me. I was kinda surprised to see it in the other two games I obsed - vs. rawr on Druids and HaND on Frozen. You're that satisfied with its defensive split options (pulling off up to two Monks I guess?) to run it on very split friendly maps?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rau

and we didnt play 'All' matches paraway Esign

That's fair, I only got to see 3 of them. I shouldn't infer.

Peace,
-CxE

Paddypower · May 28, 2007, 12:23 AM // 00:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by v for Valkier

FFs doesnt run broken things because we found out that you dont improve running broken skills. We ran eurohex for 3 straight days once, rolling past every guild we faced. Half the guild wanted to keep running it, but the other half refused. We finally decided never run it ever again, because we knew that you cannot improve by running overpowered skills.

i hate to break it to you

but it feels like whatever build we run, we generally win, Balanced,hexes,lame, we play what is best for the map / opponent. and when money/prizes are on the line, it makes it more crucial,

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

I have no questions about playing dual-Expel Paraway on fire, that seems like a perfectly reasonable choice to me. I was kinda surprised to see it in the other two games I obsed - vs. rawr on Druids and HaND on Frozen. You're that satisfied with its defensive split options (pulling off up to two Monks I guess?) to run it on very split friendly maps?

Peace,
-CxE

well, HanD we expected to play hexes as they don't win with anything else, so we packed 3 expels on the paragons, and they played rit spike,

Rawr .. well.. we kinda felt that rawrs monks wouldn't last long against a huge preassure build like this, and even if they could, if we took out a few npc's it would be auto-win, so we ran this, and it was auto-win, no problems really at all.

Neo-LD · May 28, 2007, 12:40 AM // 00:40

Ensign,

Very few European guilds live up to the "Golden Standard" that you have generically attributed to their entire time zone. I agree that vD, PnH, eF, etc, are all very good. I agree that there are far more European PvP guilds than American ones (that much is obvious, a quick look at the ladder confirms this). However, besides those 3-4 European powerhouses, the rest of their time zone ("conference", if you will), is extremely lackluster. For the past few months, whenever I would watch observer mode in European times, I would practically pull my hair out in frustration. The amount of mistakes made, and worse, the amout of mistakes that people got away with, was maddening. Obvious spikes. Lack of saves on said spikes. Obvious and brainless target training. Lack of prots and prekiting on said trains. Obvious and repetitive casting patterns. Lack of disruption on said casters. Rigid splits that should be easily dealt with. Inaccurate responses to said splits. In short, every guild in that conference (short of those 3-4 good ones) was failing spectacularly. The overall level of play at every single position was lagging terribly behind the standards being set in America.

American prime time was filled with guilds that were all playing at a level very similar to eachother, and far higher than that of the mass of europeans. Guilds that played eachother almost every night, suffocating eachother's chances for dominant records. In this conference, the elementary mistakes that were so common in Europe were few and far between. And when one was commited, it was capitalized on almost instantly. The level of play was so much higher that I am at a loss for how to describe it adaquately in words.

Among the best of the best, QQ and iQ were very close to eF and EW. Sometimes a little better, sometimes a little worse. But the point is not so much the elites of either conference, but more the guilds just underneath. Whereas American prime time was filled with tough competition and games so close they turned on a single mistake, Euro times were filled with a sea of comparatively terrible players ignorantly flailing at eachother as mistake after mistake, opportunity after opportunity passed them by.

@ Billiard

In order for me to make my argument I have to label some (groups of) players as bad. This isnt really meant to belittle or attack them, its just necessary for me to argue that Europe as a whole has not been the center of gvg.

gasmaskman · May 28, 2007, 01:22 AM // 01:22

Quote:

Originally Posted by InfernalSuffering

I was just obsing that...
Very disturbing seeing the #1 and #2 ranked guilds getting it on with gimmicks...

They wanted to win.

Anet not giving us better skill balances is very disturbing. Ever since the "within earshot" buff to all rit skills its been chaos.

And paragons? They've been imba since they were created.