Curse

Divineshadows · Dec 18, 2006, 10:40 PM // 22:40

Nobody has posted in this forum for a while, so I thought I would get the activity going again. While I was into the GvG and HA scene for a while, my most enjoyment in PvP has always been for the 4v4 environments (TA in particular). In addition to this, I enjoy creating new builds and testing them to see if they succeed and, if they do, how they can be improved upon.

Here are the key points to consider when designing a TA build:

1. Offense. Basically you need it to force kills, because TA is a deathmatch and you do not win unless you force kills. Choose efficient skills which will accomplish the goal of doing damage. Most, but not all, offense in TA comes from melee auto-attacks and enhanced further by attack skills, deep wound, increased attack speed skills, movement speed boost skills, and assist offensive spells (i.e. lightning orb, spiritual pain, obsidian flame, etc.). Well designed offenses are distributed in nature across 3 or sometimes even all 4 members of the team. Distributed offense makes it even more difficult for the opposition to shutdown what you are trying to do to them. Scoring kills is generally a result of too much damage compressed in an extremely short period of time (less than half a second), doing too much damage in a matter of a few seconds (meaning you beat the recharges on the opposition's healing skills -- i.e. their skills are recharging and have nothing to save the player with), doing damage that would normally be non-fatal but also shutting down or disrupting the opposition's ability to heal as the damage comes in, and simply using your damage to beat the energy out of the opposition's healer(s) (if the opposing monk is using zealous benediction than this scenario is extremely unlikely and you are much more likely to beat out the recharge on this skill than beat that monk out of energy).

2. Defense. Just as important in deciding which offensive skills to bring is planning out the defense for the build. The defense of a build includes anything from monk protection enchantment spells to reduce or prevent damage and anti-melee skills -- usually these come in the form of conditions like blind or cripple or hexes that cause missing, slower attack rate, or deter attacking due to high self-inflicted damage upon attackers, however, some anti-melee skills such as wards, stances that result in defensive shouts are not dependant upon conditions or hexes. The last line of defense for successful TA builds is raw healing. Any damage that cannot be reduced or prevented needs to be healed but comes with a cost both in terms of time and energy costs. Keep in mind that damage prevention/reduction is always more valuable than straight healing power. The mantra that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure is very true in team arenas. However, against strong teams they will find ways to get damage through and therefore healing (in some form) is necessary. Well designed defenses are distributed in nature across 2 or 3 or perhaps even all 4 members of team. A distributed defense helps avoid single points of failure that result from excessive pressure being placed on your defense.

3. Disruption. When two top teams in TA are matched against each other, this is the area of builds where matches are typically won and lost. Typically, the team that makes better use of its disruption tools at its disposal wins the match. Some examples of disruption includes interrupts (distracting shot, savage shot, disrupting lunge, distracting blow, disrupting chop, web of disruption, leech signet, signet of disruption, power drain, power leak, disrupting dagger, disrupting stab, etc.), knockdowns (gale, shock, hammer bash, devastating hammer, shove, horns of the ox, bull's strike, bull's charge, mind shock, entangling asp, etc.), and skills which disable or limit the effectiveness of certain aspects of your opposition's build (i.e. diversion, signet of humility, shame, guilt, blackout, migraine, arcane thievery, nature's renewal, holy veil, skills which inflict dazed, etc.). A common error in TA build design is to include too much offense or defense and not enough disruption. Disruption skills are among the most flexible skills in the game and can be used in either an offensive or defensive manner as needed. They also allow your team the ability to prevent the opposition from executing their gameplan exactly as they desired.

4. Removal. Removal includes condition removal, hex removal, and enchantment removal. Just like builds with successful offense and defense, the best builds distribute their removal to avoid single points of failure. Having a solid offense and defense means nothing if you allow a team which can just daze and train your monk to cause collapse of your team. For this reason, I highly recommend that your build have some form of condition removal on a non-monk character. Most successful builds also include off-monk hex removal. Different builds require different amounts of removal. For instance, a build with a high amount of disruption that uses nature's renewal probably needs less hex removal than most other builds. Builds that rely heavily on two melee characters for their damage and disruption need stronger condition and hex removal in order to keep the melee "clean". Builds that have a heavy degen components (either from conditions or hexes) may not need any or very little enchantment removal whereas builds that have no degen component need enchantment removal (or Nature's Renewal) to avoid being completely countered by bonders. Consider using skills that remove all/multiple hexes or conditions in addition to single removals. Skills like purge signet, draw conditions, mending touch, divert hexes, convert hexes, and expel hexes can be very useful in cutting through cover hexes and cover conditions, but are more expensive, higher recharges, or have some other downside to single removals and therefore single removals may still be necessary to supplement these skills.

These are what I consider to be the 4 major elements of successful team arena builds. Now on to the finer points of build design:

- Specialize. Overload your offense in one given aspect of the game. Whether you choose to overload on melee damage, hexes, conditions, or spike damage (builds that attempt to do fatal damage before good monks can respond) does not really matter just so long as you pick one. Well designed defenses are prepared to handle "a little of everything", so designing an offense that overloads well in one area along with good use of disruption allows you to creates creases in the opposition's defense. While executing your build, be aware of where the specialization lies so that you can take actions to help counter the skills that will most counter your specialization. Overloaded on hexes? Try to use your disruption to interrupt their hex removal skills. Overloaded on conditions? Make sure to apply pressure on the the opposing members who have condition removal or divert/distracting shot their condition removal if possible. Overloaded on melee? Landing diversion or distracting shot (or using other disruption skills) on the opponent's key skills such as blinding surge, shield of absorption, ward v melee, ward of stability, or guardian can help create creases you need in their defense. Also, it is an option to specialize your defense in the form of area control (such as use combining ward against melee and ward of stability with another form of area control such as defensive shouts like shields up, stand your ground, and watch yourself OR combining wards with a well of darkness). Using these forms of area control to specialize a majority of your defense have the advantage of not being vulnerable to hex and condition removal, but beware as these options create larger creases in your defense when they are disrupted due to longer recharges than the condition or hex based alternatives.

- Avoid combining skills which interact poorly. For instance, using holy veil, maintained enchantments, or a lot of hexes (particularly hexes with longer casts) is likely a bad idea if you plan on using nature's renewal in your build. Similarly, on a smaller scale, you can also avoid selected skills on a single player's bar that interact poorly. Placing decapitate and wild blow on the same skill bar for instance is undesirable as you would then have two skills that cause you to lose all adrenaline. Placing signet of lost souls in a spike build which has very little pressure is also pointless as you will likely not get the opportunity to use the skill for energy management on opposing players below 50% health. Placing spoil victor or spiteful spirit and faintheartedness on an enemy assassin is sub-optimal as these elite hexes combine better with reckless haste than they do with faintheartedness. That is not to say that these hexes cannot co-exist in the same build, but it merely means that additional communication may be required to ensure optimal execution. On the same token, selecting skills or attribute lines which interact well together is definately something to strive for. Glowing gaze becomes better if there is a lot of burning in your build. Necromancer's soul reaping becomes even stronger if you use ritualist spirits. Blackout becomes even stronger if you can follow up with a gale or a diversion on the same target for prolonged shutdown.

- Be willing to iterate. Not every build you design comes out perfect on the first try. Nor will the build ever become perfect, but you can always strive to make it better. If from having experience playing the build you feel that it is not too far off from where you want it to be, use the information from your losses or narrow wins to make a better build. Avoid changing too many skills at once and do not make changes based on a small sample size. Typically, 25+ matches are needed with a build to determine where the strengths and weaknesses of a build lie.

- Be willing to accept that some build experiments will fail and know when to start over. Sometimes it is hard to admit that a build you spent effort designing has failed. It happens to even the best build designers though. After using a build for several matches, if you continuously lose and oftentimes quickly and decisively then it is quite likely that the build is lacking in one of the four key areas of build design (offense, defense, disruption, or removal). If your build test was executed with strong individual players that are familiar with executing well as a team, then it is likely that you need to remove emotional attachment to the build, start over, and design a new build. If your build test was executed with weak players that do not know how to play as a team, then you may want to wait on passing judgement on the build until you have gotten a chance to test the build under ideal conditions.

Van Goghs Ear · Dec 19, 2006, 05:20 AM // 05:20

design? builds? thinking? just grab two thumpers and go...

anyways, good article on skill synergy IMO.

moko · Dec 19, 2006, 09:58 AM // 09:58

Quote:

Originally Posted by Van Goghs Ear

design? builds? thinking? just grab two thumpers and go...

anyways, good article on skill synergy IMO.

this is unfortunately so true. >_< 90% of the teams run two raos, 5% run 1, the other 5% try to run zero and experiment with stuff. >_>

but as he said, nicely done.

Kabale · Dec 19, 2006, 02:44 PM // 14:44

The variation to the thumpers is 2 rao spearchuckers, aka packhunters ;p

remmeh · Dec 19, 2006, 02:52 PM // 14:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kabale

The variation to the thumpers is 2 rao spearchuckers, aka packhunters ;p

haven't seen spearchuckers NEARLY as widely used as the 2 RaO thumpers (aka the OoOo-certified build). the only people I've seen run dual R/P lately are JZ and his friend...

Divineshadows · Dec 19, 2006, 08:20 PM // 20:20

Quote:

Originally Posted by Van Goghs Ear

design? builds? thinking? just grab two thumpers and go...

anyways, good article on skill synergy IMO.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mokone

this is unfortunately so true. >_< 90% of the teams run two raos, 5% run 1, the other 5% try to run zero and experiment with stuff. >_>

but as he said, nicely done.

I made an effort to keep this article generalized away from specific character builds and I wanted its value to outlive the current TA metagame. However, rampage as one at the moment happens to be the most powerful skill for running a pressure melee character in Team Arenas. Reversal of fortune fails to do all that much against the frequency and damage packet sizes that the ranger and pet put out. Prot spirit and spirit bond do next to nothing (but rape dervishes of course). The only good protection skill against rampage thumpers is shield of absorption (cause guardian casts too slow). Using blind, crippled, or hexes against ramapage thumpers is also slightly weaker than against other melee characters (sins, warriros, and dervishes), because the pet and ranger each contribute approximately an equal amount of damage with 12 hammer mastery and 14 beast mastery.

Honestly, I cannot blame teams for running two rampage thumpers. Still, as my article points out there are many choices to be made even after deciding upon two rampage thumpers. What type of support character do you want to run with the two thumpers and monk? Obviously, running two rampage thumpers means you have specialized/overloaded on the melee damage aspect for your offense, so it is important that you are able to keep them clean enough. Therefore, you have some choices. You could run an E/Mo to bolster your defense using blind and perhaps weakness (or perhaps earth for wards instead) and use the monk secondary to distribute your removals. You could go more aggressive and run a Me/E with a fast-cast blinding surge, gale, diversion, shatter hex, and glyph of lesser (which means you probably should run draw conditions on your monk since only your monk has condition removal). You could go N/Mo for the monk secondary to distribute your removals and use the necro primary for a defense bolstered by hexes (but you better have a lot of hexes on this one character and enough energy management to power those hexes out). Other possibilities for the support character exist I'm sure. Also, there are choices as to which additional skills to bring in the thumper's two variable skill slots. Possible selections include distracting blow, wild blow, irresistable blow, disrupting lunge, beastial mauling, and some other possible skills to fill these slots. Your choices for these skills should depend highly upon what type of skills you are running on your support character and how much additional disruption you need at your disposal.

Most certainly, you can try to design a build that runs no rampage thumpers and actually exploits one of the glaring weaknesses of opposing rampage thumpers -- DPing the hell out of their pets to turn enemy thumpers into a weaker version of a hammer warrior and have their skill bar blacked out half the time. Traps (barbed and dust), degen spread across 6 characters (hex based or searing flames), or spiteful spirit on pets (yummy) each could be used in accomplishing this goal.

Basically, no matter what type of build you choose to design in TA at the moment you have to have a plan for beating the two rampage thumper, support character, and monk teams, because that is such a large part of the TA metagame since Nightfall was released.

Dzan · Dec 19, 2006, 10:41 PM // 22:41

To be honest, the way the meta game these days in TA forces your build to answer two questions well, and if you can't answer them, you won't beat good teams:

1. How will your build force melee kills despite all the melee hate that good teams bring?

2. How will your build deal with opposing melee characters given that good teams will have Purge Signet/Convert Hexes AND Draw Conditions or Melandru Dervishes to force kills through your defense?

VODA... · Dec 21, 2006, 08:37 AM // 08:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mokone

this is unfortunately so true. >_< 90% of the teams run two raos, 5% run 1, the other 5% try to run zero and experiment with stuff. >_>

but as he said, nicely done.

All true.. And why is this? It pwns.. Take 2 RaO thumpers, 1 SF ele and a monk to TA during noob hour and voila.. glad point heaven.

Not my favourite style, but i understand why people play this.

Absum · Dec 21, 2006, 07:01 PM // 19:01

Quote:

Originally Posted by remmeh

haven't seen spearchuckers NEARLY as widely used as the 2 RaO thumpers (aka the OoOo-certified build). the only people I've seen run dual R/P lately are JZ and his friend...

We certified a build? I'm not sure what to make of that comment rem ~,~

The meta has shifted a lot in efforts to deal with dual thump teams, and has been rather successful. Wards + WoD is a common theme now, along with various types of hexways that usually include spoil victor and/or reapers mark.

Saying that all you have to do in TA is roll up 2 thumpers and go is ridiculous; ability and experience is still required to make it work. However, at this point in the meta, teams that make more use of a few key NF skills do have a great advantage over those that don't, and if you try going in with a team that has no nightfall skills at all.. you're not going to get anywhere.

Agyar · Dec 22, 2006, 02:41 AM // 02:41

Quote:

Originally Posted by VODA...

All true.. And why is this? It pwns.. Take 2 RaO thumpers, 1 SF ele and a monk to TA during noob hour and voila.. glad point heaven.

Not my favourite style, but i understand why people play this.

Dunno about that SF Ele, pretty sure it's way more common to see a B-Surge in that spot.

Then again, bad teams will lose to pretty much anything with organisation, but you couldn't handle another team running something similar.

lauratos landof · Dec 23, 2006, 12:06 PM // 12:06

Smoke Trapper > Blinding Surge Ele imo.

Legendary Shiz · Dec 26, 2006, 06:22 AM // 06:22

Quote:

Originally Posted by lauratos landof

Smoke Trapper > Blinding Surge Ele imo.

Maybe in an NR build. Outside of that, hardly.

Chase the Sky · Dec 26, 2006, 04:58 PM // 16:58

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dzan

To be honest, the way the meta game these days in TA forces your build to answer two questions well, and if you can't answer them, you won't beat good teams:

1. How will your build force melee kills despite all the melee hate that good teams bring?

2. How will your build deal with opposing melee characters given that good teams will have Purge Signet/Convert Hexes AND Draw Conditions or Melandru Dervishes to force kills through your defense?

+1 to this.

Also, we normally try to have damage coming in from two different sources on two different toons and melee shut down on two different toons. Poorly designed teams will pack one toon full of all the support skills- when you pressure this person the whole build falls apart.

phan · Jan 16, 2007, 03:34 PM // 15:34

lol just take 4 touchers ^^ R/N the noobiest build ever but ...ok you will win but get very much complains etc...

sry for my english

Divineshadows · Jan 16, 2007, 06:40 PM // 18:40

Quote:

Originally Posted by phan

lol just take 4 touchers ^^ R/N the noobiest build ever but ...ok you will win but get very much complains etc...

sry for my english

I was tempted to delete this post since it presents false information and I do not want the less experienced in the community actually thinking that that is a good build. However, I recognized the conflict of interest since this is my own thread so I decided not to. I'll let another mod delete the post if they are in the mood.

Let me make this very clear. 4 touch rangers is not a good build. It gets destroyed easily by any team that can kite, focus fire, and:

- diversion vamp touch and/or vamp bite
- d-shot vamp touch and/or vamp bite
- disrupting lunge touch and/or bite
- hex snare, hex degen, run away and watch them die
- gale spam a touch ranger that is being focus fired
- cripple and condition degen and land d-shot on plauge touch

The 4 touch ranger build is even weaker than before now that ZB has come along with Nightfall. While it was more difficult for a blessed light or boon monk to deal with healing toucher damage, it was still quite easy to defeat those toucher teams unless one of your teammates decided not to kite.