Curse

Winstar · Nov 16, 2006, 09:04 PM // 21:04

I never thought I'd get into this, but besides the free faction, it was kinda fun. The matches have a nice pace to them. That said this is woefully easy at this point. I spent a long time using 3 central altar holding heros (monk/ele/paragon) and then rolled various builds with an assassin secondary for dash/shadow of haste. In 90+% of the matches I could just send my heros to cap the alter and slowly build up points while I flew around the map capping everything. Most teams couldn't even come close to producing enough damage to push 3 heros off (this is a statement about the sad state of the arena skill level not my own skill...). I'd then push back join the fray and wipe them. Sometimes teams would want to battle me for shrine control and start sending people all over the map. I ran around and capped behind and let them chase me all over while my heros twiddled their thumbs and collected points from morale.

Most people just don't seem to know what they are supposed to do and what alters do, and even simple things like controling the central shrine gives you poinst towards victory. Is there even a rudimentary tutorial in game somewhere that explains how any of it goes? Its not hard to pick up, but it would be good if people jumping in for the first time had a better idea of whats going on.

Celab · Nov 16, 2006, 09:54 PM // 21:54

To me, hero battles are a fun alternative to most of the PvP in the game atm.

For 1, HvH takes ages to actually get a competent team. RA generaly sucks and theres not alot of competant pugs in TA anyway. Sure GvG is fun, but you cant get anywhere unless your 31337, then your stuck. HvH is the only other game which takes a little bit of thinking.

That, and its great for balth faction farming.

Konqq · Nov 17, 2006, 10:13 PM // 22:13

I've been playing hero battles for the past couple days, come up with a build that can beat most people, even many of the experienced ones (Name: I Sea Yew). Hero battles is something new and different. HA is pretty dull now with searing flames every 2 of 3 builds. The only "Elite hero battles" build that you CAN run is searing flames or you get your rear handed to you finely cooked. On the other hand, I think that an actual elite hero battle would be deserted really. I figure that the best thing to do would be to create some type of title for it for maybe 5 wins in a row for a point or something along those lines.

Sure, it isn't as strategic as HA or GvG... but it takes way less time to organize.

furbat · Nov 21, 2006, 04:42 PM // 16:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by Konqq

I've been playing hero battles for the past couple days, come up with a build that can beat most people, even many of the experienced ones (Name: I Sea Yew). Hero battles is something new and different. HA is pretty dull now with searing flames every 2 of 3 builds. The only "Elite hero battles" build that you CAN run is searing flames or you get your rear handed to you finely cooked. On the other hand, I think that an actual elite hero battle would be deserted really. I figure that the best thing to do would be to create some type of title for it for maybe 5 wins in a row for a point or something along those lines.

Sure, it isn't as strategic as HA or GvG... but it takes way less time to organize.

My 2 dervish/paragon/monk build destroys searing flames /shrug. My dervish lime tang really only has problems with really defensive builds + a gank sin.

My problem with hero versus hero is that ultimately people will discover that the way to win on every map but one is the following team.

1) monk
2) paragon
3) something that adds some defense (trapper, another monk, R/rit for spirit spam, i use a dervish with imbue health and ebon aura, or ele with heal party and blinding flash)
4) skirmish runner. (Assasin running recall and YAA)

I have started to see a lot of this. Basically winning by maintaining controll of the mercenary shrine and using the mercenary to have more players than the opponent thus holding the center shrine. There is no way to beat theese builds on maps with mercenaries, and even if you score 10 kills to their 0 they still win.

The problem with this is, is it leads to very borring battles. They need to make it so mercenaries do not count as players for holding the center shrine. There is no way to beat a gank sin using a teleport ability set to the mercenary shrine 2 monks + a motivation paragon running angelic bond. Only way to win is to play a character that can solo a assasin made for soloing ie stance warrior or another assasin.

Letting people win without getting a single kill is retarded.

Abdul · Nov 22, 2006, 12:07 AM // 00:07

I second that concern. I used to play hero battles for a nice change in pace, to get avoid playing defensive vod builds in GvG and holding builds in HA. Now all I am seeing in hero battles are the teams furbat described. Camp the center shrine with defensive characters, and control the merc shrine with a ganker. Not worth wasting 10 minutes of my life for such a small amount of faction.

Legendary Shiz · Nov 22, 2006, 12:19 AM // 00:19

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thom Bangalter

Based on how HA currently operates, HA is, in fact, the elite Hero vs Hero arena.

QFT

You beat me to it Thom.

shardfenix · Nov 25, 2006, 08:08 AM // 08:08

Here's the thing about hero battles. It's like HA. It's filled with the same 2 builds. Ironically, these are the same builds as in HA. Lame. From the time you enter a hero battle, you don't need skill to win. It's a coin toss. You could be the best player in the game with the best balanced build you could think of, and still get beat by a noob running dervish paragon and monk. Each build's offense is so overwhelming that it's basically a damage battle.

The more offense a build has over its own defense, the more imbalanced a battle becomes.

Darkpower Alchemist · Nov 26, 2006, 09:54 AM // 09:54

Imbalanced? It sounds like it's a "Kill or be killed!" situation to me. If you would say that offense on top of defense wins the day, then that sounds like skill to me.

So a 2 ranger team(interupter/trapper set)+1 paragon+ 1 monk, should have a hold on things then,correct? If you disagree,I can understand, however, the fact of offense and defense being done "without skill' is rather unheard of.

Or do you prefer a balanced build like previously mentioned? Either way, having no skill is not really the case when a 4 man team is involved,it is just someone did what was needed to win.

Now,if you say not killing anyone isn't skill,since the defensive build is not what you think should be played in a 4 man team(I.E. Like in AB), and you think maximum killing potential is what a 4 man team should be about,then that is an opinion and not fact.

I can respect that opinion,but that doesn't mean I agree with it.

Gli · Nov 26, 2006, 08:18 PM // 20:18

An Elite Hero Battle...

I'm not sure if I like that idea.

"Why not?" you ask.

Because I still haven't been able to unlock the regular Hero Battles for my account.

It seems nothing short of creating a PvP character will do it.

That means I either have to buy an extra slot or delete an existing character.

No thanks.

They're having a Balthazar-blasted Hero Battles weekend and they didn't even bother fixing the Balthazar-blasted bug that stops some accounts from unlocking the Balthazar-blasted place with PvE characters.

I'm rather annoyed, if you didn't notice.

TheOneMephisto · Nov 26, 2006, 10:48 PM // 22:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by shardfenix

Here's the thing about hero battles. It's like HA. It's filled with the same 2 builds. Ironically, these are the same builds as in HA. Lame. From the time you enter a hero battle, you don't need skill to win. It's a coin toss. You could be the best player in the game with the best balanced build you could think of, and still get beat by a noob running dervish paragon and monk. Each build's offense is so overwhelming that it's basically a damage battle.

The more offense a build has over its own defense, the more imbalanced a battle becomes.

Yea, not really. I've been running a HvH build for faction farming this weekend, and that's nothing close to what I do. The best builds that I've played/I play are a hyper-defensive hero team with a solo-gankertype character (the player) that just caps the mercenary shrine and uses the extra man to cap the center shrine.

For the record, I don't think that I've ever been beaten by dervish/para/monk or anything like searing flames, and the only maps that I lose to massive pressure on more often than 1% of the time is the catapult map (due to no merc).