Curse

Neo-LD · Sep 27, 2006, 05:41 AM // 05:41

I used GoL during the event - I was unimpressed. Although its spammable, cheap, and looks like a big heal, its actually pretty small compared to other things you can get. Its better than orison, but thats about it. I found myself using, reusing, and continuing to use GoL... its spammable but its just not that efficient.

Wasteland Squidget · Sep 27, 2006, 05:55 AM // 05:55

The other thing to remember is that there was a lot of testing going on during the weekend. I think that day was the first we've run GoL in GvG (not sure) and I know a lot of monks and players were experimenting with different bars. I'm not gonna say GoL is the best thing ever, but it seemed promising enough to merit testing while we had the opportunity.

Wasteland Squidget · Sep 27, 2006, 06:15 AM // 06:15

Version with music and credits. Use this if you haven't seen it yet: http://files.filefront.com/NUKEvKGYU.../fileinfo.html

Thom Bangalter · Sep 27, 2006, 07:36 AM // 07:36

when are we getting the damn t-shirts?

timmyw29 · Sep 27, 2006, 09:22 AM // 09:22

I'm going to say: Storm Djinn's Haste more plz. The skill that makes flagging just that little bit more hax, and that little bit less slow.

JR · Sep 27, 2006, 09:35 AM // 09:35

Quote:

Originally Posted by romO

Why didn't you just bring rof and save your elite spot for something useful? Glimmer of light at 16 healing < rof at 6 prot.

In a melee/dd heavy meta I would agree. When you can garauntee that people are going to be taking less frequent large packets of damage, then Prot is king. Against the current (especially over the weekend with Toxicity) condition degen builds I really think it is less effective. Your RoF's can't heal through heavy party wide degen, the best you can do is spam Mend Condition and Gift which you wont get a whole lot of mileage out of either.

On top of that you already have one Prot spamming guy in the form of the Blessed Light, is it really efficient to have another Reversal turret? Don't get me wrong; Healing as it is now is a fairly clunky and sad affair, I certainly wouldn't consider using junk like Orison or the marginally better Kiss. Infact the only two heals on my bar aside from Infuse were Nightfall skills; Glimmer of Light and Words of comfort.

Glimmer of Light at 14 Healing is an 81 point heal.
Words of Comfort at 14 Healing is a 114 point heal on someone with a condition.

Taking Divine Favor into account you are looking at 119 for Glimmer and 152 for Words. For five energy that is a lot of healing. I will readily admit that neither are as efficient as Gift on a one to one basis, but you can get a lot more out of that small degree of efficiency due to how spammable Glimmer is.

Blessed Light monks use prot for damage mitigation, limiting it to a point where they can heal through whatever does get through with Gift, Signet of Devotion, or Blessed Light. I think to be quite honest pressure builds break others when the Monks just can't keep up with it, due to so much unmitigated damage getting through in the form of degen or too many small packets of damage getting through to effectively prot against. Yes you can mop a lot of it up if you have a convenient Heal Party, but that doesn't cover every base.

A Glimmer of Light monk can sit back and top up bars efficiently and easily, with just one skill. Glimmer is money because it fills so many roles; It is to an extent a spike save against slower spikes where you don't need an infuse, it is a very strong self heal due to the cast time and recharge (fixing the durability problem that Healers have always had, also complimenting the use of Infuse), and it is a spammable efficient top-up.

Take into account that in the match against KGYU (who run a pressure build fairly well consistant to the metagame) the only deaths we took in the entire 20 minutes were on solo characters away from the main team, as far as I remember.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Neo-LD

I used GoL during the event - I was unimpressed. Although its spammable, cheap, and looks like a big heal, its actually pretty small compared to other things you can get. Its better than orison, but thats about it. I found myself using, reusing, and continuing to use GoL... its spammable but its just not that efficient.

It is made efficient by how spammable it is, because the more you use an efficient skill - the more you efficiency you can get out of it. You could have the most efficient heal in the world on an energy to effect ratio, but if you can't use it regularly enough it is junk. Spamability amplifies efficiency.

Wilhelm · Sep 27, 2006, 01:22 PM // 13:22

Hmm never seen a guild posting a video of their match on any other forums, outside of their actual guild forum.

Wait, this is the NUKE forum.....

JR · Sep 27, 2006, 03:02 PM // 15:02

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wilhelm

Hmm never seen a guild posting a video of their match on any other forums, outside of their actual guild forum.

Wait, this is the NUKE forum.....

Incorrect. This is MY forum.

Wasteland Squidget · Sep 27, 2006, 04:08 PM // 16:08

NUKE has a forum. This isn't it, and I wouldn't want it to be.

If another guild wanted to post a video of a particularly interesting match, along with commentary and the willingness to explain what is going on, I don't think I'd mind at all. If we got several I'd probably put them all into one dedicated thread here on the GvG forum. That kind of thing can be a good learning tool - much better than watching a random observer mode match, because you can hear an explanation for every strat being called and ask questions if you don't understand. I remember BBQ did a similar thing some time ago from the monk's perspective, and it was a big help to me in learning the basics of monking and positioning.

romO · Sep 27, 2006, 06:46 PM // 18:46

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wasteland Squidget

NUKE has a forum. This isn't it, and I wouldn't want it to be.

If another guild wanted to post a video of a particularly interesting match, along with commentary and the willingness to explain what is going on, I don't think I'd mind at all. If we got several I'd probably put them all into one dedicated thread here on the GvG forum. That kind of thing can be a good learning tool - much better than watching a random observer mode match, because you can hear an explanation for every strat being called and ask questions if you don't understand. I remember BBQ did a similar thing some time ago from the monk's perspective, and it was a big help to me in learning the basics of monking and positioning.

I think I may just be inclined to now post [girl] DP'ing Black Rose Gaming out. That was a rather amusing match. However, it has no real educational merit so it would kind of be a waste.

Anyway, in the arguement of healing versus damage negation, I think blessed light monks and boon prots have the potential to do all that's needed of that and running a healer only loses utility. Of course you're not going to be spamming rof versus a degen team, but the mend condition, sig of devo, blessed light, or gift of health that you have on your bar should be good enough in terms of topping off health bars. And then you still maintain the utility prot spells for sudden damage. The reason that Glimmer of light was put into the game was that the healing line would have a quick spell. My only objection is that if you're going to need to cast a quick spell like that, you're going to be better off casting a prot spell with a lot of utility. It may be effective when there is a lot of pressure or degen on your team and the health bars are all at the same place and low, as it offers a quick way to just bring them up, but I really can't think of too many times when I think I will ever need that. Usually, when that happens, no one dies anyway, and Glimmer is only being using for security reasons. A monk with a good conception of incoming damage and efficient use of heals such as gift or devo should be able to prevent such a situation of occuring at all. Of course, that's not to say that it won't, because it happens to even the best of teams, just very rarely, and in 99% of games, you can get away without it. It's just really not my favorite skill.

dansamy · Sep 27, 2006, 07:01 PM // 19:01

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wilhelm

Hmm never seen a guild posting a video of their match on any other forums, outside of their actual guild forum.

Wait, this is the NUKE forum.....

BBQ posted a match on TGH (I think it was TGH) with commentary. DPS has posted at least 2 matches on TGH. GWVersus and Team-iq both have match videos, some with comments, some without. You simply haven't looked through the forums well enough to be aware of the presence of some very good match vids from which you could learn a thing (or 4).

Patrograd · Sep 27, 2006, 07:25 PM // 19:25

I havent watched the whole fight through yet, but I have a couple of questions on the first few minutes

Firstly, NUKE seemed to adopt a very defensive position on the map, well on their side of the stand. Now as I understand it this is somewhat against conventional wisdom which says you should fight if possible on the far side. Was the positioning forced on you by KGYU or was it intentional?

Secondly, despite this defensive positioning, it seemed as if you got a couple of boosts early on. I was unable to see due to the nature of the film what the two flag runners were doing during this period, so I was wondering if you could explain what was happening with the two runners that allowed you, despite what appeared a poor position on the map, to force morale in this way.

stueyman2099 · Sep 27, 2006, 09:16 PM // 21:16

Quote:

Firstly, NUKE seemed to adopt a very defensive position on the map, well on their side of the stand. Now as I understand it this is somewhat against conventional wisdom which says you should fight if possible on the far side. Was the positioning forced on you by KGYU or was it intentional?

From my perspective as a Thumper:
Early on you'll see me push in (almost in Leeroy fasion) and start pressureing the mesmer, then swaping to monks. I look down at the map and relise that the battle is getting really strung out, with KGYU's warriors and rangers pushing very hard on our backline. As you pointed out, they had pulled back nearly to the corner on our side of the map. This doesn't really bode well for us, so I immediatly pull back to try and get some pressure off them by applying my hammer to Atlov's face (Which Kitiara does as well). In short, yes, they did force this position on us.

KGYU started off having a signifcant ammount more beatdown power than we did, 1; becuase we sent a warrior off to gank, and 2; becuase alot of our pressure comes from our death necro which requires some corpses before he can really get rolling. This allowed them to fight the battle on their terms.

Quote:

Secondly, despite this defensive positioning, it seemed as if you got a couple of boosts early on. I was unable to see due to the nature of the film what the two flag runners were doing during this period, so I was wondering if you could explain what was happening with the two runners that allowed you, despite what appeared a poor position on the map, to force morale in this way.

This is becuase of the warrior ganker we were running. We capped first intentionaly to force them to have to run another flag. As soon as their ele gets back to his base though, he has a pissed off warrior in his face to deal with, one that can easily criple him and is practicly immune to blind (due to "You're all Alone" synergized with Signet of Malice.) This allowed us to score a relitivly easy kill on him and delay their flag control significantly. After Fighting Polygons goes down, Elroy takes up the flag and tries to run it through their Vine Bridge. Squidget continues to cripple him with his shout, and then goes after him when he reaches the Bridge. I see this on the map and promptly join in and we kill Elroy, returning their flag again.

I can't comment so much on Rage (Timmy)'s position (hopfully he can later) but I do know that he was using Storm Djinn's Haste as opposed to Windborne Speed which gave him a significant speed boost compared to fighting polygons.

Wasteland Squidget · Sep 27, 2006, 10:41 PM // 22:41

Stuey is correct. The other major event which caused us to pull back initially was KGYU putting a Bull's Charge warrior (or maybe the other ranger, I don't remember for sure) on our flagger. While we had capped and our ganker did have their flag bottled up reasonably well, losing the flagger would still be problematic since he was the only source of Heal Party, and KGYU had pretty heavy degen pressure. We wanted to be able to safeguard our flagger as he moved between the base and the battle, and be in heal party range at all times.

We weren't too concerned about playing defensively at first, since the flagstand was securely ours. The idea was to force them to send back as much as we could in order to deal with the base ganker. Once a team had sent back a few things we'd switch the pressure to their monks suddenly and try to force a couple kills to feed the minion guy. Even if we take deaths in the process it's fine because we're the ones getting boosts. Once the minion guy gets rolling he just steamrolls a team with minions that can deal poison, bleeding, and disease.

Stuey dropping forced us to change our gameplan a lot, since we suddenly didn't have the pressure to force kills at the stand, even with a couple minions supporting. From that point on it was a game that could really only be won at VoD, with double damage and support from NPCs.

JR · Sep 27, 2006, 10:51 PM // 22:51

Quote:

Originally Posted by Patrograd

Firstly, NUKE seemed to adopt a very defensive position on the map, well on their side of the stand. Now as I understand it this is somewhat against conventional wisdom which says you should fight if possible on the far side. Was the positioning forced on you by KGYU or was it intentional?

A bit of both.

Prior to our second Thumper dropping, it was mostly intentional I believe. We had the stand capped, and they weren't going to get another flag out should it go well. The further they pushed us, the more time it would take them to get someone back to assist their flag runner and/or run another flag out. It was mostly playing a holding game with our flag stand team in a situation where we were down a Warrior, and just wanted to avoid DP. Getting the few kills we did on them was purely a bonus.

Around the time that the Thumper dropped, where flags begin to get critical, is where I believe we would have usually pushed back out hard to regain controll of our side of the stand. Maybe taking deaths, but that's acceptable if it helps getting the minion army churning out. Sadly the lack of that extra pressure basicly meant their backline could hold up against our push without too much difficulty. So at this point we should have been at even positions at the flag stand, but couldn't manage to get there.

Makkert · Sep 28, 2006, 12:05 PM // 12:05

thanks for sharing the vid. And thanks for the excellent write-up Squidget.

I found it not the easiest match to follow on vid, but I guess it wasn't originally recorded with the idea of sharing with the public. Auto-cam, no partywindows and small U map made it hard to track some things.

That said, I enjoyed it. Not only for the awesome music (Footloose AND Mighty Morphen Power Rangers? What a treat!

) , but also the glimpses it provided build/strat wise.

The malice-you're all alone War was the main thing that tickled my interest, I only saw the Paragon slightly in action in the vid, and was unable to fully view it's function in the build sadly.

I *think* I saw the following skils, correct me if I'm wrong:

"Find their weakness!"
Aria of Switftness
Anthem of Flame
Shields Up
Watch Yourself

~ Makk.

Patrograd · Sep 28, 2006, 02:05 PM // 14:05

Quote:

Originally Posted by Makkert

I *think* I saw the following skils, correct me if I'm wrong:

"Find their weakness!"
Aria of Switftness
Anthem of Flame
Shields Up
Watch Yourself

~ Makk.

I also saw, i think

Go for the Eyes!

kitiara · Sep 28, 2006, 03:30 PM // 15:30

your right on all 7 skills just missing Cautery Signet :P

stueyman2099 · Sep 28, 2006, 07:37 PM // 19:37

The paragon was put in for a combination of offense and defense. Watch Yourself at the larger shout radious was quite nice, as was Shields up. Anthem of Flame and Find their Weakness to support the thumper offense. Aria of Swiftness for the added movement. And of course Cautery Signet for Toxicity.

xAzNxStYlEx · Oct 16, 2006, 10:31 AM // 10:31

anygame vs kgyu are always good, as long as they doesnt talk trash which is even better than their gvg skill.
got to love the pressure ^^