Curse

Kaida the Heartless · Oct 06, 2006, 06:39 AM // 06:39

I stopped reading after page two.

Spikes are lame. Rolling a hard thought out build with 1 or 2 skills is completely imbalanced.

3, 2, 1, IMBA!!!

Lews · Oct 06, 2006, 07:29 AM // 07:29

DeeR tried one, but after running into QQ on the first map and being 16v8ed ( I love 3v3 Burial Mounds! ( no sarcasim, its fun again

) ) we ran balanced.

beat Brehon. Frenzy more plz.

No more tombs for me. GvG.

Diablo · Oct 06, 2006, 08:59 AM // 08:59

Quote:

Originally Posted by XxUberMonkeyxX

as for our guild hall we use the Ilse of Jade why? because we want to prove that you can be a sucessful spike team w.o having to use that fire ilse

Its already common knowledge that Isle of Jade is even better for spike builds then Fire Island is.. Because its even harder to split on Isle of the Jade. So you are trying to proof something that is already known.

JR · Oct 06, 2006, 04:10 PM // 16:10

(Deleted Posts: This is not a thread about TARD. Less trash talking.)

Oscar aka 'Hanz' · Oct 06, 2006, 11:24 PM // 23:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thom Bangalter

don't forget well of blood.

Heard rumors that one prominent spike guild attempted running balanced and brought a panic mesmer, a fire ele with no self sustainability (he was the runner) and some other random crap. Heard a guest raged after two people died back to back on the team in under 30 seconds.

thats funny if its true, but if you mock them for trying they'll just go back to playing a spike forever

jonnybegood · Oct 07, 2006, 07:01 AM // 07:01

any spikes not lame, any spike can be countered and because they have a straight and forward tactic it's easy to out play and out maneuver most spikes with ease.

Wasteland Squidget · Oct 07, 2006, 07:25 AM // 07:25

Quote:

Originally Posted by jonnybegood

any spikes not lame, any spike can be countered and because they have a straight and forward tactic it's easy to out play and out maneuver most spikes with ease.

No, it really isn't. If a spike's caller has any idea how to GvG, a spike can maneuver reasonably well, especially since they have so much room for stuff like movement control.

One spike that hasn't seen too much mention in this thread is Obs Flame spike. Having been on the recieving end of Deer's today (and having watched QQ lose to them), I've been pondering ways to play effectively against it and there really aren't a lot. Resolve + two copies of Stability makes their spike effectively uninterruptable, aside from Power Block or coordinated Wild Blow. If you can somehow manage to take out a spiker (Migraine might work) their spike isn't that strong, but the lack of counters combined with the massive number of wards is pretty painful. It's yet another spike that wins unless you have the right hard counter on your bar, which I really don't like.

lord of shadow · Oct 07, 2006, 09:19 AM // 09:19

It's a tricky one- the best i can come up with is lots of aoe because they are balling. cry might make a bunch of people lose energy if resolve is up, and it obviously fantastic when it's not. What's the spike like if you sit interrupts on the air ele? i'm thinking surging one resolve guy and interrupting the air ele might just stop it.

Wasteland Squidget · Oct 07, 2006, 10:35 AM // 10:35

Quote:

Originally Posted by lord of shadow

It's a tricky one- the best i can come up with is lots of aoe because they are balling. cry might make a bunch of people lose energy if resolve is up, and it obviously fantastic when it's not. What's the spike like if you sit interrupts on the air ele? i'm thinking surging one resolve guy and interrupting the air ele might just stop it.

We were running a smite build when we faced Deer, and AoE didn't seem all that effective. They can have several copies of wards, so there's a fair amount of room for them to kite around. Meanwhile, your warriors and offensive casters are getting spiked constantly.

I don't think a Surger would do it either, since Obs Flame only costs 5 energy base. That's not hard to focus swap. I guess you could surge them until they're out of energy and then interrupt, but while you're doing that your team will be dying to an unhindered spike. Spike counters need to be reliable and steady, not happening occasionally 3 minutes into the battle.

Migraine might just disrupt the spike enough, though I'm not sure how much hex removal the build can fit offhand.

Patrograd · Oct 07, 2006, 11:16 AM // 11:16

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wasteland Squidget

Migraine might just disrupt the spike enough, though I'm not sure how much hex removal the build can fit offhand.

I would agree that the uninterruptible spike is practically uncounterable. Our build has 2 crys, massive edenial and aoe damage, big, big pressure, and yet you face this kind of build what can you do? They can insta kill your pressure characters and you cant interrupt the air ele as he will use glyph concentration on his orb. I just dont know the answer. Even splitting doesnt seem to work against the better ones. It seems like as long as they are focussed there isnt much you can do

Migraine does work, but is largely useless otherwise, and even then it only works against teams who cant figure out that if one of them has migraine they need a longer countdown and to vary the timing of their button push accordingly, which any decent caster spike team will do.

Oscar aka 'Hanz' · Oct 07, 2006, 01:18 PM // 13:18

in builds that can fit a rit in, shelter/union will hurt an ele spike a LOT

of course they can take down shelter then spike the rit, but you can make them go through hell to do that.. they'll have to push out of their wards through your whole team into your backline, even if they get that far and kill shelter without taking deaths you know whos going to be spiked next, so pre prot

have to be careful about shelter being galed though, make them push to get the gale then hit the extenders

Seltack · Oct 07, 2006, 01:40 PM // 13:40

Downside of that is that you have to run a rit.

Sure it makes life a pain for spike teams but it makes all your matches take forever (better now VoD comes sooner, but still not my cup of tea).

Neo-LD · Oct 07, 2006, 02:33 PM // 14:33

Diversion. Lots, and lots, of Diversion. Psychic Distraction. Blackout. Fertile Season. Shelter. Migraine / Conundrum. Oh, and more Diversion.

Unfortunately, most of those counters are hard to fit into most builds. Except, of course, Diversion!

Once Nightfall comes out everyone will have access to "Incoming!" And the ladder will be purged.

Xasew · Oct 07, 2006, 03:26 PM // 15:26

Except that
-"Incoming!" is a Paragon elite
-It saves only 1 spike every 20 seconds
-Life stealing isn't affected by it, so its effectiveness against Blood Spike is limited.

Wasteland Squidget · Oct 07, 2006, 05:46 PM // 17:46

Incoming is an interesting skill, but I wouldn't say that it's going to 'purge' the ladder. It only becomes dangerous to spike if it's on bars rather than skill lists. While it's a strong spike counter, there are a lot of strong spike counters in the game already.

Besides, Incoming will only be really strong against Adrenospike. A caster or ranger spike will be spiking way too frequently for it to consistently keep everyone up.

I agree that Diversion on obs flame spike would probably help, if you could get it on there. Blackout is also a good point.

moriz · Oct 07, 2006, 05:52 PM // 17:52

the comment about diversion has got me thinking: perhaps the counter to such spikes are Mantra of Recovery-powered mesmers, spamming diversion left right and center. throw in a few Blackouts and Shatter Enchants while we're at it.

Wasteland Squidget · Oct 07, 2006, 06:00 PM // 18:00

Quote:

Originally Posted by moriz

the comment about diversion has got me thinking: perhaps the counter to such spikes are Mantra of Recovery-powered mesmers, spamming diversion left right and center. throw in a few Blackouts and Shatter Enchants while we're at it.

I'm not too big a fan of this guy with B-lights around so prevalently. Other than pure spikes he's not going to be that useful, though I guess he could always diversion just before your warriors adrenal spike. A Surge/Burner might be a stronger character, and he could still carry Blackout to disrupt the spike.

moriz · Oct 07, 2006, 06:08 PM // 18:08

i think such mesmers (the mantra of recovery ones) would be quite strong if used in twos and threes. the combined diversion spammage will not only cripple spikes, but can probably render most monk backlines completely useless. 2 - 3 diversions flying around every 5 seconds is gonna be some serious shutdown, not only for spikes.

but then, this will affect the rest of the team as well. but i think this idea deserves some serious thought. we'll have to see whether we can design a build around this or not.

Wasteland Squidget · Oct 07, 2006, 06:28 PM // 18:28

Quote:

Originally Posted by moriz

i think such mesmers (the mantra of recovery ones) would be quite strong if used in twos and threes. the combined diversion spammage will not only cripple spikes, but can probably render most monk backlines completely useless. 2 - 3 diversions flying around every 5 seconds is gonna be some serious shutdown, not only for spikes.

The larger issue with this character is that his shutdown is entirely reliant on only one skill, that's a long casting time. Diversion spam mesmers like this are just begging for a Distracting Shot. If a team lets this sort of mesmer play hell with its backline, the team's offense and disruption probably isn't doing its job.

These kinds of characters have their place though. The recharge on Shatter Enchantment under MoR is pretty nice, and being able to almost self-chain Aegis isn't a bad trick either. I'd be more likely to throw them into a pure adreno-spike build than any kind of pressure build though. Tele-spiking warriors and Shatter Enchants can be an extremely painful combination.

Neo-LD · Oct 07, 2006, 07:42 PM // 19:42

I dont think that the opponent's choice of monks (boon or b-light) makes much difference as to the effectiveness of MoR Diversion spammers. Its not like Im going to waste 10e removing Diversion from my full-hp monk partner. (well, there might be some extreme cases, but most of the time no).