Curse

romO · Oct 07, 2006, 07:44 PM // 19:44

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wasteland Squidget

Having been on the recieving end of Deer's today (and having watched QQ lose to them)

We didn't lose to Deer. I believe we beat them flawless? I'm not completely sure, but it was close. What we lost to today was a random obs flame spike on burning isle that camped their lord until VoD. We got a couple kills on them, and they got a couple on us, but that was all until VoD. They had killed several of our NPCs in the first minute because we killed the flame sentinels in order to split. When VoD came around, they just sat back, ran up and spiked out NPCs one by one because obs flames were doing 140 damage on targets with 400 life. Once all of our NPCs were down, they changed to spiking our team. Everyone couldn't be preprotted, and everyone who wasn't would instantly die. This went on until the lords came out and they were able to spike out our monks and kill the lord. I really hope this strategy doesn't become the spike meta, because it will just perpetuate the lameness.

HolyHawk · Oct 07, 2006, 07:52 PM // 19:52

Nightfall will certainly add a few tools to power up spikes, as well to counter them. I'm not sure on the skills, but "go for the eyes" and "find your weakness" (sth like that) will make a ranger spike undodgeable, you will need to cut dmg directely from spikers. Also, wasn't there a paragon elite that negated additional dmg if target more than "x" per second, that could help in any way?

Spike is just a way to crawl the ladder, but it doesn't prove much on the player itself; it won't make him less "worthy" as well; he has a good conection, low ping, hopefully a perceptive tactics caller, and as consolation, will always be baited by someone and will die alone.

I can think of fertile season as a possibility to spike a spike team back; if you are running a degeneration team, debilitate the spike team, make them turn into defense mode, pick a good time to let fertile die, and finish them off; but I just got the image that fertile is such a Heroes Ascent skill hehe. Ranger spike can be funny at times; before we go into a match everynight, I take some time observing what people are playing, to decide if, as a mesmer I should take inspired enchantment; so many matches I added a few extra death points or protection points, not bringing any spells linked to these attributes, and turning into a tainted mesmer or a bonder. Really, we do have the tools against spikes. Balanced builds, being balanced, should stay alert and having one or another thing to stand against them. If balanced loses to spikers, no matter how sucky spikers are as players, these balanced players have just been naive.

Gumby · Oct 07, 2006, 09:52 PM // 21:52

About the obs spike teams crowding in wards.. run around their stupid healing ball and kill their NPCs. They'll have to move and setup again closer to you, so just move and kill their bodygaurds or w/e... just keep moving around.

P.S. I don't understand how some of you seemingly average or above average players at best (but certainly not amazingly leet) can call 130 scrubby, while i cant even find a guild in the top 700.. :S

Lews · Oct 07, 2006, 10:17 PM // 22:17

Not flawless we killed Kestrel once Tommy once and I think Famous or Smgzor a few times as well. Good monking + lots of interupts + kds hurt.

Lews · Oct 07, 2006, 10:19 PM // 22:19

Anything not in the top100 is scrubby, and most teams outside of the top 20 are bad and most teams outside of the top 10 are not great.

Wasteland Squidget · Oct 07, 2006, 11:23 PM // 23:23

Yeah, sorry Tommy, got confused on your losses yesterday. It was [grwl] that QQ lost to, not Deer.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gumby

About the obs spike teams crowding in wards.. run around their stupid healing ball and kill their NPCs. They'll have to move and setup again closer to you, so just move and kill their bodygaurds or w/e... just keep moving around.

This can be viable at times, but bear in mind that bodyguards + archers add a fair amount of pressure to your team. Spikes are much harder to catch when you're healing NPC pressure, and if you're still dying in 8v8 the battle taking place in their base won't save you. Spike builds also have a lot of room for utility skills like Deep Freeze and Charge.

Ensign · Oct 08, 2006, 12:35 AM // 00:35

Most teams *in* the top 10 aren't great. Spike teams are having a lot of success farming the ladder because they don't eat losses to random rit teams in the 20-150 range now that Rits have been nerfed into the ground. Things are more mindlessly farmable than they've been in a long time. With EvIL gone and War Machine taking a break, we're looking at one of the weakest top 16s in a long time.

Thanks to the new playoff structure, though, that just means there's going to be a lot of chaff headed to the losers brackets in a couple weeks.

Peace,
-CxE

Lews · Oct 08, 2006, 12:57 AM // 00:57

We'll see.

TheOneMephisto · Oct 08, 2006, 02:11 AM // 02:11

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lews

We'll see.

Well, no offense but all the spike guilds will have to pull out something that they probably haven't practiced much or are very good at (by that I mean top 16 good) unless they want to be owned by pure counters (shelter rit? diversion spammers? blackouts like mad?).

Lews · Oct 08, 2006, 03:32 AM // 03:32

I can't talk for the other spike guilds but you think we haven't done any balanced builds in unrated or on other guilds? 0.o

around · Oct 08, 2006, 08:18 AM // 08:18

The thing is, balanced players need to be less negative.

I was speccing cow playing some rank 300 odd team running a modified obflame spike, when someone on observer promptly cries, "omg obsflame is overpowered".

So I run off a list of counters: Diversion, Migraine, Gale etc etc. The person then proceeds to tell me why each of those counters doesn't work.

Be more positive, man. At least try them before slagging them off. If spike becomes so prevalent in the metagame, people need to learn and adapt, instead of whining about how XYZ FotM is overpowered.

Wasteland Squidget · Oct 08, 2006, 08:40 AM // 08:40

Quote:

Originally Posted by spawnofebil

The thing is, balanced players need to be less negative.

I was speccing cow playing some rank 300 odd team running a modified obflame spike, when someone on observer promptly cries, "omg obsflame is overpowered".

So I run off a list of counters: Diversion, Migraine, Gale etc etc. The person then proceeds to tell me why each of those counters doesn't work.

Be more positive, man. At least try them before slagging them off. If spike becomes so prevalent in the metagame, people need to learn and adapt, instead of whining about how XYZ FotM is overpowered.

I think Neo said it best earlier in this thread:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Neo-LD

When people complain about a gimmick, imo they arent complaining that they have lost in general, they are really complaining about the depressing fact that they just lost to a bunch of idiots.

My problem with Obs Flame spike isn't so much that it's overpowered as a build, but that it's yet another build that requires a very specific counter in order to play successfully against. If you don't happen to be running a Dom mesmer (or extremely heavy hexes in some cases), you're screwed and there's next to nothing you can do if they don't make any glaring mistakes.

The game needs more builds which can be outplayed through player skill or general counters, and less builds that require extremely specific counters. Unfortunately, most of the popular spikes fall into the second category.

Zui · Oct 08, 2006, 08:44 AM // 08:44

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wasteland Squidget

The game needs more builds which can be outplayed through player skill or general counters, and less builds that require extremely specific counters.

QFT. Although I see the later type of builds becoming more and more common with every coming chapter.

Neo-LD · Oct 08, 2006, 04:03 PM // 16:03

For clarification:

I dont think anyone here, myself included, wants to see a situation in Guild Wars where build is completely irrelevent. Where it doesnt make a difference what skills you brought. Where every single strategy is equally viable. Such a situation would completely destroy the strategic side of this game. Who wants to play a game where bringing mending paladins gives me an equally good chance to win as bringing shock axes?

That said, in every single game, one side will have an advantage, if ever so slight, over the other side. This is fine - its inevitable because of how many different strategies are available to choose from. This in and of itself is nothing to complain about - as long as there is an appreciable chance for an upset.

Right now its this last part thats out of wack. I wouldnt mind if teams lose more times than they win against teams that dont have right counters for. Thats just the nature of build advantage. But for teams to lose almost every single god damned time... there is something wrong.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Everyone needs to remember that theres no rule saying that you cant stack your build against spike. Before, when spikes were rare, the argument that they werent common enough to take counters to worked. But now that they are more and more common, common enough to warrant a thread such as this... why not stack more counters? I think spike is becoming common enough that people can stop complaining that its too rare to justify using skill slots in their build to counter it. People need to stop being stubborn and adapt to the new meta, which includes spike.

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Last night I was guesting for a friend's guild, we did very well. One of our games was against a smurf of a certain spike guild. We thought that maybe they were running balanced on their smurf... perhaps taking to heart all the good advice in this thread? But no, they were running spike... just a different kind. We won by splitting. After the game I had an interesting conversation with a member of their team, where he accused me / "my guild" of doing "nothing but gank." I calmly tried to explain to him that we had fought the previous 5+ guilds 8v8 because we were a strong 8v8 build, but only split because we saw what they were running. But he was insistent. I tried to discern from him exactly why he expected everyone to fight them 8v8, where they are strongest. No answer, just more accusations. I suppose no one will ever solve the puzzle that is the mind of the spike scrub.

yesitsrob · Oct 08, 2006, 05:35 PM // 17:35

Quote:

where he accused me / "my guild" of doing "nothing but gank."

We've had that one before... something like "do you do anything except run around?".... RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GOing idiots. It's like they expect us to fight scrubblood spike 8v8 without infuse.

Patrograd · Oct 08, 2006, 07:33 PM // 19:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by spawnofebil

If spike becomes so prevalent in the metagame, people need to learn and adapt, instead of whining about how XYZ FotM is overpowered.

So if I bring a build with plenty of interrupts, diversion, blackout, massive AOE edenial, I should be able to fight 8vs8 against obflame spike, right? This is how teams always used to counter spike back in the old days during the last spike boom before Christmas. Guess what happens if you CoF a mantra of resolve ele? Nothing. what happens if you shock one in his ward stability? Nothing. Gale? Nothing. Hammer KD? Nothing. Maybe I could edrain him? Right, he needs 5 energy to spike out of a 70 odd energy pool.

The ONLY counters are diversion and blackout, but to be honest it takes a pretty scrubby spiker to allow his ob flame to get taken by diversion. In practise he'll cancel and miss that spike as he understands that missing one spike is less damaging to his team than missing the next 50 seconds. And this assumes your diversion mesmer actually stands a chance of staying alive long enough to get some diversions off, which given a good caller on the spike team is unlikely. So this leaves you the choice of being a mesmer and running up to touching distance for blackout. Lets hope the caller on the spike team is a total scrub then.

How can this be anything but overpowered? Basically, I need to split, which on some maps is easier said than done, and then, even assuming a perfectly executed split, I need to either have a build capable of a quick gank or with enough built in mobility to run around for 20 minutes without accruing significant DP and then, OK, in VOD we have an advantage if we are ahead on NPCs, finally a level playing field. Seems pretty lame that I have to play out of my skin for 20 minutes and make no mistakes at all, just to level the playing field. Seems pretty lame that there are some maps where I cant even do that much.

pigdestroyer · Oct 08, 2006, 09:13 PM // 21:13

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lews

Anything not in the top100 is scrubby, and most teams outside of the top 20 are bad and most teams outside of the top 10 are not great.

I guess by that youre implying that deer is good... lol

s w o r d y · Oct 09, 2006, 12:33 AM // 00:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by Neo-LD

For clarification:
. I suppose no one will ever solve the puzzle that is the mind of the spike scrub.

It's a one piece puzzle

Wasteland Squidget · Oct 09, 2006, 02:00 AM // 02:00

Quote:

Originally Posted by Neo-LD

For clarification:

I dont think anyone here, myself included, wants to see a situation in Guild Wars where build is completely irrelevent. Where it doesnt make a difference what skills you brought. Where every single strategy is equally viable. Such a situation would completely destroy the strategic side of this game. Who wants to play a game where bringing mending paladins gives me an equally good chance to win as bringing shock axes?

Me. I'd absolutely love to play a game where the win was determined by the most skillful players rather than who brought the best build. I'd love to play a game where neither side has an obvious advantage when the gates open. A ladder where only a few carefully balanced builds were allowed (like a fighting game) or even mirror builds would be a hell of a lot of fun for me.

I understand I may be in the minority on this, but the whole "playing the ladder" aspect of Guild Wars always grated with me. Even if the rating balances out, I absolutely hate taking losses to sucky teams because their build randomly countered ours. There is no build that counters everything equally, so you're always left with holes and take inevitable losses/mismatches as a result. When the gates open I'd love it if both teams had an equal chance of winning and losing, irrespective of the builds they brought.

Just me though.

s w o r d y · Oct 09, 2006, 02:15 AM // 02:15

[QUOTE=Wasteland Squidget] There is no build that counters everything equally, so you're always left with holes and take inevitable losses/mismatches as a result. When the gates open I'd love it if both teams had an equal chance of winning and losing, irrespective of the builds they brought.
QUOTE]

hmm, dont' totally agree although I sort of do.

I think "the build" is a great feature of GW, it has a contribution to winning along with build execution (developing a build is in itself a skill). And the 8 skill restriction means that you simply can't plan for everything, but tactical execution can narrow any gaps if you hit an extreme build mismatch. Well it should anyway, and that's simply the old chestnut of "balance"