Curse

Van Goghs Ear · Aug 25, 2006, 10:03 PM // 22:03

OP, your complaint about tactics is about the equivalent of a W/Mo raging on a caster for kiting in Random Arenas because they didn't stand there and take it like "a man"....

gratz IQ

chessyang · Aug 25, 2006, 10:22 PM // 22:22

Quote:

Originally Posted by blackbane

You can say all you want about how evil played, what happened, but hands down theyre the most impressive 8 people i have ever seen play guild wars.

Amen to that. but it must be freaking awlsome to be at Leipzig and playing in front of a crowd instead of your room or college.

http://www.guildwars.com/gallery/pho...onvention2006/

flame trap for win =)

Ensign · Aug 25, 2006, 10:36 PM // 22:36

EvIL couldn't spend more time in our NPCs trying to get kills. Their entire defense revolved around movement, when they went into our NPCs they just got blasted. On more than one occasion they were hammered hard just from those short trips into our base in game 3, and had to spend a few minutes stabilizing before going back in.

We gave them permanent morale boosts, full map control, and a slight NPC advantage. But none of that mattered because their build was so bad at fighting 8v8. EvIL is a bunch of amazing players, but they couldn't play their way out of Out Of Mana when the Guild Lord can't kite with Dark Escape up.

Peace,
-CxE

Spallenzani · Aug 25, 2006, 10:40 PM // 22:40

IQ qualified for this tournament by playing a build that a lot of people thought was "cheap", "gimmicky", or in some other way undesirable. But the build choice did exactly what it was designed to do: farm as much rating as possible in a short period of time.

A build that wins ladder matches with "style", that has a toolkit for facing almost anything you might come across, and has a higher win percentage than the build iQ used during the weekend ladder might be a great way to improve individual player skill and team cohesion. But no matter how well your team can play balanced, at the end of the day, you won't qualify for that last tournament spot if your build can't farm rating as fast as iQ's did.

Don't like it? Take it up with Anet for having poor ladder mechanics. Part of the problem might be the inherent bias towards rating farming that results from having minimum and maximum rating change caps. But don't blame iQ for understanding those mechanics better than anyone else and taking advantage of this knowledge.

IQ beat Evil by playing a build that a lot of people thought was "cheap", "gimmicky", or in some other way undesirable. But the build choice did exactly what it was designed to do: win the best two of three gvg matches, regardless of the time it takes to do so.

A build that wins tournament matches with "style" might be a great way to impress fans. But no matter how well your team can play balanced, at the end of the day, you won't get far in the tournament if you refuse to modify your build to respond to your opponent's strategy. It should have been clear to Evil, after game 2, that running 2 assassins, 2 BL monks, and very little AoE damage is a terrible idea if the other team can just camp till 35 minutes and force an 8v8. Evil failed to learn from game 2, and got knocked out of the tournament because of this mistake.

Don't like it? Take it up with Anet for having flawed gvg mechanics. Apart from the timing and behavior of the npcs, another issue worth looking at, again, might be Air of Enchantment smiting. The ability to spam Reversal and Guardian on your own Guild Lord for free, while doing damage to anything that gets into melee range, is the single biggest strength of a build designed to fight 8v8 at 35 minutes. But don't blame iQ for understanding these mechanics better than anyone else and taking advantage of this knowledge.

Kudos to iQ for playing smart, and for ignoring the scrubs who don't understand playing to win.

Vermilion Okeanos · Aug 25, 2006, 11:44 PM // 23:44

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

But none of that mattered because their build was so bad at fighting 8v8.

I don't believe that's true. However, we all know/believe iQ's build was better at 8vs8.

EvIL had no problem killing any 2 monks backline, and I think the extra monk + e/mo gave them more confusion to who to gale and to shatter.

Eun jong (their offensive mesemer) had 2 monks constantly in his view in the 1st match (saw him adjusting his own position all the time to keep an eye out), while 2nd match whenever 3 monks are not in 1 location, iQ suffer a death.

Aug 26, 2006, 12:24 AM // 00:24

I would have to agree and slightly modify Ensign's statement. Evil's build was proven as an 8v8 capable fighting build. But, like iB's build in game one(which was great fun to watch) couldn't deal so well with an 8v8 fight and a Guild Lord who's never heard of kiting(OMG YOU NOOB!). Although, I was so surprised at the modifications EviL made(almost none) for game 3. Seemed so unlike the guild that set out the perfect counter for WM in the last Tourney.
I wonder though if iQ discover the Mo/A exploiting during the first iB match or had this planned a long time coming...

Robster Lobster · Aug 26, 2006, 01:10 AM // 01:10

Congrats to iQ, played extremely well. And I loved the Glyph Of sacrifice, not just for Meteor Showers but some pretty awesome power resses at the end of game 3.

Although I do wonder if it might have gone differently had EvIL played much, much more offensively while iQ turtled, perhaps even trading death for death. They had morale for most of the match and could no doubt of handled the deaths, and if iQ had tried to punish them by pushing out after getting a few kills then EvIL could have played their way and ran iQ around again until iQ go back to turtling.

neoflame · Aug 26, 2006, 01:12 AM // 01:12

Play to win. Congrats to iQ for successfully taking advantage of the inherent weaknesses in EvIL's build, and the latter's apparent inability to adapt.

Dragonious · Aug 26, 2006, 02:39 AM // 02:39

Kudos to iQ. All I have to say. I picked EvIL to come out as the world champs again and honestly didn't even see iQ get past the match with iB. After seeing how they played in the first 2 rounds, all I can say is wow. They were extremely smart on all accounts and I wouldn't be suprised to see them as World champs. I'm looking for more exploitation of iQ's opponents in the finals because that had to be some of the best tactics I have seen. Congrats iQ and goodluck in the finals. Just one more round to show everyone that the underdog rules!

audioaxes · Aug 26, 2006, 03:01 AM // 03:01

what iq did is kinda like the equiv in a ctf fps tourney of a team over-camping their base. While its perfectly legal and a valid tactic, its an unspoken rule to not go overboard in camping and is frowned up by the community when this line is crossed on many games i played.

Loch · Aug 26, 2006, 03:49 AM // 03:49

Quote:

what iq did is kinda like the equiv in a ctf fps tourney of a team over-camping their base. While its perfectly legal and a valid tactic, its an unspoken rule to not go overboard in camping and is frowned up by the community when this line is crossed on many games i played.

Don't be a scrub. You're saying that winning is more frowned upon than losing by the community? Then the whole community needs to learn2play.

iQ basically understood their opponents and played accordingly. Kudos!

Smasher/Devourer · Aug 26, 2006, 03:52 AM // 03:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by audioaxes

what iq did is kinda like the equiv in a ctf fps tourney of a team over-camping their base. While its perfectly legal and a valid tactic, its an unspoken rule to not go overboard in camping and is frowned up by the community when this line is crossed on many games i played.

Who cares about what the community frowns on? I've played FPSs competitively as well, and in my experience, people who complain about camping are generally just players who aren't good enough to counter it. Yeah, it's an irritating tactic, but the goal of a competitive game, especially one with a lot of money on the line, isn't to give your opponent an easy time of it; it's to win the game.

Even aside from all that, your analogy still fails, because Guild Wars offers enough flexibility that you can assemble a build to address any tactical or strategic situation that might come up. EvIL saw that iQ were performing extremely well in VoD, and they almost certainly realized that iQ might try to hold out for VoD in game 3 before engaging fully. Yet they failed to adapt, and thus they were beaten. Good game.

Sincere congratulations to iQ on an exceptionally well played match, and an amazing upset. Good luck in the finals!

Phelann · Aug 26, 2006, 04:01 AM // 04:01

Quote:

Originally Posted by audioaxes

what iq did is kinda like the equiv in a ctf fps tourney of a team over-camping their base. While its perfectly legal and a valid tactic, its an unspoken rule to not go overboard in camping and is frowned up by the community when this line is crossed on many games i played.

I think this matchup proved what alot of people have been saying for a while: while iQ certainly aren't the best players in the game, they are definately the smartest. And when evil lets themselves be outsmarted for the reason TWICE - well iQ really did deserve that win.

Although I'm curious how they came up with the whirling/trapper/smite/glyphmeteorshower thing?

Red Locust · Aug 26, 2006, 04:07 AM // 04:07

tbh it's disappointing that the difference between EviL and iQ's builds decided the winner, as opposed to skill. But that is a fault of the game design more than anything, so I don't want to take away from iQ's win. gg.

Guillaume De Sonoma · Aug 26, 2006, 04:12 AM // 04:12

iQ has some wicked minds in the build factory for sure

MrBiggums · Aug 26, 2006, 04:17 AM // 04:17

They played to win. End of story. Doesn't mean they have to be respected for it. Iway players play to win and everyone looks down upon them. The same with the spike players and any other gimmicks. All they did was play to win. Everyone is just encouraging this kind of rediculous playing style that will lead to the downfall of guild wars pvp. All the good players left tombs before, and if this kind of shit keeps going people will leave gvg as well. Let's design a build that has to have us turtle for the first 30 minutes to win. Watch out...it could be the new style to gvg.

I pwnd U · Aug 26, 2006, 04:19 AM // 04:19

Congrats iQ, well fought matches even if people think that they were cheap wins. A win is a win no matter how it is won.

Fanta · Aug 26, 2006, 05:09 AM // 05:09

iQ just took advantage of the current state of the game. Doesn't make them lame for using soething totally acceptable, just shows anet they need some work to do on VoD mechanics

Symbol · Aug 26, 2006, 05:43 AM // 05:43

Quote:

Originally Posted by Red Locust

tbh it's disappointing that the difference between EviL and iQ's builds decided the winner, as opposed to skill. But that is a fault of the game design more than anything, so I don't want to take away from iQ's win. gg.

There's more to skill than just tactics. Flawless tactical execution means nothing without a sound strategy.

selber · Aug 26, 2006, 05:46 AM // 05:46

The matches were kind of a "meta-summary" (english is not my mother tongue, - so excuse this creation) from the impression I got over the last months: EvILs style to play this game is outdated. This game is not about showing skill on the battlefield anymore (maybe it never was). This is a thing of the past. The future are guilds like iQ. Bunnythumbers, Fastcastspike, Tripplesmite, VoD-doorexploits, taking advantage of the VoD-mechanics; - To watch for weakpoints in the game in order to take advantage of them. I hope many guilds will follow iQ. The game would deserve it.

Congratulations to iQ!