Curse

shardfenix · Jul 25, 2006, 06:35 AM // 06:35

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jagan Vastary

You don't understand what kiting means, how is this the other guys fault?

My, that's quite ignorant of you. Try doing research before saying a rank 9 infuser for Rnub, Pi, and Kastro doesn't know how to kite.
Rule number 1 of criticism: Have at least some clue what you're talking about.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jagan Vastary

Except, you know, for the boon. Really they are subpar active prots.

what aoe smiters in gvg dont bring boon? They're more brainless than I thought.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jagan Vastary

He said Ward vs melee is good against thumpers. Now, if irresistable blow didn't have a recharge, then maybe you would have a point here.

it doesnt. By the time IB recharges, your target ios just finishing getting up from the last one.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jagan Vastary

Last time I checked, e-drain drains energy and gives it to you. Think of your e-drain as taking away 2-3 irresistable blows.

2 problems with your theory.
1: most thumpers have a thing called energy regen.
2: to shut down their IB, you need to drain them down to 0.

Also, if your monks are using energy drain to shutdown an opponent, you need new monks.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jagan Vastary

Where do you get that number? 3 pips for Ferocious strike? At 16 BM, it is 5 net energy every 8 seconds(according to GuildWiki), assuming the pet attack hits right away, which it most likely won't.

Umm...unless your thumper happens to be a ranger primary with 15 expertise. IB costs 2 and gives 10, netting 8 energy. 8 energy in 8 seconds = 3 regen. and it doesnt have to hit right away, as long as you get the attack in before the next time you use it. Please before you try to prove someone wrong (especially a rank 9 kiting infuser), have at least some clue what youre talking about.

There are players on the forums who make points based on experience. You, obviously, are not one of them. Not to offend you, which i probably already have, but actually playing these builds for yourself, and playing against them, will make you much better at arguing topics like these.

Byron · Jul 25, 2006, 06:41 AM // 06:41

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jagan Vastary

He said Ward vs melee is good against thumpers. Now, if irresistable blow didn't have a recharge, then maybe you would have a point here.

Irresistible in a ward is either a KD or a hit, and with a 4s recharge, a thumper is the most ward-resistent melee character out there IMO. Wards are also utterly stable, so seeing that as a counter in GvG play isn't well advised.

Quote:

Last time I checked, e-drain drains energy and gives it to you. Think of your e-drain as taking away 2-3 irresistable blows.

The point of using e-drain is to get energy for yourself, not take energy away from enemies. Good monks will drain pets or spirits to make sure they get 16 energy with every drain, to maximize efficiency. Coming up short on a drain could be devastating.

Jagan Vastary · Jul 25, 2006, 07:38 AM // 07:38

Quote:

Originally Posted by shardfenix

My, that's quite ignorant of you. Try doing research before saying a rank 9 infuser for Rnub, Pi, and Kastro doesn't know how to kite.
Rule number 1 of criticism: Have at least some clue what you're talking about.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wasteland Squidget

Your options in GvG against a good team are always kite or die.

Quote:

Originally Posted by shardfenix

So the point of gvg is to have 2 teams of 8 people who run away from each other and never fight? hmm...no wonder we keep losing.

What do you want me to say? Stuff like this just makes you sound ignorant.

Quote:

Originally Posted by shardfenix

it doesnt. By the time IB recharges, your target ios just finishing getting up from the last one.

Ward vs melee is evasion. So you just get a +damage hit, no KD. Also, with a reload of attackspeed+4, I'm not sure how you are chain KDing someone with a base 2 second KD.

Quote:

Originally Posted by shardfenix

2 problems with your theory.
1: most thumpers have a thing called energy regen.
2: to shut down their IB, you need to drain them down to 0.

Energy is a limited resource, so energy drain on a thumper isn't exactly a wasted effort. Assuming you get the full +16, its a whole lot better to use it on a ranger than say his pet.

Quote:

Originally Posted by shardfenix

Also, if your monks are using energy drain to shutdown an opponent, you need new monks.

Monks aren't using it for shutdown, they are using it for e-management. A side effect of e-drain is that it also has the potential to be used offensively. It's a similar concept to power draining something like diversion. You are making the enemy team's offense work harder for what they have to do.

Quote:

Originally Posted by shardfenix

Umm...unless your thumper happens to be a ranger primary with 15 expertise. IB costs 2 and gives 10, netting 8 energy. 8 energy in 8 seconds = 3 regen.

Yeah, I overlooked expertise, quite an oversight, I agree. Assuming at least 13 expertise, and at least 14 beast mastery, you can get a theoretical 3 pips out of Ferocious strike. You can come up with the att split for that with hammer.

Quote:

Originally Posted by shardfenix

and it doesnt have to hit right away, as long as you get the attack in before the next time you use it.

If it doesn't hit right away, its reload time is longer, therefore you get less energy from it over time.

Quote:

Originally Posted by shardfenix

Please before you try to prove someone wrong (especially a rank 9 kiting infuser), have at least some clue what youre talking about.

Can I just touch your tiger emote? Just once.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Byron

Irresistible in a ward is either a KD or a hit, and with a 4s recharge, a thumper is the most ward-resistent melee character out there IMO. Wards are also utterly stable, so seeing that as a counter in GvG play isn't well advised.

Being ward resistant doesn't change the fact that ward against melee is extremely effective against melee. Wards in GvG aren't so farfetched, imo.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Byron

The point of using e-drain is to get energy for yourself, not take energy away from enemies.

Agreed, but the job of a monk is to keep your team alive. If e-draining an offensive player helps you do that, why not?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Byron

Good monks will drain pets or spirits to make sure they get 16 energy with every drain, to maximize efficiency. Coming up short on a drain could be devastating.

If you run into energy problems, which you likely will, draining a pet or spirit is obviously the best choice. I seriously doubt you'll be in range of an enemy spirit in a standard flagstand battle, but pet's are an obvious choice.

Divineshadows · Jul 25, 2006, 05:56 PM // 17:56

Quote:

Originally Posted by shardfenix

Balance groups I play with often have 3 damage dealers, 12 for monks, the other for whatever is screwing our team. The thing about thump smite is...you cant kill them. Not only are they near invincible, they also have a glowing aura of pwnage dealing 50dps to everything that walks by them.
Ward melee is good against irresistable blow...explain this concept to me.

By 3 damage dealers, do you mean 3 warriors? If so, then why are sending 2 after their monks? A monk kiting your warrior is one of the most efficient things that monk can do, since a monk doing so reduces the damage their team is taking and you are leaving their offense free to do whatever they want to your team. However, if your warriors pressure something other than their boon prots or other purely defensive monks (i.e. non smite monks), then they are disrupting them from the role they were trying to fulfill. If they have two smiters and two thumpers and you have 3 warriors, then I would have 2 warriors pressure their smiters (and not their boon prots) switching off momentarily when necessary to force them to kite or die. This would help get rid of the glowing aura on the thumpers allowing your 3rd warrior to run around hitting thumpers and knocking them down.

Yep, thumpers being smited off of must be invincible. They have never died in any match against a balanced team that did not use smite as well. Explain this concept to me.

Are you saying that if your team has ward v melee and you come across a team with 2 thumpers you are not going to use this ward at all? I don't see how having their thumpers have some of their normal swings miss (which means bash charging slower) and some of their pet's attacks miss (perhaps even some ferocious strikes) is anything but a good thing.

Quote:

Originally Posted by shardfenix

Try doing research before saying a rank 9 infuser for Rnub, Pi, and Kastro doesn't know how to kite.

Having played alongside you in HA on multiple occassions, I can honestly say you are better at infusing than I was when it came to anticipating their spike target and responding quickly. However, when I played the infuser and you were on the channeling prot monk a couple months back, I observed your kiting and have to say it was not what I was expecting from a monk. When you PUGed for me when I led There Is No Cow Level, we always lost to Order of Apostosy IWAY and you would get multiple warriors on you and instead of pre-kiting and causing them to train you and let the 2 other monks take care of you I saw you spamming prots in desparation. When we used 3 monks from my guild, we would at least win 50% or perhaps more of our matches against OoA IWAY and our defense against warriors consisted mainly of ward against foes and very, very strong kiting from all players on our team and our prot monk wouldn't even bother with casting Aegis or the like.

Now, 2 months have passed so it is possible that your kiting skills have improved significantly, but I still see you fussing on the forums constantly about OoA IWAY so this creates doubt in my mind.

I have always been of the opinion that monks used to playing in pure spike (such as ranger or necro) teams don't have to learn how to kite as well as monks used to playing in builds based on warrior pressure, because the spike team can just target the enemy warriors first.

Quote:

Originally Posted by shardfenix

So the point of gvg is to have 2 teams of 8 people who run away from each other and never fight? hmm...no wonder we keep losing. We were trying to deal damage and cap flags.

Kiting or non-kiting aside, I honestly stand by my viewpoint that your team is not using a balanced build to properly pressure if they allow the thumpers to just go wild on your monks. [Pi] is used to playing spike if I recall correctly, so it is expected that there would be difficulty in trying to get players used to playing spike to adapt to playing balanced. Also, consider the possibility of splitting agressively by sending a team to gank their base if you are facing dual smite and want to minimize their opportunities for zealot's fire and balthazar's aura to hit multiple people on your team at once.

As long as the players in [Pi] are not raging and take the time to discuss matches win or lose to try to learn from mistakes made, then I think they will be fine making the adjustment to running a balanced build in GvG.

Quote:

Originally Posted by shardfenix

You are forgetting that I've helped guilds get to top 100.

How many guilds? How many of those guilds were running spike?

Byron · Jul 26, 2006, 06:44 AM // 06:44

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jagan Vastary

Stuff like this just makes you sound ignorant.

A good warrior will make any softie pay dearly for not kiting at any point. And there are some good warriors out there.

Quote:

Ward vs melee is evasion. So you just get a +damage hit, no KD.

I stand corrected.

Quote:

Also, with a reload of attackspeed+4, I'm not sure how you are chain KDing someone with a base 2 second KD.

Even though it doesn't much matter since wards are evasion, 2 seconds of an enemy doing nothing could be very advantageous.

Quote:

Being ward resistant doesn't change the fact that ward against melee is extremely effective against melee. Wards in GvG aren't so farfetched, imo.

Ward are still hawt in GvG, but there are more effective ways to limit a melee attacker, when possible. (Price of failure, reckless haste, parasitic bond. In that order, haha.) I mean to stress that wards cannot be the only thing to restrict melee.

Quote:

I seriously doubt you'll be in range of an enemy spirit in a standard flagstand battle, but pet's are an obvious choice.

Pets are becoming more and more common, so, yes.

shardfenix · Jul 26, 2006, 08:30 AM // 08:30

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jagan Vastary

Ward vs melee is evasion. So you just get a +damage hit, no KD. Also, with a reload of attackspeed+4, I'm not sure how you are chain KDing someone with a base 2 second KD.

Irresistble Blow cannot be "evaded." Even with no aegis/guardian up, a thumper can deal 70 damage per hit. Yes you can kite them through wards, but then your team dies because you can't heal.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jagan Vastary

Energy is a limited resource, so energy drain on a thumper isn't exactly a wasted effort.

Uhh, yes it is. Sure, most of the time a thumper will be at full energy. Why will they be at full energy? because thumpers are broken.
Anyway, you e-drain them for 8 (giving you 16). Now, assuming they have ferocious strike on their bar, they will get ALL of that energy back in 8 seconds.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jagan Vastary

Yeah, I overlooked expertise, quite an oversight, I agree. Assuming at least 13 expertise, and at least 14 beast mastery, you can get a theoretical 3 pips out of Ferocious strike. You can come up with the att split for that with hammer.

Sure thing.
Superior Beast with beast helm + 10 beast mastery = 14
Major Expertise + 11 Expertise = 13
10 Hammer

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jagan Vastary

If it doesn't hit right away, its reload time is longer, therefore you get less energy from it over time.

Again, play thumper and see that the skill starts recharging when YOU use it, not when the pet uses it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jagan Vastary

Can I just touch your tiger emote? Just once.

Be gentle. My point was not to brag, my point was to tell you you shouldnt tell someone who has monked 4000 of his fame how to kite.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jagan Vastary

Being ward resistant doesn't change the fact that ward against melee is extremely effective against melee. Wards in GvG aren't so farfetched, imo.

Irresistable Blow can't be evaded.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jagan Vastary

Agreed, but the job of a monk is to keep your team alive. If e-draining an offensive player helps you do that, why not?

Because you get more energy e-draining something that might not have spent all of it yet, like a spirit.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Divineshadows

By 3 damage dealers, do you mean 3 warriors?

No, by 3 damage dealers, I mean 3 characters that deal damage.
EDIT: JR asked me to lose the attitude, so I will clarify, since he's probably right and I can tell he wants to ban me again :/.
No, by 3 damage dealers, I meant any combination of 3 warriors, assassins, elementalists, necromancers, or mesmers.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Divineshadows

Yep, thumpers being smited off of must be invincible. They have never died in any match against a balanced team that did not use smite as well. Explain this concept to me.

How about I explain the concept of reading my posts correctly so you include when I said "nearly invincible."

Quote:

Originally Posted by Divineshadows

Having played alongside you in HA on multiple occassions, I can honestly say you are better at infusing than I was when it came to anticipating their spike target and responding quickly.

Thanks, all I need is an ego boost. Shard is leet. Oh yeah

Quote:

Originally Posted by Divineshadows

When you PUGed for me ... we always lost to Order of Apostosy IWAY and you would get multiple warriors on you and instead of pre-kiting and causing them to train you and let the 2 other monks take care of you I saw you spamming prots in desparation.

Prekiting is one thing, but stumbling through a barbed trap while doing it is another thing. If I could RC myself, trust me, I would have been kiting more.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Divineshadows

Now, 2 months have passed so it is possible that your kiting skills have improved significantly, but I still see you fussing on the forums constantly about OoA IWAY so this creates doubt in my mind.

Perhaps. The thing is, against ooa iway, monks have 2 choices (assume they are not owned by cripple)
Choice 1 is to heal someone else, then get pummeled.
Choice 2 is to run away and let the people with res sigs die.
Since I know I will come back with full health and half energy in roughly 4 seconds, I prefer infusing myself out if i have 4 warriors chasing me and my team is at low health. If you do it differently and it works for you, great. Full healing 2 people in exchange for a res sig is worth the sacrifice to me, and it works for most groups I play in. If nothing else, it makes the iway team think I'm dead and I have less pressure on me in the next 30 seconds.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Divineshadows

I have always been of the opinion that monks used to playing in pure spike (such as ranger or necro) teams don't have to learn how to kite as well as monks used to playing in builds based on warrior pressure, because the spike team can just target the enemy warriors first.

I fully agree with that view. Monks playing in spike teams don't have to kite as much. I hope you're not implying that I got 100% of my fame from blood spike, because I most certainly did not. And the ranger spike I ran with pi couldn't clean spike warriors, so at least half my fame required kiting skills. In my own defense, I knew how to kite relatively well before I hit rank 6.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Divineshadows

...your team is not using a balanced build to properly pressure if they allow the thumpers to just go wild on your monks. [Pi] is used to playing spike if I recall correctly, so it is expected that there would be difficulty in trying to get players used to playing spike to adapt to playing balanced.

Pi is aware that they suck in balanced gvg, because it is something most of the members have little or no experience of.
However, Pi being noob at gvg does not mean aoe smite is balanced. This thread is about skill balances, not whether specific groups can win or not.

Wasteland Squidget · Jul 26, 2006, 08:45 AM // 08:45

Okay, I wanted to leave this thread open because I think there's been some good discussion here, but its basically turned into everyone arguing with Shardfenix over a lot of unrelated things. It started as a thread on spirits, but now I'm not sure if we're discussing thumpers, or AoE smiters, or what. They're all unrelated builds and there's no point to having a general thread to try to discuss every one of them.

If someone wants to start a new thread on thumpers OR AoE smite OR spirits or even how these things work in combination, feel free.

JR · Jul 26, 2006, 10:11 AM // 10:11

Quote:

Originally Posted by shardfenix

EDIT: JR asked me to lose the attitude, so I will clarify, since he's probably right and I can tell he wants to ban me again :/.

Just a heads up as to why:

In response to it being a good idea to drain thumpers to help shut them down:

Quote:

Originally Posted by shardfenix

Uhh, yes it is. Sure, most of the time a thumper will be at full energy. Why will they be at full energy? because thumpers are broken.
Anyway, you e-drain them for 8 (giving you 16). Now, assuming they have ferocious strike on their bar, they will get ALL of that energy back in 8 seconds.

In response to it being a good idea to drain thumeprs to get energy:

Quote:

Originally Posted by shardfenix

Because you get more energy e-draining something that might not have spent all of it yet, like a spirit.

If you can be bothered to write out long arguments in a thread, at least make them intelligent and consistant.