Curse

Frozen Soil · May 12, 2006, 04:53 AM // 04:53

So I came across this build the other day that consisted of only 4 spikers, a 3 monk backline, and a E/Mo runner. We couldnt do anything about them because of their three monk backline and their E/Mo had heals too. They were spiking with Shadow Strike, Vamp Gaze, and Dark Pact. Then they had a Me/E with glyph of Renewel and phantom pain and shatter. The spike was surprisingly clean, the gazes came quickly. It absolutely rolled us. Our cry kept missing their spikes and they had signet of midnight knocking off our warriors. THey also had BiP for MORE defensive power. There was nothing we could do, we tried pressure but they spiked so fast. How can we stop a build like this running our cookie cutter build? They split and just spammed all their skills on our monks and we were overwhelmed.

Red Locust · May 12, 2006, 05:58 AM // 05:58

They split and still overwhelmed your monks? Sounds like maybe they just outplayed you, you shouldn't be getting overwhelmed if you're facing less than 4 blood necros at a time (I assume they are mesmer/necros, which means even weaker hits). In my experience, splitting always works vs. blood spike, provided you don't make serious mistakes.

Give some more details on your build and theirs.

Zui · May 12, 2006, 07:02 AM // 07:02

Like Red Locust said, more details are needed about both team's builds. Also, if they split their spikers evenly, you shouldn't have lost to two spikers.

Two spikers alone(assuming 12 blood+2 with awaken the blood) should be able to do 184 'damage' with shadow strike, 1/2 being shadow damage, 1/2 being life steal. It should take them 1 second to cast their Shadow Strike, which should be more than enough to hit it with a 1/4s inturupt like Cry of Frusturation, I'd reccomend you have your mesmer that's running cry practice inturupting.

1.25s after the initial damage(aftercast+cast), you'll be hit with 114 'damage' from vampiric gaze, which is all life stealing.

After another 1.25s you'll be hit with 90 shadow damage from dark pact. this is 338 damage from all the spells, over a 2.50s period. You should be able to stop this. Especialy since they'll have used 25 energy on a non-leathal spike.

Of course this is assuming they split with 2 blood spikers on each team.

With the 3 blood spikers+the Pain/Shatter mesmer, you should be able to predict who they're spiking, and with that said some good ways to stop that without inturupting are:

Once you know who they're going for(should be able to get an idea from where the spikers are facing, and obviously from who Phantom Pain lands on), get off a RoF on the target, this will essentialy negate one shadow strike(or negate the damage from shatter delusions), and should leave you enough time to get another RoF off before they get vamp gaze off. Have your second monk try to get a RoF off after the first one is triggered, or in any case before the afterspike of vampiric gaze. Have a support charactar with draw conditions in your build(??/mo) Have them draw the deep wound off before the afterspike, or even before the spike if they're uncoordianted(hence shatter delusions hits way before the shadow strikes).

Since reversal won't trigger on life steal(from gaze), you want to ensure the target has enough health left to survive 171 damage, as long as they has 172 health or greater left, you're set. If you can execute the above steps, you should be fine on having that much health left. After that, it's a cake walk in stopping the Dark Pact damage from being fatal, since it will be 1.25s before those dark pacts hit, and both monks can get off another reversal before that. Another helpful thing would be if you have a support charactar with say Heal Other, that makes the job on your monks even easeir. Just for mental notation, the recycle(cast+recharge) on phantom pain is 17 seconds with no fast casting, and 16 seconds with fast casting. Knowing the recycle of the skills they're using is also a very important part of combating a spike, since you can anticipate when they'll spike.

The other thing is if you have sufficient condition removal(which it sounds like you may not have had), the blind on warriors from signet of midnight shouldn't be an issue. Even if they're running it with Plauge Touch(on the me/n and without on the me/e obviously). Since at the most that's 7 blinds every 15 seconds which is equal to just slightly less than 1 blind every 2 seconds. That should be totaly managable.

If you can provide more info on your build/their build, and what happened durring the game I'm sure there are a ton of people here(myself included) that would be willing to help you out.

Zeldawind · May 12, 2006, 11:37 AM // 11:37

My combo as boon vs bloodspike is: RoF Mend RoF. usually this will heal your ally for enough to survive a spike. Otherwise your other skill again to heal up.

And for split blood spike ive faced this once. Well my guild wasnt running a split build atm but they split whit 5-3 5 was offensive 4 necros and a mesmer. I splitted of alone from the team and turtle at Bodyguards. (yes i know weird) But the other 7 of my team went to their base and started killing everything there. I managed whit this combo to keep the bodyguards and all but 1 archer alive before they started to doubt and fall back to their base.

Maybe they had a bad split or whatever or werent experienced whit their build yet. But from this experience i learned RoF - Mend - RoF should do the trick.

(ok i was using standard BS as exampel but fast cast well you only have a shorter time to respond and less dmg from a spike)

Dzan · May 12, 2006, 05:45 PM // 17:45

Shadow Strike should still be a bit more than a 1 second cast, even with high fastcasting, if your Cry missed it, replace that mesmer.

Worf · May 12, 2006, 07:20 PM // 19:20

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zeldawind

My combo as boon vs bloodspike is: RoF Mend RoF. usually this will heal your ally for enough to survive a spike. Otherwise your other skill again to heal up.

I would never use 21 (5+2+5+2+5+2) energy to heal one person up. Personally, when i sometimes play Boonprot in GvG (when i'm guest in another guild) i take infuse with me if the another monk doesn't have it. You use 12 energy instead of 21, 9 energy less. Yeah, there is a need to heal yourself up, but the another monk will do it.

And about fastcast blood spikes.. I don't like much "full spike builds"; they're weak. Just split, oh, they come after your guild's another split. They can't follow your both splits. If they do so, they can't spike and you have to just kill them.

3 monk backline is overkill imo, but i dont have now anymore time to write about them.

pah01 · May 13, 2006, 04:14 PM // 16:14

Infuse health should be on one of the monks bars. At the moment its the only skill that is 1/4 second cast and is not an enchantement, which mean it is the only way to stop a shadow shroud covered spike that is fairly well executed so that hex removal wont be quick eneogh.

As for disruption - try bringing a distracting blow on one of the warriors or a shock and shock em once they start to spike, maybe they will get of shadow strike but one of them will be on there buts for the second skill.

Another way is to simply spike them out.

Make sure your build has a way to spike without your warriors using adrenal skills. If you can do that spike them out first.

Sam