Curse

Wasteland Squidget · Apr 26, 2006, 09:16 AM // 09:16

We played a number of GvG matches tonight and only had one or two that weren't against a hex-heavy team. This makes a certain amount of sense, as hex removal had gotten very lax in the top 100 with Surge/Burners being the support characters of choice. However, we were hard-pressed to counter these teams, since we hadn't seen hex-stacks in quite a while and had minimal counters available in our build.

Thoughts? Is it time to start packing multiple Converts/Purges into all the builds again, or is this simply a temporary resurgance that will die quickly? Did we just have a run of bad luck in that we faced a lot of hex-heavy teams? I wouldn't particularly mind seeing an end to the dual-surger metagame, but tonight is really the first I've seen of hex stacks in quite a while.

Patrograd · Apr 26, 2006, 09:30 AM // 09:30

We have noticed this season a general increase in hex and condition stacks. This sort of team died out I think more due to multiple heal parties than anything else, and I think it is perhaps teams reverting to single heal party spammers, and that on their runner that is bringing them out again. For me, without a big spike at the end from eg a couple of warriors with caster support, this form of build looks quite weak. in general terms it appears to split poorly and it seems to take too long, without that spike involved, to make that first kill. Given two heal parties, I think the degen should be easy enough to overheal, and this extra heal party is probably easier to fit into most builds than more copies of hex removal.

EW run a hex and condition build, with 2 warriors and a fearsome spike, and it is clearly very, very effective for them, so it can be done for sure, but I think in their case they are using the degen as a setup for the finish rather than hoping to actually kill anyone using hexes alone.

rii · Apr 26, 2006, 02:02 PM // 14:02

I think degen teams are pretty strong with maybe one warrior if you able to keep them clean. They did die out from heal party spam... which countered it so well. Another factor is people realising they can take out heal party with rangers and so forth... 160dps (if they do all the right things)..... thats around 4 warriors worth of pressure.... of course its really hard to keep up max degen on 8 people.. but then again its hard to keep 4 warriors going. The shutdown aspect that gets meshed in is also pretty great.
With all the new skills being released its hard to tell what will happen. All i know is there are a lot more hex removal options coming out, which will hurt degen if they dont control them. There are also a couple of skills like extinguish that can make a lot of degen teams cry.

Wasteland Squidget · Apr 26, 2006, 06:07 PM // 18:07

The biggest issue we had actually was actually in dealing damage. Since almost every team was on dual-surger for a while, we were running a 3-warrior offense with BiP to handle the surges. Since Dom mesmers can't be effectively focused on warriors (at least, not in the same way anti-warrior hexes can), and since we had a Draw conditions to deal with Flashbots, we were able to take out two-monk backlines very quickly.

Now there seem to be at least 2 characters dedicated to anti-warrior hexing in every build, which made it hell for us to actually do damage, since we were lacking in the support structure to properly shut them down. Some of our battles at the stand went 10+ minutes before a kill was made.

Anyway, my point is that it was the shutdown which was killing us, rather than the degen. As mentioned degen is pretty controllable, but it doesn't really help if you've lost your capability to deal damage.

twicky_kid · Apr 26, 2006, 10:28 PM // 22:28

Lascerate is going to change the meta game if it can be harnessed well.

1 ranger with lascerate and apply poison another with mel's arrow. That can give a team -9 degen with just 2 rangers attacking.

RC prot monks might become a standard.

Wasteland Squidget · Apr 26, 2006, 11:52 PM // 23:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by twicky_kid

Lascerate is going to change the meta game if it can be harnessed well.

1 ranger with lascerate and apply poison another with mel's arrow. That can give a team -9 degen with just 2 rangers attacking.

RC prot monks might become a standard.

Lascerate runs into the same problem as all of the elite spirits. You've given up your elite slot for something the opposing team can just hit a few times with a warrior to bring back down.

Not to mention if such a team became popular, one or two copies of Extinguish would be GG.

icemonkey · Apr 27, 2006, 01:07 AM // 01:07

lascerate sounds like a cool idea to begin with but it is all but countered as wasteland has pointed out

I think most degen hex stacking teams are just using it as a cover or diversion of their adrenaline spike. Obvioulsy the OP faced some good teams doing a hex/degen build, but personally i havn't seen it and i would expect it to be short lived

Greedy Gus · Apr 27, 2006, 02:12 AM // 02:12

First of all, bringing up lascerate and ranger condition degen is rather silly in a topic about heavy hex builds.

On the topic of resurging hex teams, I haven't faced a really tough one lately other than WM's two curse necro team. Most either lack a hard finisher, or their effects are too easily shrugged off. We've kept a purge signet in our build in case of these teams, to at least clean off a warrior in order to adrenaline spike and start working them over. Other than that, light hex removal on monks has been working fine I'd say.

I'm interested to see if people start packing the Factions inspired hex copycat skill as a second hex removal / e-management skill on boon prots if this really becomes a trend.

Patrograd · Apr 27, 2006, 06:13 AM // 06:13

The issue is Price of Failure, buried under spirit of failure, with something like faintheartdness or siphon or bond over the top, applied from two different sources. It takes some doing, and when done well is very effective, and this stack can be put onto warriors and rangers very quickly, faster than the recharge of most good hex cleaners, so the longer the battle goes on the more of these stacks you have on your different physical damage guys.

The only saving grace is that it takes quite a bit of co-ordination between the two hexers to get right, as I cant offhand think of a good counter.

XxForgexX · Apr 27, 2006, 09:12 AM // 09:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by Patrograd

as I cant offhand think of a good counter.

monks and Factions. specifically: http://gw.gamewikis.org/wiki/Expel_Hexes

Patrograd · Apr 27, 2006, 12:32 PM // 12:32

Expel Hexes
Skill details
Profession: Mesmer
Attribute: Unlinked
Type: Spell (Elite)
Energy Cost: 5
Activation Time: 1
Recharge Time: 8

Well, elite hex removal......hmm. Not sure, will need to think on that one, and where you could fit that into a build realistically. In place of WoH? Cant see it. Boon prots need elite energy IMO, leaving you with a Mesmer primary to carry it.

Martyr or this? Thats pretty much the choice we're left with. Clealry this skill suits the problem in hand, whereas martyr, well, your warriors are also going to be blinded/weakened/crippled......which is the bigger issue, the conditions or the hexes?

Wasteland Squidget · Apr 27, 2006, 06:23 PM // 18:23

You don't need elite condition removal to keep warriors relatively condition-free. Just run a Draw on your E/Mo and you should be able to do just fine. You miss out on some extra healing from Restore, but that's about it.

Expel Hexes you could put just about anywhere. The low cost and the fact that it's unlinked make it the perfect skill for a /Me. We were even discussing putting it on a Serpent's Quickness Ranger, since Rangers don't have a lot of great elite choices when your build is already snare-heavy.

This skill is a great counter to hex-heavy teams in my opinion, and is a far better way of removing hex stacks than anything else out there. Short of Sig of Humility spam (which runs into a lot of issues), it seems like it would be difficult to run a hex-heavy team at all with this skill in the metagame.