Curse

tafy69 · Feb 13, 2006, 06:55 AM // 06:55

Generally we can deal with a spike team by splitting, but if we meet them on their map things get nasty.

On a 1v1 we lose and we lose hard as unfortunately we got no caster shutdowns, but im guessing they running resolve anyways...

I need tactic advice on how to split on that bloody map

Is the back way feasable? those sentinels are quite nasty!

We tried splitting half the team to run through them but that was a disaster too.

Someone mentioned running the whole team straight to their base, fight there and hope to control the flag. untested as yet.

also we were going to try for the whole team to go around the back but I dunno how that will work for us.

So any advice would be welcome, thx

Patrograd · Feb 13, 2006, 08:22 AM // 08:22

Fertile season plus oath shot, and kill their frozen if they have one

Alternatively, given the correct skillset you can run past the flame sentinels, but I'm not sure how this skillset would stand up on any other map.

tafy69 · Feb 13, 2006, 08:43 AM // 08:43

Quote:

Originally Posted by Patrograd

Fertile season plus oath shot, and kill their frozen if they have one

Alternatively, given the correct skillset you can run past the flame sentinels, but I'm not sure how this skillset would stand up on any other map.

Im not going to change the GvG build in the offchance we play vs a spike team on their map.

wheel · Feb 13, 2006, 08:53 AM // 08:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by Patrograd

Fertile season plus oath shot, and kill their frozen if they have one

Alternatively, given the correct skillset you can run past the flame sentinels, but I'm not sure how this skillset would stand up on any other map.

If you have to bring Fertile and Oath shot in your build to fight spikes, you're looking at it the wrong way. Those are counters, yes, but they're passive counters that are a losing proposition at best against spike.

Straight spike builds focus on dealing a lot of damage on single characters. What does that mean in terms of your team? It doesn't take a lot of energy as monks to stop spikes if that's all you do. 16-17 energy for Infuse (counting the heal after Infuse), 7 energy for RoF. That's not a lot of energy when you think that the spikes will be happening every 5-15 seconds. They will run out of energy before your monks will. That's a good thing.

The rest of your team will have plenty of energy, too, which you need to use to your advantage. Disrupting one or more characters during the spike is a good way to make it easier on your monks, but that's still a form of passive defense. Which is more effective? Galeing their Order Necro preventing a lot of damage, or killing their monks while you're Galeing their spikes? You need to play extremely offensive against spike. Ranger spike does a LOT of damage and your monks will make mistakes eventually even if their spike isn't dead on, meaning you'll eventually wear down if you don't pressure the hell out of them. Get on their monks and force them to retreat. You have more DPS than they do (unless your build is absolute trash) because their DPS is basically nothing outside of the spike. When they're not spiking, your monks are bored out of their mind. Use this to your advantage.

You need to force them to fall back to their NPCs. It's easier than you think. Since they're saving their attacks and energy for the spike for the most part, your damage will be mostly unmitigated by their offense. Monks die quickly when their attackers are attacking unhindered. Their spike will eventually break not to your leet infuser monk saving everyone, but to their monks falling and forcing a retreat into their base. You'll get morale, making you harder to spike and refreshing your res sigs, which makes you that much more resilient. The best defense is a good offense, which is very hard to come to accept in your mind and in your play style. Trust me, we're struggling with that concept at a different level in our battles lately.

Watch what good guilds do against pure spike. Not just splitting, either, I mean disrupting their defense and forcing them back. Don't let them set the tempo of the match. Force them back and force morale.

EDIT: Grammar

tafy69 · Feb 13, 2006, 09:15 AM // 09:15

So basically we gonna have to go tombs style and jump in there, warriors in monks faces with adrenaline spikes till they back off. I was thinking that was the only way on this map, these spike teams have a lot of warrior shutdowns tho

wheel · Feb 13, 2006, 10:00 AM // 10:00

Quote:

Originally Posted by tafy69

So basically we gonna have to go tombs style and jump in there, warriors in monks faces with adrenaline spikes till they back off. I was thinking that was the only way on this map, these spike teams have a lot of warrior shutdowns tho

I assume you're speaking of Obsidian Flame spike with wards. If they're going to be ward bitches and just stand in the wards while they're spiking you, you need to take it a step further and press into their NPCs. Keep them honest and take control of the match. What are they going to do? Outrace your warriors to their NPCs? They have no damage, only spike. They'll still be ward bitches at their base, but that's a very good thing for your sake since it makes flagging much harder. At their base, work on killing NPCs and killing/slowing their flagger to force morale. Once you start getting regular morale boosts, the game is pretty much over.

For the actual Ward camping, you pretty much just have to keep at it until their energy starts to break. Disruption is also key; work on interrupting/Galeing their spikes and wards, and they'll eventually start to slip up.

tafy69 · Feb 13, 2006, 10:10 AM // 10:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by wheel

I assume you're speaking of Obsidian Flame spike with wards. If they're going to be ward bitches and just stand in the wards while they're spiking you, you need to take it a step further and press into their NPCs. Keep them honest and take control of the match. What are they going to do? Outrace your warriors to their NPCs? They have no damage, only spike. They'll still be ward bitches at their base, but that's a very good thing for your sake since it makes flagging much harder. At their base, work on killing NPCs and killing/slowing their flagger to force morale. Once you start getting regular morale boosts, the game is pretty much over.

For the actual Ward camping, you pretty much just have to keep at it until their energy starts to break. Disruption is also key; work on interrupting/Galeing their spikes and wards, and they'll eventually start to slip up.

So running to their base is good if you dont lose any players along the way? Its all about holding off their spike and trying to break their monks while you keep the moral boosts?

Next time I will have the whole team run to their base, they gotta follow eh, their flagger will have no chance to cap the flag without support.

wheel · Feb 13, 2006, 10:23 AM // 10:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by tafy69

So running to their base is good if you dont lose any players along the way? Its all about holding off their spike and trying to break their monks while you keep the moral boosts?

Their spike is almost wholly independent of the position on the map, so why should you fight at the flagstand when you can push into their base? It makes their life a lot harder. You can't just run to their base and fight there. You have to give them a reason to retreat. Kill NPCs if they're camping wards. When NPCs start dying, it makes a team react very quickly. They'll be forced to fall back or else be severely gimped at VoD. Once spike groups are forced to move, they're much more susceptible to falling to pressure. When they're falling back, snare the monks so that you can kill more NPCs.

If they decide to screw defending and go for the gank, you've already won. You've got a head start on them and have more sustainable damage than they do. Snare some of them in their advance to your base to further help your cause.

Quote:

Originally Posted by tafy69

Next time I will have the whole team run to their base, they gotta follow eh, their flagger will have no chance to cap the flag without support.

That's the general idea. Their flagger will have to go through your team and snares before it even gets to your flagger. Your flagger will be able to duel him easily and probably kill him. It's a winning proposition for your team.

Patrograd · Feb 13, 2006, 10:47 AM // 10:47

We used to run an obsidian spike with wards, and things that broke it were always fertile and gale. You will need two gale people though as the first spike target will be a W/E, or any x/E, or a E/x, whichever is closest, and as we used to put down frozen before the first spike, and spike immediately on engagement that guy isnt coming back for a while.

Obsidian spike teams also split alot easier than you might think if they are set up correctly, especially if they already have two or three of you on less than full morale.

Run though to the base on the fire map? Against a team spiking every 8 seconds? Not many of you will reach the target. Of course in general you have to fight on their side of the stand against any team on any map, but if you dont engage and just attempt to run though a spike team to their base on the fire map at least three of you will get killed, and these will be offensive characters, your damage dealers, if the spike team is targetting correctly. You will then be three down, on the wrong side of the map, and need to either die or run back through to reach your lord for turtling

We would basically lose to any half decent team carrying 2 or more gales/KDs of any sort, and to any team carrying fertile. even if the rest of their build was crap these skills alone were usually enough to beat us. As everyone started bringing multi-gale about 2 months ago we stopped spiking then, and to be honest I havent seen that much spiking since.

So from a spikers perspective, I would say to get your gale people to target an enemy ele/ranger, and gale during the two second activation of either the spike skill (obsidian/orb/shadow strike) or the ranger main spike skill which is likely to be Dual shot. You need to get to them quick to prevent that first spike. Taking one of the spikers out of synch breaks the spike, giving you about 8-10 seconds to get the first kill in before you need to gale again.

I would suggest that if you dont have gale or fertile against a spike team on the burning map you will lose more than you win, regardless of how aggressively you play, unless they arent a very experienced spike team.

Greedy Gus · Feb 13, 2006, 12:11 PM // 12:11

Wheel you're suggesting pushing right through obsidian spikers on the lava map? That's pretty tough on movement, either snaking around over the bridges or trying to push through the lava. Good spikers will drop a few people as you go by them...

wheel · Feb 13, 2006, 12:56 PM // 12:56

Quote:

Originally Posted by Patrograd

We used to run an obsidian spike with wards, and things that broke it were always fertile and gale. You will need two gale people though as the first spike target will be a W/E, or any x/E, or a E/x, whichever is closest, and as we used to put down frozen before the first spike, and spike immediately on engagement that guy isnt coming back for a while.

Smart teams will take out prepare for spike by taking out Frozen Soil first when they realise you're spike, just like spike groups will take out Fertile Season first when they realise the team is packing it (which very rarely happens, since the skill is not worth the attribute and slot position in the current metagame, especially since it'll be killed quickly).

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Obsidian spike teams also split alot easier than you might think if they are set up correctly, especially if they already have two or three of you on less than full morale.

How do Obsidian Flame teams split well? That's ridiculous. They can take out NPCs slowly and they're easily dealt with when they're split up. 354 damage is not a scary spike. 472 damage is decent, but then your 5/3 split is going to be punished rather badly by the other team.

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Run though to the base on the fire map? Against a team spiking every 8 seconds? Not many of you will reach the target. Of course in general you have to fight on their side of the stand against any team on any map, but if you dont engage and just attempt to run though a spike team to their base on the fire map at least three of you will get killed, and these will be offensive characters, your damage dealers, if the spike team is targetting correctly. You will then be three down, on the wrong side of the map, and need to either die or run back through to reach your lord for turtling

Even if the spike was hitting with reliability, it's independent of the position on the map. Pushing forward has no disadvantages to the non-spike team. There is no wrong or right side of the map. You're thinking about it entirely differently. What benefit does the spike team get out of the non-spike team pushing forward? Do they get to spike more easily? No. Does the non-spike team have less defense when they're pushing forward? No. It's a positional play that makes flagrunning harder for the spike team, and forces the spike team to move, which is a disruption to their spike in and of itself. Playing passively and merely interrupting the spike is an exercise in futility, especially if they're running wards.

I'm not talking about just straight up running into the base as you're implying. You work on disrupting the spikes as you push forward. Galeing one or two of their spikers as your whole team moves forward. The spike team is reduced to doing spot damage that scores a kill every once and a while, while your team is in prime position to obliterate their flagger and force morale. You can't gale/infuse spikes forever because of the human capacity for failure, which is why that you push into their base to play on your terms. You gale/infuse the spike long enough to force morale due to your superior positioning and pressure their team further.

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We would basically lose to any half decent team carrying 2 or more gales/KDs of any sort, and to any team carrying fertile. even if the rest of their build was crap these skills alone were usually enough to beat us. As everyone started bringing multi-gale about 2 months ago we stopped spiking then, and to be honest I havent seen that much spiking since.

Fertile is wholly unnecessary because it's just going to be spiked first, delaying the inevitable. It slows down the spike, but you still get spiked.

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So from a spikers perspective, I would say to get your gale people to target an enemy ele/ranger, and gale during the two second activation of either the spike skill (obsidian/orb/shadow strike) or the ranger main spike skill which is likely to be Dual shot. You need to get to them quick to prevent that first spike. Taking one of the spikers out of synch breaks the spike, giving you about 8-10 seconds to get the first kill in before you need to gale again.

That's definitely one of the effective methods to stopping a spike from killing, but it's not sustainable with much reliability that I would count on. You're letting them dictate what you do, and as such, if you mess up, it's a snowball effect. Being in a situation where, given human error, mistakes are punished extremely harshly does not make me a happy player.

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I would suggest that if you dont have gale or fertile against a spike team on the burning map you will lose more than you win, regardless of how aggressively you play, unless they arent a very experienced spike team.

No one is advocating not bringing disruption like Gale. What I have issues with is the fact that you discount playing aggressively as the superior strategy against spike.

wheel · Feb 13, 2006, 01:11 PM // 13:11

Quote:

Originally Posted by Greedy Gus

Wheel you're suggesting pushing right through obsidian spikers on the lava map?

Yes, that's what I am suggesting. What is the alternative suggestion for positioning? A losing position at the flagstand, not giving your flagger the upper hand, and letting them eventually push you back for no reason into your Guild Lord (which is idiotic since it offers virtually no defense against a spike build) to work off DP?

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That's pretty tough on movement, either snaking around over the bridges or trying to push through the lava. Good spikers will drop a few people as you go by them...

By that same logic, if you're retreating to your guild lord to turtle in an effort to work off the inevitable DP, they're going to drop stragglers as you retreat, as well. Movement has its drawbacks, but it's spike! You get punished less by movement against spike than most builds out there. Disrupt the spike on the way, and they'll be completely taken aback. Their spikes aren't working, you aren't being deterred, AND you're pushing into their NPCs. That's a winning proposition.

Greedy Gus · Feb 13, 2006, 02:47 PM // 14:47

Yep, I agree that they way to beat obs spikers on the fire map is through offensive disruption as well as heavy pressure. That's how we lost when we ran it last season. We never lost by people running past us and ganking NPCs though

Patrograd · Feb 13, 2006, 02:51 PM // 14:51

Well, I can see what you're getting at, and the basic idea is right, you have to push onto the spikers and disrupt them. This is easier said than done, as a spike team will usually kill the target closest to their target caller unless there is a special priority target ( barrier monk or dom mesmer for example)

If you have fertile then they waste a spike on taking it out, which means they arent spiking you, which means that you can carry on doing your original game plan, as if you werent facing a spike team. As you point out, they have no damage beyond their spike, so its fine if they are spiking your spirit, its not you.

If you have any sort of decent build then your orgiinal plan, as if you werent facing spike, will kill at least one of them while they are wasting a spike into fertile, right? Its not like you are taking any damage in the meantime so you should have a pretty free rein to do as you please.

If you position your fertile correctly, they need to push forwards, through your warriors, blackout memsers etc which believe me they dont want to do. They want to stay back and spike. As they push forwards your oath shot guy recharges the fertile and drops it as soon as they spike. A spike build relies very heavily on getting the first kill, you have to absolutely survive long enough to get the first kill in yourself.

fertile is one, not necessarily the only, but one very good utility skill that help you get your game plan into position without taking the first death, and it has plenty of other applications in a build based around hex or conditions degen. it produces a nice little spike of its own for one thing. Gale and to a lesser extent blackout are good anti-spike skills also, but you need more than one to make it work.

As for splitting, we used to run very effective obsidian splits, and we needed to, because every time after beating a team at the stand they would split and we would have to counter them. If they have DP then they can be killed easily by a split obsidian team.

Not sure where your numbers come from, but an obsidian spike, with input from the runner and monks, and a pp/shatter mesmer, does nearer to 800 damage onto an unprotted enemy. if you split it right then you can put most of that damage into one group of four (well, you can do a mini spike of just over 400 onto an unprotted 60AL target - 2 x 118 obsidians, 1 x 146 lightning orb, 1 x 46 vamp gaze) and the other group can at least hold a four man gank team at bay (pp./shatter for about 170, 118 obsidian and 2 x 46 vamp gazes (380 total)

Keyes · Feb 13, 2006, 03:05 PM // 15:05

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The best defense is a good offense, which is very hard to come to accept in your mind and in your play style.

Absolutely right. Spike teams effectively fall if your up in their faces the whole time. If the warriors over extend for the monks then have the whole party Attack and charge them. Use knockdowns, and Degen to take out the spikers.

In general people play this game too defensively. When you have the enemy at their npcs you have won because they gave up the 4-5 seconds of attacking to run back. In that time you have probably killed someone. Spikers are no different. When the bonder falls they all fall.

wheel · Feb 13, 2006, 04:00 PM // 16:00

Quote:

Originally Posted by Patrograd

Well, I can see what you're getting at, and the basic idea is right, you have to push onto the spikers and disrupt them. This is easier said than done, as a spike team will usually kill the target closest to their target caller unless there is a special priority target ( barrier monk or dom mesmer for example)

What I'm saying is bypass the whole fight at the flagstand completely, and instead shift into their base while you disrupt the spikes through gale. The spike should be easy to infuse/prot spirit with the PP/SD being Galed.

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If you have fertile then they waste a spike on taking it out, which means they arent spiking you, which means that you can carry on doing your original game plan, as if you werent facing a spike team. As you point out, they have no damage beyond their spike, so its fine if they are spiking your spirit, its not you.

If you have any sort of decent build then your orgiinal plan, as if you werent facing spike, will kill at least one of them while they are wasting a spike into fertile, right? Its not like you are taking any damage in the meantime so you should have a pretty free rein to do as you please.

If you position your fertile correctly, they need to push forwards, through your warriors, blackout memsers etc which believe me they dont want to do. They want to stay back and spike. As they push forwards your oath shot guy recharges the fertile and drops it as soon as they spike. A spike build relies very heavily on getting the first kill, you have to absolutely survive long enough to get the first kill in yourself.

Fertile is one, not necessarily the only, but one very good utility skill that help you get your game plan into position without taking the first death, and it has plenty of other applications in a build based around hex or conditions degen. it produces a nice little spike of its own for one thing. Gale and to a lesser extent blackout are good anti-spike skills also, but you need more than one to make it work.

They waste a spike on taking it out once, then they take out the ranger who's laying it, even though it will be way in the back probably. I'm not going to argue with you. Fertile Season is definitely a good antispike measure. It breaks their rhythm and lets you set the tempo, which I like. What I don't like is the fact that you don't face that type of spike often enough to merit a slot on your bar, when the same result can be had by other means.

As far as fertile season being useful against hex/degen teams, I don't really buy into that. Heal party really shines against those teams, and the fact that your health buffer is larger does make Heal Party that much more efficient, but not enough to dedicate a skill slot to it.

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As for splitting, we used to run very effective obsidian splits, and we needed to, because every time after beating a team at the stand they would split and we would have to counter them. If they have DP then they can be killed easily by a split obsidian team.

Not sure where your numbers come from, but an obsidian spike, with input from the runner and monks, and a pp/shatter mesmer, does nearer to 800 damage onto an unprotted enemy. if you split it right then you can put most of that damage into one group of four (well, you can do a mini spike of just over 400 onto an unprotted 60AL target - 2 x 118 obsidians, 1 x 106 lightning orb, 1 x 46 vamp gaze) and the other group can at least hold a four man gank team at bay (pp./shatter for about 170, 118 obsidian and 2 x 46 vamp gazes (380 total)

With a split Obsidian Flame team, you have even more problems with disruption. There's less damage to overwhelm the other team, less margin of error in the timing and damage of your spike. It doesn't work to your advantage unless the team is bad, but if the team is bad, you've already won, so it doesn't matter what you do. Doing 400 damage isn't going to spike anyone out. The split is going to run you around and can practically tank your split squads while they take out NPCs. They're annoyances at best. They lack survivability in the split because they apply no pressure and cannot spike worth anything.

I was just going off of 1) 3 obs flames and 2) 4 obs flames. They were semi-arbitrary, but illustrated the point. Simply because the damage issued through the spike is more than the targets max HP does not mean that it will kill. Especially with disruption of your offense. When your damage is split up in two groups, it makes the monks job that much easier because there is more margin for error on their part, and there's still not pressure on their energy.

Patrograd · Feb 13, 2006, 04:21 PM // 16:21

Quote:

Originally Posted by wheel

As far as fertile season being useful against hex/degen teams, I don't really buy into that.

I agree. I meant that fertile is a great skill FOR a degen team to bring, its clearly not much use against a degen side. So if you are running a hex/conditions degen team, its a great utility tool anyway that will give your degen a little spike when it dies (well, its not such a little spike actually). So its not really giving up a skill slot to counter spike if that is your build type.

As for your views on the split, well we'll just have to agree to disagree i guess. i would say that about 1/3rd of my 300 GvGs have been on an obsidian spike team, and we never really had an issue with split teams, except for the very good ones run by the top sides. In fact, I would say that we had more issues against warrior heavy teams that didnt split and that got in our faces.

JR · Feb 13, 2006, 04:50 PM // 16:50

Wheel is right.

Vindexus · Feb 13, 2006, 06:24 PM // 18:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by JR-

Wheel is right.

JR is right.

Vindexus · Feb 16, 2006, 07:16 PM // 19:16

We did this last night versus an Obisidian Flame spike team, although not quickly enough. It worked beautifully.

We just ran past them as a group, attempting to gale obflames on the way, and went into their base. They had no way of controlling our movement because positioning isn't a big deal vs a spike team that doesn't neeed LoS. They followed us into their base and our flagger catapulted them. Even if he hadn't, they're flag runner would've had to fight through us to run the flag, then he'd have to duel our flag runner. Basically, the can spike us out all they want, we're getting morale and your NPCs are dying.