Curse

ElderAtronach · Mar 28, 2006, 03:58 AM // 03:58

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

Well there are really two aspects of 12v12 - the huge mess that inevitibly occurs in the center of the map, and the skirmishes that take place over the outlying points. Players need to understand that, and where their character is strongest. If you have a strong central fight guy (like a minion master, a monk, or something with AoE) you go to the middle. If you have a good skirmisher you went off to the side to deal with those points. The numbers aren't nearly as important as people knowing what they're good at on the map. If I had a team of 12 skirmishers I wouldn't bother sending anyone to hold that middle, you'd just get wiped.

I'll give you that some minimal input is valuable at the beginning to get the new players organized, but honestly I just made skirmishers all weekend, and did my job. I'm really over having concrete inflexible plans in this game right now.

FWIW playing as a skirmisher in 12v12 is the fastest way to get good at Guild Wars outside of GvG.

Peace,
-CxE

I'd be interested to know what you consider a skirmish build. For the event, I ran a sword warrior with sever/gash and Dragon Slash for DPS, and Heal Sig and Purge Sig to deal with the inevitable SS necros. Like you, I almost never went into the big brawls in the middle. If there were a couple of guys going with me down either side, we became a strong gank squad and captured the control points pretty quickly.

TheArrow · Mar 28, 2006, 05:49 AM // 05:49

A skirmish build is a character with a high amount of durability. Nearly any well built Warrior, that is, one in either Gladiator's + Knights/Ascalon Boots or what I used more, Berserker's, and equipped with some sort of defense ("Watch Yourself!" works wonders) and a Healing Signet, or a well built Ranger will constitute a skirmish character. Personally I had fun using a spike Ranger with a Longbow to take out the NPC's that would just stand there and take it.

Savio · Mar 28, 2006, 07:35 AM // 07:35

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheArrow

A skirmish build is a character with a high amount of durability. Nearly any well built Warrior, that is, one in either Gladiator's + Knights/Ascalon Boots or what I used more, Berserker's, and equipped with some sort of defense ("Watch Yourself!" works wonders) and a Healing Signet, or a well built Ranger will constitute a skirmish character. Personally I had fun using a spike Ranger with a Longbow to take out the NPC's that would just stand there and take it.

A rather important thing for a Warrior to have is an IAS. Makes things a lot faster. Scrub.

tafy69 · Mar 28, 2006, 07:45 AM // 07:45

Quote:

Originally Posted by Savio

A rather important thing for a Warrior to have is an IAS. Makes things a lot faster. Scrub.

Burn.

Im not sure about telling everyone who makes a warrior need to be W/R though (Frenzy and Flurry is out for solo char).

I had enough problems surving as a warrior with Watch yourself and a Heal Sig, those NPC are quite Hard. If anyone else came along in your NPC fight you would die in a flash.

JR · Mar 28, 2006, 08:11 AM // 08:11

Quote:

Originally Posted by tafy69

Burn.

Im not sure about telling everyone who makes a warrior need to be W/R though (Frenzy and Flurry is out for solo char).

I wouldn't say Frenzy was out at all. I used it to great effect all over the weekend on my hammer warrior, and squished lots of things. The trick is just to use it at the right time, and be ready to cancel quickly.

Ensign · Mar 28, 2006, 08:56 AM // 08:56

Quote:

Originally Posted by ElderAtronach

I'd be interested to know what you consider a skirmish build.

For solo work you want characters built for dueling. Cripshot and other varieties of bow rangers, Air/Water elementalists, Blood/Curses necros, certain flavors of Illusion mesmers. Any build that doesn't get obliterated by at least the first two of those is a fair template. Those are strongest for 1v1, 2v2, and otherwise very small scale combat.

For smallish, arena scale combat, you can get good squads with characters that need support - warriors in particular, but also Domination mesmers and boonprots. Actually those 3 guys are one of the strongest 3-mans in the game I think. Mix in some dueling templates to round out a smaller squad.

Then for the giant fights in the middle you want the characters that really benefit from large scale combat - fire and earth elementalists, death necros, trappers, healing monks. Mix in any warm bodies you have that just get randomly destroyed in small scale combat and control the middle.

Monks are largely unneccessary in 12-man and are usually chained to the gangbang if they do show up. Warriors still need their own support structure to be rocking, so unless you're bringing that with you I wouldn't bother. Assassins are basically free points for your opponent at this point, I had a lot of fun hunting down random assassins last weekend. They're just like those terrible W/Mo builds, except instead of being useless and a pain in the ass to kill they explode when you breathe on them. Easy prey in any case.

'Rogue' builds needs to figure out where they're strong, which set of people they mix in best with, and mix in with them. When in doubt mix it up in the middle, there's often a need for bodies there and the last thing you want to do is feed the dueling and small squad templates easy kills.

Quote:

Originally Posted by tafy69

I had enough problems surving as a warrior with Watch yourself and a Heal Sig, those NPC are quite Hard. If anyone else came along in your NPC fight you would die in a flash.

Warriors are generally weak solo templates - they get absolutely devoured by the good ones without even putting up a fight. You should be able to smash the NPC camps pretty easily if no one is looking though. Look at the sword warriors typically run in a high-end GvG match if you want an example of a good template for wiping out NPCs solo. Just remember that if one of the top-tier templates catches you then you are going to die horribly.

For those of you who aren't experienced with dueling and small-scale combat, the best characters feature lots of movement control and disruptive/debilitating status effects. A warrior without his support structure pretty much falls apart in that environment. He's either going to spend all of his time snared and unable to get a single hit in while he's slowly drained and broken, or he's going to be stacked in so much garbage (hex stacks, blind, weakness) that he's completely ineffective.

Peace,
-CxE

TheArrow · Mar 28, 2006, 03:13 PM // 15:13

Quote:

Originally Posted by Savio

A rather important thing for a Warrior to have is an IAS. Makes things a lot faster. Scrub.

Now, now, now. All this backlash over a little owning of one Savio Striator?

Elrodien · Mar 28, 2006, 03:29 PM // 15:29

This 12 vs 12 was the highlight of the weekend to me. The PvE stuff seemed a bit dull in comparison. I can't wait to the end of April now to get back into the factions battles...awsome

oh and 3-6-3 for the Saltspray map

audioaxes · Mar 28, 2006, 05:16 PM // 17:16

or 8 middle, 4 on one side, capture the majority of posts and kill people who move in

linh · Mar 28, 2006, 08:05 PM // 20:05

In Saltspray map, many people run prior to centre to get dragon. But I personally like 6-0-6

RandomEngy · Mar 28, 2006, 09:36 PM // 21:36

I ran a warrior skirmisher that I thought worked out rather well:

16/13, Sentinel's Armor: Devastating Hammer, Crushing Blow, Heavy Blow, Sprint, Plauge Touch, "You Will Die!"/Wild Blow, Bull's Strike, Bezerker's Stance.

Despite the lack of healing he could take down a lot of shrines solo, and a lot of people. Ranged snares are basically the only problem this warrior had. And a lot of the time I was able to dodge a ranger's Pin Down to get in close and seal the deal. Or turn the cripple against them if I was close enough and it wasn't covered.

All the knocklocking was enough to almost guaruntee a kill when I got in range, and the Devastating Hammer really helps vs other warriors, rangers or assassins. The snares are a significant weakness, but Plauge Touch makes a skirmish warrior doable.

As for distribution of players, I don't think I've played it enough to know the optimal configuration but (at least on maps with two ressurect shrines) I lean towards never having too big a group, instead always capping undefended enemy points, using your NPCs to fight off larger forces and outmanuvering them. It's basically a GvG split build, but on a larger scale.

d3kst3r · Mar 29, 2006, 06:40 AM // 06:40

I used a 100% self reliant W/Mo skirmisher for most of the event that could solo most of the shrines.

10 heal, 15 axe, 12 strength

Live Vicariously
Vigorous Spirit
Cyclone Axe
(that triple combo also did lots of self heals during really heated battles)
Eviscerate
Axe Twist
Axe Rake
Sprint
Berserker Stance

2 x Superior Absorbtion runes

Was able to solo the ranger, warrior, necro, monk, ritualist and dragon shrines with this build as well as tank an entire army of minions and was able to survive for very long periods of time in the centre of the chaotic fray of large battles.

RandomEngy · Mar 29, 2006, 06:59 AM // 06:59

Yeah, so it turns out that Absorption runes don't stack.

d3kst3r · Mar 29, 2006, 08:19 AM // 08:19

Quote:

Originally Posted by RandomEngy

Yeah, so it turns out that Absorption runes don't stack.

Actually Absorbtion Runes do stack. Go into the make a PvP character screen and take a good look at the description.

JR · Mar 29, 2006, 08:58 AM // 08:58

Quote:

Originally Posted by d3kst3r

Actually Absorbtion Runes do stack. Go into the make a PvP character screen and take a good look at the description.

You are wrong.

d3kst3r · Mar 29, 2006, 09:03 AM // 09:03

Quote:

Originally Posted by JR-

You are wrong.

Prove it.

JR · Mar 29, 2006, 09:20 AM // 09:20

Quote:

Location: Random Arenas

Case closed.

d3kst3r · Mar 29, 2006, 09:27 AM // 09:27

Quote:

Originally Posted by JR-

Case closed.

What I meant was give me some hard facts etc. supporting your claim that Absorbtion runes don't stack. That isn't an answer to anything.

Ensign · Mar 29, 2006, 09:28 AM // 09:28

Testing in game >>>>> Reading text descriptions

Quote:

Originally Posted by d3kst3r

What I meant was give me some hard facts etc. supporting your claim that Absorbtion runes don't stack.

We've tested them and they don't stack? I mean seriously what are you looking for here?

Peace,
-CxE

QoH · Mar 29, 2006, 09:41 AM // 09:41

You should buy 100 sup abs if they stack for you.

But seriously if they stack there would be thousands of invincible warriors...