Curse

Hand of the Master · Mar 13, 2006, 07:19 PM // 19:19

Ok, before everyone flames me and calls me a "n00b" please read the entire post. I have been playing PvP for about 3 months now (2 months RA and 1 month HA) and am entirely fed up with HA. It seems that I cannot get past the first or second rounds with any team I am on (I play balanced). Our oponents are always either spikers or IWAY, and BAM we lose, even though we had a plan before entering into battle. It seems that not one PUG or Guild group I have encountered has found a working counter to spikers or IWAY. People flood the forum on how you just have to "think" and obvious ways to counter them arise. Well I challenge you dear guru members to actually POST these magical ways to defeat spikers or IWAY with a balanced group because IMO, it is damn near impossible.

My issues:

I play a mesmer because I enjoy it. I play any type under the sun. E-denial, Migraine, etc. and DO NOT use prebuilt skill sets posted on the web. The hardest thing about playing a mesmer IMO is being flexible enough to deal with casters and melee simultaneously without forgetting about hex removal! I have a skill set I am confident gives me a decent array of anti-caster skills while still having a few skills to deal with a warrior beating the crap out of me. It is a great all-around build because IMO, you need to have all your bases covered. Yes, I do read the skills and think of how to combine them to get the most out of each but I am just at the end of my rope when it comes to HA. A total of two weeks straight and 5 fame in all. No, I do not "suck" at this game. I am so tempted to just go IWAY or spiker but am adament in my beliefe that there must be some way to counter both of these groups with a well focussed, balanced group. I just havent found on that does. Please post your thoughts and help this FED UP mesmer! Thanks.

-Hand

Vindexus · Mar 13, 2006, 07:37 PM // 19:37

Interupt spikes.

I'm not sure about IWAY because I haven't been in HA for a while and I'm not sure about what has changed. Back when I used to play you'd need Aegis chains, some anti warrior hexes and make sure to keep killing them. Ward Against Melee is awesome but make sure you don't get too balled up so the trappers pwn your face. Water Eles are also great versus IWAY. You get mass snares to make kiting easier, as well as Blurred Vision. And believe it or not Rust is really good. Everyone on an IWAY team is carrying a Res Sig, so if you manage to Rust a few of them then they'll be ressing for 6s. Rust is also good vs Surge/Burn/Weariness teams.

Parkerbsb · Mar 13, 2006, 08:03 PM // 20:03

Ok well first off you might want to check in the HA forum - never really read any info there but could help

1) What sort of balanced build? If you are making it on the fly then you should be able to bring one of the following
: Dust trap ranger
: Ward bitch (ward vs melee and foes)
: Spitefull spirit necro

Vs Spikes, make sure you have a good healer with infuse health, also a mesmer with cry of frustration can really help.

so you give up 1 char slot to counter both (better to have it split over 2 characters with the core skills you use tho.

Just a few thoughts that should help out

wheel · Mar 13, 2006, 08:20 PM // 20:20

It also depends on what type of spike you face. Rainbow caster spike? Ranger spike? Straight Obsidian Flame spike?

Maddie · Mar 13, 2006, 08:21 PM // 20:21

You know I think that this is one of the standard replies. But jsut make sure that you watch observer mode every now and then. Know how to run a w/e shock warrior. Know how to run a spirit spammer. Know how to run the 3-monks. And all the other persons in build (ss nec,e-surger,migrainer). If you know those common builds it will be easier for you to make your own groups.

When you know those. And you get people who are willing to reroll. You can make good groups.. And oh yea.. It takes longer then 1 hour to be succesful in the game and the making of the group etc. So when you are one of these persons who plays 1 hour a day. HA won't be it for you I guess then. The higher the rank of your groups become the longer it takes to get everything rerolled (6+ and 9+ are simular in time though). But 3+ and unranked will make groups faster. but also die faster. That is the logic.

Billiard · Mar 13, 2006, 09:07 PM // 21:07

In the past we have used a version of NPCs build to take halls. Thats a pretty balanced build and deals fine with IWAY and Ranger Spike. Never played it against blood spike though. Lately we've been practicing our GvG mixed spike build in HA and have made it to HoH twice - but losing both times as we don't have a build designed for HA.

With both of these builds though, one of the key things is tactics. Figure out what the other team is using to buff and kill you with, then minimize it. Think of this ahead of time so you have your strategy all set. If they are dropping spirits, pull back out of spirit range, then do some hit and run on them. With both IWAY and Ranger Spike you can cut a lot of their damage by either killing the spirits or getting out their range.

NPC's build used to use 3 Mesmers, an AoE Ele, a TF Warrior, and 3 Monks that use perma-aegis. Our spike build has 2 Obs Eles, 2 PP Mes, a Necro, a Ele/W runner and a 2 monk backline. Nothing magical about the builds themselves in order to take out IWAY or spikes - its more how you play.

Kwisatz_Haderach · Mar 13, 2006, 11:31 PM // 23:31

tips:

IWAY:
1. kill orders(easy kill sacs own health)
2. Bring interupts for rez sig (Cry of Frustration OWNS)
3. Snare Warriors and kite them
4. Wards are a must

Spikers:
1. Kill a spiker (typically they stay down cause frozen soil does the job for you, it also ruins the spike making for easy healing)
2. Bring e-denianl (believe it or not a spike does not work when they have no energy)
3. Infuse Monk and bonds (make it easy to survive even if you dont follow first 2 tips)

Final tip is Have fun if something does not work try something else, every build has counters otherwise the game would be to one sided

tarutaru · Mar 13, 2006, 11:50 PM // 23:50

Man, I love these threads that pop up every once in awhile. So, as to make it more fun for myself, I am going to time myself and see how many counters to iway and/or ranger spike that I can write in 30 seconds.

Ready...set...Go!

1. Aegis
2. Life Bond
3. Life Barrier
4. Infuse Health
5. Heal Party
6. Kill their spirits
7. Ward vs Melee
8. Ward vs Foes
9. Ward vs Harm
10. Any skill that causes blind
11. Any skill that causes cripple
12. Any skill that causes dazed
13. Don't bunch up
14. Symbiosis
15. Fertile Season
16. Cry of Frustration
17. Shadow of Fear
18. Enfeebling Blood
19. Any skill that causes weakness, for that matter
20. Spiteful Spirit
21. Corpse Control (anything...)

Damn, 30 seconds are up. Would have written more. Anyway, that should give you a good start. Many of those are easy to incorporate into any build. Have fun creaming those overused builds.

Weazzol · Mar 13, 2006, 11:54 PM // 23:54

The above posts will help very much, also...

You might re-think your "all around build". I say that because in HA (which 1 month in HA doesn't really give you enough experience in how HA works) everyone has a job. So you being mesmer will usually have the job of shutting down casters/monks through e-denial or interrupts (with the occasional degen or anti-tank builds), so you need to make your build all about doing that one job, you can't spread it out to take care of other things, that's where others come in to play to take care of those rolls.

And it can be done, just last night I was with a random balanced PUG that did very well, at one point we did 3 flawless in a row, including beating some IWAY & Spike groups. We almost took HOH too. The group was 3 monks, 2 mesmers, 1 ele, & 2 war's.

So just wait till you find the right group and keep working on your roll in the group and make your build and personal playing skills with that build the best you can.

tafy69 · Mar 14, 2006, 07:38 AM // 07:38

IWAY teams are so easy to beat after the update that you can have 1 monk afk and still win.

Spike teams is getting popular as hell again, you need good pressure and shutdown to beat them. Your best bet is play a dual surge team that has the ability to beat everything.

tomcruisejr · Mar 14, 2006, 07:47 AM // 07:47

Quote:

Originally Posted by T Waters

iway only wins due to pure luck or a mistake made by the other team....

lol. you're so harsh. its like saying that War Machine won against LuM in the GWWC because of pure luck or LuM made a mistake.

give credit to winning iway teams. they won because they worked so hard and played it well, not just because of pure luck or because losing teams made mistakes.

ok provided that losing team made mistakes when facing iways. look at this too. when iway teams lose, prolly they made mistakes.

tafy69 · Mar 14, 2006, 08:06 AM // 08:06

Lum Vs WM was pre-patch

We are now in the Post-Patch with IWAY nerfed to hell, any teams losing to it now is nearly unthinkable.

Therlun · Mar 14, 2006, 10:47 AM // 10:47

Quote:

Originally Posted by tarutaru

1. Aegis
2. Life Bond
3. Life Barrier
4. Infuse Health
5. Heal Party
6. Kill their spirits
7. Ward vs Melee
8. Ward vs Foes
9. Ward vs Harm
10. Any skill that causes blind
11. Any skill that causes cripple
12. Any skill that causes dazed
13. Don't bunch up
14. Symbiosis
15. Fertile Season
16. Cry of Frustration
17. Shadow of Fear
18. Enfeebling Blood
19. Any skill that causes weakness, for that matter
20. Spiteful Spirit
21. Corpse Control (anything...)

Damn, 30 seconds are up. Would have written more. Anyway, that should give you a good start. Many of those are easy to incorporate into any build. Have fun creaming those overused builds.

while i agree that iway and spikes can be defeated with some coordination, such a list is pretty stupid.

no single one of the skills you named will alone be enough to defeat a good spiker group.
and you seem to think that the enemy is stupid.

spiteful spirit?
a goood spiker group needs 2 volleys max to bring a char down... wow that 74 damage on 1 or 2 of them will really hamper that spike! (if it doenst get removed...)

"a good infuser" is IMo no defense either, as said good spiker team will have brought a char down before he can select the target for infusion.

same for most of the other skills you listed.

to defeat a good enemy group, you dont only need the right skillset, you need stratagy on your own.

Parkerbsb · Mar 14, 2006, 12:21 PM // 12:21

Err spitefull is for Iway ... re-read his post

Edit: here's the list with what it counters

Quote:

Originally Posted by tarutaru

1. Aegis - IWAY
2. Life Bond - Spike
3. Life Barrier - Spike
4. Infuse Health - Spike
5. Heal Party - Iway
6. Kill their spirits - Spike
7. Ward vs Melee - Iway
8. Ward vs Foes -Iway
9. Ward vs Harm - Iway (some spike)
10. Any skill that causes blind - Iway
11. Any skill that causes cripple - Iway
12. Any skill that causes dazed - Spike
13. Don't bunch up - Spike
14. Symbiosis - Spike
15. Fertile Season - Spike
16. Cry of Frustration - Spike
17. Shadow of Fear - Iway
18. Enfeebling Blood - Iway
19. Any skill that causes weakness, for that matter - Iway
20. Spiteful Spirit - Iway
21. Corpse Control (anything...) - Iway

I think I got that right... sometimes I get the ranger spirits confused

Lykan · Mar 14, 2006, 03:28 PM // 15:28

To give an all round chance of beating Iway and Spikes you may wish to try incorporate these chars/skills into your team:

Me/N Consume Corpse(Very important)
E/Me Ward against melee and ward against foes.
N/- spiteful Spirit
(advanced teams like to combine the previous two by taking a N/E SS Warder)
R/- Oath shot, Barbed trap, dust trap, fertile, symbiosis.
1 or 2 Monks with Aegis.
Get a good infuser too.

art_ · Mar 14, 2006, 05:16 PM // 17:16

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lykan

To give an all round chance of beating Iway and Spikes you may wish to try incorporate these chars/skills into your team:

Me/N Consume Corpse(Very important)
E/Me Ward against melee and ward against foes.
N/- spiteful Spirit
(advanced teams like to combine the previous two by taking a N/E SS Warder)
R/- Oath shot, Barbed trap, dust trap, fertile, symbiosis.
1 or 2 Monks with Aegis.
Get a good infuser too.

Hmm. Symbiosis isn't that awesome vs IWAY. IWAYers are practically always enchanted by orders or by tainted flesh so you're helping them more than you.

Lykan · Mar 14, 2006, 09:21 PM // 21:21

Quote:

Originally Posted by art_

Hmm. Symbiosis isn't that awesome vs IWAY. IWAYers are practically always enchanted by orders or by tainted flesh so you're helping them more than you.

Yeah I was thinking of spikes as well, plus its also good for holding if your using bonds or something. obviously you wont be using it versus iway.

tarutaru · Mar 14, 2006, 10:16 PM // 22:16

Quote:

lol. you're so harsh. its like saying that War Machine won against LuM in the GWWC because of pure luck or LuM made a mistake.

give credit to winning iway teams. they won because they worked so hard and played it well, not just because of pure luck or because losing teams made mistakes.

ok provided that losing team made mistakes when facing iways. look at this too. when iway teams lose, prolly they made mistakes.

Actually, iway teams only win for three possible reasons:
1. The other team made a mistake.
2. The iway team got lucky.
3. The other team is not experienced enough to know how to handle fotm metagame.

Thanks parkersbsb for the revised list. Sort of ran that off in as short a span of time as possible, forgot to add which were for iway and which were for spike

And to Therlun, yes those skills listed do stop iway and ranger spike teams. Of course, you can't just take only those skills and expect to win, and of course you need a strategy. I was just responding to the op's gripe about how they couldn't know how to beat the fotm effectively. And at no point did I ever say a single one of those skills would be all you need. So please don't incinuate "stupidity" because you didn't read the whole post. It's not very becoming.

Ado · Mar 15, 2006, 02:09 AM // 02:09

Quote:

Originally Posted by tafy69

We are now in the Post-Patch with IWAY nerfed to hell, any teams losing to it now is nearly unthinkable.

I have to disagree with that. First of all: skills have been replaced to "undo" the nerf. Second: i've won a lot with IWAY and lost against IWAY as well while playing in balanced groups.

And plz dont make a cheap comment like "your balanced team must have sucked big time"

Many IWAY teams know the retreat-trick of balanced groups, so they wait with putting spirits. Then they let them ball up, put spirits and start smashing faces.

And yes, good balanced teams will counter that as well, but if 1 thing goes wrong and Well of the Profane is put up in the middle of a balanced group, IWAY is likely to win.

It's not a good build which make ppl play well, it are good players which will make a build work well.

Lorien of Mandos · Mar 15, 2006, 02:10 AM // 02:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ado

It's not a good build which make ppl play well, it are good players which will make a build work well.

Quoted for truth (if not for grammatical errors

)