Curse

tafy69 · Dec 06, 2005, 07:41 AM // 07:41

This isnt a Moaning session about IWAY , but about players too stupid to follow a few rules when facing IWAY teams.

From owning IWAY with flawless, lately we been getting wtf pwned by IWAY teams. The Monks have their share of the blame (around 50%) and the rest is the warriors ( ah poor dumb warriors).

So im gonna give you R6 noobs tips on how to bloody well not lose to iway, cos im sick of it. btw im not dissing u r6 ppl but jees the standards are dropping fast.

Tip No 1: BALL UP, how many times do i have to tell u ppl that, only to have you break the ball for no reason

Tip no 2 : Once balled, DONT break the ball! Even if the stupid warrior ran other side of map to get owned by 5 IWAY warriors

Tip No 3 : If they get a well, or some AoE spell e.g meteors, maelstrom. Move the ball back

Tip No 4 : Wand and kill the trappers, they are devestating if left untouched, take em out

Tip No 5 : Warriors plz for the love of god dont do some stupid rambo move and run across the map to kill some order necro. Kill the trappers untill they stopped getting resed.

Tip No 5 : Get a character whos main job is to interupt their death necro, and kill him. And do nothing till he gets resed again. Rinse and repeat. Interupt ranger is good here.

Tip No 6 : Grab the corpses

Tip No 7 : Monks dont you realise the power of HEAL PARTY? use the odd seed, then spam heal party, with channeling and all those pets etc you prob make more energy than you spend. Thats all you gota do lol

Tip No 8 : Everyone Stay in the Ward, Warriors too. After you killed the trappers a few times then you can start to do other things.

Im talking about a team with a warder here of course, if you dont have a warder gl to you. Rant off

Entropius · Dec 06, 2005, 08:16 AM // 08:16

Balling is highly overrated against IWAY. It is useful in some situations, but people grossly overuse it.

For instance, it is a good tactic if you have significant AoE capabilities, as you can hit everyone at once as they come to attack your ball.

Conversely, it is a horrible idea if you run a single-target spike team (bloodspike, etc.) IWAY teams are aware of the balling thing, and will use skills like Death Nova, Putrid Explosion, and others to punish you severely for clumping up.

The necros, if you are in a tight ball, will just stay out of range until they need to be in range to putrid, well, etc. You correctly identify killing the necros as important: IMO killing the orders necro is almost as important as the death necro, since OotV adds so much damage. However, it's hard to do that if you completely sacrifice mobility by balling up.

The traps aren't as bad if you just spread out.

You want to bottleneck the warriors if you have sufficient AoE, but you don't want all of your guys stacked in one place either. You will get eaten alive by traps, Death Novas, and Putrids. Every balanced group, based on its composition, will respond to an iway differently, and there is no hard and fast rule.

Rey Lentless · Dec 06, 2005, 08:40 AM // 08:40

The main reasons I see iway fall are 3 reasons:

1. You have no aoe in the build, no anti-iway defense like wards, shadow, traps, etc.. and you ball anyway. You know you're going to face iway multiple times, so make your build function well against it. While staples like healing seeds, aegis, and channelling are great against iway and almost in every build anyway, you may need a little more than that.

2. You don't identify the anti-balling skills being used against you and counter them (interupting aoe or moving out of it, getting corpses, attacking trappers), or just kill them once and don't retarget them after rez's. Balling takes advantage of wards, seeds, channelling, etc.. but iway teams usually bring 1-3 deballing characters. You can identify them right away and target them. Kill/interupt them and continue to do it and you'll almost always win.

3. Something causes you to deball (aoe, stupid warrs, relic runs, etc) and you don't/can't reform the ball. If you run around like a chicken with your head cut off, then you're going to die. Kiting is not an effective strategy considering they're hitting you while you're doing nothing. You aren't kiting against 1 or two warrs, while the 7 other members of your group are still being productive like you would against a balanced team, you're having multiple people in your group kiting at the same time.. which does not work.

You can beat iway without balling, and yes, the iway teams know you're going to. But 99% of the time, if you pay attention and target what you're supposed to target, and have basic things in your build (that almost any balanced build should have anyway), then you're still much better off balling.

Iway teams rarely beat anyone, the teams they're playing against beat themselves.

tafy69 · Dec 06, 2005, 09:04 AM // 09:04

Quote:

Originally Posted by Entropius

Balling is highly overrated against
Conversely, it is a horrible idea if you run a single-target spike team (bloodspike, etc.) IWAY teams are aware of the balling thing, and will use skills like Death Nova, Putrid Explosion, and others to punish you severely for clumping up.

The necros, if you are in a tight ball, will just stay out of range until they need to be in range to putrid, well, etc.

Thats why you consume the corpses before they use it, and interupt their death necro. Also thats why you kill the trappers till they dont get resed cos of what they do to your ball if you let them.

Patrograd · Dec 06, 2005, 09:16 AM // 09:16

As has been said, balling against IWAY isnt really a good idea unless you are set up to ball. Remember that the clever IWAY groups are now built to destroy balls, well of suffering, well of profane, putrid, death nova, meteor shower, traps. It works (or should) if you have a bond monk and keep him permanently seeded and have skills like divine healing/heal area/ward melee etc. otherwise not a good idea.

Instead just spread out to aggro circle range, keep up Aegis, take down their necros and take out single targets until they run out of rez sigs. By spreading out you deny their anti ball characters (and there will always be at least 2) their role in the team, meaning you now only have six enemies to worry about. 8 should beat 6, assuming some level of competence.

tafy69 · Dec 06, 2005, 09:24 AM // 09:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by Patrograd

As has been said, balling against IWAY isnt really a good idea unless you are set up to ball. Remember that the clever IWAY groups are now built to destroy balls, well of suffering, well of profane, putrid, death nova, meteor shower, traps. It works (or should) if you have a bond monk and keep him permanently seeded and have skills like divine healing/heal area/ward melee etc. otherwise not a good idea.

Instead just spread out to aggro circle range, keep up Aegis, take down their necros and take out single targets until they run out of rez sigs. By spreading out you deny their anti ball characters (and there will always be at least 2) their role in the team, meaning you now only have six enemies to worry about. 8 should beat 6, assuming some level of competence.

May I Suggest you only split up if your team is set up to split.. Double or triple aegis, bonder etc. Otherwise your asking to be owned tbh

Takes a competent team to be able to do that, and most likely a bonder too. Just hope they drop the NR in a easy to reach place before the bonds all drop off lol

Yes we all know too well they got anti balling techniques, thats why if you actually read all my tips you would see that ive dealth with it...

Patrograd · Dec 06, 2005, 11:12 AM // 11:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by tafy69

Yes we all know too well they got anti balling techniques, thats why if you actually read all my tips you would see that ive dealth with it...

My opinion would be that ti would require a better more co-ordinated team with a very specific skillset in order to ball successfully. My view is that in general by splitting up (but remaining within range of each other, aggro circle distance, no more) you are

a) Denying their anti-ball characters
b) splitting their attack onto various targets

I will qualify this by saying that I dont do tombs much these days as its boring facing the same two or three builds every time, but I do know that I have had much more success against IWAY by splitting than by balling. The old IWAY you could ball against, and you'll still beat a poorly organised random IWAY PUG like this, I just dont think its a viable tactic against a good, well organised IWAY team any more. Certainly on the rare occasions that we run IWAY in the tombs we are hoping that the other team will ball, they're much easier to deal with like that (putrid, edge of extinction etc). But like I say, tombs isnt somewhere I go more than two or three times a week nowadays, give me GvG every time.

Lykan · Dec 06, 2005, 12:15 PM // 12:15

Quote:

Originally Posted by tafy69

Tip No 5 : Get a character whos main job is to interupt their death necro, and kill him. And do nothing till he gets resed again. Rinse and repeat. Interupt ranger is good here.

I hope people take this advice, I havent been able to find a decent PUG with my int ranger for ages.

Fixing the Fields · Dec 06, 2005, 12:27 PM // 12:27

Well, my point is...why do we have to take counters for some stupid n00bs running around pressing c space...isnt it ridiculous you gotta waist a few skill slots for them? Anet, plz make an end to IWAY, I got some better things to spend my skillslots on.

Elrodien · Dec 06, 2005, 12:40 PM // 12:40

Balanced teams DO seem to fair pretty badly against an IWAY team but people with any experience of tombs even at rank 1 should know that they should expect an IWAY team to face them and to take counters for it. An Earth Ele warder is usually enough to confuse them.

Lim-Dul · Dec 06, 2005, 12:40 PM // 12:40

Well - I've been playing in IWAY PuGs very often lately - simply for the reason, that they are very easy to assemble and very effective in a PuG. I do agree however, that they are easy to defeat. Wards work against them like a charm. In fact one or two Wards Against Melee and Wards Against Foes and the whole IWAY team is screwed. Take the warriors out one-by one, so that they they get a huuuuge DP without actually gaining much benefit from IWAY, since only one or two are dead at a time. The whole team will spend their signet on rezzing some dork who won't last 10 seconds anyway and then you've virtually won. If you manage to bring down two pple in an IWAY team, even if they are just Warriors, to a huge DP, then they are fried. And always watch out for assaults on your ghostly hero. Many a time we've won with our IWAY PuG because the enemy was too careless. They killed like half of our group (the pets were dead already of course) and thought they would own us after that. And suddenly one warrior killed the Ghostly Hero because no one was watching him, all our signets recharged and we could say hello to over one minute of IWAY madness. In such a situation NOBODY will last long, believe me. =)

Another thing is: don't feel TOO safe because of your stances etc. The only thing that's really effective against IWAY is blindness. And not necessarily Dust Traps, as they can be triggered by the pets, which I usually send into the fight by using my bow. =) All too often I've seen a ranger in a stance just standing there thinking, muhaha, I'm teh pwn, and pretending I wasn't there. What he didn't realize was the fact, that I've been only sticking to him because I was waiting for his stance to run out - sure, he could have some more stances or prots from a monk, but that's why I'm using Warrior's Cunning (after the first stance has run out, I use Warrior's Cunning to strike through a possible second stance and after it has ended most stance-users will be left standing with no stances left), which lasts 10 seconds - and when my adrenal skills are charged and IWAY or Tiger's Fury is turned on (I can keep up Tiger's Fury indefinitely) I can EASILY kill a character in 10 seconds. Other Warriors have learned to use stance bypassing skills as well. That's why you should ALWAYS run when you see an IWAY fuelled axe-swinging mad-man coming at you - preferably through a Ward Against Foes of course.

That's just my contribution to the whole matter.

And mind it, please, IWAY isn't just a newbish-idiot-crap build everybody (or rather people who can't deal with it) likes to say. It just works and is easy to run in a PuG. I've seen many, many teams crying out "You f**** n00bs", "IWAY, IGAY" etc. at the beginning of the fight only to be owned in like 1 minute. The better teams, that actually are able to win against IWAY, always show respect. And there are good and bad IWAY teams too. Never forget that.

All in all I find that a balanced and well coordinated team should win with IWAY like 90% of the time (and that I know from my experience - we failed against GOOD balanced teams like 90% of the time and we DIDN'T fail against those "IGAY" crying teams like 90% of the time ;-). All the people wanting to see IWAY nerfed just don't know how to win with the build, which is, frankly speaking, easier than it seems.

P.S. Don't forget the power of Energizing Wind, which few IWAY builds use. It is a risky skill and shouldn't be used against ALL opponents, but it works well against teams with e.g. 3 monks. Combined with Nature's Renewal the other team will go like "What The Heck" when all their spammable heals will suddenly cost 10 energy instead of 5 - not to mention Divine Boon's increased maintenance cost. =)

Manfred · Dec 06, 2005, 01:01 PM // 13:01

yeah, i played the bond monk on a team that *almost* got owned by iway.

their problems was our ele finaly got his but in gear and started spamming ward vs. foes, crippling their target switching and making my prot more effective.

Lim-Dul · Dec 06, 2005, 01:36 PM // 13:36

Right - that's the way to go. :-D I'll be happy to be owned by teams like yours. I mean - I'm fully aware that every time I'm running an IWAY build I am in fact playing in the least original team-build possible, so I'm glad every time I see, that creativity and good team-work can win with all this conformism we've seen lately.

P.S. I do not exclusively play in IWAY teams - but the more original ones are only achievable with my guild-mates.

Schorny · Dec 06, 2005, 02:21 PM // 14:21

Every IWAY that can't beat a ball, can't beat you no matter what you do.

IWAY has so many ways to beat a ball, it's even not funny. And still so many IWAYs lose to balls. But you don't want to prepare yourself to fight bad iway teams, do you?

Best way is to spread out, otherwise you will have an easy win against bad teams and _will lose no matter what_ against good teams.

On the other hand, 95% of all IWAY teams are so bad, you may just prepar to fight those and accept the fact that you will lose sometimes.

When I played IWAY with my guild, there was no ball we couldn't break and this was in the time before trappers. You can interrupt healing seed, this is the easiest thing to do. You can charge adrenalin with your bow and then run it -> Fear Me, TTL, Fear Me - and all are dead

Sephir Demange · Dec 06, 2005, 03:44 PM // 15:44

No decently led balanced build should ever lose to an average IWAY. The problems you all describes falls back to 1 important flaw inherent in almost ever pug. Cohesion. Group cohesion is ESSENTIAL to run almost anything at all. If a player knows how to run individually, good for them; but tombs isn't about individual players, it's about acting as a group. Know your group members, and let them know you. Gee Gee iway'ers.

judge1121 · Dec 06, 2005, 04:33 PM // 16:33

is kinda simple to stop IWAY. Aegis + Shadow of Fear + Spiteful ftw

Del12 · Dec 06, 2005, 04:56 PM // 16:56

Top 3 skills I've used in groups to counter IWAY

1) ward against melee
2) spiteful + malaise
3) shadow of fear + malaise

Top 3 tactics Ive used in groups to counter IWAY

1) designate one warrior to kill any spirits they put down immediately
2) designate one warrior (with wild blow) to stay on their trapper the entire time
3) soft targets stay in ward

If you organize a group to use these, you shouldn't have a problem. Of course, every so often, one of our groups will fall to IWAY. When that happens, it happens so quick, you never quite know why. Maybe a well timed warriors cunning followed by a putrid. Maybe a couple of death novas on pets, who knows.

fiery · Dec 06, 2005, 06:13 PM // 18:13

gah and judges beats me to it

Dzan · Dec 06, 2005, 06:26 PM // 18:26

The only thing tough about IWAY is when they use EOE, I've never lost to an IWAY that didn't use EOE.

All the stuff that beats "normal" IWAY that has been mentioned (aegis, ward, spiteful) are things you should bring anyway.

Rey Lentless · Dec 06, 2005, 06:27 PM // 18:27

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fixing the Fields

Well, my point is...why do we have to take counters for some stupid n00bs running around pressing c space...isnt it ridiculous you gotta waist a few skill slots for them? Anet, plz make an end to IWAY, I got some better things to spend my skillslots on.

This is exactly why IWAY wins. People dismiss them as noobs and say 'I don't have to or want to counter it' and go in and lose to an iway and everyone calls each other noobs and the group breaks up. You know you're going to see it, counter it.. or lose. It only takes a few elements to destroy an iway team.

Single biggest problem in groups is refusing to counter the common builds you're going to see. That's why iway people rank up, it's your own fault.