View Full Version : Changes to Guild Battles
With Sept 14th, came a new way to play GvG.
imo, I think this change is weird. I think you'll see a lot more "wait for VoD" kind of builds with more defensive capabilities, and a decrease in the mobile builds.
How do you feel about the GvG changes?
With Sept 14th, came a new way to play GvG.
imo, I think this change is weird. I think you'll see a lot more "wait for VoD" kind of builds with more defensive capabilities, and a decrease in the mobile builds.
How do you feel about the GvG changes?
I don't know yet I have to play and see and then comment :)
* Removed one of the Bodyguards and one of the Archers near the Guild Lords.
* Added two Knights near the Guild Lord. Knights are Warriors with the following skills: Server Artery, Gash, Healing Signet, and Power Attack.
* Adjusted the positions of Guild Hall NPCs.
* Shortened the time until "Victory or Death!" to 20 minutes.
* Modified the "Victory or Death!" effect so that it applies to all players, regardless of where they are on the map.
I do like the change to 20 minutes instead of 30 as before. Should speed up slow games alot.
With Sept 14th, came a new way to play GvG.
imo, I think this change is weird. I think you'll see a lot more "wait for VoD" kind of builds with more defensive capabilities, and a decrease in the mobile builds.
How do you feel about the GvG changes?
I don't know yet I have to play and see and then comment :)
* Removed one of the Bodyguards and one of the Archers near the Guild Lords.
* Added two Knights near the Guild Lord. Knights are Warriors with the following skills: Server Artery, Gash, Healing Signet, and Power Attack.
* Adjusted the positions of Guild Hall NPCs.
* Shortened the time until "Victory or Death!" to 20 minutes.
* Modified the "Victory or Death!" effect so that it applies to all players, regardless of where they are on the map.
I do like the change to 20 minutes instead of 30 as before. Should speed up slow games alot.
Patccmoi
14-09-2006, 16:36
With Sept 14th, came a new way to play GvG.
imo, I think this change is weird. I think you'll see a lot more "wait for VoD" kind of builds with more defensive capabilities, and a decrease in the mobile builds.
How do you feel about the GvG changes?
I'm not convinced about more 'wait for VoD' teams. A lot of them used Rt Lord spirit spammer, which got nerfed, and losing 1 bodyguard makes turtling a lot harder. The bodyguard duo was what allowed teams to camp so easily with all the AOEs in a cramped area.
I think it'll speed up the pace a bit, and at the same time won't penalize teams going for something else than all-out offense so much rating-wise. Games will be shorter no matter how the fight goes, and so there won't be such a large margin in the amount of games played by people going for example mass thumpers compared to guilds using more 'balanced' builds that can't push and end a game that fast.
windcaller
14-09-2006, 17:26
it will speed alot the tactics. not sure i wanted this..
I expect to see a lot of heavy pressure builds, broken plays and utilization of dazed. It is one condition heavily underused IMHO. May see defensive teams, if there will be any, with dual extinguish and expel hexes. All expectations....will have to play to see.
P.S.: Definitely no more slugfest at flagstand...go for the carnival instead!
- Vela
Almas Darksoul
14-09-2006, 17:37
I'm fairly happy with all of the Guild Battle changes - Knights make turtling a lot weaker while also making assy ganks take longer, and the reduction in times mean that drawn out games will no longer exist. I do like the change to assassin Shadow of Haste - this could potentially prove for some interesting strategies.
One thing I want to know: does the Guild Lord come out at 25:00 or 35:00? I would assume 25:00 but the patch notes do not say that this has changed.
I'm fairly happy with all of the Guild Battle changes - Knights make turtling a lot weaker while also making assy ganks take longer, and the reduction in times mean that drawn out games will no longer exist. I do like the change to assassin Shadow of Haste - this could potentially prove for some interesting strategies.
One thing I want to know: does the Guild Lord come out at 25:00 or 35:00? I would assume 25:00 but the patch notes do not say that this has changed.
I will expect 25:00.
The lord comes out at 25, and its behavior is otherwise unchanged. (He still stops at roughly halfway to flagstand if the other lord is delayed.)
ZiegDivine
14-09-2006, 23:35
Dazed is definetely present in TA ... we did a few runs there today, and at least half the matches I was dazed.
I see turtle builds to be coming into popularity with the changes. Turtle for 20-25 minutes then wipe the opposing party with AoE hexes (FoC Spike), AoE smite (Balth pushes with dual or triple smite), or some other defensive AoE builds.
I am totally against the reduction in time until VoD starts.
Xunlai Agent
15-09-2006, 09:11
This is a direct reaction to the turtle tactic used in the past. Anet is trying to limit people turtling in their base and the changes will probably have exactly this effect!
I see turtle builds to be coming into popularity with the changes. Turtle for 20-25 minutes then wipe the opposing party with AoE hexes (FoC Spike), AoE smite (Balth pushes with dual or triple smite), or some other defensive AoE builds.
I am totally against the reduction in time until VoD starts.
A loss of one Bodyguard and archer for two very easily agro'ed sword warriors, how exactly did you see this as helping turtling?
Sure solo ganking has been slowed slightly but on the whole split teams are going to be laughing.
Smite has been nerfed so that most teams can easily remove Z-fire twice, thus dropping all of the smite pressure. B-Aura is nerfed. The other thing is, turtle builds are automatically down 10% morale. I do not see where your logic comes from.
Reduced VoD time is good news for everyone, since it shortens game time and you don't need to use all or nothing builds.
Ok, well how would you counter a dual smite that is turtling?
A third or fourth monk (smiters) adds tremendous defense and damage and helped more so in the close confines of the guild lord area. It is almost impossible to remove Zealot's Fire and the cover enchant(s) to fully shutdown smiters at VoD.
Also Ritualist spirits aid the npc's as well as the party. 1-2 of them spamming away can greatly aid the defense at the flag stand and around the guild lord. Even offensive spirits aid damage and defense by applying pressure to any people attacking your turtle.
I still remember when in the second season playoffs, FoC spike just rolled guilds at VoD, while giving up that measly 10% morale boost the other team gained throughout the rest of the match. 10% did not stop them from losing then.
I am just saying overall that the shorter VoD timer will benefit those designed to play for VoD. Anet may have wanted to shorten matches and make them exciting to observers, but in the long run, it will make it more defensive during the next playoffs, and wait for VoD to really fight.
JodoKast
15-09-2006, 11:58
A third or fourth monk (smiters) adds tremendous defense and damage and helped more so in the close confines of the guild lord area. It is almost impossible to remove Zealot's Fire and the cover enchant(s) to fully shutdown smiters at VoD.
How about Me/N : Gaze of contempt <wait> shatter enchant.
Also Ritualist spirits aid the npc's as well as the party. 1-2 of them spamming away can greatly aid the defense at the flag stand and around the guild lord. Even offensive spirits aid damage and defense by applying pressure to any people attacking your turtle.
I still remember when in the second season playoffs, FoC spike just rolled guilds at VoD, while giving up that measly 10% morale boost the other team gained throughout the rest of the match. 10% did not stop them from losing then.
I am just saying overall that the shorter VoD timer will benefit those designed to play for VoD. Anet may have wanted to shorten matches and make them exciting to observers, but in the long run, it will make it more defensive during the next playoffs, and wait for VoD to really fight.
The thing is that the GL area just got more difficult to defend now. The knights will get out and engage other team and there is a reduced amount of support NPCs around the GL. This means that the turtling suffers from 2 problems :
-> that increased difficulty to defend can mean that they'll not be able to sustain assault and eventually collapse while turtling. If turtling becomes very popular, people will start carrying counters such as AOE spells, maybe Profane, why not...and will eventually be able to break the turtle more easily than they could before the update.
-> assuming that the turtle manages to defend for 20 min, they'll come at VOD with a clear disadvantage in NPCs are more NPCs now are outside of the GL area and therefore will fall to the assault of the other team...If the turtle build is designed with so much pressure that they can proceed with the kill despite this disadvantage, one can wonder why the team is not attacking from the begining of the match in the first place and roll over their opponent.
The real only use of Turtling is when you have not much choice because of ennemy movement (check IQ vs Evil as an example) ...That was the case before and still remains the case now, and it has been made more difficult to hold.
Turtling is not really such a good option anymore in my opinion. The fact that there is now only 1 body guard makes rolling into a turtled team that much more efficent... the knights are easily aggro's and drawn out in the scuffle and while monks are trying to keep their team up and the bodyguard its a lot harder to keep track of the nights which dont show up on the party screen. In a 2 man push for the bodyguard its pretty easy to have the remaining offensive players wipe the nights which will most likly be midline or backline to the attacking team making them easy pickings. In the gvg's that i got in last night turtling didnt really seem to work so well for the teams that we faced, and they either suicided our just resigned after 3-4 min of turtling.
well with the current metagame using choking gas/seeking arrow rangers instead of mesmer turtleing will probably be nice little option. The current rit lord build is not for turtling, if ever caster used its wands then union and displacement is good. Aslo rit lord and boon of creation has been nerfed to try spamming 25 energy.
I have done some testing on turtle builds with VoD at 20 minutes, and seen Black Rose Gaming run one with success after the ladder unlocked. I am not saying I like BR or their build, but I see that sorta build dominating during playoffs. They had 3 spirit spammers (1 of them Oath Shot)(NR, Tranq, shelter, union, preservation, life recuperation, shadowsong, etc) and 2 warriors, 1 necro with bone minionsand other death skills, and 2 necro healers. They were down significantly in npcs (they only had 3 left 2 warriors, 1 archer) at VoD. The warriors easily took them down 1 by 1.
High ranked guilds will play high pressure builds to rating farm faster to climb the ladder, but when it comes time to win prizes, I am willing to bet the farm many of them will switch to defense come playoffs.
Yes, Anet made changes to make turtling harder, but for a team build solely designed to turtle then kill at VoD will have greater success over a build that is designed to fight at the flag stand. The build concepts for 8v8/7v7 fighting and turtling are different and that is where people are failing to realize that. A defensive build with a couple offensive members, can win just by frustrating the other team into making mistakes after VoD. Mistakes at VoD can easily cost your team the match.
Shatter Enchantment will work but what about the cover enchantments like channeling, aegis chain, etc. Pure defensive builds will have cover enchantments, or fail due to poor planning. For example, Legion of Losers' smiter monk has channeling as his cover enchantment and as extra energy gain. Plus they DID run 2 Aegis.
Gaze of contempt on a Me/N with shatter enchantment. I will give you that one, but how builds actually run that in GvGs? I am guessing a pretty gosh darn low number. And just how will that shut down 2 smiters as I previously stated with cover enchantments? If you are targetting their smiters that heavily, then the real monks will be chilling, while their warriors are bashing your backline, midline, frontline (whatever they decide to attack).
I know if the meta shifts this way, better counters will be brought, but with the meta shifting, won't it pretty much be turtle against turtle? And nobody wins in a turtle race ;P.
I know that I do not like turtling tactics or builds, but think about it a little. You could easily design a build that accomplishes turtling and then damage at VoD. A key change that helps a turtle build push out is the VoD being on all players, even if not near their npcs shouting it.
I am not saying this is the direction of the meta. But, if you think about a build that would take advantage of the reduced VoD time, and npc numbers, you can see what I fear is on the horizon for Guild Wars GvG. And I do not like that sight.
Almas Darksoul
16-09-2006, 01:43
I haven't seen any Gas rangers in GvG this season, in about ~10 matches played and atleast 10 or so more watched. Thankfully enough though a lot of people have been moving away from Assassin builds, which surprised me - I only saw about 1/10 using them.
Oddly enough, I've seen a lot of balanced builds from who I have been playing, although many of them have a focus on quick-finishes and wipeouts, often sacrificing some defense. A lot of matches I've been in have been turned around due to lack of defense on the rival team - everyone in the game seems to be dying at the same time. However, the few times we have had to break turtles, it is a LOT easier than before.
Regarding VoD changes - I don't really like them. I'd prefer if VoD was at 25:00 or so, as atm the fight seems to be reaching a point where it is just about to become interesting, then VoD starts and the dynamics change completely. I do agree that 30:00 gave some overstretched battles, but 20:00 is often too short.
I haven't seen any Gas rangers in GvG this season, in about ~10 matches played and atleast 10 or so more watched. Thankfully enough though a lot of people have been moving away from Assassin builds, which surprised me - I only saw about 1/10 using them.
Oddly enough, I've seen a lot of balanced builds from who I have been playing, although many of them have a focus on quick-finishes and wipeouts, often sacrificing some defense. A lot of matches I've been in have been turned around due to lack of defense on the rival team - everyone in the game seems to be dying at the same time. However, the few times we have had to break turtles, it is a LOT easier than before.
Regarding VoD changes - I don't really like them. I'd prefer if VoD was at 25:00 or so, as atm the fight seems to be reaching a point where it is just about to become interesting, then VoD starts and the dynamics change completely. I do agree that 30:00 gave some overstretched battles, but 20:00 is often too short.
No it's not too short. It's perfect.
And i haven't seen much choking gas rangers in gvg. Those are more for ha.
MaximumSquid
16-09-2006, 23:36
I liked the changes, but I think the "Knights" get jacked way to easily and i've been seeing problems where they will run way out to attack people.
Basically increased how often they get murdered.
They should get Dolyak Signet and have their AI reworked so they don't go more than a certain distance from the guild lord.
Patccmoi
17-09-2006, 02:44
I liked the changes, but I think the "Knights" get jacked way to easily and i've been seeing problems where they will run way out to attack people.
Basically increased how often they get murdered.
They should get Dolyak Signet and have their AI reworked so they don't go more than a certain distance from the guild lord.
If they don't move a certain distance from guild lord, than ganking them can be done ridiculously easily with range weapons...
They're fine. They're meant to go out and be easy to gank in a sense. At VoD, if you managed to save them, they are a great asset as they are extremely useful at tanking the other team's archers. So they're easy to kill, but very benefic if you manage to save them. The fact that they go out helps against turtling too as they are very hard to save for the other team (though they tank just like warriors if monks are on their back).
Turtling builds can't win in the new metagame. Take out all the outlying archers, agro and kill the knights and they almost have no NPCs left. Every builds that can't split is destined to lose in the new metagame.
You do not need npc's to win a match in the new meta. When you get a chance check out this guild: Thousend Tigers Apund Ur Head (ranked #11) as of posting. They run a holding build pretty much with 2-3 necros 2-3 spirit spammers with damage spirits and can hold the flag stand or guild lord area. The build is geared to last until VoD and wipe those around the guild. Slash Rank (Deer) was able to beat them by executing a marvelous bodyblock 2 nights ago. It also did not hurt Deer that they are running a ranger spike. No big surprise there.
You cannot say that turtle builds do not win in the meta, because you do not see many of them. I tend to play 8-12 hours a day everyday, and have seen Euro, American, Korean, Japanese guilds play regularly. The variety in builds is greater then you might have been exposed to.
Yes, spikes and pressure builds farm rating faster and generally are more fun to play.
You do not need npc's to win a match in the new meta. When you get a chance check out this guild: Thousend Tigers Apund Ur Head (ranked #11) as of posting. They run a holding build pretty much with 2-3 necros 2-3 spirit spammers with damage spirits and can hold the flag stand or guild lord area. The build is geared to last until VoD and wipe those around the guild. Slash Rank (Deer) was able to beat them by executing a marvelous bodyblock 2 nights ago. It also did not hurt Deer that they are running a ranger spike. No big surprise there.
You cannot say that turtle builds do not win in the meta, because you do not see many of them. I tend to play 8-12 hours a day everyday, and have seen Euro, American, Korean, Japanese guilds play regularly. The variety in builds is greater then you might have been exposed to.
Yes, spikes and pressure builds farm rating faster and generally are more fun to play.
Yea tigers is running a very interesting build, and i have to give them props for origonality... the 2 hardest matches that i have seen them face were against QQ and BC last night who were both running heavy e-denial builds...
BC had them on the run for a while but in the long run they were unable to keep up and slowly were DP'd to hell when VOD came... However QQ had way too much pressure and with the intense e-denial they rolled tigers in less than 5 min i believe...
On a somewhat interesting sidenot, when QQ faced BC later that night BC proved to have too much pressure and was able to flawless them if i remember right...
So VOD builds are possible, just not as common.. however i have seen a lot of tigers matches not ever make it to VoD because they were able to outpressure the other team... The other thing that works to their advantage is that since they have 3 rits they have managed to win when they have made some big mistakes and should have wiped...
This weekend will be interesting. The addition of dervish and paragon once again will rattle a few teams.
It'll make for good watching to see if some teams can adapt to new skills.
Parker Bsb
18-09-2006, 19:29
I wager any guilds NOT in the alpha's are not planning on playing any GvG this weekend :wink:
I wager any guilds NOT in the alpha's are not planning on playing any GvG this weekend
I'll take that bet
It takes 30minutes to find imbalanced skill combos.20minutes to write a build. Thats a long time to farm the ladder.
broken skills FTW? LOL
i guess we will see....
Parker,
I plan on playing that whole weekend. And I doubt that others will avoid it either, unless the imbalance issues are way too much and it does not take too long to steal one of those builds from observer mode.
David Holtzman
18-09-2006, 22:53
I wager any guilds NOT in the alpha's are not planning on playing any GvG this weekend :wink:
I am in the alpha, and we probably won't be playing any GvG this weekend either.
This weekend will be interesting. The addition of dervish and paragon once again will rattle a few teams.
It'll make for good watching to see if some teams can adapt to new skills.
lol, I wish it were PvE only. Did they by chance rework any of the Dervish skills, lol? I'm just as guiltly as any (spiking with CoP), but I wish they would nerf some of the Dervish enchants. CoP is a great skill and I hope they don't nerf it.
I'll bet some will ladder farm this weekend.
Ion The Sudden
19-09-2006, 13:32
The olt problem with this 20 Min Vod is teams are trying to rush to kill people losing a lot fo players in the process. They feel rushed that "OH!? VoD in 5 Mins!" So they jurry rush in the enemies base and lose half thier players in the process. (I have seen from first hand experiences as a Guest >_<)
But the thing I do like, is the they "Nerfed" turtling. It makes the battle much more fierce at the flagstand, with both teams really pushing for Morale. Although we will be seeing a lot of defensive builds that will hold to VoD and always win there. which means more things will be nerfed (>_<):undecided:
Parker Bsb
19-09-2006, 14:56
I have to say I'm not certain still that I enjoy the 20min VoD. Now balanced pressure builds have to really push hard to get in the kills before VoD starts. I remember running builds where we wouldn't get a kill until about 12 min into the match then would likley party-wipe the other team shortly after that.
That leaves you about 5 min to try to clear the base and get another party wipe in.
(off topic - I doubt Dii will be ladder running at all this weekend, but feel free to hit me up in game if anyone's looking for an 8th)
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