A Full N/Mo Team?!

[BlueHeaven]

I was observing some GvG the other night and started watching a match in which one team had 7 N/Mo, and one E/Mo. And I must say, it was pretty crazy. I'm sure its more of a gimich team build but they completely tore thru the other team riducuouly fast, killing the other teams players in about 1.5 secs. They all just targeted one player, then all casted life stealing spells, and boom, instand death. Match only last aout 5 min. Is this common or just a rare thing, as I don't play GvG, and only observe them once in a while.

[sahlakh]

It's rather common build nowadays, because it's easy to farm rating & faction with.

Unlike the old necro spike, this build has very little defense and relies on killing lots of stuff fast. In a nutshell, it's good as long as you kill with every spike and perhaps get fronzen down. Once the necro spike has to start healing, they usually don't have any mana to spike (no spirit spammer) and chain die.

Plus they're all casters which makes the build even more fragile.

[melandrus elite]

not really if they get off MoP and HH they can usually live through a good damage but if they are constantly pressured the bspikers will die.

[Almas Darksoul]

The "Bloodspike" build that you have noticed is fairly powerful against unprepared enemies, but atm is dying down. Although it dominated at the start of the season, one particular guild quickly formed a new build idea that most Bspike builds fail to stand up against, and many guilds have copied the general idea, if not the build itself.
A quick look on the guildwars ladder shows that, of the guilds in the top 1000, three of those in the top 10 of "most losses" are guilds that are famed for running the Bspike build.

The main current counter is the use of damage pressure builds which have become a lot more powerful with the release of nightfall. The elementalist elite Searing Flames, when used by multiple people, can be devastating. Similarly, the new Beastmastery elite Rampage as One allowed the once-dead thumper build to be revived, perhaps stronger than ever.

This trend of damage builds will probably continue for some time, weakening spike builds immensely (which have very little shutdown or disruption), until hard counters for the most specific abilities are taken by teams. That said, over the last few days builds have already started becomnig more and more diverse, as people work out new builds that work just as well. Earlier today I ran into a fairly interesting example of this - a build utilising two Golden Jaw Strike (daze offhand) assassins, using fiery weapons to trigger burning from Mark of Rodgort on an elementalist. The remaining character slots were used to create hex pressure.

I seem to have gone a little off on a tangent.

[melandrus elite]

The "Bloodspike" build that you have noticed is fairly powerful against unprepared enemies, but atm is dying down. Although it dominated at the start of the season, one particular guild quickly formed a new build idea that most Bspike builds fail to stand up against, and many guilds have copied the general idea, if not the build itself.
A quick look on the guildwars ladder shows that, of the guilds in the top 1000, three of those in the top 10 of "most losses" are guilds that are famed for running the Bspike build.

The main current counter is the use of damage pressure builds which have become a lot more powerful with the release of nightfall. The elementalist elite Searing Flames, when used by multiple people, can be devastating. Similarly, the new Beastmastery elite Rampage as One allowed the once-dead thumper build to be revived, perhaps stronger than ever.

This trend of damage builds will probably continue for some time, weakening spike builds immensely (which have very little shutdown or disruption), until hard counters for the most specific abilities are taken by teams. That said, over the last few days builds have already started becomnig more and more diverse, as people work out new builds that work just as well. Earlier today I ran into a fairly interesting example of this - a build utilising two Golden Jaw Strike (daze offhand) assassins, using fiery weapons to trigger burning from Mark of Rodgort on an elementalist. The remaining character slots were used to create hex pressure.

I seem to have gone a little off on a tangent.

nice description, very in depth.

[jugglingpenguin]

this season is a bit anti-Bspike in my opinion, its a season of stupid pressure and BSpike cant stand up to it, alot of the old BSpike builds have fallen hard, take SoG they were top16 nearly all last 16 below r200 atm.

[mrankh]

Lol, when I first read this guys post it made me laugh, he was amazed at the awe and wonder of a spike. LOL, o how funny poor guy didnt know what it was called.

[Vladamirs Bane]

The team you were probably watching was Shiverpeak Reformed as they've been running it a lot and winning with it.

Don't assume that they will just roll to pressure. If run well the b-spike will take out enough damage dealers from themselves fast enough to negate the pressure.

Shiverpeak Reformed has been beating top 20 guilds because people are just not equipped to deal with sources of damage that can't be prevented.

Good interrupters on the team and a good monk on infuses is what usually can make a team sustain long enough to off some of the spikers.