A wonderful night of PvP (sort of ....)

[Twisted Sister Jane]

Well, we had a group of guild members together last night and decided to try some PvP. We started with GvG (Guild vs. Guild) but weren't too successful. I for one was totally lost in the chaos of the battlefield.

I wasn't expecting that in addition to the 8 real players on the opposing team, there are also present a large number of NPC's to fight. I think all of us who took part found this very confusing and it was difficult to know who to target. And playing trapper ranger was even more difficult here due to all the NPC rangers that could interrupt a trap.

Fortunately, however, a number of us moved on to try some PvP at the HA instead. This was a lot less confusing since there are no extra NPC's to fight. We made it easilly past the first group composed only of NPC's, verifying that we were not a total Noob group, heh heh.

Then to perhaps all of our surprise (well, at least mine) we also won the next battle against a group from a guild that was rated!

But then we lost the next battle, but at least not quickly! We gave them a decent fight.

All in all it was a fun experience. It seems that HA may be a bit better introduction to this 8 vs. 8 PvP than GvG, as the battles are not so confusing. And besides, hey, we can earn fame with each win, whoopee!

Hope we can do this again more often!

[Volitar]

I had a lot of fun yesterday evening with the PvP. I personally prefer Hero's Ascent instead of GvG. Also, here is a screenie of our flawless victory against that ranked Guild for those those that weren't there.



What types a builds do you all suggest for the next time we go into Hero's Ascent?

[Lago Mortis]

Yes, that was a great night!

I guess we surprised our probably more routined pvp opponents by playing a non-stanadard build in a non-standard way. It seemed we had a decent pressure on the second team for quite some time.

Amazingly we did not call targets more than a couple of times, but even then we got the first team down fairly quickly. Afterwards everyone just stood gaping - What? We won? With Janes absolutely hilarous comment: "What happened? I was afk for some minutes."

I too agree on that HA was a better place to begin than the more confusing GvG.

Lago Mortis

[Dana Hawkeye]

Yes it was a good night. Okay we were not that successful at the GvG, though we lasted 25 minutes in our first battle.

As for the 8v8s, these were much better, considering 2 of our party were henches and that we had never done this before as a group together. We can only improve.

I know that SoT is predominantley a PVE Guild, but we will need to think about taking part in PvP when Factions rolls out in a couple of weeks, especially when it comes to joining in with our allies.

Hopefully they (our allies) will help us in our quest to learn and improve our PvP and also our GvG skills, builds and experience.

[hadus]

I missed the HA runs you did...maybe that was the reason you won?...hehe ;D I'm glad you had fun with it and hope I'm online next time you try it.

Seriously, the GvG has some elements that appear to take time to find a workable strategy. There are a number of additional things to consider that are happening on the battle field as apposed to a face-to-face fight. Ex: Closed gates, flag running, stopping their flag runner, Damage Penalties, Guild Lords, Catapults....it's very confusing the first few times.
I'm willing to bet that once Factions style "alliance" battles start the Scouts will find no need to revisit that ugly mess...hehe.

All this PvP action will only serve to help us in these new Factions battles though. There is still an element of team work going on and it's good that the learning process has started before Factions.

Hadus

[Lago Mortis]

I'm pretty shure you would have strengthen the team much more than the hench archer did, Hadus!

I hope your daughter did not get too disappointed for not being able join the GvG team. I guess a level 10 would not have lasted very long there. Btw, she seemed much more grown up than most of the players you normally meet at Thunderkeep. If you two are online some time and need a monk or other teammate, just send a message on the guild chat, I guess we are some that would not mind doing some earlier quests/missions with one of our toons.

Teambuilds?
I do not think we should try to dabble too much into different PvP builds around, since we are not really that dedicated. Then I guess you have to spend a lot time analysing different builds for strengths and weaknesses as well as learn to play them effectively.

We are probably better off with a balanced pve-like build like that yesterday. If we finetune some skills as well as learn how to be (even?) more coordinated I think we do best.

Regards,
Lago Mortis

[Lago Mortis]

I have only been briefly at Hero's Ascent 1-2 times before. I was quite a bit put off by all the rank fixation when gathering PUG's. I thought it was bad at War Camp and ToA: "+1M exp necro MM lf 5-man Oro-team. No noobs!", but this....

"LFP: +R6 IWAY"
"R9 team LFP, show emote at storage"

..and my snowman emote did not work...disappointed!

Lago

[sharplaninac]

cloudbunny said:

..and my snowman emote did not work...disappointed!

Lago

;D ;D

[bowline]

Last night was good, I joined with the all monk experimental smiting team, which I really enjoyed, followed by the GvG which I found confusing, and it was only in retrospect got some sort of glimmering of the goals. Feeling my ignorance had let the side down (my abiding nightmare) my computer agreed, and cut me off a bit prematurely, pronouncing me too tired to go on. I'm glad you all went on to achieve success, and I hope I can get up to speed once the factions start. still twitching after all these years...

[Lago Mortis]

I was totally confused during the GvG as well, Bowline. Too many new concepts, as well as too many npc's scattered all over the map. I ended up more or less spamming spells on the closest opponents that the others also seemed to target. Not much strategy there, I'm afraid.

Hero's Ascent were much better in that respect!

Lago Mortis

[Gigs]

Our flawless victory against the ranked guild team sure was a nice surprise.
Regarding we had 2 hench and Jane told she was afk for some minutes

As far as I observed in this short battle their team consisted of 6 rangers, a hench monk and don't know the last.

We stayed in our starting area, just behind the portal.
Rangers have to have line of sight to hit. Result : they cuddled nice and cosy together.

When Mistress Cara and I fired off our energy surges and sig of weariness we hit all 8 ! So all these rangers were completely drained of energy.

All other AOE spells the others used must have had the same awesome effect.

So if we meet some ranger team again, lets hide behind the portal, defended by Trudi and Jane's traps


Giulia Gilette

[Lago Mortis]

You mesmers were great there, Gigs! To be a spike team they did amazingly little damage, hehe!

Lago Mortis

[Volitar]

I have no clue what that first team was aiming for. They had all those Rangers, a W/R, a Monk and a Healer Hench I think? I was expecting a Spike, but there wasn't one. You all did a good job of keeping them away from me so I could just sit back and heal.

[Cerryl Nyrim]

Ok, my turn for a noob question. What's a Spike?

[Dawnstar Elyra]

A spike is a sudden massive increase in something - usually talking about dmg. So a spike team focuses on doing a lot of dmg to a single target in a short time.

[Cerryl Nyrim]

Gotcha, thanks.

[Jaxx Skraxis]

*In best Mortal Kombat voice* Flawless Victory That's great guys!! ;D Looks like it was fun and I hope to get in on the next one. I remember the one GvG we did during the betas and thinking it was a bit confusing as well. My only advice in this area (besides more practice ) is to watch the other GvG battles in Observer mode. I have yet to go into HA so I'd be as much of a n00b as everyone else, still looks fun .

[Twisted Sister Jane]

As an update to our HA adventures, several of us went there again some nights ago, with the clear intention to try something very experimental, namely three of us were Illusionary Weaponry mesmers. This didn't work out at all, possibly because we need some more practice with this, or possibly because it just won't be good for PvP. Who knows?

A problem we did have is this: we were only 7 including one monk, and so we searched for and found another monk just hanging around the district. We did explain to the new monk that we were trying something very experimental. Nevertheless, our monk left the group in apparent disgust as we were getting severely clobbered during the first battle against human players.

So until we get to the point that we sort of know what we are doing, it may be best to go as a full group of guildmates and friends rather than subjecting unsuspecting PUGs to our climbing up the learning curve. Just a thought.

[Cerryl Nyrim]

Yeah, I know how interesting experimenting can get. I tried a battlemage build I found, and it just did not work out. Wish I wouldn't have wasted the money on skills. Oh well, less I have to unlock later.