Change to Heroes' Ascent

You should not have to take a predefined template monk or monks skill bar just because the game has people that like to press the (1) key and kill something, proper balance means, you can take whatever skill bar (within reason) to do the job the just as well, anything else means this game is serioursly unbalanced, and favors being gang raped by a pack of 6 * whatever class, and the sad thing is with the introduction of yet more classes, the division between luck of the draw and actually skill becomes greater, well done ArenaNet FTW (sarcasm).

Just shows how unimaginitive you lot really are, well the people that continue to use the same rotting trash that is seen day after day at least, I thuoght GW was about skill, turns out it doesn't all it takes is a well clock timed press of the 1 key, and your ready to go, and for that you get called rank 8 or 12 woohoo!, I could get better rank on a speak and spell, that's an attack at the system, not anyone.

And by the way, your infuse doesn't work we've tried it the dmg just goes right through it, either that or they have some eden twit on there team, which basically reduces a monk to less than useless.

Inner Salbat,
the entire gw game play is press 1-8 to kill something. Spike takes skill. Whatever build you run to get your r3, gimmick or not, takes skill, Whatever builds we run that got us to higher rank than you in shorter or longer amount of time takes no less skill than the builds you ran.

infuse/prot spirit is only two skills, not a predefined template. If you can take whatever skill bar to do the job just as well, what is the point of build making? what is the point of countering? We who get higher rank than you, are unimaginitive. You have any idea how we play hoh? And your last statement just proves your lack of experience in tombs.

And someone said that cg interrupts ghostly? um..those capping are skills not spells right?

I pointed out two skills not "predefined templates", try reading ffs. A team that doesn't take a prot monk is just stupid, and running a prot with no Prot Spirit, which is an amazing skill, is just as stupid.

So you’re saying Prot Spirit is trash? Wow... I think that speaks for itself, gg.

So if prot spirit is trash, what would you do to counter a warrior unloading his adrenaline on one of your casters? Guardian and Prot Spirit are too good of a counter to ignore.
One skill will not save your team, good offensive characters, good monks and intelligence will.

The point is, if people are going to run spikes, you'd have to be an idiot to not run counters to it. Prot Spirit and Infuse are both good skills, and they do have uses outside of preventing spikes. I'm sorry, but everything you're saying seems to translate into "I want to be able to run shitty monk bars and still be able to beat people who run good monk bars." I'm sorry, but I just have to laugh at that.

If you have monks that are worth a damn infuse will work, especially when prot spirit is lessening the amount of damage each spiking skill does. What exactly did you test? A spike against an infuser that was asleep?

Granted, you will generally suffer a death or two against a good spike team, but a good team can still win by pressuring the spikers, interrupting them and protecting spike targets.

Also, energy denial can be combated with weapon swaps. If your monks are becoming “useless” due to energy denial, then they’re probably bad monks anyway – teach them to weapon swap.



Choking doesn't interrupt ghosts, this is true. However, CG rangers take Seeking and Practiced Stance for this reason.

Did your infuser infuse the right guy?

I really wonder what people were thinking when they thought of this idea. Not only are the same builds and build ideas still in use, but now they're bringing pve shit into PvP? This update is horrible, HA is now horrible, the game is horrible.

Now that's just wrong, changing one thing down by -2 players shouldn't ruin the game at all should it? or was the game horrible in the first place and this just exposed the abundent flaws in the game mechanics that made it more visiable those that would normally not notice it at all.

u suck

Where did this come from? Now let's take this into an actual perspective here.

Im DAMN SURE Anet didnt get everyone to sit down one day and go as such:

"Hey guys I got this wtfomgbbqhax idea, lets make HA 6v6 for no apparent reason, lets also purposely piss people off! ALSO lets make an update previous to the update with random skill changes that doesn't affect anything!"

Now im sure Anet doesn't have a crystal ball to see the negative results either, but im sure they PLANNED this and THOUGHT it was for the better.

I also think there is ALOT of exaggeration in this message board. Im darn sure from 75%-85% are talking out of their rear ends. Until I see an actual screenshot, proof, or stats on how bad this is, instead of someones life story on how "bad things are in gw" Im not taking anything as truth. I see more people in HA on a sunday night then I ever have in my entire career playing this game. Newb or not this is a good thing.

OMFG 19 pages of pure crap. Little wheeping pussyies!!! OMG HA whent shit, only a couple of builds will rule HA now, no more skill needed. BLA BLA BLA BLA

FFS only a couple of builds ruled HA when it was 8vs.8 so no big change there.

And to all that say that GW whent shit and they wont play anymore.
THEN DONT !!! SHUT UP!!!!

You were probably the gimmick idiots yourself and now when something changed you cannot cope with it so go play something else.


Personaly I think that GW is much more than just HA, and if that was your only source of fun in this game well bad for ya.

HA!, go play PvE you nub.

Seems he hit a soft spot.

not really, just joking around

How true. Plus wit the new broken tower, dont expect to get much fame.

I agree with you, but not to such an extreme position. i hate the mess ha is in right now badly. although there are more variations on builds, ha is ALOT less enjoyable b/c of the map changes. use of sapphires and rubies (stated A LONG time ago in frog talk)?????, auction house?????? new ha maps??????? yeah im sick of this crap. all i wanna do is get r9 and be done wit it.

And ot everyone who complains about gimmick builds: those builds werent gimmicks at first. it was just when nubs used it and looked like idiots wit it or ppl couldnt find a way to beat a build that the builds became gimmicky. if the nr/tranq variation of balance became more popular, im sure it would be classified as gimmicky eventually.

Aren't you a pve only player?

She isn't.

This game isn't unbalanced or broken, some people just need to learn to play. Losing to a team with with more coherant builds and strategies does not makes thigs unbalanced.

Spirit Bond is like a million times better than Protective Spirit for catching spikes. Protspirit is nice for pre-protting, but for twitch reactions Bond can actually save people, while the Protspirit is largely irrelevant if it isn't there beforehand.

Peace,
-CxE

Why do people complain about what builds other run anyways? They say they never lose to them (if thats so why complain) and that if its not the build they run its noob/nub whatever. Could you imagine what the game would be like if it was all just 1 type of build, that would be boring as all hell. To put it simple if you dont like it
1) state your dislikes and wait till it changes
2) keep playing and STFU
3) or my favorite for all you cronic complainers QUIT


PLAY WHAT YOU WANT AND WHEN OTHERS COMPLAIN OR CALL U A NUB JUST REMEMBER ITS CUS THEY ARE LOSERS THAT CANT GET LAID AND THATS ALL THEY HAVE GOING FOR THEM

You've got a funny idea about balance and skill.

My idea of balance is, if you have a bar set to heal and you have the approperate attributes set in the right healing prayers line, you should be able to heal, what it should come down to then is your skill and timing at using whatever healing skills you took.

It should not have to come down to any enforced type of skill bar, just because you have morons out there that like to kill things in micro seconds, this type of murder is for people who do not know which parts of a group you should presure first, and would rather just click enermy player 1...6 and kill.

But anyway, I am wasting my time none of you get it, and I couldn't really give a flighting fig what you think, but this be bound if you listen or not, this is probably the single most reason, I've seen people leave and will likely be the reason I might leave it in the future, there is only so much B.S unbalance one can take.

LOL, so true.. hell there is what 484 Skills for chapter 1 at least, I forget what the total is, but no one can come up with anything new out of that many, either they've been playing computers too long, and lost there imagination to create something new and interesting, or there just losers.

but the reason why people complain about these static builds that never change is due, not to being a nub at all, I could go out there and IWAY/VIM/BSPIKE/RSPIKE my way with the best of them if I wanted too, but I refuse too, because I'd rather try something new, I'd rather use my brain and pull out a few skills untried before and go out and give'em a shoot, some of them will win, some of them will be god awful but I sure sick of facing the same crap day after day, so I'm sure not going to play it either.

QFT................

nothing else to say

we've heard the best comment so far. i think we can close this thread and call it a day.

Yes, you get silver capes for Pve.

I finally got to play a decent amount of HA last night and tonight and I've also been observing some HoH matches. I'd like to reexamine some of the arguments I and others have made both in favor of and against this change in light of my observations.

1) 6v6 will become plagued by gimmick builds. I don't think it has, yet, nor do I think it will be, based on what I've seen so far. There are so many numerous builds running around out there and doing well right now that I don't see how anyone can argue that tombs is even remotely as gimmicky as it was. I ran some dual smite teams last night and tonight. Yes, they're good, but I also got my ass handed to me on plenty of occasions running dual smite. Ended up winning Halls last night and held it for two matches before we got decimated by some kind of spike team and then a balanced team running some random stuff. Spike teams (particularly blood spike and rspike) are almost nonexistent in general; I've seen one blood spike and zero ranger spike in my 30ish games over the past two nights. Overall, I feel the build potential is so much greater, it's unbelieveable. XoO's Tombs team had a really cool mesmer build running tonight, for example. I played with some buddies tonight and we ran a smite monk, a sin, a starburst ele, degen mes, and your usual two monks just for fun, and ended up winning 4 matches.

2) All the time I've put into HA is going to be completely wasted and irrelevant by this change. I think just the opposite is bearing out. From what I've seen, the good players are still doing well and they may not get to hold halls for 18 matches, but people are going to have to understand that's just not going to happen much anymore. I see a lot of top guilds running balanced builds and playing just random type stuff and doing well with it. If you're a good pvp player, you're a good pvp player. If you're a good player at one type of build (whatever that may be), then you are going to have a steep learning curve with the new 6v6, but maybe that isn't all bad.

3) Enjoyment factor. Most enjoyable two nights of playing HA since GW came out, even the matches when I got smoked. So many people in my parties have said the exact same thing... 'nuff said.

4) High level competition. This is a difficult area to assess. In some ways, it's paradoxically gotten more and less difficult at the same time. In terms of simply getting on a good team, winning some matches, getting to halls, then sure, it's gotten much easier and there are definitely more new people playing (a good thing). However, in terms of holding halls or winning more than 8-10 matches in a row, it's gotten extremely hard to do that. Why? As I said in one of my earlier posts, we would start seeing many rock,paper, scissors scenarios in 6v6 and we are. That doesn't bother me because even back when I was playing, I would win halls every once in awhile for a few matches at a time. If I was in a guild that liked to take halls and hold it for 50 matches, then this might upset me some, but as it is now, I think it's a really nice medium.

5) Noobs finding groups more easily and rank elitism. Wow, this is by far the biggest and best change. The elitism is WAY down (I ran with several unranked groups over the past two nights, including the one that took HoH) and there are much fewer R3+, R6+, etc. groups forming up. Now, you just find a good looking group, join up, and roll, and if the team build is solid, win a few games. The barrier to entry to new people getting into HA is so much lower now, that's why so many of you are bitching about the pve'ers. Ok, yeah, they might not have played HA much before, so something that encourages them to start playing and keep playing is bad now? BS. Having new people play is great, even if they get run over, even if they run you over... if they're having a good time, they'll learn, they'll get better, and the overall skill level of HA and pvp in general will go up, which, I thought, was what people wanted?

6) Speed of fame acquirement. Yes, this has certainly gotten slower for the TOP HA players, but NO ONE ELSE. It has given the average new player the ability to pick up fame so much more quickly than they ever could before. To pick up a good group, start, win 3-4 games, and pick up 8-10 fame now takes the average person 15-20 minutes. Yes, because your uber-HA guild is not going to hold halls for 25 matches in a row now, your acquirement of fame is going to go down, but now the average new guy can gain fame much more quickly and doesn't have to gouge his eyes out to do it. Take 20 minutes, get a group, get setup, beat the zaishen, lose to a rank 30 guild in underworld. Repeat. That gets old for your average new player, I assure you. Pick up a group in 5 minutes, get set, beat the zaishen, win underworld, win a few more arenas, get to courtyard or so. Repeat. Fun.

There was something else I wanted to mention, but forgot (edit: #6). Oh well. All in all, the change has been as good or better than I thought it would be. And with so many people telling me similar things while playing HA or in guild/alliance chat, I don't think it's just some new outlook on life I've gained. It truly has made HA a better, more enjoyable, and more interesting pvp area to play.

What the heck?! Most of what is said in the quoted post here is completely untrue.

Tombs now consists of the following builds, that's it:

1. Henchway
2. Dual Smites
3. Blood Spike
4. Starbuster
5. Vimway
6. Random newbie parties who will lose to any of the above

Newbies not running any of those builds will get creamed on UW most of the time and if not they will definitely get creamed on map number 2, Broken Tower. To say that newbies will get 8-10 fame in 15-20 minutes is ludicrous. Newbies and everyone else will get fame slower than ever now due to Burial Mounds being gone and Broken Tower being 3 teams.

There has been hardly any new players playing who get past the Broken Tower map, and overall the Tombs population seems to have decreased drastically as a result of 6v6. I'm guessing that is because most of the good & high ranked players quit Tombs.

You are right it's easier for newbies to find a group, that is because most of the good & high ranked players have mysteriously vanished. However, once the newbies find those groups they will still lose very shortly thereafter, so it doesn't matter much that they can find groups faster.

Enjoyment factor has gone down since they took away one of the best maps (Burial Mounds) for no reason, made Broken Tower into a clone of the most-hated map (Courtyard) and put it as the second map, and left the traditionally most-hated map and second-most hated map (Scarred Earth) in the game .

I must have dreamed playing in several thumper teams then (went till HoH). As well as the ranger spike (granted, that one was weird and only went till map3).

- Xeeron

This is not even close to being accurate. In 30+ matches, I've seen a total of one bspike and one VIMway. Starburster groups aren't all that common either, and what's more, they're terrible. I tried playing in one or two just for kicks and it was garbage. Henchway is difficult to classify as a "build" given that you usually have 2-3 people and 3-4 hench. I've seen some really solid henchway with 2 bunny thumpers and a monk and then some crappy henchway. A lot of people are simply using hench because if you have 5 friends/guildies together and they don't want to pick a sixth up, grab a hench and you really aren't losing much of anything. I guess you haven't seen the FoC spike teams, hex degen, rainbow spike, and all around balanced builds creaming people? I have, and it's pretty cool.

I think we're using the term "newbies" differently. I'm referring to someone who isn't necessarily new to pvp, but is unranked. What I said about that type of person is most definitely true as I have been in plenty of parties like that with unranked people. If you're tlaking about someone who is completely new to pvp in general, then yeah, they're not going to gain fame more easily... but nothing is going to help them gain fame more easily.

Again, depends on how you're defining new players. New players to HA, yeah, they can and are getting past Broken Tower because it's pretty damn easy to win if you have any experience with it at all. You are right that the HA population appears to have dropped in the short term, but it won't in the long term because you will get a new "generation" of HA players that actually enjoy it and keep coming back again and again and the barrier to entry for new people will be much lower, which will encourage a steady influx of players. And again, how many of these "good and high ranked players" are there? A thousand, two thousand, ten thousand? I'd say it's probably under a grand.

Haha, so taking 20 minutes to find a group and losing right away is somehow the same as finding a group in 5 minutes and losing right away? Not to mention that with the number of new people playing, nearly anyone has a shot right out of the gate.

Perhaps for the "hardcore" guys out there, but for your average joe, I can promise you it has increased. Now, Burial Mounds was a decent map and it's too bad they dropped it, but Broken Tower as the second map isn't necessarily a bad thing and I've skipped it half the time anyway. It's good for new people to get some experience in Broken Tower early because it's what they'll be facing if they make it to HoH. I don't necessarily agree with the map changes in general, but the faster pace and slightly more chaotic nature is a big draw, particularly for newer people.

Unranked old players still won't be getting 8-10 fames in 15 - 20 minutes, unless perhaps if they deliberately farm the first map only.

That would be 72 fame per day using the slowest end of your estimates @ just 3 hours a day. Those believing they are going to get 72 fame per day via such casual, normal play with unranked players will be quite mistaken.

I've been in R3 Vimway parties which have beaten several of the top Tombs Guilds in 6v6 on Broken Tower, often two at a time. If they can't even beat Vimway on that map, do you really think unranked players can? Not gonna happen unless by fluke.

Underworld is a joke now anyway, 99% of the matches I've done there have been a free point of fame in about 2 minutes. It's nice getting fame and all, but frankly it's quite boring rolling henchway after henchway on that map.

Broken Tower, Wouldn't be bad if people actually did more than stand around for half the time, so yet again another map that anything substancial is done in about 2 minutes. 4 minute timer should start after the first cap.

Scarred Earth, quite a fun match, no stupid 4 minute timer so you can take your time. 1st winner does have quite a massive advantage over the other two teams though as they can easily hold back and wait until one team is on the ropes then come in and gank the winning team, netting themselves a victory, albeit using a sortof cheap tactic. Going back to the original 6 teams and advancing the last 2 teams standing would have been a better change here I think.

Relic runs are frankly quite fun now, Dual-smite teams being common stops the whole "body block the stairs" tactic pretty much in its tracks and leaves place for a lot of strategic play as far as actual running tactics and ganking the ghost.

Courtyard.. Kind of a disapointment.. Wish they had kept it a little longer, Nice big map, priests, and not much time to do anything.

Dark Chambers.. Pretty much the same as always.. Priest-swap and duke-it-out.

Team Build wise, vim and iway, even random pugs are still quite powerful builds. Underestimate them, you will lose. It's as simple as that.