Ban Heroes from HA and GvG?

Hi,

I've been playing pvp for some time, and recently I find that the so called "Heroway" is finding it's way to GvG. This team build, where you take 4 necro heroes, 3 thumpers and a healer ( variations possible offcourse ), first found It's way to Heroes ascent. Now days as you enter HA, about 50% of the players there is playing heroway.
But why take heroes into HA? If you want to play with heroes take them to the hero battles, that why they were created. And even more disturbing, is the fact that for the past couple of weeks, heroway is also finding it's way to gvg.
Why heroes? Because, hate to say it, heroes are better then most human players, for instance, they know exactly when to use some skills such as signet of lost souls, or they know perfectly when tainted flesh is about to expire, and they are experts at keeping these up... The Necro/Rit healers used have got 'perfect' reflexes for healing, unlike most human players and makes it hard to spike.
The point of my story is that this heroway build give normal balanced teams little chance of survival against the overwelming pressure of heroway. So what's the point in even playing gvg with a balanced build as you find yourself losing to a guild that is ranked 2000 lower than yourself, and only consists of 4 human players?
I find this humiliating and these builds don't fit the word P(layer)v(ersus)P(layer), I only fear the worst for the coming gvg weekend, as the double faction reward will draw many teams to playing some gvg.

Regards, Frantic



ps: I even saw Hellas team playing heroway in gvg last week, wich makes me sad that a top 100 guild does that.
ps²: I used the search button but it didnt find anything relevant to this issue, so my apologies if there already was a topic like this one.

2nd that.
the reason why we play gvg is to win from other players, with 1/2 guilds playing heroway there's no fun at all.

/not signed there is already a limit on the number of heroes in HA/GvG etc. Which is fine. Henchies have been there from the start, heros are no more than customisable henchies. Heroes are great for guilds who lack enough active players to compete.

If you want Pure PvP your in the wrong game, PvP in guildwars is AI assisted (much like games like Battlefront etc.), ghostly Heros, Base defenders, Ghostly Priests etc.(these give the battles much more variation and interesting) PvP is Player Vs Player, aslong as atleast 1 Player is facing another 1 player it fills the definition.

Gw is a game, its for people to have fun not just for people who want to enter into the Big money tournaments.

/signed

I hope they ban hero's from HA and GvG. Play hero battles if u want hero's lol.

Comparing the AI of those stupid archers, the ghostly or whatever with the AI of heroes is like comparing a lada with a mercedes.
Limit number of heroes? If half of the team consists of heroes that's already too much. If people don't have enough players to do a gvg, too bad, join an alliance, invite some guests whatever. The alternatives are there to use em.

And saying losing to a heroway team for the 7th time in a row, and winning almost flawless against all full human teams is fun, that's a bridge too far...

For the first time in my life, since most of the things posted here are the endless whine of PvE scrubs...

/signed

Remove heroes from competitive PvP. When I GvG, I don't want to play against Olias. I want to play against a tactical, intelligent HUMAN opponent. Hero spamming has made the HA metagame stale. I don't know any human players who can use Deny Hexes the exact second a hex hits the target, if there are though, I'd very much like to meet them.

/ signed.
Death necro heroes are scary. They have a battle awareness (who's on Tainted, who's not, insta cast undead asa a death, Discord spike (hopefully nerfed) etc...) the average player can't have, only the most skilled players can reach.

If we are 5/8 for gvg and we want to gvg we invite guest from our friends or we ask in HA for ppl to gvg and it always works. And if you dont have enough ppl for HA u can always use pugs.

/notsigned....... "hey guys lets further turn pvp in to elitism, if people cant get a full group screw them." now i do hate FotMs but removing heros is not going to solve that, but if you remove heros you screw so many people its not funny. and really its not the heros its the build cause i did a hero with no heros *i know ironic* and it still murdered.

this is very close to what you heard from people when iway was big "OMFG nerf warriors GAH" or when touch rangers ran rampant "DONT LET EXPERTISE WORK ON TOUCH SKILL GAH", let this FotM flow its course and in a months time people will call you a noob for bringing heros.... its the course of the game, its the course of society....

and as sophitia said, this is a game about fun, and you remove heros and very few people will be able to get HA groups, much like when there were no heros, and the game will be much less fun....

/signed

Heroes are what's ruining pvp
In fact , in my opinion, they ruined the whole concept of "teamplay", which GW was about at the beginning. Even in pve, I used to enjoy playing with other people, and if they were total noobs, I often taught them something.
Whereas since Nightfall, everyone is just playing alone through the campaign, and I find myself doing the same.

Ofcourse what they did to Ha and GvG is much worse, but that's been mentioned enough by the posters above me.

Have you also considered that you cant play with friends/allys/guildies in hero battles? Yet u can in GvG and HA

I have a small guild and a relatively large alliance, Id rather GvG, HA with friends/Guildies etc. people I can have fun with, who wont go around calling each other n00b for losing a battle for one reason or another. However if theirs not enough of us online for a full party or only a few of us are free then ur saying we shouldn’t have the option to play any PvP?

So your saying u cant compete with the Super advanced AI? That the Ai is superior to humans in all ways, and Henchies should be removed too?

PvErs have as much right to there say as PvPrs if u agree with them or not.

So you want a easy ride through Battles by defeating easy humans?

Yes there are alternatives, Heroes are one of them. They are fill in slots for partys that don’t want to pick random people up that they cant rely on who chances are going to randomly leave, argue, offend others etc. Above all I play with friends, nice people, I can trust and have fun with, which is the whole point of the game.

People began to go it alone LONG before heroes arrived on the scene, the reason for it is people u don’t know u cant trust or rely on and more often than not and im sorry to say there are also offensive and nasty to anyone who doesn’t allow them to complete their goals asap. Heroes are there because Henchies only have limited skill sets, Heros are just Henchies with the ability to customise, so u can synergise much better. People still play with friends, new and old even though heroes shave been added to the game. Henchies have been in Gw since the very beginning, Heroes have changed nothing, except the skill bars on the henchies. That’s it.

There are top 100 guilds that run ritspike. Heroway is balanced in comparison. Plus, it's Gr...what do you expect?

Bleh. AI is AI and has its weaknesses.

They won't check if they are hiting you, you you can easily avoid proyectiles from them, for example.

Like veything in GW the solution is not whining it's getting a way over it.
If the way is too boring or requires something outside of the game, them it's time to consider it.

You know I get really sick of people thinking that there is this big rank elitism issue. When I started playing HA a long time ago and was unranked I did not CRY on forums about not being able to get into groups. Do you know what I did? I made my own groups and got ranked. As to the part I bolded in your post. HA was there long before Heroes were introduced, therefore how is there a problem finding groups? As to Sophita saying Heroes don't change anything. Yes, they do. Heroes can be positioned and have customised skill bars. The usual advice I would say is play fotms til rank 3, friendlist people who you get along with, make groups with them. Which is why I don't see as bolded in the second part, how it's hard finding groups. Having been through the unranked process (like everybody) I can only conclude that you people must be too lazy to make groups. We didn't have "Heroway" when I first started, we had to PuG to get fame. Slowly we got ranked and made more and more friends. How is this hard?

Secondly Heroway isn't hard to beat. However the assigned jobs the Heroes have is broken. As stated they have an "awareness" and know when to recast hex stacks, tainted. There are some good players out there, but not THAT good. This is why you don't see Hero thumpers. The Heroes have been delegated one basic task which THEY CAN EXCEL AT.

HA and GvG were once greatly respected high end pvp. But because of this scrubtrash Heroway (on top of other things), it's mostly a joke now. ANet let's stop kidding around now, get rid of Heroes from HA and GvG.

You can't blame PvPers for being elitist when you post shit like this. Think pre-Factions, if iway, spiritspam etc. had not been nerfed don't you think people would still run and win with them? Same thing goes, if ANet don't remove heroes from PvP you're still going to see "grab 4 n' go" necro & thumper, sp sin + savannah gank, etc. EVERYWHERE.

Seriously, if you need somebody to hold your hand and stroll you into PvP go find a different game. I know somebody who started GW 4 months ago not knowing ANYONE and he's already playing in good groups & has a solid grasp of PvP.

/signed, get heroes out of PvP. It'll be a start.

/signed

the only good reason I see for heroes in HA is replacing a dropped player with his exact skillset
for GvG, I can't see a single reason. you should try to get to know some people that are willing to guest (or join a GvG alliance where you can find guests), and then you can just as well play when you're only with 4 of your guild...

Heroway is pure farming. It just leads to new guilds see top guilds farm champ points with it and start using it and climbing up the ladder. I've guested for a new guild a couple of days ago and we faced like 3 heroways. In GvG there is only 2 solutions to heroway: Fast pressure or split.

Anyways, i don't say take off heroes from PvP, they are handy when for example someone's connection goes out 20 seconds before one AT match, so they have to strap off a heroe real quick and get in since heroes are better than henchs.

I say nerf rits. I've had it with rit spike and necro/rit healers.

this is by far the most important change needed to HA

/signed
/signed
/signed

it is supposed to be pvp but heros just arnt fair
leave heros to hero battles

Thats the whole point of hero battles. Thats the whole point of this wide range of different game modes. They cater to as many players as possible. People who want to take 3 friends into a pvp arena go to TA. People with 7 friends go to GvG or HA. People who enjoy micromanaging HERO AI go play HERO battles. They are distinct and varied for a reason, smudging the borders between them is to be avoided.
If you have 4 people, go play TA. If you really want to earn fame try to recruit a pug you feel confident with. There are options for casual pvp play and serious pvp play. You cannot be taking pvp seriously if you actually think that running 3-4 heroes is legitimate. People who take such a casual stance towards pvp should not be allowed to ruin the fun for people who take a more serious approach. If you do not have enough people for an 8 man team and are not prepared to invite pugs into your team you should not be in HA nor should you demand to be able to play. Theres a reason for the options between RA/TA/HA/Herobattles/GvG/Alliance battles.

its simply unreasonable to demand or expect to be able to play an 8man pvp mode when you do not have 8 people.
henchies are bad and have always been seen as such because of their skill bars. With the heroes we are able to exploit the advantages of the AI which is capable of things humans are not. If you do not know that AI in general is capable of things the human being is not you really need to read more.

Besides, alot of pvpers care little whether heroes are beatable or not. They argue that even the presence of heroes is wrong based on the simple premise that PvP stands for Player versus Player. In a competitive environment you can expect a level of interaction with the opposing team... whether its friendly rivalry or a bit of banter or bitter rivalry or mutual respect. You do not get this level of interaction or immersion when fighting against AI bots. Its no fun to play against a enemy that never gets tired... never needs sleep or to eat or drink... removes deep wound the instant its applied... can maintain death nova on 8+ minions whilst keeping taint on 8 people... can interrupt a 3/4 second cast whether they are babysitting you or not... ressurect allies even before they are even dead (i swear ive seen heroes cast res sig before someone died lol)

heroes should not be an alternative. If you are missing 2 players in the team i really dont see the problem with picking up 2 strangers or at least 2 players who might be known to you by name. If you are a regular in HA you should be able to identify and recognise people in the lobby who could possible be worth inviting to your group... whether its by their player name or by their guild tag. The whole process of interaction between teams and potential teammates should be encouraged in a competitive environment... people should be encouraged to keep on developing their friendlist...

the option of taking heroes has taken this level of interaction within the community away. Instead of actually trying to make more friends or meet new players to add to your list of trustworthy players... people are taking the easy route and taking heroes instead.

its so ironic that the people who choose to take heroes because they dont have enough players for a full man team... through the act of playing with heroes they are alienating other players who might actually want to play with them.

why dont all the people playing heroway (theres 4 human players in that build) just get together and play with the other people in the other heroways? For every 2 heroway teams you could form 1 full team of human players. If it really was an issue of not having enough people i dont see how this couldnt happen.

the fact is... people are exploiting heroes to farm fame. They dont care about the competitive community nor the impact of the heroes is having on the HA population, they want easy fame without the bother of organising a good team.

People who claim otherwise are sadly dillusional, and i have no sympathy towards the peolpe who truly do play heroway because they only have 4 friend online at the time. Make new friends...

from the release of nightfall i noticed something very disturbing when going to PvE and work my way through the new Nightfall campaign. Local chat was almost never used. In almost every mission town... all you would see is people playing on their own. I saw threads on forums announcing the death of Pugs in pve. Heroes replaced players because your average pug player was a waste of space. But this meant that the above average pug player no longer had the chance to pug with other above average pug players. Everyone was either playing with their closest friends/guildies or with heroes.

the thing is... i dont blame them. Why bother putting the effort into organising a team with trustworthy human players when you can accomplish the mission without the fuss by just using Heroes? It takes alot of patience and organisation to run a team of 8 human players, you might have to attempt a mission multiple times because 1 person made a mistake or wandered off course. In terms of practicality of course heroes are the better option... especially if you are not part of a large and very active pve guild.

but people have to recognise the consequences of this convenience. i thought this game like all MMO games were supposed to encourage interaction between its players, to foster communities and a deeper immersion into the game. The availability of Heroes sorta turns the game into a hybrid of a single player game like baldurs gate 2 and neverwinter nights, and so attracts the sort of players who do not seek interaction with other players but instead prefer to play the game on their own.

i think GW is trying to do too many things at once. And most of these things are not complimentary to eachother. As far as im concerned, the addition of heroes in pve made the need for the game to be 'online' totally unnecessary, especially in the cases where people could actual complete the game without ever talking to any other player.

as wonderful as the AI is and Anet deserve some credit for coding it... it has no place in a game thats designed for multiplayer environment that should encourage interaction between its players.

are we playing a single player game or a multiplayer game?

or is it both... and if it is both wat consequences will that have?

For some specific skillsets, no. And you can't too. No one can, in fact.
Heroes see exactly what enchants are on every party member. Players do not. Heroes can interrupts a spell without babysitting a target, that's said, that's like they had a panel of every opponent as a target, and were able to pick the interesting target, players can have only one target in sight at a time. Heroes can monitor each of their minions with death nova, without any problem. Players, not having a party window with their minions, do not. Heroes can see every mana bar of their party members and BR them accordingly. Players do not.
What's even more cheated, is that every human player can see the hexes/enchants/stances/conditions/health/mana whatever affecting their heroes. Full human parties are forced to rely on little yellow/brown/purple triangles on a red bar and restless pings of their teamates.
To compete, you should be able to pop up a little "hero status window" like you have for your heroes for the players, so you could monitor every party members.
Heroes have flaws, yes, but they can be microed accordingly.
I don't think heroes can beat a good player. But on specific skillsets (aka N/Rt death N) they can beat on reflexs/skill management any player.

a million times yes
/signed

another petition wont make much difference tho, anet gave up on ha months ago. /sadface

So your point is you suffered everyone else should suffer too? Wow imagine a world where everyone thought like that, wouldnt that be great ?(/endsarcasm) Franky I don’t care about Rank, I play to have fun, I play everything Gw has to offer from GvG to Elite missions to AB and I know of a lot of other people who are much the same. The point is we don’t want to be forced into grouping with complete Strangers who are offensive, nasty and completely self centred, we would rather group with friends/Guildies and then allow Heros to fill in any remaining slots. Yes the Full hero/hench way got modded so that u had to have atleast 4 (I think) real players in a party to compete, that seemed a fair change to me. Getting 4 friends together isn’t too hard to achieve, getting 8 on the other hand is considerably harder.

Ever heard of the word counters? They keep casting Hexes on you? Well then Cast Backfire on them, diversion, Hex removal, Enchant Shatters etc. etc. Gw has 100s of skills for a reason, Instead of complaining you build isn’t working change ur build to a more effective one. And if there so easy to beat whats the worry? You win, (which is what u want, so ur happy) they got to play against you in PvP (so there happy too) so everybodys Happy, so where the problem?

Ive been playing 48+ months big whoop, Ive done a lot of PvP of the years, I don’t pretend to be pro but I know enough to understand PvP, PvP isn’t just designed to be Player Vs Player, its also designed to be fun! That’s why there are Npcs that assist u mid combat etc. If you want a”high end” tournament Enter the Big tournaments with Anet with Cash prizes. The basic PvP (from RA to GvG to HA) in the game is designed for Fun not for a serious battle obsessed with simply Winning. Sure winning is nice, everyone loves to win, but that’s not why u compete, u compete because u want to have some fun Battles against the cleverness and skill of others. Heros are an extention of a player, people actually have to think up builds and Set up Heros, which is no different than they have to for themselves.

You cant Play with friends if you play hero battles, its also very limited and has little in the way of varience.

I think you're completely ignoring the fact that AI does stuff that even the best players can't.

You're saying PvP is about fun, we're thinking very much the same, and playing 3/4 of GvG vs the thumper+necros heroway is plain boring. HA also isn't as fun anymore as before heroes came in, which is why a lot of people resorted to GvG. Now heroes are coming to ruin our fun there too...

Sophitia you're saying bullshit and you know it. Backfire will be removed by heroes before you can even cover it, and if you are the monk, you will actually SEE which hero has backfire among all the other hexes that can be thrown at them, so be able to remove it on one click. Shatter enchant (15r) on a tainted with 0 recharge? How clever.
You can't beat heroes at their own game, that's the problem. You won't be able to manage tainted and death nova like Olias, whatever skilled you are. Same for hexing.
The only way to beat heroes is to take advantage of their AI flaws, not beating them on their game, i.e. lack of positionning intelligence, lack of fainting, etc...

The reason between the options is infact because they are totally different Styles of Battle, eg. AB is a large Scale battle with capture points, GvG is a medium sized battle between guild groups involving Halls, Flags and there machinics. RA is a small sized fast faced battle with randomised groups. HA is the medium sized tournament where you fight to control Favor, and to earn prestige (getting your guild name shown etc.) It also uses point based victorys, kill based victorys and King of the Hill victorys. TA is a small scale organised battles where you generally out kill you oppenent. FA is a large scale Attack or defend based PvP, etc. etc. etc.

If you want Pure PvP your playing the wrong game, theres is NO PvP in the game which isn’t assisted by NPCS. Aslong as 1 player is facing another player Its is considered PvP weither or not there is Ai involved. Play a RTS game, it contains AI assisting controls, that doesn’t make it not PvP. One person takes on another player with an AI partner to help balance it, its still PvP.

Perhaps if people weren’t as nasty and offensive as they are then it would be, but people arnt. I cant count the number of nasty anti social people ive seen in game. That is the sole reason why people prefer to use Heros because People were getting fed up of others being offensive. And the offensive people go there own way to further there own ends with heroes too so everyones happy once again.

Since the addition of Heros its still very easy to make friends ingame, ive made plenty since heroes were added. Heroes are also there for harder things such as Titan Quests etc. which hardly anyone ever bothers to do because it doesn’t involve them getting money, which a lot of people in Gw seem to be obessed with (the other main obsession aside from PvP – farming, solo farming in particular is more anti social than Heroes ever will be).

[Slash quote all of Sophitia Leafblade's epic fail]
If people like you would stop posting in the PvP sections maybe ANet would be able to see how terrible a state PvP is in. I'd quote you, but Lorekeeper seems to be on the ball.

I'd just like to make one thing clear, though, henchmen, footmen, body guards etc. are NOT the same as heroes. God, keep henchmen in PvP for all I care.

When you see the same garbage every map. That's the problem. I rather face a ritspike team because it requires 8 real players to play it and to some extent good tactics and coordination.

Against the skill of others. As far as I'm concerned, Olias and Master of Whispers and their Elonian and Krytan clones aren't others.

Then how hard is it to get another player to set up the build those people want? Oh wait, they can't Death Nova their minions, know the exact time to cast Tainted on their party when it ends, know the exactly when a hex is ending and reapply it.

Then what is it designed for? It sure as hell isn't called Player versus Player with Heroes.

If they remove Backfire, Divert the Monks Hex removal, Blackout the Monk, Use Power Block on the Hero to disable it, there are so many counters, yes lots of them. Use them. I dont deny heros have better awareness than People seem to however they are still simple AI, and are just as easy to counter as humans. How do you beat humans? you take advantage of there IQ flaws or build. How do you beat Heros? You take advantage of there IQ flaws or builds, its no different

Take note: THIS is NOT the PVP section! Havivg said that I infact PVP too, i have as much right to say my thoughts on the subject as anyone else does. I always say people are free to have there oppinions, that includes urs, but it also includes mine. I really tried to avoid the whole elistism argument, but i think u pretty much just prooved the point there is Elitism in PVP. If your not "hardcore" PvP devoted to Win at all costs, then get out of the kitchen.

Saying that heroes should be banned from gvg and ha isnt elitism... Stop using that as an argument because it truely isnt. Heroes just dont fit in the player versus player picture. If you want to play pvp with friends and do not have enough people to form an 8 man team, JUST GO TO TEAM ARENA. If you want to play with heroes, go to the hero battles...

But dont let heroes in gvg/ha because these just arent designed for it.

What do u want then. Team Death Match?? U know that because of the NPC's you can make a strategy? If there were no NPC's it would be team death matchn just like RA. Fighting until u r out of rez sigs. Exciting isn it?
But hero's are way too overpowerd. Have u ever tried to rez a team faster than a hero? It doesnt work. They know perfect when they have to recast tainted, they know when to cast minions. HA and GvG is high end pvp, not a boring battle with hero's. It funnier to think about ur strategy with ur 7 other teammates (even if they are pugs). Then running a heroway without any strategy, just pressure till they die.
If u rly want hero's then go HB or pve...
But know u r wasting HA and GvG for ppl who likes to make a teambuild and try to defeat ur enemy.

I hope u understand this.

I'm sorry, I totally didn't realise. But I still think my point stands; when ANet look around on Guru and see people posting about PvP when they don't play it at least 80% of the time they are getting the wrong idea.

It's quite easy to say PBlock the curse necro, MoD the tainted, Blind the thumpers, Blackout the healers, but it never works like that I'm afraid. Even if the very top teams can pull it off, it's still not right.

There is elitism in PvP. Infact, I don't think I've played a game where there hasn't been. Back to my example though, somebody who has only played GW for 4 months playing with people who have played for 2 years+. He was given a chance, and showed that he was a smart and willing player. You decide for yourself.

If you read what i wrote the "elistism" wasnt anything to do with the remove heros from HA/GvG it was the attitude of If you dont agree with the "Hardcore" PvPers ur not welcome to have a PvP opinion

TA and the differenced between the PvP types ive already mentioned :P

I agree with both points, it is much easier said than done, but that doesn’t mean its not possible and yes most people who argue PvP Vs PvE hardly ever do much of one or the other, I like to mix it up, I play neither one nor the other im play both, but I don’t claim to be a pro at either.

I understand the point is People want to Play Vs people, however GW PvP, yes all of it is NPC assisted, it keeps it interesting since it allows more variation, you could argue minions are a form of NPC, or spirits etc. etc. but the point is there is no P-only v P-only, that point is directed to people who say Heroes ruin the P in PvP.

I also understand Heros seem to have lightning fast reflexes with some skills (although not all) which makes them faster than human players, this however does not make them better than humans. Humans adapt, Heroes don’t. All they know how to do is use skills whenever possible. A human knows when to retreat, a human knows when to sacrifice for the team, a human knows some times u have to lose the battle to win the War, heroes don’t. The point of all this is Heroes are not overpowered they are defeated the same way as players, through brains and brawn. Just because a few people struggle against them doesn’t mean they should be taken out so that people who still want to PvP for fun without having the full members for whatever reasons (Eg. People who want to HA, who arnt bothered about getting particularly far who just want to play the game for fun)

My point was that there are gamemodes that cater to the amount of people you have who can play and the type of PvP you want to take part in. All these people running 4 heroes should go and play TA, because TA is a PvP arena designed for 4 players. They should not demand the availability of heroes to allow them to play HA just because they want to earn fame and rank. Earning fame and rank in HA should at least be based on your ability to form an effective 8 man team. If half of your team is made up of AI, then what value is the fame/rank you have earned? What about the efforts of another player who has the patience to organise a team of 8 players and the willingness to actually lose and to improve over time to become good enough to win fame/rank? The team with heroes continues to win fame/rank often regardless of the skill level of the 4 human players on the team since they are obviously exploiting the AI to win them their matches. Is it not a coincidence that the most difficult roles in the current heroway are actually played by the heroes and NOT the human players?

the NPCS in GvG rarely dictate the course of the battle, they have set behaviours... rigid skill bars... and cannot be controlled directly by the player. The ghostly hero used to have a very influential role in HA but Anet saw reason to reduce its role... the ghostly hero has become much more of a piece of furniture in HA.

You cannot draw parallels between NPCs likes these, which are generally part of the environment itself... to the HEROES that form active roles in the party window whos skill bars... skill use... positioning... movement... is directly under the control of the players using them. Calling something PvP refers largely due to the act of forming a party of players with the intent of fighting another party of players. The environment in which this fight is another matter entirely. It has been generally ok for most of the pvp community that the PvP environment is populated by ANY NPCs in the first place... there have been concerns about the influence of NPCs at VoD in GvG battles but by and large these NPCs are truly quite limited in their scope and behaviour. If a team creates a huge NPC advantage in GvG the opposing team has options to maneuvre the fight away from the area where these NPCs would affect the fight.

What you need to understand is that the current heroway allows 4 mediocre players to avoid the need to actually organise a proper 8 man team with 8 human players. This really slaps the face of other players who actually take pride in organising a team of 8 human players. There are people who want to learn how to be good at the game, who dont mind losing every now and then to a superior human player, who realise that winning fame/rank and winning favour for their region should depend on their level of experience and skill and that they should not expect to achieve the rewards that come with higher levels of experience and skill until they themselves become more experience and more skilled. But what incentive is there for growth for these new players if the opponents they face are not human players but AI. AI which is being exploited to perform skill bars which even the most skilled players find hard at the same level. If they see other players who are just as bad as they... run heroway builds and farm fame and get rank 3... get rank 6 within weeks when they themselves are struggling to run a balanced build and to get past burial mounds. The consequences of Heroway go way beyond the issue of having trouble to fill the last spots in the team.
you seem to suggest that 100% of all pvpers are nasty and offensive players and that you cannot find even 1 nice player to fill the last slots in your HA team. If you are suggesting this... i really am lost for words. You are very mistaken if you believe that people are using heroes because everyone else is rude or offensive. People run heroes because they want fame... and they are too lazy to earn fame by putting any effort into it, and running heroes with certain skill bars guarantees you an effective build to take into HA to fight other teams. A build that will generally beat your mediocre to average team of 8 human players. No wonder they run Heroway.

i appreciate your response to my post but nothing you have said adequately defends the existence of heroes in PvP.

i will leave you with this question.

if heroes didnt exist and people still wanted to HA even though they didnt have enough people or because they didnt like all the nasty people in HA... would we see the same number of teams with 4 henchmen rampaging around HA causing so much controversy?

i think if you answer this question truthfully you will begin to understand the point most PvPers are making about the problem of heroes in HA and GvG.

you make 3 points i take issue with here im afraid.

the first point is that heroes arent imbalanced and are beatable by brains and brawn.

the second point is that only a few people struggle against heroway.

the third point is that heroes allow people who just want to mess around to do so in HA and they should have that option.

There are a few things i could say in response to your first point. The first, and ive mentioned this before, is that regardless of the challenge that heroes provide to a good PvPer their presence in the fight is not wanted. And like i said in my previous post, you cannot draw parallels with environmental NPCs like the bodyguard and Heroes.
Another thing i can say is that as far as your average player is concerned... heroes are far superior. It takes a great amount of concentration to monk against the current Heroway build, because the combination of degen hexes+taint+barbs+kd+daze is actually a huge amount of pressure. Of course, it is entirely possible to design a build to completely counter this type of pressure but HA has never been about running a build thats designed to beat 1 other build. The issue is that it is far too easy for 4 mediocre players to run a high pressure build of this nature by taking 4 heroes with them. If you took 8 players of same skill level as those 4 heroway build players and you gave them the same skill bars i highly doubt they will be able to run the build as well as when they did when they had heroes. Why is this?

1) a hero with the following skill bar

tainted flesh, rotting, putrid explosion, death nova, summion bone minions, summon shambling horror, well of profane

is able to manage its energy and keep taint on all 8 party members, summon minions the split second a corpse is available, cast death nova on the minion when it dies. As the battle goes on the number of things the hero does with these skills is phenomenal. It ends up raising an army of 8+ minions, and it still manages to keep death nova on each of them while keeping tainted flesh on its own 8 party members.

This is not easy, have you actually tried to keep death nova on 8+ minions before? We are limited by our UI, meaning we have to manually click the minions on the screen in order to target them. The hero AI is not restricted by the use of a UI, it wants to target a minion... it gets targetted. Have you seen the amount of clutter on the battle field and the radar when fighting these heroway teams? They have 3 thumpers with 3 pets, 4 necros, and a monk (some replace a thumper with a fire ele) the necros have an assortment of spirits like, recovery, recuperation, preservation, life, bloodsong i might have missed a couple. How many individually targettable things is that? 3+3+4+1+5+8 minions+8 people on the opposing team. 32.

good luck manually clicking each minion and casting death nova on them while maintaining tainted flesh on your party members. Balanced? i think not.

2) a hero with a bar full of hexes.

can you keep in mind the remaining duration of all hexes that you have cast on the enemy? Because to be a perfect hexer you need to be able to reapply your hexes on your enemy as soon as they run out. Im sure you can do this if you have only hexed one enemy, perhaps even 2. But can you remember all the remaining durations of the hexes you have applied to 3 different targets?

dont worry, the hero can remember the duration of hexes on thousands of targets if he has to. Balanced? i think not.

3) a hero with 1/4 second heal

are you a robot? do you never get tired? do you never lose concentration? do you never make the wrong move?

human players with infuse will never catch every spike purely based on the fact they are human. Humans make mistakes when they have to make split second decisions and actions.

but dont worry, master of whispers never gets tired, he never loses concentration and trust me he will cast that 1/4 second heal before any human being has even thought to do so.

balanced? i think not.

-----------------------------------

let me bring up your second point... about the fact that heroway is beatable and it shouldnt be removed because only a few people struggle with it.

if heroway was easy to beat people wouldnt be running it as much as they are now. Its even being run in GvG and i think many people who regularly observe top 100 guilds gvging have witnessed some very good guilds lose to the heroway build. The whole popularity of the build rests on its effectiveness and the fact that your average team of average players find it extremely hard to beat. So what if 25% of the PvP population can beat heroway easily (and trust me 25% is a gross overestimate), if 75% of the population fail, the build is going to become extremely popular because of its ability to defeat 75% of the pvp population.

the fact that it is so widespread must suggest that it is a highly effective build and that a large part of the pvp community is having trouble beating it. If it wasnt so effective it wouldnt be so widespread. i dont argue that it is unbeatable... i dont think anyone has really said this. If a team of 8 humans came up with a build that didnt exploit any overpowered skills and noone could beat them... that would be great for them. But this is different.

People are using heroes to reach a level of competitiveness that is not befitting of their actual level of experience or skill. They are gaining fame and rank when in truth 50% of their team members are AI and do the vast majority of the builds main pressure.

its irrelevant whether if you are any good you should be able to beat these teams. The problem is... if you arent good enough to beat it you dont feel any incentive to keep practicing in order to be able to beat it because you know that the effectiveness of the build comes solely from the exploitation of the hero AI. HA will become empty of players who actually want to become good at pvping if this situation is left to rot. Do you actually think that the 4 human players who win fame/rank by running this build actually develop as skilled players as a result?

This leads onto your third point about the fact that people who want to mess around in HA should be allowed to.

This strikes me as incredibly childish and inconsiderate. PvP arenas are meant to foster a spirit of competitiveness, in which all players strive to improve so that they can defeat their opponents. Earning fame and rank *should* be a reflection of the level of skill and experience you have in defeating other players. Not only as individuals but as a team. Its a place where you are encouraged to form a team of players who are well coordinated. Just like any form of competition that is based on actions or manipulation of the environment or tools at your disposal... practice makes perfect. A team who has spent hours practicing together will be alot more experienced and able to beat a team of players who never met eachother before and do not use voice communication to coordinate themselves.

what room within this competitive environment is there for people who want to mess around? there is... you can just enter with 8 random human players if you want. You can make a team of 8 runners and just run around instead of fighting... you can run a build with 8 monks and try to bore other teams to resignation. How about just designing a wacky build using some really fun skills like meteor shower and edge of extinction? how about running an old school EoE bomb? All the above are possible if you just want to have fun.

What you dont want to admit is that people who run hero way arent running heroway purely to have fun. They want fame. But they want easy fame. Is it really fun to be playing with only other 3 people as opposed to 7? Is it fun to continuously click the same buttons match after match? People running heroway arent doing it for fun, if they were they wouldnt be running heroway, they would be running other builds which are MUCH more fun.

They run heroway because they enjoy the fact that its so easy to win fame with. It beats the other teams of players who are actually seriously trying to play HA with 8 human players. I would go even as far to say that they enjoy the fact they are exploiting the AI and winning fame with it. They dont even need a full team of 8 good players to get their rank 6 or rank 9 anymore they just need to unlock heroes and load up some skill bars on to them and let the AI do the rest.

if you wanna have fun playing with heroes, go play hero battles. I mean you even get to go onto Obs mode if you are actually turn out to be any good at managing hero AI.

8vs8 arenas should allow 2 heroes at most. Perhaps 2 henches and 2 heroes. But currently 4 heroes in a team is allowing an inappropriate amount of mediocre players to win fame and gain rank.

making the real efforts of a large number of other players quite pointless.

who would you rather take sides with in the end? The players who actually care and are willing to spend time to play the game and allow the game to reach its peak in terms of competitiveness or the players who didnt care at all about the spirit of competition or about helping the pvp community develop to new levels of skill but just wanted to farm fame and spam their shiny emotes 24/7?

ok sophita, i would give it up, as you can see guru is filled with elitist that do not get the concept of CASUAL PLAY. if i am not mistaken, that is what GW is founded on, but no they want this to become more difficult for a player to get in and learn pvp.

now here is an argument that none of you can deny. there is a person with NO HA experience and is looking to join a group..... are you gunna take him of course not, you just spent over and hour at least getting a group together *or got lucky and joined a already made group* and you dont want to lose because of a noob. well you know what many people i know and i do, we grab total noobs in our guilds or people we know and take them out herowaying, because its simple. they get a chance to get aquanted with pvp play and they dont feel like pvp is some impossible game because we may win a few against some randomways or such. its a great way to teach people how to get into pvp.


and yes i have been playing well over 2 years and i did have to get into HoH the hard way but this is not a job, this is not RL, this is a game, and games are ment to be fun. you keep making pvp harder and harder and GW loses out on 2 of its features that make it truly stand out from the crowd, casual play and a fun balanced pvp system.

also as sophitia has said Ai are retarded, when i ha in a full group we roll heroways just because you can confuse the hell outta heros in a heartbeat. and without human input heros are useless so if you take out the humans they lose...... heros are not the problem, FotM builds are the problem. and removing heros will only further make people only run one build..... if you want diversity you really have to make forming a group easier.

believe what you want but if heros are removed from ha its a major step back in GW pvp... and i will stand firm on my belief that GW should be and always remain casual.... cause that is the main reason i play gw and not WoW or EQ2.....

And since when is heroway not a FotM?

80% (maybe even higher) of people are running one build as it is....heroway. Your argument about this is moot. People will always run a particular build when they see it being successful but hey, guess what? It might actually require a full group of 8 humans to play it. I rather face FotM's that require a full human group than seeing Olias and Master of Whispers almost every map.

GW is not especially more casual than any other game. Lets say you never bought any GW games before and you wanted to start. If you were serious about being able to compete and taking part with existing players you would have to purchase all 3 chapters... soon to be 4. How much does that cost? Over £100? Not exactly an amount of money you find in your backpocket is it?

Fun balanced pvp system? Dont get me started. The most popular problem that pvpers highlight about GW is the lack of regular skill balancing.

do you people actually read what other people post? The issue isnt really whether heroes are difficult to beat... the issue is, noone wants to fight heroes at all! Even if heroes were the most awful things to even step foot in HA or GvG people would still prefer not to fight them. They want to fight against humans not bots that you can run circles around like you yourself said you can do.
The important and telling question above all is... if heroes werent quite as good at the things they are currently being run for would the hero build be as popular as it is now? no it wouldnt.
your suggestion that people will only run one build in the absence of heros totally contradicts your earlier point that GW stands out as having a fun balanced pvp system. If it was fun and balanced why would people be forced to run 1 build. If they were running one build wouldnt it be pretty obvious that that build was far more powerful than any other possible build? Why is it that such a large number of people are running the hero way build? Surely if heroes added so much diversity in HA we wouldnt see the same heroway build time and time again. Do you see the error in your argument? There are always around 3-5 fotms i think... thats only natural... people find it easier to copy successful builds rather than innovate their own. But without heroway there are still other viable builds out there, people still play rit spike, legoway, captain planet balanced, paraway, dual para dual dervish bonder way, zergway, thumperway.

diversity does not come from ease of forming groups. How much easier do you need forming groups to be? The new party search window allows you to advertise yourself and what you are looking for to all other districts. Or do you want Anet to actually come out and make the team for you? What else... do you want them to make your build too? How about to roll all your equipment for you so you dont need to waste time telling everyone what to bring. Hell why dont they just play the game for you??? It seems like you are advocating a game that requires absolutely no effort to play at all. Go play stone paper scissors thats pretty casual...

diversity comes from options that are equally viable. I have a dozen different types of builds i would like to run in HA but because of the mechanics not all of them are equally viable, so i am restricted i my selection of builds by the mechanics. Its got nothing to do with how easy it is to make a team its incredibly easy to make a team if you really want to. You might end up with some awful players who you would still have 8 players.

removing heroes will force people to actually take the plunge and play with other people. OMG wat a bad thing that would be. i thought the whole point of an online game was to interact with other players from around the world. If you want to interact with Artificial intelligence why dont you go buy an offline singleplayer game?
HA is not a casual arena. You want to win Hall of Heroes? How much time do you have? If you only have 30min-1hr to play you might aswell not enter HA because if you actually get anywhere far you might be forced to leave your time 1 man down halfway on their way to HoH. Now that will make you very popular indeed!

basically, if you want to take part in casual pvp there are places other than HA and GvG that cater towards your needs. Complaining that HA doesnt help the casual player is totally unreasonable, its not meant to a place you can just form a team in 2minutes and play for 30min. Its a multiple map tournament where your teams aim is to progress to the very end and to hopefully earn favour for your region. I dont know where you got the idea that competing in HA was meant to be casual. If you are looking for something less intense, less time consuming.... HA is not that place.

If you really dont care about winning favour or fame or getting very far in HA... then fine... go randomway, go run a crazy EoE bomb build, go play 8 wammos.

but dont expect to be treated as an equal or with any respect by other players who are a bit more dedicated and commited than you are. They are putting effort into something and their efforts help show the game for what it truly can be, watching 8 idiots run around as wammos or 8 random idiots die in 30 seconds flat is entertaining but its not something to be proud of and its not what HA is truly about.

go play RA or TA or alliance battles if you want to do something casual.

/Scribble past names off the list of signed players

It seems this thread was started due to a single difficult to beat build that involves heroes. If you have signed it, you probably have a fairly organized guild of atleast 8 "talented" players, and the AI shouldn't be giving you problems, as it is the same AI each time you face it. Alternatively, if you're in a smaller guild, heroes are easily the best choice of additional players if that guild wants to participate in a GvG or HA run. I don't see why you should say "We devote our time to hardcore PvP, so if you can't do the same, and get a full party of humans, then you shouldn't be allowed to." Elitism fails.

heroes are easily the best choice of additional players????

this is exactly the problem! Why dont you bother to go out and interact with the community of players in HA instead of shunning them and taking heroes? Why dont you recognise the fact that being good in pvp doesnt take overnight and that making a team of 8 good players takes some practice? Theres nothing elitist about this reality, its the same with any competitive game/sport/activity.

if you complain that you dont have enough players for a full team... dont you realise that you are contradicting yourself by solving your solution by taking heroes instead of actually actively trying to find actualy players to fill the team with?

what does elitism have to do with actually bothering to make a team of 8 real players?

the only thing that is obvious from the reasoning behind why people take heroes is that they are far too lazy to actually bother to find a real player join their team.

that is so bad for the pvp community in so many ways its hard to understand how anyone could support it. So many people complain about how hard it is to find a team or to form a team... well if everyone isnt bothering to invite pugs and taking heroes instead its quite clear where the problem lies. Youre only making things worse for yourselves in the long run.

its such a hypocritical stance to take, when in one breathe you complain about the lack of players yet you advocate the use of heroes.

its astonishing.

Rirst off, how do you expect to learn PvP when your Heroes are doing half the work for you? Look at the current garbage that is running now. Real players are playing the mindless press 1,2,3 bars while Heroes are playing the bars that would actually take some skill for someone of flesh and blood to play. Why not let Acolyte Jin and Margrid play the thumpers and you play the Reapers Mark, Spirit Light, Mend Body and Soul, Weapon of Warding, Life, Shelter, Recuperation, Flesh of My Flesh bar?

Heroes' Ascent (or even Tombs as some of the old school prefer to call it) and GvG are meant to be upper tier and highly competitive PvP. You will easily spend 3 or more hours if you want to have a successful run in either format. Even in TA or RA you can spend close to 2 hours (even more because of griefers) just to get a glad point. Where is the casualness in that? Alliance Battles/Fort Aspenwood/Jade Quarry are about the closest thing to casual PvP that you can get. 20 minutes and you're done. Like Lorekeeper has said, it's not being elitist, it's about the concept of Player vs Player and what it should be about that some of us trying to get across.

@ the 1st part of your quote

"guru is filled with elitist that do not get the concept of CASUAL PLAY"

no guru is filled with people who like to play against PEOPLE.
we do not want to stop people from casualy playing, but there is a diffrence between "CASUAL PLAY" and designing a build with one purpose, that works around getting 4 hero's in the team so it is fast to set up.

"you just spent over and hour at least getting a group together *or got lucky and joined a already made group*"

so you need tb a friends list ?


there is so meny people running hero way why not just say to another team of 4 people " how about we go the profesions that the hero's use and then we will have a full team of 8 PEOPLE and then these elitist can go skrew them selves because we will be playing this build and it will still be fast to set up"

why will they say to you "nty dude, were better off with the hero's doing them rolls" ?

because not even the best players can do what the hero's do with all the microing.

OR get the hero's to go the thumpers and the monks and YOU ( real people ) go the necro's. see how well you do then, because if your doing it only for fun and dont care about winning then this should be ok because YOU WILL NEVER WIN because the hero ai is superior to your own.


"its a great way to teach people how to get into pvp"

sure so the next time im gonna teach 2-3 people how to pvp im gonna take them into gtob and into the isle of the nameless and let them hit the condition dummies (AI).

"this is so fun isent it guys !!!1!!!!!!111one!!shift!"
"yea......."
"wanna do this tomorrow"
"nah i'll just stick to ra, kthx"


oh, btw /signed /signed and /signed

and i can prolly get the guilds core team (thats 4 people because olias and master of whispers dont count) to sign it as well