Why -way?

This has bugged me since I started playing. Why do people put -way at the end of all the trendy team builds? Does it all have to do with the old "I Will Avenge You!" builds?

It's the "way" that team works...

It's because most of the GW community are cliche, cookie cutting, mindless sheep.

tbh, I don't get half the names people give their builds. I just call my favorite ones "ITMarkIV" after a while.

The earlist "-way"s i remember were IWAY and VIMway... but i'm going to say it probably came from IWAY.

Of course. IWAY was so big for so long, every FOTM build since has had the -WAY appended. It's similar to the way anyone who's addicted to something is a "somethingoholic". Evolution of the English language, innit?

"I Will Avenge You" - pretty much the first real highly abused cookie cutter build out there. Note that the skill is "IWAY" - usually pronounced as "EYE-WAY".

I never played it so I will most likely have something wrong here, but it was basically group of warrior/rangers with pets that sent the pets in. If you didn't kill the pets they had a high enough damage (along with the group of warriors) that you died. Assuming you bothered to kill the pets then the warrior activated [skill]"I Will Avenge You!"[/skill] and at the time a pet counted towards an ally. Thus the warriors got a very long term IAS and lots of health regen to beat up on you very nicely. There were a few other required slots that I do not recall offhand (seems a necro was needed in there for something but it may be another class).

So in effect you ended up fighting a huge number of damage dealers and died or you ended up fighting invincible warriors and died. Like everything there were counters, yet they were IWAY specific and generally gimped you against other builds. Since the build was easy to run there were MANY terrible players that copied the build to gain fame and other PvP rewards. There were a few later "nerfs" that made the build work not so well and, like other PvP builds, required actual teamwork to be effective and it fell into disuse.

However since it was the very first real *highly* abused team build in GW (there were other abused cookie cutter builds - but it even got so bad that even PvE only people at the time knew of it - of which I am mostly in that class) and it had a catchy name it was used from then on to denote other cookie cutter little skill builds. You can easily ad "way" to then end of any build name if you want.

It comes from the old IWAY teams

IWAY used a Order Necro (death) who was spaming orders to heal the party and buff the dmg of all melee classes. The usual group consisted of 5-6 warriors, 1-2 rangers and 1 necro. The key was to kill the necro as fast as possible but it coud be difficult becouse he was usually camping far away from the fight and just spaming orders.

Thanks - like I said I never played the build (or against it either - mainly a PvE player) but I recalled one other class was a key part. An orders necro makes sense in this build and was what I thought was used but wasn't sure enough to post it. Too long ago and not that much personal interest on my part at the time to know much more than what was posted on forums.

Like every US political scandal is a "........gate", since the infamous Watergate scandal.

Ok, so it is just an homage to the old IWAY build. Thats what I figured.

Yeah, the -gate thing annoys me, too. But this most recent ho-gate almost redeemed it.

I always found it funny how people would talk crap about IWAY and then go make build names after it.

because thats the "way" that everyone starts to play. NoobWay FTW!!

makes no sense to me either. adding "-way" to every build name makes just about as much sense as saying "ATM machine" or "PIN number".

Yea the suffix -way came from IWAY builds. Just the same way any political controversy has -gate attached to the end, derived from Watergate with Nixon.

Snap!

We have that in England too - ever heard of Camillagate?

I think it began with IWAY.

Ah...IWAY. Back when HoH = favor and Europe whooped our butts when it was nerfed.

And Korea whipped our butts before it was nerfed

And now, the end is here
And so I face the final curtain
My friend, I'll say it clear
I'll state my case, of which I'm certain
I've lived a life that's full
I traveled each and ev'ry highway
And more, much more than this, I did it with IWAY!

The first most famous cookie-cutter build was based on the skill I Will Avenge You! and became known as IWAY. After that people started adding -way to gimmicky builds. Spiritway FTL!

Ursan Will Avenge You! I've always hated it when people do that.

On a related note, did the term "Zergway" originate in GW or did it somehow migrate over here from Starcraft? And what was it used to describe here in GW?

No. Zerg was Zerg rush. With the terms micro skillz, and zergling intermixed.

The origin of Zerg is Starcraft, and is not a GW term, but I've only seen "zergway" used in guildwars. Presumably someone felt the tactic was somehow similar to a zerg rush.

Yea, just the clicheway.

Know it, learn it, love it. It's going to stay for a while.

I personally don't know how -way gets from IWAY to -way. It's kind of far fetched. An abrieviation turns into a team build name...?

My thinking is that the first -way was that someone created a great -way name for their own build and it started from there.

You are wrong. It started with IWAY.

Builds need simple and easily recognisable names for pug HA play. You say you are forming IWAY and most people know the bars pretty well. You say that you are forming a melee heavy warrior/ranger pressure build with minimal healing support and people say... huh?

"I Will Avenge You!" was supposedly the core skill of the build, though frankly it could still function quite well with out it. It did however become the trademark skill and the acronym (faster to type and recognisable) IWAY was how people referred to it.

A lot of people who picked up the build later on didn't immediately understand why it was called IWAY. They assumed it literally meant 'something way' - a way of playing. People also like to conform and stick with trends to help legitimise their own creations, thus afterwards came ViMway, flareway, sway, thumpway... and so on.

IWAY was the first massively accessible pug build, and many consider it the start of the devolution of HA (or Tombs at the time). Before that there were other common pug builds (Minion Factory, Air Spike, Smite...) but none that were quite as mindless and relied as little player skill... IWAY relied on the lack of skill in your opposition rather than any amount of skill in your pug, which is why it worked so well as a grinding machine. You didn't have to be picky with who you invited to your group, everyone knew the bars well enough, and it wasn't exactly complicated to run (c+space). Fast games, fast wins or fast losses, fast fame.

[edit: Zerg rushing in StarCraft refers to attacking someone with a huge amount of weak offensive units early in the game while they are still building up their resources. I can see how this might apply losely to some glass cannon style offensive builds in Guild Wars.]