"Balanced" Way vs. "Gimmick" Way

Quote: Originally Posted by Arkantos

Funny, because around the same time, the skill of the PvE community started going down. Coincidence? this is a very fair comment, i too would say i feel the general pve community lacks skill and can only specialise in certain builds whether they are gimmicks or pvx builds but yeah.....valid point
!BAN PVX WIKI FTW! lol joke

Quote: Originally Posted by Avarre

SY teams are 'balanced' in the sense they tend to rely on a mix of mechanics and abilities But Avaree, that would mean that a tank'n'spank could be a balanced team if the tank had a way to draw aggro (low hp/armor) and if the rest of the team were not pure dmg-dealer. Say a SF or 55 tank, 2 monk (maybe 1), and 4 different Dmg/disrupter(should the aggro break). Or with a resto rit (3rd (back-up) healer) using Splinter on the tank to add some dmg.

Am I correct in that assumption? Or did I miss the whole point.

Quote: Originally Posted by Steps_Descending

But Avaree, that would mean that a tank'n'spank could be a balanced team if the tank had a way to draw aggro (low hp/armor) and if the rest of the team were not pure dmg-dealer. Say a SF or 55 tank, 2 monk (maybe 1), and 4 different Dmg/disrupter(should the aggro break). Or with a resto rit (3rd (back-up) healer) using Splinter on the tank to add some dmg.

Am I correct in that assumption? Or did I miss the whole point. A balanced build, as discussed in this thread, does not depend on dedicated tanks. You will not find balanced builds running SF tanks, nor 55hp/600hp tanks, nor obsidian flesh, etc. Instead they will use "SY!" where they can. Balanced builds that involve non-physical players, and heroes, will generally throw at least a slot or two of party-support utility on each char, such as Aeigs, party heals, wards, weakness, etc.

With all the layered defense, (often from "SY!"/"TINTF" alone) the balanced builds get to care a lot less about agro-management, which lets them move from mob-to-mob at a rapid pace, and should anyone get killed, their death will not signal a massive panic, nor a near or total wipe, rather, mid-combat resurrects allow the party to recover on the fly. Contrast this to a gimmick group loosing a tank with all the deaths, and rebirth sillyness involved with recovering that tank.

Quote: Originally Posted by high priestess anya

Quote: Originally Posted by faraaz

I prefer gimmick way...

Profit maximisation is the name of the game. Balanced way died with the release of Factions... see... that doesn't make any sense. good balanced teams are faster than gimmicks.


I'm not surprised you fail to notice this. if you are someone who like gimmicks, chances are you fail hardcore at the game. people that fail will fail at balanced. gimmicks only require you to do one simple, repetitive task, so even the most brain-dead individuals will be fine.

Quote: Originally Posted by upier

Quote: Originally Posted by Lyynyyrd

a "balanced" build is one that takes advantage of multiple game mechanic, to have a varied response to threats. because of their varied nature, they are better suited to adapt when something unexpected happens, or if a few member of the party get killed/disconnect/whatever.

a "gimmick" build invariably tries to abuse one or two overpowered mechanics. these kind of builds typically have very poor adaptability, and will fall apart when something goes wrong.

that's about all there is to it.

Quote: Originally Posted by joshuarodger

Whats the difference between a gimmick build and a clever build?

I dont understand why playing a so called gimmick build is a bad thing, surely it takes something to develop this build, an understanding of PvE. Playing a gimmick build well requires just as much knowledge as playing a balanced build well.

Was 5 man sorrows furnace a gimmick? Did it maximise the rewards for time spend playing? It wasnt the quickest, but it did require a set team.

People keep comparing a balanced build with a sy para to cryway. Both are exploiting PvE skills, in one case to prevent damage in the other to cause damage. Ok so the sy para only requires one character, the others can be random, cryway requires many mesmers, does this not just show that sy is more overpowered, more exploitive and therefore as the general consensus goes, more gimmicky?

Here is the biggest difference between a balanced team with SY and cryway: Remove SY from the balanced team and you can still win, remove CoP from the cryway team and you're dead.

The same applies to every gimmick build. Remove the key skill and you're dead. There is no single skill that makes a balanced build win. You can remove SY. You can remove WoH. You can remove whatever. You can still win.

i'll give you that

Even if I seem to love tank in that post, it's not that I love them, just that this particular part of GW system is messing me up.

Quote: Originally Posted by Katari

A balanced build, as discussed in this thread, does not depend on dedicated tanks. You will not find balanced builds running SF tanks, nor 55hp/600hp tanks, nor obsidian flesh, etc. Instead they will use SY!; where they can. Balanced builds that involve non-physical players, and heroes, will generally throw at least a slot or two of party-support utility on each char, such as Aeigs, party heals, wards, weakness, etc.

With all the layered defense, (often from SY! TINTF alone) the balanced builds get to care a lot less about agro-management, which lets them move from mob-to-mob at a rapid pace, and should anyone get killed, their death will not signal a massive panic, nor a near or total wipe, rather, mid-combat resurrects allow the party to recover on the fly. Contrast this to a gimmick group loosing a tank with all the deaths, and rebirth sillyness involved with recovering that tank.
That question might also apply to Arkantos 2 posts above this one :

From what you say, a balanced team treats any party member the same way. But isn't an imbagon basically an indirect tank? He is the one sparing dmg to everyone, either through SY or simply takking the blows; If he dies the whoel team will probably soon follow. Accept contrary to a tank he can be rezzed and MAY be able to continue his job (thank to GW'S "wonderful" aggro system, understand this as you wish), but if the rest of a tank'n'spank team also has utility it would make it a balanced one. Correct? Which would make SY a slightly more subtle tank system.

To Arkantos, can a team in an elite area survive a medium to heavy fight without it's SY/TNtF spammer? Compared to the same team with all dmg dealers as CoP nukers? Or are you saying that a Gimmick is simply a team where every player has a build focussed on doing 1 thing and only ONE?


(Does those questions matter for someone else than me? probably not. I know that, just need them answered anyway.

Quote: Originally Posted by Steps_Descending

can a team in an elite area survive a medium to heavy fight without it's SY/TNtF spammer? . I would hope so. If they can't perhaps they should find another game to play seeing as GW's is too hard for them.

Quote: To Arkantos, can a team in an elite area survive a medium to heavy fight without it's SY/TNtF spammer? Yes. Teams were able to survive medium/heavy fights before PvE skills were introduced, so teams can survive if their paragon dies. It depends on the skill of the team.

Quote: Originally Posted by upier

Step 1:
Load up wiki.
Step 2:
Check if hex removal is present in the selected area of choice.
Step 3:
If answer to Step 2 is No - congratulations, your Cryway team is balanced already!

If answer to Step 2 is Yes - add additional hexes. Congratulations, your Cryway team is now balanced!

Yes? Cryway is a gimmick, gimmick != balanced.

Quote: Originally Posted by moriz

Quote: Originally Posted by high priestess anya lolwut ima go make a new thread about DOA HM non-gimmickway
i garauntee it will be empty up until me and my friends post a completion time in it.
we are gunna start making a non-gimmick build for DOA HM some time soon and the completion time will mean that some of us will be up until early hours hence why we prefer gimmicks as its fast and effective, the people who moan about gimmickways are the people who are incapable of learning "how to destroy" with gimmick builds. those guys just plod along slow as hell, as slow as none gimmick builds hence the hatred towards them.
Hopefully my next thread will shed some light on the quality of guilds such as TAM and SMS.
Go run your curbstomp in DOA HM and im fairly sure you will come back after 10 minutes saying "even the margonites where laughing at us" please don't. there's absolutely no reason to come in this thread and start throwing insults around at specific guilds or posters. this is how that other thread was ruined, and i genuinely want to know how others feel. it was a pretty good discussion until this post.

TAM and SMS can run any gimmick as effectively as anyone else if we choose to do it that way and know what to expect, and, in fact, most of us have run every gimmick in the game at some point or another. as with any team build it does take some amount of coordination and you have to not be an idiot to run cry-way. in my opinion, the only prerequisite that one must know and adhere to for a cryway team is "if you aren't the tank, don't aggro." cryway can be fun, especially the first few times you run it but it's very repetitive and became very stale for me. if you know the layout and trouble spots of the map, any perma SF can tank the mob and 7 other people can wait til they're balled up and cast their skills. the same theory applies to balanced groups also. if a balanced group knows the trouble spots and layout of the map they can deal with it.

you really have no idea how TAM and SMS run their teams unless you were in one of our guilds or did a run with us, so please don't come and start foaming at the mouth and throwing insults around if you don't know us. can cry-way beat our times in FoW or DoA? sure. but we have fun doing a 45-50 minute FoW run with different professions. we can also get through DoA in respectable time. can we do it in an hour and a half? usually no. i do know that SMS did it about that quickly a few times but i wasn't there for that, so it's second-hand info.

Quote: Originally Posted by Rhamia Darigaz

Gimmick, no doubt. But a balanced team can come back after mistakes, a gimmick team often cannot.


^at snaek

Quote: Originally Posted by Abedeus