Competative Guilds in HoH and GvG

So we have many types of people and guilds in this game. Obvious. It hosts millions of people from all over the world. I have a question regarding competative pvp players ... the templates here are creative at best, most builds I see shared are numing pve builds. Do guilds and players purposely chose not to share any common knowledge on these forums for fear of losing? I mean there are many different common knowledge builds, like SS, Healing Ball, ex-Enchantment heavy, the spike builds, but why is it nobody actually like to discuss actuall builds here?

Observant players know what they are hitting and what the targets are using, alot of people from guru ARE without a doubt some of the top players in the game ... why is it that we don't try and share many builds. I mean we (our guild has many) which we like to test and would love for others to test out (and possibly improve), why do we not see any of this here? Looking through all forums I only see solo build help requested. I don't get it, <sarcasm> am I only to use an elite fansite for complaining? </sarcasm>

I just want to hear opinions from the active members here, you know who you are, we have shared many threads together before ... and I would actually like to know if this could be feasible in the future of guru.

(Anti Flame. Stance. For the next 8 posts, all flames will be disregarded and you gain 1 additional ignore per flame )

not sure about Tombs, but I know that my guild has posted plenty of videos over on TGH of GvG fights.

It has been a double edge sword for us, the name recognition is kinda cool and having opponents more prepared for our build has many times given us much more challenging fights than we might have otherwise received. However it has also definitely cost us a few big point losses as we met teams with builds specifically tweeked to beat our type of build.

We decided a while back to slow down on the public video releases of GvG fights and just keep em for internal review purposes only.

I expect that you would have more luck by starting a thread where all the major builds for Tombs were named and broad brush outlined rather than hoping for exact detail on each.

yes, BBQ has posted some great GvG videos. I love them. try searching this and TGH for some videos and you can see them in action. as for people posting builds, they aren't going to post their exact builds in detail until everyone is already using them. and then it's fairly pointless. you can, though, search and learn on your own without receiving builds on a silver platter. your best bet is to play gvg and watch each team closely as to what skills they're using. especially the teams that beat you down with ease.

yes we have a strategy which works VERY well in tombs and we plan on keeping it for our own as long as possible, hence out guild is hard to get into, need VERY trusting members...

No it doesn't.

People are slow to share builds they win with for fear of not winning as much. I wouldn't label that a problem. It slows down the metagame development, sure, but that doesn't make it a problem on its own.

As for which are the good guilds, I turned to a higher source.
Whoops.

Seriously though, some of the highly ranked GvG guilds have quit it protest and I'd guess that many, if not most, have lost members. The major reason I hear repeated is a percieved lack of response on balance issues.
Tombs is a cesspool.
Observer mode would be a big help in identifying the better guilds, giving them publicity (and a greater reward for playing well) and would allow people to pick apart the builds from captured videos.
Still, observer mode is a nice *feature*, but it's a band-aid on a gaping wound, as a fellow guildmate put it. Balance issues need to be addressed first, in a hurry. Unlocks need to happen a faster rate to keep people interested at the beginning stages of PVP, and more maps/styles of gameplay need to be introduced into the PVP. None of these are new issues, and that's what really has me concerned- I'm not involved in the test, but if the developers don't know about these problems yet we're in really big trouble.

I'm confident they do know what the problems are and they are most likely addressing them to the best of their ability. What worries me is that they've likely known for a long time and the problems still remain. On top of that we only get bits and pieces of information due to the way their PR/Marketing is run. Having a limited number of people disclosing information lets you regulate more tightly at the expense of expediency. "Being left in the cold" makes players (especially forumites) anxious. That's hardly earthshaking news, but we're still cold.

If anyone would flame you, Stumpy, they're out of their minds. This is exactly the type of stuff that this site DOES need. That's actually what a community is and I'm glad you've brought it up.

Maybe what's needed is some sort of forum for team builds rather than just individual, single player builds? I can see why some guilds/teams would be hesitant to post on the forum for builds that -is- provided.

There's probably also hesitancy due to groups wanting to keep team dynamics secret so that they can keep winning. That's where observer mode will make sharing automatic.

But I think that your suggestion is terrific. Thanks!

I understand that guilds are likely to not reveal there secret (oh noes you mean I can't play the cookie cutter builds) ... which guilds will have to get used to when your on stage. I can't wait for observer mode, I can't wait to be on TV .

Yes S, I am sure they know about the concerns that many have grieved and pleaded about. But many will likely be ignored from there lack of presentation. I have seen a previous post from you addressing concerns of balancing certain skills, and stregthening weaker skillsets. I do believe that they will introduce more maps, after all, they won't sit in a stalemate.

BBQ guild (and specifically a littlebird) I will check the guild hall. Other members of my guild represent us there. On this forum I tend to see many (Im a superman, I can r0xx0r n00bs with my 1337 mad skillz0rs) <<--- ????

but nothing, short of the Zerg Rush which really was one of the only videos that utilized a team with a strategy. Not crap like ... hers a video of me and my friends kickin some asses have fun good music ... that kinda stuff I wish people would share on there on computer or own guild. I like discussing strategy, or finding useless skills and realizing how beneficial it could be in 'type A' strategy.

I don't want to write about what Anet needs to address here S, I want to know if this forum has any interest in promoting and actually strategizing builds, like the guild BBQ has done in the past (going on trust) ... I understand that revealing the information will allow others to break it down and build counters ... but if you came up with the build, I'm sure you can counter the counter. I just want a place to share some strategizing, with outsiders who have a different perspective than me, who can see things that I can't ... and most importantly ... who enjoy doing this as much as me.

EDIT ***** and wheel ... I am not looking for a silver platter. I have been an active member here much longer than yourself. I am looking to strategize with intelligent people, not complain to Anet why I need my next meal cooked for me. But I do thank you for the assumption ... I'd sooner reveal everything I know to hear 1 insightful person give me credible feedback to help me improve my team builds (no matter if I target them to tourney style or GvG).

Best way to find out what the top guilds are using as their build is to keep GvGing and HoHing. It seems everyone in HoH runs the same builds so it is best to play more GvG and then you will learn by yourself why their build is so solid.

Sometimes you will be surprised at how well your guild's team build works against a much higher ranked team...and sometimes you get completely owned in a few mins. When you do get owned ask your team why that happened.

I'm not here to turn it into another complaint thread- I started out addressing the question:
First of all, you should try posting in the Gladiator's Arena if you want a strategy discussion, or The Campfire if you want to discuss an actual build. Adding a separate section for "Group Builds" to the campfire is a good suggestion, I'll bring that to the rest of the staff, but as Ensign and I tend to oversee those two forums we can make it happen.

As for the question at hand, maybe I should have countered with another question: Why do you think it's a problem that people don't share group builds more often? (I do think it's a problem, and a great guy I met in GW who was a tester was all for full disclosure of builds. Some of you lucky people may remember Sausaletus Rex.) But why do you think it's a problem?

I tried to explain why more information isn't shared by the good guilds

• Lack of reward for disclosing
• Fear of increased losses due to disclosure
• They don't post on forums
• They don't play the game anymore

That's a partial list of reasons, which I addressed briefly in the post. The last reason: "They don't play anymore" leads to the question "Why don't they play anymore" which requires a brief explanation of what drove good teams away. That's intended to be an objective list of the reasons I've heard and experienced, not an invitation to begin the griping anew.

I agree that the lack of strategy talk is dissapointing. Guru was created with the intent of being the place to look for highbrow discussion, not lowest-common-denominator garbage. An effort to improve the quality of our site is likely to get my approval.

There ARE good builds out there that have been posted, they're just buried under hoardes of useless threads, posts, and questions. I didn't mean the silver platter comment to be as harsh as it came out to be, but the reason that good builds aren't posted is because of the following reasons

1. Teams don't want to stop winning
2. The time that teams spent developing their builds would go to waste if they put out all of their builds out for everyone to read and copy instantly
3. The builds that they're using in part can probably already be found, so there's no point in making even more obvious for the competition to realize what's going on in winning builds.

It's fairly obvious why more winning builds aren't posted. It's not like PvE where there's no player or guild rank situation. Your build and its exclusivity directly affects your position on the ladder.


EDIT: Scaphism basically summed up what I meant in this and my OP.

we do do this when we get owned. We stop and say 'okay guys what happened there?' sometimes we can find some ideas through this, and sometimes we simply get owned because we ran into a good counter, when the dice roll your way, it really does roll your way. But sometimes you run right into a brick wall with no avail. I (realize and always will realize ... know your opponent, and watch whats going on will always be the best strategy)

The field is too small to post stuff online. In betas there were enough people playing (and enough openness in the game's structure to make new builds easily) that it wasn't a problem, but to post your own discoveries now is akin to asking who will come and give you a free butt kicking. Or if it's something to do with soloing, asking Anet to nerf you.

Good point. It's so ingrained now that I just assumed this would be understood. The lack of ability to create diverse builds on the fly severely cramps aspiring build designers. Not as much of an issue for top guilds who have most skills unlocked (after many hours of playing), but every time a new player sees a skill and says "Damn! I want to put that in my next build!" and realizes he wont get it til the last 10% of the game, a fairy dies.

I stand in the middle on the issue of sharing 8 man builds. A signifigant portion of the skill in this game comes from being able to create a succesfull GvG or tombs build. Giving them away seems kind of like a slap in the face to the creator. However, if the creator wants to post it thats wonderful. I think discussing a complete build on the forums could spur some interesting thoughts and move away from some of the drivel thats going around the strat forums now. I cringe at realizing that I'm going to have to say 'NR throws this thing into the trash pile' for the vast majority of the builds though

Well, some people don't like to see their build getting copy all over the place.
While some other people don't like their build known and counter all over the place.

It is just that simple...

It had already been done in the past, and of course it will continue in the future.

That was why so many technology human had in the past are actually lost and had to be discover again.
Just to give more edge to the existing people of that time.

(personally I dislike making up an 8 man build... I would much rather having a huge list of available combo that can be put inside a build for different purpose... it is a much more efficient way to build and to analyse the current build, and know how to fix it.)

I thought we were talking about top guilds here?

















<3 Blackace

I think it would be more interesting to look at builds from average guilds and try to fine tune them However, an iQ build would be interesting to see how you guys incorperate different elements etc.

Yeah, I was in LoG at the time or something like that. Problem is they <3 E/Mo smite, and since I was in EA, a guild that ran E/Mo smite from day one of release, I couldn't handle it anymore. It was fun doing it when no one had a clue except the people from beta and alpha, but now it is just an anoyance. EA has been long gone, but hO picked up all of the remaining players from EA, so I roll with them now.


I miss EA =( Inactivity has smashed this game into stupidity....

There are NOT millions of people playing this game. At times it doesn't even seem like there are thousands.

The whole "people aren't sharing their builds because ..." arguement doesn't work or matter. Do you think Magic players didn't try to keep their secrets? If the player base was strong enough, if there were enough people playing PvP, if there were enough dedicated deck/team builders around, there would be no way to keep any secrets.

It's hard to figure out a build just by playing against it, but the REAL problem is that PvP is SO bad that when you do finaly bump into a decent team you don't WANT to waste the experience working out their build, you want to savor the experience. Who knows when you're gonna get chance? Challenging PvP is not so easy to find these days.

Lots of people have gone over the reasons why PvP sucks. The most important thing to note is that the PvP was incredible in the beta's, and it sucks now. Clearly, the reason it sucks is directly related to the changes they made to the game at release. The fact that they made these changes, apparently without any testing, and the fact that they have absolutely refused to even consider the possibility that they MIGHT have made an error, doesn't bode well for PvP being fixed, ever, but certainly not soon.

And that is the reason many PvP guys have left the game, and most likely will not be back. And that (the missing players) is likely the reason Anet considers the PvP to be the least important aspect of the game. Regardless of what they say, actions have always spoken louder than words. And their actions shout that they don't care about PvP, which makes the players leave, which gives them less incentive to care about PvP, and on and on.

I can't honestly think of a reason to bother putting a team build together. I'd say given the stagnant environment, you could get away with simply working out what you need to stand up to the metagame as it is. It's not likely to change much.

I've considered posting our HoH build - but every time I think I would, I ask myself "Why?". Bragging rights? To show that we've come up with something no one else runs? That TSF isn't a cookie cutter build team? To show how l33t we are?

None of those are very good reasons.

IMO, if you're played against TSF, you've seen our build(s), which may or may not be the same exact thing the next go around, as we're constantly evolving the builds to counter the current FOTW. Since we PvP just about every night, all of the so-called top teams have run against us at least once - sB, iQ aB - etc.

Thus, my response would be - if you've played against us, you know what we do and don't need us to post our build to beat us. If you haven't, then you don't need to know, do you?

Actually this is completely untrue. Within the first 1-2 minutes of a battle I will have a build completely dissected and my entire team will know who is doing what. As a prot monk I have the ability to provide whatever protection is needed and still keep an eye on who is doing what. CTRL and ALT are also a prot monks best friends against those people who think they can sneak off. And if not me, because I am getting wailed on consistently, someone else will do it.

And, the top 5 American teams currently on the ladder know each others build inside and out for the most part. Everyone sits in IRC and BSes about it all the time....

This topic interest me quite significantly. Sayshina mentioned about beta's pvp being different from the one now. I never play beta before, hence, Im wondering if anyone cares to point out the difference Were builds able to be kept more secretly back then?

Alright, let me put it to you real sipmle, stumpy. There are several fundamental builds out there you'd see in tombs.

1) incendiary ranger build - This is what MS was running, and what a lot of tombs guilds are emulating (and failing miserably at, IMO). This isn't really an altar-taking build as much as it is an altar stealing, and holding build. It lacks offensive power but it interrupts up the hizass. Best defense is to find and disrupt the incendiary rangers (r/me's, usually) and since they're taught to be retardedly aggressive, pull them out and away from the fight before picking them off. Do note not all of their rangers carry incendiary arrows, only about 2 do. Finding them, extending them, and picking them off is key.

2) e/mo smiter builds - like all builds revolving around one or two core skills, this probably originated in 4v4. Like all smiting builds this carries an incredible amount of firepower, BUT only so long as key enchantments are up and maintained. This is countered, quite comically so, by nature's renewal spam. Just keep your ranger up and away from shutdown, drag their warrior smite-anchors away from the healers, and pick them off. The amount of e/mo's and the amount of anchors vary depending on the build, I've seen as many as 3, and as few as 1. Not all E/Mo's are smiters, though, which brings me to the next common tombs build...

3) Air Spiker build - Yeah these...still exist...and still get crushed terribly. I don't even need to explain to you what these are, mass elementalists, counter with fertile season and quick reflexes, endure the first few volleys, and then catch their targetting patterns, pull your targetted player back behind you, force their eles out of their wards and healballs, and pick off.

There's obviously much more builds out there, though, but you'll see those 3 much more often than anything else.

allow me to correct this little part :P
this is my opinion neway . MS have just copied the incendiary ramgers from Ascalon Electric Company guild and started running their build and they will say every1 copied their build neway being big headed gimps.

this build is really easy to counter since im a member of AeC and play it alot. if most ppl knew hwo easy it is to counter u wudn't be whininh here on the forums u wud be playing. And last thing its nt only the build that makes a winning team its the team work and communication of guild n team mates.

If you took the time to type out actual words rather than abbreviate everything in "netspeak" I'd be more inclined to believe you. As far as I'm concerned nobody invented incendiary rangers. That's like saying you invented warriors that use sprint, or monks that use orison of healing.

No love for the Bearded Ladies build? I have seen it start to be copied recently. It also holds up decently vs. the incendiary arrows build that is rampant in HoH right now.

BTW: Ascalon Electric Company DOES run that build the best. I do not care who made it but they are the ONLY ones I worry about when we fight.

However we got a brand new build in the works and if it pans out there will be a surprise for all those ranger teams.

I realize the problem versus beta. Obviously it was far easier with all skills accessible. I spoke with my guild/other builders, and we have the consensus and hope to revitalize a once interesting topic of discussion.

I am currently at work but will post our builds for discussion. And to those that are 'fearing counters' you have to learn to roll with the punches no matter your circumstance. Usually counters built directly against some things ... will likely fail miserably on anything else. 'OMG h0w dod they WIN, we have NR down and they have Necros and Eles wtf??!!!1!!'

actually there are an incredible amount of resources that people use to build there decks. Usually they also check from there various resources for feedback and share there thoughts so other elite members with different perspective may give invaluable feedback. I refer you to:
http://www.starcitygames.com/phpBB2/...7d8e9d03 2329
for magic deck/build discussions.

As the elite listing for this game you should expect more kinds of this type of discussions ... and benefits by utilizing what we have readily available. Knowledge. Well some of you have readily available .

And Scaph .. yes I remember Rex. He was a vault of information for me in beta. When i start posting team builds I will definately post it in the appropriate forum. I just wanted to get a feel (general discussion) from other community members on what they thought of the idea. Surprisingly it has gone over better than I expected. I actually hesitantly wrote my OP expecting the majority to respond saying stuff like 'if you do then your a n00b cause I will make a counter and pwned u .... pffft.... n00bz'

I'm still pissed about those losses. Not because of bad play or tactical mistakes, but because we were beat by generic tombs builds that in all honesty we should have rolled. We had simply made the assumption that we wouldn't be seeing tombs builds in GvG and didn't bring the requisite hate because of it - and, well, we got punished for our decision.

I'm never happy about making big strategic mistakes like that. Just have to suck 'em up and not make the mistake again. If you plan on playing in GvG, you can expect to see all sorts of randomness, including tombs or hall holding builds. Neglect preparation for those at your own peril.

Peace,
-CxE

Imagine planning to counter things like mass conditions, and then being too lazy to check what a sub-in is bringing in a match. Sub-in doesn't bring Matryr, and the other team's two trappers wreak havoc on us. I almost cried.