March 2 Update

[KingOfPain]

Exactly what I mean

[Lurker Wyrm]

Ice Prison. 21 seconds at level 16, doesn't have any "my energy must be greater than your energy" tircks to it and doesn't hog the elite slot.

Yeah... but that's only a 66% slow, Mind Freeze is the 90% slow only available in 2 skills (Iron Mist being the other)!

Yeah, but Ice prison wouldn't work too well if you are trying the 6 meteor shower E/Me build.

Um... Hurray for Deep Freeze and its non-changing slow duration? By the way, I keep meaning to hunt you down in-game and drag... say hi. The last time I saw you on, however, was when I was signing off to go watch cartoons.

LoL. This must be along the same line when you said no one in high end PvP uses Heal Party.

You've misread/misquoted me more times than I can count at this point. In that long argument I had with WarBlade over Heal Party (which is what I'm guessing you're referring to), my stance was on its effectiveness against spike, a stance I still maintain (and really, if you think Heal Party is a good counter to spike damage, there's something wrong). The other, smaller, argument with Heal Party was about him using a monk and a necro to hang back out of harm's way so they could spam Heal Party. Well, that argument is completely moot at this point (irregardless of any position taken on it) due to the advent of E/Mo builds running Ether Prodigy and Heal Party.

Bear in mind that skill discussion and all that fun stuff change with the current meta-game and what's popular. When the game was released, no one mentioned IWAY as a build for holding the HoH, nor was the Boon Prot monk something that was talked (nor was the 55 monk, for that matter). Before this patch, no one mentioned Bull's Strike or Protector's Strike as being worth putting in place of specific weapon skills, now they do. Trying to shove something in my face from 2 months ago that dealt with an issue of the time doesn't really serve any purpose.

[KingOfPain]

You've misread/misquoted me more times than I can count at this point. In that long argument I had with WarBlade over Heal Party (which is what I'm guessing you're referring to

Let see

Quote:

Originally Posted by WarBlade I've often wondered how it would be to run Somewhat Zen with a Necro wingman [i]way back out of the action, happily spamming Heal Team while some other Monk takes point as a self-protecting Mo/W and shrugs off the enemy assault while the other five ravage a target. [/i]

It'll never work. Heal Party can't do squat against spike, since, most of the time, by the time you're able to get one off, the victim is already dead (or close enough to it that a heal for less than 100 isn't going to make a difference anyway). I've seen a well coordinated spike team kill a warrior so fast an Infuse-weilding monk couldn't do anything to stop it, the spike team just kept on killing members of the opposing teams (this was in the HoH) with ease. Having 2 characters stand in back out of the battle fray is going to weaken a team a lot more than Heal Party spamming will benefit it, especially with the current meta-game trend being split parties.

Maybe you mis-quoted/read him? Maybe it's me who mis-read both of you.
WarBlade was NOT talking about him being the primary healer there unless I mis-read what he said. But you went off on a tangent (as always) and say it will never work, while, top guilds did/do run such builds. And no, the meta-game when this was discussed was not all Spike builds neither. I would say there were just as many, if not more, pressure builds. Besides, he didn't say where he was playing before you stamped it "would never work", and totally dismissed someone ideas and experience of such - just because you have never tried it, or you haven't read about it.

You know, If your posts are less condescending and less dismissive (of other peoples ideas) out right, people would be more forthcoming with ideas, or, just shoot the breeze.

The latest example:

Quote:

Originally Posted by KingOfPain If you think about it... it is sick how much the PvE game experience is held back by PvP balance issues.

The vast majority of skill balance changes have come as a result of the PvE game, so saying something like that is pretty uninformed.

I must admit I have never visited guildhalls.com (but I am sure you will send me there once we start to discuss the topic) so maybe you are right that I am clueless. Case closed!

I am sure I have left you plenty of typos and bad english to correct, so snip away ;p

KoP

[WarBlade]

Yeah... but that's only a 66% slow, Mind Freeze is the 90% slow only available in 2 skills (Iron Mist being the other)!

"Yeah but this, yeah but that..." You love to disagree don't you? If I'd said that I liked Mind Freeze you'd probably come back at me and say, "Bah! Waste of an elite!"

Seriously though, I've found an Ice Prison/Water Trident combo to be far more use than Mind Freeze for the purposes of just stopping something.

WarBlade was NOT talking about him being the primary healer there unless I mis-read what he said. But you went off on a tangent (as always) and say it will never work

No, you didn't mis-read. You got it exactly right. Tangent indeed.

[Swiss Mercenary]

nor was the Boon Prot monk something that was talked

We called that the "Fianna hybrid healer setup" back then. The BWE before release, I believe. Or was it two BWEs before release? I believe it was a protector, a hybrid, and a healer all running Divine Boon and Offering of Blood. Which, I guess, evolved into the 2x Boon/prot setup.

[Lurker Wyrm]

"Yeah but this, yeah but that..." You love to disagree don't you? If I'd said that I liked Mind Freeze you'd probably come back at me and say, "Bah! Waste of an elite!"

I wasn't arguing, I was being sarcastic, I thought the use of an exlamation mark would have signified that I wasn't being entirely serious. In any case, you've dragged out arguments long after I've stopped caring just as much as I have.

Besides, he didn't say where he was playing before you stamped it "would never work"

while the other five ravage a target.

There are only 2 places where you can PvP with 8 people per team. One is Heroe's Ascent (then Tombs) and the other is GvG. Having a monk stand way back spamming Heal Party while a Necro uses BiP and/or BR on it at a constant rate being the only thing they do (about the only other thing they could do is Orders and possibly Aegis) is not now, nor ever was a good idea in either battle type. There is no point in having a monk primary spam heal party when all the necro has to do is take monk secondary to be just as effective (or using an E/Mo like I talked about previously). It's an inefficient use of a character.

But you went off on a tangent (as always) and say it will never work

Again you misred me. I was referring to the idea he had: to use a Mo/W to tank and he and his necro buddy to go off on their own in lala land. Most teams would probably rip the Mo/W to shreds if it was trying to stand it's ground. The Bonetti's that the Mo/W uses to defend against wars isn't going to mean much with the elementalist/mesmer damage coming at it, or the poisoned arrows that can't be evaded (Crippling Shot). Without another monk to provide full support (which there wouldn't be since he clearly stated that the rest of the party would be "ravaging" the enemy) it's not going to last long, no build is that self-sufficient.

and totally dismissed someone ideas and experience of such

I dismissed his experience because he was applying Random Arenas tactics to GvG and HoH, and refused to accept that what works in one might not work in the other. They just don't go together. What works in one won't really work in the other. Ranger spike and IWAY teams in TA hardly ever go anywhere because they just don't work there. Nor would trying to get a group of 4-8 in Heroe's/GvG to chase down a monk that's running away or that a single Mo/W can handle all of the opposing team by itself without support of another monk that does more than throw out the occassional Heal Party. Trying to say that something he's found to work with a random group of unco-ordinated players will work against a co-ordinated group of people that are communitcating with each other doesn't make sense. How hard of a concept is that? We prove it all the time in PvE when we join a PuG that fails and then a while later use only guild members (and/or people who are willing to work with us) and succeed.

You know, If your posts are less condescending and less dismissive

The only reason I'm getting to be that way more and more around here is because for the past few months just about everyone has been taking every single opportunity to attack me. I tried giving out "friendly" advice back in July/August only to have it shoved in my face. I didn't start acting arrogant until I would try to back up opinions with data only to have completely redundant arguments thrown at me time and time again by people who refused to accept anything other than their own tunnel vision.

I screw up every now and then. I admit that. So does everyone else. Only, for some reason, I was (and still am) hearing about any mistake I made long after it should have been dropped. To be perfectly honest, you're the one who started it all (threw the snowball down the cliff, so to speak) way back when we had the discussion about target priority. I was arguing that monks should be a higher priority target than warriors while you argued the oppossite. Then you became condescending and patronizing towards me with all that "lol we must be playing different games" crap, and I threw it back. The rest is history. Yeah, I'm arrogant and at times condescending. Guess what, so are you.

I am sure I have left you plenty of typos and bad english to correct, so snip away ;p

This is a perfect example. I corrected your spelling a grand total of 1 time. Once. That's it. And the correction I made was for a mistake that's made so many times and so often by people that are generally ignorant of the correct usage of the word(s) in question. I don't go around correcting every time someone types "u" instead of "you," or the like, or every time someone mis-spells something. You, on the other hand, blew up at me and are still attacking. But yet I'm the one who's condescending.

I must admit I have never visited guildhalls.com

I used to visit "those sites" to gather information for myself and pass it on to others. I have absolutely no idea how much anyone knows about anything, so I thought I'd share the benefit of what I'd found out. When I played with people like Soul Flayer who I knew did research outside his own experience inside the game, I stayed quiet, or we would have conversations discussing the pros and cons of skills (we spent hours during the summer going back and forth about monk skills and builds). With people like you and WarBlade, trying to enter into a similar discussion is pointless since you're completely dismissive of anything that doesn't agree with your own opinion. Since it became obvious no one wanted my advice on anything, I visit them to read for myself, to read what people who spend more time on the game than I spend sleeping have to say about skill combinations and all that. There are also a lot of topics that I like to read because they're fun to do so (fan comics, etc.).

By the way, referring to an outside source isn't being an arrogant or condescending, or anything else you want to throw at me. Using outside references is a pretty standard method of forming an argument. I'm an English major. I write papers. If you add them all up, I've probably written close to 100 pages this past year; my writing on forums and in-game is more formal than the standard internet jargon, that's just the way I am.

[WarBlade]

The only reason I'm getting to be that way more and more around here is because for the past few months just about everyone has been taking every single opportunity to attack me.

Has it ever occured to you that your instant dismissive approach to anyone's ideas and subsequent bull-headed approach to telling everyone what's what (according to you) is a large part of the problem?

RB is generally a group of 'explorers' often playing host to players who tend to poke in the corners of a game as opposed to just following the mainstream ideas. You do your best to shoot down everyone's ideas and then get grumpy when we insist that we've had good results and now you tell us you feel like you're being attacked?

From where I sit most of the attacking has been yours.

I tried giving out "friendly" advice back in July/August only to have it shoved in my face. I didn't start acting arrogant until I would try to back up opinions with data only to have completely redundant arguments thrown at me time and time again by people who refused to accept anything other than their own tunnel vision.

"Completely redundant arguments". So you've labled our reasoning and experimentation as "completely redundant" yet cry foul when your 'advice' looks completely redundant to us?

I used to visit "those sites" to gather information for myself and pass it on to others. I have absolutely no idea how much anyone knows about anything, so I thought I'd share the benefit of what I'd found out. When I played with people like Soul Flayer who I knew did research outside his own experience inside the game, I stayed quiet, or we would have conversations discussing the pros and cons of skills (we spent hours during the summer going back and forth about monk skills and builds). With people like you and WarBlade, trying to enter into a similar discussion is pointless since you're completely dismissive of anything that doesn't agree with your own opinion.

And the pot calls the kettle black.

From our point of view, "It's pointless getting into a discussion with you because you're dismissive of anything that doesn't agree with your own opinion."

By the way, referring to an outside source isn't being an arrogant or condescending, or anything else you want to throw at me. Using outside references is a pretty standard method of forming an argument. I'm an English major. I write papers. If you add them all up, I've probably written close to 100 pages this past year; my writing on forums and in-game is more formal than the standard internet jargon, that's just the way I am.

Hey good luck with that business of "forming arguments". The "I'm an English major," part was really quite inventive, in a way that never works for anyone else in the known universe, but in your capable hands manages to persuade even the hardest of hearts that you're never arrogant or condescending. Well done!

See? That's how sarcasm is done.

[KingOfPain]

It is amazing you would want to drag up the the old July/Aug thread again. There's one grant example how you dismiss other peoples ideas and experiences wholesale and insisted your way, and the way you see the game, is the only right way - using words such as "never" and "no ifs or buts..". You or someone else even go as far to suggested I should try it your way, while, I have tried it (since that is the "play" by default), while it is you that have not the experience in the alternatives. Talk about closed minds.

And in the end, we were advised to have our ideas validated by a PvP guild forum.

Dropping references to support your arguments is one thing, providing they are facts and not just opinions; constantly telling people only these outside opinions matters, is quite another thing. By the same token, showing off how well read you are without showing the ability to sort through the signal and noise does little for you creditability.

Now, I go off wondering why Heal Party is nerfed in this update...

This is a perfect example. I corrected your spelling a grand total of 1 time...

This is a perfect example, indeed!
Now, I wouldn't mind (even appreciate it) if people help me out with obvious spelling mistakes, and I can stomach people who insists it is colour and not color. I am not an English major and I am probably the slowest in typing in the history of man. The way I see it, either I keep my mouth shut in online chats, or I use whatever methods I have available to type my replies and hope they will still be time sync'd to the conversation.

I, being a loner that I am, have no problem with keeping my mouth shut in online chats, but, to my dismay, people seem to expect me to talk sometimes. I don't have much choice there. My typos and liberal use of shortforms will always be the case, I don't see any improvement anytime soon. So it was a valid advice to you and any grammar nazi to mute me, because, the suffering will only be one-sided. But that's beside the point...

As far as I can remember, this is the first time I have used your instead you're. One has to be pretty stupid, or condescending to assume I don't know the difference. The correction you made "It is you're, not your" was another example of you carrying your aggression to the game, taking potshots.

As much as we (can) disagree in basic game philosophy, tactics and style, there is no reason why we can't be civil in game.

And totally dismissing someone's opinion as "uninformed" can often prove oneself to be an ....

Take a look at the long list of skill balance in the last update, then come back and tell me which skill(s) has not been thrown against the Balanced-for-PvP grind. Yes, it is an open-book test, you are allowed to use
your reference site forums.

KoP

[Hawkmoon]

Um, guys?

Time out!

This thread has degenerated into a three-way flame war.

Rather than continuing down this escalating path of Mutual Assured Destruction, can you fellows just let it go? Decide that it's water under the bridge. Please. I like all of you as gaming companions, and I'd hate to see this disagreement lead to permanent bad blood between fellow RBers.

Respectfully yours,
Hawkmoon

[KingOfPain]

Nod

I realize too as I was posting, that this is not going to get us anywhere except to vent some steam - always at someone else's cost, but no one wins in the end.

Lets chalk it off as misunderstandings, or perhaps, a clash of personalities. Just give each other more room to work with, and a little more respect, and start anew.

Peace

KoP