GvG report 6/1/2007

[Hawkmoon]

Since no one else has jumped in to do this, I'll post my thoughts on the postgame recap...

Not a good outing. Using the build in the "Next GvG build" thread, we went 0-3. In all matches we were the lower-rated team, so all were fought on our own Isle of Solitude.

As the Divert Hexes monk, I stayed with the main team, so I can't offer any insight into how the gank team did in the early phases of the matches. In the first match, we all went out the teleporter (except for the flagger, who ran out the front door), with the 2 assassins then going to the enemy back door and the main team heading toward the flag stand. At the flag stand, we couldn't stand up to the opposing force, and the assassins joined us for some extra damage output. Still, we couldn't stand up to them, and fell back into our base. That ended up being the pattern that was repeated in the other two matches, though with variations as to how we started out. One time the entire team rushed to the enemy back door and took out a few NPCs to start. The third match the main team went out the front door.

In all cases, we suffered from the main team not having enough staying power against the opponents to allow the gank team to go, well...gank! They kept having to come back to help out, and that made it possible for the opponents to all come hammer at us. Not good. So the main team needs more strength - probably another warrior or paragon to provide less squishiness. The second problem we had was that we tended to completely freak out when the enemy managed to get into our base - the assassins came rushing back to help defend, and their went our ability to make them split. This might seem just another facet of the first problem, but it's more mental - we have to get more comfortable and confident, and that will just take some more (and more, and more) practice.

A few more specific observations:
1. We learned that having the only hard res on the team on the mesmer was a Bad Idea. Putting an additional hard res on one of the E/Mos helped a bit.
2. One of the toughest things for me as a monk was trying to support the NPCs. Perhaps I just haven't yet developed enough battlefield awareness yet, but since I'm usually watching the party's health bars, I'm not too clued in to what's happening to our archers and footmen. Wyrm would call out, "Watch that archer!" and by the time I'd figure out which archer "that" archer was, he'd be down to a sliver of life, and would be dead before I'd get a heal off. It would really help if we could come up with a system of designating the NPCs by location - maybe we don't want to go as far as "Watch Archer #6!", but "Watch northwest wall archer!" or "Watch back door archer!" would be helpful, since the monks aren't necessarily always looking the the same place as other members of the team.
3. I know it didn't help matters that the teams opposing us were rated higher, in one case considerably higher than we were. So we shouldn't get too discouraged.

That's all I can think of for now. I think that this build has potential - I like the 2 assassin gank squad, if the main team could just make it so they could go off and gank! But we do need to do some tweaking...

[FoxBat]

Aside from the question of Divert Hexes vs RC which varies with your metagame, the posted mainteam is fairly common on "pro" teams. Of course, we might need to consider that we aren't "pro." The bsurger generally isn't able to keep melee blinded 24/7 with all the removal running around, and can only make well-timed blinds to stop the worst pressure/spikes. The lightning orb and strike they bring to the table isn't useful unless the warrior can call more spikes, and a warrior doing 3-2-1 without shadow prison gimmick or giving away the spike target is quite the skill. I have to wonder if for our purposes, a more defensive template would be useful, say wyrm's paragon with Defensive Anthem, or a mainteam water ele using vapor blade to spike. I think we're moving away from set build for the moment for exactly that reason. (We seem to do worse with set builds anyway...)

Also as much as we give Jude a hard time, mesmers in general are frequently targets because they need to be almost on the frontline to reach back to the enemies' monks. Warriors can easily pressure such a target without any need of overextension. Monks (self included when applicable) need to pay special attention to the mesmer then, and mesmers have to be especially consious about retreating when they aren't casting. (And mesmers are almost required to punch through all the aegis these days...)

Another thing to keep in mind is that the typical burning/BHA ranger is a capable solo-ganker. Sometimes we show rigidity with splitting off both a warrior and ranger together all the time, but there are situations where it's worthwhile to just split one off and keep the other warrior around to help score kills at the flagstand.

Most of the time the assassins weren't retreating necessarily because the main team needed help (even though they did ), but because they had people return to their base and we knew we couldn't do much against them. As I observed with Rus corps, just bringing a self-heal enables the assassins to actually skirmish, with the option to recall out if things get hairy. Unfortunately solitude makes recall somewhat redundant with that convenient teleporter, and the theif being positined by that narrow backdoor bridge means you can still get caught by people using said teleporter.

Amazon Basin went like 10-2 yesterday with Searing Flames and has their rating almost back to 1000. I have to wonder if the time we choose to play typically feeds us sterner competition, with mid-range guilds that have suffered rating losses in the ATs doing their thing, while the "casual" guilds are out having fun on friday nights like most people with lives. If we want to play the "farm the noobtime" game to get more evenly matched opponents, I wonder if scheduling ladder play during AT games would be advantageous.

As for archers, pinging the map in their general location is probably the fastest route. I and other are often guilty of calling an archer but that doesn't actually let your T target them. But monks kindof need to learn to watch archers themselves anyway. Look for where the enemy dots are on the map and you've narrowed down who can actually be threatened. Among them, hold down alt to bring their names up and watch for their health bars overhead.

[Lurker Wyrm]

Hawk, when I thought of it, I tried pinging the compass location of the archer I wanted you to watch, though one easy way to figure out which one needs healing is to look at where the melee of the other team is and check for NPCs near them. As a monk in GvG, you can not stare at health bars. You need to be almost as aware of what's going on and the positioning of both teams as the leader is. Also, you should try to stay out of range of the opposing midline. It's pretty common practice these days for the monks to be back to the point where the frontline is out of range.

RC vs. Divert - I guess at our level RC is still the better choice.

Sticking a paragon in instead of a warrior is a decent idea and I think it's obvious by now that I like paras in GvG, but if we'd have to make sure the para(s) stayed up front ahead of the midline.

Vs. the match with lots of assassins and 1 monk. That was a bad call on my part. We could/should have done a 4/4 split against them and wiped them. Sorry, didn't think of it in time.

I saw a pretty funny match one time ways back where a team ran 2 mesmers, both with Arcane Thievery and Larceny and just disabled monk skills that way. I highly doubt it would work today and there are a lot of better options, it was just amusing to see at the time.

[Hawkmoon]

What? I can't just stare at health bars and ignore everything going on around the party??


Uh, yeah, I know that...but it's hard not to get wrapped up in focusing on party health, especially when some team members are getting pounded on. I need more practice, practice, practice...

I'm not sure whether I'll be able to make it tomorrow night. We're going out of town for the weekend, and though the campground does have WiFi, I have no idea whether our particular campsite will be close enough to pick up the signal very well. So, I'll try to make it, but don't wait on me, and don't have any hesitation about bringing someone else in - if I do manage to make it, I won't mind sitting out a match or two.