Saturday October 31 2009 Wrapup

Well finally decided not to play with a PuG and played with a champ group. The leader made us run spike, and we were getting beat by bonetti's defense and protector defense balls. Which I kind of predicted would happen but I didn't want to say anything. Wanted to see what they could do, and it wasn't much at least not today. Spike is overrated as hell on Codex, and vent even more overrated. So those of you who can't get into high ranked groups don't worry it's not that much better. A small rank g3 or more is enough to clear out pure noobs. Or better yet play with friends. And spike fails, like I thought. Well maybe I'm not being fair because today was a really high defense day but I don't see spike doing any better on a blind or snare day.

Anyway the strat today was bonetti's defense with protector defense ball. Three people chaining it. So I suppose you could use vent for that. And people were getting 50 streaks with it.

Good night and Happy Haunting.

(Un)Surprise of the Day: Leeroy sin rushing in alone to kill priest on res map and couldn't do it and getting owned when other team notices and falls back on him (lol). If you want to gank, at least make sure you can do it!

Saturday October 31 2009

Happy Halloween!

Unfortunately no minions today. But there is ghostmirror light and more importantly Xinrae's Weapon and a bunch of important spirits.

Mesmer is very powerful today with fevered dreams, diversion, inspired hex and revealed enchantment. Another powerful type of mesmer could be an energy drain mesmer. A good strategy is draining assassins and dervishes of energy (much better than punish like insidious).

Finally a day where dervish isn't so incredible that it's absolutely necessary. Though Grenth's Grasp looks great.

Prediction

Today's Meta: Xinrae's Weapon, Healing Light, Fevered Dreams, Grenth's Grasp
High defense, high healing. Cripple their melee and heal through their damage while diverting their healing.

Today's Anti-Meta: Cruel Spear, Temple Strike, Onslaught, Xinrae's Weapon
Healing with restoration magic and offclass monk. Use temple strike assassin with blinding power for defense if necessary, and use wind prayers dervish to cripple. Cruel saves adrenal skills for spike with temple sin.

Friday October 30 2009 Wrapup

Not much time to play today so doing the wrapup early. Very high defense meta today: trick seems to be bring a mind burn elementalist with strip enchantment then bring your own ebon dust paragon and keep protective spirit and three other enchants on him all the time. The third can be anything: ranger is great but so is a shatter sin (even with no deep wound lol) just to deal with ebon and make sure its off.

Unless you get an organized group, best to stick with monk, mind blast elementalist with strip enchantment, dervish paragon with ebon dust aura + one optional player.

Daily Surprise: Mind burn ele *works* not just because of mind burn, but because elementalist's huge mana pool is perfect for strip enchantment. And also because attunes are less important to strip than... you guessed it, ebon dust aura. They're not going to waste their time stripping your fire attune when there's ebon dust, conjure and prot spirit to rip. But especially dust. Ebon dust arena indeed lol.

Friday October 30 2009

Word of healing is in, so for those of you who've hated the past few days because of bad healing maybe today is time to try. Incredible day for rangers too; distracting shot and disrupting shot is in, along with cripshot.

Ebon dust aura is back. But so is strip enchantment. Every midliner should be carrying 8 blood and strip enchantment to deal with ebon dust aura, because relying on your shatter sin or monk to deal with it is rather dumb. And yes, paragon is midliner (which a lot of people don't seem to understand). It doesn't have to come down to who shoots out the first disrupting throw. Also shatter sin doesn't work today; no deep wound for the assassin.

Mind blast is in but unfortunately so is protective spirit, so I don't think it'll be viable today. Those who really want to try elementalist should go ether renewal and play as elementalist/ritualist support with restort healing skills; can probably win a few with an ether ele healer, woh monk, stunning strike para and vow of silence dervish (make sure the stunning strike has strip enchantment).

Pulverizing smash is the only deep wound today. Fortunately magehunter is in along with grapple, and decent IAS in signet of aggression and enraging charge. All good teams will have a warrior today.

Conjure frost is in too. All melee should be carrying it especially since enchantment removal will be prioritized for Ebon.

Prediction

Today's Meta: Ebon Dust Aura, Magehunter Smash, Crippling Shot, Word of Healing

Today's Anti-Meta: Vow of Strength (carry conjure, rending touch), Magehunter Smash (grapple, pulverizing, conjure too), Stunning Strike (carry strip enchantment with 8 blood), Word of Healing

Sorry for late post, got up late today.

Thursday October 29 2009 Wrapup

As I predicted WoR and Glimmer are in with double healers. Shockingly very few mesmers around even with migraine and spirit shackles. Spirit shackles plus cover hexes ruins a dervish and assassin so I even expected spirit shackles on things like warriors or paragons. But I guess nobody wants to shut anything down, they just want to rely on healing and damage.

Ritualists are playing very badly today. Probably because all serious pvpers shun ritualists like the plague, but when they need them today they look for one and get PvEs or those who are totally new to PvP. Do not constantly run from a dervish with featherfoot grace or any other melee with a speed boost or snare or cripple, or you get hit in the back for massive damage.

A winning strategy today is to have the warrior cripple the dervish or assassin, the dervish go after the ritualist (who will probably run and get hit in the back because you have featherfoot grace) and the paragon/assassin or other damage dealer help the dervish out. Or you could always go double healer. But if you don't, backlining with a cripslash war/ele with grasping earth is crucial.

Daily Surprise: Assassins using hammer bash and falling spider. To do this well you either have to have macros or be double jointed like Koreans (j/k lol anyone can do it: worth considering carrying two different weapons like hammer and sword if there's critical skills in a line such as knockdown).

Thursday October 29 2009

Tons of good daze today with stunning strike and beguiling haze. No blocks. Well, except for Dryder's Defenses. But Glimmer is in too so perhaps daze won't be such a big deal against good teams.

Wounding strike is in again. Except this time no shattering sin or insidious or any kind of way to shut him down short of Spirit Shackles and mesmer snares. Mesmer may be crucial today.

Prediction
Today's Meta: Mantra of Recall and spirit shackles, Wounding Strike, Stunning Strike, Glimmer of Light

Today's Anti-Meta: Crippling Slash, Reaper's Sweep, Weapon of Remedy, Glimmer of Light

PuGs: Beguiling Haze, Stunning Strike, Reaper's Sweep, Glimmer of Light

Wednesday October 28 2009 Wrapup

Well got one codex point playing with pugs again. Seems like the reason most pugs lose isn't because of bad skill bar but bad tactics. Like attacking their melee to cripple them went a long way to taking pressure off your monk vs high physical teams, and rushing in to their priest right when they're about to res is not a good idea when you're up four reses (yes we lost one like that).

Anyway met a cocky sin who was farming codex points five at a time. Basically he ran sin, derv, rt, mo and farmed points five at a time with double healers (spirit light weapon and monk elite). Copied him and won five and got a lot of wins with pugs, winning 3 losing 1 winning 4 losing 1 that kind of thing.

I am almost ready to make my next guide "How to win 5 in Codex Arena." Stay tuned casual players you'll want to read it.

Daily Surprise: Guilded team with no monk but cruel spear, charging strike, burning arrow and shattering assault.

Wednesday October 28 2009 Prediction

Today will be pretty funny. Protection monk is the healer but tons of enchantment removal. To top it off very little shutdown except mesmer snares. Not only that but blackout is in. Great day for new players.

Prediction

Today's Meta: Migraine, Shattering Assault, Cruel Spear, Blessed Light

Today's Anti-Meta: Wail of Doom, Shadow Prison, Reaper's Sweep, Signet of Judgment

Tuesday October 27 2009 Wrapup

Today's meta was (is) wounding strike dervish/elementalist with conjure, assault enchantments assassin, weaken knees necromancer/mesmer with anti hex and aura of faith monk/assassin with return.

If anyone is still playing a winning strategy seems to center around disabling the other team's dervish with insidious + shadow of fear, using your dervish to keep their melee crippled then go after whoever is not a /a so they don't return and cripple you (probably the necromancer). Wounding strike is so powerful today that if you can keep their dervish shutdown while your dervish runs rampant, you've probably won.

I saw ineptitude mesmers too but they didn't seem to do nearly as well as necromancers at shutting down the dervish.

Daily Surprise: Someone from eF (or says he is) selling an invite for 100 ecto/month. No thanks lol.

Tuesday October 27 2009

The first day that ebon dust aura isn't in. Nice replacement with wounding strike.

First showing of diversion! Also of disracting shot. Watch your res sigs!

Prediction
Today's Meta: Wounding Strike, Stunning Strike, Energy Surge, Aura of Faith
Today's anti-Meta: Ether Renewal healer, Shadow Prison, Bull's Charge, Melandru's Shot

Monday October 26 2009 Wrapup

Well didn't get a codex point today -- spent all day playing with PuGs. Did get four wins with this build:

Swift Javelin
Blazing Spear
Glowing Signet
Cruel Spear
Disrupting Throw
Go For the Eyes
Strip Enchantment
Resurrection Signet

In my opinion better than any blindbot out there. Got four wins with randoms that I asked to spike... pretty simple stuff after charging adrenal I would press ctrl space on my target 3-4 times and all they would do is press t and 1-2-3-4. Had a RaO spear and a sin with Dark Prison teleporting in. Anyway spiking is not that hard: I didn't even have vent.

Daily Surprise: Glimmering Mark eles plus Reaper's Mark necros.

Codex Guild

Made a codex guild with some random guy I found.

Anyone interested send me a message here or in game. It'll play from 7-8 or so Eastern time daily. No ranks in anything required: but preferred if you've actually played Codex for a few days and decided this is what you want to. At first we'll start with high damage, self sufficient builds then move onto more synergistic teamwork requiring ones.

I'm a PvE and I want to Codex

(Posting some tips for PvE players who want to PvP. Please read and comment, and more to follow later.)

I'm going to assume you don't want to drop PvE for PvP and go through years of GvG or other PvP formats. I'm also going to assume you want to Codex casually, and not quit your PvE guild for a Codex guild or PvP guild.

First, you must understand the fundamentals of the game. That is, what is damage, what is shutdown, and what is the point of healing. If you're mainly a PvE player and think you know what these are do yourself a favor and read through the articles on damage, shutdown and healing. PvP is very different than PvE and the other articles go into depth about these differences.

Secondly, because you PvE your friends are probably PvE. This has some obvious but often overlooked implications. The main implication is you cannot run the daily "meta" and win. If your friends are mostly PvE then your "skill" (if you want to call years of doing the same thing over and over skill) at PvP will be less than those who do PvP every single day. In game terms that means you need to make your team build easier to play. For example, if Ebon Dust Aura or Blinding Surge are in today's Codex, rather than relying on your monk's ability to draw or remove conditions which will obviously be inferior to a Champion rank monk, make your team immune to blind by default with Avatar of Melandru. Obviously relying on a necromancer to rip the enchants off the dervish or for a monk secondary to draw the blind is more ideal. But the fact is you and your team are PvEs and your reflexes, instincts and teamwork will not be nearly as good as PvP players. So what? Don't fight them at their strengths. Find their weaknesses, which due to the nature of the Codex Arena every daily meta will have, and exploit it.

My suggestion for PvE who want to try out Codex Arena is find one other patient PvE player to play with you. You along with him will form the core of your team. Generally healers are build independent. So what you will do is make an original build with your partner that works with one of the daily meta builds, pick up a monk and go. To be clear I'm also not talking about going on voice chat and spike chaining or anything so complicated -- just someone who is willing to put up with losing a few (or many) matches until you figure out a way to win.

To make an original build with a partner, you need a basic understanding of game mechanics, particularly what damage is and how damage is prevented and dealt. I'm not talking about running equations or spreadsheets or anything insane like that, but understanding basic game facts like when and how monks die, how damage is prevented and so on.

The point of this original build will not be merely to counter their strengths. Codex Arena can be a rock paper sissors game at times, for example with the earlier Melandru example. But if all you consider is how to counter this skill or that skill, you'll lose simply because you're being reactive. If the other team can force you to react to them instead of you forcing them to react to you, they have control. If they have control, your chances of winning go down. The point will be to render their strengths irrelevant, and play to your strengths. If both you and your partner are good at pressing 1-2-3-4 (and who isn't) use that. Make two uncomplicated builds that work extremely well like that. Take control.

An example of taking control is running a melee that can cripple their melee. Rather than ignoring the warrior or assassin at the start of the match like PvP guilds do, cripple it and keep it crippled. Instead of playing the way a PvP player would play and losing because they play it better, play your way. And when their melee gets frustrated because he's constantly crippled, knocked down, or blinded and decides to attack or spike you, you'll be ready with your blocking stances. He probably won't have a blocking stance and definitely won't have a heal because he'll be relying on his monk to heal him.

Now you're forcing them to react to you. You have control, and better chances of winning.

Another example of taking control in a different way is changing the "rules" of the game. For example, PvP players are very good at swapping targets as soon as a guardian comes up. If you swap targets when their monk is using guardian and they swap targets when your monk is using guardian, you're playing to their strengths. Instead rip that guardian off or make your attacks unblockable. Now you're making it a competition between your ability to see when they've finished casting guardian and pressing the number one and their ability to quickly assess and traverse the distance to another target then count the seconds until guardian wears off to switch back to the priority target. Even the best cyclist in the world can't beat a Ferrari.

That's only two examples of taking control. There's many, many other ways but the point is you do not want to fight experienced PvP players the way they play because they'll do it better. When in Rome, do not do as the Romans. Taking control doesn't just mean in-match tactics too but overall strategy. Run two healers if restoration ritualist and monk have decent healing skills. Run no dedicated healers if healing is incredibly awful as it was on October 25th 2009, and run four damage dealers. Rig the game.

I hope this article can take some of the frustration away from PvE players wanting to Codex. It may take ten or twenty tries with your partner before you start winning. You may have to leave the party and pick up a different third class and a different monk. You might have to scrap your build entirely and start from scratch with different classes (which can be a pain for PvE characters with no slots left but PvEs have three accounts and dozens of slots anyway.) The good thing about PvP matches is they last a few minutes. Twenty or even fifty matches isn't as long as a Mallyx, and after half an hour you should be able to invent a build with your partner that can win in Codex Arena, and meet some interesting people doing it.

Finally some tips to avoid hair pulling and smashing your computer:

1. Pick a good day. Good days are generally those with tons of damage prevention and healing. If you pick a day like October 25 2009 where the only healing was boon signet, it's a waste of your time.

2. Pick a weekend. Pick a weekend day where they'll be more PvP people willing to team with randoms. Also more people at your skill level to kill.

3. Pick a good time. Good times are during afternoon and late evening when all the kids are on after school. Bad times are late at night where the only people still playing would be elite guilds.

Monday October 26 2009

Interesting Codex today. Restoration ritualist and monk are viable as healers. Ebon dust aura is still in. So is shatter sin.

Prediction

Today's Meta: Shattering Assault Assassin, Ebon Dust Aura Dervish/Paragon, Preservation Ritualist/Monk, Life Sheath Monk/Warrior

Today's Anti-Meta: Ritualist/Elementalist with Wanderlust, Ranger/Paragon Rampage as One with Merciless Spear, Cruel Spear Paragon, Ether Renewal Elementalist/Ritualist Healer

Monday October 26 2009 Wrapup

From now on I'll do a "prediction" early in the morning and a "wrapup" late at night after I've had a chance to play a bit.

Today's healing skills were awful. The meta monk was boon sig, ethereal light, soldier's defense, shield stance and... healing signet (lol). But then people just switched to attacking everything but the monk. It was near impossible to pug it: guild teams would slap vor on the monk the moment the sin was ready to spike.

A friend suggested to me a radical idea: don't carry a monk, carry more damage.

Only an hour and twenty minutes left so no time to test it out, but it could have worked. If tomorrow has bad healing like today, I will try it.

Suprise of the Day: Dervish Assassin Lyssa with daggers.

Sunday October 25 2009 Codex Arena

Quick notes for today:

Assassin has deep wound. But assassin has no lead attacks and only palm strike. Merciless Spear is the other deep wound. (Correction: assassin has desperate strike).

There are no blocks for monk today and no good speed boosts. Expect a lot of It's Just a Flesh Wound Paragons today.

Both Visions of Regret and Ebon Dust Aura are in like yesterday. But expect teams to build to counter it: after all they've had a whole day to complain about it like one guy did by vandalizing the wiki (if that's you tsk tsk guess you have to wait another day!)

Prediction
Today's meta: Mesmer (Visions of Regret/Expel Hexes), Dervish (Ebon Dust Aura), Paragon (It's Just A Flesh Wound/Stunning Strike), Monk (Boon Signet, Shroud of Distress)
Today's anti-meta: Assassin (Palm Strike, Augury of Death, Hex Breaker), Necromancer (Corrupt Enchantment, Strip Enchantment, Faintheartedness, Charm Animal), Ranger (Magebane Shot, Draw Conditions), Monk (Blessed Light, Viper's Defense)

Saturday Oct. 24 Update

Tried the build below today didn't work too well. Thanks for the attempt.

Elementalist getting stopped by guilt and drain mesmers. Seems the best build today is mesmer, some kind of melee preferably a beastmaster, dervish paragon with ebon dust and monk. Main thing today is there's no good hex or condition removal.

Fire Elementalists

Today's Codex is a great day for fire elementalists. Heavy anti-melee is in too, and very little hex removal. Enjoy it because if skills are truly randomly selected the random number generator must have blown up.

"Monk blocks Pets rock!"

Warrior/Ranger
Bull's Strike
Penetrating Chop
Axe Rake
Primal Rage
Run as One
Otyugh's Cry
Charm Animal
Resurrection Signet

Ranger/Paragon
Mighty Throw
Holy Spear
Swift Javelin
Strike As One
Poison Tip Signet
Otyugh's Cry
Charm Animal
Resurrection Signet

Monk/Warrior
Blessed Light
Guardian
Pensive Guardian
Mend Condition
Deadly Riposte
Disciplined Stance
Dolyak Signet
Resurrection Signet

Elementalist/Monk
Searing Flames
Glowing Gaze
Breath of Fire
Fire Attunement
Heal Other
Mend Condition
Smite Condition
Resurrection Signet

Try this out (especially the elementalist) and comments are welcome. If you're having energy problems with the monk, try going back to glimmer but be aware any hex heavy team might dominate you so hopefully you have enough damage to drop them fast.

Skills on Official Guild Wiki

It looks like I don't have to go through the pain in the ass of typing all the skills up because the official Guild Wars Wiki will have them daily. Thank god for that. Means I don't have to wake up at six in the morning.

Instead the blog will turn into real content, talking about builds, PvP theory especially about Codex and hopefully find me a nice PvP guild.

Let's make a Codex Guild and First Impressions

Codex Arena so far is a fun alternative to random arena. That being said rank discrimination is alive and kicking and rather annoying. Rather than being used to filter out those with no skills, it's being used to filter out PvE or casual players by those too lazy or unskilled to tell the difference between a team build that works and a team build that doesn't. So I decided I'll hunt for like minded people who like Codex Arena enough to join a guild dedicated to the format. Once four of us like the format enough to guild hop, we'll make a guild of our own and play at a set time daily. Any rank and any skill is welcome. The time will be late afternoon to early evening Eastern Time.

Codex is shaping up to be a non-caster arena. The best teams are full of dervishes, warriors, assassins, paragons, rangers and so on. Of course those who understand the game knew this would happen (see this ancient post by Ensign). Guild Wars is centered around the melee, warriors especially, and a caster's main purpose is to stop melee from dealing its damage. But the nature of Codex means energy management is even more of a massive pain for casters. Also some days there isn't enough shutdown. For example a powerful Random Arena build is Water Trident, Blurred Vision, Glyph of Immolation, Steam, Freezing Gust, Ice Spear, Water Attunement, Resurrection Signet. That's knockdown, a hex, blind, and a snare as melee shutdown for those counting. However Codex gives you one or two of the Water Elementalist shutdown line, if you're lucky and if you're very lucky energy management. What that means is casters, already at a massive disadvantage in terms of damage, are even more difficult to play in Codex because working shutdown in Guild Wars requires multiple types and intensive energy management. Without working shutdown a caster is basically useless, an inferior damage dealer and inferior support character. This isn't anything to do with Codex, but just the way Guild Wars is designed. Maybe one day you'll be lucky enough to have blinding surge, air attunement and blinding flash all in the Codex but most days shutdown will be insufficient. It also doesn't help that monks rely on stances and guardian to stay alive and most days those won't be available.

So those of you who like melee will love this format. Those who like casters will be lukewarm.

Speed is also important. Today is the day for Return and It's Just a Flesh Wound in Codex. Random Arena was getting to the point where monks would stand still with Dolyak Signet and Bonetti's Defense and nobody would kite. With shutdown and protection like guardian not guaranteed in Codex, a monk's best friend is kiting and teleporting. Monks are using walls, using terrain, using body blocking to stay alive rather than standing out in the open like in Random Arena. In other words they're using their brains. We'll see how long that lasts.

So in summary,

1. I want to put together a Codex Guild. Leave your character name in comments if you are interested. It will play afternoon/evening Eastern time for one to two hours daily.

2. Codex Arena is shaping up to be melee heavy.

3. The name of the game is still avoiding damage, except using speed and brains rather than dolyak signet and stances like in Random Arena.

4. Degeneration seems particularly powerful. Even with Cautery Signet, It's Just a Flesh Wound and Foul Feast in today's Codex, winning teams ran poison rangers.

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

gwBBCode

If anyone knows of any simple way to integrate gwBBCode here let me know. Otherwise I will post skills and templates as best I can until I can figure a better system out.

New to Guild Wars PvP or PvP for PvE

Codex Arena might attract many PvE players to PvP. Hopefully it does, because I'm really liking the format so far. If you are PvE moving to PvP this post is for you. I am going to assume you have never PvPed before so those of you who are PvP pros don't feel offended (and those PvEs who already know this stuff great.)

Generally in GW there's two ways to win in PvP, pressure or spike. Pressure does have "spikes" in it, in that individual players will deal a large amount of damage over a small amount of time but for the sake of this post spike will refer to coordinated attacks by multiple players inflicting a massive amount of damage faster than a monk can heal. Spike can be fun in Guild Wars, but usually requires ventrilo or teamspeak, relies heavily on them not "catching" your spike with a megaheal and between spikes does little to no damage and little to no shutdown.

Pressure is a combination of many things. Pressure is knockdown, interruption, e-denial, health degeneration, constant damage. In general pressure is making sure the enemy's game plan doesn't work as they want it -- making sure they're constantly worried and reacting.

So if Codex Arena will generally be pressure, why carry 600 or more hit points? Well for one, some people will try and run spike and 600 or more hit points will stop bad spikes without deep wound that do insufficient damage. But the real reason is hit points are the most versatile form of defense. If you are going for five or even ten wins, maybe you can get away with four players with searing flames and superiors. But if you want twenty five or fifty wins chances are you'll face a team that bypasses much of your shutdown. Then your monk will be happy you have 600 hp rather than 500 giving him the few seconds get get enough energy to heal you.

High priority targets like mesmers and monks should have even more than 600 hit points, around the range of 630 to 650.

The next thing PvErs usually don't understand is the purpose of healing in PvP. In PvE the most powerful healers are healer's boon monks and necromancer ritualist heroes. Both are reactive. You take the damage, then heal through it. In PvP it is better to stop damage from happening in the first place. Block, blind, interruption, shutdown (see below), punish (see below) are all better than relying on your healer to heal through damage. Even for healers, stopping damage from happening in the first place is better than healing through it with spells like guardian and protective spirit.

Shutdown is especially important in four man PvP. Shutdown can be anything that slows or stops skills from activating. Knockdown, interruption, blind and so on are all shutdown. Without enough shutdown, even the best monk won't keep you alive. With a lot of shutdown you can carry an average monk to many wins. Punish is a type of shutdown which punishes players for actions, for example spiteful spirit. Punish generally doesn't stop skilled players since they can cease attacking through spiteful or empathy, but can be useful against uncoordinated teams.

So in summary:

1. Carry 600 or more hit points at all times, even more for mesmers and monks (the exception may be warriors and rangers who can wear one major rune).

2. Teams win with a lot of pressure. Teams lose without enough pressure. The highest pressure teams combine many conditions, hexes, interruption and knockdown with constant damage.

3. Without enough shutdown, even the best monk will let you down.