Estiah

[sidereal]

Lost the guild battle.  They stuck all their worst guys in the first group, which our best group crushed, and then yadda yadda.  This, apparently, is a strategy.

[ezrast]

Are we sure the squads aren't matched up randomly? I thought they were but now I'm pretty sure I made that up.

[Pezzle]

They are unless you set them.

Group pvp is quite complex.  If we want to seriously consider it we need dedicated decks.  One person to draw fire, one to buff, one for focusing attacks and one for damage output.  It is an interesting aspect of the game.  It might just draw me back.

[Severian]

Yep, they beat us. A more even level spread, and suckered our best group to go against their worst, giving them the advantage in the remaining two matchups.

Boosts are worth it if they give more than what another card could do.  I still like destruction because a lot of cards add a bit of armor here and there and it'll strip that out, usually at not much loss of overall damage.

The theory that they might ignore protection didn't hold up anyway, this guild at least had a standard mix. Anyway, if they had gone with a single tank loaded up on protect, armor and ward, it would still be useful to break through. So forget what I said.

[Ard]

Oh god, I feel as if I've done a bad thing.  I should not have clicked on this link.  This will end badly for me.   

[Ard]

Yeah, this game is going to break me.      Can I get a guild invite for Ardahl, please?

[Severian]

"Oblivion Squadron requested a guild battle."
http://www.estiah.com/guild/user/list/id/176

Levels: 28, 27, 23, 21, 14, 13, 13, 11, 11, 11, 10, 9  (and then 9, 8, 8, 7, 5 which may be in fighting squads).

BC lvls: 28, 25, 24, 23, 22, 20, 20, 19, 18, 13, 12, 8

[Kageru]

I'm giving this a shot as Kageru if the guild needs more lowbie fodder. Took me a while to realise that buying new charms did not put them into your deck, lots of falling asleep at the feet of the rat god. Will read through the thread to glean tactics, but is Paladin a decent / useful class to work towards?

[Severian]

I'm planning on accepting the challenge close to its expiration to give us max time to prepare (if it's close and I haven't done it, go ahead and accept). I have re-ordered the squads in a different sequence, we'll see how that pans out. We don't want to add anyone to the guild now because that would give us a full fourth squad which the attackers would beat, they can field four and may have. But I think because our fourth squad is currently only 3/4 it won't fight, based on the quote at the bottom.

Please put your focus cards in your guild deck!  Focused fire provides the major tactical benefit of having all of us concentrating attacks on one of them and hopefully knocking him out of action quickly. Those are the cards with prefixes such as "Tied", "Guiding", "Aiming", crafted mainly in Zeal early on. I have a few other scattered ones gained as treasure: like Throwing Bright Axe and Terrine's Wide Helm.
http://estiah.aswt.net/index.php?title=Category:Focus

Squad Count : decided by the attacker, at least 3. incomplete squads will not be filled with ungrouped members unless there aren't enough squads.

http://forum.estiah.com/index.php?topic=502.0

[FatuousTwat]

I put all 2 of my focus cards into my guild deck.

[Pezzle]

Oblivion Squadron has enough players for 4 squads.

[Severian]

I just noticed that on the challenge screen it says "Battle 3 squads" so it looks like we do know in advance, and no worries on the extras this time.

Kageru, I sent you an invite.
I don't know anything about the Paladin... or any tier 3 classes, really, beyond some basic info I've read trying to decide which way to go. Here's the Pally thread from the official forums, if you haven't seen it: http://forum.estiah.com/index.php?topic=1554.0

[sidereal]

At this point, my inclination would be to not accept any challenges.  We're obviously not even close to having decks setup correctly for it, and feeding other guilds a steady supply of honor points and cutting our build points doesn't strike me as a sound strategy.

[Severian]

I agree that we're not yet ready for GvG, and any guild issuing us a challenge is likely to be, that's why they're doing it. However, we don't lose build points from that, they're only involved if we are sieged, which we can't refuse anyway. All we lose when we lose a challenge is rating, which is the equivalent to single player's PvP ranking. See: http://forum.estiah.com/index.php?topic=502.0

Here's what I learned from the latest battle:

• As you said, we don't have enough guild war decks prepared, or inter-squad coordination
• The order of the list in the squad matters, that's the attack order, and I'd want my focus-heavy characters topping the list
• We could have won this with a particular squad order, but probably only one (if we swapped our first and second squads we'd have won our first and last fights).
• Challenger attacks first for a slight advantage, but only two attack, then all four defenders in a row, then remaining two challengers to complete the round. Choice of opponents is a more relevant factor in the reason to be issuing challenges instead of accepting them.
  
• Extra actions are in heavy use, I need to get over my spirit-oriented aversion and make the most of them

Here's how the focus use went in the three fights:

1st fight: they used focus 5 times, us 1 (Hurion). The fight went 11 rounds. The person they first focused died at the start of round 4.*
2nd fight: they used it 6 times, us 1 (Severian). The fight went 15 rounds. The person they first focused died at the start of round 3.
3rd fight: they used it 4 times, us 7 (Skyrunner620 for 5, Pezzle & Sever1an once). The fight went 8 rounds. The person we first focused died in round 3. This match was heavily imbalanced anyway, though. We'd have won regardless.

* actually Hurion put a Protect on himself, then focus followed him

[FatuousTwat]

* actually Hurion put a Protect on himself, then focus followed him

So, was that a bad or good thing?

[Azuredream]

Seeing the result has somewhat inspired me to go farm some more focus cards. My main character (Skyrunner620) had 7 or 8 but it'd still be nice to fill a deck with a heavy amount or even 100% focus cards.

[sidereal]

All we lose when we lose a challenge is rating, which is the equivalent to single player's PvP ranking. See: http://forum.estiah.com/index.php?topic=502.0

Aha.  I thought we were losing build points.  If all we're losing is pride and we're gaining experience, I'm not as opposed to getting ripped on for a while. 

[/li][li]Extra actions are in heavy use, I need to get over my spirit-oriented aversion and make the most of them[/li][/list]

I noticed that as well, and it makes me think poisoning up our decks would be a good idea.  Poison and other banes that act on the enemy's turn fire on each extra attack, and extra attacks are usually chump damage. . 6 for Lightning Reflexes and the Melee one. . Quick Blade, I think.  So they're eating full poison damage for turns that are giving them barely any damage benefit.  Also, spirit damage would exhaust people who churn out extra turns, but I'm not sure how well the intersection of focus and spirit attacks would look.  I don't think I've ever seen a GvG battle go to exhaustion.

[ezrast]

For a while I was handily beating people 3 levels higher than me just by learning all the spirit-related skills and filling my deck with nothing but defense cards. It pretty much felt like cheating since the only way to beat me was to have more spirit than I did. This was before any access to willpower or spirit damage cards, so I'm sure it's not so simple at higher levels. But I've hardly seen any willpower cards actually used, which makes me think an all-spirit strat could actually work really well.

[Delmania]

For a while I was handily beating people 3 levels higher than me just by learning all the spirit-related skills and filling my deck with nothing but defense cards. It pretty much felt like cheating since the only way to beat me was to have more spirit than I did. This was before any access to willpower or spirit damage cards, so I'm sure it's not so simple at higher levels. But I've hardly seen any willpower cards actually used, which makes me think an all-spirit strat could actually work really well.

That's actually referred to as a spirit turtle.  I've noticed that people, in their defense builds either do something like that or high offense builds.

[Lantyssa]

It works as long as your defense is high enough to pull it off.  Since most defenses aren't cumulative though, while damage is, what looks like a strong defense deck might actually defend against a lot less than you would expect.  If they have some willpower cards in there, you can be in real trouble.

As an example, I've run across at most one or two successful turtlers since my early 20s.  It's possible, but tough.

[ezrast]

Two more challenges. Black Berets beat us once already but we probably stand a chance against them. Evolutions will murder us. Declining the battle might risk us getting sieged though.

Anyway, for coordination purposes my current guild deck is all magic damage and one focus card. Not sure where to get more at my level.

[Severian]

We should decline Evolutions. If they want to siege us we can't prevent it. I think some etiquette has developed as far as declining vs. allowing the challenge to timeout, and declining vs. being sieged, and challenging vs. sieging, but I haven't read enough of the forums to get a handle on it. It may not be consensus, anyway, just complaints. I notice Evolutions' guild description is "We accept wars ... stop the effing sieges" (but then they're also trying to farm us, guild level 15 to our 8, 1216 rating to our 776). Anyway, declining is probably preferable than letting the challenge time out, and we can't possibly beat them.

Black Berets is much more interesting. Both of us now have the full battle report of our first meeting, and both of us can adjust tactics based on that. To the degree that we have enough people staying on top of this game, anyway.

One thing we can do to help ourselves with focus charms is to use our Wizard Study to build a Guiding Lighting mold (or Light or Ice, the other two with 7 focus). So, for example, we put in 50 Dust Kata, 10 Imperfect Crystal Ball, 10 Shiny Stone and 80 build points and we get a Guiding Lighting mold in our Showcase that any of our members can use to craft the card using their GHP.


I got a bounty put on me ("Severian") yesterday, which was interesting. I don't think I can find out who placed it (?), but I do know who beat me right after that, and who collected some money and increased his Bounty Hunter skill to 70/100. He's got a bounty too. I suspect this is just something people do.

Speaking of which, I encourage any of you to attack Severian and Sever1an... and lose 
My Self Defense skill building has fallen off considerably since my PvP rating got high, and that skill has a very desirable spirit bonus. I promise I will return the favor - attack me and lose and I'll do the same (even if I have to temporarily hobble a deck). That's assuming we're close enough in level range to gain skills. Actually, I encourage you to attack Severian and win too, if you can (spirit turtle defense), and collect some of that cash and Bounty Hunter credit.

[Lantyssa]

I need to craft some more Aiming Shadow for focus.  In the meantime my guild deck is mostly Magic damage with some armor and ward damage.

Speaking of which, I encourage any of you to attack Severian and Sever1an... and lose 

Lose?  Raise your level so I can get some Bounty Hunter skill going.

On an amusing note I'm using my current avatar for Kylantha.  First card played upon engaging in a PvP battle:

[Ard]

Heh, that icon right there was the big huge warning sign I should steer well clear of that person in pvp.  Although I mostly went on a losing streak there today.  At what point do characters start diverging from straight melee/magic damage + armor/ward to more diverse deck types?  I'm only up to level 5 on my characters so far, but I don't see much different coming up in the first two cities. 

Oh, and if you want a punching bag for her, I have 3 Ard's there waiting for a beatdown.


Edit:  heh, nevermind, I see you already found me, seeing how that was me you did that to ;)

[Ard]

quote is not modify

[Lantyssa]

I was fighting everyone in my level range.  Nothing personal.  (And if you win then you get some self-defense skill.)

Being your first time through you probably won't notice differentiation until the mid-teens.  You can start it earlier, like Ky has an all magic build, but there's so many little nuanced things to figure out that you're unlikely to do so.

[Ard]

I was fighting everyone in my level range.  Nothing personal.  (And if you win then you get some self-defense skill.)

Being your first time through you probably won't notice differentiation until the mid-teens.  You can start it earlier, like Ky has an all magic build, but there's so many little nuanced things to figure out that you're unlikely to do so.

I've got a fairly good understanding of how it works now, just a lack of gold to actually switch characters over to all melee or all magic.  I was more wondering when things like DoTs enter in, or when the first set of class changes actually occur.  I know the attribute values, but that doesn't tell me the actual average level range.

[Kageru]

The game is quite abstract and obscure at first, but I think I've got a handle on it. Basically doing dungeons to generate charms + gold and develop any skills that contribute to my main stats (int + con). Levelling isn't really that fast though with action points plus cooldowns.

I notice the high summoners study dungeon can drop a focus card. That looks like the sort of charm that will be useful in the longer term, compared to the pirates hat which is very neat (yaaar!) but no doubt obsoleted relatively quickly.

Was reading the forums and found this hint,

21) 900 growth only applies to the stats you gain from regular foods and jobs.  The job skills, battle skills, gathering skills, and any elixirs do not apply to your growth total.

which was really unexpected. If true (need to watch while mastering a skill) it means you want to master just about every skill and only have to be careful about stat gains from jobs. That's quite a change from what I expected. Though I guess it's a balance between fast levelling and the amount of power at a given level for duelling.

[Delmania]

If you read the ext for the completion of the Summoner's Study, you'll see that the Bright Fire charm is actually given to you by Leitz.  It's the earliest you can get a focus card, which are important when going group fights as using a focus harm will cause everyone to attack the player or mob the charm was used on for the given number of terms.  The pirate's hat is very useful at low levels because it is a cumulative ward and armor increase, so it you use it twice, you'll be at 24 armor, as opposed to regular armor charms which only increase your armor to the amount on the card (I think). 

Classes switches occur at 20, 30, and 40.  The best thing to do is to identify which two stats your desired class needed, and focus on jobs and skills that raise those, then choose a third stat, and raise the skills that complement that.    However, until about level 10, everyone uses the basic charms, and once you hit 10, things like DoT spells open up.

[Ard]

words

Alright, that's what I was looking for, thanks much.  Finally got my main two guys decks up to being able to reliably beat people 2 levels above me.  That's leaving me happy now, until Lantyssa decides to come back through and wipe the floor with me again ;)

[Delmania]

You get cruelty for killing lowbies.

[Lantyssa]

I was beating him up with Ky who is around his levels.

[Ard]

I just take my beating and like it.  I figure it's just karmic revenge for the atrocities commited in My Brute.

[Kageru]

Welcome to beat up on Kageru too if anyone needs the skills. I'll just consider it tough love.

I'd read on the forum that offering a battle was considered the polite first step before sieging weaker guilds. Seems that's the case.

[sidereal]

Wouldn't the polite thing be to not attack weaker guilds?