I scouted Final Assault with henchies today. It's really pretty easy (well up to where I got it was anyway), you just need to watch out you don't aggro too much stuff at a time. But at a certain point you need to split up the party to fight seperate targets, so I couldn't do that with my henchies.

Hope you biotches will be online soon. Some atmospherical pics.

To Rinox

This is called a spike. It is one of the two most common high level strategies used in GVG. The theory behind a spike is to eliminate the enemy team's DPS fast enough that the monks won't be able to react. It's usually called over vent or TS like so:


*Call a target*
3...
2...
1...
With the target dying on 0. So, everyone in your group with high damage skills with cast time 3 starts on 3, 2 on 2, 1 on 1, etc.

The other type of build used in high level competitive play is a pressure build. Usually warrior heavy and with lots of degen hexing and conditions. This is a war of attrition; you want to run their monks out of energy and generate enough DPS to overpower their healing. This is alot harder to pull off than a spike and actually requires more coordination.

Defending against a spike:

It is unlikely you will be able to defend against a good spike unless you have been playing monk since release and are a twitchy beyotch. I will evaluate the 2 most popular spikes at the time:

Ranger spike:

The gist of ranger spike is this: A mesmer to remove any pesky enchantments, and the rangers taking down a target. Some ranger spike teams take necromancers for orders. Ranger spike is generally considered to be a bit unbalanced, but a good protection monk can defend against it. You want to keep Aegis up for as much as you can; this makes it much easier to predict who is going to be spiked. Let me reiterate that: you need to know who is going to be spiked before they are spiked to defend against a spike. Otherwise you will lose. There are 2 telltales signs:

With aegis(party wide protection enchantment):

Look for the enchantment removal. The target that loses it's yellow up arrow is 90% of the time the target. Pre-select that target and get ready to Infuse Health or use Divine Boon+Reversal of Fortune.

Without aegis:

Watch the rangers bows and see what direction they are pointing in. Requires an insane amount of skill and practice.

You defend against any spike in much the same manner. I won't go into DPS because that's not my field of expertise, but more often than not you want to run a 2 monk backline. This is our monk setup:

Monk 1:
Healing prayers: 10(+2 minor+headpiece)
Divine Favour: 11(+1, minor rune)
Blood magic: 9 or 10

Gear: PVP blood staff with +20% casting time +20% recharge time, dual +30 hp mods.
OR if possible, the "Fleshweaver" green item.

Skills:

Orison of Healing
Dwayna's Kiss
Holy Veil
Heal Other
Infuse Health
Healing Touch
Mend ailment or contemplation of purity OR vampiric gaze if you are spiking and need the extra damage
Offering of Blood{E}

Monk 2:

Protection prayers: 10 + 2(1 headpiece, 1 minor rune)
Divine Favour: 11+1(minor rune)
Blood magic: 9 or 10

Gear:
30hp/30hp 20% 20% PVP blood staff, or Fleshweaver if possible.



Skills:
Reversal of Fortune
Guardian
Mend Ailment
Holy Veil (I run vampiric gaze to help my team with spiking)
Protective Spirit
Aegis
Divine Boon
Offering of Blood{E}

Again, using mainly infuse health or Boon+Reversal of Fortune to counter spikes.

I hope you found this information useful.

holy jesus i think we have ourselves a pvp genious in our midst! hehe

Interesting. I wouldn't mind getting a bit into PvP, but my inexperience just gets me pwned in record time. Maybe I'll take a stab at healing monk or something.

What's the point of the blood staff/blood points? Why not 16 heal, 16 divine favor and 3 protection (or something).

How about Endure Pain/Defy Pain? Could they save my war's ass when I see a spike coming? They can't shatter/rend/strip it, and it lasts long enough to withstand one spike, I guess.


YES! I am quite happy that you came to that conclusion yourself. Endure Pain is an excellent counter to spike damage. And no, surprisingly, warriors offer a nice target to spikers and our team often spikes off stupid warriors first. Warrior is a hard class to play. You have to know when to over-extend and when to stay back. Warriors can spike too; we ran a warrior with our spike for a long time, we've only just recently switched over to 100% caster. I'll delve into proper warrior use a bit here.

Ok so, let's say your team is about to spike that red dot that you (the furthest up green dot) is attacking. (In this diagram the green dots are actually the henchmen in our guild hall, they would need to be moved up closer to spike that target off.) So, you have to go out of healing range to spike off that target. This is called over-extension. over extending is the bane of noob warriors; the monk can't infuse if you are not in range. So you call the spike:

3...
2...(Frenzy+Eviscerate)
1...
dead

Now you throw on endure pain, hit x (makes you flip 180 degrees) and run your ass back to your monk who is probably freaking out about you.



Ok, now, warriors.

Spiking warrior build:
W/E
Axe Mastery: 16(12+1 headpiece +3 superior rune)
Strength 9(+3 superior rune)(You can go without the extra 3 points in strength if you so wish)
Air magic: 9

Eviscerate{Elite}
Penetrating Blow
Executioner's Strike
Frenzy
Endure Pain
Gale
Sprint
Ressurection Signet

Equipment set 1:
Furious PvP Axe of Fortitude / Air Magic Focus (20% cast time, 20% recharge time)

Equipment set 2:
Air wand/Focus combination (stats don't really matter)

Armour:
+1 Axe Mastery headpiece
Gladiator's chest
Gladiator's pants
Stoneskin Gauntlets
Knight's Boots

Use: For the spike, you want to frenzy and then throw in your eviscerate for the deep wound (lowers health by 20%, all spikes should have some form of deep wound). Now, as you may have noticed, this is a very adrenaline heavy build. That's why we use a technique called building.

Hit F2 and switch to your wand and focus. Then... Shoot away at the enemy team! You still build adrenaline when using a wand, so you can build up all your adrenal skills this way to prepare for a spike. You can throw on frenzy to build faster too, but this might make you a target.

The rest just comes from practice. Happy GWing.

Edit: Oh, and if I didn't say, Gale is for snaring targets if they're trying to run away.

Cool, thanks for the feedback. Seems like running a good PvP team is a matter of precision rather than anything else, from the looks of it. Anyway, it's good to know that wars have some use in PvP other than pressure/knockdown builds. I won't even mention IWAY *shudder*.


Anyway, I was wondering: what's with frenzy? I don't claim to be an expert, but frenzy usually gets (well, got, didn't use it for a long time now) me killed rather than anything else. I see the point here (maximized damage output for a short period of time), but wouldn't using frenzy go past the point of trying to avoid getting spiked? Cos if they do spike you, even with endure pain, you're gonna die. Right?

Absolutely. However if you think you're going to get spiked, throw on sprint and run back to your monks. Sprint replaces Frenzy because they're both stances. We have killed frenzied warriors many a time, though.

Aight, so I was running and exploring a bit in the tougher parts of the shiverpeaks, and -apparently- there are two unlocked chests in the small area between Lornar's Pass and Snake Dance. Everytime I opened them they dropped either about 3-7 weapons (one chest) or armors (other chest). Usually a couple blue items in it, and on a few tries I also had a purple or two.

Anyway, I'm just saying, this could be a profitable business. The area is REALLY small so you can quickly rezone and try over again; the chests don't change position. There are a LOT of enemies, but most of them are harmless. (Tundra giants, summit bands) The only crappy thing is the occasional heretic putting crippling anguish on you. But a) you can afford dying, cos it's all so close by and b)with monk secondary and spell breaker you could easily avoid that.

Spellbreaker would also help when running from deldrimor to the area. (Ice golems, heretics) Anyway, I'm gonna get my war spellbreaker and monk secondary tomorrow and try again, should be a lot easier.

P.S. there's a boss there that's pretty hard to find, a necro one...carries feast of corruption I think. I'm gotta cap his white ass some time.

Some pics:

yeah a few people farm these chests (knew they were in southern shiverpeaks, never knew where). Apparently there is a small chance for them to drop armours, as well as weapons, unlike locked chests, so could also be good to get expensive runes from, if the rumours are to be believed.

What do you mean about these chests dropping something regular chests don't? I'm pretty sure I've seen chest drop both weaponry and armors, but I can't say I'm a 100% certain of that.

Or did I misread something again?

I'm fairly sure that 'normal' chests only drop weapons/off hands. I know thats all i've ever had, but I'm basing it on forum reading too. Could be wrong of course.