Tales from Observer Mode: Too Hot for GW TV!

Haven't had much time to turn on the Guild Wars noob tube lately. But here's a little match from my notes that I never got around to writing up up.

So, I'm sitting around not doing much of anything – waiting on someone or something, no doubt - and decide to open up the obs panel. Wasn't really planning to watch any matches, just take a peek and see what was going on and all. But the first game on the list caught my eye.

It was there because Treacherous Empire, one of my favorites from back in the day (Although I gather that the guild's rather imploded and only a few of the players from the old days are left – I count three, only two of which were in this match. This sort of thing happens all the time with PvP guilds – they form and break up and splinter and collapse with frightening regularity – and the rules about how you have to be with a guild for so long in order to participate in competitions isn't going to change that, if you ask me. Still, [Te]'s been at the top of the ladder before and that core of player's they've retained knows what it takes to get there again – I'm keeping one eye, in so many words.) had barely managed to break into the top 100. They were in the high 90s meaning they'd passed the magic threshold between being anonymous opponents on the ladder and being obs mode All-Stars. But it was their opponent that made me drop everything and take a look at the game.

It wasn't because I recognized them or knew them to be a good team or anything. I thought they had a funny name – I Grawls Gone Wild I. I'm easily amused, obviously, but with a name like that I just had to check out their tag because it was loaded with potential for another twist of the comedy knife. Turns out it's the rather uninspired [gRwL] but in order to see that I needed to load up the obs match (Again, I really wish there was a lot more information presented on the observer mode menu – all it tells you now is the title of each guild, their rank, where they're playing, and how long ago the match was. In other words, almost nothing of value.). Now, as of right now, the Grawls and [Te] aren't ranked that far apart. [gRwL] sits at 135^th with 1071 rating points in 101 games played. While [Te]'s slid out of the top 100 (And, sadly, off the obs mode menu) and rests at 104^th with 1087 ranking with 64 matches under their belt. According to my notes, the Grawls were ranked much lower when this took place – in the 2~300s somewhere so I must have caught them when they were first starting to play GvG and climb up the ladder – that'll teach me to leave a date on these things I guess. So, at first glance the match was even more lopsided than it would be today. Still, using the points per game statistic as a measure, [Te] is the clearcut favorite with a healthy 1.35PPG that would put them at or near the top of the ladder if only they played enough games (And could keep up that pace against better competition, of course. I'll note at this point that [cow]'s lower PPG has finally cost them the top spot.). On the other hand, the Grawls earn less than a point for each match they play and have only 0.70PPG. Less than half of the Empire's. So, on paper, this is a match that the Treacherous Empire should win.

I've cautioned in the past, though, that PPG and even ladder ranking is a relative measure. They don't guarantee you a win. Which is why when I loaded into the observer match my ears, as it were, perked up – there was an “upset” in the making here. I was fortunate enough to load a few minutes into the match and I can't explain why I thought the Grawls had a shot – there's just sort of a sense about these things that you develop when you watch or play enough matches, I guess, that the game's opaque mechanics don't reveal explicitly and viscerally. I've also said in the past how difficult it is to actually watch Guild Wars unless you know what's going on already and, well, I guess I'm starting to get a feel for these things again.

It wasn't anything in the builds which weren't anything to write home about. [Te] was running with two Wammos – both swinging axes. One had Eviscerate while the other was using Skull Crack of all things – I know Dazed is devastating and all but Skull Crack takes forever to charge (Because: see my point about Dazed being devastating) and conditions just don't stick in today's removal climate. They had a Burning Arrows Ranger backing them up and often splitting off. A Panic Me/E and a Reaper's Mark N/E with Gale and GLE made up the midline. The Monks were a little off – to me, anyways - with a ZB Mo/E with Grasping Earth and a prot-based Light of Deliverance Mo/A. As their designated flagger (Although, like a lot of good teams I think [Te] gets away from having one flagger. They have several characters that can flag and the choice of who does it depends on what their opponent is doing. In other words, it's more like how flags used to be run back in the beta and early release before teams began building dedicated flag runners.) they had another Me/E. It puzzled me a bit because while it had sensible things like Storm Djinn's Haste it was primarily an Illusion Mesmer (Rather than the more meta approved Domination variant) with the old Conjure Phantasm/Phantom Pain combo with Crippling Anguish as the elite. That was until I realized it was one of Trex's builds and he was again giving the plan away with his name – Trex Speed. The idea being, I guess, to speed himself up while slowing any opposition down. Which, you know, isn't a bad idea for a flagging build.

The Grawls were, if anything, even more puzzling. They had a trio of A/W as their front line and they were using Death Blossom. Which, yeah, nice PvE skill but would I use that instead of Twisting Fangs or something in PvP? Not really. They had an E/Mo with Blinding Surge paired with a Ritualist with Wielder's Zeal putting up weapon spells – both defensive and offensive (Although, again, I'm not really a fan of the Ritualist's weapon spells in general.) backed up by an RC Mo/A and a Light of Deliverance Mo/W with a Mo/E flagger.

Interesting stuff but, as far as I can tell, not exactly cutting edge, in so many words.

Fascinated for some reason I couldn't quite put my finger on, I settled in to watch the match. And, as I'd suspected it was an upset (Perhaps not as large a one as I'd thought at the time but, still.) and not to ruin the suspense or anything but the Grawls eventually took it during VoD.

How they did it, though, is what I'm interested in. I point to a few key factors.

First, bad splitting on [Te]'s part. [gRwL] split off a pair of their Sins and managed to slip them into [Te]'s base on a regular basis. They managed to work down a few of the NPCs there and the players sent back by [Te] were quickly spiked down by the pair of telespiking Sins. They weren't able to penetrate too far into the base but they scored kills and forced [Te] to rush back with an overwhelming response more than once – spoiling any progress the main team was making. On the other hand, [Te]'s splits were disasterous – they generally sent a Warrior and the Ranger off and they just couldn't get anywhere against the Grawl's defenses.

Second, the Wild ones managed to get a morale boost about six minutes into the match. It had been fairly even up to that point but that boost let them recharge their sigs and gave them a decisive advantage whenever they had to pull back and turtle up. With so many defensively oriented characters bolstered by the NPCs [Te] just couldn't crack through and they had an easy time pushing back out. The Empire's DP mounted and their rezsigs were burned out while the Grawls were unscathed. [Te] did manage to get a late morale boost and another one as VoD hit but they weren't able to capitalize.

Third, the Grawls played defensively. Protecting that NPC advantage they'd clawed out thanks to their splitting and the morale boost they'd earned early. Those both proved crucial during VoD when the lower health and higher damage proved a lot more deadly to the DP weakened players on [Te]'s side than it did to those on the [gRwL]'s. Even thought [Te] managed to stall their NPCs at their gate and allowed their NPC army to claim the center. But they couldn't hold it as their players were swiftly cut down and the larger Grawl force quickly overwhelmed the Empire NPCs trying to hold onto the flagstand.

By the time the Lords started walking, the Grawl were in firm control of the center with most of their NPCs left and it was only a matter of time.

Without knowing more about the builds and all, I'd still give that advantage to [Te]. They had some curious choices but they had a fairly tested setup of melee and degen pressure with enough melee-hate to survive against the Sin heavy Grawl in a heads-up fight, I think. But it's matches like this that point out the build a team uses is only one piece of the puzzle. An important piece, to be sure, but not the only one and, often, not the decisive one (Not at higher levels of play, anyway, where the difference in builds and strategy becomes far smaller and less important.). The Grawl won thanks in large part to their tactical moves – splitting and playing defensively – which nullified any advantages the Empire might have had in a more straight forward battle. In other words, they got outplayed - which is not something I'm used to seeing from Treacherous Empire.