From the Frontlines: Seraph Legion and "Pokeway"
By Virgil, posted Jul 30, 01:22 PM
This first “From the Frontlines” entry is from a time where Build Wars was rampant and creativity was king.
Several months after the Prophecies release, I found myself playing a lot of PvP for the first time. I had finished the PvE campaign and moved on – part of the small audience that actually followed the “intended” path for casual players. PvP was my endgame. I joined Seraph Legion, a guild founded by former TGH moderator 7th Angel. Seraph Legion was also home to several other TGH staff members – another former moderator, CMXjedi, current admin Xapti, and of course, myself.
Seraph Legion was partly a teaching guild, and several members eventually moved on to play in high-level competition. We had a trial-by-fire philosophy and learned by playing. Members were encouraged to play every game mode, every class. And, as a guild, we played everything – Tombs, TA, and GvG. We ran everything too – balanced, some of the current gimmicks, and some gimmicks of our own. But one build has always stood out.
It was called Pokeway, named after the (then) new and explosively popular build IWAY. The core of our build was simple, but incredibly unusual. To this day, I’ve never seen any build that looks anything like it. In a nutshell, we ran six monk rangers with pets and smiting. The strategy was simple too. Like IWAY, we would all send our pets in.
Six max level pets running amok in the enemy backline was funny, but when we cast Balthazar’s Aura on each one, it caused chaos. At level twelve smiting, that is six pets each causing 22 area damage a second for eight seconds (or 176 area damage). If all pets were in the same range, that’s 1,056 damage in eight seconds, not counting any direct damage from the pets. And Balthazar’s Aura recharges every 25 seconds.
Casting Balthazar's Aura on each pet would cause chaos in the enemy backline.
But it wasn’t realistic to suppose that all the pets would be in the same area. Until we added chain knockdown, that is. Each of the six smite/pet monks carried Signet of Judgment – at level twelve smiting, that’s another 63 area damage recharging every 20 seconds. As a spike, that’s 378 area damage – not much. But when spaced across several enemies across several seconds, it took full advantage of Signet of Judgment’s knockdown, which ensured that enemies stayed bunched, which ensured that our pets’ Balthazar’s Aura was being spread effectively.
Signet of Judgment provided constant knockdown and AoE damage, while other utility skills protected against popular FOTMS.
Pokeway had it all – 6 guaranteed knockdowns every 20 seconds, lots of AoE damage, heavy hex removal with multiple copies of Smite Hex, and plenty of other monk utility. At one point, we removed one monk/ranger for a necro with corpse control (which, back then, was very important). Wells of suffering/profane would help force enemies into smaller spaces; better for our AoE.
Without a doubt, the most memorable match was in Tombs against a Minion Factory team. Guild Wars didn’t used to have a minion cap, so Necros could control as many minions as they could physically pump out. Minion Factories took advantage of this by having 1 or 2 players commit suicide immediately (with a fast cast resmer) while minion masters amassed an army before the match even started. Well, here comes Pokeway, running into the starting area of this Minion Factory on Underworld, with our six copies of Balthazar’s Aura, Signet of Judgment, and other smite skills. All holy damage, all on dozens of undead minions packed in tight. Even with only 12 minions and no players, it could have been up to (63+ 22*8)*6*12*2 = 34,416 damage in 8 seconds. Of course, that number is idealistic, assuming everyone was packed tight, so take that with a grain of salt. But in actuality, there was probably closer to 25 minions and 8 players (which gives ideal damage of 83,172 in 8 seconds). The damage was massive, and it’s probably impossible to come anywhere near it today.
Minion Factories were able to produce massive amounts of minions in a small amount of time.
Of course, we eventually stopped running Pokeway. Maybe it was too gimmicky; maybe people got bored; maybe it wasn’t consistently successful – I honestly don’t remember. But after all this time, I still wonder if it would be feasible in the current meta. With new skills like Smite Condition and Reversal of Damage, and with reduced emphasis on corpse control, coordinated teams might be able to run it successfully. Anyone interested?
-Virgil
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