Dirtynines, Developing the meta. A discussion on premade comps and strats.

[Adeimantus]

Maybe in the future melee limitations may have to be put in place but lets not jump the gun. Three games is a small sample size and talk of further limitations is occurring against the backdrop of some recent, somewhat controversial restrictions (altho needed in my eyes).

 

[Snowjobs]

Anyway to summarize my points, I think we should do whatever we can to get away from the meta of 19 which was basically just landing every kill in mid by killing someone instantly due to lack of cc in that bracket. As someone who did a good amount of 19 premades, that style of play is honestly extremely boring and unrewarding. 39 melee cleaves will be doing exactly the same thing because that's all they can do.

39s have way more options to play and we SHOULD take advantage of that, and limiting melee to force more classes with CC is the best way to go about doing that.

Another thing people have to keep in mind is that we will eventually be doing other bgs such as AB/EOTS since we have mounts here, and by limiting melee there as well, it's going to make games a lot more fast paced. It will be focused way more around actual base play and ninjaing as opposed to team fighting by limiting melee, and once again the outplay factor we should be striving for in premades will be even more prevalent.

Your right . I was completely focused on wsg atm . My mind is popping from trying to figure out the best gilneas strat and comp:0

 

[Stabilt]

So whats wrong with sv hunters, i do roughly 5.5-6k damage when scope proc and flashing steel used
The other specs got shit burst, on BM you can only kill command + arcane shot once when either wait like 1.5 sec or start steady shoting to get another arcane shot..
Also keeping pet alive to be able to kc is kinda hard in mid, unless you play vs really bad players ^^
MM you hit hard, but only rougly every 4th sec or even more if you want to pull out two aimed shots..

you lose kill shot but whats the point of that if u cant get people below 20% hp

 

[anatomyx]

Your right . I was completely focused on wsg atm . My mind is popping from trying to figure out the best gilneas strat and comp:0

And this is what's so great about the idea of limiting melee here.

Not only do you have to consider what works in WSG/TP, but you also have to consider what classes will work best the node based bgs as well.

 

[Scrubhuntin]

personally I've always wanted to see 1 of every class comp, but limiting melee is the smartest thing you can do. What generates enthusiasm and interest is getting to see big plays.
Adding in a extra casters does make it more interesting to watch which imo is key. You don't gain more players to a bracket by having stale lvl 19 gameplay. 19's have like what 1 spell/ability while 39 has a vast variety of cc. Put in a mixture of classes and you will see an interesting game. The melee zerg is pretty much every wsg at 19/29. You claim "oh it is going to cut into class comps and limit classes" yet allowing the melee cleave team to exist is doing the exact same thing... You will see teams use the melee class over the caster 9 times out of 10 and im not sure i wouldnt go with 10/10..

 

[Snowjobs]

And this is what's so great about the idea of limiting melee here.

Not only do you have to consider what works in WSG/TP, but you also have to consider what classes will work best the node based bgs as well.

I can imagine it now :0 gileneas. playing frost Mage blazing speed and lust out the gate mount up and run up the path going between lh and mines then blazing slow fall into enemy team rooting and novaing everyone while we snag the base :0

 

[Scrubhuntin]

and now a strat is born.

 

[Laurenti]

Three games is a small sample size

1000 times this. We have seen an entire 3 wargames, all three with a relatively melee-heavy team vs a caster cleave.
One thing that I noticed that the caster cleave could have done better was CC the healers. Poly/Fear them. If you force a dispel, you just forced a healer to stop healing his target (presumably his high stack fc that your team should be pumping because he is in line of your casters). If you don't force a dispel, you get a nice little poly ---> fear CC chain. With the amount of CC in the bracket, trinkets will be down, and if you force a trinket, a re-poly solves the problem nicely. Also, if you are being overrun by melee, step up and drop a CC/kick on a healer. From the perspective of a healer, the biggest problem that a melee cleave has is ranging its healers. Have the BM throw a barrel at the healers, that alone puts so much more pressure on the melee dps.

I think i was poly --->feared, or fear ---> polyd, maybe once in those three games. It wasn't even that I was ranging the CC, or getting dispelled when CC hit. It was the pure lack of CC, at least on me. I can't speak for what CC went out on the other two healers, but they didn't call out sheeped or feared very often. In the first game, not sure what time but I remember fancy pointing it out to me afterward when watching the games, Moran was low hp and way behind the rest of our team as we were peeling out with out FC. I rolled toward him, right into their team, and was able to top him without any sort of CC being thrown my way. I stood in the middle of their team, and went completely unpunished for it.

TLR of all my points, a melee cleave can be countered, it just actually has to be done in a premade setting, and this is not something that we have seen in a premade setting. However, we did see glimpses of this, when melee dps overexted into africa and died.

 

[anatomyx]

I think i was poly --->feared, or fear ---> polyd, maybe once in those three games. It wasn't even that I was ranging the CC, or getting dispelled when CC hit. It was the pure lack of CC, at least on me. I can't speak for what CC went out on the other two healers, but they didn't call out sheeped or feared very often.

You can't reliably land CC on good healers with a casted CC. There's obviously situations for it like making an FC push, but for the most part if you're just in a basic midfight it's not realistic whatsoever to bank on chain CCing healers in the back line. It's impossible. If a mage/warlock is pushing into a group of 4+ melee they're going to get immediately dumpstered, and frankly if they're able to run in and sit there casting CC on your healers, then the DPS on your team are not doing their job at all. This is pretty much positioning 101, it's extremely basic and I shouldn't even have to explain it.

From the perspective of a healer, the biggest problem that a melee cleave has is ranging its healers. Have the BM throw a barrel at the healers, that alone puts so much more pressure on the melee dps.

TL;DR of all my points, a melee cleave can be countered, it just actually has to be done in a premade setting, and this is not something that we have seen in a premade setting. However, we did see glimpses of this, when melee dps overexted into africa and died.

I'm not sure if you understand what "counter" means. These examples you provided are simply your team members making a mistake (overextending way too far) and getting killed as a result of their mistake. What if your melee positioned correctly and didn't overextend? They wouldn't be dying like that.

A "counter" is something like realizing that a team is running multiple people on defense and your FC cannot get the flag out alone, so you send a couple people to assist your FC getting out of base safely, effectively "countering" their strategy. There is no realistic way to actually "counter" a melee cleave other than running a melee cleave yourself, but mongoing the healers harder. It's very "easy" and dumbed-down gameplay. Heavy caster teams are simply too slow (in terms of damage output/burst) to be able to keep up with cleave pressure.

As far as sample sizes go, all you need to do is use your head a little to be able to figure things out. You don't need to do dozens of premades to recognize that melee running around cleaving people is not a fun way to play the game. PUGs are plagued with literally the exact same issue, all people ever complain about are the melee being too strong, and that's why we've started to ban/restrict things. I'm not sure why you think we'll find a different outcome by queueing more premades.

 

[Scrubhuntin]

ding ding ding

 

[Laurenti]

You can't reliably land CC on good healers with a casted CC.
.

Heals have a 40 yd range. CC has a 30 yard range ( Poly/Fear ). If the melee are pushing in, then the healers will get dragged forward. dropping a cast on a healer and blinking/blazing speeding out isn't that complicated. Locks can shadowfury heals at range with an instant cast, etc. My point is, putting any bit of pressure on a team's healers when they are pushing is huge. Even a BM throwing a single barrel onto the enemy healers can cause a problem. If the melee dps overextend, they die. If they don't overextend, and stay within range of their healers, you just alleviated a ton of offensive pressure.

Also, CC counters melee. Sheep a dps, it can't hurt you. Sheep a healer, it can't keep it's dps up. Don't tell me that CC can't counter a melee offensive push

 

[Scrubhuntin]

you say this like the melee cleave team is doing absolutely nothing to your casters/healers at the same time lol.

 

[Adeimantus]

I think the impulse to ban, limit, restrict, etc should be restrained as much as possible. Obviously, in the most egregious cases, namely ferals, bombs, and so forth something needs to be done to avoid total fallout. It's just not a great sign when people are starting to talk about severe comp restrictions on the second page of a brain storming thread. I understand wanting to avoid stale, highly predictable matchups but restrictions like this similarly can promote pablum in my view.

 

[Shook]

I don't think getting a sheep off on a healer is worth sitting on top of melee and blowing a defensive cd. Maybe if we had dragons breath > Ring onto multiple targets. Idk "cc counters melee" is too vague.

 

[anatomyx]

Heals have a 40 yd range. CC has a 30 yard range ( Poly/Fear ). If the melee are pushing in, then the healers will get dragged forward. dropping a cast on a healer and blinking/blazing speeding out isn't that complicated. Locks can shadowfury heals at range with an instant cast, etc. My point is, putting any bit of pressure on a team's healers when they are pushing is huge. Even a BM throwing a single barrel onto the enemy healers can cause a problem. If the melee dps overextend, they die. If they don't overextend, and stay within range of their healers, you just alleviated a ton of offensive pressure.

Also, CC counters melee. Sheep a dps, it can't hurt you. Sheep a healer, it can't keep it's dps up. Don't tell me that CC can't counter a melee offensive push

Okay, I'll just go ahead and assume that you didn't read my post at all

I think the impulse to ban, limit, restrict, etc should be restrained as much as possible. Obviously, in the most egregious cases, namely ferals, bombs, and so forth something needs to be done to avoid total fallout. It's just not a great sign when people are starting to talk about severe comp restrictions on the second page of a brain storming thread. I understand wanting to avoid stale, highly predictable matchups but restrictions like this similarly can promote pablum in my view.

This thread concerns the future of competitive 10v10s, not pug matches. We should absolutely be looking to restrict things to balance competitive games and make them more fun overall.

 

[BACKPEDDLE]

Heals have a 40 yd range. CC has a 30 yard range ( Poly/Fear ). If the melee are pushing in, then the healers will get dragged forward. dropping a cast on a healer and blinking/blazing speeding out isn't that complicated. Locks can shadowfury heals at range with an instant cast, etc. My point is, putting any bit of pressure on a team's healers when they are pushing is huge. Even a BM throwing a single barrel onto the enemy healers can cause a problem. If the melee dps overextend, they die. If they don't overextend, and stay within range of their healers, you just alleviated a ton of offensive pressure.

Also, CC counters melee. Sheep a dps, it can't hurt you. Sheep a healer, it can't keep it's dps up. Don't tell me that CC can't counter a melee offensive push

This is the same guy who said that we shouldn't ban feral druids or BM monks guard ability.

I think it's safe to just disregard everything he says and continue on like he isn't even here.

Here's some real gems:

Brewmaster monks, don't use one of your defensive cooldowns that you get by choosing your spec, because fuck you and your choice of playstyle.

It's extremely illogical. Yes, guard absorbs a lot. However..... IT'S A PUG!!!!!! Get over it. It is a spec-specific ability that a class receives for choosing a certain spec. Let them use it in a pug. It can be played around. Limiting a defensive CD of a class, in a pick-up game at that, is probably the stupidest thing that one could try to do.

Feral druids have been excluded from everything in existence for way too long, because they are "broken". Who is to determine that something is broken? There will always be a strong spec/ability in any bracket. Stormstrike hits way too hard, and is globaling people. Who are you to tell the BM monk that he isn't allowed to use a defensive cooldown, so as not to get globalled by something else?

 

[Laurenti]

This is the same guy who said that we shouldn't ban feral druids or BM monks guard ability.

I think it's safe to just disregard everything he says and continue on like he isn't even here.

I never said that we shouldn't ban ferals in premades, or allow guard in premades. Your two post quotes are completely irrelevant to anything in this discussion about melee cleaves lmao. Not sure what either of those quotes (which are 100% my opinion, which I am allowed to have, whether you like it or not ) have to do with melee cleave and its potential restrictions IN PREMADES!.
I simply stated my opinion that I think it is stupid to regulate what abilities and specs people play in PICK UP GAMES! ( IN THE PICK UP GAME THREAD), and you are quoting them as if that is relevant to the conversation in this PREMADE! thread.

Someone please get this lost enhance shaman a map back into the pug gulch where he belongs, or at least give him a map to figure out the 39 section of TI at the very least

 

[Adeimantus]

Okay, I'll just go ahead and assume that you didn't read my post at all



This thread concerns the future of competitive 10v10s, not pug matches. We should absolutely be looking to restrict things to balance competitive games and make them more fun overall.

Yeah, I know it concerns war games. Philosophically I just prefer less restrictions and favour teams trying to come up with answers over placing restrictions. That's part of the fun, constructing setups after all.

 

[Laurenti]

We should absolutely be looking to restrict things to balance competitive games and make them more fun overall.

Why? The three games that we had were great! Both teams had chances to win, both teams played well, and games came down to the last cap, if not the last 30 seconds. Those games were very solid, and if you have a problem with caster cleaves being slightly less optimal than melee cleaves ( although i believe that caster cleaves can work), then use one of the better dps in the bracket. Choosing to not run a warrior, bm, or enhance in a premade is doing nothing but gimping your team, that is just the way the current meta is. I'm sorry, but just because the caster dream is not the most viable, doesn't mean that you have to restrict other slightly stronger specs, in order to make casters stronger in a premade setting.

edit: the entire point of a meta is that it evolves over time, as games are played and teams modify their current strategies to compete in the current "meta". You don't sit there and start restricting things immediately after the first premade, you play games and let the meta evolve. Please, quit trying to fuck with it and restrict things, before teams have even had time to modify their strategies...

A perfect example of comp modification to fit into the meta, if whoever is in charge of JCM's team composition has any brain cells ( which I am 100% sure that they do), then when JCM premades next, they will have more melee dps and fewer casters. OR, they will have a better strategy of how they want to use their casters, and they will be more effective with it. Either way, they modified their team to fit into the meta.

 

[Scrubhuntin]

pugs are what new players to the bracket base their opinion of if they want to continue playing or not. If they come in and ferals are left and right one shotting and bm monks are rolling around invincible they arent going to like the bracket.. and there WONT BE A META