PW International Championship Discussion

Greetings Harshlands,

Let's talk, PW International Championship! PWI has given us an event that seems interesting enough at first glance, though it very rapidly turns into a gear-contest and a strategy-team-up contest. Let's break down the parts of the Championship that effect every player of Harshlands that is currently in a land-owning guild. I will be talking openly and realisticly about how I see the tournement and what I feel could or might happen. And also, what I think should happen, if we want Harshlands to be able to compete with a server like Lost City or Heaven's Tear.

The PvP Tournement part. This won't be a real Tournement of skill, because there are no 6 versus 6 battles between guilds/groups. Instead it will be a 6v6v6v6v6v6v6v6 (8 guilds attending for Harshlands), Battle Royale. This means that, regardless of how skilled you may be in PvP, or how well-geared you may be, there are too many variables too ensure that the actual best-skilled or the best-geared team represents Harshlands when competing against the other servers of PWI. It is entirely possible that a guild could team up, let's say Valhalla, Omerta, Watchers and Crimson team up to take out Catalyst first, Catalyst would not stand a chance, regardless of how geared or skilled our players are. Of course, this evidentally means that they are signing their own death sentence, because if Catalyst isn't there, Valhalla's best 6 can most likely destroy any other competition. Of course, the exact same can be said for any guild siding with us, after Valhalla is out of this PvP Arena part of the Tournement, we will take out everyone else and there won't be much competition left afterwards. It is simply the way this tournement will work. I will not sugar-coat my words, we will take out every other guild in the tournement to win it, as will every other guild on the server. So realize this if you plan to team-up with another guild in the Arena part. Eventually you have to fight them, so ask yourself, who do you want to win?

The way I see it, if any or multiple guilds side with Valhalla or with us, it means that either Valhalla or we will win the PvP Tournement part. If you choose to side with Valhalla, they will eventually (when the competition is taken out), turn on you and claim victory. If you side with us, we will eventually kill you as well once the competition is out and claim victory. If you side with no one, it can be one big bucket of variables because we have no idea how this Arena will be, it might be that our Catalyst team runs into an AfterLife team first, maybe loses 1 member during the fight and then face Valhalla after that hasn't lost a member yet and get wiped. This is entirely possible. It might also be that Catalyst runs into Valhalla right off the bat and we both lose 3-4 members in the battle and therefor both don't end up winning the tournement. Another thing might be that all 6 other guilds (excluding Valhalla and Catalyst) team up and try to take out both Catalyst and Valhalla first and then fight among themselves, afterwards being able to crown themselves 'kings' of Harshlands. Though we all know this Tournement does in fact not prove who is the best, simply who is most diplomatic, geared, or lucky.

Which brings us to the PvE aspect of the Tournement which follows up the PvP part. Now, taking the scenario's from before in the PvP part this means that Valhalla could win it, I'm just going to write down some names here, but I'm fairly sure I'll have at least some right. I'm expecting Wytche, Banzzok, urDian, Bludd, wollfo and (insert R9 Blademaster) will be attending for them. This means that if they win, they will have 2 R9 +12 Bows with less interval than Demon Archers shooting the PvE Boss. A 2.86 (?) Sage Sin hitting the boss. Hopefully a +12 5 APS BM, wollfo will hit like a truck and be able to tank and urDian will hit hard, but nothing compared to any APS DD or R9 Archer for PvE. Now, this is not me trash-talking, I'm speaking honestly and realistically. I for one think that Bludd is actually doing the right thing not face-rolling his keyboard as a 5 APS Sin, instead has sharded for survivability (not attack level) and has defense levels (full R9) over APS, but also this means that he will fall short against other servers DPS on the PvE part. Wytche and Banzzok both will be hard hitters but when faced with a Demon Archer R9 +12 DPS output, they will fall short, this can be seen in the event every week. More-over, they cannot bring Claws/Fists to the PvE part and be 5 APS Archers, which will be better DPS output in the long run if the Boss happens to have a lot of HP.

We do not know what kind of Boss it is, I hope that it actually will be a Boss that requires the Barbarian to tank in Tiger Form and it might even require a Cleric to heal otherwise there will be a squad wipe, but let's face it. It is PW and it is unlikely that it will be like that. Regardless, I would like to have a look at Crimson, they most likely will send Kalyptica, simply because he is their best geared member. He is a good Wizard with great gear, however his DPS output on the PvE Boss will be much less significant than any R9 +12 Archer can output. The time wasted alone on Undine Strike-ing the boss whenever its effect vanishes will put him behind even more. I can sum up more teams like this, though I do not know the most famous names from every guild on the map right now, but it is safe to assume that one guild will have a bigger chance than another guild at actually granting Harshlands the victory in this PvE contest against other servers such as Heaven's Tear and Lost City.

I personally think, if we, as Harshlands want to stand a chance, the winning team needs to have a Venomancer in squad, preferably maybe even a Demon Venomancer. Ironwood Proc would devastate the PvE boss and grant us increased speed in killing with all the physical DPS dished out on the boss. Also Amplify is a necessity. Purge might be needed. And a hard-hitting pet with skills tuned out to do this (I'll let you figure out what skills should be on the Herc for this, it's not the starting skills, other than Pounce). Besides the Venomancer, there would have to be a Demon Barbarian. Firstly, to buff the squad, the attack damage increase and crit-rate increase is necessary for the entire squad. It'll improve the damage on the Sin, Archer, BM and the Barb. Also, a Demon Barbarian will do the same damage in Tiger Form, so if the boss actually needs to be tanked in Tiger Form, it won't be noticed in the damage output. The Barbarian can Devour whenever the Venomancer's Ironwood does not proc to still keep it's defense dropped. Moving on to a Demon Sin, and technically and realistically, the best DPS Sin on the server would be a 5 APS Advanced Zerk DoT-sharded Sin. Also, he can bloodpaint the party if the Boss is actually difficult and would require it. Then, a Demon Blademaster that has Demon Dragons and is able to be 5 APS with (Advanced) Zerk Claws/Fists. Add to that a Demon Archer that has at the very least a R9 +12 bow, Demon Quickshot, but perhaps even better, gear for 5 APS and +12 (Zerk/Advanced Zerk) Claws/Fists. You're only allowed to take 1 BM, so a Claw Archer is your 2nd best bet behind that. Lastly, we cannot take another Sin, BM or Barb. So either another Archer, or a Cleric. This could be a tough decision, because we do not know if the Boss might or might not require healing. But that's something to be figured out still.

Now as you can see, the PvP part and the PvE part contradict each other. The best PvP team comp might not be the best PvE team comp and vice versa. So, in the end, what does Harshlands want? Do we want to compete with Lost City and Heaven's Tear and actually send the best fine-tuned team comp of 6 people we can get to slay this PvE boss. Or do we want to just have fun in the PvP Tournement and say fock that PvE bullcrap, we don't really care about going to China anyway?

Personally, I know that I can't go myself, because if I realistically look at the people in Catalyst and their gear, and our chances at winning the PvE part of the Tournement, I would not fit in there. There are people better geared than me that could do both the PvP aspect and the PvE aspect better than me, judging simply on their gear, not even comparing our skill in gameplay. I however would like to see Harshlands at the top of the server lists of PWI, perhaps even the best server in beating that PvE Boss which would put Harshlands on the map and give us a shot at competing in China with the other versions of PW.

All in all, it seems like a nice concept, but it is worked out very poorly and we have to make decisions on many different levels if we want to even stand a chance at both the PvP and (perhaps more importantly) the PvE aspect of this event.

Cheers,

Barba