The Doctrine of IWAY

The Doctrine of IWAY

in Profession Balance

Posted by: alcopaul.2156

alcopaul.2156

IWAY was a build that I played in Guild Wars 1. It stands for “I Will Avenge You!”, a skill that generates health and attack speed when activated in the presence of dead allies. But IWAY became synonymous to a build which was ran with 4 warriors, 2 ranger trappers and 2 backline necromancers.

Though it was just a game, real life philosophies can be derived there.

1.) Chaos being a weapon. When the offensive trappers spread conditions and knockdowns in the mid line of the enemies, they don’t cause them to ball up and they just spread out. This is an opportunity for the warriors to pick them one by one. The philosophy that can be thought of here is that we need chaos to destabilize a firm and sturdy enemy. Mind games and rumor mongering and false information can cause a team to be fragmented. Then after fragmentation happens, deploy your DPS your offense. Remember, chaos breaks down a united front then after it is broken down, you can do the finishing moves to get your goal.

2.) Offense is the best defense. Defense requires attrition. Defense requires time. Defense requires training. So much resources wasted on defense that a great offense which can shatter a great defense is often overlooked. The cycle of human life ends on death. And offense leads to the death of enemies. In Guild Wars 1, IWAY group build was stacked up with offense in a way that fights can just go on for a few minutes. Speed and precision is key. A good offense minimizes the use of precious time and trains important virtues such as punctuality and conciseness.

3.) Out of the box thinking. The builds in Guild Wars 1 always consisted of 2 monk backline and 6 something else. In IWAY build, we used 2 necromancers to generate the same effect. But it was so good because of Soul Reaping, a trait which generate energy when an enemy or an ally dies. Since IWAY build revolves on offense, or deaths being generated or incurred, the use of Necromancers proved to be very symbiotic to the rest of the builds classes. See let’s not box our minds into a template. Going out of the box might be the key to generating new ideas or solving old problems.

That’s all. Remember, IWAY is a way of life.

In line with this post, I would like to start a petition to bring back “I Will Avenge You!” skill on warriors, which can be used during the beta weekends, and is currently used by an NPC in PVE.

Scout Master Syra [MATH]
http://www.guildwars.com/community/guildweek/gotw-2006-10-17-yourmathteacher.php

The Doctrine of IWAY

in Profession Balance

Posted by: Corpus Christi.2057

Corpus Christi.2057

Don’t expect the level of complexity that you had in GW1 here, in GW2. It’s just different times, I’m afraid. Everything gets dumbed down nowadays.

Three 80-lvl Rangers. Why? ‘Cos they’re that cool.

The Doctrine of IWAY

in Profession Balance

Posted by: Sokia.3710

Sokia.3710

I actually preferred to use SABway.

The Doctrine of IWAY

in Profession Balance

Posted by: Warcry.1596

Warcry.1596

GW1 and complexity in the same sentence? Wat
GW1 had one of the smallest learning curves in any game ive played.

On topic: i do miss I Will Avenge You, but i dunno how it would fit here

“He shall make whole that which was torn asunder.
Restore that which was lost. And all shall be as one.”

The Doctrine of IWAY

in Profession Balance

Posted by: Chicago Jack.5647

Chicago Jack.5647

IWAY was one of the easiest, most cheesiest, one-trick-pony team comps in GW1 history. No thank you. Give me a balanced build any day of the week before this ultra cheese.

Chaos being a weapon? You spammed pets. If people think the zoos in gw2 is bad, you should see IWAY.

(edited by Chicago Jack.5647)

The Doctrine of IWAY

in Profession Balance

Posted by: vana.5467

vana.5467

GW1 and complexity in the same sentence? Wat
GW1 had one of the smallest learning curves in any game ive played.

On topic: i do miss I Will Avenge You, but i dunno how it would fit here

What are you doing on a GW2 forum if you’ve never played the game?

The Doctrine of IWAY

in Profession Balance

Posted by: manveruppd.7601

manveruppd.7601

A bad necromancer always blames the corpse.

The Doctrine of IWAY

in Profession Balance

Posted by: Vicariuz.1605

Vicariuz.1605

IWAY at it’s core was meant to fame farm the first few maps in HoH/HA, it was then taken to GvG (laughed at at first) until [MATH] proved that with practice and perception it could scale into top 100 EZ… You think it’s the most braindead from gw1? Did you forget spiritway? did you forget Minion Factory? perhaps u forgot flareway? also let us definitely not forget smite ball and balth aura steamrollers and imbagons….. Get your kitten together frankly. Calling IWAY the cheesiest etc etc is one of the most ignorant statements I’ve ever heard. You wanna know why r10+ IWAY existed? because it worked.

I was in gold trim and we lost several times to MATH iway.

Oh, and as an aside, there is a very real possibility that an IWAY-esque team could exist in gw2. 3 cele axe/sw will steamroll people.

(edited by Vicariuz.1605)

The Doctrine of IWAY

in Profession Balance

Posted by: Galandil.9641

Galandil.9641

Calling IWAY the cheesiest etc etc is one of the most ignorant statements I’ve ever heard. You wanna know why r10+ IWAY existed? because it worked.

That’s the exact definition of cheese: a build that works even in the hands of mediocre players.

The Doctrine of IWAY

in Profession Balance

Posted by: shimmerless.4560

shimmerless.4560

People can rant and rave about how IWAY was cheese and so on but here’s the crucial difference, folks, in GW1 balanced would always >>>>>>> all. Doesn’t matter if it was Fear Me sins or Lyssa’s Aura Me/Es abusing super fast water skills and blurred visions with no energy depletion, a balanced comp played properly would still win. Players who complain about cheese in GW1 are blaming anything other than themselves for their own defeat.

Not really the case at all in GW2, to be honest I don’t even know what balanced here would look like, most of the GW2 specs held up as exemplars of skill ceiling look like lame Factions-era gimmick stuff at best so I dunno.

The Doctrine of IWAY

in Profession Balance

Posted by: Ishmael.6740

Ishmael.6740

Cheese doesn’t mean it’s an iWin button or something, it just means that it is, in fact, not very sophiosticated, can easily be pulled of and will steamroll players who play builds with a higher learning curve and aren’t that good.

The Doctrine of IWAY

in Profession Balance

Posted by: Carighan.6758

Carighan.6758

That’s the exact definition of cheese: a build that works even in the hands of mediocre players.

Not really, that’s just called overpowered: You perform for more than you should.

But that’s kinda GW1 in a nutshell:

  • “Throw more skills & hope some end up balanced” as a dev philosophy.
  • As a result, all “tactics” were based on finding the handful of combinations of overpowered skills.
  • 99,99% or so of possible builds were rubbish. Actual depth of character customization was really low.
The strength of heart to face oneself has been made manifest. The persona Carighan has appeared.

The Doctrine of IWAY

in Profession Balance

Posted by: Dirame.8521

Dirame.8521

Calling IWAY the cheesiest etc etc is one of the most ignorant statements I’ve ever heard. You wanna know why r10+ IWAY existed? because it worked.

That’s the exact definition of cheese: a build that works even in the hands of mediocre players.

That’s taking his words out of context though. He did say that people couldn’t use iWay past a certain point because they didn’t know how. And [MATH] apparently showed people how.

In order to have situations like iWay where a synergetic relationship is built for conquest, you either have to split your team into two’s or Anet needs to bring in the GvG-type game mode so we can all make team builds.

I make guides to builds you may not have heard of;
http://www.youtube.com/user/ceimash
http://www.twitch.tv/ceimash

The Doctrine of IWAY

in Profession Balance

Posted by: Galandil.9641

Galandil.9641

That’s taking his words out of context though. He did say that people couldn’t use iWay past a certain point because they didn’t know how. And [MATH] apparently showed people how.

And that’s true for almost any build used in GW1 (the “past a certain point”).

With the difference that IWAY was:

- easy to play/learn;
- steamrolling vs newbies/players who didn’t know how it worked

It’s like bragging in GW2 how much you’re skilled while using, in WvW, a build like P/D condithief. Which is all this thread is about in the end, bragging.

The Doctrine of IWAY

in Profession Balance

Posted by: Warcry.1596

Warcry.1596

GW1 and complexity in the same sentence? Wat
GW1 had one of the smallest learning curves in any game ive played.

On topic: i do miss I Will Avenge You, but i dunno how it would fit here

What are you doing on a GW2 forum if you’ve never played the game?

Oh, I have about 3800 hours on the game… sorry if I said something that made it seem like I was new.

“He shall make whole that which was torn asunder.
Restore that which was lost. And all shall be as one.”

The Doctrine of IWAY

in Profession Balance

Posted by: manveruppd.7601

manveruppd.7601

Nobody’s saying there weren’t good guilds with skilled players who used IWAY: clearly there were. The reason people despised IWAY was because it could be played effectively even by unskilled pugs with no co-ordination whatsoever, and they could beat better teams on voice comms with it. Not MUCH better teams obviously, there’s only so far your build can carry you, but the point is that IWAY was very, ahem, “forgiving” ;p

I don’t have a problem with IWAY itself, in fact niche, original builds like that were what I loved most about GW1. But let’s not pretend that you needed a physics degree to play it, that’s all I’m saying!

A bad necromancer always blames the corpse.

The Doctrine of IWAY

in Profession Balance

Posted by: Eurantien.4632

Eurantien.4632

We ran 2 MM necros, 6 IWAY W/R cause it would proc off the pet deaths (until they nerfed that).

The Doctrine of IWAY

in Profession Balance

Posted by: tanztante.6532

tanztante.6532

i liked playing mixed spike and hexover team comp. it was fun.

i was never pro or anything, but i generally liked infusing

Ayaílla ~all is [vain]

ele @ Gf Left Me Coz Of Ladderboard [vain] (EU) / Salty Strategy [PAIN]