Anti-freep strategy/creepside group counter

[Hamlet_the_Dane]

There was an old beer commercial which many of you will remember where a bunch of celebrities would debate the merits of Lite Beer going back and forth between “Tastes Great” and “Less Filling.” The forums have been having their own such debate, with less comedy and more vitriol, between “Freeps are OP” and “Creeps lack skills.”

So how about a more productive thread with two goals:

1)An understanding of what Garny, Dolmir, Cel, et al. are doing specifically to see if any counter strategy exists, and
2)To see if there is any comparable small group make-up of creeps that would have similar synergies available.

First, I'm going to making some assumptions about equipment and skills. There is a good chance I'm wrong. If I am, please correct me. I'm okay with that.

Let's see what creepside is up against.

1)Garny, as LM, is keeping up 90 seconds of stun immunity on his small group, applied individually with a short cooldown. While this is up, individuals are immune to dazes, knockdowns, and stuns.
2)Garny, as LM, has access to some fine CC, AoE, and DoT options.
3)Garny can significantly debuff melee, ranged, and tactical damage dealers.
4)Cel, if healing, can put up Our Fates Entwined, granting the fellowship -10% damage reduction (my understanding is that this stacks with audacity, correct me if I'm wrong), and the tooltip reads “damage will not interrupt your inductions” so I'm not sure if Cel is immune to interrupts, setbacks, or both. I think it sounds like both, though.
5)Dolmir, if using shield-brother and applying it to the fellowship as a whole, could give Cel another -15% incoming damage and +20% incoming healing, while giving the rest of the group 5% (or so) of each. This can be up much of the time, but not all of the time. Thus, with audacity 7, Cel has a base 55% reduction of incoming damage, and the rest of the group has a base 45% reduction of incoming damage BEFORE their own armor/mitigations are considered. Again, my understanding is that this stacks with audacity, correct me if I'm wrong.
6)Dolmir, with a particular 3-set of moors gear I'm going to assume he has, can pump out a rallying cry that returns morale & power to the whole group once every six seconds, provided a defeat response occurs.
7)If anyone outside Dolmir is in danger of going down, they can be bubbled for -75% incoming damage for 15 seconds.
8)Cel can, once every five minutes, put a group wide bubble of approximately 5k temporary morale (so it stacks on top for those already at full health – no overhealing) and provides a heal over time on the group. There is no induction for this skill. It fires off immediately.
9)This group often travels with at least one minstrel, who while usually in war-speech, can immediately drop war-speech to provide healing boosts if needed. These boosts include Fellowship's Heart, a legendary thirty second heal over time.

So, in a perfect world, what's the optimum strategy?

Well, creepside is up against a lot. These folks are running around with a base damage reduction of between a 50% to almost 100% greater than what creepside has at audacity 7. So they take far less damage than is possible creepside. At the same time, creepside DPS can be debuffed significantly by Garny, so BAs can have their damage cut in half, and reavers and wargs by a third. Crowd-control is largely mitigated through stun-immunity.

I've read it suggested that Garny needs to be taken down first, to get rid of the stun immunity. However, Dolmir, Cel, and any minstrels all have the capability to provide a quick in-combat rez, and if the stun immunity lasts for 90 seconds, it will be possible to take Garny down and have him rezzed up at full health before his buffs & debuffs lapse.

Or, taking Cel down as the primary healer. However, she will likely have full HoTs running on herself, she can have up to a base 55% damage reduction before including her mitigations (another, what, 30-40% there?), and once she is in real danger, she can be bubbled for 15 seconds.

What about Dolmir? Everytime this group gets a kill, he is probably getting a reactive morale & power restore for the whole group out. Still, he is a heavy armor wearer who can't be stunned, knocked down, or dazed, and is getting the full benefit of heals. As long as his group is getting kills, he is still providing reactive healing on the move.

What about splitting attacks? Probably the best solution. Focus firing on a single target has been shown not to be effective.

How about wargs in flayer stance on Garny and minstrels (in trouble those minstrels will drop war-speech to heal) to prevent inductions from going off?

Meanwhile, Bas and spiders split on Dolmir and Cel who are both very effective on the move. Ranged DPS negates their mobility.

Reavers can be sent in to keep champs and guards occupied.

So how many creeps does it take to beat this then? Well, at minimum, a flayer warg each for Garny and minstrels. Two each would be better. After all Jaiyne v. a warg? I'd put my money on Jaiyne, and if she's also getting reactive heals and additional damage reduction? Jaiyne every time. So that's four to six wargs in flayer.

At least three BAs/spiders each for Dolmir and Cel. That's gotta be an absolute minimum to keep up enough DPS to outdo the healing.

Enough reavers and warleaders to keep the champs like Treelios occupied so they don't just butcher the wargs on Garny and the minstrels.

Enough defilers to prevent creeps from going down since every death just provides healing for the group.

So I guess you need close to a well-mixed, well-organized raid.

Well, that's my shot at question #1.

For question #2, I remember a video not too long ago of five creeps (2 warleaders, 2 spiders, and a defiler) doing a fantastic job outside GV against what looked like about a dozen or so non-grouped freeps. Maybe that's a start at answering question #2, but most of the synergies there seem to come from multiple healers, two bubbles, and spider's ranged DPS and crowd-control. Nothing quite as impressive as the list above.

Anyway, I'd appreciate any thoughtful reply you might care to share.

Thanks for reading.

[Olympic]

I want to give HUGE props to Garny, Dolmir and the rest of the "Garnival".

When you perplex and frustrate the other side to the point where they refuse to fight you (teehee) and start threads on how to beat you (teehee) you are well within your rights to refer to yourselves as "epic"....

[borges_maze]

As much as I enjoy watching the forum pvp, I hope this thread doesn't descend into it. +rep for the start to what will hopefully be a good discussion.

Just off hand, I would say focus on LM and Captain and bring flies. If you can manage to keep silence on Dolmir, that takes away Rallying Cry, which is a fair amount of power and morale restore. He still has Inspire, but the flies will be more effective.

The synergies in the group in question are very strong and the players are very good, and, honestly, any strategy that beats them is probably only going to do so by a razor thin margin. Good luck on the strategizing.

[Straste]

Nice post. As you break it down, anybody who did not previously understand what groups fighting a Garney group were up against this begins to explain it. Some other points off the top of my head:

-The raven pet adds some decent shadow mit for the whole group, the amount of healing this pet receives if you try to focus it will clue you in to the fact that this is another part of the puzzle they rely on.

-All melee classes fighting this group will be constantly slowed due the the entire group fighting around the oil on the ground and is generally also always on fire as well.

-The make-up of these groups can vary somewhat, at different times they have either had or not had a minstrel and or a guard. Adding either of these classes adds even more layers to the puzzle.


The main mechanic of this group that makes it so difficult to face is the stacking of percentage based damage reductions and a cycling of cooldowns that make any member of the group nearly invulnerable for a period of time.

Certain members of this group like to post about how their opponents are making key mistakes and that those mistakes are in fact what causes them to fail. While this claim may be partially true it is certainly also partially a troll. Some of their favorites include:

-All the wargs just kep running through the oil/fire. While true, the troll is that the whole group fights on top of or around the oil and if ever attacked by a warg they run through it which means either you hit them once and then back off or you run through it with them.

-The group didn't focus fire so and so enough if only you had kept hitting so and so you would have certainly done better. Another half-truth, one of the main keys to this group is that they respond to a focus fire on a certain member and then that member becomes nearly invulnerable if he even takes any damage at all.

-If only there were more reavers. Lol what reavers?

All that aside. Although I prefer to just let this group rot when they are on the map. I do think the key to victory is a mix of splitting attacks and coordinated target switching in order to get them to blow their cooldowns to protect a member and then to switch to another member. Also I think often times they are only really strong for a few minutes and then they need to wait for cooldowns to come back to be at full strength.

[Olympic]

I'm curious as to how many creeps are typically attacking this group, and where the fights typically take place.

[Straste]

I'm curious as to how many creeps are typically attacking this group, and where the fights typically take place.

Everytime I have seen or been a part of a group facing them the creeps had at least double their numbers. The locations vary, I don't really think that the locations are part of the strategy.

[Olympic]

Everytime I have seen or been a part of a group facing them the creeps had at least double their numbers. The locations vary, I don't really think that the locations are part of the strategy.

The locations matter a lot. Fighting freeps in freep npc's requires more creeps. Its not the damage, its the stuns that totally take creeps out of the fight for seconds at a time.

[NeedlesslyLargeRod]

The locations matter a lot. Fighting freeps in freep npc's requires more creeps. Its not the damage, its the stuns that totally take creeps out of the fight for seconds at a time.

In order to even see a creep, the group often has to pull a large number of creep npcs. Often the tyrant of a keep is pulled before any sort of pvp begins.

[Olympic]

In order to even see a creep, the group often has to pull a large number of creep npcs. Often the tyrant of a keep is pulled before any sort of pvp begins.

Ok well that's good to know, so 12'ish creeps, often flanked by creep npcs, are having issues with this group...

I am awful with names as they change so much, is Dolmir Funspoiler?

[Forza]

I want to give HUGE props to Garny, Dolmir and the rest of the "Garnival".

When you perplex and frustrate the other side to the point where they refuse to fight you (teehee) and start threads on how to beat you (teehee) you are well within your rights to refer to yourselves as "epic"....

Don't you think that when he started the Adventures with Garny thread, this was not the whole purpose? He sure wanted the attention (i'll just say he since he was the one that posted it), and after making videos to where they win and almost never die, it was inevitable for this to happen.

BTW plenty of "skilled RKs and Minstrels" out there that are coming to the moors from PvE land. They are barely rank 2 or 3, have barely any experience in the moors, and are as hard to kill; the only difference is that they don't run with a LM that has Stun Immunity on them the whole time, and that they don't post videos about "their Adventures"

[Olympic]

Don't you think that when he started the Adventures with Garny thread, this was not the whole purpose? He sure wanted the attention (i'll just say he since he was the one that posted it), and after making videos to where they win and almost never die, it was inevitable for this to happen.

BTW plenty of "skilled RKs and Minstrels" out there that are coming to the moors from PvE land. They are barely rank 2 or 3, have barely any experience in the moors, and are as hard to kill; the only difference is that they don't run with a LM that has Stun Immunity on them the whole time, and that they don't post videos about "their Adventures"

Fair enough, I'm totally convinced by what objective veteran creeps report that there is something "out of whack". I personally think Audacity has a lot to do with it, but I'm sure there is more to the story.

However, the Garnival is the group getting the attention to the point that someone started this thread to strategize on how to beat them...so apparently they ARE the 800 pound elephant in the room...

[NeedlesslyLargeRod]

Don't you think that when he started the Adventures with Garny thread, this was not the whole purpose? He sure wanted the attention (i'll just say he since he was the one that posted it), and after making videos to where they win and almost never die, it was inevitable for this to happen.

BTW plenty of "skilled RKs and Minstrels" out there that are coming to the moors from PvE land. They are barely rank 2 or 3, have barely any experience in the moors, and are as hard to kill; the only difference is that they don't run with a LM that has Stun Immunity on them the whole time, and that they don't post videos about "their Adventures"

It appears that the mad in this thread is already beginning to reach critical mass.

[Straste]

The locations matter a lot. Fighting freeps in freep npc's requires more creeps. Its not the damage, its the stuns that totally take creeps out of the fight for seconds at a time.

What I meant was supposed to be taken in the context of the subject of this thread. Obviously locations can matter. What I was saying is I do not think the locations themselves are a part of this group's strategy.

[Olympic]

What I meant was supposed to be taken in the context of the subject of this thread. Obviously locations can matter. What I was saying is I do not think the locations themselves are a part of this group's strategy.

Yeah I thought that might be what you meant...

[Straste]

Fair enough, I'm totally convinced by what objective veteran creeps report that there is something "out of whack". I personally think Audacity has a lot to do with it, but I'm sure there is more to the story.

However, the Garnival is the group getting the attention to the point that someone started this thread to strategize on how to beat them...so apparently they ARE the 800 pound elephant in the room...

Certainly audacity has a whole lot to do with it. Combine it with skills that were designed and balanced for PvE with little or no thought to impact on PvMP and a group of intelligent players that are able to put these most imbalanced skills together and you get a group that is very difficult to beat. It is a bit analogous to a tank vs a group of infantrymen, sure of course there is a way for them to win but obviously the odds are against them.

[Forza]

Fair enough, I'm totally convinced by what objective veteran creeps report that there is something "out of whack". I personally think Audacity has a lot to do with it, but I'm sure there is more to the story.

However, the Garnival is the group getting the attention to the point that someone started this thread to strategize on how to beat them...so apparently they ARE the 800 pound elephant in the room...

Yup audacity is key.


Garny and his group are really good players, and they do an excellent job as a team, but it's not like on creepside we haven't been falling behind on class effectiveness and versatility compared to freeps.

[Forza]

To the OP,

Here is a summary of what Garny used on one of his videos during a fight were they a raid, taken from an old post I made.

- Stun-Immunity on Him and RK at all times
- DPS:
burning embers (13 times)
sticky-gourd (5 times)
Light of the rising dawn (5times)
staff strike (4 times)
march of ents (1 time)
lighting strike (1 time)
- Tar (only at the beginning, then he didn't reapply, but it help them early on in the fight so that's why I'm including it).
- Debuffs and cures: SoP Command (5 times), Ancient Craft (2times), cure-wound (2 times)
- Mezz (5 times) which help them interrupt and finish off targets.

What I'm trying to tell you here is they are not doing the perfect cycle of skills you think they are; this is not Rocket Science. As an example, he didn't need to keep Stun immunity on all his group to be successful, mostly just on the RK and a couple of random stun-clear on two others through the rest of the fight.

[Straste]

To the OP,

Here is a summary of what Garny used on one of his videos during a fight were they a raid, taken from an old post I made.

- Stun-Immunity on Him and RK at all times
- DPS:
burning embers (13 times)
sticky-gourd (5 times)
Light of the rising dawn (5times)
staff strike (4 times)
march of ents (1 time)
lighting strike (1 time)
- Tar (only at the beginning, then he didn't reapply, but it help them early on in the fight so that's why I'm including it).
- Debuffs and cures: SoP Command (5 times), Ancient Craft (2times), cure-wound (2 times)
- Mezz (5 times) which help them interrupt and finish off targets.

What I'm trying to tell you here is they are not doing the perfect cycle of skills you think they are; this is not Rocket Science. As an example, he didn't need to keep Stun immunity on all his group to be successful, mostly just on the RK and a couple of random stun-clear on two others through the rest of the fight.

How dare you sir!? To suggest that garney is not the definition of LM perfection is blasphemy. Every single win that group has had is based purely on skill and perfect execution. Not Rocket Science?! I heard that MENSA saw their youtube vids and is desperately trying to recruit them to lead a think-tank on war game strategy.

[Arvaen]

What I'm trying to tell you here is they are not doing the perfect cycle of skills you think they are; this is not Rocket Science. As an example, he didn't need to keep Stun immunity on all his group to be successful, mostly just on the RK and a couple of random stun-clear on two others through the rest of the fight.

Of course not. If it was just a finely tuned rotation then all you would need to do is throw a wrench in the cogs and the whole thing would fall to pieces. The problem is that they have a dozen different layers of redundancies and a significant margin for error.

Flayer wargs would be a large part of the solution IMO. Getting good heals, burning staggered sprints, and perhaps even getting slow immunity from a WL might keep them on top of the casters for the duration of the fight. On top of that, the AoE disarms should have a decent effect on their entire group. Especially if they burn their pots beforehand.

I'd still argue that something is terribly broken if the group can't be taken down by even numbers though. Requiring multiple creeps to disrupt each member of the group simultaneously is just unacceptably horrible design.

[Aedon]

Of course not. If it was just a finely tuned rotation then all you would need to do is throw a wrench in the cogs and the whole thing would fall to pieces. The problem is that they have a dozen different layers of redundancies and a significant margin for error.

Flayer wargs would be a large part of the solution IMO. Getting good heals, burning staggered sprints, and perhaps even getting slow immunity from a WL might keep them on top of the casters for the duration of the fight. On top of that, the AoE disarms should have a decent effect on their entire group. Especially if they burn their pots beforehand.

I'd still argue that something is terribly broken if the group can't be taken down by even numbers though. Requiring multiple creeps to disrupt each member of the group simultaneously is just unacceptably horrible design.

Yup, this is it in a nutshell.

[Umbrarg]

I enjoy talking mechanics too - specifically oilcooled inline fours. Strateegies? Is they like squeaky toys?

Regardless, 2 Flayer wargs, 2 shadow wargs, one unstanced, couple of WL's, reavers, Ploks group and 2 spiders ought to do it.

My intense theorizing on the matter leads me to the conclusion, if my calculations are correct, that the combined button mashing of a group of that exact mixup - given that beer is not wine, and no armadillo has ever eaten old elf socks, can be mathematically proven to lead us to victory.

We may need more armadillos though.

Love & Hugs

Fluffy Hithy

[Aedon]

I enjoy talking mechanics too - specifically oilcooled inline fours. Strateegies? Is they like squeaky toys?

Regardless, 2 Flayer wargs, 2 shadow wargs, one unstanced, couple of WL's, reavers, Ploks group and 2 spiders ought to do it.

My intense theorizing on the matter leads me to the conclusion, if my calculations are correct, that the combined button mashing of a group of that exact mixup - given that beer is not wine, and no armadillo has ever eaten old elf socks, can be mathematically proven to lead us to victory.

We may need more armadillos though.

Love & Hugs

Fluffy Hithy

The armadillos will cost us extra TPS.

[Hamlet_the_Dane]

One important strat has to be putting as much -incoming healing on a target as possible. Since I'm still relatively new to creepside, what classes can do that? and, more importantly, do they stack? Can you get a freep to -100% incoming healing? I'm pretty sure wargs, reavers, and defilers can all reduce incoming damage, although blight is easy to avoid. Putting blight on tar was a good idea someone had in another thread which those on creepside not doing should shamelessly steal. At least it'll keep freeps from wanting to keep running in and out of their tar as much.

Even with that, there needs to be a way to buff DPS. As it is, the group can run with 45-55% damage reduction before mitigations.

Let's start with a worse-case scenario for the creeps.

Check my math on this:
BA has an attack that does 1,000 damage (for easy math).

BA gets wind-lore applied to him. I believe it's potable, but creepside has no equivalent to an LM's group-wide wound/disease clear, so if the pot is down, or it removes a different effect, wind-lore stays. That subtracts 50-60% of the damage (depending on whether wind-lore was traited). Let's imagine it's not traited, so the BA's attack is worth 500 points now.

BA attacks Cel with 7 audacity, Our Fates Entwined, and Shield-Brother up. 55% of the damage is removed. 55% of 500 = 275 damage taken off. 225 points of damage left.

Cel mitigates 30% of the 225 points of damage through her normal mitigations. 67.5 points of damage is deducted.

Of the original 1,000 point attack, 158 or so gets through. That's less than a tick of one of the HoTs running, I'd guess.

Now, that is the near worst case scenario (traited wind-lore would be worse). Take away wind-lore and Cel would take 315 points of damage from the 1,000 point attack. I'm guessing that's right at a tick of a running HoT.

So creepside needs to simultaneously reduce incoming healing will maximizing DPS. Warg pee reduces mitigations, if someone will stand in it. What else?

I've heard some folks say they can beat Garny's group with 8 or so creeps. I'd love to know how. Meanwhile, I'd like to run through the fight in theory and see how it works.

Right now, one of the main creepside tactics is to avoid the fight. I have yet to have anyone convince me this is not a rational response, but I'm looking for ideas to show me otherwise.

Thanks for the responses thus far.

[borges_maze]

One important strat has to be putting as much -incoming healing on a target as possible.

. . .

Even with that, there needs to be a way to buff DPS. As it is, the group can run with 45-55% damage reduction before mitigations.

Because the mitigations are so high, I don't think focusing on -inc healing would be the most effective strategy. Instead, I would look at power drain. No power, no skills.

Even in the open field, traited flies are nasty. If you can lock down a freep group's batteries (LMs and Cappies), all you have to do then is survive until they run out of power.

[Hamlet_the_Dane]

Because the mitigations are so high, I don't think focusing on -inc healing would be the most effective strategy. Instead, I would look at power drain. No power, no skills.

Even in the open field, traited flies are nasty. If you can lock down a freep group's batteries (LMs and Cappies), all you have to do then is survive until they run out of power.

Traited flies are a rank 14 skill. The only ones on this server who have them bought them from the store. No doubt they're powerful, but I'd hate to think creep strategy must depend on multiples uses of a skill that would not be available without the store.

Besides, as long as they're killing stuff, they're getting regular bursts of power from the captain, and the flies themselves can be countered with CC such as fear.

Flies alone can't be the answer.