One last push for The Republic?

[Khunlin]

This was mentioned in another thread, but it seems important enough to merit its own. (That, and I'm a post-count whore.)

But yeah. I don't think I'm alone in coming to the conclusion that being good at PvP is impossible without playing more of it than we do (and, perhaps, the return of our great commanders of yore.) We pwnt HA when we were playing it almost nightly with Bryce, and we were damned good at GvG when we played it regularly with a core team under Malae.

It's quite obvious that what we're doing right now isn't working. We've tried some reasonably solid builds with no success, so I don't think it's just a matter of my own pride to say that the builds aren't the sole contributor.

With build eliminated as a possibility, there are two basic things that could fail us in the "skill" department: Teamwork and Leadership. (Commander-ish leadership, not Triia-ish leadership We love you, Triia!)

Teamwork comes only, in my opinion, through playing with the same people regularly. This means we'd need not only to play more than we do (something we haven't really been able to manage,) as well as with the same core team. No, we don't have to play with the same eight people every single night, but having at least six regulars would be nice. This part shouldn't be too bad, since we have about that many people usually interested between us and XXX.

Leadership is still in question. Lia and I are the main PvP leaders, it seems... and no offense, Lia, but neither of us have really proven ourselves, yet. Yes, we've led GvG/HA fights where we won, but not very consistently. HLR owned with The One That Actually Worked MACHINE, but that build pretty much ran itself.

So, until Malae comes back and we all win the lottery so no one has to work or go outside anymore, the other option is on the table...

Losing in PvP is frustrating for most of you, it seems. I'm still not too bothered by it, but that probably won't last forever. It would seem that winning in PvP would require The Return of the Canadian/more playing time/both... so we could, as bad as it sounds, stop trying.

Yes, we'd be admitting defeat and living in shame forever, but we'd at least stop losing PvP fights

Could the HLR live a life of PvE? Gathering armours... titles... showing Urgoz what for...


What say ye'?


P.S.: I finally eliminated the Censorship thing on this forum. Now we can swear all we want!

[Jupiter]

Well, I do agree that our current activity level doesn't seem to be getting us where we want to be.
I like to have obtainable goals and at least with PVE, I have that regardless of who logs in. I love the glory days of PVP and suspect that they'll be back, at least in GW2 (I can hope can't I?) but it seems we are stretching ourselves too thin trying to do too many things (and not excelling at...well anything lately).

Where are we, as a group, going to have the most fun? If it's not fun for us we'll not make as much, let alone more, time for GW and that will spell the end for us.

Me, I have fun in PVE and PVP and enjoy the mix but have not been enjoying the lack of progress in both lately so I'm ok with shifting focus for a bit either way.

And this may be too little too late, but I do wish to be a team player so if needed, I will try my hand at field commander. I would have to overcome the whole beginner phase in order to determine if it could help, but I'd do anything (in game ) for HLR.

[Kaiser]

I for one do not want to give up on PvP. If the guild wants to give it up, then so be it. I will look for PUGs to get my PvP fix. It will be difficult to get my GvG needs covered, but I'll manage somehow.

When I joined the guild I joined for the opportunity to GvG and HA. I was pretty happy with the amount of PvE I could do on my own, or in my original 5-member guild. We have pretty much returned to a 5-member guild as it is (Triia, Khunlin, Jupiter, Mura, and me), so I'm happy in the PvE arena. Yes it would be fun to do Grand Adventures or elite missions, but we just don't have the people for it. Grand Adventures aren't quite so Grand when half of the team is AI.

That said, I don't want to give up on the guild. I will still be around most nights, and longer on the weekends (Thurs-Sat). If there's something someone wants to do, look me up.

[mura]

I have no problem with regular PvP personally, but I've noted that my schedule is rather poor for the majority as, well, I work late. Were the guild interested in a regular direction, I'd offer my services as I am able.

However, I'm generally a PvE player by all standards so I don't know if it'll even be much of an offer. I'm an armor and green whore as of late as I've taken to my practice of treating each of my characters as, well, written subjects in which I continue to write out their story. I never personally shared their backstories as well, I haven't seen any indication of the other members having such for their characters.

So my goals involve a few greens, the almighty ele fissure, and other norn armors and perhaps sunspear 15k for my necro as well.

It's really not that much so I could aid in the PvP fix if needed.

[Khunlin]

I prefer PvP, myself... losing in PvP is about on par with PvE in my book.

Jupiter: You're officially stuck as field commander from here on out.
(Is he joking?)

Kaiser: I'll come along with you whenever you're PUGging it! Hopefully XXX will kick up the GvG again soon, and we can run off with them

Mura: I see you're already taking advantage of the censor-free environment! Good man! Also, I may have to drag you along to grab some greenies... we may speak of this later.


But... on the Grand Adventures note... I've only got a handful of dungeons left in my Hard Mode book, and I'm closing in on the tough/impossible ones... I'd imagine Slaver's Exile is gonna be fun fun fun fun fun!

I'm officially going to look for help on these ones, although as a result of my lack of creativity when it comes to builds and all around self-centredness, I may or may not have to restrict you to certain characters

Does anyone love me enough to help, even if they don't get all of the progress on one character? (I promise to return the favour)

[Jupiter]

Are you joking?
If not...*rubs hands with an evil grin*...I think there's planning in order.
And count me in for the PUGing too!
I'll help with the dungeons on any character even if it will cause grumbling, I promise not to do it over vent

[Triia]

I know I've been absent a lot lately. I just don't feel the pull as much as I used to... in fact, the only thing that usually makes me want to get on is chatting with you guys (and I need to be online earlier to do that, I know ). I've been feeling extremely disillusioned with PvP lately, but maybe that's the losing streak. I really enjoyed it back in the Golden Age.

I want to join in on stuff, whether it's PvP or PvE. I just like hanging out with you folks. There hasn't been much/any planning on the forum lately (I haven't had anything I've been motivated enough to do), but if there's something going on, I'll certainly make an effort to come along.

My goodness, I sound apathetic...

I'm wondering if getting some of the XXX members on here might encourage a little activity. Are they at all interested, Lia?

[mura]

Yes, well, I'm not one for censorship.

As for greens, well, I can help as needed.

Dungeon-wise, I've been up for most as of late. A hard mode dungeon beyond Murakai's would be nice as well.

[Liadan]

I'll be honest - GW PvE is fun once in a while, but about the only thing I really enjoy doing at this point is PvP (read: GvG). I don't care whether we lose or not, provided we at least put up a good fight and I learned something from it.

XXX has been having problems GvGing lately, what with half of our members out on vacation. My own need for PvP's gotten to the point that I've returned to playing Warcraft III nightly, but this is really something of a temporary solution. Mystique and I have been discussing our own lack of PvP as well, and have come to the conclusion that for us, GW just isn't that fun anymore without HA or GvG, preferably the latter. To this end, we've been thinking about recruiting, but I really don't think that'll work out...

She also suggested merging as one guild, but I don't think that'd really work, to be honest. The XXX guild chat is... kinda' noisy nightly. I do, however, think that the "idea" of merging into one guild (with two separate guild halls/chats) might work - if instead of considering "XXX" or "HLR" members as guests, we were just one guild. (Just throwing out ideas.)

And Khunlin, I'm not really offended at all. However - you might remember my friend Lain; he's given me a couple lessons in front-lining lately. While he can be... hmmm... something of a jerk at times, he's also a brilliant caller, so I'm hoping that he'll teach me that as well sometime. >.>

And Triia, I'll yell at them to join eventually. It's just kinda' been a "Oh, winter break... let's stay up and talk until 4:00 AM and repeat this every day..." mood. xD

[Khunlin]

I, personally, didn't think of the XXX guys as "guests" in that sense. When you're guesting the same people in the same positions pretty much every GvG, that's not really guesting

But yeah, I think XXX and HLR could come closer together... part of which would be getting you guys on our forums

[Liadan]

Okay, okay, I'll do that. D: Starting with the girls, anyway... I'll get around to the boys later. D:

[Jupiter]

So, this died out rather quickly, of course come to think of it the whole forum did. WAKE UP PEOPLE! Grab some Diet Pepsi Max, slam your head around and lets do something.
Seriously though, if both guilds (Norm counts as part of HLR!) have half teams and we know 2 halves make a whole then perhaps that is one solution. Wasn't there talk of this previously?

[Khunlin]

The rough-draft plan involved creating a "core" GvG team between our two guilds. We'd do away with the concept of "Guildies first", and priority would be given to the people on that list. We would probably end up having two core teams... one for weekdays (probably mostly XXX) and one for weekends (more of a balance).

Whose hall we GvG in would depend not on which guild "is GvG'ing", but on which hall we want to GvG in at the time!

The glaring issue with this idea... it's bad for everyone not on the list. We have about nine "reliable" players on weekends, between the two guilds... "reliable" meaning those who are pretty much always there and in the mood for some PvP.

Of course, we could slightly modify the "core team" idea, rotating out monks (there are three of us who prefer monking over other things) or something to try to include the extra core player(s).

[Liadan]

You screwed up weekends and weekdays, Khunnie. >.> We're weekdays, and balanced is weekends.

As for halls, I was originally going to switch us back to Burning so that we could both 8v8 and split. However... the problem with THAT is that ANet decided to, well, nerf 8v8. So we'll stick it out with Uncharted for now.

As for the "core" roster, I'm going to provide a basic rundown of XXX guildies and their likely schedules and positions they can play, and Khunlin could perhaps edit my post to add HLR members...

Lia: I'm available just about every day. Can play frontline, midline positions; better off at flagstand than at gank.
Kiwi: Is also available just about every day. Can play frontline, midline positions (except mesmer), provided that we know what build he's to play and give us some time in advance to run him through the build. The one problem is that he's currently only Prophecies-only, but we're working on that.
Myst: Used to be available every day, but is thinking about starting another after-school sport activity, so I'm assuming that I'll get an update from her in the next few weeks. Has no GWEN, but otherwise can play midline on ele, mesmer, necro, ranger. I'd hesitate to put her on Rit, as I'm not sure how much experience she has there.
Spike: Seems to be available every day. Because he has no Vent, he's more or less limited to the positions of flagrunner, non-communicative midliners (necro hexers, etc.) and ganking. However, he's actually pretty good at it without a mic, so we should be all right there.
Nick: Seems to be available most days, and I'll try to get in touch with him later. Can play frontline, backline, runner.
Trip: Seems to be available most days, but it's often a bit late by Eastie time, especially on weekends.
Katie: Apparently she works most days, although she did tell me that her schedule might change soon. On days that she can't GvG, I'm planning to ask if Kiwi can borrow her account, so that he's not limited to playing Evis-shock wars.
Warfox: He's a member we picked up a couple days ago in Dragon Arena... he seems to have the solid basics down, but I don't think he has much organized PvP experience. I'm planing on testing him via AB over the next few days on frontline (apparently his preferred position), and hopefully we can try and get some HA in so that we can see what he needs to work on.
Shika: A friend of an ex-guildie, he's asked to GvG, but I haven't seen him online in a week, so...

KHUNLINADDITION!
HLR:
Khunlin: Available any time. Monks ftw (most comfortable on WoH, but I prefer prot, if that makes sense)... can frontline with moderate competence, can play just about anything else (except maybe Mesmer)

KAISERWUZHERE!
Kaiser: Available any reasonable time...which means when I'm on (6-8pm CST M&Th, 6pm-?am CST F&S). Midliner, mostly. I can run any caster position, though I haven't done much PvP monking. I can Ranger or Paragon as well. I can run a flag with a modicum of skill, though I get bored with it pretty quick. In melee, I prefer 'sins and dervs over warriors. I dunno why.
Jupiter: Available same as Kaiser, only with the addition of Tuesdays. Midline/backline specialist. Good with interrupts...usually. Plays a mean Prot monk. Air element snob. Prefers rangers and monks.

The other issue I was a bit concerned about was builds. I think that we'd (probably Khunlin and I) have to coordinate builds between us for weekends/weekdays so that people who ARE playing all have a position they're comfortable on, and that we have a build that everyone has no glaring issues with.

[Khunlin]

I added myself, the others can add themselves. We need moar dedicated Warriors, IMO.