League Weeks 4 & 5

After five weeks of play, standings have become a choke point toward the top, with scant room for error as lower-seeded teams are a mere 6-8 points away from claiming first place. 

League Week 4:

This week's tilts included a a 2-1 match advantage for Arts & Crafts over Easy Kills. While we did fairly well on the first few maps, our team lost momentum on the wide open Graveyard map and our Dominator was persistently targeted by the other team. As a result, our offense suffered slightly and we gave up a 0-5 win to Easy Kills. Well played on their part as they brought a Stalker to provide an extra damage boost; Stalker epics, especially "Sharks", do a tremendous amount of damage thanks to the new damage per activation ruleset.

In other matches, Exile overcame 0utcazt 7-5, 4-0 and 1-2, Broken Chains won 3-0, 1-0 and got a 0-0 draw while dUmb's match vs. Single Target Assassins went from a 9-8 shooting gallery to a tightly contested 0-0 draw and a nailbiting 1-2 loss in Perez Park. The Perez match was a squeaker at all levels, as dUmb scored an early kill but STA clawed back and scored a mid-game and very late-game kill as well, snatching victory.

This week was a fairly quiet one from a meta standpoint, with no votes and little drama  expressed on anyone's part.

League Week 5:

This week will be more notable by the loss of (at least?) two ladder teams. 0utcazt, who have a great cadre of disruption and attack scenarios, bowed out after dissatisfaction with events during the fight nights and internal discussions as well. They'll be missed as they certainly have two of the most vibrant players on the server in ELF STALKER and Budweiser. We wish them well. For the record, their last matches were a 1-0 win and two 0-0 draws vs. Easy Kills.

dUmb won by forfeit over GDHRT, who also seem to be heading to better and bigger things.

Broken Chains, a team with a good amount of potential and some fun players, decided the League wasn't for them and have called it a day as well. Single Target Assassins defeated them 6-0 in Outbreak and then received two forfeits as well.

Arts & Crafts played decently against Exile but couldn't crack more than one win against them. A 1-2 loss in Atlas Park preceded a 2-0 win on the same map in match two. The third map (random) was Striga Isle; our team generally does quite well on open maps but we stumbled in this one, dropping a 0-4 decision to Exile, good job you guys!

In closing this week's column, we'd like to thank PerilX for all the PvP fun. From the early days of Test with HVND to the Freedom Ladder and even offering some great support and teaming in Arts & Crafts, Peril's one PvPer that doesn't take himself or the game too, too seriously. A vari-talented PvPer, he's as comfortable in a disruption role as he is healing or on offense. Outside of that, his ability to settle things down in our group was fantastic. Peril also put in yeoman's work in the PVPEC and by producing Glad Jav procs seemingly out of thin air, much to our appreciation.

Hard to follow all that action on a YouTube vid, but here's one of dUmb vs. U2BG (Used 2 Be Good) in the Freedom Ladder earlier in the year.

U2BG vs. dUmb, 7-7 tie.

GLHF Peril and everyone.

League Week 3

The League's third week has gone by without much of a hitch. There have been changes at the external level, however.

Matches have been good and incredibly close in some cases. 

Single Target Assassins faced Exile in a draw series, 0-0 in the first match on the Cargo Ship, 6-0 Single Target Assassins in Perez Park with the final match won by Exile 4-1 on Perez Park.

dUmb faced off against 0utcazt, winning the first game 3-2 while conceding the last two games 0-6 and 0-8. dUmb was missing two key members in Psoma and Mr. Liberty but did well for themselves in any case.

Arts & Crafts found its groove against Broken Chains, winning 8-0 on Outbreak, 2-0 in Perez Park and 4-0 in the Cargo Ship. Broken Chains brought an offensive line-up in the first match and a Tanker, Emp and Stalker in the last two matches, resulting in a lower kill count for their opponents.

GDHRT won two squeakers, 1-0 each and a 0-0 draw against Easy Kills.

Outside the game...

With the 4-2-2 point system official for last week's matches, strange things have happened in the standings. Arts & Crafts currently sits on top with a 5 Win, 4 Loss record while teams with better records are seeded much lower. This has led to more discussion on whether the standings should be retroactively set to the 4-2-2 point system or whether they should be listed by W-L-T records, or a new system altogether.

A vote was taken on the elimination of ties, which would have carried through a majority, but the League Manager chose to leave the scoring and victory system in its current state, resulting in four points for a win and two for a loss or tie. There have been a lot of votes going on lately, leading @Criticalkat to impose a moratorium on voting unless a captain has at least two supporting team leaders. Currently, dead issues include team make-ups, scoring changes and map selections. Teams had been very reactive and forwarded votes to @Criticalkat without consultation to all captains, or simply as an impulse from reaction to standings or matches. This led to a theatre of the absurd where votes were taken on issues that weren't discussed on the forums while being discussed on Ventrilo servers. In the end, the vote moratorium may finally settle the league into a steady stream of fights and results. As fellow gamer Pixel pointed out on the forums, there are still over 100 points to be had, so even current favourites should see some change in their current position.

Good luck to everyone in this week's battles!

League Week 2

The ladder's second week has come and gone, and with it a slew of votes concerning play formats.

If team captains are unhappy with certain items in the league, they can propose a captain's vote to the PvPEC representative (Criticalkat), who will them submit the proposal to each captain for a secret ballot, majority making the motion pass.

Last week's issues involved map selections and the amount of healers each team can carry.

The first vote, on map selections, eliminated Monkey Cage (a small, wire-enclosed area with a series of ramps and narrow floors surrounding it), Troll Caves (low-ceiling tunnels), Office (wide lower area with a tiered second area dominated by an enclosed room with staircases leading there) and Eden (extremely large map with many peaks and valleys and a few map holes). The maps could have been used in an egregious manner by spawn camping, loading in with several Masterminds (a pet class that summons tiered minions; the Thugs one also summons a multitude of lower-power minions for a short period, to confuse targeting) or simply by being too close to each other's spawn points for comfortable play.

Eden is simply too wide for 3 v 3 play, making the decision an easy one.

Healers have become a contentious issue for several reasons. The current Arena settings eliminating Heal Decay (heals are always delivered at full strength) and the innate damage resistance characters are granted make defeating characters an arduous task. Thus, teams bring attack sets which reduce resistance, such as Sonic Blast and other tools as well. Concern had arisen that teams could simply load multiple healers and play for draws, thus hindering advancement for other teams in the standings. 

Which leads us to the meta aspects of the current ladder...

The new point system awards 4 points for a win or 2 for loss or tie. With most teams being four to five points from each other, squads may find themselves playing Kingmaker down the road, as was the case in the Freedom ladder which ended a short while ago. Essentially, playing for a tie might give the opponents six less points in the standings, while limiting your own squad to a similar amount. However, if you are running interference or are out of the top seed picture, such shenanigans, while unlikely, are indeed possible.

The voting aspect is another good idea which is rife with potential for abuse. Because of its hidden aspect and necessary approval from the PvPEC rep, the league could potentially get bogged down in votes on all sorts of topics. Criticalkat having final say on the matter does limit this to a greater degree though. This party does expect votes to be used in a political fashion once the standings become clearer.

Onto the matches...

Matches were indeed played last Saturday! Our own squad had some close games against GDHRT, including a 2-1 squeaker on Graveyard and a great turnaround win by GDHRT on cargo ship. Their squad featured an Electric Blast/Kinetics Corruptor, Dominator and a Sonic/Pain Corruptor. The Kin was especially valuable as a slower set-up ally, draining a target of endurance, thus making them a sitting duck for the rest of the team.

0utcazt and Single Target Assassins played to a three-game draw, with 0utcazt playing a fairly defensive position with two Thermal Radiation and an Empathy in two matches, switching out the Empathy for a Blaster in the last match. All scores ended up 0-0, not granting many openings for kills with the supercharged healing and buffs flying around.

dUmb and Exile had some enthralling matches, with Exile taking the first match by a 3-1 win, dUmb recovering with a 5-4 win and finally closing the door with a 10-2 victory in the Troll Caves. dUmb is playing an especially attractive hybrid lineup with several Sonic Blast Corruptors mixing in Thermal Radiation, Pain Domination and Cold Domination, severe debuffs making their targets extremely vulnerable for a short period. Exile were last seen bringing a mix of Thermal Radiation and Empathy buffs.

The last match proved to be quieter, becoming a duel between a Spines Scrapper and Thermal Corruptor as the teams seemed to have some difficulties.

The League continues unabated this Saturday. While it might be easy to pick dUmb, Exile or Single Target Assassins as front runners at this point, regardless of standings, that would be a fool's bet. As pointed out last night in game, each team has the talent and ability to win at least two out of three matches. Thus, momentum and points gained early on are paramount to get a cushion for later on in the season, where your team might hit a speed bump or two for various reasons.

Best of luck to everyone this weekend!

Welcome to the Champion Ladder!

The City of Heroes Champion 3 v 3 Ladder kicked off with a bang this weekend. The Ladder is being generously run by @Criticalkat and the PvPEC, thanks for their time and efforts!

Eight teams have registered, each offering various degrees of talent from various servers including Champion, Infinity, Freedom and even current Test Ladder teams.

The format is 3 v 3, with teams able to go up to 5 v 5 as necessary. 

Matches are played in the Pocket D arena of Champion server, at 10 p.m. Eastern on Saturdays.

Among the notables participating are Champion's own Budweiser, Elf Stalker, Alpha-Zulu, War Scribe, Mebs, Artic, Cam, Shinobi, Xionian, Hinden, Force (among others) and a smattering of Test PvPers including members of the dUmb team, Psyrene, Peril X, Exit and PhillyGirl.

Matches featured a variety of ATs, with teams favouring Thermal Corruptors or Controllers along with Psy Blasters or Dominators and Stalkers.

While some matches had wide margins of victory, others were incredibly close and involved.

The final match between Single Target Assassins and GDHRT was 0-0 until the very last few minutes. 

Played on the Troll Caves (picture a series of interconnected tunnels with an extremely low ceiling), GDHRT's team of 3 Stalkers fell by the barest of margins, a 1-0 score that surely deserved to have been a tie.

With teams receiving 3 points per match win and 2 per match loss, there is a logjam at the top and bottom of the ladder. This will change as team fortunes wax and wane and strategies adjust to counter or overwhelm existing line-ups.

See you in-game, good luck next week!