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There is one thing in this thread that is total BS. It's this:
>.Before Determination/IP/Purge were set to lower costs (well into MW's RR9), PBAE KoS groups had 100% EZ mode.
Complain all you want about the current state of melee in the game, but PBAE had just as easy a time before RA's, SC, Resist Buffs and End Regen. <<
Those abilities were there. The RA's weren't cheap, but mistwraith wasn't rr9 when those changes were made. End regen had been in all the realms a LONG time before anybody started making use of them.
The truth of the matter is that nobody figured out how to use these abilities till someone showed them they had them and they were good...
...that group was LA.
As for the 'pbae gank groups' of mistwraith...
...I was a regular member of those groups. Now, I wasn't the mainstay that mist, isis and shae were, but I ran with them enough to know what went down, and what i brought to the group.
Most of the time, mist would debuff and nuke. Shae assisted him. This resulted in many people dieing in one nuke from each. Isis covered mist with pbae, and would often debuff cold for me. I would debuff energy on anybody that got near mist or isis, resulting in capped pbae every cast. God help the soul if they mist/isis critted.
I stood back and nearsighted casters and healers. I would stun and nuke anybody that got on my healers. Shae would cover some defense as well. Isis was the queen bee of defense, though, as that was her main thing -- and she did it/does it better than anybody I have ever played with.
Sometimes there were tanks there. Sometimes there were rangers in the group (grz, for example, ran with the gank group alot). Many times a tank would be mist's guard-bitch. Vladamire did this, often. I was a member of that group not only on eld but on bard, in the later stages. I didn't even have insta mez, as I was b/w lvl 43 and 47 during these stages, and I ended up with only 44 in music at 50. I didn't need insta mez. This was the days that albs literally did nothing but sit at amg in a clusterfhuk and let me us mez them.
Tower camping happened a bit, but most often as a result of 4-5 group zerg, or our group not having a bard. No speed, no cc -- can't do open field.
v23 did pbae quite well. I will say now that nobody has caused the mass destruction they have. LA would do things near their level and survive, but v23 is legendary in some of their suicide bombs.
LA showed everybody how to play a tank group in a caster-dominated era. Funny, garretjax makes a post about tanks being useless and then one month later LA shows up and the game is changed. The abilities were there long b4 LA showed up.
LA wasn't invincible...I beat them once with an all caster group, and I know mirage did many times. We did it in a defensive stack, and when they would back off the pbae stack, we would debuff/nuke to own them. This was the foundation of my RHE groups when I rebuilt, which we executed quite well, though we never had enough for a full guild group. We always had one or 2 other players from other guilds.
Sc comes out during this, giving everyone who can log onto the game and kill npc's free access to capping their stats. This brough a lot of balance to the game as far as casual game/power gamer. No longer would assassins be unable to compete with the stat-and-buff god Gannondorf. Now they had access to the same things he did, only they didn't have to work near as hard at getting them.
The thing was that when SC came out, the resists skyrocketed. It was basically a 25% damage reduction in RvR. Add resist buffs and ra's to that and you have it in the extreme.
Sometime during this process, it became thought that casters couldn't do well in RvR. This was wrong. Casters just had to work together. Debuffing and /assist nuking is as powerful now as it was in may of 2002. The problem is that in may of 2002, you could mez enemy tanks.
Now you can't.
So that brings us to modern day. The supreme gank group is Release. KoS and TK are both large guilds who's groups vary quite a bit. To say that release is >>>>>>>> than them is comparing apples to oranges. Sure, if KoS or TK runs the same 8 people playing the same 8 classes every day for 2 months against Release, you will see a lot of 50/50 battles. But neither do. I believe TK runs more consistent groups than we do, but I could be wrong in that.
AS for xearoii never beating release? I can remember one time very clearly where we completely owned release with him in the group. He was, in fact, the only hero. Actually, he was the only person with determination in the group. The rest of the group was gannondorf on nightshade, aeneasx on ranger, melkorai on eld, drayquan on eld, me on bard, solamnia on druid and solen on her warden. I remember this group especially b/c with the resist buffs I had 59-51-51-59-64-59 on my bard. In this battle, we didn't have even one death. We didn't get mezzed or stunned. I landed a great mez on the healers. Gannon took one out by himself, aen another. They converged on teh shaman and he dropped. This was before end regen and zerker nerf. The tanks came after me and i ran straight to melk and dray, who proceeded to drop the tanks in about 10 seconds. It was flawless execution of the stack that Mirage had developed against LA so many months before. And it was never planned.
I remember this battle in such detail b/c it is the only time I can ever remember a perfect execution of the best way to beat release -- and we did not have a standard group make-up. This was not a 10am, pick-up/release group, either. This was a pure release group. I can't name the entire group, but I know it was 3 zerks (nad, stormur and baba, i believe), skald was amazed. There was a savage, but i can't remember if it was gasping or sicminded. Hare was still v23 at this time, i think...or might have been tenrec htere...one v23 healer was there in v23 cloak...
...anyway. We beat the top gank group at the time with a sub-standard group, with no ra's up, because of skill and executing the proper 'tactics'. The main reason I remember this was drayquan saying afterward, "I guess skill is greater than class selection, sometimes. Who would think a ranger and a nightshade in group would do so well?"
We took out group after group with that set-up. Only time we lost was when I botched a mez, which tends to happen from time-to-time. I'm not the best mezzer, but I can land good ones when they count.
God, how many mroe subjects? Tanks...warriors are great. Armsmen are great. Heroes are great. There is no pure tank right now that isn't great. Any class with determination is wonderful in an RvR group if the player is smart. I've said it before and I'll say it again -- determination is the single most powerful ability in the game right now.
Hib tank groups? Yeah, hib tanks are pretty good. Problem is that you have to devote a spot in group to duplicate a bard in order to guarantee end off. Endurance song is the biggest load of bs I've encountered. Anything cast on you, even a pve tool used to pull enemies, and you are interrupted for that song, as well as the next 3-5 seconds. Hib tanks without end will not out perform mid tanks or alb tanks with end. If everyone had guaranteed access to end at the beginning, things are different. There is no reason to get a 2nd bard other than speed 6/guaranteed end song at beginning of fight. 2 bards hurt mezzing, as the bard's strength in mezzing is amnesia. 2 bards amnesiaing means broke mezzes half the time. One high regrowth? Why bother? Get a druid or a warden with better utilities. 2nd bard for a 2nd melodies? 2nd GP, thanks. Just retarded.
Hib tank groups are good if you have that 2nd bard (wasted group slot) or you ahve a bard that will get end off immediately 100% of the time while still being able to mez without instas.
Even with the game in it's current state, I prefer balanced groups. Pure tank group is great for 8v8. Busting a zerg, however...there is no better way than a couple of casters mocing ae dd spells (pbae or otherwise) to clear out masses of enemies at once. If druid moc's with them it's the trump card. It's the balancing factor. Exert from group chat one night:
[Party] Mistshot: Why didn't you pbae that?
[Party] Ashmir: I did, but I don't think Opel followed me.
[Party] Opel: There were too many.
[Party] Mistshot: The best time to do it is when there are too many.
[Party] Mistshot: You have nothing to lose and everything to gain.
When against a huge zerg, it's hard for hib tanks to take out people in the matter of seconds that mid tanks can. Why? End song. Against a zerg it will probably be the latter half of the battle that end song is up. So, how do u wipe out the zerg? Throw some casters in there.
This was why the KoS morning group that TK likes to bash so much was so successful. We played against a consistent zerg. SAKURA + FotA + pick-up group every morning. 75% of those players rr5 or higher. I am not exaggerating. They used bait and flank tactics. They used constant spamming of ae CC to interrupt tactics. It was a tactical zerg of players who had high enough RR to have ra's. And we consistently tore them apart.
Why?
Mistwraith and Melkorai. Some mornings add Drayquan to that. The two of them would take out a large amount of the force early...or sometimes even mid battle. Skeltah had a lot to do with it as he would slam like nobody has ever slammed b4. Tahqa and Excelzior would be raping healers. I did my best to make sure they had end and everyone had mez cured, but gd spam ae root would pretty much mess up my CC other than amnesiaing.
That balanced group is so much greater than any tank group I could put together now or any caster group I could put together back then. Why? Because of the nature of the game. What is the nature of hte game? Change. Things will get nerfed. Other things will get boosted. An all caster gank group right now has a small chance of surviving much less dominating. Tank groups in the future may share similar problems. Balanced groups, aka no gimmicks, will recieve boosts and nerfs alike, but one will often be balanced out by the other.
So, it becomes an issue of this: Balanced (slow and steady wins the race) or Flavor of the Month (the rabbit that loses)? Nothing is wrong with either. Release gets ungodly gobs or RP's. Truth is that they are pretty good players and will do well no matter what they run. But they will continue to do the FotM stuff and stay with the times...
...while KoS will still be here doing what it's always done.
ding 200 million rp's, btw.
<KoS Forever>
Oh, btw, TK. I respect the hell out of you as a formidable opponent. However, if you want to talk smack about a gank group that happened over 2 months ago, keep it up. Here's the deal:
You could not nor cannot run over 2-3 full groups of rr5-7 hibs or albs. You are very, very good at 8v8, but I don't think you will ever successfully demolish zergs of high rr players like we did. That leads me to my second point:
If you want it, you gotta come to us. You have in no way proven yourselves enough for us to make a gank group just to beat you. You have not earned that right. Nobody has. Ever. We will not build a group and come play with you when you demand it. Who is the #1 guild in daoc? That's what I thought. If you want to prove something, bring it to us next time. We have nothing to prove.
I don't know when or if we'll even run a gank group like we did again...if we do, it's up to you to come stop us. Release + LA groups couldn't. I think you guys are better in 8v8 than release, personally, but not LA. I'd love to fight it. I had a blast the other day when we actually got some honest-to-God 8v8 with you. I was on a friend's hero (hidra, rr4 with epic armor still haha) but it was some great battles...all won by us. Unless you count that time by amg when the zerg hit us and u guys joined in on the fray? I don't think you will.
I'm not being cocky or arrogant or whatever. I'm being truthful. We have nothing to prove to you. If you want to keep talking, do so. But you are the only ones with anything to prove. To us or yourselves? That is the only question.
Ok, I think I successfully covered all topics within this thread. Took me 45 minutes to read it and another 35 minutes to type my response. GG /nerf VN.
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and we did win 8v8 vs their " high rank group " even with them GPing.... and to make the note GP for hibs is based upon the fact that mids get free speed 6 and albs get 1875 range... GP is only a counter to having the worst CC, worst end class word speed class in the game.... and if GP isnt up in a caster group your 100% dead..... I also wanna point out certain cough alb grups only win 8v8 with SOS.... its the most powerful offensive RA making you basically in my mind invincible to C... most tanks have det 4,aom2, resist buffs... add group mez reduction shield and SOS to that a tank is invincible to CC with SOS up.... What malev said hib is great yet it is but it requires more than 1 bard being speed 6 is essential for a gank group now days.... and it requires GOOD bards.... on hib lance u spend 10 hours looking for a bard and when u get one they usually arnt very good... mists pbae groups were definately NOT NEARLY as overpowered as the mid meele groups ( any meele group ) now days.... I remember as I say beating mist group the full setup with shae,nimm,isis,mist etc..... 8v8 with a TCO group and I was just barely rr5 at the time.... still learning the game basically I knew my char but not the details of the game 
