Semi Chronological List of PvP Trends-Homecoming

[vegetableknife]

Thought I would be fun to make a semi-chronological list of the pvp trends on Homecoming thus far, as well as reasons why they are popular and their originators to help out people who may be new to the scene.  This list is made up of stuff that may have originated in the zone, but was good/cool enough to be proliferated and used in organized 8v8 pvp!  Additionally, feel free to correct me or add your suggestions lol.

 

Homecoming Begins 2019:  The Ice/Plant Blasters

• Blaster: Ice Blast
  • Originators: Dan, Silit, Nojiyo, bp, Everyone who wanted to play blaster
  • Reason: A high amount of damage procs and be slotted, increasing damage by close to 150-300 points of extra damage, long cooldowns made sure these procs always fired and short, non-rooting animation allowed for a smooth attack chain.
• Blaster: Plant Manipulation
  • Originators: Dan, Silit, Nojiyo, bp, Everyone who wanted to play blaster
  • Reason: The Toxins power added extra damage to each attack fired (like +100 dmg), Strangler hits really hard and can be slotted for procs.

 

June-ish 2019: Psi Blaster Primary, Trick Arrow Secondary, Psionic Melee Stalkers

• Blaster: Psychic Blast
  • Originators: Can't remember the first psi blasters to pop up, I remember hp on Unrivaled though
  • Reason: Range, Will Domination hits really hard, delayed damage and you can time attacks to hit at the same time.
• Blaster: Trick Arrow
  • Originators: I think Silit had a Ice/TA, but I remember seeing a proliferation of Psi/TA blasters around this time. some gymnast!
  • Reason: TA has web arrow which can stop all vertical movement.  Additionally has some cool buffs with Gymnastics and Eagle Eye etc.
• Stalker: Psionic Melee
  • Originators: Void, Unholy, Gore, Me kinda I was at least at the first kickball lolol
  • Reason: Greater Psi Blade takes both Hold and Melee damage procs, allowing you to hit for over 1000 damage in a single hit sometimes.

 

July-August-ish 2019: Poisons, Beams, Martial Combat, Gravity

• Defender/Corruptor/Mastermind: Poison
  • Originators: Mez played a Poison MM I think, then Mallex made a post about it and played a /poison defender.
  • Reason:  Huge resistance debuff from Envenom, Weaken caused the Emps to heal for like 500 damage absorb pain lololol
• Blaster/Corruptor: Beam Rifle
  • Originators: I remember Mez running around in zones with one and being kinda laughed at but now there are a lot of beams with puns for names. Dan, Silit too! Naturalizer
  • Reason: Multiple beams can work together on a Disintegrated target, Lancer shot hits for a bunch and stuns.
• Blaster: Martial Combat
  • Originators: Me!!
  • Reasons: You teleport and look cool with your scythe circle aura.  Also it can give you a free heal+break free combo power.  But mostly to be stylish.
• Controller: Gravity
  • Originators: I honestly saw Epsylon with his Grav/TA in zones then saw it in 8v8's with PONED, Dan, on Empathys, Dexington, barrier
  • Reasons: Dimension Shift allows for a seconds phase that has some interesting interactions (e.g. you can still get nature buffs while in it).

 

September 2019: Nature (buff gathers) and Fire Blasters

• Defender/Corruptor: Nature Affinity
  • Originators:  Macskull, Vinnie, Void etc. saved it for this timepoint because its used as a mass buff gather now
  • Reasons:  Wild Bastion gives +Absorb shield to the team, Overgrowth is literally so ridiculous, basically a Build Up level team damage buff that lasts for a whole minute, with multiple natures you're almost at the damage cap.  
• Blaster/Corruptor: Fire Blast
  • Originators: I saw MJB with a fire blaster at one of the recent kickballs
  • Reasons: The snipe changes allows fire to have another hard hitting attack to fill out the attack chain, generally fast animating powers and dots.

 

October 2019: Forcefields and Rogue-ing

• Defender/Controller: Forcefield
  • Originators: Gravity Boots!
  • Reasons: You get a cage, a super annoying repel, and a surprising amount of people don't have enough knockback protection
• Anyone who does damage: Rogue-ing
  • Originators: Like, everyone
  • Reasons: While a clean spike can evaporate a target, putting damage on multiple people messes with emp healing and spike timing of the other team.  With enough offense, sometime 2-3 people will be dead at once!

 

November 2019: Earth/Fire Dominators and Storms?

• Dominator: Earth Control/Fiery Assault
  • Originators: No idea who was the first one but there's a consistent number at kickballs now. Meatloaf23
  • Reasons: Earth control has a high damage, relatively fast activation hold with fossilize.  Fiery assault is the damage secondary for dominators with a long lasting damage buff of Embrace of Fire and the usual fire attacks of Blaze and Blazing Bolt.
• Defender/Corruptor/Controller: Storm Summoning
  • Originators:  I remember someone running a Storm back over the summer.  But recently Justin has been griefing M3z with his grav/storm controller and its super funny to see him get mad on his stream (M3z Mad- "Gorillas" 3:20:40)
    and there's been at least 1 showing up to kickballs.
  • Reasons:  Hurricane -range.  Maybe O2 boost if you're paying attention to your team.

 

January 2020: Mystic Flight/Translocation and Hibernate

• Power Pool: Sorcery- Mystic Flight/Translocation
  • Originators: Xhiggy/Ravenfrost/Kenician etc.,basically a lot of healers.
  • Reasons: A two in one power that used as a survival strategy for healers in pvp.  Usually used to teleport straight up to distance yourself from the fight and get out of range of blasters after using a big heal like absorb/share pain.
• Epic Pool: Hibernate
  • Originators: Been around a while, then fell out of favor, and is now back.
  • Reasons: Was once thought to be a less useful version of phase shift due to lag time of damage and not being able to be healed when activated.  Now I guess more people are using it if they have high recharge stat so its up more than phase shift.

 

Always Fashionable: Empathy!

• Defender/Controller: Empathy
  • Originators: Xhiggy, yay Xhiggy! and Dan/Lib lol
  • Reasons: You heal people, be a bro, be empathy.

 

Currently not Trendy (sorry)

• Masterminds: You don't have a sugar daddy.
• Brutes/Scrapper/Tanker: Is not perfect, is not beautiful, does not look like Linda Evangelista

 

I'll try to update as more trends appear lol.

 

Edited January 19, 2020 by vegetableknife

[CR Banana Man]

Beam is pretty much lib/Dan Petro.

 

Grav has been a thing since live, and I know since day one on this server a few of  us had been pushing for people to play Grav/emp for the free phase. With spikes getting better/more organized/more optimal, more people are starting to favor it over the higher heal values of defenders. Grav/ta was a thing on live, too, dex and a few other people played them in like i15. 

 

Same thing with psi blast, old technology from live but with the instant snipe instead of psi dart. Damage resists aren’t really a big deal with it because of inherent PvP resist. It’s more about damage delay and range. 

 

In addition to void, Unholy and gore were among the first (and only) stalkers I saw at KBs. Just about everyone playing stalker concluded that they had a higher impact playing something else, so idk how much of a trend it really was. 

 

Doms are definitely still a thing, and I think they’ve been seeing more playtime lately. 

 

Nature was was one of those sets that was just blatantly really high impact. Lib and I were basically begging people to roll them since day one, vinnie did the legwork, and was probably the first to be really prominent on it, but void and macskull were also the first I remember bringing them to kbs, and captains who knew what they were doing valued nature picks pretty highly. We knew gathers were the way to go, but it’s only been recently that people are doing them, and I think that’s because it’s only been recently that organized teams have been practicing. 

 

 

Edited September 4, 2019 by CR Banana Man

[xhiggy]

I only follow the true father of beams, the Naturalizer

 

Thanks for putting together this list, Pale

[MJB]

good shit, i think natures coming into the fold started happening a long time ago but peeps only started gathering for the buffs recently so they are more obvious now

 

i think its a bit early to call fire blasters a trend lol 😛

 

no love for some gymnast and some vegetable 😞

[vegetableknife]

10 minutes ago, MJB said:

good shit, i think natures coming into the fold started happening a long time ago but peeps only started gathering for the buffs recently so they are more obvious now

 

i think its a bit early to call fire blasters a trend lol 😛

 

no love for some gymnast and some vegetable 😞

Lol I totally saw a Fire/Nature, Fire/Marital, Fire/Plant at one of the recent kickballs but saw you first!

[CR Banana Man]

Fire blast can definitely be a thing, it has been known. 

 

Also, nojiyo had a pretty significant impact on the ice/plant trend, too. He showed up to the first night of kbs and streamed playing one for the whole night. 

[MJB]

25 minutes ago, CR Banana Man said:

Also, nojiyo had a pretty significant impact on the ice/plant trend, too. He showed up to the first night of kbs and streamed playing one for the whole night. 

i think bp also destroying everyone with his ice/plant those first few kb's had an effect too

[Waypoint]

Praise be to Naturalizer, Bringer of Beams.

[Dan Petro]

Whoa whoa whoa, giving Xhiggy the shout out on emp? That man ran an ice/pain corruptor without power boost at the start while I was out there on an Emp/Water defender.  You, Me, The Arena Xhiggy, it is go time. Most heals wins. 

Edited September 4, 2019 by Dan Petro

[Banana Man]

Emp has always been a thing, originators for that would be like i4 players. 

[Glacier Peak]

Interesting read Vegetableknife. Are Widows and Banes worth mentioning? All that perception, makes stalkers run to break sight.  I stopped playing on live before they came out, so if they were or weren't popular or trending I wouldn't know. 

[macskull]

Don't really see them in KBs because you don't see Stalkers often. They're more common in zone though.

[vegetableknife]

5 hours ago, Glacier Peak said:

Interesting read Vegetableknife. Are Widows and Banes worth mentioning? All that perception, makes stalkers run to break sight.  I stopped playing on live before they came out, so if they were or weren't popular or trending I wouldn't know. 

Yeah I only saw M3z playing a Bane Spider and Shatter Armoring people in kickballs lol.  But like Mac said they're good for zone in hunting stalkers but there hasn't been a burst of VEAT's for 8v8 at all.

[barrier]

Pretty sure my grav/poison was the first grav to use Dim Shift in 8v8's... Not that it matters, but it was a definite response to getting my nether-regions probed deeply by Vinnie at Lib's request.

Edited September 5, 2019 by barrier

[Mallex]

I can give some background on what I've seen with /Martial Blasters.

 

Mazus Aquablade was the only one I saw using it in KBs, but due to not slotting it for range, not using a powexeclocation macro, and pairing it with the unconventional Water Blast, it didn't gain any attention. Most people saw /MA as a joke due to the lack of Build Up. I saw him teleport mid-spike and it caught my eye.

 

I played with the set on the test server and made a video showcasing the teleport with max range/powexeclocation macro, which I then posted to the Renegades discord. They immediately started PLing about 5-6 of them (before AT limit was agreed on).

 

A couple days later I saw Dan Petro using a Beam/MA in one of Poned's Siren's Call events. He was chasing people with it effectively.

 

Next day after that I saw ESP using a Psi/MA/KoB blaster in RV. His line of thinking was he could teleport to targets to KoB them.

 

Then my Psi/MA hit 50, and I started using it in Kickball as Red.X

 

 

It's been fun watching /Martial go from a joke set (which I excluded from my original RV tier list) to what I consider to be top 2, between teleport, breaking CC, a heal, +absorb and perma +40% dmg/+15% tohit.

[CR Banana Man]

Lib and I have talked about running martial for a while now, not just for the good tp, though. Set has a bunch of utility outside that, too. 

[vegetableknife]

Added October forcefield and rogue-ing.

[Glacier Peak]

1 hour ago, vegetableknife said:

Added October forcefield and rogue-ing.

The rouging(?) though presents a tough decision for the emps on the team. I was thinking during a kb match where this took place that if me and the other emp split up our heals/buffs top & bottom we could mitigate the confusion or uncertainty - however, this felt difficult with a pick up team. It wasn't until maybe 3 minutes in did we realize this was occurring, which put us at a disadvantage in the KD spread.

 

Edit: just noticed your mention about emps dealing with this in the OG post. I think it's a noteworthy addition to your list either way. 

Edited October 3, 2019 by Glacier Peak

[barrier]

September note: Lib was probs the first fire/plant blaster to play in kickballs (on Prestige), MJB was also one of the first on his fire/em ("do NOT total focus" -Vinnie).

 

Meanwhile, we were all busy trying to reinvent the wheel, playing nostalgia toons, or sticking to ice/plants (that early on).

Edited October 3, 2019 by barrier

[Dan Petro]

13 hours ago, vegetableknife said:

Added October forcefield and rogue-ing.

Just to put this out there with people doing rogue damage.

 

The idea of KB has traditionally had 3 facets to it.  1. Have fun.  2. Get to play with people you wouldn't normally play with (back when everyone had their own teams) and 3. A bit of a gateway to get people in PvP, help them to understand the fundamentals of team vs team pvp, and become better players.

 

The traditional offense of CoH PvP for the longest time has been spike damage, call a target, lock, spike, reset.  The stronger teams and players still follow this and generally have more success than those who don't.    In actual organized team settings it is super easy to punish this behavior (just have one of your blasters rogue the rogue blaster, cycle in a third support, run a disruption character that focuses effort on the rogue + does other disruption things, etc) but in KB with random teams it is bad behavior that just often goes unpunished because most of the time you are struggling to put an offense together period.  

 

I've heard people say "well it worked right?" and this is a pretty terrible argument.  Your rogue damage might have disrupted an emp and got your team a kill, getting them to heal the wrong target.  But to your offense, you are consistently a detriment to your team.  You are 1 less person on the target, you are disrupting your own target caller, and you are pulling yourself (and potentially your emps) out of position for whenever you get spiked because you are off chasing someone around a building.  When you win those matches where players rogue non stop, it isn't the rogue player doing it.  It is more than likely the spike offense being good enough without you because of the sometimes RNG nature of picking teams.  

 

Any idiot can put a target on follow and just keep throwing attacks.  Not everyone can lock and consistently be on targets.  Not everyone can position themselves so that they get maximum damage on the target when the spike is called.  If you want to do better, just get on target.  If you want to get picked less and less then keep rouging. 

[Phoenix']

On 9/4/2019 at 6:51 PM, vegetableknife said:

Lol I totally saw a Fire/Nature, Fire/Marital, Fire/Plant at one of the recent kickballs but saw you first!

If you talk about kickballs MJB was the first to bring a fire blaster after the snipe change.

I was the first Fire Blaster in a pvp zone and ppl called me weirdo for it. Don't take that away from me dear

[Necate]

What about sentinel ?

 

[MJB]

its rare to see more than 1 sentinel at kickballs these days... some teams have been experimenting with them in scrims but really its usually better to just play a blaster

[barrier]

Bizarre's Cthulu was the original KB sent. Everyone just pushed her to roll a blaster.

[MJB]

pretty sure hot dogger and some breh were at the very first kickball and several others after the fact

 

however, its hard to call it a trend where you often go weeks without seeing any sentinels, and other people not rolling sentinels to emulate (which imo is the definition of a trend)

Edited October 18, 2019 by MJB