THETA and META

[Fallenkezef]

In webspeak META means "most effective tactics", this is not actualy true. It should be THETA "the easiest tactics".

Recent posts about classes and roles have made me think about this point. Current "competitive" setups are formulaic constructs to take on other formulaic constructs. It's easy, tried and tested and works.

In the 1930's naval fleets where built around the Battleship with carriers in a secondary, supporting role.
Untill the Japanese formed a carrier-only strike force and changed naval warfare forever.

The Bitterstone Thunderers rather ignore META with thier Dwarf only gunline/shieldwall and they are no worse off for it.

The point I am trying to make is people should be encouraged to think beyond "THETA" formulas.

[Theseus]

While you are right, with your point, I think theta and meta is the same thing. easiest and most effective is the same in my count, as effective here is the best sucess to failure rating. So the easiest and most failprove tactic is also the most effective as most people can implement it. It might be a bit sad from a elitist point of view, but in an rather casual RvR environment, the tactics you can implement with the most people, are the most effective and those are also the easiest.

[Egoish]

I was always of the understanding that meta referred to the metagame, which would be the way that a thing reacts to the various influences upon the game state.

For example mara/sh are meta classes as far as destro wbing goes as they offer the best morales and utility for large scale combat while bo/chosen are meta classes due to renown building tactics.

This has stemmed from changes in RoR for both morale gain and defensive changes edging sorcs out of bombing roles.

While i will give the Thunderers my utmost respect for their attitude and ability their warband would be much stronger for the inclusion of other meta classes, it is more an indication of the generally pug based nature of the server that you don't need an elite setup to function.

If every destro wb was made up of totally meta builds, no one ran 6 man and everyone used comms life would be a lot harder. I'm glad that we don't all do that, however coordinated morale drops, extending/kiting and working together properly are not the easiest tactics or everyone would be doing it already.

The easiest tactic is bring a bigger zerg or switch sides if it's going badly which i don't think we want to promote.

That's also not to say that a wb made up entirely of 2h bgs, we's, magi and shams couldn't do well but why would you run that with an organised group of people if your opponents are running meta builds which entirely melt you.

[peterthepan3]

Ultimately it boils down to two things:

1) wanna have fun and beat most people ? Play whatever comp you want
2) wanna beat everyone? Run optimal setups

Fortunately/unfortunately (you decide), most opt for 1.

[Fallenkezef]

Ultimately it boils down to two things:

1) wanna have fun and beat most people ? Play whatever comp you want
2) wanna beat everyone? Run optimal setups

Fortunately/unfortunately (you decide), most opt for 1.

I quite like odd and quirky set ups. My old luve guild ran WH "spec ops" teams alongside the main warband

[peterthepan3]

Ultimately it boils down to two things:

1) wanna have fun and beat most people ? Play whatever comp you want
2) wanna beat everyone? Run optimal setups

Fortunately/unfortunately (you decide), most opt for 1.

I quite like odd and quirky set ups. My old luve guild ran WH "spec ops" teams alongside the main warband

As do I. It's fun to break away from the monotonous stuff. We used to do a lot of DPS WP/WL group comps, for example.

[Fallenkezef]

Ultimately it boils down to two things:

1) wanna have fun and beat most people ? Play whatever comp you want
2) wanna beat everyone? Run optimal setups

Fortunately/unfortunately (you decide), most opt for 1.

I quite like odd and quirky set ups. My old luve guild ran WH "spec ops" teams alongside the main warband

As do I. It's fun to break away from the monotonous stuff. We used to do a lot of DPS WP/WL group comps, for example.

On our old live server there was an slt guild "Adepta Sororitas" all where femme WP's in dps spec, they would do events every month. Scarily effective as I recall

[footpatrol2]

I play skew and bitterstone also plays skew.
Every group comp I write about has distinct weaknesses in it but has very strong strengths also. The group comps have the potential to beat 80% to 90% of the group comps out there. The comps have weaknesses thou and if you run into the counter set up your screwed. If your counter set up isn't meta then your good basically. I know the weaknesses I have and have plans against them to help mitigate but ultimately the counter is a uphill battle. The counter comp will have to be very well played to beat my skew. If it's not well played I'll still crush.

I played warhammer fantasy tabletop at the tournament level. There is two distinct approaches which is Utility belt approach and Skew.

Utility belt approach: Brings a tool for every situation. Your trying to defend against all your weaknesses while bringing enough pain to be a threat. Your universally good but not amazing at anything either. It is basically a all comers comp.
Example: Bringing two different types of healer's to cover cleansing everything that is thrown at you is a utility belt approach.

Skew: Be damned your weaknesses, what are your strengths? Exaggerate the hell out of your strengths and try to mitigate your weaknesses through smart play. The idea is your strengths are so overwhelming and difficult to deal with that they outshine your weaknesses. Usually skew also comes with a unconventional playstyle.

Utility belt comps expect similar utility belt comps and brings just enough to deal with every situation with the expectation that player's won't skew. Did the utility belt comp bring enough tools to deal with the skew or did they not bring enough? Does the utility belt comp even have a plan to deal with the skew? Skew is risky and not the safe choice.

Whats the better approach? They are both 100% valid and both have their strengths and weaknesses. Both have a place in this game.

Bitterstone is playing to their strengths. They are playing area denial with a heavy emphasis on engineers. If you notice they are probably not that good at chasing player's down. They can, but it is not their strength. They can dig into a location like no other. That has value in this game if you pick locations that are desirable... such as keep defense/BO... which dwarves should be good at... and that is represented in this game.

There were tools in this game that further increased that playstyle like 30 sec mountain spirit on the RP. Group Gromril Plating on the IB. If morale gain rates were correct Bitterstone could make use of the m4's which dwarves have the highest damaging morale bombs in the game per balanced group comp. Which mean's even if you killed half the dwarven warband they would still be deadly via morale bomb. Since m4's are not reached in a reasonable time frame that is not a option.

Bitterstone is doing what I used to do in AoR. I went greenskinz this time to keep things fresh.

[CegeePegee]

Ok so this is a topic near and dear to me. I pretty much only play in a 6man and we almost never run "optimal" comps. Part of the fun that we have is seeing how far we can push a comp that would be widely regarded as sub-optimal. And you know what? we have pretty good success. Imo, meta (or theta, for the purpose of this discussion) comps are boring, predictable. When you're predictable, the other side can more easily defeat you, given enough time and analysis and skill. If you're constantly switching it up and testing the boundaries of off-meta groups, you keep not only the enemy on its toes, you create a more interesting and dynamic play environment for yourself as well. What's that saying? If you're bored then you're boring :p To me,meta groups are boring to play in and boring to play against. Would love to see more experimentation out there with interesting and unexpected 6man setups.

[Glorian]

Heiho! Gotten already mentioned several times I would like to say something about the dwarf warband and the meta.

Overall the current RvR meta is imo getting fast to m2, drop it and then use your other AoE attacks to clean up the rest. So to run an optimal group currently you need moral pumps, enemy moral drainers and moral gear. So you don't need to wait 60 seconds till m2 but something like 18 secs.

In the Phalanx Video with their 16 tanks and 8 healers they had all that in the different destro tanks in.

On the dwarf warband we don't have pumps or drainers. And most of our dwarfs have no moral gear. Cause we do the warband twice a week. So we are most of the time in the cloth we have to fight 6vs6 or 1vs1.

So if we wanted to go the meta way we should need to get some AMs in and some Kotbs. Because IB buffs stacks horribly with pots, Runes or other things, and when you have made your five attacks with the IB the fight is usually just over.

But this is not our way. And for that decision we have lost players either due to getting whiped a lot on a bad RvR day or who just see that other 6men or 12men groups take the synergies of the different classes better into consideration.

And Footpatroll's conclusion is quite good. Although the skew build I see is named 'one trick pony' where I came from. You can find a niche and get really good in it. Play to your strength and then excel in it. For the dwarfs it is building a good armored low Dps warband that doesn't die to conventional damage.

For example if we meet a pug warband on the dwarf warband we usually destroy them easily. The warband is tough. We have voice coms and play it slowly. But against a coordinated moral drop from Tup or Phalanx we melt instantly as moral damage doesn't care for armor. And chasing shamans or a premade six man is out of question.

That doesn't mean that there is no room to improve. There are allways new builds an tactics to explore, even if you limit yourself to 4 careers out of 24. But if you run such a warband, Victory tastes double as sweet.