To all the flames on primal datacenter...

[Streetmajor]

The ultros premades generally do pretty well though, just as far as winning goes it can backfire if the rest of the GC isn't backing them up. Once their battle highs/fevers get picked off due to group seperation, that's usually a loss.

In general I don't see too many different people in flames do call outs that often and I won't even bother speaking up unless someone is about to make a Hydaelyn awful call that'll get us slaughtered cause they don't pay attention to what's happening around them before making a call... Otherwise I just stay in the group and slip out while everyone dies.

BUT as for my favorite quote of the week from a former Mael member in Flames, "I see why I won all the time back on Mael. You guys basically let us win by going for Adders all the time."

[Februs]

The greatest strength of that method is also its weakness. I've encountered other teams who have tried that "all offensive" tactic and it is easy to out do. Since the main objective of the strategy is to get as many battle highs and battle fevers in the alliance as possible, it leaves their entire alliance visible on the map; one could easily see where the train of death is going. Alliances can can easily kite around the mob of battle highs and fevers, or simply avoid them. It is very similar to a strategies in wolves den where all offensive groups get kited around indefinitely. Any node they take will almost always be taken by an enemy team since it is left unguarded. Additionally, since this method relies almost entirely on kills, simply not getting enough kills can result in a loss.

I thought that would be a problem too. I figured, if they can see us coming, why don't they just run away? And, a lot of the time, they did. It was hilarious to roll up on a node and watch everyone at it take one look at us, then high tail it out of there.That being said, that wasn't a flaw or a problem. The thing is, because the other two teams are so busy trying to one up each other in node captures, even if they run away, eventually they had to stop to catch a node or fight one another. The Death train would then hit one flank of one of the teams, wipe out that team, then hit the other team and send them running. Having enemies run away from you was never a problem, because, even if they booked it before you killed any of them, they had to abandon their node to make a break for it. So for every team that chose to run and not fight, you're getting free node points instead. In that way, the Death Train is kind of a trap. You can run, but you're just making it easier for them to score points in the long run if you do.

Also, losing nodes that are unguarded was not a problem either. For one, you'd be amazed how many nodes you keep when left unguarded. People see the captured node on the map and just leave it alone, assuming it's gonna be hell to capture. Not only that, if the Death Train is rolling, most of the time the other two teams are too busy trying to defend to risk attacking a node. Furthermore, nodes deplete fast enough, and the map is large enough, that, even if your node is taken, you've already soaked roughly half of it's points PLUS the points you took from the kills while rolling. Assuming the Train is being successful, your surplus outweighs whatever the enemy gained from back capping your node, not to mention the fact that, by back capping, you're letting the Train know where your team is, so they just have one more "station" to stop at if they run out of things to kill in their direct line of sight. These things are not problems for a Death Train that is running well.

The real "flaw" in the Death train tactic is the possibility that you're not killing enough people. The Death Train needs a good balance of healers and dps. If too many of your team get killed because of a lack of healers, you can't do it. If too many of your dps are too noob to get kills, then you can't do it. Both of these scenarios result in the Train hitting a stall. As soon as it stalls or gets utterly stopped in its tracks, you've lost.

It's an extremely high risk/higher reward method, and that's why it is so IMMENSELY important for all 24 people on your team to commit to it if you chose to do it. It requires extremely focused dps. If a tank stuns a target, that targets MUST DIE before the stun wears off, or shortly afterwards. That's your dps check. If you can't do it, then the train will likely stall and fail. Most of the time, you'll be able to tell if your team can succeed at a Death Train in the fist charge, since it's the hardest one. If you can pull that off, you're good to go.

[fallenalexiel]

As a part of said Ultros crew, we are blessed with some of the best pvpers of our server who can consistently get highs and fevers. We also have a great supporting cast of healers for them, so we generally just like to keep things going with the death train with some mild direction but mostly the fun part of killing things.

[Casmir_Chev]

Its because Mael will attack Adders and Flames ALWAYs come to take advantage of it. They never push themself, they make MAel do it for them.

[Dimitrii]

Its because Mael will attack Adders and Flames ALWAYs come to take advantage of it. They never push themself, they make MAel do it for them.

Maelstrom sees adders as the bigger threat or at least they used to up until recently. In that sense its true in the past flames were able to capitalize on that by knowing that, unless nodes dictate otherwise, maelstrom would generally choose to attack adders over flames since they didnt view flames as much of a threat. This isnt so much the case anymore since adders seem to have fallen some and flames have risen in the past week or so though. Besides adders used to be pretty notorious for trying to spawn camp and farm kills on the last place team so you cant be surprised when they start relishing the opportunity to pincer you or start exhibiting a fixation on you match after match. There's a reason that GC used to be viewed as a bunch of snakes and it has nothing to do with their logo lol.

[RiceisNice]

...

On my end, I'm seeing an increasing amount of players who that don't listen to calls or make terrible calls over mine, either getting us 0 points at the end of throwing a 300 point lead. It's never opportunistic to make a spawn camp call on the team that's last place since it's not a lot of points incoming, or for the matter causing the point transfer where it actually matters.

Other than that, most of the time we get attacked anyway it's the closest node or opportunistic, regardless of if we have 1 or 2, but there are some off games where one of them fixates us for really no reason.

[Februs]

As a part of said Ultros crew, we are blessed with some of the best pvpers of our server who can consistently get highs and fevers. We also have a great supporting cast of healers for them, so we generally just like to keep things going with the death train with some mild direction but mostly the fun part of killing things.

I agree.The group was very abrasive and offered no logical reason for why they were doing what they were doing (which is probably another reason why a lot of people wanted to resist them to the bitter end), but I was impressed to see the attack prowess. I rolled directly within the Ultros group twice during our 5 match streak and not once did the healers falter. I was very pleased to have a group of healers that could keep me alive during a battle fever as a tank. The dps had some impressive killstreaks going too.

I also agree that it was fun. It's not an orthodox way of doing things, and the change of pace was exhilarating. At the time, I felt I didn't really have a choice but to go with the flow (since I was actually placed directly in the Ultros group), but I'm glad I did. It had been a while since I'd had that much fun in a series of matches.

[Farrell]

Great way to kill pvp for people that want to try it out. 24 vs 48 all game every game because they are wearing the wrong gang colors. I literally haven't seen a game all week where flames ever do anything but what you are describing with the spawns. Amazing way to troll people, turning a grind to 50 into something that will take over a year.

[Dimitrii]

Flames have definitely been relishing the role of spoilers lately. I've seen some of these clowns actually /dance on us cause they know they directly cost us the match knocking us from first to second lol. At the same time we have also reaped the benefits of their actions sometimes so it is what it is. Nothing you can do about it as long as they keep pumping out 3 way formats.

[Februs]

Flames have definitely been relishing the role of spoilers lately. I've seen some of these clowns actually /dance on us cause they know they directly cost us the match knocking us from first to second lol. At the same time we have also reaped the benefits of their actions sometimes so it is what it is. Nothing you can do about it as long as they keep pumping out 3 way formats.

That's kind of funny lol. I've only ever done a jig at the end of a match if we won it, but I will admit that I do occasionally wave at players from other GC's, though. It's not out of spite. It's usually in those awkward moments when you see someone staring at you from a ways off, the lone defenders left behind, and you know neither of you are gonna attack each other because there'd be no point; so, I just wave at em'.

I've actually spent a whole node timer swapping emotes with a Brd from Mael cuz' the two of us had nothing better to do at the time. Was very friendly. I kinda felt bad about having to kill her later, though... RNG forced my hand. Felt dirty... gave her a weep emote after, hoping she didn't take it personal lol.