_AJAX_

zomg hai hai Ego!

<3

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*cough* my sonic was created WAY before yours ajax

I remember nrgfx being near godly but having the worst taste in roomates.

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I You rolled yours first, true, but hit 50 on mine before you. Still, all I was sayign is htat you weren't the only FoL sonic back then. Dave had his before you anyway.

Yes, one of Aura's first toons was his fire/nrg baster NRGFX on Freedom. He rolled an ice/nrg with the same name on Liberty later.

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I was their villain sonic/cager/buffer/debuffer (which is one tough job).

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You were one of 3. Dave (Hildaagard) and me (Jaxicle) were the other sonics on the villain team.

hi Frozne!

Ya..to this day I've never seen anyone play ill/rad better than Shawn.

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I just read some pages of this thread that I missed previously. This is a great thread!

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Granted HR was badass back in the day. During Tribute's run that was the only team we faced that we didn't totally oblilerate and they were actually low scoring matches. It's too bad they weren't more active since I'm sure they would have been a huge force for quite some time, they just didnt have enough people. In our 'official' against them, it was supposed to be 8v8, but i think we had to cut it to 7v7 because of lack of players on their side. One thing tribute had going for it was we had a deep roster of about 20 people, which was actually big at the time for a pvp group. Though in i4 HR was the only SG I saw as a 'threat' until HVND started becoming prominent.

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High praise from the Nino!


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It featured the first time a rad/psi defender was used in an official match (Chris Havok on Rad Hawk), and the last time a spines/regen scrapper was used in an official match (Rystorm).

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For the record, I had definitely used my rad/psy defender, VX, in an official match prior to Tribute leaving the game and coming back. Peritus and I were the only rad/psy's I ever saw on test for a good while.

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really? which official was that? I don't recall ever seeing any on any official unti lthat match.

This is correct. My ice/cold can beat non mind doms , but TK is a different story since they can stay outta range of the slows.


btw..nice guide Mez. One of the few PvP guides I've seen that is spot on. I'd label this "must read" for anyone interested in PvPng with a dom.

Salute to an old time warrior!

good to see you back Posi!

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Veng stacking was fun once in awhile, but it was bull[censored]. I'm not going to pretend like we didn't practice veng gathers in NDX - everyone of our builds had it. It was cheesy, and a few of us completely hated it after a few matches with it.

Around 4-stacked it became a waste of time to hit Aim or BU on a blaster. 7-stacked was... well, it was special. People hated us so much, and that almost made it worth using it.

Btw, Demon's way of examining arena history via patch notes is very smart. Almost every change (after the initial chaos of organized PvP teams) in the patch notes directly changed the optimal lineups in some way or another. Ice blasters replaced with fire blasters was a big one. IO's, of course. When blaster unresistible damage was reduced, 2-sonic teams became unstoppable with tons of damage resistance. Immediately blasters began getting swapped with extra rad/psy's for more debuff and the psy damage. Now you guys get to figure out i12.

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lol I still remember my first practice with another team when I joined JAL. It was NDX - I was checking builds and even putz had veng lol...you guys lost one and boom veng was a going...5, 6 stacked and we were dropping like flies..lol...you were like the veng gather masters XD.

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QFT

At FOL we also practiced vengeance stacking after we saw how effective it was, but we rarely got more than 3 or 4. I tip my hat to the NDX folks. They truly mastered the art of vengeance gathers. I remember that at first when NDX got to test server, we would win most practice rounds against them, but as time went on, and they got their stuff together, we were on the losing end more often than not, and usually by significant margins. I remember Ownage going rogue a lot, and tearing up the house.

Freaks beat LD many times, but it was before Sing, Myk, Hoj, Manstrid, and pan joined. By the time all of them were in LD, and kicking in high gear FoL had lost Foo, Hans, Kyle, Shawn, Dave, and Ry to WoW, retirement, or break from the game.

In that span of time there was no doubt that LD was the #1 team. Velocity was just starting to get in shape, but they didn't peak until after LD had already left the test scene. During those times, JAL was the bottom of the food chain, as I don't think they could beat any of the other test groups.

FoL did fight ABH at least once in the early days. I tried scheduled a rematch later on when I became leader, but was told that that ABH was rebuilding and unable to schedule matches at that time.

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The JAL team that got to be #1 had none, and I mean NONE of the regular original JAL players. Even Psypunk who was supposed to be their leader, was not part of the new PvP group that actually made it to the top.

Basically it was Alarys taking over JAL, and forming a totally new group, that although carried the same nametag, had nothing in common with the old group.


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That's not true. Supermax's decsription is pretty spot on....he was once an integral member in the group, so he does know a lot more than someone on the outside looking in. You really have no idea what you are talking about.

Yes our squads were almost entirely different between the old days and recent times, but I remained active throughout our entire run as did two other members. You might not have seen the other two members play in officials, but that doesn't mean they were useless members. Rag on Psypunk all you want, but it if wasn't for his constant presence and influence, JAL would not have lasted nearly as long as it did.

I enjoyed being part of the winning team Alarys helped mold in the end, but I also loved the early days even though we were considered "laughingstocks." It's a game. It was fun, win or lose.


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ok..I was wrong. Looks like there was one player left from their old days that did get to play regularly on Alarys's team.

You are way off when you say "Then they finally got tired of PvE and went all into PvP...started practicing regularly, actually set guidelines on recruitment"

The JAL team that got to be #1 had none, and I mean NONE of the regular original JAL players. Even Psypunk who was supposed to be their leader, was not part of the new PvP group that actually made it to the top.

Basically it was Alarys taking over JAL, and forming a totally new group, that although carried the same nametag, had nothing in common with the old group.

I do agree that it does show what it takes to win.

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ABH got into PvP on Infinity as soon as I4 hit. Agent Q was the founder and leader, and TGIA (the guy who listed the initial roster threads here) became their other leader. I got to know most of them through zone fights in those early days, but I didn't join them until later. (Omega, Skittler, Skin, and I were on the same team in the first IPvPL around that time). I participated with them in the initial server fights, which were total lag fests, but they were great for meeting other people interested in PvP.

I know ABH fought some of the early PvP SGs, including LD several times (you can see one of Rift's posts talking about ABH taking them to a rare, 3rd round on the LD site back in 2/07). One of my earliest Test experiences was playing aginst LD in 2 warm-up matches before they took on HVND (which we actually won, but lol practice matches).

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I remember Freaks fighting ABH in the early days. If my memory is correct, we used multiple bubblers on a match, and I think we caught ABH totally unprepared for that. Soon after we did the HVND fight, and I remember CZ telling me after that one of the reasons for them going with 7 ill trollers was the ABH match with our multiple bubbler setup.

Fun times!

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Don't misunderstand, at this point you're a far better player than I am. Just poking a little fun when I can

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I don't think I'll ever agree with that statement. I'd much rather agree to say that at this point I am a little more practiced, since you've been off the test scene (at least regularly) for some time.

I have no doubt whatsoever that if you were to make an effort to get back in top shape, that you would be among the best players in the game.

Much respect! and salute!

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In the beginning, there was darkness. Then Ajax said "Let there be pvp", and it was so....and there was much rejoicing.

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Amen!

Very good summary of the early days by Demon Sorcerer (F22Major).

Yes...I do remember the days of me using TP on my fire/kin. Hehe

I also remember some epic fire/kin vs fire/kin fights with you on test a long time ago, although I don't remember what issue that was. You were the best fire/kin player I've ever saw, even to this day.

The lost to Penance on our first encounter shocked FoL, who up to that point had been undefeated both on our home server, and test. I clearly remember Foo saying that we were not going to be caught unprepared again, and that's what started FoL on a path to regular practices, first on live server, and then on to test server.

I remember one shotting Lab on his emp with my bs/regen scrapper in a PvP league match. Ahh the days of the 50/33 scale for HO's, and a 3 nucleous, 3 centrioles headsplitter.


Cuddles from Lions Den, Lab from Penance, and Relativator (Dave) from Freaks were the first 3 players I saw on test using sonic defenders. After watching Dave and Shawn (Ghost Sage/ Artic Strike) fight an epic match on the finals of a 2 vs 2 tourney on Liberty vs Hans and Kyle (sonic/rad corr and rad/psi) I knew I wanted to have one of those "cagers"

This thread should have more than enough info for Neuronia's scoop article.

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tribute went out undefeated,

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I recall Tribute getting beat by a Hell Raiser team, but the HR team had a couple of fillers (which wouldn't fly in today's nazi-ladder system). By today's standards, it would have probably been a (serious) "practice" match.

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Hell raisers have never beaten us, we beat them 3 matches to 0 (although they were good matches). Only time I remember dropping matches to them was actually when they had a team of 4 set people against PUGs against a random team (me and aeolus and a couple others), we won the first match and then they were like 'heh, switching AT', and they brought an emp and 2 ice/nrg blasters running near-perma FoN. yeah they won that next match pretty heavily against not nearly the same kind of setup

Granted HR was badass back in the day. During Tribute's run that was the only team we faced that we didn't totally oblilerate and they were actually low scoring matches. It's too bad they weren't more active since I'm sure they would have been a huge force for quite some time, they just didnt have enough people. In our 'official' against them, it was supposed to be 8v8, but i think we had to cut it to 7v7 because of lack of players on their side. One thing tribute had going for it was we had a deep roster of about 20 people, which was actually big at the time for a pvp group. Though in i4 HR was the only SG I saw as a 'threat' until HVND started becoming prominent. Good times though, both matchups against HR and HVND were epic

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You're right. I totally forgot that we did used you for a little while on the scrapper, before switching you to the rad/psi.

Hans and you on rad/psi's, Shawn and Foo on ice/nrg blasters, Aura and Auttie on emps, and Kyle and me on the kins. Fun times!

COH PvP. The early days:

Teams of this era:

Tribute (Freedom)
Freaks of Legend (Liberty)
Hell Raisers (Protector)
JAL (Freedom)
Lions Den (Victory)
Bots (Justice)
Sitting Ducks (Virtue)
HVND (Champion)
ABH (Infinity)

Tribute was the first truly organized PvP group. They were light years ahead of everyone else. They were the first to understand the concept of balance between support, offense, and disruption. In those early days most teams were made up of whatever 50's every SG had, and were thrown together without much thought about how they interacted with each other.

Because of Tribute being so ahead of everyone else, their players got bored of the lack of challenge, and support PvP in this game had, and most of their players left for WoW. A month after most of Tribute players left, they came back for one epic battle vs HVND, and their famous turtle team. This fight was memorable in more ways than one. It featured the first time a rad/psi defender was used in an official match (Chris Havok on Rad Hawk), and the last time a spines/regen scrapper was used in an official match (Rystorm).

Some internal issues with Lions Den led to their splitting up, and some of their players went and formed a new group called Penance. This new group had players like Demon Sorcerer, Patient V, Lab, Krole, etc, and soon became a dominant team, going on a winning streak, and beating teams like FoL along the way. Around this time, both FoL and HVND were also dominant, and had winning streaks vs all the other groups.

Most notable of the early officials were the Freaks vs HVND, in which HVND used a turtle team for the last time when they introduced their famous ACE team that featured 7 controllers, and 1 blaster all with names like acetophetamin. The Freaks used what today would be called a "jump team", and beat them.

Right after this fight, there was a 3 way tie for the top rank in COH, as HVND had beaten Penance, and Penance had beaten Freaks.

Freaks vs Penance II for the top rank was scheduled, and it was a much anticipated fight in the test comunity. This match had the Freaks bringing double tank taunters that proved very effective in shutting down the Penance blasters. After this win the Freaks were the team to beat, and remained at the top for a while. Freaks were probably the most versitale team of the time, as their lineups changed from match to match. Taunter lineups, storm teams, jump teams, 3 bubblers were among some of them. Other teams never knew what to expect from FoL.

FoL had been gearing up for COV, and all of their players rolled villains on Freedom right at launch. As a result, they became the dominant force in villains from the get go.

Villain teams of the early days:

FoL (Freedom)
LoTD (Freedom)
Outlaws (Freedom)
Legacy of Champions (Freedom)
Original Sin (Victory)
Triage (Victory)
Jagged Legion (Pinnacle)
Psychotic Syndicate (Liberty)
Bedlam (liberty)

There were many other groups that came and went. FoL went on an impressive winning streak with their villain team (57-0) vs all other villain groups that ended when they faced VORI soon after the villain ladder was established.

The Lions Den had been rebuilding, and with players like Sing, and Bignord, they slowly started putting together an impressive lineup. They were the first group to start regular daily practices on test, and their commitment and dedication soon paid off, as they went on an impressive winning streak that spanned several months, and multiple officials vs every organized team of the era.

It was around this time that teams like Velocity (Liberty), Old School (Triumph), and NDX (Victory) came into the scene. These were the days of stacked vengeance, and super high octane offenses. NDX introduced what they called the 4 x 4 (2 emps, 2 kins, 4 blasters), and soon became masters of the stacked vengeance gathers. Some of the early day teams started fading out. Penance left the test scene, and HVND made a few good matches before leaving. They beat FoL in a close match that went 3 rounds. FoL used double sonics for the first time in an official, and then they lost to Lions Den in what was their last official before leaving COH. This was the second time they used an ACE disruption based team, but LD's stacked vengeance won the day, and both HVND and LD faded out of COH test PvP after this. FoL lost quite a few of its veteran players, and although still a force, it was a much weaker team than before.

This were the hay days of stacked vengeance. Teams like Velocity and NDX became experts at this art, and dominated the COH test comunity.

Around this time, in December of 06 JAL vs Freaks had the last 16 vs 16 official match. It was a truly epic fight, and the end of melee in officials, as it was clear tha cager >> taunter. JAl went under rebuilding after this, and they would later emerge as a bonafide dominant team during the early days of the new test ladder.

The OS vs NDX official marked the end of the vengeance stacking days. NDX gave OS such a loopsided beating, that the test pvp comunity soon voted to ban vengeance from test officials.

Other new teams entered test PvP around this time (Whirlgig, PCJL, dUmb, Integrity, etc), and the present day test ladder was created. The initial round robin to establish the starting rankings for ladder was not without controversy, but it had JAL, Freaks, Velocity, and OS at the top 4 positions.

I typed this in a hurry, so I'm sure I forgot quite a few details here and there. There are a lot of inside little stories surrounding each and everyone of all the groups, past and present.

Good luck in RL Ownage. It was a pleasure. Take care!

2 words:

Demon Sorcerer

I love the new tittles!

can't wait to see A.S.S challenge T.I.T.S. That's gonna be a heated battle, and I'm gonna be there watching intensely.

Small correction on one of my 2 accnts

@-Ajax not @Ajax


Glad to be here

Well, remember that friends usually tend to stick together. I'm waiting to see where the other guys that are staying are going before making a decision.

Some of us that are staying are now homeless.