macskull

The whole point of double-blind lineups is to prevent counterpicking, counterpicking, and more counterpicking, but during the test ladder matches almost never started on time because no one ever enforced the fifteen-minute rule. If you could actually enforce the fifteen-minute rule (perhaps drop it to 10 minutes), counterpicking wouldn't be such a big deal.

Marklar marklar nukes marklar? Marklar EoE farm marklar?

The type of registration you decide upon is up to you, but you'll probably have a better idea of what you'd want to do once start time gets closer. Right now I'm just trying to see if enough people would even be interested in running something like this - I'd hope for something like 6 teams to start with (18 players total plus the sub pool).

The Freedom PvP League's first season is drawing to a close within the next month or so, which is going to leave a bit of time while people decide what is next. Pinnacle has a regular PvP event, and Champion is trying to set up a 3v3 ladder. My question is, is there enough PvP population remaining on Justice (or non-PvPers interested in getting involved) to make a 3v3 ladder here something that could work? I remember after I15 Justice tried a 3v3 league but that didn't make it more than a few weeks due to scheduling conflicts, etc. The difference between a league and a ladder is simple: a league would have a set schedule (i.e. this team plays that team on this week), while ladders would not. Ladders are based on ranking and teams advance through the ranking by challenging teams above them.

RULES

* Teams are a group of three players playing specific characters, which they would play throughout the duration of the ladder (which would probably last until interest died down or other factors caused it to end). For example, you might register yourself as playing a Mind/Emp, your friend as a Rad/Psi, and your other friend as a Fire/Cold Corruptor, in which case you would be required to play on those characters.
* ATs can be repeated, but three-Stalker teams are not allowed.
* Banned powers are Corruptor Lingering Radiation and Dominator Poison Ray. This rule is subject to change as necessary. Please note this does not mean your build cannot contain these powers, it simply means you may not use them during a match or your team will forfeit that round.
* Initial ladder rankings will be determined by a round robin seeding tournament, with the winning team taking the first spot and so forth. Scoring during the seeding tournament would be 2 points for a win, 1 point for a tie, and 0 points for a loss. (Ties will be counted during the seeding tournament to keep things moving.) Each team will play the other teams twice during this seeding tournament (subject to change depending on the number of entered teams).
* Arena options are as follows: no travel suppression, no heal decay, small inspirations only. 10 minute matches, resets on the monkey cage, office, and Eden maps (reset on Eden map because IMO it's too big for 3v3 matches). Arena temp powers are allowed; non-arena temp powers are not.
* There will be no set schedule for matches after the initial seeding tournament, though a challenged team has one week to set up a date (not necessarily play within that one week, just set up a match time, though matches must take place within two weeks of the time of challenge) or they forfeit. When a match time is agreed upon, post the time and date in this thread. Matches would be required to start within fifteen minutes of the posted start time or the late team would forfeit the round (if a player from the substitute pool is available between the stated start time and the fifteen minute deadline, they may play instead, but the match must still begin within fifteen minutes).
* A team may challenge teams up to two ranks above them. If the challenging team wins, they will move up one rank (so it would be potentially possible to move past a team you haven't played, in order to keep the ladder active by encouraging more matches). If the challenging team loses, they will have to wait one week before challenging the same team again, though they may challenge another team as long as that team is within two ranks.
* Challenge matches are best of three matches. The challenged team picks the map on the first match (see earlier bullet for disallowed maps), the challenging team picks the map on the second match, and if a third round is necessary it would be played on a random map. In the event of a tie (i.e. sudden death after the 10 minute regulation has ended), both teams will exit the match and replay that round until a team emerges as the winner.
* If a player from either team has not entered the match by the time the "waiting for players" and "buff period" timers have ended, that team may ask for a reset. If a reset occurs, the match is to be restarted using the same map. Likewise, if a player from either team disconnects in the first 90 seconds of a match, that team may ask for a reset (and the map would stay the same upon a reset). If a disconnect occurs beyond the first 90 seconds, the team must play a man down for the remainder of the match. Please note that a team is allowed one reset per round, so you can't ask for a reset if someone fails to load in, and then ask for another reset if someone disconnects during the replay.
* No trash talking, no spawn camping, etc. If a team is found to be in violation of these rules, they will forfeit the match in question. I expect everyone to be honest in reporting violations. The goal of this event is to have fun, so please keep that in mind when playing.
* A team may enter after the seeding tournament, but they start at the bottom of the ladder and have to work their way up like any other team.
* If one or more members of your team decide to switch characters during the ladder (or if one or more teammates leaves your team and you add new ones), you need to re-register your team. Re-registering your team will cause your team to move to the bottom of the rankings, and you will have to work your way back up.

SIGNUPS

If you're interested, please indicate so in this thread. If possible, please indicate your global (not necessarily the character you plan to play, as that is flexible until the point when the ladder starts). When indicating your interest please do one of three things:

* Indicate you are interested and likely have two friends who would be your teammates. If possible, please indicate who those teammates are. In this case, only the first person from each team would need to register.
* Indicate you are interested, but will probably not have teammates available. If enough people from this category are interested, I would attempt to pair them up with other unteamed players.
* Indicate you are interested, but would prefer to play as a substitute. Substitutes would not need to have a specific character listed even after the ladder starts, but would only play in the rare event a team is not able to field all three of their players within the two weeks required for a challenge match.

EXAMPLE REGISTRATIONS

Already have a team:
@global1
@global2
@global3

Interested, but do not have a team:
@global1: interested, need team

Interested, sub only
@global1: interested, sub only

...And that's it. Thoughts, questions, concerns, or comments?

CHANGES AS OF 6/25:

* Removed Defender Telekinesis and Stalker Thunderstrike from the banned powers list
* Removed troll cave map from list of ineligible maps
* Modified sub rule: if a team needs a sub, they can find another player who isn't in the sub pool so long as that player is not already on another team.
* If captains cannot agree on a match time/date after a challenge, the default match time will be Sunday evenings at 8 PM Eastern (5 PM Pacific).

People will sometimes park characters at odd levels to obtain non-max-level merit rolls (their way of supplying the market, really).

If you're only in it for getting things with merit rolls, 33 seems to be a nice spot to stop.

Yes.

DM is a decent primary if you fiteklub a lot, but the lack of Build Up and the I13 mez changes (remember perma-fear anyone?) really hurt it.

Everyone's trying to download the patch right now, as test just opened up. Try restarting the updater and see if the speed picks up, or perhaps wait until a time of day (or night) when it's quieter.

My only complaint with the SSK system is that it is mandatory.

I think he has a valid point, though: many players don't even read patch notes and instead find out what changes have been made by their friends well after the changes have gone live. I have a friend who had a Stone/EM Tanker (he doesn't play anymore) made before the ET nerf. He came back one reactivation weekend, brought the Tanker along on a TF, and a few missions in he told me, "Something feels different about this character, but I don't know what it is." I of course informed him about the ET nerf, which got an "Oh" out of him.

Point is, most players will notice something is different, they just won't notice what until someone tells them.

Phase-on-phase kills happen much more often in zone than in arena matches simply because of the imbalanced nature (numbers, mostly) of zone PvP. Someone wants rep and someone just phased in front of them with a sliver of health left. Heal decay and travel suppression means they can't afford to stop and heal up, so they've gotta run - and that means you can take the opportunity to phase and finish them off (I've hit someone with Thunderstrike on my Stalker only to find they were phased, so I phased, placated them, and finished them off with AS because they were too stupid to move).

This doesn't happen in the arena much because the mez changes and diminishing returns (and delayed Psi damage from the Blasters) mean you're not nearly as survivable as you were before, and you're going to want phase saved as a defensive power rather than an offensive power. Basically, you can phase after your target but there's no guarantee you'll get the kill, and you've just wasted your phase and are pretty vulnerable for a few minutes. Most Blasters (common team spike targets these days) run Cold Mastery so they've got Hibernate anyways, making phase kills a non-issue.

Either way, not much will be living through spike from 4 or 5 Psi Blasters (plus the token Rad if the team's running one) assuming the spike is clean.

EDIT: I uploaded my recording of two of the 8v8 matches from the league on Freedom to my Youtube page (here and here) if you're interested in taking a look at the sorts of lineups people are trying out. We're the only team that regularly runs Stormies (holdout from pre-I13 mostly), but your average 8-man team these days is 2 Emps, a Rad, 4-5 Blasters, and maybe some other disruption.

Then again, there's absolutely no reason to play an Emp Defender over a Controller, because the Controller version of Power Boost recharges twice as fast.

Mind/Emp
Ill/Emp
Fire/Emp (maybe?)
Grav/Emp (maybe?)

Secondary doesn't really matter since you're not going to be doing more than buffing, healing, and evading anyways. Go Power Mastery for PBU.

Good Scrapper primaries are BS, MA, and Fire. The only good Scrapper secondary is Regen (Elec, Fire, and SR are okay but Regen is just heads above the rest). As far as Defender primaries, you'd want Cold, Rad, or Storm for a solo/damage build - Traps is bad (cue Dahjee saying we're all robots and need to think outside the box). Decent Defender secondaries are Rad, Sonic, and Psi - Dark is okay but the lack of Aim hurts it. Don't even try to build a squishy for defense for PvP, because diminishing returns will reduce that defense to an essentially meaningless number.

Originally, you were able to target through people, as well as use targeting binds. Of course this led to retardedly high scores in arena matches because only one person needed to find a target. They removed that ability and the use of binds stayed around for a while, but that got changed too and now the only way to target someone is to tab onto them or click them.

Energy Blast is a middle-of-the-road set in terms of its power selections and their damage. As far as rare Corruptor primaries, I'd probably put AR first (almost never see them) and Elec behind that.

MMs can farm, just not nearly as efficiently as a Corruptor, Brute, or Dom. /Traps MMs were decent-ish back before the PGT nerf in I13 but now, not so much.