I think ABH, but at the time they were in a lot of internal problems and weren't ready for an official. People did officials so rarely back then that I think most of a SG's rank was based off of practices since a lot can change in a month between an official. There wasn't a ladder, but people had a vague idea of where they were in the food chain.
I am pretty certain you all fought ABH. I am thinking of maybe someone smaller back then? I might be wrong. I know for sure you all didn't fight Vel.
Come to think of it, I think ABH might be the only SG to get you all for a round in any of the officials, other than HVND that is.
They deleted the Coh scores in the LD forums so I couldn't tell you exactly who we fought, but the concensus within LD by the end of 2006 was that there was no reason to play CoH after the hvnd official since no one wanted to fight us and challenging lower tier groups isn't very fun for either group.
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.
I think ABH was very reluctant to leave Infinity for a while, which is why no one was able to get an official with them.
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off topic maybe but bring back veng stacking pls. i was never part of that scene but it looked fun as [censored].
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High-scoring matches may sound like fun, but the whole thing was pretty ridiculous. First, the only way to be competitive on Test at the time was to practice stacking; it's not all that easy to gather and stack veng 3x+. And practicing something like that gets old pretty fast. (Not to mention the exploit available at the time that allowed teams to pre-stack veng.) A lof of matches often simply came down to who could stake veng the best; it didn't matter what kind of skill your team had if it had a single application of veng vs a team that had 5. We all basically agreed to stop the nonsense once a dev (Posi maybe; I don't remember now) came in and said something to the tune of "Yes, it's an exploit. We tried unsuccessfully to correct it. Do what you want with it in the arena/zones."
I personally hated having to fit Veng into my build...and practicing stacking...and wondering if our stacking skills were going to match LD's or whoever. Meh...that kind of thing and the barcode teams were big turn-offs for me back then. I think several of the ABH'rs had similar feelings about the Test environment back then, which was part of the reason for an internal split. The ladder and its rules have helped the Test community incredibly, considering how infrequent matches happened back then.
HVND never practiced stacking. We stacked if we could, but usually only got 1-2, at most 3 vengeance. I think LD had like 7 sources of vengeance on some teams.
But yeah, vengeance stacks played a huge roll in the high numbers. Also, gotta remember we played Ice blasters too 
I think we were on the receiving end (in practices, at least) of some Veng-stacked-enduced beatings, which may've made us overly paranoid about practicing stacking. 
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I think ABH was very reluctant to leave Infinity for a while, which is why no one was able to get an official with them.
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I believe they got their eyes opened when they first fought on Test (like a lot of groups do early on), which is hard to swallow after dominating your own server so thoroughly. From what I understand, initially, the core of the group was motivated to be competitive on Test and worked on strategy and builds to do so. But matches didn't happen often, and eventually there was a split in the competitive drive.
I had joined while LD had been at the top and HVND was going strong. Omega had recruited Lacuna and Mags into ABH around that time as well. Q (ABH founder/leader) was fairly busy with work and rl, as were a number of the original core members at the time, so I remember getting numbers for practice was difficult.
Omega was heading our effort to be more competitive on Test, and Lacunca and Mags were all for it. Q and TGIA weren't opposed to it, but they weren't about to push people into it or anything (not that Omega was, but he wanted the SG to step up our efforts, etc.). You had a number of people like, say, me and Skit that wanted to play, but we didn't feel like it was priority #1 either. Anyway, I've always seen that motivation difference as the root of the big ABH split/drama. Most of the other crap that happened afterwards should've never happened. Different people have different priorities and motivations. I don't care any more about any of it; forgive and forget I guess. It's history.
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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I'd assume the reason Ed brought up NDX is because we were handily beating JAL and losing substantially to LD almost all the time (barring the infamous semi-afk practice round), so to hear that a team that we were better than was equal to a team that we were worse than raises a few logic bells.
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Well I'm not making stuff up. For a while we had a bunch of practices with LD. Probably played every night or every other night for a while. And we never beat them a single time, except in a random pentad we did...and sometimes it wasn't close, but we had plenty of close games with them. Actually now that I think about it, we might have beaten them one time 8v8 on the caves map. Maybe hellter can remember....it might have been some other top team but I think it was LD.
And calm the hell down myk. I never said JAL was as good as LD. LD was at its peak at that time, so no team was as good. But we did have close PRACTICES with them. I was there....being permacaged :P
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There were no official matches from then until OS-NDX (archives are being wonky, so round 1 and round 2) on April 28th. That's occasionally referred to as the match that got veng stacking banned, and whether it was or not, it's the last official played where vengeance was legal. It's also the first match that happened with IOs.
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I don't remember IOs being available then. I was still on my lolIce/EM and I'm pretty sure IOs didn't hit test until some time after my Fire/EM hit 50.
I could be wrong though, I know Ownage and 6 both had fully IOed builds very early on in I9 beta. I know I didn't have any IOs on Cold Spyke for that match though since I never bothered to IO that toon at all.
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Sorry, Goldie, but this made me laugh. Man, I got so tired of begging you guys to IO your builds.
Also, Goldie's famous best-post-ever needs to get quoted in this thread somewhere. Come on, who's got it?
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I could be wrong though, I know Ownage and 6 both had fully IOed builds very early on in I9 beta. I know I didn't have any IOs on Cold Spyke for that match though since I never bothered to IO that toon at all.
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Sorry, Goldie, but this made me laugh. Man, I got so tired of begging you guys to IO your builds.
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I stand by my original I9 beta statement. "[censored] IOs"
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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.
psy you know I love ya man but - if your all wow-ie now and lol ing at us COHers - why do you still pay da money to have an active account?
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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.
psypunks post got modded to save bandwith
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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.
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lol I think they all went rogue when you have 7 stacked veng..after that practice I wanted to quit and go back to zones >.>
nah, they still went on targets. i was the designated rogue blaster lol. good stuff.
Ownage was designated as our rogue/venge caller, and Ed was target caller. If we had a big veng, Ed would call for everyone to rogue and we'd just enjoy the shooting gallery. Once veng was dropping, he'd call people back on to targets except for Ownage. Next time someone died, we'd veng up again on Ownage's call. (Exception: if Ownage was the one who died he'd occasionally "forget" to call the gather )
Our entire offensive line up was just beastly. Emping for them was so easy because no one would ever shoot at us, because all their blasters were perma dead. So much <3 for Ed, Ownage, 6, Goldie, Payne and Craggs. Fif and rox kicked [censored] on kins too. Elite was an amazing co-emp. Really, everyone in NDX except Merc was just awesome.
I think my favorite early IOs moment was standing in the base with 6 not too many days before our OS official and him handing me IOs one by one and telling me where to slot them. It must've been so frustrating for him. I couldn't understand IOs for the life of me at the begnning. Think I've still got that copy of Not with all those h4x 53 IOs.
Good times.
lol yeah i remember how i would 'forget' to call gathers hahah. pfft no way am i bein venge bait lol. too funny.
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Ownage was designated as our rogue/venge caller, and Ed was target caller. If we had a big veng, Ed would call for everyone to rogue and we'd just enjoy the shooting gallery. Once veng was dropping, he'd call people back on to targets except for Ownage. Next time someone died, we'd veng up again on Ownage's call. (Exception: if Ownage was the one who died he'd occasionally "forget" to call the gather )
Our entire offensive line up was just beastly. Emping for them was so easy because no one would ever shoot at us, because all their blasters were perma dead. So much <3 for Ed, Ownage, 6, Goldie, Payne and Craggs. Fif and rox kicked [censored] on kins too. Elite was an amazing co-emp. Really, everyone in NDX except Merc was just awesome.
I think my favorite early IOs moment was standing in the base with 6 not too many days before our OS official and him handing me IOs one by one and telling me where to slot them. It must've been so frustrating for him. I couldn't understand IOs for the life of me at the begnning. Think I've still got that copy of Not with all those h4x 53 IOs.
Good times.
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"if we had a big venge..."
I don't think I ever saw you guys hit less than 5 lol...
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"if we had a big venge..."
I don't think I ever saw you guys hit less than 5 lol...
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5 was about average, though we did routinely get 6 and 7. I dunno why people think it's that hard to stack - you have a window of about a second, which (if you know your vent lag) is not really that different than a damage spike. Zone vengeance stackers with the perma-dead body in the base need to lrn2stack.
Some fun matches I had...
http://img171.imageshack.us/img171/6...sjaggedyw1.jpg
http://img177.imageshack.us/img177/2...jaggedlek0.jpg
http://img293.imageshack.us/my.php?i...enateamux8.jpg
http://img301.imageshack.us/img301/9...nateam1wb7.jpg
http://img185.imageshack.us/my.php?i...nateam2uq8.jpg
http://img174.imageshack.us/my.php?i...grumblemi8.jpg
http://img522.imageshack.us/my.php?i...lawsftwrs5.jpg
http://img522.imageshack.us/my.php?i...snipefuoh0.jpg
http://img151.imageshack.us/my.php?i...evirtuetq3.jpg
http://img522.imageshack.us/my.php?i...ammatchyd9.jpg
http://img293.imageshack.us/my.php?image=vsjpbc3.jpg
And I've got about 30 more screenies of random people that wanted to go up against PositronBot
I still remember 6 slotting swift and sprint with travel HOs, everyone thought I was crazy until I was running around faster than SS and unsupressed
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Read my post. I said LD at peak, not right after they lost all their players to penance. Ld started their winning streak against Lotd and beat almost every SG in the game, never fought Velocity I think.
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Nope, never did. From Manstrid "It's not worth our time, we smoke them every practice." Think there may have been another SG you all didn't fight either.