The latest edition of the State of the Game series of articles about the art of PvP in Guild Wars has been posted on the Guild Wars official site. This week the focus is on Hero Battles.
Although Hero Battles are a relatively new venture in Guild Wars, they have matured rapidly since their inception. One could argue that implementing the 1v1 ladder and placing top Hero Battles on Observer Mode have rapidly developed the metagame for Hero Battles. Although many players would claim those features have stagnated Hero Battles, they have also generated more interest in this new form of PvP.
Going into a Hero Battle, a player needs a different frame of mind than other forms of PvP. Much like Alliance Battles, most effective characters in Hero Battles need a degree of self-sufficiency. Players tend not to bring a build balanced for 4v4 play because 4v4 battle occurs infrequently. If one of the players does not want to fight 4v4, it simply won't happen. Instead, a player can choose to split forces the whole time and concentrate on controlling shrines, earning one pip on the morale meter for outer shrines and two pips for the center. The more pips, the faster the score rises. Thus, most battles revolve around 1v1 or 2v2 skirmishes, and self-sufficient characters become crucial.
As a result, the popular metagame build is one Assassin (player-controlled) and three Heroes consisting of a Monk and two "Pack Hunters" (named after the Ranger/Paragon pre-made character template from the Nightfall preview). Some builds replace a Pack Hunter with another Monk, support character, damage dealer, or shutdown character.
Read the full article here.
