So the finals of the GWWC
went to Esoteric Warriors [EW] over Irrestible Blokes [iB]. Since EW were seeded higher, they could choose the guild hall for games 1 and 3 of the match. EW picked the Imperial Hall and went with a Necromancer spiking build which abuses the death of Ritualist spirits for an amazingly powerful energy engine. Soul Reaping triggers about every 2 seconds when this thing is running at full power, apparently.
For normal GvG, this strategy isn't terribly effective because the opposing team can just split into an attacking and defending team and force you into a defensive position. However, on the Imperial Hall, it's virtually impossible to split against a spike team because you need the Guild Thief to get into the opposing base - and to get him there he'll have to run right past the spikers.
In other news,
apparently this has caught on like wildfire in Heroes' Ascent, since fighting in a big ball is the order of the day in that format. Blood Spike (using Shadow Strike and Vampiric Gaze) is normally used instead of Feast of Corruption as the kill mechanism. So if you're going to go in with a HA team in the near future, I'd at least plan on facing this kind of build along with the normal swarms of IWAY.
The expected fix for this issue is that Soul Reaping will no longer trigger off spirit death. However, HA fans will be sad to learn that since Season 3 of the GWWC has now started that probably won't happen any time soon.
Update: apparently that's not the case - after the skill update yesterday, now Soul Reaping only gives half energy for spirits dying. Will that be enough? We shall see.
