Best Sparrer?
 

I was going through some old forum threads and I saw a lot of these.

http://forums.graalonline.com/forums...ad.php?t=12705
http://forums.graal2001.com/forums/s...d.php?p=847312

Who do you think is the best sparrer currently playing, or recently removed from the graal scene?

ares

will

andy it's not april 1st

Vinka

obviously

ares

ares

Ares or Brett

rufus

wandaman

probably Ares. I've probably only hit him like 5 times in my life


CONQUEROR

One question nobody brought up is how would you define the best sparrer?
There is somewhat of a difference between who wins the most, who is the hardest to beat, or who has the greatest technique etc.

Without naming any names, sometimes there are people I can have little success against when attempting my normal style, but then can enjoy a good amount of success against when trying a completely different style, sometimes even the conventional "noob rush" style.

Then ofcourse half of sparring is adjusting to lag pattern which varies from person to person, and can seem like both an advantage and a disadvantage.
Some times you can have a vicious triangle where one person keeps beating a second person, a third person keeps beating the first person, the second person keeps beating the third person etc.

Ares or Warhawk.

Quite true, there are often many variables that decide whether you are a good sparrer, or just win a lot. I suggest we have a client-wide tournament? Sort of like the Graalolympics or w.e. we had back in the day.

Even that would only be a means to suggest who the greatest sparrer is specifically for winning tournaments, which while arguably the biggest factor there can sometimes be sparrers who are much better over a larger number of spars against the same opponent, or sparrers who while very good are susceptible to the odd upset in a single spar.

For what it's worth, on the 2 occasions I won Classic's monthly I didn't really enjoy it so much as I felt I'd sparred very defensively, when most of the time I prefer to try and pick my opponent apart.
I think it's fair to say there are a lot more defensive sparrers who are "hard to beat" than sparrers with good attacking timing and instinct.

very easy to say that the best sparrers are in US so call it a day boys - cronhawk

kevin azite

Tortoise

I'd imagine the person who accomplishes all of those instead of one.

Have a tournament on each server and then a final bracket.

Essence would end up representing GK!

googie

Trip

Tortoise won the last Graalympics one I think...

lol there was only one real graalympics, the others were hosted on random servers etc.

tortoise won the first fake one and came in second in the other. in the real one he didnt make top 3.

That being said he still racked up more tournament wins than anyone else over the course of those three or four years where sparring was HUGE. I'm not joining in the debate or fighting for anyones side, just giving credit where credit is due.

Ya but he won on small servers like baby and delt whereas people like neo jenova were champs on UN which had a gigantic sparring community.

Perhaps we could have another tournament?

Yet, instead of it being solely on winning you get points for certain things. Like, for every win you get 3 points. Loss no points. Tie 1 point. That would make up half of your points, the other half of your points would be comprised of the health you have left. So lets say you won with 3.5 hearts left. You should be given 3.5 points. So on and so on for every spar (win obviously), and every participant is guaranteed 10 spars. Then at the end, all the points are totaled and you have the best sparrer. The health point system most practical use is to prevent ties, and give players perspective on how good they actually are. Also, if you are guaranteed 10 spars (not a 1 and done tournament) then players can relax and know that they can lose one spar and still be in the running. Of course the matches would be randomized so it isn't always good sparrers versus bad or the reverse.

Still wouldn't grant you the best sparrer. Someone might go a perfect 10 for 10 but finish all matches with 1 heart left, where as someone could go 6 for 10 but get through most of their wins unscathed. The 2nd sparrer would win on points although I would think the 1st guy better having won all their fights.

Unixmad, no skills needed. Only the power to shut down graal when low on health. He can never lose!

He'd have to play to get low on health.

Well no, what if you spar 10 easy people? Then you could easily win 10 spars. But lets say you lose 3-4, but you we unscathed in a lot of them by 5 or so hearts. You technically would be the better sparrer than they guy who had 10 wins because you had to spar hard people - due to losses, and won a few by a lot of hearts (which is hard to do) which would prove your greatness. Idk, it seems to even out.

Judging by anonymous neg rep this may have hit a raw nerve in somebody.

Sparring on Graal is rock-paper-scissors. It's impossible to entitle someone as the 'best'.

no it rly isnt, some people really are just that good.

warhawk is up there.

I don't think Thom means it as being a matter of luck, I think he's referring to that vicious-triangle scenario I mentioned previously, which even the most knowledgeable sparrers can be a part of.

If you mean no one is going to win every match, you are correct. It is literally impossible to win all of your spars. (Presuming you have sparred over 1000 times or so.) There comes a time when even the best sparrers lose, and not even to necessarily good sparrers. Sometimes a certain person has a technique that you find difficult to beat, you lack focus, or whatever the variables go on and on. The best can be defined as the most consistent, in terms of sparring people with = rate or more. (even though people say rate doesn't mean anything, it is there for a reason to have comparable numbers). The best is simply someone who can handle almost any spar and win without messing up. If you are "that good" it doesn't matter the circumstances, you will win.

While this is true, I'd compare it to athletic running for instance where some people are very fast over 100 meters, but not so great over long distances, where long distance runners aren't so fast over 100 meters.
The complexity of sparring does change over larger numbers of spars, if there was ever some form of Graalympics again I'd like to see both a knockout tournament and a league setup.

the advantage of having played an active server like UN is that i got to witness top sparrers duking it out. they adapt to different sparring styles and can change their own.

just because someone is good at running and playing "defense" doesn't mean they'll outlast or do any better than someone specialized in offense.