Jul 13th 2012, 14:32:31
A few notes about this: Feel free to criticize or correct things. I don’t mind as long as you aren’t attacking me personally. I don’t claim these are perfect, as I can’t possibly know everything about every clan, so I simply offer these as MY perspective on the distribution of power in FFA. As I’m a netgainer and as netgaining stats are far easier to find than warring stats, they may skew towards netgaining being more important than warring, so if your clan is ranked too low and you’ve been warring a lot, that’s probably the case.
I also take into account past performances, because in many cases, so if your clan's success is all pretty recent, you may not get the respect other clans do.
Lastly, I would say that while I’ve tried to put them in the order I believe they should be, clans within a tier are easily exchangeable. Clearly NBK could be considered anywhere from #1 to #3 depending on the weight you put on netgaining vs. warring skills, and you might argue that some of the smaller clans could be moved around a lot, but those are also the clans that I don’t know as much about.
Top Tier Clans
TKO – TNW is the crown that matters most for large netting clans, and they’ve virtually owned that crown since they took it for the first time in set 5. They’ve won TNW 8 times in 14 sets so far and depending on the PANLV/TKO battle this set goes, they could be looking at 9 in 15 sets. They’re also very prolific at getting the #1 overall country, pulling that off 7 times in the 14 sets (LaE is the only one close here, with 5 #1’s, PAN has the other 2). Consistently near the top for ANW, but their only two ANW crowns have come in sets where their prime contenders have been at war (one set was the crazy war set, set 7, where TKO owned every aspect of netgaining due to the fact that there was literally no other major clan that was: 1) netgaining, and 2) actually known as a netgaining clan. Both throughout time and currently, TKO is the clan to beat for the TNW crown.
PANLV – We’ve sort of been relegated to the “little brother” of TKO when it comes to our competitions. PANLV is one of only three clans in the history of FFA to win the TNW, along with TKO and LaE, winning it three times, most recently last set. We’ve finished runner-up five other times and third once when NBK netted with over 300 countries. PANLV also is only one of three clans to have #1 finishes on the server, with 2 of those. We’ve also been sort of the big dog in ANW for a good chunk of time and that is the one place where we can tout a superior record to TKO. Since the xGD/NBK war, when TKO became the biggest netting clan, to the recent run of success by ESD, PANLV was the ANW clan to beat. In the 8th set, we finished 3rd behind two single man tags, then 2nd behind Mercs, followed by two 1st place finishes. Since then, PANLV is still a force in the ANW battle, but haven’t been able to get past ESD.
NBK – The top warring clan, hands down. They’re so far out ahead of everyone else that with the exception of the couple of sets where they skirmished with SemperFi, they’ve had to intentionally take on 2:1 fights for quite some time simply to have a challenge. Since war stats aren’t necessarily something that’s easy to find without doing real work, I’m going to simply leave it at that.
Second tier
ESD – Arguably a clan that could compete for top-tier, but at ~110-130 countries recently, they’re still just a bit small to be able to compete in a war or a netting competition for TNW with any of the top tier clans. Dragon’s got a good thing going there and if they continue to grow by grabbing 1-2 extra guys each set while keeping high standards for netgaining, they’re not far from being a true contender for the TNW crown. They have recently owned the ANW category, winning it the last 3 sets (and based on their average land, I think they’ve got a great chance at getting it again this set). Perhaps the quietest and most left alone netgaining clan as well, so as long as they can keep staying below the radar, there’s no reason to think these performances aren’t repeatable in future sets as well.
IMP – For this particular set, I’m going to put them ahead of CC simply because they beat down CC in a war this set. IMP has generally played the part of villain in FFA politics and seemingly always has a few people who are embroiled in a feud of some type with them, whether it was FoCuS near the beginning of FFA, PANLV for a short spell, or perhaps CC now. They’re a war clan and when they have the advantage, they seem to put up very impressive activity. They’ve also had some wars (like NBK v. IMP/FoCuS), where it seems like the full effort isn’t there.
CC – Overall, I’d probably rate them as the 2nd best warclan on the server, and when heavy hitters like bsnake and fordy are present and active, they are perhaps on par with NBK when it comes to rate statistics (can’t keep up with NBK on total hits due to numbers of course). This set they’re getting beat up pretty bad by IMP, but they were trying to netgain, so they were probably ill-prepared for such a fight.
FoCuS – In the middle of being beat down by NBK right now, but FoCuS has plenty of positives about them. When they netgain, they’re very capable (last set about 80M Average), but you can tell that they’ve got some killers at heart or people who aren’t fully motivated to try to put up a great netgaining performance. At the same time, they’re a clan that often can put up a big country or two. They’ve got many great killers as well, and when they’re on equal footing and motivated, they can be among the hardest hitting clans in FFA. However, many of their recent war efforts have been more lackluster. This could be due to the fact that they’ve been outgunned and paired with clans that they don’t tend to have any real strong relations with though.
Mercs – This one was a tough one to place, as they’ve basically got two sets of data to look at, and this set isn’t nearly as impressive as the last. However, I’m giving them benefit of the doubt and putting them in the 2nd tier instead of the 3rd. In their previous set, they set the ANW record with 185M ANW. For comparison sake, the current big dogs of the ANW category, ESD, has their best at 170M ANW. Political reasons (mostly surrounding a few clans’ hatred of Rockman) caused them to break up, so that talent was redistributed to the other clans. Now that they’re back, they’re showing they’ve still got what it takes to compete for countries, but there’s a big portion of their clan that seems relatively inactive, dragging down average land and average networth numbers significantly. I expect them to claim a strong share of the top 100, but unless they detag all the inactives, I wouldn’t expect them to seriously compete with ESD or even PANLV for ANW.
Third Tier
Elysium – A very good netgaining clan that seems to be the target of some of the war clans these days. If they get this turned around, they’ll be back on the upswing, but for now, this is a clan that can’t netgain because of war, and they’re not putting up terribly impressive war numbers from what I’ve seen.
LaE – Would be higher if not for the fact that they’re falling apart and it’s already been announced they won’t be back next set. In their first incarnation, they were the powerhouse of FFA and won TNW the first three sets and the #1 country 5 times. Their recent history pretty much just consists of last set and ICe Man coming back every 2-3 sets and trying to gather his LaErs back together before losing interest and playing his Xbox 360 instead. Regardless, they had a very impressive set last set, finishing #2 in ANW behind ESD and ahead of PANLV and TKO. Suiciders and inactivity by most of the leadership this set has pretty much led to LaE falling apart and being relegated to being an afterthought to compete for any of the major “crowns” for this set.
KSM – an upcoming clan, but last set they seemed to be netting and had 40M ANW. This set looks like it might be a stronger set, but there’s no history to buoy up their ranking, so this is a “wait-and-see” ranking.
XI – Veteran group of killers, but generally they’ve been far too small of a group to really make much of a difference in the large scheme of things, as it often is for small warring clans (at least small netgaining clans can catch attention by winning ANW).
BooM/Bad4u – Don’t know as much about them, but they seem to be a hybrid sort of clan, killing a lot of suiciders this set, but also netgaining somewhat. The Walls of Stalingrad guy seems to be a strong netter, but most of the rest of the clan look like they’re either more interesting in killing than netting or they’re not terribly active right now.
Ares – At one point it seemed like they were going to be an interesting small war clan on the rise, then it seemed like they were going to fade out of the picture completely, but they’ve hung on at about 48 countries recently. Still not much of a real player in war and with only 32 countries and 14M ANW last set, they’re not setting the world on fire netgaining wise either. Perhaps they were involved in a lot of killing though.
So, where am I wrong? Make your cases for why I’m a blowhard who doesn’t know what I’m talking about. :)
I also take into account past performances, because in many cases, so if your clan's success is all pretty recent, you may not get the respect other clans do.
Lastly, I would say that while I’ve tried to put them in the order I believe they should be, clans within a tier are easily exchangeable. Clearly NBK could be considered anywhere from #1 to #3 depending on the weight you put on netgaining vs. warring skills, and you might argue that some of the smaller clans could be moved around a lot, but those are also the clans that I don’t know as much about.
Top Tier Clans
TKO – TNW is the crown that matters most for large netting clans, and they’ve virtually owned that crown since they took it for the first time in set 5. They’ve won TNW 8 times in 14 sets so far and depending on the PANLV/TKO battle this set goes, they could be looking at 9 in 15 sets. They’re also very prolific at getting the #1 overall country, pulling that off 7 times in the 14 sets (LaE is the only one close here, with 5 #1’s, PAN has the other 2). Consistently near the top for ANW, but their only two ANW crowns have come in sets where their prime contenders have been at war (one set was the crazy war set, set 7, where TKO owned every aspect of netgaining due to the fact that there was literally no other major clan that was: 1) netgaining, and 2) actually known as a netgaining clan. Both throughout time and currently, TKO is the clan to beat for the TNW crown.
PANLV – We’ve sort of been relegated to the “little brother” of TKO when it comes to our competitions. PANLV is one of only three clans in the history of FFA to win the TNW, along with TKO and LaE, winning it three times, most recently last set. We’ve finished runner-up five other times and third once when NBK netted with over 300 countries. PANLV also is only one of three clans to have #1 finishes on the server, with 2 of those. We’ve also been sort of the big dog in ANW for a good chunk of time and that is the one place where we can tout a superior record to TKO. Since the xGD/NBK war, when TKO became the biggest netting clan, to the recent run of success by ESD, PANLV was the ANW clan to beat. In the 8th set, we finished 3rd behind two single man tags, then 2nd behind Mercs, followed by two 1st place finishes. Since then, PANLV is still a force in the ANW battle, but haven’t been able to get past ESD.
NBK – The top warring clan, hands down. They’re so far out ahead of everyone else that with the exception of the couple of sets where they skirmished with SemperFi, they’ve had to intentionally take on 2:1 fights for quite some time simply to have a challenge. Since war stats aren’t necessarily something that’s easy to find without doing real work, I’m going to simply leave it at that.
Second tier
ESD – Arguably a clan that could compete for top-tier, but at ~110-130 countries recently, they’re still just a bit small to be able to compete in a war or a netting competition for TNW with any of the top tier clans. Dragon’s got a good thing going there and if they continue to grow by grabbing 1-2 extra guys each set while keeping high standards for netgaining, they’re not far from being a true contender for the TNW crown. They have recently owned the ANW category, winning it the last 3 sets (and based on their average land, I think they’ve got a great chance at getting it again this set). Perhaps the quietest and most left alone netgaining clan as well, so as long as they can keep staying below the radar, there’s no reason to think these performances aren’t repeatable in future sets as well.
IMP – For this particular set, I’m going to put them ahead of CC simply because they beat down CC in a war this set. IMP has generally played the part of villain in FFA politics and seemingly always has a few people who are embroiled in a feud of some type with them, whether it was FoCuS near the beginning of FFA, PANLV for a short spell, or perhaps CC now. They’re a war clan and when they have the advantage, they seem to put up very impressive activity. They’ve also had some wars (like NBK v. IMP/FoCuS), where it seems like the full effort isn’t there.
CC – Overall, I’d probably rate them as the 2nd best warclan on the server, and when heavy hitters like bsnake and fordy are present and active, they are perhaps on par with NBK when it comes to rate statistics (can’t keep up with NBK on total hits due to numbers of course). This set they’re getting beat up pretty bad by IMP, but they were trying to netgain, so they were probably ill-prepared for such a fight.
FoCuS – In the middle of being beat down by NBK right now, but FoCuS has plenty of positives about them. When they netgain, they’re very capable (last set about 80M Average), but you can tell that they’ve got some killers at heart or people who aren’t fully motivated to try to put up a great netgaining performance. At the same time, they’re a clan that often can put up a big country or two. They’ve got many great killers as well, and when they’re on equal footing and motivated, they can be among the hardest hitting clans in FFA. However, many of their recent war efforts have been more lackluster. This could be due to the fact that they’ve been outgunned and paired with clans that they don’t tend to have any real strong relations with though.
Mercs – This one was a tough one to place, as they’ve basically got two sets of data to look at, and this set isn’t nearly as impressive as the last. However, I’m giving them benefit of the doubt and putting them in the 2nd tier instead of the 3rd. In their previous set, they set the ANW record with 185M ANW. For comparison sake, the current big dogs of the ANW category, ESD, has their best at 170M ANW. Political reasons (mostly surrounding a few clans’ hatred of Rockman) caused them to break up, so that talent was redistributed to the other clans. Now that they’re back, they’re showing they’ve still got what it takes to compete for countries, but there’s a big portion of their clan that seems relatively inactive, dragging down average land and average networth numbers significantly. I expect them to claim a strong share of the top 100, but unless they detag all the inactives, I wouldn’t expect them to seriously compete with ESD or even PANLV for ANW.
Third Tier
Elysium – A very good netgaining clan that seems to be the target of some of the war clans these days. If they get this turned around, they’ll be back on the upswing, but for now, this is a clan that can’t netgain because of war, and they’re not putting up terribly impressive war numbers from what I’ve seen.
LaE – Would be higher if not for the fact that they’re falling apart and it’s already been announced they won’t be back next set. In their first incarnation, they were the powerhouse of FFA and won TNW the first three sets and the #1 country 5 times. Their recent history pretty much just consists of last set and ICe Man coming back every 2-3 sets and trying to gather his LaErs back together before losing interest and playing his Xbox 360 instead. Regardless, they had a very impressive set last set, finishing #2 in ANW behind ESD and ahead of PANLV and TKO. Suiciders and inactivity by most of the leadership this set has pretty much led to LaE falling apart and being relegated to being an afterthought to compete for any of the major “crowns” for this set.
KSM – an upcoming clan, but last set they seemed to be netting and had 40M ANW. This set looks like it might be a stronger set, but there’s no history to buoy up their ranking, so this is a “wait-and-see” ranking.
XI – Veteran group of killers, but generally they’ve been far too small of a group to really make much of a difference in the large scheme of things, as it often is for small warring clans (at least small netgaining clans can catch attention by winning ANW).
BooM/Bad4u – Don’t know as much about them, but they seem to be a hybrid sort of clan, killing a lot of suiciders this set, but also netgaining somewhat. The Walls of Stalingrad guy seems to be a strong netter, but most of the rest of the clan look like they’re either more interesting in killing than netting or they’re not terribly active right now.
Ares – At one point it seemed like they were going to be an interesting small war clan on the rise, then it seemed like they were going to fade out of the picture completely, but they’ve hung on at about 48 countries recently. Still not much of a real player in war and with only 32 countries and 14M ANW last set, they’re not setting the world on fire netgaining wise either. Perhaps they were involved in a lot of killing though.
So, where am I wrong? Make your cases for why I’m a blowhard who doesn’t know what I’m talking about. :)
EE Patron