Problem: Playable roles in certain areas becoming limited.

I accept everything but assassins because there is about 500% more chance of error on assassins than any other class (maybe warrior aggro is bad but assassin aggro is worse).

Start your own group.

I play a Mesmer, a smiting monk, and a non-cookie cutter Ranger (with pet). You want abuse? Try getting into a group as a smiting monk, even in Kryta, where the build is very effective.

Spamming "LFG" is just a form of begging.

I've started taking pick-up groups, especially in the beginning areas, taking whoever wants to join, and hoping to train people to have open minds. I've won the hardest missions with the oddest groups, and am having fun doing it.

Won Borlis Pass last night with three mid-level necros (one of them mine), a ranger, and two elementalists.

Behavior in the game will only change when players start revolting against the cookie-cutter. It's like that in real-life, too.

How will Assassins learn to play better if no one plays with them?

I've played with soem excellent assassins. Admitedly, they're few and far between, but they do exist.

During the Dragon festival, we won the Seijung Harbor "grasp mission" with an Assassin, a Ritualist, an Elementalist, and a Ranger. The Assassin died a lot, but he also got much better as we progressed.

Open minds make the game better.

Dang, I'm one of those you envy. The only two characters I have (sharig an account) is a tank and a monk. I'm sought after by everyone. Except Dragon's lair mission because nine out of ten people there were warriors.

When I monk while farming, I will accept any sort of farming build as long as it's consistant, or at least seems consistant. I feel the raw end of the Assassin hate myself, but when it comes to 4-5 man farming parties (cutting things down to the bare minimums to get out the maximum), classes like an Assassin or Mesmer are pretty useless.

It's not a nice thing to say, but it's a fact.

Sigh!
I just wasted more than two hours trying to find people to play the game, I mean doing quests and missions, even most of the players on my guild were busy doing other things. Tried whith henchies more than once and I did not make it.
I decided to log off not amused and dissapointed also because this is happening very often especially in these last two weeks.

This should be a cooperative game which is not. I'm starting to get bored and finding the game to hard to go on by myself. I think that very soon I'll be leaving GW for good I'm not haveing fun anymore.

I can see other people are sharing my feeling too, where are they when I play tho?

Finished my rant, sorry about that.

Personally, when I do get a group together, all I really require is that we've got some healing in there. Other than that, anything goes.

Then again, I usually go with hench groups, because PuGs make me fear for humanity's future.

To the OP... it's been months since Sorrows was playable. I gave up when the majority of people were looking for farming groups not the quests.

Angelica, we're around.. normally with henchies or in some weird pug. Henchies are without doubt, my best friends My main is a mesmer who started in Tyria when mesmers were frowned upon. Btw, what profession is it that you're playing and having problems getting into groups with?

My opinion on this *readies fire hoses* is simply PvP balance has started to hurt the PvE game.
How do I say this? Well, PvE is vs the AI and in the upper levels or end game, the mobs are higher level then the players, their spells and attacks are over the top in terms of effect and damage, they have more health and so on. PvP balances for player skills and health with is static (adjust for runes and mods).
Because the AI is adjusted for power and numbers against the players skill, it's overwhelming on a "balanced" term without gimicks.
For example, B/P a great gimick build that works in Tombs wonderfully. 55 dual UW works wonderfully. Take a real group, balanced and full to either of these places and it's much more difficult. Why? Because the balanced skills are balanced for playing against other players and not against superior level and over powered foes.
Now, since Anet can obviously set skills and abilities to differ in PvE and PvP (see the current pets having DP in PvP only) they should start doing that 100% of the time. Don't tell me it can't be done; a PvE ranger takes his/her pet into PvP and the pet suddenly has DP when it dies. Once he/she returns to PvE the pet has no DP when it dies. So it's a dynamic change.
Making the game mechanics different for each via skills and weapons then add in the idea for randomly composed mobs with various skills would create some PvE balance.

As I said, it's what I see and is my opinion. *Runs from the flameboys*

Seconded.

You are right about certain builds only getting the "look" This is an old argument from the beginning of GW. I also find it interesting that some missions are so hard that only some extream team builds can do them (EoE groups for Warrens). I also find it interesting that certain skills from prophacies are needed to do Urgoz Warren with any chance at succsess.

For example: I play a Restoration Ritualist and a fairly good one. I also have a Monk with about 1.8 mil exp points. In some areas a Restoration Ritualist would be more practical than a Monk. However finding a Group to take me in for Elite missions (ToPK SF Deep Warrens) Is nigh impossible. The Elite missions should be geared such that any profession should be able to join in without fear of rejection. In otherwords you should be able to play a SIN or something else and have a decent chance of survival.

Hm, I'm pretty sure someone is going to attack me for this, but I'd really appreciate logical responses. I'd merely like to know why, exactly, people should take other people whom they do not want to.

Example:
Back in the day of SF farming, two of my guildies and I had a great build for gear tanking. To complete our team, we knew all we needed was a minion master and a fire nuker. Why should we have taken anyone else? It was fast enough for us, and we had an almost 100% success rate. (Except for those times when "nobody zoned" but we magically appeared outside...) Technically, we did have 3 more open spots, but since we were farming, we did not want to share the chance of getting greens any more than necessary. Also, we almost constantly used scrolls so as to increase the XP we got even further. This, combined with the reward from doing the Orozar Highstone quest, generally added up to over 12,000xp per trip. I can understand the frustration of not being able to get into groups, since I like to play an earth elementalist and some weird necro builds. However, I see two possible reactions to this problem.
1) Complain about it.
2) Form your own group so you can get whoever you want in it.
I'm sure you can guess which option I choose. I also agree that forming and dealing with your own PuG isn't all that easy at first, but eventually you learn how to deal with people. The most important thing is to BE FRIENDLY/POLITE. If you think, after a short private conversation with someone, that they don't know what they're doing, then a simple "no thanks" works most of the time.

There are lots of good points here.

This problem is where being in a guild really does matter. Then you can do missions and just have fun with a group of people who you know and are not necessarily worried about mounting their idea of "perfect" team.

I've bumped into many assasins lately who are having trouble getting groups.

I never have trouble getting a group for my assassin in RA

*flame shield activated*

I think the problem with the Elite Missions is that they are just that, elite, hard, not easy. So to do them there are certain skills and builds that make it possible. Sure this means no variety, but if only a certain number of things work, it's best to stay to those things.

Basically, if you want to play in one of the exclusive areas (SF, RoTotPK, elite missions), you have to go with what works best. You don't HAVE to go to any of these areas, you choose to and so must be willing to deal with what's there.

Also, don't complain that your only character is useless. Go make another character, get them through the campaign, and then use them. I have 5 characters, and I know that they are only good for certain things.

Ditto. my group usually doesn't complain about my sin when we are playing...

i wish this happen to trappers in Urgoz...

it is true, in a way. but i think that the brain of the average experienced player more than makes up for the lack of pure firepower. yes, gimmick builds can be much more effective than balanced builds.
but playing in a balanced party against overwhelming odds happens to be the most fun way to play, unless you just want to farm. if the whole team has sort of an idea of what they are doing, the casters are kiting, everyone is watching their aggro, then even elite missions arent too much of a problem.

and the good thing is that each class is wanted and needed, as long as the player knows what he is doing. and i think its in the best interest of the game to make gimmick builds less effective and 'force' players to learn what skills really matter, other than googling the best gimmickbuild.

Earlier on, I was at Minister Cho's estate, and there was a group "looking for an MM". I mean, it's really getting ridiculous when you think you need an MM for Minister Cho's estate. Oy vey.

But this is the problem. People are so convinced that only certain builds and groups work that we have absolutely freaking ridiculous stuff like a group insisting on an MM for a mission my cat could do. (though she may not get masters...)

Ummm! Assassin have no problem getting into group in Fort Aspenwood! And, I've gotten some compliments from players there, and a whole big stack of amber!

In general, this problem is going to remain, though. I quit going to UW and FoW for this very reason, and yeah I've got a monk and a warrior, but I just don't want to do it somebody else's way.

I take a smite monk routinely in fissure... am I strange?