Will "Protector" titles influence Nightfall PuGs?

Wow, just when I thought the assassin was taking attention away from mesmers as being stereotyped, someone mentions it. I have been sick of people thinking mesmers suck ever since i bought prophecies a year ago.

I will admit that there are some bad mesmer players out there, but all in all, my ES mesmer can deal more damage and energy denial than my ele or my rit. The only class I believe can do more aoe dmg is necro.

And on the subject of titles, I don't bother looking at people's titles unless i'm bored. It is impressive to see cartographer, but I would rather have skill hunter titles on my characters. Just sounds cooler. I never seem to have trouble finding a group without bragging about my titles.

.................................................. .......wall hugging at 60 dp ftw....................made me laugh, and really, good pvp players arnt allways better at pve, its been many times as a healing monk that some rank (wgaf) warrior over aggroed and died, or did something dumb, and there has been times that a rank 6 guy ran me too droks, and was real good at it. pvp isnt better then pve, just differnt. i enjoy parts of both

i dont wanna a flame war, but you have ever tanked in pve, or you wouldnt say such things

My warrior is my primary character, for PvP and for PvE. If by 'tanking' you mean standing still like an idiot while doing no damage, then no, I haven't 'tanked' before. I much prefer being able to actually, you know, kill monsters.

To all of you who think warriors should be stance tanks: I strongly recommend you head over to the warrior forum and read some of the threads on tanking and why defense and self-heal is usually unnecessary.

Well, if you could only get gladiator in TA that would be true. But you can get gladiator in RA by just playing a Boonprot there, and then it's almost impossible to lose.

Actually, think about it, good players are hard to get, imo its better, as far as it concerns farming, to have a small, experienced, compact, fun group of trustfull people that you just know wont leave (voluntarily at least, anyone can D/C). Anyway thats just imo offcourse.
Theres usually one person in that team of 8 which will either:

a) Be a noob
b) Be a rusher noob
c) Be a leaver
d) Be an AFK'er
c) Be plain rude and anoying/whinning.


We farmed Right outside SF to be precise.
Quick, easy, and fast, ocasional 1-2 greens in 10-15 minutes.

You and DivineShadows are correct in that aspect.
My apologies for not mentioning i was refering to only a small part of Pve, the farming part.

Hmm not quite imo.
Ive faced countless Degen Curses Necs there build specifically for owning us boon prots in ra.
If theres alot of people following a certain build, there will be alot of people with a perfect counter build to that.
So I guess theres always a balance.

Let me give you another example.
During the iway "wave", more and more people were finding the concept of "Grab an Axe,press C and then ctrl+shift+spacebar" quite interesting.( im exagerating a bit offcourse but you get my point )
They liked the quick easy fame.

But, soon enough there were groups which easily countered Iway, such as Balling up, among other defenses.

So, being a Boon Prot on RA wont give you an unfailable winning streak of 10 matches, since there are builds out there that counter Boon Prot.
Imo anyway.
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Feel Free to Correct me if anything i said above is false. Thanks in advance
-Lynxius

Protector title for some profession is easy, but not all profession are equal. due to the holy trinity stereotype, prot. title is easy for tank ele and monk. people will be happy to take one that said "LFG master", maybe necro or ranger will be taken. but some profession isn't that lucky. Mesmer, Assasin, maybe Ritualist. it is much harder for them to get PUG. especially Assassin (I have assasssin entitled prot. of cantha and master cartographer) it is just hard to get in PUG, not to mention master group. so prot. Title does mean something. at least it prove a Assassin don't die every 20 second

Yes but dont forget that you are talking only about Canthan Protector title.

If you think about the Protector of Tyria title you can hench almost every bonus.
I for example, completelly henched for example Thunderhead keep Mish+bonus and Ring of Fire bonus.
Henchman are quite good contrary to common belief , try them out.

Don't get all worked up over the tanking issue. What people don't seem to realize, or forget is that a true "tank" is a build, just like MM or SS or Echo Nuke or Boon Prot or Heal or whatever.

A true Tank can do a good job and doesn't add a ton of time to a mission. A tank can make life a lot easier on the team by concentrating the fire of the backline and having fewer targets for the monk to deal with.

That being said, there are some problems with true tanking in general pve. Most people don't understand the agro circle. It is more than a little frustrating being a tank only to have your agro broken because you couldn't get clean agro or someone breaks it with firestorm (I hate that meteor shower or equivilent isn't in Factions, so end game eles are still using firestorm ) You spend half your time arguing with people or trying to explain to them to stay the hell out of your bubble while you get agro and not to attack until you have it established.

But, damage warriors can do a very good job of holding agro as well with a few additions to their skill bar. I went through all of factions as an axe dmg warrior. Full 16 atts, but also brought along a few defensive skills (dolyaks, endure pain, etc) Even a dmg tank doesn't have any true need to put more than about 4 attack skills on their bar. I usually kept 3 spots for some sort of buff/defense and it worked just fine.

I echo Cherno on the tanking issue. A true stance tank who actually knows how to use the game's aggro mechanics, in the company of a group who understands what the tank is doing, is pretty much an automatic win for the team he's on... But they're exceptionally rare and virtually never feature in PuGs. I've seen some breathtaking performances before, though, and some of them were even Whammos in 15K glads!

Tanks and damage warriors simply do different jobs in the team (though of course there's a continuum between the two). The latter are seeing a lot more acceptance post-Cantha (which I think is one of the big things Factions did right) just because battle lines are that much more fluid.

Me? I play my warrior as a damage-dealer. But that's mainly because I've already got a monk and a ritualist to do the passive thing with and I want some variety.
C'mon, it was pretty obvious from my post that I was poking gentle fun at my hypothetical elitist.

So do I, that's the point. You just debated your own debate.




I never advocated *not using* the maximum amount of points in your weapon attribute. Maybe I should have put bold font around the part with no defensive skills. The simple fact is, in 8/10 PuGs I find myself in, there is no competant monk, and/or there is a less than competant team member that can make your objectives much harder. Using a build with defensive skills helps mitigate that and improve your party's chances for success.

I never advocated using a pure stance build either - in fact I never have done that in a group, simply because of skills like Wild Blow. The 25% that gets through bothers me too. If you're that convinced I'm a terrible warrior, look at my build.

w/x
16 Axe
11 Strength
9 Tactics

Flurry
Healing Signet
Cyclone Axe
Penetrating Blow
Executioner's Strike
Dolyak Signet
Watch Yourself!
Defy Pain {E}

Obviously you see the max weapon attrribute and 11 strength - this actually helps me live longer thanks to Dolyak Signet and Defy Pain, while maintaining damage you would see in a PvP environment, granted that I'm not laden down with hexes and conditions.
Depending on how comfortable I am with my group, or what mission, and therefore, enemy skills I'm facing, I'll change my skillbar; a res, condition removal, maybe lower some stats and put a few points in healing for Vigorous Spirit. If the mission is easy, I'll lose Defy Pain and take Eviscerate.
What I am referring to is the warrior that will take a pure offensive skill bar, like in PvP, and expect his team to keep him alive. Well guess what - in PvE, there's a thing called aggro, and you'll get it. It won't switch targets when you hit sprint. Also, last time I checked, Watch Yourself! and Shields Up! weren't offensive skills.

In PvE, I find that as a warrior, I *will* be doing less damage than if I chose a ranger or caster class, except elementalist of course, simply because your damage output is the easiest to hinder. This is a fact any warrior knows. Yes, you can have a good coordinated team pull this off. How likely is it to get a PuG like that? Not very likely at all.

Fatogreboy, I agree with you totally about the mesmer class. It seems some people can't get past the purple pixy dust.

If you didn't want a flame war, you'd put some support behind your sentance.

I agree with this:

I also agree wholeheartedly with the last two posters. There are A LOT of times when you are the only warrior on your team, and 7 people in 60AL armor doesn't it cut it for taking the brunt of the enemy's attacks. Using res as an arguement? Please. The key to playing a good warrior in PvE is finding the right balance between offense and defense, and you're not being as powerful as possible if you lean too far towards either. I believe it was either Ractoh or Kanasagi who said something like that, and it still holds true.

A rez should never be optional in PvE for non-monk players. Rez signet is the most overpowered skill in the game and fast rezzing is ftw. A "comfortable" group may choose to take 4 rez instead of 6 or something of the like.

Your logic is baffling. If the mission is easy, then you bring a good elite skill that actually helps complete the mission. If the mission is hard, then you bring a junk elite skill to further add to the difficulty of the mission. Grand plan.

Try out tiger's fury, tiger stance, or frenzy instead of flurry. Heck, even berserker stance is better than flurry. Cyclone axe paired with watch yourself is usually all the defense you should need. If you really don't trust your monks, then find a better PUG with better monks or form the PUG yourself and screen the players. If you are in the mood to form a team with only one monk (and some off monk healing) which is perfectly viable in PvE, then healing signet is a good idea to bring. Dolyak signet and defy pain are crap whenever you are going for masters. You don't even have sprint or rush to catch back up to your team.

Putting a little bit of defense onto warriors makes sense when running with only one monk. If you're going bring some defensive skills on your warrior in PvE, then shouts are the way to go IMO because:

- they help out other members of your team
- most of the skills the AI use cannot counter them (in and around Boreas Seabed, some enemies use seeking arrows but otherwise shields up is great)
- they are not countered by wild blow
- they help even when the "aggro" is not contained onto the warrior(s)
- they do not slow you down like dolyak signet
- they are not elite and do not suck like defy pain

Enemy AI do not kite from your warrior and they ball up nicely for you to spam cyclone axe doing massive damage to them. Therefore, it stands to reason that the damage potential of a warrior in PvE is even higher than in PvP. Under your current build, your statement is true you will do less damage. Use a real increased attack speed stance and bring either triple chop/dismember/executioners or eviscerate/executioners pairing it with cyclone axe and these are the only builds that will outdamage you:

- a barrage ranger with 16 in marksmanship that is consistently hitting multiple enemies (this is conditional though). Still, a triple chop/cyclone axe warrior using a zealous axe is very close in damage though.
- a minion master

SS necros and "nukers" will not be outdamaging you, because their spells take too long to set up and you will have killed multiple enemies before they even get going thus limiting their AoE damage. A fast cast fire mesmer has some hope of rivaling a warrior's damage in PvE if they are good at selecting the targets of their AoE spells and understand the game mechanics to prevent scatter.

Um...get better PUGs. Especially better monks. Or form the PUGs yourself which honestly does not require inspecting people's titles. Talking to people is ftw. If they are not willing to talk with you and do not wish to share what build/atts they are using, then they are not team players and do not deserve to be in a good PUG anyway.

A PUG with only one warrior can still be appropriately set up to kill fast assuming the warrior decides to do their part and add deep wound to drop targets fast. Being the only warrior on the team, you seem concerned that you may lose aggro due to one of your PUGs screwing up. A few points here:

- The faster you kill the more enemies you get to take down before the aggro gets lost meaning less exposure/risk to the rest of the team.
- Dolyak signet and defy pain do not help at all once aggro is lost, because the enemy AI will target the lowest AL/health target. It would be more efficient for you as a warrior to place a ward v melee and spam watch yourself on your team once aggro has been lost than to use dolyak signet and defy pain. Look how silly it would be for your warrior to use ward v melee and realize how much sillier it is to use dolyak sig and defy pain.

Concerning the SS necros, I have played an SS necro for quite some time now, and so I believe, your argument is not correct:

1-Spells taking long to cast? To start off, you can echo SS.
2-SS isnt AoE. You described this wrongly.

Now imagine a very high concentration of mobs very closelly tight and together (a good tank can achieve this, and if he is stances even better since the monk isnt suposed to enter the other monsters aggro until they are properly tied to the tank[until then the tank needs to survive] ,so then SS can come, do his job, and so on and so forth ).
First you echo.
You cast SS on one. Thats 37 dmg per atack on it and adjacents.
Then you Cast the echoed SS. Thats 74 dmg per mob IF they are tight.
Cast RH to quicken the process.
After this he uses desecrate enchants for some extra over 70 dmg (plus dmg for each enchantment).
By this time another 2 SS are already recharged and ready to be used on 2 other mobs.
Which will, assuming they DO NOT scatter and stay glued to the tank, deal instant 148 dmg(if all mobs atack at same time) each time the whole group atacks once.

Phew i guess thats it. Can a warrior do that? I wil remind you that SS lasts 21 seconds at 16 Curses.
Pairing Recklacehaste to speeden the process, calculate the dmg by yourself.

Obviously, this will involve covering SS so it doesnt get removed by enemies, hence, recklace haste also provides a good hex cover.

Thats about it.

Incompetent monk != incompetent group.

Most of the time you will only need defense and self-heal when the majority of your team is incompetent, and in those cases I just /ragequit. I don't see the point in adapting your build to play with people who don't know what they're doing and can't follow directions.


I have always maintained that the only acceptable warrior elites are attack skills. I have not *once* encountered a PvE area where I would rather have Defy Pain instead of Dragon Slash, Eviscerate, Triple Chop, etc.

I also don't see a res, which is a huge mistake.

I used to like Dolyak Signet, but in reality the movement penalty often isn't worth the armor increase unless you're farming. If you're *really* lucky, you won't ever have to move once you engage the enemy, but monsters in PvE are hardly ever that convenient, especially if your team is packing any nukes.

Your team will keep you alive provided you don't hit Frenzy. A warrior with a shield has enough natural damage reduction that keeping her alive under all but the most extreme damage situations should be a piece of cake. I used to monk for guild FoW runs, UW, etc. so I'm not just a dumb warrior player that takes monks for granted. Back when I monked exclusively, none of my warriors took self-heals, they rarely used defensive skills, and I didn't have problems keeping them up. Granted, we were all reasonably competent players, but even so. When I switched to warrior primary, I found the situation to be the same - even with henchmen, I rarely had to take defense, and I never had to take self-heal.

In terms of efficiency, you'd really like to squeeze as much damage onto your skillbar as possible. If you can beat the mission/quest just relying on your monks, you should be taking all offense. If you absolutely need defense for a given situation then by all means take your defensive skill, but there honestly aren't more than a handful of PvE locations where this could be true.

I find Gladiators defense quite quite usefull if you have 5 melee mobs atacking you continuosly, not only will they fail their atacks, but youl also deal a good bit of dmg with this elite stance.

_______________________________
Correct me if Im wrong.

Wow - looks to me as though my ele may have to wear her Protector of Cantha title for a while to "Prove her Worth"...although I am much prouder of the Canthan Grandmaster Cartographer title.

Lucky I was planning on starting a monk in Nightfall otherwise, without that title, I don't have a hope in hell of getting into a group! At least if I'm a monk people might assume I can heal well!

Personally, I won't be looking for anyone with any titles in particular for when I am forming a group in the new expansion. When I am forming a Masters group, for example, in Cantha I don't only choose people with cool titles. If there is anyone in the group who I do not deem to fully understand the concept of "Masters Group" they just get kicked. Basic rule...if you annoy me before I even click "enter mission", if you boss me around, if you tell me what build I should use, if you tell me that one monk and a healing rit is not enough healing power when I know otherwise, if you're generally NOT a team player and have the potential to screw up all our good work 15 minutes into the game, you get a sharp kick!

Always has worked for me...you can't judge someone on the title...like protector...maybe they just got lucky! And I know people may appear all "sweetness and light" before a mission and then turn bad...but in my experience, my method works much better.

Rez signets? This isn't competitive arenas. It's "mandatory" for the monk to bring rebirth, otherwise they're obviously a noob. This is all over generalization and I think you know it. There is no perfect build or skills that are mandatory in a group or for all missions. If you've played a ranger, you know this. A lot of rangers will change their skills at every chance they get, just to get a group or help adapt better to the situation at hand.

As far as the elite? Changing my elite will instantly make me so deadly that I can kill those run away mobs before they touch my squishies, right? Not to mention that running to the back lines will lure the remaining ones that have aggro on me, right to the other casters in the back. So let's see.. physical damage versus high AL and luring mobs to my squishees, sounds great. I'll change my build asap.


TF requires 4BM for 7 seconds, and would disable my shouts, heals, etc. Tiger stance is very nice, but has a recharge.. less than active 50% active. You can remedy this with knockdowns + On Your Knees!, which I plan on doing on my hammer warrior. Berseker stance? Why? I could take Iron Mist instead. How does Defy Pain hinder a master title? You're not the sole damage dealer in the party, you know. Dolyak signet when going for master's I agree with, I've said as much. I switch skills when the moment arises, and a good example is when mobility will do me more good, like in a master's group.

Duh? I would say the *majority* of the time I'm the only tank with no monk, or 1, or the henchmen monks. Which is my reason for running a warrior like I do.

Hexes and conditions exist in PvE too. How often are they removed? Conditions sometimes.. maybe 20% of PuGs like I said, hexes, not worth mentioning. I'm talking about PuGs for missions and quests, not FoW, UW, SF/GF, etc. As for a "real" attack speed, no thanks, see reason above. Flurry is the only IAS that doesn't have a super huge penalty. Damage is about 115%, correct me if I'm wrong? It also activates the "In Stance" condition for gear, the main reason I have it, as well as speeding up adrenaline gain. The skill only lasts 5 seconds, making it easy to land all your adrenal skills at full damage when it wears off, then reactivate it for your shield bonus.

Quote of the month! I would if I could. I don't inspect titles more than the last guy, with the exception of survivor. Maybe you missed that part in my last post.

Yes, of course. Deep wound is nice but it won't save your team mates like you keep insisting it does.

So all I have to do is kill them all before they can aggro? Got it.
It's funny you mention this, because that's what I do on my hammer warrior. I realize that Dolyak Signet and Defy Pain don't help too much once aggro is lost. What about when you have it? Frenzy ftw?

Teamwork maybe? Did it ever occur to you that everyone else does this who has any consideration for their group? Try playing a ranger, mesmer, or ritualist. Then count the times that you have to change your build because of your group. Trust me, the group you ragequited won't miss you. Warriors aren't that hard to find, and one with healing breeze would suit them better anyways.

Yes, I see your point. They're the only elites because you say so, how silly of me. I try to make sure my "nukers" are smart enough not to bring those kinds of spells unless we have someone dedicated to snaring. Nothing ruins things like a firestorm. And I agree on Dolyak Signet. I never said it was the best thing since chalupas, I said it's defense that's attributed to strength. You can take it or leave it.

I've PuGed with people that get confused playing degen builds. They have monks and it shows, and they're in 80-90% of PuGs. Pleeeease. Depend on your guildies all you want, but this are PuGs here!

Not talking about UW, FoW, SF/GF, etc. You must be on top of your monk's game.

You don't have to, even as a level 3 elementalist. They like to suicide. Everyone knows that.
Of course, and that's what I do when my brother and friends group with me.
This is true with henchmen or friends playing. You can *almost* count on someone in a PuG of 8 to mess things up beyond the neat little sphere of teamwork like you've talked about. I'd build my bar all around my PuG, GvG style, if I could count on support like you get.

I agree with you on this, Lynxius, and it just gets more pronounced, the larger the mob. W/Ns used to be able to put up a show with Mark of Pain, but sadly those days are over without mass snares.



I'm sorry, OP for somewhat hijacking your thread, and rest assured I won't post in here again. If my points of view aren't clear by now, I don't know what else would help, anyways. Since someone didn't seem to get it before, my opinion on titles is this:
I don't care. Protector, whoopee. Drunkard, whoopee. The only one that I'm leery of is Survivor. This is because in all likely hood, the person power leveled, farmed, or simply quit or ran away whenever they were in danger of being killed. Guildwars was still a team game last time I checked, and that kind of behavior is detrimental to any group. Sure, they could have worked their way through all that xp with only henchmen as company, so as not to be a quiter, and done it all legitimately. What are the chances of that?
If I see a cartogropher, sure, I might ask them along. Maybe I haven't done that mission before, and I know I can count on them to know the nuances of the map. That's all I have to say. =P

Eh, titles aren't worth a lot to me. I keep Lucky as my only title, just for the heck of it. I play a good monk, a mean war, and an average everything else except mesmer (can't time interrupts and haven't played enough of it to get Energy Surge) and I don't see how titles that I don't use time to get make me a better player. Granted, people who spend the time to get them tend to be more experienced than people who don't, but it's not something I worry about as I don't see a lot of them anyways.

I usually find myself playing in PUGs, and have found playing a healer or the tank makes clearing missions easier as I know those roles are filled. The other slots are filled with random other people that are assigned roles by the group leader. As groups already have some hard to fill positions (namely healer), no groups I've been in have made any decision on player based on a title. Thus, I doubt they will have any major impact on PUG groups in Nightfalls

PvE titles are nice, and show that they have spent time and effort to get them. Tyria protectors tends to tell me they've played for a while or are fairly dedicated. Cantha protector tells me they can operate under pressure (time limit) and are able to focus. Cartographer titles are ok, they tell me they've spent a lot of time and should know where things are.

PvP titles don't carry completely into pve. That said, most pvp players tend to play well in pve. While the pvp players don't know much about agro management, map layout, mission specific tactics, and that kind of stuff, they are generally all around good players and if they listen to experienced pve players they make good assets to groups. I've found pvp monks tend to heal just as well as I do with my monk (purely pve monk, don't monk in pvp) and I know I'm good at healing. Of course, whenever I see a war with frenzy in pve, I pretty much know that war is gonna die fast, especially in factions where bosses already deal double damage to the players.

As to the war debate that has broken out in this thread, I've found most of the skills, builds, and strategies useful. Most of them work well, and have given my war a new depth in play level. Dolyak Signet, for example, which I used to hate due to speed reduction, has found a play on my war's skill bar when attempting high level areas with pug or henchies. Defy Pain is a useful replacement for Endure Pain when you really want that extra armor and don't need more attack power. I myself usually play with Penetrating Blow, Triple Chop, and Penetrating Chop filling my attack slots and Healing Signet, and Endure Pain filling my defensive slots. As I don't use any secondary skills, I bring Rebirth making me a much looked down upon W/Mo. Cap Sig, and an area specific skill round out my average skill bar for PvE use. I find my three attack skills can be used very quickly, allowing me to generate high damage to enemies while Endure Pain and Healing Signet can be used for emergencies.

I've found SS necros consistantly deal more damage than most other builds, even if the enemies aren't all clumped up together. Set up is just Arcane Echo, followed by 2 Spiteful Spirits which recharge fairly quickly. As this is ranged, this makes the damage quicker and easier to use than a melee character. Barrage rangers can deal damage from farther away, but the limit of one area and bow attack speed hamper their effectiveness in comparison to SS necros.

I think many people fail to see that pvp just takes so much more skill than pve.

Even if you were 100%, indisputably, self-evidently correct, that still wouldn't make you any less of a troll.
...What? Gah!

Sorry, I have to agree with him. Go naked and with mending on for all I care, but bring a Res Sig. For reasons you pointed out yourself! We're talking about PuGs here, you have to compensate for idiots.

Prevention is safer than curing when it comes to wipes. Res Sig on a warrior is better than Rebirth on a monk.

Oh, and a longbow. I'll take a Mending whammo with a longbow over someone who's managed to fit both Eviscerate and Gladiator's Defense on their skillbar via elite hax.

signed.

Both can be fun in their own rights in moderation though.

As for the original post, I for one have no problem LFG with "R3 boon prot LF Masters" or whatever. Sure you can sharpshoot how it can possibly be moronic...but it lets people know that I didnt just pick up the game and that I'll be competent in what I do.

I honestly think only the "hero" titles are appropriate to advertise when LFG...anything else is just silly.

It could be said that pvp does take more skill than pve. But pve takes a different skill from pve. Healing monks and other support that have done pvp can excel in pve but that often doesn't apply with dmg dealers. I once teamed with a rank 12 warr that couldn't manage aggro and just generally really sucked at pve.


The hero titles would be appropriate for monks but for most roles; I'd be less inclined to take them the higher their rank cause pvp is just a different mindset and you can't play pve in the same manner.

By not taking a res sig, this is the claim you are essentially making: "I would rather have one more skill on my bar than another teammate on my team". In most cases, this is a ridiculous statement, given that another teammate adds 8 skills of her own. Of course, if you are running a build that sbolutely requires 8 skills to function in some complex combo, then your last skill may very well be worth more than an entire other teammate ... but I can't think of any such builds atm.

Changing your elite has nothing to do with running to your backline. Whether you choose to stand and keep the aggro you're holding, or turn around and kill the monsters that got past you, will depend on the threat level of each group. What changing your elite does is ensure that, no matter which action you choose, you'll be able to kill monsters faster - and that always reduces the damage your party is receiving.

There's a difference between changing your build to fit a role in a team, and changing your build to *account for incompetence*. Option 1 is strongly encouraged, option 2 should never happen.

I don't want the group I ragequitted to miss me, because then they PM me garbage and I never have enough space on my ignore list to block them. Furthermore, you're missing the point. Warriors aren't hard to find, sure. Nor is any other profession except monk. But the profession doesn't matter nearly as much as the player; monks are pretty much the only profession you could consider to be mandatory. Otherwise, give me a good team of competent players and I couldn't care less what profession they play.

I form my build around the assumption that my team is competent. If this isn't a good assumption for you, I can only suggest that you play more with friends, guildmates, and henchmen, and less with PUGs. I'm honestly not trying to be rude, snide, or whatever, but I really don't see the point of making a build under the assumption that your team is incompetent ... because if that's your initial assumption, why bother even playing? Again, I'm not trying to be rude, that's honestly what I think.

And yeah, we're hijacking the thread, sorry >_>. Like Jesh, I won't post anymore on this subject.

...Because some of us have very thick skin!

Seriously, I enjoy forming groups with scrubs. I know I'll often have to carry the rest of the team, so I adjust my build accordingly. Playing with friends or a guild group wouldn't be a challenge, so I handicap myself enough via party selection that I learn better reaction times and witness broader* skill usage. Oh, and I get to patiently teach some newbies how to play better.

That Illusion (not IW) Me/W yesterday was rather frustrating, though. I suggested that if he was going to insist on bringing a sword and charging towards the front lines he might want to at least add Distortion to his skillbar instead of running nothing but ranged degen... From his reaction, I'm apparently all that's wrong with Guild Wars - the antichrist of cookie-cutter builds!

See? If I didn't play in scrub PuGs I wouldn't experience amusing anecdotes like that!


*euphemism.

I'm gonna walk to the edge of the flaming pit here and say that I don't agree that pvp takes more skill. In fact I am going to say that is total bullshit. The reason being, and what makes it seem like it takes more skill, is that PvE can be redone. You can lose, change up your skills, build, group mates, whatever, go back in and the enemies and environment will not have changed at all. This means you have more control and more options at winning. In pvp, this is not the case, because even if you do change everything up, when you go back in, chances are that your enemies will be very different as well.
All in all, first time into a mission, is going to be just as difficult for a player as their first pvp match because all they are going to know, is what they can see. Everything else is unknown. I'm not bashing anyone or anything, and you can flame me all you want if it pleases you, but it's not going to change my opinion or anyone elses.

Now in reference to the OP, Protector and Cart titles do give some indication, but as I said before, the more times you do a mission, the more you know about it, and the easier it gets, so when I see either of these titles, I don't immediately think that these people are pros, I just realize that they have probably invested a little more time into the game than someone without. I personally will be sporting my Advanced Skill Hunter title, until I get my Expert Skill Hunter. KOaBD is nice, but eventually everyone will have it.. and I really don't like how it sounds anyway.

The primary reason monks are forced to spam engery levels is the a few warrior types seem to think that monks have endless engery or that heals are free. The smarter warriors spend less time worring about adrenaline and more time worring about the team, perhaps monks would not have to spam engery levels.

Exactly my point.

And you can also go in with a bunch of henchmen and just run at things and still easily complete the game. There's no strategy in pulling a few monsters away from a group and killing them. There's no tactics in it and requires no need for any knowledge of how to play.

While every mission in the game can probably be henched, I suggest that some missions are simply not henchable if you have no knowledge of how to play the game.