Think outside of the box (just a little)

Hello everyone.
I was going to start a thread asking what you people liked to do in Guild Wars, but i presumed the answers were going to be: DOA farm, The Deep, Urgoz, Fow, UW. Because these are the places that you can play with lots of people and get lots of golds (gold itens, or raw gold).
But then giving another thought about it i realized that the reason i was asking, was because im tired of playing the same classes at these places (except Fow and possibly UW), and why god, why is that? Because nowadays the players no longer play to have FUN at these places, the very proof of this is the way we see people playing. For example, at The Deep, the gameplay got so mechanized that the party window must follow the 134134134222 formation (YES! Formation!), this type of attitude gives no room for any other type of gameplay. You must allways play as a Renewal Nuker, allways play as a W/A with shove and a icy weapon. I mean, wtf?! Where is the fun on that? Do we really need to resume ourselves to only 4 classes at these places?
The problem its not that there isnt another better way, is that players consider the other classes inferior (wich is a sad fact). This is getting so drastic at the point that whenever people see other classes at these players they say "get out of here you noob, there is no place for a assassin at the deep". I dont know about you, but i feel unconfortable by seeing people giving this bad image of the game for newcomers.

So i have been thinking on other ways to do these missions, not only to show that the other classes dont "suck", but to let other types of characters to play these missions, wich will end up beein more fun and etc etc.
If anyone would like to help giving ideas and/or testing im sure this will end beeing profitable for us all.


So far i have been planing to add a ritualist communing/restoration (for the room you cant cast spells), a dervish for aoe dmg/tank (onis, carps, etc etc)
Suggestions are welcome.
Thxs

I'm all for variety, but I think it's a lost cause at this point. People, in general, demand cookie-cutter crap for all the Elite areas. If you don't play the way they want you to, then you either play by yourself with the AI or you don't play period.

Well you can think "yea that is never going to change so i might as well give up"... OOOORR... you can start thinking "Holy mother fo heavens, he is right! Lets do this"

Would you rather complete The Deep in 2 hours with a well-crafted group or complete the Deep in 5+ hours with a lackadascial group?

Hi, lemme introduce myself: I am Mr. Cookiecutter Hater.
I enjoy FoW alot and use my main char there, my mesmer. Usually I am the only mesmer around in the european server. Before I got my KoaBD title, I hardly got invited or got ppl to join, but I must say I am more useful than any Renewal Nuker, SS or Tank around there. Reason why? 3 skills: Hex Eater Vortex, Shatter Hex and Backfire. I don't know if you'd like to know some builds for the mesmer, if so, I'd be happy to give some. Usually you can't go wrong with the Domination Line, Res Chant and Auspicious Incantion in your build. Also, if you're doing one of these lite areas again, gimme a whisper. My IGN is Nolani Blaze.
Greets, a fellow cookiemonster (I eat cookicutters)

And for the 10 seconds each one of those skills are on recharge you...?

This is a lost cause, people will not think outside the box, maybe 1 in 1000 people consider it lol, Cookie-cutter will be the way to go until Gw2 where things like this might not have the possibility to exist.

I have considered it but never played any (outside-the-box-builds) because mainly what zinger said, Cookie-cutter builds are usually just more well crafted and better for that instance.

Overall its just Irrelevant, pointless,etc. The only reason people really change up builds for elite areas is because they want something different, but not many people do, or care.

I have to agree, I once spent over 3 hours trying to get into a group with my Paragon in the Kurzik elite mission, Urgoz. My Paragon is no wimp. I have completed every other mission in the Cantha with masters and have worked hard on my build. Should I not have the same opportunity to play as everyone else?

Thats what im talking about!
I use a mesmer too and i rock the casbah at... well... anywhere! But i use Echo instead of hex eater vortex, so that i can use any other skill i need (also use blurred vision, empathy, spirit of failure)

Zinger314 i have been noticing all your posts on the past few weeks and you allways sounded negative, i woudnt expect anything else from you. I wont even bother convincing you to change your mind on anything

Njaiguni Blaze can you think on any good build for mesmers at the Deep? :/

Give ideas people!

Just did the Deep and yer people cant think for themselves. They just Ctrl-C / Ctrl-P builds from wiki or what so ever. Monk MUST be either HB / WoH / LoD / LoD WITH ps and Healing seed. What i did was when they asked for build i just pinged what they were wanting to see and after that i loaded another build (prot build with ZB). And i can tell you it worked so much better than those copied builds they were using. My tank didnt even went down a single bit. After a while i pinged my build and they were silent.... And im 100% sure that if i pinged the build in the first place they would have rage kicked me.
About 80% in the deep think they all figured it out but the opposite is the case.
You wont be able to change this, they're simple to hardheaded or no brainers.

Well, I think the problem is that the powerful unique builds often get nerfed for so call balance purposes.

=/ What does a nuker do whilst waiting for his meteor showers to recharge?

Really, if you want to experiment in high end areas, you really need a guild/alliance group. If you get 8-12 players who you trust as being "good" at the game, it doesn't matter what they run (as long as, since they are "good" players, the build is competient). You can do it.

The real problem with creative builds is that I'm only going to let them be run by people who I trust. I see SF eles who don't have Glowing Gaze or Fire Attunement all the time. I don't even trust PUGs to run cookie cutter builds properly all the time anymore. See the guy asking how the rune/attribute set up he needed for the Urgoz "sucide farm." If you are too stupid to be able to follow simple instructions like that, no way do I trust you to run your own "leet build."

And Njaiguni Blaze's "holier than thou" attitude isn't negative?

For those who have never done Elite Missions, don't just think that you can just take 12 people and kill Kanaxai. You need a plan.

Elite Missions are designed with gimmicks in mind. You need a LoD/HP Monk for the Degeneration areas. You need knockdowns for the Kanaxai Aspects. Just accept it.

Necromancers are just plain better in PvE than Mesmers in high-level areas. Their anti-melee is better (Reckless Haste, Enfeebling Blood), and their damage is better (Spiteful Spirit, Desecrate Enchantments). There is a problem with the Mesmer; wait for the skill updates to fix that. Mesmers are designed for single targets; Necromancers are designed for multiple.

I advise anyone who thinks that they are "better than cookie-cutters" to get a reality check. I'm not saying that cookie-cutter builds are the best, but you aren't better.

On a similar note...no one cares about FoW now. It was hard back in Prophecies era; now, two campaigns later, it's the same as the Realm of Torment without those annoying enviromental effects.

Holy mother of heavens he's right! I'm up for anything new and creative.. send me a wisp IGN: Caedo Loki (I have a character for each prof, except the dervish)

long before your time zinger there were people who played for fun and could have 5 hours of adventure not 5 hours of we didnt farm the expected amount of loot per hour.

i would not touch the elitest elite areas with a bandini stick.

i spend more than 90% of my play time in presear as it is much more fun dancing in presear answering *noob* questions or opening the gate or rez sig quest.

too many elitest posers who only want to give the orders and farm to impress the noobs with armor/items most would not recognize and even fewer would care about let alone be impressed.

i still play for fun only

I think that it doesn’t matter how long a mission takes, as long as you are having fun doing it.

My husband and I have fought our way from Becan’s Perch to Droknar’s Forge a few times and sure it took about five hours, but it was fun. I still enjoy it.

And yes, Mesmers are capable. I brought my Mesmer one of those times and it was back in the days before the heroes, so we just brought the henchies with us. Well, once we brought a tank with us but he went afk for quite a while because his mom wanted him to come to dinner. But in the end, we all made it through!

If it’s all about gain for you, well, then that's what you are doing it for. You probably don’t find the mission all that fun, but see it as more of a job. It makes sense that you would want the formula builds so that you could be done with it as fast as possible.

But don’t knock others for wanting to have fun and be creative. Some of us don’t care about gain as much as exploring our potential. It’s just a different take on the game. It’s not for everyone.

There are enough people out there that do have this different take on the game and I agree that the cookie-cutter trend can be broken.

It all has to start someplace…like here how about?

Pugs are for fun not speed, if you want speed forget about necros and mesmers, just get a friend and run 6 SF eles and 2 monks, pretty much as fast as it gets but its also pretty dull.

This is the right attitude to have. However extreme conditions in ELITE areas have created extreme party builds. With the advent of HERO's things have gone from bad to worse when PUGing... people forgot party roles, with role-play and the importance of the team rather than the individual.

I do those areas once in a while for fun, but most of the time I just do random missions where theres generally a shortage of monks to help people out. I get plenty of loot just playing the game.

I don't play elite areas simply because my most experienced character is my mesmer and nobody can be bothered with them

When i decieded to pvp i went with ele because everyone wants an ele, thats how i got teams in ha, but i soon came to the conclusion that i hate the slow casting speed and constant interuptions.

So having heard of some folk taking up a mesmer to do ele i converted my mesmer into a fast casting air nuker, and what do you know it rocks, i have played in RA with it and on a number of occasions saved the team, now i have been going out in AB and it still works extremely well, only problems is rip enchants really.

What is most satisfying is when a warrior or Assassin comes up to me and starts laying into me expecting to wipe the florr with me, but after a few seconds later they try to run away and then lay dead at my feet. It's also quite amazing going up against an ele and beating them.

However I know that if i were to go and pug in places like the deep, urgoz or HA i wouldnt get into a team, or would get dropped because folk would think the build is bad. I actually got someone in AB criticising it and telling me to take a critical skill out of it, and replace it with a high cost, exhausting, no energy return or damage skill.

Listen to Zinger, she's been around long enough to know what she's talking about. She wouldn't decieve you.

But, It's more fun to complete in 2 hours than 5+ Hours. Ask anyone who has a balanced life.

Alright...but these are Elite Missions. These missions deviate so much from the normal playstyle that it's directly contradictory to the Guild Wars philosophy.

I personally hate Elite Missions and do not do them anymore (I had done them multiple time during the free access weekend in August '06) because the Time::Reward ratio is so low. While the recent patch to those missions helped, you'll still sometimes get a worthless item at the end...that is, if you get to the end and kill Kanaxai/Urgoz without any problem. Otherwise, your two hours is mostly wasted.

Elite Missions generally aren't fun, also. One mistake can lead to a wipe and the loss of several hours.

Now, more on topic, almost everyone agrees that Mesmers, Dervish, Assassins, and Paragons are weaker in scope than other classes. This is especially true in these Elite Missions; what any of those classes can do, another class can do better. Necromancers have more powerful Hexes than the Mesmer, Warriors Tank and Elementalists do more damage than Dervish, Assassins interfere with aggro and only deal single-target damage, and a Paragon's heals are only reactive (i.e. useless against Degen and for most party members who don't get hit).

It's ArenaNet's fault that the cookie-cutters exist, not the players'.

Every thing as its place and time, both cookies cutter and outside the box built.

Places like elite misson and Tombs, I can understand, if people wanna get to the end, ASAP, but they can also try out for a new built to see if they can make faster ( more then likly the first one)

In pugs, or alone, making new built, using thing that most player do not think of can be very fun.

Personaly, I understand Cookie cutter built, but I also applaud the out of the box builts. All the I ask is that you can play them well. Because in the end, its the skill of the player that will make the built work or not.

GvG builds or HA builds are always fun to run in PvE

Most likely, many of the people doing these Elite Missions have other commitments either than playing Guild Wars. As a result, they want to be able to get the most out of their playtime. If they know a "cookie-cutter" build will get the mission done in about 2 hours, then they can more accurately time themselves for their other commitments.

Really, most of you people seem to act as though all "cookie-cutter" builds were spawned by the devil or something. However, just remember, at some point they were likely the out-of-the-box builds.

The cookie cutters for the elite missions aren't based around the fastest way to do things, they're based around the most retard-proof solutions. There are tons of ways to improve upon the existing builds, but they all require relatively skilled players who can do more than spam BiP or searing flames. To make a non-cookie cutter group, you just need relatively skilled players. How you find those is your own problem, though.

However, the current cookie cutters do work, after a fashion, so there's no reason to break them unless you have a group of players willing to put time in to create a new build, and sufficient skill to create a build yourself.

I gave in a long time ago and just went with what is proven/cookie cutter when doing uw/fow/elite etc.. Ya you can take custom builds and be successful but it will take longer, you'll also get grief from the group when they relize your not using the norm and some might drop. If I know my build is going to slow things down or increase the chance of dieing then I just save it for another area.

Also after countless nerfs by anet to skills/ai/classes etc you will run team xyz and not take those other classes/builds. It seems with every nerf it narrows the acceptable team options. I would love to see some buffs so we could have some variety/change. I use ele mostly and i've had ms on my bar for 2 years (pve/ab), i don't want ms or sf nerfed I want other skills buffed so that they are a viable options.

I leave the unique builds to farming solo/hero, ab, missions/quest in normal mode. I know my farming is not made for efficiency but i don't care, i run what i enjoy and is based on how i feel at the time. Farming is pretty much pointless anyways since updates. I swear Anet must have hired some ppl from SWG to show them how to run off the community.

Yes, in fact, I am.


No, it isn't.

LMAO!!! Are you kidding me? Half of guru just read that as 'Don't listen to Radiuju... he listens to Zinger.'


I've found the best way to look for a non cookie-cutter PUG for a cookie-cutter elite area is to go somewhere else. Like if you want to do FoW, go to Tombs and get a group for it. Just don't expect to get necros, monks or rangers. If you want a Deep group, advertise for it in the Luxon areas. Don't waste your time initially by going to The Deep. Etc. etc.

First off I just want to say great post Dryndalyn. My wife and I have done stuff just like that.

Anyway back to whatever else. There was a time when just the normal missions were becoming this way to. Most of the time my builds ended up in groups with other outcasts. But 90% of the time we came through and "usually" we ended up with masters.

One time in Cantha I ended up in a all ranger group. We all thought we would fail but somehow we pulled off masters. It was a great group and we worked well together. It's nice when you find a group that just wants to play the game and have some fun. I admit not all of the groups i've been in turned out that way and not all the groups i've been in have been fun and enjoyable.

I also have a mesmer. I never thought I would have gotten as far with him as I did since they are looked down upon. But I got through tyria and cantha with him. Slowly working on nightfall. I could go on about my other characters but I won't.

For me though it's groups of other people that just want to have fun and play the game that make this game great for me. It doesn't matter what build you are. If we don't make it so be it, if we do then great. I understand some people want to gain the most out of the time they spent playing the missions, and I do to. However playing in a group of good people "as in nice, funny, or whatever", is the part of this game I most enjoy.

I'm sorry if I got a bit off topic but I just had to say that.

Prove it.

Give an example of a build and a scenario where a non-cookie cutter build would be, beyond a shadow of a doubt, superior to a cookie cutter build.

The Mesmer Hex Removal build mentioned earlier is not without a shadow of a doubt superior to a SS or a Renewal Nuker. Those Mesmers have their advantages, but SS and Renewal Nukers have more advantages.

Much of the "tank-nuke" mentality of cookie cutter teams is because their monks suck. Between prot spirit, shield of absorption, and healing seed, anyone in the game can tank on demand, as mobs are generally too stupid to switch targets. This requires something called "pre-protting" which many are unfamiliar with however.

"The Steel Wall" build is very outdated with NF. Massed Paragons plus the KD wars, with 2 LoD and Orders off the radar, would massacre the place without any challenge and minimal impact from the environmental effects. Another example, a lot of B/P teams still haven't heard of splinter weapon since that got updated, alot of them still don't bring mark of pain or barbs, and they typically bring all heal monks even though orders is eating up most of the shatters. (though again, prot monks require preprotting ability in the first place)

It's always been like this though. Back in the pre-factions days, me and a few others were posting about Spiteful Spirit stance warriors for droks troll farming. I've run the 55 monks for comparison and the warrior does it faster. It's much harder to play than a 55 though. (Albeit it gets easy when you do it alot.)

Moral of the story: cookie cutter builds are typically not only A) effective but B) easy to play. If you work on your skill, you may find more efficient options opening up to you.

Cookie-cutter builds are the EASIEST and most effective builds. They aren't necessarily the best. There are lots of cases where the 'cookie-cutter' builds have changed, because someone has come up with a better build. There are 10 classes, with 1200 skills. There's MOST LIKELY a build that will be better, if you have better players.

You really shouldn't discard cookie cutter builds just and only because they are so common or because they are not your own creation.

In last few days i did lot of deep (guess why), when people pinged builds, they hardly had exact copies of wiki builds, They carried needed gimmick skills of course, but at lest 1/2 of skillbar was different for each person. And everyone was okay with it. Well, sompe people had exact wiki builds, but they turned out to be quite clueless.

There is also thing called "convergence". This game simplay has working stuff, stuff so-so working and simply not working at all.

It means that if you care about how good build you have, and keep improving whatever you run that is so-so working without external infulence, you will eventually end up with something with uncanny resemblance to your hated cookie cutter. (fact that mesmers never converged to cookie resembling build suggests that there is no outstanding good build to run (dont give me s* that mesmers players are above that, not everyone who has mesmer and enjoys playing it is militant anticookier.) )

Example: My assassin went throught several stages, but by time i finished factions he had quite standart chain (leadless offhand, hoto, falling, twisting - joy of mursaat slaughter), when i compared my build to guildie now we had practically same moebius based thing.

--

One of saddest things around was when i read some dervish thread: guy there made his own (nice) build, fine tuned it and then he freaked out because it was what most of other dervishes ran, cookie hate made him abandon his OWN build. talk about being irrational.

Cookie cutter builds have their place in GW. They basically exist for people that have no established guild or friends list that they can call on to play with the same people on a routine basis. Cookie cutter builds give a person joining a group an idea of what to expect from his teammates. He knows what that person is going to do, and how he's going to do it. Cookie Cutter builds tend to be grossly inefficient but intentionally redundant. That way if some unreliable PuG joins and drops, the run isn't lost.

So Cookie Cutter builds have their place. However, I _hate_ when I see people ridiculing others for not having the cookie cutter build in place. In general, there are 2 reasons this might happen: 1. The person doesn't know any better or 2. The person is way better than you and has a better build. Unless you are willing to listen and try to understand an unusual build, then you have no idea which of those is the truth. Calling the person in the latter example a noob just makes you look like an idiot.

I still find it amusing to take my Ritualist down to the Deep to try to join a PuG group. It is almost invariably impossible. Even after posting the 6 Man Deep build on guildwiki (now, in unedited form on PvXwiki) I still couldn't get anybody to take a ritualist seriously down there. Yet my guild doesn't ever run without one. Today I was told by every PuG in a team I joined that my warrior needed Recall. I was trying a new trick to replace Recall and it works _flawlessly_. Yet the only reason that I didn't get booted from the team was that I was the leader of it. Our current 9 man HM build (still being optimized) uses a Ritualist _and_ a Paragon. Try finding a paragon in any other group. Yet we still make the run as fast or faster than any build containing elementalists (we don't use any) and at the beginning Room 2 clears itself _without_ needing to be rescued. The difference between our build and the cookie cutter builds is synergy. With synergy comes efficiency and speed. And its a lot of fun to play.


So, what's my point? My point is that so-called cookie cutter builds have a place in the game, and to decry them as all that is wrong with the game is silly and insubstantial. The flip side is that Cookie Cutter builds are builds that work and tend to be safe, but are not necessarily the builds that work _best_. And you should make sure you understand another person's build before you ridicule it, as they might have an idea that is superior to your cookie cutter build. In that case, it would be advisable to shut up and learn a trick or two.

Who cares what build you're running? If you're playing with friends and having fun, then that's the most important part.

Hell, I've run a bunch of cookie-cutter builds in DoA [you know, 1 OF Tank, 3 Nukers, 3 Monks, 1 BiP] and did City in 45 minutes on HM. It was fast. It was fun. Why? You played with the PEOPLE that made it fun. We'd screw up and have a laugh on vent, and the such, but for the most part we worked.

This argument is stupid.

We ran with one ToF paragon instead of a SF ele, and it clears FoW Hardmode remarkebly well. We happend to jump in by accident in HM while we actually wanted to get some armor. We noticed by the mobs damage output that we were not in normal mode ^^

Certain parts in Elona with the same build seemed a lot more tricky

Yeah, cookie cutters exist because people want to pug and don't lose time on forming teams too much. There is room for variety though, I personally try out something new every now and then and if you can back up why you take certain stuff, people will often be lenient (mind this only works on good players, bad ones lack imagination). But mainly cookie cutters are considered easy because all people have a more or less simple role they all know.

The real reason Cookie-Cutter builds exist is because they work so well and are easy to play!!!

I like to create my own builds based on what I want to do with my char; I look at the skills avaiable, their effects and how they relate to other skills and I put together a build I have fun playing with... I'm a necro man, and play all kinds of builds from MM, SS, SV, Blood Spike... It's amazing how many people ask why there is no fleshy in my MM build (Funny how they miss OoU tho).

It's all good, IMO, if a team don't want u cos you not Cookie-Cutter then why would you wanna mission with them anyway?