Deep and Urgoz filled with noobs ?

Hmm... yeah that is elitist. My tank I made specifically for the Deep and didn't really bother to get him 15k armor (although I love my dwarven axe so go figure). Problem is I have 6 chars I play in the deep and getting 15k armor for all of them is pricey.

I usually look for other "regulars" that I know and we get the team rolling from there. Like I said though -- It has been hard lately because a lot of people have been burned lately, so even with a group of regulars trying to fill those last slots can be real hit-or-miss if you aren't running the cookie cutter team build.

Wow, not true at all. Some people don't like the look of 15k armors. I much prefer regular sunspear for my female derv over any of the 15k armors. Same for my assassin, I like my 1.5k Kurzick over any 15k. I also prefer to have many, many armor pieces of different rune/insignia combinations for all the different builds I use. Now, tell me you can afford 20+ pieces of 15k armor for 6+ characters.

BS your whole post was literally oozing with elitist dribble. 15k armor = understanding of GW mechanics? Far from it, I don't know about you but I've met many players who have bought 15k armor and have no clue on how to play that class.

way too many NOOBS INDEED ...i have a limited lfie and done at least 200 deep runs and a few urgoz ...i hate nobos and ragers why i dotn do deep much now..unless i know persone as a veteran in deeep...the elite stick together not with unreliable pugs.

r3 is an idiot ive had pple n noob kc armor who played way better than 15 k armor or FoW...shows he's an idiot..just like me

this post delivers!

15k armour set = understanding of game mechanix!

This amuses me.

This is mostly unnecessary, and parts of it are just nonsense. If you have a total PUG, from what I have seen, it is rare that more than 1 or 2 people are first timers at it. However, as long as they have the right skillbar, they will be fine. Make everyone ping their bars, and if it's a good bar but obviously not right for the elite mission, have someone else from that profession explain to them what skills to take. If the bar is more or less terrible regardless of the situation, I usually just kick right then and there. As long as the newbs (not noobs) have the right skillbar, I highly doubt they'll lead to the downfall of the team....unless they are the BiP.

ROFL!!! No wonder I can't get into any groups. My basic max armor clearly labels me as a noob.

Let me get this straight. Someone who e-bayed fow armor is a better player than someone who decided to spend their gold on skills and titles rather than ugly armor? Get Real!!

Its a generalisation you dope..

At least the had the intelligence to know that not even half the skills in the game are worth having, and bought something they would get some use out of with their gold.

Ive only ever done Urgoz once and I lasted about 10 seconds. And the only reason I dont try it again is because of all the elitists noob bashers who dont even have the time of day to help. At the end of the day everyone was a noob once and everyone had a first time at the deep and urgoz. So maybe if the noobs were given some help they wouldnt be so annoying.

Sigh, why is every thread on this site riddled with trolls. If you really judge a player based on their armor choice, you're the dope. I went to wiki and looked at all the armors available for my profession. I then bought the one I thought looked the best. It happened to be a cheap set.


Huh?? You're saying someone who spends a fortune in gold on armor that has no extra benefits is smart and someone who spends a fortune in gold on skills that have no extra benefit is dumb? In case you haven't noticed most of the gold sinks in this game are useless. People sporting the drunkard or sweet tooth titles do it because they enjoy collecting titles. I happen to want to unlock all the warrior skills on my warrior. I don't want fow armor and gold is kinda useless sitting there in storage doing nothing.

But why I am I defending my spending habits? If you want to continue to believe I'm a dumb player for buying skills instead of useless expensive armor, go ahead, but please don't try to tell me that you aren't an Elitist.

Back on topic. As much as i HATE topics like this (noob this, noob that), this time i somehow sympathize. Just spent 2 hours in the deep, with somehow noobish team. no big deal, i'm not a pro, everyone can have a bad day and accidently do a stupid thig or two.

But when we reached kanaxai, a few things suprised me:
- after nightmare spawn was triggered and kanaxai run back in his position, 9 out of 12 members aggroed nightmares. offcourse they all got killed, but they took some of the nightmares with them. ok, it happens. ress and again.

This time spawns were triggered (i screwed up with dolyak 2-3 times, but no biggie) and we safely got to fight the kanaxai. But then NO team member had an enchantment removal, and our necros had no idea what were spinefull shivers for.

It's not ok to flame noobs, everyone was a noob sometimes. But when i loose 2 hours just becouse some guys didn't have 5 mins to read the idiot guide on how to complete the deep, that's just....sad

Weekends are always worse. A weekday night team can usually handle Hard Mode without too much issue, but on weekends you get a lot more people without a clue that will struggle to make it through normal mode. I'm tempted to start requesting a second Minion Master for weekend Urgoz...the more players I can stick on purely mindless positions to still be effective, the better.

It's really amazing how many people fail at even the easiest of jobs. I've played with a surprising number of Fire Eles who are seemingly incapable of dealing damage to a mob, and I don't understand how that is possible. Probably 25% of the Monks I've had on my team are incapable of doing anything other than pushing Heal Party on recharge under Healer's Boon. It's really, really sad. Urgoz/Deep builds are designed to be idiot proofed, but idiots find a way...

Peace,
-CxE

Thank you all for you reactions / comments. Yhea its all about the incrible canta skins and incrible Zods. But the noob factor is even worst when it come to HM. I only do HM with FLIst and sumtimes when no one is online we get PUGS.

But the owl point of this tread is new commers telling you " Ho im a Ext in this and that...and then they dont even know where to go as they enter the split at first etc in Deep.

A couple tricks...kick as soon you see a weird pinged skill bar, do not put the numbers the room are so you see as soon you enter which dosent have a clue.

Peace to the comunity

What a Hoot. *ducks*

Elite mission, lots of elitist pricks. People get kicked for not having the latest build or ventrilo/teamspeak. As far as I can tell, old builds work just as well as the latest. How helpful vent/ts is is questionable to me if it's all strangers. Pinging your skills is no way to separate 'experienced' from 'noobs.' I saw a lot of rejections and attitude problems this weekend. Sadly it's no different from any time I do Deep. I don't do Urgoz much. Checking skillbars to see if roles are being filled is fine, that's good preparation. Helpful suggestions during gameplay always good. It's better than total silence and surprise when someone moves ahead and everyone was still opening a chest or regenerating.

There was a lot of elite thinking players just screwing up left and right as much as 'noobs.' Skillbar does not denote playing skills at all. Tanks were moving faster than group, charging in when others weren't ready, or simply just standing without purpose. Casters positioned wrongly and again idling without purpose. Elitist attitudes need to go and people need to grow up.

After the behaviour I saw at the last Elite mission event, I concluded that it was not worth putting up with all the immatureness just for a few fancy weapons, honestly they are insane, all of them, no teamwork, flaming, people going afk, I don't care how glowy zodiac is, nothing is worth it.

YES weekdays are better.

I had to take breaks this weekend from the headache's I was getting. Fire elements following me when I aggro, not having MS(came too late to this party to see ping skills). Only one monk spamming hp while the tank aggro's in HM, of course he die's in less than 1 sec. Leroying tanks who don't know how to make a wall. Then their was this guy who said that he created all these builts.....I was like sureeeeee. Of course he couldn't heal, I think he was the biggest nub of the weekend.

Tried 8 runs this weekend only finish 1 HM. The one we finish I toke charge of the team and guided them to the finish line. For my efforts got a E.Aegis req 9 str and req 10 zodiac daggers from the end chest. This weekend = too much headache and pain.

Well, I think a lot of it is there are a bunch of people (like myself) who do Deep runs almost nightly. Then there are the people who have done it a few times (and some not since the recall nerfs). And then the people who haven't done it before.

The regulars do runs pretty fast and tanks will begin aggro on mobs assuming the monks are right behind them (because usually they are). However, they might have picked up a new monk who hasn't done it before.

When things start falling apart, it is suddenly each of the groups pointing fingers.
Regulars: Ugh... Noobs.
Noobs: I'm not a Noob! I've just never done the Deep before!
SomeDeep: Why aren't you guys doing X? It worked 6 months ago!
Regulars: WTF? That doesn't work anymore noob!
Noobs: I'm not a Noob! I've just never done the Deep before!
SomeDeep: You guys suck.

Or one of my favorite scenarios. It happens almost every Deep PuG:

Regulars: Unequip your staffs/wands pls.
Regular2: I'm wielding a Banana Scythe.
Regular3: I'm wielding a Zodiac Longsword and Zodiac Shield.
SomeDeep: ...
Noob: I'm wielding Kepkhet's Refuge.
Regulars: Unequip your staffs/wands pls. You'll draw chaos storms.
SomeDeep: ...
Noob: I'm wielding Kepkhet's Refuge.
Regulars: Hey SomeDeep/Noob can you unequip your staffs/wands? It will draw chaos storms in this next part.
SomeDeep: I'm wielding Exuro's Will
Noob: I'm wielding Kepkhet's Refuge.
Regulars: Well, screw it. I'm going to pull -- just stay away from the noobs.
Regular2: Hey SomeDeep, over by the fire flower.
SomeDeep: You guys suck. When I did this twice 6 months ago, we never did any of this.
Regulars: HP HP HP HP
Regular2: HP HP HP HP
Regular3: Well crap... I'll go rebirth him out of there.

...

Looking back at it, I have to laugh. At the time it sucks tho.

Every once in a while we get a great team together tho... Like last night we went HM with 2 tanks, 4 nukers, 1 rit, 3 monks, SS, BiP. Besides the BiP everyone was great and we breezed through it. The BiP decided he wanted the chest right be leviathan and wouldn't stop suiciding on him until he got his precious chest (which was a crappy zodiac staff BTW). We WERE going for a speed run until that point. Oh, and he didn't unequip his staff...

Normal mode FTW (12 people) so if someone leave or someone is a newbe (call noob) there is np
The deep and Urgoz are the main place of leavers. Time wasted HM or if you want to wait your lucky party (maybe after 2 hours....)....

Yeah -- I dunno. Our HM runs are running around 1.5 hrs and a NM run I did with a group the other day (all regulars I hadn't played with for a month or so) was 1.25 hrs... I think most bang for the buck is still HM. Kinda depends on the time of night, and we usually have the key slots filled by guildies/friends. It is just the people we pick up to fill out the group that can be... "interesting".

well being a pvper can anyone tell me whether or not it is possible for a ranger to get in?

because the one thing i noticed is that assasins rangers mesmers paragon and dervsishes cant get into these kind of missions.

the deep and urgoz takes around the same amount of time.

however, i think the deep is harder to coordinate with pugs since it actually requires alot of team work.

urgoz is easy. sprit wall, few traps,eoe,fw,wn, pull, splinter barrage, nuke, raise minions. it works for every mob.

Rangers can get in an Urgoz group really easy. In the Deep, I've gone with a R/E who was basically a wannabe nuker (it still worked, but a real Ele would have been better).

In the Deep none of those professions will get in a group unless it is with guildies who don't mind you messing around with a new build or something. The people I run with like to occasionally try a variation of something (ParaBiP, FC Mez). We brought me along with my Rit a few times and found out that they can kill Kanaxai aspects uber-fast and so they have become more accepted. Maybe when I get my ParaBiP build going more often we'll see more Paragons being accepted. I've held off on my Mez build until the June update.

A friend of mine wants to try out his Assassin build and we've gone with a Dervish build a few times (it didn't work out too good, Derv + VoS as a puller was "okay", but there was a lot of death and once his DP hit 60% it was useless).

The thing is... you could take a Ranger/Derv/Sin/Mesmer/Paragon with any of the groups. It is just that people would rather take something else instead. Lets look at the issues with each profession (I think Anet knew this was an issue from the start):
Ranger - A B/P ranger would be pointless because you don't want to do melee damage to Oni (cuz they teleport with melee dmg). And trapping is too slow.
Mesmer - A mesmer in PvE? hahaha. An ele can do AoE dmg better. Maybe a FC Mesmer if Anet decided to fix the inspiriation line. Or maybe we get a surprise and get AoE domination spells?
Assassin - Armor is too low, can't do melee dmg to Oni cuz they teleport.
Dervish - Armor is too low to tank, can't do melee dmg to Oni cuz the teleport, Monks can heal better.
Paragon - Could potentially tank, but since they'd need to go P/A to use recall, they couldn't go P/W and bring any useful stances or sig of stamina/endure pain. I'm toying with a Paragon BiP who could be viable and could potentially be better than a Necro BiP. But right now you'd get laughed at.

My experience is that Urgoz takes a lot longer than the Deep just because of the amount of trapping prep work that goes into it. There's less people doing Urgoz, and a lot more leavers. Heck, we tried Urgoz the other night and the name-calling/elitism was even worse in Urgoz than it was in the Deep...

No, there are a lot of noobs in Urgoz. There are the noobs that don't listen at all, like when your party leader tells the group to pull back because they're getting overrun, and the noobs keep attacking and pulling the mobs to the rest of the group that is running away.

Also, 90% of the minion masters down there are complete noobs. Most of them don't even bring heal area. This one minion master killed himself with blood of the master and we had 8 or so minions attacking us. Then some of them just bring stupid skills like well of blood, or veratas sacrifice. And some of them bring like shambling horror and vampiric horror, and they can only get up like 4 minions at a time.... I try to tell them to fix their builds, but they never listen.

Talking about "noobism" in the Deep (or Warren) is completely relative and generally useless--and generally makes _you_ look like the idiot.

Right after the Elite Chest update, none of my guildies were online so I decided to find a PuG. I brought my Ritualist and was called a "noob" for trying to get in a group. At first I just found this amusing but then started getting irritated that groups _still_ don't respect the power of a ritualist in the Deep. I ended up switching to my Necro and going as SS. Upon starting, I grabbed a tank and monk and headed into room 1. Immediately I was sworn at in 3 different languages (but called "noob" by all 3) and people started quitting. I couldn't figure it out because that's what my guild does every time (near nightly runs). I ended up joining another PuG (as a warrior this time) after a guildmate Necro showed up. I took my guildie and a monk into Room 1 and cleared it long before room 3 or 4 cleared. However, an ele quit because he got stuck in room 2... he left calling us all noobs.

Back before Nightfall, a guildmate ritualist and myself (as Warrior) got in a PuG group. The Rit went into Room 2 and started prepping for the assault. Against the anguished screams of "NOOB! You don't FIGHT in room 2!" he proceeded to clear the entire room solo (the 2 necro's cowering in the corner). He actually cleared the room faster than any other, but still people started quitting because of his "noob" actions.

The "Noob" tank that is always charging ahead may be an experienced tank who keeps thinking "This noob team can't keep up...". What is different, and thus noobish, to you might be normal or advanced techniques to another. I once was called a noob for wanding an Oni that had broke past the wall and into the casters. The accuser, however, hadn't realized that the teleport had actually taken the Oni back in front of the wall, where he was once again trapped. I consider bringing eles but no rit as amateurish, but when I suggest bringing a Rit and dropping a (or all) eles, I'm called the noob.

So... before lashing out with a meaningless cry of "Noob!" when something is slightly different than you are used to, take a few seconds to either educate or be educated. You'll either help someone or help yourself, neither of which is a bad thing.

I don't think that is where the cry of Noob is coming from (at least not on my part). I usually DO run a Rit in the Deep because they DO own down there (sounds like you run a build very similar to mine because I can clear a room solo as well).

Actually, putting the SS in Rm1 or Rm4 is ideal since there are no scourge mantas in there to strip hexes. I'm all FOR running different builds. It is the people who have NEVER been in the Deep before who think "hey, I'm good, I can do Hard Mode" without telling the group.

As far as you being called a noob -- what was the decided upon room order? We ALWAYS let people know we are doing something different before we enter. If you went as SS and you ran into room 1 w/ the warrior without letting me know beforehand, then I might call you a noob too. If it varies from the typical room order (134 134 134 222) and you didn't notify your teammates, then it was a mistake on your part.

Fair enough, when i took my warrior to deep after 4 months, i seen tactics changes (ie. stuff like deathly charge to get insta aggo, etc.), luring and wall position changes from what i was used to - being called noob came naturally after few blunders (i sure didnt like it, and rather switched characters because people would definitelly remeber me).

You need to realized that while whaever you are doing aint necesarily bad, its still not good for groups.

Why? Because speed comes from everyone knowing what to do and when to do it, and knowing what and when are teammates doing it too. While newbie can be taught to do apropriate thing at apropriate time, experienced player with mind of his own will eventually slow down group because he is ... doing weird stuff, that noone in group is prepared for.

I think you can agree that one person running tactics incompatible with group is bound to make some screwup - not because he is bad, but because group does not know wtf is he doing and how to react. calling someone noob follows shortly by someone hot blooded.

(And for record: ignoring 134134... thing is generally huge incompetence sign, so not following that and stuff like clearing room 2 is really REALLY necesary to discuss before mission starts, and making sure everyone agrees on that.)

I love elite missions and while playing them a lot I always say that there are two types of noobs:

The first is the typical noob that doesn't control his character but never admits it and keeps saying he's no noob. The party will have huge trouble completing the mission or just dies.

The second is the type that you have on your FL but he admits he was never down there but controls his character and tries his best and listens to what is said and you make it through just as easy as if he was a standard player of your team.

Definition one is a "noob", two is a "newbie"

What bothers me more about Urgoz are the grievers imo. Some people don't dig being in a group with strangers for 4 hours on end. They usually get impatient or grumpy, like a monk that refused to heal the team because someone 'stole' his drop (a WHITE gothic sword LOL). People arguing is also annoying as shit, I prefer one caller/puller because democracy is the deadliest foe in all of GW.

Meh, my alliance did a deep run 3 days ago, absolutely the first time for 7 out of 12 of us (myself included), we had some troubles in the first area but after that it was smooth sailing to Kanaxi on our first attempt. Next day we managed to do it in 2 hours. Not spectacular, but definitely improving.

People who are new to the deep aren't the problem; one or two guys who know what they're doing can fix everything if people are willing to listen. People don't listen, bad things happen.

The problem isn't noobs, it's egomaniacs that demand that everyone follows their orders and everything goes exactly their way. Want to have some serious fun? Try to setup an Urgoz Team without Boredom Trappers. Enjoy your bitchride.

Yep, I tried to do The Warren this weekend with my trapper. I don't know the warren very well but knew the appropiate build. I joined a pug that didn't seem too picky. All went well until the leader re-ordered everyone. She ordered us as....
ele
ele
ele
ranger
ranger
ranger
Bip
MM
SS
Mo
Mo
Mo

After re-ordering, she warped in. One of the monks just blew up. He started cussing out a blue streak because the Eles were on top and not the rangers. The BiP then ragequit because he said he should ALWAYS be on the bottom and not the monks.

The monk that was throwing a hissy fit then ragequit calling us all stupid NOOBS just because we were trying to tell him to get over it and continue with the Eles up top.

4 more folks ragequit because we no longer had a BiP. We killed the vampires and a couple of dredge and left.

I've had 1 nice gentleman on the forums here offer to help me with The Deep. Unfortunately he's on the other side of the planet and our time zones may be just too incompatible. I think I'll work on learning the Warren for now. I've been thru the first couple of rooms there so I'm slightly more familiar with it than The Deep (and i have more Kurzick faction with easy access to passage scrolls).

Besides, I have no idea what that cryptic 134 134 134 222 message means unless it's referring to party ordering. And since there are no groups around willing to explain I'll just stay away.

It's too bad there aren't more people that are willing to learn. I'd enjoy going into The Deep with a group of 12 decent players that have never been in there before. I'm not saying we would be the bestest most awesome pawnage team ever!! It would just be fun to explore and see how far we can get without an expectation of Leetness from a hyper-ventilating leader.

This sounds awful.

So, if you admit you've never done the mission before, you get auto-kicked. If you ping your bar and it's not the perfect cookie cutter build, you get kicked or ordered to change it into an unfamiliar set of skills you may not have or don't understand how to combine effectively.

The result is people who have no experience and/or 'wrong' builds claiming to be experienced and refusing to ping their builds, then sucking once the mission starts.

When will people see the causal connection between the first and the second problems?

To be honest, anything that requires a cookie cutter build, especially a cookie cutter team build, is of no interest to me whatsoever. Guild Wars for me is about creativity, not forming some subroutine in someone else's larger algorithm.

It's really disappointing to read this thread. I saw the option to buy passage scrolls appear at the Faction Reward guy some weeks ago and got a couple of scrolls for The Deep. Now I think I will just sell them to the merchant.

You know what, this reminds me of getting my first job.

Applicant: Hello I would like to have a job please.
Employer: What specific experience do you have of these specific points of the job.
Applicant: I have no experience but I'm really interested, have read up a lot and I am very flexible and willing to listen/learn.
Employer: Sorry, we need someone with specific experience of doing this specific job. Otherwise they will not be capable of it. It doesn't matter if they are lazy, arrogant, disinterested and obnixious....they must have experience.

It's great to think that a lot of you elitist guys posting in here are kids who haven't got your first job yet and all of this is ahead of you. Enjoy the irony.

At the start of the Deep, there are 4 portals. 3 people pass through portal one, and the next portal opens, and so on. So essentially you are split into groups of 3 for the first part. The group is traditionally ordered by the room you go into at the start, the 134 134 134 222.

Player 1 = Room 1
Player 2 = Room 3
Player 3 = Room 4

etc etc and the last 3 players (the bottom 3) in the party head into Room 2.

Room 2, unless you have a build like Vyral's rit, you generally do not fight and wait till the others fight their way out of their respective rooms, and free you. Room 2 is insta-wipe unless you build for it.

zwei2stein has definitely made a great point. It's why sometimes a leader of a PUG, or even a guild group sounds like a pedantic asshat sometimes: No matter how leet you are, or your build is, or how you've soloed the Deep a million times ... IF you are not working with the group or cooperating with the group's tactics, you are hurting, not helping.

The leader says, "this is the way we're going to do this, okay?" And if you don't want to go along, you find another group. Or, communicate for goodness' sake, and say, "I usually go into Room 2 and solo the darn thing, all righty?" If the leader's like, "no, I don't think so" it's time to find another group, or suck it up. The last thing you need in a long HM elite mission is a maverick doing unexpected things that others don't know about. Even if it works, it irritates and the fun is gone lol.

EDIT: The "tone" of the above post makes me sound very abrasive; I'm really not that way My point is communication from all parties involved makes for a much happier time lol.

Dam streight! like gore was never new at this game?!?!?!?!?!?!?! How did you learn? I bet you hated being called a noob. Even if you had being playing a while you would know peeps that would join to mish with you so that makes me think your new and you dont have any friends.

Id rather see atitudes like yours get baned then bots.Im done and I aint coming back to this bs post.

PS welcome to guild wars gore and stay in pve -.-

Actually, I didn't think you sounded abrasive at all. I appreciate you taking the time to explain the 134 thing. I knew there were 4 portals leading to 4 different rooms and that you were supposed to split the team into the 4 rooms, but I didn't know the exact make-up of who goes into which room and it's kinda hard to understand without seeing it. I have gone into The Deep solo and only the far right portal is open. I enter it and promptly die. I think I'll try again with 3 heroes to see if it's different.

Your comments about coordination weren't harsh. They're the truth. Everyone needs to be on the same page and you need a strong leader who can coordinate everyone's builds and make sure they fit. There is probably 1 or 2 single builds that work the best and the fastest, but probably many more variations that can finish the mission. As long as everyone works together it's doable.

I do have 1 question for those of you who are experienced here. Since the team is split at the beginning, why do you care what another room's team does? Many of you are upset when the Room 2 group starts fighting. If the group there says they are confident they can clear it, who cares? Does this negatively affect what happens in other rooms?

Sometimes it is awful. Most of the time it is a lot of fun! Don't let the horror stories deter you. It is an Elite mission and done in HM -- it is hard. When you have a great team that just breezes through it, everyone is excited and usually wants to go right again... Even the runs that everyone wipes can be fun if the team isn't bad. Yeah, it can be frustrating sometimes and tempers can run high on occassion, but I've met a lot of cool people at the same time.

Depending on the rest of the team makeup, yes you might get kicked. I'd explain it to you beforehand though. Some roles are pretty crucial. As far as the cookie-cutter builds... I think I've explained before that I actually like to NOT run cookie-cutter builds. On the flip side -- I think it is important to bring skills that will work. If you are a monk and you bring Vigorous Spirit instead of Healing Seed, then I might suggest you bring Seed over Vig (since the tanks are rarely swinging their weapons). If you are an ele and you bring Starburst or Firestorm -- I'm going to suggest you change to Searing Flames and Meteor Shower -- because Starburst will put you in MAJOR harms way, and Firestorm will scatter foes to the wind and ruin SS. If you are a Necro SS and don't have Spinal Shivers/Shivers of Dread -- Then I am going to insist that you bring it because you can't beat the end-game Kanaxai without interrupting him.

Definitely agreed there. Had an experience with that last night with a W/A who pinged the right build when she joined the group and then switched to Glad Defense afterwards. Then once in, she says it is her first time (and wanted to try to solo a Kanaxai aspect, we let her try and watched her die)... It was actually kind of a fun run (until the end because of KD issues), and we tried our best to help her learn. The point was that if she had told us she was new, we could have helped her understand why a build with Shove and stances in it is useful.

It isn't necessarily that it requires a cookie cutter build -- it is that it requires a certain set of skills from the team. We vary greatly from the "cookie cutter" build and think we have faster ways of getting the mission accomplished, but in the end there are certain skills that need to exist: Warriors with Recall for the end, a Necro with Shivers, Monks with Heal Party to counter a lot of the environmental effects and degen. Outside of that, we have gone with Rits, Dervs, Paragons, Mesmers, Rangers -- all sorts of fun variations. But the people who have tried those variations know the mission and know which skills will/won't work (for the most part). And the rest of the team knows we are trying something different and are happy to help. If someone thinks that bringing a B/P ranger to the Deep is a good idea and they've never been there before, then they might want to listen to others as to why it might be a bad idea.

Yes, a lot of people will want to do "fast" runs using the cookie cutter build off of wiki. I'm not a big fan of that approach because it is boring.

I'm hoping you don't lump me into that elitist group and that you would at least try going to the Deep with a fun team before giving up on it. Your kids comment is kind of funny to me, I suppose some of these people are kids. Out of the people in my guild that do regular deep runs, I think maybe 1 of them is < 20 (but he does have a job!). A lot of us are old fogeys > 30 (myself included).