fow narrowmindedness

it seems every time i join a fow team i am greeted with a gestapo questioning where they insist you ping your build and if it varies from the average strategy (which im sure everyone knows by heart) you will be kicked and a random person will pm something like "noob" or worse. this is mainly pushed by monks (probably because they are the only class that can really solo farm effectively, and farm scrolls by killing some boss in desert in hard mode and therefore most of the time have the scroll ). this upsets me because not only am i a fan of unconventional but effective builds but also because this seems to be killing the creative freedom involved in making a strategy and its not like the build beeing used is that great. the average fow team is bonder healer ss/br tanking war and 4 echo nukers. first off no one seems to think bringing a self heal is important so as soon as the monk dies everyone dies instantly. i also suspect monks push this build because they have to do everyones healing and at some level must benefit with better drops. yet i have to say 4 nukers with echo meteor shower is over kill, you would be fine with 1. the best tank ive ever seen wasnt a war but a dervish(who also did damage), and when i lead i take mesmers assasins and waters eles (virtually never seen in a conventional fow team) and do just fine. i like playing necro, i can literally play anything in the game but i prefer my own build to ss/br, get divine spirit im not hurting my character so you can regen faster.

the build i use (while pinging the wanted ss/br) is runing up to 630 hp get a +5 energy sword +3o hp

and take these skills

vamp gaze
vamp touch attributes 14 blood
blood of agressor 12 tactics
soul leech put remaining 3 in soul reap
riposte deadly riposte
heal signet
well of blood (much more team helpful than br)

people get really angry when i stray from what they usually go yet my wells keep people alive, ive never died in fow with this build on nm, ive 5 maned with this build, ive 3 maned with this build, and i have glad ranks and fow armor but what do i know. often monks will get so upset i have a different build from what there used to they stop healing me (yet i dont die). on one occasion a monk got so angry that i didnt die (after ceasing to heal me) she started to say that i was a back staber and when the team told her/him to chill she ran ahead of us and got forge quest guy killed, she had to pay 3 k to scroll guy and ruined it for everyone, though nerd rage can be funny i think people should start straying from that average build if anything to break the monotony.

i posted this thread not only to make people aware of how narrowminded and predictable fow builds have become (isolating whole clases such as dervish and assasins from playing) but also for people to post unconventional builds they take to fow that work for them.

I agree with you entirely, and that's one of the things I really hate about the high-end game, particularly PvP. There's a certain optimal way of doing things, and if you stray from that you'll either get totally owned or simply dismissed. It's a shame that the high end areas are so hard that variation is feared, but I guess this can't be avoided in PvP since its difficulty is directly based on who you play against.

Anyway, I thought I'd get this post in early, since there's doubtlessly a bunch of "quit whinging" flames to follow.

Normally, I'm somewhat ambivalent about elitism...

...but your build sucks more than a black hole, and I have trouble believing that you've had success with it. Well of Blood more useful than Blood Ritual?! What the heck?!

Agreed. Too many people think that their build is the only one that works and if you don't use it your a noob. I've noticed that a lot in places. If your build varies by one or two skills, they kick you out and call you a noob, which is just being immature and narrowminded, like you said.

Good post.

The build sucks.
And FoW is easy.
Where's Moko got to?

I have no idea why OP was using his FoW armor as a reason for being 1337.

Yep, 70% of people out there are narrowminded Engines of Red.

During the Double Fame weekend I strangely managed to form groups where peeps were actually trying out what I had to suggest, even if it sounded stupid. We got quite far with it. That's a SHOCKER from a normally elitist environment O_O.

Sadly it'll only get worse with the stupid new favor system..

This isnt going to be a direct "Quit whining" post, but it is going to burst your bubble...

While unconventional builds are fun to run and fun to expirement with, they generally are not effective, or are overly dependant on a combination of skills in order to achieve an objective that in 90% of cases can be achieved in a much simpler matter. Your monks are always going to be curious as to a teammates bar due to the fact that it is your monks job to keep you alive. If you are vulnerable or a liability to the survival of your team, then youre forcing your monks to expend extra amounts of energy and effort into keeping you up and alive and limiting their effectiveness towards the other members of your team. While your build might be fun to run around with in basic PvE with heroes/henchman, the reason that it actually works in that situation is due to the fact that there are 7 other characters to make up for your downfall. Being a soft target with a low armor level, it is not the ideal situation to place yourself in the frontline with the build you have posted, not to mention the build is HIGHLY in-efficient in accomplishing anything.

Granted you did put time and thought and creativity into your build, but your arrogance is also your weakness. Some builds are ran and used simply because they perform the given job better than any other build. Just because you can get a few glad points from noobstomping RA and have FoW armor, does not mean that youre the shit and know what you're talking about in every situation, because clearly your build and attitude shows this.

Granted there is going to be another 986740560465 posts saying "OMG you elitist prick, stfu" and yes that is going to be expected and yes it does come off elitist, but theres not a nicer way to say it. Builds like that are in-efficient, a liability, and non productive towards your team. Especially in areas like Hardmode or in ANY PvP situation.

MistressYichi I am going to give the OP the benifet of the doubt right now and say that the build might be viable. I am also guessing that you haven't tried out the build.

Quote:

for instance assasins will never be invited or allowed in by a monk leader in my experience (because there too "pvp") yet i have no problem having them in my group and they actually pretty awesome. in a forge mission we had one that would go solo to abysaals while we fought the weak phantom things would solo 1 abyssal and teleport back and then do it over again literally killing them all before they came up. i posted my build in an effort to encourage people to post builds they use that arent the average, im not that familair with ha but i find all unconventional interesting. the build to playing mine is somewhere but i wont go into how to play it here but anyone is welcome to place one.

and yichi if your concerned about energy levels of monks and if they are concerned about their energy levels it would seem odd they wouldnt encourage people to bring self heals, but the exact opposite

Thats why I said it "might" be viable. But then again I am not exactly an expert when it comes to necromancers.

Quote:

I pity the clueless red engines that don't take a mesmer in there. FoW is ideal for a Dominatrix featuring HeV and Shatter Hex plus the new PvE only AoE mesmer spell (names elude me...) amongst others are absolutely brutal in there.

But that's just me.

the OP's build isn't any good, and the reason that you see so many cookie cutter builds for areas is because they're simple, effective, and don't require you to uniquely tailor your build for each run. You just have templates that people conform to, it increases efficiency for pugging areas like FoW.

my build doesnt need healing in an 8 man party really as everything i do winds up healing me, but my point was if eles and necros for instance would heal themselves monks would have to do less healing, and therefore they would need less energy. yet i dont want to discuss my build but honestly see other builds used effectively in fow that stray from the conventional fow team.

If we're talking about blood ritual and well of blood, then yes, as a monk, I prefer Blood Ritual by far. However, a well of blood works well under CERTAIN circumstances. I've been told I'm an excellent monk, but I don't enjoy it sometimes. I like challenges and healing for me isn't very challenging. One thing about a monk is, we love energy. There are times when the team is being spiked and we lose energy quickly while healing them all. A well of blood would counter that damage IF there were corpses and IF they could afford to group together to stand in it and heal. Blood Ritual doesn't really have any downsides like that though. So no, well of blood isn't as helpful as blood ritual, but that doesn't mean it's entirely useless. Taking both would be a good idea.

Quote: