Why do you feel you have the right to pick apart my build and demand changes?

Some alliances, like mine, do many missions together, very very often. There are missions we have done many times, and they are a royal pain the ass, like the last 3 in NF. We ping builds, because we play as a group and we want to make sure we have everything we need.

Gates of Pain: a ranger bringing broadhead arrow has worked wonders, it renders the torturewebs useless. If there is a ranger in the group, asking them to bring that is for me perfectly ok. If the ranger happens not to have it, that's fine. We look for something else.

Gate of Madness: a warrior without wild blow? we would definitely ask for it. You don't have it? here's a tome, or go buy it. A necro with spoil victor is lovely, not a must.

I think there are some areas that call for certain builds, or skills. I don't think it's unreasonable to ask, or in very difficult places, to demand. It makes the mission easy going, and in most cases fail proof.

I consider myself pretty experienced, yet I am always open to suggestions. I feel very comfortable with certain builds, but if my alliance asks me to bring a particular skill/build that I have never used, I will assume they know it works, or works better than what I have, or at least, I'm willing to try it and if needed refute the use of the skill in question after having tried it.

Perhaps there is a fine line between asking and demanding, and it's all a matter of perception.

I have no problem with people making suggestions about my skill bar. They usually will give a fair to good reason for bringing "skill X" instead of "skill Y".

If they don't, I'll look at "skill X" and see what merits it has - if any. If it sucks, then I explain why skill Y is better and why and how I use it.

For the people who insist on people doing things "My way or the highway" - buy a clue. That may be all well and good (to an extent) in the elite mission areas, but it's downright n00bish in the regular PvE places, and I wouldn't want to run with someone who's a know-it-all who doesn't know jack.

Why bring 3 skills that do the job 1 skill can accomplish?

In certain situations some skills are obsolete and utterly useless while others flourish and can efficiently accomplish the goal at hand. Maybe that skill the "know it all" requested you bring was vital to the success of the mission? Or maybe it was just his ignorance in believing that no one is allowed to use their own build? Who knows, but maybe he was right?

Everyone should try to avoid exhaustion its baaaad and so hard to deal with. /sarcasm

Sounds like a control freak imo.

PS Hero/Hench teams are usually Nazi less.

It's just different gaming personalities that are clashing, it happens all the time. If you can't come to some kind of resolution try a different group, and don't take it so personal. Some people just take gaming more seriously than others.

Sometimes being in a team means bringing skills that compliment the other players instead of complimenting you.

I agree with OP - I hate it when ppl criticise me (W/MO) for taking mending + healing breeze.
They dont understand thats what a paladin is supposed to do - heal and do massive dmg with powerful skillz like 100 blades.

whenever ppl criticise my choice of Mending + healing breeze I just laugh at them for not having a 14-20 12%hex crystalline sword like mine.

100% QFT

This has nothing to do with cookie-cutter mentality or nazi-style control issues. This is a team game, and your character is there to provide a needed role in the team - be it in a hero/hench, PuG, or Alliance/Guild/Friend team.

If you don't get along with the people in the team, you should find another team. If you don't get along with any team, you should look within yourself for the problem.

this post wins for most sarcasm

agree with above post
Just done gate of madness today with a W/MO who dont have elite and have mending as his live saving skill.
He end up die much more times than a Centure Elementalist with point blank spell.

Sarcasm? Right? Hopefully? Please?


Asking someone to change their build is fine so long as you EXPLAIN why. If they disagree fine. It's their choice. Sometimes you have to make it mandatory to bring a certain skill but usually not. Usually it just depends on what you are comfortable with. Recently I have been trying out builds with my monk. If someone doesn't like it they are welcome to suggest changes just so long as they don't order them.

-_-

Hero more if you want people to stay out of your builds. If you're going to play with other people, other people are going to be playing with you. Everyone has an opinion, deal with it. You can ignore them and say no, or you can comply, or you can reason with them. That's your choice. It was also your choice to play with other people in the first place. If you don't like how pugs operate, get some friends. Guildhop, find one you like. But it's your choice, don't take it out on the people trying to get a decent pug.

A screenshot in the Funny Ingame Screencaps thread showed one of the "ORIGINAL BUILD, I DON'T USE YOUR COOKIE CUTTER SH*T LEAVE MY BUILD ALONE".
He was a monk using several horrible skills in Hell's Precipice while he teammates were telling him to "take out backfire".

I only play with heroes

People should know:

It's the player that makes the skill work, not vice versa.

Just because someone demands you have a certain skill in your bar doesn't make it work. The human factor is most important. So, you need a particular interupt and shutdown mesmer for the mission? So what if you ask the mesmer to bring a certain build, if the person using the skills doesn't know how to use them (when and under what circumstances), the know-it-all still won't get the desired results.

It is important to know eachothers builds before taking a serious jaunt through a mission or HM area, however. Synergizing skills in a group is more important than trying to play solo with 7 others. You may do more harm than good, even with your comfort skills.

Most importantly, stubborness begets stubborness, especially in GW.

Guild Wars is a team game. If you want to do what you want without affecting others, go play Oblivion or Bioshock.

Unfortunately, AnnaCloud9, Guild Wars does not work like that. In an ideal game, everything is perfectly balanced and player skill truly does determine the outcome of every match. This is not an ideal game. Some skills and/or builds are, in fact, better than others. Izzy's working hard to give Guild Wars more variety when it comes to good builds and skills, but we're still quite a ways away from perfect, and the introduction of GW:EN will throw another giant wrench into the scheme of balance.

I will, however, agree with you when you say...

Players without skill or good skills will still lose matches. Players without skill but a good build have as much chance to win as players with skill but a bad build.

You couldn't be more wrong... really.

It seems your saying everyone is an idiot. Its a pug. If its a guild team i'm sure they have some skill to be able to play something decent and we'll win. If its a pug, i want a tried and tested build that i know works very well. That tends to be the reason for wanting cookie cutter. Besides, anyone whose read 'populations' thread on FoW narrowmindedness, while been himself the most stubborn, narrowminded player in the game, basically confirms exactly why people want cookie cutters.

And a build getting you to some point in the game is utter bullshit. I could reach the endgame quite easily playing with some very crap build because NM PvE is now a complete joke. Pretty easy to be carried through missions if the rest of the team is good enough.

If someone provides a suggestion for a situation I am not familiar with, I most likely go through with the change. If he is an ass about it, I leave and find another group. I learned a long time ago to not bother trying to rationalize with the irrational. My advice for the best way to deal with such people is to avoid them. They stir up enough trouble on their own without our having to reciprocate and make things worse. This thread is a good example, considering some of the responses I have read.

On the side, dismissing the argument by saying that Guild Wars is a team game is ridiculous. If there were no heroes or henchmen, that would be true.

If you are playing with Heroes/Henchmen, then no one is criticizing your build! Win-Win.

Remind me to never invite you to a team. The last thing I need when trying to set up a team are people lying about their builds.

"Hey mr. ranger, do you have winter?"
[homer voice] "suuuuuure let me just.. put it in there... theeeeere we go!" *secretly leaves fertile season in*

When I organize teams for a hard mission (I don't organize teams for missions that are doable with heroes and henches), I *will* ask for everyone's builds, and I *will* point it out when someone is running a build that's a flat out liability. Rangers who bring fertile season when we're trying for a time bonus reward, assassins with mending/vigorous spirit/live vicariously/healing hands even though we have 2 monks, dervishes with 100% tanky builds but who refuse to be a "tank", and so on.

Guild Wars is a team game with an infinite number of possibilities for synergies between classes and skills. People making that one solo build they use everywhere and thinking it's always the "best" build in any team situation in any mission shouldn't be joining player teams who are going for that master's reward in hardmode missions.

I have at least one build per mission, 3-4 for some depending on the team situation (do I need to be a tank, a DD, utility, a mix? etc). I'll gladly make a new one if someone asks me to change it into something that would work better for the team. I absolutely hate it when people start going "start" or "go" the second we have 8 team members without even pinging their build.