Wiki's fault?

I generally rely on wiki builds alot when I first start a profession or when I'm trying something new. I ripped the Necro 55 farming build from wiki because I didn't have a clue as to what I needed for the build. Otherwise I just make things up as I go along. Like the other day I made up a running build for my Derv. I was having trouble with extended chases so I added Veil of Thorns and it worked like a charm. Maybe I'd have found a similar build if I'd look in wiki but builds that come from your own trial and error ultimately serve you better than one from somebody elses. Alot of areas towards the beginning of the campaigns are filled to the brim with n00bs who've just discovered wiki and think they've found some sort of knowledge that makes them smarter than everyone else. Maybe they are smarter but not wiser. When I first started doing Tomb I got alot of flak for running Healing Breeze over Taste of Death. ToD just never worked for me b/c when I was in a situation where I needed to heal myself my minions were usually all dead. *lol* But alot of players swear by wiki and you just can't tell them anything.

The wiki's builds aren't really meant to be gospel. They're templates that you can play around with and improve. I guess everyone has to learn that the hard way.

I still laugh at that one PUG where the leader was adamant that I change my build to fight Shiro to include degen and backfire.

The game is filled with these people. The problem is figuring out who actually knows what they are talking about from game experience and those who are talking out their ass based on something they read, heard or reasoned.
If someone asks you to change your build ask them to very quickly explain why. If they can't or won't, then you can assume they don't really know why from actual game experience, and tell them to RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GO off.

Oh, I think I said something barrage being the worst ranger skill in the game, not elite but yeah, that was a little reactionary...maybe that SS skill, "Never do stuff alone" is a little closer. I'd keep explaining that, "I use the Wiki too," and stuff but at this exact moment, I've become tired of this subject...

<4 Hours to GW:EN Preview!

My point was that people believe anything they read. They might not be elitists or whatever, they just think they are something better when they are more "informed" than others. The thing is that this information is not always correct. Idk what part you did not get. The trading thing was just an example. Most of the green items PC threads are outdated and people read them, they see what they want to see (higher prices than the real one) and believe they can sell anything for that much. Same thing goes with the builds. Someone read in wiki that barrage was the best skill and he thinks that anything else is crap and the ranger not using it is noob.

That's something people need to understand. Its what the person works best with and is used to. I can't even count how many times I've played in a PvE or PvP group where the leader started shouting at the members "I DONT CARE WHAT YOU ARE USED TO THIS IS MY PARTY AND HERE WE PLAY BY MY RULES".

It does get funny when they demand outrageous stuff like Echo Lava Font on a mesmer, though. Or Headbutt monks.

This is a repeat of the last thread and from what I can gather, it seems that alot of people seem to want to play the game as 8 individuals as opposed to a team of 8.

Theres is so much emphasis in this thread placed upon the right to have whatever individual team build you have that many seem to neglect any concerns with whether or not it will fit in within an overall team build.

Now theres 1 rule of thumb I always go by: If a person takes the effort to set up a group and recruit people in chat and take the time out to make a build capable of clearing the area ahead or one thats viable in HA, I'll go along with it. I owe them that much for saving me the trouble of having to do same.

If its so woefully inadequate just by looking at its constituant skills then notify the party leader and leave the group. If you feel you can absolutely do better, then you should start a group. Which is what I would do if I find a group is so disorganised and has so little thought put into it that you know its very likely doomed to failure. Even then in pve I'll give the group one shot to see what happens (comedy, horror, surprise, satisfaction at winning despite crazy odds, whatever happens to come out of it).

Someone above mentioned Shiro and degen. It is true that Shiro can tranfer conditions (including conditional degen) to your party by using Impossible Odds. But this does not mean degen is ineffective against him. If you hit him with Water slow hexes and all your melee teammates have some sort of evasive stance or a means of avoiding getting hit, it is more than feisible. Mass condition removal on your team likewise is effective if you have a number of melee teammtes (something like Cautory Signet or Martyr). Thats not even taking into account the effectiveness of hex based degen from Life Transfer, Conjure Phantasm et al.

The point I am trying to make is that each player is like a cog or a gear in a machine (the team) and if there are any skills in there that are antagonistic to others in the group or plain useless because someone elses skill set makes your redundant (i.e. lots of melee baddies. Blinding Surge ele and Dust Trap ranger on your team. You have a bunch of skills which work on baddies when 'they hit'). Sometimes I find that if I request massive changes to a person's build, I will ask them if they are comfortable playing it. If not we work something else out. If you dont have the skills necessary, we improvise something else. I feel this is perfectly reasonable but there must be some level of synergy. All players in a team must be flexible enough to try something they aren't necessarily used to and form up a team which covers as many angles as the situation requires it.

You do not play this game alone. Unless you solo farm using cookie cutter farming builds that are the result of teams or individuals who put the thought and time and testing into it and tried playing a build they werent used to, to see if it would work better than what they currently have on their skillbar.

If you feel that whoever is telling you to swap skills is making a bad call, you should simply voice your concerns calmly and politely and reason it through with him/her. Most of the time, people are open to the idea of changing their minds if it will get them through a tough mission. I have met very few people who were unreasonable enough to listen.

If your reasoning is flawed, likewise. I would expect the group leader to tell you 'no. and this is why...'

If the guy is just plain stupid and theres no system or organisation you should leave since you will probably do better with heroes/henchmen. Hell, most of the time, you will do better with heroes/henchmen since heroes in particular can do insane things. They holy veil like crazy mothers to mention just one.

Either way, I fail to see what the problem is here.

And for the record, there is no 'best' skill in Guild Wars. There is only what is most appropriate given the circumstances. Take a mission like Arborstone where there are big mobs of clumped up baddies. Barrage + Splinter Weapon works an absolute treat. Against very tough, individual enemies that are spread out, Barrage is not that effective. But again it depends on what you want to do.

You may find you have an Ele with Mark of Rodgort and the team leader thinks it would be a appropriate if the warrior could try and bring Conjure Flame + a Fiery sword and supplement the burning with bleeding using Sever Artery. Or he may decide, that theres a Mesmer on the team and ask the Mes to switch secondary to Ele, take Flare and swap out their elite for Fevered Dreams for much the same effect and less micromanagement.

Either way, don't be surprised if you are that Barrage ranger in that team and you get called upon to switch your elite for Greater Conflagration.

Barrage + Splinter Weapon combo makes some of the Factions missions so much easier (like Raisu and Sunjiang) because the groups are already so clumped together. The fact that you had trouble with it suggests that you weren't attacking the right target or something.

Barrage is awesome. Just because its popular doesnt mean it cant be. Not realising the potential of hitting 6 targets at a time is just stupid, considering Wiki has shown builds like Orders and ones with Paragons.

Am I elitist now?

WOW.... ahhh didnt read it all..... the argument / discussion isnt that indepth.... its not about certain builds or such.....

I feel, and think, and wow... u wrote alot.....

i think the discussion the OP wanted was just, he is saying that there are many ppl out there, who had and have relied on the wiki or such, to the limit that they dont try anything on their own, and dont realize that the wiki isnt fully 100% up to date.... pretty sure that is it....

Wiki is for people without the braincells to make their own functional builds. Take heroes and die repeatedly and you'll learn much faster what sucks and what doesn't. Besides, all anyone has to do on PvXwiki to damage a build's rep is say 'that sux' or 'iz 2 gimiky' without giving any reasoning at all. And there are some absolute howlers in the tested builds too. It is useful though, but the trick is to ignore all of the blah blah blah and let the numbers do the talking.

And lastly, incase anyone hasn't realised after all this time, but Guild Wars is a game of skill. Not, as is often assumed, a game of skills.
Experienced Player + Retarded Skillbar => Newbie + Good Skillbar. Every. Single. Time. Now if you'll excuse me, I have a game to play ^^

Same. I've been playing long enough to know when a build works for me.

I still run a build with proph-only skills on my warrior (W/Mo) and I've never had a reason to change more than one skill for quests/missions in each campaign. I like it, I find it works, so I'll use it.

This is not an issue of skills, balance, or even knowledge. If a team says sorry your build sucks, tell them to piss off and leave. You play how you want.

However others do the same, and they take people expecting a certain build roughly. For rangers they want AoE damage and interrupts most of the time, or degen and interrupts other times [because lord knows mesmers do not exist in pve].

If you do not like pugging, join an alliance or guild. That is what they are there for. Then run whatever you want.

You're assuming that people ONLY use the wiki for shitty builds, which is completely untrue.

Hmmm, why don't people ever do that with my mesmer

When this happens to me, I usually just ask what enemies we will face and how the surgested skill/build will benefit taking them down fast or protecting us from their damage.
That's usually enough to determine if it's worth to stay in the group or not.

Oh okay. So someone is an elitist because they dare question you and your almighty Icy Prison and Firestorm Combo?

What's worse than joining a pug and being told what bar to use? Joining a pug with people who use random skills and fails miserably.

"Lord i was born a rambling man" --Squirrel Oo

Its not really wiki falut. It just people who don't comfortable to change build for the task at hand.Team usually fail because it lack of roles that need to face challenge.

Voltar,

Just one comment specially for you:
I was going put something in my earlier post, but left it out.
But since you are in the same alliance as I am, I think I can put it here.
I know several of my guild members turned of alliance chat most of the time.

However, I doubt things are better in other alliances.
There are some great players in our alliance, but several guilds have a 'recruit all' policy while we for example have some demands for our new members.
I don't mind the mix and you learn fast enough who the good and 'bad' players are. And if someone does not want to argue with you, just find an other team. Same as with pugs.

If your bar is bad, I'm going to tell you. If you don't change it, I won't play with you. Yeah, that's elitist by definition, but I'm not going to have your lack of common sense and/or game knowledge hinder my play. That is all. Just trying to help people suck less. Anyway, WTB 7 Hero Parties.

I only check the wiki for locations.
Who drops a green, who has a skill, who collects a trophy...

My suggestion? Check the official wiki.
The info is objective there and without 'this is best, that it worst'.

This week-end I joined a group and they asked me to ping.. So I did and when the leader noticed that I wasn't using SF he threatened to kick me.. I tried to explain to him that Destroyers don't burn so my build would be limited in the dungeon (ravenspoint).. He kicked me after saying that SF is "great" against the destroyers..

Edit: IF your group has a GOOD tank and the casters and rangers don't stay too close to the tank.. splinter barrage can be devastating. But ya, most PuG's suck but I have had the chance to play with some really good ones and they did require us to ping..

people who kick you out of the group because you wont use skills They want you to are just on a power trip, throwing a fit to get their way. This is why i love heroes! because while that group of people ragehate on players builds and wait 1-2 hours for a monk, i beat the mission with heroes and return to see them still waiting, or complaining about a failure.

You should play what you like and never let anyone push you around. if they wanna act up, get heroes and find another player with heroes and smash on the missions. 2 players +6 heroes can beat all the storyline non elite missions easily.

the problem is the net seems to be filled with sociopathic wanna be's and control freaks. Personally if a player uses a failing skill set, i dont get pissed, i just slaughter everything and allow the person to learn on their own.

i'd also like to add that wiki is useful but not completely accurate. especially on their rare salvage listings.

If I have a human ranger I'd much prefer if they played BHA then barrage and disrupt bosses or painful casters.

When I play with my guildies and/or alliance, we use my builds 90% of the time. The only places I havnt been able to beat so far between HM tyria and cantha are vizunah Square / Eternal Grove / Unwaking waters since we didnt have enough human players (4 would be needed at least for the two party missions with two players on each side, and Eternal Grove is just a piece of **** mission). We normally only have 3 people max to do these missions with in a full farming guild and alliance.

That said when I accept a non alliance monk that Has WoH, healing breeze, heal other, heal party etc, they get a kick as soon as they say 'I dont have LoD', which happens 100% of the time with pugs. If they are in the alliance I have been keen enough to give away free tomes and gold for them to go unlock the required skills and advise them on their builds. I dont ever get the same crap from people in my alliance as I do from pugs, they always listen and change their builds as soon as they are able to.

This re-affirms my faith in humanity.
Stop using your "individual" builds people.
If I ask for a BHA ranger, it's because BHA is lovely. I don't care that your garbage "Archer's Signet" build allows you to spam thousands of skills that suck.

GoGoGoGoGo EoE!!!!!!! <----That skill should be in every bar involving a ranger

Party leaders who demand their party runs builds they read were "good" on Wiki fail. If you don't know how to play their class, let them play it themselves.

Do i hear an echo? or are we just beating a dead horse, we keep saying the same thing over and over and over again....

There were no clumps larger than 3 and that was a rare occassion. Those groups generally consisted of 2 sins and a warrior (the rits and other casters were almost never clumped) which meant 2 of the 3 lead to, "miss miss," which is not what I would consider, "barrage RULZ," which was the reasoning I was given for using splinter/barrage.

I think every ranger who caps barrage (myself included) thinks, "barrage RULZ," for maybe...2 months after capping it. After that point, you notice that it doesn't really kill anything. When you add a 2ndary attribute, you further gimp your primaries and make it even less effective. Rangers aren't fire eles. If you're going DPS on a ranger, you're best bet is single-target. Barrage may work in some specific situations but frankly it's too conditional for consistant damage output.

Incidentally, I later beat Sunjiang District on HM in 16:23 with heroes and hench using my standard build (using [wiki]Burning arrow[/wiki] and not [wiki]barrage[/wiki].

I agree that BHA is a good one to use sometimes but about as universally useful as a stance and riposte warrior.