Do people not realize the importance of attributes?

Ok, I have played this game for 33 months. I am not new by any stretch. I also know that there are new people playing. However, I never had an issue with attribute points not being important. I also made sure to tell friends/guildmates how to get all their attributes, and encouraged them to do so. Lately, I have noticed a sad number of people with 185 or even 170 attribute points.

I don't PUG often, as most of what I do is done with H/H or friends/guildmates. However, lately I have been joining PUGs for FoW clears. Most groups ask people to ping a build, and if they don't, I will ask the team to do so. Depending on what time of day I am playing, I will jump to European or American servers to find a PUG. So it isn't just in one area, it happens on both servers.

When you ping a build, it does not include runes or head armor bonuses. So the typical numbers people would use are:

12-10-8
11-10-10
12-9-9
12-12-3

What I have noticed, however, are numbers like:

11-11
12-10-7
10-10-10

I ask why they don't have all their attribute points, and I always get the same answer.

"I just haven't done the quest yet." - or some variation of that.

FoW and UW are not areas that treat people nicely. Why would people try to do those areas when they haven't even maxed their character out yet? Worst was a Mesmer who only had Monk elites, 170 attributes, and didn't have max armor yet.

Is there a reason I am finding more people who don't understand why 200 attributes is important? Have people become so bad, that ne players don't get taught things like this?

The reason I hated Proph was the long time before getting all the Attribute points. I guess some people are just lazy and figure they don't need the extra points. In Nightfall you'll end up with the max points just to advance the storyline.

Actually, I have cleared FoW at HM with 185 attribute points on my char. And it was balanced, no ursan. I had no issues.

Althought i played necro, so in PvE dropping few points from Soul Reaping don't mean anything.

EDIT: What i'm trying to say is not that attributes aren't important, but that always it don't have big effect to miss 15 points.

In factions, you get them (not forced) before getting off the starting / training island before any lvl 20 content.

All my lv20 characters except my warrior have done all quests. My war's missing one and it doesn't affect my farming build, so I haven't bothered... but I should since I use her a bit more these days.

These are generally the same scrubs that refuse to take an optimal bar because either they find the one they have fun, or they think that just because their bar works in Scrubland (Prophecies) that it will work in places like the Realm of Torment.

Here's a way to see if someone is this particular flavour of scrub. Put them in places like the Maguuma Jungle, the Crystal Desert, or the Southern Shiverpeaks. They'll regard the Maguuma as challenging, the Crystal Desert as difficult, and the Southern Shiverpeaks as hard, and will take time to defeat each mob in these areas. A good player will regard it all as a cakewalk as far as difficulty goes, and will have no trouble steamrolling everything in it.

Disclaimer: This is not directed against people who know that they need them and plan to or who just haven't gotten around to it yet.

Perhaps such players want to try something new, meaning limiting themselves to provide a challenge. It's no secret almost anything in PvE can be done with simple Heroes and Henchmen, without any special coordinated groups or guildmates, with exceptions of course.

Perhaps they are just noobs who know but purposely act dumb to be a pain in the arse for other people.

Perhaps they are really newbies to the game.

For example, you said you played for 33 months. An average player would be done with all aspects of GW in that time or long before that. How many people here actually play anymore, or play as much? Most are bored of GW already and have quit or become sporadic players until GW2 comes out (or some other better games etc).

And FoW and UW isn't hard at all. There is one build that doesn't need any attributes or whatever: Ursan. That single build concept is currently running rampant in all elite PVE areas and driving down the economy. Just look at Armbraces, Voltaic Spears etc. Prices now are a shadow of their former glory just a month ago, like 100k + 70e for an Armbrace then and only 100k + 10-20e now.

I've encountered people who didn't know about ascension, the attribute quests or the simple fact you need to be Ascended to enter FoW/UW. These people are nothing compared to the griefers, noobs and other players who just act dumb to piss other players off etc etc. I probably have stories of all types of encounters and players that would fill the Library of Congress.

To remedy most of these situations is simple. Just kick them out of party, join another party, or form your own, or do things with guildmates. Anytime you PuG anything, you risk wasting TIME, Patience and Money.

It's all a part of the game, any online game.

Because the average gamers just want to "play". They don't care about the perfect build or the perfect specs. This is the way it should be. Freedom to do what you want with the game you paid for out of your own pocket. Of course then we have more experienced people like yourself and I who try to help newer players out. It is also our choice whether we want them in our group or not provided we are the party leader. But nonetheless it ain't any of my business so I'll leave it at that. I don't see any reason why they can't visit UW or wherever on their own terms in their own time. If they fail so be it! Not up to me to ruin it for them beforehand. It's not like we got Bouncers at the entrance to ToA screening everyone. *rolls eyes*

I think some people just don't stop and realise that higher an attribute, the bigger the numbers in the skill description, and generally the better the skill. I asked an alliance member yesterday to ping me his hero monk's build. I was happy to see it was a build I sent him...then I noticed he'd completely butchered the attributes. The hero had anywhere from 3-6 attribute points in every elementalist and monk magic line. I told him off, naturally, and had him correct it. Moments later he pinged his necro's bar. Again...points spread over EVERY attribute (even though the hero was only using Blood and Death magic). I tried to explain the concept of only putting points in attributes you're using.

I dare say I'll be reminding him of that in weeks/months to come.

Honestly, being one attribute point off isn't going to cause a noticeable difference in playing your character, unless you're at a breakeven point in your primary attribute (e.g. Expertise) or in a critical skill (e.g. +3 regen versus +2 regen for Mending - hahahahahaha).

I know that missing 15 attribute points won't break most builds. What disappoints me is that people don't seem to realize it makes their build BETTER. Factions and Nightfall, the quests are easy, and happen fast. Prophecies is longer, but not harder. If they are trying to farm FoW/UW for any reason, you'd think they would at least make themselves as best at doing that as possible.

Do people think they don't need those attributes, so why bother? Do people not know about them, or how to get them? Several of the people I have seen without all their attribute points were with someone from their guild. Why would you help them farm FoW/UW, but not help them get their attribute points?

Yeah, you be damned if you play with a bar which you think is fun.

If anything,not having all atribute points ristricts your ability to do original thing.

A bar that works to maximum effect is generally much more fun than the stress of running a sub-par build and repeatedly dying.

And if you don't like your class's roles (say you're a Ranger and you want to heal), maybe... roll a new character with the class that is meant to fulfill that role?

I for one would like more than 200 attribute points, when trying to run a general ss build of mine, which is 12(16) curses 12 blood and 3 soul reaping, it would be nice to run a 12/12/12

Actually, in PvE, chances are you can run what you call a "sub-par" build and not die once.

Seriously, some players find experimentation and doing things "out of the norm" to be much more fun than efficiency. For others, efficiency is all there is.

I think we see representatives of both camps in this thread.

"Do people not realize the importance of attributes?" Probably not, and it's just a percent of what will give you failure.

Part of the design of Guild Wars is that you never really know that something's wrong until you hit a wall and die. At that point you try to look into your and your enemy's builds to see what hit you. Unfortunately this isn't so easy to see, and many areas are much more forgivable than most.

So again, probably not. People don't know what's wrong until it hits them. You could very easily get away with have 185 attribute points probably throughout each campaign. My friend beat GW:EN thinking the max sword damage was 14-20.

I like the Prophecies system because only players who did you know...quests (ie play the game, not bum rush through it), would end up with 200 attribute points ^_^

Exactly! Leave the efficiencies to the more experienced players and let the newbies find their OWN way. We all paid our dues and started somewhere. Lets not forget our roots. Besides EVERYONE deserves to go through their OWN trial and errors just like many others have some 33 months ago.

Lack of 200 attribute points is something that should be pointed out to players in case they just didnt realise.

Skill bar content however is totally different

Its one of the most annoying things in gw and probably why many just play with heroes and henchies.

Let me explain something that will shock many

It is none of your business what armour weapons skills runes etc others have.
Play with them don't play with them but don't start running down they way they run their characters.

Ok if they ask for advice give it if your dropping them from the party explain why, otherwise mind your own business.

ya in pve only that would be nice and it would not disturb pve anyway, cause you get only 8 skills, your choice of skills is limited so or so, so it can't be massively overpowered to have 8 skills mixed of all 4 attributes of your class XD

Stronger than ursan can't it be to have the ability to have all 4 attributes at 12...

when we fight monsters in HM in pve, there have all monsters so or so the unfair advantage, that they have all attributes at 20 >.>

We should be able in PvE to get at least 4 attributes at 12 without using runes/headgear.
This would enable surely also hundreds of new nice builds for PvE...and due to limited 8 skils it should stay surely not way to overpowered.

But I think, gettign this should be only able for a character, once a character has beaten at least 1 campaign in Hard Mode... then there should exists new quests, which give step by step more Attribute Points, until the character has reached 400 Points, this would enable to max 4 Attributes to 12 and make 2 other attributes 3
-----

PvP would stay then at 200 attribute points naturally and when a pve character goes into PvP, his Attribute points will be temporarely resetted from 400 to 200 - leave pvp place and your points are back to 400.


would be awesome, and it would encourage also more to play professions as pure professions.

imagine Elementalists with 12+ in all their elemental attributes, having a Quadra Element-Build..., also the Spectral Insignia would surely become then alot more popular ^^

Warriors, which would be able to switch between a battle their Weapon types, without losing their damage power and also having hybrid weapon builds

Necros would become able to show their full powers as cursing blood sucking minion masters

Rangers would be able to become strong archers which shoot like railguns, without losing their speciality of their pets at their side, which would fight effective at their side and would not be just a weak temporal additional damage source, that lasts only so long, until it dies

Monks wold be able to combine their magics far better and would become also more dangerous in combat, without losign their supportive skills to be effective

Mesmers would also become far better with 4 maxed attributes in pve...

Assassins could create hundreds over hundreds of more deadly interesting attack combos

Ritualists cold become more interestign spirit spamers with more power and impressive spikers

Dervishs, hmm i think there are many impressive combinations possible with earth prayers and wind prayers, without losing the power of their weapon and the ability to transform into an avatar

and im sure for paragons will be somethign nice too there to create for a build with all para attributes being 12+

No phoenix, that's a horrible idea and you should feel bad.

How DARE someone want to make use of their secondary profession?!?! It just boggles the mind!

How DARE someone fail at using their secondary profession at the cost of my time?!?!?! It just boggles my mind!

The problem isn't making use of the secondary, it's that some people try to fill a roll by using a certain secondary, when actually having a primary class doing that role is almost certainly better.

For example, an Mo/P who's bar was mostly shouts. A paragon will do the job better. They have access to runes and headgears for extra points. They have their primary attribute, which gives them a big energy management advantage. They have better armor, too, tho that isn't a specific advantage when shouting. The monk should either perform a roll (like prot or healing) that they are actually well suited to, or make a paragon and play that in style they want.

As a general rule, if you have more points in secondary attributes (after runes), you are probably doing something wrong. There are very few exceptions, and they are highly specialized.

maybe they don't know they can get better armour, and as they don't know, won't ask, or don't understand the +1 headpiece and +3 rune concept...

and if i party with someone, i will say if i don't think their skills will work with the team, and suggest alternatives as it will effect all 8 of the teams play experience.

It's due to the fact that many people are lazy pathetic humans. Many of these people are, I'm sure, the same people that don't bring consumables to ursan groups etc. welcum 2 teh internetz

I agree with that. Being able to max 4 attributes of a character would be bad. Would make everything imba more then it is now.

or maybe its because some people dont wiki everything up like we do and actually dont know about these quests?

agreed with gremlin. and yea... i like the prophecies sytem... people who have it and only it have at least SOME way of showing they have gone through the game at least once. ^^

Agreed. In fact, those "few exceptions" are always weapon attribute lines. A/R replace daggers for bows. P/W can easily replace his spear mastery lines with an axe/sword build, while still having leadership and motivation/or command. A R/W thumper, etc.
Caster lines are less forgiving (usually due to some inherient bonus the primary class gets, monks being more efficent at healing with divine favor, eles having the energy to deal with exaushtion, etc).

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Especially since you got her FOW

Your post is stupid. An R/Mo cannot heal to any competent degree, for example, just because monk is secondary.

Amen brotherman you tell em. Everyone doesn't want to play "Clone wars" and be like everybody else. Everybody doesn't want to play powergamer or be an elitist sob. Some people like to roleplay and if you've ever played dnd thas what you can do you can "gimp" your character to roleplay the type of character you want. Too many powerpushers in this game like the OP that think everything revolves around how THEY play the game. Well I'm like the above person I paid for the game to play it MY way not YOUR way or anyone else's way and I've gotten through the entire 3 chapters and the expansion playing MY way so don't act like YOUR way is the only way. IGMO

See it is idiot thinking like this is the reason people have quit pugging anymore. Idiots like this who think this is a non competent build for a ranger. When I've seen it work many times over, nobody expects a ranger to be rezzing in the middle of battles either, but, a sneaky ranger/monk build with a hard rez is fun and can catch other teams off guard especially since a ranger can go into whirling and cast a rez easily most times.

Could just be they're new and haven't found the attrib quests. Nightfall chars should all have the points, and factions probably do too. But maybe not for prophs, where you actually have to go exploring to get the desert quest and then you have to have visited all the desert towns, not just the mission ones, to get the shiverpeaks quest.

Course, they could also be a vet and got run from beacons to droks and skipped the desert entirely. And they've been farming fine with their build an so can't be bothered going back to do SC.

I still see way too many of them. Prophecies characters, wearing FoW armors and tormented weaps. They say they didn't know about the quests, others say they were were too lazy to do them.

So they play with 170 or 185 attribute points, not fully efficient as if they were'nt true level 20 characters. If only the displayed character level changed depending on that... they would certainly do them.
170ap = lev20
185ap = lev21
200ap = lev22 ?

better not, I'd rather see something like displaying the character's level in a different color if it's not a true level 20. Like an *attention: noob* neon sign ;p

Sure I aggree with that attitude its the people who make demands of others and run them down insult them etc.

If someone has just watched lotr and wants to model their character on Gandalf they might run E/W and use a sword, it probably wont work very well but its their choice and in most of pve it will not matter a great deal.

Its a real effort to get the remaining attribute points in Prophesies, and its too easy to overlook it in Factions.

Meh, my necro who is on my pve only account who I really seldom log on to only has 185 att pts. Never bothered to do that stupid quest. Maybe someday when I am bored. Maybe.... NOT.