"Balanced" Way vs. "Gimmick" Way

zelgadissan

zelgadissan

Forge Runner

Join Date: Feb 2008

The Warrior Priests [WP]

Me/Rt

But then my CoF won't do big AoE domage

You're right again, as usual. I think I'll lower dom to ~9-10 seconds of stolenness and then drop one (maybe even SC) and add in another lulz skill like Concussion Shot. Maybe even a pet attack!

To try to keep this completely on topic, I would assume the vast amount of players on Guru have done multiples of gimmicks and multiples of balanced groups. A lot of us have been around for long enough to do plenty of different experiments and find ways to amuse themselves, which is really the entire point of a game, right? Shadow Form needs to die, but past that, if it makes you happy go for it.

Vazze

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: Aug 2006

This thread died off so quickly, well, even if it is late, let me add my thoughts. The two "gimmicks" that were mentioned are really just an OP skill-build (ursan), and an exploit of the weird agro behavior (tankspank). But these are not the gimmicks from PvP where a single mechanics is amplified to maximum efficiency, as a few people defined them (IWAY, smite builds, spike builds/etc). PvP gimmicks would be absolutely ok in PvE. Ursan was created to cut back on the learning curve in GW and tankspank is a side product of the way anet implemented farming into GW (if agro was fixed, all >2men farms would be dead:bad). In the end, ursan and tankspank are both reducing the game to a handful of skills that you can actually use, builds are repetitive and can be played with minimal concentration: boring and degrading. Anet already fixed ursan, but I think they gave up on tankspank, even added a broken RoJ not too long ago.

pingu666

Jungle Guide

Join Date: Jul 2006

guildhall

[DETH]

from my pve background ive always thought balanced tended to mean
1-2 frontline
2 monks/heal/proters of some kind
misc caster/assassins/rangers etc

gimmick builds have tended to have a couple of key skills, tended to have a certain proffession heavy in terms of numbers in a party, and increasingly? same class synergy, like discordway.

notsure if stuff like say the deep team setup is a gimmick or not, if probably say not, but a seporate catagory

Parson Brown

Parson Brown

Wilds Pathfinder

Join Date: Apr 2006

In ur base...

The one true [Hope]

E/

Quite simply, almost any group can complete a given task in GW. the more organized the group gets, the easier/faster the job gets. By the time you get to "gimmick" builds, efficiency has been maximized.

You may notice that all gimmick builds revolve around farming a specific area. They are only gimmicks because they exploit some weakness of that particular area to great effect. They're not designed for general "fun" play, just to pwn raptors, vaettirs, or whatever.

Spiritz

Forge Runner

Join Date: Apr 2007

DMFC

stop the pvxwiki hate - ok its not a great site and needs its skills brought upto date - but for many players its a starting block.
Can anyone here state that when asked for a build they will stand for ages explaining exactly how its used etc - no ... we just either give a build an leave them to it or tell the to pvx it.
I like to float around pvxwiki an look at builds - i see whats bein used and how it works with the other skills - i learn by doing this.I`ll look at scrapped builds as well and the outcome may be me thinking of how that build if possible could be improved.
Most times pugs are a pain - players dont listen , want a certain skill you dont posess and you get kicked for it or called a noob etc.
And yes i do a mix of balanced teams and unbalanced - both for fun and experimentation.
Not all gimmics revolve around 1 area - 600/smite can cover a huge area of gw but does shine where undead are concerned - then again monks in hm can be a pain so the 600/smite increases in size for someone to handle monks .

talisk3

Wilds Pathfinder

Join Date: Sep 2008

[YUM]

R/

I'd definitely go balanced. I find it fun to make builds. I need to start looking at what foes I'm facing however.
Balanced FTW

bungusmaximus

bungusmaximus

Forge Runner

Join Date: Jul 2006

Guild Of Handicrafted Products [MaSS]

W/Mo

The only brave gimmick I know are B/P teams, because they don't automatically get pounded when a little something goes wrong. Rangers are pretty resilient buggers anyways.

As for the rest, I found gimmicks to be pretty lame most of the time. Completing a 3 hour elite area with a gimmick PUG was pretty safe though, I could complete Urgoz' Warren back then when I still sucked balls. I couldn't have done that with any balanced setup, so yeah GW needs its gimmicks.

Now I do things different, but meh, in the end it completely doesn't matter. Those discussions about what method of getting things done is better is as useless as the discussion wether AB should be called PvP or PvE. People don't give a crap and play it anyways and they are having fun doing it.