Build Critics

Is anybody else annoyed at all of the "Build Critics" out there?

This is something I run across constantly, and frankly I find it very annoying. Today it happened to me 2 times. And it was with a character that has 3 different Defender titles, and several others.

People play different ways. I especially love it that the person that was so critical said afterwards that they have never played a Ritualist. So what gives them a right to complain? Or that they see that half of my hero monk's skills are Rit skills, so that means it is a junk build.

So what that "Mend Body And Soul" is a Rit skill. It heals 39 points, and removes 1 condition per spirit (of which there are a lot since my main character is a Spirit Spammer).

Let's see another monk skill that removes Poison, Burning, Cripple, Deep Wound, and heals you at the same time. At a cost of only 5 energy no less.

Or Spirit Light, 5 energy and 84 health. And yea, my monk spams Preservation everywhere. But nobody complains about that when things go sour, and they run past it and it heals them for 94 as they pass by.

I suggest to those that read the forum, try not to be build critics. Sure you may be an ace, but the other person often has something quite specific in mind, that you are not thinking about. And if you actually see them in action, you might be amazed at what some of the "unconventional builds" can do.

Of course, this does not apply to the legitimate "junk builds" out there. And yea, I have seen a lot of them. But come on, by the time a person makes it to Hell's Precipice (or any of the other endgame points), they should have a good idea what is working, and what is not working.

BTW, this is the Rit "junk build" I had earlier, tweaked slightly for Hells Precipice.

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I'd have to agree, sorry.
Your builds trying to do healing and damage - and though the healing side is fine, i'd have to say that the general damage of 3 spirits that'll take ~ 10 secs to get up along with the hex wouldn't be as efficient as some other combinations.

And i agree that by the time people reach the endgame areas they have an idea about what doesn't work - but that doesn't mean they'll have an idea about what works the best.

You need a lot of energy, and the more effective skills take 15 energy and you do not have any kind of energy management.

Then you are a mix of healer and also a bit of a damage dealer. Especially in Hard mode going for the weapon spells would yield better results.

Be a healer, a spirit spammer or do something with weapon spells, at the moment you are a healer/spirit spammer with energy problems.

Rather provide some blocking than excessive condition removal. The melee Titans are something you can take care of. The worst thing that happens is something you can hardly prevent, Sparks of the Titans causing burning over and over.


I also wonder what a legitimate junk build is. Just test it in Hard Mode, and see if it works yourself.

Restore Condition.
Draw Conditions.
That's two off the top of my head.

And since you love build criticism, here's more: that rit build is, in fact, "junk". Bloodsong is a waste of time at 3 Channeling, Painful Bond is also questionable at that low of a spec. Preservation is an awful skill because not only does it only heal once every four seconds, you can't even control who it heals. It's just as likely to hit your 100% health guy as it is your 10% health guy. No energy management even with three 15e skills. Spawning Power is useless in that build because you have no spirits that are losing health over time and no weapon spells, and 28% more health of ~140 health means it'll still die just as fast. And yes, I've played a Ritualist.

Some people like to criticize just to try to be a complete douche. Some people like to criticize to try to help people learn. Personally I've been known to do both, and am admittedly doing somewhat of both right now.

The key point to all this though - if you like a build even though it's subpar, ignore everybody telling you otherwise and run it anyway. The game's supposed to be about fun, if you enjoy the build and it gets you through areas, run it! Criticism is not intended to be an insult to you (at least when I do it) - it's only supposed to make you realize where your build has faults so you know where to go if you're having problems.

Your build does need alot of work, but if you like it, keep it. I'd never be caught dead using it though.

What's your normal build?

Most of the time, people who know the game well only want to play with other people who play at a similar level. So if they encounter someone who runs something sub-par, it is common sense they WILL criticize it. Though, you should appreciate a fact that an experienced player tries to help your build when they do.
The only way to get better at Gw is via criticism. And if you don't get better, people won't want to play with you and you should not beg people to be in their group. Simple as that.

I'm sorry, but have you been in any PuGs lately for the PvE Zaishen Quests in HM? There a plenty of people who play without a clue on how to make a proper build.

*takes a breath of relief*
Got away safely!

I thought you might be one of the guys I yelled at for running crap. The last guy I actually played with, I told him to kick all his heroes and I replaced them with hench. I guess, he couldn't take it because after that - he raged and got himself a runner. I completed the mission with masters.

doubt he means elite skills. And draw doesnt remove. it transfers. and it heals the transferer, not the person the condition is on.

But as for eveyrthing else. You are right.

Considering I'm fairly certain it's possible to get to HP in NM just using the default henchies and an empty skillbar, and I know I've seen a screenshot of Ate beating HP (on HM or NM, I forget) with 2 para heros, himself as war, a war hero, 2 war henchies, and the two monk henchies with no skills save one res on each of the heros (and at 10% morale at the end, too), no, getting to HP doesn't mean crap about their knowledge of what's good and what's not. This is entirely discounting the possibility of a truly terrible player getting dragged along by PUGs, friends, or guildies, too.

BTW, your builds are horrible, for the reasons already posted. Whether or not you care to change them is your perogative; I'm not being a jerk, just stating a fact.

Thicker skin, tbh. Never been bothered enough by what anyone said to me about a build to post a thread about it. These so-called "critics" typically fall into three categories: Clueless scrub, bored troll, and skilled person actually trying to help you improve. Ignore the first two, but when the third type comes along, listen. You might just become a better player for it.

What bothers me is the people who never listen, no matter how genuinely helpful someone is trying to be. News flash: There are people who are better at GW than you and me. When they're around and giving advice, drop the ego and hear them out. Too many people have this false sense of entitlement, or write off legitimate advice as "elitism".

Your monk's mend body and soul is only healing for 39 and you waste a skill slot for it? Wait, the Spirit Light is only healing for 84? Wait, WHAT?

Sorry to be a complete scrub, but you need a huge improvement in learning how to play, and the game does get more fun as you get better at making good skillbars.

As for Preservation, sorry, I cant help but lol if anyone actually likes wasting their elite slot for a random heal every 4 seconds limited to area range. Vengeful or Xinraes Weps are too much better, or even Spirit Light Weapon with Recuperation + Rejuvenation for absolutely epic red bar up healing.

Still cant touch Ether Prism or Soul Reaping healing heroes though.

I'm thinking exactly the same thing.

They're right you know, your build is pretty junk. :/

You should have either gone pure heal, or channel/resto, or maybe even channel/commune with signet of ghostly might.

but the bar you posted, is in all respects, terrible.

Few reasons why off the top of my head...

No energy managment.
Low Damage. (only damage is from your 3 spirits + painful bond, which are relatively low level... you'd want higher channel and lower commune... and more spirits. plus they'd die super easy, especially in the area you were in)

Low Healing compared to a real healer. (if you're just being support heals that's fine, but really your healing is quite nominal)

Overall, it IS a junk build. :P (This coming from someone who DOES play rit, btw)

If you don't want critics don't post the build, that's the law.

"For each rank of Divine Favor, allies are healed for 3.2 whenever you cast Monk spells on them. Several Monk skills, especially spells relating to energy gain and healing, become more effective with a higher Divine Favor."

Here's the reason why you shouldn't stick with restoration stuff as a primary monk. The best thing about restoration line is that you can turn primary eles and necros into healers, the only E/Mo worth using is the Ether Renewal prot spammer, and N/Rt > N/Mo if it's not prot.

Mend body and Soul is a small non-elite Restore Condition, yes, but it's limited to spirits, kill them and you lose a condition removal, that's why you shouldn't always rely on it, even if you're a spirit spammer, an ele can wipe your whole army.

now for the 'junk build' you posted:
[Anguished Was Lingwah][Bloodsong][Shadowsong][Painful Bond][Preservation][Mend Body and Soul][Spirit Light][Winter]
3 channeling
4 wilderness survival
7 spawing power
11 restoration
11 communing

You have nothing that makes spawing power worth of using, so drop it and put the points into channeling, for a stronger Painful Bond. The build is fine, but you have serious energy problems, so I suggest dropping Preservation for Offering of Spirit to have some kind of energy management, or simply get a necro with blood ritual.

Martyr, although its transferred to you, dismiss conditions, Draw conditions, Life sheath

And as far as build critics go, im probably one of them, and when i see a bad build go out in AC i tell the person how to improve it and why it wont work, theres nothing wrong with it.

dismiss condition mend condition/touch/aliment are all 5 energy and plenty of others like it; Also synergy is usually only good when its better then somthing else, so Mend body and Soul isnt better then mend condition at the same point spread

Back to the main idea, if u find insults annoying dont party with humans. Then you dont hve to deal with it at all.

No offense but QQing about how people act wont make them change

If I see anything without an elite, I think, OMFG FAILWAYS KICK NOOB!!!!11!1ONEEVELENONE!1 So I'm a big build critic.

This thread is funny because the OP is complaining about build critics, and what happens, the majority of the posts are criticizing the build.

Suppose I pose this question instead... Is anybody else annoyed at players who think they have "epic" builds, but really do not?

You'd be surprised at the number of warriors with healing hands there.

99% of people who complain about build critics have extremely bad builds.

OP is evidence of this. To reiterate, EXTREMELY BAD,

Seriously learn to play.

Would kick you from party for attempting to run those.


----

Interestingly, almost everyone who uses Mo/Rt is like this: bar full of spirit spam and weak skills, terribly horribly defensive about it.

Mo/Rt almost always leads to party wipes and ignore list additions.

I've had some pretty horrible experiences with bad builds / players on Hell's Precipice.
The fact that you made it to the end of the easy campaign does NOT make you good at builds.

Healing Hands was good in Proph. Also OP, it's not that your build is junk as much as it could be a lot better. Why gimp yourself because you want to be different??

On a side note I would like to add that I see a lot of bad hybrid builds amongst 'unexperienced' players.

Yeah, everyone is entitled to their own play style. But if you're going to bother to try to join a group and drag them down with you, I think they have a right to complain too. If you don't like people telling you what would work better, just stick to heroes and henchman.

This. If they say it's bad and can't give a good reason other than because it's not Great on Wiki, then it's first type. If they say it's bad and resort to insults without giving any reason at all, then it's second type. Third type would say its bad and then try to explain why it is if you don't understand.

This. What you think works could always work better.

Well to be honest, you shouldnt really care about what others think about your builds. You should roll with what you think is good and whats comfortable to you. There is always gonna be people out there that are gonna "lol" and "your builds are so noob...gg", just have tough skin and get over it. I had my fair share of people telling me my builds are noobish, plus its a game anyway so it does really matter.

[Restore Condition] ?

Sorry, had to be said...

@OP

I kinda think you shot yourself in your own foot there. Looking over your template I noticed you are mediocre at everything and excelling at nothing. Not exactly a worthwhile skill bar to say the least.

If everybody says ur build is bad, maybe just maybe its not that everybody is out to get you ......

Great point there. Also, as someone has already said, you did shoot yourself in the foot by posting your build and then not really expecting it to get "critiqued".

However, I do understand your overall point of too much critiquing. It can go over the top at times but I think that "get this skill" person does need to listen and take into consideration that people use a build that they understand and know how to use (in their own mind anyway, lol). Still...a little suggestion now and then on maybe ways of improving that build should also be considered.

That's exactly what I mean by a bad hybrid build.

Well, tbh, Healing Hands is a better elite then preservation =/.

It has a much much better chance of saving someone who is about die, and it isnt limited to area range.

I hate build critics, they usually are the one who die the most because they cannot stop talking during the team work and drag everyone down.

some ppl take the time to explain to people what is wrong with their build and some people cannot take any criticism

For instance, aurora glade zquest last night I joined a pug and get the usual ping plz, everything is fine then one of the monks ask the leader to ping, he is a ranger/necro with [apply poison][barrage][parasitic bond][charm animal][sunspear rebirth signet] cant remember the last 3 skills, so it is pointed out that he cant use poison with barrage as it drops preparations, his response? OMG n00b monk I have played a ranger for over 2 years and know what I am doing and kicked the monk

Needless to say the rest of the group left

Build critics are needed at times and some of what they say is correct, scary to think that after 2 years some people still cannot grasp even the basic problems with their build

Over the last few weeks I have noticed that pugs range from nice competent players to absolutely awful players and the mix is about 50/50, what does make me laugh is that your will see R10 cryer spammed in nearly every Z-quest and I have yet to see any cryer group run these missions, maybe ppl like the idea of actually using profession builds again?

Well, the OP made the mistake of making it about 2 things rather than just the one.

The first point is the one about build critics. But by showing his build as it is, he introduced the "rate my build" item in it.

I personally feel that a lot of people are too easily offended when it comes to criticism. And at the same time there are a lot of people who criticize without grounds as well.

So then the question becomes, which of the two is it here? Possibly both. However, by showing his cards (his build in other words) the OP gaves us the opportunity to see if there are grounds for criticism. And as it stands there are.

Your starting post actually shows that you do not quite grasp what's out there yet. Specifically the comment about there not being any monk skills that can do the same, even though there are plenty.
Mend Condition, Dismiss Condition, Mend Ailment, Mending Touch, Restore Condition] come to mind.
The main difference is that with the monk skills the healing tends to be conditional and with the rit skill the removal of a condition is conditional.

Now, it doesn't mean that your build will automatically fail everywhere and certainly in NM it will be ok for most purposes. But the problem in GW is that you cannot say very easily if a build works well simply by experience because your team mates can often make up for one or two weak(er) players. So you can have a fail build and still get your protector titles. Try doing the Guardian titles and we'll speak again I'd say.

If you really want to do a test to see if you can make good builds, I suggest, doing a mission like Fort Ranik or Surmia with 3 heroes in HM, including the bonus. I would say that if you can do the 4-man missions in HM in general with this character and 3 heroes, then you can say that you have a grasp of character and team builds. Call it a stress test.

In the end I hate criticism out of spite or anger, but not criticism that has a point, or as they say "constructive criticism". There is nothing wrong with learning a thing or two from other players. Now they can still be nice about it, but I do feel there are grounds for criticism when I see your build, because it can do a lot of things, but none of it very well. Just understand, that when you get to the harder areas with level 28 monsters, they do 300-400 damage with spells easily and then you need spells that can heal a lot more.

I would suspect that when you did missions like Gate of Pain, you probably had 2 healers in the party already and so your healing spells only mean that you do less damage as a party. If you were acting as one of the healers then the other healer had a lot of work. It's how it works with builds that can't decide on a function.

Now, just for reference, before people have to ask. Yes I do play Ritualists myself. I have 2 even and this is not a build I would ever play.

Yes. It's amazing how few necros are willing to change from their SS set-up, particularly when it's come from PvX wiki.
Or an elementalist who refuses to switch from his pea-shooter of a build that is Searing Flames spamming.

I will admit I'm not very nice in my criticism. My patience in this game quickly gets whittled down to the point where I can be quite unpleasent to PUG members who bring crap builds.
But hey, things get done that way.

I actually approve of SF.
Add in cracked armour (and the Ebon damage ward) - and the damage isn't that INSANELY bad. And what it also does it provide the burning condition which a para with They're on Fire can take advantage of.
There are worse options.

Still, what also needs to be mentioned is that there are bad builds and then there are relatively bad builds. Sometimes the build might not be THAT bad, or bad even - but the party just doesn't have any use for it.
For instance - are Orders bad?
No.
Are Orders bad in a full caster team?
Yes!
If someone enters a full caster team and loads up Orders, it would probably be much more effective if we explain to him WHY he does not want to do that, rather then just telling him not to do it. While this is an extreme example - there are many things that work pretty counter productively.
And this is something that I forget quite often.

Totally agree with this statement, but i also agree on that you should play as you like, the game is all about YOU having fun. Make your own build, make it so darn good that it becomes a private build that no 1 has. Enjoy the game and just be yourself Learn from crticism.

It actually does.

OMG you did not just diss Searing Flames!!!

<--- Primary Elly for nearly 4 years, Legendary Guardian, approves 110% of having 2 Searing Flames ellys with a ToF paragon anywhere in the game that the burning condition works.

The advantage to it is that you need just two offensive skills on your bar to be able to kill stuff - SF and Glowing Gaze. Then you add your E management skills - Gole / Attunement / Aura of Res and you have 3 utility slots left over for either heals / prots / wards / PVE skills, 15e monk spells like convert hexes or extinguish fit on this bar wonderfully.

I find it even worse when people use AoE like Savannah Heat in HM. You know that the AI in HM never stands still in AoE right?

And as for necros, SS / SV plus a VoR mesmer is just epic ownage. I put SV on the N/Rt healer.

These builds are actually good in HM.

There is one type of "build critic" I dislike, and that is the critic who disregards any build other than the one which deals the highest possible DPS.

Don't get me wrong, I understand why this is...people want the best. This is fair enough. I'm also in no way against builds which are universally recognised to perform "the best" either. My issue is it stagnates the community too much. I guess it's all linked to the "power creep" since Factions, really, but you see it time and time again on these forums: Someone asks for thoughts on a build which performs adequately, and within about 10 posts the topic has turned onto which of the top 2 builds in terms of DPS is "best" for that profession.

It's almost as though players using anything other than Godmode, Imbagon, Discord or MS-DB builds and the like are condemned to a lifetime of being shunned.

That being said...

Players who are playing highly substandard builds who refuse to take onboard advice are also extremely irritating. Granted, given that every build save the 'elite few' are considered "bad", it might be hard for players to understand when they have a workable (acceptable) build, or when they have a build which is so poorly designed it makes Alesia look good. Unfortunately the community seems to be going more and more this way.

Whilst I hate to put a downer on your achievements, which I'm sure you worked hard for, to many players titles are extremely easy to get and are no longer a sign of ability that maybe they once were.

Someone else said it with Draw Conditions and Restore Condition, but Paragons are also very adept at condition removal with skills like Cautery Signet and "It's Just a Flesh Wound!". Condition removal is extremely commonplace, and actually, you'd need to devote a lot of your bar to Spirits for Mend Body and Soul to remove enough to compete with the skills I just listed, and devoting a lot of your bar to spirits isn't always a good use of skill slots.

There are good "unconventional" builds, and bad ones, and the good ones only tend to be good in very niche situations.

Finally a note on this...

Your attribute points are incredibly widely spread, and you have 3 in Channeling, but still bring Painful Bond and Bloodsong. A quarter of your bar devoted to a line of magic you have only put 3 (maybe 3+1) points in doesn't seem like a very useful thing to do.

Preservation is not great as an elite really. It wont necessarily heal who you want or need it to heal, when you need it to. I'm sure there are plenty more useful skills you could take in this place. When using Spirits, either Ritual Lord or Wanderlust may be OK choices, though spirits tend to be pretty weak generally.

Given you have so many spirits there, you have no way of moving them around...have you ever considered Summon Spirits (Luxon/Kurzick PvE Skill)?

Finally, for any argument revolving around "this build got me through the game" I'm sure many people could cite various times when others completed missions with no skills - just an 11-22 damage wand and a selection of henchmen.