Build Critics

Indeed, it will work. The synergy between SF and ToF is good, but that doesn't change the fact your apparant main source of damage is non-armour ignoring elemental damage.


You have a lot to learn about necromancers if you think Spiteful Spirit is epic. VoR is basically a mesmer's version and is still weak.
But here is not the place to go into that.

What seems to be a common idea in a lot of these posts is an explanation of WHY a build ... needs criticism. I've seen a number of "lol whut" one-liners in many places--not here, which is nice--but in game, in other threads, in other forums.

When THAT'S all that a build critic has to offer, then the OP has a legitimate gripe. When a build critic says "WTF, nooOb," then the OP has a point.

But if, as many in this thread have done, the "build critics" explain why the build is gimped-- speccing into too many atttributes, relying on weak attributes, relying on bars that don't mesh well with other bars, ignoring the confitions and effects for skills (removes preparations? needs to be near a spirit?), relying on an elite skill that doesn't work for an area (I'm looking at you, minion masters in areas with few corpses)--then people should listen. You're getting free advice.

Yes,absolutely, this is a game; it should be fun; when you're H+Hing it, you have the freedom to run any bar you like. But one requirement for PuGs, most of the time, is success--it's not fun to fail hard. And a build that doesn't pull its weight....that's not fun for a PuG to deal with either. You're within your rights to try to run a weak build, and they're within their rights to offer useful discussion of the build--and within their rights not to accept you if you won't be open to suggestion.

I am actually laughing here. I was hot, tired, and rather ticked off when I vented with that post.

And I do remember saying that was not my usual build. There had been some quick and dirty changes made for a specific need (2nd class to Ranger, Winter, more healing then usual). I probably should have reverted to my usual and posted that, but it was quite late in the night, and I was hot and tired. (I only have the Ranger secondary for two purposes on that character, Winter for the final Proph mission, and to get a pet for the Hall Of Monuments.)

My usual build is more traditional Spirit Spammer, with Spirit Light for self heals, and Boon of Creation.

And for the one that laughed at the hex of Painful Bond, it can be quite nasty for popping ambushes. Drop 4-5 attack spirits, then use PB to pull. Can see some pretty impressive numbers roll up rather quickly. Bigger plus when your necro has Well of Darkness, Feast of Corruption, Toxic Chill, etc.

But with only a few exceptions, most comments seem to be of the negative aspect. There were a few that really were trying to be constructive, and I applaud those. But by and large, most have been the "you suck" vein. *shrugs*

And it's ok, I posted both to vent some of my own frustrations, and to see what others in here thought. I do have rather thick skin, and some of the things I have seen from others have been repeated in here. It is funny that forums can be a microcosm of real life (or in this case, Guild Wars life). Because so many things I see there I saw here.

For example, "You have no Elite skill, your build sucks".

Sooo, what if I added an Elite, then simply never used the damned thing? Does that mean my build no longer sucks?

And my belief on what makes a sucky build I see all the time: Rez Signets on heroes (or Monk-Ritualist-Paragon).

Ever see a hero, no second class, or monk as the second class, with a Rez signet? Sheesh, make a Monk-Rit-Paragon secondary and go with Resurection, Rebirth, Signet of Return, Lively Was Naomei, something. Or even Vengeance. That can be fun, especially on noobs who wonder why they keep dying, with no increase in DP.

Have you ever gone out with that annoying sin who insists they can take on mobs of the Afflicted by themselves? Or that Tank that does not know when to hold back and wait for healing before charging back into the battle? Just use Vengeance(TM) next time. At least that way when it is over he (or she) will only be at -15%dp, instead of -60%dp. And for the next 50 purchasers of Vengeance(TM), we are giving away a free Ginsu Katana. Koss will love it! Tie it to the end of a stick and Melonni will love it! Just don't give it to Goren, or he will slice the coprolite out of himself! Just remember, Vengeance(TM), by ShiroCo.

But when you turn on HM you need to be able to kill the AI as quickly as you can, otherwise you may end up sustaining too much damage. Plus having a Spirit Light with only 84 healing is not going to keep you alive in HM.

Alesia would keep my party alive for longer then some of the terribad bars that players use.

Henchmen skill bars are what I base my judgement of players skill bars on. If they are as good as, or better then the henchmen, I dont mind. If not, I ask for A change. If the bad bar is on a hero, I ask to kick the hero and take the better henchman instead.

If I am going to bother to play with other people, what exactly is the point in having a party that is worse then henchmen???

I want a party that is better than H/H, not worse.

That should have been your first clue. Seriously.

a) Success in getting titles does not mean you are any good. I should know.
b) Chances are, people really, really do see terrible builds and do want to help out by giving you tips to improve. At least for completing missions you ara gonna start.
c) You do not have to play class X to understand it and detect really, really bad builds. Really.

u reminds me a wammo that i puged last night who runs sword / prot with only 3 point of strength in his build:
frenzy, sa+gash combo, dragon slash, RoF, ProtSpirit, rebirth, and a skill i forget
i told him we had a port monk already (we have 2 monks already), i ask him to change his build and he told me he was playing for fun.
then it takes us (the whole team, like 5 of us) 15 mins to explain why prot spell wont work on warrior
he just cant stand it and leave
he was just wasting our time then and we are not very happy bout it,
sometime critics are good cuz while u brought a lame build like the wammo did, u affect the whole team progress or may let everyone get killed cus u didnt do your job regarding to your profession
i think most of us are playing to success, not based on your mood

But the reason they "complained" was in relationship to other things.

For example, both said "Why Winter? You do not do elemental damage."

Well no, duh! Neither do most Rangers. But it helps the Elementalists out tremendously. On missions (or with other people) I mostly play a Rit as a "support character", with the spirits disrupting the enemy, causing side effects (blindness, knock down, interruption, etc), and also working as a secondary healer if I am with a group.

I brought more healing then usual, because on that one the Monks are frequently overtasked. And since groups all to often release to many fists-hands, the trail of Preservation spirits gives places to run to (not to mention frequently they stop to fight the spirits, breaking persuit).

To give an idea, this is closer to my usual build.

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My Necro hero uses Well Of Darkness, Dervish hero Rending Sweep.

I'm sorry this game has turned into Build Wars.... people will not have fun unless they are successful through parts of the game that shouldn't be made harder than they are. Getting good potent and powerful builds aren't that hard to make, you don't even have to PVX it. Healing at 39 pts with losing a condition, that's worse than a condition removal skill from a Monk's Protection Prayer's skill line. You need to focus on maxing 2-3 attributes and their relative skills or else the build will be not effective.

Okay, you are trying to help. Awesome. Kudos.

Want to help out monks? Okay.

Pure heals on Rt are kinda sucky they eat energy too much to what they provide without decent investment (at least 9 points), key skill you want to bring to help out is [Weapon of Warding] to help with those pesky hands which can prevent massive amounts of damage (which, incidentally is kinda better than your necro well hero thing - no corpses for decent coverage) and [Protective Was Kaolai] to have instant heal ups if party gets targeted by imp spike.

Want to help out with damage? Winter is okay-ish, if you do have eles (but still very meh-worthy if you are doing hm). As far as your own damage goes, [Splinter Weapon] does order of magnitude more damage than attack spirit combo (which is quite unwieldy - setting up spirit nest and recharge downtime and stuff! if only for psychical reason - others get bored/pissed/impatient and start making mistakes; for this reason your usual build is even less desirable. especially with several 25e, low duration/high recharge spirits.), so especially when you have dervish in party, not bringing splinter is waste.

Whatever, post your team to hero section of forum if you care, people will provide you feedback and some points that might not have crossed your mind.

i have never minded changing my bar to help a group but one thing you have to have a better reason why i should take something and not something cause i will discuss my reasons and on occassions i have changed but those who want me to run a build they seen on pvi wiki and have no reason behind it can just leave i know those builds and research there when i make a build but i do modify my build to the area. i understand what works and ive had a few talk nme into bringing something else before so ameniable but dont tell me to run a bar cause you think its good because mine is probably better then the one you send me cause ive thought about it before i give it

Um, no. I've seen flare eles in Ring of Fire HM. I've seen an Animate Bone Horror monk in Thirsty River HM. Please remember that people can be run to that point by guildies, or have friends who help cover their asses, or pay for runners. NM is not exactly the hardest thing in the world to complete, and it's entirely possible to overestimate your ability with a particular character just because that character is capable of finishing stuff in NM.

srs in RA I used blessed aura, if you combo that with 20% longer enchantments you get an everlasting guardian, ppl always leave when they see me using it :P

I actually had to register so I could post on this ridiculous thread. First off, yes it is a weak build. But who the hell cares? Thats has nothing to do with the point of this thread whatsoever. Secondly the fact that the majority of you were so quick to jump on the bashing bandwagon exactly proves the ORIGINAL point trying to be made. I was going to qoute all the moronic and childish comments I saw, but I ran out of patience after about 15 or so. Yes, helpful criticism is fine. That means offering an alternative rather than pretending to be helping but really just bashing. And no, I am not taking up for him because my builds suck and I hate bashers. My builds work just fine and no one ever complains. And I did see one post that says it all. "Guild Wars has now become Build Wars" WTF people. I mean c'mon. Last I checked the definition of a game included the word "fun" in it. If this guy is having fun with his build, but you don't like it FIND ANOTHER PARTY you pathetic tools. Ok, venting done. Seriously though, pull your head out of your nether regions and try to grow up a little. The entire community will be better for it.

I only want to address one point, which was made earlier. This game is mostly grinding, having been out for as long as it has. Its really not fair to take up other people's time by using subpar builds & failing or doing the mission slower than is acceptable. In that aspect, members of a team are fully justified in providing constructive criticism of builds. I think most of the problem with the OP is that he doesnt take crticism very well...if it is possible to improve your build, why not?

If that suggestion is provided in a rude fashion, sure..that's a problem, but providing criticism isnt bad by any means at all.

never said it was in fact: "Yes, helpful criticism is fine." direct quote from what I said. And in a way yes you are right, but like I said, kick him or find another group then. Why the need for childish remarks about how uberawesome you are at making builds and how he fails at life? (and by you I mean that in a general sense, not pointing anyone out) Even if you don't have a perceptible maturity level in real life, its easy to fake one online, so give it a shot.

The only times I have a problem with the build critics are when they neglect to justify their criticism or provide nonsensical justifications for their criticism. That being said, I most often play with heroes and henchmen or alliance members who are generally more mature, knowledgeable, and rational.

By the way, I would be overcome with shame if I were to run your Rt/R combo platter anywhere with more than a four-man party limit.

Well...I was doing Gyala Hatchery HM with pugs the other day on my sin, so I asked if any of the casters had Great Dwarf Weapon, and if so, could they bring it...

I had to ask 6 times, no one responded, and I was kicked for "spamming"...

Makes you wonder why people don waste time explaining themselves...

oddly enough they might not have known what you were talking about lol

I've been criticised on different occasions for using a PvXwiki build and for not using a PvXwiki build. Oddly enough, it was the same build! (I have no idea whether it's on PvXwiki or not, nor do I care. All I know is it works pretty darn good. )

That being said, I can handle constructive criticism about the builds I run. I KNOW that on my secondary characters the builds I'm using need work. My main has 3 or 4 builds that I use - 1 for general purpose and a couple for specific situations. Could they be better? I dunno, so if someone points out a flaw (without being a jerk about it) in a build I'm using, I appreciate it.

If someone IS a jerk about party members' builds, I'm quite satisfied to find out during the party formation stage the character of the person so I don't have to endure an entire mission* with the jerk.

*That is, if the party actually completes the mission. Because the irony of the thing is that, when I have stuck around with a PUG that has the "build dictator" type in it, I've noticed that it's usually the know-it-all dictator that causes party failure!

OP: If you are in my team, and you are using a terrible build, then you are wasting not only my time but the time of (usually) six other people. At best, your terrible build will slow completing the task at hand. At worst, it will cause a failure and the need to repeat the task.

This is why people criticize terrible builds. You are imposing a cost on the rest of your team when your bar is made of fail.

Now, I will grant you that some bad players don't know a good build when they see it, and only want to see the most common version of a bar. However, those are the best kind of bad player, because they actually tell you that they're bad. Then you don't end up playing with them, which saves you time.

All in all: bring a good bar to the party or go home. If you don't know how to build a good bar, you'd better rely on popular builds.

On the other hand, if you know how to build an adequate bar, one that works well enough, I'll be happy to take you on so that you'll have a decent playing experience and not have to try and team with people like this.

It really depends on who the critic is. It its a person of the same profession or the team leader (or general consensus of the team) that the build won't work or fit, than you should change it. But if you have a W/Mo with healing skills in his bar telling you that you are a noob than ignore him. Otherwise anything is game. I would rather be criticized and get the right skills than keep failing in a group.

One of the biggest problems that players have is that they may not have all the skills and don't have the necessary amount of play time on that char (goes esp for zquests nowadays where people are using mules to get zoins). Combined with the I WANNA GO attitude and the lack of patience in game it results in a lotta bad arguments.

To the original poster - it is obvious that your team was correct to criticize you. I don't know the tone in which they stated it, but their points were probably valid (look around at the people who are posting). I know it feels bad now, but there are a lotta good free hero skills that you could use and make a really good build... Try again and try to do it with a nice guild to learn!

You just said the exact same thing he said, except you said adequate bar that works well enough in stead of good bar. Which are pretty much the same thing.

What he's on about is the way I said it. To be honest, I don't want to play with him either.

Very efective builds - build made for the area, very fast
Good builds - classic good builds... fast
Fun builds - you choose, are lots, and they work in 90% of game, normal speed
Bad builds - you choose, are lots, and they work in 10% of game, slow speed

In some areas you need very efective builds, or things dont work...
In some areas you can play good builds and it will work...
In some areas you can play fun builds...
Go to level 5 monsters areas or random areas if you want to play bad builds...

Sorry my bad english...

It's not my nature to criticize a build. I may suggest changes based on the type of monsters the group will encounter... such as disease and bleeding won't work if the majority of your foes are non-fleshy for example... but NM is so freakin' easy that I won't get super picky. I have found that creative people can do amazing things what what other people precieve as crappy builds. I do get a bit more insistent in HM or elite areas, but not obnoxiously so. Again, not my nature.

And when I do run into the dreaded build criticizer, I try to listen to what they're saying not how they're saying it. Usually though, I get a 'nice' for my builds because I research before I attempt anything. I hate epic fails.

This post was ok until

Define a "legitimate" junk build then. What keeps yours from being one?

now actually practice it. I think you don't.

Well there is 1 rule for (almost) all pve builds:

- Never split to more than 3 attributes.

Do not assume this means anything. If someone has one character with 30 titles and another with 5 it doesn't mean they're necessarily better at using the one with 30.

I played differently when I hero/hench because it's something that is no doubt fairly easy to achieve so I can afford to experiment. If I see a bar that doesn't look good in my group pinged by someone I've never played with before I'm going to need a little more than their word that it's worked for them.

I've only ever played Warrior, Monk, and Paragon, but fiddled with several builds for each of the other professions as well be it on my heroes or coming up with a PvP build to something I saw on observer mode. Some people know what makes a good skill simply because they know how the mechanics of the game work, others because they've actually played in all of those roles. Just because they've never played the role doesn't mean they don't understand what makes a good build. Play long enough and expose yourself to people who know a thing or two and you start to pick up on those subtle things yourself. With that in mind, primary professions play primary profession roles. There are going to be very, very few exceptions to this rule and most of the time they're just PvP gimmicks.

39 is hardly a heal. That's like saying Smite Hex heals because I have a high Divine Favor.

Better question is why should I care about those conditions in PvE? Enemies don't kite, not to the point where Cripple is going to make or break the encounter anyway. This isn't PvP where you're constantly in battle and every bit of damage is going to add up over time to the point where it will make a significant impact on the outcome of battle.

That's less health than Alesia/Mhenlo's Orison of Healing, arguably the worst spell in the Healing Prayers line (I've barely logged in for the past year so no idea if anything was made worse). If I'm dropping a henchman to take a player/hero they better be performing than that henchman.

Then don't post, why bother? Most people aren't interested in designing some gimmick and would rather stick to something that works. There is a reason people tend to use wiki or forum builds because they're generally accepted as functional. If someone asks me for a Mo/Rt build using Spirits I'm going to tell them to play a Ritualist primary, or in the past a Necromancer.

This thread ought to be closed. No matter how many people pile into this thread and tell him his build is flat out terrible, OP isn't going to get it. No matter how vigorously OP requests that people stop criticizing terrible builds, they're not going to. Nothing productive is going to come out of this.

I am reasonably confident of being able to earn the following titles with an empty skillbar:

3 Cartographers
3 Protectors
Norn, Asura, Dwarf, and Ebon faction
Legendary Survivor
Skillhunter

My plan has me start at Factions. After the Tut, I get Olias and switch to EotN as early as possible. Play that until Livia and Level to 20, then head over to Nightfall straight for the Master. You can imagine the rest once I got that setup. After that it is Sabway + 2 Ranger 2 Monks all the way. Faction titles are easily earned since Sabway can master all EotN Missions in Hardmode, so it is only an issue of farming books.

So you see, empty skillbar, the best there is.

Apart from that: when pugging in elite mission alone - don't argue with the guys from the guild which is the core team of the run. It's their show, run their build, most of the time it'll work just fine. But argue with them and you get kicked, then join a group of people who all run their "best" build. Things will then go South pretty quickly.

closing this thread is a good idea I think. I believe all sides have said their piece and now its just filler. Just my suggestion though.

So it was written, so it shall be done.