Build discrimination.

I am really fed up with people laughing or calling me a noob or the likes of it just because of my hobby of creating builds. Everywhere I look people use the same elite skills and the same general builds, and honestly: I'm fine with it. People can play what they want.

But what I'm not fine with is when people start badmouthing you for using a different build than everyone else. + the typical person who says "certain skills are bad and are only used by people with no brains or who just dunno how to play the game" (Examples: Mending, Charge, Mark of Protection, Toxic Chill and so on). I mean seriously the way you make good builds is by experimenting. If no one experimented we wouldn't have any of these mainstream builds now would we?

For instance: I joined a group in Arborstone just for laughs where I used a build combining "Watch Yourself", "I Am Unstoppable" (at max Norn) and the very little used elite skill Soldier's Stance. Because I had that skill I got called a noob, an idiot and one guy even called me a cocksucker. So I had to leave and do it by myself.

Another: During the Eldritch Ettin Z-quest I had Mending (Yes I did, big whoop wanna fight about it?), combined with Feel no Pain (and a bit of alcohol <3). Again people laughed at me and kicked me out even though I actually had +345 hp, - 2 damage reduction (since I had an enchanted shield) and constant 6 hp regeneration not to mention the other selfprotective skills I had. Again I had to do it myself (And succeded in less than 45 minutes even though it was on HM with only 15% dp on one of my heroes)

Ok yes some builds may be more effective generally than others I can easily see that. I mean Permasin is incredibly powerful. But I don't think it's fun to run around with the same freaking build all the time. Am I not allowed to experiment with the skills at my disposal without being freaking laughed at?

And btw don't give me that "It's just for fun" or "it's just to give advice". It's not funny to be laughed at for anyone, and it's really a bad way to give advice by insulting people!

Thats why there are heros!

Just don't worry about it, if the build does what it's meant to do then it's good. Yeah it might not be as good as another build, but you never know unless you try. Just start saying stuff back to the people that say stuff like that.

Ping a cookie cutter build, run what you want.

When you play with people you don't know the least you could do is use a decent build and not use them as your guinea pigs.

Yes!!!!

Guildies who can trust you are better than PuGs. They probably won't call you names. Unfortunately, the unintended consequence of the Z-coin missions is people adopting farming-like behaviors and builds to do them over and over. The Z-missions and Z-bounties are moving many people who want to GET THEM DONE, not experiment with the hows and whys of doing that.

Sorry you had a hard time. Take Dunkoro, Master of Whispers, and Zhed, and call it a day.

But you had a gimmick elite, nothing like Mark of Protection paired with mending.

The reason you get kicked is most likely because they want to run through the mission as quickly and efficiently as possible, Feel No Pain and Mending are not exactly renowned for their brilliance. If you want to experiment, do it in FA in PvP, where no one can see your build! Or in PvE, as many have said, just use heroes.

You post on a popular game forum telling us your woes and then get pissy when people make fun of you. What did you expect when you made this thread?

If you are in a group of people, it does not hurt to be a little flexible if you the team wants to have a balanced build.

The reason people discriminate your builds is because all of the completely perfect builds for the area, mission, quest, etc. has already been figured out by the community, any other skill is most likely a LESS EFFECTIVE VARIANT. When you start to change 2 or more skills DRASTICALLY like mending and Feel No Pain, people think YOU'RE CRAZY for making your life HARDER THAN IT NEEDS TO BE. In RPGs it's all about EFFICIENCY and getting as much game time in a short amount of time. That's why your builds get discriminated because they are not as efficient. Your builds are different, less efficient, less reliable, and most of all AGAINST THE MAJORITY OF THE COMMUNITY therefore people will discriminate your builds.

So people get annoyed when you run a build that isn't reliable... such vile curs.

I ran a D/W Symbolic Striker in RA, And I get like 150-200 damage easy, thats without an elite mind you

Your point? Doing a bit gimmick damage does not make it a good build.

This is nothing new, as it's been going on for years. Remember the old days in PvE when it was assumed that a Mesmer couldn't possibly have a decent skill bar simply because they were a MESMER?

perhaps you should think of it another way. imagine if you will, if we were in the same platoon. if you put your m16 together in a way that fired rubber bands instead of bullets, in the right situation, i'm sure it would be hilarious. i would also admire your ingenuity. but i wouldn't want you in my platoon.

Oh no I expect people to start flaming. I mostly posted it to see how many would flame me, how many would feel like me and how many would tell me the exact reasons.

Even so if people insult me I insult them back since, well, Insults are insults no matter how you take them :P

While testing builds is generally not entirely frowned upon, the skill bars you are coming up with are appearing as "joke builds" to the PUGs you are joining. As a warrior, any time someone sees Mending on the bar, it's an instant WAMMO alarm and people don't want you. Also, based on your post, I am pretty sure you are not a newb, noob, or anywhere near unintelligent, you just want to have fun playing bars that are not mainstream and progress at the same time.

With that, it is okay to test bars, but make sure you are using skills which are not outdated for general PvE use, such as Mending. Restrict your test bars to trying out different elites, but not to the point where it's a joke "Oh, I bet I can beat HM with my echo frenzy build lololol" is the message you are giving off to people in your PUGs.

Based on your Arborstone bar, perhaps they were looking for more damage-oriented builds than tanking. Warriors are great for PvE and PvP, but a lot of their focus should be on damage unless otherwise specified, such as in The Deep where they are to hold many of the foes or in farming situations. Keep testing bars, but don't get discouraged. If they kick you for having a test bar, have a real bar to back you up so you can still go and finish and save the test bar for later. When a team is purely BYOB and doesn't matter what you have, then you bring your test bar.

If it gets you through, then good game -- if not, that is setting you up for another set of insults. Gaming people get bored with doing the same thing over and over again unless it is self-rewarding, such as farming. Redoing missions or runs are not the same however, so they expect success.

I had a similar problem, and people are afraid of change, I'm afraid. Imo, it's easier to ping what they want to see, and use what you perfer, just don't ping, "I'm using ____ on Mountain Troll!"

Because then they'd obviously know lol

All builds are created equal. Some builds are more equal than others.

i.e. do what you want when you don't do it at the expense of your groupmates.