Curse

Snorph · Oct 04, 2008, 06:53 PM // 18:53

It has come to my attention that most skills used these days are from wiki, if I am correct. IF. However in light of PvP, GvG, or HA why do so many people use wiki builds? I guess you could say its the same for PvE.

With all the skills out there that anet put out why is their only a hand full people use? Is it because they arnt that great compared to others?

Seems when you see people using a different skillbar in HA other players get some what mad and call that person a noob or whatever the reason being.

I for one like to try out new skills and new skillbars, but I guess that should be made only for RA.

See in my theory I feel anet offers alot of skills for each and every char, and I think and feel that in some cases alot of the skills out there not being used could in fact play a big role in pvp.

When I came to GW for the first time, I knew nothing, and started throwing together a set of skills that I thought would benefit me, until YES, I was called a noob for using them.

What are your guys thought, I know there has to be some good top GvG'ers that can elaborate on this.

kvndoom · Oct 04, 2008, 07:19 PM // 19:19

Most of the skills suck. There's no way around it. Many are very poorly made, and will never be made good because Anet is putting very few resources into GW1 anymore. But in order to entice people to buy their new games when they were released, they used "hundreds of new skillzorz!!!" as a selling tactic.

The thing about getting builds off wiki or such, is that in many cases, those are the best builds for a profession for a specific purpose. It weeds out the possibility of using worthless skills. If you understand why certain skills work together and why certain ones should never be on your bar, then using pre-made builds can make you better. If you just copy templates and button-mash, then you haven't achieved anything. Of course, GW has turned into 99% button-mash over the last 2 years, so go figger.

In PVP you might as well not look for respect from most people. If you copy a good build that's tried and proven, you'll get called a "wiki noob" for not being original. If you go against the grain and try to be creative, you get called a noob for not using copy/paste builds... unless it works. Then everybody copies it, and you wind up being called a wiki noob for using your own build. :-\

Mr Emu · Oct 04, 2008, 07:22 PM // 19:22

For each task you might try to achieve, there are only a few skillbars that offer the most in power, utility or efficiency. For example, your flare ele might kill something very occasionally, but it is outclassed in terms of utility by mindblast, power by SH, and efficiency by a decent warrior bar. When you use a substandard bar, people get mad at you because you are dragging them down with you.

deluxe · Oct 04, 2008, 07:30 PM // 19:30

Quote:

It has come to my attention that most skills used these days are from wiki, if I am correct. IF. However in light of PvP, GvG, or HA why do so many people use wiki builds? I guess you could say its the same for PvE.

What the hell are you talking about? Do all PvE players think that PvP builds come from wiki?? PvP builds usually are copied from obs mode.
And some (most actually) builds are just set in stone, like the shockaxe template or the cripshot. They are perfect, if you change a skill you make them imperfect.
You can make your own builds, but the "good" skills in the game are limited.

Zidane Ortef · Oct 04, 2008, 07:31 PM // 19:31

People play meta people like meta, if it ain't broke don't fix it.

Wiki builds are mostly common sense builds posted for easy access. I browse wiki and have used wiki builds but i sub skills out change them make them my own build.

Tyla · Oct 04, 2008, 07:36 PM // 19:36

Some builds are basically set in stone, as Deluxe said. You can try and toy about with things to see how it works out through curiosity sometimes, but people use what they know / think holds optimum efficiency.

Expherious · Oct 04, 2008, 07:37 PM // 19:37

I hate when someone tabs your original build and then they post it on wiki

David Wooding · Oct 04, 2008, 07:55 PM // 19:55

I do agree slightly on this issue, there are some people in the pvp world that are so conservative in their ways, I swear at least 50% of the time in Ra people are paying more attention to the OTHER PLAYERS skill bars than their own, waiting to pounce on anyone that isn't using "the right build"
I think this is wrong, guild wars is an ONLINE game, and people should learn that others can play it how they like.

Gift3d · Oct 04, 2008, 08:03 PM // 20:03

Quote:

Originally Posted by David Wooding

I think this is wrong, guild wars is an ONLINE game, and people should learn that others can play it how they like.

If you like failing you deserved to get bitched at.

Quaker · Oct 04, 2008, 08:15 PM // 20:15

Any game that uses a skill set will have skills of various quality. Look at any of the skill-deck games such as Magic the Gathering or Pokemon, for example.
In the case of an RPG such as GW (PvE-wise) some skills are less useful, but you get them earlier on in the game and acquire better ones as you go along as a normal part of the learning/growth curve. Some skills work better in PvE and in various areas, some work better in PvP, some become useless as you advance in the game.
You'll find too that GW is full of a lot of sheeple who use only skills/builds that are thought to be "win" and reject any that are considered "fail". Often times the win or fail of a skill is based upon a very narrow range of viewpoint and is often based upon only a specific instance, such as PvP or Elite Areas, but the Sheeple don't know enough to appreciate the difference.
But, as others have said, in PvP there are only a limited number of builds that are well made and effective. So many people will look upon you unkindly if you use something else.
On the other hand, new builds do come along from time to time, so someone must be using non-standard builds sometimes
My advice, if you are interested in GvG but want vary your skill bar, would be to find yourself a Guild that has at least a few people who actually know what they are doing and how skills work and interact.

Rak Orgon of Beowulf · Oct 04, 2008, 08:21 PM // 20:21

/agree with quaker
people (mostly in pvp in my experience) consider some skills to be uberwinzorz and others not so much.

some skills are /fail though.....i.e. [Marksman's Wager]

Eragon Selene · Oct 04, 2008, 08:39 PM // 20:39

my monk used WoH..........im a pvXwiki noob!!!

on a serious note, i have to lol at people in the game who cry "wiki noob". Most good bars make there way to Wiki sooner or later. But even wiki bars can be improved apon......

DarkNecrid · Oct 04, 2008, 08:40 PM // 20:40

build a bar that has the most potential options in any situation without a weakness so strong that it cripples the entire bar.

MercenaryKnight · Oct 04, 2008, 08:44 PM // 20:44

Most good builds, are seen in observer mode and copied to pvx with a good rating. Thus instead of people spending hours looking at all the different skills and hoping that they customize a good one, only to find a great variant to it was on pvx wiki already.

Most people just want what's effective, pvx builds (some of them) you can find effective and proven to work.

Chucky333 · Oct 04, 2008, 09:02 PM // 21:02

I'll say what i said in some thread regarding PvX.
GW is a 3 years old game, at this point, theres no more room for creativity, you must understand that.
By now all the good builds have already been figured out and are on PvX.
It's not that people don't think of builds for themselves, they do.
If that build is good, then as the time passes, more and more people will know it, and it will end up on PvX, thats where every build starts.
It can be fun to screw around with some skills that never see the light in RA, but the chances of you actually figuring out a good build out of it are very, very small, and if you do, that build will end up on PvX, and no one will ever know you came up with it.
So yeah, theres no more room for creativity right now, we got past that point after EOTN was released and announced as the last expansion, now the only thing that can make people come up with new builds and ideas that changes the meta in whatever gametype is skill changes, thats what keeps GW going (although some people will argue if GW really keeps going...)

Chthon · Oct 04, 2008, 09:36 PM // 21:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chucky333

I'll say what i said in some thread regarding PvX.
GW is a 3 years old game, at this point, theres no more room for creativity, you must understand that.
By now all the good builds have already been figured out and are on PvX.

This seems intuitively true, but it falls apart under inspection.

Let's look at caster builds. The two best "nukers" I know of are AP-MoP and AP-AE-CoP. AP-MoP was definitively "invented" in 3/2008 and posted to the wiki 4/2008. AP-AE-CoP was invented 6/2008 (unless someone wants to claim they were using it before either Cathode or I was) and still isn't on the wiki. So... all of the good builds have been found and posted to the wiki, and yet, neither of the two best builds in a particularly category were posted 7 months ago, and one still isn't?

I'm sure the same trend continues outside of the "nuker" category. We're getting closer to "solving" the game, but we're still not there yet. There's more good builds out there to be discovered. (That said, I don't expect any of them to be found by the "I'm a unique snowflake," or "throw a bunch of crap together," or "look, I made an Eragon-themed build" people.)

Breakfast Mc Rit · Oct 04, 2008, 11:44 PM // 23:44

As you grow more experienced, all of your bars tend to start looking like cookie-cutter builds because you get a feel for what is optimal. And what is optimal is what good players use, and what new players want to mimic.

Reverend Dr · Oct 05, 2008, 01:30 AM // 01:30

Quote:

Originally Posted by deluxe

Do all PvE players think that PvP builds come from wiki?? PvP builds usually are copied from obs mode.

I think this bears repeating.

By the time that a build gets on the wiki, everyone that even casually follows PvP already knows about it. Furthermore, by the time it reaches the wiki, the 'new' wiki build is usually out of date, if not then it is a staple build that has been around for ages (shock axe, cripshot).

If you don't believe me, take a look at the me/e water snare build. Right now it is already outdated. Look at the talk page, people trash it as a bad and useless build. Yes, it is so bad and useless that almost every balance build uses one.

One has to know how the game works before one can make builds. Too often it is the people that don't know much about the game trying to make new builds and claiming anyone with a decent build just 'copied it from wiki.' Most of the players actually participating in GvG and HA don't ever look at the wiki; for the above mentioned reasons, there is nothing of use for them on that site.

fowlero · Oct 05, 2008, 10:27 AM // 10:27

What deluxe + reverend said is pretty much it, pve players/idiots just don't see it.

Another example was the kappa spike, was all over obs but didnt get onto wiki for ages.

I find most builds on wiki are written by people just copy pasting off obs anyway.

As to the skills part, yes a lot are simple better/synergise a lot better than others.

shoogi · Oct 05, 2008, 11:00 AM // 11:00

Especially in HA there are so many must-have skills, you will just fail without them.

But it is true that players, and again especially in HA, tend to focus too much on the build when they should focus more on the quality of the players in their team. A good player with an improvable build is better than a bad player that copied from pvx (which is what most people run and considered the best, even though that's often not the case, the most obvious example being iway w/r's).