Curse

heavenlight · May 09, 2011, 10:31 PM // 22:31

Quote:

Originally Posted by Plutoman

I did, which is why I appreciated it. The tone was much less hostile, and the removal of the competition idea is what I'd support. I still, in my personal opinion, don't believe it'll actually help very much, but it's very possible worth the attempt.

I don't play with glass cannon builds for the most part, so my times will probably be slower, but if I do any of the areas that are agreed upon here I'll grab a screenshot of my time. I'm not going to plan for any of them, but if I do them in any of my daily activities I'll gladly do that.

Oops, my bad for misreading your post there. I know I may be doing a fool's errand here but at the very least, at the end of it, I myself will have a more reliable way to test/compare my builds, and that alone is reason enough for me.

Quote:

Originally Posted by mugen

~45 mins HM tomb (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-7AsBOrx8A)/ easily beatable, but it's a start until someone does far better with H

easy to test : elite zone / entrance is free / immediate from town

Tombs is actually a great idea Mugen! Since you're required to vanquish all foes before proceeding, it probably provides a more accurate representation of efficiency than other elite areas. If no one objects to it, I'll include ToPK as the third area.

Plutoman · May 09, 2011, 11:13 PM // 23:13

Remember the special in tombs; it's biased towards dervish's, mesmers, ritualists, and assassins. It's still a good area, but there is a bias for sure.

Xenomortis · May 10, 2011, 12:04 AM // 00:04

If you're going to call a build bad, you're required to elaborate.

Dzjudz · May 10, 2011, 12:04 AM // 00:04

The whole game is biased towards mesmers and ritualists

.

Plutoman · May 10, 2011, 12:19 AM // 00:19

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dzjudz

The whole game is biased towards mesmers and ritualists

.

I can't honestly bring myself to disagree with you there. But you can't forget the dervish overhaul either

Ah well, ANet tries, they have a lot of work to try to keep with balancing things to try and keep everyone happy.

heavenlight · May 10, 2011, 04:57 AM // 04:57

Alright I just did my Vloxen's run. I brought along my defensive team with an ER and mix-match offensive/def spirits Razah/Xandra.

Micro: Disable Displacement at start, enable Displacement at Zoldrak. No flagging, no balling of enemies. Just aggro and kill.
Total run time is 30 minutes. Nec skills bars are not blanked. And yes, I run discord because I'm lazy.

I thought I captured the screenshot at the end but turns out I didn't and
have to recapture the times back in outpost.

After I'm done, I thought I could do better by removing the discord hero
and balling enemies up nicely. So I swap out Livia and put in an RoJ monk, put putrid bile back on MoW, put def spirits on Razah, change Xandra to channeling so that I can exploit splinter weapon with bunch up foes. The whole run turned out to feel much faster than before (the first boss got one-shot by RoJ, I deal many many yellow numbers with splinter weapon, etc.) But guess what, the whole run came out to be 31 minutes...

Anyway, I think 25 minutes is definitely possible with a team with more offensive power. Yes, Dzjudz, I'm waiting for your screenshots

Essence Snow · May 10, 2011, 05:16 AM // 05:16

Quote:

Originally Posted by heavenlight

blanked out skill bars

Just out of curiosity...what's the point of having "benchmark builds" if your going to blank them out?

Jeydra · May 10, 2011, 05:20 AM // 05:20

Why not just go down the list of ZBs ... I have absolutely no reason to do Vloxen's HM, and it's not a short excursion either so I'm not going to bother until the next Zoldark ZB shows up.

FoxBat · May 10, 2011, 05:28 AM // 05:28

Quote:

Originally Posted by Essence Snow

Just out of curiosity...what's the point of having "benchmark builds" if your going to blank them out?

The benchmark is times, not builds.

LexTalionis · May 10, 2011, 05:52 AM // 05:52

And so it came to pass that the next challenge in the path of Dwayna was the dread Tomb of Primeval Kings, an area fraught with Cries of Frustration and many patrolling fiends, whereupon a single bad pull would mean death.

"Dwaynaway is lacking!" say the heretics. "Her apostles are of a small intellect and bringing it would culiminate in a pandemonium of bad aggro and meteors!"

Ye of little faith, do you not trust in Dwayna? True, the Tomb may be a formidable foe for the orthodox, and Melonni may have the mental disposition of a brainless Melandru lackey, but such a thing is possible if one enlists the forces of her mortal enemy, Grenth. Against such a tremendous threat to humanity, even these bitter and eternal rivals must occasionally unite.

An apostle of Dwayna, channeling her healing powers through a focus such as a staff, is able to sustain the skeletal minions of Grenth, most of which are only marginally more stupid than Melonni, therefore only the most cunning, the Fiends of Bone shall be appropriate. Energy is not a concern as Grenth shall donate his Powers of Blood.

If one is able to focus his mind in Pious Concentration, you shall find that the Cries of Frustration from enemies (though unable to foil her enchantments, they may occasionally detract you from channeling the holy powers of Dwayna or casting thy Signet of Pious Light) will be alleviated by a wave of healing. Do not fear the Worms shaped like unmentionables, Dwayna shall heal thy wounds. Dwayna is strong.

Be careful, cautious and valiant and you shall prevail. Go, in Dwayna's peace.

Total time: 33 minutes.

Essence Snow · May 10, 2011, 01:23 PM // 13:23

well then here we go

Vloxen 18min...only micro was flagging as full group..no prot spirit, no shelter, almost 0 prot.

Can been done faster easily with more micro and some protspirit or shelter.

heavenlight · May 10, 2011, 02:26 PM // 14:26

In light of Essense Snow's results, I need some input from someone well-versed in Vloxen's Excavations.

Is there a shortcut through level 2 of Vloxen's? I'm not talking about using necrotic traversal and things like that. I mean, I learned from wiki and experience that the path is almost S-shape like and spans almost the whole level. If there's a path to complete level 2 in 10 minutes by using the shortcut, I would like to know.

If no such shortcut exists, I would like to know if it's possible to get through level 2 in 10 minutes if all foes are required to be killed along the path. No use of tactics such as Necrotic Traversal, SF to run through mobs, etc is allowed.

Dzjudz · May 10, 2011, 02:36 PM // 14:36

Jeydra, Vloxen is normally around 30 minutes, fast times should be around 20 minutes. It's directly accessible from an outpost. Doesn't get much faster than that while still being able to show time differences between builds. It's only a pity there are no exclusive chest skins from Vloxen

.

People, please show all skill bars, yourself and heroes. Essence Snow might well be using Necrotic Traversal + Shadow Form on his bar to run the second level... (not saying you are, but it's definitely possible).

heavenlight, I'll do this dungeon tonight and post screens.

traeskapa · May 10, 2011, 02:52 PM // 14:52

Just ran Bloodstone Caves for the hell of it.
It's not that good for benchmarking because almost everything is melee, or those pesky Stormcloud Incubus.

Besides that, 100b+MoP blew up the mobs, which kinda favors melee chars.

But well, yeah, it's a quick dungeon to try out builds in.

I also ran way more defense than was needed.
Only Norgu died in one Stormcloud spike, because Razah didn't put up shelter quick enough.
I removed his DP with clover, but that's the only drug I used.

The only micro was to put Strength of Honor on myself, and the occasional flagging out of poison traps.
As well as flagging them away to round up the boss mob.

13 min

hunter · May 10, 2011, 03:03 PM // 15:03

Just a small note:

If you are going to blank out builds, please don't bother posting at all.

Essence Snow · May 10, 2011, 03:32 PM // 15:32

Quote:

Originally Posted by Essence Snow

Just

out of curiosity...what's the point of having "benchmark builds" if your going to blank them out?

Quote:

Originally Posted by FoxBat

The benchmark is times, not builds.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dzjudz

Jeydra, Vloxen is normally around 30 minutes, fast times should be around 20 minutes. It's directly accessible from an outpost. Doesn't get much faster than that while still being able to show time differences between builds. It's only a pity there are no exclusive chest skins from Vloxen

.

People, please show all skill bars, yourself and heroes. Essence Snow might well be using Necrotic Traversal + Shadow Form on his bar to run the second level... (not saying you are, but it's definitely possible).

heavenlight, I'll do this dungeon tonight and post screens.

This was my whole point in posting....w/o seeing builds everything is pointless.

*PS..i used sf with dc and unseen fury to ball and tank and spank....after obatining keys I simply ran to portals...skipping the largest mobs on lvl 1 and last mobs on lvl2. Most mobs in vlox come in nice aggro balls to start out from and if u snare the healer at same time as dc...they all get spanked by aoe.

heavenlight · May 10, 2011, 03:50 PM // 15:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by Essence Snow

This was my whole point in posting....w/o seeing builds everything is pointless.

*PS..i used sf with dc and unseen fury to ball and tank and spank....after obatining keys I simply ran to portals...skipping the largest mobs on lvl 1 and last mobs on lvl2. Most mobs in vlox come in nice aggro balls to start out from and if u snare the healer at same time as dc...they all get spanked by aoe.

I don't know what's with the obsession with builds, but this thread is about providing benchmarks times for builds, but how the benchmark process is done is independent of the builds as long as you stick to the rules.

For the benchmarks to be reflective of how one would normally go about completing an area, tactics are prohibited. That's right, no mob skipping, no necrotic traversal, no consumables etc to reduce completion time.

I'll update my first post and post a clear rules section.

LexTalionis · May 10, 2011, 03:55 PM // 15:55

@Essence Snow: Hrm... SF is fast indeed. How'd you get 24% DP? SF balling isn't foolproof?

(Just realised I could have shaved more time off the ToPK run if I hadn't bothered killing everything on the map at the Darknesses. Ah well. I estimate a proper run of ToPK with speed builds should take 20 minutes or so.)

P.S.: If you're worried about intermediary consumables since it's a 30+ minute run, I have intermediary screenshots after each area to show none were used whatsoever. Wasn't posting them because I don't like wasting bandwidth, but if you need, I'll upload them from work computer tomorrow.

Daesu · May 10, 2011, 04:06 PM // 16:06

Quote:

Originally Posted by heavenlight

Back to the example, suppose EFG completed Majesty's Rest in 12 minutes vs my overly-defensive build's 20 minutes. Taking into account the difference in EFG's skill level and mine, I can make a rough estimate that if I run EFG's build, I might be able to complete it in say 15 minutes and have a 20% higher fail rate. So when deciding which build to run, the whole exercise will provide me a better view of the risk/reward factors.

So what is the formula like? It is hard enough to calculate your skill level relative to his.

If someone posts a 10mins run without posting skills, what does that mean? How does this help the community again?

heavenlight · May 10, 2011, 04:37 PM // 16:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by Daesu

So what is the formula like? It is hard enough to calculate your skill level relative to his.

If someone posts a 10mins run without posting skills, what does that mean? How does this help the community again?

First, please reread the updated first post.

There is no objective measure to quantify skill levels, and at most, one could use its experience to give an estimate (that's why I said 'rough estimate' in my post).

As to your second question, right now, it's not about builds since it's all about finding out what the times are. So the person shows that it is possible to complete the run in 10 mins, and that's all I needed for my benchmark study.

How does this help the community? Suppose you make a build in the future and would like to test it out. The benchmarks here will provide you with a way to test how efficient your builds are. If you can beat or come close to the cutoff time for all the benchmark areas without breaking a sweat, then congrats, you have made yourself an excellent build.

Another scenario would be that you have a new and seemingly counter-intuitive build that you would like to share with the community, but you're afraid it might be shot down immediately. What could you do? You could run your build through these benchmarks areas and offer the completion time as solid proof to convince the community that your build is worth a look at.