Curse

moriz · Aug 10, 2007, 12:19 AM // 00:19

Intro
this will probably be one of the shortest guides i'll ever write, but it's still quite important, especially for newer players.

there are many of us, especially early in our GW careers, who will be struck by sudden flashes of inspiration and come up with what we thought were "the best build ever". whether they be monk builds, warrior builds, ranger builds.... it doesn't really matter. many of us will come here and to other forums to share our "leet build", only to have its obvious weaknesses pointed out to us (politely or otherwise). this guide will help fine tune the build making process, hopefully helping players come up with better builds.

1: Niches
there are two parts to this category. 1: does this build fulfill a needed niche? in other words, can this build do something that no other builds can do? 2: does this build fulfill a niche better than a previous build? these are tricky questions to answer. to help answer them, i'll use the teleporting BL monk build as an example.

this build was invented by the famous Soul Wedding of [EvIL] during the factions seasons. its sole purpose was being a monk that can keep up with the high mobility of [EvIL]'s gvg build. combined with 6 other teleporting characters, this build became one of the most annoying monks to fight against. its basic template is still used today.

so, let's check this build against the two questions. 1: this build fulfills the "monk with high mobility" niche, which at the time was not fulfilled. 2: this build was the first of the "monk with high mobility" niche, obviously making it the best.

2: The mindset and prejudice
to make an innovative and effective build, one must be able to look past present standards and conventions. take again the teleporting BL monk as an example. when factions came out, many of us took one look at BL, return, and dark escape, and said: "you know, these will work very well on a monk." so why did it took so long for the build to come out? simple. our judgment was clouded by the standards and conventions of the time. here's what many of us thought:

"BL is an elite. can't use it with mantra of recall"
"no mantra of recall, can't run divine boon"
"assassin secondary, can't run mesmer e-management skills"

because we were blinded by these conventions, we could not see the elegance and power of the build that was staring at us in the face. to truly find the next powerful build, we need to look past these conventions.

3: Can you run it?
this is probably the most important part. can you actually run the build you made, and show the world its true potential? there were probably many people who independantly came up with the teleporting BL monk, but only Soul Wedding and One Star had the skills needed to run it at a top level. while many people probably ran it long time before they did, they never played them at a high level, and nobody paid any attention to them. when the teleporting monks first showed up on observer mode, many of us went: "WTF IS THAT???!" many of us probably disregarded the build initially, but its continued success eventually convinced us to abandon the old boon prot convention to adopt it.

4: The weaknesses
lastly, we must know the weaknesses of the build. the most famous example i know is the teleporting BL monks' spectacular failure during the factions championships, where [iQ] forced [EvIL] to fight in a mass VoD slugfest, and the teleporting monk could not keep up due to their lack of active e-management. whether Soul Wedding and One Star knew of this weakness, i do not really know. but i'm willing to bet that they didn't. when making a build, we must always think of the situations where the build is weakest, and try to compensate it in some way.

Conclusion
ok, i lied. this actually is a pretty long guide. hopefully you find it informative.

note: this guide was written in exactly 23 minutes in one setting. as such, there might be grammar and spelling errors. if you are offended by them, then you may bite me for i do not care.

dimirpaw · Aug 10, 2007, 01:15 AM // 01:15

Good guide!

People just need to remember that all builds have a weakness. How you counter that weakness is through your teammates supplying the counter to your weakness. For example, an all out Sword Warrior. He can take a lot of damage in melee and some in elemental however healing is something he may need which can be supplied through a monk. One of the biggest problems for a warrior is degen. Every guild team needs to have builds that help each other out to make a strong team.