Curse

DarkNecrid · Mar 16, 2008, 08:26 AM // 08:26

(Reposting this from Riverside, just for the PvP'ers, feel free to post in the other one, though. I doubt this will be much use to anybody here, but maybe for a novice guy who reads the forums or something, maybe.)

NOTE: This guide is mostly written in a PvP mindset, however, most (90% of it, I'd say) applies to PvE as well. Anything that would change between the two, will be noted.

Do not bring up PvE vs PvP in this topic. This isn't the time or the place. Most PvE'ers do PvP to some extent, and most PvPers have PvE'd. If you're going to do this, gtfo.

Introduction:
I think that even to this day, 2 years later, there are players who don't realize what literally makes a skill "good" and what makes it "bad". Especially now with Wiki and stuff, copying builds is even easier, and the builds you see just seem to work, but knowing how and why they work is a great asset that will let you adapt and find the next best "thing" before anyone else.

Some players can tell you if a skill is good or bad at just a glance by a skill update. Sure, they aren't always 100% accurate, but, they are usually right. Why is this? Well, there is tons of factors in determining if a skill is good or bad.

The Factors:
Cost: This one is pretty obvious. What does the skill cost you? This isn't just Energy or Adrenaline or Sacrifice, no! This includes time. Time is valuable, and that includes in-game. The higher the cost, the higher the reward should be, if the two don't balance out, then the skill probably isn't too hot to begin with.

A good example of a skill that sucks because of cost, is Mending. Mending costs you 10 Energy plus 1 energy every 3 seconds, and 2 seconds of your time to cast it. Your reward is that you get healed for (at 12 attribute) 6 Health Per Second (HPS).

Let's say you maintain Mending for....a minute. You've effectively paid 30 Energy for Mending, and will of been healed for 360 Health in that time, and that is assuming you needed the health throughout the entire duration.

Let's look at another skill, Orison of Healing. It costs 5 Energy, costs you 1 second of your time, and recharges in 2. At 12 attribute, it heals for 60. This means, if you used it 6 times (to match the energy cost of the 1:00 mending), you will also be healed for 360 Health. This is the problem with Mending.

Mending, is an Enchantment, which means its easy to remove, and therefore it isn't as dependable as Orison is. The fact of the matter is, over time, all the Wammos out there would be better off replacing Mending with Orison of Healing.

....or other skills, as you will see!

Another part of cost, is the recharge. A low cost high recharge skill won't do anybody any good. You want low recharge stuff, almost always. Anything with a high recharge is just asking to get stripped, and will probably kill your build. An example are the Elemental Attunement spells. If they get stripped, you're probably screwed in most cases if you build around them. In PvE, this is less of a problem as you can stop and wait for them to recharge without worring about getting attacked, and can look to see what the monsters are carrying ahead of time with Wiki.

Flexibility:
How flexible is the skill? This one is kind of hard to guage. Is the skill usable and awesome for most of the professions? Look at the new Wail of Doom! It's very very flexible. It can own all 10 professions when used right, but when used wrong, owns nobody. Gale, owns all 10 professions. A skill like say, Vocal Minority, however, does not. It only owns Paragons and Warriors, and therefore if there are no Paragons or Warriors, you just wasted a skill slot. That's bad!

Risk & Reward:
I kind of mentioned this in cost, but your skill needs to provide a bigger reward than its risk. Look at Magnetic Aura. Its a 5/.25/60 Enchantment Spell, that provides you a 17s 75% chance to block. Lets analyze it:

Pros:
+75% chance to block is a lot.
+Low energy cost.
+Low cast time.

Cons:
-Enchantment Spell
-60 second recharge time.
-Very low duration.

It hits about even, with 3 Pros, and 3 Cons. In PvE, this means its not "that" bad (still bad though), in PvP this screams "don't take me". If it gets stripped (and it will. Trust me.) you have a 7 Skill skillbar, for ~55 seconds. Great.

Another thing to look out for, is Enchantments vs Enchantment removal, and Hexes vs Hex removal. Big cost Enchantments/Hexes generally aren't so hot because of low cost Enchantment/Hex removal. A 25e Hex isn't going to do you any good if your enemy can remove it for 0/5e, it's just going to hurt your energy + time pool. You wind up taking a huge risk for a little to no reward. Not good.

Let's look at a couple of other skills!

Aegis
Pros:
+Party wide 50% chance to block for only 10 Energy
+10 Energy
+It's an Enchantment Spell, but removing 8 Enchantments on an entire party is harder than removing 1.

Cons:
-Recharge time
-Mirror of Disenchantment owns it.

Aegis, provides a bigger reward than its risk. Generally, monks will Glyph of Lesser Energy it, making it even better. Aegis is awesome. Take it.

Glimmer of Light [E]
Pros:
+It's 5/0.25/1 means you can use it thru Daze easier.
+It heals ok.

Cons:
-It only heals ok.
-Single target heal, that you have to spam.
-Will drain your energy for only a moderate HPS.

GoL kind of sucks. It's a decent single target heal, but its only decent. There are better Elites.

This brings me to my next factor....

Conditionality:
This is going to sound loco, but you probably want some skills with conditionality. There are very few "non-Conditional" skills that are good. A Conditional skill is something that requires a Condition to achieve a bigger effect.

Examples include: Zealous Benediction, Cure Hex, Agonizing Chop, Word of Healing...

Non-conditional skills are rarely good, because if they are very good, then they are generally overpowered.

Example of non-conditional skills include: Galrath Slash, Wail of Doom, Healing Signet.

That isn't to say all non-conditional skills suck! Some of them are pretty good! But you need to factor in numbers for those skills. Stuff like Eviscerate, Blinding Flash, Heal Party, and what not, are good, without being overpowered, they are just about right. And you should probably take them too! But Conditional skills with common conditionalities are very very good too.

Conditional skills are generally only good if the conditions are the following:
-Has a hex on them
-Has a condition on them
-Is casting a Spell
-Is below 50% Health
-Has an enchantment on them

The reason being, that all those things, are very very common. Take Rip Enchantment for example, Enchantments are very common. Take Vocal Minority....Shouts....not so much. Not nearly as close to as Enchantments at the very least.

Your Team:
The biggest factor of them all, your team build. Most skills become suddenly better when paired up with other skills, that's just a fact. Searing Flames grows exponentially stronger the more copies of it you have on your team, for example. This is where most people fail, too many people get caught up on *their* build, and forget everyone else's. Don't think of yourself as a 8 Skill Bar person, think of yourself as a 64 Skill Bar person. (Doesn't apply to PUGs)

You may use this topic to discuss what I have said, and post about skills you think are good/bad and why, and how we could improve the bad skills into becoming good skills, maybe? But please keep PvE vs PvP out of this.

Thanks.

Shuuda · Mar 16, 2008, 08:40 AM // 08:40

Hmm, I'm not too sure about what your saying about Non conditional skills, there are lots of good ones, Eviscerate for example. Most non condition skills suck, because most skill just suck in general, regardless of an condition.

DarkNecrid · Mar 16, 2008, 08:43 AM // 08:43

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shuuda

Hmm, I'm not too sure about what your saying about Non conditional skills, there are lots of good ones, Eviscerate for example. Most non condition skills suck, because most skill just suck in general, regardless of an condition.

Yeah, you're right, only because I worded what I said wrong.

I'll reword it to what I meant.

Riotgear · Mar 16, 2008, 10:31 AM // 10:31

Most "bad skills" are simply skills that try to fill a role that does not exist, or are just plainly worse than another skill.

Unfortunately, I have to ask exactly what you're hoping to accomplish. Guild Wars' playerbase is pretty harshly split between two groups: Competitive players who are already very capable of evaluating why certain skills never wind up on their bars, and people that simply don't get it.

By "don't get it," I mean people who take pride in the builds they create and fervently ignore criticism of it. Since there is no skill that is truly worse than another in every conceivable way, these "innovators" are able to quickly cook up a defense to why they do what they do. They could tell you why Troll Unguent would be better on a warrior than Natural Healing. I had an argument with a monk who was firmly convinced that Peace and Harmony was good.

Often it comes down to selective memory too, people running ridiculous tank builds have enough memories of the entire opposing team team beating on them while they Stone Dagger them to death that they think they're running something awesome.

You can't really break it through to them, these are people that decry people using proven-effective builds as "wiki noobs" because to them, you're not really a good player if you're not "capable" of inventing your own build. Telling them to stop inventing bad shit and use what works is like telling them to fail. It's not a concern of them not understanding why certain skills are better, it's a problem rooted in the general mentality of how they play. As long as they continue to play in extremely forgiving parts of the game, they don't really have a reason to change that mentality either.

Shuuda · Mar 16, 2008, 10:51 AM // 10:51

Quote:

Originally Posted by Riotgear

You can't really break it through to them, these are people that decry people using proven-effective builds as "wiki noobs" because to them, you're not really a good player if you're not "capable" of inventing your own build. Telling them to stop inventing bad shit and use what works is like telling them to fail. It's not a concern of them not understanding why certain skills are better, it's a problem rooted in the general mentality of how they play. As long as they continue to play in extremely forgiving parts of the game, they don't really have a reason to change that mentality either.

Unfortunately, this is the truth. They don't seem to understand that every good combination and build in this game has already been found and refined to its' peak. Anything that's so called "Original" or "Creative" is just sub optimal. And it's very tedious having to listen to these people trying to make themselves out to be better than us for being "Original".

DarkNecrid · Mar 16, 2008, 10:57 AM // 10:57

Quote:

Originally Posted by Riotgear

Most "bad skills" are simply skills that try to fill a role that does not exist, or are just plainly worse than another skill.

Unfortunately, I have to ask exactly what you're hoping to accomplish. Guild Wars' playerbase is pretty harshly split between two groups: Competitive players who are already very capable of evaluating why certain skills never wind up on their bars, and people that simply don't get it.

By "don't get it," I mean people who take pride in the builds they create and fervently ignore criticism of it. Since there is no skill that is truly worse than another in every conceivable way, these "innovators" are able to quickly cook up a defense to why they do what they do. They could tell you why Troll Unguent would be better on a warrior than Natural Healing. I had an argument with a monk who was firmly convinced that Peace and Harmony was good.

Often it comes down to selective memory too, people running ridiculous tank builds have enough memories of the entire opposing team team beating on them while they Stone Dagger them to death that they think they're running something awesome.

You can't really break it through to them, these are people that decry people using proven-effective builds as "wiki noobs" because to them, you're not really a good player if you're not "capable" of inventing your own build. Telling them to stop inventing bad shit and use what works is like telling them to fail. It's not a concern of them not understanding why certain skills are better, it's a problem rooted in the general mentality of how they play. As long as they continue to play in extremely forgiving parts of the game, they don't really have a reason to change that mentality either.

This is attempting to break through to those people, and also as a helpful aide to any new PvP person who might stumble in here.

Miska Bow · Mar 16, 2008, 01:11 PM // 13:11

The fact that a skill is good or bad mostly depends on the use you make of it, the kind of build you re running, the weapon you re using and the way your armor is pimped.

There's also the fact that 8 good skills dont make a good bar.

Nice little guide, but it only scratches the surface.

DarkNecrid · Mar 16, 2008, 01:56 PM // 13:56

Quote:

Originally Posted by Miska Bow

The fact that a skill is good or bad mostly depends on the use you make of it, the kind of build you re running, the weapon you re using and the way your armor is pimped.

There's also the fact that 8 good skills dont make a good bar.

Nice little guide, but it only scratches the surface.

Which is really my intent, I don't want to make some uber long guide to this with tons of numbers and 50 pages worth of content, especially when most people wouldn't read that.

It's nice to teach someone how to fish, and then let them learn the intricate parts of fishing, y'know?

DreamWind · Mar 16, 2008, 02:56 PM // 14:56

Quote:

Originally Posted by Riotgear

Most "bad skills" are simply skills that try to fill a role that does not exist, or are just plainly worse than another skill.

Unfortunately, I have to ask exactly what you're hoping to accomplish. Guild Wars' playerbase is pretty harshly split between two groups: Competitive players who are already very capable of evaluating why certain skills never wind up on their bars, and people that simply don't get it.

By "don't get it," I mean people who take pride in the builds they create and fervently ignore criticism of it. Since there is no skill that is truly worse than another in every conceivable way, these "innovators" are able to quickly cook up a defense to why they do what they do. They could tell you why Troll Unguent would be better on a warrior than Natural Healing. I had an argument with a monk who was firmly convinced that Peace and Harmony was good.

Often it comes down to selective memory too, people running ridiculous tank builds have enough memories of the entire opposing team team beating on them while they Stone Dagger them to death that they think they're running something awesome.

You can't really break it through to them, these are people that decry people using proven-effective builds as "wiki noobs" because to them, you're not really a good player if you're not "capable" of inventing your own build. Telling them to stop inventing bad shit and use what works is like telling them to fail. It's not a concern of them not understanding why certain skills are better, it's a problem rooted in the general mentality of how they play. As long as they continue to play in extremely forgiving parts of the game, they don't really have a reason to change that mentality either.

This post was pretty epic in my eyes. I couldn't have said it better. A spike can simply not break through to a johnny or timmy no matter what you do or say. http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=mtgcom/daily/mr258

Killed u man · Mar 16, 2008, 03:45 PM // 15:45

I only think of practical situations when I say a skill is good or bad.

E.g.: Channeling is THE must-take skill on any monk in HA. However, in GvG, where U (Monks) actually have to pay attention to where they are, it simply sucks...

I can pretty much do that for every skill in the game, however, some skills are simply so bad/pointless that you go to wonder what Anet was smoking when they made them.
-Peace and Harmony, Amity, Withdraw Hexes, Whirling Axe, ...

Bit "off-topic", but nonetheless something that needs to be discussed aswell. (Dunno if a topic already has been made)
-----------------------------------------------------------
What I find more "interesting" to discuss, and I'm thinking about starting a topic after I did some research on it, is the line between good and overpowered.
When is something a "good" skill, and when is it simple "overpowered". Isn't "overpowered", purely within the context of the Guild Wars, "stronger than other skill bars/skills in GW"?
ANY build that work(s)(ed) (Sinsplit RIP, WWMeRP, Ritspike, Bloodspike) can pretty much be descriped as "overpowered" to other builds. Because they offer an advantage on EVERY aspect of the game. This is obviously the reason why a "meta" exists. Everyone runs the most "overpowered" build, even in Top GvG, to maximize their chance of winning. Does that mean this builds are in need of a nerf, to allow more varied builds to be played?

So pretty much: "When does something get the status "Overpowered", and deserves to be nerfed. Ritspike was strong in GvG (And "overpowered" according to pretty much EVERY Top 20 GvG'er), yet there were ENOUGH Guilds that beat a Top-Ritspike (Ee, ...) with "balanced". How "balanced" is that balanced then? Seeing it can tear down the walls of a ritspike...

@Riot: I kinda felt adressed when you said some people call others "noob" for Wiki'ing meta builds, because they work/the people are to lazy to come up with their own builds.
I myself DON'T promote PvX-wiki in any way, nor do I for observer (Make no skills show, only strategy for new people to learn). However, I would be lying if I said I NEVER PvX'ed a certain bar for my builds.
The problem is that when 1 person wiki's a bar, that's fine. When 10 people do it, that's fine. When 10000 people wiki the same goddamn bar, and you face them over and over and over again (In HA), you get frustrated. I gues as part of my anger vent, I simply call them retarded wiki'ers, and tell them to go get a "real" build.
However, what I actually mean is:
Stop wiki'ing builds, don't you see you are ruining HA? We both know the ONLY reason why you wiki your bar, is so you can get more fame/hour. HA si ruined because PvE farmers like you want their tiger, and they don't give a rat's ass about real "PvP". For you, HA is nothing more than an extend of PvE, where you can mindlessly button-bash your way to the HoH, hoping to quickly get that R9, so you can show all your e-friends how 'skilled' you are.
This is true for about 90% of HA right now. About 8% runs nothing but Legoway, hoping to get their last teir to R12, so they can finally quit HA. And about 2% plays for actual fun. (Random % ftw, but I'm pretty close tough)
Starcraft, Red, Yush (Stopped tough) and ALOT of other people whom I concider friends mainly play for fame anymore. I can't blame they offcourse. If you got everything going for you in real life, might as well no-life. (Life IS overrated, don't get mistaken on that) But still, I sometimes wish these people could see this simple fact:
When Anet pulls the plug on their servers, EVERTHING in GW ends. EVERYTHING!
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Done offtopic

Riotgear · Mar 16, 2008, 06:50 PM // 18:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by Killed u man

@Riot: I kinda felt adressed when you said some people call others "noob" for Wiki'ing meta builds, because they work/the people are to lazy to come up with their own builds.
I myself DON'T promote PvX-wiki in any way, nor do I for observer (Make no skills show, only strategy for new people to learn). However, I would be lying if I said I NEVER PvX'ed a certain bar for my builds.
The problem is that when 1 person wiki's a bar, that's fine. When 10 people do it, that's fine. When 10000 people wiki the same goddamn bar, and you face them over and over and over again (In HA), you get frustrated. I gues as part of my anger vent, I simply call them retarded wiki'ers, and tell them to go get a "real" build.

Cookie-cutters wind up there because THEY WORK, how much more "real" does a build have to get? Most of the "innovative" builds there wind up in the thumbs-down dumpster because they are plainly worse.

Quote:

HA si ruined because PvE farmers like you want their tiger, and they don't give a rat's ass about real "PvP". For you, HA is nothing more than an extend of PvE, where you can mindlessly button-bash your way to the HoH, hoping to quickly get that R9

What exactly are you blaming people for doing? Using things that allow them to win with less effort? Trying to win as much as possible? They want to win, not screw around with shit builds that never get past Underworld.

Most people that decry "wiki noobs" are simply raging at people running crap that is overly effective for the amount of effort it takes. This isn't something that is their fault. They're using what works. If you want to change what works, then talk to the people balancing the game.

Shuuda · Mar 16, 2008, 09:13 PM // 21:13

Quote:

Originally Posted by Riotgear

What exactly are you blaming people for doing? Using things that allow them to win with less effort? Trying to win as much as possible? They want to win, not screw around with shit builds that never get past Underworld.

Most people that decry "wiki noobs" are simply raging at people running crap that is overly effective for the amount of effort it takes. This isn't something that is their fault. They're using what works. If you want to change what works, then talk to the people balancing the game.

Although I dislike saying it, your right there. People are playing the builds that win, which is the smart thing to do, if those builds are overpowered or broken, then is it really it's the games (or Izzy, or whoever)'s fault.

wuzzman · Mar 17, 2008, 05:27 AM // 05:27

Quote:

Originally Posted by Riotgear

Most "bad skills" are simply skills that try to fill a role that does not exist, or are just plainly worse than another skill.

Unfortunately, I have to ask exactly what you're hoping to accomplish. Guild Wars' playerbase is pretty harshly split between two groups: Competitive players who are already very capable of evaluating why certain skills never wind up on their bars, and people that simply don't get it.

By "don't get it," I mean people who take pride in the builds they create and fervently ignore criticism of it. Since there is no skill that is truly worse than another in every conceivable way, these "innovators" are able to quickly cook up a defense to why they do what they do. They could tell you why Troll Unguent would be better on a warrior than Natural Healing. I had an argument with a monk who was firmly convinced that Peace and Harmony was good.

Often it comes down to selective memory too, people running ridiculous tank builds have enough memories of the entire opposing team team beating on them while they Stone Dagger them to death that they think they're running something awesome.

You can't really break it through to them, these are people that decry people using proven-effective builds as "wiki noobs" because to them, you're not really a good player if you're not "capable" of inventing your own build. Telling them to stop inventing bad shit and use what works is like telling them to fail. It's not a concern of them not understanding why certain skills are better, it's a problem rooted in the general mentality of how they play. As long as they continue to play in extremely forgiving parts of the game, they don't really have a reason to change that mentality either.

The thread should have been closed after this guy posted, he won the thread, nothing important could possible come after this post. The problem above comes from low-competitive arena's being considered equally valid pvp arena. For example 3 years ago when pugging for a monk for TA, I remember having to kick plenty of monks because they refuse to take rez sig/restore life/rebirth from their bar. Reason why they refuse to listen to sound advice? It worked in RA!?!? 3 years later, 2008, I go pugging for a monk with a guildie and guess what the only monk that we can get (TA is dead by the way) has rez sig, and not only will he argue with me before taking off rez sig he added resurrection chant instead!?!?!? Now I try to work with him...you know give him a chance at real pvp, but I know good well he went back to RA with his rez sig because he couldn't figure out how to monk once given a real bar.

Another example, 2 years ago a guildie showed me his assassin bar he figured make an uber TA team. I looked and said it failed, he complained and said it works just fine its plenty of pressure. I told him assassins don't pressure, but he insist it works just fine because it works in AB. I almost made him get on vent and so I can laugh at him while mentioning the obvious size of his brain for taking his success rate in AB seriously. Never the less, 2 years later, another guildie shows me an assassin bar(different guild), and it failed in much the same way the assassins bar from 2 years ago did. This guildie wanted to run 2 of those in TA (like that makes a difference) using about the exact same logic my guildie from 2 years ago did, "it's pressure man". When I told him his idea failed and asked him why he thinks his build would work he told me " oh man it works fine in HB". I think I logged off when I heard that, I couldn't stop laughing sorry.

Petition to make RA/AB PVE only arenas!! HB should be on that list as well. Seriously, tired of finding the above in TA/HA and yes GVG!?!?!? attempting to incert their randomway logic into otherwise serious groups. Please if anything to help new players put them all into TA and let them learn the game from there. They will know what a good and bad skill is by the end of the week. AND FOR THE LOVE OF GOD 5 WINS IN RA SHOULD NOT EQUAL 5 WINS IN TA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!