I blame prophecies for noob builds

Like I said earlier, Frenzy + Heal Sig taught me the value of timing skills (and consequently how certain combinations of skills can help or hurt). I honestly think that giving people sub-par builds (or build options) is actually a good way for people to learn. It makes the game harder, making people learn more about positioning, pulling, formations (frontline/backline), and other strategies. It also teaches people about the skills themselves, and when they come across better skills, and more options, they can slowly start to take their skillbar the way they want it along with that deeper wisdom they learned getting there.

Hell, I'm almost inclined to say the opposite of the OP. Once you made it through Prophecies, you pretty much knew what you were doing.

= Ursan

12 chars

Strong capeleecher!

Back when I started, I made a R/A (started playing GW at factions release) and played in AB with a R/A with pet, trap and dagger attacks, using non max white daggers ofcourse. And yes, I did kill stuff, which makes me worry about what other people were running.

actually, putting together workable build with bad skill availability is mark of good player. And its not really that hard.

By time you leave ascalon you have enough skills to run okay build.

If anything, free quest skills made is really easy to switch build along the way without additional expenses. I dont think that factions/nf newbie is better on with skills as he lacks base of those free skills upon which he can build by buying the ones he misses. Compared to having to designs bar from practically zero in nf/factions and now freebie skills every so often which make you reconsider your build.

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Btw arcane: Frenzy and Healsig given as early game skills is pretty bad.

People new to GW would see them as starter skills: sucky skills given to newbies to use in lowbie lands. Skills that you are supposed to stop using once you reach Level X. Given that those skills have pretty easily seen penalties encourages that mindset.

Prophecies is to blame? Never underestimate the power of human stupidity.

I blame noobs for noob builds.

Completely disagree. Otherwise, Sever Artery, Gash, Dismember, etc. would all be seen as starter skills you stop using. If anything, the penalties should make them look much better, as any skill that has a penalty must also have a powerful effect. That's how I saw it, and why I kept using it till the Wilds.

thats quite an obnoxious statement there. so you are saying that you never once ran random skills just thrown together, just cos you could?

im a core monk for a top 200 gvg guild, and i have r10 hero, but even i remember my first char.. mo/me, with smites, ether feast and backfire and 1 or 2 heals, way back in the day. It was fun.

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it's the player that makes the builds, not the game

Yeh, back in the day, you could do that without getting flamed. Now I get flamed for setting up a randomway party in HA when I want to relax from the more serious builds (am not r10 like you, but I consider myself a serious PvPer most of the time )
Point is: Okay, you got some new players who dont know better, but most are willing to learn if you tell them what they are doing wrong (and if not, I chuckle about it and move on). However, I think it is a shame that you cannot do random stuff anymore as an experienced player without getting flamed.

I remember flare spamming when I first made my elementalist. I felt I had to keep the DPS going to help the team, even if I used every last drop of energy.

Then I discovered Mark of Rodgort and a max damage fire staff...

I blame the pre-set bars we could chose from back in the day, the only good one was the MoR monk, everything else was utter garbage in terms of how good they were. Anet wanted us to have FUN builds, not good ones. For example, how badass has a hamstorm warrior sound? But for practicality issues... Lol

I missing being able to run my war with a hammer, without being afraid of being spiked down with 2 skills :/

Alright, that does make sense lol.

Actually, you were being able to get spiked by two skills back then.

Only difference is that back then, Hammer warriors were W/E with armor of earth and aftershock. "KD/AS". That 40 armor made all the difference.

But it was usually just from a boss back then not now

One major problem was that boneheads would toss that on every time they went out, gleefully ignoring enchant stripping and shattering MOBs or ignoring the fact that they could have brought a +armor stance that would have outright halved damage (or, in the days of armor stacking, better than halved). Jumping into an area full of fire-damage MOBs with Mending instead of a +armor versus fire stance is an epic failure.

+3 health regen < 1/2 damage stances

Warriors should focus on mitigating the damage they take upfront to remove some of the pressure from the HEALER who should do the actual repair work.

Another problem was that the goobers would use Mending on a skill bar stacked with energy skills instead of adrenal skills. Constantly having 0 energy and not being able to pull off your combos is an even greater epic fail.

Yea, mending can "work" on a warrior, but reducing your damage outright works an awful lot better.

Lets do some mending math:

Mending heals for 6 HP/s, making it 18 hp per energy ... so far its quite good. It leaves most heal far back with heal per energy efficiency. Especially if you cosnider its only 8 points in att line spent.

However, it is equal to having 5 energy heal which heals for 90 hp with freaking 45 second recharge.

If you ever saw healing skill with that kind of stats, you would never, ever touch it. And its actually worse than i painted as it overheals a lot and has 10e upfront cost.