PvX dilemma

I'm gonna have to go with this.

It's the same thing as the people who you badly own or they lose to you, and they decide to call you a "noob"

1. This guy comes up with an effective build.
2. He puts it up on PvX.
3. It becomes popular.
4. He runs that build again.
5. Omg, PvX noob.

PvX builds own, people just call people that use them wiki-noobs because they get owned and are frustrated.

Yawn, happened with the Beastranger build. I'm sure the concept has come up many times in the past, but ages ago me and my guild leader made the beastmaster build which uses Enraged Lunge. Now we were just screwing around in RA with it but it happened to be really effective against most of the players, and we ended up destroying people with it. So we stick with it for a month, and suddenly we start getting called PvX noobs.

So I go check and bam, look whats on the Wiki! Kinda sad because I enjoyed having a good build to myself <.<;

Also, I strongly encourage most people who I play with nowdays (I stick around low arenas because I don't play too much anymore) to use PvX builds. It saddens me to go to JQ and see people running some terrible Mo/P with only spear attacks and RoJ. I'm not sure if they think they are orginal or something but bleh I just wish they'd stick to the build on there because whatever there using is sure as hell 10x worse than the PvX build.

Agreed.
People who talk trash in PvP (especially low level PvP) are generally idiots. If they weren't calling you a PvXwiki noob (while they are running a healing hands warrior and gryphons sweep), they'd find some other thing to call you.
The thing is, a lot of players like that give the rest of PvPers a bad name and really discourage people from entering PvP at all, which is a real shame because its a lot of fun. People just have to learn to grow up.

Almost every good build out there is on PvX, so it's lame when people call you a "wiki nub" for using WoH as a monk or savage shot as a Ranger. I mean, are you supposed to use the bad skills only?

Do people realize that Wiki does not make builds? They simply observe and document them. People copy and run meta builds because they work. And Wiki is an easy place to copy it from. So in reality, there are no "Wiki" builds. Only copied meta builds.

The people who complain are people who run bad builds but hate build criticism. They never listen, no matter how genuinely helpful someone is trying to be. They can't understand that there are people who are better at GW than them. Their inflated egos and false sense of entitlement prevent them from hearing legitimate advice and writing them off advice as "elitism".

So ignore these people and their Wiki philosophies.

You really can't claim you invented a good build. Even if you don't look anything up on the meta but have a fairly good idea of what skills are good and what skills are bad, and proceed to put skills together, it would eventually evolve into something similar to meta. You might think you're the first to think up of it, but there would be other people who would think along the same lines and end up with a similar build idea.

I use the wiki to try out new skill sets that I am not familiar with, then I tinker with them. I also use it when I start playing a new class, or am looking to farm a new area. I have come up with some builds of my own, but I see nothing wrong with using the wiki if ti works.

For heroes, I almost always go with the stock wiki build, and tune it if necessary for the area I am in. For my main PVE, I run an AP/COP spiker-caller (adjusted for my play-style) with discordway, and I will sub out one of the heroes or skills if needed. Other than HM dungeons, I rarely have problems.

I'm not playing the game to be popular. If I want that, I'll start running laps and go win a gold medal or something.

Because it practically encourages you to be a sheep and not learn the skills yourself.

Anyone can copy a build down and spam skills, but it takes a GOOD player to make a build up themselves and use it effectively. PvXWiki just says "Come one and all, slap this into the template code for winrar"

The thing about many of the builds is its the player skill behind them that matters rather then the build. The build might be a very effective combination of 8 skills, but a nub behind it is still a nub.

For example put a noob on the shock axe template. Hes gonna sit there wailing on the monk, failing to cancel frenzy or never using it. Shocking on recharge, and unloading like a monkey whenever a skill is charged coz hes noob.

Put someone good on it, and theyll frenzy as much as possible, when safe to do so. Preemptively move, hit with bulls, 1/4 knock with shock, spike on unprotted targets, swap targets when guardian/stances go up, lineback when monks energy gets low etc.

Whilst with some builds the player skill is sorta irrelevant (oldschool BoA for example, or Distortion Mindblast bars) the bars which require skill, and become exponentially better depending on player skill are an obvious example. And as such, you see a nub on shock axe and you know hes some guy who just went pvx wiki and grabbed it and as still a noob.

I disagree. I believe it is a good way to learn a skill. I'll look on pvxwiki and find a build with skills I may not be familiar with and think "hey this skill is actually pretty useful, I can implement it in another build I use". Most of the builds on pvxwiki have optional slots that provide a lot of variety.

I like to think of pvx as a tutorial for pvpers. It tells players what builds are effective (not the best, but for the most part definately not crappy). Eventually people can change up the skills a bit for the better combinations.

PvX...it's simply another resource. Don't sit there and tell me that the super, mega, kick ass build that a person just "made" was never thought of before. If it was, guess where it would be? You got it...PvX.

I've had someone flame me for being a PvX noob for the entirety of a JQ match today, for running Palm Strike/Trampling Ox. Apparently, this is such an obscure combination of skills, no one could ever come up with it without researching a build wiki.

Of course, his totally awesome and unique Ray of Judgement shrine capping build didn't stand a chance against me.

he must have been a awful monk to be killed by a sin

Don't you know, it's always the bad ones calling names.

Spears of Light and Castigation Signets didn't do a lot to save his bacon. And my non-PvX wiki-inspired Power Drain to interrupt a key skill between knockdowns wasn't very kind to his survival chances either.

Only issue with PvX is that people wikify good build and add their "touch", aka, manage to make build less effective. Which is then copied and assumed good. Should anyone object to that in talk pages or to attempt to edit it out, it will not stand because "truth by popular vote" that wikis are suspectibe to happens.

As far as quality goes, it is typical guild wars thing: popularity means tells litte about quality. "cookie cutter pvx" does not mean it is good. Nor that it is bad. Just that someone put it on pvx (which is bound to happen sooner or later), nothing more.

I got called a PvX noob lately for running shock axe. (in the sense of "lololol go copy moar builds you f*cikn PvX noob")

All in all quite hilarious since i've been running shock axe since the day they nerfed gale, and the only change i ever made was swap executioner's for body blow. I don't even visit PvX, hell, i wouldn't even know the actual url.

Do i think it's a bad website? No. 90% of the GW population wouldn't recognise skill synergy even if it hit them between the eyes doing 120MPH. At least now they can look up skills bars and start from there. It's easier to judge about the quality of a skillbar (good/bad) than to build one from scratch.

It is possible to copy a good and working build and....

... "improve" it to be really bad
... still play poorly, despite an awesome easy to use build.

Because people need a scapegoat to kill. It's the same old thing, "If I kill you, it's skill, if you kill me, it's lag," or "If I kill you, it's skill, if you kill me, it's PvX noob copying builds."

The logic is about as solid as a 8.5"x11" printer paper picture of a steel beam. Also consider the "You pussy runner, stop running away, that's the only reason you survived." Well duh, stupid, it's tactically advantageous to do so at times.

Steps to success in PvP: (1) Turn off Local Chat, (2) Set your status to Do Not Disturb or Offline, (3) Enjoy quiet, tasteful PvP. Ignorance can sometimes be bliss.