280 replies to this topic

[d_fens]

Satenia, on 03 April 2013 - 03:16 PM, said:

As a casual player with a limited timetable, the luxury of such a group is something I don't have every time I play. Therefore, I rather drop a bit of damage for additional support, but get to be less picky about group composition. Personally I found that this setup performs more smooth than running class cannon and not having the anchor available to support it.

You say that "bad" builds waste time? Well, waiting for the "perfect" group to happen is wasted time as well - and I'm not even getting to play the game.

This x 1000000

[chullster]

Thorfinnr, on 02 April 2013 - 05:00 PM, said:

(Just an example...we all know Chullster is super-human and never goes down in a fight. )

I am now going to cut n paste this quote out of context all over my guilds forums. I thank you.

If I am honest I'd find it boring if I wasn't running full DPS with more chance of going down. There's not that many bits of the game where you feel under pressure, and I enjoy that feeling. If I ran less damage, besides the fact things take longer to kill, I'd find I wouldn't get punished for messing up, thus, why bother dodging so much or keeping alert for threats I can just ignore them.

[Nikephoros]

Satenia, on 03 April 2013 - 03:16 PM, said:

Coming late to the party, took me a good while to read through the whole thread

Having used sonic boon for roughly 4 months by now - most dungeons and up to fractal lvl 30ish+ - I don't consider it to be a "healer" or "wammo" build (as claimed by some previous posters). As already pointed out by its creator, the healing is just one of several benefits. I agree with the OP that this benefit is not always welcome/needed. However, I have yet to see a build that offers nothing but benefits that are always welcome outside of a fully organized group with class/build synergy for one specific task.

As a casual player with a limited timetable, the luxury of such a group is something I don't have every time I play. Therefore, I rather drop a bit of damage for additional support, but get to be less picky about group composition. Personally I found that this setup performs more smooth than running class cannon and not having the anchor available to support it.

You say that "bad" builds waste time? Well, waiting for the "perfect" group to happen is wasted time as well - and I'm not even getting to play the game. Ultimately, I would love to be able to completely switch my character from one (sonic boon) to the other (full dps) depending on the group I end up in, sadly that's not possible.

I understand your perspective, but what you don't understand is that if you were running a normal dps traited build with more Knights gears you wouldn't be losing a great deal of survivability, adding DPS, and adding team-wide buffs that actually contribute to the team.

[Satenia]

Nikephoros, on 04 April 2013 - 11:05 AM, said:

I understand your perspective, but what you don't understand is that if you were running a normal dps traited build with more Knights gears you wouldn't be losing a great deal of survivability, adding DPS, and adding team-wide buffs that actually contribute to the team.

Based on your previous posts, I assume you mean that the additional healing and might stacks are not necessary because the guardian and other warrs are already taking care of it? The thing is that you are dismissing the sonic boon benefits because you imply one specific group composition.

I agree that the sonic boon build performs worse than the dps-build under these circumstances, I would even agree that these circumstances are more "ideal" than others, but let's not forget that you are basically dismissing 5 out of 8 classes and highly limit with who you group and what these people are supposed to run. What you suggest may be the most effective, but it's highly impractical in my (and I guess others) daily gameplay.

People playing something other than Guardian, Warrior or Mesmer aren't bad players, actually I think they have to work much harder and getting a randomly mixed group to work takes more overall player-skill. Something like sonic boon contributes nicely to such groups. They will want the extra healing and might stacks. To me it's never about what build is better, it's about what build is better under given circumstances.

[Thorfinnr]

I think we are approaching (or perhaps passed this by a mile or so now) the point of beating a horse to death.

I think we can all agree, situationally a Shout-Heal build can be useful9leanring mechanics of dodging/running solo in low pop PvE areas. Also, situationally, it may or may not be an optimal build. And also, situationally, with some slight adjustments you can throw in some different, and arguably more effective, party support. (Have I mentioned that people seem to LOVE Banner of Discipline? )

What I would like to do is redirect our conversation, if even temorarily, to other styles of being a "master-of-all-things-ass-kicking".

I'd like to get some discussion on different styles of builds for different weapon load-outs.

Does anyone have any constructive suggestions for say...a Hammer/Longbow build. In case we run into someone who just really likes the Hammer, and wants to be able to "hold their own" in open world PvE/Dungeons. Seems like it may be hard to Trait out, but I am sure with this base of devoted Warrior players we may be able to figure something out and discuss what utilities might work best to enhance that kind of build/playstyle.

Or at this point in the game development is the want/desire to play something like this doomed to fail? (Since this is a thread about build success and failure. ) And why would it be? Anything we could make suggestions on in the official forums to see if they would improve something/make it more practical/adjust to make more varied builds like this more feasable/usable?

chullster, on 04 April 2013 - 09:04 AM, said:

I am now going to cut n paste this quote out of context all over my guilds forums. I thank you.

Anytime...we may not agree on everything...but it seems you have a pretty good sense of humor...glad you took it as a friendly jest. I hope it serves you well for braggin purposes!

[chullster]

Satenia, on 04 April 2013 - 11:44 AM, said:

snip

Sonic boon is a crap build, signet war is a crap build, this is all you need to remember.

One survives as it's quick n easy at lower levels (signets).

One survives as the author spammed the hell out of any other warrior thread at the time telling people to run this awesometastic leet build, which again is simple so noob friendly, has fancy presentation, a catchy name and is better than most of the crap builds people are running when they start playing or they don't care, keep playing for months on end, due to PvE not requiring much effort. Now as it has lot of views, people will assume that as it's popular that it must be good.

Does not change the fact the builds themselves are shit.

Make your own build up with that in mind and you shouldn't go wrong.

Edited by chullster, 04 April 2013 - 01:59 PM.

[Nikephoros]

Satenia, on 04 April 2013 - 11:44 AM, said:

Based on your previous posts, I assume you mean that the additional healing and might stacks are not necessary because the guardian and other warrs are already taking care of it? The thing is that you are dismissing the sonic boon benefits because you imply one specific group composition.

I agree that the sonic boon build performs worse than the dps-build under these circumstances, I would even agree that these circumstances are more "ideal" than others, but let's not forget that you are basically dismissing 5 out of 8 classes and highly limit with who you group and what these people are supposed to run. What you suggest may be the most effective, but it's highly impractical in my (and I guess others) daily gameplay.

People playing something other than Guardian, Warrior or Mesmer aren't bad players, actually I think they have to work much harder and getting a randomly mixed group to work takes more overall player-skill. Something like sonic boon contributes nicely to such groups. They will want the extra healing and might stacks. To me it's never about what build is better, it's about what build is better under given circumstances.

You are making a few assumptions that are incorrect, and the conclusions you draw from them are equally flawed.

First,  I would run a dps traited warrior build in any party, regardless of team composition.  Put me in a dungeon with and random 4 other professions and it would still be optimal to play the warrior with a dps trait set up.  The gear you would want to wear comes down to your personal skill/experience and the skill of your teammates.  But the traits do not.  A warrior contributes the most, and operates most efficiently when focusing on personal and team dps.  I laid out a page or so ago the reasons why running shout heals causes you to play inefficiently and the benefits gained fall far below the sacrifices made for them.  I won't restate it all again, but I would suggest you read it again so we're clear on how I draw this conclusion.  

Secondly, you seem to imply that the boon/duration might stack and healing component of the build makes it better for groups where you are the only warrior or something.  This is not a good line to take, both factually and philosophically.  The fact is that build does LESS dps than a normal dps build, and contributes LESS party-wide buffs than a normal DPS build.  It has been discussed to death, but the heals are trivial and virtually irrelevant to group survivability.  

Philosophically, the concept of running a gimped warrior build because you're running with pugs is just wrong.  For starters, it makes no sense to me to run a significantly less efficient build in order to carry pugs.  Any pug you believe you're carrying as shout heals would probably have been easier to carry if you were playing efficiently.  Additionally, that mindset is holding you, and the rest of the pugging community back.  Because you can't count on them to run good builds you run a bad build.  So since they can't count on you to run a good build, they run bad builds.  It creates a self-perpetuating cycle of mediocrity, and it keeps people from improving..  

But don't be confused, if you have a wacky hammer build you like, enjoy it.  Play it  Have a blast pugging with it.  The point I'm making is that while you can and should run whatever the heck you want, don't try to convince all of us that it's the best choice.  You are defending your choice as "situationally optimal" but it;s far from that.  If you enjoy Sonic Boon, play it and enjoy it.  But don't try to post-hoc rationalize it as something that it isn't.

Lastly, I want to say a word about "casuals."  There are a lot of people throwing around the idea that certain builds are for casuals and others are not.  What an insult to casuals.  Casual players don't have to be bad players, and they can and should run optimal builds.  Like I said above, just because you're a casual doesn't mean some crap build is suddenly a situationally optimal choice.  You should run a good build and use your gear to add survivability until you're comfortable.  The illusion that a garbage build is better for casuals is not only wrong, but insulting.

[Epitaph_Blade]

What a load of crap, nikephoros.

@Thorfinnr: I don't think we are beating the horse enough at this point. The initial statement of nikephoros is wrong. It's been discussed why it's wrong, but even then, he won't change his opinion (and also claim it to be the most rational, optimized, and overall better point of view, just because he doesn't care about claiming such things, because he expect others to give him so much attention that they will try to prove him wrong.)

back at nikephoros.

Again, what a huge load of crap.
You find insulting to tell people that plays casually to run, what you call, "crap builds"? Well, those "crap builds", you call, and your pet chullster likes to repeat, are in most cases, what normal players call "balanced builds", whether is the sonic boon build or any other that tries to give something else/different from raw DPS, do not spend their traits in the "garbage line, that will give you nothing, and will suck your points", no, they spend those trait points on other benefits, you may consider ones better than others, I give you that, since it's an opinion, but the claim that just moving trait points from what you imply, the """""optimal""""" build, makes a build garbage, is pure crap. Just like your initial claim (this thread).

But to this point, this is just blabbering about what is good and what is garbage.

The only conclusion I see in this thread, is that some blindly believe in what Nikephoros say, and others not. And to this point, most of the ones that do not believe him (myself included), think that way because of in game experience, and consideration of circumstances.

Facts:
- You wont always run a 3 warriors, 1 guardian, 1 mesmer setup if you PUGs, unless you keep kicking people or reject other classes (shit)
- You wont always have an anchor on your party if you run PUGs, or play with friends that don't like that setup, etc.
- "Better party-wide buffs" do not depend on the build or the gear (expect healing and boon duration), but of your utilities. Even a shout based build can carry a banner.
- The term casual has not been used to imply less playing skill (so no insults here), but about the lack of an organized group, that will agree on running certain builds with certain classes.
- Different party setups require different build setups to be optimal. There is no such thing as an optimal build that works optimal with any combination of classes/builds/communication methods/targets. If anyone claims that that is the case, then this game has been reduced to Tetris, with no depth at all.

@Thorfinnr: Hammer/Longbow is a common setup in builds for WvW that focus on blast finishers. Even if you deal less DPS with that setup, with good coordination, the blast finishers compensate that. At least in WvW it gives incredible results, that let you run more tanky/supportive builds, and succeed. I don't see why that can't be applied to the PvE content, I've been playing with my second warrior (built for WvW) around that build, and it works good on bounty missions, and some guildmates have used it on fractals (30+) with good results. The build should focus on banners too. But requires constant (and useful) combo fields.

Edited by Epitaph_Blade, 04 April 2013 - 09:53 PM.

[Satenia]

Nikephoros, on 04 April 2013 - 02:24 PM, said:

You are making a few assumptions that are incorrect, and the conclusions you draw from them are equally flawed.

First,  I would run a dps traited warrior build in any party, regardless of team composition.  Put me in a dungeon with and random 4 other professions and it would still be optimal to play the warrior with a dps trait set up.  The gear you would want to wear comes down to your personal skill/experience and the skill of your teammates.  But the traits do not.  A warrior contributes the most, and operates most efficiently when focusing on personal and team dps.  I laid out a page or so ago the reasons why running shout heals causes you to play inefficiently and the benefits gained fall far below the sacrifices made for them.  I won't restate it all again, but I would suggest you read it again so we're clear on how I draw this conclusion.  

Secondly, you seem to imply that the boon/duration might stack and healing component of the build makes it better for groups where you are the only warrior or something.  This is not a good line to take, both factually and philosophically.  The fact is that build does LESS dps than a normal dps build, and contributes LESS party-wide buffs than a normal DPS build.  It has been discussed to death, but the heals are trivial and virtually irrelevant to group survivability.

The wasted healing/might was what you mainly talked about a few pages ago in your discussion with Brand. Just as in your OP, you directly compare warrior build to warrior build, yet you conveniently forget to point out the group setup behind it required to make one shine over the other. This is was I addressed in my previous posts.

Later on you talked about how saving the utility skills for the healing effect is holding back their initial potential. Who said anything about saving them in the first place? You have faster shouts recharge through the tactics line, combined with the fast-paced gameplay in dungeons and fractals you can very much afford to use the utility skills when you actually
need their primary benefit, not (just) the healing.

So you might loose a potential heal or two, just as your suggested banner alternative can potentially mess up item interaction, people picking them up by mistake, dragging them along, etc.

Should I have missed any other points, feel free to direct me to them. Bottom line is that you take all the required circumstances for the dps-build to work for granted, while you put the sonic boon build in the worst possible circumstances. It's no surprise that one falls short then.

Nikephoros, on 04 April 2013 - 02:24 PM, said:

Philosophically, the concept of running a gimped warrior build because you're running with pugs is just wrong.  For starters, it makes no sense to me to run a significantly less efficient build in order to carry pugs.  Any pug you believe you're carrying as shout heals would probably have been easier to carry if you were playing efficiently.  Additionally, that mindset is holding you, and the rest of the pugging community back.  Because you can't count on them to run good builds you run a bad build.  So since they can't count on you to run a good build, they run bad builds.  It creates a self-perpetuating cycle of mediocrity, and it keeps people from improving..  

But don't be confused, if you have a wacky hammer build you like, enjoy it.  Play it  Have a blast pugging with it.  The point I'm making is that while you can and should run whatever the heck you want, don't try to convince all of us that it's the best choice.  You are defending your choice as "situationally optimal" but it;s far from that.  If you enjoy Sonic Boon, play it and enjoy it.  But don't try to post-hoc rationalize it as something that it isn't.

Lastly, I want to say a word about "casuals."  There are a lot of people throwing around the idea that certain builds are for casuals and others are not.  What an insult to casuals.  Casual players don't have to be bad players, and they can and should run optimal builds.  Like I said above, just because you're a casual doesn't mean some crap build is suddenly a situationally optimal choice.  You should run a good build and use your gear to add survivability until you're comfortable.  The illusion that a garbage build is better for casuals is not only wrong, but insulting.

Not what I've been referring to at all, this was never about being the unique snowflake and how you can get with anything through all the game content - you won't find me in these kind of discussions.

You are so quick to judge "good" and "bad" builds because you believe that there is the omni-potent (warrior) base-build that works anywhere regardless of circumstances. I ask to include the later as I believe a lot of efficiency can be achieved through that. With OP's like yours, the community is moving towards class and build elitism, because this is the only way to ensure that the suggested build actually works at its best efficiency. Personally I would have loved if you included a little background on the rest of the group in your OP as well as when claiming build superiority over others. Optimal build? There is no such thing by itself...

[Bloggi]

Thorfinnr, on 04 April 2013 - 01:46 PM, said:

I'd like to get some discussion on different styles of builds for different weapon load-outs.

Does anyone have any constructive suggestions for say...a Hammer/Longbow build. In case we run into someone who just really likes the Hammer, and wants to be able to "hold their own" in open world PvE/Dungeons. Seems like it may be hard to Trait out, but I am sure with this base of devoted Warrior players we may be able to figure something out and discuss what utilities might work best to enhance that kind of build/playstyle.

Or at this point in the game development is the want/desire to play something like this doomed to fail? (Since this is a thread about build success and failure. ) And why would it be? Anything we could make suggestions on in the official forums to see if they would improve something/make it more practical/adjust to make more varied builds like this more feasable/usable?

In the earliest stages of leveling my warrior (which is now many months ago) I did use the hammer/ longbow setup. Just for fun, I wanted to make something akin to a 'tantrum' warrior, using Bull's Charge, Stomp and Fear Me as utilities. This must have been around the time of the Wintersday event because I remember opening those mysterious presents. The build was reasonably fun to use but not particularly effective in PvE. At that time I didn't have the luxury of having a full trait loadout or high end equipment of course.

But what I found was that although the build had ample amounts of CC, it lacked the damage I was looking for in PvE where many monsters have boatloads of HP. The hammer strikes hard but is slow compared to a greatsword or axe MH. Essentially once I ran out of CC I still had a long way to go before killing a foe. So I changed the hammer for a greatsword and still use the longbow on a swap.

In more recent times I've started to do a fair bit of WvW (despite really hating it initially) and use the warrior exclusively for this, but I run with the hammer as a main with greatsword or sword/ shield on a swap (still trying both out and they each have their strengths and weaknesses) with a warhorn in the inventory for swiftness while on the move.

The two builds are obviously worlds apart. In PvE the focus is on damage where multiple mobs will stand there to be cleaved for the full duration of HB and are more predictable in their actions, where in WvW the focus is not on damage but on disruption, being able to take a lot of punishment and cleanse conditions, while pushing through and breaking the frontlines AND having good mobility to engage and disengage at a moment's notice.

So much as I'd love the hammer to be more useful in PvE (and will work towards the legendary hammer for my warrior, even if it's not my 'main'), it really seems more efficient to use a greatsword or an axe MH at this point.

It doesn't mean the WvW build is utter crap in PvE (because the resilience of the WvW build makes a reasonable tank in PvE and can fulfill the role of an anchor) or vice versa (especially since a damage-orientated PvE greatsword/ longbow build is also devastating in WvW but as a mid-line fighter, not for charging the frontlines), but each one serves its purpose in the environment for which it was built for. If anything it demonstrates the versatility of the warrior in various environments.

Hence I think it is important to consider each build in the light of what it's built for, rather than pigeon-holing an entire class to be built only in a certain fashion just because there is a belief that a particular class *should* be played a certain way. Of course, for the people who can get together coordinated groups, more power to them. When I run dungeons with my brother and two other friends and they ask me to take my warrior and have as much DPS as I can, I'm more than happy to do that because I know their skill level and we cover well for each other. In a disorganized PUG, I always always take my elementalist which has given me all the versatility I need for practically anything.

Why do we sometimes run into PUGs where people complain about glass-cannon warriors that melt in the face of a mob, or the said glass-cannon warriors complaining that they get no backup from the rest of the group? In part it is due to the PUG being disorganized. Bottomline is, if we want to run an optimized and specialized build, then we better get organized first.

[Ship Soo]

I think this thread has run its course with both camps firmly entrenched.


As previously mentioned, its been beaten to death.