User talk:Krschkr

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Clearing PvE Meta

So I need to actually get to sleep, but I want to drop this idea here before I forget: do you think we should just remove all the meta tags from the PvE builds (changing to Good/Great as needed) and then re-assess? It's been a long time since some of the tags were applied and not all of them were even operating under the same definition of 'PvE Meta' (let's probably decide what that definition is before doing anything else). Toraen (talk) 13:10, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

Meta is a category of popularity, not quality. I'm not certain whether it makes sense to have a meta tag in the first place, especially given there's so few activity left. If it's desired to make meta builds stand out like now, the tags seem to be fitting in most cases. From what I've seen in the last few months, most builds tagged as meta in GWPvX are meta in game. Some builds might be questionable:

• Build:Me/A Assassin's Promise – mesmers usually play "regular" meta tagged builds based on panic/energy surge/ineptitude. (Is it worth to keep a separate page for caller builds of different professions? The elite skill and two to three PvE skills are shared, might consider to make a joined Any/A caller page with optional skill sets for each caster profession.)
• Build:N/any Minion Bomber Hero – rarely played by necromancer players. It's mainly a hero build (and in heroes certainly meta!), players rather go for high level minions without death nova: Bone fiends with OoU or AotL, no death nova. But I don't think that's popular enough these days to be considered meta.
• Build:W/any Warrior's Endurance Axe and Build:W/any PvE Earth Shaker – most warriors I've met recently were playing daggers or hundred blades. Haven't seen a hammer warrior in quite a long time. Axes are probably borderline, so rather keep them meta tagged than remove them for no good reason.

Those examples already raise another question: Is it desirable to tag hero builds as meta? There certainly are favoured builds. Iirc you somewhere wrote that hero builds are not meant to be tagged meta. If that's a policy to be kept, should hero team builds be exceptions to this? How about the borderline cases like synergizing two hero setups like the spirit spammers? Split every build page which is shared for player and hero build variants when the player build turns out to be meta?

My opinion from the gut's to either keep the popularity tag alongside the (actually more relevant) quality tags and expand their use on heroes and team setups. Or drop the popularity tag entirely, so only the quality tags are decisive. Main issue I see with that approach is that there's apparently barely any GWPvX activity right now. I doubt that we'd end up with reliable common sense evened out vets with just Saxazaxx, you and me. No matter which approach is taken, unless there's a decisive influx of activity (recruit people in reddit? :D) you'll have to find a working system that does not require the activity of days long gone. And that system will most likely largely depend on your experience, making calls to substitute the missing GWPvX community. Else all new build submissions as of mid 2017 may linger in the testing category forever. --Krschkr (talk) 16:03, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

The Meta tag was originally used to help keep up in the high-end PvP areas (GvG and HA) where vetting was too slow due to the lack of experienced GvG and HA players (and as per policy, these were the only sections where a meta tag could be used to skip vetting). In PvE and low-end PvP, people had different ideas on what the meta tag should mean, so we left it as something that could only be applied after vetting completed. We also didn't want vetting skipped for areas where it is harder to verify a metagame, obviously.

On hero builds not being meta, my comment elsewhere was specifically about melee heroes. As far as I know, melee heroes are not used by the majority of players unless the game forces them for certain missions/quests. Some use them in team concepts for the fun and challenge of it. If there is a difference in how a hero and player would be vetted for a given build, I generally prefer the page split so the concepts are each rated accurately. If both are great and meta and share most of the skills, a single page makes sense (but could still be split if we wanted to future-proof against meta changes).

For borderline PvE builds, I'd say remove the meta tag and just leave the great/good category on, unless it doesn't have 3 votes yet. Meta should probably only be for the most popular builds. As you said, it's not really a statement of the build's quality.

We have the AP callers separate because they're not just a caller build for discord. Also like other such splits, having the separate skill bars for each profession results in less cluttered pages (we could technically have merged all the dagger spammers too, but it's not great for people looking to load a build and go) and more accurate ratings on the concept specific to each profession. Not everyone agrees with me on splitting so many pages, but I feel that its really the only way for ratings to be useful. If there's so many variants allowed in a single page, it's hard to accurately rate a build's universality (or even effectiveness in some cases) because someone can just say, "oh take X instead for that issue" but no one build can take all the variants at once obviously. I've also felt that Any/X pages in general should be sparingly used. Toraen (talk) 00:23, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

Call me crazy if you will, but I'm still running Enduring Axe. Removing the meta tag for axes would be fair if I'm one of the only ones doing it though. Still, its pretty effective for what it does. NapalmFlame (talk) 01:42, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

Removing meta tag would change the community a lot. But it might make people yell at you less often in RA if theres no bulletin for what is meta.--- IGN: Saxazax I (capital i) or Saxazax I I - (talk) 05:56, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

Nothing we do here would change that. They'd just get pissed if you aren't running something in the Great category. Or they get pissed because you're running a wiki build. RA assholes will always find a reason to be angry. I don't think we need to get rid of the meta designation, but we do need to be clear on what it means and make sure we're up to date on it. Also, if we could, let's use the policy talk page for further discussion on this, since whatever we decide will probably have effect on the policy. Toraen (talk) 07:51, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

PvE meta

I see the use of “statistics” (I’m assuming pvx page visit counts or something similar) being used to guide meta tags on pve builds. I believe this type of stat is helpful but not definitive for determining meta tags. (Not to mention, the definition of meta for pve builds might still be poorly described.) I’m not proposing any alternative right now but thought I should express my thoughts sooner than later. Juniper real (talk) 12:30, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

Yes, although the statistics are a helpful tool they can't determine this entirely. However, they're giving a better clue right now than anything else. There are so few players around that observing what's run ingame has become more and more difficult. As the main audience of PvX are "general PvE" players the usage statistics help determining popularity at least for this content section. I.e. the dagger warrior is unexpectedly rarely frequented in comparison with warrior's endurance axe and hundred blades and therefore has a hard time qualifying as meta aswell. None of the builds that are now in meta are surprising. (Well, except for the two monk heroes, but from what I see ingame monk heroes are, for some reason, indeed still popular.) I'd personally prefer to just drop meta for general PvE entirely. Advertising builds because they're already popular isn't a good thing to do. We have the vetting system for determining build quality, and that's one of PvX's greatest strengths. We should emphasize this more by dropping the PvE meta (except for specialty items like speed clears). --Krschkr (talk) 12:48, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

ya I liked where the June 2019 general pve meta discussion was going, separating the “current” meta tags from the suggestion that those builds were superior. Given that lots of meta tags didn’t equate to “better than great”, and there was suspicion that users didn’t know to interpret meta as being synonymous with popular, downplaying meta status is reasonable. What would be even better, IMO, is combining vetting and pvx member expertise to determine superiority, and then tag those as meta considering that’s how casuals like to interpret the tag. That might be a bit much work to expect a quick transition, though, so in the meantime (or permanently) devaluing meta can improve pvx’s ability to accurately represent build quality hierarchy. Juniper real (talk) 22:00, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

Moving User Content

Hey,

Could you walk me through the steps of moving the content on my User page to a new page? I'm not sure sure how to go about moving the content safely to a new page, with it's own name (ie user:Sinacious/Build_Space or some such).

Thanks Sinacious (talk) 21:01, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

Hey, maybe I can help explain. In your browser window, when you are looking at your User page, the web address for that page will be "https://gwpvx.gamepedia.com/User:Sinacious". The important part here is the "User:..." because this tells you which "page space" that page belongs to. In this case, the User Space. Build pages are instead located at "Build:..." because that is the Build Space. In order to move content from your "User:Sinacious" page to a new sub-page in that same space, you need to manually edit the web address in your browser window. Change it from "/User:Sinacious" to "/User:Sinacious/pagename" (where 'pagename' is the name you want to call your sub-page; pages are often placed under "User:Sinacious/Sandbox" or even "User:Sinacious/Sandbox/pagename"). When you hit Enter, you will be directed to this new page, but it will tell you that it does not exist yet. You can then edit and create the sub-page. The easiest way of moving your content from "User:Sinacious" to this new sub-page is to open two different tabs, one for each page, hit edit on both, copy the text you want to move from "User:Sinacious" and paste it into the new sub-page. For easy access, be sure to add a new link to this sub-page on the "User:Sinacious" page - for example: [[User:Sinacious/Sandbox/pagename]]. You can also bookmark the new sub-page. I hope this helped. Let me know if anything was unclear or if you would like me to move it for you. Sacropedia (talk) 18:57, 12 November 2019 (UTC)

What you described, Sacropedia, isn't actually moving the page. You'd create a new page and copy the old content into it. There's a move functionality that allows to basically rename a page and preserve its edit history under the new page name. To do that, go to the page you wish to move. Then, click on the button More next to the search field in the top right corner of the page and select Move. As a user you should be able to move pages. You'll find yourself in the move menu where you can select the new namespace (you'll keep User) and page name. As you want to keep the page content in the user namespace you keep your user name as the beginning of the new page name and add the subpage's name after it, i.e. /Build Space or whichever other name you consider appropriate. Make sure to use a slash character, or else you'd create a page for a nonexistant user! Now, remove the tick from leave a redirect, add a short move comment and you're good to move the page to its new name. Visual example if that helps. You can then simply recreate your own user page. If you make more subpages it's usually a good idea to have links to them on your user page for finding your user content more easily in the future. --Krschkr (talk) 20:03, 12 November 2019 (UTC)

Appreciate the help! Managed to get a name that I think works for me, but, I uh, sort-of glossed over leaving a move comment, will that be a problem? Sinacious (talk) 01:01, 17 November 2019 (UTC)

Late reply, but no. Lacking a move comment won't cause any issue. --Krschkr (talk) 17:44, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

Rate tab

Copy what's here to Mediawiki:Hydra.js and we can have the Rate tab on build pages again. Also the third section of this can be copied to the end of MediaWiki:Hydra.css to fix long votes. -Toraen (talk) 09:09, 7 December 2019 (UTC)

Both additions are in place and seem to work. Thanks to both of you! --Krschkr (talk) 23:23, 8 December 2019 (UTC)

Recent Inactivity

I'll be back soon and work off the backlog. --Krschkr (talk) 21:48, 12 February 2020 (UTC)

I'm reducing my activity on PvX. I'll decrease the extent to which I'm actively developing its content. However, I'm still available to provide feedback or advice when asked for it. I'll also keep an eye on the admin noticeboard and my talk page (that's where you are right now!) and you can contact me via e-mail as usual. --Krschkr (talk) 21:06, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

{{LogLink}}

If you want your bot to apply them, I do have an updated (although slightly unstable) branch of the code here that will automatically apply them to any page you enter in the manual mode of "Update links to moved pages" if the page was deleted instead of moved. The other modes don't cover it yet though. -Toraen (talk) 23:52, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for the info. So far the deleted pages had barely any links/transclusions, but once there's a nasty case with 50 links I'll update the bot. --Krschkr (talk) 23:54, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

Anniversary Patch

I think we all agree that the paragon elite is beyond broken. I am happy that a lot of other professions got interesting skills that allow for some non-conventional new builds to prop up (Necro comes to mind), but the paragon elite makes the class wicked strong...and unrewarding. It's not particularly fun or engaging to go half-afk while your heroes machine gun everything for you, and spending two minutes setting up buffs in every instance is mind-numbingly dull. I've enjoyed messing around with this for the past week, but I sincerely hope this isn't here to stay. I'm putting this here because I think you share a similar sentiment. --Xanshiz (talk) 01:42, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

Until the anniversary skills arrived there's always been the promise of better builds hidden somewhere in our thousands of skills. We could always argue whether it was better to run two or three mesmers for melee players without Zei Ri, do test runs with smiters, necromancers, elementalists, fake mesmers, some people even tried physical professions, always on the lookout for new even better combinations to create the best general use team build. We could look into comparisons of how pure domination magic setups compared with domination/illusion hybrids, how the addition of ineptitude to a setup changed its effectivity, whether it makes any sense to have more than one healer. Heck, we could even make sophisticated team builds entirely without mesmers and still get really good results that were fairly close to what mesmers could do, just with a smaller margin of error or increased dependence on good player input to work. But this is no more. The previous arrangement of power, that at least all caster professions were on an acceptable level and could roughly compete with mesmers, has been disrupted. With the new paragon elite we know definitely what's the decisively strongest general use team build concept that's far ahead of everything else. For mercenary users it's BiP healer, 5-6 mesmers and 0-1 ST prots. For non-mercenary users replace two mesmers with random other damage dealers, it doesn't really matter after all and I trust that you'll figure out what's the ideal solution once you touch the skill again. This situation takes away a lot of the enticement that previously was inherent in Guild Wars's build system for me, because that promise of the hidden gem that'll be superior to our previous creations is no more.

And that's why, when the update was announced, I said I had a horrible feeling about it. For me, the fear of power creep that would take away from the game rather than add to it, has come true.

People might say that I could simply not use these skills, like I was refusing to use consumables all the time. My guild mates already said they won't anymore use at least heroic refrain because it absolutely removes the fun from the game. But the tremendous difference here is that I personally never considered consumables a valid part of the gameplay. For me, they always were more like an ingame cheat since they broke with all the baselines this game is usually balanced around. But I can't feel the same about these new skills, as they adhere to these baselines, such as requiring skill slots, requiring attribute investments, energy, casting times, and so on. Some of them, most obviously heroic refrain, are just too strong and capable of displacing most builds we ran before but I can't ignore them like I could ignore consumables.

If I keep making builds with the arbitrary restriction to not use these new skills, I will feel as though I were one of those fools who run warrior heroes and honestly believe their team build was good, just because it can run quests in normal mode. I don't want to end like that. If I keep making builds and use these new skills, I'll waste my time doing something that is no fun to me and damages the nostalgic value my memories of this game have. That's why I'm taking at least a break from PvE, and may break up with Guild Wars indefinitely. --Krschkr (talk) 13:58, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

It just doesn't make sense, why do Paragons need another party support skill when historically that's all they could run PvE? Even worse it's utterly broken and makes pve monobuild. Why not add a strong selfish Spear Mastery elite instead so maybe the community could fun have theorycrafting a dps build? They went in the right direction with Vow of Revolution for Derv and almost hit their mark with the Monk skill but why make it an attack? Just make a strong smiting prayers skill so monks can have a fun time dealing damage in pve as well. It's clear these skills were inspired from GW2 but it's obvious we want nothing of its design decisions in this game. It just boggles the mind. Amorality (talk) 14:13, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

I share your sentiment. Some things really make no sense with this update. The mesmer shield completely breaks PvP, with it being a must have item inaccessible to PvP characters (what?). Heroic Refrain is on its way to become the new Ursan, and this, for a game centered around theorycrafting and build variety, is an incredibly wrong choice. After all those years, the shortcomings of each profession were all known and documented. Why not release some kind of AoE spear attack, like the Amazon in Diablo 2? It baffles me. Reducing build diversity is exactly what we do NOT need right now and, in a way, I'm just relieved that those skills are not viable for any kind of solo farming because this is also an area where creativity must shine. Feydslynox (talk) 14:29, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

Seven weapons stance is suited for solo farming. There's already a build on PvX. → Build:W/D Seven Weapons Stance Scythe Farmer. And I'm quite sure you could run this as W/any and bring other self-preservation skills, such as from shadow arts, using auspicious blow as the energy management. The Gates of Kryta Farmer can probably run seven weapons stance aswell, just like the Triple Chop Farmer. Shadow stealth will probably work as a new elite for the Flashing Blades Farmer, using critical defense to replace the blocking chance. The improved death blossom damage, energy gain and shadow shroud healing should compensate flashing blades' damage and defense easily. And I wouldn't be surprised if the Escape Farmer also worked with "Together as one!".

At least heroic refrain won't replace focused anger in the Dead Sword Farm build. Or... will it? It will for the Fahranur City variant. >.< --Krschkr (talk) 14:39, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

Proposed Build Cleanup for 7H Triple Energy Surge

Hello,

Having recently returned to GW, and PvX after a significant amount of downtime, I have been enjoying reviewing both new and revised builds. One issue I had, which was quite confusing for me as a returning player was that there are three different pages for [Triple Energy Surge], [BiP Melee Support] and [BiP Caster Support].

From what I can tell, the Triple Energy Surge build is identical to the BiP Caster Support builds other than offering the N/Mo Aura of Faith Necromancer as an alternative to the N/Rt XinRae Healer, and identical to the BiP Melee Support build barring which hero carries Strength and Honor.

I think it makes sense for the Triple Energy Surge build to be deleted and its differences added as variants to the BiP Melee/Caster pages. This way, returning caster players or melee players need only go to one area for guidance and the resources are not spread among three wiki pages. At the very least, it might make sense to add the Aura of Faith necromancer as a suggested variant for the BiP Caster Support.

Thanks--Yuko Asakura [PhD] --The preceding unsigned comment was added by Devuu (talk) at 14:12, 30 April 2020‎ (UTC).

Right now both "BiP Support" builds are copies of triple energy surge. The correct procedure for them would be to 1) archive their original version, 2) restore their previous version by Xanshiz, possibly under a new name, as it was a team composition on its own and 3) delete their current version. You may also want to check this page as a reference. As duplicates of triple energy surge they're the ones to be removed. However, this is about the third or fourth time a certain part of the community has made a duplicate of that team (we had the issue on the same page before and Build talk:Team - 7 Hero BiP Support is a remnant of a duplicate that's got deleted by now). As I don't anymore want to deal with this recurring bullshit I left the page as it is because I seem to be the only person who cared about it anyway. Given this is the third or fourth time certain people have turned the page into a duplicate of the same existing team and I don't expect them to stop in the future the only way to put a stop to this would be to ban at least one specific user. But I'm already receiving enough hate-mails as-is, so unless someone in the community makes a move, I won't be the one to do the first step in case of those duplicates. --Krschkr (talk) 18:27, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply; this is helpful. I agree we should leave the page as is, but perhaps we can add the Aura of Faith as a suggestion for the BiP Caster Support page?--[[1]] ((Yuko Asakura [PhD])) 18:53, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

My only concern is that whatever page(s) remain are the best ones possible, regardless of their name/origin. The main difference of opinion right now is the topic of 2x Resto versus resto + Prot. You have preference towards the latter; I personally have had better results with dual resto, although this may depend on playstyle/build/area/etc. If hypothetically dual resto was in fact better, I think the concern is that there would be some pushback to add that modification to the TES page, hence why a separate page is being pushed. Perhaps if more people would try both variants and report their experiences on the testing pages, an agreeable solution could be to appropriately modify the variable hero on TES followed by subsequent handling of the BiP support pages.

You showed the incompetence of the E/Rt in the past, and that version was undoubtedly pushed prematurely and improperly tested -- I was never a fan of it either. But I think a more vanilla N/Rt could show favorable results. This then creates the dilemma of whether you'd support incorporating these changes into TES, since it is fairly challenging to highlight clear performance improvements when the net changes is so minor, and there are very few people actually objectively testing builds right now.

Hate-mail is obviously uncalled for regardless of the circumstance, but I suppose being in a position of influence makes you more susceptible given the anonymity of the internet. --Xanshiz (talk) 20:24, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

I'm all in for offering both protection prayers and restoration magic as variants. We just have to note that there are places/scenarios where one works better than the other and that, in general, both work well. Examples:

• Protection prayers works excellently against foes hitting one target with many hard hits in a short interval. This is especially important against physicals, but also works against caster spikes.
• Protection prayers offers weakness which allows the team to be more stable against physicals without having to bring ineptitude/weakness on other characters.
• Protection prayers offers additional hex removal.
• Protection prayers has issues with massive enchantment removal, although it's rarely massive enough to make it worthless.
• Restoration magic works well against degeneration and spread-out damage.
• Restoration magic works, other than protection prayers, against area damage. (Heroes prot targetted party members, not those actually needing protection.)
• Restoration magic offers the dual BiP possibility for areas with very few deaths, especially boss fights.
• Restoration magic offers a bit more minion survivability if bringing recuperation.
• Restoration magic offers a better general response to conditions in form of recovery. Although that's nowhere needed. The worst condition foes are mandragors and those are countered with shatter hex/reverse because they heavily rely on fevered dreams.
• Restoration magic has issues with foes hitting one target with many hard hits in a short interval. This is especially important against physicals.
• A 6th damage dealer is preferable in many cases because this game is quite easy and mercenary heroes offer more shutdown/damage mesmers. (Build:Team - 7 Hero Mercenary Mesmerway)

I guess that's what we have the notes section for. --Krschkr (talk) 21:30, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

Hey, can I get your comments on this comp?

https://gwpvx.gamepedia.com/index.php?title=User:Saxazaxx&profile=no#7_Hero_Run_Past_Mission_Spiritway --Saxazaxx (talk) 19:12, 26 May 2020 (UTC)

Since it's normal mode it will suffice to bring 2x incoming + fall back and micro the heroes to maintain both shouts while flagging them past foes. A single P/Rt hero with vocal was Sogolon should also do the trick. This gives you maximum speed outside of combat and allows to skip unnessecary fights, unless foes body block you or have snares. Advantages: Much less micro management, allows to run standard builds on all but two heroes. Personally I simply played completely normal builds consisting of BiP healer, a random second backline character and as many mesmer (energy surge) heroes as available while filling the team with necromancer (putrid explosion/fall back) and elementalist (air magic/fall back) heroes. As it's normal mode you steamroll any opponent with such a setup, faster than you could possibly prepare the distracting spirits, while still having permanent 33% movement speed bonus between fights. Getting through campaigns doesn't take particularly long like that.

My opinion: Spirit skipway is not worth it compared to dual IMS skipping or standard builds with IMS. --Krschkr (talk) 00:06, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

Thanks buddy. Since the spirits are spread across 4 heroes, the heroes are able to put down the spirits quite quickly, and it definitely seems faster than sitting there for 10-20 sec to kill off the group in question as you might with the 7 hero BIP. I'll make some comps with each of the strategies and see which is best. I'll choose two missions that are closely packed and more spread out. The one other reason I like this composition is that I can literally press auto-run, wait until my character runs a bit past the group, then stop, wait for my heroes, and run forward again. Hand pain has been a real issue for me, and on some days, I would not even be able to do all the micro required for the IMS + flagging method. Honestly, some days, I'm content to just put on some YouTube thing and run a char thru campaigns, pressing auto run and taking quest rewards etc. Idk if that kind of thing would have a legitimate place on the wiki - 7 Hero Carpal Tunnel NM Mission Skip Spiritway? =)

I was also thinking of a skipway comp with Recall and a SF player runner, or 8x Shadow Form + Shroud of Distress, and just Death's Retreat/Return to me, and fill the rest of the hero bars with spiking and heal skills. Would be an issue for a lot of Factions escort missions though.--Saxazaxx (talk) 09:36, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

I didn't realize you wanted to have a zero micromanagement/input team build. I don't have any experience with that and can't provide any useful comments. --Krschkr (talk) 11:34, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments anyway.--Saxazaxx (talk) 20:12, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

Deletion Issue?

Can you explain why https://gwpvx.gamepedia.com/Build:Me/Mo_Bazzr_Icewing_Farm was deleted without being moved to my userpage when all of the other farms being used by people for greens were left except that one? If I recall correctly only a vote or two was posted which was a sour vote on someone who did not understand how to do said farm, even though I provided video proof of it being done consistently. And if possible, can this page be brought back and moved to my userpage at the very least instead of it getting completely wiped with no way to get all that work back? Or is it already too late and just completely deleted without being moved anywhere. Thanks. Shadeinthebox (talk) 19:27, 26 May 2020 (UTC)

It can still be restored + moved to your sandbox. I've now done so, see User:Shadeinthebox/Me/Mo Bazzr Icewing Farm.

When a build receives an overall rating below 3.75 (in this case, the build received an overall rating of 2.6), the build is subject to deletion after a 2 week period unless someone pipes up on the talk page (nobody did). I've copied the vote reasoning onto the build's talk page. -Chieftain Alex (talk) 20:51, 26 May 2020 (UTC)

HUGE thanks for doing that, yeah I had surgery so was not using my PC for a few months. Still disagree with this decision when other things do not change on small votes especially when the votes are flawed, but regardless, since thats a different discussion, huge thanks for doing that, means a lot. Shadeinthebox (talk) 22:24, 26 May 2020 (UTC)

As Chieftainalex explained the grace period of two weeks before the deletion of a trash rated build passed without anyone trying to save the build. The standard procedure in that case is to delete the builds instead of sending them into the userspace. After all in most cases we don't know whether the user even wants to keep the page in his userspace unless he says so on the page's talk page.

For the future: Most deleted pages can be restored and moved to the userspace if a user asks for it. Simply contact one of the admins (as you did) or write a message on the admin noticeboard. I'm not sure how far back the deleted pages are stored on the servers, but I think we can recover stuff reaching as far back as 2011/2012. --Krschkr (talk) 23:56, 27 May 2020 (UTC)

Updating Pages

I'm pretty happy with the current version of 7 Hero Heroic Mesmerway if you want to flag quintuple energy surge for archival. I think a similar thing can be done for 7 Hero Non merc Heroic Refrain and [[7 Hero Support Player]].

Second, there are a lot of heavily outdated 7 hero comps under "Good" can should probably be archived. I left a note on some of the pages, but I think a cleanup of older 7 hero comps could be valuable to preserve high quality content. A lot of pages have recently been archived, which I am happy about.

Third, I think a quick update on what is tagged as "meta" might be useful. Some current "meta" builds really aren't meta anymore (monk heroes, for example), and other meta builds have arisen (new anniversary builds, and I also think mercenary mesmerway has become more popular).

Finally, I'd appreciate your thoughts over on Build:Team_-_7_Hero_Offensive_Mesmerway. Perhaps this could help solve the recurring BiP Support/TES problems in a way that everyone could agree with. --Xanshiz (talk) 21:53, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

1: Done. 2: I replied to two of these discussions. Please put {{Archive-Pending}} on these build pages so we don't forget about the suggestion. 3: See community portal talk page. 4: Still have to get back to this one. --Krschkr (talk) 11:30, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

Aftercast Delay & Weapon Swapping

Hey Krschkr, I just wanted to know if you could help me with a couple of questions I have about weapon swapping and aftercast delay.

• I found that i could cast Death Nova (2s cast time) 11 times in 30 sec without swapping weapon sets (no 40/40). I could only cast it 8-9 times in 30 sec while swapping weapons: i would cast the skill, wait for the casting time bar to turn yellow (which means the spell successfully activated), and then about 1/2 a second later, i press to swap to the next weapon set, and about 1/2 a second after pressing the weapon set key, i would swap to the set and begin casting Death Nova again, in the same frame. But it seems like there is extra delay between casting skills when swapping between weapons sets. I ask this because when I'm doing PvP, I notice that I, myself, and some others are in the habit of clicking-to-walk after casting a spell when they want to swap. People do this, I guess, because once your character is able to move, you know the aftercast delay is over, and you are free to swap. However, the problem is that it makes what you're doing quite obvious to Rangers and Mesmers - good ones, I imagine, get used to the way you play in a match quickly, and they will be able to anticipate what you're doing easier, if they see you "quarterstepping" at intervals - they might instincively know that after you quarterstep, you're going to cast a skill, and they should get ready to rupt.
• The other thing I noticed was that when my HCT triggers, it seems like there is no aftercast delay, although the wiki page says there are no known mechanics to reduce aftercast delay. Maybe I'm just misreading it.
• Suffice it to say that if I weapon swap less (which would be important with a bar like RA SoS Necro, since I'm constantly casting skills), I should be able to cast more skills in less time, and I will make myself less predictable (especially if I purchase basic PvP skins, so all my 3 weapon sets are identical) - that means I will not be quarterstepping between weapon swaps, alerting Rangers and Mesmers to my intentions. Thanks for your help!--Saxazaxx (talk) 03:30, 26 September 2020 (UTC)

Hex Saxazaxx!

• Re: Weapon set swapping delay.   We know that there's a once second (roughly?) punishment if you try to switch weapons while casting or in the aftercast delay. If you want to avoid that there'll always be a bit of inefficiency (unused time between casts) introduced by the weapon set switching on top of the player's own inefficiency of not using skills seamlessly anyway. (There once was a large debate about the interaction of IAS and barrage on the wartower forum... in the end it turned out that one of the testers was simply slow at spamming barrage and inferred from comparing his flawed results with the calculated expected results that some bug prevents IAS from working properly on barrage. Players aren't robots/scripts that chain skills perfectly.) Iirc there are different approaches to avoid the failed weapon set swapping punishment. Like you I'm using movement as my indicator. I heard that others use their cancel button, but I haven't got experience with what exactly they're doing.
• Re: HCT and aftercast delay.   I started a computer stop watch and casted a couple of flares in my 40/40 set. In the video replay I reduced the play speed to 0.1 so I could read the aftercast delay properly. Following a fast cast flare (projectile emission at 0.13) the next spell cast happened 0.78 seconds later (next spell cast began at 0.91). It looks like the aftercast delay is 0.75 even with HCT triggers.
• Re: Predictability.   I don't think that the movement for weapon set swapping is giving you away, rather the visible change in the weapon set. You can sometimes bait rupts by switching your weapon set and then cancelcasting a skill if you think you're currently being watched by the ranger/mesmer. I think that when you're playing against a good ranger/mesmer the most important factors to avoid interruption are

(1) Positioning. People observe your movement and animations. Positioning yourself in a place where they can't see you allows you to be targetted less by mesmers and makes you immune against rangers (since they don't have line of sight for their projectiles!). In case of rangers positioning is important even when you can't avoid a line of sight. The further you stand away from the ranger, the better. If the ranger tries to interrupt you at maximum recurve bow range you have enough time to cancel your skill as you see the ranger's interruption animation before the projectile connects. When a ranger's going wild on you, create distance and outplay him.

Your movement on the field may also give your intentions away. If the opponent's monk runs out of your range and you follow it to cast on it again, rangers may predict that you have chained a skill and interrupt it based on your distance to the monk – just like people interrupt melees that switch targets and use an attack skill right away when they reach their new target. Heh, I loved that signet of clumsiness rupt on protector's strike!

(2) Tactical knowledge. Depending on the current situation in the match different skills have different importance. Accordingly the interruption priority changes. A team mate is getting low? Suddenly dark pact turns into your most dangerous skill (it has finishing power) and is much more likely to be targetted with distracting shot. Earlier in the match the opponent will rather play on your life siphon because of its large long-term pressure output or oppressive gaze since it's the most impactful single spell cast available to you. And a mesmer that has just hit a power leak on you will be wise to also get your follow-up angorodon's gaze.

(3) Recharge and aftercast delay abuse. You can't get rupted when all the opponent's interrupts are currently recharging. Get a feeling for the recharge times of distracting and savage shot and you'll have a much easier time against rangers. I find it a bit harder in case of mesmers. You can also use the casting time and aftercast delay of your opponent. A ranger interruption has just hit you (successfully or not doesn't matter)? Then your next spell can't be interrupted if you use it immediately. The ranger is using mending touch? Then you have 1.5 seconds (0.75 casting time + 0.75 aftercast delay) during which you can cast freely. I only know one ranger that baits you by using skills, cancels them and interrupts you where it really hurts, and she's currently not active. You can do the same with mesmers; they currently use drain enchantment/energy burn/shatter hex? That means you can get one spell off freely.

(4) Erratical behaviour. Sometimes your skill's recharge time is giving you away. People know that oppressive gaze will be back after 10 seconds, and a ranger may simply count/feel when it's going to be ready again. If you tend to use it on recharge, it's easier to take out. If you use skills in the same rotation or always use a skill immediately after hitting signet of suffering, you're getting predictable. If you tend to chain skills seamlessly into eachother, you get predictable. (That's where a lot of quarter cast rupts on monks stem from.) If you always use a skill immediately when getting in range of your opponents, you get predictable. Random cancel casting, random repositioning/idling can help to make you harder to outplay. And repositioning can help a lot in general, as seen above.

(5) Player knowledge. Mesmers and rangers have their own standard patterns of playing against you. When you know your opponent it's easier to avoid getting outplayed.

Combine (1) to (5) and you'll be fairly successful on caster professions despite playing against those nasty rangers and mesmers. At least in RA where it's easier to keep field awareness. It gets a bit... messy when you play against two mesmers and a ranger at once in an 8v8 format. --Krschkr (talk) 12:37, 26 September 2020 (UTC)

thank you so much for you reply! and what's the deal with projectile emissions anyway?

yes, I remember people saying stuff about pressing Esc to swap faster or something...

thank you for doing the hct test.

ik that people are not robots and dont seamlessly use skills, however, there will be circumstances where it will be ok to queue skills without fear of being rupted: in ra, maybe there's just an enemy ranger, and you're behind a wall, or in gvg, and youre on split, and not against a mes or ranger. i did try not clicking-to-walk to much when swapping today, although its hard in the heat of keyboard battle.

i dont think i explained the issue with aftercast delay properly. let me make a quick vid so u can see.--Saxazaxx (talk) 00:15, 27 September 2020 (UTC)

i just tested it, there is a huge difference between casting skills without swapping vs. casting skills while swapping. its like theres an extra aftercast delay added if you swap your weapon sets. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIVmEk-VZkI . what i was saying is that you can cast more skills per minute if you dont swap. thats a significant revelation in my opinion. maybe it means you cast 1 extra blood magic skill, instead of swapping to your soul reaping set when youre at 25% energy. basically, every time you swap weapon sets, youre wasting time. this means that it might be better to just use your 40/40 blood set and not use the spear/focus set (for 33% more bleeding) at all. every time you swap from the 40/40 blood set to the spear/focus set, youre wasting time.

thanks for the tips about tactics. some of that stuff i knew already.

" I only know one ranger that baits you by using skills, cancels them and interrupts you where it really hurts, and she's currently not active." haha, i used to do that when i played ranger - id start casting apply poison and then cancel it and rupt lol.

Random cancel casting, random repositioning/idling can help to make you harder to outplay." to me, this sounds like a zero-sum game. like, people will get wise to you random cancel casting or idling behavior at a certain point too, right? with the sos bar in particular, i have not been able to maintain bleeding, weakness (on the frontliner) and life siphon on all 3 front/midliners at any point during the last 30 matches ive played. in my mind, my time would be better spent making the mesmer or ranger waste a powerful rupt skill on a low-threat skill of mine as a mindgame, rather than altering the pace at which i cast skills. sometimes, i just run out of compass range if i really need to cast something (like res).

anyway dude ty for the info. glad to see youre still kicking and screaming. [edit: just one "x" on "Saxazax," please.]--Saxazaxx (talk) 00:38, 27 September 2020 (UTC)

The delay seen in the video is what I called the punishment delay before. It's only triggered when you switch weapon sets during the skill activation/aftercast delay. That's why it's so convenient to move a bit as you see immediately when you can switch weapon sets unpunished. [ Example ]

Just be careful with it around melees. That tiny movement can trigger bull's strike/enraged smash and harrier's grasp. It's probably better to stay in your shield set when a warrior runs up to you anyway. --Krschkr (talk) 01:31, 27 September 2020 (UTC)

Ok, so what you're saying is that there is a PUNISHMENT EFFECT if you swap DURING THE AFTERCAST DELAY, but if you swap AFTER THE AFTERCAST DELAY ENDS, there is no punishment effect. In other words, you should be able to cast while swapping just as quickly as if you spam without swapping, however, it's very hard to time properly without the visual cue of when your character can move again, which means the aftercast delay is over. So my question is, is there another cue that you could use to let you know when the aftercast delay is over that is not as obvious as quarterstepping?

We have to try to find out what we can do with the cancel key... Maybe there's an exploit with swapping out of your inventory too? And I have been starting to wonder whether there a mechanic like in Old School RuneScape, where there is a global tick timer going, where at intervals, you can't do anything until the next tick occurs...--Saxazaxx (talk) 17:01, 27 September 2020 (UTC)

The only use of weapon swapping through the inventory is that you can cancel attack skills that way. I don't know of a better indicator than movement – granted, you can get a feeling for the duration of an aftercast delay or read the character animation, the same way one can time quarter knocks based off feeling or do prediction rupts on quarter casts when assuming that a skill will be chained. But learning that will require plenty of gameplay time and focus. --Krschkr (talk) 20:53, 28 September 2020 (UTC)

problem is that your char stands still during aftercast delay. would be helpful if your character twiddled its thumbs or had 3 floating Z's coming out of its mouth during the delay so we would know when it ends.--Saxazaxx (talk) 23:54, 28 September 2020 (UTC)

how i feel when zurrie kills me with lsurge [from queen's gambit on netflix]

• https://www.reddit.com/r/GuildWars/comments/jrpl5f/how_i_feel_when_zurrie_kills_me_with_lsurge_from/
• =)--Saxazaxx (talk) 01:03, 14 November 2020 (UTC)

auto promoting builds

Hey there. I noticed you promoted a stub build to trial, and previously promoted a trial build to testing. Is there some new policy of which I am unaware which inspires these actions? As far as I can tell, builds may stay in stub as long as they like: PvXwiki:Style_and_formatting Us3r1OO425457 (talk) 17:48, 22 December 2020 (UTC)

There's no automatism. It looked to me like the build had roughly settled (no edits in three weeks) and is ready to enter the trial phase. If you think it's not yet ready for that, feel free to revert the build to a stub page. If a stub or trial page stays untouched for two weeks I'll start getting nervous and check the page's status. People often made stubs, abandoned them and never returned to take care of them, so I keep an eye on these things. --Krschkr (talk) 17:53, 22 December 2020 (UTC)

I might not get to the build right away, but doesn't mean I am not going to come back to it. Is there some fear that I will disappear for good? :P Move it to my user space if there is some concern. I also want to make sure the list of farming areas is exhaustive before it begins trial/testing, and that will take some time. Us3r1OO425457 (talk) 18:00, 22 December 2020 (UTC)

Your assurance that you'll come back to working on it is good enough for me. Just don't let it sit in stub until june, ok? :) --Krschkr (talk) 18:02, 22 December 2020 (UTC)

Sounds good. The real problem, is that, as alluded to in my farming evaluation work, I think PvX lacks strict guidelines for what are considered reasonable farming builds. It seems kind of subjective and inconsistent to me at this point. I put the E/any Elemental Attunement work on pause, because I don't want to perpetuate this - the farm evaluation work should come first. Related to this, I think there is some logic in thinking about farms from the "farming area" perspective, because many builds can farm the same area effectively, and I think things can get out of hand if we have a separate build page for each bar which can farm an area. I'm almost thinking that we need to start giving farming areas there own build page, as Any/Any builds, and list the best bars from any professions on those pages. There's already 5? pages for UW smite crawler farming. Imo, this is unreasonable and/or, most of the builds should be removed in favor of the best bar. So in conclusion, I think we need better guidelines for what constitute acceptable farming builds, and I also think we may be able to make improvements to how we organize farming builds. Us3r1OO425457 (talk) 18:22, 22 December 2020 (UTC)

Farming area pages shouldn't be in the Build namespace, though, but in the Guide namespace. Regarding a system to evaluate how good a farming build is... since I'm not a farmer I can't help with that. I think it's worth keeping material farms so people can buy NPC weaponry. I don't really have more input than that. When I tested some farms I really wasn't sure how to rate the builds (well, if the farm can fail because of RNG that should hurt its rating) and in case of many unique item farms I don't think they have a justification. On the other hand, as long as they are well-made (many of them aren't) I don't see a large issue with keeping them around either. The worst thing that can happen is that a person spends money for the skills and equipment to farm a boss that drops crap.

A major issue I saw when applying {{FarmCat}} was that many pages don't even explain what their farm is good for: There's no mention of the items/materials that regularly drop, which is not particularly helpful for anyone looking for a farm fitting his needs. --Krschkr (talk) 18:38, 22 December 2020 (UTC)

Right, many builds don't really include what they are used for, and even when they do, the reasoning is often inflated imo. I also think having single build pages which cover multiple areas becomes problematic, because we tend to squeeze in many areas, when in fact, only one or two of the areas are actually useful. I don't want to point fingers nessecarily, but one recent example is the 7 weapon stance farming build, which includes stone hulking elementals and dessert griffons. From the testing I've done on dessert griffons so far, they don't seem largely as effective of a farming target as the stone hulking elementals. The idea behind organization build pages by farming area, is that it prevents this, each area is already kind of agreed to be useful, and then new builds can be added, and we simply have to show that the new builds can compare in runtime and consistency to the current builds - no need to re-rate the page at that point, and no need to duplicate farming area info across several builds. And let me repeat, I really think things can get out of hand with the number of builds which can farm an area. I've already tested other variants to UW smite crawler farmer, including a mesmer bar which is on par with the Ele bar. I'm confident that a large number of bars can farm this area, I don't see why we need to rate them individually and duplicate the information across builds, we just need to show that a bar can contend with currently stored bars.

About mat farming builds. Sure, they are worthwhile, but you can also buy mats. If you need a particular mat for crafting needs, sure, you can save a little bit of money by farming the mat yourself, but pure gold/platinum is essentially a more powerful metric. Why would I want to farm dust when I can farm feathers, which are worth significantly more, and I can convert those feathers into dust? That's just an example of how item value can be more important than the need for a specific mat. Ectos are like 15k, why not just farm ectos and buy feathers and dust? etc etc. It essentially boils down to the amount of money you can make in a farm per hour, with some minor nuances here and there. Also, agreed that a build should be able to consistently farm an area for it to be worth storing, *if* other builds are able to farm it consistently. If its still able to generate money, and a good amount of money, even consistency is not that important.

But to come back to some major focus points, I think 1) too many build pages list ineffective area variations 2) its not prudent to duplicate area information across builds and to re-vet an area each time a new build comes up 3) its trivial to make new bars which are competitive to other bars for particular areas, for the most part, I can start to go crazy submitting UW smite crawling and stone hulking elemental farming builds 4) even with all of this, we lack a consistent way to evaluate builds, and having to vet each new build just perpetuates inconsistencies. We don't need to vet a new smite crawler build, we can tack it onto an existing page, and simply provide a video demonstrating that it can compete in runtime/consistency with other builds - we just need a rule that states that new bars need to be competitive 4) as said, I don't really want to keep adding to this 'chaos' is you will. Us3r1OO425457 (talk) 18:57, 22 December 2020 (UTC)

"Why would I want to farm dust when I can farm feathers, which are worth significantly more, and I can convert those feathers into dust?" – because material traders can get bought out, and they have been in the past.

You should consider talking about the issue of farming build evaluation on the Community Portal Talk Page to increase the chance that other farming enthusiasts see it and can provide feedback. If you work out a system that can reach a consensus we could update the policies regarding the vetting of farming builds. --Krschkr (talk) 19:32, 22 December 2020 (UTC)

Sure, sounds good. I just don't think there is much to say about evaluating a farming build. Either it farms the mat/items/gold in a competitive time, or it doesn't, and it is trivial to prove. Evaluating general PvE builds is much more complicated. RE: mats - yes, that is a good reason to store mat farming builds, but in 90% of scenarios, its most effective to farm for maximum profitability. I see mats as one category of farming builds. Also mentioned, I think the general organization of PvX becomes problematic for this pursuit, even if vetting policies are changed. Things which "should be guides", should actually be the main focus of the site, and should live up to vetting standards. But anyways, will think about bringing the idea to the community portal. Us3r1OO425457 (talk) 01:52, 23 December 2020 (UTC)

In theory it's still possible to do a major revision of certain policies even in 2021. It just requires that we (a) work out a plan that (b) reaches a consensus and (c) there are people which then perform the associated changes. Judging from history point c is the hardest one. Most of the community does not want to invest an effort into community projects and some people that pretend they'd do something are never shy of inventing new laughable excuses. --Krschkr (talk) 11:04, 23 December 2020 (UTC)

Yea, makes sense. All good. We'll figure something out. One of the other problems I see right now is that its very hard to actually get votes on farming builds. For instance, with the recent UW smite crawling farming builds, I'm the only person to provide a vote and feedback so far. Very few people are actually invested in testing/rating builds. Another reason why proposing a system for evaluating builds outside of vetting may be worthwhile. :D Us3r1OO425457 (talk) 13:56, 23 December 2020 (UTC)