User:Reason.decrystallized/ifthecabalpersecutingmewouldtaketheirheadsoutoftheirarsesandtestittheywouldseewhatanawesomebuildihave

The thing is, EVERYONE says that. People think they're hot stuff and they come here looking for validation, for admirers, to stroke their egos with 5-5's as they show the wiki scrubs how it's done. And then the majority of them wind up submitting builds like these (and yes, these are all real builds that have really been submitted, and you can find more here):

[build prof=E/N Energy=12+1+3 Blood=12 Curses=3][Ride the Lightning][Vampiric bite][Vampiric touch][Aura of restoration][Soul barbs][Plague Touch][Glyph of lesser energy][resurrection signet][/build]

[build prof=Monk/Dervish healingp=9+1+3 Protectionp=7+3 Scythem=12 Divinef=5][Word of Healing][Protective Spirit][Reversal of Fortune][Balthazar's Spirit][Essence bond][Mystic Sweep][Victorious Sweep][Lyssa's Assault][/build]

[build prof=Necromancer/Warrior Curses=12+1+2 SoulReaping=8+1 Swordsmanship=10][Grenth's Balance][Insidious Parasite][Mark Of Pain] [Weaken Armor][Envenom Enchantments][Faintheartedness][Parasitic Bond][Frenzy][/build]

after which they QQ endlessly about every negative comment: IF ONLY YOU HAD PLAYED IT YOU WOULD UNDERSTAND YOU'RE JUST JEALOUS OF MY EPEEN BAAAAAWWWWWWW!!!!1!!11!

This is not to imply that your build is as shitty as these, or your comments as obnoxious. Probably it is better; probably you have completed missions/won gladpoints/farmed faction in AB with it, and are quite proud of it. Certainly you have complained that people are needlessly trashing it without first testing it; if not, you would not have been directed here. But you have to realize that just because it works well when you play it well doesn't mean that it's better than the alternatives.

The thing is that this becomes tiresome after a while, let me assure you, and frankly there is a certain cynicism that sets in among those of us who are still on the wiki; most of the original people quit long ago, either from general ennui at situations like the above, or leaving GuildWars entirely. This occasionally leads us to being too cynical, or too abrasive, or too quick to dismiss, but 95 times out of a hundred, we're right.

Understand: we don't shoot down builds because we hate you and are prejudiced against you; we shoot down builds because we see yet another bad build with bad skills and yet another author who expected to stroke his epeen with accolades from the wikin00bz instead QQ-ing massively about being persecuted by people who haven't tested. Sometimes, granted, we're wrong. But usually not.

IT is the game, and we HAVE played it, and we DO understand
See the heading? Most people here have years of experience with Guild Wars. We know what skills do, we know what works, and we know what doesn't. We also know that it is not necessary to test every damn build to know that certain skills and combinations are simply bad. An epic quote around here is: "It doesnt require a whole lot of skill to rate a build without testing it. The funny thing about computers and machines is, everything does what it says it's going to do. So you look at atts, skills, etc. and you can pretty much judge a build. It's not like judging an athlete or student, where a weak or dumb looking person can surprise you. Weak skills with weak synergy are, well, weak."

It's true, really. See something else? On the "edit" page, where it says, "If you don't want your writing to be edited mercilessly and redistributed at will, then don't submit it here."? If you post your build on PvX, you're essentially asking the entire Internet what it thinks. And the funny thing about the Internet is that it will tell you what it thinks. And if the Internet (or the community, or maybe just GoD) doesn't like it, that sucks, it really does. I should know, my first half-dozen or so builds were all shot down in flames, and deservedly. But if you stick around, and stop QQ-ing, you might just learn something.

Or you can keep bitching about how EVERYONE BUT YOU is wrong about how awesome your build is, and if the users who are persecuting you would just test it they would see. And you know what? If it helps you to sleep better, I'll say that maybe you're right. Maybe you and you alone hold the ultimate secret of teh awesomest build ev4r and we're jerks for mindlessly trashing it without testing. In that case, you can always just leave, secure in the knowledge that there's no point in casting pearls before swine, and that you're better than all the wikiscrubs combined.

That's fine, too. You'll get to feel better about yourself, and we'll have less drama and fewer builds clogging up testing. It's your call.

If you see a page wherein the author is complaining about either persecution or the need for testing, add the following code to the discussion page: to make this box appear: