PvXwiki talk:Community Portal/Archive 15

Builds in the user namespace
What's your stance on people adding builds to the user namespace as user subpages, meant to stay there and never be released in the build namespace? --Krschkr (talk) 00:11, 19 March 2018 (UTC)
 * That's perfectly fine and what pretty much every long-time user has done for random ideas they've had or things they wanted to save. You just can't add any of the vetting tags to them. Toraen (talk) 02:53, 19 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks, I'll give it a try. --Krschkr (talk) 15:21, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

Search settings
Could the general search settings be altered? Right now a regular search seems to cover the main page only, so it will bring up just a single page or nothing. Most people using the search function will be looking for a build and perhaps be interested in a guide page aswell. So I'd suggest to change the general setting to search in the Build: and Guide: namespace. --Krschkr (talk) 18:40, 10 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Unfortunately, I can't find anything that lets me apply search preferences for all users. If you go to Special:Search and use the Advanced tab you can select namespaces to search (and save those preferences) but I can't change the default, which is just the (Main) namespace. Toraen (talk) 16:56, 12 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Ahh, too bad. Would've been really beneficial for those who come here once in a while and casually try to find a build. --Krschkr (talk) 18:08, 12 May 2018 (UTC)
 * There is a server-side setting for this, but I just checked and don't have access to it. So I'll file a ticket to have those namespaces added to the default search. OOeyes (talk) 18:24, 12 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Apologies for this taking so long. We ran into a problem saving it initially, and I think they forgot to save it after resolving the issue. It should be set now. OOeyes (talk) 20:25, 23 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Works! Thanks a lot, this will be a great change for casual users. --Krschkr (talk) 20:47, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

Mysticism
Not sure what's the right palce for this so I'll put it here. Expertise and Mysticism work in similar ways after the dervish rework, both reduce the energy costs of some skill types, and Expertise changes energy costs on PvX bars accordingly while Mysticism doesn't. It's a minor thing, but could Mysticism too receive this function? --DefinitelyNotHanz (talk) 16:45, 27 May 2018 (UTC)
 * This is already noted on the Curse Noticeboard. Curse will have to send me the current pvx extension files and then check my work once I make the changes and send them back, unless their coders have the time and motivation to learn the extension and change it on their own. I think this one should be a fairly simple fix but there might be a couple gottcha's in terms of making sure all relevant skills are affected. -Toraen (talk) 00:14, 28 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Is there a chance to meet you ingame, Toraen? I'd like to show you something I wouldn't want to link here. --Krschkr (talk) 00:43, 28 May 2018 (UTC)
 * I can get on GW today, pretty much anytime. -Toraen (talk) 21:13, 30 May 2018 (UTC)

Pre-made team piece pages
The discussion whether it makes sense to keep pages which don't constitute an entire team came up repeatedly, most recently here. There is a bunch of such builds which I'm aware of but there might be some more. I'd categorize them like this:

Category 1: Builds which work well together, but aren't dependant on each other or adjusted (beyond what's already suggested in the individual build pages) to give best results in this combination (or in other words, these seem to be copy&paste from the indivual build pages). Category 2: Builds in which a player copies another one's or a hero's elite skill, but without any other dependance of these builds on each other. Category 3: Builds which are dependant on each other, more than just a case of a general support build which doesn't do much without any corresponding build to support (e.g. splinter weapon ritualist + any physical). Maybe it would make sense to add a whole new category (if that's even feasible) of such pre-made team pieces to extrapolate which builds work well together with which other builds. That would mean to bloat an information which could be told in a few notes at the bottom of a build page to an entire team build page; whenever there's a change to one of the individual builds that effort would probably have to be doubled to perform the same change on the team piece page – or multiple of them. And would we really have more information than now, given we have complete teams in which these team pieces are already present? I don't really think so! Category 1 material is simply redundant. Category 2 material could be melted down to a note in which you inform readers that the combination with another build (give a link to one!) and arcane mimikry makes sense. Category 3 material would be the only thing where we actually lose builds. Right now that's just a single page, though, with just two synergizing midline builds. I tend to say that losing this page wouldn't hurt so much and the actual issue with it is that it's not embedded in an entire team. So: With the current categories of indiviual player builds, individual hero builds and full team builds I don't think we should keep such pages and the introduction of a new build category for team pieces doesn't appear to add information for readers, just extra labour for content creators and the admin who has to create the category and adjust the tag system and main page to work with it. But perhaps someone else has a great idea on how these pieces could be implemented? --Krschkr (talk) 00:17, 13 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Build:Team - Dual Spirit Spam
 * Build:Team - Mesmer Hero Midline
 * Build:Team - GvG Triple Monk Backline
 * Build:Team - HA Two Monk Backline
 * Build:Team - Dual ER Backline
 * Build:Team - 1 Hero EA/SF Mimicry
 * Build:Team - UA/HB Mimicry
 * Build:Team - UA/HBurst Mimicry
 * Build:Team - 2 Hero Jagged Bombers
 * overall agree with your 3-category analysis. If cat 1 and cat 2 are burdensome, I can’t come up with any good reason to keep them. Cat 3 however I view in a different way; it’s true this style of “team” build is not imbedded into a 7h combo, but imo 2+ bars shouldn’t be discouraged. if you agree a viable build is just a useful collection of 8 related skills, then a team of 2 heroes is just 16 useful and related skills, and so on. Whether we want to call it a team or an extra big special build is purely linguistics. Juniper real (talk) 23:16, 13 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Added the dual ER backline article to category 1. --Krschkr (talk) 22:50, 24 September 2018 (UTC)
 * All builds from category 1 and 2 have now been archived. The only exception is the dual ER backline as there's an unresolved discussion about it. I'll wait some more time to allow the opposition to explain their reasons. --Krschkr (talk) 00:17, 22 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Dual ER archived as the discussion didn't continue. Mini cleanup finished. --Krschkr (talk) 01:36, 30 December 2018 (UTC)

Fluxed builds
Maybe we should reconsider this whole auto-archiving of fluxed builds or make them still show up in the current build namespace when browsing categories. If we rename all fluxed builds to make it obvious from the page name that they're intended for a certain flux it should be ok to have them show up in the current build categories, i.e. Category:Meta working PvP team builds. At least I am looking for certain fluxed builds every now and then and having to dig through the archives or look up the category of fluxed builds is a bit annoying. Opinions? --Krschkr (talk) 13:31, 20 September 2018 (UTC)
 * I wouldn't mind this. The auto-archiving just doesn't work well enough with updating the categories (wiki software probably wasn't made expecting such a usage). I'm sure there's an extension out there that would fix the issue but it's not really worth the extra maintenance burden. -Toraen (talk) 04:53, 21 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Alright. The flux templates should show up no matter the month imo now that we drop auto-archiving. --Krschkr (talk) 16:54, 22 October 2018 (UTC)

Activity
Most issues we currently have in PvX seem to stem from having a too low activity: Policy revisions don't get much feedback, builds don't receive enough votes (3) even for provisional rating tags (that's a policy which is stuck in the proposal state), discussions tend to dim out before a generally accepted result is found, builds don't receive updates or miss entirely for years. I carefully crafted a cunning two points plan to procure the escape out of this calamity. I need feedback on how we can actually find some more people for PvX and I need some people who would actually execute the plan; I'm a content contributor and not a motivation specialist. Maybe someone around here could help out with this, although I fear that we might have not enough people to recruit more to solve the issue of having too few. --Krschkr (talk) 16:58, 20 October 2018 (UTC)
 * 1) Find out what keeps people from participating in the PvX project and solve potential issues to allow interested people to contribute.
 * 2) Invite people with chat advertisements and internet propaganda (i.e. on reddit, facebook, discord) to join.
 * Unfortunately, my own activity here has dropped considerably and that won't be improving for the next two months at the very least. I've gone ahead and moved provisional vetting to active policy (we can work out making the template pretty later) so we can see if it helps any. In the end, it may be that we end up having to shelve Real Vetting entirely and make this site less formal about build submission. We could probably have some success if we just tagged builds that are Meta appropriately and have everything else be essentially a userspace build (but formatted and organized in the build namespace for easier searching - dupes would still be removed to help with this) with no promise of quality. Only Meta Caretakers would be allowed to use the meta tags then (you clearly qualify but I would like at least a couple more experienced GW'ers to start with such a drastic change). -Toraen (talk) 04:20, 21 October 2018 (UTC)
 * I don't think it would be good to drop the standard of only suggesting builds which have proven to be good and tagged as such. Provisional rating tags might help, as the builds should then show up in the good/great categories which people are likely to consult when looking for builds. --Krschkr (talk) 15:02, 21 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Aaaaaalright, I'll set up the reddit thread and hope that one or two people get motivated to contribute by that silly meme. Few people can already make a difference. --Krschkr (talk) 21:30, 21 October 2018 (UTC)

PvX for mobile users
Reddit user issdar said: ''One thing I would suggest is working on the mobile formatting for mobile users. Everything feels like it is scaled way to big.'' I don't have a mobile device which could access PvX, so I don't know anything about the scaling. What's everyone else's opinion on this? Perhaps some of the oversized content, maybe the pvxcode templates, could be scaled smaller for mobile users? --Krschkr (talk) 17:27, 22 October 2018 (UTC)
 * As a user who frequently splits free time for PvX fairly evenly between mobile and desktop, I can echo the frustration for mobile use. The search function behaves differently. Pages generally view fine only because I’m already familiar with layout and so know where to scroll and look. On Apple devices, switching between mobile view and desktop view via the links on PvX is a massive headache as website feature overlays obstruct the view to go desktop -> mobile after you’ve done mobile -> desktop already. The only fix I’ve found is deleting local app data to reset mobile view preferences to default. Other issues with site layout that I have are not limited to mobile-only, so I’ll stop there Juniper real (talk) 01:38, 23 October 2018 (UTC)
 * I don't know myself how to change the mobile formatting unfortunately (and really no idea why mobile search works differently). PvXbig is a really old custom extension (though if someone is good with css I think a stylesheet for mobile shouldn't be too hard to implement - Mediawiki:Common.css is how PvXbig is currently formatted). -Toraen (talk) 06:15, 23 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Today I've taken a look at a PvX build page from a mobile device and I agree that it's looking horribly. Standard skill boxes show every skill in a new line, causing excessive bloat even in comparison with the desktop appearance. I'll most likely be unable to contribute to a solution for this, but I'll keep it in mind when I'm looking into some distant future plans I have for PvX improvements. --Krschkr (talk) 18:59, 20 June 2019 (UTC)

Beginner builds
There seems to be a demand for builds directed towards new players given the surge of new players in the last few months. I know that normal mode isn't what PvX is meant to provide builds for, but I think that having some builds directed towards starters and marked with an according template wouldn't hurt. There's currently a WIP team for new characters and I plan to add more stuff like that in the near future. Of course we can't drop our quality standards for this, so vigorous testing will still be required. If we feature noob builds, we have to feature the best noob builds! --Krschkr (talk) 22:49, 22 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Do people agree with Template:Beginner-Build? --Krschkr (talk) 00:18, 23 October 2018 (UTC)
 * I can only endorse if Koss’s dismembered head remains the template emblem Juniper real (talk) 01:40, 23 October 2018 (UTC)
 * PvX of the past was against this, but I say we give it a shot. This will require us to rethink the PvX:WELL policy a bit, and we'll need to outline what we expect from leveling builds (ex: what limitations are considered reasonable). -Toraen (talk) 06:36, 23 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Alright, we'll have the full discussion on how we want to do this over at the new policy proposal page. -Toraen (talk) 06:46, 23 October 2018 (UTC)

Let's tidy up Testing first
Noticed that there are dozens of build in testing across the different categories, with new ones being added almost daily. I think we should gather a few people and start digging through them to sort them out before any new ones are posted, because this is getting a bit too cluttered in places like Farming.

EDIT: also, feels like a lot of older ratings have gone missing, and staple builds are back to testing, which is weird --DefinitelyNotHanz (talk) 13:15, 28 October 2018 (UTC)
 * The provisional rating policy and some build tests already allowed to get rid off the builds from 2014/2015 and some from 2016. Finding some contributors, even if they're just build testers, would be great. But I don't know where to find them. The thread in reddit brought us two interested people in a total of 2000 hits and the three people which told me ingame they'd come and rate some builds they have experience with didn't show up either so far. It would be great if we found 1-2 people which are interested in farming and would test and rate all of them so I don't have to be one of them. I didn't farm in the last 10 years and I don't intend to start doing it now if a different solution can be found. --Krschkr (talk) 13:32, 28 October 2018 (UTC)
 * I removed some ratings because those builds had no votes, but that might get reverted when Toraen shows up again and says that the old, intransparent pre-curse rating tags with 0-1 votes should come back. --Krschkr (talk) 13:34, 28 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Don't worry, not going to bother reverting to those rating at this point. Either the builds get some new votes or we can chuck them into archive at their old rating (if they end up sitting for a month I guess). If someone really wants one of them to come back then we can pull it back out. -Toraen (talk) 07:35, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

gw -> gww
There are a lot of external links that still use the old guild wiki instead of the official one. No need to go over each build at once, but whenever someone is editing a page and comes across a DefinitelyNotHanz (talk) 10:38, 30 October 2018 (UTC)
 * There's an old policy which advices to respect the original author's linking choice, but I don't know in which context that policy had been agreed on. If the Beginner Build policy is successful there will have to be changes to it anyway, so changing that part aswell is another point to add to the list. It's just a fact that the official wiki covers more content, usually features more information and is still actively being contributed to, in stark contrast to the gamepedia wiki. Therefore I think that going for gww links instead of gw links in future edits makes sense. --Krschkr (talk) 13:52, 30 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Well, the old decision was based on Guildwiki still being active, which it is very much not today. I don't particularly mind the gw: links being replaced at this point, if gww's equivalent articles are better. -Toraen (talk) 05:59, 1 November 2018 (UTC)

Farming question
What can we consider "farmable"? I mean, there are mobs listed on some pages that in theory can be farmed, but they have interrupts which can mess up the run instantly. Should we remove the ones where rupts are too much of a problem? In short, how consistent must the farm spot be? 50%+ success rate for example? --DefinitelyNotHanz (talk) 19:14, 2 November 2018 (UTC)
 * I don't have more experience with farming than from the few build tests I did recently, but 50% sounds extremely low to me. If a farming build fails 50% of the time I'd have the impression that it doesn't work properly and should receive a trash rating accordingly. I'd rather say that a build which fails one run in five already is at the lowest end of acceptable builds, but maybe I'm a bit too idealistic about farming? --Krschkr (talk) 20:16, 2 November 2018 (UTC)
 * my impression is if a build rated good/great for farming the main mob, then secondary mobs could also be included if the build would rate good/great for them as well. Even if the vetted build performs at trash level for a secondary mob, mentioning it’s possible but hardly viable would be appropriate imo. It’s all relative and subjective anyway, I wouldn’t worry too much about benchmark metrics. Juniper real (talk) 21:05, 2 November 2018 (UTC)
 * The question is more about "should we remove farming spots with way too many interrupts", basically. Like the stone wolves north of EotN. --DefinitelyNotHanz (talk) 21:45, 2 November 2018 (UTC)
 * if it’s a stone wolves farming build but it does that poorly, I’d recommend rating it to trash. If it’s purpose is farming something else that it’s approved and vetted for but has been tested on wolves as well, then you have a choice based on how well it does farming the wolves. If it does it well, keep the secondary farming spot. If it does poorly, consider 1) removing the listed secondary mob vs. 2) make mention that wolves is possible but more difficult / less reliable than for the primary purpose of the build Juniper real (talk) 22:17, 2 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Unprofitable secondary farming spots (to name a few possible causes: no desirable drops, too long a timeframe, low reliability) shouldn't be included, as we shouldn't be recommending something that doesn't work for the goals of the build (farming = make money). As for voting based on such things being included in a build, this falls under the "easily amenable premises" clause. Remove the poor farming spot (ideally leave a comment explaining why) rather than vote the build down when it is great/good at its primary farm. If removal is too contested for whatever reason, then mentioning that the spot is notably less reliable (and the reasons for it) in its usage section is fine.
 * We can't really make a definitive benchmark metric and expect builds to be rigorously tested against it to eliminate confounding variables. Varying skill levels, choice of variants, latency or other outside factors may make runs more/less reliable for different people. Some rare drops may be worth a lower reliability run than the main farm if it can pay off (especially if there isn't a more reliable method available). It's going to be a case-by-case judgment call. -Toraen (talk) 10:14, 3 November 2018 (UTC)

Farm build idea/request
Just outside Unwaking Waters (kurzick), there's a rit boss. It can be pulled away from its group right into aggro range of the rez shrine guards who will attack him. Could we come up with some meme bar that buffs the kurzick NPCs to farm the boss in HM? --DefinitelyNotHanz (talk) 11:36, 16 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Buffing NPCs so they kill the boss wouldn't result in the player getting loot, afaik. --Krschkr (talk) 14:41, 16 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Could be true, but I think only if the player doesn't tag it. --DefinitelyNotHanz (talk) 16:29, 16 November 2018 (UTC)

Equipment Guide
I'm currently translating my old equipment guide and adding some additional information. It's over here. I guess that when I'm done with the caster weapon and collectors sections I'm mostly done with it. Some more polishing perhaps. What I'd like to know is whether or not this guide would be "PvX approved". Does anyone here disagree with the guide content so strongly that he'd not want it to be released in the guide namespace ("Guide:PvE Equipment")? --Krschkr (talk) 01:12, 24 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Imo the guide is now finished. Any opinions on its potential release? --Krschkr (talk) 02:27, 2 January 2019 (UTC)

Game Update 2019/02/05
According to the patch notes the AI usage of certain skills has been changed. This affects the viability of hero builds, so we should take a look into the actual effects in case we have to re-evaluate certain skills and builds. Test results are welcome, simply add your observations! The skills which might be most interesting are: I added notes what I expect to be the change. However, as there are no explanations in the official patch notes, we may have to do minor research. --Krschkr (talk) 02:19, 6 February 2019 (UTC)
 * – heroes prioritize casters. Prior to the update they would use it on any foe without discrimination. This will usually result in the skill being more effective due to the caster snare, but may regularly reduce the resulting energy gain.
 * – used on all foes. Prior to the update they would only use it on targets that, by game mechanics, were equipped with a wand or staff. Now it's used frequently on any foe, which results in a lot of damage but also causes scattering. More viable for niche usage than before. (I.e. great for eternal grove)
 * – heroes don't drop it before it owuld expire anyway. Prior to the update heroes would drop the skill, rendering it awful, as it would waste casting time and result in a net loss of energy. Due to all its statistics it still seems to be a pretty bad skill to pick.
 * – heroes don't use this skill when [["Incoming!"] or [["Charge!"] is active. We could check whether the AI checks for these skills or just speed boosts on party members in earshot.
 * – heroes don't use this skill when [["Fall Back!"] or [["Charge!"] is active. Now a good choice for bone fiend minion master heroes alongside aforementioned skill. 80% IMS uptime (=26,4% average IMS if used without waiting, so slightly less in practice) with the chance for the MM to catch up without the minions falling behind too much, while also healing them during movement.
 * – I think that heroes used to use this on targets which weren't at full health, just like life sheath, but now they seem to use it only on targets targetted by foes in combat. Might apply to Julyia (GvG henchman) aswell.
 * – under the effect of ritual lord heroes won't use non-binding ritual skills. Prior to the update they'd use any skill under its effect, sending it on a long recharge time. It could now be useful for offensive communing spirit heroes (although they still wouldn't be very useful). Mixed results with ritual lord communing prot heroes. This might warrant a hero page, but that has to be revealed by further testing.
 * – only used if there is a spirit and the hero needs energy. Still has some issues, but it should now work better than ever, as heroes tended to use it at full energy or without any summoned creatures. Needs another test to check whether heroes now ignore minions.
 * – increased priority. Heroes are now much less likely to use binding rituals without soul twisting when it is recharged. It can still happen, but it happens rarely.
 * Inofficial – these skills seem to have received an AI update, too, but haven't been mentioned in the patch notes.
 * – heroes renew this before it runs out, so the attribute boost benefits the skill itself. They might be reluctant to use it when they already have a full minion army, reported here. The hero might sometimes be too late for the self-benefit when being in the aftercast delay during combat right when this skill should be renewed.
 * – heroes renew this before it runs out, so the attribute boost benefits the skill itself. The hero might sometimes be too late for the self-benefit when being in the aftercast delay during combat right when this skill should be renewed.
 * Added updated skills which were not mentioned in the patch notes. --Krschkr (talk) 14:48, 6 February 2019 (UTC)

Possibly affected build pages
The greatest expected impact is that of chaos storm. --Krschkr (talk) 02:19, 6 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Build:Rt/any Soul Twisting Prot Hero – probably buffed. The only rating that needed an adjustment was mine. --Krschkr (talk) 20:38, 6 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Build:Rt/any Ritual Lord Prot – might be viable for heroes now. Apparently still too complicated, although it already works quite well. With some more effort it could actually work. --Krschkr (talk) 20:38, 6 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Any team with domination magic mesmers: Chaos storm is now used much more frequently. Might be a good addition to plenty of build pages.
 * Build:N/any Bone Fiend MM Hero – "incoming!" + "fall back!" is now viable. Page changed accordingly. --Krschkr (talk) 20:38, 6 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Build:E/Mo Ether Renewal Prot Hero/Build:N/Mo Soul Reaping Prot Hero – depending on how RoF has been changed it may be a better skill for these builds now.
 * Archive:Team - 3 Hero Spiritway – ritual lord over signet of ghostly might? archived
 * Tagged Archive:Team - The Deep Spiteful Spike, Archive:Team - 9 Hero Deep Heroway and Build:Team - UW Advanced Terraway for a rewrite. --Krschkr (talk) 14:09, 6 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Ty for the summary, was about to ask what changed. Any major impacts yet? --DefinitelyNotHanz (talk) 18:05, 7 February 2019 (UTC)
 * The chaos storm screwed up ghastly summoning stones for some purposes. UWSCs have a slightly easier time with dryders. The tagged deep builds will probably be slowed down a bit, but they should be able to adapt with slightly changed tactics or running through with permanent IMS. ST prots are even stronger now. Chaos storm is viable in many teams. --Krschkr (talk) 18:33, 7 February 2019 (UTC)
 * I recall the main problem with Chaos Storm was that it made mobs scatter too much, which is probably still a thing though. --DefinitelyNotHanz (talk) 19:51, 8 February 2019 (UTC)

"Prior to the update they would only use it on targets that, by game mechanics, were equipped with a wand or staff" The chaos storm change may affect this farm: https://gwpvx.gamepedia.com/Build:Team_-_AFK_Glint%27s_Heroway Specifically because of this comment: Destroyers of Thoughts will not use Chaos Storm on allies without weapons/foci or with martial sets, hence the use of spear sets on heroes. Do not put caster weapons (wands/foci or staves) on your heroes or yourself. The only thing that may counter this is the farm is usually done in normal mode and this comment by Arenanet may apply: For monsters, these changes apply only to Hard Mode, except for cases in which skills were used extremely incorrectly or caused changes to behavior while their effect was active. Rickyf16aus (talk) 22:41, 7 February 2019 (UTC)
 * I checked it and they didn't seem to use chaos storm differently than before. From what I can tell this afk farm is unaffected as it is for normal mode only. --Krschkr (talk) 03:00, 8 February 2019 (UTC)

Flagging and Hero Skill Microing
The ability to control every skill on all seven heroes' bars opens a floodgate of spiking possibilities, as well as the ability to quickly flag all heroes to spread them out to avoid AoE. Big game changer.--Saxazaxx (talk) 17:51, 9 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Ohhhh, those new individual flags also allow to do deep with 7 heroes more effectively, right? Time to further improve your deep builds with these new possibilities! --Krschkr (talk) 19:12, 9 February 2019 (UTC)
 * More about the skill microing. You can make a nice ball and right wall block it, then have your 7 heroes run in and do a perfect spike. But yes, I changed the Deep build as well. Do I detect a note of irony in your speech?--Saxazaxx (talk) 19:28, 9 February 2019 (UTC)

Pre-searing
Would creating another pre-searing build be okay? I've been thinking about making this page for a while but I wouldn't want to flood the farming section with wacky pre builds. However, the one farm build I've made before only covers about half the Nick items and doesn't touch the Northlands at all, this page would aim to fill this gap by focusing on single target burst instead of AoE farming. --DefinitelyNotHanz (talk) 19:06, 22 April 2019 (UTC)
 * I think that it'd be better to make a Guide:Pre-Searing Farming containing the single target and AoE farm build. Since there are so few skills available and most "builds" can be used to farm all items (just less efficiently) I personally don't see a point in keeping such pages as builds. In the already existant page most of the content consists of the farming locations anyway, so the step to a guide page wouldn't be far. The structure could be something like
 * ''Intro
 * ''1. AoE farming build
 * ''1.1 Location/Item 1
 * ''1.n Location/Item n
 * ''2. Single target farming build
 * ''2.1 Location/Item 1
 * ''2.n Location/Item n
 * ''3. Notes
 * However, as the two builds will cover most farms it would probably already suffice to create links between the two builds in the introduction and see also section. If you prefer that, I won't complain. Let's just avoid to clutter PvX with general pre-searing builds, since such pages would be pointless. --Krschkr (talk) 22:37, 22 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Two builds that link each other would be fine to me, and have the content in the more often searched/browsed build space (though beefing up the guides section would be a good thing to continue). All three pages could exist actually, with the guide focusing more on the locations/items and written to include tips suitable for all professions, while the two build space articles house the optimal farming builds (if that's still necessary). I agree that general pre builds don't really have a reason to be hosted. -Toraen (talk) 07:43, 24 April 2019 (UTC)
 * This would be the last one I swear D: Monk/Ele are the best pre farmers in general, no other profession comes close which is why a general purpose guide would make less sense than in post, where the build diversity is greater. Same goes for the R/W build I'm planning to create - nothing mows down scattered or high level mobs quicker in pre than a frenzy turret. These 2 builds would be able to cover all of pre. --DefinitelyNotHanz (talk) 10:37, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

Anniversary guide
Speaking of guides, this is another thing I've wanted to do but didn't have time for.

I believe a farming guide for Proof of Legend would be great to have, and maybe it's not too late. We'd need to find the shortest mission in each region and then attach builds/team comps to them. I have some data and ideas but nothing final. EDIT: or actually, the official wiki already has something similar, but without builds. Would it still be worth it? --DefinitelyNotHanz (talk) 10:43, 24 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Wouldn't be worth it since it's just missions and all tested teams in the build namespace can be used for pretty much all missions without adjustments and result in an acceptable completion time. Without concrete builds, however, it's not a guide that's within the scope of PvX. If the official wiki provides mission suggestions that should be sufficient. --Krschkr (talk) 19:08, 25 April 2019 (UTC)
 * I agree that maybe the guide is unnecessary, but theoretically I think it would fit with PvX. There's a lot of variety between what's optimal for the recommended missions (and the party size changes a lot as well). For example the best way to get Ascalon's Proof of Legend asap is to do The Great Northern Wall with a runner and just run straight to the end of the mission then back in ~3 mins, which may not be obvious to some. --DefinitelyNotHanz (talk) 07:00, 26 April 2019 (UTC)
 * I don’t see the harm in consolidating the info and presenting it in an easy to digest way. On the other hand, a quick visit to the wiki’s proof of legend page promptly linked me to recommended missions (including gnw), where I am reminded in each mission page’s note section just how easy it is to run/rush/cheese the thing. Given that, it might not be worth your time to write a guide, all the info is (probably) already there. Maybe improve upon the existing mission pages if you think they’re not clear in steering players toward easy completion? Juniper real (talk) 11:53, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

Nifling
I'm trying to come up with a build that can farm Nifling consistently, solo and within 5 minutes (leaving from Central Transfer Chamber). It's rather hard and I haven't found a viable way yet other than bringing and entire group of heroes to kill the surrounding mobs (which is a method I'd like to avoid). If anyone feels like experimenting, input would be appreciated.

The first goal would be to solo the boss in normal, and only the boss. The better one would be to farm the boss and surrounding mobs. The dream scenario would be to farm the entire group in HM. The boss can be pulled away from the group, my current strategy is to aggro the ball, drag it away, lose aggro, and then go back around for the boss. I've only got this far, couldn't actually manage to land a kill yet because I didn't have the damage for it. Was using an A/E boss farm build with a few modifications but I'm thinking about going A/Mo with some weird 55 dagger build. I think there's potential in this place for farming. --DefinitelyNotHanz (talk) 18:45, 9 July 2019 (UTC)
 * I tried some stuff as a 105hp mesmer with bonder, but it didn't work out. I couldn't come up with anything useful. --Krschkr (talk) 10:43, 30 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Maybe something along the lines of a VoS derv that does a mega aoe hit and oneshots the group with a hero that has EoE. --DefinitelyNotHanz (talk) 18:12, 30 October 2019 (UTC)