User:Scottie theNerd/Use of Professions

It's a fact of life: Someone wants to be someone else. This mentality applies to Guild Wars as much as it does to anything else. The problem it brings to the game is a huge assortment of builds that attempt to achieve something that their professions weren't designed to do. The missing logic is that GW is not inherently perfect -- not every professional combination produces viable builds, nor does every combination have a practical use. This article looks into the some of the attitudes and trends prevalent in Guild Wars, and why they don't work.

Case One: Assassin
The word "assassin" comes from hashashin, a sect in the Middle Ages known to eliminate key figures using what we today call assassination. It's also well-known because of Assassin's Creed, but that's beside the point. Assassins in GW aren't Middle-Eastern secret agents. They're ninjas, and therein lies the problem: Everyone wants to be a ****ing ninja.

This is the scenario that pisses you off the most. You jump into RA for a quick bash-around, and you're dying to get a monk on your team. After getting utterly destroyed for 10 games, you see a Mo/A in your party menu, and he's got a pretty gosu-sounding name to boot. You're thinking that he's actually packing a spell that isn't Healing Breeze, knows how to weapon-switch and can use Return and Dark Escape. You examine his character model more closely to see which elite armour he has. That's when you see it.

He's holding daggers.

And this is what you get:

[build prof=monk/assassin][word of healing][dark prison][unsuspecting strike][repeating strike][horns of the ox][stonesoul strike][impale][resurrect][/build]

You ask him what his problem is, and he'll call you a noob and brag about his 25 Gladiator points, and how his guild owns HoH, and that he'll kill you if you were on the other team. He'll shadowstep in, get flattened in less than three seconds by a real Assassin, and he'll blame it on you and raqe-quit. Match is over, but you feel like one more, so you get into another team, and what do you know:

[build prof=ritualist/assassin][Golden Phoenix Strike][Horns of the Ox][Falling Spider][Blades of Steel][Spirit's Strength][Sight Beyond Sight][Vital Weapon][Resurrection Signet][/build]

[build prof=ranger/assassin][dark prison][golden phoenix strike][trampling ox][falling spider][twisting fangs][way of perfection][tiger's fury][resurrection signet][/build]

[build prof=ele/assassin][ride the lightning][golden phoenix strike][horns of the ox][falling lotus strike][twisting fangs][flame djinn's haste][fire attunement][resurrection signet][/build]

Sometimes, these builds actually work, and that's fine. RA is Random after all; you don't need the optimum build to kill an opponent or win match. However, the people who use these builds are convinced that they are actually good (both in build and in skill), that they're not "wiki noobs", and they can heal and spike as well as an Assassin. Obviously, they can't.

Why it doesn't work
Assassins are great for PvP, especially in RA and TA, because they have unmatched single-target incapacitation capability. In plain English, it kills stuff very quickly. The profession achieves this by high investment in Critical Strikes, which has good skills and serves as effective energy management. Assassins occasionally bring a block skill, but generally their 70AL isn't too bad as long as they don't stay in frontline combat, which many Assassins unfortunately do. As for the rest:
 * Monk: What's the point? You're a 60AL target jumping right into the fray. The fact that you're a monk means you're going to be the first target. Divine Favor is useless since you don't heal. The only benefit is a bit of extra damage from Holy Strike. Sure, there are some skill combinations that make the Monk pretty resilient, but you're still not achieving anything an Assassin can't already do better.
 * Ranger: The logic here is to bring block stances, IAS and Expertise to reduce skill cost. Assassins do far better with Critical Strikes. Rangers run out of energy slower, but struggle to regain it in time to sync with another spike chain. R/A can work, but not against a decent target. It takes quite a bit of luck to get it to function consistently, and that's why it's a bad build.
 * Ritualist: Sure, you've got Spirit's Strength. You do uber damage! News flash: you're still a 60AL priority target. You can kill, but you're a glass cannon. The moment someone targets you, there's nothing you can do. You can't run, you can't block, you can't heal. Yet you're bragging about being the only person on the team who can kill. This is just in: Assassins can already do that, and better.
 * Elementalist: 60AL, front line, shoddy recharges. Yes, you might be able to get high damage output, but if you succeed in actually killing someone, it's more of a failure of the enemy team than your own success. You still drop like a town of bricks once you're targeted.

Lesson
In many cases in Random Arena, any combination with a secondary Assassin can work. Try the same in Team Arena, and the moment you come up against a guild, it's going to embarrassing to watch yourself get ripped apart. As stated above: you're a glass cannon. You can kill now and then, but you lack the strengths of an Assassin primary. Assassins hit harder, faster, and more often. If you're going to give up Critical Strikes, it better not be for a bit more damage on one skill, because you're losing more than you're gaining. Don't kid yourself with your uber-killing power. Assassin primaries own you.