PvXwiki talk:Project 7 Hero Meta/WIP Build Page

Wow that's a bit creepy :D Last week I came up with a nearly identical teambuild. I like the way you created the article, with a bit of work this article will be bonkers! 3 things: &mdash;The preceding unsigned comment was added by User-100154772 (talk &bull; contribs) 12:28, 19 May 2019‎.
 * 1.) Most of the time 3 times Drain Enchantment is too much and a dead skill, because of no enchantments and because of the "long" casting time. If you have a hero with a bad energy management, change it with Waste Not, Want Not, Leech Signet or Hex Eater Signet (in ranged only teams). If your hero doesn't need any additional skill for energymanagement (I think that's the case here because of BiP) I can highly recommend Signet of Synergy for additional (self+)heal.
 * 2.) Same goes for Spiritual Pain. It's a solid skill, but you don't need it 3 times... exchange them with skills like Overload, Empathy, Chaos Storm, Mind Wrack or Wastrel's Demise for more damage.
 * 3.) To support melee types even more I would give your BiP-hero Order of Pain and I'd give your heros Shield and Spear to trigger it.
 * If we manage to get PvXwiki:Project Standardized Testing rolling we're going to be able to compare results with different variants to figure out which of them is most recommendable. That may save us some discussions about the builds in the long run. At a first glance the signet healing seems like an odd idea to me. Changing some skills for others to improve the performance against certain enemies is a great thing and if possible the build page will cover some suggestions for customization. But we should avoid large variants like 3) which require large equipment changes throughout the entire team as they're just going to be confusing for readers. --Krschkr (talk) 22:41, 19 May 2019 (UTC)

Mercenary Variants
For the mercenary variants, I feel a fourth Mesmer should be included. Following this template, defensive would be panic + ESurge + 2 inept, balanced would be panic + 2 ESurge + inept, offensive would be 4 ESurge or 3 ESurge + inept. Command would be put on the inept. Both would still have ST + BiP. Caster would drop mm command for an mm resto or an SoS resto or some other backline. Melee backline would include an SoS resto like this: Xanshiz (talk) 19:18, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

Non Mercenary Melee Variant
For the non-mercenary melee variant, I feel the inclusion of a third mesmer is more important than a high channeling splinter weapon. Sure, 16 channeling is significantly stronger than a 10 or 12 channeling splinter, but you are still dropping an entire mesmer for one skill to have 4-6 more attribute points. There are a few different solutions: put splinter on the ST or run a Mo/Rt instead of the Rt/Mo, among others. Xanshiz (talk) 19:25, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

Non Mercenary Caster Variant
Why is it running an SoS? It should be dropped for another backline resto. Xanshiz (talk) 19:27, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

Weird mesmer skill choices
Signet of Synergy? Wastrel's Demise? Overload? Empathy? None of these are on the original pages and aren't very good. Also clumsiness should be dropped, it is expensive and prioritized by the AI. I propose sticking to bars like this:

Xanshiz (talk) 19:41, 11 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Right now this page is basically a sandbox to experiment with ways of presentation. The builds are just placeholders; as the project page states it's intended that they're mainly based on results we get from the associated project, PvXwiki:Project Standardized Testing. (This is nonetheless the right place to already start discussing the builds!) From my experience I'd already mostly agree with the mesmer bars you suggest – except, as noted elsewhere, with the Me/P. But who knows, maybe doing further tests with it will eventually convince me otherwise. If we manage to get the testing project started with a solid testing crew that'll most likely determine builds in disputed cases, such as the Me/P, domination/illusion magic hybrids, splinter weapon relevance and the likes. --Krschkr (talk) 22:23, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

Defensive versus Balanced versus Offensive
Right now, the structure is as follows: However, it is not immediately clear to me why these specific arrangements of Panic, Esurge, and Inept were chosen. For instance, why leave out 2x Esurge + Inept? It would obviously be completely impractical and non useful to include all different permutations, but I would propose structuring it as follows: My reasoning is because I found diminished returns using multiple ineptitude Mesmers compared to domination mesmers. Hexes obviously don't stack, and since ineptitude is AoE, it could be wasted if an adjacent target is already hexed (taking into account that heroes don't cast hexes when the primary foe is already affected). Furthermore, refreshing blind on a previously hexed target is certainly diminished effectiveness. My experience with illusion mesmers has been "bring one for a source of AoE blind, but no more due to redundancy, since dom mesmers are more powerful." --Xanshiz (talk) 01:55, 25 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Defensive = Panic + 2x Inept
 * Balanced = Panic + Esurge + Inept
 * Offensive = 3x Esurge
 * Defensive = Panic + Esurge + Inept
 * Balanced = 2x Esurge + Inept
 * Offensive = 3x Esurge
 * The thing is, neither ineptitude nor wandering eye stay on targets. They trigger these hexes, then they're gone and targets can be hexed again for damage dealing purposes. But since you're often switching targets frequently, dual ineptitude will regularly help to spread arcane conundrum, ineptitude (and thus blind) and possibly frustration on multiple targets. While it is true that one ineptitude suffices to maintain blind on a set of foes, it is also true that a) heroes don't use ineptitude optimally, often targetting not the correct foes but those you're currently attacking, so for improved defense you often require a second one to actually shut down dangerous melees, and b) not all physicals stand in one spot, making additional sources of blind desirable in general. My personal experience of playing defensive mesmer setups is that dual ineptitude with panic does a significantly better job at providing defense and a good performance (which is the purpose of the variant, after all,) than panic, energy surge and ineptitude. That combo provides a bit of everything, damage focused character and two general defensive characters with some anti caster and some anti physical skills. That is what I consider a balanced. True, the defensive side of balanced, with dual energy surge with ineptitude on the offensive side of balanced – the current content of this project subpage matters not, it is just an experimentation page for presentation. The current representative of the balanced mesmerway variant in PvX is dual energy surge with ineptitude and the suggestion of panic for additional defense is present (but not very visible) in the annotations. Proceeding with this project wouldn't suddenly change that.
 * So, judging from my experience, I'd keep the core of a defensive midline panic + dual ineptitude. --Krschkr (talk) 00:13, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

Navbox
My personal preference is to use a structure such as the navbox in order to preserve the original pages. However, before moving forward with your proposed naming scheme, a lot of page expansion needs to be done: I think these points should be developed before transferring to a new naming scheme. In fact, I'd prefer to stay away from renaming pages, as their names are well known within the community. My hope is that the navbox would take care of the "which pages are for mercenaries, which pages are aggressive, etc." and thus renaming the pages themselves wouldn't be necessary. --Xanshiz (talk) 20:56, 28 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Paneptitude needs a caster variant (with and w/o mercenaries)
 * Paneptitude needs a non-mercenary melee variant
 * Triple energy surge needs a non-mercenary melee variant
 * "New" BiP Melee support but with the triple energy surge midline instead of 2x Esurge + Inept?
 * Alternatively, you have shown success with your dual mesmer discord setups, but I don't think those have seen much testing from others.
 * Need to settle on appropriate "balanced" versions
 * Legioway requires Zei Ri/mercenaries and has the strange legionnaire requirement, so I don't think it should be linked
 * Could use the "new" BiP Support pages
 * Currently features 2x Esurge + Inept, but you have shown a preference towards Panic + ESsurge + Inept. I personally prefer the former.
 * Caster variant is still in flux, since the SoS makes less sense there.
 * I agree that pages can be updated before the project is implemented. Small note on renaming: I'm all for renaming because all the builds are exactly the same with tiny variants. The fact that the community USED TO have different names for the builds when they were actually different from each other is not a good reason for keeping them as such now that they have all evolved to the exact same thing. Just my 2 cents. Sacropedia (talk) 21:23, 28 October 2019 (UTC)