User talk:Tmak/Now I know why there are so many bad builds on PvXWiki/Archive 1

Since this build served me well all the way up to Savior I decided to share --Tmak 09:27, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Also, because the build is somewhat unconventional, it might be mistaken for a random (and inefficient) build if the reader hasn't explored all the tactical possibilities that playing an ele in AB provides. Other than mentioning my extensive guide to AB whose guiding principles are in accordance with the build as given I don't know how to demonstrate that I actually know what I'm talking about --Tmak 12:36, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

The build has been in trial for a week without gathering any interest, so I decided to bump it up to testing. It was polished to its current form by myself while working my way up to r12 Allegiance, so it has gone through a lot of testing already, and there has been some success at promoting it on Guru to those who are bored with straight nuking builds for AB --Tmak 12:13, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
 * This build is totaly crap. Meteor > Slippery ground, GoI < Immolate. This lacks damage to even cap shrines in AB so whats the point in running it? Mindblast is used to fuel high energy spells so energy stays up. This has no use for Mind Blast at all since your only using 15e spells with a 30s cool off and random 5e spells. Learn AB? LoL Timmy963 02:01, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Meteor is 2 sec cast time (thus interrupt bait in fighting 4 vs 4) and KD every 30 seconds unless, of course dodged (as I do by reflex just to make a point). Slippery Ground is KD every 10 seconds and it cannot be dodged. I would love to see you try to interrupt the Mending Touch of the ranger that you just blinded with a Meteor. Also, I used to carry Immolate but it is strictly inferior to GoI because when you get telespiked by a sin you do not have time to use the Immolate + Steam combo. However, when you preload GoI you can Steam right off the bat and it works like a charm. As mentioned on the page, the build can solo cap all other shrines except double monk ones but that is not the point of the build - solo capping eles are just bad tactics. It's you who should learn a thing or two, and reading my guide to AB (link given above) would be a good starting point. --Tmak 04:59, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Timmy, GoI/Steam is ele staple. The problem is that it reqs a fully-specced water bar to be useful. --Shazzy diddles 02:53, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
 * 7 seconds of blind from a 8 second recharge skill is completely useful, especially with a 40/40 water set. --Tmak 04:59, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Mind blast --> Immolate --> Steam. All mindblast bars bring immolate because it's big spammable damage with a decent cast time.152.226.7.204 04:22, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
 * This build is not about big damage, it's about utility. Come back when you know the difference. --Tmak 04:59, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
 * You play fire eles for big damage, not utility. Come back when you know the difference between fire, water, earth and air eles.152.226.7.204 05:04, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Please read this guide and stop vandalizing my page. --Tmak 05:33, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Do not remove this tag from builds you authored unless a consensus has been reached on the talk page. <- Plus this is pvx, not GWGuru. Understand that different sites have different policies.152.226.7.204 05:37, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
 * You are not the one dictating what the consensus is. --193.166.223.5 05:40, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Also, that guide is written by you, and you are posting a bad build. I guess that kind of shows what kind of quality that guide is.152.226.7.204 05:41, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
 * If you call the build bad then you are simply ignorant, and it kind of shows. --Tmak 05:45, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
 * You do not need consensus to put up a Well tag; however you need consensus to remove the Well tag. I suggest you read through PvX policies and how things are run here.152.226.7.204 05:41, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
 * You should check the policy yourself, you are supposed to give a link to a build that does the same thing better than the proposed build. Because you are only stating your subjective (and ill-informed) opinion, it is on the level of vandalism. --Tmak 06:56, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Oh, so you need me to explicitly state why the build is bad. Very well.
 * You need Mind Blast to manage energy on a bar with 3 ~10 energy skills with long recharges.
 * or
 * does a better job of killing NPCs and players alike and actually utilizes each skill on the bar to the fullest extent. You just wasted your elite because your bar is nowhere near intensive.
 * 152.226.7.204 05:52, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
 * does a better job of killing NPCs and players alike and actually utilizes each skill on the bar to the fullest extent. You just wasted your elite because your bar is nowhere near intensive.
 * 152.226.7.204 05:52, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

(re-align) Ok, fair enough, let's see. The first build that you give is energy deficient and thus simply bad. The second build is one of the listed variants of my build (but missing KD) but as explained above, GoI > Immolate. --Tmak 06:04, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
 * You run glyph on the first bar, and the second bar is basically a better version of your build because it actually utilizes your excess energy to deal more damage and retain utility. Immolate does much more damage even over short amounts of time. I suggest you to actually do your calculations right. 152.226.7.204 06:07, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Oh by the way, I am actually good enough to handle playing the first bar. It's called energy management. Unfortunately a "Savior of the -Insert allegation here-" doesn't grasp the concept of something even idiots understand when they run out of energy when first playing the game.152.226.7.204 06:14, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
 * If you put glyph on the optional slot you lose KD. Then it's still not good enough since you must hit somebody with SF before being able to blind him. Concerning Immolate, as I explained (can you read?) I used to carry it in this build but switched to GoI because all too often there is no time to use the combination when a blind is needed. It is not about damage and your Immolate + Steam is of little use if you got Dshotted or KDlocked before being able to pull it off. And good enough give me a break. SF bars are for newbies just because they require zero skill to play. --Tmak 06:20, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
 * A bar that doesn't require skill to play does not mean that it is not effective. Most of the effective builds in the current meta(not even decided by PvX) are built upon spamming and pounding buttons like this: Prot strike, power attack, Prot strike, power attack, Prot strike, power attack. Anet rewards mashing buttons, true story.
 * 99% of players in Ab can't interrupt 5 second casts like meteor shower.
 * Immolate/SF benefits from 40/40 sets that every caster should have. Cancel casting versus an opponent you know is actually decent(as stated above, unlikely to be found in AB) helps.
 * So what if you have to use SF before you can use steam? You have something called a spell range, simply cast SF the moment you get in range then follow up with steam.
 * If you encounter a person who is good enough to interrupt your SF, he can easily interrupt glyph of immo anyway, so that invalidates your argument.
 * So what if you don't have a KD? Bring a snare on a ranger or an assassin(who will probably bring kds too), and that easily solves your problem. Don't gimp your bar because you have other members of your party who will cover your weaknesses. If you are meant to deal damage, deal damage. If you are meant to harass your opponents, harass your opponents. If you try to do everything with 8 skills, you only do a little of each and lose effectiveness and perspective.152.226.7.204 06:37, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Sigh. It is quite clear that you know nothing of advanced gameplay. When you have to use SF before Steam then your Steam comes about 2 seconds too late! Same with Immolate. The whole idea of GoI is that you can preload it safely outside interrupt range. And non-elite, ranged, 5/1/10 KD without exhaustion, that's just wicked good for a multitude of things. If you have to resort to the "AB players are bad so my misconceptions about build making don't count" argument then you could as well give up. --Tmak 06:52, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Excuse me? You can't even come up with a logical argument to counter my points, talk about "advanced gameplay". When you use Glyph of Immolation you still need 1.75 seconds to cast it, and that adds up to about being 2 seconds late on steam. If you use SF exactly on the boundaries on your range, rangers can't get dshot in. That's the same for immolate. If you resort to theorycrafting without factoring in reality, your builds will only be worse off than others. By the way, your "5/1/10 KD without exhaustion" takes approximately 5 seconds to set up. 5 seconds to get off a knockdown when you can simply bring gale(you are an ele, you can take exhaustion 1-2 times easily and still have enough energy to trigger mind blast). You can't spam either knockdown due to the recharge of SG and the exhaustion of gale, which adds up to roughly the same thing. Before you spout rubbish, at least understand why your builds are inferior to other options. Just because you wrote some terrible guide about a low-level PvP often considered PvE by GOOD players aka players who play GvG frequently in the top 10 range doesn't make you the guru of ABs. 152.226.7.204 07:03, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Ok, now we are down to "AB is just PvE" because it's you who's running out of arguments. Before a fight, I cast GoI. While fighting, I recast it as necessary when it's safe. When a blind is needed, I simply cast Steam which takes about 0.8 seconds in average since I've switched to the 40/40 water set. And long/flatbow range > casting range, RtW takes care of the rest. With a telespike sin you may get the first SF off but then you're eating dirt. How hard it is to understand that GoI + Steam > Immolate + Steam? Also, it would be possible to spec in Air Magic instead and bring Immolate, BFlash and Gale instead of GoI, Steam and Slippery. However, without Air Attunement that would be too energy deficient even for MB. Also, Gale causes exhaustion which restricts its use to once in 30 seconds in average. --Tmak 07:20, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Either way, I do not have the time to prove to bad players why their bad builds are bad. If you can find some bad players like you to prove that this shit is good, by all means, I rest my case. Why, you can even petition to guru and whine until some like-minded terrible scrubs decide to pity you and the sad failure of a build.152.226.7.204 07:09, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the concession that you really exhausted your mental capabilities without providing anything of value. --Tmak 07:20, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Meteor is better than Slippery because you need to setup Slippery. If you're aiming just to KD frontliners to give your backline breathing room (that's the hamwar/mel's job anyway), Slippery is mediocre (okay at best). Meteor can be timed to KD monks/target on spikes whereas slippery is way to obvious. Exhaustion is almost nelgiable in AB because you'll be running around most of the time and the only time you're going to fight is when you meet an enemy team capping the same alter. If you want both blind and KD, run gale+bflash, MB can fuel both.

07:42, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Meteor is 2 second cast and 30 recharge. Gale causes exhaustion which, as I just pointed above, mandates in average once per 30 seconds use as well. "The only time you're going to fight is when you meet an enemy team capping the same alter" shows that you have still a lot to learn about AB. Again, my guide provides a lot of useful information. The beauty of slippery is that the setup is essentially free. When you Steam a ranger or sin and follow up with slippery you'll catch his condition removal (if he had one and was smart enough to try it). When you steam a monk who's kiting your frontliner the monk can either keep running and get KD'd by slippery and trashed by the frontliner, stop to remove the condition and get trashed by the frontliner, or finally stop to use Guardian which gets interrupted by slippery, then trashed by the frontliner. Notice a certain tendency? --Tmak 08:02, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Don't bother. He is convinced that he is the top player in AB because he got his savior title and wrote some third-rate guide about PvE-extended edition(which nobody cares, because AB is just about as hard as presearing).152.226.7.204 07:43, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Considering your take on AB what are you still doing trolling here? --Tmak 08:02, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
 * ...if you're fighing other foes at non-caps, then you're just wasting time. Run past them and continue capping. If they follow, then it's one less enemy team capping which means you just got an advantage. It's true you can just steam->slippery the monk, but it takes approx. 3 seconds assuming you have MoI setup before hand. The moment a good monk sees someone running at them, they'll either guardian or stance up. [[Image:Zyke-Sig.png]] 08:11, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
 * "then you're just wasting time" ... indeed, but reflect on this crucial question ... is the wasted time yours or theirs? You should really read my guide. It has among many other things quantitative analysis on the relative merits of capping versus fighting in different situations. The conclusion is that pure capping is a weak strategy that can always be beaten. --Tmak 08:23, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
 * wasted time is yours because you could be capping, but instead you're wasting time killing/dying/stalemating. [[Image:Zyke-Sig.png]] 08:29, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Bzzzt! Wrong answer. People who think like that make my day when I want to be on the winning side --Tmak 08:40, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Summary so far
If admins are too tired to read through the entire discussion I would like to point out that the Well tag was slapped on the build by 152.226.7.204 without providing any PvX build which would do the same thing better (Zyke's build above is comparable but still inferior for extended fighting). Furthermore, 152.226.7.204 discredits himself by statements like "PvE-extended edition which nobody cares, because AB is just about as hard as presearing" which makes me conclude that the Well tag was applied in bad faith and should be removed. --Tmak 08:40, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Or, you can let it get rated to trash, which mostly everyone will do. ~ Big  [[Image:Big sadface sig.PNG]]  sysop  09:03, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
 * How exactly did I discredit myself? In all my points so far you have not come up with a reason to run mind blast, glyph of immolation and slippery ground. I have told you that you are wasting your elite running spells with such long recharges(you don't need energy management outside of attunements with 5 energy spells and spells with long recharges), and I have told you immolate is better as an on demand damage + condition filler for steam. Slippery ground is bad because it requires 5 seconds to set up where you can just bring gale and knock people down in 1 second. Nothing of what that I have stated discredit my comment. I did not say I didn't ab; ask around because I ab very often because it's easy and relaxing. We run builds that actually work and easily hold our own 4 versus 8 because we don't run builds that don't work like this. Also, it's more or less consensus that this build is sub-par and not optimal. The well tag stays.152.226.7.204 09:56, 22 April 2009 (UTC)


 * What puzzles me is that there is a somewhat similar build Archive:E/Mo Mind Blast Split Ele rated Great and while it's not a bad build the one I'm proposing is simply better for AB (because it is specifically optimized for it). But I can understand that if most of the people here think that AB is all about capping then the prospects don't look too good. --Tmak 09:14, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Despite how seriously you've taken AB and how much time you've spent there, you're pretty shit at it. Congratulations. - [[Image:Panic_sig7.gif‎]] 09:48, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the ad hominem. I happen to be a former alpha tester of this game (stopped because of poor working hours, all hands events always at 4 a.m. local time, ugh) and a senior officer in one of the first GotW's with around 6000 hours clocked on the live server alone. Now who are you? --Tmak 10:25, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Oh pardon me your Majesty. I didn't know you were an alpha tester and spent over 6000 hours of your life playing Guild Wars. I really think your less of a shitter now. - [[Image:Panic_sig7.gif‎]] 10:35, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

This build's shit. Amorality 09:27, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Do you happen to realize that you have copied my AB Guide which goes hand in hand with this build from guru to here on PvXwiki (User:Amorality/AB_Guide) without giving proper credits? --Tmak 09:42, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Have a look at the talk page. I didn't say it was mine. If you want to flex your e-peen feel free to say it's your on there. Regardless, this build is still shit. Amorality 09:47, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
 * When you copy stuff on the nets it's considered prudent to provide a link to the source, especially when you copy things like entire articles. You know, the whole idea of hyperlinking was invented so that you don't have to copy the original ... --Tmak 10:25, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Isn't really shit, just better options. It could work vs the resolve monks in JQ. ~ Big  [[Image:Big sadface sig.PNG]]  sysop  09:51, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Considering the current state of the game, if you are not playing a RoJ monk in JQ then you deliberately brought a subpar character ... --Tmak 10:25, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Also the eles in my build here are better suited to AB. ~ Big  [[Image:Big sadface sig.PNG]]  sysop  09:52, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
 * You can't compare a standalone character build with full team builds, they are just on different levels of optimization. --Tmak 10:25, 22 April 2009 (UTC)