User:Malokai92/Guide Index/test

Introduction
This is not an essay on the issues with people testing or not testing a build before rating. It's about how you actually go out and test a build. We aren't really concerned with testing established builds since other people have done that testing for us. What we do care about are new builds and ideas. It's when we need to vet builds we aren't familiar with in some way. The ultimate question becomes "How do I evaluate the effectiveness of a build when I have no idea how effective it is?"

Foreword
One event that especially aggravated me was when a player in the alliance wanted a "decent" x/x build to use. I asked him if he checked the wiki first. He said none of the builds worked for him and didn't like them. Well if you're telling me you cannot find a single build on the wiki that works well in PvE, it either means we're complete idiots or you don't understand how to use the build. Most of the time, players will try a wiki build that they don't understand and are uncomfortable using. They try the build once, generalize their opinon on the build, and dismiss it if they don't like it. I see this all the time with Rangers insisting to use Barrage, Incendiary Arrows, or other bow attacks when you get more damage out of a scythe or daggers. Another example is the RoJ Monk since it's easy to interrupt and you have no redbarring power. There are some builds that are so easy and intuitive to use that players will typically find it effective. This includes the Contagion Bomber for Jade Quarry and Avatar of Grenth Dervish; after all what's so hard about 123 and swish swish death? The key is to be objective when you discuss the effectiveness of builds. Don't force builds onto other people just because you like using them without any observations to back up your opinion.

Comparison
First and foremost for testing a build is comparing it to other builds. The conditions for comparing builds must be the same. A list of conditions would be more useful to describe this than with sentences. These are by far arbitrary as some builds do not need to fill certain conditions. PvP and PvE have different conditions to fill due to fundamental differences.
 * PvP
 * 1) The build must be in the same category. PvXwiki already categorizes it's builds by format. A build designed for Random Arenas may not perform the same in Alliance Battles or Hero's Ascent.
 * 2) The build must be in the same profession. Only compare a build from one profession to another if and only if you can choose only one build. This is applicable to Jade Quarry, Fort Aspenwood, and to a lesser extent, Random Arenas. For example in Jade Quarry, you must choose which tasks you wish to fulfill and weigh that against not fulfilling other tasks as effectively.
 * 3) The build must be have the same function. Healers heal, support characters support, and melee whack stuff. Keep these builds separate. This precludes the above condition when you can only fulfill certain functions.
 * 4) The build must be compared based on it's strengths and weaknesses. This is the opportunity cost of using one build over another. This can be more damage, flexibility, utility, or unique functions.


 * PvE
 * 1) The build must be in the same category. PvXwiki already categorizes it's builds by format. This is simple since we have a broad general PvE category and categories for more specific uses (farming, running, etc.)
 * 2) The build must be compared based on it's strengths and weaknesses. This is the opportunity cost of using one build over another. This can be more spiking power, defense, utility, or unique functions.
 * 3) The build must be in the same profession. Only compare a individual build from one profession to another if and only if you can choose only one build. This doesn't apply to team builds. An addendum is a build utilizing a specific game mechanic rather than a build concept. Even if it's tempting to compare dagger spam or scythe abuse on one profession to another, it's more reliable to compare a build on it's strength's and weaknesses within the same profession.
 * 4) The build must be compared under the same circumstances. Use of an Essence of Celerity, personal cons, alcohol, or abusing certain game mechanics will bias testing. This includes using a Shadow Form sin to tank or Emo to tank and heal since these provide unique advantages. Even Drunken Master can provide a substantial difference in the effectiveness of a build. It's preferred that if you have a choice between using consumables or not, you do not use them.
 * 5) The build must be designed for the same area[s]. If you provide a general heroway, you are comparing that to all other heroway builds. These areas are vanquishing, elite areas, dungeons, missions, and other PvE content.

Field Testing
This is actually going out and testing the build. Be scientific. Test the build under different circumstances and situations. How does it react against melee, healers, being shutdown, tactical advantages, or efficiency?

PvP
For PvP, this means using the build a few times and get a feel for it. Compare how it fairs against other wiki builds. This site has only the cookie cutter and gimmick crap you could ask for after all. Random Arena is perplexing in that it's both the best and worse place to try out builds due to it's random nature. RA will emphasize both the pros and cons of using a build, but you get biased results since not all the conditions for comparison can be sufficiently fulfilled. The best example would be a large amount of melee hate in the form of Blinding Flash, Empathy, etc. that is pervasive in RA. I can't elaborate on higher-level formats sadly, so testing in PvP is based mostly on builds for low-end PvP.

PvE
For PvE, I find the best method is to try out different builds in different areas. Many high-end areas emphasize certain functions. Choose 1-3 areas that accentuate the build's advantages and flaws and compare that to using other builds. This can be time-consuming, so it's up to you how much effort you're willing to put in.

A decent way to test out a player build is to run it through some EotN dungeons. Dungeons vary widely on difficulty and will give you a good idea how the build scales to how difficult the area is. If a build has optional slots, change them up a couple times to see how the build functions. Try to keep the core concept of the build intact. If you encounter flaws, fix or discuss changes the wiki article. This makes it more likely other people will find the build effective. Give a build every chance you can to make it work. An inferior build will make itself evident if nothing can be done to improve it. This may seem like an effort, but really it's just making a few changes on how you think the build should work and see if others agree.
 * Players

Testing out hero builds is a double-edged sword. The most reliable way to test out a hero build is in a heroway. Using it with other players and heroes won't give you a feel for how well the hero build works. Keep in mind heroes need to fulfill the similar conditions as players. The major condition is the opportunity cost of slotting one hero build over another and how well it achieves it's task. For evaluating hero builds, all that's required is to monitor. The effectiveness of hero builds have two components. The first component is how effective the build is and the second is how effective the hero uses it. To gauge the effectiveness of the build, put yourself in appropriate situations. If you're using an Invoke Lightning hero or Feast of Corruption necro, watch how much of the bar they take off when they use skills. For healers, watch how they react to extended battles, AoE damage, and redbarring power.
 * Heroes

A recurrent issue with heroway builds is when you're comparing the opportunity cost of one build against another when the build you're comparing to isn't available. This situation is usually Mesmer/Ritualist vs. any other hero build. When you are already using both Ritualists and Mesmer heroes, you can't compare the opportunity cost of the current hero against using another Mesmer or Ritualist. We can't use mercenary heroes since this goes against the condition of same circumstances. This is elaborated on in the PvE example.

Fissure of Woe gives emphasis on offense and spiking since enemies ball easily, bringing "Fall Back!", Necrotic Traversal, and other skills to save time or more defense. Domain of Anguish emphasizes much more defense, ability to take out key foes quickly, and battling against overwhelming odds. In the current state of the game, setups are leaning towards bringing more damage and spiking power with sufficient defense. General heroway builds should be able to pump decent spikes, damage for taking out individual foes, defense against melee and casters, and countering AoE spikes and pressure. Spike builds are generally evaluated on how clean the spike is without being a glass cannon setup.
 * Heroway

Theorycrafting
"lol dont ask us to try out shit build. ^^ --Anonimous."

Theorycrafting is the result of doing field testing; known as experience. We generally know how most builds work since they are all derivations of certain aspects of the game. In simpler terms, a Warrior using an Axe build will be quite similar to a different Axe build. These sweeping generalizations are quite accurate since you can only deviate so far from kill/heal/support with a build. However, you won't truly know how effective a build is until you go out and try it. Theorycrafting is sufficient for vetting in most cases, it makes the vetting process possible with a small userbase. It's a necessary evil so to speak. This is elaborated more on this page.

Reasoning
Reasoning is extremely difficult. Words are filled with unspoken premises and assumed precedences. What one person says in a few words or a sentence can mean the same as another person writing a paragraph. So when it comes to providing reasoning for your voting, try not to be lazy. If you are serious about your vote, provide reasoning to reflect such. People read over votes more than you think and it's an excellent way to to gain perspective on how other people evaluate a build. Write as much as needed to support your rating. With builds that are already established and speak for themselves, not many words are needed. For new and controversial builds, you will need a few sentences to justify your reasoning. Remember that your reasoning is never wrong, even if it's incorrect, you are still providing your view of the build and this leads to the consensus. We throw out incorrect ratings to avoid biasing the consensus on the effectiveness on the build. It's more likely your vote is thrown out because of insufficient reasoning than erroneous reasoning.

Examples
I do extensive testing and observation of builds that look viable and I'm unsure about. Rarely do builds function correctly when they haven't been tested sufficiently. It's fun to test an unfamiliar build and run it through its paces.

PvP
Testing the :
 * 1) This is designed specifically for Fort Aspenwood and compared to other Fort Aspenwood builds.
 * 2) We don't require that same profession for comparison for this area.
 * 3) This is a caster/support build so we will only compare other wiki caster builds. It has a similar function to other nukers, with the ability to nuke gates and Gunther.
 * 4) We will compare it's strengths and weaknesses against other nuking builds in Fort Aspenwood.

The two meta builds for Luxon side of Fort Aspenwood are Fire Elementalist Nukers (Build:E/P PvP Searing Flames, Build:E/any PvP Savannah Heat, Build:E/P PvP Unsteady Ground, etc.) and Mesmers (Build:Me/any FA Psychic Instability Wastrel's, Archive:Me/Mo FA IoP Ray of Judgment). I don't put much clout in Elementalist nukers. Their damage can easily be negating with prots and interruption but have the advantage of overwhelming damage to solo gates and Gunther. With this build, we're favoring going all out on killing Gunther.

The first thing we compare is ability to take down gates. Thanks to Spiteful Spirit, we can take down Elementalists gates within one turtle cast. I favor bring Desecrate Enchantments because it deals nice AoE damage against Sliver Armor to push kills as soon as the turtle hits. An immediate advantage you notice with this build is the ability to remove prot stacks with Rend Enchantments, making it easy to overpower healers when timed with Siege Attack and pushed over with Spiteful Spirit and Desecrate Enchantments. There are a few other ways to go about this thanks to optionals. Spiteful Spirit and Insidious Parasite allow you to take out melee NPCs as efficiently as a Domination Mesmer and more so than fire Nukers. The normally hardy Kurzick Ranger proves easy fodder. Parasitic Bond spam proves more than enough healing when you're guaranteed NPC kills. The second gate fairs similarly to the first gate. A disadvantage the becomes painfully obvious is that Spiteful Spirit is painfully slow and easy to heal against even when covered. Nukers and Dom Mesmers are much better at taking out shrines by themselves without support of the turtle. You have the ability to support the turtle for this purpose with Foul Feast+Plague Sending and Restful Breeze/Healing Breeze. This bars anti-interruption or healer shutdown later on shows the flexibility of the build. The build is also sluggish at capturing amber shrines because Spiteful Spirit works slow against spirit spamming. Eles and Mesmers have no problems here.

At Green Gate, you again have an advantage taking out Kurzick Rangers but won't be able to kill the other NPCs or Green Gate quickly. Killing NPCs quickly here is vital since the healers are sitting in this area. At this point, the Dom Mesmer has a major advantage over this and Fire Nukers; Wastrel's Spam. just as in Jade Quarry, the Juggernaut goes down in seconds. For this build you're only option is maintaining Spiteful Spirit and Insidious Parasite using Parasitic Bond for cover. this means pulling him away and then letting him slowly beat away at you or someone else. This is time consuming and serves primarily to help push Juggernaut kill. The Green Gate is also a problem because of the Mesmers without anti-interruption but casting SS on the Elementalist from left side will allow you to take the gate down if healers aren't watching. This part is main drawback of the build compared to the others.

At Gunther, this build does at it's designed for. Gunther uses "Charge!" as soon as he aggros, so you must open with Cacophony. Stack Spiteful Spirit and Insidious Parasite cause him to soon trigger "Watch Yourself!" The quirk of this is the gatekeepers don't immediately heal Gunther, similar to how other builds manage to solo Gunther without killing gatekeepers. There are a couple drawbacks to this. If someone else aggros Gunther prematurely, you miss the initial damage from "Charge!" Cacophony is only up 10 out of the 15 seconds, which can cause you to miss Charge or Watch Yourself. 200+ damage within a few seconds is nothing to laugh at, especially without prots and is likely to push Gunther over the edge.

We then look how this fairs against other players. Melee is pretty simple to counter, SS kills, Insidious Parasite will keep you up easily, and you have Rend Enchantments against Dervish. You also have the option of Armor of Sanctity and other anti-melee skills. The Fire Nukers will have a harder time except a Mind Blast Ele since they can afford Blinding Flash. Mesmers have Empathy primarily. Parasitic Bond provides sufficient redbarring power against degen and minor damage as long as you spam it on people. You can afford spamming all your skills thanks to SR being more than enough as long as your careful. You have very little defense against Eles and Mesmers unlike Dom Mesmers which can defend themselves easily. These will mop the floor with you because of your long cast times. Eles and Mesmers are more flexible against their own professions. Against healers, you can spec into Smiting Prayers for Scourge Healing and Scourge Enchantment. You can afford to spam these more than casters because of SR and cover with Parasitic Bond. Combined with Spiteful Spirit and it's decent pressure. That is if the rest of your team is doing something.

Now I take all this crap and condense it into a paragraph and give a rating to the build. I much favor the Dom Mesmer since it's strong at all points in FA but recognize there is a certain place for the build since you can go many ways with it and can push key kills including Gunther. The ability to support the turtle more effectively than other nukers is also a unique advantage. Other people testing the build may find drastically different results from testing the build, and that's always a good thing.

PvE
Testing the Archive:Team - 7 Hero FoCway:
 * 1) This setup is for general PvE, primarily for spiking with some respect to c-spacing.
 * 2) As a spiking build, we'll be comparing it to RoJway and spikes for general heroways.
 * 3) This doesn't apply to team builds.
 * 4) I tested without essence, cons, or alcohol. I normally play without any of these on runs.
 * 5) I tested the build in HM FoW and HM Urgoz, areas I had recently run through with a balanced team.

There is a little bit of a background on using Feast of Corruption. EFGJack introduced using FoC and Defile/Desecrate Enchantments in spikes in UW. I already tested the individual build plenty in my FoW runs and it's become a key build whenever I want "Fall Back!" So there was precedence that a full spike with FoC could be effective. You can't go wrong with the flexible of Necros due to Soul Reaping.

To make this more interesting, let's go over the disadvantages of using Feast of Corruption and Defile/Desecrate Enchantments and why the FoC hero build was trashed when I posted it. At first glance, the build looks justifiably terrible. FoC has a high cost, longcast and recharge, and hits 114@16 Curses if the foe is hexed. Compare this against Mistrust or Wandering Eye and it looks like an absolute waste of an elite slot. Defile/Desecrate Enchantments also feature the a lack of damage, high cost, and long recharge. You even need to bring Suffering or comparable skill to fulfill the conditional effect. Votes are going to reflect such since this is a new build no one uses, hence why the build was trashed. You're going to miss the forest for the trees. Feast of Corruption is the hardest hitting AoE skill next to Ineptitude. It's conditional effect is easily fulfilled in a hero team thanks to Panic, Painful Bond, Arcane Conundrum common in almost all heroway builds. People misunderstand that you don't need to bring Suffering on the bar (If you do, the hero has a terrible time with energy without microing, as to be expected). Defile/Desecrate Enchantments together give ~120 more AoE damage and their main purpose is to finish off spikes since the damage is unconditional. The recharge on these skills means the Necromancer is unlikely to run out of energy spamming them thanks to Signet of Lost Souls and Soul Reaping. You do however have a problem with the 2 second cast times on these skills, which makes spikes less clean.

The setup uses the standard Ritualist midline and Mesmer midline. The Illusion Mesmer elite is replaced with Stolen Speed (which isn't listed in the article). FoCway encompasses the last 3 slots. The builds used the Sabway setup, with the same attribute splits as Discordway. The FoC Minion Master was changed to Command per my input.

First off was Urgoz, I didn't spend long here since I hate doing this area in HM. This was done with the FoC MM. The main goal was just to see a clean spike against Greater Blood Drinkers due to their balling and reasonably strong Warden groups. The Blood Drinker spikes were fast and clean, surprising how much Stolen Speed helped with the spike compared to how I normally spike them. The Warden group proved the same difficulty. The funny thing is that my group wiped at the end of the second room. This was caused from Icy Veins and Vampiric Swarm spike. As the Warrior, I was of course the sole survivor and had to stop there. I attributed this to only a single copy of PwK and AoE heals from a RoJ Monk provided insufficient AoE healing for rushing.

Armed with prospective results, testing in Fissure of Woe provided similar results as balanced. Spikes on Shadow Monks were surprisingly clean in comparison to RoJ Monk in a balanced team. The N/Rt was the only one of the three to have problems with energy, which wasn't unexpected. The purpose is to spike groups down, not pewpew them to death, we don't expect extended battles. You soon notice that Stolen Speed works marvelously for the spike since Wandering Eye and Mistrust get off rapidly as well and foes are quickly mopped up with Defile/Desecrate Enchantments. This was the expected results when I first saw the build. I often abuse my hero team with sloppy flagging and pulls, it happens to be a good way to test universality. This build proved less flexible than a balanced team since the necros quickly run out of energy when you aren't pushing kills. I wiped at the forest during the bridge pull and the team collapsed. 66 minutes at Burning Forest completion was pretty good, that place is excellent for abusing heroes.

The primary advantage of FoCway is no scattering. A clean spike without RoJ is difficult since no other single skill does ~250 damage. Such is possible with FoC because you have additional damage from Defile/Desecrate Enchantments with Stolen Speed to make the spike as reliable as it is clean. This makes it prospective for casters. Melee tend to assure clean spikes with RoJ thanks to Splinter Weapon. You also get the utility and healing expected from necro builds abusing Soul Reaping. They have an almost limitless supply of energy to spam their skills. However, as I found in testing, the setup tends to collapse faster and doesn't react to situations as effectively.