6-man
The 6-man team currently listed only requires a handful of minor skill changes from the main 8-man team. To me, this clearly makes it a variant of the main team, fully justifying its place on this page. It logically follows that the 5 hero pages can be archived, since their content (or what would be there if they weren't outdated) only duplicates what is already here. Conversely, if consensus agrees that the modifications are sufficient to qualify the 6-man teams as separate builds, their pages should be updated and the 6-man section on this page deleted, leaving just the "See also" links, perhaps with an expanded description of what those links lead to. Houroftheowl (talk) 03:39, 13 June 2019 (UTC)
- As this is a 7 hero build page and not a 5 hero build page the 5 hero version should get its own page, so people know from the page title what they're going to find ("presentation", as you mentioned it). More importantly, it needs to go through separate vetting. Removing 2 or even 4 heroes from a team is a large change and has an impact on the team's performance. --Krschkr (talk) 12:00, 13 June 2019 (UTC)
- That makes sense. I would be in favour of re-naming this page simply "BiP support", including the smaller party as a part of the overall build to be voted on. Although it is possible that the 6-man teams would turn out the same if they were developed separately, the fact is that they were intentionally derived as minor tweaks from the 8-man team. Houroftheowl (talk) 17:05, 13 June 2019 (UTC)
- Teams of different party sizes are kept separated on purpose because the effectivity of a team always changes when removing characters from it. Also, as per PvX:NAME, the hero parameter in the page name can't be omitted. --Krschkr (talk) 17:22, 13 June 2019 (UTC)
- The ability to transition from 8 to 6-man is one of the team's big advantages. Is the vetting system supposed to ignore that? I could be pedantic and point out that PvX:NAME doesn't specifically forbid omitting the hero number, but instead I'll just point out the inconsistency on Archive:Team - 7 Hero Legioway - there are SIX teams on one page. If I didn't know better, I'd say you were expressing a bias... Houroftheowl (talk) 22:36, 13 June 2019 (UTC)
- The vetting system is supposed to make people actually test the builds. Even though I'm repeating myself here: The 5 hero version of this build is going to perform differently than the 7 hero version. With both builds on the same page the builds can't be vetted separately, so keeping both of them here would bypass the vetting for the 5 hero build. I'll also have to reject the allegation of bias. The time I can spend on working on PvX is limited. I can only do so much at a time. Legioway with its dependency on consumables has a lower priority for me than normal builds, especially if they have just cropped up, the contributor is currently active and the build is a dupe of an existing team build which has already received a non-provisional rating. --Krschkr (talk) 14:39, 14 June 2019 (UTC)
- In addition to what Krschkr said, I'm not a fan of using the BiP Support name on every damn team that includes a BiP. We already have too many builds named that, and this isn't even the "universal" one, as it's aimed at casual play and including Incoming as an elite. Maybe call it 7 Hero Campaign and Vanquishing Team, or something like that. Rebrand it to show it's intended to NM and some HM content. I get that BiP is the "new" hotness hero-wise, but that doesn't mean every team needs to be named after the hero. If you branded it VanquishingCampaignway, then people could find 7 Hero VanquishingCampaignway, 5 Hero VanquishingCampaignway, etc. Grokwell (talk) 15:59, 14 June 2019 (UTC)
- Are there other teams being referred to as "BiP Support"? I'm not aware of any, unless you're referring to melee support and caster support. This is an upgraded version intended to replace those, and they are due to be archived. Houroftheowl (talk) 01:15, 15 June 2019 (UTC)
- That's fair. I feel like there used to be more, but maybe I'm just being triggered by the name. I'm just not a fan of naming the team around one rando healer hero who isn't even the centerpiece of the team. I see now that there's an initiative to develop the "final" team comp due to the current state of game updates. I do like this build, especially as the shouts are on a necro, which most people have 3 of and only use 1/2 in their teams, so there's a spare. If we're looking for the universal build, having that spare means we can but the BiP support into every team, and have the others be flexible, so one character can just swap to another character if they want something different. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Grokwell (talk • contribs) 15:06, 18 June 2019 (UTC).
- It's named after the BiP because the team really is based around none of the heroes needing to rely on their own energy management. Without that one skill, every other build would need changes. Not sure what you mean about shouts and putting BiP in every team..? Houroftheowl (talk) 00:18, 20 June 2019 (UTC)
- That's fair. I feel like there used to be more, but maybe I'm just being triggered by the name. I'm just not a fan of naming the team around one rando healer hero who isn't even the centerpiece of the team. I see now that there's an initiative to develop the "final" team comp due to the current state of game updates. I do like this build, especially as the shouts are on a necro, which most people have 3 of and only use 1/2 in their teams, so there's a spare. If we're looking for the universal build, having that spare means we can but the BiP support into every team, and have the others be flexible, so one character can just swap to another character if they want something different. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Grokwell (talk • contribs) 15:06, 18 June 2019 (UTC).
- Are there other teams being referred to as "BiP Support"? I'm not aware of any, unless you're referring to melee support and caster support. This is an upgraded version intended to replace those, and they are due to be archived. Houroftheowl (talk) 01:15, 15 June 2019 (UTC)
- In addition to what Krschkr said, I'm not a fan of using the BiP Support name on every damn team that includes a BiP. We already have too many builds named that, and this isn't even the "universal" one, as it's aimed at casual play and including Incoming as an elite. Maybe call it 7 Hero Campaign and Vanquishing Team, or something like that. Rebrand it to show it's intended to NM and some HM content. I get that BiP is the "new" hotness hero-wise, but that doesn't mean every team needs to be named after the hero. If you branded it VanquishingCampaignway, then people could find 7 Hero VanquishingCampaignway, 5 Hero VanquishingCampaignway, etc. Grokwell (talk) 15:59, 14 June 2019 (UTC)
- The vetting system is supposed to make people actually test the builds. Even though I'm repeating myself here: The 5 hero version of this build is going to perform differently than the 7 hero version. With both builds on the same page the builds can't be vetted separately, so keeping both of them here would bypass the vetting for the 5 hero build. I'll also have to reject the allegation of bias. The time I can spend on working on PvX is limited. I can only do so much at a time. Legioway with its dependency on consumables has a lower priority for me than normal builds, especially if they have just cropped up, the contributor is currently active and the build is a dupe of an existing team build which has already received a non-provisional rating. --Krschkr (talk) 14:39, 14 June 2019 (UTC)
- The ability to transition from 8 to 6-man is one of the team's big advantages. Is the vetting system supposed to ignore that? I could be pedantic and point out that PvX:NAME doesn't specifically forbid omitting the hero number, but instead I'll just point out the inconsistency on Archive:Team - 7 Hero Legioway - there are SIX teams on one page. If I didn't know better, I'd say you were expressing a bias... Houroftheowl (talk) 22:36, 13 June 2019 (UTC)
- Teams of different party sizes are kept separated on purpose because the effectivity of a team always changes when removing characters from it. Also, as per PvX:NAME, the hero parameter in the page name can't be omitted. --Krschkr (talk) 17:22, 13 June 2019 (UTC)
- That makes sense. I would be in favour of re-naming this page simply "BiP support", including the smaller party as a part of the overall build to be voted on. Although it is possible that the 6-man teams would turn out the same if they were developed separately, the fact is that they were intentionally derived as minor tweaks from the 8-man team. Houroftheowl (talk) 17:05, 13 June 2019 (UTC)
Nightfall heroes
The Koss and Morgahn builds are specifically designed to take the place of the MM hero, and to an extent the Dunkoro/Tahlkora build only makes sense in this team, as its complete lack of energy management makes it entirely reliant on BiP. Melonni and Margrid, however, are just generic hero builds that would fit perfectly well into any general purpose hero team. Consequently, their builds should presumably be replaced with links to pages for those builds. The Melonni VoS build already has a page, but the R/Me Tease nonsense is strangely absent from PvX. Should I go ahead and make a page for that? On the one hand, the only content would be the build, and it completely fails at making good use of a ranger hero. On the other, making Melonni the only hero with a linked build seems kinda inelegant. Houroftheowl (talk) 04:10, 13 June 2019 (UTC)
- There are other builds in PvX which rely on blood is power – that's simply mentioned in the introduction lines. If those are meant to be working builds, just relying on BiP, they can have their own build page when communicating the dependency. And I don't, to be honest, see how Koss and Morgahn are specially designed for this team. Koss is a hero with "charge!", a couple of attack skills and not even IAS or a shadow step. The paragon is a general BiP support paragon as seen (and abandoned) plenty of times throughout the years. It's also present in PvX, just lacking blood is power and the supportive "help me!" you added, on this page: Archive:P/any Command Hero – and about to be deleted because vetting has determined that it is insufficiently effective to be featured here. The ranger hero, which you yourself refer to as nonsense, is just plenty of interruptions slapped onto a bar. You could give either of the existing hero builds a try instead: 1; 2. --Krschkr (talk) 12:14, 13 June 2019 (UTC)
- While this ranger build might seem a little strange, it actually contributes more to the team than the trash builds you linked. Slapping a bow on margrid is a dumb idea because well, bows... . The dagger spam relies on 2x wonky melee AI, I dont have to explain this. Same for beastmaster. Charge is the only thing keeping Koss from being useless, as his damage share is so bad you might aswel flag him away at the start and continue without him. The only point where his damage means anything is at Chabek Village, and even that depends on how you do the mission (I flag my team to the boss while Im running the kegs). Melonni has Heart of Holy Flame, so she can deal extra damage in Jokannur Diggings (since she won't be of much use in Nundu Bay). This bip paragon build fits nice with the team because the bip healer can run Spoil Victor, which is quite strong for dealing with Varesh (tb damage meter shows this). I often see people asking which builds they should run for these NF mission heroes, so its a very nice thing to keep them all on this page. You can't rely on people to think for themselves, because why else are we putting in any effort here. It's so people can be lazy / bad players can just take 1 team and clear everything. ZStepmother (talk) 18:22, 13 June 2019 (UTC)
- +1 on everything ZStepmother said, but here are some more points:
- Would you care to link some of those builds that rely on BiP? I'm not disputing their existence, but I rely on examples to understand formatting conventions. As it is, the closest monk bar I could find is this one, which has quite a few differences that make it less than ideal for the BiP support team. Someone with knowledge of the build and a good grasp of formatting could make a new page... or put it as a variant on that other page. Still, it seems counter-intuitive to do that for a build that has so far only been claimed by the BiP support team. If it's not going to be used for any other purpose, why does it get a page of its own?
- Each Nightfall hero obviously has to replace one of the main heroes. Koss obviously can't provide heals, BiP, prot, or (much) shutdown. He can, however, provide a decent replacement for the speed buff shouts. A generic Koss build (100B, for example) would do more damage but lose this important utility. I'd be a lot happier with this sacrifice if not for the fact that an AoE speed boost is immensely useful in the missions where you use Koss. The alternative is to make a separate page for that build, but it really doesn't make sense outside the context of BiP support.
- That paragon build has only 3 skills in common with the one on here. It's missing the crucial elite, and it's up for deletion because it's not a good general purpose hero. If it was specifically min-maxed for Ruins of Morah, and advertised as such, I'm sure it would be rated much more favourably.
- I'm very reluctant to waste time testing your Margrid builds. It's not just that I assume they're worse than R/Me, but that finding daggers for Margrid and taking her to the Menagerie to get a pet (many new players won't have a beetle) is an unreasonable amount of effort for a bad hero in 2 missions. Houroftheowl (talk) 18:50, 13 June 2019 (UTC)
- If you believe that the R/Me hero is so much more useful without even testing the linked builds (let me note that it's impertinent to come along and call these builds trash or testing them a waste of time) following the same logic you'd have to run a "charge!" warrior full of interruptions aswell. It doesn't even fit well into this team. Where's the ranger hero going to be used: Pogahn Passage, a mission with few foes which are mostly physicals and Dasha Vestibule, a mission with mostly small groups of foes or single target paragons with plenty of health points. This team has three energy surge mesmers. Why would you need a fake mesmer full of interrupts against mostly warriors and paragons if you already have three almost proper domination mesmers which can deal just fine with the few casters in these missions? The rupt spam ranger hero build is not convincing and doesn't even fit the purpose, other than the high single target damage builds I suggested.
- The damage share of the warrior hero being small can partially be explained with the build found on this page. Of course a hero without AoE skills, without IAS and without shadow step is going to be underperforming. You shouldn't be surprised.
- Again, none of these builds are specially optimized for this team. Neither the IMS on the hero is a specialty of this team, nor blood is power on a paragon hero, nor a full healing prayers monk. They aren't even optimized for their very narrow purposes, the missions which require these heroes. I explained it for the ranger hero before; the paragon uses a hex removal skill in a mission with only 2 hexes while there are three shatter hex mesmers and has a 25 energy resurrection skill which, first of all, a paragon hero without special equipment will never be able to use and secondly, the hero won't be able to use in the second half of this mission at all due to quickening zephyr. The monk has 4 single target healing spells of which three are quickly recharging and one isn't even used properly – not to mention the 15 energy 4 seconds casting time touch resurrection on a healer. These builds have to get their own page if they are viable and go through vetting. Keeping the builds on this page in the current fashion is the attempt to bypass vetting for (imo subpar at best) builds. --Krschkr (talk) 15:00, 14 June 2019 (UTC)
- "following the same logic you'd have to run a "charge!" warrior full of interruptions aswell" - but Koss isn't entirely reliant on his secondary profession to provide some utility to the team. He would also be worse than Margrid with that build because he has worse energy and no SQ. Regarding your Margrid pet builds... given that setting her up as R/Me is much easier, the pet builds would have to be significantly more powerful to justify that increased effort. I've tested the R/Me in HM Dasha Vestibule and found it quite satisfactory without upgrading her equipment at all. What test would I have to do for you to believe that I've given the pet builds a fair shot?
- "Again, none of these builds are specially optimized for this team. Neither the IMS on the hero is a specialty of this team, nor blood is power on a paragon hero, nor a full healing prayers monk." - nobody is claiming that. Vow of Strength on a dervish isn't unique to SoOSC, but that build obviously belongs on that page. Besides, where are the hero build pages you want to link to? As far as I'm aware, they do not exist, and nor should they.
- "the paragon uses a hex removal skill in a mission with only 2 hexes while there are three shatter hex mesmers and has a 25 energy resurrection skill which, first of all, a paragon hero without special equipment will never be able to use and secondly, the hero won't be able to use in the second half of this mission at all due to quickening zephyr. The monk has 4 single target healing spells of which three are quickly recharging and one isn't even used properly – not to mention the 15 energy 4 seconds casting time touch resurrection on a healer." - these are great points you raise, and I wish you'd said them earlier! Stuff like this slips through the cracks because most people don't care enough about Nightfall heroes to properly scrutinize them. I greatly look forward to hearing your suggestions for improvements. As for putting them on their own pages and subjecting them to vetting... from what I've seen, they get voted on based on their merits independent of the fact that they are only intended for a couple of missions. I already pointed out that the paragon build you linked was downvoted to hell for that reason. Is there a way to avoid that?
- I don't see why you can't take this team as a whole. If the current meta DoASC team was posted but it didn't specify a low health set for the MT, you could say it performed very well everywhere except Jadoth, which caused a significant delay in the run, making the team weaker than it otherwise would be. Killing Jadoth is part of the team's purpose, just as completing Nightfall missions (and 6-man areas...) is for this team. If it can't do that effectively, that's an issue that needs to be addressed... or a reason to give the team a lower rating. Houroftheowl (talk) 01:45, 15 June 2019 (UTC)
- If you agree that these heroes are not specially optimized for this team and instead general hero builds you'll also have to agree that they belong on their own hero build pages where they're subject to vetting. The nightfall mission heroes this page suggests are not a core part of the team, they are just used for a handful of missions and a note which tells to replace a hero with another one which you provide the link to is the adequate approach. --Krschkr (talk) 13:01, 15 June 2019 (UTC)
- "If you agree that these heroes are not specially optimized for this team and instead general hero builds" - yeah that's not what I said, is it? I admitted that there's probably room to improve them and invited you to help with that. Are you going to offer any ideas? If not, we'll leave them as they are. Houroftheowl (talk) 16:16, 15 June 2019 (UTC)
- Since they're meant to bypass vetting by being kept on this page that's not an acceptable option for me. I'll keep my stance up for the reasons provided: These are general builds, they belong on their own build pages and not on this one. They have to go through vetting on their own pages, as they're not part of this team build. They are, in comparison to other hero builds for these professions and the same purpose, not good. --Krschkr (talk) 19:05, 15 June 2019 (UTC)
- You're wrong on all counts. Either suggest some alternatives you think are better, or stop complaining. Houroftheowl (talk) 00:49, 16 June 2019 (UTC)
- It's really arrogant and pretentious to assume builds aren't tested, but this doesn't surprise me. Everything is tested by multiple people on the gw discord, and a lot of people have given feedback on there. i've done my fair share of pogahn passage and dasha, and I've definitely seen how effective the ranger builds you linked are (read: not effective at all). The purpose of these builds are that they can be used for every mission you need the hero in, and we tried to make it tackle important points in those missions. What are the dangerous things at both those missions? It's the kournan scribes, fire djinns and roaring ethers. This build is meant to counter those. Perhaps some of the nf heroes we made could be a bit more optimized tho. ZStepmother (talk) 10:41, 18 June 2019 (UTC)
- I can't recall that I've written these builds weren't tested, so I ask you to refrain from calling the action you're accusing me of having done – and thus me as a person – arrogant and pretentious. I don't question that there have been tests. However, I'm questioning the quality of the results of these tests. It wouldn't be the first time that I'm not satisfied with the performance of builds (presumably) penned by this ominous discord crew, let me point out this and [[that]] team as an example. As reasoned above the nightfall mission heroes suggested on this build page aren't well thought-through. But that's not even my nitpick here. They belong on their own hero build pages where they have to go through the vetting process on their own, as even though they might fit into this team (and I'd go as far as saying most of them don't even do that regarding their mission-bound purpose), they aren't special to this team and therefore to be seen as general builds. A different case would i.e. be a Koss build with enadiz' headbutt in a team with a contagion necromancer.
- As I see that this discussion is going nowhere and there begins to be an air in which personal attacks seem likely, I already requested mediation by a neutral administrator to cut the Gordian knot which is keeping us from getting to results here. --Krschkr (talk) 13:04, 18 June 2019 (UTC)
- It's really arrogant and pretentious to assume builds aren't tested, but this doesn't surprise me. Everything is tested by multiple people on the gw discord, and a lot of people have given feedback on there. i've done my fair share of pogahn passage and dasha, and I've definitely seen how effective the ranger builds you linked are (read: not effective at all). The purpose of these builds are that they can be used for every mission you need the hero in, and we tried to make it tackle important points in those missions. What are the dangerous things at both those missions? It's the kournan scribes, fire djinns and roaring ethers. This build is meant to counter those. Perhaps some of the nf heroes we made could be a bit more optimized tho. ZStepmother (talk) 10:41, 18 June 2019 (UTC)
- You're wrong on all counts. Either suggest some alternatives you think are better, or stop complaining. Houroftheowl (talk) 00:49, 16 June 2019 (UTC)
- Since they're meant to bypass vetting by being kept on this page that's not an acceptable option for me. I'll keep my stance up for the reasons provided: These are general builds, they belong on their own build pages and not on this one. They have to go through vetting on their own pages, as they're not part of this team build. They are, in comparison to other hero builds for these professions and the same purpose, not good. --Krschkr (talk) 19:05, 15 June 2019 (UTC)
- "If you agree that these heroes are not specially optimized for this team and instead general hero builds" - yeah that's not what I said, is it? I admitted that there's probably room to improve them and invited you to help with that. Are you going to offer any ideas? If not, we'll leave them as they are. Houroftheowl (talk) 16:16, 15 June 2019 (UTC)
- If you agree that these heroes are not specially optimized for this team and instead general hero builds you'll also have to agree that they belong on their own hero build pages where they're subject to vetting. The nightfall mission heroes this page suggests are not a core part of the team, they are just used for a handful of missions and a note which tells to replace a hero with another one which you provide the link to is the adequate approach. --Krschkr (talk) 13:01, 15 June 2019 (UTC)
- While this ranger build might seem a little strange, it actually contributes more to the team than the trash builds you linked. Slapping a bow on margrid is a dumb idea because well, bows... . The dagger spam relies on 2x wonky melee AI, I dont have to explain this. Same for beastmaster. Charge is the only thing keeping Koss from being useless, as his damage share is so bad you might aswel flag him away at the start and continue without him. The only point where his damage means anything is at Chabek Village, and even that depends on how you do the mission (I flag my team to the boss while Im running the kegs). Melonni has Heart of Holy Flame, so she can deal extra damage in Jokannur Diggings (since she won't be of much use in Nundu Bay). This bip paragon build fits nice with the team because the bip healer can run Spoil Victor, which is quite strong for dealing with Varesh (tb damage meter shows this). I often see people asking which builds they should run for these NF mission heroes, so its a very nice thing to keep them all on this page. You can't rely on people to think for themselves, because why else are we putting in any effort here. It's so people can be lazy / bad players can just take 1 team and clear everything. ZStepmother (talk) 18:22, 13 June 2019 (UTC)
(Reset indent) "If you believe that the R/Me hero is so much more useful without even testing the linked builds" and the rest of your text implies this. The builds you linked were teams that weren't tested and weren't really approved, I've always mentioned my dislike for them when they were being made. To me it seems like it's you making this a personal issue, accusing people of not testing this and telling them they didn't think stuff through. W Why are so hell-bent on following these stupid rules? Don't you see what the purpose of this build is? We include everything on the same page because otherwise there are still a lot of people asking every day which heroes they should replace on Nightfall missions, because they can't think for themselves. There is obviously need for this, because I find answering the same questions way too often on the discord. Combining everything they need on the same page is way more beneficial, than having all those different pages of hero builds so they can come up with something for themself (which they cant). ZStepmother (talk) 23:34, 18 June 2019 (UTC)
- On behalf of the "ominous discord crew", I apologise for all personal attacks. Your approach seems to be nihilistic though - instead of providing alternatives you consider better than what we already have, you're trying to destroy anything you think is less than perfect. Even those crappy 4-man teams are better than nothing, and "nothing" pretty well describes the alternative 3 hero teams you can find on PvX. Perhaps if we weren't wasting so much time arguing in circles about pointless stuff, we could get round to fixing those teams. I don't want to have to repeat this, but either provide useful suggestions, or stop getting in the way. Houroftheowl (talk) 22:08, 19 June 2019 (UTC)
- The line you quoted was directed at Misty, who wrote "I'm very reluctant to waste time testing your Margrid builds." – I wish to apologize that I wasn't clear enough in my communication and you thought that this was directed towards you. I myself understood your line as the allegation that I had said you didn't test the builds found on the build page, so since this was just a chain of unfortunate misunderstandings – let's forget about it.
- Apart from that I'm refraining from further involvement in this discussion until Toraen or a different uninvolved administrator finds the time to mediate between us. --Krschkr (talk) 16:54, 20 June 2019 (UTC)
ST Rit Weapon
I like the idea of including Splinter on the ST Rit, as it makes hitting the 10 breakpoint easier. For the weapon, I think it should be changed to either 60/20/20 Channeling or 40/20/30 Channeling. I feel the heroes are pretty good about keeping up Boon, so shouldn't be casting it much during combat, but will be casting splinter a few times, so speeding up the cast time would help. Because of the 3/3/2 runes, I figure more health is probably nicer. A defensive staff of defense would work, as there's no "stand your ground" on the team, but that adds complexity in explaining the need to change if the player is running SY. Grokwell (talk) 15:48, 14 June 2019 (UTC)
- That does make sense, although it is of course an incredibly minor change. Let's see if anyone else has any thoughts before editing the page. Houroftheowl (talk) 01:11, 15 June 2019 (UTC)
- Splinter weapon below 14 channeling magic is not worth it at all. A proper channeling magic ritualist is required for melees, even if it means to drop a mesmer. --Krschkr (talk) 13:02, 15 June 2019 (UTC)
- Assuming you are right, can you propose a team then? I personally would take ST, BiP (healing), SoS + healing rit (12+4 chan, 10+1 resto, 8 smiting for SoH), Bone Fiend MM with shouts (for nice IMS), and then 2 ESurge mesmers. That leaves us with 1 open slot. The next best option would be an air elementalist I think. What do you suggest? ZStepmother (talk) 22:54, 19 June 2019 (UTC)
- Take this as an example. It's not yet optimized, since I only did one run with it – example, apart from using a dagger player build: For general content it'd be sensible to drop panic for energy surge to improve the team's damage output. Panic doesn't deliver in most areas and is certainly overkill for Vloxe Excavations, but it's within the scope of that team to allow melee players to unlock Zei Ri. Due to the large amount of foes and their full builds panic is quite effective during winds of change, so it'll help players on their way to unlock Zei Ri for teams with two ritualists and three mesmers, such as Archive:Team - 7 Hero Triple Energy Surge. And since I picked a familiar build from the late pre-Zei-Ri era I had panic in the test run. I think the test run shows that having three mesmers does not guarantee better results than two mesmers and a proper splinter weapon ritualist. In case you want to argue that Vloxen Excavations is not within "BiP Support"'s scope ("for elite areas, it is highly recommended to modify the builds." – which would be categorizing Vloxen already as elite content) so the lack of stability would have to be blamed on using the team for a purpose more difficult than intended by design, I'll firstly have to say that the build is aimed at too easy content and secondly that you may want to take a look at TzBaGaN as an alternative for content below Vloxen Excavation's difficulty; that's missions and most vanquishing. Dropping minions and the odd E/Rt hybrid may well further speed the team up for trivial content such as vanquishing extensive areas like Joko's Domain. In case you feel like complaining about my playing style: It didn't hurt the two mesmer team, which I played the same way, so it appears to be an issue of this team. I don't expect most people to do a lot of luring and micro management (in which case there'd be better build alternatives, just sayin') – so you may take my results with the team as the experience of someone you may not consider a top player... or one of the players about which you patronizingly said that they can't come up with their own builds. I would certainly not recommend a team to them which is this unstable and requires advanced tactics or micro management to work properly. That'd mean missing the target audience.
- A note to the points you raised: The bone fiend MM with "incoming!" is only a good choice if there's need to compress the entire IMS onto a single character. As soon as the fiend army is up it doesn't really hurt the hero's performance anymore that he's got 3 or 4 skill slots with shouts. In case there's no need for such a compression it's better to give the bone fiend hero a different elite skill (i.e. discord) and spread the IMS on multiple characters with "fall back!", freeing up the elite skill slot. Another option which I didn't yet try: Splinter weapon with fall back, dual energy surge, discord/fiend necromancer with fall back, smite/heal hybrid with strength of honour (probably just using divine favour, not healing or protection prayers), BiP healer, ST prot. I think that Eric runs that kind of builds, I'll have to check his uploads on a different occasion. There are plenty of similar options which preserve what's most important for a melee player, a proper splinter weapon and possibly strength of honour, without dropping the convenient IMS. And the results with such teams are more promising, as the quick comparative test I did showed. --Krschkr (talk) 16:43, 20 June 2019 (UTC)
- Assuming you are right, can you propose a team then? I personally would take ST, BiP (healing), SoS + healing rit (12+4 chan, 10+1 resto, 8 smiting for SoH), Bone Fiend MM with shouts (for nice IMS), and then 2 ESurge mesmers. That leaves us with 1 open slot. The next best option would be an air elementalist I think. What do you suggest? ZStepmother (talk) 22:54, 19 June 2019 (UTC)
- Splinter weapon below 14 channeling magic is not worth it at all. A proper channeling magic ritualist is required for melees, even if it means to drop a mesmer. --Krschkr (talk) 13:02, 15 June 2019 (UTC)
Res Signet?
Why Res Signet on the Me/Mo, instead of hard res? Is getting the party member at 100% health and 25% energy vs 25%/0% a good enough trade off to warrant the single use? Or is the idea here that that res shouldn't really be needed except for emergencies, so the single use is not really a significant disadvantage? Thanks. Aerosigma (talk) 16:51, 14 June 2019 (UTC)
- Considering the quality of monk res skills (especially without attribute points), it's unlikely that a rational player would want to use one on a hero. Unless you have an unusual playstyle that involves repeatedly dying without getting morale boosts, having a fast res with 100% health is generally better. If you are dying enough to need more res, the onus is on you to adjust the team accordingly. Houroftheowl (talk) 01:07, 15 June 2019 (UTC)
- What would you think about substituting the Res Signet with Castigation Signet? Seeing as that Mesmer doesn't have any energy management skills... - I know there's a BiP in the team, but the Illusion-ES already doesn't have energy management, so having more heroes with less dependency on BiP makes sense in my mind. Or is there a particular reason not to use Castigation Signet? And as for loosing the res: I personally prefer Flesh of My Flesh over Spirits Gift on the ST (I know, no Fast Casting, also not suggesting to change it but just trying to say that there are more options to incorporate the res if one needs more than two) --Haquillo (talk) 17:09, 15 June 2019 (UTC)
- Don't want to Edit the previous comment, but I forgot that Arcane Conundrum does off course provide some E-management (provided the hero casts it in the center of a ball, not sure how reliably that happens, but it off course still means that the only Me-hero without E-Management is the Me/Mo --Haquillo (talk) 17:14, 15 June 2019 (UTC)
- What would you think about substituting the Res Signet with Castigation Signet? Seeing as that Mesmer doesn't have any energy management skills... - I know there's a BiP in the team, but the Illusion-ES already doesn't have energy management, so having more heroes with less dependency on BiP makes sense in my mind. Or is there a particular reason not to use Castigation Signet? And as for loosing the res: I personally prefer Flesh of My Flesh over Spirits Gift on the ST (I know, no Fast Casting, also not suggesting to change it but just trying to say that there are more options to incorporate the res if one needs more than two) --Haquillo (talk) 17:09, 15 June 2019 (UTC)
Reason for changes from 7 Hero BiP Melee Support
I thought it would be useful to link the discussion page from the previous iteration of this build where Houroftheowl describes the reasons for the changes they made from that iteration which spawned this team composition. I found this quite helpful to read through.
https://gwpvx.gamepedia.com/Build_talk:Team_-_7_Hero_BiP_Melee_Support#BSurge_update
Aerosigma (talk) 22:16, 19 June 2019 (UTC)
Link to Mercenary Composition
Would it make sense to link to the Mercenary Variant somewhere on the page (at least in the See Also section?) The previous versions had a whole variant section on that. Or would that team need to be moved to testing first? Aerosigma (talk) 22:25, 19 June 2019 (UTC)
- I think it's reasonable to put that (and the caster version, although that one differs somewhat) under See also. As for putting those teams on the mainspace for testing, I'm very reluctant to get involved in any ensuing discussions (at least until non-merc versions are dealt with). If you're willing to handling all that pestering, be my guest. Houroftheowl (talk) 00:09, 20 June 2019 (UTC)
Zei Ri as SoS
For players who have beaten WoC, Zei Ri (or a merc) as SoS may be a good replacement for the BSurge. The build we're currently considering has the 3 resto spells plus Life, Essence Strike, ARage, and Splinter. The BiP would drop Life for Weaken Armor, since the fiends still want cracked armor.
This change would particularly benefit melee players, as they can make better use of the extra Splinter. The potential downside is that the stronger heals won't make up for the lack of blind. Once that's been tested, I think we're good to add it to the page as a variant. Houroftheowl (talk) 01:11, 20 June 2019 (UTC)
WELL tag reasoning
Due to the absence of any other administrator to perform a mediation for this discussion I'm going to leave the content related discussions found above aside for the moment and challenge this page's fundamental justification. This team is a dupe of the already existing and vetted Archive:Team - 7 Hero Triple Energy Surge. That much is evident. It shares the triple energy surge midline, the shout minion master, blood is power healer, soul twisting communing prot. Only a single hero is different beyond minor skill variations, which is the blinding surge healer in this team vs. the support ritualist/necromancer prot in the other team. As a dupe this page naturally is in a tough position to justify its existance. For this team, there would be two ways to try justifying this team:
- It is clearly superior to the pre-existing build version.
- It has merits the other team entirely lacks. In this case: A well-working team for melee players without access to Zei Ri or a mercenary hero.
Alas, neither of these points is true for this team. I compared the caster version of this team with the caster version of triple energy surge, as seen here, with the result that this team is inacceptably unstable and performs decisively worse. Such a difference using the same player build with the same tactics in the same dungeon is significant. Therefore, the first point doesn't apply. As discussed above the justification through the melee version of the build is invalid aswell. This team's melee version does not perform very well and does a worse job than other teams designed to complement a melee player build. Due to the lack of characteristics which would justify this page, it's now time to discuss it under the WELL prefix.
If you want to work on the existing triple energy surge team, you can discuss possible improvements on its talk page. Furthermore, as you didn't react to it the last two times, let me point out PvXwiki:Project 7 Hero Meta and PvXwiki:Project Standardized Testing for a third time. These projects are meant to assure highest quality standards based on a joined effort and resulting consensus of the community. If you're interested in further developing and improving team builds, especially of the mesmerway type which is the current hero meta, you should look into these projects so you work with the PvX community, not against it. I ask you to consider it, even though I don't expect any resonance once again, because pursuing these projects would benefit everyone in the Guild Wars community.
If you are reluctant to work within PvX's policies for the build namespace, there's always the option to keep this build as a subpage in the user namespace (as you already know). User subpages are generally considered sacrosanct and you'd not have to come to terms with other people performing edits to these pages. Moreover, I would withdraw from the discussions about these pages which have proven unfruitful, especially as you consider my contributions generally as pestering, getting in your way and unintelligent critique. By the way, this very way of yours to treat me as a discussion partner, has been my reason for requesting mediation for our discussions in the first place. It prevents that we can get to any results based on reasons if you dismiss my reasons right away or construct ideological fixed-points that are meant to nip discussions in the bud.
As a final remark: Please note that the WELL tag is not to be removed until consensus about it has been reached on this talk page. --Krschkr (talk) 10:12, 26 June 2019 (UTC)
- It's a bit strange that everyone but you gets good results for the bip support team. Multiple people have tested it on your testing routes, with great succes. I personally have brought it through more difficult stuff with succes. It's almost as if you are trying your best to make the testing as biased as possible. Watching the first few min of both teams Im already proved right. At the taskmaster you aggro an extra group with the bip support team, while with your tripple Esurge you let that patrol pass. It's no surprise to me tho. Apart from you trying to rig the testing as hard as you can, there is also this issue of "duplicate" teams. Some searching shows me that duplicate means "an EXACT copy of ...", and as far as I can see the skillbars are different, and even a different profession is used. Pehaps you misunderstood the word "duplicate", but it is clearly the wrong word, and thus the well tag should be removed. There is enough variation for these teams to coexist, so people can decide for themselves which teams they like best. As for "dismiss my reasons", you are doing that exact thing, exept we seemingly have to accept this from you because you somehow made it to mod... . Some abuse of power is clearly in effect here. ZStepmother (talk) 09:41, 27 June 2019 (UTC)
- I rewatched that part and it appears that I accidentally lured the healer from the other group into combat. You'll see that all damage dealing foes from that group passed by without joining that fight, so it's not accurate to say I lured an extra group. For a better comparison I did level 1 with triple energy surge once more and aggroed both groups (entirely, not just the healer) at once on purpose. You'll see that even against two groups the team proves more stable than this variant of it. Video. I hope that satisfies you. Because of your claim that I'm purposely trying to make the team look bad, which is quite strange to me, I also rewatched the same part for the triple energy surge. I didn't let the patrol pass, it was triggered during an earlier fight and had already gone away when I fought the boss. Presenting this as done on purpose, as if I was scripting the spawn points and events in the dungeon to make this build variant look bad, is absurd. Same for supposedly trying to rig the testing area as hard as I can – I wouldn't pick Vloxen Excavations if that was my intent, it would be somewhere in the domain of anguish, Slaver's exile or the likes. Vloxen Excavations' difficulty level is far below these and in my opinion entirely reasonable for testing a general purpose team that's meant to be adequate for the majority of content. If you start testing your builds in Lahtenda Bog you'll of course get different results, like the superiority of searing flames elementalists. But that's far less suited as a representation for larger chunks of content than Vloxen Excavations.
- As for duplications, I see this justified given that these builds share (not team wide, but in a build-by-build comparison) 38 of 56 skills (67%) or 41 (73%) if replacing the N/Mo with a different arbitrary third backline hero based on ritualist healing skills. These shared skills are mostly part of the build cores. 6 of 7 elite skills are the same (85%). All heroes share the same purpose in both teams. It's like taking a BiP healer, replacing life with recuperation and spirit transfer with soothing images and calling it a new build, even though it clearly isn't. If we look at all skills present in the team we reach an overlap of up to 43 skills (~77%). Compare that amount of shared skills with the rough result you get for comparing it with Paneptitude from the same build family, looking at the bars in the pawned code (60%, 3/7 elites), RoJway (51%, 2/7 elites) or Keystone Discordway (28%, 1/7 elites). There simply are greater differences, individual heroes serve different purposes, the builds have a different way of filling their gameplay role and achieving the ingame goal. With this team and triple energy surge it's apart from minor skill deviations the same build. They don't justify their own page. Rather, we should work on improving the existing page together. Do you really want that whenever a page links to one of these teams that the other team, because it's basically the same, needs to be linked aswell? That'd just be silly.
- Construeing everything I do as powered by misintent is not going to lead anywhere useful. Let me point out PvXwiki:Evaluating Administrators for you. If you're of the opinion that I'm abusing administrative powers you should consider advocating an evaluation of my administrator status on the talk page. --Krschkr (talk) 11:39, 27 June 2019 (UTC)
- I chose this build because I don't have any mercenary heroes or Zei Rei. The other 7 Hero BiP support melee build points to this one and says it's inferior to it. So if this one is going to be deleted, and the other is inferior, what build should we use until we can do the triple energy surge one? Thanks for info. Narsikus (talk) 20:24, 28 June 2019 (UTC)
- The point that this team is superior to the two which have been proposed to be archived is first and foremost what the proponent stated and up to discussion/testing. It may very well be correct, but isn't the only aspect to be considered for an archival. A possible alternative for melee players (because non-melees don't need the second ritualist and therefore no Zei Ri) is a setup of splinter weapon support ritualist, two mesmers, blood is power healer, soul twisting communing prot and two more necromancers depending on preference; either dual discord with "fall back!" (reduced backline) or a shout bone fiend minion master with another backline character (full backline) for additional defense. That's what I compared this team with in a test, as seen here. There are a couple of similar alternative team setups which should be tested aswell to probe for which one has the best results. I'll personally not have plenty of time to further test that and similar builds in the near future (so it'd be great to find some more people which do some comparative testing) but right now I'd recommend to go for something in that build's direction. --Krschkr (talk) 22:32, 28 June 2019 (UTC)
- I will not argue whether or not WELL applies to this, or one/some of the other Triple ESurge/BiP builds in the Meta/Testing right now. Strictly speaking we have similar builds, if not duplicates, which violates the policy. HOWEVER, I think it's time that, as a community, we think about whether that might be OK in some cases, especially with the strongest meta builds. Frankly, we're not getting skill balances anymore, and certainly not new skills. We've figured out what the strongest team builds are, and the meta hero build is not going to shift away from 3+ ESurge. We no longer have the opportunity to find a different composition that's better. What we DO have left, is these conversations about the subtle tweaks that might make a team more effective. It's similar to the way that Magic the Gathering has rolling conversations about the meta decks because new cards are always being introduced, but Chess -whose rules and pieces haven't changed in over a century- still(!) has books coming out on the subtle variations of similar opening moves. Just because these builds are similar doesn't mean that having them all is invalid, in fact, I think we're getting to the point that it's necessary to allow this in order to keep the Guild Wars build conversation going. I don't know if that looks like a single page with a lot of variations, multiple pages linked to each other sorted into different Meta/Great/Good categories, or something else entirely, but I do think it's time to reconsider how we do this.Aerosigma (talk) 17:04, 9 July 2019 (UTC)
- I'm not convinced that three energy surges even are the meta. The statistics still tell a different story and I've seen multiple people remark that they were more content with the old versions BiP Melee Support and BiP Caster Support than this one. And builds based on stacking damage oriented domination magic mesmers have been around for a couple of years, at least since 2015 (example I found quickly). But it's possible that the meta will shift to them eventually. And I wouldn't even agree that we won't find something better. General teams will always be inferior to teams which are adjusted to player build, playing style and opponents, however, as we can make so strong general teams that they're working almost everywhere with fairly blunt tactics we're still going for it to accomodate the majority of players, which prefer to play one build everywhere without adjusting it ever and who won't perform advanced tactics. So, looking at single areas, there'll always be ways to optimize. Or looking at playing styles – most general teams in this wiki, including this one, cater to an unspecific, broad type of player builds and won't properly support certain others. This team is made for armour ignoring direct damage melee builds and damage casters. A player who prefers to play tank'n'spank builds, uses hundred blades or vow of strength, a defensive caster, a paragon (or any spear/bow build), a healer and possibly even a ritualist spirit build, will find other builds to fit his style much better. Part of the success of the so-called Z-Way is that it's always been promoted as a build for healers and no one else bothered to present alternatives. Even if the community ever was to agree on a certain general build being the likely best variant, all the teams for other player builds/playing styles are still desiderata. There's a lot to optimize and to discuss about, so don't you worry that people interested in builds may run out of material to talk about. If people were just willing to actually discuss... which is the bigger problem since ~2012.
- That certain forms of apparent build dupes are ok is something I will agree with. However, such apparent dupes need to bring a justification with them. An example would be a variant of a team that is specially optimized for certain areas that are much more difficult than most others, i.e. the underworld or domain of anguish. Or builds which are optimized for a certain quest/mission and come with a special usage section. The most likely case for this would be teams for challenge missions, for which we (afaik) only have one in the build namespace right now, this. It's easily conceivable that minor variants of existing teams could crop up for challenge missions and they probably wouldn't be seen as a rival to the general team they're based on – as long as there's a justifying usage section – but as a rival to other teams for that challenge mission. But a duplicate of a general use team for direct damage melees and damage casters which in itself is a general use team for direct damage melees and damage casters and still shares the same playing style lacks such a justification. And that is what we see here. --Krschkr (talk) 10:12, 10 July 2019 (UTC)
- If there are no further statements I'm going to close this case in a couple of days. --Krschkr (talk) 11:30, 14 July 2019 (UTC)
- I feel like the build should stick around, at least in a way that it might be integrated into an already exsiting one. While I feel like the build does not take a huge step to deviate from the current and older versions of the Mesmer-Midline + BiP + Shelter Teams, it at least tries to appeal to players that do not have Zei Ri or Mercs. The thing that bugs me the most about the team is that things like the Hybrid-Mesmer and Splinter Weapon on the ST, things that we moved away from, somehow came back. --Illusionmaker (talk) 23:58, 19.07.2019 (UTC+1)
- The build would basically still have a page. And I'd be happy if the deviations from it that are found here would be explained on that talk page so we can discuss how they may improve the team. If there's consensus that certain changes would be superior to the current build version it'd receive the appropriate update. But trying to enforce that a very similar build variant gets its own page without providing justifying or just explanatory reasons is not going to work. As for teams without Zei Ri/mercenaries, there are alternatives to pick from. Casters can simply play the current version of triple energy surge, as it's three mesmers and one ritualist without the splinter weapon support. For standard melee builds there currently are two recently updated alternatives, Dual Mesmer Discord and Dual Mesmer RoJway which are adequate for most general PvE HM content and are also suitable choices for players who want to farm gemstones by doing DoA normal mode fullruns. I'm also working on a third option that I'm not yet satisfied with, but further testing and tweaking may refine it well enough that I move it to the build namespace (see that page's talk page). For specialized player build types there are other options. Misty, who made this build article, also added MoPway which is directed towards hundred blades (primarily) and vow of strength melee builds. I did not test it myself yet, but surely he wouldn't add a build if he didn't consider it to be competitively good. I myself find Keystone Discordway to be a decent option for at least necromancer and mesmer players, and will eventually expand on more player builds that work well with these heroes. And even if someone isn't interested in any of the mentioned teams, there's still a dozen more team builds in PvX that might appeal to them. While some of them are a bit dated, they're nonetheless working, just with less potential than some of the more recently optimized builds. --Krschkr (talk) 00:16, 20 July 2019 (UTC)
- I feel like the build should stick around, at least in a way that it might be integrated into an already exsiting one. While I feel like the build does not take a huge step to deviate from the current and older versions of the Mesmer-Midline + BiP + Shelter Teams, it at least tries to appeal to players that do not have Zei Ri or Mercs. The thing that bugs me the most about the team is that things like the Hybrid-Mesmer and Splinter Weapon on the ST, things that we moved away from, somehow came back. --Illusionmaker (talk) 23:58, 19.07.2019 (UTC+1)
- If there are no further statements I'm going to close this case in a couple of days. --Krschkr (talk) 11:30, 14 July 2019 (UTC)
- I will not argue whether or not WELL applies to this, or one/some of the other Triple ESurge/BiP builds in the Meta/Testing right now. Strictly speaking we have similar builds, if not duplicates, which violates the policy. HOWEVER, I think it's time that, as a community, we think about whether that might be OK in some cases, especially with the strongest meta builds. Frankly, we're not getting skill balances anymore, and certainly not new skills. We've figured out what the strongest team builds are, and the meta hero build is not going to shift away from 3+ ESurge. We no longer have the opportunity to find a different composition that's better. What we DO have left, is these conversations about the subtle tweaks that might make a team more effective. It's similar to the way that Magic the Gathering has rolling conversations about the meta decks because new cards are always being introduced, but Chess -whose rules and pieces haven't changed in over a century- still(!) has books coming out on the subtle variations of similar opening moves. Just because these builds are similar doesn't mean that having them all is invalid, in fact, I think we're getting to the point that it's necessary to allow this in order to keep the Guild Wars build conversation going. I don't know if that looks like a single page with a lot of variations, multiple pages linked to each other sorted into different Meta/Great/Good categories, or something else entirely, but I do think it's time to reconsider how we do this.Aerosigma (talk) 17:04, 9 July 2019 (UTC)
- The point that this team is superior to the two which have been proposed to be archived is first and foremost what the proponent stated and up to discussion/testing. It may very well be correct, but isn't the only aspect to be considered for an archival. A possible alternative for melee players (because non-melees don't need the second ritualist and therefore no Zei Ri) is a setup of splinter weapon support ritualist, two mesmers, blood is power healer, soul twisting communing prot and two more necromancers depending on preference; either dual discord with "fall back!" (reduced backline) or a shout bone fiend minion master with another backline character (full backline) for additional defense. That's what I compared this team with in a test, as seen here. There are a couple of similar alternative team setups which should be tested aswell to probe for which one has the best results. I'll personally not have plenty of time to further test that and similar builds in the near future (so it'd be great to find some more people which do some comparative testing) but right now I'd recommend to go for something in that build's direction. --Krschkr (talk) 22:32, 28 June 2019 (UTC)
- I chose this build because I don't have any mercenary heroes or Zei Rei. The other 7 Hero BiP support melee build points to this one and says it's inferior to it. So if this one is going to be deleted, and the other is inferior, what build should we use until we can do the triple energy surge one? Thanks for info. Narsikus (talk) 20:24, 28 June 2019 (UTC)