User:Darkmagickoak/Opinionated

The below is being relocated to a blog. Despite the "blogs are lame" stigma. However, I'm leaving this page alone. Probably because I'm lazy.

Paragons
What could be more appropriate for me to stick on here first than my enduring hate of Paragons! Where to start.

Suppose I should start with good points. 80 armor is more than good, and then you get 16 armor from a shield and you get to use a ranged weapon. Paragons also have inventive innate energy management (Leadership) that isn't generally over powered (soul reaping) but is still effective (unlike DF which is not related to "energy gain" unless you're bonding). All of this gets crapped on. 96+ armor is grand, until you look at paragons being placed on the midline. This means that between your high armor, probably high hp, and the general playstyle of "non-tanks" screaming and running around when they get hit (though we'll hope you use proper kiting instead) that your high armor is a complete selfish waste. The only acceptable paragon build partially excluded, since you then have the lowest party armor if you're good. But that's a debatable point outside of DoA.

Motivation is possibly the worst attribute in the game. The best use I have ever seen of this attribute is an old 300 hp BiP build that used a couple energy gain skills and a light heal from it. And the only other good use is sticking "The Power is Yours!" on a build doing something more useful that requires actually having energy yourself. That's one out of twenty skills in an attribute that's actually good for the Paragon primary. Some of these chants would actually be really nice (Ballad of Restoration, Aria of Zeal) but the recharge times are significantly too long. A secondary paragon with a primary function that's filled out in 3-5 skills with extra bar space (such as a BiP) can use these well enough, but the primary Paragon needs his abilities like these to be available to use more than 1-2 times per mob group. "Secondary Healer" is useful to a party, but their skills should be weaker because they have small regen or smaller healing not slow recharge.

Command has some really amazing shouts. In fact, I totally love some of these skills. So I take them on a secondary paragon and tend to use them to the same or better effect. We Shall Return? Works on a Paragon, but an Elementalist can return us all without waiting for energy to come back first. Or a Necro can even afford to use it for just 1-2 people down since two things likely just died to recover the cost. Fallback can work at 8 ranks on literally any class - ever since the end of WiK quest that had you running all over its been on my UA heroes to great effect. Still the better of the two to use for your shield, but the Paragon can't really show any superiority in this attribute over other classes using it.

Leadership, as I have said, is a pretty awesome attribute for its innate quality. Unfortunately, this not only makes most of the Paragon's shouts and chants very overpriced, but most of his adrenaline costs are overpriced as well since he gains energy using adrenal shouts. This isn't that different from Mesmer casting times being too long, some Monk heals being a bit low, or some Ranger skills costing too much. But it is, imo, more of a problem than other class's compensations for a main attribute.

Spears have always felt lackluster to me as a damage line. Its likely the difference of having 1 campaign + EotN for skills instead of 3 + EotN, meaning that the normal ratio of good to crummy/super conditional skills leaves you with very few nice ones. This line also supports the only 3 second attacks... Fail. Its not a spell, its a bum damage attack. Yes, there are some nice ones with deep wound, but they all cost a pretty high amount of adrenaline. Also, spear chuckers have been for ages vastly inferior to the only acceptable paragon build and its variations.

Elite skills in GW have always tended to run a couple exceptional for each class, a few more generally good, and a bunch of bad useless or too conditional skills. Paragons have 15 elite skills. Dervish was lucky and got 5 sweet avatars, 2 phenomenal scythe attack skills, a few odd but worthwhile enchantments, and one that makes dervish/necro gimmicks continue to crop up. (I count 2 actually terrible Dervish elites.) Know what's good out of Paragon? Lets go down their elites list right here on the Wiki! Incoming is handy for AB, but if you tried running it in my PvE party that's not on a noob island I'd boot you before you can say "Wait!". Angelic Bond I hear was once nice, and then got nerfed into... Something that doesn't deserve its elite status. Focused Anger = good elite, is useful to the paragon and could do some interesting combinations with warrior. Soldier's Fury = good elite, same stuff as Focused Anger. The Power is Yours is creative and has some nice uses on the pvx (not that I've seen anyone even try to run them), but has the serious drawback of being in Motivation. Cruel Spear and Stunning Strike might be cool for spear chuckers, but have very high adrenal costs particularly without being able to use Focused Anger or Soldier's Fury. The rest? I have seen countless heroes and people kicked from parties for having any of them on their skill bar. I don't hesitate to do the same, because the rest are too slow, too short, or undesirable functions.

Supposedly, Paragons are "gods" in pvp. And I can very well see where many of these slow, costly, and short skills would have a well deserved place in an organized party of 8. I can also see how like many classes two of the same class would be unwanted and unwelcome. The paragon does have 70 skills + 15 elites + pve only skills to choose from, it is horrible that only acceptable paragon build and its variations have to rely on 3 pve only skills, 1 elite, and usually fill the rest of the bar with skills split for pvp and pve (like We Shall Return). This really screams that the class is poorly designed as a whole in practice for pve. I am really looking forward to this pending update we're supposedly getting to buff Paragons, because I assertively think they are a terrible class. I actively do not bring them in parties that are not in DoA, and always have them kicked from a party if they don't at least have SY! on their bar (I require the entire build if it's not an area too early in NF to cap Focused Anger). I encourage my friends not to create them (I never recommend character deletion), or at least not as a main as the class is "utterly useless" (I've got one to complete the class collection, and so that I can complain about them legitimately). I do really hope that when Paragons finally get a PvE update I can stop hating on them so much. Unfortunately, my realistic expectations are that I expect however nice what they get may be, caster classes will still use and abuse their non-gimmick-included skills better than they can hope to. Even a few months after the epic Mesmer update finding a general party PuG as a mesmer can still be an iffy ordeal, and I've still run into a number of "I hate Mesmers". So I will keep hoping for something awesome, but I'm also not going to hold delusions or be surprised if nothing really changes.

Skill Balance 8.12.10
Part of the point I have in creating this page is somewhere better to put what I have to say on skill balances. Actual feedback pages are pretty spammy and any replies I've made on them I think were definitely more for me to say something than for the other dopes that replied to them. And whether the Devs read them or not I know I've never cared since it is overly unlikely they will read and act on what I have to say. Oh yea, and its a userspace, so I can be much less formal than I like to on feedback/talk pages. >.< And here I won't get into semi-public arguments with people I don't like. >.>

As usual, I couldn't care less about what they did to pvp. So far I'm hearing good stuff on Wastrel's Demise, though I'm doubting its effectiveness in PvE. Effective degeneration that stacks with actual max degen is pretty amazing (just like Agony or Rejuvenation for regen), but keeping enemies from using skills long enough isn't as easy as people like to think. Synergy boost with Panic, which is super sexy. I'm disappointed with the Overload change. Its got more AoE damage, but less target damage, mostly a fair exchange but I liked the spike damage on one target better. Personal Flavor. What I don't like is turning it into a hex since it looses its synergy with VoR and Mind Wrack. Also, domination has really never been a line with a lot of degen. On the up side, its a good target for Drain Delusions now and Domination didn't have a lot of hexes you want to be removing early. You could even use Drain Delusions on recharge with Overload now for tons of energy... Again, I'm really seeing a change on this skill in PvE for PvP reasons, and I will always consider that bad even if the change was fine.

Lore and Role Play value
So, I'm a Role Player, think I said that on the main page. I absolutely love it and I've been doing it for years, and I spend a bloody lot of time at it. Well, the past few months (last week excluded) I haven't really been on GW because I started RP'ing on a WoW server. Now, WoW RP is new to me. I've played the game about as long as I've played GW, but hadn't even considered RP on it before because WoW RP has a really bad reputation in a lot of communities. Particularly a few that I've been a part of. Contrary to that, it is actually kind of fun. Wait, what did this have to do with GW...? Oh, that's right! So without getting into one of those inane GW vs WoW debates, I wanted to very briefly say... Thank you Guild Wars for having clear and cohesive lore, for having a setting where there's no question on what is canon and what is fanon, and for not having a slew of published lore that was later retconned.

Purely talking about GW now. Its pretty hard to find quality RP (or really any at all) in the wide world of GW. Its much harder when you're not willing or able to join a dedicated RP guild. Which is truly a shame since GW is in an amazing setting. I know there's little that could be done (and nothing that will be) for the role players in GW1, but like many I'm holding out some hope that GW2 will be better for it. I'm personally hoping for Role Play districts that we can switch into, but I'm not holding my breath either. Something to promote a little role play would be cool though, wouldn't it?

Skill Balance 12.9.10
Well, primary pvp updates that change pve skills usually piss me off. This one isn't nearly as bad... except for one point. And I'll get there in a sec. I'm really happy the assassin changes have been effectively pvp only and that Air magic got a touch more love. Poor Invoke Lightening, should have had a 1s cast time all along - I've been saying this for years since I rolled my ele with air in mind. I'm also at this moment considering new uses for Angorodon's Gaze, giving a small cheer for Foul Feast and hero bars, and giving Weapon of Shadow a nice look.

And now I get to be pissed! So Patient Spirit was a fantastic skill; it was one of two non-elite non-spell blocking counters against enchantment removal, and unlike Watchful Healing you won't get kicked for giving it bar space. A counter, not just a cover, because it did something truly useful instead of simply being cheap and spammable. Now its a waste of energy. That your friendly nearby monk can not afford. As was said on the update's discussion page, my Mesmer looses nothing if Wastrel's Worry is canceled. If Patient Spirit ends early not only is my monk screwed but the guy I used it on is probably now dead too. @#$%! Sure, there's other spells monks can use, but this update really makes the spell not worth taking unless you know 110% that you will not be facing enchantment removal. Fiddlesticks, excuse me while I go move those other skills into my monk bars... At least we get to laugh at how much the skill balancers want Healing Burst used? (It is rather nice btw, starting to feel like a viable alternative to WoH when you need a shake-up.)

Mini-pets & the HoM Calculator
So something has bothered me since the HoM calculator came out, and annoys me far more now that I'm up to 47/50 (13 mini-pets and 1 easy title to go). Digging up 50 mini-pets is insane. There is exactly one route through which it can be reasonably achieved, and that is to purchase a large number of cute and cuddly little creatures from other players. Which is worth noting takes a damn lot of time bumming in LA, Spamadan, EotN (outpost), or other places you'd rather not be and spending a lot of gold you probably found yourself forced to farm in order to afford. Sure, it may be a safe assumption that most people do in fact farm (me included), but if you're somehow not predispositioned to do so and find yourself closing that gap to reach 50/50, you shouldn't be required to start just to afford some mini-pets. (Even though you likely did or will at some point for Obsidian armor, but that's an unrelated insanity.)

(Note: I do not wish to act as a price guide for anything, so I am remaining as vague as possible with referenced prices while also being accurate.)

Some numbers to point out that make the mini-pet requirement worse:
 * Pre-equipment pack, characters had a maximum storage space of 50 slots per character. Mini-pets, ofc, do not fit in equipment packs. Or each vault tab holds 20 items (2 1/2 to store 50 minis). I hear people with many (and no dedicated storage) are deleting their cute little friends once dedicated!
 * There are currently 108 different pets (not including the 3 frogs that shouldn't count anyways). You currently need ~46% of them.
 * Based on current market value, you can probably cross at least 20 minis off those that you would look to potentially attain purely for filling this monument for being exorbitantly pricey.
 * There are 40 white mini-pets from birthday presents. (5th year's current market value is floating around 55k ea.)
 * There are 15 purple mini-pets from birthday presents, ranging in costs from 10k (1st year) to neatly over 100k (5th year).
 * There are 10 gold and 5 green mini-pets from birthday presents. First year pets are approximately 50k, and other years are significantly more.
 * The cheapest in-game reward mini-pets are, currently (found through running price checks), ~50k at the lowest end of the market. Most are significantly more.
 * Canthan New Year mini-pets excluded, all in-game reward pets have a <.5% drop chance (estimated), where most other drops are worthless or worth significantly less then the present if a present was opened, or are from difficult to reach chests. (Or worse.)
 * The one exception is the Black Moa Chick, who costs a bare minimum of 10k (5k craft incubator kit, 5k craft 50 spiritwood) + item collection time if you complete the scavenger hunt yourself. Completion cost can increase, but not by much.
 * Promotional & SE pets you can expect to spend 80k+ each on. (Lucky finds can be as low as 60k, most are firmly over 100k.)
 * Most players should never expect to touch a "Miscellaneous" category pet, or the fracking Bear.

The up side is that a new set of birthday pets (6th year) and a new Canthan New Year pet (2011 is rabbit) is generally expected before GW2 (at least), and prices of older year's birthday pets will drop as new ones are released. My take? I'd like to see Winds of Change add a slew of easily obtained purple mini-pets, even if they're lame. The number you can attain through your own effort is currently based on A. how much you farm, or B. how early in the game you rolled a ton of characters. I would like to see more that you can put a moderate amount of playtime effort into, and less Rise/Vaettir/Raptor farming or sheer dumb luck.

As a cost comparison with the other monuments:
 * You generally gain significant wealth going through Honor. (Excluding purchasing zkeys for Zaishen Supporter, as buying is not required to reach r3 reasonably or you could actually pvp. Also excluding doing it stupidly.)
 * You can reasonably complete Fellowship by spending only 1k to get into the UW. (In fact, I gained significant gold completing this, and helping guild/alliance members with it.) However, if you do buy your way through it, at the current market value you can expect approximately 10k* per hero, + 1k for an Imperial Sanctum run, and +1k to get into the UW with favor totaling a maximum of 252k.
 * (*Not using Deldrimor remnants.)
 * Resilience is obviously going to be pricey for the Obsidian and Vabbian requirements, which will cost you ~1k plat (Obby) or ~350k (Vabbian) if you purchase all the materials outright. Reason and sanity says: Don't do that. While trying to be a commentary and avoiding writing a guide, here are a few ideal (and suitably unlikely) models that you are likely to have loosely followed while filling out this monument:
 * Assuming that you have all the materials, purchase the matching headpiece, and buy the cheapest combination of armors your total would be 375k in crafting costs ( = 75k obby + 75k kurz/lux + 25k vabbian + 50k x4 ancient, asura, monument, norn).
 * Assuming that you select 6 sets with a 75k crafting costs + Vabbian, same conditions assumed, your total is 475k in crafting costs.
 * These prices can be cheaper by not buying head pieces or pricier by buying materials. Most rare materials (like damask) cost around 5-8k to craft for a full set, ecto/obby/gems obviously not included. (Note: Not all sets have head pieces, nor are you required to buy them to display your sets, and you will buy or craft at least some materials.)
 * Assuming you craft all 7 sets in the most expensive possible manner (purchasing all mats from the mats traders + runs to the Forgemaster), you could easily spend 2m doing so.
 * Admittedly, you are extremely likely to spend months farming materials or gold to afford Obsidian, and the cheapest route to Vabbian is to do as many quests for free trade contracts as you can put up with, then just purchase the remaining gems. Combined, you can likely expect to fork out 800k+ just on these materials. A fair total estimate of mats, insane mats, and crafting costs for 7 armors is likely to fall just north of 1m gold.
 * Finding a value to place with Valor may be worse then Resilience. For example, I crafted an entire set of Destroyer weapons before WiK for 15k each, you can generally get 1-2 Oppressor weapons per character you play through WiK off quest rewards (which I did), and I'm an on and off DoA junkie. On the flip side, Destroyer weapons now cost ~40-70k (crafted or bought), Oppressor weapons have jumped between 50 and 80k, and Tormented have been 175-200k for a long time. Like armor, there are smart ways and stupid ways to get this one.
 * Potentially, in another least cost model, you could spend only ~40k to craft one destroyer weapon (at current values), run WiK with all your characters/farm Rise, and play some DoA for your tormies. Or if you hate DoA, you could spend ~120k crafting 3 destroyer weapons, and suffer through enough DoA for just one armbrace (or pull together some ectos).
 * For maximum cost comparison, you could purchase 11 armbraces for ~24 ectos each, and buy your choice of 4 more Destroyer/Oppressor for ~70k ea. totaling 264 ectos + 280k (or 2392k assuming 1 ecto = 8k).

Those mini-pets? Got two theoretical models again!

The first I consider less likely, for using all of the absolute cheapest minis to purchase all 50 at current market values. I can't/won't say what the prices were or exactly which minis were figured in, but I calculated a total of 1370k. Note that this does not include any of the highly desired pets (such as Livia), or any single pet over a value of 100k.

The second is a touch more likely. It assumes that you've acquired 20 for free (or at least previously), including all first year whites, and have to purchase 30 for an average of 50k each. This allows some leeway to calculate in a larger vanity purchase or two, as is likely. This totals 1500k.

And we thought Obby sucked. At least it takes 1/10th the inventory space and can be worn all at once. Damn cute lil' buggers.

Dervish Update Preview
OMG!Omg!Omg!Omg!Omg!Omg!Omg!Omg!Omg!Omg!Omg!Omg!Omg!Omg!Omg!Omg!

...I think I'm going to go buy my dervish a new scythe to prepare for this! *Hugs the Oracle and shoves her into Spamadan* ('The Oracle' is the role play name of my dervish.)