User talk:Alaris

From Guild Wars Wiki

[edit] Hi

Hello Alaris, and welcome to the Guild Wars Official Wiki! Here are a few links to help you get involved. Please feel free to contact me if you need help with anything on my talk page.

Don't be afraid to edit - anyone can edit almost any page and we encourage you to be bold! Find something that can be improved, whether content, grammar or formatting, and make it better.

• If you are new to editing wikis, have a look at our how to help article.
• For information on the way that our articles should be laid out, see the formatting section.
• To find out what you are and are not allowed to do on this wiki, have a look at our policy section.
• Articles should NOT be copied directly from GuildWiki - see this copyright section for details.
• For guidelines about personalized pages, see our user page section.
• Before uploading any images, you may want to read the policy on user images.

Best of luck and happy editing! -- Wacked 1 16:42, 24 April 2007 (EDT)

[edit] Show preview

Just wanted to remind you of the show preview button (I'm sure you have seen it) :) It helps if you do a show preview and not press save page for every edit, because saving all small edits separately clutters up the recent changes more than necessary - Anja (talk) 13:25, 2 May 2007 (EDT)

[edit] RE: Suggestion page

Please don't move your suggestion page into the public space before consensus has been reached at Talk:Main Page#Wiki NEEDS a suggestions. Thanks. MisterPepe talk 12:19, 9 May 2007 (EDT)

[edit] Guild Image: The Order Of Dii cape.JPG

The image you recently uploaded (Image:The Order Of Dii cape.JPG) does not comply with the Guild Wars Wiki image naming policy and has been tagged for deletion. Please feel free to re-upload the image under a correct name. Thanks, -FireFox 05:30, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Your daughter

I love it that your daughter plays and collects stuff... that's just nice. :) Sonya Gladgul 05:36, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. And her favorite character in Dii was the Necromancer, followed by the Druid. She wants to be a zoologist, she likes the company. :) Alaris 13:44, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Ranger talk

I actually started off as a R/Me, and recently switched to R/Rt, but I find it very useful. Depending on what you're doing, Barrage + any Rit weapon enchant is a really nice combo. For big groups, I use Barrage + Splinter Weapon. When I'm low on health, Barrage + Vengeful Weapon (I think, whatever has life steal on it...) is nice too. Other than that, I haven't really taken the time to see what else the Rt secondary can do for me, mainly because I started my new Dervish and got sidetracked. Sorry if I couldn't fully answer your question.

[edit] Stole something

Hey, I just wanted to let you know that I took some userboxes from you. I wanted to know if that was alright. Thanks. If not, I will remove them. Click here to see > Alreajk

Thanks for asking, but you should not ask me. You should ask the people I stole them from ;D Alaris 14:00, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Guild table

Hey Alaris, I was thinking on how to make the presentation table color-coordinated with the guild infobox and alliance navbox. You can see the results in my sandbox. If you like it, feel free to port it over to the Guild page :). --Lensor (talk) 19:29, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Nice job. I was going to, but thanks for changing it. Alaris 16:24, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Shouts links

I noticed on Barrage you changed the skill Find their weakness to [[%22Find_Their_Weakness%21%22|"Find their weakness!"]]. This confuses me. Why not just have the skill name like this [["Find their Weakness!"]]? I realize it doesn't link anywhere but a redirect to [[Find thier weakness]] could be added to that empty page. What do you think? Or is there something I am missing? --Image:VallenIconwhitesmall.JPG Vallen Frostweaver 14:24, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm not an expert in wiki, I just edit it so that it works. From the user's point of view, either way makes no difference as you'd see the same link, and it would go to the same page. The only difference is that my way saves a redirect, and yours is easier to understand for coders. Either way is fine with me, as long as it works. Alaris 14:30, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Sounds good. Thanks. --Image:VallenIconwhitesmall.JPG Vallen Frostweaver 17:47, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Advertising sunspear skills

Sorry, I had to laugh when I read your line: "Xeeron - the idea is to inform players when they log in the game, rather than have them look for news on websites everyday. Link to wiki would be good though". First time someone told me that I missinterpreted myself (Read the very first post in that section) ;-)

I want both: Players being informed when they log in AND on the wiki main page. The later I can change myself, the former only ANet, that is why I brought it up there. --Xeeron 18:01, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

My bad, it's been a long day. Sorry. Alaris 18:07, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Don't worry, made my day a bit brighter by making be laugh, so no harm done =) --Xeeron 20:30, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Death leveling

Thanks for the help with the notes. Your edit lookes really good to me. I've been watching the attempts recently to add that you can get from lvl 15 to 20 with quest rewards, and it is just not so. I'm tempted to go do all the quests with a fresh character, just to prove it, and get the actuall final total for all quests.LeFick 21:23, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Well, I didn't actually put all the quests and XP and add the numbers if that's what you are referring to... But yes, there's been an ongoing war regarding the exclusivity of Survivor and LDoA, which is annoying at best because (1) nobody has ever achieved both, or we'd certainly see that, and (2) nobody in their right mind would do both using a friend to death level and hard-rez them, because instead of months of AFK it would be months-worth of playing, which would actually take years. Alaris 22:04, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

As for 2, I've seen that done up to level 17. Backsword 22:07, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Yeah. I forgot to mention that it's a bannable offense to use hard rez in pre-searing - hard rez'es don't exist in pre-searing aside from hacks and bugs. Aside from that, did they actually death level and use a hard rez, or did they use quest rewards to go from 16 to 17? It would be easy to do the second, and claim the first. Alaris 22:17, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

For my own curiosity, as well as the WIKI, I have started a project on my talk page, and will do every quest listed, if possible. If you want to follow along, I'll be making updates there as I try a complete run this weekend. LeFick 22:20, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Headpiece in HoM

That's odd. Mine doesn't. And I even have the headpiece that fits the set. Perhaps some headpieces show, others don't? :S — Galil 06:54, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Just to add: It doesn't show for neither my monk with Labyrinthine armor or my ranger with 15k Druid armor. I have the correct headpiece for the monk, but not the ranger. — Galil 06:57, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] I'm Sorry

Twas an opportunity I couldn't pass up. I seen the space for a mass prank...and I did it. On Gaile's talk page. I win. Drago 21:27, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Actually, I thought it was a pretty funny prank. Worse part is, I remember that song from back when it was popular. I guess my powers of suppression aren't as good as I thought :) Alaris 22:05, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Suggestion

Can I make a suggestion, I think that it might make ur page look better if u create diffrent pages for ur characters; see look at mine Shadoew and My User Page. I just think it might make the page look a little better feel free to use the coding if u would like, if u need the coding for other professions I can get u that.  :o) Shadowphoenix Image:User-Shadowphoenix Shadow Phoenix Signet.jpg

Wow, I am really impressed. Neat page. I'll think about it... thing is, I'm not sure I want to spend the time editing instead of playing :) -- Alaris 23:14, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Tagging

Remember to tag guild images with {{guild image}} in the summery section before you upload it. Thanks! --People of Antioch talk 05:05, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Lol - I'm sad

I can't believe i play this game longer a day than you on average :P 1,185 hours over 10 months I think i'm addicted - hehe (In-Game Name : Dutchess Of Rose)

Slightly more than me. Besides, I have lots of things interferring with gaming... :) -- Alaris 21:11, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Refund Points?

You posted a comment on my suggestion concerning what the Charr special ability will be. I think you misunderstood what I said, but I'm not sure I understood what you said. Could you please clarify somehow? What are refund points?--Shai Halud 22:32, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Oi

Hey, I need other people to talk to other the ones in my head, head over my discussion page since I wanna come up with a more substantial GW2 suggestion/idea XD Renin 17:31, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Black Moa Chick

Hi. It looks like you like minipets as much as I do.

Check this out: {{User bmc}}

I can't find the page...? -- Alaris 23:01, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Gw2 Suggestions

Hi Alaris, I've noticed that you seem to post pretty regularly on the GW2 suggestions page. These might be moved at some point to the new ArenaNet name space and at the moment there is a slow moving discussion about the community organising the content. You might have a few ideas to put in about what may or may not work - so please if you have any comments please chip in at ArenaNet_talk:Portal#...Suggestions or mess around with a possible layout at ArenaNet:Guild Wars 2 suggestions. Thanks! --Aspectacle 11:56, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

I linked your GW2 page here: ArenaNet:List of personal GW2 ideas Backsword 14:48, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

[edit] My old paladin

could easily 1-shot your amazon. My blessed hammer hits for 12k. Now I'm playing Median 2008 though. — Teh Uber Pwnzer 23:07, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

I didn't mean this as an actual challenge, just a nice jest. Diablo 2 was a great game, and it's nice to see new mods coming out for it. Perhaps we'll meet in Diablo 3? -- Alaris 13:40, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps. — Teh Uber Pwnzer 20:00, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Lightning Trap 5 * 15k Backsword 14:49, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

[edit] "What's wrong with a ranger using a ranger skill?"

Nothing at all - because that's not the issue at all. The issue is that RaO makes rangers better warriors than warriors of the same skill level are, not least because it's more properly named "Rampage as One Hammer and One Sword Warrior With Free Energy Gain To Boot".

RaO builds are a clear example of the secondary profession system going wrong - the secondary profession was, I believe, originally introduced as a bonus to your primary profession, not as a means to abuse your primary attribute.

On a completely unrelated note, your userpage is pretty neat. Could "Alaris Golden Sun" be a nod to one of my favorite games of all time?

-- Armond Warblade 17:54, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm not too familiar with RaO builds, I might take a look and educate myself. Thanks. Personally, I think that it's great that very diverse uses of primary & secondary pop up. I like the idea of R/W being as good as W/x (but admittedly, not better than). Not everyone is of that opinion, and I respect that.

As for my page, thanks. I'm not sure what game you're referring to, so probably not. I was looking for a name that would characterize the Paragon, and that would be good for a title hunter (which was the primary goal of that char when created). Aside from Alaris Blood Raven (my first R, build as R/N with summons, since deleted for good reasons), I don't normally make references to other games. -- Alaris 19:33, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Diverse uses of primaries and secondaries are all well and good until you get to the point where it takes zero skill to be better than a "proper" build - which RaO has always been at.

Golden Sun was the game I was referring to. -- Armond Warblade 20:29, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

I find that "proper" and "takes zero skill" are very subjective terms. Skill balance has to be considered relative to gains, costs, and ease of use. RaO costs not only energy, but also the elite slot, plus two more skill to be usable... Is it really the case that it makes the users of such builds overpowered? I cannot tell, I've never used it. -- Alaris 21:02, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

RaO is one of those skills that really favor using your secondary over your primary. In this case, a constant +25% move buff is unnecessary for a bow ranger, but throw a melee weapon on (where you have to chase a lot), then suddenly this skill makes sense. Is this a.net's intention? Hard to say. But, it's definitely clever use of a skill that other people simply copied and abused it. --8765 21:10, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

The fact that it's elite doesn't make it any harder to mash 5, wait for adrenaline, mash 1, 2, 3, 4, rinse and repeat. I've played similar builds with my monitor covered so I couldn't see anything that was going on and still killed way too many things to be balanced.

You'll also find that the energy cost is largely mitigated by Expertise and Scavanger's Strike.

And yes, RaO was specifically created for thumper builds. Izzy has stated such in a few places. -- Armond Warblade 21:13, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Well well, guess I learned something today. -- Alaris 21:23, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Weapon spells

Finally, Salome, weapon spells are not broken, they are balanced. They are non-stacking, and if you maintain them on all your team members, you're run out of energy fast. Besides, if they'd be so broken, why are there so few ritualists used instead of monks?

Lemme try to learn you something like I did just above. :P

Weapon spells are unremovable - that's their perk. That's what they were designed to be, because at the time, Disarm didn't exist. As a result, you can only have one weapon spell on any one person at any given point of time. Sounds fair, right? You can shatter an enchantment pretty easily, but a weapon spell will stick, and short stopping it from going off in the first place or killing the target, you're not going to stop it. (We'll completely ignore the arguments about how bad unstoppable things are for the game, for now.)

So far, so good. You've got a semi-weak effect (let's be honest, Guardian is a great spell, but just by itself it's a bit weak - you need Spirit Bond, Channeling, Glyph Lesser, something, to support it and make it work to its full potential) that has the added perk of being unremovable. Sounds balanced to me so far.

Here's the problem: You don't have a semi-weak effect. You have an amazingly powerful effect that casts quickly enough to almost never be interruptable - did you know there's only two weapon spells in the game with a cast time longer than one second? One second is the standard casting time for a weapon spell, which makes it difficult to interrupt on your standard turret ranger. (It's a ton easier on a mesmer due to fast casting and 1/4 cast interrupts, but mesmer interrupts recharge a lot slower than weapon spells.)

Compare, if you will, Weapon of Warding (PvP) and Guardian. Toss Guardian on a guy, and he's immune to melee pressure (not melee damage; melee pressure) for a good seven seconds or so. Toss WoW on him, and he's essentially immune to melee damage for ten seconds - you get an extra three seconds duration out of it and they'll heal up any damage they manage to take. The downside is that you can't toss WoW on a second guy five seconds later, but the fact that soul reaping makes the cost essentially free makes up for that, even if the health regen didn't (though, honestly, the regen is powerful enough that it almost does).

If you're still not convinced, try comparing Nightmare Weapon and Conjure Flame. Conjure Flame is a pretty balanced skill - it adds a chunk of pressure, but it's got a lot of counters. If it's stripped, one way or the other, you're out of luck for a good half a minute or so (sometimes as little as ten seconds, but that's still a lot of pressure lost.) It's also elemental damage, which means it's vulnerable to shield swapping (not to mention armor in general). Nightmare Weapon, however, has a few things going for it: It completely ignores armor, which means you're guaranteed to deal a lot of extra damage so long as you can hit; it puts its bonus damage in "bursts", which is great for spikes or for working down the last bit of that guy's health; and it heals you for a good chunk, while you're at it (realistically, something around 100 hp per cast). Furthermore, it doesn't require an elemental weapon, so you can put it on your vamp bow or whatnot and do just fine. (Why don't people use Nightmare, then, you ask? Well, ranger spike teams tend to, and everyone else doesn't because... well, warriors can't manage the energy, and even then, few warriors use conjure simply because there's better things to use your slots on, such as Shock.)

As for why rits are so much less common than monks - well, if you went to HA, you'd find that they aren't. They just, as I said, are necro primaries. But the other thing you need to keep in mind is that you can't rely on the majority of people to decide things for you - the majority isn't always, or even often, correct. I'm sure you've heard tons of people tell you that paragons are weak because they've been nerfed so many times - are they right, just because they're the majority? Of course not. The majority of people, frankly, tend to be dumb - but that's another discussion for another time.

-- Armond Warblade 23:49, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Not convinced. (1) Unremoveable things are not necessarily bad, it depends on opinion and balance. My opinion is that there's no problem with that provided it's balanced. (2) N/Rt gets energy, but Mo gets added healing via divine. Having played both, I can say that neither seems stronger than the other, but N/Rt is more difficult to spot as the healer in a group in PvP. Monk gets free heals instead of added energy, and also gets to use runes. (3) WoW vs. Guardian, added cost for added effect, and you conveniently forgot to mention that Mo also gets added heal for free. Not convinced. (4) Nightmare vs. Conjure, like costly spike vs. cheap pressure. Brutal weapon would be a better comparison. Nightmare needs to hit, btw. I use it for the occasional spike, but I'd use Conjure instead for long-term damage. It's costly and requires re-application too often. (5) So if I can't trust ppl because they're dumb, as you say, why should I trust you? I agree that many don't understand balance. I'm not a sheep. -- Alaris 00:50, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Clarification on RaO above... you taught me that Izzy made the skill for thumpers. You didn't teach me that the skill was unbalanced though... I'm not convinced. I personally think that players using skills from another profession is great fun. I got annoyed at N/Rt's stealing my job as Mo, but then again, they were not in demand nearly enough that my job was in any jeopardy, and I think it's great that such diversity can exist. It's a pain to balance, sure, but it's definately worth it. Killing that diversity in favor of RP considerations (like you should be good at what you do, not at doing what other classes do) is not worth it IMO. -- Alaris 01:02, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

If you've played an N/Rt healer and a monk healer, and you don't think the N/Rt is overpowered, and you think the N/Rt is more difficult to spot as a healer in PvP, and you think divine favor heals are free, I can tell I'm not going to be able to convince you, mr. sheep. -- Armond Warblade 02:17, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

How are the bonus from divine favor not free? And if you disagree that N/Rt's are harder to spot than Mo's, then fine. It only takes away from your side. Last thing, let's keep it civil, even if we disagree. That means no name calling. -- Alaris 02:31, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

I don't see where I called you a name, unless you didn't spot the 50-pixel-high sarcasm tags around "mr sheep". :P But nowadays, there's so damn many N/Rts in... pretty much every form of play... that there's simply not any other real reason why someome takes a rit secondary as a necro. (Unless, that is, they're carrying superpowered rit support skills, in which case they should be high priority anyway.) Divine Favor bonuses aren't free because you, well, you kinda have to dump a bunch of attribute points and a rune into making them effective. Did you know that MBaS will outperform all Healing Prayers staple skills at 13 resto, 13 healing, and 13 favor? I direct you here for more information. -- Armond Warblade 02:42, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Interesting read. And sorry about missing the sarcasm... but on the internet, sarcasm fails. It's hard to guess intent when all we have is text.

What needs to be considered though is not the single skills, but rather the build in which it is used. Can it remove hexes? Can it do group healing? Can it do massive healing on one target? Can it protect, and pre-prot? Ultimately, Mo's and N/Rt's need to fill a variety of functions to be useful to their team. So take two commonly-used builds and compare them... it's a hard task, I know. Failing that, we could compare stats for teams with Mo's vs. with N/Rt's.

It's a shame that primary Rt's aren't more (or at least as) popular than N/Rt's. But then again, before Rt's and Paragons, only monks could heal or prot. Like I said above, and it's an opinion I will not let go of, diversity is a strong asset of GW. -- Alaris 04:47, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

The problem is, the whole N/Rt build can do just as much - or more - than the whole Mo/X build - if only because it can clump condition removal with flat heals, and hex removal is more than taken care of on other characters (who can more than keep up with the standards of midline support while they're at it via splinter, warmonger's, etc), which completely bypasses the point of "rits are supposed to be good at flatheals but bad at hex removal". Why bring hex removal when it's not something you need worry about?

Yes, it's a shame we're missing primary rit healers. The reason they're not really there is because hexes are such a huge problem that unless you have insanely overpowered energy management, you just can't afford to give up any hex removal anywhere - thus the "nerit".

I agree that diversity is great within Guild Wars, but it comes at the huge cost of balance. Let's take one simple example - you've pressured the enemy down so there's three guys at ~200 hp each. You could knock out one, maybe two of them with a warrior before the enemy monk has a chance to save the rest. With a derv... one chilling crit and they're all dead, or a wounding strike smash if, for whatever reason, none of them have DW. And, by the way, it's much easier to get to that point by using a derv than a warrior. See the problem? Dervs are also a bit more immune to spikes due to their inherent +health (yes, warriors have higher armor and non-hammer warriors have a shield, but there's plenty of pressure that completely ignores armor - start by looking at antimelee hexes and life stealing). The only real reason to run a warrior over a derv is that a derv has a lower "skill cap" than a warrior - there's only so much you can do with a derv, regardless of your skill level, due to things like slower attack speed and available skills, but this isn't the case with the shock axe. (This is, by the way, the reason why high-end players run warriors and monks over dervs and N/Rts.)

Sorry if this doesn't make sense, it's getting on 2 am... -- Armond Warblade 05:35, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

So far, I see trade-offs and the choices people make. These do not necessarily mean that those choices were made because imbalances exist. We would need some data and analysis to make conclusions like that. (1) D vs W: indeed, higher armor which can be bypassed. But dervishes also rely on enchantments which can be removed. And putting daze on a dervish is lots of fun. Or any hex that punish them per hit. Having played both in PvE, and against both, I would say that neither is inherently better than the other. I would say that, however, Dervishes tend to have higher damage output, but also be easier to kill or shutdown. Which is ok by me. (2) The problem with Rt skills, from what I see, is not so much that they provide good heals or unremoveable buffs in the form of weapon spells. The problem is that the Rt primary isn't built to encourage playing Rt skills on a Rt. I love the Rt profession, with many of my characters being /Rt, but I would not make a Rt primary... because its bonuses are too restrictive. Compare that to R, N, or even E or Me. What I would like to see is that the primary profession in GW2 is linked to a bonus that spreads well to a range of other professions, and thus that the profession should be known for its primary rather than its skills. Me is fast cast. E is energy. N is energy per death. R is cheap attacks. W is increased damage. Etc. With this mentality, it would not be a problem if Rt skills were used as secondary. But then, the Rt profession would also need a good worthwhile primary.

Some would argue that N, R, etc are broken because their primary allows efficient builds that use skills mostly from a secondary profession. I would argue that Mo, W, P etc are broken because their primary doesn't allow efficient builds that use skills mostly from a secondary profession. -- Alaris 14:19, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

You need to actually play the game instead of doing this theorycrafting and PvE stuff, and look up the definition of "power creep". That's all I'm going to say - because, yes, these skills have their inherent pluses and minuses, but you're completely ignoring the fact that the downsides are completely ignorable. -- Armond Warblade 06:02, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Sarcasm doesn't work on the internet. And downsides are not "completely ignorable" in GW, they usually require one or several skills to be used just to compensate for the downside, or limits your playstyle. You'll need a better understanding of scientific methodology and/or logical fallacies to win me over. BTW, I did look up the definition of power creep. What of it? -- Alaris 14:31, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

I was not being sarcastic. Play the game and you'll start realizing that things are overpowered instead of bleating "this is balanced! this is balanced!" like the 90% of HA people that abuse it. -- Armond Warblade 21:37, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Special Awards

Naturally it wasn't coincidence! Congrats with your NPC! And people will now think you'll have named your character after the NPC :p --Lady Rhonwyn 07:28, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

Grats. --Xeeron 11:02, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

grats ^^ - Y0_ich_halt 11:49, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

Congrats! Erasculio 12:35, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

Well, I could not possibly name my characters after the NPC, cuz *all* my characters are older than the NPC! Thanks everyone! -- Alaris 18:21, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Congratulations Alaris for your Namesake NPC!

--Silverleaf Don't assume, ask! 14:21, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

and lols on it being a luxon npcCrimmastermind 07:38, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

My heart has always been with the Luxons. I wonder if they knew that...? -- Alaris 21:16, 16 November 2008 (UTC)