User talk:Soldier198

Tell me

You write well, extremely calm and peaceful, yet very effective. What's your secret ?--Ruine Eternelle 20:52, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

Hello Ruine, and thanks for the compliment. I don't really know how my writing style developed. I would place some emphasis on reading Wikipedia articles extensively since my early childhood. I believe doing so probably led me to copy much of the writing style encouraged by their editors, i.e, attempting to appear concise, neutral, and unbiased.

Naturally I must mention the years of schooling I received as a child, teenager, and young adult. I would say much of my style was formed by early high school. I blossomed young as a writer. The influences that were upon me in those crucial, earlier stages of development I cannot recall individually nor fully. And so it is I must conclude that I cannot pinpoint decisively how, when, nor where my style developed, as much of the teachers and lessons I've had throughout the years have since been forgotten. Soldier198 (talk) 23:29, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

Skill history

You seem to be quite active in skill history. Is there any way you can check the history for Word of Healing? A user made a note that stood out to me, that in the history there are changes I cannot find proof of. Such as the update for changing it TO target other ally is nowhere to be found, such as in the 2005 and the 2006 updates. The ones in 2007 are accurate but I am curious what you do to find proper skill history, and if you could use whatever methods you do for that to double-check and make sure those updates are correct, since you seem to find this information, and this skill history page has not been touched in a long time. Thanks! Shade the (talk) 20:34, 29 May 2020 (UTC)

Hi Shade. I generally use the Guild Wars Unofficial Wiki to reference skill histories. Their pages go back to 2005. I then use our Wiki's archives of game updates to track changes to a skill. This is the earliest version of Word of Healing on the Unofficial Wiki, dated to June 12, 2005. As we can see, it matches our version of Word of Healing at that same date in the Skill History page, except for two details. At the time of that Unofficial Wiki page being written, Arenanet still referred to skill gradients on a 1-12 attribute scale. Our information seems to be copied from that page without accounting for the 1-12 attribute gradient, and so our information was edited incorrectly to match their 1-12 attribute scale with our 1-15 attribute scale (the conditional healing of 15...83...100 was incorrectly edited to match 15...69...83 while the unconditional healing of 16...67...80 was incorrectly edited to match 16...57...67. This version of the WoH page, dating to October 19, 2005, has a progression table, confirming our editor's mistake). The Unofficial Wiki also lists WoH as not being self targetable at that time, which I will assume is correct.

A further problem I have discovered upon browsing through our archive of game updates is that I cannot find a skill balance update corresponding to the dates of June 12, 2005 and March 10 2006, both of which are dates that the WoH Skill History page has recorded as balance updates. I am unable to cross reference any game updates from 2005 with the archives at the Unofficial Guild Wars Wiki as it seems those update pages are no longer listed in their archives, but I am able to cross reference game updates from 2006 forwards. The Guild Wars Unofficial Wiki does not have a March 10, 2006 balance update in its archive.

With this, I will assume that our editor, operating on the misunderstanding explained above, could not find any game updates between June 12, 2005 and January 19, 2007 that accounted for WoH having been changed in a way that would make WoH accurately match the balance update of January 19, 2007. To give an example of what I mean:

Elite Spell. Heal target ally for 16...57...67 Health. Heal for an additional 15...69...83 Health if that ally is below 50% Health.

This is WoH incorrectly recorded as of June 12, 2005.

Elite Spell. Heal target other ally for 15...83...100 Health. Heal for an additional 15...83...100 Health if that ally is below 50% Health.

This is WoH as of January 19, 2007, the earliest balance update our editor would've been able to find that adjusts WoH.

The update note for WoH reads "Conditional healing increased to 15..100." Our Wiki also notes that " Word of Healing already had a conditional healing range of 15...100 prior to this update. The update actually increased the unconditional healing to 15...100."

So, if only the unconditional healing was adjusted to 15...83...100, and the conditional healing was already at 15...83...100, our pages do not line up unless there was a balance update in between. Our editor seems to have attempted to account for this by guessing when the skill was changed.

The earliest balance update I can find in both our archives and those of the Guild Wars Unofficial Wiki for Word of Healing actually dates to January 19, 2007. With this knowledge, I will have to presume that the version of WoH as listed on the June 12, 2005 subsection of the WoH Skill History page is actually the original version of the skill (as confirmed by the Guild Wars Unofficial Wiki), and that the balance updates of June 12, 2005 and March 10, 2006 never occurred. Soldier198 (talk) 01:11, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for the explanation/read. And also big thanks on checking it out too! Shade the (talk) 01:32, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

Account merge and rename

Let me know if anything's weird. - Tanetris (talk) 21:33, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

Thank you Sir. I will notify you should something implode. Soldier198 (talk) 14:54, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

Thanks.

This gave me a chuckle -> https://wiki.guildwars.com/index.php?title=Poison_Arrow&oldid=2678677 Barrage Poison Arrow? That would be so op lol. Durp da durp (talk) 07:53, 28 June 2022 (UTC)

Hey, yes sorry about that. I intended to publish that change on my temp page. Generally, I'll change a skill in the edit window on its skill page and then copy it onto my userpage or feedback page. Made a misclick here and changed the wrong page.

I'm not entirely pleased with the idea, but in terms of it being overpowered, I don't think it would be in neither PvE nor PvP. What it does that is of primary importance (the striking of multiple targets without removing preparations) already has precedence in Incendiary Arrows, which may strike up to three targets at once. From a PvE perspective, Incendiary Arrows isn't all that great, and its best use is with combinations of skills like Ignite Arrows and Ebon Battle Standard of Honor (EBSoH will increase the damage of both the arrows striking the targets as well as the damage from Ignite Arrows, which is why this combination is usually ran together). The fact that Incendiary Arrows and this version of Poison Arrow deal degenerative damage is essentially moot in PvE because of the degeneration cap, the power of direct damage skills, and the speed with which mobs are killed. Poison Arrow would essentially take the current not-so-great Incendiary Arrows bar in PvE and make it mildly stronger by striking up to 4 nearby foes instead of 3, which is better, but I do not believe to be gamebreaking. Additionally, both Incendiary Arrows and Poison Arrow having nearby range somewhat negates their synergy with skills like Splinter Weapon and the aforementioned Ignite Arrows because those skills operate on adjacent range. Against foes that are not balled tightly enough, it is possible to waste damage from Splinter Weapon and Ignite Arrows because strikes from Incendiary and Poison Arrow may stray into nearby range. Furthermore, neither Incendiary Arrows nor Poison Arrow deal + damage, only conditions, which means they are relying on only the bow attack damage (and any modifiers) to deal damage. Against foes with high armor, this ability then becomes even less powerful.

PvP is where Poison Arrow would probably find most usage because of its ability to poison multiple foes. Again, Incendiary Arrows is already able to do this, but there would be a few differences between it and Poison Arrow. First and foremost, Poison Arrow can strike up to four foes instead of three, but to balance this out it costs 10 energy instead of 5. Incendiary Arrows is most often ran with Apply Poison in PvP, but Poison Arrow would likely end up being ran with Barbed Arrows. The downside of Barbed Arrows is that you are inflicting -3 degeneration on foes instead of -4 with Apply Poison. So, Poison Arrow would allow you to inflict -7 degeneration on foes grouped in nearby range, but once foes are spread out, you are only able to inflict -3 degeneration on individual foes, and if you want to poison them too, you have to spend 10 energy on each individual foe. This makes Poison Arrow somewhat stronger against balled foes, but weaker when to comes to spreading conditions against individuals. Incendiary Arrows is so cheap with its 5 energy cost that it's easy to afford whether or not you're striking one foe or multiple, whereas Poison Arrow has a real drawback with 10 energy if you are consistently striking just one enemy. The energy demands of the Poison Arrow build would add up even further as the Ranger is still most certain to use Savage Shot, Distracting Shot, and in GvG they'd most likely bring Pin Down as a snare. This is why I think it could end up being balanced without replacing Incendiary Arrows in PvP.

But I'm still not sold on the idea myself either which is why it's in my temp page and not feedback page, which ultimately doesn't matter either because all this is for fun and theory. Soldier198 (talk) 13:11, 28 June 2022 (UTC)

3 spirits

what is the net energy gain you added in the table to those three skill pages? Steve1 (talk) 22:40, 7 March 2023 (UTC)

Sorry about that. I copied the Hero behavior panel from the Spirit Channeling page. I didn't realize I was also copying the energy gain table. Soldier198 (talk) 22:45, 7 March 2023 (UTC)

Thank you

For your help in removing the instances of the hero template. Hopefully these notes are more visible and readable now! Toraen - talk 14:36, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

It looks better this way. I didn't really like the old UI icon but I did it because some other editors did it and I decided to follow their example, just as I did now when you changed it. Soldier198 (talk) 14:43, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

Watchful Intervention

https://wiki.guildwars.com/index.php?title=Watchful_Intervention&curid=12409&diff=2686328&oldid=2661959

In your edit notes you say that "has yet to be retested per the 2019 hero ai update" but you remove that info from the skill page. What am I missing? Steve1 (talk) 16:47, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

I presumed that the data on hero usage was not current because the page contained both the data as well as the notification from 2019 requesting that the hero AI be retested with the skill. However, looking back at the edit history of the page, it turns out that the data on hero usage for the skill was added in 2020, which would mean the data was aquired after the 2019 update to Hero AI, and would therefore be current. I re-added the data on Hero usage as it is not in conflict with the AI changes. Soldier198 (talk) 19:03, 2 May 2023 (UTC)