Warriors Of The Flaming Fist - A Guild Wars Blog

Duncan The Black & Slaver's Exile

2011-06-18T04:27:00.010+01:00

After watching

Woodenpotatoes

on Youtube play through Nightfall with a Dervish, I was inspired to play with mine a lot more.

Seeing as I have already done all of the missions and whatnot, I decided that I would try to finish all of the GW:EN dungeons over again.

I don't really do the dungeons much at all, in fact, I've pretty much only done them once, twice or three times maximum. When I compare those numbers to the frequency at which I've done other things, like how many times I've done EVERY mission in the game (at least 20 each, as per legendary guardian on 10 character

s) - it turns out that I've "barely touched" the dungeons at all.

So with scythe in hand, I set off a few months ago to casually trod through them at a leisurely pace. As of writing this post, I have only two more to beat: the Catacombs and the Menagerie.

Most of them turned out to be incredibly (and quite surprisingly in some cases) easy! Frostmaw was a pushover, all of the undead dungeon types were exploded via holy damage and things like the Ooze Pit were torn down with some lovely scythe AoE damage.

So I figured I would try my (now more experienced) hand at Slaver's Exile again. Back when I did this on my warrior, I had the help of a few players who knew what they were doing in there. I had a very easy time (though, I doubt my monks did) and got it done no problem. This time, however, I was using a hero team exclusively.

Most of the dungeon parts were still quite easy. The best advice for Slaver's is to take Frozen Soil and a very well rounded hero team. The current meta of necros, rits and mesmers can pretty much clean house - just know when minions are going to be useless and swap those skills accordingly. I shouldn't need to say this, but pulling is also essential; know what you're doing and you'll have a much easier time.

Anyway, after having fun with the preliminary parts, it came down to Duncan's section. It has taken me around six or seven tries over a week, but I finally beat

him with just heroes and some henchmen! There aren't a great many things that still give me a feeling of accomplishment in this game (apart from PvP) but this was one of those times.

Some of the failed tactics I tried were:

-necro/spirit/mesmer setup: unfortunately, Duncan can spirit rift all of your damage (i.e. spirits) into oblivion, instantly

-roj monks and melee buffs: while rather nice and easy to get to the boss, the high AoE damage from the monks pretty much destroys your own team due to his pain inverter effect.

-not taking swap and just fighting straight up: this tactic was a mistake, I simply forgot the skill and tried to beat him anyway. It is impossible.

Eventually I settled on trying to use a soul twisting defensive ritualist. This was the saving grace of my whole set of ideas! Along with that, keeping a lot of interruption in the builds was also key to lowering Duncan's damage output, by not letting him cast his spells.

The key tactics are to engage very, VERY carefully (after moving his spirits of course) and to flag heroes and micro skills accordingly. He will someti

mes get a spirit rift off, which means you must move your heroes. However, shelter can negate a mistake when re-flagging and save you a wipe.

Keeping the soul twister out of the fight, but within spirit range is also key. This means that Duncan will not target his spirits at all, thus they will stay around long enough to negate spells. Be

aware that having the hero stand that far back means that he will NOT renew shelter or union on his own, YOU MUST MICRO THIS HERO. Even if that means not dodging spirit rifts, the shelter hero is 100 times more important.

Finally, make sure to disable skills that will be useless. Panic, ineptitude, displacement, frozen soil and roj are good examples (I found that one roj would make Dunkoro take almost an entire health bar of damage AND make Duncan run around).

Eventually, Duncan should fall and you'll be a happy chappy. If you're lucky, you might get a nice gold drop, but if you're like me, a green spear with a super nice skin will be perfectly lovely.

More Minor Updates [MMU]

2011-05-27T23:38:00.003+01:00

No, this isn't the name of a new guild but it does concern the subject.

[KISS] and tell posts concluded

Moved guild

Old guild lost

First on the list is the lack of a proper conclusion to the previous posts. I apologize for that, but I lost the will to write anything more about it! I could simply... Actually, I will just post my notes that I took from my final day's experience:

-someone begging for help in naphui, I turn up and noone is there, no response afterwords

-same person who ignored my offer of help begs for builds

-warm welcomes but instantly forgotten

-lots of wtb/wts but not many completed trades

-price checks on very normal items

-guy not reading shadowform description and clueless about nerfs

-no idea about hard mode titles (asked what my guardian of cantha title was)

-terrible players so far, hells took forever to finish, generally bad builds (we had an awful setup and the mission took over an hour)

-being blatantly ignored on several occasions, offering to buy goods or help people

-ele running a dervish build in HM and boasting to me about how good it is, but still needs my help on minister chos estate

-no idea what a tormented shield was, same person as above

There was a lot to write up in to detail here, but frankly I couldn't be bothered. The moral of the story is that [KISS] is not very good, and that I found plenty of evidence to support that.

Secondly, I have not mentioned that I have moved guild once more. I am now in the [ARK] alliance - so click on that link to be taken to their forums. More specifically, I am in the [ELF] guild, along with a few youtubers that I know; Guildwarsbuddy and Woodenpotatoes - HURRAH! I thought I should probably mention that, due to the blog being the title of my first, old guild and that no longer adding up.

On the subject of [WFF], I found out just today, that it has been lost entirely. My old guild leader somehow got hacked (and yes, I know the initial thought is "what a moron, he shouldn't have let his details go" BUT I know that he would not have done anything to break his account's integrity.)

After being hacked and forced to start again, all of the members of [WFF] have been kicked out of the guild and it has been stolen. Honestly I don't know what a hacker has to gain from owning a blank guild, apart from causing grief. Oh well, I suppose it could have been worse for them.

I'm not completely sure if they own the new guild they're in, but [TSS] Those Stupid Spellcasters, is now home to my refugee guildies -hah.

Best of luck to them and I'll hopefully get to chat more with the guys soon.

[KISS] and tell - an insight in to a cult alliance #2

2011-03-18T01:30:00.004Z

Part 2 - First Impressions and Day 1

Joining the alliance as an observer was interesting; it was a concept that I'm glad I tried out. Initially I decided that I would sit back and try to take in everything I was reading in the alliance chat, with the main goal being to expose and point out the flaws and bad eggs.

On first impression, the alliance seemed very friendly. Everyone is encouraged to "welcome" new members in alliance chat as soon as they join. Over time, I noticed that this was literally the only time people would acknowledge your presence, unless you shouted in alliance chat to announce your arrival. After the welcome, I was plunged into the depths of the massive, faceless guild roster to be lost forever - victim to noone knowing each other.

Looking down the guild roster, it seemed to me that there were a lot of active players; none had been offline for longer than a week. This could have meant one of two things, that the leaders kick people who don't come online much, or people are inclined to come back and stay in the guild for longer periods of time. I took a few screenshots of the guild history over the few days, I'll post a final shot of that on the last post I make.

One question crossed my mind more than any other while I was a part of this alliance, and that was "if there are so many people here, why does noone really talk to each other?"
The chatter was highly limited to basic stuff, which didn't so much bother me because I'm British. The English work very hard to talk as little as possible between ourselves and if it wasn't for the weather, it would have stayed that way forever.
Anyway, what little was spoken during my time was mostly people trying to trade, beg for help, beg for builds, or just boast about what they're doing.

Looking back on my notes for the day, some of the specific quotes and things that I noticed were:

- "can heroes not get sunspear skills like whirlwind attack?"
- "what is WiK?" "Wiki" "War in kryta..." "oh whats that?"
- "killing the indestructible golem takes all day..."
- Several builds were pinged, asking for criticism or just talking about how good they were, but not accepting anything they didn't want to hear.
- Unrealistic builds pinged as general usage ones, ele nuker for the deep.
- Begging for items (one person begged for a build repeatedly, then didn't have the skills, so begged for tomes.)

By the end of the day, I had a good idea of what [KISS] was like. One particular lyric comes to mind, from the great Pink Floyd - "all in all you're just another brick in the wall."
This is exactly how I felt while I was in the guild.
They draw people in with the prospect of having 1500 people to play with, yet when you're in, hardly any of them are worth playing with anyway and even if they are, they don't acknowledge the requests for help.

What is the point? I knew already that I would be leaving quite soon, but I decided that I'd let them have one more day to "redeem" themselves, or at least show some good reasons to join...

[KISS] and tell - an insight in to a cult alliance #1

2011-03-18T00:25:00.004Z

Part 1 - Grilling The Recruitment

I'm sure we've all seen or heard of [KISS]. They have people spamming recruitment messages in towns all over the game, surely you can't miss them. There's also a great deal of horror stories and bad press associated with them too, but is it all true? Are people just pumping up their stories for shock factor, or is there some truth to them?
So I made it a personal mission to find out why people are so attracted to this alliance, and if the stories and preconceptions are true.

Step one was to find a recruiter. Normally this wouldn't be a challenge because they seem to be everywhere at all times. However, as typical as my luck is, it took me almost an hour to find someone. I had a series of questions prepared for the chap, so I took some notes just based on this particular person's answers. Please excuse the minor paraphrasing:

Talking to: Trumpcard Ace
Are there any requirements to get in?
No.
(A lot of his answers were very, very basic, as if he didn't feel the need to give the alliance any character.)

Are there any rules to follow once you're in?
No cursing in alliance chat or vent and all of the usual sorts of things, but we're not against using ac to trade or look for groups.

How are the guilds divided, are there euro and american guilds or something like that?
No knowledge of any sort of organisation as such, some guilds are more into pvp, but not serious stuff.

Are there any kind of regular events that go on?
[KISS] birthday event every year, town sponsoring during event weekends and if someone gets things together, runs and mission help will happen.
(I also later found out that they do have weekly UW and DoA runs, but you have to sign up on their website for a place in the team. Quite frankly I find this idea difficult to justify.)

Is there a core of experienced players?
We're mostly casual players, some officers and older members do UW runs and such.

How many people do you know personally in the guild?
4-5
(Clearly this is an indication of exactly how casual the alliance is. Out of 90 members when I joined, this person only knew 4-5? That sounds quite cold to me.)

What do you personally think about KISS as a whole?
If you're looking for a guild that helps every time you need something then this might not be it -"it feels like a mini Kamadan".
(I would agree, but would sway to calling it a mini Old Ascalon.)

What would you say the main drive for the alliance is? Title grinding, faction, pvp?
Anything really...
(He had already given several hints towards the answer to this question, they don't really have any sort of major driving force at all.)

So given all of this information, I bit the bullet and joined in. Find out what I had got myself in to by reading my next two posts...

God Walking Amongst Mere Mortals

2011-03-14T02:04:00.006Z

It's certainly been a long haul, but I finally finished 30 titles and maxed out the Kind of a Big Deal track.
Not having the burden of being told exactly what I need to do any more is amazing! It suddenly feels like I have more freedom to do whatever I want in the game now. I'm not sure what I intend to do yet, but I'll casually start helping out more often and finally finish the last few missions I need for all 10 legendary guardian titles.

I know for sure that I will eventually max out my Kurzick title too, but for now that is not a priority and there is certainly no rush any more. I may even guild hop a little, just to see if certain alliances are all they're cracked up to be.

Heh, expect a "guild buggery" post to come very soon...

Another title update

2011-03-13T04:49:00.003Z

This post is purely to reflect on the final set of titles I've gotten, or will be getting very soon.
In the last post I talked about the new build and all the changes that have happened (if you didn't read that post, then I suggest going back and doing so - it'll explain in more detail than I will now).
However, I missed out the changes that have occurred to certain titles. Drunkard is now a completely spammable title, just like sweet tooth and party animal. This is highly typical of my luck, as I had achieved 9,999/10,000 minutes of the title the "old way" of actually sitting there in real time. I must say, I am a little bit bitter about the change, but it's for the best I think. It's a shame that it's suddenly devalued, but I don't think anyone really cares all that much by this point in Guild Wars' lifespan. There was another change, but I'll talk about that soon.

I also forgot to mention that I had bought my elite Luxon armour. I actually got it on the weekend of double Cantha faction, back a couple of blog posts ago. Again, this isn't really huge news or anything but it does develop my warrior a bit more - at least now I have a set of proper hammer mastery gear!

A few days after that weekend, I also went ahead with some other titles that were close to completion, namely vanquisher of Elona/legendary vanquisher, the cartographer title in Elona, sweet tooth and I finished off the final minute of drunkard. I was pretty glad to have left the Cliffs of Dohjok as my final zone to clear; it was a nice and easy one to finish the title with. So after all that was done I was hugely relieved, if you've done as much vanquishing as I have then you may understand how tedious the whole thing is!

With the end of my God Walking Amongst Mere Mortals title in sight, I was sitting tight at 29 titles maxed out. This left me with little choice in what to finish with - at the time, the Kurzick title was the only clear outcome. I didn't want to take forever in getting the lucky/unlucky titles, or open chests and identify items, no thanks.
Suddenly though, the survivor title was changed completely out of nowhere. Now, you only had to gain the experience without dieing (like normal) but you no longer are denied the title if you do get killed. Instead, the experience counter just resets to zero and you have to start again.
This presented me with a new contender to finish off my 30 titles! Knowing that I'd already gotten survivor once before, I decided to go ahead with it to save myself some time.

Originally I planned to attain it through FoW clears, but after 3 successful runs, I died (very slowly I might add) to a stupid sodding thing in the forest, because my healer heroes were busy discussing the outrageous prices of tea... Or something. "Oh well," I thought, "I'll just use Kilroy for it." So I have done, and as I write this post right now, I am just 5,000 experience from finishing my GWAMM. All I have to do is accept the quest reward for Khobay The Betrayer in one of the Zaishen outposts... Just try and stop me!

Embark Beach build update

2011-03-13T04:29:00.003Z

I've been putting this post off for a while because I've been so busy playing around with the new stuff.
So, Embark Beach has arrived, and with it, the ability to see the status of your minions if you're a ritualist or an MM. Oh and the whole "being able to fill your team with 7 heroes" thing, that too.

I waited with great anticipation when the build was due to release, and when I logged back on, was treated to a rather messy UI. Of course that was easily fixed but multiple fixes were released over the next few days that kept returning it back to the state you can see in the picture. I know that's not news or particularly interesting, but it made me giggle a bit.

Anyway, with the new ability to make entire teams, I had to take them in to the Fissure of Woe to really have a good play with them. All in all, my first run with paragons went quite well, however lacking in damage it was. In the end I clocked in at just over a 2 hour run, which isn't terrible, but isn't exactly fast either.

Later on, after playing with builds a few times and swapping to my warrior, and after a couple of runs - I had got the timing down to 1 hour 38 minutes. Though, in a later clear I shaved another 10 minutes off of that time too. The builds shown in the pictures are really solid for the job, at least in normal mode.

I also tested the capabilities of the heroes in the Underworld. With a bit of proper flagging and a little luck, I cleared all the quests but 4 Horsemen, which was a massive pain but I couldn't see how I could have finished it with the setup that I had. It was fairly disappointing to fail after so much time down there, but as soon as I can find a team build to clear the place, I'll be right back to do just that.

How to make your Youtube video in to a hate magnet

2011-03-08T20:32:00.004Z

Step 1: advertise the video as being perhaps helpful, but make sure the content is actually mundane and completely opinionated.

Step 2: add a useless description, utilising the shift key to capitalise every word - for posterity. "This is a Guild Wars Tip Provided by GuildWarsGaming Productions"

Step 3: make sure you make at least one spelling mistake in the title or description.

Step 4: update the description with a disclaimer "I do not take rights of Guildwars" and add links to obvious websites.

Step 5: once your video is recorded, check that you are under the age of 12 and mention somewhere that you might possibly be strange in some way. This is to make sure the internet loves you!

Step 6: add annotations to encourage people to subscribe to your brilliant channel full of intelligent videos.

Step 7: ???

Step 8: profit!

So if you're thinking of making a great new guide on how to read instructions (or anything just as obvious) then this is the post for you!
Joking aside though, I found this video that I must have watched a year ago and noticed that my comment suddenly has 34 thumbs up. Being that it wasn't even hinting at needing agreements, I was fairly tickled by my discovery and had to make this post.
I am a smug git sometimes...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0gExkMeglLc

Updates, updates everywhere!

2011-02-27T00:50:00.003Z

Well, this blog has been as idle as a painted ship upon a painted ocean (kudos if you got the references already) so it's about time I wrote about what's going on.
Firstly you can tell it's been so long because of the last few screenshots I posted; they're back before I joined my current guild! In fact, the very title of this blog is no longer relevant what with me being in FUBR now...

Anyway, so what has been going on? Well, to put it simply - I've been slowly title hunting. I say slowly because by the Gods, I can not be bothered to vanquish things very often at all. Elona so far has taken me the best part of a year, not because it's particularly difficult, but because I cannot force myself to sit through a vanquish on a schedule.

To update myself (and whoever reads this) on the current situation, the pictures provided can summarise my current progress. I've been happily sitting at 23 titles for some time, all the while working on the others I need to finish. The problem is that I can't really stick to one title right through to the end, so I have to spread out my efforts in to several at once... This is why Elona needs 3 more areas to be vanquished, only 1.6% to be fully explored, why drunkard only needs 1 minute and why sweet tooth could be spammed up in a few seconds.
Clearly I already have the supplies to finish all of these, and that would be because I planned ahead and saved all of my money for the purchase of the afore-mentioned supplies. If I ever want to be known for a saying, it'll be "always have a plan". I did, in fact, I over-planned the whole thing and ended up with almost a million gold left over! If only the same could be said for real life, eh?

With my plan turning out to be so effective, I treated myself to some new weapon skins and armour. I dyed my old Kurzick armour to be black & yellow, I bought a perfect voltaic spear, a near-perfect emerald blade (requires 10 instead of 9 swordsmanship) and a draconic aegis. Recently I also bought my dervish some Norn armour, but can't decide if I should dye it white instead of the blue I have now. I also plan to buy elite and regular Luxon for my warrior too, but not until I get some room in storage, what with all the mini pets, swords, axes, hammers, scythes and consumables in there!

Anyway, I must dash off to continue farming Kurzick faction through Ferndale vanquishes - it's a double rewards weekend and I want to make the most of it while Fallen also wants to help speed things along, cheerio!

Pug, BOTTERY? Wait a second...

2010-05-27T22:51:00.010+01:00

Today we terminated more than 3,700 accounts for botting and match manipulation. In cases where guilds were found to be involved in these activities, the guilds were also disbanded. More than a dozen such guilds were disbanded and many others are under continued investigation.
- Anet official blog

So we were greeted with a global announcement yesterday, stating that over 3,700 accounts had been banned for botting. Brilliant news! Of course, not for the people who took the hit, but thats tough luck on their part - and bad decision making. I can say truthfully, that I have no respect for the people that abused bots to achieve goals in the game. Simply by playing Guild Wars, everyone AGREED to an EULA that stated in clear terms, that "3rd party software that automated any actions is NOT allowed and can result in an account ban."

As a result of this, many people on the popular fansite GWGuru have been in uproar against the "harsh" actions of Anet. Now, before I go in to any detail, I can honestly say that the very notion of complaining about this is ridiculous.
Firstly, you can't complain about a rule that you originally AGREED to abide by.
Secondly, by running such a program, you knew the risks that were involved in doing so. If for some reason you cannot accept the judgement that the company has made, then there is something wrong with you.

So, many threads have been appearing on the forums of Guru. Most of these are generally full of people moaning about being falsely banned or whatever (which, by the way, I find hilarious to read.) One of these caught my attention though, and I really wanted to pick this post apart for all it's worth.
Here's the original post, taken directly from the thread:
"Guild Wars: A Ghost Town In The Making

Today, over 3700 accounts were banned due to botting and use of third-party programs. Let's take a moment and really break down how and why nearly half of the populous of this dying online community spontaneously combusted.

Arena-Net has offered us so many lovely content additions in the recent history, such as costumes, NPCs to talk trade useless crap for other useless crap, ways to change our character from a down-syndrome having asian infant, and finally the War in Kryta quest chain. These additions have molded the community from a dying game, to a dying game that the players realize won't get better. I understand GW2 is on the rise, but that's been the case for 2 years without any love for the original, and will continue to be the case for months to come. With this being said, what do the players with 3-5 years under their belt have to do? Repeat missions, vanqs, dungeons? Needlessly grind out speed clears (which Anet failed at attempting to shut down)? Or maybe participating in nerdy e-peen battles on a nightly basis with the same morons every night in HA? THIS my friends, is precisely why people bot. It makes the game fun again. Personally, I've achieved GWAMM, r8, g3 on my own, no bot help. I moved to PvP because there was nothing else left to do in PvE. When PvP becomes redundant, you simply move on (botting). An evolutionary process mediated by A-net themselves.

For those of you who didn't bot, you simply didn't know where to get it. Honestly, when something becomes meta (obviously botting was), this community of ours nestles into it wholeheartedly. So basically, my point is this: Anet killed this game by not updating it enough. Without enough content updates, or micro-transactions, or anything that normal, successful MMOs employ to keep their game active, this game died out. 15 minute zaishen wait times in HA, empty districts in PvE zones, etc... BEFORE the ban-o-mania. Just imagine what the future months will behold.

I would just like to note with this post, that the people that botted, didn't necessarily bot because they wanted a maxed title, or money, or fame, or glad, etc.. etc... Personally... I just didn't know what else to do... Second GWAMM? ok.. bot account wide titles (treasure, luxon.) Bot eotn titles. Who cares? I've done them already... If a game wants to combat botting, don't let the players get bored of said game. Honestly, running rupty and watching people rage was more fun than playing the game for what it is. If Anet sticks to this concept of an MMO.... even if it is more like WoW (.... zzzzz), who is going to play it? You think I'm gonna buy GW2 after filling my HoM legitimately, getting gwamm, r8, g3 legit? After 5000+ hours of gameplay? I can't imagine so. Because truthfully, with the effort put into GW1 in the last few years, why would I expect anything more from GW2 once they design it? A re-skinned, re-written WoW isn't going to do anyone any good, especially when the Arena Net team won't be adding new content updates every couple of months like WoW does... As BAD as WoW is... it's better than GW... because the designers actually give a damn. =/ sad news for Guild Wars today.

Generally... good luck GW community. - What's left of it, that is."

It's difficult to fathom what was going through this persons mind when he a) chose to bot in the first place, and b) chose to write this thread about it too.
There are so many things that I disagree with in this post that I had to write this blog about it. Frankly, if this is the kind of person that has been banned, then I can't say I'm going to miss them.

Anyway, now to pick some points from the forum post and (try to) explain what is so mind blowing about them... (Oh dear, after copying and pasting all of the points I want to address, it seems there's more than I expected!)

"...half of the populous of this dying online community spontaneously combusted."
I would really love to know where these numbers come from. Aparrently, 3700 people is HALF of the players. So the total number of people playing right now is 7400? Somehow I doubt that it is so few.
Considering that a LOT of the bans hit the same player multiple times on multiple accounts, I'm willing to bet that only 1200 different people (at a guess, don't quote me) actually got banned from this.
I also find it highly ridiculous whenever I read any statement pertaining that "Guild Wars has a very small player-base". Just an example; the [KISS] alliance alone claims to have 1700+ players. That is just ONE alliance out of hundreds.

"Arena-Net has offered us so many lovely content additions in the recent history... useless crap... and finally the War in Kryta quest chain."
This is obviously sarcasm, in the post he lists a few things that he believes to be rubbish content. We have to remember that this is simply his opinion here, and that a lot of players love these new content additions - not to mention the ones that he didn't even list.
I'm willing to admit that content is generally very sparse these days; the shadow form update pack was 4 months (IIRC) delayed. The thing that still stands though, is that we DO still GET updates. Take the recent mesmer change for example, and the upcoming dervish and paragon changes that are yet to be announced.

"...what do the players with 3-5 years under their belt have to do?"
I am a player that falls in to this category and I have a whole hell of a lot to do in-game. I have yet to finish vanquishing the world, although I'm getting close to it. I have to max my ally title, my drunkard and sweet tooth titles - AND my exploration titles! That's just on one character, and I have TEN!
There's always new builds I want to try out, there's always some expensive weapon I want to buy and there's always some kind of armour combination that I would like to wear.
I also get enjoyment out of completing the campaigns (in normal AND hard mode) on every character that I have. I like experiencing the missions and gameplay from different class perspectives each time; playing a warrior is totally different to playing a dervish, an assassin, or even a paragon or a monk.
The daily zaishen missions are also good fun if I want to go with a group of people I've never met before (a pug). Though, yes, they can cause stress with all the terrible builds, but it's all part of the experience! Also, who's to say that you should be playing this game all day? The z-missions are perfect for those players that only have an hour or two every evening.

This is probably my biggest gripe about this entire post, because as a player for almost 4 years, I still have a huge amount of things to do in the game. If you do not, and have finished all of the goals you wanted, then stop playing. Is that so hard? I am likely to play a lot less when I get my GWAMM.

"THIS my friends, is precisely why people bot. It makes the game fun again."
This part I just don't understand. Essentially, he is claiming that:
-Having something else complete goals for you is more fun than doing it yourself.
-Not being at the keyboard is more fun than being there.
-That botting is fun, and the game is not.
-People don't bot just for gaining wealth, in-game or IRL.

The first three assumptions are ridiculous! If you don't want to play the game, then... Don't. I can't get my head around why this is a difficult concept to grasp! If a game is there to enable you to have fun, then you should enjoy PLAYING the game. If you are using a bot to do something while you have fun ELSEWHERE, then just turn the bot off, ignore the game and continue having the fun you would be having anyway.
I would be willing to bet that a lot of the botting is to reduce grind in the game. Now, this comes in to reducing the time it takes to gain reputation titles AND reducing the time it takes to make the money to buy something. While the game is "anti-grind" people still see a need to do this. Noone needs max titles to be effective and noone needs fancy weapon skins to be useful.
The other side of the botting problem were the gold and ecto sellers. These people profited in real life from another persons' creation (ie the game items). This is totally unfair and relates to the analogy of selling someone elses property.
There's also pvp botting, but that's next...

"When PvP becomes redundant, you simply move on (botting)."
Do we though? It seems that 3700 accounts DID, but how many more did NOT? A whole lot, is the answer. I also cannot understand why you would jump to this conclusion instead of just moving on to another form of fun (a different game).
Yes, a lot of people were interrupt botting. This was a hugely unfair advantage, as interrupts can be incredibly game-changing. The people doing this should have been caught much earlier, but it does NOT mean that anyone else should have resorted to using these as a counter!

"For those of you who didn't bot, you simply didn't know where to get it."
This is another unfair assumption. I'm sure a quick google search would provide answers, though I have not, and will not search for a bot website myself.
As a PLAYER and not a BOTTER, this statement is tripe.

"...Anet killed this game by not updating it enough... this game died out."
The game is NOT dead. That is all that needs to be said here. There are less players than there used to be, BUT that is to be expected.

"...empty districts in PvE zones... Just imagine what the future months will behold."
Trying to remove something that isn't there will result in a negative, or an impossibility.
Nothing will change here.

"...people that botted, didn't necessarily bot because they wanted ."
So this begs the question; why did people bot?
The answers are above, for so-called "fun", to gain unfair advantages, items, titles, etc.
This is yet another assumption that is silly to make.

"I just didn't know what else to do... bot account wide titles. Bot eotn titles. Who cares? I've done them already."
If he had done them already and there was nothing left for this player to do, then that is it. That is where the game ends. The answer is to move on and find something else to occupy your time.
At this point in the thread, I was sure that this player was addicted to this game. A lot of people who used bots were also likely in the same situation, which is a shame.
I will also admit that I play Guild Wars too much, however I will not resort to using bot software when I run out of motivation to play the game.

"If Anet sticks to this concept of an MMO... who is going to play it?"
Short answer: a lot of people still play GW1.
Long answer: This is a statement that is very popular amongst cynics on the forums. Many of the louder people seem to say this sort of thing, and because they are louder, their voices are more easily heard and it gives an illusion that this is the majority.
As I just said, it is an illusion, and I'm sure that GW2 will be a huge success and sales figures will be excellent for them. So, the answer to the question is, a LOT of people will play it.

"You think I'm gonna buy GW2 after 5000+ hours of gameplay? I can't imagine so."
I am confident that this individual will purchase GW2 when it is released. Just the fact that he had such a hard time letting go of the original game is indication of anticipating the next one.

Well, if you managed to read all of this, then well done and thank you. I would like to say that a lot of what is written here is just my opinion and not fact.
I've written a lot more than I originally intended to, it seems. Ah, well it's time for a cup of tea and a well deserved rest. Then perhaps I'll go and press buttons on my keyboard to control my character in Guild Wars.

Pug-Buggery, Vol 10

2010-05-24T05:03:00.007+01:00

In the realms of Tyria and beyond, hope is the thing we cling to. Change is a most terrifying thought. Teammates will be sought, builds will be disputed, fools will be cast aside and heroes shall emerge from the carnage. Yet one thing is but inevitable - PuG's will be shockingly bad. Gather 'round and hear the tales from the man that braves the situations that most fear...

Yes that's right, volume 10 has finally arrived! This is hugely overdue and for that, I apologize. However, in my defense I will say that, it gets rather difficult to think of interesting ways to complain about the complete baddery of these builds.

Onwards to failure!

This one submitted by that Impious Reverence guy, I think eh's a pretty cool guy and doesn't afraid of anything. Well, aside from this sort of thing anyway! I hope you booted this guy in to orbit sir, because this wammo build makes me wonder where he's been for the past 5 years. This would've been great when GW was new, but for Aurora Glade HM, this is jokingly terrible.
One attack skill (that doesn't even do +damage), two skills to gain adrenaline faster (presumably to power his one adrenaline skill) and old-school health regen. I believe your time machine has broken.

Up next, another submission from that same guy. Saving me the trouble, or is he? It's another old-school style build, IWAY! Yet, something seems confused about this one... Oh that's right, it's the total lack of any cohesion between the skills! IWAY and the pet are the only two that are particularly thought about.
I think he just wanted to show off that he'd got far enough in the polymock quests to summon a mursaat. The problem is, he'll never have the energy to summon his best mate, because all his skills cost insane amounts for a warrior! My word (of healing), the madness never ends.

To finish this post, I have for you some illiterate people. Lucky for me that they'll never be reading this, or I could expect to receive some angry (misspelt) personal messages.
So I was looking to do the Fort Ranik mission and did not feel like playing the typical spirit spammer, because it's mundane. Tangents aside, I advertised myself as a healer and offered to join every party that was "looking for heal to go". Now, logically, if you're looking for a healer and a healing class offers to join you, you would accept them. Yet, a lot of people simply ignored me! It's as if people want to make it harder for themselves sometimes...
Anyway, this group eventually accepted me and proceeded to ask me if I can heal... After I showed them my healing skills.
I'll let that sink in for a second.

Got that? Good, because this next guy was clueless too. Aparrently he thought he could ban me or something simply for me asking if he could read. I mean, all he had to do was read the skills on my bar and he would've realised that I was a healer. Then again, he should've already realised due to reasons explained above... You can't see my ping this time, but the skills were the same and I had shown them before he said anything. I decided to leave this party and found the same guy later on, still looking for a group to play with. I wonder why?

Oh, I finished this without hitch with a different set of people, who wouldn't be found on this blog in a hurry.

With that out of the way, I must be off for a spot of tea, or a crumpet... Or whatever it is us English chaps do these days.
Right oh.

Pug-Buggery, Vol 9

2010-04-11T16:43:00.005+01:00

Pug-Buggery, Vol 8

2010-03-24T16:25:00.006Z

In the realms of Tyria and beyond, hope is the thing we cling to. Change is a most terrifying thought. Teammates will be sought, builds will be disputed, fools will be cast aside and heroes shall emerge from the carnage. Yet one thing is but inevitable - PuG's will be shockingly bad. Gather 'round and hear the tales from the man that braves the situations that most fear...

Oh dear, I've used 29 pictures so far and my folder is starting to brim over the top... If that's possible on digital media. I can tell you right now, my total is sitting at 51 bugger-ups! That's only since January 23rd this year, bloody hell. With that, onwards to difficulty.

So, apparently everyone was happy with this monk's build on Rilohn Refuge. If you know the mission, you know that the dervish ally likes to run away and get itself killed quickly. With that in mind, check out the massive healing arsenal in the bar. Oh dear, it seems we only have 2 heals that are viable. I'm not counting signet of devotion because waiting for 2 seconds for a heal is death. That goes for all you UA + Heal Party idiots too!
I don't think divine intervention is much use to us either... Ah, I also see that they have pain inverter! While this is a good skill, most monks should not have this with them because it isn't their job to be casting that. More so in this bar which is in dire need of help...
Aegis is a nice addition, but with only 8 in protection prayers, more prot would be required. Especially against the boss at the end, I'm pretty sure we never made it that far but sandstorm would've wiped us for sure. Finally, bane signet is also dumped in there. Pointless speccing in to smiting for one (average) skill is bad news.

Nothing wrong with the build here, just an idiot when it comes to answering questions. Or am I the idiot for expecting a decent answer from a pug?
Anyhow, I asked my question and waited a full 2 minutes before I even got that out of him. I did expect more to it, but I never got any other comments.
So what have we learned about the comparison between ritual lord and soul twisting?
It's buffed.

Thanks for that.

Here's another build I can't really say much about. Frankly, it's a bit useless, mostly because it's a paragon turret build. If you ask me (or anyone, really) paragons aren't supposed to be used for damage in a team situation. Paraway is different in that you can take a massive beating and kill things a little slower. This, however, does not let the team take "a massive beating". He has 0 leadership, which I guess compliments his huge lack of shouts. (Hello, I'm a paragon and I don't use my abilities as a paragon, which effectively makes me anything but a paragon. (Confused? Good.))
I think speccing 12 in to motivation is just a waste of time for a 97 health heal every 20 seconds.
I suppose mentioning his 3 healing prayers doesn't make much difference either seeing as it's just there for the sake of it. But what's that, he's using a protection prayers skill? Then shouldn't those 3 points be there instead? Who knows, who even cares. He sure doesn't.

Finally on the chopping block, we have a mesmer build found by Imp. Or should I say you, because noone else seems to read this anyway, hah.
Well Fallen seems to be speechless, but I can come up with some comments for you.
Now, using an illusion build is usually pretty rubbish anyway, due to the nature of the skills. You can degen one foe per skill, for a short time, for a high energy cost. Good pressure perhaps, but AI does not feel pressure and therefore, does not care - because you are now dead.
I don't think they quite understood their role really, which makes me sad that they're not using fast casting to it's potential. No, 2 in the attribute does not count.
Spirit light seems dumped in to the build for whatever reason that I cannot fathom, and just considering this as a seperate build to the team, this is unwise thanks to the sacrifice each time the skill is used. If it's a self heal, why isn't it ether feast to save attributes? 8 resto is quite a waste, so is the 3 in domination magic, which could've gone in to fast casting.
Before you say "there's spirits in the team though!" I realise that, but I don't much care. I don't know where this build was found and what it was going to do, but thanks for sharing the failure.

Whew, been a while since I wrote one of these. I should do them more often, but I'm not creative enough.

There should be a quote here, but I'm also lazy.

Pug-Buggery, Vol 7

2010-03-10T23:35:00.005Z

Pug-Buggery, Vol 6

2010-03-06T01:11:00.006Z

In the realms of Tyria and beyond, hope is the thing we cling to. Change is a most terrifying thought. Teammates will be sought, builds will be disputed, fools will be cast aside and heroes shall emerge from the carnage. Yet one thing is but inevitable - PuG's will be shockingly bad. Gather 'round and hear the tales from the man that braves the situations that most fear...

Aurora Glade is probably THE most annoying mission in the game. In hard mode this is amplified quite a lot by the very resilient White Mantle. Now, if you combine that with my experience with the average PuG player, we have a recipe for disaster. The amount of times I tried to finish this mission was enough to make me 8k in cash drops, just to give you an idea of how painful it was.
Two people in particular stood out to me though, the first being this ele. I've started using eles less and less in HM because their damage isn't quite as good as it is in NM. But when a player breaks his build even further than it already is anyway, it gets beyond a joke.
I'd probably tell this guy to take some energy management, but because his skills all take so long to recharge, he probably never needed any. I doubt he ever used glyph of lesser energy anyway. He also has 8 inspiration magic, why?
Note, I was also made to solo heal these guys, and they demanded I take a UA build, so I was really breaking my energy too.
And finally, check out the chat box. He asks someone to "lead away" and did this a few times previously. He didn't know he had to click enter mission...

No surprise that we failed on the Mantle attack. I'm pretty sure the necro had blood ritual, and didn't use it on me. I got complained at for not healing fast enough... Wait, they expect me to cast with mark of subversion and shame/guilt on me? All of those make me lose energy, which is even worse than not casting! With one hex removal skill in the team, we were doomed from the start. So, after that he came up with the best plan ever, read on.
Safe to say I'd had enough of that.

Funnily enough though, the next team did end up with some guy using Ursan. Which bothered the crap out of me. Ursan is a huge waste of an elite skill, more so on a warrior in HM because he could be doing some decent damage, rather than... Not much.
Ok, so he has seven other skills to make use out of. He does not make use of his seven other skills.Whaddya know, right? Instead, he takes the worst running build I have ever seen, in terms of taking three IMS stances and two blocking stances. Both blocking skills are from the expertise line, so they last around half a second on a warrior and the recharge is terrible for them.
Endure pain is useless unless he's tanking. Tanking is useless in all but specific circumstances.
The final two skills just seem to be there. YMLAD is decent, but why could he not use a hammer build instead? EVAS is not really decent unless used with AP, the recharge is huge, the energy cost is half a warrior bar and it doesn't last long unless used on charr.
Notice his 8 marksmanship (why?) and 10 swordsmanship. He does not use a sword, you'll see.
Finally, he decided he was the professional in the group and started telling us how to play the mission, also going as far as claiming he'd done it twice that day. I tried to tell him we already knew it and he carried on regardless...

So, in the mission I took the time to watch what he was doing. This image is representative of THE ENTIRE MISSION.
Look at his distance to the enemy. See how he is not using skills. Marvel at his lack of sword. Be amazed at his inability to even staff the enemy.
Why did I even enter the mission with him? I'd given up at that point and was willing to just take any team.

We failed.

A useless life is an early death.
-Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Pug-Buggery, Vol 5

2010-02-25T00:22:00.007Z

In the realms of Tyria and beyond, hope is the thing we cling to. Change is a most terrifying thought. Teammates will be sought, builds will be disputed, fools will be cast aside and heroes shall emerge from the carnage. Yet one thing is but inevitable - PuG's will be shockingly bad. Gather 'round and hear the tales from the man that braves the situations that most fear...

Indeed, you do get a double helping today! I'm trying to get rid of some of the mountain of pictures I have right now, so here we go. (I've around 8 more pics to use in advance!)

This first example assassin comes from the same group that the first ranger came from in the last post.
Not only is this guy the biggest ding-pot I've ever seen, the group even let him continue to stay in our party even after this series of fails. We had just failed Nundu Bay for the first time when one of us asked the sin to ping his build. We had assumed he was running something very normal, as is the usual thing to do, but after seeing him do very little in the mission we had to ask.
The picture to the right is what he came up with.
There are so many things wrong with this that I could probably write another special edition just on this one player! Honestly we should've known better than to expect anything usable from a guy named X Ellite Assasin X. Just take a moment to soak in that name. Don't worry, I'll wait.
Ok? Now take another moment to soak in the build he pinged. I'll give you a few minutes to look this one through. It's ok, I'm not actually sitting here waiting in real time.
Firstly, 0 critical strikes on a ... Bow build? I'm not sure how to class this one. He instead thought that 6 deadly arts (again, with no skills) would be a better choice, along with 10 beast mastery. While pets aren't as bad as they used to be (I'm thinking the pet was more useful than this guy) I doubt that investing so much in the attribute with no skills, is worth it. He also has charm animal equipped, which just wastes a skill slot.
The bow attacks are useless to a sin, doing very little damage without critical strikes and even losing their only redeemable feature (being spammable) because he has no expertise to lower the energy cost.
The ward skill is just a poor choice too, lack of energy to use it properly and other, much better options available.
Finally, we come to his elite. Ursan. On a bow build? No wait, on any build this skill is unwelcome. With its' inability to be kept up indefinately, it's just (another) wasted skill slot. Worse than that, it's a wasted elite skill slot! (also, check out his terrible armor choices.)

So, we deci- no wait, they decided to give this guy another chance at playing a better build. Frankly I had already lost my patience with the guy, but when he pinged this one, I lost all hope in humanity altogether. So much so, that I stayed in the group because I couldn't bring myself to leave it.
Not ONLY is he now playing a perma build, but he doesn't even have 12 shadow / 12 earth! So, he gimps himself by playing perma, then further gimps himself by making it harder to maintain, and finishes it off with a hefty gimping in damage dealing capabilities!
Mind = blown.
Also, I've played a perma build long enough (read: not long at all because it takes no skill) to know that, even with the glyph, this is way too energy heavy with radiation field in there.
Don't worry though! He never had energy problems. He never pinged his energy. So how do I know he had no problems? Because he stayed on the backline, with me (the mesmer) for the ENTIRE MISSION, could not keep up shadow form, and he wanded the enemies occasionally. Yes, he couldn't even play perma properly. I watched him use sliver armor a few times when he was neither taking damage, nor was he even close to an enemy. The sad thing is that noone else cared, and they were seemingly willing to give this idiot a free ride through the mission. Even worse is that we actually finished it...

Wow, told you I could write a long one about this guy! Turns out that's quite the essay, so I'll have to leave the wonders of Aurora Glade for next time. Bet you can't wait... Ahem.

The only thing that ever consoles man for the stupid things he does is the praise he always gives himself for doing them.

Pug-Buggery, Vol 4

2010-02-24T23:35:00.006Z

In the realms of Tyria and beyond, hope is the thing we cling to. Change is a most terrifying thought. Teammates will be sought, builds will be disputed, fools will be cast aside and heroes shall emerge from the carnage. Yet one thing is but inevitable - PuG's will be shockingly bad. Gather 'round and hear the tales from the man that braves the situations that most fear...

Today we're going to delve in to the ranger and necro profession baddery. Without further ado, onwards to glory! No, hold on...

Well here's one I've been holding on to for a long time, just because I'm too lazy to write these blogs that often (that, and only three or so people read them anyway). This necromancer has pretty much failed to grasp the profession very well at all. They're using no soul reaping (BAD NECRO, BAD!) and instead, they opted for 12 points in death magic... With no benefit, due to having no death magic skills.
The person is also using resurrect as their, well, resurrect skill. With all the other (read: better) options out there, surely this is just poor building. I'd also like to point out currently, how useless blood magic is in PvE when compared to the curses/death magic options. Oh, and the elite here is totally pointless for any necro primary to be using, in fact the only build I've ever seen that makes use of this is the touch ranger.
Lots to say on this one! Finally, take a look at what was in the chat at the time I took this picture, as I only just noticed it myself. We don't need a perma, and soon, we won't have them.

Later, in that same group (in which I'm sure someone wasn't infused for).
Yes, this goes back to my "knowing the missions before you bother with Hard Mode" thing. I lose a few brain cells every time I see something as stupid as this happen.
"Hurr durr, c+space, follow ... Power attack." This was another necro by the way. I still can't believe that people do not know how to do the missions in this game, after beating them before on Normal Mode.

Ok, on to rangers now. I remember a certain someone once said that most barrage ranger bars look pretty blank to the rest of us. Yes, you! Ah hah... Where am I going with this? Hold on, I've forgotten myself actually but I'm still typing anyway. I'm sure the comedic effect has run its' course by now...
Oh! Yes, this is the other kind of typical barrage ranger that you see commonly. The type that thinks barrage is either, a) under-powered, or b) not fast enough to spam on every attack (note both of these are false, barrage is fine and can be used on every attack).
Now, while a lot of PvE skills are helpful, they are kind of limited on a ranger. However, there are still options, such as Save Yourselves! or even something as simple as Sunspear Rebirth Signet - yet this guy didn't think he could fit either on his bar. Odd.
Maybe, just maybe, he could've taken out his preperation on his barrage bar to fit something better in. Just a suggestion...

Finally, in from Istan comes this interesting specimen of a warrior bar. Isn't this supposed to be the ranger part, Mike? Why yes, captain obvious, it is. (I realise that I'm effectively calling myself captain obvious there.) Before I go on, I also realise that this mission is so easy that you could get away with empty skill bars, but there's no reason to do it.
Well, this picture gets dunked in this edition because of the elite skill our hero Koss, is using. That's right. This person didn't ping this build to us before we left, what we saw was a perfectly valid warrior build that was not to be. I'd ask how he maintained his energy, but it's clear that he isn't able to.
Which brings me to another point, why do people ping very normal looking builds, then in the mission you see them running Frenzy + Healing Signet? Yes, I know it's to cover up their skillbars, but in the end we see them anyway and they're awful. It just plain annoys me. Maybe it's to escape my wrath on this blog? Maybe they know!
Nah, doubt it...

Look out for assassins up on the chopping block next time, which might very well be right now, if I decide to write on.

The stupid neither forgive nor forget; the naïve forgive and forget; the wise forgive but do not forget.

Pug-Buggery, Special Edition Vol 1 [Followup]

2010-02-22T00:19:00.007Z

What? A followup, why, what does this mean?! This is madness!
Ahem. Well, I shall explain.

As I previously stated, I did not manage to get a screenshot of the monk that caused me so much stress that night. However, by a bizarre coincidence, my teammates, Imp and Fallen, did. This blog post is rather overdue, as I've had the screenshot since a day or two after the last post.

They too saw that the player was of no use and kicked him before they had a chance to see how crappy he was, I didn't have that option though. So marvel at the amazingly energy hungry monk build that this person had concocted this time. Named and shamed, gentlemen.

On the topic of more bad monk skills and energy flushing, here's another "gem" I saw when forming a party for Dasha Vestibule in HM. Yes, that's the mission with a million flame djinn that spam searing flames all the time. A challenge for any monk I think, but this was just ridiculous!
Three god awful skills to put on a hero because they will happily spam them 4 times and run out of energy. Not to mention the attribute points, just look at them!

I'm starting to consider creating a list of these people...

The Foundry of Failed Creations

2010-02-20T06:02:00.003Z

Not such an appropriate name for our team build, as shown in the screenshots.
Oh that's right, no monks once again. Paragons still contest the need for monks even in the most elite areas.
So, I would like to offer some advice to you people out there that will cry in local chat until you get a monk in your party - try a paragon or two, you just might be surprised with the results.

Cheers Imp, Fallen.

*Gwen used absolutely no healing skills and Master of Whispers was running a very normal necromancer build. Xandra was simply a spirit spammer. No monk or ritualist heals were used in this run.

Just my luck

2010-02-20T05:59:00.001Z

I am cursed, here is further proof of my cursed nature.
Yeah yeah, no big deal but this kind of stuff happens to me all the time.

When Mike discovered colour correction...

2010-02-16T02:10:00.003Z

These were the results!
Or, result, seeing as I only bothered to get this one screenshot...

Pug-Buggery, Special Edition Vol 1

2010-02-12T03:10:00.004Z

I just had the most frustrating time doing Abaddon's Mouth in HM as a UA monk.
My skills were:
Unyielding Aura
Divine Healing
Heavens' Delight
Dwaynas Kiss
Shield of Absorption
Protective Spirit
Aegis
Cure Hex

Firstly, we had a 2 necros that kept drawing agro instead of letting me prot a warrior or dervish up. That drove me nuts. This meant that I had to keep wasting my PS on them!
To top off their insane terribility (the return!), if I remember, 3 of them were not even infused. WHAT! That drives me up the flaming wall!

One of these necros also had Blood Ritual, which he used maybe once through the entire mission, and not on me. At the end, when killing the ether seals, I was spamming constantly for a regen break or BR but the team didn't give me a chance. So, we suffered a few more deaths there too.

We also wasted a huge amount of time following an idiot that did not know the way, and despite my drawing on the map, noone would heed my directions. It's amazing how noone knows what to do and where to go in HARD MODE MISSIONS. RTFM.

But the biggest annoyance of all, the thing that manages to bring my **** to a boil EVERY TIME?
God damn Healers' Boon monks. GOD DAMN.
No skill. I cannot begin to put into words my loathing of this new breed of worthless monk player. Now, sure it's fine, actually it's great if you can actually play it properly - but sitting in one place and using 3 skills on your bar is guaranteed to **** me off!
Healers' Boon + Glyph of Lesser Energy + Heal Party WILL NOT keep the entire party alive if one person is taking heavy damage and noone else. It doesn't take much to just use a direct heal for gods sake!
So I watched this idiot monk spamming his Heal Party... And I also watched him Rebirth people in multiple situations where someone required healing.

It just amazes me. This is why I prefer other sources of healing, such as rits, paragons or even henchmen. Also, why do they never, ever take any protection spells?

On a lighter note, fans of Allo Allo might find the screenshot mildly amusing. I was watching that video at the time someone spoke up in the chat.

Pug-Buggery, Vol 3

2010-02-10T01:19:00.009Z

Pug-Buggery, Vol 2

2010-02-01T00:15:00.008Z

More Photoshops! Visual Feasting

2010-01-23T12:27:00.002Z

Before I forget I played with these images, I'll post them here in (most of) their glory.
Im particularly fond of the necro edits I've made; subtle but enchancing.

Actually, he's posted as my desktop wallpaper currently!