Edition11
Gamer's Mantra It's been over 3 months since the last regular edition of Gamer's Mantra. During that time, I finished up the Mesmer Evolution and began working on the Skill Focus series. In the future, I'm hoping to alternate a bit more regularly between the Gamer's Mantra articles, and the Skill Focus series. I may even find time to produce another character evolution. In the last edition of Gamer's Mantra (#10), way back at the end of last November, I discussed the advantages of diversifying your team. This edition is focused on something that may initially seem to contradict that - focusing your build. The two concepts are not contradictory, and in fact they can be very complementary. A single character should not try to do too many things. Instead, the team as a whole should be considered when covering the various needs. In real life, we usually don't try to do everything by ourselves. Instead, we have specialists (doctors, auto mechanics, carpenters, etc) to perform specific tasks. Although it's just a game, a similar concept of specializing works equally well in Guild Wars. As I peruse the builds of newer players posted in our Professions forum, I often see a jack-of-all-trades mentality. This is no doubt related to a limited number of skill options early in the game, and it may also be related to the limited number of attribute points they have to work with. Being a generalist in pre-searing works fine. The foes there tend to be very easy to defeat regardless of how you setup your character. The first real exposure to the potential specializing of a build for use within a party occurs when a player reaches post-searing Ascalon where the party size jumps to 4. However, whether they opt to team with other players or use the henchmen, their actual build will not matter that much because the foes in these areas are still very easy to defeat. As a player gains more skills and attribute points, there is an increasing opportunity to focus and specialize their build. However, depending on their success, it may or may not be obvious that such specialization is necessary. If they have their points spread across several different attribute lines, yet are somehow managing to survive the missions and explore areas, there is very little incentive to change up their build. Eventually, however, they will usually hit a snag, and the weakness of having such an unfocused build will come crashing down on them. Around this point, they'll usually make a desperate plea in the profession forum along the lines of "Help me fix by build!" While I'm on the subject, I'd like to mention that I'm very happy to try and help those folks that ask for help at that point. They have at least tried using their own build, and they have run into a problem that they can't seem to resolve on their own. Our forums are a good place to seek advice on how to fix a problem like that. This is entirely different than a "Give me a build" request by someone who has not even played the game yet. Those only merit a "Just play the game" kind of response. When I see a post asking for ways to fix a build, one of the first things that I often see is the jack-of-all-trades problem. They're usually trying to do too many things with their character. As a result, they've got their attributes thinly spread across 4 or more attributes and they have too many diverse skills in their skill bar. They may even have several ranks in an attribute purely to equip an item yet have few or even no corresponding skills for that attribute. Attribute-wise, that is extremely wasteful. It results in a weak character that can do many things, but none of them well. As a result, they falter, as will the team that includes them. The solution is to focus the build, strengthening it to become an able contributor to their team. There are two basic ways to approach a build - adjust your attributes and then your skills or vice-versa. However, when trying to focus a build, I often find it's usually easier to start at the attribute end and go from there. That tends to help cut down on the "too many attribute" problem, as well as help to narrow the focus to the skills within those attribute lines. Focusing a build is not an exact science, but there are some good rules of thumb to consider. Limit your number of attributes Successful characters tend to focus on only 2 to 4 attributes. By doing this, it's possible to put more points into each of them, increasing the power of the associated skills. With all 200 points, one can raise two attributes to 12 or they can raise 3 attributes to 11/10/10 or 12/10/8. Using runes and headgear allows one to push a single attribute as high as 16. Attempting to spread points across 5 or more attributes will usually wind up with multiple attributes down around 8 or less. An attribute with 8 or less points is rather weak compared to one at 12 or 16. The stronger the attribute numbers, the stronger the character will be. One word of caution here - don't try to use too many major or superior runes to bump your attributes. Most builds tend to use only 1 superior rune w/ a health penalty and then only minor runes or ones w/o a health penalty (vigor, absorption). Otherwise, the health penalties become too great and it ends up weakening the character's ability to survive. Focus on primary class attributes A character can only use runes for their primary class. Thus, they can boost those numbers higher than those of their secondary class. Even just one extra point from a minor rune can provide a significant improvement for a skill. Having 9 ranks in a primary attribute vs. 8 ranks in a secondary attribute may not seem like much of a difference, but it can be. Similarly, one should not try to use too many of their secondary class attributes. It is not possible to adjust these with runes or headgear, so they will be weaker. Trying to use two or more of your secondary class attributes may lead to an overly weak character. Favor skills with high attributes This should be fairly obvious, but after looking at various builds, it apparently isn't obvious to everyone. Once the attributes are determined, there will often be one that is higher than the rest. Consider this to be the favored attribute. To get the most usefulness from that high number, one should run several skills associated with that attribute. Only using 1 or 2 skills tied to that attribute may not be taking enough advantage of those points, and some other attribute might be a better one to increase instead. If the build is using 4+ skills from one attribute, it's likely to be the attribute that should be raised the highest. Choose skills that support your build's focus Most builds will have a few spells that don't directly perform the main task, but instead help it in some way. For a warrior, this may be a skill that improves attack rate or adrenaline gain. It could likewise be a skill that increases their movement or overcomes some other typical combat impediment. For a caster, it may be a skill that helps gain back energy, or one that speeds up the recharge on their spells. Having a couple of these kinds of skills in the skillbar is typical. Whether or not everyone realizes it, those are valid ways of focusing a build. However, not all types of skills help focus a build, and instead they can dilute it. For a damage-dealer, bringing several healing or protection skills may be diluting their offensive capability too much. Similarly, a monk healer who tries to bring some attack skills to help out may actually be limiting his usefulness to the team. It's better to let the main damage-dealers with high ranks in their related attributes focus on dealing the damage, and let the healers with high ranks in healing prayers focus on the healing. This doesn't mean damage-dealers should not have any alternate healing, but keep the number of skills and attributes assigned to such a function to a minimum. Don't try too hard to utilize your secondary class Just because each character has a secondary class, and an equal number of primary and secondary skills to choose from, it does not mean that the secondary should contribute equally to the build. Quite the reverse. One should embrace the primary class skills the most because those can have the highest attribute scores. Look to the secondary for options, but don't force the build to use secondary skills if they aren't contributing toward focusing the build. It may come as a surprise to some to realize that a pure single class character is not only viable, but often times even stronger than a character that tries to take advantage of their secondary skills. Adjusting points to fund secondary attributes will invariably weaken attributes of the primary class. In some cases, a secondary attribute does contribute strongly to the overall focus of the build, but in many other cases it may not. Consider attribute-less skills from your secondary Every class has a few skills that are not tied to an attribute. Any skills like this from the secondary class are essentially "free". There is no need to divert any attribute points from the primary class attributes in order to utilize them to their fullest potential. Here are some to consider:
Look for wasted attribute points Some skills see little or no benefit from a point or two difference in their related attribute. Detecting this can be done manually, examining the skill description as the associated attribute is varied. If a case where extra points aren't helping is detected, one can safely reduce that attribute and use those points to instead raise another attribute higher. It's very likely to have a few unused attribute points. Don't re-arrange the attribute numbers just to use them up. That may end up hurting more than helping. If only 192 of the 200 available points are used, that's ok. Some characters may be able to dump a few of those unallocated points into an attribute that will provide some help. For example, a sword & tactics warrior can dump excess points into strength to get a bit of extra armor penetration or an Illusion & Inspiration mesmer could put them into Fast Casting for slightly faster spellcasting. Other classes may not have a viable dump stat, since that stat is usually kept high - for example, the elementalist's Energy Storage. If after completing a build, one finds that they have several points in an attribute, yet only have a single skill related to that attribute, it's very possible that they may be wasting those attribute points. They must decide if that skill and attribute are truly worth funding. If so, perhaps there is another skill or two from that attribute that can be used. If not, remove the skill, and clear the attribute and apply them toward one of the other attributes in use. Then replace that skill with another stronger skill. The class-specific attributes like Soul Reaping, Fast Casting or Energy Storage tend to be exceptions to this. Funding points in those and using few or no skills related to them is fine. Test the build After tuning the build, the real test is trying it. Try replaying the mission, explore area or arena that was causing issues before and see if the new build works better. It's possible that the changes made won't improve the build. If you try several changes and nothing seems to help, the problem may lie somewhere else. For example, poor tactics on the part of the player will not be solved by focusing their build, nor will it fix problems with their teammates' builds or playing tactics. As I stated earlier, focusing a build is not an exact science, and is more of an artform. Some people will be better at it than others. With enough practice, I suspect everyone could master the basic levels of build-tuning. If you have trouble mastering it, feel free to pose your build-focusing questions in our Profession Forum. In the meantime, try to... Focus Your Build! |
