User talk:Morgaine

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Mending survivors

Could you explain more clearly under what circumstance Mending is a better/best choice for Survivors? I don't think I've understood the advice that you would like to see offered (or perhaps the use-case to which it applies). It's hard for me to imagine the circumstance in which +3 health regen is enough to survive 5 minutes of AFK (and if we referring to tiny amounts of time, then aren't there consumables that do a sufficient job?).

Anyhow, the point is I would like to understand better. Thanks. – Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 00:39, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Sure. Easy to explain because I've experienced it myself when going for Legendary Survivor. The archetypal setting is the common zone for least Survivor risk and very high xp, namely the level 30 Snow Wurms just outside of Boreal Station, fought solo as a caster for highest reward.

Normally it is impossible to die to these as a caster, since they are rooted to the spot and can't hit you. The only risk occurs when running towards them from the outpost or running from one wurm to the next, because you can become the victim of a lag spike or a full disconnect which takes you into range of a wurm because you cannot stop your run.

To improve my chances of survival, I always cast the long-duration Ruby Djinn and Physical Resistance before coming anywhere near the wurms, but even so there is a risk of running into one briefly (you can't generally get stuck on one fortunately), and the Ruby Djinn not quite killing it so you die before your run takes you past. The combination of Mending's +3 and Watchful Spirit's +2 Health regeneration increases your survivability in these circumstances substantially because it gives you extra seconds of survivability, and there aren't many alternative heals that work under these circumstances for most professions.

Illusion of Weakness is probably the best alternative because even secondary mesmers can use it (this makes Me/Mo and Mo/Me particularly lucky, with double insurance), and primary dervishes can use their Faithful Intervention. Both of these stay up forever as a health reservoir until you need the healing, but that's about it for heal alternatives that I recall. (Protective Bond can help too by reducing the damage, but you still need a maintained heal or health replenishment of some kind to go with it since it eventually drops.) These are of course all short-term guarantees, but then most lag spikes are short-term, and running into a wurm while disconnected is also likely to have only a short-term danger period.

Mending is a perfectly good choice in this application, and everyone blowing raspberries at it under all circumstances is mostly wiki peergroup reinforcement, not rational assessment. Everyone loves to laugh at a wammo because it lets them strut around feeling superior, but almost every skill has some niche in which it is viable, and Mending is no exception. This is one niche application where it does the job required of it, and its low energy efficiency doesn't matter at all in this role.

I'd love to hear of more alternatives of course, but even if they exist, Mending is still a viable option. That's true even if there are better ones. A skill doesn't become "historical" just because a better one exists. It's one of the great pleasures of GW that there is so much build diversity and choice. Morgaine 02:17, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Mending doesn't get laughed at because it makes people feel superior; mending gets laughed at because it's bad. There's surely a niche application for almost any skill in GW, but that doesn't mean that there are no bad skills in GW. Consider Blessed Aura; it's only really useful for 55 monks to extend the duration of SoJ. It has a niche use, though, so by your logic it's a good skill that shouldn't be laughed at! Everyone else, however, laughs at it because it's a bad skill in normal gameplay. I don't think you'll disagree that in normal gameplay, mending is far inferior to, say, patient or guardian.

I'm a little bit biased because I'm an optimizer, but I strongly disagree that skills are viable if there are (much) better options. Mending is not a viable choice in almost any circumstance because it's just so bad compared to other skills.

Getting back on point for a second, I disagree that mending should be noted as being useful for one particular survivor farm on its own page. I could certainly see a point on the survivor page under that farm's section, though.

-- Armond Warblade 22:05, 7 December 2011 (UTC) 21:52, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

Well as I pointed out in my response to TEF, there are only 3 options in this application, Mending, Illusion of Weakness, and Faithful Intervention. (If there are more, please let me know.) If you're not a primary derv, and for some build reason you cannot use the Mesmer skill, then you have only Mending to fall back on, it's that simple. When there are so few skills that help in this specific niche role, it makes the skill very notable and not to be sneezed at, no matter how crappy it is in other situations. Morgaine 22:29, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

It's actually not that simple. There's a half dozen other farms out there you could do; you could bring watchful intervention, watchful spirit, recuperation, or shadow form; you could ignore the tiny risk of death in favor of more damage and faster runs and restart if you die; you could just not autorun.

It's really a fallacy of notability. Survivor is notable (mostly); specific survivor farms are somewhat notable; slow survivor farms are generally not, and one niche use on a not notable farm is not sufficient to make mending not a joke, especially when other skills can fill the same role. (Any build reason that would prevent you from taking iow would, by the way, likely prevent you from taking mending.)

I really want to make sure that you don't think the wiki is laughing at people who are too new to know that mending is bad. Some of us do, and you won't change that; most of us don't, and you won't change that, either. In fact, I'd say that noting its laughable healing and popularity in various sources (anet, prima) would be a good step towards fixing the issue.

Also, it's still something that belongs on the survivor article (if anywhere), not on the mending article.

-- Armond Warblade 01:22, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

You're not addressing the same application as I was, Armond. It's pointless talking about skills like Watchful Intervention, Recuperation, or Shadow Form, since they cannot be activated when you are lagged or disconnected, and that is the niche that I'm describing. You were right to mention Watchful Spirit though, as that fills the same role as Mending in this particular application, and is quite likely to be used together with it.

It's also pointless to say that there are other farms available. So what? People aren't going to stop using this one just because you want them to. This farm is part of the game, and these four skills (adding your Watchful Spirit to the list, thanks) are relevant to it. And what's more, you couldn't be more wrong about this farm not being notable. It's the lowest-risk, highest reward xp farm for casters, bar none, because its only significant opponent is lag and d/c. Perhaps you should go and take a look at it! Morgaine 02:06, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

I tried it for a while. It wasn't impressive compared to vaettir farming. If other people want to do the slower, less profitable farms, that's certainly their choice, but it's usually one born of ignorance. As for recup, sf, etc, if you have a stable enough connection to go for survivor, you should have a stable enough connection to use those other skills. From my experience with various quality internet connections, lag spikes generally last ~10s tops and actual lagging out is both rare (if you have a connection that isn't two cans and some string) and unpreventably fatal. -- Armond Warblade 03:21, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Master of the North

The Master of the North title is for dungeons in both NM and HM so it makes sense to have that note - even if ZMs only encourage players to do the Hm versions. File:User Chieftain Alex Chieftain Signature.jpgChieftain Alex 22:33, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

That wasn't the point that I was trying to add to the Notes. Generally HM is considered more difficult than NM, but the tables are turned for this title, because it's trivial to do the whole set of dungeons in HM simply by following the Zaishen Bounty rota and joining the extremely plentiful teams. Even the weakest of players without heroes can earn the HM part of this title without stressing in the slightest. In contrast, there are no Zaishen teams doing NM at all, and ordinary players just wanting to team for NM dungeons are pretty much an extinct species, so in practice the NM dungeons become the harder part of this title for weaker players. That is why being able to skip 3 NM dungeons is far more useful and noteworthy than being able to skip two HM ones. Morgaine 22:47, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

What if I added HM onto the end of the phrase?

"Most of the tasks required for this title are covered by Zaishen Challenge Quests. Waiting for the corresponding zaishen quest can increase the rewards and make it easier to find pick-up groups for Hard mode dungeons."

File:User Chieftain Alex Chieftain Signature.jpgChieftain Alex 23:02, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

That's perfectly fine and yes I'd support it --- just make the line start with "Most of the Hard Mode tasks ...".

It doesn't say anything about NM though, and it was NM that I was trying to address. Because you cannot generally get support for doing dungeons in NM, NM becomes the difficult part, and it's undoubted that many players struggle with Shard of Orr and of course with the elite Slaver's Exile. That's why I was trying to give them a helpful strategic note about being able to use the 30 extra points for skipping NM tasks. The only thing that makes this strategic is that Zaishen teams do the HM part, but Zaishen is not part of the EotN story arcs so it's non-obvious for EotN readers and hence worthy of a note. Morgaine 23:35, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

In a way, shards of orr is hilariously easy with 3 roj monks + panic. + slaver's could be done in Hm for the first 4 if you desired to pug it + then the only difficult bit is Duncan. btw you can't remove comments from your talk - even if they are anal. put them in something like User talk:Morgaine/Archive 1 :) File:User Chieftain Alex Chieftain Signature.jpg Chieftain Alex 23:05, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Yep, hilariously easy when smiting goes through undead like butter. But we only know that because we're experts at the game, and go in prepared with good builds. Remember that GW is a game for everyone, and Anet specifically want it to be for casual players as well. For them, Shards of Orr is monumentally hard, as the comments in the wiki show. (Same applies to Slaver's Exile, which despite being elite is still trivial for players who know what they're doing.)

PS. I'll do as you suggested with the comment I removed. Morgaine 23:12, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Done, thanks. :-) Morgaine 23:21, 17 December 2011 (UTC)