So im kinda amazed right now...

so ive been playing guildwars for almost 4 years now, so i seen alot of fad builds come and go....to be honest i dont know who actually comes up with like the 55hp monk or the perma sin...but is it just me or like if its a person who just play guildwars wayy too much but...arent you completely bogggled that someone is so amazing at videogames they find builds and these skills and items and just figure out how to exploit a whole games mechanics?

Its a simple idea, it just takes creativity, and thinking outside the box.

it's more mathematics and understanding game mechanics and calculations

55 is a pretty simple formula: use 5 supe runes plus the -50 cesta, your life is 55. constantly have ps up, you only take 5.5 dam at a time, with +10 health regen you are constantly regening to full health, if you start taking tons of hits, put up spirit bond

as for perma, same thing. You know the duration of sf, and the recharge time. Use skills and + enchant mods until you can get sf last slightly longer than it's recharge.

It's not like someone just kept trying random combinations of skills until the magic combination appeared.

no but im saying ur breaking it down like neone could have figured that out...i mean i seriously doubt 95%+ guildwars players could figure out suc ha effective build

I don't know. Personally I have a hard time keeping track of skills. I've never been terribly interested or good at coming up with combinations, usually I just slap a build together that sounds good and works okay and head off to do my business.

However when my guildees are on TS, they banter back and forth like pros about switching this skill for that and coming up with this. And I've seen them come up with some amazing (albeit odd - like an Ele build for FA that cripples an enemy so they move around at the speed of molasses for 30 seconds while being completely invulnerable to attacks. So you can keep them alive indefinately having them walk around super slow just to annoy them) builds that I would never have thought of. I think some people are just geared to remember things like skill mechanics, they get bored, and they come up with stuff.

When you look at the mechanics behind the Permasin and 55, they're incredibly simple. 55 seems out of the box to me, though Permasin makes sense. If you had a skill that made you invulnerable and you only needed it to last a *little* longer to keep it up indefinitely, I'd start looking around for things to keep up enchantments. Also, remember in its original form, Shadow Form had a little more time on it (if I remember correctly).

Am I surprised that synergy exists? No. Perhaps the degree to which a build can be effective, but there's nothing shocking about the creation of an efficient build.

nah, it's not shocking that people find ways to exploit games. lol. u find the easy way, u use it till it is taken away from u. basic ;-)

Make that 99% and we're getting closer, at least when we talk about the 55 setup. The permasin isn't even in the same league sorta speak.

Everybody can say the 55 setup is easy now, point is they didn't come up with it. One person did, but forgot his name. His way of thinking inspired others to come up with the 100 and later the 600 build when Spirit Bond arrived.

to be fair, the A/E perma build was extremely obvious. the day anet made that change, i went into ToA with my assassin, and saw twenty people all sitting there, with the exact same primary/secondary.

for shits and giggles, i typed in all chat: "glyph of swiftness+deadly paradox+shadowform+enchant mod?"

the replies were:
"lol yep"
"awesome"
"gg anet"
"free ectoz!"

actually i forgot what the reactions were, but i think i got it pretty close.

After being directly involved in the development of the 100LOLz/MOP W/N raptor build (+ para hero runner), I have to say it's not surprising that a group of thinkers can come up with a min-skillset that deals with the opponents in a (mini-)max sort of manner.

Not very shocking, to be sure. The influx of nerfage clearly indicates they've acknowledged their lacking in game development...

Doubtful, that 95% of GW players have no creativity and leech builds off an even smaller population.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optimization_(mathematics)

No. You can reduce any situation (in the abstract) in Guild Wars to mathematics, bounce optimization theory off it, and spit out a solution. The only real skill involved is setting up the equations, which requires deftly managing the sheer number of variables and mechanics the game throws at you and making quality assumptions.

Optimization theory won't teach you how to kite, how to counter kiting, how to set up your keyboard, or how to recognize adversary skill usage visually. But it will tell you things such as which skills to interrupt, which skills to bring and why Warriors put out more damage over time than anything else, assuming skillful play.

Since the AI is predictable and uses fixed skill sets, it is almost absurdly easy to exploit PvE. Once you solve the problem, it stays solved. PvP is a lot more complicated, because you have to start accounting for opponents' reactions to your decisions. There's another branch of mathematics (game theory) that deals with this, but it's more challenging to learn, easier to screw up, and limited in its practical applications to GW because non-strategic skills like kiting have more of an impact on match outcomes than the proper application of game theory.

Note that you don't have to bother with the calculus when doing this stuff. Concepts like damage over time serve perfectly well.

Yeah 95% is a bad number but surely FAR more players copy/share builds or at least base their build off of given builds because they are proven to work.

Doesn't mean they have no creativity. Everyone has a creative side with some of their builds, just because they find different things more effective.

But the point that was being made is not everyone can just come up with pro builds that work so vastly in given situwations in PVE or PVP for a wild range of players.

Back more on topic: Do I think the person doesn't have a life. No Im sure s/he does. A person can easily play 5hrs a day and have a life, and putting that much time into things and NOT being stupid could easily lead to some people figuring out incredibable builds that exploit the game in multiple ways.

Not to say said person even plays that much, like they said just actually taking some time and considering options and outcomes, doing the MATH, and putting things together, then testing them, and whala it works!

It's very possible.

of all the builds, i think 55 is the only one that was somewhat thinking outside of the box, everything else is simply stack the right enchants and extend them for as long as possible etc etc... most people simply would not have considered reducing health to increase survivability, until they find out that it worked better than doing the usual things

Those who are willing and able to adapt to every situation and make the best of it are the ones who come up with optimized builds to counter that given situation.

It has nothing to do with how good the player is, how many hours he plays or how many titles he has. A player can be 'GWAMM' tier 6 and still suck at build adaptation if he used the same few bars throughout his adventures. In fact, I met a pve warrior player the other day 'GWAMM tier 5', who had no idea what SY (save yourselves) stood for. He used ursan to get the z-mish done...good for him.

Personally, I like to adapt to every map I play. That's what makes the game fun for me. My hero bars are also changing to produce close to optimal synergy with my updated build. And yes, I do like using heroes from ALL professions.

My current goal is to find ways of effectively dealing with Charrs in HM (for vq, and books) in EOTN. When I am done with it, and find a new 'threat', I will develop ways to deal with it as well.

When people hungers for money, they will inevitably come up with new and improved farming builds .

its really not that amazing. it was bound to happen.

I'm surprised a lot of people here don't consider 55 monk an amazing and remarkable build. I can't help but assume they either weren't there for when it happened or don't remember it well.

Other farm build (including shadowform) are just that: creative farming builds, but the 55 monk was a revolution. Not only in farming, but in thinking.

There are quite a few things that set it apart from any other farming build:

1. It was the first of its kind. All previous farming builds were just warriors stacking damage mitigation. A light bulb doesn't seem very impressive to us, but surely you wouldn't dismiss it just because someone was bound to think of running current through a wire immersed in gas sooner or later.

2. Stacking superior runes takes a fair bit more "thinking outside the box" than just coming up with a creative bar. 55 monk was the only build at the time that used nonstandard equipment, including a quest item (later the 600 PS/SB build used low AL armor to artificially increase damage taken).

3. People haven't even thought of equipment as a part of a build at that point in the game... and this didn't completely change until a while later when people started using shields on casters in PvP, etc

4. It's not a whole bar, but rather half a bar without even using the elite slot that could be put on any class with a monk secondary. This turned the game's economy on its head because anybody with any class could farm... something only warriors have been doing previously. I did quite a lot of stuff with my 55 necro back in the day.

5. It could farm absolutely friggin everything. In its pre-nerf form (with prot bond) and before anet started designing and fixing areas to make it harder, 55 monk was literally a solo button for the whole game... a much easier solo button than shadow form almost 4 years later.

Yes, someone was bound to think of it sooner or later, but it didn't happen until 2 or 3 months after release and if you've been playing back then I simply don't see how you can't acknowledge it as anything short of amazing.

I too am amazed!

Who could of thought a skill that makes all attacks and spells fail which can be kept up permanently could be used as a solo farming build?

no it is creativity not math...
i was always baffled when i played 600 or perma i was thinking:
man who made this stuff...