User:Honorable Sarah/Rantful

Legendary blunder
Sara Aethenal is within 5% of all three contenents now. cantha is 95.3%, Elona 96.1%, and tyria is an annoying 95.1%. i know where some of tyria is, a few missions and a trip through snake dance and i'm settled, but both cantha and elona are about as well mapped as i can manage.

it's bloody frustrating to get close to a title that doesn't require days upon days of repetitive farming only to end up without any idea what needs to be done to get the last percentage.

anyone have any ideas?

Signet of New Content
so, Hard Mode... and i found 3/6 competent monks, and more echo mending builds then i can count. do people who play PvE to the point of hard mode really think that Healing Hands and Thrill of Victory is a good combination on a PvE tank vs Lv 23-29 foes? who seriously uses healing breeze as a precombat buff?

anyways, i've decided to go for guardian, and this is where i discovered an interesting problem with the guardian title. if you get masters on hard mode, it doesn't provide masters on the normal mode. if i beat The Great Northern Wall with Lv 26 charr, what makes Anet think i can't do the same vs Lv 8 charr? i know it's not a big deal for the wall, but it's just infuriating to have to do every mission 3-4 times in both difficulties...

this is why we need to put real effort into the build section, and have a very short list of very good builds. because for every Build:W/any Triple Chop PvE Warriors, there are ten Build:W/Mo Gashing Hands. a list of 5-10 effective, good, solid, use anywhere builds for each profession would be ideal.

Observer mode
can someone explain to me what's going on here? i watched a Halls battle, and it was all chaotic and random and everyone targeting everyone else. it was... confusing. is there an observer mode primer i should have read?

why my necromancer still has prophecies armor
my necromancer was one of my first characters (after warrior and elementalist, actually). once i got the hang of minion mastering, i really enjoyed it. capping spiteful spirit ment i could go to the underworld, and it was great. i was all excited about factions, because they said it would have great skills for minion masters. this is about the last time i was really excited about necromancers.

Verata's Nerf was a major hit. it changed the way MM skills worked, and put a very artifical limit on the number of minions a player could lead. MMing became MUCH harder. fortunatly, additional skills such as Animate Vampiric Horror and Animate Flesh Golem added some alternatived to the huge armies of the past. other skills like Reckless Haste changed the necromancer class for the better.

Nightfall brough a few great skills to the necromancer line, including Animate Shambling Horror and Jagged Bones. Jagged was quickly nerfed, but there were enough positive changes to counter that.

the most recent change basically kills the necromancer class. the whole point of the necromancer class is very expensive skills offset by the high gain from soul reaping. necromancers don't have energy management skills (excepting a very few weak skills recently added in nightfall) and have the highest adverage spell cost of any class (except possibly elementalists, who have both energy storage and attunements).

a lot of people are saying that it's not so bad. that 1 reap every 5 second is ok. consider the orders necromancer, who spends as much as 30 energy every 10 seconds just to keep the core of the build up, then has to add additional energy for defense or other party support roles. MMs rely on the return from minion death to heal other minions and animate new ones. even heroes, with their perfect reflexes, can't keep more then a half complement up now. playing necromancer simply isn't fun any more.

insomina sucks
orly! yarly! 2:16 am, and i have to be up at 6:00. --Honorable Sarah 03:07, 28 March 2007 (CDT)
 * --Honorable Sarah [[image:Honorable_Icon.gif]] 03:37, 28 March 2007 (CDT)
 * still up. this happens alot, actually. --Honorable Sarah [[image:Honorable_Icon.gif]] 04:29, 28 March 2007 (CDT)
 * minion mastery guide started this way, i think --Honorable Sarah [[image:Honorable_Icon.gif]] 04:59, 28 March 2007 (CDT)

Graffitti paint, Beige, 1m gallons
sportsnight was one of those shows that no one ever watched. i hate sports, but i found it funny. one episode was all about something bad coming, and the feeling of opressive waiting that preceeded it. "eli" was that feeling. i forget how it ended.

Nog64 is running a build contest, and right on the top, in bold letters it asks all participants to copy builds to user space in preparation for the upcomming build wipe. i read that and it was a "eli's a-comming" moment.

yes, the build section (i guess i should start calling it the build namespace now) is full of crud, most of it W/Mo useless tripe or outdated FotM gimic builds. however, the conditions that spawned all the crud are not going away, and a build wipe is only going to bale the sink, not fix the clog.

the city of houston (where i live now, oddly enough) has a graffitti task force. they go around and paint over graffitti one peice at a time. when it started, they had 3 or 4 trucks running 12 hour shifts, 7 days a week. in a few weeks, it was down to 5 eight hour days, then 6 hour days, and now the trucks only roll for an hour or two every day. the wiki is one of those places where you can push a button and paint everything in the city beige in about 20 minutes, but the problem is that it one grand symbolic gesture isn't going to convince the graffitti artists you mean business, and you'll paint the mfaH as collateral.

eli's a'commin'.

holy light and dark shadow
m'kay, i know i've been fighting this for months, but here is the last time i'll say anything about it. no damage type intrinsically ignores armor, holy is light, shadow is dark, and all of the above are neither elemental nor physical damage.

why do i think so? let's start with some points of evidence:
 * 1) Avatar of Balthazar, Judge's Insight and Heart of Holy Flame all change damage to holy, and none of them are Armor ignoring. the rule of least obtrusion leads me to believe that it's far easier to mark certain skills as armor ignoring then to roll back ignoring status for a few skills.
 * 2) the great majority of ignoring skills say so in the description, the obvious exception being the holy and shadow skills. why is this? it's very possible the description of the damage was changed to imply the ignoringness without running over the skill description limit (whatever that is). again, least obtrusion leads that it's easier to name something then actually change it, so it's unlikely that they extended the mechanics to include extra damage types.
 * 3) both holy and light damage do double damage to undead, this seems to strongly imply they're the same damage type, given the above argument about changing something when you don't have to.
 * 4) using a light wand against a warrior with the recently changed Sentinel's Insignia will strike at 80 armor, the same as a wand under heart of holy flame. while this is also true of chaos and dark, neither of those deal double damage to the undead.

i think, at best, we have 9 types of damage, 3 physical (slashing, peircing, blunt), 4 elemental (lightning/shock, flame/fire, water/cold, earth/ebon), holy/light and other (which includes shadow, dark, chaos, and any number of other untyped sources).

unfortunatly, we'll not know for sure unless someone exposes the code or Anet releases a UI componet that shows damage type.

Have curse, Will travel
m'kay, bink and ryn, the two charismatic, if slightly rude, guild leaders of Pirates of the Tortuga Concord [trtl ] left the guild for 치 The Spearmen 치 [치치치치 ]. dispite having a full hall, events, several special benefit programs, a private vent server, website, and forum, we've been having membership problems, and bink and ryn were tired of being alone on missions. they decreed that unless the active officers could get the membership above 100 before the end of wintersday, they'd accept the spearmen's offer and leave the guild.

i'm happy for them, but their departure has left a bit of a problem in the guild they founded. at least two officers left preceeding them, and at least one other left after they did, and no one has even counted the number of members who left because the guild leader was leaving. considering the heyday of the guild was 50 members, this leaves us with a very very small active membership.

the oddest thing is that bink and ryn were the worst about hencies. they'd never play with randoms, and would even kick guild members to put a hero in if it suited their build concept. that tone pervaded the guild, and it was one of the first things i commented on when i joined. everyone did hencies, it was just accepted that randoms were always completly inferior to AI constructs. hardly an open and welcoming mindset. that's one of the reasons i think heroes are a really bad idea. they give people an easy way out. randoms don't like your X, forget them, koss will use Illusionary Weaponry and a scythe, and may actually make a fair bet of it.

This is the 9th guild that has fallen around me in 16 months, at least three of them spectacularly. it's disheartening. my last two guilds fell over interpersonal conflicts, and this guild failed from a lack of interpersonal contact. can't win for losing.

"MY PAGE!"
i've a 4 page conversation on my talk page about a page that i have two edits against (ok, technically three, but the third had no content changed). if you look at the content of the page before and after, the content of the page currently, and the content of the disputed edit, you can see my objections. is the information useful? maybe, maybe not. it depends on how critically you need help with this mission.

but how critically do people need this mission? i've 6 characters with masters, most with randoms. orginized groups tend to work just as well as pickups. there are always chest runs going through, and characters can hitch a ride to the divine path with one of them.

ok, so how hard is this mission? i think i've failed twice, perhaps three times (once with hencies while testing Suicidal Impulse, which is still in dispute, dispite being linked from the main article, but i'm not counting that because i had no intention of winning that time round). i think i have a lower average for Raisu Palace. i'm FAR from a phenominal player, and i managed to get through more then a few times.

so why is this person so concerned about their addition to this article? probably the same reason why some other users replace good armor images with pictures of their own characters; the same reason why we have 300+ builds; the same reason people vandalize articles; the same reason some users only edit is the creation of their own user page. everyone wants their little corner of fame, it seems, no matter how small.

State of the Universe
i'm fairly bored with the universe. not this one, the Guild Wars universe. this universe was never very interesting to begin with.

anyways, i find myself logging into guild wars a lot less then i used to. i've done The Deep, tried my hand at Urgoz's Warren, farmed The Underworld, done Fissure of Woe including more then my fair share of Eternal Forgemaster trips, gotten a few greens from Ruins of the Tomb of the Primeval Kings.

i dislike farming, repetitive actions are for work, not play. i'm not interested in going and finding randoms, because they tend to act, well, random. so i find myself logging in, seeing no one in my guild, and getting right back off. i played one mission all weekend.

i did however, spend about 12 hours editting wiki articles this weekend. which is strange, because that's about 12 times the time i spent on guildwars. maybe it's because i have a steady stream of accomplishments, a list of friends who are almost always available.

this is why we need a Xunlai Post. Eve Pendragon hasn't played in months. i miss her, i wish she'd come back so we could play again. if i could leave her a message, she might log in for 3 seconds one day and see it, even if i'm not around. i could give her my email (which i really regret not doing before) and we could get back together.

i got my first minipet the other day, ember my temple guardian. since my first character was still with me, that means i've played for a year. i can count on one hand the number of people who are still playing from my first guild, and i don't even need to use any fingers. i don't even remember the name.

i miss playing with real people, i hate hencies, i dislike randoms, and i'm running out of fun things to do.

Admin
big storm over at User_talk:Gravewit. i've stayed conspicuously quite on RFAs and the whole adminship discussion, largely because i don't feel it has a lot to do with the day to day running of the site, but partially because i don't feel it's my place. well this is my place, so i get to rant, and you get to be good boys and girls and listen quietly to auntie sarah.

lots of people are focusing on the numbers of new admins, why there should or shouldn't be. that's not our choice. Gravewit runs the site, and gets to choose admins. he's polite enough to allow us to put up candidates for him to choose from, but if he so wanted to make some user who registered yesterday a sysop, he could. it's his sandbox, and we all play here because 1)he's a nice guy and lets us 2)it's a big sandbox with lots of cool places to make castles or race tracks or split level asylums.

ok, so lets put that aside for a second. what does adminship mean? from a strictly technical standpoint, they gain nothing but a small set of tools (rollback, delete, ban, etc). but we all know GW is more then just a technical site. there's a community here. so what does granting admin do to the community around them? are users more likely to defer or grant the opinions of an admin more weight? not really, lots of people argue with skuld, and he's known to have both a temper and a quick trigger finger.

ok, so let's look at the tools.
 * Rollback: most useful in reverting vandals, does not totally erase a submit, history is preserved (i think).
 * Delete: rm a page, wipes history. shows pretty prominently in recent changes.
 * Ban: block a user, anywhere from a few hours to a few decades, even infinite

the only one with any real abuse potential is Ban. sure you could delete a discussion, but it'll just start up somewhere else with another admin asking questions about why the first was deleted. ban has a similar restriction, but people are less likely to see a ban on a single user then pulling a discussion out from under several active contributors.

which leads me around to my next point. the whole point of a wiki is community. the community drives discussion and pushes policy. if a single admin went rogue, they would have a hard time enforcing their will against 10 or 15 users making changes, and eventually some other admin is going to see the ban frenzy and do something. the community, not the admins, drives the wiki.

so what is all this thunder and lightning about? i honestly don't know, and i'm having a really hard time understanding why people are making a huge deal out of something that is both out of our hands and non-destructive. maybe i'm missing something?

Noob vs Newbie
common game terms, but subtle differences. let's compare: Exclusion is like thermonuclear war; once everyone does it the world is over.

well, it's offical
I'm old. proof Positive. time to get the crochet needles out and start knitting sweaters for homeless cats. this is a truely sad day. here lies sarah, she was old at 25.

Yesi Doubtsarah
everyone say hello to yesi from my guild [Trtl], who doubted my wiki-ness-ness. ;p

GW:AGF and you
Caution: soapbox

lots of people seem to be ignoring the rules lately, and no, i'm not talking about a certain pair of revert warriors. i'm talking about all the other people who go about plastering slander on talk pages, calling for bans, etc.

yes, those two people got into a revert war, and yes, it was not good of either of them to do that. AGF, and a little bit of empathetic understanding, shows us that they both had GOOD FAITH reasons for doing what they did. i'm sure they both understand all this, and will attempt to not do that again, because they are acting in good faith when posting to the wiki.

however, several people have been filling talk pages with hate. ok, you don't like person A, thats fine, you're allowed that. however when you start calling for bans without understanding the persons point of view your not following AGF. which is the worse transgression, 1RV or AGF?

here's a hint, AGF is the key to the entire wiki project. without AGF we have a draconian database maintained by a few "trusted", but dreadfully overwhelmed, admins. edits and changes would take weeks to vet and approve, because no one can be allowed to post anything without 7 approval stamps and oversight by 2 other users, who are, each in turn, supervised by 2 more.

if you think you can particpate here without following AGF, you're wrong. no argument no discussion no "prove it". you are wrong if you ignore AGF.

"but sarah", you say, "look at Special:Log/Block all those people did bad things to the wiki. we should toss AGF and block anonymous/user/unapproved edits". well guess what, find even one instance of vandalism out of the last 500 edits, and you'll get a cookie from me. that's because most of the people who go to the trouble of writing something and posting it are woking in good faith. everyone else gets put on the ban log as they prove themselves out of AGF.

"but sarah", you say, "user X hates us all and is evil and should be blocked". ok, burden of proof falls on the procecution.

soapbox over.

The Old Rant -OR- What Anet Should Do

 * Rebalance MM:
 * Split Verata's Sacrifice into two skills:
 * Verata's Burden:5[[image:energy.png]] 1[[image:activation.png]] 5[[image:recharge.png]] Spell. draw all conditions from minions you control. sacrifice 3% of your maximum health for each condition drawn.
 * notes: consider an army of 10 that walks over a dust trap and a flame trap. two conditions times 10 minions = 60% sacrifice, pretty signifigant benefit at a healthy cost.
 * Verata's Sacrifice:15%[[image:sacrifice.png]] 10[[image:energy.png]] 2[[image:activation.png]] 30[[image:recharge.png]] Enchantment. for {8...18} seconds all your minions are enchanted with verata's gift, gain +10 regeneration, but cannot be the target of necromancer enchantments.
 * notes: note the old style recharge and duration. also note it's now an enchantment on each minon. mesmers, start your engines. "cannot be the target" puts a dent in renewal MM's since it now MUST end before being recast, or else no effect.
 * Change the Minion Limit=2+(Death Magic/2) rule to Minion Limit=Death Magic. remove the limit all together, find some other way to counter MM armies. extend the durration of Judge's Insight, or better yet, make a new skill Order of Judgement 25 energy, for 5 seconds, all party members deal holy damage, and attacks set animated creatures on fire.
 * Make all minions succeptable to all conditions (esp disease), despite being "not fleshy".
 * Change the models for Celestial Horror and Bone Minion to match their nature. celestial horrors should use the celestial skins from the bosses in Nahpui Quarter, and minions should use the "Crawler" model with the bone horror skin.
 * Make up their mind on celestial horrors. they should either not be "controlled" (not count on minion total, no BotM, VS, etc), or follow the master like normal minions.
 * add a spirit counter like the minion counter. in fact add two, one for spirits "in the area" for those skills that count that, and another for spirits you control.
 * Finish the Realms of the gods:
 * The Eternal Jungle: two layer map(canopy and jungle floor). diseased flesh creatures (trolls, crawlers, etc). quests to protect forest sites, assisting druids, etc. Amber and Jade drops.
 * Akasha Monastery: Himalayan theme, mountain peaks connected by cloud bridges. dwyana combating a powerful cult. lots of escort, "must survive" and "defend location" quests. new rare material Aether, similar to Obsidian Shards, and new armor type "Aethereal armor" made from ectos and aether, should look like forged clouds, with fellblade-like animations layered on top.
 * Mirror Realms: this one would be hard, as the landscape would have to change as you complete quests. assist facets of lyssa. lots of conflicting, unclear objectives, like the same facet tells you to undo something you just did. ruby and saphire drops.
 * Increase the drop rate of rare and "perfect" items kudos on that with factions
 * Xunlai Auction house, similar to material traders.
 * items depositied with house, seller gets unique ticket. seller specifies auction end date, "buyout" price, or both.
 * buyers talk to a auctioneer to browse and bid on items.
 * ticket can be traded in for 80% of the sold price, or the original item if it has not sold.
 * Weapon mod trader. this should be common sense. I don't need a "perfect" upgrade, +26 or 17% is fine, and everyone throws those away.
 * finish the Dragon Sword sets:
 * Shocking Dragon Sword: orange dragon head, remove "jet" and "glob" effects, add dancing lightning similar to Everlasting Aura.
 * Ebon Dragon Sword: brown dragon head, remove "jet" and "glob" effects, blade is colored and skinned like a fellblade
 * Holy Dragon Sword: (Light Damage) white dragon head, white blade and effects. double damage to undead.
 * Shadow Dragon Sword: (Dark Damage) Charcoal grey dragon head, black blade and effects.
 * Entropic Dragon sword: (Chaos damage) purple dragon head, deep purple blade and effects.