User:Dreamsmith3553

Avid Guild Wars player since October 2004.

Characters
Prophecies
 * Randolph Carter (E/Me)
 * Guy de Glastonbury (R/E)
 * Aiko no Miya (Mo/E)
 * Miranda Libertus (W/E)
 * Fiona Morrigan (N/Me)
 * Quinn Morrigan (Me/E)

Factions
 * Yamaneko Kage (A/R)
 * Shiniko Yanagi (Rt/R)
 * Jade Willowsong (R/Rt)

Nightfall
 * Gaius Julianus (P/W)
 * Diotima Kalonike (D/E)
 * Dru Kalonike (R/D)
 * Fiorella Rossa (E/Me)

Pre-Searing
 * Julian de Arden (R/N)
 * Kendra Morrigan (Me/R)

Miscellany
 * Disposable Asset (PvP)
 * Zathrus Zathrus (Mule)

Observations

 * There is one important rule to being successful at Guild Wars: Have fun!
 * It's a heck of a lot more fun to hone a new build than play a well established one. One plays more effectively when engaged than when bored.  Therefore, the most effective builds are often not the most effective builds.
 * If no one plays with weird ideas, no new builds get discovered.
 * I've lost track of how many times "useless" skills have, months later, become the centerpiece of builds so effective everyone is screaming for a nerf. The effectiveness of a skill is not always obvious, but most players assume that it is.
 * The less intelligent someone is, the more likely they are to believe something is "obvious". Something that "any fool can see" is indeed seen most clearly by fools.  Things are rarely obvious to intelligent people, because they can see all the complexities and alternatives and foresee extenuating circumstances that escape others.  Anyone who can answer the question, "Which is more effective, X or Y?" quickly is not qualified to answer.  The answer will almost certainly be long and in the form "Under A circumstances, X works better, under B circumstances, Y works better, and under C circumstances, X gives you P whereas Y gives Q and which is 'better' depends on whether you'd rather have P or Q."
 * Corollary: What's true for person A is not necessarily true for person B. A sure tip-off that you're talking to a fool is that they assume what they say is true for everyone.  One of the circumstances that must always be taken into account is who will be using the advice, and what works for you doesn't necessarily work for me.  That doesn't mean you shouldn't tell someone what works for you, it just means that if someone does something other than what works for you, that doesn't mean they're "doin it rong".  Doing it your way may in fact prove less effective for them.  OTOH, they'd be fools not to try it your way at least once and see.  Only fools can be certain something is true without testing.
 * In PvP, there is significant advantage to playing something people aren't expecting and aren't prepared for.
 * If you kill someone by some means other than banging on them with a sword or tossing a fireball in their face, you're using a "cheesy gimmick". "Cheesy gimmick" appears to be a synonym for "good idea", based on how the term is usually used.
 * Based on repeated empirical observation, if everybody knows something, it's almost certainly false. People don't bother to even test what they "already know", so the best known "facts" are the most poorly tested ones, believed only because that's what everyone says.  In any Internet community, "everyone" says the darnedest things...
 * People laugh at "I heard it on the Internet so it must be true," but they nevertheless usually believe whatever random people say in chat.
 * In a game with dual-classed characters, people who complain that an X should not try to play a Y (when one is playing an X/Y) demonstrate a profound ignorance of basic game mechanics.
 * All generalizations are false, but that won't stop people from complaining about a specific build based on a generalization, without even considering whether it makes sense with respect to that build. If asked to explain, they're further demonstrate their inability to think by saying, "Everybody knows that, n00b."
 * The less intelligent someone is, the more likely they are to use words like "n00b". The most common criteria they use for calling someone a "n00b" are (a) using a build not straight off of PxX Wiki, and/or (b) not blindly accepting the truth of what "everyone knows".  Given that "n00b" usually therefore means (a) "not as unoriginal as me" and (b) not "as gullible as me", in most circumstances it is a compliment (albeit an entirely unintentional one).
 * My longest winning streak was 76 consecutive wins in RA. It ended because two of us finally had to go.  For most of that, our team had no monk.  We just killed the enemy before they killed us.  Many people were very, very bothered by the fact that our most effective killer was a sword-swinging ranger.  Naturally, the ranger was a "n00b" using a "cheesy gimmick".  ;)
 * It could be argued that the same build would not have made it in "high level" play, and this is almost certainly true. OTOH, any build that could have, would not have been successful under the circumstances, and certainly wouldn't have been as much fun.  Since having fun is the ultimate goal, it would have been foolish to use the "better" build.
 * Thus, the final rule to keep in mind is this: Have fun!