Talk:Guide to defeating Magni the Bison/Archive 1

I reorganized the page, with some general strategy, and single class builds that work both for M. Bison and most of the rest of the potential opponents. I left the builds that others added to the page at the bottom, except for deleting one that showed an undescriptive screenshot of a skillbar, and deleting a couple that had the skillbar mostly empty. I fought through the tournament with each of my builds until I reached round 5 at least ten times, to ensure that the build could usually beat M. Bison as well as most of the earlier opponents, and stopped on a run in which I reached round 5 without facing any new opponents. If someone verifies that a build beats an opponent that I haven't faced, it may be good to remove that opponent from the list for that build. If you lose to an opponent, that could be that the build can't beat that opponent, or just that you didn't use it properly. Quizzical 00:20, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Pretty useless IMHO. Having an anti-Bison build is no good if that build is not versatile enough to make it through the previous five rounds of the tournament, during which many different opponents can come up as opponents. Should be moved and expanded to something like Guide to beating the Norn Fighting Tournament or similar. --Roland of Gilead (talk) 04:54, 19 September 2007 (CDT)
 * Yeah fuck it, lets rub our wieners together. --DEATHWING 05:02, 19 September 2007 (CDT)
 * Agreed. If anything, PvX should accommodate the NFT builds rather than litter them here. But deathwing's comment makes me virtually step away from him. lol Flechette 05:45, 19 September 2007 (CDT)
 * I /agree with Roland. Rather create a guide that includes everyone you fight against, not just one person. Silver Sunlight [[Image:SSunlight.jpg|19px]] 05:53, 19 September 2007 (CDT)
 * I vote for moving the article to "Guide to beating The Norn Fighting Tournament" and expanding the content to all oponents idea. --  Glamtre  [[Image:Axe-icon-right.png]] (Contribs) 18:37, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

I dont see the problem here just a matter of using ursan blessing a bow and distracting shot and its easy.

My page still pwns this out of the water. The problem with the Ursan Blessing/Dshot combo is that it requires Ranger primary or secondary, Skills which you may not have, finding a free long-range Bow, and most importantly the fact that that's still not a 100% guaranteed victory in and of itself. (T/C) 01:04, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
 * My mesmer tried the Ursan/Dshot build. Even with Favorable Winds and Read the Wind, I still can't interrupt him with recurve bow (couldn't find longbow, but flatbow failed).  I also didn't have Summon Mursaat, so I brought my own Black Widow instead (higher armor than Mursaat I'd expect).  Turns out Bison has some bad AI that would cause him to randomly run around at times (always after killing the Black Widow).  I have 100% success defeating him by keeping my Ursan run buff on and keep a safe distance from him. Not sure when the bug will be fixed...  My build was:

with 12 mark, 12 beast, 3 Inspiration. Distraction Shot and Comfort Animal turn out to be completely useless, and Inspired Enchantment is only needed against Mhenlo. Mhenlo is slightly harder to kill than Bison, but I still can win 100% the time (drag out the fight and keep removing enchants, then spike him with Ursan 3-hit damage). -User:PanSola (talk to the ) 11:15, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

What's with all the builds requiring a particular combination of professions? It seems that a lot of people have the idea that M. Bison is unbeatable without extensive use of a secondary profession and/or high rank pve-only skills, which is completely wrong. I've added single-class builds for the ones that didn't have them (which was most of them). Even if it takes a bit of luck to draw suitable preceding opponents, it's vastly cheaper to take two or three tries to beat the tournament than to spend 5k or so on secondary profession skills. -User:Quizzical

Wow, someone really cleaned this up. It's much better now. Though my page still has the actual enemy skillbars :) (T/C) 00:19, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Someone put in a line about the paragon build not working against Eve, which is untrue, so I've deleted it. According to my notes, I did beat Eve with it, and it presumably wasn't that hard of a fight if I didn't make any notes about her in particular. Quizzical 01:59, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Hey I know I am late to the Party and pretty much everyone has figured out how to beat Magni but if you don't mind being a coward you can kill him easy using any proffesion with 2 Ebon Vanguard Skills Winds and Ebon Escape. Cast Winds in the holding area and select it as your target. When the gate opens run out and right when you get out cast ebon escape. You have to cast it right when you get through the gate because once the gate is up it will no longer allow you to shadow step back. Once you are safely on the other side Use any non-melee/projectile build to kill your opponents and no one can get hit you. I guarnatee this works I have a screen shot of Decisive victory and me on the opposite side of the wall. Again I am really late to the party so probably nobody cares but if you are tired of Magni wooping on you this will work (He will run away once you start attacking him just wait he will come back and then not leave again.) Monk Texas Ranger 19:26, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Dervish Build
The Dervish build seems a little cyclical, as it requires a skill that you get by defeating Magni in the first place. Draxynnic 05:09, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Monk
I used something like this with my Monk:

Precast Reversal, get in melee range and KD. Make chain up to Holy Strike, cast reversal, Continue Chain. Kite and keep casting Reversal to negate damage. This build rips up any build thrown at you before getting to Magni. Magni will take about 2 mins.

Magni will own you. Just use a 55 monk? --DEATHWING 22:01, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

There is a PvX build that goes like this:

One optional should be "YMLaD!", but it didn't link correctly

--Guild of Deals 13:23, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Just figured I would put this up...

Blood Magic: 12 Healing Prayers: 8+3 Protection Prayers:7+4 Divine Favor:8+3

Fairly easy 55 build to use, If up against alot of degen put on some of your normal armor to gain some health, Is difficult to deal with hexes from Norgu, but managed to kill him.

Palawa Joko
That bit is horrible! Is he really in the tournament? Can't we just remove the rumors and make it more factual? 198.54.202.234 17:12, 6 January 2008 (UTC)


 * If you want to go through the tournament however many times it takes to draw Palawa Joko as an opponent enough times as enough different classes to figure out what builds he and his minions use, his basic strategy, what matches up well against him, and so forth, then have at it. If I beat the tournament more than a hundred times and never once saw him, you're probably looking at thousands of trips through the tournament to do that.  It's hard to make things factual when the facts aren't known.  Quizzical 20:56, 6 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Agreed. I'd suggest removing it completely until it can actually be confirmed. As the old adage goes, jpegs or it didn't happen. =P I'll remove it myself if no one objects here in a day or so. --67.86.141.73 01:54, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
 * No objections, I'm whacking it. Its clearly a rumor, its poorly written, and if it belongs anywhere, its in the talk pages or, at most, as a Note in the guide - 'It is rumored that Palawa Joko sometimes replaces Magni the Bison as the final challenger in the tournament.' Add it if you feel like, but my feeling is it should stay on the talk page. --Belker 04:05, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I got multiple users on my page who met him, as well as two skills for the Minions, and so I believe the information is true. But everyone seems to agree it is a very rare encounter. Perhaps there are requirements that must be met in the Nightfall campaign. [[Image:Entropy Sig.jpg]] (T/C) 19:50, 11 January 2008 (UTC)


 * All ten of my characters were Protector of Elona with nearly all Nightfall quests completed before doing the Norn tournament, so it would strike me as odd if it takes something else in Nightfall to trigger getting Palawa Joko. Quizzical 22:57, 28 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Perhaps that's the problem? Like, it only comes along if you havent gone past Morah or smthing. Or he's really rare --- [[Image:VipermagiSig.JPG]]-- (s)talkpage 23:05, 28 January 2008 (UTC)


 * To make GWEN content unavailable to characters who went too far in Nightfall before GWEN came out would be really, really bad game design. Quizzical 00:09, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Monk speaking up with regards to the Monk/Assasin build
I don't know who says that it is possible to beat Magni the Bison loading this configuration, but I tried several times to beat him with no luck. (How reliable was this persn's ISP, and how close to the game servers did they live?) How long does it take for bear form to wear off? Not that it matters, he can get in a swipe as you try to run out of range and finish you in one blow. I had very nice max damage gold kukris, that increased bleeding as well. I was able to tear through almost every opponent leading up to him, except Lo Sha ripped me apart with his Degen, and Lukas also very nicely shut me down half the time. 72.205.228.80 19:44, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
 * The build seems to make sense, I suppose it relies on trying to kd as an interrupt for bear form. The only thing I can think of is that between the build being posted and now, there was a damage reduction to horns, but that shouldn't matter if they're constantly kded anyway. -Ezekiel 21:31, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Mesmer Build
The listed Mesmer build is decent (and is what every mesmer tried right off the bat), but I think it is missing a little.

Power Return isn't needed...not even a little. You have Backfire, why would you ever want to stop someone from casting and doing 147 dmg? Instead of Power Return, I would suggest Spiritual Pain. It makes Razah a total breeze (as opposed to being one of the most difficult) and it also allows for an extra 79 dmg for finishing any hangers-on.

Other than that one skill change, the build is exactly what I came up with and used. I also used 16 Dom, 12 Insp, and 6 FC (I think 6 is correct here).

I also tested it extensively and found that the build I suggest can easily destroy most opponents. I would think that yours would be the same (mine only makes Razah much easier. Most opponents don't need to be finished off with Spiritual Pain). Casters are generally dead in less than 5-10 seconds, attackers in less than 15-20. The only real exceptions to this are the following:
 * Devona - heals herself quite a bit (approx 30-60 seconds)
 * Cynn - you have to run from PBAoE, and she uses Glyph of Restoration like crazy (approx 30 seconds)
 * Razah - kite spirits and waste him with Spiritual Pain (approx 15 seconds)
 * Warmaster Tydus - drain him with Shackles so he can't use Troll Unguent (approx 30-60 seconds)
 * Mhenlo - drain his energy and he goes down pretty quick (can't remember how long, but approx 60-90 seconds if I remember correctly)
 * Danika - I only fought her once and lost after a few minutes. I think the best way to go is to put Shackles on her pet first (only the one that uses Blood Ritual), then on Danika (keeping it on the pet as well) along with Backfire and Empathy on her as well. I think that using Midnight/Empathy on the pet that is not shackled would help also so that Danika is continually using energy, but you may run out of energy too if you do this...At any rate, I think she is beatable, but definitely the toughest of any of them.


 * Koss is a pussycat. Backfire, then Empathy and he is dead in about 5-10 seconds.
 * Gwen is a total cakewalk if you trick her into P-Draining something worthless right off the bat. Then you can Backfire her and she is out.
 * Nika goes down as fast as anyone since you can Backfire, then Empathy her before she knows what is coming.

As far as Bison goes, he is pretty easy providing you keep Ignorance/Midnight on him. However, I did notice that he gets a suspiciously high hit percentage under blind. He seems to consistently get two hits in a row against me, with the occasional three in a row (insta-kill). I am totally convinced that I was just getting bad luck though, I don't think he was actually cheating.


 * You're right that for most opponents, power return is irrelevant. Four casts of spiritual pain at 71 damage each is 284 damage, which presumably isn't enough to kill Razah, and then you're out of energy (or at least I would be).  I'd think you'd run out of energy before you could kill Razah with spiritual pain unless you had unusually high energy specialty gear, which I wouldn't want to rely on.  Regardless, if you're trying to pick a replacement skill, the relevant opponent that the build needs to beat is Danika, not Razah.  The build can beat Razah as given.  Quizzical 07:18, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I had trouble with Razah (probably gave him to much time to set up in the beginning). He would usually kill me in a few seconds after all of my stuff did nothing to him and his spirits, which is why I figured to add spiritual pain. Energy isn't an issue. You can't just stand there and hit him with 4 Pains (KD, spirit dmg, Doom, etc), you have to hit and run. You never run out of energy because there is a few seconds between each cast. However, if you can already kill him, it is worthless (how did you do it btw?). For Danika, I think it is doable with the current setup, either yours or mine, but I am not sure what would make it easier. Maybe Overload. It would be easy to put empathy on her, then backfire and then just overload the crap out of her (you'd have to have good relexes on Burst and Touch, but she is pretty predictable). It would make it so that she is taking 237 dmg on each spell (at 16), so she'd probably go down pretty quick. It would also make Cynn, Mhenlo, and others easier.

Knocking Bison down?
Someone suggested on the main page keeping Bison permanently knocked down as a way to beat him. I don't see how it's possible to do that, so I removed it. If you want to add it back, give a build that does. Even if it can be done, it would belong on a separate line, not the same one as blinding him. Quizzical 03:24, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Skill template for para/? build?
yeah anyone have it? &mdash;The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.15.200.29 (contribs) 03:54, February 12, 2008.
 * If have Factions, tried Any/Rt Norn Tournament Spirit Farmer? --Wolfie [[Image:Wolfie_sig.jpg|19px]] (talk|contribs) 04:44, 12 February 2008 (UTC)


 * No, no, no, no, no! The very reason why I went to so much trouble to clean up the article was to stop the demands for secondary professions!  If you're a paragon, you can beat M. Bison with paragon skills just fine.  Indeed, paragons actually match up pretty well with him.  Try using the paragon build on the main page.  Quizzical 05:51, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

Monk Build Comment
I used the monk build straight off the front page, after a few aggravating shots of mhenlo, beat Magni. Thanks a ton for the build, but here are some of my comments: I put in a sup Smiting, because prot spirit offset the health loss. I was able to beat Devona, with some good timing. IGN Naiades Of Erebos

Assassin build
The assassin build in the "Single class builds" section is not as intuitive and easy to use as the pure assassin build list in the "Other builds" section. Suggest swapping the two. Like mentioned in the section "A standard Critical Strike assassin will also beat many opponents, including Magni." --Voidvector 22:45, 23 March 2008 (UTC)


 * If you want to move the new build up, give it a comparable degree of testing to the builds in the higher section. I made sure to try every build in the top section several times against M. Bison to make sure that it could usually beat him.  I also went enough trips through the tournament with each build to draw most of the earlier opponents and see how it would fare.  One reason why I redid the page was to get some degree of testing, rather than having a scrambled mess in which excellent builds freely mixed with useless garbage.
 * The other problem is gear requirements. The other point of the single class builds section is how to win as any class using just what you have.  It shouldn't require players to go buy alternate gear.  You can't get attributes to 15-12-9 with gear useful in most pve content.  The health maluses on that would be suicide in relatively challenging pve content, especially for assassins, which are reasonably fragile to begin with.
 * Finally, there is the question of whether or not the build actually works. I'll concede that trying to beat M. Bison with an assassin build based on blindness is somewhat awkward, but at least it usually works if used properly.  I tried very hard to beat him with various blocking builds, and never could come up with anything that worked with assassin skills without requiring a large helping of dumb luck.  I tried the new build listed (with 13 critical strikes) five times in the tournament, only reaching M. Bison once (if you draw an opponent that blinds you, you lose), and my one shot at M. Bison was a failure about on par with my earlier attempts at various blocking builds.  At the very least, if the obvious way to use the build doesn't work, it would need some strategy listed on what exactly you're supposed to do against Bison.  Quizzical 07:11, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
 * I didn't try that build, but i did try the one listed in the main section. It is very awkward, I gave up after awhile. Then I loaded the build listed against Shiro on this page and I beat Bison on the 1st attempt. It is a "Critical Defenses" build, I have beaten Bison with it 4 out 5 times. Sometimes he would be able to knock me down twice in a row right before Critical Defenses refreshes, so I would die. Most of the time, he is not able to. Eve and Norgu are impossible with this build, Kisai and Gwen are difficult. You said its based on luck, but most of the builds are based on luck, because they cannot beat all of the opponents definitively. --Voidvector 21:00, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

11+1+1 Dagger Mastery, 6 Shadow Arts, 12+1 Critical Strikes


 * You're also using a pve-only skill there, which I tried to avoid using in the top section whenever possible. All that extra armor from critical agility might well be the difference between a blocking build being viable or not.  But again, if you want to put it in the single class build section, give it a comparable degree of testing to what is there, and record your results.  Keep track of exactly which opponents you've beaten, which you failed against, and which seemed like close enough battles that they could easily have gone the other way.  Go through the tournament enough times to draw most of the earlier opponents, so that you can see directly how it fares against them.  For each of the builds I posted in the section, I reached the fifth round of the tournament at least ten times, and often more.
 * I'm not intrinsically against other people putting builds in that section. What I am against is other people putting builds there without sufficient testing to know and be able to explain how well the build works against the various opponents you could draw.  Quizzical 21:13, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Razah Spirit Farming
Just wait long enough (2 or 3 minutes) and he will come bye you, in the range of your spirits... Juste tested it. Kidbang (T ) 01:45, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Anything/Ritualist + Sunspear + Ebon Vanguard + Norn build
I "found" a highly effective Ritualist build for any primary profession:

With Communion 12, Channeling Magic 12 and as much as possible in Sunspear, Ebon Vanguard and Norn titles.

First install the spirits inside the door "as usual".

For low energy and/or slow energy regeneration (such as Warrior which is affected by both), a staff with energy bonuses may prove useful. Also you may have to wait for your energy to be at max before invoking Shadowsong (as it lasts only 30 seconds), in order not to have to wait for energy to go up for casting Painful Bond.

As soon as the spirits are set, step inside the arena and wait for the opponent to be in reach to cast Painful Bond on him. Then send him the Vanguard Assassin to keep him occupied.

Last, if the opponent is of the hard-to-beat persuasion, cast Ursan Blessing and finish him.

Works like a charm on many opponent including Magni The Bison (Ursan blessing needed and also, consider delaying Painful Bond to prevent its immediate removal by Magni).

It's a bit hard against Alesia, but manageable using "brute force".

Danika is quite long to beat, but again still manageable.

Argo asks for a more cautious approach: do not rush on him (sliver armor will tear you to pieces), avoid his AoE spells (sidestep when he has cast one) and furthermore avoid to be near your spirits while he casts one of them. Your spirits will do the bulk of the work.

On the joke side, Mhenlo "explodes" when pitted against these spirits due to life stealing on a 55 Monk...

Note that I had no opportunity to test it on Palawa Joko, BTW.

Hope it helps.

--82.233.109.229 21:14, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Difficulties of single class builds
You really should have someone else check the difficulties of the single class builds. I've gotten more of my characters to EotN and tried out the builds there, while most of the builds are effective against regular opponents, it's frustratingly difficult against Magni Bison. Like the ranger's build, it took me 3 minutes of kiting to get him down to 50%, and then I got tired and messed up. Even worse with the paragon build, Maiming Spear pretty much use up the entire energy regen (para get 6.666e every 10sec, and you need to re-apply every 10sec) and healing is difficult to use (hard to keep mending refrain up). --Voidvector 15:42, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Disappearing Builds
What happened to the many nice alternative builds? I liked some of them more than the ones on top -.- Also they were at least complete with a guide. I was even thinking of adding the template code to make it easier (searching each skill is such a hassle). And I've a much much better ranger build which I wanted to add at some later point. Well... it's a mistake to "clean" the article up in a way that it now is crippled. See dervish has just one skill now... why bother with a template for it anyway? --Birchwooda Treehug 07:41, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
 * The idea of the "clean" article is to provide you with core skills to defeat Magni, not the whole competion. You then add to these build to take on everyone else. Other builds are mentioned on the Talk page and on PvX wiki. If you have a build to share, consider posting it there. Himm Taeguk  (T/C) 12:46, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
 * IMO the whole article has been made useless now. If it was just about general hints then the Talk page of Magni is sufficient enough for that. But this article says 'Guide to defeat' and I see no guide anymore. Where is it? What you call cleaning I call nerfing to uselessness. --Birchwooda Treehug 08:44, 8 May 2008 (UTC)


 * A Guide in Wiki terms gives a base line. Not a standard. --- [[Image:VipermagiSig.JPG|Ohaider!]]-- (s)talkpage 09:23, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm sure we could fit in more ideas, with a section dedicated to skills that would make the fight easier but to be honest it would need to be done cleanly. Before the clean up, the incredibly heavy usage of first-person plus random plonked down builds made it a incredibly un-professional page 118.138.160.45 09:39, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Just use Pvx:Any/Rt_Norn_Tournament_Spirit_Farmer and guide isn't needed. :D Himm Taeguk  (T/C) 10:43, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
 * That's what I'm saying. If this isn't a proper guide and just some halfarsed collection of general hints only to keep it to the core, then just delete it. It's junk. People who come here surely are looking for more. There are better places for good existing guides that could be linked to from the Magni page. Using a discussion page for the actual proper infos doesn't fit to a Wiki. The useful infos belong in the article and are not to search in a discussion. So same goes for your link Himm Teaguk. --Birchwooda Treehug 15:00, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Simply providing core skills or hints is not helpful enough for this quest. Most players (myself included) do not have the creative knowledge to make builds so that it can beat enough opponents to finish the quest. (I actually managed for some professions but that's another story.) In my opinion, the previous setup, even tho unorganized, was more useful because it gave me more build ideas. --Voidvector 17:51, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
 * I also concur that the current form of this article is no where near as helpful as it used to be. -- [[Image:Isk8.png]]   (T / C)  18:02, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Then re-add the stuff that was removed but make sure that it's at least done somewhat professionally 118.138.160.57 01:47, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

A brief history of this page
There is a saying that you should never tear down a wall if you don't understand why it was there in the first place. As such, let me explain why the page had to be the way it was.

As you know, GWEN was released around the end of last August. People created a page and added random builds here. Most of the builds assumed a particular primary class and a particular secondary. Many people who wanted to beat M. Bison were told that they had to take a ritualist secondary and pay thousands of gold to buy particular skills to beat him with a spirit spammer build. Others were told that they had to go get Ursan Blessing and grind for rank in that a while. Terrible, terrible advice.

Any class can beat the tournament using only skills linked to its primary class, without using PvE-only skills, and without specialty gear. That is, any class can beat the tournament with only what a character should have upon arriving in Gunnar's Hold for the first time. Other approaches can work, too, but at a cost of several platinum to buy unnecessary skills.

When this is pointed out, some will claim that several platinum is insignificant. To this I usually reply, if several platinum doesn't matter to you, will you give me several platinum? I never have gotten anyone to take me up on that. The hypocrites are plenty fond of wasting the gold of others, but not their own. I found this situation wholly unacceptable.

On the wiki, meanwhile, players had added a variety of builds. Many of them assumed a particular secondary profession, and many also assumed the use of pve only skills. This made the builds require most characters to go buy a bunch of particular skills for other classes that they'd never use again, or go get particular pve-only skills and grind rank in them. For the same reason, I found this situation objectionable.

As such, I set out to fix the situation myself. I spent a week testing out various builds, to get a single class build of each class. I completely avoided skills not linked to any class, and tried to avoid even the pve-only skills linked to a class, though I eventually gave up on necromancers and brought necrosis to help with some earlier opponents, though it was unnecessary for M. Bison.

With each build, I got to the fifth opponent in the tournament at least ten times, and fought M. Bison enough times to ensure that the build could usually beat him. This ensured that I would draw most of the earlier opponents and see whether the build I was using could beat them, without having to just guess. If I was unsatisfied with a build, I'd change it and the counter of 10 times to round 5 would start over. For some builds, I'd go through the tournament more times than that, even.

So finally, I had a build for each class that could usually beat the tournament if used properly. The wiki at the time had such builds for mesmers and ritualists, I think, but no other classes. Having such a build for every class was a huge upgrade over what came before, so I put it on the wiki. This project and redoing the previously pitiful Dzagonur Bastion page were the reasons why I registered for the wiki in the first place.

Some complain that what I wrote is unprofessional. If that is the problem, then the solution is not to delete it and revert to a useless page. The solution is to improve the writing so that it meets your higher standards.

The article was written as it was in part because it was my first major edits on this wiki. I wasn't aware of the standards here. But even in retrospect, the heavy use of the first person was kind of essential to the page.

I used to play another online game called A Tale in the Desert (in which I was also known as Quizzical). Much of the point of that game is that technologies in the game are released with little to no documentation, and it is up to players to figure out how to use them. Some of them are fairly simple things that an average player can decipher in an hour of meddling. Others are not properly understood by the playerbase even years after release.

When I played that game, I would spend quite a bit of time testing things in a systematic manner, and recording the results, so as to reverse-engineer the formulas for how the game worked. A lot of other players would test game mechanics as well, trying to figure them out, and some players were pretty good at it. Others would try things haphazardly and then make wild conjectures with scant evidence in favor. The game had a wiki, and on the wiki, the rigorous testing results freely mixed with random guessing. Solid results buried in useless nonsense made it hard to pick out what was useful and what was not.

As such, I kept most of my major testing results to the forums, and let others copy them to the wiki as appropriate, while leaving a link to the forum thread. The reason for this was that no one could edit my forum posts (or rather, forum moderators theoretically could, but wouldn't), so my solid results wouldn't be buried in someone else's drivel.

It was thus necessary to say, I tested such and such, and here's the evidence in favor of my theory. When I was guessing, I'd make it very explicit that I was guessing, as opposed to having solid evidence in favor of particular formulas. This sharply contrasted with the random guessing presented as probable theories that was popular in some quarters.

So now let's come back to this wiki. Most things in Guild Wars are much simpler than some of the more complicated formulas from A Tale in the Desert. Things that can be verified in a simple ten minutes of testing tend not to spawn false myths that are impossible to kill, though there are some exceptions, such as the claim that Jade apply Spectral Agony on every hit. As such, in most of the game, there is little need for testing results on this wiki, and wiki writing guidelines aren't designed to handle such situations.

But the Norn fighting tournament is a glaring exception to this. Even today, if you go into Gunnar's Hold and ask how to beat M. Bison as an assassin, necromancer, or ranger, you'll probably be told to use a ritualist spirit spammer, Ursan Blessing, or some other skills that are not of the class you specify. If the question is how to do something as an assassin, an answer of, "don't be an assassin" is idiotic and obnoxious. It might be funny the first time, but not the ten thousandth, and we're already far past the ten thousandth iteration of it.

As such, there is still a need for builds for the tournament for particular classes. This is in marked contrast to most of the rest of the game. I design my own builds, to the degree that I'm not even aware of what most of the "standard" builds are. In many missions, any reasonable build will work just fine, even in hard mode. But that is spectacularly false here. Even with a lot of experience at designing builds, some classes took me a while to come up with something that I was satisfied with.

There is likewise a need for builds to be tested. Something that works once might well have been a fluke. Something that is tried many times and usually works is no fluke. For example, when I was doing Thirsty River hard mode, my first three characters cruised through the mission without much difficulty. After that, I suddenly started having trouble on the ranger boss, and had to adjust my tactics. What I had been doing would work about often as not, and by chance, had worked for my first three characters. Difficulties on subsequent characters pointed out the problem, and once I fixed my tactics, the rest of my characters got through the mission just fine. Had I come to the wiki to say, I did such and such and it worked, I'd have been advising people to do something that would often fail unnecessarily. That, in my view, is far worse than minor writing style issues.

But if there is a need for builds to be tested, there is a need to specify who did the testing. No game that is primarily about killing things will have a playerbase that can match the intelligence of ATITD's. If there were major problems with substandard science in testing there, then there will be here, as well. That is why I specified in so many places, I did this or that. Even six months later, I can find no other way to convey the same information without it sounding extremely strained and awkward. To remove all notes about the testing done on particular builds is to weaken the claims greatly. This reverts to the previous situation where solid information freely commingled with useless garbage.

One major principle I hold is that any edit should make the page better, not worse. It doesn't have to be a lot better; just don't make edits that are, on net, harmful. I spent a week formulating and testing builds in my rewrite of this page. To delete that in favor of useless garbage makes the page far, far worse. Writing style matters, but the substance of the content on a page matters more. If this were not so, then why not replace every article with a "cleanup" tag with a single, technically perfect paragraph with no relevance whatsoever to the topic at hand?

As I see it, there are two viable possibilities here. One is to revert the page to bring back the useful information. I care little about the random builds that comprised the bottom half of the page. I left those only so that people wouldn't complain that their favorite build was deleted. But a viable build for each class and some information about the main opponents you can draw is absolutely essential to the page. You can clean up the writing style if you like, but do not weaken the claims that my builds have been extensively tested.

The other alternative is to insist that a guide that involves such testing results has no place on the main namespace. In that case, I can copy it to my userpage. Both this guide and the quest page can link to my userpage with the useful information. I realize that mainspace links to user pages would be a highly unusual practice.

But what other alternatives are there? To insist that the essential information on how to do the tournament cannot be on the wiki? Or rather, that it can be technically on the wiki, but must be buried in userspace, with no links from the places that players are likely to search, so that the players who need to find it probably cannot?

One should ask why the wiki style guidelines were written in the first place. Were they not intended to make it easier for players to find the information they need? To insist that builds and testing results for this particular quest cannot go here would be a spectacular violation of this principle. Surely useful pages are more important than rigid following of guidelines in situations never expected when the guidelines were written, and in which the guidelines would serve to bar the creation of a useful page. Quizzical 21:36, 13 May 2008 (UTC)


 * I think Quizzical pretty much killed any argument for reverting the page. It's certainly the easier faster way out, but I'll volunteer to do the messy style editing if no one else is willing. I personally think this page is much improved over the extremely disorganized mess it used to be before people like Quizzical helped to clean it up. Although I still personally prefer User:Entropy/NFT because it actually lists the skills for every opponent and some rather choice builds, I have to admit that for mass usage only something like this guide makes sense. Players may not like to form their own builds from general guidelines, but the fact of the matter is that if you suck at the game, then why should we help you by giving some catch-all such as Ursan which works but takes plat, grind, etc. and all for uselessness anyways (beating NFT gives nothing of real value). Use the simple builds listed here - they work for a player that knows how to play Guild Wars.
 * Final argument: I have no qualm about other people putting more builds up here, even if they contain PvE only, class specific, etc. skills. However, unless they have also been tested with a similar level of rigorousness, they simply don't compare. [[Image:Entropy Sig.jpg]] (T/C) 06:13, 20 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Oh yes, and I'd like to note that GW:AGF makes "proof" difficult; nevertheless I think this is a bit different situation, because unlike almost any other situation in the game (PvP being big other exception) there are so many variables to test for that it is almost necessary to qualify a build or strategy by saying "I know it works against so-and-so X percent of the time". Otherwise it just means someone will come along later and edit your build for accuracy. Save them the time and trouble. [[Image:Entropy Sig.jpg]] (T/C) 06:17, 20 May 2008 (UTC)


 * I like the section about enemies in User:Entropy/NFT version. This article as a whole is getting pretty long, I think we can split it so 1 article is about enemy's builds, and the other is about player's strategy. --Voidvector 07:34, 20 May 2008 (UTC)