GuildWiki:Profession archetype guides/Guideline

The GuildWiki advocates the creation of guides based on various roles commonly played by each of the professions. Unlike a rigid build, a guide discusses how a role is played and the basic tenets in creating a character to play this role instead of providing skill bars and attribute distributions. The concepts of "build" and "guide," while often used in tandem, are entirely different, and this guideline deals only with advocating the creation of guides. The question of the merits of builds is relegated to another discussion.

A common misconception is that this policy is entirely devoted to "effective profession guides." In fact, the primary goal of this policy is the creation of role or archetype guides that are essentially profession-agnostic.

Roles
A role is an irreducible foundation that an original build stems from. For example, both warrior/monk tanks and warrior/paragon tanks stem from the role "warrior tank." Thus, roles documented in guides are specific, and not limited to large, undocumentable generalizations. Role guides are also inclusive -- they can include outdated or unpopular roles. Simply stated, roles are any general playstyle.

Each profession has several typical roles -- a monk is typically a "healer" role, a warrior is generally a "tank", and so on. Guides should attempt to document these most frequented roles primarily. However, more exotic, atypical role guides are encouraged as well. For example, while a monk is typically a healer, other roles for monk primaries include "protector" and "invincimonk farmer." All of these roles should be expanded by dedicated guide articles.

Certain generic roles, like "farmer" or "runner," can be played by many of the different professions. Generic role guides, like effective farming guide, should be created for these roles, describing the general purpose of this role in general and how to go about building your own character of this role. Additionally, specific guides, like effective monk farming guide, should exist when individual profession-based roles have a significant amount of unique information. If the differences for each primary profession are small, they can be included as subheadings in the generic role guide.

Style and formatting
Currently, no formal style and formatting article for guides exist. However, the following structure is suggested.

First, a guide should start out with a summary of what the role is for, where it's generally used, and the limitations of the role. It should then discuss the different skills such a role needs to work, giving specific examples where appropriate. This is not a build article, however -- a simple list of skills is inappropriate. This should be a detailed narrative of what each skill does, when and why it's used, and how each skill works together with the rest of the role's needs. Subheadings for significantly different strategies are appropriate.

A good example of a specific role guide, though much of the information is out of date, can be found at meleemancer guide. A good example of a broader guide can be found at effective ranger guide.

Why guides?
Guides more closely follow the “documentation wiki” format by sticking to universal understandings on what a given role does or does not tend to do. Subjective questions about how to best accomplish these roles are less emphasized, which allows us to collaboratively work on objective information. Further, guides are meant to be entertaining reads -- users can browse through guides, gain information, and thus more easily make informed decisions about their character, thanks to greatly enhanced simplicity and cohesion within the guides section.

Finally, this guideline exists because many popular roles in the game are currently undocumented on the GuildWiki.

Organization
(blank on purpose)

How you can help

 * 1) Expand/edit existing "Effective Profession" guides
 * 2) Create new guides for common profession roles (see Profession archetype guides/Roles for more information)
 * 3) Convert existing userspace build articles to role guides