User talk:Entropy/Archive 25

Dzagonur Bastion bonus
The edit log says you deleted the strategy for the bonus for that mission, and I'm rather puzzled as to why. Have you found a way to get two heroes and the whispers groups to hold two bombards essentially forever but neglected to give the details? That you say the bonus is hard with just henchmen and heroes seems to imply otherwise, as does your claim that the heroes don't handle splitting very well (that's what hero flags are for, isn't it?). If you haven't, then is there some reason why the strategy you posted isn't flagrantly inferior to the one you deleted? Nothing in the previous strategy struck me as exploitive, and the only thing that seems at all illegitimate about the old explanation is using a ritualist in a Nightfall mission--and you didn't delete that part.

I tried the previous strategy twice today, and it still reliably works with just henchmen and heroes. Just for fun, after clearing three bosses the second time, I left to eat dinner, leaving Master of Whispers and Razah to hold the bombard as long as they could. More than half an hour later, they still had it. It's possible that you misread the previous explanation and thus didn't actually try it. If you ever have to help out Master of Whispers and Razah apart from positioning them and the whispers groups before any fighting takes place, you're doing it wrong. Indeed, the entire point of the previous strategy was that you could set two heroes at the start and then ignore that bombard for the rest of the mission. I don't think they can quite hold one bombard forever, but in twelve tries, they've held it long enough to kill the other three bosses without needing any additional help every single time. Quizzical 02:37, 29 December 2007 (UTC)


 * One thing before I start: Drop the attitude, please. I haven't heard such presumptious language since the goddamned Builds section was removed. Your work isn't gone forever, and you are not assuming good faith when you make claims like "you didn't read it", "you didn't try it", "you didn't understand it", "it works for me" (so you automatically /fail nub), "your strategy is flagrantly inferior" (burden of proof lies with the accuser)...etc. I have every right to edit any page that I want without being bombarded with insults over such a trivial issue as a walkthrough rewrite for quality control. Excuse the pun.
 * I didn't delete it. I just rewrote it. The original bonus was a load of crap in terms of being presentable as an encyclopedic entry. It had such errors as referring to oneself ("I", "I'll"), awkward things like "It helps to have a Restoration ritualist, I'll call him Razah, but it doesn't have to be Razah, it can be a secondary Ritualist with 12 in Restoration" (W/Rt, R/Rt, D/Rt, P/Rt, A/Rt lols? People are that stupid, trust me), "Bone Fiends are bad because they trigger Whirling Defense" (wtf? you have no melee attackers anyways, who cares - the point is that they are too expensive, you want defensive minions), a comment that belonged on the talkpage ("The above advice is very good...") although RT fixed that and it wasn't yours, and other problems which made the whole thing unreadable and worthy of a tag for higher standard of quality.
 * Now, I'm not saying that the advice itself was bad - as you can see, I left in some of it, such as taking the westernmost boss first and using a Resto Rit. It wasn't the content itself that I had issues with, just the way the content was worded. In my opinion, it could not be easily fixed in one sitting, so to save the article for now I rewrote it with a similar but slightly different strategy, which I also know works for any half-competent player. It doesn't work on Hard Mode, but neither does yours quite frankly. I can work on improving the previous walkthrough and I will merge the two of them together once it's done...basically what I did was just a temporary measure.
 * Heroes and Henchmen suck at splits, and the flagging system is good but inadequate for many situations. Why? Because you have to manually control everything; placing flags through the overhead map (the radar) is risky when you need precision placement (ie right next to, or behind, the bombards); H/H don't understand how they need to let the bombard handle most enemies (they will chase them); H/H don't understand that it is very important to stand near the bombard to prevent capture or initiate recapture. For all these reasons, plus the fact that humans make this mission a joke for Masters, the bonus is not easy with H/H. If you're a prO at H/H soloing, then it's a different story, but most players are not. "Hard" is a subjective term anyways, and if that offends you then it could be changed to "not easy shit the same way Consulate Docks is" or something. But that seemed a little long.
 * This is the first mission in Nightfall where a solo H/H player will run into real difficulties, a true test of their mastery of the AI. In previous missions, you could keep the entire team together, and little more than Move, Kill, Repeat was necessary for success. You didn't have to guard anything or split the team. Basically, this is the Eternal Grove of Nightfall, though much less stressful. It is a step up in difficulty if you want that Masters. Hell, even Gate of Madness or Jennur's Horde are an easier bonus than this one in terms of H/H mastery needed...and most players use humans or runs for those. It's because enemies rush you in this mission, and you don't have the luxury to sit back and leisurely meander your way through unless you actually brought 3-4 Heroes to leave behind. Good luck with firepower in that case, though...you have, what? Devona, Cynn, Herta? But then you've got no healing. Even in the best case, a human healer and then taking Khim, that is a weak team which will have trouble with a speedy kill.
 * It is not necessary to hold the bombards indefinitely; you are a bad player if you need that much time to take out one of the bosses. If you want to hold two bombards forever, then you can use one Minion Master and two Restoration Ritualists (or the other way round). However you have the firepower problem as mentioned above. If you happened to be running an A/E Locust's Conjure build, that is no problem. But it would not work for all classes.
 * You could attempt to hold one bombard with an MM and another bombard with a Rit, but that won't last "indefnitely" (dinner 30min after three bosses dead? Zomg, you left when there was only one bombard to defend! What an accomplishment!). Unless you're going to run some crazy N/Rt split build with healing and minions together (not specified in your strategy), the MM group will have problems, since there will be no healer. You could compensate by giving that group two sets of Whispers. But, that leaves the Ritualist group with only one Whispers group. And as you well know, they are completely inadequate for anything but being a distraction and bodies. So, the Rit group would have no offense but the bombards, and the MM group would have no healers so any lost Whispers would be a huge blow. Either way, one of those groups is likely to be overwhelmed if you sat back and did absolutely nothing. I don't believe there is a strategy out there, anywhere, that lets you hold two of the bombards truly indefinitely from the very start of the mission.
 * Your strategy involves leaving behind two Heroes and then going to take out a boss. At the basic level, that's exactly what I advocate also. So to be honest, I am not sure where the ferocity of your disagreement comes from. For both of us, we're assuming that the player has some idea of what they are doing, so they kill one boss quickly and immediately and that saves a bombard. After that it really doesn't matter what you do, to be honest...you can go straight across and kill the other three bosses, you can play it safe and go help one of the bombard groups, you can park your team next to one of the others and take a break...once one of the bombards is taken care of, the mission becomes a joke, and strategy becomes almost irrelevant.
 * "Indeed, the entire point of the previous strategy was that you could set two heroes at the start and then ignore that bombard for the rest of the mission." (emphasis added) - Now you are puzzling me. The word "That" implies a singular, one bombard. Are you saying that you should park the MM and the Rt on the same bombard? If you are, then...I'm confused because that is exactly what I said to do also. And you are implying that if you follow your strategy, you can ignore one bombard essentially forever. You can take care of another bombard by immediately eliminating a boss. But then what about the third bombard? From what I'm reading, it will only be guarded by Whispers groups. Those won't last very long at all...hardly indefinitely. So either way, your strategy or mine, the player is required to quickly eliminate bosses so that the bombard held by the Whispers is not overwhelmed. (or, help them out and then advance, either way)
 * If our strategies are so similar, why are we having issues here? I am curious as to your imput. [[Image:Entropy Sig.jpg]] (T/C) 05:19, 30 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Sorry to offend you. I'm well aware that my people skills aren't very good, and was (and still am) rather confused as to what your edit was about.  I did not say that you didn't read it; rather, that you may not have understood it, which certainly seems to be the case from your lengthy reply here.  (And thanks for the reply, by the way.)
 * A rewrite of the strategy that was given is not the issue at hand here. The crux of my strategy was to have two heroes hold one bombard indefinitely, so that you can ignore that bombard for the duration of the mission.  To delete that is to delete the strategy, regardless of what other incidental details are left or rearranged.  You change the strategy to say "have the Whispers groups and your Heroes hold two of the bombards" (emphasis added), but leave no details on how to do that.  If they're holding two bombards rather than one, it's fundamentally a strategy totally different from the one I used.  Unless the whispers groups and heroes can hold at least one of those bombards essentially forever without any attention from any players, it's not at all similar to what was posted before.
 * You say in the article that henchmen and heroes "don't handle splits very well", and above essentially reiterate that. In some cases, that is true.  For the strategy I wrote for Dzagonur Bastion, whatever flaws the AI has regarding splits, they aren't relevant to this mission.  The simple AI of attacking when mobs come close and just standing there when they don't works beautifully in this particular case.
 * Granted, for a player who has no idea what to do, Dzagonur Bastion is much harder than anything in Nightfall that precedes it. But the strategy I posted takes takes of the confusion of managing heroes out of it.  You flag two heroes before combat starts, and never have to flag anything again for the duration of the mission, essentially treating the third hero as an extra henchman (but with a better build)--and with no need to flag henchmen at all, at any point in the mission.  Once combat starts, the hero management is well shy of what I use for, say, Pogahn Passage, let alone something more complicated like Ruins of Morah.
 * Above you say that "you don't have the luxury to sit back and leisurely meander your way through unless you actually brought 3-4 Heroes to leave behind". But the entire point of my strategy was that, after killing the first boss, you do have the luxury to take your time, while leaving behind only two heroes.  A group of six may be a little short on damage, but it's adequate to spike down and kill one boss eventually.  Indeed, if a boss was taking too long, you could go kill just one margonite before returning to save the center bombard, and have enough time to do that repeatedly, and eventually only have to fight a boss by itself.  I would typically take Mhenlo, Kihm, and Sogolon for healing, or drop one of them if I could do some healing myself.  The other slots were for single-target damage dealers.  I used the strategy posted for a run with myself playing as every single class, using no secondary profession skills and no pve-only skills except for Sunspear Rebirth Signet and sometimes whatever Sunspear skill was associated with my primary class.  All but two of those were with only henchmen and heroes; for the other two (I do not recall which classes those were), I helped out some people who were complaining in the chat that the mission was impossible.
 * As for what the leaving Razah and Master of Whispers to hold a bombard for half an hour build was about, the point is, they can hold a bombard with the previous strategy that long without any help whatsoever. An equivalent test would have been to kill the first boss, then sit at the center bombard for half an hour killing whatever Kournans come there, but offering absolutely no additional help at the east bombard.  The reason I didn't do it that way was that being able to go AFK was easier.
 * You're correct that a player shouldn't need half an hour to clear the mission. But my point is that if a player has half an hour if he needs it, he has however much time he actually needs.  Neither your strategy nor the one that mine replaced a couple months ago allows a player anywhere remotely near that much time.  A player may not need well over half an hour, but if he only has two minutes before a bombard falls without his help, that can make master's reward awfully hard.  My experience with trying to get whispers groups and heroes to hold multiple bombards was that they don't buy you very much time--which is why I abandoned that approach.
 * "Are you saying that you should park the MM and the Rt on the same bombard?" Yes, yes, that is exactly my point.  "But then what about the third bombard? From what I'm reading, it will only be guarded by Whispers groups."  Less than that, actually.  The center bombard is guarded by nothing initially, save the three guards substantially in front of it.  After killing the warrior boss, there is plenty of time to come back and save the center bombard before it falls entirely.  From then on, you have to defend that one bombard.  But that means you can leave to go kill a boss, and when you return, only have to save one bombard.
 * Personally, I find it very easy to defend one bombard, if I can ignore all others. What I find much harder is to defend two bombards at once, or rather, to have to defend two bombards while you're leaving to go kill a boss.  If heroes and whispers groups can't hold their bombards for as long as necessary without any help from the player, then the player effectively has to defend those bombards himself or else lose them.  If you're assuming that the heroes are going to die after a while, then even after one boss is dead (indeed, after two bosses are dead), you're still stuck defending two bombards yourself.  If you only have to defend one bombard yourself, on the other hand, you can leave it when you have full control over it and no mobs are on the way, and not need to make it back until it is a small sliver away from being fully captured and destroyed.  If you're defending two bombards yourself, you don't have that luxury:  the perfect time to leave one bombard might be a rather bad time to abandon the other.  Furthermore, if both bombards are near capture when you make it back, if you save one, the other gets destroyed.
 * One final side point. You say above ""Bone Fiends are bad because they trigger Whirling Defense" (wtf? you have no melee attackers anyways".  Well, actually you do have melee attackers:  Vabbi Guards.  The reason you don't want ranged minions is that whirling defense will damage (and perhaps kill) the Vabbi Guards that you need to help Master of Whispers and Razah defend the bombard.  For that matter, the point of having a ritualist (as opposed to a monk) healer there is that Recuperation and Life heal all non-spirit allies, not just party members or a targeted ally.  That gets Razah to heal the Vabbi Guards and Disciples of Secrets quite a bit, whereas a monk hero won't heal them at all.  Quizzical 09:14, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

GWW fun
I know you've said that you have no intention of moving over to GWW, and I also saw your comment on GW2W with reference to the dick who stole your user name. I can understand the whole issue pissing you off on all things official-wiki related, but you may be interested on the discussion going on here. Always know who your friends are :) -- Snog  rat  21:59, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the heads-up. To be honest I don't give a damn about what anyone thinks of me on the other two Wikis...I believe that because of good faith policies, each Wiki should be treated as a separate entity, with very little crossing over between them. A person can be a kind, considerate, trusted user on one Wiki and an absolute troll on another. So, while some remnants of the past should follow us (keep your friends and enemies if you wish, for example), I believe that a user's reputation and image for Wiki X should be based primarily, 90%, on his or her actions on Wiki X. Everyone deserves...no, everyone has a clean slate when they begin on a new Wiki. People who port over their reputations or any pretense of being respected, useful, knowledgeable, etc. run into trouble, as we can see from the "grandfathering" of sysops from GWiki to GWW and other issues. People change between Wikis, for better or worse, sometimes markedly - I've seen that far too many times myself. Only in the truly exceptional cases (Raptors is the perennial example) should this standard be broken.
 * Always know who your friends are, but be prepared for change when you shift Wikis. [[Image:Entropy Sig.jpg]] (T/C) 05:19, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Entropy, that makes me respect you even more. I started that notice on the Admin noticeboard partly because it was an attack on you, but also for the whole principle of the thing. People like Raptors shouldn't be allowed to run roughshod all over the wikis doing whatever they want with no regard to other users. More power to your elbow :) -- Snog  rat [[Image:User Snograt signature.png]] 18:46, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Raptors actually seemed like a nice guy, I guess he's *almost* a good-a actor as I am. I dont think that anymore, though. --[[Image:Warwick sig.JPG]] Warwick (Talk)/(Contr. ) 18:53, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Raptors is nice, almost gentlemanly when he wants to be, and it would be a lie to say he's not levels above almost all of us in terms of technical and/or Wiki savvy. He has done...a lot of things...which make it hard to trust him on a new Wiki. But, he still should have a clean slate of history, same as everyone else. I think that it is okay for people to port over their trust/distrust of Raptors for the GW2W because it is a vulnerable target and he could potentially make a huge impact on it, for good or bad. So he needs to be watched and not forgotten about. However, unless he actually does/did something wrong (already controversy about that >.>), he shouldn't be automatically banned, for example. [[Image:Entropy Sig.jpg]] (T/C) 05:15, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Your input
Please see this page and this section of my talk. --Shadowcrest 20:22, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Question
excuse me but how do i register?
 * Up in the top right corner of your screen, you should see "Log in/Create an Account". Or something like that. --Shadowcrest 06:48, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

unused and unloved images
as long as i have your attention on the subject, mind going through Special:Unusedimages with a weedwacker? it's nice that users can upload images for user pages, but i doubt we need to keep leftovers of old users or multiple copies from when the user was still trying to figure out how to upload. . --Honorable Sarah 08:28, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes, as you can see it is part of my Admin Command Center tools...Unused Images. It is on my very long to-do list. But, it is low priority because there are many other things that I am busy with. Once in a while I get on deleting sprees...but you know, there are like 20000 images in there. Sigh. [[Image:Entropy Sig.jpg]] (T/C) 08:31, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
 * maybe a mass extinction is in order then? Galil had a bot lying around some years ago, i wonder if it could be recommisioned? --Honorable Sarah [[image:Honorable_Icon.gif]] 08:34, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Oh, I would love to be able to sic a bot on that huge backlog. The only issue is that a very few of those images which are "unused" are actually useful or otherwise misplaced/badly replaced/something. So just like Images Without Cats, it is safest to go through manually. Besides, I wonder if Wikia would have a fit. I have little to no knowledge of how to work a bot.
 * Although it is quite tempting. :) [[Image:Entropy Sig.jpg]] (T/C) 08:37, 31 December 2007 (UTC)