User:XT-8147

A bit about me
I'm usually on late at night eastern time, between the hours of 10 pm and 5 am. I'm primarily working on my elementalist right now, but I have a few objectives for other characters that haven't been met yet (tyria exploration and mission bonuses for Pedro!) and I'm looking for a reason not to delete my (level 20, ascended+infused+lots of work put into him) mesmer. Playing a mesmer used to be fun but it's become kind of boring lately.

I'm an officer in Order of Arcane Majesty [OAM]. I rarely pug and if I'm not playing with guildmates, I usually play with henchmen as I find that while they're less resilient than most players, they tend to follow orders more readily. Side effect is that I've become a rampant target caller, even when playing my monk, whom I generally try not to attack with to avoid things like Empathy.

Also, I tend to rant about things from time to time.

Mini-rants
In Prophecies I prefer PvE but in Factions I prefer PvP, typically Alliance Battles. Factions PvE seemed nice at first but I quickly realized that it's all busywork and aside from doing primary quests you can complete it so much faster by not doing all 9 million of the quests. In Prophecies, the quests at least took you from one zone to the next, to aid you in finding towns and remote NPCs that offer varied services (such as my designated parchment crafter, Artisan Daved, just a short walk outside Sardelac). Factions has multiple collector NPCs whose sole purpose is to give out the exact same quest item in exchange for something you have to farm for in a completely different area (the quest Naga Oil, and yes, I've farmed a lot of Naga Pelts out in Haiju Lagoon with Pedro). Also, in the city area, using the map window to navigate is next to impossible since there's 3 different altitudes you can be on and the window only shows the top one. This had me looking for a way to go somewhere in the undercity that was actually a part of the skyway.

The material storage is a nice addition but two things need to be changed: Furthermore, the stack max for a single inventory slot should be raised from 250 to a much more healthy 1000.
 * 1) It needs to be opened up to Prophecies-only accounts
 * 2) You need to be able to put more than 250 of a single material in a spot (I have 250 of my 350 vellum for necro fow armor in storage, the rest I've already forgotten which of my characters is holding it)

I'm getting ticked off that these weekend events (like the increased key drop/increased quality of items from chests one) are only in Factions PvE. I understand that Factions is the latest segment of the game, but they could acknowledge that the rest of the game still exists outside of nerfing every strategy ever used in it.

I like the idea of the holiday events, even the made-up holidays, but I've stopped participating in them because all you really get out of them is a no-armor mask, never anything useful.

I want Snowball Arena back, as a permanent PvP option in the Shiverpeaks.

I like the idea of the elite missions, but honestly, they sound too much like small-team raid instances from WoW where there's exactly one way to defeat any given boss. If you're going to give us raid instances, at least have the decency to allow us to rejoin an instance after getting disconnected.

I need to clean my characters sections up a bit, possibly adding pictures.

Rie Tanaka
Named after my favorite Japanese voice actress, because Nami Tamaki was already taken.

Usual class combos: Necromancer/Monk, Necromancer/Mesmer

Armor: Full 1.5k Scar Armor, dyed blue. Separate head scars for Blood/Death/Curses (use red dye to turn those head scars blue). Alternate foot armor (Bloodstained Boots) for MM or when I want to speed up a well with blood magic, the one energy difference between the foot scar and the boots isn't all that problematic.

I'm going for Fissure armor! Wish me luck and ectos/shards!

Builds I usually play:
 * PvE Blood Spike (works pretty well actually, you need very few warriors and even then they're just there to absorb damage. Get a decent MM in the party and you can go all ranged/caster.)
 * N/Mo Factions-enhanced Minion Master
 * Echo SS/SV (I did a bunch of oro farming in SF before the book trick nerf. Haven't done any 2-man UW yet, don't have very many guildies with 55 monks who want to go into UW)

Pedro No Es Pequeno
Small explanation: besides the fact that Pequeno really should be Peque&ntilde;o (yay for English character limitation), the name translates to "Pedro is not small". When I made him, I set his height as short as possible so he'd be in denial. This name itself originates from my archer named Pedro that I had back when I still played Champions of Norrath. That was most likely a reference to the character from Excel Saga.

Usual class combos: Ranger/Monk, Ranger/Warrior

Armor: Full 15k Druid's Armor, mask undyed, coat/gloves dyed silver, leggings/boots dyed blue. Separate (1.5k) gloves/boots for swapping in/out superior runes (I usually run two superior runes, I've found that if you stay the hell back like you're supposed to that the health hit really isn't that much of a problem)

Titles I'm going for with Pedro:
 * Tyrian Grandmaster Cartographer (currently at 96.4%)
 * Protector of Tyria (Just have Thunderhead Keep left!)
 * Drunkard (a paltry 170 some minutes, as I'm a) poor and b) feel like doing just about anything except idling in town double clicking a stack of ale for hours on end)
 * Skill Hunter (I might as well not even be trying at this, not only have I barely begun but it can't be maxed yet)
 * the Wisdom track (kinda halfheartedly, I haven't been saving gold items found with other characters for him to identify)

I also wish that more of these titles were account-wide. Cartographer and Protector I understand being character-specific though. Also, why isn't there a title track for quest completion? And furthermore, why can I never find a group for Defend North Kryta Province in The Temple of Ages?

Builds I usually play:
 * Quick Shot Gunner
 * Runner (I don't run for money, I just run guildies places (and through Elona Reach on occasion))
 * Beast Master
 * Bunny Thumper
 * Totem Axe Farmer

Past (retired) builds:
 * Mobile Disruption Sniper
 * JI Sniper

A build I threw together on the fly for a pug that worked really well:
 * Hell's Precipice Winter Spammer

Dance The Nite Away
Named him that solely to make fun of the Mesmer's dance.

Usual class combo: Mesmer/Monk

Armor: 1.5k Enchanter's on everything but the feet, Courtly boots for the +15 armor while casting SCREW YOU ANERF. Dyed random colors using the dyes I had available at the time, actually looks semi-decent.

Builds I usually play:
 * My own piece of crap build that needs to be thrown out and redone entirely, possibly integrating some of those fun new skills from Factions

Holy Sheryl
Name intended to have the first syllable of Sheryl stretched when spoken, just for fun.

Class combo: Monk/Mesmer

Armor: 1.5k Ascetic's Armor (Dragon), dyed red, with a set of cheapie Ascetic's Armor (Star) for 55 monking

Builds I usually play:
 * My take on a healing monk
 * 55 monk

I've gotten into the habit of using Rebirth at the exact point in Mantra of Recall's recharge time that Mantra of Recall ends shortly after Rebirth takes all my energy, thus easily allowing me to do three Rebirths in succession with a weapon switch involved as well.

Bob The Victorious
Bob is possibly the best name ever. He's Bob The Victorious because Bob The Warrior, Bob The Fighter, and Bob The Gladiator were already taken. He's a hammer warrior because I like to play the builds that aren't the most popular.

Usual class combo: Warrior /Monk

Armor: 1.5k Canthan, dyed red.

Builds I usually play:
 * Friendly Neighborhood Hammer Tank
 * Farming build

He's now fully ascended and has all of his attribute points. Woohoo! I found a good balance for my tactics level that would allow me to have 16 hammer and be able to put juuuuuust enough into prot to reduce Rebirth's skill disable from 10 seconds to 9.

His weapon is a Victo's Maul that I had lying around. I liked the look of the Summit Hammer he had before that better, but oh well. I actually want a Mursaat Hammer for him, just because I like the skin.

Before he got Gladiator's armor, he had a problem whereby high enough death penalty would prevent him from using "For Great Justice!" or resurrecting people. I had solved this at the time by carrying a crappy white staff on my weapon switch that added extra energy. While I still do carry a crappy white staff that adds extra energy, I now use it for acheiving two Rebirths in quick succession. Rebirth one dead party member with hammer active, queue up a switch to the staff. Once the staff has been switched to, use second Rebirth. Fairly simple to get the hang of and it helps get the party back up faster after a wipe.

Arcanist Michelle
My elementalist! Named after a character in a story I wrote about some mages (to put it simply). She's finally ascended and is in Droknar's Forge.

Side note: I ascended with the same build I play normally, listed below. Even got the fast kill bonus.

Armor is 1.5k Archmage's Canthan Armor. Dye mix is 3 blue + 1 silver, not quite what I was looking for but every attempt to make it better just made it worse :(

I estimate my target skill bar to be something like one of these:

Rebirth seems like a waste of energy on an elementalist and I don't really want to spare the attribute points to make Restore Life viable, hence I stick with Resurrect.

She uses Flint's Wand and Flint's Artifact.

I love using slow hexes to cause AoE scatter. Normally it would be bad to do this, but they barely go anywhere when they're slowed by 66%.

I've noticed that all the slow hexes available under Water Magic are fairly effective at aggro management. There have been multiple cases of enemies charging right past the warriors in the party to get to me/the monks, only to be whacked by one of my slow hexes, then they seem to retarget to whatever is nearest, which is the warriors. When I can time Glyph of Lesser Energy->Ice Spikes correctly to do this, it works quite well. Against single enemies that are already moving towards the party, Shard Storm is much more effective and efficient.

I've also noticed that as a water mage, I have yet to be interrupted by a ranger enemy. Mesmers will still interrupt me, and Elementalists will still knock me down during my casting times, but I have yet to get hit by Distracting Shot or Concussion Shot while playing as a water mage, even with all henchmen.

I realize that by reading this character list you may have noticed that all of my characters typically have a Monk secondary. I much prefer having an easily reusable resurrection spell to a single-use "must kill a boss to use again" signet.

Arcane Ritual
My ritualist. Hasn't done much so far, I really just wanted to create her.

PvP Character
Currently my PvP character is my touch ranger, Taunting Stick. I'm finding PvP in Factions to be a lot more interesting and attention-grabbing than Prophecies PvP ever was. Maybe because there's things to do while you kill the enemies and actual rewards for doing it, so there's a lot more strategy to it than just "take a damage build and hope you win and if you lose the rest of your team was noobs".

Criticize me all you want for playing a touch ranger, they're actually quite vulnerable to attack. Knockdowns, interrupts, skill disables, etc. etc. all completely mess with a touch ranger. Pin Down or Crippling Shot and kite before they can use Plague Touch. Touch rangers die so easily, that after having played one I wonder why people want it nerfed. Maybe because they're too lazy to swap in the skills that would kill them? Dunno.

Common things I see people doing to try and avoid a touch ranger or kill them that just don't work:
 * Whirling Defense
 * Gladiator's Defense
 * Guardian
 * Reversal of Fortune
 * Spiteful Spirit (touches steal more than the damage it deals)
 * Stolen Speed
 * Backfire
 * Empathy

Things that seemed to work well to kill me:
 * Massive degen through hexes
 * Kite into the area of a shrine
 * Energy denial
 * Shock warrior with shocking weapon and conjure lightning

Things that slowed me down but didn't necessarily stop me:
 * Distracting Shot
 * Savage Shot
 * Traps (usually I'd run through these and then go plague touch the conditions to someone else ;) )
 * Kiting+coordinated body blocking (just had to run around the guys)

Stupid things I kept doing:
 * Not using Offering of Blood nearly often enough, need to really start using it around half energy for it to be effective.

Weaknesses aside, it's an easy build to play and quite fun because people don't know how to counter it even though the answer is literally right in front of them. I also love the flexibility of the build, considering I'm playing it in Alliance Battles where I can take an 8th skill in place of Resurrection Signet. I put leftover points into Beast Mastery and take Primal Echoes to screw with warriors using Healing Signet. Go me. I need to reroll and put a minor beast mastery rune on so I can get a better duration on that.

Other stuff
I might write random articles from time to time that have no real place on GuildWiki other than my user page. They'll be listed here.

Skill reviews
Every arbitrarily-lengthed time period, I'll pick a skill, use it a bunch, and write up an article about it explaining strengths/weaknesses, good synergies with other skills, possible party builds, etc. This is because I have too much time on my hands.


 * Escape

Party Build Ideas

 * Synergy with Brambles

Token User Page Links

 * Elite Skills

Random stuff

 * "Ni!" - Sleep deprivation combined with habitual reading of talk pages.
 * The Art of Skill Bar Organization - I attribute writing this to boredom.