Talk: Profession combinations

Something that just occored to me that if I was looking at various combinations of classes, it might be useful to see what sort of builds I could use with it. I have no idea how this would happen, but does anyone think that a 'tie in' of sorts with Builds might be a good idea, that links to possible builds with that profession combination? --AlexMax 23:50, 25 May 2006 (CDT)

Moved Comments

← Moved from Category talk:Profession Combinations

Sounds like a good move, so when any more are added, it'll self-update. Less work when future expansions come out. Good idea, whoever posted the tag. -Auron of Neon 01:34, 24 May 2006 (CDT)

Correction: good idea, skuld. -Auron of Neon 01:35, 24 May 2006 (CDT)

Just monk, mesmer and ranger to go but i'll leave those for now or recentchanges will become unusable ;) — Skuld 09:35, 8 June 2006 (CDT)

Delete list

W, R, Mo, N, Me, E, A, Rt, D, P
Note: Delete links hidden to save screen space as they do not now appear to be needed

Profession Combinations; Take 2

← Moved from GuildWiki:Community Portal

Check the new profession combinations including Assassins and Ritualists in Category:Profession combinations and lift them to wiki levels. --Xeeron 22:10, 30 March 2006 (CST)

I'm finishing up on this task - most of it has been done over the last two months. --Ifer 9:07, 18 July 2006 (GMT)

with nightfall on the horizon, there are no fewer then 90 of these articles, most containing little or no useful information. consider Necromancer_Elementalist. can we start phasing these articles out? --Honorable Sarah 10:12, 25 July 2006 (CDT)

most of them I'd say yes. some (W/MO, E/MO, N/MO) are good and can stay, or mabye merged (with N/Mo Minion Master?) (talk) 10:17, 25 July 2006 (CDT)

I would support completely removing all combination articles (forward them to the secondary profession article), what they are is basically opinion articles on possible build combinations which are already covered in the builds section of the wiki. Whatever we decide to do with the worst of them needs to be applied to the rest. If we decide to keep them then the bad ones will need updating. --Draygo Korvan (Yap) 10:19, 25 July 2006 (CDT)

I think we should get rid of them. Just move any useful information to a suitable place before deleting. -- (talk) 10:23, 25 July 2006 (CDT)

this is one of those annoying "all-or-nothing" situations, i think. we either delete them all, scavanging whatever we can to place on the primary or secondary profession pages, or we bring them all up to code. personally, i'd rather not edit all 90 + Ch4 professions in 6 months. they're not even categorised so we can easily see them all. even deleting them is going to be effort. grr --Honorable Sarah 10:25, 25 July 2006 (CDT)

fine. let's get to work. burn them. burn them all...[evil laugh]MUAHAHA[/evil laugh] (talk) 10:30, 25 July 2006 (CDT)

Personally, I'm not crazy about removing the articles unless there's a substitute found for any relevant useful information. I see two options:

1. re-write the articles, and include within them links to example build articles.
2. delete the articles, migrating any useful information to the core profession articles.

I disagree with doing a mass delete campaign until it's worked out all of what's being done. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 10:41, 25 July 2006 (CDT)

Honestly, they all suck, and most everything is in a build article if it's important (talk) 10:43, 25 July 2006 (CDT)

I'm not opposed to deletion; but a decision by four users in the span of 15 minutes does not constitute a community concensus, and certainly not adequate time for other interrested parties to voice opinions. Deletion may very well be the best choice; but there's no need to rush it, and to allow time for others to look at it too. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 10:46, 25 July 2006 (CDT)

Agreed. Most are pretty useless, but some have some good stuff worth considering in them. Just because there's a specific build that covers a few of these general points doesn't mean that it's OK to get rid of the general points - if I want an overview of something I'm not going to be looking at specific builds. --NieA7 10:52, 25 July 2006 (CDT)

Yea, I don't like the idea of burying the useful bits in build articles. For the useful bits, we would need to repeat the same info in each build that covers the relevant combination. Otherwise, a user could easilly miss the info. Much better to place it either in the core profession article, or in combo articles. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 10:59, 25 July 2006 (CDT)

as zealous as 47 is, he's correct. i've not seen one article that offered anything beyond vauge advice about combinations that may or may not work, consider Ranger_Ritualist. all those weapon skills are next attack type, excepting brutal weapon, which is too expensive to maintain, and does not stack with enchantments. suggest we leave the delete tags sit for a few days and see how many other people comment here. --Honorable Sarah 10:49, 25 July 2006 (CDT)

Actually, I'm also opposed to leaving the delete tags while the conversation takes place. If an admin sees the tag, and sees no conversation in the relevant article, they could easilly delete them while the conversation is still taking place here.

Again, I'm not debating the value of the articles, just the process here in making a mass deletion of 90 or so articles on a decision that had little time for input. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 10:54, 25 July 2006 (CDT)

Also, keep in mind that these articles seem geared specifically towards first time players. I remember my first character, and being confused at to what would make a useful combination to start. While these articles may seem useless to veteran players, some degree of the content in them should be maintained in a useful summary form to help guide first-time players in seeing how profession combinations can interract. I really wouldn't expect a first time player to read as deeply as the build articles when they're just starting out, and really do not see that as a viable location for the useful bits from these. If they're deleted, my preference would be that the useful notes be added to the profession articles. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 11:15, 25 July 2006 (CDT)

i'd think first time player would be reading the Category:Profession guides, since those are geared twords first time player. which reminds me, i need to go guilt teeth into getting his effective mesmer guide out. --Honorable Sarah 11:25, 25 July 2006 (CDT)

Actually, those guides would also work as a place to move information about useful profession combinations. As yet, they don't contain that info; but if it were added it could work. Perhaps rather than listing each combo within the guide, just insert a small section on what that profession adds if used as a secondary? --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 11:37, 25 July 2006 (CDT)

After looking closer, the basic profession articles would be more likely to be viewed by first time players. The profession articles are linked via the Getting Started guide. The Effective xyz Guides are not, and even mention in the very start that they are not for beginning players. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 11:41, 25 July 2006 (CDT)

i think before we divide the spoils of hidden information in these articles, we should find some first. --Honorable Sarah 11:49, 25 July 2006 (CDT)

They suck because you guys already know whatever's in it and very familiar with how the wiki works and that there are builds pages here. I didn't know about builds pages when I came here. I didn't know how best to take advantage of prof combinations when I started GW and would've much preferred suggestions, tips, and ideas than outright cookie cutter builds for me to just memorize, buy, and drag to my skill bar. The problem was that I didn't even know the existence of the combination pages. And I found those before I even found the guides. I think their visibility just needs to be improved. Or we can simply combine them into one combination article for each profession; I like Barek's idea of merging them into the profession article. The target readers for the profession article would be new players or those new to the profession. The effective guides on the other hand should be geared towards those already familiar with the profession and are just looking for more ways to play better. In any case, delete or not, there has to be a clear page or section that explains how all the profession combinations would or could work. Saying all the info is already in the builds pages is inaccurate. It's not like the builds pages are very friendly to newcomers to the game and the builds pages we have most certainly do not cover all possibilities, especially not untried ideas or concepts. --Ab.Er.Rant (msg Aberrant80) 22:23, 25 July 2006 (CDT)

GuildWiki:Sandbox#Prof_combos if it goes.. ;) — Skuld 11:01, 25 July 2006 (CDT)

I just left on vacation or I would still be working on the N/Rt and Rt/N pages. Personally, I'm sick of those Necros elitists lording their supposedly-superior MM skills over the Rits, and I need those pages as ammo. I want to keep them, for all of the above reasons. Those combination pages are all about possibilities, while the build pages are about certainties. There's need for both in this world. :) --BarGamer 23:16, 25 July 2006 (CDT)

That is a poor reason for keeping the pages. Additionally, Guild Wiki is the worst possible place to get ammo. Guild Wiki is famous for being incompetent when it comes to build design. -Warskull 19:06, 22 May 2007 (CDT)

Id say delete them. Detraya fullvear

I'm against deleting them. As someone who is still attempting to learn the vast possibilities of the game, the combinations articles have been very useful for giving me profession and skill combo ideas. They're easily my favorite part of the wiki. The build articles are about specific techniques, and that's fine, but as someone said above, the combinations articles are more about general, easy to understand, "you might like to try this" ideas. Also, I think they are good for encouraging people to try more offbeat combinations and to show that they can be worth playing. My first character was a melee Mo/W, and while that didn't work out as well as I would've liked, I had fun with it. -- Arshay Duskbrow

I support completely Barek's view on how this matter should be handled. "Fast deletion so noone can object" is not what the literal wiki stands for, and here it seems like Skuld had his shotgun ready mere 2 hours after the first posting. So please, give some time to discuss. After all, there are alternative to deletion.

I also like to support the argumentation of Ab.Er.Rant. I remember being very interested in these articles everytime I started choosing secondary profession. Maybe these articles weren't of high quality, but they gave an nice overview of my options. Build articles are not the same, they are by far more focused on the necessities of the build. Further, since Warrior Monk and the like are terms of the game, GuildWiki wouldn't be complete without a lemma of that name, maybe at least as a redirect to a section of the primary profession article, as Barek suggested.

There a sure lots of options other than plain deletion, so, please, keep a cool head and discuss first. And hands off from the shotgun, please, at least for a while. Thanks. --MRA 09:48, 26 July 2006 (CDT)

Wouldn't it make more sense to have secondary classes with the main ones? Have it's own section in the man article saying what skills work well together, builds for newbie players and general info about the playing styles it opens up. That way we lose 90 useless articles and instead gain 10+ (with more add ons) useful articles. After all keeping 1 article up to standard is much easier than keeping 10 of them. -- Astray

skuld was not involved here, except for his note about having them all queued in case the decision was delete, and the delete tags certainly served to raise the visibility of this discussion, which is their purpose (as opposed to simply deleting articles and leaving people to wonder what happened).

the specific issue is not with the articles worth as a concept, but as the articles worth as implementation. consider Ranger Mesmer. there is no information on this page that is not better housed on the Ranger or Mesmer profession pages, and the single line "choose Mesmer secondary for additional interrupt skills" on Ranger could eclipse the whole of the combination article in terms of usefulness to new players.

people ask in guild chat "what secondary should i choose for my X". invariably, my response is monk or ritualist. if you don't have a specific need for the skills of a secondary profession (say, you've a build you wish to try) then the only benefit from secondary is repeatable res.

at least one person commented on these pages being more useful in understanding professions then "cookie-cutter" builds. we're working on that, consider the profession guides. --Honorable Sarah 10:22, 26 July 2006 (CDT)

Chiming in to say that I'm a fan of the combination descriptions. I like reading what kind of combos people come up with. For example, I saw an Elementalist Assassin in TA, a quick read of the wiki later and I knew what I was probably up against, and how to counter it. If some people don't like them, then don't read them, but I think they're a good place to store general (rather than build specific) synergies between the professions. The only sensible suggestion that I've seen so far is integrating these descriptions into the primary profession articles, although I think this will bload them a little. I will be quite sad if they go, especially as it is just the elitist players who tend to take part in these discussions. --Immure 14:42, 26 July 2006 (CDT)

Likewise, I feel the same. I think Astray has a good idea. We change it into 10 articles (one for each prof) with 9 subsections rather than 90 articles. It's easier to manage, compare, and especially add to/edit since we'll be expecting another 2 profs each campaign. If we keep it as is, it'll be 132 (12*11) articles by the campaign 4, versus 12 articles. We can keep the main pages on each primary profession as standalone, since they look so nice and just have a "combo" page linked in it. If we have 10 pages to edit, it's much easier to concentrate effort. And don't attack the articles simply because they don't have much in them. Yes they suck but any article would suck if no one worked on it. The state of it now agreeably makes it hard to work on so no wonder there are a bunch that have little information on them.

I like these pages, in general, because most people are not going to look for specific builds when comparing secondary profs, but rather tactical stuff and general combos, or just ideas to give some inspiration. I think players will enjoy playing and tweaking a build they make on their own rather than a great build somebody just told them.

The profession guides are very nice and well written but they tend to focus on how to play the primary. True, they aren't yet complete and some pages even lack a secondary profession section but it's a work in progress. But it wouldn't hurt to have a "combo" page. The guides are extensive but are beginning to become fairly long. I'm not saying it wouldn't work but basically, we shouldn't throw these pages away without using them in some way. --Vortexsam 02:10, 27 July 2006 (CDT)

I am definately against full-out deletion of these articles. Even now, when I'm starting out a new RP character, I browse through the pages looking for interesting possibilities. I would however, be open to merging these articles into the profession pages as a major subsection. I personally much rather getting some general ideas from the wiki as opposed to fully-made builds. - Lord Ehzed 09:15, 27 July 2006 (CDT)

I also like Astray's idea of having 1 page per (primary) class that lists all the different secondary combinations. New players that are wondering about the advantages of different secondaries can use it as a quick reference without having to flip between several articles. --Spot 13:02, 27 July 2006 (CDT)

My apologies if I'm editing this incorrectly, but I've not done terribly many edits (except for Senji, and the Orosen's Staff articles), and I would be inclined to agree with many of the posters here - Perhaps it would be best if the Primary/Secondary articles be merged onto the Primary class pages, perhaps at the bottom of the page? That way, no information need be lost, and we may still reduce the number of pages required. Perhaps have the Primary/Secondary sections on the Primary class page suggest ways to play, and have links to Tested PvE builds? (since PvP players can find their own build easily enough, but trying to find a build that is both Tested and PvE isn't so easy without loading each page...) 124.178.195.199 23:24, 27 July 2006 (CDT)

When desiding on what I'm going to do with a new character I look on these and see what apeals to me the most, then I crouse through the skills and create a build. They have affected 3 of my builds in a positive way (none in a negative) and an bad tips can be ironed out. These are the first thing I look at and are much quicker than sifting through redy made builds (which creates a lack of origionality). Please leave them alone or give them there own section (guides prehaps). Sir On The Edge

I've found these articles very useful while trying to decide on a secondary profession for my characters. There just isnt enough builds listed on guildwiki to decide on which profession combination suits a player the best. I would suggest either keeping this section, or doing a major buff up of the builds section, adding at least one build of each combination so visitors can understand what their specialized combinations can achieve. There is a wide range of options while customizing your character, and Guildwiki should reflect that with a description of these options. Not everyone comes here to read up on uber items and quest walkthroughs. New players will visit guildwiki looking for help deciding on their secondary class, and what better way to help them decide than to show them all of their options? --69.231.139.182 23:16, 28 July 2006 (CDT)

I've been playing GW for a little bit over a year and I still find these articles to be extremely helpful when starting a new character. Granted, I don't tend to actually USE skills from my secondary, but these articles help give me ideas, and could also help inspire new effective builds. I vote NO DELETE. — AmontilladoFile:Amontillado.png (T/C) 18:50, 29 July 2006 (CDT)

I still find it amusing that the Explosive Creation build, for one, uses mostly skills from it's secondary. XD--BarGamer 19:31, 29 July 2006 (CDT)

I like having the profession combination information. When it's done properly, it's very useful for new players or people looking at a new primary profession. Yes, the current pages leave a lot to be desired, but they could be greatly improved. People look at these pages for:

1) comparative information about the strengths and weaknesses of secondaries. Here, people are choosing a secondary, and are looking for what a secondary brings to help the primary, roles the combination can play (builds), and skill combinations. This implies that it's best to have all secondaries on the same page.

2) comparison of a class combination: e.g. R/W versus W/R. In this case the issue is which class's primary attribute and armor helps the most. The reader has a specific combination in mind. This argues for putting each combination on a separate page, so the reader doesn't have to page through the whole class page to get to the needed information.

3) exploring what their class combination can do. These people are looking for more advanced information about roles, skill combinations and builds, and might best be served with links to builds and teams.

Having the information on combinations on the main profession page will make the main profession page very unwieldy, since there is lot of information, and more with each new profession. Since most of the people looking at the combination pages will fall in the first case, I think a single page with all secondaries is best. Each secondary discussion should have a link to the 'flipped' pair - the R/W section a link to the W secondaries page, for example. --Daulnay

seems like Daulnay has summed this up rather well. so we create Secondary professions for Warriors, in this category, and move all the Warrior Blank Articles into it, and leave the old Warrior Monk and similar as redirects until we can unlink them. sounds like a good plan, what's required to proceed? --Honorable Sarah 17:26, 30 July 2006 (CDT)

The old Profession combination posts were pretty unstructured. Just reworked Ranger_Warrior, as an example. Each Profession combination section should have, at a minimum:

• How useful the Primary attribute is for the Secondary skills. For some, like R/W and Me/Mo, the Primary

can be very useful. For others, like Mo/E, it's completely unhelpful.

• Comparison of the relative benefits of Primary armor vs. Secondary armor. This will mostly be AL and energy management.

• Key builds that will not work with the opposite Primary/Secondary pair (e.g. Bunny Thumper).

• Common/popular builds.

• Useful skill combinations.

• Useful skills from the Secondary.

Looking at the length of what I wrote, seems like a single page with all secondaries might get pretty long. Then again, it might not since some of the combinations will not have much. It also looks like there would be a lot of duplicate stuff: each pair of professions will have many of the same skill combinations and builds. Would we want to duplicate that for each Secondary combination page?

Perhaps it would be better to have a single page discussing each pair of professions?

Combinations as Categories

I would love to see profession combinations transformed into categories. This way, builds could be automatically listed, which is - at least for me - the most important information about a specific combination. I always choose my classes for coolness and the looks and then search for possible builds to get tips and hints from. 212.202.6.243 06:59, 31 July 2006 (CDT)

I think this is a good idea :D — AmontilladoFile:Amontillado.png (T/C) 12:53, 1 August 2006 (CDT)

Next Steps

As there seems adequate support to keep these, I believe that for now the delete tags should be removed until a course of action is planned; or at the very least changed to being a merge tag to propose merging into consolidated articles. If a consolidated article is used, how would it be best to name/organize it?
I'm think an article like "Monk secondaries" that lists potential benefits of each other profession when used as a secondary to a Monk primary. Opinions? --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 18:28, 31 July 2006 (CDT)

Seconded. Either that or "Monk secondary professions", though the latter could be a tad too long. — Galil 18:31, 31 July 2006 (CDT)

I would've thought we'd be better off having pages which cover the secondary professions by primary (eg Secondary professions for Warriors, Secondary professions for Necromancers etc), rather than a page which lists the benefits for every primary profession of a specific secondary profession - that seems slightly counter intuitive, secondary is subordinate to primary by definition so why sort by secondary? Plus if we did it by primary we'd have a simple page to link to from the main profession page. --NieA7 03:29, 1 August 2006 (CDT)

Ummm, who proposed an article by secondary? No idea where that came from. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 08:44, 1 August 2006 (CDT)

You did. Or rather you didn't - I took what you wrote to mean you wanted an article detailing combinations possible with Monk as secondary profession, rather than secondary combinations for a primary Monk :p --NieA7 09:15, 1 August 2006 (CDT)

i believe A7 was thinking of "monk secondary professions" as refering to X/Mo, rather then the intended Mo/X, however, i do prefer the more verbose "Secondary Professions for X", and we should put them as a sub category of Category:Profession guides --Honorable Sarah 12:57, 1 August 2006 (CDT)

Yeah, sounds like a good idea. I think it's useful to see all the secondary information for a given primary in the same article. -- Gordon Ecker 05:10, 2 August 2006 (CDT)

Based on the above feedback, I'll work to convert all of the delete tags to merge tags sometime today or Friday. I'm thinking titles like "Secondary professions for a Monk" or something similar. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 09:12, 3 August 2006 (CDT)

I've changed the articles that had content to be a merge tag instead of a delete tag. The ones that remain with delete tags are dervish and paragon related where the content is virtually non-existant. The next step is to do the actual merging. I'll have limited availability this weekend, but could start on it Monday (feel free to start the process before then). --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 00:51, 4 August 2006 (CDT)

why delete

the recent chaos around these articles has convinced me that this subject is too personal to create an effective article set around. these guides started as trashy diatribes extolling the virtues of a given combination, and that history has carried over to the current incarnation, only to have the reaction of those who don't agree leave these articles with no useful content. --Honorable Sarah 22:35, 11 May 2007 (CDT)

Are you proposing to only delete the profession combination articles, or also the primary profession guides? IMHO their intrinsic nature are the same, and should be treated the same (whether to keep or to delete). It just so happens that we have controversies on the combo pages, whereas the primary profession guides happen to be better developed, but they boil down to the same nature. -User:PanSola (talk to the ) 00:51, 12 May 2007 (CDT)

If you look at the edit history for Warrior and Necromancer secondary profession guides, it seems obvious why these really need to be deleted which is why it was first brought up on the warrior secondary professions talk page. But there's no need to delete the guides unless a bunch of us get into a big fight over what should and shouldn't be there. If a concensus on content has been reached, they should be fine. — JediRogue (talk |contribs) 00:56, 12 May 2007 (CDT)

Would it be possible to change the entire structure for secondary usage. Where, each user can add notes about combinations, notes can not be removed. This can be done through either a main page linked to user pages that have the combinations or stored on one page where each note is put under the author. -- Xeon 01:24, 12 May 2007 (CDT)

Just delete it. It was way too much trouble for it is worth, especially since about 50% of the info is useless/obvious... with anons adding more useless information. It is trying to morph into the builds section and people are trying to inject their idea of what is a good skill combo rather than document was is commonly seen in high level PvE and PvP. --Lania Elderfire 01:51, 12 May 2007 (CDT)

Yes, you are right. Now delete the god damn thing already lmao. 24.10.242.177 01:56, 12 May 2007 (CDT)

So, after the builds section is gone, and the secondary profession combo gone, wouldn't those ppl simply move on to the "effective <profession> guides" and put their opinions there? If we are deleting the secondary combo articles, then I recommend we also break down the Primary guides into smaller guides, like "effective healer guide", "effective minion master guide", etc. It'll help those guides have a clearer focus, and the modularity serves as damage containment against the people moving on to seek a new place for their opinions. -User:PanSola (talk to the ) 02:03, 12 May 2007 (CDT)

Grr, no more guides. It just make things more complicated. 24.10.242.177 02:17, 12 May 2007 (CDT)

So, you are proposing to complete delete the primary profession guides? -User:PanSola (talk to the ) 02:28, 12 May 2007 (CDT)

I can deal with role guides. It would not only help new players become better at guild wars, but it will teach them along the way; how to effectively complete a specific role on one class... and if another class does said job better (and how that class does said job better, i.e., better damage, better energy management, whatever the case may be).

Skills are definitely easier to define by "role" and not by "class." A melee DPS "role" (dervs and warriors and moebius sins) would have certain skills that let them accomplish their goal (snares, "condition pressure" pressure via conditions that matter, i.e., dazed/crippled/deep wound, high DPS skills etc), so on and so forth. Different classes will be able to complete each role (with varying degrees of efficiency). If we listed every class/skill combo able to fulfill a role (and, naturally, the weaknesses of that class/skill combo as compared to the most effective one), newer players can try out skill combinations to their heart's desire and not get confused as to how skills fit into a certain role. -138.86.160.202 02:33, 12 May 2007 (CDT)

I think the role-oriented approach makes sense, which is why I suggested breaking the profession guides down into role-based guides. This way, what was a Build-pages problem which is now a profession combo problem will less likely become a primary profession-guide problem. -User:PanSola (talk to the ) 03:20, 12 May 2007 (CDT)

Do people really come here for that kind of thing though? I can't imagine a young wannabe MM coming here because they need tips on how to be an effective MM. — JediRogue (talk |contribs) 03:39, 12 May 2007 (CDT)

Does that mean you think effective MM guide, effective monk guides etc should all be deleted? -User:PanSola (talk to the ) 03:54, 12 May 2007 (CDT)

I just don't thin the people that really need to be reading these things aren't the people that do. Specifically, monks who bring nuking or minion spells... — JediRogue (talk |contribs) 04:23, 12 May 2007 (CDT)

Effective monk guide: don't let your team die; nothing else. Effective warrior guide: don't let the aggro get to the backline. Effective nuker guide: the more 3 digit yellow numbers, the better. Effective mm guide: when you see the purple numbers, something died, raise, heal area, botm, maybe a little death nova. Effective sin guide: don't get caught in too many soul explosions; dont be a tank. Effective necro/mesmer guide: if it doesn't have the purple arrow, you're doing it wrong. — JediRogue (talk |contribs) 02:39, 12 May 2007 (CDT)

Effective monk guide; never leave home without condition *and* hex removal, not to mention sufficient energy management. Warrior guide only discussing aggro is definitely PvE-oriented, though; missing entire points about linebacking and pressuring casters (which works amazingly well in PvE, too; try it out sometime). Nuking is a decidedly PvE term. MM guide... lulz. Effective necro/mesmer guides would probably be the most complicated to write (aside from monk); you don't just throw hexes around like a crazy person, or you end up being very ineffective (reckless haste and faintheartedness on the same target = fail). They'd be more complicated than you make them sound, but in general, yes. -138.86.160.202 02:45, 12 May 2007 (CDT)

I was kidding. Well maybe half kidding. That's actually pretty much it for PvE. Obviously PvP is more complex. — JediRogue (talk |contribs) 02:58, 12 May 2007 (CDT)

I said no more guides. Word manipulation, why thy so cruel to thy? 24.10.242.177 02:47, 12 May 2007 (CDT)

Delete. Remants of the builds section lingy here, always someone's idea of syngery vs the other. The information is many state the obvious anyway. Again, I'm 100% supporting these chain of articles deletion, as I said before. Solus 04:39, 12 May 2007 (CDT)

for clairities sake, my point is not that this information is not useful (in fact, without a build section, it is very much required), but rather that the opinions of many editors, including myself, are intractably, diametrically, incompatable. --Honorable Sarah 18:21, 12 May 2007 (CDT)

What puzzles me is that, is there any reason why the multiple side of views cannot all be presented? In other parts of the wiki, especially lore related articles, we've seen many irreconcilable opinions, but they managed to all be presented. State the pro, the con, the alluring side and the pitfalls, and let the reader make the decision on the value. -User:PanSola (talk to the ) 19:52, 12 May 2007 (CDT)

I'm totally in favor of what PanSola just said. Personnally I support the idea of deleting the professions combo and, if necessary, the professions guides. But only if role-guides are there after the deletion. As I see it, the main information (i.e : the useful part) would still be there for those who look for it and at the same time would be more focused (and hopefully readable). -- J'eBofu 05:07, 14 May 2007 (CDT)

Well, I'm drafting up a set of new profession combo guides that could be more useful. They are going to be more along the lines of "I'm an E/W, how do I get the most out it?" Basically, I'm going for finding anyway to make a possible combination useful without passing judgement. It's not going ot be about the best combination to use and the best place for attribute points but the best possible way you could combine two professions. A reader could then decide that the minor use of a warrior as a secondary for an ele isn't as good a choice as E/Me or whatever. — JediRogue (talk |contribs) 13:57, 14 May 2007 (CDT)

As a suggestion for your draft, remember to include a section on the page for "things to watch out for" or "drawbacks" or something like that, so people who think a certain idea sucks won't just remove it from the article (and get us back to square one), but rather educate the rest of us why a certain idea is bad. -User:PanSola (talk to the ) 14:00, 14 May 2007 (CDT)

Thanks for the tip. Heres the page: User:JediRogue/Profession Combos. Obviously its only just been started. — JediRogue (talk |contribs) 14:43, 14 May 2007 (CDT)

Just to make sure we are all on the same page

Profession combo articles?

• Honorable Sarah - Delete
• Lania Elderfire - Delete
• 24.10.242.177 - Delete
• JediRogue - Delete
• Solus - Delete
• PanSola - Neutral (if delete, then also delete "Effective <profession> guide" articles since that's just where the opinions would go to next anyways)
• Gordon Ecker - Neutral
• Taki 09:51, 15 May 2007 (CDT) - Delete
• DavimusK - Preserve or replace with JediRogue's combo page.

"Effective <profession> guide" articles?

• JediRogue - Delete or at least rewrite
• PanSola - Neutral (if profession combos get deleted,then also delete these)
• Honorable Sarah - Preserve
• Gordon Ecker - Keep or split and replace with "overview / summary of common roles for (profession)"
• DavimusK - Preserve or replace with overview/summary of common roles.

"Effective <role> articles"

• PanSola - if "effective <profession> guide" articles are to be deleted, break them down into "effective <role> articles" and preserve those
• 24.10.242.177 - Delete
• Honorable Sarah - no opinion.
• Gordon Ecker - Keep

This is what I gather from the above discussion. If I misinterpreted any of your stances, I apologize, and please do correct it. -User:PanSola (talk to the ) 05:14, 12 May 2007 (CDT)

continue discussion of Why delete

actually not sure how i feel about the profession guide articles. But I imagine that I don't like them. I definitely wanted to delete the combos. I suggested it 2 days before Sarah brought it here. I was very pleased with myself for suggesting it too. =D — JediRogue (talk |contribs) 05:22, 12 May 2007 (CDT)

added ambigious opnions as needed. --Honorable Sarah 18:06, 12 May 2007 (CDT)

Okay, I've skimmed the stuff on the monk guide. Lots of stuff should be tossed but there is some nice advice in there. I think we can cut it up to things like, roll of monk, importance of hex, condition removal, etc. But get rid of specific skills and stratgies... like how to use heal party and stuff. There is some nice advice on there for non monks.. like the monk is watching what skills you use. you can't hide! — JediRogue (talk |contribs) 19:40, 12 May 2007 (CDT)

Wow, I thought this was over already O.o... Readem (talk*contribs) 18:51, 14 May 2007 (CDT)

There's a strong vocal group in favor of deleting the combos, but the follow up remains unclear. A number of people has not paid thought to what will happen after those combo pages are deleted, even as they complain the combos pages are hopeless because opinionated people go there after losing the builds section. I sincerely believe we need to also come to a consensus on HOW to avoid repeating the mistake, so that we don't simply push the problem from Builds to Profession combinations to some other place, until the wiki becomes nothing more than a static database that someone who works at Anet could've designed a mindless bot to do. -User:PanSola (talk to the ) 13:33, 15 May 2007 (CDT)

I've placed notes on talk pages of people who were part of the restructuring discussion approximately a year ago. I'm just mostly going by the sigs in the discussion. If you notice I missed anybody, please notify them for me, thanks. -User:PanSola (talk to the ) 13:58, 15 May 2007 (CDT)

I'm glad you did. I vote keeping everything. I mean, honestly, this is a public website (or whatever). If you don't like something, don't use it, eh? In any case, this is probably just repressed Necro-frustration, as a lot of the Necro-main combos are now less effective. Without the preferred Necro-main MM and Battery builds, PVE/PVP as a whole suffered. On the other hand, the Ritualist and the Necro/Rit is on the rise. So just wait out the storm, eventually they'll quiet back down. BarGamer 01:02, 17 May 2007 (CDT)

Seems to be a lot against delete and i see where they're coming from. these are not beyond repair, the tags are silly. Remove them? — Skuld 16:24, 15 May 2007 (CDT)

As someone removes tags, Readem adds Hamstorm to Warrior section. Readem (talk*contribs) 01:11, 17 May 2007 (CDT)

Awright, too bad I found this discussion so late. Now, I'd like to bring up a solution. The whole thing started, because this guides became too chaotic, subjective and not enough documentive. Why, that'd be easy to fix, I think. All those guides should IMO be limited to the following: behavior of the primary attribute with skills of the chosen secondary; available non-linked skills from the secondary and their benefit for the primary class. Now, let's go over this: the first thing about the primary attribute is a simple and documentary guide. Stuff like: Expertise works on binding rituals, Divine Favor won't work on Restoration, ... Of course it's obvious for us, but not for new players who should be reading this. It's good to speed up learning about gw, which can be pretty overwhelming in the beginning. The second point is at the edge of becoming a hint for skill combinations. I added it anyway, because I think it's a good place to hint on utiliary skills like Dash, Echo, Expel Hexes. So much for my thoughts. --Ineluki 04:48, 17 May 2007 (CDT)

What about linked skills that cover holes in the primary profession's skillset (like Mantra of Recall on a Mo/Me or Shock on a W/E), or skills which work well with little or no attribute investment (such as Channeling, Glyph of Lesser Energy, interrupt and shadow step skills, hex, enchantment and condition removal skills or cover hexes and enchantments)? -- Gordon Ecker 19:57, 17 May 2007 (CDT)

IMO if those skills are useful (i.e., accomplish a job, fulfill a role) they'll go on a role guide section. Shock on a warrior, energy management on a monk etc are all incredibly useful skills that make the character many times better (a warrior with an added interrupt/knockdown/snare, a monk that can keep casting spells without depleting energy).

I'm slightly opposed to including things like "arcane echo can copy spells," because... nowai?! It copies spells?! The most irritating unnecessary notes are stuff like "use serpent's quickness to reduce recharge" and "use arcane echo to copy your elite," because frankly, SQ is usually a bad idea compared to better alternatives, and enough useful skills exist to make /Me for echo a thing of the past. -Auron 20:10, 17 May 2007 (CDT)

I think the point is not to point out what is, yes, obvious, but to show what skills from another profession would be useful to me. I know that echo copies spells but starting out as an elementalist per se, I might not consider what uses spells from other classes would work for me and make a good choice of secondary. — JediRogue 00:03, 18 May 2007 (CDT)

Indeed. The point is, that new players don't know all skills at once. They start with one class, and stick with it, if they're smart. Cause, frankly, the most common point in screwed up builds in an early stage of the game is: fanatically trying to make a build out of your 2 professions, whereas your primary would do just fine alone. So to carefully intruduce players to the use of their secondary profession, non-linked skills would be just fine IMO. And yes, GolE could be added as well. Where to draw the line has to be determined from case to case. --Ineluki 06:29, 18 May 2007 (CDT)

Maybe have a "General secondary profession guide", that is internally divided into casters, ranged, and melee? Then still have individual guides for things that specifically helps the primary profession in particular, and have them mutually link to each other. -User:PanSola (talk to the ) 15:09, 18 May 2007 (CDT)

I actually JUST added that to my guide and then saw this comment. BTW, if anyone has anything they think would be useful, add it to the talk page. The more I read here, the more I think that the combos should be rewritten rather than deleted entirely. — JediRogue 02:57, 21 May 2007 (CDT)

Perhaps I'm a bit late to the party here. However, I think that it is a poor idea to simply delete content because two or more groups disagree (albeit vehemently) about what the page should say. Deleting the page means no one gets to benefit from the thoughts, knowledge, and opinions given. I would rather have a page say "The contents of this page have been highly contested. Multiple views are presented below for the edification of the user population." then to not have the page at all. Same thing goes for the builds section, but that's another can of worms and not germain to this arguement. Jbsaff 00:58, 19 May 2007 (CDT)

it's not just a disagreement, it's preventing the articles from becomming useful, as one side wishes to put up general advice that works, and the other side wishes to put up only the best of the best skills. neither are wrong, but neither can accomplish their vision while the other is attempting to accomplish theres.

as an example, let me cover Arcane Echo. yes, with 132 skills to choose from, you'd think there'd be another skill in place of a second SS, except that few other skills combine with SS to match the DPS of two SS'd warriors attacking the same creature. it's not the best, because arcane echo is expensive, somewhat conditional, and SS doesn't stack on one target, but it works because you can double your DPS by casting on a second target. does this note go in or out?

in a condition such as this, the solution of last resort is to abolish the document and start clean without the historical bias and personal feelings that are driving today's argument. see GuildWiki:builds wipe.

won't the lack of this info hurt the wiki? yes, in the short run, in the same way the build wipe is, but in the long run (say, 6 months down the road) we'll have something that coveres this topic that is a concensus without historical cruft. --Honorable Sarah 01:52, 20 May 2007 (CDT)

If one side believes that anything useful should be included and the other side believes that only the best secondary skills should be included, doesn't that mean that including the best skills is non-controversial, and that the only point of contention is inclusion of other useful skills? -- Gordon Ecker 06:35, 20 May 2007 (CDT)

On the D/R article, a related immaturity around Apply Poison was resolved by listing the skill, as well as what makes it NOT one of the best skills to use (ie its draw backs or relative inferiority of benefits). My simple edit seems to have completely solved what was believed to be irreconcilable. I claim the Arcane Echo issue mirrors the Apply Poison issue, and can be solved the same way. If there are other controversies that this approach does not handle, I would be grateful if the nature of those controversies can be quickly presented (similar to how Arcane Echo+SS was presented above), so I can easily get a deeper look. -User:PanSola (talk to the ) 02:21, 21 May 2007 (CDT)

Looking through these, it is mostly worthless trash. If it were to be deleted there would be no loss to guild wiki at all. Additionally, this is an absolutely terrible approach to the issue. Secondary selection can be fairly complex and build dependent. You just don't say "I want condition removal so I take plague touch." You have to weigh the costs and benefits of each secondary profession for the build and its role. For example mend touch means you can't take shock. In fact this would better be handled by just adding notes to skills that make people choose a class as a secondary. For example "Mending Touch is a popular skill among rangers and warriors, leading them to select monk secondary." or "Shock is a popular skill choice for an axe warrior, leading many axe warriors to choose elementalist secondary. -Warskull 19:03, 22 May 2007 (CDT)

Do Not Delete Secondary Combinations pages

Just a thought, and maybe I am alone in using the pages this way, but I look at the secondary professions combinations pages for ideas when I am creating or modifying characters. They are not gospel, and half the time I don't have the elite's necessary to make them work, but they provide ideas, and perhaps a perspective I hadn't thought about. Instead of deleting combinations that worked, whether currently in favor or not, or a skill suggestion that might contribute to an interesting build, let the discussion page allow for the merits of any given combination (and please, if the comment is to slam every combination and say nothing good, please remember to suggest alternatives). With the builds page gone, it would be nice to see something on secondary professions to allow one to assess possibilities (especially for those new to the game), though in no way says how things must be done. What might be a mediocre build for one person, may be very effective in the hands of another, depending on experience and the other party members. It is important for people to remember that suggestions are just that, suggestions. The game changes, good combinations change, and judicious edits can allow for those changes, but keep the ideas out there, and in an easy location to find.

There will always be people who disagree, and, if you continue deleting everything people argue about, there will be nothing beyond a skeleton left in GuildWiki, and even then there will be argument.Zedley 14:05, 20 May 2007 (CDT)

I agree with this. I'm on the include anything useful--not just the best side of the argument. The same with the ill-fated Builds section: They are not gospel, I just want to be exposed to more ideas about how to play my professions. Perhaps, instead of "Effective <profession> guide", we have "Secondary Profession Suggestions" or "Secondary Profession Ideas" pages linked from/at the bottom of Profession pages with overviews and possible common roles. Because, obviously, "Effective" is very subjective when referring to an entire profession.

I am for "Effective <role>" guides if the goal for that role is well-defined because there are times when people are expected to play a certain role effectively. Professions are too broad and general though. Cameronl 16:35, 21 May 2007 (CDT)

I agree with the first poster - these guides are useful - I don't take them as holy scripture, nor should anyone try to make them into that. This, IMHO, is what is wrong about deleting the builds collection as well. Both collections are/were useful for ideas, and it doesn't take that much intelligence to figure out that whatever you're looking at works in the poster's opinion but might not work so well for you. As for controversy and disagreement, those are useful and informative, and help things to develop. But we should not expect or wish for controversy to end in some single truth. To my mind, that's what the people supporting the deletion of the secondary professions pages were hoping - that eventually there would be truth, and the inability to arrive at one single truth is a failure. It is not; rather it's an indication of a healthy community. I'm bringing my perspective as a career scientist to this, and i think it's appropriate in this instance. --Jawn Sno 16:38, 22 May 2007 (CDT)

I haven't started a new char from scratch since Factions, but the very fact that all three Campaigns encourage you to try out secondary professions, and find out what works for you, is a valid argument to keep the Combination pages, in some shape or form. Obviously, trying to list every possible viable or attractive skill combination and still maintain editing credibility is impossible... Here's a possible suggestion: Why not restrict the wiki's pages to those viable combinations that you can get from the three Campaign's respective "tutorial areas," and for anything more in-depth, send them over to PvX? Obviously, PvX has it's flaws, but to put it bluntly, at least it'll solve things on OUR end. If the edit warriors want to fight it out over on PvX, that's their prerogative. --BarGamer 04:57, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Adding.

We shouldn't forget why people visit wiki in the first place. Deleting secondary proffesion pages is denying people a bit of information they are looking for. It might not be the best of materia for some proffesions, but none the less. If an article is a stub for a while it doenst mean it shouldnt be there. FLX 06:31, 23 May 2007 (CDT)

Remove the pages, but add new, more useful ones with a similar purpose

(Key points are bolded; last thing bolded and italicized is probably the best idea in the whole wall of text)

More logical would be the inverse of the pages; a page such as "What does a secondary assassin bring to your class?" is much more useful. Plus, most people probably already have an idea of what they want as a secondary, but as-is the pages aren't too great for that. In addition, many "tips" in these can be applied to the combination of the secondary with any profession - IE Shadow Arts can help avoid/mitigate damage, but putting it on every single page is kinda redundant and worthless.

An argument against this is that one could just look at the main profession page, however, it depends on how a person builds. If someone's looking to see what Ranger brings as a secondary class, they're probably not looking for generic "you can do stuff with bows" descriptions; anyone who knows anything about Guild Wars could make that conclusion in about two seconds by themself. What they might not know is ways that Rituals and so forth can complement other classes, or ways the secondary can make up for a class's inherent weaknesses. An Elementalist might know they can get a bit of a physical combat edge with a ranger's bow skills and such, but they might not know that they can manipulate their abilities with stuff like Winter, any random person might not know that Rangers have recast-shortening abilities such as Serpent's Quickness and Quickening Zephyr.

Obviously, one would have to divide up the pages into ways it helps as far as strategy goes as opposed to ways it helps each class (mostly). Putting ways Monks help mitigate damage is good; putting "You can live longer while tanking by using blablablablablablablabla abilities" is obvious and worthless. While some tips WILL apply to specific classes, most are general and allow you to adjust your playstyle a bit.

Or just make pages with fairly exhaustive lists of what the class can do without directly listing how it affects certain combinations and without just placing a table of stats of all their spells. (Hell, it helps when picking both a class AND a subclass, AND removes the need for the subclass pages) Which, more than likely, would remove the need for the secondary lists anyway, and would probably end up the way I described it earlier (different sections of what a class does in certain areas of gameplay). In any case, remove the pages, but add something else that helps but in a much more effective method. MadLordOfMilk 22:06, 24 May 2007 (CDT)

none of these solutions address combinations, wich is the point of these articles. Touch Rangers, for instance, makes little sense unless it's a R/N, and can't really be covered on either R or N or a generic secondaries page.--Honorable Sarah 01:00, 25 May 2007 (CDT)

Speaking of combinations is relative. Is using one unlinked skill a combination or just an utility? Then where do you draw the line? How much of your secondary profession must be in use so that your build is considered a combination? For the touch ranger: that's just a single gimmik build and does not need to be covered here imo. I think, these pages should be used for more general ideas and solutions. Pointing users in directions, not shoving them complete builds. --Ineluki 09:37, 25 May 2007 (CDT)

Honorable Sarah, I think you missed my point - general strategy-related things would be helpful, but it doesn't mean you shouldn't list specific classes. Putting a note under the Necromancer secondary page in a Ranger-specific section that says "Expertise lowers the cost for touch skills (such as Blablabla and YaddaDadda)" can be really useful. As Ineluki said, it should be more for pointing people in a certain direction than giving specific build info and so forth. A note on the proposed "Monk as a secondary" page stating that healing is significantly harder without the ability to use Divine Favor (not sure if that's true or not, just an example) might make a person more thoroughly consider the pros and cons of taking Monk as a subclass just for the healing benefits. Some of this may seem trivial, but in general anyone looking at the page is probably either a.)fairly unsure about the capabilities of the class, b.)is new to the game, or c.)is a veteran player who may just be browsing for some new idea to work on. In any case the pages should be more of a "stuff to consider" page than a "the following 30,000 bullet points are ways that skills interact with each other". MadLordOfMilk 17:58, 25 May 2007 (CDT)

As an aside, JediRogue's Profession Combos Guide is pretty similar to what I was trying to describe. MadLordOfMilk 18:02, 25 May 2007 (CDT)

Jedi's is definately leaps and bounds ahead of the current ones (sure it has some really bad ideas, but it hits the good ideas a lot better too.) The problem is it is still a loose guild for what really needs a build. A/R with a bow was a bad idea except for a few Critical Barrager PvE builds. However, it just mentions bow assassins. You can't really discuss secondaries properly without getting into build discussion. -Warskull 09:15, 26 May 2007 (CDT)

warskull is right. to do any type of secondary discussion, we need a build section. those two are two closely linked. --Honorable Sarah 12:10, 26 May 2007 (CDT)

Bad combinations

How should we handle bad profession combinations? Should we only include a note about why they're bad, or should we also include notes about their least useless skills? -- Gordon Ecker 20:39, 30 June 2007 (CDT)

In my opinion we should include the most useful skills available for a given profession combination. If the most useful skills aren't that good, I think we should mention that it's a bad combination, but still include some examples of somewhat useful skills rather than omitting any examples. -- Gordon Ecker 22:19, 30 June 2007 (CDT)

If it's a bad combination, there must be a combination that makes it bad. W/P for remedy signet is bad because you can go W/Mo with mending touch etc; no point to list less useful skills and combinations. But then, if we're listing bow warriors with flourish, go ahead. -Auron 22:22, 30 June 2007 (CDT)

I only included those two because it seemed less bad than using Scythe Mastery without a Scythe, and because the W/R and W/P sections were pretty empty, I don't really care if they're removed. As for Remedy Signet, there's a decent chance of getting hit with a ranged attack during the 1.5 seconds it takes to cast Mending Touch while Dazed, and if it does get interrupted it'll take 6 seconds to recharge, that's why I mentioned it specifically as a counter for Dazed rather than a generic condition counter. -- Gordon Ecker 23:27, 30 June 2007 (CDT)

General secondary professions

I have created this article in order to discourage redundant notes (resurrection, condition and hex removal, mantras etc.) in the other articles. -- Gordon Ecker 20:19, 4 July 2007 (CDT)