iippo: I was just reading again some vamp strategies and, well now i again want to have 6 vamps on the pitch. dammit.
Getting frustrated by guides, which writers clearly have not played with the team much at all. Anyways, the roster says 0-6 vamps, not 0-4 vamps.
Unreasonable? Perhaps, but i suppose its one of my faults to want to proof my own ideas every now and then :)
Psyringe: Guides are often overrated (though the often recommended Wood Elf guide is pretty good).
When I start playing a new game, I usually stay away from guides for a while, try to make my own experiences, and draw my own conclusions. It's more fun this way (imho), and you also find out things that the currently "canonic" guides may have neglected.
Only slightly related anecdote: When "Guild Wars" was new, every official guide agreed the Necromancers sucked. I played one and had massive problems getting accepted into groups. But when I had found one and we played a mission, they often kept asking me to stay, join their guild etc. Because actually, Necros were an extremely versatile and powerful class (at least in PvE), the guide writers just hadn't discovered that yet. They went from "no sane player plays Necros" to "we had to nerf several Necro abilities to maintain balance" within a year. What's annoying is that you often don't even have a chance to do something new. Some years ago there were 2-3 "accepted" Necro builds. I once joined a group, got asked which build I was running, gave an unusual answer, and before I could even explain why I deemed that build a good fit for the mission ahead, I got kicked out of the group. For a hobby that potentially offers so much freedom (and opportunities for experimentation) as gaming, many communities are surprisingly rigorous in insisting on the same cookie-cutter strategies again and again and again ...
I like guides, but more than following guides i like to make my on conclusions. Its just that i like to compare my own thinking to someone elses. And i have this unhealthy habit of wanting to proof guides wrong, when my own thinking goes against it much enough.
Its pretty clear, that a lot of guides are written without actual gameplay experience just by looking at numbers. And worse yet, by people who do not even seem to understand all effects of the thing they are talking of.
Vampire pro-pro vs anti-pro discussion is a primer example of this.
Most of the guides are simply stating that pro is not necessary because there "are better skills and you can just bite thrall on failed Bloodlust" and "Sure there are times having Pro can be handy".
Just for starters, it feels like the writers of these coaches do not understand, that every BL failed is potentially thrall removed for the whole match. CAS. And you dont have unlimited amounts of them. Also bashy teams make minced meat of them. They fail dodges and get KO'd or CAS'ed. If pro removes even part of failed BL's, it automatically means that youre playing with more active players on the pitch (no KO or stun either!) - its NOT minor thing. This is huge. In all the games that ive lost or been close to loosing, its been because ive not had enough players.
And this is just one aspect pro that none of the guides touch one bit.
"can be handy"
*eyeroll*
I dont mind anti-pro view, it -has- its merits - but seriously, if youre going to say youre pro- or anti- something in a guide, then atleast argue properly all sides of the matter instead of doing some lazy-ass sum that makes you look like youve got actually no idea what youre going about.
