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The Cookie Cutter Builds!!!
Castillle
Member UncommonPosts: 2,679
So who here thinks that cookie cutter builds are the way to go compared to extremely focused specializations?
Which do you guys prefer and why? Or would you prefer having the choice between cookie cutter and heavy specialization?
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**This bunny was cloned from bunnies belonging to Gobla and is part of the Quizzical Fanclub and the The Marvelously Meowhead Fan Club**
Comments
Cookie Cutter.
Not because I like it easy and just go to the forums to copy-paste. But because I enjoy min/maxing my builds to get the most out of them.
Cookie Cutter builds aren't made up by idiots. They're made up by smart people who use atleast some math to prove it's probably the best build out there.
If I also use math then I'm bound to end up with the same build they have, because it simply is the best build at a given role.
We are the bunny.
Resistance is futile.
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^ Yep.
Btw, extremely focused specializations that are effective have a cookie cutter setup as well. When two talent trees/souls/class ability sets coalesce so extremely well, there's a discussion by the high-end theorycrafters as to which of the less that clearly optimal talents edge out over the others.
Spec'ing properly is a gateway drug.
12 Million People have been meter spammed in heroics.
I tend to play very exotic builds that can do some remarkable things. Unfortunately I also tend to draw some really viscious nerfs.
Take for example rift during beta before they were streamlining stuff when more things worked better together.
I had a paladin/beastmaster/champion build that stacked insane amounts of strength to get block as opposed to having other tank classes to get block. The way it worked I had a decent amount of dps on a sword and board character.
Even later on when several synergies were broken I had a paladin(32)/Beast(24)/warlord(10) build and had every single piece of equipment have block on it. With the 46 strength/dex buffs from the beast and the 12% hp and 6% damage from same it was similar in defense to having 3 tank classes with more offense -- it also let me get block into the stratosphere.
At the end when they nerfed BOP/TTT making this build also utterly worthless I was approaching 800 block(With buffs and all I was getting fairly close to 70%).
To give another example. My original character in Everquest was a wood-elf druid. He actually fought man-to-man with thorns up and a major focus towards armor. I had higher armor than any other druid and I was able to fight lots of monsters that others would kite face-to-face just fine and they died much faster upon the thorns.
I was also one of the first druids to multi-kite later on grouping 3 spectres together and hitting them with aoes.
Course when kunark came around I had to have an iksar and my main became an iksar shaman throughout the rest of the games lifespan.
I tend to make exotic builds as well but how I seperate them is their playstyles.
An example is my extremely underused Rangeddps/Healer build in Champions Online.
Basic idea of it, I have a 100ft range heal with 2 100ft range attacks while the rest are damage boosters and 2 self heals. The heal uses my hp to heal and my attack uses my sp and I have a power which conjurs a small mp restoring circle for me and I basically position myself to get in range of everyone, conjure the circle, then shoot people. So in this case, I have to watch my health, my allies health, my mp, and kill/stun the enemy I deem most annoying. The build was flat out great except I need to find the flat out perfect position and make sure that I dont pull too much because everyones health was dependent on my health and my health depended on my mp o.o So when Im not healing anyone, I can offtank. When Im healing, I can damage but cant offtank. It was one the funnest characters I had in CO. I put a guide to it in the forums but everyone still thought the heal that takes your hp was bad (Even if it gave the best HP/Sec)
The reason I made that build was because I made a support char and people didnt protect me. And they kept leaving the enemies that had to die fast alive. o.o The funny thing about that char was that I ended up outdamaging people by quite a bit lol.
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**This bunny was cloned from bunnies belonging to Gobla and is part of the Quizzical Fanclub and the The Marvelously Meowhead Fan Club**
I don't care for freedom to build your own class, I think this is something the genre has gotten wrong of late. I don't like when everyone can do a bit of everything... *cough* Rift
Devs need to take a page out of the EQ text. Having specialized classes is the way to go, but not to the point where you NEED a certain class. Remember having a Bard in your party? ... sweet, running speed hymn. Not necessary, but helpful. This is what also makes the Bard player feel his class is special and sought after. Happen to have an Enchanter? ... great crowd control and mana regen. Again, this makes classes feel unique and keeps the game interesting as different group dynamics create different experiences. EQ had a couple hybrid classes that were perfectly balanaced too and they didn't do anything well.
This kind of mentality is what has killed MMOs. Its all about being the most efficient and the best. Theres no room for imagination or creativity.
I min max to a certain degree as well when I make builds. But the most important part for me is that it plays just like how I planned it out to be. I dont look for it to have the best possible stats just that it has good enough stats to be viable in the playstyle I want. The problem starts happening when some builds grow vastly overpowered, making the others not viable.
''/\/\'' Posted using Iphone bunni
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**This bunny was cloned from bunnies belonging to Gobla and is part of the Quizzical Fanclub and the The Marvelously Meowhead Fan Club**
Cookie cutter builds are a fact of any game with both specialization and tight difficulty balancing. (and if a game doesn't have tight difficulty where you care about being efficient, it's not worth playing imo.)
The better measure of a game is how many viable playstyles exist.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
No, no, it hasn't.
This kind of mentality is what defines raiding. If they want it to be hard for players, it has to be hard for optimum builds, in the gear it's designed for. (A t2 boss is expected to be killable in t1 gear with proper execution. Better gear makes room for errors or more flavor in builds, until you get to a point, like Wrath did, that a t4 dps could tank a t1 boss. (and not just dk).
Freeform builds are fine for guilds that are more about fun than success, and that's not meant as an insult. I'm all about spec'ing correctly but I have more passion for the game when I'm having fun than when the server is telling people what I helped kill.
Freeform builds are fine for farmers, helping friends, alt runs.
But if freeform builds can be the first to kill content, one of two things is true.
The content is way undertuned.
Talents and being geared properly (tanks in tank gear, dps in dps gear, etc) doesn't matter.
Spec'ing properly is a gateway drug.
12 Million People have been meter spammed in heroics.