Hot Take: DIY!

[Aurora_Girl]

(Author's Note: This is purely for discussion, because it annoys me, and I'm looking for lively discourse.)

 

Rather than unabashedly asking for a completed build someone else spent their valuable time to create (which may or may not have your goals/concept/etc in mind), why not do it yourself? At least give it a shot first, then throw it up to be dissected civilly and have a back and forth on those goals and how to best fit them in. 

 

Conversely, if you don't even know where to begin, take your idea and ask for direction or something...give a man a build, set him on fire, ad nauseum. 

 

*Calling all "don't tell me how to have fun" folks!*

[Coyotedancer]

Not everyone enjoys MIDS-tinkering or spending hours that they COULD use instead to actually, you know, *play the game* pouring over the gory details of build-theory.

 

 

 

Edited September 25, 2021 by Coyotedancer

[GraspingVileTerror]

And there are plenty of people who just like sharing their own builds freely.  No harm in that.

[Dona Eis Requiem]

No arguments from me on that, Aurora.

I've never asked for any help with a build, mostly because I can rig up something that works well enough for me to accomplish what I want to do. 

I've never cared about FoTM and never been good at min/max but whatevs. I still have fun. And I still complete everything that I care to complete even if I have to solo it.

Trial and error can be a very good teacher!

[The_Warpact]

I find it annoying that people constantly ask for someone to do the build for them.

I get that people suck at Mids, or don't know how, etc.

But, you give no direction on what your looking for or how you play, high s/l, rech, ??? Not to mention what powers do like, especially on blasters you might build for melee but they want ranged.

I'd prefer people just try to build or at least fill in some details instead of hey make a build for me.

Granted I do my best on my builds I'm proficient but not an expert and I do ask for help and I give it. If its the case you don't care because its just another pl toon then ask @JJDrakken because he lives to do it for people. 

[Asymptotic]

There is a middle ground too.  I like coming up with my own builds, but I also like looking up similar builds first to get ideas.  I've only used another persons build verbatim about twice, and was disappointed in both cases because my focuses or interests were different.

 

For this reason, I have posted some of my builds in the past.  They may not be the strongest possible builds one can make.  But they may have some ideas in them that others can find useful.

[Carnifax]

I always like to see a build in a "help me" thread too. Gives you some idea of what powers they like, and often gives you some bit of slotting or power combo which is "Hey, that's kinda neat". It also makes tends towards more interesting conversion in the thread. 

 

Remixing builds is fun. So having more builds about to look at and remix is also fun, at least for me. 

[Sovera]

How about not trying to interfere with those who like to tinker to keep on tinkering and those who don't know or care about it, not?

[Hew]

I did something I felt was interesting, at least to the person I did it for.

 

They were struggling with builds, dont use MRB, and prefer to play over spreadsheet games. My solution was to put something into MRB that was absolute minimum to meet the requested survival characteristics (50+2, general play, shield armor tank), and export it into a long forum post.

 

This gave them free ability to slot whatever/however in 80% of the build (tons of open slots, random assortment of unused secondary attacks for free pickins), and still maintain the requested level of general toughness. That way, they can learn and tinker and see why some slotting decisions were made.

 

I thought it was a nice medium between build it for me, and here is mids, have fun,

[Nemu]

I don't think you are alone. There are plenty of posts along the lines of "looking for build inf not a problem lol" with 0 responses.

 

I ignore the begging posts but I do tend to chime in on those posts where posters put some effort in. 

 

What concerns/saddens me is that 

1 - there are a lot of new players that post that go straight to begging

2 - they are getting fed some really shitty builds and they are none the wiser

Edited September 25, 2021 by Nemu

[Garymathers]

I would love to make my own builds but can’t find a way to run mids on my Mac.

[Aurora_Girl]

18 minutes ago, Nemu said:

What concerns/saddens me is that 

1 - there are a lot of new players that post that go straight to begging

2 - they are getting fed some really shitty builds and they are none the wiser

 

This is the impetus for me to get this thread started. I think the problem becomes that new players come, in see build posts and assume that’s just how you play the game and don’t learn how the powers actually work in practice.  Don’t see how they actually work in teams or solo or against different mobs and don’t understand what the builds are even doing; they just assume it’s like wow where each thing just has a static value.

 

I’m more of a play a little bit, learn the lingo, then figure out what you’re trying to build for.  If you don’t wanna mess with mids, just say hey I don’t wanna mess with mids; here’s what I want to build, for here’s what I’m playing, where should I go? If they don’t wanna use mids that’s fine but don’t just copy a build, use it, and then bitch about how you can’t play or how the game is hard. 

[Aurora_Girl]

48 minutes ago, Sovera said:

How about not trying to interfere with those who like to tinker to keep on tinkering and those who don't know or care about it, not?

Neither one of those things are what I'm talking about. 

[Aurora_Girl]

1 hour ago, GraspingVileTerror said:

And there are plenty of people who just like sharing their own builds freely.  No harm in that.

Never said otherwise.

[huang3721]

Because people are giving away their build for free, it is reasonable to use theirs.  After all, digging through the wiki and learning the ropes means they are not playing the game. That's probably not fun for them.

In my opinion, there are several ways to encourage people to create their own:

1. Ensure easy access to the resource. For example: make a regular course, or write a tutorial article in the forum or wiki. Write it in a simple language that everyone can understand. Then, when a complete newcomer asking for questions, point them to that article. 
2. When posting a build, make a summary of it. Define its purpose and what it is trying to achieve. Even better, highlight its trade-off, weakness, and limitation. This way, anyone can learn something from it. Keep in mind that not many people can understand Mids output just by eyeballing it.
3. Rather than "civilly dissecting" someone else's work, why don't you improve it? We are here to learn. Make and post an alternate build so everyone can benefit from it. 
4. Also, last but not least, there are many words in the English language to define mediocrity to choose from. Yet, some of you picked the excrement. Guys, stop the name-calling.

/rant

[Miss Magical]

Asking for complete builds to copy and use has always felt like asking someone else to pick out all your clothes for you: highly likely to invite disappointment because it’s not what you wanted.

 

I do find it useful to look at builds because they sometimes provide new ideas on how to achieve certain goals. I just don’t copy the entire thing wholesale.

[Nerio72]

I like to wing it myself, but some people like to have a "guide" to look at. I agree with you some but there are alot of people who just like to share builds. Sometimes its not always "do it for me!" I had someone ask me for my WB/Nin build. I'm not sure anyone in their right mind would think that was an Uber build lol

[biostem]

IMO, people that ask for a build, or for their build to be critiqued, are looking to accomplish a certain level of performance or to accomplish a certain goal/task.  Those that want to "wing it" or decide as they play, wouldn't really post about their build or seek feedback on it.  I'm not really sure what the OP is trying to accomplish here, but folks that want to pick and choose powers and slots are already doing so...

[Dazl]

14 hours ago, Garymathers said:

I would love to make my own builds but can’t find a way to run mids on my Mac.

If you don’t have access to Mids the test server can be a good place to work on a build. All the IO’s are free, so you can play with different builds and test them in the same place.

[skoryy]

6 minutes ago, Dazl said:

If you don’t have access to Mids the test server can be a good place to work on a build. All the IO’s are free, so you can play with different builds and test them in the same place.

 

I always test new builds on Brainstorm before building them live now.  It's quite handy and helps me avoid making bad decisions with my merits and inf.  (Like that Elec/MC build.  Oooof.)

[A Cat]

I generally wing it myself. But there are often ways to improve builds in pretty unintuitive ways that i don't pick up on so it is always good to see what others have come up with. I think there is a lot of creativity and game knowledge involved. I freely admit my builds probably end up suboptimal since I wing it. I did use a build I found in an old thread for my elec/ea stalker and I'll be damned if that isn't my best character. Though it is also my most meta set combo too. Anyway, making builds is complicated and requires some knowledge, so I don't begrudge people for asking for them. 

[Aurora_Girl]

This has brought up a good point I hadn't considered: guides as written now aren't really like guides as they once were. 

 

Instead of descriptions of powers and their uses (every spawn as well as situationally), maybe the trend has become a simple build post with no context or explanation of *why*.

[kubwulf]

Newly returned player reporting as ordered, Ma'am!  (sir? Other?)

 

I like to ask questions.  "Does this still work the way I remember from 10+ years ago?"

 

I'm finding that there are a lot more options in the various classes than I remember and I don't know how they all work.  

 

That being said, I've brought a friend with me and he has questions.  "How does this work?  What power should I take?  What's best for X?"  My answer is the same: "Read the power.  See how it works.  There are free respecs in the game, so if you don't like a power, you can change it later.  You're under level 30, scrapping the toon and starting over won't kill you.  Take a different origin, get different contacts, see more of the lowbie missions."  In the end, you learn as you go.

 

Conversely, as a (formerly) experienced player, I'm interested in the meta and whether or not I can look at a build and understand how and why it works for what I want to do.  Fire/Spines Brute farmers, for example.  Back in the day, Fire/Ice Tanker was the way to go.  Gather the map, drop your Ice Patch, Drop burn, use Energy Torrent...  After looking at the options and seeing the damage potential, I can see why the Spines/Fire Brute is the preferred build.  But I like having the threads and players saying, "Build this." so I can examine it.  

Then again, looking at a pre-built character and assessing it for strengths and weaknesses is fun for me.  Fire will always suck as a general tanker set because of the lack of knockdown/knockback protection.  (I hate having to rely on temp powers for something I think should be in the base powersets.)

Anyways, that's my 2 influence worth.

[Sovera]

1 hour ago, kubwulf said:

Then again, looking at a pre-built character and assessing it for strengths and weaknesses is fun for me.  Fire will always suck as a general tanker set because of the lack of knockdown/knockback protection.  (I hate having to rely on temp powers for something I think should be in the base powersets.)

Anyways, that's my 2 influence worth.

 

!

*general forum population holding me back by the arms* No no, don't!

 

 

 

 

 

😄

[Ukase]

I am someone that knows how to make their own build. At least, for most powersets. 

There are some that I'm still a bit out of touch with - like Master Minds & Veats. For the most part, I'll slot for defense, HP and recharge. What order depends on AT and powersets. 
But, occasionally, there's a powerset I've never played before. Anecdotally, I had a water/time corruptor. It was my first corruptor, and I'd never played water or time before. I'd see a power in mids, read the description, but I still had a rough time determining if it was worth taking. Some things, you need to experience for yourself. Sometimes, tho, the community can give some decent insights and perspectives to consider. 

It might hurt someone, but it doesn't hurt me one bit to ask for some insights or suggestions. I learn a lot from just looking at various builds. One thing I do know - half the builders in this forum either know something I don't about procs or, there's something amiss about @bopper's proc spreadsheet. I plug the values for the procs in and see 44% odds of firing, and I ask myself why they'd slot that. I'm not gonna forgo a set bonus for something that's gonna work less than half the time. That's insane to me. But, to each their own. And that's another thread anyway.