Community portal/Archive 6

Front page not working correctly

I have heard a few accounts that the drop downs on the frontpage are not working correctly if you are using firefox and adblock plus. I tested it and that seems to be the case Fredor (talk) 09:08, 1 October 2015 (UTC)

I don't even know how to troubleshoot that. It's a very basic dropdown, next step would be requiring all information to be out in the open (and there is quite a bit of info, but perhaps we will have to do that). ChaseBot (talk) 00:16, 2 October 2015 (UTC)

For now I will leave them all open (which is gross, I'm sorry). Please let me know when we can revert (you can always try closing the open ones). ChaseBot (talk) 00:17, 2 October 2015 (UTC)

The trait pop ups also do not work correctly.

1. If adblocks is active they are not shown.
2. But they will pop up if you deactivate abp and refresh the page.
3. They also keep popping up if you reactivate abp and refresh after step 2
4. Clearing your browser history forces you back to step 1. Fredor (talk) 15:56, 6 October 2015 (UTC)

I'm unaware of another reliable technology for hover over tooltips. If you can find a website that Firefox + AdBlock is not removing tooltips for, let me know and perhaps we can do something. Otherwise this is unfortunate/unfixable. « Chase ♥ ♥ ♥ » 21:27, 6 October 2015 (UTC)

Strangely captchas are also blocked. Maybe it has something to do with cloudfare? Started afterwards i think Fredor (talk) 17:33, 7 October 2015 (UTC)

About the format

I was thinking that the format for Builds should be changed for more efficiency, maybe for just Ranked builds only. My suggestion: I would like to see The equipment, amulet, runes, sigils, to go under the SKill list and then the specialization. Why do I ask of this? Because of how the sPvP build box works. It is equipment first then click the tab to go to the traits. It's annoying to scroll down and then scroll back up. It is just a simple minor change that would make it a QoL. --Goruu (talk) 20:27, 6 October 2015 (UTC)

Always something I wanted to do actually. Please mock up an example on your user page « Chase ♥ ♥ ♥ » 21:25, 6 October 2015 (UTC)

Just put the Equipment section of each metabattle builds below the Skill bars(Weapon, healing, utility) and then put the trait specialization below the equipment section. It is a simple ctrl + x and ctrl + v. This is what I am talking about: http://i.imgur.com/a3lC2Jn.png?1 As explained, I am asking for this is because it would improve efficiency in changing builds. --Goruu (talk) 02:41, 7 October 2015 (UTC)

If we're at it maybe we should replace the "Counters" section in PvP with a "Pros and cons" one - we could shoehorn in he counters to Cons, or keep counters and just add pros and cons as an extra. --Hanz(talk) 09:29, 7 October 2015 (UTC)

So, what do you think about my suggestion? --Goruu (talk) 00:00, 9 October 2015 (UTC)

Makes sense, but I think it's a bit unnecessary plus we'd have to do it for every build in PvE and WvW too for consistency. --Hanz(talk) 11:54, 9 October 2015 (UTC)

Is editing the PvE/WvW sections format a bigger problem than ctrl + x/ctrl + v? Is there a reason to keep consistency if you think there is a bigger problem than ctrl + x/ctrl + v? --Goruu (talk) 02:40, 10 October 2015 (UTC)

I can see where Hanz is coming from. Let me see if I can figure out a "concise" method of showing traits/gear set up. This is a project I have wanted to finish for a while (among many other projects xP). « Chase ♥ ♥ ♥ » 16:00, 12 October 2015 (UTC)

I would argue that the introduction should have the equipment and a concise version of traits in it. Perhaps like so:

• Explosives: Top (Trait hover) | Mid (Trait Hover) | Bot (Trait Hover)
• Detonations: Bot (Trait hover) | Mid (Trait Hover) | Top (Trait Hover)
• Gyromancy: Mid (Trait hover) | Top (Trait Hover) | Bot (Trait Hover)

This way we can get everything in one screen at the very start of the build. This should show up before the skills bar imo because we really care about the utilities not the extra swap weapons/kits that are usually listed below it.

On the subject of Pros vs Cons, please give me a better example (I apologize for being a very hands-on learner). I think it might be better option, but currently I find the counters section helpful as well. « Chase ♥ ♥ ♥ » 22:08, 7 October 2015 (UTC)

Mantra shatter pros and cons for instance:

Pros

• Decent burst damage
• Plenty of hard CC, can lock down targets frequently
• Has better condition cleansing and sustain than other offensive mesmer builds

Cons

• Lack of Deceptive Evasion makes shatters less frequent and boon stipping less effective
• Lacks IMS (improved movement speed) by default
• Recharging mantras in combat can be quite hard under focus
• Has no access to stealth which can be an issue while trying to disengage

Maybe these could appear next to each other in 2 columns, idk. These could work well for PvE/WvW builds too. --Hanz(talk) 09:04, 8 October 2015 (UTC)

I think this would be better placed in the introduction at the very top as sentences as opposed to bullet points. « Chase ♥ ♥ ♥ » 14:36, 8 October 2015 (UTC)

An example of putting the weapons/sigils/rune/amulet/traits at the start of the pvp build. What do you think? « Chase ♥ ♥ ♥ » 17:15, 12 October 2015 (UTC)

It might be useful for discussion pages but I don't see the point of people getting this information 1 second sooner than by scrolling down. --Hanz(talk) 17:59, 12 October 2015 (UTC)

Raid section

Is a Raid section planned or do you want to merge it into the dungeon section? Fredor (talk) 10:45, 7 October 2015 (UTC)

A raid section is planned. I'm against having builds in the first week of raids. Players should have fun figuring out their methods, and no one will have a good grasp on "Meta" anyways. It may also be that there are multiple effective ways to run the same raid but that different raids require significantly different compositions. In which case we will have to switch to a Team based system on a raid by raid basis. Therefore, I would suggest that if one were interested in posting a raid build/comp, to do so on their user page. We will definitely not have a raid section the first week that raids are out. It's a dis-service to the "experience" of figuring out what works and what is effective as well as to our users who will believe that there is only one shoe-horned method as opposed to promoting creativity/learning the new encounters. « Chase ♥ ♥ ♥ » 22:13, 7 October 2015 (UTC)

Yeah you are right about them testing stuff but I do not see a problem with day one raid builds. I think that it will be similiar to the pvp section during the last update. Tons and tons of builds will pop up and it wil take weeks and months until everything is tested an ready to form a meta. Fredor (talk) 05:56, 8 October 2015 (UTC)

Q3 2015 has started

And I don't think we finished Q2 goals, so here's our Q2 recap and Q3 goals (lol xP):

Q2 Recap

• PvE Build completed
• Guides implemented into main page drop downs
• Food templates were implemented!
  • Dungeon Consumables Guide created
• New Rating System was made
  • "Good" was added to rating system
• Zerg + Roaming was consolidated to "WvW" and is now GvG based (as it was the only truly rule based game mode in all of WvW)
• Variants format was created for our specializations
• Instead of Trial + Test confusion we moved to a Draft ⇒ Test naming convention
• Moved to CloudFlare for server reliability
• Created a "twitch" template for embedding twitch videos/live-streams.

Q3 Goals

• Create elite specialization templates (How-to / Tutorial_on_adding_new_specializations, please help me out on this ladies and gentlemen!)
  • master sheet for reference. They are all completed now.
• Create elite specialization utility skills / weapon skills as well
  • @Hanz: Please update these bullet points with what is missing
• @Chase: Create new templates that allow users to dictate all weapon sets much more easily. Completed:
  • Revenant
  • Thief
• Hall of Heroes page (where all "winning" team comps are saved for significant tournaments)
  • @Hanz: This should be a thing for major tournaments starting with HoT. Let me know what you need to make this easier. I'm hoping the above template system will help somewhat.
  • @Chase: Stats for professions/builds like how often does D/D Ele actually win games for tournaments based on hall of heros.
• Public stress test of ratings system (If you guys think we've done enough testing, then we can strike this off)
• Class guides (We got good feedback for our bunker one, that is quite hefty and specialized to a single role for a single game type, do you think class guides would be a good idea?)
• @Chase: Adding a calendar of PvP tournaments (as well as GvG/Dungeon one's if they are created)
• Calculator/Build Editor based on our tooltip system. This would be like creating an open source gw2skills. Two professionsl programmers wanted to do this and offered to work on it with us and then got too busy. Personally I think it's very difficult to do. I would not work on this alone.

Feel free to start any other discussions that are long-term / over-arching here as well. « Chase ♥ ♥ ♥ » 22:41, 7 October 2015 (UTC)

• Templates: Yeah sorry, I would like to help, but my schedule is filled to the brim until xmas
• Ratings: We have done a stress test? Did we even announce that we have a rating system?
• Guides: Guides are a great idea but we kinda need more user to tackle this problem
• Skill calc: That's a great idea! But also something you have to spend quite many ressources on to create a beta template the users can expand. Fredor (talk) 13:05, 8 October 2015 (UTC)

ratings: looking at the venom thief ratings, I do not think that our community will ever learn what it means to be objective. The only thing we can try is to get in way more votes to balance the ratings a bit. Fredor (talk) 06:01, 13 October 2015 (UTC)

This is an issue because GW2 has a very casual population/content. In HoT we trust! :P Actually we'd only need 3-5 people with common sense for each area to rate builds, that would be enough to get the ratings right. --Hanz(talk) 07:22, 13 October 2015 (UTC)

which we do not have ^^. Right now we can only vote to counterbalance the subjective votes Fredor (talk) 08:50, 13 October 2015 (UTC)

Pretty much, yeah. --Hanz(talk) 09:18, 13 October 2015 (UTC)

Reaper and Chrono skills are done, except 1-2 chain skills, but those are barely used here so 1st things 1st. I'll start working on reve today. Meanwhie going for Legend in hearthstone. --Hanz(talk) 14:15, 17 October 2015 (UTC)

Good luck ;) « Chase ♥ ♥ ♥ » 21:01, 17 October 2015 (UTC)

Finished revenant & herald, if anyone finds quality Energy Cost and Upkeep images feel free to upload them. --Hanz(talk) 15:09, 18 October 2015 (UTC)

We might have to cobble something together. The official wiki also has only a placeholder triangle Fredor (talk) 15:18, 18 October 2015 (UTC)

They aren't very up to date when it comes to revenant, most mallyx skills were still 2 balance patches behind. --Hanz(talk) 15:31, 18 October 2015 (UTC)

Might well be, but do they really need more than a triangle and a number for enegry cost? Fredor (talk) 15:52, 18 October 2015 (UTC)

An e-sport game deserves more Kappa Btw triangle is for upkeep :P --Hanz(talk) 15:57, 18 October 2015 (UTC)

Images will come with the new .dat file in HoT. I'll upload them then. We can use some place-keeper for now and over write it later « Chase ♥ ♥ ♥ » 18:35, 18 October 2015 (UTC)

Need confirmation on Revenant - Devestation - 2, it is named Rapid Lacerations on GW2Skills (what we ended up using) vs Vicious Lacerations on the wiki (not using). What is correct? ChaseBot (talk) 16:10, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

Need confirmation on Revenant - Retribution - 6. We used "Dwarven Battle Training" and chance on hit to apply weakness vs Redeeming Protection and gain prot when disabled ChaseBot (talk) 16:31, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

All specializations are completed. Please provide confirmation for above two questions. Going to work on skills templates for all classes now. If anyone feels like updating icons with the correct one in specializations you can see what was done for the Revenant Minor Traits as a template. « Chase ♥ ♥ ♥ » 17:10, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

Devastation #2 is rapid, pretty sure. Idk about the other one. Btw while gw2skills is more up to date with some skills than the wiki (mallyx ones, for instance), they the wiki is ahead with some others like dragonhunter traps, so it's hard to work from 1 source. The skills that are missing: every tempest one, druid 6-10, berserker 6-10. I think the rest shoud be done, except for chain skills and some class mechanics (I did complete Reaper Shroud and mesmer F5, but not the others). --Hanz(talk) 17:27, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

Another problem with the wiki is that their trait order is wrong - for instance on Chronomancer the current trait placements don't sync with the ingame ones. --Hanz(talk) 17:59, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

Wiki is alphabetical, I don't think they're trying to have the correct order. I used gw2skills for ordering. Not sure what to do now, they're all done. I guess we can move them around after the game comes back because I sure do not remember it all properly. ChaseBot (talk) 18:17, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

Checked it, all of the specs you added seem to be in the correct order except for Chrono. --Hanz(talk) 20:34, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

Okay, I'll re-do chrono after finishing 4 more skills templates. I'm going to assume gw2skills is correct ChaseBot (talk) 20:56, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

Elite spec build naming

Imo it should be Build:Druid - Bearstaff (while still keeping Ranger in the category template), instead of Build:Ranger- Druid Bearstaff --Hanz(talk) 14:18, 17 October 2015 (UTC)

I'll second that. But what about the ratings? Shall we delete or reevaluate them when the patch hits? Fredor (talk) 17:15, 17 October 2015 (UTC)

If a build becomes heavily outclassed ⇒ archive, otherwise leave it alone I guess and rate new ones based on how effective they are compared to current ones. --Hanz(talk) 17:20, 17 October 2015 (UTC)

Correct. « Chase ♥ ♥ ♥ » 20:59, 17 October 2015 (UTC)

New Skills Template

Hello. Worked very hard today. With HoT coming up in two days, I want to help make new builds easier to type. One step in doing that is the skills section. Variants will be done as per usual, but the new system allows setting up weapons etc much easier. Some notes follow the examples.

Dagger/Dagger

Healing

Utility

Elite

½

Dragon's Claw

Fling fire in a claw-shaped spread at your foe.

Damage per Projectile: 91

Range: 400

2¼

5

Drake's Breath

Spray a cone of fire at foes while on the move.

₄Damage: 712

₄Burning (2½s): 1,048 Damage

Number of Targets: 5

Range: 400

¾

15

Burning Speed

Slide forward and blast the area, leaving behind a line of fire that burns foes.

Blast Damage: 710

Fire Wall Damage: 36

Burning (1½s): 131 Damage

Number of Targets: 5

Fire Wall Duration: 4 seconds

Blast Radius: 240

Evade: ¾ seconds

Combo Field: Fire

Range: 600

¼

15

Ring of Fire

Damage nearby foes with a ring of fire, burning foes that pass through it.

Damage: 441

₂Initial Burning (4s): 1,048 Damage

Pass-Through Burning (2s): 262 Damage

Ring of Fire Duration: 5 seconds

Radius: 240

Combo Field: Fire

¾

30

Fire Grab

Damage foes in a cone in front of you. Deal more damage to burning foes.

Damage: 426

Damage vs. Burning: 682

Number of Targets: 5

Range: 300

1

25

Signet of Restoration

Signet Passive: Grants health every time you cast a spell.
Signet Active: Heal yourself.

Healing: 3,275

Healing Per Cast: 202

40

Lightning Flash

Cantrip. Teleport to target area.

Damage: 365

Number of Targets: 1

Radius: 120

Range: 900

75

Armor of Earth

Cantrip. Protect yourself with earth armor and gain protection and stability.

Protection (6s): -33% Incoming Damage

₁₀Stability (6s): Cannot be knocked down, pushed back, pulled, launched, stunned, dazed, floated, sunk, feared, or taunted.

Duration: 6 seconds

Breaks stun

40

Cleansing Fire

Cantrip. Cure three conditions and burn foes.

₃Burning (4s): 1,572 Damage

Conditions Removed: 3

Number of Targets: 5

Radius: 240

1

180

Conjure Fiery Greatsword

Conjure. Manifest a fiery greatsword in your hands and at the target location. When it lands, it damages and burns foes. Wielders of this weapon gain increased power and condition damage.

Damage: 246

Conjure Fire Attributes: 260 Power, 180 Condition Damage

Number of Charges: 15

Burning (3s): 984 Damage

Number of Targets: 3

Duration: 60 seconds

Radius: 150

Range: 1,200

½

Vapor Blade

Cast a vapor blade that inflicts vulnerability and returns to you.

Damage: 80

Vulnerability (6s): 1% Incoming Damage

Number of Targets: 5

Range: 600

2¼

10

Cone of Cold

Spray an icy blast in a cone that damages foes and heals allies.

₄Damage: 488

Healing: 740

Number of Targets: 5

Range: 400

¼

12

Frozen Burst

Detonate a burst of ice that chills nearby foes.

Damage: 103

Chilled (3s): -66% Movement Speed, -66% Skill Recharge Rate

Number of Targets: 5

Radius: 240

Combo Finisher: Blast

40

Frost Aura

Protect yourself with frost armor that reduces incoming damage by 10%. While active, it chills foes that hit you. Each attaker can be affected by this only once per second.

Frost Aura (7s): -10% Incoming Damage

Chilled (2s): -66% Movement Speed, -66% Skill Recharge Rate

¾

40

Cleansing Wave

Heal yourself and nearby allies, curing a condition.

Healing: 1,302

Conditions Removed: 1

Number of Targets: 5

Radius: 240

½

Lightning Whip

Lash your foe with lightning.

₂Damage: 344

Number of Targets: 3

Range: 300

¾

10

Lightning Touch

Shock your foe and inflict weakness.

Damage: 146

Weakness (5s): -50% Endurance Regeneration, 50% Fumble (Unrestricted)

Number of Targets: 3

Range: 300

25

Shocking Aura

Envelop yourself with electrical energy that stuns nearby foes if they attack you. Each attaker can be affected by this only once every 2 seconds.

Shocking Aura (4s): Stun nearby attacking foes with an electric shock (only once per 2 seconds for each attacker).

Stun (1s): Unable to use skills or move.

40

Ride the Lightning

Ride the lightning to your foe, then strike all nearby foes with an electrical burst. If a foe is hit by the burst, the skills's recharge is halved.

Damage: 244

Number of Targets: 5

Radius: 180

Range: 1,200

40

Updraft

Gain swiftness from a gust of wind that launches nearby foes.

Swiftness (10s): 33% Movement Speed

Launch: 200

Number of Targets: 5

Radius: 180

Evade: 1 second

¾

Impale

Spear your foes on a giant stone spike.

Damage: 122

Bleeding (8s): 340 Damage

Range: 300

¾

6

Ring of Earth

Bleed foes with a ring of rocky spikes.

Damage: 306

Bleeding (12s): 510 Damage

Cripple (3s): -50% Movement Speed

Number of Targets: 5

Radius: 240

Block Missiles

½

12

Magnetic Grasp

Immobilize your foe, making them vulnerable to a Magnetic Leap attack.

Damage: 24

Immobilize (2s): Unable to move.

Combo Finisher: Physical Projectile

Range: 900

Unblockable

¾

45

Earthquake

Trigger a quake at your location, knocking down foes and dealing massive damage.

Damage: 244

Knockdown: 2 seconds

Number of Targets: 5

Radius: 240

Combo Finisher: Blast

3¼

30

Churning Earth

Make the earth churn, crippling nearby foes before unleashing a seismic wave that damages and bleeds them.

Damage: 792

₈Bleeding (8s): 2,720 Damage

₄Cripple (1s): -50% Movement Speed

Number of Targets: 5

Radius: 360

Combo Finisher: Blast

{{Skills
|Elementalist
|Dagger/Dagger
|Signet of Restoration
|Lightning Flash
|Armor of Earth
|Cleansing Fire
|Conjure Fiery Greatsword
}}

1/5th (20%) the usual number of characters required.

Staff

Healing

Utility

1¼

Solar Beam

Fire a concentrated beam of light, damaging the target foe and healing allies inside of the beam.

Damage: 121

Healing: 66

Number of Targets: 3

Pulses: 3

Range: 1,200

¾

8

Astral Wisp

Send a wisp to attack your foe. While attached it will circle the foe, healing allies it passes through.

Damage: 323

Healing: 322

Duration: 5s

Radius: 130

Range: 1,200

1¼

15

Ancestral Grace

Become a wisp of natural energy traversing to the target location. When you reach the target, heal nearby allies.

Healing: 1,610

Number of Targets: 5

Evade: until reaching the destination

Radius: 240

Combo Finisher: Blast

Range: 1,200

¾

20

Vine Surge

Send forth vines that immobilize enemies and cleanse conditions from allies.

Damage: 202

Immobilize (1s): Unable to move.

Condition Removed

Condition Removed

Condition Removed

Number of Impacts: 7

Number of Targets: 3

Range: 1,200

25

Sublime Conversion

Summon an energy barrier that causes enemy projectiles to heal upon impact.

Healing: 162

Duration: 5s

Range: 900

"We Heal as One!"

1

20

"We Heal as One!"

Shout. Heal yourself and your pet. You each gain a copy of the other's boons.

Healing: 6,520

Boons copied: 11

Utility Skill in Parameter 5 was incorrectly assigned. Please use any of the following: x (empty), "Guard!" (guard/Guard), "Protect Me!" (pm), "Search and Rescue!" (sar), "Sic 'Em!" (se), Signet of Renewal, Signet of Stone, Signet of the Hunt, Signet of the Wild, Frost Spirit, Stone Spirit, Storm Spirit, Sun Spirit, Lightning Reflexes, Muddy Terrain, Quickening Zephyr, Sharpening Stone, Flame Trap, Frost Trap, Spike Trap, Viper's Nest, Glyph of Alignment, Glyph of Equality, Glyph of the Tides, Glyph of Empowerment.

Greatsword

½

Slash

Chain. Slash your foe.

Damage: 135

Number of Targets: 3

Range: 150

¾

6

Maul

Attack your foe with the force of a bear.

Damage: 394

₅Vulnerability (8s): 5% Incoming Damage

Number of Targets: 5

Range: 220

1¾

12

Swoop

Run and leap at your foe, hitting them and nearby foes.

Damage: 244

Number of Targets: 3

Evade Duration While Swinging: 0.5 seconds

Combo Finisher: Leap

Range: 1,100

3

15

Counterattack

Block and counter an attack with a kick that pushes foes back.

Damage: 317

Knockback: 300

½

25

Hilt Bash

Daze your foe with a hilt bash. Stun them if you hit from behind. Your pet's next attack does 50% more damage.

Damage: 122

Daze (1½s): Unable to use skills.

Stun (1½s): Unable to use skills or move.

Range: 300

Purposefully broken template to show you
what happens. Note the abbreviations for shouts.
Also note that you no longer have to define any
f***ing "type" parameters any longer. Greatsword
had 3 skills requiring the type parameter.

{{Skills
|Ranger
|Staff
|Greatsword
|whao
|idk mang0
}}

You'll see that it tells you which parameter
(Parameters are numbered by the | (bar) character)
is wrong and what you could have typed instead.
You'll also note that most classes (aside from ele
and engi) have the first two parameters as weapons.

And once again...

Say good-bye to this:
{{SwapWeap
|Label=Greatsword
|Skill1=Slash (ranger greatsword skill)
|Skill2=Maul (ranger greatsword skill)
|Skill3=Swoop
|Skill4=Counterattack
|Skill5=Hilt Bash
}}

And hello to this:

{{Skills
|Ranger
|Greatsword
}}

Dagger/Dagger

Healing

Utility

Elite

Double Strike

Chain. Strike your foe twice.

₂Damage: 138

Number of Targets: 2

Range: 130

3

¾

Heartseeker

Leap and strike your foe. The less health your target has, the more damage you cause.

Above 50%: 244

Below 50%: 365

Below 25%: 487

Combo Finisher: Leap

Range: 450

4

½

Death Blossom

Dual Wield. Do an evasive attack over your target, striking nearby foes three times. Each hit causes bleeding.

₃Damage: 147

₃Bleeding (10s): 1,275 Damage

Evade: 0.25 seconds

Combo Finisher: Whirl

Range: 130

3

¼

Dancing Dagger

Throw a dagger that cripples nearby foes and returns to you.

Damage: 122

Cripple (3s): -50% Movement Speed

Number of Bounces: 3

Combo Finisher: Physical Projectile

Range: 900

6

½

Cloak and Dagger

Stab your foe and vanish in stealth, leaving them vulnerable.

Damage: 444

Stealth (3s): Invisible to foes.

₃Vulnerability (5s): 3% Incoming Damage

Range: 130

1¼

15

Signet of Malice

Signet Passive: Heals when your attack.
Signet Active: Gain health.

Signet of Malice: 132

Healing: 3,275

½

30

Smoke Screen

Deception. Create a smoke screen that blocks projectiles and blinds foes.

Blindness (1s): Next outgoing attack misses.

Smoke Screen Duration: 7 seconds

Combo Field: Smoke

Unblockable

45

Assassin's Signet

Signet Passive: Grants increased power.
Signet Active: Deal 15% more damage on your next five attacks.

Passive Power Increase: 180 Power

₅Assassin's Signet (20s): Deal 15% more damage on your next five attacks.

30

Signet of Agility

Signet Passive: Grants increased precision.
Signet Active: Refills endurance and cure a condition for each nearby allies.

Passive Effect: 180 Precision

Conditions Removed: 1

Endurance Gain: 100

Number of Targets: 5

Radius: 360

1½

180

Thieves Guild

Deception. Call more thieves to support you in combat.

Number of Thieves: 2

Duration: 30 seconds

Sword/Pistol

Slice

Chain. Slice your foe.

Damage: 195

Range: 130

3

Infiltrator's Strike

Shadowstep to a foe and strike them. Use Shadow Return to shadowstep back and cure one condition.

Damage: 183

Immobilize (1s): Unable to move.

Range: 600

6

¾

Pistol Whip

Dual Wield. Pistol whip your foe, stunning them, then slash repeatedly with your sword.

₉Damage: 765

Stun (½s): Unable to use skills or move.

Range: 130

4

Headshot

Daze your foe with a head shot.

Damage: 61

Daze (¼s): Unable to use skills.

Combo Finisher: Physical Projectile

Range: 900

6

½

Black Powder

Fire a black powder shot, blinding nearby foes with the smoke cloud.

Damage: 62

Blindness (2s): Next outgoing attack misses.

Number of Targets: 5

Pulses: 3

Duration: 4 seconds

Interval: 2 seconds

Radius: 120

Combo Field: Smoke

Combo Finisher: Physical Projectile

Range: 900

Shortbow

¼

Trick Shot

Bounce an arrow between multiple nearby foes.

Damage: 134

Number of Bounces: 2

Combo Finisher: Physical Projectile

Range: 900

3

½

Cluster Bomb

Fire a cluster bomb at the target area. Detonate in midair for multiple explosions.

Large Explosion: 353

Bleeding (4s): 170 Damage

Number of Targets: 5

Radius: 240

Combo Finisher: Blast

Range: 900

4

¼

Disabling Shot

Do an evasive leap away from your foe while firing a crippling shot.

Damage: 122

Cripple (2s): -50% Movement Speed

Evade: 0.5 seconds

Combo Finisher: Physical Projectile

Range: 900

4

½

Choking Gas

Fire an arrow that fills the target area with a poisonous cloud.

Damage: 71

Poison (2s): 67 Damage, -33% Heal Effectiveness

Number of Targets: 5

Pulses: 4

Field Duration: 4 seconds

Radius: 240

Combo Field: Poison

Range: 900

Unblockable

6

Infiltrator's Arrow

Fire an arrow and shadowstep to the target area, blinding nearby foes.

Blindness (5s): Next outgoing attack misses.

Number of Targets: 3

Radius: 120

Range: 900

Showing 3 weapon sets.

{{Skills
|Thief
|Dagger/Dagger
|Sword/Pistol
|Signet of Malice
|Smoke Screen
|Assassin's Signet
|Signet of Agility
|Thieves Guild
}}
{{Skills|Thief|Shortbow}}

Hammer

Healing

Utility

Elite

½

Positive Strike

Smack your hammer into your foe while empowering yourself.

Damage: 323

Might (8s): +30 Power, +30 Condition Damage

Number of Targets: 3

Range: 130

1

6

Electro-whirl

Spin around, reflecting missiles and hitting enemies.

₂Damage: 888

Number of Impacts: 2

Number of Targets: 3

Radius: 180

Reflect Missiles

Combo Finisher: Whirl

1¾

10

Rocket Charge

Dash forward with a rocket-charged hammer to damage enemies.

₃Damage: 1,212

Number of Impacts: 3

Number of Targets: 5

Radius: 240

Combo Finisher: Leap

Evade: 1s

Range: 1,000

20

Shock Shield

Magnetize your hammer, blocking attacks while striking foes in front of you.

₅Damage: 1,010

₁₀Vulnerability: 10% Incoming Damage, 10% Incoming Condition Damage

Number of Targets: 5

Duration: 2s

Range: 170

¾

24

Thunderclap

Ionize an area, bringing down the power of lightning to stun foes and damage them over its duration.

₆Damage: 1,452

Vulnerability (8s): 1% Incoming Damage, 1% Incoming Condition Damage

Stun: 1s

Pulses: 6

Interval: 1s

Radius: 240

Combo Field: Lightning

Range: 1,200

½

25

Blast Gyro Tag

Gyro. Hurl a tracking dart for your blast gyro to seek out and detonate at.

Damage: 1,065

Targeting: 80

Launch: 450

Radius: 240

Unblockable

Range: 1,500

½

40

Elixir C

Elixir. Drink Elixir C, converting all conditions into random boons.

Duration: 5 seconds

1

180

Supply Crate

Turret. Request a supply drop of turrets.

Damage: 266

Stun (2s): Unable to use skills or move.

Duration: 60 seconds

Radius: 240

Combo Finisher: Blast

Range: 1,200

Template with blank spaces. Our new
"optional" boxes without the question marks.

{{Skills
|Engineer
|Hammer
|x
|Blast Gyro Tag
|Elixir C
|x
|Supply Crate
}}

10

Legendary Dragon Stance

Invoke the power of the legendary dragon Glint.

10

Legendary Centaur Stance

Invoke the power of the legendary centaur Ventari.

Staff

Healing

Utility

Elite

½

Rapid Swipe

Swipe your staff at your foe.

Damage: 339

Number of Targets: 3

Range: 130

¾

5

5

Punishing Sweep

Sweep your staff at your foe. Gain access to Debilitating Slam if your foe is using a skill when struck.

Damage: 509

Weakness (3s): -50% Endurance Regeneration, 50% Fumble (Unrestricted)

Number of Targets: 3

Range: 130

1½

10

10

Warding Rift

Create a rift from the Mists, warding you from attacks. While the rift is open projectiles will hit nearby foes, blinding them.

Damage: 138

Blind (4s): Next outgoing attack misses.

Number of Targets: 3

Duration: 2s

Range: 600

1

15

15

Renewing Wave

Send out a wave of mist energy that heals and removes conditions from allies.

Healing: 1,295

Conditions Removed: 2

Number of Targets: 5

Combo Finisher: Blast

Range: 300

1

15

20

Surge of the Mists

Charge forward, knocking back enemies that cross your path.

₉Damage: 2,745

Knockback: 120

Evade: ½s

Number of Targets: 3

Range: 600

-1

Facet of Light

Legendary Dragon Stance. Place the facet of light on yourself to grant nearby allies regeneration every few seconds.

Facet of Light: Pulse regeneration to nearby allies every few seconds.

Regeneration (3s): 390 Health

Number of Targets: 5

Interval: 3s

Radius: 600

-2

Facet of Darkness

Legendary Dragon Stance. Place the facet of darkness on yourself to grant nearby allies fury every few seconds.

Facet of Darkness: Pulse fury to nearby allies every few seconds.

Fury (3s): 20% Critical Chance

Number of Targets: 5

Interval: 3s

Radius: 600

-1

Facet of Elements

Legendary Dragon Stance. Place the facet of elements on yourself to grant nearby allies swiftness every few seconds.

Facet of Elements: Pulse swiftness to nearby allies every few seconds.

Swiftness (3s): 33% Movement Speed

Number of Targets: 5

Interval: 3s

Radius: 600

-2

Facet of Strength

Legendary Dragon Stance. Place the facet of strength on yourself to grant nearby allies might every few seconds.

Facet of Strength: Pulse might to nearby allies every few seconds.

Might (12s): +30 Power, +30 Condition Damage

Number of Targets: 5

Interval: 3s

Radius: 600

-5

Facet of Chaos

Legendary Dragon Stance. Place the facet of chaoson yourself to grant nearby allies protection every few seconds.

Facet of Chaos: Pulse protection to nearby allies every few seconds.

Protection (3s): -33% Incoming Damage

Number of Targets: 5

Interval: 3s

Radius: 600

Mace/Shield

Healing

Utility

Elite

¼

Misery Swipe

Swing your mace at your foe.

Damage: 124

Torment (4s): 64 Damage, 127 Damage if Moving

Number of Targets: 3

Range: 130

¾

5

3

Searing Fissure

Smash your mace into the ground, causing flame to erupt from the Mists.

Damage: 66

Burning (4s): 524

Number of Targets: 5

Pulses: 4

Duration: 3s

Combo Field: Fire

Range: 480

¾

5

8

Echoing Eruption

Leap at your foe and deliver a massive attack that cascades outwards. Each attack area is a blast finisher and applies torment.

Damage: 355

₃Torment (6s): 286 Damage, 572 Damage if Moving

Number of Impacts: 3

Number of Targets: 3

Pulses: 4

Radius: 180

Combo Finisher: Blast

Range: 410

¾

10

15

Envoy of Exuberance

Send energy of Glint towards the target area granting protection to allies before releasing a burst of energy healing allies and returning to you. It also grants protection on the way back.

Healing: 1,940

Protection (2s): -33% Incoming Damage

Number of Targets: 5

Radius: 240

Range: 900

Unblockable

3

20

25

Crystal Hibernation

Channel a shield from the mists to protect you, blocking attacks and regenerating health.

Healing: 975

Pulses: 4

Duration: 3s

¼

10

2

Project Tranquility

Legendary Centaur Stance. Project Ventari's tablet into the world. The tablet will heal allies near it every few seconds. (The tablet will disappear if you move outside the tether distance.)

Healing: 325

Number of Targets: 5

Interval: 3s

Radius: 240

Tether Distance: 1,500

Range: 900

-8

5

Protective Solace

Legendary Centaur Stance. Summon a protective barrier around the tablett that destoys projectiles.

Duration: 20s

Radius: 240

Combo Field: Light

20

2

Natural Harmony

Legendary Centaur Stance. Collect energy, pulling it into the tablet to build up its power. After a short delay the energy will be released, healing nearby allies.

Healing: 1,620

Number of Targets: 5

Delay Time: 2s

Radius: 240

30

5

Purifying Essence

Legendary Centaur Stance. Remove conditions from allies near the tablet, and heal them for a small amount per condition removed.

Healinging Per Conditions Removed: 381

Conditions Removed: 3

Number of Targets: 5

Radius: 240

1

35

Energy Expulsion

Legendary Centaur Stance. Force energy to erupt from the tablet, knocking back foes and leaving behind energy fragments that heal allies.

Healing Fragment: 1,265

Knockback: 450

Number of Targets: 5

Number of Fragments: 5

Fragment Duration: 5s

Combo Finisher: Blast

Radius: 450

Revenant Specific Example to show that it
differs from the norm. Note that legends are simply
one word.

{{Skills|Revenant|Staff|Mace/Shield|Dragon|Centaur}}

Greatsword

Healing

Utility

Elite

½

Greatsword Swing

Chain. Slash your foe.

Damage: 170

Vulnerability (8s): 1% Incoming Damage

Range: 130

3½

8

Hundred Blades

Repeatedly strike multiple foes. The last strike does extra damage.

₈Damage: 1,032

Final Strike Damage: 271

Number of Targets: 3

Range: 130

1

10

Whirlwind Attack

Whirl in a target's direction, slashing foes along your path.

Damage: 164

Number of Impacts: 4

Number of Targets: 3

Evade: 0.75 seconds

Combo Finisher: Whirl

Range: 450

¾

15

Bladetrail

Throw your greatsword at your foe so that it returns to you, crippling foes along the way.

Damage: 183

Cripple (4s): -50% Movement Speed

Combo Finisher: Physical Projectile

Range: 900

2

20

Rush

Charge and strike your foe.

Damage: 414

Range: 1,200

1¼

20

Healing Signet

Signet Passive: Regenerate health.
Signet Active: Heal yourself, and grant yourself resistance.

Healing: 2,320

Healing Signet: 362 Heal

Resistance (6s): Conditions currently on you are ineffective; stacks duration.

Interval: 1 second

1

120

Banner of Strength

Banner. Place a banner that improves power and condition damage for you and nearby allies.

Banner of Strength: 170 Power, 170 Condition Damage

Duration: 90 seconds

Effective Radius: 600

Combo Finisher: Blast

Range: 600

1

120

Banner of Discipline

Banner. Place a banner that improves precision and critical damage for you and nearby allies.

Banner of Discipline: 170 Precision, 170 Ferocity

Duration: 90 seconds

Effective Radius: 600

Combo Finisher: Blast

Range: 600

¼

30

Signet of Fury

Signet Passive: Improves precision.
Signet Active: Gain adrenaline.

Signet of Fury: 180 Precision

Adrenaline: 30

1

60

Signet of Rage

Signet Passive: Grants adrenaline.
Signet Active: Gain fury, might, and swiftness.

Signet of Rage: Gain adrenaline.

Fury (25s): 20% Critical Chance

₅Might (25s): 150 Power, 150 Condition Damage

Swiftness (25s): 33% Movement Speed

Axe/Mace

¼

Chop

Chain. Chop your foe.

Damage: 170

Range: 130

½

6

Cyclone Axe

Spin around and attack all nearby foes.

₂Damage: 170

₄Vulnerability (8s): 4% Incoming Damage

Combo Finisher: Whirl

Range: 130

¼

10

Throw Axe

Throw an axe that cripple foes.

Damage: 163

Cripple (4s): -50% Movement Speed

Combo Finisher: Physical Projectile

Range: 900

¾

15

Crushing Blow

Crush your opponent's armor, leaving them vulnerable.

Damage: 244

₁₀Vulnerability (10s): 10% Incoming Damage

Range: 130

½

25

Tremor

Send a wave toward your foe that knocks down foes in a line.

Damage: 195

Knockdown: 2 seconds

Number of Targets: 6

Combo Finisher: Physical Projectile

Range: 1,200

Normal / average example

{{Skills
|Warrior
|Greatsword
|Axe/Mace
|Healing Signet
|Banner of Strength
|Banner of Discipline
|Signet of Fury
|Signet of Rage
}}

Still typing only 1/3rd (33%) as much.

You can put them all on one line as well. But I find multiline more readable and it's definitely easier to edit with separate lines. Inserting a space between the | (bar) and the parameter value will cause errors / break the template. Let's make the norm multi-line.

Shouts have abbreviations. You can type the shout in with quotes and exclamation points or follow the two rules (always lower case when substituting!). Whenever possible, please capitalize for readability.

• If it has more than one word use an abbreviation (Example: "Chilled to the bone!" => cttb)
• If it is just one word then it's that word in lower case or capitalized (Example: "Rise!" => rise / "Rise!" => Rise)

Empty slots are indicated by "x". Please don't skip a parameter unless you want to know what is available. (The template will spew all the possible results you can input for a field). This makes it so that if you are not able to figure out how a shout is actually typed in you can just leave that heal/utility/elite parameter blank, and when you preview the page / save the page it will tell you what you can fit in that parameter.

Another way of skipping parameters is never typing them. Typing two weapon sets and a heal skill and then closing it will properly skip the utilities and elite skills. This works for Revenant as well, typing the first Legend will properly show the blank skills for the second legend automatically. You can also skip both legends if you wanted and close the skills template after two weapon sets.

There may be many mistakes. I cannot go through all of them at once. As they come up please post mistakes below and not on my talk page. Hoping this makes it easier for you guys. Future updates will allow for more abbreviations (such as writing d/d for Dagger/Dagger). If you think there is a very common abbreviation being used, please request it below as well. Still getting around to adding engineer kits (elementalist was plenty hard to start out). I will also add more in this system for showing death shroud vs reaper skills on necromancer, or perhaps including burst skills for berserker warrior etc. Let me know what you think so far. « Chase ♥ ♥ ♥ » 00:57, 22 October 2015 (UTC)

Finally thank you Q.Q Fredor (talk) 04:53, 22 October 2015 (UTC)

I think your soul is mine thingy is broken Fredor (talk) 05:54, 22 October 2015 (UTC)

Woah gj! :D Hanz

Also broken http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Herald_-_S/A#Specializations Fredor (talk) 14:20, 22 October 2015 (UTC)

Your soul is mine discussion on hanz talk page. Herald page was fixed. Single line comments please (I know it's weird.) ChaseBot (talk) 15:02, 22 October 2015 (UTC)

Yeah maybe, but the shout abbreviations have to link to the right skill don't they? Fredor (talk) 19:38, 22 October 2015 (UTC)

Rating Tab

Should not appear on checking "diff" of page, history of page, editing any build/talk page, new pages. This will hopefully improve the experience. If you can find another place where it is showing up where it shouldn't please list below. Hopefully it can be fixed now. « Chase ♥ ♥ ♥ » 19:16, 22 October 2015 (UTC)

While were already at it. If ig go to recent ratings and then click on one of the ratings a special page gets created without option to go to the build. Is that intended? Fredor (talk) 19:35, 22 October 2015 (UTC)

Tested all 3 kinds of links on that page with both Chrome and Firefox. Not able to reproduce your error. Do you have javascript explicitly disabled? Might be time to start trying Chrome with AdBlock... « Chase ♥ ♥ ♥ » 19:57, 22 October 2015 (UTC)

In fact I even installed adblock and the main page works fine. I also have the rating tab links all creating proper tabs. Going to reset our front page to how it was. Sorry this affects you personally, but I'm not sure most users are having your problem. I'll help you troubleshoot it so you can experience the site as well as everyone else. « Chase ♥ ♥ ♥ » 20:02, 22 October 2015 (UTC)

I found a spelling error on the rating site. In the sentence 'Indicate it's effectivess or ease of use within the category's ruleset.' it should be effectiveness. Neijala (talk) 21:52, 17 December 2015 (UTC)

Fixed -- ty. Also noticed that it's supposed to be "its" as opposed to "it's". Double whammy! ChaseBot (talk) 23:47, 17 December 2015 (UTC)

Halloween Theme

Activated! Please list any design errors below. « Chase ♥ ♥ ♥ » 19:16, 22 October 2015 (UTC)

New Category: Basic

Trash was a polarizing term. It meant your build was rubbish. In reality builds that don't make it to good/great can still be commonplace and average. In the hands of a pro they can even be enjoyable perhaps. That's why we have a new category, Basic.

{{Build|Warrior|Conquest|Basic}}

It is replacing Trash. The literature is as follows:

Basic builds. The ones that never coalesced 
into something more brilliant. The ones that 
never made it off the ground floor.  The ones 
we based our better ideas off of. This is a 
showcase of builds that are anywhere from 
downright bad to just shy of being good or 
great enough to showcase on the main page. 
Some horrible builds. Some very close to good.
Some in between. These builds share the widest
ratings and can lead to wildly differing 
levels of success.

In addition. Archiving builds is now possible with the same easy template system. It has new literature associated with it as well helping to define it's category better.

{{Build|Warrior|Conquest|Basic}}

Welcome to the Builds Archive. See the ones
that gathered dust, were orphaned by their
original writers, or became obsolete by
balance patches. We salute these builds that
once held a position in the good, great, or
meta categories.

I hope these two changes will make it easier for editors/admins to move builds. Also if a build is truly trasherific now (horrible grammar, incomplete, nonsensical in the literal fashion) then we can just start deleting those pages. If it is fully formed and you don't believe it is good/great/meta then it can be moved to basic.

New pages for Archived builds and Basic builds will be coming soon with proper profession/game mode distinctions. « Chase ♥ ♥ ♥ » 22:41, 22 October 2015 (UTC)

I feel we still need a trash tier for the truely terrible builds (pvp builds with pve EQ, builds with incomprehensible choices, etc.) Zyke (talk) 21:24, 24 October 2015 (UTC)

Merging "basic" with Archived is a bad idea. Archived builds used to work and it's nice to have a section where you can look back for inspiration, shouldn't be mixed with the Trash section - I see what you are trying to do, but most of the builds in the previous Trash section completely deserve that label. --Hanz(talk) 15:23, 25 October 2015 (UTC)

Archived and basic are not merged. They are separate categories, found on the same page. Because sometimes it's not easy to tell which is which. Again, truly trash builds should be deleted, not saved. And a truly trash build is one that is incomplete. For those having a tough time transitioning, just pretend the word basic = trash. And archive is still = archive. ChaseBot (talk) 18:46, 25 October 2015 (UTC)

Raids + Stronghold

Added to front page. Please do not post any builds for testing. All should be purely in draft for the first one or two weeks. « Chase ♥ ♥ ♥ » 23:56, 22 October 2015 (UTC)

Why, though? This is a really big opportunity, many will be looking for the new builds, besides we had ~10 stronghold open betas so it's not exactly new. Btw there won't be that many Stronghold-only builds imo, basically you just use Conquest ones, maybe switch a skill or 2. That bein said, is there an option to tag a build for both gamemodes? :P We don't need to split the ratings, just make some builds show up in both. --Hanz(talk) 07:00, 23 October 2015 (UTC)

Builds for Raids should be held back (And that too only to draft, it's not like people can't see them at all). Stronghold is fine. Sorry for misunderstanding. You can tag two builds by putting in the Build template twice. This way you can have separate ratings. The build rating box will be made smaller in the future to accomodate multiple ratings. This may lead to confusion in the actual rating of a build (should they rate it for stronghold or conquest? or both? how do we accept the ratings?). ChaseBot (talk) 13:44, 23 October 2015 (UTC)

WvW section naming

I think it should be WvW - sure we can feature mostly GvG builds there, but the current name can be confusing and alienating for new players. --Hanz(talk) 14:26, 29 October 2015 (UTC)

I'll take this into account for our re-design. ChaseBot (talk) 15:34, 29 October 2015 (UTC)

Keeping up with the meta

Moved a couple of new builds up to meta and great, even though they don't have enough votes (still had the most votes among the builds in testing btw). Hopefully higher visibility will score even more votes for them plus expansion laucnhed almost a week ago, so it was about time. --Hanz(talk) 21:51, 29 October 2015 (UTC)

New PvP Amulets

Added. You can see them here. Remember to use the same naming convention for the Equipment-RA template (omit " Amulet"). Images for Runes and Sigils were uploaded (hopefully got them all), but the templates are not yet finished for them. ChaseBot (talk) 01:19, 30 October 2015 (UTC)

New PvP Runes

Added. If there are also runes added to PvE+WvW that are not included on the list of PvP ones, please let me know. List can be found here. Please continue to follow the same naming convention in Equipment-RA templates. ChaseBot (talk) 01:58, 30 October 2015 (UTC)

Small step towards code reorganization

Hi there, Metabattle Wiki editors! I'm Valento. I just landed here to fill up Tempest articles, but as I started filling more info I realized that the way code is laid out here could be improved, so I took the opportunity to create two templates. As I've helped in Official Wiki, I got to learn a thing or two (completely unrelated to Javascript, which I suck at hehe). I created two templates that aim to help create articles and create the specialization tables in an easier way. I've respected the "Specialization/<spec name>/<number>" hierarchy as I found it very intuitive and easy. Here's what I modified in my sandbox, and I'd like to present you:

• Trait Template - I made this inspired by Official Wiki's "Trait infobox" template, but much easier to manage. It simply allows a few parameters and creates the tooltip/link by feeding your custom CSS the appropriate data (input parameters). The "look" of it is not as daunting as the previous one full of divs (the tooltip structure).
• Specialization Template - This is just an overhaul of your specialization template which I took the opportunity to remove a little of its redundancy. It should prove more readable, but still works like before.

If you'd like to adopt these, I'd be glad to help you guys out as this website has become of such an importance to the game community as a whole. Best regards. Valento (talk) 19:42, 30 October 2015 (UTC)

I don't even know some of these modifiers, and that's why all our templates sucked! Haha, thank you so much for the help :) They'll definitely be helpful in the future. Not sure if we'll be making any switches to what we have already. (Unless I'm reading the code wrong these are for creating future templates, right?). If there are any missing traits/specs we should use these new methods, they seem to work and I don't think you missed any of the clauses from the previous code. Very elegant, well done! ChaseBot (talk) 21:31, 30 October 2015 (UTC)

Ah, I missed the last part. If you know of a cool way to switch to these new methods, that'd be great too :) I really liked the "default to pagename" section, that itself is genius. This is the very first wiki I've worked on and I have a little over one year's worth of experience. Plus just an amateur coder, so I have to say I really dig these so far! ChaseBot (talk) 21:34, 30 October 2015 (UTC)

I backtracked on the idea of "defaults to pagename" because since this is a build-sharing site, the layout you've come up with is much more simple to handle (this is, Specialization/Name/1, /2, /3, etc). The official wiki is empowered by Semantic MediaWiki and thus they can perform very complex queries to retrieve all sorts of data, but this wiki is a little more narrow in scope so SMW isn't really that needed. What I presented here is a suggestion so that it's easier for us, editors, to add data in the long run (just compare the current Aeromancer's Training with my suggestion). Easier! Hides all that amount of repeated data (which, btw, is another plus: less data being stored, more code reused win/win). Valento (talk) 23:13, 30 October 2015 (UTC)

About the templates I'm proposing: they're an idea to replace how pages currently exist. A template repeat code (such as a bunch of divs) based on a certain amount of params. I try to avoid switches and ifs doing my best to keep it little to no redundant. If the admins agree we can slowly transition them by adopting a different template name so no pages break. Valento (talk) 23:42, 30 October 2015 (UTC)

So, do you guys accept a clean-up effort from my end to improve the templates? If so, I can start creating pages and, later on, we do a final switch from "Specialization/<name>/<number>" to "Specializations/<name>/<number>". On a related note, if possible, please install this extension in the wiki. It helps managing some data without having to rely on a heavy clutter of switch's/if's in the long run (trust me, you want as few as possible so your code is more manageable). Valento (talk) 10:30, 31 October 2015 (UTC)

I don't actually work much on the weekends, so I apologize for the late responses. The extension, variables, was installed. We can start working on your proposed switch, that is totally flexible/non-breaking. If there are other extensions we can install to make this easier/better, please let us know. Still highly appreciative of all your support, thank you! Going to reply on the common.css edit now. (But pretty sure, that is fine too, I just didn't read it yet). « Chase ♥ ♥ ♥ » 23:44, 31 October 2015 (UTC)

So, to kick off the changes, here are my suggestions (on a beta test basis):

* Leave Specialization|<line>|<choice1>|<choice2>|<choice3> template unchanged, but change the Specialization/<line>/<number> pages using my trait info template, and test if it behaves accordingly (it should). If it's ok-ish, we can attempt moving my Specialization template overhaul onto the current Specialization one, but first we need to go through all the traits changing them. Valento (talk) 01:59, 1 November 2015 (UTC)

Okay, sounds good :) « Chase ♥ ♥ ♥ » 15:07, 1 November 2015 (UTC)

Post-change follow-up

So, it is working (just need to add that css rule to space them out a bit more vertically). From now on, this should be a community effort to replace all trait pages with the new template (I even put up a documentation if someone's lost). We should be watching carefully if anything breaks and make the appropriate changes ASAP. Anyone got any questions regarding this new structure? Suggestions? Thoughts? On a separate note, "Air Magic", "Fire Magic", etc don't exist anymore, it's now called simply "Air", "Fire", etc. We could fix that aswell. Valento (talk) 11:08, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

I went ahead and turned on the specialization template. You will have to go through each "build" page and change the call from {{Specialization/<spec name>|<position1>|<position2>|<position3>}} to {{Specialization|<spec name>|<position1>|<position2>|<position3>}} under "Specializations" section. It just happened to converge ALL specialization pages into a single one (yay!). Isn't it beautiful? Valento (talk) 11:31, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

Simplicity! Valento (talk) 11:38, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

It seems as though traits that are not selected for do not have the "inactive" class on them. This is not a big deal, as we can show all traits lit up and make the line connecting them easier to see. However, I personally thought it was easier to read what was being used when the others were "dimmed" in appearance. Minor design issue. This is exciting! I'll help out when I get a chance this week. « Chase ♥ ♥ ♥ » 13:20, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

Oooh! Nice catch! I will fix it. Yay! Valento (talk) 13:22, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

Actually there wasn't much to fix. Just remember that, in every trait page, set the inactive parameter to {{{inactive|}}} (don't forget the pipeline please), so that Specialization template pass down the inactive parameter (like cascading the value downwards...). ^^ Valento (talk) 13:39, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

There is... an issue with the templates. Actually it's more of a syntax stuff that kind of bothers me. In every trait page you have to set the parameters inactive, label, and textonly the same way as above (with inactive) if you want to offer those options for all the pages. Valento (talk) 14:02, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

Facing the Devil: Semantic MediaWiki

So... as I improve some stuff, the more I realize I love Semantic MediaWiki. I must call your attention now that what I'm about to suggest may have deep impact on the overall wiki, rather than a simple template edit, and it can make this wiki much better. The link I gave above talks a bit about SMW. The Official GW2 Wiki uses it, and it's like a way to store data about whatever subject you want in a more structured way so that you can retrieve information much like an SQL query, with aggregate values and conditions. It helps us have a somewhat clear separation about how data is stored and viewed. I ask you to take your time to read this so you don't... hmm... misinterpret my extension request. (it's a very powerful extension!)

The basic idea for this wiki in particular would be something like:

1. Set up a certain subject (eg. skills, traits) properties (eg. name, icon file, description, recharge, tier, profession it belongs to, spec, etc).
2. Work out templates so that when we feed information about that subject (eg. skills, traits) it also sets those PROPERTIES.
3. Once every trait has their properties set up (much like a database) simply create templates that PULLS the data specifically for our purposes (tooltips in this case).
4. We may end up with two templates for traits I guess: a trait info (much like now, setting properties for each one), and a trait tooltip (pulls data from a certain trait page, and display the tooltip, allows for the flexibility of having a clear separation about what has been stored and what will be viewed).

I'm talking to Ishmael from the Official GW2 Wiki about what further implications this might have here (I don't want SMW to break your wiki, actually I want it to become even better in the long run). If I get the answers I need, we can add the extension and slowly make attempts at transitioning to a new way of working with data. As always, I will be here to lay the groundwork and assist as it's needed. Oh, and of course, I need your approval!

PS.: The needed extensions would be:

• SMW itself.
• Semantic Result Formats (more ways to retrieve that which may prove necessary at some point in the future) Valento (talk) 16:53, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

Welp, this was fast. Ish told me that SMW shouldn't break anything existing, neither technical level nor higher level. So, you're free to install whenever you want, if you agree! Once again: this extension won't change anything, things have to be created. One a related note: we might need more space to store skills, traits and items data, but I guess most of the HTML compositions (all those <div>'s) will be replaced by these data entries (like exchanging one thing for another). Valento (talk) 17:03, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

First of all, hello and welcome to the wiki! Second of all, sorry that I have been unavailable over the past 2 months, school has been killing me, computer broke, had to build a new one and finally spent this weekend playing through HoT :D Your suggestions make sense and it seems like Chase thinks that too, I could install the required extensions and stuff (hopefully) if you guys think that we should proceed on this?-- Galaxian (talk) 18:21, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

I'm kind of on the fence about SMW now hahah.. one side of me thinks it would be cool to have everything semantics, another side thinks we would run into HTML clutter because of skill facts (even official wiki doesn't know how to deal with skill facts in a semantic way). The main thing about SMW is that each trait page would become a "row" in a "table", being structured as so by the use of SMW properties, while other templates (eg. Trait tooltip) would pull such data and compose the tooltip using your already functional HTML composition. Main problem is storing skill facts within properties, since they vary greatly we would end up with html tags in that property, and I'm not sure I'm comfortable with that. Turn it on and let me test a bit, if it looks too bad you can disable it, just for testing purposes. Valento (talk) 19:06, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

While you're at it, is it possible to create a "Trait" namespace and allow me to create articles under it? Like Trait:My_test_trait. Valento (talk) 19:45, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

Added "Trait" namespace and installed SMW (I think), try it out and tell me how it goes, if it works at all :D -- Galaxian (talk) 03:15, 4 November 2015 (UTC)

I'm failing to query data using SMW (see here). Per here:

"SMW uses the PHP mb_*() multibyte functions such as mb_strpos in the php_mbstring.dll extension. This is standard but not enabled by default on some distributions of PHP. See the PHP manual for details."

Care to take a look into that? Valento (talk) 10:50, 4 November 2015 (UTC)

Also, "Trait" namespace isn't generating annotations for SMW, add it please (check this setting). No need for the associated talk page, only the "Trait" namespace. Valento (talk) 10:58, 4 November 2015 (UTC)

Reminder: once I get the hang of it, disable this as it's quite distracting. Valento (talk) 11:05, 4 November 2015 (UTC)

Oh, the "Template" namespace comes disabled by default. If you can please enable it aswell. Valento (talk) 13:09, 4 November 2015 (UTC)

Installed mbstring, removed the help option and added trait + template to SMW, feel free to try now and see if everyting works. Also, Chase got in touch with me today and told me that he might need to step down from his current position due to lack of time. He will still be a part of our team but under a different role and we would like to ask you if you are interested in taking over his current role as admin?-- Galaxian (talk) 14:50, 4 November 2015 (UTC)

(reset ident) Everything seems to be running fine (preview this sample trait, and scroll down to see its properties below). I'm now going to set up everything to come up with the tooltip creation. What I came up with is: all traits will be prefixed with "Trait:" and will only serve as a data repository with the data we'll need to build the tooltip; the "Trait tooltip" template will accept a trait pagename (since there can be more than one trait with the same name and we need to disambiguate them), and will accept some other styling params aswell (textonly, inactive, label, etc, you know where I'm going...), and will output the same tooltip you guys have by now.
For this wiki specifically, I wanted to separate data from presentation in two distinct templates. These aim to reduce html code repetition (reusability) and reduce the amount of #ifs and #switchs and nested conditional structures (redundancy).

Phew. About that offer, I'm afraid I also can't get too involved because I too have certain time constraints. I will be, however, available for contact through my talk page, and if I stop creating articles you can reach me by e-mail. I will lay the groundwork, and once everything is functioning I will explain how to proceed with these templates, so you guys can take on the torch! Valento (talk) 18:07, 4 November 2015 (UTC)

Alright, I was hoping that you would accept the admin position but I understand that time might be an issue. Let me know when everything is good to go so that we can proceed with the implementation.-- Galaxian (talk) 19:06, 4 November 2015 (UTC)

Hope I'm not overwhelming ya'll with all the technical babbling. I tend to strive keeping it simple so I almost always repeat myself too many times haha... back to work! Valento (talk) 19:14, 4 November 2015 (UTC)

Small request: can I have rights to move one page to another? Valento (talk) 19:59, 4 November 2015 (UTC)

You should be able to move pages now.-- Galaxian (talk) 21:14, 4 November 2015 (UTC)

Oh Lord, I've been forced into admin! Ok. Please, increase this setting to 3. You must've noticed a lot of edits because something isn't supposedly working, that's because I was unaware of template recursion, and I need it to a maximum of 3 for safety. Valento (talk) 23:27, 4 November 2015 (UTC)

While you're at it, please install this extension. It has an array handling function highly valuable. Valento (talk) 17:50, 5 November 2015 (UTC)

I somehow missed your reply, sorry about that, $maxRecursionDepth is set to 3 and I have installed the extension.-- Galaxian (talk) 23:03, 5 November 2015 (UTC)

Ohhh Galaxian, you missed me! How could you? Ohhh Lord... oki. I'm facing a nasty "empty parameter" issue right now, but I'll fix it today, thanks for doing stuff. :D Valento (talk) 11:07, 6 November 2015 (UTC)

(reset ident) I'll be doing skill stuff now, could you add "Skill" to the list of namespaces? Ty! Valento (talk) 17:46, 10 November 2015 (UTC)

Also, don't forget to include "Skill" in that SMW list so it can generate annotations (like you did for Trait namespace). Valento (talk) 17:48, 10 November 2015 (UTC)

Partial wrap-up

So, apparently things are working. On the surface it's the same pretty table, but semantically built. The biggest gain, however, is the ease of adding new traits (and attached skill facts) and also making somewhat more robust queries. I have written a small introduction to each of the templates here, but you will be using mostly Trait tooltip (display a trait), Trait info ("adds" data about a trait), Skill fact (to be used with Trait info), and Specialization table (the good ol' specialization table).

I don't have immediate plans for skills, but they will be done at some point. Right now we got plenty to add (and test) before moving on. I will not switch the Specialization template for the Specialization table template right now because it's in a sort of beta test. If it proves stable, useful, and error-free, we can change definitely across all pages (man, that'll take some time).

If you got any questions, I'm all ears (or eyes, rather)! Valento (talk) 20:23, 6 November 2015 (UTC)

PS.: Sorry about all those edits and stuffs, I get too hyperactive when creating things. @[email protected] Valento (talk) 20:24, 6 November 2015 (UTC)

Just came to say gj! Amazing work so far. --Hanz(talk) 13:30, 7 November 2015 (UTC)

Awesome! Should I go ahead and create "Trait info" for the remaining traits?-- Galaxian (talk) 17:50, 7 November 2015 (UTC)

By all means, do it! All of you please help me there! haha... if you want to test if your "Trait info" stored the correct data, just use {{Trait tooltip|<trait page>}} and check if it's fine. Remember:

* Each skill fact present in a single trait must have an INDEX (param index). It's used to sort the facts list.

* <trait page> expects the same standard I came up with, this is, the trait page must be prefixed with "Trait:" namespace (eg Trait:Grenadier).

Tip: If more than one profession has a trait with the same name, create the page as something like "Trait:Certain trait (engineer)", "Trait:Certain trait (elementalist)". Param name is optional in Trait info template (defaults to page name), but since it won't match in these cases of ambiguous page names, do set the name param to the canonical name (i.e. "Certain trait").

Let the testing begins! Valento (talk) 20:08, 7 November 2015 (UTC)

How is "order" determined in "Trait info"?-- Galaxian (talk) 03:10, 8 November 2015 (UTC)

Order is to be used only for major traits, and they follow in-game vertical position. (much like skill facts). Valento (talk) 12:42, 8 November 2015 (UTC)

Your trait is working:

Illusion of Vulnerability

Inflict vulnerability when you interrupt a foe.

₃Vulnerability (5s): 3% Incoming Damage, 3% Incoming Condition Damage

Valento (talk) 14:12, 8 November 2015 (UTC)

How do I assign "icd" to "1½", it says that "½" cannot be assigned for the following trait "Evasive Mirror".-- Galaxian (talk) 16:00, 8 November 2015 (UTC)

You have to use numerical values instead of fractional html entities. ½ means 0.5, then 1.5= 1½. This holds true for everything (or at least should). Valento (talk) 19:05, 8 November 2015 (UTC)

Guides under Stronghold

I don't think any of the guides except for the "Tips for Settings" belong under Stronghold. For one, Khylo, Nifhel, Foefire, Temple aren't Stronghold maps. --Goruu (talk) 03:21, 31 October 2015 (UTC)

Nice catch! Btw I think Stronghold will be removed or at least merged back into a Ranked Arena category.--Hanz(talk) 06:34, 31 October 2015 (UTC)

Quality of Meta Builds HoT+1wk

There are a large number of builds (especially specialization builds) which have been classed as Meta with only 1 wk into HoT. This is concerning since a large number of them could not have been thoroughly tested. I am not calling out any specific build, but am more concerned with the integrity of the great tool which is Metabattle. If builds are considered meta too quickly, they will start to change and be accepted too quick and without testing/discussion to ensure they are truly meta and not the flavour of the day. Ankin (talk) 02:04, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

These were the most common builds based on tournaments and ingame queue, many of these were used since HoT day 1 extensively by top teams and aren't going to change (Herald, DH for instance), so after a week they were tagged as meta. But you're right, it's still a bit early, if things change we make changes accordingly. --Hanz(talk) 08:14, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

Problems with MetaBattle page opening

Howdy. This seems to be a localized problem to one of the older computers I'm running (Windows 7 Enterprise OS), but I can't open any of the colored bars on the frontpage. Likewise, when opening up any build (I have to access these through the "Draft and Test Builds" link at the very bottom of the page), I don't see the ratings bar at the top to navigate to. I have to use the "Recent ratings" on the sidebar to access voting on builds. Problems were present in both the Chrome and IE10 browsers. CGSN (talk) 20:26, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

Hmm, Win7 & Chrome here. Everything works fine. --Hanz(talk) 20:30, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

Same here. Tried clearing cache? Valento (talk) 20:31, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

Right, it's a problem I'm experiencing on this laptop only. On my home computer and home laptop, it works fine, but something's seriously off for this older laptop. It's very odd, since it was working fine just last Friday on this laptop. I tried a cache clear. No luck. CGSN (talk) 21:00, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

I should also mention that when I go to a voting page, the tab doesn't say "Rating" or whatever it normally says at the top along with Build and Discussion. There's only one tab and it says "Special Page". CGSN (talk) 21:05, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

deactivate adblock in your firefox Fredor (talk) 06:51, 4 November 2015 (UTC)

I don't use Firefox or adblockers on this laptop. Chrome and IE both resulted in the same failure. CGSN (talk) 14:23, 4 November 2015 (UTC)

This is a problem with either adblock or noscript. I personally have tested with adblock and firefox with no problems, but others have still run into it. It could also be the noscript extension on firefox as well. « Chase ♥ ♥ ♥ » 13:56, 4 November 2015 (UTC)

This seems to be something else. I'm not running on Firefox (tested on Chrome and IE) and don't have any extensions or adblockers installed. It's just the vanilla browsers on this laptop. CGSN (talk) 14:23, 4 November 2015 (UTC)

Would you be willing to work with me on skype? « Chase ♥ ♥ ♥ » 00:13, 5 November 2015 (UTC)

Gladly. It'd have to be over the weekend though and my schedule's fairly packed, so no guarantees on timing. CGSN (talk) 15:42, 5 November 2015 (UTC)

As of today, it's working fine again on the trouble laptop. I haven't made any changes or downloads at all throughout the week. Very odd. CGSN (talk) 19:11, 6 November 2015 (UTC)

Let me know if it happens again. I'm going to speak with Galaxian about this. « Chase ♥ ♥ ♥ » 02:34, 7 November 2015 (UTC)

Shiny

Was the page background always this bright? D: I honestly think the darker theme was much better btw. --Hanz(talk) 12:09, 5 November 2015 (UTC)

Hahah I got surprised too. Thought it was some darker color actually? Valento (talk) 12:33, 5 November 2015 (UTC)

It was the Halloween theme. :P --Hanz(talk) 12:41, 5 November 2015 (UTC)

I have heard this from a couple others as well. We should do a reddit community poll asking whether to have a dark or light theme. Personally don't have a preference, so it's not a big deal to me. « Chase ♥ ♥ ♥ » 15:28, 5 November 2015 (UTC)

Same here! Valento (talk) 16:03, 5 November 2015 (UTC)

So we can haz dark? --Hanz(talk) 07:57, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

Latest edits/reverts

You must've seen a number of reverts regarding Tempest specialization, and also some random edits. First, I reverted the Tempest to its former icons because I will do more stuff regarding SMW and didn't want to let all the other pages broken while I'm working on this, so I reverted to the revision they're working (by Chase). Second, the edits were made because I edited the Air specialization and it was redirecting to Air Magic. Although the current name is Air (and this will be something we'll have to change later), I didn't want these to break aswell, so any transcluded page that uses the "Trait info" template were edited out so to not link to my template (it's conflicting with specs tables by now). Just a heads-up in case you find these edits a bit mysterious. heh Valento (talk) 13:53, 5 November 2015 (UTC)

Gw2 dev extra life streaming - should we host them?

Should we help by hosting GW2 twitch in general for a while (as it'll happen on multiple channels, would require a lot of switching between streamers)? --Hanz(talk) 16:42, 7 November 2015 (UTC)

Rename dungeons to Fractals

Because dungeons is dead. --Goruu (talk) 03:51, 9 November 2015 (UTC)

Dungeons and Fractals would be better. Since i hope and believe that dungeons will have a comeback when everyone is done with HoT and/or need gold. Also Fractals don't seem to work the best with the current meta, bc of the toughness scaling.--Idlev (talk) 10:58, 10 November 2015 (UTC)

Fractals are technically dungeons too anyways. --Hanz(talk) 11:26, 10 November 2015 (UTC)

yeah but the meta should be shifted to condi. But this is the least of our problems since most new builds or changes to builds haven't been added yet Fredor (talk) 12:16, 10 November 2015 (UTC)

What about when Raids come along? "Dungeons, Fractals, and Raids" would be a long title. Perhaps we can come up with a one word description of end-game instanced group content. « Chase ♥ ♥ ♥ » 12:56, 10 November 2015 (UTC)

Try Instance ^^ Fredor (talk) 13:34, 10 November 2015 (UTC)

Reward Nerf Simulator. --Hanz(talk) 13:42, 10 November 2015 (UTC)

There could be a problem with "Instance", because in GW2 that's mostly used to refer to home instance or personal story. --Hanz(talk) 08:22, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

I'd be on-board with "Dungeons, Fractals, & Raids" as a section title. It's clear and to the point. That being said, if specialized roles end up being needed for raids, then I believe Dungeons & Fractals should probably be split from the Raids section. CGSN (talk) 21:32, 10 November 2015 (UTC)

I agree with main post; we should change dungeon title to fractals. (Dungeons are face roll anyways). I think Raids should be a different section. Foxman525 ( /u/ ) 12:35, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

Creating an article

Either this article is completely outdated, wrong or it is ambiguous. In this case, I really need a pictograph on how to create articles. I am following the instruction but I can't get past step 1.

Take a look under "Creating" here.-- Galaxian (talk) 03:12, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

Thanks. That worked. After creating my build, is there a way to get my build into the draft sections in the front page? --Goruu (talk) 09:47, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, see the first line from the "Template" example on the same page that I sent :)-- Galaxian (talk) 12:56, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

It takes a while for new builds to show up on the front page. --Hanz(talk) 13:01, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

Frontpage idea

This is just an idea but what if we turn the frontpage into something like lolnexus where visitors select what they want to see, for example Elementalist > Conquest > Meta, and the desired results are shown instead of showing everything on frontpage with dropdowns. This could solve the whole Dungeon/Fractals/Raid category but also the WvW section: https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/3sdl7s/metabattle_wiki/ -- Galaxian (talk) 14:58, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

New frontpage is taking heavy inspiration from League of Legends. In particular the lol wiki and the way ongoing mathces are displayed here at lolesports. going to try and tie in with the pro league. Design is going to get rid of the left navigation bar and many items are going to be hidden behind a menu bar. Most of our users don't explore anyways, so it's going to reduce clutter with a minor hindrance to our editors. Another goal is to make sure mobile users can use the site more properly. « Chase ♥ ♥ ♥ » 14:15, 17 November 2015 (UTC)

Most important question of all. Btw taking a look at hearthpwn isn't bad idea either. --Hanz(talk) 14:35, 17 November 2015 (UTC)

Rofl yes it will come in black :) And I really like hearthpwn. Will take some inspiration from there as well! « Chase ♥ ♥ ♥ » 15:07, 17 November 2015 (UTC)

 :D I also prefer dark themes, looking forward to see what chase comes up with. -- Galaxian (talk) 14:33, 22 November 2015 (UTC)

Minor skill bar issue

If the elite skill and a utility slot are both set to optional then there won't be a gap between the utility slots and the elite skill. Example --Hanz(talk) 19:16, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

This was fixed. Issue was within the templates and failing to include the css class for the "x" cases. « Chase ♥ ♥ ♥ » 14:11, 17 November 2015 (UTC)

Skills and trais tooltips: to have and not have hover icon

See here. Should we display it or not? Maybe give an option, but let default be no icon? While we're at it, what about traits? Valento (talk) 20:00, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

Default should be inline text with icon and active. Aka "label=y". This is the most usage the template usually gets by our users. Would be great if they could cut down to just writing "{{Skill|Ride the Lightning}}" to put it in the conversation. « Chase ♥ ♥ ♥ » 14:10, 17 November 2015 (UTC)

I can default to "label=y", and accept any value as negating this option. The other part, that is to shorten the template call... I'm a bit afraid of changing that by now because we already have a {{Skill}} (someone would have to move that elsewhere and update all file pages). Valento (talk) 16:07, 17 November 2015 (UTC)

Defaulted to show label (set anything to label param to make it doesn't display label, like label=n). Valento (talk) 18:28, 17 November 2015 (UTC)

Presenting the new SMW-empowered templates

Howdy! So it seems like I'm kind of done with the new templates. They make heavy use of SMW, and are still in the same style defined in Common.css. I have put up a manual about their usage, and I'd love to hear any feedback. As I have stated before, we will have to create data using the smw-feeding templates, so that the tooltip templates have where to pull data from. I am by no means finished. I still have to tackle some details in {{Specialization table}} (remove that "valento" class for instance), and also adding a feature Chase requested (but I guess that removing that outer "valento" div will immediately do the job).

Build template is something way more involved, and that's why I put some parameters in {{Skill info}} which apparently has no visual presentation, but can be looked up as to create the skill bar viewer (such as chain sequences, and pet family). The build template is like a great challenge, because it depends on a lot of conditions, however once done it will be easy pie to use. I'd like to remember the main purpose of these templates is to reduce a lot of exposed html text in the pages, and turn this wiki more semantic (like the official one). This has a lot of benefits you guys have yet to witness. You can add a bunch of parameters to a build page and have a way to look up interesting statistics (yay for statistics!).

For now, I would like to ask editors to help me fill traits and skills data. Although I'm done with this first part, it's not 100% tested so bugs may occur, and some stuff can still be optimized (I'll be looking at them very carefully). That's it for now! Bye! <3 Valento (talk) 19:12, 12 November 2015 (UTC)

I'll definitely land a hand tomorrow. --Hanz(talk) 13:05, 13 November 2015 (UTC)

I created this to-do list to help us. If you're willing to work on something, edit the page and type "WIP" (Work-In-Progress) so we avoid two or more people working on the same profession. There's plenty to add! One tip: upload skill/trait icons before doing your work. It will be better to visualize. If you run into some unexpected situation, let me know and I'll change the template to accommodate the needs. Valento (talk) 20:20, 13 November 2015 (UTC)

New Skillbar Template

It's done, and (hopefully) working. Lots of blank icons there because we still have to fill up skill entries (get to work, Hanz!). Feedback is appreciated! Valento (talk) 12:23, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

Oh, and after ensuring it's fully functional and bug-free I will attempt at moving on to items (may Dwayna guide my way). Valento (talk) 12:24, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

Is this intended or did I do something wrong? Fredor (talk) 12:49, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

Neat. :P I'll avoid doing chain skills for now, let's get the skill bars working first. Then as a 2nd round autoattack chains will come, 3rd round other chain skills. --Hanz(talk) 14:50, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

100px

100px

Sword/AxeHealingUtilityElite

Longbow

This is happening because, like I said, no one has filled Sword and Axe skill entries, neither healing/utility/elite. Also, no one has uploaded those pet images and created their respective skills. What I show in examples is what I created to showcase, all the rest has yet to be done. By the way, all pet images must follow the exact same pattern you have in official wiki (I based my cropping off of them). Valento (talk) 12:51, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

Reorganization Status

I'll use this section to inform at which point I am, so you guys can catch up. Right now I just finished all specializations (traits) and fixed a few things here and there. Traits are all done. Going to jump into skills now. Valento (talk) 20:29, 3 December 2015 (UTC)

PvE/WvW

Soo, what's up with those sections? --Hanz(talk) 13:04, 13 November 2015 (UTC)

I believe for PvE we are waiting on Raids (tonight). WvW, I have not gotten in touch with Haru yet, but he did mention a lot of big WvW guilds were quitting the game/taking a break. « Chase ♥ ♥ ♥ » 14:08, 17 November 2015 (UTC)

Add a 'purge' button

As a side effect of SMW, pages usually have to be purged to clear cache and show the current state of things. This holds true for any page using any smw template. Since this will be a common scenario, I'd like to request to put a simple button or maybe just a link in the upper information (like to the left of "User" link), and just name it "Purge". This link needs to be http://metabattle.com/wiki/index.php?title=CURRENT_PAGE_NAME&action=purge, where CURRENT_PAGE_NAME is the page we're browsing. How feasible is that? --Valento (talk) 13:36, 13 November 2015 (UTC)

Added to the left sidebar after "Top of the page" and before "Admins" links. « Chase ♥ ♥ ♥ » 13:51, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

It's not working. >.< Valento (talk) 13:58, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

Fixed with some caveats

• Opens in new tab
• Uses ? isntead of &

If you have a page with ? in the title, you'll want to use ampersand, so right click purge link copy paste and manually change the ? to an & symbol in those scenarios. I'm afraid this is the best I can do with the way the sidebar is set up. Javascript would be another possibility, but let me know if this works out « Chase ♥ ♥ ♥ » 14:34, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

That will do. Thank you! Valento (talk) 16:12, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

Hiatus

Taking a hiatus from the work of metabattle and will continue to work on a skin re-haul and front-page redo in the background, but will definitely quit most of the backend work for the time being. Luckily we have Valento (who's definitely better at this than myself! very talented worker) and I will always try to lend a hand, but with the way life is going I've reached a point where I need to take a break from this website and maybe come back after re-evaluating my schedule. Thank you all for putting up with my controversial design choices and it's been an honor working with you to enrich the community's resources. « Chase ♥ ♥ ♥ » 13:55, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

Sad times... I was still getting to know you. I wish you all the best, and I hope you can show up some day. ^^ Valento (talk) 14:01, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

Take care, see you soon! Fredor (talk) 14:31, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

Best of luck! May RNGsus guide your path. --Hanz(talk) 16:08, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

Take care Chase and thanks for everything that you have done for us from the very first beginning! I hope to see you around here from time to time though :) -- Galaxian (talk) 18:13, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

Ranger mechanics skill bar: give me your opinion!

I have two options to display the ranger mechanics skill bar (see here). I prefer option B, but I want you guys to give me your opinion on this matter. And do it quick before I forget how to do stuff! hahaha --Valento (talk) 18:27, 17 November 2015 (UTC)

B, but the F2 skill should be highlighted somehow maybe in a similar way to how traits work - F2 could be "active" and the others "inactive". Not sure whether it works with skills or not, if it doesn't then making it work is probably not worth the effort only for 1 situation. EDIT: actually there's a lot of pet skill we'd have to add for B so not sure :D --Hanz(talk) 19:26, 17 November 2015 (UTC)

• B is the most valuable since you can see all the pet skills without going to the gw2 wiki.
• @Hanz all the new pets and celestial avatar skills are also missing Fredor (talk) 19:36, 17 November 2015 (UTC)

Actually all skills are missing hahaha... at least in the "new way" required to display them (i.e. with {{Skill info}}). I'll make option B tomorrow. :) Valento (talk) 21:41, 17 November 2015 (UTC)

On a second note, it may clutter too much. Option A is more appealing for clarity. I will display the icons in a option B way, but only the F2 (pet-specific), which is controlled by the player. --Valento (talk) 21:47, 17 November 2015 (UTC)

And voila! All done. Now, on to the most difficult one (maybe?). I'm at you revy! Valento (talk) 16:58, 18 November 2015 (UTC)

Incredible. « Chase ♥ ♥ ♥ » 20:35, 18 November 2015 (UTC)

Oh, Chase! <3 Thank you! I'm still a bit afraid my styling code is ugly, but you will have to bear with me. ^^' Valento (talk) 21:36, 18 November 2015 (UTC)

People at Anet are bored I guess

They replaced most of the elite spec line backgrounds with new ones, so the current ones here should be replaced at some point. --Hanz(talk) 16:17, 19 November 2015 (UTC)

I could upload and change, but Chase was using a different folder server-side it seems, and I don't have access to that. Valento (talk) 17:29, 19 November 2015 (UTC)

Yea directly on the server. Can you send them to me over skype and I'll upload them? « Chase ♥ ♥ ♥ » 19:32, 19 November 2015 (UTC)

Template question

Why doesn't this work? Searing Fissure --Hanz(talk) 15:30, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

Combo fields don't seem to work. Also no idea how to use "stacks", always gives error. --Hanz(talk) 15:53, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

Fixed. Can you give me an example about stacks param that's giving an error? --Valento (talk) 16:17, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

Fixed too. There are two types of parameter: unnamed and named. Named ones are, for example, stacks and index. Unnamed ones are, for example, skill fact name and value. Stacks is a named one so it must be input like stacks=#. Note the equal sign. Skill fact name parameter is simply input without the equal because the parameter itself is already the value. The pipeline separates parameters so when you input 4 alone the template assumes this as the 3rd unnamed param (because the lack of equal sign), but it takes no effect because "torment" skill fact doesn't use it. --Valento (talk) 16:22, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

Fixed. I noticed there are cases when you want a skill fact that works like a miscellaneous one (with non-preset formatting), but it uses the same icon as the page's associated icon (in this case skill icon). Because of this I created the skill fact type "self" to quicker grab the page's associated icon and use as the skill fact icon. The rest is simple (read stacks explanation). --Valento (talk) 16:27, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

All clear now, ty ^^ --Hanz(talk) 16:39, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

CategoryTree extension

If you can, please install it. :D --Valento (talk) 13:17, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

Done :)-- Galaxian (talk) 14:34, 22 November 2015 (UTC)

Edit gating votes

This has to happen. The amount of retards who just come here to upvote trash tier builds and downvote everything that works with 0 understanding of the game is making it increasingly difficult to maintain the quality of builds. Maybe if voting required at least 8 edits, people would have to comment/contribute first which could make them understand builds better. Or pontentially it could flood us with horrible edits. It's 50-50 but it's getting out of control. --Hanz(talk) 09:01, 22 November 2015 (UTC)

I'd suggest an even heavier requirement: a created user page and 10 edits. Valento (talk) 13:47, 22 November 2015 (UTC)

Sounds fair :P Could we make it so that the first 3-4 edits must happen to discussion pages? I'm not familiar with the bounds of setting restrictions though. --Hanz(talk) 13:53, 22 November 2015 (UTC)

The rating extension is custom coded so there is no built in feature to set restrictions ^^ I will see if mediawiki allows to check how many edits user X got and add it to the source code.-- Galaxian (talk) 14:37, 22 November 2015 (UTC)

It doesn't look like you can count edits based on namespaces, maybe you can but I wasn't able to find it :/ I added however a 5 edits (across the entire wiki) requirement in order to place a vote.-- Galaxian (talk) 15:49, 22 November 2015 (UTC)

Ty. Is there a message for new people somewhere about why they can't vote in case they'd try? --Hanz(talk) 15:54, 22 November 2015 (UTC)

The box/button is disabled and there is a placeholder text inside the box that says "You are required to have a minimum of 5 edits in order to rate builds.". You can check it out by simply logging out and then going to a builds rating page. -- Galaxian (talk) 16:00, 22 November 2015 (UTC)

kk that sounds good enough ^^ --Hanz(talk) 16:12, 22 November 2015 (UTC)

Eh I think this should be reverted for now, it killed off voting :/ --Hanz(talk) 09:30, 13 December 2015 (UTC)

Bump. --Hanz(talk) 20:25, 17 December 2015 (UTC)

O shit, I missed your comment. Should I go ahead and remove the requirements?--GalaxianBot (talk) 20:27, 17 December 2015 (UTC)

Bump.--GalaxianBot (talk) 02:35, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

Bumped from wrong acc -.--- Galaxian (talk) 02:39, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

Removed the limits.-- Galaxian (talk) 02:12, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

Ty :D --Hanz(talk) 08:23, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

DismissableSiteNotice extension

Oh mighty Galaxian, could you add it too? :O Valento (talk) 20:25, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

Installed -- Galaxian (talk) 21:53, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

Praised be Thou Fredor (talk) 22:02, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

We can now have a dismissable site notice. We simply use the default Sitenotice to put our notice, and every time we want players to see a "new" notice, simply increase the Sitenotice id by 1. Works like a charm and can be used to draw attention to something new going on in the wiki (such as the transition between templates, or to put it simply: new tooltips). Of course this notice can only be added later once everything is done! Valento (talk) 02:38, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

1 build, 2 sections

It was possible with the old category templates and it's a much needed feature now with raids (stronkholt is ded gaem so that doesn't really matter). Most dungeon builds work in raids as well, if we could get some builds to show up in multiple sections that would make it easier to keep builds up to date, because currently we'd have to repost a bunch of builds and make every change twice. Rating/discussion pages should still stay the same, vetting a build twice is likely unnecessary - if a build's underperforming in one of the categories, simply don't tag it. --Hanz(talk) 10:19, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

Okay, so what's with the Phantasm builds?

Seriously, what's going on, in the last month(ish) three different people (as far as I can see) submitted three variants of the same build: (in chronological order) Chronomancer - S/S/S Phantasm, Chronomancer - The Meleemancer, and Chronomancer - The Meleemancer (Quickness). And only the one titled Phantasm actually show up under the drafting tab. Zyke (talk) 08:11, 25 November 2015 (UTC)

There are way more in the dungeon section. I added a new one a few minutes ago to be frank. Now I can update the old excessive mesmer build without merging tons and tons of code into the other pages Fredor (talk) 23:00, 28 November 2015 (UTC)

Little heads-up about my phrasing

So, as you might (or might not) have realized, I'm not from USA or any English-speaking country, so if you run into some weird wording please feel free to correct me. I try my best to sound as natural as possible, but I may let my country line of thought come across. Thanks! :D Valento (talk) 14:53, 28 November 2015 (UTC)

Widget extension

Please, could you add this extension to the wiki? Also, add the Widget namespace. I'll be using the same widget official wiki uses so we can generate in-game chatlinks ourselves and embed them in build pages, this will make sharing builds something very unique to Metabattle. Valento (talk) 16:21, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

I will try to get it done tonight, haven't really had time over the past 48h. -- Galaxian (talk) 15:02, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

Sorry that it took so long. :( Give it a try and see if everything works as expected.-- Galaxian (talk) 11:08, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

Worked like a charm. Thank you! ^^ Valento (talk) 12:45, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

My first test looks fine aswell, but I'll have to check if those chatlinks are correct. Exciting times! Valento (talk) 13:31, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

Since we cannot post more than 5-6 chat codes in one message, I would try to avoid as many of those as possible. For instance top/mid/bot could just be single characters as in TMT for top-mid-top. This saves a lot of space and allows us to post three specs as a whole in one message. Also many pvp players don't want to memorize the location of traits, they literally just want to know how to try a new build out regardless of the name. My ideal message would be: "Sw/A+LB | Air/Fire+Energy/Generosity | Zerk | Pack | Beast Mastery TBM | Domination MMT | Deadly Arts BBM" this should fit in one line and should be able to get all the information in. Less chat codes is better for sharing builds. The only benefit it provides is showing the icon shape to help people find it faster. In my opinion those "best" ones would be sigils, amulet, runes. The weapons players already know very well, and the trait lines don't have an icon to help you find them anyways. This is such an amazing project, something I've always wanted to happen for metabattle -- thank you for working on this :) « Chase ♥ ♥ ♥ » 14:15, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

Of course the option for both methods would be even cooler. That way some people that do want to share the intricacies of the traits etc can also do so. And those that just want to know how to set up a build in one message will also know how to. « Chase ♥ ♥ ♥ » 14:17, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

It's a cool project but I think tagging a build for 2 sections should be higher priority right now :P 1 month in and we basically don't have anything in the Raid section, while we could just tag most dungeon builds for raid too while reposting would complicate things. --Hanz(talk) 14:20, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

This is where things get a bit tricky because of similarity. This template that uses the newly-added Widget extension is intended for sharing chat-links, not full builds, but this doesn't mean we can't have BOTH. One thing you should note is that many things are simply aesthetical for readers (most important crowd IMO). These include {{Specialization table}}, {{Skillbar}}, the tooltips themselves, and the new {{Trait build link}}. Another thing is in-game build sharing, this would take the format Chase suggested and would be somehow simpler (won't really touch SMW for that). The chatlink option is for those who want to copy-and-paste in-game emphasizing the chatlinks themselves, not the full build compositions. What I really mean with all of this is that in-game full build sharing is something apart from chatlink sharing, and it will mostly fit into the build template, or a separate template. Valento (talk) 16:17, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

Could you please restrict editing for Widget namespace so that only admins can do so? Very sensible javascript in there. Valento (talk) 17:30, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

Done-- Galaxian (talk) 18:59, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

Thank you! LordShuckle (talk) 19:22, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

Builds and SMW - next big step

Hi there, guys! To preface the next step for Metabattle, I would like to say this is a great site. It has proven very useful to the community and it's very unique in the way you can write a detailed guide for all sorts of builds for all game modes. While we're still filling skill data (traits already done! yay) I just can't wait to put my hands on the build pages. Fear not, I won't mess anything already existing. xD

So, the first thing I noticed is that many things can be improved. If you've read about SMW you already know a little bit about its "database-like" nature. SMW provides a layout for storing properties about various subjects across a wiki. In this wiki it's a very focused scope: items, traits, skills, and builds. It's somewhat simpler than the official GW2 wiki because we don't have to track a plethora of things. For builds specifically I'll have to start from scratch because even though I read the {{Build}} page and its parameters it sort of confused me, so here goes a bunch of questions:

1. I noticed you need "properties" for builds: profession, build focus/game type, rating and meta flag. Is this enough? Are there more things you want to know about a build? Please, give me everything you want to know. Anything. Take a moment to think: what else would be useful to know about a single build? What would be the query parameters? For example: elite specialization it applies to, maybe split build focus from game mode and add a preset value range (mode: PvE, sPvP, and WvW; game type: Conquest, Raids, Zerg, Guild vs Guild; focus: Bunker, DPS, Mid, etc). Of course we would lock certain focuses to certain types and modes, etc, so it makes sense.
2. How do you go about rating? What are the inner interactions between the template and the rating tab? How does one rate a build (I didn't find it)? Would it be easier if there was a button that you simply rate it, and based on a pontuation it automatically sets a possible "Rating" property? What kind of calculus would be useful for rating? Maybe we could split Rating process between a Rating property and a Score property (increased by votes)? How could we improve the way people vote and what restrictions could be seriously imposed as to not derail the main purpose of the wiki?

In advance, I can see that categorization would be automatically fully optimized, and we can inject SMW in the main page to pull data just like the way I pull tooltip data. This would make "updating" the main page something very easy, it would be a simple matter of hitting the button 'Purge' in the main page (or maybe add a task server-side that does this every 5 hours or so).

This is just a start. I want you guys to be heavily involved in this if you want to switch to SMW-way of things. I'm merely your tool, you guys are the driving force behind this wiki! ^^ Valento (talk) 12:00, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

• There is a rating tab next to the discussion tab if the buld isnt in draft mode anymore
• Can we have a HoT only tag for the builds or sth?
• Hanz wants a tag for raids and one for dungeons which should help in managing builds. But if we do that we might need two rating pages Fredor (talk) 13:21, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

Valid concerns. First, thanks for mentioning the Rating tab, I simply missed it lol. About your requests:

• Yes, we can have a HoT tag, but we need to look ahead: how would we manage expansion-specific builds? Maybe we could add a "Is for expansion"/"Has expansion requirement" property.
• Hmmm... I don't think I understand this... is this related to what? Category? What is your definition of tag? Valento (talk) 13:37, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

Another thought that occured for me: we could set up a subobject containing Rating properties specifically, such as "Has build rating good", "Has build rating great", "Has build rating bad" so we can use them as invidual counters and you can pull the values and manipulate them as you wish. Valento (talk) 13:58, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

Tagging for 2 sections = have an option to put a build into 2 sections, so we could get the same condi engi build to show up in both Dungeons and Raids instead of reposting the same dungeon build but with a raid tag. It's all about reducing redundancy. :P Current template option:{{Build|Engineer|Dungeon|Great}} - shows up in dungeons, proposal: {{Build|Engineer|Dungeon/Raid|Great}} (or something like that) - shows up in both the dungeon and the raid section. I think we don't need 2 rating pages for 1 build even if we tag them for more than 1 section - if a raid build is underperforming in dungeons just don't tag it for dungeons. --Hanz(talk) 14:06, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

Considering what we have now, how about these params:

• unnamed param 1 (corresponding property: Is for profession) - Profession.
• specialization (corresponding property: Is for elite specialization) - Specialization it applies to.
• mode (corresponding property: Is for game mode) - Game mode. Accepts PvE, PvP, and WvW.
• type (corresponding property: Is for game type) - Game type. Accepts: PvE - raid, dungeon, open world, fractal, etc. PvP - conquest, etc. WvW - zerg, roaming, gvg.
• focus (corresponding property: Has build focus) - Build focus, considering the mode and type. Accepts: DPS, tanker, healer, bunker, roamer, etc.
• draft (corresponding property: Is build draft) - Whether this build is draft or not. Setting anything will ignore rating for this build. Build will only account for rating after unsetting this flag.

Read-only properties based on "Rating" tab (i.e. template ignores any attempt at passing such values):

• Has build rating bad - Accounts for the amount of ratings which tagged the current build as "Bad".
• Has build rating good - Accounts for the amount of ratings which tagged the current build as "Good".
• Has build rating great - Accounts for the amount of ratings which tagged the current build as "Great".
• Is for meta - Accounts for the amount of ratings which tagged the current build as part of the current Metagame.

Well, this is my understanding of each parameter. How do these look? Valento (talk) 16:25, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

On a second note, there are two ways of querying build applications: properties, and categories. I just realized most (if not all) could be categorized. This way the query would be merely category filter, like: {{#ask: [[Category::Meta builds]][[Category::Scrapper builds]][[Category::Raid builds]]}}. Guess what the results would be? ;) Valento (talk) 16:34, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

Problem is the template would still only display either Raids or Dungeons to users in the "This build has been designed for the following use: Raid" part. It would show up in both, yes, but tagged only for 1. This would be the ideal way to do it imo - here you can see that the build was tagged for GvG, HA, FA etc. --Hanz(talk) 08:23, 9 December 2015 (UTC)

That's completely feasible. I will do that once I make sense of these "draft, test, basic, archive" stuff. I need to understand the structure or else I'll categorize stuff wrongly. :/ Valento (talk) 11:47, 9 December 2015 (UTC)

Rating and scoring should finally be split if possible. Pull score from the "community" rating tab (this gives us less rigor of making sure they are up to snuff) and start including an "editors" rating / aka what our moderators are putting them in at. Our team has done a great job of sorting good/great/meta in the past without any voting system, and i trust them more than i trust 5 randoms on the internet. However some people feel that the community can't have their say, and i would also like to show the "community" score in the rating box if possible. This is similar to how many review sites list their products/movies/whatever they're reviewing. Their own editorial score with the user scores listed separately. « Chase ♥ ♥ ♥ » 21:51, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

I can mash numbers in the template to come up with the correct rating by pulling rating values for Bad, Good and Great. I just wanted to know what layout to use data-wise. Do you have something in mind? I suck at math so I'd need a little help with average formula. Tell me what you want to set for properties. Valento (talk) 11:59, 5 December 2015 (UTC)

Ok, I'm scratching my head too much (this isn't good you know). I found the perfect solution: a rating extension that meets SMW, this is, a SMW-empowered ratings extension. It's simply perfect! We create two "ratings" (gonna name one Rating and the other Community Rating). It supports a range from 0 to max, I can use the input values to automatically label a certain build as Bad, Good or Great. This extension could mean some "comment restrictions" you've imposed would have to be reworked somehow as it doesn't allow such things. Just let me know what you think. Valento (talk) 12:20, 5 December 2015 (UTC)

We could try using our widget extension to still perform the same validations, just remember that would require some research to fully understand it. On the bright side we'd be using standard, and well-maintained extensions, although somewhat hard to understand we could still try making something out of it. Valento (talk) 12:24, 5 December 2015 (UTC)

I'm going to tweak a Semantic Form to try and come up with a build rating, if you can please install the mentioned ratings extension. I'll try my best to at least lay a groundwork. I will use a Form to manage rating (admins and community separately), comment, and somehow insert a widget to perform necessary validations (or maybe do that upon loading the page). The goal is for builds to have two ratings. Having numbers we simply have to check them and categorize accordingly. From there, the rest is very simple. Valento (talk) 12:55, 5 December 2015 (UTC)

Galaxian, you were the one who developed MBWiki rating system, right? The main issue as far as "visibility" goes is how we're pulling and displaying data in main page. So, after thinking through stuff very carefully I got to the conclusion that adding a new extension and doing all this stuff by myself is a waste of "resource", once you already have a fully working rating system. What I thought was: why doesn't Galaxian adjust his rating system to store SMW properties programmatically instead of me redoing everything? It's easier for me, and it's better than reinventing the wheel, right? I'm sorry for not being able to contribute with PHP (I have next to zero understanding about this language), but there's an Interface API available. We could come up with a few properties regarding rating and you could use your rating tab to update these properties' values. From there on it's very simple.

The mentioned API has a writePropertyTableUpdates method that seems to be the one that updates the values (i.e. the ratings). This is the full syntax:

SMWSQLStore3Writers::writePropertyTableUpdates($ sid, array $ tablesInsertRows, array $ tablesDeleteRows, array $ newHashes)

Tell me what of you think about this approach. It's a way of not discarding everything you've done, and attaching your already working rating extension to SMW. No need to hurry as it's somewhat more involved and requires a little bit of research. Valento (talk) 12:47, 7 December 2015 (UTC)

We could take a look at this in the future (mid January?) since I have huge programming assignments and two finals that I need to be done with within a month or so. I still need to take a look at the property things and really try to understand them as I am not sure what needs to be done with our current code/tables. Btw, great work with the traits! Sorry that I couldn't help out more but this last year of shool is really time consuming :(-- Galaxian (talk) 19:21, 7 December 2015 (UTC)

No problem at all. I can explain everything that I know to you (and anyone who wants to know about properties). Take your time, it's just that I don't want to scrap your extension as it's already very powerful and stable. LordShuckle (talk) 19:31, 7 December 2015 (UTC)

Culling

So right now we have a plethora of half-finished builds, duplicate builds or variants of variants in the dungeon and raid section no one cares about. What should we do about it? Simply wait the 2x2 weeks without edit or weed some out? Fredor (talk) 12:18, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

I for one would like to delete them - if someone can't even check the frontpage for builds before posting then it's deserved I'd say. --Hanz(talk) 13:45, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

Okay i'll do that in a week or so when i get some sparetime. But what about the builds in draft that arent ready for testing? Practice was to move them to test, but i would favor to move them to directly to basic Fredor (talk) 14:13, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

If a draft build has the necessary skills, traits, equipment listed and a very basic usage guide it's enough; otherwise they can be deleted « Chase ♥ ♥ ♥ » 21:53, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

Specify basic Fredor (talk) 22:08, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

Oudated Builds?

I am looking through the dungeon section right now and I think there might be some outdated build which need to be archived. Among them are:

• http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Guardian_-_Fractal_Hammer
• http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Guardian_-_Sinister_Condition
• http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Ranger_-_S/A_GS_Quick_Draw
• http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Elementalist_-_S/x_LH
• http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Elementalist_-_D/F

Right now I would archive the sinister condi, ranger quick draw and the lh build. Dunno what to do about the other two. Fredor (talk) 12:26, 9 December 2015 (UTC)

How is Guardian: Sinister Condi outdated? Please... It's still as usefull as ever. Also, some of the other builds listed are not outdated...

Guardian Sinister Condi:

1. Has it lost any function? No
2. Is there a better Condition Guardian build? No
3. Has there been a major overhaul of traits and has it been over 45 days since last build update? No

Foxman525 ( /u/ ) 13:31, 12 December 2015 (UTC)

That one need hasn't been touched since before the addon. So either someone will update it to the spirit weapon condi guardian or archived because nobody cared about condi guard Fredor (talk) 15:00, 12 December 2015 (UTC)

If you read my above comment, your response is devoid of logic. The ex-pack didn't change everything about builds which includes the condi guard. Foxman525 ( /u/ ) 16:47, 12 December 2015 (UTC)

Clearly you haven't read Fredors comment properly. He mentioned the condi spirit weapon build. So yes there is a better condition build, and though there were no big trait changes there was one huge change: spirit weapons are nearly immortal now. Also you definetly need to run some Viper gear to maximize your damge. That's the Build btw: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRDZWE6fL_w Neijala (talk) 17:08, 12 December 2015 (UTC)

I wouldn't delete the Elementalist D/F build. It's still a good option if for whatever reasons you don't want to use staff. Only needs to be updated and maybe a tempest variant added. Neijala (talk) 17:34, 12 December 2015 (UTC)

I mus've missed the update to Spirit Weapons; Well then, I'm sorry. Yet, the build still is not outdated; this newer version is just that, but it is not a completely new build. Foxman525 ( /u/ ) 17:58, 12 December 2015 (UTC)

New Build template: TBuild (Test)

As a follow-up of the above discussion, I'd like to present you the {{TBuild}}. It's the new SMW-empowered Build template. Much like all of what I've been doing, it still uses the same scheme (css-style and such) but it's structured differently in a way people can query builds more efficiently. I've added a new entry in the MetaBattle SMW page so you can understand all the properties involved. Here's what this template can do:

• Supports the following parameters: profession, specialization, game-type, rating, focus, meta, and team. Profession, specialization, and team doesn't have a visual difference, they're only used for tagging builds.
• I tried my best to avoid any sort of redundancy, and the final prototype I came up with for rating is: it will support the three final ratings (basic, good and great), and will also support temporary/permanent "states" (draft, test, and archived). This has been done because it's my understanding that one build will never share more than one of these values, i.e. they're exclusive, so it's safe to assume a build will never be test and draft, or great and archived. Notice that although the parameter is called "rating", it will store different properties based on input. When you provide basic, good, and great I'll store that rating in Has build rating. When you provide draft it will simply set Is draft build to true. When you provide archived it will set Is archived build to true. As a special case, when a build is tagged as "Test" it will never set any property, but will add the Test builds category to the page.
• Profession and specialization will set Is for profession and Is for elite specialization, but I culled specialization categorization. This means it won't tag a tempest build in an hypothetic "Tempest builds" category, but it will tag for the base profession instead. My conclusion was that it would be too much useless categorization for little value, and there will be ways to search for elite spec builds (keep on reading).
• Game types are as simple as can be. They're categorized in the passed parameter, and will also categorize under PvE, PvP or WvW depending on the game type nature. It supports more than one game type, so a build can have several game type usages and will be categorized accordingly.
• Focus (thanks Hanz!) is also very simple, and will also allow for several focus values.
• Meta and team will both set their respective properties to true and will categorize accordingly.

All of the possible options for each parameter apply the corresponding categories to that build page. IMO the most complex one is rating, but if you re-read it a few times it shouldn't be too hard to understand (although it can be quite weird to understand the "why" part).
Since I love so much this wiki (although I suck at PvP and don't have monies to test builds haha) I gave my best and copycat a query form from the official wiki, and came up with a Build query form. It searches for all of the properties the template stores for each build and can be used to make complex queries for specific builds. This form assumes that all builds will have at least a game type and focus.

If you're curious about the category tree fear not, it's right here. Please give me your feedback and what can be fixed or added or scrapped. \o/ Valento (talk) 11:34, 12 December 2015 (UTC)

Here's one sample test build so you can see the thing in action: Tempest Condi. Valento (talk) 11:44, 12 December 2015 (UTC)

I think I'm starting to understand the whole SMW concept now :D Btw, is the "Build query form" supposed to work now?-- Galaxian (talk) 16:48, 12 December 2015 (UTC)

Ideally yes, but remember it won't display anything (only my test build) because no other build page is using the TBuild template. I want feedback first, and I need name ideas haha. Valento (talk) 22:09, 12 December 2015 (UTC)

I'll leave this discussion open for this week and I'll adjust the template based on feedback. If no feedback is provided I'll wrap up the template by friday. --Valento (talk) 20:00, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

Everything looks good, we could always add stuff later on. I know that Hanz talked about the multi tagging for a while (we had it from the very first beginning, not sure what happened to it lol) and I saw that it's possible to multi tag in your template. However, should we mark rating/meta based on game-type so that each game-type has its own rating/meta? A build might be meta in conquest but only good in stronghold, same goes for the other sections.-- Galaxian (talk) 03:03, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

It gets a bit complicated semantic-wise when builds are meta depending on game-type because I have to redo all properties and categories. I can add support for that, but I'd like a few more examples if possible. Valento (talk) 15:21, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

Let's stick with what you have already created then, it's not really worth redoing all that for such minor thing.-- Galaxian (talk) 15:49, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

Actually, thinking this through, it's a very necessary request. I'll try and remake everything today, I just wanted the game types to be as complete as possible, but I'll work on top of what we have by now. ^^ --LordShuckle (talk) 13:57, 17 December 2015 (UTC)

Is it "Meta conquest build" or "Conquest meta build"? I mean the category name. My English is failing so badly today. :( Valento (talk) 16:23, 17 December 2015 (UTC)

Meta Conquest sounds better but I think both are correct. But having 2 rating pages sounds a bit unnecessary for now, could be handy in the future if we can gather a bigger base of testers. --Hanz(talk) 16:28, 17 December 2015 (UTC)

I'm trying to anticipate all situations, Hanz. Changing the scheme can be quite a lot for SMW to go through because it will have to queue all changes across build pages and effectively change the category, depending on how long we skip game-type meta status it might take quite a lot of time. I mean, SMW self-updating may take forever to finish, so we better start off all set up. --Valento (talk) 16:43, 17 December 2015 (UTC)

Also, I was partially incorrect when I said I'd have to redo everything. I will keep what I've done and just add new categories. :) --Valento (talk) 16:44, 17 December 2015 (UTC)

Sigh... no. This will become unecessarily difficult and somewhat too complicated to display. See, right now we have a nice meta tag that governs a different style, and this style is applied to the whole build notice. If we split into many game types it hurts my head to think how many different styles I'd have to deal with for little payoff. I'll settle with what I have now and finally finish this template so you guys can start using it. --Valento (talk) 17:14, 17 December 2015 (UTC)

kk and ty ^^ --Hanz(talk) 19:14, 17 December 2015 (UTC)

Feedback

Minor note, the new template pushed down Table of Content - it won't appear next to it. --Hanz(talk) 19:22, 17 December 2015 (UTC)

Note 2: the linebreak can be a bit weird - it should break after "damage", not before it. --Hanz(talk) 19:34, 17 December 2015 (UTC)

Note 2 got bugfixed, but first request... I couldn't find what's causing it because the css is identical as before. I'll have to look into that tomorrow. :s --Valento (talk) 20:11, 17 December 2015 (UTC)

K, nothing too important anyways :P --Hanz(talk) 20:24, 17 December 2015 (UTC)

TOC is now aligned correctly thanks to Chase! \o --Valento (talk) 11:01, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

Note 3: ones tagged as meta won't show up on the mainpage, all of the pvp builds disappeared. EDIT: couple other builds also disappeared Oo --Hanz(talk) 20:27, 17 December 2015 (UTC)

Gah, I didn't know you'd touch front page builds ç.ç... I'll have to write a pull for retrieving all sorts of builds for the main page, but I am leaving right now. I'll keep a mental note to create an #ask call for you tomorrow. If it gets too bad you can revert the template swap for now. --Valento (talk) 20:31, 17 December 2015 (UTC)

Sorry D: Btw it's because I accidentally used capital letters here and there, maybe? Gonna change that asap if that's the only problem. --Hanz(talk) 20:34, 17 December 2015 (UTC)

Take your time btw, we don't have to rush it like I did xP --Hanz(talk) 21:32, 17 December 2015 (UTC)

K, I'm at home. This is how you pull builds for specific sections based on category:

{{#ask: [[Category:PvE builds]]|limit=999|sep=<br>}}

What you will change is [[Category:PvE builds]]. For instance, if you want raid builds you choose category "Raid builds", if you want raid META builds you do: {{#ask: [[Category:Raid builds]][[Category:Meta builds]]|limit=999|sep=<br>}}. The sep parameter is how we'll separate each result, in this case it's a breakline. I can come up with a template for generating these but... I'm confident this is very simple. :D --Valento (talk) 01:21, 18 December 2015 (UTC)

Uhm, I think this isn't my area :D Are you sure this wasn't meant for Galaxian or Chase? --Hanz(talk) 10:43, 18 December 2015 (UTC)

This gonna be your area! Because... ta-da! -> {{SMW build pull}}. I changed the main page. Could you please change a few dungeon meta builds and see if it's pulling correctly? --Valento (talk) 11:21, 18 December 2015 (UTC)

What I mean is, technically I don't need to know anything about SMW build pull, I only have to care about MBuild and replace the current templates with the MBuild one and nothing else, right? --Hanz(talk) 12:05, 18 December 2015 (UTC)

Yes yes, I meant that if you want to use this build pull template one day for your own purposes it won't be that difficult anymore. Wrapping up SMW calls in a template can really simplify lives as it doesn't look that scarry anymore. Anyways, try changing a few dungeon meta builds to see if this works. --Valento (talk) 13:09, 18 December 2015 (UTC)

Changed this one, it shows up here below the Valento test build so I guess it works :P --Hanz(talk) 15:58, 18 December 2015 (UTC)

Please, check the main page and some sections will have SMW version of "No pages meet these criteria". Try swapping builds and see if their moving from the DPL call to the SMW call. --Valento (talk) 16:40, 18 December 2015 (UTC)

What you'll check and swap are dungeon builds (all sub-sections), raids (all sub-sections), wvw (all sub-sections), stronhold (all sub-sections), conquest (all sub-sections), and profession (only guardian sub-section). Everytime you swap a template, go to the main page and click the link PURGE up above so it refreshes SMW data. --Valento (talk) 16:44, 18 December 2015 (UTC)

K I'll start soon, btw the ele build now shows up in both Meta and Great. --Hanz(talk) 16:45, 18 December 2015 (UTC)

(reset indent) Well, you specified it's great and meta in the template... how should it look like? o.o --Valento (talk) 16:58, 18 December 2015 (UTC)

Hmm... so when a build is meta, regardless of its rating it can only appear under meta section? --Valento (talk) 17:13, 18 December 2015 (UTC)

Yep, pretty much :P (at least for now, idk what goes where in a potential new front page). It can still be distinguished by looking at its "badge" - golden Dragon for Great and silver Owl for Good. --Hanz(talk) 17:26, 18 December 2015 (UTC)

I adjusted the template to set meta/team to false, when it's not set to true. Although it looks ridiculously obvious it is not. Meta and team are aggregate tags (i.e. they're summed in the query). When this happens I have to set true/false because SMW doesn't query for absence of values, so I cannot query for great builds without a meta tag (it's impossible), but I can query for great builds and meta = false. I.E. it works! --Valento (talk) 17:34, 18 December 2015 (UTC)

Done

K, I think I updated all of them. (except Team pages ofc) --Hanz(talk) 21:28, 18 December 2015 (UTC)

Professions are all empty ChaseBot (talk) 21:44, 18 December 2015 (UTC)

Yep, because the profession sections on the main page don't use SMW yet (except for guard?). --Hanz(talk) 21:56, 18 December 2015 (UTC)

All done now. There's a high possibility you'll have to move team builds from Team namespace to Build namespace (it's a build after all?), because Chase wants to do something with Team namespace... and I'm getting too curious. Also, someone will have to swap templates for archived and basic builds. This page uses SMW to pull data (missed some icons lol). I'll have to do something similar with draft and test. Once they're done we can replace the front page links. --Valento (talk) 14:22, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

Old Basic build

I think we should start deleting them after a while (actually we were supposed to do that after 2 weeks or so), we're going to run out of build names eventually. Only Archived ones should be kept in the long run. --Hanz(talk) 09:32, 13 December 2015 (UTC)

Any name you want to use that is currently a "basic build" can simply be edited. The purposes of having basic builds is also to let people know that build has already been made and failed. If they'd like to edit it and re-try they can. « Chase ♥ ♥ ♥ » 20:04, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

Tbh that never stopped people from respoting them 10 times :D --Hanz(talk) 20:09, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

Old, outdated, archived, forgotten, etc builds

I have a solution for your problems. First, semantic-wise (and for simplicity) I think we can all agree that whatever the reason is, old builds can be considered archived, right? The only thing that's bugging you guys is page naming as far as I know. So, why don't we tag (with the template) these builds as archived and move them to another page named something like Build:Archived/{Original pagename}? You may question me "dat won't work bcoz there can be more than one old build with the same name!". You're correct, then we add a disambiguation to the pagename. It can be as simple as Build:Archived/{Original pagename} II, or Build:Archived/{Original pagename} (2).

If these aren't enough and you want a way for God-knows-why to store a build descriptor (page names for instance, like Mesmer S/S - Utility, or Thief D/D Venomshare (Raid)), I can add another parameter to store specifically this descriptor. Then I can add a way for you to query it with another field. These are measures to make your lives easier. Throw questions/suggestions at me so we can get to a nice consensus (PS.: I'm not a masochist)! --Valento (talk) 16:23, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

Hmm that might work. :P But imo there's just no point at keeping old "Basic" builds - these are builds that never worked and likely never will, so we should delete them regardless. --Hanz(talk) 16:59, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

I called it "descriptor", but there's another word for it, my English is sucking today. Does 'name' suffice? Also, the part about moving is merely a practice idea, so you'd have to have this practice (got archived? then move). Valento (talk) 17:19, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

The future of Metabattle

Alright, time for some serious talk. The following has been in my head since the trait changes and I would like to get some feedback from everyone here at Metabattle:

Ever since traits got an update the activity in PvE/WvW sections has been dropping off. We lost some section admins, some quit/took a from GW2 while other don't really have time to spend on the website, I personally have limited of time :( This has affected the quality of our website, PvP sections is however great due to Hanz doing such a good work. I would love to bring Metabattle back on its feet and make it even better by

• Splitting the website into a front and back-end version. The back-end will be the wiki that we have right now while the front-end will have a brand new custom design, such as Mobafire or other League of Legends related websites (they have a "unique" design). The front-end will use live data from the wiki so any changes made on the wiki will affect the builds/guides on the front-end.
• The new design will allow me to place more ads on the website and increase the ad revenues, hopefully.
• The revenue increment will then allow me to "hire" dedicated section admins (PvE/WvW) in return for a monthly pay, cash or gems, no idea how much though.

I don't want to make any changes before hearing what you guys have to say, write your thoughts below and let me know if you know of any alternative ways.-- Galaxian (talk) 03:28, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

Sounds good, just don't overdo the ads :P --Hanz(talk) 07:49, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

I was planning to add only one more ad but they will be more visible than now due to the layout. Btw, how much would you consider to be a fair amount to pay the section admins?-- Galaxian (talk) 15:16, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

Hmm no idea, but that's something that can wait for now I guess. First things first :P How would you organize the front page, could you make a quick sketch? --Hanz(talk) 16:05, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

Hey, just wanted to jump in and say that I'm very sorry for things going bad lately. Is it possible that the site notice caused the activity drop? There's a dismiss link beside the notice, but that's unavailable for non-logged users. If that's the cause we could always disable the extension and see if it changes anything. --Valento (talk) 15:24, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

Also, I feel kinda bad for not being able to commit to such an important position. First, I have a fulltime job, and I also lack enough knowledge to manage such sections. If there's something I can do on template stuff that could help, please let me know. I grew such an admiration for all of the people here and all the effort you guys put into this wiki, and it would be a shame to see this website not getting the amount of activity it deserves. --Valento (talk) 15:28, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

Site notice isn't the reason, activity has been dropping off for a while now while the traffic grows by each day. Fun fact: the website is as big as it has ever been. While the usage is increase, the quality is decreasing which won't end well unless we do something about it. I am kinda in the same spot as you, I would love to take care of a section but that would do more harm than good... We have asked the community for help a couple of times without any luck so paying is the only option left I guess.-- Galaxian (talk) 15:46, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

Btw, you can disable the site notice if you want, it has been up there for a while now :D -- Galaxian (talk) 15:47, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

As a temporary solution we should disable WvW, because that's pretty much all outdated at this point I guess. Priority should be to get the PvE section updated, Fredor, Enaretos and couple others already started it. PvE is actually where we get kinda nice contributions. --Hanz(talk) 16:05, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

We could do that but there is a risk of leaving it as disabled for a long time which won't be good. Btw, give me feedback on this, I just made it really quick: http://metabattle.com/newfront/header.php That's a pretty basic concept, the design will most likely change as I would love to try a darker theme.-- Galaxian (talk) 23:26, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

IMHO the theme could be a little darker. It just feels... weird being so white-ish. The sides also feel a bit "empty", it lacks weight for some reason. --Valento (talk) 10:58, 17 December 2015 (UTC)

Galaxian said he wants it to be darker :P Btw yeah, +1 for the darker theme. Make it Batmaner. Imo "Discuss/rate/edit" should be displayed in a row instead of a column, maybe edit should be removed from there to encourage people to discuss changes before making them. --Hanz(talk) 13:03, 17 December 2015 (UTC)

New Skin

You don't need to create a "frontend", you can just skin the site better. It all needs to get rehauled. I'd work on it, but am too busy. I can at least guide you on where the skinning materials are though. You just right click inspect this site and changes you want can be put in common.css Jerem has a full time job now, I don't think hiring a pve admin is the problem, I think we just need better communication. I haven't been able to fulfill this background role for a while now due to irl commitments. We haven't made a quarterly metabattle announcement in a while either (I think it was about 6 months ago?). If you want, we can start the new year fresh with an announcement, a plea for action, and new skin design. « Chase ♥ ♥ ♥ » 13:50, 17 December 2015 (UTC)

Yep, overhauling the skin is much preferred. --LordShuckle (talk) 13:55, 17 December 2015 (UTC)

I tried editing the theme a while ago but never managed to change the total width to 1000px instead of full width that we have right now. This is what I just came up with: https://i.gyazo.com/2bb165a5d17e05a53005707bfb3efc91.png Does you guys know which elements to edit in order to change the width and center it at the same time. I am currently not able to edit the header and sidebar. With frontpage content: https://i.gyazo.com/98dae11a6229f2347444f29abc206aed.png (will need a rework though and also the background header image which is currently disabled in the screenshots) -- Galaxian (talk) 15:06, 17 December 2015 (UTC)

I uploaded all the work i've done so far locally. Go to top right, preferences, appearance, change theme from vector ⇒ foreground. « Chase ♥ ♥ ♥ » 16:30, 17 December 2015 (UTC)

Where can I edit the CSS for that theme without affecting our current? I would love to play around with it, we can always revert back since you have a local copy.-- Galaxian (talk) 16:58, 17 December 2015 (UTC)

Instead of common.css you can use foreground.css (common apparently filled up which was causing me issues in transferring) ChaseBot (talk) 17:52, 17 December 2015 (UTC)

PVE Meta builds

Hey all,

I know there has been some changes in site admins or people that have stepped down due to real life requirements, however it seems that the PVE section has gone neglected for some time now. Im writing this post because I feel that not only the dungeon section but also the raid section needs to have more attention brought to it if we want to keep this site current and in stride with the current state of gw2. There have been a lot of changes made to GW2, though the metabattle site still seems to be stuck in the days prior HoT. In order to keep current with GW2 i feel that more attention needs to be put into what we are considering to be a "meta" build. If we look at the dungeon section we are still stating that builds, that are way underpowered now, are still meta. While the raid section goes with more "test" and "draft" builds than meta builds, but there are clearly meta build in each section that seem to go unnoticed and far surpass some of the old meta builds . If the metabattle site wants to keep viable we need to offer the community up to date builds, along with the metabattle community needs to offer feedback and reviews on those that take time to write and post their build on metabattle. Keeping builds in the "test" or "draft" section for more than a week without offering a comment or review seems to be a negative for those that took time to write the build, along with not offering the community any solid information on whether the build is viable or not. Just putting a comment or rating on these said build can go a long way for those that visit metabattle to try and obtain the upper-hand in knowing what is and isn't woking in gw2 today. I know it takes time and people willing to try and juggle real life and personal hobbies, but im sure if we look at the active metabattle community there are people that are willing to step up and offer a helping hand. Terranist (talk) 19:20, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

I had the same feeling and that's why I started doing something here. Didn't want anyone to run some of the horrible test builds thinking they are good. Didn't had enough time to improve all the stuff I want to yet. I found it really troubling that a raid build received 5 great ratings but no one cared to remove the dungeon specific sigils and food. That just doesn't look good. But I will try to rate a little bit more. It's just not that easy if there are 3 pretty similar builds with potential but none realy good. Makes me want to find the time to improve the best, rate it good and drop the other two... Neijala (talk) 22:23, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

Thank you for doing what you can and I can say personally that the contributions I've seen you add to a few builds/guides have only helped the guides become even better. If we continue as a community to try to better what is there I believe we could formulate some extremely viable guides and get up to date with the current state of GW2. Terranist (talk) 22:52, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

Raids are very new still. I know for many there is a "meta", but let's remember the "1 tank" meta of the pve dungeons when they first came out. AH Bunker guard was actually a thing. Of course this time around we're much more versed in GW2 mechanics, but let's be patient for just a while longer.

In this unique case, I'm hoping the community understands why there is no "meta" (Those other builds should be removed as well for the time being). In my opinion the only "meta" build is a chronomancer anchor and that too only for the vale guardian.

So a couple things to consider:

• Venom Share thieves have been in groups that finish Vale Guardian. Surely there is some player out there that thinks VS Thieves deserve to be "meta" as well. This is confusing "meta" with "viable".
• Is our current raid set up optimal in a build-by-build list like most other sections? Or would it be beneficial to start listing the perfect "team comps" and posting those individual builds inside there? This way we could have a "meta Vale guardian" team.
• Do we have enough experience of different timers? Is it build based or skill based? To me for the first time ever, skill is meta in raids over builds. Why is that? Because like dungeons, the mechanics aren't perfectly versed. That means for many players "meta" is just surviving easily enough to get to lightning or dodge mechanics etc. Why is that meta? Because we aren't highly trained at raids just yet.

To re-iterate this is why we cannot have a "meta" for raids. We can have great, good, and of course test/draft builds. I will also go through ratings and start to formulate the thresholds for ratings so users can start moving builds on their own. This was a problem because we decided on a silly bad, good, great system for votes as opposed to a not-viable and viable approach. Now that we have a solid number of votes on the system, I'll try to re-adjust numbers and come up with a good formula.« Chase ♥ ♥ ♥ » 14:15, 17 December 2015 (UTC)

Dark Theme - Foreground

Hello everyone. I have been extremely busy as of late (Worked through the night with coffee) to present a bare bones idea of the new layout, Foreground. You can activate this in your preferences > appearances.

Pros:

• Mobile layout will be easier to control
• Much simpler looking (A lot of the controls are "hidden" behind menus which are still easy to get to with a mouse).
• This theme is easier to code with, but still has some of the limitations of normal MediaWiki skins. AKA, it was definitely easier to manipulate the main bar at the top, Adding color-coding to the namespace tag above the title of the page, etc. I'm hoping to be able to go further with some of these ideas later.
• New WikiEditor will perhaps be customizable to add "templates" button allowing users to pick through the templates we allow on this site
• Loads faster? To me at least.

Missing:

• Links to ratings from build/talk pages
• Styling of various menus (This theme is originally bright).
• Moving elements of the "rating box" into the title.
• Re-doing our templates to work with mobile (They'll need to "split" at better points and have their own css applied to them, but we're already at a good start for mobile).
• Re-allocating all our "help" pages such as tutorial, style guide, etc, into one massive guide if possible.
• Various other things that I can't keep in my head together all at once haha

Bugs:

• Actions menu does not hide gracefully (requires choosing an option or re-clicking actions)
• Action menu requires double click/double tap when on smaller resolutions/mobile

Subtleties:

• You'll find the "your action was complete" hides away with a better transition (wait 4 seconds after an edit and look at the top of the screen).
• A lot of the icons that you see (Especially in the WikiEditor) are actually from a font. This allows us to scale up the size of our website without losing the awesome rendering powers. It also took me 8 hours back to back working. Glad it finally does.
• Chrome users will have a custom scrollbar
• Metabattle logo "lights up" when you hover over it (As I had to re-design our logo to fit in a 32x32px area, I decided to take a small privilege).

I know it's hard to imagine, but a lot of these back end jobs take a lot of work. Of course I also mooch off the hardwork of others so I'm grateful to the technology community in general for doing these kinds of things. I'm hoping this new set up will be our default by january 1st. And, yes, I still have a re-work planned for the front page. I need to speak with Valento in learning how these new SMW things work. (And yes, we will look into the Section Admins, both PvE as well as WvW.) « Chase ♥ ♥ ♥ » 15:24, 18 December 2015 (UTC)

Dec 25 Update: Missing Guide/Donate buttons for the top-bar and the new home page. Otherwise we are set! New pages were added for navigating the builds by profession and game mode. Rating links have been added to the build pages and vice versa. Recent ratings and community portal links were added to the site wide cog on the top right menu.

Users can add their own styles to this one if they dislike anything about it. Say for instance the width of the site is bothering you. You can go to:

User:ChaseBot/foreground.css

(where ChaseBot is your username instead) and add the line:

.row {max-width: none;}

to get the site's width to match the top-bar width. Or you could say you dislike the bright white of the textarea as it's too contrasting with the dark theme. Then add the line:

textarea#wpTextbox1 {background-color: #111; color: #ccc;}

to get a darker text area. A lot of styling options are open to the end user this time around. --※ Chase @ 04:14, 26 December 2015 (UTC)

Long loading times?

Hmm is it just me or does saving an edit take longer than LA loading screen? --DefinitelyNotHanz (talk) 11:44, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

SMW may have something to do with it. I'm not 100% sure but I already passed this to Galaxian. The Official Wiki sometimes go slow too, but it's not terrible. --Valento (talk) 14:33, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

It's not SMW, it's the host. --DefinitelyNotHanz (talk) 14:58, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

SMW Forms - Making creating builds more accessible and easy!

We have Semantic Forms! You know what this means? This is an example. Forms are a way to communicate SMW with the wiki, (preferrably) through a template by specifying parameters in certain fields. Forms are usually used for two purposes: searching stuff based on parameters, or creating pages based on parameters. This means we can come up with a noice form that asks a few parameters (in each field) and behind the scenes we translate these parameters to the raw wikitext, then the person simply hit the button 'Save' and it all done. Even if the person prefers editing raw wikitext (like me), it'll be much easier to start a build page by filling up parameters and have all templates laid out. We can set some preset wikitext (such as sections), then the form creates the page, and then we can edit normally but we'll already have a lot of wikitext already there.

This is just a heads-up of what I'm planning to do soon. Hopefully it'll help creating pages easier. --Valento (talk) 14:32, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

Very cool. I like the idea of it becoming a "build template" engine. ChaseBot (talk) 22:50, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

New SMW templates available

I present you:

• {{Skill chain}} – It asks for a skill pagename that's part of a chain (that skill must have chain parameter specified in its page). It then queries for each skill in such property and display the whole skill chain. Simple.
• {{Skillbar auxiliary}} – Queries for a skillbar associated with a parent skill, or engineer kit, and display them in a row. I might have to expand it in the future, but that's what I have for now.

You won't have many examples because I'm still filling skill entries. --Valento (talk) 13:23, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

Looks awesome, great job as always :) Would it be possible to implement the skill chain feature into the skill bar?-- Galaxian (talk) 16:59, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

I... could. It's just that certain skill bars (elementalist with all those attunements) would suffer because of how extremely cluttered it would look like. Think about chained skills for many attunements, and how those would be displayed one below another PLUS the attunement skills themselves. This is why I ensured no chained skills are displayed. :/ --LordShuckle (talk) 17:01, 23 December 2015 (UTC)