Like all MMORPGs I know of, World of Warcraft uses a steady increase in character abilities to help maintain interest in continued play. Some of these abilities take the form of “talents.” Most talents provide a small upgrade: a 1% chance for each blow to do double damage, for instance, or a 10% reduction in the time it takes to perform a combat maneuver; a few talents provide entirely new abilities which can be very powerful in the right circumstances. Because a character can have a maximum of 51 talents (one per level, beginning with level 10, and ending at the maximum level 60), and there may be a hundred twenty or so talents available, no one can have every talent. Different choices help customize characters, another source of interest in the game. One hunter may make his marksmanship even deadlier, while another could improve his control over his trained attack pets. The cumulative effect of several talents can have a big impact on play style, and a small but telling impact on what a character does well.
Some combinations of talents are more effective than others. A talent that increases the damage of fire spells, for instance, becomes even more useful when paired with another talent that speeds the casting of fire spells. Much attention in the World of Warcraft community is lavished on finding particularly effective talent sets, called “builds.” Forums are filled with threads asking others to evaluate another attempt at creating the ultimate build.
Rarely are such evaluations helpful. They are filled with statements like, “Arcane explosion is totally worthless. Why waste points on it when fire/arcane builds rock?” but with more spelling and grammatical errors. Insufficient explanation makes these critiques useless, and undermines the poster’s credibility, since every talent is useful for particular jobs, and different builds peform different tasks particularly well. Arcane explosion may indeed be totally worthless for, say, intercharacter duels, but could be equally useful against a horde of low-powered computer-controlled enemies. Self-appointed critics all too often fail to explain just what fire/arcane builds rock at.
As vacuous as these replies are, blame lies as often with the original poster. If, in offering his build for examination, a poster explains that he wants a build fine-tuned for use with small groups pursuing quests, or for quick kills, or for bringing down enemies with a ranged attack, the rest of the forum could evaluate the build properly. But, more often than not, the discussion opener reads, “What do you think of this build?” proceeds to list the included talents, and ends.
I’ve touched on this pet peeve before, but it bears repeating: the more specific you are in asking for analysis, the more you’ll get back. This principle stretches from amateur gaming, here, to very serious, important, and expensive projects, like fighting a military campaign. Skillful consultants can provide incredibly accurate answers, but not if they have to guess the questions.