Combat Mentors - From the view of newish player

[ArmaDragkun]

Short Answer: Kinda pointless I've seen Sprouts give better advice as well as play better than the vast majority of CM players

Long Answer: I love the idea of this. Players who put themselves forward to offer advice on either how to play better or the ones to explain tactics on bosses when things go wrong. It seems however in reality this never happens. Sadly every time I've met a CM it's been a negative experience. From a CM tank on Odin who despite 3-4 people saying they are new went and insta pulled the boss and even after 4 wipes refused to say anything, to most recently having a CM healer in my dungeon group who was telling me I should be using my Storm's Eye ability as a warrior a lot more often despite the fact he was so bad at healing I was having to pop pretty much every cd I had on every pull just to stay alive as he did pretty much nothing but spam damage spells.

I've been told a lot of players just have the CM icon to get the free goodies that comes with it. That saddens me as it feels like it tarnishes what was supposed to be an awesome way for people to help and be looked for when someone needed help.

Now of course I might just be super unlucky with the ones I've met and the majority could be those super awesome people who do help. Please tell me if that's the case!

I just wanted to put forward my experience with combat mentors as someone who at the time of writing this has 722 hours in game (A scary amount of that is levelling up my gathering professions)

(The two experiences I put aren't the only two I just didn't want to bore people by recounting every single time I've met a CM)

As a final point I know this is rather negative post but I do want to make the point that 99% of players I meet in game are awesome it just seems out of that 1% of the not so nice bunch that a lot are CMs

[BaconBits]

We really needed another Mentor thread huh?

[ArmaDragkun]

We really needed another Mentor thread huh?

Sorry but I don't tend to scroll through page and page of forum posts. I just wanted to put forward my personal view about them. If you hate it so much why even reply to the thread? You could clearly see what the subject was about so you could of just as easily moved on and ignored it.

[BaconBits]

Sorry but I don't tend to scroll through page and page of forum posts. I just wanted to put forward my personal view about them. If you hate it so much why even reply to the thread? You could clearly see what the subject was about so you could of just as easily moved on and ignored it.

[Canadane]

Sorry but I don't tend to scroll through page and page of forum posts. I just wanted to put forward my personal view about them. If you hate it so much why even reply to the thread? You could clearly see what the subject was about so you could of just as easily moved on and ignored it.

The "Open Forum" style of discussion will garner talks of the subject at hand and the subject itself.

Anyway, the mentor system is great but people have too high expectations of what mentors are there for. Basically queue fillers and "ask me so you don't have to ask google."
Try not to put them on a pedestal and you won't be disappointed with the results.

[Rein_eon_Osborne]

I turn on mentor icon for one from two reason:

1. I genuinely want to help randos for short period of time regardless of results. It's one of those time I want to be selfless and can feel good about it. I will actually offer instead of just waiting to be asked.
2. Lowering other players' expectation. Because yes, it's such a meme nowadays. It's easier to get around when people have low expectation from you: they barely recognize or even see you at all.

That does not mean I won't help outside situation [1]. I'm just not obliged to be that saint and help people. That's not how it works.

[Eien713]

Sorry but I don't tend to scroll through page and page of forum posts.

The search feature in the forums is there for a reason.

Now on topic, I joined the Novice Network on my server as a mentor not too long ago just to see if people's claims about NN in general were true and to see for myself how things are there, and to be honest, I was pleasantly surprised. The mentors there know so much about the game and are so helpful. As for mentors in roulettes, it's pretty much what someone else said about throwing mentors in Ex trials with sprouts who aren't the least bit prepared for it. This last point has been discussed to death, so feel free to drop by one of the many threads discussing this.

As for mentors not explaining what went wrong when someone asks them and the mentor knows the answer, I'm yet to see this.

[KageTokage]

Most "mentors" do just want to get the rewards and have little interest in actually being helpful.

I honestly took off my mentor crown at this point because of people making generalizations and the negativity surrounding such.

[Katie_Kitty]

It's the trade mentors you have to worry about mostly.

[Liam_Harper]

It's the trade mentors you have to worry about mostly.

Honestly, both are just as bad.

Trade mentor is easy to get, but Combat mentor also just requires spamming roulette over and over for comms, which are mostly earned by healbotting or simply being a tank. Neither requires any in-depth knowledge of the game or how the classes work. Sometimes trade mentors are experienced endgame players who don't have combat mentor because they run in PF and statics instead of Duty Finder.

The system is a mess and basically you just ignore the crown entirely and judge each person based on the legitimacy of their advice and their attitude.