Best Builders of KAG

On the back of LazikLion's comment, what criteria are we looking at here? I mean, most class A builders are fairly decent at most things, but I've always noticed that there tends to be lines of specialisation. e.g.:

• builders who excel at aggressive rush tactics;
• those who are masterfully sneaky tunnellers;
• those who can whip up functional front-line fortification in the blink of an eye;
• those who are miserable, sadistic bastards when it comes to spikes;
• those who employ quirky and/or gimmicky (and, on occasion, glitchy) mechanics in their designs to give their team an edge;
• those who build structures that are easy to maintain and extend (you know, those infinitely expanding castles that magically repair in the time it takes you to respawn after your heroic-suicidal keg rush);
• those whose buildings are a joy to use (easy to get around, don't screw you over with weird layouts or design choices, etc.);
• those who are quick+responsive to needs (critical or QoL) of their team mates, often anticipating things before you ask;
• those who use their wealth to great effect in all those small-but-important ways (buying a burger for a lone+wounded knight, always having bomb arrows on hand to neutralise ballistas asap, replacing mines on flags, keeping their team in bombs, fire arrows, etc., etc.);
• those who have mastered the subtle art of bludgeoning archers/other builders to death;
• Other things I'm sure.

Speaking personally I know there are areas I'm weak at (for various reasons incl. lack of practice, latency bc terrible internet, personal tastes lie elsewhere) and others I'd like to think I'm not shabby at (castles designed so that even pub players can keep in good repair, that give good mobility to your team and seriously hamper the same for your enemy, that give you a solid fallback position but don't take an eternity to build so you can get on with the business of helping push...).

So, fwiw, maybe asking who is better at what might yield more insight, no?

 

Well done, Tiger. You've managed to take a post that was seeking to delve deeper into the topic and not only miss the point (generating more discussion on specific aspects of why/how the best builders play the way they do; eg "which is more important, trait A or B?" or "C is nice, but you have to also consider XYZ") but also reply with a statement so bland and generic, so boringly self-evident, that it actually robs the post you're replying to of any flavour or interest.

Maybe next time try for a more granular response, as we both know you're capible of it.

{edit}
Or, in the words of my bae:

 

See? That wasn't so hard, was it?

What you say is fair, but I would raise the counterpoint that, in my experience, most of the builders here have their preferred approaches and are generally dangerous for different reasons. For example, Stevedog is highly competent in most regards, but it's really only when I forget to keep an eye on him and suddenly realise I've not seen him in a few minutes that I have an "oh shit" moment. Similarly I've never found 8x to be especially terrifying until he magically appears on top of a tower and I'm trapped inside, in which case I generally break out in a cold sweat and start cursing out whoever built it (occasionally me, if I built it before 8x joined) without appropriate safeguards against his wizard-tier fuck-all-your-shit-right-up skills. Again, you say that rush building trumps minecrafting, but anyone who had to square up against Strathos or Vidar back in Classic might quietly loudly suggest otherwise.

This is not, ofc, to say that being able to do one or two things well qualifies one as a high class builder, but rather an acknowledgement of the fact that most builders have particular quirks or approaches that typify their play-style and make them stand out from the crowd. I think the only "vanilla" builder of v high skill I've seen is Dar, and even then I'm unsure whether it's because he's actually a dedicated all-rounder or if maybe he's just extremely flexible and willing to bend his pet projects to the task at hand more readily than most.

 

True enough, but it was their attitude towards minecrafting I was referencing more than the game mode. I've still seen enough instances of a minecrafted catapult or tramp tower/skybridge changing the outcome of games that I can believe a sufficiently talented builder without fucked internet could make minecrafting into a holy terror.

In fact, I seem to recall Dar and I goofing around in a game a few weeks ago where our minecrafting turned into a tower shooting serial chicken builders--a hilarious and devastating form of offensive.

I get your point that being able to "do it all" obviously makes for a better player, but I continue to suspect that the in-game actuality is more nuanced than that, with player's personalities coming to the fore and influencing the final result in interesting ways.