I've been double barring inferno staves with my Dunmer magSorc for years, running some or other combination of Skoria/Ilambris/Grothdar, 5x Julianos, 5x BSW, mixing shock, flame and recovery enchants -- for me, this setup works, has always worked, seems likely to keep working as whatever combination I use, I'm pulling 30k+ comfortably, and I'm happy enough with that.

Recently, I had a guild mate (whom I picked up to run a dungeon from the guild chat) decide to take it upon himself to explain all the things wrong with my build. This is before we'd seen any action in the dungeon, just while we're queuing -- passing conversation because he wanted to know what I could do etc. We un-join the queue, because he has to invite his buddy (see, he might have some tips for me too. How nice!) -- and he proceeds to talk to his friend about how I could improve(!) The rest of the conversation I'm no longer participating, but the subject of.

Because I'm a dark elf and use fire staves, I should apparently be wearing Silks of the Sun instead of BSW because 400 spell damage on fire abilities, and mothers sorrow because Julianos is just a 'beginners set'...

let's forget that my rotation has but a single flame ability (blockade of fire) which steadily procs BSW to give me 500 spell damage across the rest of my abilities, and chance to apply burning effect which can proc my monster set (which can proc BSW, and so it goes around again).

Clearly someone has been reading alcastHq and misinterpreted the word beginner; whereas there it is used to mean 'not farmed from a trial', my guildie decided it meant trash -- I'm not opposed to mothers sorrow, but with Julianos and BSW, I'm already at 50% crit, thief mundus puts me over 60%, but I'm also getting a nice 299 spell damage from Juli -- would the extra 9% crit from MS really be worth sacrificing that spell damage for? I'm not sure, and my dummy parse doesn't look much better for it. I've tried Siroria, but I'm too mobile a player to get the full benefit (doesn't suit my play-style); I'm picking up spell strat over time (in no rush to get it tbh). In the meantime I'm happy to be able to craft, and re-craft a decent set of the exact weight/trait/type/piece(s) I need without farming for it, and get all the benefit I know to work with.

To be honest, it wound me up -- this guy had already decided that I was sub optimal because of his unwillingness to look outside of bullet-pointed lists of pre-digested information (overheard or read). I'm not saying his suggestions were invalid, but just not applicable to me, and to press on it as gospel because blah blah without a basis for comparison did nothing to endear him at all. I made my excuses, and dropped group -- subsequently waited on a random instead which was much nicer.

I didn't just want to post this to have a rant, but really more to say that this kind of snobbery really irks me. What is it that makes people believe they can just make assumptions because they've read something somewhere and regurgitate it with divine authority?