Curse

Fire The Nutter · Mar 27, 2012, 01:58 PM // 13:58

First off, this isnt the type of thread that would get a straight answer, more a general topic, but it would be good if some of you could give me some pointers.

My main issue, as GL for our guild is how to setup a working team for different missions + quests. The average team composition is 2 Ele's, 2 Rangers with all players being able to go SoS spirit spam aside of their professions more standard builds but then none of those are "meta".

So say its an 8man area, what would you load up?
I tend to default to adding 1 dedicated healer (icy veins necro/rt), 1 MM/prot/heal hybrid as appropriate, 1 curses (so basically sabway) and then 1 mesmer with either panic, physic instab or inept (if melee heavy).

Is that how others would fill out the team? Should each hero provide more hybrid? Occasionally ill drop the curses for a ST if we are getting hit hard (HM vanq, particularly bosses like Yanma Etherlord). Offense doesnt seem to be a big problem, spirits, SF, Enraging Charge Rangers/Splinter barrage but thats as far as the level of skill goes most of the time, i dont think anyone would go calling us pro any time soon

Obviously we have other toons too which we play too, but an idea of general team composition for most people would be useful (i know it can be area dependent, thats a given)

Thanks in advance!

Lyv · Mar 27, 2012, 03:28 PM // 15:28

I don't really see the point of bringing a curses Nec in your case. None of their elites are really great, and if you absolutely need one, you can have the resto Nec bring it (Pain of Disenchantement in some areas, for example). Utility like weaken armor/enfeebling blood can be taken by a /N secondary.

I would replace it with a Channeling rit (splinter weapon is invaluable for your rangers) ; a generic SoS-resto bar would be nice.

About the mesmer, Panic for harder areas is good, but Esurge on general HM is usually enough (heroes are quite bad at psychic instability, from what i've seen).

Don't bother with your teambuild not being "meta", you don't need it to beat the game with relative ease.
Your players can go SF/barrage/melee-rangers/AP callers/beastmasters/whatever you like, as long as it dishes enough damage.

Mouse at Large · Mar 27, 2012, 03:48 PM // 15:48

This may not meet with general approval, but as a primary ele, for HM, (admittedly in an all-caster hero team) I tend to run Earth AoE.

Earth Attune
AoR
Elemental Lord
Unsteady Ground (e)
Churning Earth
Eruption
2 x PvE Skills - generally EVAS and PI or Snowstorm

Some might say "Oh noes - no AP!!!!!", but it works for me. Your mileage may vary

Daesu · Mar 27, 2012, 04:20 PM // 16:20

If you are planning to venture into HM, then having someone bring Protective Spirit or bringing a ST rit with Shelter would be the norm. A typical hero to bring with PS would be a N/Mo minion bomber or an E/Mo ER.

As for the number of healers, it depends on your play style. Some players are more cautious and flag their heroes more often with proper pulling and some players prefer to c-space when they can. Typically, people bring 2 healers (dedicated or not) so when things are going south and one of your healers die, you still have the other one helping to keep the team alive until you can res him. Typical heroes for healing would be a SoS/restore, a N/Rt blood BiPer or curse/restore, or a UA healer monk.

This leaves you about 5 more slots (including yourself) in your team for damage and utility. In a 7-heroes team, since you are the only one with the pve skills, the expectation is that your skill bar would dish out the most damage.

Gabs88 · Mar 27, 2012, 07:27 PM // 19:27

I've found that the simpler the better, so boiling the basic teams down as far as possible, this is what you want. Before anyone starts whining about GWPVX copypaste, yes a whole lot of these are copied from there and many without edits. I'm just picking out builds that perform reliably and work in any team thank you. Any and all builds can be substituted for builds with similar quality, but dump the crappy melee builds, curse necro or imbagons please.

Any of the basic hero teams recuire an additional healer, either player or hero.

No physicals in team

Single Melee in team

Multiple Melee in team

Don't mix MM and ST, it works to some degree but not reccomended.

Filler heroes:

Picked out a few melee builds that I believe perform reliably and work great in most teams.

Player Melee characters:

Caster characters are focused on getting the damn job done, AP builds are extremely good and AP does stack. Simply put choose builds with decent recharges and solid packets of damage. Reliability is key.

Player Caster Characters

Most importaintly, to a large degree people can play what they want. As long as they're not mucking about with builds that ends up not dealing good damage because shit is dead before they have started doing any. You want low cooldowns or LARGE AoE's though. Adjacent RoJ damage rarely works well in practice unless your aggro control is downright amazing.

PS: Don't be afraid to bring multiple copies of pain inverter. It didn't exactly stop working and is often the difference between life and death in unorganized teams.

Naughty Nurse · Mar 27, 2012, 07:32 PM // 19:32

Id have both the eles do damage with seering flames.

Have 1 of the rangers run a generic SOS build, for spiritwall. insert Great dwarf weapon or splinter weapon here.

The other ranger can go Daggerspammer, With or (i prefer) without pet.
Use the basic chain with Jagged strike - Fox fangs - death blossom. Consider some defense as pve skills, and pewpew.

Heros:
- Panic mes,
- Aotl or Jagged MM,
- N/Rt with 8 in blood, 10 in Soul reaping and 12 in resto. Elite Blood is Power, (+5 energy regen) so the eles + panic mes hero can enjoy nearly infinite energy.
- ER Hero with prots and Infuse health, he will catch every BiP cast by your healer

Enjoy! Ill ping the builds if ya want, PM ingame -> Naughty Nurse Necro

WarcryOfTruth · Mar 28, 2012, 03:43 PM // 15:43

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gabs88

Player Caster Characters
http://desmond.imageshack.us/Himg542...g&res=med ium

Most importaintly, to a large degree people can play what they want. As long as they're not mucking about with builds that ends up not dealing good damage because shit is dead before they have started doing any.

The builds above don't deal a lot of damage. You contradicted yourself. Your builds are good for playing, but generally Assassin's Promise PvE Skill Spammer builds are low damage but great for single targets. Aside from a few skills in each build, none of which being your choices for elites, except maybe Fevered Dreams and/or Ele Attune, Your skill choices seem pretty sub-par. Then again, this is coming from a guy who uses 4 paragons with barely any physical support, so don't think of my words as anything worthwhile

. I'm just saying, I don't understand the skill choices. I get the synergy with Fevered Dreams, but the goal with that is generally spamming different conditions, not the same ones

.

tl;dr (really...), If you want to maximize damage, change your bars.

Gabs88 · Mar 28, 2012, 04:35 PM // 16:35

Quote:

Originally Posted by WarcryOfTruth

The builds above don't deal a lot of damage. You contradicted yourself. Your builds are good for playing, but generally Assassin's Promise PvE Skill Spammer builds are low damage but great for single targets. Aside from a few skills in each build, none of which being your choices for elites, except maybe Fevered Dreams and/or Ele Attune, Your skill choices seem pretty sub-par. Then again, this is coming from a guy who uses 4 paragons with barely any physical support, so don't think of my words as anything worthwhile

. I'm just saying, I don't understand the skill choices. I get the synergy with Fevered Dreams, but the goal with that is generally spamming different conditions, not the same ones

.

tl;dr (really...), If you want to maximize damage, change your bars.

Fevered Dreams spreads Deep wound to all foes in the area. It's not direct damage but the effect is the same and it works great in spikes when played by a player.

Panic is best played by a player but you obviously don't doublestack on it with a hero in team. So change hero to say esurge and play panic yourself.

EA fire spammer, deals a LOT of damage. In a good area.

AP/Death deals huge AoE Damage and single target damage.

And with a ritualist in team, letting a hero play SoS and having the ritualist play the Rt/A build instead is usually much better.

WarcryOfTruth · Mar 28, 2012, 04:57 PM // 16:57

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gabs88

Fevered Dreams spreads Deep wound to all foes in the area. It's not direct damage but the effect is the same and it works great in spikes when played by a player.

Panic is best played by a player but you obviously don't doublestack on it with a hero in team. So change hero to say esurge and play panic yourself.

EA fire spammer, deals a LOT of damage. In a good area.

AP/Death deals huge AoE Damage and single target damage.

And with a ritualist in team, letting a hero play SoS and having the ritualist play the Rt/A build instead is usually much better.

Fire has never done a lot of damage in PvE. The major update helped it quite a bit, but I still don't find it as effective. Maybe it is, I don't know. Panic is okay, but I prefer Psychic Instability over it. Spirit Spamming has lost most of its damage effectiveness with the update as well, it's basically only useful for body blocking now, with high Spawning Power and Communing with Armor of Unfeeling. Just my $.02, but if what you have been using works, by all means use it

Daesu · Mar 28, 2012, 05:16 PM // 17:16

Quote:

Originally Posted by WarcryOfTruth

The builds above don't deal a lot of damage. You contradicted yourself. Your builds are good for playing, but generally Assassin's Promise PvE Skill Spammer builds are low damage but great for single targets.

Maybe that is true for some AP builds that you have seen but that is not necessarily true for all AP builds. Not all PvE skills are limited to single target damage. AP recharges AoE attack skills as much as it recharges single target attack skills so there is no reason why AP builds have to be single targeting.

Quote:

Spirit Spamming has lost most of its damage effectiveness with the update as well, it's basically only useful for body blocking now, with high Spawning Power and Communing with Armor of Unfeeling. Just my $.02, but if what you have been using works, by all means use it

If that is true, then spirit spamming builds should not be able to solo and should have been removed from meta but it is not. Damage effectiveness of armor ignoring damage sources are not affected by the armor change update by virtue of the fact that they are armor ignoring in the first place. The hit point of HM monsters have increased, however, so they probably kill a little slower but not by much.

Gabs88 · Mar 28, 2012, 09:07 PM // 21:07

Quote:

Originally Posted by WarcryOfTruth

Fire has never done a lot of damage in PvE. The major update helped it quite a bit, but I still don't find it as effective. Maybe it is, I don't know.

My goal in the first place is not to make a speed clear team, or superteam. That would recuire other tactics, tanking and all of that. My goal with that post is to display a basic team composition for different kinds of teams. Give solid examples of builds that work well under any situation. I'm totally aware that fire damage or even elemental damage isn't optimal in PVE. But the EA fire attunement build has a solid enough performance that I won't be annoyed if someone chooses to bring it. Like I would if they insisted on using another build that I thought was plain bad.

Quote:

Panic is okay, but I prefer Psychic Instability over it. Just my $.02, but if what you have been using works, by all means use it

Don't take this offencive, but "whatever", your choice. PI can miss though, Panic can't. And Panic works better in semi organized / disorganized teams.

Quote:

Spirit Spamming has lost most of its damage effectiveness with the update as well, it's basically only useful for body blocking now, with high Spawning Power and Communing with Armor of Unfeeling.

Ehm, SoS and SoGM are still very much viable choices in PVE. Especially SoS because of the other skills in the channeling line and the fact that it's the best elite. If anything theyre better then before because the extra time the mobs stay alive for gives them more time to do ridicilous damage. And bodyblocking is king.

WarcryOfTruth · Mar 28, 2012, 10:14 PM // 22:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gabs88

Ehm, SoS and SoGM are still very much viable choices in PVE. Especially SoS because of the other skills in the channeling line and the fact that it's the best elite. If anything theyre better then before because the extra time the mobs stay alive for gives them more time to do ridicilous damage. And bodyblocking is king.

Signet of Spirits is the best elite? o.o News to me. I only use it with my paragon team because the chants I use actually benefit spirit attacks. But I don't think it's the best elite for Rits to use. While I agree with you saying body blocking rules, I wouldn't use SoS for any other reason than that, and even then only if I had a team that benefits, or benefited from spirits. When I lead teams through UW, I like having one, simply for body blocking on splits when our tank isn't around. I don't know, I guess you're just a tough nut to crack about this. Case in point, SoS has gotten too many nerfs to be effective anymore. A truth that the majority of GW players refuse to accept.

DRGN · Mar 29, 2012, 01:38 PM // 13:38

Quote:

Originally Posted by WarcryOfTruth

Signet of Spirits is the best elite? o.o News to me. I only use it with my paragon team because the chants I use actually benefit spirit attacks. But I don't think it's the best elite for Rits to use. While I agree with you saying body blocking rules, I wouldn't use SoS for any other reason than that, and even then only if I had a team that benefits, or benefited from spirits. When I lead teams through UW, I like having one, simply for body blocking on splits when our tank isn't around. I don't know, I guess you're just a tough nut to crack about this. Case in point, SoS has gotten too many nerfs to be effective anymore. A truth that the majority of GW players refuse to accept.

While I really couldn't disagree more(for one, Painful Bond still allows spirits to do a ton of damage), what DO you run as your Channeling Rit's elite? They're all pretty mediocre, particularly for heroes(who cannot use DwG properly at all), and DwG was given a decent nerf recently as well.

Fire The Nutter · Mar 29, 2012, 03:42 PM // 15:42

Thanks for all the input so far, i am interested about SoS, i knew it had taken a hit and id be more than willing to make a change but id need to see pretty good evidence of proof for an alternative. Its not that i dont believe you, its just theres very few skills (and i know that this is in combination of a whole build) where i can reliably farm, all sorts of areas. That needs offence and defence which for me the extra spirits from SoS provides (painful bond inclusive). Now we are talking about a team build but thats a useful part of a team build, extra offence whilst looking after the team. But please share if you've got a better alternative, Rt based or not!