Curse

Siver · Jun 24, 2011, 03:49 AM // 03:49

I need help to critique my build... it works reasonably well. Just want to know of any suggested changes to skills. Especially the Mesmer skills

Ximvotn · Jun 24, 2011, 06:36 AM // 06:36

I think E/R eles work much better with more prot. enchants. I wouldn't even bother with SoJ. I think two FoMF is enough, if your heroes are dying that much than you need more healing or protection. Personally, I would drop the monk and add Xinrae's resto necro.

Mednes · Jun 24, 2011, 02:50 PM // 14:50

Change hero nr. 3 for a RoJ or Necro with splinter weapon and SoS.

LexTalionis · Jun 24, 2011, 04:38 PM // 16:38

I'd normally say "Do your homework", but since you asked for a critique, I'd like to point out the most horrible parts of your build:

Dervishes: You don't have enough feeder enchantments and AoD isn't going to be worthwhile with that. You're using all of 2 enchantments on a 10s and 15s cd with THREE teardown Scythe attacks, Pious being one of them (what???). Please note that Scythe teardowns only work on DERVISH enchantments.

Smiter: SoJ is terrible. Blessed Signet when you're maintaining all of one enchantment isn't worthwhile.

tcratty · Jun 24, 2011, 04:39 PM // 16:39

i think you need a nec/rit with curses mark of pain and and other physical buff curses and splinter weapon has you be in there somewhere and why no protective spirit on monk it is very useful skill one of the best protection skills there is

LexTalionis · Jun 24, 2011, 04:48 PM // 16:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by tcratty

i think you need a nec/rit with curses mark of pain and and other physical buff curses and splinter weapon has you be in there somewhere and why no protective spirit on monk it is very useful skill one of the best protection skills there is

No. This is well-intentioned but very bad advice.

Please don't fall into this trap if you keep your skillbars the way they are. Every single time I see an Avatar user (And you're running HoHF) running with Mark of Pain/Barbs/Order of Pain, I want to do a face-palm. However, Splinter Weapon works fine.

I'd fix the rest of your Dervish Skillbar first before worrying about stuff like that. If you're going to be running SY!, consider Avatar of Balthazar or Onslaught instead.

Lanier · Jun 24, 2011, 04:51 PM // 16:51

Shield of Judgement isn't that bad... its just not very good in a 7 hero team on a hero if you dont choose to micro it. It is more of a tank & spank skill in that it must be placed strategically on an ally designated to hold most of the aggro. Thus, i wouldnt run it on a hero, as it would take way too much concentration and microing to use effectively. Ray of Judgement is pretty sucky if you dont micro it or have snares in your team. Honestly, no offensive elite for the smiter is going to be great, so I would go with signet of judgement. The damage is mediocre, and probably similar to what you would get with a random, not-microed roj on an unsnared target, but the knockdown and the fact that it doesnt cause scatter makes it more useful in this situation. I use Signet of Judgement on my warrior's physical support smiter.

Mesmers also don't synergize very well with physway style play. I would swap them out for rits and necros with curses, blood, and channeling buffs & damage skills. Personally, I dont much like ST + an ER anyway (way overkill on the prots), and my backline consists always of an ER + a HB monk with inspiration e-management. I dont know if you need the raw healing power with your dervs (very little experience with dwana dervs), but its an idea you could consider.

LexTalionis · Jun 24, 2011, 05:00 PM // 17:00

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lanier

Shield of Judgement isn't that bad... its just not very good in a 7 hero team on a hero if you dont choose to micro it. It is more of a tank & spank skill in that it must be placed strategically on an ally designated to hold most of the aggro. Thus, i wouldnt run it on a hero, as it would take way too much concentration and microing to use effectively. Ray of Judgement is pretty sucky if you dont micro it or have snares in your team. Honestly, no offensive elite for the smiter is going to be great, so I would go with signet of judgement. The damage is mediocre, and probably similar to what you would get with a random, not-microed roj on an unsnared target, but the knockdown and the fact that it doesnt cause scatter makes it more useful in this situation. I use Signet of Judgement on my warrior's physical support smiter.

Mesmers also don't synergize very well with physway style play. I would swap them out for rits and necros with curses, blood, and channeling buffs & damage skills. Personally, I dont much like ST + an ER anyway (way overkill on the prots), and my backline consists always of an ER + a HB monk with inspiration e-management. I dont know if you need the raw healing power with your dervs (very little experience with dwana dervs), but its an idea you could consider.

If you don't like RoJ, don't use it then. It's not like the elite has to be offensive - Use UA or Tease. UA works fine on a smiter bar and frees up all those extraneous Flesh of my Flesh slots (seriously, you don't need that many rezzes for PvE). Other options if you can't handle the energy loss from UA - Expel Hexes, Emphatic Removal, Signet of Removal,

The problem with ShieldoJ is that it has a 45 second cooldown and a 15 energy cost. SignetoJ is only marginally better - it only knocks down ONE target and the damage is adjacent ranged, then it's gone for all of 20 seconds; meaning you'll be lucky or inefficient to see it twice in a single encounter. If you're that desperate for signet-based offspec damage, just throw some points into Domination, use Unnatural Signet and free up your elite slot for something better.

CE Devilman · Jun 24, 2011, 06:08 PM // 18:08

U might get a few idea out of it.

Lanier · Jun 24, 2011, 06:52 PM // 18:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by LexTalionis

If you don't like RoJ, don't use it then. It's not like the elite has to be offensive - Use UA or Tease. UA works fine on a smiter bar and frees up all those extraneous Flesh of my Flesh slots (seriously, you don't need that many rezzes for PvE). Other options if you can't handle the energy loss from UA - Expel Hexes, Emphatic Removal, Signet of Removal,

The problem with ShieldoJ is that it has a 45 second cooldown and a 15 energy cost. SignetoJ is only marginally better - it only knocks down ONE target and the damage is adjacent ranged, then it's gone for all of 20 seconds; meaning you'll be lucky or inefficient to see it twice in a single encounter. If you're that desperate for signet-based offspec damage, just throw some points into Domination, use Unnatural Signet and free up your elite slot for something better.

I meant to mention other support skills but forgot to. Empathetic removal (signet of removal in more energy intensive builds) are probably the best overall options. I was just suggesting the best option for an offensive elite, since that is what he had in the build at the moment.

UA sucks. Humans, heroes, on both. Dont bring it.

Thornblade · Jun 24, 2011, 07:13 PM // 19:13

Smiter's boon probably won't be very useful on that bar, your e-surger has too much energy management for his skills ( ok mantra of resolve but do you need this anyway ) and effectively he has 3 skills which are going to always be useful, most of the time he will mostly be using empathy and sitting near full energy i suspect. you have fragility but theres probably only about 3 conditions in your team, same issue with the inept guy hes probably just going to be casting wandering eye a lot, then rushing into the fray to hex remove signet on a dervish and exploding, at least you will have a lot of resses if that happens, I dont trust mesmer heroes much so i usualy just have one dom with pi, cof, shatter hex, empathy, p drain, drain enchant, i find illu heroes just run out of energy and i prefer empathy's damage / anti melee capability, inept is long recharge i dont find the damage or blind that useful, panic is cool but it conflicts with intterupts and i suspect heroes would use it against a single warrior instead of the spellcasting group standing just out of aggro range.

Your ST may not need two energy mangements because the elite makes the skills cheaper, twin moon sweep is good with strength of honor, you might want use wearying strike too ( deep wound ) , avatar of dwayna is good if you can get enough teardowns happening, its a decision between wind and earth prayers, you could use fast recharging short duration flash enchants to fuel it, that way you dont need to bring lots of teardown attacks, its also possible to use that elite without any scythe attack skills or attribute.

Shield of judgement is cool if youve got 1 or 2 dervishes holding most of the aggro, its potential effects are far greater then the signet of judgement so i prefer it.
UA is possible but i decided against using it on smiter because its designed to be used with healing spells so only acts as a res and your smiter will already strain with energy from soh. I often use empathetic removal on the smiter because it frees slots on other heroes.

tcratty · Jun 24, 2011, 07:14 PM // 19:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by LexTalionis

No. This is well-intentioned but very bad advice.

Please don't fall into this trap if you keep your skillbars the way they are. Every single time I see an Avatar user (And you're running HoHF) running with Mark of Pain/Barbs/Order of Pain, I want to do a face-palm. However, Splinter Weapon works fine.

I'd fix the rest of your Dervish Skillbar first before worrying about stuff like that. If you're going to be running SY!, consider Avatar of Balthazar or Onslaught instead.

yes sorry about that lextalionis is right

i forgot that the avatar forms convert the damage from physical to other type so mark of pain/barbs/order of pain would be bad again sorry im not to exp with dervish so instead scratch the nec part and just use a rit with signet of spirits and splinter weapon

Siver · Jun 24, 2011, 09:28 PM // 21:28

After much thought and some testing .... I found the ST Rit slowed down the group too much. So after adding some /RT healers .. I found 2 Dwayna to be unnecessary. The Illusion Mez sat at 5 energy the whole time, effectively making her useless after 30 seconds or so. So I changed just about everything...ffs. Anyways here is what I came up with:

Keep in mind The Paragon is using a smiting staff with +15 energy and set to avoid.

Outerworld · Jun 24, 2011, 09:55 PM // 21:55

You may as well replace the Para with a Smite Monk if all you want is SoH.

Siver · Jun 24, 2011, 10:03 PM // 22:03

The reason I like SoH is that it stacks with Banishing Strike.... hitting for 100+(armor ignoring) on balled up groups is to darn good to pass up

Thornblade · Jun 26, 2011, 02:32 PM // 14:32

Quote:

So I changed just about everything...ffs.

That often happens when you are trying to make a new team setup, sometimes when you make it a team that looks really good it doesnt work at all, I had an idea recently of using earthbind and putting psychic instability on most of the team, it seemed like an awesome plan at the time but it probably wouldn't work.

Quote:

You may as well replace the Para with a Smite Monk if all you want is SoH.

Lots of people at the moment seem to be giving some attention to their paragon heroes, probably out of pity, they always get left out.

Im concerned that your para would have attributes stretched quite thinly, also not sure about the effectiveness of the anthem / they on fire combination, that skill might work well with an AOB derv though.

Does the build work good now though ?

One thing i noticed is arcane, that skill is unpredictable, also guilt is an unusual choice compared to say mistrust but your bip would have to work very hard if you swapped that , power return doesnt really do much, chaos storm could be hit and miss, wastrels is energy heavy and heroes probably dont use it very wisely, you might also want to reconsider blood renewal ( causes extra sacrifice ) and also those mantras, you might not need those, id rather take another dps / e manage skill then a skill which is probably not going to be useful most of the time ( the two frontlines should have most of the aggro not the mesmers ) with fast casting intterupts are perhaps less of an issue then say for elementalists too, i can appreciate that you dont want panic intterupted though.

For my dwayna derv i have as much enchantments coming off as possible, whirling charge is good, not sure about the other 2 they could have long cooldowns, if you want tonnes of damage and conditions the gvg style aob dervish on a hero is good.