Curse

Jeydra · Jul 31, 2009, 07:37 AM // 07:37

Since I concentrate all my time to playing my Elementalist in PvE, I have little to no experience with other professions, so ... asking for advice with the following builds:

Quote:

Necro #1 - 16 Death Magic, 9 Protection Prayers, 9 Soul Reaping, 3 Curses.

Aura of the Lich, Animate Bone Minions, Death Nova, Blood of the Master, Protective Spirit, Aegis, Masochism, Rend Enchantments

**This is an important hero that I use as often as I can.

Quote:

Necro #2 - 16 Death Magic, 10 Restoration, 8 Soul Reaping.

Discord, Animate Shambling Horror, Rotting Flesh, Spirit Light, Mend Body and Soul, Protective was Kaolai, Life, Death Pact Signet

**Only use this hero together with Necro #3 below.

Quote:

Necro #3 - 16 Death magic, 10 Restoration, 8 Soul Reaping.

Discord, Animate Shambling Horror, Putrid Bile, Spirit Light, Mend Body and Soul, Protective was Kaolai, Recovery, one optional skill (generally Rend Enchantments, but might use Resilient Weapon or similar depending on area).

**Only use this hero with Necro #2 above.

Quote:

Rit #1 - 16 Channeling, 11 Communing, 8 Spawning Power, 4 Wilderness Survival

Signet of Spirits, Frozen Soil or Gaze of Fury, Painful Bond, Splinter Weapon, Bloodsong, Displacement, Spirit Siphon, Armor of Unfeeling

**Only use this hero together with Rit #2, below. I really don't know the fine points about this bar. Frozen Soil is great to have in several of the areas I play in; when it's not needed I bring Gaze of Fury for more spirits. Splinter Weapon ... I have it in a team that usually has no physicals, so it only triggers on wanding, but it might still be worth it - there actually are times I deal more damage wanding than casting. No idea about the rest of the bar if there are obvious improvements to be made? I was using Mighty of Vorizun in place of Painful Bond, don't know if it's worth it.

Quote:

Rit #2 - 16 Communing, 13 Spawning Power

Signet of Ghostly Might, Union, Boon of Creation, Disenchantment, Pain, Armor of Unfeeling, Anguish, Dissonance

**Only use this hero with Rit #1, above. I don't know about this bar as well. The hero runs out of energy pretty fast, and I don't know how to get him more energy without compromising the bar. I'd already moved Union - a spirit unaffected by Signet of Ghostly Might - to this hero and I still feel bad about it, so ...

Quote:

Mesmer #1 - 16 Domination, 10 Fast Casting, 10 Inspiration, 2 Healing Prayers

Visions of Regret, Empathy, Backfire, Drain Enchantment, Cry of Frustration, Power Spike, Power Drain, Res Chant

**Rarely use this hero these days with the other heroes being more effective, but still want to know.

Quote:

Monk #1 - 14 Smiting Prayers, 13 Divine Favour

Ray of Judgment or Unyielding Aura, Reversal of Damage, Smite Condition, Smite Hex, Smiter's Boon, Castigation Signet, Divine Healing, Glyph of Lesser Energy

**I swap around the elite depending on what I need at that time.

*********

With my teams I generally need at least one player-controlled copy of Prot Spirit, failing which I need to have Resilient Weapon. Shelter doesn't work - spirit dies too fast even with 16 Communing 13 Spawning Power. Right now there's only one hero with Prot Spirit, who else can I put it on? A micro'able Aegis is a great asset as well, as is a micro'able Rend Enchantments and Frozen soil (this is why my Ritualist heroes have those spells). Big problem when I use the two Rits are no player-controlled hard res, which can be really frustrating since henchmen tend to die first.

Any suggestions for improvement? Thanks.

Paul Dawg · Jul 31, 2009, 09:27 AM // 09:27

Well, I have a lot of comments about those builds, but it's late, so let me just focus on this one:

Quote:

14 Smiting Prayers, 13 Divine Favour

Ray of Judgment or Unyielding Aura, Reversal of Damage, Smite Condition, Smite Hex, Smiter's Boon, Castigation Signet, Divine Healing

You're going to run out of energy. I recently got into a disagreement with someone in another thread; I had said that only a N/Mo can be a great smiter, and he responded that with mantra of inscriptions and something like castigation signet, you can make a Mo/Me that will be OK on energy. The problem is, whatever smiter you're going to make with that kind of setup isn't going to be a great smiter because nearly half the bar is going to be devoted to energy management. (I guess the best you could do would be something like: mantra of inscriptions/ray of judgment/reversal of damage/smite hex/smite condition/leech signet/castigation signet/bane signet.) But I want a great smiter, not just a smiter.

So this is the best smiter on God's good earth:

N/Mo, 12+1+1 soul reaping, 12 smiting prayers

ray of judgment
reversal of damage
smite hex
smite condition
scourge healing
signet of lost souls
foul feast (or some other smite skill if you prefer)
strength of honor (or a res if you prefer)

Give him a 40/40 set and watch him go nuts. Why is he so much better than a monk smiter? Superb energy management allows him to spam smiting skills without batting an eyelash, and that translates into more dead foes. Also, this is just about the only hero bar that can carry scourge healing, which is deadly on healers, but which most heroes can't use because they blow themselves out of energy with it.

Tenebrae · Jul 31, 2009, 10:16 AM // 10:16

Depends on what are you using the mesmer for but im using a pvxwiki build ( dont remember name ) that uses the fast casting elite stance ( 20/20 dom wand , 20/20 insp focus ) with 3 interrupts ( CoF ,powerspike , powerdrain ), empathy , something to remove ench/hex , remove hex and res chant . 15 FC , 10 dom 10 insp , rest healing . Works great i gotta say

Smarty · Jul 31, 2009, 10:52 AM // 10:52

Quote:

Mesmer #1 - 16 Domination, 10 Fast Casting, 10 Inspiration, 2 Healing Prayers

Visions of Regret, Empathy, Backfire, Drain Enchantment, Cry of Frustration, Power Spike, Power drain, Res Chant

Elite Hex Spell. For 10 seconds, target foe and adjacent foes take 15...39...45 damage whenever they use a skill and 5...41...50 additional damage if not under the effects of another Mesmer hex.

Partially thanks to this nerf I'd say don't use VoR on a mesmer hero. I wouldn't trust them with hex stacking on a called target. Rest of the bar looks pretty good, nice emanagement and optimal att distribution. Even without the nerf, though, I'd take a leaf out of HA's hero book and swap out VoR for Tease, plus for the same energy cost I'd be inclined to take Shatter Enchantment over Backfire - might as well abuse those AI "reflexes" and stop your party taking damage, rather than punish the enemy for casting with hexes that will probably be stripped anyway.

Bristlebane · Jul 31, 2009, 05:03 PM // 17:03

Quote:

Necro #1 - 16 Death Magic, 9 Protection Prayers, 9 Soul Reaping, 3 Curses.

Aura of the Lich, Animate Bone Minions, Death Nova, Blood of the Master, Protective Spirit, Aegis, Signet of Lost Souls, one optional skill (been using Putrid Bile, might switch to Rend Enchantments; Dwayna's Sorrow might be good too?)

I wouldn't spec points into Healing Prayers on this build for Dwayna's Sorrow, better bring DSorrow on another hero then.

Paul Dawg · Jul 31, 2009, 08:24 PM // 20:24

Ain't that the truth. I'm annoyed by the VoR nerf for TWO reasons; first, as you say, it's hard to make a usable hero bar with it now (who doesn't want backfire?); and second, heroes aren't really all that great at using any other mesmer elites. Tease seemed like the obvious replacement to me too, but have you watched how heroes actually use tease? They wait until the moment when multiple casters are about to go at it, and then try to blast them with tease--leaving the skill unused for long stretches where you're saying "Damn it Gwen, cast tease already!" So yeah, you could micro it, but still...

Power block is usable under certain circumstances. Otherwise, I dunno, mesmer heroes are starting to look kinda weak to me right now. There's the "signets-only" gimmick hero:

Me/Mo, 11+1+1 inspiration, 11 smiting, 7+1 fast casting, 5+1 domination
mantra of inscriptions
signet of distraction
signet of judgment (e)
bane signet
castigation signet
signet of disenchantment
purge signet
resurrection signet

The good: he spams those signets like mad and can disable spells for 21 seconds at a time. The bad: he doesn't do a ton of damage.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mister Smartypants

Partially thanks to this nerf I'd say don't use VoR on a mesmer hero. I wouldn't trust them with hex stacking on a called target. Rest of the bar looks pretty good, nice emanagement and optimal att distribution. Even without the nerf, though, I'd take a leaf out of HA's hero book and swap out VoR for Tease

MercenaryKnight · Jul 31, 2009, 10:59 PM // 22:59

Aren't heroes bad with aura of the lich? I thought they would use it on recharge basically instead of waiting for a few corpses. That's why I prefer running discord or jagged bones. If they some how have fixed ai I would like to hear about their use of it.

You can run dwaynas sorrow with a small amount into healing. Drop 1 soul reaping or protection (forget which attribute setup I ran) but you'd get I think 5 into healing which is good enough for dwaynas.

Smarty · Aug 01, 2009, 02:10 AM // 02:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by Paul Dawg

Tease seemed like the obvious replacement to me too, but have you watched how heroes actually use tease? They wait until the moment when multiple casters are about to go at it, and then try to blast them with tease--leaving the skill unused for long stretches where you're saying "Damn it Gwen, cast tease already!"

Glad I'm not the only one. I've given my mes heroes all sorts of bars that I've invented that really ought to work, and for one reason or another they don't. Other people ping me builds and say "oh my Gwen pwns, I never leave home without her!" and I run the exact same bar and I'm thinking "Gwen you suck, why did you miss that one?!". The ONLY character I've had any success with running Gwen as a hero on is my assassin, and she uses a Tease bar v similar to the VoR one above (swap VoR for Tease, pspike for plock and backfire for shatter enchant) for him like a pro even though the same bar on Gwen on my other characters gives the same "wtf? why?!" results as the others. No idea why.

Paul Dawg · Aug 01, 2009, 04:58 AM // 04:58

Yeah, I have Gwen using this now:

Me/Rt, 12+1 domination, 9+1+1 inspiration, 9+1 fast casting
tease
cry of frustration
power lock
backfire
power spike
empathy
power drain
death pact signet

Unfortunately, she really sucks at it. For some reason she's extremely reluctant to use tease and power drain when she's low on energy, even when there are obvious targets. And there are times when she has plenty of energy and doesn't think of using cry of frustration. I really don't get it.

Malician · Aug 02, 2009, 03:21 AM // 03:21

I personally found that setting Gwen to aggressive made her use spells much more frequently.

Paul Dawg · Aug 03, 2009, 06:12 PM // 18:12

Interesting idea--I'll try it!

Edited to add: Didn't seem to make any difference at all. She still sucks at using her own bar. What a waste.

Jeydra · Aug 04, 2009, 12:05 AM // 00:05

The Mesmer is actually the hero I use least, so I worry about him / her least as well. I don't know about running signets of Power Block; I usually need the Mesmer hero when I need some form of caster damage and I can't run Rits, don't need the defense from a Smiter and can't use a MM - i.e. not very often. So don't worry too much about the bar

Quote:

Originally Posted by Paul Dawg

You're going to run out of energy. I recently got into a disagreement with someone in another thread; I had said that only a N/Mo can be a great smiter, and he responded that with mantra of inscriptions and something like castigation signet, you can make a Mo/Me that will be OK on energy. The problem is, whatever smiter you're going to make with that kind of setup isn't going to be a great smiter because nearly half the bar is going to be devoted to energy management. (I guess the best you could do would be something like: mantra of inscriptions/ray of judgment/reversal of damage/smite hex/smite condition/leech signet/castigation signet/bane signet.) But I want a great smiter, not just a smiter.

So this is the best smiter on God's good earth:

N/Mo, 12+1+1 soul reaping, 12 smiting prayers

ray of judgment
reversal of damage
smite hex
smite condition
scourge healing
signet of lost souls
foul feast (or some other smite skill if you prefer)
strength of honor (or a res if you prefer)

Give him a 40/40 set and watch him go nuts. Why is he so much better than a monk smiter? Superb energy management allows him to spam smiting skills without batting an eyelash, and that translates into more dead foes. Also, this is just about the only hero bar that can carry scourge healing, which is deadly on healers, but which most heroes can't use because they blow themselves out of energy with it.

There's a huge problem with running a Necro smiter actually ... you don't get to use Smiter's Boon! The health gain from Smiter's Boon + high Divine Favour is really high, and relieves pressure off the henchmen Monks. Since hencmhen are so bad at healing this is a great advantage. The only reasons I can see to use Necro primary are Foul Feast (which isn't exactly necessary), Scourge Healing (which I've never used, how good is it?) and the extra energy (which Monk heroes can also cope with, so I've found).

I'll give the Necro a try, don't have too high hopes though.

Any comments on the Rits + other Necro heroes?

Malician · Aug 04, 2009, 12:57 AM // 00:57

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeydra

The Mesmer is actually the hero I use least, so I worry about him / her least as well.

That's amusing; again, I just added and outfitted her based on your Vloxen's screenshot =)

What do you usually run on yourself with these? (I'm using your request for help as a way to steal advice for myself). ER, usually, or something else?

Edit: I assume you missed a skill in Necro #3.. if you run the 3 necros you'd have no spirits and lose all the spirit-conditional spell effects?

Paul Dawg · Aug 04, 2009, 10:39 AM // 10:39

Smiter's boon is a trap designed to make GW players create useless monk heroes. Think it through. In order to make smiter's boon worthwhile, you're going to have to invest heavily in divine favor. And in order to be a useful smiter, you're going to have to invest heavily in smiting prayers. So ... how on earth are you going to fuel that engine? Castigation signet alone won't do it. You're going to need AT LEAST leech signet (and points in inspiration to make it worthwhile), and probably even more than that. Eventually you're going to run out of room on your bar to do what smiters are supposed to do: smite!

Leave the healing to the healers. The hench healers are actually pretty good--hell, they just might be the most useful henches that the game offers. A smiter should make enemies fry, and nothing is going to outcrank the necro hero build I posted.

Oh, lastly, how good is scourge healing? No one knows, because no one in their right mind tries it, because ordinary heroes quickly burn themselves out by overspamming it. Only a primary necro can handle it, and it turns healers into jello. Try it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeydra

There's a huge problem with running a Necro smiter actually ... you don't get to use Smiter's Boon! The health gain from Smiter's Boon + high Divine Favour is really high, and relieves pressure off the henchmen Monks. Since hencmhen are so bad at healing this is a great advantage. The only reasons I can see to use Necro primary are Foul Feast (which isn't exactly necessary), Scourge Healing (which I've never used, how good is it?) and the extra energy (which Monk heroes can also cope with, so I've found).

I'll give the Necro a try, don't have too high hopes though.

AtomicMew · Aug 04, 2009, 06:54 PM // 18:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by Paul Dawg

Smiter's boon is a trap designed to make GW players create useless monk heroes. Think it through. In order to make smiter's boon worthwhile, you're going to have to invest heavily in divine favor. And in order to be a useful smiter, you're going to have to invest heavily in smiting prayers. So ... how on earth are you going to fuel that engine? Castigation signet alone won't do it. You're going to need AT LEAST leech signet (and points in inspiration to make it worthwhile), and probably even more than that. Eventually you're going to run out of room on your bar to do what smiters are supposed to do: smite!

Leave the healing to the healers. The hench healers are actually pretty good--hell, they just might be the most useful henches that the game offers. A smiter should make enemies fry, and nothing is going to outcrank the necro hero build I posted.

Oh, lastly, how good is scourge healing? No one knows, because no one in their right mind tries it, because ordinary heroes quickly burn themselves out by overspamming it. Only a primary necro can handle it, and it turns healers into jello. Try it.

"Only N/Mo can be a great smiter...? First, see point 4 of your post.

Secondly, if you have multiple melee, blessed signet alone takes care of your e-management needs.
If not, there's castigation signet combined with mantra of inscriptions and/or ether signet. "

For normal play (i.e., easy areas), I take the 2 melee hench for fun and run triple SoH. The damage output you get from that is pretty amazing. Blessed signet allows you to keep energy more than consistent enough.

For hex heavy areas, I take a smiter build based around Signet of Removal and mantra of inscriptions. That's more than enough to keep him busy at all times.

Paul Dawg · Aug 05, 2009, 02:32 AM // 02:32

1. Point 4 of what post? What are you talking about?

2. Blessed signet gives you 3 energy for each enchantment you're maintaining. How many enchantments do you expect to be maintaining with this hero?

3. Castigation signet and mantra of inscriptions and ether signet will not give you enough energy AND will take up 3/8 of your bar. I want my smiter to smite, not to monkey around with energy signets. (And if you're taking that route at all, you should use leech signet instead of ether signet. Ether signet has a 45-second recharge! Even with mantra of inscriptions, you're going to watch that cycle forever.)

4. I don't want a build that will work in easy areas. All kinds of builds work in easy areas. I want a build that will work in hard areas.

5. Why not just give up the monk idea entirely, use the N/Mo, and never worry about energy at all? It's odd--in the other thread you were insisting that only primary necroes can be great healers, and here you're insisting that primary monks can be great smiters. I think you've got this exactly backwards.

Quote:

Originally Posted by traversc

"Only N/Mo can be a great smiter...? First, see point 4 of your post.

Secondly, if you have multiple melee, blessed signet alone takes care of your e-management needs.
If not, there's castigation signet combined with mantra of inscriptions and/or ether signet. "

For normal play (i.e., easy areas), I take the 2 melee hench for fun and run triple SoH. The damage output you get from that is pretty amazing. Blessed signet allows you to keep energy more than consistent enough.

For hex heavy areas, I take a smiter build based around Signet of Removal and mantra of inscriptions. That's more than enough to keep him busy at all times.

Jeydra · Aug 05, 2009, 01:32 PM // 13:32

Quote:

Originally Posted by Malician

That's amusing; again, I just added and outfitted her based on your Vloxen's screenshot =)

What do you usually run on yourself with these? (I'm using your request for help as a way to steal advice for myself). ER, usually, or something else?

Edit: I assume you missed a skill in Necro #3.. if you run the 3 necros you'd have no spirits and lose all the spirit-conditional spell effects?

Yes, I was missing three skills ... one off both Necros (Life and Recovery), and GoLE on the Smiter. Edited.

I don't usually run ER. Ether Renewal is pretty bad for solo play in my opinion. Not that it's bad, but it's not ideal. Against most areas if you run Ether Renewal you will get the job done, but slower than you would if you were running anything else, and if you can pass the area in question without problems in any case, why pick the slower option? I consider any area that forces me to run Ether Renewal to be a tough one. In the past, Vloxen's and Duncan HM were both such areas, but no longer. Currently the only areas I use Ether Renewal are Shards of Orr HM and Forgewight HM (only considering areas where you can H/H).

You're better off not copying my builds for anything not Elementalist based because I can't run them myself and appreciate its strengths and weaknesses ... that's why I'm asking for advice

Quote:

Originally Posted by Paul Dawg

Smiter's boon is a trap designed to make GW players create useless monk heroes. Think it through. In order to make smiter's boon worthwhile, you're going to have to invest heavily in divine favor. And in order to be a useful smiter, you're going to have to invest heavily in smiting prayers. So ... how on earth are you going to fuel that engine? Castigation signet alone won't do it. You're going to need AT LEAST leech signet (and points in inspiration to make it worthwhile), and probably even more than that. Eventually you're going to run out of room on your bar to do what smiters are supposed to do: smite!

Leave the healing to the healers. The hench healers are actually pretty good--hell, they just might be the most useful henches that the game offers. A smiter should make enemies fry, and nothing is going to outcrank the necro hero build I posted.

Oh, lastly, how good is scourge healing? No one knows, because no one in their right mind tries it, because ordinary heroes quickly burn themselves out by overspamming it. Only a primary necro can handle it, and it turns healers into jello. Try it.

Well you don't need that high Divine Favour actually - since Smiter's Boon doubles your Divine Favour bonus, even a moderate investment (10 points) gives you ~64 health per cast, which is still a fair bit for a spell that's also dealing damage. The energy costs ... with most spells on the bar costing 5e, it's not too bad, especially since Smiting Prayers has a couple of good signets. You should be able to kill before the heroes run out of energy, or at least deal some heavy damage.

Personally I feel henchmen healers are bad. Healing henchmen are decent, but Protection henchmen are plain terrible. For example ... EotN Lina has a great bar if it's a human running it, or perhaps even if you can micro it, but as it is she just plain can't keep the team alive. I hate her, and yet if I don't use her, I have to run hero healers of my own. Bleagh.

I'll give the N/Mo Smiter a try sometime, maybe even E/Mo. They'll be runed, but not perfectly equipped. See how it goes.

Still no comments on Rits? Anyone?

Paul Dawg · Aug 05, 2009, 09:21 PM // 21:21

Well, it depends on your perspective. I agree that humans are better healers than henchmen. I agree that you can make a better healer hero bar than a henchman. But if you're hero-henching, by definition you need to bring henchmen--and learn how to win with them--and I don't know which henchmen are better than the healers. Zho (when she's an interrupter) is pretty good. Otherwise, they all kinda suck. So, relatively speaking, the healer henchmen aren't bad at all.

My usual eight-man setup when hero-henching uses two hench healers and one hero that is at least partly devoted to healing--usually this slightly modified Sabway N/Rt healer is superbly effective:

N/Rt, 12 restoration, 10 channeling, 8+1+1 soul reaping

signet of spirits (e)
splinter weapon
weapon of warding
mend body and soul
protective was kaolai
spirit light
life
signet of lost souls

(When someone else has signet of spirits, I replace it with Xinrae's weapon, and then usually have foul feast instead of signet of lost souls.)

Edited to add: Oh, I meant to point out that the divine favor bonus for skills like smite hex and smite condition is very often wasted. When I'm a physical and blinded, I need that condition removed pronto, but I'm not necessarily low on health. So I really don't see why I want my smiter investing in attributes (like divine favor) and skills (like smiter's boon) that are designed to heal me when I don't necessarily need to be healed. Again, leave healing to healers. A smiter's main purpose is to make foes fry. They're NOT great at condition-and-hex removal. They merely USE conditions and hexes to blast enemies.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeydra

Personally I feel henchmen healers are bad. Healing henchmen are decent, but Protection henchmen are plain terrible. For example ... EotN Lina has a great bar if it's a human running it, or perhaps even if you can micro it, but as it is she just plain can't keep the team alive. I hate her, and yet if I don't use her, I have to run hero healers of my own. Bleagh.

AtomicMew · Aug 05, 2009, 10:25 PM // 22:25

Quote:

Originally Posted by Paul Dawg

1. Point 4 of what post? What are you talking about?

The other thread.

Quote:

2. Blessed signet gives you 3 energy for each enchantment you're maintaining. How many enchantments do you expect to be maintaining with this hero?
4. I don't want a build that will work in easy areas. All kinds of builds work in easy areas. I want a build that will work in hard areas.

Guild did Urgoz HM with 3 frontliners last week.

~3-4, frontliners, a Mo/ Smiter is superior to a N/Mo because of the progression of blessed signet. Also the difference between 16 and 12 smiting becomes significant with scythes. Also, depending on the setup, for example, if everything dies at once, blessed signet is even BETTER than SR.

Quote:

3. Castigation signet and mantra of inscriptions and ether signet will not give you enough energy AND will take up 3/8 of your bar. I want my smiter to smite, not to monkey around with energy signets. (And if you're taking that route at all, you should use leech signet instead of ether signet. Ether signet has a 45-second recharge! Even with mantra of inscriptions, you're going to watch that cycle forever.)

It's not "forever", it's 25 seconds and it's on demand.

Quote:

5. Why not just give up the monk idea entirely, use the N/Mo, and never worry about energy at all? It's odd--in the other thread you were insisting that only primary necroes can be great healers, and here you're insisting that primary monks can be great smiters. I think you've got this exactly backwards.

That's not what I was saying. I said that monk smiters are more useful than monk healers, not that monk healers are better than necro healers.

MercenaryKnight · Aug 05, 2009, 11:27 PM // 23:27

All I know is a necromancer can spec into soul reaping and bring 1 sols for any extra energy needed. They lose out on smiter's boon (which takes up another slot for monk) and thus don't do any extra healing.

If the healing is fine and you just need to spec damage, then go with a necromancer. If you need the additional healing go with a monk.

Both have their uses, just figure out what you need and switch between the 2 heroes. It is that simple and doesn't need to get into a big fight.