Curse

ShaggyG · May 07, 2009, 09:28 PM // 21:28

I've been thinking about making a build focused on completely shutting down the enemies. I understand that this is going to need a lot of work as it is my first build, hopefully after some work this can be usable. These are the heroes for the build. Player build is flexible.

[build prof=E/ name="Condition Applier"] [Thunderclap][Enervating Charge][Blinding Flash][Shell Shock][Gale][Lightning Javelin][Air Attunement][Glyph of Lesser Energy][/build]

[build prof=Me/N name="Condition Spreader/Enchant Removal"] [Extend Conditions][Spirit of Failure][Drain Enchantment][Feedback][Discharge Enchantment][Rip Enchantment][Chilblains][Atrophy][/build]

[build prof=R/ name="Interrupter" ][Broad Head Arrow][Pin Down][Disrupting Shot][Concussion Shot][Debilitating Shot][Hunter's Shot][Choking Gas][Pestilence][/build]

-ShaggyG

Grim Aragorn · May 07, 2009, 09:33 PM // 21:33

Your making the ranger build WAYYY more complicated than it needs to be.

Just stick with Distracting and Savage, use Read the wind and experts dexterity on ranger with minior expertise on head and marks, i think u will enjoy the results.

Zodiac Meteor · May 07, 2009, 10:39 PM // 22:39

switch [[thunderclap] with [[blinding surge] PS sins ftw.

upier · May 08, 2009, 06:02 AM // 06:02

First of all:
When using ranged AI, you need to babysit them.
The guys will go into range of the foe, and then attack regardless of what is in front of them. Which in your case means, always paying attention if Jin is possibly trying to shoot through a wall. Also - bridges mess them up.

Second of all:
Energy denial is something very powerful. In PvP. In PvE, outside of some specific farming builds, it's useless. Foes die way to fast and have abnormal energy regen rates/energy pools for it to be effective.
What this means is that skills that e-deny a foe do not pack the same punch as a comparable skill that does "just"damage does. For instance, [Debilitating Shot] does no extra damage. Which means that in the damage sense, it's comparable to [called shot]. Now check their stats.
Or compare something like [feedback] to [rend enchantment].
When it comes to e-denial - you are paying for the e-denial effect with the skills cost, recharge or activation time - yet you aren't getting the benefit of the higher cost!

These are some just very basic general rules that you need to be aware when putting together a team build. Now for some ideas on specific builds.

Gwen or Fatass:
Unless you micro Extend, it's a bit iffy. Girlfriend will extend any condition, pretty much on recharge, regardless if it's the condition YOU want her to extend. Which means - you might not have your daze extended, but rather end up with a bunch of guys with cracked armour.
That is why, I am sticking to [tease] on my girl.
I run something in these lines:
[build=OQREAogje6QE8pZA7Ai4TkD2dA]
It's basically the Tease-resto build, with curses instead.
If you need more ench removal - throw Rip Ench on some of the other guys.
A good skill to bring is also [shatter hex]. Actually the above build had it, but I replaced it with Rip because I exchanged the guy that carried it also. That is why domination is relatively high. If you are running JUST CoF (from the domination side), you can drop domination to 0.

Suzy, Vexy or Horsey:
Gale is to spammable. Unless you micro it - keep it away.
When I run an ele - unless it's on my para, to abuse [skill]"they're on fire"[/skill] - the guy ends up being water. Slowdowns, [Blurred Vision], with either channeling support though [Ancestors' rage] and [splinter weapon] or hex/condition removal + [aegis] from the monk side. Sure air has super-dooper overpowered blind - but there isn't much else there. Earth is also a possibility because of wards - but I just don't like it as much as water.

Jin, Margy or The Charr with the winning personality:
As people have suggested - D-Shot and Savage. Read the Wind.
What I love doing is throwing some para skills onto my rangers. Stuff like [Hexbreaker Aria] is perfect! Also [go for the eyes].

ShaggyG · May 08, 2009, 08:47 AM // 08:47

Thanks for all the suggestions, I've done some testing and am about to try some adjustments. Here's what I have so-far:

I've liked how the AI has used [Thunderclap] so-far so I'm going to do some testing leaving that in and putting a blind in somewhere else in the build. I am however going to take the advice to put in some hex/condition removal here as a Mo secondary.
[build prof=E/ name="Thunderclap Ele"] [Thunderclap][Enervating Charge][Lightning Javelin][Dismiss Condition][Remove Hex][Aegis (PvE)][Air Attunement][Glyph of Lesser Energy][/build]

I'm scratching the Mesmer from the equation and trying out a Dervish for some conditions/support. [Ebon Dust Aura] takes care of the blind area, and the other Earth Prayer skills drop more conditions onto enemies. I'm debating whether [Eremite's Zeal] or [Zealous Renewal] will be more effective still. I'm throwing in Wild Blow for stance removal.
[build prof=D/W name="Ebon Dust Blinder"] [Ebon Dust Aura][Staggering Force][Aura of Thorns][Heart of Fury][Rending Touch][Imbue Health][Eremite's Zeal][Wild Blow][/build]

For the last slot I've also taken the ranger out to throw in a Rit. [Warmonger's Weapon] should take care of the majority of the interrupts, the rest of the build is set up with support skills and a couple direct interrupts.
[build prof=Rit/Mes name="Interrupter" ][Offering of Spirit][Ancestor's Rage][Warmonger's Weapon][Disenchantment][Shelter][Cry of Frustration][Web of Disruption][Flesh of My Flesh][/build]

Off to test, thanks again for the suggestions.
-ShaggyG

EDIT: fixed error in build display

Shadow Own · May 08, 2009, 08:58 PM // 20:58

melee heroes dont really know what to attack, better not use them. instead, ebon dust volleyer works better imo

also, ur rit/me needs some updating: u lack splinter weapon. i think u should swap disenchantment with splinter, as disenchatment costs relatively much energy and got a high recharge, furthermore, perhaps ur rit is still low on energy, dunno how to fix that ^^

turbo234 · May 09, 2009, 11:42 PM // 23:42

Hero AI doesn't use [dismiss condition] well as they just use it for conditions and don't pay attention to if people are enchanted. i would say bring [mend condition] instead.
for the derv. you have an attempt but didn't fully read the description. only attack skills actually inflict the blindness and currently you only have wild blow which recharges in 8 seconds. not too reliable.
[shelter] and [disenchantment] aren't worth the slots or attribute investments. i would recommend sticking to channeling and restoration; pretty much the only thing rits have going for them right now. If you want spirits to take advantage of OoS then just invest in restoration and take [life]/[rejuvenation] or use a long lasting one like [bloodsong].

AtomicMew · May 10, 2009, 12:44 AM // 00:44

I've also experimented with "balanced" and "shutdown" heroes for PvE. While triple necro is pretty much unparalled in terms of speed, I think other hero combinations have the potential to have more lasting power (i.e., they wont fall apart when the minion army blows up and there aren't enough corpses hitting the floor.)

First off, you're probably going to get a lot of crap from dogmatic players calling you a noob for not steamrolling all of PvE and not using X, where X = sabway, discordway, RoJway or their supposedly superior Xway 2.0 (which they refuse to post). Just ignore them. They probably only play 2-man heroway or rather only play PvXwiki instead of Guild Wars.*

For these types of builds you're interested in, you're pretty much acknowledging that you're not steamrolling everything... which is not terrible, but it means you're not killing fast. Thus, I've found that strong healing/prot is pretty essential as well as good aggro control. You want most of the mob all attacking one target while you mitagate damage with pre-prots. I think an E/Rt spirit healer is probably one of the better choices. You also want another hero with monk prots (prot spirit, aegis, SoA etc) which can be a full monk or something like a Me/Mo with inspiration interrupts. Also, you need lots of steady pressure damage, because you actually want to kill things. An SS necro is a pretty good choice (I play one.) Lastly, you have one slot left for whatever. BHA is a good choice and you can lock it onto a healer. I don't think thunderclap is very good, considering technobabble does practically the same thing.

*But yes, if you play 2-man heroway, you're probably better off with triple necro, since it's not like you can flag the other player, anyway.

Gigashadow · May 10, 2009, 04:47 AM // 04:47

I don't think it's a given that anything people come up with these days has to be inferior to existing builds, the game hasn't been solved yet. I'm still on the search for things that are about as good (or maybe even better) than the better known builds.

I think shutdown is underrated. AOE interrupts in particular are ridiculously good. Cry of Frustration and Tease in particular, will save you from WAY more potential damage from a group of mobs than I think most people realize. Rez chants, meteor showers, heals, or even just attacks, the entire group gets interrupted, that is a crazy amount of damage negated.

I also decided to try doing without [Dwayna's Sorrow] on the minions. The problem with Dwayna's Sorrow is that either you build around the assumption that you get these constant party heals from it, or that you don't and you need to cover for it elsewhere. So you are really in trouble if you are counting on them and don't get them. Maybe you just rez'd after a wipe and now have to face an ugly boss, or your minions all blew up at an inappropriate time. I don't like to have to count on the healing from it.

I use Grothmar Wardowns vanquishing as my test zone for builds, so I have a good baseline about how various builds I try out compare to each other. Since I don't normally use mesmer heroes, today I decided to try out bringing a shutdown mesmer, especially as the Monk boss and his entourage in the Charr camp can be a real pain. (Note: I generally do not use the devourer in this zone, just a personal preference).

My first attempt (but not my final preferred build) used a Me/Rt domination interrupter with Splinter Weapon:

[Tease][Cry of Frustration][Power Drain][Drain Enchantment][Shatter Hex][Backfire][Splinter Weapon][Death Pact Signet]

I was surprised at how well this worked. Since most of the skills have a decent recharge time or are situational, Gwen is quite happy to spam Splinter Weapon the rest of the time, which is good. However, there were two things I noticed:

1) She did not want to use Shatter Hex a lot, even when I was in hexed in the middle of a huge charr group.

2) Backfire is cast on my initial target (or I can lock her onto something else) but she will then interrupt skills so that they don't suffer from backfire anyway. Or I am chain-knocking them down.

She always had plenty of energy to spare, and I think this is because Shatter Hex was rarely used.

So I then considered, why not try an Illusion variant? So this is what I went with:

Me/Rt: [Tease][Cry of Frustration][Power Drain][Drain Enchantment][Wandering Eye][Arcane Conundrum][Splinter Weapon][Death Pact Signet]
N/E: [Blinding Surge][Animate Bone Minions][Death Nova][Foul Feast][Putrid Bile][Glyph of Lesser Energy][Infuse Condition][Signet of Lost Souls]
N/Mo: [Empathic Removal][Enfeebling Blood][Barbs][Mark of Pain][Faintheartedness][Shield of Absorption][Aegis][Signet of Lost Souls]

(Note: I have 0 domination magic here, as CoF doesn't need anything in it for it to be worthwhile).

Holy crap, this worked out well. Wandering Eye stops an attack plus does good AOE damage, and is less conditional than Shatter Hex. I got way more mileage of it, it's basically a "unconditional 2/3rds shatter hex". Arcane Conundrum it's hard to measure the effectiveness of, as things cast so fast in hard mode anyway. I'm not sure what I would substitute though.

The first charr group of rangers on the other side of the bridge pretty much got obliterated in seconds with my team taking barely any damage at all. I wandered straight over to the monk boss and took him down no problem. Overall this setup is very defensive but things still explode quickly.

As for the other two characters, AOE blind shuts things down like nobody's business. Clumps of char rangers, a couple of melee charr chasing people around, heroes use it quite well. I prefer these elites to Jagged Bones and Spiteful Spirit.

You could swap around skills on the above two characters, so that the death necro has the prot, and the curses necro has the blind, but I think it works better as above. Melee shutdown comes from two independent sources. It also means you can fit Putrid Bile on there for extra damage.

You can get rid of mark of pain, I haven't found anything particularly amazing to put in there instead. MoP is on a decent recharge, so it isn't in his spam rotation.

upier · May 10, 2009, 05:28 AM // 05:28

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gigashadow

Me/Rt: [Tease][Cry of Frustration][Power Drain][Drain Enchantment][Wandering Eye][Arcane Conundrum][Splinter Weapon][Death Pact Signet]

Just a quick suggestion. Considering that FC isn't all that in PvE - try running this on Razzy. That gives you 14 in Channeling which is a very decent difference in damage for Splinter and AR (drop AC for it). I'd also go for Clumsiness instead of Wandering, since it has the potential to interrupt a whole mob instead of just one.

Regarding the reworked OP's builds:
As turbo already suggested - drop the communing spirits. They are really bad. Considering you are using a mesmer secondary - I'd look into Inspiration skills (Tease, Drain Ench, Power Drain] to manage your energy and hurt the foes.

Super Igor · May 10, 2009, 03:40 PM // 15:40

terrible bars.

Also, best way to shut something down in pve is to kill it.

ac1inferno · May 10, 2009, 03:57 PM // 15:57

[build prof=R/D exp=11+1 mar=10+1+1 earthp=10][Ebon Dust Aura][Volley][Distracting Shot][Savage Shot][Called Shot][Sloth Hunter's Shot (PvE)][Lightning Reflexes][Resurrection Signet][/build]

distilledwill · May 10, 2009, 04:02 PM // 16:02

Quote:

Originally Posted by Super Igor

best way to shut something down in pve is to kill it.

unfortunately, this is right.

Your ranger is very very complicated. If you want to get some daze in there id suggest this:

[build prof=r/d exp=12+1+1 marks=11+1 wind=6 PVE][Concussion Shot][Sundering Attack][Distracting Shot][Savage Shot][Read the Wind][Attacker's Insight][Expert's Dexterity][resurrection signet][/build]

AtomicMew · May 11, 2009, 03:39 AM // 03:39

Quote:

I think shutdown is underrated. AOE interrupts in particular are ridiculously good. Cry of Frustration and Tease in particular, will save you from WAY more potential damage from a group of mobs than I think most people realize. Rez chants, meteor showers, heals, or even just attacks, the entire group gets interrupted, that is a crazy amount of damage negated.

The problem with this line of thinking is that, even if you manage to shut down half their damage, particularly tough mobs are still doing crazy damage to your party. Igor is right, the best "shutdown" is to kill it, which shuts down all damage.

In other words, if you do play a build based on interrupts, daze, blind etc., you are still going to need very strong healing. Pre-protting, flagging and aggro are also going to be key. See my post above

Gigashadow · May 11, 2009, 04:56 AM // 04:56

Quote:

Originally Posted by upier

Just a quick suggestion. Considering that FC isn't all that in PvE - try running this on Razzy. That gives you 14 in Channeling which is a very decent difference in damage for Splinter and AR (drop AC for it). I'd also go for Clumsiness instead of Wandering, since it has the potential to interrupt a whole mob instead of just one.

I made those changes, and Rt/Me did work out better, thanks. 14 channeling actually makes a very noticeable difference to Splinter Weapon. I wasn't expecting Ancestors' Rage to help much, as it's not armor ignoring, but the hero is pretty good with it, and it did get those initial kills on the group off faster.

Quote:

Originally Posted by traversc

The problem with this line of thinking is that, even if you manage to shut down half their damage, particularly tough mobs are still doing crazy damage to your party. Igor is right, the best "shutdown" is to kill it, which shuts down all damage.

In other words, if you do play a build based on interrupts, daze, blind etc., you are still going to need very strong healing. Pre-protting, flagging and aggro are also going to be key. See my post above

In dungeons maybe, I've just been doing vanquishing for rep these days. I vanquished a bunch of the Charr areas this bonus weekend with the build I mentioned above, and felt that the Rt/Me interrupter made things quite a lot easier than when I did the same zones a year ago with Sabway (although it does use 2 necros so has many skills in common). It was more consistent, better at recovering from bad situations, but didn't feel any slower. With Sabway that monk boss in Grothmar (plus the occasional charr group with multiple healers/rezzers) used to be such a pain, but not a problem with just a little bit of shutdown.