Curse

I Perma Mobs · Jan 03, 2011, 02:53 AM // 02:53

Ok, so while going for the legendary master of the north title, I realised that VQing and doing Hm dungeons could be something difficult, especially doing it with 3 heros and 4 henchmen. So I decided 2 improve the meta builds even further and adapt them to my own situation and I came up with a team-setup that was pretty much capable of pulling all the aggro in justiciar thomnis' level, kill it reasonably fast despite all the rezes and still not have a single casualty, in HM, without the use of any consumables. I think it really is helpful and I hope you enjoy reading through this

I highly reccomend that you are an assassin. However, only 1/10 persons can say so, so here are some suggestions:
warrior: run a build that allows for quick attacks and SY! spam.
Ranger: R/W with barrage and SY! spam.
Dervish: d/w with aoe damage scythe attacks and SY! spam. Otherwise, no suggestions :P
Assassin: OwFjUNd8ITOMMMHM7PxZxkvlieA. You can take FH out for PI or other pve skills. Foucs on rapid attacks and SY! spam.
Paragon: regular imagon build.
Elementalist: if solo with H/H, go e/mo bonder. no need for a bu, just b pro.
If ur taking some1 else along, either be a nuker or go e/n ether renewal masochism health sacrifice spam with burning speed for the luls :P
Necromancer: If solo, SS nuker with double dessecrate, PI, BUH! and air of superiority.
If taking a melee person along, bring MoP and spam calls on baalled up foes.
Mesmers: Either panic or E surge. Mistrust is a MUST for the 180 damage or so. Don't forget air of superiority.
Ritualists: If going solo, DWG is a nice option. If going duo with a melee partner, consider changing around splinter weapon on ur SoS hero for spirit transfer. DON't go spirit spam. It's alot better to go high damage.
Monks: The PVX monk smiter build works very well, if u take air of superiority.
Whatever you do, don't play heal. You will be unable to heal. Consider, however, UA, in case you screw it up.

Now, on to the core team:
Hero 1, Communing SoGM: - OACjAyhDJPOby538sl52cOzLGA
16 communing, 12+1 spawning power, all health runes. +60hp,+5energy^50 staff. The green that drop from DoA are fine.

Hero 2, Channeling SoS: - OACkAGhrITaz1scWNHmTOpJGjZC splinter variant(for physical damage characters)
: - OACkAGhrITaz1scWNHmTOppwjZC for casters.
16 channeling 11+1 restoration, 6 spawning power (the attribute shortage is the main reason why no life, can't hit the next breakpoint). All health runes, same staff as for hero 1

Hero 3, Jagged Bomber(JB): - OANEUshd9JtUVFgGoAa0UPEQsFC
16 death magic, 8+1 SR, 9 prot, 5 healing. (if for some weird reason u have a monk on ur team that has 2 come, make him run 14 heal and bring dwaynas sorrow, take on this 1 out for SoA, spec 1 more att at SR)
All health runes, 1 -25% exploiting time insignia (name?), same staff works, however +20% enchantment works alot better, if u can get.

Henchies 2 bring along: Cynn, Herta, Mhenlo, Lynna. (in order: Fire, Earth, Healer, Protection). Call balled targets.

IF playing with another player: This gets complicated. I'll post the builds HIS heros should be running.
Necro 1: - OAhjYgHcoO5hyglYYKNncU7LGA (ss spiker/resto)
Necro 2: - OANEUshd9JtUVFoAiGY0UPEQsFC (JB. cut this 1 out if no corpses are available. However, there should ALWAYS be 1 in the team, regardless if there r corpses or not)
Necro 3: - OAhiYwh8UzEeZsh5kTaOOvYA (resto. only bring weapon of remedy if you're not running with splinter, however, it should be avoided)
(note: These are moddified sabway builds to include more defense and, surprisingly, more dps at the same time, because the heros won't be wasting time casting stuff like rip enchantments or reckless haste)

the player himself should follow the same suggestions I posted for the first player.

If running with multiple players:
I highly suggest not to do so in High-End PvE areas (unless ofc you're doing SC).
This is because it's very rare to be able to fit more than 2 persons into the team setup. People don't want to run heal, and even rarer, boring heals like n/rt that also need AI level of speed reactions. 3 people Is still accomodable, 4, however, enters the limits of failing, unless you are very lucky with the professions.
In general, avoid running with many people. Pugs often think what I'm saying is 100% retarded, well, it's not and you'll find it out by yourself, eventually :P

Now to the team :P

The basic strategy behind this build is to do nothing at all. Go in and start killing away. The ritualists will setup spirits and the JB will do the minion master's job. The spirits usually soap in all the damage done to the team. It IS nice 2 pre-cast prot spirit on yourself be4 going in, it's the only reason the skill is in the bar and it's only thing people should worry about. Lynna will then usually use SoA on you, making you like a 600 tank.
After this, roughly 3 seconds after you aggroed the mob, you will see your weapon change slightly, if you are taking splinter with you. This is when the fun started for me: xandra (didnt try with razah, but I believe, by sources, that xandra will spam it more) will start spamming splinter weapon on you whenever she can. Now, splinter weapon, assuming it hits all 3 adjacent foes, at 16 chaneling, does... 750+ damage, or 250+ damage to each adjacent foe. On a sin, all of that happens in a matter of 3 seconds.
In short: Bum.
Notice: Mend body and soul will remove, on average, 6-7 conditions, so blind won't be a big issue for melee characters, unless standing in eruption is a hobby of yours.
On a whirlwind attack warrior, barrage ranger, dervish, same thing. Consider bringing whirlwind attack on the dervish builds.

Even casters just explode stuff. the spirits will be striking for a good dps and keep the party alive. the ele henchies use sandstorm, mindblast and meteor shower. now, with good pulling tactics, meteor shower can be devastating. hugging walls and wall blocking helps alot at this.

On 2 man: The main reason to run sabway is because it has more aoe damage than discordway. Let me rephrase this: Discordway sucks. It's a slow way of accomplishing very little in the time you could be doing alot more. What kills a party in high-end PvE is NOT the ammount of single damage 1 character takes. it's those high damage nukes that almost every mob has. And as long as a meteor shower gets cast on you, you'll be blown away. Discordway will often not even manage 2 kill the target in time for the AP, especially when theres alot of pressure. Ive run discordway before too, and it can't even be compared to spiritway nor Luisway (how I call the moddified necro builds I put there).
The heros should all have appropriate runing for sabway heros.

Above all: Prepare yourself and know where you're going. SY! usually lets you easy mode through anything, but taking along other skills, like "don't trip" or breath of the rgeat dwarf MIGHT be useful, depending on the dungeon.

And above using your brains, above the clouds even: this build has an incredible ammount of defense. And it can insta spike most bosses in GW, when all spirits target it + heros+you. So what do you have 2 watch out for? balling. Enemies will target you very fast, because the spirits are cast on top of each other and the Ai tends 2 ball by nature's stupidity.
It's your job 2 stop that from happening. It's better to stop attacking and make your heros unball or cast some prots than getting wiped because of a 300+dmg spirit rift or searing flames.

Finally, even though we all know it's boring 2 have to ctrl+c every single frickin template I posted, I ask of you to do it if you're at all interested in what I'm saying, because there's no point in reading a team setup without looking at the bars (if you weren't interested, you wouldn't be reading this far in the thread so... :P)

It took me a fair ammount of time 2 perfect the build setup AND especially the assassin build, having looked at all kinds of different builds and aproachments. If I got time for it, I will edit this with the screenies of the skills.

Just remember to be pro and you'll make it :P

If you are struggling to find a setup with this build for your character, it's probably because you're doing something wrong, BUT post it here and I'll give it my best to help you.

Special thanks go to Coast Reincarnated and Wizzy Of Chaos for being amazing partners throughout various dungeons and coming up with interesting builds for the players to use.

My IGN is I Perma Mobs and have good holidays

MelianCeleh · Jan 04, 2011, 03:57 PM // 15:57

Looks exactly like spiritway to me. Like straight from gwpvx. Doesn't really seem like anything's been modified.

I do like it aswell tho.

End · Jan 04, 2011, 04:19 PM // 16:19

Quote:

Originally Posted by MelianCeleh

Looks exactly like spiritway to me. Like straight from gwpvx. Doesn't really seem like anything's been modified.

I do like it aswell tho.

Well he picks out an elite for the bomber (I personally would use AOTL over jagged for most dungeons)

His caster Sos uses Spirit transfer (again another thing I'd disagree with since theres already enough healing/prot from the henchies+some extra heals already on the SoS bar and its better taken up by spiritleech aura imo for better lasting spirits)

His Sogm uses earthbind instead of agony which while I don't like agony I would only really use earthbind in dungeons with Jotun's and would more enjoy bringing like Fall Back or some speed boost myself.

I Perma Mobs · Jan 07, 2011, 06:37 PM // 18:37

@melian
Yes, the build IS indeed very close to Spiritway, however, like End said, there are a few differences. And this thread wasn't created merely to show this build. The build is 1 helpful advice I have. It's also a good basis to use as example to show you (public) certain tactics that you should use and stuff you should avoid. Thank you for posting though.

@End
Earthbinds purpose is to be combined with cynn. Cynn uses meteor. recently I finished VQing cantha, and I realised how ridiculously powerful earthbind is. Actually, I should think of editing the 2nd player heros tbh :P. For instance, Meteor from Cynn will cause a 3 seconds long KD on all adjacent foes, which in turn will allow for splinter weapon and rodgorts invocation/fireball (depends what she follows up with) to desintegrate the whole enemy party in a matter of seconds. that's why i prefer it over agony.

Spirit transfer is really just an option. You could take fall back on this hero. However, I find that the best way to create a ball of enemies (You'll see why I'm talking about this) is to wait for them to ball up after the patrol and then charge straight in. BEcause I personally can't be annoyed to always micro prot spirit on myself (unless I know ill be taking 400 dmg in 1 hit), I like 2 have spirit transfer on the build, because it'll heal a sweet 220 health, like infuse, without the penalty of health loss. This also means that the enemy AI won't start attacking SoS hero because of the low health.
Yes, it's jsut a personal preference, you could take fall back. You could even take something completely different. I can understand spiritleech aura to counter shielding hands in the few areas it exists or shield of absorption, but not 2 make the spirits longer lasting. It won't make them less vulnerable to AoE damage

Jagged Bones is simply for Energy management. AoTL has a long recharge and heroes don't use it well. they let it drop before recasting and will rather use it to get the +2 death magic bonus than to exploit 5 corpses at once. While you could micro it, I can't be annoyed and this is sposed to be a build for every1 to use, and I am sure that most of the people feel like I do about microing

On a side note: Thanks you two for posting here, it's nice to have some feedback

synchronizing with earthbind, I will consider running unsteady ground on the other roles that 1 person alone cannot run. Since we have the hero limit update coming, I might as well think about a team build to be ran by 1 man 7 heroes. I will update this thread when I have my final result.

nodnarb chawz · Jan 08, 2011, 04:02 PM // 16:02

I don't know why, but I just started playing GW again after 1 1/2 years of no activity. I found that your build and advice were quite useful.

Thank you.

I Perma Mobs · Jan 08, 2011, 06:20 PM // 18:20

No prob man, always happy to help

NateAlluran · Jan 09, 2011, 05:25 PM // 17:25

Quote:

Originally Posted by nodnarb chawz

I don't know why, but I just started playing GW again after 1 1/2 years of no activity. I found that your build and advice were quite useful.

Thank you.

Same here, me and my brother just jumped back and started playing after about two years away and I found this to be one of the more useful posts I've come across (community seems surprisingly unhelpful when it comes to endgame tactics

)

Much appreciated, I Perma Mobs.

NerfHerder · Jan 11, 2011, 06:31 PM // 18:31

Yup, you basically just said run spirit way in which case PvX explains it better and gives you better options. Or if you have another player have him run Sabway. And then you say choose a Meta build for your profession. At least thats what I read into it. Only you didnt source your material and acted like you made the whole thing up.

If your H/Hing in EotN, Cynn, Herta, and Mhenlo are good heros. Again, pretty common knowledge to most players. IMO Lina is optional, and possibly over kill for the amount of heals you need if you use proper tactics and the right team setup. Which is also better explained here. Not to mention the countless guides offered on Guru.

Xenomortis · Jan 11, 2011, 06:47 PM // 18:47

Quote:

Originally Posted by I Perma Mobs

Earthbinds purpose is to be combined with cynn. Cynn uses meteor. recently I finished VQing cantha, and I realised how ridiculously powerful earthbind is.

Cynn has Meteor Shower in EotN and Earthbind has a negative effect on it (the second knockdown is usually missed).

The advice in this thread can best be summed up as:
"Run Spiritway and here are some trash player build suggestions".

I would comment further, but I can't quickly decode build code right now.
And you really shouldn't need Lina. You could just run more damage.

I Perma Mobs · Jan 11, 2011, 06:57 PM // 18:57

Quote:

Only you didnt source your material and acted like you made the whole thing up

Quote:

So I decided 2 improve the meta builds even further and adapt them to my own situation and I came up with a team-setup that was pretty much capable of...

Before saying I claimed any ownership of what I posted, READ what I post.

Quote:

Or if you have another player have him run Sabway

Apparently you can't even distinguish this either. Check the templates of the necro builds I posted and the ones posted in "sabway". Hopefully you'll see a difference.

Talking about the META builds which I "suposedly" told you to run(which i didn't)

Quote:

Whatever you do, don't play heal

http://www.gwpvx.com/Build:Mo/any_Generic_Healer

yeah, with an affirmation like this, tell me I told you to run meta.

Quote:

Which is also better explained here

Of course it's better explained there! That's an extensive guide to comprehending PvE playing. THIS is not. What were you even thinking posting that? It doesn't prove your point in any aspect nor does it reinforce anything.

Quote:

If your H/Hing in EotN, Cynn, Herta, and Mhenlo are good heros

They're henchmen, but I'll let you pass on that one. Who says they are good henchmen except for me and you? Do you have any proof on it? Talos Silverwing or Zho might just as well do the job.
YOU took no time at all to write that. I analysed the team concept for weeks, taking conclusions, drawing possibilities, experimenting. theres a reason why herta and cynn are taken. Herta puts up wards against melee, which are the mobs that run away from the caster group which should be the one to be spiked first, because they instinctively ball up. Meteor from cynn gets affected by earthbind causing aoe wide long KD, same for meteor shower. These Nukes make the spike cleaner. while the foes are KDd, the DoT effects from sandstorm will be hauling the a$§ off the enemies which would otherwise just run and cause scatter.

I could go on forever. Don't think you can analyse a whole build set-up without trying it out. And on top of that, don't say it's "meta" or just a mere clumping of "good skills" without any forethought. It'll just make you look bad.

I'd very much like people to put up constructive comments instead of random flaming. The feedback I've been becoming has shown to be quite positive except for Nerfherder's. Give me your opinions on this though and if there are certain improvements to be made. I've currently been wondering what to take if there are no corpses in the area. Any good builds? I hear a smiter with that holy damage on physical attacks skill works well and adds some healing. any other stuff? :P

Jeydra · Jan 13, 2011, 12:33 AM // 00:33

Quote:

I'd very much like people to put up constructive comments instead of random flaming. The feedback I've been becoming has shown to be quite positive except for Nerfherder's. Give me your opinions on this though and if there are certain improvements to be made. I've currently been wondering what to take if there are no corpses in the area. Any good builds? I hear a smiter with that holy damage on physical attacks skill works well and adds some healing. any other stuff? :P

Jagged Bones is inferior to AotL, reasons given in this thread: http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/w...t10442076.html

I definitely wouldn't run Earthbind as a caster, but can't comment as a physical.

Spirit Transfer is ... eh. Micro Prot Spirit instead, that's why you have it.

You don't need Lina with spiritway.

You might want to look at this thread: http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/p...t10447337.html Spiritway might be new, but it's also been around for quite a while.

I Perma Mobs · Jan 15, 2011, 09:25 AM // 09:25

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeydra

Jagged Bones is inferior to AotL, reasons given in this thread: http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/w...t10442076.html

I definitely wouldn't run Earthbind as a caster, but can't comment as a physical.

Spirit Transfer is ... eh. Micro Prot Spirit instead, that's why you have it.

You don't need Lina with spiritway.

You might want to look at this thread: http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/p...t10447337.html Spiritway might be new, but it's also been around for quite a while.

Lina is helpful, imo. I don't like to run with only the support I have. The extra heals allow me to over-aggro, often several groups at once. She also seems to be really good at casting SoA.

About AoTL and JB: I checked your link and saw both positive feed back and negative on AoTL. As I said, AoTL is a microing skill, while JB is not. AoTL will also make your minions last longer (lvl 14 bone minions- lvl 18(19 including AoTL bonus) bone horros). This means that they won't be dieing as fast. You think this is positive, but I don't. It means they wont explode with DN as often. The main damage absorbing comes from the spirits and lvl 14 bone minions are more than enough anyhow. Also notice, AoTL only creates 1 minion out of 1 corpse, while minions summons 2. This means that if the hero uses AoTL, he will exploit all corpses, meaning that he won't be able to raise a 11 minions party (albeit doing this in 1 second).
Secondly, Jb is an extremely effective way of doing alot of things: Managing the heroe's energy (5 energy minion summon...), Maintaining the minion army alive indefinitely (at least 3 can be kept up for ever, while AoTL can only keep up 1, 2 if you spam on charge, which you dont wanna do), spread bleeding (jagged horros dps is alot higher than other minions cause of this), and maintain the army while in battle. The 2 minions you summoned from 1 corpse can become 3 or 4, maybe even more.

personally, I can't see how AoTL is superior. But I suppose it also works. Feel free to run it if you want? :P

@xenomortis
If you can't even bother to read the whole thread, don't post here. You obviously lack any ability to post a comment anyhow.

Xenomortis · Jan 15, 2011, 12:04 PM // 12:04

Quote:

Originally Posted by I Perma Mobs

@xenomortis
If you can't even bother to read the whole thread, don't post here. You obviously lack any ability to post a comment anyhow.

What makes you think I didn't? My criticism wasn't very thorough but as I said, I wasn't in a position to easily decode all the builds.
Would you like me to go through and have a go eviscerating or praising everything?

Interestingly however, you ignored my remarks on Earthbind and Lina - at least one of those is something you should take note of.

I Perma Mobs · Jan 15, 2011, 12:38 PM // 12:38

earthbind: meteor shower: HM mobs kite the 1 second interval between KDs without earthbind. This means u only get the first KD.
With earthbind its the same thing. The difference is it lasts longer. So earthbind still improves MS' effectiveness.

And I didn't ignore Lina's job. I alrdy answered you. A more thoroughly explanation includes Lina's use of prot spirit, ZB, and especially, guardian. Guardian is increibly useful. Since most of the time you'll be tanking, guardian will shut-off >50% of the damage melee do. It's only a shame she doesn't run with SoA... oh wait... Yeah, Lina helps in tanking.
She also helps in handling the over-aggro pressure, which means your heros can focus on using splinter weapon on you, casting death nova instead of prots, and keeping spirits up instead of using "flesh of my flesh".

Quote:

The advice in this thread can best be summed up as:
"Run Spiritway and here are some trash player build suggestions".

This makes me think you didn't read it all.

Xenomortis · Jan 15, 2011, 02:26 PM // 14:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by I Perma Mobs

This makes me think you didn't read it all.

On decoding the three hero builds, I'm not wrong.
I haven't looked at the "2nd player" suggestions, but:

Quote:

Originally Posted by I Perma Mobs

If running with multiple players:
I highly suggest not to do so in High-End PvE areas (unless ofc you're doing SC).

And if we're not talking about anything challenging, quite frankly I don't really care since anything can roll anything not challenging.

Quote:

Originally Posted by I Perma Mobs

earthbind: meteor shower: HM mobs kite the 1 second interval between KDs without earthbind. This means u only get the first KD.
With earthbind its the same thing. The difference is it lasts longer. So earthbind still improves MS' effectiveness.

Earthbind + Meteor Shower is a little strange.
At time it works great - three sequential KDs with 2 quarter knocks (if the wiki is to be believed), but more often only two KDs (maybe with a quarter knock).
Enemies shouldn't really be kiting Meteor Shower - when I see Cynn use it on a mob well, I usually see at least two knockdowns - with Earthbind I would run a great risk of only seeing one.
This though, seems to stem from a difference in observation and I can't argue on these lines.

Quote:

Originally Posted by I Perma Mobs

And I didn't ignore Lina's job. I alrdy answered you.

No, you answered in the same post you attacked me.

So, here we go:

First let's look at the hero builds suggested:

Ok, standard spiritway with Earthbind over Anguish, Spirit Transfer over a res and Dwayna's Sorrow instead of another prot or something.

I've already commented on Earthbind with MS so I won't bother again, but in general this isn't really worth it and so you can just run another attack spirit (which is a further boost with SoGM and Painful Bond). Knockdowns are rarely incorporated into H/H setups outside of Earthshaker bars (EBind redundant), YMLAD on the player bar (not significant) or Meteor/Meteor Shower on a henchmen (again, not significant and possibly detrimental with MS)

Spirit Transfer is odd. You shouldn't really have on any bar, three single target heals. Heroes do not prioritise heals well.
ST is pretty beefy for a heal though, but expensive and a bit conditional - I would cut one of the heals for something else (I hear AR or Splinter can work with minions - might want to try it out if you don't want more resses) and I would recommend ST is the heal you cut.
The physical option with Splinter weapon is the standard PvX bar - I think you could squeeze AR on there also.

Dwayna's Sorrow isn't something I generally like on MMs. It can work but it tends not to pull its weight as well as other skills. And the 4-way att split is ugly. This is cut and paste from PvX with that one alteration and I don't think it's a good choice.

The lack of Strength of Honor depresses me as a physical.

Now let's look at the player bar suggestions:

Quote:

Originally Posted by I Perma Mobs

warrior: run a build that allows for quick attacks and SY! spam.

Not particularly thorough. This also negates Earthshaker bars.

Quote:

Originally Posted by I Perma Mobs

Ranger: R/W with barrage and SY! spam.

Yeah, this is as good as anything a Ranger can run. They can also try using a scythe - it might be better for them.

Quote:

Originally Posted by I Perma Mobs

Dervish: d/w with aoe damage scythe attacks and SY! spam. Otherwise, no suggestions :P

Incompleteness is a common theme here.
Hint: Run Zealous Vow

Quote:

Originally Posted by I Perma Mobs

Assassin: OwFjUNd8ITOMMMHM7PxZxkvlieA. You can take FH out for PI or other pve skills. Foucs on rapid attacks and SY! spam.
JS, FF, DB, Critical Strike, WotA, Finish Him, AScan, SY

Decoded build in bold was me.
My comments on this are found here and here.

Quote:

Originally Posted by I Perma Mobs

Paragon: regular imagon build.

It's the only toy they get - shame it's so defensive. Certainly cut away some of the defense if you run this.

Quote:

Originally Posted by I Perma Mobs

Elementalist: if solo with H/H, go e/mo bonder. no need for a bu, just b pro.

No, or certainly not with the henchmen choice you've given. ERing is basically all in defense, which means you've cut very heavily in your offense. If you do this, every henchmen and every hero should in general, have a significant damage focus -i.e. cut out both monk henchmen if you do this. Otherwise run an AP build.

Quote:

Originally Posted by I Perma Mobs

Necromancer: If solo, SS nuker with double dessecrate, PI, BUH! and air of superiority.

No, don't do that. That's junk.
Run an AP build instead or Fevered Dreams. You accomplish meaningful stuff that way.
And if you do run a curse heavy bar, there's no excuse for not taking Mark of Pain and Barbs with minions running around.

Quote:

Originally Posted by I Perma Mobs

Mesmers: Either panic or E surge. Mistrust is a MUST for the 180 damage or so. Don't forget air of superiority.

Or AP or Fevered Dreams. You can easily forget Air of Superiority. ESurge is somewhat of a throwaway elite. AP with Echoed EVAS is quite nice.

Quote:

Originally Posted by I Perma Mobs

Ritualists: If going solo, DWG is a nice option. If going duo with a melee partner, consider changing around splinter weapon on ur SoS hero for spirit transfer. DON't go spirit spam. It's alot better to go high damage.

Spirit spam is damage. The reason why one wouldn't suggest it is because it would require a total hero rework.
DWG is unimpressive. AP with the Channeling damage skills might work, but Cruel was Daoshen only gives 10% AP. You'll probably be outright inferior to the Ele Air AP build though.

Quote:

Originally Posted by I Perma Mobs

Monks: The PVX monk smiter build works very well, if u take air of superiority.

Probably. I don't H/H on my monk so I can't really comment.

Quote:

Originally Posted by I Perma Mobs

I highly reccomend that you are an assassin.

Be honest, this is because it's clearly your only real area of experience.

Quote:

Originally Posted by I Perma Mobs

Whatever you do, don't play heal. You will be unable to heal. Consider, however, UA, in case you screw it up.

In general the player should probably push for damage. This is a result of the PvE skills being very damage orientated and a human can capitalise on those very well.
Regardless, whatever the player does, they should be significantly better than a hero equivalent. For example in the case of the ER Ele, they're far better than any backlining hero and are able to top both Mhenlo and Lina combined.
But don't take UA if you're not playing for heals.

So far my first post is looking to be fairly accurate. The small variations in PvX's spiritway don't add up to much and at least some of the player build suggestions are pathetic.

So let's look at the henchmen suggestions:
Henchies 2 bring along: Cynn, Herta, Mhenlo, Lynna. (in order: Fire, Earth, Healer, Protection). Call balled targets.

Ok, Cynn and Herta are alright. Mhenlo you kinda need because you don't have enough healing to keep up.
Lina you really shouldn't need. Lina has two things of use - Zealous Benediction and Prot Spirit. SoA is sort of nice, but doesn't have the power PS does and isn't important, Guardian is largely redundant with Aegis. You already have a lot of single target heals and your MM packs Prot Spirit, so you don't need to burn the party slot on her.
It's worth mentioning that Lo Sha packs Ineptitude. He'll have a greater affect against physicals than Lina will with Guardian and Prot Spirit and he does damage. Now you won't suffer too much from bringing Lina, but Lo Sha has some nice stuff.

Now let's look at the second player heroes:

Ok...
SS is a throwaway skill here. Depending on Barbs and Mark of Pain (and hence a curser at all) when your only source of physical damage is minions isn't great. You'd get better mileage out of a fire ele hero if both players are casters. If the player bringing that hero is a physical then Pain of Disenchantment would be worth it over SS.
The heals are overkill.

The MM bar is copy-paste from before - same comments apply. Half of the dungeons don't have the corpse count for two MMs, but some do (Arachni's has a lot for example). Two MMs won't be pulling their weight as much as one MM would and since you already have minions and spirits, it's worth reconsidering.

I don't like N/Rt healer bars. They work and aren't really any worse than Monk hero heal bars, but the fact the elite is always trash annoys me to no end.
But again, Spirit Transfer with MBAS and Spirit Light? On top of all the other heals?
And Weapon of Warding isn't great.

Really, it's clear that not too much thought went into those bars. The hero bars should be depending much more on what the players are and they're pretty lackluster no matter what the player is running at the moment.

You've overloaded on defense and healing and have totally ignored some of the mitigation options that aren't all in defense - namely some of the useful Mesmer skills that recently got buffed.

Quote:

Originally Posted by I Perma Mobs

If running with multiple players:
I highly suggest not to do so in High-End PvE areas (unless ofc you're doing SC).This is because it's very rare to be able to fit more than 2 persons into the team setup. People don't want to run heal, and even rarer, boring heals like n/rt that also need AI level of speed reactions. 3 people Is still accomodable, 4, however, enters the limits of failing, unless you are very lucky with the professions.

When running with several humans the setups should vary greatly from H/H or 2+6 setups. The reason why a human won't want to run a N/Rt build is because 1. a human Monk is better and 2. it's a waste of a human Nec.
PUGs are a little odd because team structure is seldom considered, but I don't recommend pugging the harder dungeons, but convince some guildies to join you so you can actually construct something sensible.

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Originally Posted by I Perma Mobs

like n/rt that also need AI level of speed reactions.

What? No heal build can be run by the AI better than a human. The AI doesn't capitalise in insane reactions with heals and you just don't need those reactions.

The secondary player hero bars notwithstanding, I hold to my original statements.

I Perma Mobs · Jan 15, 2011, 04:16 PM // 16:16

Quote:

Originally Posted by Xenomortis

On decoding the three hero builds, I'm not wrong.
I haven't looked at the "2nd player" suggestions, but:

And if we're not talking about anything challenging, quite frankly I don't really care since anything can roll anything not challenging.

Earthbind + Meteor Shower is a little strange.
At time it works great - three sequential KDs with 2 quarter knocks (if the wiki is to be believed), but more often only two KDs (maybe with a quarter knock).
Enemies shouldn't really be kiting Meteor Shower - when I see Cynn use it on a mob well, I usually see at least two knockdowns - with Earthbind I would run a great risk of only seeing one.
This though, seems to stem from a difference in observation and I can't argue on these lines.

No, you answered in the same post you attacked me.

So, here we go:

First let's look at the hero builds suggested:

Ok, standard spiritway with Earthbind over Anguish, Spirit Transfer over a res and Dwayna's Sorrow instead of another prot or something.

I've already commented on Earthbind with MS so I won't bother again, but in general this isn't really worth it and so you can just run another attack spirit (which is a further boost with SoGM and Painful Bond). Knockdowns are rarely incorporated into H/H setups outside of Earthshaker bars (EBind redundant), YMLAD on the player bar (not significant) or Meteor/Meteor Shower on a henchmen (again, not significant and possibly detrimental with MS)

Spirit Transfer is odd. You shouldn't really have on any bar, three single target heals. Heroes do not prioritise heals well.
ST is pretty beefy for a heal though, but expensive and a bit conditional - I would cut one of the heals for something else (I hear AR or Splinter can work with minions - might want to try it out if you don't want more resses) and I would recommend ST is the heal you cut.
The physical option with Splinter weapon is the standard PvX bar - I think you could squeeze AR on there also.

Dwayna's Sorrow isn't something I generally like on MMs. It can work but it tends not to pull its weight as well as other skills. And the 4-way att split is ugly. This is cut and paste from PvX with that one alteration and I don't think it's a good choice.

The lack of Strength of Honor depresses me as a physical.

Now let's look at the player bar suggestions:

Not particularly thorough. This also negates Earthshaker bars.

Yeah, this is as good as anything a Ranger can run. They can also try using a scythe - it might be better for them.

Incompleteness is a common theme here.
Hint: Run Zealous Vow

Decoded build in bold was me.
My comments on this are found here and here.

It's the only toy they get - shame it's so defensive. Certainly cut away some of the defense if you run this.

No, or certainly not with the henchmen choice you've given. ERing is basically all in defense, which means you've cut very heavily in your offense. If you do this, every henchmen and every hero should in general, have a significant damage focus -i.e. cut out both monk henchmen if you do this. Otherwise run an AP build.

No, don't do that. That's junk.
Run an AP build instead or Fevered Dreams. You accomplish meaningful stuff that way.
And if you do run a curse heavy bar, there's no excuse for not taking Mark of Pain and Barbs with minions running around.

Or AP or Fevered Dreams. You can easily forget Air of Superiority. ESurge is somewhat of a throwaway elite. AP with Echoed EVAS is quite nice.

Spirit spam is damage. The reason why one wouldn't suggest it is because it would require a total hero rework.
DWG is unimpressive. AP with the Channeling damage skills might work, but Cruel was Daoshen only gives 10% AP. You'll probably be outright inferior to the Ele Air AP build though.

Probably. I don't H/H on my monk so I can't really comment.

Be honest, this is because it's clearly your only real area of experience.

In general the player should probably push for damage. This is a result of the PvE skills being very damage orientated and a human can capitalise on those very well.
Regardless, whatever the player does, they should be significantly better than a hero equivalent. For example in the case of the ER Ele, they're far better than any backlining hero and are able to top both Mhenlo and Lina combined.
But don't take UA if you're not playing for heals.

So far my first post is looking to be fairly accurate. The small variations in PvX's spiritway don't add up to much and at least some of the player build suggestions are pathetic.

So let's look at the henchmen suggestions:
Henchies 2 bring along: Cynn, Herta, Mhenlo, Lynna. (in order: Fire, Earth, Healer, Protection). Call balled targets.

Ok, Cynn and Herta are alright. Mhenlo you kinda need because you don't have enough healing to keep up.
Lina you really shouldn't need. Lina has two things of use - Zealous Benediction and Prot Spirit. SoA is sort of nice, but doesn't have the power PS does and isn't important, Guardian is largely redundant with Aegis. You already have a lot of single target heals and your MM packs Prot Spirit, so you don't need to burn the party slot on her.
It's worth mentioning that Lo Sha packs Ineptitude. He'll have a greater affect against physicals than Lina will with Guardian and Prot Spirit and he does damage. Now you won't suffer too much from bringing Lina, but Lo Sha has some nice stuff.

Now let's look at the second player heroes:

Ok...
SS is a throwaway skill here. Depending on Barbs and Mark of Pain (and hence a curser at all) when your only source of physical damage is minions isn't great. You'd get better mileage out of a fire ele hero if both players are casters. If the player bringing that hero is a physical then Pain of Disenchantment would be worth it over SS.
The heals are overkill.

The MM bar is copy-paste from before - same comments apply. Half of the dungeons don't have the corpse count for two MMs, but some do (Arachni's has a lot for example). Two MMs won't be pulling their weight as much as one MM would and since you already have minions and spirits, it's worth reconsidering.

I don't like N/Rt healer bars. They work and aren't really any worse than Monk hero heal bars, but the fact the elite is always trash annoys me to no end.
But again, Spirit Transfer with MBAS and Spirit Light? On top of all the other heals?
And Weapon of Warding isn't great.

Really, it's clear that not too much thought went into those bars. The hero bars should be depending much more on what the players are and they're pretty lackluster no matter what the player is running at the moment.

You've overloaded on defense and healing and have totally ignored some of the mitigation options that aren't all in defense - namely some of the useful Mesmer skills that recently got buffed.

When running with several humans the setups should vary greatly from H/H or 2+6 setups. The reason why a human won't want to run a N/Rt build is because 1. a human Monk is better and 2. it's a waste of a human Nec.
PUGs are a little odd because team structure is seldom considered, but I don't recommend pugging the harder dungeons, but convince some guildies to join you so you can actually construct something sensible.

What? No heal build can be run by the AI better than a human. The AI doesn't capitalise in insane reactions with heals and you just don't need those reactions.

The secondary player hero bars notwithstanding, I hold to my original statements.

In this quote, you say some very smart things and some complete garbage. Sorry, it's the only word I can find :S
Be prepared for a huge reply.

Quote:

Quote:
Originally Posted by I Perma Mobs View Post
If running with multiple players:
I highly suggest not to do so in High-End PvE areas (unless ofc you're doing SC).
And if we're not talking about anything challenging, quite frankly I don't really care since anything can roll anything not challenging.

This is a suggestion to not do any high-end PvE with multiple persons. Plain as that. In fact, in terms of speed and effectiveness, you shouldn't run with more than 2 players at all, but I guess it's more fun... (unless you are /wiping every time you agro a mob, thats not fun)

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This though, seems to stem from a difference in observation and I can't argue on these lines.

apparently I'll have to say the same. For instance, running snowmans today, I saw the mobs kite from the AoE damage from MS atfer the first KD, and they run away fast enough to avoid the 2nd KD. However, if you say they don't... Well, I'll keep investigating.

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No, you answered in the same post you attacked me.

I don't really get this. Does it mean I didn't answer you? I think not.

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Knockdowns are rarely incorporated into H/H setups outside of Earthshaker bars (EBind redundant), YMLAD on the player bar (not significant) or Meteor/Meteor Shower on a henchmen (again, not significant and possibly detrimental with MS)

Kai Ying, Cynn, Argo. Kai Ying carries 2 aoe KD's, 1 insta trigger the other trigger on any movement (Hm foes have +speed). Cynn has 2 KD's, one of them will probably KD more than 1 time. Argo has meteor.
Devona is hammer warrior with obv, kd skills. Since she doesn't run with the KD insignia (name?) e bind does the job for her too, if u take her. Same applies for all other warrior henchies, though not as effectively.

Notice that earthbind's effect doesn't need 5050493 KD's to be effective. One well placed meteor shower or even just meteor can make it worthwile over any other spirit (and what would you bring here anyhow? anguish?). The main reason E-bind is here is to make the ball stay balled up when the splinter sin (or ele nukes or SS or W/E) goes in for the real spike.

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Heroes do not prioritise heals well.

True, to a certain degree, but not significant. They prioritize it well enough when you're the only one in the party taking damage. Heroes will ALWAYS heal party members before any1 else. It was informed in some update months(prolly years by now) ago. And they will only heal allies (minions, spirits,...) when they're on max energy. This means they will focus their single target healing on you as soon as you drop below a certain ammount of health (either 90 or 85% I think, not sure).
but yes, spirit transfer isn't essential. I personally just don't have any alternative to put in that spot except AR, which I do in the 7 hero team you posted in. Not here though, because I believe defense > anything when doing H/H.

Oh, and also, splinter weapon on minions doesn't work effectively. Their attack speed is 3 seconds, and since they have real issues in picking targets and moving in-between targets, they will take at LEASt 15 seconds to do the 5 attacks of splinter + w/e time they take running around like dolls. Also, they die in this time, meaning splinter was wasted.

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Dwayna's Sorrow isn't something I generally like on MMs. It can work but it tends not to pull its weight as well as other skills. And the 4-way att split is ugly. This is cut and paste from PvX with that one alteration and I don't think it's a good choice.

Dwayna's Sorrow is one of the best skills a MB can have. It grants serious party healing on death of anything, covers all enchantments cast on the party and all of this with just 5 healing prayers spec. And it only costs 5 energy and can be spammed each 6 seconds, so the MB can easily cast it on any minion that didn't get affected.

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The lack of Strength of Honor depresses me as a physical.

Sorry. But you don't need it, nor do you want it.

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Not particularly thorough. This also negates Earthshaker bars

it's not thorough. But how does it negate earth shaker bars?
Earhskaer, assuming it'll hit 5 foes (big ball), and you're on IAS, will have an attack rate of 0.25 seconds. thats a fast attack. Following up with a few AoE hamemr attacks (whirlwind attack, crude swing too), you have a) just undergone a small manly spike with splinter, b) fueled SY! and c) KD'ed half the mob. It's a good build to run.

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Hint: Run Zealous Vow

That's what i used to run on my dervish till I deleted him. it works, and is good energy management. Whirlwind attack is also an interesting choice, depending on what foes you will be facing.

Your comments: I answered them in the other post. I agree with them and have been running with them ever since.

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No, or certainly not with the henchmen choice you've given

This is for high-end areas. i was thinking of slaver's when I posted it. For other high-end areas that are easier, I have 2 ideas: E/N life sacker exploding with Dark aura, using masochism.
Or, and here you can really capitalise on EBind power, Unsteady ground, meteor, ymlad, evas, and others. I believe this is the best to run for damage.

Quote:

Originally Posted by I Perma Mobs View Post
Necromancer: If solo, SS nuker with double dessecrate, PI, BUH! and air of superiority.
No, don't do that. That's junk.
Run an AP build instead or Fevered Dreams. You accomplish meaningful stuff that way.

This is one of the things I thought u said was garbage.
SS> anything when run by a player. and even by heros. The ammount of damage it does at 14 curses+ BuH! and the fast recharge it gets from a 40/40 curses set AND the chance for insta charge of AoS make it an extremely pwoerful skill.
the 1 skill missing on the bar which i didnt say is OBV MoP (SS nuker = MoP, seeing as to how we have minions). I thought this was obvious. I mean, it's the ONE skill the bar has slot for. Then, double dessecrate is obviously to capitalise on the 40/40 curses set and AoS, meaning you can literally spam 80+ damage aoe, armor ignoring. These builds have been ran for ages now, and you come in saying its junk. Sorry, it's not a thought-out idea. LEEERROOOY to me.

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Or AP or Fevered Dreams. You can easily forget Air of Superiority. ESurge is somewhat of a throwaway elite. AP with Echoed EVAS is quite nice.

echo evas is bad, imho. The single target dmg is nice, but it's 35 energy to accomplish simple stuff, and not AoE. if your ebon rank is low its a waste.
Why is E-surge a waste of an elite again? (124 dmg every... 10 seconds? Oh right, u can echo it)
anyhow, these were just a few suggestions to what you could run. Not a thorough guide to all the builds there are.

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DWG is unimpressive

Second garbage thing u say imo.
Dude, have u ever seen DWG massive damage? and spamability? jesus. It's ridiculous. go rit/me with echo and see for yourself. It's incredibly overpowered. It's probably the best thing u can run with, out of all characters. It's.. just... ridiculous.

Quote:

Originally Posted by I Perma Mobs View Post
I highly reccomend that you are an assassin.
Be honest, this is because it's clearly your only real area of experience.

I'm sorry. you're completely right. It's my only experience. I've been playing the game for 3 years (not the longest, but still fair) and I only have experience with my sin. I have never gotten my mesmer to doa, nor my ele, dervish, never done eotn with all my characters, including monk, ranger, mesmer, ele, dervish, para, ritu, sin, warrior, basically all professions in the game.
I'm sorry.
The reason to run sin is because of splinter weapon and the AI in general. And the ability to spam SY! fairly fast while doing alot of damage. But all other professions can make it easily.

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Regardless, whatever the player does, they should be significantly better than a hero equivalent

this is true in everything but healing in Spiritway and a few other team setups. You will be casting 1 healing skill every 5 seconds. and after 10-15 seconds you wont have to cast them anymore, because you will be running to the next mob. That is why you will be unable to heal, because there is barely any healing to do if everything goes well.

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at least some of the player build suggestions are pathetic.

like? e/mo was meant for very high-end areas, I should have posted it.

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It's worth mentioning that Lo Sha packs Ineptitude

I will try him out. as stated on my 7 hero team set-up, I want an ineptitude mesmer on my team.

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Two MMs won't be pulling their weight as much as one MM would and since you already have minions and spirits, it's worth reconsidering.

I hope you realise that Death Nova can't be cast on every single minion. there's no time for that (heroe's, at least, can't). Having 2 of them cast it increases the ammount of times minions, when they die, explode with death nova.

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SS is a throwaway skill here. Depending on Barbs and Mark of Pain (and hence a curser at all) when your only source of physical damage is minions isn't great. You'd get better mileage out of a fire ele hero if both players are casters. If the player bringing that hero is a physical then Pain of Disenchantment would be worth it over SS.
The heals are overkill.

SS comments have been made.
You contradict yourself with MoP and abrbs. didnt you say, on the necro builds, that with minions loaming around, there's no reason not to bring MoP? Well?
Fire heros don't do nearly as much damage as this necro does.
The heals are to substitude for mhenlo and because there's barely anything left to bring. you could drop barbs for dessecrate and take out recovery for defile. Did that change the build enough?

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I don't like N/Rt healer bars. They work and aren't really any worse than Monk hero heal bars, but the fact the elite is always trash annoys me to no end.
But again, Spirit Transfer with MBAS and Spirit Light? On top of all the other heals?
And Weapon of Warding isn't great.

Ahm... The elite does huge AoE damage.
Without affecting their healing ability
This character is meant to replace mhenlo, having strong heals. Maybe abit overkill. But it makes the build versatile. I guess here you could fit your strength of honor.
If you don't like N/rt healers, sorry for ya. They're one of the few that can maintain energy through out a fight.

Quote:

Really, it's clear that not too much thought went into those bars. The hero bars should be depending much more on what the players are and they're pretty lackluster no matter what the player is running at the moment.

You've overloaded on defense and healing and have totally ignored some of the mitigation options that aren't all in defense - namely some of the useful Mesmer skills that recently got buffed.

Maybe I did post this too soon. But not in terms of not having thought about it, but because explainign things by writing takes forever. i've been typing in this reply for 1.30 hours.
That overload in defense is my personal way of doing things. the ammount of damage is more than enough (actually, its ALOT more than enough) to easily conquer any area, so I prefer to go safe.
About the mesmer skills, they should only be used on the 2nd player's heros, and I did NOT give them too much thought. That is true.

And please don't make me spend another 1.30 hours on this :S
note: I think I need to update the templates and put in a decent image of the team-setup, instead of just templates.

Xenomortis · Jan 15, 2011, 04:41 PM // 16:41

I'm not going to line quote this time. I'm just going to hit on a few core things.

Good humans beat the AI every time. Running with 8 other players allows you to steamroll the hardest content in PvE with remarkable ease, assuming the players are decent and are running good builds. This is not true of course, with random pick up groups.
Claiming that running with 2 humans and filling up with heroes is more efficient than running with 8 is... laughable. Look at the Underworld - how quickly can two humans do that and how quickly can 8?

Strength of Honor is an excellent buff. A Rit can easily take it and it's easily close to +20 damage every hit and it's boosted by Asuran Scan.

What I meant with heroes healing is that they don't prioritise healing skills well. How often have you seen Mhenlo use DKiss or Orison when WoH was almost certainly available?

SS is a lackluster option for a human Necromancer. Read any long thread in the Necromancer forum. It'll work, but damn is it slow.
Barbs and Mark of Pain are excellent on a human. On a hero they're much more questionable and Mark of Pain really needs micro for good use. I meant to make the distinction and thought I did - guess I missed it.

Icy Veins doesn't do huge damage.

I Perma Mobs · Jan 16, 2011, 09:10 PM // 21:10

Quote:

Claiming that running with 2 humans and filling up with heroes is more efficient than running with 8 is... laughable. Look at the Underworld - how quickly can two humans do that and how quickly can 8?

I know this. I also said, assuming you're not doing SC. If you were doing a regular team run (means: no designated tank, no spikers, just regular run), I personally believe that it would be faster to go 2 man 6 heroes. And the reason is, it's alot faster to prepare 6 heroes and 2 humans than it is to prepare 8 humans. You'd take 30 minutes or more to set the build up and then the time difference between the time youd take to complete 2 man or 8 man wouldn't be that big. Of course there are areas (like doa) which require you to go 8 man for any meaningful speed, but thats because heroes dont know how to use dwg. If they did, I would be farming DoA whenever I had the time for it.

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Strength of Honor is an excellent buff. A Rit can easily take it and it's easily close to +20 damage every hit and it's boosted by Asuran Scan.

Where would you put it? send me the template please :P (I'm guessing over Fomf on the SoGM hero. no other place really...)

About SS: I disagree. I probably am a one-of-a-kind, but I see enemies spamming attack skills and spells so fast, that i cannot understand how it is bad. Also, casters keep wanding even when they aren't casting. But really, what would you run? FoC? It needs an aoe hex to be effective.

And MoP: Do you regularly run melee? Heroes cast MoP (and all other enemie-target spells) on the target you follow at the encounter with the mob, EVEN if you dont call him. This means if you pre-select the target you want MoP on, they will use MoP on him while you run at him. Yes, microing helps sometimes, if you need to switch targets quickly or bla bla, but I have never had any problem when I used to run a personally modified version of sabway over spiritway.

IV does alot of damage, and most importantly, where you want it. It's like putrid bile, just with a stronger explosion, alot faster recharge and an important starting damage. As I explained in the 7 hero set-up, all single target damage you can get is important :P

But yeah, I find these discussions alot better.
Oh, and remember that suggestion you said, of bringing Lo Sha? I tried it out today, when I VQed Bjora marches and sparkfly swamp, yeah, it didn't really work :S Even though Ineptitude was really helpful against the raptors, I found the rest of the set up of Lo Sha weak. Also, the lack of hex and condition removal from Lina (or mb just condition... hex im not sure and cba to check wiki atm) was very annoying when i was cripled after a battle. Also, the damage output was barely increased, because the heros were more focused in healing the extra damage they were taking instead of doing damage. So I prefer continuing to take lina.
BUT it was a nice suggestion and I'd like to hear more from you, especially because it seems like you know what you're talking about, even though I'm bound to disagree with some of what you say. And every1 else of course

And sorry about the "flaming" there might have been

I get pretty emotional when I hear comments that I consider slightly aggressive.

Bright Star Shine · Jan 16, 2011, 11:20 PM // 23:20

Quote:

Originally Posted by I Perma Mobs

I know this. I also said, assuming you're not doing SC. If you were doing a regular team run (means: no designated tank, no spikers, just regular run), I personally believe that it would be faster to go 2 man 6 heroes. And the reason is, it's alot faster to prepare 6 heroes and 2 humans than it is to prepare 8 humans. You'd take 30 minutes or more to set the build up and then the time difference between the time youd take to complete 2 man or 8 man wouldn't be that big. Of course there are areas (like doa) which require you to go 8 man for any meaningful speed, but thats because heroes dont know how to use dwg. If they did, I would be farming DoA whenever I had the time for it.

Euhm, you're in [Zraw] and you're referring to DwG as "meaningful speed" I either missed something in your explanation, or you just boggled my mind..

Xenomortis · Jan 16, 2011, 11:38 PM // 23:38

Quote:

Originally Posted by I Perma Mobs

I know this. I also said, assuming you're not doing SC. If you were doing a regular team run (means: no designated tank, no spikers, just regular run), I personally believe that it would be faster to go 2 man 6 heroes. And the reason is, it's alot faster to prepare 6 heroes and 2 humans than it is to prepare 8 humans.

I'm sure my guild mates would be faster than my heroes and henchmen clearing out Slaver's Exile with a very hastily thrown together team. Normally we do spend a while waiting for people to arrive or pick at builds when we get strangers in and that takes time. I would have a hard time convincing them to do this, but we could make a fairly random collection of professions work with just a few necessary core elements (which we all have ready to go, just like everyone has presaved hero builds they quickly load) and have some a very short setup time.

Quote:

Originally Posted by I Perma Mobs

Where would you put it? send me the template please :P (I'm guessing over Fomf on the SoGM hero. no other place really...)

OAOk4sho4SOz1sc6NxYMTp584iB
11+1+2/3 Channeling, 11 Smiting, 8 Restoration, 3 Spawning
SoS, Bloodsong, Ancestor's Rage, Splinter Weapon, Strength of Honor, Spirit Siphon, Mend Body and Soul, Strength of Honor, Flesh of My Flesh.

That's my standard SoS Rit hero for a physical (my Warrior sometimes has something different, depending on hero setups). The spec can be altered slightly, but going below 9 Smiting is not recommended.
Here MBAS is not so much used for the heal as it is for the fact it removes a lot of conditions.
Now that was easy.

Quote:

Originally Posted by I Perma Mobs

About SS: I disagree. I probably am a one-of-a-kind, but I see enemies spamming attack skills and spells so fast, that i cannot understand how it is bad. Also, casters keep wanding even when they aren't casting. But really, what would you run? FoC? It needs an aoe hex to be effective.

The enemy mobs do do things quite fast, but you can do them faster. The damage per action isn't all that high and quite frankly, the better you are the worse this skill becomes. The nature of this skill lends itself to poor, slow players and good players quickly find it to be one of the weakest skills in their bar.
Assassin's Promise is the direction to look in for damage, or you look to achieve something quite different, which I'll cover in a minute.

With the enemies, any action you take against them should be either aimed at killing them, or stopping them from doing anything (the former is a subset of the latter quite clearly). This aim conflicts with the requirements for SS to operate. If a target is ever moving; SS isn't triggering, if a target is knocked down; SS isn't triggering, if a target is interrupted; SS doesn't trigger, if a target is quickly killed; SS isn't going to do anything.

There are two real competitive options to go for as a Nec when H/Hing (as I see it).
The first is straight up damage and the way to do this is with an AP build (another, perhaps stronger damage focused build for a Nec is the OoU MM build, but I do not recommend this for H/Hing). AP fueling YMLAD, FH and EVAS is fairly standard and the Nec can also use it to quickly recharge Mark of Pain. It doesn't require all that many physical triggers for MoP alone to quickly outdo SS (or even echoed SS) and with minions, EVAS and yourself with a spear, it's not all that bad. Before spirits were buffed it was easier to justify bringing some more physical oriented heroes just for this but the power of spirits makes this questionable. An option then of course is to push for direct damage stuff in curses (similar to the already similar AP-Air Ele build) but then you're just inferior to the Ele, so that can motivate a search for a different option, leading to my second build.

Fevered Dreams facilitates shutdown on a scale unmatched by anything other than Panic in the Domain of Anguish, Deep and Urgoz (Panic wins on shutdown against very large mobs only) in the time frame you need it to (Panic's shutdown goes on for longer, but by the time FD's daze has worn off after your condition application chain, you've almost certainly won the fight; even if some enemies are standing) and reapplication of FD is possible if you need it again. This defangs most enemy mobs almost completely and makes them much easier to deal with - the dynamics of the build are more straight-forward than AP builds and you're much less sensitive to hex timings against enemy removals. But above all, this shutdown and snaring, with the spikes from YMLAD and FH and the AoE pressure from Cry of Pain and a lot Fragility triggers, means this build is at the very least, on par in damage terms with a Spiteful Spirit build.

There are other builds that make SS ones look like utter crap in a H/H (or indeed any) setting, but those are the two that I would recommend.

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Originally Posted by I Perma Mobs

And MoP: Do you regularly run melee? Heroes cast MoP (and all other enemie-target spells) on the target you follow at the encounter with the mob, EVEN if you dont call him. This means if you pre-select the target you want MoP on, they will use MoP on him while you run at him. Yes, microing helps sometimes, if you need to switch targets quickly or bla bla, but I have never had any problem when I used to run a personally modified version of sabway over spiritway.

What are you responding specifically to here? My comments on the hero Curser were regarding the case when the players were casters (easily inferred from "when your only source of physical damage is [sic] minions". When the player is a physical, Mark of Pain is great; I even made a recommendation for that bar when a player is a physical!

Quote:

Originally Posted by I Perma Mobs

IV does alot of damage, and most importantly, where you want it. It's like putrid bile, just with a stronger explosion, alot faster recharge and an important starting damage. As I explained in the 7 hero set-up, all single target damage you can get is important :P

Incidentally, the player bars I mentioned above do quite a bit of focused damage right where you need it, along with (and in the case of AP-MoP, potentially copious amounts of) AoE damage, combined with the damage come from your henchmen and heroes, very little will stay alive for long.

Now, a general note:
IV is bad for all the reasons that every Elementalist nuke in the game is lackluster and often just outright bad. In fact, IV is worse than a lot of them, because the AoE aspect is conditional and delayed.
Now, there are two reasons why Elementalist nukes are in general, poor.
The first reason is simple: Armour.
Hard Mode boosts the level and hence armour rating of basically everything. Some enemies have ridiculous amounts of armour and armour sensitive damage suffers greatly as a result.
The second reason is much more fundamental and applies to all caster nukes/direct damage spells. This reason is covered in principle here. That's an old, PvP-focused thread written by one of the most experienced and insightful members on this forum. The things discussed in that thread and things in PvP in general do apply in PvE at some level - they are just at times, trivialised or hidden by the nature of the AI and format of PvE in general. Specifically the AoE aspect of many direct damage spells amplifies the effectiveness of those skills (provided they're hitting multiple targets) and in the lower levels of PvE, where mobs are small and the AI really stupid, you'll never notice.
But physicals dominate the damage front in PvE. Melee characters are on level unto-themselves in terms of damage and the nature of the GW skill set means casters will never come close whilst using direct damage skills. They're the standard for damage.

With all that in mind, no armour-sensitive direct damage caster spell can ever be called great.
Now, that doesn't mean that those skills can't be useful; especially in a H/H situation (Cetainly, with the promise of 7 heroes, I've been giving Ele heroes some meaningful looks of late.) where the player isn't a physical (if he his, don't ever bother with them, seriously). But the useful ones are the ones are right at the very top of the "direct damage spells" pile; a lot are in the Elementalist skill set, a couple are in the Mesmer set and a couple belong to the Rit. These skills either do decent enough damage reliably (Rodgort's, Invoke, Spirit Rift, ESurge), or perform some other function at the same time (Mistrust, Churning Earth, Eruption). Icy Veins does neither of those.

Another problem specific to Icy Veins itself is that it doesn't help you start winning a fight. It only acts once you've already started winning.

Quote:

Originally Posted by I Perma Mobs

But yeah, I find these discussions alot better.
Oh, and remember that suggestion you said, of bringing Lo Sha? I tried it out today, when I VQed Bjora marches and sparkfly swamp, yeah, it didn't really work :S Even though Ineptitude was really helpful against the raptors, I found the rest of the set up of Lo Sha weak. Also, the lack of hex and condition removal from Lina (or mb just condition... hex im not sure and cba to check wiki atm) was very annoying when i was cripled after a battle. Also, the damage output was barely increased, because the heros were more focused in healing the extra damage they were taking instead of doing damage. So I prefer continuing to take lina.

If you find that the case it may be more prudent to spread out your heroes if you're not already - it takes very little time to do and has very good results.
The lack of hex removal on henchmen long ago prompted me to take Remove Hex on my minion master (previously I took Empathic Removal but replaced it for AotL).
I have the impression you're playing as a physical. I myself tend not to run spiritway as a physical and focus instead on building around myself. Spiritway should work fine but you need to consider what you're facing. If an area is abundant in annoying hexes; you may want to invest in more removal, if an area has few corpses; a minion master is ill advised, etc.
And following from my previous comments on caster damage; you being a physical will mean the damage output from heroes is less noticeable.