Curse

Liquidus · Jun 10, 2006, 03:43 AM // 03:43

I'm played a bit in balanced teams now with Hammer warrior, boon prot, flashbot, and domination mesmer. I've found that we have the most problems against hex heavy builds. I already heard about this weakness before I played but now it's confirmed =).

What I'm wondering if there are ways we can eliminate or get around this weakness. Or should I just accept that we'll lose against hex heavy teams. The main type of hex team I see is the one that has a melee, boon prot, migrane mes, and ineptitude mes. Migrane gets on all the casters who get easily interuppted when trying to help our warrior. And warrior can't do anything with the hex stacks on him.

One possibility would be to run Expel Hexes on our mesmer, but this eliminates the elite spot, making a MoR diverison mesmer impossible. I've seen someone use a edenial mesmer that goes like this:

Blackout
Arcane Thievery
Feedback
Signet of Wearniess
Energy Burn
Drain Enchantment
Expel Hexes
Res Sig

Would the expel hexes on a mesmer be more beneficial than surge or mantra of recovery? Let me know what you guys think, thanks.

nethrandr · Jun 10, 2006, 12:43 PM // 12:43

Most of the time winning is just a matter of attacking the right targets. If there is a mesmer that is disabling your warrior you should stick your diversion mesmer on him. If you have a warrior with knockdown or distracting blow, you can stick the warrior on the migraine mesmer.
Spikes can be done by using blackout on the other teams monk.

JR · Jun 10, 2006, 01:56 PM // 13:56

Expell Hexes Dom Mesmers are key. Even consider running Hex Breaker on your Monk and/or Purge Signet or Convert on an E/Mo.

sno · Jun 10, 2006, 09:28 PM // 21:28

I find that 3-4 hex removals on a team is enough to combat pressure builds easily. I usually run holy veil and hex breaker (or inspired hex) on my boon prot (as well as CoP of course) and then inspired hex on the mes and/or inspired or convert hexes on the ele.

Don't confuse "balanced" with "hammer war, flashbot, dom mes, boon prot" though, as there are many other variations of balanced teams.

Divineshadows · Jun 11, 2006, 05:13 PM // 17:13

I have beaten teams with 2 or even 3 dedicated hexers with expel hexes on the mesmer, holy veil on the monk, hex breaker on the monk, and heal other on the ele. Of course, this was with a team that understood what each hex does on sight (i.e. not casting though backfire etc.).

rii · Jun 11, 2006, 05:33 PM // 17:33

Expel hexes on the mesmer, cop on the monk and holy veil on the elmo. Usually is enough.

torquemada · Jun 11, 2006, 05:59 PM // 17:59

Making Elmo the flashbot equipped with some power heals (party, other) wouldn't hurt either and should relieve pressure against other teams too.

Van Goghs Ear · Jun 11, 2006, 06:14 PM // 18:14

well actually, unless skill sets are broken, theoretically a balance team should be able to beat any other kind of team. 9/10 it comes down to the player(s) being the weakness. The thing about balance is that if just one of your players isn't performing, it breaks down the balanced shutdown/defense/damage. Now in 8 man GVG or HA, if one person is not fulfilling their roll, you can often get by. But in 4 man, that's 1 quarter of your team not holding up its end of the bargain, thus putting you at 75% effectiveness. That's a huge deficiency. And if 2 people aren't up to snuff that's half your team. That's usually how balance crumbles in TA.

Builds aren't everything. You can sit in observer mode and copy the last pride's build skill for skill all you want, but that does not mean you will be winning the tournament next season, or even coming top 100 for that matter. Ultimately it's the players running them.

Divineshadows · Jun 11, 2006, 07:53 PM // 19:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by Van Goghs Ear

well actually, unless skill sets are broken, theoretically a balance team should be able to beat any other kind of team. 9/10 it comes down to the player(s) being the weakness. The thing about balance is that if just one of your players isn't performing, it breaks down the balanced shutdown/defense/damage. Now in 8 man GVG or HA, if one person is not fulfilling their roll, you can often get by. But in 4 man, that's 1 quarter of your team not holding up its end of the bargain, thus putting you at 75% effectiveness. That's a huge deficiency. And if 2 people aren't up to snuff that's half your team. That's usually how balance crumbles in TA.

Builds aren't everything. You can sit in observer mode and copy the last pride's build skill for skill all you want, but that does not mean you will be winning the tournament next season, or even coming top 100 for that matter. Ultimately it's the players running them.

QFT. Though I have to disagree about hiding an underperforming player against good GvG guilds. This is just not going to happen. In HA, you can easily hide 2 or 3 underperforming players and still win if you have some really strong ones, but that is merely because the average skill level in HA is just well....

Wasteland Squidget · Jun 11, 2006, 08:00 PM // 20:00

I will say that in TA it's much easier for your team to identify what's going wrong. If one person isn't doing their job in TA, or is making some play mistake (kiting incorrectly, casting through Backfire, ect) it becomes very obvious. In GvG it still hurts your team, but you can't always tell what's causing the problem, particularly when the bad player is something like a mesmer.

TA is one of my favorite places to take newer players because it allows me to quickly assess their skill level and what they need to improve on. It's a far easier way to test and train than guest GvG, IMHO.

suiraCLAW · Jun 12, 2006, 06:12 PM // 18:12

Interrupts help a lot against hex heavy teams (keep in mind that most key hexes are 2 secs cast). Keep in mind that unlike hex removals, interrupts are always usefull, doesn't matter against wich team.

In other words: try to fit a distracting swing on your war, a gale on you E/Mo and a Pdrain/Preturn on the mes

.

nkabuto · Jun 18, 2006, 11:32 AM // 11:32

_Can i ask if you use Expel hexes for mesmer and Hex breaker for boon prot. How can mes do his job of edenial ( need energy surge ) and how boon prot can manage his energy ? Do you use shut down mes and Mo/E instead ?

jummeth · Jun 19, 2006, 12:57 AM // 00:57

You can drain with interupts, drain still with burn. You also have skills like diversion and blackout. Use your imagination.

Hex Breaker will aleviate some of the pains of hexes, although I personally don't run it. Hexes do get very annoying.

NatalieD · Jun 19, 2006, 06:48 AM // 06:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by nkabuto

_Can i ask if you use Expel hexes for mesmer and Hex breaker for boon prot. How can mes do his job of edenial ( need energy surge ) and how boon prot can manage his energy ? Do you use shut down mes and Mo/E instead ?

Energy denial isn't the only viable build for a mesmer, and hex breaker doesn't conflict with a monk's energy management at all.

nkabuto · Jun 19, 2006, 08:14 AM // 08:14

Quote:

and hex breaker doesn't conflict with a monk's energy management at all.

_Im a noob monk. I use MoR for my boon prot as an energy management. If i trade MoR for Hex Breaker, how do i manage my energy ?
_And your way of answering is like "nothing is impossbile, think it by urself". I ask "how", not that i said monk cant manage his energy with his hex breaker as elite.

icantthinkofonerightnow · Jun 19, 2006, 08:46 AM // 08:46

hex breaker is not an elite

Zui · Jun 19, 2006, 08:59 AM // 08:59

As icant has said, Hex Breaker is not an elite skill. Trade somthing else on your bar that's not Reversal of Fortune, elite energy mangement, or Divnie Boon for it. If you post your current bar/attributes(make another thread, under Builds), I know someone would certainly help you figure out what to ditch, and where to put your attributes to get the most out of Hex Breaker while still geting optimal effect out of your other skills.

Cheesy Pun: Hex Breaker = 1337, not Elite.

nkabuto · Jun 19, 2006, 01:46 PM // 13:46

_Oops, so sry. I confused Hex breaker with Spell breaker.

How noob am i.

Viade · Jul 01, 2006, 11:57 AM // 11:57

Maybe mantra of recovery and convert hexes? Convert too slow? Mantra of recovery not great for a dom mes?

With the drain, MoReco gives you more energy to play with, and you wouldn't need a high fast cast to get full use of it on essential skills. But then, maybe convert is overkill anyway.

ceolstan · Jul 20, 2006, 04:00 AM // 04:00

I found that playing the balanced build above that once the monk and the flash bot learn to play together, the energy management works fine with Energy Drain as the elite, and then using Inspired Hex, CoP, and Holy Veil. Use CoP to take care of hexes on yourself, as well as Holy Veil. Use HV and IH to get rid of hexes from other teams. Hexes can get stacked very deep and still be removed.

The other part is good kiting. Typically, the other team goes for the healer first. If that's the case, kiting is very good because the flash bot can blind the warriors and act as secondary healer. With the Dom mesmer in the mix, the other team's healer gets shut down.

Just don't be like me and play a bit of Oblivion prior to GW. I haven't mapped the GW keys to be the same, and moving from wasd to wsqe takes some getting used to.

:blush:

--ceolstan