Curse

Canadian · Jun 14, 2005, 05:12 AM // 05:12

The following are some HoH ideas I have come up with. Some are crazy or messed up, and some are very serious... some are all of the above.

The Monk AoE Supreme

This strategy consists of a team filled with 7 monks, and 1 necro. The monks all will have balthazaar's aura and when surrounding the opponent, they will deal massive amounts of damage (note that they use balth aura on themselves, and not other allies, so they all work). All the monks will have various smiting skills, some with some healing, and few with protection. The necromancer will have summoning.

The builds will go as such (note that this is only a guideline, the above is the main idea):

There will be one necro/ranger, which uses frozen soil to prevent resurrections while you are beating on your opponents. The necro ranger will have summons, and will basically reap all the corpses for what they have. This will give you an edge after killing a first team, and going to the next.

There will be seven monks primary, with different secondary classes. All of the monks will have the same primary theme (smiting), but will have different secondary themes.

There will be 4 Mo/W, 2 of which wields a sword, two of which wields an axe. The axe spells used are chosen at your own discression, although I highly advise one of them being disrupting chop. As for the sword skills, consider savage slash, or just the ever-so-common sever artery + gash.

The final 2 monks will be different. These monks will use elementalist skills. They will use earth wards, giving their team strong bonuses. Among the wards used, there will be ward against melee, and ward against foes. Possibly consider ward against the elements, also. The 2 monks that use wards should also carry resurrection abilities.

Like I said above, everyone uses balth's aura. Everyone will also use symbol of wrath, and scourge healing (you may exclude scourge healing from two of the monks, but no more). The symbol of wrath and balth's aura are obvious; the balths is the main idea of the strat, and the symbol of wrath deals some extra damage (note that the ward against foes also helps keep them in place). All of the Mo/W will have Shield of Judgement, which they will generally keep for themselves, but may use on other allies. The Mo/E will use Signet of Judgement OR possibly Healing Hands (your preference again, but mine being signet of judgement). The Scourge Healing is meant to stop all heals from your opponents; you must get it out on the entire team to reek its full effects.

The group must always stay together, and must always position themselves well. Getting 3 or more people on your team with Balthazaar's Aura on at once surrounding a foe is important. Generally you should run in with a group of 5 to deal the largest amount of damage possible, through all that HUGE AoE damage. You also want to position yourselves well so that the wards take their full effects, and if you die, you will be in the middle of the balth's auras... where you can be resurrected safely (if need be... or if the spirit of frost isn't up or around).

What is VERY interesting about this tactic is that your opponents won't know who to attack. Seeing so many monks, your opposing team may become baffled, wondering whether you are just a joke group trying to stay alive.

I hope this strategy works. I hope balth's aura stacks if you have it on multiple people (not trying to cast multiples on just one person).

lightblade · Jun 14, 2005, 06:12 AM // 06:12

wtf???!!! none of those 7 monks can heal???

Sovetskeey · Jun 14, 2005, 10:13 AM // 10:13

Spikedy spikedy doo-dah! Your strategy calls for everyone to stay close together. The other team might need an extra Air ele or two to overcome Ward Against Elements but they would drop that team so fast.
Not to mention the fun anti-caster mesmers could have...

Myodato · Jun 14, 2005, 10:49 AM // 10:49

I must find out why more people don't use water ele's.

Deep Freeze/ Ice spikes + Maelstrom, and your entire party is going to be dead very, very quicky.

Neo-LD · Jun 14, 2005, 11:26 AM // 11:26

I think it is more common (less radical) to use a single war as a walking bomb on which the team's monks (usually 3, 4 at max) will cast all their smite spells on him.

Aranador · Jun 14, 2005, 01:20 PM // 13:20

Whee - I guess the moment a single ranger with barrage turns up - you all die. Nice.

Flatliner · Jun 14, 2005, 02:33 PM // 14:33

While in theory it sounds good, I doubt this team would even make the HoH

Red Locust · Jun 14, 2005, 05:57 PM // 17:57

Haha, I tried this build not too long ago, and well it has its flaws. First of all, most if not all of those monks will have self-heals and zealot's fire (and some channeling), so they are good at surviving (bye bye barrage ranger). The hardest part is getting the enemy to stand still. Whenever we got 6+ monks on one target, the balth. aura dropped him in less than 3 seconds. It's quite non-flashy, so you really don't notice the extent to which you're being killed until you hit the dirt.

However, as soon as the enemy catches on and spreads out, they can easily pick you off. You need everyone bunched up close together for best effect, else it takes you way too long to kill. Spike builds? Everyone puts protective spirit on themselves, bye bye air eles. Couldn't hold the HoH? LOL! Let's see, wait till 1 minute left, zealot's fire, channeling, everyone runs in, balth's aura, spam self-heals. Everything on the dias is dead within seconds.

Canadian · Jun 14, 2005, 11:25 PM // 23:25

I think you guys are being very criticle, although, I do see the merits of your responses. I have taken this all into consideration, and I will revise this strategy so it isn't so... filled with monks. The revision will have a little more flavor to it; that is, there will be more than just smiting.

Although, I don't believe you guys have seen the merits of this strategy. It takes only one Mo/W to deal some great damage. Mo/W are weakest against mesmers, though (that is one area in which the strategy falls appart). I gave general, and specific guidelines. The specific guidelines still left room for skills you have to think up; (the Mo/E generally should have some protection or healing).

Anyways, I didn't expect to see so many responses against my idea. Although, I do understand why; the strategy neglects many significant characters to help out.

I'd like people who furtherly comment about this strategy to atleast think about it, and realise what it does. Note that you don't need the entire team all in one spot. You can split up into groups of 2 or 3, or even go off in separate directions (of course, in HoH, you atleast stay fairly close on the map, to not disband your team into easily killable groups). Smiters - remember this - are not helpless, and the smiters in this strat don't require other allies to kill things; they can kill things by themselves also.

Anyways, thanks for the replies. They've helped me (without giving many suggestions) on making this better.

Lord Cention · Jun 23, 2005, 07:40 PM // 19:40

I dissagree completely. I have seen pure smiting aoe monks... with 8 monks, all smiting with a few healing would do massive damage. balthazars aura, soj, zealots fire, symbol of wrath, and gg to the opposing team. Not to mention there secondary profession aoe spells.

grimmolly · Jun 23, 2005, 09:11 PM // 21:11

I think the biggest issue I see is the lack of snares. Smiting almost always fails because the enemy runs away. I'd include an earth or water ele with wards and snares to make this work.

Yell0wDart · Jun 24, 2005, 12:57 AM // 00:57

That's an itneresting approach. I'd be interested in seeing how it performs in
competetive PVP.

You may want to consider some snares to allow you to actually catch the straglers that manage to break apart from the pack once the opposition figures out what's going on. Adding a water Ele and/or a Ranger to the mix may give you a better chance there. It almost seems as if the slot you reserved for the Necromancer could be a wildcard slot. Any class could be appropriate there. I'd personally think about limiting your Monk group to about 5 in the pack, and adding some other classes to the mix. A Mesmer, Ele and Ranger could fit in here quite nicely.

On another note, I think it's just dandy how every time somebody posts up a character or team build around here, that there's always one or 2 trolls that crop up and say "OMG that's teh stewpid! It'll totally get pwned by my *insert class here*!!!!!111one" Give the guy a break... he's trying something different for a change. In the mean time, lets all go make another Ele spike build!!! XD

The Red Knight · Jun 24, 2005, 07:31 AM // 07:31

natures renewal > that team ;x

No exit · Jun 24, 2005, 10:03 AM // 10:03

shielding hands: For 10 seconds, damage recieved by target ally is reduced by 3-15.
and your entire Balth aura team will do 7 damage instead of 22...

Even when played against a normal team, the Symbol of Wrath takes 2 seconds to cast and Scourge healing also has 2 second. Balth Auro lasts 10 seconds so I'm pretty surprised how you will get the entire enemy team down, especially when they are not all toghether
Manawise: 25(balth aura) + 10(scourge healing) + 5(symbol of wrath) you will only be able to use it once and then you got no mana, nor any ability to heal

Canook · Jun 24, 2005, 11:30 AM // 11:30

a team of 4 smiters would rape this build.

Draken · Jun 24, 2005, 09:34 PM // 21:34

Quote:

Originally Posted by Canook

a team of 4 smiters would rape this build.

pardon me but comments like these are stupid how do you tie your shoes in the morning without killing yourself?

anyway yess this build does work some things you will have to watch out for our natures renewal you will also need a means of gaining energy or dropping the cost of bathazars i.e. energizing wind. your going to need to have healing assigments so you dont over heal and waste energy. chilblains will also be a problem have something to cover the balthazars or take out necros first.

you dont need to go like this to use balthazars aura though use echo + energizing wind or some other skills setup so that one guy can drop it repitiedly.

anyway happy hunting im sure ill run into you on our way to the hoh

edit: i wanted to add that natures renewal only drops enchantments when it is placed sooo if you time it right it will not affect you at all but its not going to be easy