Curse

Avendiel · Jan 09, 2007, 03:28 PM // 15:28

http://gwshack.us/e1ebe

I just wanted to make a pressure build that didn't use a thumper

Anyway, this build has the capability to use energy denial both offensively to force kills and defensively to disable enemy offense, and in fact, can do both at one time. Spirit Shackles and Faintheartedness make enemy melee, especially thumpers and dervishes (or anyone who uses energy attacks) a joke. Ideally, this build will allow you to outlast your opponent, while retaining enough damage to force kills on an energy-drained, scourged monk.

Of course, things never happen 'ideally', and there are a few enemy skills that can absolutely ruin any hex pressure build's day. Namely Divert/Expel Hexes or Zealous Benediction. Blinding Surge on your warrior can be a pain as well, although since he has signet of malice, and you have draw on an off caster, this is less a problem for this team than most. Still, it's annoying.

So yeah, going character by character:

The Reaper-Keep anti-melee hexes on melee, and reaper's and parasite on as many as you can (carry soul reaping recharge items), use draw conditions as necessary. probably the easiest character to play on the team.

The Punisher-keep power leech on the monk, or if necessary, an extremely threatening caster. spirit shackles on anyone who's likely to attack a lot (wand-happy casters can make opportunity targets). Anyway, for those irritating elites, you have a 17 second signet of humility that you can cast about once every 10 seconds. (enough to keep one elite completely locked out, or even better, two elites mostly knocked out) Use it as you see fit. leech signet as desired. scourges on everyone (or as much as energy allows---though with power leech and mantra'd leech signet, you often have as much as you can use) Probably the most demanding character to play, you have to have the most awareness and ability to pick who to use your humility on, and what to use leech on.

The Drainer-fairly simple, just do what steady stance warriors do. final thrust is your finisher. steady stance will charge it up often enough that you can use it a lot. keep in mind that fear me can be used defensively as well: the monk isn't the only one you should be draining.

The Healer-again, fairly straightforward. Don't let anyone die :P your teammates should be able to do quite a bit to make this easy for you.

Overall team tactics: there is absolutely no need to go for the enemy monk first. keep him from removing hexes, but feel free to drain the enemy offense before you make any kind of concerted push for a kill. against 90% of the teams you'll face, the longer the match goes on, the more advantage you'll have. control them, exhaust them, and slowly kill them off one by one.

the biggest danger you'll face is getting overwhelmed by a high-damage team before you have a chance to load up your hexes and drain their energy down. you might also face problems from teams that have both elite hex removal and interrupts on your signet of humility. but you can't counter everything :P

Divineshadows · Jan 09, 2007, 07:53 PM // 19:53

First, let me compliment you on a fairly well designed hex build.

I had been trying to design a hex build that made effective use of power leech. The previous one I ran in TA used 3 hexers and no melee and did not work out so well (probably won only 75 to 85% of matches), but I was using a Mo/Me with scourge healing, scourge enchant, power leech, signet of humility, and power drain. I like your power leech bar better and it didn't occur to me to pair the power leecher with a steady stance + fear me warrior.

/doh

Quote:

Originally Posted by Avendiel

Of course, things never happen 'ideally', and there are a few enemy skills that can absolutely ruin any hex pressure build's day. Namely Divert/Expel Hexes or Zealous Benediction. Blinding Surge on your warrior can be a pain as well, although since he has signet of malice, and you have draw on an off caster, this is less a problem for this team than most. Still, it's annoying.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Avendiel

you might also face problems from teams that have both elite hex removal and interrupts on your signet of humility. but you can't counter everything :P

I do not think that you have properly identified the main threats to a hex build in TA. The main threats to hex builds in TA in order of priority are:

1. purge signet. Players using this skill will have the appropriate weapon sets (very low energy sets, medium energy sets, and higher energy sets) to make this skill cost zero (or very close to it) energy to remove all hexes and conditions. This skill is so good that every build I run in TA has at least one copy of it (on the monk), but most have two copies.

2. holy veil. This skill can create a virtual nature's renewal when maintained on 2 or even 3 (can only really maintain 3 if running glyph of lesser and ZB as well) players. Opposing monks can afford to do this if their team has your melee effectively shutdown or your melee is found to be non-threatening.

3. nature's renewal. When combined with oath shot, dust trap, barbed trap, and whirling defense. You need a plan to interrupt or shutdown oath shot and be able to kill the initial NR. Your does have signet of humility, so you've have a shot at tackling teams using NR.

4. distracting shot and savage shot. Any one second cast is vunerable to these and any in the one to 2 second range are quite easily interrupted. Don't bother running 3 second hexes if you expect to face these unless your fast casting can reduce the time below 2 seconds.

5. divert hexes. This skill costs 10 energy and is a one second cast. Any spell interrupt can interrupt and the energy cost is unwieldy for any TA monk going against a heavy hex team unless it is combined with glyph of lesser energy.

6. expel hexes, but only if it is being fast cast. If this skill is being run on anything other than a mesmer primary, then the one second cast leaves it open to disruption often enough to get your hexes to stick. Also, it provides no healing unlike divert hexes.

7. shatter hex. With glyph of lesser energy and 14 to 16 dom, this skill can inflict a lot of pain on your team in a hurry. One of the most damaging AoE nukes in the game.

8. smite hex. Only at a high smite spec though. Same comments as above.

9. convert hexes. A 2 second cast and being a spell leaves to vunerable to interrupts or disruption of many forms. The 15 energy cost makes it expensive to use. To a heavy hex team, this skill is much less threatening than purge signet.

10. zealous benediction. This skill is not a counter to hexes at all, but it does counter degen well. Your build already has scourge healing to counter ZB users and healing in general.

11. signet of devotion. Like ZB, this skill is a fair counter to degen in general.

You may notice a theme as you move down the list. 3 of the top 4 counters to hexes have more to do with prevention than correction.

Given this list of prioritized counters to hexes, you need to counter the counters to give you hex build the best possible chance of success. You also want those counters to be as general as possible so that they are still useful against other skills you want to shutdown that have nothing to do with this aforementioned list.

The easiest place to fit some extra counters are on your warrior and mesmer. First off, your build already has draw on the necromancer and dismiss on the monk. Does your warrior really need signet of malice? Does your warrior really need healing signet for TA (I know a 13 tactics healing signet is hot, but this spot could be used for utility instead)? Does your mesmer really need mantra of inscriptions when signet of humility already lasts 17 seconds at 16 inspiration? If you choose to keep mantra of inscriptions, then wouldn't signet of disruption (due to lower recharge) be a better skill for interrupting than leech signet? I think it is absolutely vital to have an enchantment removal skill just to counter holy veil.

Here are some of the skills you may want to consider fitting in that would help you better counter the opponent's ability to deal with your hexes:

- web of disruption
- signet of disruption
- complicate (at no domination probably not worth it, but consider it when using high domination in other hex builds you design)
- disrupting chop
- distracting blow
- hammer bash
- disrupting dagger (on the warrior)
- discharge enchantment
- drain enchantment
- feedback
- inspired enchantment
- lyssa's balance

Quote:

Originally Posted by Avendiel

So yeah, going character by character:

Now that I'm done with my rant about hex builds and countering hex builds and hex builds countering their counters, I'll go character by character:

Necromancer:

- Drop convert hexes. For TA, it is inferior to purge signet in every way. Bring a 25 or less energy weapon swap to support its use of course.

- Drop price of failure. The 3 second cast is unwieldy on a necromancer. Here are some alternative skills to replace it -- shadow of fear, reckless haste, soul barbs, or rip enchantment. Bring shadow of fear if you want a long lasting AoE hex that, when paired with faintheartedness, brings all melee attackers to 50% speed whether or not they are using an IAS (faintheart alone doesn't bring an attacker to 50% speed if they are using an increased attack speed skill). Bring reckless haste if you want to make opponents miss some (the duration is a bit low though). Bring soul barbs if you want some extra enchantment hate and some extra damage from hexes. Bring rip enchantment if you don't want to fit an enchantment removal on your mesmer's bar.

- Depending upon which curse skill you use to replace price of failure, decide if the necro really needs a superior rune curses rune. While it is fine to run a superior attribute rune on characters in TA for the most part, you should do so only if it improves the efficiency of the skills, healing, or damage significantly. Consider using a major curses or minor curses instead.

Mesmer:

- If you did not choose rip enchantment on the necromancer, then I would drop mantra of inscriptions for inspired enchantment and drop leech signet for web of disruption. If you did choose rip enchantment, then I'd probably go with either signet of disruption, web of disruption, and signet of humility OR mantra of inscriptions, signet of disruption, and signet of humility.

Warrior:

- Drop healing signet and signet of malice. Drop final thrust, too. If you absolutely need another damage skill (which I don't think that you do), then executioner's strike outclasses final thrust on the steady stancer's bar. If you choose an interrupt adrenaline skill instead of executioner's, then go with hammer bash or disrupting chop.

- Look hard and long at the assassin deadly arts line. Steady stance warriors get absolutely destroyed by kiters and your build has no movement speed buff or snares. This build is crying for siphon speed. At 3 deadly arts, the duration is pretty meh. At 8 to 10 deadly arts, it becomes really attractive on this warrior. The warrior would have to drop the weapon mastery to spec it, but his damage would increase due to having a snare and speed buff. Something like (11+1+2) 14 weapon mastery, (11+2) tactics, 8 deadly arts OR (10+1+2) 13 weapon mastery, (11+2) tactics, 10 deadly arts would work best I think.

- Fill out the last missing skill with one of the following -- disrupting dagger (a fast recharging ranged interrupt on a melee = yummy), distracting blow, scorpion wire, dark prison, mark of death, iron palm, death's charge, or expose defenses. Running expunge enchantments on this warrior is also a possibility at 8 to 10 deadly arts if you don't want to fit the enchantment removal elsewhere. It would be tough to tolerate the 7 second blackout on some of his skills though.

Monk:

- Drop protective spirit and run some skill that is actually good in TA such as purge signet, mending touch, or spirit bond. Heck with 8 in tactics, shields up would be better in TA then prot spirit. For my rant on why prot spirit sucks in TA, reference sequence 18 of this thread:

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...php?t=10082083

Monk is the class I play the most, so I am quite passionate about topics relating to monk skill selection.

- With all the other melee hate you are running (I am assuming you added siphon speed), I am not sure that the skill disabling effect of shield bash is necessary and the monk is already using balanced stance to protect from knockdown. You're already specced into tactics. Why not go with deadly riposte for the shorter recharge, longer duration, additional damage, and additional degen to complement the rest of your team?

Avendiel · Jan 10, 2007, 03:46 AM // 03:46

yeah, that's pretty good advice.

for the necro, yeah. price of failure was really only in there because I had originally planned on using spirit of failure on the mes. and convert hexes was sort of a brainfart, forgot about purge sig.

on the warrior, I did make the changes. actually, I originally did have siphon speed on his bar, but I took it off because having a warrior with less than 16 weapon just feels somehow wrong to me. you're right that it will end up doing a lot more in the end than what I had in there, though. so yeah, I replaced malice and heal sig with siphon and disrupting dagger. final thrust is going to stay though, I really like being able to finish targets reliably, since that is really half of the warrior's job. I want them to be at least somewhat nervous about letting targets get to 50%, and force them to take that scourge healing damage more often. final thrust makes the warrior a more serious threat on half health targets. I disagree about executioner's. it might be a better pressure skill, but I won't be using it for pressure. It's a finisher, and imo final thrust is going to be the best nonelite skill for that (since most targets will already be deep wounded from dunken/desperate).

on the monk, I replaced prot spirit with spirit bond. as for shield bash versus deadly riposte, i can see how it would look like a waste to spec into tactics and then take the strength skill, but I really like the combo of balanced stance and shield bash. you can't keep balanced stance up all the time, and all it takes is one cleanup on that thumper to give him time to knock you on your back and kill your monk. shield bash makes life incredibly difficult for enemy melee. their autoattacks supply pressure, but it's the attack skills (especially the knockdowns) that kill you. with shield bash, when they try to use their killing combo on you, they get blocked, knocked down on the ground (allowing you to get away), and their skill gets disabled. deadly riposte has a shorter recharge, but shield bash makes THEIR recharge longer, which is more useful imo, because it'll continue to hurt them for a while even if they switch targets. and 55 damage and a bleed every 10 seconds (at best) isn't too big a deal. if deadly riposte were next attack skill, I'd take it in a hearbeat. but as it is, if you put up deadly riposte against a thumper, 85% of the time it will catch an autoattack, he'll laugh off the damage, and proceed to knock you down, deep wound you, and daze you. and then you're dead. with shield bash his KD fails and with it his attempt to kill you. if it's a warrior, the bash will usually catch eviscerate or devastating, with similar results. of course with the low duration you have to time it right, but that's just a matter of skill and experience. anyway, that's my reasoning there.