Curse

Blame the Monks · Dec 12, 2006, 03:46 PM // 15:46

Hi all,

I am a Gladiator 3 and am going to keep working towards glad4. I earned glad3 with 90% from RA, mostly from playing thumper, warrior, and sometimes dom mesmer or monk. The problem is most of my builds are straight out of GvG (I also GvG a lot) and could probably use some refinement for RA -- especially the monks.

Can anyone suggest effective and fun to play builds for me to try?

Thanks in advance.

Acidic Won · Dec 12, 2006, 03:57 PM // 15:57

yea.. im R2 glad.. i play monk, sin, and sometimes a melee shutdown mesmer. For my monk which i absolutly love i use:

Mo/W

Zealous Benediction
Reversal Of Fortune
Gift Of Health
Signet Of Devotion
Prot. Spirit ( You can use Spirit Bond or Shield of Absorbtion here)
Mend Ailment ( Can use Mend Condition or Dismiss Condition here)
Holy Veil
Shield Bash

works great.. decent hex removal and thumper/ sin shutdown w/ shield bash.

Agyar · Dec 12, 2006, 04:18 PM // 16:18

Quote:

Originally Posted by Blame the Monks

Hi all,

I am a Gladiator 3 and am going to keep working towards glad4. I earned glad3 with 90% from RA, mostly from playing thumper, warrior, and sometimes dom mesmer or monk. The problem is most of my builds are straight out of GvG (I also GvG a lot) and could probably use some refinement for RA -- especially the monks.

Can anyone suggest effective and fun to play builds for me to try?

Thanks in advance.

Off-topic, but jesus, the pain of getting any Glad rank in RA. Most of the time one RA match is enough to make me break down and cry like a little girl, whether I'm winning or losing. Occasionally I'll think "it isn't that bad, might play a few games since no one is online and I'm going to bed soon". Worst idea ever really.

Chase the Sky · Dec 12, 2006, 08:04 PM // 20:04

Back in the day you could just run boon prot and it didn't really matter what everyone else brought. It was cool because one build pretty much did everything.

Now you actually have to talk to your team mates and ask all these ridiculous questions like: Who is going to run draw? Who is going to run convert? What anti- melee skills are we running? Engaging in this level of tactical conversation is such a pain in the butt. What happened to the good old days of monking when you didn't even need to speak the same language as the team you were on? Makes me want to go play Wii bowling till I fling the controller across the room and kill my cat.*

The point is: Talk to the other three people on your team. Make sure you got all your bases covered. Its like Hillary Clinton said back in ’05 when she was Monking for Whitewater Rafters [TAX] (although she was a great infuser she played a much better necro): “It’s all about the team effort. It really takes a village to monk successfully. Everyone has to do their fair share of responsibility for the welfare of the team… especially if anyone on the team is a child.”

*Please note that I don't actually have a cat. Or a Wii. But if I did have a cat accidentally killing the cat with the controller would be totally awesome. Unless I really liked the cat- then it would suck. But I don't really like cats... which is why I don't have one. They are kind of annoying and they get hair everywhere and you have to clean out their litter boxes. That's kind of nasty. I also don’t have a Wii because my wife feels that I spend too much time playing videogames anyways. Also, She said that the people jumping around and moving with the controller look really dumb- and I’d have to agree. I got over the whole moving with the controller thing back in ’85 when I beat the second level of Super Mario Bros.

Alien Bobster · Dec 12, 2006, 08:28 PM // 20:28

Hmm, ill take good TA team build...
1 Dervish (Grenth or Lyssa, Balthazar Also works
3 Monks, RC, ZB Bonder and AoE smiter with strenght of honor

Just try it out, made !47! consecutive first time i tried... (My own build!)

Nilator · Dec 12, 2006, 08:38 PM // 20:38

2 RaO thumpers w/ 2 monks, maybe infuser and ZBer
or go 3 RaO's with a really good monk you trust. <--Tis what I'm running in HB.

Divineshadows · Dec 12, 2006, 08:51 PM // 20:51

Quote:

Originally Posted by Blame the Monks

The problem is most of my builds are straight out of GvG (I also GvG a lot) and could probably use some refinement for RA -- especially the monks.

Taking builds from GvG is a good start. However, the most effective monk builds for 4v4 != the most effective monk builds for 8v8.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Blame the Monks

Can anyone suggest effective and fun to play builds for me to try?

Thanks in advance.

Well, I'm approaching 400 gladiator points now and I got about somewhere between 250 and 270 from TA and the rest from RA. I've gotten at least 30 from RA in the past month, so I feel like I have an understanding of the RA "meta" (if you could call it that). Getting gladiator points is an exercise in patience. You will cycle through bad teams no matter how good your build is, but the better your build is the more you can drag bad players along for wins/faction that should not have gotten and the more efficient your build is the lower the percentage of horrible teams you end up on (quite simply cause you perform so strongly to make up for their deficiencies). The fun part of RA is seeing all the horrible players (on your team sometimes but also the opposition) flailing around with stupid ineffective builds and laughing at them. My favorite from last night was a warrior with channeling and inspired hex, but it doesn't top the warrior I saw with primal rage, flare, and power atttack -- 3 of the absolute worst skills in the game all packed onto a single bar.

Efficiency/effectiveness is definately something to strive for in making an RA build that can achieve your goals of farming faction and perhaps getting some gladiator points.

Here are my 2 top RA builds in terms of efficiency:

N/Mo

14 (12+2) Soul Reaping
12 (11+1) Curses
6 Protection

Reaper's Mark {E}
Faintheartedness
Parasitic Bond
Reckless Haste
Signet of Lost Souls
Draw Conditions
Mending Touch
Rez Signet

At it's core, this is an anti-melee build that does good damage in the absence of strong hex removal. The draw/mending touch combo allows you to keep your own melee free of blind/weakness/crippled and helps you save your teammates and self from deep wound spikes. This combo counters one of the strongest skills commonly seen in RA -- twisting fangs. Faintheartedness and reckless haste allow you to slowdown a wide variety of characters from warriors, rampage thumpers, dervishes, bow rangers, assassins, and even retarded IW users. The build has strong energy management and nice self heals with a high-specced signet of lost souls and parastic bond. Under optimal conditions (very light to no hex removal) the DPS is ~60 as you maintain 10 degen on 3 of the opposing party members. If the opposing team has a monk with divert hexes, then you will cry but you will still be forcing the monk to expend a lot of energy (spread p-bond to everyone constantly and be choosy about who you stack) so hopefully the rest of your team is strong enough to take advantage of the monk you are draining of energy.

Hopefully, this helps explain why this build is so efficient and not only that you get to run with high health as it only needs minor runes (no point going above 14 soul reaping or 12 curses). I typically use a +5 energy +5 armor axe, not to the face shield of fortitude, and tormentor's inscriptions to boost my AL to 83 (with weapon set swaps for lower and higher energy and fortitude mods for higher health).

My other bread 'n butter build for RA which I also play in TA when I'm invited to play with one of the top TA teams (<3 OoOo and Serp):

Mo/E

14 (11+3) Protection Prayers
11 (10+1) Healing Prayers
11 (10+1) Divine Favor

Zealous Benediction {E}
Draw Conditions
Mending Touch
Gift of Health
Holy Veil
Shield of Absorption / Spirit Bond
Purge Signet
Glyph of Lesser Energy

Strong healing power with ZB, gift of health, and mending touch. Strong condition control. Strong hex control (not as strong as divert hexes, but you can't have everything). Strong energy management with glyph of lesser and ZB. Most of the cast times are fast which allows this monk to respond quickly and kite often. To save others from spikes, the cast sequence is usually draw -> ZB. To save self from spikes, the cast sequence is usually shield of absorption (or spirit bond) -> mending touch (if deep wound or crippled or 2 conditions are present -- otherwise skip) -> ZB. Use draw liberally to keep everyone free from conditions and mend touch self to offset degen or quickly clear drawn deep wounds or crippled. If you draw dazed (it happens on occassion), then make sure to realize it quickly and switch to your lowest energy set and use purge signet. For TA, always choose shield of absorption instead of spirit bond. For RA, your choice on which enchant to bring comes down to what is more prevalent at the time that you want to be able to counter. Seeing a lot of rampage thumpers and wanderlust rits? Bring shield of absorption. Seeing a lot of dervishes, warriors, spoil victor necros, and eles with high packet damage skills (like shatterstone/vapor blade, searing flames, savannah/gale combo)? Bring spirit bond. It's really fun when you get an interrupt ranger or dom mesmer with interrupts on your team cause you can use holy veil in a maintained fashion to not only reduce the effectiveness of enemy hexers, but also make it even easier for your team to interrupt.

Since this build doesn't make use of its secondary for defensive skills and better energy management was selected instead, a major protection rune is used instead of a superior protection rune. With 2 vitae runes, +health armor inscriptions, superior vigor, and +60 health from a weapon set, the monk has 605 health which is a big enough buffer to keep yourself alive even when under pressure and knocked down (knocklocked is another story, but only balanced stance monks can save themselves from chained knockdowns). However, if the knocklock is not executed perfectly (which seeing a perfect one is extremely rare in RA) you can usually get shield of absorption or spirit bond on yourself after the first knockdown which may be enough to save you.

For players not wanting to play monk or anti-melee degen in RA, you can refer to my tier 2 builds in terms of efficiency/performance:

R/Mo

14 (12+2) Expertise
14 (11+3) Marksmanship
7 (6+1) Wilderness Survival
2 Protection Prayers

Burning Arrow {E}
Apply Poison
Distracting Shot
Savage Shot
Concussion Shot
Mending Touch
Natural Stride
Rez Signet

An anti-caster that can interrupt key melee attack skills when necessary. Nice damage is achieved by spreading poison to the entire enemy team (use a poisonous bow mod) and can assist on your team's focused target by applying poison and burning +bonus damage by using burning arrow and has a quickly follow up spike assist with savage shot. Natural stride can help save yourself during an adrenal spike/assassin chain (just make sure to use the skill after shadow prison lands) and gives you nice mobility around the battlefield to chase casters trying to deny you line of sight. Strengths of this build include making damage based casters useless (lol at that dazed searing flames ele), dominating rez signets (which is always a huge boon to your team in RA), self-reliance when it comes to removing blind, distracting key monk skills (ZB, signet of devotion, etc.) to assist your team, decent damage, and ability to interrupt melee spikes. Weaknesses include no self heal and the ability to be shutdown pretty hard by certain hexes (faintheartedness, blurred vision, etc.)

D/W

16 (12+4) Scythe
12 (11+1) Mysticism
7 (6+1) Wind Prayers

Reaper's Sweep {E}
Chilling Victory
Victorious Sweep
Wild Blow
Heart of Fury
Harrier's Grasp
Harrier's Haste / Rush
Rez Signet

As far as melee goes, I've had more success with this than rampage thumpers, warriors or assassins. Rampage thumpers are fragile and inefficient in RA as the support structure they are used to having in TA simply is not present or occurs far too infrequently in RA. Not only does a rampage thumper not have a means to easily get rid of conditions, but they also are constrained by a bar full of beast mastery and hammer skills meaning any damage focused on them and they go down fast. Players in RA clump up far too often allowing the dervish to hit multiple foes with the scythe. This build has a lot of bonus damage, increased attack speed, snaring by crippling, eliminates stances, has a self-heal in victorious sweep, and can apply deep wounds. In this regard, it is efficient. Unchecked it kills a foe in 4 to 5 hits (just like a burst of aggression assassin using shadow prison), but unlike the assassin has the ability to apply constant pressure in between spikes. Plays a lot like a cross betwee a hammer warrior and an assassin. It's glaring weakness is lack of condition removal so you have to depend on a teammate for that (relying on teammates in RA sucks) and certain anti-melee hexes (like faintheartedness or hexes that make you miss). Other hexes like spiteful spirit, spoil victor, and empathy do not impact this build's ability to spike but do affect it's ability to consistently pressure. If your team has no condition control, then blinding surge will piss you off to no end but unlike a warrior this guy becomes extremely threatening if left un-blind even for a matter of 4 or 5 seconds (either because your team has multiple melee that the opposing blinding surge needs to blind or because their blinding surge lost focus on you) giving you a window to spike down their blinding surge bot.

As far as melee characters go, an Avatar of Melandru dervish (with build similar to above) or a YAA warrior with signet of malice or mending touch is probably the most reliable and hardest to shutdown with conditions, but neither of those has the sheer killing power of this reaper's sweep dervish. A YAA warrior is probably also an efficient choice for RA, because of the flexibility of You're All Alone which can be used offensively or in an anti-melee fashion.

Another efficient choice for RA is likely a Me/E dom mesmer with blinding surge, gale, and glyph of lesser energy (not too sure exactly which 4 domination skills would be optimal) and while I have never played one personally the flexibility and efficiency of such a character is exactly the type of thing I think would function well in RA.

Blame the Monks · Dec 13, 2006, 01:55 AM // 01:55

Good post, ty. Keep it coming!