Curse

NinjaKai · Dec 02, 2006, 06:24 PM // 18:24

Personally if theres a hex heavy area. I've found Divert Hexes to be very useful.

Antheus · Dec 02, 2006, 06:42 PM // 18:42

Why force everyone to bring MoF?

Greater Conflagration + Ward against harm. 88 armor for everyone inside ward.

Have 2 bring "Stand your Ground" (everyone is standing inside ward anyway), and an Incoming paragon for even more damage reduction. Warder also brings maelstrom. Apart from primary paragon, someone can go secondary, for constant SyG (works well on ranger).

This defense gives everyone +112 armor. In addition, fire nuker can go part warder for 13-15 second ward against elements, adding 24 on top of that.

There should be a single tank, with one monk supporting them with SB and prot. Due to such high damage reduction, and slightly different AI behaviour than usual, everyone, including tank can be close enough to stand in the ward.

1 R/P: greater conflag, stand your ground, fertile season?
1 E/Me: ward against harm, maelstrom, water attunement, glyph of lesser energy, mantra of resolve
1 P/x: Incoming, stand your ground
1 Mo/x: Spell breaker, SoA, PS

The rest is open. One, or perhaps even two glyph nukers (echo is a bit annoying), possibly a br or bip necro, preferably a SS with br. It might be even better to use ranger for SB tanking, due to their high armor.

This is tested to work with a 2 monks group, second one WoH healer and can hold off even two margonite groups, as long as tank manages to even remotely hold agro. Maelstrom will almost entirely eliminate all caster damage for 1/3 of the time, and even a bit more due to energy the mobs waste.

It hasn't been tested on further groups, and is only intended for the city.

If monks still want to use Mantra for e-management, they simply bring mantra of flame instead. Ward against harm and conflagration must be constantly down.

Group must cooperate to always stand within wards, which, given the high defense, isn't a problem.

jaibas17 · Dec 02, 2006, 06:42 PM // 18:42

divert hexes removes up to 3.

my screen had its width covered with hexes at a time... perhaps 15

Horible · Dec 02, 2006, 06:54 PM // 18:54

Apok Omen, love your build i'm gonna try it when i get back on guildwars. In the mean time i made a gw-shack page for it. I kinda guessed on the atts, trying to figure the best for each class

Here is the link:
http://gwshack.us/48e4d

enjoy

Horible

Total Rogue · Dec 02, 2006, 06:55 PM // 18:55

what about dropping the warrior tank for an elementalist neverending obsidian flesh tank? Packing loads of enchants for dwaynas kiss.

Advantages: you can't strip the enchants because obsidian flesh stays up forever. You keep loads of enchants on yourself for dwaynas kiss. You have more armor than a typical warrior.

Disadvantage is you can't pack mantra of frost, however with the extra armor and not being able to be hit by spells you should be more than equal to the task.

E/R

Staff with +20% to enchants

16 earth magic
10 WS
rest in energy storage

Obsidian Flesh
Glyph of Concentration
Serpents Quickness
aura of restoration
Kinetic Armor
Armor of Earth
Ward against Harm
Res Signet

any thoughts? Something i've missed about the DoA that would make this not work?

Horible · Dec 02, 2006, 06:58 PM // 18:58

Quote:

Originally Posted by Antheus

Why force everyone to bring MoF?

Greater Conflagration + Ward against harm. 88 armor for everyone inside ward.

Invoke Lighting will have you die as fast as a fish in a desert. Only physical damage would be given 88 armor to everyone.

Horible

Antheus · Dec 02, 2006, 07:09 PM // 19:09

Quote:

Originally Posted by Horible

Invoke Lighting will have you die as fast as a fish in a desert. Only physical damage would be given 88 armor to everyone.

Horible

Why?

Most of casts are done against tank anyway and fails or doesn't even go off due to spellbreaker.

If it does hit inside the casters, the damage they receive (after considering all other bonuses) is around 1/3 of that without protection.

Add on top of that maelstrom, and it's no longer a problem.

Invoke lightning hurts much less when you have 200+ armor instead of 60.

And besides, the total reduction by wards is much greater than MoF can provide, and since it applies to all, even its 2 extra targets hits for much less.

This is tested. Unless we had a really exceptional tank who handled agro better than usual (considering he was using mending, he had to be a pro - no joke), then this does work.

I'll test the MoF next, to see if it's really that much better.

LoKi Foxfire · Dec 02, 2006, 07:10 PM // 19:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by Apok Omen

Okay, although that build from the OP is good, i personally found myteams version to be alot more safer and inflicting higher damage:

1 W/Me- Signet of Stamina, Endure Pain, Defy Pain, Dolyak Signet, Mantra of Frost, Res Sig, Shields Up!,

3 E/Me- Searing Flames, Glowing Gaze, Meteor Shower, Liquid Flame, GoLE, Mantra of Frost, Fire Attune, Res Sig

1 WoH monk and 1 ZB/prot monk

1 P/Rt- They're on Fire, Glowing Signet, Ballad+Aria of Restoration, Aria of Zeal, Vocal was sogugun(or whoever his name is), Stand Your Ground!, Signet of Return

1 R/Rt= Greater Conflag, Winter, Shelter, Union, Serpents Quickness, Draw Spirit, FoMF

Now, I know that some of you might be saying to yourselves ''But, but, but, SS is a must in any build'' Well, we tried that, and it didnt work as well as the SF ele we placed in the build. Plus, we had tons of synergy. If you don't believe me, try it out for yourselves.

I agree. Searing Flames + MS seems to do a lot more damage here than SS does - my primary reason for inclusion is to reduce the damage the melee does with Reckless Haste and Enfeebling Blood (and SoF depending on your preference) - Spiteful Spirit is some additional damage that helps drop the mobs a little faster.

I'm going to try a R/Rt like yours in a total support role to see how it works out. The problem is that without Soul Twisting your Shelter/Union are going to go splat very quickly.

Horible · Dec 02, 2006, 07:15 PM // 19:15

Quote:

Originally Posted by Antheus

Invoke lightning hurts much less when you have 200+ armor instead of 60.

I don't know if you understand me.

Lightning damage is not fire damage, therefore the 88 armor that you would receive from ward against harm would not trigger. Sure the extra 24 for it does, and from ward against elements, but not 200+ armor. Stand Your Ground, yes also increases your armor, but again, not to 200+

Horible

Antheus · Dec 02, 2006, 07:25 PM // 19:25

Quote:

Originally Posted by Horible

I don't know if you understand me.

Lightning damage is not fire damage, therefore the 88 armor that you would receive from ward against harm would not trigger. Sure the extra 24 for it does, and from ward against elements, but not 200+ armor. Stand Your Ground, yes also increases your armor, but again, not to 200+

You're right.

What is strange though, is that it worked. Perhaps the extra ward against elements and other overall armor increase, with full-group shutdown caused by maelstrom helped more, but in any case, the damage dealt to group was surprisingly small. That's why I even bothered mentioning this.

Horible · Dec 02, 2006, 07:28 PM // 19:28

Weird. Thats quite odd that it actually worked for fire damage even though invoke lightning is lightning damage :-/. Ill have to test it out more. Im actually considering trying a balanced group with a cg ranger to disrupt the mob.

Horible

falling demon · Dec 02, 2006, 07:30 PM // 19:30

The idea of GF, Winter and MoF is that ALL damage becomes cold, so ALL damage is reduced by MoF, PLUS you get energy.. although you can still throw in Ward Against Elements too, for more defense.

Seems everybody and their mother is running something around this in DoA now, and it works.. until the ranger forgets to replace spirits, and when you all die, calls you all noobs and ragequits, i know not all rangers are like that, but i've had experience with 12 of them today.. only 2 have been good

and 1 had to go for lunch, the other one we made it all the way through the City of Torc'qua with <3

Flowah · Dec 02, 2006, 07:36 PM // 19:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by Batou of Nine

LoL you two make me giggle...

Reckless Haste - Increases enemy hit rate. (AoE Hex)
Shadow of Fear - Decreases enemy hit rate. (AoE Hex)

The MAIN point of Using RH with SS, is so they INCREASE the amount of dmg that SS inflicts. With SoF, you just cancel that out. Makes both skills counterproductive to SS damage. You want an AoE cover hex? Take good ol' Suffering.

Just some... umm... common sense is all. Hehe.

Cheers!

lol. You dont have to hit with your attack for SS to activate. You lose the common sense wars! RH > You.

Bel · Dec 02, 2006, 08:17 PM // 20:17

Quote:

Originally Posted by Flowah

lol. You dont have to hit with your attack for SS to activate. You lose the common sense wars! RH > You.

Lets see if I understood this right...

You use Spiteful Spirit on the target and then cast Reckless haste (+25% attack speed, -XX% chance to miss) to cause more damage. Now if you would also throw in a Shadow of Fear (-50% attack speed) what good would that do? Hmm Spiteful still damages through misses though.

Two April Mornings · Dec 02, 2006, 08:41 PM // 20:41

SS is somewhat useless. Spoil victor is much better in this case, to my experience. This concept is very good except, liek some have mentionned, it lacks damage. That seems to be the general problem. With a group of 3 nukers, even we didn't do enough damge to the large mobs within the city.

Wilhelm · Dec 02, 2006, 08:47 PM // 20:47

Don't even think that a standard WoH can be successful here. The only success I've had monking was when I ran this custom build:

Healing Prayer - 12-14 (Wouldn't suggest using anything above minor rune)
Divine Favor - 12-13

1 - Healer's Boon
2 - Orison
3 - Dwayna's Kiss
4 - Ethereal Light
5 - Heal Other/Jamei's Gaze
6 - Renew Life/Rebirth
7 - Mantra of Lightning
8 - Holy Veil

Since most of the attacks in the DoA are upwards of 250+ and occur pretty quickly, the standard healing won't cut it. Casting time is just not fast enough.

A heal other while under Healer's Boon can heal upwards of 350, while the smaller heals get close to 200. Think of it as Infusing over and over.

A BiP necro is needed for this.

Antheus · Dec 02, 2006, 09:12 PM // 21:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by falling demon

The idea of GF, Winter and MoF is that ALL damage becomes cold, so ALL damage is reduced by MoF, PLUS you get energy.. although you can still throw in Ward Against Elements too, for more defense.

Yes, that was established.

The only good thing that did come out of the experiment, is maelstrom. That devastates the casters, and echo maelstrom might actually do wonders, or even glyph maelstrom. Mobs didn't apear to run away or even scatter, at very least they got interrupted during the initial spike.

Of course, water eles have somewhat less use as nukers.

So perhaps it was that which cut damage down so drastically.

Horible · Dec 02, 2006, 10:09 PM // 22:09

Just used Apok's build, worked very very well

Only down falls:
1. Tank was not on vent so he over aggroed, aggroed in the wrong places, and used dolyak when we were running XD
2. Paragon left, and we were still doing well, but then monk left.
3. No real "build" issues

Here is the link: http://gwshack.us/48e4d

Horible

Carth` · Dec 02, 2006, 10:15 PM // 22:15

I think you should forget about the idea of a tank. It is becoming less and less useful in PvE, and in DoA especially, is really quite useless.

Here's an example from DoA earlier:
We wanted the tank to get all aggro on him. A year ago this would have been easy. Aggro was very easy to manage. Not any more with the crazy AI.

We put a prot spirit and Spellbreaker etc on him, and he ran off, lured a group closer, and attacked it. The rest of the party was TWO aggro circles behind. The guys wielding hammers ran straight past the tank without even attacking him once, and went straight for the squishiest character. Wtf? Indeed, everything just ran straight past the tank and attacked the weak members of the party, even though we were well out of radar range and hadn't started to attack or cast spells yet.

If characters are being super spiked for 480 damage and killed in 1 hit, with no way to predict who will be hit next, what use was the tank standing there looking pretty? If everyone is bringing MoF and Winter + GF, then you are trying to keep everyone protected because you know they'll be attacked. What is the point of the tank then?

Let the warrior do what he does best and deal some damage. He will still have great armour, it just won't be wasted on a character that does nothing.

Eclair · Dec 02, 2006, 10:17 PM // 22:17

Quote:

Originally Posted by Horible

Just used Apok's build, worked very very well

Only down falls:
1. Tank was not on vent so he over aggroed, aggroed in the wrong places, and used dolyak when we were running XD
2. Paragon left, and we were still doing well, but then monk left.
3. No real "build" issues

Here is the link: http://gwshack.us/48e4d

Horible

Wait, were we in the same PUG?

I was Rinali Li ^^

We should try again sometime.