Curse

The Dizz · Jan 15, 2006, 10:56 PM // 22:56

Quote:

Originally Posted by Taurus

From http://www.guildwars.com ladder -> "733rd The Homestarmy" :
PvE doesnt prove ANY "awsomeness", if you want to prove yourselves good, get gvg's going, PvE consists only in exploiting the dumb AI in MMORPGs.

There are a few reasons you don't see The Homestarmy winning the Halls daily and being a top ladder guild. First of all, we have roughly 8-10 strong, active members that all have differing schedules, including school, work, and relationships aside from that. It is quite hard to get our top members on at one time due to this. PvE and PvP are very similar in a fact that if you have the right people inverwoven with the right skills you can topple your foes. I believe we bring that aspect in both PvP and PvE but the PvE side is more prominent due to the fact that we require less people to do it.

P.S.:
If you view the ladder entry on us it states:

733rd The Homestarmy jORB Am 1134 10 1

10-1 record. Not to boast, but when we do GvG, we bring the pain.

I don't really want to turn this post in to a flame war, so i'll just say be a little more observant and congratulations to our members who rocked the basement.

tda · Jan 15, 2006, 11:24 PM // 23:24

Although i'm sure you're very proud of yourselves, didn't you stop to think how incredibly foolish posting your builds is? Especially on THIS website of all places.
Now everyone who knows how to read will be rounding up their friends/guildies and running UW with a 3 man team, and it's only a matter of time before it's going to be made impossible by Anet. Either that, or they're going to nerf ecto drops for < 8 man parties.

Of course to all the people who didn't already know how to kill anything but aataxes and smites in the UW you're in the good books for posting this stuff, but for everyone else who has figured it out for themselves its a bit of a shit really. Especially if ecto drops get nerfed, all because someone can't keep a build to themselves.

I'm just glad its not exactly the same setup that i and 2 of my friends run, or i would have been severly pissed off. At least if they nerf your build, ours will still work

/rant over. I'm sure i'll get flamed for this post, but whatever. *shrug*

Daneish · Jan 15, 2006, 11:47 PM // 23:47

You have to get rid of farming mentality, eh? These guys didn't develop the 3-Man for farming purposes, else they'd have stuck to smite runs. It was for the sense of accomplishment, to do it, and, as far as anyone else knows, be the first to do it in that capacity.

And now, they've done it. What's the point of keeping it a secret? Now that it's been done and is proven to work, why not share it with the community?

If ANet ups the difficulty level of UW, great! It's an area for ascended characters; it's supposed to be difficult. If it can be completely cleared by 3 players, as my guildmates did, then things -should- be rescaled.

Ajantis · Jan 16, 2006, 12:02 AM // 00:02

Please don't 'rescale' it.. Pugs are doing worse enough already

And about revealing their build.. ever tried going up the mountain with 3? It's so slow most groups will quit halfway. Besides, most profitable would still be a easy and quick smite run

Nevertheless, thanks for revealing the skills. Just a final question, you said you could not get the 2 groups of 4 horsemen to merge into one big group, how did you manage to kill them all in the end anyway?

MrJerrypants · Jan 16, 2006, 12:52 AM // 00:52

@tda. Regarding the nerf of builds/drops. My skillset that I'm running doesn't make use of any overpowered skills (ie. Prot Bond and Ranger interupts in the past). I'm squeezing every bit of usefulness of the eight skills on my bar and spreading my atts damn thin in the process. People would argue that Spiteful Spirit should be nerfed, it's overpowered, etc. The plain truth is that SS has been used for months and hasn't recieved a nerf. The fact that it's more popular now shouldn't change a damn thing.
People have been soloing/duoing underworld for many months, I myself have been questing/farming in minimal-man groups for about 5-6 months, and solo monks have been doing it for much longer than that. The ecto drop rate is lower today than it was in say... june, in my opinion, but nothing much has changed since then. Back in the day, it was solo monks with echo nukers, the aoe nerf came and a new crop of farmers came around who hopped on the necro bandwagon for sorrows, underworld, fissure, etc. (Can you honestly remember seeing an ad for an SS nec for anything at all before the aoe nerf?)
In regards to people not knowing how to kill anything past smites/aatxes: Knowing a skillset doesn't make you good. Give a bad player a good skillset and he'll still play poorly. Only with experience and practice can you honestly become a quality necro/monk/whatever.

I don't have any regret in sharing my build, maybe it'll point out a useful tip that some guild group has been looking for to let them finish UW. As Dane said, this wasn't about farming (In our 7 hour clearing run, we got 7 ecto

) This is very different than say... the warrior build designed to kill spiders in fissure. That's pure farming. This was about taking one of the hardest areas of the game, and stripping it down to the absolute minimum we could do it with. Part of finishing UW or Fissure is just the sense of accomplishment you get from being done. Much like the first time you win Halls, or the first time you ascend, or hit level 20, etc. If I can make this possible, or more possible for a group that's been struggling, then I'm not worried about a few farmers getting mad at me.
If UW gets rescaled, that's fine. You can't go into a high level pvp area with 3 people and win, and if the pve was equivilantly balanced, I wouldn't complain.
In response to pugs doing poorly. That's just the logical flow of the game. The average pug in tombs won't get far, just as the average fissure or UW pug won't get far. Yes GW is balanced in the fact that everyone can have the same skills and equip, but when you are simply a better player, new windows open up for you.

@Ajantis: We couldn't get the 2 large mobs in the 4 horsemen to group into one extra large mob, so I had to kill them 1 large mob at a time. More time consuming, but it worked.

As with nerfs in general, Good players will adapt and adjust, bad players will bitch.

Pants.

Azn D · Jan 16, 2006, 02:34 AM // 02:34

Quote:

Originally Posted by MrJerrypants

It's up for debate to say that what I changed does actually do less damage compared to a "traditional" ss/sv build, but damage wasn't my concern. When planning my skills I set out to survive. Survive the mindblades, the riders, the threshers, etc. As long as I was alive, the speed of my damage was fairly inconsequential, seeing that ss provides steady damage on any enemies.
In my set I ran much lower illusion than is commonly seen in ss necros. I'm very confident in my timing and I don't need an excessively long sv to kill smites, or anything else I'd be using sv for. Also knowing that Sno's a cabable monk, there was nothing to worry about from losing a few seconds on sv. I ran max curses of course, and moderately high soul reaping.
I tossed the remainder of the points into inspiration for mantra of resolve, and inspired hex. Mantra was at a high enough level of inspiration that the energy loss from would-be interupts was managable and the duration was long enough that I didn't need to reapply constantly. Inspired hex more than payed for itself, and I was able to toss back hexes from the mindblades, should 1 or 2 slip onto me. The inspired/illusion combo worked well because mindblades hex with illusion most often (Migraine, clumsiness, conjure phant) Tossing them back on the mindblades added an extra little punch to my damage.
For my last slot I ran hex breaker, at little or no domination, depending on how my points looked on the run (Yes, I do alter attributes often, testing which works better overall). Hex breaker was mainly for the bone pits, but it also came in handy for coldfires that lost aggro, or charged blackness, etc. I wouldn't try to hold hex breaker constantly (at little to no domination magic it's a waste of energy) but what I would do was catch hexes on myself. I'm able to recognize long-cast hexes from the threshers and collectors (life siphon, suffering) and occasionally fast hexes (parasitic bond, faintheartedness) and use hex breaker during the cast to prevent myself from getting hexed. If you aren't familiar with the threshers and collectors, they use Feast of Corruption which will severely ruin your day if you are hexed, and only mildly ruin it if you aren't. Inspired hex came into play here as well because I was able to rip parasitic bond and faintheartedness from myself or gwen and back onto the mobs with max curses, upping my killing power. I ran no res at all.

You can guess or figure out my exact stats/runes/weapons on your own, everyone's only been concerned with the skills.

Questions and comments are welcome, feel free to yell and tell me it's a terrible build. The bottom line is that it cleared Uw and completed all the quests in a single 3-man run.

Enjoy, <3 Pants.

ps. thank you for the smiley Jiao.

That was your build? sno is keeping it an extreme secret that you have inspired hex and hex breaker? Those skills make sense against mindblades. So you plan to tell the mo/me build anytime soon? :P i think i know a few of the skills, like holy veil and arcane echo spellbreaker and maybe another sv. About how long does it take y'all to go through all of Underworld?

MrJerrypants · Jan 16, 2006, 02:46 AM // 02:46

Quote:

Originally Posted by Azn D

Those skills make sense against mindblades.

They make sense because I explained and probably because you've fought mindblades before. To someone with no experience with mindblades it could be a very different story.
It's worth noting that you can only use resolve OR hex breaker at any one time. No double stancing of course. I stated in the post quoted that it took us approx. 7 hours to clear every monster and finish every quest. You could cut time if you didn't kill everything, but where's the fun in that.

Pants.

sno · Jan 16, 2006, 03:06 AM // 03:06

Quote:

Originally Posted by Maxiemonster

You're pretty arrogant. You guys aren't all that great, you're doing something pretty hard, I'm not saying that, but if you can do it, most of us can. At least 80% of playing a build is knowing the build and having experience. "Skill" is very limited in Guild Wars PVE.

You have no idea how great or not great we are, as you've never seen us play. If I've learned anything from my monk academy it's that a good build in NO WAY makes you a good player, and though I give many monks my exact build, I haven't seen a single one who can run it with the skill I can (not to brag, I'm seriously trying to find another good monk, I just haven't.)

Quote:

despite what i said earlier... i do kinda have to agree with maxie on this one.
This thread was made to show how far you can get in the underworld with your special build but u have done that now and all subsequent posts have just been about guessing or asking what skills and technique you use.

Actually if you read the first post you'll notice that the ORIGINAL PURPOSE of this thread was to see how far everyone can get in the Underworld. The 3man build and clearing all of it were thought of entirely after the thread already existed.

Quote:

The 3 of you are really lapping this up and if you arent going to reveal this secret just say so and the thread can be closed. Unless of course someone equally 'skilled' works it out and wants to post here

This isn't a build discussion thread, it's a screenshot exposition thread. We're showing all interested viewers what we can do, and offering anyone to show what they can do. It was entirely our choice whether or not we would release any of the techniques used to do what we did, and we did so only so that other skilled groups can try it on their own and also gain the satisfaction of destroying Underworld. Just because we didn't come right out and give you a skillbar doesn't mean the thread should be closed, open your eyes.

[quoteThat was your build? sno is keeping it an extreme secret that you have inspired hex and hex breaker? Those skills make sense against mindblades. So you plan to tell the mo/me build anytime soon? :P i think i know a few of the skills, like holy veil and arcane echo spellbreaker and maybe another sv. About how long does it take y'all to go through all of Underworld?[/quote]

We were keeping our entire build and strategy a secret until we completed our goal, theres nothing wrong with that. No one else thought of posting his build, and we weren't just going to hand anyone a cookie cutter build to go and do this, like so many farmers do. This accomplishment is supposed to be your own. You make a plan, practice it, refine it, and execute it. That's exactly what we did, and we accomplished our goal.

As for the mo/me build, we have absolutely no plans of releasing any information about it. That build is ours, and anyone who wants to try this can figure it out on their own. It's not terribly difficult, just do a need-analysis:

Think of why you can't clear it with just 2 people (what more do you need?) <---3 major things here
Think of what classes are best suited to meet these needs (we used mo/me, clearly...)
Plan how the third person will be able to successfully meet these needs (energy management, attributes and 8-skill limit)

Doing that carefully should yield you a decent third man build. We're not trying to make it easy on anyone, do your own homework.

{IceFire} · Jan 16, 2006, 03:33 AM // 03:33

tanking can be extremely difficult... ive been doing it a long time and i consider myself good at 55ing... atm i can solo all the way to smites... i really want to try doing this (clearing uw), i might enter your academy sno but no money atm lol.

Sai of Winter · Jan 16, 2006, 05:23 AM // 05:23

I don't get why some people flame you three for clearing UW and your builds. Come on people, there's no need to be negative. Congratulate them.

Oh, congrats by the way on your accomplishment in UW

Sorry for being late :P

They probably posted this thread to show that it is possible to completely clear UW with three people and the fun they had enduring it. Remember folks, it's just game. Have fun!

Don't take it too seriously.

Congrats again to all three of you

Murder In China · Jan 16, 2006, 05:36 AM // 05:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by Azn D

That was your build? sno is keeping it an extreme secret that you have inspired hex and hex breaker? Those skills make sense against mindblades. So you plan to tell the mo/me build anytime soon? :P i think i know a few of the skills, like holy veil and arcane echo spellbreaker and maybe another sv. About how long does it take y'all to go through all of Underworld?

Here it is.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Homsar

Im the Tank. Period.

Gwen

MrJerrypants · Jan 16, 2006, 06:06 AM // 06:06

Thank you Sai, nice to see you make an appearance.

@Murder: That's not gwens bar, just something he photoshopped in for no apparent reason.

temp · Jan 16, 2006, 02:28 PM // 14:28

well sno, pants thank you very much. You have given us all hope that one day we may too be able to clear the UW [can tell you for a fact i will be someone to do it] My monk runs the same build as Sno so im pretty sure i know the atributes, Pants thanks for the bar the atributes would be nice too [pm me

] but you dont want to give to much away...[guessing sup vigor, sup curses, minor blood, minor soul reaping runes......? as for atributes....im guessing that curses wont be maxed out as you said that you didnt want to focus purly on damage...mantra of resolve seems hard with the energy loss..BUT the tanking monk would gain the energy back instantly]

the only key left is Gwens build, it was kinda obvious that it was a photoshopped bar...gwen any chance of revieling?

Once again thank you very much

+D

Homsar · Jan 16, 2006, 02:43 PM // 14:43

Sorry to dissapoint temp. Sno gave out plenty of clues to figure out my skillbar.

Keep it simple.

Think about why you cant do UW with only 2 people.

temp · Jan 16, 2006, 03:14 PM // 15:14

like a game of cluedo

hmm i shall review these posts and will come to a conclusion [wow i sound smart] upon the build...doubt it will be right. But hmm the reson you cant 2man but can 3man and the extra is a monk 2 monk, 1 necro

Mo/Wa : known <---- standard solo monk (ty sno)
Mo/Me : known <----- cant be a Me for no reson and if it is true that you tank, then its gotta be sumin with protect, can see that you are not a 55 monk so hmmmmmm m :S thinking thinking will try n figure something out
Ne/Me : unknown <----- TY PANTS

this is gonna be fun =D

Azn D · Jan 16, 2006, 03:34 PM // 15:34

Quote:

Originally Posted by MrJerrypants

Thank you Sai, nice to see you make an appearance.

@Murder: That's not gwens bar, just something he photoshopped in for no apparent reason.

I knew that, sno also wouldn't have been so secretive about it as well. I would believe it is something like your bar, b/c of those mindblades.

Ajantis · Jan 16, 2006, 03:49 PM // 15:49

The other monks skill bar isn't *that* hard..

SB, arc echo, vengeance, rebirth, mantra of resolve, holy veil, essence bond, something else (smite hex perhaps, dno)

MrJerrypants · Jan 16, 2006, 08:44 PM // 20:44

Quote:

Originally Posted by MrJerrypants

I ran max curses of course

As I said temp...

capitalist · Jan 16, 2006, 10:12 PM // 22:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ajantis

The other monks skill bar isn't *that* hard..

SB, arc echo, vengeance, rebirth, mantra of resolve, holy veil, essence bond, something else (smite hex perhaps, dno)

I was trying to work this out last week. Maybe something along the lines of:

SB
Arcane Echo
SV
Holy Veil
Blessed Aura
Vengence
Rebirth
Mantra of Resolve

Also considered: Blessed Signet, Convert Hexes, Inspired Hex, Essence Bond

Sorekaz · Jan 16, 2006, 11:33 PM // 23:33

I dunno about most of the skills the Mo/Me is running, but im guessing its somewhat close to:

Arcane Mimicry (Copies Sno's Elite)
Echo (e) (or shield of deflection)
Arcane Echo

5 other "Helpful" Monk/Mesmer skills.
im thinking:
Life Bond (maybe)

Between those 3 top skills, and Sno's Spell breaker, im guessing that they could have Spell breaker up constantly on him.

Though, ive never been very deep into UW, so i have no idea what skills the ememies use, and, of course, this is all a guess