Curse

GloryFox · Sep 26, 2006, 05:15 AM // 05:15

What skills did you give your HERO monks? For those that traveled with Tahlkora and Dunkoro what skills did you giver them?

I quickly discovered that the AI was unable to use concept builds (Boon Prot and others) however if you give them a simple build concept they work far better then anything I have yet experienced from GW hench Healers. Vipers Defense was actually useful as it protected the monks well from enemy Dervish and Warriors quite well.

Tahlkora
Aegis
Mend Ailment
Mend Condition
Protective Spirit
Reversal of Fortune
Shield of Regeneration
Viper's Defense
Res Signet

My Party was essentially conditions free. I also noticed the SoR was always cast on the appropriate person. I did not give my Healer HEROs a res skill because they would res to early in a fight. The Res Signet simply worked better.

Dunkoro
Scourge Healing
Smite Hex
Zealot's Fire
Word of Healing
Dwayna's Kiss
Orison of Healing
Viper's Defense
Res Signet

Donkoro used Smite Hex on the first Hex that appeared and made good use of Zealot's Fire. He managed to always have Zealot's Fire up and running.

So what builds did you use and how effective was it.
How did the AI respond with your builds?

NOTE: I just added this because people are posting their Koss Builds, If you notice all of my HERO's had Vipers Defense. This proved very useful as the poison was spread through enemy ranks. It also confused the enemy AI because the enemy AI had to constantly change primary targets. I gave no Heal sig to Koss because he kept using it at inappropriate times. Thus now I had a focused AI who was ALWAYS on offense.

Koss
Triple Chop
Penetrating Chop
Dismember
Sprint
Tiger Stance
Signet of Strength
Viper's Defense
Res Sig

Vermilion Okeanos · Sep 26, 2006, 05:22 AM // 05:22

Give them power drain =D That alone should be enough to interrupt opponent caster AND regain energy to spam.

Then again, I am not sure... I hope they don't use it as their first skill when combat start. But, I think the recharge is good enough.

nkari · Sep 26, 2006, 06:24 AM // 06:24

Power Drain worked very well on my monk heroes. In the other hand, some strategies that didn't work...

Koss -
5 Adrenille Axe Skills
Wild Blow
Healing Sig
Res Sig

He keeps spamming wild blow and thus never builds the adrenilline necessary for any other attack skill.

Elementalist -
Earth heavy aoe build. He never moved close enough to the enemies to make aftershock, shockwave, and the like work.

ubermancer · Sep 26, 2006, 07:10 AM // 07:10

Dont use Revealed Enchantment/Hex on your henchies, they will cast the acquired skills.

Interupts are awesome, especially concussion shot/skull crack/power drain.

Dont try a touch ranger. All they do is Throw Dirt! Wand for 45 seconds! Throw Dirt! If you take away their wand, its Throw Dirt! *stand still for 45 seconds* Throw Dirt!

I heard from a PUGer that the ele henchie did use Arcane Echo with Meteor Shower, though. Thought that was pretty leet.

cellardweller · Sep 26, 2006, 07:35 AM // 07:35

Bonding doesn't work - they refuse to maintain more than 4 enchantments.
Live vicariously on Koss - I tried to give him LV and VS, but he kept casting LV on me every time he had enough energy.
Hammer/Aftershock doesn't work - Koss wouldn't wait for the kd before as'ing
Hammers in general - Lose all adrenaline skills are all but useless.
Meloni did a good job with scything with apply poison.
Trapping does not work.
Boon port works just fine.

And echoing again - powerdrain/leach sig rocks on monks

My Sweet Revenga · Sep 26, 2006, 08:30 AM // 08:30

Damn. And here I thought I could set up a small army of 55-monks =b

Clawdius_Talonious · Sep 26, 2006, 08:36 AM // 08:36

I bought that new cheap healing elite from Nightfall for my NPC monk and gave it orison and it came with another 5 e heal that worked better on ppl with conditions... all in all I would say he did alright, I gave him healing seed once and he used it properly a couple times, that was nice.

I gave the Dervish my PVP Dervish build and kept all her enchants on her by hand and she was doing very well, but I had to keep the enchants on her manually for the most part.

Voltar · Sep 26, 2006, 09:17 AM // 09:17

yeah, 8-man bonding doesn't cut it but for 4-man they're awesome.

i actually was playing around with dunkoro and wound up making a wack build to test him out that for some reason seemed to work. i had him bonding and on passive with...well

think it was like:
RoF
Guardian
Blessed Sig
Channeling
M of Recal (e)
Resurrect
Life Bond
Divine Boon

talk about expert energy management. i started posting him back at the edge of the agro bubble but saw him channeling and remembered that i put that on there

. he actually stayed alive and though his energy was always low he chucked a rof and guardian at good times. he kept the mantra and sig going and i thought it was awesome. almost makes me want to try it with my monk but really don't think i want to work that hard to keep the energy coming in. my koss had healing breeze which he hit someone with every minute or so. didn't mind his bar either, if i recall:

Dismember
Penetrating Blow
Disrupting Chop
Distracting Blow
Healing Signet
Primal Rage (e) (originally Whirling Axe)
Rebirth
Live Vicariously

That worked pretty well. i didn't do much with the dervish because the list of unlocked skills was depressing so i tried different secondaries. did a heavy tactics build first with i don't remember what (um...watch yourself, skull crack (e), distracting blow and i forget what else). mesmer iinterrupts worked pretty well but the moment i had the 2 toons using distracting blow x2, skull crack and dusrupting. last thing i tried which i really wanted to see was mm so i did:

Animate Flesh Golem (e)
Animate Bone Horror
Blood of the Master
Bitter Chill
Taste of Death (not used once)

and some other stuff i don't remember (maybe some dervish stuff...probably more necro stuff i forget). kept it to 2 15e summons for no soul reaping and she did ok (at like 9 or 10 death) keeping 5 to 6 minions going for a while. obviously a necro primary at 20 would have a better chance at this but i was pretty impressed overall. generally her golem upkeep was a little excessive and she could've kept a bigger pack if she'd have stopped making so many golems. on the bright side, that's an excuse to add more summon skills. would be weird but it would thin out the use of golem i'd hope.

there's a few things that don't seem to work like trapping. a frined of mine tried this on koss for some reason. he had like barbed and healing spring i think and koss really went for the gold. he'd be trapping away like a nut when we finished loading and when we'd stop before attacking a group, he'd start trapping our little planning area. he'd run up to us fighting and jump in late. well, long story short, trapping wasn't practical.

anything that should be spammed seems to not get spammed. that's probably a big drag for making a touch. i would think with a touch ranger you'd also need to equip a melee weapon though their still not going to "spam appropriately" per the touch genre.

darrylhaines · Sep 26, 2006, 10:07 AM // 10:07

The Ele I got worked very well, I gave him meteor shower and searing heat and one or two others and he nuked like a trooper.

Very impressed.

darrylhaines · Sep 26, 2006, 10:08 AM // 10:08

double post....deleted.

ramma77 · Sep 26, 2006, 10:22 AM // 10:22

Tahlkora

Animate bone minions
Animate bone horrors
blood of the master
death nova
taste of death
offering of blood
blood ritual
resurrection chant

raised 8 minions/horrors and kept them alive. she even cast death nova on them all. i don't know if she ever used taste of death.

Dunkoro
word of healing and 2 other low cost heal spells
mend ailment
remove hex
signet of synergy
mending refrain
resurection chant

spammed WoH and other heals. seemed a little bit slow on the hex removal although it might have been recharging.

with a bit improvement... PuGs will be a thing of the past. woooot

Koss

Cleave
executioners
penetrating
distracting blow
watch yourself
endure pain
healing sig
rebirth

he chopped things up. distracted when he could.

Jin

fav winds
barrage
distacting shot
savage shot
troll
remove hex
rebirth
mend ailment

awesome hero. barrage helped a lot as most enemies where grouped up

Sousuke (i think that was the name) (had this on other char)

fire attunement
elemental attunement
immolate
incendiary bonds
rodgorts invocation
something embers
flare
ressurection chant

i can't remember the dervish or paragon properly as i can't remember the names.

Nevin · Sep 26, 2006, 10:39 AM // 10:39

Koss

Yeti Smash
Mighty Blow
Earth Shaker
Watch Yourself
Flurry (Or Frenzy)
For Great Justice!
Healing Signet
Res signet

It worked out great, Koss was laying Earth Shakers every 10 seconds. Very good for keeping the mob in a restrained position for the Dervish.

Jin

Meteor
Fireball
Meteor Shower
Rodgort's Inovaction
Aura of Restoration
Fire Attune
Ele Attune

Once again worked great, lots of KD. I think you're starting to get the idea of my party set up.

carbajac · Sep 26, 2006, 10:48 AM // 10:48

I put Inspired Hex on Dunkoro and he never used the hex he inspired unless I made him, quick to the punch too. Sousake never seemed to precast Elemental Attunement, but he always did precast Fire Attunement, I'm not sure why exactly. Koss was awesome with his interrupts as I had hoped.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ramma77

Tahlkora raised 8 minions/horrors and kept them alive. she even cast death nova on them all. i don't know if she ever used taste of death.

I didn't think about making one of them a minion bomber, but that's really cool that she was so good about death nova, makes sense though I guess.

Cebe · Sep 26, 2006, 11:02 AM // 11:02

I discovered a beautiful build for Dunkoro...since I was playing as monk I had no need for another, really....so this is what I gave him:

Flesh of my Flesh
Mend Body and Soul
Ritual Lord {E}
Pain
Bloodsong
Shadowsong
Recuperation
Painful Bond.

Worked a treat! ^^

If you came up a load of monsters that were too hard you could just have him spam his spirits and lure towards them!

Maybe since he can't have attributes in Spawning Power I'll replace Ritual Lord with Wanderlust or something...just haven't captured it yet.

xXa1 · Sep 26, 2006, 11:03 AM // 11:03

had my dervish hero try out tainted flesh (e), plague touch and soul feast since she got herself into the thick really quick and it turned into a circus

once outside the outpost at keys she began casting and maintaining tainted flesh (e) on the entire party and had absolutely no energy left over for anything else.

she was pretty effective using virulence (e) instead.

Relnor · Sep 26, 2006, 11:24 AM // 11:24

Trapping wasn't too bad for me. I would just place a waypoint where I wanted the traps dropped (sometimes using individual waypoints to bring the traps closer together or line them up). Once they were aligned, I would click the number next to their name and have them start the trapping. Then I would just back the henchies up a bit while I pulled the mob into the traps.

drekmonger · Sep 26, 2006, 12:09 PM // 12:09

There could be some interface improvements to Heros. I'm thinking a series of checkboxes for each skill loaded on to a hero (hidden in the interface so that it doesn't confuse and frighten newer players.)

* "Spam this skill", meaning use the checked skill as often as possible, unless a higher priority arises (such as low health or a dead ally). I noticed, for example, that my Koss would rarely use Hundred Blades. Others have stated that AI touchies won't spam their touch skills.
* "Use this skill after the prior skill", for example aftershock after a knockdown.
* "Use this skill only on yourself", for example, Heal Touch
* "Use this skill only on me", for example, Brutal Weapon
* "Never use this skill", for example, the Glyph of Sacrifice, Frenzy, an elite form skill, or a rez on a monk. These are skills you'd want to invoke manually, never by AI fiat.
* "Use this skill only on a spike", with a method of calling a spike

FrogDevourer · Sep 26, 2006, 12:23 PM // 12:23

Pick one or two spellcaster heroes, give them a collector/preview item with tons of energy (like the Factions ritualist staff), and a very simple MM build. Don't confuse them with a golem, horrors and or other stuff they just can't deal it with, simple is better. Your minion steamrolling machine is ready to go. By the end of the WPE content, one hero can consistently sustain 7 minions (lvl12+) and two heroes up to 12 minions, which is basically more than you need to kill anything on the island. Once you've killed the first low level monsters (or animals) you can relax and enjoy the scenery. Just attack everything on sight, and your minion factory will be working 24/7 for you. Even if necros sacrifice a lot of HP, your monks will be on steroids thanks to a permanent BiP.

Mo/N + D/N with :
- Bone Fiends,
- Blood of the Master,
- Blood is Power,
- Resurection Signet

Nothing else. If you have only one MM, just replace BiP by OoB.

Alternatively, you can choose W/D + D/W with Wild Blow. If you're playing a reaper with WB too, you'll have 3 x 3 scary criticals every 5s. More than you need to steamroll painlessly clusters of dumb monsters.

Chipp Zanuff · Sep 26, 2006, 12:28 PM // 12:28

Here's my "set up"

Koss W/mo ( lol

)
Penetrating Chop
Distrupting Chop
Eviscerate [E]
Exe
Succor
Purge signet
Healing Signet
Resurrection Chant

D(r)unkoro
Rof
Guardian
Mantra of Recall [E]
Gift of Healt
Signet of Devotion
Resurrection Chant
Mend Condition
Revealed Hex

Tahlkora
Restore Condition [E]
Smite Hex
Prot Spirit
Rof
Channeling
Resurrection chant
Revealed Hex
Gift of Healt

D Fault · Sep 26, 2006, 12:33 PM // 12:33

Gave Koss mending and healing hands.

Used healing hands pretty well, but had to make him stop using mending on me and put it on himself.

Silly wammo.
=D