Curse

hirush · Jul 16, 2012, 09:41 AM // 09:41

Hi, this team build is designed for speed and power in mind, and requires minimal effort from player. Suggestion to improve this team build is welcome, or feedback on how raidway perform for you. If I have more time I will test out more dungeons and elite area.

Update:
1. Melee variant raidway has been removed, I will put it up again when caster raidway is fine tuned.
2. Version2.5 raidway to caster variant is added

Team Build
The original caster raidway
http://i228.photobucket.com/albums/e...lm/RaidWay.jpg

Version 2 caster raidway
http://i228.photobucket.com/albums/e...m/RaidWay3.jpg

Version 2.1 caster raidway
http://i228.photobucket.com/albums/e...m/Raidway4.jpg

Version 2.5 caster raidway

Team Composition
Mesmers are excellent at dealing armor ignored damage along with utilities. I chose to bring 3 Esurge as my go-to elites for most areas. I tried Illusion mesmer with Ineptitude, while the damage is great with blindness, but it is reactive hex which is prone to hex remove also if mobs do not attack often. The other limit is without merchant hero so I can only have 3 memsers.

Blind Surge was not too good in PvE pre-ele update, but post-ele update bsurge applies blindness it also deals aoe damage. And air resistance in monsters are rare so it can be used in throughout whole game. A good alternative to Ineptitude because it's damage on demand so can be used to spike down on caster groups with help of Esurge.

The second air elementalist got rit as second profession to do healing. The reason I use ele/rit instead of the usual necro/rit because lack of good offensive elites in necro (imo). Thunderclap in air line provides small aoe interrupt and spreads weakness/crack armor and some damage. Air attun, aura of restoration, are used to provide energy return with air spells, also self-heal. Restoration spells also take advantage of aura of restoration for 1e return as well. Shock arrow is used as energy management also another form of offense.

The necro/rit serves as battery for whole team and carries some utility such as rip enchantment, and Enfeebling Blood for further physical shutdown.

ST rit runs shelter and displacement as backbone of team defense. Armor of unfeeling is to prolong the life of shelter/displacement. Mesmer secondary profession gives some offense option to st rit. The signet of clumsiness is great addition to more physical hate. Signet of hex eater is for more hex remove.

Fallback is used because I like to move fight to fight faster, and also faster vanquish. Being in the same line with fallback, it's too great to pass on SYG. Unstrippable +24 armor can reduce damage lower if shelter isn't up, also can make shelter triggering less often.

The whole idea behind Raidway is be aggressive while prevent foes doing too much damage to the team. Also try to achieve faster vanquish and dungeons clear as quickly as possible.

Usage:
Normally there is no micro involved in using raidway, but micro shelter/displacement followed by armor of unfeeling before boss fight or big groups helps tremendously. Heroes will do the rest and tear through monsters. I also use Panic on gwen if things get real hard to do with 3copies of esurge. Fallback can be replaced with skills like "We shall return" or "never surrender" or other command skills that you see fit if fallback isn't important in the area.

Screenshot
No cons used in the following high-end area.

DoA Foundry NM
http://i228.photobucket.com/albums/e.../DoAfundry.jpg
I ran panic on gwen because the overwhelming presence in foundry. I also replaced spirit light with cure hex as additional hex removal. Fallback is replaced with signet of return on gwen, and "We shall return" in place of fallback on zhed, because honestly there isn't any need for fallback in foundry.

Forgot to take screenshot after finishing Vloxen Excavations in HM. I used the exact setup as the original caster variant template with SoS buiild above, no Panic, and got wiped once in 1st and once in 2nd floor where I got careless and pull 3 groups. No DP remove was used.

http://i228.photobucket.com/albums/e...ealm/gw011.jpg
Ele finished Rand Stowrmweaver in slaver's

http://i228.photobucket.com/albums/e...ealm/gw022.jpg
A barless ele in Vloxen HM

Thanks to
Drk Dervish, Ryan2, Relyk, Premium Unleaded for their contribution in making Raidway better.

No Name Josh · Jul 16, 2012, 12:52 PM // 12:52

what kind of microing (if any) is required?

And do you have to be running sos on the player, or will any damage build work?

And my 2 cents on the build...
I think overall in most areas, dropping one esurge for panic would help tons. The damgae lost would be greatly compensated by the shutdown provided. Helps with large pulls and immense pressure.

hirush · Jul 16, 2012, 01:08 PM // 13:08

To No Name Josh:

Normally there isnt any microing involved in caster variant, as for melee variant pre-cast splinter weapon helps but not required. In high end area some hero flagging is generally needed to make life easier.
I have ele and run caster variant as well and found no problem running it, but I haven't tried ele in DoA so I could give it a shot and report back.

3 x Esurge is suppressive firepower and normally kills 1/3~half of groups with air ele in blink second. And I don't find running panic is needed in vanquish, but you're freely to run panic in 1 esurge to ensure best survival rate. I tried running 3 esurge in DoA foundry but it's very hard to proceed without panic so I used panic instead.

Drk Dervish · Jul 16, 2012, 02:58 PM // 14:58

I rarely use air element because their lack of aoe spell but . Thunderclap interesting elite with how good does hero spam it, I might try it sound nice shut down + 2 conditions + little damage.

It seem you got a lot of redundancy skill. Ie

1. why bring a shadowsong when blinding surge probably does all the blinding already. Anguish might be better for damage with all the hex flying around.

2. Enfeebling blood but there weakness in Thunderclap. For Rip enchantment you can replace it with Strip enchantment which is under bloodline then you don't need to take curse line. If you don't take curse then you can pump those attrib pts to blood to break Bip to +6 pip.

3. 3x pack signet.. a nice spike can wipe the entire team if those rest signet is used. Should consider changing 1 or 2 of those to be FoMF.

4. 2x Shell shock.. why not bring whirlwind for AoE damage + KD its the same cost. Shell shock give crack armor but you already got 2x shock arrow, and Thunderclap which already does crack armor.

hirush · Jul 16, 2012, 04:12 PM // 16:12

To Drk Dervish:

In the team build I use, there is no aegis or any blocking spell/stance. So it's purely on blindness and weakness to do their job to reduce as little damage as possible. In theory blind surge takes care of blindness and thunderclap takes care of weakness/crack armor, but in the field the true scenery is more than often melee split in multiple ways, or melee/range combo presence call for more blindness and weakness. For a team without blocking I chose to go with redundancy.

But I'll monitor on BiP carefully and decide if Enfeebling blood isn't earning its place. Thanks for the suggestion. The reason for using shell shock as cheap 5e spell to apply crack armor where thunderclap doesn't hit, but I'll keep close eye on it as well. I tried chain lightening on thunderclap ele and at the end I went against it because the 2s casting time, 10e energy and 5 exhaustion are not healthy for hybrid healer.

Whirlwind is melee spell and caster will mindlessly run to front-line to cast it, which is not something I'd want my casters to do.

Death Pact Signet is there for urgent revive with decent energy restoration. It is there for rare case if hero goes down, I might try resurrection chant on mesmers however, but so far I am pretty happy with death pact signet. Most of my party wipe were inevitable ie. boss aoe, annoying dot aoe spells result in hero going beserk, overwhelming pull etc.

Overall, the team is stable enough unless over-aggro or bad hero flagging.

Ryan2 · Jul 16, 2012, 05:59 PM // 17:59

I like the team as a whole, but there are a few cases where the team falters and appears weak. I direct all of my points to the caster team.

1) The whole team is primarily healed by the three copies of spirit light and the two copies of mend body and soul. With your SoS build this should be perfectly fine, but with another primary, the healers have 3 fragile spirits to prevent a 17% life sacrifice from heals.

2) I personally think that recovery added onto the enfeebling blood spot or to the air elementalist would help to keep the build safer. The shorter condition length helps in a lot of areas in the game where the mobs carry mass conditions. e.g. Mandragors

3) Guilt seems inferior to mistrust considering the focus of your team. The aoe spell comes at the cost of 10 energy, which is heavy considering the paragon skills on that bar. You could consider an extra copy of signet of clumsiness, which would remove the energy from spiritual pain, which is not very effective in practice (my opinion!!!).

4) I feel the two shell shocks might not be the best choice depending upon the primary profession of the player. In your case, cracked armor is not effective for your SoS, hree mesmers, the ST, and the second rit (besides wand/spear). Unless the player uses armor effected damage, it seems that Shell shock weakens enemies in a form that won't be exploited except for by two heroes.

5) A copy of Union over Death pact signet for the ST rit might be more effective because the two mesmer heroes should out-res the ST because of fast casting, leaving the ST with a skill slot that is never used. You might have had a reason foregoing Union, but it could serve a good purpose on the last bar even left disabled, just to be pre-casted before a boss fight etc.

Just a selection of minor criticisms from me. I really just want 5 mesmer heroes

.

Relyk · Jul 16, 2012, 08:41 PM // 20:41

The Thunderclap ele doesn't need Esurge. You only need one copy of hex eater signet, use Shatter Hex like in melee or something like spiritual pain or shatter enchantment. Using spirit's gift with just Shelter isn't spectacular. You could drop bsurge altogether if you bring Displacement and then bring an EA fire nuker for example. You enough offense as it is but it's a thought. I don't think the spot heal on ST rit is necessary. Drop a fall back for never surrender on bsurge, you only run two copies in VQs and easy shit like missions. You'll want 10 command if you do.

For melee, stick SoH on the ST rit. If you bring spirit spammer as a caster, you don't have to worry, but you'll want SoS healer as melee for the high spec splinter weapon and spirit fodder. You don't need the spot heal on ST and you get the same 10-11 smiting spec you'd get on the hybrid bar.

hirush · Jul 17, 2012, 12:56 AM // 00:56

To Ryan2:

Thanks for your concern but so far life, shelter and shadowsong are enough to keep the whole team going without SoS (I have ele and I run it no problem). But I'll consider the option to slot in recovery in thunderclap ele in place of shell shock if the offense isn't hampered too much.
Guilt in 3rd domination memser is an energy source and another layer of defense. As paragon skills you mention on that bar, the energy will be very tight without some sort of energy management. Also I don't find running more than 2 copies of mistrust to be fruitful, in my personal opinion.
Spiritual pain is a nice unconditional 79 armor ignored damage to clean out left over foes, and it deals huge damage in area to summoned creatures. There is no MM in my team so chances are foes will summon something from the corpses.

But I'll keep my option open, I don't know if I can afford to put signet of clumsiness in spiritual pain because the attribute points limitation. If only a few points invest in illusion I don't know it's justified to bring signet of clumsiness.

Regarding Union, because I have been doing fine without union so I don't see running it is necessary. But I'll mess around with union and see if it has place in st bar. Death pact signet on st bar acts as backup urgent rez in case 2 mesmers are out of action (it happened though rarely).

To Relyk:

I don't get thunderclap ele doesen't need esurge, can you explain? The shattered hex on melee team variant is used because melee has high chance of getting hex, and shattered hex on melee can cause huge damage around melee, similar to ancestor rage. Where not all encounters in caster team variant get to foes in close range to take full advantage of shattered hex. But I may swap out 1 shattered hex on 2nd memser and see.

Spirit's gift is there because while it's not spectacular it is decent to pump extra healing and condition remove with shelter during battle. Again I can try removing it and see if the healing isn't needed in big battle.

Bsurge is an integral part of my team, the blindness is must in this team. Relying on just displacement will either end up in eating all st recharge or worst case getting whole team slaughtered in big battle. I tried ele fire, and the damage is great, but losing blindness causing unstable team survival. As you mention, the team packs great punch already, adding ele fire is not that necessary.

The spirit light may seem unnessary on st bar is because I run sos build, in other caster profession they may need more healing due to more aggressiveness on team members. But, I could drop spirit light and try on my ele and see.

Drop fallback on Bsurge ele? I only have 2 copies of fallback in my team build so I don't get what you meant.

Thanks for the suggestion about putting smite on st bar, I'll give it a try on my war later.

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A minor update to caster variant build

The tweak is taking suggestion from Drk Dervish, Ryan2, Relyk.

I decide to replace hex eater of signet with shattered hex on 2nd mesmer as another possible damage source to melee foes. Also slotting recovery in thunderclap ele in place of shell shock. St rit gets mesmer as secondary and now brining hex eater signet and signet of clumsiness instead of spirit light and remove hex.

General vanquish shows the minor tweak improves the killing speed somewhat without losing too much survival. But I will test it out in high end area later until then I'm still keeping the original version caster variant Raidway.

Relyk · Jul 17, 2012, 02:58 AM // 02:58

He doesn't need Shell Shock, I see you fixed that. I think of one skill while typing in another. I find Displacement rarely drops, but that also has to do with running an Illusion mesmer and spiking groups. Even if it drops, you have 3 charges on ST so the hero should never, ever overcast shelter or displacement. You can also bring Armor of Unfeeling to avoid that from happening. It's fine to drop a copy of fall back in high end, where you aren't moving around much. Not having FB up constantly won't kill you.

Premium Unleaded · Jul 17, 2012, 03:12 AM // 03:12

How effective is mirror of disenchantment in practise for you? When on a melee character, I find that there aren't many situations where a mob-wide strip is required. Shatter's damage is better in most cases where it helps to push kills in general, and the only other situation is AI mobs stacking prots (eg. dwarves spamming sb/sor) where I'd want a deep strip like PoD/rend or at least strip enchant @ 12+.

hirush · Jul 17, 2012, 09:48 AM // 09:48

To Relyk:

I'll consider displacement if blindness/weakness are insufficient, otherwise the team is fine without it right now. The point of the build is to move fast, even in high end hence Raidway lol joke aside you can replace fallback with other skill in your liking.

To Premium Unleaded

Mirror of disenchantment is good for removing multiple ele enchantment, aegis, dervish enchantment etc. Although it doesn't provide damage but its usefulness is something I want to keep. I will give shatter enchantment a try though.

I took the suggestion and ran DoA Foundry NM again with minor caster team update.

To my surprise the clear time still the same as last time, though I'm still unclear whether the change to caster team build is needed or not. But I'll give it more try later.

About the ele trial in DoA because my ele isn't r8 LB not even R7 so I'll save the trouble and hopefully someone can try it.

Drk Dervish · Jul 17, 2012, 01:00 PM // 13:00

IMO DOA is not a good place to test a team that is build for normal area. Because if you want to be effective you need to bring skill that you don't need or wouldn't bring a whole lot of usefulness in regular VQ or mission. ie like eoe, panic (especially when you got 3+mes), and other skill.

Also testing a build in NM is not very good either because the different between HM and NM is so different. Larger group, faster attack speed, higher armor, higher HP make you rethink your team. Higher armor might not be a different for your team because mes damage ignore armor, but faster attack speed and higher HP would put more pressure on a team. Making you to consider maybe bring snare, kd, or more front line blocker to buy more time for your caster team to finish off the foes.

hirush · Jul 17, 2012, 04:24 PM // 16:24

To Drk Dervish:

Yes you're right DoA isn't necessary the place to test team build, but Raidway is designed for hard mode and elite area in mind, or least I hope to achieve. Normally normal mode is not able to gauge how capable a team build is, but DoA is different. The mobs in there got immense power and numbers even in normal mode, at least foundry is harder place to test. But I agree hard mode really push the team build to get better.

Screenshot where ele completed rand stormweaver in HM, no cons used.

I tried this in 4 times, and previous 3 times I didn't bother to bring FS and the result were pathetic. I was hoping I can overcome defender, warder and other mob who rez with mighty power, but it was not pretty. So in 4th try I decided to bring FS which works like a beauty.

A slight update to caster variant raidway is I slotted displacement and armor of unfeeling and micro shelter/displacement before fight. The rest are untouched to updated caster variant raidway. I think the displacement helps on non-SoS build that gives more time for casters to finish up melee/range. I haven't tried the displacement on SoS but it should help in same degree.

I might test out more and see the displacement and armor of unfeeling is to stay. Thanks to the suggestion to Relyk.

I will update the caster variant build once team build is tested more thoroughly. And sorry about not trying out more melee variant raidway, I will spend more time on it later.

Drk Dervish · Jul 17, 2012, 06:11 PM // 18:11

gz 2-3x dom/battery build your pretty much done with the build actually. For melee you just drop a ele and bring a Roj with SoH, with melee bring some kind of snore or kd. General HM + Elite area team is hard to build. IMO Elite area always desire a customize team. I do have a question for blind+damage now is Blinding Surge compare with Ineptitude.

For testing i usually do some quick spot testing, these are in HM and just normal aggro attack no pre-flagging or special prepare or title bonus.

- test for melee pressure - out side of Gadd's Encampment aggro the pack of raptor and Angorodon to see how the team defense can handle dealing with fast pace melee pressure. Raptor is super fast its easily by pass your body blocker and go for your caster. Angorodon life steal help put more pressure on your healer.

- test for range spiker damage: Exit Doomlore Shrine and aggro the large charr group off the left. Those seekers with burning arrow and dual shot can put a big ass hp spike especially if their synced to one target (to see you got enough prot/healing). And those flameshielder will put pressure on a team with lack of shutdown skill.

- test for team output damage: go into Bogroot Growths: 1st and 2nd level - Aggro Parasitic Growth and their spore and see how fast your team and put down raw damage. ie a team with to much defense and not much offensive would have a hell of time keeping up with the spore and Parasitic Growth.

- test for aggro/condition spike: go to Jaga Moraine in the area just before entering the vatteir farm spot, their 2 pack of Mandragor aggro them and test your team healing under condition pressure. They can travel underground and popup next to your group put more pressure on your caster.

- VQ:
-Raisu Palace (most groups is balance with ranger,melee,ele,mes,monk,sin spiker). Not a hard area but just to see how fast and smooth you team is. ie the well balance team (with skill that deal with melee, caster, healer, spiker) would be much smoother.
-Any one of the harder dungeon.
-The Hidden City of Ahdashim (nice normal place to test for shutdown)

All these are not hard places but a good easy fast area to get to for some simple initial testing.

hirush · Jul 17, 2012, 08:24 PM // 20:24

With tweaking here and there, how to know that the team build is solid? A barless ele in Vloxen HM sounds good

hirush · Jul 18, 2012, 09:56 AM // 09:56

After completing some dungeons, I've come across an issue. I saw there were times mesmers don't cast esurge on boss and just wanding in prolonged battle. Then I realized something, boss's energy was drained to zero lol No wonder how many times I called mesmers just stood there, wanding. A revision to caster variant raidway has been worked on and this time I took the team to CoF. I know it's not a hard dungeon but I just want a quick run through and see how the new build fare.

Screenshot

No cons is used, and everything seems fine and smooth. I will give new build more try later.

Drk Dervish · Jul 18, 2012, 10:17 PM // 22:17

BTW i tried Bsurge and Thundercap. VERY nice.. hero spam it like crazy just want I like hero to do on both of these elite. Like it so much i give the ThunderCap hero Glyph of Swiftness so he can spam it more lol. Finally some good option for an ele for my team.

hirush · Jul 20, 2012, 08:03 AM // 08:03

Good to see you like Bsurge and thunderclap Drk Dervish. I found both of them compliment each other well. I used thunderclap ele as standalone air elementalist with other skills like chain lightening, shell shock etc, but I found the damage output isn't quite there. However, when using on a hybrid ele/rit it works pretty good.

Currently some aspect of raidway is being reworked, and the new build will be released after it undergoes rigorous test

Also I took out the melee variant raidway right now, because I don't have time to update it. Melee version will be put up again when I am completely done with caster version.

Drk Dervish · Jul 20, 2012, 06:07 PM // 18:07

yes that wat i did with them. Thundercap hybird with para command buff and Bsurge hybird with rit restso spot healer. Which fit well so far because its always been kind of odd to fit command buff on a offensive caster hero. Was ThunderCap got new buff (I just got back to gw recently from long absence), I remember it wasn't that good of an elite, at least for the shutdown effect seem new to me.

hirush · Jul 21, 2012, 02:10 AM // 02:10

Thunderclap got reworked post-ele update. The old ability was deal damage to single mob, after 3 seconds, applies dazed to all mobs in adjacent range to where thunderclap landed.

I also like to mention I took raidway on ele to SoO hm with new build and panic, but the whole dungeon clear time was 50min+. I wanted to stay true to 3 esurge but fendi and his minions really punished ele and raidway. There were 3 wipes fighting fendi, it was some ugly fight lol I would actually recommend not to use raidway in SoO because holy damage prevails in that dungeon, unless raidway is modified heavily for it. If taking raidway to SoO, consider running SoS build on player bar which should be lot easier being meatshield for team (which I didn't do on ele).