Curse

miteethor · Sep 18, 2005, 04:18 PM // 16:18

I've been getting frustrated trying to get a team together in the tombs. Finding a good group is difficult if not impossible, unless you go with FOTM, which is easy to find but also very boring and has limited success. Last night almost without fail every team I faced was IWAY or E/Mo KDAS Smiting.

So here's the idea. Create an Anti-Smite-Anti-IWAY team, and win lots and lots of easy matches since that's at least 80% of what you will see in the tombs. Rather than find some super combo to exploit, I think it would be more effective to pack lots of easy to use, repeatable counters to the most common builds in the tombs.

I know of lots of skills that will hurt either/both of these builds but I just haven't decided what roles each player needs to have, which skills, etc for the best synergy.

Anti-IWAY
A typical IWAY team consist of:
6 IWAY W/R with pets
1 Necro with Order of Vampire/Order of Pain
1 Necro with Tainted Flesh, Well of Profane, Putrid Explosion, etc
At least 1 person brings these spirits: Winnowing, Predatory Season, sometimes NR
I have also seen a variation that involves a couple of Rangers with Barrage and the necros bringing Metor Shower to counter healing balls.

Biggest Weaknesses
Poor/No Hex Removal
Depend on IWAY, Predatory Season and Order Necro for all healing
IWAY only gives them 6 arrows regen, can be countered with heavy degen
Dependent on Melee hits for most damage
Dependant on Order Necro for a significant amount of damage (34 per hit)

Things that hurt IWAY:

Kill the Order/Tainted Necros
Kill the Pred Season Spirit
Aegis to reduce hits to 50%, or anything that makes them miss
Wards - melee, foes, harm
Natures Renewal can hinder Necro - 4 sec for order casts now
Migraine/Arcane Conondrum on necros
Diversion on Necros
Sympathetic Visage on self kills W adrenaline
Soothing Images on Warriors
Enfeeble/Enfeebling Blood for weakness
Empathy
Spiteful Spirit
Lots of hexes and Drain, since they have poor/no hex removal
Frozen Soil since they rely on rez for the warriors
Cripple/ imagined Burden / other slow hexes
Healing Seed / Healing Balls

Anti-Smiting
A typical Smiting team is:

2-3 KDAS Warriors
2-3 E/Mo Smiters
2-3 Monks, 1 prot, 1-2 healing
1-2 Me or Ne for Rend/Strip or Energy Denial/Diversion

Virually All damage is radiated via the KDAS warriors, and it's a Lot. It's hard to get close to them, and you can't put any conditions on them either since they are drawn away. This means no cripple/Blind/Weakness. A Typical Smite team could have some hex removal but not a lot, and would have no way to deal with lots of stacked hexes. Also, the E/Mo can switch to self smiting when attacked, and Ether Renewal makes them nearly invulnerable.

Biggest Weaknesses:
Most KDAS warriors need Adrenaline to knockdown. Take their adrenaline and they can't KD, then Aftershock does less damage
A slow KDAS warrior can't get to anyone. Slow Hexes will mess them up bad
E/Mo Smiters can fight energy drain, but if you can hit them hard with drains during the first seconds of their Ether Renewal cycle they can be out of contention for at least 30 seconds.
E/Mo smiters are very busy, therefore Diversion can mess up their world when applied properly
Zealot's Fire is fire based. Combine with Greater Conflag, you turn almost all damage from E/Mo (except Balthazar's) and the KDAS (except Aftershock) into fire based. Ward against Harm anyone? Mesmer Mantras?

Things that hurt SMITE:
Aegis to reduce hits to 50%, or anything that makes them miss
Wards - melee, foes, harm
Migraine/Arcane/NR on E/Mos
Diversion on E/Mos
Rend on E/Mos, especially right after Ether Renewal starts
Rend on KDAS/ especially to remove Balthazar's Aura which is probably covered
Well of Profane to prevent new enchants on the KDAS
Sympathetic Visage on self kills W adrenaline
Soothing Images on Warriors
Empathy
Spiteful Spirit
Lots of hexes and Drain, since they have poor/no hex removal
Imagined Burden / Crippling Anguish/ other slow hexes

The Anti-FOTM Team:
This is where I need some work. You can see there are lots of overlaps of critical skills. I'm thinking some of the best are:

Ward Mage: Bring Ward against Melee/Foes/Harm/Elements
Rend/Well Necro: Rend, Strip, Well of Profane
3 monks: 2 healing, 1 protection, or pehaps 3 that can alternate Aegis? Also one could martyr/purge to fight tainted?
Mesmers with Crippling Anguish, Arcane Conondrum, Migraine, Phantasm,drains

Not Really sure. I just need to work through these skills to find the best set to easily drop the FOTM Teams. Ideas?

smurfhunter · Sep 18, 2005, 05:28 PM // 17:28

the thing with building and anti something build is that itl be just that, only an anit ___. i mean you can go all aoes with wards/aegis against iway and get owned by smiters, and the other way around.

i guess the million dollar question would be whats a build that has no apparent weaknesses to fotm's (include the ranger spiking its uber popular now), and yet is different/better?

not an easy one to answer im tellin ya ^^

and let me just add here that if you do come up with a build like that, ur looking at the new fotm/w

oh and one last thing (really!)

add in to your 'things that hurt iway builds'.. aoes of like any kind. if you ball up and they swarm you, seriously any aoe is awesome.

for your anti smite just two things: iron mist on the warrior and rend on the emo smiter basically shuts that down.

for an anti ranger spiking (which isnt in your list but oh well), ward against harm totally gimps that. with the preps going off you can completely owned by its like 70 defense against fire. add in an e/w with 'watch yourself' and that ward and you got some pretty nasty unremovable defense.

DrSnake · Sep 22, 2005, 10:12 AM // 10:12

as in every team are mesmers needed tho i still havent seen a group accepting me on my mesmer ever, unless i go with my guild.

QuixotesGhost · Sep 22, 2005, 01:03 PM // 13:03

Quote:

Originally Posted by miteethor

Things that hurt IWAY:

Cripple/ imagined Burden / other slow hexes

Things that hurt SMITE:

Imagined Burden / Crippling Anguish/ other slow hexes

I'm sort of suprised that no ones attempted a water-elementalist heavy build. If I had a free slot I'd be leveling one up right now.

miteethor · Sep 22, 2005, 05:12 PM // 17:12

I think a lot of people can't see past the damage numbers. They see Fire and lightning doing so much damage, that water is ignored. But if the opponent can't hit you and can't get away then all of your shots hit, which could end up being much more valuable...

knives · Sep 22, 2005, 06:16 PM // 18:16

One of the builds I play with a group in tombs runs a water ele. Great on relic runs, and nice when people ball up.

Zeru · Sep 22, 2005, 06:19 PM // 18:19

What you listed is basically all scrub stuff (aftershock? 2 necros?).

IWAY isn't dangerous at winning halls, smite is but is fairly easy to shutdown. Your biggest threat is ranger interrupts and is what most teams are winning the hall with. Shield of deflection actually has a use now, even if it's not that great.

Hanuman li Tosh · Sep 23, 2005, 12:38 PM // 12:38

dude, theres heavy degen builds and ranger spike teams in tombs/hoh. if you dont bring stuff to counter that gg no re. awesome work on the counters for those 2 builds tho.

hobo13 · Sep 25, 2005, 09:10 PM // 21:10

i managed to get my necro into a team in the international district of the tombs.
the build was similar to this one. i used necro stripping, but also low level mesmer ones just incase my others were recharging. it worked pretty well. we took out many smiting groups in no time, but we lost to an IWAY build because healing couldnt be dished out fast enough.

hobo13 · Sep 25, 2005, 09:14 PM // 21:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by miteethor

I think a lot of people can't see past the damage numbers. They see Fire and lightning doing so much damage, that water is ignored. But if the opponent can't hit you and can't get away then all of your shots hit, which could end up being much more valuable...

i think water if far supirior to air and fire in the tombs. air and fire arent too good on smite balls, but if you drop a maelstorm, even if its low level, right into the middle of the ball, the group will scatter.

i think the same is for necromancers. people are too busy looking at the damage of death and blood to notice how good cursing can be. i think its only because of IWAY and counter IWAY that necros are finally being seen in PVP. before they were thought of as useless.

Dont Look At My · Sep 25, 2005, 09:26 PM // 21:26

necros are better then mesmers in my opinion. A good necro is far better against monks then a good mesmer.
and they way to do it is not only water alone, but a combination of earth and water together

Eonwe · Sep 25, 2005, 09:31 PM // 21:31

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dont Look At My

necros are better then mesmers in my opinion. A good necro is far better against monks then a good mesmer.

What the hell kind of logic is that? Please explain.

Deathlord · Sep 25, 2005, 09:35 PM // 21:35

Quote:

Originally Posted by Eonwe

What the hell kind of logic is that? Please explain.

Malaise & Wither of course! -4 Energy regen FTW! :P

Oh yeah... better reply to the main topic too.
I think Soothing Images would help, that way they can't exactly use there adreniline gathered by super hit speed.
Also... a healing ball might make tie-game. Think about it, the faster the warrior hits you, the more healing seed is used, thus healing is = to attacks.

Azure_Seraph · Sep 25, 2005, 09:49 PM // 21:49

DANGG.... You typed way too much for an answer. But here it is, to beat IWAY you must clump and throw seeds on the target. Run a mesmer with soothing images and/or a necro with shadow of fear/putrids/wells of suffering. The IWAY necroes and EMo smiters need to be shutdown. Run a Mesmer with diversion/backfire and an interrupt ranger.
Keep the necroes down vs iway, never let them get anything off ESPECIALLY NO WELLS! and just putrid away. Of course its not as ez as i have typed it out to be for not so experienced players. If you really have big problems, run a Fire Ele with Wards.

Skel Flamebender · Sep 26, 2005, 04:19 PM // 16:19

ANTI IWAY:

8 Necros with Spiteful Spirit and Mark of Pain and Enfeeble
Each Necro targets his own # with Enfeeble, then Spiteful Spirit, then Mark of Pain
They then procede to equip there physical damage swords and group together, let the IWAY fall in on them and they attack there own target with their swords causing massive damage with mark of pain and the warriors try to casti IWAY and bam spiteful spirit causing masssive damage.

This works against Smite teams pretty good too, I like to call it reverse smiting.

I reccomend half the Necros have secondary Ranger for troll unguent and a pet so it can do more physical damage too, and half be monks with various skills such as aegis.

:edit:also throw into each necro an insidious parasite at 16 curse to counter whatver necro in the background is casting order of vamp

MentalMidgit · Sep 26, 2005, 05:43 PM // 17:43

Ive run an EoE bomb against IWAY and Owned them in a matter of seconds

7 N/R

skills

dark aura
Blood is power
signet of agony
death nova
putrid
edge of ectinction
dark pact
Awaken the blood

1 Monk

basicly all the monk needs is light of dwayna

heres what u do

someone drops an edge of ectinction. all the necros ball up around it and cast death nova, dark aura, and ATB then the IWAY noobs make contact with them and they all signet of agony ect themselves to death dealing massive damage. then the monk comes in and light of dwaynas everybody and they hunt down the necros

Skel Flamebender · Sep 26, 2005, 05:49 PM // 17:49

Yea read about that build, cept ive seen alot of iway teams where they dont stick together close enough, I dunno what the range on EoE is but if one hangs back and he gets to your monk =/

My build however each necro can solo a W/R if needed, and if they all call 1 target and group up mark of pain, spiteful spirit death for them, if they attack there own # Necro cast enfeeble, insidious parasite and spiteful spirit and solos him.