Curse

Warskull · Jan 09, 2006, 09:14 AM // 09:14

Arena.net has yet to implement the new premades and many players have a rough time getting into PvP. They end up using PvE builds or rather weak PvP designed builds and as a result will have difficulty progressing. Thus I decided to create a number of template builds that should be friendly to newer players and at the same time be fairly effective in the hands of experienced players. At the same time these builds have the goal of functioning in tombs, arenas, and GvG with minimal modifications. Due to the nature of certain character classes it is difficult to make both a strong arena build and a strong organized team build. Thus some builds will be a bit more difficult to play with the random teams in CA than others. Overall monks, degen builds, and warriors tend to be more arena friendly than other builds. Most of these builds come from an amalgamation of various concepts and builds that have existed in the PvP community for a while.

In addition these builds are meant to be templates. They are not the end all of PvP builds. I encourage you to try and modify them and improve upon them. I would simply suggest you play the build as written a few times first (with the exception of the situational modifications suggested in the paragraph about the build.) This was you know if changes you are making to the build is improving it or weaking it. You have to have your base to work with before you can truely build upon it.

Should you have any questions about the builds feel free to ask. I included three for each primary class and attempted to vary them as much as possible to give a variety of builds and style to experiment with. You will probably notice some skills repeating numerous times though, Mantra of Resolve on the elementalists is a good example. This is because these are very strong skills for a class and should be considered in a large number of situations.

Warrior
#1) Tiger's Fury Warrior
W/R
Axe: 12+1+3
Str: 9+1
Beast: 9

Disrupting Chop
Eviscerate
Executioner's Strike
Penetrating Blow
Axe Rake
Sprint
Tiger's Fury
Rez Sig

This is a basic tiger's furry warrior. The concept is to build adrenaline and then rapidly arenaline spike your target using tiger's fury. The build is fairly simple and direct. Use eviscerate's deep wound for a massive first strike. Axe rake can snare an opponent for you after you land an eviscerate. In arenas you can use disrupting chop to stop rez sigs. In tombs it is useful vs aegis, heal party, and other long cast spells.

#2) Hammer Warrior
W/X

Hammer: 12+1+3
Strength: 12+1

Mighty Blow
Devastating Hammer
Crushing Blow
Heavy Blow
Irresistable Blow
Sprint
Frenzy
Rez Sig

This is a basic hammer warrior designed to be able to spike an opponent to a degree. Use frenzy when you spike and to help build adrenaline, however if you get attacked use sprint to cancel frenzy and protect yourself from receiving double damage. When your skills are build up you can spike with Irresistable->Mighty->Devastating->Crushing Blow->Heavy Blow->Irresistable. This chain nets you a two knockdowns and a large amount of damage. Excellent for putting heavy pressure on a monk. You'll notice the lack of an aftershock. This build forgoes aftershock in the interest of high hammer damage attacks. You can implement this no matter what your secondary is.

#3) Mobility Sword Warrior
W/X

Swordmanship 12+1+4
Strength 10+1
Tactics 8+1

Pure Strike
Galrath Slash
Final Thrust
Endure Pain
"Charge!"
Sprint
Frenzy
Rez Sig

Finishing up the set is a flexible sword warrior. This warrior works best alongside a second warrior (for coordinated spikes and use of charge.) Your basic spike is pure strike->galrath or pure strike->final thrust. Endure pain functions as a lifeline. If you are in danger of death or getting spiked trigger it and fall back. This will buy your monks enough time to heal you. Alternatively if you don't have a monk on your team in RA it should buy you some time to do damage (plenty to score a kill if you aren't being shutdown.) One of the advantages of this build is the very high mobility. You can stay running at all times with sprint and charge. Thus you can very easily hop between targets or locations. This character can also make a rather strong relic runner in tombs. Remember charge is a highly underestimated elite. Get the most out of it by utilizing team tactics. You should be able to run this character in GvG, Tombs, and Arenas fairly well.

Mesmer
#1) GoR Mesmer
Me/E

11+1+3 Domination
11+1 Inspiration
8+1 Fast Casting

Power Leak
Power Drain
Shame
Energy Burn
Shatter Enchant
Glyph of Renewal
Drain Enchantment
Rez sig

This is a generalist GoR dom mesmer. You have a number of options with this build. First, power leak and power drain serve as interrupts with power drain doubling as energy management. You can also use drain enchant to manage your energy. GoR is comboed with 3 of your skills. If possible always use it with Shatter Enchant to keep shatter enchant always ready. Alternatively against a rougly half health target with two enchants you can GoR and double shatter for a fairly health damage spike. A second option is GoR+Energy burn to deplete a targets energy supply rapidly while dealing damage. Your third combo is for use against monks. Use GoR to shame a monk twice in a row. This shuts them down fairly well causing their next two spells to fail and costing them a great deal of energy in the process. This mesmer is very generalized and should be able to find a role on any team. If you have a specific team you usually play with (for say GvG) you can tweak the build as necessary. The heart of this character is the GoR+Shatter, but many other options are available. Remember GoR does not have to be used to double cast, you can use it with a longer cooldown skill to ensure that skill is always available when you need it.

#2) Migraine Mesmer
Me/x

12+1+4 Illusion
10+1 Inspiration
6+1 Fast Casting
6+1 Domination

Power Leak
Power Drain
Drain Enchantment
Signet of Humility
Arcane Conundrum
Migraine
Conjur Phantasm
Rez Sig

This is a shutdown style mesmer. You want to hop between casters placing migraine covered by conjur or conundrum covered by conjur. You may then use your interrupts to manage your energy and help control them. Attempt to spread conjur to other targets for the degen in your spare time. By spreading degen and hurting a monk's ability to heal you will stress their monks and give your team openings for kills. Signet of Humility can be used to temporarily shut down important enemy elites. You need to assess on a case by case basis which elite hurts your team the most and disable that elite. Also remember that migraine and conundrum make it more difficult to synchronize enemy caster spikes and force the enemy to reduce the frequency of their spikes.

#3) Energy Denial Mesmer
Me/x

11+3 Domination
11+1+1 Inspiration
8+1 Fast Casting

Mind Wrack
Energy Burn
Energy Surge
Signet of Weariness
Drain Enchant
signet of Humility
Mantra of Inscriptions
Rez Sig

The basic goal of this player is to shut down an enemy player through energy denial. You can either use it to stress monks in pressure builds or attrition builds causing their healing to fail or you can use it to shut down an enemy offensive caster. You can keep Signet of Humility active indefinately under Mantra of Inscriptions. This can let you shut down the energy management elite of the energy you are energy denying (should they have one) or shut down a vital enemy elite that is hurting your team. You do have some basic damage output, but it will be overshadowed by a more offensive build. Your strength comes from the damage you deal while you shut down an enemy target.

Elementalist
#1) Mind Shock Air Spike
E/Me

12+1+3 Air
8+1 Energy Storage
10 Inspiration

Lightning Strike
Lightning Orb
Mind Shock
Gale
Power Drain
Drain Enchantment
Mantra of Resolve
Rez Sig

This is your basic air spiker. Orb followed by mind shock is your big spike while you can perform smaller spikes with orb then strike. In arenas try to follow an allies target and time your spike to either kill or severely threaten the target. In organized teams you can coordinate spikes with your allies and use gale to control the enemy. Between spikes look for spells to interrupt with power drain as your energy management. Remember if you are doing times spikes use a weapon and/or offhand that does not have a chance at increased casting speed. The 20% rechange wand and the 20% chance of +1 to air offhand are a good combo for this.

#2) Support Earth Spiker
E/Me

12+1+3 Earth
9+1 Energy Storage
9 Inspiration

Obsidian Flame
Earthquake
Glyph of Energy
Drain Enchantment
Ward Against Melee
Ward Against Foes
Mantra of Resolve
Rez Sig

This character is an earth ele with support wards and the ability to spike an enemy with Obsidian Flame. This character thrives in combined spike (or rainbow spike as it is often called in tombs) builds. You can contribute 116 armor ignoring damage to the spike or use earthquake to knock down the target and any other enemies nearby. You do not need to cast obsidian flame with Glyph of Energy up all the time, however try to use it at least every third cast. The mitigation of exhaustion using Glyph of Energy is key to the endurance of this build. Ward Against Melee and Ward Against Foes both provide you with superb anti-warrior defenses. If you kite through the Ward Against Foes the chasing warriors simply have no chance of catching you. Ward Against Melee also provides phenominal protection against warriors. This build is slightly more difficult to run in competitive arenas however. Your teammates are far less likely to use your wards to their advantage and maximizing the usefulness of Obsidian Flame is more difficult when you cannot trust your allies to follow targets. You will probably want to watch what targets your ally is attacking and follow their targets. Should you get a team that follows calls you can attempt to focus damage output and use Obsidian Flame to produce a rather sizeable spike on your enemy. Remember to use Mantra of Resolve religously, stopping interrupts on your 2 second cast spells is extremely powerful. As with any spell spiker, choose a 20% skill recharge wand and a +1 to skill/+30 HP offhand if you do times spikes. You do not want fast casting triggering and making you go early in a timed spikes. This gives away the spike and gives the monks a better chance to infuse or prot the target, thus saving them. Along the same lines, be sure not to wand targets in timed spikes.

#3) Support Air Spiker
E/Mo

11+1+3 Air
10+1 Energy Storage
10 Healing Prayers

Enervating Charge
Lightning Orb
Gale
Blinding Flash
Ether Prodigy
Heal Party
Convert Hexes
Rez Sig

This is another team oriented elementalist. Ether prodigy will allow you to spam blinding flash on enemy warriors and rangers. It can also fuel both convert hexes and heal party. Heal Party is an ideal counter for when a large percentage of your team has degen applied to them. It will help reduce the stress on your monks greatly against attrition builds. Do not however attempt to use heal party to perform general healing, it is highly inefficient for that purpose. Convert hexes also gives you a way to clean off a hex stacked ally (for examply conjur covering migraine on a monk.) If you take this build into arenas you probably want to replace convert hexes with holy veil and heal party with some other spell (mend ailment wouldn't be a bad choice), dumping the points from healing into air and energy storage. Lightning Orb and Enervating Charge function much like other air spikers with the added bonus of enervating charge doubling as further anti-warrior and anti-ranger. Remember this build will play strongest in an organized GvG team.

Necromancer
#1) Attrition Hex Necro
N/Mo

12+1+4 Blood Magic
11+1 Curses
6+1 Soul Reaping

Faintheartedness
Life Siphon
Parasitic Bonds
Malaise
Offering of Blood
Rend Enchantments
Holy Veil
Rez Sig

The basic goal of this necro is spread degen. Life siphon has a 2s cooldown, along with parasitic bonds. Fueled by offering of blood you should easily be able to put life siphon on every member of the enemy team in arenas and a large portion of the enemy team in tombs or GvG. Place malaise on enemy monks to further stress their healing. The self degen should be offset by life siphon. Malaise can easily be stopped by weapon swapping, however it is also easily reapplied. Be relentless with it and it will make life much more difficult for monks. Faintheartedness can also be used for degen if you have the spare energy and enemy warriors are already well hexed. In tombs the soul reaping points can be switched to death and consume corpse or necrotic traversal can be swapped in for corpse control.

#2) Blood Spike Necro
N/Me

12+1+3 Blood Magic
10+1 Curses
8 Inspiration

Shadow Strike
Vampic Gaze
Dark Pact
Strip Enchantment
Offering of Blood
Shadow of Fear
Mantra of Resolve
Rez Sig

The goal of this necro is to assist melee or other spikers to kill a target. If timed properly shadow strike should always get the bonus in a combined spike due to it lacking travel time. Follow up shadow strike with vamp gaze and use dark pact to finish weakened targets. While this spike is energy intensive offering of blood should be able to keep it fueled. Be sure to keep mantra of resolve up at all times. This will aid in preventing your spike from being interrupted. Shadow of Fear serves as an anti-warrior support hex that can be swapped out for other utility skills if necessary. Strip enchantment can also be altered for other utility skills as necessary.

#3) Degen Necro
N/Me

12+1+3 Blood Magic
12 Illusion
3+1 Soul Reaping

Vamp Gaze
Dark Pact
Life Siphon
Conjur Phantasm
Offering of Blood
Imagined Burden
Mark of Subversion
Rez Sig

This is a relentless hex necro. With offering of blood at 16 blood you are very capable of spreading life siphon and conjur to multiple targets. Stacking these two degens puts your targets in great danger and makes them quite vulnerable to a spike. Once a target is weakened you can finish them with vampic gaze and dark pact. Mark of Subversion will allow you to further stress the monks and force them to endanger themselves. In addition Imagined Burden will function as an all purpose snare when it is needed. While this necro is very energy intensive, offering of blood should be able to meet your energy demands. In an organized team you have the option of swapping to death and running disease as your second degen. Your team needs to be prepared for it though because disease very easily becomes a double edged sword.

Ranger
#1) Cripple Shot Ranger
R/x

11+3 Expertise
10+1+1 Wilderness Survival
10+1 Marksmanship

Distracting Shot
Cripple Shot
Hunters Shot
Throw Dirt
Dust Trap
Apply Poison
Stormchaser
Rez sig

This is a conditions ranger who thrives in attrition builds. Your basic strategy is to use apply poison and then keep enemy warriors crippled. You drop the occasional defensive Dust Trap and utilize Throw Dirt to further disable enemy offense. Since with the cripple will always land under the poison it will prove difficult to remove and it will be very easily reapplied. This will overall function as a utility character and should be tweaked in tombs and GvG to help match the build. Stormchaser will be useful for running down opponents as an enemy retreats in GvG or allowing you to get good positioning quickly.

#2) RtW Ranger Spiker
R/Me

12+1+3 Marksmanship
11+1 Expertise
6 Domination
2 Inspiration

Dual Shot
Punishing Shot
Distracting Shot
Read the Wind
Favorable Winds
Drain Enchantment
Hex Breaker
Rez Sig

This is a basic ranger spiker. To spike use Dual Shot followed by Punishing Shot. Between spikes you can look for targets to disrupt using Distracting Shot. Try to maintain hexbreaker at all times, it will keep debilitating hexes off you and allow you to continue spiking in a hex heavy environment. Drain enchant is low specced and is meant to remove enchants without costing you energy. Cordinate your attacks with other players for optimum killing potential. The best bow to take is a 5/1 Vampic Hornbow. This enchances your damage and still allows orders to affect your attack in team builds.

#3) Blackout Trapper
R/Me

11+3 Expertise
10+1+1 Wilderness Survival
8 Domination
6 Inspiration

Flame Trap
Spike Trap
Barbed Trap
Dust Trap
Distracting Shot
Blackout
Mantra of Resolve
Rez Sig

The basic concept of this character is to debilitate the enemy with traps. You can drive the enemy out of wards, protect your monks, and make life miserable for enemy warriors in general with this character. Between traps you can blackout targets of opportunity and use distracting shot on vital enemy skills. Since blackout doesn't affect the recharge of traps it helps fill your downtime while hurting the enemy team. In addition blackout drains all a warriors adrenaline and makes it impossible for them to gain adrenaline for the duration. Any adrenaline based warrior will feel a blackout (which makes it very strong against axe warriors.) In organized teams communicate the position of defensive traps so your monks may kite over them.

Monk
#1) Boon Prot
Mo/N

11+3 Divine Favor
10+1+1 Prot
10 Blood

Reversal of Fortune
Protective Spirit
Guardian
Signet of Devotion
Mend Ailment
Holy Veil
Divine Boon
Offering of Blood

This is a simple boon prot. Your two main mechanisms of healing are Booned RoF and Signet of Devotion. If you get your RoF during a spike you stand to mitigate a very large amount of damage. Protective spirit acts as a way to reduce the damage of spikes. It is effectve against ele spike and warrior spike. In arenas you probably want to drop Protective Spirit for a rez sig as the spike protection isn't needed as much there while the rez is quite useful. Remember, the key is using your prot spells to mitigate damage while you heal with boon.

#2) Infuser
Mo/N

12+1+4 Healing Prayers
8+1 Divine Favor
10 Blood Magic

Infuse Health
Heal Other
Orison of Healing
Healing Touch
Heal Party
Mend Ailment
Holy Veil
Offering of Blood

This is a generic infuser monk. You have a number of skills and the key to playing this build properly is choosing the right tool for the job. Infuse health is anti-spike and will save the life of a critical player. Heal other will break 200 health with your divine favor bonus and is also a big heal. It is less energy intensive than infuse (because you must heal yourself after you infuse) but has a longer cast time and thus less effective vs a good spike. Orison is a nice, energy efficient small heal. It is also useful for healing yourself after an infuse as healing touch usually won't do it alone. Heal Party is more intended for 8v8 and is your counter for attrition. Should the enemy spread degen across your team Heal Party is the most energy efficient way to deal with it. In arenas you likely want to consider replacing this with a rez sig as orison will most likely provide a better counter to degen (unless they are extremely good with degen and then heal party can still be more efficient than orison.) Ailment and Veil are respectively your condition and hex management. Remember you can pre-cast veil on yourself is you suspect anti-monk hexes to be cast (such as backfire.) Offering of Blood will fuel your casting. Remember the key to playing a good infuser is to avoid overhealing. Use the right spell for the right situation and make every drop of energy count. If you use a heal other when an orison would have been enough you just wasted 5 energy. Keep in mind that an infuser will be more difficult than other breeds of monk and take much more practice to master.

#3) Word Healer
Mo/Me

12+1+4 Healing Prayers
9+1 Divine Favor
9 Inspiration

Word of Healing
Orison of Healing
Healing Breeze
Healing Seed
Mend Ailment
Inspired Hex
Drain Enchantment
Channeling

This is a Word of Healing monk with a tombs leaning. Word is your big heal, should you trigger the bonus there is quite simply no more energy efficient heal available. Orison can be used to help maintain health and heal smaller amounts of damage. Some may find the inclusion of healing breeze to be unusual. Many players are under the mistaken assumption that healing breeze is a bad skill. The problem is too many players use it as a primary means of healing. Breeze is meant as a pressure/degen counter. With a very short cooldown it can help you bridge very high pressure moments. However the energy toll is demanding so your use of breeze must be very selective. In GvG I would suggest swapping breeze for heal other as the metagame does not include many situations where breeze is ideal. Healing Seed will function as a spell to protect the hero or aid an ally under heavy pressure. The cast time is high however and I would suggest replacing it in arenas and GvG. In arenas channeling is best replaced by a rez sig. However with good positioning in crowded tombs areas it can be a fountain of energy. Just don't put yourself in great danger, remember the AoE is a fairly large size and you will usually get 2-3 enemies within it in most tombs maps. It will also give you a near limitless fountain of energy against IWAY allowing you to be much more liberal with breeze (great for counteracting the large amount of pressure IWAY creates.) Remember this monks needs some minor tweaking to be run in GvG or Arenas.

mortalis doleo · Jan 09, 2006, 11:59 AM // 11:59

i commend you for taking the time to write all of these builds, but the problem is that for people starting pvp, the pre-mades are good since they can use skills they have yet to unlock...

for people starting pvp, these builds may be good, but they might not have the skills that are needed...

i would have put these builds in the forums that they belong in (necro forum for necro builds...), but good job.

Brother Andicus · Jan 09, 2006, 05:50 PM // 17:50

Excellent job from Warskull.

This is exactly what is needed for the many players who have started out doing PvE, or irregular gaming, and now want to get into some serious PvP.

I pwnd U · Jan 10, 2006, 01:28 PM // 13:28

ya the pvp premade builds defiently do need an upgrade. most of them get you no where and need to be redone. excellent job.