Curse

Servant of Kali · Jan 04, 2007, 01:41 AM // 01:41

It's a combination of fun and strenght, so some skills such as pets are there more for fun, but they also do their job of bodyblocking and dmg. My Dervish build is also a bit unortodox and i only use it here.

I need some tweaking since im not sure what works good on heroes and what works good overall as for instance i never played necro.

The main problem i have is that heroes use some skills too slow, even though they have 40+ energy. Skill recharges, is spammable, but for some reason it takes ages to cast it. Happens lots of skills, but some seem to work fine *shrugs*. This is also why i dont use assassin anymore (which i did, for fun).

Hero #1 - MM1 necro
Icy Veins [E]
Animate Bone Fiend
Signet of Lost Souls
Dark Bond
Predator's Pounce
Call of Haste
Revive Animal
Charm Animal (Black Moa)

Hero #2 - MM2 necro
Animate Bone Horror
Aura of the Lich [E]
Blood of the Master
Death Nova
Signet of Lost Souls
Predator's Pounce
Call of Haste
Charm Animal (Black Moa)

Hero #3 - EyeWay paragon
Aggressive Refrain
Focused Anger [E]
Go for the Eyes
Stand Your Ground
Vicious Attack
Predator's Pounce
Call of Haste
Charm Animal (Black Moa)

Me #4 - Zealous dervish
Rending Sweep (synergy with Icy Veins but doesnt always work as good)
Protector's Strike
Eremite's Attack
Mystic Sweep
Watch Yourself
Zealous Vow [E]
Heart of Fury
Wild Blow (so no one blocks physical attacks which is main source of dmg)

(The rest henchies... or perhaps pug. Sometimes like 2 Mo, or 1 Mo 1 P, then any physical dmger)

- Yes i know GtfE works a bit differently on minions but until someone tests this i think it still pays off.
- How much less dmg would i get if i put Animate Minions instead of Animate Bone Horror? Since sometimes i notice necro let's his minion die... and blabla not fun to get to other PvE group with 4 minions or less.

Bugeater · Jan 04, 2007, 09:27 PM // 21:27

Quote:

Originally Posted by Servant of Kali

- Yes i know GtfE works a bit differently on minions but until someone tests this i think it still pays off.

Minions and pets never achieve critical hits so GftE is useless for buffing them.

Servant of Kali · Jan 04, 2007, 10:12 PM // 22:12

I have no idea if they dont achieve critical hits. So far no one proved that they dont. GWwiki says they get crits in a different way, simply increasing a dmg a bit instead of doing max dmg.

In any case, if you know they dont achieve crit hits where's the thread with research? :>
But as i said, i've no idea.

Servant of Kali · Jan 09, 2007, 12:13 PM // 12:13

OK. The problem with pets is that sometimes they block minions i think, which i didnt like. Plus, it's not like heroes spammed pet attacks properly, so the whole concept was flawed. After few tweaks, this is what i came up with:

Hero #1 - MM1 necro
Animate Bone Fiend
Animate Flesh Golem [E]
Death Nova
Signet of Lost Souls
Infuse Condition
Draw Conditions
Shield of Absorbtion
Ressurection Chant

Hero #2 - MM2 necro
Animate Bone Minions
Jagged Bones [E]
Death Nova
Signet of Lost Souls
Stand Your Ground
Never Surrender
Never Give Up
Fall Back

Hero #3 - Interrupt mesmer
Cry of Frustration
Power Spike
Spiritual Pain
Energy Surge [E]
Leech Signet
Power Dragin
Signet of Disruption
Mantra of Inscriptions

Me #4 - Melandru Dervish, with deep wound spam, wild blow, and watch yourself
===

Basically each character is both offense and defense and good at it.

- Instead of pet attacks which hero doesnt spam anyway, i found an awesome solution for full energy pool of necro: paragon shouts. This means i can remove Paragon totally and bring something more useful to the battlefield. Fall Back is quite neat when im running from one PvE group to another, so minions dont die too soon.
- At first i thought mesmer sucks in PvE.. then i remembered two things: im not thinking in PvE way, and one of the main hero strenghts are interrupt. So, i did a bit of testing until i found proper energy balance. I think the current setup is good, but im always open to suggestions. In short, all dmg skills mesmer has are fast AoE (Surge, Spiritual Pain, Cry), and others are simply interrupts and e-gain spells. I was pondering on whether Mantra of Recovery might do the job better instead of Surge.. would require testing, but im not so sure of that.
- Deep wound seems to be much better than i thought, so spammable deep wound pretty much ownz in PvE where i want to quickly kill mobs. Wild Blow to kill stance archers fast, and Watch Yourself to buff the party with +13 armor, more or less constantly.

Coridan · Jan 09, 2007, 08:17 PM // 20:17

too me it seems that there are very few areas can supply enough corpses to keep two "hero" MM's busy. I would probably trade out an MM for an elemental or warrior or switch you 2nd necro into another build. thats just my two cents worth...the builds look cool independently...but as a whole i am not sure, i would have to test it out to see.

Servant of Kali · Jan 09, 2007, 08:43 PM // 20:43

No. Corpses are plenty in PvE, this aint GvG

Im not the only one using 2 MMs. You're also forgetting that im careful in what i use. Flesh Golem leaves a corpse, so once you raise him it's cool, and PvE zones and mission areas are usually big enough. Jagged Bones is another skill which helps corpse management - if minion dies, it's simply created anew. As you can see, it's not that bad.
Basically, if you find corpses for 1 MM, 2 MM's will work. If it's an area with hardly any corpse (elemental monsters for instance, or enemy skills which are especially bad against minions), then two will work as bad as one.

Oh, and,
I think warrior in 99% of PvE areas is newbie profession. Dervish for instance is 3x more superior to warrior, in 99% PvE areas; can tank 3x better and do much more dmg (with a good build of course).

Elementalist sucks IMO, unless you're playing Searing which is utterly boring (sorry, but it is). As for other spell, I dont want enemy to run away from AoE spells, so i need to spend 5 min catching them. This is a bit personal of course, i find ele to be utterly boring in GW, even though i like mage in other RPG games. I think it's because of no graphic spell effects (the existing ones are hardly noticable), as well as no sound (the sound when you're using spells is too monotonious). 2 searing flames plus 1 paragon can certainly deal nice dmg, i havent tried it but searing is silly in pvp so it's probably even more in pve (nerf please).. still as i said i find it utterly boring and too copycutter for my taste.

Arrows[PURE] · Jan 10, 2007, 04:05 PM // 16:05

I agree with most things youve said and builds look good. But enchant removal>any derv tank. And also when I play ele i dont run AoE spells that cause AI to fleee because I dont get the full damage, but thats just your opinion really

vespertine · Jan 10, 2007, 11:05 PM // 23:05

i totally agree with Coridan..i don't see the point in using 2 MMs.. espeacially with 2 AI controlled MMs.. they just keep blowing their energy, while competing for the corpses..

IMHO a MM is quite powerful in the early areas in elona, but as soon as you come to djinns or further minions just keep dying faster than u can sumon them..

btw.. if you really want to deal loads of dmg with minions you should bring either mark of pain, weaken armor or barbs..

regarding the elementalist discussion.. as you probably didn't notice yet: there are more builds than a SF or a echo-echo-nuker..

as for your statement "then two will work as bad as one".. well.. if you enjoy wasting slots on your team, then that's a pretty efficient way

Servant of Kali · Jan 10, 2007, 11:36 PM // 23:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by ArrowsPURE

But enchant removal>any derv tank

Uh, have you ever actually played Dervish? Sorry but this is a bit noobish statement.
A good Dervish can spam enchants, and knows in what order to spam them. Dervishes dont have problems in PvP, and in PvE it's even bigger joke to say "dont play Dervish, enchant removal ownz ya". Uh right.

As i said, i can tank in PvE 5x better than warrior. PvE enchant removal is a joke (except in DoA of course). You may disagree with it of course, but all that remains is your theoretical point of view vs my practical point of view.

Quote:

Originally Posted by vespertine

espeacially with 2 AI controlled MMs.. they just keep blowing their energy, while competing for the corpses..

When i make a thread asking a bit help with tweaking the build, i expect that people who will critic builds actually have some experience with them.

First of all, you're talking in a demeaning way about AI controlled MMs, whereas AI will handle the above mentioned build as good as human or better. I'd like to see human who will beat AI in Jagged Bones and Death Nova spam.

Second of all, when you try playing with MM heroes in PvE you'll see they are at max energy all the time. Saying "they keep blowing each others energy" is silly.

Quote:

IMHO a MM is quite powerful in the early areas in elona, but as soon as you come to djinns or further minions just keep dying faster than u can sumon them..

Interesting, because i've been successfully doing Torment quests with it. And fighting ocassional Djinns in Vabbi (i easily killed the SF djinn boss and djinns around him, and i've heard from a lot of people how difficult is to cap SFlames). Of course that if u only fight elementals no MM is good, so it's a flawed critic anyway. It's like saying that every protection monk build sucks because there's that area in The Deep where... ah never mind.

Quote:

btw.. if you really want to deal loads of dmg with minions you should bring either mark of pain, weaken armor or barbs..

I tried that once with FC mesmer (MoRecovery); in most areas enemies drop down by the time he casts a spell. And the dmg isnt worth the specializing.

Quote:

regarding the elementalist discussion.. as you probably didn't notice yet: there are more builds than a SF or a echo-echo-nuker..

Yes, and they are all inferior to MM, in most game areas.