Curse

MercenaryKnight · Aug 30, 2007, 06:06 AM // 06:06

Well as we saw in the preview destroyers are fire immune and the sf fad does about 20-30 damage to most high al enemies. I also tried an all ranger barrage group that didn't do too great during the weekend event either.

So, I figured we can start posting ideas on builds we should use for gw:en since it comes out in a few days.

My Sweet Revenga · Aug 30, 2007, 07:04 PM // 19:04

Use a ranger secondary and bring winter?

Kas · Aug 30, 2007, 07:13 PM // 19:13

Heh, that answer is no surprise. Instead of trying new builds, people will just make Winter mandatory and use the same builds as allways.

qazwersder · Aug 30, 2007, 07:40 PM // 19:40

they dont burn, sf is useless against destroyers

jimmyboveto · Aug 30, 2007, 10:04 PM // 22:04

OMG OMG OMG you meen we might actually have to run something other then SF!!!!! Oh noes, what will happen to the world of GW?????!!!!1111

/end sarcasm

Heh, sorry bout that. I'm done now. Onto the topic....

It's a fairly good question, and one that I've been thinking about myself. For one thing, its important to realise fire eles aren't the only source of damage. SS necros, earth eles(sandstorm), and channeling rits can all do a fair amount themselves. I for one like what A-net is doing with GWEN. Thinking is ftw.

MercenaryKnight · Aug 30, 2007, 11:16 PM // 23:16

It seems like some of the new earth spells might be where the damage will be at now. Not to mention being able to have wards for defense.

So, what kind of builds do you guys see as the new steam roller metatype. I would assume 1 earth ele might be enough for the defensive wards+ damage and 1 ss necro as mentioned above.

Seems like ranger damage is out of the question. Since most things have high al. I almost wonder if we'll see new bloodspike variants for pve. They can do consistent life steal damage and spread around useful hexes or enfeebles. Not to mention the under used feast of corruption for aoe life steal.

It just is quite hard to find stuff that can do a lot of damage without it being life steal. From the monsters high levels, hp and armor.

Sun Fired Blank · Aug 31, 2007, 04:00 PM // 16:00

The change to fire made me greatly reconsider my use of it. To be frank, I had quit using Searing Flames quite some time ago. The simple fact is that a pair of SF elementalists often pushed me through areas faster than I really need to move through them... or faltered badly against a highly durable or overwhelmingly brutal mob.

Here's what I've tried for Zhed and Vekk with pleasant results.

[skill]Shatterstone[/skill][skill]Freezing Gust[/skill][skill]Ice Spikes[/skill][skill]Blurred Vision[/skill][skill]Ward Against Melee[/skill][skill]Glyph of Lesser Energy[/skill][skill]Water Attunement[/skill][skill]Resurrection Signet[/skill]

[skill]Elemental Attunement[/skill][skill]Lightning Orb[/skill][skill]Lightning Hammer[/skill][skill]Blinding Flash[/skill][skill]Maelstrom[/skill][skill]Glyph of Lesser Energy[/skill][skill]Air Attunement[/skill][skill]Resurrection Signet[/skill]

The absolute DPS for both characters doesn't match fire, but a strong defensive component and respectable longevity are both desirable. Remember that henchmen in Eye of the North are (for the most part) amazingly strong. Most of them are capable of outright replacing a hero, which previously was not a viable consideration. Your job is to bring a hero setup that your henchmen simply can't rival, and that's a harder job than before.

A couple of other quick notes: if you haven't reviewed the changes for henchmen for Eye of the North, make sure that you do it. They have much stronger skills than before.

Evilsod · Aug 31, 2007, 05:57 PM // 17:57

Tbh they haven't given me a reason to change from fire... at least not on my casters/ranged characters. Jotun and Wurms have ridiculously high armour to anything, the extra damage from burning helps, the AoE from fire also helps while other professions do more single target damage to finish things off.

Plus from what i saw in the preview... half the mobs in Norn territory are made of ice... the other half are all melee! Mandragor are kamikazes who all charge into melee range via Savage Charge. Berserkers are all melee. Shatter Elements/Avalances are made of ice. The shadow things are mostly melee. Jotun have a strong frontline and backline, Bloodcurdlers also come into melee range after a certain amount of damage to use Unholy Feast, the Mesmers are more annoying than dangerous. Stone Summit are just... bastards... as always. Centaurs all charge into melee range to use Trample.

Destroyers on the other hand i didn't realise were immune to burning until the day AFTER i did A Gate Too Far... so my next Destroyer encounter in the Raven's Point dungeon was done using 1 SS/BR, 1 MoR Dom and 1 Inep/Epi. Obviously making Destroyer of Thoughts (Hex Eater Vortex and Shatter Hex) very high priority targets. It made the Dervish bosses hilariously useless though when i began fights with Ineptitude, Price of Failure and Empathy.

I may make Vekk into an Air ele or Earth warder though (not sure why the latter, i tend to run a ward on my SF eles) because 3 SF eles is a very bad combo since the lack of a minion wall really can hit you hard.

Sun Fired... why GoLE on the Dual Att. Air ele and not Arc Lightning?

Sun Fired Blank · Aug 31, 2007, 07:04 PM // 19:04

Evilsod: I think that you misunderstand me. I don't question for a second that you should have at least one hero as a fire elementalist. The simple fact is that you can't find a stronger way to dish out a huge pile of damage. In many areas, you absolutely should have at least one fire elementalist. My point is more that a fire setup is not quite as dominant as it used to be. The updates to several henchmen and (as you stated) the general fragility of an elementalist line are huge factors that discourage a fire-dominant party. And even if those aren't factors to consider, I might simply point out that you're going to desire a non-fire elementalist in quite a number of areas, and that you don't require a fire-dominant party to clear through most areas in a timely fashion. There are many areas in which fire is clearly the useful damage type; however, Sousuke (SH Warder, for example) and the updated Cynn are often more than enough firepower.

I try to encourage hero diversity because it makes for a quick and prepared range of solutions. For example, I have about 19 heroes right now (a handful from GW:EN). I have already setup every one of them for a specific function. So far as I can discern, GW:EN is a very frustrating campaign for a player that doesn't have a wide range of solutions.

GoLE is redundancy if enchantments aren't maintained. The prospect of having them fail is enough to demand a slot. Heroes aren't spectacular at checking if they're up either. It isn't strange for them to cast a high-cost option during a longer engagement after they've failed.

MercenaryKnight · Aug 31, 2007, 07:24 PM // 19:24

What about the new skills magnetic surge and energy blast? It seems like energy blast (although with a bit high recharge time) can do some great damage and that's not even within a fire/earth/water line.

My Sweet Revenga · Aug 31, 2007, 07:52 PM // 19:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kas

Heh, that answer is no surprise. Instead of trying new builds, people will just make Winter mandatory and use the same builds as allways.

Of course that's human nature. Don't fix it if it ain't broke, but there's no rule that says you can't extend its life with duct tape.

Actually I did notice during the preview event that my dual SF eles weren't doing squat. Thus, I removed one SF and replace him with Gwen. I put my Norgu interrupter build on her, and wow she kicks some serious a**.

Now I've gone and gotten rid of Zhed and replaced him with Melonni with Helmos' sandbombing build. Wow she kicks the crap out of everything by herself. So now I have no ele heroes in my party. Just Gwen, Melonni, and Jora/MoW. Tonight I might try putting Helmos' laser sword pew pew build on Gwen. That guy comes up with some of the sweetest builds hehe. And I still haven't tried throwing the sandbombing build on Khamu too and bringing 2 sandbomber dervs into the frey. I wonder how well it'll work heh. SF eles was sooooo last update

Sheriff · Aug 31, 2007, 08:30 PM // 20:30

What are these Helmos builds you speak of?

My Sweet Revenga · Aug 31, 2007, 10:10 PM // 22:10

Oh urm, his guides are posted on another forum so naturally I can't just link them here heh.

Sun Fired Blank · Aug 31, 2007, 10:18 PM // 22:18

I can't anticipate magnetic surge or energy blast as part of a hero setup. In PvE, you're searching for damage per second, and neither is overly useful for that. I'd note that Winter is not a solution for the fire damage problem, as it converts damage after the armor step of the damage calculation.

Concerning the Helmos builds: the dervish sandstormer is Arcane Zeal + Mystic Sandstorm. They've been around for a while; the idea isn't particularly novel, but so far as I know, he's the first one to publicly realize that heroes run through the chain quickly and that not much in PvE has a means to stop it. If you stick it on a hero and use a bunch of the nastier condition-causing enchantments, you get a fairly nasty surprise. The gwen build is rather neat, although I don't know that I could have it displace another build. It's basically an IW that exploits the hero's ability to micromanage a pile of condition-causing and survival dervish enchantments. Channeling helps to cover IW and simulate the Mysticism bonus.

Sheriff · Aug 31, 2007, 10:31 PM // 22:31

Thanks for the explanation, but could someone post/link those builds?

Evilsod · Aug 31, 2007, 10:59 PM // 22:59

I've been quite tempted to try and run a build involving Fevered Dreams... probably on my Mes herself so i can control the Fevered better. But it'd use an MM w/ Virulence, probably a BHA/Burning Arrow w/ Pin Down + Screaming Shot/Barbed Arrows, the PvE only skill "Finish Him!" for a huge AoE Deep Wound/Cracked Armour. Then a blindbot to finish off the job.
1 person, 3 hero builds, every condition in the game.

Would be elaborate... but amusing to run i'd say.

My Sweet Revenga · Aug 31, 2007, 11:02 PM // 23:02

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sun Fired Blank

I can't anticipate magnetic surge or energy blast as part of a hero setup. In PvE, you're searching for damage per second, and neither is overly useful for that. I'd note that Winter is not a solution for the fire damage problem, as it converts damage after the armor step of the damage calculation.

Concerning the Helmos builds: the dervish sandstormer is Arcane Zeal + Mystic Sandstorm. They've been around for a while; the idea isn't particularly novel, but so far as I know, he's the first one to publicly realize that heroes run through the chain quickly and that not much in PvE has a means to stop it. If you stick it on a hero and use a bunch of the nastier condition-causing enchantments, you get a fairly nasty surprise. The gwen build is rather neat, although I don't know that I could have it displace another build. It's basically an IW that exploits the hero's ability to micromanage a pile of condition-causing and survival dervish enchantments. Channeling helps to cover IW and simulate the Mysticism bonus.

I was kidding about the winter solution, I figured the smiley would be a dead givaway of that

Yesh concerning Helmos' builds, certainly the builds aren't completely new concepts, even he admits that in his guides. It's the fact that the heroes use them so proficiently that makes them so useful in certain situations. I can imagine the sanstorm bombing build might have trouble against a mob of casters since its strength is vs melee enemies, hence I only used one derv hero, but I haven't actually tried using 2 at the same time yet.

But from what I've seen, I've been able to use player made hero builds and my own custom hero build and I haven't had any real trouble in GWEN so far. So once again, proof enough that although the SF hero has been rendered almost useless in GWEN, there are many other more viable hero builds for even the most seemingly useless of hero characters... yes even zenmai. So hopefully the hero party doesn't consist of SF,SF,SS or SF,SS,MM or MM,MM,SF or.... well you get the idea.

Skuld · Aug 31, 2007, 11:14 PM // 23:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by My Sweet Revenga

Oh urm, his guides are posted on another forum so naturally I can't just link them here heh.

Of course you can link to other forums on here, its GWO which has the stupid rules...

Snow Bunny · Aug 31, 2007, 11:19 PM // 23:19

I haven't run sf in forever.

I run...

Searing Heat, Savannah Heat, Teinai's Heat, Fireball, MS for damage on my eles.
Then each ele runs something different defensively, be it para shouts, Aegis, or wards.

I tried water and earth, but my SH builds still top both pretty powerfully.

Honestly, most mobs die within 10 seconds from that.
Sure, destroyers can't be put on fire.

But tbh...I've crashed through everything so far on this with ease.
The only even notable thing is that the Destroyer eles can spike hard with incendiary bonds.

Wyat Hawke · Aug 31, 2007, 11:45 PM // 23:45

Quote:

Originally Posted by Evilsod

I've been quite tempted to try and run a build involving Fevered Dreams... probably on my Mes herself so i can control the Fevered better. But it'd use an MM w/ Virulence, probably a BHA/Burning Arrow w/ Pin Down + Screaming Shot/Barbed Arrows, the PvE only skill "Finish Him!" for a huge AoE Deep Wound/Cracked Armour. Then a blindbot to finish off the job.
1 person, 3 hero builds, every condition in the game.

Would be elaborate... but amusing to run i'd say.

I suggest you try out this build then

Fevered Conditioner A/Me

It makes Assassins fun to play in PvE again, and Zenmai knows how to use it aswell ^_^