Curse

Young_Ranger · Sep 22, 2009, 06:09 PM // 18:09

I completed Nightfall campaign last week with a Ranger/Monk and lots of heroes. (I got lots of human help on the last two missions). I also have Prophecies with a Warrior/Monk who is currently at Lions Arch. I also have EotN. I tend to brute force my way thru things, often with 60% DP.

In order to increase storage I created several mules and played them until they reached the Consulate Docks. (I know I could have gotten a ferry/runner.)

I found playing other characters informative as it helped me better understand how to configure my heroes. I also found playing other characters completely frustrating as everything was in a different or wrong position on the skill bar (compared with my Ranger).

I did a lot of reading about runner builds which greatly helped my overall understanding of skill bars. A runner's build requires several skills that boost speed that allow you to cycle thru skill 1 to skill 2 to skill 3 so that there is enough time for skill 1 to recharge. This finally made sense of why you need or want 3 attack skills. (I currently have only 2.)

My question(s) are is do you use a general skill bar format in order to make it easier and perhaps transparent when you change your build or change characters?

Stance, Attack, Attack, Attack, Self Heal, Interrupt, IAS, etc

As a rule how to you allocate your 8 skill slots?

Thanks in advance for your help.

kanuks · Sep 22, 2009, 07:03 PM // 19:03

Quote:

Originally Posted by Young_Ranger

I completed Nightfall campaign last week with a Ranger/Monk and lots of heroes. (I got lots of human help on the last two missions). I also have Prophecies with a Warrior/Monk who is currently at Lions Arch. I also have EotN. I tend to brute force my way thru things, often with 60% DP.

In order to increase storage I created several mules and played them until they reached the Consulate Docks. (I know I could have gotten a ferry/runner.)

I found playing other characters informative as it helped me better understand how to configure my heroes. I also found playing other characters completely frustrating as everything was in a different or wrong position on the skill bar (compared with my Ranger).

I did a lot of reading about runner builds which greatly helped my overall understanding of skill bars. A runner's build requires several skills that boost speed that allow you to cycle thru skill 1 to skill 2 to skill 3 so that there is enough time for skill 1 to recharge. This finally made sense of why you need or want 3 attack skills. (I currently have only 2.)

My question(s) are is do you use a general skill bar format in order to make it easier and perhaps transparent when you change your build or change characters?

Stance, Attack, Attack, Attack, Self Heal, Interrupt, IAS, etc

As a rule how to you allocate your 8 skill slots?

Thanks in advance for your help.

If I were you, I would do it like this :

Stance, IAS, Attack, Attack, Attack, Interrupt, Self heal, Support Skill/Resurrect skill.

Killamus · Sep 22, 2009, 07:19 PM // 19:19

Depends. For myself, I always do
Fast, spammable attack
Slower, more powerful attack
Other misc attack
Support skill (Usually e management)
Elite, or support (If it's not above
Support
Stance
Stance
Resurrection

For my heroes, it's
Elite
Energy management
Damage
Utility/Damage
Utility
Utility
Utility
Res

zelgadissan · Sep 22, 2009, 07:23 PM // 19:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by Young_Ranger

My question(s) are is do you use a general skill bar format in order to make it easier and perhaps transparent when you change your build or change characters?

There's no way you can possibly build all your character's skill bars around the same process. For example, a Warrior, Mesmer, and Monk would all have totally different templates.

You could probably generalize it to offensive frontline characters (Warrior), midline (Mesmer), and backline (Monk).

Atro · Sep 22, 2009, 07:30 PM // 19:30

the format of your build really depends on how you play. I usually keep my Attack first, then regen, then stances.

subarucar · Sep 22, 2009, 07:45 PM // 19:45

On my UI I have a 2 up 4 across style skillbar.
Something like this for a warrior or ranger:

[Main Attack][Second Attack][Third Attack][Utility]
[Buff Skill][IAS/Stance/Interupt][IMS/Stance/Interupt][Res/Utility]

turbo234 · Sep 22, 2009, 07:50 PM // 19:50

elite, attacks or general heals/spells
support or prots
defensive skills/stances
res sig

for example a monk build i would use would be
woh/ps/guardian/draw conditions/mending touch/spirit bond/holy veil/stance(usually natural stride in 4v4 format)

if i load up the skills differently i start pressing the wrong buttons because i'm used to skills being bound to the typical keys

IronSheik · Sep 22, 2009, 10:35 PM // 22:35

On a melee?

3-4 attacks
1-3 attack supports (Crit Agility, AoHM, Asuran Scan, Critical Eye)
1-2 Team utilities (SY)

**Marty Silverblade** · Sep 22, 2009, 11:39 PM // 23:39

Warrior in PvE is pretty easy. You can go with a template and fill it in with whatever looks good and probably end up with a decent bar.

Chthon · Sep 23, 2009, 01:32 AM // 01:32

That's a simple and insightful question, and one that requires a bit of a complex answer I'm afraid.

First, realize that the design intent in GW is that players are supposed to construct teams, not builds. You're not allocating 8 skills, but 64. At least that's the idea. No doubt, fixed-build henchmen, moron PUGS, and even moron alliancemates can put a significant crimp in that plan. Still, stick to the general concept that the team as a whole needs to cover all the bases, and any given member only needs to cover a few.

Second, let's go over the bases that the team needs cover.

In the most general way of looking at it, GW has 3 primary mechanics: damage, damage prevention, and healing. All of these are "must haves."

Then there's another 4 secondary mechanics worth paying attention to:

"Resource" skills help you meet the energy/adrenaline/activation-time/recharge-time costs of your primary-mechanic skills more easily. Since most of the primary-mechanic skills in GW are downright terrible, it's generally better to load up on a couple of excellent primary-mechanic skills and support them with resource skills that allow frequent usage than to fill out the bar with redundant-but-inferior primary-mechanic skills.

"Disruption" is essentially the opposite of whatever you disrupt. Disrupt a damage skill, and you've achieved that much damage prevention. Disrupt a damage prevention skill or healing skill and you've done the equivalent of that much damage. (Describing the ultimate effect of disrupting secondary-mechanic skills is a bit more complicated.) The value of disruption scales with the potency of your foe's skills.

"Removal," like disruption, is essentially the opposite of whatever effect it removes. This can be a little confusing because the conditions and hexes that you're removing can have hybrid effects. Removing bleed or Conjure Phantasm is essentially damage prevention; and removing blind is essentially doing damage; but what function do you accomplish by removing Guilt? Removal, again like disruption, scales in value depending upon how potent the conditions/hexes your foe has.

Finally, there's rez. You know what this is for.

So that's what's available, now how do you put it together into a team?

Generally you need offense, damage prevention, and healing, with adequate resource skills to support them. Disruption and removal aren't always necessary, but they tend to be in areas of PvE with significant challenge and reward. Rez is optional, but usually recommended.

A strong offense is usually a synergy thing. While you can take 6 or so reasonably decent damage dealers, toss them together and call it a day; you can get far better results by piecing together an offense from parts of several team members' builds. The dominant offensive strategy right now could be called "makes lots of packets and stack lots of buffs." The general concept is for physical damage dealers to generate a large number of damage packets, while midline casters buff the amount of damage those packets do.

(Here's an example of a 5-man offense that highlights the "makes lots of packets and stack lots of buffs" concept: 2 warriors with Hundred Blades, Whirlwind Attack, and an increased attack speed stance generate lots of damage packets. 1 minion master generates minions that generate lots of damage packets. 1 buff bitch N/Mo buffs the packets generated by the warriors with Order of Pain, Great Dwarf Weapon, and Strength of Honor. 1 curse necro buffs the damage packets from the warriors and the minions with Barbs and Mark of Pain. The minion master buffs his won minions with Order of Undeath, and buffs warriors and minions together with Ebon Battle Standard of Honor.)

Until recently, "throw lots of big AoE caster damage" was also a top-flight offensive strategy, but the key skills were all nerfed. It still survives in degenerate tank-n-spank teams though.

Damage prevention comes from 3 general sources, usually simultaneously. Physical attackers generate enough adrenaline to power the warrior skill Save Yourselves, which is hugely overpowered. Midliners toss debuffs at foes to reduce their ability to deal damage. And backliners cast damage-preventing buffs on team mates.

Healing is mostly a backliner task. Although sometimes midliners will run diffuse clean-up heals (like Dwayna's Sorrow on minions, or a number of skills from the Motivation line).

Disruption generally comes from knockdown on the physical attackers, dazed from a ranger (who is usually brought mainly for that purpose), or technobabble a mesmer skill on a midliner.

Removal can be distributed between the backline and the midliners depending upon who has space.

Quick activating rez is needed on a couple of midliners or physical attackers -- people who are not likely to be first to die, and likely to be able to afford the spare moment to cast rez. Everyone else should bring rez scrolls on the off chance that they somehow escape when all the rezzers are dead.

Third , if you take the the requirements for the tasks the team has to accomplish and turn them on their side, you can get a general picture of what individual builds need to accomplish:

Physical attackers need to (1) contribute to the team's damage combo (usually that means IAS + attacks that generate lots of packets), (2) prevent damage by spamming SY!, (3) disrupt, (4) maybe rez, and (5) bring the resource skills to make sure they can do those things well.

Midliners (collectively - this is far too much for 1 build) need to (1) contribute to the team's damage combo (usually that means buffs), (2) prevent damage via debuffs, (3) maybe provide diffuse healing, (4) maybe disrupt, (5) maybe do removal, (6) rez, (7) bring the resource skills to make sure they can do those things well, and (8) maybe bring resource skills to help others (Blood Ritual, Dark Fury, etc.).

Backliners need to (1) prevent damage, (2) heal, (3) maybe do removal, and (4) bring the resource skills to make sure they can do those things well.

For a more detailed picture of how to flesh out these generalities in the context of a specific class, you should visit that class's forum.

Jaigoda · Sep 23, 2009, 01:43 PM // 13:43

I'm not a big fan of template-type things, but more what roles you want your character to play.

If you're a warrior, focus on two things: blowing stuff up with massive damage, and using your utility skills as a means of damage prevention/control. The main two builds that people will mention are Earthshaker and Dragon Slash. Earthshaker uses AoE attacks to build up adrenaline for Earthshaker and knocklock a whole mob of enemies, effectively rendering them useless for a period of time. Dragon Slash is used with "FGJ!" for 10 adrenaline per hit, meaning easy maintainence of "Save Yourselves!" (which is around 80% damage reduction), as well as possibly using Brawling Headbutt to knocklock a single foe. Both do good amounts of damage, but they also devote a good portion of their skill bar to maintaining a defense for their party.

Other professions, however, are different. Assassins and Dervishes do more damage than support, Paragons are almost solely support, Rangers can do lots of different roles... And so on for each profession. Note that caster roles are more flexible than physical professions, simply because they usually have primary attribute energy management and 4 pips of regen.

Young_Ranger · Sep 24, 2009, 11:45 AM // 11:45

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chthon

That's a simple and insightful question, and one that requires a bit of a complex answer I'm afraid.

First, realize that the design intent in GW is that players are supposed to construct teams, not builds. You're not allocating 8 skills, but 64.

Your response explains a great deal. People occaisionally offer suggestions for my skill bar after its pinged. I felt lucky for their help. Now I better appreciate they were more trying to help the team than me individually.

I also now appreciate every skill bar can not be the same format/ structure.
However, I can try and make sure that IAS, attack 1, attack 2 and heal are in the same slots for all my toons.

Silmar Alech · Sep 24, 2009, 04:46 PM // 16:46

I think you are asking two different questions. First, how to make a decent build. The second, how to order the skills in your bar so you can use the build most efficiently. I can tell something about how I do the skill ordering.

The skill order on hero skillbars is mostly irrelevant, so you can sort it like elite, skill, skill, ..., rezz. It is said that the AI picks skills from left to right, but usually it doesn't really matter.

How to order your own skillbar depends on how you play the game (mouse, keyboard) and to what extend you memorize different builds.
I, for example, use the keyboard 1..6, t, g to activate skills with my left hand. I reconfigured the UI and made it so that "t" activates skill #7 and "g" skill #8. I don't use the number block on the right. The left hand is always over the ASDF keys and the right hand always on the mouse.

Now I order the skills in such a way that I can reach the most-used and most important skills most conveniently.

This is: (from most-used to least-used)
3, 2, 4, 1, 6, g, t, 5.
The most-used skill goes to slot 3, the next-to-most-used to 2, then 4, then 1, etc, and the least-used (rezz for example) to 5.

You can say that the "center" of my skillbar is between 2 and 3 on the keyboard, and the build is arranged around the center.

I have a library of more or less fixed builds I use and know by heart. When I load such a build, I don't need to look on the skill icons, because I know: "Spiteful Spirit is on 1" or "Searing Flames is on 3". When I want to activate a skill, I don't look on the skill bar where it is located and don't move the mouse over the icon. I simply activate it instantly, because I KNOW which key to press.

It is always possible to change one or two skills for the specific situation, but if I get or develop a completely new build, it is hard work to learn the positions and the sequence of skills to get the best out of the build. Sometimes, I detect that a skill is misplaced. Then I move it around to a more convenient place. To the outsider, my skillbar looks cluttered and a terrible mess, but for me it is the perfect order.