Curse

Divineshadows · Jan 16, 2007, 10:49 PM // 22:49

I designed these two builds, because I prefer to play something other than jagged bones, spirit-way, fear me-way, or sandstorm-way.

http://gwshack.us/80a42

http://gwshack.us/cc650

Looking for any feedback that would help improve the builds' efficiency in their killing power (while not sacraficing too much on their holding power) or their holding power (while not sacraficing too much on their killing power).

The first build was tested last night and went 6-2 with both losses occurring on the first halls match. The hex build has not been tested, but is modeled after a similar hex build (but with a persistence migraine instead of dom mesmer and a ZB instead of a divert hexes monk) that I have had previous success with. One thing I was wondering is if a shatterstone/vapor blade/glyph of lesser/blurred vision/freezing gust/deep freeze/water attunement/infuse health water ele would be more efficient than the spoil victor necromancer I have in the build.

Red Locust · Jan 16, 2007, 11:02 PM // 23:02

YAA on a monk? I'd take a good monk elite.

Divineshadows · Jan 16, 2007, 11:13 PM // 23:13

Quote:

Originally Posted by Red Locust

YAA on a monk? I'd take a good monk elite.

Oh yeah, I forgot to specify. The Mo/W is the relic runner in the first build and the N/A is the relic runner in the second. Of course, the choice of relic runner can be adapted on the fly depending upon the build you are facing.

It's from JR's school of thought. I chose to play that monk last night and I can honestly say it was quite fun and quite key in slowing down other teams using grenth's dervishes. Used this way, I was considering it a protection skill where protection enchantments otherwise did nothing. There were some times I got to snare offensively too which resulted in the team getting some quick kills.

I Phoenix I · Jan 16, 2007, 11:13 PM // 23:13

Uh...why would you take Protector's Strike > Eremite's Attack on the Dervish?

Divineshadows · Jan 16, 2007, 11:22 PM // 23:22

Quote:

Originally Posted by I Phoenix I

Uh...why would you take Protector's Strike > Eremite's Attack on the Dervish?

Here was my thinking. Both are going to do +10 damage (unless you manage to be hitting multiple foes with eremite's). If you aren't getting the +10 from prot strike often, then you are hitting foes that are kiting you and if they aren't kiting you well then they should be dead in a short amount of time after they exhaust their monks' energy pools. So, I chose prot strike for a slightly quicker activation and the lower recharge allowing the dervish to make more aggressive pushes with in damage output provided that they have saved up some energy up to that point.

I would have gone with mystic and eremites (instead of prot strike) if I had room for both skills, but I didn't want to pass on things like imbue, distracting blow, and wild blow.

Now I just had another thought. Should my hex build be using rending sweep on an avatar of lyssa dervish or perhaps a reaper's sweep dervish instead of a grenth's dervish?

JR · Jan 17, 2007, 12:05 AM // 00:05

Quote:

Originally Posted by Red Locust

YAA on a monk? I'd take a good monk elite.

My Number: +407981606948

Call me when you find one.

Guillaume De Sonoma · Jan 17, 2007, 02:56 AM // 02:56

How could you take my N/E with gale away divine? What is this N/A trash?

Having played both builds they work very well and kill well, the hex pressure killing faster though.

Sab · Jan 17, 2007, 05:44 AM // 05:44

Those monk bars look a little odd, but it might be up to personal preference. I always like running a LoD/Infuse and Divert with an off-monk Draw. Try fitting in the Draw in your second build on the N/Mo, as a Daze on a Necro is much better than a Daze on a Monk. Aegis is pretty...bleh - drop that for something else, like Guardian or Sig of Devo.

In both builds, a Stability + Song will make alter matches a lot easier. If you can't fit in Stability, then a Song + Brace Yourself would work also.

Red Locust · Jan 17, 2007, 07:17 AM // 07:17

Quote:

Originally Posted by Divineshadows

Oh yeah, I forgot to specify. The Mo/W is the relic runner in the first build and the N/A is the relic runner in the second. Of course, the choice of relic runner can be adapted on the fly depending upon the build you are facing.

It's from JR's school of thought. I chose to play that monk last night and I can honestly say it was quite fun and quite key in slowing down other teams using grenth's dervishes. Used this way, I was considering it a protection skill where protection enchantments otherwise did nothing. There were some times I got to snare offensively too which resulted in the team getting some quick kills.

I'd opt for harrier's grasp or crippling sweep on a dervish. Being able to cripple targets on his own is key, and you won't need to waste a monk elite on YAA when there are much better options.

Divineshadows · Jan 17, 2007, 07:48 PM // 19:48

Well, I got to test the hex build last night and it did fairly well for a first try. Won in halls 4 times with three different groups of players (we kept having players needing to leave, so had to keep re-forming). The blood bond/life siphon/blood rit combo was quite nice when in holding mode.

The last of the wins in halls came with a group where we had our 2 monks, mesmer, and N/A still with us from the previous win and just decided to grab two random people in ID 1 to go on one last run for a bit more fame. We had just had our spoil victor and dervish leave the party so we obviously needed damage. We grab two random R/W in ID 1 and don't bother to get them on vent or ask them their skills or anything really. Our LoD/infuse monk at this point has decided to run gale instead of holy veil (I was on the divert hexes monk).

We go in against Zaishen and see that both R/W are rampage thumpers and we give them the order to go and kill stuff. Our first match is on Underworld. We are facing a rank 9 signet of mystic wrath group. At this point, the 4 of us on vent are cursing the fact that we have no enchantment removal since we had no grenths dervish. Our thumpers just mash on different targets probing for some weaknesses in their defense while our mesmer tries to shutdown the divert hexes and life barrier monk as much as possible. After somewhere around 12 to 15 minutes, we had beaten the SoMW spike group with absolutely no enchantment removal at our disposal. Getting the life barrier guy below 50% health and then denying any attempts to re-apply life barrier was key.

Of course, we map skip straight to halls following the win (whatever happened to playing all or most of the maps along the way?) and win halls by slaughtering blue, killing blue's ghost, and killing the other teams ghost. Of course, our thumpers each took a death in the process attacking through sandstorms but the rezzes were fast and they peformed their job of killing just like we asked from the start. I was happy to learn that one of the thumpers had never won in halls before.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sab

Aegis is pretty...bleh - drop that for something else, like Guardian or Sig of Devo.

Aegis is good. When it's up, it allows the monks to breath a little and conserve some energy and it allows the midline casters to perform their job a bit better by not having to take off and kite right away the moment they get touched by a melee.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sab

In both builds, a Stability + Song will make alter matches a lot easier. If you can't fit in Stability, then a Song + Brace Yourself would work also.

It's sad that everyone in the HA community feels that these are skills you must have in order to take an altar. Whatever happened to players being skilled enough to interrupt song and/or ward stability as their opponent attempts to go and cap? Did they all leave HA? I mean all it takes is a little bit of forethought and the ability to pay attention.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Guillaume De Sonoma

How could you take my N/E with gale away divine? What is this N/A trash?

Having played both builds they work very well and kill well, the hex pressure killing faster though.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Red Locust

I'd opt for harrier's grasp or crippling sweep on a dervish. Being able to cripple targets on his own is key, and you won't need to waste a monk elite on YAA when there are much better options.

I've taken these comments to heart in my next build as a further variation upon the hex build:

http://gwshack.us/08dc6

@Guillaume -- siphon speed is quite good, but gale is better. In an attempt to overload hex removals, I opted for siphon speed. /E doesn't really offer anything useful for the necro other than gale and perhaps an ice prison or the like (other water choices are meh without high spec other than deep freeze, but that's too expensive on the necro). I viewed siphon speed/disrupting dagger as the better choice over gale/ice prison.
@Red Locust -- you are correct that melee having the ability to cripple is the best option, but I couldn't find a way to use harrier's grasp or crippling sweep in an NR build. ZB would be a viable choice on the Mo/W, but YAA fit the condition overload them better. YAA was used mostly defensively to put crippled and weakness on opposing dervishes and warriors and was very rarely used offensively.

Of the two builds, the condition build was better at killing and relic running, while the hex build was better at holding in altar situations.

The motivations behind this latest build. I tried to take the better elements from both builds. Running the condition build, it was obvious that having 2 melee (spearchucker effectively does as much damage as a melee if not more) greatly increases killing speed. Running the hex build, it was obvious that having LoD and Divert Hexes with glyph of lesser energy allows for strong holding ability from the monks. Imbue health was also very nice in holding situations. Some of the problems encountered running the hex build though included the need to shutdown an opponents divert hexes (which means your mesmer is not freely shutting down other key things) and the complete lack of AoE to punish ward huddlers.

I've opted for two dervishes with a greater ability to pressure and spike (by including heart of fury and harrier's grasp) and two hexers with more short-term oriented hexes that rely more on staggering rather than stacking so that opposing divert hexes are not as much of a problem anymore. Instead of degen, there is a much stronger spike from the midline support (vapor blade and spiritual pain) and there is the AoE of deep freeze, ice spikes, and spiritual pain to blast teams that prefer to huddle together in wards. Wards became a large issue when we faced a team on scarred earth that had a sandstorm warder, two fear me warriors, and a p-distract mesmer. Unfortunately for us, the p-distract mesmer spent 90% of the match diversioning our mesmer (instead of our monks) and p-distracting our mesmer. Seriously, when their mesmer never p-distracts your aegis once during a 55 minute match on scarred earth you know something is wrong. On top of this type of defensive play from their mesmer, our dervish was getting galed frequently by their ele. This opponent had obviously recognized our build/players more powerful than theirs and were trying to get us to ragequit. Their demise came when we got yet another interrupt on their ward of melee while both their monks were already low on health. We chain killed one monk, then the other monk, then the ele, and then the first monk who had been rezzed.

Some motivations for other skill selections in the dual dervish build include ether prodigy on the ele to keep energy high. The necromancers in the hex build were having difficulty getting consistent returns on signet of lost souls particularly when an opponent is playing as defensively as I described in the paragraph above. The only thing I fear about ether prodigy in HA are grenths dervishes, but the ele should be able to use snares to keep distance between grenths dervishes and self. Power drain instead of glyph of lesser energy on the mantra of recovery mesmer. Had to lower domination and fast casting by a point each to have some inspiration, but I felt that a ranged spell interrupt would be quite useful in nearly every match to interrupt crap like ward against melee, sandstorm, caster spikes, hexes, etc. A second copy of gale was included in this build on the LoD monk, because the added disruption is useful for kiting from melee, shutting an opponent down for 3 seconds while holding (perhaps even interrupting a skill), and for using on an opposing monk when your offense calls a spike. I would have liked to fit maelstrom on the water ele somehow, but I didn't know where it could fit. I'd have to drop blurred vision, ice spikes, or rez sig in order to include maelstrom.

Loot Junkie · Jan 17, 2007, 08:33 PM // 20:33

Have you considered putting Mark of Subversion on the SV necro's bar?

Divineshadows · Jan 17, 2007, 09:34 PM // 21:34

Quote:

Originally Posted by Loot Junkie

Have you considered putting Mark of Subversion on the SV necro's bar?

Yeah, I wanted it but wasn't sure what could be dropped for it.

The way to think of the SV necro's bar is as it is now is:

Normal play:

- Use SV, scourge healing, and signet of lost souls. Use purge signet to cleanse the dervish or a monk from all hexes or a monk from dazed. Use barbed signet to assist in a "mini-spike" with the dervish and spiritual pain.

Altar play in holding mode:

- Use blood bond a lot and blood rit your defensive characters (monks and even the N/A if called for). Spread life siphon to offset the degen from your blood bonds. Use purge signet whenever the situation is appropriate.

It's basically two distinct bars in one similar to the old practiced/choking gas ranger that became popular when 8v8 was still around. You basically used practiced/choking during normal match play. While other elites and preps (such as apply poison or read the wind) would have better fit whatever team build was being run, the whole point was to get a practiced/seeking guy into altar matches.

I like mark of subversion at high blood on SV necros, despite the long recharge, and even had it in an earlier iteration of the build, but I just don't know what can be dropped from that bar. I guess the most likely candidate is barbed signet and just to pass on any hope of spiking.

Zoo X · Jan 19, 2007, 08:08 AM // 08:08

at the mesmer, mana wise i think it would be much better drop power drain, and get instead GoLE, mantra of recovery is hard to play, we use it at GvG and it works brilliant with GoLE, besides, you wouldn't need to add points into inspiration, also, i would drop spiritual pain and fit wards of stability to help you out at altar maps, or even when facing Thumpers
my 2 cents.