Curse

Divineshadows · Feb 12, 2007, 09:23 PM // 21:23

http://gwshack.us/46c12

I designed this build after getting to see what the HA meta was like from playing on Saturday. It's already gone through a few skill changes, but not many (added drain enchant instead of feedback, spirit burn instead of vengeful weapon, shielding hands instead of shield of absorption on the LoD monk, and deep freeze instead of convert hexes).

It's a build that can force kills through pressure or through adrenal spikes (which is important for the 3-way kill count maps unfortunately). It has knockdowns and other disruption for anti-spike measures, vital weapon for use against pure spike teams (most of the HA meta, but not all), spirit bond for pre-protting against certain spikes, and infuse health to react to spike before the after-spike hits.

The biggest down-side of a build like this is that it actually requires 8 players who are good at guild wars, unlike rit spike, blood spike, etc. This makes PUGing this build sub-optimal unfortunately.

I'm looking for a bit of help from the community for any tips on where I could use my attributes a bit more efficiently or any skills that aren't pulling their weight (please suggest more effective replacements).

Here are some of the specific questions I already have on the mind:

- Are 4 rez sigs plus a fast hard rez too much? Could I get by with one less sig?
- Should I boost communing a bit higher on the weapon rit at the expense of a bit of restoration?
- Is weapon of warding even worth it given that the build has b-surge, trident, and aegis chain and basically every shadow prison sin uses exposes defenses anyway? If it's not, then what skill(s) could I use here instead?
- Would disrupting dagger be more useful than distracting blow on the sword warrior?
- Would one skill could I add to make the spirits from rit-spike teams be less annoying? I've thought about unnatural signet, but I don't really want one mesmer to be spending all their time spamming that signet that'll probably just get d-shotted by their ghostly anyway.
- Shielding hands still feels a bit weak even with the buff. Should I switch it back to a second copy of shield of absorption or perhaps have a second copy of spirit bond? Or something else perhaps?

leeky baby · Feb 12, 2007, 10:16 PM // 22:16

Looks like a soild build but the only problem is can it kil fast enough? I played a few rit spikes on Broken Tower today which both got 20+ kills..

I also think infuse on the monk be better because with all the spike going around you need a char contrating on just the infuse not having to do other things..

Anther cry of fustration would be a gd idea aswel so u could alternate inturpts v spike... which would be gd.

Hope this helps

Would one skill could I add to make the spirits from rit-spike teams be less annoying?

Spitual pain? Draw spirt?

Would disrupting dagger be more useful than distracting blow on the sword warrior?

no

hielding hands still feels a bit weak even with the buff. Should I switch it back to a second copy of shield of absorption or perhaps have a second copy of spirit bond? Or something else perhaps?

Prot spirt?

Are 4 rez sigs plus a fast hard rez too much? Could I get by with one less sig?

Do you have gd monks? I would say take a signet...

TheOneMephisto · Feb 12, 2007, 10:44 PM // 22:44

Some suggestions:

I'm not sure on the res sig issue, but I think that you should be okay with 3 + hard res. If you were to drop a res sig, definitely drop the warrior's and put a cancel stance in, as running frenzy without a cancel can be a liability.

Gaze from Beyond looks like a better spike assist than spirit burn, but I don't know whether you want that guy spamming the skill to add to pressure or not. If it's a pure spike assist, then I would go for gaze.

I think weapon of warding is decent, but if I were to drop it vengeful would be a decent replacement.

I personally prefer disrupting dagger, as a ranged interrupt is more useful IMO than the chance that you'll catch someone on the AoE. Disrupting dagger also can't be blocked and still works while evading.

If you don't want shielding hands use prot spirit. Not entirely sure why you'd want 2 copies of spirit bond over a spirit bond + prot spirit, but prot spirit is pretty gold against most forms of spike (nightmare weapon and bloodspike being some exceptions).

I would switch the wastrel's demise and cry of frustration, as a MoR'd cry of frustration can be gold vs spike teams. However, that mesmer might have energy problems with that setup, but he probably won't be using CoF against anything but spike teams either way, so it should be okay.

Is critical chop still worth it after the nerf? Especially over something like a dblow or so? (freeing up a cancel stance on the charge warrior) Haven't really used it since th balance, but I'm not sure if it is worth the slot.

Why doesn't the bsurge ele have lorb or something with a little more punch for the spike? Why have 2 (3 if you count bsurge) spammable air damage spells? Is he going to be spamming them on recharge for pressure?

Divineshadows · Feb 13, 2007, 12:25 AM // 00:25

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheOneMephisto

I'm not sure on the res sig issue, but I think that you should be okay with 3 + hard res. If you were to drop a res sig, definitely drop the warrior's and put a cancel stance in, as running frenzy without a cancel can be a liability.

This is one thought. It was surprising that no team I faced noticed the lack of cancel stance on the sword warrior. However, with the cancel the player playing the warrior might feel more comfortable to frenzy more often

. The options I think are viable are enraging charge (would probably want to hit the 3A breakpoint though meaning lower tactics -- Q_Q) and rush.

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheOneMephisto

Gaze from Beyond looks like a better spike assist than spirit burn, but I don't know whether you want that guy spamming the skill to add to pressure or not. If it's a pure spike assist, then I would go for gaze.

Oh, it sure does, but I had previously considered this. If the other team kills your bloodsong, then gaze does nothing for the spike. Spirit burn still has some unconditional damage. Spirit burn is the spike skill. Essence strike is the spammed pressure skill that doubles as some energy management.

Now that I think more about it though, I'm wondering if wielder's strike would just be the best spiking skill option. The rit can just have vital on self for the spikes and do 108 lightning damage @13 channeling which is the same as gaze from beyond. Also, the way the skill is worded makes me think the damage will come in two packets (which is preferred). For reference, spirit burn does 95 lightning damage @13 channeling when bloodsong is up.

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheOneMephisto

I think weapon of warding is decent, but if I were to drop it vengeful would be a decent replacement.

The problem I was having justifying this skill is that there just aren't that many melee in HA aside from shadow prison sins with expose defenses. Against the ranger spikes, dual aegis, a shields up (which I included more for anti-paragon rather than anti-ranger), and vital weapon just make these teams feel completely throttled.

Vengeful weapon is one of the replacements I am thinking of for warding. The other choices on my radar are wielder's boon and spirit light. Anything useful from a secondary profession for this spot perhaps that would fill some role my build is currently lacking?

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheOneMephisto

I personally prefer disrupting dagger, as a ranged interrupt is more useful IMO than the chance that you'll catch someone on the AoE. Disrupting dagger also can't be blocked and still works while evading.

Good points. This change will be in my next update.

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheOneMephisto

If you don't want shielding hands use prot spirit. Not entirely sure why you'd want 2 copies of spirit bond over a spirit bond + prot spirit, but prot spirit is pretty gold against most forms of spike (nightmare weapon and bloodspike being some exceptions).

Quote:

Originally Posted by leeky baby

Prot spirt?

Spirit bond is the stronger of the two by far. Spirit bond keeps red bars up when used correctly as a pre-prot and when used reactively can keep a player at low health from dying when more damage is incoming. Any competent spike teams are going to have enchantment removal anyway so the long duration on prot spirit and it's ability to be kept on multiple people isn't going to matter. Prot spirit feels more and more to me lately like a PvE skill (where the mobs don't spike you and bosses do double damage) and not a PvP skill. Even against pressure teams in PvP where you are kiting a warrior or dervish that is getting crits on you, I'd rather be enchanted with spirit bond rather than prot spirit in such instances.

In a build like this where no major or superior runes are used such that everyone has 630+ health at 0 morale and ~700 at 10% morale and even more with vital weapon on them, the meager value of prot spirit gets further diminished. Shielding hands ain't much better as far as prot skills go though. Shield of absorption reduces so much more damage, so maybe I should just switch back to that. It doesn't do jack against spike though reactively, but can still be used as a pre-prot against spike.

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheOneMephisto

I would switch the wastrel's demise and cry of frustration, as a MoR'd cry of frustration can be gold vs spike teams. However, that mesmer might have energy problems with that setup, but he probably won't be using CoF against anything but spike teams either way, so it should be okay.

Dropping wastrel's demise would make the build lose a bit off the spike (particularly when the spike target is a caster which HA is flooded with). The guy already has MoR + power leak which the e-denial should really hurt a single spiker on interruption. The better spike teams have only two guys get hit by cry at most.

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheOneMephisto

Is critical chop still worth it after the nerf? Especially over something like a dblow or so? (freeing up a cancel stance on the charge warrior) Haven't really used it since th balance, but I'm not sure if it is worth the slot.

I have only played a monk in this build, so I really don't know. I included it for more damage compression which is basically the same reason I included wastrel's demise. It's still a fast attack that slides between the two adrenal attacks and +dmg even post nerf. Is that bad?

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheOneMephisto

Why doesn't the bsurge ele have lorb or something with a little more punch for the spike? Why have 2 (3 if you count bsurge) spammable air damage spells? Is he going to be spamming them on recharge for pressure?

Oh I forgot to mention that my first version had orb and strike instead of bolt and strike. Zui was playing the bar and mentioned that the 2 second orb was getting interrupted often against good teams or even by the ghostly against bad teams. Bolt, when used to pressure (i.e. no enemy melee to blind), does the same amount of damage as orb against foes kiting from the warrior but in two packets instead. If it misses, then no big deal you only lost 5 energy instead of the 15 from orb. On a spike, it does less damage than orb cause the spike target is often knocked down but actually getting the damage to land was more important to us. He also found he didn't really need the hex removal skill of convert hexes, so he used the extra energy he freed up and dropped convert for deep freeze which is very useful on the 3-way maps and relic runs and situationally useful on annihilation maps.

Quote:

Originally Posted by leeky baby

I also think infuse on the monk be better because with all the spike going around you need a char contrating on just the infuse not having to do other things..

What does the air ele have to do against caster spike teams that's so important? He can gale a spiker on their spike and then subsequently infuse the spike target. He can use lightning bolt on a target kiting from a warrior to pressure a bit. He assists on our own spikes, but you can avoid spiking while they're spiking. Honestly, it's even easier for an ele to pay attention to the opposing players to watch for spikes than for a monk IMO. Especially the rit spikes, because their spikes are frequent enough that the monks actually feel like they're playing against a pressure team at times rather than a spike team. I think most good players in the game that are familiar with playing a monk and are familiar with using gale effectively can handle a bit of multi-tasking.

Quote:

Originally Posted by leeky baby

Spitual pain? Draw spirt?

Spiritual pain is just so weak now and unless they bunch all of their spirits together it's going to consume a lot of energy and time just to take out one spirit. Please explain which skill you meant instead of draw spirit for countering spirits.

TheOneMephisto · Feb 13, 2007, 01:37 AM // 01:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by Divineshadows

Dropping wastrel's demise would make the build lose a bit off the spike (particularly when the spike target is a caster which HA is flooded with). The guy already has MoR + power leak which the e-denial should really hurt a single spiker on interruption. The better spike teams have only two guys get hit by cry at most.

You'd still have Wastrel's Demise, just on a different mesmer. Use CoF on the MoR mesmer, replace CoF on the other mesmer with wastrel's demise. I just think that a MoR'd CoF is more useful than an MoR's wastre's demise, especially if you can afford it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Divineshadows

I have only played a monk in this build, so I really don't know. I included it for more damage compression which is basically the same reason I included wastrel's demise. It's still a fast attack that slides between the two adrenal attacks and +dmg even post nerf. Is that bad?

It isn't really bad, the question is is whether that extra hit is worth the skill slot. If you drop it for distracting blow, that frees up your first warrior to have a cancel stance, which allows him to frenzy much more freely. Is the extra bit of damage on spikes more important or is the extra pressure you get from more frenzy more important? I don't know since I haven't played the build, but it's something to consider.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Divineshadows

Vengeful weapon is one of the replacements I am thinking of for warding. The other choices on my radar are wielder's boon and spirit light. Anything useful from a secondary profession for this spot perhaps that would fill some role my build is currently lacking?

If you don't think the slot is worth it you can always go for gale. Even after the nerf, it is still a very good skill that can be used for relics, opening windows to get kills, and to snare a fleeing opponent on 3-ways and stuff.

Divineshadows · Feb 13, 2007, 06:23 PM // 18:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheOneMephisto

You'd still have Wastrel's Demise, just on a different mesmer. Use CoF on the MoR mesmer, replace CoF on the other mesmer with wastrel's demise. I just think that a MoR'd CoF is more useful than an MoR's wastre's demise, especially if you can afford it.

Hmm...I'll really have to think about that one. While you have a very valid point about how MoR really doesn't help wastrel's demise and how it would help cry, my original thinking was to have the interrupts distributed between the two mesmers. Moving cry to the MoR mesmer would give the Trident mesmer no interrupt. In addition, the trident mesmer has glyph lesser to more easily afford cry (and shatter). Moving wastrel's demise to the trident mesmer would put both the follow-ups to e-burn (shatter and wastrel's) on the that mesmer with no follow-up on the other. The two mesmer builds would have to be shuffled around a bit more than simply moving cry onto the MoR mesmer and moving wastrel's demise onto the trident mesmer in order to satisfy my desires. The solution is not readily coming to me.

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheOneMephisto

It isn't really bad, the question is is whether that extra hit is worth the skill slot. If you drop it for distracting blow, that frees up your first warrior to have a cancel stance, which allows him to frenzy much more freely. Is the extra bit of damage on spikes more important or is the extra pressure you get from more frenzy more important? I don't know since I haven't played the build, but it's something to consider.

Moving the interrupt to the other warrior would leave the charge warrior with no disruptive utility. I want skill bars that scale well as player skill goes up and a distributed defense. Warmonger's is intended more for the axe warrior than the sword, though it can be placed on either.

When I finally got two good warriors in this build Sunday (Zui and Warskull), the axe warrior often had executioner's still available even after spiking and killing. Sometimes he still had crit chop as well. This meant that we could call another spike immediately following the previous spike while their monks were under so much pressure and their team was attempting to rez. We'd just ask our casters to throw whatever they could into the 2nd "mini" spike.

Ok, so here's the idea that came to me on how to allow the sword warrior to frenzy more freely while simultaneously adding a skill that would allow this build to play more aggressively against rit spikes. Rit spikes overload on lightning damage. They put all their eggs into that one basket. My thought is to punish them for making such a retarded play (requires a full team of competent players which are so rare in guild wars). Have your entire team bring a shield with +10 AL v lightning and a +5 armor weapon in the pack. Drop the rez sig from the sword warrior, increase his tactics spec to 13, and add watch yourself. Have your team stay within the shout range (but not adjacent to each other as you want to avoid to smallish AoE in case they are using ancestor's rage). At 60 AL, a 16 spec gaze hits for 124 damage. At 105 AL, a 16 spec gaze hits for a laughable 57 damage. I tested this in my guild hall last night cause it was a bit faster than just plugging number's into Ensign's damage formulas. I am not exactly certain how many spikers most rit spike teams have, but I'd wager to guess it is 6 or 7 and the majority of them are stupid and use superior channeling runes. In the worst case, 7 * 57 = 399 damage. Completely laughable. As opposed to before when they hit a player who sucks at guild wars (i.e. cannot properly prepare and use weapon sets against rit spikes) they would do 7 * 124 = 868 damage.

Now that you have a strategy for neutering any spike that depends upon armor (bring cold shields for deathly swarm spikes, fire shields for shadow prison/savannah heat spikes, piercing shields for paragon spikes, etc.), it allows your team to play more aggressively by interrupting their defensive stuff instead of focusing so much attention on disrupting their spikes. The two warriors in this build would have 96+15+22=133 AL v element of choice depending upon the type of spike team you're facing. So, you just order them to frenzy away. Since most spike players suck at guild wars, they won't kite and even if they do a bit you have charge, bull's strike, shock, gale, deep freeze, and trident. Under frenzy, you warriors will have 93 AL v that element of their damage type which will actually be slightly below that of your casters. So now you've just made your warriors their "best" spike targets. Not an optimal situation for your opponents by any means and your monks can easily keep prot on the two warriors while healing incidental damage that would occur to your casters.

But wait, it gets better. Now that you don't have to worry about interrupting rit spikes, you tell your team to disrupt as many spirits from being placed as you can and to aggressively clean up spirits. As for your power leak and power drain interrupts that cannot interrupt spirits, have that mesmer try to hit Aegis, wards, or other spells that highly contribute to their defense. Once you have them without spirits, the rit spikes are quite naked defensively, cannot use gaze from beyond, and get to sac 17% health everytime they use offering of spirit (provided your rit didn't stick bloodsong right in their face). Chances are their team will rage out early, before you get the pleasure of killing all of them through complete domination, after seeing the stupidly low damage numbers from their skills when they attempt spike after spike on your mesmers, ele, and monks.

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheOneMephisto

If you don't think the slot is worth it you can always go for gale. Even after the nerf, it is still a very good skill that can be used for relics, opening windows to get kills, and to snare a fleeing opponent on 3-ways and stuff.

Eh, I'm honestly not that impressed with the new gale. The only reason I have an E/Mo in my build is because I wanted things like infuse, draw, deep freeze, and blinding surge (which is still decent under air attunement). Gale is simply better than other options for this guy's remaining slot, but it was not selected on the strength of gale itself which kinda blows as a 2 second knockdown (A-net, can my ele use stonefist insignia on the hand armor pretty please??). Instead, it was selected due to lack of better options. I briefly thought about an air/fire mix for this ele since fire offers a much better spike assist such as liquid flame, but that would lower the value on air attunement. I also thought about water, but water's best spike assists are 2 second casts (ice spikes and vapor blade which gets raped by enchants).

I could make the ele pure water for a 2nd trident (which would be the guy's spike assist), water attune, a strong deep freeze, and broken burst, but then how you deal with all the retarded shadow prison assassins running around in HA? It's not like you're going to get blurred vision to stick in a build with a bunch of short duration hexes. Therein lies the quandry.

Ok, back onto the topic of the rit. I think I have figured out what I want from his bar. Rather than dropping weapon of warding for another defensive skill, I think using an offensive skill in it's spot would be stronger especially with having watch yourself in the build. So, the bar I'm thinking of goes like this:

Remedy Weapon {E}, Vital Weapon, Warmonger's Weapon, Wielder's Strike, Essence Strike, Bloodsong, Ancestor's Rage, Rez Sig

with new attributes of 14 channeling, 11 communing, and 9 restoration to make for a stronger vital weapon and a bit more power on the channeling nukes. Here's the new build I've come up with:

http://gwshack.us/45bbc

Pandora Misfit · Feb 14, 2007, 02:27 PM // 14:27

Hey. I played the E/Mo BSurge Infuser last night. I noticed two things:

1) I'm not sure how good the infuse on the E/Mo bar is as opposed to the ZB Bar. The only reason is that I know I infused some players instead of letting the ZB get a free heal. When I use a ZB Bar I typically bring infuse with me, and Zb is usually a last case scenario. My worry is, once a bar goes below 50% health, there is a much better chance that that target may likely get spiked down to 0% health in a matter of a second or two. Clearly my infuses mess up a ZB's energy management. Any thoughts here? Perhaps just better communication?

2) Because of the amount of spirits found in HA at the moment, would it be worth bringing some form of AoE damage to wipe the spirits out? The problem with putting a warrior on the spirits is that 1) They get raised much quicker than a typical oath shot ranger could, 2) They actually do damage, knockdowns, blind, etc... So putting a body in the middle of that makes that character quite vulnerable and weakens the effectiveness of the team as a whole (IMO).

Otherwise, it was a pleasure playing with everyone. I'm only a r6 nub, so the experience was extremely valuable when deciding on builds and how to run them...understanding why 2 monks > 3 monks, bringing an godly amount of weapon sets for all situations, etc, etc.

Divineshadows · Feb 14, 2007, 08:15 PM // 20:15

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pandora Misfit

1) I'm not sure how good the infuse on the E/Mo bar is as opposed to the ZB Bar.

The ZB monk has a high specced spirit bond. Putting infuse and spirit bond on the ZB monk's bar would mean that the two good monk skills for dealing with spikes are on the same bar. That's something I really want to avoid.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pandora Misfit

The only reason is that I know I infused some players instead of letting the ZB get a free heal. When I use a ZB Bar I typically bring infuse with me, and Zb is usually a last case scenario. My worry is, once a bar goes below 50% health, there is a much better chance that that target may likely get spiked down to 0% health in a matter of a second or two. Clearly my infuses mess up a ZB's energy management. Any thoughts here? Perhaps just better communication?

Better communication would have helped. The ele bar happens to be the most complicated bar in the build to play. I've had quite a few different players on that ele bar and it worked best when infuse was used very infrequently against teams that were not running pure spike.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pandora Misfit

2) Because of the amount of spirits found in HA at the moment, would it be worth bringing some form of AoE damage to wipe the spirits out? The problem with putting a warrior on the spirits is that 1) They get raised much quicker than a typical oath shot ranger could, 2) They actually do damage, knockdowns, blind, etc... So putting a body in the middle of that makes that character quite vulnerable and weakens the effectiveness of the team as a whole (IMO).

Well, I'm all ears to anyone who can help me fit some good AoE into the build. Spiritual pain sucks now. Same with energy surge. So mesmer AoE is out of the question.

As far as ele AoE goes for clearing spirits, I would prefer options that can be used from range (so that rules out things like frozen burst and flame burst as a counter to spirit fields). This leaves just a paltry selection of good ele AoE skills for dealing with spirits -- fireball, liquid flame, searing heat, and well that's it really. Savannah heat is elite and it's recharge blows. Water hex skills cannot even target spirits (though the AoE on deep freeze is large enough that you'll hit spirits when targetting people near spirits but it has to be at high spec to do good damage to the spirits). Sandstorm is garbage. Searing flames makes for a very one-dimensional character and isn't even that good anymore except in packs of 3 or more searing flames eles.

Then there is rit AoE which consists of ancestor's rage (which my new version of the build has), spirit rift, destructive was glaive, cruel was daoshen, and grasping was kuurong. Notice that most of those skills suck. The only non-elite options for destroying enemy spirits are signet of creation (which at low spawning spec looks decent, but I would hate having to wait 30 seconds for the effect and by that time they would have crapped out a whole new field of spirits) and gaze of fury which only deals with one problematic spirit every 30 seconds.

Good AoE options in this game are quite limited.

Then there is the dervish, who has strong AoE by just using scythe auto-attacks and has the best spirit counter in the game in banishing strike. A dervish with:

ebon dust aura {E}, imbue health, banishing strike, crippling sweep, mystic sweep, chilling victory, rush, rez sig

would fill some of the same roles as the ele, but the key skills that would be lost are draw conditions, deep freeze, and gale. Crippling sweep adds a snare back in. Chilling+mystic would be the spike skills. Banishing would own spirits. Infuse would have to moved onto the LoD monk in place of gift.

Speaking of which here's revision 3 of the build:

http://gwshack.us/017e9

Now the question is, is it better or worse than version 2?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pandora Misfit

Otherwise, it was a pleasure playing with everyone. I'm only a r6 nub, so the experience was extremely valuable when deciding on builds and how to run them...understanding why 2 monks > 3 monks, bringing an godly amount of weapon sets for all situations, etc, etc.

Awesome.

Divineshadows · Feb 16, 2007, 09:38 PM // 21:38

Well, didn't get any feedback on revision 3, but I decided I don't like it much since the ebon dust dervish would not be able to keep up with shadow prison assassins.

Anwyay, scratch version 3 and please compare version 2 to versions 4 & 5. Which one of these is best?

http://gwshack.us/45bbc - version 2

http://gwshack.us/1708e - version 4

http://gwshack.us/eb47e - version 5

TheOneMephisto · Feb 16, 2007, 10:52 PM // 22:52

I like version 4, but with some modifications, mostly purge sig over veil on the monk. One veil on the ele should be okay, and I really like purge sig better than veil personally.

On version 5, I like the axe war better than the dervish personally, but both work at their jobs very well. Also, 2 copies of water trident just seems like too much. However, you could run dual MoR dom mesmers and that water ele, and you'd have some major fun with diversion spamming. Even if you're having problems with sins, just diversion spam their faces off and you're good.