Curse

Divineshadows · Jan 09, 2007, 08:39 AM // 08:39

http://gwshack.us/2af63

With 4 strong players, this build gives you a chance to win every match TA match IMO. I specifically built it to counter the hex spamming dual spirit spammer teams (1 N/A, 1 N/Mo, 1 N/Rt, 1 Rt/Mo) and was quite happy to face them 3 times with it -- all flawless. The build is quite fun to run and requires quite a bit of communication so that the interrupters are not on the same targets thus wasting their efforts. Only word of caution is that the build has two rez sigs, so don't die and make sure to rez the person with the other rez sig if you are forced to choose who to rez.

These are the recommended skills for this build, but some minor skill adjustments can be made depending on preference:

- bestial mauling can be replaced for distracting blow if you wish
- guilt can be replaced for mistrust if you wish
- spirit bond can be replaced for mending touch if you wish once the bugged deadly haste combo is fixed so that you don't run into full teams of E/A running ice spear @16 water and casting each spear in 0.05 seconds.

As for rune setups:

- The rampage thumper can run one or two attunement runes depending on preference, but vitae runes are preferred. The rampage thumper can also run a superior beast mastery rune instead of a major if preferred.
- The burning arrow ranger can run an attunement rune, but vitae is preferred.
- The dom mesmer should wear two vitae runes. The major dom rune can be swapped to a minor or superior depending upon preferences.
- The monk should wear a recovery rune (and use a 20% daze reduction shield). The monk should also have one vitae rune. A single minor attribute (either divine favor or prot) rune can be changed to a major rune if you're running mending touch instead of spirit bond.

All armor insignias on all players should be +health and at least one weapon set should give +60 health for each player (the rangers should reserve one weapon set for a shield and sword for this).

Thomas.knbk · Jan 09, 2007, 03:04 PM // 15:04

Wait...so how exactly do you remove conditions from the monk? you haev Draw, but no self removal (other than Purge Signet)

Divineshadows · Jan 09, 2007, 04:48 PM // 16:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thomas.knbk

Wait...so how exactly do you remove conditions from the monk? you haev Draw, but no self removal (other than Purge Signet)

Well, there are three ways actually:

- Ranger uses mending touch on monk for a mere 2 energy. Given this, the monk should stay nearby the ranger as often as possible when facing teams using dazed. The monk also uses the 40% reduced dazed duration and 20% reduced deep wound duration rune + shield. Dazed was still the most common condition that required a mend touch from the ranger. Some deep wounds required mending touch from the ranger, but many others were allowed to simply wear off when the other team was under control. Mending touch was used to clear cripple in some rare circumstances. If some distance separate the monk and ranger the fastest way to close it is for both players to select each other and then press spacebar and have the ranger use natural stride.

- Monk uses purge signet on self. For most conditions, this worked great. Dazed is the exception as any good team using dazed on your monk would interrupt the purge signet somehow.

- Ranger uses purge signet on monk. Kind of a last resort to remove dazed if the ranger and monk happened to be separated by some larger distance due to making a "push" on the opposing monk and our monk getting knocked down while making the push.

As I stated, I normally much prefer to run mending touch instead of spirit bond in that spot on my monk (mending touch on the monk bar rarely helps against dazed though), but I wanted spirit bond to be able to counter teams of 3 or 4 E/A deadly haste, deadly paradox, feigned neutrality ice spear spammers. Purge conditions is also an option to run instead of mending touch or spirit bond.

If your team decides to run this build and keep spirit bond on the monk bar, then that's fine too as this prot is flexible enough to further counter enough different types of damage packets seen in TA and synergizes well with glyph of lesser energy.

TheOneMephisto · Jan 10, 2007, 01:34 AM // 01:34

I don't really like disrupting lunge on the thumper. RaO thumpers are energy-intensive enough that you can't spam disrupting lunge, and disrupting lunge is only really better than distracting blow when it's spammed. I'd run distracting blow or possibly bull's strike in that slot.

Also, I would run with 8+1 FC and 10 air on the mesmer, sacrificing a fraction of a second on casts for another second of blind.

I also don't really think that you should have too much of a problem with ice spear machine-guns, as you do have diversion, guilt, gale, bash, SoA, and shatter enchant. Throw in some smart kiting and dodging, and you should do fine without spirit bond.

Divineshadows · Jan 10, 2007, 02:37 AM // 02:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheOneMephisto

I don't really like disrupting lunge on the thumper. RaO thumpers are energy-intensive enough that you can't spam disrupting lunge, and disrupting lunge is only really better than distracting blow when it's spammed.

The thumper should be using a zealous hammer basically all the time so that disrupting lunge can still be used very often (maybe not on recharge, but every 6 or 7 seconds is fine too). I like distracting blow too and it can be run in place of bestial mauling if the person playing the thumper so prefers. The 20 second skill disable is too much pass up and even if it misses interrupting something, you still get some bonus damage.

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheOneMephisto

Also, I would run with 8+1 FC and 10 air on the mesmer, sacrificing a fraction of a second on casts for another second of blind.

I have a very specific reasoning for this attribute selection:

Good teams in TA use draw, so a longer blind (even if stacked by other conditions) is not going to matter against these such teams in the situations one should actually care about. Being able to cast diversion slightly faster than the mesmer on the opposing team, now that's something I care about. It's important that the mesmer on my side wins the mesmer war or at least has equal footing and I will not sacrafice a skill slot to include a skill such as hex breaker on this memser.

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheOneMephisto

I also don't really think that you should have too much of a problem with ice spear machine-guns, as you do have diversion, guilt, gale, bash, SoA, and shatter enchant. Throw in some smart kiting and dodging, and you should do fine without spirit bond.

Yeah, it's a tough call. When playing monk I really like having mending touch on my bar, but at the same time I really liked have a 4th skill on my bar that casts in 1/4 second. From having played that monk bar with either of these two skills, I know that the bar is functional either way in this build.

Divineshadows · Jan 15, 2007, 07:15 AM // 07:15

I ran some different expirements using variants of this build. The first one focused on adding more control:

- drop spiritual pain for mistrust for extra control over your opposition
- drop spirit bond for gale for extra control over your opposition

The second one focused on adding more conditions and a bit more "raw" damage. While the mesmer is incredibly fun to play, if nobody on your team wants to play a soft caster other than your monk you can drop the mesmer for a condition linebacker to increase raw damage output. It loses a bit of control over casters though:

- Switch mesmer to a warrior with following skills: You're All Alone, Enraging Charge, Hammer Bash, Bull's Strike, Counter Blow, Fierce Blow, Signet of Malice, Rez Signet
- Switch monk secondary to warrior and drop spirit bond for balanced stance and glyph of lesser energy for deadly riposte. Add a major prot rune and run 11+1+2 prot, 10+1 divine favor, and 10 tactics.