Curse

Jupiter Exsurgo · Oct 22, 2006, 01:48 PM // 13:48

Me and a few guildies are trying to get the glad title, got 6 points so far wooooh (yes just 6 all lol)!! So anyway we are trying to create a build that can get us glad points fast, have i hit a winner or is it a stinker? The idea behind this build is for the assassin to attack using frenzy whilst the smiter maintains judges insight, rof and guardian on him, ranger is to spam cripple and interupt monks when he can. You views pls

Assassin/Warrior
Lv 20
Dagger 12 + 3
Crit 12 + 2[/B]
1. Frenzy
2. Skull Crack (elite)
3. Disrupting Stab
4. Fox Fangs
5. Horns Of The Ox
6. Falling Spider
7. Twisting Fangs
8. Rez Signet

Ranger/Mesmer
Lv20
Expertise 11 + 3
Wilderness 8 + 1
Marksmenship 8 + 1
Illusion 9

1. Crippling Shot (elite)
2. Distracting Shot
3. Savage Shot
4. Needling Shot
5. Apply Poison
6. Troll Ugent
7. Distortion
8. Res Sig

Monk/Mesmer
Lv20
Smite 12 + 2
Protection 9 + 1
Divine 9+ 1

1. Air Of Enchantment (elite)
2. RoF
3. Guardian
4. Zealiots Fire
5. Smite Hex
6. Judges Insight
7. Draw Conditions
8. Rez Signet

Monk/Mesmer
Lv20
Divine 12 + 2
Protection 9 + 1
Inspiration 9 + 1

1. Blessed Light (elite)
2. RoF
3. Protective spirit
4. Mend Aliment
5. Inspired Hex
6. Drain Enchantment
7. Signet of Devotion
8. Gift of Health

skillsbas8 · Oct 22, 2006, 05:34 PM // 17:34

A few things I noticed:
1. No stance cancel for frenzy on the sin
2. Substitute needling
3. With skull crack on sin and the high attack rate disrupting stab might not be necessary, especially with cripshot's interupts

Jupiter Exsurgo · Oct 22, 2006, 05:59 PM // 17:59

Thx for your comments mate. First thing is hopefully i wont have to cancel frenzy as i have the smiter casting rof/guardian on him, he should be ok. If the smiter gets distracted then the sins not to use frenzy. Need the disrupting stab as backup if ranger is elsewhere and i also need it to start the combo, lead attack. With needling shot, ive noticed that not many peeps like it. Ive used it now for quite a while and find it to be very good. The reason for this is if the sin putting pressure on the monk gets him under 50% health, (he better or he wont be playing next time!) then needle shot is spammable and does around 20 dam, might not seem alot but thats per second, it only cost 5 energy so with high expertise next to nothing. As a support character i find this skill perfect for finishing players off, i dont use it in any other way.

Why dont players like needling shot pls explain?

Zui · Oct 22, 2006, 07:56 PM // 19:56

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jupiter Exsurgo

Why dont players like needling shot pls explain?

For the most part, people don't like it because there's almost always somthing better you can run instead of it, either to get a different, more desirable effect, or to get a similar effect.

Since you want to use it to finish people off, let's compare it to Marauder's Shot. At 10 Marksmanship, Needling Shot does +15 damage, anad Marauder's Shot does +27 Damage. Needling Shot recharges instantly if it strikes a foe under 50% life, otherwise it has a 4s recharge time, and Needling Shot has a 1s activation time. Marauder's Shot disables everything except your attack skills for 5 seconds when used, but this isn't really a huge issue. It has a 6 second recharge. Needling Shot costs 5 energy, and Marauder's Shot costs 10 energy.

Now, Needling Shot doesn't appear to be that bad when you look at it like that. However, odds are your target won't be under 50% health for long(they'll die, or be healed and live), so the extra recharge on it most likely won't matter. However, let's assume you get it in twice, which costs you 10 energy, before expertise. That's +30 damage. Marauder's Shot only does +27 for the same energy cost! However, Marauder's Shot is a larger packet of damage, meaning you get more of a spike effect. In addition, you can do Marauder's + Savage Shot if you really want to try and get a kill.

In terms of finishing people off, Marauder's > Needling. Unless the other team sucks, in which case it doesn't matter what you use because you've already won.

As for your build, here's my suggestions:

Ranger:

Run 15 or 16 expertise. Drop Illusion Magic down to 3.

Ditch Troll, it's good and all, but you already have one charactar devoted to defense, and another one that can be tasked to it. There's also no reason you would ever need it, unless you're up against a degen team, in which case it's going to get interrupted anyway. The reason you see Troll in GvGs is mostly because you want to give the charactar some solo survivability, so they can go defend base ganks without a Monk, or go solo NPCs. In Team Arenas, your team is going to be together the entire time, so it's not needed for that purpose.

Ditch Needling Shot. Reasons already explained.

Replace Trolls' slot with either Debilitating Shot, or Inspired Hex(1 spec).

Replace Needling Shot with Marauder's Shot, Inspired Hex(1 spec), or Blackout(6 spec).

Monk:

This is Team Arenas, you can pretty safely run a Superior Divine Favor on this guy. If you ever actualy die in Team Arenas because you don't have the health(aka spike), replace your entire team, because they're unable to effectively disrupt any kind of spike.

Protective Spirit in Team Arenas is honestly not worth it. The amount of damage you're going to mitigate with it is not worth bringing it, or casting it if you have it.

You don't have any Healing Prayers spec on your Blessed Light. Your Gift of Health is going to suffer.

Since you already have an off monk copy of Draw Conditions, you misewell Mend Condition on this guy.

All in All, though, I'd honestly consider running a Boonprot, or a different version of a Blessed Light here.

Smiter:

You don't have Balthazar's Aura :*( You also don't have a good cover enchantment for Zealot's Fire, which means any good team with any enchantment removal is going to reduce you damage output by ALOT.

You could honestly run a Superior on this guy, too.

Assassin:

Interesting bar, but I just don't think he's that great. You don't have a cancel stance for Frenzy, or a speed buff. I realise that he will probably be under Guardian/RoF a good amount of the time, but you can't always guarntee that, and honestly a team could shut down your smiter, shatter/drain Guardian/RoF, and then own your Assassin. Or they could just d-shot Guardian, blackout the smiter, and own your Assassin...

Skull Crack is a cool skill. But it's fairly useless. Any descent team is not going to be hurt by Dazed, either because they don't ever let you inflict it, it doesn't even matter to them, or because they're just going to remove it less than a second after it's put on a charactar.

I'd suggest just running 13 Critical Strikes. There's not much point in loosing 35 more health on top of your Superior just to get some small damage out of Twisting Fangs. 13 is the important breakpoint for Critical Strikes, so just run that.

All in all, I don't know if an Assassin is the best guy for the role here. He has a long chain, that's very easy to shut down. Plus, since you're using Judge's Insight maybe a Warrior would be better here, because they do more base damage. At the very least, though, consider a Shove Assassin.

Just so you can see what some of the changes would look like a bit easier:

Crippling Shot Ranger
Ranger/Mesmer

12*+1+3 Expertise
9+1 Marksmanship
9+1 Wilderness Survival
3 Illusion Magic

1. Crippling Shot [Elite] (Marksmanship)
2. Apply Poison (Wilderness Survival)
3. Distracting Shot (Expertise)
4. Savage Shot (Marksmanship)
5. Debilitating Shot (Non-Attributed)
6. Marauder's Shot* (Marksmanship)
7. Distortion (Illusion Magic)
8. Resurrection Signet (Non-Attributed)

Note(*): Marauder's Shot could be replaced by Blackout (Domination Magic). If this is done, drop Expertise down to 11+1+3, and put 6 points into Domination Magic. Marauder's Shot could also be replaced with Inspired Hex, if this is done simply put your one remaining point into Inspiration Magic. I'd really suggest running Blackout instead of Marauder's Shot or Inspired Hex.

AoE Smiter
Monk/Mesmer

12+1+3 Smiting Prayers
11+1 Protection Prayers
5+1 Divine Favor
4 Inspiration Magic

1. Air of Enchantment [Elite] (Protection Prayers)
2. Reversal of Fortune (Protection Prayers)
3. Guardian (Protection Prayers)
4. Zealot's Fire (Smiting Prayers)
5. Balthazar's Aura (Smiting Prayers)
6. Channeling (Inspiration Magic)
7. Draw Conditions (Protection Prayers)
8. Resurrection Signet (Non-Attributed)

Boonprot
Monk/Mesmerp

12+1+3 Divine Favor
8+1 Protection Prayers
10 Inspiration Magic

1. Divine Boon (Divine Favor)
2. Reversal of Fortune (Protection Prayers)
3. Mend Condition (Protection Prayers)
4. Guardian* (Protection Prayers)
5. Signet of Devotion (Divine Favor)
6. Holy Veil (Non-Attributed)
7. Inspired Hex (Inspiration Magic)
8. Mantra of Recall [Elite] (Inspiration Magic)

Note(*): Guardian can be replaced by Mend Ailment. The only reason I'd reccomend having one of those two is because it's ideal to have two self heals. The reason I picked Guardian instead is is synergizes nicely with Air of Enchantment, and because it can be very useful when the smiter is trying to cast Balthazar's Aura or even Zealot's Fire against teams with a descent amount of Ranger interrupts. It sucks if you have to have your smiter cast Guardian on himself first, lol. That, and because you already have Draw on your Smiter, so running a third condition removal would absolutly be overkill.

Suggestions for your Melee:

Shove Assassin
Assassin/Warrior

12+1+3 Dagger Mastery
12+1 Critical Strikes
3 Tactics

1. Shove [Elite] (Tactics)
2. Falling Spider (Dagger Mastery)
3. Twisting Fangs (Critical Strikes)
4. Disrupting Stab (Dagger Mastery)
5. Fox Fangs (Dagger Mastery)
6. Horns of the Ox (Dagger Mastery)
7. Wild Blow* (Non-Attributed)
8. Resurrection Signet (Non-Attributed)

Note(*): Could easily be reaplced with Distracting Blow if you want. I picked Wild Blow because stances will screw you over entirely.

Shock Axe
Warrior/Elementalist

12+1+3 Axe Mastery
11+1 Strength
6 Air Magic

1. Shock (Air Magic)
2. Eviscerate [Elite] (Axe Mastery)
3. Executioner's Strike (Axe Mastery)
4. Disrupting Chop (Axe Mastery)
5. Bull's Strike (Strength)
6. Rush (Strength)
7. Frenzy (Non-Attributed)
8. Resurrection Signet (Non-Attributed)

Jupiter Exsurgo · Oct 23, 2006, 07:30 AM // 07:30

Thanks for taking the time to write such a long reply, this may sound like a cop out, but skull crack was meant to be shove

so my bad. I ran this build last night and the damage we were getting was amazing, we got 1 glad point and a 7 win and 8 win so theres def room for improvement. Your points are noted and i'll see what i can change today. Thanks again

Last thing though, i still think needle shot has a place in this build. I hear what your saying, marauders does more damage with one arrow. But if your trying to kill someone off and i know you mentioned that a monk isnt gonna be under 50% for long, but hes gonna be at one point depended on the monks skills, so when he is needle shot "moves faster than normal" meaning a faster attack rate and you can keep spamming the skill untill you get the kill or untill he gets healed over 50% in which case you deal with the 4 second recharge.

So if a monk is under 50% health and lets say he is for 6 seconds for arguments sake.

in 6 seconds Marauders will strike for max 30 dam based at 12 marksmenship and you cant use another attack skill for 5 seconds. Abit harsh when your trying to kill someone.

in 6 seconds you will deal 102 dam based at 12 marksmenship and these arrows move faster meaning more chance of hitting.

This only only one skill slot so i feel for the dam you can get just in those circumstances, its needling shot FTW here

kazz · Oct 23, 2006, 11:56 PM // 23:56

http://gw.gamewikis.org/wiki/Needling_Shot

Needling Shot does only 17 damage, not +17. So ever if you do get 5 needling shots off, you're probably doing less damage than auto-attacking.

So marauder's shot is definitely the way to go.

TheOneMephisto · Oct 24, 2006, 08:36 PM // 20:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jupiter Exsurgo

Last thing though, i still think needle shot has a place in this build. I hear what your saying, marauders does more damage with one arrow. But if your trying to kill someone off and i know you mentioned that a monk isnt gonna be under 50% for long, but hes gonna be at one point depended on the monks skills, so when he is needle shot "moves faster than normal" meaning a faster attack rate and you can keep spamming the skill untill you get the kill or untill he gets healed over 50% in which case you deal with the 4 second recharge.

So if a monk is under 50% health and lets say he is for 6 seconds for arguments sake.

in 6 seconds Marauders will strike for max 30 dam based at 12 marksmenship and you cant use another attack skill for 5 seconds. Abit harsh when your trying to kill someone.

in 6 seconds you will deal 102 dam based at 12 marksmenship and these arrows move faster meaning more chance of hitting.

This only only one skill slot so i feel for the dam you can get just in those circumstances, its needling shot FTW here

If Marauder's Shot hits, you strike for +10..30 damage and all your non-attack skills are disabled for 5 seconds.

Needling Shot strikes for only 5..17 damage and moves faster than normal. If Needling Shot strikes a foe below 50% Health, Needling Shot recharges instantly.

Needling shot sucks, marauder's shot rocks.

Jupiter Exsurgo · Oct 24, 2006, 08:40 PM // 20:40

Ok, looks like ive been stood corrected

Deathly_Overlord · Oct 30, 2006, 09:40 PM // 21:40

With that modified cripshot ranger, what armour, weps, runes and stuff does it use? what would you recoment for max energy on a ranger?

Darkpower Alchemist · Nov 04, 2006, 05:58 AM // 05:58

Needling Shot doesn't suck. It is an aquired taste. It is solid if you plan a spike build with multiple rangers. Marauder's Shot is really good, unless you are trap heavy or stance dependent(Whirling Defense),escaping will also be hindered if the MS Ranger is attacked while using the skill.

Needling shot works best when mixed in an Interupter build. It all looks the same to your target, and its hard to time a response in between the needling and interupts.

But, if it's overall damage you are looking for, the Marauder's Shot would be obviously more effective.

Etrik · Nov 19, 2006, 01:40 PM // 13:40

FYI: Needling + CG with a Shortbow and Flurry on a caster below 50% health equals no spells getting off.

Zui · Nov 19, 2006, 07:02 PM // 19:02

Quote:

Originally Posted by Etrik

FYI: Needling + CG with a Shortbow and Flurry on a caster below 50% health equals no spells getting off.

Unless someone shuts you down with Blackout, or Diversion, or Distracting Shot, or sticks a Warrior/RaO Thumper on you. Oh, or you get snared(or even not snared) and the Monk goes and hides behind an object, since you can't hit through walls. Oh, I almost forgot, they can interrupt Choking Gas too...

baxtaber · Nov 21, 2006, 12:48 PM // 12:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by Etrik

FYI: Needling + CG with a Shortbow and Flurry on a caster below 50% health equals no spells getting off.

Yeah, that was a fun build that I tried in RA after my bro showed it to me. Works great against RA Monks and uncoordinated teams.