Curse

phoenixtech · Sep 28, 2006, 09:48 PM // 21:48

I have been running this "heavily modified" IWAY build in HA for about 2 weeks or so now, it works very well and lets IWAY hold halls. We run a even more moddified version now but this is what we started with.

http://gwshack.us/f25bf

Standard mods (different people have diff styles so depending on who we take in): Dist blow can be changed to disruptive chop. Furious axe instead of executioner's is also another very common substitution. Depending on PVE equipment (I have no more space on my war), warriors can bring dragon's armor for extra protection since the warrior slots are mostly adren.

NightFall mods:
[build prof=W/P name="Charge War"]["I Will Avenge You!"][Fear Me!][Charge][Wildblow][Song of Concentration][Find Their Weakness][Go for the Eyes!][Resurrection Signet][/build]
[build prof=R/Rt name="full trapper"][Smoke Trap][Barbed Trap][Dust Trap][Flame Trap][Serpents Quickness][Whirling Defence][Frozen Soil][Lively Was Naomei][/build]
[build prof=W/R name="Standard War1"]["I Will Avenge You!"][Fear Me!][Eviscerate][Soldier's Strike][Rush][Distracting Blow][Charm Animal][Resurrection Signet][/build]

The backline is pretty standard full trapper, oathshot (we take out EOE and Pred in our setup since I don't value them) and OOA. The OOP is shifted to a dark fury spammer and can bump up soul reaping/healing and not use a sup rune. The frontline is made up of 4 W/R. The charge + rush combo allows the warriors to counter ward vs foes 50% Slowing effect. Fear Me Spam will quickly e-denial anyone that camps a location (ward campers). Casting of OOA will allow removal of channeling and with NR up channeling is a 2 second cast that the warriors can easily interupt. IWAY allows you to gain 40 seconds of 25% IAS once pets are dead so you aren't affected much by the lack of TF as long as your pets are down. It's your basic melee pressure with e-denial built in.

The beauty of the build comes into play once you get into Halls. The skill "Claim Resource" by ghostly hero uses 5 energy. Once you capture the altar, 4 fear me spamming warriors will e-denial BOTH opposing ghostly heros so that they will just stand there and do nothing once the e-denial sets in. We had several humerous encounter with various guilds (I think iA and bear) a few weeks ago when they were like "ZOMG hero is bugged" and "Don't invite the ghostly he's rank zero".

Depending on who I have on my team, I typically run Famine instead of spike trap. Famine is a holding setup, although it also comes in handy in non-altar matchs. With famine and Mark of Pain. Each fear me spam equates to ~35 damage to both enemy ghostlies, it also adds quite a bit of pressure onto opposing monks, warders, warriors that are all bunched up at the altar.

During the nightfall preview event we also incorporated a few more mods into the build. Specifically smoke trap on the full trapper and W/P on the charge war. Find their weakness makes each wildblow = dismember that cannot miss, cancels stance and hits crit. Song of concentration allows EASY capping. From my tests I believe even PD cannot stop song of concentration buffed ghostly capping since we've came across a few PD mesmers during the preview event and was still able to cap, now it could be from the e-denial of fear me so I can't be certain. Soldier's strike with all of the shouts around (IWAY, Charge, Go for Eyes) is pretty much a never miss +27 damage critical hit that you can spam every 5 seconds.

I like to thank the members of my group (you guys know who you are) for helping develop and refine this build. I'll post a gwshack link once they are back up.

I also like to point out that this build is alot trickier to execute than your traditional IWAY and requires the warriors to understand positioning. Various times we had to take PUG wars or OOAs can't doesn't cast OOA for us to remove channeling and would fail spetacularly and get insulted with remarks such as "I'll give you something to fear" or "Famine is for attaxes" and crap like that. So if you are lower ranked IWAYers attempting this build you better be ready for alot failures before you get any successes.

Our latest mods addresses some of the weakness of this build, but I rather keep those mods to ourselves for now.

phasola · Sep 28, 2006, 11:55 PM // 23:55

#1 : nice post
#2 : no ias ftw

phoenixtech · Sep 29, 2006, 12:05 AM // 00:05

Quote:

Originally Posted by phasola

#1 : nice post
#2 : no ias ftw

Last time I checked IWAY still gave 25% IAS, same amount as the nerfed TF as stated in the post. 25% IAS + Rush Speed buff is the syngergy we wanted in the first place.

Current metagame counter used by balanced builds to heavy melee pressure builds= Ward vs Foes + Melee (Countered by rush + charge +fear me e-denial). Perma rush on wars with 25% IAS from IWAY chasing u makes it hard to kite.

**Marty Silverblade** · Sep 29, 2006, 12:07 AM // 00:07

Looks good. I'll have to try it one day.

Guillaume De Sonoma · Sep 29, 2006, 12:18 AM // 00:18

Try retreat because you have so many dead things and tactics

phoenixtech · Sep 29, 2006, 01:13 AM // 01:13

Quote:

Originally Posted by Guillaume De Sonoma

Try retreat because you have so many dead things and tactics

Actually I did try retreat a while back, it turns out to be too much of a hassle to have your war keep running back to your pet and using it every 20 seconds. Charge also serves as "sprint" for broken tower. Anyways, in a few days i'll prob post the counters to this build and specific instructions on how to take halls from a fear me iway holding setup.

phasola · Sep 29, 2006, 09:35 AM // 09:35

Quote:

Originally Posted by phoenixtech

Last time I checked IWAY still gave 25% IAS, same amount as the nerfed TF as stated in the post. 25% IAS + Rush Speed buff is the syngergy we wanted in the first place.

Current metagame counter used by balanced builds to heavy melee pressure builds= Ward vs Foes + Melee (Countered by rush + charge +fear me e-denial). Perma rush on wars with 25% IAS from IWAY chasing u makes it hard to kite.

unless u run into a team full of fire eles no1 is gonna kill pets first
by the time u get to iway, half ur team is dead

scamPOR · Sep 29, 2006, 10:15 AM // 10:15

Ghostlies need a much larger energy pool... or they need to unglitch the energy thing. It really does seem glitchy right now aside from the not having energy part.

xl3g0lasx · Sep 29, 2006, 10:17 AM // 10:17

nah pets die quickly through the disease and shit
and its not glitched just a "imbalance" they need to fix, make Claim Resource a signet

phoenixtech · Sep 29, 2006, 11:04 AM // 11:04

Quote:

Originally Posted by phasola

unless u run into a team full of fire eles no1 is gonna kill pets first
by the time u get to iway, half ur team is dead

Okay, then don't bring these following skills that are commonly used in the current metagame.

Tainted, earthquake, various AOE fire skill, and your ghostly hero (hard to avoid this one on halls). I'll gladly make that trade anytime cuz i can use pets to bblock people with not to mention that if I really wanted I can just make everyone cap a lvl5 pet everytime.

If they make claim resource a signet then I'll bring primal echos ftw. Also, it's not as bad as you'd think, it's actually pretty damn easy to counter. As I said, once i'm bored with this I'll post the specific counters to it.

phasola · Sep 29, 2006, 11:05 AM // 11:05

Quote:

Okay, then don't bring these following skills that are commonly used in the current metagame.

Tainted, earthquake, various AOE fire skill, and your ghostly hero (hard to avoid this one on halls). I'll gladly make that trade anytime cuz i can use pets to bblock people in.

i dont and i've never had trouble with iway, oh i dont use wards either

audioaxes · Sep 29, 2006, 03:50 PM // 15:50

keep in mind HA and just about all of guild wars in general is becoming less and less populated to the point where anyone can win hoh
and whats with the 13 axe, 11 strength?

Thom Bangalter · Sep 29, 2006, 05:21 PM // 17:21

yeah, drop strength down to increase axe mastery.

as for the build: ran into a fear me! Iway set up last night. It was actually very strong. Considering I was playing warder, I really felt the heat from the energy denial. (I was also tired and forgot to keep focus swapping though--yes I focus swap when warding). The problem with the build is a team that focus swaps can get around energy denial every time. However, due to the nature of claim resource, This does make it easier for iway to prevent other teams from capping. Though I have no idea what your team would do If a meteor shower was dropped on the altar.

However, It's a very strong build, though I'm sure people are going to continue to shit on it because it is Iway, and that's unfortunate.

phoenixtech · Sep 29, 2006, 07:19 PM // 19:19

There's several ways to deal with a MS dropping on the altar one of which requires good w/r that knows the exact range of nearby vs adjacent (most of my regular crew does), and several of us have the preorder spears. The stats I listed are the ones I use. If you want to run -4 fear me (13 tactics breakpoint) and +6 regen IWAY you pretty much have to go with that setup. I've done the 13 tac, 14 axe, 9 str setup before and didn't like it much since I also use alot of auxiliary strength skills such as rush/bulls. I've also tried the -3 fear me (8 tactics breakpoint) and found that to be not as efficient, it's better on other maps but at halls you'll want -4 fear me. Some members of our group runs sword on the wars so they might be running 13tac/14 sword/9 str setup but in general we go with 13/13/11.

Focus swapping is tricky vs fear me spam. The e-denial comes constantly around you and in small packets.

Lews · Sep 29, 2006, 08:36 PM // 20:36

Correct me if I am wrong but iQ originally brought Fear Me when they ran IWAY.

phoenixtech · Sep 29, 2006, 09:23 PM // 21:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lews

Correct me if I am wrong but iQ originally brought Fear Me when they ran IWAY.

I fairly certain it was Izzy who first brought fear me + IWAY.

Lews · Sep 29, 2006, 11:17 PM // 23:17

I did not mean they made it up, I meant that they brought it when they originally ran IWAY.

scamPOR · Sep 30, 2006, 06:32 AM // 06:32

Well we played against this build earlier twice and won both matches. I can't really say that fear me! did much either time... Second match was really long but we wanted to play it safe :P I also watched that same team win halls once and then lose it but nether win nor that loss did fear me! become a major contributor. I really do like the skill but it seems that channeling really overcomes a lot of the shutdown in a tightly packed area like HA. As a build I'm not sure if normal Iway or Fear Me! Iway is "better". I guess they are both relative to the players.

hiredkillerl · Sep 30, 2006, 07:20 AM // 07:20

hey phoenix I think you forgot heal other and enfeeble on the ooa

-poke

phoenixtech · Sep 30, 2006, 09:32 AM // 09:32

Quote:

Originally Posted by scamPOR

Well we played against this build earlier twice and won both matches. I can't really say that fear me! did much either time... Second match was really long but we wanted to play it safe :P I also watched that same team win halls once and then lose it but nether win nor that loss did fear me! become a major contributor. I really do like the skill but it seems that channeling really overcomes a lot of the shutdown in a tightly packed area like HA. As a build I'm not sure if normal Iway or Fear Me! Iway is "better". I guess they are both relative to the players.

Channeling > Fear me. OOA removes channeling. NR = 2 sec recast time easy for wars to interupt. Of course this needs people that understand the build to execute or else your monks will just have channeling up all day. If you have warriors (especially the wb guy) that understands positioning and to WB your monks with OOA up, you will definately feel the e-denial.

Quote:

Originally Posted by hiredkillerl

hey phoenix I think you forgot heal other and enfeeble on the ooa

-poke

Poke u make me a sad panda when u bring your special weapons T.T