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Sep 18, 2006, 10:48 PM // 22:48
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#1 |
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Krytan Explorer
Join Date: Apr 2006
Location: Australia
Guild: [MMAD]
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Condition/Pressure Build.
After a fair bit of time playing HA and GvG, I'm getting interested in TA. Now, before you all rip me to pieces, I'm not especially good at 4 man builds and this will be my first go at trying something out of the ordinary.
Monk is unusual I admit, but while running a Blight monk it seemed that they mainly used BL as a hex+condition removal rather than a heal, hence a booned ER to save 3 energy here and there. Tested in RA and the monk seemed to be useful and didn't appear to have the energy problems I thought they were going to have. Dual Blackout so it can be used offensively against casters and defensively against warriors. Suggestions and help appreciated, don't bother with posts such as "that sucks" give me the numbers/reasons WHY it sucks so I can improve it please. Warrior/Necromancer Hammer Mastery: 16 Strength: 13 Fierce Blow Devasting Hammer [Elite] Crushing Bow Irresistable Blow Rush Plague Touch Rez Signet Frenzy Ranger/Mesmer Wilderness Survival: 14 Expertise: 12 Domination: 6 Melandru's Arrows [Elite] Savage Shot Distracting Shot Barbed Trap Whirling Defence Drain Enchantment Blackout Rez Signet Ranger/Mesmer Wilderness Survival: 11 Expertise: 15 Domination: 6 Crippling Shot [Elite] Savage Shot Distracting Shot Apply Poison Whirling Defence Flame Trap Blackout Rez Signet Monk/Mesmer DF: 14 Protection: 12 Inspiration: 10 Empathic Removal [Elite] Reversal Of Fortune Guardian Mend Condition Protective Spirit Divine Boon Drain Enchantment Inspired Hex |
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Sep 19, 2006, 04:44 AM // 04:44
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#2 | |
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Desert Nomad
Join Date: Mar 2006
Guild: The Benecia Renovatio [RenO]
Profession: Mo/
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Quote:
For the Monk, I'd drop Protective Spirit. For the most part in Team Arenas, it's trash. You're just not going to mitigate enough damage to make it worth it most of the time, there are very little pure spikes in Team Arenas, and most of the (adrenal) spikes you do see don't consist of more than two sources of damage that are over ~50. I'd replace it with somthing like Hex Breaker, at 2-3 spec, or Signet of Devotion. I'm not sure if I like this monk better than a Booner or Blessed Light for Team Arenas, but it's certainly interesting and fits this style of this build well. For your Monks attributes, I'd reccomend lowering Prot alittle and jacking up Divine Favor. 16 Divine, 9/10 Protection, and 9/10 Inspiriation should be pretty good. I don't see the few possible points of healing you get from Reversal of Fortunte and the 4-6% increased chance to block on Guardian being worth the additional heal that higher Divine Favor nets you from Divine Favor, and from Divine Boon. Mostly because you'll rarely get that extra healing from Reversal of Fortune, and most good teams either won't let you cast Guardian much at all, or their melee will just switch targets the second they see the casting animation on someone, basicly making the extra chance to block on Guardian mostly worthless, and the extra healing on Reversal worthless. For the Crippshot, I'd replace Whirling Defense with Distortion. The reasons are as follows, Distortion is awesome against an adrenal spike all the time, where Whirling Defense is good once every minute. Team Arenas matches last about 2 minutes on average, against good teams. Whirling Defense and Guardian are also somewhat redundant, as they both serve roughly the same purpose. Yet another reason is Wild Blow is becoming more common in the Team Arenas metagame, and we all know that someone hitting that ~3 seconds after you hit Whirling Defense means you didn't get much out of your stance. If they do that on Distortion, you can just Distortion again, and make them Wild Blow you, again. Plus, you can use Distortion to cover important skills like Apply Poison, or Resurrection Signet. Melandru's/Crippshots/Oath Trappers are fairly common in Team Arenas now, and just about every one of them runs Distracting Shot, and the former two run Savage Shot as well. An opposing ranger D-Shotting Apply Poison is a great way to take some pressure of their Monk, and make removing Cripple a bit less stressfull, and having your Resurrection Signet get off or not can make or break a close game. Basicly, Distortion > Whirling Defense in a Team Arenas setting, and IMHO it does in a GvG setting too. I'd drop Flame Trap on this guy for Debilitating Shot. The reason being is Debilitating Shot is an insane amount of pressure, even more than Flame Trap would get you in this build. Plus, you can pick who you use Debilitating Shot on, so it's more versatile. With the combination of Whirling Defense and Flame Trap that you had, most good teams would have just wanded your Flame Trap to interrupt it 2/3 of the time anyway. Another question, where is your Marksmanship? I'd reccomend running attributes somthing like what I have below if you decide to make the changes I have suggested. 11+1+3 Expertise 9+1 Wilderness Survival 9+1 Marksmanship 3 Illusion Magic 6 Domination Magic For the Melandru's, again, Distortion > Whirling Defense. The Team Arenas metagame isn't very enchantment heavy right now, so I don't think the second copy of Drain Enchantment is really worth it, so I'd drop it for another copy of Debilitating Shot. Like I already said, the pressure from it is absolutly amazing. You don't have any Marksmanship listed for this build, either, so I'll just give you the attributes I usualy run on Melandru's Rangers in Team Arenas. I don't usualy run Blackout on them, though, so you'll have to adjust for that. 3 Illusion Magic 12+1 Expertise 9+2 Wilderness Survival 9+2+1 Marksmanship. For the Warrior, it looks pretty good. You don't see Plauge Touch much anymore, or Hammer Warriors for that matter, at least in TA, but it fits this build nicely. It's a fairly solid build if run well. I used to run somthing like this about two months ago in Team Arenas, I ran an entirely different melee, a Blessed Light, and a Ranger/Monk for my Melandu's though. |
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Sep 19, 2006, 06:18 AM // 06:18
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#3 |
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Krytan Explorer
Join Date: Apr 2006
Location: Australia
Guild: [MMAD]
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Thanks heaps, that was exactly the type of input I was looking for
 Plague touch was on the Warrior bar to provide some relief against my friend the Blind-bot. Reasoning goes, 5 energy spent on the war saves 7 energy on the monk. I think everything you said is on the money, but I decided that guardian is probably worth the spot against possible alternatives (sig devotion w/ 2 sec cast is probably going to be interrupted if a 1 sec guardian is) Anyone have thoughts on the practicality of running distortion instead of hex breaker on the monk? It's popular in GvG where you have a second boon to support, but would the energy lost through distortion be practical vs. the energy consumed to heal up after a successful warrior hit? Hmmm... So now we have: Warrior/Necromancer Hammer Mastery: 16 Strength: 13 Fierce Blow Devasting Hammer [Elite] Crushing Bow Irresistable Blow Rush Plague Touch Rez Signet Frenzy Ranger/Mesmer 11+1+3 Expertise 9+1 Wilderness Survival 9+1 Marksmanship 3 Illusion Magic 6 Domination Magic Melandru's Arrows [Elite] Savage Shot Distracting Shot Barbed Trap Distortion Debilitating Shot Blackout Rez Signet Ranger/Mesmer 11+1+3 Expertise 9+1 Wilderness Survival 9+1 Marksmanship 3 Illusion Magic 6 Domination Magic Crippling Shot [Elite] Savage Shot Distracting Shot Apply Poison Debilitating Shot Distortion Blackout Rez Signet Monk/Mesmer DF: 16 Protection: 10 Inspiration: 10 Domination: 3 Empathic Removal [Elite] Reversal Of Fortune Guardian Mend Condition Hex Breaker Divine Boon Drain Enchantment Inspired Hex |
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Sep 19, 2006, 02:15 PM // 14:15
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#4 |
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Desert Nomad
Join Date: Apr 2006
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Zui basically took everything I was going to say.
To reiterate, Distortion>Whirling D hardcore. And I was going to mention trying to squeeze in debilitating shot, which zui further went on to mention. It's safe to say your second copy of the build is far more impressive than the former. I do have a question though. In this, are you planning on setting the traps, and having your monk kite through them or using distortion -> traps right on top of them? And no, I wouldn't run distortion on your monk. Leave hex breaker there. Hexes are a very large part of the metagame in TA, and hex breaker can be a live saver. Because it blocks a hex and has a 10 (I believe) second recharge time. And if you've ever played against/as a hex team you know they cast their main hex and then use cover hexes. Hex breaker will block the main hex and they'll just hit you with the covers. And then if they are smart, they throw out a cover hex first to take off hex breaker, and then that forces them to throw out main hex followed by another cover hex. So basically if your quick enough you should be able to remove the main hex before he gets up the cover hex because you would have seen hex breaker ending. And at worst, at least your wasting a hex/his energy when he's forced to throw a hex away on your hex breaker. I like the plauge touch on the war, but I think he has to be smart about it. You can blow a lot of your energy removing some conditions that either 1. the monk could get 2. aren't really needed to be removed. And he has to be quick about it as well, since there are cover conditions and you really don't want to waste 10 energy when you only needed 5. All in all though, this seems like a fun build to run and something that should work quite well. Good work. |
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Sep 30, 2006, 09:08 AM // 09:08
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#5 |
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Academy Page
Join Date: Sep 2005
Profession: W/
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For the warrior, it looks good, but i would maybe change the combo to:
Devastating Hammer Fierce Blow Heavy Blow Crushing Blow I find this more powerfull, especially now that Irresistable blow has been lowered on damage. I would maybe also change to Sprint instead of Rush. It may be taste, but i like it better that way, when you arent so independent of adrenaline to cancel frenzy, and pursue targets. |
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Oct 06, 2006, 06:04 AM // 06:04
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#6 |
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Ascalonian Squire
Join Date: May 2006
Guild: Rally Opposing Fears [ROFL]
Profession: Me/E
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Heavy blow ftl. Either a cop, or a draw from another caster mid spike and its useless, also if you kill the target without needing heavy, it becomes useless. Yeah it is more damage if it gets off but id rather go with the sure KD. Im not sure about guardian rarely getting off...and dev sig is also nice, yeah if a ranger is on you dev sig is screwed but if a mesmer is on you its a life saver, swap to a negative set and dev away until you need to swap back. If you need to kite ofcourse dev is bad but...I'm sure you know how to use it.
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Oct 06, 2006, 06:23 AM // 06:23
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#7 | |
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Desert Nomad
Join Date: Mar 2006
Guild: The Benecia Renovatio [RenO]
Profession: Mo/
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Quote:
However, if Guardian is ever an issue, it's really not that hard to just land a Distracting Shot on. It's a full one second cast, so if your ranger can't consistently hit it, you need a new ranger. |
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Oct 07, 2006, 07:01 PM // 19:01
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#8 |
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Jungle Guide
Join Date: Aug 2005
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What warriors are people running in TA these days? I haven't played TA in a while, hammer warriors were all the rage then.
If not hammer, perhaps a Dragon Slasher W/A with signet of malice for great pressure and condition removal? |
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Oct 12, 2006, 03:02 PM // 15:02
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#9 | |
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Academy Page
Join Date: Sep 2006
Guild: Your Moms Name Here [derp]
Profession: W/Me
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Quote:
-Alastair |
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