Curse

suiraCLAW · Apr 08, 2006, 08:53 AM // 08:53

Here's the build:
http://gwshack.us/65057

Some info about the players:
-Warrior: For some pressure...
-Thumper: Standard bunny thumper build, except brutal strike.
-Bip necro: his main objective is to spam siphons and parasitic bonds (and faint) on somewhat everybody. Bip is for energy mangement of tainted necro and to counter E-Denial.
-Tainted necro: This one should take care of diasease spreading on the other team. Suffering for some extra degen. Draw and send conditions if needed.
-Degen mesmer: His job is to spread conjure phantasm and to stop heal party spammers by using arcane conundrum + cover. Change blackout into arcane echo to spread conjure faster.
-WoH monk: healing, change res sig into infuse health when you have problems with spike teams.
-Boon monk: healing, change drain enchantment into inspired hex if needed.
-Flag runner: Run the flag.

Play style: Agressive, the "warriors" spike random targets, The necro's take care of most degen, the mesmer prevents heal party's and will hit some extra degen.

This build is based on the poor hex removal that most builds run atm. Side note: Bip is an excelent counter against E-surge mesmer (if covered).

wheel · Apr 08, 2006, 09:15 AM // 09:15

Couple of points about the build:

No Heal Party
You will be fairly weak versus spike with just a boon prot and a non infuse healing monk
The attributes on the word guy are all messed up. Plus, he has res sig and channeling. Not good choices at all. You'd be better off fitting drain enchant and probably heal party on that guy. I'd also throw out seed for infuse, because seed is fairly awful in gvg outside of vod type situations.
The death guy isn't optimal because he won't be getting very good energy management when things aren't dying. When things DO die, it's usually a chain reaction where consume corpse is overkill. BiP alleviates this somewhat, but I'm not a huge fan of relying on BiP wholescale

It'll have good degen probably, but I don't think that it'll overwhelm the other team enough for it to ultimately matter. Once they split on you, if the build is a problem for them 8v8, due to you having less effective killing power outside of an 8v8 situation, you'll get into a stalemate situation until vod usually, where'll you'll get overwhelmed by their NPC advantage.

I do like the use of arcane conundrum and disrupting chop, however. that'll be useful for taking out martyr/heal party for sure, as well as helping out versus spikes. At any rate, those are just my first thoughts about the build. Work on the monk backline for sure.

suiraCLAW · Apr 08, 2006, 11:21 AM // 11:21

Thx for the help, here's the new one:
http://gwshack.us/c3c86

what changed:
-the WoH monk
-The warrior, has now charge to help when they split. (I changed into a sword one because the huge advantage of final thrust in heavy pressure teams)

about e-mangement: my experience with life siphon + parasitic bond spammers is that those siphons (not to mention the health return of the bonds) give you enough regen to heal the sac of bip. (making it reliable)

Against split: I would try to send the WoH monk, the thumper and the mesmer back to prevent them from killing your npc's. The rest should try to capture the flag stand and/or forcing them back to their base.

Any suggestions to make the degen better are welcome...

Patrograd · Apr 08, 2006, 01:06 PM // 13:06

my initial thoughts

I dont like hamstring especially as a skill. I understand the need to snare, but surely there are better ways to do this? This warrior (the sword one) also has no attack speed boost, halving his degen ability

Neither of your necros have anything in soul reaping, which is an interesting angle, especially as both are quite energy intensive.

I dont think you need 16 in death magic to run tainted/rotting/consume. Would suggest looking at the numbers with this attribute at 12. suffering seems a little situational to me, quite expensive for what it does unless you catch a mob, which is unlikely in most situations. Life siphon or faintheartedness may possibly yield better results

I wonder if you would get better results using migraine where you have MoR, and something else in place of arcane conundrum (energy management of some sort probably, like ihex for example). Migraine adds degen where conundrum doesnt

Your runner using both apply poison and crip shot will need 14+ expertise or he will have no energy. I would swap around his marksman and expertise attributes. personally I am not a fan of monk skills on crip shot runners. troll will take care of the worst of the degen. You can put another attack/interrupt skill like savage in there

In general, we abandoned a very similar build concept recently as we found that the change to teams taking either three monks plus one e/mo, or two monks plus 2 e/mos, meant that most of the time they didn't even notice we were there and were able to heal over the degen with great ease. I think this is the issue you will encounter, its great against 2 monk teams, but I think the meta has shifted somewhat over the last couple of weeks

suiraCLAW · Apr 08, 2006, 01:26 PM // 13:26

Thx for the ideas/tips, here's the new one: (again)
http://gwshack.us/1b33e
changes:
-Change attributes of runner
-mesmer has now migraine
-added attribute points into SR
-changed suffering into faint

About the warrior: It's true that the lack of IAS gives prob, but fitting both frenzy + sprint/rush in the builds is near impossible.

The runner needs his mend if he encounters a E/Mo prodigy BF/HP spammer (and if there's no monk nearby).

DieInBasra · Apr 08, 2006, 02:46 PM // 14:46

Two speed buffs on the ranger is a waste, imo. Take savage for more spike protection, or Hunters Shot for more condition degen in the place of one of those speed buffs, probably dodge. Mend also won't save you from blinding flash, since it has a 5 second recharge and you're never going to be able to keep removeing it while having enough energy for CripShot.

The BiP on that necro should be replaced by OoB and Blood Ritual, and the rest of his slots should be other hexes, and I would suggest Price of Failure and Malaise as the last two skills on his bar (besides ressig, of course). With two drains ench and ihex on your offense it might conflict with the monks, just something to think about.

If you put PoF on the necro, put Spirit of Failure on the Mesmer and have them co-ordinate these two. Maybe in the place of Blackout. Also, if your mesmer can handle it, I'd replace Phantom Pain with Arcane Conundrum and spread the caster hate, but that' pretty energy intensive, and it's hard to keep tabs on both. Power Drain is a great energy manament option for this guy, unless you like the utility of drain and ihex better then 20 energy.

Drop Faint from the Tainted if you put OoB on the curses, as then he'll be able to spam it just fine. Can't think of what to put in it's place, though.

The Ranger needs Comfort Animal, or to just drop the whole pet idea, since you aren't useing the pet elite. If you decide to keep it, though, you'll have two useless slots once it dies unless you put comfort.

My unproffesional opinion.

suiraCLAW · Apr 09, 2006, 08:39 AM // 08:39

nex one (again): http://gwshack.us/65057
chances:
-mesmer has arcane conundrum in place of blackout for more caster hate
-tainted necro has now malaise for melee (rangers and non-shock warriors) hate.
-runner lost 1 speed boost
-thumper lost pet

Actually: I don't have any experience with runner builds, it was just a copy/paste (shame on me).

About the bip guy: I know that working with OoB and BR is the standard now, but a bip guy is probably better in this build (my opinion). Here's why:
-It's the touch range and it has a 2 sec cast -> at least 4 secs that he isn't casting degen hexes.
-Energy: Bip is "twice" as powerful (in e-regen) but cost half as much -> better e-mangement for the necro and faster regain of energy.
-adding more hexes = more e-probs

Shaznat · Apr 09, 2006, 02:34 PM // 14:34

Quote:

Originally Posted by suiraCLAW

-Energy: Bip is "twice" as powerful (in e-regen) but cost half as much -> better e-mangement for the necro and faster regain of energy.

1. Sword warrior has no IAS buff. Stick Frenzy on there instead of Hamstring.
2. I don't really like the BiP necro. First off, I quoted you where you say the necro will regain energy faster. How? BiP can only be caster on another ally, not yourself. Also, take off Power Drain, and add Shadow of Fear for more warrior hate. Take off BiP and Rez Sig, and go with the standard OoB and BR.
3. No need for Purge conditions on the Tainted Necro... Instead of speccing in curses, spec in smiting and add Scourge Healing. I'll let you figure out what else you want on that character...
4. One final point is that you should put a hard res on the Me/Mo and take rez signet off the Me/Mo and the BiP necro...

suiraCLAW · Apr 09, 2006, 04:13 PM // 16:13

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shaznat

1. Sword warrior has no IAS buff. Stick Frenzy on there instead of Hamstring.
2. I don't really like the BiP necro. First off, I quoted you where you say the necro will regain energy faster. How? BiP can only be caster on another ally, not yourself. Also, take off Power Drain, and add Shadow of Fear for more warrior hate. Take off BiP and Rez Sig, and go with the standard OoB and BR.
3. No need for Purge conditions on the Tainted Necro... Instead of speccing in curses, spec in smiting and add Scourge Healing. I'll let you figure out what else you want on that character...
4. One final point is that you should put a hard res on the Me/Mo and take rez signet off the Me/Mo and the BiP necro...

1) He needs a cancel stance then...
2) First off: i meant that the target of the bip guy (=another ally) will regain energy faster. Shadow of fear is an idea in place of malaise, but not for the bip guy. Actually: I just don't like BR in general...
3) The tainted necro handles the conditions, he should draw and send those, purge is the emergency button. Scourge healing? It doesn't affect divine healing = it's pretty useless. (my opinion...)
4) I can agree with this one, but don't forget that the mesmer hasn't got any points in fast casting.

Neo-LD · Apr 09, 2006, 04:18 PM // 16:18

Some things I noticed:

Your Sword Warrior needs an IAS boost. Put in Frenzy and Sprint for Hamstring and Plague Touch.

Storm Chaser and Unguent stretch your thumpers attributes unnecessarily thin. Drop them for Sprint and Protectors Strike.

Runners shouldnt carry sigs. Distortion is a good pick for soloing ranger runners, b/c you can cover your unguent against interupt.

Your Death Necro is largey a dead character. Id suggest dropping Malaise for heal party, and putting all those curses points into healing. Having only one heal party, on a monk primary, is a precarious position. Or you could try to put in scourge healing...:

Like all degen builds, this build is weak against an elmo that stands out of combat and uses heal party. My guild recently ran something sort of similar to this build, and experimented with scourge healing "spam" to limit the number of times someone could heal party. (One time, we managed to get an elmo to spike himself from full hp by using heal party when we had a scourge on all 8 players, lol) But we found that against any guild worth its salt, putting in scourge healing subracted too much from our degen, and usually heal party just wasnt required against us and our scourges just sat their useless. Unless somone has another bright idea, degen builds are largely sunk until heal party gets another nerf.

DieInBasra · Apr 09, 2006, 09:47 PM // 21:47

I disagree. A single dist shot or disrupting chop can really ruin a HP spammers day. As well as that, this build has a significant degen aspect to it, but alot of the purpose of that isn't just as degen, instead to cover Migraine/Arcane Conundrum and Feint. It still has alot of damage coming from the warriors.

Neo-LD · Apr 09, 2006, 11:52 PM // 23:52

Yes, I know that there are warriors. The version of this that I played in the past few weeks also had a pair. Yes, I know there are good mitigation hexes. The version that I played also had Migraine, Conundrum, Faintheart, Shadow of Fear, etc. So I assure you I am perfectly aware of the strengths, weaknesses, and abilities of a build like this. Dshot and Dchop can put a stop heal party admirably, if the caster is nearby. However, Distracting Shot cant stop anything if the caster is standing out of combat range... considering how many builds feature an elmo runner, it wont be hard to set up a situation where all the incoming degen is wasted.

The build is good, it just has a fundamental weakness which make it less appealing to use than some other builds.

suiraCLAW · Apr 10, 2006, 09:06 AM // 09:06

new one: http://gwshack.us/5c943
there are some minor changes... (IAS, scourge healing, attributes etc)

Only comment of me: the death guy will need his time and energy to send their conditions back, I don't think that he's a dead character.

BTW: a thumper i ranger primary = no sprint or protector's strike possible.

SaintGreg · Apr 11, 2006, 06:37 PM // 18:37

On the mesmer, your attributes still spec into domination but you removed blackout from the build, switch these to fast casting. Also use resurrect instead of restore life as a hard res.

I still can't see when plague sending would ever be used. If you are in range of a group of enemies, you are probably either out of position, or getting hacked on by a warrior or two, neither of which you will use plague sending. In any case plague sending has such a small area of effect that plague touch would probably just be better anyways, especially since plague sending sacrifices and costs more energy. I would say that another smiting spell would be better, especially since he needs BiP on him as it is with his very weak energy management (if you don't kill anything you're screwed without it). Judge's Insight, Balthazar's Aura, Smite Hex could all be useful skills, especially if you've already constrained yourself to requiring BiP be on you you might be able to justify the huge cost of balthazars aura (I would go JI).

Sprint even with no strength is not bad at all, no attributes spent and it gets you a 20 sec recharge, 8 second long boost, often enough for what he needs. And protectors strike still adds +10, its main purpose is a 1/2 second hammer swing anyways. Protector's might not be worth it, but its not bad, especially since you can set expertise to 14 and have all the 5's cost 2 and TF cost 4, meaning you can actually use all of them often.

Phoenix Arrows · Apr 11, 2006, 07:16 PM // 19:16

Rush > Sprint on the Sword Warrior, since you have "Charge!" + Frenzy.

On the Bunny Thumper, you can have Sprint, except it wont last longer than 8 seconds. Protector's Strike would be +5 (I think), so don't use that.

Restore Life / Resurrect on a Mesmer with no Fast Casting = bad

On the Boon Prot, I would take out either Mend Condition or Signet of Devotion for Guardian.

Seems like a good build for degen, but your defense is not good enough. Same with your healing. Two Monks :S. Take out the Bunny Thumper for a Fire E/Mo with Rodgort's Invocation, Heal Party, Immolate, and such.

Maybe try an E/N Immolate + Virulence [E] for conditions? That's a lot with 2 spells. -4 + -4 + -3 + Weakness = -11 + Weakness. That would reduce the need for one or two of the degeners.

XxForgexX · Apr 11, 2006, 08:46 PM // 20:46

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phoenix Arrows

Hex Breaker > Sprint > Rush on the Sword Warrior, since you have "Charge!" + Frenzy + Final Thrust

fixed...

suiraCLAW · Apr 12, 2006, 07:25 AM // 07:25

http://gwshack.us/9e23a , what changed:
-sprint and distracting blow on thumper
-JI on tainted
-fast casting and resurrect on mesmer
-hex breaker on warrior

I agree that my defense isn't perfect, but I don't see a way to improve it without losing my offense. Adding a ele = more spike = less pressure, So that isn't an option.

I'm thinking of changing the 2 necro's completely, like this:
http://gwshack.us/6acd5