Curse

I Will Avenge Me · Mar 19, 2006, 08:00 PM // 20:00

Before anyone starts flaming, this idea was inspired by a PUG I saw in tombs in observer mode. What I didn't understand was why different proffesions carried unusual things like gale on a ranger. I thought a bit and since I'm not that expirienced at HA, I thought I might ask you guys for some input on this:

Infuser - 12+4 healing prayers, 12+1 divine favor
Hex/Conditon - 10+4 protection prayers, 11+1 divine favor, 10 inspiration magic
Boon Prot - 10+4 divine favor, 11+1 protection prayers, 10 inspiration magic
Shatter Mes - 12+4 domination, 11+1 inspiration, and 4+1 illusion
Warder/Spiker - 12+4 earth magic, 11+1 energy storage, 6+1 air magic
Necro - 12+4 blood magic, 11+1 death magic, 6+1 soul reaping
Ranger Spike/Runner - 11+3 expertise, 12+2 marksmanship, 6+1 wilderness (replace healing sig with troll unguent and defensive stance with storm chaser ; RtW is replaceable with apply poison)
Trapper - 10+4 wilderness, 11+1 expertise, 10 tactics

The way I have the thing set up is, the top row of skills is what I think the build should have, and the bottom row is what I think is necessary or alternatives. Blank spots in the bottom row mean I don't know what would be a good alternative.
I'm having trouble finding secondary uses for the necro and mesmer, if anyone could give me ideas that would be nice. The necro and mes elite are mostly free, so instead of power drain or BiP it could be something else, not sure what I could use though. Incase anyone doesn't know what a mixed spike is, its when you have a variety of classes using their own kind of spike, making it harder for one skill (shields up) to mess up the spike entirely. I would count down from 5, where everyone would get glyphs ready, remove enchants etc, at 2 the casters would begin their first spike (phantom pain, flame, shadow strike) and at 1 the ranger would begin dual shot, when I say GO!, the mes will shatter delusion and enchant if theres one there, necro would dark pact vamp gaze, ele would uh gale or just do nothing and ranger just has the dual/savage. Any help from expirienced people would be appreciated, thanks!

EDIT: Refer to second build (post #8) for tips or advice on improving.

JR · Mar 19, 2006, 08:19 PM // 20:19

Have you actually added up the numbers, to see what this spike comes out at?

I Will Avenge Me · Mar 19, 2006, 08:21 PM // 20:21

Yes, flame is about 118, phantompain/shatter will be about 160 (deep wound factored in), shadow strike is 100, and the ranger would be about 70. Then you have the dark pact and vamp gaze which should be around 90 too. If you add the first spike its about 470, then 70 from the second part and its 540, which usually is enough to take someone down if you do it fast enough.

EDIT: Flawed math look at post #5

DieInBasra · Mar 19, 2006, 08:44 PM // 20:44

So really, 448 then two seconds later 600ish. And you're useing awaken the blood with BiP...Dunno about that one. This spike will get ruined by a halfway decent infuser, so I'd replace the trapper with something the can spike, or put a better spiker in place of the ranger/runner. Mind Shock-windbourne? There are also a few skills on characters I have problems with, but that's more you call.

I Will Avenge Me · Mar 19, 2006, 08:53 PM // 20:53

Well, at 2 seconds they BEGIN casting, since each of the first spikes are 2 seconds, its only at GO! when they follow up or shatter. The damage should be dealth in a timeframe of .25-1 second, which I guess is hard for any infuser unless someone calls out I have phantom pain right before the spike. I had the trapper because I was worried about our defense, with the number of IWAY running around, keeping warriors under control is a priority. If I re-added the damage in a different way: Lets say you normally have 480 hp, add a sup rune and then a sup vigor: 455, if you use a fortitude mod its 485. 100 from shadow strike (50,50 at 18 blood), 118 from obsidian flame, around 70-100 for the ranger (depends on bow and just luck), shatter delusions is about 80. All that adds up to 460 about, now thats not enough for a kill, but deep wound would slice off 20% of the guys MAX and current HP, so 80% of 485 is 388. Plus you have shatter enchant and I didn't count the vamp gaze/dark pact yet. I wasn't sure what elite to run on the necro or mes, so suggestions there would help, and maybe a way to ease up pressure from IWAY or just to improve defense.

art_ · Mar 19, 2006, 09:39 PM // 21:39

The advantage of using mixed spike over single-class spike is that they have far greater utility and adaptability than single-class spikes.

For example, an OF spike will probably have a good anti-warrior defense in all the wards they can bring, but will lack in interrupts. Vice-versa for ranger spike. Mixed spikes can bring all sorts of things to counter all the different builds they face. For example an air ele bring blinding flash, blood necro brings blood ritual (maybe shadow of fear as well), earth ele brings wards, and so forth.

Try looking at something W E L L Z and FS run in HA. They seem to run a mixed spike a lot. I'm struggling to think of a guild that runs mixed spike and is regularly on observer mode for HA >.>

As far as your build goes, there are a few glaring flaws, for me at least.

For one thing, both your rangers have points in tactics but use little from the line. Try putting shields up on the tactics guy and dont worry about defensive stance. In all seriousness though, two of your chars have self-heals, and you have 3 monks; it doesn't really make sense unless you have a tight spike, which you do not. If you expect me to have taken into account the modifications you wrote below, i disagree strongly with apply poison instead of rtw on the ranger 'spiker.' rtw is extra damage, and makes simply dodging the arrows more difficult.

You need to decide if you are spike, or if you are something else. This build is kind of stuck in between.

Also, power leak on the monks is kind of unorthodox. It means they have to sit on an enemy target for a bit waiting for an interrupt when they really need to be healing/ looking after your party.

I Will Avenge Me · Mar 19, 2006, 10:24 PM // 22:24

Hmm yea you're right about the runner, I really need to give him a role he can do well and not 2 he can only partially do. I had power drain in there because it is very good e-management assuming you can successfully interupt a spell every 25 seconds. Maybe its just a result from playing ranger interpter too long, but if you think about it, every earthquake you interupt saves you at least 200 damage worth of heals (10-15 energy) plus you get energy for doing that. I'll probably take out the heals from the rangers because for some reason I was thinking its GvG and you are usually away from your team

. I'll redo some of the stuff and post an updated build tonight or maybe tomorrow, if anyone else still has tips please post them.

I Will Avenge Me · Mar 20, 2006, 02:41 AM // 02:41

Here's the updated build:

I changed attributes for some guys and here are the new ones for the players that got changed:
Boon Prot - 10+4 protection prayers, 11+1 divine favor, 10 inspiration magic
Shatter Mes - 12+4 domination magic, 11+1 fast casting, 6+1 inspiration magic, 2+1 illusion magic, 1 healing prayers (

)
Necro - 12+4 blood magic, 11+1 curses, 6+1 death magic
Ranger Spiker/Runner - 10+4 marksmanship, 11+1 expertise, 10+1 wilderness survival

Until I test this build with players, I won't know the full extent of its problems, but for now it looks good, if anyone has advice on weakspots or whatever, please post, otherwise wish me luck

EDIT: Incase anyone was clueless, the shutdown mesmer's elite is mantra of recovery *gasp*

Schorny · Mar 20, 2006, 06:25 AM // 06:25

Kick that trapper out and we can start talking about that build.

I Will Avenge Me · Mar 20, 2006, 11:08 PM // 23:08

Well if I bring a warrior, I guess our defense will still be OK, but whatever I got homework I'll update tonight.

art_ · Mar 21, 2006, 08:29 AM // 08:29

I think the point was to substitute the trapper for another spiking character as your current build has a fairly low damage spike, one which would easily be negated if one player is shutdown or even though human error is off-time.

Desires · Mar 21, 2006, 02:29 PM // 14:29

I actauly fought them at one point. That spike was actaully fiarly effective. they didn't spike often but when they did someone was dead. Also one of the monks was a bonder.

I Will Avenge Me · Mar 22, 2006, 10:36 PM // 22:36

I've been testing this build, and I think its pretty good espeically for the level of players running it (no one is ranked above 2). I think I'm done modding the build, thanks to everyone who acutally helped critique the build instead of posting something useless.

art_ · Mar 22, 2006, 10:45 PM // 22:45

If i helped, then you're welcome. If I was one of the useless people, sorry. :/

Kabale · Mar 27, 2006, 01:37 PM // 13:37

I'm so glad you got rid of Awaken The Blood on the BiP necro.

And having played Monk up to rank10, I can assure you that Power Drain should not be on any serious monk's bar.

Also, I don't understand why you'd want traps in there. I'd say replace with Fertile and Symbiosis... that is if you want to hold...