Curse

BaseKid · Jan 23, 2006, 07:07 AM // 07:07

The best build i have ever seen in a team arena was a team that I could see no weaknesses...they have sufficient healing power to say the least, and have some pretty deadly attacks...the build:
4 monks

As a boon prot monk, there wasn't a way I could protect my team from smiting, and there attacks did loads of dmg...

I have also seen this build once in HoH...and we got slaughtered..

a screenshot below that proves this (lol they are facing their own guild in this screenshot...it's hilarious)

http://www.tsfguild.com/screenshot.html

Neo-LD · Jan 25, 2006, 04:17 AM // 04:17

Quote:

Originally Posted by JR-

I still hold by my claim that one good boon prot is all any team needs in 4 vs 4. Any more than that just gimps you against good teams. Coming from the guy who actually plays the boon prot, my job is much harder in two monk teams. The other monk is just another soft target for me to heal, while we struggle to kill anyone with only 2 damage/shutdown characters.

Totally Agreed. My (extensive) experience as boon prot has convinced me that a competent boon prot is plenty to back up any TA team. Ive played on some 2 monk teams and I assure everyone, the healing power of the 2 monks combined is less than the sum of both parts.

I also agree that almost any team can be worked if the players are good. Heck, you can cometimes see a group of 4 people from very good guilds winning with 4 paladins for fun (and to prove they can :P)

However, a team of good players with a good team of characters will beat a team of good players with a bad team of characters. Thus, the process of refining builds to perfection. My general rule for constructing teams is to have 1 boon prot, 1 direct damage, 1 caster shutdown, 1 warrior shutdown. Having so much "shutdown" can be decieving, you may not think those teams would have much damage, but many kinds of shutdown actually hurt very much. examples:

direct damage: shock axe, hammer, thumper, or qs ranger
caster shutdown: dom mes, interupt ranger,
warrior shutdown: air ele, earth ele, water ele, SS necro, illusion mes, or cs ranger

having one character from each category + a boon prot allows you to have a very very explosive offense, which at the same time mitigates the enemy team's ability to do whatever they wanted to do. Honestly boon prot monks dont need much help to survive a 3 person offense unless the other team is very very good, at which point the mitigation is key.

Tha HoMiE · Jan 25, 2006, 05:13 PM // 17:13

Quote:

Originally Posted by Neo-LD

I also agree that almost any team can be worked if the players are good. Heck, you can cometimes see a group of 4 people from very good guilds winning with 4 paladins for fun (and to prove they can :P)

why does ppl think paladins are so bad ? i tryed it just some minutes ago just to check, and i owned 2 axe warriors in 1vs2... or maybe it's just me

NightOwl · Jan 29, 2006, 08:41 AM // 08:41

It's not about beating other warriors, it's about beating down everyone else. Being a tank is pointless vs. good groups. Bring the damage to make the monks sweat and the casters run. Against sword paladins I often just stand there and tank it on my monk, much like the same reason that some good players go win with paladins...because I can.

Anyhow, to the original point of the thread. I've gone 50 wins several times, and 40+ more than that. It just reaches a point of boredom, each win is just one more notch, everyone knows it's going to happen. At 50 I stop, and my team has always been quite happy to do so as well.

Having done that with a fair number of different types of team, I think that a war, ranger, mes, and monk can be set up to have the greatest likelyhood of going for a long run (just speaking to the primary class). You just need a fair number of counters (good counters, not hoping that landing a Spiteful on a war will cause him to kill his teammates) and some decent dps, be it spike or a steady degen.

Go in with a plan, build the team accordingly, not just randomly grabbing people and going with whatever is on their bar, if you want a shot at a long win streak.

thekolman · Jan 31, 2006, 10:59 PM // 22:59

1. Thumper or Axe warrior
2. Mesmer with mass caster hexes/degen
3. Necro with mass melee hexes/degen
4. Boon prot monk

- All have ranger primary or secondary and all bring pets with disrupting lunge. The monk has ferocious strike.

The monk is pretty gimped but this build will run through most teams really fast so that doesn't even really matter.

Neo-LD · Feb 01, 2006, 01:59 AM // 01:59

Quote:

Originally Posted by thekolman

1. Thumper or Axe warrior
2. Mesmer with mass caster hexes/degen
3. Necro with mass melee hexes/degen
4. Boon prot monk

That was a very good build till you ruined it with

Quote:

- All have ranger primary or secondary and all bring pets with disrupting lunge. The monk has ferocious strike.

The monk is pretty gimped but this build will run through most teams really fast so that doesn't even really matter.

thekolman · Feb 01, 2006, 02:20 AM // 02:20

Ya it looks terrible on paper, but you would be surprised how fast it can roll a group. A monk with migraine being attacked by four pets with mass spamming of disrupting lunge won't last five seconds.

Neo-LD · Feb 01, 2006, 03:06 AM // 03:06

Quote:

Originally Posted by thekolman

A monk with migraine being attacked by four pets with mass spamming of disrupting lunge won't last five seconds.

Its called contemplation of purity.

agentblade · Feb 01, 2006, 06:26 AM // 06:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by Neo-LD

Its called contemplation of purity.

haha.. dun forget holy veil..

i think alot of us tend to base our builds and successes on lousy monks with their silly builds.. if u're up against good monks one or two hexes wun bother him much unless u pile hexes on him.. always try to picture urself up against good teams..

Blaine Derrick · Feb 01, 2006, 06:46 AM // 06:46

I always like to run gimmick builds in TA. Here are a few fun ones that I remember:

4 kindle ranger spikers that all have a speed bost, an evade stance, a self heal, and frozen soil with no res. Keep frozen up and just try to spike people out while running all over the place.

3 thumpers and a "mending maintainer" that keeps mending, life bond, and holy viel on everyone and then sits in the back spammed blessed signet.

Minion factory (always a blast, until you reach the kill count map).

4 N/Mo blood spikers with heal area (great fun on the priest map, but the spike isn't all that great).

As for more serious builds, I think I've had the most success with a boon prot, a ward bitch earth ele (with obs flame for spikes), a gale warrior and a utility ranger with snares + interrupts.

suiraCLAW · Feb 26, 2006, 10:22 AM // 10:22

got succes with this:
-I with my "faction farming build" (=oath shot, 3 traps, trow dirt, wirling defense, heal and res)
-pressure ranger (=cripple shot, apply poision, 2 interrupts, blackout, heal and res, penetrating)
-boon monk
-weird flame ele (something with inferno spam)

-> the other team was constantly crippled, bleeding and poisioned, while the warriors kept blinded.

=24 wins,and yes, we won couplpe of times against builds with condition removal (was pretty stupid because they got their condition back in 2 secs)

asdar · Feb 26, 2006, 12:09 PM // 12:09

I love team arenas.

My two longest streaks came from randoms and up through, the first was 3 war/mo all defensive and a Nec/Mo with blood and in fuse. I never thought it'd go anywhere but 49 wins later we all called it quits without a loss.

The next was 46 just two or three weeks ago 2 nec/mes, an ele running the standard blind/air spike and a ranger mes doing a spike style build. I have no idea how this set up got out of randoms, I don't think we had more than one flawless the whole time but we just kept going and going.

I think the key to both was fast res'ing.

sh4ft3d · Mar 02, 2006, 03:27 PM // 15:27

I had a run of over 10 consecutive flawless wins... I know there are alot more consecutive, but not flawless necessarily...
I was an IW mesmer
W/r hammer
Bonder
Healer

This went all the way from random (it was a random group) to teams, were even when one monk left during a match, we still flawlessed a cripshot group that didnt really know what they were doing (we beat them with 3 people.)

Vermilion Okeanos · Mar 02, 2006, 03:40 PM // 15:40

Personally I believe an ultra specialized build is what work best here, until you meet an ultra specialized counter.

No one is prepared to handle 4 mesemers dominating your behind.
No one is prepared to handle 4 monks healing each other to the next oblivion.

Although personally, I wouldn't go to that extreme. But generally 2 attack character that is similar with other covering their behind would be the best (learned it the hard way). Just from reading this thread's "best", you can just make a counter off of it. Can't help it, warrior rule this game in offense, just support them....

And of course, tactic > everything... a ranger spike can't win head on when their opponent know how to abuse their weakness.

QuixotesGhost · Mar 02, 2006, 08:04 PM // 20:04

I like:

Domination Mesmer with Signet of Midnight + Plague Touch who packs the rest of his bar with caster shutdown

Apply Poison/Crip Shot Ranger with Interrupts

Axe Warrior

Boon/Prot

Maxiemonster · Mar 07, 2006, 09:44 AM // 09:44

4 Monks, all equiped with SoJ and some avarge Boon Prot spells. I had 13 wins in a row with this

Especially the Warriors storming in and not seeing you have SoJ on are funny..

Rustjive · Mar 07, 2006, 08:06 PM // 20:06

Quote:

No one is prepared to handle 4 monks healing each other to the next oblivion.

SoF used to (or maybe still does) run a build using 4 E/Mos to ball up and obsidian flame spike. Glyph of Concentrations, Armor of Earths, Heal Areas - most teams aren't equipped to deal with this. The TA FotM

usually can't beat this - the warrior cannot deal enough damage through Armor of Earth and through a WaM, the dom mesmer cannot drain enough energy from Eles and also usually doesn't pack a Guilt, and your anti-warrior support character also can't do enough damage. By comparison, 4 standard-ish monks are easier to beat.

Epinephrine · Mar 07, 2006, 08:25 PM // 20:25

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rustjive

SoF used to (or maybe still does) run a build using 4 E/Mos to ball up and obsidian flame spike.

Lol, I hated facing that build. We went in with a 3 mesmer team to have some fun and came against another SoF group running that, what a PITA. Don't think we've run it in ages, though if Nessa reads this she'll be all excited about running it again :P

JR · Mar 07, 2006, 08:39 PM // 20:39

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rustjive

SoF used to (or maybe still does) run a build using 4 E/Mos to ball up and obsidian flame spike. Glyph of Concentrations, Armor of Earths, Heal Areas - most teams aren't equipped to deal with this. The TA FotM

usually can't beat this - the warrior cannot deal enough damage through Armor of Earth and through a WaM, the dom mesmer cannot drain enough energy from Eles and also usually doesn't pack a Guilt, and your anti-warrior support character also can't do enough damage. By comparison, 4 standard-ish monks are easier to beat.

I think that says more about the quality of monks in arena, than the quality of their build.

tarutaru · Mar 08, 2006, 01:34 AM // 01:34

getting 50+ consec wins in TA is a piece of cake.
grab three people who are proficient as a necro.
get on vent/ts.

have all four of you run the following build:

N/Me
(16 Blood, 9 Domination, 7 Illusion, 6 Soul Reaping)
Life Transfer [E]
Shadow Strike
Phantom Pain
Shatter Delusions
Vampiric Gaze
Backfire
Clumsiness
Resurrection Signet

Each player targets their own number.
Combo goes:
(backfire) --> LT --> SS --> (clumsiness) --> PP --> SD --> VG
Only use backfire in the chain if you have a spellcaster, clumsiness if you have a melee class. The necro on the monk won't kill usually, unless the monk is bad to begin with, but all you need to do is keep that one busy healing themelves.
The other three opponents will go down right at the vamp gaze, possible even after the shatter. Monk is left alone. Spike remaining ones down ftw.
Typically 1 minute games.
Run it for an hour, make 5k faction, usually gets long strings of consecutive wins. GG.