OK All...Have At It...7 Hero Build Critique

I'd greatly appreciate any and all comments and criticisms of my 7-hero build. FWIW this build has finished the 4 areas of DoA in NM with no consets...have tried Mallyx once...got most of the way through the spawns before I wiped, mostly due to getting distracted. One other note...I am r8 Lightbringer. Hero runes are attribute where necessary, and survivor/vitae/vigor.

Thanks in advance for any comments!

Discordway + spiritway + mesway, nothing new.

Quote: Originally Posted by Outerworld

Discordway + spiritway + mesway, nothing new. That's fine...I know it ain't horribly new. I'm mostly wondering if I've missed anything obvious as far as making the build stronger. Any glaring omissions or stupid skill choices.

Discord is largely obsolete with 7 heroes; you don't need to compensate for terrible henchmen anymore.
The shambling horrors are unecessary (at the very least, you don't want a backliner spending time raising a minion).
Shadowsong > Dissonance
Minions will blow up union (and in DoA, they can easily overaggro for you, but that might not matter in NM).
Agony should be dropped for ARage.
I'm not a fan of illusion heroes, but they're too popular for me to crusade against here. At the very least, drop fragility. Your team only has 6 skills that deal conditions (2 of them are shambling horrors).
You'd probably want to run melee. R/A dagger or even R/W hammer would be better. Find room for SoH.

On a brighter note, you're not someone who runs an orders hero with only 1 physical in the party. ^___^


Bleh, missed rift.

Quote: Originally Posted by DokkyDok

Discord is largely obsolete with 7 heroes; you don't need to compensate for terrible henchmen anymore.
The shambling horrors are unecessary (at the very least, you don't want a backliner spending time raising a minion).
Shadowsong > Dissonance
Minions will blow up union (and in DoA, they can easily overaggro for you, but that might not matter in NM).
Agony should be dropped for ARage.
I'm not a fan of illusion heroes, but they're too popular for me to crusade against here. At the very least, drop fragility. Your team only has 5 skills that deal conditions (2 of them are shambling horrors).
You'd probably want to run melee. R/A dagger or even R/W hammer would be better. Find room for SoH.

On a brighter note, you're not someone who runs an orders hero with only 1 physical in the party. ^___^ Thanks...all makes sense...I did find that SY made the whole team that much more durable... +100 armor matters...I'll do some more playing around with the setup tho.

Quote: Originally Posted by AnClar

Thanks...all makes sense...I did find that SY made the whole team that much more durable... +100 armor matters...I'll do some more playing around with the setup tho. Yeah, I figured that when I saw IH. Barrage/Volley does maintain it well (and SY is very helpful in DoA), but its also fairly spammable with a hammer (crude/whirlwind/FGJ).

In DoA this is probably great (havent bothered to play around with heroes there), elsewhere there's more defence then needed. But as someone else said, it's mesway + spiritway + discordway. Bound to work

And on the discordway comment, I hated discord earlier because it allways felt stressing and inefficient. But with 7 heroes it's a completely different build alternaught all the same. Find me a 2 healer + minionmaster backline which can still help deal that decent damage.

Personally i've tried a lot of different builds after the patch and it has ended up with me kitting out pretty much every single one of my heroes fully. And what I found is that for missions where lots of defence is needed (protecting say turtles in Gyala hatchery) and you can pull several groups to one location 2x Rit 2x Mes + Discordway is the way to go. In missions where speed is of the essence 4x mes 3x discord. Replacing Shadow of Fear with another Putrid bile. And most importaintly, NOT calling targets unless its a monk or something else you want to die fast. Cause they do a great job by themselves.

A direct comment on the builds themselves though: I dont get why youre secound nec has minions. There's never THAT many corpses and even if there are, there's no point having more minions then 2 minionmasters can control.

Allso, for most zones (dunno about DoA) replace shadow of fear with putrid bile.

The build is an usual discord illusion hero build (which i dont like) but i dont get the fragility nor the twist rt... you should get a melee hero instead so that some damage can be tanked or rven get a... lemme think... a dervish hero with avatar of grenththat deals and tanks alot of damage.

Quote: Originally Posted by Gabs88 In DoA this is probably great (havent bothered to play around with heroes there), elsewhere there's more defence then needed. But as someone else said, it's mesway + spiritway + discordway. Bound to work

And on the discordway comment, I hated discord earlier because it allways felt stressing and inefficient. But with 7 heroes it's a completely different build alternaught all the same. Find me a 2 healer + minionmaster backline which can still help deal that decent damage.

Personally i've tried a lot of different builds after the patch and it has ended up with me kitting out pretty much every single one of my heroes fully. And what I found is that for missions where lots of defence is needed (protecting say turtles in Gyala hatchery) and you can pull several groups to one location 2x Rit 2x Mes + Discordway is the way to go. In missions where speed is of the essence 4x mes 3x discord. Replacing Shadow of Fear with another Putrid bile. And most importaintly, NOT calling targets unless its a monk or something else you want to die fast. Cause they do a great job by themselves.

A direct comment on the builds themselves though: I dont get why youre secound nec has minions. There's never THAT many corpses and even if there are, there's no point having more minions then 2 minionmasters can control.

Allso, for most zones (dunno about DoA) replace shadow of fear with putrid bile. Thanks for the comments...I did go extremely defense-heavy for DoA...even in NM the dryders and titans hit hard...the margs, not so much. I do plan to rework the whole setup once I finish Mallyx. I wanted to do DoA in NM with no consets to prove to myself that it is doable.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kuchiki_pt The build is an usual discord illusion hero build (which i dont like) but i dont get the fragility nor the twist rt... you should get a melee hero instead so that some damage can be tanked or rven get a... lemme think... a dervish hero with avatar of grenththat deals and tanks alot of damage. Ya...Fragility doesn't make any sense unless it's a condition-heavy build...don't know what I was thinking at the time...that's gone now...replced with SoH. And I'll try adding melee.

I dislike bringing discordway especially on physical damage characters. The reason being that just having physical damage characters allows you to bring more of other support skills that can buff your DPS up alot higher than discordway can.

I see that you already have splinter weapon. However, this is what I have on my hero builds for physical damage characters, that are absent on yours. Note that I am comparing yours against a generic PvE build.

1. Blood Bond - Obvious (also heals spirits and minions)
2. Dark Fury - This especially helps if you bring SY and/or you bring along adrenaline skills. I see that you brought infuriating heat instead, but with DF, you could free up your elite slot and bring a more interesting elite.
3. Mark of Pain - Again, useful for physical damage especially if you can micro this.
4. Hex Remover - We could get away without bringing this since we only had 3-heroes in the past and Mhenlo sort of takes care of this. However, we now have 7 heroes and especially considering some of the hexes are quite devastating to physical characters, you should at least have a hex remover.
5. Anthem of Envy - Buff for your offensive spirits and attack skills
6. Anthem of Disruption - synergizes with your spirits and your attack skills
7. Gfte - Obvious. Synergizes with spirits and minions also.
8. Enchant remover - Hate those enchantment-based blocks and armors?
9. OOP - Maybe, if you have other physical damage heroes on your team.
10. Barbs - Not a fan of this because of the 2s cast, but it is a possibility.
11. Weaken Armor - Obvious.

If I am melee, I would bring SoH too. You also have too much heals with your discordway.

Quote: Originally Posted by Gabs88

And on the discordway comment, I hated discord earlier because it allways felt stressing and inefficient. But with 7 heroes it's a completely different build alternaught all the same. Find me a 2 healer + minionmaster backline which can still help deal that decent damage. SoS healer hybrid, dedicated ER Prot Ele and dedicated MM.

SoS, Bloodsong, Ancestor's Rage and Splinter Rage easily out-damage 3 Discords (no, that isn't a joke, 100 DPS really isn't that great), and a dedicated MM means stronger minions plus extra space for other skills (I use blood for Blood Bond and Mark of Fury).

And no, that's really all the defence I've needed...pretty much C-Spaced through Vloxen and Duncan on HM without too much trouble.

SoS i run myself if mobs are a bit spread (DWG is faster when theyre kind enought to clump up, say margonites or echovald forest) but I agree a SoS healer hybrid is good, and if youre not a ritualist yourself it should be concidered. ER prot though I dont like, it's only worth it when things get really stupid tough, and with 3 mesmers or spirits or minions or anything, thats very rare unless you completely lack aggro control. And if you really need a prot monk having prot spirit on player character is usually enough anyhow.

And dedicated minionmaster: Max 10 minions + prot
2x Discord minionmasters: Max 20

So only thing I really agree with here is that a SoS healer hybrid can replace 1 of the discord heroes in backline. But often youre gonna move too quickly away from the spirits for that to be worth it.

Quote: Originally Posted by Gabs88

And dedicated minionmaster: Max 10 minions + prot
2x Discord minionmasters: Max 20 Only in theory, because most of the time an Aotl MM would have a lot more minions than a Discord MM. A Discord MM is too busy doing other things and your Shamblings have a long recharge of 25s. Why are shamblings common in Discord necros then? Because Discord necros are suppose to be casting their fast recharge discord most of the time. Therefore maintaining minions is not the focus in discordway.

Even your animate bone minions MM is not going to have the full 10 minions most of the time because without BoTM to heal them or Aotl to regenerate new bone horrors fast, your little minions are not going to last long in HM.

In terms of a minion wall, an Aotl necro tend to have many more minions than the minions of all your Discord necros put together, most of the time, even without using BoTM. Aotl MMs are better at minion bombing than Discord MMs. The Discord MM is focused on using Discord most of the time, rather than animating minions.

Quote: Originally Posted by Gabs88 SoS i run myself if mobs are a bit spread (DWG is faster when theyre kind enought to clump up, say margonites or echovald forest) but I agree a SoS healer hybrid is good, and if youre not a ritualist yourself it should be concidered. ER prot though I dont like, it's only worth it when things get really stupid tough, and with 3 mesmers or spirits or minions or anything, thats very rare unless you completely lack aggro control. And if you really need a prot monk having prot spirit on player character is usually enough anyhow. I don't run ER Prot because I need it. I run it because it gives me a ridiculous amount of bar compression. As you said above, you run a 2 healer (albeit, 2x Discord Healer) and Prot MM. That's about 2 bars worth of healing and prots on three separate heroes.

Meanwhile, I'm running one dedicated Prot/Healer, and one Hybrid Healer.

And honestly, if you're running Spirits and Minions, anything more than a 1.5 heal/prot backline is overkill.

Quote: Originally Posted by Daesu

Only in theory, because most of the time an Aotl MM would have a lot more minions than a Discord MM. A Discord MM is too busy doing other things and your Shamblings have a long recharge of 25s. Why are shamblings common in Discord necros then? Because Discord necros are suppose to be casting their fast recharge discord most of the time. Therefore maintaining minions is not the focus in discordway.

Even your animate bone minions MM is not going to have the full 10 minions most of the time because without BoTM to heal them or Aotl to regenerate new bone horrors fast, your little minions are not going to last long in HM.

In terms of a minion wall, an Aotl necro tend to have many more minions than the minions of all your Discord necros put together, most of the time, even without using BoTM. Aotl MMs are better at minion bombing than Discord MMs. The Discord MM is focused on using Discord most of the time, rather than animating minions. In my experience thats complete BS.

My shambling summoner commonly stays around 5-6 minions. AoTL just summons on cooldown and often at the very wrong time and if using a dedicated one.

But i'd be glad to be proven wrong so if anyone wants to do a test run in say Raiasu Palace HM feel free to PM me ingame.

-Yuri Zahard

Quote: Originally Posted by Gabs88

In my experience thats complete BS.

My shambling summoner commonly stays around 5-6 minions. AoTL just summons on cooldown and often at the very wrong time and if using a dedicated one.

But i'd be glad to be proven wrong so if anyone wants to do a test run in say Raiasu Palace HM feel free to PM me ingame.

-Yuri Zahard Feel free to try it out. I have used discordway many times before and I have been amazed how many fewer minions it has compared to my Aotl. My Aotl MM usually has 11 minions with him.

If you are running this in the easy carebear areas, then sure, most of your bone minions can stay alive without using Aotl or BoTM. But run this through more difficult areas in HM and you would run out of minions because your necros are either too busy healing or casting Discord to compete with your enemies' own corpse exploitations. If they are not busy casting discord as a discordway team, then something is wrong.

Quote: Originally Posted by Daesu

Feel free to try it out. I have used discordway many times before and I have been amazed how many fewer minions it has compared to my Aotl. My Aotl MM usually has 11 minions with him.

If you are running this in the easy carebear areas, then sure, most of your bone minions can stay alive without using Aotl or BoTM. But run this through more difficult areas in HM and you would run out of minions because your necros are either too busy healing or casting Discord to compete with your enemies' own corpse exploitations. If they are not busy casting discord as a discordway team, then something is wrong. Since the 7 hero patch came out i've been playing around in pretty much every single area in the game excluding DoA which I dont see any reason to bring heroes in to. FoW NM \ HM, ToPK (thats where I did my build testing) NM \ HM, the Desolation HM, Shiverpeaks, Sorrows Furnace, UW NM (all except horsemen is a cakewalk). Allso done every single Tyrian HM mission and Canthan HM mission. As well as a few in NF

Allso finished up NF Vanquish and did a 19 zone in a row Tyrian Caravan vanquish..

So my builds are pretty well tested

Quote: Originally Posted by Gabs88

Since the 7 hero patch came out i've been playing around in pretty much every single area in the game excluding DoA which I dont see any reason to bring heroes in to. FoW NM \ HM, ToPK (thats where I did my build testing) NM \ HM, the Desolation HM, Shiverpeaks, Sorrows Furnace, UW NM (all except horsemen is a cakewalk). Allso done every single Tyrian HM mission and Canthan HM mission. As well as a few in NF

Allso finished up NF Vanquish and did a 19 zone in a row Tyrian Caravan vanquish..

So my builds are pretty well tested So have I. That just shows how forgiving PvE is, especially when you have 7 heroes.