Team Build: 7H HM Hexway Build

This build is designed for HM because most of its damage is from armor ignoring hexes. The hexes are also useful because they also reduce a ton of damage. I have found this build extremely effective because there's not many places where this build doesn't work. This build takes out melee very fast because of the three empathy's, dual ineptitiude, and all of the other illusion warrior hate skills. This build also kills enemy casters quick because it has a ton of interupts and anti-caster hexes, many of which deal a ton of damage, and then the warrior hate also does damage to casters because they will attack with their rod after getting interupted and consequently take a lot of damage from the warrior hate too. This build is also phenomenal for killing bosses, especially those annoying ele bosses. I killed glint (not an ele boss) in HM on the Dragon's Lair with this build and not one person even took one damage in my party. Now, this was for sure lucky but, nonetheless, it did well because it interupted all of glints attacks and glint was perma blinded while attacking the spirits instead of the team. This is a great beginner build because it takes no micro and every attack is ranged so you can get away with lazy pulling more often.

I have posted this build to share with people who would like to try it out as well as ask for opinions regarding what should be changed or just other people's general opinions on how this build looks. Most of these skill bars are very normal except for the two e/me heroes. These e/me heroes are certainly different in that they are elementalist heroes using mostly mesmer skills (for people who don't have those mercenaries), have power block as an elite, and have backfire which is a long casting time. The main point of power block is to shut down those annoying fire elementalist enemies in HM as well as kill healers faster.

/Disclaimer I hate it when melee classes play SoS or any other caster build. It clearly shows that you don't even care to try and learn to play your class properly. /End of Disclaimer
You have 6 (six!!!) hard res-es in the build that is "extremely effective because there's not many places where this build doesn't work". Seriously?
Why Pain and Dash are on your own bar instead of Spirit Siphon and another PvE skill, since you only have two?
Two copies of Power Block are two wasted elite skills. I guess sometimes using one copy of PB is justified, but always bringing 2 PBs is very very wrong.
One copy of Ineptitude is more than enough nearly everywhere.
With 2 PBs + 2 Ineptitudes, it seems that Panic is that cherry on top? Tell me, please, why do you hate Energy Surge so much that you have exactly zero copies of it across 5 mesmers (and mesmers wannabes)?
Ether Signet is bad, and it's even worse on heroes.
GoLE is the only energy-management on E/Me and they have 15,15,10,10,10,5 bars and all these skill have shorter recharge than GoLE. I'm sure they are out of energy pretty fast unless you kill faster and I fail to see how you can kill faster with team build like that. It has tons of shutdowns and not enough direct damage.
6-sec cast res on E/Mo? /sigh
Quote: Originally Posted by Radian This is a great beginner build because it takes no micro and every attack is ranged so you can get away with lazy pulling more often. This build is terrible for beginners, it promotes laziness and no brainer mentality. No need to think and learn, just bring s-load of shutdowns and interrupt every single action of enemy team, then put some hexes on them and wand them to death. Slow (who cares?) but steady
Quote:

Originally Posted by Radian I killed glint (not an ele boss) in HM on the Dragon's Lair with this build and not one person even took one damage in my party. Using Glint as an example? You just can't be serious... Yeah, and I've never heard that you aren't allowed to take damage in GW despite the fact that your build is trying to accomplish that. P.S. Sorry, if I was harsh, but this build is far from well-thought, also it's not even close to being "extremely effective". It's also obvious, considering some of skills choices, that you don't really understand how heroes work. P.P.S. Saying all this, I have no doubts that this build works... in general. One must try really hard to create 7H-build that fails completely

Power Block is not an elite you ought to be using in PvE. Better choices would be ESurge or PInstability.

As said above, 5 rez skills is perhaps too many.

I would question whether an EMo would hold up against areas such as DoA. Personally I think ST would be a better choice.

I think you ought to remove one of your Inept Mesmers (by extension one of the eles and replace with the now free mesmer), and run a SoS Hero instead of taking it yourself. Run WotA with Jagged, Fox, Death Blossom instead.

1. Same as above, I hate when non-rits take SoS regulary. It's complete ignoration. Why don't you make rit and you play SoS properly?

2. I apreciate when people make their own build instead of Ctrl+C Ctrl+V from PvX, but man, you must get some experience and try the PvX builds before.

3. I believe this can work somewhere, there are so many shutdowns and crowd-control skills that you won't be getting much dmg, but there's no direct dmg except for SoS. This build must be extremly slow.

4. You should consider major overhaul, because will be be advising you to completely change at least 3 heroes.

5. I'm really curious what hard have you completed with this? For instance how many HM dungeons have you done with this?

I just noticed that you join date was June 2012. If you are not just new to guru, but new to GW as well I apologize for my harshness. I'll try to explain what's wrong with your build without writing too much
Your goal should be to kill as fast as possible while staying alive. But what your build is trying to achieve is to shutdown/interrupt/prevent as much damage as possible while doing some damage and eventually killing your enemies.
That's wrong (imo), boring and slow. But choice is always yours.

Ah, an innovator. I know how to deal with this, dw.

POWER BLOCK IN PVEPOWER BLOCK IN PVEPOWER BLOCK IN PVEPOWER BLOCK IN PVEPOWER BLOCK IN PVEPOWER BLOCK IN PVEPOWER BLOCK IN PVEPOWER BLOCK IN PVEPOWER BLOCK IN PVEPOWER BLOCK IN PVEPOWER BLOCK IN PVEPOWER BLOCK IN PVEPOWER BLOCK IN PVEPOWER BLOCK IN PVEPOWER BLOCK IN PVEPOWER BLOCK IN PVEPOWER BLOCK IN PVEPOWER BLOCK IN PVEPOWER BLOCK IN PVEPOWER BLOCK IN PVEPOWER BLOCK IN PVEPOWER BLOCK IN PVEPOWER BLOCK IN PVEPOWER BLOCK IN PVEPOWER BLOCK IN PVEPOWER BLOCK IN PVEPOWER BLOCK IN PVEPOWER BLOCK IN PVEPOWER BLOCK IN PVEPOWER BLOCK IN PVEPOWER BLOCK IN PVE???????

Quote: Originally Posted by HigherMinion

Ah, an innovator. I know how to deal with this, dw.

POWER BLOCK IN PVEPOWER BLOCK IN PVEPOWER BLOCK IN PVEPOWER BLOCK IN PVEPOWER BLOCK IN PVEPOWER BLOCK IN PVEPOWER BLOCK IN PVEPOWER BLOCK IN PVEPOWER BLOCK IN PVEPOWER BLOCK IN PVEPOWER BLOCK IN PVEPOWER BLOCK IN PVEPOWER BLOCK IN PVEPOWER BLOCK IN PVEPOWER BLOCK IN PVEPOWER BLOCK IN PVEPOWER BLOCK IN PVEPOWER BLOCK IN PVEPOWER BLOCK IN PVEPOWER BLOCK IN PVEPOWER BLOCK IN PVEPOWER BLOCK IN PVEPOWER BLOCK IN PVEPOWER BLOCK IN PVEPOWER BLOCK IN PVEPOWER BLOCK IN PVEPOWER BLOCK IN PVEPOWER BLOCK IN PVEPOWER BLOCK IN PVEPOWER BLOCK IN PVEPOWER BLOCK IN PVE??????? Dash in a sos AoR in mes bars bars but why? I agree with above to the full extent.


/pointless imo.

Thanks for the responses! I ran a 123 assassin for every single mission in factions and nightfall and chose to switch my build to a ritualist spirit spammer build when I started prophecies. The reason for this is that this build is over powered and that it doesn't require other heroes (the 123 assassin requires other heroes to support it such as a strength of honor hero) to support it. I understand and agree that it is weird and seemingly wrong to use a caster build on a melee character. It works quite well but I can agree that this game should have been made to where there is more emphasis on the primary profession, which is what we have seen in GW 2 and more recent updates to this game. The ele's actually always have full energy. I understand that their build looks energy heavy but they manage energy very well. I also understand why many of you may not like power block. Perhaps esurge is a better skill choice because of its AoE effect. I chose not to put e surge because e-denial is seemingly unimportant against PvE enemies that have a lot of energy but I will try it and see just how good its AoE damage is. As for dash and a hard rez on my bar, dash is not necessary as you said. I brought it simply to speed things up but I will consider a different skill choice (maybe another PvE-only skill). I did actually have spirit siphon on my bar back when I ran fall back heroes but I replaced it for dash when I switched to this hexway. Aura of Restoration was placed in the e/me bars for the heal. As for the question about where I have used this build: I used it in all of the missions in prophecies that had a party of 8 and in HM. I have actuallly found that this build kills very fast, which one might not expect from a hex build. There is no degen in this build and many of the hexes deal immediate damage. To be honest, I actually started using it two days ago but haven't used it that much. I have just started Eye of the North and can answer questions regarding how it fares in dungeons once I do those. Thanks again guys and I hope I addressed everything.

Edit: A further question. What do you guys think about the idea behind the build? The idea is to have an armor ignoring build full of hexes. Maybe this build can be better with some tweaks.

I have not tried it but I have no doubt this build should work in most areas in PvE. How are the energy of the mesmers keeping up?

According to the wiki, heroes do not use ether signet well. Leech signet is a waste on a mesmer and has also been recently nerfed. Yes you should try replacing power block with energy surge. The purpose of using Energy Surge in PvE is for the AoE damage, not so much for the energy denial.

You dont have much defenses and less healing. How does it fare against a group of monster mesmers (e.g. wind casters) in HM?

No Fall Back! means the team moves slower which is bad during vanquishing. Only 1 communing skill on your bar? Empathy, Backfire, Power Spike, and Accumulated Pain are nice but they are single targeting.

You call that a hexway?
I also think it's pretty terrible.

Hexes are a slow way of getting things done.
The amount of redundancy inherent in having 5 mesmers is going to make things worse.

For something you call a hexway, you have a surprising lack of variety across 5 hexers. You have a total of 7 different hexes and 4 of them aren't 'typical' hexes; they end on a certain trigger.

Daesu, I will try channeling instead of ether signet if the heroes don't use ether signet well. They have been okay on energy. I will also use esurge over powerblock. There is certainly a lack of defensive skills but many of the defense comes from offensive skills. For example, I lock my illusion heroes on different melee targets to have both blinded and I can choose to lock my anti caster heroes on different casters. I have also had success in micro'ing mistrust on multiple different targets at the very start of a battle and usually all three of the enemies will ball when they immediately cast through it and fail, and the nearby damage hits them all which instantly drops all of their health considerably. For these reasons, the defense for this build has been manageable. It is weird to have only one communing skill on my bar for sure. I do not need shadowsong because I have blind from ineptitude but perhaps I could squeeze in Anguish or something. I kinda dunno what to take out though. My attributes are split at 12 channeling and 12 communing.

Xenomortis, I agree that there is very little variety. Is this problematic? I find that having three mistrust's is very good. They work almost every time and the hero won't overlap to where one of them goes to total waste. Three empathy's could be viewed as excessive. When I fight mostly melee groups, I'll micro each empathy on a different target right off the bat and they seem to die fast. As for the illusion mesmers, it can be overkill to have two ineptitudes. This is because the mesmer hero may use ineptitude on a target that was already blinded from the other ineptitude. Micro or locking can bypass this problem if needed but that problem could still persist. The other illusion hexes like clumsiness are fine together because they do not really overlap.

edit: I forgot to mention that when I was first making this build, I considered the use of necromancer hexes to add to the builds variety. I did not feel that many necromancer hexes synergized in this build too well and maybe many of them would take a while to kill with. I think it is apporpriate to restate that even though this build is mostly hexes, many of them are instant damage and this build kills a lot faster than what it may appear. Do you have any suggestions to add to the build's variety while keeping it a hex-oriented build?

Dash is pointless it "speeds things up" as you put it... please explain to me how? and AoR for hero E management is sooooo pointless.


/thead done

I try running mes team before couple month ago. No matter how wide spread the hex cover are I have to say any team with more then 4 mes is counterproductive (unless is human of course). I say if you like mes 3 is the best bet. Even at 3 or 4 mes you really need to spread out the skill set because Ai hero doesn't stack casting on foe. At 4 mes you pretty much need a battery because their fighting each other trying to gain energy if you don't.

As for mes do AP damage true but their not the only one. Nerco with shadow damage and steal healing also does direct damage. And their skill stack will along with mes hex.
Power Block in PvE just a waste of elite, as it got long charge time, big cost and only get 1 foe. Also 99% of the time in PvE you inter counter a group with more then 5 foes.

As for mes hex sure lot of them are good, but from your mes bar each mes is only bring 3 to 4 damage skill (not to say lot of redundant one that can't stock, your also missing couple good shutdown signet with you should have bring)? Why not compress 5 mes to 3 and still have the same damage skill. Also it would work much better for you mes if there a frontliner to hold the aggro group together. I see your SOS so i guess your using sprite as blocker, but Sin can do a much better job doing that.

Agree 5 res is 3 to many. Last please let mes to be mes. I understand you mention this is for people without merc. But without pumping some pts to fast casting attrib most good mes hex/skill are close to useless, so its really counterproductive at the point.

Having faced hexways many times before, this isn't hexway. This is just 5 mesmers with questionable bars.

I use dash to run past things or to run away and then rez if I accidentally aggro'd too many enemies. AoR is more for the heal. Thanks for the advice Drk.

Quote: Originally Posted by Drk Dervish

If you want a PvE hexway, you shouldn't be taking so many single-target shutdown skills. One copy of Backfire/Empathy at max. No copies of Power Block and only take one Ineptitude. You need more necros for "hexway" to sound at all applicable with some degen spam and melee hate. Mesmers are better with anti-caster stuff anyway. One Esurge for some push damage, one Inept, one Panic. Run daggers on yourself with SY (obvious) and you need minions. Maybe Death Nova-Bone Minions-Putrid Bile and Toxic Chill and Malign Intervention.

By the way: YOUR ER PROT HASN'T GOT INFUSE.

Quote: Originally Posted by Radian

(the 123 assassin requires other heroes to support it such as a strength of honor hero) to support it. Don't be ridiculous. I run melee whenever I possibly can, even on casters, and you don't need SoH at all. Splinter Weapon is nice, and if you can bunch up your foes a good WotA sin will out DPS an assassin using SoS.

One thing that could be -helpful- for your hexway, is Anguish, since it deals double damage to hexed foes. I don't understand why people who want to run Signet of Spirits don't use Anguish, it makes no sense, it's the highest damaging spirit. Aside from that, you're an Assassin, use your own damn skills you'll be more effective that way, without Spawning Power or Armor of Unfeeling, your spirits are barely doing much of anything.

Also, Ether Signet isn't used well by heroes, they use it once they hit one energy below and after the casting they have higher energy than allowed to gain the energy, as per:

From wiki: Heroes cannot effectively use this skill as they will begin to use it when they are at the upper cap, thus overpassing it due to natural energy regeneration and receiving no energy.

Edit: WotA in PvE is idiotic, way better choices for elites

Thanks again guys.

Daesu, I returned to PvE and made a characer 6 days ago after taking many years off. I do not know what Frostmaw is but I will try some EoTN dungeons in HM when I get to them.

HigherMinion maybe I miss-named this build. I guess it's not exactly a hexway. Perhaps what I am looking for is a build of mostly armor ignoring skills which has some hexes associated with it. Thanks for your suggestions.

Andemius, thanks. Here I'll share what I use when I run daggers
1. Flashing Blades
2. Jagged Strike
3. Fox Fangs
4. Death Blossom
5. Critical Eye
6. Save Yourselves
7. Asuran Scan
8. Critical Agility

Is WoTA ok to stack with critical agility or should I drop Critical Agility for another PvE skill?

WarcryOfTruth, I agree. Anguish is good but I guess I didn't bring it because I have to re-apply it so often but I will be less lazy and bring it. My spirits die very fast without armor of unfeeling...that is true :[