Tira's GvG E/W and M/W Runners

Hi all. Following is a build I developed and used for running the flag in Guild vs Guild battles recently; I initially opted to keep it to myself but since my guild seems to be afraid of using anything but a r/w for the runner I decided to share it with the masses. The character is designed to outrun the other team but also have versatile uses in combat. Following that is a theoretical M/W runner that I feel is superior but will probably never have a chance to try, considering my guild's conservative view on tactics.

Tira's E/W Runner:

Water Magic 12+3+1
Air Magic 4+1
Tactics 9
.. and the rest in E. Storage

-- weapon switch 1
+5 energy long sword of enchanting (20%)
Shield of your choice
-- weapon switch 2
casting speed +20% water wand
cast+recharge +20% water wand

Skills:

Armor of Mist
"Charge!" (elite)
Sprint
Maelstrom
Ice Prison
Gale
"Watch Yourself!" or Rush
Res Signet

I won't go into how to play it, but it should be apparent that you have a lot of flexibility in snaring and otherwise disabling opposing runners, melee, and monks in between flag runs.

----------------------------------------

Tira's M/W Runner

Illusion Magic 12+3+1
Fast Casting 9
Tactics 9
... leftovers in Domination

Skills:

Illusion of Haste
"Charge!" (elite)
Sprint
Hex Breaker
Soothing Images
Arcane Conundrum
Imagined Burden
Res Signet

That's it. Thanks for reading and hopefully some people in more tactically-minded guilds will see the potential of these builds.
~Tira Halite

Iron Mist is unbelievably effective at stopping flag runners, especially on halls like the ice one with the flag stand out of the way as most runners have no hex removal.

In fact the ice level is the only place where you could possibly get away with designing a pure flag runner build. Otherwise you're better off just packing snares on your team

Iron mist was my primary motivator in creating the second mes runner. Between hex breaker and Illusion of Haste he can't be stopped. Unless of course they remove illusion of haste, which would cripple you; disadvantageous in theory, but I don't think it would be problematic.

That being said, even iron mist isn't hugely threatening - obviously it's a high priority hex to remove, so you'd be unlikely to get more than a few seconds of slowing out of it. The Armor of Mist e/w runner is usually to the flag before anyone notices her coming, also... and I have actually been iron misted at that point in the past - it doesn't usually bother me at all, since after capping I maelstrom and gale our target, and iron mist grants immunity to most damage.

Oh, and I guess you didn't actually look at the builds.

~tira

the only mes primary flag runner i would make is a mes/nec with the frag/virulence for 4 slots, and then 4 running/snare/maybe more damage slots (illusion of haste, imagined burden, conjure phantasm, something else maybe hex breaker). The idea is that you can not only run the flag, but also solo kill an enemy flag runner and spike an off-target to distract heals. The builds aren't that bad, but it does help to take away some speed in order to be much more helpful outside of the flag running - ie, solo ganking the enemy flag runner behind the fight.

Mo/E...

Glyph of Lesser
Windborn
Aegis
Heal Party
Martyr
Gale
----
----

Go Crazy.

Quote: Originally Posted by I Farm Sigils

I like your style Tira

I run a R/W speed-demon for a flag runner in GvG, focusing just on keeping up my speed and keeping myself alive when the other runner attacks me. However, it leaves me with little to no space for contributing to fights where the stand is already capped and they're not trying to claim it. I've begun preparing different GvG runner builds too.

I definitely like that first build, and calculated that it's actually faster than my R/W. I calculated it using an arbitrary base running speed of 12 feet per second, over my 50 second repeating interval, I'd get an average 15.96 feet per second, while your ~64 second repeating interval racks up about 16.13 feet per second. With the enchantment, stance, and shout stacking some of the time, you've got blinding speed sometimes, but you also have to cope with long casting times for armor of mist, so the two have pretty close FPS end-values.

I think I'll definitely try it out. Having affordable hex snares would be axesome (pin down is fun, but you have to pump marksmanship to get it decent, and condition removal is much more prevalent than hex removal). There are some W/Mo GvG runners that probably pack hex removal, but they lack in speed anyway.

I would lose the adrenaline based skills though. Just don't mess with getting close and personal with the other runner, because you're either wasting your armor of mist speed standing there, or your armor level is god awful and you won't last too long in a fight. Snaring the other runner and pissing them off and then hauling ass back to base would work perfectly fine IMO.

Not so sure I like the Me/W as much. As a running skill, I'm not a huge fan of illusion of haste. The casting time every ~10 seconds keeps it from being a top-tier skill. It is an enchantment, so it's stackable with a speed stance for a bonus, but it just doesn't do it for me. What is the point of being a mesmer? You're not packing any damage skills, just some snares and more defensive skills. To me it seems like your first build outshines it.

I would only use a mesmer runner for something like a frag spiker. You give up some speed (no run stances or shouts) for the power to really dominate someone one on one if they're not ready for it. As a bonus, plague touch the cripple from illusion of haste onto the opponent.

Quote: Originally Posted by smurfhunter

Great ideas from both Arathorn and Iraq on the Mes flag runner... definitely more useful than my original build, which was just developed on the idea of "don't let cripple or hexes slow you down." I especially like the idea of plague touching the cripple from IoH onto the other runner. The only downside with going E/N is you're losing out significantly on speed and survivability; but obviously being able to drop their runner with Fragility is the tradeoff.

I've thought about doing an e/mo or mo/e/w runner and protector... I'm not sure whether Martyr works mapwide or not, but my overall decision on the char was that you'd either be lackluster at heal party/aegis (for the e/mo) or short on energy, slow, and vulnerable (mo/e). I'm sure someone can prove me wrong with stories of using a monk or e/mo to run in top 100 gvg, but for the moment I'm not seeing it.

On the subject of my E/W's speed, the preponderance of my games take place on the map(s) with a central flag area and gated compounds for each team. In that arena I find my build to be pretty perfect; Armor of Mist lasts around 25 seconds. I usually cast it after I've pulled the gate lever, thus using up that delay during which the gate is impenetrable. The 25 second duration will then get me there and back and then some. What slows me down the most is actually the cooldowns on Charge! and Sprint, since both hover around 9 seconds duration / 20 sec cooldown (if I recall right, haven't run in a while), and without them I'm at a paltry +33% from armor of mist. But yeah, if you're smart with when you use Armor of Mist the casting time isn't too much of a burden.

Oh, it's especially nice when I can convince the warrior on our team to take the flag - I sit at the gate with them and use Charge! to get the war (who also has sprint) quickly to the flagstand and myself quickly back to the flag spawn, where I cast Armor of Mist and then pick up the flag as my teammate caps... I can usually Charge! and Sprint and make it out of the base before the gate closes, and recapture within seconds of the opposing team's capture.

Sadly I haven't had much luck pointing out the strategic advantages of that tactic to my guild, so usually our runner has to start out with the flag =(

Quote: Oh, it's especially nice when I can convince the warrior on our team to take the flag - I sit at the gate with them and use Charge! to get the war (who also has sprint) quickly to the flagstand and myself quickly back to the flag spawn, where I cast Armor of Mist and then pick up the flag as my teammate caps... I can usually Charge! and Sprint and make it out of the base before the gate closes, and recapture within seconds of the opposing team's capture. Yep, I use this too. Who doesn't like a Charge! at the beginning? Only map that I grab the flag first is actually my guildhall, the frozen hall. The flagstand is so far out of the way you've gotta be the only one running it.

Well, just tried running that E/W runner, and had a bit of a problem. The speed skills didn't seem to be stacking. I could have sworn with my R/W that charge stacked with my speed stances, but tonight it seemed like nothing was stacking...