Elite Mission Event: A Guide To PuGs

I'd like to echo something a couple of others have said here: Thanks to the OP, because this is a useful guide to

What builds will be in high demand at the weekend event

it is not an optimised setup - several people have made some important corrections already. But it is very valuable to those of us who just want to sneak into groups with those characters we have who can easily be adapted to a cookie-cutter role.

...Of course, some of us will do some experimenting in a couple of off slots, just to infuriate any little Napoleons running the team. Nothing gamebreaking, mind, just a Ward Against Melee in the nuking build or something.

If you plan on clearing The Deep in ~an hour, you probably don't want to bring an assassin. Nor do I bring a rit. Nor do I bring a BIP necro. I've never brought a mesmer, but that's mainly because I've never tried. I just know that my group composition works, even if I build my parties out of PuGs, and it works exceptionally well.

Also: Yes, for The Deep, it's best for your warriors to have some kind of knockdown. Shove is ideal, as is Shock, or just be a hammer war. I see monks carrying Shield of Judgment these days, but just ugh. I'd rather have my monks monking. Also, Spinal Shivers is excellent on the last boss and there's no reason for a necro not to bring it.

I wish I could play this weekend, ah well better luck next time for me!

why hate on the rit?
besides you really can't expect a PUG to clear the elite missions in an hour

I tried using a rit, but I found that having a spirit spammer doesn't really help all that much in my groups.

And yeah, I can. I usually have ~3 people from my alliance when I go anyway, and once I figured out the inner workings of the Deep, I have yet to have a group fail. Some do it faster than others, granted.

Major Kudos to the OP. I know he's recieved a LOT of flaming for having such a strict view on what roles each professions should play, but in all honesty, if you are using a PuG for an elite mission, you will likely be standing around for a LOOOOOOOOOOOOONG time trying to organize an effective 12 member cookie cutter group. If you want to organize a group with a new type of group build that no one is familiar with you will REALLY be waiting a long time to get things together.

There is nothing wrong with any particular class, and there is nothing wrong with using each class differently than they are stated here. However for a PuG to be able to have a chance to make it all the way through, you really have to have a group of people gathered that know what their role is as well as how their role works together with the group. Accepting people who are not well suited for the group will likely not only waste your time, but waste theirs as well, so in the long run, you're not doing them the favor you thought you were.


As for monk builds, I just thought I would throw in that Energy Drain is an excellent elite for monks since it is a strong energy management skill that is not reliant on an enchantment. Even though there will be a dedicated battery in your group, this will stretch him less and give your group a fighting chance if he drops.


Also if I may ask, I have seen a lot of people upset about how the OP said that mesmers are best suited in 1v1, and therefore not really helpful here. What is incorrect about this statement? I have a mesmer and love him, but I know that he simply will be very little help in an elite mission. Simply put, getting through these missions is generally heavily reliant on using AoE against your enemies and mesmers really don't have anything beyond E-Surge or Chaos Storm. My mesmer gets through most PvE just fine with a good spammable degen build, but I don't see how they could fit into an elite mission. Perhaps a fast cast nuker? If this is the implication I would still argue that a stronger nuke is more necessary than a fast one. Either way I would like to hear from those who disagree. I'm curious if they know some way a mesmer could work in an Elite mission or if this is simply a feeling of bitterness in response to an assumption that mesmers are being marked as being less of a class simply because they are not chosen of Elite Missions.

No, The OP took a direct shot at Mesmers and assassins. If he were "just listing builds currently required by PuGs" He wouldn't have mentioned them at all. Instead, he said that Mesmers & Assassins were basically useless in the elite missions.

I disagree again, The best PUGs are the ones that can adapt to the skills & strengths of builds that aren't "cookie cutter." What's retarded about wanting to be in a PUG that's got players that are skilled enough to deviate from the cookie cutters?

Are you saying that only cookie-cutter PUGs work? Because knowing your role & doing it well is a key to success in any party.

Rubbish.


Ahh well, I guess I'll just bring My Warrior. Or My Monk. Or my Ranger. Or My Ele. It's all good to me.

Archon has the right idea. The OP's opinions of underdog classes aside, the build he outlined is the best chance a PuG has. You'll note the disclaimer, "not for guild/alliance groups." Pug's lack the neccesary coordination for using unique, insightful, non-cookie cutter builds. It's not that they are bad, or any less viable, or any less enjoyable. Its just that stepping out of the box requires a very dedicated team, and a good amount of coordinated teamwork. I'd say he did miss the enchant strip, but What he outlined isn't the end of all Deep/Warren builds, its just a VERY simple, EASY to use build, where the roles are clearly defined and confusion will be minimal. The OP is getting flamed needlessly. Rather than argue with him about the viablity of a 'sin primary, present other options.

Thank goodness no one is required to follow this "guide" for the missions.... lol.

Luckily most people that would blindly listen to someone else telling them what build to run and what skills to use will all be grouping together.

Mental note: Don't write another controversial guide.

To those complaining about the Mesmer role, it's the mentality of PuGs. I won't deny that Mesmers have a use (Cry of Frustration is Awesome!). But people believe that Mesmers don't have a use.

I have never seen a PuG look specifically for a Mesmer.

If you want a Mesmer reliably, get a guild group.

Don't shoot the messenger. Please.

Made a few edits with respect to the development.

Thinking about taking my necro along.. but what would be better?

N/Mo with SS and area healing? or N/Me with Arcane Echo and SS?

As I've said, Arcane Echo is a blessing for SS. Plus, it enables you to use Inspired/Revealed Enchantment for Kanaxai.

My sin build is great at killing high level targets....period.

I have some responses to your questions :
Mesmer has two roles in Elite missions in tank/nuke groups :
1. Be a tank insurance. As the OP stated "If a Thorn Wolf or an Oni of the Deep attacks the casters, you are in trouble.". That is correct. And a Mesmer with a Incompetence/Signet of Midnight plus Epidemic is a (quick) insurance. Trapper is another, though slower.
2. Make things faster : Deep wound + Epidemic sure make thinks alot easier for the nukers. And some blinding here and there sure make things alot easier for the tankers and gives a break to healers.

Of course you can ignore all this. That's GW : you can always do things in several different ways

By definition, PuG = Ignorant.

If you attempt to LFG as a Mesmer or Assassin an Elite Mission outpost, expect to be sitting for a long time. You don't even have to read the guide to know that.

Let's have a discussion without resorting to insults and flames please.

Whats a PuG? THAT's the question!
is it something like random teams?

How many people here that ARE complaining have ACTUALLY done the warren? I have MANY MANY times and the OP is RIGHT. The ONLY times we have got to urogz have been WITH this builds mentioned in this guide. In fact most of the times we did'nt even have a warrior. I have played in MANY other groups that have included mesmers and sins. They hardly ever got past the 1st room. Sins ARE useless. All they do here is die in seconds. Mesmers are not much better. This is based on playing the mission MANY MANY times. So before you start ranting at me for saying you fav class is crap please get some experence in this mission and have completed it.

While a mesmer could help with urgoz, he is useless for the rest of the mission. So why bring someone along who is only going to be helpfull at the end, when you could have someone who will be usefull though out the mission.

The group make up that has been the most sucessfull for me anyway has been 4 Rangers (trapers and spirts (EW QZ EOE) , 2 Nukers, 2 Nercos (1 SS and 1Bip), 3 monks and 1 Port Rit lord. I'm not saying you can't play other groups, the questions you have to ask is this, how long do you want to spend doing this mission and do you want to finish it.

EDIT Rename it pls, "Elite Mission Cookie-Cutter Guide".

There is NO NEED to make a cookie cutter guide to the elite missions.

Instead of making a guide to the elite missions which actually encourages pugs to take other classes such as mesmer which they wouldnt normally take you encourage them to stick to their cookie cutter mentality.

Making a guide to encourage people to use different builds would be nice. For example my hammer warrior/ele tank in tombs would out last any other tank I was with. Yet many would be like omg!!!!!!!!!!! he doesnt have a shield.

PuG = Pick-up Group

Basically, a group where you don't know the majority of the players you are grouped with.

I saw someone ask on GWO if a MM would be good for the mission. Someone in this thread asked if an SS with Heal Area was good.

Many people have asked me in-game what an Elite Mission was anyways.

Necessity is the first cousin of invention.

PUG = Pick up group, ie: a PUG is a group of players who are not in the same guild/firend list. Everybody is a PUG. Everybody is not ignorant.

This guide is perfect for the noob player that will experience Urgoz/Deep for the first time; it will hopefully save them some pain. However, for the mildly experienced PvE'r, some of the statements don't apply. Thanks for your time. The only important part of the build are the monks/rit lord/tank. the rest is up to the group to decide.

Think about noobs trying the Elite Missions and you will see the benefit of this guide.

I need to give a QFT to that.

For most of the people in this thread, this guide will not apply to you. This guide applies to the people who have never played an Elite Mission before and are now enticed due to the event.

Many people, however, will not read this guide and will not accept Mesmers or Assassins into a PuG. I'm encouraging you to not waste your time.

The real issue here is this: why do you want to do the elite missions?

Everyone in this thread is assuming that the only reason anyone might want to do the missions is farming, and I agree that when farming it is important to have THE optimal build for the area, as you will then finish the mission in as short time as possible. Which gives more time to do it over. And over. And over. And over.

As for me, my starting point is exploration and testing. It is totally incomprehensible to me that someone would want to do the same mission the exact same way fifty times in a row just for the pleasure of selling ten Urgoz Flatbows, but I realize I'm a minority of 1 wrt that.

However, I'm pretty sure any combination of classes, even Assassins (gasp!) or Wammos with Healing Hands (shock!) can actually complete the mission, you just have to adjust tactics accordingly.

Which is what I would be doing. I would be running whichever build took my fancy, I wouldn't be getting the optimal droprate of greens per time unit, and I wouldn't care.

The present GW PvE "metagame" is 110% about farming and loot, but I'm not. And that is why I'd like the ability to play with henches instead, why I've only explored those areas of UW and FoW that I can solo, and why I'm not going to do the elite missions, ever, until I can bring henches.

ANet has in this event seen fit to give us a Exxtreme Farming event, which is great since that quite obviously is what the vast majority of players want, but I don't have to approve, and I don't have to like that it further reinforces the view that the only thing one can do in PvE is farm, farm, farm, using optimal cookie-cutter builds.

If you simply reworded this guide so that it SUGGESTS builds instead of making them seem utterly necessary, it would help a lot.

I added a short disclaimer before the roles.

Thanks for your guide it gave me a good outline for the missions.

I was planning on going down to check it out having never been there before. I wasn't planning on conquering it, more to have a look see.

Maybe to all those that have replied to this thread with their dis-approval should make there own guide to playing professions or grouping methods for these elite missions. I think your guide would be well recieved by new players as it was by me.

Much better, and I appologize for flaming you before (I'm not even sure what I said that Inde deleted, but I suppose I should wake up fully before trying to say anything here). In general, these are some of the roles expected in a PUG.

A few more points I would like to add:

• While the Warrior's tanking ability may be foremost in importance, there should at least be some room on the skillbar for some damage or knockdown skills. Stance/Knockdown tanks are quite popular and sufficiently effective. Sword-based damage skills can really help finish off the target as well, although Axe is generally less effective here because its strength is in spiking and you can't really spike out a level 28 Oni.
• Mesmers still get far less credit than they deserve. Yes, the general idea is that they are useless, but some Mesmer builds (such as the Deep Wound nuker) will mesh seamlessly with the other PUG builds here. I think those deserve some recognition.
• I wish I could, but I can't really defend the Assassin. 90% of them just try to tank and die. The only possible build would be the crit-barrager, which, depending on the situation, could be more or less effective than a Meteor Shower nuker.
• Battery necros tend to be a waste of a slot if monks and nukers know how to manage their energy. This is, unfortunately, a rare occurance in PUGs.
• Ward-using E/Mos with Earthquake and Aftershock also can easily mesh with the other PUG builds and are becoming increasingly popular, especially in FoW and UW. Coordinating Earthquake with your Meteor Showers can mean your enemy's ass never leaves the ground, and its not even very hard to pull off.

Yes, but Ele's and Necros can nuke GROUPS of enemies at a time. Assassins attack 1 target at a time....period.

I agree with Zinger--those roles are what everyone is going to be looking for this weekend. You're not going to have only the players that earned their access to the missions, you'll have anyone who can get themselves to Kaineng. That includes a lot of players who won't know what they're doing--therefore people will look for generic roles when forming groups. Unfortunately, that's the ugly truth--PUGs look for certain things and sins and mesmers usually aren't on the top of those people's short lists. Sucks for me because I play an A/Mo that has the protection skills a 55 monk brings that I use while killing that pesky healer in case everything else decides to attack me. I can take it, dish it, whatever, but people won't see that unless I go in their group. So I play the waiting game for mission groups.

But I'm still going to drag along my sin--and my rit MM who uses minions as walking grenades--and have a go. The point of the event is so people will get a taste of the elite missions. So I'm going to grab a couple guildies, pick up some other people, and have fun!

Some warriors do pack some damage and in places like they deep they are expected to pack 1-2 KD's.

The gain of a mesmer (deep wound nuking or any other builds) isn't much over having another nuker. As it is it takes meer seconds for good groups to take out several groups of enemies as long as the tanks have them walled up properly. In the situation that tanks don't have things walled up properly then the mesmer is just as useless as any nuker when it comes to killing the loose ends of the aggro.

No one can defend the sins. They are 100% worthless in these missions EVEN as running crit/barrage (which, for the record, is WEAKER than a barrage ranger). For example, during 90% of the deep a crit/barrage either would deal very little damage and inflict no conditions due to non-fleshies, or would severly mess up aggro by triggering things like Vipers Defense and causing several Oni's to teleport behind the warriors and attack the casters.

For the deep they are there for the monks, monks often have to spam a lot of spells or expensive spells (15 energy heal party - 10 energy extinguish) to keep everyone up and using an elite for energy management (because lets face it, thats the only good energy management a monk can hope to bring) still may not provide enough energy and would be a waste of an elite (RC/SB/WOH/Martyr are all effective monk skills in these areas).

For Urgoz when teams like going 4 trappers, its easier to bring QZ and no EW and have a necro BIP them to speed up trapping by a lot. Also the necro almost needs to bip the monks (which many teams only bring 2 of) during touchy situations.

No its not, matter of fact I've brought earth ele's in teams im in. I fully agree that Earthquake (or dual earthquake since there are 2 of them now) is effective at maintaining a KD chain. And wards are invaluable, even to protect the warriors (save a stance or two for wards).

You're right in saying that it doesn't neccesarily encourage people to try out new things. But what it does do, is lay out a very simple build, for people who have never tried an elite mission to run, and have moderate success with. I've run a similar build myself, I know it works, and it requires very little to get going. I play a mesmer, and a ranger, and I don't find anything offensive about his comments. I'm used to waiting around for a group. I understand that people are going to look for what they know works, works in the shortest amount of time, and requires the least amount of coordination. This guide was aimed at killing the frustration people who have never played this mission may run into when trying it out for the first time. These classes/builds will be the most sought out, and its not that much of a stretch to pull out a dusty character to fill one of the roles listed.

Back on topic. This build works, it's solid, and efficient... but its hardly the only one. This was hinted at by the OP's original disclaimer.

I think the same rules applied to going to elite mission as with farming tomb. Take it slow, listen to commands, and don't aggro too much!

Right, so you can put a mesmer in your group instead of a nuker and get the same results, if you want to. There's your solution for those who want to be in PUGs as a Mesmer. You will, of course, get in a group faster with a traditional nuker.



Again, exactly. You should never try to take an Assassin unless you know they are going to perform as they should, which means it really isn't a PUG anymore.



As I stated below, the best thing to do is let the E/Mo do the high-energy monks spells. BIP will speed up traps, but its not exactly necessary when most of your trapping should occur at the beginning of the battle when enemies are going over whatever choke point you are creating.

Now, THAT makes me mad. Mesmers can perform very well. Heard of Energy Surge? Echoed? Guess not. Interrupts. Degeneration. Spikes. Honestly, people who do not include mesmers because they are not part of the 'cookie cutter buld' - Need to reconsider. I am a mesmer myself and I am looking forward to this event, and yet, a guide is put up, saying mesmers are not gonna work here.

Mesmers may not be any more valuble than a regular fire nuker, but not including them isn't necessary.

This kind of guide is discriminating against classes, which i don't find very respectable. I reccomend looking into some good points about this/and other classes that were listed as 'none' and revise.

Read what you quoted more carefully. It's the PuG Mentallity. If you want to sit in the Elite Missions outposts and give lectures on the usefullness of Mesmers, go for it. In the meantime, PuGs view Mesmers as worthless.

Wow, a lot of people can't read. The guide is intended for people who want an easier time getting into a PUG at one of these missions. It isn't an ultimate walkthrough guide laying out every possible way to beat these missions. Please learn to read instead of assuming the OP is saying something he isn't. As an experienced PvE'er who hasn't yet tried either of these missions, I found the guide informative.

To go on a bit of a tangent, I never understood the mentality of these people who say "I play a mesmer and I want to play this mission too!" as if saying that the only way they can play the mission is with the one specific character, and that they should have just as easy of a time doing it as someone with a different character. Your characters are like your tool belt. The wider variety of characters you have, the better of a chance you'll have at taking on various PvE challenges. A carpenter isn't going to try to hammer a nail with a screwdriver and then complain when he can't do it as easily as he could with a hammer, likewise a player shouldn't limit themselves to trying to complete a PvE challenge with a single character and then complain when they can't do it as easily as they could have with a different character.

Keep a variety of characters in your slots, and keep your options open. If you want an easy time getting into a pick up group, then go with a character who you can easily adapt into one of these cookie cutter builds. If you want more of a challenge and have the resources (i.e. guild/friends) to do it, then go with a more unusual build. Just don't shoot the OP for trying to help the novices with getting into an Elite Mission PUG as easily as possible.

Three mesmers, using primarily Mesmer skills, are not going to rip through The Deep as fast as three nukers using primarily Ele skills.

Lol, at the very least, the OP tells an elite mission newbie what to be thinking about before going into one of these missions.

Because once a newbie gets there, none of the PvE "experts" is going to bother explaining in detail all of these clever builds and skillsets which can be used to kill the missions 20% faster. They're going to say, "what kind of x are you?" Followed by, "buh-bye." (If they're curteous enough to say anything, which they won't be.)



There were a few nice suggestions in this thread that would make the basic build in the OP work fairly well, IMO.

Thanks for the guide, Zinger. It's obvious to me that a relatively small group of people have been at this quite a bit and have worked out a generic system to get the job done. It's a system that usually works even within the usual dysfunctional PUG framework.

Personally, I'd like to have as good a chance as possible in the limited event time to see the whole place and get some goodies. It seems to me that the best way to do that is to work within the system. If the people who do this on a regular basis are looking for a certain build set, and I want to run with them (because they are, I hope, experienced), who am I to complain.

That being said, I also look forward to hearing about all the out-of-box teams that beat the missions.