Freyas's Theme Builds

I am quite delighted to read the thread on potential builds.

As a per-order only GW devotee, I have had little chance to experiment with specialty builds, or even diverse builds that may incorporate a different secondary class.

Because of that, it is a bit more abstract for me to imagine what it may be like to build a class one way as opposed to another, as I am very hands on.

Reading the theme builds gives me a strong sense of what is possible with knowledge and a bit of monkeying around with ideas, instead of being stuck with the narrow learning of a few weekends of experience over more than that many months.

Thanks for the article, a real eye opener to me on potentials in practice. Great read, I look forward to visiting this site more often!

Does fragility pop when on fire is applied, and when it wears off? I heard that it did not, anyone know for sure?

The reason I asked about if it works, is that I actually thought about a build very similar to this one. But when I tried it out, I couldn't get the damage output I wanted, so I thought the problem might have been with the on fire condition. I guess the problem was something else then.

I guess you can't talk about how you have tested this in alpha because of the NDA. If anyone tests this out in the bwe or have tested something like this earlier, could you please write here if you had any succes with damage output around 100 per seconds?

Quote: Originally Posted by Jak o

Quote: Originally Posted by cpukilla

Quote: Originally Posted by Sleeky101 3*10= 30 That's nice, but:
Quote:

Originally Posted by Sleeky101 8+1 Energy Storage 8 + 1 = 9. 3 * 9 = 27. Break even comes on the third cast, not the fourth -- fourth and on is bonus.

8,+1 rune, + 1mask- which I didn't take into account the first post. Sorry for complications.

Anyways, with the mark recharge thw way it is, mes/ele is probably the better way to go.

Here's a funky build I made just screwing around on the attribute calculator trying to come up with a farming toon.

The Mad Bomber
Ne/El
Soul Reaping 12+1 (Lucky 13 for a Nec) :twisted:
Blood Magic 3
Death Magic 12+2

Glyph of Energy (elite) (Glyph)
Your next spell costs 20 less energy to cast. This is an elite skill.
Casting cost: 5 energy
Casting time: 1 sec
Recharge time: 15 sec
Relevant attribute: None (Elementalist)

and

Glyph of Lesser Energy (Glyph)
Your next spell cost 15 less energy to cast.
Casting cost: 5 energy
Casting time: 1 sec
Recharge time: 30 sec
Relevant attribute: None (Elementalist)

Use these two spells to be able to keep building bombers and/or putrid explosion on new corpses.

Animate Bone Minions (Spell)
Exploit target corpse to animate two level 9 Bone Minions.
Casting cost: 25 energy
Casting time: 5 sec
Recharge time: 5 sec
Relevant attribute: Death Magic

Use em to swarm and bomb your foes.

Animate Bone Fiend (Spell)
Exploit target corpse to animate a level 14 Bone Fiend. Bone Fiends can attack at range.
Casting cost: 25 energy
Casting time: 5 sec
Recharge time: 5 sec
Relevant attribute: Death Magic

Throw one out every so often to keep continual nuking power going.

Death Nova (Enchantment)
For 30 seconds, if target ally dies, Death Nova deals 95 damage to all nearby creatures.
Casting cost: 5 energy
Casting time: 2 sec
Recharge time: 0 sec
Relevant attribute: Death Magic

Use this very inexpensive spell to make your bombers go boom.

Putrid Explosion (Spell)
Target corpse explodes, sending out a shockwave that deals 114 damage to each nearby creature.
Casting cost: 10 energy
Casting time: 1 sec
Recharge time: 0 sec
Relevant attribute: Death Magic

Use this one to make your bomber's targets go boom too.

Taste of Death (Spell)
Steal 380 health from target animated undead ally.
Casting cost: 5 energy
Casting time: 1 sec
Recharge time: 0 sec
Relevant attribute: Death Magic

Use this spell to heal yourself while making your bombs go off.

Dark Bond (Enchantment)
For the next 36 seconds, whenever you receive physical damage, your closest minion suffers 75% of that damage for you.
Casting cost: 10 energy
Casting time: 2 sec
Recharge time: 60 sec
Relevant attribute: Blood Magic

Use this one when the enemies start closing in on you.

I know that the first concern everybody will have is energy. But, with every death, including your own pets', you get 13 energy. You can even kill one off using taste of death for 5 energy to heal yourself for 380 health and 8 energy (13 - 5). Limited by your number of minions but with no recharge time.

The other part to this is using both energy glyphs. Suddenly you can turn out 2 level 9 bone minions for 10 energy every 15 or so seconds and two more for 15 energy every 30 seconds. But you will, as always, need corpses.

And that is the weakness of this build. It doesn't work solo and it doesn't work too hot for pvp. However, with a healer and a couple of tanks you could potentially wipe out an entire armada of mobs - regardless of how many there are. I'm not going to say that this is the be-all end-all of pve builds but I will say that it seems like it would be a pretty damn fun build. And that's good.

I saw a build like yours that it a little less minion and a little more damage but the same general idea. Energy could be a big problem in this build:

Nec/R

Soul Reaping 9
Curses 11
Death 10
Marksmanship 10

Mark of Pain
Animate Bone Minions
Charm Animal
Death Nova
Dual Shot
Barrage-E
Taste of Death
Revive Animal

This build has a good base but there are some big flaws. First, is Soul Reaping 1:1 or 1:1.5? If it's 1:1 then it will be a little rough to use Minions even though the energy cost will be the same (2 minions * 9 en each = 18 = 6 net energy loss// 1 minion * 9 en = 9 = 6 net energy loss). Barrage seems a little out of place, I was thinking getting a Glyph of Energy necklace for Bone Minions instead. Then it costs 5 energy to cast and you will gain 13 energy instead of losing 6. But most importantly, whats the ruling on the Soul Reaping ratio?

1 for 1. And with two minions you would (as far as I know) get it twice.

Here's a build I'd like to try. It's quite possibly worth actually trying out. The truly important stuff is in bold. I'll let youput the pieces together.

Class: Ranger / Mesmer

Assumed items:
+1 to Expertise
+2 to Marksmanship

Attributes: (cost)
Expertise: 9+1 (48)
Beast Mastery: 3 (6)
Marksmanship: 10+2 (61)
Illusion Magic: 9 (48)
Inspiration Magic: 8 (37)

Total attribute points used: 200/200


Skills:
1) Fragility - (15,1,15)
For 16 seconds, target foe takes 22 damage each time that foe suffers or recovers from a new condition.

2) Read the Wind - (5,2,12)
For 12 seconds, your arrows move faster than normal and deal 15 extra damage.

3) Incendiary Arrows (elite) - (5,2,24)
For 8 seconds, targets struck by your arrows are interrupted and set on fire for 1 seconds. This is an elite skill.

4) Called Shot - (10,0,4)
Shoot an arrow that moves 3 times faster than normal and cannot be blocked or evaded.

5) Power Shot - (15,0,3)
If Power Shot hits, you strike for +34 damage (before armor).

6) Pin Down - (10,0,10)
If Pin Down hits, your target is crippled for 13 seconds.

7) Ether Feast - (5,2,8)
Target foe loses 5 energy. You are healed 19 for each point of energy lost.

8) Lightning Reflexes - (10,0,60)
For 9 seconds, you have a 75% chance to evade melee and arrow attacks, and you attack 33% faster.

#3 is now live. This time around things are a bit different as Freyas attempts to build not just one character but 8 from scratch. That's right, you get a full team build this time around and thanks to the BWE you also can get some insight on exactly how it worked out. The basic idea - and it's not a bad one - is to win a GvG match quick by carving up the Guild Lord with Grenth's Balance (Also known as Chiron's Balance. Who's supposed to be updating the skills around here, anyway? :P).

I just wanted to add that I decided to put up a team build this week, mostly to give an idea of what to look for when trying to make up a build for a certain situation: in this case, guild battles. The build was extremely fun to play, getting my adrenaline pumping harder than pretty much any other time I've played. Team builds are a bit different than other builds, since each character can depend on benefits given by other players- for example, you can pack your character with more energy-intensive skills and less energy management if you know that one of your teammates is going to be bringing Blood is Power. In this build, most of the characters would not be extremely effective on their own, but when put together, the combination was fairly powerful.

Two points

1) Does Heal Party have the same range as Order of the Vampire? Could be a nice way of healing the assassins from afar.

2) As for Phoenix on the E/mo, do the elementalists protecting the guild lord still cast maelstrom? I recall they did a while ago, and I had very little success with Phoenix.

Heal Party had 'radar' range last time I checked the skill, which admittedly was a while ago. Not quite something that's going to help the hit squad.

Peace,
-CxE

Quote: Originally Posted by Zrave

We were discussing this build on IRC a few nights ago and I think some good points were brought up.

Firstly, the assassin or stealth team is a bit problematic. An Elmo is a curious choice, it makes sense given that you want to toss around a lot of nukes but why do you want to toss around a lot of nukes in the first place? Your build is centered around dropping the Lord as quickly as possible but by combining an Elementalist with your two Warriors you're not taking advantage of the boost to damage they'll get from the Orders and everything else. Another physical damage dealing character would seem to further increase your DPS meaning it'll take even less time than it already does to kill the Lord. Clearly, a healer is called for but given that you're running Energizing Winds to reduce energy costs couldn't a RaMo or WaMo serve to cast Healing Seed and your other buffs just as well? Or perhaps a Mo/R or Mo/W? Personally, I'd take a RaMo and concentrate on a lot of quick, cheap attack skills.

Also, "Charge!" seems like a bit of a waste of an elite slot. True, you do want your team moving quickly but there are a lot of chokepoints, such as opening the gate where you'll have to slow down and more important than reaching the guild hall quickly is reaching it unnoticed by the other team. I'd merely stick Sprint on the charcter lugging the Thief so you can get a head start on opening the gate before the rest of the assassin's arrive and then use that opened elite slot for yet another Grenth's Balance. After all, if two are good, 3 should be even better. Instead of having to deal with a character with 900 odd hit points, you'll deal with one around 4 or 500. With no one healing the Lord and three dedicated damage dealers, you shouldn't have much of a problem whittling that away in a matter of seconds.

Secondly, there's the question of what happens when that gambit fails? Your decoy team is set up to support that assassin team but it's not set up to do much else. As your article says, you had problems when you got into a slug fest with someone or ran up against a team that stuck to their base. The strategy is a good one, yes, it works, but the question is just how much can you pare it down and then include another, different, fall-back strategy that will serve to further increase your odds of winning. Since the best thing to do is to fine-tune your assassin's to be as deadly as possible the obvious solution, then, is to include some redundancy in your decoy team. Simply put, if the assassin's fail the decoy team needs to be able to put up enough of a fight that the game isn't over. It needs to be built to take advantage of a lot of the things that are going into your assassin group's success. You're going to have Energizing Winds up, you're going to have the Orders working for you, that, to me, seems to indicate a secondary strategy based around dealing physical damage supported by high cost magic. You need to be throwing around things like expensive Elementalist hexes like Mark of Rodgort/Glimmering Mark or some costly Nec debuffs because with Winds you can afford it.

Next, you need to worry not about what happens when the opposing team retreats so much. Muddy Terrain seems like a waste of DP because of its casting time. You dont' want to cast it too early or else it'll impede your assassins but with a 5 second casting time it makes it hard to slam on the second the enemy starts running for their gate. Instead of trying to slow the opponent as they head for their gate, why not try and carve them up? Your decoy team should be ready to rush in after the enemy team as they make a U turn in the middle. If they're moving that means their casters aren't healing, that means that even with just 5 characters you can be wrecking some havoc among them as they withdraw and perhaps even slip inside their base after they've opened it up. Use their preoccupation with the assassin team against them, in other words. Make them have to choose between dealing with the assassins and dealing with the decoy team.

Also, the suggestion was made that another way of doing a Lord gank would be to play possum a bit. Lay low in your hall or make a stab at the middle and then try and lure the enemy inside your gates. Then, have the assassins take offf for the hall with the theif and hope that your decoy team can hold them off for the few seconds it'll take them to kill the Lord or that the enemy will be too preoccupied with storming your gates to worry about their and too far away to be able to respond in time. I have my reservations about such a scheme but I'd like to hear your thoughts on the matter.

We chose the ElMo because the damage that they could drop with meteor shower and firestorm on the guild lord who won't move out of the radius was greater than what a melee character could do, especially one that had to take some healing. With each Grenth's, the damage that it will deal is halved- two seemed sufficient to drop the lord enough- the third would have been dealing 100-200 damage at most- still not inconsiderable, but less than dropping a meteor shower does. A W/Mo might be a possibility, but with 2 W/Mo's having to take the brunt of the healing, there's not too much healing potential there with their low energy pool and slow regeneration.

Charge! is a possible skill to remove for something else- the increased run speed was nice, but I'm not sure if it's worth the elite slot- we ended up waiting for the guild thief, as it was often difficult to get him affected by it- if Charge! even works on the NPC's. One thought was replacing that with Lingering Curse to help prevent the other team from saving their lord even if they made it back- 1/2 healing and no enchantments should give a few extra seconds to finish the lord off even with the other team getting close enough to heal.

Making the decoy team more viable in terms of fighting it out is something that I'd like to work on with the build. If fighting a team that you've already encountered, they're not going to let your gank squad get off an attack- you'll have to force the advantage. The biggest improvement I can see is adding some additional healing and damage-dealing in place of some snares on the decoy team- that way if you have to fight head-on 8vs8, you should have a viable team.

As for Muddy Terrain, that wasn't a problem with Teamspeak. When the assassins neared the enemy resurrect pad, they'd call for Muddy Terrain, and they'd be in position by the time that the ritual was active. I would have to say that Muddy Terrain was easily the most effective snare that we had along, especially seeing as it prevents the use of speed buffs that the opposing team could use to rescue their hero.

As for waiting, the biggest benefit I could see would be if we can manage to wipe the enemy at the flagstand by using all 8 players, or at least finish off the healers. One consideration I had was to send all 8 up towards the flagstand with the assassins hanging around at the back of the group- once battle is joined, they could break off and go around back. The problem with this is that the decoy team is stuck in the middle of a 5vs8 battle, and when fighting any skilled team, the decoy team is going to be in serious trouble with the odds stacked against them that much. Having more damage to try to kill some of the enemy players while they try to run might help out on the decoy team, but waiting for the first rush isn't beneficial unless the enemy team may be expecting the asssassination attempt.

One thing that we've been trying to use to make the build more viable is to have less reliance on the guild thief. Skills like Necrotic Traversal might be able to allow the team access to the guild hall without the thief- though they'll need to get a corpse inside the hall. However, this could give the possibility of faking the opponents by sending a bogus squad out with the thief along one path while the real assassins make an assault from a different direction. Opposing guilds may be lulled into a false sense of security after taking out your thief, and decide to make an assault. However, this strategy would definately require some large ranged damage in order to finish off an archer to use their corpse to get into the guild hall, and would increase the time enough that the enemy could easily respond and get to your assassin squad if they have an idea of what you're doing.

The biggest problem with making an assault while the enemy is in your guild hall is that they will often realize the danger and kill your guild thief- which generally makes it impossible to get into their base. Necrotic traversal could possibly allow your assassins to get out of the hall without the thief, and if the other team doesn't follow(as they've killed the thief), you just have to get inside their hall and kill their lord before they can manage to take out yours. Setting up the catapult and firing into your own base could help give your opponents the sense that the people that headed outside aren't a danger(one of the melee characters could do this, while the others are working on dispatching an archer to teleport inside).

Just wanted to throw up a big BOOYAH on that build and the writeup. Seriously, the writeup is stellar and the strat is hilarious, evil and mass inventive.

Quote: Originally Posted by semantic