Is this possible? I Challange you!

Hello everyone.
I have been playing hard mode since the very beginning and the only builds that seemed to work nicely are some really stupid cookie cutters build like 2MM necro/2SF ele/2W/2Mo, or some variants. But yestersday it came to me "god dammit, i dont think my water ele would do any good in hard mode"
After thinking in a decent build and getting nowhere i dicided to challange those expert players to come up with a balanced and different build that works at Hard Mode (doesnt need to work at doa because it is stupid in my point of view).

Here are some ideas of what we should call "different".
*Non-fire eles
*Illusion mesmer
*Hammer wars
*Spear paragons
*Smiters
*Channeling/rest rit
*Non-SS-MM necros
*Trappers (not those 5man group)

The group must consist on 8 characters (2 players and 6 heroes).
You can have at least one cookie cutter build at the group (SS, MM, Nukers in general, etc).
Here is one example of what kind of group you could create:
1 Tatics war
1 War (any type)
1 Motivation Paragon
1 Domination Mesmer
1 Air Ele
1 Assassin (crit+dagger)
1 Prot monk
1 Healer Monk

The idea of this is to open the mind of players to other varieties, not to mention that i personally would really love to play with different and sucessful build at hard mode.
People seem to only play with the same builds over and over.

Now if i see a good build and say "wow this really worked nicelly" ill pay 20k to that person (20k may not look much but if we find 5 good variantes here ill waste 100k :/ ) But hey, it is easy cash, isnt it

The Warrior forum has quite some Hard Mode Hammer Warrior builds posted. mainly uses the knockdowns available from them.

In terms of a Non-SF ele...I guess a Maelstorm build would work.

Conjure Hundred Blades Warrior
PBlock or Hex Eater Vortex norgu
Searing Flames Zhed
ZB/Prot Tahlkora or LoD
Defensive Anthem Paragon
Searing Flames Souske
Pious Light Healing Style Melonni
LoD/ZB prot Dunkoro

if you die with this you are really bad

Depends on where you are ... each area may require some changes to most Team Builds that are not "Cookie Cutters"

A Standard B/P team can work anywhere

ZB/DF Monk
LoD Monk
Crip Slash Warrior
BHA/Epi Ranger
SF or Mind Blast/Ward Melee Ele
Mind Blast/Blind/Epi Ele
SV/Well Necro
Dom Mes

>.> You can throw any random crap together in HM and do fine... most things aren't any harder than normal, especially monsters like Glint (she wasn't changed at all).

Well it depends on what you're fighting. No build is amazing in every situation. You have to chop and change every time.

I used this necro build in the mission where you have to save Confessor Dorian. Some people have been saying that one is really hard, but with some thought we made it.

There was another necro in the group, who went as an MM against our advice (there aren't many corpses in that mission - lots of undead=few corpses). As a result, there was no considerable minion army.
We had a ranger who used barrage and Judge's Insight
A monk for healing.
A warrior for taking abuse.
I can't remember the sixth person.
Anyhoo, here's my build for D'Allesio Seaboard:

SR: 16
Smiting Prayers: 12

Balthazaar's Aura (cast on tank whenever possible)
Banish
Smite
Spear of Light
Strength of Honour (maintained on warrior- only melee guy there)
Symbol of Wrath
Reapers Mark (spammed like no one's business)
Some res skill

Reapers was there to help balance the cost of maintaining SoH, and casting Balth's Aura. The build was intended to capitalize on the double dmg that undead receive from Holy Damage. It had higher spike dmg than SS could ever pull off, and far more effective that "paper minions" could ever be. And yeah, minions in hard mode might as well be paper. Soggy paper. You think a Level 20 Ele w/max armor has a rough time taking dmg from a Lvl 28 bad guy, just imagine how a Lvl16-18 minion is going to take it (noting that minions have built in life decay). Only takes one good AoE blast to wipe out an entire batch of minions.

I currently have vanquished 15 areas of Elona so far with the following group:

Me (Mesmer, domination)
Dunkoro (Healer hero)
Koss (Pain in the Axe)
Razah (Restoration/Communing blend)
Illusion hench
Healer hench (Kihm)
Earth ele hench
Devona (hammer hench)

Last night I traded the earth ele for the fire one by mistake (not paying attention) and had a great deal more difficulty than when using the earth ele.

Well have you tried these at the high-end areas?
Like raisu palace and etc?

I'm walking my way from Istan on up pretty much in order, with the occassional skill tweak along the way as I go.

I'm torn on one thing actually... the heroes... I'd like to bring Norgu along as a third mesmer, probably heavy Inspiration interrupting... ah, wait... Razah can stay home for a bit. Norgu as a Me/E with heavy inspiration and some wards for defense... hmm, I'm liking this... I'll get back on how it goes.

It's foolish to start in the hardest areas imo... work into them and give yourself time to feel your way through.

I generally use
Cripshot Margrid with Signet Of Malice
BHA Jin with Signet Of Malice
Cripslash Koss with Signet Of Malice
And me (monk) running Divert Hexes

After that I can bring pretty much any random henchmen and win.

I'm at 14 vanquished areas in elona I think, been running my ranger (alternating between Broad Head Arrow and (gasp) an Enraged Lunge Beastmaster - 80 to 100 damage every 5 seconds ftw) with Norgu as an PBlock dom mes, Olias as SS, MM Master (minions may die often, but they're useful for taking the initial aggro off of the casters while the Earth henchy decides to actually cast a ward, and the Master is good at keeping Death Nova on them. One AoE spike to kill 5 minions with Nova = a dead mob).

Then, I generally take the two monks, earth henchy, and either Devona or the para henchy. Works well in my experience.

Are hammer warriors, illusion mesmers, smiters and earth eles really considered "different?" Always have at least 3 of those 4 in most areas.

"Used to be different, now [I'm] the same..." (-They Might Be Giants)

I've Vanqd 24 areas in Elona with this:

- Paragon (Me) Command/Spear
- Koss Axe/Tactics
- Morgahn Command/Spear with a little Motivation
- Dunkoro Prot (except for Hidden City of Ahdashim, where Norgu is pretty much req)
- Devona
- Sogolon
- Mehnlo
- (sometimes Earth Ele, Illusion Mes, another Healer)

SS, MM and SF have yet to make an appearance. No problems (well, a few - the Rit boss in Vehtendi Valley is scary, and Ahdashim without Norgu was not good). Much fun.

Well my mesmer so far has-
24/25 - Tyria Guardian - Need Dunes of Despair
9/13 - Cantha Guardian - Need Gyala Hatchery/Vizunah Square/Raisu Palace/Tahnnakai Temple
17/20 - Elona Guardian - Need Gate of Pain/Dzagonur Bastion/Venta Cemetery

30/54 - Tyria Vanquisher
2/33 - Cantha Vanquisher
28/34 - Elona Vanquisher


Builds:
Me:OQNEAboj2xknHc1AWQFAKgCQjA / OQNEAboj+xknHc2AWQFAKgCkJA
Melonnie:OgCjkurKrOx3sN0N7idH3iXBAA
<Other - Either whoever is needed for the mission or Razah>:
Razah:OACjAuhKpOOTxZ40694kmFsLGA
---
Henchmen when possible are:
Healer Monk
Earth Elementalist/Fire Elementalist
Any Warrior/Deadly Assassin/Holy Dervish
Cultist Necro/Blood Necro
--------
Edit - The only bad thing about this build so far is that if you get too much of an aggro<It can take on 3 groups so far as I've seen, 4 with difficulty, but 5+ we usually die from(Shouldn't happen anyway though... >>; Unless Melonni goes suicidal and rushes into a giant group ignoring the flag)>

The real problem are the high-end areas, where monsters are usually lvl30.
And today i get to see how harmonic and powerful their builds are. I got to a point i said to my friend at teamspeak "get the mesmer... no, get the ranger... no, get the ele"

I AM trying different sutff and until now things have been hard, but now at the Realm of Torment it has been insanly hard.
I have about 12 possible characters, but the main team is:
Domination mesmer with echo, empathy, backfire, blurred vision (me)
Assassin with way of the assassin and critical defenses
Air ele with both att., blind, evarnationg light orb and light hammer
Prot monk with life sheath (hero doesnt uses zb properly), channeling (wich isnt doing the trick)
Hundread blades war
Motivation paragon
Splinter weapon rit
WoH Monk

We were doing fine until now... we get half way done but then we get 40% dp

I really want to play different build, im sick of seeing fire eles, ss necros, tank warriors and etc

If you're not microing your heroes, that's generally why you're failing.

I'm only 4/25 Tyrian Guardian and 1/20 Elonian Guardian. I have been using the following builds, depending on mission:

Mesmer (me): AFMAkTG8IA6pjuMwgLPvCeBA (ineptitude) or OQNEApwT2zgGHqjuCgobI4B6AA (power block)
Ele: AGIwyMPIDohAYdkyqGmVxGA (shatterstone w/ blurred vision)
War: AxNREpcVHBQAYCyAJsBGADiF (YAA sword)
Necro: OABCY8xTVVAYVrZIC7wYoMA (shadow of fear/well of darkness)
Monk: OwUUMs29YYOFkZiApeEG30ZA0IA (update on the bar Lina uses)