What is your build "style" in PVE?

I didn't think this would apply to PVP, so this is for PVE only.

What is your build "style" when playing PVE that defines all the characters and heroes that you use? For example, do you always use the same builds? Do you switch builds constantly? Do your builds require a lot of micro? Do your heroes' builds require micro? Do you use team synergy based builds? Do you like to create builds? Do you go for damage? Do you go for fun builds? Do you go for primary specific? Do you go for mixed professions? etc.

I have dozens of builds for all my characters and heroes (around 400~500 builds total). I love to switch up builds almost every time I have the chance. Despite that, almost all of my characters and heroes have 1 "common and reliable" build that is used more than any other builds. These "common and "reliable" builds may not be the most damaging or be the best, but they're useful and reliable in most PVE areas. They're sort of my "signature" builds for my characters.

Most of my builds only use the primary skills due to the fact that I feel uneasy without a perma res. All of my builds follow several rules... 1) Self heal 2) Res and 3) E-management. The only time I don't carry a res skill is when playing alone. Not only do heroes res faster than I can, but mostly since if I'm playing with AI characters, I don't feel guilty about being the last party member to be alive and not have a res.

I don't always run the most damaging build. I use builds that are effective but most importantly, fun for the moment. I generally don't like to micro. Most of my builds are simple to use and I rarely give builds to my heroes that require me to micro them. For the most part, I don't synergize my team's builds but I love to synergize team builds and have a separate folder that contains team builds. I almost never take builds from others. I love creating builds and have no need to look up other people's builds. I'm not a fan of Ursan, Wurm, etc. that come with pre-made builds.

As for my heroes, I constantly switch which heroes I use. While I use some heroes more than others, I never stick to just a set of heroes. Only exception is with healer heroes. I don't take healer heroes since I'd rather use the limited hero space for offense. Hench healers work just fine. But when I'm playing with one other player, I'll take my hero healers over any hench, any day. On the other hand, if I'm playing with at least 2 more players, I don't like to take my heroes at all unless needed. Why take my own heroes for me to micro when other players can take their heroes and save me the trouble of microing (XD I know, it's terrible... but other than this, I'm a very team oriented player).

So, what is your build "style" in PVE?

I made my own builds and changed them everyday. I spent more time in the training area working out builds than actually using them.
Probably never used the same bar two days in a row. All that mattered was what I was using at the moment, wasn't something I'd used in the past already.
Oh, I also have to add that I wasn't under the illusion that what I was using was the most effective way to do an area. It simply was good enough and different than what I'd previously been using.
<- Short attention span is all.

One build, for all my chars that are damage dealers. "Ursan"

Two builds for my monk (Heal and Prot)

thats all.

builds are pointless, Ursan is far better then any build you can ever come up with.. I laugh at builds and people who waste time trying to figure them out ..


I love how the all the skill is out of GW now when it comes to builds, my simple lower IQ mind can now just throw ursan on any bar its so easy now! yay!

*Sigh* I miss old GW.

I copy Observer Mode and change how I like.

Imbagon > Ursan.

ANYDAY.

And hybrid > Heal and protect.

Your post failed.

Well, I have mostly only played my monk for the better part of two years now, despite having all classes. She has four to five main PvE builds probably, but each of those have 1-2 slots where I might swap something in for a specific area, to compliment other human monks and what they are running, or to work with what my partner is running if we are doing 2+H. In that case, I'm responsible for all party healing and prot, so there is a lot of micro involved, although I'd have to add, I micro my hero builds no matter what I am doing.

I then have several farming builds she runs from time to time, each of those too have an option slot or two to account for certain areas or foes. Several running builds since I simply love to run, by myself these days, simply as a gaming mechanic, though in years past I ran for customers as well. Finally I have a number of hero builds and a bunch of experimental things I use pretty much only on my own with heroes. All for my monk. No idea how many builds she actually has, but probably 10-15, or some variant of one of them, see the most use for almost all things I do.

Way to derail a perfectly good thread with your personal political agenda. Hope you feel better.

ON topic, I tend to keep my personal build pretty static. I tweak it from time to time, but I don't usually change it constantly for individual situations. I know that's not "efficient", but it is fun for me, and since I play alone it's not hurting a soul.

For my heroes, I may give them a skill or two that I save for manual execution, but for the most part I think a successful hero build is one that works without any input from me.

As for spending time on builds, I have my mood swings. Sometimes I spend days designing a new build (for my heroes), and sometimes I can't stand to look at all those little icons, just slap on an old reliable skillset, and go.

I take one Elite and create a build around that elite.
And once that's done I change some skills depending on the are (usually one or two).
And I do that for 2 to 3 elite and then I just switch depending on my mood (except for necro : livia is a better mm lol and I'm a better SS xD).

Ursan is the Imbagon of other classes.
Off the flame/trolling...

My style is that i have one build that is suitable for general PvE per character and hero class. My teams are mosly offense (NM, what do yo expect) but i like to keep a WoH monk and MM hero around for general use. If there's something that requires skill/effort then i have a backup build for most situations (Tombs, Time for heroes).

My heroes don't need any microing, as they seem capable by themselves.

Im still medium skill level though, because i admittedly can't identify good skills/synergy at a glance, but improve builds as I go.

The reason SMS doesn't run Ursan isn't because we think it's "immoral." We can do better.

Since finding the Promise Ele build I have to say that a Promise Ele is usually in there somewhere.

The major change is the Element used to reflect the area we're in.

As for self, Im the same as the OP. Self Heal, E-Management and a Res. Its often puzzled me why people DONT take a self heal. Res I can understand (to a point) but self healing is an absolute must, yet many dont carry any...i usually step over them to keep the bad guys away while someone resses the poor sap on the floor. And yes, he was the guy shouting at the Monks "heal me! Heal me!"

My builds center around blowing shit up as fast as possible so I can spend as little time as possible playing PvE. They also include the most minimal amount of defense so that we all stay at full redbars while we blow stuff up

My primary character is a ranger and i have 3 main builds for him that i switch between depending on my mood. I tend to create builds around the elite i've chosen so the non-elite skills work in synergy with the elite skill.

As for my heroes i usualy always take a monk, warrior and paragon and only ever swap the monks build depending on the area/mission about to enter. But otherwise i keep the same build on my warrior and paragon since they are great and so far haven't let me down. So i feel why bother changing something if it works well?

My elementalist heroes are the only ones i have serious bother creating or changing builds for. I just can never settle on a good build for them. It seems everyone i make is either too energy hungry or not dealing enough AoE/Spike damage.

lol @ immoral

On my own bar, it's usually split along the same lines. 2-4 attacks/support, res and utilities. I try and switch it up every once in a while by rage deleting all my non farming/hero templates. For this reason, skill updates are awesome. By the time I come back to a skill, sometimes it's brand new!

A self heal does not help a character fill hisher niche in the party. I'd much rather have another ward or shout to support the party. 2 monks should ALWAYS be enough. Even less if they'res D/N's or N/Rt's

Well I've just started experimenting with my Paragon so I like to be a "support". I like to use a lot of motivational skills but I like to be able to fight for myself so I have a few spear skills. Anyway I'm a bit inexperienced with my Paragon so if I got motivation confused with inspiration please don't freak out too bad.

I create my own builds, and like to play much more defensively than most to give enough time to carefully analyse every situation since I'm an extremely methodological and deliberate player. I'm not happy without multiple layers of active and passive defence including interrupts, conditions, hexes, minions, armor buffs, blocks and damage reduction. It may make the game play more like solitaire than Tetris but that's the way I like it.

I always think in terms of the team as a whole and distribute the necessary skills where convenient. Concerning heroes there are some professions that I use a lot and some not at all. Specifically, in my opinion all melee heroes are a walking aggro disaster just waiting to happen so they get almost zero playtime. If I don't know any better, my default hero triplet consists of an anti-melee necro, anti-caster ranger and a support paragon.

I don't micro hero skills except for some special cases. However, I flag them a lot. In my opinion proper positioning and movement makes or breaks the fight and I would give almost anything for a set of programmable formation buttons (i.e., saved flag sets with an option to either make the herohench follow you in the given formation or pin it down as a single entity).

Very much depends on my mood and the area. sometimes i'll load up with CoP and necrosis if I just want to get on with it.

Mostly I run a variety of builds, mainly dom but illu if the fancy takes me. Some are pretty esoteric tho, and although wiki builds can be fun and helpful most of them are sub-optimal for my playstyle so I dont use em.

Same goes for the other profs I play, tho I will confess to liking an adrenal based TNTF and SY Build on my paragon

In short, I make my own up, usually forget to save them and then make changes to them the next time i'm in that area.

I break the enemy over layers of defence (i.e, paras and SY), while crushing them with heavy-physicals. If I need to change a few skills on my bar I will, but theres really not many times I need to do that.

I don't mind using builds that are known to work (aka cookies) on my heroes. They aren't there to have fun - they are there to get the job done.
Me on the other hand - I am there to have fun.
Which means that my builds are mostly sub-par things because the things I do find fun ARE sub-par in PvE (eg. I am not the biggest fan of damage).
But at the end of the day I know that the places I WANT to visit are doable with me playing for fun rather then being at my most effective.

I tend to browse the forums till I see something that catches my eye, then maybe I'll incorporate it in, or change something in my build to try it out. Any small change requires changes all over my builds. I dont like to micromanage my heroes, so I usually choose builds which will work independantly, but will compliment each other.

For example, I used the standard 3 necros for a while, i was using barrage, but when I realised that the builds lacked interupts I switched to BHA/Epidemic.
This worked fine for a while. I then decided to try Pure Was Li Ming on the Curser, because of this increased condition removal, i changed the N/Rt healer to have ancestors instead of mend body and soul and replaced Extinguish on the MM with some hex removal.

This worked ok for a while, then I saw the Artificer Mesmer on the heroes forum, I decided to sub in this build in place of the N/Rt healer, the loss of the condition removal and healing from this build required me to place Extinguish back on the MM in place of hex removal (which the Mesmer now does).

This change gave me another backline damage dealer, so i thought i would sub in Ebon Battle Standard of Honour onto my build, replacing res sig. This would be more energy dependant so I switched from a Marksmanship to an Expertise mask.

I like to make builds for myself and my heros. Especially, i try to do builds that don't require micro. I like to play fun builds, too, something like Plague Signet + Foul Feast + Epidemic They are very entertaining to play.

I like to make builds that work well in HM and with H/H. Even though most effective builds have been discovered throughout these 3+ years for GW, many of the older builds lack the newer skills from the later campaigns.

When I create a build (or optimize an old one), I usually start off by creating a hero build to learn its effects. The advantage of this is, I can bring insignia and runes for my hero and easily salvage them out if it doesn't work or if I change my mind later on. Heroes can also access all skills that I have unlocked on my account. The disadvantage of this method is, heroes are alot more limited with their AI and they cant weapon swap. They also can't use PvE skills, but that is usually not a problem to add these later on.

This is how I came up with hero builds like these:

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...10&postcount=3

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...php?t=10272861

Looking at other people's builds give me ideas and helps me to come up with better builds that synergize with sabway and improve on PvE team building.

I C-space and blow stuff up with physical and necro-heavy teams. They kill shit fastest, and with silly passive defenses (wards, aegis, EB, SY etc.) all over, I need not worry much about dying.

I make mine depending on my build.

Normally, i'm a SY! para, now seeing as my allies will get 100 armor, i bring 3 rodjorts eles, who end up dealing a lot of damage, while staying alive. All my builds are H/H, i NEVER pug for anything, i find simply no point, unless its Remains of Salahaja farming, which is simple enough for anyone to understand...

BHA, Volley, D-Shot, Savage Shot, Epidemic, Screaming Shot, Throw Dirt, Res Sig.

I disagree with PvE skills. And consumables. The game, seriously, is easy enough on the PvE side.
And just looking at the cast patern of enemies helps prediction interrupts. E.G -- Enchanted Bow runs up to you, and hits Throw Dirt straight away? Hit an interrupt when he's abit close and goodnight viena. 100% screwed up skill. Even in Hm.

C-space .

QFT.

Some physicals, some necros, something with sw/ar(the more of this the better) , lotsa passive defense and it's c + space and watch stuff go BOOM.

I also like aoe degen a lot, that's why I almost always take a virulence/epidemic MM with me. aoe weakness for party support and cracked armor for more BOOM.

epic fail



anyways, I have a few builds for each character that i mostly stick with. AoL on my derv, IMBAgon on paragon, WoH on monk, MS/DB on sin, and MB/Rodgort's on ele. but i change up the utility skills all the time.

I always design my heroes' builds around damage, and no skill micromanagement at all save flags, if I even need to use them which I rarely have to.

I don't use the same build, but I do enjoy conjuring up new team builds with heroes and seeing what havoc I can cause in PvE-world. Usually it does come down to how well or fast it works. I am proud to say I've never used Ursan Blessing outside of the compulsory mission, though it doesn't mean much when you use other PvE skills instead I feel.

The Physical-Heavy team Alex describes is one of my current favourites.

A lot of the fun of this game is creating new builds, and then tweaking them so that you get the maximum possible benefit from them, so my builds are always changing and evolving, and I rarely stick with one for any length of time. Team builds become more fun when you have another human and 6 heroes to play about with...ahh, fond memories of Tahnnakai Temple...Afflicted go boom?

I approach build making in the same spirit that I tackle a Chem. problem-basically what am I trying to achieve and what's the most efficient way to do it?

There's a couple preferred classes I like working with-basically paras, warriors, rits and necros (with the odd derv and ele)-so those are naturally the classes I turn to.

Sometimes I come up with a sweet build or idea, and other times I have my friends go "WTF!?". And other times I confuse the hell out of them 'cause they'll see a necro, but they're not sure if it's really a necro

This is exactly what I do. I only really need my defenses in PvE for about 15 seconds, then its all over. The next 15 seconds is spent mopping up the remnants of the enemies and moving on to the next group. You don't even need PvE skills, certain skill combos just own anything in seconds.

Usually my choice of builds comes down to this: Which will kill faster, paragons with splinter weapon + mark of pain, or minions + mark of pain.

I alter my build to suit where I am and what I'm trying to accomplish. My "comfort" build employs minions and conditions. The two skills that tend to stay in my bar no matter what are: [necrosis] & [putrid bile].

i've recently been playing scythesin and taking anton along with me with the same build. That +Barbs, SS, MoP, and a minion bomber has been fun >: )

usually run some channeling magic on my curses necro (a-rage + splinter) but that might have to change a bit with recent nerfs Q.Q

Doing something helpful, even my heroes would ditch me if i pulled out some of my old builds.

Well, on mah Warrior I run a pure strength build with a sword, basically its the endure scythe with a sword, energy attack w/t Warrior's Endurance, I recommend it. Healing Signet for health, Resurrection signet for resurrection, and Antidote Signet for puring conditions from my person, Warriors Endurance for energy Management...pretty awesome stuff.



Paragon, my paragon build is this
[barbed spear][blazing spear]["go for the eyes!"]["Find their weakness!][Defensive anthem]["there is nothing to fear!"][Leader's comfort][Signet of return]

Paragons amazing energy gain from shouts is awesome, I was able to keep up around 5-10 energy when fighting a Ether Seal. Conditions are applyed by Barbed and Blazing Spear, Gfty & FTW are an awesome deep-wound/critical spike, Defensive anthem for caster protection, and There is nothing to fear for damage reduction and a small party healing.

I only have 2 characters :] so there you go. I believe that all characters DESPITE WHAT META AND PVP THINKSshould have 2 things. 1. Self Heal, 2.resurrection(i don't care which)

I think the most stupidest thing i've ever heard from a major PvP player to a Major PvE player was this "MONKS DON'T NEED RESURRECTION!" and "YOU DON'T NEED TO HEAL MONKS DO IT FOR YOU!" Now, i can understand that some builds do not have room for resurrection, but still be considerate.

They don't need them. Resurrecting takes time from monking.

Good monks won't let you die, so you don't need a self-heal, that's all. So look at your monks to choose if you need one.

If you're healing yourself, you're not doing damage. If the monk is resurrecting you, it's not healing you.

Thus, if the monk is resurrecting someone, you're healing yourself, which means shit isn't dying, which means you're going to expose yourself to damage for longer, which means the monk will resurrect someone, you'll keep healing yourself, and shit still won't die.

Funny how that logic works.

Divine's next thread needs to be: "Don't bring a self-heal, bring a rez instead and don't expect your monks to carry rez."