Costume Brawl 2009 - Build Suggestions

Let's have a thread where we post builds about what we might like to see in this year's Costume Brawl. I'll start.

Ranger: Burning Arrow, Distracting Shot, Savage Shot, Pin Down, Troll Unguent, Apply Poison, Natural Stride, Antidote Signet. 12 Marks, 12 Expertise, 11 Wilderness.

Elementalist: Blinding Flash, Glimmering Mark, Shock Arrow, Shell Shock, Lightning Bolt, Storm Djinn's Haste, Glyph of Restoration, Air Attunement. 14 Air, 13 Energy.

Assassin: Seeping Wound, Death's Charge, Jagged Strike, Fox Fangs, Horns of the Ox, Falling Lotus Strike, Twisting Fangs, Viper's Defense. 12 Dagger, 9 Shadow, 13 Crit.

wtb gwbbcode update.

I thought the builds remained the same?

Saph - they change the builds to account for skill balances and such from the past year.

I assume we're to follow the unspoken rules of "passable but not the best build out there?" I don't mean that as an attack at your builds, just what Anet has done in the past, for example using smite Monks (with the exception of the always pretty much perfect Ranger builds).

I'll throw out some ideas for classes not listed in the OP, bearing in mind that these aren't designed to be top of the line:

Paragon:
Barbed Spear - Maiming Spear - Cruel Spear - Go For the Eyes! - Anthem of Flame - Never Surrender! - Fall Back! - Aggressive Refrain; 14 Spear, 10 Leadership, 10 Command

Warrior:
Eviscerate - Executioner's Strike - Disrupting Chop - Bull's Strike - Lion's Comfort - Tiger Stance - Rush - Shield Bash; 14 Axe, 13 Strength (this might look familiar )

Mesmer:
Energy Surge - Empathy - Wastrel's Worry - Power Spike - Cry of Frustration - Ether Feast - Drain Enchantment - Waste Not, Want Not; 14 Domination, 11 Inspiration, 9 Fast Casting

I remember mesmers were so OP during last year's costume brawl...their build raped elementalists. lol

I'd start from last years and adjust from there

Great tier: rangers, monks, ritualists
Medium tier: warrior, sin, derv, ele, mes
Meh tier: necro, para

I think the top tier needs a slight nerf, and the bottom tier some buffs.


Ranger: I'd like nerfed melshot actually, or cripshot, or remove natural stride, or burning arrow without pin down. A build that interrupts, snares, does damage, runs, blocks. etc all in one is too much. The only thing somewhat keeping it in check last time were the bad atts.

Rit: just use the PvP versions of all skills (WoW, bloodsong) and I think this will be fine. Alternatively make this a Xinrae/vengful spammer to be more up to date with arena metas.

Monk: not that overpowered but teams of 2-3 of them still suck. I almost want to replace healing breeze with a crappy divine heal but that could be too harsh.

Warrior: slightly weak without a monk around to clean them. I would go for dev hammer w/lions comfort this time, much better split template with a real IAS (flail).

Para: Incoming + fall back chain like the AB Para could be pretty strong in this environment. Being able to cart your monks, rits, eles, etc. around is awesome, and even the healing is relevant. It also makes aggressive viable in the split environment. I would toss on maiming spear for the same reason.

Necro: even in it's nerfed state, weaken knees. That might be enough to make him almost considerable (but not really.) Toxic Chill is possible but very one-dimensional.

Sin: tempted for Palm strike but there's plenty other possible templates out there. Just not caltrops after it's been nerfed so hard. A strong wastrel's collapse bar could be overpowered.

Ele: go MoI just to be cool, losing steam+glyph but keeping blurred. Not very different but the costume builds usually try to be meta relevant.

Mez: last year's build is great, maybe toss on wastrel's demise for more random direct dom damage. VoR feels meh as a split template the way it interacts poorly with wastrel's now. Don't go the illusion route, nec and ele have the mindless hexers covered.

Derv: Wounding strike is questionable in an environment with so few targets and condition control, not to mention little healing and regen sources completely unaffected by the deep wound. Either a similar build based around reaper's sweep, a zealous vow attack spammer, or an enchant-less dwyana avatar build that can ignore the hexers and have decent self heals.

How about, then, giving the Ranger Poison Arrow and Barbed Arrows instead of Burning Arrow and Apply Poison? The attributes would probably need adjusting for that, of course.

A Ranger in CB without a Crippling bow attack though will be a joke of a Ranger.

Some good bars.
Shayne's ranger is a bit strong imo and the sin has no real self-heal, other than Death's which is long recharge. I like the ele.

I like some of the ideas of Foxbat.

I would like some stronger necro, derv and para bars.

The poison arrow and barbed is also a nice degen build, and I agree with having some form of cripple.

Tiger stance should not be in any warrior builds.

I cannot wait to see what ANet comes up with.

No doubt the CB bars are already done, so they won't even look at this, but lets hope and see.

CB is one event I am looking forward to, more than the rest.

Okay, new Assassin bar:

Dash, Heart of Shadow, Seeping Wound, Black Spider Strike, Horns of the Ox, Falling Lotus Strike, Twisting Fangs, Viper's Defense. 14 Dagger, 11 Crit, 9 Shadow.

Paragon: Barbed Spear, Maiming Spear, Disrupting Throw, Anthem of Weariness, Remedy Signet, "Find Their Weakness!", "Incoming!", "Fall Back!". 11 Spear, 12 Command, 12 Leadership.

Ritualist: Xinrae's Weapon, Essence Strike, Spirit Burn, Wielder's Boon, Mend Body and Soul, Weapon of Shadow, Life, Bloodsong. 13 Channeling, 12 Restoration, 9 Spawning.

Monk: Reversal of Damage, Spear of Light, Smite Condition, Smite Hex, Glimmer of Light, Signet of Rejuvenation, Bane Signet, Castigation Signet. 14 Smite, 11 Divine, 9 Healing.

Necromancer: Plague Sending, Foul Feast, Signet of Lost Souls, Soul Bind, Insidious Parasite, Faintheartedness, Parasitic Bond, Weaken Armor. 14 Curses, 13 Soul Reaping.

No they don't.

The skills in Costume Brawls have their own versions.

You referencing some kind of bug?

No, I'm saying the Costume Brawl versions are kept separate from their PvP/PvE counter parts.

If I remember correctly.

i think they should use the winning builds from the henchman bar contest w/e these bars end up being ;-)

No, they use modern skill values. Its just that some characters used PvE versions of skills - the monk used PvE sig of judgement, the rit used PvE WoW.

Err, no.

They made mistake when instroducing them to live - copies were avaiable at priests of balthazar to be unlocked (and were usable by pvp characters)

I'd say they did make copies and can use old values if they want to.

Please continue putting out suggestions.

A- Golden Fox Strike, Wild Strike, Shattering Assault, Impale, Critical Eye, , Assassassassassin's Remedy, Dash, Rez sig (why isn't anyone else putting it in? Am I doing something wrong?)
13 Daggers
3 Deadly
14 Critical

None of the bars have ever had res sigs. There'd be no way of recharging them, and the fights are drawn out long enough that one res here or there probably won't be that helpful. Also, I'm sure the respawn times are quick enough, like every thirty seconds or something.

SA is also pretty bad for this kind of environment. You can nuke monks and dervs and lose to everyone else, the combo is not very front-loaded nor high damage.

So again this year only half the classes will be viable?

I vote for a Seeping Wound Sin, don't know why but it seems awesome. Follow-up with Black Spider Strike and Twisting Fangs or so.
For Derv I'd like to see Onslaught (with Crip Sweep of course ^^).
Ele bar was great last year.
Necro would be best with Weaken Knees I assume, as people tend to run around plenty.

My vote is for the new henchman bars. Bunny thumper wohoo.

The builds do get changed.

First, the builds get changed, yes there is Costume Brawl versions of every skill, this is so they can give you the bars even if you haven't unlocked the real versions of the skill.

As far as bars go, I'd like to see some old bars (modified to be one class only & no rez sig of course). Not exact copies obviously, but stylized towards older bars, like Eviscerate War, Cripshot Ranger, LoD Smite Monk, a snare styled ele, a necro based on Malaise & Wither and degen in general, a mesmer based on interrupts with very light e-denial and domination, an AoD assassin, a protective Spirit summoner with some helpful buffs but try to avoid anything heal on them, a Refrain based Paragon with a couple of attacks, and something not overpowered as Dervish.

Not sure on specifics for some of those, I might come up with something more concrete later, but I'd definitely like to see a few nods to older actual builds.