Blossoming New 3 Hero Setup (Not Necros!)

Before you read:
This build is the sum of an hour and 20 minutes of developement and playtesting. It is not complete by any means. It can definitally be improved; that is why I came here. Yes, Sabway/Discord way are probably better/easier. There is no need to post if you do not want to contribute to a critical yet positive environment. You can tell me it sucks ONLY if you tell me why and/or what to do better. However, if you like to playtest builds and enjoy outside of the box thinking, please continue reading. Thanks.


So, I got bored (eh, what's new) and decided to entertain myself by tinkering with hero builds in guildwars. Normally, I'll spend hours writing things down on paper, only to have them fall through miserably when tested. This time around, I just threw some skills on some bars and ran out to Dalada Uplands (HM); which is, in my opinion, the best area in the game to playtest a build. I was surprised at the builds ability to function without my aid; that is, without me actually using any skills. So, I bring it to the creative minds on these boards in an attempt to iron out kinks and hopefully provide an alternative to the Necro-dominant (hero)meta that is pve.

I did not update my hero's equipment/runes/etc. to fit their skillbars. I merely selected skills and proceeded to test. If their stats are imperfect/incomplete, this is why. The heros did not win every time. Against the first 5 or so mobs, they had a 95% success rate as long as they could beat the first, frontmost patrol, which happened about 60% of the time. Keep in mind, this was without microing their skills or using a single skill on my bar. I merely ran around and drew the occasional wand/spell. When I aided my team using a WoR build, the build jumped to a 100% success rate (even then, the healing done was minimum, the damage helped more).

Here are the Heros:

Hero 1:
E/N - AoE/Support (Mitigation)
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Earth: 12 + 1 + 2
E. Storage: 11
Curses: 6

Sandstorm [E]
Churning Earth
Stoning
Ash Blast
Ward Against Elements
Earth Attunement
Glyph of Lesser Energy
Enfeebling Blood


Hero 2:
E/Mo - AoE/Support (Healing)
OgNDoLrvO+5xavgWgLCIax6B

Fire: 11 + 1 + 2
E. Storage: 10
Protection: 10

Mind Blast [E]
Rodgort's Invocation
Glowing Gaze
Aura of Restoration
Fire Attunement
Aegis
Spirit Bond
Protective Spirit


Hero 3:
Rt/N - Support (Meat Shields/Healing)
OASjUoiLpOOzmJytKcNLnMzjKA

Channeling: 11 + 1 + 2
Spawning Power: 10 + 1
Death: 10

Boon of Creation
Explosive Growth
Spirit's Gift
Animate Bone Minions
Death Nova
Bloodsong
Signet of Spirits [E]
Spirit Siphon


Any suggestions would be fantastic. I'd love to provide the community with an alternative to the current metas. The only stipulation I will place is as follows:
No necromancer primaries (we have enough of these!)
- On a side note, I am also trying to avoid mass hexes if possible, but this isn't required.

Thinking outside of the box and using the underdog heroes is what this is all about. Sabway and Discordway are already using the Necromancer to it's potential! I have given a base that I feel had a surprising success rate. I realize that no build excels in every area, but finding a good base to start with is the goal here.

Post your ideas, share your thoughts. And ultimately, have fun with this.

- Kaida

You know, I would give your builds a try if you posted some proof that it ca indeed do some HM stuff at a comparable level to current pve (stale, but working) meta. Perhaps a few screenshots, and strenegths and weaknesses of your team build compared to dis/sab would be a good start...

Off-topic: LOOOOOOOOOLsabway; LOOOOOOOOOOOLdiscord

On-topic: Hero Rits are really bad at playing explosive growth mm's. Their AI is just... Bad at it. I tried using it on my rit and I found myself always having to micro their enchantments. The overal build looks like it lacks SEVERE condition and hex removal which is pretty vital to have. I would rate your team build a 4 out of 10. Sorry.



~LeNa~

It's nice to see that people are thinking outside the box, good job

I guess Ward Against Melee is an alternative on the first ele too, so ye.. Other than that, you have damage, anti-melee so it's all good. I'd also remove the +2 for a +1 for the extra health and add the insignia +10 armor when enchanted.

The 2nd ele seems to have enough energy management, so I'd remove Glowing Gaze for a hex removal, though we all know that hexes don't mean much in PvE. Perhaps Reversal of Fortune or dismiss condition? You don't have a dedicated healer, and henches aren't the greatest in that part. I'd also remove the +2 for a +1 and add the +10 armor while enchanted too. The break point for Aegis is 9 if I'm not mistaken, so I'd also lower Prot Prayers to 9 and add more to Fire if the attributes suffice.

Spirit Siphon seems to be enough energy management for the Rt, so I'd might try and remove Boon of Creation for Painful Bond or Flesh of my Flesh/Death Pact Signet or Splinter if you have a melee/ranger/paragon. I'd also remove the +2 for a +1 but I'm unsure what kind of Insignia to add since I don't know Rits a lot.

erm only prob i see is in hm elemental dmg is pretty crap since the monsters high armor makes it worthless thats why armor ignoring dmg from discordway and sabway works so well

let's see. the earth ele will make things scatter whilst doing next to no damage but have weakness and a knockdown every 10-15 seconds or whenever the hell he decides to use stoning.

the fire ele will do jack for damage and have no energy cause he'll barely use mindblast and when he does he probably won't be getting any energy from it.

the rit bar is good.

know why discordway and 3 necro teams work well? cause they all use skills that make good use of hero AI and have armor ignoring damage. you should really think that concept through before trying something of your own first.

Thumbs up for trying something creative, but as guy above has mentioned, scatter is bad, and fire build is not very damaging. Try toying with air and water eles. Blinding surge, Lightning hammer... and few necro skills such as Rip enchantment, Weaken armor, etc. Water eles with Deep freeze, Glowing ice and Shatterstone offer much damage and snare with nice e management, and you could combine this ele with monk prot line. Third hero should be healer with good old Life, Xinrae`s weapon, Weapon of warding, Recovery, Spirit light... Play some more, this is not very trustworthy as it is now.

Hello Kaida,

I'd like to make a few comments based on similar experiences. Please consider however, that my comments were made while playing necro-primary.

Quote: Originally Posted by Kaida the Heartless Hero 1:
E/N - AoE/Support (Mitigation)
OgRDcWy8O2BuKTbV0DfFIjUB Allow me to present similar example:

Vekk, build: Earth Knockdowner
- author: Dag
- in short: very strong knockdown, blind and wards. Place in a middle of a party and even rampaging Destroyers in HM have problems with breaking through.
- in order to get good damage, use Ebon Battle Standard of Honor.
- equipment, any though Earth 40/40 is preferred.


[...]

Replying to myself (cannot edit my message since it's in a moderation queue):
Corrected skillbar for the ritualist:
Signet of Creation
Destruction
Bloodsong
Agony / Gaze of Fury (disabled, run manually)
Signet of Spirits
Spirit Siphon
Painful Bond / Splinter Weapon
Feast of Souls

regards,
Ruemere

Quote: Originally Posted by Kaida the Heartless

No necromancer primaries (we have enough of these!)
- On a side note, I am also trying to avoid mass hexes if possible, but this isn't required. Then don't bother running minions.
Spawning is a waste.


If you want to be using elemental damage - Cracked armour is a must.

This is what I use for my current Rt/N MM.

Code: OASjUwiDJPXzjaVAN0MRuOzKHA

[build prof=Rt/N death=12 cha=3 spa=12][Signet of Spirits][Animate Shambling Horror][Animate Bone Minions][Death Nova][Explosive Growth][Spirit's Gift][Boon of Creation][Rupture Soul][/build]

Rupture Soul is more useful for the blind effect. Agree with the comments on elemental damage for HM. If you want to keep your elemental damages, you should at least provide cracked armor.

Kudos to outside the box thinking. Still, the thought of taking 2 eles with me in HM makes my stomach turn. The support from your earth ele is decent, but he's not going to help you kill very much at all. Similarly, the fire ele will do pretty weak damage over all, especially when you go up against titans or destroyers, or anything with resistance to fire (which is a lot in HM). The rit bar is pretty good, but a hero spirit spammer would work a bit better probably (go pure rit and forget about the MM stuff. That's best left to a dedicated MM anyway.) Spirit spammers are sorta the new MMs, as they don't need corpses to operate well. Having a dedicated MM and a spammer works quite nicely as well.

As for testing in Dalada Uplands... its not a bad place to test or anything, but you shuold try a few other places as well. I like to use Jennur's horde HM as my proving grounds... if you can handle a well balanced mob of margonites every 2 minutes you must be doing something right

It's a bit fragile...running a song of rest para is quite useful. One of the big issues is that the MM is fragile,as mentioned the ai is poor and the minions aren't as sturdy as a normal MM's,who also doesn't have to dedicate slots for e-management.

Even with the level difference, spawning power minions are plenty sturdier than regular.

Build your hero build around your own build. I've never used discord or sabway and I've gotten legendary vanquisher, I've focused only on making my hero builds synergize with my own. Sabway and discord is strong because it can function independant of what the person who runs it plays, but when you get some specific synergies going on, you can have some more damage output than discord which is the main appeal.

Before I criticise the hero builds:
Hero builds should depend on what the player is running or should aim to synergise with each other to reach a desired goal. You've not indicated what you (the player) are running.


Quote: Originally Posted by Kaida the Heartless Hero 1:
E/N - AoE/Support (Mitigation)
OgRDcWy8O2BuKTbV0DfFIjUB

Earth: 12 + 1 + 2
E. Storage: 11
Curses: 6

Sandstorm [E]
Churning Earth
Stoning
Ash Blast
Ward Against Elements
Earth Attunement
Glyph of Lesser Energy
Enfeebling Blood Heroes are not clever when it comes to skill usage. Sandstorm is 15e and on a 30 second recharge.
By comparison, Unsteady Ground is on a 20 second recharge for 10 energy. Its maximum damage potential is less (but in practice they'll probably deal a near equal amount) but it has a much more useful secondary effect - Knockdown.

I would not expect a hero to use Ash Blast for the blind condition and would just expect them to cast it whenever possible on anyone. I would consider bringing either Glowstone or a second Ward.


Quote: Originally Posted by Kaida the Heartless Hero 2:
E/Mo - AoE/Support (Healing)
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Fire: 11 + 1 + 2
E. Storage: 10
Protection: 10

Mind Blast [E]
Rodgort's Invocation
Glowing Gaze
Aura of Restoration
Fire Attunement
Aegis
Spirit Bond
Protective Spirit This is basically a waste of an ele hero. As energy engines go, Mind blast is a little lacking for PvE. There are better alternatives.
The fire magic skills won't really amount to much either.
My suggestion here is drop Fire Magic completely and run an ER Ele:
11+1+2 Energy Storage, 10 Protection and Healing Prayers
Ether Renewal, Aura of Restoration, Patient Spirit, Dwayna's Kiss, Infuse Health, Prot Spirit, Spirit Bond, Aegis. This should cover most of your protting needs and easily outperforms henchmen and any other hero bar I've tested.


Quote: Originally Posted by Kaida the Heartless

Hero 3:
Rt/N - Support (Meat Shields/Healing)
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Channeling: 11 + 1 + 2
Spawning Power: 10 + 1
Death: 10

Boon of Creation
Explosive Growth
Spirit's Gift
Animate Bone Minions
Death Nova
Bloodsong
Signet of Spirits [E]
Spirit Siphon When it comes to minions, Ritualists are inferior to Necromancers. Boon of Creation just about makes it viable. Explosive Growth and Spirit's Gift aren't amazing either.
Your spec is really messy. I would drop the rit entirely and take a N/Mo Minion Bomber. The advantage to N/Mo over Rt/N is the ability to take a strong hex removal (I either take Empathic Removal or Divert Hexes).
Signet of Spirits and Bloodsong would give you 4 spirits, but they'll be seriously lacking any decent firepower and really don't offer much that the extra 3 minions would bring with 16 Death Magic and Soul Reaping outperforms Spawning Power and Spirit Siphon by a long shot.

I typically field a second copy of Prot Spirit and Aegis on this hero.



Other notes:
Currently you lack Cracked Armour. Given you have an Earth Ele, I would say a reliable source of cracked armour is vital. The best option is clearly Weaken Armour. If you don't want to take a Curses necro, I would suggest sticking this on the Earth Ele in place of Ash Blast with the 6 spec into curses.

Provide details of your player build. If you're a caster then this seems fine. If you're a physical then you're missing out on a lot of physical support.


And why is Dalada Uplands a good place to test builds? The only real threat from mobs there is Meteor Shower pinning down your casters. Maybe ranger spikes if you don't get Aegis off or something...
The healers are truly pathetic.

Quote:

Originally Posted by FoxBat Even with the level difference, spawning power minions are plenty sturdier than regular. I've crunched the numbers before I think. 11 Spawning power gives +44% health. At 10 Death with 0 SP, a bone minion has 240 health and 24 AL (level 8) At 10 Death with 11 SP, a bone minion has 345.6 health and 24 AL At 16 Death with 0 SP, a bone minion 340 health and 39 AL (level 13) The difference in health is marginal but the armour difference is fairly high (more than +50%). And don't forget that at 16 Death, you'll have more minions attacking for more damage and blowing up for more damage. Oh, and you can have Masochism now.

I am all for anything not Sab or Discord. Tho I have to admit, those rangers in HM in dalada sure spike hard. I'll give it a go next time they put a zQuest out there.

nice to see some old timers still playing, i recognize your name from long long time ago when pugging the deep was common

While your setup looks interesting, and we really do need more people like you who are thinking outside of the box, I'd like to say get rid of necro skills altogether.

Another thought is you might want to consider a melee support variant (SoH), and a caster variant.

Messed with the build some more for a while. I have yet to be able to easily crush the frontmost mob and the ranger mob. I was hoping to accomplish this before moving to other areas for playtesting, since these two mobs offer pressure/shutdown and spike testing.

- I took out Ash Blast and added Cracked Armor. The hero used this half effectively, often, by using it too late. Still a better option.
- Replaced Sandstorm with Unsteady Ground. The quicker damage was better, and helped more vs. the Ranger mob.
- I dropped Bloodsong in favor of Death Nova. Had to make sure the hero wasn't spamming Death Nova when it shouldve been up with us, but damage was better.
- I attempted to use an Ether Renewal Elementalist in place of the Fire Elementalist, but the party (surprisingly) lost alot of damage. Fights became too long.

Also, I am attempting to make the three heros synergize amongst themselves, whilst playing a generic role myself to make the build as accomodating as possible to as many people as possible. These tests were done as a basic Echo SS necromancer with PI, YMLaD!, and FH! for the PvE skills.

So far, getting over the elemental damage handicap is proving tough. The build remains inconsistant for this reason. If the mob stays balled, this build rips through them without any issues. It's when they survive the initial volley that the problems begin. Simply put, kill fast or get pressure'd to death.

Will tinker with it more tomorrow.

Quote: Originally Posted by R Langdon I am all for anything not Sab or Discord. Tho I have to admit, those rangers in HM in dalada sure spike hard. Aegis reduces their damage output to half of what it normally is.
Reckless haste does the same again.


Quote:

Originally Posted by Kaida the Heartless These tests were done as a basic Echo SS necromancer with PI, YMLaD!, and FH! for the PvE skills. This is losing you a lot of damage. Losing the fire skills from the hero will cause a notable drop in damage if you're running that crap. Hero bars built without synergy with the player bar in mind are weaker than ones that are.