Why Discordway is the best possible 7 hero backline.

In my 7-hero build, I actually play the main healer, which is basically a resto rit with expel hexes and a lot of party healing. As the backline I don't have to worry about my own position quite as much so I'm free to watch the field and micro my heroes as I see fit. I've done most of DoA (I actually have yet to try Mallyx, and I don't remember exactly what is needed specifically to defeat him), every dungeon in HM (including each area of Slaver's Exile), quite a bit of vanquisher, and I'm almost finished with Legendary Guardian. I know a lot of people will call my setup lackluster because it doesn't abuse PvE skills a lot, but to be honest I'm pretty lazy and dislike having to be the source of my party's damage.

Setup is basically as follows.

Me: Rt/Me expel-utility resto rit
SoS hero with smite utility
Offensive ST rt for more mobile spirits (I throw in enfeebling blood as the last skill since it's basically free aoe weakness and I have the slot available)
Panic (often micro for better placement)
Ineptitude with arcane conundrum
Esurge utility (shatter hex, etc)
AoTL with prots
Soldier's Fury paragon (anthem of envy for spirits, stand your ground, anthem of weakness, additional damage+occasional DW, hard res)

Dual rit spammers+MM+3 mesmers catching most of the main spellcaster/melee with some added passive defense from the paragon means a single healer is all that's really necessary. Again, I'm fairly lazy so this is why I made the setup like this. My team has strong healing, strong damage, amazing hex/condition control, decent defense, and gets the job done, which is what I basically want. In an area with little to no corpses, I'll often just put in something that fulfills the same role as appropriate. (Obviously, different areas call for a different replacement, but this is often a non-issue anyway)

I'm not saying my build is the absolute best, but I prefer it to a similar setup that has discordway, which is the point I was addressing.

Quote: Originally Posted by Daesu

I think the meta is more like:

N/Mo(MM)-P/X-E/Mo or N/X(Orders)

A MM is still included in the meta.

As you can see, the only one with 0 DPS is the ER. As for the rest, it is matter of direct damage versus buff synergy.

I think the contest results would not show much of a difference between the two, but we will see. Good luck! Oopsies. I overcounted.

Base:
1x Inept
1x Panic
1x SoS
1x ST/SoGM

With:
1x MM
1x P/X
1x Mo/X or E/Mo or N/X

Still:
1x MM: Isn't contributing anything the 3x Discorders wouldn't.
1x P/X: So-so DPS through self, minimal added DPS /w CritMinions, okay DPS through Anthem of Envy. Nothing special here.
1x Mo/X or E/Mo or N/X: All lack damage except the Necro, who is contributing minimally, and anything they can bring to the table, a Discorder can too. Missing nothing here.

I'd still say Discord has the edge. I only say this because DPS takes the cake over defense. Yea, regular Casterway is going to be harder to break, but when is that ever a factor next to elite areas?

My guess:
Discord comes out slightly ahead. It just looks too good, and I can't count how many times I've wanted to punch out a straggler or two a bit quicker in my Mesway.

Quote: Originally Posted by Kaida the Heartless

Oopsies. I overcounted.

Base:
1x Inept
1x Panic
1x SoS
1x ST/SoGM

With:
1x MM
1x P/X
1x Mo/X or E/Mo or N/X

Still:
1x MM: Isn't contributing anything the 3x Discorders wouldn't.
1x P/X: So-so DPS through self, minimal added DPS /w CritMinions, okay DPS through Anthem of Envy. Nothing special here.
1x Mo/X or E/Mo or N/X: All lack damage except the Necro, who is contributing minimally, and anything they can bring to the table, a Discorder can too. Missing nothing here.

I'd still say Discord has the edge. I only say this because DPS takes the cake over defense. Yea, regular Casterway is going to be harder to break, but when is that ever a factor next to elite areas?

My guess:
Discord comes out slightly ahead. It just looks too good, and I can't count how many times I've wanted to punch out a straggler or two a bit quicker in my Mesway. The pure MM keeps the number of minions up more easily in prolonged fights and has empty slots for whatever kind of utility you need.

The paragon adds passive defense to the party via Stand Your Ground, which cuts armor-affected damage by about a third, as well as adding to spirit/minion damage. Each Anthem of Envy can deal almost 200 damage, depending on how many spirits you have/investment in Command, and that's not even counting whether you have additional attackers on your team. You can have it bring DW without using up the elite slot, and it's a great hero to put a hard res on since it's very resilient and out of the way of most direct damage.

The good thing about discordway is that it does multiple things at the same time. That's also its weakness now that we have 7-hero teams and mercs. We can afford to have those specialized slots that operate extremely efficiently without worrying about them casting one spell over something else.

With layers of passive/active defense and only one healer on the team, you don't have to worry about overlap and sacrifice of efficacy. I dislike watching 2+ discorders heal the same target when I wanted something dead instead.

Well, lately I've been grinding Mt Quinkai a lot, leading from the front on my warrior or my spirit spamming/summoning rit. I've perceived a problem with my usual teams and various meta teams: the mobs don't bunch quite enough for pure AoE teams to be efficient, but they do bunch enough for single target teams to be a waste. So I tried a couple of things.

I tried going for really big AoE to get more foes in, using a couple of blood necros. That works ok, but only when I'm on my aggro-hogging SY-spamming warrior to keep them alive as they run into traffic.

I also decided to combine two things I've never used before: 3x searing flames and 3x discord. I played the rit and used 3 discord necros with resto/prot/curse secondaries, 3 E/P with "Fall Back", and a Fevered Dreams mesmer. It did work out pretty well. SF + weaken armour kills groups (monster AL is not too high on MQ), Discord kills outliers, the eles chain "Fall Back" outside combat, and Fevered Dreams sometimes improves SF's AoE. The times are level with my best teams, 17-18 mins, limited by travel time rather than kill speed. It's fragile at the start before I get minions raised, then pretty safe.

ISTM that when you want some single target damage but you don't want to build a whole team around it, Discord on the heal/prot/mitigation crew is decent. Now to see if I can find some other way to do the same thing better...

I prefer ROJ > Discord in most areas now.

But they scatter in hm?

ROJ + KD's + minions/spirits = open area massacre's

Basic team:
1-2 Spirits (SOS restoration build can cover healing some areas in hm with a little help or a full healer.)
1 MM (AoTl restoration Sabs build, etc)
2+ RoJers (Monks/Necs with various prots and KD's)
1+ Mes PI interrupts/kds.
+1-3 ETC
RoJ Monk
RoJ Necro
Para support BIP w/they're on fire etc.
Earth Elem w/KD's and wards.
Sabs restoration Nec.
Monk healer
2nd Mesmer
???

Current lineup
SOGM with my ranger rit (would SOS, but dont want to heal)
1 SOS Restoration Hero
1 MM AoTl + Fiends (Dont need em, but like with Ebon Battle standard)
2 RoJ Prot Monks
1 RoJ Nec
1 Para Necro Sup BiP
1 Monk Healer (Works much better than a 2nd restoration, but could bring another ROJ here and hybrid the MM)


When played properly, not much kills mobs faster than a ROJ team. Sometimes you can use walls etc to help ball bad guys up, but even without walls it works. The most you might have to do is flag heros back a little and micro/click AoTL every so often. Since my main is a ranger, I've been using spirits with pve skills. You could AP or play any character with this team.

Set heros, set spirits, aggro, and they start dying. Battle standard for extra damage. Vamp spirit since I'm not a primary rit. Summon spirits works great. Can split aggro 4 ways to avoid area dam buy using 1 flag. I also help surround monk etc with spirits so they cant back away.

For big groups or multiples, I try to pull them to the spirits a little ways out and have the heros just outside aggro of the spirits. Bad guys go after me and spirits, I unflag, they go down. Basic stuff really. BiP helps for any prolonged fights. I vq'd all of cantha and most of tyria this way. Mostly start the fight then go scraping for cart title. Lornas pass.. no problem. Triple healers no problem. Just stretch them out a little, lock em up and nuke. Seems to work even better in Elonia. I've aggro'd 3-4 groups and as long as I keep the spirits and minions between the bad guys and my squishie roj team, not many problems. Talhora gets killed every so often. She seems to be the most aggressive smiter/hero. If I take a second to flag the mm a little back, she doesnt get touched.

Wars and sins can do some areas without spirits or minions, though walls etc will help. Flag heros back, ball up mob, unflag 5+ Rojers, watch em drop. There's a detailed thread somewhere on guru. Mines is just easy and mindless. His is a thing of beauty.

I'm still a fan of sabs nec teams. I've finished the game using a variation of sabsway (war) and discordway (nec). But in most areas RoJ is faster and less close calls or wipes. And that's using what can be considered a subpar class (ranger).

I do have to agree that dedicated healer heroes are somewhat questionable, and even if going that route, no more than one. There are scenarios where you need some extra healing to live, and many where you don't, including the start of nearly every battle; and you don't want your healer doing nothing during the latter time. The fact that you can distribute skills across your heroes does nothing to change that healing is simply unneeded at the start of every fight, and in PvE you will be facing alot of "start of every fight" as well as easy mob downtime where excessive healing is just not needed.

Discord is just far from the only way to set up an offensive backline, I've found spirits work at least as well, there's also curses, RoJ, or mesmery stuff. I'm not really convinced that discord is vastly inferior for all options and situations, but neither is it clearly superior either.

My only real issue with S/D/M is you ought to be running more AoE. 4 mesmers + 2-3 discord OR 2 spirits + 1 hybrid healer are fairly close. But either is miles ahead of standard S/D/M, considering both spirits and discorders are largely single target damage.

Quote: Originally Posted by FoxBat

I do have to agree that dedicated healer heroes are somewhat questionable, and even if going that route, no more than one. There are scenarios where you need some extra healing to live, and many where you don't, including the start of nearly every battle; and you don't want your healer doing nothing during the latter time. The fact that you can distribute skills across your heroes does nothing to change that healing is simply unneeded at the start of every fight, and in PvE you will be facing alot of "start of every fight" as well as easy mob downtime where excessive healing is just not needed. I've taken to bringing an MM with Prots, Curse/Healer and SoS/Healer (With a Melee character, mind you).

Probably not the best setup imaginable, but I find it's the most friendly for working in the rest of my "required skills". Mainly SoH, 2x Fallback, enchantment stripping and hex/condition removal.

Quote: Originally Posted by AndroBubbles

The pure MM keeps the number of minions up more easily in prolonged fights and has empty slots for whatever kind of utility you need.

The paragon adds passive defense to the party via Stand Your Ground, which cuts armor-affected damage by about a third, as well as adding to spirit/minion damage. Each Anthem of Envy can deal almost 200 damage, depending on how many spirits you have/investment in Command, and that's not even counting whether you have additional attackers on your team. You can have it bring DW without using up the elite slot, and it's a great hero to put a hard res on since it's very resilient and out of the way of most direct damage.

The good thing about discordway is that it does multiple things at the same time. That's also its weakness now that we have 7-hero teams and mercs. We can afford to have those specialized slots that operate extremely efficiently without worrying about them casting one spell over something else.

With layers of passive/active defense and only one healer on the team, you don't have to worry about overlap and sacrifice of efficacy. I dislike watching 2+ discorders heal the same target when I wanted something dead instead. What kind of fights are you getting into that are "prolonged" with 8/8 members of your party doing damage? DoA doesn't count! :P

Anthem of Envy is the ONLY thing the Paragon has working for it, and Discord still beats it's damage output and you get to control who is taking that damage. Everything else important can be brought on one of the Discorders via /P. Deep Wound can be done with "FTW!", Accumulated Pain, and "Finish Him!" if you are using 'em.

Oddly enough, this overlap is what allows all Heroes to be doing something constructive. Once the Minion and Spirit walls are up, specialized Healers end up twiddling their thumbs or healing minions that are supposed to be exploding. They key is to run Discord bars that aren't identical, such as one /Mo, one /Rt, and one /P. The SoS is the other healer.

Quote: Originally Posted by Gabs88

I suggest you reread (or actually just read) the original post and understand that im talking about discordway as a general backline and not as a complete build. I am aware, and I'm just saying that it can't do that. For the most part, your main most is saying that minions make a team build so much better. In your little scenario you set up with Discordway + 4-5 mesmers vs 5 mesmers, 2 healers/support, and a melee, you specifically said that the Necros of the latter team were non-MM. So ditch a mesmer and put in an MM. Now disregarding the mesmers of each build which I am assuming will be similiar, if not the same, You have dicordway with it's split duty builds vs 2 full time healers and an MM. I would much rather my hero's builds be as not split as possible so that they aren't casting discord uselessly on a full health enemy instead of healing the person who is about to die. So is Discordway really better? Is a little bit of damage from Discord really worth it? Who cares about cleaning up the "stragglers"? They should not be any kind of threat to your group and dealing with them isn't a problem at all. Discordway really isn't anything amazing or special and frankly there are better things than Discordway, in my opinion.

Quote: Originally Posted by thetwistedboy I would much rather my hero's builds be as not split as possible so that they aren't casting discord uselessly on a full health enemy instead of healing the person who is about to die.. They don't do this. They prioritize healing excessively actually, at the expense of wanted discords. It's more like, healing with an optional side of damage, vs healing without that option.

@FoxBat, I have read that and noticed that sometimes, but when I was testing and using Discordway back in the old days of 3 heroes, I'd gotten wiped several times do them using discord instead of healing. Just my experience. All in all, Discordway wasn't particularly great on any of the characters then I played on. That's why I am really opposing it's usage in so many hero teams that are coming out.

Barrageway spikes faster than Discordway.

Don't forget Barrageway is AoE too!

Quote: Originally Posted by Kaida the Heartless What kind of fights are you getting into that are "prolonged" with 8/8 members of your party doing damage? DoA doesn't count! :P wat

"Finish Him!" is a great skill, and certainly worth it's weight on a skill bar. Most casters bring this anyways, and if you're not one, you already have access to deep wound. Accumulated Pain isn't "detracting" from any bar; it's spammable deep wound with conditions easily met in a Discord party. The N/P can "reduce all damage by a third" just like the Paragon can. Spirit Damage is uncontrolled, and half the time won't even proc Anthem of Envy because the targets will be <50% HP due to the Mesmer's AoE. Criticals from lvl 12 Minions are hardly a high enough source of damage to warrant mentioning. The player is the only other option for an "attacker" in S/D/M, and that is also a very small amount of damage. Condition application is best left to Enfeebling Blood and Weaken Armor on one of the Necros. Who needs Paragon hard res'es when you have Res Scrolls and a 3 Necro Backline, one of which, probably has Flesh of my Flesh if the SoS in the party doesn't already?

FTW has a 15 second recharge, but only needs to be used on the one (maybe two) stragglers that survive the initial wave of Mesmer onslaught. Heroes don't use Merciless Spear 100% properly.

What utility skills is your Monk bringing to "boost the effects of your team"? S/D/M can be dropped down to the equivalent of a single healer quite easily, and since they are hybriding, they are always useful to the output of the party.

You are speaking as if we are both considering our builds using SDM, whereas I am not. In my setup there is most certainly room for additional attackers besides the player. The cool thing about Envy is that it will not end on any target until its condition is met, allowing a spirit to attack many times before actually triggering the damage, at which point the chant may very well be recharged.

Accumulated pain is just something my mesmers don't need when I want them focusing on shutting down and dealing more direct damage. You've also contradicted yourself on your point about merciless spear. Are enemies going to be below 50% health or not?

A monk is the default option you go to when I talk about a healer with utility? What in the world happened to Rt/X and X/Rt? Fully capable of effective party/target healing while adding utility.

I think it is you that misunderstands. If you recall, the "other" meta build at the moment (and the one that is being discussed here) is: 2x Mes, 2x Rit, 1x Monk, 1x Paragon, 1x Necro. This is the build I am assuming you are referencing. Paragons have no merit in a build like that when they are up against a: 2x Mes, 2x Rit, 3x Necro build. Everything the Paragon can do will be done better with the Discord Heroes. The Paragon's role can almost completely be replaced by a single Necromancer. The MM is split between the three [necros], and the Monk is too. When it comes down to it, the Discord version simply puts out more DPS where it's needed, and damage (speed) is what counts in PvE.

Quote: Originally Posted by Kaida the Heartless I think it is you that misunderstands. If you recall, the "other" meta build at the moment (and the one that is being discussed here) is: 2x Mes, 2x Rit, 1x Monk, 1x Paragon, 1x Necro. This is the build I am assuming you are referencing. Paragons have no merit in a build like that when they are up against a: 2x Mes, 2x Rit, 3x Necro build. Everything the Paragon can do will be done better with the Discord Heroes. The Paragon's role can almost completely be replaced by a single Necromancer. The MM is split between the three [necros], and the Monk is too. You can't compare like that. Everything that the Paragon can do will be done better with Discord Heroes? Really? Then what would you prefer to have in foundry HM? SYG+ToF or Discord?

Face it, the Paragon is not going to be a great damage dealer all by himself but he serves his purposes. If it is only damage that counts in PvE, then you should replace the paragon with a discord necro and try HM Foundry. But of course if you only play in NM, you probably don't need the paragon.

I dont use the 2x Mes, 2x Rits, 1x Paragon, 1x Necro, 1x Monk build anymore because it is too defensive, unless the monk is a smiter. For healing, I find that I only needed half restoration from my sos rit, and passive healing from the rest.

Quote: Originally Posted by Kaida the Heartless

I think it is you that misunderstands. If you recall, the "other" meta build at the moment (and the one that is being discussed here) is: 2x Mes, 2x Rit, 1x Monk, 1x Paragon, 1x Necro. This is the build I am assuming you are referencing. Paragons have no merit in a build like that when they are up against a: 2x Mes, 2x Rit, 3x Necro build. Everything the Paragon can do will be done better with the Discord Heroes. The Paragon's role can almost completely be replaced by a single Necromancer. The MM is split between the three [necros], and the Monk is too. When it comes down to it, the Discord version simply puts out more DPS where it's needed, and damage (speed) is what counts in PvE. Who said I was strictly referencing meta builds? My own 7-hero build doesn't even use a monk, and has three mesmers. I don't need to reference a "meta" build to argue against discord's efficacy. You're arguing for 3 discords out-damaging a single paragon, but that goes without saying. However, a single paragon compared to a single discord is a completely different story. Moving on, an e-surge mesmer out-damages a single discord by far, and easily rivals two, not to mention the recent small buffs to domination make it even more viable for utility/indirect support. I'd rather bring something else in almost any situation instead of a necro that at best does about 50 dps to a single target, since we're talking about how damage is what matters in PvE.

You're talking about 3 discords out-healing a single healer (assuming they are all n/rt or n/mo), but I don't need that much healing. I can afford to have a single healer that still manages to bring utility, while bringing damage dealers that outpace discord heroes in dps AND versatility of use.

Dude, Jeydra ran 4 Ele's. That wasn't anything close to meta and we all know Jeydra isn't your average player either. Good players are going to run different builds better because they are more suited to their play style, and Jeydra demonstrated that.

Discord is still faster than Mex2,Rtx2,Px1,Mox1,Ex1 because it is less defensive. DoA is about the only place in this game that you need to worry about strengthening your backline. I even stated this and you still try to use it in your defense.

And Andro, I'm arguing that 3 Discords are going to out-damage a Paragon, MM, and Monk. Each Discord also doesn't have to be healer, as I stated when saying that the best choice would probably N/Mo, N/Rt, and a N/P. Apparently you skipped over that as well.

When you enter a thread talking about sets of Meta builds and join the conversation, people are going to assume you are speaking about the same unless you say so otherwise. Specialized builds are going to be better when run by decent players (i.e. Jeydra's "Invokeway", if you will). Thats a herpa-derp given. Discord is still superior over Mo/P/N.

Discord actually works better with out the trashy Rits. I'm tempted to run a 3xNecro 4x Mesmer party with myself running the Spirit Spam. The biggest issue is I can't decide if that's going to be a better option than say, 2xBackline 6xMes, or even 1xUA 7xMes.

Quote: Originally Posted by Kaida the Heartless

Dude, Jeydra ran 4 Ele's. That wasn't anything close to meta and we all know Jeydra isn't your average player either. Good players are going to run different builds better because they are more suited to their play style, and Jeydra demonstrated that.
. I am not talking about Jeydra, I am talking about his thread. Everyone who tried to match discord with meta build on that thread has an obvious result. Discordway (aka S/M/D) timing was inferior. If you still think that discordway is superior why don't you or someone else prove that with screenshots, rather than continue to theorycraft on this thread despite what others have proven on the other thread.

Furthermore, your idea of the current meta build makeup is wrong. The meta may or may not include a paragon, depending on who you asked. I am using 2 Rts, 2 mesmers, 2 necros, 1 ele just not using discord. We can argue about what is the current meta but as long as I can find a single team build that beats discordway, then the title of this thread is proven false.