My Petway

delta function

Ascalonian Squire

Join Date: Feb 2011

Any comments or suggestions for improvements?

Keep in mind, this is hard mode; No minions or spirits.

edit: What I mean is the construction of the team is hard mode (no minions or spirits). However, I am using this for HM as well.

thetwistedboy

thetwistedboy

Frost Gate Guardian

Join Date: Aug 2009

I live right there, see?

Apostles of Oblivion

W/Mo

I'd replace aura of restoration for something else because it is a pretty bad heal skill and replace defensive anthem because you and your paragons won't be affected by it for long.

Wenspire

Wenspire

Wilds Pathfinder

Join Date: Mar 2008

USA - W.Coast

HiME

Mo/

Pets work well if you are body/corner blocking with them. They do survive quite long, contrary to popular belief; and hero healers/prot keep them alive. But in regards to combat in large open areas, it's tough to get the agro to stick to them most of the time.

Marty Silverblade

Marty Silverblade

Administrator

Join Date: Jun 2006

Just in case it wasn't clear in the OP, he wants to improve the concept, not scrap it completely for standard meta stuff. Further posts of 'omg use minions and spirits instead' or 'this is crap lol' will not be tolerated.

bhavv

bhavv

Furnace Stoker

Join Date: Sep 2006

No way is that team going to stay alive for HM content.

- Low DPS
- Low healing
- Ineptitude + Spiteful Spirit = Not very ideal

Though it has just given me an idea to try out minions + spirits + pets o.O

I want to try that

Balthazar Blessed

Lion's Arch Merchant

Join Date: Jun 2006

R/Mo

Change Ineptitude to panic and SS to a curser (pain of disenchantment) with splinter weapon.

jackinthe

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: Jan 2007

i had a guildee who used to run a similarish petway build, he used a roj/soj monk with strength of honor for amazing dmg from pets, as he was spamming great dwarf weapon on them as well. with your save yourself being up most of the time, pets should be fairly safe. fit in some splinter weapons or something, anyways just some ideas for you
good luck

bitchbar player

bitchbar player

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: Mar 2006

still lost

Guy In Real Life [GIRL]

Mo/

this build needs moer mark of pain.
remove dismis condition on the necro for mop
drop defensive anthem for empathic remvoal since you lack in de hex removal part.
Add more anthem of envy, and maybe ditch the whole motivation line.
put 2 attack skills on every para.
The concept will work for sure with a bit of tweaking.

[email protected]!k3

Ascalonian Squire

Join Date: Nov 2009

Maddmike Killa

Well, looks like a solid concept , I run a similar one myself and it tears through HM. I like how the AoD/Orders covers a dual role in the party, but that itself won't be enough to sustain in HM. I suggest that on yourself you bring Ebon Battle Standard of Honor, The damage from the para's+orders still won't pack that much of a punch and its always nice to have extra damage from the party, in general, from the ward. I'd also suggest maybe finding a way to put Splinter Weapon into your party as well. There's a lack of AoE which is a key concept when going into PvE, but is not always the case (Discord); it also adds that much more damage to your paragons.

The paragons themselves are a seperate issue which I'll start with your first. I see that you have Defensive Anthem, its a great skill, but there are better ones that might suit your team better; since half of them are physicals. That paragon looks like its dedicated to the command line, so I'm not going to suggest to swap with a defense-supportive skill, since Command is rather oriented towards being offense-supportive, again with a few exceptions. I think it would be a good idea to maybe look into Crippling Anthem, I know that cripple isn't a large factor in PvE, but you have to keep in mind the slow AI of the pets and travel-time, So cripple may serve as a useful function to keep your enemies closer together, and slowing down physicals trying to get to your back line. Bladeturn refrain isn't that good of a skill in general, so maybe swap that with Anthem of Weariness/Flame to for more synergy with the other paras, or another utility skill (Fallback, maybe?)

I'd leave the second one As-is, but maybe throw in Blazing Finale; Heroes actually use it rather well on pets in my expierence. The third Para needs a bit of work though. First, it needs at least one attack skill, you want to exploit the fact that paras work well together so if you have one attack skill you can benefit from all the shouts that trigger on them. Second, I'd ditch Anthem of Restoration for Purification; Not only can it git rid of party-wide conditions quickly, but it can be a life saver for when your physicals are blind. "Find their Weakness!" seems a bit irrelevant to the build, so that would probably be the skill I swap; maybe try Vicious Attack since you have two copies of "GtfE!".

All-in-all its a solid concept for a team build, but I'd make a few more adjustments, that would overall boost your healing/damage output as they lack with your current setup. Your Curses Necro can go /Rt and bring Splinter+ARage. Also, you can probably make your E/Mo Protter go hybrid, since you can invest relatively a small amount of points into Protection Prayers and it will still be effective. The Ineptitude Mesmer seems like an excellent source of damage and is an all-around effective build, but it seems to be out-of-place with your team and lacks synergy with them. I'd suggest that you maybe consider a different hero that can add more to your team, instead of just raw damage.
I hope you found this post helpful and that your future endeavors may lie at peak prefromance.

Oh, next time add attribute points too, please.

Edit: Ahh, remember as well that Pets are treated as "Allies" not Party Members, so make sure that you read the descriptions to see if they affect your pets. Also, Black Bears would be particularly useful for your teams since they have the inherent skill "Brutal mauling" which can trigger a few of the Paragon shouts.

delta function

Ascalonian Squire

Join Date: Feb 2011

Thanks for all the comments. I'll see if I can work something in.

Response to some skills:

Ineptitude: I find that the blind from ineptitude is invaluable. I'm actually thinking of going BSurge on that hero. Then again, none of these are physicals.

Blazing Finale: I'll definitely work blazing finale into the team if they use it on pets.

Song of Purification: Fantastic skill, but doesn't work on pets. :\ I'm still debating this issue.

Empathetic Removal: Another fantastic skill, but then I'd lose a pet. I'm actually considering a pet-less physical team and that'd definitely be on one of the paragons.

FtW: It looked really pretty with its +50 damage at 15 command. I'll adjust and play around.

distilledwill

distilledwill

Forge Runner

Join Date: Sep 2006

Blighty

The Legion of the Blue Blade

R/Mo

Ah, yes of course, you'd lose the pet. Ignore the suggestion then.

Xenomortis

Xenomortis

Tea Powered

Join Date: May 2008

UK

N/

I'd make the Orders guy a Nec, give him Mark of Pain and Cultist's Fervor, remove the SS Nec and put in an SoS channeling Rit with Splinter Weapon and a couple of Restoration heals.
And DKiss over Shield Guardian every day.

delta function

Ascalonian Squire

Join Date: Feb 2011

Well...I'd lose the healing from the Orders.
And SoS has spirits.
And DKiss is not AoE heal though.

delta function

Ascalonian Squire

Join Date: Feb 2011

But I don't want spirits.

I'll try out the effectiveness of DKiss.

delta function

Ascalonian Squire

Join Date: Feb 2011

Other people could recommend it, and I wouldn't like it for the same reasons that I don't want your SoS.

Yes, I know it kicks ass, I used to run one, but can you work with a restriction? For kicks? For lols?

bhavv

bhavv

Furnace Stoker

Join Date: Sep 2006

Quote:
Originally Posted by Xenomortis View Post
But it's worth noting that the SoS Rit is pretty much the best hero build around.
If off topicness is allowed for me to make one comment on this....

I like to set up my SoS rit as a primary healer with SoS, Spirit Siphon and essence strike, plus 5 resto heals.

It never runs out of energy, and is currently single handedly healing my whole team on my monk who is using a running build to get my second account through Eotn, and simply spamming party spells in missions so I can get EOTN completed twice.

Of course I add splinter weapon as soon as I have an MM for anything too.

Quote:
Originally Posted by delta function View Post
3N, 2Rt, 2Me is boring. Its a personal choice. I've always found physical attack based characters to be boring and have always preferred using spells.

You dont need to use the meta setup at all to get through the game, but even for the character classes you have chosen, I think that some of your builds can be improved a bit. I'll have a tinker with my heroes and post some suggestions based on your petway.

I've no idea with how it would work, but I came up with this:

jensyea

jensyea

Lion's Arch Merchant

Join Date: Nov 2009

The Underworld

Mo/

Needs MoP
Inept + SS don't work well
It's a pet build, yet there's a ranger without a pet?
Needs Splinter weapon

delta function

Ascalonian Squire

Join Date: Feb 2011

I actually tried it, but most of the skills are tied to spirits needing spirits, like spirit light and the other heals, but I'll take a second look.

mugen

mugen

Academy Page

Join Date: May 2005

- does heores use the ranger elite skill ? wiki say no
- if i see well you dont use Go for the eye, one of rare (free & easy) shoot that affect pets , you may add it

Leberecht Reinhold

Leberecht Reinhold

Pre-Searing Cadet

Join Date: Mar 2011

The other day tried something similar to this.
Me (R/P), two others R/P, and a P/R (Using Rampage as One to buff spears, and Call of protection for avoid massive blackouts). Then I used E/Mo, D/N Dwayna Orders.

But instead of a Me and a N, I used a Minion necro with Bone Fiend. This, with 4 guys with spears, and me with EBSoH makes things crazy, and the other a curses guy with MoP and Barbs.

That, with the added damage of pet, makes it quite a lot of damage. In long fights tends to die tough, because Rampage as One is excesively expensive in terms of energy, and also, R/P or the para dont have any block.

But maybe this info is useful for you.

Jeydra

Forge Runner

Join Date: May 2008

Consider these changes (no guarantees they'll work better) -

Bow Paragons or bow Rangers, then EBSoH on player. if energy runs dry consider BiP or Blood Ritual. Running so many Paragons is overkill defense in my experience.

Mark of Pain on Curses Nec.

Splinter Weapon. I would seriously look into a 16-spec Splinter Weapon. SoS is the obvious template and can double as a semi-healer, but if you REALLY don't want to run spirits (irrational decision, but up to you) you can always use another elite (Clamour of Souls, Xinrae's Weapon, etc).

Primary Nec for Orders. Consider Life (hell yeah spirits), Kaolai and similar skills for him.

I'd use Panic instead of Ineptitude because caster shutdown is more important than physical shutdown, but up to you.

jigenbakuda

Academy Page

Join Date: Aug 2009

Draconian Order

A/

Sorry misread that you wanted no minions, but I used this for petway, it works and is very fun. Although it would require tweaking for every zone you enter. This is something I threw together and was thinking of ways to improve it all thru the vanquish. It could easily be done without minions and I found them to be overkill. I died once, but it was just cause I was being stupid (never wiped). I did an easy zone in the forrest (melandru's hope). I want to go back and try real synergies with the beastmasters and the backline, lets see what I can come up with. Hex removal was definately lacking.

The BS build (will be improved)
I messed the template up, in my build I had comfort animal instead of shadow refuge.





And the vanquish





Edit:

This is looking like it will be harder than I thought... I tried a new build. I finished the vanquish, but it was not as smooth as I would of wanted. I have a LOT of damage, but no real damage reduction / protting. I'm not sure what I'll try next. Seeing as spirits are not allowed... well is it attacking spirits aren't allowed, or all spirits aren't allowed?










Here is the vanquish, this time in ferndale


I wiped twice (wipes were over aggro, not really the build) and I had a little bit different build than what I posted above, I had cruel was daolin or whatever on xandra... didn't notice it was 15e and that she would run into melee range to drop it... plus had awaken the blood on olias... not worth the extra sacrifice. But other than that its basically the same.