Optimising for speedy VQ etc.

Run the ST as a protect, not as an offensive spirit line. Shelter/Displacement is all I'd run really. With Aegis almost permanently up (depending on AP), just Shelter. Don't even have any other spirits on it. Run any sort of other line you'd like.

With the N/Rt, drop communing as said. It's not worth it, and particularly for speed.

The curses necro is a bit confusing, you've got one thing that attacks in melee, I'm not sure MoP is really worth it. You've also got a 5 way split. I'd drop one of the attributes, death or blood, and add it onto the above hero (also said, so not to steal credit - just reinforcing it).

Watch energy on the mesmers, with blood ritual it should be okay, but it's a bit iffy at first glance - I'd just suggest watching the heroes energy bars while you play through a VQ, that will tell you all.

Yourself, you don't need EBSoW both because its bad and because it is effectively useless for you and half your characters. Either take Finish him for ridiculous spiking on the AP call (260 damage instacast from shouts is imba), or Seed of Life + a bit more divine favour spec for massive amounts of party healing which would allow you to switch out your Wanderlust rit healer who is a bit unwieldy at the moment. You may also drop EVAS for Finish Him and Seed of Life together, experiment with what you like.

Anything more than 1 or 2 spirits definitely slows you down. ST rit takes nothing but shelter (its the only important spirit anyway), so throw a few heals on that bar instead and just ensure ST is up all the time. Trim down your other characters as well.

Necro: MoP is a nice skill, but you really have nothing at all to deal physical damage other than the paragon. I'm not really a fan of PoD builds in and of itself since I dislike adjacent AoE that doesn't instantly rape enemies (e.g. MoP), but its up to you.

Mesmers: just fine.

SoS looks good, though I would drop Painful Bond for Ancestor's Rage. I find that 50% of the time painful bond lands on something the spirits aren't even attacking and 100% of the time it takes up more energy then I want to spare, but I don't run a BR. Ancestor's Rage is nice reliable high damage that the hero does well IMO.

Paragon looks OK. GftE doesn't really help you much at all (re: you have 1 physical attacker), so if its there just for energy I would simply bump leadership a few points higher and free a skill slot. Just minor quibbling though.

All in All: looks pretty decent. AP spike + Putrid should be murder as you spike something down, its corpse turns into AoE, you spike another down, et cetera et cetera. Anything with ST + infinite Aegis is going to survive well, SYG and potentially Seed of Life makes it a very tough nut to crack.

I'd run
arcane echo RoJ on yourself (this is more I hate AP and think it's a broken skill) with strength of honor, PI (quickly takes out bosses), seed of life, and GDW
W/A earthshaker with death's charge/unseen fury (VoS derv also possible)
SoS rit with ancestors rage/splinter weap/protective was kaolai/blood bond/blood ritual
ST rit with displacement/shelter and resto heals
N/Mo MM with prots
Esurge mesmer with fallback/never surrender
Panic mesmer with flesh of my flesh (or go fallback if feeling brave)
N/Rt icy veins/enfeebling blood/mop and resto heals

6 man areas- drop esurge, N/Rt
4 man areas - drop esurge, N/Rt, ST, and panic, drop blood skills on SoS for more resto heals, and pop a strong summon

I would recommend a "lite" MM, based on

AotL
Animate Shambling Horror
Putrid Bile
Putrid Explosion

That's your death magic base. It's largely for the nearby putrid skills, but with shelter around and fall backs, you can maintain 8-10 minions with surprising ease, no time wasted on constant summons and death nova. These will help immensely with large aggros and help to semi-ball foes after your sins die, plus the random DPS of high level minions should easily keep pace with PoD. If you're running a long distance and the minions don't keep up, it's not that big a deal, they are more like a nice bonus since you're already in the death line, not the primary focus of the build.

Now this kind of build has a lot of spare energy and time without death nova/bone minions to constantly spam. There are plenty of ways to fill that void, one is to make it one of your teams healers;

SoLS
Spirit Light
MB&S
PWK

Assuming your team has spirits of course... otherwise you might need life in there.

Why bring 2 copies of Life? If you have Wanderlust why not bring Earthbind too?
One copy of Panic is better than bringing energy surge.

Thanks for all the advise guys, I kinda figured the spirits would be slowing me down a bit so I've made some changes and done a test (was only Barbarous Shore, but still) and it went well. Had a double boss/double pack pull in that middle area with no deaths.
I actually put in Panic for this area since there's quite a few casters, but I will swap with ES often.



I really dislike smiting and can't say I trust melee hero AI, so I've given RoJ a miss.
I've added minions and split the necro bars. Testing Ravenous Gaze for a bit. Bumping the N/P's command up to 10 certainly makes things faster.
I put fragility on the Inept mesmer's bar since I figured Calculated Risk would be gimped by shelter & PS (and I have plenty of conditions).
I kept the single physical (paragon) because I've had some great success on balled/semi-balled foes with MoP. Mobs seem to like to fight the EVAS and often ball up around him which serves MoP nicely. Also MoP was good enough in Sabway with only minions so I don't see how it can be worth dropping here.

Any further comments are appreciated.

Cheers!

My only two comments; if you have minions, by all means use MoP, it can add some damage, and it's a good skill. With just a paragon, I'd say it's questionable, with with a paragon, minions, and EVAS for kicks it's gonna put out.

Displacement triggers before Aegis, which means the spirit's gonna die fast anyways. If you have aegis up, then there's no need for displacement and you're better off with ST -> 3 shelter copies. If you play a different bar (RoJ or something) then it's good to swap back in.

My opinion; I like using clumsiness in addition to Wandering Eye and Ineptitude. They all can trigger on the same attack, and it's some nice extra damage on a recharge. Where it'll fit, I'm not sure. Fragility can be useful too. Just food for thought here.

Displacement doesn't trigger before Aegis. It depends which was placed/active first.

***I really dislike smiting and can't say I trust melee hero AI, so I've given RoJ a miss***

It's really not that bad as long as there is only one melee AI, especially if they have a shadowstep to quickly change targets. The amount of damage they can do as a frontline (splinter weap, ancestors rage, smite/shatter hex, GDW, mark of pain, soh, etc) is pretty considerable. Try it- you may be pleasantly surprised.

I have concluded that having multiple interrupts (including duplicates) on your heroes, ends up being a waste. This is especially true if the interrupt is there for energy gaining purposes. Think about it: you start the fight with all skills recharges, the hero will most likely interrupt the second skill (spell) the enemy casts. Power Drain return about 17-19 energy. The overflow of energy gained is a waste. It's even worse if you have two heroes using the _same_ interrupt at the same time. Only one will succeed. Since you are going with blood, I highly recommend you use Blood is Power. Your heroes will just have that much more energy available to improve your vanquish time. This means you can also drop Blood Ritual.

Another skill, as mentioned above is Displacement. You don't need it, to be honest. You already have Aegis. Displacement is going to block a few hits (probably on minions... which you want to die so that they explode... and make more minions). Having Aegis and Shelter means, one, Shelter lasts longer, two, you can have up to 3 Shelter uses with one Soul Twisting.

Just some math: Soul Twisting = 15 recharge; 3 Shelters means as long as shelter lasts 5 seconds or more, you can pretty much have a permanent Shelter up.

Putrid Explosion might be have a higher priority than minions... not sure.