Team Build: Dillway+Variants

Quote: Originally Posted by Plutoman

Updated all the templates.

@Anaraky - I typically play an invoke ele, so a bit of spiking power. The split healers are generally why I recommend a player spiking bar. I don't play a warrior, in fact, I really don't play any professions at all besides ele, but I can certainly theory-craft a build utilizing this concept intended for a non-spiking player. Generally, that'll mainly involve editing the mesmers for a bit less AoE and a bit more single-target (it would probably only change one skill on each, 2 at the most, doing a divide between anti-melee and anti-caster AoE), along with possibly a single target smite skill on each of the smiters. I'm only guessing at this point, but that's what I'd first look at doing. Ya seeing as you are a Ele primary I guessed you ran either Invoke or some sort of AP caller, both being focused somewhat on spiking. Considering how high damage melees do in this game I guess the only thing needed to counter split-healers is some sort of KD, Deep Wound or high single-target damage. Warriors have like a gazillion builds if you aren't afraid of deviating from the standard 100b/DSlash/ES builds so fulfilling those criteria should be easy. I can imagine a big reason I noticed those groups being more annoying then others (in other words, took five extra seconds to kill) was because I run a bar that didn't have any of those things so I could compare to my old setup. I'm probably going to try out your setup more later today and I'll change my bar to blend into the party more.

Thanks for sharing Plutoman, always nice to see some new builds instead of the standard 2~ setups people use nowadays. Cheers.

Thanks for your reply, Pluto!

If I should come up with something decent, I'll definitely will share it with you.

Still new-ish at the game and would just like some clarification for this from the first post:

Quote: Originally Posted by Plutoman

Note the position of the interrupts on the bars - I staggered them among the heroes to mix up the priorities - in hopes of it minimizing the effects of interrupt stacking.. My understanding from that Me thread a couple months ago that nothing helps interrupt stacking besides having certain skills with conditional requirements that must be met. However, that quotation above implies there's some sort've left-right (or at least order) prioritization involved.

Does it actually help or is this one of those "doesn't hurt to try" kinda things? :P

If Vloxen works with HM, would SoO as well?

Quote: Originally Posted by Smarf

My understanding from that Me thread a couple months ago that nothing helps interrupt stacking besides having certain skills with conditional requirements that must be met. However, that quotation above implies there's some sort've left-right (or at least order) prioritization involved.

Does it actually help or is this one of those "doesn't hurt to try" kinda things? :P The second, tbh. Hero skill priority used to be considered prioritized from left to right - though first determined by appropriate skills - and I don't honestly know if that holds true or not. I had a lot of people tell me that when I started out with heroes. Lex's testing implies that it very well may not. Regardless, I stacked them in a different manner on the off-chance that it will help. It seems to have helped, but I'm not certain by any means at all!

@Trinity Blade - By all means, it should do fine in SoO. Particularly with the holy damage (SoO is the undead dungeon, eh?). If you have any troubles, let me know and I'll help as best as I can.

Quote: Originally Posted by Trinity Blade

If Vloxen works with HM, would SoO as well? Soo is not as hard as vloxen can be. Just fendi takes some time to take down. This team should rip through it like crazy.
Since frostmaw is the bounty I'm gonna try it with my warrior.

How is the usage of RoJ by the smite here? In my experience with them in the past, I found that they only seem to place it well when I ran Earth Shaker or yeti smash+daggers to keep groups down so it hits for at least 3-4s; they never seem to work well for me when running a caster or non-kd capable bar.

Quote: Originally Posted by Premium Unleaded

How is the usage of RoJ by the smite here? In my experience with them in the past, I found that they only seem to place it well when I ran Earth Shaker or yeti smash+daggers to keep groups down so it hits for at least 3-4s; they never seem to work well for me when running a caster or non-kd capable bar. They are decent with it, assuming you CTRL-Space a good target. Throwing a RoJ in the middle of a group will still do pretty good damage and force them to either a) stay in it and take even more or b) scatter and thus not being able to be offensive for a couple of seconds. Win/win in my eyes.

which would you try running with a imbagon as player? just wondering if you would need the st rit with it

In general gameplay, as long as the incoming dmg is armor ignoring and you can safely build adren and shout, the ST is overkill. This is true for all teams, so i guess is the same here...

Great team, tried this and finally threw my hated minions and spirit heroes away. The team generally performs very well (I haven't seen such balanced team ever, everything dies super fast and the survivability is great as well) and is a good team for us lazyasses who don't want to micro anything. I only have problems with 2 spells:
- Armor of Unfeeling - Xandra just can't use it well and I can't be bothered to micro it Been playing with Dulled Weapons instead, while it presses Xandra's energy, the lower damage received for your party makes for it. Think it could be added as a possible substitute?
- Shared Burden. I just don't feel it does enough for the price of an elite skills slot. Psychic Instability is IMHO better for defense. Anyway, this team has enough defense I can run Energy Surge instead, even in Elite areas.

So far, there have been just 2 areas I could't beat with Dillway - Slaver's Exile HM (the fire ele level) and Foundry NM. Even with Panic, Shelter, target locking and interrupts, it seems to me that multiple fire eles just beat the hell out of this team. You run DoA with this, have any tips for Foundry? I seriously think I'll try Ward Against Harm for my next DoA run (primary Mesmer so without SY!, I think meelee character with SY! could just stomp through everything with this build)
For those that didn't try Dillway - it's worth it. No minions, no spirits (well, 2 of them) and still doing fantastic job

Foundry.. is difficult. I'll try to run through tactics tomorrow if I can, been busy with school (it's the time of the first tests). I haven't actually done SE HM, but that's obviously going to be a difficult elite area to just fly through. NM should be fine enough though, there's probably a few changes you could make to go through SE HM. A quick tip on foundry is one, micro shared burden onto the middle of a group, and two, in any situation where you can pull, the dryder's ranged attacks are longer than spell ranges, so pulling via a dream rider or a longbow can mean they never cast spells before balling trying to attack you (and thus panic + SB + CoF = death).

As far as standard play goes - I'm, well, planning on trying some extreme offensive versions with 3 copies of e-surge, or at least 2 and an ineptitude, along with dual RoJ/dual invoke. For a more standard play to bring in more offense, E-Surge is an entirely viable substitute. Dulled Weapons for AoF is fine, too, I prefer to always have AoF, but bear in mind, I'm very much a proponent of experimentation. I posted these up to share, not tell everyone to play my way, so feel entirely free to make substitutions as you feel. In time, I may compile them, but as of yet, I haven't. May/may not put it on gwpvx.

Shared Burden in itself is extremely useful in the DoA, because in a way, it turns off HM, or halves the NM. Half attack speed = half damage = twice the shelter life (and it stacks with blinds from ineptitude), half spells means the same (and means more interrupts going through), and half speed means the entire team can kite as they please. Also on an area range? It's pretty awesome, particularly with dryders, titans of most kinds, and the big spawns of dementia titans. It's a toss-up, because it still may be the first mesmer elite I'd drop, but it's pretty epic defensively. PI lacks the oomph against any sort of melee, and sometimes doesn't trigger considering the other interrupts (though I entirely agree, it's a pretty awesome elite).

Anyways, I'll try to give more on the DoA later, my mind's a bit far from GW :P In the meantime, check out the DoA thread. ^^ (btw, I run it as an ele, typically just invoke - it takes some micro, but not any extensive player efforts, I don't even use most PvE skills).

Quote: Originally Posted by teh bestest is here

Had a hard time doing Frostmaw hard mode with this. Trying to change a few things so it works but still wiping at least once per level :/ Pm me in game for my heroway Frostmaws, which I dual account w/o cons in less then 20 min. I would make a Fmaw write-up like my SoO, but I cant let all my secrets out

Just curious how fast is this build in general play? For example how fast does it take to clear Tahnnakai Temple (or Raisu)? You've given up on offensive spirits, so I'm honestly surprised you can clear Vloxen's HM with an empty player bar ... but then again maybe that's just what PvE is like these days.

Otherwise your attribute spreads can definitely be improved, e.g. Invoke Eles should run 9 Command instead of 10, and Superior runes should always go to the highest specced attribute.

Two responses - I've no idea on the clear time for Raisu or anything like that, I'd imagine it'd be a fairly standard time, depending on how well I play more than anything. The benefits come from having an extremely stable team along with significant firepower that most teams tend to lack. However, once I finish a bit more of Fallout 3... I'll come back and revisit those areas for some standard times.

As far as Vloxen's goes, well, PvE is in an interesting state, that's for sure. Honestly, I disliked the impression that spirits (and to a lesser extent minions) are the only way to go for any type of relatively high-end content, which was why I started this project.

Attributes, well, 9 versus 10 command is a good observation. I wasn't aware the breakpoint was at 9 for Fall Back. For the superior runes, it makes much less of a difference, for the runes can go wherever as long as you have the 14/13 split, or approximately so. I use illusion runes over domination for the price. However, if you prefer to run a 16/11 split, it's also perfectly viable - I tend to only do that for the dom mesmer, though. I wouldn't be one to say it's all set in stone.

I'll make some edits a bit in the future. Busy day today, though.

You can run the 14/13 split with 11+2+1 Illusion and 11+2 Domination, saving you some health - for efficient spread of your attributes, don't put a Superior rune on a non-headpiece (unless you're using double Superiors).

Huh. I appreciate that, I never actually noticed that - it's a 5hp difference, so not an extreme difference, but a a difference nonetheless. I'll update that when I get the chance. ^^ Might save a bit of gold for anyone interested, too.. Though speccing out FC, DF, e-storage, and SR minor runes already sets someone back, along with vigors. :P

I always use sup's on headpieces, but I didn't stop to think that I could achieve the split with majors. Figures, eh.

Hey I'm trying out your core dillway team, but I'm having issues with Ravenheart Gloom. I can't seem to get past the waves of Tormentors for "To the Rescue!". Any tips or advice?

First - NM or HM?

Typically what I do is tank the damage on it's own, using monk protects from the E/Mo to survive. Generally on it's own it's plenty to keep me alive. I keep the heroes flagged back and pull them forward as the enemies get bottled up. Targeting the monks / mesmers / ele's in that order and if you still have troubles, micro shared burden and panic onto center mobs.

Depending on how many times you've tried it, it could be just a fluke run or a bit more micro necessary (I know, it's a team aimed at not having much micro, but it's also an elite area) - I usually clear Gloom in <20 minutes, and rarely fail (if I fail, it's generally mid-foundry, or mid-veil). Let me know if you have any more troubles, and if you can, be more specific! I can give better tips/advice if I know what's going wrong.

Hey thanks for replying. I'm doing NM for now. I'm running a warrior (100b or enduring scythe) and I've only been doing Ravengloom a handful of times. I've tried staying in that little area and I've also tried going out in the open. I seem to last a little longer while out in the open, but they eventually will overwhelm me. I'm going to try and craft some weapons for them. Right now they're not using anything special, so maybe that will help?