Sabway/Endgame

1. I'm currently trying out a Earth Shaker Warrior build, and am constructing a Sabway necro team as well. However, I just need to know - is Sabway worth it?

I see the value of it, and it says that it can even be used for vanquishing in HM. But I haven't fully tried it out yet. What exactly is the best way to use it? How do I anticipate if skills need to be switched out in certain areas? Are the items and runes vital to the build?

2. I would call myself a decent player, but HM and post-game missions and soloing ridiculous mobs has always seemed a bit beyond me. If the whole Sabway-thing doesn't work out, are there any other builds that are better?

There has always been a bit of a disconnect, between my skill level and that of the elite players. How do you (or people in general) get that good?

Just looking for help here.

Sabway is outdated, run something that abuses 7 heroes/mesmers like http://www.gwpvx.com/Build:Team_-_7_Hero_Player_Support .

Sabway may be outdated but still works fine. Back before Anet started spoon feeding titles and we had 3 heroes to choose from sabway was a godsend. I vanqed the whole game and got gwamm using sabway straight out of the box. I played bha ranger with a couple of pve skills (pi and evas) and a utility bar. Only a handful of times did I actually change a skill or two on sabway or my bar (except for certain mish that required other heroes). Bottom line is sabway was fine then as it would be now but there are even more efficient solutions now that 7 heroes are available. Shit there were prolly players running things just fine with just henchies back in the day lol. /rant

Only a minor portion of success in HM can be contributed to player skill. If you know how to pull a group by itself, gather them on a choke point, and call key enemies (like monks), you are ready for the majority of HM content. Other useful techniques include microing some heroes, particuarly pre-casting spirits/enchantments and more effectively using hero aoe skills (Panic, Meteor Shower, etc). But, by and large that is not necessary. The only exceptions are the elite areas, which require extensive micro and careful aggro control.

The larger factor of HM success is the hero builds. I remember first trying to vanq with some random hero builds I made myself - it was slow and painful. Using the meta builds or some modified version of them makes it so much easier it's not even funny. I recommend looking at some of the posted hero builds here or on pvx and running something similar- at least until you get more experienced. Sabway is pretty old, but still effective. Mesmers, ritualist, and necro based teams are currently popular and easy to use. Once you get a good team, you can use it with only minor modifications for 99% of HM missions and vqs.

For runes/weapons, generally a +2 attribute on the headpiece is fine. For casters, a +20 energy or +60 hp staff works decently. There are a lot of cheap greens (DoA and ToPK has a bunch) with those stats. For melee, you'll generally find a useable weapon as a drop during your travels. You don't have to fully mod it. Note that these aren't the ideal setups - you'll probably want better runes and 40/40 sets if you plan on vanqing everything to save some time over the long run.

For modifications to the hero builds, they can be organized generally into five categories: 1) more anti-melee or anti-caster 2) more or less defense 3) more aoe or single target damage 4) more condition or hex removal 5) special circumstances. The first four are pretty self-explanatory, just having the proper mix of defense and offense. The last one is for the more unique fighting situations. For instance, for Slavers you want Frozen Soil. For the Secret Lair of the Snowmen, you want small damage packet protection like Shield of Absorption and massive aoe damage. For the second to last NF mission, at the end bosses you'll probably want heavy anti-melee skills. And so on. If you are having trouble with an area, try to isolate the enemy weakness and build around that.

Bonus tip- for low man areas, summon skills are exceptionally powerful. Minion masters, asura summons, spirits, and stone summons help a bunch.

I run modified Sabway, very modified. The healer is pure Sabway except I found room for a Spirit of Recovery. Two spirits better than one, but if you have another source of spirits in your heroes you can just stay with vanilla Sab healer.

The mm is OANEUstX82A0OqohuAmoegHQjA which will strike everyone as noob because of the flesh golem. I put this together to do Battle for Lion's Arch but it works good everywhere. Wells help in narrow areas, but also out in open. And Olias stays alive! Minions start off slow, but soon you will have a horde of Shambling Horrors running in to confuse the AI.

Master of Whispers, Curses Sabway usually gets replaced by Gwen running a Panic and Interrupt build with some energy management. Rest of heroes, up to you.

I put together what works for me; and it changes around a lot depending on what I am up against. Another Mesmer in the mix is often helpful. As is an E/N orders hero. Razah with some protective spirits can save the day and the healer N/Rit will love him.

Rarely use Master of Whispers. E/N works much better. For melee classes, a hero P/W with Anthem of Fury build can be just what you need; if combined with a Dervish hero running Avatar of Melandru build to take care of conditions, something like:

OgGlUJpqasys4cd5vy31b2V7Sflu zealous scythe helpful

Curses Necro might be helpful, don't use him much myself because he died a lot. E/N orders build dies some, but not nearly so much.

Gear? Usually what you can manage to dredge out of your storage or mules, or just anything really. Some exceptions, like zealous scythe on dervishes; really works noticeably better. Most of the gear requirements are dotting the i's and crossing the t's. You can manage without the ideal gear usually.

As people before me have said, it isn't really the players that are good, they just created good hero builds (or ripped it off of pvx). That aside, you will be fine running sabway in hard mode/missions/whatever else you want. It is one of those cookie-cutter builds that work pretty much everywhere.

Next, you can't really know if some skills need to be switched out before you try an area. The best thing you can do is try and prepare for the worst, but don't go overkill on it and bring 3 healers or something crazy. If you go into an area and find you are always hexed and die a lot, bring more hex removal.

A good way, but sightly expensive way, to improve your heroes is equip them with good equipment, as well as rune their armor. This will help so much.

Next, as you are a warrior, I wouldn't go through the trouble of bringing an E/N orders hero as most of your hero damage is from spells. But a http://www.gwpvx.com/Build:Mo/any_PvE_Smiter to boost your damage by about 25 damage per hit, is worth it, in addition to sabway.

Finally, if you are having trouble with sabway, you can always run http://www.gwpvx.com/Build:Team_-_7_Hero_Player_Support as a user above me said.

Hope this helped.