Team Build: Retroway

Retroway is a 7-hero teambuild designed for use in the post-1/5/2012-update PvE environment.

It's named "retroway" because it isn't very creative -- almost everything here was either "meta" immediately prior to the 1/5/2012 update or "meta" in the past and returned to relevance by that update. Hence "retro."

Retroway was designed around an elementalist player character (and that's what's shown here), but that is not strictly required. It should operate just as well with any player build that contributes Ebon Battle Standard of Honor and significant damage dealing. It even operates passably well with a melee player build.

Build:



Alternate Skills Sidebar:Player barIf you feel you need the aggro-control help Ebon Vanguard Assassin Assault gives you on the initial aggro, then replace Snow Storm or "Finish Him!" As stated above, you do not need to use an elementalist player build. If using a melee player build, make the following changes:Reallocate E/Mo ER hero's attributes to 12+1+3 Energy Storage, 9 Protection Prayers, 9 Smiting Prayers; Swap Healing Breeze for Strength of Honor; Optionally, swap Aegis for Shield of Absorption (in which case go 10 Prot and 9 Smiting); and If your player build relies on something that feeds off guaranteed conditions, like Reap Impurities or Yeti Smash, then shift a point from Energy Storage to Command on the E/P SF hero, swap "Never Surrender!" for "Stand Your Ground!", and swap "Stand Your Ground!" on the N/P Minion Hybrid hero to Withering Aura. Rt/X Signet of Spirits heroIf there are no corpses to make minions (and you are not running a physical damage player build), then swap Splinter Weapon for another Channeling Magic skill. Ancestor's Rage and Painful Bond are the strongest candidates. E/Mo Ether Renewal heroYou can swap this hero for the R/Mo Soul Twisting hero shown at the bottom if you need party-wide damage mitigation, or fear the E/Mo ER hero getting ER stripped, or just like ST builds better. If you do that, you will end up with 3 resurrection skills in the party, so you can:Keep all 3 resurrection skills; or Swap Flesh of My Flesh for something more useful on the Rt/X SoS hero. Ancestor's Rage and Painful Bond are the strongest candidates; or Swap Flesh of My Flesh for something more useful on the Rt/Mo ST hero. Good candidates are Earthbind (assuming your player build has knockdowns), Spirit's Gift, and offensive spirits from the Communing line; or Swap Death Pact Signet for something more useful on the E/Rt SF hero. (There aren't a lot of good options here since there's virtually no raw damage skills you'd rather have the hero cast instead of Searing Flames. Possibilities include Rodgort's Invocation, another copy of Mark of Rodgort, Earthquake/Dragon Stomp, or a ward.) If using a melee player build, change this build as described in the player sidebar section above. N/P Minion Hybrid heroObviously, this build needs to change for areas with no corpses at all to make minions out of. In that case:Swap Bone Minions for Putrid Bile, and Swap Death Nova for one of the following: (There are no really good choices, these are the least bad: )Gaze of Contempt, Jaundiced Gaze (and shift spare attribute points to Blood; too bad there's only 1 enchant on the bar), Rip Enchantments (and shift spare attribute points to Curses; too bad things that don't leave corpses don't bleed either), "Find Their Weakness!" (may need micro if hero doesn't want to use it on a party with all caster weapons), Blood Ritual (and move spare attribute points to Blood), Withering Aura (if using a melee player build), a second copy of Weaken Armor (and move spare attribute points to Curses), or "We Shall Return!" (and optionally rearrangeother heroes on account of the third resurrection skill as described in the E/Mo ER hero section above.) Me/X Panic heroPanic is only necessary against monsters that pose a significant threat or can slow you down with significant healing or damage mitigation. For ~90% of the game you don't really need it. In that case, you can use Energy Surge for more damage (and think about upgrading to a superior rune). Using Glyph of Lesser Energy in Place of Waste Not Want not provides slightly better energy-per-second, but gives the hero a longer recharge period in which to mess things up. Pick whichever you like better. If you find the energy on this build too tight for your liking, swap Shatter Enchantment for Drain Enchantment. E/P and E/Rt Searing Flames heroesObviously, these guys are going to have some trouble with the handful of monsters that don't burn. For zones where you have a few fireproof monsters mixed in with mostly combustible monsters, just tough it out and rely on the other 5 damage-dealing party members to kill the fireproof ones. For zones with lots of fireproof monsters (basically meaning destroyers; Forgewight's dungeon is a borderline case), swap these guys out. Sometime I'll get around to designing some water builds for this situation.) If using a melee player build, the E/P hero gets changed around a little bit. See the section on the player build above. Optionally, the E/Rt hero can go E/P and bring "We Shall Return!" in place of Death Pact Signet. This rezzes instantly and avoids the risk of chain suicide, but brings the rezzed party member up with a lot less health and energy. Optionally, the E/P hero can swap Mark of Rodgort for "We Shall Return!" while the E/Rt (now E/X) hero swaps Death Pact Signet for Mark of Rodgort. This entails the same "Death Pact Signet <----> 'We Shall Return!'" tradeoff as the above option, but gets better numbers on "We Shall Return!" The extra downside is that Mark of Rodgort is now on the same bar as Earthen Shackles, which means that one of them is going to get delayed in casting. Introducing an extra resurrection skill somewhere else in the party allows you to optionally swap Death Pact Signet on the E/Rt hero for something more useful. See the section on the E/Mo ER hero above.

Usage Tips
These tips assume you're using the elementalist player build shown above. Adjust accordingly if you're using a different player build.For almost all Normal Mode mobs:
Run face-first into the mob, arms akimbo, screaming "Kilroy Stoneskiiiiiiiin!!!!" Then nuke them to death. For non-threatening Hard Mod mobs:
Run face-first into the mob, arms akimbo, screaming "Kilroy Stoneskiiiiiiiin!!!!" Then nuke them to death. For moderately threatening Hard Mode mobs:If it is a caster mob, then stop at the edge of spell range (outside of aggro range), precast EBSoH, then drop everything on them starting with Churning Earth. (The reason Churning Earth is the opener is to prevent AoE-flee. Normally caster monsters will try to nuke you back rather than fleeing, get stymied by Panic, and then die before they figure out they should flee. But sometimes they do flee -- in which case Churning Earth knocks them down thanks to the HM monster speed buff, and they will be Earthen Shackled by the time they get up.) If it's a melee mob, then stop just outside of aggro range, precast EBSoH, wand them (or body aggro them), wait while they close the distance, (your minions should start to advance simultaneously), start to cast Eruption when the monsters are about 1 second away from hitting the monster wall, followed by Churning Earth, followed by Snow Storm (if needed). The goal here is to hit the monsters with blind just after they get their first hit in on (hopefully) a minion, so that the monster AI is more likely to stand its ground rather than flee. Churning Earth is second to prevent fleeing. If it's a mixed mob, and you want to nuke the casters first, but you fear the melee, then treat it like a caster mob, but open with Eruption. The melee will get blinded by the first pulse, and you can use AP on the dying casters to recharge Eruption before the blind wears off. (Churning Earth second to prevent the casters from fleeing.) If it's a mixed mob, and you want to nuke the casters first, and you don't fear the melee, then treat it like a caster mob. (Duh.) If it's a mixed mob, and you want to nuke the melee first, then open with Snow Storm to pepper the casters and maybe disrupt them by inducing AoE-flee, and treat it like a melee mob as soon as the melee arrive. For seriously threatening Hard Mode mobs:
Find a good corner or other bit of terrain to use as a bottleneck (remember that the best places for blocking have a wall on the monsters' left side (your right side when facing them)); Have the SoS hero poop SoS and Bloodsong (poop them a little spread out if the monsters have any meaningful AoE damage); Flag the heroes a safe distance behind the spirits; Micro Protective Spirit and Spirit Bond on yourself (cover with Healing Breeze if the monsters have enchantment strips); Tag the nearest monster with a longbow or a flatbow; Run like hell back past the spirits to the rest of your party; Depending on the distances, you may have to wait for the monsters to ball up against the spirits; Nuke them to death before they kill the spirits.

CreditsNearly 7 years of Guild Wars PvE players seeking to make good builds, and sometime succeeding. In alphabetical order, (and with no attention to the age of their contributions,) special recognition for advancing the state of knowledge of GW PvE goes to Avarre, Burst Cancel, Carinae Dragonblood, EFGJack, Elnore Varda, Ensign, Higher Minion, Jeydra, Kunder, Moloch Vein, Racthoh, Sab, Son of Ra, Terraban, Xenomortis, Zodiac Meteor, and a large number of unsung heroes whose names I've forgotten or never knew in the first place. (Not that I expect all, or even any, of the foregoing people to like retroway, and fully expect all of them to find it quite unoriginal.) Chthon, for duct taping a bunch of old "meta" builds together. Higher Minion for help with testing.

this is an interesting smattering of heroes that seem to work well, and earth is my favorite element. going to try it. I'm pretty bad though, so not sure if it will work.

Decided against Chomein, eh

I tested this with the ST bar in Slaver's and I wiped on the first mob; I was being half-hearted about it, but when I went back with the ER it was more cspace.

Thing about the ER bar; there are so many prots to take and so little space... I like SoA, Aegis and I sometimes take Life Attunement and maintain it on the hero, because they suck at enchanting themselves...

I personally like using Mind Burn over SF these days, more reliable in damage and longer burn. Also doesn't really need another ele to be the most effective, so you can use something a bit different.

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