PvXwiki: General hero builds

This essay is taken directly from my PvXwiki article and therefore have various internal links from it. Please bear with any discomforts this presents for you.

Introduction
The wiki isn't perfect. We don't have the perfect build for every location for a given player. To do so would be extremely tedious and unproductive. It would also be implausible to review such builds in a rigorous manner and present them in a way that is useful for those visiting the site. Imagine if we listed a specific build for a given profession in a certain dungeon. Someone else then decides to post their own build for the dungeon with a different profession. Then someone posts a different build for the same profession in that dungeon. Now do that for all the dungeons. You can see where this gets redundant. Even if we did this, how would players know which build to use if their profession didn't match or they didn't like the heroes being used? We don't have any standards to compare the build qualitatively; we can't go on a build-by-build basis like with individual builds in PvP. There's no way to communicate the effectiveness of a build to the player if we can't compare it to other builds, so there's no use in storing it on the wiki. In other words, we need to standardize our builds in a way that can be quantified and communicate this to players.

Generalization
So how do we go about this when it comes to hero teams? The effectiveness of a combination of any three heroes will vary depending on the area and how the player uses them. In one area, the team may work great, but in another area the team collapses in seconds. Well the answer came with Sabway. When Sabway was introduced, the attitude was a free-for-all when it came to hero builds. As it turns out, all heroes aren't in fact created equal. This idea that a certain combination of heroes is more effectiveness than a random set of heroes for ''any'' given area of the game was groundbreaking. The fact that you can take the three same heroes and they work extremely well no matter where you go was quite astounding. This gave the concept of a generalized hero team, a team of heroes that remains effective for any given profession in any given area. The most effective of these builds can be considered the meta, which is gone over briefly in my overview of the hero meta.

Build Articles
An inherent issue with builds on the wiki is the fact people modify existing builds depending on the area. This is what makes the game fun and enjoyable. To account for this, optional slots and variants are given to meet the needs for any player regardless of the area. With the introduction of seven hero teams, half your team can change depending on what area you're doing; for a generalized team you may even have optional hero slots. This happens quite often considering you can go through most of PvE with 4 or 5 heroes. Don't believe me? Use only the core builds listed on this page and go clear a HM dungeon. It might be slower and more fragile, but you will find it's about as effective as if you had added a full party of heroes. I give my own example for clearing Cathedral of Flames in Hard Mode:
CoF Level 1
CoF Level 2
CoF Level 3

Now we can't compensate for heavily modified builds run in a specific way, but we do our best to communicate the concept of the build and how to use it to the player while retaining clarity. If we leave an entire hero slot empty, that can imply the hero isn't necessary or useless. If that's the case, why include the hero in the first place? If we list 4-5 different heroes that can be used, we must assume players won't know which hero to use. That makes it hard to rate as well, since the effectiveness of the build can vary significantly depending on which hero is used. That is why we want to retain clarity, to keep the quality of the build article at a high standard.

Case Comparison
The difference between a generalized and specialized build can be muddy sometimes. As an example, let's compare two cases, one being a generalized build and a highly specialized build. I was quite ecstatic about the specialized build since the author provided reasoning for the build setup he chose.



You should immediately notice the specialized build is very similar to the generalized build based on core skills. When we add in the appropriate variants listed in our generalized build and match of similar skills, we get:



Note that since the general build used an SoGM Rit the MM uses prots, if we used our general Minion Bomber hero here on the wiki, the optionals would match up. Same can be done with other builds. Let's go down the list:

1. Build:N/any Minion Bomber - The build already had Animate Bone Minions on the Jagged Bones MM, so the author sought to use Shambling Horrors and Bone Horrors on the AotL MM. Rising Bile and Signet of Sorrow are both optionals that can be listed easily.
2. Build:Rt/any Signet of Spirits Hero - Players often spec into Smiting Prayers if their not healing. Some players will choose different energy management from Spirit Siphon in the form of Boon of Creation and/or Essence Strike if they feel Spirit Siphon is unreliable, they don't want to micro, or they're just retarded.
3. Build:Rt/any Soul Twisting Hero - Almost every play prefers ST over Rit Lord. The author chose Rit Lord because he wanted very high spec spirits and didn't need tot set them up again. This is not advisable even for experienced players unless you really know what you want to do.
4. Build:Mo/any PvE Smiter/Build:P/any Command Hero and Build:N/any Minion Bomber - You can already tell this is the optional hero slot. Author probably chose this MM first and added AotL later since it has Curses on it and AotL is specced for damage. We can account for this since the two MM builds are interchangeable, isn't that sly?
5. Build:Me/any PvE Illusion Mesmer - The author chooses PI over Ineptitude or Shared Burden since he brought Earthbind and probably prefers it. I don't know why he wants Frustration over Arcane Conundrum except for killing specific casters because of the short recharge. He bring the set of signets to use Artificer's insignias for extra armor.
6. Build:Me/any Panic Hero - Very little is different about the Panic hero. He uses Wastrel's Worry for more damage, it's not used in general since it rapidly drains the Mesmer's energy. He uses signets for Artificer's insignias like the Illusion Mesmer.
7. Build:N/Rt SoLS Healer - The Curses Hybrid Healer is a significant variant of the build and is always used with Pain of Disenchantment, Icy Veins, or Spiteful Spirit. The author chooses to drop curses onto the Jagged Bones MM and run a dedicated healer with Icy Veins.

The skills left on the general team build are almost identical to the individual hero builds on the wiki. You can see how specific hero teams can be derived from individual hero builds on the wiki, and how these specific hero teams can be summarized into a generalized hero team. While we could leave it as a barebones team build, a bunch of white space doesn't constitute a build article. This is where consensus and discussion come in on what bars are the most general and effective, so that the player understands what works and what doesn't work. Most of the time, these bars will already be defined by existing hero teams. The bars are by no means static and are subject to change if necessary. If any aspects of a specific build aren't covered by the generalized team, we can always modify it to include skills in optionals or as variants that are missing, this ''is'' a wiki after all.

Sorry but the PoD necro is a really bad option that is what turned me away from 7hps that elite is 1 of the worse around in my opinion and that's what makes pvxwiki bad as you get several players that big it up as a all and 7hps should not be meta if anything in the great/good catorgry

I sooner use my 7h sabway as it has more synergy with most physical classes
for casters I use 7h icy veins way that pretty much demolishs all HM content even WoC,DoA etc.

If you would like me to post my hero teams just ask otherwise I wont

Can you post up your 7H Icy Veins build please?

I actually like PoD.
It instantly destroys layers of prots on my priority target, and it does AoE damage on top of that.
Its a nice elite for a N/Rt hybrid in my opinion and has served me well.

then all I use for the rest is a Panic Mes,Illu Mes,Ritu SoS spirit Spammer then any that is needed ie missions in Night Fall or I just add and EA earth spammer. (Any variants of panic,spirit spammer,illu will work)

Not the most original builds to date but they pretty much demolish any area I've used the ICY bars in DoAnm with a dragon slash SY warrior.

Note these builds will not pass for PVXwiki cookie cutter builds

I think the main reason why I don't like it is because it only deals damage when it removes an enchant but I tend to bring enchant removal in other forms chilblains,Drain Enchant etc and then that means an open ended elite which can be a reactive damage or pro active damage spell

It's a general build. build page for that build has PoD as a variant. Spiteful Spirit was the original skill for that slot, but as it was costly and powercreep happened, it fell out of favor. You aren't required to run PoD, IV is also available like you said.

I was actually trying to say that in the Meta cat you have a team build built for 7 heroes that has a PoD necro everybody loves said bar blah blah. But the PoD Necro has only 1 optional elite, when in fact that whole build is not bad just the elite as if no enchants no damage from said elite yes it gives more time for healing. But is it not the case of use the hybrids to their full potential? Icy Veins is a good start FoC is another and specing wise would not at all be different. Alas I suppose we could argue the point of if we add 4 elites to choose from that then leaves the blind players that don't use their own gumption and know how each skill reacts to another with the errrrr what elite would be best for this. But surely 1 optional elite cant be all that's thought to be meta I'm sure on that p[age you could add in the variant of FoC,Spiteful Spirit etc


Just my 10 pennies worth

Using a curses hybrid is accepted as the most practical, because people use blood or death magic only in more specialized builds. Listing FoC, SS, and other optional elites is redundant because it's already listed on the linked page. What should be done is linking the SoLS healer to the See Also section, so a player simply has to go to the page and look at all the elites available in the Curses attribute. That's something you would discuss on the talk page. The article assumes people have the ability to use their own discretion (gumption) to look at variants if they don't like, for example, using PoD. I would be able to link to the same build page to cover variants for any other 7 hero team that's on the wiki.

TL;DR : PvE wiki builds can suck balls but if you change half the builds you can get something good.

Is that the point you were trying to make?

I just got gwamm so I think my opinion has some ground so i'll just say this: that statement is wrong.


Hero teams are very loose on PvX unless you're making a very synergistic team, like Markway (fckyeah). Everything else I've seen is about stacking defensive meta builds together and hoping you outlive the enemy mob.

For example; my guildie runs something similar to 7HPS, but it includes an ST rit over SoGM and a UA party-healer over the RoJ. Massive defence, and it beats all the content Markway beats. However, Markway kills the mob much faster if you're skillful and you're not going to die because the mob has died.

In conclusion, this is now a damage vs defence debate. discuss.

I too have GWAMM, yet I've never come up with an unique build by myself. I suck - this I freely admit. The only reason I've managed to get this far is PvX (and GWW and Guru, of course). It's a nice title, but never make the mistake of thinking that GWAMM means anything.

GWAMM = time, nothing more.

I agree, GWAMM is very easy to get, even the biggest newbies could get it easily with all those consets, summon stones, res scrolls and whatnot help available. Without those, I would say it's not just the time, couple places might be a bit challenging for some average newbie, but since all that help is available, the difficulty is not a problem at all.

time is money ... the guy just only wanted to highlight that he has spent some time in game so got some experience that is why he thinks he has the ground for constructive criticism

Heh, I've got seven years experience yet I'm as much a noob now as I was at the start

I see the same old necro, mes and rit builds that have been the same for quite some time now. Nothing in the OPs stated builds are new.

From my experience hero monks are lackluster, every time I see someone bring a RoJ or UA hero they seem to fail horribly unless micro'd which takes attention away from what your doing on your character unless your on crack or redbull. Only time RoJ shines is against undead and Frostmaw dungeon because wurms stack like pancakes for it to rip them apart.

PoD is indeed lackluster. Its enchantment requirement and short range make it fall in comparison to other necro elites. Don't get me wrong it's a decent enough elite but what kills it is the range. GWs lives in a time where other AoE spells are power creeped to more than just adjacent range which makes you leave it at home unless facing some enchantment stacking like there's no RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GOing tomorrow mobs.

If running 2 MMs you might want to run Order of Undeath. MMs will do crazy damage then.

What's with the 3 IV necros? Last time I tested it didn't do so well unless micro'd. They cast it on the same target a lot of the time and if you need to spike something down your limiting yourself a great deal by not getting the three 3 death bombs go off on separate targets, unless im wrong and you can stack multiple IVs on one target which I don't remember it doing that. I guess I can understand trying to replace that antique Discord spell but IV isn't a huge step up. Running one IV with 2 EA fire eles seems to be far superior in my experience, especially on your main N/Rt healer.

Why do I see no Ele love? At the very least the armor nerf to mobs made Fire pretty damn good, especially the EA fire build with Fallback as great utility. I run 2 EA fire eles and shit blows up in a fiery death with that one IV to finish off stragglers. The E/P EA fire build is strong enough to hold a meta position in 98% of the game. Attunements strips are not even a problem with their short recharge.

To the Offense vs Defense argument all I can say is the best offense is a good defense and the best defense is a good offense. Offense is faster but riskier, defense is safer but slower. Its whatever you prefer but from my experience in WoC HM content an offensive team build seems to do better because the mobs will outlast your defense unless you carefully micro a ST Shelter hero carefully.

P.S. Aegis is win.

If posters want to discuss random builds and flaunt your opinions, creating your own threads instead of hijacking this one would be a better use of time and effort.

I respectfully disagree.

I'm fairly new to putting together teams of heroes myself, and while I appreciate the effort you put into the original post I also enjoy seeing the other side of the fence as well.

From what I can gather a key part of building a team is diversity, so it's nice to have several options to tackle different content instead of putting all of your eggs in one basket.

It helps me, and I'm sure others like myself, to see not only your thoughts on hero builds but also what others feel are solid teams and why they think that way. It's also good to have as much of it one place as possible so that people don't have to spend hours searching all over the place.

I'm referring to the discussion about 7HPS (and gwamm). It was only used as an example, my post isn't about that build in particular. This isn't suppose to be a place for critiquing builds, that can be done on another thread or over on pvxwiki.