Quick backstory - had not logged in for years, hadn't played PvE with any seriousness since before Nightfall. Only started playing GW1 again because I needed something to do before GW2 and figured that the HoM rewards would be fun to try for (OMG, was I right!).
90%+ of what I've wanted to do in GW1, I've been able to do straight up Heroes with Discordway builds. This allows for Vanquisher and almost all hard-mode missions, as well as general farming and questing: http://www.gwpvx.com/Discordway
Discordway is very single-target focused, and it has A LOT of survival built in. The build was obviously intended as a heavy spike-damage center, but honestly the beauty of the build is in the heavy spirit spam and minion-master portions. Once you learn to pull properly, this is an extremely safe build that gets you through almost anything you would want to do.
If, like me, you don't have all the skills unlocked, work to unlock them. I had hours of fun going around finding skill vendors and elite mobs to unlock all the skills I needed. The only difficult skill for me was Panic on the mesmer, but I actually had it unlocked via PvP, so it wasn't available for my PvE mesmer, but it was open to my heroes. Then I had to unlock some heroes to use. That was also incredibly entertaining to do. Remember, if you account doesn't have these things unlocked, it can be as rewarding to unlock them as it is to get your HoM rewards.
Pulling - This build is so overpowered that proper pulling is rarely, if ever, necessary. But you are playing an 8+ year old game, and you are very focused on what you want out of it. If you really want to complain about things being too easy, this isn't the grind for you. We have two weeks to GW2 launch. We want things quick and easy. That being said, it is often very worth while to flag all your heroes away from your pull, aggro the closest mob, and pull back. Not necessarily to control how many mobs you have, but to get those initial casts by the mobs wasted on just you or wasted on nothing at all. Preparations, AoE skills, spike damage - let them burn that while you are pulling them, and that is half the battle of the pull. Discordway can usually handle everything else.
Smaller parties - If you can only bring four to the party, bring yourself and the three Necros, unless you are filling a necro role, then bring the SoS Rit. Any other class, it really doesn't matter what you are - Spirit spam or bring a condition and a hex. Call targets and you will be fine. Those Necros in the build have so much built-in healing that you'll be sitting pretty (remember this for elite missions for your Nightfall heroes to add to HoM with the elite armors).
For 6-man parties, bring one of the mesmers and the Spirit spammer. This is key for the most of the War in Kryta quests, where you have to have 6-man parties.
These things will carry you through most of the game, honestly. I had problems with Hell's Precipice until I went Discordway. Now I can do it very, very easily.
But for the Battle for Lion's Arch, Discordway just doesn't work. It is too single-target focused. So I had to change things up a lot.
For that mission, I made myself the Panic mesmer (yay discordway allowing me to easily capture Panic). I then used the SoS Rit, because I wanted a spirit spam and Splinter Weapon. I also incorporated a AotL MM (http://www.gwpvx.com/Build:N/any_Minion_Bomber), A Barrage Ranger (http://www.gwpvx.com/Build:R/any_Barrage_Ranger), a Boon-Prot monk (pvx.wikia.com/wiki/Build:Mo/any_Boon-Prot) and any other healer.
Key thing with the Lion's Arch mission with this build - All of your heroes are ranged. If you are not physical damage based, then Splinter weapon will always land on your ranger. Fight up front for a while, sure, but to the right of the stairs is a nice, elevated area that ALL of your heroes can stay on without drawing much, if any, aggro. With spirits, minions, and the Splinter Barrage, you can stand fairly easily manage the battle. If you are a warrior/dervish/paragon/assassin, you might have some issues, but nothing you shouldn't be able to handle with this build. Panic is nice, but not necessary, I don't think.
So between Discordway and this AoE heavy build, you should be able to tackle any content that will be in the way of you getting 20 HoM points.
My recommendation for HoM goals for those of you getting back into the game, in no particular order:
Devotion - Much easier if you have a lot of bday presents, but you can get white minis for 1k each (1 plat), and so getting 10-20 should be reasonable with the gold you will get from doing other tasks for HoM. I ended up with 30, and only bought 1 white mini. Do the Black Moa Chick scavenger hunt, because this is a great way to experience a lot of PvE content that I didn't even know was there, and that will get you the Rare mini for an additional point (not to mention that you will essentially be finishing a title statue for Sorrow's Furnace). If you have Bday presents, you probably already have a a rare statue, as well, for another point.
Fellowship - use the 4-man discoway to get elite armors from Dajkah Inlet and Shadow nexus. Very easy to farm 5-10 armors this way. If you have done Black Moa Chick, you can follow this quest http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/The_Beak_of_Darkness to get a lvl 20 rare pet for 2 additional points, plus get you closer to the 10 companion point (which is where I stopped for now).
Honor - You should already have the 3 points for accounts linked. Beating each of the three campaigns gets you three statues. If you do the Black Moa Chick for the unique mini pet, you are so close to getting the Sorrow's Furnace reward that there is no reason to not get it. I also had the Fissure of Woe statue somehow from farming years ago, so you will have to somehow find one more statue for the 3 additional points for the 5-statue achievement.
Resilience - I was already mostly done with a complete Kurzik armor set. Honestly, doing the War in Kryta quests gets you a lot of gold, and other steps along the path should get you a lot of gold, as well. hopefully you will have enough to get a full set of elite armor. That is worth two points.
Valor - do the War in Kryta events. For the "Wanted" quests, you get bonus rewards for completing in hard mode, and Discordway should make hard mode fairly easy for these quests (don't do Hard Mode after the Wanted quests, no reward and a lot of extra difficulty). You should fairly easily have enough Medals of Honor for one Oppressor weapon after this, which will get you two more points.
tl;dr - I found GW1 to be a surprisingly deep PvE experience after years of not playing it at all, and I highly recommend using HoM rewards as an excuse to experience all that it has to offer. With a little patience and research, you can almost remove any difficulty barrier that there may be. Once you aren't worried about difficulty, you can just enjoy this old game and find yourself sinking hours into it, even if you aren't an achievement RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GO (I'm not at all).
gl/hf!
Final HoM push - WiK, Black Moa Chick, Etc
Mindful Mesmer
akelarumi
I still use discord. The main reason for it is that I don't want to spend time and money into developping a different teambuild. If you need to start from scratch I would suggest trying the newer teambuilds. Discord is okay but slower then it needs to be.
Even for Battle of Lion's Arch discordway can be used very well and good. Though I doin't use the ap-caller build for myself. I think it comes done to what other heroes your bringing and what build you use on yourself.
unded white mini's are going up in price (minimum nowadays is 5k). Though still the cheapest point that you can buy.
I disagree on farming the shadow nexus. droprate of the armorpiece is in my experience very low and painfull.
I also miss a bit of rough outlines in your story. For the black moa chick you need to have played through 80% of the factions story, 80% of prophecy's and 50% of nightfall. To get the chick you also need to invest a good amount of resources (you need a farming build to get the nesting material and the herring, you need to invest in the incubator, etc. etc.). So I think the black moa chick is good for people who finished the campaigns and got access to a lot of skills but not really for new people.
Besides that I would really recommend to finish atleast one campaign and Eye of the North. The reason is that finishing a campaign gives you access to hardmode in that campaign and rewards with a title. Further you have access to all major parts of the campaign. Last of all, if people are interested in the HoM points they prolly want to play GW2. Eye of the North is a very good introduction to GW2. Besides that you need to play through a good portion of it to get all tapestry's, and to top that, you migth want to invest 60-70k in an elite armor from Eye of the north for the extra points (those elite armors are the cheapest, you need to have enough title points, but if you use a normal mode heroes handbook and just finish the campaign you will be very close).
These are my 2 cents to your post.
Even for Battle of Lion's Arch discordway can be used very well and good. Though I doin't use the ap-caller build for myself. I think it comes done to what other heroes your bringing and what build you use on yourself.
unded white mini's are going up in price (minimum nowadays is 5k). Though still the cheapest point that you can buy.
I disagree on farming the shadow nexus. droprate of the armorpiece is in my experience very low and painfull.
I also miss a bit of rough outlines in your story. For the black moa chick you need to have played through 80% of the factions story, 80% of prophecy's and 50% of nightfall. To get the chick you also need to invest a good amount of resources (you need a farming build to get the nesting material and the herring, you need to invest in the incubator, etc. etc.). So I think the black moa chick is good for people who finished the campaigns and got access to a lot of skills but not really for new people.
Besides that I would really recommend to finish atleast one campaign and Eye of the North. The reason is that finishing a campaign gives you access to hardmode in that campaign and rewards with a title. Further you have access to all major parts of the campaign. Last of all, if people are interested in the HoM points they prolly want to play GW2. Eye of the North is a very good introduction to GW2. Besides that you need to play through a good portion of it to get all tapestry's, and to top that, you migth want to invest 60-70k in an elite armor from Eye of the north for the extra points (those elite armors are the cheapest, you need to have enough title points, but if you use a normal mode heroes handbook and just finish the campaign you will be very close).
These are my 2 cents to your post.