Some Hero Builds for tough HM areas!

UPDATE: Beat the Ravenheart Cave HM with the help of a few bonds! I am r8 LB in this photo. I'll be seeing how much more offensive I can get before it falls apart: http://i.imgur.com/fnxWkTT.jpg

Insignias: everyone is running blessed.

Runes:
VoS: 14 Earth Prayers, 12 Scythe, 9 Myst. Take Armor of Sanctity (or maybe Vow of Piety?) if you're not a derv primary (I barely used SY!, let me know if you complete it on a */D!). Vampiric Scythe of Enchanting, 15% damage while ench.

Mo/Me - Heal 14, Smite 10, DF 9, Insp 5. Feel free to play around with healing and smiting numbers. 20/20 Heal and a shield. Shields are all +30 with various +10 insc. +10 vs Demons would be best if you have a bunch laying around (I don't - mine are a mix of fire and earth).

D/N - 13 Myst (major), 8 Earth Prayers, 10 Curses, 9 Blood - 40 HCT/20 HRT/20% Ench blood staff.

D/Mo (Barrier) - 14 or 15 Myst, 12 Prot Prayers - 20/20 prot and shield.

D/Mo (Aura) - 14 or 15 Myst, 12 Prot Prayers - 40 HCT/20 HRT/20% Ench prot staff.

Me/Rt* - 11 FC, 11 Illusion, 8 Insp, 10 Channeling - 20/20 Illu and shield.

Me/N - 9 FC, 13 Dom, 7 Insp, 10 Curses - 20/20 dom and shield.

Rt/R - 12 Spawning, 12 Communing, 10 Beast Mastery - 20/20 communing and shield.

*the Me/Rt is not optimal - take out leech sig, try some different skills. I ended up with a PI Dom build on gwen instead of inept, and esurge on norgu but I died more frequently. To be safe run inept and panic. To be more aggressive try running e-surge and panic. I don't think PI was worth it at all.


new build:

I've gotten a lot better times and overall efficiency with this build: http://i.imgur.com/uoZxcZb.jpg
I killed a few groups in the main section but didn't have time to see if I could clear the Fury. It can definitely clear NM without SY! and you wouldn't need to be a derv primary, but I think some of the other peoples' posted builds would be overall faster.

I still do not believe that full offense is the best answer to HM DoA. Flag xandra back so she doesn't ever get focused. Tease makes dryders much less scary and cuts down on time against dream riders (I liked it a lot more than esurge). I'm still trying different builds and my overall goal is to make a build that does not require SY! or any particular primary. No cons were used in this run. I am r6 LB in this run, and r1 Kurz (I've had this game since it came out and am r1 kurz. Woops). Thinking about adding some bonds on morghan and mox, could be fun!

my build is 14 wind, 11 earth, 9 myst - I'll probably switch to scythe mastery and then use OoP and SofH since I'm no longer using any other wind prayers skills. I'll add runes later, I don't have the game up currently but here's what I remember - the dervs are all 13+ myst, then a spread 2ndary; morghan is 14 lead, 12 smite; Gwen's got 10 channeling and then split between fc/illusion; norgu is 15 dom, 11 fc, 9 insp; xandra is 13 communing, 12 spawning, and 10 (?) bm.





My quest for DoA HM with 7 heroes:

There are many hero builds that I use for different situations, but there are two main themes that my teams usually have: 1. Fevered Dreams + Daze spammers and 2. a “macrohealth” team (pushing my party’s health to ~1k each). And you can kinda try to mix them but good luck with that. For damage I always have a multihitting physical damager (Ranger or Derv) with splinter weapon and mark of pain. Also there’s usually 10 degen on everything.

To be clear - I haven't finished DoA HM yet with just heroes, but I have gotten through significant portions of Foundry and City. I also only have r6 LB and am currently working on a new char for DoA.

My current DoA build is:
ST+Vital+Beastmastery: OAKlYlgZYIak7gNteQHqz80ZyMtm
Splinter+Mark of Pain: OASjcoiMJOYsu5ysMYJ+EXTrJA
IA Ranger: OggkctYbGGO0jBmBrxshl4hRylZD
FD Necro (switching for a mes soon - panic works well against those greater dream riders): OAVEEsgmeycDIB90cApjDKCqqA
SoR Prot Derv: OgOi8ws8MfpvvuCiWseEQsvA
Dwayna Party Heals Derv: OgijEuqGLPTOh37d+ieRwqX6LA
Ward against Harm Derv: OgakkoKxyyq08F9FqgjY6w7AswuA

Here's a pretty bad screencap: http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=6tk96d&s=8#.VF-Td_T48ac

Hopefully this build works for you guys! I'm not sure how much my own input as a monk changes the outcome. I always test things in Foundry since I find that to be the hardest area in the DoA. I still haven't put some runes and insignias on a few chars, I'm still testing different team comps and will let you all know what I finalize the team as.


Long text starts here:

Some Core Values that I have learned over my years of playing with heroes:

TL;DR: If there are just two key details I want you to take away from these six points it’s: 1. ALWAYS have shields on your heroes and 2. ALWAYS run ebon battle standard of wisdom. But really go read the other 5 points. Also: dervishes are the answer.

1. PvE skills are your friends. I know they’re kinda like cheating but at least I don’t use cons… that counts for something, right?
Ebon Battle Standard of Wisdom is always glued to your bar from now on. It is the strongest thing you can do to help your team. You just need to respec your heroes to be able to deal with their newly found half recharge times and double energy consumption, but it is MUCH stronger than running without it.
Pain Inverter is a guaranteed kill on the enemy who does the most damage to your party. If you’re playing somewhere you can respawn, bring this always. You’ll probably want it everywhere else, too.
By Ural’s Hammer gives you a second chance to win! Use it wisely! Or don’t use it, but some places are just unfair (power blocking your seed of life, how does that even happen) and this skill can really save you from a “return to outpost.”
Sunspear + Alliance Skills quite a few of these are worth using.

2. You can win by simple means:
There is (almost) nothing in the game that you cannot beat with some low sustained dps and sufficient daze application. Surviving is your main goal in Hard Mode areas. That means running as much defense as possible with some interrupts and lots of daze.

3. You need defense:
Some enemies in the game are just not fair. The second room in Foundry in HM is just not fair. Three mesmers spamming power block, cry of frustration, and shatter enchantment on your team is seemingly impossible. And then you get some nice SF in your face. It makes extremely strong builds like an ER protter useless (without a lot of micromanaging and luck – who wants to do that?). But YOU CAN COMPLETE IT. I promise. I’ve done it multiple times! So the main forms of defense are:

a. Straight up armor. ALWAYS have your heroes with shields! And strongly consider the roles of your heroes – does your healing really have to be a monk, or can it be a dervish with more armor? Hint: dervish is always the answer (except M.O.X. because he has some weird AI quirks. But you’ll use him anyways because dervishes are that strong).
b. Shorten cast times. Are your heroes dependent on 1s or longer cast time skills? Always run a 20/20 wand for your most important skills (shield in offhand – no 40/40s!). Look for faster cast times for your needed roles – run reverse hex, or heal other, or perhaps try a dervish/rit with a precast avatar of dwayna and spirit infusion.
c. Slotting a wider variety of defense. Don’t just use healing. I’m sure everyone runs a hero with some prots, right? Perhaps some weapon spells? Well let’s also add in everything else – wards, party enchants, vital weapon, symbiosis, They’re on Fire!. And for that matter, run enemy targeted defense like unsteady ground, eruption, slippery ground, gaze from beyond, magnetic surge.
d. More bodies make it less likely that enemies will target your party. Looking at you, signet of spirits and animate minions. Well as long as they stay alive for more than ten seconds, which doesn’t happen much in DoA HM. Although do consider preprotting minions, it really does work sometimes especially against slaver’s mobs.

4. Don’t get stuck thinking about roles as professions or as one character performing a single role. The beautiful thing about gw1 is that you can perform every role in a single character AND do it extremely efficiently. You don’t need to specialize to be efficient. The best builds will be able to bring multiple answers to the problems at hand and “weird” combinations are usually the best way to answer your problems.

5. Not all professions are made equal. Sorry guys, but it’s not always fair. This goes for heroes in particular, honestly you can run whatever you want as your main character (except assassin… really... just don’t). But heroes NEED energy. Their AI is programmed to use skills. On cooldown. As often as possible. While a coordinated human team of mesmers with complicate, CoF, and PD/PB could decimate an enemy team… heroes can not do so. Believe me I’ve tried running 6 CoF spammers, it’s fun but even with stone striker and earth mantra you end up dead somehow (mostly because the same reason discord was/is such a popular hero build – they all use the same skill on one enemy when the conditions are met. Multiple heroes will waste their CoF’s on one enemy). Which brings me to my next point…

6. Watch how your heroes use skills. Spirit rift might look like the best thing in the world – 20 seconds of cracked armor! – but it will inevitably destroy your rit’s energy. Arcane conundrum, why not!? Well because a hero with too much fast casting will overlap the hex and not get energy back when it ends. So just be careful, and always have your hero skillbars on the screen. At first just check to see if anyone runs out of energy. Then focus on the heroes who are running out of energy and figure out why. You might even just realize vekk isn’t casting ER when your party is at 20% heath because he thinks aegis is more important than infinite energy and healing!

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Preface to hero skill building: Always justify your reasons for bringing each individual skill, and why you are bringing a certain profession over another.

Some Stand Alone Hero Builds:
These are strong builds that fulfill multiple roles for your team and could help to fill some gaps in your current favorite hero team. I’ll be only listing builds that you probably haven’t seen before but I do use a lot of other builds, such as SoGM.


Rits:
Reason to run primary rit: 15 channeling gives an extra splinter tick, SoGM, soul twisting, spawning power skills and passive. Good overall energy management. Can easily spec 10 points into a secondary line, sometimes more. Ghost forge can be better than blessed if running a vital weapon spammer.

ST with Vital and Spirit Siphon: OAKlYlgZYIak7gNteQHqz80ZyMtm
Can maintain vital on all party members, has enough emanagement to always recast shelter. Symbiosis synergizes extremely well with dervs and party enchants. Never underestimate having 1.2k health for 10 seconds or more!

Splinter + Mark of Pain: OASjcoiMJOYsu5ysMYJ+EXTrJA
If you don’t have minions use a different skill than barbs as it can be energy heavy.


Dervs:
Reason to run primary derv:
• so, SO much innate armor.
• So much energy management through meditation and eremite’s zeal.
• Avatar of dwayna is insane, in addition to other healing such as imbue health and mystic healing.
• Vow of strength and physical damage dealer.
• Can easily spec 11 or even 12 points into a secondary line.

D/Rt: OgijEuqGLPTOh37d+ieRwqX6LA
I call this the “Dwayna Base.” You can spec into many lines – Blood for mark of fury, order of pain, and blood bond; Curses for mark of pain, shadow of fear, and cracked armor; earth magic for wards; Prot Prayers for life bond (yes, bond is really strong), prot spirit, spirit bond; etc. etc. Very flexible!

Vow Base: OgCjoyrI7Nf7uv4GAcfXvo35LA
The open slot can be filled by imbue health, perhaps stand your ground, an ele ward, a res…really anything you feel you need. Note this build does not benefit from order of pain but does benefit from order of the vampire.

Ward Against Harm: OgakkoKxyyq08F9FqgjY6w7AswuA
Has your party ever exploded in 3 seconds? You need some additional armor. +40 armor will probably bring your party over 110AR, which is extremely good! The extra party defense through enchants and synergy with other heroes using meditation or ER is amazing. I think this is an older version – you might need GoLE instead of ward against melee because this guy is pretty energy hungry.

SoR Protter: OgOi8ws8MfpvvuCiWseEQsvA
Still working on this one, but I’ve found I die less often in DoA HM with this derv than with an ER prot.


Necros:
Soul reaping, signet of lost souls. Minor rune for mark of pain. Can spec tons of points into multiple secondary lines.

FD: OAVEEsgmeycDIB90cApjDKCqqA
FD, Interrupts, and always full of energy. Use this when you’re not too afraid of enemy interrupts as illusion spells have a hefty cast time.

MM: OAZFUshXmyW0O0pwjolQCYVAawiA
This is my primary MM build. You can easily swap in new elites and end up with something like Xinrae's weapon spam: OAhkUwG4RGWk1WyVVllQCYVAawiA or maybe an SoR Protter: OANEUql39KVQoFVVZJkAWFgGsIA. Flexible build, condition removal (and synergy with pestilence since minions die so often!), damage, body blocking…extremely useful almost everywhere.

Order of Undeath is extremely strong too with some bone fiends and Dwayna dervs with blood bond! I just don’t have a template on me atm.


Ranger:
Good armor. Physical damage dealing. Awesome condition application. Concussion shot. IA.

IA Ranger: OggkctYbGGO0jBmBrxshl4hRylZD
Pestilence is incredible! So many conditions everywhere! Just slot this IA with an FD spammer and I promise you will quickly realize how bad panic is!

Archer Signet:
Something I’m really interested in trying… swap IA for Archer’s sig and apply poison for poison tip signet and use a silencing bow mod… that’s what 40 seconds of daze? Enjoy spreading that around. Perhaps with extend condition.


Ele:
Basic ER/Prot: OgNDwcjvO1Dt4ddl4RoF1CoG
ER is useful. Unfortunately, everything else they do can be done just as well and tankier by other people. I’ve stopped using ER protting as often now because a single rupt or unlucky ench removal means a wipe. infuse health has too often gotten my team wiped so I stopped using it and have not noticed a difference with heal other other than vekk not being instantly targeted by every enemy because he is suddenly at 50% health.

Energy Boon:
I don’t have a template for this because I only tried it for a little while until I realized that the buff only increased the health of the respective ally’s max energy (only ~80 health in a shield set!) but I just ran energy boon with CoF, Complicate, frustration, arcane conundrum, GoLE, mantra of persistence, and sympathetic visage. It’s... interesting at least.


Mesmers:
Fast casting is a blessing and a curse for hero AI – pick your skills extremely carefully. I see way too many panic and ineptitude builds that run out of energy 5 seconds into a fight! Always consider running Drain Enchantment – it’s the strongest safe emanagement for a mes primary!

Migraine: OQhkAoB8AGKTNonSEyBZgewIM5C
Having a migraine mes inside an ebsow with high fast casting will really help you out against tricky enemies like Stone Summit Healers. Pair with a PI and you will have the strongest offensive defense in the game!

FD: OQRDAbwkR3AIgcQjQVVDCgN8UA
I’ve mostly retired this build because it relies too heavily on a single enchantment and too many enemies have chilblains. If you’re not up against heavy ench removal, this is viable.


Paragon:
Lots of armor. They’re on fire, spear swipe. Good energy management. I’m still fiddling with a few builds for paragons but they have a lot of potential.


My Build: OwYTkmGDZajQioLKHEZghAX8jAA
I usually have pain inverter instead of DKiss. Definitely not the best, but it generally fits to what I am doing. I usually try to just use PvE skills so that my build isn’t reliant on a certain human build. I also try to just watch heroes using skills as much as possible so I don't do much thinking about my own build.

Is this thread asking for advice on doing DoA HM with 7H or a thread giving advice on playing with Heroes?


If it's the former, then this thread documents the early DoA HM attempts with 7H. It's a little old now, but not much has changed since (I think only the Ele update?).
Unfortunately a lot of screen shots have been lost in that thread, but you should have an idea of what people tried and how they succeeded.

If it's the latter, that is it is a general advice thread, then I disagree with large amounts of what you wrote for the vast majority of the game (basically everything except DoA and UW in HM).
But if it's aimed specifically at DoA HM, then I can't comment as it's been a couple of years since I played, I never did DoA HM with 7H (I can't even remember large chunks of DoA). But are you qualified to give such advice?

I've just now read through the last five pages or so of the linked thread - it seems that one build could make it through DoA HM successfully with an SY! spam - I'll try it out sometime. There were many pictures that had been lost, unfortunately.

My intent was to share what I have learned about heroways throughout my years of playing the game. I've found that many of the heroways on pvxwiki are not thought out entirely or lack some easily input synergies. I wanted to add in some builds that people have probably not used before or considered to help create new discussion or perhaps have a new player not feel quite so pigeonholed when google searching heroways.

My qualifications? I have beaten just about everything in HM, DoA pending, with my hero setups. I have playtested builds over the last years and have found some combinations that fit to my playstyle, while I have found many of the "meta" heroway builds do not fit with me or are less than optimal. Yes, I am asking for advice from people on how to approach DoA, but I'm also giving my perspective on the issue. The team build at the top is specifically for DoA, but I have also used it in many HM areas.

What do you disagree with? My main points are to play defensively, to pay attention, and to consider a wider variety of skillsets. Do you disagree with my points? Or some of my builds? Or my love for dervish heroes? Or something else?

I don't know what Xenomortis disagrees with but I disagree with the idea of playing slowly and safely and working with pressure. It seems better, to me, to play as fast as you can, stack on as much damage as quickly as you can, and bring only as much defense as you need to last until the group you're facing is dead, then move on to the next.

Now similar to Xenomortis I can't really speak on DoA but as far as HM vanquishing goes, the idea of playing slowly is absurd and pointless when you could play fast and be just as safe. I would not waste a 20/20 focus slot on my heroes with a shield when my party will contain an ST Ritualist (or god forbid, a human ER prot/infuse spammer) anyways.

These builds are for difficult HM areas. Vanqing is not difficult. I'm talking about Slaver's, some of the harder EoTN dungeons, Winds of Change. They of course will work for HM vanqing, but vanqing is so trivial you definitely do not need to play defensively. I would not even run an ST rit for HM vanqing as it is generally a waste of space you could use for damage.

Trylo - thanks for taking the time to share.

I'm always interested in what other players run, even if it doesn't end up changing my current builds.

And peeps still taking an interest in this game in its advanced years, and wanting to share that with the wider community via for example Guru, is never a bad thing...

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Nice guide i will give it a try to see how does work, but please can you pls post heroes atrrobutes and runes . Ty very much

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I'll try out some heavy offensive builds this weekend for sure, but I distinctly remember them failing at even the slightest increase in enemy difficulty. If it worked well for you guys though, I'll give it a second chance! I'll post the runes and setups soon too!

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