Post your favorite build:

Until you guys get your forums going off to a nice start and add a strategic discussion sort of board, I thought I'd make this thread so you could add a bunch of builds to your list if you liked 'em. Please post your own.


Here is mine. I haven't tested it out yet, but it looks nice on paper.


R/E: Warrior's Bane Shock Sniper

Marksmanship: 13(11 +1 Headgear +1 Minor Rune)
Expertise: 12 (10 +2 Major Rune)
Air Magic: 11 (10 +1 Minor Rune)

Marksmans Wager {E} (going to see if I need it. could replace with Mark or Antidote Sig.)
Distracting Shot
Pin Down
Power Shot/ Precision Shot (whatever floats your boat. Power costs more, Precision Recharges Slower)
Favourable Winds/ Read the Wind (again: whatever you like more)
Hunter's Shot
Enervating Charge
Conjure Lightning

I really want to try this monk/ranger :

10 (+1) Divine, 10-11 (+2) Healing, 10 Wilderness, Change in Protection

Melandru's Resilience (Elite)
Barbed Trap
Draw Conditions
Signet of Devotion
Healing Breeze
Orision of Healing
Healing Spring

Remove Hex/Ressurect/Healing Seed/Infuse Health

The idea is to make a very defensive healer and condition controller (bonus). Melandru's resilience mostly negates the damage from hexes and conditions (as a healer you will probably get a lot of these). You also get extra energy regen as well, the real reason for this skill. To help your own energy, and the team use draw conditions to maximize the effect of resilience. Spam heals, and fall back on the signet if you are getting interrupted/dazed. Infuse health will combo well with resilience and/or healing spring if they leave you alone for a second, but otherwise it might be better to take something else. Thoughts? Any alphas feel free to try the build or a variation.

I'm not sure that I have a favorite in terms of just raw build setups (though if you want to get into matters like, say, my awesome dye jobs across various characters - that's a different matter entirely.) But I will say that i've been having a bit of fun with this one lately:

Monk/Mesmer
Divine Favor: 12
Healing Prayers: 11
Inspiration Magic: 10

(Values listed count runes.)

Signet of Devotion
Heal Other
Orison of Healing
Word of Healing {E}
Healing Breeze
Restore Life
Leech Signet
Power Drain

Depending on what situations i'm dealing with, I may or may not sub something out to bring condition removal. Mostly it's a straight up healer, but Inspiration is there so I can pull off pinch interrupts when i'm otherwise spent for mana .. it takes quite a bit of concentration to be watching and weighing not only the health status of your allies, but the casting of your enemies - but once you get used to it, it's a very active, very effective healer setup.

Lately, I've been playing around with an enchantmentless healer, which I've had some good luck with, especially if I've got allies that use enchantments for healing to help counter focus-fire.

Monk/Mesmer
Healing Prayers: 13
Divine Favor: 10
Inspiration Magic: 8

Orison of Healing
Word of Healing
Dwayna's Kiss
Infuse Health
Signet of Devotion/Divine Intervention
Draw Conditions
Restore Life
Power Drain

I can output an exceptional amount of healing without running low on energy for an extended period of time using this build. Dwayna's Kiss is rather nice, equalling orison in healing ability with only one enchantment/hex on whoever I'm healing, and quickly scaling up, occasionally even outperforming Word of Healing on a character with several enchantments/hexes. The biggest difficulty I've had is the shortage of self-healing, but with help from allies, that often isn't a big deal.

I kinda like my W/R with :

12 Wilderness Survival
10 (+1) Swordsmanship
8 (+1) Strength

1. Apply Poison
2. Battle Rage*
3. Sever Artery
4. Gash
5. Galrath Slash
6. Final Thrust
7. Thrill of Victory
8. Troll Unguent.

Thrill of Victory is such a nice skill, when you're been ganged up and one target is almost dead, time it right and you get a huge boost to your life, and then Troll just keeps you alive most of the time.

I have not tried this yet, but will be during the next beta event. It is kind of along the lines of Rush's Air Warrior, except with a few skill changes.

Swordsmanship - 10
Strength - 10
Air magic - 10
Tactics - 5

Conjure Lightning
Lightning Strike
Final Thrust
Galrath Slash
Gash
Pure Strike
Sever Artery
Healing Signet

The only real reason I have tactics 5 is for a greater effect on Healing Sig. but I'm not sure if this would work well for PvP. Any comments? thanks

My current favorite build is my Ran/Nec

Attributes are

Expertise 11
Marksmanship 10
Curses 10

(I think that's right on the allocation. That's off the top of my head. If I can find runes, of course I'll up the allocation, I'd love at least a 12 in expertise and a Superior vigor and superior absorption rune as well.)

Read the Wind
Power Shot
Punishing Shot/Barrage [Elite]
Pin Down
Concussion Shot
Troll Unquent/Lightning Reflexes
Shadow of Fear
Rend Enchantments

If there's going to be a lot of focus fire I'll normally take Power Shot and Punishing Shot for spamming extra damage attacks. With high expertise I rarely run out of energy or an attack. If I may need to do some AoE I'll bring Power Shot and Barrage.

I normally take Lightning Reflexes here and just let the monk keep my health up, but troll has saved my ass more than once so it's always tempting to me and saves the monk from having to save me. In arena I'll almost always have Troll and Lightning Reflexes and probably drop Shadow of Fear.
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I've been debating another build off this profession setup for PvE that might prove interesting. I'd bring a pet and also bone minions with some good high level damage skills. So I'd probably run with markmanship, expertise, and death magic as I still see no real reason to put much in beast mastery as those skills seem so weak right now. I haven't fleshed this build out too much though so I don't have one to post on it currently.

one of my favorite builds is a protector monk for arena.

Monk/Mesmer

protection 10 + 2
divine 11 + 1
inspiration 10

Reversal Fortune
Mend Ailment
Signet of Devotion
Remove Hex
Leech Signet
Gaurdian
Protective Spirit
Spirit Of Failure

with this build, i could usually survive under crazy beatdown. its very hard to not run out of energy, so i usually throw spirit on everyone. i use leech signet to regain energy after a mesmer has killed all of it.

Mesmer / Necromancer a work in progress.

Power Drain
Power Leak
Power Spike
Shame
Energy Tap
Inspired Enchantment
Conjure Phantasm
Life Transfer

I've been having fun with my N/W. I had tried out a W/N with some Blood Magic for a little self healing and such, but the low Energy of the Warrior class was a pain. So I changed it around and came up with a melee style N/W girl. She uses an axe with a focus item (no points in Tatics and only primary Warriors get Strength, so no shield). She focuses on using her axe and getting a little self healing from the Necro Blood Magic tree. So anywho, here's how she looks right now (still trying to get her just right).

Necromancer/Warrior
Blood Magic: 11 (+2)
Soul Reaping: 6 (+1)
Axe Mastery: 12

Frenzy
Executioner's Strike
Distracting Blow
Plague Touch
Vampiric Touch
Demonic Flesh
Sprint
-Cleave [Elite]
-Soul Leech [Elite]


Yeah, one extra skill and two elites. That's because I change the two elite skills out. I used to use Cleave, which is nice because it adds good damage for only 4 adrenaline. Recently I've been trying Soul Leech in its place because it leeches 71 life off of someone everytime they use a spell for 10 seconds.

As for the other skills, you'll notice I can't inflict any conditions on my targets. I do have Plague Touch though, so anytime I get a condition on me I will just pass it along to my target. Its a great spell, especially since I play this girl as a melee char so I'm always in range for this skill. Same goes for Vampiric Touch, which is a nice little self healing/damaging skill. As a W/N I was always short on Energy for this skill (takes 15 Energy), but now I can use it all the time. The last skill of note is Demonic Flesh, which offers my girl an extra 184 health for 54 seconds. With my items my base health is 574 (Energy is 42), and with Demonic Flesh on it shoots up to 758. That extra health helps make up for the Necro armor I have to use.

This has been a very fun build so far, and pretty successful too. With my Blood Magic I can have a good rod as a secondary weapon when I need a ranged attack, and for PvE there are a few Blood skills I can change in for certain areas (Well of Blood, Life Siphon). She tanks pretty well since she can heal herself a bit and keep Conditions off of her. Plus, its groovy having a necro girl that's able to charge into the enemy swinging around an axe for good damage

Ranger/Warrior

Attributes: (cost)
Expertise: 12+2 (97)
Marksmanship: 12+1 (97)

1) Marksman's Wager
2) Favorable Wind
3) Hunter's Shot
4) Precision Shot
5) Dual Shot
6) Power Shot
7) Pin Down
8) Frenzy

Deadroot, thats almost exactly the same build I'm thinking of trying for the next beta. How well can you stay in combat without getting torn up?

My main character is an El/Mes, but I switch her skills and attributes around far too much to put a concrete build down.

My favorite, stable character:

Warrior / Necromancer

10+2 Swords
10+1 Strength
11 Blood Magic

Standard skill loadout:

Warrior's Endurance
Warrior's Cunning
Power Attack
Savage Slash
Sever Artery
Life Siphon

Plus 2 other skills. Hundred Blades, Sprint, Hamstring, Demonic Flesh are top candidates.

Equipment:

Strength Req. Shield with +1 to Blood Magic when using Life Siphon
The best sword available, preferably with +damage and +energy per hit.

I'll probably build 'em in retail, as soon as I find that shield that is. Go go equipment dependant characters!

Peace,
-CxE

Better than I expected. I have some nice items with +health and the high end Rune of Vigor on this char, so that helps. But even before I got those this girl was able to survive fairly well in battle. Demonic Flesh stays on for 54 seconds, and with a racharge of 60 seconds on that skill I can keep it up all the time pretty easily (also only costs 5 Energy). Just be careful to not use it when you are low on life since you sacrifice health to use it. There are some builds that can tear this girl up. Piling on Hexes hurts, but hopefully you have a Monk who can help you out there.

When trying to optimize gear, +health is your best friend. You may want to go for Tatics instead of Soul Reaping for a shield, but I do fine without one. My focus item gives me good health and energy. With 42 energy (with 4 dots of regen always) and Soul Reaping at 7 I don't often run out.

Plague Touch really helps since it keeps Conditions off of you while giving them to your enemy (even if they already have it or that condition doesn't affect them). Don't save Vampiric Touch for when you are low on health, it is not a major way to heal. Use it to keep yourself at full health and to deal out damage as well. At 15 Energy its really the one spell to be careful of since overuse can tax your Energy pool when no one is dying (for Soul Reaping).

There are other skills you might want to consider. Unholy Feast, which steals 8-34 health from each nearby foe, can be a good option in PvE when there are swarms of monsters. The recharge and casting on it are a bit slow though. Well of Blood is a nice skill, especially if you cast it on an enemy you just killed while there are still others in that area you need to fight. Life Siphon I don't like for this build (love it on a casting Blood necro though). I get 2 dots off of it at my Blood level, and that's not terribly useful when you are a melee char. Spending time to cast it on various targets takes you away from actually doing melee fighting. Then again, you may like using it, I've heard others say they like it. I tried out Order of Pain for a bit, but I don't like sacrificing life too much (especially as a tank). I may try it out again since I've only ever used it in the Arena, it might be better suited to bigger battles.

There are plenty of options with this build really. Its really fun to play and slightly unusual, which is always a plus. I'm thinking my next project will be an E/W who acts as a melee fighter (with a sword probably).

I'd like to keep blood at 12 for pvp, so I might want to use life siphon to keep up my health. Also, if I go swords it would work well with bleeding. The elite siphon could be a good alternate for soul leech too.

I went with the Axe because I never tried it before. That and I thought it would look sexy on my necro girl

I have been thinking about tinkering with my attribute points, I've just never bothered with it. Maybe later I'll change it to see how it affects my build.

This may work ... havn't tried it though

Attribute Calculator Character Dump


Class: Warrior / Necromancer

Attributes: (cost)
Strength: 6 (21)
Swordsmanship: 11 (77)
Tactics: 8 (37)
Blood Magic: 10 (61)
Curses: 2 (3)

Total attribute points used: 199/200


Skills:
1) Signet of Agony - (0,1,15) Sacrifice 38 health and suffer from bleeding. All nearby foes take 32 damage.
2) Galrath Slash - (8a,0,0) This attack strikes for +29 damage if it hits.
3) Gash - (7a,0,0) If this attack hits a bleeding foe, you strike for 7 more damage and that foe suffers a deep wound, lowering that foe's maximum health by 20% for 16 seconds.
4) Final Thrust - (10a,0,0) Lose all adrenaline. If Final Thrust hits, you deal 29 more damage. This damage is doubled if your target was below 50% health.
5) Plague Touch - (5,1,0) Transfer a negative condition from yourself to target touched foe.
6) Life Transfer (elite) - (10,2,30) For 10 seconds, target foe suffers health degeneration of 6 which you gain as health regeneration. This is an elite skill.
7) Life Siphon - (10,2,2) For 20 seconds, target suffers health degeneration of 3 and you gain health regeneration of 3.
8) Blood Renewal - (5,1,10) Sacrifice 113 health. For 10 seconds, you gain health regeneration of 3. When Blood Renewal ends, you gain 113 health.

Consider swapping galrath slash/blood renewal for warrior's cunning ... however ... energy is a consideration here.

I think Energy would be a big problem for that build, Keramon. I think even more than the Warrior's low Energy pool is that they only get 2 dots of Energy regen. You'd need a Energy stealing sword, but even then I'm doubtful...

I like the Signet of Agony/Plague Touch thing with Gash. Signet of Agony is a skill I've poundered using in the build I posted in this thread.

Anywho, if you make it work let us know. And if not tell us what went wrong and what had potential

keramon, you could take out life siphon and blood renewal, and replace them with sprint and demonic flesh. That might help your energy issues and give you more mobility and health.

I was considering doing it and seeing how it works next BPE ... Then again ... if energy is truly a problem, could always go necro primary. But yes, energy stealing sword would be essential as a warrior. Though I hate sacrificing strength in any melee build.

Here is my build for W/N: 10 strength/ 10 sword/ 11 blood magic

Sever artery 4A
Galrath slash 8A
Final thrust 10A
Sprint 5E
Berserker stance 5E
Life transfer 10E
Demonic flesh 5E
Plague touch 5E

Just before battle I use Demonic flesh, then in battle Life transfer and Berserker stance. After that adrenaline skills, while my energy recharges.
My question is, will I have any problem with defense?

The build I'm gonna be trying in Feb BWE (Only 1 week away now ) is a Me/W.

Fast Casting 3
Illusion Magic 12
Tactics 12

Conjure Phantasm
Phantom Pain
Illusionary Weaponry
Flurry
Hundred Blades
Disciplined Stance
Bonnetti's Defense
Healing Signet

After the launch of GW Guru I found Spooky's Illusionary Weaponry build and it was almost exactly the same. (I did add Disciplined stance and Bonetti's Defense to mine after reading Spooky's build).

I was also going to be doing a Me/W with IW this BWE, but testing with the following as a caster-killer/disruption:

11 Illusion
10 Tactics
10 Fast Casting

Illusionary Weaponry
Flurry
Hundred Blades
Bonetti's Defense
Arcane Conundrum
Distracting Blow
Savage Slash

And I'm divided on whether to toss in Sprint, Imagined Burden or Ethereal Burden as the 8th. If I can get ahold of a +energy per attack sword then Ethereal Burden is out. Testing whether the FC is worth it for this build.

Probably not. FC only affects spells. You've only got 2 spells. IWep is an enchantment, those usually have pretty quick casting times anyway plus you'll be buffing before heading into combat meaning shaving an extra second or two off the casting time isn't really going to hurt you, it's when you're trying to pack disruption or damage or defense into a time frame that FC really shines. So, really, you're taking it for Arcane Conundrum, first and foremost.

What you might think about is a 12/10/8 build instead of the 11/10/10 build you're doing. That's Illusion 12, Tactics 10, Whatever else (we'll get to that in a bit) 8. IW is an odd skill because it's the exception to the Mesmers normal disdain for a high attribute. It just gets better the higher up you push Illusion Magic. And since it's your main source of DPS you want it as high as possible. Put Illusion at 12, get a rune and a mask and you'll be at 14 (I wouldn't go much higher, you'll be in close combat, so the hit from a Major or Superior rune hurts you more than the normal mes. But, find a weapon with a +1 to IW for even more goodness.) and you'll be that much deadlier. High Tactics lets you use a shield, which is something you'll probably want to do although I imagine you'll be swapping between a focus and a shield as fast as you can. Focus up for IW or when IW runs out and you're trying to tag people with Conundrum or a Burden or when you need to Sprint to catch up, swap to a shield when you're close in and you need that extra defense.

As for the Whatever Else, Fast Casting could work, sure. But you might aso think about dropping FC for a decent score in something else. Pick up Domination and you could take an interrupt like Power Leak to royally mess up a caster. Inspiration for Power Drain if you're more worried about your energy than theirs. In other words, while with this character you'll want to ignore the normal attribute advantage of a Mesmer with Illusion, you can take advantage of the Mesmer's superior ability to splash an extra attribute with that third attribute. Fast Casting might not be that much aid to you, so grab a skill or two and some more power from somewhere else.

Oh, and I'd go for Etherial Burden for the energy. You're not going to want to snare someone that much when you're not running IW and the longer recharge time than on Imagined won't be that much of a disadvantage. Sprint's more generally useful but Etherial means that even if you're prevented from melee in some other way you're still useful with both Conundrum and the Burden. Since you can't keep up IW forever, you won't always want to be in melee having a backup plan isn't a bad thing.

+Energy pre hit weapons won't trigger with IW up, so they're kinda out of the picture. You really just want a weapon with +attack speed / -damage, and a +enchantment duration buff, since those help you buff up IW.

I really can't argue with a core of 2 interrupts, Flurry, and Hundred Blades on an IW build.

I agree with Saus that Fast Cast isn't going to be doing a whole lot for you - it's a 7-8 point attribute, no need to crank in up that high unless you're trying to chain cast or something. All Tactics is doing here is pumping up one skill, otherwise it's in the same boat - 7-8 Tactics will let you use all but the rarest shields, and those are going to have reqs that make you nauseus anyway.

I think you definitely want to grab some Domination for Power Leak. That skill is insane for shutting down casters, easily the best interrupt in the game. Since you don't get too much from having Fast Cast and Tactics that high, you can easily free up the space.

I'm not sold on Bonetti's Defense - 60 second cooldown and short duration and all - but hey might as well test it. As for speed debuffs, Imagined Burden is just plain better than Ethereal Burden. The reason? A 1 second cast time versus a 3 second cast time. You want to snare running opponents, and that means hitting them *now*, not after they're gone.

For attributes you could easily go into an 11/9/8/8 or 12/8/8/7 formation, to power out either Domination or Inspiration skills. The more important point is that you have room for another attribute since Fast Cast and Tactics don't want to be maxed, so find something appealing and fit it in there.

Oh, and for PvE, you want Sympathetic Visage. Not neccessarily because it's all that good (though it is), but because there are a bunch of random Mesmers with junk like Shatter Enchantment that will mess up IW. Generally you won't have to worry about such things in PvE because no one runs single target removal and enchantment hate is generally thrown at focused targets, but when you see such things having an enchantment to use as chaff is invaluable.

Peace,
-CxE

Thanks for the reviews Saus & Chuck. Excellent advice on both accounts.

Query: From the IW description that I've seen around at several sites damage caps at 34/swing. If so, I don't see any good reason for pumping Illusion beyond 12 [11+ Mask or even 10+minor_rune+Mask]. Last BWE I had it sitting at 12 and was getting 34/swing. Or am I missing something here?

On that note... Is there someplace I might see [or someone that might share...] where attribute levels cease to affect each skill?

Looks like lots of testing this coming weekend.

Yes, that most sites list the maximums for their skill ranges at an attribute level of 12. IW and every other skill progresses past 12, otherwise there'd be no point to going past 12. But there is. I believe the devs hold 20 as the breakpoint, although that's mainly so in future expansions when there might be more attribute increasing items and skills thing don't get out of hand, or for monsters that might have inate bonuses to make them more powerful. But skills can go up to levels of 14, 16, 18, or even 19 in their attributes. All of them. What I'm saying it that you can have more than 34 damage a swing. And as someone interested in squeezing out as much DPS as you can (and if you're not why are you playing IW in the first place?), you should look into it.

That being the case I had 100% intended to. Should also be nifty for finding the scaling on IW at some of the higher levels.

Returns on skills are linear, unless they've changed things in the last month. Going from 11 to 12 and from 12 to 13 have the same net bonus, the cost of doing so just continues to rise. So there really isn't any reason not to get up into the 13-14 range for IW from a Mask and minor rune - though I'd hesitate to make the character any more fragile from a major rune.

Peace,
-CxE

This is off topic but...


Sausaletus, is that by any chance Skeletor in your new avator? haha. (my brother used to have those action figures... it was funny)

S Rex *is* Skeletor.

It all makes so much sense now.

haha ... well then. appearantly Skeletor ran out of plots to take over the world so he just started to focus on killing people in Guild Wars.

Right. IW is something like 8~34 now, right? So that's rougly 2 damage a rank, every rank in Illusion is worth an extra 2 damage to your IW.

The only places that gets weird is with things like Life Siphon which go from 1 pip to 3 pips over the course of going from 0 to 12. That means there's certain ranks where it's going to jump. From 1 to 2 and from 2 to 3. Those are the sweet spots, where you're getting the most out of your attributes while still paying the least that you can. But, even then, it's still progressing linearly, it's just not bumping up a notch every rank as with IW or Flare or Diversion or things like that. It's probably incrementing "behind the scenes", as it were, and it's not until it hits a sweet spot that the numbers tick over and it rounds up instead of down.

No, but if you can find that 8~10 Tactics, Illusion +1 when casting Illusiory Weaponry shield, sell your granny to get it.

I guess the truth has finally come out. Yes, it is I, Skeletor. Do not fret for me, though, I still plot to claim the Power of Grayskull and my rightful throne as ruler of all Eternia. I just summer in Tyria these days, those undead are my kind of people and there's lower instances of acursed muscle-bound man-boys foiling evil plans. No sales tax, either.