Theme Build ideas

Well, I was hoping to get some feedback for my Freyas Theme Builds articles- what skills would you all like to see me focus on? Here are some ideas that I've had, though I'd be willing to take other suggestions.... let me know what you guys would like to see.

Warrior:
Victory is Mine
Flourish

Ranger:
Melandru's Resilience
Quickening Zephyr
Energizing Winds
Nature's Renewal(though this tends to need a more-focused team build)
Oath Shot

Necromancer:
Awaken the Blood
Spinal Shivers
Soul Barbs
Aura of the Lich(though I don't find this very useful as it currently is)
Dark Aura
Virulence
-minions
-disease

Monk:
Zealot's Fire
Blessed Signet
Spellbreaker

Mesmer:
Mind Wrack
Mantra of Recovery
Echo/Arcane Echo
Ether Lord
Keystone Signet
Mantra of Persistance
Arcane Thievery

Elementalist:
Ether Renewal
Obsidian Flesh

Other than single skills, I'd be happy to look at skill combinations and synergies, or other themes- such as a necromancer using disease or minions effectively, a warrior built to disable monks, rangers based around traps, etc. I'm mostly just interested in finding out what you all are interested in reading about.

How about Unnatural Signet? I don't think it's possible to make a good build with this skill in it. (unless you add it as a filler and never use it) I hope you can prove me wrong Freyas.

I agree with you in that it's not really possible to make a good build with that skill in it. The skill is a holdover when a nature ritual could only be used once in a mission, and needs serious updating- all that Unnatural Signet will do is disable your skills for a considerable amount of time in order to give an enemy ranger 5% DP if they want the ritual enough to recast it. If this skill does get changed at some time so that it is a viable skill, I'd be happy to try to put it in a build, but as for now, I'd prefer to stick with skills that aren't incredibly underpowered.

I'd like to see a suicidal water elementalist, who focused on Frozen Burst... Maybe an Elementalist/Ranger who could run up to the battle really fast and cast that and then get the heck out of there and cast/shoot from afar. Something like that. :P

Maybe a Necromancer that made good use of Necrotic Travel, lol.

I'd like to see a Warrior build using Flourish or Victory is Mine as well as a Mesmer using Mind Wrack.

There's a pretty good War/Ele using Victory is Mine! brewing in this thread. Perhaps not handled with the care and attention that Freyas shows in his excellent articles but not everyone has his way with the Engilsh language nor his command of strategic matters.

Personally, I'd like to see a build using Vengence or Unyielding Aura. Those are some fun skills to cast on the unwary, let me tell you. "Yes! Back to life! Now to kill and kill and...hey! What happened to me? Did anyone just see what hit me, I just fell over dead here!"...

would be interesting to see this in conjunction with something like edge of extinction or death nova..
unyielding aura might be a good way to get a whole lot of exploitable corpses..

How about a meleemancer that uses all 4 of the 'touching' skills?

Well, it sounds like there's interest in seeing something to run with Vengeance/Unyielding Aura, so I'll try that out- it'll probably be a 2-man team, since you'll have to have someone to resurrect, and someone to take advantage of the resurrections.

I've been playing with a mesmer that makes good use of Mind Wrack- if there's more support for that, I can do up a post on that next week. Suicidal elementalists might be something I could do as well- though I might try to incorporate suiciding elementalists or something into the vengeance build- it sounds like fun to blow all your energy in a blaze of destruction, die, come back to life, and do it all over again!

Necrotic Traversal is more of a strategic skill- I can see some good uses for it in some specialty builds- I'll ponder on that one and see what I can come up with.

I'd be curious to see more builds involving Echoes (and particularly the arcane one). I have my favorite targets for A.E but I'm pretty sure I've missed many skills that would be perfectly 'echo-able'.

A build with an Echo isn't that hard. You figure out what skill you have would be better if you could cast it twice as much. Then you take Mesmer and grab either Arcane Echo or Echo. If it's a spell (and you don't intend to cast any non-spells), you use Arcane. If it's not and it's not elite, you use Echo. Then, you cast your Echo, cast that spell, and cast away. It works best with spammable skills, obviously, because of the limited duration on the Echos means you'll only have the double skill for a fraction of the time, not forever. so, that's why people often pair it with powerful, spammable elites like Water Trident or Word of Healing. The best part is that what's tied to Illusion in both Echoes is not the time you get your bonus skill for but the time the Echo will wait around for you to cast something to replace it. That makes it usable even at Illusions 0. The drawback, of course, is the hit to your energy. Echoing something costs 15 energy then you're only getting the most out of it if you're casting both versions so you double the amount of energy you'll spend over those 20 or so seconds. If you're not careful you'll drain yourself dry. There are ways around that, of course, so if you can figure out how to afford two versions of your favorite skill and you aren't opposed to taking Mesmer as a profession, then it's certianly something to do.

[COLOR=DarkGreen]id like to see a build using the pet to the fullest, using beast mastery skills and all, so we can all see how effective they really can be and if its worth making a proffesion or somethin on it.[/COLOR]


[COLOR=DarkSlateGray]checking out zealots fire looks interesting, maybe making a smiting/healing monks that gets into the hustle and bustle and just starts going crazy will orison of healing, word of healing and then dealing out damage that way with zealots fire while still healing.[/COLOR]