Flavor of the Month Thread

Could we have a thread which details the flavor of the month builds? You may ask why I do not do it; simply because I do not know enough about them. Although not a necessity, I think it would be interesting to see strategies through the months. If anyone would like, post a fotm build here.

I searched for one and was unable to find one. If there is one, just point me in that direction, and sorry for your time.

Great idea, but bear in mind FotM is not always an exact build, but variations on a same build. For instance, you might see a dissagreement on how many necros are needed in a IWAY team.

And if we ask for each variation, well, this thread is going to become so crowded that it'd be faster just to wade through many threads detailing many variations.

I'd say the best compromise would be to open one post for each kind of FotM with variations on it inside.

So what FotM do we have right now? Ranger teams seem to be popular. IWAY and Smite groups are still very popular too. Spiking groups and Spirit groups were once FotM, but they are hardly used anymore. Any other ideas come to mind?

I belive the current FOTM is now the ranger spike build.

mmm ive been seeing a lot of ranger spike builds, mesmers would be an obvious way to counter them but a group of 6-8 mesmers wont last long

Exactly, that's the main problem; the only good known counter to the Ranger Spike is weak against most other groups (and extra weak to IWAY). To fight it, we need to devise a group that can keep them in check with at most 3 mesmers (preferably 2).

But just talking about it ain't gonna help. Anyone care to post a typical ranger spike build (never ran one myself) so we can work on finding its weak points? :P

3 Mesmers can put Spirit Shackles on 6 Rangers. That'd slow them down to a crawl without hex removal. Then again, Marksman's Wager kills that idea for a while.

My 2 cents on shutting down rangers.

Ele-glimmering mark/lightning damage or blurred vision.
Tactics warrior spamming 'shields up'. Or even just any class with warrior secondary.

All theory of course.

Dust trap, throw dirt, ward against harm & ward against elements would do well against IWAY and Ranger Spikes. Very weak against smiting though.

Pacifism and Ineptitude. Two of the best hexes to use against ranger groups.

hate to break it to ya but ranger won't be the next fotm. shields up and its gg.

much better builds out there right now that are going to beat it and the current builds.

Quote:

i think that necros will be the next fotm.

u do know they have hex breaka 24/7 but since nerfage it might work also

Shields Up kills all ranger spike... thats what i see that always lacks of something
also Guardian + Shield of Defelection + Aegis + Shields Up = Cough Death
but they do have a necro with Rend Enchants but shield sup should make u stay alive

spikers that do atleast 70dmg per arrow + a caster is shuted down
but with shields up u have 40% i think if im right to dodge those arrows with
guardian 52% aegis 50% Shield of Deflection 70%
thats


212% To Dodge Em Stupid arrows?if aegis doesnt count at arrows u atleast have... over 150?
also the fotm atm are it came to this

SoJ Spike -> Smiting w Wars -> IWAY -> Ranger Spike / FoC Spike / Energy Surge Spikers ( Growing... )
so im taking a guess of well a Good Dual Smite / Balanced

Quote:

Ranger spike should be laughable because of the delay in those skills.

Dustway is going to be the next hoh fotm

yup, dust trap currently does double damage for some weird reason.

ie. not just 20x5 but 40x5.

so 8 trappers running dust and healing spring pwn

they suck at relic runs, but maybe a small tweak could work it.

echo dust trap ftw folks - itll be popular until the bug is fixed i bet

Quote:

I've been seeing a relatively new phenomenon; Fast Flare groups.

Now, I simply don't understand. They want Me/Es with Ele Attune, Fire Attune, Flare and Lava Font.

As I see it; it's somewhere between Ranger spikes and Air Ele spikes; not as easily dealt with by Protect as Air Ele, but not yet nerfed. And nowhere in this concept do I see anything that was not intended by the devs.

shields up + watch yourself = bye bye rangers

You have no clue what you're talking about.

Shields up<elemental bowstrings. Kindle isn't viable b/c the bug is fixed but ignite arrows still works. Watch yourself is not going to solve anything.

Not to say that ranger spike in the previous incarnation is viable though.

in my ranger spiker group, 1 or2 rangers had barb and dust for ur massive war team(iway) and second profesion do help IE r/me using conjur or something on an enemy whose blockin/evadin etc

I saw 5 8 warrior/monks new to Tombs, consecutively. Does THAT count? /sarcasm.

I saw a team that tryed to spamm minions:
3Necros sacrifing, 3reviving minions. And 2monks.

Now the 3necros who were alive didnt have res, and as it seemed the monk didnt too. Was a short fight. Does that count ? ^^

^ lol thats the new fotm. self sacrificing yourself to death until the other team dies of laughing.

anyone else seen a growing number of energy surge spikers?
Ive been running it a few times myself and have come against other teams too :S.
Spirit shackles + empathy>ranger spike
ball +signet of midnight +epidemic > IWAY
And since the whole point of the build is draining energy that kind of puts the other 4 professions out of the way

In the beginning there were teams of lots of warriors with some monks.

Then some people got the idea: Let's use Armor Penetrating spells on them, all at the same time, so the monks won't be able to heal.

And thus Air Spike was born.

But then some other people realized that all you have to do against Air Spike is survive.

And thus Ranger teams were born, using Winter and Fertile Season to take the air spike damage.

People also realized about this time that most spirits helped out Rangers, so they started running, like, all of them. Lots of them.

And the spirit-spammers who bodyblocked the altar with spirits were born, and they were universally loathed, but you either had to beat them or join them.

Then some people realized that, y'know, it'd be nice to *kill* things in a more direct manner than relying on ranger condition spam. They also realized that AoE damage could kill those damn spirits.

Thus the E/Mo ether renewal smiter was born, along with the warriors he used as smite anchors. But the spirits were still everywhere, and the rangers countered by spamming Nature's Renewal even harder.

Then spirits got the poop nerfed out of them, and all was good.

And people realized they could run even more enchantments now, and the E/Mo smiters took over, and it was a bit silly.

And then someone realized that the best way to kill these silly smiters was to take advantage of the fact that they couldn't stop from killing things if they tried, and IWAY was born.

Then some cheesy git realized that ANet didn't really think about the consequences of their change to ranger interrupt timing, and Ranger spike was born.

Now people are running traps. Go figure. Eventually they'll get sick of having the stuffing beaten out of them by teams with real firepower and will go back to something else.

Meanwhile; balanced groups slaughtered the whole lot of them.
Mesmers and Necros were /dance'ing
There was much rejoicing, and everyone /guitar'ed and /drum'ed.

Exactly right. Too many popular builds are copied by people who don't know how they work, and thus don't use them to their potential. This is true for both team builds and individual ones. My guild runs a very weird build (sword w/mo, 2 mesmers, necro/mesmer, a water/fire ele, heal monk, prot monk, and a weird e/mo healer) -- which we created, we all know how and why it works, and thus we can play it better than anyone else.