LuLu's
Originally Published by Aria
By LuLu
Note: The final build of this article has not been adjusted for the tournament patch.
This article is going to try and give you an idea of how we make team builds. It shows the start of the build idea, and then the refinement process. While the last build was run on live for a very long time before the tournament patch, this build has always been and always will be under constant development. Changes to the metagame will always necessitate adjustments in your builds. I try to give as many specific examples as to why we changed out skills in builds, and even overhauled entire characters.
We ran this particular build right after the March (?) BWE in the alpha test. After we had played IVEX's degen build, remove hex was still bumped up from a 5 second recast to a 7 second recast. I thought that was a horrible debuff, and hence the name, I Hate Izzy (referring to the developer at ArenaNet that played with us against that build).
Necromancer/Mesmer
10 +2 Blood Magic, 9 Inspiration, 4+1 Soul Reaping, 11+1 Curses
Faintheartedness, Enfeeble, Parasitic, Rigor, Life Siphon, Strip Enchantment,
Power Drain, Drain Enchantment, Offering of Blood*
Mesmer/Monk
6+1 Fast Casting, 12+2 Illusion, 11+1 Inspiration
Migraine*, Arcane Conundrum, Conjure, Phantom Pain, Mantra of Persistence,
Energy Tap, Power Drain, Restore
Mesmer/Monk
6+1 Fast Casting, 12 +2 Domination, 11+1 Inspiration
Energy Surge*, Energy Burn, Mind Wrack, Etap, Shatter Enchant, Power Spike,
BackFire, Power drain
Ranger/Monk
11+1 Expertise, 11+4 Wilderness, 8+1 Marksmanship
Apply Poison, Debilitating shot, Distracting Shot, Pin Down, Flame Trap,
Barb Trap, Markman's Wager*, Restore Life.
Warrior/Elementalist
12+2 Hammer, 10 Earth, 8+1 Strength
Berserker Stance, Backbreaker*, Crushing Blow, Aftershock, Mighty Blow,
Hammer Bash, Irresistible Blow, Sprint
Monk/XXX
12 + Divine Favor, 12 + Healing
Word Of Healing, Orison, Healing Touch, Dwaynas, Signet of Devotion, Heal
Other, Healing Breeze, Remove Hex
Monk/XXX
12 + Divine Favor, 10 + Healing Prayers, 8 + Protections
Word of Healing, Orison, Healing Touch, Reversal of Fortune, Mend Ailment,
Remove Hex, Healing Seed, Aegis
Monk/XXX
12 + Divine Favor, 12 + Protections
Guardian, Reversal of Fortune, Protective Spirit, Mend Ailment, Remove Hex,
Convert Hexes, Shielding Hands, Martyr
This build had already gone through one major change, but I don't have the original version on hand. I had taken what it felt like to play against the build, and recreated it myself. However I pulled many builds from other people because I lacked experience in other classes. This created a bit of a mish-mash of other people's ideas.
There were many shortcomings to this build because it was a conglomeration of random characters from other team builds. Eventually the build would find focus through the refinement process. The original intent of the domination mesmer was a 1 1/2 monk shutdown: throw up backfire then mind wrack on one monk, then use energy denial on a second. The damage was decent but sporadic, and the energy denial was annoying but by no means very effective. Overall, the build did not really accomplish what was needed. Also, having three power drains throughout the build was a bit much. The objective of having three interrupts was damage mitigation, but was neither efficient or effective.
The durability of the build was lacking as having only 2 hard targets created too much stress on the monks and far too often. This build was also played very early on, so damage mitigation really wasn't done well with player skill and this contributed to later build changes.
In addition, as we had one true spiker in the hammer warrior, we found that there simply wasn't enough pressure put on all at once for it to be effective. This, in combination with the lack of effectiveness of the domination mesmer, heightened the need for a revision.
Moving forward in time:
Necromancer/Mesmer
11+4 Death, 11+1 Curses, 3+1 Soul Reaping, 8 Inspiration.
Tainted Flesh, Rotting Flesh, Faintheartedness, Malaise, Parasitic Bond, Signet of Humility, Inspired Hex, Drain Enchant
(Signet Of Humility in this build vs Suffering in the last version of this build)
Mesmer/Monk
6+1 Fast Casting, 12+4 Illusion, 11+1 Inspiration
Migraine*, Arcane Conundrum, Conjure, Phantom Pain, Mantra of Persistence, Inspire Hex, Drain Enchant, Restore
(Inspire Hex, Drain Enchant vs Energy tap, Power drain)
Ranger/Monk
11+1 Expertise, 11+4 Wilderness, 8+1 Marksmanship
Apply Poison, Debilitating shot, Distracting Shot, Pin Down, Flame Trap,
Barb Trap, Punishing Shot*, Restore.
(Punishing vs Marksman's)
Warrior/Elementalist
12+4 Axe, 10+1 Strength, 8 Earth Magic
Eviscerate, Frenzy, Disrupting Chop, Penetrating Blow, Executioners Strike, Sprint, Grasping Earth, Resurrection Signet
Warrrior/Elementalist
12+4 Axe, 10+1 Strength, 8 Earth
Executioners Strike, Cleave, Ward Foes, Penetrating Blow, Disrupting Chop, Dismember, Resurrection Signet, Sprint
Mesmer/Monk
11+4 Inspiration, 9+1 Domination, 10 Protections, 4+1 Fast Cast
Energy Drain, Energy Tap, Shatter Hex, Drain Enchantment, Signet of Humility, Mend Condition, Reversal of Fortune, Protective Spirit
(Signet of Humility vs Inspire Hex)
Monk/Mesmer
12+4 Healing Prayers, 11+1 Divine Favor, 6+1 Protections
Word of Healing, Orison of Healing, Healing Touch, Signet of Devotion, Heal Other, Hex Breaker, Mend Condition, Heal Party
Monk/Mesmer
Reversal of Fortune, Protective Spirit, Guardian, Signet of Devotion, Spell Breaker, Orison, Healing Touch, Hex Breaker
We ran this build a few weeks after release. By looking at the monk triad setup, you should be able to figure out that this build was used when many teams were running air spikes. The double protective spirit, double reversal of fortune, and spell breaker made mince meat out of spike teams. The illusion mesmer at this time carried migraine and arcane conundrum as well as for caster harassment -- specifically non-monk in general.
I took a cue from peanut's tombs build and added tainted flesh and rotting flesh. As time progressed and tainted became a very popular spell, we included 2 signet of humility’s. The main priorities of humility were to shutdown martyr and tainted flesh. I really liked Parasitic Bond at this time as a cover hex, and it presented a good way to 'scare' monks; having five to eight players on your team with their health bars in the purple degen state is not a friendly situation to encounter. Although parasitic provides only -1 degen, if there is poor communication on the enemy team, the monks’ decisions start becoming that much more difficult, and removals of an innocuous hex becomes more detrimental to the monks efficiency. Suffering was originally in the build but the AoE was generally too small and the energy cost too intensive for it to be effective. Consequentlyl, shutting down elites such as tainted and martyr seemed to be a better option.
The illusion mesmer originally had energy tap and power drain for energy management. However, having the extra hex removal, and the ability to take out an elementalist’s energy battery (any attunement and/or ether renewal) was more valuable. In addition, trying to spread the hexes around as evenly as possible reduced the need to spam the hexes everywhere. Inspire hex and drain enchant acted as energy management as well as helping out on removals and enemy enchantments.. People at this time were also already moving away from air spike, so the interrupts didn't seem to provide as much damage mitigation.
The ranger generally was never running out of energy. We switched in Punishing Shot as an added interrupt to make up for the loss on the mesmer. During this time we had tried numerous combinations. Poison arrow, choking gas, punishing shot, marksmans, incendiary, etc. The decision mainly came down to: what were the priorities of this ranger? While the life degen was nice, the necro and mesmer were generating 4-8+ degen by themselves. The traps were nice, provided some defense for our monks, or added offense placed in the enemies backline. However, teams were still fairly caster heavy at this time. It seemed best to have punishing, distracting, and debilitating shot for the enemy offensive casters.
The half and half me/mo protections monk swapped in signet of humility for inspire hex. At this time there were very few hex builds, and while we worried about encountering such builds, they happened so far and few in between that shutting down an additional elite was preferred.
Iteration 3 of this build included Trexton's earth elementalist. While nature renewal spam hadn't become rampant yet with spirit spam builds, it was still a major concern. In addition, it relied on the enemy making mistakes and bunching up. Although this carelessness would happen frequently, it didn't happen often enough to make it feel worthwhile against better teams.
1) Necromancer/xxx (I generally pick monk)
12+4 Blood, 12 +1 Curses, 2?+1 in reaping (I think)
Faint Heartedness, Life Siphon , Enfeeble, Blood Ritual, Malaise, Vampiric Gaze, Awaken the Blood, Offering of Blood
(Malaise vs Rend Enchantments, Vampiric Gaze vs Shawdow Strike)
2) Mesmer/Monk
6+1 fast, 12+4 illusion, 11+1 inspiration
Crippling Anguish*, Arcane Conundrum, Conjure, Phantom Pain, Mantra of Persistence, Inspire Hex, Drain Enchant, Restore
The combinations here go: Crippling anguish + Imagined burden, Crippling anguish + conundrum, Migraine + imagined, Migraine + conundrum.
3) Ranger/Monk
11+1 Expertise, 11+4 Wilderness, 8+1 Marksmanship
Apply Poison, Debilitating shot, Distracting Shot, Storm Chaser, Flame Trap,
Barb Trap, Crippling shot*, Troll unguent.
(Punishing vs Marksman's vs Crippling)
4) Warrior/Elementalist
12+4 Axe, 10+1 Strength, 8 Earth
Eviscerate*, Frenzy, Disrupting Chop, Penetrating Blow, Executioners Strike, Sprint, Grasping Earth, Res sig
5) Warrior/Elementalist
12+4 Axe, 10+1 Strength, 8 Earth
Eviscerate*, Frenzy, Disrupting Chop, Penetrating Blow, Executioners Strike, Sprint, Ward Against Foes, Resurrection Signet
(Eviscerate vs Cleave)
6) Mesmer/Monk
11+4 Inspiration, 9+1 Domination, 10 Protections, 4+1 Fast Casting
Energy Drain*, Remove Hex, Shatter Hex, Drain Enchant, Aegis, Shielding Hands, Reversal of Fortune, Protective Spirit
(Shatter Hex vs Convert Hexes, Drain Enchantment vs Inspired Hex)
7) Monk/Mesmer
12+4 Healing Prayers, 11+1 Divine, 6+1 Protections
Word of Healing*, Orison of Healing, Healing Touch, Signet of Devotion, Heal Other, Hex Breaker, Mend Ailment, Heal Party
8) Monk/Mesmer
12 Healing Prayers, 8 Protections, 10 Divine Favor
Shielding Hands, Heal Other, Guardian, Signet of Devotion, Restore condition*, Orison, Healing Touch, Hex Breaker
Not precisely sure what we run in this slot, it generally changes every time we play.
The necro returns back to its roots. The tainted flesh + rotting flesh combination, while very powerful, can either be extremely efficient, or entirely inefficient. When the disease is able to spread and degen the other team, it cannot be beat. However, I have found the more consistent degen of the blood necro to be more reliable in addition to the warrior/ranger damage mitigation. The two drain enchants in the build were not enough, and so we started to include rend into the mix by taking out malaise. However, I still really like malaise as a counter for hex breaker: anytime I can do a 5 for 5 energy exchange on a monk with a low recharge, I am happy. Vamp gaze and shadow strike is a toss up. The recharge is irrelevant due to the nature of the build. It is an extremely spammy build, and unless you are under heavy energy denial, you are constantly casting one skill or another, and swapping focus wand setups. Shadow strike is nice when you find a target with nearly full health. It does a substantial amount of damage, and will hopefully make a prot monk waste a prot spirit, or use up a big heal from a healing monk. Vamp gaze is more useful for picking off those targets that are low on life, and when the monks are just waiting to hit that big heal (word of healing, heal other, infuse). Generally, though, with half the enemy team at half health, the enemy monks will only be focusing on healing the members of their party that are getting hit by our warriors.
The mesmer however has no such luck in this build with a 5 for 5 exchange against hex breaker. With the prevalent use of hex breaker, it would be nice to work in wastrels worry for the sole purpose of spamming at hex breakers. The change from Migraine to Crippling Anguish was a great suggestion from a member in Wa (Grackis maybe?). I will get into the actual tactics of this build later, but essentially this build never targets monks, and solely goes for damagers. While Migraine and conundrum become annoyances to non-monk casters, crippling anguish is devastating to warriors. With all the smite going around and having E/mo's draw condition continually, barb trap/pin down/crippling shot were not adequate. While the ward foes and grasping earth are also great snares, the burden increases greatly on the warriors for proper positioning and tactical awareness to use foes and grasping earth both offensively and defensively.
The ranger becomes a dedicated flag runner, only pausing to set traps and use a few crippling shots on the enemy warriors if they are not running draw condition spam. This addition occurred after crippling shot got a buff.
Both warriors now use Eviscerate. While the dps style cleave warrior was nice, spiking two targets at once and inflicting two deep wounds simultaneously was preferred over the very slight improvement of dps from cleave.
The general strategy of this build is to target all of the enemy damagers and ignore monks. Try to degen all their damagers equally and mitigate as much damage as possible. Warriors pick separate soft targets on their own. If the general degen + random spike damage from the warriors do not take down the enemy, coordination between the warriors is necessary.
Examples: Get full adrenaline, spike one target. Get full adrenaline, spike 2 separate targets simultaneously. Fake spike a target and then spike your 'real target'. Etc.
The necromancer focuses on debuffing wariors in general. Once the warriors are debuffed, move on to hexing rangers and then casters. Use life siphon as a cover hex on top of faintheartedness. If warriors are not crippled, make sure they are enfeebled. Look for any targets above half health to shadow strike. The illusion mesmer and monks should call for blood ritual whenever they are beginning to get low on mana. If using rend, coordinate with your warriors when they spike. If the hexes from the mesmer are continually 'sticking' to their target, you can focus less on life siphoning the warriors and move on to spread the degen elsewhere.
The mesmer's focus is to snare warriors and flag carriers. Secondary to that is spreading degen to the other non-monk characters. Always try and drain an elementalist's attunements or ether renewal. Save your inspire hexes more for mana management than actual hex removal. Try and cast phantom pain on the targets that your warriors are not targeting so as to not conflict with their eviscerate.
The ranger's focus is to run the flag. If you start getting ahead in the flag race, you can spend some additional time placing traps. Place them offensively or defensively depending on the current situation. If your monks need the additional defense, give it to opposing team. Cripple any warriors and spread poison as much as possible.
Warriors are fairly straightforward. As already mentioned, their snares can be used both offensively and defensively. Use your best discretion as to which is needed most at the time. Again, sometimes the team has extremely good removal, and you will need to coordinate your damage spikes.
The monks primary focus is well, to heal ;) Other than that, just be aware of the metagame and what you will probably most likely will encounter. Then you need to find your best options to counter those builds.
Did you like the article? Want to add your own thoughts, and share your opinions? Then head over here to the "I Hate Izzy" Build Discussion Thread!
Note: The final build of this article has not been adjusted for the tournament patch.
This article is going to try and give you an idea of how we make team builds. It shows the start of the build idea, and then the refinement process. While the last build was run on live for a very long time before the tournament patch, this build has always been and always will be under constant development. Changes to the metagame will always necessitate adjustments in your builds. I try to give as many specific examples as to why we changed out skills in builds, and even overhauled entire characters.
We ran this particular build right after the March (?) BWE in the alpha test. After we had played IVEX's degen build, remove hex was still bumped up from a 5 second recast to a 7 second recast. I thought that was a horrible debuff, and hence the name, I Hate Izzy (referring to the developer at ArenaNet that played with us against that build).
I Hate Izzy Iteration 2
Necromancer/Mesmer
10 +2 Blood Magic, 9 Inspiration, 4+1 Soul Reaping, 11+1 Curses
Faintheartedness, Enfeeble, Parasitic, Rigor, Life Siphon, Strip Enchantment,
Power Drain, Drain Enchantment, Offering of Blood*
Mesmer/Monk
6+1 Fast Casting, 12+2 Illusion, 11+1 Inspiration
Migraine*, Arcane Conundrum, Conjure, Phantom Pain, Mantra of Persistence,
Energy Tap, Power Drain, Restore
Mesmer/Monk
6+1 Fast Casting, 12 +2 Domination, 11+1 Inspiration
Energy Surge*, Energy Burn, Mind Wrack, Etap, Shatter Enchant, Power Spike,
BackFire, Power drain
Ranger/Monk
11+1 Expertise, 11+4 Wilderness, 8+1 Marksmanship
Apply Poison, Debilitating shot, Distracting Shot, Pin Down, Flame Trap,
Barb Trap, Markman's Wager*, Restore Life.
Warrior/Elementalist
12+2 Hammer, 10 Earth, 8+1 Strength
Berserker Stance, Backbreaker*, Crushing Blow, Aftershock, Mighty Blow,
Hammer Bash, Irresistible Blow, Sprint
Monk/XXX
12 + Divine Favor, 12 + Healing
Word Of Healing, Orison, Healing Touch, Dwaynas, Signet of Devotion, Heal
Other, Healing Breeze, Remove Hex
Monk/XXX
12 + Divine Favor, 10 + Healing Prayers, 8 + Protections
Word of Healing, Orison, Healing Touch, Reversal of Fortune, Mend Ailment,
Remove Hex, Healing Seed, Aegis
Monk/XXX
12 + Divine Favor, 12 + Protections
Guardian, Reversal of Fortune, Protective Spirit, Mend Ailment, Remove Hex,
Convert Hexes, Shielding Hands, Martyr
This build had already gone through one major change, but I don't have the original version on hand. I had taken what it felt like to play against the build, and recreated it myself. However I pulled many builds from other people because I lacked experience in other classes. This created a bit of a mish-mash of other people's ideas.
There were many shortcomings to this build because it was a conglomeration of random characters from other team builds. Eventually the build would find focus through the refinement process. The original intent of the domination mesmer was a 1 1/2 monk shutdown: throw up backfire then mind wrack on one monk, then use energy denial on a second. The damage was decent but sporadic, and the energy denial was annoying but by no means very effective. Overall, the build did not really accomplish what was needed. Also, having three power drains throughout the build was a bit much. The objective of having three interrupts was damage mitigation, but was neither efficient or effective.
The durability of the build was lacking as having only 2 hard targets created too much stress on the monks and far too often. This build was also played very early on, so damage mitigation really wasn't done well with player skill and this contributed to later build changes.
In addition, as we had one true spiker in the hammer warrior, we found that there simply wasn't enough pressure put on all at once for it to be effective. This, in combination with the lack of effectiveness of the domination mesmer, heightened the need for a revision.
Moving forward in time:
I Hate Izzy Iteration 4
Necromancer/Mesmer
11+4 Death, 11+1 Curses, 3+1 Soul Reaping, 8 Inspiration.
Tainted Flesh, Rotting Flesh, Faintheartedness, Malaise, Parasitic Bond, Signet of Humility, Inspired Hex, Drain Enchant
(Signet Of Humility in this build vs Suffering in the last version of this build)
Mesmer/Monk
6+1 Fast Casting, 12+4 Illusion, 11+1 Inspiration
Migraine*, Arcane Conundrum, Conjure, Phantom Pain, Mantra of Persistence, Inspire Hex, Drain Enchant, Restore
(Inspire Hex, Drain Enchant vs Energy tap, Power drain)
Ranger/Monk
11+1 Expertise, 11+4 Wilderness, 8+1 Marksmanship
Apply Poison, Debilitating shot, Distracting Shot, Pin Down, Flame Trap,
Barb Trap, Punishing Shot*, Restore.
(Punishing vs Marksman's)
Warrior/Elementalist
12+4 Axe, 10+1 Strength, 8 Earth Magic
Eviscerate, Frenzy, Disrupting Chop, Penetrating Blow, Executioners Strike, Sprint, Grasping Earth, Resurrection Signet
Warrrior/Elementalist
12+4 Axe, 10+1 Strength, 8 Earth
Executioners Strike, Cleave, Ward Foes, Penetrating Blow, Disrupting Chop, Dismember, Resurrection Signet, Sprint
Mesmer/Monk
11+4 Inspiration, 9+1 Domination, 10 Protections, 4+1 Fast Cast
Energy Drain, Energy Tap, Shatter Hex, Drain Enchantment, Signet of Humility, Mend Condition, Reversal of Fortune, Protective Spirit
(Signet of Humility vs Inspire Hex)
Monk/Mesmer
12+4 Healing Prayers, 11+1 Divine Favor, 6+1 Protections
Word of Healing, Orison of Healing, Healing Touch, Signet of Devotion, Heal Other, Hex Breaker, Mend Condition, Heal Party
Monk/Mesmer
Reversal of Fortune, Protective Spirit, Guardian, Signet of Devotion, Spell Breaker, Orison, Healing Touch, Hex Breaker
We ran this build a few weeks after release. By looking at the monk triad setup, you should be able to figure out that this build was used when many teams were running air spikes. The double protective spirit, double reversal of fortune, and spell breaker made mince meat out of spike teams. The illusion mesmer at this time carried migraine and arcane conundrum as well as for caster harassment -- specifically non-monk in general.
I took a cue from peanut's tombs build and added tainted flesh and rotting flesh. As time progressed and tainted became a very popular spell, we included 2 signet of humility’s. The main priorities of humility were to shutdown martyr and tainted flesh. I really liked Parasitic Bond at this time as a cover hex, and it presented a good way to 'scare' monks; having five to eight players on your team with their health bars in the purple degen state is not a friendly situation to encounter. Although parasitic provides only -1 degen, if there is poor communication on the enemy team, the monks’ decisions start becoming that much more difficult, and removals of an innocuous hex becomes more detrimental to the monks efficiency. Suffering was originally in the build but the AoE was generally too small and the energy cost too intensive for it to be effective. Consequentlyl, shutting down elites such as tainted and martyr seemed to be a better option.
The illusion mesmer originally had energy tap and power drain for energy management. However, having the extra hex removal, and the ability to take out an elementalist’s energy battery (any attunement and/or ether renewal) was more valuable. In addition, trying to spread the hexes around as evenly as possible reduced the need to spam the hexes everywhere. Inspire hex and drain enchant acted as energy management as well as helping out on removals and enemy enchantments.. People at this time were also already moving away from air spike, so the interrupts didn't seem to provide as much damage mitigation.
The ranger generally was never running out of energy. We switched in Punishing Shot as an added interrupt to make up for the loss on the mesmer. During this time we had tried numerous combinations. Poison arrow, choking gas, punishing shot, marksmans, incendiary, etc. The decision mainly came down to: what were the priorities of this ranger? While the life degen was nice, the necro and mesmer were generating 4-8+ degen by themselves. The traps were nice, provided some defense for our monks, or added offense placed in the enemies backline. However, teams were still fairly caster heavy at this time. It seemed best to have punishing, distracting, and debilitating shot for the enemy offensive casters.
The half and half me/mo protections monk swapped in signet of humility for inspire hex. At this time there were very few hex builds, and while we worried about encountering such builds, they happened so far and few in between that shutting down an additional elite was preferred.
Iteration 3 of this build included Trexton's earth elementalist. While nature renewal spam hadn't become rampant yet with spirit spam builds, it was still a major concern. In addition, it relied on the enemy making mistakes and bunching up. Although this carelessness would happen frequently, it didn't happen often enough to make it feel worthwhile against better teams.
I Hate Izzy Iteration I don't even know anymore
1) Necromancer/xxx (I generally pick monk)
12+4 Blood, 12 +1 Curses, 2?+1 in reaping (I think)
Faint Heartedness, Life Siphon , Enfeeble, Blood Ritual, Malaise, Vampiric Gaze, Awaken the Blood, Offering of Blood
(Malaise vs Rend Enchantments, Vampiric Gaze vs Shawdow Strike)
2) Mesmer/Monk
6+1 fast, 12+4 illusion, 11+1 inspiration
Crippling Anguish*, Arcane Conundrum, Conjure, Phantom Pain, Mantra of Persistence, Inspire Hex, Drain Enchant, Restore
The combinations here go: Crippling anguish + Imagined burden, Crippling anguish + conundrum, Migraine + imagined, Migraine + conundrum.
3) Ranger/Monk
11+1 Expertise, 11+4 Wilderness, 8+1 Marksmanship
Apply Poison, Debilitating shot, Distracting Shot, Storm Chaser, Flame Trap,
Barb Trap, Crippling shot*, Troll unguent.
(Punishing vs Marksman's vs Crippling)
4) Warrior/Elementalist
12+4 Axe, 10+1 Strength, 8 Earth
Eviscerate*, Frenzy, Disrupting Chop, Penetrating Blow, Executioners Strike, Sprint, Grasping Earth, Res sig
5) Warrior/Elementalist
12+4 Axe, 10+1 Strength, 8 Earth
Eviscerate*, Frenzy, Disrupting Chop, Penetrating Blow, Executioners Strike, Sprint, Ward Against Foes, Resurrection Signet
(Eviscerate vs Cleave)
6) Mesmer/Monk
11+4 Inspiration, 9+1 Domination, 10 Protections, 4+1 Fast Casting
Energy Drain*, Remove Hex, Shatter Hex, Drain Enchant, Aegis, Shielding Hands, Reversal of Fortune, Protective Spirit
(Shatter Hex vs Convert Hexes, Drain Enchantment vs Inspired Hex)
7) Monk/Mesmer
12+4 Healing Prayers, 11+1 Divine, 6+1 Protections
Word of Healing*, Orison of Healing, Healing Touch, Signet of Devotion, Heal Other, Hex Breaker, Mend Ailment, Heal Party
8) Monk/Mesmer
12 Healing Prayers, 8 Protections, 10 Divine Favor
Shielding Hands, Heal Other, Guardian, Signet of Devotion, Restore condition*, Orison, Healing Touch, Hex Breaker
Not precisely sure what we run in this slot, it generally changes every time we play.
The necro returns back to its roots. The tainted flesh + rotting flesh combination, while very powerful, can either be extremely efficient, or entirely inefficient. When the disease is able to spread and degen the other team, it cannot be beat. However, I have found the more consistent degen of the blood necro to be more reliable in addition to the warrior/ranger damage mitigation. The two drain enchants in the build were not enough, and so we started to include rend into the mix by taking out malaise. However, I still really like malaise as a counter for hex breaker: anytime I can do a 5 for 5 energy exchange on a monk with a low recharge, I am happy. Vamp gaze and shadow strike is a toss up. The recharge is irrelevant due to the nature of the build. It is an extremely spammy build, and unless you are under heavy energy denial, you are constantly casting one skill or another, and swapping focus wand setups. Shadow strike is nice when you find a target with nearly full health. It does a substantial amount of damage, and will hopefully make a prot monk waste a prot spirit, or use up a big heal from a healing monk. Vamp gaze is more useful for picking off those targets that are low on life, and when the monks are just waiting to hit that big heal (word of healing, heal other, infuse). Generally, though, with half the enemy team at half health, the enemy monks will only be focusing on healing the members of their party that are getting hit by our warriors.
The mesmer however has no such luck in this build with a 5 for 5 exchange against hex breaker. With the prevalent use of hex breaker, it would be nice to work in wastrels worry for the sole purpose of spamming at hex breakers. The change from Migraine to Crippling Anguish was a great suggestion from a member in Wa (Grackis maybe?). I will get into the actual tactics of this build later, but essentially this build never targets monks, and solely goes for damagers. While Migraine and conundrum become annoyances to non-monk casters, crippling anguish is devastating to warriors. With all the smite going around and having E/mo's draw condition continually, barb trap/pin down/crippling shot were not adequate. While the ward foes and grasping earth are also great snares, the burden increases greatly on the warriors for proper positioning and tactical awareness to use foes and grasping earth both offensively and defensively.
The ranger becomes a dedicated flag runner, only pausing to set traps and use a few crippling shots on the enemy warriors if they are not running draw condition spam. This addition occurred after crippling shot got a buff.
Both warriors now use Eviscerate. While the dps style cleave warrior was nice, spiking two targets at once and inflicting two deep wounds simultaneously was preferred over the very slight improvement of dps from cleave.
Running the Build
The general strategy of this build is to target all of the enemy damagers and ignore monks. Try to degen all their damagers equally and mitigate as much damage as possible. Warriors pick separate soft targets on their own. If the general degen + random spike damage from the warriors do not take down the enemy, coordination between the warriors is necessary.
Examples: Get full adrenaline, spike one target. Get full adrenaline, spike 2 separate targets simultaneously. Fake spike a target and then spike your 'real target'. Etc.
The necromancer focuses on debuffing wariors in general. Once the warriors are debuffed, move on to hexing rangers and then casters. Use life siphon as a cover hex on top of faintheartedness. If warriors are not crippled, make sure they are enfeebled. Look for any targets above half health to shadow strike. The illusion mesmer and monks should call for blood ritual whenever they are beginning to get low on mana. If using rend, coordinate with your warriors when they spike. If the hexes from the mesmer are continually 'sticking' to their target, you can focus less on life siphoning the warriors and move on to spread the degen elsewhere.
The mesmer's focus is to snare warriors and flag carriers. Secondary to that is spreading degen to the other non-monk characters. Always try and drain an elementalist's attunements or ether renewal. Save your inspire hexes more for mana management than actual hex removal. Try and cast phantom pain on the targets that your warriors are not targeting so as to not conflict with their eviscerate.
The ranger's focus is to run the flag. If you start getting ahead in the flag race, you can spend some additional time placing traps. Place them offensively or defensively depending on the current situation. If your monks need the additional defense, give it to opposing team. Cripple any warriors and spread poison as much as possible.
Warriors are fairly straightforward. As already mentioned, their snares can be used both offensively and defensively. Use your best discretion as to which is needed most at the time. Again, sometimes the team has extremely good removal, and you will need to coordinate your damage spikes.
The monks primary focus is well, to heal ;) Other than that, just be aware of the metagame and what you will probably most likely will encounter. Then you need to find your best options to counter those builds.
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