Playing High-end PvE effectively with just heroes & henchmen [Elementalist version] - Guild Wars Forums

Jeydra · Aug 05, 2010, 10:39 AM // 10:39

Note: Guide outdated by game update 6 January 2012. I'll update it eventually, though.

Title shamelessly stolen from EFGJack's thread.

Playing High-end PvE effectively with just heroes, without the use of drugs, as Elementalist primary

Guild Wars is a dying game. Well over five years old and with a sequel due in the near future, it is no wonder the player base is dwindling. As it gets harder and harder to put together a team of humans, players will likely be forced to adventure with heroes more often. In addition to convenience, there are actually many distinct advantages to using these AI-controlled bots. Heroes never get tired, nor do they ever ragequit. They follow orders, and they bring the skills you want them to. Counterbalancing this are two major disadvantages: heroes don’t talk, negating the social aspect of the game, and they are less effective than humans.

There’s nothing you can do about the first disadvantage, but you can definitely mitigate the second. Because it takes so long to find (good) human players these days, as long as you succeed, it is usually faster to do a quest with seven heroes (7H). As long as you succeed. This guide aims to help you succeed.

This is a guide to Elementalists using 7H. If applied, the techniques in this guide will allow an Elementalist to clear any area of the game in HM, without mercenaries and without consumables. I have done it. For any other profession, I can unfortunately offer no guarantees; however the techniques mentioned here should still be very useful to every caster class and possibly to Paragons.

The techniques described in this guide will allow you to clear any area of the game that can be 7H’ed in HM, but it still falls to you to decide which technique to use at which time – or if the area involves splitting, when to split and when to gather. All this comes with experience. Remember, practice makes perfect.

This guide assumes you have access to every skill in the game. If that is not the case for you ... I’m afraid I cannot help. For certain, the game gets harder the less skills you have available; some areas may even be impossible. However, I do not assume you have access to mercenaries. There’s no doubt that having mercenaries gives you an advantage, but that advantage is (usually – there are exceptions) not very big. Everything in the game is doable without mercenaries, so don’t feel like you have to buy them.

Changelog

5 August 2010: guide posted
9 September 2010: changes to SoS Rit and Necro bars, extra note to the Mesmer bar.
20 September 2010: rewrote conclusion, added Sacractus Ignis to credits (how could I forget you?).
14 October 2010: changed spec in SoS Rit bar.
23 November 2010: BLA was nerfed; rewrote relevant sections.
11 March 2011: quick note post 7-hero update. Lots to discover!
3 June 2011: full update. Still a few more things here and there to test, especially ST Rits with Restoration heals, SF Eles, Blood Necros, other semi-healers over the UA Monk. What a workload ...
6 December 2011: updating hero builds.

Your build

In a 7H team the player should always build for damage. He has access to PvE skills after all, and PvE skills are extremely powerful damage-wise. Warriors for example would be a lot weaker without Whirlwind Attack or Asuran Scan, and Elementalists would be quite useless if they didn’t have PvE skills + Assassin’s Promise (AP). To be sure, compared to other players (especially buffed physicals) AP callers are still weak as damage dealers, but compared to 7H they’re awesome. Against the hardest areas you might still want to run defensive builds (ER Infuse, or SF with “They’re On Fire!” Paragons), but AP is always a strong choice.

Therefore I recommend you use this build:

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You may recognize this build from my guide to Elementalists. I’ve not found any build nearly as effective as this one, and so I continue to recommend it. Unless you can regularly hit more than about 4 foes at once, it has no equals. The only times you shouldn’t use this are when you are facing foes weak to Fire (snowmen, plants), when you are against single targets that don’t die quickly (Imperial Sanctum, Rotscale) and / or you can hit many foes at once (16-man zones, areas with very large mobs). In these cases you might want to consider using Fire or Earth. However, such situations are very rare, and even when it is the case AP Air is still often the best option. I can safely say that I run this build unaltered almost all the time. For more details on how to play this build, look at my Elementalist guide.

If you absolutely need to drop a skill for another (e.g. Celestial Storm, Vial of Holy Water), drop Air Attunement.

What you are looking for in a teambuild

There’s a lot to look for in a teambuild. Here’s a list:
1. Enough defense to stay alive
2. At least two hard resses (three preferable)
3. Some hex, condition and enchantment removal
4. AoE and single-target damage both
5. Micro’able Prot Spirit (or Shelter) on a hero with the energy to use it. Important – there are some areas which are difficult to impossible to do without this
6. Double “Fall Back!”. A luxury, but nice to have regardless
7. Interrupts and shutdown (caster shutdown > physical shutdown here)
8. If using physical damage, physical support is good (Mark of Pain, Barbs, Orders, etc)
9. Strong spike damage to kill AP’ed targets
10. Other niceties (Blood Ritual / BiP, more hexes to draw hex removal and cover AP, Cracked Armour support, “Stand Your Ground!”, etc).
You want to include as many of these as possible when picking your heroes. With seven heroes, most of the game is now easily doable, but there remain difficult areas which will tax any teambuild. Against these areas you will have to be more selective, giving up on luxuries and concentrating on staying alive. Still, with most areas you can happily deck your team out with mass offense and not worry about staying alive.
With these criteria in mind, it’s possible to make your own hero builds. There are certainly more options around than what I suggest below, and if you find something that works better for you, by all means go ahead and use it (let me know, too).

Your heroes and their builds

The AI is best at ranged professions and worst at melee. This is why so many teams are mass casters. This tendency is reflected in the builds given below – I don’t have any Warrior or Sin or (melee) Dervish build to recommend. This does not mean they’re bad professions. It just means the AI cannot play them well. If the AI knew how to play Warrior, the teambuild would change massively to accomodate them.

The builds below are not set in stone and it is certainly possible they might be improved somewhere, although probably not by a lot. If you have any ideas, do post them and I’ll give them a try. Pick your heroes to satisfy the 10 criteria listed above.

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This hero deals big damage, absorbs big damage, provides party healing and carries auxiliary skills. As an option he is unmatched; for Elementalists this is the single best hero in the game. You will want this hero in your party literally all the time.

Variants – Ancestor’s Rage, Painful Bond and to a lesser extent Mend Body And Soul are all droppable. In areas with heavy ressing, you can slot Frozen Soil on this hero, and invest in Wilderness Survival accordingly. Other options in Channeling include Splinter Weapon (especially if you have Paragons / Rangers in the team) and Gaze of Fury. A surprisingly large number of mobs have spirits, against which Gaze of Fury can not only disable a spirit, it can make a monster spend another 3+ seconds recasting that spirit. However, it is not always useful. Final call is up to you.

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This hero also deals big damage, absorbs big damage, provides one copy of "Fall Back!" and carries the second best hard res in the game (the best is Unyielding Aura). He is slightly weaker than the SoS Rit above, but still light years ahead of every other option except the Necro below. You will want this hero in your party almost, but not all, the time – the exception is when you need to use a Soul Twisting Ritualist, and don’t have enough Ritualist heroes to use. Of course if you have access to mercenaries then this point is irrelevant.

Variants – Armour of Unfeeling for Death Pact Signet if the hard res is not needed. It is also possible to use 13 Spawning Power instead of Channeling Magic, and replace Spirit Siphon with Boon of Creation. This makes the hero more vulnerable to enchantment removal, but provides more reliable energy management. If going this path, you can't run "Fall Back!", so you can replace it with Dissonance. If you don't need "Fall Back!" on this hero, you can also replace "Fall Back!" with Gaze of Fury, or use Frozen Soil here instead of on the SoS Rit, or a Channeling skill like Ancestor’s Rage. Mix and manage to plug in any holes in your team.

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This hero is indispensable in any area where there are bodies. As long as minions are up you will notice enemies die a lot faster while your own red bars barely drop. He carries vital prots in Prot Spirit and Aegis as well. Truly a vital hero. Chances are you will want him as long as there are bodies.

Variants – the most disposable skill is Putrid Bile. Possible substitutes include Dwayna’s Sorrow (spec 7 into Healing Prayers, dropping a point each from Soul Reaping and Protection Prayers), Rend Enchantments and Dark Bond. Rend Enchantments is very useful against strong prots like Spirit Bond and Shield of Absorption, but those aren't very common, can be muscled past with brute damage and may be removed by other anti-enchants on your heroes. Still missing an AP because you don't have Rend Enchantments is rather frustrating ... if you use Rend Enchantments, be sure to disable and micro it. Any further changes depend on how naked you feel without Protective Spirit and Aegis. It is my opinion that you can go without Aegis, but not having Prot Spirit is suicidal against the harder areas. Going the other way, if you want more prots, Shield of Absorption can also replace Putrid Bile.

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This is one of the heroes you may use if the MM is not viable. The hero does not deal much damage, but he provides fairly solid bar push as well as some removal + "Fall Back!". Also, as long as he’s alive you won’t stay dead for long – Unyielding Aura is that powerful a hard res. Use this hero if you are expecting to face lots of undead (undead leave no bodies and take extra damage from Holy), or if you need more healing in the party.

Variants: if the extra ressing isn’t needed, swap out Unyielding Aura for Ray of Judgment. If you don’t need the "Fall Back!", replace it with Divine Healing (raise Divine Favour to 13), Glyph of Lesser Energy (not that effective with all 5e spells, but usable), or Weaken Armour (which is usable even at 3 Curses). If not facing conditions or hexes, feel free to drop Smite Condition or Smite Hex for more damage (Spear of Light, Holy Wrath, etc). An alternative way to manage energy is to go /Me and use Waste Not Want Not, Power Drain and so on. You get better energy management in return for weaker heals from Smiter’s Boon. Choose whichever you prefer. This hero is an automatic user of Strength of Honour as well if you have a melee character in your team for some reason.

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Mesmer heroes are top tier and rightfully so. Damage, removal and most importantly caster shutdown all fit together to make both surviving and killing easier.

Variants: there’re lots of options. Panic can replace Energy Surge; you get less damage but more caster shutdown as well as more hexes (covering AP). There’re also lots of useable skills in Domination Magic, including Overload, Shatter Delusions (with Panic), and Spiritual Pain. You can also consider Wastrel’s Worry, which unfortunately drains the hero’s energy quickly, as well as Wastrel’s Demise, which can be used on a target KD’ed by YMLAD. Use whatever you need, and feel free to use different energy management skills as well, such as Drain Enchantment and Waste Not Want Not.

If you have no space on other characters, this hero can also hold a hard res (he gets Fast Casting on them). If you can't fit in a third copy of "Fall Back!" elsewhere, you can also do it here: drop one of the two Shatters (which to drop depends on what else you have in your party: if you have the UA Smiter, drop Shatter Hex, while if you have the N/Rt Ravenous Gaze healer, drop Shatter Enchantment), drop one point each from Fast Casting and Inspiration Magic, and up Command to 7. A 7-spec "Fall Back!" isn't as good as a 9-spec "Fall Back!" of course, but as the third copy you can use it to cover the downtime from the other two "Fall Back!".

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Paragons are a bit weak at the moment. The big problem is that they do not hit from the same caster range as the other caster professions, which can lead to some positioning problems, and that they require line of sight to deal damage. Still they are very usable. If you’re using Paragons, make sure to stack up on their most sellable assets: “Fall Back!”, “Stand Your Ground!” and the ranged Deep Wound source “Find Their Weaknesses!”.

Variants: “They’re on Fire!” can be used to provide party-wide damage reduction. If using this, make sure to have Searing Flames somewhere in the party. It’s actually possible for the Paragon himself to use Searing Flames, but that build is very niche so I’ve not included it. Feel free to use whichever spear attacks that catch your fancy; they’re all quite similar. If you need it, this hero can also bring Signet of Return for the hard res.

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This hero is perhaps the single most underrated hero in the game. It has so much: strong sustainable single target and AoE damage largely unaffected by line of sight, the ability to chain “Fall Back!” and spike damage to trigger AP with. Very powerful. I suggest at least one of these, in general.

Variants: this hero occasionally runs into energy problems, despite the four energy management skills. This is because of Lightning Orb – with the spiky playstyle that you use (thanks to AP), targets often die before Lightning Orb finishes casting, which leads to no energy return from Air Attunement / Aura of Restoration. Pity. If this is a concern, you can drop Lightning Orb and Shock Arrow for Shell Shock and Lightning Bolt, which also allows you to lose Aura of Restoration for another support skill (“Stand Your Ground!”, “Never Surrender!”, “Never Give up!”). You can also replace Shock Arrow (which does not trigger often) with Signet of Return if you need the hard res or even Res Sig. I’m just hoping for the day that ANet introduces a reasonable 10e Air Magic nuke …

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This hero is excellent against physical damage and mediocre against everything else. I don’t recommend him for general play, but there are specific areas where he more than earns a spot on the team. Use this hero where you expect to face large mobs with physical damage; a few monsters in a mob aren’t enough to warrant using him. Standalone, the only outstanding thing he has is the ranged Deep Wound spell, Accumulated Pain.

Variants: as always alternative energy management is possible – Leech Signet for Power Drain, for example. Beyond that, Illusion Magic is really barren, so there aren’t many options. You can try Fragility for a bit of damage as well as fuel Shatter Delusions on the Dom Mesmer, or Frustration for more caster shutdown, or perhaps you can slot a hard res here instead.

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This build is EFGJack’s creation and perhaps the most effective variant of the Soul Twisting Ritualist around. Keeping Shelter up constantly mitigates a ton of damage, and since the build only has two spirits the hero is unlikely to waste Soul Twisting charges. Dulled Weapon and Binding Chains adds more to defense and, since they come from Communing, don’t take up attribute points from the two main attribute lines. This leaves Shelter with maximum health. That said, because the offensive Ritualist spirits are so strong, you usually should not use this hero.

Variants: with Aegis in the party, Displacement is not always needed (and if it is, then perhaps you can consider using an Ineptitude Mesmer). Feel free to drop it for a hard res or similar. If you are happy without the Communing hexes, you can also drop a bit of Spawning Power for Restoration heals. Word of warning though; energy gets a little tight then, and if Shelter does go down the consequences can be disastrous.

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This is the king of single-target artillery damage. With Rangers around, killing an AP’ed target is generally easy.

Variants: You can consider Read The Wind over Expert Focus, but it causes energy problems. I haven’t found any solution to the energy problem; you might be forced to rely on Blood Is Power / Blood Ritual. Otherwise, the hero doesn’t need many attack skills to be effective, so you can slot in random-but-still-useful skills like “Go For The Eyes!”, Signet of Return and Comfort Animal. Another option is to use a Conjure (Lightning is the best option in general) for more attack damage; just note that with the Conjure you don’t trigger Barbs / Mark of Pain / Orders, and you can’t use Zealous mods.

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If the MM isn’t viable and you need Protective Spirit, this hero’s a reasonable choice. He has reasonable AoE, armour-ignoring damage and carries Suffering as well – a long lasting AoE hex that draws out hex removal, making your AP less likely to be removed. He does suffer from long cast times (all three of the nukes take 2s to cast) and long recharge however, which holds him back from being a firmer choice.

Variants: Blood is Power can replace Feast of Corruption – spec into Blood Magic accordingly. Remember that if using BiP, you will also need more healing in the team to compensate for the health loss. Shield of Absorption can also be replaced by Enfeebling Blood, Shadow of Fear or even a Res Sig / hard res. If you have physical damage in the team, this hero is an automatic user of Barbs / Mark of Pain. If you already have protection spells elsewhere, this hero can carry Command shouts too.

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This, compared to the UA Smiter, is a more offensive take on the second healer all parties need. You deal more damage and get an extra enchantment removal to go along with the Dom Mesmer's Shatter Enchantment. There's a definite sacrifice in defense though, especially with UA's instant res now gone, so you must play accordingly better to compensate. Use whichever hero you prefer.

Variants: This hero is rather a work in progress. I'm not sure what else to use. Blood Bond can replace Oppressive Gaze or Blood of the Aggressor to help keep minions alive, but it's usually not needed and if minions are already fighting, there's no harm dying and triggering Death Nova. Weaken Armour can also take a spot (spec 3 into Curses).

Putting together your team

I suggest the SoS Rit, SoGM Rit, AotL MM, Invoke Ele, 2x Dom Mes and UA Smiter or N/Rt Ravenous Gaze for general play. The build has everything you want except large amount of hexes. Still, there are a few hexes to go around and with the control you have on your bar (YMLAD can KD monsters with hex removal, big spike damage lets you kill them fast too) you can play around the hex removal. Hex Breaker is a problem, but fortunately it isn’t very common and you can play around even that. When putting together your team you have to consider which heroes you put as heroes #1, #2 and #3. This is important, because these are the heroes that you can flag individually. I suggest having both Ritualists here. The third hero is flexible. Personally, I run whichever hero has Prot Spirit here, just so I can micro the skill easier (I have F5 linked to Prot Spirit, F6 to Aegis).

Techniques

This is the meat of this guide. The technique is what separates the men from the boys. Most areas are doable with no special techniques, but when push comes to shove it is he who micros and aggros better that survives.

Technique 1
Bombs away!

Leeroy Jenkins!! Yarr!!

This technique is simple. Find your foe, run up to him, attack him and kill him. No micro at all involved, just the good old “charge in with all guns blazing” method.

When to use: when you do not anticipate problems from the mob. This holds true for most of HM; that’s just what the game is like now. The few cases when it doesn’t hold true I will cover below.

Technique 2
Why are there so many dead bodies around this corner?

The corner pull is something many players are familiar with. It requires a corner to be present. Flag your heroes far away, prot yourself if necessary and aggro the mob. Run back in the shadow of the corner afterwards. When the mob gets to the corner, stand and fight. Use Ebon Vanguard Assassin Support (EBVAS) to give them something to hit. The mob will ball nicely at the corner for you. Don’t ask me why, they just do. After they ball, AoE nukes are especially effective, as is Panic.

When to use: when there’s a corner to use. Do not try this method on mobs with dangerous AoE nukes; since you can’t flag your heroes apart without breaking aggro prematurely, you’d be asking to take massive damage from said AoE nukes.

Technique 3
Attack me then! Let’s decide this here!

When using this technique, flag all heroes behind you. Prot Spirit yourself if needed (that’s why you have the microable Prot Spirit), aggro the mob, let them hit you and then unflag heroes to kill them. You need to flag heroes close enough so that they will heal you, but not so close that the monsters attack them instead of you. The technique works because, by doing this, you’ll have (hopefully) put the most dangerous nukes like Sandstorm, Shatterstone and Savannah Heat on cooldown, leaving your heroes unscathed. For this method to succeed, you need to be able to kill the mob before the nukes cooldown too many times.

When to use: the classic time is against Ancient Vaettirs in the Eye of the North expansion – Elementalist bosses with extremely damaging Shatterstone nukes. If you go in unprotted one of your team will take over 400 damage. This may not be enough to kill if you’ve no DP, but if Deep Freeze (+Ice Spear) comes shortly after someone will probably die. On the other hand, if you’ve drawn Shatterstone on yourself, you can flood the Ancient Vaettir with targets (Vanguard Sin, minions) or KD him on his nukes’ recharge, or simply kill him before Shatterstone cools down. Another classic target is the Bladed Aatxes in the UW, who come in small groups but deal extreme damage a hit.

You can also use this technique on select monsters like the Stone Summit Warder, who have Churning Earth and Sandstorm – both deadly spells against clustered heroes, but have relatively long cooldowns. Small groups of Fire Eles like Flowstone Elementals make possible targets as well. Although 2 Flowstones are not going to wipe your party, they might be able to score kills, which can eventually snowball.

Do NOT attempt this technique on groups whose AoE damage recharge fast (e.g. Burning Spirits), or carry multiple dangerous AoE nukes (e.g. large groups of Flowstones). You can’t kill them fast enough, aggro will break and the AoE will slaughter the heroes.

If you want to completely ball enemies, this is a good way to begin. Simply wait until the monsters exhaust all their ranged skills and move forward to attack you. They will ball up nicely on you because they haven’t anyone else to attack. This works best with melee opponents, and is best done if you have Shield of Absorption on yourself. Warning: you may not live long enough for the monsters to fully ball. You may have to give the monsters reason to focus on you instead of heroes (e.g. with “Save Yourselves!”), or have self-heals on yourself (e.g. with Ether Renewal builds).

Technique 4
Hey guys I just did 300 damage to 8 players with Searing Flames xD xD xD – quote by Borguus Blisterbark

Every Elementalist is happy when he hits multiple targets with an AoE nuke, including the AI. Don’t make the AI happy. Before you aggro the mob, flag you’re your heroes apart. There are many possible formations, but the main idea is always the same: flag heroes #1, #2 and #3 in front and the rest at the back. That’s because you can’t flag the last four heroes apart, but you can the first three. After you do this, take out a Longbow and pull the mob. By flagging your heroes apart, you vastly reduce the damage taken from AoE nukes. This technique also makes it easy to see who the AI is homing in on. If you’re feeling up to it, by all means micro Prot Spirit / Shield of Absorption onto that target.

When to use: against the Burning Spirits and large groups of Flowstones that technique 2 cannot handle, as well as against constantly spawning high-DPS mobs (e.g. Titans in Foundry). You should also do this quickly if caught by surprise (e.g. a popup, or a mistakenly aggro’ed patrol). It can very well save you from wipes.

This technique helps as well against more balanced groups like the Stone Summit in Slaver’s HM; it makes it harder for melee monsters to change targets. There is a reason why it is good position to split up in PvP – it cuts the other team’s damage output. The same applies in PvE.

Technique 5
You expect me to heal you through that? – Stone Summit Defender to Stone Summit Pounder

This technique is the same as the above, but with one twist that truly showcases the strength of sprits in PvE. Before pulling, micro your spirits. Pain and Bloodsong last far longer than their cooldown; there’s no risk of laying them down too early. Signet of Spirits and Anguish are good choices as well, and against tough mobs there’s nothing stopping you from putting down Disenchantment and Shadowsong. Put them down, put them all down. This makes all your DPS available right from the start, and you can watch the resulting carnage.

When to use: it’s become second nature for me to lay down the spirits when pulling as in technique 4. You lose nothing by doing so, and you have the time, so why not? Otherwise it’s especially helpful to use this technique when you’re facing mobs with strong healers, and even more so if they have lots of resses. You will want to take out their healers quickly, especially if you have Frozen Soil down.

Technique 6
Come back and fight me you coward!

Also known as the long pull. All mobs (except the bugged ones ... but then the bugged ones tend to be easy to split up because they are, well, bugged) have a turnaround point. That’s the point where they stop chasing you and run back to wherever they were before. When executing a long pull, you pull the mob to this turnaround point and engage them there. They will oscillate between fighting and running, to the point that they can’t deal your team much damage. Since you have “You Move Like A Dwarf!”, you can even pick them off one by one.

To execute this technique you need to know where the turnaround points are. This is different for every mob, as well as constantly changing if a mob is patrolling – therefore you will have to find out just where it is. To do this, you Longbow pull as normal but instead of fighting you just keep running until they stop chasing you. KD persistent monsters / snares with YMLAD and micro Prot Spirit on yourself if necessary. The screenshot above is an example of me doing it (turns out that the heroes are flagged too far in front; the turnaround point of that mob is almost directly outside the entrance from Beetletun). Prot Spirit wasn't necessary here because of Longbow range - if the mob is uphill from me for example, I'd put Prot Spirit on myself.

When to use: this technique takes a long time to execute, and is generally not necessary. I mention it because it is a great fallback when you are suffering from heavy DP. If you cannot take on a mob because they kill you so fast you have no time to deal damage, use this technique. You will also want to apply technique 5 above after you find out where the turnaround point is – flag heroes apart and drop the spirits slightly beyond that point.

Technique 7
If good preparation is half the battle, what is excellent preparation?

If you REALLY cannot kill a mob (and let me know when you find such a mob), try this method. I’ve not seriously used it because I’ve never needed it, but I have practiced the technique.

First, flag all your heroes far away. Move the two Rits forward. Drop spirits. Move them a bit to the side (that’s so the spirits don’t all die to AoE). Drop more spirits. Repeat until you have all the spirits down. Then use technique 5, flagging heroes behind the spirit wall (distance depends on how safe you want to play). Finally, aggro the mob. If feeling really meticulous, by all means combine this method with technique 6 above.

This technique just goes to show how powerful spirits are in PvE at the moment. Often the two Rits can kill some of the mob by themselves, making a direct fight possible. What’s more, if they can’t kill some of the mob by themselves they will still deal enough damage that you can cancel the flags and dive in to mop up.

When to use: if you ever find a (standard) mob you can’t beat without relying on this method, let me know. I know of none.

Target calls

Heroes are very good at following target calls. Even spirits follow target calls, don’t ask me why. Heroes are so good at focusing that even if you don’t call a target, they will select one themselves. Of course that doesn’t mean they will select a good target! Against the harder mobs (as always, you can go AFK against easier mobs and don’t die), you should call a target and keep calling. Just in case you didn’t know, you call by pressing Ctrl + Spacebar, Ctrl + Shift + Spacebar, or Ctrl + a skill that targets that foe.

Being able to tell at once which targets need to die first takes some experience. I cannot tell you which monster to kill first in every mob, but I can give you several pointers:

1. DPS. High DPS foes are better targets than low DPS foes.
2. Heals. Healers can delay a kill by an inordinate amount of time. Therefore they are very high up the priority list. Focusing on them brings KDs, hero spells like Arcane Conundrum and Cry of Frustration, etc, onto the healers. Once the healers die mobs are generally much easier to kill.
3. Position. Some targets require you to push up heavily before you can hit them. You don’t want to target those, even if they heal.
4. Minion Masters. Good AI MMs are rare, but if they are present they are big targets – only slightly less important than healers. AI MMs will outcompete your MMs to bodies and raise enough of an army to slow you down seriously. If the mob also has lots of resses (EotN Summit, WiK Mantle), they can even raise enough of an army to wipe you out. What’s worse is that if you wipe, you’ll have to deal with the mob AND a whole array of minions, freshly replenished by your 8 bodies. Treat AI MMs with care; they may not kill your party outright but they might very well kill you eventually.
5. Hard res. Some monsters may carry hard resses. It pays to kill them before they can start a res chain. Nonetheless hard resses are less of a priority than the factors above.
6. Line of sight. Spirits can’t hit through walls, and neither can Lightning Orb, Rangers, etc. Especially without the spirits you’ll notice your team’s damage output drop precipitously. In this case, focus down nearby monsters within line of sight first.
7. Assassin’s Promise. If a monster is already AP’ed for whatever reason, (almost) all other considerations go out of the window. He has to die, because if he doesn’t you become quite useless for the next 30 seconds or so. The only overriding consideration is if a morale boost is at hand which can recharge AP for you, but even if you get that boost you’re still missing the +17 energy from AP. Don’t miss AP’s if you can help it. It’s why Rend Enchants is an option on the MM.

Areas to try

The following is a list of areas which provides a good test of your abilities with 7H ... and your teambuild, if you’re testing new stuff.

Duncan HM. The first mob is 8v8, has two healers, has lots of resses, may have a MM, occurs before you can raise your own minion army and you may need Swap somewhere to kill Duncan with. It is one of the toughest balanced mobs in the game. Duncan HM is basically a harder version of Vloxen’s HM; if you can do Duncan you should have no problems with Vloxen’s.
Sacnoth Valley, the Burning Forest. They may have no healers but groups like Borguus Blisterbark’s mob of Burning Spirits are notorious for causing wipes. Even small groups of Flowstones can cause deaths. Nowhere else do you see in graphic fashion how important aggro techniques are. If you just bull’s rush in, expect to hit 60 DP in the blink of an eye.
Eternal Grove HM. A split mission, it tests your ability to make heroes be where they need to be. With enough experience it’s not hard.
Forgewight HM. This used to be the single hardest area in the game to clear with heroes and is still a difficult challenge. You're facing 9v8 fights, massive Fire AoE coupled with energy denial that doubles as AoE damage + Shatter Hex (Roaring Ethers + Burning Spirits + Flowstones), balanced Stone Summit groups with two healers, mobs that mix Stone Summit healers with Burning Spirits, wandering patrols, low body count and constricted areas. Difficult, but with 7 heroes at your disposal now it’s a lot easier.
Foundry HM. Of the “standard” areas, this is the hardest one to clear. The fights are necessarily long, the Titans have dangerous AoE and you have to contend with interrupts + hex removal. Worse, monsters keep spawning and you can’t disengage by running away in the first four rooms. The Fury is another massive problem, with Greater Dream Riders that seriously shutdown caster damage and Fire Eles to mop up. A truly difficult area. Good luck to anyone who tries it.
Underworld HM. Not a standard area, but very difficult nonetheless. The Underworld is a test of micro. Because of the unique challenges like invulnerable Aatxes, standard builds will not work; you need specialized builds for the UW. See the various threads in the Heroes & AI forums for ideas.

The seven techniques and you

Good builds and the techniques mentioned in this guide will get you through every 7H'able area in the game. Nonetheless, I still see players who ask for help in clearing Slaver's HM and other areas. Why? I believe the answer is a lack of confidence. They may feel there's too much to pay attention to, that they aren't that hardcore, or that they simply can't do it. The result is they give up after wiping a few times - if they even attempt the area at all. Actually, experienced players make mistakes and wipe as well. It has happened to me, it has happened to EFGJack, and it will happen to you. Don't lose heart. The more experience you have with the game, the more painless 7H becomes and the more automatic these techniques come to you when you need them.

When you wipe, try to understand why it happened. Did your party simply explode in under 10 seconds? If this is the case, chances are good you were caught in AoE. Did you fight a mob for over a minute, fail to kill them, and eventually start dying? If this happened, the problem is likely your target calling. Did your party get spiked out one-by-one? If this happened, you probably didn't micro Protective Spirit right.

Understanding what happened empowers you to fix your mistakes. If AoE is the problem, the obvious fix is to flag your heroes apart. If you have already done this but still wiped, you need to analyze more. Did you trigger an unintended popup? If so, lesson learned, and you can approach the popup more carefully next time. Did spirits you left behind aggro a wandering patrol? If so, you might want to kill the patrol as a safety precaution next time. Is the mob's damage output simply too overwhelming? If so, you could try tanking the first wave of AoE yourself, as in technique 3.

What if you fight for a minute and fail to kill the mob? In this case, you are definitely facing powerful healers. What stopped you from killing them? If it's powerful prots, you might want to bring Rend Enchantments next time. If it's a lot of ressing, you might want to bring Frozen Soil next time. If it's because the healers hid at the back of the mob, you could pull back slightly to lure the healers forward. On the other hand, if you didn't kill the healers because you didn't target call, you must swallow your excuses and actively target call next time.

In Guild Wars, most of the time you will have considerable margin of error. Some time ago I did the quest Fire and Pain. I've never done it before, and knew nothing about what the mission involved. I went in with Gwen + SoS + minion bomber + 4 henchmen (this was before the 7H era), and even though the minion bomber was rather wasted this mission (no bodies), even though I wiped once + did it in HM instead of NM + didn't display my Vanguard title, even though I didn't know what skills the monsters carried, I still finished quite easily. It turned out to be a rather easy mission despite the "difficulty: master" tag.

The moral of the story is, don't fear GW PvE. You have nothing to lose by trying to play better. What's the worst that can happen anyway? Perhaps you'll wipe, but since you res on death, you can always return and try again. Maybe you'll be forced to use a few DP removers, but what's the difference between using Clovers now and using consets in the future during a Duncan ZB? The E/W Smiter farmer might be a great build, but if you aren't willing to pay the 1k gold to enter the UW, you'll never reap the rewards. Dying repeatedly to the same mob might not be fun, but the satisfaction that comes with finally being able to kill it H/H is tremendous.

With a dwindling player population, 7H will probably get more and more popular. I hope, with this guide, 7H gets more and more reliable for you as well. Many years ago I couldn’t do Slaver’s HM alone and had to rely on PuGs, but PuGs aren’t always reliable and can be hard to find. With this guide, I hope the next time there is a Selvetarm ZB, you do not need to PuG to finish. Good luck.

FAQs and other stuff

I hate you, you are bad / retarded / etc. Unlike other things, 7H can be objective. If you can consistently return faster times than me, using 7H in HM as Elementalist primary without using consumables of any kind, and if you can prove it with screenshots, then you are qualified in calling me bad / retarded / etc. If you manage this, call me bad, and then tell me how you did it so I can improve my own skills.
Why should I care about how fast I do something? I care only that I succeed. Do you believe I can kill Varesh in HM using Morgahn as a Paragon with RoJ and Smiting skills? Or that I can do Jennur’s Horde HM with Koss as a Mending Wammo with FrenzyHealSig? Does that make all these builds good?
I care only that I notice the hero’s effects, e.g. enemies die faster or I see lots of !! signs. Your RoJ Para and Mending Wammo don’t do this. Actually, they do, because with RoJ you ought to notice the massive beam of light coming down – but whatever. When I started using only one healer instead of two, I also started using EotN Cynn more often. I noticed that enemies died faster. They should, because I have room for an extra damage character. Now Cynn is a MB Fire Ele. Is that a good build? An optimal build?
I still think you’re a retarded troll. Go ahead.
I think you're awesome. Thank you

Who originated these builds? I got the idea for the MM from Sab, while the idea behind the spirit Rits I got from Arkantos and Fenix. EFGJack made the ST Rit bar while Chthon gave me the skeleton for the D/N Dwayna Derv. The exact builds are largely my creation. One person, my in-game friend Nick, helped me with fine-tuning these three builds. Others, like HigherMinion and Life Bringing, have helped (are helping) me to make new builds. Some other people may have arrived at the same builds as me as well (I know Ensign did with the Invoke Eles), but we did it independently.
I was top 10 in HB and micro every skill on every hero. Good for you. If you find something good that I missed, please let me know, no matter how much micro it takes. I’d be interested in seeing it.
EFGJack uses different techniques from you! He does. We use different primaries. You can try E/W Warrior-based builds using the same techniques that he does. You have much less room for error and won’t be as effective as a Warrior primary, but it’s a completely different style of play. Give it a try if you’re interested.
Why aren’t you using Discord if it clears all of PvE already? Discord isn’t a terrible skill, but it isn’t good either. Its single-target nature limits its potential severely. Neither does it clear all of PvE. Try it out against Forgewight HM or Foundry HM and you’ll quickly see its limitations. Still, some of the techniques I described here are applicable with Discordway as well. Use whatever build floats your boat, it really doesn’t concern me.
Why aren’t you suggesting multiple Mesmers? The problem with multiple Mesmers is that they quickly stack each other out – Mistrusts don’t trigger, Power Drains don’t land, etc. What’s more, they fit into the same niche as Invoke Eles (ranged AoE and single-target damage) yet have a harder time carrying “Fall Back!”. Using one Dom Mesmer will give you excellent results, but using two Dom Mesmers do not give you twice those results, and the decrease becomes even more pronounced with three or more Dom Mesmers. I don’t suggest it, but go ahead and use them if you want.
Why aren't you suggesting anything fundamentally new? A few reasons. Mass caters is very effective, and topping it is difficult. Also significant is that although fundamentally new builds are possible, they tend not to be viable everywhere. I don't know of any fundamentally new builds for general play. And since I tend to be lazy and not want to keep rerolling my heroes, I don't suggest anything fundamentally new either.
Why are you suggesting Eles when their damage is affected by armour? Yes ... but they still do enough damage to be useful. Invoke typically does ~80 damage per cast, especially after Cracked Armour support. With EBSoH thrown into the mix it comes to ~95 damage, which is comparable to ESurge but with a much shorter cooldown. Air Eles also have other nukes to use; Mesmer nukes are severely limited after ESurge. Invoke Eles are perfectly viable characters. I suggest giving them a try if you've not tried them before.

Credits

Nick – a friend who’s advised me with many builds ... and in many areas of the game besides, both PvE and PvP.
HigherMinion and Life Bringing – who’ve advised me with builds, as well as other aspects of PvE that I don’t do (like SCs).
EFGJack – for showing me effective 7H builds completely different from the ones I use.
Sacratus Ignis - for being, to the best of my knowledge, the first great H/H'er. Although last I know he's quit the game, I'll always remember the advice he gave me when I was inexperienced myself.
Sab, Arkantos, Fenix and Chthon - for originating ideas behind the builds I now use.
Other friends, old and new, who’ve helped me in this game.

Life Bringing · Aug 05, 2010, 12:01 PM // 12:01

Nice guide Jeydra. Interesting to see that you were right when you said that i already do everything that you do

To readers, the power of this spiritway build with the correct techniques applied is unmatched among h/h builds for a caster. You will be amazed at what you can accomplish with this when you have been playing discordway for the greater part of the last 2 years or so and cspacing through mobs. The amount of damage that the spirits soak up and mitigate will come as a huge shock because your party will rarely be hurt.

My favorite part was definitely the cute little descriptions of each technique

timbo_3101 · Aug 05, 2010, 02:03 PM // 14:03

All credit to you Jeydra for your refinement of techniques and results, then documenting this for the broader GW community. You have some incredible achievements on solo H/H play eg Eternal Grove HM, Shards of Orr HM ... and all the others too ... without consets. One must wonder why you even bother playing this game!

I play caster R/Rt (SoS) and R/A (AP) builds, with similar tactics/micromanagement (preparations are paramount), but have found some limitations with discordway. Am looking forward to exploring your spiritway methods in endgame PvE!

RedDog91 · Aug 05, 2010, 02:13 PM // 14:13

Very nice guide. I will refer to this when I need help because although I'm a four and a half year veteran, I am new to the elementalist profession. Never got around to playing it.

Very nice indeed

Title Slave · Aug 05, 2010, 02:21 PM // 14:21

It's always nice to see a post starting with "guild wars is a dying game". I heard people saying that in 2007. Anyway...

I tried Hero Spiritway before and its nice indeed for some dungeons.

Quote:

Discordway generally deals less damage (i.e. is slower) than spiritway as well.

I vanquished every area with discordway and I never realized that this was supposed to be faster. Do you have any proof for this?

Also, why do you have blood of the master on a minion bomber

.

Pretty good guide though

.

code1101 · Aug 05, 2010, 03:50 PM // 15:50

Great guide and my ele uses the exact same bar except I use PI rather than the sin summon.

but I have one question though. I know that this guide is for an ele char mainly because of the power of air magic in dealing a large amount of damage to a single target which is excellent for someone who uses AP to recharge the even more powerful pve skills. my question is about imbagons. Do you guys think that an imbagon running these heroes and henchies would be more effective?

I'm asking this because I recently started playing an imbagon and I cant decide which is going to be easier for me to do. Doing everything as an ele dishing loads of single target damage or playing as an imbagon who provides loads of protection.

I started the imbagon because I wanted the survivor title which I dont have on my ele and eventually the gwamm title. So should I use the imbagon or the ele ?!?!

Thank you again for the guide and Thanks in advance for answering my question.

Xenomortis · Aug 05, 2010, 03:54 PM // 15:54

Good guide. It has a nice explanation of aggroing techniques and I don't disagree with anything you've said. Although I do question Ancestor's Rage on your SoS hero - do they use it on minions?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Title Slave

Also, why do you have blood of the master on a minion bomber

.

Minions that are alive are more useful than ones that are dead, even when their death results in an explosion. It's also much better to meet a mob having 10 minions than having 5.
Besides, it's not as though BotM on a hero is going to save minions from HM enemies - they're going to die, heals or no heals.

Title Slave · Aug 05, 2010, 05:26 PM // 17:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by Xenomortis

Minions that are alive are more useful than ones that are dead, even when their death results in an explosion. It's also much better to meet a mob having 10 minions than having 5.

I'm not sure about that. A constant stream of dying minions is more effective than healing them over and over again between battles. Jagged Bones would be a better choice and would leave 1 skill spot open for Shield of Absorption.

As long as you kill the mob quickly enough you don't need huge minion armies (+sprits). You need dying minions that explode and hurt stuff.

Quote:

Besides, it's not as though BotM on a hero is going to save minions from HM enemies - they're going to die, heals or no heals.

If they don't survive why heal them in the first place? You will never run out of meat shields so healing them is a waste of energy.

HigherMinion · Aug 05, 2010, 08:06 PM // 20:06

Quote:

Originally Posted by Title Slave

I'm not sure about that. A constant stream of dying minions is more effective than healing them over and over again between battles. Jagged Bones would be a better choice and would leave 1 skill spot open for Shield of Absorption.

As long as you kill the mob quickly enough you don't need huge minion armies (+sprits). You need dying minions that explode and hurt stuff.

If they don't survive why heal them in the first place? You will never run out of meat shields so healing them is a waste of energy.

It's for the journey from mob to mob.

Xenomortis · Aug 05, 2010, 09:56 PM // 21:56

Quote:

Originally Posted by Title Slave

A constant stream of dying minions is more
effective than healing them over and over again between battles.

A constant stream of dying minions out of a fight is useless - it's a total waste of an army.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Title Slave

Jagged Bones would be a better choice and would leave 1 skill spot open for Shield of Absorption.

Jagged Bones over Aura of the Lich? They both do similar things but I would rate AotL over it. Heroes are fairly poor at putting Jagged on minions and are much happier to spam Death Nova over it.

Anyway, the discussion of JB and AotL is a different matter and has been debated before in various threads.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Title Slave

If they don't survive why heal them in the first place? You will never run out of meat shields so healing them is a waste of energy.

What? I thought I explained that - it's because I want to have lots of minions before I pick a fight. Having a healthy army also increases the odds that they'll get to the enemy before being blown to pieces - something that's very likely with near dead Bone Minions.
My point is that BotM has advantages but isn't detrimental in the slightest.

*Marty Silverblade* · Aug 06, 2010, 12:10 AM // 00:10

Nice guide.

Btw, your SoS Rit only has 7 skills listed.

Chthon · Aug 06, 2010, 02:32 AM // 02:32

Nice guide.

(Btw, I've heard technique 6 called "needle sting.")

Jeydra · Aug 06, 2010, 10:04 AM // 10:04

*Fixed SoS Rit having only 7 skills, thanks

Quote:

Originally Posted by Title Slave

I vanquished every area with discordway and I never realized that this was supposed to be faster. Do you have any proof for this?

Also, why do you have blood of the master on a minion bomber

.

I don't have proof that spiritway is faster than Discordway because there's been nothing to compare against (so far, anyway) for vanquishes. If you want to compare times I'm game - pick an area to vanquish, preferably a Tyrian one because I've already done all the Canthan and Elonian vanquishes + I really hate vanquishing, so I don't want to redo them.

For other areas there are already times for spiritway; most of them are in the Heroes & AI subforum (the time trial topic). You can try to beat them with Discordway if you want.

To be honest I've never used the minion bomber without Blood of the Master, so I can't say for sure. Another thing to try. Still the longer minions area alive the more time the rest of the party has to deal damage with, so I'm not complaining.

@Xenomortis - yes heroes use Ancestor's on minions. They also use Splinter Weapon on the Vanguard Sin and minions, although not as often as I can hope for.

@code1101 - I honestly can't say because I've never played a Paragon before. I do know that many areas can be done with me AFK, so there's no reason Paragons cannot do the same thing. Which profession is best to max Survivor though is a question I can't answer, although presumably the easiest way is to spam Kathandrax hammers or to keep farming Kilroy Boxing, both of which work regardless of which profession you are.

Still to write: the AP Earth build. I'll probably put that in the Elementalist guide proper ...

HigherMinion · Aug 06, 2010, 01:49 PM // 13:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeydra

Still to write: the AP Earth build. I'll probably put that in the Elementalist guide proper ...

I found that Earth build quite tough on energy and slow on the damage, as you're forever recasting GoLE and AP. I may be doing it wrong/bad variant, I await the update with baited breath.

Essence Snow · Aug 06, 2010, 05:26 PM // 17:26

I like the guide on the h/h aspects of it, just don't care for the AP aspect. Doesn't feel like I'm playing an Ele. Granted I acknowledge the benefits of it, I am simply not a fan of AP, Ymlad, Eb Sin, FH + a few of a profs' skills basically as fill-ins. This is merely my opinion....I'm not downing it...as I am a huge fan of Spirit-way and really like the tactics, just not soo much on the AP.

Chthon · Aug 07, 2010, 02:05 AM // 02:05

Quote:

Originally Posted by HigherMinion

I found that Earth build quite tough on energy and slow on the damage, as you're forever recasting GoLE and AP. I may be doing it wrong/bad variant, I await the update with baited breath.

The energy is very tight w/out Earth Attunement. Try giving up Mindbender for EA and see how it goes.

HigherMinion · Aug 07, 2010, 11:14 AM // 11:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chthon

The energy is very tight w/out Earth Attunement. Try giving up Mindbender for EA and see how it goes.

I actually think I was running EA already. Eruption, Energy Blast- not sure what else I had for damage apart from PvE skills.

Haggis of Doom · Aug 07, 2010, 03:47 PM // 15:47

^Churning Earth is a pretty solid choice over Energy Blast for HM (all non-slowed moving foes are KD'ed, and cost is mitigated by EA which you are already bringing). Especially if you have Energy issues, since EB would deal little damage in this case.

On BotM: I personally do not bring it, because between Masochism, AotL and DN, Olias is already lagging behind badly enough as it is. Usually, I only start a fight without (many) minions in the following cases:
- Start of VQ/Mish;
- Not many exploitable corpses (prolly shouldn't run a MB anyways);
- I've been mapping between fights.

In regular fights, I usually have 8-11 minions before I engage, mainly thanks to the healer AI which spams heals on the minions. I don't know whether this is a bad thing yet, but the way I see it atm it has no downsides: they lag behind much less than Olias so at engagement they are already in an ideal backline position, and energy isn't much of an issue since I usually bring Eve/Claude in my party (if other henchies are massively better than the blood necro let me know

So far, they've proven to be quite useful if only to counter the retarded use of Spirit Siphon and the like).

Life Bringing · Aug 07, 2010, 10:20 PM // 22:20

Quote:

Originally Posted by Haggis of Doom

(if other henchies are massively better than the blood necro let me know

Best choice imo is the mesmer, the earth ele, the monk with the best redbar, and then an optional. In certain areas the ranger/interrupt henchmen is the best, and in others the fire ele is the best. I suppose the necro is worth it if you have worries about energy, but in most cases the necro is fairly weak overall. Oh, and there's always the other monk hench if you're in a difficult area and not confident.

Chthon · Aug 11, 2010, 04:43 AM // 04:43

Quote:

Originally Posted by HigherMinion

I actually think I was running EA already. Eruption, Energy Blast- not sure what else I had for damage apart from PvE skills.

I'd suggest the build from this thread, with Mindbender swapped for EA if you need more energy. Particularly funny against charr. (Amusing side note: That post is back from the dawn of ER when no one had Prot Bond quite figured out yet. Look how far we've come.)