User:Zerak-Tul/BarragePet

Barrage/Pet (aka b/p, barrageway, petway) is the general appellation of a class of "speed" builds for the ruins of the Tomb of the Primeval Kings.

Overview
A barrage/pet build is possibly the quickest way to complete a Tomb run, and is therefore also the most popular build for people wishing to farm the unique items dropped by the final bosses.

This build utilizes the synergy between Barrage, Favorable Winds, and Winnowing to inflict high damage on multiple foes, with a wall of pets and minions to defend the party. This build requires only loose coordination between players, and a large spectrum of variants are viable. Barrage/pet builds are resilient to dropped players, as only two roles, the monk and the minion master, can be said to be essential.

The most common barrage/pet team consists of:
 * 5 Barrage rangers
 * 1 Minion Master
 * 1 Orders Necromancer
 * 1 healing Monk

Membership
This is one of many possible variations. The builds noted below are suitable for pick up groups, but it is by no means definitive. A more complex alternative can be found.

Barrage Rangers
The purpose of the pets is to tank for the group (at least until the minion master raises a sizeable army) and to provide an endless source of corpses for the minion factory. A dead pet with an exploited corpse serves no purpose, so it is important for the rangers to raise their pets at every opportunity.

Variations: The Optional Skill should be:
 * One ranger must carry Favorable Winds (FW).
 * One ranger must carry Winnowing (WW/Winn). A Winnowing Barrager should take some points out of Beast Matery and/or Expertise to put boost Winnowing (Note that only 5 points in Wilderness Survival is needed, as that will make the spirit last beyond its 60 second recharge, aside from that the spirits level is meaningless, as it should always be out of harms way!) Example attributes would be Mrkmnshp 12 +1..3 +1, Exprtse 9 +1, Bst Mstry 8 +1, Wldrnss Srvvl 5+1.
 * The puller should take Dust Trap to lay down before pulling mobs of Grasps of Insanity, providing evaluable defense, especially at times when the MM has not been able to raise any minions yet.
 * Consider bringing the nature ritual Winter as it will counter Mark of Rodgort used by the Terrorweb Dryders.

Tip: The use of Throw Dirt should be called, as to prevent other rangers wasting this slow recharging skill. Note: Skill bar blackout time from pet death is reduced by higher ranks in Beast Mastery. The skill Troll Unguent has been omitted, although it is a powerful self-heal, it's activation and heal rate is much too slow to serve any meaningful purpose as almost all damage inflicted comes in the form of damage spikes.

Minion Master
The purpose of the minion master is to raise a large undead army and keep the enemies blocked up. Unlike many other minion builds, the minions here are not intended for pure damage, but rather to body-block the Grasps of Insanity from reaching the ranger line.


 * Note that Death Nova will deal 105 damage and poison to every enemy in range, a formiddably potent skill. But be warned, without a staff like The Nightbringer, the long casting time will be impractical.
 * Swap Animate Flesh Golem for Jagged Bones for "free" minions, and swapping any skill for
 * Heal Area is added minion-maintance when out of battle, as well as a self heal for use after use of Blood of the Master, so the Monk can focus on other priorities.

For additional information and other please see the general minion mastery guide.

Orders Necromancer
The Orders Necromancers job is threefold;
 * Keep up Order of Pain to increase ranger damage.
 * Provide monk with energy through Blood is Power.
 * Support the party through Heal Party, and in a pinch, Heal Other (mainly if a Grasp of Insanity gets through to target the Monk or MM) as needed.
 * Heal Other is optional and can easily be exchanged.

The Orders Necromancer doesn't sacrifices significant amounts of his own health, and thus has powerful self-heal skills Heal Area and Healing Breeze + Mending. Energy will be plentiful to keep up Order of Pain, as well as spamming Heal Party as needed. These powerfuls self-heals means the monk can focus elsewhere.

''For an old version please see N/Mo Orders Necromancer."

Healing Monk
Because of the specialty skill Fingers of Chaos and the mesmer skill Shatter Enchantment, enchantments are more or less useless, as all characters involved are likely to have Monk as their primary class.


 * By far the biggest threat to the party is the Grasps of Insanity who will hit party members for dangerous spike damage with each hit.
 * Ethereal Light is optional.
 * Use Glyph of Lesser Energy followed by Heal Party to heal party-wide damage like that caused by Energy Surge or by Terrorwebs.
 * The Orders Necromancer will support plenty of energy, so skills like Heal Other can be spammed.
 * Remove Hex is to combat Backfire cast by The Darknesses.
 * Consider swapping Word of Healing for Glimmer of Light, the faster cast time and recharge may prove vital.

Critical Barrager Variant
In this variant, any number of Rangers can be replaced by Assassin/Rangers. Even though they can only resurrect teamates with the signet, they do deal greater damage using Sharpen Daggers to cause bleeding to foes when a critical hit is made. The benefit to the use of this bleeding will diminish if the group has more than two A/R barragers in the group, because the Rangers with their high level of Marksmanship do deal out greater damage on impact. Furthermore Sharpen Daggers is an enchantment which can be Shattered.

For additional information, See Build:A/R Critical Barrager.