User:Newms34/Builds

The following are various builds I use. I'm by no means even close to an expert, and I'm mainly using this page as a testing ground to keep track of build ideas. I want to note that most of these builds are obviously NOT my invention. Thanks to all who did invent them!

Assassin

 * General Melee sin:


 * A good build for most melee situations Heavy enchant removal can cripple it, but not permanently. I've often found that the only real problem with this build is that things tend to die before you can get a chain off.


 * Alternate General Melee sin:


 * Same idea as above. However, in this version, GPS compacts the bar to allow 1 "free" slot. In Hardmode, this slot can be filled with stuff like "Save Yourselves!" which, coupled with the sin's fast attack speed, may be maintained at higher attribute levels.


 * Alternate Alternate Melee sin:


 * This time, we're using WotA to reduce the turn-around time for you to switch targets; since Jagged Strike has a very small recharge, you can basically recover almost instantly from getting blocked, your target dying, etc. As with all Melee builds, and particularly sin builds, this one works quite nicely with a support/channeling rit hero.

Dervish

 * To be added.

Elementalist

 * Defensive Earth Ele:


 * Can be run quite well on heroes. While many PvE-ers tend to immediately gravitate towards Sandstorm for the superior damage output, Unsteady Ground should not be overlooked. If an enemy can be knocked down, and is knocked down, it's not attacking. Combined with Eruption in key spots, this build can help make any melee mob easier. The optional can be changed depending on area: if your monks are screaming pitifully for help, put some points in Resto magic and bring Protective was Kaolai. If you are getting KD'd a lot, bring Ward of Stability. On human players, Elemental Lord (Kurz or Lux) can add some oomph to the skills.


 * Defensive Water Ele:


 * The water element's only ward is quite powerful: against fire damage, at 12 water magic, that's 72 extra armor. Blurred vision is also a nice alternative to Blind (caused by Steam), as it's not a condition, but a hex that has much the same effect as that condition. As such, it's easy enough to switch between the two, effectively preventing your enemies from "seeing" you. Two notable points to watch out for are the reliance of this build upon another character to cause burning (or Glyph of Immolation, if you can squeeze it in), and the fact that, if placed on a hero, this build might require careful monitoring of that hero's use of Maelstrom (due to overexhaustion). If you want a slightly more offensive build, replace the elite with Mirror of Ice


 * General Terra Tank (Vaettir Version):


 * Requires Superior Earth hat and an Enchanting weapon with either a shield, or if you're using a staff, a defensive staff head. For Vaettirs, just spam the two mez damage skills, making sure to use them just AFTER a Vaettir uses Lyssa's Aura (the only skill they can use if you've maintained Obby Flesh).

Mesmer

 * Interrupts (for hero):

Given adequate points in fast casting, Mesmer heroes are incredibly quick with interrupts. However, they're not too skilled at determining what to interrupt. Therefore, the best bet is often to give them a bar full of interrupts, and then let them go to town.


 * Panicking Hero:

Again, heroes love to interrupt. Note that Panic, in itself, is NOT an interrupt (at least not directly). No real advice here, other than try to focus on bunching up mobs so that Panic can take the biggest effect.


 * Jade Quarry Trololol:

This bar is designed to fight - or at least terribly inconvenience - everything in Jade Quarry. It can disable monks, eles, other mesmers (usually), Rangers, and Ritualists. A really good warrior can defeat it (just by waiting thru Empathy with other non-attack skills), and a Sin may kill you if they can get off enough attacks before you get a chance to use empathy. Dervishes often can self-heal through empathy, and while empathy+backfire may be used, it might be a good idea to just avoid them and move on to a more vulnerable target. Finally, obviously, paragons are rare-to-nonexistent in JQ.
 * Power Block: Your main interrupt. Like many mesmer interrupts, it's got a rather large recharge time. Therefore, remember that most very high damage skills have longer cast times. Do not attempt to interrupt 1-second or 1/4-second cast skills unless A) you need to and B) you're absolutely sure you can. This skill works best against Fire/Air eles and RoJ Monks, as well as other domination-based mesmers. It may be helpful to watch a char before using this: If they're pretty focused in one area (say, Fire or Smiting), interrupting them will help. However, a Necro (for example) split evenly between 2 or 3 attributes won't really be too inconvenienced by this.
 * Mistrust: Mainly for capping shrines. Also can tie in with backfire and/or WW to take down dangerous casters.
 * Gaze of Contempt: While this can be used to remove general enchants, it really shines vs. N/A Bombers. Often, I will remove a N/A's enchants with this, and then watch as they go in and sac themselves to no or little effect. Again, note the recharge time here, and be intelligent about what/when to remove. You'll do a lot more by removing a N/A's enchants than by removing Fire Attunement from an elementalist.
 * Empathy and Backfire: Pretty self explanatory. The only advice here I can give is to learn to react immediately to each profession: an assassin or warrior won't likely be hurt by backfire, and casting Empathy on a monk or ele will just get you laughed at. Try using these with WW to force your enemy to take damage no matter what.
 * Wastrel's Worry (WW): Quite an interesting little tool. Cast on characters with Empathy, Backfire, or Mistrust to force them to either use skills (and take damage) or not use skills (and take damage). This also does quite nicely against the slightly rarer Minion Master in JQ: minions do NOT use skills, so spamming this on a group of minions will cut them down quite quickly. For the same reason, this can be used against Carriers. Note that Carriers do use one skill - Carrier Defense - but that they only use this when confronted with enemy melee. If a melee team member is attacking a carrier, don't use WW!
 * Ether Feast: Simple heals. Not a huge heal, but it'll help keep you alive long enough to cast other stuff. Your main source of healing (and energy management) in Jade Quarry is in fact death; if you're too low on health or energy, let someone kill you. Don't try to "survive" in JQ!
 * Chaos Storm: Mainly for capping shrines, whose members are too stupid (usually) to get out of its AoE. Don't use against other players, as they can just move out of the way.

Monk

 * General PvE HB Monk:
 * The power of Pain inverter and technobabble should not be underestimated. Likewise, Dwayna's kiss can theoretically heal for incredibly large amounts if used correctly. Heal Party should only be used as a panic button - if your party is really in trouble. Also, some prefer UA over HB. If you choose UA, you're picking additional rez over cast speed. However, I don't really believe that the monk should ever be the only one with a rez: if you're the only one alive rezzing, something's probly already gone terribly wrong.


 * General Hero Healer:


 * As noted with the mesmer builds, heroes are quite good with interrupts. Therefore, set this hero as "guard", and have it interrupt stuff to maintain its own energy. The optional here is really Cure Hex, which can be dropped in areas with few or no dangerous hexes. The elite, Healing Burst, serves as both a good spike heal and as a mild (and less expensive!) version of Heal Party.

Necromancer

 * MoP Nuker (FoWSC):
 * This is the Mark of Pain Nuker for Fissure of Woe Speedclear. Basically, wait until MT calls Ebon Battle Standard of Honor, then use Mark of Pain and Assassin's Promise. At the forest, use Foul Feast to remove conditions from the 100b and/or VoS tanks. At the tower, wait until the MT has pulled most of the mobs out of the way, then MoP+Call the stationary mobs. First optional should be either "You Move Like a Dwarf!", or "Finish Him!", depending on what your party requires. Second optional is whatever is needed.

Paragon
This build is a particular variant of Physway that centers around paragons as the main damage and healing source. An orders derv provides extra healing and damage, and other physical characters fill out the remaining spots. Try not to use non-physical (i.e., elemental, etc) chars with this.
 * Racway:
 * Other party members should be one Ranger (BHA, or some other form of interrupts. Do NOT use Kindle Arrows or anything that converts damage), One healer monk, one MM, and one optional.
 * Other party members should be one Ranger (BHA, or some other form of interrupts. Do NOT use Kindle Arrows or anything that converts damage), One healer monk, one MM, and one optional.
 * Other party members should be one Ranger (BHA, or some other form of interrupts. Do NOT use Kindle Arrows or anything that converts damage), One healer monk, one MM, and one optional.
 * Other party members should be one Ranger (BHA, or some other form of interrupts. Do NOT use Kindle Arrows or anything that converts damage), One healer monk, one MM, and one optional.
 * Other party members should be one Ranger (BHA, or some other form of interrupts. Do NOT use Kindle Arrows or anything that converts damage), One healer monk, one MM, and one optional.

Ranger

 * A Jade Quarry build. Designed to overwhelm quarrydudes with conditions. It can also help defensively, to a degree, by interrupting chars like eles and RoJ monks. Try to save DS for critical high-damage skills, like RoJ or MS. Note that the max degen on a char is 10, so you actually have more conditions here than you can "use". However, I've found that most people in JQ do not bring industrial-strength condition removal, allowing you to use the extra conditions as "covers". For more defense, but less damage, try replacing Lighting Reflexes with Whirling Defense (much lulz vs. melee)

Ritualist

 * Spirit Spammer:


 * General Spirit Spammer. In areas with stuff that might not be as effected by blinding (via Shadowsong), you may want to substitute Agony. If you're fighting mobs with heavy hex removal, you may substitute Painful Bond for Spiritleech Aura, and raise your Rest attribute to 6 or so.

Warrior

 * General Everything Build:


 * (Just kidding). To be honest though, I've never actually seen someone get killed using this build. It is therefore, technically, undefeatable.


 * Shiro Solo:


 * Basically designed around the Paragon running build. I personally found that the paragon version, as well as the bizarre heroes that came with it, did not do nearly enough damage (or damage prevention) to outlast and kill Shiro. This build gets rid of the Paragon primary. I usually bring an SV necro and a SS necro with me. However, as these hexes rely on Shiro attacking, and you alone won't do nearly enough damage to pull him out of Meditation of the Reaper, I usually bring a spirit spammer with me too to provide the extra oomph. The two optional skills should be any normal damage attack skills, preferably adrenal-fueled. Other than that, maintain VS and GD as much as possible, hit Wild Blow on recharge, and have fun. Use IATS when Shiro meditates to help pull him out of it. Note that this build does not work in HM.


 * SY! Warrior:


 * Good general PvE SY build for warrior. Use Enraging Charge +FGJ to get an initial adrenal spike, then just use Dragon Slash + Flail (if needed) to keep up adrenaline. Maintain SY as much as you can, and use headbutt+Steelfang as a pseudo-interrupt. The optional should probably be another sword attack.

Sabway
This is one of those team builds that people seem to either love or hate. I'm one of the former, of the school of "if it works, use it". The sabway team provides healing, tanking, protection, and damage, all in one convenient package. Compared to the Discordway team (mentioned later), this team may be slightly more defensive (really depending on the SS/Utility necro). It also has only one healer, so you will likely need a supplementary monk or rit.
 * /Resto Rit:


 * Your healer. While a non-rit (or monk) primary does reduce the power of each individual heal, that is more than made up for by the battery effect of the Necromancer's Soul Reaping. Your hero may sometimes lag behind to cast Life; watch him/her for this.


 * /Minion Master/Prot:


 * Your Minion Master. A few notable variations here: Firstly, if you feel like it, try Jagged Bones instead of AotL for the elite. If you want stronger minions, and don't fear hexes too much, switch Convert Hexes for Masochism. Heroes are generally very good about maintaining Death Nova on all minions, but you may occasionally find this forces your MM to lag behind. Be careful of this when rushing into battle.


 * /SS/Utility:


 * This is the main damage dealer of the trio. In hard mode, due to increased attack speed, this works even better. Pure was Li Ming is an incredibly useful anti-condition, and should not be overlooked. Nearly all of the hexes (except for SS) are optional, so switch them and move around as you see fit. I would NOT recommend taking Barbs, as the long cast time and comparatively low damage means that your hero will probably finish casting it just as the target dies.

Discordway
This build is, like Sabway, another that people either love or hate. It does pretty decent damage - at max spammyness, a trio of discordway heroes can do 157 armor-ignoring damage every second without mods - and has all the defensive capabilities of Sabway. The main difference, obviously, is in the elite. In this build, you're giving your heroes a decidedly offensive elite - discord - which forces them to attack, hex, and otherwise excite the attention of their enemies. This will force them to act slightly differently. In addition, note the lack of utility skills: these should be supplied by other members of the party as needed. <>

Callers

 * Assassin:


 * The main caller build. Higher Deadly Arts spec allows your heroes to make mistakes (i.e. take longer to kill the called target). Optional slots can be self-heals, rezzes, etc. To be honest, everything beyond the 3rd skill (EVAS) is optional.


 * Elementalist (offensive):


 * The high DPS of discordway should make skills 4-8 essentially needless. Nevertheless, they're there if you need them.


 * Elementalist (defensive):


 * Great against anything that either deals elemental damage or is in melee range. Optional can be skills like Eruption or other AoE debuffs.


 * Monk Smiteypants Caller:


 * If you feel the need, you can substitute your smiting skills for healing. However, you likely won't need to. Also, you can substitute Banish and/or Smite Hex for Smite Condition or other specific skills. Drop the rez skill if you need more space.


 * Ranger Bring-A-Friend:


 * Your optional here is the rez sig. Remove it and add Pain Inverter or something else if you think you need it.


 * Ritualist Sin Bomber:


 * The Vanguard summon is a summoned creature as per the first 3 skills here. This build adds nice defensive abilities as well as a little extra boom at the beginning.

Petway

 * To be determined! Will likely include an orders character, a "Go for the Eyes!" paragon (primary or secondary), and possibly an MM. Also, note the Ranger Discordway caller, which could be used as a possible build here.