User:Entropy/test

D/R Avatar of Lyssa Special Ops Archer
This is a build that aims to utilize Avatar of Lyssa with a Bow, rather than the usual Scythe or even Daggers.


 * Maxed-out Mysticism and the rest of the points to Marksmanship.
 * A Shortbow or Recurve Bow would work best, since you're not using Read the Wind. Zealous is good, but the Inscription should be "I Have The Power!" for +5 Energy, and a Defense or Fortitude mod. 15^50 or whatever isn't terribly useful here since most damage comes from the +bonus damage of Avatar of Lyssa, which is unaffected by 15^50 mods.
 * This build depends entirely upon Avatar of Lyssa for any sort of damage-dealing capacity. If you are in an area where foes use fast-activating skills, this is an ineffective build. The idea here is that you can use multi-shot attacks to hit a foe activating a skill twice or three times. This will trigger the bonus damage from Avatar of Lyssa more than once, so at only 12 Mysticism you end up dealing +82...123 damage. This is huge armor-ignoring bonus damage, and doesn't even factor in the damage of the bow, Critical hits, etc. Even without doing anything, you still get +41 damage at only 12 Mysticism, and under IAS this isn't hard.
 * Body Shot can serve as all the Energy management you need, if you can get some other party member to constantly supply the Cracked Armor condition. It may even make the Zeaous bowstring overkill.
 * Remember that you need to be Drunk before using Drunken Master!
 * Stance removal will destroy you since your IAS has a 60-second recharge. Consider using Rapid Fire as a replacement in situations like this.
 * Forked Arrow does not work when Enchanted or Hexed; in a Hex-heavy area, replace it with something else. Also, unlike the usual usage, don't cast Zealous Renewal until you're getting near the bottom of your Energy pool.
 * Attacker's Insight at 4 Wind Prayers might work well as a replacement for Forked Arrow.

Battle of Turai's Procession Farming

 * The first step, of course, is to reach Mirza Veldrunner without getting killed. Not too hard, but watch out for Crested Ntouka Bird's Conjure Phantasm. Be patient and wait for patrols, possibly bring running skills like Dodge if you're having trouble.
 * Also, all players and Heroes should be Level 20, though by this point in the game that should not be a problem.
 * You must have three max-range Bows (anything larger than aggro circle). Max-damage 15^50 customized is also never a bad idea. If you have it, Nevermore Flatbow is perfect.
 * Lightbringer title track is helpful to equip, if you have it.


 * The player is required to have unlocked at least the following skills:
 * Edge of Extinction
 * Favorable Winds
 * Winnowing
 * Splinter Weapon
 * Earthquake or Dragon's Stomp

The Player, Any/R or R/Any:


 * 12 Marksmanship, 12 Beastmastery. The rest of the attribute points can go anywhere since they don't really matter; if you do happen to be a primary Ranger, max out Beastmastery or Marksmanship and put the extra points to Expertise.
 * The only skills that the player themself must have, is Barrage and Edge of Extinction. This is the ideal configuration, but Heroes can cover all the other skills if the player doesn't have them.

Two Splinter Barragers, R/Rt or Rt/R:


 * 12 Marksmanship, 12 Channeling Magic. If primary Ranger, extra points to Expertise and max out Marksmanship. If primary Ritualist, extra points to Spawning Power and max out Channeling Magic.

Zhed Shadowhoof (or other Elementalist hero), E/Rt:


 * 12 Channeling Magic, 12 Earth Magic, remaining points to Energy Storage and max out Earth Magic.
 * Glyph of Energy and Maelstrom are optimal but not absolutely required, since Exhaustion isn't important here and Elementalist has enough energy to use costly spells anyways. GoE only makes the process go a bit faster.

The Process


 * Once you've gotten to Mirza, accept the quest and head to the marker; wait for the Margonites to spawn.
 * Run far away and let all the Centaurs die. Eventually, the Margonites will all group together and stop moving.
 * Plant your Heroes with a flag and move in closer. Take out your max-range bow and keep moving in closer until you're within firing distance. But don't actually shoot yet!
 * Unflag your Heroes. Once they get to you, start laying down all the Spirits you have, each person using a different one at once to speed up the process. Winnowing should go last because it has the shortest duration.
 * As soon as all Spirits are up, have all your Heroes cast Splinter Weapon on themselves, and your Elementalist hero cast it on you.
 * Set both Barragers to "Fight" mode, and queue Barrage by clicking on it (green checkmark appears on the skill icon).
 * Target the nearest Margonite and have your Elementalist use Glyph of Energy + Earthquake or Dragon's Stomp. About halfway through the casting, the player uses Barrage.
 * Your two Hero Barragers will also automatically use Barrage at nearly the same time.
 * With just a bit of good timing, the Margonites will all be knocked down for two seconds (to prevent them attacking, healing, or kiting) and then immediately hit for nearly 100 damage per Barrage Arrow that connects. This is enough damage to kill several Margonites at once and injure many others; at this point Edge of Extinction kicks in and kills the rest in a chain reaction.
 * If any Margonites were for some reason still alive, you should be able to easily pick them off.
 * Retreat a bit and wait for the next waves to come and congregate. If they start attacking your Spirits, retreat farther away so they don't come and attack you. Once they calm down and are all bunched up, start over from Step Three and repeat until all waves are dead.
 * The last wave, with Torment Weaver, is usually a bit more loosely grouped and may take two or more tries to kill them all. Torment Weaver himself is usually nearly dead after your volley of Barrage; finish him off, using Maelstrom and Lightbringer's Gaze if necessary.
 * Once you have gotten all your drops, map-travel back to Venta Cemetery and abandon the quest. You can now head back out to Turai's Procession again, speak to Mirza to get the quest, and repeat as many times as you want.

Note: This is four-man farming. It can be done with three people only, however, testing has revealed that without Earthquake or Dragon's Stomp for the KD, you need extraordinarily good coordination and timing to get all the Margonites in one go. What the KD does, is damage all Margonites to below 90% (for EoE), and make them non-moving targets. This way, it is extremely hard for Barrage to miss.

If you want to use only three players, then the requirements change somewhat. You must have either a primary Ranger or primary Ritualist for two of your Heroes (or for yourself and one Hero)...since the duration of Splinter Weapon got nerfed, one person casting it isn't enough anymore.

The player should, again, use the Lightbringer title track and equip Lightbringer's Gaze if they have it.

Two Rt/R or R/Rt, specced into Marksmanship and Channeling Magic:

One R/any or Any/R, specced into Marksmanship and Beast Mastery:

Follow the same process as usual, but this time you skip the KD step and go straight to Barraging. It's generally a good idea to run away immediately even if you think all the Margonites got killed, since it is very likely in this setup that one or more survive.

Take note, that when using just three people, your EXP gain and chance of good drops increases only somewhat...however, the chance of failure increases a lot. If all three Barrages aren't used within about 1/2 second of each other, the Spike will fail and only a few Margonites get killed. When using Heroes, you can try the following: instead of just hitting Barrage immediately, hit Spacebar (or whatever your "Action/Do It" button is) first, wait about 1/4 second, then hit Barrage. This gives your Heroes time to realize you're attacking and you should end up getting better sync.

One-Shot Wonder?
If you focus entirely on Armor penetration and the most damage for a single attack, then the max you can achieve is...
 * Constant 10% from a Hornbow-type bow
 * +20% from Judge's Insight
 * Chance of +20% with a Sundering upgrade

Total so far: 30-50% AP (added)


 * Penetrating Attack or Sundering Attack for +20%

Total so far: 50-70% AP (base+added)

The Sundering mod is a wildcard, since it can only work 20% of the time. Overall this results in a base armor reduction of -1AL or something, iirc. But we're assuming luck is on our side, so...yeah.

Finally, if you happened to score a Critical hit, you would also deal damage*(sqrt(2)) rather than just the total damage.

70% AP max means that you could hit a target that has up to 280 AL and it would still behave as if the target was a squishy caster with 60 AL. If you hit a squishy caster, then they would be reduced to 12 AL, which is only slightly better than Pre-Searing armor.

Penetrating/Sundering Attack at 20 Marksmanship deal +23 damage. You'd want a Sundering Hornbow of Marksmanship, headgear, sup rune, Golden Egg, Lunar Fortune, and Blessing to achieve this.

Ranger using Penetrating/Sundering Attack

On a 60-AL target, assuming your Sundering and of Marksmanship upgrades did not kick in and you did not get a critical hit and you dealt the Minimum Damage for a bow (6), you would deal...

On a 60-AL target, assuming your Sundering and of Marksmanship upgrades did kick in and you did get a critical hit and you dealt the Maximum Damage for a bow (28), you would deal...

On a 300-AL target, assuming your Sundering and of Marksmanship upgrades did not kick in and you did not get a critical hit and you dealt the Minimum Damage for a bow (6), you would deal...

On a 300-AL target, assuming your Sundering and of Marksmanship upgrades did kick in and you did get a critical hit and you dealt the Maximum Damage for a bow (28), you would deal...

Final notes: a Warrior with Strength or Primal Rage can do a similar thing. However that gets more complicated since that will work with other weapons and other attack skills...Also, there are a lot of other skills that can be used to increase base damage, such as Shadowy Burden, Signet of Strength, Anthem of Envy...etc. But I am not even going to go there since that gets too complicated. So I'll just stick with Ranger.

Dust Trap Spammers
Ignoring the possibility of interruption, skills that would help Dust Trappers are:

Assassin's Promise won't work since that only applies when the foe dies, and a Trapper Team only kills foes after laying traps.

Serpent's gives a faster recharge than Trapper's Speed, by 8%. Is it worth it? Trapper's can be kept up indefinitely and also makes Traps activate faster, so maybe mathematically it lets you set more traps per minute. I am too lazy to test though, which is better...

Weapon of Quickening should be brought by your friendly local Rit to improve the recharge on Echo and Arcane Echo, should you choose to use them. (I think)

QZ should be set after EW since Dust Trap is your only Trap.

Echo and Arcane Echo, energy permitting, would let you set three traps in a row, at the cost of Oath Shot which lets you recharge all your skills if it hits. Oath Shot recharges those long recharge Nature Rituals too, which is why it may be more useful.

Finally, you'd obviously want to take at least one other Trapper equipped with Tripwire, Spike Trap, Barbed Trap, and/or Snare to cause KD and Cripple. Else foes will run away too quickly. The Rit should then also bring Earthbind. And maybe get another one to bring Wanderlust.

A/R Cripshot
This is experimental...

Bleeding is only one less degen than Poison, and Sharpen Daggers has the same activation time but costs less. Granted, Apply Poison can be kept up indefinitely, but it is expensive even with Expertise...Energy management is a bit more precarious here since you don't know when the Critical Hits will kick in, but ideally you get +4 Energy back on every shot. That rivals Expertise since you don't just "save" energy, you can "gain" it...from normal attacks too. Cripshots aren't built around damage, but Keen Arrow on an Assassin is just too good to pass up. Could switch for something else though. Signet of Malice is free, Cripple is guaranteed and probably Bleeding also, so 1-2 Conditions removed every 4 seconds with no Energy cost. That rivals Mending Touch from R/Mo and Remedy Signet from R/P. Apply Poison is a Preparation so Cripshot can't use Read the Wind, which makes arrows even harder to avoid as well as increasing base damage output anyways. The setup time for this build is a bit longer than for Cripshot since there is an additional setup skill (Sharpen Daggers = +2 seconds). No access to Troll Unguent so this build is more vulnerable in a split, however, Critical Defenses might be able to cover for that. Dash is also great for defense.

Technically, you could take Apply Poison and go with a three-way attribute split, but that seems rather risky and not worth the extra benefits. Although, Cripple and 7 unblockable degen...

Possible other skills


 * Assassin's Remedy
 * Critical Defenses
 * Recall
 * Signet of Twilight
 * Spirit Walk
 * Swap
 * Return
 * Death's Retreat
 * Feigned Neutrality
 * Distracting Shot
 * Needling Shot
 * Disrupting Accuracy
 * Antidote Signet
 * Storm's Embrace

Touchers
This duo can solo most any boss in Prophecies and some in Factions and Nightfall as well; however, it has trouble versus Monks that are specced to Healing Prayers, as well as those damnable Elementalist bosses with their 2x damage...More than just farming, though, they also make decent teammates for high-level areas. The Hero Acolyte Jin plays this build reasonably well, though she sometimes stays back and focuses on BR'ing the casters instead of Touching. The Bonus item, Soul Shrieker, works great for this build and is effortless to obtain, as well as free!

Throw Dirt disables any weapon-using foes and can be kept up almost indefinitely with two people and ~15 Expertise. Blood Ritual helps out the party's casters during non-farming parts of a run, as well as supplying nearly limitless energy during the solo fights - the two Touchers keep casting it on each other. The rest of the skills are self-explanatory; Whirling Defense lasts for a quite long time and is effective against foes when Throw Dirt is down. Rez is for the rest of the party; it can be swapped for something else like Plague Touch if going against foes who cause Conditions.

So far, this team has been able to do Kepkhet Marrowfeast, Gargash Thornbeard, Gorrel Rockmolder, Thorgall Bludgeonhammer, Flint Fleshcleaver, and Morgriff Shadestone. It failed against Wroth Yakslapper because he has nearly limitless Energy, massive Health, and spams Orison of Healing forever...so, most Monk bosses can outheal. Adding in a third player who does shutdown through Dazed or whatever can work, but then that is three people...

The Falls Farming
Very simple, just use henchmen and Heroes, send them off radar range once you reach Behemoths or Wind Riders. Or you can just run through without many problems. You'll want a max-range Longbow or Flatbow, and some sort of bow with a Fiery upgrade.

Stick all your points into Marksmanship and Wilderness Survival. Run to The Falls and reach the first Behemoths. Generally it's a waste of time to kill anything, though it can be done without too many problems if you're careful. Use Natural Stride to get past Trolls, Centaurs, Redwood Shepherds, and Spiders, Storm Chaser for Skales and anything else.

Once you reach a Behemoth, use Ignite Arrows and your max-range Bow to kill them from a distance. As long as you are on higher ground they won't counterattack. Even if they do, you can still out-damage them and regen if needed with Troll Unguent. Use Natural Stride if you're having trouble. Dual Shot + Forked Arrow + Prepared Shot is your standard killing combo, and followup anything with Savage Shot for more damage. The Behemoths have Deflect Arrows but Ignite's explosion ignores that.

Some Life Pods will pop up if you get closer to the Behemoth, so be careful. You can ignore them after killing the Behemoth, but they are pesky and follow for fair distances. Take them out while they're still bunched up...it takes some persistence but with a Fiery upgrade you'll be doing large damage on every hit.

Wind Riders are hard but not impossible. You can't always use your skills against them because of Cry of Frustration. Luckily they don't chase very far. Once you get down to ~100 Health, you should run away using Storm Chaser and regen with Troll Unguent. Come back once at full Health and kill a Rider; rinse and repeat until all are dead. Basically, the number of riders is not that important, since Conjure Phantasm doesn't stack and can be kept up indefinitely...expect constant -5 degen. Their attacks don't hurt much, hence why numbers are not so important. Just pick them off one at a time.

This is the alternative build. It packs more punch in pure damage. Put all point into Expertise and Marksmanship; same directions as above, but when you reach a Behemoth, use your stances to gain an advantage. Burning Arrow does significant damage from a hit, so if you land even just one it should be okay. Wind Riders are harder to take on without healing, but you can still outrun and outdamage them if you are careful. Conjure Phantasm deals 10 damage per second and theirs lasts for about 14 seconds, so run at ~200 health for a safe margin. Regen can take awhile so this method is a bit slower against riders.

=Team: Tainted Nova= This is a very powerful team combination I stumbled upon recently. It makes good use of the Hero targeting AI to form a new type of Minion Bomber. Two players and six Heroes are needed. The trick for getting this team to work is to play it like a combo of MM and Bomber. You do want to keep minions alive as long as possible, through BotM and Verata's Sacrifice. Your minions soak up damage and aggro. This is like an ordinary MM. But, for the Bomber part - you're not using puny Bone Minions for constant explosion. Rather, you want to trigger Death Nova off the creation of new minions, which necessarily destroys the old ones that are injured. With Shambling Horrors, up to two or perhaps even three or four explosions can occur for each new minion animated - two Shamblings and two Jaggeds explode...Shamblings trigger Death Nova twice in normal lifecycle anyways. So you see, along with Signet of Creation, minions last as long as possible dealing straight damage. And those that are dying get enchanted with Death Nova for huge armor-ignoring damage once new minions replace them. Moreover, Jagged Bones is used to create a second minion army from the first one - no additional corpses needed. These Jagged Horrors spawn from Death Nova-enchanted exploding minions, and with Explosive Growth on, they will deal AoE lightning damage as well. They spread Bleeding to cap off degen at -10 with Poison + Disease. Jaggeds are weaker than other minions but still stronger than Bone Minions. So, they provide additional targets for Death Nova. And the cycle just keeps repeating itself. In between battles, three different characters have BotM and Verata's Sacrifice, to keep minions alive a long time. About 30 seconds of +10 regen and about 300 all-heal ensures that you can keep most of the army alive in between fights. By the time you get to new foes, the minions will be weakened from strong degen and so they'll explode rapidly - bringing new corpses...etc.

So, to sum up - you have Disease through Tainted Flesh, which spreads among enemies for -4 degen total. You have Death Nova blowing up frequently, causing 80 or so armor-ignoring damage and tacking on Poison for another -4 degen. You have Explosive Growth triggering constantly, dropping about 50 Lightning Damage each time. You have Jagged Horrors causing Bleeding, another -3 degen to cap at -10 all around. Toxicity gives a lot more degen for Poison or Disease, since not all foes are melee attackers and thus won't be hit with Tainted. Lastly, you've got minions everywhere whaling on foes.

Human Player 1 - N/Me Golem Master
This is a human MM carrying Flesh Golem. It is not as good as Order of Undeath, that is true. But having a strong third tank/renewable body is a good boon to the party, and since this Team relies on dying minions, OoU would be going a bit overboard, since Vampiric Horrors cost a lot and have a long recharge. Signet of Sorrow is used for a small damage spike, since most of the time they will be busy keeping minions coming, and energy shouldn't be wasted. Hex Eater Signet is for free hex removal; could swap for an interrupt like Leech Signet, or a rez.

Hero Player 1 - Rt/N Explosive Bones
This is a Hero Ritualist using Explosive Growth and Spirit's Gift along with renewable minions via Jagged Bones. It may have been nerfed, but it still works...Death Nova is spammed on minions for extreme damage. Signet of Creation is used to aid minions and ensure they die in 30 seconds. It is not meant to be used at the end of fights, but rather in the beginning or middle once bodies start dropping. It results in a huge damage spike if they all die at once. They don't have a rez, though one could certainly be swapped in. Verata's Sacrifice helps keep minions alive between battles, Blood of the Master keeps minions alive and lessens the sac load on others. Animate Bone Minions could be useful though it would interrupt the main MM's corpses...

Human Player 2 - N/Mo Tainted Renewer
This human player's job is to spam Tainted Flesh on the entire party and keep it up constantly. If they can, they should also try to get it on minions, but this is often difficult. This player also carries Verata's Aura in case either of the other MMs fall and there's an emergency. They stay well out of the main combat whenever possible, and, with Rebirth, are the "emergency fallback" character. Blood of the Master and Verata's Sacrifice work on "allied" minions, not just those you control, so this player can help with healing minions as well.

Hero Player 2 - R/W Toxicity Thumper
This typical Bunny Thumper carries Toxicity to increase the degen by Poison from Death Nova. A pet provides renewable bodies as well - disable Comfort Animal and only order its use when the pet is dead. With a lot of minions running around it is more than likely that they will be ignored, which is good - then they can cause massive Hammer damage without interference. They don't have Deep Wound but instead rely on KD and heavy damage to kill. They don't have a rez, but everyone else does, so it's okay. Pet will still fight anyways.

Symbiosis is a great skill to consider bringing, too. Since the entire party will always be enchanted with Tainted Flesh and perhaps more, and Minions with Death Nova, the health and armor bonus across the party will be huge. There aren't any foes in general PvE who also carry across-party Enchants, except things like Azure Shadow, so the spirit will help more than it hurts. Winnowing can also be deadly, though it's in Wilderness Survival - for a little while, all Minions will deal +6 because they deal physical damage. And that hurts!

Hero Player 3 - Mo/P RC Prot
This Hero takes care of Conditions through Restore Condition.

Hero Player 4 - Mo/any WoH
This Hero uses Word of Healing and other cheap heals so as to be able to last through a long battle. It is not the best Healing elite, but it's straightforward and pretty hard for Heroes to mess up using it.

Hero Player 5 - W/Mo Not-A-Wammo AoE Axeman
This Hero uses Triple Chop and Cyclone Axe to punish foes in PvE. They carry Vengeance, a fast resurrect. They don't carry a direct Deep Wound since most foes will be dying too fast to make good use of Dismember...

Hero Player 6 - Me/Mo Interruption
This Hero uses a typical Mesmer skillset to shutdown casters. Though they are squishy and fall quick, powerful spells like Invoke Lightning can absolutely devastate Minions since they like to clump together. They are meant to die, but not all at once! Moreover, Enchantment Removal is lacking in the Team. They use Power Block to devastate Monks. Guilt and Shame are used for energy management. Frustration and Cry of Frustration are used for AoE interruption.

No Critical Strikes Assassin
Trying to make those damn A/E builds work!

Needs more energy management and Zealous daggers.


 * Elemental Flame
 * Conjure Flame
 * Star Burst
 * Flame Djinn's Haste
 * Aura of Restoration
 * Inferno
 * Flame Burst
 * Double Dragon
 * Mark of Rodgort
 * Glowing Gaze


 * Black Mantis Thrust
 * Jungle Strike
 * Golden Lotus Strike


 * Black Spider Strike
 * Golden Phoenix Strike
 * Temple Strike

Marksman's Wager Spammer
Only suitable against targets that do not Block excessively or Teleport/Shadow Step. Take Favorable Winds if dealing with constantly moving foes. Consider using Arcing Shot to deal with tanking foes.


 * Pin Down for a cheap, easy Snare that can be reapplied quickly.
 * Spam Savage Shot after every Bow Attack to increase damage.
 * Interrupt casters with spammed Concussion Shot as well.
 * Marauder's Shot deals big damage.
 * Forked Arrow whenever you're not Enchanted or Hexed.
 * Dual Shot triggers Wager twice, use when your reserves are low.
 * Lightning Reflexes is your defensive stance and IAS.

Twin Hammer Twin Moon
Currently pondering a W/D using Twin Moon Sweep for nice spike damage.

Rapta says:


 * Precast Guiding Hands before your spike. Devastating and Crushing are unblockable, finish off with Twin Moon. Tiger Stance for IAS (switchable with Frenzy or Flail), Rush for speed boost (switchable with ECharge or Sprint). Switch Guiding Hands for Lyssa's Haste and swap out Rush if you want, or swap out Guiding Hands for any other 5 energy ench a Derv can have.

Hammer Mastery 12 + 1 + 3 Strength 12 + 1 Earth Prayers 3 OR Scythe Mastery 3


 * Energy Cost - 5 + 5 + 5 + 5 + 5 = 25, need Gladiator's Armor
 * Adrenal Cost - 5 + 1 - 6 + 1 + 2 + 1 = 4, just enough for Rush

Precast Armor of Sanctity as you're closing in, and hope no one disenchants you. First hit with Prot Strike for possible spike damage. Activate Tiger Stance and hammer away until Forceful Blow is ready, followup with Heavy Blow for a knockdown, and then Crushing Blow for Deep Wound. Twin Moon Sweep, and Rush to the next target.


 * needs to be done in 10 seconds or less for Twin Moon
 * cutting it close on Energy, perhaps Zealous hammer?
 * Lower Attack speed, Cripple, Blind, Weakness