User:Attackofthecold/Build:Team - Stygian Veil Symbiosis

The Stygian Veil Symbiosis team build is a build designed to conquer all of the Stygian Veil in the Domain of Anguish. It is a balanced build that relies on the tried and true formula of a warrior tank, elementalists nuking and monks keeping the team alive. The catalyst to this build is a ranger spirit-spammer who keeps two vital spirits up: Symbiosis to sustain the tank and Edge of Extinction (EoE) to complement the nuking.

This build can complete the quest Breaching the Stygian Veil, the quest Brood Wars and kill the Dreadspawn Maw. Incidentally, this same build can actually be used to conquer any of the 3 other areas in the Domain of Anguish with less emphasis on the spirits.

Build Concept
While there are different tactics for different situations (explained below, in the tactics section), the general outline of how this team works is as follows:
 * The ranger spirit-spammer lays down Symbiosis and EoE in range of where the tank will will be holding aggro.
 * An Obsidian Flesh tank draws aggro and tries to hold it.
 * Three Searing Flames nukers take out the targets, using snares to keep them in nuking range and relying on EoE and Crippling Shot from the ranger to finish off stragglers.
 * One of the Searing Flames nukers brings Deep Freeze to ensure foes remain in the area of effect of Searing Flames till EoE kicks in. All foes should die after one usage of Meteor Showers by each elementalist along with Searing Flames.
 * Two healer monks keep the tank alive and catch any damage that strays towards the elementalists.
 * One bonder maintains all bonds on the tank and some bonds on the nukers to prevent massive spikes.
 * Using Symbiosis and the various bonds from the bonder as well as the Earth Magic enchantments, the tank can bring his/her health up to 3,000 health. This makes the tank very resilient to the attacks of the Stygian Hungers which are touchers who steal health (i.e. ignore all armor buffs and protective enchantments).

The Obsidian Flesh Tank
Usage:
 * The tank will be heavily bonded. As such he/she will only be receiving partial damage at all times.
 * The tank will have Balthazar's Spirit on which will allow for constant casting of all Earth Magic spells.
 * In the early going, all foes will be melee attackers and rangers, as such, you will not need Obsidian Flesh's protection. You should only use it if in danger of losing enchantments. The main culprits will be Soul Tormentors who use Gaze of Contempt and Water Tormentors who can slow you down significantly.
 * When pulling a group of foes, it is actually useful to invoke Obsidian flesh or Armor of Earth as moving slower than computer controlled foes will make them follow you as far as they could as opposed to running at normal speed.
 * Use Stoneflesh Aura as often as possible. It will make you take zero damage from nearly all attacks and spells.
 * Lay down Ward Against Foes when foes around you are near half-health. This will snare them around longer for the elementalists to finish them off.
 * The optional slot can be:
 * Glyph of Concentration: To avoid having any of your spells interrupted.
 * Dolyak Signet: As a massive armor boost. This is not needed, but is useful in situations where, for example, monks go down and you need to stay alive till they are revived.
 * Lightbringer's Gaze: To add some offensive punch to this very defensive build.

Equipment:
 * A sword/axe with +5 Energy and a 20% "of Enchanting" grip. This will give you extra energy and make all the Earth spells last longer on you. Rajazan's Fervor or the Totem Axe make great weapons for this build.
 * A Shield with either +30 Health or +45 while Enchanted is optimal. Also, having a secondary set of Earth Magic based wand and Focus item is optimal for energy. It can also be a 15/-1 set to provide an extra energy boost in times of trouble.
 * A longbow for pulling.
 * Gladiator's Armor or an armor set fully equipped with Radiant Insignia (for the extra energy) is ideal for this build.

The Searing Flames Nukers
Usage:
 * Wait until all enemy aggro has settled on the tank.
 * Maintain Fire Attunement during a fight.
 * Once aggro is settled on the tank, go in and use Meteor Shower. Try not to use Glyph of Sacrifice if you have it, so as not to increase the cool down between fights.
 * Continue to spam Searing Flames, Glowing Gaze and Lightbringer's Gaze till foes are dead.
 * If your Lightbringer title is less than rank 3, replace Lightbringer's Gaze with Liquid Flame.

Equipment:
 * As elementalists have a large pool of energy, the only real upgrade this build really needs is 20% HSR preferably on both the wand and the focus item. This is to speed up the readiness of Meteor Shower.
 * A variety of armor choices make sense:
 * An armor set with Radiant Insignia will provide extra energy.
 * An armor set with Stalwart Insignia will provide extra protection against any melee aggro that comes your way.
 * Tempest Armor would provide extra protection as the elementalist will always have at least 2 enchantments on.

The Searing Flames Freezer
Nearly identical to the others elementalists, this elementalist simply freezes enemies after a nuke so that they do not disperse before they are killed.

Usage:
 * Wait until all enemy aggro has settled on the tank.
 * Maintain Fire Attunement during a fight.
 * Once aggro is settled on the tank, go in and use Meteor Shower. Try not to use Glyph of Sacrifice if you have it, so as not to increase the cool down between fights.
 * After Meteor Shower, cast Deep Freeze. This will greatly hamper enemy movement until they are taken down.
 * If your Lightbringer title is less than rank 3, replace Lightbringer's Gaze with Liquid Flame.

Equipment:
 * As elementalists have a large pool of energy, the only real upgrade this build really needs is 20% HSR preferably on both the wand and the focus item. This is to speed up the readiness of Meteor Shower.
 * A variety of armor choices make sense:
 * An armor set with Radiant Insignia will provide extra energy.
 * An armor set with Stalwart Insignia will provide extra protection against any melee aggro that comes your way.
 * Tempest Armor would provide extra protection as the elementalist will always have at least 2 enchantments on.

The Healer's Boon Monk
Usage:
 * Maintain Healer's Boon on at all times during a battle.
 * Maintain Essence Bond on the tank.
 * Dwayna's Kiss is the primary healing skill. (This will heal the tank for upward of 500 health)
 * Healing Touch is for self-healing.
 * Use Infuse Health if the tank becomes the victim of Grenth's Balance and loses a large chunk of health.
 * Use Heal Party to heal the tank at a distance, or when the party is collectively moving and taking damage from Enduring Torment.
 * Using Healing Seed on the tank and alternate it with the other monk once the tank sets aggro.

Equipment:
 * A perfect Insightful Staff of Enchanting with 20/20 HSR and HCT for Healing Prayers is optimal.
 * Ascetic's Armor or an armor set fully equipped with Radiant Insignia (for the extra energy) is ideal for this build.

The Spell Breaker Monk
Usage:
 * Maintain Essence Bond on the tank.
 * Dwayna's Kiss is the primary healing skill.
 * Healing Touch is for self-healing.
 * Use Protective Spirit on any party memeber other than the tank who begins to draw the attention of foes.
 * Cascade Healing Seed on the tank with the other monk.
 * Use Spell Breaker on the tank against groups of Sygian Hungers when Meteor Shower starts dropping. This is to prevent them from using Grenth's Balance on him. Their AI is such that they will use it on the target with the highest health (always the tank) when they fall to 1/3 health or so. So, if you SB the tank, you deny them that self healing and prevent a huge spike (if they get GB off, they will steal upward of 1500 health from the tank).

Equipment:
 * A perfect Insightful Staff of Enchanting with 20/20 HSR and HCT for Healing Prayers is optimal.
 * Ascetic's Armor or an armor set fully equipped with Radiant Insignia (for the extra energy) is ideal for this build.

The Bonder
Usage:
 * Maintain all the bonds above on the tank in order from right (Life Barrier cast first) to left (Vital Blessing cast last).
 * Maintain Balthazar's Spirit on yourself as well.
 * Maintian Life Barrier on the elementalists and (depending on your skill and how comfortable you are with bonding) everyone else.

Equipment:
 * A perfect Insightful Staff of Fortitude with +5 Energy while health is above 50% ("Hale and Hearty" inscription) is optimal.
 * Ascetic's Armor or an armor set fully equipped with Radiant Insignia (for the extra energy) is ideal for this build.
 * Two head pieces, a Defender's head piece with a superior Protection Prayers rune to cast the bonds and then a Prophet's head piece with a superior Divine Favor rune to maintain them.

The Necromancer Spirit Spammer
This utility necromancer added nuking with Curses spells, maintianing useful spirits up during fights and providing other casters with energy.

Usage:
 * Lay down Edge of Extinction and Symbiosis at the start of every fight in a safe spot that keeps all foes in range. Ideally, you want the spirit ahead and to the side of where the tank will be stopping so that Symbiosis covers the tank for the greatest possible radius.
 * As soon as the tank brings back foes and is set, use Suffering and follow it up with Feast of Corruption for a significant nuke.
 * Spam Desecrate Enchantments and Defile Enchantments as they become available. Stygian Golems are the best targets for these.
 * Use Blood Ritual on teammates as they need energy.

Equipment:
 * A Necromancer staff or wand and focus item that provide extra energy as well as halving the spell recharge on Feast of Corruption are ideal.
 * Cabalist's Armor or an armor set fully equipped with Radiant Insignia (for the extra energy) is ideal for this build.

Variant:
 * Replace Feast of Corruption and Suffering with Spiteful Spirit (SS) and Reckless Haste. SS has less synergy with groups that are being pummeled by Meteor Shower, but if the fight drags on, SS will produce more damage per second.

Tactics
Conquering the Stygian Veil involves three stages:
 * 1) Clearing the initial mobs of monsters at the start of the Breaching the Stygian Veil quest.
 * 2) Clearing the two hills north and south to defeat the two Stygian Underlords and complete the Breaching quest.
 * 3) Killing the four Stygian Lords to complete Brood Wars and cause the Dreadspawn Maw to appear.
 * 4) Destroying the Dreadspawn Maw.

The Initial Assault
For the first part of Breaching the Stygian Veil, the party should all go north of the Acolyte who gives the quest. The tank should take the quest and back up till all mobs reachs the Acolyte. Spirits should be laid and then the tank should pull using the longbow (always hit "C" and shoot the neartest creature). There will be three mobs jumbles up together, whenever you clear a mob, another will come from the same hill that the first mob came from, till you see a mixed group of foes. That will signal that there will be no more mobs coming from that hill.

Depending on the type of mobs, the party should react accordingly:
 * Groups of Stygian Hungers should be pulled to tank, they wil pile themselves around him nicely. Nuke a middle target, freeze them and then finish them off with Searing Flames. Use Spell breaker when they are below half health.
 * Groups of Stygian Brutes or Stygian Horrors do not require Spell Breaker. However, the tank should buff himself up with the Earth Magic spells as their Physical damage can trickle to the bonder.
 * Groups of Stygian Golems actually benefit from Symbiosis, but not as much as the tank. They are handled like the Horrors and Brutes.
 * Groups of Stygian Fiends are very dangerous. The tank should pull them back using a zig-zag motion till they form a tight ball for the nukers to nuke them. Also, if the tank goes to them in melee range and attacks, they will say on him.
 * Mixed groups will usually have one Fiend and then the rest will be melee. The melee foes should be nuked first and should the Fiend go for the party, containing it should not be a problem.

The Two Hills
Starting with the southern hill, the technique should be the same. Spirits get laid down, the tank goes in and gathers several enemies, then brings them back within spirit ranger and tanks them. The only thing to watch out for is that the Stygian Fiends can cripple the tank and the Brutes can knock him/her down with Bull's Strike. The Healer's Boon monk should use Heal Party to aid the tank at a distance. When pulling a group with Water Tormentors, the tank should have Spell Breaker coverage.

The northern hill has pop-ups through out the first half of it. As such, the spirits should be laid outside the hill, the tank should go in till a group starts popping up (the tank should stand still till they all come out of the ground, there is usually 6 monsters). The group will be mixed with at least one Stygian Fiend. There are thre more pop-up groups past the first one. A group around each of the Torment Claws that will spawn near the middle of the hill.

Past those Torment Claws, there should be no hidden groups and the tank should proceed like the first hill, gathering groups and bringing them to spirit range. The spirits should be constantly moved as the party makes its way deeper into the hill.

The Stygian Lords
There are ways to skip over barriers and so on to get to the Sytgian Lords. This guide will simply tackle the problem straight on.

The party should choose one of the trenches to clear out, the best candidates would be the second trench to the north or south. Either of those trenches leads to a Stygian Lord, and from there on the party can move in a circle to get to the remaining three.

Each trench will spawn two melee groups as soon as someone is half-way through it. The two groups will rush towards each other (and kill anyone stuck inside) and then will camp on the opposite end of where they spawned. In addition, some Tormentor demons will spawn up top on one or both sides of the hills sandwiching the trench. To avoid surprises, one party member can simply run into the trench to trigger its spawns and then die half way through. The party can then Rebirth that member from atop one of the two hill overlooking the trench. If dying is such a big deal, one Elementalist can go secondary Assassin and bring Recall and use it to leave the trench before the pop-up groups close in on him/her.

Once the trench's spawns are stationary the tank can tackle them under spirit range and the party can destroy the closer melee group then the furhter one as well as the spawns on top of the hills. Once the trench is clear, the party can proceed to the Stygian Lord, kill any patrols roaming around him, and destroy him. From that point on, the party will simply circle around to kill the other three lord (see the walkthrough for the quest Brood Wars for their locations).

Note the following:
 * The first Stygian Lord to the south is a necromancer, there is a patrol that comes in front of him from the east and another from the west. After clearing the eastern patrol, he can be pulled without the western patrol. He is guarded by Tormentor demons.
 * The next one to the east of him is a mesmer. There is a stationary group of Tormentors around him as well as two spawns of Torment Claws.
 * The next one to the northeast is an elementalist. There are two patrols on the way to him and then a large pop-up spawn inside the alcove he is found in. The tank should hold then around the entrance to the alcove so they cannot go around him to the rest of the party. Casters should watch out for Chain Lightning from the Stygian Lord.
 * The final boss heading northwest from that spot is a smiting monk. Again he is found in an alcove which he can be pulled out of using a long bow. If anyone steps past the entrance of the alcove, a spawn of Stygian Hungers will appear at the entrance. The party should either pull carefully or trigger them on purpose and take them out first.

The Dreadspawn Maw
After the party returns and cashes in the quest Brood Wars, the Dreadspawn Maw will appear immediately behind them. Make sure everyone is out of the center area and safely next to the Acolyte before having ANY party member accept the reward. The Maw will be comprised of six Smothering Tendrils. The objective is to kill all six and their spawns.

For each Tendril, one elementalist will drop Meteor Shower on it, followed by a few Searing Flames casts. this elementalist should have Protective Spirit on them by the Spell Breaker monk. Everyone else should move back north where the party originally killed the monsters of the initial assault.

As soon as the Tendril is about to die, the SB monk should leave and join the others. The elementalist should finish off the Tendril and then pull back slowly. As soon as the Tendril dies, numerous Torment Claws will spawn as will as several Stygian creatures. If the Stygian creatures DID see the elementalist, he/she should just pull back slowly and have them kill him/her midway to the party. They should NOT bring them back to the party othwerwise the party can wipe after doing so much work. After they kill the elementalist, someone can rebirth him/her and then the tank can pull them into spirit range and the party can destroy them.

The party can then proceed to kill all the Torment Claws that spawned (great wanding fun). The same steps should be repeated for each Smothering Tendril.

Variants

 * One or two of the nuking cast can be replaced with Necromancers using Feast of Corruption to spike. The Freezer is vital for keeping all foes in the same AoE of spells. If the tank brings a snare like Grasping Earth, then the entire nuking crew can be replaced with necromancers.
 * The tank does not necessarily need to be an Obsidian Flesh tank. Other tanking builds can be used, as well as non-warrior tanking builds like a continual Shadow Form assassin or an Obsidian Dervish . However, buffing physical armor is important so that no damage goes through to the bonder.
 * The N/R can be switched to Spiteful Spirit or can be switched out for any other profession than can bring the two spirits on the side.