Talk:Guide to using Heroes in PvE

Comments
If this is going to be treated as a guide, then it should be formatted like the others. Remove all build content, and link to build articles. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 14:29, 4 February 2007 (CST)
 * Oh no, not another Guide. >< Entropy 20:12, 4 February 2007 (CST)
 * Maybe we should write a guide about how to write guides. :) NightAngel 21:54, 4 February 2007 (CST)
 * I know, I commented out all of the build info. I'm working on trying to maintain the information that was included in the build while making the page into a guide. Give me some time here. =P
 * And I'm all for that "how to write a guide" article. =) &mdash; Rapta  [[image:Rapta_Icon1.gif|19px]] (talk|contribs) 14:53, 5 February 2007 (CST)
 * Oh, and any help I can get here would be... helpful. =P &mdash; Rapta  [[image:Rapta_Icon1.gif|19px]] (talk|contribs) 14:54, 5 February 2007 (CST)

Cool guide. Could use a bit more detail on variants that work better for heros. eg. quoted from NightAngel 08:13, 2 February 2007 (CST) "For instance, a MM should always use a superior death rune. ... My heroes usually use paragon variants with shouts (never give up, never surrender, stand your ground, etc.), but you could also use stuff like power drain and leech signet, or a dervish secondary with conviction and mystic regeneration. As for the MM, an always welcome addition is signet of lost souls, which they use much better than humans, and if you do use Order, animate vampiric horror and fiends are the best choices, one mitigate the loss of life and the other is the most efficient attacker. They are expensive, so you'll need a high soul reaping."

and

"THey use holy veil very well, because they tend to cancel enchantments with upkeeps (when cast on others) very quickly. Healing breeze, however, WILL be spammed and run him out of energy very fast - small wonder you need Br to keep his energy up. The mm.... Flesh golem is not what it used to be, it's a waste of firepower compared to Order of Undeath, for instance. Taste of death is also not desirable on a hero, and are you sure they use blood ritual correctly? Seems like it would make him run around casting slow spells and might get him killed."

I don't feel qualified to add the above to the guide. Thunden 07:58, 14 February 2007 (CST)

Gates of Madness
"Gate of Madness (Mission): Psychic Distraction. Knowing that heroes have excellent timing in the use of Interrupts, this skill can eliminate the threat posed by Shiro Tagachi's Impossible Odds." I seriously doubt that even heroes could interrupt a Impossible Odds. They don't seem to be capable of hitting 3/4 casts, let alone a 1/4. Tycn 05:09, 27 April 2007 (CDT)

Rate-a-build
''Please test and vote on. Testing is encouraged but not required.''

Favored:
 * 1) (your vote here)

Unfavored:
 * 1) Nothing against the build. Simply put, it works. But generally, it's just a combination of existing builds. I've completed all of the RoT missions with henchmen and heroes only, each time with heroes running different builds (even did this w/o SV on Shiro). I don't believe this is necessary. But don't take this unfavored vote too seriously. What I'm proposing is, is to move this into a guide, rather than a team build. That way, there can be more expansion as well as a larger spotlight on this article, rather than this being "just another place to dump builds" and such. &mdash; Rapta  [[image:Rapta_Icon1.gif|19px]] (talk|contribs) 16:30, 1 February 2007 (CST)
 * 2) I think all the builds have problems. I don't like the elites nor the choice of skills for the 3 first. LoD is fine for Dunk, but some skills are suboptimal. Why take the crappy orison of healing with better spells available? But he's the best in there (and also very similar to the builds in tested). By the way, have you actually read the heroes article? THey use holy veil very well, because they tend to cancel enchantments with upkeeps (when cast on others) very quickly. Healing breeze, however, WILL be spammed and run him out of energy very fast - small wonder you need Br to keep his energy up. The mm.... Flesh golem is not what it used to be, it's a waste of firepower compared to Order of Undeath, for instance. Taste of death is also not desirable on a hero, and are you sure they use blood ritual correctly? Seems like it would make him run around casting slow spells and might get him killed. Also, only one minion spell, and not a good one at that? Yuk. By the way, my MM heroes keep up armies of 10 minions very easily. They are extremely competent minion masters, you've just been mishandling yours. As for zhed, i'm not sure he uses those glyphs well, but at any rate the skills looks pretty poor. Ms, firestorm and rodgort, that's it? Awful. The better option in fire IS searing flames, which is easy and repetitive to use and requires no skill combos. The better for an AI to handle. Finally, the tank. Looks like a pretty lousy elite to me, though I don't have that much experience playing a warrior - Those who will block his attacks most often are rangers, who don't give a crap about being dazed. Hundred Blades or Dragon Slash are my favorites - again, easy to use and always effective, which is important for heroes. Whats with shock? and conjure flame? Yuk. Shock will drain his energy VERY fast, he will spam it and exhaust himself. I'd much rather he did tactics shouts to help the team. So, in short, I disliked almost everything about these builds :) Edit: last, but not least, using mesmer and necro heroes with Spoil Victor, Empathy, Insidious Parasite and Spiteful Spirit, plus a few cheap interrupts like Leech Signet, will ensure a quick victory against Shiro. These won't. :) NightAngel 07:11, 2 February 2007 (CST)
 * Fair enough, thanks for the info & advice. Doh!  I can't believe I missed the only piece of useful information in the entire heroes article :)  What you say all makes sense and I will test these changes ASAP.  As for the warrior, he's mine, so I don't spam Shock.  Agreed, horrible for a hero. Hundred Blades is almost certainly better, but I can't claim to have tested it.  Conjure Flame gives +30% DPS.  I will defend him no further because he's not optimal and I said so. Optimal would probably be an existing build. Thunden 07:45, 2 February 2007 (CST)
 * Thanks, a few additional comments: even if you're too poor - or suffer from Uncle Scrooge syndrom :) - you should still use the best equipment possible, maybe suggesting cheap replacements. For instance, a MM should always use a superior death rune. Spending 10 attribute points on a slow casting, slow recharging skill like Healing Seed is suboptimal. My heroes usually use paragon variants with shouts (never give up, never surrender, stand your ground, etc.), but you could also use stuff like power drain and leech signet, or a dervish secondary with conviction and mystic regeneration. As for the MM, an always welcome addition is signet of lost souls, which they use much better than humans, and if you do use Order, animate vampiric horror and fiends are the best choices, one mitigate the loss of life and the other is the most efficient attacker. They are expensive, so you'll need a high soul reaping. As for the warrior, if you're piloting it it gets better I suppose, but yeah, there are better warrior builds that can also be used by Koss effectively. Most warrior builds don't require complicate decisions, so he should be fine with most of the good tested ones NightAngel 08:13, 2 February 2007 (CST)
 * Not Scrooging, just a normal run through Nightfall with branches to pick an elite here and there and get to Dakk. Superior death rune is currently going for a cool 6.5k. Since you say it's really necessary, I'll take it seriously, but every build and it's dog uses sup runes which puts most of them out of reach of n00bs like me. Then there's the green weapons, the perfect this that and the other, etc, etc.  If I had 6.5k lying around I'd probably buy my heroes minor runes of vigor, but now I have to use my 10k buying skills to test your suggested changes ;) Thunden 08:33, 2 February 2007 (CST)
 * You misunderstood, I'm not saying YOU have to use all the expensive stuff in guild wars. I'm saying the BUILD should. Get it? It's an ideal. Of course if you don't access to so and so, you make do with what you have, but it should still be the best possible. ~I mean, I use major vigor on my characters, so trust me, I know what being a cheapo means. I have 8 characters all filled with heroes (they usually have like 6-7 they use more frequently), imagine getting 64 characters all with FOW armor (or primeval for the heroes), expensive greens and superior vigor runes? I'd spend the rest of my life doing that. :) So yeah, you have to be a bit reasonable. But if I'm making a build, I won't put "minor vigor rune", i'll just type "best vigor rune possible" and leave it at that. NightAngel 08:36, 2 February 2007 (CST)
 * Going to drop some indents and carry on. We are getting to the heart of the issue.  The whole point of this was to demonstrate to n00bs (like me) what a minimally functional hero build looks like.  NB: Minimally functional.  The build articles are all written as 'ideals'.  If anything is not ideal in PvP, PvE general, etc, it gets flamed.  Fair enough, that's the purpose of those build pages.  My concept (right, wrong or just plain stupid) was to show how a hero team build can work for a n00b on the first run through NF.  Not should work, can work.  I get the distinct feeling that people are not understanding the paradigm shift from "Ideal" to "Flexible and feasible on the cheap and nasty with lots of room for improvement".  If the concept IS deemed stupid by the community, then lets delete the page and return to only publishing l33t builds, while leaving newbies completely ignorant of how they can get a foot in the door.  Your hero team builds are clearly superior to mine.  No contest.  However, I know how disappointing and difficult it is to get started when there are NO hero team builds listed on the hero builds page (and when I started, no builds at all). Thunden 10:51, 2 February 2007 (CST)
 * Thundeon, please note that there are many builds in tested and most of them work fine with heroes. We don't need minimally functional, we need good and original because the basics ARE ALL HERE. That's why the standards are high. This wiki was not created yesterday, you know. Edit: Heck, if you want minimally functional, copy a hench build. They meet that standard :)NightAngel 11:37, 2 February 2007 (CST)
 * Lets say there are 150 tested PvE builds and 10 hench builds. The number of possible combinations of hero and hench team builds is upwards of 20000. Thunden 12:40, 3 February 2007 (CST)


 * 1) Very poor. To start with, Conjure-warriors are generally not a good idea. Plus, the Margonites have heavy enchantment removal. Running anything other than Searing Flames on heroes at this point is not optimal. Heroes tend to not use Meteor shower wisely. So, allowing them to spam it and watchign them drop it on a spirit of QZ is very wasteful. I'll try and post my hero builds soon. --Karlos 08:39, 2 February 2007 (CST)
 * Looking forward to it, Karlos. My heroes are far from original, they use the standard builds (SF, MM, Tactics Warrior, BP interrupter) for the most part, with small variations to adapt to different environments. For instance, when doing the Shadow Nexus mission they take Mantra of Lightning. Sometimes they're shout/chant based, sometimes enchantment based, etc. But I'm not sure there are truly original builds specifically for heroes to be made. If there are, I'd be more than happy to see them, because I love using heroes. :) I think it's more of a guide thing. For instance, you make an elementalist section, and you remark that MS is not well used, but they know how to use this and that, some spells get better, some get worse, etc. It's more of a guide idea, showing what they use better/worse, with links to recommended test builds, maybe suggesting variants. I don't know. :) NightAngel 08:46, 2 February 2007 (CST)
 * I am tired of not defending the indefensible when viewed from an elitist point of view. Three strikes and I'm out.  If you (collectively) decide that the world needs a "How to survive your first month in Nightfall" guide, I'm interested.  To quote Douglas Adams: "So long, and thanks for all the fish". Thunden 10:51, 2 February 2007 (CST)

Discussion
Planned for the Hero Builds section but I do not know the correct designation since there are no builds in that section. 196.2.124.252 13:06, 1 February 2007 (CST) Thunden
 * I've updated it with what I guessed should be in it. See GW:BUILD for the relevant codes. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 13:16, 1 February 2007 (CST)
 * Thanks. Corrected to PvE Hero only 196.2.124.252 13:36, 1 February 2007 (CST)

shock? healing seed?
why shock? 3 points in air, no knockdown synergies, 5 points of exhaustion for only 20 damage, why not just bring a warrior based interupt? why give the ele healing seed and waste 10 points on healing prayers instead of just giving healing seed to the monk? tetracycloide 16:17, 1 February 2007 (CST)
 * Zhed finishes a demon group battle with roughly 30 E. Dunk is starved from 1/2 - 3/4 of the way in.  Please propose a variant solution.  Maybe E/N with another Blood Ritual?  Might put too much of a strain on Dunk's recharge times.  Shock is replaceable (although it has a synergy with AoE damage) and I'll put in a variants comment.  Knockdown does seem to disrupt Call to the Torment and I don't know if pure interrupts would (plus I HAD to use those Stonefist gauntlets for something ).  The 3 Air magic points are surplus with that distribution of skills.  I actually finished with 0 points in Air.  Thunden 04:42, 2 February 2007 (CST)

Response
Note: Moderate edits have been completed since editing & voting started to tighten the stated focus of the build (in response to comments above and in line with comments below) and to improve the article layout and expand links.

Since this is my first submission, edits in discussion are preferred to edits in votes to allow for improvement of the article prior to voting. I expect no mercy the second time :)

Please keep in mind that this is a newbie build, meant as a starting point for chars in Nightfall that are finding the Torment missions too tough, and are getting frustrated (especially given the average quality of PuGs). The first thing I looked for on GuildWiki was "Tested Hero Team builds". The category existed and there was nothing. I'd be happy to contribute to a newbie guide, but can we have a redirect from hero builds to that guide to help navigation (and avoid a blank page)?

Cheap and Cheerful
This team build is only meant to remedy the lack of newbie help, not win HA. Looking at the other proposed builds on the Heros page I notice the elitism that discourages new players. "suggested using a perfect furious mod" and "1 Bloodstained Insignia ... a must". Bloodstained Insignia are currently going for 11K. Is this appropriate for a n00b? My Master doesn't have one. The first time I got a green was the Book of Secrets. The fiery Dragon sword was a lucky drop and I built my char around synergy with it. There are no runes in this build that cost more than 1K (Minor Vigor on the main char was free). Farming is not a good intro to GW IMHO.

Maybe I should rename this to "Heros Under 50k" :)

This team build is necessary because pointing a new player at a page that contains hundreds of top of the line individual builds gives them no clue as to what works well together with an in game budget.

Cookies
Other than the main char, yes, its cookie cutter stuff. The main char isn't cookie cutter (by choice) but without personal experience, I fell back on established wisdom for the others. However, it took a fair chunk of trial and error to find out which builds a hero could run in a +50% energy use environment. The number of possible combinations of henchmen is mind boggling. A guide (as proposed) would make it clear that the main char should be custom built for the fun and experience.

Optimal build for a suboptimal world
To head off some other valid criticism: Dunkoro's Protection Prayers is too high because his focus item requires it. The Tactics line would probably be stripped from the warrior if his shield didn't req 9 tactics.

This build survives crappy eq drops. As it stands it is suboptimal, but it works - and that's the idea. If this is included in a guide, we can make it clear what is flexible wrt eq, skills & runes along with general comments and instructions on hero management, target selection and calling, flags and tanking, etc.

Thunden 06:04, 2 February 2007 (CST)

rellik sounding elitist
First things first, I entirely support the creation of this article. My reasons are obvious, most of the PvE players of GW are idiots and heroes and henchies are far more reliable. However there are some parts here that really scrag my goat


 * Tanking - what the?. I can see why players would want to use a obsidian flesh tank (because they suck) but there should be a distinguished line between saying tanking/aggro-holding and tanking/stocking up on armour buffs. While I know 'technically' aggro-holding is tanking, there should be a difference because there are different purposes. Also warrior AI for heroes and henchies generally aren't that great so I believe that there should be a mention that they will tend to go AWOL.


 * Damage-dealing - Rangers are terrible DPS, Full-stop. [[Barrage] is really the main DPS machine for a bow, there are other choices (like Burning arrow and to a lesser extent Quick shot and some others) but to be honest, bows aren't for DPS, spears/scythes/axes/swords/hammers are DPS weapons. Also a segment needs to be dedicated about HM, there armour-ignoring damage reigns and thus elementalists aren't as viable and regresses to a support-ish role with damage.


 * Support - I'm fine with this though elementalists should be mentioned for HM.


 * healers - necros can be placed here under 'requires specialization' simply because of soul reaping.

That's it for now, hopefully I've pissed off a few people to warrant some responses in which I can personal attack them with abandon Blue.rellik 05:42, 13 January 2008 (UTC)


 * I agree that this article is kind of a joke. The Hero-specific tips should and already are on the Hero page I think. And if we're going to throw hero AI tips in here, there's buckets more. Otherwise, it's a very general "pve guide". It also treats all areas as the same, which I think is a major mistake many new pve players make. Knowing what you will be fighting in each area and what you need to counter it is how you improve over time.


 * It seems to assume dervs are better tanks than sins. In some areas, yes, in some areas, no. It's silly to say that dervs are always better tanks though.


 * I also don't see why the classes can't be listed instead of the names of each hero. Or maybe something like "Ritualists (Razah, Xandra)". LOST-Merick 14:32, 2 February 2009 (UTC)