User:XT-8147

Um, yeah.

I guess I'll do the typical thing, listing my characters and their builds and all.

I gotta figure out the build template anyway if I'll be helping out here ;)

I'll go in the order I created my characters.

Rie Tanaka
Named after my favorite Japanese voice actress, because Nami Tamaki was already taken.

Armor is 1.5k scar armor, dyed blue (which looks pretty cool on a bright white skin-tone female necro).

I kind of evolved into this build, the combo death/curses build I had been using before it ran into a brick wall, I stopped being able to survive. So I decided to go with a build that had a lot of self healing power while still dealing damage. A few of the slots were swapped around as it evolved, I at one point used Strip Enchantment and Dark Pact. At one point I had just arrived in Fisherman's Haven, happened to check the skills guy, noticed Awaken the Blood, and went "Whoa! I could have 18 blood magic!" So I bought it and I've used it ever since.

Well of Blood can be swapped for Life Siphon or something else as needed (i.e. partying with a MM).

I also occasionally do MM or SS, both with fairly standard builds. I haven't MMed since Factions came out and Verata's Sacrifice got nerfed, though.

Pedro No Es Pequeno
Small explanation: besides the fact that Pequeno really should be Peque&ntilde;o (yay for English character limitation), the name translates to "Pedro is not small". When I made him, I set his height as short as possible so he'd be in denial.

Armor is Grotto 15k druid's, mask undyed, coat and gloves dyed silver, leggings and boots dyed blue.

His build has changed a fair amount as well, just like Rie's did, and for the same reason. Except his problem wasn't that he couldn't leave town without dying, it was simply not dealing enough damage. I believe I had a preparation, some pet stuff, Distracting Shot, and a resurrect spell as my build for quite some time. I dumped the pet and went full damage. Then after a while I began to need a self heal, so I added Troll Unguent. Then I experimented with the armor penetration from Judge's Insight for a while. After getting tired of maintaining Favorable Winds, Read the Wind, and Judge's Insight (resulting in a pre-battle casting time of 9 seconds, ouch) I did a few cap runs, experimented a bit, and arrived at the build you see above. (and FYI, the 3 in Protection Prayers is a simple use of the very few leftover points I had, which reduces the skill disable on Rebirth to 9 seconds (from 10, whippee), also technically it becomes 9 seconds at 2 Protection Prayers, but whatever)

I've also liked Expertise a lot more than most people do, judging from the prices of Ranger superior runes.

I also do some trapping on the side and (of course) have the appropriate mask (+4 Wilderness Survival) for doing so.

Pedro's also my only Tyrian character that I've taken into Cantha thus far. I aim to replace my Hearty Melandru's Stalker (aptly named "Stupid", "Dead", or "Dumb" on a per-level rotation while B/P-ing) with a Black Moa once I get to the place that has the Moa. I also want to try out a few variations on a full Beast Mastery build, and that R/W Bunny Thumper build sounds fun also.

Dance The Nite Away
Named him that solely to make fun of the Mesmer's dance. I need to rework his build a bit but I'll post it anyway:

Armor is 1.5k Enchanter's, except for the boots which are Courtly (for the global +15 armor while casting spells).

This is mainly a jack of most trades PvE build. Empathy for warriors/rangers, blackout or guilt for casters, echoing as appropriate. Where the fun comes in is how well this build abuses caster bosses with the Empathy+Blackout combination. Under a Blackout, bosses will use their normal attack, which makes them take damage from Empathy. I have Protective Spirit in there because I got to the desert and noticed that I died with the first two meteors that hit me. So I chucked it in the build to make meteors only deal 44 damage instead of over 200. The build as a whole needs a readjustment for going through the fire islands.

Guilt can be swapped for other hexes, depending on what's needed the most for the area you're in, or for Energy Burn to provide some direct damage.

He also hasn't completed The Hero's Challenge yet. Two more path quests to go, I've been playing other characters and largely ignoring him.

Holy Sheryl
Name intended to have the first syllable of Sheryl stretched when spoken, just for fun.

Armor is 1.5k Ascetic's, dyed red (except for head tattoo, which nobody can see because of her hair).

As is probably evident, I had her run to Droknar's Forge so I could get her 1.5k armor (just to save on parchment in the long run). After that I went and capped Mantra of Recall and then finished the southern shiverpeaks. Even though the build isn't the "standard", it works well and actually has decent energy management, unlike the standard build. I rarely need a Blood Ritual or Blood is Power from a partied blood necro, because when I'm running dry, Mantra of Recall is just about to end and give me more energy. Mantra of Recall allowed me to spam Heal Party 5 times quickly in Thunderhead Keep, thus preventing half of my party from dying. This build also saved the King from Spectral Agony when a Jade Armor slipped through our defenses with Infuse Health and Heal Other. I'd like to see the standard healing build do that.

All this healing power and she hasn't done either 15 attribute point quest yet.

Bob the Victorious
Bob is possibly the best name ever. He's Bob the Victorious because Bob the Warrior, Bob the Fighter, and Bob the Gladiator were (get this) already taken. He's also only level 13 and is in Yak's Bend, I started him when I got my 2 extra slots for preordering Factions.

Armor is full Ascalon Ringmail, because I didn't feel like buying a fur square for a piece of the damage-reduction armor. But then I went and bought a Steel Ingot for the axe mastery helm, so you have to wonder if I'm really "all there".

Having only ever played the ranged/support classes in Guild Wars, I find playing a Warrior to be quite strange. I can keep two warrior henchmen alive through continued spammage of "Watch Yourself!", which charges really quickly with "For Great Justice!" and a good positioning so that Cyclone Axe hits as many things as possible. I'm trying not to be "that noob wammo". Actually, I tried being a noob wammo, but my energy didn't regen quite fast enough to use the few energy skills I had with Mending on. 2 energy regen is really plenty for this build, considering it's half adrenaline, a signet, and Resurrect takes energy but it's not like I'm using it constantly. So I really only have 2 skills that use my energy on a regular basis. What sucks is that once I get enough death penalty, my max energy will be too low for me to use "For Great Justice!" or Resurrect. Fortunately, I'm holding onto a staff that adds +6 energy just for when that happens.

Playing a Warrior for the first time introduced me to a new level of stupidity in the henchman AI: if I'm the only human in the party, Alesia will camp out on the front lines. This means three things: Come on, ANet, give henchmen an IQ above their level. Please?
 * 1) She's usually the first to die.
 * 2) She dies every other battle, so she usually runs fairly high death penalty. (Henchmen DO seem to suffer it)
 * 3) She barely heals me and the other henchmen because she's busy healing herself because she's stupid.

Arcanist Michelle
My elementalist! Named after a character in a story I wrote about some mages (to put it simply). She's still in pre-searing but she's only got a couple of quests left.

Armor is full pre-searing collector's armor.

What makes me laugh every time I'm in town is the number of people going "WTB spider legs" or one of the other items needed to get the collector armor. If you just go out and KILL the damn things you'd find that they only ever drop a Spider Leg, a Spider Web, Dye, or Gold (Giant Tree Spiders also have a chance to drop a random POS weapon). I went through the spider-infested part of Regent Valley just south of Fort Ranik (the area with the Basket of Apples that makes more spiders spawn after you pick it up) and cleared them all out, I got 13 spider legs, a fair amount of gold, 3 spider webs, and some orange and purple dye. One run through them and you can get that armor piece. I save the Spider Webs to take to post-searing and expert salvage into Silk, for no real reason because none of the armor I need uses it and it sells for crap.

The only time I ever party with anyone in presearing is when I'm doing Adventure with an Ally and Across the Wall, typically both at the same time. Of course, I haven't done those two yet.

By the way, self-healing-wise, Aura of Restoration+Orison of Healing works quite well. At a decent Energy Storage level you'll be getting back a lot of health from casting spells, and Orison of Healing will add a bit to that. It's like the poor man's Divine Favor.

Once I get to post-searing and get the skills, I plan on making her a water mage. Which means that I need to farm Flint Fleshcleaver so I can get Flint's Wand (I already have Flint's Artifact).