User:JediRogue/HA Primer

Runners
Your team should have at least two people who can be spared to run relics on relic matches. They should have some kind of speed boost either on their bars or have someone bring a skill like "Make Haste!" to use on them. Remember that while you are holding a relic, you move slower than normal. Also be aware that the other team will probably have snares of their own to use against you. Interrupts and shut downs can be used to counter that as well as efficent he and condition removal. Runners should always be wary of members of the other team coming to close lest they become body blocked. Skills: "Make Haste!", Dash, Flame Djinn's Haste, Hex Breaker, Storm Djinn's Haste, Holy Veil.

Backline (monks)
Eevry team, pvp or pve, knows that they will need some kind of support class to keep them alive. Ritualists, Monks and Paragons all have the ability to do this but here i'll talk about monks.

There are two basic kinds of monk you will likely encounter: protection and healing. Just as the names imply, healing comes in after damage has been done and recovers from it while protection is used before the damage can be done. Most teams employ at least one of each type of monk.

In the case of two monks, you usually have one HB monk and one RC monk. Of all the balanced builds, these tend to be the most static and most teams require the same things of their monks:

Caller (frontline)
The caller is the leader of a team. He decides tactics and targets. He must be aware of the entire team and listen to all the information they relay to him. In builds where you have a frontline (melee) class, that person is almost always the caller.

Midline
The midline of the team are usually casters but can also include paragons and rangers. They provide support to damage output and damage mitigation, sometimes on the same bar. Although they are refered to as the midline, in HA, midline players actually tend to be in the back of the battle behind the monks. This is because the monks use channelling for energy management and need to be near the energy. Unlike GvG's the arrangement on the battlefield is usually more intermingled and compact. Most balanced builds have 4 or 5 midline players.

Ressurection
With few exceptions, everyone on your team except for the monks will carry some form of rez. Most players will take res sig but usually, you should take one hard rez. There are advantages and disadvantages to each hard rez including: linked attribute, casting time, down time, lack of health and energy of the rezzed party, and the death pact. Skills: Death Pact Signet, res sig, Signet of Return, Flesh of my Flesh, Resurrection Chant

Interruption
Interrupts can be vital during matches, especially altar control. Always consider how your team plans to perform at least that one vital interrupt on claim resource. Additionally, how you plan to prevent your ghost from being interrupted. Song of Concentration is pretty much a must. Skills: Psychic Distraction, Leech Signet, Gale, Warmonger's Weapon, Shock

Snares
Snares are valuable on relic maps and cap points but their usefulness in other scenarios cannot be denied. Slowing an enemy team's runner or ghost can give your team a powerful edge. The most common forms of snares in balanced teams are water and earth snares. Skills: Ward Against Foes, Grasping Earth, Freezing Gust, Frozen Burst

Communication
Countless battles have been lost merely because the team lacks communication skills. The entire team has to be listening to each other. Monks need to hear what conditions and hexes need to be removed as well as be alerted to incoming spikes. They also must communicate their status with whats on them as well as if they have been shut down, interrupted, or are low on energy. When the monks are low on energy, the team can always pull back and recover... but not if they don't know. The same is true for most classes.

Energy Management
Energy management is critical. Every bar must have some form of it built it. Whether its adding an attunement or a Glyph to an Elementalist bar, sticking Channeling on a Monk, an adrenaline shout on a Paragon, using most adrenaline skills on a Warrior, or relying on your primary attributes (Soul Reaping, Energy Storage, Mysticism, Critical Strikes, and Expertise you should always have a plan for handling your energy. Skills: Attunements, Glyph of Lesser Energy, Shame, Signet of Lost Souls, Channeling

Enchantment removal
A good prot monk can see spikes coming much more effectively than people think. Instead of watching the health bars, they watch the field and follow where teh enemies frontline goes. This means that if you want to get a spike through, enchantment removal is extremely handy. Its also useful to remove prots and speed boosts from runners, and energy management from monks. Skills: Gaze of Contempt, Rend Enchantments, Shatter Enchantment, Shattering Assault, Rending Touch

Shields
All members of the team should be prepared with shields bearing inscriptions versus all the available damage types: fire damage, earth damage, lightning damage, cold damage, blunt damage, piercing damage and slashing damage. Even if you don't meet the requirement for the shield, you will have an additional 8 armor from the shield plus the 10 armor that the inscription provides versus that damage type. While many spikes will use different damage types, having a shield against just part of the spike can greatly blunt the damage you receive. Even if it only gives your monks a fraction of a second longer to respond to the spike, it can help. It's also useful versus pressure. Many skilled players know to switch to a shield when they are taking pressure. All the shields should probably bear a fortitude mod on them, except for cold which should have a valor mod (most spikes that include cold damage do so through a hex--Icy Veins or Shatterstone. That extra health is quite useful.)

Runes
Everyone should have a rune of superior vigor. Additionally, except in very rare cases, you shouldn't use a superior attribute rune because the trade-off on health is generally deemed not worth it. Most people don't even use a major rune.

Insignia
In general, its better to go with extra health on your insignia over extra armor. Extra armor will not help versus degen or life stealing while the extra health can. Also, most insignia that offer extra armor only offer armor versus a certain damage type or under certain conditions. Survivor insignia always work.

High energy set
Everyone will find having a high energy set useful. There is nothing more frustrating that losing a match simply because you didn't have enough energy for a critical skill at the right time. Temporarily switching to a set with increased energy (even at the cost of health, armor, and regen) can save the day.

Caster Weapon
Caster weapons are not wands or staves. They are in fact spears, axes and swords with specific mods. A caster weapon is usually one of those weapons with the following mods: an energy +5 inscription ("I have the power!") and a health plus 30 mod (fortitude). Occasionally, you can go with an enchanting mod instead. These weapons are used because they are one-handed weapons to which you can affix fortitude and enchanting mods. You cannot affix those mods to wands and staves are two-handed. Only by using one of these weapons can you gain two fortitude mods on your entire set or a fort and an enchanting.

If you are starting with a PvP character, a spear is recommended because you can still use it to attack from a distance. Many people will also chose to still bring a wand to gain the mods that you can only get from wands and staves (HSR and HCT).

40/40 Set
A 40/40 set is a wand/offhand set with the following mods: the wand has a wrapping of memory and an aptitude not attitude inscription and the offhand has a "Forget Me Not" inscription and a focus core of aptitude. This will give you a 20/20 wand and a 20/20 focus. The 20/20 refers to the 20% halves cast time and a 20% halves skill recharge. (See 40/40 for more details.) A 40/40 set is useful for skills that you want to get more use out of and circumvent a long recharge or skills that have a long cast time or avoiding being interrupted on critical skills. For example, an elementalist with Convert Hexes on their bar might bring a 40/40 prot set to get more usage out of that skill against teams with a lot of hexes.