Team build idea for most of the PvE content

[zim]

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Well, I won't delete the topic opener, but you should read zim.uw.hu instead, if its available. I couldn't put it anywhere else just on a free webhost server.

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I came up a with a 2 men farming team build idea but it quickly became a 4 then a 5 men build.
We tried today some portion of this build and we had some good and bad moments with it. Still yet to try the full... I don't say its going to rock but I think so.

The build is based on the good ol' aggroer tank and uses 3 smiter monks and two necros, one is a battery and one is an SS user.


Character: Smiter tank

Monk/Necro

Plague Touch
Reversal of Fortune
Protective Spirit
Spirit Bond
Shield of Judgement
Signet of Agony (could be changed if monsters cause bleeding anyway in the area)
Essence Bond
Vital Blessing

Smiting 12 + 1 + 3
Protection 12 + 1

Weapon:
should be one with +5 energy and + 20% longer enchantments + smiting focus

Armour:
Ascalon to have the least possible protection
You should use only a minor vigor max.

Tactics:
Cast Vital Blessing for + 179 hp, that gives you 614.
Cast Essence Bond, to get 1 energy with each hit you receive.

In combat continously cast Protective Spirit maximum damage of 61 on you. Cast Spirit Bond continously as well - on each hit greater than 60 dmg it will give you 92 hp.

Cast Shield of Judgement to every one of your attackers damaged - ranged and close combatants alike.

Use Plague Touch to give your conditions to your adjacent FOE! Nasty trick to bleed yourself with Signet of Agony and touch it away at once with Plague Touch.
You should call the use of Plague Touch (ctrl+skill icon/shortcut), to remind the AntiMagic Smiter character to get Epidemic for even better effect.

All you have to do now is to get into aggro range and GERONIMOOOOOO!


Character: Smiter Enchanter

Monk / ?

Holy Wrath
Balthazars Spirit
Retribution
Life Attunement
Purge Signet
Aura of Faith (?)
Blessed Signet (?)
?

Smiting 12 + 3
Divine 9 + 3
Protection 9 + 3


Weapon:
Anything you like, but enchant +20 % would be a good idea beacuse of the Aura of Faith

Armour:
Anything you like


Tactics:
Don't worry about energy, you will have none.

Cast Holy Wrath on the Smiter Tank. This way the Tank fires back on each attack a maximum of 40 damage. In a fighting situation this skill will drop your energy to zero because of its energy draining effect in an instance.
Cast Retribution on the Smiter Tank. This way the Tank fires back on each attack a maximum of 20 damage.
Cast Balthazars Spirit on the Smiter Tank. This way the Tank gets 1 energy on each hit.
Casr Life Attunement on the Smiter Tank. He now will be healed on every occasion with a +43%. (eg. the Spirit Bond now heals 131 instead of 92)

Purge signet is a good choice to help the Tank in a hex/condition situation that s/he cant manage anymore. The Tank should tell you if thats the case.

Not sure about the next two skills, but if we use this we get the following:
Aura of Faith is an elite. Lasts for 60 seconds (+enchant bonus), and gives +45% bonus for every healing. So if you cast it on the Tank s/he will get 172 hp from Spirit Bond on every single hit of 61 damage. Sounds good, eh?
Blessed Signet is a choice if you dont want to depend on the Battery Necro to cast Aura of Faith (and this way the Battery can Focus on the Tank and the AntiMagic Smiter). Using Blessed Signet you will get 3 energy for every enchantments you maintain, ie. 12. Thats more than enough to cast Aura of Faith in between actions.

The last skill is optional:
But here's an idea for a secondary Mesmer: Arcane Mimicry, and you can get Shield of Judgment from the Tank and cast it on her/him before a fight. With the 15 Smiting you've got it will do decent damage.


Character: AntiMagic Smiter

Monk / Mesmer

*Spell Breaker (or Ray of Judgement)
*Blessed Aura (or Shatter Hex)
Archane Echo
Smite Hex
Scourge Healing
Arcane Mimicry
Epidemic
*? (or Dwayna's Kiss)

*Divine Favour 12 + 1 + 3 (or Healing 8 + 3 and Domination 10)
Smiting 12 + 3


Weapon:
If you use Spell Breaker consider bringin a weapon with enchant +20 %

Armour:
Anything you like, you should go for the most energy you can get

Tactics:
This is a very flexible build. The skills marked by asterisks are used for the namegiver (AntiMagic) version. You need these if there are spellcasters with nasty spell enchantremovers around the area where you're heading. Discuss with the group what should be used.

1.
Spell Breaker version

Cast Blessed Aura on yourself.

Cast Archane Echo.
Cast Spell Breaker on the Tank. This way Archane Echo becomes Spell Breaker. Beware though, you have to recast the echoed version in 20 sec or it expires. So it will give the Tank spell immunity for a maximum of 20 + 28 sec. Enough time to reload the both Spell Breaker and Archane Echo. This will drain your energy a great deal to use other skills as well you might need the help of the Battery Necro.


2.
Ray of Judgement version

With archane echo its a complete execution for a foe and all adjecent foes. Dealing 2 x 105 damage in 5 seconds and setting all animated undead on fire for 9 seconds.

With Dwayna's Kiss you can heal the tank a huge amount of hp.


3. General

Cast Smite Hex (or Shatter Hex) if Tank calls that s/he has on a Hex on Him. These will do 85-90 dmg on each smite/shatter near the Tank on all foes.
Cast Scourge Healing on a foe. For 30 seconds if someone heals that foe (even if it is the foe itself) the healer loses 80hp. Great spell!

If Tank calls Plague Touch when theres a lot of foes around her/him, press T and cast Epidemic (if you have enough energy and youre willing to do it).

Arcane Mimicry is another chance to give Shield of Judgement to the Tank or the SS Necro if it gets attacked.



Well theres two more. One of them youre already familiar with. It's basically Edem's SS/SV build. The other one is not something unheard of as well, but will post it tomorrow because I have to sleep now...

[Sir Smeg]

We did indeed try this 5 man build with 4 men and me as the smiter/enchanter, which worked very well. One small alteration, though. Since I have not yet captured Aura of Faith, my Elite skill was Shield of Judgement. Now, since me and Zim were both using this skill, if timed right we could make it last for around 40 seconds. So, seeing as the recharge time is 45 seconds, what we're looking at is a aggro tanker almost permanently imbued with the ability to knockdown anyone who so much as looks at him funny AND deal 50 damage each time.

Here is a picture of Zim in the middle of a scrum, surrounded by all my enchantments. See all those yellow numbers? Every bad guy inflicts three of those every time he hits Zim. Once for Retribution and one for Holy wrath. Study the picture and you will see that MY Shield of judgement has ended after 22 seconds. At the height of the smiting there would be 33% more numbers on the screen, and a third of them would be the number 50 ;D If I can get a picture of that truly awesome sight, then I will.



When running this build you will notice I have NO energy management. Every time a monster hits the tank, I lose 10 energy, but my enchantments do NOT end. All I have to do is sit around until the end of the battle, watching the monsters kill themselves.

[zim]

Think we should try more crowded places like Urgoz 1st room.
Now there will be numbers! (If we can survive it)

[Edem]

I guess it would be better if the tank could keep their very starter armor. (The one they get at chara creation).
And actually I used a modified SS build: instead of SV I grabbed Parasitic Bond, since the messies kept casting Expel Hexes. The trick is you have to cast it BEFORE SS, and wait until they use up Expel Hexes, since it can remove 2 hexes...