Mercenary Hero Teambuild for Paragon

Damage-oriented teambuild for paragon players with 2 or more mercenary heroes. The synergy of a paragon's protective power, mesmer shutdown and defensive communing spirits renders this team very stable despite being so damage-heavy. Usually there won't be enough damage to make the BiP healer use his restoration magic on anyone but himself. Due to [[spiritual pain] and [[empathy] physical foes are cut down quickly despite their lower energy pool and all hostile summoned creatures vanish immediately.

Player: Use [[spear of fury (Luxon)] after [[blazing spear]. Use [["Save Yourselves!" (Luxon)] only when your team needs the protection or you need the energy. If you smartly rotate through your attack skills you can either keep up SY permanently or use attack skills on every attack, depending on what's needed. If you're hexed, move near foes as heroes will intelligently use [[shatter hex] as a damage skill. Try to hit summoned creatures with [[holy spear] for armor ignoring AoE bonus damage before spiritual pain destroys them.
Use a tactics shield.

Used in Hard Mode in all campaigns and Winds of Change. Accidentally did my survivor title running this. With slight changes and a conset usable in DoA HM.

Strengths:

• Quick, devastating damage burst.
• Paragon dealing damage.
• Easy survivor title.
• Shutdown by mistrust, rupts and energy depletion.
• Excellent enchantment and hex removal if needed.
• Excellent survivability.
• Total destruction of summoned foes.
• Resistant to hex, enchantment and condition removal.
• Does not need corpses.

Weaknesses:

• Low amount of healing. Not an issue unless there's plenty of armor ignoring constant damage such as from environment effects.
• Damage against physicals mostly single-targeted.
• No [["Fall back!"].

Exemplary Videos:

Cleansing of Silent Surf [Hard Mode Only]

When Kappa Attack [Hard Mode Only] (variant with psychic instability; without inspiration magic)

Honourable Combat [Hard Mode Only] (variant for 6 man areas)

Finding Jinnai [Hard Mode Only]
Raid on Kaineng Center [Hard Mode Only]

Raid on Shing Jea Monastery [Hard Mode Only] (without rice wine bombs)

The Final Confrontation [Hard Mode Only]

Domain of Anguish HM (build variant with conset)

[build=OQGjgmlcVS8Ele+ihiKYietbAh]
[build=OQhkAoC8AGKzJAna6me5gMARI5C]
[build=OQBDAqwDOnAcqpb6lDyAEBNA]
[build=OQBDAqwDOnAcqpb6lDyAEBNA]
[build=OQBDAqwDOnAcqpb6lDyAEhhA]
[build=OQBDAqwDOnAcqpb6lDyAEhhA]
[build=OAhkYkE4RFyzdwOUVlmTOh3wccC]
[build=OACjQygc4MYTnp17xFOhmqzLG]

Template codes:
Player: OQGjgmlcVS8Ele+ihiKYietbAh
Hero 1: OQhkAsC8gFKzJAna6me5gMARI5C
Hero 2: OQBDArwjNnAcqpb6lDyAEBNA
Hero 3: OQBDArwjNnAcqpb6lDyAEBNA
Hero 4: OQBDArwjNnAcqpb6lDyAEhhA
Hero 5: OQBDArwjRnAHgmOTP5AZAEBDB
Hero 6: OAhkYgE6hEyzdwOUVlmTOh3wccC
Hero 7: OACjQygc4MYTnp17xFOhmqzLG

Variants: Replace one instance of [[energy surge] with either [[visions of regret] or [[panic] or [[psychic instability] (@16 fast cast). Don't use panic unless you're certain you'll need it. I only used it twice and not even in the domain of anguish. Replace [[mistrust] or [[spiritual pain] with [[shatter hex], [[overload], [[empathy], [[shatter enchantment] depending on what's needed. Replace [[drain enchantment] with [[waste not want not...], [[guilt] or [[shame] if and only if there's no enchantments at all.

Equipment: Run superior domination magic and fast cast runes on your mesmer heroes aswell as a major inspiration magic. Change the base attributes to 12-11-6. Equip them with +60hp staves.

paw*ned² template code:

pwnd0001?download pawned2 @ memorial.redeemer.biz | Copyright 2008-2018 Redeemer
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ACYiAAKSGVsZCAxCgYOQBDArwjNnAcqpb6lDyAEBNAAAAACYiAAKSGVsZCAyCgYOQBDArwjNnAcqpb6l
DyAEBNAAAAACYiAAKSGVsZCAzCgYOQBDArwjNnAcqpb6lDyAEhhAAAAACYiAAKSGVsZCA0CgZOQBDArw
jRnAHgmOTP5AZAEBDBAAAACYiAAKSGVsZCA1CgbOAhkYgE6hEyzdwOUVlmTOh3wccCAAAACYQAAKSGVs
ZCA2CgZOACjQygc4MYTnp17xFOhmqzLGAAAACgDAAKSGVsZCA3Cg<

See also: This build on GWPVX

Have fun testing and discussing the build.

I'm glad you like it.

Tracking the Corruption is much about positioning. You can ease the fight by turtling at the gate to the docks, forcing the Am Fah to attack you from the same side passing a choke point. While their melees will run/shadow step into your casters, their ranged characters will be standing close to each other and die easily to AoE damage and effects like visions of regret or panic. When you get to that quest with another character that approach might be useful to you, as seen here: [WoC] Tracking the Corruption

For easier stuff I like to play as a dagger paragon with a team build such as 'WRECKED' for 3x [["fall back!"].

With 5 domination mesmers there's probably always some redundancy, but within acceptable measures. Especially when it's basically five copies of the same mesmer instead of some nice synergyzing setup. But let me comment your points:

[1] Death Pact Signet. I barely ever see any team members die when using this build. As mentioned above I even did my survivor title playing this build, without noticing. The death rate is just very very low. Therefore I didn't see a reason not to pick death pact signet. It is a faster resurrection than flesh of my flesh, does not leave two party members at low health provoking new kills. Not having to suffer from that health loss and ~50% health resurrection is desirable for two reasons: First of course because of the quite limited amount of healing your backline provides, second because the newly resurrected team member won't be affected by shout prots for a few seconds, leaving him especially vulnerable – so he should at least be at 100%. That death pact signet can kill your mesmer barely ever matters, given it's likely no one will die in the first place.

[2] Don't underestimate empathy. In a team with 5 instances of mistrust and energy surge the heroes will quickly decimate the casters (which usually even stand close to each other due to the same casting range) but won't hit physicals, which either stand apart (bows with a different range) or hit team members in melee range, often splitting further up. Due to the fast attack speed of foes in hard mode those melees and rangers will get quite low already, making it a matter of a single spell to finish them off usually. Also, when I played with a toolboxer, the damage report showed that empathy had a pretty large impact. I was pretty surprised by that myself.

[3] People will have to adjust the build for some areas. I usually play content such as winds of change where foes simply have many enchantments. I even replaced two instances of mistrust with shatter enchantment for some quests. When you know that your foes won't have a sufficient amount of enchantments for drain enchantment, replace some instances of it with skills which will fit the circumstances better. Waste not, want not, shame and guilt come to mind. I don't design builds to work everywhere without changing skills. In my opinion that's a poor way to design builds in general. It results in efficient builds which are effective below their potential. It takes the fun of adjusting builds. It's just boring.

[4] Despite my bad habit to bring BiP in like 95% of my team builds... come on, it's a great skill! It helps heroes when they fail to use their own energy management properly, it helps against energy denial from foes, it helps especially mesmers to run more effective yet less efficient builds. Even the mesmers in this build benefit from BiP, they'd run below their potential without it. And you know very well that a mesmer's potential is enormeous. Especially when played with 14 or more fast cast, as intended for this build. In some cases I even drop the ST prot for a second BiP healer, it's worth it.

[5] Spiritual pain is a great skill against low energy targets aswell. But I've also run out of ideas for simple direct damage skills to add. A third empathy would make sense, power spike would be the 11th rupt in addition to 5 mistrusts, wastrels doesn't work too well on heroes... I recently tested aneurysm and heroes seem to use it well enough. Apparently on foes which hit 0 energy, just like you'd want it. Not worth it against warriors, of course. But as casters have pretty high amounts of energy in hard mode that will easily finish a foe off which hit 0 already. I have the impression that, as a general rule, necromancers seem to have above 50 and monks about 65 energy in hard mode. Elementalists always above 100, like 130. The downside of aneurysm is that you first have to drain a target to 0 without killing it. To achieve that you'd have to tweak the build some more, substituting energy management skills with guilt/shame and perhaps adding a signet of weariness. I'd in general rather just keep it simple with spiritual pain #5 or empathy #3.

On holy spear: Even if you don't hit summoned creatures with it it's still the best low adrenaline attack skill to add when spear of redemption is already in use.

[1] People usually don't die in the first place. The scenario you described happened to me like once in a year. Nothing to worry about. But thanks to your post I realized: I could replace flesh of my flesh on the ST with a second death pact signet without much risk. :p

[2] Ineptitude never felt good to me. It's certainly useful when combined with panic or when you know you'll definitely face plenty of physicals, but there's plenty of occasions none of your skills are going to deal damage to caster foes despite there's rupts. And that's from the perspective of a player who can chose his targets and not from the perspective of a clueless hero who will use his skill on any target. Domination magic's damage is pretty safe even on a hero.

[3] There's almost always some enchantments to drain. If not, one should consider bringing another energy management skill. You may not want to believe it, but even like that the heroes benefit from it. Else I'd definitely need to bring two BiPs, but that's usually less stable than BiP + ST.

And I won't leave many skill slots open. This is not the build namespace of GWPVX where policies suggest that you should present a team with many, many optional skill slots. I trust in the people who find builds on guildwarslegacy. Especially when they read the comment which suggests some of the ways to tweak this build, they can do it without me leaving free slots. If not, this very simple team template will serve them well enough in most areas.

[4] BiP's not wasted, the heroes still benefit a lot from it despite having their own energy management skills. They don't use it well enough to play without BiP. They don't use it badly enough to drop it entirely.

[5] Of course I don't need 5 energy surge heroes, but I want 5 of them as they deal nice armor ignoring AoE damage without the conditions of an ineptitude mesmer. That's my personal preferance. Other players may want to substitute one or two of the energy surge mesmers with ineptitude or the likes, but I won't; it's not my style.

Wandering eye might be an interesting option. I once made a mesmer hero build using just domination magic, fast cast and illusion magic. I shared it with my alliance and it became known to everyone as the "eye cancer build". It's certainly not inconceivable to run a build like (OQBDAqwBSnAIgmOTP5AuAAADB) at 16/13/10. Never tested it, tbh. I've heard that you like it and I may test it myself at some point, but I do fear that I'd need a dual BiP backline for it to somehow compensate the loss of the mesmer's own energy management. And that'd reduce the team stability considerably.

I have fun making and tweaking builds; and some of the builds I made I shared. I don't aim to make the objectively best build ever to be made. I doubt there can be such a thing anyway. A build is not just about effectivity, but also the fun you have playing it. I hope we agree on that. Playing styles and player preferances vary a lot, e.g. some players love to play turtling builds with minions and spirits and defensive mesmers, while other people would prefer to play 8 damage and let the carnage begin. Also, because of different playing styles the build version that may work best for you is probably not the same that works best for me. There's nothing bad about that. I know what works well for me and you know what works well for you, don't you?

If we actually wanted to compare which build version works better, there would be nothing bad about making comparison videos of different build versions in the same game content. We'd just need a large bunch of different, relevant game content and people who make such vids. I'm not too interested in that right now. And given you and I are the only people who participated in the build challenges so far I doubt there's much active interest in such a thing among the legacy users anyway.

Thanks for the build dicussion anyway.