BiP support

Come on Misty, a minion master? And why is there no ineptitude but three esurges, that will drain enemies to 0 energy before they die often.

Quote from dubbleclick

Come on Misty, a minion master? And why is there no ineptitude but three esurges, that will drain enemies to 0 energy before they die often.

Because 3 esurges are better than 2 esurges and an ineptitude. Hence why they transitioned into bsurge ele. I still use 2 esurge hybrids and ineptitude hybrid on my mesmer. 3 esurges are not going to drain every enemies energy down to 0 energy. and if they somehow magically did do that before they died, then they are no longer using skills! there for making them much easier to kill.

Quote from shade

Because 3 esurges are better than 2 esurges and an ineptitude. Hence why they transitioned into bsurge ele. I still use 2 esurge hybrids and ineptitude hybrid on my mesmer. 3 esurges are not going to drain every enemies energy down to 0 energy. and if they somehow magically did do that before they died, then they are no longer using skills! there for making them much easier to kill.

Except for melee enemies such as warriors. And shit, I've drained enemies to 0 energy before killing them with esurge plenty of times with only 2 mesmers in the party. Do you play without consets or headpieces or what? But even if they didn't fall to 0 energy, Ineptitude deals more damage than Esurge.

Quote from dubbleclick

Except for melee enemies such as warriors. And shit, I've drained enemies to 0 energy before killing them with esurge plenty of times with only 2 mesmers in the party. Do you play without consets or headpieces or what? But even if they didn't fall to 0 energy, Ineptitude deals more damage than Esurge.

I don't generally do simple content with a conset. I might pop one if it's a very very large area to vanq or if I'm doing elite content. But even then I never have issues of my esurges do no damage. Sure there might be some moments in fights if every esurge hits the same exact enemy, the one following might not do damage. But that's rare. Ineptitude had a higher number. But with the higher energy cost, requirement for it to go off, and illusion skills just being overall weaker than Dom ones, you cant say this specific team comp is worse just by the fact it has another es than inept. However feel free to test it yourself and see which you like more. Testing done by multiple community members has deemed this to be better without mercs. The air ele is good for anti melee as was inept, it may not do as much as inept but combined with airs armor pen as melees will have more armor than casters anyways, and the extra over all damage and cc from the esurge mesmer, this was what it's evolved to. Like I said, I still use 2 es 1 inept and clear content fine but I have tried this and it's worked a little better in general. I just play mostly on my Mesmer so there's 3 esurges already. And I still rarely ecounter the very very rare chance of my esurge doing no damage

Quote from shade

I don't generally do simple content with a conset. I might pop one if it's a very very large area to vanq or if I'm doing elite content. But even then I never have issues of my esurges do no damage. Sure there might be some moments in fights if every esurge hits the same exact enemy, the one following might not do damage. But that's rare. Ineptitude had a higher number. But with the higher energy cost, requirement for it to go off, and illusion skills just being overall weaker than Dom ones, you cant say this specific team comp is worse just by the fact it has another es than inept. However feel free to test it yourself and see which you like more. Testing done by multiple community members has deemed this to be better without mercs. The air ele is good for anti melee as was inept, it may not do as much as inept but combined with airs armor pen as melees will have more armor than casters anyways, and the extra over all damage and cc from the esurge mesmer, this was what it's evolved to. Like I said, I still use 2 es 1 inept and clear content fine but I have tried this and it's worked a little better in general. I just play mostly on my Mesmer so there's 3 esurges already. And I still rarely ecounter the very very rare chance of my esurge doing no damage

Well, you'll get f'd in the butt if you attempt uw without anti melee. Energy cost for Ineptitude is negligible since there's a bip and in general the air ele is 100% useless because it deals no damage itself, the bip can easily bring weaken armor and an ineptitude mesmer is more useful in utility. Basically get damage + effects from the third esurge and the bsurge combined in one and have a free slot to waste. You can (and should, minion master is arguably the worst build to ever bring anywhere) also replace the second necro with a HBurst/Spell Breaker Monk or a damage necro with 3 resto skills such as the BSurge here.

But admittedly, my criticism is useless now considering the OP was edited to state that the build is for regular gameplay in normal mode. I'd still get rid of the minion master, kick the ST and stack more damage instead, but that's just preference. And then again, in elite areas I use only one ESurge, one Ineptitude and one Panic.

Quote from dubbleclick

But admittedly, my criticism is useless now considering the OP was edited to state that the build is for regular gameplay in normal mode. I'd still get rid of the minion master, kick the ST and stack more damage instead, but that's just preference. And then again, in elite areas I use only one ESurge, one Ineptitude and one Panic.

This is not for normal mode at all. It might require some tweaking for end-game content (WoC HM, UW HM, DoA HM) but it can handle the rest of HM without a problem. The minion master has proved to be an extremely strong damage dealer while still providing the x2 33% IMS that we considered a must have.

Quote from dubbleclick

Well, you'll get f'd in the butt if you attempt uw without anti melee.

This guy disagrees with you.

Quote from dubbleclick

Basically get damage + effects from the third esurge and the bsurge combined in one and have a free slot to waste.

A simple test with toolblox damage meter will show you that E-surge does SIGNIFICANTLY more damage than Ineptitude. Ineptitude builds are only valuable for the blind and arcane conundrum. In terms of raw damage E-surge eats them alive. You also lose a lot in terms of caster shut down.

So no, you are not getting the effects of the E-surge at all. The energy concerns are fair, but even if enemies get drained some times (which would only happen very rarely) E-surge still wins in damage. The only places where Ineptitude might win is where there is almost a total absence of casters (Arachni comes to mind)

Quote from dubbleclick

The air ele is 100% useless because it deals no damage itself, the bip can easily bring weaken armor and an ineptitude mesmer is more useful in utility.

The air ele is there to provide the second copy of resto skills and pack the blind lost from the lack of ineptitude. It also deals a decent amount of damage (checked with toolbox damage meter) and is able to fill in some utitily, so I would say it fills its role pretty nicely.

Quote from Drollbot

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sorry out of topic,

how can u flag all 7heroes in diferent position min. 12:45 - 12:53?

i missed the update

Quote from Rurik_shoepolisher

sorry out of topic,

how can u flag all 7heroes in diferent position min. 12:45 - 12:53?

i missed the update

You can keybind that.

Thanks for making this guide! Here are some of my thoughts and opinions about the skills in your team build based on my experiences using 7-hero teams to clear hard content: DoA, UW, hard mode EotN dungeons, etc. I'm not expecting you to drop everything and change your builds based only on my feedback, but more discussion can't hurt!

ST Rit
I prefer Signet of Creation over Boon of Creation for ST prot heroes as energy management. Boon makes the hero lag behind the party a lot of the time due to the 2s casting time and if they recast it mid-combat, you've lost most of any energy savings you might have had. It's also one of the few enchantments on your team, making it likely to be stripped in a lot of cases anyway.

I'm not a fan of the low level Splinter Weapon. The skill is amazing at level 16, but at 10 I don't think it's worth splitting your stats over. I'd rather use a couple slots on my ST prot for monk-based hex removal (and swap the Shatter Hexes to something more generally useful).

Mesmers
I've found Hex Eater Signet and Shatter Hex to be poor primary hex removal skills. Touch skills effectively add 1-2s to their casting time as the hero spends time running around and the hero AI does not use Shatter to prevent the effect of hexes, only when it will deal damage to the enemy, which can matter if you are not melee. Additionally, shatter costs 10e, which drains more of your resources than necessary if you just swapped in a couple monk-based hex clearing skills in their place.

I also think half-cast portion of 40/40 sets don't add much to your dps when you're hitting 13+ FC since at that level you're spending more time in after-cast animation (locked at 3/4s) than actually casting your spells, at least with hero AI being what it is. I prefer running Insightful Staves of Fortitude (inscr can be "Apt not Att" to keep some casting time reduction or "Hale and Hearty" to boost energy even more) to help limit the burden on your BiP battery. The generic recharge reduction will also work on any secondary Inspiration or Illusion skills on the bars, which is a nice benefit.

I prefer Signet of Return over FoMF as a hard res because while the res target ends up revived at roughly the same HP either way, the signet has no energy cost nor drains HP from the caster. There are obviously situations where FoMF will work better, but SoR is a viable alternative.

Minion Master
I'd really like to fit Stand Your Ground in here as a option for players not running Save Yourselves. Boosting your party's armor by +24 is really good and you've got the attributes and energy for it.

B-Surge Ele
I'd recommend offering Thunderclap as a variant elite for caster heavy missions/dungeons/zones. Not getting to take advantage of the 40/40 air set most of the time due to Protective was Kaolai makes me sad, but I'm not sure what the alternative is.

Invoke Lightning alternate for MM
I'd recommend a Ray of Justice monk in this slot (at the very least as an option) since many of the areas where a MM is bad are filled with undead that make smiting monks great. RoJ monks may be a tier behind E-Surge, but I think they're still effective heroes.

If you're set on keeping an ele, I think I'd rather have Thunderclap + Chain Lightning for hybrid disruption and damage or Elemental Attunement Fire Magic for pure damage over Invoke, at least since the changes to overcast on these skills.

Margrid
I get that rangers are not top tier heroes, but they can dish out some strong single target DPS with Enraged Lunge or Strike as One builds that should be better than a random assortment of mes interrupts.