Posts by Gentleman Xander

    Decided to get my Warrior a new outfit, not sure yet about which one I like the most but here is what I tried so far:

    Option 1: Divine Warrior


    Option 2: Kormir's Number one


    Option 3: Charr - Grasping Half Blood (before any says the dyes on the legs/boots don't really match, this is the best it gets at Brown/Red/White/White everything else didnt come any closer QQ)

    Okay so the deadly paradox kinda sucks more than the other Me/A Keystone builds. Also something I love about Keystone, is that you can change it super easily based on what you need or what works (better). For example, I am about to do Gate of Desolation HM and Poison doesn't work on all of them, so I decided to drop that for this mission. Basically all foes you fight outside of the wurm are undead, so the obvious decision was to go for Me/Mo with some holy business. Give me a bit and I will provide a screen after the first phase (before wurm). Zhed is here because he has to be, so I decided to give him a weird build cuz why not^^ Aura of Restoration offsets the energy cost of Zealot's Fire so it might be quite interesting. Too bad it deals fire damage and not holy:(

    Here is after the first phase

    And here is also at the end (had to fight 2 groups in wurms cuz I couldnt run through safely) but the rest of damage was on Margonites.


    And here's proof why this team is so amazing: Gate of Madness HM + Bonus in 14mins lol

    Alright so after this screenshot above was taken, I encountered some difficulties in some Cantha HM missions (mostly due to my "yolo let's just jump in and see how it goes" playstyle with this build (it's a lot of fun to test the limits! :D)), I changed one Me/A to Me/Mo with Heal Party and Healing Seed along with more damage signets. But now that I think I know what is doable and by giving the N/Mo Unyielding Aura, I think I can go back to 3 Me/A for ultimate DPS (honestly, it's no joke! I even added more poison sources on heroes to make sure there is as much of it as possible. Even though they wont have much attribute points invested in blood magic, they will last long enough for the Me/A to cast atleast Toxic Shock (they will only use it if there is poison so it works pretty well), whereas Signet of Deadly Corruption they use freely as long as there is atleast 1 condition on them (I try to put atleast 2 on them (Poison and Weakness) but we also have Blind (N/Rt), Cracked Armor (Me/N PI), and Bleeding (Me/N Keystone) while also having Oppressive Gaze for the extra Poison+Weakness that again fuels Signet of Deadly Corruption. With Psychic Instability and the amount of rupts from Keystone, it'll be very hard for them to remove conditions from that many targets in between the Keystone siege + Ravenous Lifesteal Bomber build that I play.


    Or... Should I try something like this:

    I just tested whether Deadly Paradox also works on the Signets, and it does. This will make (@17FC):

    Signet of Toxic Shock (112 Damage; 10sec CD -> 8sec CD with Essence of Celerity)

    Signet of Deadly Corruption (130 Damage; 8sec CD -> 6.4sec CD with Essence of Celerity)

    Sadist's Signet (44hp per condition; 5.4sec CD -> 4.3sec CD with Essence of Celerity)

    ---> This will ensure that there are a lot more Signets to be used for the mesmer, while also providing some self-heal capabilities (up to 5 conditions with current setup -> max 220hp heal every 4.3sec) which is kinda insane tbh. I might run 1 of these instead of the Me/A illusion hero atm to test out the dmg etc. And since you also put attribute points into Deadly Arts, it wont be as bad if Symbolic Celerity gets stripped as the Deadly Arts signets will still be at 12(13 with cons).

    Can also take Mark of Death instead of Sadist’s Signet. Since it has kind of a long cooldown, it’s also worth keeping Deadly Paradox. Energy wise should also be kinda okay, BiP will probably be necessary but still a decent way to kill harder enemies if there are healers.

    I have tried AP spammers before and I have to say I am not a fan. If AP gets stripped/interrupted you are pretty much useless for the duration of the CD. Besides that issue, I honestly dont see how it would benefit this current setup. I am free to run certain skills still, but by the time I have done the usual AP skill spam, I wont have much left to do anyways. I know EVAS will act as a tank in most cases, but on HM they die so fast that it'd say it's only really worth it if you bring full shut down compared to a more heavy damage team than the one I made above. Furthermore it's a very non-interactive build (aka press 1-8 and win; and which I really want to avoid) whereas this build makes me feel like a Necromancer can be invincible and also gives a feeling of control over mobs (you can jump in and pretty much survive for quite a while; especially if you precast atleast Prot Spirit and/or Spirit Bond). And another "problem" with AP builds is, is that imo they are very limited to what "works". For example, you are saying EVAS, YMLAD and FH are pretty much must haves - this means you have already lost your pick of 3 potential amazing PvE skills that you can't really play around with. Besides that, since your PvE skills are already limited, and a 2nd profession (has to be Assassin for AP), there aren't a lot of good skills to really fill it up. Sure you can throw in some good damage etc, but it wont synergize as well as I would like it to xD

    Well Red, I think most of the value from 20/20 staves is the attribute. A 20/20 communing dead staff wont sell for much, but protection/domination/fire are some of the more popular attributes that tend to sell for a higher price. Additionally the skin of Dead Staff is a bit meh compared to Bo Staff, which also impacts the price and/or desire for players to have one.

    Dead staves do drop in GoK mission, but they only drop from casters. So if all you do is the farm to the left once you enter, there will be a total of 3 necromancers that will attack you. Considering the odds of a gold drop and “only” from 3 out of 30-40(?) mobs in total. You can kill more but most people really only farm the melee mobs there iirc (been ages since I did it myself on HM so cant really help).

    As for Stone/Wooden Chakram, I have tried farming these a lot, and was only ever lucky enough to drop 2-3 in total during all my GW career (15-17 years with breaks etc) and they were all single mod.

    I changed it again a bit and ended up with this:


    Reason why I didnt go for Icy Veins: Sure it can deal decent damage, but from what I have experienced from playing with all these Keystone mesmers is that usually the target I ping is the one left alive since keystone is so crazy in the AoE damage. That's why I decided to try this out (Already tried Fevered Dreams over Psychic Instability but it wasn't used enough (or couldn't be used enough to be worthwile):

    N/Rt has Oppressive Gaze (Weakness+Poison) and Weapon of Shadow (Blind)

    N/Mo has additional heals over some small prots. Also has Restore Condition for some guaranteed healing (Signet of Agony (bleeding) and Poison Heart (poison) on player & Chilblains (poison) on Me/N)

    Me/A has Signet of Toxic Shock (112dmg @17FC) and Signet of Deadly Corruption (130dmg cap @17FC only 3 condis needed) while providing strong Domination and Illusion spells

    Me/N has huge Enchant removal with Chilblains (Bleeding and Cracked Armor) -> (dropped minions since I jumped in anyways and stuff dies very fast, so wanted to try without)

    Player has good Life Steal (34 per target from Elite and 80 per target from Unholy Feast (max 5) @19 Blood) while also providing an AoE Poison around you. "You Are All Weaklings!" provides damage reduction and also functions as a cover condition.

    Total amount of conditions: 6 (optimally, realistically atleast 2-3 should be possible on all foes, including Poison)

    The Me/A builds definitely deal a lot more damage than any of the Keystone builds I have ran so far. With two very strong single target signets, spikes could be more even than before.


    Btw sorry for the build spam:D

    gw008.jpg?ex=6660ce49&is=665f7cc9&hm=48f4b17a16aebce1f93c7d9413baa61bffecc9edcb4e35707a903edaaa7fc415&=

    Decided to go for this instead. Still kinda figuring out the optimal hero builds, tried a lot of different secondary profession & skills but not sure yet. Player build def very good and fun to play. I usually just jump in and go 1-2-3-4 and things die^^ IAU is good if you know there is KD or cripple, skill 6 is also very good as it blinds around you, so you are able to tank even better :D

    With cons/pcons skill 1 steals 34hp from all nearby foes and target, skill 2 hits for 86 on nearby foes, Skill 3 steals 80hp from 5 foes nearby, LoD hits for 80 nearby.

    Here you see an example of Tahnnakai Temple NM (finished in 8mins with cons, still seemed very fast imo)

    Alright so I gave it a try. Keeping it short, it sucked ass :D

    If there were a lot of mobs or minions getting summoned right when I was using an AoE attack, I ended up killing myself and the Dark Aura hero instantly.... :D So I guess that's why people run N/D with grenth's aura to atleast not suicide^^ On that note, I came up with this. I noticed that when everything was going right, it was all smooth kills. Just noticed that there really wasnt much hex removal and the N/Mo with Heal Other was slurping energy. So I changed it up a bit, also made the Rit Channel/Resto with serpent's quickness for some more fast heals which should be manageable I think energy-wise considering BiP is there too. I am not sure about the Me/Mo Keystone with Balthazar's Aura. I am unsure if it will scatter but it seemed like a good skill to throw in since it costs a lot of energy and has a cast time of 2 seconds (which allows Fast Casting to do it's thing).

    I have also thrown in pretty much all the self-healing skills a derv can offer :p Twin Moon Sweep + Victorious sweep should be a fun time (I am thinking of running 11+1+2 Soul Reaping, 11 Wind Prayers and 6 Scythe Mastery (or 12/10/8 not sure yet, but you dont need high scythe mastery since it does heal quite a bit at such a low requirement, especially if you have the anniversary scythe). If the Me/Mo keystone seems to underperform or just seem meh, I might swap him out for a Curses necro with smiting support but I guess we'll see how this goes first.

    I have decided to go for a non-meta approach to Necromancer :3

    Player: N/W Soul Taker Axe

    Heroes: BiP Resto (1), AotL Prot (2), Curses Heal (3), Channeling SoH Rit (4), VoR Mesmer (5), Wastrels Keystone (6), and Minion Bomber Keystone (7)

    The idea behind this: Player has "You Shall Not Pass!" in order to prevent foes from running away / keep them balled up so you get a better spike. BiP Resto is obvious just a good support hero, bringing Blood Bond to prevent suicide hopefully;). AotL Prot has Dark Aura for the player, and fuels more minions through AotL for the keystone minion bomber to Death Nova (additional meat shields FTW). The Curses brings cracked armor / weakness while also doing damage through Mark of Pain and Pain of Disenchant (good ench removal so you can do full dmg^^). The two heal skills have a short cooldown and good heal, even on 10 Healing, they heal 132 each. I just thought the extra healing might be necessary since I assume doing a lot of AoE damage with axe will make it hard for the heroes to keep me alive otherwise^^. Rit brings obvious Smiting support with Splinter Weapon (considered using a Mo/Rt with Spellbreaker but it just seemed too much of a hassle to have to micro it all the time and use it, so I decided for a more user friendly build. In certain areas Mo/Rt with Spellbreaker might be very good, if there are a lot of strips, melee hate such as empathy etc). Mesmer builds are kind of from previous versions, besides the VoR mesmer. I decided to go with VoR since I am running less mesmers (so less interrupts etc) so it should pump out good damage I'd assume. The nice synergy with wastrels (which cancels after a spell has been cast, but before VoR damage) so VoR does the full amount of damage. This ensures that either Wastrels does damage, or VoR will trigger.

    Alright I decided on the colour, changed the obby skirt for elite profane legs (since obby skirt didnt have anything silver/metal on it, it just looked weird imo). Also went out again and got elite canthan gloves too. Tried all the gloves and it was either this or Chaos, but Chaos just didnt fit as well as these did (plus they fit the theme of bones sticking out so I look like an undead tengu :3)



    Edit:

    You can even still see the earrings from my character going through the mask, right where the ears are, so it actually looks okay :D


    And with weapons:)

    Big brain moment just happened. I realised that on some builds I was running Symbolic Celerity for really just one signet (Signet of Clumsiness), so I removed those skills, added all the points to Domination Magic, threw in some more signets and Domination spells. I will try my last VQ on monk and see how they do.


    This is what the setup looks like now: I have dropped all the Esurge mesmers as well, since Mistrust etc is now on 4 keystoners.

    Alright, so Necro is my next focus. Monk is just 1 VQ away from GWAMM so I can start thinking about this (aka procrastinating the fact that it's a NF Deso VQ) ^^

    So I was thinking firstly what build I should play and then see what I can make around that.


    Or an Axe Necro (with the new elite skill, instead of using a scythe like everyone else :P)

    Here are some of the ideas atm

    So since I am going for Necro GWAMM next, I am creating some builds that I think might be fun but I will just make a few more and see:) Here are the first two:


    The idea behind the first one is pretty much the same as the one I have been using on my monk, but even further decreasing the amount of prots and trading it for extra damage and interrupts. The player build helps the explosive power of all the AoE with more cleanup capabilities.


    The second one is a little more interesting. A whole Bone Fiend army (3 Bone Fiend Necromancers) together with 3 Me/Rt Keystone Splinter Rift Spammers to give them that explosive AoE power that minions lack. According to wiki, Heroes will cast Splinter Weapon on Minions, so if you give all Heroes caster weapons, their only target for Splinter would be the Minions. I think this is a pretty cool idea considering the possibilities :D Throwing in Spirit Rift for a good AoE that doesnt have such a huge cast time anymore (but a good delay, I know I know), but considering the energy usage on the Keystones won't be that big with only Splinter Weapon, Spirit Rift and the occasional Symbolic Celerity. The Curses Necro Hero has Healing Breeze, which I thought might be a good perma regen for the player, considering the health sacrifice from Order of Undeath. I am considering micro-ing Barbs since it won't have much of an impact unless the target is a Boss or just a big boii.


    Edit: Number 3... cuz lol? xD


    Alright so this next one is a little different again. Seems to be fun to use to play through campaigns and NM missions etc without wasting cons etc.

    Monk Player:

    Code and Gear

    OwIT8YIjHigoeQL6uKHE0D5AuEA

    Blessed Insignia x5

    +1+3 Divine Favor x1

    +1 Prot x1

    +50hp x1

    Vitae x2

    40/20/20 Prot Staff or +20energy staff with 20%Ench


    N/Rt BiP Resto Hero

    Code and Gear

    OAhjQYGbIP3hq64cYKNjmTuMGA

    Herald's Insignia x5

    +1+1 Blood Magic x1

    +1 Soul Reaping x1

    +50hp x1

    Attunement x2

    40/40 Resto set


    Me/R PI Illusion Hero

    Code and Gear

    OQJUA2wOQ8QhQkAIg5Z9UZA9AIHA

    Prodigy Insignia x5

    +1+3 Illusion x1

    +1 Fast Cast x1

    +1 Inspi x1

    +50hp x1

    Vitae x1

    40/40 Illusion set


    Me/R ESurge Hero x2

    Code and Gear

    OQJUASBPS8Inw0nDm+QkBEByBA

    Prodigy Insignia x5

    +1+3 Domination x1

    +1 Fast Cast x1

    +1 Inspi x1

    +50hp x1

    Vitae x1

    40/40 Domination set


    Me/A Keystone Wastrels

    Code and Gear

    OQdTAYB7n5HwTzzmOu2b+mKDAA

    Artificer Insignia x5

    +1+3 Fast Casting x1

    +3 Domination x1

    +50hp x1

    Vitae x2

    +20 Energy Staff with 20%Ench (Can be Domination but req really doesn't matter)


    Me/Mo Keystone Healer

    Code and Gear

    OQNDAsMNP/Aeae20x16BSkPC

    Artificer Insignia x5

    +1+3 Fast Casting x1

    Recovery x1

    +50hp x1

    Vitae x2

    +20 Energy Staff with 20%Ench (Can be Healing but req really doesn't matter)


    Me/N Keystone Minion Bomber

    Code and Gear

    OQRDAsMFP/Aeae20x16BVB0A

    Artificer Insignia x5

    +1+3 Fast Casting x1

    Recovery x1

    +50hp x1

    Vitae x2

    40/20/20 Death Magic Staff


    How it works

    So pretty much the idea is:

    I run in and face tank most of the hits with prots up (and Healing Seed from the Me/Mo hero who will cast it on you automatically). While this happens you can ping targets (preferably balled up) and just watch them get Thanos'd. Overall the builds synergize very well together. PI helps with a nice immobile ball that can be spiked by the mesmers. PI also greatly increases the damage from wastrels as most skills are unusable while KD'd. Since you're running 3 Keystone mesmers and run a player prot monk (with decent reaction times^^) you can avoid running more defense skills such as party wide blocks etc because of all the interrupts and also heal spike potential from Aura of Faith with Spirit Bond and/or Seed of Life (with cons/pcons Aura of Faith reaches atleast 50% Damage mitigation and 100% Healing increase which will let seed heal for 76 per hit and Spirit Bond for 200+). Melee foes tend to go for either the minions or the Me/A Keystone Wastrels as they have the lowest HP out of all the party members. This makes playing prot on a player also easier as you only need to pay attention to one hero most of the time. Having the Me/R PI hero bar open will help increasing spell activation time (either by Arcane Conundrum (AoE) or Frustration (more damage), which will help further damage reduction through interrupts. The Me/Mo also provides good AoE support with Heal Party with an activation time of less than 1 second (even less with a 40/20/20 heal staff, but since it wants to spam it sometimes I prefer the energy over the small increase in casting speed).

    To sum it up, it is hyper offensive and without enough preparation and/or reaction time this team might be quite frail against certain enemies. That's why I'd recommend using it if you know your enemies, know which targets to ping and potentially help them along by occassionaly pressing some of their skills for them.

    Thought I could share the team setup I am currently using to get GWAMM on my monk. It works so well, I just face tank all dmg with prots on myself, if they're not on me, they are eating away at the minions and they're dead in no time. It's truly beautiful to see how they just melt;D


    Also fun thing: with cons+Serpent's Quickness, Psychic Instability can be used for perma KD. It will recharge fast enough before they are able to get up. Combine this with a Keystone Mesmer who can spam both Wastrels and abuse Signet of Toxic Shock in combination with the Minion Bomber. All in all just a fun team build to run. Most of the time I am just pinging their targets and just waiting for them to die. I dont even have to do that much half of the time ^^ The Me/Mo Keystone also has very fast Heal Party + Healing Seed (which is very nice if you're just facetanking a lot of hits combined with Shield of Absorption) to provide some extra support while still dealing dmg/rupting. Serpent's Quickness on the Esurge heroes allows them to have quite fast hex+ench removal and very strong damage with an even faster Esurge, Mistrust and Cry of Frustration.

    Note: I am using consets to just make VQs more bearable so I am unsure how this will function without it.


    If people are interested, I will post gear and templates. And if there's even more interest in the builds that I have used across my account so far (7 GWAMMs, Monk @ 29/30 (22/34 NF VQ), Necro and Rit still need to start) then I will try and post those too:)