Freyas Theme Builds #3
January 20, 2009 – 10:44 pmPosted by: arosavi
I’m sorry this is a bit late, but I was to pre-occupied this weekend to write up a new build. Since I haven’t had as much time to brainstorm, I’m going to put up an entire team build which I made, very similar to what my guild, Spirits of War,
used for guild battles this last beta weekend. The purpose of the build was to assassinate the enemy guild lord before the opposing team realized what was going on.
We ended up with a fairly good record with the build, which I’ll go into later. The setup was a bit different and changed based on what characters were around, but here’s the general idea of the build and the thought processes needed to put it together. I’ve left out some of the thought in choosing the individual builds, which I went into detail on in my previous article which can be found here. The idea behind a team build is to utilize skills that work together between different characters, allowing a greater benefit than using a collection of individual character builds based on being effective individually.
In order to keep the enemy guild off-balance and unsure what was going on, the guild split into 2 groups: 3 players would go assassinate the Guild Lord while the other 5 advanced to the center and distracted the enemy guild at the flagstand. The 3 players who went to kill the guild lord had to have high damage as well as good survivability in order to kill the Guild Lord while withstanding a barrage of arrows and lots of area-of-effect damage coming from the enemy Arcanists.
The assassin characters had a very limited amount of time in which they could take to kill the enemy guild lord before the enemy team could get back to heal him. While looking through the skills available and personal experience in guild battles, I found a skill that would help immensely: a skill that was recently renamed Grenth’s Balance. This skill equalizes the life between you and whoever you cast it on. The Guild Lord has a very large amount of life(as shown by the damage required to kill him), so Grenth’s Balance does an extremely large amount of damage to him. In fact, we found that using Grenth’s Balance twice still did a very large amount of damage on the second cast. To see how it works, assume the Guild Lord starts with 2000 health, and your characters have 480. If you’re unhurt, and use Grenth’s Balance on the Guild Lord, the combined life total is 2480, so after using the skill, both of your life totals will be at 1240. Since you can’t have more than 480 health, the extra life is lost, but you’ve just done 860 damage to the Guild Lord using one skill. If another character, also at 480 health uses Grenth’s Balance on the Guild Lord at this point, the combined life total will be 1720, so after balancing, both that character and the Guild Lord will be at 860, effectively dealing an additional 380 damage. Along with the large amount of damage, the characters using Grenth’s Balance are healed by that amount of health, which will help them stay alive through the enemy attacks. As the characters will be taking damage while trying to get to the Guild Lord, Grenth’s Balance should provide even more damage as well as provide a nice amount of healing.
Grenth’s Balance can take a lot of life from the Guild Lord at the beginning of the battle, but the assassin team needs to be able to finish him off quickly. After using Grenth’s Balance twice, he should be under 1/2 life, which means that skills like Final Thrust can be nice. He also stands in one place, so area-of-effect skills that provide a lot of damage over time to someone who stands in them such as Meteor Shower or Fire Storm can be very effective. Before deciding on what skills and setups to take on the assassin team, however, it would be nice to know if there’s any way that the other 5 characters can make the assassination easier from halfway across the map.
To start out, we should look at what types of skills can be used to help someone who is nowhere near the person using the skill. After playing with maintained enchantments and party-affecting monk skills, I found that these did not work on someone who is not visible on your radar at the bottom right of the screen. However, the Necromancer spells Order of Pain and Order of the Vampire affect the entire party regardless of how far apart you are, which was verified through testing. The other effects that work on everybody are Ranger Nature Rituals. They’ll affect the other party as well, but if your team is prepared to take advantage of them and the other team isn’t, they can provide a very nice bonus.
So, since the rest of the party can use the Orders as well as Nature Rituals, the assassin characters should be designed to take advantage of this help as much as possible. Two Nature Rituals looked good to me for helping the assassins: Energizing Wind and Quickening Zephyr. Energizing Wind reduces the energy cost of skills to a maximum of 10 energy and increases the recharge, while Quickening Zephyr reduces the recharge time of skills, but increases the energy cost. I decided to make use of Energizing Wind, as the assassins will want to use a lot of skills, and may not have the energy to use them all. Muddy Terrain also looks promising for helping keep the opponents from getting back to their Guild Lord by slowing movement speed and preventing the use of speed buffs.
With the decoy team using Order of Pain, Order of the Vampire, and Energizing Wind it’s time to see what the assassins can use to take advantage of these effects.
Since Order of Pain and Order of the Vampire can each add about 13 damage to every attack, the decoy team should hopefully take advantage of this by attacking quickly while they are in effect. Swords and Axes have the fastest attack speed in the game, at one attack every 1.33 seconds, and warriors can use stances to increase their attack speed as well. Looking at the skills for swords and axes, swords have an advantage in damage-boosting skills, whereas axes inflict more conditions. Swords also have the skill Hundred Blades, which will give two attacks in a very small period of time, ideal for inflicting extra damage with the Orders. Since the only conditions that will really boost damage are Bleeding which adds 6 damage per second, and Deep Wound which reduces the health of your enemy are available for sword users, two members of the decoy team should be sword warriors. This also gives access to Final Thrust, which will deal a large amount of damage to a target under 1/2 life, which the Guild Lord should be after the use of Grenth’s Balance.
Necromancer/Warrior
Grenth’s Balance{E}
Hundred Blades
Sever Artery
Gash
Final Thrust
Warrior/X
Hundred Blades
Galrath Slash
Pure Strike
Final Thrust
Berserker Stance
Since the adrenal skills on the second warrior require a significant amount of adrenaline to use, I put in Berserker Stance- it will increase attack speed to get in more damage with the Orders, and build up adrenaline quickly to charge up the high-damage adrenal skills that he has. There’s still several skill slots on these characters that are available to fill with skills to help keep the assassins alive.
The third character will probably need to take up a fair amount of the healing, though they’ll hopefully be able to deal a high amount of damage as well. An Elementalist/Monk with their large energy pool should be able to contribute a significant amount of healing if needed, and with all of the big Elementalist spells costing only 10 energy they should be able to add in some nice damage as well. Fire would be best, as the Guild Lord does not move, and the fire spells have the potential to do massive damage to any target that does not move out of their area of effect.
Meteor Shower
Fire Storm
Phoenix
These spells have the potential to deal massive damage- Phoenix does best at close range, but since there is not much reason for the character to hang back, this skill should be quite useful for its large damage output. One concern I have is the 5 second casting time on Meteor Shower- I decided to use another skill in order to speed that up- Glyph of Sacrifice. Since they won’t be casting it when it recharges 90 seconds later anyhow, adding another 2 minutes to the recharge time is insignificant. Since the Guild Lord doesn’t move, having a Meteor Shower coming down on him will deal 80 or more damage every couple seconds with no cast time besides the 1-second cast time of the Glyph and only 10 energy due to Energizing Wind. These spells all have a long recharge time, but it does not matter so long as the Guild Lord dies, since they won’t need to be recast.
To make sure the assassins can live long enough to kill the Guild Lord, we’ll need to look at defense and buffs for the assassins. They’re going to be the targets of at least 4-6 Archers dealing a large amount of damage as well as the Guild Lord attacking and the Arcanists casting area-of-effect spells on them. In order to stay alive, they’ll need some significant healing, and some buffs to reduce their damage would be very helpful as well. Since the Archers and Guild Lord all use bows, they’re all dealing piercing damage. “Shields Up!” from the Warrior’s Tactics line gives a very nice buff: +50 defense versus piercing damage to each nearby ally wearing a shield. Since the duration on this skill is a little less than 1/2 the recharge time, I decided to put it on both the N/W and W/X. If all 3 assassins wear shields, they should take vastly reduced damage from the Archers- both from the defense provided by the shields as well as the extra 50 AL from the skill.
Even with reduced damage, some healing will definately be needed. The W/X should thus be a W/Mo- they won’t be able to do as much healing with the limited energy pool of a Warrior, but if they can cast a useful enchantment, they can take some of the stress off of the E/Mo. The best possiblity would be to use something that triggers whenever they take damage, such as Healing Hands. Unfortunately, Healing Hands is elite, and we will probably need the elite slots for other skills. However, Healing Seed offers the same protection with the added bonus of providing healing to nearby allies- so if the assassins are close together, they’ll each get healed whenever the person with Healing Seed on them is dealt damage. To make sure that there’s enough healing provided in this way, I decided to add Healing Seed to both the W/Mo and E/Mo- with 2 healing seeds, the AoE damage from the Arcanists and the damage from the Archers should be easily offset. To make sure that there’s enough healing should Healing Seeds not be enough, the E/Mo should take some other healing spells such as Healing Breeze and Orison of Healing.
So now for the assassins, we have:
Necromancer/Warrior
Grenth’s Balance{E}
Hundred Blades
Sever Artery
Gash
Final Thrust
“Shields Up!”
Warrior/Monk
Hundred Blades
Galrath Slash
Pure Strike
Final Thrust
Berserker Stance
“Shields Up!”
Healing Seed
Elementalist/Monk
Meteor Shower
Glyph of Sacrifice
Fire Storm
Phoenix
Healing Seed
Healing Breeze
Orison of Healing
One possibility to look at is the ability for a character to learn a skill from a different class by the use of a skill charm and superior necklace. The disadvantages of this method of learning a skill is that you are unable to put points into the related attribute for that skill, if there is one, and the skill will take your elite skill slot. However, the skill I have in mind is Grenth’s Balance, which is already elite, and which has no linked attribute. In order to learn the skill, all that is needed is to get a skill charm of Grenth’s Balance, which can be crafted by the N/W, and a superior charm necklace which can be bought for 25 gold from any Outfitter. The skill lasts for 24 hours, so it will need to be re-learned periodically.
The N/W has 2 free slots, and is already using an elite skill, whereas the W/Mo and E/Mo have 1 slot each, both of which can use an elite skill. Since speed is important, I decided on “Charge!” for the W/Mo- this should be able to help reach the enemy Guild Hall quickly and end the match before they can realize what’s going on. Since I would like a second Grenth’s Balance, the E/Mo should use a skill charm and necklace to learn that skill and take it for their elite skill. I’m concerned about the energy usage of the W/Mo, as well as the E/Mo, whereas the N/W currently isn’t doing much with his energy pool. The N/W can use Blood Ritual to give some extra energy to the other assassins. For the second skill, since two of the assassins are using adrenal skills, Dark Fury will help by doubling the adrenaline gain of both of the attackers, letting them use their high-damage skills more often.
So, in their final form, the assassination team looks like:
Necromancer/Warrior
Blood Magic: 10
Swordsmanship: 11
Tactics: 10
Grenth’s Balance{E} Unlinked
Hundred Blades Unlinked
Sever Artery Swordsmanship
Gash Swordsmanship
Final Thrust Swordsmanship
“Shields Up!” Tactics
Blood Ritual Blood Magic
Dark Fury Blood Magic
Warrior/Monk
Strength: 7
Swordsmanship: 10
Tactics: 9
Healing Prayers: 10
Hundred Blades Unlinked
Galrath Slash Swordsmanship
Pure Strike Swordsmanship
Final Thrust Swordsmanship
Berserker Stance Strength
“Shields Up!” Tactics
Healing Seed Healing Prayers
“Charge!”{E} Tactics
Elementalist/Monk
Energy Storage: 10
Fire Magic: 11
Healing Prayers: 10
Meteor Shower Fire Magic
Glyph of Sacrifice Unlinked
Fire Storm Fire Magic
Phoenix Fire Magic
Healing Seed Healing Prayers
Healing Breeze Healing Prayers
Orison of Healing Healing Prayers
Grenth’s Balance{E} Unlinked
Now onto the decoy team- there’s 5 characters to play around with here, and we need to have Order of Pain, Order of the Vampire, and Energizing Winds included somewhere in order to help the assassin squad. In addition, this team needs to be able to help prevent the opposing team from getting back into their guild hall to save their Guild Lord, at least slowing them down until it’s too late, so we’ll want Muddy Ground as well as some other skills to slow down our opponents. The decoys should also hopefully be able to stay alive fairly well fighting 5 vs 8, so we’ll probably want a fair amount of healing. In order to hopefully distract the opposing team from wondering where our other 3 players are, we’ll need to be dealing damage as well- basically everything you’d expect from a team of 8, condensed into 5 players, with some movement debuffs(snares) and some other skills already taking up the possible skill slots. Fortunately, we don’t really need to kill the opposing team, so we can have a lower damage output than a normal team.
The general decoy team layout that I would like to see would be something like this:
Healer
Healer
Snarer
Damage Dealer
Debuffer
Well, we know we need to have Order of Pain and Order of the Vampire as well as Energizing Winds somewhere, so lets start with those characters. These characters should have some decent healing capability to keep up with the health that they have to sacrifice for Order of Pain and Order of the Vampire, and they should hopefully be able to help out the team in other ways as well. We’re also using another nature ritual- Muddy Terrain- and it would be good to split the death penalty given by using Nature Rituals between different characters.
Necromancer/Monk – Healer
Order of Pain/Order of the Vampire
-healing spells
Necromancer/Ranger – Debuffer
Order of Pain/Order of the Vampire
Nature Ritual
Troll Unguent(for healing)
-debuff spells
Rangers have some good snaring abilities in the way of applying Cripple, whereas Elementalists can snare with Water Magic skills, and Mesmers have Illusion Magic hexes that slow down enemies as well. Since we want another ranger to take the second Nature Ritual, using that character for the snarer position would work well.
Mesmer/Ranger – snares + ritual
Pin Down
Epidemic
Ritual
Ethereal Burden
Crippling Anguish{E}
This character should be able to slow the enemy movement to a crawl, spreading cripple to most of their team using Pin Down and Epidemic, and using Ethereal Burden and Crippling Anguish on the enemy healers to ensure they can’t get back to save the Guild Lord’s life. Since I would like to use Crippling Anguish for the nice 50% decreased movement speed along with some damage over time, this character should take Energizing Wind for thier ritual, while the N/R should grab Muddy Terrain, which is an elite skill.
So, we have a healer and a damage dealer left, as well as a few skill slots open on our other decoy characters. I decided to go with my standard healing build for the healer, as I was playing that role over the weekend.
Monk/Mesmer
Orison of Healing
Word of Healing{E}
Dwayna’s Kiss
Healing Breeze
Healing Seed
Chanelling
Power Drain
Restore Life
For the damage dealing character, a hammer Warrior with knockdowns is nice for disruption and damage, and can use his knockdowns to help slow the enemy team if needed. Knocking down the enemies will also slow their damage output, helping the decoy team stay alive.
Warrior/Elementalist
Conjure Frost
Hammer Bash
Bull’s Strike
Mighty Blow
Berserker Stance
Water Trident
Deep Freeze
Glyph of Lesser Energy
So now all we have left is to flesh out the N/Mo healer as well as the N/R debuffer. The N/Mo is going to want a high number of points in Blood Magic to have an effective Order of the Vampire, and can’t get the bonus to healing spells from Divine Favor as a primary monk would. We could change this to a Mo/N, but this character needs to stay alive long enough to use Order of the Vampire to help the assassination. With a Monk primary class, they are more likely to be focused and killed at the beginning of the match. Since they can’t recieve the nice bonus to heals from the Divine Favor attribute, they will probably be most effective using Protection Prayers skills with a couple of healing enchantments.
Necromancer/Monk
Order of the Vampire{E}
Reversal of Fortune
Guardian
Convert Hexes
Mend Ailment
Protective Spirit
Healing Breeze
Healing Seed
The N/R debuffer just needs to have some useful skills to slow down the damage of the enemy. We already know that we need to have points in Wilderness Survival for Muddy Terrain and points in Blood Magic for Order of Pain. Wilderness Survival offers some traps that could be helpful for both dealing damage and inflicting conditions, while Blood Magic is good for some passive healing and damage, but not much in debuff skills. Curses offers a lot of good debuff skills, so I’d like to make this character use those three attributes.
N/R
Order of Pain
Muddy Terrain{E}
Troll Unguent
Barbed Trap
Flame Trap
Shadow of Fear
Faintheartedness
Rend Enchantments
The Me/R still has a couple of free slots, though I’m concerned about the energy cost of Pin Down and Epidemic. Since we’re pretty low on hex removal, Inspired Hex is a good way to remove a hex as well as gain energy, and then adding in something like Energy Tap or Power Drain could be nice to ensure they can keep up the energy to slow the opponents. They’ve got several attributes needed already, which makes this a little difficult, though: Beast Mastery for Energizing Wind, Marksmanship for Pin Down, and Illusion Magic for the Mesmer snares. Putting some points into Inspiration seems necessary to ensure that they can use their skills, though.
Mesmer/Ranger
Pin Down
Epidemic
Energizing Wind
Ethereal Burden
Crippling Anguish{E}
Inspired Hex
Power Drain
Energy Tap/Conjure Phantasm
Now that we’ve got a rough draft of the build, let’s take a look at it all put together.
***Assassin Team***
Necromancer/Warrior
Blood Magic: 10
Swordsmanship: 11
Tactics: 10
Grenth’s Balance{E} Unlinked
Hundred Blades Unlinked
Sever Artery Swordsmanship
Gash Swordsmanship
Final Thrust Swordsmanship
“Shields Up!” Tactics
Blood Ritual Blood Magic
Dark Fury Blood Magic
Warrior/Monk
Strength: 7
Swordsmanship: 10
Tactics: 9
Healing Prayers: 10
Hundred Blades Unlinked
Galrath Slash Swordsmanship
Pure Strike Swordsmanship
Final Thrust Swordsmanship
Berserker Stance Strength
“Shields Up!” Tactics
Healing Seed Healing Prayers
“Charge!”{E} Tactics
Elementalist/Monk
Energy Storage: 10
Fire Magic: 11
Healing Prayers: 10
Meteor Shower Fire Magic
Glyph of Sacrifice Unlinked
Fire Storm Fire Magic
Phoenix Fire Magic
Healing Seed Healing Prayers
Healing Breeze Healing Prayers
Orison of Healing Healing Prayers
Grenth’s Balance{E} Unlinked
***Decoy Team***
Necromancer/Monk
Blood Magic: 10+2
Protection Prayers: 11
Healing Prayers: 10
Order of the Vampire{E} Blood Magic
Reversal of Fortune Protection Prayers
Guardian Protection Prayers
Convert Hexes Protection Prayers
Mend Ailment Protection Prayers
Protective Spirit Protection Prayers
Healing Breeze Healing Prayers
Healing Seed Healing Prayers
Monk/Mesmer
Healing Prayers: 12+2
Divine Favor: 10+1
Inspiration Magic: 8
Orison of Healing Healing Prayers
Word of Healing{E} Healing Prayers
Dwayna’s Kiss Healing Prayers
Healing Breeze Healing Prayers
Healing Seed Healing Prayers
Chanelling Inspiration Magic
Power Drain Inspiration Magic
Restore Life Healing Prayers
Mesmer/Ranger
Illusion Magic: 10+2
Inspiration Magic: 10+1
Marksmanship: 9
Beast Mastery: 7
Pin Down Marksmanship
Epidemic Unlinked
Energizing Wind Beast Mastery
Ethereal Burden Illusion Magic
Crippling Anguish{E} Illusion Magic
Inspired Hex Inspiration Magic
Power Drain Inspiration Magic
Conjure Phantasm Illusion Magic
Necromancer/Ranger
Blood Magic: 10+1
Curses: 10+2
Wilderness Survival: 11
Order of Pain Blood Magic
Muddy Terrain{E} Wilderness Survival
Troll Unguent Wilderness Survival
Barbed Trap Wilderness Survival
Flame Trap Wilderness Survival
Shadow of Fear Curses
Faintheartedness Curses
Rend Enchantments Curses
Warrior/Elementalist
Strength: 10+1
Hammer Mastery: 10+2
Water Magic: 11
Conjure Frost Water Magic
Hammer Bash Hammer Mastery
Bull’s Strike Strength
Mighty Blow Hammer Mastery
Berserker Stance Strength
Water Trident{E} Water Magic
Deep Freeze Water Magic
Glyph of Lesser Energy Unlinked
Strategy:
The Assassination Squad should take the guild thief at the beginning of the battle, head out the front gate of the guild hall, and immediately take the side path on the left, to head around to the enemy’s side gate. Use “Charge!” to quickly reach the enemy base, and as the Guild Thief picks the lock to the door, the W/Mo should use “Shields Up!”, and the N/W should Blood Ritual the W/Mo. Once inside the base, call for the decoys to use the nature rituals, as they’ll take 5 seconds to cast. Run to the Guild Lord and both /Mo’s should use Healing Seed on each other, while the N/W should use Blood Ritual on the E/Mo. Then both characters with Grenth’s Balance should use them at the same time, and all assassins should attempt to deal the most damage they can. The E/Mo should start with Glyph of Sacrifice and Meteor Shower, while the Warriors should use Hundred Blades when Order of Pain and Order of the Vampire are affecting them.
The Decoy Team should take the flag and rush to the center of the map, immediately taking the flag stand, and moving forward to attack the enemy team. This gives them a chance to see where all the enemy guild members are located. If they’re still in the guild hall, call for the assassins to stay out of sight until the enemy comes out to fight. The decoys should be offensive and one member should attempt to set up the enemy catapult in order to bombard them if they should go into their Guild Hall. Once the Assassin team enters the enemy base, they should immediately cast the rituals, and change from trying to deal damage to the enemy to trying to snare them. Special attention should be given to enemy healers, as they are the only ones with a good chance to save the Guild Lord.
Strengths:
Most teams aren’t generally watching for a back-door attempt at the start of a guild battle, especially if you have several characters attacking in the front. Having an entire team go around back is obvious, but if the other team doesn’t have to look to find their enemies they usually won’t. The assassins can kill the enemy guild lord fast enough that if the enemy team is outside their guild hall, so long as you’re able to cripple/knockdown the healers, they won’t have a chance to save him. Also, even if the assassination attempt fails, the opposing team is very wary and will be cautious in attacking. If they do go on the offensive, if you can get the assassins to their guild hall with a bit of time, they can take down the enemy guild lord much faster than most teams will be able to kill yours.
Weaknesses:
If you run into a team that knows that you’re likely to try killing their Guild Lord, your chances of success drop considerably. They’ll often leave a healer in back, close enough to rescue the guild lord if you even start moving towards the back door. If you’re fighting a strong team, they’ll likely defeat you in head-to-head combat, since they will likely have a build set up to succeed in those conditions, whereas this build is more aimed towards sneak attacks. Coordination is very important as well, meaning the use of a voice chat system is definately recommended.
Build Record:
SoW used a very similar build during the February Beta Weekend Event, and had a rather nice record while using it. We ended up suffering 5 defeats while running this strategy, and about 15 wins. Notable matches were:
SoW vs. Havoc Legion- the first time we tried using the build- the initial assassination attempt failed because the assassins forgot to use Healing Seed. Had a clear opportunity to win, but failed due to inexperience with the build. We fell apart after that point as they were always watching for an assassination attempt, and we had no backup plan.
SoW vs. Fianna(1) – the Fianna stayed back by the entrance of their Guild Hall at the beginning of the battle, which gave us some worries. We blundered with some miscommunication, and the assassins started to run back. Once we got them to come away from their base, the assassins were too far away to get an attack in quickly, meaning we lost some members of the decoy team. We were short on snares, and they managed to save their Guild Lord using Aegis and a last-second Infuse Health to keep him alive.
SoW vs. Club G(1) – Our E/Mo lagged badly when entering the opposing Guild Hall, which dropped the damage output and healing(as the E/Mo wasn’t close to the others to give them healing from the Healing Seed). They managed to save their lord before we finished him off. With their powerful setup, they managed to wipe us out fairly quickly, never giving us an opportunity to take another attempt.
SoW vs. KOR – A late-loading healer appeared in their Guild Hall while the assassination attempt was going on, saving them from our initial rush. This game became a cat-and-mouse game, each team vying for position. Eventually we managed to get our assassins far enough ahead of their team on a rush to their guild hall, allowing us to kill their Guild Lord. A very good game, versus a very skilled team.
We ended up on Sunday night with a bad record, after playing Fianna and Club G again consecutively, taking our losses to 5, as they were aware of our build, and took steps to counter it. The second game with Fianna was very challenging, but eventually they managed to build our death penalty enough that one of our assassins did not resurrect, which gave them the opportunity to push into our Guild Hall without fear of a counterattack. Overall, we lost a couple games due to mistakes on our part, which we likely would have won had we played better. The build showed it’s weakness against guilds that were expecting us as well, which gave us defeats when facing Club G and Fianna repeatedly. The losses at the end of the BWE dropped us to 20th, though we had topped out at about rank 6 on the ladder using this build.
Please feel free to provide feedback about this build in our forums here. Also, if you have any suggestions of skills you would like me to create a build around, please post it in that thread or send me a Private Message!
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