Random notes that may help those new to GW

[WarBlade]

Demi Maul - A melee ele with hammer, naturally. Earth magic seemed to be the right choice at the time

Jinni Jinx - jinni (pl. jinn) is a spirit in Arabic and Muslim demonology that is capable of assuming human or animal form and exercising supernatural influence over people for good or for ill. And of course, Curse.

Domi Andre Marie - (Domi) Dominaton and (Andre Marie Ampere) Air.

Half Moons - Female monk's half shaved head look. What more can you ask for in a Mo/Ne dealing with life and death

I'd say such ideas are quite common among RB players and I'm not one for re-speccing into something that doesn't suit the character's character either.

Somewhat Zen - Zen archer. She can heal if the need arises, but never have I trumpeted her abilities as a primary healer, because she has only ever been designed as healing backup. She's maxed out on Marksmanship and that's all I have to say about that.

Ice Blade - Fairly self explanatory when looking at the pale blue-haired Elementalist in the gleaming 15K Hydromancer armour, but I doubt most people would see the theme in his mesmer side. Cold things absorb energy and surprise, surprise, Ice Blade has a strong side trade in Inspiration Magic to suck energy supplies dry.

Kronin Thistleknott - One for the Dragonlance readers (Tasslehoff Burrfoot was taken). Kronin was a Kender hero mentioned in those books and Kenders are a kind of slender agile halfling with a social structure that makes the entire race look like kleptomaniacs. When he's fully developed he'll have points scattered haphazardly all over his Mesmer attributes for stealing and disruption purposes with Expertise thrown in to keep the costs down on some things, but I'm not sure at this point whether I should continue pushing the bow or turn and go with a staff. If it had been "Tasslehoff" then the staff would have been essential.

As for his cat, Horse, that's an aberration. I just haven't got rid of the thing yet. Why "Horse"? Look up Footrot Flats.

[Zedd]

Sidenote: Trying to use things like Pacifism and Mark of Pain is just useless with henchmen.

Why is MoP useless with henchmen? I find that one of the few things henchies are actually good at is focusing fire... so long as the henchmen are using physical attacks, I find Mark of Pain works just fine.

[Lurker Wyrm]

Only the melee henches (Thom and Stefan/Devona) use physical damage. Everyone else uses elemental, including Reyna/Aidan, who almost always have Kindle active. Considering that's only 2/8 party members doing physical (unless you're also using physical damage, then it's 3/8), it's not really worth it. That, and the melee henches tend to not fall back or run into extra aggro.

With a 3s cast time Ether Feast is horrid.

The cast time is only 2 seconds, but yeah, I know what you mean. Without Fast Casting from mes primary, just about every skill (aside from the interrupts) takes too long to cast to really be useful. I guess ANet balanced it that way like they did with the Ranger and Expertise.

[Vanyel]

That and the fact that you want to be plinking the creature Mark of Pain is on with sup-par damage to prolong its effect on its adjacent comrades. Focus fire actually hurts that since the creature will go down too fast and you're left with the rest of the mob still at half health or more.

What my N/Me friend does is carry a +energy sword to scratch at the MoP carrier, dispersing 40 shadow (armour ignoring) damage with every scratch she makes. Hopped up Zealot's Fire in some ways. Er, this is when we're running a screwy party with no clearly defined tanks in the group heh.

Ah, it's 2s? It's been a while since I touched Me skills beyond Epidemic and stances. Not since the final beta weekend definitely. My ranger likes Hex Breaker. A Lot. :D Too bad it doesn't stack with Tiger's Fury.

Has anyone tried running a Winter/Greater Conflageration party? I'm thinking I'll try that once the other rangers in the guild catch up. Should be fun.

[KingOfPain]

it really doesn't matter how many are attacking the MoP target, as long as they are doing physical damage, the more the jollier.

Yup, Jinni knows too well it is best to do as little damage to the MoP target as possible. best is to bring for the switch setup is a weapon one has no mastery in. Here's the trick to maximizing MoP damage - When Jinni anticipates heavy mobs, she would also bring Flurry or Berserker Stance for 33% more DoT.

KoP

[Lurker Wyrm]

Has anyone tried running a Winter/Greater Conflageration party? I'm thinking I'll try that once the other rangers in the guild catch up. Should be fun.

There are some enemies that are really vulnerable to cold damage late in the game; so yes, we've run that quite a bit. If you're running Mantra of Frost you barely take any damage from anything.

I've hardly used Hex Breaker, keep forgetting I have it.

[Zedd]

Only the melee henches (Thom and Stefan/Devona) use physical damage.

Eh, well. 3 in the case I'm experiencing atm. Guess the fact that I'm still fairly early on with the char (Yak's) is exaggerating their effectiveness with MoP, but at this point, it's definitely worth using. Not completely destroying mobs with it, but definitely bruising them *shrug*

Focus fire actually hurts that since the creature will go down too fast and you're left with the rest of the mob still at half health or more.

Doesn't really matter how fast they go down time wise, just how many physical hits land...

[Vanyel]

Let me ammend that to focus fire vs focus scratches/pinpricks then. I don't discount the use of MoP. Many times what was being scratched would be the last standing while everything else around it dead and gone with the wind. It's just difficult to tell Stefen, "Hey, could you use a crappy weapon when I target call Mark Of Pain on something?". That's all I mean.

True, Mantra of 'element' would stack very nicely with the ranger's natural elemental resistences. Okay that idea is definitely on the back burner.

Just did Lair with W/E, W/Mo, W/R, R/Me and Mo/R. It was pretty hilarious. The W/Mo stuck Life Bond on his warrior teammates, the Mo/R stuck Life Bond on the W/Mo and Seed on whomever was being focused on. All three just stood close to each other for mass Seed benefits. Very neat little tactic that conserved mucho energy.

Life Bond party