GvG Build & Discussion - Split Training

[FoxBat]

Like I said before, THIS IS NOT A GANK SQUAD.

OK, sorry I missed that. Probably because I have yet to observe a 4/4 split, gank teams seem much more common these days.

First off, I've only seen 1 match where the team had a ZB flagger. Most teams at our level aren't even going to think of doing that.

Planning for easy teams ftl? We already fought at least two teams that had a ZB flagger. With orb + gale you could maybe spike one out at least. Have you seen lightning javelin used anywhere?

Aegis, wards and shouts should provide enough defense, in theory.

Sorry, I meant to say self-defense, like the assasin skills. Wards/aegis won't stop an assassin who brings expose defenses (though that gives you a pre-prot warning) With the flagstand monk more likely to hit 8v8 I'd think that's the one that needs more spike protection. (Although incoming is around)

While I agree that a large tree running at you is a pretty good indicator of a spike, I also know that adrenal spikes existed for over a year without the aid of shadow stepping while the tools a monk has to stop a spike once its started are still virtually the same.

Let me stress *Pure* spike, as in a build with little to no pressure. Typically adrenal spikes involve you wearing people down, so the monks are less prepared with their energy and attention, you can catch someone at less than full health to spike down. Melandru's is a good amount of pressure, but the earth ele isn't providing much and I'm concerned the paragon is a bit lacking atm. If we can trial it in TA we'll have a better idea of how well it works.

[Lurker Wyrm]

gank teams seem much more common these days.

They are. And, really, a full 4/4 split is a bit outdated and not neccessarily a good idea anymore. However, gank teams are an evolution of the old split teams, and it's still important to be able to effectively split if the situation calls for it.

Planning for easy teams ftl? We already fought at least two teams that had a ZB flagger. With orb + gale you could maybe spike one out at least.

Um, sorry, I don't remember those teams. I do remember we faced a lot of teams that had multiple heroes and therefore had to put the flag in the hands of a monk since they didn't have anything else to run it, but I don't remember any team we've faced that had a dedicated ZB monk flagger.

And yes, I do realize planning for easy teams is a bad idea. The point I was trying to make is that most teams, even the upper tier ones, will not run a primary healer as their dedicated flagger. At most, it might be a LoD support monk with Storm Djinn's.

Have you seen lightning javelin used anywhere?

No, I was just trying to find something cheap and spammable and the damage and usefulness of Javelin vs. Strike was a bit better (I know I know, 1 more damage and it only interrupts foes who are attacking) so I threw it in. Really, I was more worried about the energy cost of Orb dragging the char down, but that's easily a much better option.

Sorry, I meant to say self-defense, like the assasin skills. Wards/aegis won't stop an assassin who brings expose defenses (though that gives you a pre-prot warning) With the flagstand monk more likely to hit 8v8 I'd think that's the one that needs more spike protection. (Although incoming is around)

Well, blocking in general isn't as effective anymore because most teams run some anti-blocking skills (and, until the massive Grenth nerf, enchants were pretty much worthless).

Typically adrenal spikes involve you wearing people down, so the monks are less prepared with their energy and attention, you can catch someone at less than full health to spike down.

Well, I think part of the reason for that is because the warriors have to spend time building up adrenaline. I think that if warriors of the past had been able to open up with Eviscerate -> Executioner's they would have gladly done so.

the earth ele isn't providing much and I'm concerned the paragon is a bit lacking atm.

That's a good point. What would you suggest? We could possibly replace the ele with a second paragon running a somewhat similar build so that defensive shouts (which are harder to shut down than wards) could be used almost constantly. Or have one running motivation based skills. Or we could run something completely different.

Also, for the derv, I think switching Victorious Sweep for Wild Blow might be something worth considering.

[Hawkmoon]

Well, blocking in general isn't as effective anymore because most teams run some anti-blocking skills (and, until the massive Grenth nerf, enchants were pretty much worthless).

Should we then ditch the blocking skills like Aegis and Ward Against Melee in favor of something else?

(WRT Fox's comment about the paragon and earth ele being lacking) That's a good point. What would you suggest? We could possibly replace the ele with a second paragon running a somewhat similar build so that defensive shouts (which are harder to shut down than wards) could be used almost constantly. Or have one running motivation based skills. Or we could run something completely different.

The paragon doesn't have much damage output - or at least nothing to compare to the bigger ele spells. I don't think it would be a good idea to put the burden of damage solely on the Dervish's shoulders. But maybe make the ele an E/P, and replace the Wards with defensive shouts like "Brace Yourself" and "Bladeturn Refrain" (which would also free up a slot on the Paragon's bar for something more exciting to replace BY)?

[Lurker Wyrm]

This is a bit radical, but after testing last night and finding out that build as is doesn't have enough spiking power (really, any 3 person spike is going to have issues), I thought it might be a good idea to leave the second team as is (Ranger, Necro - but finding a way to get a speed boost on it, BL monk) and rethink the flagstand team somewhat. Here's what I came up with:

D
Scythe Mastery: 16 (12 +3 +1); Mysticism: 12 (11 +1); Wind Prayers: 7 (6 +1)
Dwayna's Touch, Reaper's Sweep, Chilling Victory, Mystic Sweep, Crippling Sweep, Heart of Fury, Featherfoot Grace, Res Sig

W
Hammer Mastery: 16 (12 +3 +1); Tactics: 12 (11 +1); Strength: 7 (6 +1)
Rush, Flail, Devastating Hammer, Crushing Blow, Irresistible Blow, "Watch Yourself!", Healing Signet, Res Sig

Me/Mo
Domination Magic: 14 (12 +1 +1); Fast Casting: 12 (11 +1); Healing Prayers: 6
Mantra of Recovery, Shame, Guilt, Diversion, Energy Burn, Spiritual Pain, Remove Hex, Resurrection Chant

Rt/Me
Restoration Magic: 14 (12 +1 +1); Communing: 8; Spawning Power: 8; Inspiration Magic: 7
Mighty Was Vorizun, Life, Preservation, Soothing Memories, Mend Body and Soul, Spirit Transfer, Weapon of Warding, Inspired Hex

E/Mo
Air Magic: 14 (12 +1 +1), Energy Storage: 10 (9 +1); Healing Prayers: 9
Lightning Orb, Blinding Surge, Gale, Storm Djinn's Haste, Glyph of Lesser Energy, Heal Party, Healing Breeze, Res Sig

I'm still a little unsure about the dervish since I wanted to use Reaper's Sweep for an insane amount of damage (+42 from Reaper's, +21 and an extra 60 from Chilling, and an extra +20 from Mystic assuming both of its enchants are up) but that leaves it a little vulnerable. Melandru's and Wearying are nice, but now that Melandru lasts just under a minute at 12 myst it's going to be hard to do a lot of spikes with them.

The warrior is pretty standard, only instead of using Fierce in the spike it's using Irresistible, which is also has for pressure damage outside a spike; and using WY for the added defense to the team.

The mes is the one I'm somewhat unsure of since it doesn't have any built in defense (or energy management). It'll have to stay relatively close to the Preservation spirit, but I'm hoping that the sped up Guilt, Shame and Diversion will act as indirect protection. The only thing that really bothers me about it is that there's no room for an interrupt, which would be pretty potent with MoR up. Remove Hex seems like the only thing that can go, really, but with MoR it's about as good as Expel, but not quite as nice as Divert (no healing, but oh well). If we had a mes that was good with interrupts, we could get rid of Remove Hex and put Power Drain in, which, combined with Guilt and Diversion, should do a fairly decent job of countering hexes and giving the mes energy management. Also, now that Aegis and other enchants are coming back into play, it might be useful to have Shatter Enchant around (as well as one of the dervish non-attribute removals... or even changing the derv to D/N and using Gaze of Contempt).

The rit healer instead of a monk, for some reason, seems like a better choice of a solo healer, using Mighty Was Vorizun to give itself and armor boost (and possibly a couple Herald's Insignias on the chest/leggings for an even bigger boost) and using Soothing Memories to help maintain energy, with Mend as the main heal and Spirit Transfer to stop spikes (hopefully). Inspired Hex is basically a free hex removal every 20s. Preservation and Life are there to supply added pressure relief and to fuel Mend and Transfer.

The runner is changed to an ele with some healing skills to give the flagstand team a bit of a boost while it runs to and from the base. It can also contribute to a spike with Orb and Surge when there.

[FoxBat]

As much as I love restos and would gladly play one, prot monks are vastly superior if you have to pick one of the two. Rits do have some amazing healing capacity but that still isn't as strong as intelligent pre-protting, and he is unlikely to ever get his spirits planted as a solo healer. (either interrupted or someone dies in the process) In a 3-man backline rits are a better choice than a 3rd monk IMO and could make decent flagger even for this team, but I would consider it a poor choice for solo healer. ZB would have a better chance now with remove hex on the mesmer to handle hexes.

Power drain is the usual suspect on a mantra of recovery bar for e-management, although drain enchanment is another option. I would replace guilt with that since there are enough all-physical + paragon offense teams around, that and its much easier for an offensive character to sit and wait through guilt than a defensive on shame. I'd also pick wastrels demise over spiritual pain for more frequent damage at a cheap price, even with the 1-second nerf coming, it's still half-secondish with fast casting, and does about 72 damage against a caster or even 79 against a monk. Though it is thinning out the mesmer's bar, some kind of anti-spike protection like draw conditions might be important to save the sole monk. That monk is also going to draw nearly all caster-hate on the enemy team so the mesmer needs to be vigilant about cleaning up diversion and such.

Melandru's is still pretty amazing. Thirsty for blood last night I went into RA with this standard bar: Melandru's, wearying, victorious, mystic sweep, wild blow, featherfoot grace, harrier's grasp, res. I managed to land into an awesome group that was already on its 8th victory, we continued on into TA, earning them a glad point, eventually me a glad point, a second glad point for them and almost another for me (around 25 victories for them, 18 for me). A warrior, paragaon, and dervish together were just awesome damage our enemies couldn't handle, and our monk was from Save the Dolyaks [NUKE] and had vastly superior play. Wearing-> Mystic Sweep is a fairly impressive spike on a low-health target all by itself, and we do have crushing blow as backup deep wound for when melandru's is down. Although this kind of build is difficult to play, it is concievable to swap out one of the attack skills for imbue health just so we again have more spike protection especially for the healer. (and that is one amazing imbue when melandru's is up!)

Though we saw last night that offense was an issue, our flagstand team still needs to lean on the defensive side so it doesn't get insta-rolled in an initial 6 or 8-player against us. I suppose the hammer can play as linebacker while facing uneven odds until their team realizes it needs to split to stop us. Remember if we don't kill anyone at the flagstand but just hold out and the other team wipes the base, we win. But if we can stretch their resources thin on monks in a split, all the better.

[KingOfPain]

I'm still a little unsure about the dervish... but that leaves it a little vulnerable.

Dwayna's Touch imo isn't all that great at 7 with only 2 self-Enchantments, that is only 72 hp heal.

I don't know how it goes in PvP but isn't Featherfoot Grace's cost of 10 mana a little much for a 12 second speed boost, specially if you want to have that up all the time as a damage booster too?

What I like to use on Mel is Faithful Intervention (158 heal @ 16) and Illusion of Weakness (126 heal @ 6), both as an Enchantment damage booster and self heal. They seem to make Mel a pretty good tank without much attention from the monks. The bonuses are they are cast and forget spells which are (mostly) cast before a battle, so they are practically no-cost heals and damage boosters, and less skills to bother with during battle. Of course YMMV in PvP.

KoP

[DamadmOO]

I dun really see the need of a 5-3 split at the start. There is too much of a chance that our flagstand team will get rolled by the other team if they don't send a gank.

Isn't it a better idea to do a 6-2 split (gank squad or whatever you want to call it) and as soon as they send ppl back to protect their base we send one of the monks over to our gank squad and get our 5-3 split at that time. If the other team doesn't react then we can basically take out their whole base with our gank squad. If they do react then we get our split and own them at 2 sides.

[FoxBat]

I dun really see the need of a 5-3 split at the start. There is too much of a chance that our flagstand team will get rolled by the other team if they don't send a gank.

We're trying to *practice* split, even if it isn't the absolute best idea for winning, just so we get more experience at playing split. Though our expert kaf says he still sees about 2 out of 10 games on obs featuring genuine splits.

We tried out some TA around 3-5 PM today but got floored more due to the incredible level of competition vs our noobishness than anything reflecting our build. The competition is so much weaker at around 3 am...

Edit: after some thought, I recommend a healer flagger to complement a flagstand monk. A resto rit or a healer's boon monk or other could work too. If 6 or more come out, the flagger tries to stay with the flagstand team as long as possible (without letting enemy get morale) to mitigate damage until a larger split is forced on the enemy team. Then resume flag-running duties. The idea is this gives the extra defense to survive an initial encounter, without bending the flagstand team itself too heavily towards defense, and also the flagger will leave the main monk alone at times. These two facts seem to train a more genuine "split" situation for us newbs.

The 2 second discord nerf hits the skill pretty hard as a pressure tool (effectively 25% damage reduction) It might still be strong enough to persue anyway. Hex removal on your target before discord lands is going to be teh suck however...

[Lurker Wyrm]

Yeah, I just noticed the nerf on Discord. Against NPCs it's probably not going to make much of a difference, against a player we'll probably need to add another hex, possibly getting rid of the minions all together. Either that or swap in Blood of the Master and Flesh Golem, changing the char to a minion master.

About the war: since it only has 1 kd, there's no way it could be a successful linebacker, especially when that kd is being used for spiking. Also, there's not really any point in running Dev if we're not also using Fierce (or one of the other skills that trigger on weakness), so I'd like to swap Rush and Dev for Enraged Charge and Backbreaker.

About the derv: I want to try the original idea of Reaper's and Shock. That just seems like a better idea all around.

I'll have to think about the mid and backline more.

Up to this point the idea has been to make something with enough defense to survive until they realize what's happening in their base and send people back, while we do some quick spikes. Here's the question though, would we rather have a more defensive team that does pressure damage instead of spike? Part of the idea was to work on spike timing while we work on splitting, but maybe that was too ambitious? Melandru's + Wearying in a 3 man spike is not going to be enough damage. Melandru is more for pressure damage and spamming Wearying. Reaper's is superior to Wearying for spiking since it can be used without the form and because its damage is higher.

If we just want to pressure them without going for a spike, then I would say we should run 2 paragons and a fire/earth ele, with a Divert monk and an LoD flagger.

[FoxBat]

About the war: since it only has 1 kd, there's no way it could be a successful linebacker, especially when that kd is being used for spiking.

Add more KDS? :o It's also (hopefully) temporary until the enemy team splits.

Part of the idea was to work on spike timing while we work on splitting, but maybe that was too ambitious?

It's rather difficult to do major spikes with only 3, without bringing a burst sin into the mix. There's a reason you don't see big spikes in TA aside from that. Even if you can just barely manage enough damage, a single character being hampered in any way will deny you all kills. So yeah, let's work on one thing at a time IMO.

Melandru's + Wearying in a 3 man spike is not going to be enough damage. Melandru is more for pressure damage and spamming Wearying. Reaper's is superior to Wearying for spiking since it can be used without the form and because its damage is higher.

OK I'll agree there...

If we just want to pressure them without going for a spike, then I would say we should run 2 paragons and a fire/earth ele, with a Divert monk and an LoD flagger.

What's with you and paragons eh? They can work in such situations, but are oh so much better with 4-5 physicals around to cripple/critical/burninate off their shouts... though I do like GftE landing on a scythe.

A shutdown/defense slot is more useful in a pressure build than a pure 3rd damager... earth or something close to the mesmer would be fine, depending on how much offense vs defense you want.