HA double fame weekend

[Lurker Wyrm]

This weekend HA is going to be going back to 8v8. As a bonus, you can get double fame the whole weekend.

As much as it pains me to say this, should we forego GvG this weekend in order to take advantage of this? Granted, we'll need to borrow a build from another guild, but I would think the build we've been running with HRK the past few days with an added water ele and dom mes could sorta work.

[FoxBat]

Maybe this would be a good opportunity to learn how to coordinate spiking with something silly like invoke lightning or nightmare r-spike or such?

[Lurker Wyrm]

Nightmare r-spike is a bit complicated from what I remember when Ear tried to run it. Let's keep it simple and use Invoke or Blood (which the alliance is doing).

[Hawkmoon]

I'm up for doing HA this weekend. Just so long as we can get a team together and thump some heads, I'm happy.

Can you post a build for us, Wyrm? That way I'll have a chance to unlock anything I need ahead of time.

[Lurker Wyrm]

Can you post a build for us, Wyrm?

Uh, I'll have to find something. I think our best bet (if we're going to use this as a timing excercise with fame as a bonus) would be to run an Invoke spike. Mostly you just need Invoke Lightning, Lightning Strike and Air Attunement. I'll look around for a build that's been thought out.

Isn't Fox supposed to be the HA person?

[FoxBat]

I won't have time to think on this until starting friday morning, so you can get something yourself or wait.

In the meantime, skills our spikers want avaliable include Invoke Lightning, Air Attunement, Blinding Flash, Lightning Strike, Gale, Windborne Speed/Storm Djinn's Haste, and Glyph of Lesser energy. Then we either go Lorb/Hammer for more offense, or heal party for defense. Probably both variants in the same build.

Our backline should probably run aegis chain since the entire team is so squishy. We will have #6 run some uility but I don't know what that is at this point, so we can just let the nearly-UASd cover that if need be.

[Lurker Wyrm]

If we use Lightning Hammer, then we'll have to go double attunement, otherwise the energy will never be maintainable.

I've been thinking of an oddball type of caster spike to run, using Rod's Invocation followed by SF. The 3s cast time of Rod's is a bit irksome (gogo Me/E) but hey, it could be fun.

[Lurker Wyrm]

Old-school ranger spike slightly updated. Required really good timing to be effective.

4x - R/X
16 Marks
Dual, Savage, Marauder's, Punishing, RtW, Res Sig
Need a Vampiric Recurve Bow w/15^50

1x - N/Mo
15 Blood
OoV, Heal Area, Healing Breeze, Res Sig

1x - Me/N
Mantra of Recovery, Rigor Mortis, Consume Corpse, Power Drain, Cry of Fristration, Drain Enchant, Res Sig

2x - monks

Order of Pain is also an option. I don't remember the remaining skills, but they should be easy enough to figure out.

Edit: can also stick OoV on the mes and use a 5th ranger isntead of the necro, but 4 should be enough. Also, 2 of the rangers should have Favorable Winds.

[FoxBat]

#1 & #2 Air Spikers

12 + 3 + 1 Air
12 E-Storage
all +hp runes, bring shields instead of focus
no fast casting equip!

Air Attunement
Invoke Lightning
Lightning Strike
Lightning Orb
Glyph of Lesser Energy
Res Sig
Storm Djinn's Haste
Blinding Flash

#3 & #4 HP Spikers

12 + 3 + 1 Air
10 Healing
8 + 1 E-storage
rest +hp runes, bring shields instead of focus
no fast casting equip!

Air Attunement
Invoke Lightning
Lightning Strike
Lightning Orb
Glyph of Lesser Energy
Res Sig
Heal Party
Draw Conditions/Gale/Optional

A note about usage: the spikers are capable of big invoke spikes and frequent orb spikes. The leader should ctrl-call a target, say "Invoke" and then count down for that. Then you do invoke followed immediately by Lightning Strike. Then the leader can do the same but say "Orb" to call a lightning orb spike, which is orb->strike.

Backline:

Depends on the meta and monk preferences, but 2 Prot-oriented monks with GoLE and Aegis. Probably want a Divert Hexes, and the other as ZB/Infuse.

Sample bars:

Divert monk

12 + 1 + 1 Prot
6 to 8 + 1 Heal
Rest DF

Reversal of Fortune
Divert Hexes
Shield of Absorption
Gift of Health
Dismiss Condition
Spirit Bond
Glyph of Lesser Energy
Aegis

ZB/Infuse

12 + 1 + 1 Prot
4-6 Heal, maybe less, shouldn't need much
Rest DF

Reversal of Fortune
Zealous Benediction
Infuse Health
Shield of Absorption
Dismiss Condition
Holy Veil
Glyph of Lesser Energy
Aegis

Utility

This is the tough part... the #5 and #6 slots are pretty versatile and should be tuned against the meta. But 1 of them needs enchant removal (Gaze of Contempt), and the other brings Gale (to KD the infuser on a spike). One brings some spike assist damage along with utility while the other is more defense oriented. Probably one of them needs to go /mo for 3rd aegis and draw conditions. I may need some more sleep to come up with something coherent. Some ideas:

BiP necro with blood assist on spike
Defensive spirit spammer with Vital Weapon for spike resistance.
Expel Hexes dom mesmer with Cry of Frustration, Shatter Enchant, and Unnatural Sig
Earth Ele with Obs Flame, Ward vs Foes, Ward of Stability, maybe Earthquake w/Glyph of Energy
Water Ele with freezing gust, Shatterstone and/or Vapor Blade


Edit: so far the meta is alot of jank. I think we have physical damage covered between blind and aegis, just need to interrupt order of apostacy. The rest of the meta is SB/RI with spirits, and Searing Flames. My guess is a mesmer is the best bet at caster-hate. Something along these lines (I'm a mez noob)

Mesmer

12 + 1 + 1 Dom
5 Air
Rest FC

Gale
Cry of Frustration (used mostly to disrupt spikes)
Shatter Enchantment/Shame (big spike assist)
Wastrel's Demise (small spike assist)
Expel hexes (defense from burst sins and soul barbs)
Spiritual Pain/Unnatural Signet (spiritway and the odd nature's renewal. also on big spike)
Gale (KD the infuse monk)
Glyph of Lesser Energy
Res Sig

Our defensive guy is a mostly typical spirit spammer with a nod towards searing flames. This is experimental because you need to hit 10 resto for recovery to be effective against them, and you don't want to use recovery against builds with melee, because it is bugged and will reduce our blind duration. We can swap for a standard spirit spammer in that event.

N/Rt

11 + 2 + 1 Communing
10 Restoration
10 + 1 Spawning Power

Gaze of Contempt
Boon of Creation
Wanderlust
Shelter
Union
Displacement
Recovery
Res Sig

[Lurker Wyrm]

Invoke seemed to work well enough in the earlier areas, but once we got to the maps we weren't familiar with we had troubles.