Brainstorming Challenges.

[FoxBat]

It's just ironic that you're gradually writing others out of pure DPS role when you can barely hit ~50 with that elite and do the party no other favors. The older Expert's Dexterity build matched that and had interrupts to boot. Letting dragon slashers deal ~130 DPS with flail on top of asuran is nice, but they can't when they have to spend one of those slots on Enraging Charge just to keep up with mallyx, although a certain elite shout could do that for them and make the rest of the party more mobile on top. Not to mention that speaking just of damage, holy spear under infuriating + asuran scan, as well as ebon vanguard seperately, each add as much damage as flourish + 3 spear attacks.... Taking Charge instead basically boils down to trading ~25 DPS on yourself (after asuran) to enable both sword warriors to get an extra 60 DPS each.

But hey, everyone else in the guild is flexible (ritualist dervs anyone?), they can gimp themselves for your sake. New (old?) build here. http://gwshack.us/7ca15

The whole interruption thing was partly out of question why a 5-recharge spirit eating skill couldn't do the job consistently. But mucco told me he was extremely tired and wasn't paying attention to anything once the 4 spirits were first down. Maybe if we get going earlier we'd have a chance. It's really easy to know when they are back up because they appear as a status effect. Additional spirit-eating skills aren't necessary if he's awake, especially because again, we have 3 healers now. The one danger to leaving mallyx alone is if we somehow engage an enemy far removed from his spirits,

I'm not too keen on the ward for me strictly because of the 15e requirement. Factoring in Spirit Shackles, QZ and possible DP and I'm thinking I may not have it up half the time it's needed.

It's purely for mallyx. No other warrior is remotely threatening. When fighting others, you just put all your energy into asuran scan. If you have +5 radiants, DP should only stop you at 60, although that's a point. I can't say I like going from 2 wards + protectors down to 1 ward now; Zed is the only other one that could fit it in with a completely different build (the current one needs max expertise), but his max energy pool isn't much better. Blocking stops shadow smash, we ought to maximize it one way or the other.

Personally I prefer the "static defenseball" method, with the party running as a unit just to confront his spawns. A warrior is not going to hold Mallyx's attention very long. Hence while I'm trying to juggle things around to get more blocking into the build. Note that A spear chucker is always going to be the primary SY spammer, and I'd worry more about keeping yourself in his shout range than keeping others in yours.

[WarBlade]

It's just ironic that you're gradually writing others out of pure DPS role when you can barely hit ~50 with that elite and do the party no other favors. The older Expert's Dexterity build matched that and had interrupts to boot. Letting dragon slashers deal ~130 DPS with flail on top of asuran is nice, but they can't when they have to spend one of those slots on Enraging Charge just to keep up with mallyx, although a certain elite shout could do that for them and make the rest of the party more mobile on top. Not to mention that speaking just of damage, holy spear under infuriating + asuran scan, as well as ebon vanguard seperately, each add as much damage as flourish + 3 spear attacks.... and only 2 of those three combos can fit on your bar.

I'm trying to wrap my head around this. Is this directed at me? Because some of it looks like it's focused at me and some of it I can't tell what it's about.

Assuming I'm the focus...

• "Writing others out of a pure DPS role." Where?
  
• "~50." Damage per second? A puzzler. I was doing much higher on energy skills with Lightbringer, plus 98/186crit on Brawling Headbutt and occasional 112/224crit on "Finish Him!" with "Finish Him!" being one of the few things I could see seriously pushing Margonite Anur Ki and Heart Tormentors over the edge when needed.
  
• "And do the party no other favors." We all have our roles to play. If you'd like me to avoid snuffing out the Quickening Zephers (when I can find them), Margonite Anur Ki or Heart Tormentors I can hold back.
  

The problem is that the "everyone contributing something" idea you proposed (which sounded good at face value) consisted of me looking at a spirit and seeing that part of a complex puzzle working like this: Zed makes spirit; We adrenalize faster; Monsters adrenalize faster; Monsters run frequent adrenal skills from level 28 platform while we run a higher number of adrenal skills - Unknown outcome, but more Enraged Tormentors under Watch Yourself looks dicey; No Soothing in the party build to neutralize the problem; Daisy chain as strong as the weakest link problem with Zed, me and one static spirit all being a crucial link between the party and disaster;.... Remember when I said "I could go on"? I thought about the build you had me me lined up for for a long time and the more I thought about it the more annoyed and frustrated I got.

Very frustrated.

• Flail for DPS and Enraging Charge for Mallyx. Flail is a 33% slow and Enraging is a dual purpous close distance and unleash it's adrenalin skill, not so much a chase skill. "Charge!" is not going to fix the problem of Mallyx eluding meleers. Also I never at any point argued against running Charge in the build, so I'm not entirely sure what you're on about with bringing that up.
  
• The statment about various spear skills doesn't make a whole lot of sense. You seem to be comparing one build against itself.
  

But hey, everyone else in the guild is flexible (ritualist dervs anyone?), they can gimp themselves for your sake. New (old?) build here.

Flexible? I can't pretend I didn't just read that.

• I built another set of gloves with this Mallyx run in mind as a start point to probably having to build most of a new set of armour.
  
• I went to the trouble of capping two new elites because they looked like they might be suitable for Mallyx if nowhere else in the game.
  
• I bought another skill for a build I was already beginning to have doubts about.
  
• I planned, tested, revised and retested a totally unfamiliar build until it worked properly.
  
• Don't start with the Dervish. We all know that if it was us trying to run a Dervish against Mallyx we'd be looking at wards, urns, wand and shield combos and whatever else we can think up just to contribute. All credit to Hawk the complaints have been non-existant, but a Dervish primary was always going to compromise somehow.
  

/annoyed.


I had to speak up when I saw the build you had me lined up for. We're all being flexible here and all making compromises, but when I followed the link I found myself staring at multiple problems that I wasn't too happy about compromising for. I'm sorry that the disagreement bugs you.

[Zed-F]

One big question that hasn't yet been addressed that I could see is the use of Infuriating Heat... won't Mallyx just summon it with Summoning Shadows and smash it? I suppose I can keep putting it up every 15s or so, but it could potentially make it hard to interrupt things.

As far as Blackout's concerned, nobody else seems interested in jumping on that bandwagon, so we can do without for another run. I still think with dual-chaining it has potential, and I'm not sure where the idea comes from that it will leave 1-2 second gaps comes from, as long as it's being dual-chained. It's not a hex or condition so its duration should be full effect; with 2 people chaining it we should be able to keep it up without interruption so long as we also apply snares to keep him from running around so much. Really if Mallyx can't cast his hex-removal skill due to multiple blackouts being run it opens a lot of doors. Though naturally there is potential for error, that's true of any build. *shrug* I think it's worth a try next time if the current build doesn't work.

[FoxBat]

Wyrm would be making fun of me on this next point if he actually read this thread....

Xyn you handle Ward the same way Mel's Dervs handle Melandrus. Bring a staff, or in your case even an earth focus, on a weapon swap. Your build generally doesn't need energy for anything else. Having a ward on the frontline means that if you two somehow get mallyx's attention, you can quickly pop that up and hold it for longer. If he instead runs for the backline, I can put up a ward, and if he's still holding around our ball by the time it drops, you can put up the next one.

One big question that hasn't yet been addressed that I could see is the use of Infuriating Heat... won't Mallyx just summon it with Summoning Shadows and smash it? I suppose I can keep putting it up every 15s or so, but it could potentially make it hard to interrupt things.

Yes, but our ritualists need spirits anyway to heal. It's not a bad use for their sake. Implicitly we are giving up the "always interrupt mallyx" bit without a P/Me, and thus relying on Mucco to eat the spirits. The SY spammer has FGJ to cover emergency downtime. Similarly I am doubting you bringing a 5-sec spirit anymore- best replacement within /rt is probably some +damage pve skill. You could also go /P and abuse our excess adrenaline with GFtE, it's a fine skill at just 6 spec, but that turns another 4-second rez on our team to 5.

There's also an argument here that mucco should leave the most negligible of mallyx's four spirits alive (probably enduring torment) - that can fuel resto rits as well.

As far as Blackout's concerned, nobody else seems interested in jumping on that bandwagon, so we can do without for another run. I still think with dual-chaining it has potential, and I'm not sure where the idea comes from that it will leave 1-2 second gaps comes from, as long as it's being dual-chained.

12 second recharge, 5 second blackout. You need mesmers, consumables, or something like SQ+QZ to get beyond that. 3 blackout characters would probably be easier, albeit that kills your damage.

Anyway I saw a recent post of an all-caster team failing with that. They said he shadow smashed even when blacked out. If "he can't be disabled for longer than the stated recharge", that would make sense because shadow smash has no recharge.

[Zed-F]

Ah, ok. I was remembering 5 second recharge... probably from a long while ago. Agreed that it would work better with recharge boosters. Shadow Smash by itself probably isn't too big a deal, it's banish enchantment / consume torment and to a lesser extent summoning shadows / unyielding anguish that are the real problem. May still be worth a try if we can't get another build going better next time.

[WarBlade]

Xyn you handle Ward the same way Mel's Dervs handle Melandrus. Bring a staff, or in your case even an earth focus, on a weapon swap.

Cane of Quickening
7-11 Chaos Damage
Energy +15
Energy regeneration -1
Halves recharge of spells (10% Chance)

It's uncustomized and and is Ragnar's F4 weapon. Can be loaned if Xyn doesn't have have an energy swap.

Wait, what? No energy swap already?

[FoxBat]

Another small update. Flail is just too important, so I shifted some things around more. Dslash #1 is SY, Dslash #2 brings the wards. Neither has rez, one is on Wyrm now, we just hope the dslasher can keep SY up if wyrm needs to rez. P.S. SY should technically go to whoever has 5 seconds if one is short of that.

[WarBlade]

Oof! Finally, a skill I can get from the Hero Skills people (Hexbreaker Aria).

Thoughts on the latest build:

That Flourish build you made there has dropped out an energy attack from my bar which about strains Flourish to the brink of oblivion.

Ebon Battle Standard of Honor doesn't work on my bar at all. If we're desperate to have that on me, then I'll be doing a complete rebuild for it, probably putting Ragnar into a melee role.

It looks like Mucco hunts QZ now. Is that right?

Infuriating Heat and no Soothing. Do we have enough extra blocking to off-set the problem of adrenalin build in the monsters?

[Seijin]

P.S. SY should technically go to whoever has 5 seconds if one is short of that.

Well I have 5 seconds my Kurzick SY.

About the ward, is that basically against mallyx or general use too against mobs?

[FoxBat]

That Flourish build you made there has dropped out an energy attack from my bar which about strains Flourish to the brink of oblivion.

Yes, flourish forces you to fill your bar with junky attack skills. That's why i don't care for it. You can drop asuran scan, but the "second IAS" is vastly superior to any attack skill.

Even the Stunning Strike build I added below would be better- it has more potential than I thought with all the adrenaline gain flying around.

It looks like Mucco hunts QZ now. Is that right?

If he has to, but we have three ranged guys who should drop it fast, its not that tough a spirit.

Ebon Battle Standard of Honor doesn't work on my bar at all. If we're desperate to have that on me, then I'll be doing a complete rebuild for it, probably putting Ragnar into a melee role.

I don't know why you think ranged characters don't benefit from the skill. They benefit more since they don't have to move far to reach new targets. But just drop it and give it to wyrm if you won't.

Infuriating Heat and no Soothing. Do we have enough extra blocking to off-set the problem of adrenalin build in the monsters?

I rarely had warriors on me, and they rarely did damage to anyone else. Threats were degen/hex spam or lucky AoE when SY was down. There aren't even hardly any warriors in the groups. Anyway our added blocking more than counters it.

About the ward, is that basically against mallyx or general use too against mobs?

It's essential for mallyx. Elsewhere you can put it up to prevent the one or two margonite wars from KDing you, but it's not very important. You should have the energy unless you get hit with denial. (And as I mentioned- have a staff or focus in case of DP)