User:Master Fuhon

Last Updated: July 17th, 2011

I am updating this page for any bored Guild Wars fans out there surfing the interent who happen to come across this page in the search for something new. I don't play as much as I used to, and many days I don't log on at all. I'm not a skilled competitive video game player since I grew up around sports and academics; but I do have developed skills in observing, giving detailed descriptions, generating ideas, and experiencing things through different perspectives.

Wierd Builds I Use (July 1, 2011)
I do use meta builds often, because they are usually very effective. I do prefer to use meta 'pairings' of skills with a few personal tweaks, because that is most of the creativity you can get away with in PvP. The following are some builds I use and explanations of why.

Paragon/Mesmer (Fort Aspenwood Luxon Side)
12+1+1 Spear Mastery, 9+1 Leadership, 9+1 Command
 * : Main function of the build is to apply daze and bury it
 * : To spread conditions on poorly spaced foes, daze (casters) weakness/cripple (melee)
 * : Build is not designed for DPS, but this is both DPS and a cover condition
 * : Clutch deep wound, on demand skill to apply conditions without adrenaline
 * : Primary defense of the build and a cover condition
 * : Needed for energy management and vicious attack
 * : Energy management, allows for effective one hit strikes under Empathy/Blind
 * : Shuttle NPCs and teammates, use to get in range for spear swipe, heals

Disclaimer: If you play a Ranger or Paragon, make sure you learn how to slide step towards or away from things while attacking to reposition based on enemy movement. I cannot stress this enough. Also, stop thinking you are pressure damage on a build like this paragon one. You do not have IAS because you need to overextend to apply daze on defensively positioned casters, and then you need to continually spear them to deny casting. You cannot afford the low armor, and agressive refrain will always fall in difficult battles. The reason I have chosen Crippling Anthem over Maiming spear is so I can cover daze with bleeding and apply cripple with an opening strike on an enemy I just switched onto; It also helps out Ranger and Assassin teammates.

Counters and dealing with them: Most people in casual formats do not realize that Paragons are most effective with teammates around, and will frequently space away from you. No chance against Shield of Deflection unless you have a physical to force him to cast on a teammate. 1/4 casts can get off while dazed between spear attacks, but those aren't too bothersome when you have a team to support you. You won't hit enemies healing behind walls, so you need NPC and teammate support. Good defensive caster spacing prevents epidemic from dominating, but you can usually catch a kiter, NPC, or badly positioned player to chain conditions. When the Green Gate falls, I push the Kurzicks who just rezzed. I deal with Mend Body & Soul by spearing spirits. I deal with Restore Conditions by attacking the guy with it. Try to get Purge Conditions to get used before you daze. Count seconds in your head when you see Guardian go up; monks often grow complacent and don't expect the well time spear swipe with a delay in Guardian recast (still it's 50% anyway). Under Empathy/SS I use shouts more to assist teammates or make single attacks count. I daze blind bots and dom mesmers because they can shut down more important teammates. I apply cripple and weakness on linebacker melee, because I do get linebacked often. Use shouts around teammates when being energy denied.

Elementalist/Mesmer (Fort Aspenwood Both Sides)
12+1+2 Air Magic, 9+1 Energy Storage, 9 Inspiration
 * : You need this for energy to spam.
 * : Interrupt preparations, big nukes, spirts, heals. I gamble for WoH often.
 * : Blind is for high damaging or disruptive physicals, or guys who solo NPCs.
 * : Follow up with this skill, or use as a finisher on the run.
 * : Open with this skill when no interrupter is around.
 * : No cost, fast casting enchant rip (for timely stuff like Guardian/Patient)
 * : You can strip other casters clean of enchants as well.
 * : Self heal and backup enchant to not get exhausted.

Counters and dealing with them: Being trained by physicals will force you to shield set where you don't benefit from wand/offhand casting gear, take the death in casting gear if there is a spiking window available on an important enemy. Strip healers of enchants and spike assist them, they can heal through your burst damage. AoE chain defensive spirit pods. Inspire/reveal powerful enchants whenever you can to help teammates score kills. If you have a multi-enchant stripper camping you, don't keep both enchants up at the same time. If you have a diversion spammer on you, inspire/reveal an enchant through it. Blind powerful physicals and move on to killing their teammates around them. If there is an interrupt ranger with condition removals, continually spam blind on him and leech sig his preparation to disrupt his interrupting rhythm. When you get him focused on trying to take out your Blind with D-shot/Magebane, you did your job of taking him off your nukers and healers. Regardless of how badly an interrupter camps you, there are many things you can assist teammates with in this build: if he camps your nukes, use disruption on his teammates; if he camps your disruption, keep nuking foes.

Monk/Any (PvE Boon Prot)
12+1+2 Divine Favor, 10+1 Protection Prayers, 8 Healing Prayers
 * OR
 * OR
 * OR
 * OR
 * OR
 * OR
 * OR

Suggestion for Skill Balancing Suggestions (July 13, 2011)
I think there should be one primary goal for skill balancing, and that should be to further the development of Guild Wars as a spectator e-sport. Sometimes it may seem like I might not care about what the players playing the game want, but I think the benefit will be greatest for all involved if Guild Wars is designed to be more observable.

The following are keys to a more 'observable' contest:


 * 1) Top teams are visibly different, and don't appear to be clones of each other. Each needs to have something that makes people want a certain team to win over another one. Euro vs. America mirror matches will not sustain itself as well as distinct style differences between teams of different countries and continents.
 * 2) Superstars are visible and evident skillwise. Proper skill usage doesn't lose to button mashing. A few classes should be designed to 1v1 each other during the course of a game.


 * 3) It should be evident to the audience what players have done to score key plays for the team or to prevent kills. Don't make an 8v8 mashfest where who knows who did what, but have it where 1-3 players are visibly involved in making something key happen. The animations for the spike stop skills need to be the most visible (ala Protective Spirit). Call attention to exciting things that are done.


 * 4) Do not allow 25+ minute defensive stalemates. One solution to reducing proportion of healing skills in the meta is to require 5 offensive characters to kill under 3 healers. A supplement to that solution is to have each healer be distinctly different so as to allow splitting/pushing to create mismatches.


 * 5) Do not have teams blowing up after 2 minutes after people have waited long enough for matches, especially for tournaments. Some part of this has to do with the effectiveness of 'time-killing': there is a varying penatly between getting killed at two different times.


 * 6) Favor good team tactics over good micro use. This is how team sports work. Who cares if the ranger did excellent micro to solo the WoH with 3 interrupts, if this was not done in conjunction with the team.


 * 7) Favor good skill micro over skill/character selection. 4th monk, extra hex removal, etc. should not dictate a match so heavily.


 * 8) However, if someone is running the exact same build 24/7 with no modification, it is funny to see them get obliterated by a complete overspec counter. If you know Triple Dervish with Fevered is meta and everyone's running it, you should be able to take Shield of Deflection, Ward against Melee, Blinding Flash, Expel Hexes and just farm them.

Gear Suggestions (July 13, 2011)

 * 1) Replace a rune that no one uses to benefit tri/quad specs. At worst case this will reduce the high risk of health sacrifice that very few people take in PvP.

Rune effects: +10 health for each Major Rune equipped, +25 health for each Superior Rune equipped, otherwise no effect. It's a Vitae if you only have a major, its 25 more health for equipping a sup, or a free major after equipping a sup. Values can be scaled upwards to make rune sacrifice more attractive for cutting into the rewards for playing a more defensive game.

About The Current Meta (July 15, 2011)
I don't know what fluxes will do in the future, but a few more of them might be gamebreaking enough to build around and force drastic meta shifts. Outside of fluxes, the game has imbalances of it's own, and I don't believe balance is fine when a flux is needed to mask what is otherwise too powerful. Certainly a build can be weakened and a flux made less drastic. To me, the most overpowered thing in the game right now (outside of any flux) is likely to be 2 Dervishes and a Fevered Dreams Illusion Mesmer.

The Balthazaar Derv is always run and is certainly something that needs to be looked at for it's capacity to fragility spike, although Grenth and Ebon Dust Aura ones might be added to deal with high armor or linebacking defenses. I have seen 3 dervs+mesmer run with 4 monks, but I cannot conclude this is the strongest combo in high level play, given the possibility of an opponent to counterspec properly with stuff like Shield of Deflection. If a midline healing monk were permanently added to any build, things become very ridiculous, because this extra healer can be used to fortify NPCs so that they can kill anything outside of a dedicated split with self healing.

The interrupt ranger added to this looks pretty brutal to deal with given the crowd control effects on spell casting, and the possibility of disabling skills. A standard domination mesmer looks annoying because he can deny casting during windows to supplement the casting length increases; the dom mesmer also ties up a healer better than a split character would given the other team resorts to turtling. If I were running this build, I would personally run caster hate to deal with the common counter speccing from Expel Hexes.

Mesmer
Nerf spike and IoP, buff non-interrupt shutdown and hex removal.

Reasons: These are fun skills for the simple fact that you only have an 8 skill bar, and you can turn a boring hex removal into a 9th skill, which is one of the skills your opponent just used against you. Making some common tactical hexes (snares, etc) more useful at low spec is another buff to these skills that could help.
 * : Spell. Remove a hex from target ally and gain energy. For 15 seconds, Inspired Hex is replaced with the hex that was removed.
 * : Spell. Remove a hex from target ally and gain energy. For 15 seconds, Revealed Hex is replaced with the hex that was removed.

Reasons: Melee range skills like this require overextension, and the target can more easily see them coming. It needs to do something more for the heavier drawback. Rangers running this would strip 2 enchants, while mesmers specced for Domination would strip 3 and be very vulnerable.
 * : Skill. Target touched foe loses  enchantments. For  seconds, all of touched target foe's skills are disabled, and all of your skills are disabled for 5 seconds.

Reasons: I'm going to suggest nerfing a staple pressure Mesmer skill. This gives the domination mesmer a way to pressure against better opponents by keeping these skills up, since doing any damage helps. It's degen because hexways don't really need the extra pressure, and I may buff regen skills as well.
 * : Hex Spell. For 10 seconds, target foe suffers from health degeneration and takes  damage whenever they cast a spell.
 * : Hex Spell. For 6 seconds, target foe experiences -5 health degeneration. The next time target foe uses a skill, that skill takes an additional seconds to recharge.
 * : Hex Spell. For 6 seconds, target foe experiences -5 health degeneration. The next time target foe casts a spell that targets an ally, that spell fails and you steal up to energy from that foe.
 * : Hex Spell. For 6 seconds, target foe experiences -5 health degeneration. The next time target foe casts a spell that targets a foe, that spell fails and you steal up to energy from that foe.

Reasons: This is always run with interrupt prevention, and the main problem is that healer elite spam has become so necessary in the modern game. Anything that changes this skill from perma shutdown of elite to timely use is the goal.
 * : Signet. Target foe loses a stance, and that foe's elite skill is disabled for seconds. Your non-Mesmer skills are disabled for 10 seconds.

Reasons: Slight nerf needed since Mesmers run this as the only illusion skill on a bar with no cover, because there are few builds to fear strong removals from.
 * : Hex Spell. For 8 seconds, target foe has - health degeneration and takes damage each second. When Illusion of Pain ends, that foe is healed for.

Reasons: Energy Surge was more of a spike skill on high energy foes more than it was an energy burner on healers. Energy Burn has no purpose if even E-surge is going to be used as a spike, and might as well be an AoE skill.
 * : Spell. Target foe loses Energy. For each point of energy lost, that foe and all nearby foes take 9 damage.
 * : Spell. Target foe loses Energy. For each point of energy lost, that foe and all adjacent foes take 9 damage.

Ranger
Nerf interrupts, buff snares and degen spreading, make it easier to maintain some Nature Rituals.

Reasons: Rangers had their spike neutered, so at least give them movement control back. Cripple is more easily countered than hex snares.
 * : Elite Bow Attack. If Melandru's Shot hits, that foe begins bleeding for seconds. If it hits a foe that is moving or knocked down, you strike for + damage and that foe is crippled for  seconds.
 * : Elite Bow Attack. Unblockable. If Crippling Shot hits, your target becomes crippled for seconds. If that foe was in a stance, this attack inflicts weakness for  seconds.
 * : Bow Attack. If Pin Down hits, your target becomes crippled for seconds.

Reasons: Interrupt spam on casters is common in all aspects of PvP, but especially healers. Lower the disable on D-Shot and give it a small AoE so rangers can make a different type of big play than just nailing Word of Healing. Weapon Spells and Stances should better deal with Magebane assuming the target is not enchanted at the time. Savage Shot should not obselete Punishing Shot and Disrupting Shot as a spike followup.
 * : Bow Attack. If Distracting Shot hits, it interrupts the target foe's action, but deals only damage. If the interrupted action was a skill, that skill is disabled for an additional 15 seconds and adjacent foes are also interrupted.
 * : Bow Attack. Elite Bow Attack. If this attack hits, it interrupts target foe's action. If that action was a spell, it is disabled for an additional 10 seconds. If your target is under the effects of an enchantment, this attack cannot be blocked.
 * : Bow Attack. If this attack hits, target foe's action is interrupted. If that action was a Spell, that foe begins bleeding for seconds.

Reasons: Ranger condition spreading is something that needs the opportunity to be applied on multiple foes. Necros still do bleeding better.
 * : Bow Attack. Hunter's Shot strikes for only damage. If this attack hits a foe that is moving or knocked down, that foe begins bleeding for  seconds.

Reasons: The top condition pressure builds in the game should be reliant on Nature Rituals to supplement them. Nature Rituals have drawbacks against the team putting them down and they are immobile. The cast times on some rituals are too high considering they do not have the rock, paper, scissors like effects that something like Nature's Renewal would have.
 * : Nature Ritual. Create a level spirit. Poisoned or Diseased creatures within its range suffer -2 Health degeneration. This spirit dies after  seconds.
 * : Elite Nature Ritual. Create a level spirit. Bleeding creatures within its range suffer -2 Health degeneration. When this spirit dies, all non-spirit creatures within its range that have less than 90% Health begin Bleeding for  seconds. This spirit dies after  seconds.

Assassin
Give them conjure alternatives and snare alternatives, and take Dash away from healers.

Reason: Used with spears and scythes, but not daggers. Since every melee needs to run a conjure anyway, at least there will be defensive alternatives. Assassins rely on killing things quickly to survive, and the minor energy/health gains are there because these won't give the damage boost of a conjure.
 * : Skill. For seconds, you have an additional % chance to critical hit. You gain 1 energy and  health whenever you score a critical hit with you daggers.
 * : Enchantment Spell. For 45 seconds, your dagger attacks deal + more damage and heal you for health. You gain  health whenever you score a critical hit.

Reason: I don't see a problem with these short duration snares, because every sin I worry about runs a knocklock. Mending touch is a common hard counter anyway.
 * : Lead Attack. If Mantis Sting hits, target foe is crippled for seconds. If this attack strikes a moving foe, it deals + damage.
 * : Half-range Spell. Must follow a lead attack. Target foe takes earth damage and becomes crippled for  seconds. This skill counts as an offhand attack.

Reason: Some kind of change to take Dash off a healing flag runner, and make the flag runners speed boost a longer recharge/longer duration enchant. Stance counters are too rare. Stripping the flaggers speed boost isn't a tactic yet, but maybe it should be one.
 * : Stance. For 3 seconds, you move 50% faster. All of your non-Assassin spells are disabled for 10 seconds.

Elementalist
Reason: Hits way too hard on a spike target for something you will use half-recharge and fast-cast gear with. You can rainbow spike with teammates to avoid being lightning shield countered. This is just too flexible of a skill and it warps casual PvP by forcing people to know how to deal with it.
 * : Elite Spell. Target foe is struck for lightning damage, and up to two foes near your target are struck for  lightning damage. Damage from Invoke Lightning has 25% armor penetration. If you are not under the effects of an enchantment, this spell causes Exhaustion.

Reason: 2 second casts and somewhat fun skills to play around with casually. Water Elementalists used to be used on splits, but they don't have the area of effect to take down knights.
 * : Elite Hex Spell. Target foe is hexed with Lightning Surge for 3 seconds. When Lightning Surge ends, target foe and adjacent foes are knocked down and struck for lightning damage.
 * : Elite Hex Spell. Target foe is struck for cold damage and is hexed with Shatterstone for 3 seconds. When Shatterstone ends, that foe and adjacent foes are struck for  cold damage.

Reason: These are auto-attack replacements so it doesn't make sense to lose energy.
 * : Spell. Send out two Stone Daggers. Each Stone Dagger strikes target foe for earth damage if it hits. If you are suffering from exhaustion, you gain 2 energy.
 * : Spell. Send out a flare that strikes target foe for fire damage if it hits. If you have more energy than target foe, you gain 2 energy.

Reason: PvP nukers who do nothing but drop 3 ground targetting fire nukes on a stationary target. Although NPC bunching is a problem, this tactic is also used in Heroes Ascent on the Ghostly Hero. There are tons of Mesmers who drop the 3 heats in casual formats too. What the game really needs is a buffed heal for nuked NPCs (i.e. Seed skill). Putting this here as a reminder that something still needs to be done about the DPS spike that comes from these skills overlapping.
 * : Spell. Cause Teinai's Heat at target foe's location. For 10 seconds, foes near this location are struck for fire damage each second. When Teinai's Heat ends, foes in the area of effect are set on fire for 3 seconds.

Individual Skill Balance Suggestions (July 15, 2009)
'''The following was last updated on July 15th, 2009 and remains unchanged for now. Some of these may have only applied to meta problems two years ago. Hopefully someone devises a way to fix overpowered dervishes because I don't play them right now, and I wouldn't know how not to 'kill' skills.'''

Not interested in seeing one gigantic patch to mess all kinds of things up, but trying to tweak things around to a point where there can be more variety, or players can use variations of old favorite builds. Trying to tone the more usable stuff down to be more in line with the weaker mechanics; but obviously having to gamble on buffs to some older skills to have them keep pace. I also would rather update suggestions in one place rather than rewrite them over and over. Hopefully, can update and play around with things when I have time.

To do list: -Balance smite to niche usage, reduce some combo of it's anti-pressure, pressure, spike capabilities. Would prefer to have smite synergize with non-monk backlines -Reduce assassin reliance on Palm Strike, possibly giving them more short duration snares -Tone done most powerful single character ranged damage spikes, reorient most of them around elite skill or team dependence -Figure out what to do with paragons/dervishes

Warrior

 * : Stance. For seconds, you attack 25% faster, move 25% faster, and your warrior signets activate 50% faster, but you take double damage.
 * : Stance. For 8 seconds, you attack 25% faster and your warrior signets activate 50% faster, but you take double damage.
 * : Stance. For seconds, you attack 25% faster, but move 33% slower.
 * : Sword Attack. This attack strikes for + damage. The next spell you cast costs less energy.
 * : Elite Skill. For seconds, you gain 3 energy per melee hit but your adrenaline skills recharge for 5 seconds after activating them. Cannot raise your energy above.
 * : Melee Attack. If this attack hits, you strike for + damage.
 * : Melee Attack. If this attack strikes a moving foe, you strike for more damage.
 * : Stance. For seconds, you move 25% faster.
 * : Elite Shout. For seconds, all allies within earshot move 33% faster and gain  energy per attack skill used.
 * : Shout. Gain strikes of adrenaline. If target foe is below 50% health, you are unblockable for  seconds.

Monk

 * : Elite Spell. Heal target ally for health and remove one condition and one hex. If a hex or condition was removed in this manner, you lose 2 energy.
 * : Elite Signet. Heal target ally for health and remove one condition. Your next Healing Prayers or Protection Prayers spell that targets an ally heals for an additional  health.
 * : Signet. Heal target ally for health. If you are maintaining any enchantments, you gain 3 energy.
 * : Maintained Enchantment Spell. While you maintain this enchantment, whenever you cast a monk spell that targets an ally, that ally is healed for health, and you lose 1 energy.
 * : Elite Spell. Heal target ally for . Heal for an additional health if that ally is below 50% health.
 * : Elite Spell. Heal target ally for and an additional  health if that ally is hexed. If that ally is enchanted, gain 2 energy.
 * : Elite Spell. Target ally is healed for and all party members within earshot are healed for  health.
 * : Elite Enchantment Spell. Target ally is healed for . For 8 seconds, the next time target ally would take damage, that ally gains that amount of health instead, maximum.
 * : Elite Enchantment Spell. Remove one hex and one condition. For 3 seconds, target ally gains % more health when healed and takes % less damage.
 * : Spell. Remove two conditions from target other ally. For each condition removed, that ally is healed for health.
 * : Spell. Remove one condition from target ally. If that ally is under the effects of a hex or enchantment, that ally is healed for health.
 * : Spell. Remove one condition from target other ally. If a condition is removed, that ally is healed for health.
 * : Enchantment Spell. For seconds, party members within earshot have a 50% chance to block attacks when not moving.
 * : Enchantment Spell. For 30 seconds, your smiting prayers heal for extra, but you lose 10 energy when you cast a signet.
 * : Maintained Enchantment Spell. While you maintain this Enchantment, target ally deals more damage in melee.
 * : Skill. Touched target foe takes holy damage. If target foe was knocked down, adjacent foes take  holy damage.
 * : Spell. Remove up to 2 hexes from target ally. If a second hex is removed, lose -1 energy and this skill recharges for an additional 4 seconds.

Necromancer

 * : Elite Spell. Sacrifice 25% health and animate a level Flesh Golem. The Flesh Golem leaves an exploitable corpse. You can have only one Flesh Golem at a time.
 * : Spell. Target foe is struck for cold damage and + shadow damage for each equipped signet.
 * : Elite Enchantment Spell. For 20 seconds, you have + health regeneration and your lifestealing spells cause Bleeding for seconds.
 * : Spell. Remove one enchantment from target foe. If an enchantment was removed, that foe suffers from bleeding for seconds.
 * : Spell. Target foe is poisoned for seconds for each enchantment. Remove one enchantment if that foe is above 50% health.

Ritualist

 * : Weapon Spell. For 8 seconds, target ally has a Spirit Light Weapon that grants that ally + health regeneration and +24 armor, and an additional health per second if that ally is within earshot of a spirit.
 * : Weapon Spell. For 8 seconds, each time target ally attacks or casts a spell, that ally is healed for health and gains 1 energy.
 * : Binding Ritual. Create a level spirit. Non-spirit allies within its range cannot lose more than 10% health from a single attack. When this spirit prevents damage, it loses  health. This spirit lasts for  seconds.
 * : Binding Ritual. Create a level spirit. Non-spirit allies within its range gain +2 health regeneration. This spirit dies after  seconds.
 * : Enchantment Spell. For seconds, whenever you cast a weapon spell on an ally, that ally loses one condition.

Paragon

 * : Elite Spear Attack. If this attack hits, you inflict a deep wound for seconds. If it hits a non-moving target, you deal + damage.

Dervish

 * : Enchantment Spell. For seconds, you attack 33% faster but deal 15% less damage. When this Enchantment ends, all nearby foes are set on fire for  seconds.
 * : Touch Spell. Target touched ally is healed for health for each enchantment on you (maximum 150).