User:Gelbrekt/Heroic Refrain Team/Quickening Zephyr Team

Quickening Zephyr

List

• NOTE: BEFORE CREATING THE TEAM COMP: Look at the remaining professions (See the todo-list above) to determine which professions might be suitable here.

• Heroic Refrain Paragon - Don't forget this role is required.
• Ritualist Minion Master [Hero Compatible] - QZ makes Animate Shambling Horror much more viable, which has +80% health due to 20 Spawning Power. Energy management can be done with for example Attuned Was Songkai, since it is a percentage decrease, benefitting from HR.
  • NOTE that the rit can also partially cover the role as Protector, since he can invest in Spawning, Death Magic and Restoration Magic, offering some protection and healing.
• Dervish AoD Healer (1-2) [Partially Hero Compatible] - Synergizes with Zephyr since reduced CD means he can activate his skills more frequently. This also has increased synergy with the Rit minion master, since the increased Spawning Power will make it much easier to keep them alive.
  • If QZ is not used, consider Contemplation of Purity to 5 seconds, allowing CRAZY AoE heals affecting all allies, synergizing with the Rit minion master.
  • If QZ AND Tranquility is used, The flash enchantments wil just have a recharge (and often duration) of 5 seconds, meaning that if you just use flash enchantments, only 5 can be used due to the 1s disabling effect.
  • If possible, consider dropping Scythe Mastery entirely, and rely on Dark Escape instead, since it can be nearly maintainable with HR and QZ, halving all damage.
  • Regarding MEDITATIOn, this might not be needed since Mysticism reduces their cost by EIGHTY PERCENT at 20 Mysticism.
• Expertise Ranger [Most likely Hero Compatible] - This is a REQUIREMENT since the ranger must cast the QZ. Simultaniously, the ranger benefits disproportionally from QZ and HR since he now has crazy energy management with Expertise, which QZ allows him to spam.
  • Edge of Extinction should be CONSIDERED, since it has very good synergy with Avatar of Dwaynas constant AoE heals (so the party is likely to be at over 90% health most of the time. It also deals very much damage now that attributes are maxed. However it DOES have potentially bad synergy with minions, but even this can be mitigated by AoD.
  • Specific BUILDS for the rangers are already discussed elsewhere; just pick one of those!
• MULTIPLE Mesmers [Hero Compatible] - All mesmer builds in this document benefit disproportionally from HR; they also do this from QZ, since it SCALES with fast casting. Also, while the Keystone Signet build doesn't benefit from Fast Casting, it benefits from QZ since the increased energy cost is no problem.
• Critical Strikes Assassin [Not Hero compatible (Can't spam skills)] - Would make sense if having 2 or more minion masters, since he can spam "Go For the eyes"; builds on this are already present in the document.
  • Remember that MANY assassin skills that are otherwise bad become viable when at 20 Critical Strikes & Dagger Mastery AND having Quickening Zephyr. For example, Lotus Strike grants 25 energy, and now has a Cd of just 6 seconds.

• I noticed there are MANY builds here that benefit disproportionally from Quickening Zephyr AND Heroic Refrain at the same time. Of course, if QZ is used, the entire team needs to adapt to it in order to get an ideal team comp, so here are some ideas

• This seems like a very promising team comp; definitely worth trying.
• IMPORTANT NOTE: Strongly Consider looking into if this build can be SUBSTITUTED by players bringing their own skill reductions, For example:
  • Ebon Battle Standard of Wisdom can be used by everyone
  • Lyssa's Haste can be used by the dervish.
  • Serpent's Quickness can be used by the Mesmers.
  • Ghostly Haste can be used by the Ritualist(s).
  • DON'T FORGET that these factors are also complemented by Essence of Celerity, getting the total CD very close to 50% (cap).
  • DON'T forget to still use Tranquility for the dervish

General comments

• When looking at the suggestions in the list below, I'm thinking that the team comp should be powerful enough to SKIP a dedicated healer/Protector, since it already has many sources of protection:
  • The paragon provides protection with skills like "They're on Fire" (which has its condition met due to Blazing Refrain), as well as "There is nothing to Fear" and optionally other paragon or PVE skills offering protection.
  • The dervish has constant AoE Heals with AoD, and can tank with skills like Mirage Cloak.
  • The mesmers can provide defensive support due to CRAZY spamming of skills like Ineptitude and Psychic Instability, which have MASSIVE recharge reductions due to extreme fast casting and QZ. They can also remove HEXES frequently with Shatter Hex, which not only allows them to deal significant damage, but covers the hex removal which the others can't do.
  • A Ritualist Minion Master with Attuned Was Songkai and investment into Restoration magic can provide protection with Weapon of Warding, Life, and condition removal through Recovery.
• Strongly consider building this team around TRANQUILITY, i.e do not use enchantments unless they BENEFIT from having their durations reduced (typically due to a powerful end effect, or due to skills that trigger when an enchantment ends). Reasons for this:
  • It makes the Dervish way more powerful.
  • It shuts down enemy enchantments
  • A ranger is already required since the team is designed around Quickening Zephyr
  • Looking at the build suggestions below, it is clear that the team has lots of healing, protection and utility without needing enchantments.

Skills that Specifically become better by QZ

• Endure Pain - Increases HP by 370 and is maintainable.
• Verata's Aura - I realize this combi requires several fairly specific skills,, but it could be very powerful: A player uses Animate Flesh Golem followed by Verata's Aura (which has its CD reduced to just 15 seconds by QZ) and removes it with Contemplation of Purity, allowing another player to capture the requlting masterless level 32 Flesh Golem with Verata's Gaze. This allows each teammember who has Verata's Gaze to control their own Flesh Golem without ANY investment in death magic and without taking up their elite slot. This combo could technically also work without QZ.
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Dervish skills

• Eremite's Attack - Great for 2 reasons: (1) It allows the user to trigger Sand Shards before it expires; Sand shards will last for 6 attacks when maxed, but will have to be recast after 5 sec due to QC. This skill allows for all charges to be burned. (2) It has a recharge of just 3 seconds, allowing more quick teardowns. This for example allows using skills like Dust Cloak or Aura of Thorns [To trigger fragility].
  • NOTE HOWEVER that this skill might be ill-advised due to its energy cost; this cost is NOT reduced by mysticism, which reduces the cost of all enchantments, potentially saving you a slot from not needing Meditation!
  • On the OTHER HAND, this is likely one of the BEST TEARDOWNS; It both has a strong effect and a CD of only 3 seconds (which actually is MORE POWERFUL than Pious Assault, since this skill most likely is capped at 4 seconds (on top of having a weaker effect).
• Aura of Holy Might - While this skill looks like s*** at first, it could actuallt be useful here; Assuming that you use QZ combined with dervish enchantments that are NOT Flash Enchantments, This skill could be triggered more than once per second. Say for example that it is triggered every 0.8 seconds on average. 25 dmg can seem low initially but this would really add upp; every 5 seconds this would deal 155 AoE Damage for a condition which is already per definition met, which isn't terrible. In fact this would be a NO BRAINER if fighting undead, since the damage would skyrocket!
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• Dervish Enchantments that are NOT flash Enchantments; This will be needed since the user can have a maximum of 5 flash enchantments due to the 1s disable-effect.
  • NOTE that i have a FULL LIST on this on my dervish page: User:Gelbrekt/Dervish_Builds#List_of_ALL_Dervish_Enchantments_that_are_NOT_Flash_Enchantments
  • Armor of Sanctity
  • Eremite's Zeal - IF energy is not a big problem, this skill is superior to Meditation since it has a shorter recharge time. HOWEVER i suspect a better strategy would be to USE meditation, and use the massive spare energy for one extra skill from another prof which is very energy intensive, E.g Spirit Bond.
  • Vital Boon - If used with Tranquility, it lasts for only 7 seconds [20*0.35] and heals for a whopping 240.
  • Guiding Hands - At first sight this looks VERY WEAK; however I think it might actually WORK here [With QZ, Tranq, and HR] for several reasons: (1) It can be used every 5 seconds AND it ends itself while NOT being a Flash Enchantment, which could be important with respect to the WHIRLING CHARGE below (2) It basically makes you immune to blindness AND you become unlbockable, which is relevant to trigger Sand Shards.
  • Meditation - This could potentially NOT be needed though due to the extreme cost reduction from 20 mysticism. Note that IF this skill is used, the energy management ABSOLUTLEY INSANELY SKYROCKETS, since this skill grants 5 energy per enchantment, while the enchantments cost only 1-2 energy each!!!
    • This clearly opens up the options of MAINTAINED ENCHANTMENTS, since that is by far the most energy intensive energy dump, using only a single skill. Skills like Strength of Honor (epic if using an assassin) / Life Bond / Succor (to help rangers and rit with energy management, since they have % energy decrease) / Vital Blessing (great because it synergizes with AoD due to increasing the potential healing; i.e the health is not capped as fast) could be VERY powerful
  • No other good candidates are available, BUT remember that this is likely not needed since the skill bar can be filled with Flash Enchantments anyway.

• • POTENTIAL ISSUE I HAVE NOT THOUGHT OF : Remember that Whirling Charge only has a Recharge of 3 seconds if using QZ, so so the bar would become OVERSATURATED if using four additional Flash Enchantments with a cd of 5 seconds or less. This could open up for using the skills that are not flash Enchantments (see the list above).