User:JackBlackserpent/Skills

Disclaimer: "This ain't PvX...!!!"

I'm not the kind of guy who likes going to the PvX wiki and just grabbing a cookie-cutter build for whatever job is required of my character; for me, half the fun of Guild Wars is designing builds and experimenting with them. In the course of these experimentations I happen to have come up with some builds which I've found very effective... but I doubt they'd be to the taste of the sort of people who run straight to PvX when their current build doesn't cut the mustard.

As a result, I've put them here - maybe they'll inspire the reader to come up with their own versions, or (more likely) people will just come to point, stare or laugh. But these builds worked for me and my personal style of play... I accept no responsibility for character death, player frustration or epic failure if someone else uses these builds and finds them wanting.

That's why these are listed here in my personal area of GWW for your amusement, rather than on PvX claiming to be 'legitimate' builds.

Incidentally, if anyone does feel the urge to give any of these whacked-out builds a try and wants to give some feedback, please feel free to leave a comment on the Discussions page.

The (in)Famous Conditions build

	Jack Blackserpent
	Ranger/Necromancer (level 20)
Attributes:	Expertise	12
	Marksmanship	12
	Wilderness Survival	12
	Curses	9
	Asura Rank	8
	Ebon Vanguard Rank	5
Template Code:	OgQUcubi1sSXisGfC0i1iWi2BtlA

Poison Tip Signet	Incendiary Arrows	Weaken Armor	Deft Strike	Signet Of Infection	Body Shot	Enfeebling Blood	Technobabble

Skill Usage:
	1. Poison Tip Signet: Does exactly what it says on the tin. This goes in first because it lasts for 60 seconds, which is more than enough time to get off your first attack - activate while you're still out of bowshot, in anticipation of aggro.
	2. Incendiary Arrows: The first actual shot of combat. Does a nice hit to three targets, causing both Burning and Poisoned conditions at once, thanks to the signet you should've already applied before running in. Aim for someone in the middle of the mob for maximum effect.
	3. Weaken Armor: This little beauty sets you up for two of the following attacks, which both depend on the target having Cracked Armor. Not only does this cause yet another condition itself, it also paves the way for your energy management later on.
	4. Deft Strike: Works off the Cracked Armor effect above to add Bleeding to the rapidly-growing list of conditions. This poor guy's going home in a body-bag...
	5. Signet Of Infection: The great thing about this particular skill is that only the first target needs to be Bleeding to catch the dreaded Lurgie - it then spreads like wildfire throughout the group, without any further work on your part. Works a treat on non-human opponents - just remember not to use it against other human beings, unless you're willing to risk some bed-rest yourself.
	6. Body Shot: This is your energy management; thanks to the Cracked Armor you caused a couple of seconds previously, you can now regain a few points of energy... and cause some more damage in the bargain.
	7. Enfeebling Blood: Weakness is a bit of an under-rated condition, in my opinion - knocking 1 off every one of your target's attributes can be quite handy, especially against bosses. Plus, it's an area-effect and it doesn't cost much energy (although it does take away a little of your health - so be careful not to use this if you're on your last legs, as it could finish you off!).
	8. Technobabble: The final nail in the coffin. Note that you have to use a little common-sense when fighting a boss with this build, in that you don't target him directly with Technobabble - it doesn't cause the Dazed condition if the target is a boss, so aim this one skill at someone standing next to him (who will most likely a healer of some kind). That way, since it's an area-effect spell, you still get affect the boss and get around the weird caveat.

This one is probably my most famous, and the closest I have to something worthy of sharing. It's done the rounds of many of the Rangers in my alliances past and present, most of whom had reasonable success even if they didn't adopt it permanently. Me, I use it for almost everything in PvE (sadly PvP fans, there are 3 PvE-only skills, and I'm not sure it would do much good against real people anyway). After one beta-version based around Volley & Melandru's Shot and some subsequent tweaking, I think I've managed to squeeze every last condition out of the Ranger and Necro skill sets; simply hitting the buttons from 1 to 8 in turn, this build causes Poison, Burning, Cracked Armor, Bleeding, Disease, Weakness and Dazed to the poor hapless target (that's seven out of ten conditions, folks - omitting only Blind, Crippled and Deep Wound), with only Bleeding not being shared by at least two of his mates nearby... and since that's basically only a delivery method for spreading Disease anyway, that's not much of a problem.

The aim of this build was simply to spread as many conditions to as many targets in one aggro group as possible; having done this, it's usually a simple matter for your heroes and henchies to finish them off, maybe with some help from repeated use of Incendiary Arrows (your go-to attack if there's anyone else left standing) or Body Shot (for energy mangement, if you're starting to feel the pinch). Jack has 40 energy with two pips of regen by way of various upgrades to his armour and his Flatbow, and the high Expertise means that Incendiary Arrows, Deft Strike and Body Shot only weigh in at an energy cost of 3 instead of the usual 5. With the extra 9 energy he gets back from Body Shot, this is usually enough to keep him going through even the hardest combat. Self-heals are noticeable by their absence; Jack only has 446 health, and I find that taking my Sabway Necros with me normally provides enough healing to keep me alive even in Hard Mode, along with the common-sense Ranger tactic of staying back and shooting over my allies' heads so that some other poor fool takes the melee damage. And talking of Sabways - one of the builds includes Splinter Weapon, and I find that telling my Master of Whispers to cast it on me just before I fire the Incendiary Arrows adds a little more fun to the mix...!

7-second Blitzkrieg build

	Jack Blackserpent
	Ranger/Ritualist (level 20)
Attributes:	Expertise	12
	Wilderness Survival	12
	Marksmanship	12
	Channeling Magic	7
Template Code:	OggkclYamKeEyxlojzrBGDrhllpl

Serpent's Quickness	Poison Tip Signet	Spirit Rift	Ignite Arrows	Splinter Weapon	Incendiary Arrows	Body Shot	Light of Deldrimor

Skill Usage:
	1. Serpent's Quickness: Description
	2. Poison Tip Signet: Description
	3. Spirit Rift: Description
	4. Ignite Arrows: Description
	5. Splinter Weapon: Description
	6. Incendiary Arrows: Description
	7. Body Shot: Description
	8. Light of Deldrimor: Description

I came up with this one on a whim - having seen how many conditions I could spread in one build, I then decided to see how quickly I could decimate an aggro group through raw damage instead. Sadly though, the name mentioned doesn't refer to their estimated lifespan (although in limited testing, it wasn't much longer than that...!); the downside of the build is that it requires 7 seconds' preparation before it's ready to cause carnage.

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Fort Aspenwood Gunther Defense build

	Jack Blackserpent
	Ranger/Ritualist (level 20)
Attributes:	Expertise	12
	Wilderness Survival	10
	Marksmanship	4
	Communing	5
	Restoration Magic	12
Template Code:	OgglclYYmAWhMhcl7ocMO9NxJmx0sB

Serpent's Quickness	Trapper's Focus	Barbed Trap	Life (PvP)	Pain (PvP)	Rejuvenation (PvP)	Weapon of Warding (PvP)	Ghostmirror Light

Skill Usage:
	1. Serpent's Quickness: Description
	2. Trapper's Focus: Description
	3. Barbed Trap: Description
	4. Life (PvP): Description
	5. Pain (PvP): Description
	6. Rejuvenation (PvP): Description
	7. Weapon Of Warding (PvP): Description
	8. Ghostmirror Light: Description

This build was created on-the-fly while playing the Kurzick side at Fort Aspenwood; I was stuck with a team who all wanted to charge into battle and be heroes, which left nobody looking after Gunther and the two Gatekeepers. Frustrated that the Luxons were breaking through the lines every time, charging in and killing Gunther to win the match while all the Kurzicks were still out there happily hacking away at turtles, I slapped a quick bodge-job build together from what skills I had lying around. The result was something which was just about up to the task - with the help of a Monk or two - of keeping the Master Architect alive for just long enough that God's Vengeance could be completed.

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Spirit Wrangler build

	Explosion Muerta
	Ritualist/Necromancer (level 20)
Attributes:	Communing	10
	Restoration Magic	9
	Channeling Magic	10
	Spawning Power	10
Template Code:	OACkAqhpoSekz0ykyE801040wDNI

Boon of Creation	Essence Strike	Spirit Boon Strike	Doom	Signet of Spirits	Life	Restoration	Summon Spirits

Skill Usage:
	1. Boon Of Creation: Description
	2. Essence Strike: Description
	3. Spirit Boon Strike: Description
	4. Doom: Description
	5. Signet Of Spirits: Description
	6. Life: Description
	7. Restoration: Description
	8. Summon Spirits: Description

To all intents and purposes, this is a pretty simple Spirit Spammer build; the reason I'm so proud of it is that it's very nearly energy-neutral - because of the energy that Boon Of Creation and Essence Strike give back between them, it's possible to have used all the skills and still have almost as much energy as you started with! Yes, I can now spam spirits to my heart's content with virtually no carbon footprint... it's my way of giving back to the environment.

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Kamikaze Bomber build

	Explosion Muerta
	Ritualist/Necromancer (level 20)
Attributes:	Restoration Magic	9
	Channeling Magic	10
	Spawning Power	12
	Curses	8
Template Code:	OASkcghpoSmzlbZ644zCTid5kgB

Spirit Burn	Essence Strike	Spirit Rift	Well of Silence	Cruel Was Daoshen	Destructive Was Glaive	Bloodsong	Generous Was Tsungrai

Skill Usage:
	1. Spirit Burn: Description
	2. Essence Strike: Description
	3. Spirit Rift: Description
	4. Well Of Silence: Description
	5. Cruel Was Daoshen: Description
	6. Destructive Was Glaive: Description
	7. Bloodsong: Description
	8. Generous Was Tsungrai: Description

Playing Muerta tends to bring out my crazy side when it comes to builds... something about playing a Rit makes me get all lateral-thinky. Once I spotted the skill Cruel Was Daoshen I saw the potential for a hit-and-run bomber - someone who could flag his heroes back, run straight at an aggro group, drop a lightning bomb and run back to the Monk's healing embrace before the enemies' attacks killed him. It looks a little worrying when you see this build in action, but in reality it's a sound - if risky - tactic.

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Mass Summoning build

	Explosion Muerta
	Ritualist/Necromancer (level 20)
Attributes:	Death Magic	12
	Spawning Power	15
Template Code:	OASiUwkM1Mhc5M5DGLuLKHkUBA

Explosive Growth	Spirit's Gift	Boon of Creation	Vampirism	Summon Ruby Djinn	Vanguard Assassin	Aura of the Lich	Putrid Flesh

Skill Usage:
	1. Explosive Growth: This little beauty means that every time you summon something (which you're going to be doing a lot), there's the chance that some random enemy will wander into a lightning discharge and cause themselves some damage. It's unlikely to kill them in itself, but since it heralds that something aggressive is about to pop up in the same spot, this skill will have softened them up a little for whatever nasty surprise you've cooked up for them.
	2. Spirit's Gift: This is a handy little health buff for any allies standing nearby - it never hurts to spread a little healing around your fellow backliners. While it's hardly going to replenish anyone's health bar completely (unless you happen to summon eight Bone Minions at once...), those few points of health might just be enough to save your healer Monk, not to mention the handy condition removal, which might in turn keep him alive for long enough to cast some more effective heals on the party.
	3. Boon Of Creation: Your health and energy management - since you'll be spamming summon after summon (and yes, the Ruby Djinn and the Assassin do trigger these first three skills, as well as the spirit and the minions), this skill ensures that your health and energy are constantly topped up. Creating bulk-loads of minions with Aura Of The Lich obviously makes this skill even more beneficial, since you could be creating up to eight minions at once - giving you eight times the amount of health and energy each time.
	4. Vampirism: Just in case Spirit's Gift and Boon Of Creation don't quite give you enough health, Vampirism gives an extra top-up; this also creates a kind of bodyguard spirit for your character, taking some of the aggro and causing life-stealing damage (which, of course, ignores armour). Since you'll be spamming this spirit as soon as it recharges, it's likely that it will be replaced before it even has a chance to die, providing a constant decoy and health-giver which also happens to ignore armour with its attacks (handy against heavily-armoured Warriors and the like).
	5. Summon Ruby Djinn: This skill brings forth a rather nasty Fire Ele to fight for you... having fought enough of these little beggars when I was LB farming, I know how much damage a Ruby Djinn can cause if it's not shut down quickly - they were responsible for many a party-wipe, before I learned to take them down first (although it's worth mentioning that the version summoned by this skill is nowhere near as powerful, and doesn't cause any AoE damage). This nasty little fella will spread the occasional bit of Burning with Immolate, which usually takes down the more mediocre foot-troops pretty quickly and gives the more powerful enemies something to chew on. Combined with the initial lightning discharge from Explosive Growth, this can be a devastating shock-attack if the Djinn suddenly spawns near a large-ish enemy aggro group. Interestingly, this Djinn's Immolate spell does actually cause Burning to Destroyers, which makes the build no less effective against those spoilsports who are usually immune to being french-fried.
	6. Ebon Vanguard Assassin Support: This is generally a single-target skill - while the summoned assassin might be persuaded to fight off other attackers, it generally conentrates on it's original target and fights it to the death. At the start of combat when you're trying to thin the ranks you can be pretty indescriminate with this skill, but when you're down to the boss (or have a particular target in mind, like a healer) you need to make sure you're aiming at your primary target for the Vanguard Assassin to be useful.
	7. Aura Of The Lich: The big guns in your arsenal... creating up to eight minions at once will trigger the first three skills a potential eight times, giving you masses of health and energy plus as many as eight simultaneous lightning-strikes. Assuming you've been maintaining Explosive Growth, Spirit's Gift and Boon Of Creation (and you find a large enough cluster of dead bodies), this will immediately cause utter chaos in the enemy ranks. This does take a painfully long time to recharge though, so be aware that when you use it, it might be the only chance you'll get in that combat. Also, bear in mind that it never hurts to create the occasional single minion out of nowhere if you have to pause during gameplay or find yourself in a safe area - not only do you gain a little more health and energy, but that's one more little foot-soldier ready for your next encounter.
	8. Putrid Flesh: Use this last skill with care... since this randomly affects one of your minions, make absolutely certain that none of them are attacking a melee fighter before you press the button. I've made a similar mistake before with Jack's Conditions build by infecting a human Assassin with Disease just as he decided to shadowstep into the midst of my party... it's never a pleasant sight to see your entire party window go green knowing that you caused it yourself. Enemy backliners are usually okay, if your minions actually go that far back, and of course if your enemies aren't human then just go nuts. While it's not the most devastating condition out there, Disease spreads quickly - it's like causing AoE degen without the need to aim for the centre of a group.

I already have a pretty standard Aura Of The Lich-based Minion Master build for Muerta (whose name literally means "Explosion Death" in Spanish, as I originally created him to be a Minion Bomber), but having seen the Asura Summon spells available the "crazy Rit" gear kicked in and I decided to see just how many things I could summon at once... given enough corpses, this build can raise a small army, which will happily swarm over anything before it. Although it hasn't been as extensively tested as some of my other builds, the "en-masse" approach seems promising - helping out a guildie in Vizunah Square local (admittedly in Normal Mode) resulted in 8 minions, a Vanguard Assassin and a Ruby Djinn running around destroying Afflicted left right and centre, plus my faithful Vampirism spirit keeping me safe and stealing little nibbles of health for me, which technically - if you counted all the summoned creatures, as well as the foreign-side players - gave us a total party size of 27... more than enough to even the odds against the swarm of enemies. In fact, my guildie DC'd about halfway through and I ended up finishing the mission with Masters, despite being four men down!

The main thing to remember here is that this build is not designed for direct confrontation - while it's undoubtedly fun to get the rush of being a one-man army (commanding up to 11 summoned creatures in addition to your three heroes), it can get pretty boring just sitting on the backline pressing skill buttons instead of joining the fight. But the lack of actual combat skills means that the best you can hope for is the occasional wand- or staff-shot while you're waiting for various skills to recharge, and really your downtime is better employed moving to a different position anyway to overwhelm the latest hotspot. If you're looking to go head-to-head with the enemy, I would suggest something more like the Kamikaze Bomber build above, but if you're content to simply stand back and watch the chaos ensue this build is hard to beat. Needless to say, the first three skills need to be constantly applied, so keep an eye on them to ensure that you're getting the most out of each summon, then just keep spamming the spirit, the Djinn, the Assassin and the minions as soon as they recharge. It's also a good idea to stay within earshot of as many backline party members as you can (especially healers) so that the health buff from Spirit's Gift benefits as many as possible - it's not going to save your party in itself, but a little health top-up plus the removal of a condition might well keep a Monk alive for long enough to make a bigger difference to the party as a whole. So long as Spirit's Gift and Boon of Creation are both constantly active, your health and energy shouldn't be a concern - about the most energy you're likely to use in one hit is about 35 (which will soon get replenished with some sensible use of Aura Of The Lich), and with the double health bonuses each time you summon something plus the little top-ups from the Vampirism spirit mean that you're unlikely to take any serious damage. The most important thing to remember is to keep spamming those skills - as soon as a skill becomes available again, use it, because distracting yourself will cause the whole chain to break down and leave you open to damage, energy loss and eventual death. Oh, and one more thing - be sensible with the minions; while you want to use Aura Of The Lich at the earliest opportunity, you also want to make sure that you're raising more than one or two minions at a time, so try and position yourself around a big buildup of corpses before triggering it... and I'm sure I don't even need to say that Putrid Flesh is a skill which should not be used against human enemies, unless you're sure they are going to stay on the backline - there's nothing worse than watching that Warrior you just infected running straight into the middle of your group and spreading Disease to your own troops.

Evil Mesmer Minion build

	Proserpine Mortis
	Mesmer/Necromancer (level 20)
Attributes:	Fast Casting	9
	Illusion Magic	4
	Domination Magic	7
	Inspiration Magic	6
	Blood Magic	5
	Death Magic	12
	Curses	5
Template Code:	OQRHAWQiNGVFfFJIYCYHc6wCiCkUJHA

Demonic Flesh	Channeling	Enfeebling Blood	Rising Bile	Ether Nightmare	Ether Feast	Putrid Flesh	Aura of the Lich

Skill Usage:
	1. Demonic Flesh: Description
	2. Channeling: Description
	3. Enfeebling Blood: Description
	4. Rising Bile: Description
	5. Ether Nightmare: Description
	6. Ether Feast: Description
	7. Putrid Flesh: Description
	8. Aura Of The Lich: Description

Although I already had a Mesmer character, Proserpine Mortis was made for a special purpose: I wanted to see how powerful the combination of Fast Casting and Aura Of The Lich could be. The one thing that always annoyed me before about playing Minion Masters was the fact that those little undead fellas took ages to get up and start fighting, and I wanted to see if I could improve on that. Although I'd previously not enjoyed playing my other Mesmer, Minerva Ducharme, I found that the Mesmer/Necro combination gives a lot of good area-effect hexes and a couple of conditions... although the most devastating part of the build has to be when a random minion explodes, and spreads Disease throughout the enemy's ranks.

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Caster Guardian build

	M. O. X.
	Dervish/Paragon (level 20)
Attributes:	Command	8
	Motivation	8
	Scythe Mastery	9
	Wind Prayers	8
	Mysticism	8
Template Code:	OgmlYinYaqis4EjD/cYR89F8+9Hv

Anthem of Weariness	Ballad of Restoration	Song of Purification	Mending Refrain	Mystic Healing	Watchful Intervention	Farmer's Scythe	Heart of Holy Flame

Skill Usage:
	1. Anthem Of Weariness: Description
	2. Ballad Of Restoration: Description
	3. Song Of Purification: Description
	4. Mending Refrain: Description
	5. Mystic Healing: Description
	6. Watchful Intervention: Description
	7. Farmer's Scythe: Description
	8. Heart Of Holy Flame: Description

This hero build for M.O.X. originated in a complex party's-worth of interdependent builds designed to cause serious carnage for my ex-girlfriend's character, a Necro/Ranger. Originally I started out with my Paragon, giving him a Rit secondary so that I could pile lots of miscellaneous buffs (including Splinter Weapon and Anthem Of Flame) onto her character while she used a bow and Barrage for maximum area-effect; once I'd come up with a build I liked though, energy was a problem - which required a BiP Necro hero. With a second hero slot taken up by the healing Monk, I was left with one slot left and a huge problem - with all these ranged people, what if an Assassin or a melee tank gets past the hail of arrows...? We'd be slaughtered! Realising that I needed someone who was both an auxilliary healer and a defensive tank rolled into one, who could defend the party from melee aggro if necessary, I created this build for M.O.X. which is pretty much a jack-of-all-trades - there's some handy heals in there, a couple of area-effect melee attacks, and of course a scythe to take on several opponents at once if needs be. While the original set of builds (which I collectively called "Chain Reaction") was never actually used - due to the ex having real-world commitments which prevented us playing at the same time - the Caster Guardian build works well for any mostly-ranged party; for example, Proserpine always takes a M.O.X. with this build out with her otherwise full-caster heroes to counter any close-quarters aggro while she's playing with her minions (see her build, above).

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