User:Dj3nt M4ch1n3

Advancing the meta - α and Ω status of Energy Surge

I created this account to advance the AI party meta in Guild Wars, specifically to move away from the standard setup of multiple Energy Surge based Mesmers supplemented by a Blood is Power Necromancer and Soul Twisting Ritualist. Whilst this setup does indeed work flawlessly by providing tons of damage mitigation, damage output, healing, crowd control, energy denial and energy management etc... it seems lacking in spectacle or creativity i.e. it's a bit too moderate and balanced.

My objectives are the following:

• To create party setups where every profession can be useful (including Paragons, Rangers, melee based professions etc)
• To have certain party setups which heavily focus on one or two professions at most e.g. a full Ritualist or Necromancer party (yes, a good chunk of these will require Mercenary Hero slots)
• To make builds which have their efficacy improved by consumables purely from a speed and not a reliability perspective, even with mediocre levels of player input.
• To utilise skills which are otherwise regarded as ineffective e.g. Signet of Ghostly Might, Infuriating Heat, Mist Form
• Finally, to make builds that don't necessarily self regulate i.e. there are 17 button gaming mice on the market nowadays, having a few spells disabled which you have to micro won't kill anyone.

I've already tested altered conventional party configurations and certain tweaks (the addition of a micro managed Arcane Mimicry for example) vastly improve performance. With such blindingly small amendments being missed from staple meta setups, it stands to reason that the PvX "Good" rated builds are probably a vestige of easy-to-use "laziness" rather than peak optimisation. Don't get me wrong, I'm not looking to make builds which require the situational awareness of a 40 man vanilla World of Warcraft raid, but the current state of the game is an auto pilot experience requiring minimal player input that achieves a far from satisfying experience.

Thematic configuration talk:

This is the section where I'll delve into party build configurations centred around using setups either fully or predominantly occupied by one profession. The reason for this is to inject some novelty into the game as well as exploring the functionality of different professions in different roles i.e. I have already made 8 man full Elementalist parties with great results, proving that the relegation of said professions to the sidelines is a huge shame.

Obviously the mileage of certain professions will vary for different responsibilities (Warrior healers, nah, Dervish healers however... yep), but testing professions in this way creatively engages you to squeeze their maximum potential from a perspective of necessity.

1. Full / mostly Warrior

Unfortunately there's no real way to engineer an entire party around purely / mostly Warrior heroes due to their low energy, their inability to generate energy efficiently without using Warrior's Endurance and their lack of human judgement. With Arcane Mimicry you can use a mix of Dwarven Battle Stance and Earth Shaker Hammer Warriors to great effect as front-line damage dealers / crowd control, but the amount of back-line condition and hex removal required to make sure they hit consistently without also being weakened is hard to balance without diminishing the effectiveness of the party i.e. 7 Warriors in a party could be amazing at dishing out damage and controlling crowds, but removing Warriors to make room for healers and support quickly diminishes that effectiveness per Warrior removed.

If the player is a Warrior with Seven Weapons Stance equipped then the effectiveness of using Warriors could shoot through the roof, but the likelihood of heroes copying the player's elite skill rather than another Earth Shaker seems to be inconsistent at best / self targeting before micro managing those casts is possible but ultimately not worth the effort as heroes still cannot use complex skill rotations such as knocklocking to benefit from the raised martial attributes. I haven't yet tested if heroes can copy the PvE only elite skills with Arcane Mimicry, but even if they could the implications are still irrelevant as the results would be fruitless due to the aforementioned drawbacks.

The Good News -

This setup is indeed possible with player characters. Whilst the focus of this journey is mainly on AI party setups, the results I found along the way were so bizarrely effective I just had to detail my findings. To my surprise, the group I tested this setup with found that caster set wielding hybrid Warrior Necromancers using Blood Magic healing / buffs along with a few sword & focus wielding Warrior Mesmers can really mince through a crowd whilst keeping themselves very much alive. Using multiple Warrior Mesmers to bum rush mobs with Panic castings allows insane crowd control which can be permanently present without the need for Fast Casting, combined with Hex Eater Vortex for some nice hex removal / enchant stripping and AoE damage. Cautery Signet provides a stable party wide condition wipe every 15 seconds on top, with only one instance of Foul Feast needed among the party to stop the burning or catch any conditions that slip through the net. Keeping up Blood is Power on all party members is imperative, hence the load being spread over two people, although when fighting single targets you need only maintain it on the hybrid casters and Paragon.

• Using 3 copies of "Save Yourselves!" allows 100% up time in taxing situations, allows your party to spread out like (insert comparison I'll probably get banned for here) and makes keeping up Heroic Refrain as easy as (insert second comparison that would also get me banned).

The party configuration was as follows:

• BiP Warrior Phys Support N°1 - 12(+4) Blood Magic, 12(+4) Curses & 40/40 Blood Magic set

• BiP Warrior Phys Support N°2 - 12(+4) Blood Magic, 12(+4) Curses & 40/40 Blood Magic set

• OotV Warrior Phys Support + Damage - 12(+4) Blood Magic, 12(+4) Death Magic & 40/40 Death Magic set

• SYS Warrior Panic Wounder - 12+1(+4) swordsmanship, 12(+4) Domination Magic and +30hp Zealous Sword with 20 HRT +30h Domination Magic Focus

• SYS Warrior Panic Wounder N°2 - 12+1(+4) swordsmanship, 12(+4) Domination Magic and +30hp Zealous Sword with 20 HRT +30h Domination Magic Focus

• No-SYS Warrior Panic Wounder N°1 - 12+1(+4) swordsmanship, 12(+4) Domination Magic and +30hp Zealous Sword with 20 HRT +30h Domination Magic Focus

• Cautery SYS Knocklock Warrior - 12(+4) Hammer Mastery, 12+1(+4) Strength and +30hp Zealous Hammer

• Heroic Refrain Paragon - 12+1+3(+4) Leadership, 11(+4) Channeling Magic, 6(+4) Restoration Magic (weapons are inconsequential)

^Runes for all:

• Prefix: A Lieutenant's Insignia on gloves with Dreadnought Insignias on the rest.
• Suffix: A Rune of Superior Vigor with A Rune of Attunement on every other piece (+8 energy for these builds is more useful than +1 to an attribute, +2 or 3 to an attribute with health loss or an extra 40 health). There's some debate as to whether another Attunement or a random Superior rune would be better suited on the casters instead of a Vigor rune so Blood is Power costs less health and can be healed against easier.

The Warrior's main strong suit is an easily achieved, pseudo permanent, effectively strip immune armor rating of up to 200.... which is nothing to be scoffed at. This turns all hard hitting armor respecting damage from potentially party wiping AoE nukes into meme tier pointy sticks and renders Warriors nigh on invincible to most enemies in the game, especially considering armor bonuses of 25 and above negate all armor reducing effects due to a glitch.

• This is a bit of an over simplification, but in the majority of cases only 8.84% of armor respecting damage is taken by a Warrior equipped with Sentinel's Insignias under the effects of "Save Yourselves!" to achieve the maximum 200 armor rating. Seeing as Sentinel's require 13 Strength to use however, I can't equip those here.
• With the insignias I've chosen for this build, despite Dreadnought's providing less armor, you actually end up better off i.e. you have an 87.5% chance to take just 5.5% damage, with only a 12.5% chance of taking 7.5% damage courtesy of Lieutenant's 5% flat damage reduction.
• When you get to such high armor ratings, flat reduction in percentages or solid numerical values is way better than a difference in rating of even 40 or 50 as armor starts to provide heavily diminishing returns.
• As I said, this is an over simplification based on the most of the game. Creature height can mildly affect the outcome of the above percentages and things such as % armor penetration, although rarely encountered, also sting through your "Great Wall of China" tier armor rating although not by much.
• Resources: (Armor rating, Order of damage modifiers, Armor calculation, Damage calculation)

Without a Heroic Refrain Paragon in the party though, unfortunately this tactic is not particularly viable for areas such as The Underworld and Domain of Anguish due to sustainability issues caused by prolonged fights. You can substitute the Order of the Vampire Warrior for a Soul Twisting Ritualist if you find the incoming damage a bit too hairy in some areas, although nailing that initial wave of Panic castings should shut down any mob enough to where incoming damage is minimal and the Cautery Knocklock Warrior is there purely to sodomise any melee range enemies who chase down your casters. Even without a Soul Twisting ritualist, 90% of the damage dealt to your team will be in the single digits.

Ultimately though I think this playstyle, whilst hilariously effective with players, is impossible to pull off with AI party members to any degree which justifies it's use above other party setups i.e. you'll spend more time watching your hair fall out from the stress of juggling a battle than you will playing for the fun of it. I've obviously missed out tons of key mechanisms and ways to use the setup like the synergy between Barbed Signet castings and Gash, the situational use of certain health stealing skills on the casters or why Order of the Vampire is even in there despite the use of other Necromancer enchantments... but if you have any questions, feel free to post them on my talk page and I'll try to answer them ASAP.

New Config suggestion:

• BiP Warrior Phys Support N°1 - 12(+4) Blood Magic, 9(+4) Curses, 9(+4) Death Magic & 40/40 Blood Magic set

• BiP Warrior Phys Support N°2 - 12(+4) Blood Magic, 9(+4) Curses, 9(+4) Death Magic & 40/40 Blood Magic set

• JB Warrior Phys Support + Damage - 12(+4) Blood Magic, 12(+4) Death Magic & 40/40 Death Magic set

An interesting concept of keeping minions alive as a resource for Taste of Death, using Blood of the Master to keep them topped up for your BiP casters to leech from / using Jagged Bones so you can sac a minion for Death Nova's effects without losing a health source. It also allows you to reset the clock on a minion's deterioration from health degeneration, so you can keep minions with you between fights.

This was sent to me almost straight after I posted the original config although I haven't tested it yet and have no idea how it compares. I'm looking forward to seeing what kind of damage it throws out and if the minions survive long enough in a fight for the 30 second cooldown of Jagged Bones to not be an issue. Blood Bond also heals minions and when twinned with other sources of minion healing, it might be enough to keep them alive.

3. Full / mostly Monk

Dwayna's Sorrow and low level minions seems to be the scariest healing combo I've come across in a while, fuelled by Taste of Death to kill minions faster and generate massive healing spikes. I'm unsure if said Monk enchantment works on spirits, but Destruction and other spirits that lose health (such as those used in Soul Twisting builds) would provide a welcome bonus too.

Thankfully, hex and condition removal is easily sorted because Monks have debuff stripping skills falling out of their arse. I can't seem to find a potent damage source however without using tons of Ray of Judgment castings alongside mimicked Psychic Instability and vice versa.

Panic is usually the default go-to for crowd control, but 5 instances of Psychic Instability seems to have better synergy with the chosen damage method (whilst fulfilling the need to "control crowds"). If heroes could echo properly, using Arcane Echo alongside Ray of Judgment and Psychic Instability would probably result in one of the most aggressive party setups ever devised in terms of DPS... but they end up echoing random skills at completely random points.

Energy management for Monks is a complete meme. Outside of bonding (which can be stripped and needs to be micro managed extensively), Monks have no real way to gain energy other than the odd skill here and there so Blood is Power comes to the rescue yet again.

9. Full / mostly Paragon

Testing is coming on to be very promising, using a combination of both Malign Intervention and Holy Spear to shell out tons of AoE holy damage and Wearying Spear with Remedy Signet and Mighty Throw for single target. Using Verata's Gaze with Animate Shambling Horror or Animate Bone Minions seems to be a good way to make consistent minions, although Shambling Horrors seem to be the better choice as I don't think they get hit by the AoE from other Holy Spear usages (which wipes them out pretty fast due to the double holy damage versus undead mechanic].

Using Dark Fury with Infuriating Heat for 4 adrenaline gain on hit in conjunction with Chorus of Restoration and Finale of Restoration seems to have healing completely covered whilst making any and all adrenal skills borderline spammable.

Obviously there's the option to slip in an imbagon for damage mitigation but I can't see any way around using Panic on multiple members for crowd control like in the warrior setup.

Update:

Song of Purification is by far the most powerful condition removal skill in the game, taking 1-2 hits to generate enough adrenaline to use and having easy permanent upkeep without the need for micro managing. Hexbreaker Aria, whilst not quite as absurd, also provides potent hex removal / with Dark Fury+Infuriating Heat+Mark of Fury, you gain 8 adrenaline per hit making it usable after just one attack. To account for the spell specific requirement in order to remove a hex, I've also equipped Splinter Weapon on the 4 party members who don't fulfill roles with heavy caster divergence (5 energy cost with a 5 second cooldown is both consistent and reliable, with the added bonus of Bikini Atoll tier DPS).

If there's one thing that making this team composition has taught me and the people I'm testing with, it's that adrenaline is far superior to energy i.e. healing and support via shouts / chants is hands down the best method in the game. I tend to agree that non imbagon Paragons are fairly underpowered in the general scheme of things, but with an adrenaline based party setup they wipe the floor with Restoration Magic.