[Neraphym]

Post your builds!

Right now I'm playing on my N/Me (Necro/Mesmer) and farming Sorrows Furnace as a Minion Master.

Skill Point Distribution:
Death: 16 (12 + 3 + 1)
Soul Reaping: 13 (12 + 1)

Skills:
Rotting Flesh: Causes Disease
Virulence (Elite): If suffering from condition, causes Disease, Poison, & Weakness
Epidemic: Spreads conditions from one foe to all nearby foes
Blood of the Master: Sacrifice 10% Max Health and Heal nearby minions
Verata's Sacrifice: Sacrifice 10% Max Health and allied minions gain +10 Health Regen
Animate Bone Fiends: Use corpse to animate level 18 Bone Fiend
Animate Bone Horror: Use corpse to animate level 18 Bone Horror
Resurrection Signet: Revives downed ally to 100% HP and 25% MP

Info:
This build allows for me to create bone fiends and horrors and keep them alive for a bit with Verata's Sacrifice and Blood of the Master. When I'm not animating corpses, I'll use Rotting Flesh to put disease on a foe, then hit it with Virulence to cause weakness and poison, too. If that enemy is nearby a bunch of others, I'll use Epidemic to infect the whole area of foes with weakness, poison, and disease. Resurrection Signet is there for a quick revival if anything goes wrong.

[JGJTan]

Nice topic Alpha.

Apart from my farming build, which is somewhere in this forum, I usually run an average-skilled Domination build to suit different things.

*steals Alpha's colour scheme*

Purple doesn't look too great without being bold... so I'll stick with uncoloured bold for the last bit.

Using my Mesmer/Monk... this is my Domination build in a party (for once not a Domination/Illusion build):

Skill Point Distribution
Fast Casting: 13 (12 + 1)
Domination Magic: 13 (12 + 1)
Protection Prayers: 3

Skills:
Empathy: Foe takes damage each time they attack.
Wastrel's Worry: If target foe doesn't use a skill in 3 seconds, they take damage.
Power Spike: Interrupt a spell. Spellcaster takes damage if interrupted.
Energy Surge (Elite): Foe loses energy. For each point of energy lost, all those surrounding that foe (including the target) takes 8 damage for each point of energy lost.
Shatter Hex: Remove a hex from target ally. Foes surrounding the target ally take damage if a hex is removed.
Shatter Enchantment: Remove an enchantment from a foe. If an enchantment is removed, that foe takes damage.
Hex Breaker: The next time you are hexed, the hex fails and the caster takes damage.
Rebirth: Lost all energy. Revive a dead ally with 25% health and no energy from a distance. Their skills are disabled for a certain amount of time.

Info:
This build can allow me to hurt nearly all classes. Empathy is used on opponents like Warriors and Rangers while Backfire is used on spellcasting opponents. If any ally has a hex on them and they happen to have enemies surrounding him/her, I'll cast Shatter Hex . If an opponent has an enchantment on them, I'll use Shatter Enchantment to remove it. Hex Breaker is a stance to prevent a hex being used on me. I'll use Energy Surge on a spellcaster or a foe surrounded by enemies so that I can do an area damage as well as remove some energy. Power Spike is to interrupt any long and harmful spells and Wastrel's Worry is for quick damage on a boss (hex durations are reduced on bosses by 1/2 time) and is the Mesmer's "spam damage" spell as it takes 5 energy to cast and has a quick recovery time. If we have to retreat in battle and some allies are dead and their corpses are too hard to revive up close, Rebirth can be used to ressurect from afar.

[kelik]

ah finally a build topic. Well here's mine that i usually PvE with. I also PvP with this char, but ill go into that in a later post (if i do one)

Here we go my W/Ele sword/fire Build

Skill Point Distribution:
Fire Magic- 9
Strength- 11 (10+1)
Swordsmanship- 12 (10+1+1)
Tactics- 8 (7+1)

Skills:
Gash: If foe is bleeding, you stirke for 9 more damage and foe suffers a deep wound.
Sever Artery: If this attack hits, Foe begins Bleeding for 21 seconds.
Final Thrust: Lose all adrenaline. If this attack hits, you deal 32 more damage. Damage is doubled if your target was below 50% health
Immolate: Spell; Target foe is struck for 32 damage and set on fire for two seconds.
Bonetti's Defense: For 8 seconds, you have a 75% chance to "block" incoming melee attacks and arrows. You gain 5 Energy for each successful melee attack blocked. Bonetti's Defense ends if you use a skill.
Conjure Flame: Lose all Enchantments. For 60 seconds, if you're wielding a fire weapon, your attacks strike for an additional 10 fire damage.
Sprint: For 12 seconds, you move 25% faster
Resurrection Signet: Revives downed ally to 100% HP and 25% MP

Info:
With this beast in the making, im making full use of the fiery mod i put on my longsword with Conjure flame. Got the usual Sever Artery Gash combo. I spam spell with immolate and use bonetti's dence to gather back mp. Yea this build could use some help, but its good for the time being i guess.....just need a good elite skill, any hints/tips?

This post has been edited by kelik425: 02 March 2006 - 05:50 AM

[Moogalite]

Well which character do you want my build for when i get back from college i will post my monk and my necro builds... i can also try an old fashioned ele havent played it for a while

[Neraphym]

Color Scheme:

Warrior (Orange)
Ranger (Lime)
Elementalist (Red)
Monk (Cyan)
Necromancer (Green)
Mesmer (Purple)
Assassin ???
Ritualist ???
N/A (Gray)

[Goto]

What was with the double post, Alpha?

I'm always messing around with my default build for each particular situation, changing skills around and such. So I'll just list one of the combinations I go through, and then what I sometimes use instead.

1. Purge Conditions: Removes all conditions from ally with a low energy cost and practically no cast time.
2. Healing Breeze: I don't tend to use it too much, but it's useful if I'm getting hit heavily by degens, or if the monks are struggling to keep people alive.
3. Mending: As well as the +3 health regen, both my axe and my hammer are +14% dmg while enchanted, so I use this to increase my damage.
4. Free spot: I'll usually stick either a capture signet (if on misisons that I don't have all the elites for yet), an elite of some sort, a stance or a shout here. It gives me a small amount of free space to make myself more effective for a particular type of enemy.
5. Restore Life/Rebirth: I alternate which I prefer to use, but this is where I keep my reviving spell. If I'm farming or soloing for whatever reason, a running skill or stance usually goes here.
6. Staggering Blow or Hammer Elite skill: If I have an elite in slot #4, this is usually Staggering Blow to inflict weakness on warriors and rangers. If the elite I'm taking is a melee attack, I'll usually stick it here instead. I like both Devastating Hammer and Backbreaker a lot, and Dwarven Battle Stance can be fun when there are lots of elementalists or necromancers.
7. Irresistable Blow: As well as providing a nice bonus to damage without requiring adrenaline, it can't be evaded, and knocks down anyone who blocks it. This makes it quite effective against heavily armoured warrior types, as the +32 damage it inflicts can often be several times what I'm doing normally. Less useful against enemies with weak armour, though.
8. Mighty Blow: Similar to Irresistable Blow, except adrenaline based. I usually alternate the two so that I am inflicting more damage, but not using as much energy.



That's more or less what I normally go with. Some of the skills I like to carry in #4 if I don't have a cap sig include Defy Pain (good tanking skill), Gladiators Defense (if there are a lot of warriors around, this skill can do a lot of damage), Charge or Bull's Charge if I'm running (although I often change this build completely if I'm serious about running), and the like. Also I sometimes switch Healing Breeze for Healing Hands, Word of Healing or Healing Signet.

The weapons I use are as follows:

Heavy Giant Slayers Hammer of Defense
-19-35 damage (10 req)
-Damage +14% (while enchanted)
-Lengthens Weakness duration by 33%
-Armor +5


Vampiric Great Axe
-6-28 damage (8 req)
-Damage +14% (while enchanted)
-Life Stealing +3
-Health Regen -1

I haven't attached a second mod to that axe yet, I only got it the other day. I'll probably get a fortitude mod, or something like that.


My armour is 15k Gladiators, half of it is dyed silver and the other half is silver-blue. I've got a dwarven helm with a sup hammer mastery (+4 hammer mastery, for when I'm using a hammer), and a gladiators helm with a minor axe mastery (for when I'm running, or using an axe build). I've also got Major vigor and abs, minor tactics and strength attached to my armour. My shield is a collectors item, it's the:

Crimson Carapace Shield
-16 defense (9 tactics req)
-Health +45 (while in a stance)
-Received Damage -2 (while in a stance)


I change around my stats even more than I do my skills, but in general I have...

8 healing
10 strength (9 + 1)
16 Hammer Mastery (12 + 3 + 1)
with the remaining points put into Tactics if I have any tactics skills, or usually an extra point of healing otherwise. Often though I'll take a point off hammer to up the other skills if I'm focusing less on damage.

I think that's just about all I can think of to include, sorry I rambled on for so long.

Just as a finisher, here's a picture of me.

[Neraphym]

I hit replay instead of edit, because I wented to add the names of the colors.

[Ariana]

Speaking builds... the March 2nd Update took a bite out of every single one of my builds.

For...all my characters...

[kelik]

yea.......i just checked what the update was. Great now I can't use gale as much as i used to.

EDIT: here's a link to the march 2nd update http://www.guildwiki...pdates/20060302

This post has been edited by kelik425: 04 March 2006 - 12:12 AM

[Neraphym]

Updates tend to have the effect of destroying builds... I just know that eventually the gear/book trick will be done away with. They have practically destroyed the elementalist with the improved AI that made enemies run from firestorm... now what's next?

[kelik]

Updates tend to have the effect of destroying builds...  I just know that eventually the gear/book trick will be done away with.  They have practically destroyed the elementalist with the improved AI that made enemies run from firestorm... now what's next?

.....nerf the gale spell?..o wait......THEY JUST DID THAT

[Aaron]

The update actually helped some of my protection spells .

[Goto]

Some of the changes to warrior spells were quite appreciated, but they nerfed the Prophets Path farming spot, added a bunch of necro scarabs in.

[Neraphym]

I'm going to 'predict' a future build for the Assassin class. I've done a tiny bit of research, and here is what I have to show. First, let me explain the Assassin class's attributes.


Attributes:

Critical Strikes (Primary): Every rank gives an additional 1% chance to critical hit. You gain 2 Energy whenever you score a critical hit.
Dagger Mastery: Increases damage and chance to inflict a critical hit using daggers.
Deadly Arts: Increases damage and effectiveness of Deadly Arts based skills.
Shadow Arts: Increases damage and effectiveness of Shadow Arts based skills.

This build will have the following attribute spending:

Critical Strikes: 16 (12 + 3 + 1)
Dagger Mastery: 4 (3 + 1)
Deadly Arts: 14 (12 + 2)
Shadow Arts: 0

This build focuses on critical strikes. You will need to max out the attributes to 12, then get a superior critical strikes rune and use the critical stike headpiece. This will give you the 16 in critical strikes, but you'll be down 75 health. Also max out Deadly Arts to 12, then get a major deadly arts rune to put it at 14. This will subtract another 50 health, bringing you down 125 HP. Finally, spend the remaining attribute points on dagger mastery, and get a minor rune of dagger mastery to bring it up to 4.

Attacking with Daggers:

The Assassin class uses daggers, and uses them very well in the form of combos. The combo system is a tad bit complicated, but not too difficult to understand. To begin a combo, you must start with a Lead Attack. If a lead attack hits, a slash will appear next to the opponent's health bar. Lead attacks are followed up with Off-Hand attacks. Off-hand attacks can only be used if there is a slash next to the enemy's health bar.* If an off-hand attack hits, a second slash will appear next to the health bar and form an 'X'. With the X there, you can do a Dual Attack. After a dual attack hits, a Starburst mark will appear. I'm not quite sure what this means, but I do know that one skill (not in this build) requires that you have that mark. These slashes will wear off if you do not continue the combo within 2 seconds or so. Also note that daggers are very fast, and that many Assassin skills have a cast time of 0, making them instant. These quick and instant attacks are key to the Assassin's lethality.

*Some off-hand attacks have other requirements instead of having to follow a lead attack.

For examples of what these slashes look like, cheack out Guild Wiki.

Skills:



Here are the skills listed from left to right:

1. Dancing Daggers
2. Fox Fangs
3. Critical Strike
4. Black Lotus Strike
5. Critical Defenses
6. Sharpen Daggers
7. Critical Eye
8. Siphon Strength (Elite)



Dancing Daggers [Lead]
EC: 5
AT: 1
RT: 5
Send out three Dancing Daggers at target foe. Each striking for 19 earth damage if they hit.


Fox Fangs [Off-Hand]
EC: 5
AT: 0
RT: 10
Must follow a lead attack. Fox Fangs connot be "blocked" or "evaded" and strikes for +9 damage if it hits.


Critical Strike [Dual]
EC: 5
AT: 0
RT: 12
Must follow an off-hand attack. If it hits, this attack strikes for +11 damage and results in a critical hit.


Black Lotus Strike
EC: 10
AT: 0
RT: 30
Must strike a Hexed foe. If it hits, Black Lotus Strike strikes for +33 damage and you gain 21 Energy.


Critical Defenses
EC: 5
AT: 0
RT: 30
For 4 seconds, you have a 52 chance to "block." Critical Defenses refreshes every time you land a critical hit.


Sharpen Daggers
EC: 5
AT: 2
RT: 20
For 37 seconds, all of your critical hits cause Bleeding for 16 seconds.


Critical Eye
EC: 5
AT: 0
RT: 30
For 37 seconds, you have an additional 7% chance to land a critical hit when attacking. You gain 1 Energy whenever you score a critical hit.


Siphon Strength (Elite)
EC: 15
AT: 2
RT: 30
For 11 seconds, target foe deals -15 damage with attacks and all of your attacks against that foe have an additional 33% chance of being a critical hit.


Info:

As I said before, this build focuses on critical hits and dishing out big damage from them. By placing 16 attribute levels in Critical Strikes, there is already an extra 16% change of you getting a critical hit. The 4 points in Dagger Mastery also adds a little to the chances of you landing a critical with a dagger. By casting Critical Eye, you add another 7% on to that chance. This alone gives you a 1/4 chance of getting a critical. Start the battle by casting Critical Eye and Sharpen Daggers. These skills wear off every 37 seconds (they will be recharged by then), so recast whenever they wear off. Critical Eye adds the 7% to critical hits, and Sharpen Daggers makes opponents bleed if you score a critical on them. Next select a target and cast your elite skill, Siphon Strength. Siphon Strength not only decreases that enemy's attacks by 15 damage, but you now are 33% more likely to score a critical hit on that foe (a little more than half of your attacks against this foe will be critical hits).

Casting Critical Eye, Sharpen Daggers, and Siphon Strength costs a good 25 energy. Being that Siphon Strength is a hex, you can now freely cast Black Lotus Strike to do damage and reclaim some energy. Next cast Critical Defenses. This spell is amazing, in that it allows you to block half of all incomming attacks for 4 seconds. What is even better is, this attack renews itself everytime you get a critical hit. Daggers can get roughly 3, maybe 4 attacks off in that amount of time, and since half of these attacks will probably be critical hits, you'll be able to keep this lovely little enchantment going for some time. This defense really helps make up for the 125 HP sacrificed for attribute levels.

Siphon Strength and Critical Defenses wont always be there for you, so you'll need a few more skills to dish out the pain. Here is a nastly little 3-hit combo for you. First, use Dancing Daggers. This is a lead attack that will dish out 57 damage instantly with a low cost and a short recharge. Due to a lack of decent off-hand follow-up attacks in the Deadly Arts attribute (they were too expensive and took too long to recharge), I was forced to look outside of it towards Dagger Mastery. There I found a cheap, quick, and 100% accurate follow up attack, Fox Fang. While not entirely useful, it is cheap and reliable. The 9 added damage isn't great, but the fact that it always hits is great because you know that you'll always be able to follow it up with a dual attack and not have to worry about it missing. Speaking of which, we have a wonderful dual attack next in line, Critical Strike. This attack adds 11 damage onto your attack then automatically causes a critical hit. This critical hit not only adds good damage, but causes bleeding from Sharpen Daggers and renews Critical Defenses.

Let's recap:

1. Cast and maintian Sharpen Daggers and Critical Eye throught the battle.
2. Select a target and put Siphon Strength on it.
3. Cast Black Lotus Strike for quick damage and energy.
4. Put up Critical Defenses and maintain it by landing critical hits.
5. When Siphon Strength, switch to strong damage combos until it recharges.
6. Recast Siphon Strength and Critical Defense, and keep the criticals comming.
7. Once the target is dead, move on.


Note that Assassins should go 1 on 1 with enemies. They aren't very skilled at fighting groups of enemies, but are very well off fighting individual battles. Siphon Strength and Critical Defenses do a good job at limiting the damage done to your Assassin. Try and get a +20% Enchantment life mod for your daggers to extend Siphon Strength, as it only lasts 11 seconds and has a recharge of 30. It will also mean you have to recast Sharpen Daggers and Critical Eye less often.

As the Assassin class is not yet out, these skills are not tested or anything. This is 100% theorey, so don't come crying to me if this doesn't work well for you. Though very rare, I am cabable of being wrong. If I am wrong in this case, you should worry less about losing 1 battle and more about the universe collapsing into itself because of my mistake.

This build uses only Assassin skills, and therefore you can have ANY secondary class you want with this. Switch in a few of your secondary skills and experiment. Maybe add a stance in if you are a worrior, or a self heal if you're a monk. Arcane Echo Siphon Strength to make it last longer if you are a mesmer (wow, I actually like that idea...).

[Goto]

Even with black lotus, this build is going to be heavy on energy, particularly if people disrupt your strategy. 4 in dagger mastery is going to cause you to do practically no damage to enemies with decent armour, which not only causes you to rely exclusively on skills but also reduces the effectiveness of the dagger mastery-based combos you've taken along.

It's an interesting idea, but I'd take a point or two out of critical strikes to pump more into dagger mastery. If you have 15 crit strikes instead of 16, that's 20 extra attribute points. Those points could probably give you another 3 or 4 levels to dagger mastery, which not only increases your damage output but actually improves your critical hit rate. I'm also not certain whether the major and sup are necessary, particularly in the case of the major.

As you said, all this is theoretical and is just our guesses on what might be effective. A critical hit is only going to multiply the damage that you're already doing though, so a lack of focus on dagger mastery is probably going to eliminate your effectiveness.