Builds: Single hero templates

Master of Builds Posts : 62 Join date : 2013-08-29

Use this thread to show us your hero's build without the context of your full team.

Build Collections
Ether reneval elementalist heroes collection
Minion master heroes collection
Keystone signet mesmer heroes collection

zip folders with template codes
Krschkr's outdated .zip folder

Master of Builds Posts : 62 Join date : 2013-08-29

Be aware they are not perfect and some may be outdated in the meanwhile. I created this .zip months ago.

Copy the templates into your templates folder.

wartower.de/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=452229&d=1364569002

Master of Builds Posts : 62 Join date : 2013-08-29

Ether Reneval Elementalist Heroes
Use this link to link here.

Overview picture and template Codes - click here to open the expander:

About

The build's core is ether reneval combined with aura of restoration which will give you hero 9 energy points whenever casting a spell. Since your hero will most times have even more enchantments on him giving additional 4 energy points per casted spell ether Reneval will allow your hero to spam almost any spell. Additionally it heals your hero whenever casting a spell and therefore allows to compensate high sacrifice costs.
That's the reason why a ER (Ether Reneval) hero is a better healer than a ritualist or monk hero and in many cases better than a necromancer healer. Moreover it allows you some other special builds like a wastrels spammer (E/Me) or an order elementalist (E/N)

Note that your hero might cast some other spells before casting ether reneval.

The weak spot of those heroes is that ether reneval can (as any other enchantment) be drain and it might be interrupted while casting. Your hero will not see this problem and continue spamming other spells. When ether reneval is again ready to be casted your hero might not have enough energy points to do so.
If you go into areas with much enchantment drain you should either watch how you play, to avoid the E/Mo being immediately in range of anti enchantment skills, or leave him out of the group.

Equipment

The weapons

Most important is that your hero has a weapon suffix "of enchanting".
Best to bring a staff of an attribute with you your hero will use. A spear of enchanting is ok, too. If it's a sword or an axe you should let your hero set to "avoid combat" mode (so don't give your hero melee weapons when he has to cast spells on enemies). Don't give them Daggers, Scythes or Hammers.

Other useful effects are

reduced casting and reload time for illusion or domination magic spells when playing the E/Me build
reduced casting and reload time for blood magic and curse skills(when playing the E/N build
reduces reload time for smiting prayers skills when playing the E/Mo smiting build
reduced casting time for healing prayers skills when playing the E/Mo heal/prot 2 build
reduced reload time for protection prayers skills when playing the E/Mo heal/prot 1 or 2 build

The armor

Runes
Use a major or superior rune of energy restoration (important) for the head armor. Use a minor, major or superior vigor rune - buy the most effective if possible). The other three runes should be vitae runes.

Insignias
Blesses insignia for every piece of armor.

Elementalist/Mesmer Ether Reneval Hero

This hero is very helpful if you don't yet have more than one mesmer hero. If you have three mesmer heroes playing psychic instability a E/Me ER hero will be helpful aswell to spam wastrel's demise and wastrel's worry.

There are more useful skills than in the example template you can give to your hero. Possible skills to use with the core skills are such as:

Domination magic: Wastrel's demise; wastrel's worry; mistrust; empathy; complicate (great groups of enemies playing the same builds); spiritual pain (enemies have spirits); power spike; cry of frustration; shatter delusions (if playing with both wastrel's skills); shatter hex; shatter enchantment; overload
Illusion magic: Clumsiness; wandering eye; accumulated pain (if not yet in your team); arcane conundrum (if not yet in your team); frustration (with many interruption skills in your team); calculated risk
Other skills: Power return; deep freeze (don't spend attribute points to this)

The skill combination I chose should be playable "as is" and help you against casters aswell as against melee fighters.

Elementalist/Necromancer Ether Reneval Hero

If you have many physicals in your team (such fighting with melee weapons, spears and bows - especially when not upgraded with elemental damage upgrades) this hero will be useful. If you play without those he will be useful when playing with 3-4 minion masters (why should you do so though?) using other skills.

Possible skills to use with the core skills:

Blood magic: Blood bond; awaken the blood (improves the heroe's spell's quality and allows you hitting break points); dark fury; order of pain (does not affect minions); mark of fury (when playing with awaken the blood)
Curses: Weaken armor; enfeebling blood; shadow of fear; defile defenses; barbs; mark of pain
Other skills: Foul feast (enemies have many conditions like blind or cripple); deep freeze (don't spend attribute points to this)

The skill combination I chose is designed to help teams with many warrios, dervishes, paragons and minions. If you play with minions only you need to change some skills.

Elementalist/Monk Smiting Prayers Ether Reneval Hero

This hero will be helpful when fighting against enemies with strong healers while having 2-3 melee fighters in your team.
Let your hero cast strength of honour on himself, too! This will help him out a lot with his energy managemant!

Click here to see an important information on how to play this:

More skills to use with the build's core:

Smiting prayers: Judge's insight (to avoid high armor levels or to have double damage against the undead); scourge sacrifice (enemies have sacrifice costs); scourge enchantment (enemies have many enchantments - also useful against many healers); holy wrath; smite condition; reversal of damage and zealot's fire (when used together)
Other skills: Draw conditions (enemies have many conditions); convert hexes; deep freeze (dont spend attribute points to this)

I chose the skills to help you against enemy healers, deal minor damage and buff your melee fighters.

Elementalist/Monk Heal/Prot Ether Reneval Hero 1&2

This is the most common and probably most effective version of an ether reneval hero. It combines great single target protection and nice single target healing. That way I claim it to be the game's best heal/prot hybrid hero and that way being better than most other heal-only heroes (monks, ritualists, necromancers), too.

The combination of protective spirit, spirit bond and shield of absorbtion protects you agains enemies trying to kill you with few one hit skills (protective spirit), enemies trying to kill you with many medium hard attacks (spirit bond) and enemies trying to kill you with spamming weak attacks (shield of absorbtion). Combined you are safe against most fighting styles you will face in Guild Wars.

You will have to choose the healing skills and another skill depending on where you go and how the rest of your team is built up.

Nice skills to choose from:

Protection Prayers: Life bond (nice for doing your survivor title); spirit bond; life attunement; shield of absorbtion; protective spirit; reverse hex; convert hexes; dismiss condition; draw conditions
Healing Prayers: Heal other; Dwayna's sorrow (playing with minions); vigorous spirit; healing ribbon; Jamai's gaze; infuse health (use with life attunement); cure hex
Other Skills: Deep freeze (don't spend attribute points to this)

When to use healing skill combination 1 - infuse health and life attunement:

If you already have a full healer or two hybrid healers you might prefer this skill combination, since it especially helps against spikes.
If you have another hero in your team who needs much healing (example: Heroes using blood is power) casting life attunement on them is very helpful.
Always have this hero cast life attunement on himself, too! This will improve this heroe's energy management and help to restore this heroe's health points after having used infuse health.

Click here to see an important information on how to play this:

Don't use this skill combination when you face enemies using scourge sacrifice or already have a hero with infuse health with you ( - they will spam infuse health on each other).

When to use healing skill combination 2 - heal other and Jamai's gaze:

If you don't have a full healer or two hybrid healers within your team, you might prefer this skill combination. It rather gives you a constant healing than a spike protection.

Master of Builds Posts : 62 Join date : 2013-08-29

Minion Master Heroes
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Template codes and overview picture - click here to see further informations:

About

A well known and popular playing style is the minion master (abbreviation: MM or mm). A minion master is a player or NPC that creates an army of undead minions. There are many different ways to play a minion master and many different minions to create. They all have advantages and disadvantages.

Animate [minion] skills - click here to see further informations:

Animate Bone Minions: The bone minions are the weakest minions, but you create two minions each corpse. Their advantage is that they trigger twice on-create-effects, which is interesting for ritualists, and on-death-effects, which adds greatly to the concept of necromancers: They give twice the soul reaping energy bonus and when enchanted with death nova twice bomb your enemies.
They are less useful to block your enemies than distract them, since they will attract enemies by their low health and armor level. If enchanted they will also distract enchantment removal skills of your enemy. Because of this behaviour those minions are very useful walking bombs in combination with death nova, may help healing your group with dwayna's sorrow but they will kill your protective communing spirits.
Animate Bone Horror: The bone horror's strength is that it can be fast created in a great number (recast time of five seconds) while not beeing too weak. They are a nice minion type if you want to have your foes body blocked. They don't have any special effect though. See also aura of the lich [elite] and malign intervention.
Aura Of The Lich [Elite], creates bone horrors: This skill's advantages are that you can create minions without any corpses nearby, instant create a full minion army (+corpse control - enemy minion masters will be disarmed) and increase your death magic attribute by 1. Disadvantage is the long reloading time and that the attribute bonus can be removed by enchantment removal skills.
Malign Intervention, creates a masterless bone horror: This skill is not useful for heroes. It does not create minions when the target will not leave a fresh corpse. The created minion will attack your team.
Animate Vampiric Horror: The vampiric horror has the same stats like the bone horror, but costs more while having a longer reload time. It's only useful in builds with high sacrifice costs (like with order of undeath [elite]) but most times you should not really need them.
Animate Bone Fiend: This skill is most interesting. You can in short time create a big army (if you have enough energy points) of ranged minions with an insane attack speed. They are best used in combination with order of undeath [Elite], to trigger splinter weapon, barbs and mark of pain. Because of their range they will not be killed as soon as other minions.
Their disadvanteges are the enormeous casting costs of 25 energy points each minion. They will use ranged attacks and that way not distract or block your enemy very well - death nova is not very useful. They will not hit enemies standing behind walls.
This minion type is best used if you want to deal raw damage (not by death nova). You should try to heal them when they are at low health, because they are worth it.
Animate Shambling Horror: The shambling horror has almost the same stats as the bone horror, but at higher costs and a much longer reload time. It's interesting effect is that at its death a new minion will be created: The jagged horror. This will trigger on-create-effects of the ritualist, but not happen, when the minion master died.
The jagged horror has worse stats, but will afflict bleeding on the enemy when successfully attacking. I think that is not worth bringing it with you, but it might be helpful for discord teams.
Jagged Bones [Elite]: This skill creates a jagged horror, if the enchantment is not removed. The creation will trigger on-create-effects of the ritualist. Because of the long reload time this skill is a wasted elite skill slot. You should stick to any other elite skill except the great and mighty flesh golem.
Animate Flesh Golem [Elite]: Hell! The great and mighty king of all undead minions! Look at its hand, it's an axe! (I'm not serious)
The flesh golem's advantage is that it has a high amount of health points ... and ... is big. It leaves a fresh corpse.
Disadvantages: Wastes elite skill slot, very slow attack speed, only one flesh golem can be created, slow movement speed (last one arriving), and much more. Don't use the flesh golem. Don't. Just don't, right? Don't.

Depending on how you want to play and what heroes you already have in your team you should choose other minion skills. Most common playing styles are
1.) a combination of animate bone minions with death nova,
2.) a meat wall of body blocking minions as created with aura of the lich or
3.) heavily buffed minions when playing with order of undeath and animate bone fiend.

When playing with minion master heroes you should know some little facts about general minion master and minion behaviour.

Minion and minion master facts - click here to see further informations:

Utility skills minion masters
Many necromancer minion masters have two to four skill slots free for utility skills. They can deal enough damage or can have a big enough meat wall created with a few core skills, while their primary attribute soul reaping allows them for some more medium expensive skills.
Since there aren't always further death magic or soul reaping skills available that fit into your group, you might want to give your hero support skills from second class attribute lines (skilled to 6/8/10). For the most below suggested attribute lines there is an example within the 12 examples you will see in this posting.

The following list will only list some common skills from these attribute lines. That does not mean that these are all possible skills and attribute lines! It shall only help you a bit to choose your skills for your own hero, even without knowing the attribute lines too much.

Utility skills list - click here to see further informations:

Command: "Cant touch this!" (against touchers); "never surrender!"; "find their weakness!"; "stand your ground!"; "fall back!"; bladeturn refrain

Command is a nice utility attribute line. Most skills improve the whole team's survivability. If you don't have deep wound in your team "find their weakness!" might help you - but I don't know if heroes use this skill on minions.

Healing Prayers: Dwayna's sorrow; vigorous spirit; spotless soul; spotless mind (if healing pryers is at 10); cure hex

Healing prayers will work well with bone minions because of Dwayna's sorrow. Normal healing skills are too weak or too expensive though, so you should rather stick to enchantments and stuff like hex remove.

Smiting Prayers: Strength of honour; smite condition; smite hex

Interesting if you play with a strong pet or as a melee and don't see another way too bring strength of honour with your heroes.

Protection Prayers: Aegis; shield of absorption; protective spirit; shielding hands; dismiss condition

Most important is protective spirit, but all the suggested skills are nice and should fit into every group.

Restoration Magic: Spirit light; mend body and soul; life; protective was kaolai*; spirit transfer (expensive); flesh of my flesh

If you need some additional healing or resurrection skills, use restoration magic: Spirit light and mend body and soul have a nice healing effect even at rank 10.
Don't use life and protective was kaolai in the same build, since the hero will try to have both always active which kills the energy management. They are useful though since they are a group healing effect and life even heals your minions. If you combine one of the two with spirit transer this might be too expensive. If longer lasting enchantments are especially useful for your hero and team (example: blood is power) protective was kaolai might rather be a curse than a boon for your group.

Channeling Magic: Nightmare weapon; splinter weapon; ancestor's rage; gaze of fury; bloodsong (only to support your spirit spam or have spirit light and similar skills without disadvantage)

Splinter weapon becomes really effective at rank 14 channeling magic, but a splinter weapon at rank 10 channeling magic is better than none. Heroes are said to cast splinter weapon on minions, too.

Soul Reaping: Foul feast; signet of sorrow

Foul feast is very effective in areas with many conditions, especially if it's blindness and you are a melee. The healing effect might be helpful if combined with blood is power.

Blood Magic: Blood bond; dark bond

I recommend using this attribute line only in combination with blood is power. See yourself if you like dark bond. Blood bond is a very nice healing skill though: It heals everyone that hits the hexed enemies (even spirits!) and will produce a nice healing effect for melees and minions if the hexed enemies die.

Curses: Weaken armor; enfeebling blood; defile defenses; barbs; mark of pain

While very effective when combined with bone fiends barbs might be too expensive to be brought with you. You should rather stick to mark of pain for (great) area of effect damage and enfeebling blood for weakening your enemies.

Other: Remove Hex (monk no attribute)

Use it as it fits.

Equipment for minion masters

Weaponry

A 40/40 set (death magic) fits for most mm builds (example: Minion Master 1 - N/E order of undeath).
A 20/20/20 staff (death magic) fits for mms with important enchantments - aura of the lich will not be casted again though if it is still active (example: Minion Master 12 Rt/N aura of the lich)
Another possibility is to give your hero a shield set.

Armor (Necromancers)

For non-necromancers you will see some armor suggestions in each build description

Insignias

Bloodstained insignia for the gloves.

Undertaker's insignia for builds with high sacrifice costs (Example: Minion Master 8, blood is power)
Minion master's insignia for builds with many high level minions (Example: Minion Master 1, order of the undead)
Blesses insignia if always enchanted (Example: Builds with masochism or aura of the lich or unyielding aura)
Tormentor's insignia if nothing above mentioned fits.

Runes

Superior death magics rune to the head armor.
Minor soul reaping rune anywhere.
Minor blood magic/curses rune anywhere, if playing with that as a support attribute.
The most effective rune of vigor you are willing to buy.
Rune of Vitae for the rest.

To see the build descriptions below click on the spoilers to have them opened

Minion Master 1 - N/E Order Of Undeath MM Hero:

Minion Master 2 - N/Mo Aura of the Lich MM Hero (Protection Prayers):

Minion Master 3 - N/Rt Aura of the Lich MM Hero (Restoration Magic):

Minion Master 4 - N/Rt Aura of the Lich MM Hero (Channeling Magic):

Minion Master 5 - N/Mo Unyielding Aura MM Hero (Healing Prayers):

Minion Master 6 - N/M Discord MM Hero (Smiting Prayers):

Minion Master 7 - N/P Discord MM Hero (Command):

Minion Master 8 - N/NONE Blood is Power MM Hero:

Minion Master 9 - N/Rt Discord MM Hero (Restoration Magic):

Minion Master 10 - N/Me Ineptitude MM Hero:

Minion Master 11 - Me/N Key Stone Signet MM Hero:

Minion Master 12 - Rt/N Aura of the Lich MM Hero:

Master of Builds Posts : 62 Join date : 2013-08-29

Keystone Signet Mesmers
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Template codes and overview picture - click here to see further informations:

About

Keystone signet mesmers (KSS mesmers) use the elite skill keystone signet and some quickly recharging signets to deal area of effect damage and interrupt the same time. They need only the attribute fast casting (because of symbolic celerity) and therefore can support your party with expensive support skills. They can use signets of any attribute (even primary attributes) at maximum effect.

With the right equipment they have a great armor level, too. Their great weakness is enchantment removal, which will not make them useless, though decreasing their single target power.

Equipment for KSS mesmers

Weaponry

Either a defset (with spear) or weaponry that improves your support skills (like 40/40 sets or 20/20/20 staves).

Armor

Insignias

Artificer's insignia on every piece of armor.

Runes

Superior fast casting for the head armor. Minor domination magic if playing the first build: KSS signets only. The most expensive rune of vigor you are willing to buy. Rune of Vitae for the rest.

To see very short comments on the builds below click on the spoilers to have them opened

KSS Mesmer 1 - Me/NONE signets only:

KSS Mesmer 2 - Me/N signets only:

KSS Mesmer 3 - Me/N Curses:

KSS Mesmer 4 - Me/N blood magic:

KSS Mesmer 5 - Me/N minion master:

KSS Mesmer 6 - Me/D Crap:

KSS Mesmer 7 - Me/Mo protection prayers:

KSS mesmer hero 8 - Me/Mo smiting prayers:

KSS mesmer 9 - Me/Rt channeling:

KSS mesmer hero 10 - Me/P command:

Subject: Re: Builds: Single hero templates Sun Sep 15, 2013 11:45 pm

Nice lay-out! I will definitely be watching this.

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