Guild Wars 1 Solo Build Craft by Serial Experiments
When crafting a build for an area, the biggest factor is knowing the environment so that you can properly have an answer to all of the challenges. Every skill can fit into at least one of the following categories: Damage. Problem-Solving, Movement, Healing, and Energy. Every area presents unique challenges.
Damage
In some cases, your damage might only need to be long-lasting health degeneration skill(s) since the primary heal for the healers is a skill that turns direct damage into healing, such as Reversal of Fortune. This is a very common heal for enemy monks throughout the game. However, this strategy is only viable if the enemies lack hex removal. A clear example of a zone that degeneration can work very well in is Skyward Reach. If we take a moment to dive into the enemies in Skyward Reach, we can see why:
The healers in this map are the Losaru Lifebands. They have 4 skills: Heal Other, Protective Spirit, Reversal of Fortune, and Shield of Deflection. Since they have Heal Other, we need to be sure to focus down the Losaru Lifebands before any other enemy in their groups. As for Protective Spirit, Reversal of Fortune, and Shield of Deflection, these are great skills against direct damage, but we’ll be using health degeneration skill(s) and so they won’t affect us at all.
And so, before we can lock in the health degeneration tactic for Skyward Reach, so need to check on a few more enemies that might be problematic: Losaru Windcasters and Storm Kin. We want to confirm that neither of these Mesmer opponents have hex removal, which they don’t.
Now that we’ve determined we’re going to use health degeneration as our damage source, we need to determine how we’re going to apply that health degeneration: through a hex(es) or through condition(s)? Well, a closer look at the enemies in Skyward Reach shows that there are Enchanted Armors on the map. These aren’t affected by conditions and so we can now safely choose a long-lasting health degeneration hex skill, such as Crippling Anguish, Life Transfer, or Conjure Nightmare.
The above example is a very unique scenario where picking the correct type of damage can completely counter an entire map. Typically, enemy healers have heals that provide health regeneration and spike heals, as well as many different types of enemies having hex removal or condition removal. In these cases, we have to start looking into Problem Solving skills.
Problem-Solving
There are many different types of problems that can arise in a given map. I’d define a “problem” in this context as an issue that prevents the player from killing the enemies. Here are a few examples of problems, in no particular order: An overabundance of healing from an enemy, hex/condition removal, interrupts, enchantment removal, snares, and increased enemy movement speed.
Some of the strongest Problem-Solving skills are skills that put the enemy’s skill on cooldown, such as Diversion, Distracting Shot, Distracting Blow, and Complicate. By putting that enemy’s skills on cooldown, the goal would then be to do enough damage without dying to eliminate that problematic enemy. Diversion, in particular, can be great at eliminating hex removal skills since the enemy oftentimes uses their hex removal to remove Diversion, thereby adding a long cooldown to any future hex removals.
As for interrupts, any anti interrupt skills can be used, but in particular, I’ve found Mantra of Resolve to be quite useful as it can prevent multiple interrupts. However, maybe the interrupts are spells and anti spell casting skills such as Shadow Form, Obsidian Flesh, Spell Breaker, or Vow of Silence would suit the situation better.
For enchantment removal, there are a few routes you can go to handle this. You could bring a build that doesn’t use enchantments, you could bring a cover enchantment, you could interrupt their enchantment removal skills, or, again, you could bring anti spell casting skills.
As for snares and enemy increased movement speed, these come in many different forms. You can either avoid entirely getting snared, or bring a direct counter to it. If the snare is Crippling Shot, then maybe bring “I Am Unstoppable!”. If the snare is Crippling Anguish, then maybe Hex Breaker can be a solid counter. As there are too many examples of this, I’ll leave this section a bit open ended.
Movement
The best way to handle an enemy’s increased movement speed (IMS) is to have increased movement speed yourself. In HM, all enemies move with at least a 25% movement speed increase and at most a 50% movement speed increase. Since nearly everything in the game has a leash range, your own movement speed increase is highly dependent on your style of play. Oftentimes during vanquishes on a Me/A, Dash was brough for a 50% increased movement speed. But on an E/Me, Cupcakes for a 25% IMS or Drunken Master for a 33% IMS have both been used with success.
Healing
Healing comes in many forms and each group of enemies is going to present its own unique challenges when it comes to healing. Let’s take a closer look at some of the common heals used in the solo community:
Ether Feast has the benefit of being on the class with some of the strongest Damage skills, the best Problem-Solving skills, and isn’t an elite skill; however, it requires you to cast on an enemy, which will alert them to your presence, and it only heals for around 200 health every 4 to 8 seconds depending on your Fast Casting attribute.
Shroud of Distress provide a strong health regeneration, has a high percentage chance to block, and can be maintained for 100% uptime; however, it’s an enchantment, it has a 45 second recharge time, and both the health regeneration and block percentage only start working when you’re below 50% health.
Second Wind is an elite skill that requires a little bit of setup before being able to be used but it both heals and manages energy, can be used every 6 seconds, and heals for 300 health or higher; however, you need a high energy pool where you can afford to have 60 or more energy in overcast and this is using your elite skill.
Ether Renewal is another elite skill that both heals and manages energy; however, it requires multiple enchantment skills, it can’t be maintained for 100% uptime without an “Of Enchanting” weapon mod and Glyph of Swiftness, and it needs at least one skill that has a very low cooldown. Often paired with Kinetic Armor to provide large amounts of armor, thereby reducing the amount of healing needed.
Healing Signet provides a decent heal with a low cooldown, requires no energy to use, is a signet, and has an attribute that can allow for shields to be used; however, you’re taking double damage when using it so it is best used out of combat.
Energy
Energy management only has to be good enough to allow for an enemy to be killed and to escape from the situation without dying. Great energy management can allow for quicker vanquishes though since there’s less downtime between killing one enemy and engaging the next enemy. Before even discussing energy manage skills, there are three “Of the Profession” mods which can assist in energy management: Of the Mesmer, Of the Elementalist, and Of the Necromancer. Furthermore, it can be beneficial to always have a pair of +15 energy / -1 energy regeneration weapons to swap into to assist finishing off an enemy that is near death.
If you’re using Inspiration Magic to manage your energy, then the +5 Fast Casting from the
“Of the Mesmer” mod will allow those energy skills to recharge by 15%. As for the “Of the Elementalist” mod, that allows for 15 more energy with no energy degeneration effect. The “Of the Necromancer” mod will provide +5 Soul Reaping so that whenever an enemy dies, you’ll get 5 energy.
Some of the elites mentioned in the Healing section above will handle both Healing and Energy, such as Second Wind and Ether Renewal. Inspiration Magic from the Mesmer skill has strong energy management skills such Power Drain, Ether Signet, or a Mantra of a type of damage. Inspiration Magic also has elite skills such as Lyssa’s Aura and Energy Drain that are excellent energy management tools. Necromancers can make use of their Soul Reaping attribute and even utilize Signet of Lost Souls for bumps of energy. Warriors can utilize conditions and “Victory is Mine!” can handle both Healing and Energy.