Split\Gank build

[Taxed]

The idea is to have the split group head to gank NPC's asap, leaving 4 (derv, mesmer and 2 monks) at the flag stand to hold. I believe the split team should be able to wipe out the entire ops guild hall by the 5 minute mark. If ops send back to defend, the rt/r spike can deal about 550 damage with duel+savage, basically insta-killing their target, essentially forcing their team to split in half, and stop ganking our hall. The flag team's job is basically to survive, with the flag runner providing offensive support when he can.

Damage Derv

Dervish/Monk
Level: 20

Mysticism: 16 (12+4)
Scythe Mastery: 12 (11+1)
Earth Prayers: 7 (6+1)

Avatar of Melandru [Elite] (Mysticism)
Watchful Intervention (Mysticism)
Vital Boon (Earth Prayers)
Twin Moon Sweep (Scythe Mastery)
Lyssa's Assault (Scythe Mastery)
Wearying Strike (Scythe Mastery)
Victorious Sweep (Scythe Mastery)
Resurrection Signet ()
Support Mesmer

Mesmer/Necromancer
Level: 20

Fast Casting: 12 (11+1)
Inspiration Magic: 14 (11+3)
Curses: 10

Spirit of Failure (Inspiration Magic)
Faintheartedness (Curses)
Spirit Shackles (Inspiration Magic)
Reckless Haste (Curses)
Corrupt Enchantment [Elite] (Curses)
Revealed Hex (Inspiration Magic)
Inspired Hex (Inspiration Magic)
Resurrection Signet ()
RC Prot

Monk/Elementalist
Level: 20

Divine Favor: 10 (9+1)
Healing Prayers: 10 (9+1)
Protection Prayers: 15 (12+3)

Restore Condition [Elite] (Protection Prayers)
Gift of Health (Healing Prayers)
Mending Touch (Protection Prayers)
Reversal of Fortune (Protection Prayers)
Guardian (Protection Prayers)
Spirit Bond (Protection Prayers)
Glyph of Lesser Energy (Elementalist other)
Aegis (Protection Prayers)
ZB monk

Monk/Elementalist
Level: 20

Divine Favor: 10 (9+1)
Healing Prayers: 10 (9+1)
Protection Prayers: 15 (12+3)

Zealous Benediction [Elite] (Protection Prayers)
Mend Ailment (Protection Prayers)
Reversal of Fortune (Protection Prayers)
Gift of Health (Healing Prayers)
Shield of Absorption (Protection Prayers)
Protective Spirit (Protection Prayers)
Glyph of Lesser Energy (Elementalist other)
Aegis (Protection Prayers)

Runner

Mesmer/Assassin
Level: 20

Fast Casting: 7 (6+1)
Domination Magic: 14 (12+2)
Shadow Arts: 11

Dash (Assassin None)
Shadow of Haste (Shadow Arts)
Feigned Neutrality (Shadow Arts)
Energy Surge [Elite] (Domination Magic)
Energy Burn (Domination Magic)
Signet of Weariness (Domination Magic)
Spiritual Pain (Domination Magic)
Price of Pride (Domination Magic)

The split/gank team

Spike 1

Ritualist/Ranger
Level: 20

Spawning Power: 16 (12+4)
Communing: 9 (8+1)
Restoration Magic: 6 (5+1)
Marksmanship: 9

Spirit's Strength [Elite] (Spawning Power)
Sight Beyond Sight (Spawning Power)
Vital Weapon (Communing)
Wielder's Boon (Restoration Magic)
Dual Shot (Ranger other)
Savage Shot (Marksmanship)
Read the Wind (Marksmanship)
Resurrection Signet ()
Spike 1

Ritualist/Ranger
Level: 20

Spawning Power: 16 (12+4)
Communing: 9 (8+1)
Restoration Magic: 6 (5+1)
Marksmanship: 9

Spirit's Strength [Elite] (Spawning Power)
Sight Beyond Sight (Spawning Power)
Vital Weapon (Communing)
Wielder's Boon (Restoration Magic)
Dual Shot (Ranger other)
Savage Shot (Marksmanship)
Read the Wind (Marksmanship)
Resurrection Signet ()
Support Necro

Necromancer/Monk
Level: 20

Soul Reaping: 9 (8+1)
Blood Magic: 16 (12+4)
Protection Prayers: 10

Zealous Benediction [Elite] (Protection Prayers)
Reversal of Fortune (Protection Prayers)
Dismiss Condition (Protection Prayers)
Protective Spirit (Protection Prayers)
Shield of Absorption (Protection Prayers)
Remove Hex (Monk other)
Order of Pain (Blood Magic)
Resurrection Signet ()

Suggestions or thoughts?

[Almas Darksoul]

When considering a gank, it is important to think about what it will achieve. This varies from build to build, from hench killing to flag control.

In your build, it seems your gank is designed to reduce hench count while also forcing the enemy to send back reasonable force to deal with you. You may get one or two kills from surprise, but it is more important to consider the long term - eventually an enemy will be know what to send back to deal with you.

From the look of the split, it looks to me that this will almost undoubtedly have to include one monk (although due to the fact that the bow damage from the ritualists is in large bursts rather than small chunks, a Mo/E flagger -may- pull it off if he has hench support and uber reflexes). Once a monk and reasonable force (the necromancer will unlikely be able to handle more than 2 attackers if they are protected) are defending, there is little that your gank can do.

Hence, focus should be placed on ensuring that your gank can kill even with an enemy presence, and ensuring you can kill at the flagstand.
For the former, I'd recommend an enchantment removal - otherwise preprotting the people fighting your split will be ridiculously easy. I would consider dropping resurrection signet for this.
For the latter, I'd make large changes to your flagstand team. The mesmer applies long-duration pressure and some shutdown, which is crucially against what is often needed. Ideally, you need to be able to make the enemy regret sending the monk back as soon as possible - partially to force turtling, but also to invoke indicisiveness in that the second monk will not know where to be. Thus, I suggest that you make significant changes to the mesmer (changing him to a Me/Mo Mantra of Recovery Diversion Spammer could work for a simple change). I have no idea about the dervish - I am not too experienced in their bars, but I can see the general point of the build. Consider Mystic Sweep on there, perhaps in place of Victorious. This allows for basic spike damage which can overwhelm. Alternatively, a knock-lock hammer warrior would cause a lot of pressure with the mesmer, even more with a synched gale thrown in.
Do not worry too much about defense - the enemy will be forced to send 1-2 offensive characters back, meaning life will be easier for your monks. However, I would recommend a bar change for them. Remember that for a large portion of the fight, you will be fighting 4(5)vX. Aegis, then, is only working at around half-effectiveness, making it worth reconsidering.
Finally, I would put Diversion on your flagger instead of Price of Pride. With the changes I've mentioned, even if the gank fails, you can have a make-do spike with diversion on the runner. This also gives you a much larger chance on maps where the gank is hard to play from the start, such as Burning Isle (perhaps not as much of an issue in this case) and Isle of Jade.

One last note - I doubt the build will earn too much success in ranks above around 100 or so. Once you face teams who understand the build, they can work on countering it not through sending multiple people back, but sending individuals to pressure your base. Despite being fairly strong as a group, the Ritualists/Necromancer are weak individually. This will be an even larger problem on Uncharted Isle, where the enemy can play with a very loose structure.

Man I wrote a lot. Should be a fun build to play, even if it backfires horribly.

[Taxed]

Hey, thanks for the comments!

I did do some number crunching on this: The duel rt/r and Necro team should be able to kill 100% of the NPC's in about 3 minutes. Also Prot Sprit shouldn't effect the spike they can produce, as the damage is in fairly small packets. If the ops do send back a monk, if the team performs correctly, they should be able to easily kill any target (barring skills like SoA and others) virtually instantly. The combo will hit for about 560-ish damage faster than a monk can react. The big danger to the gank team is heavy enchantment removal only.

Due to the killing speed of this, I expect the majority of their base to be dead very quickly. I figure the ops will generally send 2 and maybe 3 to protect the base. Depending on what they bring some suprise kills should go off. Also, if they sent a gank team to our base, the goal is to use the gank team to squash it before it actually reaches the base. Once the suprise kills go off (I do expect them to happen in most matches) and the ops guild does re-organize, this group would join the main team for more spiking goodness.

Anyway, I am seriously thinking about enchantment removal of some kind on the Necro, but undecided on what to bring. Probably Gaze of Contempt, but that loses the frequency of the spike which is every 10 seconds from the rits.

I like the idea of the mesmer change, but the question is how to create 2 monks that can keep the team alive against 2 RaO thumpers or a Greneth dervish chain? At least with the current mesmer, those groupings shouldn't be a huge problem.

What about a Thumper instead of the Dervish?

I did think about the counter-gank, but this 3 person team should, in theory wipe normal gank groups in 20-30 seconds.

Also this build probably won't see many 100 level guilds for a while. We are improving (5-5 since the ladder re-opened) but have not been very high in the interm.

[Wuzzman]

don't know how effective the N/mo would be with no energy management besides Zen...but I guess your content with order of pain spammer. Interesting build and pretty much good build. Granted you don't fight a mesmer ^_^.

[Selene Raseth]

Had Orion spec'ed as a Oov necro to assist the rit/ra spikes, he did a dang good job of keeping it going, self-healing, and maintaining energy.

His build is:

16 Blood Magic
10 Soul Reaping
9 Healing

Order of the Vampire
Vamp Gaze
Barbed Signet
Blood Renewal
Vigorous Spirit
Restful Breeze
Signet of Lost Souls
Res Sig

The best part for the healing ended up being Vigorous Spirit. Each casting of anything was offset through healing on the maintained enchantment. He can also cast on the two rits for extra healing each time they spike. Add in the healing done from Oov, and they won't have to worry as much about self-healing. Which helped, since I think my rit/ra's had 16 Spawning and 12 Markmanship. Not much self-healing on their own, but they hit hard. Vamp Gaze or Barbed Signet to spike assist/self-heal. Restful Breeze during lulls, as it can nullify degen very nicely, and often after an Oov Olias would toss that up while waiting for the next one. So about 5 secs of 9 regen, plus healing from Vigorous Spirit.

Not sure which would work better for your build, but feel free to try it out and see which you like more.

Edit: For the inevitable post; maintained enchant means keeping it constantly on, not as in taking a pip to maintain enchantment. Just had a feeling someone would waste a post or two if that wasn't addressed.

[Ace Bear]

Selene, Oov doesn't work with his build at all. It doesn't add any extra damage if you are under an enchantment. Spirit's Strength is an enchantment, OoP is about the only way to go if he wanted that.

[Selene Raseth]

Oov does not add damage if there is another necromancer enchant on them. Which is why there is no OoP as a side enchantment to boost it further. Just the OoV. And this is the build I was using on the Rit/Ra spike I was messing with for kicks a while back. It does take effect, and it does add in. The Rit/Ra also used Seeking Arrows as their prep, so that they can hit while blinded against evading and Aegised targets. Basically ensures there is no way the spike can be stopped almost, and gets the guaranteed damage through.

It does seem strange that no one mentions OoV anymore, wonder if it is because people think it is ineffective with any enchants on? If so, this is the perfect time to set it straight :)

[Ace Bear]

Oh, my bad, I didn't see the part where it specified Necro enchants, thought it just said enchants. However the reason why most likely is because it does same damage as OoP but takes up an elite. Although OoV does lifesteal so it will hit slightly harder then the OoP..is it worth an elite for a measily 4-7 extra damage?

[Selene Raseth]

Mostly it is because it let's them keep dealing damage, without having to worry as much about healing damage. Dual Shot gives 34 health, plus healing from those under Vigorous Spirit. The Savage Shot after spike for its fast charge strike allows for another 17 plus Vigorous Spirit. So in this case, damage is the same. However, the OoV damage is life steal, so it will not be vulnerable to Prot Spirit. Or other damage reduction benefits like from Shield of Absorption. And in just 2 secs of spiking they gain around 75+ health without having to do anything but their normal attacks. So unless the elite is really needed for something else, and Olias having no trouble stayin both full of health and energy would attest, using the elite version can end up being more beneficial.

[Perfidia]

Without looking at your build specifically, I see one larger flaw in your rune choices. Currently, most people are choosing not to run superior runes unless they are completely sure that they can survive without them. In general, adding two more points to an attribute doesn't justify losing 75 health. While it's really personal preference, you may want to look at it, especially for a split which usually relies on higher health to increase survivability.