Favorite Builds (PvE)

Introduction
[build prof][/build]
In this thread, I plan on sharing some of my favorite builds for each class, both for players and heroes. I'll make gear suggestions, explain how the build is supposed to work, and provide insight into why certain skills were chosen.

For classes that I haven't played, I'll only list my favorite hero builds since I have no experience personally using the class.

I'll periodically edit the posts with any changes or new ideas. When I do, I'll make a note of it.

Most armor and weapons are only suggestions or personal preference and aren't integral to the build. If they are a key part of the build, I'll make a note of it.

General Build-Making Tips

Before I get to the builds themselves, I'll share some tips that help whenever I'm working on a new build. These are just general suggestions and as such will be broad recommendations instead of specific ideas. This section can safely be skipped if you're a relative veteran at choosing skills or if you just want to get to the good stuff.

The first thing you generally need to do when you are making a build is decide what role in a party you want to fulfill. While it sounds good to say, "I want to slice things up with an axe while burning the enemies with tons of firey death, all while keeping myself and the party alive," since you only have 8 skills and 200 attribute points to work with, the build will most likely do poor physical and magical damage, while barely contributing to the healing and rapidly draining all energy you have. Recognize that in most cases you have to decide on a niche to fill and then choose skills to enhance your performance. For example, a good build objective could be, "I want to be a beefy damage sponge that can hopefully deal some decent damage as well" or "I want to deal tons of AoE damage above all else". Lastly, realize that certain classes are better suited for certain roles than others. If you use skills that enhance you class's natural strengths, you'll generally have more success than otherwise.

Second, look for a few skills that are particularly good at doing what you want your build to do. Note these skills and look for any other skills that enhance their effect. Some of the best builds make use of skill "synergies," where using two skills together is far better than using either skill alone. Combining [Foul Feast] and [Plague Sending] is an example of two skills that provide a synergy (remove conditions from your allies to gain health and energy and then send them back to the enemies). Try to stick to skills from 2-3 different attributes, unless the benefit a skill provides is effective even at lower attribute levels. Also, if you're running with heroes or people that you know, think about what skills they'll be using. Eight people with "good" builds that complement each other are often better than eight people with "awesome" builds that provide little benefit to the other party members. Still, "team builds" are a topic for elsewhere and outside the scope of this thread.

Third, once you've found all these juicy skills, think about how you will sustain the energy or adrenaline you need to keep them going and think of ways to overcome common counters to your skills. This is the part of a build that often requires the most experimentation, but even before any testing you can plan in advance. As an example, making an Ele build with 8 of the biggest, most expensive nukes will quickly leave you waiting for your energy to recharge and contributing little aside from your wand/staff damage to the team. By choosing a combination of skills with varying energy costs and including other skills which return energy, you can use 2-3 big spells more frequently. Regarding common counters, you don't necessarily have to be able to overcome the counters on your own, but it is useful to know what they are and plan for them as a team. For example, a counter to an assassin might be enemies with lots of blocking or blind. If you know you'll be coming up against a lot of this, you might want to include 1-2 skills that help overcome this. Even if you don't include skills of your own, you can still say, "well, if we face it, I'll have to rely on the warrior with Wild Blow to break the blocking stances and the monk to remove my Blindness".

Fourth, choose how to best distribute your attributes. As you do this, take note of any skills you have that have "break points". What this means, is that many skills have certain points where the skill becomes considerably better by adding just one more attribute point. For example [mystic regeneration] with 7 Earth Prayers lasts 12 seconds and gives +2 Health Regen per enchantment. My raising Earth Prayers to 8, the skill changes to 13 second duration and +3 Health Regen per enchantment. That's basically a 50% increase in the skill's effectiveness for just 1 attribute point. Also, the regen stays +3 per enchant until 13 points in Earth Prayers. Since the only thing that improves from 8-12 Earth Prayers is the duration, it may not be worth putting more than 8 points in Earth Prayers, unless you have other Earth Prayer skills. Another example is Critical Strikes on an assassin; at 13 points, the assassin gains 3 energy per critical hit compared to just 2 energy per hit with 12 points in Critical Strikes. It is often best in a dagger-based skill bar to make sure you get 13 points in Critical Strikes, even if it means you have to slightly lower other attributes such as Dagger Mastery.

Lastly, I like to think of a logical order to place my skills on the bar. Think about which skills you'll be casting most frequently and place them in spots that are easiest to activate. If any skills need to be activated in a certain order to work, place them in that order on your bar! Group skills with similar effects together; for example, if you're bar is a few healing spells and a few protection enchants, group the healing spells together and group the protections spells separately. Placing skills on your bar in a logical order goes a long way, in my experience, to making a build easy to play without many mistakes.

After you have a bar set up, the next step is to test it. There are a few ways to do this. First, if you go to the Isle of the Nameless outside of the Temple of Balthazar, there are tons of NPCs there that are useful for testing various builds. There is also the famous Master of Damage, who will tell you in detail how much damage your build is putting out. Still, the best way to test a build is in the field. Try to clear a level or two of a dungeon or clear a mission with your new build.

If you find your build isn't working as well as you like, try to identify what the main problem is. Is your build not doing enough damage because the skills themselves don't do enough damage or is it because you're running into energy problems? Are most things dead before you build enough adrenaline to unleash your big attacks? Can you not unleash your arsenal of powerful melee skills because you keep chasing stuff down with no way to catch up or prevent it from running? Once you've isolated why your build isn't working as well as you'd like, it becomes much easier to tweak it a bit and improve it's effectiveness.

One final note, there is practically no build that is perfect for every team setup and every area of the game. Know a few "optional" skills that you can swap around to best suit the team your in or the area of the game you're in.

Now, on to my favorite builds for each class.

The Assassin

[build prof=A/Ri name="Moebius Blossom" Cri=12+1 Dag=12+1+1 Res=3][Golden Fox Strike][Wild Strike][Death Blossom][Moebius Strike][Critical Eye][Critical Agility][Dash][Death Pact Signet][/build]

Template Code: Owhj0xjc4QlZ+PHMNM6P1gTQJXA

Weapons: Zealous Dagger of Fortitude with 15% "Strength and Honor" inscription

Armor: Survivor's Insignias. Rune of Vigor and 2x Runes of Vitae.

Use: Cast Critical Eye and Critical Agility at the beginning of combat and keep them up. Your attack chain is Golden Fox Strike > Wild Strike > Death Blossom > Moebius Strike > Death Blossom > Moebius Strike > etc. Use Dash to get into (or out of) combat quickly and to get from one dead enemy to the next.

Note that this build can still function well without Moebius Strike. Replace it with Critical Defense, Death's Charge, or Assassin's Remedy and simply use the first 3 attacks as your chain.

Pros: Single-target damge from this build is fantastic and it has decent AoE damage too. Energy management is good due to 13 Critical Strike and Critical Agility (you gain 4 energy every time you crit). The 33% increased attack spead on Critical Agility is amazing and the +armor helps reduce the damage you take by a good chunk. Also, the first two attacks are unblockable and Wild Strike removes many of the pesky blocking stances that are present in the game.

Cons: No condition or hex removal, which leaves you vulnerable to Blind, snares, and other annoyances. Also, your damage drops a good bit if Critical Agility is removed and the long recharge means it could be a while before you can recast it.

Variants: The first two skills can be replaced by a different Lead and Off-Hand attack, but those two are chosen because of their unblockable nature, low recharge time (4 seconds), low energy cost (5E), good +damage, and stance removal. Some other good options are below.

[Unsuspecting Strike] - Very good damage and short recharge, but has a 10E cost.
[Golden Fang Strike] - Inflicts a Deep Wound, which is a rather powerful condition. Damage is low however.
[Critical Strike] - If you have trouble with Critical Agility wearing off, Critical Eye can be replaced with this skill for a guaranteed critical hit that returns a massive amount of energy. Your attack chain would be GFS > WS > Crit Strike > Moebius > Death Blossom > Moebius and then alternate between Death Blossom or Critical Strike after Moebius Strike depending on if you need to gain energy and recharge Critical Agility (Crit Strike) or do big damage (Death Blossom). If you choose to use this, you can use daggers other than "Zealous" because energy will not be a problem.
[Assassin's Remedy] - The condition is removed before the attack actually hits, which makes things like Blind and Weakness have almost no effect on you.
[Critical Defenses] - If you don't have access to Critical Agility, this makes a good "emergency" skill if you get mobbed.
[Death's Charge] - Can replace Dash if you prefer a Shadow Step. Useful even with 0 points in Shadow Arts because the only thing points increase is the healing gained.
[Resurrection Signet][FomF][Resurrection Chant] - Lastly, you can take a different Res skill (or none at all) if you prefer.

Reserved for Dervish.

Reserved for Elementalist.

Reserved for Mesmer.

Reserved for Monk.

Reserved for Necro.

Reserved for Paragon.

Reserved for Ranger.

Reserved for Ritualist.

Reserved for Warrior.