Build talk:Team - 3 Hero Balanced

I wasn't super satisfied with existing 3 hero builds, as many of them are rather niche, outdated, or rely on specific player builds to be effective. looked attractive at first, but didn't do well in testing, whereas this setup proves to be effective for a wide variety of player builds. I want to run an ST because it is more consistent than say, an AotL prot or an emo. This is more defensive than many of the 3 hero builds out there, but if you are running a single bar across all content, this works well with any DPS oriented player build. --Xanshiz (talk) 23:53, 25 September 2019 (UTC)

I also thought it was useful to include a "BiP Variant." With the standard 7 hero BiP Meta, many caster player builds are dependent on external energy support. As a result, I thought it would be useful to offer a convenient BiP alternative to fuel both the player and a more offensive ESurge hero. --Xanshiz (talk) 03:40, 26 September 2019 (UTC)


 * For the record this is on my dervish; my bars so far for old ascalon, working like a dream:


 * Shatter Hex + Smite Hex has been useful to clean off annoying charr hexes like faintheartedness. I've kept the SoS bar the same. ST has had no energy problems. Esurge does in longer fights, but I can't justify only running one rez. This could possibly be remedied by removing rez from mesmer, replacing with leech signet or waste not want not, and adding FomF back onto the ST instead of smite hex. Only downside is that this means im pretty much doomed to have faintheartedness on my at all times...


 * I also plan on running the 3 Hero Dual Mesmer build as well, to compare. My initial thoughts are that dual mesmer + emo provides much better bar compression. You're essentially removing the ST and 1/2 of the SoS bar and trading it for 1 bar, the emo. This means that the offensive 1/2 of SoS bar (mainly splinter weapon, but spirits contribute too) must contribute equal or more than an ENTIRE ineptitude bar, which is doubtful just typing it out. Now i would imagine that ST would provide greater defense, and can run better in areas with ench. removal, which the emo would vulnerable to. This bar, while having displacement, has no blind, which is honestly more effective than displacement. A bonus of the Emo however is the targetted enchantments can allow for better tanking by the melee player (me!). Other bonus of this build over dual mesmer is the condition removal abilities. with 4 spirits, MBaS knocks through any cover conditions on me and removes blind or cripple. Downside to Dual mesmer build is lack of condition removal; draw conditions in your best bet by replacing shielding hands.


 * summary? dual rit, more defense, dual mesmer more damage.Willarddog (talk) 07:16, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
 * You're not exactly correct there. It heavily depends on the situation. The ST is much better at dealing with AoE damage (the naga in shing jea for example), due to Shelter. The E/Mo is much better when there are a lot of damage packets, like the Grawl at Eastern Frontier. In areas with ench removal, the E/Mo is less effective, but ench removal isnt really prevalent in 4man areas, you only see that in WoC 4man. ZStepmother (talk) 09:43, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
 * In my tests the only things that reliably helped against the Naga were mesmers and discordway. Whether you have ST or E/Mo doesn't matter if you don't have shutdown or ridiculous amounts of healing. --Krschkr (talk) 01:26, 30 March 2020 (UTC)


 * One advantage to running insp on the ST over what you have is that it makes the comp less vulnerable to enchantment removal, particularly prevent throughout Winds of Change. Dual Mesmer works very well, but in WoC where foes hit hard and enchantment removal is common, the emo suffers, whereas the listed version of the ST really shines. Outside of WoC, I would probably suggest a more offensive comp (such as Dual Mesmer) just because the extra security through an ST is no longer necessary. --Xanshiz (talk) 01:35, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

Fine tuning the skill selection
This is the current setup:

Optional damage is empathy for prophecies/WoC, spain for factions/nightfall. Optional energy is leech signet for prophecies/WoC, leech signet for factions/nightfall. Optional on the SoS is splinter (melee) or weapon of shadow (caster). This is a slight modification of what I tested per suggestions from others. However, I am worried about energy management on the mesmer with so many expensive skills. My gut solution is to drop a damage spell for a res in order to ease energy. Which creates the question of which skill to drop.

The next question -- adding a res to the mesmer enables removing the res from the ST or the SoS. Which bar, and what should go in its place? Dpact on the Resto is really good since it enables a full energy res, the the gut instinct is to remove it from the ST. Here is a solution -- drop shatter hex for FoMF on the mesmer, replace FoMF on the ST with a hex removal. But...the ST is a Rt/me, so remove hex isn't an option, and there aren't any good alternatives (hex eater signet is a long CD and caster only).

Perhaps an option is to make the ST not a Rt/me. But in areas with enchantment strip (i.e. WoC), relying on Boon of Creation for energy management is scary, as it is the only enchantment on the team and thus very susceptible to removal. An ST stopped of BoC runs out of energy and is thus useless. SoC for energy then? Maybe BoC, SoC, and remove hex?

Maybe remove hex could be plopped on the SoS in lieu of spirit transfer. I'd hope to keep Dpact since it is the res with the most comeback potential. Is just two healing spells enough for the whole team? The ST, a 40/40 resto set, and a plethora of interrupts might make this fine. I rarely saw the SoS have all of its healing spells on cool down simultaneously. Then what goes on the ST in place of FoMF? Maybe an extra energy management skill, since the ST occasionally went low if it missed its interrupts. SoC? Waste Not, Want Not for the lower cast time? Are there any other good inspiration skills? Hex Eater Signet on caster only teams could be good. In summary, this would look something like this:

Then, melee players running in areas without enchantment removal could replace the ST with:

Where the optional could be smite hex or signet of creation. I would have to try it myself to see if energy is an issue without signet of creation, although Willarddog above said he didn't have any issues with the ST bar with smite hex. --Xanshiz (talk) 00:52, 4 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Updating to post the new "current" setup:


 * Currently still considering whether empathy/spain (listed as variants) are worth main barring for certain campaigns. Empathy is very strong in Winds of Change. What would be dropped? --Xanshiz (talk) 11:50, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

SoS player
What third hero build to run with a SoS player? -- kazerniel (talk) 20:23, 11 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Ugh, this reminds me why I used to copy whatever I'd just written before I submitted it. Why does the build devouring vortex always appear when I forget to make a backup of a post? Whatever, here we go again.


 * In order to keep a damage/healing hybrid you can tweak the ritualist, go for a more traditional icy veins healer or drop some healing in favour of minions to increase your body count even further. (Not recommendable in factions because of star burst, breath of fire and soul explosions). --Krschkr (talk) 21:08, 11 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks! :) -- kazerniel (talk) 10:55, 12 June 2021 (UTC)