Build talk:Team - 5 Hero Mesmerway

Archival/Deletion of similar builds
I marked the 5 hero triple energy surge, BiP caster support and BiP melee support for deletion/archival. Right now we have, basically, three times the same team for this party size and purpose on PvX, which I wanted to take care of eentually. Since this new page has an untainted name, contains the content of the other three pages and none of them have a meaningful amount of votes it's probably the best option to keep this page and get rid of the old ones. --Krschkr (talk) 20:22, 31 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Done. --Krschkr (talk) 17:07, 23 September 2019 (UTC)
 * Now that the build has two votes it won't be overlooked as easily anymore. --Krschkr (talk) 00:10, 26 December 2019 (UTC)

Fixing the Melee Variant
So this was originally just intended to show which heroes to chop off for Build:Team - 7 Hero Mercenary Mesmerway, but the focus of this page has since shifted (due to the "archival/deletion of similar builds"), so it's worth optimizing this page independent of mercenary mesmerway. The second copy of restoration magic on the melee variant is unneeded. This creates three options that I see as ways to improve the composition: I personally am leaning towards the second option, since I've found that the damage provided by an energy surge mesmer is comparable to the damage provided by an SoS smiter, but the energy surge mesmer also provides shutdown. This then begs the followup question of whether to add splinter and/or strength of honor as a secondary on the ST and/or a mesmer. --Xanshiz (talk) 06:41, 22 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Replace the SoS Resto Smiter with a pure SoS smiter for more offense
 * Replace the SoS Resto Smiter with a third energy surge Mesmer (aka keep melee and caster variants the same). This again provides more offense/shutdown, but loses the melee support aspect
 * Replace the BiP Resto with a third energy surge mesmer. This would maintain three energy surge mesmers and melee support, but loses BiP and thus a weaker midline. Energy would be an issue, so to compensate, spiritual pain would be replaced with another inspiration skill on all three Mesmers. Furthermore, strength of honor would be replaced with spirit siphon. This would also require mercenaries/Zei Ri.

The fifth hero
So there has been some discussion on whether Splinter Weapon is worth bringing, and how to fit it into the team. I think everyone agrees that the following is the best starting point: Some general info. Player build used: OwpjMyp86QAYaXXXhZvl6P1gLiA. I tried to avoid running the optimal build (A/W dagger spam), because the team is meant to be used with all builds. A scythe is also very reliable for triggering Splinter Weapon. Heroes were equiped for energy, not for armor. I tried really hard to create equal testing conditions, to not influence the results because of RNG or some dumb thing I did. I left out Skyward Reach from the results because there wasn't really a big difference between the teams. They all cleared it without effort. Heroes seem to be pretty smart when they have Diversion, they don't cast anything until it's gone. For Cerris I brought Panic on the double Inspiration mes, but it felt unecessary.


 * Zen Daijun: I did A LOT of Zen Daijun runs with all three teams, because the runtime is heavily influenced by the position of some mob groups. This team seemed to be the most stable for me, you really notice the third mesmer while fighting those groups with a lot of Afflicted Eles. Time: 7:05
 * Thirsty River: Easy, nothing more to be said. Time: 9:34
 * The Wilds: Because you should aggro multiple Scarab groups, you really feel like you can make good use of Splinter here.
 * Haiju Lagoon: Surprisingly, this team was the fastest here. With a bit of flagging and precasting spirits at the village, I fought all the groups at once. While it is definitely fun to see them being blown up by Splinter, 3 mes also mop them up with ease. Time: 5:35
 * War in Kryta: While it felt the most stable by far, you also notice that you can really make good use of Splinter Weapon here. Time: 6:45


 * Zen Daijun: Splinter does see some use, but it also often goes wasted. Time: 7:12
 * Thirsty River: If you put in effort, Splinter can see good use here. SoS and SoH helped a lot clearing up the Warriors, Bosses and Enemy Priests. Time: 9:36
 * The Wilds: Splinter is fun here. SoS and SoH help with dealing with the Life Pods, but so does having more rupts.
 * Haiju Lagoon: It feels nice blowing up the village groups with Splinter. Time: 5:57
 * War in Kryta: Splinter can see some good use here. Time: 7:23


 * Replaced Fall Back on the ST with SoH (smiting 8, spawning 10)
 * Zen Daijun: Splinter does see some use, but it also often goes wasted. Time: 7:05
 * Thirsty River: If you put in effort, Splinter can see good use here. SoH helped a lot clearing up the Warriors, Bosses and Enemy Priests. I have to be fair, this could've been way faster if I played more cleanly, but I was tired of all the testing so I just continued. You really appreciate double shouts in areas like these. Time: 9:40
 * The Wilds: Splinter is fun here. SoH help with dealing with the Life Pods, but so does having more rupts.
 * Haiju Lagoon: It feels nice blowing up the village groups with Splinter. Time: 5:57
 * War in Kryta: Splinter can see some good use here. Could've been cleaner and faster. Time: 7:19

General thoughts: . ZStepmother (talk) 11:16, 27 December 2019 (UTC)
 * 3 mes feels better and more stable than the other teams. SoS Smite was the worst for me.
 * I often saw someone dieing because the BiP was trying to cast Blood Bond instead of healing. With double healers you have the other healer to compensate for that. Maybe not the best choice? I'm not going to test the impact of dropping it though.
 * Double shouts felt way smoother than SoS Smite. You can close to gap between you and enemies much quicker, and he likes to cast Incoming while fighting, which really helps with moving around. I think this build can be really good for big areas.
 * Enemy groups aren't big enough for Splinter to really shine. For Splinter to be succesful, I feel like you have to micro more and put in more effort in general, I don't think that's a good thing to recommend to people.
 * I think for WiK, it can definitely be worth it to include Splinter Weapon, but not with SoS Smite. SoS + Prot prayers are going to be more useful for keeping the melee player alive. SoS Resto will compensate the loss of 1/3rd of your rupts. I don't see the smiting being more valuable than other options.
 * Brutal Weapon is definitely an option for the ST, when not bringing Splinter.
 * Swapping Bloodsong for a FomF so you can bring double inspiration is the right choice I think. Bloodsong doesn't add much value to the team.
 * Sounds like triple mesmer should be the main bar, but Rt/P a variantbar for physical weapon users. If we keep in mind the purpose of the team, such as the wilds, bloodstone fen, D'Alessio coast, divinity coast, frost gate, ... we have really long travel times during these, often with backtracking. Dual IMS should speed that up, as the fights themselves shouldn't last very long. Alternatively, in missions with few foes per group, a Mo/P for strength of honour@16 might give better results than the splinter weapon. Like aurora glade. This would open up the option to bring judge's insight against the undead, despite its AI issues, alongside can't touch this against the elementalists and rangers. --Krschkr (talk) 12:25, 27 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Yes I agree. For areas with lots of running, I think double shouts will prove to be much faster than 3Mes. It might also be possible that the ESurge with Fall Back proves to be the faster team. Good point about the Mo/P. I am not willing to do more tests about this because it was very mind numbing to do all these runs, but I think it can be a valid option. ZStepmother (talk) 12:49, 27 December 2019 (UTC)
 * The big thing about 3 mes is that it doesn't require mercs, while adding a second rit does. I believe that the best 8 Man team (no mercs) is with 3 ESurge mes and the budget SoS from the BiP melee page, and you don't want to ask people to regear Razah just for 6 Man. Should also be clear that it does require more effort for it to be as succesful as 3 mes.
 * I do believe that SoS Resto / SoS Prot can be the superior choice for WiK, but I'm not going to test that.
 * So for people that do have mercs / Zei Ri, I would suggest the following builds:


 * Suggestions on improving the bars are always welcome, especially the Rt/P. ZStepmother (talk) 12:49, 27 December 2019 (UTC)
 * While it definitely doesn't feel good, it should probably be 12 command on the Rt/P for the extra second duration on the shouts. Spawning power is next to useless, a 20 second duration on splinter is more than enough. Unless you want to put, say, Resto on it. But is two copies of restoration magic really necessary for 6-man?
 * In the same vein, I'd probably lend preference to the Rt/Mo with protection prayers over the Rt/Mo with restoration magic for 6-man, particularly when playing with a melee. Perhaps it should replace the currently listed SoS Smiter under the variant section.
 * Let's compare the dual shouts Rt/P or Mo/P to the currently listed Me/P variant. The tradeoff is a mesmer for melee support skills. This is actually very similar to a test you already did (dropping a mesmer for the SoS smiter), which proved to be heavily in the Mesmer's favor. This scenario is different, because it's a 10 fast casting mesmer instead of a 13 fast casting mesmer with spain, so it's a weaker mesmer. But you also lose SoS, 4 points on SoH, and some smiting skills (which tend to synergize somewhat nicely with a melee player). So I would be rather surprised if it turned out that Rt/P > Me/P, but Me/any >> Rt/Mo.
 * The point about blood bond on a the caster variant is tricky. I too have noticed the BiP tends to prioritize blood bond. But without it, there are no AoE hexes for unnatural signet, and the open skill slot doesn't have many good replacements.
 * I suggest replacing the Rt/Mo smiter variant with the Rt/Mo Prot variant, adding a note about it being suitable for more challenging content. Then, leave the Me/P as the dual fall back variant instead of listing a dual shouts X/P (unless the latter is shown to be better). --Xanshiz (talk) 07:08, 28 December 2019 (UTC)
 * So I went on to test 3 Mes vs a Mo/Rt prot (because of no mercs) at https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Cleansing_Zen_Daijun_(Hard_mode).
 * 3 Mes - https://youtu.be/2s656-xrmYQ
 * Mo/Rt - https://youtu.be/MOo-1JqccyI
 * I did it back to back, so it would be easier to spot differences. I think I played much safer with 3 mes since that was my first run, which definitely cost me some time. It also really looked like you miss the rupts of the 3rd mesmer. I analyzed both videos (and recapped after doing the quests), and I think I can conclude that 3 mes is superior, it was both safer and faster (I think that if I do it again, without mistakes made for both teams, 3 mes can be minutes faster). You can check the videos for yourself. Here are some checkpoints to see how both teams compare in time.
 * At 1st Zunraa, Mo/Rt was ~1min40 ahead.
 * Before the bridge group, Mo/Rt was ~2min ahead.
 * After clearing bridge groups, Mo/Rt was ~1min10 ahead. (Mo/Rt then went to kill a group because 3 mes also killed them. Took 1min30 to kill them, took a long time, but didn't go out of my way to do so.)
 * After really crossing the bridge, 3 mes was ~35 seconds ahead.
 * At 2nd Zunraa, 3 mes was ~1min ahead.
 * After reaching the water, 3 mes was 2min ahead.
 * At 3rd Zunraa, 3 mes was ~1min40 ahead.
 * At 4rd Zunraa, 3 mes was ~30 seconds ahead. Apparently I also had unlucky timing with a patrol also getting aggroed.
 * At last Zunraa, 3 mes was ~50 seconds ahead.
 * Something interesting, adding Smite Hex to the ST do much for his dmg (2,83k with Smite Hex compared to 1,69k), it's probably not worth bringing this over Remove Hex (more Shelter charges this way, and lower CD) or Cure Hex (minor heal as a bonus) for example.
 * With this test done, I think that Splinter could only be worth it in WiK, since the groups are bigger there. Splinter didn't come close to the impact of the 3rd mesmer (With 3 mes, player and mes damage seemed somewhat equal, while with the Mo/Rt the player is slightly ahead, but the Mo/Rt is not even close to the others). 1 anomaly on the damage part: someone explain me why 3 mes has way higher total damage (~178,4k vs ~151,13k). Could it be that the Mo/Rt team deals damage more efficiently? I know that the Mo/Rt has a less effective Splinter, but that won't make up for 20k of damage.
 * I still have the quest in case people don't like the results (because of the near wipe of the Mo/Rt team for example), but I'm not willing to repeat it 20 more times. I think all testing clearly shows that the Mo/Rt (or it's merc counterpart) is definitely an option, but it's clearly inferior to running 3 mes. ZStepmother (talk) 13:18, 30 December 2019 (UTC)
 * I'll try to get back to this more in-detail once I have the opportunity. Just a few notes right now:
 * Total damage: Mesmers will have much more overkill damage than the monk which does mostly tiny damage, compared to the 79 to 132 of the mesmers. With a total damage of about 40k/mesmer that doesn't explain +20k, which indicates that there's another thing going on. But just thinking of spiritual pain versus the spirit ritualists would explain a few hundred extra overkill damage.
 * Mo/Rt: And what are the results with a proper Rt/Mo? That'd be of interest for mercenary users.
 * No empathy? Could be worth it for party size 6 over the third shatter hex. WoC has an unusually high amount of hexes compared with "normal" party size 6 content, where you face a lot of warriors and rangers attacking into empathy a lot. Despite playing a melee at least one empathy should be an improvement in both campaigns. I ran three empathy mesmers with a very similar team setup when I did that quest on my mesmer, which is an overkill, but as you can see from the results it wasn't that bad a choice.
 * If the difference in time with a Mo/Rt in a 28 minutes quest is +1 minute (just about 3%) compared to a third mesmer I reckon that a Rt/Mo would be at least on-par if the player makes a bit of use of his splinter weapon. In which case it'd be my team setup of preference due to featuring spirit bond as an additional layer of defense, especially against fire imps in prophecies. Either way, to keep the build page simple your tests show that triple energy surge can be the main bar and Mo/Rt or Rt/Mo or Mo/P or Rt/P added as a variant using the variantbar template. If you have the time and nerves for it, it'd be great to see some more tests of 2x shatter vs. 3x shatter and Rt/Mo vs. Mo/Rt. And since this is winds of change, you may want to replace the current exemplary video with the test video from this quest that ends up to represent the build on the page the closest. Or have one for the main bar and one for the dual mes variant. That can be discussed later. --Krschkr (talk) 21:57, 30 December 2019 (UTC)
 * The difference is going to be more than 1 minute when it's played properly (unlike I did in both videos). The extra prots will not make up for the loss of 1/3rd of your rupts (I noticed a lot more dangerous stuff came through with the Mo/Rt team). I didn't think of swapping Razah to Rt/Mo, and I don't have mercs, so I did it with a Mo/Rt. I still have the quest tho, so I can do it the right way now. I can see empathy being a good thing yeah, often the melee mobs were the last ones alive, and it also protects you from some of their damage. Hex removal is very important as a melee player tho, and especially as dagger spammer (VoR and Empathy hurt you a lot), but I guess I can probably take at least 1 Empathy. Ill see when I find some time to do some runs again. ZStepmother (talk) 12:28, 31 December 2019 (UTC)