Build talk:Team - 7 Hero Beginner Team

Comparison to Misty's Beginner Build
Initially I intended to make a PvX page about Misty's Hero Team for Beginners, but I wasn't quite happy with it. It requires the player to buy 31 skills, of which three require to play unnessecarily far in Nightfall and Prophecies (halfway through Maguuma!). I cut the requirement down to 23 skills, of which 5 could be avoied if we turned M.O.X. into a fake mesmer (OgWjwaC8wKTvpTEZgGIAXQOA). Feedback on this or some tests of it would be welcome. This is in Trial, improvements are very welcome. I wouldn't mind to kick M.O.X. out of the team entirely and recommend to take Herta instead. That's a pretty good henchman in nightfall and this build is intended to empower the player to progress to a real team build quickly, which means that nightfall will be the first (and only) thing to do with this team. --Krschkr (talk) 20:39, 26 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Skills can be unlocked fairly easily for beginners. This page could include a guide section. We can instruct players how to do Zaishen Elite (which I believe requires some quests to be done?), which will give them 6k Balth faction per day, or up to 6 skills they could unlock from the Priest of Balthazar. Of course, they would need to purchase skill tomes from players, at 250g or 500g per tome. We could also see if there is an easy farm in the beginning area of NF, so they could get some cash to purchase the tomes.--Saxazaxx (talk) 17:47, 27 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Sounds like good material for the See Also section. --Krschkr (talk) 18:14, 27 October 2018 (UTC)

Dropping heroes for henchmen
I think that dropping both elementalists and the dervish for Herta + Odurra + Cynn wouldn't decrease the team's power too much, but relieve the beginner from some farming pressure. Even spending 10k on skills is just too much if you only have 1234 gold pieces. Any thoughts? I have a character slot I could spend for build testing, but before I do that I'd like to finish theorycrafting, where any input may help! --Krschkr (talk) 15:59, 27 October 2018 (UTC)
 * I'm all for the idea of recommending certain henchman that work well with the team. There's so much emphasis on using heroes in this game, so I'm afraid that newer players may skip over henchman because they assume heroes are always better (even if they don't have skills unlocked to make it work). At the risk of adding too much complexity, what if the build includes both the 7 hero bars and henchman alternatives for some of the bars? Like what you said in the other comments -- you could include the MOX bar but also add a note that Herta works well in place of MOX too. --Phlyingisphun (talk) 22:34, 27 October 2018 (UTC)

Couple small skill suggestions
First, Crippling Aura -> Grenth's Fingers. Might be slightly easier to acquire (get it for free when becoming a Derv) and would have similar performance I think. Second, Immolate -> Fire Storm. You get Fire Storm for free when becoming an ele, and buying Immolate is slightly lame only because it's not very useful for builds later on (especially compared to most other skills you need to buy in this build).

I'll try to test this out with my next new character, which I'll probably start relatively soon.

On an unrelated note, this could probably use with a small section/blurb saying what kind of builds the player can run with it (even if the answer is "anything"). --Phlyingisphun (talk) 23:33, 27 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Sounds good, two less skills to buy. The crippling would've been good with fire storm and bed of coals (hamstorm style!), but I guess that the dervish will get kicked anyway: Could you check whether it's better to take Herta over M.O.X. and possibly Odurra + Cynn over the eles? I came to the conclusion that it is best to make this a build page of Nightfall for players with a new all-campaigns account because that makes most sense for empowering the player quickly and easily. One or two skill changes to counter foes in the Nightfall campaign won't hurt if that happens, and we could cut the skill purchasing down so far that even with a super new account you can buy the skills on the fly. It would also allow to add an extra section with few nightfall campaign hints when playing with this team (probably for Rilohn Refuge, Gate of Madness, Abaddon's Gate). Which would be pretty close to the guide I intend to make anyway.
 * For player build suggestions: You can easily make decent nightfall only beginner builds, which I'm currently preparing in user subpages of mine. I think that we could link to them when I release them, but it will take a few weeks until that happens. --Krschkr (talk) 23:47, 27 October 2018 (UTC)

The Question Is,
Does this outperform a full team of henchmen that have elite skills?--Saxazaxx (talk) 00:13, 17 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Great question. The answer to it will decide whether it's worth having this at all. I did not yet get to test this, as I was focusing on my regular build projects, but maybe Phlyingisphun will report results in the next days. Else I can delete my PvP toon tomorrow, do some quick levelling and give this team a shot: How likely is it that I can afford the required skills and the kaineng center armor, are these heroes decisively better than henchmen, should there be more fake mesmers and so on. I recently gave well-equipped heroes henchmen builds and it was pretty awful. Almost all PvE henchmen builds and many PvP henchmen builds I tested did a terrible job at energy management, but the henchmen builds with blood ritual were so ineffective that taking them wouldn't really help much either with the overall performance. True, playing these builds in the villainy of Galrath HM was a bit unfair perhaps, but it's hardly deniable that very few, maybe only one henchman build is actually near acceptable from our modern, blessed point of view. So I suspect that even with this little access to skills and heroes and not using elite skills at all this team might be an advantage over full henchmen teams. It's meant to be narrowed down to nightfall anyway as it's meant as empowerment, so designing it for factions/EotN wouldn't make as much sense. --Krschkr (talk) 01:55, 17 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Alright, I just had to do a quick test. I used the super low requirement version for which neither purchasing dervish nor warrior nor elementalist skills is required. (Just an additional mesmer skill instead.)

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 * I downgraded my heroes to the attribute values of unruned heroes, picked heroes with unfitting weaponry and didn't remove all the sup runes, so barely any hero hit the standard 480hp. (But they had armor insignias, this was just a quick test, I didn't feel like removing 70 runes and insignias from heroes for it.) Result without lightbringer rank in great court of sebelkeh normal mode: 04:52 mission timer (bonus is <6 minutes), one death on the 415 hp Gwen against that monster skill hex. So at least the build works.
 * For reasons of comparison I ran the mission a second time, only using Tahlkora and Gwen as heroes (with builds from this team), using Odurra, Cynn, Herta, Mhenlo and Gehraz for the remaining slots. Right in the beginning the team performed better, but before all foes from the initial fight were taken care of the henchmen apparently already had run out of energy, so now everything else took a bit longer. 05:25 mission timer with plenty of deaths throughout the entire team.
 * Finally I did the mission a third time, replacing the fake mesmers (elementalists and dervish) with Odurra, Herta and Cynn. The result was 05:20 without deaths.
 * This doesn't prove anything, but it indicates that the beginner team (even in the fake mesmer variant which is super cheap to afford) performs slightly better than a full henchway and better than a mix of heroes and henchmen. Guess I'll do the test run some time after the mAT and give the fake mesmer variant a go because it has the lowest requirements and already introduces beginners to the mesmer infested meta. It will also allow me to spot issues the team has with certain points in the campaign and write a paragraph on when to upgrade this team how to take account of the new skills and heroes unlocked by playing. --Krschkr (talk) 03:01, 17 November 2018 (UTC)
 * "but before all foes from the initial fight were taken care of the henchmen apparently already had run out of energy, so now everything else took a bit longer. 05:25 mission timer with plenty of deaths throughout the entire team."


 * Thank you for taking the time to do this. Like I said, I think your efforts are in vain, and I mean no offense, but you doing tests in difficult missions versus a newb playing the mission is very different (for example, a newb will probably take two Monks and finish the mission in twice your time the first run around). The basic knowledge about the game about how to put skills on hero bars, how to balance bars between damage, pressure, utility, and heal, how to direct heroes, how to put runes on their armor, how to take runes off, how to get cheap, effective weapons for heroes, etc.... would result in a very different actual run. We have to assume that most newbs will play the game as Anet designed it, which means that they will unlock some elites as they go, that they might even start in Prophecies, and that they will happen across another player, start a conversation, join a guild, and get someone to play through the campaign with them. Moreover, fine-tuning a team build is like giving them a fish, it's not teaching them to fish. Our efforts would be much better spent by writing detailed guides on how to play the game or how to make effective builds--how to balance the bar between spammable damage, utility, energy management, etc.--and that work will inform our higher-level theorycrafting as a by-product.--Saxazaxx (talk) 17:40, 22 November 2018 (UTC)
 * No offense taken! There is a very old build making guide (last edit 2009) in the wartower.de archives. It covers the basics pretty well and isn't really outdated. I intend to update it slightly and release it as a PvX guide eventually. --Krschkr (talk) 15:34, 23 November 2018 (UTC)

Test Run Characteristics
mAT's over, my PvP character can now be deleted. I intend to start a test run soon, but if you have some input, i.e. for these questions... A quick factions start sounds best to me personally, perhaps as a ranger because it's a very weak profession. --Krschkr (talk) 14:55, 22 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Quick start in factions or slow start in nightfall?
 * Shall the player have a respectable build made up of skills available at the respective point in the campaign, if yes, which should the player profession be?
 * Alternatively, just as in the quick test I did last time, I could resort to flare spam, lowering the build effectiveness because of my experience with the game. Issue: I would not have to buy skills, which would influence my perception of how easily obtainable the required currency is.
 * I think both of us are shooting ourselves in the foot. I was trying to get meleers back into the meta by making a restricted team comp for running campaigns. I'm not sure how you might be shooting yourself in the foot... I'm kind of fixated on this one day a pretty mean guy I used to be in a guild with took me into Sacnoth Valley and "showed me how to play" with a "killer build," which had two dervishes with vos blow stuff up...--Saxazaxx (talk) 17:46, 22 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Luckily my endeavour is a bit easier than yours, as I only have to find a low requirement team which helps players to get started, whereas you'd have to find dervish hero builds which can compete with mesmers and necromancers without falling for (melee) AI issues and then promote them so aggressively in the LGiT alliance, in discord, facebook and on reddit with a dozen encouraging memes that they actually become popular. I don't think that a dervish hero meta will ever happen. But dervish heroes are pretty good, not great, but certainly useful, so making teams with dervish heroes isn't in vain. There will be acceptable results eventually. --Krschkr (talk) 18:21, 22 November 2018 (UTC)
 * At this point I just don't really care about that. My obsessiveness with this game needs to end at some point, and I'm trying to figure out where to tie it off. I think I did find something pretty interesting with the 8 Paragon team build--I basically had an idea, ran with it, and it worked surprisingly well with no painstaking finagling of builds, runes, and weapons. That's why I called the build Heart of the Cards. I think I learned something about what creativity is: someone is creative that studies the detail hard and then takes what he or she knows and creates something new. Different than imagination--creating out of thin air or intuition... The temptation of that offhand comment about yet-undiscovered "super builds" is pretty enticing, and might be a worthwhile time sink, considering how we're relatively close to discovering them. But I have to grow up and move out, and spending every day with these games is holding me back. I think a measurable place to start would be with the idea that any primary profession can solo every dungeon. I'm going to see how far I can go with Paragon. It would be good to hear your thoughts about these things, I mean, if we really want to spend the rest of our lives playing games, we might as well man up and learn Chess.--Saxazaxx (talk) 18:57, 22 November 2018 (UTC)
 * I can't really add any thought to solo builds. --Krschkr (talk) 21:46, 22 November 2018 (UTC)

Changed to the super low expenses variant
I did a test run simulating an entirely new account. Without doing any side quests a factions start gave me enough currency to finance this team right away and a max. armor very soon after. In fact, even after the final build upgrade (as described on the build page) I had some platinum left. After finishing Nightfall I ended up with 8.117 spare gold coins and an almost completed Night Falls. I suppose that this is the finalized version of the beginner team, unless someone who's better with monks improves those two heroes. The team has proven to be more reliable than a henchway and helps new players to accustom to playing with and upgrading their heroes. As a lovely side effect, they end up pretty close to an endgame team build which will suffice to do probably everything except for elite areas (in hard mode). Now if that isn't empowering! I'll keep expanding the guide sections on my WIP page to either expand this to a guide page or at least make a subpage for this team build with guide characteristics and walkthrough advices, probably including a video walkthrough with this team for the more challenging missions. --Krschkr (talk) 17:34, 2 December 2018 (UTC)

Armor sensitive vs armor ignoring
For a beginner team I would take advantage of physical or elemental damages as it would be more efficient on low lvl ennemies. Past lvl 20, switching to mesmer team is a good idea. If you start withe EoTN campaign, better go with armor ignoring damages right away thoJilonor (talk) 13:44, 19 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Some reasons why I went for (fake) mesmers right away: 1) Don't accustom people to inferior build cores if you can give them proper build cores immediately. 2) Making different builds for the early areas would require purchasing more skills. This is meant for people who'll get into trouble if they have to buy many more skills than the 9 suggested here. 3) This team begins in consulate docks, so there aren't so many low level areas. Almost all <level 20 foes faced in nightfall after getting the initial skill set of this team are hard targets anyway, giving armor ignoring damage the advantage. --Krschkr (talk) 21:51, 19 December 2018 (UTC)

Hero differences?
Thanks for the continued work on this awesome guide :) I have a noob question - is there any difference between heroes of the same profession? Say, I dislike the ambient dialogue or look of a hero, is there any downside of using a different hero of the same profession instead? -- kazerniel (talk) 17:03, 11 February 2019 (UTC)
 * There are barely any differences between heroes of the same profession. What I know of:
 * Species. Most heroes are considered human, which is only relevant for the skill Edge of Extinction and the condition Disease. I don't know of any foe using EoE. Disease is used by foes multiple times throughout the game, but not very troublesome. Very few player and hero builds apply this condition, so contracting a disease from foes you applied this condition on is very unlikely, too. The most relevant case would be an Avatar of Grenth dervish player/hero inflicting diseased on a creature standing next to one of your party members of the same species. Non-human heroes by game mechanics: Zhed Shadowhoof (Centaur), Jora (Norn), Brandor Fierceshot (Charr), Ogden Stonehealer (Dwarf), Vekk (Asura), M.O.X. (Golem - but unlike other golems fleshy, so he an bleed and contract disease). Note that Razah is, despite not being a human lore-wise, a human by game mechanics.
 * Size. This only affects your ability to watch what's happening on the battle field. M.O.X. is comparatively large and might cover foes, so you don't see what they're doing as easily. Vekk is pretty small, so you may not see that he's under attack by large foes as you'll only see the large foes themselves.
 * Quest requirements. Some heroes are required for missions and quests, so they are in general to be preferred over other heroes of the same profession to avoid inconveniences when you want to do those missions. That's the reason why Melonni is recommended over M.O.X. in this guide and Ogden isn't preferred over one of the other monk heroes.
 * Apart from that I can't think of differences right now. Heroes of the same profession will behave the same AI-wise. Most likely heroes of all professions act exactly the same, to be honest, but foes react differently on heroes of different professions. In short: Yes, replace heroes if you dislike their comments or look. --Krschkr (talk) 17:37, 11 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Krschkr, all I can say is wow. I had no idea about the species thing. But that certainly would help if your party was to bring EoE, if your heroes were of different species, it would help prevent mistakes in difficult areas.--Saxazaxx (talk) 22:53, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

Hero priorities for 4/6 party size areas?
Any tips on how many healers/mesmers/etc. to take to areas with 4 or 6 party size? As a newbie I always have such a hard time to decide which professions I should prioritise. -- kazerniel (talk) 23:36, 20 February 2019 (UTC)
 * The starting setup of this team sets in when only party size 8 areas are left in both nightfall and factions, so it's assumed that before getting the heroes you run henchmen/random heroes and after you get Razah (final state of the beginner team) you're ready to upgrade to any other non-transitional build after reading the corresponding team build page. If you want to stick to this team for a while before further upgrading, I can give you some advice which isn't based on testing:
 * Assuming the final skill set: if you are still playing in normal mode, simply drop both monks for party size 6. You have some throwaway minions, interruption and upfront damage. It should work throughout the entire prophecies missions. For party size 4... well, it's normal mode, you don't need any healing. You can keep your first three heroes without any healer.
 * If you already plan to do hard mode, for party size 6 you should first unlock soul twisting (play through factions/do some PvP) and then play with a communing prot hero to help your BiP healer. Roughly like that. For party size 4 in hard mode I'd recommend to unlock ether renewal so you can go for a team like this. If you don't yet have keystone signet, take an energy surge mesmer. Keystone/domination magic is similar to energy surge and while not interchangeable, at least substitutable. ;) --Krschkr (talk) 15:40, 21 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Thanks! I just reached the very starting set of heroes and skills in the guide, so I was wondering about party composition for quests like A Land of Heroes. Though I managed it on the second try, after I bought all the starting hero skills :) I noticed a marked improvement in survivability between henchmen and even the beginning set of builds of this guide! -- kazerniel (talk) 19:05, 21 February 2019 (UTC)

Empathy -> "Fall back!"?
Could we work "Fall Back!" in somehow? That skill makes PvE feel so much better and even has some combat value. Not a fan of Empathy anyways.

Also, I know this is for new players and should be as cheap and simple as possible, but how about suggestinng at least 1 +attribute rune per hero? Most +1s cost 100g which they could probably afford. EDIT: realized this is already a thing, but more of a footnote at the moment. --DefinitelyNotHanz (talk) 19:34, 23 March 2019 (UTC)
 * I found empathy quite useful for this, especially until you get energy surge. The issue with fall back is that there's barely any hero that could bring it. I wouldn't want to have it on the monks because of energy issues, and right now the mesmer hero is the only one which carries a hard resurrection until mid vabbi. We'd have to do the BiP upgrade much sooner, and I doubt that beginners will have the platinum to do it that soon. Agreed though about the attribute runes. That could be done quite a bit sooner in the campaign. Maybe when they get energy surge/Norgu so the impact of that improvement is even more noticeable? --Krschkr (talk) 22:51, 23 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Sure, adding the runes when they get their elite would be fitting as they are transitioning into endgame territory. Runes would be especially useful for the BiP necro, currently there are 0 points in Curses, but with the runes it could afford to allocate some there from Blood Magic. --DefinitelyNotHanz (talk) 15:25, 24 March 2019 (UTC)

Blood is Power acquirable before Kodash Bazaar
Today I finished Moddok Crevice and with it, got access to Vabbi. So I beelined towards Kodash Bazaar, and captured Blood is Power in Yatendi Canyons. Not sure why it's listed under Gate of Desolation, as it's available even before reaching Kodash Bazaar. (Both elites are capturable as soon as the player gets access to Vabbi.) -- kazerniel (talk) 00:06, 25 March 2019 (UTC)
 * I placed it there as I assumed people wouldn't yet have the required money to buy the other skills for the BiP healer. How were your finances at that point? --Krschkr (talk) 00:09, 25 March 2019 (UTC)
 * I had 6ish platinums after buying a 5plat weapon earlier. Buying the new rit skills and signets of capture put me under one plat :D I guess it heavily depends on how many sidequests the player has been doing. I did all that was available up until Rilohn Refuge, only rushed forward after that. Maybe it would be clearer to put the build steps under headers that absolutely must be done to access them (in this case completing Moddok Crevice to access Vabbi), and let the player work out what speed they reach the steps with. If they lack money they can always go back and do sidequests or grind loot a bit. -- kazerniel (talk) 13:08, 25 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Edit: Or even dip into other campaigns. I started a Factions character before I started my current main Nightfall one, and iirc that campaign showered money on Shing Jea Island. -- kazerniel (talk) 13:23, 25 March 2019 (UTC)
 * I'd rather want the finances to be safe even for people who play inefficient by experimenting with more skills bought from skill trainers. That's why I did the test run without doing any side quests (not even attribute quests). Starting in factions, the money was just sufficient for this team. A power up setting in sooner would be nice, but if it locks people out who spent their currency on the "wrong" things it makes the team miss its point. I'll have to think about recommending the desolation upgrade already when doing the energy surge upgrade, mentioning that if the money doesn't yet suffice the blood is power step can be postponed easily. But then this one upgrade could become quite big and confusing. Hrm. --Krschkr (talk)
 * Tangentially related, and might be useful to include in the basics guide: I just learned of the existence of Treasure, and it may be a nice source of gold for other beginner players too (every month or so). I did a run of 7 chests from Istan to Vabbi in about an hour, and got about 10 platinums plus 7 gold gear, which is like 10 times more than I normally get in the same time. -- kazerniel (talk) 22:08, 4 April 2019 (UTC)

Meta?
Beginner Team is the current go-to team for beginning players and among the 10 most frequented build articles lately. I'd say that this is sufficient to give it the meta tag and might even fit in PvX's current take on what meta means in PvE. But can we give a transitional build the meta tag? I'd love to hear some opinions on this. --Krschkr (talk) 20:26, 3 May 2019 (UTC)
 * It's certainly meta in its genre, but it doesn't really fit any of the pre-established categories as far as I can see. Though it's probably not worth to set up an entire new category for a single build(?) But imho as long as it has Beginner in the name (and with that Koss notice on top) it wouldn't be too confusing to have it as meta in the General builds. -- kazerniel (talk) 09:10, 4 May 2019 (UTC)
 * I think a Meta tag makes sense as long as we include what other communities recommend in our determination. PvXwiki lacks other options for new players on site so it's kind of a de-facto PvX meta. There's Build:Team - 6 Hero Burning Campaign Runner but its purpose is a bit different from this. -Toraen (talk) 10:21, 4 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Hmm. If we were just looking at audience numbers this team is most likely more relevant than a lot of meta speed clears. Let's give it a meta tag for now, and if we find that it feels wrong or someone provides reason why it definitely shouldn't have a meta tag we can still drop it back to (provisional) great. --Krschkr (talk) 12:10, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

Bone Fiends vs. Bone Minions?
What is the rationale behind using Bone Minions? I found Bone Fiends more useful, as they can attack at range, while Minions always take so long to actually get in melee range, that they usually miss the fight unless I'm standing around for half a minute until Master of Whispers catches up, then deigns to attack the target I trying to aggro via him. -- kazerniel (talk) 20:11, 20 August 2019 (UTC)
 * To have better aggro shifting away from heroes to the minions and some additional AoE from death nova rather than single target damage. Also, until using blood is power, bone fiends are extremely heavy on energy, so I'm not sure whether it'd work as well with them during the early phase of using the build. In general using bone fiends alongside communing prots is preferable over bone minions and protection prayers, but the beginner team can only make use of the latter concept. At which point during the campaign/build upgrading have you started using fiends instead of minions? --Krschkr (talk) 22:34, 20 August 2019 (UTC)
 * I see, thanks for the info! As for when I started, I could probably have switched earlier, but I only thought of it after Dzagonur Bastion. -- kazerniel (talk) 20:39, 23 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Following the current update progression that means you already had blood is power to make the necromancer work well even with fiends. I suppose it's a build change that can be done, but is the improvement so impactful that the build should be changed? After all, every skill costs platinum and the less this build requires the better. --Krschkr (talk) 00:12, 27 August 2019 (UTC)

Changes with additional campaign advance
Some people have a fresh account but decide to do Prophecies and/or Factions before diving into hero gameplay with Nightfall. For them, the initial skill setup changes decisively due to having access to elite skills right away and the currency to make use of them. It will be sufficiently advanced to be kept for the remaining campaign playing. Only updates should be to replace fake mesmers with actual mesmers (aswell as possibly one of the remaining fake mesmers with a minion master or source of physical player support) and starting to equip heroes.
 * Buy [[Aneurysm] from an Eye of the North skill trainer of choice.
 * Buy all required non-elite ritualist skills and Michiko in Kaineng Center.
 * Get Xandra in Gunnar's Hold by participating in the Norn Fighting Tournament.
 * Capture War in Kryta options. Else do a mission of choice and hope for the correct boss spawning eventually.
 * Capture Chan the Dragon's Blood in The Undercity.
 * Capture Ritualist's Construct in Morostav Trail.
 * If you chose the luxon main quest, capture it in the explorable area Raisu Palace from Defiant Ancient Sseer. This requires to fight through the entire map, but the skill's worth it. If you really can't be bothered to do that, though, Whispering Ritual Lord in Silent Surf can be killed to capture [[Ritual Lord] instead which is an almost adequate replacement.

Just dropping this here in case the topic comes up again in the future. --Krschkr (talk) 02:25, 13 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Blood Bond without Minion Master or SoS Rit or Melee is a waste (of skill slot and money). Can't assume the player will be Melee. Is Aneurysm really needed? It's not used in the Nightfall/Factions build so seems weird to add it here. Doesn't transition the same into Triple Energy Surge either. Could save more money. Sacropedia (talk) 19:41, 15 November 2019 (UTC)
 * I don't think that people who played through factions need to save money anymore, they'll have enough resources to fund this even with a bit of luxurious skill choices. But yes, it doesn't fit into the lowest cost and ascend to an endgame build baseline that's applied for the actual beginner team. --Krschkr (talk) 22:28, 12 February 2020 (UTC)

Thoughts on guide improvements
In no particular order. Kind of a to-do list for myself but I'm busy so if anyone does it faster feel free.
 * 1. If Word of Healing is better (final build in Overview), don't recommend Zealous Benediction after the Kodash change. If you've reached Kodash Bazaar, you can travel to Garden of Seborhin with Tahlkora and capture Word of Healing. Otherwise the guide progression can be confusing. Implement Word of Healing along with Blood is Power changes, and use only WoH later in the guide. If the ZB build is the intended/recommended, then there's no reason to have the player buy Cure Hex from Micah Ferguson. Save the money and use remove hex from the start. I'd even say skip Patient Spirit and use Orison(Tahlkora)/Reversal of Fortune(Dunkoro). Save more money.
 * 2. For characters picking the Luxon main quest, capturing Ritual Lord in Silent Surf should be the default option instead of Raisu Palace, especially when there's a note warning that you have to fight through the entire place to reach it. Yes the skill is worth it, but Silent Surf is easier for a Luxon player, and available sooner.
 * 3. It should be noted that the player must choose Master of Whispers instead of Margrid, so they will even reach Rilohn Refuge in the first place.
 * 4. Is it a good idea to place Shatter Hex on Melonni early on seeing as she has worse energy than both the elementalists? I'd rather see her take resurrection signet.
 * 5. If we permanently replace Melonni at Rilohn Refuge, does that mean the guide intends us to skip Nundu Bay mission? Should be noted in that case. Otherwise re-instate Melonni with an updated build? For the pre-quest and mission?
 * 6. A note can be added about using Ogden to play and quest-leveling Dunkoro (or Tahlkora), similarly to the note on M.O.X. / Melonni.

I'll see if I can think of anything else. Sacropedia (talk) 22:57, 14 November 2019 (UTC)
 * 7. Are heroes using their starter weapons? Should melonni use a staff? Does this build work with no weapons at all?
 * Nevermind the note on Ritual Lord. I read too quickly. Sacropedia (talk) 02:15, 15 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Nr 6 is done. About nr 7, there's a note at the end for how to gear up but it could be worth stating something about hero gear earlier. Especially for melee heroes using caster builds. Sacropedia (talk) 19:52, 15 November 2019 (UTC)
 * 8. Adding in overviews of the current skillbars after each major change. This would be the Kodonur monk change, the Rilohn 2nd MM change, the Esurge change and the BiP change. Norgu's build is pretty much identical, as is Razah's, to what they replace. In addition, overviews of the endgame transitions would be helpful.

The monks aren't entirely correct in the above lists because of the ZB/WoH split. Fixed. Sacropedia (talk) 21:08, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

9. Would it be worth mentioning that Prophecies characters can play until Lion's Arch, do the quest to travel to Cantha, use level 20 henchmen to reach Elona, as well as EotN, and then continue Prophecies with these until ascension at which point they can follow the guide from Consulate Docks onwards? Or is that too much? Sacropedia (talk) 01:51, 16 November 2019 (UTC)
 * 10. Koss' build when doing required quests and missions, like Venta Cemetery. Sacropedia (talk) 17:59, 16 November 2019 (UTC)
 * 1.) Skipping patient spirit sounds good to me, but is it stable? Patient spirit is a power heal and reversal of fortune might be bad for the early stages of normal mode. WoH in the BiP upgrade sounds like a good idea, but the question is whether it's worth it. Nightfall players already have captured ZB for their monks and bought skills for them, and it's proven to work (although a bit less satisfyingly than word of healing). If it doesn't get too messy suggesting a late WoH upgrade may be the right thing to do, even if it's tagged optional.
 * 3.) That was intended for the third big section of this thing, which was to be the playthrough help. There players were supposed to be told which of the campaign forks to pick and how to handle (or if necessary buildwars) particularly difficult quests. A lot of the videos are already done, since I captured my progress when doing the test for the initial team build version, but I never got to finish the damn thing. You can see what's done so far on this page: User:Krschkr/Beginner Team/Playthrough Help
 * 4.) Idk. A second shatter hex is useful, it may be worth the energy trouble. Is another rez signet of any use?
 * 5.) Good catch. If the playthrough help were to be finished at some point an updated Melonni build would have to be part of it. In the current state of the beginner team which is mostly build focused and doesn't touch content I don't really see how to fit it in properly.
 * 6.) Thanks!
 * 7.) Any random staff will do. I think I wrote that somewhere, didn't I? :o
 * 8.) Worth testing, I see a risk that it could make things unnessecarily bloated. Maybe use collapsible tables.
 * 9.) I don't think it'd be worth it. The page suggests an ideal build and way to improve it. If people decide to step out of the escalation program at any point it's up to them, but not really a thing to recommend.
 * 10.) Eh... people should do Melonni missions and in Venta Cemetery, well, let him keep his standard bar I guess.
 * Thanks for the feedback, that way we can improve upon what we have so far. Well, as soon as someone has the time to carry out the changes. --Krschkr (talk) 22:26, 12 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Nothing major but my suggestion would be to try and fit in double Fall Back, maybe to the mesmer bars. Playing without speed boost feels really bad, it'd significantly improve the new player experience imo. --DefinitelyNotHanz (talk) 09:31, 29 May 2020 (UTC)