GvG Team Build Thread

Shield of Regeneration is captured from the Facet of Light in the Dragon's Lair mission. I'm pretty sure this is the first step on the mission, so it shouldn't take long to get to.
 
Team - IWAY
From GuildWiki
Contents
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* 1 Overview
* 2 Composition
o 2.1 IWAY Warriors
+ 2.1.1 Two Edge of Extinction Warriors
o 2.2 "Orders" Necromancer
o 2.3 "Tainted" Necromancer
o 2.4 Trapping Ranger
* 3 Usage
* 4 Counters
* 5 Variants
* 6 Criticism
o 6.1 Fame Farming
* 7 History

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Overview

This build is mainly used in the Global Tournament

The IWAY build is based around the "I Will Avenge You!" shout when used in combination with pets belonging to several warrior/rangers. "I Will Avenge You!" takes all dead allies in the area into account, which includes pets. Having several dead pets in the area is enough to maintain the attack speed boost and health regeneration of this shout indefinitely.-
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Composition

The most stereotypical IWAY team consists of:

* Four warrior/rangers with pets
* One "orders" necromancer, usually a N/Mo
* One "tainted" necromancer, usually a N/E
* Two trappers, usually a R/Me

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IWAY Warriors
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Two Edge of Extinction Warriors

Attributes are:

* 11 Strength (10+1)
* 16 Axe Mastery (12+1+3)
* 8 Beast Mastery

OR

* 10 Strength (9+1)
* 16 Axe Mastery (12+1+3)
* 9 Beast Mastery

Skills are:

* Eviscerate (elite)
* Executioner's Strike
* Disrupting Chop or Distracting Blow
* "I Will Avenge You!"
* Charm Animal
* Tiger's Fury
* Edge of Extinction
* Resurrection Signet


These warrior/rangers with pets form the core of the IWAY team. Each IWAY warrior wears Gladiator's hauberk and leggings, and any of the other types of armor for boots and gauntlets. The usual IWAY warrior is an axe-warrior, bringing:

* Eviscerate (elite)
* Executioner's Strike
* Disrupting Chop or Distracting Blow
* "I Will Avenge You!"
* Charm Animal
* Sometimes Warrior's Cunning
* Sometimes Tiger's Fury for when no allies are currently dead.

----- you can use Distracting Blow, Pure Strike, and either Hamstring or Sever Artery or Savage Slash(based on your preference) instead of axe skills, for those of us with swords and not axes--
-
Each IWAY warrior carries a spirit or support skill. One usually carries Sprint for altar and relic capturing maps. This character can use Distracting Blow to stop any enemy Ghostly Hero who got there first from capturing the altar. The spirits commonly taken by IWAY warriors are:

* Predatory Season
* Edge of Extinction, usually taken by two warriors because these many IWAY teams depend on the damage caused by EoE.

Every IWAY warrior carries a longbow.
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"Orders" Necromancer

Usually a necromancer/monk with high Soul Reaping and Blood Magic, and also using Healing Prayers. The usual skillset is:

* Order of the Vampire (With the new patch, this skill has effectively become useless and is no longer run frequently in IWAY builds.)
* Order of Pain
* Blood Renewal
* Heal Party.

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"Tainted" Necromancer

Usually a necromancer/elementalist. Skills are:

* Tainted Flesh (elite)
* Well of the Profane
* Well of Suffering
* Consume Corpse
* Maelstrom or Meteor Shower
* Windborne Speed
* Sometimes Gale or Putrid Explosion.

Attributes are:

* 16 Death Magic (12 + 1 + 3)

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Trapping Ranger

Usually ranger/mesmer with:

* Spike Trap (elite)
* Flame Trap
* Barbed Trap
* Dust Trap
* Mantra of Resolve
* One spirit, most often Nature's Renewal.

New groups will now often have one ranger/monk for Martyr.
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Usage

Most teams will start out placing Predatory Season and Edge of Extinction within range of where the team will be fighting. If the enemy team is not IWAY, a trapper will drop Nature's Renewal to slow down enemy enchantment and hex casting.

The IWAY team will then use bows on the enemy team to send their pets at them, setting off traps and giving players who don't know how to correctly counter them the opportunity to kill the pets so that they may be made into wells and such.

After the traps are clear, the W/Rs and trappers rush in while the Tainted Necromancer uses Maelstrom on the enemy team. The Orders Necromancer's primary job is as a Monk, and should focus on using the various healing spells to keep the team alive. With the high value of Soul Reaping, this Necro should take advantage of all dying persons to quickly cast (basically spam) Heal Party so that Edge of Extinction does not also kill his own team. Order of the Vampire and Order of Pain are used to boost the team's health and attack, when the Necromancer feels comfortable casting them.

On Altar Capturing maps, the Sprinting warrior will take the Ghostly Hero. When the doors open, the Tainted Necromancer will place Windborne Speed on the Ghostly Hero to make it run as fast as the sprinter.

On "Relic Runs," the team's trappers will trap their Relic. Most IWAY teams defend on 'Relic Runs'. After defeating most of the enemy team, the Sprinter and Tainted Necromancer will push ahead, taking the relic and applying Windborne Speed to him to make him run as fast as possible (The relic reduces the holder's running speed by around 50-75%)
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Counters

Several tactics that work against warriors and groups of warriors will still be effective counters against IWAY teams, including:

* Protective enchantments like Aegis and Healing Seed. Note, however, that if the IWAY team has a chance to put a Well of the Profane up, taking these skills will be in vain.
* Use the corpses before the IWAY necromancer can. This can be best done with a Mesmer/Necromancer.
* Use Hexes like Shadow of Fear, Spiteful Spirit, Blurred Vision, Thunderclap, Fevered Dreams ... that are effective against the clumps of warriors. Spiteful Spirit works really well when used on the pets because they don't know to stop attacking through it.
* Traps are very effective against IWAY, but beware, most will have trappers as well. Full trapper teams are usually massacred by IWAY, unless the trapper team uses the skill "Victory is Mine!", which would give the trapper team the advantage, and is very common amongst full trapper teams.
* Cause blindness and weakness.
* The Orders Necromancer is the softest target in an IWAY team, go for him and you can greatly reduce their ability to heal or damage. A warrior, enchantment stripper, or ranger can easily take these out.
* Staying close, such as in a ball, is a bad idea unless you can interrupt Maelstrom and keep their trappers with low energy. Some IWAY warriors will also carry Cyclone Axe to deal with balls and groups that stay together.
* Simply avoid killing all the IWAY pets at once to decrease the bonus warriors get from "I will avenge you!". Attack the pets last.
* Drop a Greater Conflagration nature ritual to totally negate the damage boost from Order of Pain and Order of the Vampire.
* Ward Against Melee, Ward Against Foes, and other slow downs greatly reduce the effectiveness of warriors.
* Frozen Soil greatly hinders most IWAY teams.
* If the team can deal a lot of armor ignoring damage or life stealing, then Fertile Season and/or Symbiosis will greatly reduce the effectiveness of an IWAY team.
* Feast of Corruption spike teams can be extreamly dangerous to IWAY teams. Typically an FoC spike group will stay very close together and wait for the IWAY warriors to form up around them and then quickly dispatch the entire group by casting a hex on each target and following up with Feast of Corruption. By eliminating all the warriors and pets at the same time the benifits of IWAY are severily diminished.

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Variants

The modern incarnation with a 4/1/1/2 split once used to be a variant known as "Trapway", though it has now become the dominant build and taken over the IWAY name.

There have been many modifications of the IWAY build since its creation. Some have ignored the Necromancers, using two Elementalist/Monks with Heal Party, protection Monks, Elementalist/Mesmer fire "nukers", Elementalists with Wards, and so on. Few of these see use for very long. Though the use of a protection monk was once picking up popularity, most players abandoned this for the "Trapway".

Some IWAY teams use a Ranger/Monk equipped with Martyr which is used to pull off conditions.

After the update of March 3rd, 2006 weakened many of the key IWAY skills, many groups have been trying variants to make up for the loss in power of the standard build. Many of these variants deviate quite substantially from the typical IWAY builds. For example, some have tried "Surge-Way", a variant that eliminates the trappers and tone of the necromancers in favor of three Mesmer/Necromancers with Energy Surge, and various other Domination Magic skills (i.e., "e-surgers"). This builds upon the pressure theory of IWAY, combining the Area of Effect damage of the Energy Surges and Edge of Extinction with the constant flow of damage from the warriors to dole out more damage than enemy monks can keep up with, while at the same time denying those very monks of energy.

Another variant is known as "Curse-way", and employs more of a warrior-spike theory. Both trappers and the Orders Necromancer are eliminated and replaced by a fifth warrior, a Martyr Monk, and a Curses Necromancer. The monk's job is to use Martyr to ensure that the warriors are free of blind, crippled, and other major conditions. The monk then needs Mend Ailment to cure himself of the conditions he has obtained, then also carries Heal Party, and other various healing spells. The Curses Necromancer uses Rigor Mortis, Mark of Pain, Barbs, and Weaken Armor. All the warriors then attack whomever the necromancer has targeted with his hexes. Rigor Mortis ensures that the target cannot be protected by popular anti-warrior spells, while Mark of Pain does an immense amount of damage to his nearby allies, as five warriors (all using Tiger's Fury) on him will land a great number of hits. Barbs and Weaken Armor just serve to kill the target as quickly as possible.

Yet another variant is "ViM-Way", which takes advantage of the many conditions caused by the trappers. All the warriors and all the trappers (except for sometimes a martyr trapper) carry "Victory is Mine!" as their elite, serving as a powerful healing spell, and also providing precious energy. This variant usually cuts a warrior for a third trapper. It can be quite powerful, and ViM provides the durability needed to survive a long battle, but it tends to lack the explosive damage needed to defeat spike groups.

Many other variants have been tried, and at the very least serve to make the IWAY build more interesting, although the standard build has not yet changed.
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Criticism

Note: Like any very popular build this build is being frowned upon by many players as being "overused" and "taking no skill".
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Fame Farming

Many people have argued that the IWAY build was not meant to take and hold the Hall of Heroes, but to gain quick fame for those using the build; the pejorative descriptor used is "fame farming". The criticism is partly due to the nature of this build: IWAY is quick to put together, easy to understand and use, and generally requires only loose coordination between team members; and partly because unranked players generally find themselves shut out of most groups except for IWAY or similar "fame farming" teams who are trying to get enough fame to achieve rank 3 or higher. It should be noted that good IWAY teams often do make it to the Hall of Heroes and may hold it for a time.

This criticism is perhaps the most apt when the IWAY build is used to win the first 3 maps in the Global Tournament, and then leave, regroup, and do it again, fighting mostly inexperienced teams and gaining a 6 Fame for 25 minutes or less of play. Whether this is actually more effective than playing the normal way, or not, is a matter of dispute.
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History

Apparently, IWAY started off with 8 Ranger/Warriors, also known as Bunny Thumpers, which utilize a Ranger's Expertise attribute to lower the cost of the Warrior's Hammer Mastery skills. They would also bring along pets and Tiger's Fury to speed up their attacks.

This proved to be quite effective, but eventually it was discovered that Warrior primaries were capable of doing more damage and they were changed to W/Rs. Further improvements were then made by adding a Tainted and an Orders Necromancer.

For quite awhile, IWAY consisted completely of 6 W/Rs, 1 Tainted Necromancer, and 1 Orders Necromancer.

It was general practice, at one time to have one W/R carry Revive Animal to transport dead pets from one area of the map to another. Most groups have stopped using this skill, refering to it as 'noobish'. They opt, instead, to stay near their dead pets. This has since been replaced by the second EoE.

The September 29th, 2005 update reduced the maximum attack speed bonus to 33%, down from 50%, slightly reducing the effectiveness of the IWAY build.

The March 3rd, 2006 update further reduced the effectiveness of the build, by cutting the attack speed bonus from the IWAY skill to 25%, and modifying Order of the Vampire to no longer stack with other necromancer enchantments.
 
Thanks for the Post Bro!! BTW thanks for helping get to the Hall for the First time as well as getting Rank 2!!
 
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