Leave of Absence

Well graduated from college yesterday. So whoever is still following this blog (maybe one or two devotees) I'm taking at least two months off writing here, possibly many more. I might still login but not very often. If you really want to, subscribe and you'll find out when I'm writing again.

If there is one thing to remember for codex, its damage, damage, damage. PvP is killing, and if you can't kill them you can't win. Play on days without tons of bs stances and with weak healing, and you'll have fun. Play on days with tons of spear attacks and it'll be fun.

Good luck in the Codex.

Guild Wars Codex Arena Monday November 9 2009

Today should be a good day in Codex -- no very obvious choices other than a monk for patient spirit and limited spear attacks.

Assassin is another staple today with deep wound (augury of death) and daze (temple strike, golden skull strike).

Mind blast elementalist should be viable today with glowing gaze and /me offclass for auspicious incantation. Spirit shackles too should be the counter to assassins, if you can find a way to cover it. Though it might not be that great because there's divert hexes and reverse hex.

I would round it off with a Melandru dervish (immune to signet of midnight, has imbue health, crippling sweep).

Prediction
Today's Meta
Temple Strike, Blessed Light, Avatar of Melandru, Mind Blast

Guild Wars Codex Arena November 8 2009

Great day today, no blockway like yesterday's BS and very little healing. Go farm your points!

I would carry four damage dealers today. Only question is who dishes out the most damage and who can shut down their damage enough for your damage to do damage. Uhhh yea.

With that in mind I would take minor healing skills, some shutdown like a EDA dervish and go for fast, brutal fights.

Play today for sure: it should be fun.

Prediction
Today's Meta:
Heal as One, It's Just a Flesh Wound, Ebon Dust Aura (spears), Spirit Strength (with daggers)

Guild Wars Saturday November 7 2009

First day of double points. Good luck!

Ebon dust aura is in, but so is Avatar of Melandru and Assassin's Remedy. Pain of disenchantment and corrupt enchantment is in too, along with pain of disenchantment. I would not run an EDA dervish today, especially with so few adrenal spear attacks.

Cruel spear is in too, and so is spear of redemption. A good choice with a shield and -40 blind, then redemption.

Stances, stances, stances... disciplined, wary, protector. Protector ball should be up and ready today.

I'm going to try something a little different today: three midliners (yes paragon is a midliner). There's way too much melee shutdown including snares, and the stances will make a melee's life very hard especially vs coordinated teams with multiple copies.

Prediction
Today's Meta
Spoil Victor, Defiant was Xinrae, Arcane Languor, Cruel Spear.

Guild Wars Codex Arena Friday November 6 2009

Wounding strike is back in and so in conjure flame. So at least one class is obvious today.

The second damage dealer looks like ranger with Rampage as One and spear attacks, especially with merciless spear.

For the third support/damage dealer, could either go visions of regret or a restoration ritualist with preservation. If you go preservation, both you and the monk could carry mend body and soul, since there's not a quick, massive heal like patient spirit today. With searing flames around pressing 1 - 1 - 1 and doing 100+ damage with 16 fire, don't feel bad using double healers. Yes, there's spirit bond, but nowhere near the healing with a single healer. If you do go restoration ritualist, fill out your damage with spears.

Prediction
Today's Meta: Rampage as One, Wounding Strike, Preservation, Aura of Faith

Guild Wars Codex Arena Thursday November 5 2009

Shield of deflection in today but so is magehunter smash. Conjure lightning is in too, so all melee should use conjure. Lack of glyph of lesser energy is a real pain for SoD monks so I'm going to call it for empathic removal, especially with no offclass hex rip other than hex eater signet.

Some really good water snares along with elemental attunement, and even blurred vision. And blind too. Not sure how this will do against magehunter warrior, but should be interesting to have magehunter around attunements and shield of deflection.

Great spear attacks today in mighty throw, barbed spear, holy spear. Also some half-decent pet skills: IAS, KD, pet damage reduction, even pet resurrection. So Petway could work in codex arena today, with a minor mod in that because there's no cruel spear or merciless spear a wounding strike dervish instead of a ritualist is probably better.

Prediction
Today's Meta
Magehunter Smash (conjure lightning), Wounding Strike (conjure lightning), Elemental Attunement (dual attunes), Empathic Removal (try mirage cloak and fleeting stability).

Wednesday November 4 2009

At long last, blinding surge is a skill in codex arena. Well, not really. Most people haven't been looking forward to this day. Just make sure to have pensive guardian on the monk to slap on the melee or it'll be one massive pain, and -40 blind rune if possible. Also one or two classes with purifying veil . Purifying veil combined with the -40 blind and pensive guardian should make blind a lot less painful. Tons of other blind too in weapon of shadow and signet of midnight. Not only blind, but crippling shot. Today is not a good day for melee or spear chuckers.

Finally, ranger gets apply poison.

Skill Prediction

Today's Meta: Condition Overload
Melandru's Arrows (apply poison), Blinding Surge (give him purifying veil), Wounding Strike (give him grasping earth, rending touch for air attunement), Blessed Light

Alternate: Crippling Slash (-40 blind from rune and inscription, purifying veil).

UPDATE: My prediction was totally wrong hahaha. Seems like going three melee is a really bad idea around blindbots (no duh, I thought having more melee was better would overload the blindbot but matches don't last that long especially with pugs). So if you want to avoid pain and are puging today bring wounding strike, blinding surge and blessed light with a third arcane languor/it's just a flesh wound.

Winning 5 with Petway

Guild Wars Codex Arena Petway

Winning five is pretty easy even with the newest of groups with petway. Most days like today, petway works. The worst the healing, the better petway. Have:

R/P with spears and pet attacks

P/R with spears and pet attacks

Rt/P with spears and healing skills

Mo/Any standard monk build with hex removal (today's hex removal is reveal hex)

Get 12 attribute points into spear on all three players and run major rune on the ranger for 15 beast mastery if you can handle going without expertise. If you can run 12 spear on all three players and 12 beast mastery on two players, you have massive ranged damage.

Notice no dervish and no assassin. The better the healing a day, particularly massive healing like patient spirit or word of healing, the worse petway especially if there's no deep wound. Without Merciless Spear or Cruel Spear and facing heavy healing or hexes, petway fails. But on days like today with a ton of incredible pet skills and spear attacks, petway could get you a few wins. Or a lot. I've seen guild teams rolled by petway unless they're prepared to spike the pets (and today that's difficult with the +24 pet armor skill).

Also you need at least three decent spear attacks. Some days without any spear attacks at all, better off going something else.

Good luck in the Codex!

Tuesday November 3 2009

Back to the usual stuff today I guess. Wounding strike is back, so build either with that and conjure or vow of strength and conjure. Though wounding strike is way better. Cripple with harrier's and IAS with heart of fury.

Palm strike is still in too. And so are a bunch of great spear attacks.

So, today is a chance to use my strategy to win five in Codex Arena if you're always having trouble winning five with randoms. High damage should be great today; the monk elite is awful so there should be no problem running three damage dealers. Could even run four damage dealers; have the restoration ritualist splash spear attacks and the cautery signet paragon run make haste.

Prediction
Today's Meta: Cautery signet, spirit light weapon, wounding strike, palm strike

Monday November 2 2009 Wrapup

Got another 15 wins with pugs today, running cleave, palm strike, poison arrow and peace and harmony.

I'll stop a little bit to talk about today, because I think today was special. Today we had very little spear attacks and no dervish elites worth running. But there were still a lot of people who had to run dervish and used balthazar, and still teams that went two midliners and relied on assassin as their only melee.

Today really separated who understood Guild Wars from people who don't. A person who doesn't understand Guild Wars would look at today's skill list and think, low damage because no wounding strike and no spears. Especially someone who's been playing Codex for the past week and taking a dervish every single day. People who understand Guild Wars know that a warrior, with 12 strength and 12 axe, even with a pathetic attack skill like cleave is amazing DPS. Guild Wars is made around the warriors. Everything else is either made to shut down warriors, heal through warrior damage or is a bad copy of a warrior. If anyone is still playing this is what I ran:

Distracting Strike
Leviathan Sweep
Cleave
Penetrating Chop
Fear Me
Desperation Blow
Balanced Stance
Resurrection Signet

The strategy I used to win was simple, attack their assassin. Distracting strike ruined their chain, and leviathan knocked them down in the middle of their chain when the rt put weapon of warding on the assassin. And when the assassin got pissed and went after me, I was immune to critical.

Note that I don't have the awful lacerating chop skill. Also this was a special day that warriors don't need IAS... normally they do, but cleave charges so fast that you shouldn't need bezerker stance. Desperation blow with balanced stance for a chance for deep wound.

Anyone still playing can probably get 50 wins with a pug with balthazar derv, cleave war, palm strike assassin and p&h monk with cripple.

(Un)Surprise of the Day: Assassins wearing two superiors and falling like flies (lol).

Monday November 2 2009

No dervish elites worth speaking of, and not enough spear attacks or scythe attacks. Change of pace from the past week.

Palm strike is obvious, and probably poison arrow too.

For necromancer, can use offering of blood as energy management and slap in reckless, enfeebling and spinal shivers (!).

Still, I wouldn't try and make a complicated build today. If anything, three physicals should net you a lot of wins even more with no dervishes or paragons around.

For monks, no armor of sanctity. But still shield of force and vital boon, along with aura of thorns. Monk dervish day again.

Codex Arena Prediction
Today's Meta: Cleave, Palm Strike, Poison Arrow, Empathic Removal

Good secondaries
Mesmer: Hex Breaker
Monk: Smite Hex
Dervish: Rending Touch

How to Win 5 in Codex Arena with PuGs

(New tutorial on how to win 5 in Codex Arena for people having problems)

Winning 5 in Codex Arena (with PuGs)

First, don't listen to PvXWiki. I don't know who wrote their tutorial or whether they've played a lot of Codex, but their suggestion of one frontliner, two midliners and a healer isn't very good. Whoever wrote that article probably played a lot of Team Arena, which is nothing like Codex Arena. Due to lack of skill synergy like attunements for the elementalists, midliners generally work worse than physicals. Keep in mind that PvXWiki may be right some days: some days one frontliner, two midliners and one healer may be better. But most days it won't and you're better off going with two frontliners one midliner and a healer, or two frontliners and two healers.

If you're working with 100% PuG and no friend, the best idea is to pick up a dervish, an assassin and two healers in monk and restoration ritualist if possible. The theory goes like this. Playing adrenal teams requires more skill and more time. Time to charge up adrenal. Time which you may not have. For example, if your team build includes a warrior and assassin, the assassin has to be smart enough to realize the warrior needs to standoff with a spear and charge his adrenal halfway before engaging. But most PuG assassins charge in. So you do not want to be playing a class that requires adrenal charge up with PuGs, because likely they'll want games to be fast and over with and charge right up. Not only that but since he's a PuG your monk may not be able to keep your team alive long enough for the warrior's DPS to exceed an assassin's.

So team build one I call 100% PuGway:

Dervish
Assassin
Ritualist
Monk

Now the trick to making this build work is making the restoration ritualist do a little bit of damage. If there's good spear skills that day, could go 12 restoration, 12 spear and 3 spawning power. Now you have a high offense support character and two damage characters. If spears aren't good this day, bring spirits.

Winning 5 in Codex Arena (with smarter PuGs)

Now the second type of team build is when you have at least one friend with you, a friend you can count on who is a little more patient. Or at least a PuG who you see is pretty awesome and understands warriors and paragons need to build adrenal.

Paragon
Warrior
Ranger/Dervish (depending on skills)
Monk/Ritualist (depending on skills)

Paragon is key to this build. Paragons have damage approaching a warrior, but at the same time can carry necessary support skills like strip enchantment or it's just a flesh wound. That's the problem with the PvXWiki philosophy of taking two caster/midline characters -- it seriously nerfs your damage. By taking paragon instead as a support character, you keep high damage with good support.

Now since you're going paragon, you might as well go warrior too. Warriors and paragons both have to build up adrenal, so there's more synergy there. Now if you're lucky there's good pet skills so you can go Ranger with adrenal attacks (spear/axe) and a pet. If not, go Dervish. So you've got two 80 armor targets and a 70 armor target. Hard to kill, high damage.

Now follow these simple for the melee characters:

1. IAS (increase atack speed)
2. Increase adrenal gain (if necessary)
3. Snare/Speed boost/Cripple
4. Deep Wound

If you can load a paragon, warrior and dervish all with all of the above four, you are in great shape to win five in Codex Arena, even with the worst PuGs. High armor, high damage, easy wins.

Now after you make sure all your melee has all the above four, its time to worry about conditions and hexes. Ask your melee to add in offclass condition and hex removal. 2-3 hex removals is good enough, and if its ebon dust day make sure everyone has -40 blind. Offclass condition and hex removal has another benefit. That is because it's a PuG and you're probably not on vent or have good teamwork, the monk won't be coordinated enough to rip off dangerous hexes like insidious or rip off blind. The more self sufficient a PuG damage dealer is, the better it is and the easier the wins.

Be leader, recruit the right classes and ask for minor mods. Most PuGs will be willing to mod for you if you're nice. For example if you see the dervish doesn't have featherfoot grace (speed boost) ask him to take it. Similarly a lot of warriors forget IAS or adrenal gain stances so ask them to take it. If you have to do a total rebuild or teach the person fundamentals of the game you're better off taking a different person. But most PuGs just need minor mods in 1 or 2 skills to start killing.

That's all there is to it. Good luck in the Codex!

Sunday November 1 2009

Funny day today: dwarven battle stance is in, and so is distracting shot and savage shot. Oh yea, psychic distraction too. Pick your interrupt.

Blinding surge is in but no attune. Sorry elementalists. Blinding surge is bs anyway. But there is signet of midnight. Could make a nice blinding mesmer with thieving skills. Mesmer still looks awful without diversion unless you can hit pd.

The real power today is in paragons: The Power is Yours! gives +1 energy regen and Make Haste! is a permanent 33% boost to your monk.

Pets are great today with a pet res.

Prediction
Today's Meta: Wounding Strike, Heal as One, The Power is Yours!, Blessed

UPDATE: CONDITION STACK (lol) you can have: cripple, weakness, cracked armor, burning, deep wound, bleeding. So today's meta includes dervish and necro for sure!