Guild Wars Codex Arena Guru

Leave of Absence

2009-11-10T05:17:00.000-08:00

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

2009-11-09T07:22:00.000-08:00

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

2009-11-08T06:42:00.000-08:00

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

2009-11-07T06:45:00.000-08:00

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

2009-11-06T04:33:00.001-08:00

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

2009-11-05T04:48:00.000-08:00

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

2009-11-04T06:01:00.000-08:00

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

2009-11-03T18:48:00.000-08:00

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

2009-11-03T03:28:00.000-08:00

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

2009-11-02T16:23:00.000-08:00

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

2009-11-02T04:37:00.000-08:00

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

2009-11-01T14:58:00.000-08:00

(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

2009-11-01T06:33:00.000-08:00

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!

Saturday October 31 2009 Wrapup

2009-10-31T18:01:00.001-07:00

Well finally decided not to play with a PuG and played with a champ group. The leader made us run spike, and we were getting beat by bonetti's defense and protector defense balls. Which I kind of predicted would happen but I didn't want to say anything. Wanted to see what they could do, and it wasn't much at least not today. Spike is overrated as hell on Codex, and vent even more overrated. So those of you who can't get into high ranked groups don't worry it's not that much better. A small rank g3 or more is enough to clear out pure noobs. Or better yet play with friends. And spike fails, like I thought. Well maybe I'm not being fair because today was a really high defense day but I don't see spike doing any better on a blind or snare day.

Anyway the strat today was bonetti's defense with protector defense ball. Three people chaining it. So I suppose you could use vent for that. And people were getting 50 streaks with it.

Good night and Happy Haunting.

(Un)Surprise of the Day: Leeroy sin rushing in alone to kill priest on res map and couldn't do it and getting owned when other team notices and falls back on him (lol). If you want to gank, at least make sure you can do it!

Saturday October 31 2009

2009-10-31T04:48:00.000-07:00

Happy Halloween!

Unfortunately no minions today. But there is ghostmirror light and more importantly Xinrae's Weapon and a bunch of important spirits.

Mesmer is very powerful today with fevered dreams, diversion, inspired hex and revealed enchantment. Another powerful type of mesmer could be an energy drain mesmer. A good strategy is draining assassins and dervishes of energy (much better than punish like insidious).

Finally a day where dervish isn't so incredible that it's absolutely necessary. Though Grenth's Grasp looks great.

Prediction

Today's Meta: Xinrae's Weapon, Healing Light, Fevered Dreams, Grenth's Grasp
High defense, high healing. Cripple their melee and heal through their damage while diverting their healing.

Today's Anti-Meta: Cruel Spear, Temple Strike, Onslaught, Xinrae's Weapon
Healing with restoration magic and offclass monk. Use temple strike assassin with blinding power for defense if necessary, and use wind prayers dervish to cripple. Cruel saves adrenal skills for spike with temple sin.

Friday October 30 2009 Wrapup

2009-10-30T13:28:00.000-07:00

Not much time to play today so doing the wrapup early. Very high defense meta today: trick seems to be bring a mind burn elementalist with strip enchantment then bring your own ebon dust paragon and keep protective spirit and three other enchants on him all the time. The third can be anything: ranger is great but so is a shatter sin (even with no deep wound lol) just to deal with ebon and make sure its off.

Unless you get an organized group, best to stick with monk, mind blast elementalist with strip enchantment, dervish paragon with ebon dust aura + one optional player.

Daily Surprise: Mind burn ele *works* not just because of mind burn, but because elementalist's huge mana pool is perfect for strip enchantment. And also because attunes are less important to strip than... you guessed it, ebon dust aura. They're not going to waste their time stripping your fire attune when there's ebon dust, conjure and prot spirit to rip. But especially dust. Ebon dust arena indeed lol.

Friday October 30 2009

2009-10-30T06:50:00.001-07:00

Word of healing is in, so for those of you who've hated the past few days because of bad healing maybe today is time to try. Incredible day for rangers too; distracting shot and disrupting shot is in, along with cripshot.

Ebon dust aura is back. But so is strip enchantment. Every midliner should be carrying 8 blood and strip enchantment to deal with ebon dust aura, because relying on your shatter sin or monk to deal with it is rather dumb. And yes, paragon is midliner (which a lot of people don't seem to understand). It doesn't have to come down to who shoots out the first disrupting throw. Also shatter sin doesn't work today; no deep wound for the assassin.

Mind blast is in but unfortunately so is protective spirit, so I don't think it'll be viable today. Those who really want to try elementalist should go ether renewal and play as elementalist/ritualist support with restort healing skills; can probably win a few with an ether ele healer, woh monk, stunning strike para and vow of silence dervish (make sure the stunning strike has strip enchantment).

Pulverizing smash is the only deep wound today. Fortunately magehunter is in along with grapple, and decent IAS in signet of aggression and enraging charge. All good teams will have a warrior today.

Conjure frost is in too. All melee should be carrying it especially since enchantment removal will be prioritized for Ebon.

Prediction

Today's Meta: Ebon Dust Aura, Magehunter Smash, Crippling Shot, Word of Healing

Today's Anti-Meta: Vow of Strength (carry conjure, rending touch), Magehunter Smash (grapple, pulverizing, conjure too), Stunning Strike (carry strip enchantment with 8 blood), Word of Healing

Sorry for late post, got up late today.

Thursday October 29 2009 Wrapup

2009-10-29T16:22:00.001-07:00

As I predicted WoR and Glimmer are in with double healers. Shockingly very few mesmers around even with migraine and spirit shackles. Spirit shackles plus cover hexes ruins a dervish and assassin so I even expected spirit shackles on things like warriors or paragons. But I guess nobody wants to shut anything down, they just want to rely on healing and damage.

Ritualists are playing very badly today. Probably because all serious pvpers shun ritualists like the plague, but when they need them today they look for one and get PvEs or those who are totally new to PvP. Do not constantly run from a dervish with featherfoot grace or any other melee with a speed boost or snare or cripple, or you get hit in the back for massive damage.

A winning strategy today is to have the warrior cripple the dervish or assassin, the dervish go after the ritualist (who will probably run and get hit in the back because you have featherfoot grace) and the paragon/assassin or other damage dealer help the dervish out. Or you could always go double healer. But if you don't, backlining with a cripslash war/ele with grasping earth is crucial.

Daily Surprise: Assassins using hammer bash and falling spider. To do this well you either have to have macros or be double jointed like Koreans (j/k lol anyone can do it: worth considering carrying two different weapons like hammer and sword if there's critical skills in a line such as knockdown).

Thursday October 29 2009

2009-10-29T04:55:00.000-07:00

Tons of good daze today with stunning strike and beguiling haze. No blocks. Well, except for Dryder's Defenses. But Glimmer is in too so perhaps daze won't be such a big deal against good teams.

Wounding strike is in again. Except this time no shattering sin or insidious or any kind of way to shut him down short of Spirit Shackles and mesmer snares. Mesmer may be crucial today.

Prediction
Today's Meta: Mantra of Recall and spirit shackles, Wounding Strike, Stunning Strike, Glimmer of Light

Today's Anti-Meta: Crippling Slash, Reaper's Sweep, Weapon of Remedy, Glimmer of Light

PuGs: Beguiling Haze, Stunning Strike, Reaper's Sweep, Glimmer of Light

Wednesday October 28 2009 Wrapup

2009-10-28T20:42:00.000-07:00

Well got one codex point playing with pugs again. Seems like the reason most pugs lose isn't because of bad skill bar but bad tactics. Like attacking their melee to cripple them went a long way to taking pressure off your monk vs high physical teams, and rushing in to their priest right when they're about to res is not a good idea when you're up four reses (yes we lost one like that).

Anyway met a cocky sin who was farming codex points five at a time. Basically he ran sin, derv, rt, mo and farmed points five at a time with double healers (spirit light weapon and monk elite). Copied him and won five and got a lot of wins with pugs, winning 3 losing 1 winning 4 losing 1 that kind of thing.

I am almost ready to make my next guide "How to win 5 in Codex Arena." Stay tuned casual players you'll want to read it.

Daily Surprise: Guilded team with no monk but cruel spear, charging strike, burning arrow and shattering assault.

Wednesday October 28 2009 Prediction

2009-10-28T00:28:00.001-07:00

Today will be pretty funny. Protection monk is the healer but tons of enchantment removal. To top it off very little shutdown except mesmer snares. Not only that but blackout is in. Great day for new players.

Prediction

Today's Meta: Migraine, Shattering Assault, Cruel Spear, Blessed Light

Today's Anti-Meta: Wail of Doom, Shadow Prison, Reaper's Sweep, Signet of Judgment

Tuesday October 27 2009 Wrapup

2009-10-27T16:09:00.000-07:00

Today's meta was (is) wounding strike dervish/elementalist with conjure, assault enchantments assassin, weaken knees necromancer/mesmer with anti hex and aura of faith monk/assassin with return.

If anyone is still playing a winning strategy seems to center around disabling the other team's dervish with insidious + shadow of fear, using your dervish to keep their melee crippled then go after whoever is not a /a so they don't return and cripple you (probably the necromancer). Wounding strike is so powerful today that if you can keep their dervish shutdown while your dervish runs rampant, you've probably won.

I saw ineptitude mesmers too but they didn't seem to do nearly as well as necromancers at shutting down the dervish.

Daily Surprise: Someone from eF (or says he is) selling an invite for 100 ecto/month. No thanks lol.

Tuesday October 27 2009

2009-10-27T04:25:00.000-07:00

The first day that ebon dust aura isn't in. Nice replacement with wounding strike.

First showing of diversion! Also of disracting shot. Watch your res sigs!

Prediction
Today's Meta: Wounding Strike, Stunning Strike, Energy Surge, Aura of Faith
Today's anti-Meta: Ether Renewal healer, Shadow Prison, Bull's Charge, Melandru's Shot

Monday October 26 2009 Wrapup

2009-10-26T22:30:00.000-07:00

Well didn't get a codex point today -- spent all day playing with PuGs. Did get four wins with this build:

Swift Javelin
Blazing Spear
Glowing Signet
Cruel Spear
Disrupting Throw
Go For the Eyes
Strip Enchantment
Resurrection Signet

In my opinion better than any blindbot out there. Got four wins with randoms that I asked to spike... pretty simple stuff after charging adrenal I would press ctrl space on my target 3-4 times and all they would do is press t and 1-2-3-4. Had a RaO spear and a sin with Dark Prison teleporting in. Anyway spiking is not that hard: I didn't even have vent.

Daily Surprise: Glimmering Mark eles plus Reaper's Mark necros.

Codex Guild

2009-10-26T19:59:00.001-07:00

Made a codex guild with some random guy I found.

Anyone interested send me a message here or in game. It'll play from 7-8 or so Eastern time daily. No ranks in anything required: but preferred if you've actually played Codex for a few days and decided this is what you want to. At first we'll start with high damage, self sufficient builds then move onto more synergistic teamwork requiring ones.