Team - Path of Fire Open Field Zerg

The Official API is experiencing issues; skill, trait and item data cannot be loaded at the moment.
Note: Please note that builds will default to plain icons, these may not be as accurate. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Introduction

This team composition revolves around a high sustain, high damage comp that generates large amounts of downed enemies quickly.

The parties listed are a strong open field choice for pug zergs and large guild runs, however moving around classes to suit what you have, dropping or adding healers, swapping DPS roles and using extra support guardians are all viable choices. A detailed list of strong variants can be found underneath the class tables.

The higher your numbers go, the more of these parties you can add to your comp. It is perfectly fine using single Guardian + Double Guardian parties, or other variants listed below.

Class Roles

Guardians/Firebrands support their party with boons and sustain, enabling damaging classes to survive against enemy groups. This job can be completed effectively by the core Guardian build, but is outclassed by Firebrand at a fairly steep difficulty increase. The most important duty of the Guardian/Firebrand is to provide Stability for their party during engages as well as cleansing of conditions, CCing and healing. The Burn Guard provides damage, reflects and CC..

Scourge is primarily a damage dealer, but is also able to provide unique access to AoE Barrier, some reasonable condition cleansing and powerful boon corrupting abilities. First and foremost consider this a DPS role, with variants that can make it a unique and powerful support. A Support Scourge also contributes some damage, but the playstyle focuses more on sustaining allies and resurrections.

Chronomancer is vital for CC and boon support in any group, with access to unique skills such as

Veil

¼

72

Veil

Glamour. Create a wall that grants stealth to you and your allies.

Stealth (2s): Invisible to foes.

Curtain duration: 6 seconds

Combo Field: Light

Range: 900

and

Portal Entre

72

Portal Entre

Glamour. Create an entry portal at your location that teleports allies to your exit portal.

Range Threshold: 5,000

Duration: 60 seconds

, as well as unique access to

Distortion

50

Distortion

Shatter. Destroy all your clones and phantasms, gaining distortion for each one shattered.

Distortion (1s): Evade all attacks.

Prevents Capture-Point Contribution

Range: 1,200

to avoid enemy damage.

Spellbreaker provide AoE and single target burst damage, but primarily belongs in any Zerg due to Winds of Disenchantment, an AoE skill that can annihilate large groups of enemies and enables your Zerg to perform huge damage spikes on vulnerable targets.

Herald is a powerful spike DPS class that can operate at large ranges, making them one of the best classes to use if you do not plan to engage the enemy group head on but still need to be dishing out damage. Renegade can replace Herald for similar builds and damage with differing kinds of group support.

Weaver has access to extremely high damage and hard CC, cycling through attunements quickly to ensure they are CCing, DPSing and even supporting minimally. The primary focus is to land
, as it is a huge portion of your damage.

Scrapper has enormous AoE healing, and modest access to stealth and stealth counters. They belong primarily in zergs for their support abilities, but should focus on using CC and securing downstates as well.

Thief has enormous single target burst and can smash through melee enemies quickly whilst in the evade frames of
. More importantly, however, Thief has access to numerous smoke fields, which can be used with blast finishers to stealth entire zergs for engages.

Party Composition

(Solo Guardians - Pirate Ship)

Qty	Profession	Build
Party 1
1	Firebrand	Support Firebrand
2	Scourge	Power Scourge OR Cele Scourge
1	Herald	Hammer Backline
1	Weaver	Backline Weaver
Party 2
1	Firebrand	Support Firebrand
2	Scourge	Power Scourge OR Cele Scourge
1	Herald	Hammer Backline
1	Burn Guard (Flex Slot)	Burn Guard
Party 3
1	Firebrand	Support Firebrand
1	Herald	Hammer Backline
1	Scourge	Power Scourge OR Cele Scourge
1	Weaver	Backline Weaver
1	Chronomancer	Support Chrono
15 total

(Duo Guardians - Melee Heavy)

Qty	Profession	Build
Party 1
1	Firebrand	Support Firebrand
1	Firebrand	Support Firebrand Valor Variant
1	Chronomancer	Support Chrono
2	Scourge	Power Scourge OR Cele Scourge
Party 2
1	Firebrand	Support Firebrand
1	Firebrand	Support Firebrand Valor Variant
1	Chronomancer	Support Chrono
1	Scourge	Power Scourge OR Cele Scourge
1	Staff Thief (Flex DPS Slot)	Staff DPS
Party 3
1	Firebrand	Support Firebrand
1	Firebrand	Support Firebrand Valor Variant
2	Scourge	Power Scourge OR Cele Scourge
1	Heal Scrapper (Flex Support Slot)	Frontline Healer
15 total

Variants

Merciful Frontliner can be used in this composition, replacing Firebrands for those lacking expansions, but is not recommended.
Pirate Ship Scourges can be replaced by backline hammer Heralds or Weavers, which trades boonstrip for a greater ability to range and 'pirate ship'
Eles, Druids and Ventari Revenants can all fill the healer slot. Druid is the highest damage option thanks to
providing significant Might uptime, Tempest providing extremely useful hard CC and cleanse, and Ventari providing larger healing overall with some Alacrity access.
Blood Magic Support scourges can also be used in either of these comps for extra downstate control and Barrier at the cost of raw healing.
Some groups drop the Chronomancer in lieu of more damage options or an extra support
Burn Guard brings top tier AoE spread DPS, but can replaced by any other DPS option
In melee comps, Spellbreaker is a strong DPS and boon control class.

Flex Slots

Flex DPS slots can be filled with any DPS class. Staff Thief is is an example of niche but effective DPS classes to fill this position. Burn DH is provided as the Pirate Ship example for its access to strong CC at long distances to enable your group to damage, as well as high DPS, Vulnerability and Cripple access.
- Note that Staff Thief also has easy and reliable access to Smoke Fields, allowing for open field blasting of Stealth.
Flex Support/Healing slots can be filled by any healer, with Scrapper being used as the example due to its popularity and 'all rounder' strengths.

General Usage

Opening

Melee Heavy group Guardians start fights with

at a distance. Blast smoke fields from Thieves or use

to stealth engage. Upon engaging enemies, Scourges should use

together as an initial spike, following up with

and

for an additional instant damage spike. This should create enemy downstates, enabling your group to snowball the fight in your favor.

Pirate Ship fights begin similarly with

. Stealth blasting or Veil is still recommended to enable quick burst from Stealth. At this point, rather than engaging the enemy directly, Chronomancers and Weavers can use long range CC skills such as

and

to catch enemies, creating a cluster of caught players for your group to eliminate with long range damaging skills. Save your Scourges high damage skills for when the enemy group attempts to push against you, stopping them from closing the gap between groups with a high damage and boonrip spike. Alternatively, use the Scourges to push against enemy downstates to quickly secure them and potentially snowball fights.

Extended Engages

Melee Heavy groups heavily rely on support from their Firebrands to stay alive during extended engages. If you have not managed to end the fight quickly with a high opening burst, there will be a great deal of incoming pressure as you stay engaged in Melee range. The most important thing for a Melee group to do is to focus on the main group of enemies, preventing them from recovering from your initial engage, and generating continuous downstate enemies. When wells come off cooldown, if your scourges save them to use at the same time and place, this can create powerful damage spikes that can turn fights.

Pirate Shipping comps favour extended engages, trading out the melee spike for considerably higher sustained DPS and the safety of long range. Continue to pull and CC enemies, whittling down their numbers. When you have significantly weakened enemy groups with your ranged pressure and secured some kills, you can move in with Scourges to push over what remains of the enemy group.

Focusing Downstates

One of the most important things to do once you have generated enemies in downstate is to finish them before they can rally or be revived. This is a good time for quick CCs such as

or

Fear. Corrupting boons is also important if enemies are trying to revive their team mates, as it will remove stability or resistance and make them easy prey to the damage you are laying down in the area. Above all, focus on maximizing damage on downstate enemies. Cleaving out enemy downstates to rally your own allies is also extremely important when in large groups, often turning the tide of fights.

Allied downstates bring up two options- either ignore completely or coordinate your efforts to save them. Guardians can instantly revive allies if they are fast to use their

, but if allies are left on the floor and cleaves a considerable amount revives can be extremely dangerous. Going to revive downed allies is usually an easy way for enemy groups to force you into their damage, and so displacement skills such as

and

are extremely useful for getting allies out of damage to safe revive locations. Attempting to revive on any DPS focused class is 9/10 times a deathwish, and all downstates should be communicated with commanders so that numerous frontliners can work together to save you.