Curse

Vernphos · Feb 21, 2012, 03:41 PM // 15:41

So I messed around with wounding strike last night.

Wow.

On command, covered deep wound every three seconds was STRONG.

I ran a teardown build, so enchants were no trouble.

Here's what I used:

Wounding Strike
Reap Impurities -(hero uses withering aura on me)
Drunken master
Zealous renewal -feeder+damage+energy
Heart of Holy flame -damage+5 sec burn
Balthazar's rage -3 sec burn + 2 adrenaline (feeds reap and SY)
Save Yourselves
Aura of holy might -23 damage on each teardown

basically run up to a mob, cause burn, spread deep wound/bleed, reap run to next group.

I like WS because of the bar compression...I basically only need one teardown skill and can reap essentially continually. I can also run 13 in both scythe mastery and mysticism

I was using VoS/sand shards before...but this build really smashes mobs.

Comments, criticism (WS sucks noob, use Pious Renewal or VoS/Shards) welcomed.

Axel Zinfandel · Feb 21, 2012, 04:10 PM // 16:10

I sorta viewed WS + feeders as interchangeable with PR + teardowns. Same general playstyle with different execution. I tend to enjoy PR a bit more for it's ability to fuel Twin Moon Sweep, which is ridiculously devastating.

If you're not looking to breeze through booze though, i'd suggest bringing Heart of Fury for your IAS instead. Pretty much a universally better choice

People seemed to stop using WS when the update hit and i couldn't really see why seeing as it pretty much got straight up buffed

Vernphos · Feb 21, 2012, 04:49 PM // 16:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by Axel Zinfandel

I sorta viewed WS + feeders as interchangeable with PR + teardowns. Same general playstyle with different execution. I tend to enjoy PR a bit more for it's ability to fuel Twin Moon Sweep, which is ridiculously devastating.

If you're not looking to breeze through booze though, i'd suggest bringing Heart of Fury for your IAS instead. Pretty much a universally better choice

People seemed to stop using WS when the update hit and i couldn't really see why seeing as it pretty much got straight up buffed

I've used the PR builds. I found that spamming Deepw was not as easy, and that was before they bumped it to 6 adrenaline. Some will disagree loudly, but I find the damage output from PR to be not as good as having flash enchantments that actually do damage when you cast them (staggering, holy flame, zealous renewal). And with 13 Mysticism, energy is never a problem.

You are right about Twin Moon. I love it, but I found I could not support 2 teardowns while using only 3 feeders (on 10s recharge). Reap impurities fit right in and can be spammed essentially at will.

edit: I just thought about fragility in conjunction with this...

bleeding, deepwound, burning, weakness all applied at once. Oh and don't you dare remove them or BOOM. lol

Damian Manson · Feb 21, 2012, 05:44 PM // 17:44

While your on the subject of fragility I have used it on a hero build and it sounds good on paper and only is if you micro it on a hero, which I never liked doing with skills like frag but yes WS is a rather nice tear down attack combo and as you explained if your prepared to micro fragility then would be rather nice additional damage.

finsky · Feb 21, 2012, 05:55 PM // 17:55

I use a similar build myself but as A/D, can't bother making a derv.

12/12 crit+scythe

WS
Reap Impurities
Optional
Aura of thorns
Conviction
"you're all weaklings!"
way of the master
critical agility

Quote:

Originally Posted by Damian Manson

While your on the subject of fragility I have used it on a hero build and it sounds good on paper and only is if you micro it on a hero, which I never liked doing with skills like frag but yes WS is a rather nice tear down attack combo and as you explained if your prepared to micro fragility then would be rather nice additional damage.

And I use it with a FD+fragility mesmer, just run into a mob pinging your target and your hero will actually cast FD and fragility first. As you reach the mob he's done casting and you rape face. But I agree, if the mob doesn't even ball slightly it's kinda annoying.

Kunder · Feb 21, 2012, 08:50 PM // 20:50

PR is pretty much straight up better in every way. WS is still a great skill but since the Derv update it is unable to stack up to the loloverpoweredlol stuff.

Vernphos · Feb 21, 2012, 09:09 PM // 21:09

Quote:

Originally Posted by finsky

I use a similar build myself but as A/D, can't bother making a derv.

12/12 crit+scythe

WS
Reap Impurities
Optional
Aura of thorns
Conviction
"you're all weaklings!"
way of the master
critical agility

And I use it with a FD+fragility mesmer, just run into a mob pinging your target and your hero will actually cast FD and fragility first. As you reach the mob he's done casting and you rape face. But I agree, if the mob doesn't even ball slightly it's kinda annoying.

I think that build was the rage before they nerfed Asuran Scan. Still interesting as is, but I wonder which enchantments you feed to WS. You're basically stuck with 5E ones, since you dont get the benefit of mysticism. And the 5 E ones kinda suck, imho.

you could replace "YAAW" with armor of sanctity. Does the same thing +damage reduction until you strip it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kunder

PR is pretty much straight up better in every way. WS is still a great skill but since the Derv update it is unable to stack up to the loloverpoweredlol stuff.

I was waiting for you to show up and cheer for PR.

Care to share your build? Because I have not found one to equal VoS/Shards in terms of raw damage. I have used PR in many variations; Yes its cool that you have infinite enchantments, but you are limited by how fast you can activate the teardowns: pious fury 10s, twin moon 7adr, weary strike now 6 adr.

the only real 'extra' damage comes from aohm, so teardown is the bottleneck

Kunder · Feb 21, 2012, 10:22 PM // 22:22

Make sure you have Dark Fury + FGJ up, if you can hit 2 enemies (=8 adren per swing) then you have the fastest attack rate in the game (infinite double strike from TMS + 25% IAS) combined with the strongest weapon in the game (Scythe + Buffs). So long as you have DF+FGJ+TMS I can't see how you can really go wrong with your PR build, and most of the rest of the build should be pretty obvious shoe-ins anyway.

If you have problems handling mobs that most likely means your other teammates needs to support more. I feel gimped when not running 2 rits with 2x copies of SW just for me (one rit branches off to smite and also maintains SoH). Bringing Reap Impurities + Withering Aura instead of a SW spammer is something I've recently warmed up to, mostly because unlike SW RI will also perform decently against single enemies and when FGJ is down its very useful to alternate between it and TMS.

Relyk · Feb 21, 2012, 10:23 PM // 22:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vernphos

Yes its cool that you have infinite enchantments, but you are limited by how fast you can activate the teardowns: pious fury 10s, twin moon 7adr, weary strike now 6 adr.

You're forgetting about Pious Assault.

Vernphos · Feb 21, 2012, 10:54 PM // 22:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kunder

Make sure you have Dark Fury + FGJ up, if you can hit 2 enemies (=8 adren per swing) then you have the fastest attack rate in the game (infinite double strike from TMS + 25% IAS) combined with the strongest weapon in the game (Scythe + Buffs). So long as you have DF+FGJ+TMS I can't see how you can really go wrong with your PR build, and most of the rest of the build should be pretty obvious shoe-ins anyway.

If you have problems handling mobs that most likely means your other teammates needs to support more. I feel gimped when not running 2 rits with 2x copies of SW just for me (one rit branches off to smite and also maintains SoH). Bringing Reap Impurities + Withering Aura instead of a SW spammer is something I've recently warmed up to, mostly because unlike SW RI will also perform decently against single enemies and when FGJ is down its very useful to alternate between it and TMS.

I can see the potential of continual double strike. However, Dark fury forces me to bring a hero spec'd into blood. Unless its a BiP (which I don't use), i need to get to 5 blood in order for it to be useful. Not to mention, the constant 17% drain on the hero every 5 seconds just for the benefit of ONE character...me. As far as a team build goes, i can see this detracting from overall effectiveness. I also did not factor Dark Fury into my build. In such a case, WS can also spam Reap and SY much more frequently.

FGJ is a great skill, but is only up for 20s out of 45. For those 25 seconds, it sits on your bar doing nothing.

I think you also lose hidden DPS when your flash enchantments do no damage on their own, rather than a pulse + aftereffect (damage and burn for example).

Kunder · Feb 21, 2012, 11:14 PM // 23:14

Blood also has Order of Pain. When you double strike once a second OoP is about a +30 DPS boost. That's rather nice. Blood Bond/Blood Ritual are OK to good party support skills. Mark of Fury is a decent substitute if you really get bothered by FGJ going down.

As for secondary options, Curse magic (MoP/EB/Meekness/Reckless haste) is good, Channeling (SW/AR/Painful Bond) is good, Smite (SoH/Judge's Insight/Smite Condition and/or Hex) is good. When you can hit up to 6x a second anything buffing you gets exponentially more effective.

The only flash enchantment you should really be using is PR itself, and if you bring AoHM its doing a decent 25 damage per skill used. I don't see the problem really, direct flash enchant damage is a piddly amount compared to what the almighty scythe should be doing.

Saccing from a blood necro should be easily handled. Keep in mind your +20% enchants, you will probably cast OoP and DF once every 7s each or so. That's in the low 20s of DPS that you need to take care of, almost nothing compared to dual MM builds which have 2 necromancers sacrificing 50% of their health each every 5 or 6 seconds.

Chthon · Feb 22, 2012, 03:40 AM // 03:40

1. WS is not a bad skill, but it fails to compare to PR.

2. Since you asked about a PR bar:
SY!, PR, AoHM, Pious Fury, Pious Assault, Twin Moon Sweep. Competing for the last 2 slots are Aura Slicer, Reap Impurities, Wearying Strike, and FGJ.

You asked about "how fast can you activate the teardowns"? Your build has 3 flashes on 10sec recharges, so that's its limit. PR+PA alone is teardowns on a 3sec recharge. That's already more than your build, and we haven't even gotten to Twin Moon Sweep, Pious Fury, and (if you bring it) Wearying Strike.
As for the damage on the flashes, it is easily outdown by triggering AoHM more often and the AoE on PA.

3. Pretty much any melee-based team should have a hero running:
Cultist's Fervor, OoP, Dark Fury, Blood Bond, SoH. Competing for the last 3 slots are a large number of worthwhile skills: Foul Feast, AGaze, Smite Hex, Smite Condition, Remove Hex, BR (if you have bad caster heroes), Jaundiced Gaze, Well of Blood, RoD, Judge's Intervention (if your party has a minion bomber), Scourge Enchantments/Healing/Sacrifice (if the monsters call for it), Enfeebling Blood, and Weaken Armor.

Vernphos · Feb 22, 2012, 04:24 AM // 04:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chthon

1. WS is not a bad skill, but it fails to compare to PR.

I am far from convinced of this

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chthon

2. Since you asked about a PR bar:
SY!, PR, AoHM, Pious Fury, Pious Assault, Twin Moon Sweep. Competing for the last 2 slots are Aura Slicer, Reap Impurities, Wearying Strike, and FGJ.

This is about what I ran. i had wearying and Reap as the last two slots.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chthon

You asked about "how fast can you activate the teardowns"? Your build has 3 flashes on 10sec recharges, so that's its limit. PR+PA alone is teardowns on a 3sec recharge. That's already more than your build, and we haven't even gotten to Twin Moon Sweep, Pious Fury, and (if you bring it) Wearying Strike.
As for the damage on the flashes, it is easily outdown by triggering AoHM more often and the AoE on PA.

You're forgetting about the near constant burning and bleeding over 10 sec (5+3) . That's 20 DPS that PR does not have. With the maximum attack rate of the scythe capped at about 1/sec, I don't see how you assume this massive damage output from aohm. WS may only pulse at 1/3sec, but I feel the degen +flash more than makes up the difference.

PR also takes time to warm up and build adrenaline. WS walks up and smacks you in the head. There is no other skill in the game that can triple DW/Bleed Burn on the first swing.

Chthon · Feb 22, 2012, 04:37 AM // 04:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vernphos

You're forgetting about the near constant burning and bleeding over 10 sec (5+3) . That's 20 DPS that PR does not have. With the maximum attack rate of the scythe capped at about 1/sec, I don't see how you assume this massive damage output from aohm. WS may only pulse at 1/3sec, but I feel the degen +flash more than makes up the difference.

1. Just to be clear, the massive damage output comes from spamming TMS.

2. A much more minor point is that the AoE on PR and the extra triggers on AoHM already outdamage the bonus damage and conditions coming off your flashes without needing to go look at exactly how often TMS is getting used.

Edit:

Over 3 cycles:
BRage does 42 from burning + 23 from AoHM
ZR does nothing + 23 from AoHM
HoFA does 27 base + 70 from burning + 23 from AoHM
(note that I am making the very favorable (and very unlikely) assumption that you can keep BRage and HoFA spaced out so they don't overlap AND never kill anything until the burning has run its course.)
WS does 3x19 bonus and bleeding, which I'm only going to count for 12sec as 72.
Total 337

Over 3 cycles:
PR+PA does 3x19 bonus, 3x29 AOE, and 3x23 from AoHM
Total 213

That's a difference of 124, and, contrary to my earlier statement, the PR build may not catch up through AoHM alone. It needs 5.3 more teardowns to catch up through AoHM alone. PFury is one. TMS and Wearying are each at least one. It needs 2.3 more. If TMS has reached the point where it's self-feeding, then it gets there easily (and does a bucketload more damage on top thanks to TMS). If TMS isn't self feeding, it won't catch up through AoHM alone, but certainly will catch up from the damage on TMS.

So, in sum, your build is still worse than PR, but I was incorrect to say that it's so much worse that PR+PA+AoHM alone always beats it.

Vernphos · Feb 22, 2012, 05:07 AM // 05:07

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chthon

1. Just to be clear, the massive damage output comes from spamming TMS.

Your condition for spamming TMS is pretty narrow. 2 targets, dark Fury and FGJ all at once.

FGJ is active less than half the time.

Dark Fury, imho, is a waste of a skill and weakens your team effort when used for buffing ONE PERSON. Blood magic is by far the weakest necro branch in terms of damage output. You really want to sacrifice one hero just to give one person a little more damage? My opinion : a whole mesmer bar > Dark fury Necro

I agree with the comments above however about SoH and other meele buffs if they can be put into the team.

I was just comparing the two raw bars against each other.

@Chthon, You're forgetting the advantage of drunken master's +33 ias vs Hfury's +25%; its about 12% more scythe damage.

ZR deals armor ignoring holy damage in your calculation.

What cannot be accurately measured by our statistics however, is the advantage of applying deep wound instantly at the beginning of the fight. Since it is covered by burning, bleeding and (likely) weakness, the result is an instant -20% health loss AND -20% healing effectiveness. I think PR deep wound is easier to get rid of than WS, don't you agree?

EDIT: this is Fun !

Chthon · Feb 22, 2012, 06:48 AM // 06:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vernphos

Your condition for spamming TMS is pretty narrow. 2 targets, dark Fury and FGJ all at once.

Math fail. Any two of those three will make TMS self-charging.
(2 hits * 2 targets * (1+1)adr/hit = 8adr; OR
2 hits * 2 targets * 1adr/hit * 200% = 8adr; OR
2 hits * (1+1)adr/hit * 200% = 8adr)

Also, any one of those alone will permit you to cycle TMS->PA->auto, which is still going to be a lot more damage output than your build.

Quote:

Dark Fury, imho, is a waste of a skill and weakens your team effort when used for buffing ONE PERSON.

Running just one physical is dumb any way you cut it. Go all in with multiple physicals and Orders or go home.

Quote:

@Chthon, You're forgetting the advantage of drunken master's +33 ias vs Hfury's +25%; its about 12% more scythe damage.

1. There's nothing stopping you from bringing DM+booze on a PR bar....

2. TMS spamming = 50% IAS > 12% IAS

Quote:

ZR deals armor ignoring holy damage in your calculation.

Oh, I left it out. You can see how it changes the numbers, and it doesn't change the overall outcome.

Quote:

What cannot be accurately measured by our statistics however, is the advantage of applying deep wound instantly at the beginning of the fight. Since it is covered by burning, bleeding and (likely) weakness, the result is an instant -20% health loss AND -20% healing effectiveness. I think PR deep wound is easier to get rid of than WS, don't you agree?

1. Deep wound is not -20% hp in PvE. It's capped at 100hp. Monsters have way more than 500hp.

2. The monster is just as dead if DW takes its first 100hp or its last 100hp.

3. The having the healing reduction in place sooner is beneficial, but not that great. When was the last time you saw someone base a PvE build around Defile Flesh or Lingering Curse?

4. You don't need to cover DW if you intend to kill with it.

5. Wounding Strike's real advantage over Wearying Strike is that you can count on it being available when you want it.

finsky · Feb 22, 2012, 10:52 AM // 10:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vernphos

I think that build was the rage before they nerfed Asuran Scan. Still interesting as is, but I wonder which enchantments you feed to WS. You're basically stuck with 5E ones, since you dont get the benefit of mysticism. And the 5 E ones kinda suck, imho.

you could replace "YAAW" with armor of sanctity. Does the same thing +damage reduction until you strip it.

I feed with conviction and aura of thorns. Both are 5e 10rc enchants. As you say, it gets energy intensive with 10e enchants but conviction removes 2 conditions easily/fast and aof is there for the cripple to trigger FD. It might not be the most effective, but it blows stuff up+easy perma daze and its way funnier than jagged, fox, db spam.

Regarding YAWW, I thought about taking armor of sanctity but didn't like it. It has casting time making me stop attacking, I have to be close to the mobs and it has a longer coolddown.

Kunder · Feb 22, 2012, 01:00 PM // 13:00

It's a well accepted fact that physicals are pretty poor all on their own, it's only through buffs that physicals reigns supreme. The best physical builds ALL are constructed around local maxima in their means of hitting multiple times in order to maximize the buff effectiveness.

Example: 100B, Earth Shaker, VoS, Death Blossom chain, Barrage. And PR. You'll notice that all of these builds are the absolute best you can do in hitting multiple targets multiple times with their respective weapons, and its not by coincidence that they are also the best builds overall for their weapon type. When 2/3rds of your damage comes from buffs, multihit attacks that double that number reap more gains than any number of attack skills or flash enchantment ever come close to reaching.

Vernphos · Feb 22, 2012, 04:11 PM // 16:11

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kunder

It's a well accepted fact that physicals are pretty poor all on their own, it's only through buffs that physicals reigns supreme. The best physical builds ALL are constructed around local maxima in their means of hitting multiple times in order to maximize the buff effectiveness.

I think its also pretty accepted that Hero AI for meele is just BAD. Why would I replace mesmers/necros with warriors/dervishes? Having them buffed is nice, but if they stand there doing nothing it's a waste.

That said, I experimented last night with a N/Mo for curses and SoH. worked pretty well.

I've also thought about replacing AoHM with something that would give more damage, like sand shards, but I usually loathe to spec into a branch for just one skill, and I don't know that it would significantly increase damage over AoHM.

So this thread has raised some interesting points. I think since this weekend is a Kurzick/Luxon double pointer, I will take turns running both builds and compare them in terms of speed/effectiveness in doing Vq

Kunder · Feb 22, 2012, 09:23 PM // 21:23

Hero AI IS poor, but keep in mind that it tends to be poor in very specific ways. Most importantly, heroes are completely unable to position themselves for proper use of AoE attacks (which is obviously a main part of the hitting as many enemies at once paradigm that melee needs to follow). Scythes and TMS spammers, however, have their attack spam come not from positioning but pure brute force of spamming against a single target. Heroes aren't too poor at that assuming you don't give them too many skills to choose from.

That said, I definitely don't think that another melee or even physical is needed. I could see one being better than a caster in some instances and worse in others.

Sand Shards is totally baller but I also loathe the attribute spec required for it. Reap Impurities + Splinter Weapon (or splinter weapon alone with 2x copies) can already annihilate a tightly packed group in seconds, cutting that by one attack isn't going to save much time. AoHM is certainly a completely replaceable skill though.