Curse

Mikayel · Oct 27, 2009, 11:50 PM // 23:50

I'm developing a build along the curses line, working around Spiteful Spirit. I've been having some difficulty finding something that works for me, or at least that I can use effectively. Been playing mm and my r/mo so I am so clumsy handling curses. any suggestions on putting together a decent easy build for a first time curse user

oh-and it's a proph character but I have nightfall and factions. But I haven't gotten anywhere in them with that character, so any skill suggestions should be proph only, or in port towns

maxxfury · Oct 27, 2009, 11:56 PM // 23:56

A lot of people like to run Arcane Echo to double the output of Spiteful,
along with Reckless Haste to max out the attack speed of mobs in normal mode, and add the the % block vs physicals.

These 2 skills alone increase the damage of SS quite substantially.

You can also run Enfeebling blood to neuter the physicals you face very easily.

That leaves you 4 spots for he likes of Necrosis, Mark of Pain, Barbs. Weaken armour or Sig of Lost Souls ect.

Thats a good start for an SS bar. Enjoy.

*was posting before you update

A couple of the extra skills may not be available.

Eragon Zarroc · Oct 28, 2009, 01:33 AM // 01:33

PvX Wiki ~ SS Nuker

Xx Da Best Xx · Oct 28, 2009, 01:34 AM // 01:34

Can bring Insidious Parasite to replace Necrosis...other than that the skills maxxfury listed are nice

NecroticChanter · Oct 28, 2009, 01:44 AM // 01:44

In HM, Enfeebling Blood should never leave your bar. Necrosis and MoP are great too. In NM, Reckless Haste for Enfeebling. Bring barbs if you are running with an MM. Lastly, I would bring defile flesh if I had room for those situations when you have 2 or more enemy monks.

IronSheik · Oct 28, 2009, 07:04 AM // 07:04

Mark of pain and enfeebling blood.

Tenebrae · Oct 28, 2009, 09:23 AM // 09:23

For HM Enfeebling Blood and Weaken Armor , thats it . Going with some phys or a MM , Barbs is the kiss of death.

gremlin · Oct 28, 2009, 09:58 AM // 09:58

We seem to be using similar builds, mine is probably not perfect but suits me.
Barbs is indeed a real killer when you run with a mm

Spiteful Spirit
Barbs
Mark of Pain
Reckless Haste "Factions"
Parasitic Bond
Hexers Vigor "Nightfall"
Signet of Lost Souls "Nightfall"

Sometimes use Enfeebling blood but not often

The first four skills are the core of the build anything else is just personal taste.

ruemere · Oct 29, 2009, 12:43 PM // 12:43

Standard AP-MOP Caller (general version first, Prophecies-only version follows)

Curses: 10 +1 +1
Soul Reaping: 11 +1
Deadly Arts: 10

Equipment: Spear (to strengthen Barbs/MoP effect) + HP items.

Skills:
- Parasitic Bond (spammable hex and self-heal, great synergy with both strong spiking and Ebon Assassin's Iron Palm Skill)
- You Move Like a Dwarf (or any ranged skill inflicting condition, not necessarily spammable, Enfeebling Blood or Weaken Armor work fine, too)
- Assassin's Promise [Elite]
- Ebon Vanguard Assassin Support (or any non-spammable skill for damageing the enemy - spirits, minions, though EVAS works best)
- Finish Him (or Necrosis or any spammable damage skills or nonspammable finisher)
- Barbs
- Mark of Pain
- Signet of Lost Souls

Skills: (Prophecies only)
- Parasitic Bond
- Enfeeble

MOP Caller (Prophecies-only version):

Beast Mastery 10
Curses: 10 +1 +1
Soul Reaping: 10 +1

Equipment: Spear (to strengthen Barbs/MoP effect) + HP items.

Skills:
Necromancer / Ranger

Parasitic Bond
Barbs
Mark of Pain
Tiger's Fury
Call of Haste
Charm Animal
Comfort Animal
<optional>

Regards,
Ruemere

Olim Chill · Oct 29, 2009, 01:18 PM // 13:18

Quote:

Originally Posted by gremlin

Hexer's Vigor "Nightfall"

EotN

Quote:

For HM Enfeebling Blood and Weaken Armor

Yeah, those really shine in HM.

Mikayel · Oct 31, 2009, 05:09 AM // 05:09

I think I may have hit something here.

i managed to put together something that I can rattle off in a good chain and isn't so clumsy for me. I had a long night at work and I only did one test run in NM and it seems like a decent start. Ill test it in HM tomorrow with variations. any suggestions welcome

curses 13
soul reaping 13

spiteful spirit
mark of pain
parasitic bond
barbs (w/ tank heroes)
faintheartedness
enfeebling blood
signet of lost souls
rotting flesh

Tenebrae · Nov 01, 2009, 09:14 PM // 21:14

You may want to change faintheartedness for Insidious Parasite , at least on HM. With SS and IP melees drop in seconds and you want them to attack faster , not slower , they should be weakened anyway.

AtomicMew · Nov 03, 2009, 07:46 PM // 19:46

Weaken armor is actually weaker in HM than in NM. This is due to the fact that armor ignoring damage represents a higher percentage of damage in HM.

Also, if HM foes do have higher armor than NM foes, then cracked armor is nearly worthless.

Tenebrae · Nov 03, 2009, 08:43 PM // 20:43

Are you talking about mobs or players build ? :s

HigherMinion · Nov 05, 2009, 05:03 PM // 17:03

Quote:

Originally Posted by ruemere

Standard AP-MOP Caller (general version first, Prophecies-only version follows)

Curses: 10 +1 +1
Soul Reaping: 11 +1
Deadly Arts: 10

Equipment: Spear (to strengthen Barbs/MoP effect) + HP items.

Skills:
- Parasitic Bond (spammable hex and self-heal, great synergy with both strong spiking and Ebon Assassin's Iron Palm Skill)
- You Move Like a Dwarf (or any ranged skill inflicting condition, not necessarily spammable, Enfeebling Blood or Weaken Armor work fine, too)
- Assassin's Promise [Elite]
- Ebon Vanguard Assassin Support (or any non-spammable skill for damageing the enemy - spirits, minions, though EVAS works best)
- Finish Him (or Necrosis or any spammable damage skills or nonspammable finisher)
- Barbs
- Mark of Pain
- Signet of Lost Souls

Skills: (Prophecies only)
- Parasitic Bond
- Enfeeble

Regards,
Ruemere

This build is a Discord-AP caller. Below is what I use with a Physical based team; which is generally superior.

The MoP nuker must, in most areas of PvE, contain Rigor Mortis. Otherwise you lose 90% of your damage when you encounter a block-heavy mob.

-Barbs
-EvAssassin
-MoP
-Assassin's Promise [Elite]
-Reckless Haste/Enfeebling Blood(The two are inter-changable, though RH is a good fish/coverhex)
- Rigor Mortis
- By Ulral's Hammer (I just can't resist Constant +25% damage when Mark of Pain is involved.)
- [optional PvE skill] (I usually use Mindbender or Tryptophan signet, for a little more defence.)

Chthon · Nov 05, 2009, 06:25 PM // 18:25

Quote:

Originally Posted by HigherMinion

This build is a Discord-AP caller. Below is what I use with a Physical based team; which is generally superior.

The MoP nuker must, in most areas of PvE, contain Rigor Mortis. Otherwise you lose 90% of your damage when you encounter a block-heavy mob.

-Barbs
-EvAssassin
-MoP
-Assassin's Promise [Elite]
-Reckless Haste/Enfeebling Blood(The two are inter-changable, though RH is a good fish/coverhex)
- Rigor Mortis
- By Ulral's Hammer (I just can't resist Constant +25% damage when Mark of Pain is involved.)
- [optional PvE skill] (I usually use Mindbender or Tryptophan signet, for a little more defence.)

I was going to comment that the first AP build posted was pretty bad, but I decided to be lazy. Since you brought the topic up again, I might as well weigh in. I think your build is fine, but I tend to view the variable skills in a different light:

Three skills are literally glued to the bar:

AP
MoP
Vanguard Assassin

Two skills are as close as they can get to being glued to the bar:

Barbs.
The only reason to ever take this off is if your team does so incredibly much damage that you can't ever get it cast before something dies. Happens from time to time with very good parties.
Enfeebling Blood
The only reason to ever take this off is super heavy removal. Multiple Kournan paragons basically. In that case, replace with a melee hate AoE curse.

One skill is very strongly attached to the bar:

Finish Him!
Only take this off when you are quite sure of your team's killing power and ability to follow calls. Without it, you can't force kills yourself, so you run a much greater risk of missing your AP if your team can't/won't do it for you.

The leaves 1 free PvE slot, for which there are two strong options:

Technobabble.
Great for killing troublesome monks and stifling damage from casters. With practice, you can abuse the predictable AI to stifle the best spell off an entire mob of casters. This is my preferred choice for this space whenever strong healer or caster monsters are present.
By Ural's Hammer!
25% damage boost. Yippee! I use this whenever I don't need technobabble.

The final slot has a bunch of different candidates depending on what the zone needs. If the zone calls for a specific counter, that counter goes here; otherwise it's used for a second melee hate to make sure you can get full coverage if the mob fans out on you.

Rigor Mortis.
Is there heavy blocking? Then bring this.
Rend Enchantments.
Effective prot? Bring this.
Chilblains.
For when you really, really don't like their enchantments.
Vocal Minority.
Annoying shouts? Use this.
Reckless Haste.
Good melee hate.
Meekness.
Good melee hate if you don't want to use RH. For instance, if there's a TrypSig on your team.
Shadow of Fear.
A second alternative to RH for melee hate. Also a good skill if you need to draw out/overload lots of hex removal.

HigherMinion · Nov 05, 2009, 06:40 PM // 18:40

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chthon

]Finish Him!
Only take this off when you are quite sure of your team's killing power and ability to follow calls. Without it, you can't force kills yourself, so you run a much greater risk of missing your AP if your team can't/won't do it for you.

I used to run this when I was introduced to the build, but as you say if you can depend on the team, it's not necessary. Besides, usually in a party with a few more humans, one of the physicals will have a Deep Wound; AND more importantly:

The MoP Nuker must be the one to call the targets. He depends on AP to recharge his skills and applies major damage to the foe. If your melee are stupid and don't target this foe, you cannot change target for 20 seconds, lose AP for 60 seconds AND things don't go pewpew!!!

Edit: Besides, a melee character can easily switch targets, without loss of DPS apart from if the target is silly ages away. Tell them to just spam T-space or something... While you hold down Ctrl!

Cursed Harbinger · Nov 06, 2009, 01:45 PM // 13:45

assasins promis, u mve like a dwarf, ebon sin, finish him, suffering, enfibling blood, insid parasite, res sig. Gwamm done.

IronSheik · Nov 06, 2009, 03:56 PM // 15:56

Incase everyone above hasn't read OPs post.

No Eotn.

And the build was centered around SS, not AP.

Xenomortis · Nov 07, 2009, 10:58 AM // 10:58

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cursed Harbinger

assasins promis, u mve like a dwarf, ebon sin, finish him, suffering, enfibling blood, insid parasite, res sig. Gwamm done.

Suffering is crap. Res sig is crap.
And why Insidious?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mikayel

I'm developing a build along the curses line, working around Spiteful Spirit. I've been having some difficulty finding something that works for me, or at least that I can use effectively. Been playing mm and my r/mo so I am so clumsy handling curses. any suggestions on putting together a decent easy build for a first time curse user

oh-and it's a proph character but I have nightfall and factions. But I haven't gotten anywhere in them with that character, so any skill suggestions should be proph only, or in port towns

You should probably make the effort to get Assassin's Promise. It's not a hard cap but requires a little bit of progress in the campaign.
Otherwise, just stick to SS for the time being.

Stuff like Barbs, Mark of Pain, Enfeebling Blood and Reckless Haste are very useful and are core skills for a curses Necro.

My old SS build (that I never use now) was: OABCY8xUegQzegdQZglwNYVF
SS, Reckless, Insidious, Enfeebling Blood, Barbs, MoP, Necrosis, Signet of Lost Souls
Certainly not optimal, but it was sufficient to vanquish Cantha with terrible heroes.

Without Eye of the North, you'll have to make do without the absurd PvE skills that expansion brings. You should be fine, but it means that any AP bar is going to be weaker. An AP-MoP caller bar is still very much viable (AP, MoP, Barbs, Rigor Mortis) but without the PvE skills you're weaker. The Discord caller bar is even weaker (whilst they look very similar at times, the Discord bar is dependent on PvE skills for it's strong effect).