Curse

sonofthort · May 17, 2009, 07:13 PM // 19:13

Since the recent update, which was a disappointment to most, strength of honor actually received a buff in pve. So here is my idea, A monk maintains strength of honor on 6 perma scythe sins, which at 11+1+3 smiting prayers gives +25 damage in melee too each of the sins. While the sins are attacking, this monk spams order of the vampire at 11 blood magic, which means each scythe hit steals an extra 13 health. There is one more monk who maintains life barrier on the six sins.

The idea is that with 6 perma scythe sins, they will constantly be doing aoe damage with there scythes, stealing up to 39 health with each attack, meaning they will kill stuff quickly, and essentially just be able to slash there way through most areas in the game, with out the need to take time balling stuff up and nuking.

I tested the melee buff monk build, and it is possible to maintain strength of honor on six sins while casting order of the vampire every 5-6 seconds constantly, supplying your energy with blessed signet at 8+3 divine favor, and your health with signet of devotion or blood renewal. This monk can also bring blood ritual, to fuel the bonder, who when supplied with extra energy could provide the party with additional buffs/heals.

The problem with shadow form is that some damage gets through, but when it is divided in half via life barrier, and you can steal up to 39 health with each scythe swing, you will bypass that occasional damage.

Sacratus Ignis · May 17, 2009, 07:21 PM // 19:21

yeah depending on the area could be very effective... depends a lot on opponents though. Off the top of my head I can't really think up a place where this build would outdamage a cryway team or RoJs or even splinter barragers

sonofthort · May 17, 2009, 07:44 PM // 19:44

My main purpose in proposing this build is to get away from the idea of perma sin balls up, then team nukes, then groups scatter in hm, then monks heal.... I would like to run a team configuration where people dont have to wait for tank to ball up, then nuke, everybody just keeps slashing there way through everything, non stop. I think this would be alot of fun more than anything.

samerkablamer · May 17, 2009, 08:17 PM // 20:17

What you basically said is already in existence and used by some guilds. Pulling is not required, just kill everything using this: imbagon, orders dervish, HB monk, 5 physicals such as earth shaker wars, moebius/db sins, etc. Works is pretty much every single area and doesnt require as much paying attention as trying to run a shadowform build. also it doesnt require consets but they do help alot

sonofthort · May 17, 2009, 08:24 PM // 20:24

Exactly, thats what im trying to pull off with this build. This build is basically a different way of doing that, might work better in some areas, might not in other areas. With all the permas running around today I would think this group might be easier for pugs to pull off, as perma scything is pretty simple, along with bonding.

MercenaryKnight · May 17, 2009, 08:57 PM // 20:57

I am wondering, does the bonus damage from strength of honor manage to work on hundred blades? If by some chance it is bugged and worked like that go go hundred blades whirlwind spammers with MoP and Splinter weapons.

sonofthort · May 17, 2009, 09:08 PM // 21:08

Quote:

Originally Posted by MercenaryKnight

I am wondering, does the bonus damage from strength of honor manage to work on hundred blades? If by some chance it is bugged and worked like that go go hundred blades whirlwind spammers with MoP and Splinter weapons.

Strength of honor does not boost hundred bladeds damage. I have experimented with the hundred bladeds + whirlwind attack combo before and have created a team build where a necro double echos mop, puts it on 3 targets, then one use of whirlwind attack + hundred bladeds destroys everything...kind of a pain in the but to coordinate. I use a perma to aggro, then necro casts 3 mops, then 55 monk runs in, charges adrenalin with "to the limit" + For great justice!, then uses hundred bladeds, unleashes one whirlwind upon the monsters, and boom, they are dead, sin aggros next group, so on...

Instead of a sin using a scythe, perhaps the sin could use an axe, and spam cyclone attack and whirlwind attack, or even a hammer, as hammer mastery has several aoe attacks.

MercenaryKnight · May 17, 2009, 10:50 PM // 22:50

Probably throw in a ritualist spamming greater dwarf weapon and splinter weapons and have them spec into necro curses for a mark of pain to throw in. Would be a great deal of damage.

Orange Milk · May 18, 2009, 12:50 PM // 12:50

4 Hundred Blades Warriors backed by 4 Smite Monks with Jesus Beam.

Each monk Maintains Strenght of Honor on a Warrior and they kill stuff.

Monk Bars will each carry a Heal party as well as smite hex and smite condy and a couple of other randome heals. I'd say Judges Insight too, but I think that would become way too energy intensive for the monks, though they could go Mo/E with GoLE. Of course Vig Spirit would work well on the monk bar aswell.

Whirlwind would be a must on the Warrior bars unless of course they are heros. Use Sever, Gash and Sun and Moon.

Although, this bar, backed by a smiter rolls out emense amounts of damage and adds a tad of support:

R/W
12 Axe
15 ish Expertise

[Dwarven Stability][Lightning Reflexes][Triple Chop][Cyclone Axe][Whirlwind Attack][Save Yourselves][Distracting Strike][Distracting Chop]

Of Course you could have "Save Yourselves" on all the Warriro bars aswell, that would be rather Imba and make up for the slightly weakend Monk heal bars.

Great Dwarf Weapon Is a fine idea, perhaps all the Monks roll that too, toss that on their respective Warriors and all go Mo/N and BR each other all day.

Covah · May 18, 2009, 06:23 PM // 18:23

shadowform also has the 33% dmg reduction. remember that.

MercenaryKnight · May 18, 2009, 08:25 PM // 20:25

Seems kinda like having 4 dedicated smiters running 1 enchant each would be pretty pointless. You could have 1 bond them all then cast say essence bond on a war for energy for themself, plus blessed signet to get energy up to be able to cast an RoJ. Then you could free up other slots to be support such as n/rt with orders and splinter weapon or mark of pain or something.

Just don't think your gonna need 4 dedicated smiters devoting a skill slot for something that can be put on 1 character. Heck get an e/mo with smite bond instead of protection and be an infuse healer while your at it.

My only feeling is that casters/ ranged enemies will be a pain. Wars can take out melee clumps by getting together, but the ranged ones won't. So it'd be interesting to see the damage when it comes to higher end pve with monks and ranged characters.

sonofthort · May 18, 2009, 08:39 PM // 20:39

Quote:

Originally Posted by Covah

shadowform also has the 33% dmg reduction. remember that.

This is true. There is an inherint 33% damage reduction from scythe attacks. However, there are many things which increase the damage from scythes, first is that perma scythes sins can spam powerful scythe attacks due to energy gain from critical strikes, next is that they attack 33% faster, have access to additional pve only skills which can increase damage even more, and they recieve +25 damage from strength of honor, and +13 life stealing from order of the vampire. In theory I believe this combo can do significant damage especially when you remember that there are six of these players on one team.

To use another support char like a necro or rit could increase the damage, but would create a liability, where that caster would always be in danger, and pulling monsters away from the sins.

The idea about the 4 smiters and 4 hundred blade warriors is cool. I think that each warrior would need heavy evasion stances, along with coordinated shouts and chants, and increased damage reduction/armor. As for the monks, I would be kind of scared for them, as they don't have much from protecting a group of bladed aatxes, or even just one bladed aatxe from completely destroying them in hard mode. Now that I think of it, warriors could spam "Save Yourself!", and the whole party would have +100 armor. The idea of a bonding anything else besides a perma sin represents a weakness is that enchantments are always removed by enemy spells. Shadow form, and other enchantments stacked on the permas, are very difficult to remove, there for 6 melee sins would never rly need to stop for anything, just keep on slashing and slashing, no need to wait for bonds or energy, or for necro/rits/monks to be ressurected, unless a perma screws up.

MercenaryKnight · May 18, 2009, 08:45 PM // 20:45

All the casters could bring ice imps as potential meat shields/ damage/ snares against monsters to try and prevent them from getting past the warriors/ melee damage characters.

sonofthort · May 18, 2009, 09:18 PM // 21:18

That could potentially help the case of the caster in this group, but i think the most reliable way to include some of these skills which necros and rits possess would be to have one or two of the permas in the group use them, still causing damage with there scythes due to mark of pain, splinter weapon, strenght of honor, and order of the vampire, and tremendoulsy helping the damage of all the permas.

MercenaryKnight · May 18, 2009, 10:32 PM // 22:32

I don't know, don't really like the idea of shadowform sins to deal the damage. Scythe sins with asuran scan/ whatever or warrior's endurance scythes or some form of damage dealing with someone to cast watch yourself. Could bring say 1 earth shaker warrior, 1 ms/db sin with save yourselves, then whatever else a scythe sin or scythe war. Defense should be fine with knockdowns and save yourselves. While still having good damage.

Shadow form just seems too limited a/me or a/e= no good scythe attack skills which takes away a lot more power. It would work, but it doesn't seem necessary to make them all shadowform scythes when you can still deal with a bit of healing and dish out a ton more damage.

sonofthort · May 18, 2009, 11:04 PM // 23:04

Well i think you should check out samerkablamer post at the top of this thread, fourth post down or so... Anyways, there is already a build which is like the one you described. If your arguement is that mine is inferior to that one, I would really like to find some ppl willing to test this out with me, 6 A/D and 2 monks, I've actually posted the team on PvXWiki: http://pvx.wikia.com/wiki/Build:Team_-_Perma_Scythe_Way

Like i said earlier, the pros of this build is shadow form sins can always keep on going, this team never really needs to stop. It seems that some ppl feel the con would be that there is not enough damage, but as I explained earlier, theoretically with 6 sins this could do quite alot of damage, like I said it would be nice to test it.

MercenaryKnight · May 18, 2009, 11:43 PM // 23:43

Well with 5 RoJ you could do the same thing. 5-6 damage dealers of any kind can do a lot of damage. Your main thing is using shadowform's ability to stop hexes/ spells/ conditions from affecting them. However, you could get by with one save yourselves spammer and still being able to take care of hexes/ conditions (avatar of dwayna dervishes anyone?). Seems interesting, but doesn't seem like it would out do other damage type builds.

sonofthort · May 19, 2009, 01:22 AM // 01:22

Actually with 5-6 rojs you cant do the same thing... first your team has to wait for the sin to aggro, then the groups breaks up... This build is clearly designed as to not use the tank aggro team nukes formula.

I think it would also be faster. look at this:http://pvx.wikia.com/wiki/Build:A/D_Perma_Shadow_Scythe

look at the varients section. 6 perma scythe sins bringing some of those pve only skills would be insane damage. One could bring Ebon Battle standard, they could also use I am the Strongest, light of deldimor... Just check it out. All that damage plus strength of honor with +25 damage and order of the vampire with +13 life stealing.... I think thats plenty damage, and this group woudl run alot more quickly and smoothly than traditional tank/nuke groups

MercenaryKnight · May 19, 2009, 06:25 AM // 06:25

Your comparing an entire build with scythe skills/ support skills to 1 RoJ. RoJ monks can bring cry of pain, and other skills to increase damage. They could bring arcane echo to improve damage just as well. Also, your relying on using wards and stuff that would require "balling up" just like a tank and spank. Unless you plan on using light of deldrimor on 1 lone enemy.

The thing is if you stack up any physical damage dealer you can get decent damage. The problem is, will it be worth it to stack up on shadowform sins when you could get higher damage output and just require a healing monk?

My only argument is that for most places, shadow form wouldn't be needed and could result in a better elite/ build to deal more damage.

I am also going to say, if builds could be faster than tank and spank you wouldn't see good guilds and alliances running RoJ/ cryways and completing high end places in insane times.

sonofthort · May 19, 2009, 12:11 PM // 12:11

One thing you have to remember is that tank and spank is the method prefered by most pugs. My problem with it: takes tank a while to ball things up for the nuker, and in the mean time everybody is just standing around. Also, when the sin is finally ready for the nukers, half way through the nuke the enemies decide to break aggro, and go after caters, the whole thing turns into a cluster you know what. Now i'm sure good guilds and alliances have good tanks that dont waste time when it come to aggroing, and good methods for dealing with enemie scatter. Also, remeber samerkablamer post, alot of non pug groups use a build that isn't tank and spank with alot of success. I still feel that my idea would do great damage as it is, doesn't need additional damage which in my opinion would be over kill, and I do not think it would be a hastle for the permas to ball up, for instance, one perma could be the pack leader, and every perma follows him and attacks who he is attacking, would go rather fast i believe, and most enemies group up naturally. The beauty of taking on a smaller group of enemies, 3 or 4, is that they can be killed very fast, and in hm they will not scatter if the group is less than four. I don't think that the sins would have trouble getting enemies they are attacking within there ebon battle standard, and depending on how good the players are, they could coordinate the use of ebon battle standard so they will always have one when they need it in a new location. Also, ebon battle standard is just one of the optional variants for the build, and is not completely needed, as there are other pve skills that will help damage.

As far as discussing our points any further, I don't really think its needed. I would really like to actually test this build, to once and for all determine how successful or non successful it really is. If you would like to test it with me send me a message. I am also going to post a notice in the PUG board looking for people to try it.