Curse

FolkyTom · Feb 27, 2013, 08:38 AM // 08:38

The world must know

So, here’s a 7 man hero build I’ve been sitting on for a while. Essentially, it has the ability to roll through pretty much any area by using damage from Death Nova and Explosive Growth, combined with a fresh supply of corpses every 30 seconds to create a decent minion wall.

Rt/N – Player

Aura of the Lich [E]
Generous Was Tsungrai
Ebon Battle Standard of Wisdom
Air of Superiority
“By Ural’s Hammer”
Explosive Growth
Boon of Creation
Optional – Death Nova if you want to free up slots on your heroes

R/Mo – Hero

Oath Shot [E]
Quickening Zephyr
Rebirth
Optional
Optional
Optional
Optional
Optional

N/A or A/N – Hero

Blood is Power [E]
Death Nova
Death’s Charge
Optional
Optional
Optional
Optional
Optional

NOTE: I’m honestly not sure if you need the shadow step for this build to work. It allows for high priority targets to be spiked down, but locks up your build quite a lot. I’m still playing around with this… Feedback is welcome!

Rt/N – Player

Superior Spawning Power rune + Spawning Power headgear
Mystic’s Insignias (helps preventing you from drawing agro)
Kerrsh’s Staff or equivalent (Kerrsh’s staff is easy to get after getting Air of Superiority)

R/Mo – Hero

Superior Wilderness Survival
Recurve Bow (helps Oath Shot hit more consistently)

N/A or A/N – Hero

Anything is good

This build relies on the fact that, by using “BUH!” you can ensure that all of your heroes die at the same time, meaning they will all trigger Death Nova at the same time, allowing you to set up an AotL+Explosive Growth combo as soon as your party dies. Just consider this a minion bomber build, except that your heroes play the role of the minions. The advantage of this is that heroes are easier to control than minions, and also have added utility (they can take any other skills you need). Throw onto that the +33% damage and the ability to jointly shadow step to a high priority target makes heroes vastly superior to minions in terms of bombing.

Step 1). The player forces the heroes to die, by spamming BiP
Step 2). The ranger hero uses Quickening Zephyr
Step 3). Heroes are resurrected using BUH!
Step 4). The heroes are manually made to apply Death Nova (they will automatically use it on themselves if everyone is at full HP)
Step 5)A. If there is a difficult mob ahead, make the heroes shadow step in towards the end of BUH!’s duration. After they die, follow up with AotL. This damage is enough to kill any mob in the game.
Step 5)B. If there is a weak mob, just send your heroes in as soon as they are resurrected. The +33% damage should be enough to clear up any smaller mobs.

NOTE: It is important to keep up Generous Was Tsungrai, as this will stop the mobs aggroing onto you instead of your heroes. Normally it shouldn’t matter, as the heroes will have some DP, and therefore naturally lower health than you.

Things that could go wrong:
1). You get aggroed and die
2). Quickening Zephyr is down and you don’t get the recharge from Air of Superiority/EBSoW/Staff
3). You miss time the call, and the heroes die before reaching their target
4). All of your heroes enchantments get ripped (rare)
5). Enemies that pop up may cause some issues

“You get aggroed and die” is the worst thing that could happen. The other 2 issues will slow you down, but will rarely result in complete failure.

Final word:
This build is not intended to compete with human speed clears. It is something that a　Rt/N player can run with relative ease. It doesn’t require specific hero setups; it simply requires decent micro management of your heroes. It is primarily something fun and original, which makes use of a group of skills that are largely considered trash by the majority of the community. Build Wars is fun; there is more to this game than Manlyspike, SoS ritualists and Panic mesmers.

Any feed back would be greatly appreciated.

Tom

ultimak719 · Feb 28, 2013, 02:27 AM // 02:27

It is an interesting idea and kudos to you for being creative with your builds. I haven't tested it as of now but there are a few things that seem very unreliable with it.

One is that I have no idea if the damage is enough to take down a mob in hard mode completely. It seems like that finishing off the last few guys would be tough as all of you damage is small packets of aoe.

The preparation time needed for this to work, death nova-ing everyone and resurrecting them at the end, seems very unwieldy and slow.

My last problem with this is that you need to engage the mob at the perfect time for this to work. When they are balled up. I feel like the team composition would benefit from a tank character that can ball mobs while you are preparing the spike. Then you could equip your heroes with blood magic aoe skills to kill themselves and add to the dmg.

Overall, I like the idea, it just seems very unwieldy and slow to use.

FolkyTom · Feb 28, 2013, 11:49 AM // 11:49

Thanks for your response.

I shall answer your questions one by one:-

1). The damage this build does is easily enough to take down HM mobs. I'll crunch some numbers:
At 12 death magic, Death Nova will cause 85 damage AoE damage and cause poison for 15 seconds. So with 6 people dying simultaneously, that's 510 armour-ignoring damage. At 16 spawning power, Explosive Growth will deal 65 lightning damage to 5 enemies around the corpse. With 6 corpses, you have 6x65x5 lightning damage to all adjacent foes (albeit slightly less with more enemies.) A Bladed Aatxe has 1,136HP in HM; clearly this build, if performed correctly, can wipe out any mob in the game.

2). I perhaps did not make this clear in my build guide, but the Death Nova-ing is done by the heroes. By forcing them to use Death Nova when everyone is on full HP, they will cast it on themselves. With reasonable micro skills, you can click 6 Death Nova in around 4 seconds. As for the resurrection, BUH! is instantaneous. The recharge/duration timers work in tandem: BUH! lasts for 30s, and recharges in 30s with Quickening Zephyr. Death Nova lasts for 30s, Death's Charge has a 30s recharge, AotL has a 23s recharge with Quickening Zephyr. If everything goes to plan, there should be no down time.

3). The AI prioritises targets with less HP. The 15% DP caused by the initial suicide reduces your heroes' HP, and makes it so the AI targets the heroes instead of you (in much the same way AI targets minions/spirits above other targets.) This allows your heroes to tank in the same way a minion midline would tank... except you can directly order your heroes around. You can force the AI to ball up by making your heroes target specific targets. In effect, they ARE the tank. As for using a saccer build, this would increase your DP (something that BUH! does not do.) While this would make the AI aggro stick on your heroes for longer, it would also make them more squishy, and less able to tank the mobs. Also, it ruins the synchronisation with AotL+Explosive Growth, which is where the majority of the damage comes from.

Again, thanks for the feedback,

Tom