Curse

Nessaja · Jun 23, 2005, 03:12 AM // 03:12

Alright here goes:

2 Monks/Mesmer
6 Rangers/Mesmer

-All of them wear anti cold armor
-All of them have Mantra of Frost (For 30-78 seconds, whenever you take lightning damage, the damage is reduced by 26-45% and you gain 1 Energy)

Skills for ranger:

-Greater Conflagation 2x (all physical damage is fire damage)
-Winter 4x (all elemental damage is cold damage)
-Nature Renewal 2x (For creatures within range, all "Enchantments" and "Hexes" are removed. And take twice as long to cast)
-Frozen Soil 2x (nothing can be ressurected)
-Fertile Season 2x (+200 HP for everyone! Including your spirits, also +24 armor)
-Predatory Season 2x (For creatures within its range, all healing is reduced by 20%. If any of your attacks hit you gain 5 health.)
-Favorable Winds 1x (Arrows travel faster and do +6 damage)
-Muddy Terrain 1x (everyones speed is reduced by 20%)
-Quikckening Zephyr 1x

These skills should be devided among the rangers.

Other then that you need skills like

-Punishing Shot
-Crippling Shot
-Distracting Shot
-Pin Down
-Troll Urgent (to make up for the relative lack of healing)

Monk, regular healing monk, don't use enchancements.

Questions and answers

Quote:

Why Mantra of Frost?

There's mantra of frost because all physical damage is converted to cold damage. The same counts for elemental damage, all elemental damage from each source is converted to cold damage.

Quote:

No melee?

Melee isnt really wanted at all, in tombs that is .

Quote:

My 5/6Air elementalist will pwnzz this!

To give you all an idea about how much damage the rangers for instance take from 6 air elementalists all doing chainlightning at the same time.

70 (base armor) + 30 (elemental armor) + 15 (cold armor) + 25 (furtile season)= 140 armor

[Defensive Adjustment] = 2^((60 - [Armor Level]) / 40)

so 2^((60-140)/40)=0.29 damage -> 25% damage

25% * 0.55 (Mantra of Frost) =13.75% damage

(6*100 (chain lightning) * 0.1635=82.5 damage

this counts for all physical damage, and all elemental damage

Quote:

When do youhave the time to place all this

In tombs and HoH you have plenty of time to place the rituals, it's not a factor. The time it takes to set up is neglectable, fighting in tombs doesnt happen in the same matter as team arena or random arena. Also, quickening zephyr allows fast placement.

Quote:

What if your enemy just attacks the spirits

People can attack the rituals, but there are a whole lot of them as you noticed, if the enemy goes to kill all of them it will take him a lot of time. Fertile season for instance adds +24 armor and 200 HP to all units in the area, including the spirits. And to get one effect away you need to kill several of the spirits, which means they arent attacking your monk, that's a good thing.

Asrial · Jun 23, 2005, 03:15 AM // 03:15

The upcoming trend is Nature Spirits, not specific builds. This seems like a really good one. Maybe this will put to rest the power of a ranger.

Red Locust · Jun 23, 2005, 03:37 AM // 03:37

Well, a little correction, the 25% armor penetration turns a 140 armor target into a 105 armor target, almost doubling damage. Other than that, that build is very solid, and is what I think most spirit builds are based on (save for one ranger taking care of all the rituals leaving the others to do pure damage).

ComMan · Jun 23, 2005, 06:14 AM // 06:14

Fertile Season gives +15 armor, not +24.

People have been claiming that spirit spam will replace spike builds for a while, but I still see mainly spike builds in Tombs. We'll see I guess.

hydrak · Jun 23, 2005, 06:31 AM // 06:31

Won't spirits also give the same benefits to enemy in the area?

Tellani Artini · Jun 23, 2005, 07:02 AM // 07:02

Quote:

Originally Posted by hydrak

Won't spirits also give the same benefits to enemy in the area?

Yes. But be creative and you might see why this still gives the advantage to the team with spirits.

And this strategy is already being used, thanks.

Ancalagon06 · Jun 23, 2005, 07:27 AM // 07:27

Quote:

Originally Posted by ComMan

Fertile Season gives +15 armor, not +24.

People have been claiming that spirit spam will replace spike builds for a while, but I still see mainly spike builds in Tombs. We'll see I guess.

People are currently rushing Rangers through to unlock these skills AS WE SPEAK!

Sting · Jun 23, 2005, 07:44 AM // 07:44

Just a thought why not make E/Ra for this build you get the ranger benefits (except armor) but you still have about the same spike damage.

Nessaja · Jun 23, 2005, 12:07 PM // 12:07

And you miss out on mantra of frost...

this doesnt work with elementalists at all.

Neo-LD · Jun 23, 2005, 12:48 PM // 12:48

Though this combo is undoubtedly awesome, it does require the rangers to take off their druids armor =(. Its worth it, but just keep in mind that the rangers will have 25 energy, not 32.

6 rangers * 8 skill slots = 48 total rangers skills. So far, you have used up 17 with spirits, and then each one will want unguent, and distracting, which is 2 * 6 = 12 more. Then each one needs a mantra, so thats 6 more skills (not to mention 2 more on the monks) 17+12+6 means you have used 35, and have 13 skills left, including 3 elites.

Keep in mind that other than lay down a whole bunch of spirits, your team hasnt done anything yet. Guess we will be loading up the rest on lots of penetrating/punishing/precision shots?

I would have said that having so many wilderness rangers would make it great to include preperations and traps, but honestly I dont think you have enough skills to pull it off. Maybe you should think about pulling out some of the less important spirits (predatory, zephyr, muddy)

Otherwise cool.

Myodato · Jun 23, 2005, 01:38 PM // 13:38

I would just like to point out that this is one of the reasons every team should have a smiting monk. Necro's are very useful too.

Van the Warrior · Jun 23, 2005, 01:38 PM // 13:38

you forgot illusionary weaponry for the rangers

Thanato · Jun 23, 2005, 04:05 PM // 16:05

Quote:

Originally Posted by Van the Warrior

you forgot illusionary weaponry for the rangers

illusionary weapon doesnt work with ranged attacks

hydrak · Jun 23, 2005, 04:12 PM // 16:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tellani Artini

Yes. But be creative and you might see why this still gives the advantage to the team with spirits.

And this strategy is already being used, thanks.

Well, the reason I'm asking is that my group we have a team with 3 rangers/mo, 2 monks/mes and 3 air eles/mes. We usually have no problem against long range air spike teams. But there was this one earth spike team with something like 4 earth eles, and they messed us up pretty bad.

Let me make this clear. Most earth eles we've seen aren't good except that one earth team.

Van the Warrior · Jun 23, 2005, 04:24 PM // 16:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thanato

illusionary weapon doesnt work with ranged attacks

no i was saying it was a trend

psycore · Jun 23, 2005, 04:39 PM // 16:39

How do you counter edge of extinction? The assumption is that an opposing ritualist will drop one and then have everyone pile damage onto one of the enemy spirits causing it to die and then dealing damage to every other spirit in the aoe simultaneously, or are the spirits so far spread apart that there is a very small overlap of effect area?

Neo-LD · Jun 23, 2005, 05:17 PM // 17:17

If a spirit dies, edge will damage only spirits of the same type, not all spirits. If the enemy has only one ritualist, it shouldnt be hard to focus fire the edge if its really a threat.