Curse

khyzna · Jul 23, 2008, 03:11 PM // 15:11

This team build is based on the fevered dreams/virulence combo, supported by a Temple Strike Assassin that adds mild spiking ability as well as additional condition spreading.

Temple Strike Sin
[build prof=A/? name="Temple Strike" dag=12+1+1 dead=8+1 cri=10+1][Dark Prison][Black Mantis Thrust][Temple Strike][Trampling Ox][Falling Lotus Strike][Twisting Fangs][Signet of Deadly Corruption][Resurrection Signet][/build]

Usage
Fairly straightforward, you use skills in given order. Dark Prison is here mainly on the off-chance that your target isn't pre-hexed. Temple Strike is here used to spread the very potent Dazed condition to the whole party, and helps to relieve melee pressure with Blind. At 9 Deadly Arts, 6 conditions are needed to reach Signet of Dealy Corruption's damage cap.

Variants
Consider [Golden Skull Strike] instead of Temple Strike. It doesn't inflict Blind, but on the other hand causes 1 extra second of Daze and recharges faster. Take out Dark Prison and take an Enchantement if you bring it.

Fevered Dreams Mesmer
[build prof=Me/? name="Fevered Dreams" fas=10+1 ill=11+1+1 dom=10+1][Fevered Dreams][Fragility][Hypochondria][Clumsiness][Shatter Enchantment][Power Spike][Shame][Resurrection Signet][/build]

Usage
Cast Shatter Enchantements on Assassin's target if you think it has been pre-veiled, then follow up with Fevered Dreams and Fragility. Use Hypochondria if conditions were removed from target or after an ennemy Foul Feast to reaply conditions, or just as an general interrupt if Daze has been spread out (anytime you reaply Daze, the target is interupted).

Variants
Basicaly, only the first 3 skills are mandatory, the rest being up to you. I listed here an example, but feel free to use whatever you want. Try to include some sort of melee relief.
Alternatively, you could use [Epidemic], thus freeing an Elite spot allowing you to bring for instance [Extend Conditions] or [Signet of Midnight] or whatever you want.

Virulence Necro
[build prof=N/? name="Virulence" death=8+1 sou=10+1 cur=12+1+1][Virulence][Rigor Mortis][Rip Enchantment][Shadow of Fear][Parasitic Bond][Foul Feast][Plague Sending][Resurrection Signet][/build]

Usage
Cast Rigor on target and cover up with Parasitic Bond. Use Virulence only once condition is met (obviously), which can be done solo by removing an enchantement with Rip, thus inflicting Bleed. Use Foul Feast+Plague Sending ONLY on monk (more on that later).

Variants
[Weaken Armor] comes to mind.

Martyr Monk
[build prof=Mo/W name="Martyr" hea=12+1+1 pro=8+1 div=10+1][Martyr][Patient Spirit][Signet of Rejuvenation][Ethereal Light][Guardian][Spotless Mind][Spirit Bond][Shield Bash][/build]

Usage
Huh? Martyr? Yes, Martyr. The sole purpose of this skill is to counter one very obvious flaws of this build, i.e, the foul feast+plague sending combo widely used in the current meta. Without it, your whole strategy would backfire, and leave you very probably dead, as you would be outdamaged by the opposing team. Always call when using Martyr, so the necro knows when to use foul feast.
The rest is standard monk bar, with Ethereal Light there to counter the loss of the usual WoH or ZB. Not a very elegant solution, but so far I haven't found anything better.

Variants
[Cautery Signet] instead of Martyr. Drop Foul Feast and Plague Sending on the necro and have him bring a condition remover for the burning ensued.

Notes
This is NOT the final version of this build. I currently do not have the ressources to test it myself, so I leave that to the guru community. Notable flaws are the Sin's attack chain which is blocked by the 20sec recharge of Temple Strike and the Monk lacking the same amount of healing power as other builds do. As I have not tested it, I'm not sure wether Martyr is absolutely necessary, or if foul feast is enough to keep conditions off party members. Remember to cast Fragility on the ennemy necro if it ends up as a Foul Sending pitched battle. I have not weighted this against the Contagion build (from HA), so please feel free to do so.
Counters and equipement will come later.
Feedback and constructive criticism is MOST welcome.

RavagerOfDreams · Jul 23, 2008, 03:55 PM // 15:55

ok so i see several problems here

Fevered Dreams most likely won't trigger enough to make it useful in a four man arena.

As a pressure build your sin is out of place. He has a spiker build not a pressure build. I would suggest swapping the sin out for a crip slash war as he provides many conditions but actually can apply some real pressure.

Virulence is bleh at best WoD is real pressure. It is next to impossible to heal through WoD so if you can strip veil -> WoD your in very good shape. Swap out rigor and shadow of fear for price of failure and faintheartedness.

Matyr is ew especially with a FF necro on the team you won't need it. Swap it out for WoH

The mesmer is trying to do to much at once. Your specced in both Dom and illusion which leaves little room for any energy management. I would chose one or the other. If going with illusion bring skills like ineptitude, clumsiness, wandering eye, imaged burden and such. If going dom bring shame and diversion and some other interupts and such. Or you could totally revamp the mesmer and turn it into a tainted flesh mesmer

[build=OQRTAwxW2JOoGa+9AfwDooKAA]

you could also drop the mesmer entirely for a ranger using a condition build such as

[build=OgMU8m7i3MOUGVzjx3mX/1+GBA]
[build=OgMU8mLjzcOJmHjqZ2kX/1+GBA]

my 2 pennies

Mitchel · Jul 23, 2008, 04:01 PM // 16:01

Hmm, IMO that Monk bar looks very fragile with Ethereal and with no Veil.

Divine Slaya · Jul 23, 2008, 04:05 PM // 16:05

That monk will not be able to keep the team alive if you face any decent team. Ethereal Light is bad in TA due to the number of pets and sins you will have training you the entire game and patient spirit is not enough of a heal to deal with any type of pressure.

moko · Jul 23, 2008, 04:06 PM // 16:06

you need diversion to possibly shut down Foul Feast or it's GG.

bungusmaximus · Jul 23, 2008, 06:00 PM // 18:00

Quote:

Originally Posted by moko

you need diversion to possibly shut down Foul Feast or it's GG.

I've been testing with fragility on those buggers and it's pretty funny, but yeh, something to punish spammers certainly doesn't hurt.
If you must go illusion I'd ditch the dom stuff for drain enchant and frustration, and maybe add ineptitude as an elite, 'cos fevered kinda blows. If you wanna go dom, do as moko says. If you wanna go Me/N sig of midnight crap, go fishing

.

And monk bar definitely needs veil. 2x the normal cast time of hexes they throw at you kicks ass. Buys a lot of time and makes stuff easier to interrupt.

Krill · Jul 23, 2008, 07:06 PM // 19:06

Here's what I would try:

[Temple Strike Sin;Owpj0xjoqOlZuHCz/RuTvobBAA]

Use attacker's insight to offset the cost of temple strike and guiding hands to daze though blocks. There might be a better speed boost then harrier's haste but I like it for the bonus damage. Use wild strike to do a chain w/o temple strike and to punish resilience smiters...skill is just too good to leave out of a sin bar.

The problem I see with your current sin bar is the whole combo only works every 30 seconds unless someone else drops a hex on your target to get the cripple from black mantis and then the kd from trampling. It just looks too easy to break up with condition & hex removal or blocks as is.

On the fevered dreams bar I'd run Me/N with rip enchant. Shatter is too expensive and why not take the bleed since it's a fevered bar?

On the nec bar, replace shadow of fear with faintheartedness. You're just asking for an interrupt with shadow and the AoE isn't all that useful for TA. Or considering doing N/E with grasping earth...very useful skill in TA even with 1-2 points in earth magic.

On the monk bar just run standard WoH or maybe ZB:

[WoH monk;OwET04nCRSjoB8uRgQLaTrmYtAA]

In the signet of rejuv slot run whatever...RoF, maybe a small prot or disciplined stance. With FF you don't need to bring martyr.

[ZB monk;OwYT0wHDV6SrBUgYmQLaTrmAZAA]

Only use patient spirit to make the red bars go up (with dismiss for even more) if ZB gets disabled or you need an emergency heal.

All in all though I think your asking for trouble running a build that relies of heavy conditions to work...just to many FF necs that can clean everything up and counting on disabling it with diversion or d-shot is risky.

Orange Milk · Jul 23, 2008, 07:31 PM // 19:31

Virulence has too long of a recharge to be effective here. Your never going to get it onto the entire opposing team. And as for getting it on one opponet, by the time it recharges thos conditions will be gone and they will be healed.

Add the crip slash fo sho.

Drop your Death Magic to ZERO and remove Pbond for Arcane echo.

With Death at zero the condions that Virulence causes will not last long at all which will trigger Fragility TWICE in a short amount of time then you follow up with the Virulence you Arcane Echoed and they get hit again TWICE. If the crip slash is on the same target it will be taking many lots of damge, many many lots. Basically longlasting conditions and Fragility don't synergize well.

Your mesmer is trying to do too much and needs more Monk shut down, shame is good shit, but needs more. The tainted flesh is a nice idea, allows the use of Virulence to be cast on just about anyone.

And yeah, Foul Feast on your opponests team could be a problem, though it will help trigger Fragility at times, as long as you can keep Fragility on the FF as well as other targets.

But with the ooddles and assloads of skilless Interupt spam RaOs running around I don't know how many spells you will get to cast. And with their 2 monk backline I dunno how well your hexes and conditions will stick to allow for the pressure to happen.

RavagerOfDreams · Jul 23, 2008, 10:54 PM // 22:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by Orange Milk

And yeah, Foul Feast on your opponests team could be a problem, though it will help trigger Fragility at times, as long as you can keep Fragility on the FF as well as other targets.

Foul Feast actually helps in a condition spike with fragility. Pulls off all the conditions and can sometimes do more harm then help

Hundbert · Jul 24, 2008, 03:01 AM // 03:01

One skill will stop this assassin. [skill]Shield bash[/skill]
Preveil will stop your hexes and ranger will d-shot them.
Shatter is useless when all monks cover veil with vigorous spirit.

Well there's alot to say but it just won't work. You can try if you want to find out yourself.

around · Jul 24, 2008, 05:08 AM // 05:08

lol foul feast.

the_deSKtructor · Jul 24, 2008, 07:10 AM // 07:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hundbert

Shatter is useless when all monks cover veil with vigorous spirit.

Is there actually something worth a shatter? No guardian, no hard prots, just patient, vigourous and veil/spotless, and for those i prefer a faster recharge enchantment removal (*cough* rip *cough*).

khyzna · Jul 24, 2008, 08:09 AM // 08:09

Monk bar was clearly not the best. Sticking with standard WoH from now on (heh no veil, what was I thinking).
I considered a criplslash when designing the build, as well as a WS derv with [crippling victory]. It seems cripslash is more pressure orientated and fits better in this build.
Ok those 2 changes are quite obvious (now), and as for the Mesmer and Necro I also see that in their current state something is not right. After some light testing, it turns out fevered dreams/virulence isn't as good as expected, so that needs to change. Gonna see with a SoM mesmer and a Burning arrow ranger.

Updated build :
[Cripslash War;OQASEZKPHWAzUjpAA0K/EBA]
[SoM Me;OQRUAURO2DFzQHVyDNyHPQAA]
[Burning arrow ranger;OgMU8mLjzcO62HjqZ2kX/1+GBA]
[WoH monk;OwET04nCRSjoB8uRgQLaTrmYtA]

P.S: Yes I stole all these builds from PvX, but it's just to give a general idea of the team build.

the_deSKtructor · Jul 24, 2008, 08:20 AM // 08:20

Quote:

Originally Posted by khyzna

Monk bar was clearly not the best. Sticking with standard WoH from now on (heh no veil, what was I thinking).
I considered a criplslash when designing the build, as well as a WS derv with [crippling victory]. It seems cripslash is more pressure orientated and fits better in this build.
Ok those 2 changes are quite obvious (now), and as for the Mesmer and Necro I also see that in their current state something is not right. After some light testing, it turns out fevered dreams/virulence isn't as good as expected, so that needs to change. Gonna see with a SoM mesmer and a Burning arrow ranger.

Updated build :
[Cripslash War;OQASEZKPHWAzUjpAA0K/EBA]
[SoM Me;OQRUAURO2DFzQHVyDNyHPQAA]
[Burning arrow ranger;OgMU8mLjzcO62HjqZ2kX/1+GBA]
[WoH monk;OwET04nCRSjoB8uRgQLaTrmYtA]

P.S: Yes I stole all these builds from PvX, but it's just to give a general idea of the team build.

The build you came up with is kinda old, a good amount of ppl is running that since they came up with the SoM build.

Krill · Jul 24, 2008, 03:56 PM // 15:56

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hundbert

One skill will stop this assassin. [skill]Shield bash[/skill]
Preveil will stop your hexes and ranger will d-shot them.
Shatter is useless when all monks cover veil with vigorous spirit.

Shield bash is certainly a good skill to stop sins but it only stops them for 5 seconds if they are not stupid. SA is still one of the most retardo-broken skills in the game, you can't cover against it because it removes two enchants and can be spammed.

urania · Jul 26, 2008, 07:55 PM // 19:55

lolz
ff and melandru's resilience monks in 2 monk teams say hi.
draw is fairly good at stopping the build completely.

the real TA cond pressure was about having 2 rangers spreading bleeding, poison (possibly cripple too) and deb shot with a few well timed interrupts on the monk and a warr finishing things off or having a paragon (anthem of weariness, crippling anthem etc etc), warr and a ranger....not something involving a necro, a mesmer and a sin.