Curse

Arathorn5000 · Sep 01, 2005, 04:25 AM // 04:25

This is my idea I've been working on for the past few days for a tombs build. Probably more than half of it is theorycraft, but it seems really sound to me. If this belongs in the campfire, I apologize, please move it there.

Some background: This is my first attempt at creating a build. All ideas in it are mine originally, though it relies on some obvious combos...just don't think anyone has put them together like this. I posted this a few days ago on my guild forum, and so far have gotten little to no response to it, and no positive response at all. Really frustrated about that, so I'm posting here to get some feedback. It's now an open-source build

So, here goes nothing

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arathorn

Build: Energy denial, heavy defense (spirits + wards + stances), and necro spiking (self-healing, armor ignoring damage)

version 1.6

---------------------------------------------

Ranger/Mesmer

14 expertise (11 + 3)
14 wilderness survival (12 + 1 + 1)
6 inspiration magic

Serpents Quickness
Quickening Zephyr
Greater Conflagration {E}
Frozen Soil
Whirling Defense
Healing Spring
Leech Signet
Rez Sig

Any Insightful PvP Staff of fortitude (+5 energy head, +30 HP wrappings)
Druid's armor set

---------------------------------------------

Elementalist/Mesmer

14 water magic (10 + 3 + 1)
12 earth magic (11 + 1)
7 energy storage (6 + 1)
8 inspiration magic

Glyph of lesser energy
Ward Against Harm {E}
Ward Against Elements
Ice Prison
Earth Attunement
Mantra of Concentration
Elemental Resistance
Rez Sig

Hale PvP Water Staff of Fortitude (+30 HP, +30 HP)
Pyromancer armor

---------------------------------------------

Necro/Mesmer x3

16 blood magic (12 + 3 + 1)
9 soul reaping (8 + 1)
10 inspiration magic

Shadow Strike
Vampiric Gaze
Barbed Signet
Offering of Blood {E}
Drain Enchantment
Cry of Frustration
Elemental Resistance
Rez Sig

20% recharge speed blood magic wand
20% cast speed/recharge blood magic focus
Scar pattern armor

---------------------------------------------

Necro/Mesmer x1

16 blood magic (12 + 3 + 1)
9 soul reaping (8 + 1)
6 death magic (5 + 1)
9 inspiration magic

Shadow Strike
Vampiric Gaze
Barbed Signet
Offering of Blood {E}
Necrotic Traversal
Cry of Frustration
Elemental Resistance
Rez Sig

20% recharge speed blood magic wand
20% cast speed/recharge blood magic focus
Scar pattern armor, bloodstained boots

---------------------------------------------

Monk/Mesmer x2

14 healing prayers (10 + 3 + 1)
12 divine favor (11 + 1)
10 inspiration magic

Heal Area
Healing Seed
Signet of Devotion
Remove Hex (second monk uses Mend Ailment here)
Smite Hex
Energy Drain {E}
Elemental Resistance
Rez Sig

20% cast speed healing wand
20% cast speed/recharge inspiration focus
Tattoo armor

---------------------------------------------

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arathorn

Jobs:

Ranger:

Maybe the more complex job, but not too difficult. Pick a spot where the group will 'camp', hit serpents quickness, then after a few seconds drop QZ, then GC, then frozen, next to each other or on top of each other.

Then just start dropping healing springs right there (to heal the spirits if they're being attacked). If there are warriors or rangers hitting you (healing spring is easily interruptable), use whirling defense.

After using a spring, look around and interrupt some enemy caster with leech sig to get some energy while waiting for spring to recharge. After two springs one right after another, QZ will be ready again.

As soon as QZ's recharge is over, hit serpents quickness and cast QZ again. GC will last almost 2 minutes, so it's up to you when to drop it again. Main concern is keeping QZ up, and *always* trigger serpents before using QZ (preferably a little earlier so it will recharge in time). Then drop 2-3 more springs, use whirling if needed. Then drop frozen again, followed by another QZ and GC. Keep going with this process. If you run into energy management problems, you'll have to skip some healing springs.

Ele:

Easy as pie. Keep earth attunement up all the time, follow the ranger to the spot, then chain off your spells as follows: glyph of lesser energy, ward against harm, ward against elements. Wash, rinse, and repeat. You'll have to learn the timing, QZ will make sure the wards recharge very quickly, but you don't want to recast them too early or you may get into energy problems. Wait until glyph recharges, then wait 1-2 more seconds and chain the skills again. Keep in mind to stay near the ranger so you get the heals from healing spring, as well as keeping the wards all cenetered over the spirits.

On relic runs, we'll be camping near our relic, and whenever an enemy grabs it, slap ice prison on their ass to give the necros more time to rape them.

Mantra of concentration is on the build because it could be disastrous if someone was interrupting the wards. If we're not facing an air spike team (elemental resistance), turn it on at the beginning of the match and keep it up, it will last 2 minutes.

Necros:

You're the spikers, all the damage output of this build. First, follow the group and stay in the wards. Then, you can either run it like an air ele spike group, or just keep spamming all your skills at a called target or any target (these spells will be almost spammable under QZ). I recommend running it as a true spike build though: calling and counting off shadow strike, followed up with vampiric gaze. If I calculate correctly, 4 strikes followed up by 4 gazes should do 602 armor ignoring damage, in 3 seconds to a target, of which 402 is coming right back to you as stolen HP. If fertile is up, then assuming they have 750 HP, the 4 strikes and 4 gazes should do 652 damage. Again, not sure if I'm calculating correctly or not.

Barbed signet is simply a no energy damage skill, to add to the fun (probably not worthy of being called, just shoot it off randomly). It might be replaced by something, but I'm not sure what.

Offering of blood is what you spam whenever you can cast it to manage your energy. The health sacrifice shouldn't matter, your health will come right back on the next vampiric gaze spike. Under QZ, you'll be able to keep using offering every ~8 seconds, and each cast is about a 15 energy net gain.

Cry of frustration is purely for denying enemy ghostly heroes from capping the altar, between the 4 necros using CoF all coordinated in TS, that hero will be doing nothing.

3 of the necros have drain enchantment. Drain enchantment is not only good enchant removal, but it's also energy management with a 5-10 energy net gain per use.

The fourth necro is the corpse denial guy, because we don't want to get hit by any putrids. With his soul reaping, it's absolutely sure he always has energy for necrotic traversal, as well as to supplement energy normally because he's not using drain enchantment (a good thing...you don't want to be fighting over who gets to drain the enchant). Every time you kill someone or someone on our team dies, this necro does a traversal as fast as possible. Dropped inspiration a point to boost death, so necrotic will poison everyone around there for 11 seconds.

Monks:

Even though we're under QZ, the monks' jobs shouldn't be too hard. The ranger is healing everyone around him with healing spring, and the necros will be stealing tons of HP as they spike. One weakness of this build would probably be hexes/conditions, as they don't care about the wards/spirits. So the monks should take some fairly good hex/condition removal. Monks can stay by the ranger to get heals from the spring, or they can spread out if they want (stay in the wards though).

And the key to the monk build: energy drain. Every 10 seconds (under QZ), you'll be stealing like 16-17 energy from an enemy, for a net gain of 10e. Might have to coordinate a bit though, so you're not sapping the same target dry and cheating yourselves of energy. Your focus will make ED recharge even faster 20% of the time.

With QZ and insane use of energy drain, the other team will be crying like girls in no time.

Everyone:

Everyone except the elementalist and the ranger turns on elemental resistance before the fighting starts (the ranger already has 40 more armor than the casters inherently, and will be using other stances). The ele will really only need elemental resistance if he's facing a spike group, otherwise he should probably use mantra of concentration to avoid being interrupted. Up to personal preference, but you can't afford to have the wards interrupted.

If they're smiting, just keep the wards & spirits up and they'll be doing shit for damage. I'd say that the necros should probably target hammer warriors, rangers, and mesmers first, because knockdown/interrupt could be a pain in this build. If we're all paying attention, and playing our roles right, this build can really go far. And I think I've sufficiently built it to deal with relic and especially altar maps.

In the current metagame, I think we're really seeing the return of smiting and spiking, and that's the main thing this build plans on countering. But I think it's solid, and can take most any other build. Again, hexes and conditions DoT and armor-ignoring damage might prove to be a problem, but we'll see.

Comments?

Quote:

Originally Posted by My Guild Leader

well my first opinion is yer characters are soft ie no wars and alota casters.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arathorn

soft to what? Look more closely, the whole idea is that ward against harm, ward against elements, and greater conflagration will be down non-stop, which means everyone has +23 armor to holy damage, +47 armor to earth, lightning, and water damage, and +81 armor to all physical and fire damage. So equal or much greater armor than warriors, we aren't soft at all. The only thing we aren't protected against is armor-ignoring damage, which makes no difference if you're a caster or warrior anyway....

The build is designed to not be very mobile, but more picking a spot and staying there, though you can move the spot with not much difficulty. This is why it's primarily a tombs build, where mobility is not needed nearly as much as in GvG.

Not to mention, it's a spike group....the necros will be killing a target instantly every 5-6 seconds. I don't see you telling air ele spike builds that they're soft and should put in warriors for the hell of it. If bone feind likes the group and can run the caller/counter necro, he has awesome calling abilities and we could win and hold HoH so much with this build.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arathorn

Ok, someone help me with the monk skills/attributes. I think since there are only two, and there is a full-time warder already, there's no need for a prot monk. This build utilizes everyone clumped together (at least the ranger, ele, and 2 monks should basically be standing in the same spot) so maybe healing seed? I didn't want to be dependant on any enchants, so maybe heal area would be better....it would also heal the spirits I believe. And what would be good condition/hex removal?

About clumping together: aoe damage should not be a problem. Most AoE is elemental damage, which we'll have insane armor against. Maelstrom could be a bitch, I think I'll put mantra of persistance on the ele...(doesn't matter if the monks are interrupted, the healing shouldn't be as necessary in this build with the full warding and healing springs. Balth's aura will be doing less damage, and will get negated by healing spring...plus the necros will be taking down warriors first or second anyway. Choking gas rangers will be annoying, so our necros will be taking out necros quickly.

BTW, the necros don't need to stay all clumped together, but they should at least stay in the wards at the beginning of the match (until they've killed about half the team, then they can disperse, find further targets, run relics, etc.)

(you can see here, I don't really know monk skills well...asked for advice but was given none, so I based the monk build off what I thought would work best by reading the skills....)

So, any comments? And if a good/decent guild sees this and likes it (and has the players and skills to run it), would you be interested in me joining your guild to help play the build?

Obus · Sep 01, 2005, 05:04 AM // 05:04

rofl.

Arathorn5000 · Sep 01, 2005, 05:13 AM // 05:13

Is the build funny, or something stupid I said? I can take the latter, but if the build sucks I want to know why...

White Designs · Sep 01, 2005, 05:16 AM // 05:16

I don't know what's so funny, since the build is very thought out and incorporates some nices features into it. Unfortunately, it is largely unviable due to the new changes to spirits. QZ/Conflag will be killed in a flash and if the entire team is based on those two spirits, it won't have much of a chance.

Arathorn5000 · Sep 01, 2005, 05:25 AM // 05:25

Well, I think the wards should affect the spirits, and the ranger is keeping a healing spring near it most of the time. And the monks use heal area to keep the spirits up. But you're right, maybe a team could take those out too easily...anyone know what armor level spirits have?

KuTeBaka · Sep 01, 2005, 05:38 AM // 05:38

The AL of spirits dont matter much because smite groups are all over tombs. The aoe effect will probably kill off a spirit just by walking near it.

Arathorn5000 · Sep 01, 2005, 05:42 AM // 05:42

Maybe...zealot's fire will be doing garbage damage due to the wards, so it's just balth's you need to watch out for. And that's the reason I say the necros should take out the enemy wars first...Alternatively, at least drain any enchants you see on the wars, to make sure balth's doesn't get anywhere near you, and kill the E/Mo's first. You don't have to worry about them rezzing, you have a dedicated spirit man keeping frozen up.

Arathorn5000 · Sep 01, 2005, 05:36 PM // 17:36

Honestly, the only real apparent weaknesses of this build should be judges insight on warriors and balth's aura on warriors....so the necros should definitely take out the wars first, and drain any and all enchantments on warriors.

smurfhunter · Sep 01, 2005, 05:41 PM // 17:41

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arathorn5000

Well, I think the wards should affect the spirits, and the ranger is keeping a healing spring near it most of the time. And the monks use heal area to keep the spirits up. But you're right, maybe a team could take those out too easily...anyone know what armor level spirits have?

let me just say that if a team really wants to kill your spirits, they will. so base no build on a spirit.

the best use of a spirit ive seen post change was putting up EOE after we were getting hit hard and we were all at about 50% hp, (they did ward against foes + meteor shower. it was both funny and painful). that way once they dropped one of us eoe killed us. and note we were really unable to kill the spirit because we were too busy dying.

..thats just an example of how a spirit can help a team post update. starting a conflag/qz spirit before you attack/get attacked will prompt them to just go and kill it before focusing on you. thats the major flaw i see.

oh and rending a warrior with JI/BA on him wont do you any good, the emos behind him are *spamming* it. emphasis on spam. your best bet to get rid of that is have a n/_ or _/n use well of profane and lead the warriors into it if they start ganging someone.

Warskull · Sep 01, 2005, 06:01 PM // 18:01

Nice concept, I think the primary weakness is your damage output. Those necro builds will not be overpower enemy monks to get the kills. You will open with very nice damage using shadow strike, however the necro mana pool will get depleted under zephyr (shadow strike and vampic gaze aren't cheap.) Plus once a target gets under 50% health shadow strike is half as effective. Barbed signet is nice and is your primary damage output. Have the necros drop cry of frustration and take mantra of signets. Under zephyr it should reduce the recharge time to under 10s. If they get targeted they swap over to elemental resistance (the monks are going to be taking a majority of the hits) Remember cry costs 15 mana and under Zephyr it is going to cost 20. Plus your necros will be a bit busy outputing damage to watch targets for the cry interupt.

The reality of the shadow strike is you will get 2, maybe 3 full damage shadow strikes. Then they will all drop to half effectiveness. I think the kill will be slow enough for a decent monk to save their target. Especially with the slow cast time on signets. You basically have to pull the kill off with vampic gaze.

You are also in a lot of trouble if you run into choking gas.

ElderAtronach · Sep 01, 2005, 06:02 PM // 18:02

Quote:

+23 armor to holy damage

I believe this is +base armor from ward vs harm? Our group hasn't tested ward vs harm against balthazar's yet, as we are relying on a different elite, but I think Scaphism mentioned that balth's ignores armor anyways.

And yes, if they really hate your spirit, they will take it down. QZ and GC will probably receive the most hate of all. The biggest problem I see with this build is its lack of damage. Necro spiking isn't as effective as say, ele spiking, and there's only 3 of them. Also, you don't have Rend on any of them, which is an important enchant remover (probably the most important). You have no corpse disposal either, which means you will hurt from a putrid or well of suffering (those are getting more common lately). I guess you did put down necrotic traversal as an option, but that may likely move that necro out of the wards and into the "danger zone" lol.

What I do like is the Greater Conflag + ward vs harm combo, that alone reduces craploads of damage from any non-balth's attacks. If you could get more offense into that build by switching 2 necros out for say, 2 warriors or 2 damage rangers, it might be viable. Balth's would still hurt you a ton though, which is a problem for any build now, IMO.

zehly · Sep 01, 2005, 06:09 PM // 18:09

I love this build. I would love to play it with you

Metallica1026 · Sep 01, 2005, 06:46 PM // 18:46

i like the build it really thought out.

secretsmg · Sep 01, 2005, 06:54 PM // 18:54

Drop at least one drained enchantment for rend and put a hard res on someone. You also want darkpact on ur blood nukers. The other issue is you're relying purely on GC/wards combo to minimize dmg. GC will be targeted first by teams once they realize what's happening. Your warder could also be diverted/drained or the ranger could have signet of humility on him. You are going to have very little protection on 8 soft targets once any of the above happens. At that point you won't be able to out dps the other team and will die very quickly. As for smiting teams, shutting ether renewal is much more important than draining balthazar's on the warrior.

Arathorn5000 · Sep 01, 2005, 09:26 PM // 21:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by smurfhunter

oh and rending a warrior with JI/BA on him wont do you any good, the emos behind him are *spamming* it. emphasis on spam. your best bet to get rid of that is have a n/_ or _/n use well of profane and lead the warriors into it if they start ganging someone.

Yes, I forgot that under QZ, balth's will be able to be put on very quickly. However, I still believe that the necros will be able to spike out the enemy wars fast enough to avoid any real trouble.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Warskull

Nice concept, I think the primary weakness is your damage output. Those necro builds will not be overpower enemy monks to get the kills. You will open with very nice damage using shadow strike, however the necro mana pool will get depleted under zephyr (shadow strike and vampic gaze aren't cheap.) Plus once a target gets under 50% health shadow strike is half as effective. Barbed signet is nice and is your primary damage output. Have the necros drop cry of frustration and take mantra of signets. Under zephyr it should reduce the recharge time to under 10s. If they get targeted they swap over to elemental resistance (the monks are going to be taking a majority of the hits) Remember cry costs 15 mana and under Zephyr it is going to cost 20. Plus your necros will be a bit busy outputing damage to watch targets for the cry interupt.

The reality of the shadow strike is you will get 2, maybe 3 full damage shadow strikes. Then they will all drop to half effectiveness. I think the kill will be slow enough for a decent monk to save their target. Especially with the slow cast time on signets. You basically have to pull the kill off with vampic gaze.

If you take issue with my numbers, please let me know. By my calculations, with 16 blood, 4 shadow strikes followed by 4 vampiric gazes (instantly after), will do 602 damage to a single target in 3 seconds if they have between 400 and 600 health. If they have less than 400 health, it should do 552 damage, if they have greater than 600 health, it should do 652 damage. This is armor-ignoring and protective spirit-ignoring damage.

For energy: you apparently missed that the necros will be using offering of blood every 8 seconds, which can simply be used during the countdown for each spike to negate the health loss. It's a 16 energy profit I think. The spike will cost 26 energy, but they get 9 right back from soul reaping. Also, every 12 seconds 3 of the necros will be finding an enchant to drain, for around a 5 energy profit.

The barbed sig is just something to fire off whenever you're not doing anything else, to waste more of the opposing monk's energy healing it, and it's free to use for you.

Cry of frustration is indeed costly. This is something you reserve for keeping ghostlies from capturing the altar, say in the last 30 seconds of a HoH match, or to buy a few seconds to set up a spike. However, coupled with Offering of blood, I really think the group can just set up their defense away from the altar (still in spell range) if two other teams are fighting for it, and just sit there interrupting any hero that tries to claim...don't worry about damage output at that point, it's just an alternative strategy for holding HoH. I don't want to give it up for mantra of inscriptions, even though that used to be in the build for the corpse denial necro, I decided I wanted 4 cries of frustration.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ElderAtronach

I believe this is +base armor from ward vs harm? Our group hasn't tested ward vs harm against balthazar's yet, as we are relying on a different elite, but I think Scaphism mentioned that balth's ignores armor anyways.

Hmm, I don't really understand the difference. And yes, I'm upset that balth's ignores armor, yesterday I misunderstood Scaphism when he said holy does not ignore armor. Still, the necros can hopefully learn to face smite teams, and put either the wars or E/Mos down fast enough while draining some of their important enchants (JI, balths)

Quote:

Originally Posted by ElderAtronach

The biggest problem I see with this build is its lack of damage. Necro spiking isn't as effective as say, ele spiking, and there's only 3 of them. Also, you don't have Rend on any of them, which is an important enchant remover (probably the most important). You have no corpse disposal either, which means you will hurt from a putrid or well of suffering (those are getting more common lately). I guess you did put down necrotic traversal as an option, but that may likely move that necro out of the wards and into the "danger zone" lol.

Actually all 4 of the necros participate in the spike. And please, I've been hoping that someone will refute my numbers...I can't seem to understand why anyone would use air spiking after seeing that 4 necros can kill a target in 3 seconds for 20 energy (26 under QZ). With some soul reaping and offering of blood, that energy is coming right back...

I'm not so sure the necrotic traversal will put the necro in much danger, as he'll pop out of nowhere and then run back to the wards. Maybe the person running that will come up with his own strategy, or the necros can simply kill the people who are in the wards (read: wars being smited).

Even if he misses a corpse, it seems that a ton of teams are using well of profane rather than putrid these days, and profane will do almost nothing to us, other than possibly knocking off a seed or the ele's earth attune

Quote:

Originally Posted by secretmsg

Drop at least one drained enchantment for rend and put a hard res on someone. You also want darkpact on ur blood nukers. The other issue is you're relying purely on GC/wards combo to minimize dmg. GC will be targeted first by teams once they realize what's happening. Your warder could also be diverted/drained or the ranger could have signet of humility on him. You are going to have very little protection on 8 soft targets once any of the above happens. At that point you won't be able to out dps the other team and will die very quickly. As for smiting teams, shutting ether renewal is much more important than draining balthazar's on the warrior.

Rend takes forever to cast, and I'm taking damage from it. I really don't think it's needed, with how fast the necros can kill enemies. The necros used to have dark pact, but I just decided it's unnecessary...shadow strike/gaze is more than enough damage, I'm even skeptical about keeping the barbed sig.

Yes, this build has weaknesses. Signet of humility would suck, energy drain on the warder would be rough, etc. etc. But seriously, every build has a counter. I think overall, this is a pretty sound idea, especially with the current metagame.

Quote:

Originally Posted by zehly

I love this build. I would love to play it with you

Quote:

Originally Posted by Metallica1026

i like the build it really thought out.

Thanks guys

Like I said, my guild has ignored it in our forum, and we keep running some crappy variation of a smite build that's not even too successful. I just want to run something original.

Arathorn5000 · Sep 01, 2005, 09:39 PM // 21:39

Also, seems like everyone is forgetting (or ignoring) that healing spring will be up almost all the time, healing something like 57 HP per every two seconds, countering balth's damage completely. Plus, the monks are primarily making use of heal area for full group + spirit healing. Sure, you can say "well just interrupt the ranger" or "interrupt the ranger and the monks". That's just bad theory as well, because then you're ignoring 4 necros spiking you and the ele dropping wards. It's hard to just focus on how to take out this build's defense, when the offense is extremely potent as well, and can take out your choking gas ranger, or domination mesmer in a flash.

Hmm....just got to thinking, the build incorporates keeping frozen soil down full time (and if that doesn't work, it means the build is broken anyway if you can't keep the spirits alive, so we'll agree that frozen is always down). So maybe I should take the rez sigs off? An extra skill for each person could be very nice...

Divine Elemental · Sep 01, 2005, 10:01 PM // 22:01

this just might work....
really though out
your defense is high
and u have a not so good dmg output
if u guys are testing this build
i can play friday-sundays
id love to test it out with yall
contact Signet of Humility

Arathorn5000 · Sep 01, 2005, 10:30 PM // 22:30

Just read in a different thread that vampiric gaze steals life only down to 1 HP. If this is true: since one gaze is not needed anyway, one necro will bring parasitic bond to use instead of vampiric gaze, the degen will finish the job. Not sure if the healing effect is triggered when the target dies, if it does that's an extra bonus.

This will do 539 HP damage....damn. Maybe will put in a different damage skill, but I liked the parasitic idea. Hopefully this is unnecessary, and vamp gaze actually can kill someone.

RoyAlphonse · Sep 01, 2005, 10:35 PM // 22:35

If you plan on testing this build, I'd be happy to join in too. ^^ I'm always up for trying new things and I have a lot of patience to wait and tweak.

IGN: Roy Alphonse

Eonwe · Sep 02, 2005, 01:55 AM // 01:55

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arathorn5000

Hmm, I don't really understand the difference. And yes, I'm upset that balth's ignores armor, yesterday I misunderstood Scaphism when he said holy does not ignore armor. Still, the necros can hopefully learn to face smite teams, and put either the wars or E/Mos down fast enough while draining some of their important enchants (JI, balths)

Blah. Ask Ensign.