Curse

Mister Furious · Mar 13, 2005, 05:57 AM // 05:57

I haven't played the game yet, but I've been reading various forums daily so I can design my character ahead of time and not make any stupid mistakes. I love dealing damage, but I hate dying. I generally play rogue type characters, but as there aren't any in Guild Wars yet, that wasn't an option. At first I was leaning towards Elementalists, but I was afraid I would get killed all the time. Warriors and Rangers can do good damage if built for it, and they are great survivors, but I really don't like any of their armors. I really like the Necromancer's armors and hairstyles and I've read a lot of posts about how good Necro/Warriors and Warrior/Necros are at fighting and staying alive, so I really looked into them. Everyone always says that Blood is the way to go, but I really didn't see what was so great about it. Vampiric Touch looked great, but at 15 energy, it didn't look too good to me. There were some curses that looked fantastic, but I was afraid Hex removal would decimate any build that focused on them. Death magic has some great spells, but they are all much too situational for my tastes, so I kept going back to Blood. I could see that Blood was all about the Vampiric Touch, so I kept racking my brain to find a way to make it work.

I was studying the warrior skill list when I came across "Victory Is Mine!" and I think I found the answer. Using Sever Artery and Gash, I can put two conditions on my opponent and then give them the Touch, then follow it with the shout to gain at least five energy back. I can use Plague Touch to transfer any negative conditions on me to my foe for an even bigger gain. And if anyone else is in the area with conditions, that'll be even more energy gained, not to mention the health gained, too.

So, here's what I've come up with:

Necromancer/Warrior

Blood Magic- 11 (I'll boost it up with runes and equipment)
Swordsmanship- 11
Tactics- 8
Soul Reaping- 3

"Victory Is Mine!"
Sever Artery
Gash
Hamstring
Galrath Slash
Strip Enchantment
Vampiric Touch
Plague Touch

I didn't pick Final Thrust because you loose all adrenaline when you use it, so I went with Galrath Slash instead. Strip Enchantment is to debuff the enemy and is a third way of healing myself at the same time. I had Sprint in at first, but I figured I probably wouldn't need it and Hamstring, and Hamstring adds a condition which will work better with "Victory Is Mine!".

Now, as far as the sword skills go, only Galrath Slash is greatly affected by putting points into Swordsmanship. The other skills merely gain duration time, but since I'll be constantly readding the conditions, they don't need to be so high. I would drop Swordsmanship down a notch or two to boost other skills, but from what I understand, putting points into Swordsmanship increases the amount of damage that goes through the opponents armor. Would dropping Swordsmanship to 10 to boost Blood up to 12 be worth it or should I leave it as is? Another thing I was wondering is whether or not 12 is the maximum a skill could be, or just the maximum you can get it with points. If you have 12 in an attribute and you use runes and armor to boost it, will it go higher than 12? I'm thinking that it will, but I'm not 100% sure. I was also wondering about how high I should get Tactics to use a good shield. I've seen a lot of posts that said 7 is a good number, but are there shields that require higher? I can drop Tactics to 7 and boost Soul Reaping to 5 easily. Dropping Tactics doesn't affect the amount of Energy I get from "Victory Is Mine!", but it will drop the health gained, but with two other health gaining abilties going, that isn't that big a deal.

So, any suggestions?

FireMarshal · Mar 13, 2005, 06:22 AM // 06:22

Well first off, w/n and n/w are both excellent choices. 1 of them happens to be my first combo I am going to run with in the next BWE

You have done good in taking Sever, Gash, and Hamstring with ViM. But taking Strip Enchantment(10e) and especially Vampiric Touch(15e) is probably not in your best interest, especially since Hamstring costs 10e and you only get 20e to start(little more if you use a focus)

I had posted a ViM build here a week or so ago, here it is again though, uses axes:

Class: Warrior / Necromancer

Attributes: (cost)
Strength: 10 (61)
Axe Mastery: 11 (77)
Tactics: 4 (10)
Blood Magic: 9 (48)

Total attribute points used: 196/200

Skills:
1) Berserker Stance (availability) - (5,0,30) For 9 seconds, you attack 33% faster than normal and gain 20% more adrenaline each time you hit in melee. Berserker Stance ends if you use a skill.
2) Dismember (availability) - (7a,0,0) If it hits, this axe blow will inflict a deep wound on the target foe, lowering that foe's maximum health by 20% for 16 seconds.
3) Axe Rake (availability) - (7a,0,0) If this attack hits a foe suffering from a deep wound, you strike for +7 damage, and that foe becomes crippled.
4) Axe Twist (availability) - (8a,0,0) If this attack hits a foe suffering from a deep wound, you strike for 15 more damage and that foe suffers from weakness.
5) "Victory Is Mine!" (availability) (elite) - (5,0,15) You gain 25 health and 5 energy for each condition suffered by adjacent foes. This is an elite skill.
6) Life Siphon (availability) - (10,2,2) For 20 seconds, target suffers health degeneration of 3 and you gain health regeneration of 3.
7) Signet of Agony (availability) - (0,1,15) Sacrifice 36 health and suffer from bleeding. All nearby foes take 30 damage.
8) Plague Touch (availability) - (5,1,0) Transfer a negative condition from yourself to target touched foe.

astzzz · Mar 13, 2005, 06:34 PM // 18:34

I was thinking along the lines of something like this:

Necromancer/Warrior
Skill 1: Distracting Blow
Skill 2: Soul Leech
Skill 3: Touch of Agony
Skill 4: Life Siphon
Skill 5: Vile Touch
Skill 6: Dark Aura
Skill 7: Disrupting Chop
Skill 8: Flurry

Blood Magic 12
Death Magic 10
Soul Reaping 2
Axe Mastery 8

Bascially I plan to hunt casters with this. The dark aura will give a tremendous damage boost to touch of agony, and Ill also have vile touch for a nice extra hit. I start of siphoning targets, and leeching the main target. FLurry is there to build adren for disrupting chop, and I also have distracting blow. Both of these and leech should help keep a caster down.

Shrapnel_Magnet · Mar 13, 2005, 09:31 PM // 21:31

Astazz... you might want to cut out a point or 2 from Blood Magic and bring up your Axe Mastery. Your axe is your friend, treat it well.

You can always use Runes and such to bring your Blood Magic back up to 12.

astzzz · Mar 13, 2005, 09:54 PM // 21:54

thanks for the input

about attributes and runes...I dont know what exactly to do. If I can get Blood to lvl 16, I can do a 4 pip siphon.

OR I can dump soul leech and take life transfer. At level 11 I get the 7 pips, and even though it has a 30sec recharge, I can save myself 2 seconds and 10 mana that would be the extra siphon cast to keep my health up.

Im thinking the latter will be the better choice. I can then dump siphon, and take an axe skill that increases damage, since I now can raise axe mastery higher if I go Blood 10+1.

Shrapnel_Magnet · Mar 13, 2005, 10:14 PM // 22:14

Runes can be added to any piece of armour that you're wearing... read the currently available runes here. I doubt that these are the only runes that will be available upon release... there will, most likely, be more.

Dovi the Monk · Mar 14, 2005, 05:15 PM // 17:15

i was once thinking of a necro/warrior build, anyways with u going sword u could spend the elite skill on life transfer and i think it would work great. heres mine, it incorporates seomthin u prob dint think about that much, well its brings some very useful things to pvp, the death line, gvg atleast. think of the skill soul feast - u gain tons of health even with low death and in gvg theres just about always dead corpses so it would work pretty good as a secondary healer when ever there r crpses around. anyways here it is...

soul feast - secondary healer, good when gvgin
life transfer - super health gain
life syphon - health
sever artery - with gash = good combo
gash - with sever good combo
hamstring - cripple them
strip enchantment - take care of pesky wa/monks and mesmer/warriors
galrath slash - extra damage

Mister Furious · Mar 14, 2005, 08:07 PM // 20:07

I was looking at Axe skills and I realized that if I use Signet of Agony, I could put four conditions on my opponent at zero energy cost. I came up with a new build and I when I got online and looked at this thread, I saw that it's almost identical to FireMarshal's, but not quite.

"Victory Is Mine!"
Dismember
Axe Rake
Axe Twist
Penetrating Blow (or maybe Disrupting Chop or Executioner's Strike or Strip Enchantments)
Signet of Agony
Vampiric Touch
Plague Touch

I want to stick with Vampiric Touch, because 60+ damage every five seconds is quite a bit, not to mention that's 60+ life every five seconds on top of the life from "Victory Is Mine!" and the bleeding and deep wounds. I had a free slot, so I went with Penetrating Blow for more damage output. Do you think Executioner's Strike would do more damage, though? Disrupting Chop would be nice, but I think I'd just rather do more damage. Same with Strip Enchantments.