Curse

drekmonger · Nov 07, 2006, 12:35 AM // 00:35

This is build I used for the grand majority of Nightfall's PvE campaign. It works remarkably well in most situations, assuming you have decent heroes set up (or decent human monks and fellow players obeying your target calling).

You will be tanking with no tanking skills. The idea is to kill mobs so fast that the pressure is reduced for monks quickly. It's a very hectic build -- you have to be constantly attacking and using skills or it's not worth it.

You don't need a zealous dagger to use this build. Run properly, it generates all the energy you need by itself.

Critical: 11 (10+1)
Dagger: 14 (11+3)
Deadly Arts: 11 (10+1)

1: Dash -or- Dark Prison (depending on the mission/area)
2: Assassin's Promise
3: Expose Defenses
4: Black Spider Strike
5: Twisting Fangs
6: Black Lotus Strike
7: Death Blossom -or- Any Dual Attack (Blossom works well on most maps)
8: Sunspear Rebirth, Rez Signet, or Capture Signet

It's fairly simple to run. Dash or use Dark Prison to get to the target, cast Promise, kill. Repeat quickly. The trick is knowing which mob to kill first, when to use each of the dagger skills, and when to cast Promise/Expose Defenses. For certain high health mobs, you want to wait to cast Promise until the mob is almost dead. On many mobs, if you wait to cast Promise, the enemy will be dead before you complete the cast.

Expose Defenses serves two purposes. First, it's obvious function of helping to kill stance tanks. Second, it's a hex with a fast recharge if you miss Promise and therefore lose it and Prison for 40 seconds.

The build falls apart on missions with super heavy pressure or a single boss. I use custom builds tailored to those particular missions. For example, for the Gate of Pain I modified the build heavily to include Mantra of Fire.

I assume this build wouldn't work at all on Cantha, with all the exploding mobs around.

Phoenix Arrows · Nov 07, 2006, 12:55 AM // 00:55

Seems pretty heavy on energy...otherwise, it's pretty nice.

Glider of chaos · Nov 07, 2006, 06:03 AM // 06:03

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phoenix Arrows

Seems pretty heavy on energy...

It's not. Assassin Promise and Black Lotus Strike give you quite enough energy

Tozen · Nov 07, 2006, 07:22 PM // 19:22

Does Assassin's Promise now recharge itself?

45 second recharge = yuck.

drekmonger · Nov 07, 2006, 08:09 PM // 20:09

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tozen

Does Assassin's Promise now recharge itself?

45 second recharge = yuck.

Yes it does. It always has, afiak.

The 45 second recharge on both it and Dark Prison blows -- if you miss the Promise. PvE mobs are pretty stupid though, so it's easy to kill one during the duration of Promise. Plus, I usually have a hero casting water hexes and I have Expose Defenses -- so missing a Promise once in a while isn't the end of the world.

Tozen · Nov 07, 2006, 09:16 PM // 21:16

Wow, thanks! I'll have to try this then. I thought I had remembered reading in patch notes a while back that Assassin's Promise didn't recharge itself and like a noob I never checked lol.

Yanman.be · Nov 07, 2006, 09:23 PM // 21:23

There used to be a bug where Moebius Strike recharged itself, but now with the 2 second recharge, it's just as good xD