Curse

Karma Bites · Nov 15, 2011, 04:31 PM // 16:31

Hi Guys,
I'm having a few troubles with my bar only been back playing this game for 4months after a couple year break. Just wondering if there's any advice you could offer me. I have tried Spiteful Spirit but its too lackluster not enough damage to be applied Tried Spoil Victor but again that only Shines in HM and High HP monsters.........

The main trouble I seem to be having is the enemy's die rather fast or they flee from me

My bar is:

Lingering Curse
Enfeebling Blood
Barbs
Suffering
Faintheartedness
Desecrate Enchantments
Necrosis PVE Title Skill
Signet of Lost Souls

Attributes are Curses 12+3+1, Soul Reaping 12+1

Weapon 40/40 set up swapping to caster spear set.

Thanks for taking your time to read my post looking forward to reading you advice's

aspi · Nov 15, 2011, 04:54 PM // 16:54

That elite is one of the worst ever :/
Spiteful spirit is not the best elite but is much better then even this. With your build you might want to try out a feast of corruption build, suffering to fuel the hex part. if you can ball them up nicely it's quite a nice spike when followed by desecrate.

And if you don't mind an N/A assassins promise caller for unlimited nrg and recharge of skills.

Samarin · Nov 15, 2011, 05:37 PM // 17:37

In general pve, lingering curse isn´t very effective while its damage output is low and the mobs have healers of significant effect pretty rarely.

Spiteful spirit has been the main tool of curses bar in pve and when used correctly, can do some serious damage. Then, often it is just wasted 15e spell if misplaced...

Feast of corruption could be taken into consideration and when used in conjunction with an aoe-hex, it does good damage. The long recharge and its damage 'only' at adjacent foes are its downsides, but as with ss, against clumped targets pretty effective. Could be nice when used with arcane echo but with three 2sec cast spells the combo is slow and use up much energy. With some skill quickening cons could be taken into consideration.

I recall using sequence aoehex-arcane echo-FoC-FoC-signet of suffering(luxon/kurz pve-skill) somewhere in past. Not exactly the most optimal but in basic pve does its job. Pretty slow without any consumables, though.

For non-elite skills, enfeebling blood is nice skill, I equip it most of the time when playing curses necro at pve. If wanting to have more antimelee, either reckless haste (use with SS) or shadow of fear (don´t use with ss) could be a fine selections and can be used in conjunction with feast of corruption too.

Desecrate and defile enchantments can be used for some extra damage but aren´t that great if there is´t any enchantments on enemies.

If bringing physicals or tons of minions with you, barbs and mark of pain have good damage potential.

Pve-only skills also offer wide variety to customize your build. Necrosis is nice single target-spammable and signet of corruption helps with energy when using foc. Personally, I nearly always wield three of these.

For energy management, bring signet of lost souls when needed (seems you have done it already). If there are tons of annoying conditions, consider bringing foul feast for energy management and party support, too.

As aspi mentioned, assassins promise caller can do some nice spiking but is awfully boring. If doing vanquishing or otherwise getting grindy, ap is great.

Markaedw · Nov 15, 2011, 08:33 PM // 20:33

I guess what you really need to do is determine what you want to accomplish with this build. Because mass degen can be accomplished with the elite skill life transfer. Mass AoE damage is better with echoing Spiteful Spirit, cast arcane echo, cast SS tab cast SS repeat as long as you can. SS works every time the effected target does anything, put it it on 2 or three enemies and watch the deaths occur. Preventing healing is not so important because you really want to spike the healer first anyway.

Here's a curse build that I have had great success with

OAVDIopHT3g5BLBjB7BaAtgAAA

Nercrosis PVE
Spiteful Spirit
Arcane Echo
Parasitic Bond
Insidious Parasite
Empathy
Signet of Corruption Allegiance Rank, this can be switched with Signet of Lost Souls if your rank is to low.
Then just put is what ever res sig or other skill you want.

Karma Bites · Nov 16, 2011, 01:47 AM // 01:47

Cool thanks for some info didn't know LC was that bad lol, erm Assasins Promise I've seen a few builds based around that elite but I don't like to lock my 2nd proff to just 1 elite.
FoCs long recharge but echoing might be worth the slotting it in as I bring a water hexer along for the ride which means the ball up Don't use MM's or MB's so SS is a bit redundant as Melee Ai goes fuzzy at times

Will try FoC in the morning.... will FoC echo and empathy and enfenbleed work well together?

LifeInfusion · Nov 16, 2011, 01:57 AM // 01:57

(swap elite) -->Soul Bind/Spoil Victor are better anti-heal options. The latter works on anything that heals or attacks a lower HP ally (minions)
Enfeebling Blood
Barbs *the only thing that really needs high spec curses besides Desecrate
Suffering --> generally useless
Faintheartedness --> swap for Shadow of Fear or Meekness
Desecrate Enchantments
Necrosis PVE Title Skill
Signet of Lost Souls

Kelfer · Nov 16, 2011, 03:54 AM // 03:54

Just about everyone is gonna say Spiteful Spirit here, cos you're using Curses.
BTW don't use Faintheartedness or similar attack slow down skills on foes if you intend using SS, as these effect SS badly.

There are a couple of alternatives tho:
1. Feast of Corruption
2. Soul Bind

FOC is pretty tricky to get used to, works very well when 2 members of the team have it or Arcane Echo is used. Other skills can be used to recharge it faster, Glyph of Swiftness for example

Soul Bind is also quite a hard one to get used to, as it will damage the healer and not the target, so don't get confused. It is also advisable to use cover hexes w. this to avoid it getting removed too early.

HigherMinion · Nov 16, 2011, 06:14 AM // 06:14

I've noticed the only good necromancer bar is the meleemancer.... Shame, but necromancers are seriously underpowered. SR is good, but there is no good 7 skills to take on a human bar. I normally run AP-MoP, but recently, since skill capping warrior elites, I've been using this:

1.Whirlwind Attack
2.Sun and Moon Slash
3.Savage Slash
4.Ebon Battle Standard of Honor
5.Mark of Pain
6.Hundred Blades
7.For Great Justice!
8.I Am Unstoppable!

Team includes an Orders bar with OoP, SoH, Blood Bond and smite hex/condition. The Minion Bomber contains Dark Fury with 5 spec in Blood so Orders doesn't spam one or the other, but both are up together. It's seriously stupidly effective compared to my normal bar.

Venganza · Nov 16, 2011, 12:26 PM // 12:26

SS is highly over-rated, and all too often used incorrectly.

You might want to take a look at Blood (Life Transfer or similar) and make up a bar with Necrosis and another PvE skill of two.

HigherMinion · Nov 16, 2011, 03:27 PM // 15:27

Quote:

Originally Posted by Venganza

SS is highly over-rated, and all too often used incorrectly.

You might want to take a look at Blood (Life Transfer or similar) and make up a bar with Necrosis and another PvE skill of two.

SS is a bad, but a degen elite is even worse... High DoT or just pure armour ignoring damage is what you're aiming for.

Kelfer · Nov 16, 2011, 06:30 PM // 18:30

Quote:

HigherMinion: Shame, but necromancers are seriously underpowered

Wooah! Now there's a statement....
Ever heard of Triple Nec team ?

?
One of the most powerful and versatile there is. Suggest rethink ....

If a mention of "Assassins are better" appears, give that person an apple.

HigherMinion · Nov 16, 2011, 07:39 PM // 19:39

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kelfer

Wooah! Now there's a statement....
Ever heard of Triple Nec team ?

?
One of the most powerful and versatile there is. Suggest rethink ....

If a mention of "Assassins are better" appears, give that person an apple.

You mean that hero build that required 2 monk hench and dealt damage via SS? Yeah, seriously versatile. It's no good now and it never really was.

paranon · Nov 16, 2011, 07:54 PM // 19:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by HigherMinion

You mean that hero build that required 2 monk hench and dealt damage via SS? Yeah, seriously versatile. It's no good now and it never really was.

lol, you post a "meleemancer" build that probably requires about 3 healers to survive the first 5s of a fight and is inferior in every way to just running a warrior, and then complain that sabway, the most versatile 3 hero build ever made is bad? good logic. You aren't a good theorycrafter now and you never were.

Kelfer · Nov 16, 2011, 08:41 PM // 20:41

Quote:

Originally Posted by HigherMinion

You mean that hero build that required 2 monk hench and dealt damage via SS? Yeah, seriously versatile. It's no good now and it never really was.

If you're talking about Build talk:Team - Sabway No, not this, but a variation of it.
Well you seem to know a heck of a lot, all of it negative.

Lanier · Nov 16, 2011, 10:14 PM // 22:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by HigherMinion

I've noticed the only good necromancer bar is the meleemancer.... Shame, but necromancers are seriously underpowered.

Uh, what? Necros are probably the most powerful prof in the game after rits and mesmers. There are so many good necro bars, and many builds from other professions can be run with similar results on a necro as well (ex: necro healer). Necros can run:

A OoU Minion master
An AoTL or Jagged Bones Minion bomber
A damage build based around Icy Veins or Discord
A Cultists Fervor or OoTV orders build (blood is great for physical support)
A Curses support build (the elites may be mediocre... but they aren't that bad, and there are lots of really good curses non-elites like enfeebling blood, weaken armor, and barbs)
A SS "punishing" style build built around reactive hexes (with curses support sprinkled in)

SS isn't a bad skill (not great, but not bad either), and its probably the best curses elite available tbh. FoC is crap outside of spikes due to the recharge. Soul Bind is very situational, as is PoD/Corrupt enchantments. Of course, if you don't like the curses elites, you can always resort to reapers mark, and use the extra e-management for extra spammability of more expensive spells.

HigherMinion · Nov 16, 2011, 11:07 PM // 23:07

Quote:

Originally Posted by paranon

lol, you post a "meleemancer" build that probably requires about 3 healers to survive the first 5s of a fight

I don't theorycraft; I leave that to others. I run. I test in the field, and in all seriousness, if you think "triple necro vanquish" is amazing, you must be living in the dark ages of guild wars still... None the less, you can't say there are many effective necromancer builds and meleemancer really is the best bar.

Paranon; this phrase makes you sound very misinformed and stupid. Arguments that contain "maybe" or "probably" or "i believe" never end well in their favour... I actually now run this bar full-time since skill capping as it's very durable and well-structured to get the most out of MoP and pump adren skills. There is no issue with death as Shelter, thank you anet, is overpowered to hell.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lanier

Uh, what? Necros are probably the most powerful prof in the game after rits and mesmers. There are so many good necro bars, and many builds from other professions can be run with similar results on a necro as well (ex: necro healer). Necros can run:

A OoU Minion master
An AoTL or Jagged Bones Minion bomber
A damage build based around Icy Veins or Discord
A Cultists Fervor or OoTV orders build (blood is great for physical support)
A Curses support build (the elites may be mediocre... but they aren't that bad, and there are lots of really good curses non-elites like enfeebling blood, weaken armor, and barbs)
A SS "punishing" style build built around reactive hexes (with curses support sprinkled in)

SS isn't a bad skill (not great, but not bad either), and its probably the best curses elite available tbh. FoC is crap outside of spikes due to the recharge. Soul Bind is very situational, as is PoD/Corrupt enchantments. Of course, if you don't like the curses elites, you can always resort to reapers mark, and use the extra e-management for extra spammability of more expensive spells.

And listen to you saying necromancer-specific builds "aren't bad" but praising their profession. I feel you, too, are living in old times. Soul Reaping was nerfed; Ritualists and Mesmers were buffed to insane levels and Necromancers were left in the dust after their Soul Reaping nerf. You can argue as much as you like about SR being OP, but there is nothing worth placing in that godly "ninth slot" that an energy management skill would regularly take up.

Let's go over this:
1. Heroes>Humans at minion mastery builds (cross those two off the list)
2. Blood bars are good. Bit mundane, heroes are better at it, but still a human can run this and be amazing.
3.Icy Veins... Cold damage is crap damage. It doesn't matter what else you put on the bar; you invested in crap as your elite skill.
4.Spiteful Spirit may not be armour sensitive, but it's reactive and slow to kill. The only good thing about SS bars is you have attributes for Mark of Pain. Problem is Mark of Pain>SS, so your elite cripples the rest of your build.
5. Ritualists can spam powerful offensive and defensive spirits; the offensive ones span two characters and ST/Rt Lord rits are so powerful, they really need to be seen to by the devs.
6. Mesmer support is far greater; giving defensive skills an offensive twist, AoE style. In the Mesmer update, everything was buffed with +1337 damage and given an AoE range, just to fit in with "what pve is", which Necromancers did not get when they got their blood attribute update. Surprised they didn't make Blood Bond steal life instead of just generate it. Chaos Storm, Mistrust, Energy Surge; all amazing AoE damage.
7.ER eles do prot better than necs. Necromancers still run out of energy.

I really find it amazing how I am getting so much stick when this community has argued irrefutably how terrible reactive hexes are and running minion mastery builds as a human is simply sub-standard. The only relatively good bar is AP-MoP and it seems the recharge doesn't matter that much when you're a melee and can ball yourself with ease.

Mark of Pain is what makes everyone wow, what makes us think "GOREDENGINE me; these guys are overpowered! One skill. That's all they have going for them; and to make matters worse, it requires coordination to achieve *anything*!

Wielder Of Magic · Nov 17, 2011, 09:37 AM // 09:37

Last time I checked, the OoU MM build causes DPS through the roof, but heroes fail @ running it.
Therefore human MM > hero MM ( if only due to the fact you have a brain and the AI doesn't).
With the introduction of the minion panel everyone can death nova the right minion, so heroes have lost their targeting edge as well.
Last, human MM's can bring OP PvE skills to the table, heroes cannot ( an argument that can be used for any build true, but it still is a significant advantage).

Icy veins right now is underpowered indeed, but I have good hopes that this will change when the expected HM update comes along. It might become a very powerful nuke then ( especially when coupled with other toy among curses/death attribute lines)

sure SS is reactive, but everything does everything faster in HM so the damage adds up fast. Just ball things a bit and you will see the numbers flying across your screen. Sure it might not be the best elite the necromancer has to offer, but it surely isn't as bad as you make it look.

Necromancers can spirit spam fine, just like rangers can.
Only advantage rits have is higher attribute points using runes ( ST protting being an exception to this).

Necromancers really aren't that bad.
They might not be God tier in the current meta,
But they are still in the Good tier at the very least.

Swingline · Nov 17, 2011, 11:56 AM // 11:56

What's all this hate towards human MMs? A good human MM can mitigate damage and deal massive amounts of damage better than any hero can all while standing in the back scratching their ass.

Last time Urgoz was the zb i did it 4 times, one with my necro. As an AoTL mm my job was to obviously take focus off the group. What they didn't know was that I would be dealing more damage than the rits, mesmers and eles. I assure you with the minion ui panel you can turn an entire army into a walking time bomb better than any hero. When I was at the room of 1000 wardens I saced my entire minion army on a huge balled group of wardens. 120 damage across the screen is nothing to shrug off as mediocre.

LifeInfusion · Nov 17, 2011, 02:05 PM // 14:05

Quote:

Originally Posted by HigherMinion

1. Heroes>Humans at minion mastery builds (cross those two off the list)
2. Blood bars are good. Bit mundane, heroes are better at it, but still a human can run this and be amazing.
3.Icy Veins... Cold damage is crap damage. It doesn't matter what else you put on the bar; you invested in crap as your elite skill.
4.Spiteful Spirit may not be armour sensitive, but it's reactive and slow to kill. The only good thing about SS bars is you have attributes for Mark of Pain. Problem is Mark of Pain>SS, so your elite cripples the rest of your build.
5. Ritualists can spam powerful offensive and defensive spirits; the offensive ones span two characters and ST/Rt Lord rits are so powerful, they really need to be seen to by the devs.
6. Mesmer support is far greater; giving defensive skills an offensive twist, AoE style. In the Mesmer update, everything was buffed with +1337 damage and given an AoE range, just to fit in with "what pve is", which Necromancers did not get when they got their blood attribute update. Surprised they didn't make Blood Bond steal life instead of just generate it. Chaos Storm, Mistrust, Energy Surge; all amazing AoE damage.
7.ER eles do prot better than necs. Necromancers still run out of energy.

I actually kind of agree with Higher Minion on this (the Mesmers/Ritualists part). Necros have less of an edge compared to before. Necros are not underpowered but mesmer and Ritualists got super-buffed.

Look at these skill descriptions (15 attribute):
Unnatural Signet: Deals 75 damage. Deals 50 damage to other adjacent foes if the target is hexed or enchanted. (10 recharge)
ESurge: Deals 90 damage to target and nearby foes. (5 energy, 15 base recharge) --> basically mesmer area spike damage
Chaos Storm: Deals 25 damage and causes 2 Energy loss each second (10 seconds). Hits foes adjacent to target's initial location. (5 energy, 30 base recharge) --> look at breath of fire. This shouldn't do damage unconditionally
Accumulated Pain: Deals 75 damage. Inflicts Deep Wound condition (20 seconds) if target foe has 2 or more hexes. (12 base recharge) --> direct damage skill with deep wound
Spiritual Pain: Deals 75 damage. Deals 125 damage to hostile summoned creatures in the area of your target foe. (7 base recharge) --> direct damage skill

Wastrel's Worry: End effect: causes 100 damage to target and adjacent foes. (1 recharge) --> Panic, PI makes this stupid easy
Enchanter's Conundrum: Causes 200% slower enchantment casting (10 seconds). Initial effect: deals 100 damage to target and adjacent foes if target foe is not enchanted. (10 base recharge)
Signet of Clumsiness: Interrupts an attack for target foe and all adjacent foes. Interruption effect: deals 60 damage. (8 base recharge)
Mistrust: The next spell that target foe casts on one of your allies fails and deals 135 damage to target and nearby foes. (12 base recharge) --> maybe adjacent range or less armor-ignoring damage
Wandering Eye: Interrupts target foe's next attack. Interruption effect: 110 damage to nearby foes. (12 base recharge) --> ought to be adjacent
Cry of Frustration: If target foe is using a skill, that foe and all foes in the area are interrupted and take 75 damage. (15 base recharge) --> ought to have lower damage or higher recharge ~20s to compensate for PvE change
Keystone: Your next 6 signets interrupt and deal 60 damage to other foes adjacent to your target. (15 base recharge) --> simply broken when you don't need to interrupt a skill to do damage
Overload: If target foe is using a skill, then Overload deals 75 damage to that foe and all adjacent foes. (5 energy, 5 recharge)
Shatter Delusions: Removes a Mesmer hex from target foe. Removal effect: 75 damage to target and all adjacent foes. (6 base recharge)

DwG: 20% armor penetration on all those channeling skills. Drop effect: deals 100 lightning damage to all foes in the area. (5 recharge) --> ought to be at least 10 recharge
Ancestor's Rage: End Effect: deals 110 armor ignoring lightning damage to foes adjacent to target ally. (10 recharge) --> shouldn't be armor ignoring to begin with
Channeled Strike: Deals 95 lightning damage. Deals 35 additional lightning damage if you are holding an item. (4 recharge) --> such high spike damage for a line that has support
Spirit Rift: After 3 seconds, affects foes adjacent to target's initial location. Deals 135 lightning damage and inflicts Cracked Armor (20 seconds)--> look at Lightning Surge/orb. This is the AoE version, I have no idea why Ritualists get free AoE cracked armor.
Clamor of Souls: Deals 65 lightning damage to target and nearby foes. You gain 10 Energy if you are within earshot of a spirit or holding a bundle item. (8 recharge) --> nearby range and energy management built in
Spirit Burn:50 lightning damage. If any spirits are within earshot, Spirit Burn causes Burning for 5 seconds (6 recharge) --> ought to be more burn and less damage.

SoS, for obvious reasons. --> 0 energy cost is pretty broken, at least make it 2 cast time (3*0.75 normally if you are just doing bar compression)
Splinter weapon, for obvious reasons.
Painful Bond, see Barbs/Conjures/any ranger preparation --> also broken due to Spirit Siphon with 0 energy cost SoS ... why is this nearby
ST for Protting , see DoA

Case in point of ridiculousness: run
Me/Mo 12+1+2 fast cast, 10+1 inspir, 8 smite
Keystone signet
unnatural signet
signet of clumsiness
castigation signet
trytophan signet/leech signet/signet of disruption/etc.
strength of honor --> can use this better than necro
mantra of inscriptions
symbolic celerity

Lanier · Nov 17, 2011, 06:13 PM // 18:13

I think many of us would agree that rits and mesmers are the 2 most OP professions. That doesn't change the fact that necros are probably the 3rd most powerful prof.