Curse

Kaida the Heartless · Feb 27, 2011, 12:19 AM // 00:19

Title says it all. This was never a "Great" build, but will give you something different to do in less-than-high-end areas.

There are about a million different ways you can run this, but the concept is generally around:
1)Masochism
2)Dark Aura
3)Pious Renewal
4)Aura of Holy Might
5)Teardowns

Another variant used Withering Aura (already Death Magic) and Reap Impurities, but this was a few too many enchantments for me. Maybe you'll like it more.

One rotation of Pious will give you just over 100 AoE armor ignoring damage. Please feel free to post your variations. Enjoy.

Chthon · Feb 27, 2011, 01:01 AM // 01:01

Might drop Demonic Flesh for Mystic Regen to counteract the sac a little.

Might also consider Dark Fury hero and TMS over Wearying for faster spam.

Kunder · Feb 27, 2011, 11:12 PM // 23:12

Looks interesting. If only PR wasn't mysticism, this would be perfect

Agree with dropping Demonic Flesh. Its not doing anything that amazing and its tying up a lot of attribute points in blood. If you had another character with Dark Fury then Twin Moon Sweep alone should heal enough to counteract the loss in the long run.

How tight is energy on this build? Probably isn't a good answer to that since soul reaping is so random. If you could spare some, I would drop Radiant for Withering just for the weakness, else a 70-75ish armor necromancer on the front lines is just too squishy.

Kaida the Heartless · Feb 28, 2011, 12:08 AM // 00:08

I found that Radiant Scythe provides a stable means of energy income. Twin Moon Sweep would be nice if the Heroes didn't freak out at every cast. Buuuut like I said, there a million ways to run this now, however, with any of them I would suggest an E/Mo Protter since you are, as you mentioned, very squishy.

reaper with no name · Mar 28, 2011, 07:18 AM // 07:18

Holy mother of donkey ****ers.

*One massive amount of calculations later...*

Well the scientific term for the amount of data I have here is "a crapload" (my poor Pious Spam excel sheet has so many pages to it now...).

But anyway, I wanted to see if it was possible for this build to do more damage than Pious Spam in a single target situation (a multiple target situation would have increased the workload on this even more, and it took forever to do as-is).

The "best" versions of this build (I went through several) that I was able to put together for this were:

AoHM-Masochism-DarkAura-PiousRenewal-PiousAssault-WearyingStrike-IrresistibleSweep-DrunkenMaster

AoHM-Masochism-DarkAura-PiousRenewal-PiousAssault-WearyingStrike-ZealousRenewal-DrunkenMaster

Both with 12 Scythe Mastery, 15 Death Magic, and 6+3 Soul Reaping.

Theoretically, the first build has the best damage output, but in practice it would not be able to maintain it's energy without hitting multiple targets (if you can count on doing that consistently, you shouldn't be using this sort of build in the first place), so it must be rejected (can you believe it? a necromancer build with energy problems!).

The second build can maintain it's energy, so it is what ultimately matters.

What was it compared to? Why, my Pious Spam build, of course:

FGJ-AoHM-PF-PR-PA-IS-WS-SY

Now, obviously, Pious Spam has more armor, more health, SY, more deep wound via FGJ, and no health sac. That isn't the question here. The question is, can Necro Pious Spam (as I shall hereafter refer to it) outdamage Dervish Pious Spam against a single target?

Turns out, it can. Barely. Even after I switch Pious Fury with Drunken Master to even the odds (not that it makes a noticeable difference), the necromancer still edged it out in damage.

But!

It's only a tiny amount. Less than 5 dps of difference. And when one considers the lost dps from inflicting fewer deep wounds over time, the dervish would easily come out on top in the area of overall "damage". And, as noted before, the necromancer has numerous other disadvantages.

If anyone is interested, I can post the nuts and bolts math, but it's very disorganized, with very little context to explain what everything is, as well as a whole lot of irrelevant stuff (I've been using the same excel sheet for testing a lot of situations similar to this).

Still, it's a very interesting and clever build concept. Bravo. My hood is off to you, Kaida.

Carinae · Mar 28, 2011, 08:14 PM // 20:14

Since you have to get into melee range anyway, I would think it would be better to use the two Blood Magic sacrifice attacks and double-trigger Dark Aura.

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/d...t10403330.html

reaper with no name · Mar 29, 2011, 07:15 AM // 07:15

Crap.

I just realized that Zealous Renewal at 0 mysticism only lasts 5 seconds, making it effectively useless for non-dervishes in this context (since at best you'd only be able to match the cost to cast the spell).

This means that one can ignore everything I said in my last post after "it would not be able to maintain it's energy".

Well, except for the part about this being a very clever and cool build (however impractical).

Note to self: stop doing damage calculations at 3 in the morning while exhausted after work.

Silent Dark · Oct 11, 2011, 12:23 AM // 00:23

I just made a build slightly similar to this. It is also not "Great". But in a weird little way it works.

Attributes:
Death Magic 15 (+3 Rune)
Soul Reaping 7 (+1 Rune)
Scythe Mastery 10
Wind Prayers 8

Skills:

Signet of Mystic Speed
Masochism
Dark Aura
Onslaught
Grenth's Aura
Radiant Scythe
Test of Faith
Vow of Piety

I usually pre-cast VoP and let my energy recharge a little and then I use SoMS/Masochism/Dark Aura, then get in the fight. A zealous scythe comes in very handy as well.

Premium Unleaded · Oct 11, 2011, 02:01 AM // 02:01

Since you're going to have the usual physical buffs in practise, withering aura can be left to a hero and they're not too bad with its usage.

Calista Blackblood · Oct 11, 2011, 03:32 AM // 03:32

Date of last post: Mar 29, 2011, 08:15 AM