Curse

zling · Sep 23, 2006, 01:11 AM // 01:11

this is mainly for PvE but it can be used in PvP as well, on the rare occasions that PvP builds require a Battery Necro...

16 Blood Magic(12+3+1)
11 Soul reaping(8+3)
10 Protection Prayers

superior blood and soul reaping
20/20 blood staff with +5 energy and 20% enchantment mods
20/20 protection staff with +5 energy and 20% enchantment mods

Blood is Power{E}
Blood Ritual
Blood Renewal
Awaken the Blood
Extinguish
Aegis
Reverse Hex
Rebirth

you should always be on the last line, near the Monk(s) and even a little behind. when using Reverse Hex you should aim for the tank or other people in the front line who take damage, firstly because hexes will be cast on them more often and devastate them more, secondly because they are taking the damage and thus you will protect a bit, thirdly because the Monk(s) can usually handle their own hexes, Contemplation of Purity and other skills. make sure that as soon as you finished casting Reverse Hex you withdraw back to the Monk(s)

note that on the rare occasions you will want to use your Battery Necro in PvP the whole positioning concept will be different as the Monk(s) suddenly become the priority target and the Warrior(s) being the safest from harm's way. and thus the positioning will greatly depend on the build your team is using and how they fit your Battery Necro in the build.

the 2 superior runes without a vigor rune of any type and no extra health from weapons is to reduce your health and thus lower your sacrifices, especially when Awaken the Blood is on, as you have 3 skills that sacrifice health. however there is no reason to go too low, therefore you dont have extra superior runes for nothing nor the -50 health grim cesta...

use Awaken the Blood to further enhance your Blood Magic spells. Blood Renewal is your only self heal, keep it on all the time. alternate between Blood is Power and Blood Ritual on casters, especially Monks, who need energy.

on "spare" time help the Monk(s) out with Hex/Condition removal as well as a handy Aegis. all the Protection Prayers besides Reverse Hex are affecting the entire party, and thus will not require you to move into a vulnerable position to use them.

cloudbunny · Sep 27, 2006, 05:30 PM // 17:30

Is it really a good idea to use Awaken the Blood when all your Blood spells are life saccing?
BiP + Awaken is pretty suicidal, a big risk for a minor bonus.

I guess you have to time your Blood Renewal pretty good with the life saccing. I would stay very far back with a build like this, which make it a bit less flexible regarding hex removal. Using blood ritual also make you more vulnerable for ranged attacks.

But if it works nicely it looks like a decent mix, similar to my own favorite.

I only use BiP and add Heal area for an extra instant heal. I normally put in 1 or 2 support curses (enfeeble/shadow of Fear/Reckless haste...) and Well of Blood as extra support and a bit corpse control (pve). But 5 of my most common used skills are the same as yours.

regards,
Cloudbunny

Hella Good · Sep 27, 2006, 07:54 PM // 19:54

This is for PvE. Pls don't BiP in PvP. BR is about as far as you would wanna go. If you start BiP-ing in PvP you have signed your death sentence. Heck, they'll hunt you down and kill you even for an innocent looking BR. No one likes silly Necros trying to manage nrg for the Monks.

cloudbunny · Sep 27, 2006, 09:42 PM // 21:42

I have never tried playing battery/support at PvP. But a support heavy BiP build is pretty nice in FoW/UW/elite missions for balanced parties.

Regards,
Cloudbunny

Arkantos · Sep 27, 2006, 11:52 PM // 23:52

BiP+AtB=66% health sac. 2 BiP=dead

cerb · Sep 28, 2006, 01:10 AM // 01:10

You shouldnt go prot when battery'ing. Ditch Awaken too, as others said. And BiP is all you want, BR = waste of slot.

I'd take Heal Area, Heal Other, Heal Party and a res. Of course, this build is PvE, don't even think of going PvP with it. (I'm talking about the general "battery" concept here)

The battery is a PvE build for end-game/hard missions to help support monks with bad e-management. In PvP, monks are more self-sufficient with energy (of course, BR will help sometimes, but you don't dedicate a slot purely to support monks). Some builds WILL take BiP as elite in PvP (commonly seen in Blood Spike and Ranger Spike), however they will not be dedicated batteries.

Hella Good · Sep 28, 2006, 01:13 AM // 01:13

Oh... I didn't even bother to check the actual build... snapped at the OP for suggesting BiP would make a good PvP skill, which it clearly won't. AtB is absolutely out of question with BiP. I have seen some use it with OoP, even in PvP for that matter but still the health sac of OoP is nowhere near what you sac with BiP under AtB. And now that I am actually reading the build I see you even use Blood Renewal under AtB... suicidal tendencies is all I can say...

Shai-hulud · Sep 28, 2006, 09:39 PM // 21:39

I did however see a top 100 ranked guild using it...it was however a Mo/N using blood is power + signet of devotion and the build had two other monks in it (it was probably nescessary as they used some smiting support).
During the time I was looking (u know by observe) this saccer didn't die or even got attacked, a while after I had to do something else I heard from one of the participants of the other team that they lost (so the team with the Mo/N won)
could be some test of course, but it looks like it isn't all that useless in pvp...

as for pve, I really love bringing additional prot like Aegis on casters (eles and necro's are perfect for bringing this extra skill as they usually have enough energy (in pve of course)) but this does mean that you barely have any self heal (only heal once every 10 seconds, u have some life regen, but the real heal will come later) this would mean that u can use BiP only once every 10 seconds or the monks will have 2 spend ~5 nrg of the (roughly) 20 nrg they get from BiP on healing you, therefor I would suggest a healing spell...
Awaken the Blood has minimal bonusses with only a +2 in blood (would be +1 nrg regen which is ~+2-3 nrg total) which isn't worth the additional sacrifice (+50% sac I believe? would be 33%+16.5% =~50%)
BR seems useless to me 2...
As for attributes, I think 9 points in protection is better than 10 as this increase doesn't improve Aegis duration...

Samuel Dravis · Sep 28, 2006, 09:54 PM // 21:54

In FoW your hp can be really, really low and it won't matter. For example, see this build:

BiP {e}
Blood Renewal
Mend Condition
Reversal of Fortune
Protective Spirit
Aegis
Well of Blood
Rebirth

works quite well. I have 14 blood(10+3+1) and 9 prot, with the rest in SR. Use an enchanting 20% for this build. If there's no mesmers around I will use my 105 hp armor set, maybe with a -50 offhand. Protective Spirit ftw. +6 regen will easily keep you alive even with a few guys whacking on you. Otherwise I use just a sup blood and cover prot spirit with blood renewal (even a shatter won't matter, so to speak). Having an additional Blood Ritual when you've got BiP is kinda pointless imo.

btw, FoW pugs are crappy.

Hella Good · Sep 28, 2006, 10:42 PM // 22:42

Try tossing in AtB like he did and then we'll talk about what matters and what doesn't. ;-)

Samuel Dravis · Sep 29, 2006, 02:52 AM // 02:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hella Good

Try tossing in AtB like he did and then we'll talk about what matters and what doesn't. ;-)

Yeah I guess so... I wouldn't ever think of running more than 14 blood on a bip battery anyway. No point; bip does +6, giving casters +10 regen, the maximum. IMO you're not likely to need to bip a ranger or warrior...

cloudbunny · Sep 29, 2006, 10:41 AM // 10:41

Yes, more than 14 in blood is only necessary if you bring enough other blood skills to justify it. I sometimes does on long quest trips in UW/FoW. Blood Renewal, Well of Blood and Vamp Gaze all benefits a little from higher blood.

Vamp gaze I only bring on longer trips where you might get 2-4 disconnects and may get low on damage dealing in the end. Some extra life steal is very nice then. Depending on who have disconnected I can then either go more towards monk or damage dealer.

I tried out another build last time in UW, so I then took Blood Ritual on the monks request (guess they are kind of spoilt, always having a BiP battery in the party). I really did not like Blood Ritual (compared to BiP). Cost, cast and recharge is altogher worse. That it is a touch skill really is the nail in the coffin for me. You start to spend a lot time running around the battle fields and are more easily targetted. I spent a lot time casting (2s) and running around that I actually could not really benefit from the other main features in my build that time. The lesser life sac is not much of an advantage as I see it. In my opinion the only reason to bring Blood Ritual is that it's not an elite.

With BiP, Blood renewal and Heal area I can usually keep BiP'ing monks, other casters and occasional ones on rangers, even with a +400 hp build. I have seen no reason to bring my health down since high health makes me more flexible for other tasks like hex removal and corps control/Welling.

regards,
Cloudbunny

cerb · Sep 29, 2006, 01:44 PM // 13:44

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shai-hulud

I did however see a top 100 ranked guild using it...it was however a Mo/N using blood is power + signet of devotion and the build had two other monks in it (it was probably nescessary as they used some smiting support).
During the time I was looking (u know by observe) this saccer didn't die or even got attacked, a while after I had to do something else I heard from one of the participants of the other team that they lost (so the team with the Mo/N won)
could be some test of course, but it looks like it isn't all that useless in pvp...

That was probably Deer, and that monk was an orders with bonds. They run a ranger spike in GvG. He's not a "dedicated battery".

I did not say that Blood is Power is useless in PvP, I said that filling a slot for a battery is. That monk you saw wasn't a battery, it was a bonder who had BiP as elite. (bonders don't need a specific elite)

Jetdoc · Sep 29, 2006, 02:29 PM // 14:29

Absolutely no need to carry both BiP and Blood Ritual, as 90% of the time you'd be better suited to apply BiP.

Definitely concur with the Awaken the Blood comments - gotta kill that skill quickly in this build.

That being said, you are in desperate need for a better self heal than Blood Renewal, as BiP is such a drain on your health. If you are trying to constantly BiP three casters, you're basically dead before you get off your second round of BiP's.

zling · Oct 02, 2006, 05:07 PM // 17:07

ok than, I guess something like this would be better:

14 Blood Magic(10+3+1)
10 Soul reaping(7+3)
10 Protection Prayers
9 Healing Prayers

superior blood and soul reaping
20/20 blood staff with +5 energy and 20% enchantment mods
20/20 protection staff with +5 energy and 20% enchantment mods
20/20 healing staff with +5 energy and +1 healing(20%) or 20/20 wand+off hand

Blood is Power{E}
Blood Renewal
Heal Area
Extinguish
Aegis
Mend Condition
Reverse Hex
Rebirth

cloudbunny · Oct 02, 2006, 08:02 PM // 20:02

Looks much better!

Since it is very close to my normal battery build I might give some comments.

With a build like that you might get energy issues if things not die fast enough. I would to be very careful using the the high energy protection spells (Aegis 15e, Extinguish, 15e and Reverse hex 10e). Otherwise you might get low in energy, so you are either dependent on monks healing you (and not the more needing) or have to cut down on the bipping. A bipper sometimes is the only one with energy issues in a party, soul reaping normally takes care of that, but not always.

Ideas:
Reverse hex can be subsituted with Remove hex (5e), same cast/recharge. The extra bonus on reverse hex is marginal.

Aegis (15e, 30s recharge) is a nice spell, but might be too expensive to use effective in this build. Shadow of Fear (10e, 5s recharge) give in most cases a similar effect for 20s with 0 in curses. With 10 in curses you get SoF to last 36s.

Extinguish is nice, but use it only when it is really, really needed. If the healing bonus is worth spending 10 in prot is up to you. Remove extinguish if the area is low on condition dealers.

With extinguish, mend conditions is redundant and you will not be so close to the front that you can remove condition on the tanks warriors. So you might remove that one.

Then you end up like this:

Blood is Power{E}
Blood Renewal
Heal Area
Extinguish (removed in condition low areas)
Remove Hex
Rebirth

You have 2-3 free slots and may also choose to spend the attribute points for 10 prot on something else.

Ideas for free slots:
Well of Blood: Nice additional healing, reduces strain on monks, may help your own self heal and is a good to get rid of corpses if facing necromancers.

Shadow of Fear or enfeeble/enfeeble blood: All nice curse spells that greatly reduces damage and help monks (Shadow of Fear might be a bad choice when you go with an SS necro).

Maybe some damage spell? Vamp gaze complements the build and is nice to finish off those annoying "almost dead" foes.

Good luck!
Cloudbunny

zling · Oct 02, 2006, 10:31 PM // 22:31

the thing about aegis and extinguish is that you dont need to get close to your target to get the effect of the spell. as for reverse hex, if you invested in protection prayers than why not make full use of it, dont spam it of course if you have energy issues but as you said soul reaping takes care of it most of the time. also carry a high energy set if you want.
if I invested in healing already for healing circle I guess I can sub mend condition for heal party as another 15e party booster. of course you dont spam these high energy spells you use them only when energy allows and when they're neccessary.
I dont want to get into the curse line as I think batteries should stay back near the monks most of the time and all these curse hexes force you to move forward, and if your party isnt hex heavy they'll be easily removed by all the monk and mesmer monsters around...

cloudbunny · Oct 02, 2006, 11:21 PM // 23:21

Quote:

Originally Posted by zling

I dont want to get into the curse line as I think batteries should stay back near the monks most of the time and all these curse hexes force you to move forward, and if your party isnt hex heavy they'll be easily removed by all the monk and mesmer monsters around...

I usually cast the hex spells only on things that break through the defence lines and threathens the casters and as such it is normally pretty effected.

I guess it is very much up to your own and your parties playstyle what you fill the rest of the spots with. My last 3 spots vary a lot between different areas and different teambuilds.

Regards,
Cloudbunny