Curse

MagmaRed · Jul 01, 2009, 09:09 PM // 21:09

Lots of good options, and many of them already covered here.

Monk with Smiting can be a big boost for several skills. Strength of Honor is notable for sure, but toss on Smite Condition and Smite Hex for when you face those and you turn them against your enemies.

Necro with Curses is of course a nice option. Barbs and Mark of Pain alone make it worth while, but things like Weaken Armor and Defile Defenses can also be used well.

D/N running Orders can be a nice options if you are running physical damage.

Ritualist with some weapon spells and Ancestor's Rage can be powerful, and they can also take some spirits for team support and healing as well.

Paragon is the last I'll mention, but the Command shouts are very nice when used with a Sin. Go For The Eyes, Anthem of Envy, Find Their Weakness and a few others can be a nice boost.

I'd play around with a few of them so you get the feel for how they work. Then pick the ones that you like best. However, don't forget that some quests/missions/monsters/etc. will stack up different against the same hero/team builds. Plan accordingly.

Paul Dawg · Jul 01, 2009, 11:39 PM // 23:39

I usually don't use it, because 99.9% of the time I'm hero-henching, and there are other PvE-only skills I need instead. But I would never recommend that someone DROP EBSoH, because I certainly see the value of the skill. And actually, I do use it sometimes--farming in the Secret Lair of Snowmen is a good example.

Also, if you go and place the ward in the wrong place, I'm sure you can get lots of screen shots of foes clumped outside the ward.

Quote:

Originally Posted by traversc

I could post a million screenshots of foes not clumped up in ward range. The fact that you say you "usually dont use it" means you pretty much agree with me. i.e., there are better options

Super Igor · Jul 02, 2009, 12:08 AM // 00:08

wtf, Pain Inverter > EBSoH for frontliners, simply because frontline will have to gimp itself to perform somewhat beneficial with that ward.

IronSheik · Jul 02, 2009, 01:56 AM // 01:56

A sin can do way more than running the discord caller build.

A regular Moebius Spammer with asuran scan pumps out way more damage than a discord caller does.

Since you can't grasp the KD warder, use this

OwBi0xjMVm5/cw0w8WCAo/UDCA

Beats a discord caller build in damage by far, but you can just change wild strike for Fang strike and it'll fuel discord in terms of condition+hex

Unreal Havoc · Jul 02, 2009, 06:58 AM // 06:58

Just run Discordway. It's an easy team setup that is very effective, very versatile in terms of skill management for areas that may need something different, and requires very little micromanagement. Stuff will be dead before you even get near it with daggers if you use it properly.

The best part about it is it allows you to have a very wide range of choice as you only need to run Assassin's Promise, You Move Like a Dwarf, Ebon Vanguard Assassin Support, and Finish Him. That leaves you 4 spare skill slots and an open secondary proffession.

FireWhale · Jul 02, 2009, 07:26 AM // 07:26

There are several combinations of builds that can be fitted to a sin.

Channeling magic: splinter weapon is amazing due to the high hit rate of a sin. Ancestor's rage is a nice skill as well. Devoting a whole hero to channeling limits potential, though. If you take channeling further, you'll have to go into offensive spirit summoning. Those don't mesh with the assassin as much, if at all.

edit: whoops. forgot "offensive spirit summoning or lightning skills"

Curses: Barbs, mark of pain (MoP), and weakness are very important here. Spiteful spirit works. I don't favor it too much, as many mobs are extremely dead before spiteful spirit plays a meaningful role. Rip enchantment and defile defenses can be used as filler if wanted.

Death Magic: For PvE, it's pretty common to have a minion master or minion bomber. I personally enjoy the minion master more, as it helps trigger barbs, MoP, and provides a heartier meat wall. Bone fiends, shamblings, bone minions, AoTl, etc. Combine some combination with putrid bile and death nova.

Smiting: Strength of honor. 26 extra damage is nothing to laugh at. Combine with a typical RoJ smiter (smite hex/smite condition/RoJ/reversal/smiter's boon/castigation signet) and you're set. Might have to watch the energy to see how it works out.

Also take a look at restoration magic. The new spirit changes makes them pretty attractive.

ps. Recommending discord is like stating the obvious. Of course it works, but it's not really adding anything to the discussion at all.

Unreal Havoc · Jul 02, 2009, 09:51 AM // 09:51

Quote:

Originally Posted by FireWhale

ps. Recommending discord is like stating the obvious. Of course it works, but it's not really adding anything to the discussion at all.

Of course it's adding something to the discussion. He wants a general PvE hero setup for clearing stuff and I quote:

Quote:

Originally Posted by aliasxneo

I'm looking for a general pve setup for clearing stuff. Any suggestions?

It's a universal setup, he can look up the base build format here and experiment with the rest of the setup himself to fine tune it to how he plays.

In a general sense there isn't really anything else that is much more superior other than Sabway as it can be adapted to suit pretty much any situation and any area, and if he wants stuff for specific areas then it doesn't become a general build anymore.

Super Igor · Jul 02, 2009, 10:12 AM // 10:12

What Unreal said basically, it's either rolling and winning with Discordway or gimping yourself with random unworking shite.

P.S. Need to update PvX article again. :*

Painbringer · Jul 02, 2009, 03:17 PM // 15:17

Quote:

Originally Posted by FireWhale

Smiting: Strength of honor. 26 extra damage is nothing to laugh at. Combine with a typical RoJ smiter (smite hex/smite condition/RoJ/reversal/smiter's boon/castigation signet) and you're set. Might have to watch the energy to see how it works out.

I run it with a zealous dagger and with Critical agility. The energy flows. even when you screw up and are waiting for a recharge you are just pounding away and they enemies bar drops fast. LVL 30 Bosses will drop in a few seconds if you hit them with a good chain and they have mediocre self heal skills. Boss Monks/rits take longer of course. The big thing is to watch the health of target before starting a chain or you will not be able to finish it. death blossem is your friend and if you can ball them up a nice ebon standard dropped increases the fun

I run necros all the time but I like to experiment it gets boring looking at the same heros all day. Unless you are going for survivor try some crazy builds. So what if it takes a few minutes longer.

FireWhale · Jul 02, 2009, 04:12 PM // 16:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by Painbringer

I run it with a zealous dagger and with Critical agility. The energy flows. even when you screw up and are waiting for a recharge you are just pounding away and they enemies bar drops fast. LVL 30 Bosses will drop in a few seconds if you hit them with a good chain and they have mediocre self heal skills. Boss Monks/rits take longer of course. The big thing is to watch the health of target before starting a chain or you will not be able to finish it. death blossem is your friend and if you can ball them up a nice ebon standard dropped increases the fun

I run necros all the time but I like to experiment it gets boring looking at the same heros all day. Unless you are going for survivor try some crazy builds. So what if it takes a few minutes longer.

ah, I meant the monk's energy. I run with a vampiric and a golden phoenix.

And yes, I understand the discord argument. I guess my ps is a little out of line, but I wanted to express some sentiment.

AtomicMew · Jul 03, 2009, 08:32 AM // 08:32

Quote:

A regular Moebius Spammer with asuran scan pumps out way more damage than a discord caller does.

Wow.... just wow.

So many things wrong with that sentence. 500% false.

Quote:

Also, if you go and place the ward in the wrong place, I'm sure you can get lots of screen shots of foes clumped outside the ward.

Please don't tell me you think everything spawns in ward range.

Le sigh... disapointing responses thus far.

Improvavel · Jul 03, 2009, 09:14 AM // 09:14

Sincerely I don't understand the infatuation people have with AP callers to fuel discord necro trios.

Aside from my necro, that generally is an ap-mop nuker, all my other chars run discordway and most have 0 hexes on them.

My assassin goes as MS/DB and his 3 necroes spamming discord and rolls to everything.

You don't need to frigging play an AP caller RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GO!

One of your necro heroes can easily spam hexes and conditions.

ZenRgy · Jul 03, 2009, 10:15 AM // 10:15

2 smiters with Smiter's boon and a curse necro. Or bring some splinter to blow up them mobs up in.

Unreal Havoc · Jul 03, 2009, 10:40 AM // 10:40

Quote:

Originally Posted by Improvavel

Sincerely I don't understand the infatuation people have with AP callers to fuel discord necro trios.

Aside from my necro, that generally is an ap-mop nuker, all my other chars run discordway and most have 0 hexes on them.

My assassin goes as MS/DB and his 3 necroes spamming discord and rolls to everything.

You don't need to frigging play an AP caller RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GO!

One of your necro heroes can easily spam hexes and conditions.

Maybe, but they can't use overpowered PvE only skills that KD-lock your target while doing damage, supplying a snare and interrupts aswell as deep wound, unblockable, and that are harder to interrupt due to having half the calling setup being shouts. They would also require more micro-management than just calling a target and watching stuff explode, not to mention the instant recharge of all your skills on the targets death if using AP, and less frontlining with a glass cannon.

You don't "need" to run a AP caller in Discordway, but it's not really as efficient without one due to the nature of which it works. It's designed to be used with casters, if you want to run something more for physicals you should be running Sabway instead. Both setups suit an Assassin due to the nature of the Assassins skill sets. Personally I love playing with one of each hero build setup (Discordway+Sabway) with two callers in a team, it's an amazing way to smash PvE HM wide open.

Also bare in mind that Discordway is certainly not limited to the PvX Wiki standard (which in fairness isn't the greatest version of it), the key to getting the most out of Discordway, or any hero team build for that matter, is a little experimentation to find what exactly works best for you. Base templates are there only to serve as a guide.

Super Igor · Jul 03, 2009, 11:30 AM // 11:30

Quote:

Originally Posted by Improvavel

Sincerely I don't understand the infatuation people have with AP callers to fuel discord necro trios.

Aside from my necro, that generally is an ap-mop nuker, all my other chars run discordway and most have 0 hexes on them.

My assassin goes as MS/DB and his 3 necroes spamming discord and rolls to everything.

You don't need to frigging play an AP caller RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GO!

One of your necro heroes can easily spam hexes and conditions.

If you were an AP caller you would've rolled better. The fact you dont even run any hexes or condition as a player is a FAIL. Discordway is like Racway, player build is very important.

I dont like to let my heroes do the hex/condition job because they do it so goddamn slow and you have to drop allot of utiity to make them do it somewhat effectively and still in the time they put a hex and a condition on the target by themselves, they couldve spiked at least two times if I primed Discord with an AP caller. Not to mention that the AP caller has a much higher burst damage than MS/DB, a 4 second knock-lock ideal to take down any target fast and amazing versatility you get from having 4 free slots and instant recharge. For example I make a great use out of Ele secondary Ward Against Melee which I can mantain permanently with AP and GoLE that allows me to have zero concern about energy.

Unreal Havoc · Jul 03, 2009, 12:01 PM // 12:01

Quote:

Originally Posted by Super Igor

For example I make a great use out of Ele secondary Ward Against Melee which I can mantain permanently with AP and GoLE that allows me to have zero concern about energy.

I never tried Ele wards on the AP caller, I'll have to give that a whirl. Also mean Aegis can be dropped on my Bomber and makes the party less subsceptible to enchantment removal.

Improvavel · Jul 03, 2009, 12:55 PM // 12:55

Quote:

Originally Posted by Super Igor

If you were an AP caller you would've rolled better. The fact you dont even run any hexes or condition as a player is a FAIL. Discordway is like Racway, player build is very important.

The fact you don't use death blossom + save yourselves as a sin player is fail.

The AP caller build serves to trigger discord.

If discord is triggering anyway the AP build serves no purpose.

The fact that you can deal immense damage and AoE damage with your sin and take advantage of barbs and mark of pain while casting save yourselves and knocking down the enemy target with skills like club of thousand bears is fail.

Playing melee characters as caster is STUPID.

Especially because you don't need AP to trigger discord.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Unreal Havoc

Maybe, but they can't use overpowered PvE only skills that KD-lock your target while doing damage, supplying a snare and interrupts aswell as deep wound, unblockable, and that are harder to interrupt due to having half the calling setup being shouts.

Save yourselves trumps any of the skills AP caller uses.

Quote:

They would also require more micro-management than just calling a target and watching stuff explode, not to mention the instant recharge of all your skills on the targets death if using AP, and less frontlining with a glass cannon.

Heroes cast hexes and conditions on your target. You can apply deep wound if needed or using withering aura if spam of enfeebling blood isn't enough.

An assassin or a warrior can easily trade the extra defense of the second restored for curses power due to the fact of slotting Save yourselves.

Unreal Havoc · Jul 03, 2009, 01:15 PM // 13:15

Quote:

Originally Posted by Improvavel

The fact you dont use death blossom + save yourselves as a sin player is fail.

The fact is you should be killing stuff so quickly you shouldn't need Save Yourselves.

Quote:

If discord is triggering anyway the AP build serves no purpose.

How does it serve no purpose? AP recharges all of your skills, the offensive spike calling skills aswell as any other skills you bring as extra damage or support aswell as giving you energy return on top of an assisting damage spike and KD lock alongside Discord.

Quote:

The fact that you can deal immense damage and AoE damage with your sin and take advantage of barbs and mark of pain while casting save yourselves and knocking down the enemy target with skills like club of thousand bears is fail.

This doesn't make sense. Why are you throwing out a ton of Curses when your heroes should be spamming Discord?

Quote:

Playing melee characters as caster is STUPID.

The Assassin isn't just a melee class. It has two whole spell casting attribute lines. Deadly Arts, and Shadow Arts. Why not take advantage of them? The beauty of this game is that there are some effective builds outside of the norm. You can run either Discordway, aimed at casters, or Sabway, aimed at physicals, on your Assassins heroes depending on whether you want to run a AP caller or Daggers. Both have already been reccomended by me, use the one that suits your style the most.

Quote:

Especially because you don't need AP to trigger discord.

AP isn't just to trigger Discord, if that was the case players would just go with Enfeebling Blood, etc, and done.

Quote:

Save yourselves trumps any of the skills AP caller uses.

That depends on the context of the build being used. You don't need it with Discordway, if you do then you're doing it wrong.

Quote:

Heroes cast hexes and conditions on your target. You can apply deep wound if needed or using withering aura if spam of enfeebling blood isn't enough.

Or you can throw it all on with an AP caller making your setup much faster and more efficient.

Quote:

An assassin or a warrior can easily trade the extra defense of the second restored for curses power due to the fact of slotting Save yourselves.

I still fail to see why you are needing Save Yourselves. I've cleared the entire Southern Shiverpeaks without it on HM with Discordway with relatively little problems at all.

At the end of the day use what works best for you, I have absolutely no issues using the setup I run with currently so see no reason to change anything about it so drastically now.

Super Igor · Jul 03, 2009, 01:56 PM // 13:56

Win post.

Also

Quote:

Originally Posted by Unreal Havoc

This doesn't make sense. Why are you throwing out a ton of Curses when your heroes should be spamming Discord?

thats what I dont get about people who want their Discord to buff melee and run it with melee in the first place as opposed to AP caller. :P

Improvavel · Jul 03, 2009, 04:17 PM // 16:17

So basically what u guys are saying is that a generic AP+PvE skills caller does more damage than a Moebius/Dblossom sin? Or than a GodSword Warrior?

Discord is great for heroes as it allows them to bring great utility and still do decent spike damage.

But their sustained DPS is kinda low.

And if it is true that the targets are dying so fast you dont need save yourselves why the hell do you have 2 discord healers?

In my experience, Sabway where the elites have been replaced by discord and attributes adjusted work much better than either originals Sabs or wiki discordway with an AP caller - they have the strong defense of both + the damage of both and your character is doing its role - in case of Moebius sin and Dragon Slash warrior that means a ton of sustained DPS.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Super Igor

Also

thats what I dont get about people who want their Discord to buff melee and run it with melee in the first place as opposed to AP caller. :P

Because barbs+mark of pain is more damage than discord? Especially when coupled with minions?

Discord is great spike damage. It is crappy sustained damage. Using sustained damage + Spike damage gives you the best of both worlds without any drawback.

So the primary question here is:

Will the heroes use discord without an ap caller and one of the discord restoration dudes turned into a discord curses dude just as good?

Yes, they do.

Since they do, does AP caller offers more utility/damage than Moebius sin?

I think the answer is a clear no.