Curse

Kaleban · Jun 09, 2005, 12:18 AM // 00:18

Ok, I don't really see this combo much in my reading of these forums, so I wanted to see what you all think.

First, I'm new to the game, so I'm still unlocking skills. And after seeing people play, it seems there are several builds that are "cookie-cutter" like, that for example with Diablo 2 I avoided like the plague.

In any case, I'm torn between "fun" builds and "power" builds, since GW is about PvP, I don't want to hamstring myself before I even begin. I am working right now on a Monk/Warrior because I liked the concept, but also found out that with some of the later skills, they excel at farming, which I enjoyed doing with a Warcry Barb back in D2.

So anyways, here's a concept I thought up. First of all the Elementalist Primary with massive mana, gives me enough to power all my skills. The Earth spells I thought were quite cool, and different since everyone seems to use fire. And many of the Earth skills have synergies too, and provide both offense and defense, so its a versatile attribute.

So at this point my points would be spread between Earth Magic and Energy Storage. This character alone would make both a good offensive caster, as well as a good defender, say casting wards and armor over the monks. Then you add in the Necro secondary, which has many good options. For PvE, you've got Death magic for minions and Blood magic for skills like Well of Blood and the Vampiric stuff for self heals. But for PvP, you'd put those points into Curses, and further hamper the enemy team's ability to get at your monks or even yourself!

So does this sound like a good idea, or am I just nuts and will get destroyed?

kimchipoisen · Jun 09, 2005, 01:08 AM // 01:08

just make a ranger like all the other thousand people

Kaleban · Jun 09, 2005, 03:27 AM // 03:27

Well I do have a Ranger/Mesmer as well (all 6 classes) and I thought perhaps people might have had some constructive feedback on the overall effectiveness of the build.

I want it to be solo-able in PvE, but very party friendly in PvP. Basically, you could play this E/N as a debuffing defensive caster, or an offensive hexing caster. Either way, she'd be effective against warrior types, especially with Blind from Eruption, as well as the Earth attacks largely ignoring armor.

Pyrthas · Jun 09, 2005, 03:30 AM // 03:30

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kaleban

I want it to be solo-able in PvE

With or without henches? PvE really isn't supposed to be soloable without henches. With henches, most things aren't too bad, though.

Kaleban · Jun 09, 2005, 03:49 AM // 03:49

Well, I meant strong enough in PvE. As has been noted Earth skills are not the most offensive of the magic skills, so with henchies or other peeps is fine by me. I think with enough of the nicer Earth skills combo'd with the Blood or Death magics would make this character a great support class, and possibly a major damage dealer.

Myodato · Jun 09, 2005, 10:42 AM // 10:42

I've started a N/E who uses death magic and earth. He is very hard to kill (especially if I'm using blood magic aswell, which is useful for PvE), and can both raise minions and deal a lot of direct damage. The only problem I have with it is that it relies too heavily on the energy from Soul Reaping, which can be very situational.

Most of the good damage spells in Death and Earth are for attacking groups, not individuals. This isn't a bad thing, but it can make it hard to focus damage to get that vital first corpse on the floor. For that reason, I'm considering switching to E/N instead, to utilise the more dependable Energy Storage attribute.

To answer the op, it is a very powerful, though somewhat defensive build. It has the ability to deal out a lot of damage, but not necessarily that quickly. To get it to work well, you need a group that works well together. People running off ahead out of the range of your wards, or not focusing on a single target to give you a corpse to play with are going to severely lower the potential of this sort of build.