Curse

Yukito Kunisaki · Jul 04, 2005, 06:02 AM // 06:02

Energy Stealing, Caster Stopping, Warrior Neutering demon mesmer...

Inspiration: 10+2
Fast Casting: 10+1
Curses: 11

Energy Tap
Ether Lord
Power Drain
Arcane Echo
Wither {E}
Malaise
Faintheartedness
Plague Sending

Basic strategies/goal: to empty/interrupt a caster's energy into your own pool using that to shut down enemy warriors and also other casters simultaneously. By using Arcane Echo, you can use any of the skills in this build 2x. Double Energy Tap with 12 Inspiration on any caster should spell danger. Funny thing, you can reduce caster's energy to nothing and then use the energy you stole to repeat the punishment. Warrior's/Rangers bent on damage and conditioning get neutered to nothing with the last 2 curses...

Any thoughts on improving the focus or should I diversify to be harder to counter... [from my understanding, countering energy denial is one of the hardest things to do...]

Enigmatics · Jul 04, 2005, 01:56 PM // 13:56

Empathy+price of failure would scratch your warrior it. Of course it'd be more offensive then enfeeble and faintheartedness.

Yukito Kunisaki · Jul 04, 2005, 08:43 PM // 20:43

I don't have domination magic and I'd rather save my teammates then kill an enemy.

Yep, killing one enemy < saving a teammember

rii · Jul 04, 2005, 09:30 PM // 21:30

I think malaise would be better on its own. - pips means your definately gonna be recasting, especially on low energy targets. malaise just kind of strands them at the points between screwed for energy, and bathed in it. Its a shutdown, as opposed to wither/malaise, which is kind of nukie. Im still not sure how good malaise actually is, people keep talking about off weapons but i find that suspiciously ive-found-a-counter.

If your stealing all that energy, why not use enfeebling blood and shadow of fear. Same thing as enfeebel/faint expcept area of effect.

Ether Lord will be draining 3 pips... when i use it i like inspiration at 16 so its 4. This is kind of the last move before bust energy shutdown at 4 pips, if you can find a good set of weapons and focus for reducing casting time i just use it, malaise (when i get it) and stuff like soothing images, and just burn out so ether lord isnt such a loss.

Power Drain is cool, but i suggest basically take out Wither and put in Energy Drain. boost inspiration to 16 to make it all real meaty, and maybe put in ether feast. Self heals seem stupid, but i worked out that with maxed out malaise casting ether feast at pull pelt reduces the health loss to only -20 per 8 seconds, something your monks should be much happier with

UberRusty · Jul 04, 2005, 09:54 PM // 21:54

Quote:

[from my understanding, countering energy denial is one of the hardest things to do...]

I've met a few Monks in my HoH experience that use SpellBreaker and they keep it up 2/3 of the time. Of course, those Monks are very good monks with extremely good timing. :P

Yukito Kunisaki · Jul 05, 2005, 05:53 AM // 05:53

Well, spell breaker counters everything spell-like.

Which I think is freakin' gay cause it can't be stripped. It's in essence, a 'perfect' skill... [using physical damage through it is kinda odd though...]

But wait, with Spell Breaker, does that mean the target can't be healed too?

s0m31 · Jul 05, 2005, 06:59 AM // 06:59

Someone used this tactic on me. An easy counter for this build is to just bring your energy to 0 by using a skill at the right time. Unless you recast that malaise+wither combo everytime someone get rids of it. A nice thing about this build is if you get your enemies' energy stuck to one then they are shutdowned permanently for 20 seconds unless they have something to remove hexes and such.

You might want to put some anti condition skills there such as plague touch since your going to be an easy kill with 2 degen already from malaise.

Ishamael Sedai · Jul 05, 2005, 08:20 AM // 08:20

Quote:

Originally Posted by Yukito Kunisaki

Well, spell breaker counters everything spell-like.

Which I think is freakin' gay cause it can't be stripped. It's in essence, a 'perfect' skill... [using physical damage through it is kinda odd though...]

But wait, with Spell Breaker, does that mean the target can't be healed too?

Anyone think spellbreaker is the best elite in the game? I do and am personally am glad its there.

Jul 05, 2005, 08:22 AM // 08:22

you'll empty your own energy pool and accomplish nothing before stopping a caster

Arclyte · Jul 05, 2005, 10:42 AM // 10:42

The counter to Malaise+Wither is simple.

Hit F2.

Yukito Kunisaki · Jul 05, 2005, 08:35 PM // 20:35

Quote:

Originally Posted by Blackace

you'll empty your own energy pool and accomplish nothing before stopping a caster

Empty energy pool? Did the fact that I steal all your energy kinda not mean something? Switch weapons you say? Well... How about I just recast? After all, I can just keep draining and draining your energy for say, nearly forever?

Well it's all about making the most of your time. That second you take to switch weapons to get rid of the hexes is enough for someone to die so that's my $0.02.

Besides, your enemy is now at 0. What are you going to do while it's regenning? I for one will be watching my hp and your hp to see if the hexes are there, if not... Then I'll just recast both. And walk away. You can probably pull off one 5 energy skill or something before your energy regen is stuck at 0 and you have 2 energy in your pool. Then, I just move on to another caster. 25s. later, maybe you'll be lucky and your team isn't dead?

edit* Besides, can you imagine how god awful broken it would be if you had 0 energy with these two hexes on you on top of blanket hexes and they didn't wear off when your energy hit 0? Besides, my goal is for ur energy to hit 0 so if it does hit 0. My job is done...

Yukito Kunisaki · Jul 05, 2005, 08:39 PM // 20:39

Quote:

Originally Posted by s0m31

Someone used this tactic on me. An easy counter for this build is to just bring your energy to 0 by using a skill at the right time. Unless you recast that malaise+wither combo everytime someone get rids of it. A nice thing about this build is if you get your enemies' energy stuck to one then they are shutdowned permanently for 20 seconds unless they have something to remove hexes and such.

You might want to put some anti condition skills there such as plague touch since your going to be an easy kill with 2 degen already from malaise.

Plague Touch or Plague sending? hmm... That actually makes sense... time to edit above post.

Jul 05, 2005, 09:43 PM // 21:43

You have 1 direct energy drain in there-Energy tap. and it's mediocre so it's not going to hit a normal caster running around with ~60 energy, and thats without their focus on. So you'll have tons of trouble getting them to any point to make Wither or Malaise a concern.

Secondly, you have no control. They can drain their initial weapon and keep focus switching. You can keep trying to counter it by recasting Malaise but you're spending 5 energy for every lets say 2 seconds it takes them to switch and end your hexes-a battle you will lose flawlessly not only do to your build but your bad energy management.

Power Drain is ok, but it doesn't really shine in this build because...

Ether Lord is horrible. Why is it here? It's another energy degen, but it causes you to lose all energy when you cast it and the energy gain is low for what it takes to have a chance of breaking even on the skill.

Faintheartedness is mediocre. If you want to shut down Warriors, you want shadow of Fear to hit multiple Warrior trains. You also dont have Enfeebling blood so you'll actually just be a minor bother to Warriors or Rangers, and you wont be shutting them down.

Arcane Echo also doesn't shine well here. This skill is best used to make something almost abusive-abusive. Like Power Leak, Energy Drain or Power Block.

Plague Sending just doesn't make much sense here. You'll be ignored for long enough that this skill will barely see use. If anything it just highlights what the build comes out to: It'll sit there and annoy someone you happen to catch with no kind of energy management, but after they realize their isn't much of a threat in this build they'll kill the rest of your team before looking at you twice.

Rig Jarlsson · Jul 06, 2005, 02:51 AM // 02:51

This looks like an interesting build for my Me/N, but Yukito's avatar keeps giving me seizures so I can't concentrate on it. Slow down your .gif man...

Yukito Kunisaki · Jul 06, 2005, 07:04 AM // 07:04

Hmm... Something more massive vs... longer lasting hexes?

Ok then... Though I didn't think mobbing occured that much in arenas/HoH/GvG these days due to warrior hate... Hell the most wars I've ever seen in a train is 2!

But, if mobbing is what we want, than mass murder is what we'll get... [takes gloves off...]

Stats: 10+1 Fast Casting, 10+2 Inspiration, 11 Curses

Energy Tap
Power Drain
Energy Drain {E}
Arcane Echo
Enfeebling Blood
Shadow of Fear
Rend Enchantments
Plague Sending

Ok... Now we're hitting HARD in terms of energy denial. These are all spike strikes on an opponents energy pool. The only curses in this build will specifically shutdown ANY warrior train. Very effectively too since I noticed that there are no mass AoE Purge Conditions/Hexes skills in this game. Plague Sending is for the inevitable Cripple someone's going to hit me with. I don't think I'd want to use Plague Touch due to range factor and hey, I can nail that warrior train with it right?

I want BlackAce's opinion on this. He's damn smart it seems to me. Though I'm not so sure if this build can keep up due to recycle time problems. Enlighten me someone?

new strats: Well, seems all the energy feeds now is the warrior hate and MORE ENERGY draining. Warriors rush in, as they should... Enfeebling + Shadow of Fear. Move on to Casters, when clobbered by a condition, Plague Sending them to casters, and then chain fire Arcane Echo, Energy Drain x2, Energy Tap, Rend Enchantments [any enchantment that might give them energy/hp], Power Drain their attempt to recast said energy management skill. Recast anti-warrior/ranger curses spells and repeat the punishment.

Ok you nasty critiquers, my question now...

Without the original hexes, how can I KEEP my magic foes at zero without having to babysit his ass?

pezit · Jul 06, 2005, 12:59 PM // 12:59

you can remove spellbraker with chilblains.

Yukito Kunisaki · Jul 06, 2005, 04:16 PM // 16:16

Quote:

Originally Posted by pezit

you can remove spellbraker with chilblains.

Says you have to be nearby when you do it. Not good for a disruptor class to be doing.

Yukito Kunisaki · Jul 07, 2005, 04:26 AM // 04:26

Damn, no response. I'm tempted to utilize Malaise in place of either Rend or Plague Sending. Something to slow down their energy regen if at all. It won't reduce it to zero making it easy to focus switch but the regen is still slow...

But if babysitting multiple casters is what an energy drainer has to do, then would it be better to switch to domination line?

I can spread the points as far as 12/10/10/8 if I need to keep both inspiration and domination but I'd really like to just keep energy off the enemy's playing field for as long as possible. That and my ability to interrupt using ranged skills is still kind of new...

Extra advice please? ^_^

Kishin · Jul 07, 2005, 05:08 AM // 05:08

The idea is not to worry about keeping someone's energy regen at nil for an extended period of time, because generally if you've stripped someone of energy you don't plan on leaving them alive very long (even if they're the off monk whom you're tying up with you deal with the current target). Plus, if you drop Malaise with a target close to nil energy, you're almost certainly not going to get the full effect of it.

You want to keep Rend. Rend is always useful. Plague Sending really isn't worth it, IMO. It doesn't fit with the energy denial angle.

And yes, Domination is helpful in harassing multiple casters, especially with things like Diversion and Blackout. You can even pick up Energy Burn from it.

Yukito Kunisaki · Jul 08, 2005, 03:13 AM // 03:13

Yep, I was thinking using an energy stealing Domination idea...

Shame + Guilt... on the right targets...

They do steal and interrupt right? hmm...