Curse

arredondo · Jun 26, 2005, 10:26 PM // 22:26

I was reading Itbegin's simple but seemingly effective post in the Wastrel's Worry thread and want to build around it. He says basically that Soul Barbs + Back Fire + WW + WW + WW + WW + Shatter Delusions = a dead monk. I'm trying here to detail what he means (it confused someone else), and add some other skills I think complements his main plan:

- Cast Soul Barbs to maximize Hex casting damage from this point forward.

- On a monk, you cast Backfire to punish their typical responses when reacting to a WW cast (soul barb hits)

- Now lay down a WW. If he takes the hit, fine... 61 damage minimum (at 14 Dom) PLUS the Soul Barb hit.

- That's about 4 seconds of the 10 seconds Backfire used up (roughly), so cast another WW to trigger Soul Barbs. If he takes the WW hit again, another 61. If not, then he casts and eats Backfire pain, which does not dispell when triggered BTW.

- OK, so we've used up 8 of 10 seconds in Backfire, so cast WW again (Soul Barb bonus) and let it do its thing. Unless they go in a stance or something, there's a good chance they won't have time to dispell the 3rd WW when Backfire finally dissipates at 10 seconds. Their cast has to complete itself to stop WW... casting isn't enough. (Archane Conundrum could work wonders here too).

- NOW we come to his 4th WW cast... this time he immediately cancels the hex with Shatter Delusions for guaranteed pain. The potential damage totals? Assuming a max damaging build has:

Fast Cast-4
Domination-16
Curses-12

The minimum damage on a passive monk would be: 27 (Soul Barbed Backfire cast) + 68+27 + 68+27 + 68+27 + (all WW and SB) + 79+27 (Shatter Delusions and SB)...

Sub Total = 418, not counting your Wand spam of 16 average damage while WW is ticking off (16 x 8 =128).

Grand Total = 546. And if they cast at least through one Backfire, you have 546 - 68 +147 = 625. That's not bad for 12 seconds of work when Backfire is first cast. For the curious, that comes to 45-52 DPS, and only 50E is used the entire time.

If I may, I'd suggest that a person use Curses' Feast of Corruption as their Elite here. On that 2nd WW, you can let off a FoC cast that'll punish the opponent for 101 damage because they are hexes (67 to adjacent foes, 34 of the damage you steal for your own health bonus). It takes three seconds to cast, but you should be ok since Fast Cast will speed it up a bit so your next WW timing isn't off. New total?

601 - 694 (I took away a couple of wand hits). That's 50-58 DPS, and adds 10E to the total casting session. To round out the skill set (for some defense), I will try this build today:

OFFENSE:
Soul Barbs - 10E Curse
Backfire - 15E Dom
Wastrel's Worry - 5E Dom
Feast of Corruption (E) - 10E Curse
Shatter Delusions - 5E Dom

DEFENSE:
Hex Breaker (stance) - 5E Dom
Enfeeble - 5E Curse
Plague Touch - 5E unlinked

Now I can somewhat deal with warriors with Enfeeble + kiting, I'm protected from hexes with Hex Breaker for 3 minutes (with insta-recast if needed), and I can re-send a condition to my nearest foe if inflicted thanks to Plague Touch. All that defense for only 5E makes them 'Panic Button' ready at all times.

I'll post my thoughts after testing.

arredondo · Jun 27, 2005, 12:10 AM // 00:10

Wow, this is definitely a great offensive build for a Mesmer. You feel like Rambo out there on any poor caster. Here is the order I was using in casting, changing up depending on the situation:

Soul Barbs, BackFire = 27 damage

Wastrel's Worry, Shatter Delusions, Wastrel's Worry, Feast of Corruption = 27x3 +79+101= 261 damage... (288 total)

Wastrel's Worry, 2 wand casts = 27+30+ (68 or 147 whether they wait or cast)= 125 or 204 damage... (415 or 492 total)

Wastrel's Worry, Shatter Delusions =27x2 +101 = 155 damage... (568 or 647 total)

Total energy needed during the 12 seconds or so: 65E, with 15 energy units regenerated throughout the skirmish. And the damage isn't counting the times people spam a spell accidently under Backfire... add another 147! This damage is indeed awesome.

ComMan · Jun 27, 2005, 12:14 AM // 00:14

Does casting a spell remove WW? I had heard that they don't count against it.

That is pretty mean. I feel sorry for the guy who gets caught by it. Then again, I feel sorry for pretty much everybody on the recieving end of most good mesmers.

arredondo · Jun 27, 2005, 01:20 AM // 01:20

Casting a skill stops WW ONLY if they finish the cast. So if they start it too late, and WW hits 3 secs, it connects. Stances and non spells hurt this build, but you still get damage from FoC and WW~Shatter Delusions.

This build is very effective against solo Elems, as it shreds them up like paper. Monks can spam Orison, so I'd subtitute Diversion in for Hex Breaker to cause his favorite spam to take a minute to recharge.

Yukito Kunisaki · Jun 27, 2005, 07:43 AM // 07:43

Can't you just Power Block his Orison of healing and make him and his entire team cry?

Lebdan · Jun 27, 2005, 01:19 PM // 13:19

Orison has .25s casting time. Pretty impossible.

ElderAtronach · Jun 27, 2005, 01:27 PM // 13:27

Yeah I'd much rather use Power Block on the other teams elementals. They have much longer casting times and greater interruptability

Rebeliel · Jun 27, 2005, 01:33 PM // 13:33

1. You find an elementalist. Perhaps one of those common air eles.

2. You cast soul barbs

3. You powerblock a spell

4. You spam WW

Now you can bring Leech signet and/or Power drain for energy management. This way you can possibly interrupt elementalists spells from other attributes too.

The Soul Barbs aren't absolutely nessesary, the power block and WW are the spine and you can build lots of stuff around it.

Yukito Kunisaki · Jun 27, 2005, 03:27 PM // 15:27

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lebdan

Orison has .25s casting time. Pretty impossible.

If I can Disrupting Chop a monk's Orison of Healing in mid-spam, I KNOW you can Power Block it as well...

Just that you seem to have no confidence in your ability to forecast an incoming skill... Use your instinct and when you press it, the enemy should just a moment later try to heal himself and wham...

IcyFighter · Jun 27, 2005, 03:28 PM // 15:28

That's because Orison of Healing is 1 sec cast.

arredondo · Jun 27, 2005, 08:57 PM // 20:57

Well, after dozens of matches I can say I'm happy with the results. One change was made however to my defense:

OFFENSE:
Soul Barbs - 10E Curse
Backfire - 15E Dom
Wastrel's Worry - 5E Dom
Feast of Corruption (E) - 10E Curse
Shatter Delusions - 5E Dom

DEFENSE:
Hex Breaker (stance) - 5E Dom
Distortion - 5E Illusion
Plague Touch - 5E unlinked

To accomodate the new Illusion, I just needed 4 points to make the dodge penalty -2E, very easy to tweak the stats and allow. By going to 11 in Curses or 15 in Domination (your choice), you have enough to put up 4 Illu as well as get some decent Fast Cast numbers for the Necro spells and Backfire, a worthy adjustment for me.

I played around with putting in the skill 'Awaken the Blood'. It adds +2 Attribute ratings for all Blood and Curse spells for up to 30 seconds or so. With it, I get extra damage from each hex (Soul Barbs) as well as more from Feast of Corruption. And if I cast properly, I can get off two Feast of Corruption casts before AtB dissapates, maximizing it's use.

My build calculations however says it nets me only an extra 40 points damage or so in the span of 12 seconds, so I'm better off keeping my skills as is. Finally, if you want to get the rez signet, switch out Plague Touch and deal with the conditions. Everything else I find is far more useful in this build.

arredondo · Jun 29, 2005, 07:44 AM // 07:44

Now that's funny. I was playing this build in the Arenas today when another Mesmer on the other team tried to impress by listing his build's skills and saying how strong it was. I didn't say anything, but when he saw me killing his teammate with this stuff, he accused me of stealing his idea, lol. I mentioned I did the writeup online where he likely had read it from and he logged off. Too funny.