Curse

Wasteland Squidget · Nov 11, 2005, 10:17 AM // 10:17

Was pondering this for a group farming build tonight, given the new restrictions...

1 Warrior with Gladiators Defense + Axe or Sword skill that deal Conditions.
1 Mesmer with Fevered Dreams, Fragility Phantom Pain, Shatter Delusions.
1 Ranger with Concussion Shot, Hunter's Shot, Pin Down, Throw Dirt, Apply Poison, Barrage.
1 Necro with Rotting Flesh, Well of Suffering, Spiteful Spirit.
1 Monk with Healing and Protection skills.

Tactics: Tank moves forward as per usual to draw all the aggro onto himself. Monk follows to keep tank alive, and Mesmer calls Fevered Dreams on one of the targets aggroed onto the tank, preferably a spellcaster.

The other classes begin spamming their conditions on that target - Bleeding, Disease, Poison, Cripple, Blind, and possibly Dazed. These conditions spread to all the different targets nearby, giving them -10 degen and seriously impacting their ability to accomplish anything at all.

Ranger begins spamming Barrage, which deals area damage to the group without triggering their flee script. After one drops, Well of Suffering comes up to give further degen in case of a boss (auto-Mending) or some other form of health regen skill. The Necro also casts Spiteful on the group, which deals further AoE damage without causing them to break apart.

So in total you have the damage of a Spiteful (which can even be Arcane Echoed), -10 degen, Glad's Defense, and Barrage spam on all of these targets. Maybe not quite on the level of triple Meteor Shower, but it debilitates them and has a far wider radius. I tested Fevered Dreams today and it's quite effective at hitting most of the creatures in a given group - the total radius is the size of the aggro circle.

The main weaknesses for this build lie in removal - Condition or Hex removal can potentially screw you up up, but it would have to be on a pretty massive scale to be effective. Unless you're fighting the Martyr Boss (in which case, put your Fevered on him and watch him further spread your conditions) it should be too many to remove.

The main things I dislike at the moment are lack of single target damage and the inability to give an effective Blindness because of Throw Dirt's range and recharge. It might be better to add an Air Ele to spike down single targets quickly and simultaneously use Blinding Flash to keep the larger group blinded most of the time.

It also might be a good idea to do minions + Mark of Pain with the necro, but that might mean using too many skillslots and attribute points. Unfortunately, I don't have a necro so I can't tinker in that regard.

Thoughts?