Curse

walder · Apr 14, 2005, 12:51 AM // 00:51

Domination 14 (+4)
Inspiration 9 (+1)
Blood 12

Backfire
Soul Leech-E
Power Spike
Energy Burn
Energy Tap
Power Drain
Power Leak
Shatter Enchantment

After reading a few posts here I decided to combine the "when target foe casts a spell..." skills. With Backfire and Soul Leech if your target casts while both of them are on, they will take ~120 from Backfire and ~70 from Soul Leech while giving you a ~70 point heal. Throw on a few more skills like Burn, Spike, Shatter Enchant and you are doing some serious damage. I threw in Leak to help with the energy denial, and Tap and Drain for energy management.

Flame · Apr 14, 2005, 12:59 AM // 00:59

I think it would be nice to add a Mink Wrack in there somewhere, but I couldn't say what to drop. I'd suggest Power Leak, mainly because you want them to try casting...

Jia Xu · Apr 14, 2005, 03:40 PM // 15:40

hmm, i dont really like soul leech in there because once someone's backfired, they generally don't like casting, and if they are soul leeched too, they aren't going to do anything, cept maybe use alternate skills or get their monk to remove hexes etc. However, the rest of the build is pretty well geared to energy denial and disruption, and i would consider swapping Power Block for Soul Leech, and possibly switching one of your other skills to Mind Wrack (hey, if you are going to use that much energy denial, it's too tempting)

Ensign · Apr 14, 2005, 05:57 PM // 17:57

Piling Backfire and Soul Leech onto the same target is just fishing for scrubs - a lot of Monks get tunnel vision, don't notice the bricks, and will kill themselves happily in the process. This build is clearly built around this concept, with sub-par damage spells like Energy Burn and Shatter Enchantment around to finish off a Monk who casts through Backfire.

As such this build has a clear weakness against casters who *don't* cast through Backfire, as they make a large section of your skill bar sub-optimal.

That said, I don't think that Soul Leech is a bad addition - it lets you keep multiple targets under 'Backfire', and if they don't cast through Backfire they're shut down for a while. The question you have to ask yourself is if Soul Leech is worth dedicating both your second class and your elite slot to - it is, after all, a weaker version of Backfire. Would something like Arcane Echo on Backfire serve you better? What about Mantra of Recovery + Backfire to keep it up continuously? I think you can accomplish what you want to without dedicating the resources you have.

Peace,
-CxE

walder · Apr 14, 2005, 09:05 PM // 21:05

Yes, this build is definitely dependent on whether or not the caster will cast into Backfire and Soul Leech. My other Mes/XX build uses Mantra of Recovery as the elite, and I definitely like that build better for more tactical play. However, as far as Tombs goes, being more hectic than GvG, I think this will work better as most people who play Tombs are first, not of the same quality as GvG, and second, will not know who to ask for a Remove Hex so they will be stuck. This won't be my main build, but I think it will suffice for Tombs.