Curse

Alleji · Nov 15, 2006, 08:47 PM // 20:47

I saw a lot of people complaining in PvE forums how hard some areas are and how their full party got wiped, etc. It seems to me the common problem is nothing more complicated than a poor team setup.

So I figured I'd post my hero bars for pretty much anything in PvE - you could copy it and run over almost anything in the game or you could use the principles behind it to improve your own setup.

My bar
[skill]Spiteful Spirit[/skill] [skill]Reckless Haste[/skill] [skill]Faintheartedness[/skill] [skill]Rotting Flesh[/skill] [skill]Putrid Explosion[/skill] [skill]Defile Enchantments[/skill]
16 Curse - 10 SR (major; completely optional) - 11 Death

I'm used to running on six slots, because of usual two cap sigs. But that's a good spot to put a res in, lightbringer's gaze, whatever secondary profession skills you want, etc.
Obviously, if you're not a necro, you can't run this bar unless you go /N secondary, which isn't always the best choice. The principle here is massive damage. Almost every class can do that in some way.

Olias
[skill]Animate Flesh Golem[/skill] [skill]Animate Bone Fiend[/skill] [skill]Animate Shambling Horror[/skill] [skill]Blood of the Master[/skill] [skill]Dark Bond[/skill] [skill]Power Drain[/skill] [skill]Leech Signet[/skill] [skill]Resurrection Signet[/skill]
16 Death - 12 SR - 7 Insp - 3 Blood

Margrid
[skill]Barrage[/skill] [skill]Savage Shot[/skill] [skill]Distracting Shot[/skill] [skill]Favorable Winds[/skill] [skill]"Stand Your Ground!"[/skill] [skill]"Go for the Eyes!"[/skill] [skill]Whirling Defense[/skill] [skill]Resurrection Signet[/skill]
16 Marks - 13 Expertise (major; not optional) - 6 Command
Fav on manual.

Acolyte Jin
[skill]Barrage[/skill] [skill]Savage Shot[/skill] [skill]Distracting Shot[/skill] [skill]"Never Surrender!"[/skill] [skill]"Stand Your Ground!"[/skill] [skill]"Go for the Eyes!"[/skill] [skill]Whirling Defense[/skill] [skill]Resurrection Signet[/skill]
16 Marks - 13 Expertise (major) - 6 Command
Stand Your Ground on manual.

I usually take 2x Monk hench, Earth Ele and Devona. (Lukas >>> Devona, but sadly Lukas isn't in Nightfall <.<)

How this works
The short answer is "by dealing an unfair amount of damage."

The long answer is that AoE DPS is obviously the main idea, and the first point is that a good offense is the best defense. It's possible to run the build with one monk and wipe out mobs in 20-30 seconds before they can put any pressure on the monk, but actual defense, in addition to a good offense is even better. If you start dissecting this build, you'll see how much indirect defense it has.

Let's start from the top:

Reckless haste - reduces enemy physicals' DPS by about 25%
Faintheartedness - the degen is only a side effect. Reduces target physical's DPS by 50%. This skill is a goldmine against physical bosses. Also, before anyone asks why is there faint in an SS build - because it's an amazing skill. Just don't use it on the same target.
Minions, as a whole - soaking up aggro. Flesh golem is a second tank, in addition to the fighter hench.
Dark Bond - pretty obvious. Keeps Olias alive.
6x interrupts + lightbringer's gaze, if applicable - By properly target-locking your rangers, you can easily cut half the damage to your party.
Stand your ground chain - 24 armor reduces damage you take by about 25%.
2x Whirling Defense - Keeps the rangers alive.
Warder henchman

Pretty long list of defensive skills for a high DPS build, isn't it? This is one of the main points I want to make. Everyone who brings 2x Searing Flames hero: how many utility skills do they have? My barragers have 4 and 5, respectively, while dealing comparable damage (sometimes better, sometimes worse). SS bar has 2, using only 6 skills and has significantly higher DPS than a fire ele.

The last point is synergy. Fav helps bone fiends. 2 copies of GFTE help both rangers. Minions provide energy for two necros. The damage output itself leads to quick kills, thus keeping up energy on both necros, leading to more damage output.

Lastly, some notes on playing the build:

Don't put SS and faint on the same target. In case you missed the first time I said it.
Having a MM hero and putrid on your bar may seem counterproductive because of corpse fights, but you simply have to prioritize here. Putrid is a 0.75 cast with bloodstained boots so you always have a choice to let your hero make a minion or use the corpse yourself. Keep track of how many minions he has. If he's got 10, putrid. If something died in the middle of a clump and you think 100 instant aoe damage is better than a bone fiend, putrid. It's probably going to make 2 more corpses anyway. (I chose to run putrid @11 spec on my bar, as opposed to 16 on Olias because he's stupid with it <.<)
Disease is godlike in PvE because 80% of the stuff doesn't give AIDS back to you. That being said, I sometimes even disease human mobs just to make fights go faster if I feel I'm not risking death from another 4 degen. Mobs are usually clumped before you aggro them, so open with rotting to give everything -4 degen before they spread out.
Keep one Stand Your Ground on manual, because otherwise both rangers use it at the same time. With one on auto and one on manual, you can easily chain it.
Target-lock your rangers against SF eles, Esurge mesmers, deep-freeze eles, basically anything nasty. Sometimes it's even worth target-locking both on a boss (ex, a Ruby Djinn boss) losing the AoE from barrage, but making sure he doesn't cast ridiculous nukes for 200 damage.
Keep in mind that you can always manually interrupt long casts off-target. If your target is casting something, you can click a ranger's d-shot and she'll fire it at your target even if she's target-locked on something else.

I hope this post/guide/explanation was helpful in some way. Whether you choose to copy the build skill-for-skill or incorporate the principles I mentioned into your own, I'm sure you'll start doing better. Even if you think you're doing fine already. :P

People who say PvE is hard are simply not doing it right.

Urfin · Nov 15, 2006, 09:52 PM // 21:52

Nice build, well thought out. Makes me regret for the umpteenth time I'm not playing necro

If only AI could use the best necro skills right.

Zinger314 · Nov 16, 2006, 05:29 AM // 05:29

I know I'm in the minority, but I hate, hate, hate, hate, hate Barrage.

Adjacent range is way, way, way, way, way too low. Due to the new AI upgrade, I doubt most mobs stay that close anymore. Although Barrage is quite good with "GTFE"...

Also, if you are going for mass damage, Alleji, then where's the Barbs and Mark of Pain? You fail at mass damage.

nugzta · Nov 16, 2006, 05:39 AM // 05:39

Barbs is one target (good to take down boss, not for mass damage), Mark of Pain = scatter.

Contempt · Nov 16, 2006, 05:52 AM // 05:52

I wouldn't call this "extreme" or "mass damage"...

-.- · Nov 16, 2006, 06:23 AM // 06:23

I would change Olias to a Minion Master/Order Necromancer for Order of Pain/Vampire.

gilgameshx · Nov 16, 2006, 08:04 AM // 08:04

I'm not sure why Faintheartedness is needed for SS necro. I'm sure it's great for bosses, but mainly for bosses that attack. Going against a magic caster boss and it won't do much. I rather take Barbs since the boss would die quickly if all the minions and everyone else who can do physical damage attack it.

As for Rotting flesh, wouldn't the disease spread to you and your allies as well?

If I had to run a curse necro hero using MoP, I would run my warrior as a crippling slash(e)/epidemic warrior. It'll be much harder for the mobs to escape. The only problem is that I don't know who the necro hero is going to use it on. Although I hate manually using a skill for them.

Longasc · Nov 16, 2006, 03:17 PM // 15:17

Quote:

Originally Posted by nugzta

Barbs is one target (good to take down boss, not for mass damage), Mark of Pain = scatter.

Mark of Pain now works OK like all other AoEs. It is no longer a no-no.

In fact I suggest that you test it, because it is just godly and even surpasses SS. It has higher damage and 1 Paragon, 2 Rangers and maybe 1-2 Warriors trigger it so often in a short time that it deals fantastic damage.

SS+MoP wipe the floor with mobs. In fact I even like to apply MoP even before SS.

Alleji · Nov 16, 2006, 03:42 PM // 15:42

Quote:

Also, if you are going for mass damage, Alleji, then where's the Barbs and Mark of Pain? You fail at mass damage.

Mark of pain causes horrible, horrible scatter.

Barbs is interesting. To be honest, it never occured to me to try it in PvE even though I run it in halls... too bad there's no way to target-lock bone fiends <.<

Quote:

Mark of Pain now works OK like all other AoEs. It is no longer a no-no.

We must be talking about different updates here, but I actually tried out MoP two days ago and most often it hits one nearby thing a couple times and then scatters everything.

Quote:

I wouldn't call this "extreme" or "mass damage"...

Just out of curiosity, what would qualify as "mass damage"? I'm hard-pressed to think of four characters that have higher DPS than this? (The answer is not 4x SF ele, go test it.)

Quote:

I would change Olias to a Minion Master/Order Necromancer for Order of Pain/Vampire.

I tried OoP running henchway barrage in halls literally the day Nightfall came out and the AI was incredibly stupid with it... so, of course, if you feel like manually clicking it, it's a great addition. The necro can certainly endure the attribute split for decent OoP by dropping inspiration (3 majors probably), but the minions are already a 3-second cast and a 2-second order that needs to be spammed so frequently doesn't go on that bar easily.

Quote:

I'm not sure why Faintheartedness is needed for SS necro. I'm sure it's great for bosses, but mainly for bosses that attack. Going against a magic caster boss and it won't do much.

Faint is just my pet skill, if you will. It's so all-around efficient, like gale, or leech signet. I absolutely refuse to run any PvP hex build without it and any PvE bar that can accomodate it. :P
Compare it to your "vanilla" degen hex, conjure phantasm. Conjure is 10 DPS, does 150 damage in 15 seconds (15/1e). Faint is 6 DPS, 90 damage in 15s (60% of conjure), but in 37 seconds it does 222 damage (~150%), which is 22/1e, while conjure is still 15. Now consider how much damage it stops. And I'm not even saying conjure is a bad skill.

In fact, compare it to Life Transfer. LT does 208 damage in 30 seconds (recharge cap), while faint does 180 in 30 (86%). Plus, cutting a warrior's damage by 50% for 30s sure beats the hell out of the built-in healing breeze in LT. (This also shows how unbelievably shitty life transfer is.)

Quote:

As for Rotting flesh, wouldn't the disease spread to you and your allies as well?

Only if I cast it on a human. So you probably shouldn't disease Korunan soldiers most of the time.

Fun fact: In factions, nothing transfers disease back to you. Not even Am Fah, Jade Brotherhood and Luxon/Kurzick soldies. Yet, all of them trigger EoE on your party, so they certainly count as human. (On several occasions pre-nerf, I managed to pull together 4+ patrols of Am Fah and edge bomb them. Then Mr. Talon Silverwing resed the party. <.<)

gilgameshx · Nov 16, 2006, 06:52 PM // 18:52

Cool, I just didn't really know disease works like that.

Carinae · Nov 16, 2006, 10:05 PM // 22:05

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alleji

Mark of pain causes horrible, horrible scatter.

We must be talking about different updates here, but I actually tried out MoP two days ago and most often it hits one nearby thing a couple times and then scatters everything.

Mark of Pain is just like any other AOE spell. If it triggers too often in a short time-span enemies sometimes scatter. I say sometimes, because they usually just stand there and take it. In my experience (and I have been running MoP on my MM bar for months now) MoP rarely causes scattering, and who cares if they do scatter??? If they are running around, they aren't attacking or casting!! Fiend-based MM's should NOT be worried about scattering enemies, unless there are other mobs very very close-by.

But the more important point I want to make, is that you need to have good placement of MoP to make it work correctly. Don't just throw it out there for some extra damage here-and-there. It should be hitting many people, definately more than just two.

MM + MoP = Massive AoE Damage-Spike

You have to pick your target carefully....and BEFORE you engage a mob! Typically I drop it on Eles, Mesmers or Necros. Monks and Warriors tend to run more than these classes. Avoid using MoP on melee fighters unless they converge on a single target. Which brings me to my second point....

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alleji

Barbs is interesting. To be honest, it never occured to me to try it in PvE even though I run it in halls... too bad there's no way to target-lock bone fiends <.<

But you can lock fiends on a target! You just have to do two things first:

1) Stop short of a mob and gather your Fiends (and heal them and prepare yourself...Dark Bond)

2) The MM should then LEAD the attack. Get in front of the fiends, choose a target wisely, drop MoP on said target, watch 10 Fiends converge on target and deal enough damage to LEVEL the mob before they can even think about scattering.

MoP is for entire mobs, while Barbs is for single-target destruction, typically bosses. Add in Order of Undeath for tremendous DPS, "Die NOW!"-style.

Now....all said, this is how a human player should use MoP as a MM. As a Hero build.... I seriously doubt if they can use MoP correctly.

lursey · Nov 17, 2006, 04:35 AM // 04:35

if I were you I will add oop