Curse

Akane · Oct 18, 2006, 06:26 AM // 06:26

I think the smiter should go mesmer secondary.
Sympathetic Visage can help the tank get the most out of SS.

For the chamber the smiter chould leave Holy Wrath off to start. Take the mission and immediately run to cast Spell Breaker on the tank.Once the tank runs around to grab big aggro and settles in - then the smiter can run in to cast SV and HW.

The tank should wait about 5 seconds to let SV do it's work, then cast SS and Reckless Haste. SV will kill adrenaline immediately, and so prevent any Skull Cracks from the Grasping. The Aatxes use Savage Slash, so they need their energy dropped below 10.

The double damage from SS and smiting should be breathtaking.

Note: The tank should wear full 60 armor for his part. The Grasping won't trigger Spirit Bond, so might as well minimize their damage.

Akane · Oct 18, 2006, 06:57 AM // 06:57

Here's the newer version...

Tank – Mo/N (or N/Mo)
Prot, Heal, Curses
1. Protective Spirit
2. Spirit Bond
3. Healing Breeze
4. Spiteful Spirit
5. Reckless Haste
6. Mending
7. Balthazaar’s Spirit
8. Essence Bond

Smite-Bonder – Mo/Me
Smite, Prot, DF, Illusion
1. Vital Blessing
2. Life Attunement
3. Retribution
4. Holy Wrath
5. Blessed Signet
6. Spell Breaker
7. Sympathetic Visage
8. Rebirth

Note: The smiter can wear sup runes for smite, prot and DF (no need for heal). Use Totem Axe for 20% enchants - both SB and SV will benefit.

The tank can switch gear around for 600 and 55 setups (go higher than 55 if possible) depending on targets.

Akane · Oct 18, 2006, 07:11 AM // 07:11

Oh, and the tank should not use a melee weapon on the Aatxes until after SS is cast. The Aatxes will use Riposte and Deadly Riposte as soon as a melee weapon is used - triggering double damage from SS. So start with a prot staff with +20 enchants before switching to the Totem Axe and +15E icon.

The smiter could take advantage of those +15 enery focus items. The smiter will constantly be at zero energy and can use a -25E set (-5 weapon and Frozen Fan - not Forgotten Fan) then flip to a +5E Totem Axe and +15E icon. The energy swing will be 40 points - plenty enough to squeeze in SV or Spell Breaker if the tank wants to keep on rolling. Just flip back and cast Blessed Signet a few times to refill the now-hidden energy pool.

Akane · Oct 18, 2006, 07:22 AM // 07:22

I pushed 3 Enchants back onto the tank to make room for Sympatheic Visage on the smiter. Without a Blessed Sig for recharging, the tank's energy may get low - especially when facing only a few opponents.

Mending not needed all the time - more for a 55 setup.

darrengordon · Oct 18, 2006, 07:25 AM // 07:25

Hi guys this build looks real good and i want to try it................ but i just cant see it being quicker and hoping someone can either correct me or take me on a demo run. The way i see it - perfect world scene - you have enough health to trigger both retribution and holy at max dam at lvl 16, hence retrib doing 21 dam and holy doing 53 dam (u would need 800 health for retrib to do this 53/66*100 = 80.3 as dam is 10% ur max health must be 803 to do this) so your total damage is 74 per hit. An SS will always have minimum 2 ss on at lvl 16 doing 37 damage per hit thats 74 dam to all chars (if placed correctly) worst case, with reckhaste this damage goes up by 25% because of speed thats now 92.5 dam in the same amount of 1 hit time and thats the worst case often i would have 3 or more on hence 138 to 184 dam, with the smites u dont have a chance to cast a thrid spell ie they drop in about 9-11 seconds what ever size the grp, coldfires a little slower normally about 20-25 secs.

Please point out where im going worng, or even better pull me thru a run and show me and shut me up! trust me i want to be prooved worng cause it means a faster run and more ecto (well if the damm stuff would drop it would anyway)

Exile Of Heaven · Oct 18, 2006, 07:56 AM // 07:56

You are correct, the only thing u forget is that this build dont need draining of energy by SV,AV, wich takes alot of time to do with smites, if u know how to run this build correctly and what u can do or not, you can easily do a Smiterun under 10 minutes.

also remember, u dont need to have SV, or AV in this build, all skills have 0.25 casting time, so the change is much less then a 55 to get interupted, what normally happens with an Healing Breeze.

This build is easyer to run then a 55 imo, what you think you may think, thats ok, if you think that ss with 55 is faster, then you choose that, i prefer this anyway, because it has more safety then a 55 imo.

Another good thing about this build is that u can aggro any number you want, even 100 will still hold your defence

, you only need 2 be sure that 75% of them are doing above 60 damage, so u will get overhealed by Life Attunement wich works with Spirit Bond

i can do a demo run for you sometime, im on almost every day now, and on european servers.

Akane · Oct 18, 2006, 07:57 AM // 07:57

With SBond, bigger aggro can be done and the timing is much less crucial.
Easier to clear first chamber in one sweep. Easier to clear smites. Easier to push on into other areas.

The conventional 55/SS still works fine. If something can be made smoother and easier, why not? If you want challenging, check out Godlike Satan's Solo Guides to FoW and UW.

Akane · Oct 18, 2006, 08:08 AM // 08:08

Exile, thanks for starting this thread!
The SS isn't really needed for the Smites - they'll go down fast anyways.
But if the tank wants to use SS, he'll need SV first. It will probably help with Mindblades in Chaos Plane if people want to go that far.

Your build is terrific. I'm just trying to come up with a hybrid that can get benefits of 55 build too. Like making Wrathful Spirits and Obsidians easy. Your build is terrific defensively. Working SS into the build gives more offensive versatility.

My only concern is losing the Elemental Resistance (or Frenzy) that would make the Graspings damage +60. Will that mean changes for the chamber run? Taking the mission and a straight sweep is so much faster.

Your comments would be appreciated.

By the way, did you ever try Legless the Elf's recommendation on Physical Resistance? It would drop the Graspings damage way down. The Aatxes would still be +60. The ele damage would be elevated. It might balance out rather nicely. Damn, I can't wait to get home.

squan · Oct 18, 2006, 08:10 AM // 08:10

well i love spiritbonders, they are so fcking quicker then 55 monks. to make it a bit faster, when you reach the Terrorwebs around the statue of Grenth, first agro the aatxes and Grasping Darknesses, kill the poping nightmares. Dont let the ss necro kill the graspings and aatxes. when the nightmares are dead ask the necro to cast SV and cast Spellbreaker and move to the terrorwebs. this way is much faster and easier cause energy of terrorwebs will be 0 all the time cause of sv and av, you can also skip them, but terrorwebs also drop ecto.
i do the same thing with colds. i first agro a small group of smites and then let the ss kill them. SV and AV will keep the energy of colds 0 so no problem.

darrengordon · Oct 18, 2006, 08:41 AM // 08:41

Cheers Exhile nice answer and yeah would really appreciate seeing the run, i do agree witht the spirit bond thing in fact i run a 55 spirit bonder whilst farming trolls (yes its 55 as it allows me then to solo upto 3 or 4 other chars somewhere else without having to cast sb) and yes its the lazy mans monk lol, i loose concentration so i need an idiot proof one. Does look nice and can def see advantages with the SB monk over the 55 the big and obvious one being unlimted amounts of oposition and the cast time of HB compaired to SB!
When i ss with a 55 i drop an av or sv on the attaxe it stops em inturupting the monks and honestly with the smites i drop em all every time a bit before the visage runs out so as said 11 secs or so i guess.
10 mins run though mate that def desreves a gratz, still at 15-20 mins, we pull the first area in 2 parts then squids then stairs to right, then next chamber and onto first grp of smites, i know pulling the two group of squids after the fist half of screen slows things down, but me and my guild are lazy buggers and like an easy life and pulling all at once often pops 3 nightmares which can be a little awkawrd to get all.
Again thnx for this thread its damm nice to see, all we need now is a new place like UW as too many people can easily farm now and the drop rate is or should i say has become awful, 1 ecto per run sometimes 0. Few months back would often get 5-6 around 9pm uk time run.
Still its fun anyways!, keep the new thoughts coming

slimreb · Oct 18, 2006, 02:04 PM // 14:04

It has been a very long time since I have posted anything in this thread but figure I can do so now.

One thing a friend and I have done is switch up the enchantments and a few skills to speed thing up a little. One example is why have the smiter have any points into Protection Prayers? His job is to smite things so take those enchantments away from him. So the tank would look more like this:

Max Prot
Max Divine

1. Protective Spirit
2. Spirit Bond
3. Spell Breaker
4. Blessed Signet
5. Life Attunement
6. Vital Blessing
7. Blessed Aura
8. Essence Bond

We do not take Frenzy or any of the other stances as it is not always going to get the damage you take to 60 or more. If the grasping use Flurry and the damage does not go above 60 you are making your job that much harder using Frenzy.

The smiter is a pretty standard build except that they place Balthazar's Spirit on the tank so that the tank is still getting 2E a hit. Sometimes just for kicks since he is no longer required to carry Life Attunement and Vital Blessing we have the tank use Mantra of Inscriptions with Signet of Judgement and Signet of Rage. Those do some nice damage.

For the tank we have no problems taking out Dryders, Coldfire, Mindblades, Grasping, or the like. For the spell casters just remember Maelstorm and Meteor Shower are your friends. They hit for so low melee damage wise (except Mindblades) there is no real need to constantly have Spell Breaker running. Just let the smite monk do the job with the signets or if you have Shield then only try to keep SB up as long as it is needed for Shield.

You might ask "What about the Grasping?" and they are not a problem to take out with out Frenzy or the likes. All that is really needed is to get them with other mobs down there that will do more than 60dmg. For example in the first chamber before the tank aggros have the smiter take the quest. Then the tank will run up a set of stairs and aggro as much as he can. The Aatxes will keep the tank alive and Retrib/Holy will make very short work of the Grasping. If you are going back to clear the dryders near the monument the grasping back there are no problems either. As here I like to do my Suicide Monk manuever or at least that is what my guildies call it. That is I will aggro everything in that part of the map. So I will have Aatxes, Grasping, Nightmares, and Dryders all attacking me at the same time. No need to worry about multiple Nightmares back there as with Spell Breaker on they will kill themselves attacking you before Spell Breaker is gone.

In the areas where there is nothing but Grasping it does get a little tricky but is still easy to do. Just make sure to cast PS and Bond as often as possible. Also the Smite monk can bring Signet of Devotion for an added heal for the tank if it is needed. It usually does not turn out to be needed though. As with how high your divine favor is and the extra health from Life Attunement just casting PB and Bond are usually good enough.

Most of the times when we go down to UW we hardly ever go as a duo. We usually like to have other guild members with us so I will have at least 1 SS necro. We have come very close to 100% clearance of UW including quests using the duo and added support. We had the dual SB tank, smite monk, SS Necro without Reckless haste as we did not want them missing the attacks, FoC Necro, and a Fire Ele.

Most of the times the smiter never used SoJ as the added firepower shreaded everything so quickly. The Ele used Firestorm and Searing Heat for when we were going through the Twin Serpeant Mountains as the Burrowers can not move and those do some really nice damage.

We did find that the setup was not able to do the Four Horseman quest in the Chaos planes. Everything else we complete except one of the guildies took the quest in the Bone Pits before we told them to. So when we went back to get the reward for Restore the Monuments the Spirit in the Bone Pits was killed before we got back.

Velath · Oct 18, 2006, 02:49 PM // 14:49

Akane - hey I tried the Mo/N build we talked about yesterday. It worked, cleared chamber, ice wastes and the wrathful spirits weren't a problem. We didn't have time to run up to try out the obsidians or further though. A few comments on the build, without life attunement on tanking the graspings by themselves was sometimes a problem, the tanker died once in that situation. Aggroing them with the aatxes simplified matters a whole lot. He just wasn't getting healed often enough for enough health at one time (most hits were a few below 60). I'm gonna try and find a negative armor offhand and see if that helps. Also if it does I'll post back and let you know, and slimreb and that might be enough to help out your ultra-prot monk in the same situations!

Getting SS off was probably the biggest problem. If the tank didn't cast it before aggroing he'd get interrupted most of the time. As for the smites it was just less hassle to kill them with retribution/holy wrath than to try and cast SS, reckless and then cover it and keep it covered without SV/AV. That and I'm not quite sold on the reckless idea as it does cause them to miss more often, which doesn't help the killing time. I like the idea of just going back to the 2 e regain enchants and 4 prot enchants though and freeing up a spot for SV/AV. I wouldn't keep mending up, it wasn't really needed until the 55 part. HB was used a few times against the graspings when they were on there own just to keep that health a little higher. But at that point it was such a low health regen benefit it might not be worth it, but it is always there!

All and all I'll try and do some more tweaking and see how far we can make it out there. Unfortunately I won't be around this weekend so no 3+ hour trecks through UW.

slimreb - We'll also do something similar if there's some other guildies on who want to make the jaunt down there also. We've also ran the dual SB build and a 55/SS at the same time and went about clearing different areas. That was kinda fun as the race was on!

slimreb · Oct 18, 2006, 03:30 PM // 15:30

Velath we have thought about using a 8 man team down there a few times. We would setup with two dual SB tanks and smiter with an SS and FoC necro for each team. This would allow us to complete the Four Horseman Quest we are believing. I say this because with Blessed Aura, a 20% Enchantment weapon, and a 20/20 divine favor Straw Effigy most of the times Spell Breaker is recharged before the active one is finished. In that quest it is highly recommended that you keep SB on as there will be a lot of enchantment removal going on down there. One thing we could do is through in some useless cover enchantments onto one of the necro to try can keep the vital enchantments covered up. The only problem with this is some of the caster mobs that stay back do not like to stay on the tank when you cast a spell on the tank.

One thing my guildies and I have said is that in the UW the worst place for a necro is the Chaos Plains. It has always happened that if aggro is broken for any reason the Mindblades will zero in on the necro and not let go. I have seen on more than a few occasions where aggro was broken and a few Mindblades chased the necro all over the UW never letting up. Once for laughs I wanted to see how far he would chase me when I was the SS necro and it chased me all the way back to the beginning. We were all laughing so hard over this. It then chased me all the way back to the Chaos Plains. So if you are going into the Chaos Plains either 1) allow the tank to be the only one to aggro the group and do not get involved with the battle or 2) bring something to keep yourself alive from the degen they will stack onto you. Helpful hint is that Blood Renewal is your friend down in that area if they go after you.

Velath · Oct 18, 2006, 04:31 PM // 16:31

lol they do tend to stick to those necros don't they! We've usually just told the SS to chill out and hang back on the stairs while we're down there!

Exile Of Heaven · Oct 18, 2006, 05:09 PM // 17:09

lol, we also got big troubles around aggro in the Chaos Planes, we got that 2...... its like a bug or something..

I can do a run for u any time im on, i just have 2 ask a friend of me 2 be the monk needed then. contact me ingame, or ill try 2 contact you^^

exiled mat · Oct 18, 2006, 08:13 PM // 20:13

siggy's!

SOJ = bad you say? Signet of judgement + bane sig work wonders against those stupid coldfires, exile and i have been trying to just kill them along (just in case someone goes on a stupid agro frenzy

)

It COULD also save your life if some stupid aaxte decides to attack the smiter (which i am in this case) and with some HUGE luck you could KD him and diverse him to the tank so you can continue the run

Velath · Oct 18, 2006, 10:12 PM // 22:12

Hahahah it's funny you mention that exiled mat. My smiter saved our SS's life when he got a little close before all the aatxes had gathered around me. I couldn't stop cracking up when the aatxe got dropped a few steps away from landing a hit on our SS. They then managed to flee until the damn cow came back to attacking me!

slimreb · Oct 19, 2006, 12:21 AM // 00:21

Never said Signet was bad. I really like it when I was the smiter. I really like it now that bane signet and Signet of Judgement have a shortened recharge. Using that with Mantra of Inscriptions really makes for some fun. Though I did mess up on my earlier post and said the tank takes those skills when it was supposed to be the smiter. With so many people going down normally I would rather take Signet of Judgement as then I am more involved in the trip down there instead of just sitting around moving with the tank.

That had to be a funnyto see Velath. I would have been a dead SS if I was him because I would be to busy laughing to run away from him.

Thanas · Oct 20, 2006, 04:01 PM // 16:01

Quote:

Originally Posted by Niet Nart

OK, I have to say that you DO NOT need high health for spirit bond to work. It says that you are healed for BLAH amount if you would have taken 60 damage and prot spirit prevents it.*headache* Um so like if you had 55 health it would work more effeciently becuase if you are only taking 5 damage and so if you would get hit with multiple attacks under 60 damage you can recover full health if you would get hit with just 1 damage over 60 health.... ill post a screenshot later to prove it. Sorry if this was hard to understand, its still hard for me to understand

This statement is false when applied to this build. In order to understand why it is necessary to look at some skill descriptions and do some basic maths. First of all lets look at the skill holy wrath (HW).

While you maintain this "Enchantment," whenever target ally takes attack damage, this spell deals 66% of the damage back to the source (maximum of 5...41 damage), and you lose 10 Energy.

The smiter in this build uses high smite, typically 15. I am going to look at a range of attribute values close to this number, for the sake of giving multiple examples. So I will look at the attribute values 13, 14, 15 and 16. Taking the above description we find that whenever target ally takes attack damage, HW deals 66% of the damage back to the source and the maximum damage values are as follows:

13 - 44
14 - 47
15 - 50
16 - 53

(list 1)

Since we have limits on values for returned damage, we must also have limits on damage considered by HW. To calculate the limit values for damage considered by HW we must multiply our returned damage values by 100/66 which is approximately 1.5. This gives us the following approximate values:

13 - 66
14 - 71
15 - 75
16 - 80

(list 2)

So if we were to take 200 damage after armour at 15 smite, this would mean out of the 200 damage points only 75 damage points would be considered by HW and out of those 75 damage points 50 (see list 1) would be returned to the attacking creature. This would mean we would be damaged by:

(200-75)+(75-50)=150.

If we were to take 50dmg after armour etc at 15 smite, we would below the 75 damage threshhold, so all damage would be considered by HW and we would find that the damage returned would be:

50x0.66=33

This would imply that we take damage with the value:

50-33=17

So as can be seen we do not deal as much damage with creatures hitting us for less than the threshold values, but we do suffer less damage. Where as when we are hit for more than the threshold value we suffer more damage and damage for the maximum amount possible. Increasing the damage beyond this point does nothing to boost our damage. Thus it is obvious that from a damage taken/damage given point of view that taking damage equal to or in the region of the threshold value (see list 2) is most favourable.

And this is where Protective Spirit (PS) is useful, the description for this skill is as follows:

For 5...19 seconds, target ally cannot lose more than 10% max Health due to damage from a single attack or Spell.

It can be said this skill allows us to control the damage we receive, by simply adjusting our health. This fact has been widely adopted by the 55 monk crowd. They use low health along with PS to give low damage and then counter this low damage with health regen.

So if this skill can be used to control damage then it would make sense to use it with HW to control the damage taken so that it is equal to the aforemtioned damage threshold values (see list 2) for a given smite value. So if we were using 15 smite which the OP's build did, then we find that the build is most efficient when the tank under HW is taking 75 damage. Thus if we are using PS to control the damage received it must be neccesarry to have:

75/10%=75/0.1=750 health

So the above tells us that when running with 15 smite and using HW with PS it is necessary to run with around 750 health for optimum efficiency in terms of damage taken and damage given.

13 - 660 health
14 - 710 health
15 - 750 health
16 - 800 health

(list 3)

Finally itis neccesary to consider Spirit Bond (SB) 16 prot implies 104 health from spirit bond for attack over 60 damage, thus when running 15 smite efficiently you will still be healed for:

104-75=29 health on each hit. With Life attunement at 16 prot (which gives a 52% boost to healing), this gives us:

29+(29*0.52)=29+15.08=44.08 which is approximately 44 health per hit.

Thus the aforementioned statement made by Niet Nart was false.

Q.E.D

Ietwat · Oct 20, 2006, 07:50 PM // 19:50

I think ure math is correct but when duo-ing the Underworld you cannot forget that de Cows use Sever Artery and Gash wich causes deep wound on you, i normally run this with my bro and i have about ~800 hp, i can make it bigger by using a Soulstone as offhand and a weapon that gives +30 hp.

This should make you hp about 820 with a major vigor on my Dragon Mask

I think its the highest health possible to reach without Symbiosis or other non-monk skills.

Non monk skills does not only make it harder, but you have to spread points in other attributes as well. I think this is the best option you can try when using this build.