Curse

Shinigami God · Jul 03, 2006, 01:11 PM // 13:11

My SS build is this:

Curses: 16
Domination Magic: 13
Soul Reaping: Remainder+minor rune

Equipment: The Stonereaper

1. Spiteful Spirit
2. Insidious Parasite
3. Reckless Haste
4. Price of Failure
5. Soul Barbs
6. Backfire
7. Empathy
8. Rez

Your thoughts?

zaza · Jul 03, 2006, 03:59 PM // 15:59

IMO the only thing I would change about you build is IP(Insidious Parasite). IP only works when the foe hit with an attack, but reckless haste gives them a 52% chance to miss i think w/ 16 curses. In place of it i would put barbs if there were a mm in the party or mabye awaken the blood, and take some points out of soul and put them into blood(mabye even run a major blood rune)

edit: Also Archae Echo is also useful.

holden · Jul 03, 2006, 06:39 PM // 18:39

yeah i agree with arcane echo. not everytime out but sometimes. you can have 4 instances of SS on 4 different targets. thats crazy.

with arcane echo and SS you can devote the rest of your bar to the team. wells, interrupts since your a mesmer secondary, hex removal, enchantment removal...dont think you need empathy or price of failure. i like reckless haste but the target dies so fast it's sort of a waste.

Kali Magdalene · Jul 03, 2006, 08:37 PM // 20:37

If you want a curse that will heal you, I've found parasitic bond to be much nicer than insidious parasite, and it can act as a cover hex for SS (if you worry about such things). You can also spam it, unlike IP.

My favorite moment was getting beaten down to 40 or so hit points, only ot have four or five bonded enemies die at once, instantly healing me to full and saving me from the thing that was about to finish me off.

lapsus · Jul 04, 2006, 03:07 AM // 03:07

I might be crazy but i dont really like the parasitic bond instead of insidous parasite. The delay in healing kills me everytime. Ill cast it and the fight will be over by the time it regens me. and i have this odd combo of spells that works pretty good with insideous parasite. I cast both spirit and Price of failure, giving the enemy 50% miss chance, and causeing some good damage when it misses then i cast IP and he slowly kills himself when he hits. combine with SS and the guy is dead before he blinks lol

jummeth · Jul 04, 2006, 06:14 PM // 18:14

Several things,

Energy: 3x15en and 4x10en and no energy management.

Cast time: Interupt fodder, all but two skills are 2 seconds or longer. Even in PvE you will have trouble with interupts.

Cover Hex?! Its non existant, any of your hexes removed will hurt this build in some ways, especially as said earlier, your hexes are expensive. Losing a 15en hex the moment its on with a 5en hex remove makes small kittens cry.

Pick Me · Jul 04, 2006, 07:18 PM // 19:18

Spiteful Spirit + Backfire = good
Spiteful Spirit + Empathy + Reckless Haste + Price of Failure = good

Sadly, you have a few things that are counter productive and little energy management.

Better way is:

SS + Empathy + Parasitic Bond
SS+Empathy+Insidious Parasite+Enfeeble+parasitic bond

jummeth · Jul 05, 2006, 12:31 AM // 00:31

Notice pick me has used para bond as a cover hex. Its a cheap spammable way to cover your hexes.

Para bond also has a nice way of telling you that you need to re-cover that expensive 15 energy hex you just ploped on, the +130hp you just gained. And with the -1 degen the hp bar turning back to red.

I'd advocate 2 cover hexes in the current metagame where expel hexes and smiting is involved, there are a lot of anti-hexes around since the popularity of SB/RI combos.

In higher end pve, there is a decent amount of hex removal aswell. Make sure your not wasting energy especially with your non existing energy management.

NB: I missed this the first time round, you cannot have 16 curse and 13 dom, you are not permitted to wear runes not of your primary profession. With your curse at 12+1+3 and your dom at 12, that means your soul reap is at 4 (3+1).

Pick Me · Jul 05, 2006, 12:58 PM // 12:58

Quote:

Originally Posted by jummeth

Notice pick me has used para bond as a cover hex. Its a cheap spammable way to cover your hexes.

Para bond also has a nice way of telling you that you need to re-cover that expensive 15 energy hex you just ploped on, the +130hp you just gained. And with the -1 degen the hp bar turning back to red.

I'd advocate 2 cover hexes in the current metagame where expel hexes and smiting is involved, there are a lot of anti-hexes around since the popularity of SB/RI combos.

In higher end pve, there is a decent amount of hex removal aswell. Make sure your not wasting energy especially with your non existing energy management.

NB: I missed this the first time round, you cannot have 16 curse and 13 dom, you are not permitted to wear runes not of your primary profession. With your curse at 12+1+3 and your dom at 12, that means your soul reap is at 4 (3+1).

Good catach regarding stats. Since you advocate 2 cover hexes, the obvious two would be Parasitic Bond and Phantom Pain.

SparhawkJC · Jul 05, 2006, 01:55 PM // 13:55

I like to run the following build;

Curses 16
Inspiration 10
Soul Reaping 9

Arcane Echo
Spiteful Spirit [e]
Reckless Haste
Parasitic Bond
Desecrate/Defile Enchantments/Spirit of Failure
Power Drain
Ether Feast/Spirit of Failure
Rez Sig

I suppose Ether Feast is the most useless skill and I will often switch it out for spirit of failure when playing with PuG's since more often than not I won't be getting targetted and if I do the monks do a decent job of catching me. However when henching I find that sometimes the mon henches like to let me die so I bring ether feast so I can heal myself when needed. With spirit of failure and soul reaping at 9 I almost never run out of energy and if I happen to fall under 10, power drain will give me enough energy to set down another ss+parasitic bond combo.

With mobs packing expel hexes you really do need 2 cover hexes and for me those two are parasitic bond and reckless haste. Parasitic bond is the greatest cover hex of all time, it only costs 5 energy and has short cast+recharge time. Reckless haste is 10 energy but gives a lot of bang for its buck. It helps power energy regen through spirit of failure and it's also an AoE hex meaning in a single melee mob you can slap 3-4 ss's on seperate targets with reckless haste on them. Things drop so fast that you only need to rely on soul reaping for energy and don't even need to bother with spirit of failure.

volsungxiii · Jul 06, 2006, 11:44 PM // 23:44

Here's my SS build, been using it for many months:

Curses: 16 (12 + 3 + 1)
Rest in Soul Reaping and Blood Magic

These are the core skills I use:

Awaken the Blood
Spiteful Spirit {E}
Arcane Echo
Desecrate Enchantments
Blood Ritual (to battery monks, eles, etc.)

Again, these are the main skills I use. The rest of the skills depends on what I'm doing.

Before a battle, start up with Awaken the Blood. This will boost SS's dmg. Then go ahead and cast Echo in order to echo SS. And of course, use SS on melee enemies, or any enemy that attacks quickly. You can also sneak in a Desecrate Ench. for very nice extra damage. If you can pull of 3 different SSs on 3 different enemies in a mob, you'll see how fast they die. Now pulling this takes a great deal of energy, but enemies will die so quickly your energy will get refilled in no time. I've ran this core set of skills successfully for a long time, and never had any real issues.

Dark Tykane · Jul 07, 2006, 12:01 AM // 00:01

Theres only so many times you can call a your own when every SS has done almost the exact same thing hundreds of times.

squan · Jul 26, 2006, 11:08 AM // 11:08

N/Me

Attributes:
Illusion Magic: 11
Blood Magic: 3 (minor rune)
Soul Reaping: 7 (minor rune)
Curses: 16 (superior rune+scar pattern)

1 Arcane Echo - Enchantment Spell
If you cast a "spell" in the next 20 seconds, Arcane Echo is replaced with that spell for 20 seconds. Arcane Echo ends prematurely if you use a non-spell skill.

2 Spiteful Spirit {Elite} - Hex Spell damage 37 duration 21
For 8-18 seconds, whenever target foe attacks or uses a skill, Spiteful Spirit deals 5-29 shadow damage to that foe and all adjacent foes.

3 Reckless Haste - Hex Spell duration 21 % miss 52
For 5-17 seconds, target foe and all adjacent foes are Hexed with Reckless Haste. While Hexed, they attack 25% faster but have a 15-43% chance to miss with attacks.

4 Sympathetic Visage - Enchantment Spell duration 17 sec
For 8-18 seconds, whenever target ally is hit by a melee attack, all adjacent foes lose all adrenaline and 3 energy.

5 Ancestor's Visage - Enchantment Spell duration 17 sec
For 8-18 seconds, whenever target ally is hit by a melee attack, all adjacent foes lose all adrenaline and 3 Energy.

6 Desecrate Enchantments - Spell shadow dam 64 shadow dam each ench 21
Target foe and all nearby foes take 6-49 shadow damage and 4-17 shadow damage for each enchantment on them.

7 Blood Ritual - Enchantment Spell 9 sec
Sacrafice 17% max health. For 8-13 seconds, target touched ally gains +3 energy regeneration. Blood Ritual can not be used on the caster.

8 rez signet

enemies in UW

Dying Nightmare
skills:
Rend Enchantments

Bladed Aatxe
skills:
Deadly Riposte
Gash
Riposte
Savage Slash
Sever Artery

drop rates:
Gold: 29%
Equippable Item: 19%
Piles of glittering Dust: 12%
Glob of Ectoplasm: 4%
Demonic Remains: 28%

Grasping Darkness
skills:
"Fear Me!"
Distracting Blow
Flurry
Skull Crack

drop rates:
Gold: 31%
Equippable Item: 23%
Demonic Remains: 43%

Smite Crawler
skills:
Divine Intervention
Mend Condition
Reversal of Fortune
Shield of Judgment
Smite Hex
Zealot's Fire

drop rates:
Gold: 27%
Equippable Item: 41%
Piles of glittering Dust: 9%
Glob of Ectoplasm: <2%
Phantom Residue: 20%

Coldfire Night
skills:
Aura of Restoration
Frozen Burst
Maelstrom
Rust
Shard Storm
Ward Against Harm

drop rates:
Gold: 29%
Equippable Item: 43%
Demonic Remains: 26%

this is how i use my skills to kill enemies

Dying Nightmare
wand them to death
you must kill them A.S.A.P because they can strip enchantments from monk. monk can cover it with Spell Breaker but kill them when you can

Bladed Aatxe
use skills in following order
1-2-1-3-6
mostly this is enough and the monk can agro the next group.

Grasping Darkness
use skills in following order
cast 4-5 on monk so the grasps can not steal energy from monk
then cast 1-2-1-6

Smite Crawler

use skills in following order
cast 4-5 on monk
then cast 1-2-1-6
because you used 4-5 on monk the smites can not use Smite Hex. so when you cast the second SS you can sit and wait till they are dead.

when echo is still recharging then use skill in next order
cast 4-5 on monk
then cast 2-3-6-2 (when recharged)
because you use reckless haste the smites attack faster so SS damage does its work very well.

Coldfire Night
use skills in following order
1-2-1-3-6-1-2
you got to act quick when monk agro's coldsfire nights, monk mostly use Spell Breaker after that the monk gets interupted lots of times. exp monks will find it not hard, but there are enough monks who die vs coldfire nights.

well thats it. i got a 55 monk and a SS. when playing with my SS i kill many in a short time. specially smites. if the monk is a exp monk and agro's 3 groups i give them 15 sec and all are dead if i use the skills mentioned above.

the quicker the kill the faster you can go for your next run. remember time is money.

good luck

AdamKebhammer · Jul 28, 2006, 01:38 AM // 01:38

If this is for PvP, what i like to take is
16 curse
12 illusion
rest in SR

as for skills...
SS
PoF
Reck haste
insidious parasite
illusion of weakness (cast at the start of battle)
conj phant
phant pain
res sig

then you have numerous ways to use this build
1. SS, Pof, reck haste, one meleer or ranger
2. split up your spells SS and parasite on one meleer/ranger and reck haste PoF on another (preferable the dealing most damage to you so they miss)
3. get those pesky runners, conj phant, phant pain and if MP is left throw a SS on so they get a good jolt for every heal attempt

I love the IoW, its saved my ass once only because people though i was dead, i had a res sig going and the interupters stopped interupting me because they figured i was dead, BAM 200 HP back, and 3 more party members ressed, what a comback. anyways enough stories, have fun with that if you choose to giver a shot

Shinigami God · Jul 30, 2006, 11:39 PM // 23:39

thanks for all the suggestions, and I forgot about the 13 dom, I usually usesame profession-attributes for my builds so I am used to writing 13 =.= I will be changing it completely, prolly something like SS, arc. echo, parasitic bond, etc. I had just gotten into using curses (was a full time MM before) when I made this thread so I just thought I'd make it so enemy would get hurt when they did anything

Time to work on my build.