Curse

xenoranger · Jun 08, 2006, 02:00 PM // 14:00

Build: Unholy Degen
Class: N/Me
Use: Primarily Alliance Battles, but works in other PvP formats & PvE

Attributes:
Blood 14 (10 + 1 + 3)
Death 13 (12 + 1)
Soul Reaping (rest)

Statistics:
ACC: 9.2857
ACT: 1.25
ART: 8.625
ASP: 15%
SSC: 3

Skills:

Life Siphon (Blood) 10,2,2
Vile Miasma (Blood) 10,1,15
Signet of Agony (Blood) 10% -,3/4,15
Plague Sending (Curses) 10% 10,1,5
Virulence (Death) 5,1,15
Blood Renewal (Blood) 25% 5,1,10 (optional)
Well of Blood (Blood) 15,2,2
Epidemic (No Attribute) 10,¼,5

Runes:
Sup Blood
Any Vigor
Sup Death (optional)

Armor:
Ragged Scar Pattern (+1 Blood)
Revenants Set (recommended)
Blood Stained Boots (recommended)

Concept:
Apply such an unholy degen to the enemy that they have a -18 stacked against them.

Skill Explaination:

Life Siphon (Blood) 10,2,2
Your first degen. This serves to heal you because you will be sacrificing in a moment. It's a good lead and cover attack.
Signet of Agony (Blood) 10% -,3/4,15
Well, you want to hurt them bad. What better way to do it than have them bleeding for 25 second. Sure you sacrifice, but it's the best way to have a lasting bleeding with a necromancer primary.
Plague Sending (Curses) 10% 10,1,5
You can't carry the bleeding too long, so send this condition to your enemy. If you use this right after Signet of Agony, you sacrifice 20% of your health, but the bleeding on them is worth it.Plus, with life siphon in effect, you can recover some of this back.
Virulence (Death) 5,1,15
Punish them for being stupid enough to take conditions. Stack Disease, Poison, and Weakness on the enemy. This is a dangerous move, since in PvP Disease can affect you as well, but you can use this as a nice way to apply loads of degen from multiple conditions in 1 blow.
Vile Miasma (Blood) 10,1,15
Wait until the conditions hit. Once you apply your first condition,
Epidemic (No Attribute) 10,¼,5
You know how they always seem to have the tell a friend feature on websites? Why not curse a friend? When in proximity of other enemies, hit epidemic so the disease, poison, and bleeding is shared between the enemy and his friends.
Blood Renewal (Blood) 25% 5,1,10 (optional)
Although not always on my skill bar, I'll sometimes use this before I start sacrificing. The +6 regen (from lvl 13 blood) works very nicely to cover the sacrifices. Especialy if this follows life siphon.
Well of Blood (Blood) 15,2,2
This is more for your protection than anything. Give back to your allies with a well here and there. Plus, standing in a well does wonders for your HP. Espeically when you're looking for a new target. At lvl 13, it's 18 seconds of +5 regen, so this ain't half bad.

Weaknesses:

Purge/Convert Monks
Convert Hexes will strip all hexes from the target. Purge Conditions will remove all conditions. Any monk with both on their skill bar will be able to kill the effects in seconds.
Super Spike Healing
I've noticed that Healing Signet can push back the timing on this. Most monk skills can't push it back very well. Essentially, you need to be healing 20hp per second to make up for the difference. With Healing signet, that's 120 or better every 6 seconds. From experience, most monk builds can prolong the the duration by healing, but they can't necessarily combat it or turn the tide.
Condition Transfers
Just like you can send conditions, enemies can use plague touch and other skills to send conditions back at you. It's a sad state, but it happens. Make sure Virulence is the last condition applied. This way, if they transfer anything, there's a better chance of receiving weakness over a degen like bleeding or poison.
No direct damage
Except for Signet of Agony, you perform zero in direct damage. Everything is damage over time. Once up to -10 degen
, it's 20 hp/sec damage
. That's more than some warriors can do. But the fact remains that you're doing this as damage over time. Fans of Diablo realize that over time damage is more long term thinking and not immediately resolving the problem infront of you.
Carrying the blood
A dangerous move, but if you're not careful with your target, you can carry the bleeding. At this point, you are degening at 6hp/sec (-3 pips). Carry it too long, and you can bleed to death. It's a good idea to stand in a well when using this. Make sure that you cast plague sending IMMEDIATELY after you cast signet of agony, otherwise you're going to carry the blood.

Strengths:

SERIOUS Degen
Life Siphon (-3) + Bleeding (-3) + Poison (-4) + Disease (-4) + Vile Miasma (-4) = -18

Even a Healing Breeze at lvl 12 can't compete with this. the +8 Regen doesn't stack against the -18. The hidden -8 more than compensates for all monk regen skills.
Sharing in the pain
Epidemic allows you to spread the conditions across enemies. This way you can infect groups with a -11 degen (Bleeding + Poison + Disease). Plus, plague sending allows you to share bleeding with target and all adjacent foes. So, when you are targetting just 1, you have the added bonus of hitting multiple with at least bleeding.
Fevered Dreams
Not build specific, but if you have a mesmer on teh team with Fevered Dreams, this makes the build a whole lot more effective. Just choose a target, then condition him for defeat. With Fevered, that target will share his/her pain automatically with their allies.
Tainted Turtle Takedown
This build can take down the seige turtles of Aspenwood (Kurzick) fairly quickly. The build was designed primarily for this usage, but was found to have value elsewhere.

Legend:

ACC - Average Casting Cost
ACT - Average Casting Time
ART - Average Recharge Time
ASP - Average Sacrifice Percent
SSC - Sacrificial Skill Count

Testing History:
Alliance Battles - Saltspray, Aspenwood (Kurzick)
Skirmishes - against varrying builds
PvE - Unwaking Waters (primarily) & random parts of cantha

Credit: myself

Mr_eX · Jun 08, 2006, 02:38 PM // 14:38

Very nice build. You may also consider throwing in Phantom Pain in order to add Deep Wound to the mix...20% health reduction + less benefit from healing + -18 degen = death

xenoranger · Jun 08, 2006, 02:52 PM // 14:52

Yes, but phantom pain (part of original build) diversified the attributes a bit too much. I wanted to keep higher soul reaping for a wash, rinse, repeat manner of applying hexes and conditions.

Still, not a bad idea to add Deep Wound into the mix.

Jetdoc · Jun 08, 2006, 07:08 PM // 19:08

I understand the concept of going past the -10 degen (to counter other regen spells), but to me this is just a little bit overkill.

To me, if there is a condition I want to start the trigger happy fest over, I would pick deep wound.

I have long run the very popular Phantom Pain/Shatter Delusions/Virulence build, which causes a deep wound and then starts degening them like a madman. Combine that with your lead attack (Life Siphon), and that's -10 degen + the deep wound out of four spells, instead of the -18 degen caused by your four spells. I'd rather have the 1st option, honestly.

The other spell that would really make your combo lethal is Fragility, which is almost picture perfect for Virulence and Epidemic. I find that Fragility/Epidemic really cause the spell chain to take a bit longer than I normally like (longer spell chain = better chance to remove/interrupt), so I normally keep away from those unless I know I won't be targeted.

Overall a very nice concept!

xenoranger · Jun 08, 2006, 07:26 PM // 19:26

Jetdoc.. you fail to realise something about me. I'm a huge fan of overkill. I find it's better to overkill than not kill.

Although it makes sense to use your method, I just find that mine works well to stack degen against regen healers. That's what it was built to combat.

Hmm... looking further at your suggestion, I'll have to try that sometime. It sounds like it's more than worth a look.

With unholy degen, I'm just stacking degen upon degen. The -18 that ensues is basically a max, but the key is that degens wear off, so you apply them in tandum.This way, it's a battle for the enemy to keep their energy stable.I'll probe with life siphon, then step to the Sig of Agony/Plague Sending combination. After they're bleeding for a second or two, I apply Virulence. Virulence lasts only 13 seconds (@ lvl 12), so as poison and disease are wearing off, I need something to back it up. Vile Miasma hits. At this point, Life Siphon is wearing off in 5-6 seconds (depending on how much I procrastinate.) Reapply Life Siphon, then repeat sacrifices. It's a constant degen. When it comes to key targets, then I expend it all at once. (IE: Seige Turtles). I did play with using Deep Wound on them, but that didn't work as well as I'd hoped. Monks would just remove deep wound then healing breeze. The stacked Degen just seemed (in testing) more functional.

I will have to try your build again. Perhaps there is a variation of this that can be used more effectively than in my testing.

Thanks, Jetdoc.

Pick Me · Jun 08, 2006, 07:31 PM // 19:31

Just stating two spells that Xenoranger didn't have and one was already mentioned. Phantom Pain (mention several times by others) and Parasitic Bond. Both do almost 0 health degen (1 may be 2 at most) but have a nice after effect. Phantom Pain once removed or ends, inflicts Deep Wounds (a condition). Once Parastic Bond is removed or ends, gives you massive health.

Since this is an "Unholy Degen" build, the purpose isn't so much as conditions, but the degeneration of someone's health. Why not drop Death Magic and pickup Illusion instead? You can use Conjure Nightmare (-8 health degen), Illusion of Pain (-3 to -9 health degen, then inflicts deep wounds), Images of Remorse (-1 to -3 health degen, but if foe attacks suffers 10-44 damage). As an elite, Recurring Insecurity lasts only 10 seconds and does -1 to -3 health degen, but each time you cast another hex, it renews itself for another 10 seconds. This would allow you to have this spell on your foe until death.

But as Jetdoc had already said, if you prefer doing conditions, then fragility would be very good. If you fear disease coming back to you, drop Virulence and get Tainted Flesh. I would say get Feavered Dreams, but I don't think its necessary for you to use instead of Tainted Flesh or Virulence.

Just spouting other options to your good build Xenoranger.

xenoranger · Jun 08, 2006, 07:44 PM // 19:44

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