Curse

-Six- · May 12, 2006, 05:46 PM // 17:46

Ne/Me Cultist Bomber

blood 12 + 4
death 12 + 3
reaping 3 + 1/3

1. Dark Aura 10-1-10 - For 30 seconds, whenever target ally sacrifices Health, Dark Aura deals 50 shadow damage to adjacent foes, and you lose 20 Health.
2. Cultist's Fervor[e] 5-1-30 - For 21 seconds, your spells cost -7 energy to cast but you sacrifice 14% health each time you cast a spell.
3. Wastrel's Worry [0]5-.25-1 - spam me baby
alt: Parasitic Bond [0]5-1-2 - baby degen and 30-66 health when target dies (from 0-6 curses)
4. Vampiric Gaze [3]10-1-5 - Steal 63 Health from target foe.
5. Taste of Pain [0]5-<1-10 - If target foe is below 50% health, you gain [more than 126] health.
6. Unholy Feast [7]15-1-20 - Steal 69 Health from up to 4 foes in the area
7. Soul Feast [3]10-1-0 - Exploit nearest corpse to steal 280 Health.
alt: Consume Corpse [3]10-1-0 - Exploit a random target. You teleport to that corpse's location and gain 100 Health and 20 Energy.
alt: Putrid Explosion [3]10-1-5 - The corpse nearest your target explodes, sending out a shockwave that deals 120 damage to all nearby foes.
8. Rez
alt: Blood Renewal 5-1-10 - Sacrifice 25% maximum Health. For 10 seconds, you gain +6 Health regeneration. When Blood Renewal ends, you gain 200 Health.
alt: Life Siphon / Well of Blood / Putrid Explosion / *

[Summary]
The core concept of this build is the synergy between Cultist's Fervor and Dark Aura. CF reduces the energy cost of spells by 7. Spells that cost 7e or less are FREE to cast. The penalty of this bonus is that every hex, spell, or enchantment you cast comes with a sacrifice. That's where Dark Aura comes in... it deals shadow damage to all nearby targets. By concentrating on spells with life steals, you can pump out damage and stay healed up enough to survive. A spamable spell like Wastrel's Worry or Parasitic Bond gives you the abillity to crank out DA damage in between Vamp Gazes and Unholy Feasts. I added Taste of Pain in as well for use when target is below 50%. When something dies, do a Soul Feast on the corpse which not only heals you for an huge amount, but also applies more DA damage.

Customization:

[skills]

I chose spells that have a cast time of 1s or less and were able to be used multiple times per CF cycle. The idea is spamming DA damage.
If you are ok with slower casts, you could add in things like Shadow Strike, Lifebane strike, Vampiric Swarm, etc for bigger damage.
With a little practice and Arcane Echo one could extend CF coverage indefinately. (DA already runs for as long as its recharge.)
You could go a little less extreme on damage and use SoF and/or enfeebling blood to neutralize the effectiveness of attacking mobs.
Vamp Touch could be added in as a safety valve... touches do not trigger CF sac
Lot's of interesting combos to be had...for example: DA-enfeebling blood-CF-Oppressive Gaze(that's 200 damage on all nearby mobs)

[health]

The lower you can deal with, the better. You are gonna be taking 20 damage from Dark Aura + a 14% sac. At ~300 health, Vamp Gaze steals about as much health as you damage yourself for. Taste of Pain is about 2x return, and Unholy Feast is about a 4x return.

[energy]

If energy becomes an issue, swap out Soul Feast with Consume Corpse.

[variations]

Really lots of opportunities...
You could tone down the spell spamming and have minions +/- dark bond +/- death nova.
Wells of Blood work good with constant sac'ing + good for others.
This concept can really be applied in some way with any 2nd profession.

One interesting variation is Ne/Mo

blood 12 + 4
death 11 + 3
healing prayers 6
reaping 2 + rune
curses 1 + rune

Dark Aura, Cultist's Ferver, Healing Breeze, Orison of Healing,
Vamp Gaze, Unholy Feast, Healing Touch/Putrid Explosion/Consume Corpse/Soul Feast, Resurrect/*

With this setup, healing yourself damages everything around you. With Orison, Healing Touch, and Breeze, you stay close enough to even with the damage and have the nice regen from Breeze.

(If you want to use Devine Boon, spamming Orison on yourself at 300 health is about even with the damage done to self. The downside is that the -2e per monk spam and loss of 1e pip is noticeable.)

The Son Of Morgoth · May 17, 2006, 01:12 PM // 13:12

This actually seems like a nice evolution from the original dark aura build, but one thing you might have problems doing is staying alive. btw where do u cap cultists fevor?