Curse

Servant of Kali · May 30, 2006, 12:16 PM // 12:16

Flying Fortress

Ritualist/Mesmer

Spawning: 9
Channeling: 11
Communing: 14

Signet of Midnight [E]
Pain
Bloodsong
Shadowsong
Disenchantment
Gaze from Beyond
Painful Bond
Ressurection Signet

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Shaman armor
+30+30 health communing staff
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Team build: you need a monk, and you need a warrior/thumper (i'll explain a bit later why). The 4th player can be whatever, as long as it's shutdown/denial or pure dmg (meaning, two monk team is tedious).

Playstyle.

First of all, those who never played mesmer or something similiar, will need to adapt to this build to play it well. Why mesmer? Well as a mesmer you either knew how to avoid ranger and his arrows, or you died. If you remember how it was when rangers arrows went through your Distortion, you will know what i mean

Ok true that was awhile ago, now most rangers in TA seem to be thumpers. As you can notice, the skillbar has no Resolve, no Concentration or any other mantra that will save you. Your skill, and SoM will suffice. Learn how to use obstacles, dodge, kite etc. But dont forget to place spirits so that they can actually shoot at someone.

So... once the battle starts, you get near the enemy, and while they are just abit outside aggro range, you put down Shadowsong. Make sure you're outside of range of possible ranger in enemy team, so he cant interrupt you. Shadowsong serves as a fallback-point. Usually enemy team will send one warrior charging your way, and shadowsong is there to wait for him, while your team advances. Just in case you can use SoM. If there is interrupt ranger, dont bother with warrior, just kite, and blind ranger. I also love when assassin spawns on top of me, and starts chaining me. SoM and gg

SoM - the best skill in RA (in my oppinion), and one of the best in TA if you ask me. No other skill has ever given me more control of the battlefield than SoM (in 4v4). Yea yea, i heard it all; "but plague touch... but mend ailment...." yada yada yada. Trust me, theory is one thing, practice is another. This is why i said you need warrior/thumper in your team. With the pressure on the monk or someone else, monk wont really have time to spam mend ailment every 15sec. Actually, with Shadowsong i've seen some people just stop bothering with condition removal. I had a laugh when W/N was using plague touch, only to be hit again with shadowsong. He did it like 3x, and then either ran out of energy or just gave up

Now, as you move forward, keep placing spirits. Dont be static and play on defense. It's boring, and just not good. I hope i dont have to say: dont put spirits on top of each other. Just spread em. Warrior should run ahead of you and start smacking someone. You follow him and place spirits all around the place, and especially _behind_ enemy. That will make him hesitate if he wants to retreat, because he will need to figger out which way to retreat if need be.

The most important thing you need to learn is to anticipate spirits AI. It usually targets squishies. I have not tested it fully yet, but from my observation it seems that there's a higher chance spirits will hit the target if it's hexed with Painful Bond. Always pay attention to whom the spirits are hitting, as that is the best bet for Painful Bond. That is your spike skill (yep you can spike!). At the appropriate moment (hopefully when you have at least 3 spirits up and in range) cast it, and watch 5-7 numbers (or up to 8 if you're wanding) pop-up above the target

From the practice, i can tell you that even if there's a monk around, in most cases PainfulBonded target would die. Sure, dont get me wrong, it has something to do with the rest of your team as well, but the dmg spirits will do is crucial.

Enjoy and have fun

Why not....

I will furthermore clear a few things regarding my skill choice, as usually people point out one of these:

* Ritual Lord. No, sorry, you're not protection Rt. You dont need to spam Union/Shelter all the time. In most cases your spirits wont die easily, if at all. Blind will make sure they last quite long, as enemy will in most cases send 1 warrior to smack em. Which is why SoM>RL. In 1% cases you will wish you had RL, but in 99% SoM has proved better so far, and RL completely useless. Not to mention, with RL i would need Boon of Creation. Another slot which i use better.

* Anti-interrupt (mantras). No, sorry. As i explained above, you should do fine without it. If not, keep practicing.

* Superior rune. No, you dont need superior runes. They wont make a huge difference to your skills, as it would do if you were a mesmer or something else.

* Dissonance. Hmm, i dont know, i guess im sceptical when it comes to this spirit. I always fear it's gonna waste its potential by hitting warrior or someone with nothing to interrupt. Maybe i should try it more. However, Dissonance is not good in this build. Enchant removal is priority, as you may know have mesmer around. Not only that, but Disenchant usually lasts like 33% longer. That is very important due to PainfulBond synergy.

* Warrior, thumper.. why dmg Rt at all?
Because it's fun. It's different. Unconventional. And because it works. First of all, not many know how to fight against spirits, or what they even do (yea, u will meet these kind of people lol). Spirits do armor-ignoring dmg. They act as a fear factor. In other scenario, people underestimate them and stay inside spirits. Which is good

Weakness of the build..

Any build can be countered. I will post the biggest threats the build has, but keep in mind that of all other builds in TA, this one is one with the least counters. You cant backfire Rt since it will hardly affect anything, anti-warrior and anti-caster stuff wont do. Conditions hurt you less than most other builds as well. Not even cripple will do much since u can stand and spam spirits. No one is usually gonna e-drain dmg Rt, and even if they try just cast spirit with highest energy, switch to offhand. Wait, switch back cast spirit switch again to offhand. Standard procefure. Any e-denial will be more useful on your monk, so i dont recall ever being e-drained so far. Once someone tried abit but gave up. You can do the most kiting, since once u drop spirit(s) u can simply run around em while waiting for energy regen and spirits recharge. So what exactly hurts?

* Teams with 2+ rangers (non thumpers). You will usually blind one, and the other can savage shot you to death

This gave me a headache only once, but still it should be noted. The map is important tho, as some maps provide more obstaces. I had the misfortune to encounter that team on ascalon map.
* Shock warrior, and gale. Yea, it hurts. It goes tru blind, and it's annoying. But it's not something they will be able to do too many times.
* A team with quite more condition removal, and KD warrior. A W/Mo with a hammer may give you a headache in some situations, like, remove condition and knock u down to interrupt ur spirit casting. Similiar situation is if 1 warrior goes spirit hunting and the other (ur blinding) goes on you. This is tricky, but nothing that you cant handle. However, let's face it, situations like these dont have much to do with the build. If you were a mesmer, ele or something, hammer going on you is bad. Or anything similiar for that matter.

kamp0002 · May 30, 2006, 01:36 PM // 13:36

Good post, I think I'm gonna try shadowsong more often if its so effective on warriors.

Quote:

Dissonance. Hmm, i dont know, i guess im sceptical when it comes to this spirit. I always fear it's gonna waste its potential by hitting warrior or someone with nothing to interrupt. Maybe i should try it more. However, Dissonance is not good in this build. Enchant removal is priority, as you may know have mesmer around. Not only that, but Disenchant usually lasts like 33% longer. That is very important due to PainfulBond synergy.

I have had different results with dissonance, I find laying it out in the right spot on the battlefield can seriously disturb the enemy backline, characters fleeing and using heals get inturrupted etc. I might try your build with dissonance instead of bloodsong, because it still causes damage, has a high mana cost and has 5 sec casting time, except it costs 10 mana more but inturrupts instead of drains life, it should last around a minute which should place its life span the same as the others if you cast it last.

Nice build I might try it out

Peewee · May 30, 2006, 01:44 PM // 13:44

Shadow Song is nice on a spirit spammer. You spamming spirits way back in the lines, so the first enemy to come near shadowsong is usually a melee char with the intention of taking down your spirits.

Servant of Kali · May 30, 2006, 02:36 PM // 14:36

Quote:

I think I'm gonna try shadowsong more often if its so effective on warriors.

Actually, to be honest, it's more of a utility skill. Dont rely on it too much against warriors. It is unpredictable, and it's quite likely that Shadowsong starts hitting someone useless (which means mesmer ele monk....). That's why im very careful where and when i put it (like, before battle, since it's very likely it will hit warrior then). Other than that, i use it because with Painful Bond it does dmg, and it's cheap. Without PB, it doesnt do dmg, it just blinds. Also, it's not unneccessarily bad if it blinds non warrior. It can work as a cover condition

For instance, if you cripple someone, and then shadowsong blinds it

Quote:

I find laying it out in the right spot on the battlefield can seriously disturb the enemy backline, characters fleeing

Yes but that's counterproductive

See, when u hex someone with Painful Bond, the last thing you want is that person fleeing :P

Quote:

I might try your build with dissonance instead of bloodsong, because it still causes damage

Hmm.... if you want.. but im not sure. First of all, yes, it costs 10e more. Dont forget that you wont be high on energy. You need to spam PBond as well. Dissonance with my build lasts... around 23sec if im not wrong. I guess you could use sup communing rune, but it wont increase duration all that much. Bloodsong lasts forever unless it's killed. Same with Pain. That's important because you never know when you will drop down PBond for (semi)spike. Dissonance might prove unreliable because it's gonna die fast. Maybe if you leave BSong and replace Disenchant?

Dont get me wrong, Dissonance seems like a nice spirit, but might not go well with this build. What build is basically doing is constant heavy pressure, and that is possible only if your spirits shoot all the time. Disenchant will lasts only 33sec, out of 60. You dont have RLord

Maybe you could even try replacing Shadowsong instead? I'd rather replace unpredictable shadowsong than Bloodsong.

Quote:

I might try it out

you can try RA first, even without monk you're better off that most other builds, because of SoM and cause u can hide behind spirits (SoM will make most of your RA battles 3v4; you'd be suprised how many dont have condition removal - once i was against 2 monks, and none had condition removal!). In TA, i advise you start the team, because not many will want you in. It's usually just thumpers, edenial and alike. When they think of dmg Rt, they usually have in mind someone who spams down all spirits then waits for the enemy to come near. It's not how you play this build

Ideally, you have some guildies/friends you usually play with

Servant of Kali · Jun 04, 2006, 08:24 PM // 20:24

Ok few more things:

* Gaze is still good even after the "nerf". It's just abit weaker on warriors n rangers, otherwise it's more or less the same. Definitely worth a slot.

* Warrior or any other melee character isnt needed for the build to be as good. Other professions work just fine. Tested.