Curse

Warskull · Nov 21, 2005, 10:06 AM // 10:06

There is no set build for this.

It revolves around 2 characters, monk smiters.

The core:
Mo/E
Draw Conditions
Reversal of Fortune
Balthazar's Aura
Zealot's fire
Divine Spirit
Glyph of Renewal

Most tombs groups fill in the rest with:
Judge's Insight or Blessed Aura
Rez Sig

The basic idea is use glyph of renewal every time before you use divine spirit. You can then spam draw and reversal (costing 1 energy each.)

After some experimentation with my guild I have come to a preference of this smite build (only the offensive 5 are listed

Note this build is not really mine. While I contributed to it the idea to run it and develop the variant is my guild leader's (Vindexus.)

Quote:

Mo/E x 2
12+4 Smiting
12+1 Divine Favor
3+1 Protection Prayers

Zealot's Fire
Balthazar's Aura
Draw Conditions
Reversal of Fortune
Blessed Aura
Divine Spirit
Glyph of Renewal*
Glyph of Lesser Energy

War/Ran
12+4 Axe Mastery
9+1 Strength
9 Beast Mastery

Eviscerate*
Executioner's Strike
Penetrating Blow
Axe Rake
Tiger's Fury
Sprint
Res Sig
Distracting Blow

War/Mo
12+4 Swordsmanship
12+1 Strength

Sever Artery
Gash
Galrath Slash
Final Thrust
Battle Rage*
Purge Signet
Succor
Resurrection Signet

Nec/Mo
11+4 Blood Magic
12 Smiting Prayers
6+1 Curses

Offering of Blood*
Rend Enchantments
Strip Enchantment
Judge's Insight
Dark Fury
Blood Ritual
Smite Hex
Res Sig

The energy balance of the smite monks are very tight. With Blessed aura up they have no energy gain. Thus the battle rage W/Mo casts succor on both smiters to give them some minimal energy gain. The N/Mo then uses blood ritual to help further fuel the smiters. In addition the job of casting judge's insight is shifted to the N/Mo. He cannot easily keep up dark fury, blood ritual, and judge's on everyone so he just does his best. You usually want a rather skilled player on your N/Mo. We found the smite endurance to be far stronger using this configuration. In the configuration you commonly seen run the smite monks are extremely fragile, have a difficult time keeping up balth aura, and a single energy drain pretty much breaks their smiting chain. Both smiting monks and the necro must take +20% enchantment modded staves.

The choice for the Sword W/Mo was really an experiment based off some experimenting I did in TA. A 4 w/mo mending team using succor/watchful/mending to give all members of the team +6 pips of regen. I know it isn't tactically sound or even a good idea, but it was fun to goof off with for a while. He actually fit suprisingly well into the build. Maintaining battle rage at all times very rapidly fuels adrenal skills and additionally keeps the warrior constantly running (to keep the smite damage coming at even fleeing targets.)

The 3 monks are really your choice. Any solid monk backline you are familiar with should work.

The build you saw was probably running the common smite monk I posted above.

This build does have a number of disadvantages. First, the smite monks are far more fragile than the E/Mo smiters. Their energy situation is quite tight. Plus due to the interactions between multiple characters this build can have a degree of difficulty on maps that encourage characters splitting off (mainly offerings to dwanya.)

The R/W ranger is a 13 expertise ranger who spikes with Irresistable Blow followed by Wild Blow. Most configurations of the hammer ranger do not use adrenal skills. We have a preference for the warriors because with dark fury they can institute fearsome damage with ease (the battle rage sword warrior is constantly full of adrenaline.)

Sephir Demange · Nov 21, 2005, 08:57 PM // 20:57

Thank you much WarSkull. Very helpful, and has given me a few ideas.

Entropius · Nov 22, 2005, 07:05 AM // 07:05

Since the smite monks have such trouble getting energy but use little of it when they have divine spirit up, why not run blood ritual on the necro to feed them if they run low?

Warskull · Nov 22, 2005, 07:54 AM // 07:54

We do run blood ritual on the necro for that reason.

Spamming both draw and reversal with divine spirit up costs you roughly 1 energy/second. The 3 pips of regen left after blessed aura give 1 energy/second regen. Then the succor returns the monk to goinging a small amount of energy and blood ritual fuels balthazar's.

Zeru · Nov 22, 2005, 07:55 PM // 19:55

R/W's are best run with a pet and spamming irres blow, ferocious strike, and hammer bash. Basically it turns him into a knocklock bot with mediocre damage compared to a war/x. It's nice disruption especially under qz but nothing special.

Pet a.i is terrible though so if that is an issue using backbreaker and ditching the pet and it's skills works too. There are a lot of idiots who use dev hammer with a r/w and it's really just dumb when you have the other 2 options.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Santanus_Perro

Can the r/w build put out nearly the same amount of damage? Without strength, I would think no, but as my wife likes to remind me, I am often wrong.

You're not wrong, W/X especially with a conjure or ji/soh are going to output a lot more damage than r/w because 12->16 makes such a huge difference in power (33% stronger skills, 15% more damage, a much higher crit rate, and strength bonus). The rate of kds will be less though, making this guy more of a person to hold a target in place for a spike while the r/w is more of a disruption guy under qz. The warrior is generally going to be better but the r/w has a place.

As for smite, it's generally only feasible with mo/e divine spirit glyph of renewal guys as stated. They will need some alternative form of energy management which usually amounts to a bip or blood ritual with high specced blood because they require lots of startup energy. However smite is really not all that threatening since the nerf, given the fact that it requires so much upkeep and is even more fragile without the far superior energy engine of ether renewal. I've played these teams in gvg and they really haven't seemed much of a threat at all. I guess it could work okay in tombs where people bunch up more but then again lots of normally mediocre stuff works well in tombs.