DoA General Build, quick kills etc

So I was just trying this out with Heroes a bit earlier, and the general concept worked extremely well. With a party of 2 real people and 6 Heroes, we managed to finish the second quest in Stygian, but I dropped before we killed the final boss, and we did alright on Torc'qua before leaving it and going to bed mid-mission.

2 x W/(P for Stygian)
Hundred Blades, Sever Artery, Gash, Final Thrust, Distracting Blow, Frenzy, Can't Touch This, Res Sig
Dragon Slash, Sever Artery, Gash, Sun and Moon Slash, Silverwing Slash, Frenzy, Can't Touch This*, Res Sig

*If you're not doing Stygian, you can always run with another attack skill if you wish, or Lightbringer's Gaze, Shock, or Plague Touch - all are useful.

2 x R/P
Barrage, Dual Shot, Distracting Shot, Savage Shot, Throw Dirt, Lightning Reflexes, Can't Touch This*, Signet of Return

*Again, if not doing Stygian, drop the Can't Touch This for something better - Go For The Eyes or something similar, even at low/0 spec, would be pretty decent probably.

1 x N/Mo
Blood is Power, Order of Pain, Dark Fury, Protective Spirit, Spirit Bond, Shield of Absorbtion, Extinguish, Rebirth

1 x E/Mo
Ether Prodigy, Heal Party, Extinguish, Protective Spirit, Spirit Bond, Shield of Absorbtion, Aegis*, Rebirth

Stygian would be a no-no on Aegis. Blinding Flash, Healing Seed or something similar would be useful I guess. Other option is Glyph of Lesser Energy.

2 x Mo/x
These bars weren't really figured out much. I think we just ran 2 Boon Prots and fed off the BiP's, but there is a massive amount of bars you could try out. Basically just run Protective Spirit, Spirit Bond, Shield of Absorbtion, and whatever the hell else you feel like running.

There you have it, it kills damn quickly, and it doesn't get slaughtered because you have the most imbalanced skill PvE-wise in your Build x 4. Have the Elementalist stand back and just his stuff on Monks primarily. Especially the Blinding Flash and stuff - he'll want to call whenever someone overextends on your backline, and the Rangers will want to kill them pretty fast. Everyone can Frenzy because you have Prot Spirit/Spirit Bond, so actually it's better to do so anyway.

Editted because I'm a retard and accidently put Frenzy on R/P's when writing it up accidently.

Congrats on beating it with heroes! XD I really thought it couldn't be done too...

Anyways, so your warriors caught all the aggro? Is Can't touch this enough? There's like 20+ touch necros at the first part of the quest, how'd you deal with that?

You have your Rangers pull them gradually. It's not really enough to completely stop them en-masse, but because it's life steal you can just continuously Frenzy. The Heal Party was key in keeping everyone up for that, and you really have to rely on your Rangers hitting D-Shot on some Life Steal touches.

Note that we didn't actually complete it, we died right at the end. Shame, but not as much because it didn't take as long as the 5 hours I spent trying it with a Trapper group that died at the end as well. This one was way faster.

Heres an interesting note from wiki regarding BiP
"Heroes will not use this skill without Blood Ritual in their skill bar unless they are either manually ordered to." Its a bug.

we tried to run this together today. We must really suck because we werent able to get past the frst group of 7 touch necros (not sure about the number... left-most group)

Are your tanks (people with cant touch this 2W + 2R) supposed to hold all the aggro or just the TANKS (warriors).

Ran a D/P as one of the tanks. The damage output is higher than what i could produce with my warrior. Avatar of lyssa... +38 dmg against those activating skills.. and lots of dmg dealing to adjacent foes. This might not work as well against other foes though, since without balthazar, the most armor i can get is 80 + 24 (conviction) + 24 (stand your ground), which is less than what a tank could produce.

With the Touch groups, you just aggro one group, and gradually DPS them out one by one. The Can't Touch This won't negate everything, but it should help your Monks out a bit. If your Rangers can, have them try to D-Shot Vampiric Touch/Bite. I'd guess to make it a bit easier, if you ran Zealous Benediction Monks they could just keep pumping that out for free.

Avatar of Lyssa's actually a really strong idea. We just ran Warriors because Dragon Slash is awesome too.

With Lyssa, you'd probably want to grab something like Emirates Attack too, which would work out incredibly well considering you'll pretty much always be hitting the cap.

Note that those touch guys are easily the hardest part of the area though, so don't get discouraged if they provide a bit of a problem.

Wouldn't diversion jsut rock at shuting down those touchers after all it does in pvp lol.

Quote: Originally Posted by Desires

i did the city last night in a PUG. i found that Life Bond works better than anything at keeping the tank alive. He cannot have protective spirit or stuff like that on him, but he needs to have all the armor buffs. If a tank can hold the aggro and use doylyak signet and the like you can keep him alive with just the spirit bond and maybe reversal of fortune. we struggled at first and then i asked the rit to stop using shelter and it worked a lot better from there. Just one thing i found usefull for that area.

Quote: Originally Posted by Antheus

most of the touch vamp skills we used as touch rangers were skills so expertise is activated. if they use the same build... then its not spells... spells wont work with lyssa... we also did a variant of this with a nuker instead of one ranger or warrior ... and meteor shower helped a bit to keep them knocked down... the trick is to keep the 3 of you in the same spot and let them all aggro you... so they're lined up nicely for meteor and dervish's adjacent hitting...

Thank you very much for posting this . Me and my flatmate are slowing getting through nightfall with heros and after reading what others said about the area and using heros i thought it was an area we would just have to avoid, but i now have hope
Cheers!

Use Forked Arrow instead of Dual Shot since it makes more damage and has a lower recharge.

4 or 5 man team

Warrior

Earth Magic - 12 (necessary for 21 second Obsidian)
Strength - 10+1+2
Weapon attriute - Rest
Necessary skills: Obsidian Flesh/Armor of Earth/Dolyak Signet/Watch Yourself.
Must know how to get aggro and keep it, +20% enchant weapon mod, Sentinel's Armor recommended.

2 Monks

Divine Spirit - 8+1 (necessary for 26 second SB)
Protection - 12+1+3
Healing - Rest

Necessary skills: SB, Blessed Aura
Recommended skills:
Dwayna's kiss Sig of Rejuvi and Sig of Dev, Dismiss Condition
Essence Bond: Energy Maintenance (cast on Warrior)
Possibly ele secondary for energy management (Glyph of Energy for SB)

One Bonder
(self explanatory)

Necessary skills: Balthazar's Spirit, Life Barrier, Life Bond,
Optional skills:
Essence Bond: Cast on Tank instead of Balthazar on self, make Dwayna's kiss more efficient
Life attunement: tank will be doing little damage anyway, will increase Dwayna's kiss and make tank easy to maintain

1 SS necro
(self explanatory)
Necessary skills:SS, Arcane Echo

(Optional Slot)

1 ranger with EoE (could be placed on the bonder considering the bonder doesn't need to maintain more than 3 enchants (only tank))
1 SV necro to kill kai's or other important enemies, speed up killing, trigger EoE

Notes:
*Bond only the Tank
*Cast Balthazar's spirit on Tank
*ALWAYS keep either SB or Obsidian Flesh up.
*Possible to bring a battery necro to maintain energy
*The Tank must have ALL aggro or this build falls apart quickly
*Tank should not be attacking when under the energy denial enviro effect, must have enough energy for obs flesh.
*If all this is done, Dwayna's Kiss should heal the tank for a min of 366 health (without Divine Favor). This can of course be increased by adding more enchants, like Prot Spirit or others.
*Warrior can be replaced by a single Dervish with 9 second Vow of Silence won't need an SB monk then, however he will be harder to maintain than warrior due to less armor. Also I think Vow has a 1 second vulnerability between recasting.

Add:
Thought of an alternative to the Warrior Tank:
Get a 55 Ele/Mo. This Characters only job would be to maintain Prot Spirit on himself and cast Obsidian Flesh. This would eliminate the need for a bonder and would make the only skill the SB monk has to bring other than SB, Shield of Absorption. This would have to be maintained at nearly all times.
Benefits: easier to maintain immunity to all spells, easier to keep the character alive, Monk would need no points in Healing Spells, (place all in divine to maximize Shield of Absorption making it possible to always maintain it)
Negatives: More Fragile makes keeping anti spell up vital, also more prone to interrupts, not feasible vs touch mobs

Quote: Originally Posted by drupal

I had a very good group that I'm sure would have made it (and probably still made it) through the Stygian area except that I got disconnected. It basically consisted of:

1 E/Me Obsid Flesh tank
Obsid Flesh {E}
Armor of Earth
Mantra of Resolve
Glyph of Concentration
Tensai's Crystals
Crystal Wave
Stoneflesh Aura
Something else I can't remember

2 Mo/E Healer's Boon monks
Healers Boon {E}
Ethereal Light
Dwayna's Kiss
Heal Party
Glyph of Lesser E
Prot Spirit
Dismiss Conditions
Rebirth or Healing Seed

1 Bonder monk
Life Bond
Balthazar's Spirit
Blessed Sig
Vital Blessing
not sure of the rest really.

1 Rt/R Spirit Rit
Weapon of Quickening {E}
Shelter
Union
Symbiosis
Edge of Extinction
Shadowsong
Earth Bind
Flesh of my Flesh

2 Renewal Nukers
standard build applies with Mark of Rodgort on one of the nukers.

1 SF nuker
standard build applies

1 SS necro
standard build applies with blood rit


Basically Weapon of Quickening was for the Obsid Flesh tank to keep Obsid Flesh up. The bonder would also keep a Balth Spirit on the tank to give him energy. Beyond this, it was your standard wall/nuke build.