my new hero trio

I call it the 47 team. Yeah, gimmicky name, but you'll see little 47's EVERYWHERE when you use this trio. Use them to liquidate foes in HM. It's much faster than Sabway and usable in most HM zones. Kunvie Firewing and his crazy dragon friends go down literally in seconds.

Hero 1, N/Mo, 12+? death magic, 9+1 soul reaping, 9 protection prayers
jagged bones
animate bone minions
death nova
putrid bile
aegis
signet of lost souls
blood of the master
protective spirit

Yes, this is basically the Sabway MM. Obviously you can put in verata's aura instead of blood of the master in dungeons and other suitable places. And you can easily switch him to N/Mo smiter with your favorite smiting skills.

Hero 2, Rt, 12+1+1 spawning power, 12+2 channeling magic (yes, you need the major rune)
boon of creation
spirit's gift
painful bond
bloodsong
signet of spirits
splinter weapon
gaze of fury
feast of souls

The idea is to get a channeler spamming a splinter weapon that totally outclasses the 10-channeling splinter weap that you have to content yourself with when you play Sabway. While he's at it, he creates four or five spirits to attack like banshees. Sometimes you have to manual his feast of souls; he's a moron with it. It's a good idea to flush now and then, even if you don't need the ginormous healing boost that feast of souls can provide (think 97 times 4 or 5 to EACH party member), just in order to allow him to make new spirits. And he's not too smart about maintaining boon of creation outside of battle. He typically wastes the first coupla seconds of each battle casting it on himself instead of starting the battle with it already up.

Hero 3, Mo/Me, 12+1+1 healing prayers, 12+1 divine favor, 3 inspiration magic
dwayna's sorrow
channeling
word of healing
signet of rejuvenation
dwayna's kiss
patient spirit
cure hex
restore life

Yup, channeling at 3 inspiration is generally all this guy needs to keep his energy up. That's because you're getting 47 health each time a minion dies, not to mention another 47 health each time the Rt makes another spirit. Most of the time you'll see this monk waiting around for something to do! When the going gets tough, he'll be fine with word of healing. Vigorous spirit is a good alternative for things like patient spirit. If you're afraid of conditions, you can use spotless soul in there. You can even reconfigure this guy to be 12+1+1 healing, 9+1 protection prayers, and 9+1 divine favor, and then give him skills like restore condition (which should be plenty).

Meanwhile you'll see yellow 47's everywhere because of the Rt's splinter weapon.

This trio works best with a human physical who can take advantage of the splinter weapon, which the Rt will keep on you like flies on honey. Godmode is ideal.

In areas where blocking is a serious problem, you'll probably want to figure out a way to work in a curser with defile defenses or rigor mortis. But only if its absolutely essential to stop blocking (as in, say, dungeons with those pesky dwarf warders), cuz most of the time ordinary blockers like typical ranger foes will just die over time. They take a ridiculous number of hits per second with this team.

Lastly, Heroes 2 & 3 are perfectly compatible with Sabway, so if you have a buddy who doesn't want to abandon his Sabway, it's all good. Just take out your MM and work in some other kind of damage-dealer for a team of two humans and six heroes.

Spirits are ridiculously powerful now. I don't think they kill a great deal faster than any other build, but they do allow for extreme survival.

I finished Vanquishing Elona at the weekend, and made use of the Spirit / Minion combination. It feels like cheating when you can agro three Hard Mode groups in The Ruptured Heart and survive almost unscathed.

Anyway...

The Necro and Monk builds you have up there are fairly standard. I prefer to strengthen my wall of relentless punishment by taking a second Ritualist over the Monk. With skills like Shelter, Union and Displacement, hench monks are more than capable of cleaning up any splash damage.

I also put spirits on the Minion Master, and used Vampirism myself (I was Elementalist, not a character who would use any "Godmode" build). I even tried replacing Jagged Bones (my usual MM Elite) with Wanderlust, which did seem to help put a stop to some of the more resilient foes, and at the least, was good for a laugh.

Hard Mode AoE Elementalists are about the only foes who can reliably wipe the team, in my experience, purely based on the fact that they can deal massive damage to the wall of relentless punishment, and wipe out the spirits quickly. They just need a little adjusted agro management, such as forcing Sandstorm Crags to use up their Sandstorm somewhere useless. Everything else just crashes and burns whenever they get within range.

I expect to see many Spirit-based builds popping up for a good long while to come. They are very easy to implement and allow for obscenely easy play. It's nice that Ritualists got some love, but I can't help but wonder if they're a tad too powerful now.

Personally, I still do not feel that Spawning is worth it on an offensive spirit spammer. I'd still go with a hybrid.
Which basically means:
SoS
Bloodsong
Ancestors'
Splinter
Spirit Syphon

Painful Bond is also an option - leaving you with some 2 to 5 open slots (if you decide to dump Bloodsong and Ancestors). And I'd go resto on those slots. Mend Body and Soul is good. So is Weapon Of Warding. Spirit Light. Life. PwK. DPS.
Looking into a secondary for hex removal. PS. Aegis. ....


The problem with Feast of Souls is that when you'd need that monster heal, your whole party is close to dying. And by Feasting on the spirits you:
1. trash your damage dealing capabilities
2. remove targets that would potentially draw some of the damage.
Yes, given the recharge on SoS - you might be able to just drop SoS again in the next second after you Feast on them. Still, resto/more support gives you options that would help in preventing ever reaching the point where you'd need to Feast.



On the topic of the monk:
I prefer to run damage dealing heroes because that's what hench suck more at.
Unless of course this is for 4 man areas only.

Just as I wanted to post a thread about spiritway you did it. :x

These builds are awesome though, mainly because 10 minions and 11 spirits screw the monster ai over, I vanquished about 3 areas yesterday with similar setup and almost never got hit. oO
It doesnt even need prots, just pre-cast your spirits and then step back and aggro, mobs attack the spirits. xD

Quote: Originally Posted by Cebe

I prefer to strengthen my wall of relentless punishment by taking a second Ritualist over the Monk. With skills like Shelter, Union and Displacement, hench monks are more than capable of cleaning up any splash damage. I agree with that. Also I've tried channeling on my monk, it useless if you're thinking of walling the enemies with spirits and minions. Channeling has a stupidly small range, and therefor your monk would have to be in the aggro which is what you are avoiding.

A Rt healer would probably be better.

A few comments on the above:

Yes, Hero 2 is the main innovation, but the point is that he synergizes so nicely with Heroes 1 & 3.

The main purpose of feast of souls is not healing, but to allow you to clear the guy's entire spirit lineup with a single click. And that allows him to create more spirits. Which gives him more energy. The fact that feast of souls also gives you a tremendous health boost is an afterthought--but I have avoided wipes that way.

Elementalist bosses actually tend to be the EASIEST to kill with this trio. Why? Pain inverter will send back packets of damage for EACH ally that was attacked, and with minions and spirits all over the place, it's tremendous. PI is a staple on my bar and ele bosses go down instantly. (As far as I'm concerned, the "Is PI a valuable skill?" debate is over and I don't even bother arguing with people about it anymore.)

I can certainly see the value of a rit healer instead of the monk I posted. The main problem is that you kinda have to give up dwayna's sorrow that way, and really, dwayna's sorrow, properly applied, is the most efficient energy-to-red-bars skill in the whole game. Sure, it's sloppy, but with blue +47's popping up EVERYWHERE (especially after a big AoE spike, right when you need it), you won't mind the sloppiness too much. A nice pot-sweetener for bringing a rit healer is that mend body and soul will start to remove just about all your conditions (one per spirit). I suppose you could put dwayna's sorrow on the MM, but then you can forget about letting him prot with aegis and stuff.

[quoet]dwayna's sorrow
channeling
word of healing
signet of rejuvenation
dwayna's kiss
patient spirit
cure hex
restore life[/quote]
Meh... channeling is way too conditional e-management. Shouldn't the aggro be on the spirits/minions/melee, anyway?

You chould try an N/Mo: 12 heal, 10 prot, 8 SR. That way you can ditch prot on your MM and take more spirits for lols.

The spirit spammer looks good, but the amount of micro you say it requires worries me a bit.

I've been experimenting with the above 14 spawning/14 channeling Rt, and I like it (and made some modifications for my setup). My other 2 heroes are currently both paragons; three of my Command guy's shouts (Anthem of Disruption, Anthem of Envy, Anthem of Weariness) affect all 4 spirits as well as party members. I currently do not use a minion master, and it's actually working surprisingly well without one.

Here's what I've noticed; you definitely have to micro Feast of Souls both when you need it and when you don't. Even if the spirits are well out of earshot, and you've moved on to the next group of mobs, he still won't necessarily make new ones if you didn't move far enough away. This means you sometimes need to clean up after yourself as you move from mob group to mob group. However, as long as you are willing to do this, and then micro it when you need it, it's a pretty amazing skill. It is more than sufficient to replace the PwK+Life. I prefer it to PwK, it's a bigger spike heal on a shorter recharge, and also lets you wield 40/40 channeling items.

I don't like Spirit's Gift in my setup for two reasons. The first reason is, it is not going to remove anything from me, since I'm on the front line. The Rt is not constantly making spirits, so really it's just going to remove a bunch of conditions from your backline once in a while. Honestly I prefer Spirit's Gift when used with minions, as the placement is better. The second reason is that in my setup I have Finale of Purification, which heroes seem to prioritize on me (but spread around liberally), and which automatically removes conditions from me at a pretty ridiculous rate, given my 2 paragons have 10 shouts/chants between the two of them. This is also why I can happily live without Mend Body & Soul now.

I added Ancestors' Rage, which is an "ok" skill. Its main use is so that when I initially charge in to a group, my first target (a healer, usually) dies even quicker. I also have Find Their Weakness on one of my paragons for this reason, so I spike someone out quickly.

I put Nightmare Weapon on this guy as well, as he can handle the energy, and I didn't have room for a smiter. One of my paragons has 0 spear mastery, and gets to attack for a 47 lifesteal per hit anyway! Since I charge in first, I take the initial bucketload of damage, so a quick ~150 worth of lifesteal has proved surprisingly useful.

I'm not really sold on Gaze of Fury, and didn't find it that useful.

Hero doesn't seem to like to use Painful Bond much (yes it is on Guard).

Currently experimenting with Ghostly Haste for more skill spammability. edit: Ugh, it doesn't want to cast it automatically.

Thanks, Gigashadow, for the suggestions. Spirit's gift isn't essential, but I do like it. Healing the backline and removing their conditions just translates into that much less for the healers to worry about. And it's so cheap--10 e for 60 seconds of passive benefit. Also, it's a good cover for the much more important enchantment, namely boon of creation. Gaze of fury isn't essential either, but I've seen him kill an enemy's restoration spirit and turn it into a fury spirit that immediately started wailing on the enemy ritualist. Fun!

Nightmare weapon is certainly going to be another effective choice for a build like this. I still generally prefer splinter though.

I avoid things like ancestor's rage, explosive growth, and so on, because the damage isn't armor-ignoring, and I find that in HM it amounts to shooting a popgun.

I don't understand why their use of boon of creation, painful bond, and feast of souls isn't better. Basically it's just stupid AI. Other heroes maintain enchantments like healer's boon constantly--so why can't they do the same thing with boon of creation? He does use painful bond sometimes, but I can't figure out what will make him decide to use it.

Quote: Originally Posted by Paul Dawg

He does use painful bond sometimes, but I can't figure out what will make him decide to use it. I haven't looked at this too closely, but it seems to me that heroes will only use Painful Bond when it will hex more than 1 enemy. Anyone else find this to be the case?

I thought about that, but I tested carefully, and even when there are several enemies clustered together, he will usually not use it. It's to the point that it just doesn't seem worth taking unless I micro it.

Btw, regarding Nightmare Weapon; I do have Splinter Weapon as well of course. If you have 2-3 physicals, it can keep both going on different people. Often 4 people in the party have weapon skill icons on them.

At this stage I'm just trying to find half-decent things to stick on the bar, which is why I have Ancestors' (which it will only use if you have at least 2 enemies next to you). It's hardly the greatest of skills, but there aren't a whole lot of good choices in channeling and spawning that the hero AI will use well. I'm thinking of adding some of the other channeling weapon spells as well, as they will last a long time with 14 spawning power.

Quote: Originally Posted by Paul Dawg I can certainly see the value of a rit healer instead of the monk I posted. The main problem is that you kinda have to give up dwayna's sorrow that way, and really, dwayna's sorrow, properly applied, is the most efficient energy-to-red-bars skill in the whole game. Sure, it's sloppy, but with blue +47's popping up EVERYWHERE (especially after a big AoE spike, right when you need it), you won't mind the sloppiness too much. A nice pot-sweetener for bringing a rit healer is that mend body and soul will start to remove just about all your conditions (one per spirit). I suppose you could put dwayna's sorrow on the MM, but then you can forget about letting him prot with aegis and stuff. I would still stick Dwayna's Sorrow on the Minion Master. My post wasn't actually suggesting a Ritualist healer, it was more suggesting another spirit spammer, just with more defensive Rituals.

I've been using a Ritual Lord build with Pain, Shadowsong, Displacement, Union, Shelter and Armor of Unfeeling. This:
a) Adds more offensive spirits into the mix and;
b) Adds in some partywide defense.

Using two hench monks with the above seemed more than sufficient.

Having the likes of Displacement and Shelter recharge in 15 seconds with Ritual Lord is very nice, though I think Shelter does have a bit of a niche use.

Quote: Originally Posted by Gigashadow I thought about that, but I tested carefully, and even when there are several enemies clustered together, he will usually not use it. It's to the point that it just doesn't seem worth taking unless I micro it. My feeling is Heroes don't use it as much as they should. I find myself either microing it or taking it myself.

Quote: Originally Posted by Paul Dawg

Quote: Originally Posted by Gigashadow

I've been experimenting with the above 14 spawning/14 channeling Rt, and I like it (and made some modifications for my setup). My other 2 heroes are currently both paragons; three of my Command guy's shouts (Anthem of Disruption, Anthem of Envy, Anthem of Weariness) affect all 4 spirits as well as party members. I currently do not use a minion master, and it's actually working surprisingly well without one.

Here's what I've noticed; you definitely have to micro Feast of Souls both when you need it and when you don't. Even if the spirits are well out of earshot, and you've moved on to the next group of mobs, he still won't necessarily make new ones if you didn't move far enough away. This means you sometimes need to clean up after yourself as you move from mob group to mob group. However, as long as you are willing to do this, and then micro it when you need it, it's a pretty amazing skill. It is more than sufficient to replace the PwK+Life. I prefer it to PwK, it's a bigger spike heal on a shorter recharge, and also lets you wield 40/40 channeling items.

I don't like Spirit's Gift in my setup for two reasons. The first reason is, it is not going to remove anything from me, since I'm on the front line. The Rt is not constantly making spirits, so really it's just going to remove a bunch of conditions from your backline once in a while. Honestly I prefer Spirit's Gift when used with minions, as the placement is better. The second reason is that in my setup I have Finale of Purification, which heroes seem to prioritize on me (but spread around liberally), and which automatically removes conditions from me at a pretty ridiculous rate, given my 2 paragons have 10 shouts/chants between the two of them. This is also why I can happily live without Mend Body & Soul now.

I added Ancestors' Rage, which is an "ok" skill. Its main use is so that when I initially charge in to a group, my first target (a healer, usually) dies even quicker. I also have Find Their Weakness on one of my paragons for this reason, so I spike someone out quickly.

I put Nightmare Weapon on this guy as well, as he can handle the energy, and I didn't have room for a smiter. One of my paragons has 0 spear mastery, and gets to attack for a 47 lifesteal per hit anyway! Since I charge in first, I take the initial bucketload of damage, so a quick ~150 worth of lifesteal has proved surprisingly useful.

I'm not really sold on Gaze of Fury, and didn't find it that useful.

Hero doesn't seem to like to use Painful Bond much (yes it is on Guard).

Currently experimenting with Ghostly Haste for more skill spammability. edit: Ugh, it doesn't want to cast it automatically.

Woah, nice post.

I never knew that Paragon shouts effect spirits and I will certainly try out Nightmare Weapon with 0 spear mastery para. On my rit though, cba microing. :P

As for Painful Bond, they use it the same as any other AoE hex. As long as there are multiple mobs crmped together they would cast it, otherwise they will be somewhat reluctant to do it.

Well, some do and some don't. Purifying finale, the one that Gigashadow was talking about, affects all allies. Blazing finale is another one I've used, because with shouts everywhere, it will cause tons of burning. Doesn't work on spirits, but it DOES work on minions, and they tend to be on the front lines. I use it instead of the more popular anthem of flame.

Quote: Originally Posted by Super Igor

I never knew that Paragon shouts effect spirits

The interesting 3 shouts that are AOE and also affect spirits are Anthem of Weariness/Envy/Disruption. Since spirits do spam an attack skill, those three will trigger their effect (weakness, interrupt, +xx damage).

I'm starting to get disillusioned with Feast of Souls after doing some vanquishes with it. The problem is this; there's a big battle going on, my party's health bars are dropping. I have two choices; I can either make him cast Feast of Souls right now, or wait 5 or so seconds until Signet of Spirits recharges then cast that first. Almost every time I elected to make him cast it "right now", it did nothing (maybe spirits got AOE'd, or he cast them but kited out of "nearby" range of them which is actually quite small). So then I had to wait for SoS to recharge, cast it, and then wait some more for Feast of Souls to recharge. Usually too late by that point.

The only thing I'm using spawning for on that guy is Feast of Souls for a big spike party heal and Boon of Creation for energy management. I'm just thinking I might be able to use a different attribute line instead on another secondary. I tried out a channeling/tease hero (Tease/Cry of Frustration/Power Drain) which worked well too, as you often preemptively interrupt a lot of those meteor showers and other bad stuff in the first place, but of course you lose out on Signet of Spirits if you do this.

I've come to the conclusion that Rt primaries are still the suck. They just cant bring to the table what other primaries can. Even A commandagon with splinter weapon seemed to perform better and bring more defense than my Rt builds.

14 in channeling for that elusive 5 hit SW is far from necessary. Feast of Souls is decent too, but is too conditional and requires micro.

Quote: Originally Posted by Paul Dawg

Well, some do and some don't. Purifying finale, the one that Gigashadow was talking about, affects all allies. Blazing finale is another one I've used, because with shouts everywhere, it will cause tons of burning. Doesn't work on spirits, but it DOES work on minions, and they tend to be on the front lines. I use it instead of the more popular anthem of flame. So does it mean that "Theyre on Fire!" is going to effect spirits too? That basically means that if combined with Armor of Unfeeling your spirit wall is going to recieve a ~80% damage reduction. o.O

Quote: Originally Posted by traversc I've come to the conclusion that Rt primaries are still the suck. They just cant bring to the table what other primaries can. Even A commandagon with splinter weapon seemed to perform better and bring more defense than my Rt builds.

14 in channeling for that elusive 5 hit SW is far from necessary. Feast of Souls is decent too, but is too conditional and requires micro. After having played with channeling Rt primaries for a while now, I'm inclined to agree. 5 hit Splinter is great, but that is really the main attraction.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Super Igor So does it mean that "Theyre on Fire!" is going to effect spirits too? That basically means that if combined with Armor of Unfeeling your spirit wall is going to recieve a ~80% damage reduction. o.O They're on Fire says it's party members only.

Well, that's what makes horse races, because I think the difference between a five-hit splinter weapon and a four-hit one is huge.

What's dumb about feast of souls is the AI. If it were used properly, it would be tremendous. I don't quite understand what Gigashadow was saying before about having to wait five seconds for signet of spirits, however. The casting time is just one second for the PvE version of the skill. If you're down to having to save yourself with feast of souls, it's 1/4 second, and then another second to cast signet of spirits.

I've had no problems vanqing anywhere with this stuff. The one place where it has failed so far is Gate of Madness HM, and that's because there was no blocking punishment (like defile defenses). Sabway is still the way to go in that mission. I don't think this is going to work in Vloxen HM either. As I said right in the beginning of the thread, if blocking is a serious problem, you'll need a different strategy.

Also, are you guys seeing that foes target the spirits? You've mentioned that a couple of times already, and it's not what I see at all. They target my squishies, and seem to leave the spirits entirely alone.

Lastly, for Igor: "They're on fire!" affects party members only. This stuff is in the wiki, yanno...

Quote: Originally Posted by traversc

14 in channeling for that elusive 5 hit SW is far from necessary. Feast of Souls is decent too, but is too conditional and requires micro.

Quote: Originally Posted by Gigashadow

They're on Fire says it's party members only. Does it? oh well.