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Author
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Topic: Builds. (Read 22165 times)
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Llava
Contributor
Posts: 4602
Rrava roves you rong time
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So, really, this is my favorite part of the game. And we have no place to share it.
Gasp.
I know, I'll create a thread!
In here, brag about a particularly clever build you made, or share a popular build you've seen. Solo or group. Keep the tips and strategies coming, to help out those who want to get back in and need to know what to expect.
One I created on my own and still haven't seen used as well as I use it is my Death Necromancer.
Death and Soul Reaping are your primary abilities. Secondary doesn't really matter, but Mesmer is usually a solid choice. I use all Necromancer skills, but I'm sure someone could tighten the build with some skill I've missed.
Key skills are: Bone Minions Death Nova Taste of Death
Really, the rest is a mix of what you want. I'll share what I use and why later.
First, you need to know what you're getting into with this strategy. Plainly, it isn't going to work in 8v8. Someone almost always has Putrid Explosion and will steal all the corpses from you. Them's the breaks. In 4v4, you will dominate.
Play support doing whatever you can do until the first corpse drops. Stay alive. You will feel wasted if you're the first one to die and you never get back up, because you'll have done little to nothing to help. As soon as you get a chance, summon some Bone Minions. You need to be good at selection, but as soon as you get a chance you want to put Death Nova on both of them. Then, keep an eye on 'em. Watch where they go. When the time is right, or you need health, use Taste of Death to kill 'em off and trigger the Death Novas, dealing lots of damage and poisoning anything near them.
Well, anything bad.
Subjectively bad.
Simple enough, but people so rarely use it. It's probably trickier than I realize, it comes naturally to me. I've had some great stories from doing this, though, the best of which involves my entire team getting wiped and only taking out one of the enemy team, while I proceeded to finish off the three remaining on my own.
Now, other skills I use: Vile Touch- Shadow Damage, Touch Range, and it's a Skill. Shadow Damage means it'll go through armor. Touch Range isn't exactly a boon, but you can use it to make your enemies overconfident and ignore their own health while they watch yours and try to melee you down. Of course, if you have a couple 300+ heals right nearby, there's not a lot they can do that's really going to screw you. Some, but not much. Finally, I mention that it's a Skill- as opposed to a Spell. There are a lot of things that affect Spells (Backfire, for one) but not Skills. This is sort of like diversifying your stock. If it's a bad time for Spells, you've always got that Skill in your pocket.
Tainted Flesh- Really, no elite pairs with this build all that well. Flesh Golem probably would, but I don't have it yet so I can't vouch for it. Tainted Flesh, however, is a pretty nifty ability altogether. Plus, the Poison from the Death Nova stacks with the Disease to make a few dead people.
Rez Signet- Always bring this in 4v4 unless you're in a team that specifically does not want you to bring it. If the build doesn't work with 7 skills, it probably won't work with 8.
Taste of Pain- This is a new one I found recently, and I haven't decided on it for sure or not yet. You use it on an enemy below 50% health and you get a pretty decent heal- it's not health stealing, though, so don't expect it to hurt them. Still, it's worth trying. Sometimes those pets just aren't gonna happen, and you'll be happy you have some other method of keeping yourself alive.
Enfeeble- Really this ability is a bit boring, but nothing really fits better. This puts Weakness on your target for X seconds. Drop some extra points in Curses and it can really help you stay alive if you have a Warrior or something on you. Probably not going to help versus Assassins, though, since they tend to focus a lot on Conditions in addition to just raw damage.
Deathly Swarm- Something I've switched out lately, but I'm not sure it was a great idea. It offers some pretty decent damage against people not wearing armor, and you don't even have to do anything other than cast it. If nothing else, it's a good way to keep healers busy.
If no one responds, I'll tell you how to build a cheesy Fragility Mesmer, or maybe an IW Mesmer (or at least the one I built, no idea if that's the popular one).
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That the saints may enjoy their beatitude and the grace of God more abundantly they are permitted to see the punishment of the damned in hell. -Saint Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica
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pxib
Terracotta Army
Posts: 4701
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My pet mesmer combo is Phantom Pain/Shatter Delusions.
With a high Domination, this will kill any character at 20% health +75 or so. Shatter ends Pain, which applies deep wound, and THEN deals its damage. Shatter is 1/4 second cast and costs 5 energy, so it's easy to do. Phantom Pain's duration is always ten seconds, so you dont actually need any points in illusion and can slip this into any build with some Domination. Have fun.
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if at last you do succeed, never try again
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Llava
Contributor
Posts: 4602
Rrava roves you rong time
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My pet mesmer combo is Phantom Pain/Shatter Delusions.
With a high Domination, this will kill any character at 20% health +75 or so. Shatter ends Pain, which applies deep wound, and THEN deals its damage. Shatter is 1/4 second cast and costs 5 energy, so it's easy to do. Phantom Pain's duration is always ten seconds, so you dont actually need any points in illusion and can slip this into any build with some Domination. Have fun.
Very similar to my Fragility build, but you didn't exploit it the whole way. First thing, you put Fragility on them. They take damage whenever they gain or lose a condition. Then hit them with Phantom Pain. Then hit them with Shatter Delusions. So far, that's damage from the Deep Wound, damage from Shatter Delusions, and damage from Fragility. Still with me? Now, your secondary has to be Necromancer for this. Drop Virulence on them. Virulence is an elite skill that nails its target with Weakness, Poison and Disease if they already have a condition on them when you use it. So that's three more ticks of Fragility. You want a very low Death spec for this, so that the three conditions from Virulence only last 2 or 3 seconds. Because 2 or 3 seconds later, that's three more ticks from Fragility for losing all three of those conditions. By then, almost anyone is dead. I like to toss a Wastrel's Worry into the mix if I have nothing better to do with the slots/points, just for that added tap of damage. Usually people are freaking out so much they don't even think to do something to cancel Wastrel's.
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That the saints may enjoy their beatitude and the grace of God more abundantly they are permitted to see the punishment of the damned in hell. -Saint Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica
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Llava
Contributor
Posts: 4602
Rrava roves you rong time
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The above posted Necromancer build just got way more nasty with Nightfall.
In Nightfall, there is an elite skill called Jagged Bones. You can enchant an undead minion with it, and if they die within 30 seconds they'll be replaced by a level 16 jagged horror (undead, causes bleeding with attacks) at 16 death magic.
You can enchant the jagged horrors with this. Spell costs 5 energy, 1 second cast time and like a 3 second recharge.
Now, I can essentially exploit one corpse to bring out two minions, enchant them both with this and death nova, Taste of Death them, and bring out two jagged horrors who are 3 levels higher than the minions and cause bleeding). I can continue to use Jagged Bones and Taste of Death, combined with my Soul Reaping bonus, to give myself an endless amount of energy and health, and never run out of minions.
The counter for this is knockdown and recharge-increasing interrupts. Normal interrupts won't do much, since I can just start casting again.
I've also worked Infuse Condition into the build so that conditions aren't such a pain. Deep Wounds and Dazing now suddenly don't mean anything.
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That the saints may enjoy their beatitude and the grace of God more abundantly they are permitted to see the punishment of the damned in hell. -Saint Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica
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Llava
Contributor
Posts: 4602
Rrava roves you rong time
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Now with one night of using the above Necromancer build, I've received a ton of compliments, numerous questions about the build and how it's done, 2 calls for nerfs, a guild invitation, and one of my most uber PvP moments ever- /almost/ beating a 4-man group solo. I really thought I had them, but I fatfingered and lost my last pet, and they got me. Killed them a few times, but they managed to keep rezzing.
I'm going to post it on GuildWiki sometime tomorrow probably, but you saw it here first folks- the next skill to be nerfed should be Jagged Bones.
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That the saints may enjoy their beatitude and the grace of God more abundantly they are permitted to see the punishment of the damned in hell. -Saint Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica
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Modern Angel
Terracotta Army
Posts: 3553
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Where's Jagged Bones capped? This description has intrigued me.
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Llava
Contributor
Posts: 4602
Rrava roves you rong time
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No idea. I unlocked it with Faction.
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That the saints may enjoy their beatitude and the grace of God more abundantly they are permitted to see the punishment of the damned in hell. -Saint Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica
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Llava
Contributor
Posts: 4602
Rrava roves you rong time
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That the saints may enjoy their beatitude and the grace of God more abundantly they are permitted to see the punishment of the damned in hell. -Saint Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica
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Llava
Contributor
Posts: 4602
Rrava roves you rong time
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Well, weirdness. You see above that I mention Jagged Bones having a 3 second recharge. It was actually 2.
Thing is, I logged in and it suddenly had a 5 second recharge. Okay, I figure it got nerfed, I was expecting it. However, I check and there are no patch notes about it. Furthermore, I look around online and there's no mention of it. Everywhere has Jagged Bones listed with a 5 second recharge already. I talked with a friend who uses it, and he says it's always been 5 seconds.
But I know it was 2. I'd cast it, then Death Nova, then Taste of Death, and it would be ready to go again. That's less than 3 seconds to recharge.
I sent it in and got the canned response. Did anyone else experience this, or was everyone always on a 5 second recharge and just wondering what sort of crack I was smoking talking about how amazing that build was? Cause I sure as hell can't make it work with a 5 second recharge. Or, rather, I'm not willing to after the uberness I experienced.
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That the saints may enjoy their beatitude and the grace of God more abundantly they are permitted to see the punishment of the damned in hell. -Saint Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica
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Strazos
Greetings from the Slave Coast
Posts: 15542
The World's Worst Game: Curry or Covid
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Would something like Backfire mess you up at all?
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Fear the Backstab! "Plato said the virtuous man is at all times ready for a grammar snake attack." - we are lesion "Hell is other people." -Sartre
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Llava
Contributor
Posts: 4602
Rrava roves you rong time
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Yes, but only in that it would mostly stop me for 10 seconds. 10 seconds isn't all THAT dangerous. If I'm taking on four people by myself and get hit with Backfire then yeah, I'm probably screwed, but if my team is mostly up it's no big deal for me to stop casting for 10 seconds. And it better be a high-spec Backfire, anything less than 100 damage isn't going to hurt me enough to prevent Taste of Death from bringing me back to full. I'll just cast right through that. But when it gets to 150ish damage it's too dangerous, I'd rather wait it out.
The biggest pain are skills like Diversion or Distracting Shot. Stop me from being able to use my important skills for 30+ seconds and I'm in real trouble.
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That the saints may enjoy their beatitude and the grace of God more abundantly they are permitted to see the punishment of the damned in hell. -Saint Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica
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Fordel
Terracotta Army
Posts: 8306
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Guess I'll toss my hat into the build pile. I've been using the follow Dervish build in RA with decent enough results. I'm not soloing entire teams, but I hold my own :) AttributesScythe Mastery: | 13 (12+1 from hat) | Wind Prayers: | 3 | Earth Prayers: | 9 | Mysticism: | 9 | Skills Equipment- Sundering Fortitude Scythe (+15% dmg while enchanted, 20% sunder chance for 20% penetration, +30 health)
- Superior Vigour on Chest, Viate on the rest. (+10 Hp Stacking, +50 Hp NonStacking)
- Blessed Insignia Armor (+10 armor while enchanted)
The way it plays out is straightforward. With the Runes you'll be at 625 Health, with Vital Boon up, you just break 700 Health and with Faithfull Intervention up, you have an effective 800 Health due to it's auto heal function. Combine that with 70+10 armor for being enchanted, you will be pretty darn durable. If Victorious Sweep alone isn't enough to keep you healed, you can use the Sig of Light to burn Boon for a large heal and if that isn't enough you can burn Faithfull early. If all of the above isn't enough, you pop harriers and run away to heal/safety. If THAT isn't enough, your dead ;) Attacking you open up with Victorious, then immediately follow with Mystic, then Reapers. Basically Rinse and repeat till what you want to die is dead. The only thing of note is that Mystic's has a tiny cast time, which doesn't hinder it's use on the run any, but it DOES allow you to get extra attacks in. It acts like an instant attack. While Victorious and Reaper's are tied to your autoattack rate, acting like a 'on next attack' ability. So timing Mystic to follow the other two, or your autoattack, is key to increasing your damage. Use Harrier's as required to run things down :) Thing that will give you trouble are the usual anti-melee suspects. Blind will kick your ass so badly it isn't even funny. You can usually power through blocking/evading with sheer attack rate, but that too can cause issues. There is one Hex, which the name escapes me, that causes you to take damage when ever you attack something with less health then you... taking 100+ dmg every attack is really brutal. Energy shouldn't be an issue, every skill is 5 energy or less and you won't be popping all of them at once. The amount of damage you can do is rather surprising, it really is fairly common to just three round softer caster targets. Critting for 200+ is always a good time. The AE nature of your attacks also makes you ideal at taking our Spirit nests, since most Rt's are lazy and stack them near each other. Faithfull is neat in that it doesn't expire due to time. You can put it up and it will stay up until you either Burn it, have it dispelled or it triggers at 50% health... so you can always be enchanted to get the bonuses from your weapon/armor/skills. At the same time, if you can't keep your enchantments up due to rampant dispelling, you aren't totally in the hole either, keep a 2nd scythe with a non enchanting bonus and your mostly good to go. With only the two enchants to maintain, and only one that actually expires, you get to spend most of your time running down squishy things to kill instead of rebuffing every 30 seconds. So, any suggestions, comments or questions? I would really like a way to defeat the blind/evade/block issue I'm having, but I don't see anything obvious to exchange out.
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and the gate is like I TOO AM CAPABLE OF SPEECH
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Llava
Contributor
Posts: 4602
Rrava roves you rong time
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There is one Hex, which the name escapes me, that causes you to take damage when ever you attack something with less health then you... taking 100+ dmg every attack is really brutal.
That's Spoil Victor, and it's worse than that. It causes you to take damage whenever you attack or use a skill on any target (note the language, that means friend or foe) with less health than you. Healing, spells, hexes, anything targetting someone with less health than you hits you with that damage. And it lasts about 30 seconds. On the bright side, it is an elite. But I do think it's due for a (slight) nerf. Just a duration decrease to like... 15 or 20 seconds would be reasonable, I'd say.
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That the saints may enjoy their beatitude and the grace of God more abundantly they are permitted to see the punishment of the damned in hell. -Saint Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica
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Shapechanger
Terracotta Army
Posts: 41
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Back in Alpha I had a really great build that would punish them for having 0 power, with a really fast cast skill, and a bunch of powerdrains. I've just restarted playing, but I've found that people have greatly more energy now than they did then - so I don't think it'll work on anything but a warrior or a pressed healer now. I loved this build.
Instead Im just fast-casting air spikes to pin a foe down and give them a beating while at it. Still looking for something better.
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It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt. -M.T.
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Fordel
Terracotta Army
Posts: 8306
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That's Spoil Victor, and it's worse than that. It causes you to take damage whenever you attack or use a skill on any target (note the language, that means friend or foe) with less health than you. Healing, spells, hexes, anything targetting someone with less health than you hits you with that damage. And it lasts about 30 seconds.
That must be it then, It pretty much just locked me out of the fight for it's duration. The same attack combo that I use to double my attack rate also makes me take damage twice as fast :( . I'm half certain that the Scythe's AE nature also causes multiple procs.
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and the gate is like I TOO AM CAPABLE OF SPEECH
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pxib
Terracotta Army
Posts: 4701
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This is hardly new, but I'd like more people to try it.
AuraAura Necromancer!
Aura of the Lich[elite] Dark Aura Blood Renewal Wallow's Bite Touch of Agony Plague Touch Exploit Corpse Resurrection Signet
A Death scar with superior Death and Blood runes and any minors you want, no extra health if you can avoid it.
AotL turns your 300 some hitpoints into 150, and halfs all damage. Blood renewal (cast slightly before you begin biting and touching) gives you six arrows of regeneration, plague touch drops bleeding and poison in a desperate effort to keep you alive as...
YOU CONSTANTLY SACRIFICE LIFE TO KILL PEOPLE! Touch and Bite have cast times of less than a second and can be recast every three. Each does more than 50 damage, and sacrifices 10% health... which activates Dark Aura and does an additional 50 damage PBAoE. So you do roughly 200 armor-proof shadow damage every four seconds, 100 of it to everybody nearby.
As soon as somebody dies, Exploit Corpse to refresh some mana and refill your life bar.
Dark Aura deals 22 damage to you every time you sacrifice health, but Aura of the Lich halfs that. With only 150 hitpoints, the 10% from Touch and Bite are only 15 each... but that's still 54 damage every time you cast them. Also remember that Blood Renewal sacrifices 25% health... so don't do it when you're desperate or you'll just end up dead. That's what Exploit Corpse is for.
I'd call this the Glass Cannon Necromancer, but you haven't got any range. Have fun!
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if at last you do succeed, never try again
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tazelbain
Terracotta Army
Posts: 6603
tazelbain
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That last build is evil. I has more a danger to myself than anyone else.
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"Me am play gods"
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Shapechanger
Terracotta Army
Posts: 41
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I'd call this the Glass Cannon Necromancer, but you haven't got any range. lol, nice build! Sounds like fun.
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It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt. -M.T.
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Llava
Contributor
Posts: 4602
Rrava roves you rong time
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Personally, I prefer using Blood of the Aggressor instead of one of those two touches. Still a health sacrifice, and it's actually a health steal if they're attacking. It is ranged, so you have something you can do if they run. The only downside is that the range means, unless you practice, you'll probably end up wasting a few Dark Aura ticks because you forgot to close in and it doesn't make you do so automatically.
Second, I use Life Siphon instead of Exploit Corpse. Reasoning is that, with half max health, regen/degen is twice as effective on you. So >>> on you is actually >>>>>>. Stacked with Blood Renewal, that is >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>. 18 arrows if you don't want to count. There's another build out there that combines this with a Dervish secondary, using Mystic Regeneration, with adds X arrows (3 with about 10 in earth prayers) to your health regen for every enchantment on you. That's 3 for aura of lich, 3 for dark aura, 3 for mystic regen, 3 for blood renewal.
Worth noting, the way Aura of the Lich works, it actually quarters all health sacrifices. 10% health sacrificed on Wallow's Bite is 15 with 150 hit points, but aura of the lich cuts THAT in half, so it's actually only 7.
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That the saints may enjoy their beatitude and the grace of God more abundantly they are permitted to see the punishment of the damned in hell. -Saint Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica
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Fordel
Terracotta Army
Posts: 8306
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and the gate is like I TOO AM CAPABLE OF SPEECH
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Nevermore
Terracotta Army
Posts: 4740
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Over and out.
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Llava
Contributor
Posts: 4602
Rrava roves you rong time
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That the saints may enjoy their beatitude and the grace of God more abundantly they are permitted to see the punishment of the damned in hell. -Saint Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica
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pxib
Terracotta Army
Posts: 4701
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Hush! I've seen MORE than enough of that Goddess already.
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if at last you do succeed, never try again
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Llava
Contributor
Posts: 4602
Rrava roves you rong time
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Fun and easy Paragon build I've been running in RA lately:
Barbed Spear Harrier's Throw Cruel Spear Spear of Lightning/Wild Throw (your call, I use Lightning but whenever a ranger pops Lightning Reflexes I wish I had Wild Throw) Disrupting Throw Aggressive Refrain Anthem of Flame Rez Sig
16 Spear Mastery 13 Leadership Centurion Insignia on all your armor
The way Disrupting Throw and Anthem of Flame synergize is very nice. Disrupting interrupts a target if they're affected by a condition. Anthem of Flame applies Burning to the next attack skill you and any allies in earshot use. Burning is a condition and yup, it applies it before Disrupting checks for the interrupt, so you can have this loaded and ready to go.
I've got a nice spike I've been using on suckers who are dumb enough to chase me away from their group. I'll make them think I'm trying to kite, then turn and use Harrier's Toss before they close in (big damage if it hits a moving target), follow with Barbed Spear if it's charged, Spear of Lightning if not, make sure to get an Anthem of Flame in there to apply the Burning too. Soon as Cruel Spear is charged, hit them with that and you should pretty much be done working at this point. Disrupting Throw is fantastic for this, because generally the only people dumb enough to chase like that are ones that use Heal Signet or Troll Unguent, both of which are easy to interrupt. Assassins are a little trickier, but their light armor and your respectable armor means you still have a pretty good shot. Still, it's risky, try to fight them closer to your team unless you're positive you'll win.
And it goes without saying, don't drag them SO far away that once you're done killing 'em you can't get back to your team quickly enough to be any help.
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That the saints may enjoy their beatitude and the grace of God more abundantly they are permitted to see the punishment of the damned in hell. -Saint Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica
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