The Warrior and the Mark of Pain

Well
It seems like I've found my enhancement of choice
lol, at least for now and against mobs
Mark of Pain is quickly becoming my warrior's weapon of mass destruction.
I've pulled back some on my strength and now share mark of pain and strength at 8 each, weapon maxed out and tactics at nine.
Maybe it's the new nightfall upgrades where, when using:

1-Mark of Pain
2-Frenzy
3-Triple Chop

My screen goes ballistic with beautifully bouncing cartoon damage balloons!

This is fun, I've never seen damage like this before and never seen so many online enemies reduced to about half hp all round me so fast.
I'm getting +24 Shadow Damage to ALL monsters in range in ADDITION to my vampiric damage PLUS normal melee damage...all from one hit.
The Shadow damage is armor ignoring as well!

Drawbacks...at ten E per use...it's heavy on the E regen...but as an opening strike...it is currently the best thing I've found with all damage having zero chance of being deflected.
I'm having to be more careful with my first attack placement when studying mobs from a distance, whilst making sure I choose a target in the middle.
Strangely enough...with all of these frenzied attacks going out so quickly...oftentimes, the repeated shadow damage to all of the surrounding enemies reduces the surrounding enemies hp faster than my target, lol!
So, is there something I'm missing here?
Is there greater drawbacks using Mark of Pain on mobs down the road?
Tks to the ingame Necromancer, Schots Bane who recommended this.

Brilliant


gogo

If you face hex removal, yea. Otherwise MoP has always been the highest DPS AoE in the game.

This pretty much all my W/N used before the first aoe update. I haven't bothered with it since then because of scatter.

It's back, now it's better than Spites. It always was better than Spites until that AoE scatter nerf. But now, it's back. Gogo 10 fiends volley on a MoP target! xD Ah... the good, old days of total anihilation. I'll actually try using it with Order of Undeath. xD

I'm currently using it in the Ring of Fire...it's creaming everything.
lol, though I really do have to be careful of how to place that first strike. That ten e cost is huge..but if I can place it carefully, almost nothing of the original mob that attacks me has enuff hp left to withstand more than a few lacklustre swings of me axe at most :P
I'm now comparing kill times between not using my skills on the target creature v.s. using my skills on the target creature in essence...turning the initial target into a damage catalyst.
By having the original creature last longer, I get more frenzied shadow damage hits (Max 30 seconds) to the other surrounding creatures resulting in a greater reduction of hp to ALL the monsters whilst saving reducing my E outlay.


gogo

p.s lol, Hella...that volley rocks...specially with the new damage animations!

p.s.s. Do you guys think that reducing my strength even more to increase the shadow damage (Via Cursese ) would give me a faster killing speed without sacrificing other stuff?
Will the decrease in percentage penetration I get per hit via strength be that big a deal?

Strength's inherent effect comes out only during attack skills, so lowering strength is not a big deal at all - I usually have 2 or 3 in strength if I'm not using strength skills.

I think I may have to change my assassin into a /N to check this out.

Wait a second,

"Mark of Pain is back?"

Does this mean the enemies won't scatter anymore?

Before I ditched it, to me, it was the ULTIMATE Warrior AoE skill.

10e? Wtf?! IT LASTS 30 SECONDS!!! if you can't make energy [let alone 10 energy] come back within 30 seconds, then you're not uh, efficient at all... or effective for that matter...

It was made with warrior in mind since it lasts so damn long and allows time to smashy smashy

however, I don't see this build doing well at all UNLESS foes have decided to be stupid again and stand in it's field

heh, yer right Yukito, they do kinda run off...
but not until the mob that's attacking me has lost about fifty percent of their hp.
I took this quick video clip in Elona Reach with the Mark of Pain doing 32 automatic shadow damage per hit using just one round of that necro spell.



Love the new damage balloons


gogo

p.s. lol, sorry bout the inv screen :P
p.s.s. Hollerith, thanx fer the heads up on strength..i've reduced what I've gotten in and given more damage to the mark.

Well if 10 fiends volley on a MoP target, there really wont be much time to scatter. Plus you can always finish off with a Des/Defile Ench. I would assume that once you hit their scatter point, you can probably finish them off with a quick Cyclone/Tripple Chop. But I hear they scatter less now than they used to after the 1st AoE update.

From the new update:

Improved Monster AI

* Monsters no longer run from AoE damage when they are very healthy, or when they think they’re very close to killing their opponent.


The mark is great fer reducing overall damage of the mob...


Long live the Mark


gogo

hey gogo

i didnt even think of that build on a war/n (it might add a bit more fun on virulence war aswell ) it looks like good fun and big dmg

(btw is this the sacred fan or ex sacred fan gogoblender cos u might remember me)

Rainman!
heh, yeah it's me from Sacred.
We're all over at http://www.darkmatters.org
Come vist and say hi
And...as usual lookin to spam damage :P
Have you tried the mark as well?
I've been tryin out a bunch of secondaries to see what makes things go Splat


gogo

looks like a fun build wich skills u using (all 8)

But why not use a necro and then an assassin? Or a full melee group?

It's +42 that way, FYI. Beautiful numbers.. I'd have 2 R/A Beastmasters wielding daggers, a Warrior with some interrupts and IAS, 2 monks, one Healer's Boon, the other BL, both weilding +5 energy spears, and then a necro with inspired+drain enchant, Rigor Mortis, Barbs, SS, MoP. Wooo for quick wipes.

Thing is, why on a warrior? Surely a necromancer would use it more effectively?

This type of warrior was popular in prophecies. I found it very useful for groups who don't have necros running MoP. Monsters do run away when they start to get low in health.

But just use Flurry and MoP not Frenzy. You want to do the lowest damage possible and still attack fast since you don't want to kill the target you cast MoP on. Using triple chop or hundred blades might be useless since Flurry pretty much makes up for it.

Ah, I remember this. Used to carry bow around on necro just for this. This is because the PUGS were too dumb to figure out why MoP was sop important that I was calling it on my target....Can't wait to ressurect it again!

MOP is fun and fresh
A nice way to bring some fun back into the Warrior's deadly repertoire.
My feeling on this though, is that it's a bit tougher to use than the regular skill bar ensemble.
There's some timing, reconnoitering of yer target, and balancing of your skill bar involved.
Also, keeping the main target alive as a catalyst used to fuel the shadow damage on everything else close to you is an art.
Still...MOP brings some elegance and variety to the Warrior's craft
A welcome change.
If you can pull it off


gogo

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