Spirit's Strength build

Well, time for me to beg for help again

I'm trying to make a spirit's strength build, and my first dilemma is:
I don't know whether to choose sin, para, or ranger as my 2nd prof.

Currently, I am using para as a 2nd prof, with the build:
1. Spirit's Strength
2. Sight Beyond Sight
3. Weapon of Agression
4. Remedy Signet
5. Random attack skill
6. random attack skill
7. random attack skill
8. rez

Attributes: 15 spawning, rest distributed between spear mastery and channeling

I don't know whether using weapon of aggression is a good thing, because I have no self heals.

So, any comments, rates, and especially help would be appreciated.

I have all 4 campaigns, and this is strictly PvE only, nothing PvP related about it :P

If you have a SY Para or Warrior or a good prot Monk, then /A would yield you maximum damage output.

Otherwise, /P gives decent damage and survivability.

Honestly I would recommend that instead of using Weapon of Aggression, I'd suggest Vital Weapon or Splinter Weapon depending on the situation.

But if you want to do even more damage I'd change my secondary to Ranger and use a Sloth Hunter's Shot/Keen Shot combo, I use it on my Rt/R and it can really put a dent in your enemy with all the +damage. Plus if you go ranger, you can add even MORE damage with Favorable Winds + Rapid Fire/Read the Wind.

Hope this helps

I was going to go with /A, but didn't like being near death so many times (Vizunah Square and Nahpui Quarters especially)

Also, I don't know whether I should use Weapon of Aggression over Vital Weapon? which is better, more health or IAS

I also considered Great Dwarf Weapon

To Red: Hmm, I like the ranger's suggestion, but would energy management be an issue? But it's true, Rapid Fire would provide IAS while Vital Weapon provides more health or GDW for more dmg. I might go with that

Quote:

Weapon of aggression is definitely the way to go. IAS will increase your damage more than anything else you could add. Pack in some adrenal attacks if you want those.

You don't need a self heal. You have monks for a reason.

Remedy signet is wasted if you're running sight beyond sight. Blind is the only condition you'd care enough about to remove anyway. Also, Great Dwarf Armor is a really nice replacement for sight beyond sight in areas without blind spam. It'll punch you up to 60AL (base) + 8AL (shield) + 15 AL (Ghostforge insignias) + 24 (great dwarf armor) = 107 AL. Nothing will target you, ever. In low enchant stripping areas, it does well enough as a frontliner.

Asuran Scan is also god mode if you can fit it. You can quite easily push 100+ DPS with it, however it's only good if your targets take more than a few seconds to die. It's money in 4 man areas, but only great against bosses in most full groups.

Finally, for your class, paragon is easily the strongest in PvE. You've got range, high attack speed, high base DPS, and nifty adrenal attacks.

Assassin is spikier, but tends to have energy issues, so it doesn't pump out as much DPS.

Warrior is fun with cyclone axe and whirlwind, but you lose your range and things can go very badly if your weapon and GDA go down.

Ranger kinda sucks, but you do have splinter/volley. It doesn't have near the single-target DPS, and you'd be better off running splinter barrage anyway.

Listen to the good doctor.

I ran a funky Rt/R spike build with SS a little while ago. Just fancied a change to the usual splinter barrage or SS para builds i'd been running. Vanquished quite a few areas with it and it's great for sniping targets, especially monks.

It's a bit slow to set up the spike but i nearly fell outta my chair when an enemy in HM went from 80% hp to zero in under a second.

It was:

Triple Shot (rank doesn't matter)
Distracting Shot or Needling Shot (depends if you want more damage or an interrupt)
Asuran Scan
Read the Wind/Rapid Fire
"I Am The Strongest!"
Vital Weapon
Sight Beyond Sight
Spirit's Strength [E]

Attributes:

Spawning Power - 11+1+3 (you have Vital Weapon so you can afford the Sup rune)
Marksmanship - 11
Communing - 8

Basically you cast everything from Spirit's Strength to Read the Wind/Rapid Fire either just before you aggro or while someone else is aggroing for you. When your target gets in range you cast Asuran Scan on them and wack em with Triple Shot and D-Shot/Needling shot. With RtW Triple shot will do 350+ damage to a 100AL target, D-Shot does 89 dmg, Needling does 143 with the ranks i have in the EotN titles (r9 asuran, r7 norn). Needling shot is especially effective at taking down target very fast indeed. An initial spike of well over 300 with follow up shots every second of 143 really hurts. It takes the 100AL dummy down in 4 shots every time (triple+needling). That's a spike of at least 480 vs 100AL in about 1 second. Even regular hits with no asuran scan hit 100AL for 75-95 and with asuran scan only, 125-150.

Asuran Scan really is God mode with SS builds as Dr Strangelove said. It not only increases base damage but all bonus damage aswell. SS normally does +35 but with AS it does +58 (with asura rank 9). "I Am The Strongest!" normally does +17, with AS it does +28 (with norn rank 7). RtW does +8, with AS it does +13.

It's great for gits and shiggles

One thing though, it is quite energy intensive so you will need around the 40-50 energy mark to use it effectively if you don't want to wait for regen between spikes.

I had great fun with it once i learned to use it properly. The key is to set up your spike before the fighting starts and take down key targets like monks or eles first. Killing a HM Jotun Skullsmasher in 3-4 secs is easily doable. Think of it like a ranged version of an Assassin on steroids.

Another thing i just remembered. If you can target something in the middle of a group and have a nec place Mark Of Pain on them you can do some serious AoE damage aswell with Triple Shot and Needling Shot hitting so fast.