Soloing HM points and tips requested

I was hoping to get a few pointers on soloing HM be it UW or other areas suitable for rit soloing. I'm not real happy with my weapon set or my attributes and although I've done okay so far, I know some tweaking will help.

I'm pretty much using the Norn tournament build: Boon of Creation, Signet of Spirits, Dissonance, Union, Vampirism, Pain, Painful Bond, Summon spirits.

Armor: Radiants on all pieces + attunements on top and leggings. Major Spawning rune, Superior Communing.


Communing: 10+2 = 12
Channeling: 10 = 10
Spawning power: 11+3 = 14

Weapon set: Spawning Scepter "To the Pain" inscription, dmg +14%. Off hand I use the Bison cup for the +12 extra energy. I know I needed some other wrap on my spawning scepter, but not sure what that is.

Total energy: 55
Total health: 400

With this build, HM solo vanquishing the Plains of Jarin was a cakewalk...very very easy and netted me 13 golds and 6 lockpicks. Did Kinya Province, and other than the Kappas having wicked high armor in HM (long drawn out fights there), it wasn't bad. Haven't tried Sunqa Vale but it's probably easy. My goal here is eventually the UW.

Any help, tips or criticisms would be welcome.

Drop union, boon is decent at best, spirit siphon is better management.

Bring Shadowsong, dissonance is mediocre at best.

Anguish>pain most of the time

If you're going to eventually do UW, I'd suggest taking Shadowsong for the Aatxes, who will rip through your spirits if you don't blind at least one of them. That, and Armor of Unfeeling is a necessity. Without AoU, they'll drop like flies in a lot of areas. Anguish isn't useful, IMO, as a good portion of the more profitable UW areas (Plains and Smites) render Painful Bond useless. Mindblades have Hexbreaker Aura and the Smites will simply smite your hexes. It just helps to take down the chamber quicker, but is useless after.

In HM, Spiritleech helps out a lot as it's armor ignoring damage, which greatly helps SoS and Pain.

I hate using cookie-cutter builds but I've found that the PvX Spirit Bomber works great in HM and UW (NM).

Channeling 10+2+1
Communing 11+2
Spawning 10+1

Signet of Spirits, Bloodsong, Vampirism, Pain, Shadowsong, Painful Bond, Armor of Unfeeling, Summon Spirits.

That works well in UW. Shadowsong is a must, blind melee is much easier to deal with. Armor of Unfeeling means a spirit can survive an Aatxe hit . I prefer Summon Spirits to Spiritleech Aura. Heals more and faster, plus Aatxes can be killed while spending most of their time chasing.

Spiritleech can be useful if you really don't want to be seen, since they can self heal while you just stay back. And is a must when you are dealing with damage reduction skills, such as Kappa's Turtle Shell. All spirit damage is armor ignoring, but still gets reduced. The life stealing however goes straight through and they die fast. It does mean you need to spec some points to Restoration though, so you lose overall damage output.

No self heals (Vampirism barely counts), since they are so insignificant as to be worthless in these areas. If you are targeted, getting out and losing aggro is only real chance of surviving imo.

agreed with McSumo except one thing:

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