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So, i wanted to try a physical teambuild and i thought about two options. The first is the classic physical buffing system, with Barbs, MoP, SoH, OoV, GDW and possibly other buffs (Paragon?). Since the basic idea of this build is to add buffs to every single damage packet, it seems that the better option is to use one or two Locust's Fury assassins as damage dealers, because they can reach the highest attack speed possible, thanks to double strikes.
So i need a smiter who maintains two SoH's on the assa's, and i was wandering what would be the best profession to perform this role. I tried to use a monk in this way:
Mo/Rt: 12+1+1 Smiting, 12 Channeling
Ancestor's Rage, Splinter Weapon (or GDW if human), Bloodsong, SoS, Spirit Siphon, Castigation Signet, Smite Hex (or Ress), Strength of Honor.
Basically, the smiter spams Ancestor's and Splinter (or GDW), and uses spirits for minor damage and energy management. My concern with this build is that it seems to have poor bar compression: spirits are there mainly for energy management (few spirits without Armor of Unfeeling deal little damage and can't tank in hm) so i have 4 skills for energy management. Also, Smite Hex seems a bit weak, 70 holy damage in the area every 12 seconds (only if a hex is provided!).
The questions are: (1)how would you improve this build? (2)how can i replace SoS maintaining a decent energy management? (3)would a ritualist with the same build be better than a monk and why? (4)would you bring this kind of build in a HM dungeon, and if not, how do you bring Ancestor's, GDW (yes, i know ER Healers
), and SoH?********************
The second option isn't technically "physical" because it's based on AoHM. The damage dealers in the frontline are now two scythe wielders with AoHM (probably assassins). The first thing to say is obviously that we lose Barbs, MoP and OoV, so i feel that this second option could be weaker than the first one.
However, the basic idea is to try to abuse armor penetration to boost damage in HM. Armor penetration is provided by: AoHM, Judge's Insight, Weaken Armor (well, this simply reduces armor).
My doubt regarding the use of assassins is this: assassins have critical strikes, but warriors have another 14% armor penetration. In this particular case, where we are trying to bypass monster's armor as much as possible, (5)do you think that Strength would be better than Critical Strikes? (Remember that the same armor reduction produces better effects the lower the base armor is, so i'm thinking at this 14% on top of all the other armor debuffs).
As far as the smiter's build is concerned, now our smiter has to spam ancestor's and splinter/GDW and maintain SoH (it doesn't add AP, but it's always 20 more damage), but now he has also to spam Judge's Insight (10 energy) on the two frontliners. One solution is to add Judge's Insight to the previous bar (maybe removing Smite Hex), hoping that the energy management would work. The second solution i thought about seems really awful..however here it is:
Mo/Rt 12+1+1 Smite, 12 Chan, 3+1 Divine (3 seconds of downtime for Scribe's)
Ancestors, GDW, Blessed Signet, Castigation Signet, Scribe's Insight, Smite Hex (or Ress), Judge's Insight, SoH
Ok, i admit it: i was looking for a way to use Scribe's Insight. However again: (6)how would you improve this build? (7)Do you think that this kind of buffing system (AP) is so much worse than the classic physical buffs, or maybe it has some uses?
And, more generally: (8)what are your suggestions about which classes and builds can use effectively SoH, Judge's, GDW, Ancestor's? (9)Am i missing some other nice buffs (like paragon's) that we can throw in?
Thank you very much for the patience you had reading this wall of text. As always, i apologize for my terrible english.
