Best Spirit Spammer Elite?

Absolute Destiny

Absolute Destiny

Wilds Pathfinder

Join Date: Sep 2006

Oklahoma City

Forgotten Realms [FR]

W/

I've had great success in PvE with my Spirit Spammer (finished my first campaign with her), but as I've collected more Elite skills, I've wondered if there's a better Elite than Signet of Spirits, or at least one which helps me kill things faster.

My current build:
Gaze from Beyond
Spirit Burn
Signet of Spirits
Agony
Bloodsong
Vampirism
Weapon of Warding (emergency heal)
Flesh of my Flesh

Channeling Magic: 13
Spawning Power: 10
Restoration Magic: 6

Using Ritual Lord kept me more focused on making sure it instantly recharged rather than actually doing damage.

Using Clamor of Souls seemed redundant with Gaze and Spirit Burn, plus didn't give the bonus conditions, and I had a harder time with the initial spirit swarm.

The minimum cost (10 Energy) on Soul Twisting basically makes it useless to my current build.

Nosgoth

Nosgoth

Pre-Searing Cadet

Join Date: Apr 2010

Rt/

Signet of Spirits is the best skill for me, but Signet of Ghostly Might is a good elite skill for offensive spirit spammer (of course, you will need to increase communing).

Essence Snow

Essence Snow

Unbridled Enthusiasm!

Join Date: Nov 2009

EST

DPR

The biggest thing you are missing is Painful bond IMO.

Just.nl

Just.nl

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: Nov 2007

The Netherlands, Noord-Brabant

Mu-Tants [MU]

Me/

Quote:
Originally Posted by Essence Snow View Post
The biggest thing you are missing is Painful bond IMO. Agree. You are missing alot of damage now.

Mikkelet

Mikkelet

Academy Page

Join Date: Jul 2008

Rt/

Don't think so much about to respawn your spirits as they usually have relatively high armor and health

SoS is therefore the choice. And yeah, remember to bring Painful Bond - perhabs instead of agony, spirit or Gaze from Beyond =)

NeferJackal

Ascalonian Squire

Join Date: Oct 2007

Signet of Spirits is hard to get around for an offensive spiritcaster.

1: Its free, giving more casts of Painful Bond and other skills.

2: It summons 3 persistent attack spirits, which is superb bar compression on a limited skillbar. Compared to use of Signet of Ghostly Might which puts out similar levels of damage, but requiring more slots used for attack spirits. SoS gives you more room to be flexible in your build.

3: The SoS spirits is more bodies on the field between you and the opposition, which doesn't require the existence of corpses like for the Necromancer. Signet of Ghostly Might suffers a lot more when you loose a spirit or two, as a lot more damage potential is packed into each spirit and you become at a definite disadvantage when they start to die.

4: SoS have high immediate and sustained armor ignoring damage. Which goes through the roof when coupled with Painful Bond. Easier to get started on dealing damage with a SoS build as you only have to place spirits and buff them with Painful Bond. A ghostly might build requires you to juggle two buffs and make sure your present spirits benefits from them both at all times. Plus if you loose a spirit midbattle and have to remake it after buffing, then your damage is far lower if it can't benefit from buffs given your smaller number of spirits on the bar.

5: SoS is also useful for skills that destroys or depends on the existence of spirits for a big bonus. Like Feast of Souls or Boon of Creation. Plus synergizing extremely well with Spirit Siphon for a big energy boost.


SoS and Signet of Ghostly Might is pretty much the two main choices for an offensive spiritualist. You shouldn't need a spirit recharging skill as they don't kill themselves and you get the E you need from spirit siphon. And I think SoS is the clear winner of the two.

Magragoc

Academy Page

Join Date: May 2009

I'd agree that the best course of action would be to stick with Signet of Spirits and bring Painful Bond. However, I would recommend trying to shoehorn Great Dwarf Weapon in there; it's stupidly powerful, and Spawning Power extends its duration an incredible amount.

With your points in Channeling, Siphon Spirit would be superb energy management, especially in combination with the multiple free spirits from SoS.

Do you play mostly with Guildies, or H&H? If the latter, I can't imagine you gaining much from that copy of Flesh of My Flesh. You should really leave the resurrection duties to the AI; you won't need it often enough to be worth wasting a skill slot on a human player.

Rushin Roulette

Rushin Roulette

Forge Runner

Join Date: Sep 2007

Right here

Ende

Dont forget Spirit Leach Aura. The damage gained isnt anything, but it makes your spirits much more survivable and the Life stealing also bypasses many Protection defences such as Shielding hands for example.

skervy

Lion's Arch Merchant

Join Date: Jan 2006

N/

if you want a REAL "spirit spammer" use this i use it for pretty much everything hero hench related. if you need another pve skill for something area specific like pi for retarded bosses replace gaze. it always helps to have blood ritual on a hero if you cant manage energy replace gaze for boon. i dont have a link but i remember seeing a pretty indepth experiment between sos and ghostly as elites. i personally dont like ghostly unless theres another rit in the party with sos then i go full comm with ghostly. i always use this in discord builds instead of ap to btw its really nice all around damage and defense using them to block shit you dont want on your casters

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skervy

Lion's Arch Merchant

Join Date: Jan 2006

N/

why would you take a shitty skill like spirit siphon for yourself when you can have 1 hero use blood ritual. useful for the whole party plus have a free spot for another damage spirit. i thought this topic was for spirit spammer which is what i posted :P plus if your using them right you dont need to recast spirits very often plenty of time to regen. the only real energy burners are pb and anguish. oh and lastly boon would be better then spirit any day unless your going against heavy enchant removal. it makes your energy basically unlimited with a REAL spirit spammer

skervy

Lion's Arch Merchant

Join Date: Jan 2006

N/

once again spirit spammer ^^ i dont know what you guys perception of the words spirit spammer is but to me it means a shitload of spirits+summon+pb. not running running around to make sure you siphon diff spirits and worrying about weapon spells. just a army of spirits cast pb and start hopping them around to use them as walls or put them in range of targets you want them hittin then watch numbers

NeferJackal

Ascalonian Squire

Join Date: Oct 2007

Well if going by the meta tagged spiritspammer build on pvx, its:

Painful Bond
Signet of Spirits
Pain
Vampirism
Bloodsong
Anguish
Summon Spirits
Spirit Siphon

Plenty of spirits to suck the juice from and keeping up your legion of spirits and laying down Painful Bonds.

Myotheraccount

Myotheraccount

Lion's Arch Merchant

Join Date: Mar 2010

On the interweb. n__n

Desolation Lords [DL]

A/W

Chan - SoS Com - SoGM

spirit of defeat

spirit of defeat

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: Nov 2007

Holland

Rt/

The best is a Rit hero duo. human goos communing with SOGM and the hero takes SOS ans PB

But even as a solo human SOGM is better the SOS+PB.
SOGM makes spirits asttack 50% faster. I did the mach it does more damage.

spirit of defeat

spirit of defeat

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: Nov 2007

Holland

Rt/

Quote:
Originally Posted by NeferJackal View Post
Id say the other way around, its better than the human lays out the larger amount of spirits, and making sure they wont be too terribly clumped together. Also able to react faster and move them all with summon spirits when in danger.

Plus the most important thing, the heroes have really hard about using Painful Bond properly.
I disagree,
    I already carry most of the spirit's, the hero only has SOS and bloodsong so the hero is flexible. I carry all the other communing spirit's + Summon spirit's
    The PB on the hero is disabled, I control it myself with a hotkey. The rest of it's skills he can control as he likes.
    I don't know how you would like to turn it around, give the hero communing skills??

Maikabo

Maikabo

Ascalonian Squire

Join Date: Sep 2009

Finland

[TYRY]

E/A

I dont really get why people people use vampirism and bloodsong in their builds with painful bond since they dont get anything from it. I run this:
SoS
Pain
Anguish
Disenchantment
-optional- ([maybe bloodsong ] ,rez,necrosis, pve-skill of choice )
Spirit siphon
Painful bond
Summon spirits.

FireWhale

Academy Page

Join Date: Feb 2009

W/E

uhm. vampirism and bloodsong trigger painful bond.

Countess Marie

Frost Gate Guardian

Join Date: Oct 2005

Theatre Debauchery

N/R

Quote:
Originally Posted by Absolute Destiny View Post
What would you prefer I replace with Painful Bond, and to what other forms of damage are you referring?

I used Painful Bond to blow through the Norn Fighting Tournament and a few other solo quests, btw. Painful bond, IMO, IS the damage of an offensive spirit spammer build. Use it to pull. Flag heroes behind spirits, catch as many as you can with painful and run behind the spirits. You can kill almost anything even in HM...

It really depends on where you are playing, though. You just gotta mix and match. I've never used summon spirits because I don't really use pve skills... as well as it seems to ball them up. If you place them right, I think you'll be fine without it. They will come around on the recharge before they die. If you are worried about this, wait to pull until they recharge a bit.

I'm not an exp'd rit. I just started after coming back, but it's pretty much mindless. I'd also recommend ditching resto completely and going communing. 16(chan) 14(com) 6(spawn) or something of the like. It seems that having a long duration armor of unfeeling is better than having a jacked spawn... and if you're doing it as a 2ndary you almost need to have it. The spirits last a lot longer...

PS: Res is overrated 9/10 times.

Just my 2c.

-CM