An Interesting SS Build

Alright, this build is essentially a take on the common "ReckleSS Haste" idea that's been going around. It seems to work well in PvE and PvP, especially in Alliance Battles and Random Arenas. Basically, it's a Warrior/Assassin/Ranger Killer.

Warrior's Bane

Necromancer/Mesmer
Level: 20

Soul Reaping: 9 (6 + 3)
Curses: 15 (11 + 4)
Illusion Magic: 12

- Reckless Haste (Curses)
For 20 seconds, target foe and all adjacent foes are Hexed with Reckless Haste. While Hexed, they attack 25% faster but have a 50% chance to miss with attacks.
Energy:10 Cast:2 Recharge:25

- Enfeebling Blood (Curses)
Sacrifice 10% max Health. Target foe and all adjacent foes suffer from Weakness for 20 seconds.
Energy:10 Cast:2 Recharge:5

- Price of Failure (Curses)
For 30 seconds, target foe has a 25% chance to miss with attacks and takes 30 damage whenever that foe fails to hit in combat.
Energy:10 Cast:3 Recharge:10

- Arcane Echo (Mesmer other)
If you cast a Spell in the next 20 seconds, Arcane Echo is replaced with that Spell for 20 seconds. Arcane Echo ends prematurely if you use a non-Spell skill.
Energy:15 Cast:2 Recharge:30

- Spiteful Spirit [Elite] (Curses)
For 20 seconds, whenever target foe attacks or uses a skill, Spiteful Spirit deals 35 shadow damage to that foe and all adjacent foes.
Energy:15 Cast:2 Recharge:10

- Ethereal Burden (Illusion Magic)
For 10 seconds, target foe moves 50% slower. When Ethereal Burden ends, you gain 20 Energy.
Energy:15 Cast:3 Recharge:45

- Conjure Phantasm (Illusion Magic)
For 12 seconds, target foe experiences Health degeneration of 5.
Energy:10 Cast:1 Recharge:5

- Resurrection Signet ()
Resurrect target party member. That party member is returned to life with 100% Health and 25% Energy. You may use this Signet only once per mission.
Energy:0 Cast:3 Recharge:0
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Basically, the idea is get as many SS out there as you can. If you can get it on two warriors in a mob of people, then you'll be dealing good damage.

As soon as you hit a Warrior with SS, hit him with Reckless Haste and Price of Failure. This ensures that not only will he miss often and hurt himself alot from SS, but he will also damage himself from PoF. Enfeebling Blood is useful for if a caster is the one bieng pounded on, or if there is a Jaundicized Gaze Blood Necro on your team. Etheral Burden's purpose is twofold; first of all, it's good Energy Management. Hit it on one of the warriors, and now you've got a slow moving, energy-giving time bomb. Conjure Phantasm is for those times where that little bit of degen is the difference between killing your target and having them barely survive.

As I said, this works well with Assassins and Rangers, as well. In addition, any character that spams spells (Touch Rangers, Blood Spikers) is also susceptible.

Basically, your SS target order is such:

Warrior / Assassin - Tend to clump, deal damage to themselves and teamates quickly if SS'd.

Ranger - Uses attack skills; particularly painful if they are using barrage.

Healing Monks - Tends to be a killer to healing monks, though be warned: They tend to have Contemplation of Purity.

Other Fast Casters - Mesmers, Touch Rangers, Etc.

Your thoughts on the build are appreciated.

Your weaknesses include:Witch Hunters (N/W with Shivers) Mesmer & Ranger Interrupters No HP Recovery Energy Management (ACC of 12.14286 energy) ART of 18.57143 sec ACT of 2.142857 sec



Well, it's a good start, but consider that your ACT is 2.142857 sec. Anything over 2 sec is bad. The longer spells really put you at a disadvantage. The mix is better than some builds I've seen b/c a Power Block can't shut you down 100%. Although, you neglect HP management. Remember that you'll be under attack when people realize what you're doing. Parasitic Bond is missing from your build. I would replace either reckless haste or price of failure for it. Although it seems good to have both on your bar, I find reckless the better of the two b/c of its casting time. Recharge sucks, but you stand less of a chance of getting hit while casting it.


Just curious, but have you tested this build? In theory, it sounds like a good idea, but when you do the math, it doesn't seem as useful as it would at a glance.

Ah, Xenoranger. Resident fault-finder and pesimist (All in good humor).

To get this out of the way, the build as I have posted it was primarily meant for Alliance Battles, where the plentiful deaths and targets makes the downsides of this build far less jarring, and the upsides more obvious.

Your help on increasing the use of this build is highly appreciated. Now, to the editing process.

Quote: Your weaknesses include:
Witch Hunters (N/W with Shivers)
Mesmer & Ranger Interrupters
No HP Recovery
Energy Management (ACC of 12.14286 energy)
ART of 18.57143 sec
ACT of 2.142857 sec Witch Hunters, Mesmer + Ranger Interrupters: Witch Hunters are a problem for just about everything. Though, tbh, a better Witch Hunter is the N/A (Which I do run from time to time), merely because the Assassin does have a few energy conservation skills, (seemingly) a faster attack rate, and seem to do fantastic against casters...though that's despite the point. Admittedly, that is a major fault of my build; interrupts are a massive fault. It's nearly as bad as it is for MM's at times.

The way I see it, there is a simply fix to all this; as is, this build is using 195/200 possible skill points. Remove 1 point from Soul Reaping, and add all additional points to Inspiration magic. Then, we would drop Arcane Echo. Dropping Arcane Echo would not only reduce the Mana expenditure of the build, but would allow for the addition of, perhaps, a Mantra of Resolve. With the 11 points made available all put into Inspiration, you would have an Inspiration Magic of 4, meaning Mantra of Resolve would only take from you 5 energy. A bit of a price to pay, but on the overall, quite worth it in my opinion.

HP Recovery: Another point I can concur with. Health Management is something this build lacks. I have two ideas as to how to fix it. The first is to replace Conjure Phantasm with either Ether Feast, which, at this level, would zap 3 energy and give the caster (us) 123 life. Not bad, if I do say so myself. The other course of action is to replace Price of Failure with either Parasitic Bond, as you suggested; or, for a more interesting touch, include Insidious Parasite. Sapping 20 life a hit for 17 seconds, in combination with Reckless Haste AND SS, would deal a whopping 57 damage to the attacker at a fast rate, of which 20 life would be returned to the caster (us). In addition, it has a fairly quick cast at 1 second, helping bring down the overall cast time of the build. There are three small problems with Insidious, though.
1. Cost: If we are trying to bring the mana cost of this build down, this does not help; it's 5 more mana than PoF.
2. Recharge: The recharge is 20 seconds, as opposed to 10. This isn't a skill you would particularly need to spam in my opinion, however.
3. Target: This spell requires the warrior to continue attacking. I've seen warriors so oblivous to their own condition that they've had PoF, Reckless Haste, SS, AND Enfeebling Blood on them, and they're still attacking like some crazed fool. God Bless the Uneducated Mass of WamMos.

Energy Management (ACC of 12.14286 Energy): In an Alliance battle, with Pets, Minions, NPC's, and PC's all dying by the boatload, an attribute score of 9 in Soul Reaping meant that once I hit the group with Dual SS's and a Reckless Haste, and then tagged the nearest Assassin with Etheral Burden, all I had to do was wait a few seconds before one fool Warrior killed his whole raiding party of Wammos, Assassin, and Touch Rangers (Kurzicks, so incredibly predictable), and I'd be ready to go into a casting frenzy once more.

In HA or Random Arena, however, such plentiful corpses are not always as readily available, as people go down far harder. The removal of a Second SS and Arcane Echo would significantly decrease the problem of the 15+15+15 cast of 2 SS's, allowing me to get my Eth Burden and other less expensive casts out faster. This character would probably go well with a MM or Battery, as the MM/SS combo would make an effective Snowball Combo, and a WoP would significantly help with energy problems. Admittedly, however, I'd rather not turn to teammates to deal with problems in my build.

ACT of 2.142857 sec: A bit nitpicky, but a fault is a fault. Assuming we have swapped Insidious Parasite for Price of Failure, and Mantra of Resolve for Arcane Echo, the average cast time has been lowered to a far lower 1.85 if you are including Rez Sig (which I don't know why you would be); or 1.714285 if you are not. Both of these are under you 2.00 limit, therefore putting me in the clear.

ART of 18.57143 Seconds: *sigh*. There's really no way around this one. Hell, with the changes I've made, it actually went up a full .000005 seconds. Etheral Burden, the spell that drags this down most heavily, is not one I plan to part with. With a 20/20 weapon AND offhand, however, this is strangely one thing I have not yet encountered as a problem in Alliance Battles or Random Arenas. That's one that, while it may seem off to you on paper, works fine in-game.

I'd like to try it in a HA build, but, unfortunately, Guild Wars has become a battle of the IWAY / Spikers / EoE Bombs, leaving little room for any form of ingenuity on the part of those that wish to involve themselves in a tournament should they not have a Guild that wishes to participate.

(NOTE: If any Guilds are on the prowl for a N/- with more than 12 months experience, a Mo/- with 12 months experience, and an Ele/- with 10 months experience, look up Steven the Irishman IG. The three of us have a Vent server available if needed, and are no newcomers to GW)

Shameless self promotion aside, I appreciate your thoughts on this build, and look forward to your response(s).

Oh, yeah; and in response to -

Actually, I've taken to arcane hunting lately. I just capped the last Tyrian necro elite 2 nights ago and I only have 3 left in Cantha. Then I'll move on to mesmer (most likely).

No, I hate to be the barer of bad news, but when something in a build maybe a disadvantage, it's better the user know than just assume their build is impenetrable. Hence teh reason I get statistics like ART, ACT and ACC.

BTW, NO, I did not include Rez Sig in my ART, ACT, or ACC. Rez sig is never figured into your times b/c chances are, it'll never be used. (or if used, not very often).


Yes, you are correct that things die quite a bit in alliance and PvE situations. As such, you could get away with higher casting costs, but you said it worked in Random Arenas as well. That's what got me. In Random Arenas, enemies seem more focussed. As such, you get players who kill the necro first. Mainly b/c they thing they're an MM (at least from my experiences).

Hmm... I'd have to actually see your build in action. It just seems to me that not only could you run out of energy quick, but again, the interruptions is a serious problem. (kinda the reason I don't use backfire too often. High casting time).


Dual SS + Reckless Haste = Very interesting

Although I haven't thought of doing this, it makes perfect sense. Especialy since you do get stupid warriors in there who just kill and kill without thinking about curses on them. That little combination I may have to work into a build.