VSDA Blood Bomb

With the introduction of a new necromancer elite Vampiric Spirit, which works in melee range, I decided to start a build that utilizes Dark Aura also.

CLASS:
Necromancer/Any
15 Blood (12+1+2)
12 Death (11+1)
9 Soul Reaping (8+1)

SKILLS:
Vampiric Spirit [Elite]
Dark Aura
Jaundiced Gaze
Dark Pact
Vampiric Gaze
Blood Renewal
[Slot]
Ressurection Signet

EQUIPMENT:
Truncheon
+5 energy over 50% health
Halves skill recharge of blood magic 20%

Idol
+12 energy
Halves Skill Recharge of blood magic 20%
Halves Casting time of blood magic 20%

Superior Blood Magic Rune, Minor Soul Reaping, Minor Death Magic rune, Superior Vigor rune.

This should give you 485 health and 47 energy.


H0W2PLAY:

First off, cast Dark Aura, then Vampiric Spirit in that order as not to trigger the +3 energy cost from VS. Single out a target that is not standing adjacent or relatively close to another foe. Run up to the target and use Dark Pact, followed by Jaundiced Gaze and Blood Renewal if you are starting to lose a bit of health. Finish with Vamp Gaze if necessary. The added bonus to Vampiric Spirit is that it covers the health you lost from Dark Aura.

The numbers stack out to be about 130 damage for 8 energy with Dark Pact.

This is a very high damage build that can spike kill a target in about 3-4 seconds. This, of course has it's drawback with average survivability and high energy usage. Jaundiced Gaze costs 10 energy (13 VS) but aside from Dark Pact, it's the only Spell that Sacrifices life in addition to doing damage which is needed to trigger both VS and DA. You may want to swap out vampiric gaze for touch of agony/wallows bite as a cheaper finisher.

Perhaps going as N/Me for energy management, in that case you may want to lower blood to 14 and throw it into Inspiration. Or in which case you might want to lower blood to 14 anyway and put more points into Soul Reaping.

Feedback please, if it's crap tell me

for Dark Aura builds i'd imagine you'd use touch of agony/wallow's bite.

Interesting.

Please forgive my ignorance about Faction Necro skills, but...

1) Vampiric Spirit will account for sacrifice damage, but not the damage caused by Dark Aura, right?

2) Non-sacrifice spells cost 3 extra energy (spaming lifestealing spells will become very costly - energy wise) and does not trigger Dark Aura, which means no spike damage

3) Monsters must be adjacent to you in order to have Dark Aura do damage, right?

4) Dark Aura costs 10 energy, Vampiric Spirit costs 5 energy, do you have enough energy from soul reaping to keep these spells up as well as your other spells?

5) Once you lose 50% of your health your energy drops by 5. So you'll be hurting even more for energy, am I right?

Remember, if you start casting spells to gain energy, Vampiric Spirit will make that spell cost 3 more energy. Won't this make stealing energy almost redundant as you will gain almost 0 benefit by doing this?

I am not trashing your build, I'm just asking these things because I want to know exactly how feesible it is. I've never been a fan of sacrificing my life (I do use BiP, Blood Renewal and Blood Ritual, Varata's Sacrifice and BotM) but all other sacrifice spells don't make sense to me. I find I can do more damage with non-sacrificing spells than with them. But as I said, I don't use them, so maybe I'm wrong in that.

If you know that you are going against foes that can bleed, maybe substitute Vampiric Gaze for Signet of Agony and put Plague Touch in the empty Slot. Doing so will cause sacrifice damage (no healing as it is not a spell), and do damage to target (almost the same as Dark Pact). It has a fast use rate and 15 recharge. It causes bleeding which you quickly use Plague Touch. Plague Touch is a skill, so it won't trigger Vampiric Spirit either. The reason for using this is SoA will trigger Dark Aura, causing damage for both DA and SoA. You will take a big hit from sacrifice and DA. But, you save energy and you transfer bleeding onto your foe. Then cast Blood Renewal and do more damage via DA, heal because of VS and regenerate from BR.

Just a thought.

It's an interesting concept, but something about stealing life using VSpirit is just off there. Especially since you're depending on the enemy being singled out. If another enemy comes in, you're kinda screwed because it's random who gets the damage from VSpirit.

Also...
Dark Aura means you sacrifice every time target (you again) sacrifices. You're doing a lot of cutting into your own health. Something about that just doesn't seem wise since you only have VampGaze & Blood Renewal for healing (I don't count VSpirit b/c it's proximity based).


Honestly, what I've done in the past for proximity (and this might work here too) is Dark Aura + Signet of Agony + Plague Touch. If you use those 3 , you can inflict some damage, but VSpirit is worthless in my build.
If you wanted, you could try .... Dark Aura, Blood Renewal, Sig of Agony, Plague Touch, Touch of Agony.


Looking at new skills, I might put a build togather like this...
Dark Aura(10,1,10) -0- <== Warmup a few sec before engaging enemy
Blood Renewal(5,1,10) 41dmg
Vamp Touch(15,3/4,2) 65 dmg
Signet of Agony(-,3/4,15) 41 + 17
Plague Sending (5,3/4,0) -0-
Vamp Bite (15,3/4,2) 65 dmg
Touch of Agony (5,3/4,3) 50 + 41


It's a cost of 55 nrg, but if you consider regen and SR, it might work in an alliance battle.

Don't quote me on this one b/c it's just me playing with figures. This is by no means tested, but from what I can see of your skills, it may not be bad.


BTW, you could also add Offering of Blood in there if you want energy renewal and damage. The ability to effectively damage an opponent and heal is essential.

I've played with the build already. For being singled out, the only thing that is affected is the damage. If there are two or more people around you it might take longer to kill a single target because the damage will not be focused on that target but as long as you steal health it should partly cover the sacrifice from DA. As I said, the health sacrifice does make you an easy target when focus fired.

This build is more suited to Alliance Battles or Fort Aspenwood where there are a large amount of deaths to fuel Soul Reaping.

Here is a slower but just as effective build focusing on blood only

16 Blood
13 Soul Reaping

Vampiric Spirit
Shadow Strike
Lifebane Strike
Vampiric Gaze
Dark Pact
[Slot]
[Slot]
[Slot]

Works the same way as the original build, get into close range of target, assuming the target is at 100% health you can get a Shadow Strike in and hit for about 150 leaving the target at 55-60% health which is enough for you to use Lifebane Strike for another 150. At this point use Dark Pact then Vampiric Gaze to finish off.

The point of the VSDA build is to be quick as it utilizes one second casts, using the above build will very much achieve the same effect at a slower pace.

HI

Works anywhere where tehre are a lot of deaths, and the health sac can be manahged if you have a decent monk or two.

I was running a fairly similar build in altrumm ruins, and it really was nice, slight difference was that i took at for xtra damage, (but dark aura would be better). Its alos took a runniing skill, btu that was cos everything died so quick i needed to to get nerar the enemis ^_^

oljomo

My build I posted about a week ago
http://forums.gwonline.net/showthread.php?t=403482

unfortunately it got pretty much no feedback or attention :/


I didnt use Dark aura, thats really interesting... I was spiking through wastrels worry (very rapid cast - and mana burn XD).


The one thing I've learnt from trying out my build is that Channeling ROX this build. *Especially* in alliance battles

Your skills dont recharge as fast as mine so you dont have the same speed as my build but your damage output is most likely much higher >_>

I'll try your build out when I get a chance, but in the mean time.. how does it fare against touch rangers? The only touch ranger that 1vs1ed me died *quick* with my build (note I changed by build a bit from the original screenshot) - faster/greater life gain than them XD

edit:

I'll put up my current build in a thread on this forum for a bit of critique.. the other forums werent so helpfull