Way of the Empty Palm build?

Erasculio

Frost Gate Guardian

Join Date: Nov 2005

Does anyone know of a good Way of the Empty Palm build? I have been trying to find a good way to use it in PvE, but I always get limited by somewhat unfitting skills in Deadly Arts (almost all either have too long recharge, or are more suited to PvP, or, like Assassin's Promise, are Elite so cannot be used).

The best thing I could manage was the following build, for an area filled with stance using enemy Rangers (the Naga Rangers), but it still kinda of sucks...If someone has a better build using this skill, I would be happy to see it.

Attributes
Daggers Mastery 13 (10+2+1)
Critical Strikes 13 (11+2)
Deadly Arts 11 (10+1)

Desperate Strike (Lead Attack) - since it has a low recharge and low energy cost, plus it's not that uncommon for me to be below 76% of health.

Wild Strike (Off Hand Attack) - low recharge and energy, breaks stances (despite the HUGE drawback that any stance worth stopping will just make this attack miss, but there's a counter below).

Repeating Strike (Off Hand Attack) - so I have something to do with Way of the Empty Palm. Does very little damage, though.

Twisting Fangs (Double Attack) - again, to use with Way of the Empty Palm. Has decent recharge, so I may use it as finishing attack after a Repeating Strike series.

Critical Eye (Skill) - to help with the damage done by Repeating Strike.

Expose Defenses (Hex) - lasts 8 seconds, with 10 seconds recharge, and allows me to use Wild Strike (so the rest of the party can strike that enemy). I wanted at least one more Deadly Arts skill to justify the attribute points there, too.

Way of the Empty Palm - the focus of this build, lasts only 16 seconds, with a 25 seconds recharge.

So the result is a very low damage build, with redundancy on energy management, that could be done in many better ways than using WotEP. Does anyone know how to use this skill?

Erasculio

Kijik Oni Hanryuu

Desert Nomad

Join Date: Feb 2006

the 7th level of HELL! J/K Somewhere in GW assassinating things

[acid]members of the KAWS alliance

A/

hmm with WotEP I would use actually the cookie cutter combo, GPS>HoO>FS>TF a completely free combo with high damage output.. just put recall as you shadow step and double maintain it on a tank and a monk.. WotEP is offhand and dualattacks cost no energy right?

Kyle

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: Jun 2005

Legends Of Teh Industry [XXX]

yeah im pretty sure off hand and dual are free. The cookie cutter will leave you with so much energy since you just got a 4 skill combo free. minus the energy needed to activate wotep.

if wotep is an enchant then that already covers gps. Dont know if its enchant though.

Erasculio

Frost Gate Guardian

Join Date: Nov 2005

Quote:
Originally Posted by Kyle
if wotep is an enchant then that already covers gps. Dont know if its enchant though. Yep, it is an enchant (and it costs only 5 energy, too).

Is it worth it, though? You would have to take away attribute points from Dagger Mastery and Critical Strikes just to have WotEP last long enough to do that combo (since it has a long recharge compared with its duration), and you would still be limited by the recharge of the combo (so even if you had energy, you wouldn't be able to follow it up again). I think it would be a good build, but the same one using Assassin's Promise instead of WotEP would be better, since it deals with both energy and recharge.

That's the problem if that skill. I can't think of a way to use it that wouldn't be better with something else in its place.

Erasculio

Kijik Oni Hanryuu

Desert Nomad

Join Date: Feb 2006

the 7th level of HELL! J/K Somewhere in GW assassinating things

[acid]members of the KAWS alliance

A/

I really don't get what anet is getting at by making you have to spread your att points so muhc, all of the good elites that help with dagger stuff are in deadly or shadow arts, the only ones that are in crit or dagger are either complete crap or tanking elites, why is the sin built to make us waste our att points? :-\

Rikimaru

Rikimaru

Wilds Pathfinder

Join Date: Dec 2005

R/

The problem with that is they went completely the wrong way with Shadow Arts and Deadly Arts. Shadow Arst should have been purely healing, evading, and shadow stepping. Deadly Arts should have been purely debilitating and dagger throwing. But instead they crossed them around and made them practically the same thing, but with 2 different attributes associated with them.
Shadow Arts should = Defense, Deadly Arts should = Offense, but that isn't nearly as much the case as it should be.

You could take a Ranger secondary and use Serpent's Quickness to reduce the recharge times by 1/3.

Lord Deathknight

Lord Deathknight

Ascalonian Squire

Join Date: Jun 2006

Well if I was gonna make a build that uses "Way of the Empty Palm"

It would go like this, I would have Shadow Refuge, Way of the Empty Palm, Shadow Haste, Death's Charge, the last four slots would be my attack combo, like for example: Golden Phoenix Strike, Horns of the Ox, Falling Spider, and Twisting Fangs. being the most common combo used. (all at no engery cost ot me)

My attack would go as follows Way of the Empty Palm, Shadow Haste, I would zip past my target and then hit Death's Charge, to zing me back and start my combo, once done Shadow haste would end and I would be poped back out of danger. Shadow Refuge for any healing.

Spura

Wilds Pathfinder

Join Date: Feb 2005

Quote:
Originally Posted by Rikimaru
Shadow Arts should = Defense, Deadly Arts should = Offense That would suck. You want to have both, and it would spread attributes over 4 lines.