PvP Pure Support Nec/Mo

Class: Necromancer / Monk

Attributes: (cost) '+' indicates Rune attributes
Soul Reaping: 10+1 (61)
Blood Magic: 8+2 (37)
Curses: 2+1 (3)
Protection Prayers: 12 (97)

Total attribute points used: 198/200

Skills: [Attribute] (Energy, Cast Time, Recharge TIme)
1) Blood is Power [Blood Magic] (5,0,0) Enchantment: Sacrifice 33% max health. For 10 seconds, target other ally gains +5 energy regeneration. This is an elite skill.

2) Rend Enchantments [Curses] (10,3,30) Spell: Target foe loses 4 enchantments. For each Monk enchantment removed, you take 40 damage.

3) Reversal of Fortune [Protection Prayers] (5,0,2) Enchantment: The next time target ally would take damage, that ally gains that amount of health instead, maximum 67.

4) Convert Hexes [Protection Prayers] (15,2,20) Spell: Remove all hexes from target other ally. For 18 seconds, that ally gains +10 armor for each Necromancer hex that was removed.

5) Mend Condition [Protection Prayers] (5,1,2) Spell: Remove one condition from target other ally. That ally is healed for 57 health.

6) Guardian [Protection Prayers] (5,1,2) Enchantment: For 5 seconds, target ally has a 44% chance to block attacks and magical projectiles.

7) Shielding Hands [Protection Prayers] (5,1,25) Enchantment: For 10 seconds, damage received by target ally is reduced by 15.

8) Life Bond [Protection Prayers] (10,2,0) Enchantment: While you maintain this enchantment, whenever target other ally takes damage from an attack, half the damage is redirected to you. The damage you receive this way is reduced by 25 points.

The idea is to buff healer monks with BiP and allies under attack with protection spells. Condition/hex/enchantment removal to be used where necessary. Primary Nec for the runes/headgear, Soul Reaping (I figure it will be *slightly* more useful in these circumstances than Divine Favour) and shiny armour . I ran this build in the tombs, although I never got around to GvGing with it. Any ideas on how this build would fare?

Quick, Change it to Monk/Necro before Ensign has a field day with this! :P

Soul Reaping in the minds of many I believe = sucks in PVP.

Not in this context, however. Although it's useless for 90% of PvP builds, it's almost plausible in this case, but only because Divine Favour is less useful for this build.

Divine Favor turns protection spam skills- Reversal of Fortune and Guardian- into mini-heals of their own. Without Divine Favor, they're rather forgettable.

I see 0 reasons in this build to have Protection at 12.

Convert Hexes is tied to protection in a completely meaningless manner- you don't take it for the +10 armor duration, you take it because it removes all hexes.
Reversal of Fortune at 10 and 12 is largely ignorable- most hits are going to average in the high 30s and low 40s. Getting a 67 point swing is nice, but it is a rare occurance. Not something worth giving up a level 12 attribute for.
Life Bond- what do you care if you're reducing damage by 26 or 24? The monk still has to turn around and heal you, because you can't do it yourself.
Shielding Hands- Nice at 12, still nice at 10 or 11.
Guardian- Same deal
Mend Condition- same.

All of these spells look better on a primary monk.

Trying to fit rend enchantments in is a nice sentiment, but it's asking a lot of a healer to:
A) Spend 3.75s casting
B) Damage themselves 40-160 points in the process.
They're monks, let them heal, don't ask them to kill themselves. The enemy will gladly do it for you.

Same thing applies to Blood is Power.
If you want to make your healing more efficient, play an efficient healer.
BiP is a good way to kill yourself at 33% sacrifice.
BiP + Rend is a great way to kill yourself in a hurry.

Remember, you don't get any benefit from Soul Reaping by killing yourself.

First of all, this build is not aimed at healing but rather buffing team mates. BiP is there for making OTHER monks more efficient, and it only takes a healing breeze or Orison from a primary monk to patch up my character safely. Getting hurt isn't a big deal since as a necro primary I rarely get attacked; Sacrifices make up the majority of the damage I recieve. 140 damage every 30 seconds from Rend is pretty much negligible, and monks with 10 energy regen (+6 BiP) find it very easy to keep me alive, especially since the damage from BiP is predictable and expected.

I actually kinda like the Necro/Monk Protector, as outside of a couple spam skills you really don't benefit all that much from Divine Favor. It's a bit of a niche character but it's one that I can see being run in PvP with success.

I like your skill loadout in general. I think you need to really push the Necro angle a bit more and work in the goodies since you have the attributes, and you don't want to run a ton of Necros on a team if you don't have to. Shadow of Fear is automatic - sure, teams aggressively remove it, but that just devours time and energy. Rend and BiP are great. You might also want to look at Enfeebling Blood for more generalized shutdown, and Well of Blood for the Tombs - it can do some lovely things in dias matches.

For Protection, you should shy away from the spam skills. Those really only start to shine with Divine Favor powering them, and you're at a loss there.

So for your skills, I'd sub in Shadow of Fear and Enfeebling Blood for Reversal of Fortune and Guardian. Both are outstanding at shutting down melee characters, and are decent against Rangers - they both fit in well with your role as a Protector as well. I think you really need to push the good Necro skills as a Necro primary, as one of the advantages you're going for is the ability to milk runes for all they're worth - with no Necro skills you're simply trading in whatever your secondary is for Soul Reaping, and that's never a good trade.

So:

Blood is Power
Enfeebling Blood
Rend Enchantments
Shadow of Fear
Convert Hexes
Life Bond
Mend Condition
Shielding Hands

The question then is how to set up your attributes to maximize your potential. There are a couple clear starting points - first, Blood is Power has break points at 8 and 13, and since it's the only skill in the line one of those two is what you want after runes. Rend is going to hit all the critical break points early (2/4/6), so you're just pumping for the other shutdown, which you probably want in the 8-10 range. Soul Reaping starts to max out around 7, and it isn't exactly an attribute you want to gorge on anyway. Protection doesn't really want to be high either, as all you get is a bit more healing from Mend and another damage or two on Shielding Hands.

So this character isn't all that attribute intensive. We can go a couple different ways - first, to get really good quality out of our Curses and Protections:

7 + 1 Soul Reaping
10 + 2 Curses
7 + 1 Blood
11 Protection

Or we can really milk the Blood is Power angle, and take advantage of our flexible attributes to get the 6th pip:

7 + 1 Soul Reaping
7 + 1 Curses
11 + 2 Blood
10 Protection

Both are pretty reasonable and I can see arguments for either.

In any case, I think it's a solid character concept and one of the few good ways to run a Necro primary in PvP, so I'd like to see more ideas on fleshing this kind of guy out. You're looking to use the heavier hitters, so what about Aegis? Maybe take advantage of the free attribute points and splash for Infuse Health?

Peace,
-CxE

There's a lot of useful information in there, Ensign. Thanks.

Given the very high recharge time (30 secs) and the concept of focus fire, is Aegis worthwhile in PvP? I don't really like the look of Enfeebling, and a replacement in either Blood or Curses would be great.

BiP might have been slightly nerfed during the final BWE. The break points for the 5th and 6th regen point are at 10/15 respectively in The Edge.

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