How to stay alive as a PBAoE Nec?

Hi. I'm running a Dark Aura build and I'm up to the Copperhammer mines (so, no Aura of the Lich yet). I'm trying out this build in PVE before I try it in PVP.

The problem, however, is keeping myself alive.

My skill loadout so far is :

Blood 12 + 2 + 1
Death 10 + 2
Soul Reaping 5+1

with some points left over. I'm OK with dropping Blood down to 11 to free up points, but at this point I don't know what to spend them on.

Armour: full tormentor's set.
Weapons: Hale staff of enchanting with nothing particularly useful on it (7% chance of recharge or somesuch)

My current build looks something like this:

1. Dark Aura (death)
2. Touch of Agony (blood)
3. Dark Pact (blood)
4. Blood Renewal (blood)
5. Vampiric Touch (blood)
6. ???
7. Offering of Blood (blood)
8. rez sig

The general idea is to use dark aura, then run over to an enemy using touch of agony. Once in melee range, I hit blood renewal to deal some damage and kick some regen into gear, then spam ToA and DP. After a while, things get a bit touchy so I use Vampiric to heal up some, which drains my energy badly so I use Offering of Blood to keep up the vampirism for a bit longer.

The problem is what to use the last spot on? I've tried Distortion, but the low time and high cost makes it difficult to keep up (especially with vampiric touch). SHadow of Fear or Enfeebling Blood is good, but either don't do enough, or don't last long enough to be truly effective.

One thing I'm trying out at the moment is Kinetic armour, since I'm spamming spells (well, skills and spells) often, but the long cooldown means if I get disenchanted, I'll be a sitting duck for 45 seconds, which is pretty scary.

So: what should I change? Should I just persevere with distortion, or should I pick up a skill from another profession, or change some of the rest of my skills?

AOTL is very important in keeping yourself alive in this build. Once you get it things will be much much much easier, because sacrificing your life will only be half as bad. Also you may want to try dying, (its what i do in pvp). I put death nova on myself, and when i cast signet of agony, i do 50 from that + 50 from dark aura + 105 from death nova all aoe.

1. Dark Aura (death)
2. Touch of Agony (blood)
3. Dark Pact (blood) -> i would chance this to putrid explosion
4. Blood Renewal (blood)
5. Vampiric Touch (blood)
6. ??? -> i would take maybe well of blood to help yourself and friends.
7. Offering of Blood (blood)
8. rez sig

When you get AotL, put it in number 6. I think touch of agony is enough for dealing dmg. ToA + DP drains your health too fast without AotL. Putrid uses corpses so your enemies cannot use them and deals some nice aoe dmg meanwhile. One well of blood is nice for everybody.

Have Fun

Well once he gets AotL, he's losing Offering anyways

yeah, I usually swap something out for well of blood in a party. After all, I'm usually in its area of effect, being all PBAOE and all.

Anyone have any suggestions for weapons? Secondary Warrior for shield? etc.

Yeah, I'm flexible in secondary professions. Not sure about monk though - seems like a lot just for breeze or orison, when I could use the same slot to leverage my high Blood (unholy feast, vampiric gaze which provides a nice 50 or so, or even something to raise my max hp by 200 or so) Besides, for one skill, wouldn't I be better served with something like distortion or physical resistance or something?

OK, I'll work on the collector's blood staff - looks like I only need a couple of topaz crests.

A Collector's Blood staff with + 5 energy head and 20% longer enchantments wrapping.

This really depends. Are you flexible with changing your secondary preference? I've ran this build using a N/Mo, and it works quite well, using a simple Healing Prayers skill to keep you alive.

Good call on ditching Pact - I do slightly less AoE damage, but I find I have the time to cast other, more important things when required. Besides, Offering of Blood also triggers dark aura so I have a few options heh.

I tried it out last night for a while, and I'm finding that Physical Resistance is working fairly well. +40 armour for a minute or so in a stance is a lot easier to keep up than the 3-s casting time and constant spamming necessary for kinetic.

Tried Putrid, but I think I might try out necrotic traversal instead (or consume corpse if I find that I'm missing out on energy after Offering is swapped out for AotL). I'm doing a fair amount of aoe damage already, but necrotic is a) cheaper and b) gives me an exit strategy if things start hitting the fan.

Quote: Originally Posted by Serps

PBAoE?
Unholy Feast?

I'm not sure how often that skill is used, but it's PB, and it does some AoE damage. The same with Feast of Corruption.

Theres some signet I like that sacrifices 8% health but gives you more in return...can't remember the name of it though.

Well, Unholy Feast is a 30s recharge, which makes it only useful to counteract the occasional spike damage. To be fair, it's 50 steal from up to 5 targets which is fairly impressive.

Barbed signet is OK, but it has a 45s recharge and 2s cast time - seems like a heck of a drawback. I'm more likely to spend some points in inspiration and use leech signet or something, then spend th energy on something useful.

Good call on the 2 majors though. It probably wouldn't have been a problem under AotL because of the half-health thing, but it matters without it.

Barbed Signet sacrifices 8% health to steal health, thinking of that one the_drizzle? 20 second recharge on that bad boy makes it sort of annoying to use though...

Yep, that's the one. Guess the bad outways the good.

It usually does with signets