Armor Piercing Maximum DPS Duelist?! W/N

Since Degen is only dangerous under heinous circumstances:
Deep Wound, 10 degen, frenzied strikes, lower AL...

Let's roll it all into one shall we? ^_^

12+1+3 Swordsmanship
8+1 Strength
10 Death Magic
1 Curses [gah]

Seeking Blade
Sever Artery
Gash
Frenzy
Sprint
Plague Touch / Res Sig
Virulence {E}
Weaken Armor

I think this build generates 11 pips of degen [max is 10, but if they're using regen, it's cumulative and will count 11] At 1 curses, I think the duration is 12s. of -20 AL so your hits will be a LOT harder than before vs. squishies...

Sure it's a short duration but if you can't kill the enemy within that amount of time [come on, it's -20 AL which is about 33% LESS DEFENSE vs. physical on a standard caster] then that target is obviously getting backed up VERY well by his teammates and should be ignored so you can move onto another one. Plague Touch is great in that you DO NOT GET DISEASED by your touched target. Tested it and it works [unless they fixed it or something...]

If you wanted to spike, I suppose you can put in Final Thrust instead of Seeking Blade but what makes Seeking nice is that within a ward against melee, where enemy teams tend to gather, it's 10e. to totally wail on the entire group of people within the ward. Seeking + Virulence = a LOT of degen on the entire enemy team as a whole...

Obvious weaknesses? Since you're dumping 5 conditions on someone, a monk with Draw Conditions is essential. It's simply not efficient for the monk to mend ailment 5 times in a row to heal conditions that cost you only 5 e. to dump... That's 25e. to your 5e. If you can do that, then your teammates can effectively perforate another foe. Since Virulence has about 10s. of recycle time, forcing the enemy to waste 25e. every 10s. [if they're stupid and didn't bring draw conditions, martyr, or restore condition] then you're generating a very sizable amount of strain on their e. pool.

Anti-warrior stuff. Conditions shouldn't be a bother if your Plague Touch is at the ready. [yay Zealous hilt!]

I think that perhaps a Cursed Cleaver Axe user might be able to generate similar dps using Cleave + Weaken Armor but the 10 degen generated by a sword with virulence ON TOP of 10+s. of -20 AL would beat it out I'm almost certain...

I know most people prefer spike but I'm starting to like a sword's giant dps capabilities...

From the skill count and abilities, I think a sword is capable of generating about 150+ dps [OWCH] if you use this build. A lot of stacking of skills, conditions, and the hex should add up to a LOT of pain to heal away...

virulence is a double sided sword, you will spread disease to yourself and your own team. and mend ailment will own you, alot monk nowadays brings it and you will be fueling good healing to whoever you dump the conditions on

Isnt Virulence's recharge upped to 15s? It was 10 secs previously but now the virulence conditions stop even before the skill recharges.

^^ true. I dont know the exact modifacation but i suggest picking your favorite condition out of the four your inflicting and tag that as your weapon mod (e.g. heavy to increase weakness duration), then you should get around continous duration on that one condition.

Hmm, perhaps a poisoner's hilt? *bah* I like Zealous

But like I said, 25e. to stop my 5e. skill. Every 10s. That means I'm burning all of the monk's ability to heal others simply to stop maximum degen on one of his teammates... [deep wounded to boot] Let's not forget I'm hitting through 20 al for a while...

By combining damage bonus from a hex and a degen condition with deep wound, that monk is going to have their hands full unless they bring restore condition, draw conditions, etc...

I don't care for a mend ailment spammer because until they chew through 25e. My teammates are wailing on someone else...

Hopefully, my target will drop like a fly due to frenzied Weaken Armor stack of hits...

Any chance of getting similar DPS in a PvE build?

For PvE, it won't work since Sever Artery doesn't work too well vs. most pve monsters. [one of the reasons I abandoned the sword since game release] Hamstring maybe all you've got to drop a condition onto a pve foe I suppose...

Ah well ^_^

Where is the healing

have a mesmer on your team with epidemic and this will be a lot better