There was a huge update today in GW. Lots of skill revamping and, in my opinion, some nice changes.

Ursan finally got the nerfbat hard. As an elite form with a 60 sec downtime, it pretty much made all of the 5-man Ursan builds useless. I guess people are going to have to do things the old fashioned way by using balanced builds (or gimmick builds).

I’m sure the changes to UW also helped to nerf ecto farming there even more (though I don’t farm that area, so I really can’t say how it was affected).

The following changes affect me, and therefore I’ll discuss them a bit more at length:

• Life Transfer: decreased recharge to 20 seconds. Functionality changed to: “Also hexes foes adjacent to target (6..12 second). Causes -3..8 Health degeneration. You have +3..8 Health regeneration.”
• Order of Undeath: increased recharge to 15; decreased Energy cost to 5. Functionality changed to: “All but one of your minions die. If that minion is non-Elite, it deals +5..30 more damage, has +5..20 Health regeneration, and attacks 33% faster (20 seconds).”
• Pain of Disenchantment: decreased casting time to 1 second; increased recharge time to 15 seconds. Functionality changed to: “Target foe loses 1..3 enchantments. Removal effect: that foe and all adjacent foes lose 10..100 Health.”
• Vampiric Spirit: functionality changed to: “Steal 5..50 Health from target foe. You have +5..10 Health regeneration (10 seconds).”

I’m very happy about Life Transfer. I enjoy the AoE nature of this skill and it is now considered the elite version of Suffering, rather than the elite version of Life Siphon. Spread the Degen around!

I’m very upset about Order of Undeath. Rather than it’s very effective previous use of dealing X extra damage (like the other Orders skills) for each minion and dealing you health damage, this new version gives you one weak berserking minion. It doesn’t add any armor to the minion (who is very likely to be below 20th level) and the regen barely counters the degen of the minion. You waste an elite that requires a second animate skill, when you can just as easily take a Flesh Golem. The damage output is comparable and you can enchant and put weapon skills on the Golem.

Pain of Disenchantment. This looks like fun. An elite enchant removal skill that also deals AoE. It’ll go great with Defile/Desecrate for quick AoE damage and enchant removal. I’m looking forward to playing with this skill.

While it does mess up one of my fun builds whereby I am an AoE life sucker…. I kind of like this version of Vampy Spirit better. It works well on a bar with other life steals and adds regen (a saccer’s best friend next to low max health). I’m looking forward to dusting off my old Medusa build to play with this one.

Other than these skills, the PvE skills I usually use haven’t changed much. Most of them received boons and the ones that were nerfed were only slightly so. Most of the PvE skills that received boons got them on the lower end of things, which doesn’t affect me since I’m r8 or better in all of those titles. It is nice for people who aren’t whoring for titles (like me) so they can have a higher benefit at lower ranks in the titles.

That is it for now I guess. More updates as I mess around with these changes. Feel free to post your comments as well.

-Belzan

I recently tried out a build that utilizes the elite Vampiric Spirit. The build is described here. The build consists of the following skills:

Necromancer/Assassin or
Necromancer/Dervish (see below)

Dark Aura
Masochism
Vampiric Spirt
Dark Pact
Blood of the Aggressor
Dash
Optional
Optional

Max out Blood Magic (with runes)
Death Magic at 12
Rest in Soul Reaping (3 in Earth Prayers, see below)

The intent behind the build is to deal spike damage of 200+ in around 2 seconds. This is done through a combination of effects.

Dark Aura causes AoE damage whenever you sacrifice health. Masochism gives you energy in the same situation. Vampiric Spirit steals life from foes around you whenever you cast a spell.

Both Dark Pact and Blood of the Aggressor sacrifice a small amount of life, thereby triggering both Dark Aura and Masochism. The increase in spell cost for spells cast while enchanted with Vampiric Spirit is swallowed by the energy regen of Masochism. In addition, the stolen health from Vampiric Spirit makes up for the health sacrificed by Dark Pact and Blood of the Aggressor.

Ingenious really.

Dash (assassin skill) is used to get to your opponent and to pursue them if they kite (run away).

My changes would include the following:

Instead of Dash, I like the dervish skill Pious Haste. You don’t move as quickly (33% increase instead of 50%) but you can move constantly considering the 5 second duration and 5 second recharge. In addition, I like the idea of adding Aura of Thorns and perhaps Mystic Regeneration (both dervish) for an AoE cripple/bleed and extra regen for me (a problem I found in large mobs). The downside is having to spend points in Earth Prayers, though putting 3 points will net you an overall +6 regen given your standard 3 enchants.

I use a +5 20% enchant sword and a -5/20% shield with this build, though ideally, I would like to have a focus that is 10% half recharge and -2 damage while enchanted. This will solve many of the energy issues and give me added damage reduction.

As far as equipment is concerned, I disagree with the author of the original build slightly. Lower health means less life sacrificed. Ten percent (10%) sacrifice from Dark Pact hits hard if your health is high (in the 480 range as the author suggests) and it may not be covered by your health steal from Vampiric Spirit. Besides, the lower your initial health, the more you heal from the health steal skills and the more effective Mystic Regen is. I prefer 2 Superior Runes (Blood Magic and Soul Reaping) to bring my health down. I also don’t use any +health mods on my weapons or any vigor/vitae runes. This puts my health in the low to mid 300 range meaning, with Blood Magic at 16, I sacrifice say 35 health from Dark Pact and steal 53 from Vampiric Spirit for a net health gain.

It is a gamble, but to each his own. Watch out for spikes and let your monk know that you are running this build so they can keep an eye on you. Having a bonder would be a good thing too if you plan on playing with low health. I wouldn’t suggest going below 300 health with this build and, in rough areas, I’d stay around 400 health to be safe. Consider swapping items and armor with health mods/runes to manage your health through Death Penalty.

There you have it.