PsionicFox
Future Man
The Conditionmancer
The Conditionmancer (Mark II) [Using a new calculator]
Tristan, as promised, here is your build.
Don't read if you don't want to. But this is the best non-MM build I can come up with without access to the game to playtest in. If you DO read it, as you can see, this non-MM build is really nice! Man that took a long time to write. But I think I'm done.
Phew!
The Conditionmancer (Mark II) [Using a new calculator]
Tristan, as promised, here is your build.
Okay, so this whole build sounds complex, but it's actually very simple.
The whole idea here is to win via condition control. Lets look at the way this build does that. We'll start with the weapon skills:
Scepter + Dagger: This combo is great for smacking your opponent with lots of conditions. Your auto-attack skill (1) places three conditions in the target. Two separate bleed stacks, and then a poison. Your (2) skill, Grasping Dead is an AoE Cripple + Bleed. Meanwhile your two dagger skills from the off-hand also grant conditions. The (5) skill, Enfeebling Blood is a ground targeted AoE that causes Weakness and Bleeding. While your (4) skill, Deathly Swarm unleashes a 1200 range blind for six seconds, and transferring up to three of your own conditions onto them upon hit. Pretty nice right? Now, you're probably wondering why i didn't mention the the (3) skill. And the reason is this: Feast of Corruption doesn't impose conditions. What it does do is additional damage for every condition the target is currently suffering. It also gives you bonus Life Force for every condition they're currently suffering. Which is VERY nice. We've got some nice chaining going on here. Thanks to the short cooldowns, we're going to be constantly applying conditions, or exploiting them for damage and Life Force.
Staff: The weapon has one direct damage skill. ONE. And it's your auto-attack. Every other skill is a ground targeted 'trap' called a 'Mark'. These 'Marks' are triggered by an enemy stepping into the trigger zone. The effect is limited to the trigger zone, which has a 120 radius. Please note, an enemy is the ONLY thing that can set a 'Mark' off once its cast. That and recasting it. Here they are in order:
(2) Mark of Blood: Causes Bleeding on the target, and Regen to allies.
(3) Chillblains: Causes Chilled. Also leaves a Poison Field for a few seconds.
(4) Putrid Mark: Transfers conditions from allies to foes.
(5) Reaper's Mark: Causes Fear.
Pretty neat right? You've got some solid condition smackdown, as well as some support in the form of dumping conditions from yourself and allies with a few spells. And we can do this at the extreme 1200 range via the staff, or at close range with the Scepter/Dagger combo. But so what? All you've done is stack them full of conditions. But this is where the real fun comes in.
Healing Spell: The spell you want here is Consume Conditions. This spell gives a flat heal to you, while removing any conditions you are currently suffering. Nice! But it gets better. It also increases the amount healed for each condition removed this way! With enough conditions on yourself, you can heal for around 75% of your health. 75%! But hang on a second, we shouldn't be suffering too many of those, since we're not on the frontlines, right? Wrong. See below.
Utility Skills: Here's where we get into the true power of this build. Allow me to demonstrate:
Plague Signet: The Passive effect here is very nice. It will draw a condition off of a nearby ally every few seconds, placing them on you. No thanks! I hear you say. But hear me out. The Active part of this skill takes every condition you are currently suffering, and places them on a target foe. Wow. Talk about suddenly having a bad day, right? So this is cool, but still not that amazing since we're just laying down conditions. But keep reading. It gets better.
Corrupt Boon: Now, this skill has a twofold effect. First, you get his with a self-target poison for six seconds. Normally, that would suck, but remember all those ways we can dump our conditions? Yeah, you can dump this one too. And when you consider that it also transforms every boon on the target into a condition, your poor target is now in a world of hurt. That Guardian getting uppity with all his boons? Shut him down with this!
Epidemic: This skill is incredible. Okay, your foe is Bleeding, Crippled, Chilled, Poisoned, Confused, you name it. Hit him with this spell. Now all of his friends are suffering those same conditions too. Holy condition hell, Batman! You just shut down that whole group!
Elite Skill: Here, you have a choice. Either Lich or Plague forms are going to be best here, with Plague just edging out the other due to the stacking of conditions. But that's my opinion.
The more astute amongst you already be seeing the combos evident in the build. The great part about this is that you don't need some ridiculous skill chain in order to make it work. 2-3 skills chain together will lay the smackdown. So I've simplified it down to some IF > THEN statements.
1. Does my opponent have 3+ conditions? If yes, use Epidemic and Corrupted Feast. If no, start stacking conditions.
2. Do I have 2+ conditions? Dump with Deathly Swarm, Consume Conditions, or Plague Signet.
These are the two main questions you need to ask yourself. The rest is simply you adapting to your situation.
Traits: Last part, I promise. So we're stacking conditions left right and center, but we need some traits to support that. To that end, we max out Spite, which passively increases our damage, along with the duration of our conditions. Perfect for this build. The passive Traits are Parasitic Bond, heal for some damage when you kill something, Death into Life, adding 5% of your power to healing effects (good for our heal skill), and Siphoned Power, which grants might if you drop below 25% health. Our selected Traits are: Signet Mastery to lower the cooldown on our Plague Signet (very important); Spiteful Marks making the Mark spells from our Staff weapon do more damage, allowing us to fulfill the 'artillery' role as needed; and Chill of Death. This one affects the target with Spinal Shivers when they hit >25% health. Spinal Shivers Chills the target and removes three Boons. Damn. Way to ensure the kill there.
Our next tree is Curses, which passively grants Precision (crit chance), and Condition Damage. So now our conditions last longer thanks to Spite, but now they do more damage? We rock! On top of that, we gain: Barbed Precision, making crits cause bleeding; Furious Demise granting fury when you use Death Shroud; and Target the Weak, which increases our damage for every condition on the target. Our selected Traits are: Hemophilia, making all Bleeds last longer; Master of Corruption, which speeds up the cooldown on Corrupted Boon and Epidemic; and finally Lingering Curse, making our Scepter-caused conditions last longer.
Our final ten points go into Blood for a bonus 1000 health, +100 to healing effects, as well as gaining a 5 second Regen when our health goes below 90% (30 second cooldown), and a free Mark of Blood casting every time we dodge. Alternatively, take the Trait that reduces dagger cooldowns. That's personal preference.
Cool, right?
The whole idea here is to win via condition control. Lets look at the way this build does that. We'll start with the weapon skills:
Scepter + Dagger: This combo is great for smacking your opponent with lots of conditions. Your auto-attack skill (1) places three conditions in the target. Two separate bleed stacks, and then a poison. Your (2) skill, Grasping Dead is an AoE Cripple + Bleed. Meanwhile your two dagger skills from the off-hand also grant conditions. The (5) skill, Enfeebling Blood is a ground targeted AoE that causes Weakness and Bleeding. While your (4) skill, Deathly Swarm unleashes a 1200 range blind for six seconds, and transferring up to three of your own conditions onto them upon hit. Pretty nice right? Now, you're probably wondering why i didn't mention the the (3) skill. And the reason is this: Feast of Corruption doesn't impose conditions. What it does do is additional damage for every condition the target is currently suffering. It also gives you bonus Life Force for every condition they're currently suffering. Which is VERY nice. We've got some nice chaining going on here. Thanks to the short cooldowns, we're going to be constantly applying conditions, or exploiting them for damage and Life Force.
Staff: The weapon has one direct damage skill. ONE. And it's your auto-attack. Every other skill is a ground targeted 'trap' called a 'Mark'. These 'Marks' are triggered by an enemy stepping into the trigger zone. The effect is limited to the trigger zone, which has a 120 radius. Please note, an enemy is the ONLY thing that can set a 'Mark' off once its cast. That and recasting it. Here they are in order:
(2) Mark of Blood: Causes Bleeding on the target, and Regen to allies.
(3) Chillblains: Causes Chilled. Also leaves a Poison Field for a few seconds.
(4) Putrid Mark: Transfers conditions from allies to foes.
(5) Reaper's Mark: Causes Fear.
Pretty neat right? You've got some solid condition smackdown, as well as some support in the form of dumping conditions from yourself and allies with a few spells. And we can do this at the extreme 1200 range via the staff, or at close range with the Scepter/Dagger combo. But so what? All you've done is stack them full of conditions. But this is where the real fun comes in.
Healing Spell: The spell you want here is Consume Conditions. This spell gives a flat heal to you, while removing any conditions you are currently suffering. Nice! But it gets better. It also increases the amount healed for each condition removed this way! With enough conditions on yourself, you can heal for around 75% of your health. 75%! But hang on a second, we shouldn't be suffering too many of those, since we're not on the frontlines, right? Wrong. See below.
Utility Skills: Here's where we get into the true power of this build. Allow me to demonstrate:
Plague Signet: The Passive effect here is very nice. It will draw a condition off of a nearby ally every few seconds, placing them on you. No thanks! I hear you say. But hear me out. The Active part of this skill takes every condition you are currently suffering, and places them on a target foe. Wow. Talk about suddenly having a bad day, right? So this is cool, but still not that amazing since we're just laying down conditions. But keep reading. It gets better.
Corrupt Boon: Now, this skill has a twofold effect. First, you get his with a self-target poison for six seconds. Normally, that would suck, but remember all those ways we can dump our conditions? Yeah, you can dump this one too. And when you consider that it also transforms every boon on the target into a condition, your poor target is now in a world of hurt. That Guardian getting uppity with all his boons? Shut him down with this!
Epidemic: This skill is incredible. Okay, your foe is Bleeding, Crippled, Chilled, Poisoned, Confused, you name it. Hit him with this spell. Now all of his friends are suffering those same conditions too. Holy condition hell, Batman! You just shut down that whole group!
Elite Skill: Here, you have a choice. Either Lich or Plague forms are going to be best here, with Plague just edging out the other due to the stacking of conditions. But that's my opinion.
The more astute amongst you already be seeing the combos evident in the build. The great part about this is that you don't need some ridiculous skill chain in order to make it work. 2-3 skills chain together will lay the smackdown. So I've simplified it down to some IF > THEN statements.
1. Does my opponent have 3+ conditions? If yes, use Epidemic and Corrupted Feast. If no, start stacking conditions.
2. Do I have 2+ conditions? Dump with Deathly Swarm, Consume Conditions, or Plague Signet.
These are the two main questions you need to ask yourself. The rest is simply you adapting to your situation.
Traits: Last part, I promise. So we're stacking conditions left right and center, but we need some traits to support that. To that end, we max out Spite, which passively increases our damage, along with the duration of our conditions. Perfect for this build. The passive Traits are Parasitic Bond, heal for some damage when you kill something, Death into Life, adding 5% of your power to healing effects (good for our heal skill), and Siphoned Power, which grants might if you drop below 25% health. Our selected Traits are: Signet Mastery to lower the cooldown on our Plague Signet (very important); Spiteful Marks making the Mark spells from our Staff weapon do more damage, allowing us to fulfill the 'artillery' role as needed; and Chill of Death. This one affects the target with Spinal Shivers when they hit >25% health. Spinal Shivers Chills the target and removes three Boons. Damn. Way to ensure the kill there.
Our next tree is Curses, which passively grants Precision (crit chance), and Condition Damage. So now our conditions last longer thanks to Spite, but now they do more damage? We rock! On top of that, we gain: Barbed Precision, making crits cause bleeding; Furious Demise granting fury when you use Death Shroud; and Target the Weak, which increases our damage for every condition on the target. Our selected Traits are: Hemophilia, making all Bleeds last longer; Master of Corruption, which speeds up the cooldown on Corrupted Boon and Epidemic; and finally Lingering Curse, making our Scepter-caused conditions last longer.
Our final ten points go into Blood for a bonus 1000 health, +100 to healing effects, as well as gaining a 5 second Regen when our health goes below 90% (30 second cooldown), and a free Mark of Blood casting every time we dodge. Alternatively, take the Trait that reduces dagger cooldowns. That's personal preference.
Cool, right?
Don't read if you don't want to. But this is the best non-MM build I can come up with without access to the game to playtest in. If you DO read it, as you can see, this non-MM build is really nice! Man that took a long time to write. But I think I'm done.
Phew!
