Category Archives: Chaos

Nightmare Tanking Basics: Sword and Chaos

  By Ryahl | August 24, 2012 - 8:26 pm | , , , ,
12 Comments

The Basic Nightmare Tank

Sword and Chaos

by Ryahl

8 votedEnjoy this build? Vote for IT!

After putting it off for some time, I finally put together a basic nightmare tank sword/chaos tanking build.  If you look at the tank builds I have assembled, it’s easy to see that I have run hammer/chaos for a long, long time.  However, just about everyone recommends sword/chaos.  Well, in general, I think the hammer/chaos builds are fine.  This build, however, does some things (one in particular) better than the hammer/chaos tree.  This basic nightmare tank build (with some tweaks on a boss by boss basis) has successfully cleared the first three nightmares and done a good dent into the next two.

Active Abilities

  • Escalation
  • Karma/Four Horseman
  • Steel Palace/Binding Wounds
  • Chaotic Pull/Surging Blades
  • Art of War/Stoicism
  • Crimson Theater
  • Reality Fracture

Passive Abilities

  • Hardcase
  • Agitator
  • Shadow Play
  • Forged in Fire
  • Fever Pitch
  • Immovable Object
  • Blindside/Intensity

Key Features

This is a pretty bread and butter tanking build.  It picks up most of its mitigation from gear (see below).  The build uses Agitator, Reality Fracture and Crimson Theater for primary agro generation.  Most nightmare tanking builds need a pair of interrupts and this build has two fast recycling ones with Art of War and Chaotic Pull.  Fever Pitch helps solve your glancing problem.  With FP in my build, I can get away with only slotting hit on my weapons, saving all of my talisman for defensive stats.

The build picks up some important basic survival from Steel Palace (minor ward if the target is afflicted) and additional defense from Crimson Theater/Shadow Play.  If your party doesn’t have an affliction starter (get one?) swap out Blindside for Intensity.  If you are finding yourself a bit too squishy, simply do the Blindside/Intensity swap (or cycle Shadow play more often).

I put this build together for a single boss, Wayeb-Xul.  Art of War is a decisive ability with the way Concussion works prior to 1.1.3.  In its current form, Concussion is a knock around, blind and agro dump.  If you save AoW and use it right near the end of a Concussion cast, WX is still on mandatory agro to you, saving one of your DPS!  To do this, though, you need another teammate helping with the breath impairs for WX.

Alternate Builds

For single target fights, I tend to switch Karma for Four Horseman (Call for Eris would work too) and Steel Palace gets swapped for Binding Wounds.

For fights where interrupting is bad (Ur’Draug, I’m looking at you), I tend to move Art of War out and Stoicism in.  Additionally, I also move Chaotic Pull out and replace it with Sling Blade for UD.

For fights where mobility matters (Mayan Battle Mage), consider dropping Chaotic Pull and putting in Surging Blades.

Gearing

Gear is critical to make this build work.  I run about 80/20 hp/atk gear.  I use two minor talisman for ATK and the rest HP.  Block is a very important stat in your first nightmares as the bosses tend to have very high penetrate.  I’m running well over 600 block these days, but when I started NM’s it was hard to break 500.  If your block is only about 500, drop Blindside and replace it with just about any other defensive passive.

Once you have enough block to push the boss penetrate off the table (600 is fine), it’s usually a good idea to focus on a second stat.  I tend to use physical protection or magical protection based on the damage output of the boss (see our Nightmare at a Glance for ideas).  This means you need a lot of gear bags, but such seems to be the nature of tanking in the Secret World.

Rotations

If you are using AoW as an impair (and you should), you can’t really afford to open with it.  This means you have low agro at the start of the fight and your DPS needs to give you a rotation.  This is, perhaps, the single biggest frustration with this build (and its a minor one).  I’m quite spoiled with the huge spike agro of a Stoicism/Razor Shards opener from the Hammer/Chaos side.

Instead, you have to open mild.  Pop a Crimson Theater, Escalate and immediately get a Reality Fracture and Steel Palace up.  This should get your hate generation going well enough to stay ahead of your DPS.

My normal rotation runs 3-5 escalations, reality fracture and crimson theater.  3-5 escalations and steel palace, karma.  Make sure you use CT and RF on recycle in this build, lower your builder rotation to whatever number is comfortable at keeping both of your pulsing aoe’s and steel palace up (for minor ward).

I tend to use Chaotic Pull as my first impair and save AoW for the second.  They both recycle reasonably fast (35 and 30 seconds), so you will rarely have a problem keeping a major boss ability on lockdown with this build.

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My Bloody Tank Build: heal tank with chaos blood

  By Ryahl | August 13, 2012 - 12:00 pm | , , , ,
1 Comment

My Bloody Tank Build

Heal Tank Using Chaos and Blood

An Elite and Nightmare Dungeon Build

5 votedEnjoy this build? Vote for IT!

I have had an opportunity to run this heal tank build through the first three elite dungeons.  It has fared admirably and should work within gearing requirements for those zones.

I have now used this build for Primordial Dweller (Polaris-E) and Wayeb-Xul (Darkness War) Nightmare.  For Primordial Dweller, the ability to generate ranged agro via Open Vein (see the alternate at the end) proved useful.  For Wayeb-Xul, packs of Mayans cluster tightly around you when you cycle a pair of blood 2-pt consumers each rotation cycle!

The heal tank build excels at maintaining agro in fights featuring a lot of tank movement as well as fights with adds coming in from different directions.  The build has successfully held agro off a high-nightmare geared DPS.

Please remember, though, that this heal tank build has not yet been put through its full paces.  While it is no longer purely a conceptual build, it may undergo some tweaks as we finish it up.

Active Abilities

  • Escalation
  • Karma
  • Hematic Rights
  • Exquisite Corpse [Transfuse and Abuse or Smoke and Mirrors replaces as situation warrants]
  • Stoicism – maybe replace with my Bloody Valentine (more uptime)
  • Reality Fracture
  • Ruby Curtain

Passive Abilities

  • Intensity
  • Fever Pitch (reduces glances)
  • Agitator (for threat – may not be needed with this build)
  • Ebb and Flow – increases barriers (helps with low +heal gearing)
  • Perseverence – [re-slot on a case by case basis]
  • Sanguinous – more self-healing (use vessel walls if scarlet arts is replaced with infection)
  • Clotting – makes barriers a lot better

 

Key Features

This heal tank build takes advantage of healings tendency to create playfield wide agro.  This is a play on the heal tank appearing in other games (most notably, the build is quite similar to the Paladin from EQ2).  Conveniently, it turns one of the weaknesses of blood healing into a strength.  Healers often eschew barriers because they can’t stack.  However, with your lower +heal level, your barriers are largely gone every attack.  Your barriers never get in conflict with yourself and you pickup a flat mitigation bonus via barrier.

This heal tank build uses a number of passives that enhance barriers.  Ebb and Flow, Sanguinous, Perseverence and Clotting all work together to add either passive healing or barrier enhancement to a number of your abilities.  Clotting is a weak elite passive for a healer, but in this build, the enhancements to self-barriers and boosts to physical and magical protection essentially make this slot a two for one of Coagulation and Hardcase.

Collectively they turn modest +heal gear into reasonable, constant barrier deployment.  Your barriers are not intended to function as a heal, but rather as additional mitigation and threat development.  The role is a heal tank, not a healer.

The build features the classic Chaos tank functions of Escalate, Intensity and Reality Fracture.  You also draw from chaos for Fever Pitch to help with your hit rate on chaos abilities.

Agro generation comes from Stoicism, Agitator and the natural hate bonuses on Escalate and Reality Fracture.  However, don’t discount the hate coming from Hematic Rights.  Being able to spam a couple of group bubbles creates wide radius hate.

Rotation

This heal tank build does not have the front loaded hate potential of a melee weapon (which starts with full resources).  You have to begin building as you approach your target.  Your opening threat rotation is:

Ruby Curtain (as many as possible), Stoicism, Hematic Rights, Reality Fracture.

You alternate two standard rotations because of cooldown on chaos abilities:

Escalate x5, Reality Fracture, Exquisite Corpse

Escalate x5, Hematic Rights, Karma, Hematic Rights

Use Stoicism to intercept major damage or as a means of creating quick spike agro.  Ruby Curtain is best used whenever you need to move away from the boss.

While you CAN swap your defensive target and use Ruby Curtain for heal support, in practice I find it best to keep myself as the defensive target and use Hematic Rights.

Gear

70/20/10 HP/Heal/DPS.  In my initial notes, I projected running 80/20 HP/Heal, but I have been running it with an extra DPS piece simply because of gear available.  Your Heal and DPS gear pieces should be glyphed to the appropriate defensive stats for your build.

Glyph load out needs to maximize survivability.  For most of the early nightmare dungeons this is high block with physical defense (there are a few fights where magic protection matters).

You can actually slot your blood weapon with critical rate or a blend of crit rate and crit power.  You do not use any blood abilities offensively, so +hit on your blood weapon is relatively pointless.

Healer in party can NOT be a blood healer or too many effects will overlap.  This is perhaps the most important element of this build.  You will find this build at cross purposes of a blood healer.  However, since nightmare healers seem to eschew blood, this works to your advantage.

 Alternate Loads

There are a number of possible situational adjustments to this build.  The one that seems most promising is to replace either Ruby Curtain or Exquisite Corpse (depending on needs of the fight) with Transfused and Abused.  This ability gives you a self cleanse that transfers afflictions over to your offensive target.  Very nice in the right places.

There is also the possibility of dropping Ruby Curtain in favor of Open Vein and then swapping Perseverance with Vessel Walls.  This may actually turn into the dominant load out for this build (still testing its possibilities).

This build becomes a two impair build by substituting reality fracture and stoicism for two impairs of your choice (Domino Effect and Chaotic Pull work).

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Impair based Survival build using Hammer and Chaos by Kallypso

  By Ryahl | August 7, 2012 - 6:32 pm | , , , ,
3 Comments

Impair based Survival

Hammer and Chaos Build

by Kallypso

5 votedEnjoy this build? Vote for IT!

This impairment oriented hammer and chaos build was submitted to us by Kallypso using our Build Submission Tool.  This build is designed to handle solo fights in the Blue Mountains and on.  The build is designed to advance a My First 60 tanking build and evolve it towards more solo play as your ability points open up.

Active Abilities

  • Escalation
  • Razor Shards
  • Call of Eris
  • Trucker
  • Furnace
  • Domino Effect
  • Amor Fati

Passive Abilities

  • Chaos Adept
  • Paradigm Shift
  • Brick Wall
  • No Pain No Gain
  • Pressure Point
  • Breakdown
  • Forged in Fire

Export this build

Follow this link to see the build in Drakkashi’s Deck Manager.  From there, you can export the build (Deck Panel, Export) to TSW using Viper’s Deck Manager (assuming you are using the excellent VDM add-on).


Key Features

This is the build I used to solo Dawning of an Endless Night, even Tier 15/18 is doable solo with this, but I got some help halfway through. (did the first step solo and halfway through the second step I got help, during the 3rd step I was the help, try not to draw aggro from all the enemies at once and you should be fine during all steps) The equip I had where QL6 Blue weapons from the Venice vendors in Blue mountain and random QUL 5 and 6 Talismans I picked up while questing in Savage Coast and Blue Mountain.

What makes this build tick?

Forged in Fire!
I recommend getting this as fast as possible, I died numerous times during questing in very close fights, most of those wouldn´t have happened if I had Forged in Fire. This is probably one of the best solo abilities in game.

I would recommend to go for the Hammer/Chaos tanking build from the My first 60 Section first and put all points into Battering Works from there. So, just do all the quests in Kingsmouth until you have the tanking build and then hit Polaris a few times and then continue to Hell raised. With the equip from Hell raised and Forged in the fire you shouldn’t have any problem doing the quests in Savage Coast and Blue Mountain.  (Disclaimer: I didn’t do this, I only did Polaris once, so my equip is worse than what you get from Hell raised, but was enough to finish Dawning of an Endless Night)

If you are hell bent on solo play (this is a solo build after all) you can replace Razor Shards with another Hammer finisher like Hell to Pay as you won´t need the hate generation.

The main purpose of the build is to survive solo encounters by using some self heal and Impair/Weaken abilities and AOE attacks to survive multiple enemies.  Feel free to try out other abilities like Gnosis, Intensity or Stonewalled.  After finishing this build you can go and get Karma for more self heal in group situations, but on single targets the big damage of Call of Eris is better imho.  From this build you should be able to work towards any of the Chaos/Hammer tanking build in the build section without man problems.

I now just entered Egypt, I might write an update to the build once I finished the next storyline as well. (or write a warning if I failed miserably, lol)

If you got questions or suggestions I would be delighted to hear them, you can also find me on Twitter under @VeganCATS

Gearing Needs

Block rating is the only thing your abilities actually need, so you are free to pick what you like, just make sure to take enough +hit so that you actually hit the targets and don´t glance, but Amor Fati helps out with this a bit.

If you can get enough Penetrate going you could try the immortal Spirit Passive from the Blades Technique tree as it only costs you 1 AP and might be better for a passive heal than No Pain No Gain. (or just use both, I haven´t tried it yet)

Otherwise just use a mix of Health and Atk Power giving items.”

Rotation

Start the fight with Trucker into Razor Shards

Save Trucker for later when fighting enemies that try to get away from you to close the distance faster.

Then 5x Escalate -> Razor Shards -> Call of Eris

Use the other cooldowns early in the fights when needed so that you can reuse them faster, but be careful when using Domino Effect, use it after the Brick Wall and Pressure Point Impairs happened and when you can get healing from No Pain No Gain. Disrupting an Enemy cast with the impair is also nice.”

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Blue Mountain Special: Whistling Fist Survival Build

  By Ryahl | July 29, 2012 - 4:44 pm | , , , , ,
18 Comments

The Whistling Fist

Fist/Chaos Survival

A Blue Mountain Special, by Ryahl

24 votedEnjoy this build? Vote for IT!

This is the second part of a fist/chaos build that was assembled based on a discussion with a board reader.  The “My First 60″ version of the build has been a reasonably successful build and its time now for it to grow up into a 400 point Blue Mountain build.  With the Whistling Fist, you develop fairly significant damage and turn escalation into even more of a multi-effect ability.

**UPDATE** I have played around with this build on test.  Wearing green QL10 gear and using this build, ghouls and vampires in Besieged Farmlands were quite simple.  Impair immune targets were harder, but very survivable.  Additionally, as soon as you have the points, dump Gunsmoke for From the Abyss.  Your DPS meter will thank you!**

Active Abilities

  • Escalation
  • Four Horsemen
  • Tear ‘em Up
  • Surgical Steel
  • Domino Effect
  • Armor Fati
  • Helter Skelter

Passive Abilities

  • Intensity
  • Hot Iron
  • Healing Sparks
  • Shoot ‘Em Up
  • Paradigm Shift
  • Gunsmoke
  • Salt in the Wound

Export to Viper’s Deck Manager
(copy this code into Viper’s Deck manager, exports are a function of Drakashi’s wheel)

VDM%-%6388290%-%7094295%-%6942572%-%6942615%-%6389397%-%7094289%-%7094287%-%6390136%-%7094296%-%6942834%-%6850557%-%6399186%-%6371955%-%6942578

Key Features

This build takes advantage of the fact that Escalate currently brings a ton of utility in a two skill package.  The core attributes of Escalate include a frenzy PBAOE damage that quickly stacks up the exposed weakened state.  10-stacks of exposed will increase your damage by 30%.  Further, the Intensity passive means subsequent applications of escalation give you the minor ward ability, extending your soloing ability just a bit. Paradigm Shift assures that each of your escalate hits increase your hit rate, reducing your likelihood of glancing or missing.  Finally, Gunsmoke piles on a bit of damage each time you escalate.

The build goes VERY deep into assault rifle to pick up a single skill, Shoot ‘em Up.  SeU turns your escalate into an affliction starter in addition to its already stacked up pool of benefits.  Since escalates are now adding afflictions, Tear ‘em Up will give you a 10% damage boost on usage.  Also, Salt in the Wounds is piling on damage every time you apply an affliction, helping scale your escalation damage upwards.

Your chaos finisher is Four Horseman, a burst ability (Call for Eris works well here too).  FH as a burst triggers Healing Sparks, keeping a heal over time running for most of your damage rotation.  You will also use Surgical Steel periodically as a self-heal, which will also trigger Healing Sparks.  Surgical Steel starts stacks on Hot Iron, adding to your heal throughput and additionally adds a heal component to Tear ‘em Up.

The build features three utility abilities, you have Helter Skelter, a dash with a built in impair.  This lets you start every fight against an impaired opponent.  When that impair runs out, you can use Domino Effect to lock down targets again with another impair.  Finally, you have Armor Fati as a buff to make sure you land hits (removes glancing and evasion for 10 seconds).

Rotation

This is a stun lock build.  Open with Helter Skelter to shut down your targets.  Even though you have fist resources on charge in, your fist consumer needs afflicted state, so follow up your charge with Escalation to set the correct state.  Then, use Tear ‘em Up followed by a weak Four Horseman (only one chaos resource built, but the 10% damage boost is better on FH than on escalate).  Your first impair is likely over, so a quick Domino Effect can lock the targets down again if you wish.

Your standard rotation is Escalation x5, Tear ‘em Up, Four Horsemen.  Rotate in Surgical Steel early in place of Tear ‘Em Up.

Armor Fati can be used one of two ways.  On harder fights, throw it at/before your initial charge.  This makes sure everything hits and helps you get paradigm shift stacking.  On easier fights, toss it at a point where you just want to finish off a target.

Alternatives

You may find that life is too risky with just a fist consumer to heal.  If so, swap out surgical steel for cauterize and you have a spam heal.

Build Instructions

This build goes very deep into AR with very little to show for it.  Do NOT spend into the AR tree until you have most of this build assembled.

However, you don’t need Salt in the Wounds until you get Shoot ‘em Up.  Additionally, you might as well use Wild at Heart as your fist closer until you get Shoot em Up.  The nice things in TeU require affliction and this build needs SeU to set that.

Gear Needs

Paradigm shift helps you with your +hit budget, but you will probably find you need some additional +hit as you level up.  Armor Fati doesn’t have enough uptime to ignore +hit.

Your damage bursts are probably best coming from critical rating and critical power.  Since you have passive and self-heals in this build, penetrate has a bit less utility. You can’t penetrate heal, but you can crit heal.  I would recommend either a 1:1 or a 2:1 crit rating to crit power investment.

You need all three types of talisman in this build.  You need some high hitpoint gear, some attack power gear and a bit of healing gear.  I would probably use a tanking headpiece (20% HP), three majors and a minor attack power (60% damage) and two minor +heal pieces (20% healing).  Use the attack power minor (10%) as your “fiddle with” piece.  If you need more HP, swap it to tanking, more healing swap it to +heal.

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TSW Build Page

  By Aela | July 27, 2012 - 5:53 pm | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
29 Comments

TSW Guides – Build Listings

Build Related Editorials: 

You can also SUBMIT YOUR BUILD for inclusion in the TSW Build Listing.

Deck Builders

Advice for our international audience

TSW Build Listing: My First 60

Our “My First 60″ builds are targeted for about 60 ability points — Q2/3, Kingsmouth obtainable. They represent the initial builds for a player starting the game, but wanting to play a focused role. Thus, My First 60 builds are incomplete and NOT intended for mid-game or later play.

Check out our new TSW BUILD SPREADSHEET (link to the Google doc itself).




TSW Build Listing: “Blue Mountain Specials” – 400 (Q6) point builds

We developed our “Blue Mountain Specials” to address the increased difficulty players encounter as the leave Savage Coast (Q4-Q5) and enter Blue Mountains (Q5-Q6).  These TSW Build types are designed to enhance survivability when soloing.

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My First 60: Survival using Fist/Chaos (WIP)

  By Ryahl | July 26, 2012 - 3:09 pm | , , , , ,
6 Comments

Fist Chaos

A My First 60 Survival Build

38 votedEnjoy this build? Vote for IT!

Build Notes: Our “My First 60″ builds are targeted for about 60 total points. They represent the initial builds for a player starting the game, but wanting to play a focused role. Thus, inner wheel builds are incomplete builds and NOT intended for mid-game or later play.

We occasionally create builds based on reader request.  In this case, the reader was looking for a survival oriented build with a chaos base.  The build has not been tested.  However, it works from a base similar to our other MF60 survival builds, so it should perform well.

 

The updated 400 Point Blue Mountain Version of this build.

 Active Abilities

  • Escalation (Chance)
  • Call for Eris (Theory)
  • Wild at Heart (Primal)
  • Nurture (Primal)
  • Go for the Throat (Feral)
  • Paradox (Chance)
  • Illusion (Chance)

Passive Abilities

  • Lick Your Wounds (Fist)
  • Nurturing Gift (Fist)
  • Intensity (Chance)
  • Paradigm Shift (Theory)
  • Gunsmoke (Shotgun – Control)
  • Chaos Adept (Theory)
  • Predator (Feral)

Key Features

This build requires just under 60 total AP to put together.  The build uses one builder, Escalation.  This is a lower damage builder than some of the other fist/chaos options, but it is does damage to multiple targets.  Further, combined with the Intensity passive, escalation is building up the exposed weakened effect, increasing your damage output by as much as 30%.  The weakened effect is triggering processes for the Paradigm Shift and Gunsmoke passives, causing your subsequent attacks to hit more often, for more damage respectively.

While escalation is an AOE, this build has been assembled as a single target build.  Your chaos finisher, Call for Eris does substantial single target damage as does your fist finisher, Wild at Heart.

This build features two utility abilities.  Illusion is there for those situations where a bit more defense would be helpful.  Go for the throat is your elite ability, a single target 5-second stun.  Right after using Go for the throat, follow up with Paradox, which exploits impair for additional damage.

As with any survival build, this build has a few healing sources built in.  Nurture exists to provide some on-demand healing and can help keep a constant heal over time running if rotated frequently.  Nurturing Gift increases both the heal and heal duration of of Nurture.  Lick Your Wounds keeps a constant heal effect running as your damage output stacks up.

Rotation

This is a very straight forwards build.  Consider opening with Go for the Throat and Paradox for a nice 1-2 punch.  Follow that up with Wild at Heart (fist resources should recharge out of combat) and you will have put some serious hurt out right at the start of the fight.

Your standard combat rotation is Escalation x5, Call for Eris, Wild at Heart.  Rotate in Nurture roughly every full rotation to keep the hot effect running.  Use Illusion early in fights against duo’s, giving you a bit more defense until you take out the first target.

Illusion, Go for the Throat and Paradox should be used on recycle.  Later on, if you face targets with significant special attacks, save GffT to interrupt those abilities.  Always use Paradox immediately after GffT.

Build Consideration

Our general rule of thumb for MF60 builds is:

  1.  Get a finisher equipped for each weapon asap (go deep in Primal)
  2. Pickup any cheap passives that synergize with your builders (Gunsmoke and Paradigm Shift)
  3. Go deep in the cell that provides the most remaining used abilities (not really relevant for this build)
  4. Grab remaining abilities based on cheapest to equip

Gear Consideration

Talisman are very important parts of making any build work.  Survival builds require talisman from all three factors (high hit point pieces, high damage pieces, and high healing pieces).  I would aim for 50% high attack power pieces (all three major’s get you here), 30% high hit point pieces (all three minor’s get you here) and 20% high heal pieces (head piece alone gets you here).

You will probably have enough +hit from the stacking paradigm shift.  Look for gear that adds either critical rating and critical power, or gear that adds penetrate.  However with most early game gear, focusing on the primary stats (atk, hp, heal) is more important than the glyph secondary stats.

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Single Target Elite Dungeon: Chaos/Hammer

  By Ryahl | July 24, 2012 - 5:55 pm | , , , ,
1 Comment

Elite Tanking – Weakened Build

Hammer and Chaos Synergy

1 votedEnjoy this build? Vote for IT!

This build uses a weakening trigger to synergize a number of damage and mitigation effects.  The build has worked well through elite dungeons.  It is a relative easy build to put together for those on an AP budget.

Active Abilities
Smash (Hammer) – 1AP
Escalation (Chaos) – 1AP
Razor Shards (Hammer Pit) – 9AP
Call for Eris (Chaos) – 1AP
Stoicism (Turbulence) – 50AP
Reality Fracture (The 4th Wall) – 27 AP
Blowout (Hammer Pit) – 34 AP
Passive Abilities
Turbulence (the Fourth Wall) – 21AP
Forged in Fire (Battering Works) – 50 AP
Below the Belt (Hammer) – 1AP
Intensity (Chaos) – 1AP
Paradigm Shift (Chaos) – 2AP
Inevitability (Building Blocks) – 12AP
Agitator (Turbulence) – 12AP
Key Features
This build uses two builders, since both contribute useful weakened effects.  Smash (with Below the Belt passive) provides one of the easiest accesses to the Debilitate debuff (target damage output weakened up to 30%).
Escalation (with Intensity passive) provides pbaoe hate generation, access to the Exposed debuff (target takes up to 30% more damage) and keeps a near constant minor ward (7.5% reduction from all damage sources).  Escalation also triggers the Turbulence passive, giving you roughly 150 bonus to your evasion.
Additionally, since your builders both generate the weakened effect, you are routinely triggering Paradigm Shift (up to 150 bonus hit rating) and Inevitability (flat 10% bonus to evade).

The Razor Shards finisher is a hate generator which also boosts the hate level of your next attack.  Use Razor Shards and follow it up with either Call for Eris or Smash to significantly boost hate without burning a taunt.

The build also features Stoicism (hate generation with increased mitigation).  Stoicism works wonderfully at the opening of a fight and between transition phases to pickup extra agro.  While it also provides some survivability, it’s real power is that boost to hate generation.

Blowout extends your health bar and Forged in Fire gives your healer a bit of help for those fights where you take some spike damage.

Rotation
Open with stoicism and razor shards since it should be at full resources outside of fights.  From there alternate Smash and Escalate until 5 Resources, use Reality Fracture and Blowout on your first cycle (this is when it’s completely safe for DPS to go all out).  From that point on cycle your builders with Razor Shards and Call for Eris (depending on your chaos finisher, Razor Shards may be best used last).  After the initial round, use Reality Fracture and Blowout on cooldown, even if firing with less than full resources.

Alternatives
I often rotate the Call for Eris active depending on the situation. Karma provides pbaoe damage with a heal to next target.

 

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The Brandish Tank – by Arctus

  By Ryahl | July 19, 2012 - 2:31 pm | , , , , ,
14 Comments

Designed by Arctus
Submitted 19-Jul, via our board submission tool

2 votedEnjoy this build? Vote for IT!

Weapons – Blade/Chaos

Utility level – this works in Nightmare dungeons

Actives

Escalation
Matador
Crimson Theatre
Brandish
Pulling the Strings
Illusion
Stoicism

Passives

Brandishing Support
Intensity
Inevitabilty
Sixth Sense
Agitator
Fuel to the Fire
Master of Illusion

Key Features

This is a standart build for NM. Its tested by many players, but you need to know the boss and adapt your build to the boss.  Usually you are expected to bring exposed debuff (30% more dmg)! In exchange 1 dd brings the 30% less dmg debuff.   Chaos is the only reasonable source for the exposed debuff and usually you dont see any melee’s in NM.


1.  Escalation also offer’s a good aggro generation, aoe aggro, 7,5% less dmg and minor evade chance.
2.  Cornerstone is brandish. Use it as often as possible.
3.  Crimson Theatre is a filler, usually this is the spot where you fit in abilities you need for a boss. Taunt, Crimson for aoe (use shadowplay instead of brandish support), 3. CD
4.  I really like Pulling the Strings because it has some range and gives you a decent hit buff, but of course you could use Karma or Consequence instead for more defense)
”

Rotation

1. Use escalation to build 10 stacks exposed
2. use matador for 5 stacks defense
3. Brandish on CD or on a strong attack from the boss (depends on the fight)
4. Crimson Theatre for additional AOE aggro
5. Illusion and Stoicism as CD’s
6. Pulling string for hit cd and to have a medium range attack.

Gear Needs

1. defense
2. evade
3. phys / magic protection
4. block

 

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“Blue Mountain Special” 407 Point Chaos / AR – Survival Build

  By Aela | July 15, 2012 - 8:58 pm | , , , , ,
5 Comments

TSW Guides – “Blue Mountain Special”


Chaos / AR – Survival Build

407 Points


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The Blue Mountain Specials are 400 point survival builds that are built around dps and healing.  The builds are targeted at 400 points, which is approximately the number of points you will have at QL 6.  


These builds are not intended to be “end-game” builds, they are solo friendly survival builds that should help you live longer when moving out of Savage Coast into the Blue Mountains.  While these builds are not guaranteed to survive all fights in Blue Mountain (some fights in BM have special effects that hinder success with some builds), it is a good direction for progression.  

Note:  If you can not find the ability in your wheel, click on the menu to the right of your wheel screen, and do a search on the skill name.

Weapons:  Assault Rifle and Chaos

Actives:
Escalation – Builder
Fire at Will – AR Closer #1
Anima Outbreak – AR Closer #2
Karma – Chaos Closer
Tactical Retreat – Escape #1
Razor Wire – Escape #2
Anima Shot – Healing Builder, if needed

Passives:
Perseverance (Sword)
Outbreak Alert  (AR)
Immortal Spirit (Sword)
Shoot Em Up (AR)
Unholy Knowledge (Blood)
Fatal Flourish (Sword)
Leeching Frenzy  (AR)

This build plays nearly identical to the previous “My first 60″ AR/Blade build, however instead of running with Sword, it uses Chaos. It does, however, branch OFF the AR/Blade “My first 60″, therefore it is intended to be a followup to that build. Once you complete the AR/Blade my first 60, you should start working to this build if you wish to run Chaos instead of Sword.

First, Be sure and start the fight with the rotation: 1x Anima Shot, followed by Anima Outbreak immediately so Outbreak Alert (reduced chance of glance) procs before you take any damage.  Then you would build using Escalation, then close (as with the “My first 60″ AR/Blade build“, close with an alternation of Fire at Will and Anima Outbreak.  The Chaos Closer for the build is Karma, which has a Frenzy effect.

The primary focus of the build is to make sure of Frenzy attacks to proc Perseverance (Heal), Shoot Em Up (adds an affliction from a Frenzy), and Leeching Frenzy (Gives Leech effect on Frenzy).  The Affliction from Shoot Em Up causes the effects - Dark Potency & Fatal Flourish (Gives Penetrate from Affliction), thus increasing your penetration rate.  Finally, penetrations cause Immortal Spirit (heal from penetrate) to give you even more sustainability.  


Your primary dps will be from your AOE attacks.  If you wish to replace either with a single target attack, you will lose the Frenzy effects, so I would be leery of making this change.  

By using this build you should have enough passive direct self healing, as well as leech effects that you might not even need Anima Outbreak.  This ability, however, procs the outbreak alert, which is very nice.  If you need less healing, I would recommend possibly swapping a passive for Gunsmoke.  You can even remove any combination of Dark Potency, Fatal Flourish, and Immortal spirit and replace either with something that does more damage (off affliction or weaken).

Good luck!

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Hard to Kill – Agro and Mitigation from Hammer and Chaos

  By Ryahl | July 8, 2012 - 7:22 pm | , , , , ,
7 Comments
This is an upgrade to my elite Hammer/Chaos build.  The build continues to work from the weakened synergy, but now benefits from a number of outer wheel abilities.
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Active Abilities
Escalation (Chaos Inner)
Rupture (Hammer Pit)
Consequence (Building Blocks)
Razor Shards (Hammer Pit)
Stoicism (Turbulence)
Reality Fracture (The Fourth Wall)
Blowout (Hammer Pit)
Passive Abilities
Improved Blasts (Excessive Damage)
Bullheaded (Hammer Pit)
Fixation (Shell Game)
Gnosis (Inner Chaos)
Turbulence (The  Fourth Wall)
Inevitability (Building Blocks)
Agitator (Turbulence)
Synergies
Escalation applies  exposed and Rupture with Improved Blasts applies Debilitate.  Both weaken multiple targets, meaning you should have your opponents doing 30% less damage and taking 30% more damage very quickly.  Rupture is also causing Bullheaded to process gradually increasing both your magical and physical protection.
Since everything is weakened, Gnosis will trigger more damage and Fixation will make sure you hit plenty often.  Inevitability is also firing off improving your evade chance, while escalation as a frenzy is causing  Turbulence to process stacking up your evade rate. Since these are different buffs to evasion, you get both benefits.

BUILD UPDATE – If you are facing smaller pack fights (e.g. three or fewer mobs) consider slotting Gunsmoke instead of Gnosis.  For small fights, Gunsmoke does 2x the damage of Gnosis.  For larger pack environments, Gnosis outperforms.  Hell Rising – Gunsmoke, Darkness War – Gnosis, Ankh – Gunsmoke, Hell Fallen – Gnosis.

The build features several threat generating skills. Agitator is a nice passive hate increase while Stoicism on a 30-second cooldown also provides a healthy agro increase.  One of  your long finishers, Reality Fracture gives you a targeted AOE  pulsing hate field, while your Razor Shards instant finisher gives a PBAOE hate gain and provides a bonus hate to your next attack – which should be Rupture since it benefits from firing with no hammer resources.
The build also carries an abundance of mitigation benefits, beyond those already mentioned.  Stoicism gives you a reliable 30-second mitigation buff.  Consequence, similarly should keep a mitigation buff up between long recycle closers.  Finally, Blowout doesn’t add mitigation, but it extends your hitpoint bar since it’s hitting weakened targets.  With all that stacked mitigation, that’s a lot of effective hitopint acquisition.
Rotations
This is a fairly complex build, since it features three long-recycle abilities with different lengths (Stoicisim, 30 seconds; Blowout, 15 seconds and Reality Fracture, 10 seconds).
Open with a Razor Shards, since you get free hammer resources.  From there, fire off Stoicism to begin hate acquisition.  Alternate Rupture and Escalation to begin applying debuffs.  On your first closer cycle, use Blowout and Reality Fracture.  Return to rotation your Escalation and Rupture builders.  Replace instant closers with Reality Fracture and Blowout on recycle.  Also work in Stoicism on recycle.
Alternate Ideas
Consider dropping Inevitability in favor of Forged In Fire for passive hitpoint regeneration.  Additionally, consider dropping Gnosis for Crap Shoot (Hunkering Down) in fights where purges are important.
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