User:Moloch/Build:N/P Knee Cracker

This build is designed to bundle as much useful Curses utility as possible for a physical team into a hero in no need of micro-management. It provided party-wide defense through Enfeebling Blood and incidental damage through Defile Defenses. Weaken Knees is used as an elite for a spammable knockdown source designed to pin kiting foes, and Barbs and Mark of Pain adds the extra damage. Moderate spear DPS and stance breaking also has managed to fit on the bar.

The build has so low energy footprint it can be effectively run on natural Soul Reaping energy management and zealous auto-attacking alone, thus skills for this become redundant. It works well both in an all-physical team layout and in a more balanced setup containing various AoE nukes.

This build was inspired by a discussion regarding a Spiteful Spirit build featuring physical augmentation hexes.

Attributes and Skills
[build prof=N/P curses=12+1+1 soul=9+1 spear=9 command=3][weaken knees][mark of pain][barbs][defile defenses][enfeebling blood][rip enchantment][wild throw][signet of return][/build]

Equipment

 * Radiant insignias.
 * Rune of Superior Vigor and Runes of Vitae.
 * Zealous spear with +5 Energy and +30hp; possibly Heavy spear with same modifications (however +33% Weakness really is overkill.)
 * Shield with +30hp and an inscription of your choice (Sleep Now In The Fire is a PvE favourite, but really, anything you like.) Ideally a Q3 Command (of course you can also spec in Motivation) shield with as high armor rating as you can find; otherwise, any requirement will suffice for 8 armor. A good tip for finding a suitable shield would be to look in low-level Nightfall areas, chests and drops.

Usage

 * Set your hero to defend. Zero micromanagement should be needed - if anything would need to be microed, it's Wild Throw.

Counters

 * General anti-caster.
 * General anti-melee.

Variants

 * If your team sucks so much that you can't kill anything fast enough for Soul Reaping to be effective, switch Rip Enchantment for, or just don't run this build at all - you'd probably be better off with something centered around.
 * If your team is bringing Defensive Anthem, you can either reverse the Command and the Spear Mastery attributes and bring a shout like or, go Motivation for , or go /W, set Tactics to 9 and bring  and Resurrection Signet.
 * The spear skill can be switched for which also provides some synergy with Enfeebling Blood, or a DPS option like, ,.
 * It's possible to switch the elite for, for this put Command at 9, Spear Mastery at 3 and switch the spear attack to Disrupting Throw. This makes hero energy management even better.