Discordway is a hero team build that uses three necromancers equipped with the elite skill, Discord.
Description[ | ]
Like many other multi-necromancer teams, the backbone of Discordway is the nearly-endless supply of energy provided by the necromancer's primary attribute, Soul Reaping. This allows the necromancer heroes to cast their skills as often as possible without worrying about energy.
The typical team consists of:
- N/Rt Healer: Uses Restoration Magic for healing, primarily the party-wide skills Life and Protective Was Kaolai.
- N/Rt Curser/Healer: Responsible for hexing targets and spreading conditions, also helps keep the party alive with Recovery and Protective Was Kaolai.
- N/Mo Minion Bomber/Protector: Maintains a minion army that can both inflict and absorb large amounts of damage, in addition to fueling Soul Reaping. Uses support skills such as Death Nova to increase the minion's damage output as well as Protection Prayers enchantments to increase their damage absorption potential.
Analysis[ | ]
Contrast with Sabway[ | ]
Unlike the similar Sabway team, where each hero has a different elite skill, every hero in Discordway uses the elite Death Magic skill Discord. This requires a slightly less focused attribute point spread on the heroes, since the healer and curser wouldn't otherwise need points in Death Magic, but the consistently high damage output from Discord usually makes this worthwhile.
Discord has a low energy cost, a short recharge, and deals a disproportionately large amount of armor-ignoring damage. The drawback is that the target must be suffering from a condition and be either hexed or enchanted. The heroes' builds typically include a couple hexes and various ways of causing conditions: Enfeebling Blood for AoE Weakness, Death Nova for AoE Poison, and Shambling Horrors which spawn Jagged Horrors which cause Bleeding. Nevertheless, it is important for the rest of the team (particular the player's character) to play backup to the heroes' somewhat inept AI by bringing additional hexes and condition-causing skills.
Another deficiency of the heroes' AI is that they choose targets seemingly at random. The high spike potential of three simultaneous casts of Discord is diluted if the heroes aren't all focused on the same target. For this reason, it is important for the controlling player to call targets for the heroes.
Drawbacks[ | ]
- The build concept relies heavily on readily available corpses for offense, defense, and energy management, making the build weak in areas primarily populated by non-fleshy creatures.
- The build lacks both hex removal and interrupts, so be sure that the other party members can provide them.
- The uncontrollable minions will aggro anything that comes close enough to them, making aggro control difficult in densely populated areas.
- Enemies with hex and/or condition removal can severely cripple this build, although they are often less of a problem than they would appear. Many anti-hex enemies also make heavy use of enchantments, which will fulfill Discord's requirement in place of a hex. Condition removal can simply be overpowered by bringing skills that inflict multiple conditions, skills that hit multiple times with conditions, or skills that hit multiple targets with conditions.
Variations[ | ]
There are any number of variations of the traditional Discordway team:
- Double-Discord: two players with 6 heroes. Take care that the N/Rt heroes do not bring overlapping spirit skills.
- No-minions: one or more of the necromancers bring alternative hexes or condition-causing skills instead of minion skills. This works well with melee-heavy party members in the other 2-4 slots or when the foes are primarily casters.
Notes[ | ]
- Some players insist that the player character apply a hex and a condition to a called target, the most popular combination using "You Move Like a Dwarf!" following Assassin's Promise. Although this has obvious theoretical advantages, no one has published systematic test results that prove this method superior to players using standard builds to accompany their Necro teams.
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Historical note: This build developed from the earlier Sabway team. |