Brothers of Arms

[Gert]

After some tweaking and testing on TL, I've switched to this build on Live.

Usage

By default, I run with Covenant of Pestilence, Aura of Infusion, Drain Life, Curse of Gwhalur and Soul Barrier in Defensive Stance.

I have the 3 Covenants mapped to shortcuts - Vengeance is mapped to Ctrl-Z, Invulnerability to Ctrl-A and Pestilence to Ctrl-S - this is to make switching in fights easier.

Fights where I'm main-tanking or sharing tanking (Gargoyle Master, Yaremka, Farty); I stay in Pestilence. DPS sits around 227.

Fights where the mob does a lot of magic damage (Shadow Imp Lord); I switch to Invulnerability. DPS sits around 227.

For everything else and Chatha adds, I switch to Vengeance (and depending on the mobs, drop from Defensive Stance - using this on Chatha adds helps with the DPS on them). DPS sits around 260 in this mode (but does increase due to Vengeance).

For long fights, I switch to Drain Essence if there isn't a Conq (with the mana/stamina buff) or ToS (with mana tap) in the group.

Combos

Opening move is normally Unhallowed Blight I - it's a quick combo and applies the Spritual Wrack debuff (-10% Holy and Unholy Invulnerability for 30 seconds); followed by Leech Life VI and A Soul for a Feast IV.

Rotation then settles down to Blood for Aid IV - Mystical Bane I (to get some mana regen going) - Unhallowed Blight I - all quick combos with low stamina needs.

For DPS, I use the higher ranks of Mystical Bane (especally on caster mobs), Unhallowed Blight III (have seen this crit for 1.1k in Def Stance) and Blood For Aid V (try to avoid this as it's a 3 key combo).

Warped Dread is used before a big nuke is coming (Enrage at Yaremka, gargoyles spawning at GM, Vistrix's Dark Flames, Farty's add spawns) - normally causes the mob to miss twice and with 1.06 gives a nice retaliation shield.

Spells

Seal of Chaos is fully feated so not only is a good aggro tool - it hits around 1-1.5k unholy damage and regens health and mana. I use this on trash pulls and when need to swap aggro on bosses. Not that useful for Shadow Imp or Chatha adds due to the increased hate and DoT. Fully feated SoC generates more hate due to the DoT and heal components than normal SoC so be careful using this.

Dark Hand is used as both a quick heal (~400-500 heal) and DPS (~1k damage if the mob has the debuff and Drain Strength on them). If I need a bigger heal, I pop Blood Pact then use Dark Hand to get around 900-1k heal (can crit for around 1.3k) then follow up with Unhallowed Blight III and Blood For Aid IV as they generate the most melee damage.

Seal of Yog is used when I have enough Seals - normally during Farty and Smurf fights Try to avoid using this when the Seal count is under 10-12.

Hex Marked Soul is used when a big magic nuke is incoming.[hr][/hr]I'll post some numbers over the following week

[Gert]

Current build is now this

Bit more focus on background unholy damage to help with hate (as also get lifetaps from magic damage) and on more rounded tanking...

I'll be changing soon once the AAS is out and I have a certain skill from there - I'll be losing Goad

[Sotajumala]

This was something i was loking for is it still uptodate and usable?

[Gert]

The April 30th build is my current build but I'll be changing a bit once I get some AA perks

[Sotajumala]

Ok thanks could you post updates and so on? to you build/builds, why not other dt´s to would help a beginner alot

[Gert]

I'll be doing some more builds soon

[Atkara]

This generic Depravity/General build still feels alright to me.

Had some problems at first, no deny. But it was mainly because I was trying to maintain aggro in a raid environment, with Phantom's Edge: A good sword, but a lvl70 one...

Gargoyle Master's Demise definitely made aggro control easier. And, as my DT raids his way to a full epic set, I'm expecting things to get better and better

Jan 15 2011 Update: I started having to resort more and more to Covenant of Vengeance to keep aggro against other rivals (mostly tanks who just won't see the mob right next to them, picking off their own team). So, I modified the above build to this one. This, raised overall melee dps to ~225 on Defense Stance with Covenant of Pestilence/Invulnerability & Aura of Dread Fury on. Should do the job. Will get into some Wing to see how it goes.

[Gert]

Time to update with my new (current) build...was a bit apprehensive changing to this but not yet found any major issues aside from balancing mana (but I have nearly 3k mana on Gert so that helps). Been using this the past week or so on live (and around 2-3 weeks on TL).

Current build

I use Crimson Succour and Death Lord as class AA perks.

Still balancing things on this - mana is a big issue esp when you hit quite a few mobs and there is no incoming spell damage...SoC, CS and MB all help with that though.

For melee tanking, CoA is used - the loss of CoP isn't felt as that was only giving ~1.5% extra mitigation...the extra dmg (and taps from that) seem to overcome that.

Probably tweak a little more - maybe a point or 2 from Dark Hand to Ether Reap as I use all 6 ranks of MB during fights.

[Mistery]

I played with both 1 point and 5 points in ether reap (currently 1), never noticed much difference.

[Gert]

Regen wise there isn't much change but 1 point gives around 60-80 unholy dmg from Reaping; 5 points around 500-600...

Just a matter of tweaking things and changing combo rotations to get the most out of it as this is different to the older build.

[Avaddon]

VOM VOM VOM and crit rating

[Gert]

Current build

Used with either DL/SI (done HM Iron Statues with those 2) or VoM...