I'd like to hear some thoughts from the other WE's in the guild as to the build you are looking at using, and the ins-and-outs of your reasoning.
Myself, I just hit 25 and have all my points in the Suffering line. I grabbed the amazing Kiss of Doom tactic, and the "thorns" ability, and soon will have Black Lotus Blade.
Some initial thoughts:
- The "thorns" ability, with all points in Suffering, does a good deal of damage. Typically I use it in PvE, where I will pull a handful of mobs and pop it. By the time the effect wears off, mob #1 is dead, and the remaining mobs have a very noticable chunk of health missing. Last I looked I think it did 161 damage, which isn't too shabby! In PvP, I'm still up in the air over using the "thorns" vs. our detaunt. I tend to lean towards the "thorns", however, due to the fact that if I have a few Order pounding my face in, halving their damage will give me a second, maybe two, extra to live, whereas 161 damage per hit I take may make the difference between a kill for our team, or that last sliver of life being enough to keep them up for the heartbreaking last second big heal.
- Kiss of Doom rocks! I can't stress it enough. If you don't have it - get it! 25% extra chance for your Kisses to proc is amazing! In PvE, Kiss of Agony procs all the time with this, and in PvP, when taking on my primary target of healers, Kiss of Death is almost guaranteed to be up 100% of the time - invaluable for neutering healers.
- Generally, my targets are healers first, BW's second, SW/WH/Eng third. With Kiss of Death, the healers heals are 45% less effective, and with Black Lotus Blade, the heals they receive (either from themselves or another player) are 50% less effective. For heals the healer places on themself, these effects are multiplicative, not additive. 1*.45*.5=.225, or their self heals are operating at 77.5% lower efficiency. And with Kiss of Doom effectively ensuring Kiss of Death at full up-time, that efficiency level (inefficiency level?) is near permanent.
- This tree is built on 3 key ideas: a) neuter and eliminate healers via KoD and BLB, b) DoT's, more DoT's, more DoT's - Envenomed Blade and Wracking Pains for that fire-and-forget effect (or my favorite, the kill from the grave ), and c) front-line viability through AoE.
- WitchBrew (top of the tree ability) is an AoE, we have our rank 3 Morale ability, which is AoE, and our DoT's, which can be applied, cycle target, lather, rinse, repeat equals alot of damage potential to multiple targets in a relatively short amount of time.
- One thing I've learned, and quickly, is once we get our primary target down, we tend to become persona non grata with Order in a New York minute. Our survivability after our alpha-kill is near non-existant. Which is perfectly fine by me. What is more important for the team to have success - 1 healer, or 1 melee DPS? Exactly. It's a trade-off I will gladly take time and time again. If I can survive long enough to take out another healer or a BW, or at the very least put a nice scare into them and take them out of the battle for a few moments, that's icing on the cake. Healer>>>Witch Elf - in terms of battlefield importance. If I can sacrifice myself at the cost of one of their healers, mission accomplished.