I was messing with the staff over the weekend and came up with a hybrid build that worked rather well in team fights at center nodes on niflhel and foefire
Focus is on using the staff for many conditions bleed, chill, poison, weakness(from blast on poison) and fear. With corrupt boon and epidemic on lower cool down to de-deboon a heavly booned foe and spread the resulting conditions. Use of carrion amulet and jewel gives both high power and high condition damage.
Proposed base build: http://tinyurl.com/97wz2tk
20/20/10/0/0
?/VII
?/VII
V
Second weapon set: Guess this is up to you, I however have been using Dagger with either warhorn or focus. To deal direct damage when jumped by a thief/warrior.
armor runes and sigils
Ive personally not found anything I feel is better than anything else to use here. for sigils ive tried fire on the staff along with bloodlust and force on the offset. sometimes ive used earth on the staff for another bleed.
For runes ive been trying many including 6/6 Scholar, 6/6 elementalist, 6/6 ogre, 6/6 Citadel, 6/6 lyssa, 6/6 Ice
But of yet not found thge “best”
Trait Choices:
For spite minor you can choose between spiteful spirit (retaliation on DS) or spiteful talisman (longer range focus and quick cooldown)
For Curses minior: All apart from 1 and 5 the other traits will fit this with build, Ive been going for either terror (fear damage around 700 with this spec) or enfeebling blood to help when jumped by thieves.
Extra Trait points and final utility
my suggestion is to use the extra 20 points in any of the 3 currently used trait lines. (blood magic and soul reaping should be ignored)
10 points can be added to spite to get the trait XII close to death giving you an additional 20% damage on those below 50%HP + 10%conition duration and 100 more power.
alternativly – adding bone minions and the 30% extra minion damage and you can send in your golem and bombs for some burst.
10 Points can be put into curses to get 2% damage per condtion (works well with the condtions you are putting/corrupting and spreading) and then a choice of several traits:
IX focused rituals – ive been using the targeted wells with well of corruption for more boon-> condition
X Spectral Attunement – ive been pairing this trait with the spectral wall for group protection and mass foe vulnerbility, only takes one guy to walk through the wall one or two times and epidemic for massive vulnerbility.
10 Points in Death magic – Ive been getting II for the larger marks, ive not found many of the other traits in this line to be useful to justify going to 30.
If you havent used a trait that matches a utility you can use blood is power for extra damage or one of the sigils.
Weaknesses: It goes without saying that your toughness is going to be low (around 2000 armor)and your going to be prone to thiefs poping out of stealth on you.
Quick reflexes on DS is going to save you, if you have spiteful spirit let them hit you a few times before fearing them away and either go after them with your off hand set using dark path to get close or kite them with the staff.
Use of death shroud can give you fury for a few seconds while this build is not crit centric every little helps.
(edited by merch.1026)