N/W Death's Shadow

This gimmick arena build combines life drainage and armor-ignoring spiking to devastate any foe. This build should not be used for any serious purpose.

Attributes and Skills

Equipment

Players should equip a sword that deals additional damage when enchanted to maximize your damage output, and has a crippling hilt and either an of Defense, of Shelter or of Enchanting pommel
Carry a Blood Magic offhand that enhances the recharge/casting time of Blood Magic spells
Have a Tormentor's/Necrotic tunic and leggings, at least, to improve your naturally low armor. Going pure-Tormentor's/Necrotic is viable, but you'll be leaving yourself very vulnerable to Holy damage

Usage

The usual casting order for a Death's Shadow:
Aura of the Lich
Dark Aura
Blood Renewal
Touch of Agony
Barbed Signet
If executed properly you should almost always have the health regeneration, and occasional heal, from Blood Renewal, and area-affected Shadow damage, which makes this a "survivor"
While this build can take on any class, targeting the monk (as usual) is particularly effective. Hamstring will aid your warrior allies, and the near-unstoppable amount of Shadow damage will make the healer or protector monk quite "selfish", as they'll suddenly focus on (desperately) healing themselves. This also goes for enemy Priest
Be careful not to cast Aura of the Lich when your health is particularly low. The same goes for Blood Renewal
While Blood Renewal seems out of place at first, it makes for an amazing self-heal if combined with Aura of the Lich. You'll only sacrifice 12.5% health, as Aura of the Lich "quarters" damage from sacrifices. In addition, you can cast it after Dark Aura for a spiking prelude

 Template Guide

The Skills Template for this build is:
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Notes

Aura of the Lich compensates for the Death's Shadow's inherently low armor, but it also reduces the amount of health sacrificed
Blood Renewal is a great self-heal, in this case, as you sacrifice less health with Aura of the Lich on.
While this build is not completely dependent upon melee range, Hamstring should be used on fleeing foes

Variants

Touch of Agony could be replaced with Dark Pact for less melee range dependency
Order of Pain and Flurry would make for a great melee damage combo, particularly in PvE or Alliance Battles
Life Siphon could replace Blood Renewal to lower the dependency upon enchantments
Wallow's Bite could replace Barbed Signet for more spammable damage, though this causes more constant and possibly riskier health sacrifice.
Demonic Flesh mixes well with Aura of the Lich, boosting your low health with no increase in damage taken from outside sources. However, this makes you more dependent on enchantments and causes you to sacrifice more health.
For ABs, replace Resurrection Signet with Plague Touch or Plague Sending.
Blood of the Aggressor may also be substituted for Barbed Signet for a quickly recharging skill with a very small health sacrifice.

Counters

Remove or interrupt the enchantments upon which this build depends.
Crippling, as with any melee-range attacker, makes this build difficult to be efficient.
Health degeneration and Deep Wound work well due to this build's low health.
Life stealing does not count as damage in the usual sense and thus will completely ignore the damage-reducing effects of Aura of the Lich. Life stealing skills such as Vampiric Touch and Vampiric Gaze are therefore very dangerous to this build due to its low health.