Curse

iVendetta · Dec 27, 2008, 04:16 PM // 16:16

So I made a Dervish for nothing then? );

shoyon456 · Dec 27, 2008, 08:53 PM // 20:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by MegaVolti

Cit Scythesins ARE effective in PvE. You WILL get tons of crits, even vs high lvl enemies.
But Moebius + Death Blossom usually is even more effective

Which isn't really good for Dervishes. They can't compete damage-wise with Assassins and their defense is also not really better.

So to answer the initial question, are Dervishes needed?
In short: No.
In long: Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo ooooooooo.

I really wish you would actually take the time to find out for yourself. You do not crit very much in HM, period. Maybe in NM, but that doesnt conern me because any asshat can go through NM with mending on his bar. Two, the other enchants are critical defenses and crit agility, did you forget those? Crit defenses is flimsy at best, especially when you don't get crits often in HM, which is the only thing that matters in my mind.

Two, concerning warriors, if they want to use a scythe, they can't just roll their head around on the keyboard. Warriors would not depend on enchants, true, but they cannot spam attacks as often as a Dervish. Taking an avatar is a GOOD THING. If you think its bad that the only signature dervish skills you will see in pve are avatars, you obviously haven't read their effects. Frankly, by your logic, Are sins needed? Noooooooo, because I can put out 2x more damage with Avatar of Lyssa, daggers, and an IAS (heart of fury).

Luminarus · Dec 28, 2008, 12:08 AM // 00:08

Quote:

Originally Posted by shoyon456

I really wish you would actually take the time to find out for yourself. You do not crit very much in HM, period. Maybe in NM, but that doesnt conern me because any asshat can go through NM with mending on his bar. Two, the other enchants are critical defenses and crit agility, did you forget those? Crit defenses is flimsy at best, especially when you don't get crits often in HM, which is the only thing that matters in my mind.

How about u take the time to test it? I dont do it very often, but I did pits in UW SC with the A/D. I can tell you for a fact that atleast 1 in 3 hits was a crit, but it was more like 2/3. This is against lvl 30's. Im not talking damage here because thats less relevant, and warped due to using Shadow Form and Aura of Holy Might vs Undead. You cannot say that critting every 1-2 hits is bad for a scythe. This was only using way of the master for extra crits.

Crit defences is a bad skill anyway. Crit agility is good, yes but if your in a high enchant removal area bring a different IAS.

Quote:

Originally Posted by shoyon456

Two, concerning warriors, if they want to use a scythe, they can't just roll their head around on the keyboard. Warriors would not depend on enchants, true, but they cannot spam attacks as often as a Dervish.

[Warriors [email protected]][Power [email protected]][Protectors [email protected]][Eremite's [email protected]][Flail]

This can spam attack skills to the cows come home. If you are hitting 2 or more things you MAKE energy from using the attack skills. You cannot say that a derv with its energy regen can spam attacks more then 3 attack skills every 4 seconds. Could put Mystic Sweep in there if you wanted for 4 attack skills every 4 seconds.

Quote:

Originally Posted by shoyon456

Taking an avatar is a GOOD THING. If you think its bad that the only signature dervish skills you will see in pve are avatars, you obviously haven't read their effects. Frankly, by your logic, Are sins needed? Noooooooo, because I can put out 2x more damage with Avatar of Lyssa, daggers, and an IAS (heart of fury).

a) Moebius Deathblossom will kill a mob faster then that anyday due to the better, more permanent IAS, more aoe and similar direct target damage. The MB/DB will do twice as much aoe as you, and the single target damage is the same, if not higher for the sin. Lyssa will net you + 164 assuming they are using a skill constantly. + 80 from death blossom, + 26 from fox, + 30 from wild. Thats 300 damage to one target in 4 seconds. Assassin does 172 from death blossom, and + 60 from moebius strike. thats 232, which is far from 1/2 as much as a derv. Its AOE is doubled, and if the target is below 50% hp the damage speeds up a bit. Your damage also gets reduced when ur IAS runs out, whilst the sin would never run out. Finally energy, the sins crit strikes mean it will never run out, whilst you would need a lot of energy management to maintain it. 15 energy every 4 seconds (11 if you use zealous daggers) is still expensive.

Secondly, using an avatar with a scythe.
If you take an avatar, you lose 1/4 of your bar, an elite, and a pve skill for it. Your bars base is already:

[Avatar of Lyssa][Eternal Aura][Aura of Holy Might]

Lets say you want an IAS thats another skill slot gone, and its still not permanent.

[Avatar of Lyssa][Eternal Aura][Aura of Holy Might][Heart of Fury]

Furthermore, the warrior can spam all day long whilst you cant. Assuming you use a combo like the warriors one that can hit 3 times in 4 seconds, its very expensive, atleast 15 energy in 4 seconds. As well as this, you only have 1 slot left for utility, whilst the warrior build still has 3 slots left.

The ONLY benefit dervs have over sins/warriors is avatars, and even then they arent that great. Melandru is expensive. Dwaynas is only useful in hex heavy areas. Lyssa is good. Balthazar is crap, and I havent tried grenth but the meager life steal doesnt seem that great. I can say straight off that I would prefer a warrior.

The Meth · Dec 28, 2008, 12:43 AM // 00:43

A scythesin should be able to kill nearly any caster in PvE NM or HM in 3 or 4 swings. I have not used the warrior scythe builds personally, but it should be nearly as good and provide SY at the same time. If that's underpowered please show me your builds that do better.

The only real advantage a Dervish has is higher scythe attribute from runes and forms. The extra damage from runes doesn't nearly make up for the sin and warrior's advantages. Form's require both your elite slot AND a PvE skill slot to keep them up and don't really bring anything great to the table unless you are in an area with MAJOR conditions and hexes. Wounding strike is just flat out better then most forms.

Still, just because Dervishes aren't the absolute best doesn't mean they aren't useful. A properly used dervish rips though enemies just fine throughout all of NM and HM.

Quote:

Originally Posted by shoyon456

I really wish you would actually take the time to find out for yourself. You do not crit very much in HM, period. Maybe in NM, but that doesnt conern me because any asshat can go through NM with mending on his bar.

Maybe YOU should test that out. I have personally tested over 500 hits with a sin and against a level 26 in HM and I got approximately 17.2% criticals with just 12 in scythe mastery, so you can't say the difference is meaningful at all if it even exists. Go ahead and test some and tell us what you get.

Tyla · Dec 28, 2008, 12:46 AM // 00:46

Quote:

Originally Posted by shoyon456

I really wish you would actually take the time to find out for yourself. You do not crit very much in HM, period. Maybe in NM, but that doesnt conern me because any asshat can go through NM with mending on his bar. Two, the other enchants are critical defenses and crit agility, did you forget those? Crit defenses is flimsy at best, especially when you don't get crits often in HM, which is the only thing that matters in my mind.

Do you even play Assassin? You have an automatic crit skill at your disposable there, better than Wild Blow for a Derv infact to add on. Crit Defenses is shit anyway. Crit Agility isn't needed, because when you have consumables you can use Drunken Master, which is far better due to it being harder to strip - assuming you're not doing utter-joke PvE.

Quote:

Two, concerning warriors, if they want to use a scythe, they can't just roll their head around on the keyboard. Warriors would not depend on enchants, true, but they cannot spam attacks as often as a Dervish. Taking an avatar is a GOOD THING. If you think its bad that the only signature dervish skills you will see in pve are avatars, you obviously haven't read their effects. Frankly, by your logic, Are sins needed? Noooooooo, because I can put out 2x more damage with Avatar of Lyssa, daggers, and an IAS (heart of fury).

I think you're pretty dumb. First you say crits are impossible to hit in HM, then you say that Warriors' Endurance doesn't allow you to spam attacks like a Derv can. Nobody said that avatars were bad, that is you not reading. Unmaintanable enchant-fueled things like Heart of Fury are weaker than the likes of Crit Agility and with Moebius Strike you pump out more AoE damage than Lyssa, and if you're in the right mind you'd also be using some form of knockdown in your team build.

Pocketmancer · Dec 28, 2008, 01:21 AM // 01:21

What's a Dervish?

------------

On a more serious and related note, I'd like to point out that Dervishes make decent farmers and excellent runners. I still look for D/A runners to Droknar for instance.

In semi-large paragon parties, Arcane Order dervishes are pretty nice to have. They might not be on the offensive side, but the synergy from just having one Arcane Order dervish in a semi-large paragon party can do wonders.

------------

As for weapons and their respective classes, let's face it, Guild Wars was badly planned on that end. Assassins make better Barrage rangers with endless energy regain. Assassins make use of the scythe more than dervishes with autoattack even. Warriors can scythe just as well as dervishes and have infinite energy. Mesmers can pound away with swords while using Illusionary Weapon. Leeroy Stonekins will kick Rotscale's ass and down some ale, too. And Elementalists tank way better than warriors can and still deal damage while at it. How does this make sense? It doesn't. Remember, it's an MMORPG. Nobody plays MMORPG's the way they're supposed to play them. People come up with ridiculous builds to break the system because breaking the system is strangely a lot more fun than playing it properly.

Luminarus · Dec 28, 2008, 12:25 PM // 12:25

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pocketmancer

What's a Dervish?

------------

On a more serious and related note, I'd like to point out that Dervishes make decent farmers and excellent runners. I still look for D/A runners to Droknar for instance.

In semi-large paragon parties, Arcane Order dervishes are pretty nice to have. They might not be on the offensive side, but the synergy from just having one Arcane Order dervish in a semi-large paragon party can do wonders.

------------

As for weapons and their respective classes, let's face it, Guild Wars was badly planned on that end. Assassins make better Barrage rangers with endless energy regain. Assassins make use of the scythe more than dervishes with autoattack even. Warriors can scythe just as well as dervishes and have infinite energy. Mesmers can pound away with swords while using Illusionary Weapon. Leeroy Stonekins will kick Rotscale's ass and down some ale, too. And Elementalists tank way better than warriors can and still deal damage while at it. How does this make sense? It doesn't. Remember, it's an MMORPG. Nobody plays MMORPG's the way they're supposed to play them. People come up with ridiculous builds to break the system because breaking the system is strangely a lot more fun than playing it properly.

At first crit barragers were about on par with ranger barragers, but since NF these are all true lol. More evidence of the fact that NF was the beginning of the end.

Darkside · Dec 28, 2008, 12:28 PM // 12:28

Quote:

Originally Posted by shoyon456

I really wish you would actually take the time to find out for yourself. You do not crit very much in HM, period. Maybe in NM, but that doesnt conern me because any asshat can go through NM with mending on his bar. Two, the other enchants are critical defenses and crit agility, did you forget those? Crit defenses is flimsy at best, especially when you don't get crits often in HM, which is the only thing that matters in my mind.

Two, concerning warriors, if they want to use a scythe, they can't just roll their head around on the keyboard. Warriors would not depend on enchants, true, but they cannot spam attacks as often as a Dervish. Taking an avatar is a GOOD THING. If you think its bad that the only signature dervish skills you will see in pve are avatars, you obviously haven't read their effects. Frankly, by your logic, Are sins needed? Noooooooo, because I can put out 2x more damage with Avatar of Lyssa, daggers, and an IAS (heart of fury).

My dervish is my favorite character but after using a scythe on my sin I realized almost immediately that my assassin was just more efficient. Even in HM i found myself getting crits every second attack making it very easy to maintain critical agility indefinitely throughout long battles. I'm not trying to bash the dervish...like I said my dervish is my favorite character. It's just an unfortunate reality that the assassin is more effective then the dervish at wielding a scythe.

Bobby Sox · Dec 28, 2008, 04:06 PM // 16:06

Ok, I'm probably never going to hear the end of this one, but just for argument's sake, here goes:

Everyone keeps mentioning how a Warrior with Warrior's Endurance can spam attack skills in a way a dervish could never dream of. This is of course forgetting that a Dervish could use Zealous Vow with 9 points in Wind Prayers and gain 5 energy per attack (the same cost as those attack skills), while still maintaining 1 energy regeneration. Of course Zealous Vow may not be seen as the *best* Dervish elite skill, but if we are only talking about spammability of attacks, I believe that it should be mentioned.

To tie the Warrior for energy gain (3 per attack), a Dervish would only need FOUR points in Wind Prayers!

Also, how does Aura of Holy Might stack up to a Warrior's Strength?

wesman · Dec 28, 2008, 04:35 PM // 16:35

I think the biggest problem with dervs atm is they have very poor survivability in both pvp and pve in my experience. they rely to heavily on enchantments which can be striped by most pve/pvp mobs out there. dunno maybe if A-net would give them a 50-75% block skill that was semi maintainable that would change. but right now 70 AR for a frontlinner with little blocking abilities is just to low. For DPS they might not be the best but they are ok esp with some of the avatars that have been mentioned.

Anyhow in answer to your questions I dervs are not the best class out there... but then if you enjoy them go for it, a lot just comes down to personal prefference... and who knows maybe A-net will give them a little help

The Meth · Dec 28, 2008, 04:41 PM // 16:41

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bobby Sox

Ok, I'm probably never going to hear the end of this one, but just for argument's sake, here goes:

Everyone keeps mentioning how a warrior with Warrior's Endurance can spam attack skills in a way a dervish could never dream of. This is of course forgetting that a dervish could use Zealous Vow with 9 points in Wind Prayers and gain 5 energy per attack (the same cost as those attack skills), while still maintaining 1 energy regeneration. Of course Zealous Vow may not be seen as the *best* dervish elite skill, but if we are only talking about spammability of attacks, I believe that it should be mentioned.

Remember that a Warrior spamming attacks gets a LOT of extra damage from strength. With a strength of 14 the warrior will probably be negating somewhere between 10 and 15 armor with their strikes, that makes them deal about 20-30% more damage per hit. %increases in damage mean a great deal more with scythes and their high base damage, especially ontop of Aura of Holy Might.

Besides that, the warrior also has the excellent ability to keep up SY and to take advantage of strength skills. Most notably power attack has a higher +damage then anything the dervish can spam, and they can use either Frenzy or Flail, while dervishes just have their rather lame Heart of Fury. Even worse, to get Zealous Vow working well you have to put a number of attributes in it and take away from Mysticism. That means you have a weaker Heart of Fury in the first place which is another bad thing.

A much better idea for dervishes would just be to focus on Mysticism and get a team with lots of enchants spamming. Otherwise you are giving up what small advantage you have through runes just to equal what the warrior does without strength at all and with extra armor on them. If zealous vow was in mysticism or scythe mastery it would be a much closer contender (though I would still say that Wounding Strike is better).

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bobby Sox

Also, how does Aura of Holy Might stack up to a warrior's strength?

Everyone using a scythe is using Aura of Holy Might, so your question should be rephrased as "How does AoHM + Strength stack up against AoHM". And the answer is it stacks very well, the effect of one amplifies the effect of the other (the same goes for the assassin's critical strikes).

Bobby Sox · Dec 28, 2008, 06:18 PM // 18:18

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Meth

Besides that, the warrior also has the excellent ability to keep up SY and to take advantage of strength skills.

But who's to say that the Dervish cannot go D/W with Save Yourselves?

Quote:

Even worse, to get Zealous Vow working well you have to put a number of attributes in it and take away from Mysticism. That means you have a weaker Heart of Fury in the first place which is another bad thing.

As I said in my previous post, only 4 points are needed to match the energy regain of Warrior's Endurance. That's 3 points plus 1 Wind Prayers rune. This allows you to fully max 2 attributes (Scythe and Mysticism?).

Quote:

Everyone using a scythe is using Aura of Holy Might, so your question should be rephrased as "How does AoHM + Strength stack up against AoHM". And the answer is it stacks very well, the effect of one amplifies the effect of the other (the same goes for the assassin's critical strikes).

Ok, I see your point on this one, though a secondary for the Dervish could come in handy, too, I suspect.

Tyla · Dec 28, 2008, 06:26 PM // 18:26

[power attack]

I win.

joshuarodger · Dec 28, 2008, 06:53 PM // 18:53

the fact is that if you're building a team for an elite area, dervs are just better due to their avatars. look at every elite area of this game and it's loaded with hex stacks and conditions and hex stacks and hex stacks. i'm not sure if i made my point yet, but there are a lot of hexes in every elite area of this game. avatar of dwayna makes that a non-issue. a scythe-sin or a WE warrior will not be able to be on par with a derv in any elite area simply due to the pressure it relieves from the monks, while still doing great damage. with a decent orders necro, dervs can spam attacks forever.

if you're in an area without massive hex/condition stacks, a scythesin is the way to go due to all the crit boosting skills and crit strikes and the free elite spot. but for the elite areas, [[avatar of dwa] is the way to go. for a sin [[shadow form] can stop all the hexes but it will reduce your damage output to something less than a dwayna derv can do.

The Meth · Dec 28, 2008, 06:58 PM // 18:58

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bobby Sox

But who's to say that the Dervish cannot go D/W with Save Yourselves?

Nothing really. But as soon as you use it you become an incredible aggro magnet because everyone else in the party has 160+ armor. In that case I would much rather be using warrior armor instead of dervish. Especially since as a dervish you want to be right next to large numbers of enemies to get the AoE effect of your scythe.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bobby Sox

As I said in my previous post, only 4 points are needed to match the energy regain of Warrior's Endurance. That's 3 points plus 1 Wind Prayers rune. This allows you to fully max 2 attributes (Scythe and Mysticism?).

With only 4 points in wind you break even with warrior's endurance EXCEPT you only have 1 energy regen. And most of the non attack skills a dervish is going to be using cost energy too. It doesn't mean too much in the long run, but the dervish is spending 10e every time they use something like Heart of Fury while the warrior is using their adrenal skills for free. This can be easily made up for if you have an enchant spammer in your party though.

In any case even if zealous vow works as well as warrior's endurance, lets list the pros of each profession:

Warrior:
Warriors endurance is a skill, no cast time and cant be stripped.
Strength gives +20-30% damage every attack skill (which means pretty much every attack)
IAS can be up 100% and has no cast time, so add another +50% damage.
Power Attack has +40 damage and 3 recharge.
Much higher base armor.

Dervish:
14-16 scythe mastery instead of just 12.
Open secondary (if you aren't using SY). I don't know how well you could use this, maybe if Zealous Vow gives enough energy you could go /mo and put Strength of Honor and Judge's Insight on yourself.
That would probably let you deal as much damage as the warrior, but no SY and your damage takes a huge nosedive if you run low on energy.

Warrior just has too many benefits on its side. That's not to say zealous vow sucks (it could work well I suppose), just that warriors have much better alternatives.

Quote:

Originally Posted by joshuarodger

the fact is that if you're building a team for an elite area, dervs are just better due to their avatars. look at every elite area of this game and it's loaded with hex stacks and conditions and hex stacks and hex stacks.

Well, I dunno about loaded, at most they have 1 or 2 bad hexes, but for the few areas that actually do overload you with hexes and conditions [spotless mind] and [spotless soul] say hi!

95% of the time enemies are going to be stupid and cast their anti melee hexes on the monks or minions or something retarded anyway.

Quote:

Originally Posted by joshuarodger

a scythe-sin or a WE warrior will not be able to be on par with a derv in any elite area simply due to the pressure it relieves from the monks, while still doing great damage.

Well, for a WE warrior they are going to be keeping up SY. If the monks in the group can't keep a group with SY alive they fail at rolling their head on the keyboard. Granted a Scythe Sin doesn't support the party at all, but they can just walk in (or shadowstep in) behind the #1 melee in the party and instarape casters. The speed at which a scythe sin can take down enemies is just incredible, shadowstep to them and in 5 seconds any enemy that was in your scythe's AoE range is dead. Enemies in PvE aren't smart enough to prevent that.

Quote:

Originally Posted by joshuarodger

with a decent orders necro, dervs can spam attacks forever.

Unfortunately, orders doesn't boost damage on your dervish because they are using AoHM. Might as well bring a BiP if you want to make a character just for the purpose of fueling others.

Bobby Sox · Dec 28, 2008, 07:20 PM // 19:20

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Meth

With only 4 points in wind you break even with warrior's endurance EXCEPT you only have 1 energy regen. And most of the non attack skills a dervish is going to be using cost energy too. It doesn't mean too much in the long run, but the dervish is spending 10e every time they use something like Heart of Fury while the warrior is using their adrenal skills for free. This can be easily made up for if you have an enchant spammer in your party though.

Or if you hit multiple foes. Or if you drop one point in Mysticism (11+1 gives you an energy breakpoint) and bring Wind Prayers up to 7 (4 energy per hit). Or if you spam the 5 second Flail instead of Heart of Fury as a D/W. Etc.

Quote:

Strength of Honor

Good point. I'll have to try that out.

Honestly, I went and tested the skills listed by Luminarus as a W/D and a D/W with Zealous Vow, Victorious Sweep, Eremite's Attack, Mystic Sweep, Radiant Scythe, and Flail (the closest comparison I could think of on the spot) against the Master of Damage. Since Protector's Strike was not getting any bonus damage, as the guy doesn't move (though you wouldn't always get it in PvE, either), I only averaged 3 DPS more with the Warrior.

Anyways, remember that I'm only talking about spamming attack skills here. As mentioned by others, the Warrior has no access to skills such as Avatar of Dwanya, etc. for countering hex spam.

Tyla · Dec 28, 2008, 08:15 PM // 20:15

Quote:

Originally Posted by joshuarodger

the fact is that if you're building a team for an elite area, dervs are just better due to their avatars. look at every elite area of this game and it's loaded with hex stacks and conditions and hex stacks and hex stacks. i'm not sure if i made my point yet, but there are a lot of hexes in every elite area of this game. avatar of dwayna makes that a non-issue. a scythe-sin or a WE warrior will not be able to be on par with a derv in any elite area simply due to the pressure it relieves from the monks, while still doing great damage. with a decent orders necro, dervs can spam attacks forever.

if you're in an area without massive hex/condition stacks, a scythesin is the way to go due to all the crit boosting skills and crit strikes and the free elite spot. but for the elite areas, [[avatar of dwa] is the way to go. for a sin [[shadow form] can stop all the hexes but it will reduce your damage output to something less than a dwayna derv can do.

To be honest, the only conditions that hurt that much are weakness, blind and daze. Deep wound only chips in when you're taking some heavy pressure, but if the area is that full of conditions I'd probably just chip into RC. If it's that bad I'd pop in Assassins' Remedy too.

With hexes, I guess there's an agreement there, although there would have to be stupid hexes there. I'm talking Gloom Cave hexes here.

The Meth · Dec 28, 2008, 08:34 PM // 20:34

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bobby Sox

Or if you hit multiple foes. Or if you drop one point in Mysticism (11+1 gives you an energy breakpoint) and bring Wind Prayers up to 7 (4 energy per hit). Or if you spam the 5 second Flail instead of Heart of Fury as a D/W. Etc.

Of course you could. Most of that applies to a warrior as well. My point is that for a warrior strength serves a dual purpose of powering skills and boosting scythes. A Zealous Vow Dervish is just a dervish that gets to spam skills more, a W/D dervish is a dervish that gets to spam skills more AND gets strength AND better skills and so on and so forth.

Unfortunately mysticism and Wind Prayers both don't have anything in them that can really add damage. Mysticism is really pretty much useless unless you are using a form honestly (assuming you use flail as IAS), might as well drop all of it for max or near max wind prayers and try the monk smite skills. Even still, if you squeeze out more DPS then the warrior you have to remember the warrior will they have SY and you don't.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bobby Sox

Honestly, I went and tested the skills listed by Luminarus as a W/D and a D/W with Zealous Vow, Victorious Sweep, Eremite's Attack, Mystic Sweep, Radiant Scythe, and Flail (the closest comparison I could think of on the spot) against the Master of Damage. Since Protector's Strike was not getting any bonus damage, as the guy doesn't move (though you wouldn't always get it in PvE, either), I only averaged 3 DPS more with the Warrior.

Well, a few things could change that. First off, the warrior will end up gaining more damage then the dervish when you add AoHM. The warrior will not be using up a huge amount of adren constantly reusing Flail, and so will have SY up more often. The warrior will do far better against high armor enemies because their damage skills have more +armor ignoring damage, and the strength penetration will help ontop of that. Also, for the test swap out protector's strike for one of the dervish attacks that will actually add +damage. Enemies in PvE don't run around enough for protector's to work, so its probably better to use Mystic or something.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bobby Sox

Anyways, remember that I'm only talking about spamming attack skills here. As mentioned by others, the Warrior has no access to skills such as Avatar of Dwanya, etc. for countering hex spam.

Which is all irrelevant because you can't bring those with your zealous vow dervish. Avatar of Dwanya is just as useful to your dervish as it is to the W/E dervish.

I already put forth my argument against avatar of Dwanya/Melandru builds above (though they both certainly have use in a few select spots). Avatar of Lyssa is just damage, and with it you still do less damage then a scythe sin build and possibly a W/E scythe build. Avatar of Grenth is pretty meh, less damage then lyssa but some heal, you shouldn't need the heal. Avatar of Balthazar is a joke

Luminarus · Dec 29, 2008, 03:45 AM // 03:45

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bobby Sox

Honestly, I went and tested the skills listed by Luminarus as a W/D and a D/W with Zealous Vow, Victorious Sweep, Eremite's Attack, Mystic Sweep, Radiant Scythe, and Flail (the closest comparison I could think of on the spot) against the Master of Damage. Since Protector's Strike was not getting any bonus damage, as the guy doesn't move (though you wouldn't always get it in PvE, either), I only averaged 3 DPS more with the Warrior.

Also remember that the master of damage doesnt have as much armor as mobs in pve. As armor goes up the benefit of strength increases proportionally. So against a 150 armor mob, 14 strength reduces that to 129, which is approx an extra 25% damage (iirc). Against a 70 armor target (guestimating at what the Master of Damage has) 14 strength only reduces it to 60.2 (not sure on rounding). Thats half the extra damage increase, give or take. This damage is further increased from AoHM.

The Meth · Dec 29, 2008, 04:02 AM // 04:02

Quote:

Originally Posted by Luminarus

Also remember that the master of damage doesnt have as much armor as mobs in pve. As armor goes up the benefit of strength increases proportionally. So against a 150 armor mob, 14 strength reduces that to 129, which is approx an extra 25% damage (iirc). Against a 70 armor target (guestimating at what the Master of Damage has) 14 strength only reduces it to 60.2 (not sure on rounding). Thats half the extra damage increase, give or take. This damage is further increased from AoHM.

The effect isn't quite that pronounced. I can't think of a single enemy that has 150 armor, and only a select few that come close to 140. The vast majority of enemies are going to be under 100 armor and most casters are 80 or less. The point still stands though.

Master of armor has 60 armor btw. Its only logical, he is there for you to test your damage dealing abilities and 60 armor is the baseline at level 20.