Curse

drupal · Jan 06, 2007, 10:56 AM // 10:56

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Originally Posted by Servant of Kali

Dunno, if you're talking about Forge quest (havent done other areas in FoW with Dervish sry), then D/Mo with Dwayna for me, beats Balthazar or anything i've seen other people play. You'll get tons of hex on you, which monk cant as efficiently remove in a fast way

You can completly ignore the hexes through Mystic Vigor in that build - it outheals SS and Mystic Regeneration > Burning...

The Dervish class doesn't obligatory need skills from others professions...

Shoitaan · Jan 06, 2007, 12:19 PM // 12:19

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Originally Posted by drupal

Ok, thx. I just bought a zealous mod for my scythe, I hope that solves the problem. I'll buy Windwalker because I tank a lot.

I'm D/Me because of the mesmer interrupts. Channeling might be a good idea.

Thanks for your help

Two Windwalkers don't double your armor ^^ The problem is that the radiant insignia gives the most energy on the chest and the chest is one of the most attacked parts.

I checked and I have 3ww and 2 radiants. But 2windwalkers would give you +30 wouldn't it? I understood the wording on the rune as them being cumulative but I could be wrong.
My thinking is that with 3 enchants on you each ww is giving you to +15armour. Am I wrong? :/

Myria · Jan 06, 2007, 03:02 PM // 15:02

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Originally Posted by Shoitaan

But 2windwalkers would give you +30 wouldn't it? I understood the wording on the rune as them being cumulative but I could be wrong.

No, as with inherent mods on the old armors (the Knight's debacle aside), the armor bonus only applies to the piece of armor the insignia is on. This is why the chest piece, if no where else, should have an armor bonus, it recieves the most hits by far (37.5%).

strcpy · Jan 07, 2007, 03:41 AM // 03:41

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Originally Posted by Servant of Kali

Come up with a Dervish-only build for PvP or PvE, i'll come up with a better one who uses secondary. Go on. Dont call me close minded unless you can prove it.

What's better? I normally run the following
r/p

15 scythe
11 earth
11 myst

Reapers Sweep
Victorious Sweep
Armor of Sanctity
conviction
Mystic regeneration
heart of fury
mystic vigor
The Paragon rez

So - tell me what is wrong and improve it. I'm betting you can not, I'm betting that your "improvements" violate one of my requirements. You do not know which heroes I'm bringing or what skills they have. Is it a "general" build in that I want one that can go anywhere and not have to switch builds? How much attention am I paying when I play - watching TV, talking on the phone, focused entirely on the game? Do I want to button mash or play a more elegant build? Without knowing what I want how can you declare you know "best"?

For instance, Armor of Sanctity seems basically useless. I do not really apply conditions (I have had people think I took Reapers and Heart of Fury for conditions and made fun of it). But then, I take a SF elementalist and a paragon with Anthem of flame, Burning Refrain, and "They're on fire". Constant burning to the enemies around me and when Armor of Sanctity is up I rarely take more then 2 or 3 damage even in high end areas. So, it makes quite a bit of sense, in fact it is one of the builds I put into the "overpowered" class with the heroes.

Can one add a secondary? Sure - it's a pretty basic Dervish build. It's not inspired or tricky. Because the heroes have a different set of requirements they never run the above build. They can do it well enough, but the builds the tend to use well have a secondary. In this particular team build where I would normally have a secondary skill set the Dervish happens to have better Dervish skills to fill that role.

Don't think everyone who doesn't think like you do is stupid and knows nothing. I have many builds that use a secondary and will use them when the situation is such that they are better. When a "pure" build fits my requirements better I will go there. Even when a "worthless" elite fits my requirements better I will use it (and thus why I have "Reaper's Sweep" as my elite) All but one of those skills has a specific purpose they fill (mystic vigor). I can, and do, use unlinked secondary skills there when needed (hex heavy areas will usually get a hex removal - but my monk usually does that) - but for just general running around it is the most general skill (cheap enchant for myst bonus, mystic regeneration, and as a cover enchant - not only that but +25 health per swing isn't shabby in many areas).

Str0b0 · Jan 07, 2007, 06:08 PM // 18:08

Servant of Kali I invite you to peruse my Ebon Dust aura build. If you can improve on it then I welcome the improvements but so far It's been a monster and requires almost 0 monk upkeep. I use just one skill from my secondary and that's a hard res. I could just as easily use the sunspear signet or a regular res signet and never touch my secondary line.

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...php?t=10101730

There is the link to it. Please I welcome suggestions and improvements, however with that build I maintain max health regen in combat. I heal for 75 points of damage every time I use reap impurities and I keep a pretty much constant blind on my target foe in addition to being able to drop burning, cripple and bleeding if the combat wears on long enough. Damage output is still satisfactory with the use of Mystic Sweep, though I may swap this out for Victorious Sweep for another health boost.

Servant of Kali · Jan 08, 2007, 02:02 AM // 02:02

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Originally Posted by strcpy

So - tell me what is wrong and improve it. I'm betting you can not, I'm betting that your "improvements" violate one of my requirements. You do not know which heroes I'm bringing or what skills they have

Dude, some skills are bad no matter what you ate for breakfast, what cell phone you use, or what heroes you take with you. If you use Mending, there is absolutely no skill combinations in PvE known to mankind, which will make it good for normal combat use, with any hero combination.

That being said:
1) Paragon rez? A what? You're going to rez someone with... 5% health? In combat, he's going to die. Out of combat, there are better rezes, such as Rebirth for instance, which will rez your teammates out of aggro rings.
2) Reapers sweep. Uh, no. Melandru+Wearying is great, and there's no reason not to use it. Reaper's is more of a PvP than PvE skill. You're not spiking anyone. It has 8sec recharge and u need to wait for target to get below 50%. Geez. For every single creature in PvE? No. Just take Melandru and spam Wearying, it's the only attack skill you need then since it has 2sec recharge.

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Don't think everyone who doesn't think like you do is stupid and knows nothing.

Well it's interesting how you recognized yourself and got concerned... How come some others didnt feel as endangered?

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Originally Posted by Str0b0

Servant of Kali I invite you to peruse my Ebon Dust aura build. If you can improve on it then I welcome the improvements

Very well. First, Faithul Intervention is bad. I dont think it's worth skill slot. You can't cast it midcombat, and you cant cast it on teammates. Watchful Intervention is 2x better, in my experience.

Damage of the build is a bit low. Chilling Victory is a must for PvE Dervish. Well, not a must, but it does tons of dmg.

There, that's for start.

Also, your health regen wont mean much in Torment when you get hit hard by casters etc. Having prot spirit on yourself helps tons, and it means you dont have to rely on the tank in your team (if any), and in most cases enemy mobs spread dmg and there is no holding of aggro anyhow. Prot spirit was helping me tons. Still, all of this is optional.

Im not saying it's a bad build (i dont like when everyone uses the same), but i'd still try somehow to use Chilling Victory if possible (not sure instead of what, and with Reap you may not have energy for it).

strcpy · Jan 08, 2007, 07:50 AM // 07:50

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Originally Posted by Servant of Kali

That being said:
1) Paragon rez? A what? You're going to rez someone with... 5% health? In combat, he's going to die. Out of combat, there are better rezes, such as Rebirth for instance, which will rez your teammates out of aggro rings.

Don't care what the range is, the touch skill is just fine. The only time it is used is in a party wipe where I still made it and I do not care what their health is or it's range. I use it because I needed it unlocked and the Dervish needed a hard rez. None of the others met that requirement - so once more the Paragon Rez solved more of my requirements than anything else. Not to mention your description for how much health it restores is incorrect (5% per party member within earshot so all but the first have more than 5%).

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2) Reapers sweep. Uh, no. Melandru+Wearying is great, and there's no reason not to use it. Reaper's is more of a PvP than PvE skill. You're not spiking anyone. It has 8sec recharge and u need to wait for target to get below 50%. Geez. For every single creature in PvE? No. Just take Melandru and spam Wearying, it's the only attack skill you need then since it has 2sec recharge.

Melandru has about a 60 second cool down while I have two useless slots. If I happen to not wipe everything in 60 seconds (common in late end areas) I can do almost nothing for the next 60. I clear the domain of pain in about 2/3 the time with what I wrote vs the Melandru combination.

I don't give a flip about the deep wound I want the +40. Besides I've never found Deep Wound to be a terribly useful PvE condition - mobs drop too quickly for it to matter, 4.5 seconds vs 5 seconds is irrelevant.

At my attribute points spread AoM and Wearying strike have 59 second up, 61 seconds down - a two minute cycle. So over those two minutes (assuming constantly spamming the strike while AoM is up) is 930 extra damage (60 second of AoM up, 31 damage every two seconds during that, 60 second down time). My combination (same assumption - 120 min cycles but I can spam them the whole cycle) gives me 1530 extra damage. Still get the deep wound so those cancel, and in mine I also gain quite a bit of health. If the monk hench wouldn't bother trying to strip the weakness from you you could continue to spam Wearying strike and keep about the same over all damage (when you factor in the weakness on the normal attacks), as is the hench or hero does and they waste quite a bit of energy.

Short duration fights with large gaps between them really favor the AoM build. Long duration or dense groups where you do not need to wait for AoM to recharge mine has the higher damage. One can add an attack skill to use while AoM is down to get the AoM damage back higher, but I find my tanking ability to be severely reduced by doing so - especially in torment or other higher end areas. Since I'm currently farming Lightbringer points that tends to be important.

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Well it's interesting how you recognized yourself and got concerned... How come some others didnt feel as endangered?

Go back to school some more - armchair psychology doesn't work well. One can trade passive aggressive taunts back and forth all day - for instance: If it really helps your boost your self esteem to think you are the vastly superior gamer I'm willing to allow you to believe that. I'm always willing to help out a fellow gamer who has trouble in life.

Of course, the reality is you said something that obviously isn't correct that applies to one of the builds that I run. It shouldn't take much thought to realize that accusing people who run no secondary of being slow is going to make people who don't use a secondary irritated. That tends to be how I "recognized myself".

Interestingly enough, you were supposed to show how adding a secondary and replacing a skill or two to makes it better. I didn't see that. I saw making fun of my rez (with an incorrect skill description) and hitting one of two skill that people always do. In fact, there has already been a thread over this in this forum.

I'm waiting for the build with changing the secondary and making one much better.

Servant of Kali · Jan 08, 2007, 12:19 PM // 12:19

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Originally Posted by strcpy

I use it because I needed it unlocked and the Dervish needed a hard rez. None of the others met that requirement

If you're going to use that argument then you can as well put Mending in there and say "uh i had no other skills, so you cant tell my build is bad, because it suits my needs and meets my requirements". Irrelevant.

So, if you want to use Signet of Return, sure, np. It's good on attacker with little energy, but if you want optimal setup then it's Rebirth in PvE. It's the ultimate PvE rez because in a lot of areas enemy can block your dead party members and u cant rez then with Return, they will get instantly killed again.

Besides, even if you use Signet of Return, it's still a skill from another profession, so it proves my point.

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Melandru has about a 60 second cool down

Yes but it gets better with higher mysticism, whereas Reapers Sweep doesnt get better with higher scythe, it still has same recharge.

Melandru indeed has some cool down but so does Reapers. 8 sec recharge in PvE means that u wont be able to use it on every enemy (with Melandru u could) as they will usually die fast in most game areas. So, Reapers technically has like... 70%+ downtime, technically speaking. Melandru has 50% or less, so you do the math. Also, in those game areas where you kill slower, and Reapers might be more useful, in those areas regen is less important because dmg is usually dealt in spikes. If you're getting hit, you're getting hit heavily and probably killed by the time regen does the job. So, all in all...

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Besides I've never found Deep Wound to be a terribly useful PvE condition - mobs drop too quickly for it to matter, 4.5 seconds vs 5 seconds is irrelevant.

Mobs die a lot quicker with deep wound, you should test it more and you'll see. I was suprised myself.

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as is the hench or hero does and they waste quite a bit of energy.

No. A necro hero can spam Draw Conditions and it will remain at full energy. Remedy Signet can solve the problem easily as well. But even without all that, Melandru+Wearying still beats Reapers IMO.

Besides, you conveniently forgot that Melandru makes you immune to conditions, which means you aint blind (and blind is used by some pve mobs), which means you hit more. A lot of kournans and others do cripple, which means you move slower which means you hit less since you cant reach your targets fast. Im not even mentioning all the other conditions.

Battlefield isnt always about ideal conditions. Nor do monks remove conditions instantly.

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but I find my tanking ability to be severely reduced by doing so

If you intend on tanking, D/Mo has solid dmg and 10x better tanking than your build in Torment for instance.

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Of course, the reality is you said something that obviously isn't correct that applies to one of the builds that I run.

Says someone whose build uses secondary profession skill (rez). Great.

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Interestingly enough, you were supposed to show how adding a secondary and replacing a skill or two to makes it better. I didn't see that.

Of course you didnt see that. If you saw that, you wouldnt create that first post anyway.

Str0b0 · Jan 08, 2007, 03:35 PM // 15:35

Quote:

Originally Posted by Servant of Kali

Very well. First, Faithul Intervention is bad. I dont think it's worth skill slot. You can't cast it midcombat, and you cant cast it on teammates. Watchful Intervention is 2x better, in my experience.

Damage of the build is a bit low. Chilling Victory is a must for PvE Dervish. Well, not a must, but it does tons of dmg.

There, that's for start.

Also, your health regen wont mean much in Torment when you get hit hard by casters etc. Having prot spirit on yourself helps tons, and it means you dont have to rely on the tank in your team (if any), and in most cases enemy mobs spread dmg and there is no holding of aggro anyhow. Prot spirit was helping me tons. Still, all of this is optional.

Im not saying it's a bad build (i dont like when everyone uses the same), but i'd still try somehow to use Chilling Victory if possible (not sure instead of what, and with Reap you may not have energy for it).

Thank you for your constructive criticism. I disagree with you on Faith Intervention. Call me selfish but I don't really look to myself as a party healer. That's the monk's job so I don't care if it can't be cast on others. It's there for spike protection and nothing else. If I lose it, which rarely happens but does with the odd ele boss, then it's a warning for me to get out reset my enchants and then get back into the fight. It also provides an extra enchant for mystic regen. I tried running chilling victory and while it does more damage in the initial blow than Mystic sweep the 10 energy cost and the 10 second cool down versus Mystic Sweep's 5 energy cost and 4 second cool down means I can actually hand out more damage with Mystic sweep, since I always have at least 3 enchants on me, than I can with Chilling Victory since I can use Mystic sweep twice as often. I'm just now getting into Torment but I've noticed, and perhaps I'm not correct and am just seeing things, but I've noticed that with 5 enchants up I can have two or three degen effects on me, -2 or -3 pip effects, and still maintain almost max regen. I know you can only have like 10 regen at a time but it's almost like the extra regen is held in reserve versus any degen you might recieve. If I have trouble in Torment I'll give you other suggestion a try but between Faithful intervention and Mystic regeneration I think I can handle heavy caster flack without too much difficulty. I find I can "hold aggro" well enough. The AI makes it impossible to hold the attention of a whole mob anymore but with the aura of thorns snare I can generally keep them close enough or slow enough that they don't pose an immediate threat to my party members and stay within range of my scythe long enough for a few good hits. Your suggestions are worthwhile though and I will keep them in mind if I encounter any problems along the way with this build. Thanks again.

Servant of Kali · Jan 08, 2007, 04:22 PM // 16:22

I have actually used Faithful intervention a lot of times. I thought it's quite neat, but after a while i got more fond of Watchful

As for Chilling Victory, there are some hidden benefits as well

For instance, your attack can be blocked or evaded, but cold dmg still kicks in (awesome against archers w stances etc).
Since you're using Reap Impurities (longer recharge) Mystic might be better, dunno. I use Chilling as my longer recharge attack

It comes down to preferance, whether u need more survival or dmg.
And, you're not really going to deal more dmg with Mystic i think... since Chilling does quite a lot of dmg especially if enemies are grouped. This should be tested, it's hard to tell from theory.

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I think I can handle heavy caster flack without too much difficulty. find I can "hold aggro" well enough.

Dunno... those Spikes can hurt sometimes as well as some casters. But it's hard to tell all from theory, i know that in Torment prot spirit meant a lot to me, and while warriors and other dervishes were dying i was alive and smacking. Then again, if what u use is good enough, and you like playing with that combo, there is really no reason to change.

Str0b0 · Jan 08, 2007, 05:07 PM // 17:07

Well honestly I'm thinking of Swapping out mystic sweep for Victorious sweep, same cost, same cooldown, approximately the same damage bonus(-5 points on Victorious) but it will be another heal once the enemies take some damage thereby increasing the survivability of the build. I might be proven wrong once I get into Torment proper and have to fall back on Prot spirit, at the very least you've given me some options should the build start to fail in any respect.

strcpy · Jan 09, 2007, 05:16 AM // 05:16

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Originally Posted by Servant of Kali

If you're going to use that argument then you can as well put Mending in there and say "uh i had no other skills, so you cant tell my build is bad, because it suits my needs and meets my requirements". Irrelevant.

Last time I checked, mending doesn't rez. To note the logic went: I wanted a hard rez for playing with hench. I only use it for party wipes if I survive - therefore range, cost, recharge, and health gained is irrelevant. So, any rez will work - I personally prefer a hard one. I had all the monk and ritualist ones already unlocked and didn't the Paragon one. Therefore the dervish learned it. If I happen to decide to re-roll any of my characters at some point they will probably use a different rez again, Rebirth, flesh of my flesh, restore life, ressurect, etc are all just as good as the other for my use. I tend just to pick one.

Unless you know something I do not, mending will not remotely fit those requirements. But hey, I'm the dumb one here who doesn't know much about the game.

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Besides, even if you use Signet of Return, it's still a skill from another profession, so it proves my point.

How so? Sunspear rebirth signet is also OK (it is half a dozen of one, six of another - hard or soft rez both work equally well in the way I play), it also makes it way there often. So does rebirth and flesh of my flesh. I don't really care. Signet of Return isn't a part of the build - it fits the role of "rez". If you can not figure it out, here:

What's better? I normally run the following
d/any

15 scythe
11 earth
11 myst

Reapers Sweep
Victorious Sweep
Armor of Sanctity
conviction
Mystic regeneration
heart of fury
mystic vigor
rez

Tada!

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Melandru indeed has some cool down but so does Reapers. 8 sec recharge in PvE means that u wont be able to use it on every enemy (with Melandru u could) as they will usually die fast in most game areas. So, Reapers technically has like... 70%+ downtime, technically speaking. Melandru has 50% or less, so you do the math. Also, in those game areas where you kill slower, and Reapers might be more useful, in those areas regen is less important because dmg is usually dealt in spikes. If you're getting hit, you're getting hit heavily and probably killed by the time regen does the job. So, all in all...

That is ...interesting... math. I posted hard numbers based on the full life cycle of the skill combinations. How did you arrive at 70% "downtime" for Reaper's sweep? There is no such thing as "downtime" for attack skills, there is damage per time unit (average damage per time unit for variable damage). Enchants, forms, hexes, and duration spells have downtime.

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Mobs die a lot quicker with deep wound, you should test it more and you'll see. I was suprised myself.

I have played long enough to see. For the vast majority of mobs it is irrelevant - or at least shortens their life span by so little it is irrelevant. Deep Wound is a pressure condition, enemy AI doesn't feel pressure. The only exception to that is bosses and a few mobs with really high HP and the only time Deep Wound matters is that is in effect when it dies. It still doesn't help in the slightest to have it in the beginning (unless you are running a spike build - good luck on that one with computer AI). I also find Deep Wound quite nice on several Farming Builds.

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No. A necro hero can spam Draw Conditions and it will remain at full energy. Remedy Signet can solve the problem easily as well. But even without all that, Melandru+Wearying still beats Reapers IMO.

Draw Conditions (a monk spell) costs 5e and has a 2 second recharge. In either case (I assume you picked a necro because of soul reaping and you are assuming you are so godly with that skill that you are keeping it's energy full?) they will not remain at full energy if you are spamming Wearying Strike every two seconds. If they were keeping it off you for a useful amount of time they would be doing nothing else. While it's DPS is pretty decent it isn't near devoting another character entirely to keeping you good, nor is it good enough for you to go through with weakness on you (though weakness doesn't effect bonus damage). While the computer AI will not complain (they will happily fail miserably), I shudder to think of a group if you spam Wearying Strike while outside of Melandru's form.

Remedy Signet is a 4 second recharge and takes another skill slot up. I can not believe that you are seriously saying that Wearying Strike is so good that it is worth another skill slot to spam a skill that does nothing but remove the condition it applies to you. And if I were to bother with that I would rather think you would go with one that spreads weakness to foes.

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Besides, you conveniently forgot that Melandru makes you immune to conditions, which means you aint blind (and blind is used by some pve mobs), which means you hit more. A lot of kournans and others do cripple, which means you move slower which means you hit less since you cant reach your targets fast. Im not even mentioning all the other conditions.

Umm, what? Who said anything about blind or cripple? I said that using Wearying strike outside of Melandru will apply weakness to you when you use it. Its DPS is only good if you are spamming it, thus every two seconds you apply weakness to yourself. Weakness sucks for a melee damager (what said build is). Hech and Hero AI spam condition removers as you get conditions applied to you, if you play with computer AI you will drain their energy. Thus one should not use Wearying strike outside of Melandru's form and you have about a 60 second time period where you can not use the skill (of course, you pointed out I can really bump up mysticism and have a longer duration, but then I do not have enough in Scythe Master to really output damage). I can't really figure out what you thought I meant.

Given that, over the full cycle (two minutes long) Melandru+Wearying does less damage than two minutes of spamming Reapers and another damage spell (I choose victorious sweep, others work also). You have said nothing to contradict that.

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Battlefield isnt always about ideal conditions. Nor do monks remove conditions instantly.

The hench/hero monks come pretty close. It is not their highest priority, but doing this makes it such that they will not have any down time to regen energy. And yes, mine use energy management spells.

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If you intend on tanking, D/Mo has solid dmg and 10x better tanking than your build in Torment for instance.

Build please. Interested to see 10x better tanking. Nor do I find a d/mo to be the top tank, much prefer d/e or a d/w. But then, they usually require quite a bit more maintenance (something this particular build was made to avoid).

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Says someone whose build uses secondary profession skill (rez). Great.

As I said above, I just picked a rez. Insert Sunspear or rez Signet.

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Of course you didnt see that. If you saw that, you wouldnt create that first post anyway.

That's a really poor attempt to avoid doing what you said you could do. Allow me to refresh what you said you could do:

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Let's put it this way: I havent seen a single Dervish build yet, which would not have been better with the addition of one or more secondary Dervish skills.

You know as well as anyone changing a rez from a signet to a hard one doesn't fall into that boast. Not only does it not fall into the technical meaning of that single line, but it doesn't fall into the longer meaning you supplied in later posts. Really, do you in anyway think this makes you sound better? Do what you promised or either admit you can not or just ignore this and pretend it never happened.