Curse

Morgall the Deft · Dec 02, 2010, 06:26 PM // 18:26

Hey all,
I've been bored lately and wanted to run a build around Avatar of Grenth (because...it looks really cool) and I'm wondering what skills I should use along with good old Grenthie.

Here's what I have so far:

Scythe Mastery 12+2+1
Mysticism 9+1
Curses 9

Avatar of Grenth (E)
Victorious Sweep
Zealous Sweep
Farmer's Scythe
Chilling Victory
Plague Touch
Shivers of Dread
Eternal Aura

Any suggestions?

instanceskiller · Dec 02, 2010, 06:53 PM // 18:53

For general pve, your build seems fine. However, don't get too keen on your build as you may very well edit it once the upcoming dervish update finally lands, which should be soon...

EDIT: forgot about possible suggestions to your build- replace Plaguesending with Aura of Holy Might and replace one of your attack skills with Heart of Fury.

Prince Rogrs Nelson · Dec 02, 2010, 07:45 PM // 19:45

Quote:

Originally Posted by Morgall the Deft

Hey all,
I've been bored lately and wanted to run a build around Avatar of Grenth (because...it looks really cool) and I'm wondering what skills I should use along with good old Grenthie.

Here's what I have so far:

Scythe Mastery 12+2+1
Mysticism 9+1
Curses 9

Avatar of Grenth (E)
Victorious Sweep
Zealous Sweep
Farmer's Scythe
Chilling Victory
Plague Touch
Shivers of Dread
Eternal Aura

Any suggestions?

I may get called LOLNOOB for this...but I'd put more into mysticism, since that's the line your elite is in.

And really, the advantage of the Grenth build is the lifestealing. Get that as high as you can, and honestly it'll do more for you than a little extra damage in your scythe skills.

awry · Dec 02, 2010, 07:59 PM // 19:59

get rid of curses, if you want to interrupt, go /w and bring one of their unlinked rupts. WHERE IS AURA OF HOLY MIGHT. Use it if you have it, that's the reason anyone goes scythe, otherwise you might as well go daggers so you can take advantage of the life steal. Dervs have atrocious energy management unless you can build your team around enchantments. There's only so much a derv can do, and almost all of it is done better by the other professions. I would work on another char until the update for dervs come along.

Chthon · Dec 02, 2010, 11:04 PM // 23:04

Like every physical build, the paradigm is "stack buffs, spam packets." AoG is your buff (though arguably not a very good one because the damage type conversion is incompatible with a number of other buffs). Spam packets the same way as every other derv spammer -- Mystic+Ermites+Protectors. Or maybe consider changing to daggers.

Luminarus · Dec 03, 2010, 03:37 AM // 03:37

Avatar of Grenth
Eternal Aura
Aura of Holy Might
Drunken Master (with booze)
Eremites
Mystic
Zealous
Optional

I Echo Dshot · Dec 03, 2010, 04:14 AM // 04:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by Prince Rogrs Nelson

I may get called LOLNOOB for this...but I'd put more into mysticism, since that's the line your elite is in.

And really, the advantage of the Grenth build is the lifestealing. Get that as high as you can, and honestly it'll do more for you than a little extra damage in your scythe skills.

that pve dervish aura thing makes forms maintainable.

reaper with no name · Dec 03, 2010, 02:18 PM // 14:18

Not at 0 mysticism it doesn't.

And again, in PvE the only thing that AoG really offers is the lifesteal, so you will want to put as many points into that as you can.

Before anything else, I feel it is worth noting that all AoG builds in PvE are ultimately suboptimal. However, this is also true of any other build for the dervish in PvE. So, for the purposes of this post I am going to assume that you don't care about being truly optimal, and instead simply want to be as effective as you can be as a scythe-swinging avatar of the god of death (ah, I remember back when I was like that...

).

I actually had to look up what Shivers of Dread did. That should tell you something about how little use it sees. For PvE, not only are active interrupts on a player questionable at best, but in the case of Shivers of Dread the cost of interrupting (10...6 energy) is prohibitively high. Plague Touch is also not worth bringing (most conditions aren't very useful in PvE, and condition removal is for your backline). Forget the curses line entirely (and the necromancer as a secondary profession, for that matter, unless you really, really want to be one).

But since Shivers of Dread is a factions skill, it means that you have that campaign and therefore have access to Aura of Holy Might. Get it; it's the single most powerful skill available to a dervish. And it's not like you'll be synergizing with physical damage buffs anyway with your avatar changing your damage type and all, so there's no excuse for not getting it.

Scythes are tied with hammers for the title of slowest melee weapon in the game. You need an IAS. Since you're already investing heavily into mysticism, I'd recommend Heart of Fury. It is a 33% IAS that at high mysticism can be kept up for 2/3 of the time.

The fact that you have Zealous Sweep means you have Eye of the North. This means you can get Asuran Scan. Do so at the earliest opportunity. It is a hex that increases the damage of your attacks against the target by up to 75%.

Farmer's Scythe really isn't worth the trouble. First off, it's only effective when spammed against multiple opponents. You can't rely on that always being the case (more often than not, you'll probably be hitting only a single opponent). Beyond that, you have to consider the fact that when it is effective you have to spam it, which will cost a lot of energy (something that dervishes don't have a lot of). Better attack skills include Mystic Sweep and Eremite's Attack.

Chilling Victory may seem effective now, but once you start seeing enemies with a decent armor level, you will discover that an extra 60 cold damage packet is not all that much (since it gets turned into 30), especially when it costs 10 energy and has a 10 second recharge. If you really want to use Chilling Victory, use Attacker's Insight first (at 3+1 wind prayers it will lower the cost of your next 2 attack skills significantly). Make that second attack skill Lyssa's Assault and you'll gain quite a bit of energy out of this combo.

So, for you I'm envisioning something like:

Avatar of Grenth
Eternal Aura
Aura of Holy Might
Heart of Fury
Asuran Scan
Attacker's Insight
Chilling Victory
Lyssa's Assault

or

Avatar of Grenth
Eternal Aura
Aura of Holy Might
Heart of Fury
Asuran Scan
Mystic Sweep
Victorious Sweep
Optional

Morgall the Deft · Dec 03, 2010, 03:08 PM // 15:08

Quote:

Originally Posted by reaper with no name

Not at 0 mysticism it doesn't.

And again, in PvE the only thing that AoG really offers is the lifesteal, so you will want to put as many points into that as you can.

Before anything else, I feel it is worth noting that all AoG builds in PvE are ultimately suboptimal. However, this is also true of any other build for the dervish in PvE. So, for the purposes of this post I am going to assume that you don't care about being truly optimal, and instead simply want to be as effective as you can be as a scythe-swinging avatar of the god of death (ah, I remember back when I was like that...

).

I actually had to look up what Shivers of Dread did. That should tell you something about how little use it sees. For PvE, not only are active interrupts on a player questionable at best, but in the case of Shivers of Dread the cost of interrupting (10...6 energy) is prohibitively high. Plague Touch is also not worth bringing (most conditions aren't very useful in PvE, and condition removal is for your backline). Forget the curses line entirely (and the necromancer as a secondary profession, for that matter, unless you really, really want to be one).

But since Shivers of Dread is a factions skill, it means that you have that campaign and therefore have access to Aura of Holy Might. Get it; it's the single most powerful skill available to a dervish. And it's not like you'll be synergizing with physical damage buffs anyway with your avatar changing your damage type and all, so there's no excuse for not getting it.

Scythes are tied with hammers for the title of slowest melee weapon in the game. You need an IAS. Since you're already investing heavily into mysticism, I'd recommend Heart of Fury. It is a 33% IAS that at high mysticism can be kept up for 2/3 of the time.

The fact that you have Zealous Sweep means you have Eye of the North. This means you can get Asuran Scan. Do so at the earliest opportunity. It is a hex that increases the damage of your attacks against the target by up to 75%.

Farmer's Scythe really isn't worth the trouble. First off, it's only effective when spammed against multiple opponents. You can't rely on that always being the case (more often than not, you'll probably be hitting only a single opponent). Beyond that, you have to consider the fact that when it is effective you have to spam it, which will cost a lot of energy (something that dervishes don't have a lot of). Better attack skills include Mystic Sweep and Eremite's Attack.

Chilling Victory may seem effective now, but once you start seeing enemies with a decent armor level, you will discover that an extra 60 cold damage packet is not all that much (since it gets turned into 30), especially when it costs 10 energy and has a 10 second recharge. If you really want to use Chilling Victory, use Attacker's Insight first (at 3+1 wind prayers it will lower the cost of your next 2 attack skills significantly). Make that second attack skill Lyssa's Assault and you'll gain quite a bit of energy out of this combo.

So, for you I'm envisioning something like:

Avatar of Grenth
Eternal Aura
Aura of Holy Might
Heart of Fury
Asuran Scan
Attacker's Insight
Chilling Victory
Lyssa's Assault

or

Avatar of Grenth
Eternal Aura
Aura of Holy Might
Heart of Fury
Asuran Scan
Mystic Sweep
Victorious Sweep
Optional

Alright, thanks a lot. I'll probably switch back to my more reliable build for a bit just to get Asuran Scan and Aura of Holy Might (efffff Kurzick faction) and go with that. Thanks a lot.