Curse

flammingfarr · Sep 03, 2010, 01:46 AM // 01:46

My dervish build is:

Avatar of Blathazar
Imbue Heath
Watchful Intervention
Chilling Victory
Crippling Sweep
Mystic Sweep
Eternal Aura
Sunspear Rebirth Signet

Can you guys/girls help me improve it?

reaper with no name · Sep 03, 2010, 02:07 AM // 02:07

Is this for PvP or PvE? Either way, there's a lot of room for improvement, but it'll help us narrow down possible improvements.

NerfHerder · Sep 03, 2010, 02:07 AM // 02:07

What are you trying to do? Do you want to be primarily damage, defense, healing, or balanced? do you want the build to revolve around Avatar of Balthazaar?

Chthon · Sep 03, 2010, 02:32 AM // 02:32

Your current build consists of 5 terrible skills, 1 mediocre skill, and 1 good one. Rather than "fix" it, toss it out and start over.

I'll give you a hint: Dervishes suck under the current skill balance. There's precisely one decent build. Learn it; Use it; Get bored with it; Go play another class while waiting for the fabled Dervish update.

D/W
Asuran Scan
Save Yourselves!
Mystic Sweep
Ermite's Attack
Protector's Strike
Frenzy (Whirling Charge if your party has a bad backline that can't support Frenzy; Conviction if your party has an awful backline)
Ebon Battle Standard of Honor (Aura of Holy Might if your team is hopelessly disorganized and has no intra-team synergies going.)
Zealous Vow.

reaper with no name · Sep 03, 2010, 02:59 AM // 02:59

Ok, first off, Whirling Charge? HoF is far better. You only need 6+1 wind prayers for zealous vow. That means more than enough points left over for mysticism to fuel HoF.

Second, this guy is clearly still in NF (otherwise he'd have at least AoHM), so giving him builds relying on skills from other campaigns won't help him.

Third, you're not telling him what is wrong with his build.

So, let's address the third problem first.

AoB is a bad elite. Why? Well, first off, you have to waste a skill slot for Eternal Aura to maintain it. Second, all the skill gives you is armor, IMS, and a damage conversion. Single-target IMS is worthless. The damage conversion does more harm than good in organized parties. And armor is unnecessary.

As a dervish, your job is to do damage, and lots of it. If your monks are any good, you won't need any defense or self-healing whatsoever. And if your monks suck, bringing those things won't save you. The best way to take stress off your monks is to kill whatever is applying the stress. The other avatars also suffer from huge design problems like this, so don't bother with them.

A better elite for you would be Wounding Strike. It's simple, provides a nice Deep Wound spike, and doesn't take a lot of skill slots. Sadly, without access to Asuran Scan or other damage-boosting skills, I doubt zealous vow would really be worthwhile.

Don't bother with skills that heal other players. Your job is to kill stuff. You wouldn't want the monks to be bringing melee attacks, would you? Then why would you want to bring healing skills? Faithful Intervention is the only self-heal you should consider using, and not even because it's a heal, but because it has no duration and serves as a great trigger for Wounding Strike and other such skills.

You're a frontline melee character; you don't have time to resurrect people. That's the midline's job.

Your current build also lacks energy management. Sadly, due to various things which I won't get into, dervishes are terrible with energy management. The only decent non-elite energy management the class has access to is in Wind Prayers (Attacker's Insight). At 4 or more Wind Prayers, it's great for fueling attacks like Chilling Victory.

Since scythes are slow, you need IAS (increased attack speed). Unfortunately, dervishes don't have a lot of good options for that. The best they have is Heart of Fury, a mysticism skill.

Crippling is not necessary in PvE (which I'm assuming your build is for). Death is the ultimate snare.

So, at the end of the day, you should have a build that looks something like this:

Scythe Mastery 12+1+1
Wind Prayers 6
Mysticism 11+1

Heart of Fury
Wounding Strike
Attacker's Insight
Chilling Victory
Mystic Sweep
Faithful Intervention
Optional
Optional

NerfHerder · Sep 03, 2010, 05:34 AM // 05:34

Wounding Strike builds are a good way to start. If you having trouble staying alive due to low level heros/hench I would suggest something like Wounding Strike. I gave that build to a friend of mine when she was having trouble staying alive with her Derv early in NF, and it worked well for her playstyle. She finished all campaigns with it, but its not my favorite build.

For optimal damage you would want something like Zealous Vow. I prefer adding 6 in earth and bringing Conviction on this one. You must have good heros or players healing you for this one.

But, if your dead set on using an Avatar you should look at D/any_General_PvE_Avatar. I would take Zealous Sweep over Zealous Renewal as renewal usually give you energy when you dont need it, and try to use sweep when attacking multiple foes at once. Even still, your likely to have energy trouble.

None of these builds are set in stone. Find what works best for you and make it your own.

Nechrond · Sep 03, 2010, 07:18 AM // 07:18

Also: Don't go anywhere without a protter. They trigger your Mysticism with all their spammable enchants. Even a henchie protter is better than a healer when you're a Derv.

TheodenKing · Sep 03, 2010, 12:47 PM // 12:47

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nechrond

Also: Don't go anywhere without a protter. They trigger your Mysticism with all their spammable enchants. Even a henchie protter is better than a healer when you're a Derv.

^That, or a smiter with Reversal of Damage, Strength of Honor, Judge's Insight, Smite Condition, Smite Hex.

Nechrond · Sep 03, 2010, 01:56 PM // 13:56

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheodenKing

^That, or a smiter with Reversal of Damage, Strength of Honor, Judge's Insight, Smite Condition, Smite Hex.

Needs Smiter's Boon, otherwise he won't heal you enough.

Xenomortis · Sep 03, 2010, 02:43 PM // 14:43

Quote:

Originally Posted by reaper with no name

Ok, first off, Whirling Charge? HoF is far better. You only need 6+1 wind prayers for zealous vow. That means more than enough points left over for mysticism to fuel HoF.

No it isn't.
Heart of Fury is in Mysticism, takes 1.5 seconds to use (aftercast delay really matters for physicals) and has a 30 second cooldown.
There is no reason to spec into Mysticism with Zealous Vow, ever.
With 12 in Wind Prayers you hit a breakpoint for ZV, netting 6e per hit (meaning fueling two 10 energy skills whilst spamming attacks is never an issue) and you get 13 seconds on Whirling (65% uptime compared to HoF ~55%*). Whirling Charge also acts as an IMS as well as an IAS. The increase to movement speed is incredibly useful.
The only thing HoF has going for it is that it's an increase of 33%, not 25%, but it's still terrible; you're better off taking Frenzy if you want a 33% IAS.

I don't have the time to pick through the rest of your post.

Edit:
Time has been found.

Quote:

Originally Posted by reaper with no name

And armor is unnecessary.

Unless you are maintaining Protective Spirit on yourself (sometimes this does become a near necessity) then armour is necessary. I'm not defending Avatar of Balthazar; the effects of the skill are all reproducible and the result is usually superior.

Quote:

Originally Posted by reaper with no name

A better elite for you would be Wounding Strike. It's simple, provides a nice Deep Wound spike, and doesn't take a lot of skill slots.

Reaper's Sweep is a better spike and in the end, more damage. Spamming deep wound everywhere isn't really worthwhile since the healing reduction is not worth the trouble in PvE.

Quote:

Originally Posted by reaper with no name

Sadly, without access to Asuran Scan or other damage-boosting skills, I doubt zealous vow would really be worthwhile.

It allows you to spam attack skills on recharge without ever having energy problems, ever. It allows you to do that whilst keeping up any 10 energy enchantments you have or non-attack skills.
It provides an enchantment for Windwalker's Insignia, Whirling Charge and the +15% when enchanted damage inscription (should you pick it over 15^50).
No, it's worthwhile even without Factions or EotN.

Edit 2:
*Incorrect maths on the HoF bit above - I didn't factor in a potential 20% enchantment mod on the scythe.
At 11 Mysticism (given 6 WP, you can only get 11 Myst before dropping Scythe Mast), HoF lasts 16 seconds. 16*1.2 = 19.2
At 12 Myst HoF lasts 17 seconds - 17*1.2 = 20.4
19.2/30 = 64% uptime
20.4/30 = 68% uptime
I do not know how the game rounds these figures, but I suspect they're lowered to the nearest integer giving a lower uptime ratio.
This potentially renders that part of my argument invalid, but it'd require you to bring an enchantment weapon of some sort and the rest of my argument against HoF still stands.

I Hate Chips · Sep 03, 2010, 04:53 PM // 16:53

Don't split attributes points like u do, its not usefull to be 25% healer 25%.... etc.

Chthon · Sep 04, 2010, 03:36 AM // 03:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by reaper with no name

Ok, first off, Whirling Charge? HoF is far better.

Both Whirling Charge and HoF stink. Frenzy is far superior if your backline doesn't suck. If your backline does suck, then Whirling Charge is marginally better for the reasons Xeno points out. Any further effort exerted in arguing between the two skills would be better spent teaching OP how to build a decent backline that can support Frenzy.

Quote:

Second, this guy is clearly still in NF (otherwise he'd have at least AoHM), so giving him builds relying on skills from other campaigns won't help him.

Probably so.

Quote:

Third, you're not telling him what is wrong with his build.

True. Sometimes I'm just too tired. Especially when it comes to bad dervish builds. You're right that explaining why his choices all sucked would be more productive than simply telling him that they suck.

Quote:

AoB is a bad elite. Why? Well, first off, you have to waste a skill slot for Eternal Aura to maintain it. Second, all the skill gives you is armor, IMS, and a damage conversion. Single-target IMS is worthless. The damage conversion does more harm than good in organized parties. And armor is unnecessary.

Agreed that AoB is a bad elite. Disagreed that armor is useless; unless you have someone with SY! in the party, armor is very valuable. Just not at the ridiculous cost of your elite slot + a PvE slot for Eternal Aura + the counterproductive damage type conversion.

Agreed with the rest of your points on what's wrong with OP's generally.

I express no opinion on Wounding Strike vs. Reaper's Sweep.

The point of the ZV build isn't to deal huge damage through the scythe, it's to deliver a whole bunch of packets rapidly that can be beefed up with armor-ignoring buffs. While it's true that NF is missing a lot of those, (1) eventually OP will get them, or party with people who already have them, and he might as well get a decent build for it now, and (2) just spamming ermites+mystic with unlimited energy is probably the best damage you're going to get without access to a decent set of armor-ignoring buffs anyway.

In a sense, ZV gives you pseudo-IAS by allowing you to spam fixed-activation-time attack skills that are much faster than the base scythe speed.

Chilling Victory is a pretty weak skill in PvE for two reasons: First, monsters have an innate hp advantage that's going to prevent it from triggering much of the time. Second, it's armor-sensitive cold damage, and we all know (or should know) by now that armor-sensitive damage approaches poo as monster levels approach 30.

saint666 · Sep 04, 2010, 04:23 AM // 04:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chthon

Your current build consists of 5 terrible skills, 1 mediocre skill, and 1 good one. Rather than "fix" it, toss it out and start over.

I'll give you a hint: Dervishes suck under the current skill balance. There's precisely one decent build. Learn it; Use it; Get bored with it; Go play another class while waiting for the fabled Dervish update.

D/W
Asuran Scan
Save Yourselves!
Mystic Sweep
Ermite's Attack
Protector's Strike
Frenzy (Whirling Charge if your party has a bad backline that can't support Frenzy; Conviction if your party has an awful backline)
Ebon Battle Standard of Honor (Aura of Holy Might if your team is hopelessly disorganized and has no intra-team synergies going.)
Zealous Vow.

I use this on my dervish currently, it's a mashup of the ZV and Critical Scythe builds on wiki. The optimal dervish template is pretty much this right now, with minor tweeks here and there. I find that "Fear Me!" is able to boost damage without the draw back that Frenzy brings. Although you can drop SY and use both for even more damage output.

OgGkUppsKyKU42bZzFzlRxonbhoH

tac=10
scy=12+2
win=8+1
mys=2+1

Zealous Vow
Asuran Scan
Eremite's Attack
Mystic Sweep
Protector's Strike
Aura of Holy Might
"Fear Me!"
"Save Yourselves!"

reaper with no name · Sep 04, 2010, 04:56 AM // 04:56

Quote:

Originally Posted by Xenomortis

No it isn't.
Heart of Fury is in Mysticism, takes 1.5 seconds to use (aftercast delay really matters for physicals) and has a 30 second cooldown.
There is no reason to spec into Mysticism with Zealous Vow, ever.
With 12 in Wind Prayers you hit a breakpoint for ZV, netting 6e per hit (meaning fueling two 10 energy skills whilst spamming attacks is never an issue) and you get 13 seconds on Whirling (65% uptime compared to HoF ~55%*). Whirling Charge also acts as an IMS as well as an IAS. The increase to movement speed is incredibly useful.
The only thing HoF has going for it is that it's an increase of 33%, not 25%, but it's still terrible; you're better off taking Frenzy if you want a 33% IAS.

I don't have the time to pick through the rest of your post.

Edit:
Time has been found.

Unless you are maintaining Protective Spirit on yourself (sometimes this does become a near necessity) then armour is necessary. I'm not defending Avatar of Balthazar; the effects of the skill are all reproducible and the result is usually superior.

Reaper's Sweep is a better spike and in the end, more damage. Spamming deep wound everywhere isn't really worthwhile since the healing reduction is not worth the trouble in PvE.

It allows you to spam attack skills on recharge without ever having energy problems, ever. It allows you to do that whilst keeping up any 10 energy enchantments you have or non-attack skills.
It provides an enchantment for Windwalker's Insignia, Whirling Charge and the +15% when enchanted damage inscription (should you pick it over 15^50).
No, it's worthwhile even without Factions or EotN.

Edit 2:
*Incorrect maths on the HoF bit above - I didn't factor in a potential 20% enchantment mod on the scythe.
At 11 Mysticism (given 6 WP, you can only get 11 Myst before dropping Scythe Mast), HoF lasts 16 seconds. 16*1.2 = 19.2
At 12 Myst HoF lasts 17 seconds - 17*1.2 = 20.4
19.2/30 = 64% uptime
20.4/30 = 68% uptime
I do not know how the game rounds these figures, but I suspect they're lowered to the nearest integer giving a lower uptime ratio.
This potentially renders that part of my argument invalid, but it'd require you to bring an enchantment weapon of some sort and the rest of my argument against HoF still stands.

The problem with Reaper's Sweep is that you won't get the deep wound off as much as you'd like. If you use it before the enemy is at half-health, it's wasted. If you try to wait, chances are the enemy will die before the deep wound can be applied (or you'll apply it so late that it proves to be overdamage). And even at it's best, the only advantage of RS is that Asuran Scan will turn the +40 damage into +70. But that's not even very much, considering that the bleeding from WS will do 48 damage in the time it takes RS to recharge. Still, the two skills are close enough in effectiveness that one could easily justify using either one, really. In this case, I suggested WS because it's easier to use.

Whirling Charge is worthless as IMS because, again, single target IMS is worthless. The enemy should be dead before they ever get a chance to run away.

You only need 7 wind prayers for zealous vow (6 + a minor rune). Any more than that is unnecessary. 4 energy per hit fuels everything you could ever need to. Hell, you don't even need a zealous scythe. So, why not put them into Mysticism for IAS? The only other place I can think of to put it would be Tactics for Fear Me (but then you suffer the issue of having to first get adrenaline for it, plus by my math it's a couple dps lower than what HoF offers).

Ideally, you should be casting HoF before the battle officially starts (alongside your other enchantments), making it's cast time is irrelevant. And if you do the math, a 2/3 maintainable 33% IAS is equivalent to a fully maintainable 25% IAS (slightly better, actually). Whirling Charge is not even fully maintainable. Therefore, HoF > Whirling Charge except in the case that one gets surprised by the mob and can't afford those extra 1.5 seconds.

Xenomortis · Sep 04, 2010, 01:41 PM // 13:41

Quote:

Originally Posted by reaper with no name

The problem with Reaper's Sweep is that you won't get the deep wound off as much as you'd like.

I want to get Deep Wound off at most, once per enemy. Usually I don't care too much about that and having the more potent spike for harder to kill enemies is more valuable, especially for weaker players.

Quote:

Originally Posted by reaper with no name

If you use it before the enemy is at half-health, it's wasted.

How is that the case? It does not matter when Deep Wound goes down. If the enemy can be killed in two hits, then Deep Wound is unnecessary regardless of where it comes from. If the skill can help me kill an enemy at below 50% instantly, then it's useful.

Quote:

Originally Posted by reaper with no name

Whirling Charge is worthless as IMS because, again, single target IMS is worthless. The enemy should be dead before they ever get a chance to run away.

I have now firmly reached the conclusion that you are not capable of rational thought. Either that or you do not attempt anything above the mid difficulty vanquishes in the game.
An IMS absolutely does matter for a frontliner. Since there are 4 AoE IMS skills in the game, two of which are elite and all of them have a high cost to bring (/P or /W secondaries or worse, primaries on heroes) they are truly seldom worthwhile. There are almost always better options to bring.

Quote:

Originally Posted by reaper with no name

And if you do the math, a 2/3 maintainable 33% IAS is equivalent to a fully maintainable 25% IAS (slightly better, actually). Whirling Charge is not even fully maintainable. Therefore, HoF > Whirling Charge except in the case that one gets surprised by the mob and can't afford those extra 1.5 seconds.

Arguing that Whirling Charge is inferior to HoF based on the uptime ratio is completely asinine. You've neglected the Increased Movement Speed - enemies do move, you need to move between targets and you may want to even switch targets.
In HM enemies move faster than you. If a couple of Warriors are hitting your Monk, they need to die. If the Monk tries to kite (henchmen love doing this badly), you'll need to chase a bit. Without movement boosts, you'll be much less effective.
And of course there's the fight that lasts more than 20 seconds - Heart of Fury expires at this point (or earlier, since you precast it before being ready to benefit from it). Here you suffer a 10 second downtime (WC will have suffered his 7 by this point of course) as well as the cast time and aftercast.

If you want to push for a 33% IAS, the best option is Frenzy by a long way. The best IAS+IMS skill in the game is Drunken Master based on how broken it is being a PvE skill. Heart of Fury is nowhere near those two. Pushing for those it and speccing into Mysticism just for it when Frenzy is easily available and unlinked is... crazy.

Quote:

Originally Posted by reaper with no name

You only need 7 wind prayers for zealous vow (6 + a minor rune). Any more than that is unnecessary. 4 energy per hit fuels everything you could ever need to. Hell, you don't even need a zealous scythe. So, why not put them into Mysticism for IAS? The only other place I can think of to put it would be Tactics for Fear Me (but then you suffer the issue of having to first get adrenaline for it, plus by my math it's a couple dps lower than what HoF offers).

An attack skill costs 5 energy. I want to at least break even to be able to fuel my extra skills. I want to cover the case when I'm hitting a lone enemy (bosses, important high profile targets that separate themselves from the rest of the mob, whatever). If at any point when I'm doing this and I need to activate Asuran Scan, refresh Zealous Vow, activate AoHM or my IAS or whatever and I get told I don't have the energy (can easily happen when you need to activate two) then I've just suffered a reduction in efficiency and power. By breaking even with Zealous Vow at 9 Wind Prayers I ensure that I will always gain energy when attacking and that I will never run out by attacking. This is what I really, really want and I want to do it without using a Zealous Scythe. At this point it's silly to spec into Mysticism and by pushing further I can get to 6 energy from ZV to ensure that even when only hitting one enemy, I will always have the energy to cast what I want, when I want.

Besides, even if I left it at 7 Wind Prayers (sure, that is enough for a functional build) then there's still no reason to spec Mysticism because there's bugger all in there I want. If I don't take Whirling Charge, I take Frenzy or Drunken Master (if I don't take SY)

Crassus Praetor · Sep 04, 2010, 02:54 PM // 14:54

As always it's turned into a stupid quote-spam farce...

There are some good suggestions for improvement here, it doesn't matter who can squeeze and extra 2% out of their builds.

ZV/WS are both fine for PvE leave it at that

Xenomortis · Sep 04, 2010, 02:56 PM // 14:56

Did you read the content of any of these posts?
The argument was never Zealous Vow vs Wounding Strike.

Crassus Praetor · Sep 04, 2010, 03:03 PM // 15:03

I did not say that the posts were about that, but they are both fine and the arguments here are as ever ridiculous.

There are of course a range of IAS and IMS skills that can be used, it all depends on the team and area ...

Most of the time a derv won't need an IMS and most of the improvements needed by the OP have already been posted by Chthon.

Xenomortis · Sep 04, 2010, 03:13 PM // 15:13

Quote:

Originally Posted by Crassus Praetor

Most of the time a derv won't need an IMS and most of the improvements needed by the OP have already been posted by Chthon.

Oh, so we should cease all discussion? For what purpose?
If you don't want to take part in an argument then don't. But don't complain when someone's argument is taken apart by another, each point countered or discussed further with justification.

Crassus Praetor · Sep 04, 2010, 03:35 PM // 15:35

Obviously the discussion should continue, as long as it helps the original poster since that was the objective in the first place.

It is not clear how helpful any of this has been to the OP since he/she hasn't posted again, my point was that this has, as usual, descended into mere point-countering with or without justification.

I do not disagree with many of the points raised and I am not saying that the builds posted by any one person in particular should be classed as perfect.

If I were the OP I would now find it difficult to re-enter my own topic, however there are still many valid points raised, such as not bringing a res on a front line and reasons not to bring AoB.

No I don't want to take part in this argument, I would be as bad as the thing I was commenting on in the first place but I just hope that the OP is being helped in the middle of all this.