Curse

Tomkatt · Jun 14, 2010, 03:10 PM // 15:10

I posted this on my guild's forum earlier, but thought I should post here in case anyone finds it helpful or useful (or can improve upon it, you never know). This is the build I've been using on my Derv since I don't have any elite forms. I've tried playing around with other builds, but I always come back to this one since every move seems to have a certain synergy (sorry for the corporate lingo but it fits) and they work well together.

It's also a good option for those still early in the game, as all of these skills are available as soon as you can get your first signet of capture.

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This is for the player Dervish, not a hero (I don't think a hero would use it efficiently, as a certain order of attack is required).

Quote:

[build name="Infinite renewal" prof=dervish][Attacker's Insight][Victorious Sweep][Lyssa's Assault][Heart of Holy Flame][Twin Moon Sweep][Eternal Aura][Faithful Intervention][/build]

Build includes

* Attacker's Insight
* Victorious Sweep
* Lyssa's Assault
* Heart of Holy Flame
* Twin Moon Sweep
* Eternal Aura
* Faithful Intervention

This is a good build that can be attained relatively early. All skills are available at trainers at an early time except the following:

- Eternal Assault: Must buy for hero points in Sunspear Great Hall.
- Lyssa's Assault: Must be obtained via Signet of Capture from Haioss in Fahranur, the Lost City. Haioss will be in the lower area in the water where the boss was originally in the Mission there (Jokanur Diggings area). Otherwise it's only available from the last skill trainer in Nightfall (before the last storyline mission, I think).

Here's the idea behind this build:

Build is 15 Scythe Mastery (with a +2 Rune)
Spend 5-6 points in Wind Prayers (enough to make attacker's Insight make your next 2 moves cost 10 less energy)
Spend all the rest of your points in Mysticism (with +1 rune)

* Make sure Faithful Intervention stays up (it only drops off when used, don't need to recast otherwise)
* Start with HoHF, positioning for multiple adjacent enemies if possible and use Twin Moon Sweep for damage, self heal, and to remove HoHF buff and inflict burning for 4 seconds.
* Cast Eternal Aura for more AoE damage to Adjacent foes
* Cast Attacker's insight and then use Victorious Sweep, followed by Lyssa's Assault for damage and regen massive energy (12 energy I think, plus the regen during the 2 free moves)
* Eternal Aura should be close to ending. You can let it fall off, though more effectively you can use Twin Moon Sweep again to force it off, regaining health and removing cooldown on all abilities, including Twin Moon Sweep.
* Start from HoHF again and repeat as needed (substitute directly to Attacker's Insight after TMS since Eternal Aura will be on CD).

The benefits of this build are as follows:

* Self Healing from TMS, VS, and FI and Mysticism, as you're regularly adding and removing enchants.
* Consistent Energy regen from both removing enchants and from Lyssa's Assault and the management from Attacker's Insight.
* High power opening abilities followed by steady pressure.
* If you follow the rotation properly you should never run out of energy

Cons:

* Self healing is relatively reliable, but only good for steady damge, won't help against spikes. Also, Faithful intervention's cast is a bit long, easy to interrupt and hard to reapply in battle if things get rough.
* Besides the initial spike, build is mostly pressure. You won't be doing spike kills with this build unless the enemies are already in bad shape when you start
* If you mess up the rotation you can run out of energy easily, and will need to wait for long cooldowns.

The build listed intentionally only has 7 moves. Take the Rez of your choice (monk or rits will want repeatable rezzes, I use my Sunspear Rez Signet). IF you are soloing or don't think you'll need the rez, Mystic Vigor isn't a bad choice to shore up your healing deficiencies. You can also take another attack of your choice if you'd prefer to add more power, though best to only choose options that cost 5 energy.

If you intend to add an Elite to the build it would be best to replace either HOHF with it (keep eternal Aura, it will mean 100% uptime on Elite form) or replace VS with it if you can live without the extra heal.

There you have it. I thought I'd post it here, since I've never seen this build anywhere else in looking on PVXWiki and other build guides (GW Compendium comes to mind).

Hope somebody finds it useful.

EDIT
just as a side note, when fighting Demons don't remove HoHF until the cooldown is up. When it's castable again, remove to burn with Twin Moon Sweep, then recast immediately. Against Demons is one of the only situations where breaking the rotation is a good idea (double holy damage makes up for it easily).

farmerfez · Jun 14, 2010, 04:03 PM // 16:03

so why wouldnt you just use an elite again?

FlyMoto · Jun 14, 2010, 04:23 PM // 16:23

Worry less about healing yourself and more about doing damage... healing is for your monk(s).

Not using AoHM (granted, its a factions skill) is lowering your damage potential a lot. I also don't see why you don't pick up an elite skill as soon as possible, probably Reapers Sweep or Wounding Strike.

Benderama · Jun 14, 2010, 04:31 PM // 16:31

Quote:

so why wouldnt you just use an elite again?

because there isn't an elite that does something better than a skill thats already there? not sure if thats the case with this build, but for an energy build on my sin there isn't an elite that's specifically good at what i want to do.

Tomkatt · Jun 14, 2010, 04:34 PM // 16:34

Quote:

Originally Posted by FlyMoto

Worry less about healing yourself and more about doing damage... healing is for your monk(s).

Not using AoHM (granted, its a factions skill) is lowering your damage potential a lot. I also don't see why you don't pick up an elite skill as soon as possible, probably Reapers Sweep or Wounding Strike.

Actually, I intend to pick up Avatar of Grenth and work a build around it, but this is just working with what was available to me. I don't have AoHM yet, as I've never ported my Derv over to factions, only recently hit 20 and still going through the NF story missions (new player, only been playing GW for 2 months).

I assume that when a player rolls a new dervish and has never unlocked Derv abilities, they won't have access to elite skills immediately, or may not know where to find the correct one. You'll note that I mentioned this build is for earlier in the game.

In any case, criticism is welcome, I must admit AoHM looks nice, I'll have to look into that.

EDIT - in rgard to your first comment about the self healing, the only actual heal brought is Faithful intervention. Victorious Sweep is a good core skill regardless of the heal (that's just a bonus), and you're getting plenty of "passive" healing just from the points in Mysticism. It wasn't intentionally designed with Self healing in mind; that was more of a lucky coincidence.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Benderama

because there isn't an elite that does something better than a skill thats already there? not sure if thats the case with this build, but for an energy build on my sin there isn't an elite that's specifically good at what i want to do.

This is the case as well. The idea behind this build wasn't to be some super attacker or anything, but rather to incorporate skills to ease the burden on your healer while doing steady pressure against multiple enemies.

The idea was to:

- ensure no lack of energy without needing +energy runes
- Do good damage against enough targets that AI (enemy) healers can't keep up with the overall damage, not necessarily against single target
- to keep pressure on with the burning effect on top of the other abilities.

Ideally it would be run alongside either a configured group of heroes or human players with the following abilities:

- Ranger with apply poison (or necro who can do the same)
- warrior and another character (I use Melonni) to apply deep wounds to targets
- any character in the group who can apply bleeds.

Generally I run in ahead of the group straight to the mob healer(s) and nuke them down in the initial spike, then work on the rest of the enemy group.

The goal is consistent pressure in a group, not to be a God alone.

If there are builds that do what this one does better, feel free to link them, I'd love to check them out, as currently I've not been able to work out a better build that fit my playstyle (or at least not with skills I have now, I'm only working with NF skills at the moment with the exception of Brawling Headbutt from EOTN)

Gift3d · Jun 14, 2010, 06:50 PM // 18:50

i know you think you've come across something new, exciting, and effective, but your build is absolutely horrible and is none of the above.

Xsiriss · Jun 14, 2010, 07:55 PM // 19:55

Forgive me but I don't really see anything revolutionary there and seems a bit underwhelming when faced with other builds eg D/W crit scythe. Oh yeh and 1337 tomes for the win.

Cuilan · Jun 14, 2010, 07:56 PM // 19:56

Not anywhere near a Zealous Vow dervish.

Chthon · Jun 15, 2010, 03:07 AM // 03:07

OK, so you're build is terrible. But you could probably tell that from the comments above.

On the flip side, welcome to the forums. Browse a little. There's some real gems of wisdom hidden among the dross.

FlyMoto · Jun 15, 2010, 06:55 AM // 06:55

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chthon

OK, so you're build is terrible. But you could probably tell that from the comments above.

On the flip side, welcome to the forums. Browse a little. There's some real gems of wisdom hidden among the dross.

Actually, I'd say its not a horrible start, considering he isn't wasting his time on stuff like Vow of Piety, Mystic Regeneration, Conviction, and all of the other horrible self-defense earth prayers skills. He's got some ideas, he recognizes some need for energy, that he should focus on damage, just hasn't picked on all of the best options yet.

Yasmine · Jun 15, 2010, 07:44 AM // 07:44

@posters above
Aren't you missing the purpose of this build? The op stated it was not for regular gameplay, just for a new dervish, without many dervish skills unlocked, till they get the possibility of obtaining other skills. You can argue that, since the tomes are easily aviable, skills require low ammount of faction to unlock, the gameplay time it's meant for is very short, etc... it doesn't have much use. However, i think it should be valutated given the limitation described above - comparing it to all those builds that require to complete or almost complete nightfall, eotn and possibly part of factions (since new players need to obtain r1 kurzick/luxon for AoHM) or do a lot of pvp doesn't seem to make much sense to me. Ofc, it should be noted that, in general, there are way better builds.

Tomkatt · Jun 15, 2010, 02:14 PM // 14:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chthon

OK, so you're build is terrible. But you could probably tell that from the comments above.

On the flip side, welcome to the forums. Browse a little. There's some real gems of wisdom hidden among the dross.

Yup.

Actually, that Zealous Vow build looks nice but I'm nowhere near far enough to use it, don't have Asura Scan or any Kurzick rank (been playing purely NF with the dervish, except for a brief stint through the unlocking quests for the other campaigns). My Dervish may or may not be my first character through EOTN (I'm quite fond of my Ranger and Warrior, so it's up for debate).