Curse

dylyn · Sep 18, 2009, 02:37 PM // 14:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by IronSheik

And as others said, avatars =/= experienced player. A DPS dervish should not be running any type of avatar, (This includes Lyssa/Grenth).

Sorry, can't agree. If I'm going some place with undead, it's really handy to bring AoB for the double holy damage (and IAS). Combined with Asuran Scan and a decent scythe, you can easily see things explode with 400+ damage. The highest damage I remember was 462 in one swing, against the undead in the Villainy of Galrath quest.

And also what Bobby2 said -- Melandru and Wearying Strike are great if you're in a condition-heavy area.

Bloody Dominator · Sep 18, 2009, 03:19 PM // 15:19

Dump prot spirit, take Armor of sanctity, would wok better with AoB. Take Aura of Holy Might and 3 attack skill and ur set.

J I L T · Sep 18, 2009, 04:47 PM // 16:47

Quote:

Originally Posted by ~ Dan ~

Whoa whoa whoa, stop there.

Who said 7 attack skills?

- Asuran scan = offensive
- Aura of Holy Might = offensive
- Heart of fury = offensive
- Rush or similar is also always useful

So now you have a rez, and 3 attack skills. That's a fully offensive bar.

I see you're overly worried about energy management with a lack of 5 earth enchantments on your bar for mysticism.

Tip: take zealous vow. There you go, blow stuff up with no energy problems and no need for mysticism.

Also, you do realise monk enchantments give you energy? I've been running the discordway lately with a friend, and being the only melee in our team i'm the main target for prots. Energy galore without having to take defensive shit myself.

Because he seemed to think it was the dervish's job to load his bar with defensive crap to keep himself alive. It's not.

I just used 7 attacks skills as a generic term for all damage skills. It doesn't matter if it's 3 attacks, 1 hex, 1 ias or whatever taking a bar with almost nothing but damage is complete overkill. Think about it like this how often do you fail something because you can't kill something? Never right? How often do you fail because of death? Even if you never fail anything ever because you use discord you're still way more likely to fail because your defense is nonexistent. How often do you see a super enemy monk keeping all it's allies alive indefinitely? How often do you see eles dealing hundreds of damage per second and killing half the party with 1 or 2 spells? In Gw offense will always outclass defense even without pve skills. You're overcompensating for something that does need it just because you like to see huge numbers.

I'm not overly worried about enchantments or energy I'm just making a point is all. There is no advantage to being a primary dervish if you don't use enchantments. If you just want to swing a scythe fine whatever but you're better off being an assassin for more frequent critical hits or a warrior for armor penetration. It's the exact same concept behind the 3 necros in your precious discord and sabway. And yeah all enchantments give you the energy and health but monks aren't your personal life lines. There are 7 other people besides you can get those enchantments and being the only melee doesn't make you a more likely target either unless you run way ahead of everyone and you're the only one in agro range.

And even you do draw a lot of damage why do you not take 1 skill to keep yourself alive? I mean what is your thought process? "I'm going to take lots of damage should I bring a heal or defensive skill of any kind?" "No because then my 200 dps will go down ever so slightly and even though dervs have 3 attributes including their primary attribute dedicated to defense I should only be attacking because that's what the build I copied from pvx says." It's like you're bragging and think you're right because of a lack of common sense.

~ Dan ~ · Sep 18, 2009, 06:29 PM // 18:29

Quote:

Originally Posted by J I L T

I just used 7 attacks skills as a generic term for all damage skills. It doesn't matter if it's 3 attacks, 1 hex, 1 ias or whatever taking a bar with almost nothing but damage is complete overkill.

It's not overkill, it's necessary to do your job. Your job being melee DPS.

Quote:

Think about it like this how often do you fail something because you can't kill something? Never right?

No, wrong. I take it you never play HM? If you're not killing anything, eventually you will wipe, guaranteed. But if all the foes are dead because you're DPS'ing properly - who is going to kill you?

Quote:

How often do you fail because of death?

Proper healing and prots + death pact signet solve this.

Quote:

Even if you never fail anything ever because you use discord you're still way more likely to fail because your defense is nonexistent.

Let me tell you something. I recently switched from sab's to discord simply because you have great dps in the form of discord whilst leaving alot of spots for utility (defense). Before that with sabway, I never ran defensive skills on my pve bar, and vanquished cantha with H/H because I/we killed everything before it killed us.

"offense is the best defence". Stop being bad. (and FYI, our defense is existent, just in the form of partywide heals, blocks - wards, aegis - condition removals etc, and not on my bar)

Quote:

How often do you see a super enemy monk keeping all it's allies alive indefinitely?

The only time that happens is if it's a HM monk boss. I do my homework, and bring a BHA ranger hero.

Quote:

How often do you see eles dealing hundreds of damage per second and killing half the party with 1 or 2 spells?

I pull, with prot spirit on me. I wait ahead of the team for meteor shower and shit to be wasted on me, then pull back to heroes. That problem doesn't exist for me. And no amount of defense is going to stop a HM ele boss one shotting who he wants if you can't pre-prot PS. Again, do your homework if you're in HM - bring a ranger for him and shove a BHA in his face.

Quote:

In Gw offense will always outclass defense even without pve skills. You're overcompensating for something that does need it just because you like to see huge numbers.

So what's your point? You admit offence outclasses defence, so use it. You're saying things die fast enough that you can use your dervish to spam earth enchantments. Here's an idea - DPS instead, and things die even faster.

Quote:

There is no advantage to being a primary dervish if you don't use enchantments.

- Runes: higher scythe mastery means more damage with a scythe than another class could attempt, minus maybe A/D.
- The fact that with my dervish skills I can use whatever secondary profession I want for whatever reason. Another class choosing derv for my skills will be hindered. (except again, A/D)

I can't stress this enough: Monk enchantments give you all the energy you need. That's me exploiting mysticism right there, without taking defensive enchantments myself. I am still benefiting from my primary attribute but with an offensive DPS bar.

Quote:

If you just want to swing a scythe fine whatever but you're better off being an assassin for more frequent critical hits or a warrior for armor penetration.

And if you want to sit ther spamming earth enchantments to enjoy mysticism and staying alive, just go AFK and let heroes kill everything instead, since you're useless to your team.

With your attitude people will tell you time and time again: Guildwars is a team game. Bring monks in your team.

Quote:

It's the exact same concept behind the 3 necros in your precious discord and sabway. And yeah all enchantments give you the energy and health but monks aren't your personal life lines.There are 7 other people besides you can get those enchantments and being the only melee doesn't make you a more likely target either unless you run way ahead of everyone and you're the only one in agro range.

I think what you fail to realise here is I only play with 1 human + heroes, or H/H. If I want to be the target of prots, I will. If I want to keep all the aggro on me away from the team, I can. All anyone else needs is the odd PS, or an aegis.

Quote:

And even you do draw a lot of damage why do you not take 1 skill to keep yourself alive? I mean what is your thought process? "I'm going to take lots of damage should I bring a heal or defensive skill of any kind?" "No because then my 200 dps will go down ever so slightly and even though dervs have 3 attributes including their primary attribute dedicated to defense I should only be attacking because that's what the build I copied from pvx says." It's like you're bragging and think you're right because of a lack of common sense.

My thought process is that i'm doing my class role for the team. Likewise, my monks or N/rt's or whatever are doing their role for the team. The two roles combined = stuff dies, we don't. Classic combo.

Oh also, I'm curious to know what these 3 attributes are dedicated to defense?

- Scythe mastery? Doubt it.
- Earth prayers? Yeah, that's why it's useless most of the time. EDA can be nice though. And this "ever so slightly decrease in DPS" will be much more than that if you're speccing into another attribute line.
- Wind prayers? Zealous vow, whirling charge and attacker's insight combination make this much more of an offensive attribute line, than defensive. Not to mention the many snares and run stances/enchants it has.
- So that leaves mysticism. Lyssa, Melandru, you're best IAS in HoF, to name a few, means that people speccing in this aren't doing so for defense. Unless you claim + 15 health when an enchantment ends is "defense". And btw, you get energy from any enchantment ending on you, regardless of it's effect, so think before you make such stupid statements.

If anyone is lacking common sense here, it's you. You obviously don't understand the concept of a team game, or a melee DPS role, or the mysticism synergy with your party's monk prots. I don't know what else I can say to make you wake up. Every situation you listed in the start of your post applies to you, but rarely to me, because you're just bad at guildwars.

LAST EDIT: I think i've come to the conclusion that all of your points are based on normal pve experience. In which case, nobody cares, since everything works. But when you want to argue effectiveness & HM; and that DPS'ing on a DPS class is the wrong way to go; or that bringing vital boon and speccing 9 in earth prayers will save your party from a wipe; or that a HM ele is going to wipe your team because you didn't bring vital boon - in such a case, you're just plain wrong.

I've tried to give you my experiences such as vanquishing to show you i've seen it all, and know that I can safely say thinking defensively on your dervish is the wrong decision.

IronSheik · Sep 18, 2009, 08:10 PM // 20:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by dylyn

Sorry, can't agree. If I'm going some place with undead, it's really handy to bring AoB for the double holy damage (and IAS). Combined with Asuran Scan and a decent scythe, you can easily see things explode with 400+ damage. The highest damage I remember was 462 in one swing, against the undead in the Villainy of Galrath quest.

AoHM=Holy damage, therefore balthazar is just about the most useless avatar.]

Melandru+Wearying is mediocre at best, I'm not going to get into testing but.

25e Avatar, plus the PvE skill to upkeep it. Dropping SY/Asuran/AoHM lowers utility/DPS depending on which you bring.

Wearying does have nice + damage and DW, which adds to to 100 psuedo and your base damage instantly, but it adds weakness and has a 6 recharge.

WS has a lower recharge therefore more spammability without the clause of weakness

Desert Rose · Sep 20, 2009, 10:41 AM // 10:41

In addition to IronSheik list:
AoB doesn't give you an IAS, but an IMS. The avatar is really horrible.

Melandru is very good in Shards of Orr and other places where mobs spam blind/weakness, everwhere else it's medicore.

Caden · Sep 20, 2009, 04:49 PM // 16:49

Hey guys...thanks for the responses, but i like using AoB, and who can say that im not an xped derv if i use Aob. The skill gives me xtra defense and a bit more speed, all i wanted to know is wat can i use to benefit my defense

Quote:

One word, Sabway! For your heroes.

i actually use a Sabway, but if they die for some or other reason i wanna atleast keep myself alive to maybe try and do something about it.

and as far as its concerned u need a bar of defense bcoz if you go into a quest or mission with other players then u need to keep urself going...especially in a mission or dungeon, so AoB might not be the best avatar but it helps to keep my derv in a stable position

~ Dan ~ · Sep 20, 2009, 05:29 PM // 17:29

Quote:

Originally Posted by Caden

all i wanted to know is wat can i use to benefit my defense

And we told you - monks. Don't use your own bar for this, you have classes in this game dedicated to the defensive side of a team.

Quote:

i actually use a Sabway, but if they die for some or other reason i wanna atleast keep myself alive to maybe try and do something about it.

Only thing you can do to save things would be to rez them. If you're backline goes down and stays down, chances are you're going to wipe unless you can kill the enemy first, since none of you are going to get heals; and believe it or not, mystic regen won't save you from 8 angry poorly scripted AI foes.

Quote:

and as far as its concerned u need a bar of defense bcoz if you go into a quest or mission with other players then u need to keep urself going...

No, you take healers for that. If you're joining a PuG without any, you're probably going to fail anyway unless its all this perma sf shit. Do yourself a favour, just H/H everything, or run with guild groups.

IronSheik · Sep 21, 2009, 04:18 AM // 04:18

Quote:

Originally Posted by Caden

i actually use a Sabway, but if they die for some or other reason i wanna atleast keep myself alive to maybe try and do something about it.

and as far as its concerned u need a bar of defense bcoz if you go into a quest or mission with other players then u need to keep urself going...especially in a mission or dungeon, so AoB might not be the best avatar but it helps to keep my derv in a stable position

If all you can do is keep yourself alive and not kill, you're still pretty useless right?

And if you bring a bar of defense, who is going to do the killing? Certainly not the derv who's only attack is victorious sweep and has 6 enchants. And why use AoB if it isn't the best, sorry, you can't call yourself an experienced dervish if you think AoB is a good skill, defensewise or not.

In hardmode, balthazar is going to prevent as much damage as a protective spirit, and holy damage can come from a damage boosting skill, so basically all the avatar will give you is movement speed.

D/Mo is mostless crap outside arenas.