Curse

reaper with no name · Jul 27, 2009, 03:14 PM // 15:14

The dervish is a class that is generally overshadowed by others. Anyone remember that old kids' song that went like "Anything you can do, I can do better"? Well, in this case it's more like "Anything a dervish can do, some other profession can do better".

So, this thread is for everyone to try and come up with primary dervish builds that no other profession combo can fully eclipse.

Let's start with the basic ones that we all already know:

[Aura of Holy Might][Heart of Fury][Asuran Scan][Avatar of Melandru][Wearying Strike][Optional][Optional][Optional]

Condition immunity. 'Nuff said.

[Aura of Holy Might][Heart of Fury][Asuran Scan][Avatar of Dwayna][Optional][Optional][Optional][Optional]

Hex removal ftw.

[Arcane Zeal][Order of Pain][Dark Fury][Mystic Healing][Dwayna's Touch][Vow of Piety][Watchful Intervention][Faithful Intervention]

The sort-of famous Orders dervish. Like the Orders necro, but harder to kill.

[Aura of Holy Might][Heart of Fury][Asuran Scan][Wounding Strike]["For Great Justice!"]["Save Yourselves!"][Optional][Optional]

My personal favorite, the WS/RS + SY! dervish. No one can consistently spam DW more than this, outscythe it, and out SY!-spam it all at the same time.

[Aura of Holy Might][Heart of Fury][Asuran Scan][Resurrect][Optional][Optional][Optional][Optional]

The copout option. Bleh.

[Ebon Battle Standard of Honor][Aura of Holy Might][Heart of Fury][Asuran Scan][Wounding Strike]["Go for the Eyes!"][Optional][Optional]

This is a new one I made recently. It seems to work pretty well if there are a lot of minions or physicals running around. I use it when I'm vqing drazach thicket.

Ok, who's next?

Evasion Twenty · Jul 27, 2009, 04:06 PM // 16:06

Try Zealous Vow. You dont need a zealous scythe, only vampiric one for cheap heals+damage output.

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Mystic Vigor, AoHM and SY for more surviving+damage. Bleeding for pressure, the other 2 skills for quick damage. Last one is optional

paddymew · Jul 27, 2009, 04:40 PM // 16:40

Maintainable global 110 armor and +33% movement speed while wielding a two-handed weapon that deals holy damage and hits three enemies doesn't strike me as anything any other single profession might be capable of. The fact that I'm only talking of two out of eight skills supports this.

IronSheik · Jul 27, 2009, 04:43 PM // 16:43

Avatars lol, and the fact resurrect is on one of your bars.

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Needs no IAS.

Chthon · Jul 28, 2009, 04:18 AM // 04:18

Quote:

Originally Posted by reaper with no name

The dervish is a class that is generally overshadowed by others. Anyone remember that old kids' song that went like "Anything you can do, I can do better"? Well, in this case it's more like "Anything a dervish can do, some other profession can do better".

So, this thread is for everyone to try and come up with primary dervish builds that no other profession combo can fully eclipse.

You neglect a crucial element. Not only must you find something that a dervish can do better than any other class, you must find something worth doing that a dervish can do better than any other class. Elsewhere I've already expressed my skepticism on this possibility.

Quote:

Condition immunity.

So what? It won't kill monsters, keep your allies alive, or even keep you alive. So what good is it?

A huge improvement is pairing AoM with Draw Condition or Foul Feast to provide really, really strong removal for the whole party, but that's something any necro primary or secondary can do in 2 non-elite slots.

Quote:

Hex removal ftw.

Again, so what? One party member staying free of hexes neither kills things nor keeps your party alive.

Quote:

The sort-of famous Orders dervish.

Lacks a useful primary. Orders nercos can go smite for SoH plus strong removal, or channeling for splinter. Orders dervs are stuck with questionable healing abilities for their secondary function. This makes sense n the Ract-way context where healing is widely distributed; otherwise it's a bust.

Quote:

No one can consistently spam DW more than this, outscythe it, and out SY!-spam it all at the same time.

DW is merely pseudo-damage. Count it as 100 damage the first time it's applied and compare that DPS to other straight DPS+SY! builds. It's just not that great.

Quote:

The copout option. Bleh.

Lots of other classes can do armor-sensitive damage....

Quote:

[Ebon Battle Standard of Honor]

Anyone can run EBSoH, and caster/ranged classes can often run it better.

reaper with no name · Jul 28, 2009, 06:01 AM // 06:01

Quote:

Originally Posted by Evasion Twenty

Try Zealous Vow. You dont need a zealous scythe, only vampiric one for cheap heals+damage output.

OgGjkyqJbShbfXygNXMXlixgCAA

Mystic Vigor, AoHM and SY for more surviving+damage. Bleeding for pressure, the other 2 skills for quick damage. Last one is optional

Question: What can a zealous vow dervish with SY! do better than a WE scythe warrior? Nothing. Hence, it's not non-redundant.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chthon

You neglect a crucial element. Not only must you find something that a dervish can do better than any other class, you must find something worth doing that a dervish can do better than any other class. Elsewhere I've already expressed my skepticism on this possibility.

So what? It won't kill monsters, keep your allies alive, or even keep you alive. So what good is it?

A huge improvement is pairing AoM with Draw Condition or Foul Feast to provide really, really strong removal for the whole party, but that's something any necro primary or secondary can do in 2 non-elite slots.

Again, so what? One party member staying free of hexes neither kills things nor keeps your party alive.

Lacks a useful primary. Orders nercos can go smite for SoH plus strong removal, or channeling for splinter. Orders dervs are stuck with questionable healing abilities for their secondary function. This makes sense n the Ract-way context where healing is widely distributed; otherwise it's a bust.

DW is merely pseudo-damage. Count it as 100 damage the first time it's applied and compare that DPS to other straight DPS+SY! builds. It's just not that great.

Lots of other classes can do armor-sensitive damage....

Anyone can run EBSoH, and caster/ranged classes can often run it better.

Don't even try to tell me that a blinded or weakened scythe warrior is more effective than an AoM derv. Or that a scythe warrior with a 50% miss chance hex on them is more effective than an AoD derv.

Draw Conditions or Foul Feast only really work with AoM if you put it on a hero because you can't attack and use them at once. You have to switch between them.

If an Orders necro goes smiting, guess what? He's not healing. Besides, either way the Orders dervish is harder to kill.

Most monsters don't live long enough for the DPS of scythe warriors to overcome the DPS of a dervish who can spam DW, because of that initital +100 damage spike. And don't forget that DW also reduces the effect of healing.

Sure, other people can use those skills, but no one can use GftE and use a scythe as well as a dervish. EBSoH is just there because it complements the basic premise of supporting minions/melee.

You can argue that there are builds that are better overall, but that's not the point of this thread. The point of it is to post builds that at least have some edge (however slight) that people could use to potentially argue for bringing along a dervish instead of a scythe warrior or scythe sin (whether someone believes the alternative is still better or not is irrelevant).

draxynnic · Jul 28, 2009, 06:24 AM // 06:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by reaper with no name

Don't even try to tell me that a blinded or weakened scythe warrior is more effective than an AoM derv. Or that a scythe warrior with a 50% miss chance hex on them is more effective than an AoD derv.

The blinded or weakened scythe warrior could bring condition removal, and the hexed warrior could bring hex removal. Or they could get it from their friends.

This isn't to say that there aren't times where you may be better off with the total condition immunity or whatever it might be (just try keeping blind off the physicals in Shards of Orr...) but unless you're facing a lot of them, the monks should be able to keep up.

So... niche build. Sand Shards is also another way you can turn blind to your advantage.

Quote:

Sure, other people can use those skills, but no one can use GftE and use a scythe as well as a dervish. EBSoH is just there because it complements the basic premise of supporting minions/melee.

I wonder. At the risk of making another profession that can out-scythe the dervish... could a P/D run an adaptation of this build?

IronSheik · Jul 28, 2009, 06:25 AM // 06:25

Quote:

Originally Posted by reaper with no name

Question: What can a zealous vow dervish with SY! do better than a WE scythe warrior? Nothing. Hence, it's not non-redundant.

Don't even try to tell me that a blinded or weakened scythe warrior is more effective than an AoM derv. Or that a scythe warrior with a 50% miss chance hex on them is more effective than an AoD derv.

A Zealous vow has even more spammability than a WE, and also has better crit chance

Only place avatars are decent is SoO for conditions, and maybe AoD for something like perdition

And bringing AoM just for conditions? That takes a PvE slot and drastically lowers utility and DPS

And to the above poster, frontliners don't bring hex/condition removal, ever, sorry.

And earth prayers are useless in PvE except for lame bomber gimmicks

Lishy · Jul 28, 2009, 08:46 AM // 08:46

Zealous Vow is tied to wind prayers which sucks though.
This means anyone can use it and not just dervish. AND you have to constantly recast it!

Furthermore, no power attack or counter attack. Those are VERY important skills for the scythewar.

Not only that, but the lack of a decent IAS hurts A LOT!

@draxynnic: I've been abusing GFTE with scythes as P/D soon as it was re-buffed. But I was too lazy to make a thread.

Typically, the build is soldier's fury with "Can't touch this", but if you're in the mood to go hardcore, you use Focused Anger and Drunken Master, with beer.
While the Paragon alone out-dpses the dervish, when you have a dervish in the same team, their natural high damage combined with near constant GFTE will shoot the damage through the roof with the dervish. That's something an assassin cannot do better. And the Warrior cannot carry GFTE, so it lacks synergy, albiet, its still effective.

reaper with no name · Jul 28, 2009, 04:47 PM // 16:47

A P/D is not as good with a scythe as a dervish. It's crit rates and damage ratings are lower, it doesn't have a 33% IAS (unless it wants to burn a PvE skill for Drunken Master, in which case the dervish is still not redundant because it has an extra PvE slot it can use for whatever it wants). To make the D/P build I showed redundant, the Paragon build would have to follow this template:

[EBSoH][AoHM][Aggressive Refrain][AS][WS][GftE][Optional][Optional][Optional]

If the para consistently hits 3 enemies (unrealistic, 1.5 would be a better bet), it will still take 2.61 sec to charge GftE. Energy isn't a factor due to leadership and GftE. However, no dervish attack skill has less than 4 recharge. And there's only two slots left on this bar. That means 2 attack skills per 4 sec. The best case scenario is that the para gets mystic sweep and eremite's attack (each do +27 damage).

After crunching the numbers, a dervish with 15 scythe mastery (it's higher if he gets 16 scythe mastery, of course) has an average DPS (this counts when HoF is up and when it isn't) of 150.7723. The Paragon has an average DPS of 98.14646 (counting aggressive refrain).

150.7723*4 = 458.5148

98.14646*2 + (98.14646+27)*2 = 446.5859

Yep, dervish wins. Of course, this assumes that the paragon is constantly hitting 3 foes (or else eremite's attack will do 9 less damage, dragging down DPS further) and assumes that the dervish uses no attack skills. Heck, give the dervish a vampiric scythe and his DPS immediately goes up by 5. I'm not gonna bother to see about if he gets a zealous scythe and starts using an attack skill.

And even if the paragon could beat the dervish in attack power, the dervish still wouldn't be redundant because he'd be tougher. He'd have 90 armor thanks to windwalker's insignias (and all it takes is Fathful Intervention to make up for that -75 hp for the superior rune), while the Paragon would have 60 (70 if he's constantly affected by shouts or chants thanks to Centurion's Insignias).

Quote:

Originally Posted by IronSheik

A Zealous vow has even more spammability than a WE, and also has better crit chance

Only place avatars are decent is SoO for conditions, and maybe AoD for something like perdition

And bringing AoM just for conditions? That takes a PvE slot and drastically lowers utility and DPS

And to the above poster, frontliners don't bring hex/condition removal, ever, sorry.

And earth prayers are useless in PvE except for lame bomber gimmicks

Despite the higher crit chance, the scythe warrior still does significantly more damage.

Who cares if the zealous vow dervish has even more spammability? The scythe warrior can still spam attack skills until the cows come home, so the extra energy doesn't matter.

And AoM doesn't "drastically reduce DPS". It has the same DPS if you bring wearying strike (well, unless you're bringing along "By Ural's Hammer!" or something; but that doesn't last nearly long enough to be very good). It does have less utility though. That's the price you pay for never having to worry about blindness or weakness.

Lishy · Jul 28, 2009, 06:55 PM // 18:55

reaper with no name, you're missing the whole strategy of the build.

Never underestimate Adrenaline boosting skills and IAS.

And if you're using Aggressive Refrain for a ScythePara, urdoinitwrung

Like the ranger, it provides a load of energy management. But due to IAS and adrenaline boost of your choice(I like Soldier's Fury), this heavily promotes GFTE spammability.
Meaning you have near infinite energy while having PARTY-WIDE criticals being spammed, as well as really great damage.
And since other professions cannot spam GFTE as well as the paragon with a scythe, this makes the Paragon vastly superior to the dervish. Especially because you can use party-wide supports while scything, such as There's Nothing To Fear.

reaper with no name · Jul 28, 2009, 10:21 PM // 22:21

If you're doing that, then you're using up other skill slots. IE, you're dropping some other skill in the build. Hence, you're not making it redundant. You might be doing most of the build better, but not all of it. A build with no hex removal cannot be better at hex removal than a build that does have it, no matter how much better the first build is at everything else.

Once again:

Quote:

You can argue that there are builds that are better overall, but that's not the point of this thread. The point of it is to post builds that at least have some edge (however slight) that people could use to potentially argue for bringing along a dervish instead of a scythe warrior or scythe sin (whether someone believes the alternative is still better or not is irrelevant).

IronSheik · Jul 28, 2009, 10:33 PM // 22:33

See the thing is at this point, THERE IS NO point in bring a dervish over another scythe user. What edge do dervishes have...avatars? Those suck in the first place for DPS, AoM+Wearying is not better than a regular WS derv, you say oh oh oh blind+weakness pwnt. But like you said in the other thread, how many things actually blind and weaken? Not that many.

Conditions are useless in PvE, AoM is basically giving you 100 health and taking up a PvE slot.

reaper with no name · Jul 28, 2009, 10:38 PM // 22:38

In most areas, condition immunity isn't needed. But guess what? In those areas where it is, AoM shines. Same with AoD in hex-heavy areas.

Saying there's no reason to bring a WS+SY! dervish over a WE Scythe Warrior despite the dervish's DW spam is like saying that there's no reason to bring a WE scythe warrior over a WS+SY! dervish despite the warrior's higher damage and armor. Each have their advantages. The warrior might have more advantages (in fact, I can't think of a case where he won't), but that doesn't change the fact that the dervish does have advantages of his own. Or at least, he will in the sorts of builds I made this thread for.

IronSheik · Jul 28, 2009, 10:42 PM // 22:42

The builds you posted in no way prove a dervish can do anything better than a warrior or sin, minus orders.

AoD takes hexes off you, okay...you have one frontliner that can do some meager damage, other ones are Sol

AoM if you really honestly need this in a condition heavy area, it's better the dervish do support instead of frontlining if conditions are being applied this fast, and you better to bring no melee at all, if you then say to let the derv tank, once again warrior wins.

reaper with no name · Jul 28, 2009, 10:57 PM // 22:57

You're looking at this in a black-and-white way. Either it's good at this, or it isn't. That's not the way it works. As an AoM dervish, I can frontline AND save the monk the trouble of having to remove conditions from me constantly. Similiar deal with AoD. If I've got WS and SY!, I can spam both at the same time while being a pretty good frontliner. Yeah, the warrior can outdamage me, and the paragon can outsupport me, and the scythe sin can out-DW me, but none can do all three at once. I can partially replace or supplement any of them.

Besides, AoM dervishes aren't THAT much weaker than warriors. What's 25 dps when you're already doing 120+? If you call that meager, then I have to wonder what your definition of "good" is, because a scythe warrior sure won't qualify either.

Expherious · Jul 28, 2009, 11:01 PM // 23:01

I've been running a similarity for a long time now gj!

IronSheik · Jul 29, 2009, 12:24 AM // 00:24

You don't seem to see conditions are near useless in PvE, and bringing AoM to counter it is a waste of an elite, therefore it's basically adding 100 health, and bringing AoD to relieve pressure from monks..you're basically being the normal PuG half bar to keep yourself alive dervish.

And counting DW as 'damage' is incorrect, it's more or so phantom or psuedo damage

As for wearying..it's 6 seconds with no cover, WS is half that with a cover, granted a lot of enemies have no flesh, a lot do, and you're bringing a crappy elite to use it

Warrior can also DW too, maybe not as fast, but it's better than wearying.

Drizzitdude · Jul 29, 2009, 02:44 AM // 02:44

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Its pvp. Contant use of enchants allow for High healthm regeneration and massive damage due to Wounding strike and Heart of fury and some scythe skills.

reaper with no name · Jul 29, 2009, 03:14 AM // 03:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by IronSheik

You don't seem to see conditions are near useless in PvE, and bringing AoM to counter it is a waste of an elite, therefore it's basically adding 100 health, and bringing AoD to relieve pressure from monks..you're basically being the normal PuG half bar to keep yourself alive dervish.

And counting DW as 'damage' is incorrect, it's more or so phantom or psuedo damage

As for wearying..it's 6 seconds with no cover, WS is half that with a cover, granted a lot of enemies have no flesh, a lot do, and you're bringing a crappy elite to use it

Warrior can also DW too, maybe not as fast, but it's better than wearying.

DW is very real damage so long as the enemy dies while under it's effect. And with a scythe user attacking the enemy, unless they're a boss they're most likely dead meat. In which case, yeah, the DW spammer has a +100 dmg leg up on the killing.

I don't see how you can not see conditions as significant. Bleeding, for example, is armor-ignoring +6 dps. After 5 sec, that's equal to an attack skill. And it'll keep going after that, without spending extra energy. And that's one of the more pathetic conditions. Weakness makes melee 66% less effective. Blindness makes melee 90% less effective. If you don't think the ability to avoid that plus 100 health is worth an elite and a pve slot, ok, but to some it's a fair trade.