Curse

arredondo · Nov 01, 2006, 02:33 AM // 02:33

Edit: All times for enchants reflect a +20% enchant extender mod on the weapon.

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Extended Shadow Form Defender (De/As)

Mysticism: 16 (12+3+1)
Scythe:14 (11+3)
Shadow Arts: 6
Deadly Arts: 2

Deadly Paradox: Attack skills off for 10s, halves recharge and cast time of Assassin skills

Extended Enchantments: Lose all enchants. For 25s all enchants last 2x as long, and all end when this ends
Shadow Form: For 13s, all spells fail and all attacks miss you, lose all but 23 HP when it ends
Faithful Intervention: If damage puts you <50% HP, it ends. When it ends you get +158 HP
Heart of Fury: +33% attack speed for 25s, nearby foes set on fire for 3s when it ends

Crippling Sweep: attack Cripples foe for 7s times amount of enchants on you (max 19s)
Rez -or- Malicious Strike: Attack does 5 damage and hits as a Critical

Feigned Neutrality: +7 regen and +80 AL for 9s, ends if you attack or use a skill

I wear max energy armor, and I make sure to bring a +20% enchant Vamp Scythe among other weapons.
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Let me say right off that this build is better when you don't need a rez (like in Hero Battles, planned TA, some HA, Aspenwood, etc.). That eighth slot for Malicious Strike really makes a difference, but always bring a rez to RA. Another point is that I use dual Superior Runes in this build,, leaving me with about 405 HP. Your defense is so strong that you won't notice it at all. With that said, here's how it works.

Go into DP stance. Try and do it 3-4 seconds before you plan to enchant up and fight (not required though). After that, put up your four enchants in the order listed: EE->SF->FI->HoF

Congrats, you are now protected from 95% of the possible damage dealing skills and attacks in the game! Shadow Form in builds is normally maxed out in the Shadow Arts line to keep it up at maximum levels. Here I have L6 Shadow Arts and it's perfect, even though the stats say it's 9s (I added the +20% enchant stats in this listing). EE makes that 11s SF last about 22s (25s with enchant mod). When EE ends, it erased all enchants so it takes away SF just as SF was ending anyway.

Once you do EE->SF, the enemy can not stop the last two enchants, Faithful Intervention and Heart of Fury. FI's role in this build is genius. Like Watchful Intervention, it does not automatically trigger the HP boost if your health goes below the listed amount; only incoming damage will do that.

However this spell also says that you get the bonus when the enchant ends, so at the same time EE ends to kill SF and drop you to 23 HP, it also ends FI as well which immediately gives you the health boost! You actually never see it drop to 23 because it all happens together. The final enchant is Heart of Fury. This IAS lasts the entire time too, and it ends with the rest of them.

So the full plan is to put up Deadly Paradox and four enchants, then fight for the 25s that EE gives you. When it all ends, you get 158 from HoF, plus you get +16HP per enchant or another +64 total HP when they are gone. Altogether it easily puts you at 50% health instead of a mere 5% health. And that's the very instant SF leaves you.

After that, turn on Feigned Neutrality and it'll give you amazing defense and regen for the 5s you wait for SF to recharge (it lasts 25s, then recharges in 30s under DP). Make sure you don't attack or it ends.If you'd like, you can do DP+FN to permanently stay under it's protection.

BTW, this isn't casting as long as you may think. The the cast times for the four enchants are .25s, 1s., 2s, .75s. Faithful Intervention is the only slow one, and once SF is up, they can't interrupt you with (almost) anything anyway.

The offense is to use the IAS speed buffed scythe to do nice AoE damage, and on your main foe you keep Cripple up as you punish him with Malicious Strike (out of arenas). The critical can get into the 90s for damage, and with a Vamp mod you take more. 60 AL foes go down in under 10s, all of their spells and attacks missing in the progress. Remember, each failed spell or missed attack is energy lost for the other team (lead your team early to draw fire towards you).

Energy is fine. You have about 33E, and once the enchants are up you need Crippling Sweep once most of the time, then its -5E every time Mystic Sweep recharges. When all the enchants end, you get almost all your energy back due to Mysticism (+20E returned). This setup isn't overly powerful in damage, but it does get the job down. Give it a whirl and see if you like it yourself.

*** Farmer Dervishes ***

For PvE, try and switch out Malicious Strike and Crippling Sweep for Lyssa's Assault and Mystic Sweep to see how well it works for you (I haven't tried this yet BTW).

DevizioN · Nov 01, 2006, 09:01 AM // 09:01

very nice thinking, hopefully able too try it out tonight (Pve).

hope not too many D/A are gonna run around.

yazaga · Nov 01, 2006, 10:43 AM // 10:43

Congrats man. Very nice idea.

Cirian · Nov 01, 2006, 11:39 AM // 11:39

Nice combinations... I will take some notes

I guess it has some vulnerabilities to Choking Gas, Shove and other touch skills (Shock, Vamp), but there are some nice strengths there too

arredondo · Nov 01, 2006, 11:19 PM // 23:19

Yeah, some things can snag you of course but it is still really strong on defense, and the bonus is that when SF ends you aren't as vulnerable to kill like usual because of FI and FN. For instance, kiting with DP+FN outheals a single vamper on your tail. He can't steal enough to kill you when you run with constant +7 regen.

AW Lore · Nov 04, 2006, 02:23 AM // 02:23

nice one, ill keep an eye on this when i make my dervish... in quite a long time.

Zuzubee · Nov 04, 2006, 05:47 AM // 05:47

Very interesting build, this would tear through RA where the other team doesnt have a healer. You would be almost unkillable. PvE would be crazy.

The damage output is weak though, against a decent monk you could'nt kill anyone by yourself although you would be unkillable yourself at the same time.

I would be very surprised if this wasnt nerfed tbh. Shadow Form has many restrictions because its a very powerfull skill and its a certainty you were never meant to bypass them ALL for nearly permenent immunity.
This is like having a skill set that reduced the cooldown of meteor shower to 5s, removed its exhaustion and lowered the cast time to 2s. You are simply not meant to be able to use the skill in this way.

Elaine Donnerbalken · Nov 04, 2006, 08:49 AM // 08:49

Skills wont get nerfed because of RA, Zuzubee. Wait until people complain about imbalanced D/A in Guild Battles, then make statements how soon it will be changed.

6 out of 8 skills are dedicated to surviving, the damage output is meager.
Apart from RA or ganking, I see no possibility how this build could benefit the party (i dont say the build is bad, just want to clarify for what its designed, killing morons who cant switch targets or kite)

Mesmer in Need · Nov 04, 2006, 08:54 AM // 08:54

omfg i went up against one of these today.. anoyying as hell.

Zuzubee · Nov 04, 2006, 10:08 AM // 10:08

Quote:

Originally Posted by Elaine Donnerbalken

Skills wont get nerfed because of RA, Zuzubee. Wait until people complain about imbalanced D/A in Guild Battles, then make statements how soon it will be changed.

6 out of 8 skills are dedicated to surviving, the damage output is meager.
Apart from RA or ganking, I see no possibility how this build could benefit the party (i dont say the build is bad, just want to clarify for what its designed, killing morons who cant switch targets or kite)

Er I didnt say it should be nerfed because of RA.. thats completely out of context.

Ill say it again for you. Shadow Form is extremely powerfull. So ANET gave it a 60 second cooldown, a shortish duration and a huge health penalty when it ends.
Do you really believe they meant for you to circumvent every single one regardless of how many skills on your bar it takes?. No they did not.

Cambeul · Nov 04, 2006, 06:00 PM // 18:00

Well most ways to get around bad effects of skills is to multi class and such. Shard Storm, Sig of Midnight. But if you were not intended to get around Shadow Forms side effect, then why would they put the skill in the same class with Deadly Paradox??

ok I dont seem to making much sense, but maybe someone can figure it out..

arredondo · Nov 04, 2006, 10:22 PM // 22:22

Quote:

Originally Posted by Elaine Donnerbalken

Skills wont get nerfed because of RA, Zuzubee. Wait until people complain about imbalanced D/A in Guild Battles, then make statements how soon it will be changed.

6 out of 8 skills are dedicated to surviving, the damage output is meager.
Apart from RA or ganking, I see no possibility how this build could benefit the party (i dont say the build is bad, just want to clarify for what its designed, killing morons who cant switch targets or kite)

Three of the eight skills are for offense (if the Rez isn't needed), not two. Also, the pressure damage is noticeable. You can kill a 60 AL in 8s - 10s unless it's defended. He can't kite easily because of the Cripple (of course unless it's removed), and the 33% IAS with a high-damaging Scythe spam along with a guaranteed -100 Critical hit attempt every 6s does add up.

By no means am I saying that this is an incredible offensive setup, but you aren't throwing paper clips at them either. It also drains the enemy team of energy since every failed spell or attack still costs them the fuel they wasted trying to attack you.

pedmangler · Nov 05, 2006, 08:05 AM // 08:05

i believed it's been nerfed.. i have 16 myth. and extend enchantments is only giving me 21 seconds

Elaine Donnerbalken · Nov 05, 2006, 11:32 AM // 11:32

@arredondo: a part of my point is that you normally wont find an enemy team which doesn't kite and/or remove conditions. So either you're trying to run circles without hitting anything, or you try your luck with some npc.

Also, why should anyone waste energy on you if he sees that you're using shadow form? Nobody (serious) will. Instead they will ignore you during that time (or maybe heal the npcs if you gank) and focus on the rest of your team, for which you contribute very little in this case.

@Zuzubee: I say it again (?), if you get a strong effect using a huge amount of effort, there's often no need to nerf. Imo they intended Shadow Form not to be maintained easily. And they succeeded.

Are 2 Assassins using Arcane Mimicry something you can afford easily? No. It takes 2 whole characters and forces you to concentrate your build on gank.

And so I think that the lack of skill slots in this derish build which can be used for offense or utility compensates for the effect of Shadow Form. Especially since it lacks the one on one capabilities of Assassins (I mean teleports or speedbuffs in this case)

But I think that after all we agree more than we disagree, I just believe that almost every time a skill gets nerved it's because its usage in GvG, maybe in Ha, but not because of RA/TA/Pve. The new description of expertice (toucher) is a good example for how less the developers care about using skills unorthodoxly.

Lenox · Nov 05, 2006, 12:18 PM // 12:18

When I see this build i first think to the PvE use. As i don't play PvP a lot. It has a real power and will maybe be able to replace the A/El SF/Sliver farmer. Unfortunately i can't try this out because Shadow form is too far from my dervish at the moment. If someone could cap it and try it I would be glad to see it working.

And I don't think it will be nerfed.

arredondo · Nov 06, 2006, 01:44 AM // 01:44

Quote:

Originally Posted by pedmangler

i believed it's been nerfed.. i have 16 myth. and extend enchantments is only giving me 21 seconds

My times reflect a +20% enchant extender mod on the weapon.

Elaine: the opposition has more to contend with than one character on the field. The combination of activity from the other 5-7 players on the team helps determine what is or isn't being effective at any given moment. If condition removal and healing help near a foe under attack has been gimped while other teammates are also applying pressure/spike damage to others, a 33% IAS scythe with critical hits from Malicious Strike will down a 60 AL foe in 8s or so. It's very tough to use damage as a way to scare this build away since the defense is so strong. No, it's not the best offensive build, but far from being ineffective. According to the calculator at this site, you get around 50 dps vs. 60 AL with a Vamp mod, even before you count the free Crit attempt every 8s.

Even if enemies stop using skills, that doesn't mean you stop attacking them. If a team is repairing your damage and removing your Cripple, they are being forced to deal with what you do without easy means to slow you down. Besides, snares may be removed or left on for any build, so that issue is nothing new to a melee setup. Also, most often spirits will still waste their focus on you if taking the lead with this. It allows one to easily slice away a forest of spirits in 3-4 swings or so, less if they are close to one another. And because enemies stop attacking you, that's one less worry for a team healer to worry about - they can spend that time and energy on one less player, making them more efficient at what they can do as well.

navymrgoodbar · Nov 06, 2006, 04:44 AM // 04:44

Hey arredondo, my dervish PvP build can kill yours 1 on 1. It's VERY close to being invinci as well and it ONLY uses dervish skills. Unlike yours, I regenerate more health when I attack, you regen more health when you run away.

Right now I'm out to sea, but when I come back I challenge you 1 on 1 if I see you in any arena. My main char name is: Chaotic Dark

I'll be able to fight you in 3 weeks.

Do you accept?

-.- · Nov 06, 2006, 04:46 AM // 04:46

What's the point of that? To boost your E-Ego? Just post your build unless you have already.

noocoo · Nov 06, 2006, 07:45 AM // 07:45

I tried this build in RA and its work great, but everyone said that I am a noob, tank ftl.....lol

arredondo · Nov 06, 2006, 09:30 AM // 09:30

Quote:

Originally Posted by navymrgoodbar

Hey arredondo, my dervish PvP build can kill yours 1 on 1. It's VERY close to being invinci as well and it ONLY uses dervish skills. Unlike yours, I regenerate more health when I attack, you regen more health when you run away.

Right now I'm out to sea, but when I come back I challenge you 1 on 1 if I see you in any arena. My main char name is: Chaotic Dark

I'll be able to fight you in 3 weeks.

Do you accept?

Any build can be countered 1v1 when you know EXACTLY what to prepare for. Instead, list YOUR build, I'll come with another unlisted build, and no doubt you will go down. See? It's a pointless exercise. And yes, I know about the healing wonders of Mystic Regeneration. I'd just need to add Rending Aura and it'd be over anyway:

Quote:

Rending Aura: For 5-17 seconds, whenever you are hit by a melee attack, your attacker loses 1 Enchantment.

I never claimed this to be unstoppable since everyone knows of a number of ways to go at SF. Still, in general most builds don't happen to have the right tools in a lot of matches so this can get some extra mileage vs. some opponents.