Curse

Paperfly · Oct 01, 2006, 09:08 AM // 09:08

When Dervishes were first previewed, the major appeal of the Mysticism primary was that it could do pretty much everything for you - damage, self-heals, energy management... In the later revision it's lost some oomph, but I think there's still something there worth tapping:

Very Mystical: (D/x)

12+4 Mysticism
12+1 Scythe Mastery

{e} Wounding Strike
Pious Assault
Heart of Fury
Raging Renewal
Balthazar's Rage
Heart of Holy Flame
Faithful Intervention
Resurrection Signet

That's some decent point-blank AoE damage - most of it Holy! - with a dash of burnination thrown in for good measure. It should work fine if you just want to spam - charge right in and fire off three AoEs - but it's probably more survivable with some clever micromanagement. The trick should be to use your Pious Assaults carefully and think about your enchantment 'layers' in advance so you can remove whatever's going to be most helpful.

This is a build that can actually make good use of a +enchant scythe mod. Of your five enchantments, three benefit from the extended duration, one is made worse and one doesn't care... But those last two can be removed on command by Pious Assault.

The build's biggest weakness is its lack of damage mitigation (e.g. Dust Cloak) along with the fact that the self-heals are a bit unweildly. For your own use with heroes and henchmen this shouldn't be a problem - give a Monk hero Reversal of Fortune and all your worries disappear! - but we'll have to find out the hard way how survivable Dervishes really are in high-level areas.

(incidentally, Wiki has Heart of Fury and Balthazar's Rage listed as still being "nearby" range whereas everything else got nerfed to "adjacent". I suspect it's an error, though)