Curse

bpphantom · Nov 21, 2006, 01:59 PM // 13:59

So, I decided that I wanted to try a Warrior/Dervish. Thus far I'm enjoying it. Heavier armor, Scythe Mastery, Tactics skills, etc. However, I notice that while the Dervish has awesome looking spinning scythe attacks, the Warrior uses the thing like a baseball bat.

So, the gritty part of the question, is there an actual overall reduction in DPS when the warrior, or someone other than a Dervish, uses the scythe?

It's incredibly shallow of me, but I'm debating trashing the character because it looks gimpy when using the scythe. However, if there's no functional difference, I can tough it out for a bit longer before deciding if I can just get by with the Prayers and use a warrior weapon.

A Leprechaun · Nov 21, 2006, 02:04 PM // 14:04

no difference that im aware of

Katari · Nov 21, 2006, 02:37 PM // 14:37

A secondary Dervish using Scythes will do less damage than a primary Dervish. Don't trash your char... just swap to warrior weapons... you'll do more damage with them. Being able to get above 12 weapon mastery is important.

bpphantom · Nov 21, 2006, 02:58 PM // 14:58

Ah yes. I hadn't counted on not being able to buy the runes or armor that's +x to mastery.

Dang. She looks so cool in her blue armor with silver chasing and a scythe

Ah well. Still go with axe and I can get a lot of the same spike aoe damage going.

Thanks

A Leprechaun · Nov 21, 2006, 05:08 PM // 17:08

i have a warrior with scythe.. and why not its really fun so what people will say you are not optimising your dmg output, newsflash it doesnt really matter its just a game for fun and yes warriors look so cool with scythes so go with it !

ty
~A Leprechaun~

jktstance · Nov 21, 2006, 07:14 PM // 19:14

I built a scythe warrior using Desperation, Drunken, Wild, and Balanced Stance with ViM! for energy. Damage output is surprisingly low, I find, especially when compared to a Ranger using warrior weapons. I would suggest switching to using Strength. The skills do less damage, but Warrior's Endurance is MUCH better Emanagement, to the point where you can use some Dervish scythe skills like Chilling Victory. The extra AP is nice, too. And now that Lion's Comfort is included, you can have a strong self heal without needing many points in Tactics.

Progor · Nov 22, 2006, 04:23 AM // 04:23

Summary:

With a max damage, 15^50, customized scythe, against 60 AL targets, you'll average 41 damage per swing with 12 scythe mastery, and 50 damage per swing with 16 scythe mastery. That's a 22% increase in damage (for 33% more attribute points). This assumes no points in strength. With 13 strength, the innate armor penetration makes up for what you missed out on by the extra 4 points of weapon mastery. So it basically boils down to a 6% higher chance to critical. Use Wild Blow occassionally, and even that is neutralized. So, with Wild Blow and high strength, a warrior can achieve the same damage output with a scythe as a pure dervish. Plus, warriors have better IAS options (like flail and soldier's stance) than dervishes do. Heart of Fury can't be kept up constantly, even at 16 mysticism. IAS is required for the slow-swinging scythe.

With that said, most of the dervish builds I've seen haven't made the push to 16 scythe, simply because high mysticism and at least decent levels in earth or wind prayers are quite useful.

Details:

Here's the specifics. You get quickly diminishing returns after 12 of a weapon mastery. The weapon mastery determines 2 things: armor level you can hit against, and crit rate.

Crit rate is easy. If you have 12 weapon mastery, you crit somewhere around 16% of the time. If you have 16 weapon mastery, you crit about 22% of the time.

As for armor level, if you have 12 weapon mastery, you get the listed weapon damage against a 60AL target. If you have 16 weapon mastery, you get the listed weapon damage against a 68AL target. You get 5AL until 12, then 2AL per level after 12... heavily diminishing returns.

For reference, a critical hit does 2 things: adds 20 to this base armor level, and always uses the max damage number.

So, let's put those together. I'll assume you've got a max 9-41 damage scythe, with a 15^50 or 15^enchanted mod, and a 20% customization. That makes it's base damage about 12-56 (they stack multiplicatively).

Now, with 12 scythe mastery, you'll crit 16% of the time and hit for full damage against 60AL. So, 84% of the time you'll average 34 damage against a 60AL target. 16% of the time you'll always hit for 56 against an 80AL target. Normalizing that to 60AL, you will critical for 79 damage. All in all, with 12 scythe mastery you'll average about 41 damage per swing.

On the other hand, with 16 scythe mastery you'll crit 22% of the time and hit for normal damage against a 68AL target. Normalizing that average of 34 damage down to a 60AL target, you'll actually average 39 damage. Your crits for 56 against an 88AL target normalize down to a critical of 90 damage. So, against a 60AL target with 16 scythe mastery, you'll average right at 50 damage per swing.