Curse

sage tank · Jan 03, 2007, 02:46 PM // 14:46

It is just wrong to brand one avatar for best and worst, each has their own special effect and if you synergies well they are all overpowered, which is why you can never make avatar duration 100%

Lyssa Dagger build is brutal, the +40 damage bonus can trigger a lot when you use dagger attacks.

Grenth, well, is grenth, great in GvG and HA when your team need to put on more pressure and remove enchantment protection

Balthazar makes good flag runner in pvp and Tank at certain pve areas

Menlendru can be brute with +200 hp and condition bonus, you can use chilling victory and victorious sweep and weary strike without concern

Well, Dwaynes is Dwaynes, it makes you very hard to kill

ensoriki · Jan 03, 2007, 06:27 PM // 18:27

sage is on crack....Balthazar is the worst

There are better flag runners
There are better tank forms.
The holy damage isnt armor ignoring
No extra damage
Crippling makes the speed bonus nothing
Armor doesnt matter if your getting degend
Dunkoro can own you
All the other forms can beat you 1 on 1 in the hands of a skilled player not even a skilled Balthazar user can reach effectiveness of the other forms

Shadow forms pwns you

ss1986v2 · Jan 03, 2007, 09:28 PM // 21:28

Quote:

Originally Posted by ensoriki

sage is on crack....Balthazar is the worst

while i agree that balthz doesnt have the same niche role that the other forms have, and that its my least favorite, i think your argument against it isnt very accurate:

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There are better flag runners

agreed, but who said it had to be the best at flag running?

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There are better tank forms.

agreed, but who said it had to be the best form for tanking?

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The holy damage isnt armor ignoring

yes but it still lets you bypass both +armor vs physical and elemental, unlike the other forms.

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No extra damage

the only form that offers +dmg is lyssa. so do all of the forms suck because of that? or just balthz?

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Crippling makes the speed bonus nothing

the same can be said for any speed boost. crip a ele flag runner and they run just as slow.

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Armor doesnt matter if your getting degend

true, but what about direct dmg? last time i checked, there was more dmg types out there than just degen.

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Dunkoro can own you

um, this one i dont even know where to go with? do you mean dunk owns him at healing? than yes of course i agree. if you mean he owns him at tanking, then no you would be wrong there. and if you are referring to a 1 vs 1 fight, then the argument fails outright.

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All the other forms can beat you 1 on 1 in the hands of a skilled player not even a skilled Balthazar user can reach effectiveness of the other forms

again, bringing up 1 vs 1 equals fail. gw has little to no place for 1 vs 1 fights. and using 1 vs 1 fights in an argument is just horrible. any specifically designed build can beat any other build, given the chance to build against it. period. and beside that, id like to know how a dwayna form user beats a balthz user with the exact same build otherwise? slap on some enchants and mystic regen, take into account the armor bonus and the health bonus respectively, and the battle is a draw. the same for lyssa potentially, as well as melandru, although it would be tougher with its deep wound ability. grenth is the only one that has the potential to easily win outright because it disrupts the rest of the dervishs build, not because it beats the other form outright.

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Shadow forms pwns you

last i checked, shadow form ownz all of the forms. and any melee as well as many caster. why even bring that up?

ensoriki · Jan 03, 2007, 09:50 PM // 21:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by ss1986v2

while i agree that balthz doesnt have the same niche role that the other forms have, and that its my least favorite, i think your argument against it isnt very accurate:

agreed, but who said it had to be the best at flag running?
This is use for GVG, who cares if its not the best its not even on the top 10

agreed, but who said it had to be the best form for tanking?
Who didnt say?

yes but it still lets you bypass both +armor vs physical and elemental, unlike the other forms.
There are also other damage conversions

the only form that offers +dmg is lyssa. so do all of the forms suck because of that? or just balthz?
No but thats just one more advantage another form has over it

the same can be said for any speed boost. crip a ele flag runner and they run just as slow.
Whats the basis of balthazar? armor and speed

true, but what about direct dmg? last time i checked, there was more dmg types out there than just degen.
youd get scrapped by any spiker.in direct damage...most sins will have you on the floor poisoned/bleeding and then finish you off

um, this one i dont even know where to go with? do you mean dunk owns him at healing? than yes of course i agree. if you mean he owns him at tanking, then no you would be wrong there. and if you are referring to a 1 vs 1 fight, then the argument fails outright.

Dunkoro can heal everything Balthazar sends at him WHILE degening, ergo Dunkoro wins

again, bringing up 1 vs 1 equals fail. gw has little to no place for 1 vs 1 fights. and using 1 vs 1 fights in an argument is just horrible. any specifically designed build can beat any other build, given the chance to build against it. period. and beside that, id like to know how a dwayna form user beats a balthz user with the exact same build otherwise? slap on some enchants and mystic regen, take into account the armor bonus and the health bonus respectively, and the battle is a draw. the same for lyssa potentially, as well as melandru, although it would be tougher with its deep wound ability. grenth is the only one that has the potential to easily win outright because it disrupts the rest of the dervishs build, not because it beats the other form outright.
Last time I checked Most people Only hit 1 person unless using an Aoe, and since not everyone is stupid enough to crowd into the derv your targeting 1 person, who in retrospect will target you back resulting in a 1 on 1 with the chance of one or both of you being healed being a monk where the situation is still 1 on 1 with support

last i checked, shadow form ownz all of the forms. and any melee as well as many caster. why even bring that up?
Sadly shadowform has the same disadvantage the other forms have, except it wears off even faster. Case in point it doesnt own them, it can just dance in their face for awhile

So la la la la la
BALTHAzar is the worst form!

draxynnic · Jan 04, 2007, 12:11 AM // 00:11

I was thinking that the sword's faster attack rate would let you get more hits in during a given skill use, and make it more likely you'll be able to pull off the two-swings-in-one skill and have time for the followup before the enemy finishes their skill. Yes, the sword is less damaging than the scythe, but the main damage engine is coming from the form, not the weapon. And it also opens up the choice to use a candy shield - or a real one, if you can spare the attributes - for a little extra armour.

Still, if it's been tried, experience > theorycraft. I've lost count of the number of builds I've experimented with that looked good on paper but didn't work in practise.

Incidentally, my thought on the forms was that Balthy was intended to be the 'default' form - you use the other forms against specific opponents (Dwayna against hexers, Grenth against enchanters, Lyssa against spellcasters (especially ones with long casting times) and Melandru against condition-users), while Balth is your fallback if not facing the opposition that the other forms are designed for. The problem - for Balthy - is that with builds designed to use them, Dwayna, Lyssa and Melandru can all stand up quite well even if the effect they are intended to counter isn't present.

Overall, if you put a build together without considering the forms and then went looking for a form to add afterwards, Balthazar may well be the best to use (assuming you haven't fluked into a build that does synergise well, like I did with Dwayna). However, Balthazar doesn't have any synergies, while the goddess forms do.

Kijik Oni Hanryuu · Jan 04, 2007, 12:28 AM // 00:28

Enso.. you really must be mislead, I will gladly take my Mystic Tank against you in a 1v1 and we will see if you can kill me. Balth doesn't suck, like I have said before, with the right build all the forms synergize perfectly. Oh and your idea of "it can be countered" works against all the other forms too. Melandru.. he wastes all his energy casting it, so just E-deny him. Grenth, blind him or cripple and kite, Dwayna, just don't use hexes and take Dwayna on head to head, Lyssa, make sure that if you have to use a long cast don't use it when Lyssa is raging in your face.

There, by your way of looking it I have made all of the avatars look like complete crap.. gg kthxbye

7thPawn · Jan 04, 2007, 04:49 AM // 04:49

Finally got advice on the avatar thing and got them all. Was thinking of the battle the whole wrong way. Alter the thought pattern and blamo magico you win. About the same thing goes for the avatars themselves. When I was using them as the staple for what I was doing I was not doing as well. When I sort of squeezed it in, like some people mentioned here, into what I was already doing, it enhanced an already destructive experience. lol.

Kijik I have to say that your Mystic Tank is a rather impressive piece of work. I ran into the link for it one magical day looking at how I was supposed to play a dervish and wow even in PvE it is rather amazing to see what you can do if you group everyone together for the kill. It seems everyone has their little favorites with the avatars. It's like saying which breakfast cereal is better. I can see their use respectively, but although her fashion sense licks, Lyssa is what I usually pop out when I have like 8 badguys running down to lay a beating down on me. Like some mentioned here I was not using the form as a main part of what I was doing, I was simply enhancing what Kijik had put together for a build, and to impressive effect. Bad guys use abilitys like mad, and as soon as I am Lyssa for my whopping 73 seconds, and as soon as my Heart Of Fury is ready, I hit that and watch the fireworks. Blow off my AOEs while I am swinging and add in a nice scythe attack and all I see on the screen for a few seconds is damage numbers as the 8 guys promptly explode. Does not always work but since they are spamming abilities and I am in haste attack mode, and she adds a ton of damage with a Myst of 16 considering she hits every time a spell tries to go off. I want to try Balth like you were mentioning when I have the rest of the skills from your build. There are like 2 I think I can't get right now without hitting PvP, but I like the damage add to skills being used. Very sexy effects. And I have actually been in a 1v1 battle once where he used an ability 3 times and no one was attacking him but me as the heros and henchies were busy getting smeared elsewhere, and the spell/ability stopped 1/2 way 2 or of 3 times. It was mentioned that Lyssa does not stop abilities, and it could be some other factor interfeared, but it looked like I was stopping an occasional ability off of Lyssa's ability used damage add thing she does. Anyway I don't see them as all bad, just used the right one for the right scenario is all, and if it is an ugly avatar just don't bring him out to play. lol. Anyway I wanted to add my two cents. Cheers all.

LightningHell · Jan 04, 2007, 04:55 AM // 04:55

IMO, Balthazar's most useless for the only reason that +Armor doesn't work that much except in the scenarios where it's near useless anyway, and +Speed, while very nice in chasing down foes, is inferior to Melandru's IMO because of the latter's ability to overextend with ease. Although speed is always nice.

7thPawn · Jan 04, 2007, 05:29 AM // 05:29

I am probably missing something but You get 200 health. That's sexy. Immune to conditions, sexy, but does the 'earth damage' do anything else? And I don't understand what you mean with overextend, like a longer reach? Never noticed it.

Symbol · Jan 04, 2007, 07:40 AM // 07:40

Quote:

Last time I checked Most people Only hit 1 person unless using an Aoe, and since not everyone is stupid enough to crowd into the derv your targeting 1 person, who in retrospect will target you back resulting in a 1 on 1 with the chance of one or both of you being healed being a monk where the situation is still 1 on 1 with support

Are the people you play retarded? 1vs1 duels are rare outside of RA, and even then almost never happen because you switch targets to the person attacking you.

LightningHell · Jan 04, 2007, 07:58 AM // 07:58

Quote:

Originally Posted by 7thPawn

I am probably missing something but You get 200 health. That's sexy. Immune to conditions, sexy, but does the 'earth damage' do anything else? And I don't understand what you mean with overextend, like a longer reach? Never noticed it.

200 health and immunity to condition is sexy indeed. The "Earth damage" means exactly that; in short, instead of being Physical damage it's Elemental damage. Overextension is basically when you, as a melee character, go (way) beyond the reach of your monks or any support available, possibly to finish off a character, or to apply pressure to opposing monks, or something else. It's usually very dangerous, but with 200 health you're less likely to be, so to say, spiked. Not really a spike, but it's still concentrated damage. :P

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kijik Oni Hanryuu

dude, lol +40 armor is aesthetic.. that +40 armor is incredibly useful tanking, reducing a normally 200 damage attack to a manageable 50 or 60 damage, also in a PvE group the +33% run is great for running away in CASE the rest of your party goes down, then you can get away and come back and rez to prevent a party wipe.

No, 40 Armor will reduce damage from 200 to 100, exactly.

ss1986v2 · Jan 04, 2007, 07:59 AM // 07:59

Quote:

Originally Posted by 7thPawn

I am probably missing something but You get 200 health. That's sexy. Immune to conditions, sexy, but does the 'earth damage' do anything else? And I don't understand what you mean with overextend, like a longer reach? Never noticed it.

overextend, as in stretching your range of attack outside your normal range. as a melee char, you usually dont stray too far from the area your monk can heal. if you get lost in the enemys backline for too long away from your monks, you will get put down pretty quick. but with the health bonus and the immune to conditions (dont have to worry about deep wound or condition degen), you can stretch further into the enemys ranks and stay there longer, allowing you to get to those squishie targets that you love to bash so much.

*damn, lightninghell beat me to it...*

Cebe · Jan 04, 2007, 08:50 AM // 08:50

Surely it entirely depends where you're playing. Yesterday I did Aborstone and Avatar of Melandru PWND!

You can walk over wardens traps and not even flinch!

So not sure if I could rank their usefulness...

I try not to be drawn in too much by the avatars...they always seemed a bit "gimmicky". I use them when they look like they're going to be useful...otherwise I make use of another, usually more useful, elite.

Thom Bangalter · Jan 04, 2007, 04:08 PM // 16:08

Lately, our guild has been running two melandru's and a grenth, they're both awesome, but grenth is hands down the best, the melandrus are there simply to stop getting raped by blinding surge.

Balthazar's is sexy as hell in pve though. My dervish hero uses it.

CagedinSanity · Jan 06, 2007, 06:17 PM // 18:17

I have just recently capped all but Dwayna, here's MY take
(Please note I am doing PvE most of the time)

On balthazar:
Can be useful in PvP, I've seen it work. I have seena very fast and high damage tank dervish in an AB once, he was difficult to take down and my team decreed that we should avoid him (didn't see him for the rest of the AB anyway. good thing, too.)
In PvE, it's good if you have no other elite alternatives. I would suggest Melandru over balthazar because the +200health can help negate the extra damage you'd get without the +40 armor.
It's a neat thing to have in other campaigns when fighting undead, too. Lions Arch, anyone?

I was very proud when i got balthazar, not because it was the most perfect elite, but because it's the hardest one to cap (had to get a guildie and his son to help.) The other three I just henched. The effort put into capping this elite is a wonderous thing indeed. I say go get it, just to have it available but there are better alternatives. (And if you're one of those guys who are like "haha balth wux ez, nub" Then you are a stuffed up wackjob who needs to shut the hell up.)

On Melandru:
Even though grenth was my first cap, I'd say this one has been the most used by me so far. +200 hit points + vital boon (80 for me right now) = An extreme health bonus that could bring you up to 800 or so health. And I'm sure there are more health boosting skills I don't know about yet.
Oh, lets not forget the immunity to conditions. Most of them I just live with (most only last a few seconds.) The only two i worry about is disease and blind, and that worry is gone with melandru. I love this skill. (the 25e cost is bad, if I die once i get to 24 energy which is.. bad. Not that it matters in AB anyway, haha!)

On Grenth:
Personally, on PvE, the enchantment killing really isn't that serious at all. Neither does the cold damage, really. (Can you imagine the uselessness against a select few rangers?)
This is my least favorite, but I'm pretty dang sure it'd be awesome in AB or something.

On Lyssa:
My most recently capped one, and will be the one I use most often now (Though I may find myself using melandru just as much. I wish i could equip them both

I love how it does +41 damage while they're activating ANY skill, instead of just an attack skill or spell. ANYTHING.
The +10 energy is underrated, methinks. It's a lot more useful than it sounds if you're thinking "only 10? why not 15 or 20?" No. 10 is nice.
Personally I could really use the damage buff so that's why I'm going to be using it.

On dwayne:
I'll have to get back to you on that, I'm not at the dejarin estate yet.

ensoriki · Jan 07, 2007, 04:17 PM // 16:17

Balthazars useless because any of the forms will get him....except MAYBE for grenth but even then I think grenth would win

Lyssa vs Balthazar... Even if it was 4 vs 4 1 sides all balth 1s all Lyssa

Your going to activate skills any skill...and when you Do lyssas gonna hurt you
And if the lyssas have a enchant removal casting an enchant is a waste of time
Balth vs melandru: wont die if you spike youll get deep wounded....your gonna die first
Balth vs Dwayna: Will heal every damn second -_- T_T
Balth vs grenth: No enchants to protect you

Balth vs Shadow form: Ha lol Shadowform pwns you

Balth vs a monk: A monk wont be attacking you and since your focused more on Speed and armor Ergo why your using Balth....your not exactly Super spiker

Solus_the_Deadly · Jan 11, 2007, 05:36 AM // 05:36

People seem to really dislike bathalzar form, when 40+ armor is ALOT of armor.
Bathalzar Dervish can charge into battle and completey wipe out any Minion Master or Ritlust you met in Pvp.

Not to mention its great use for Pve. You become a Very pwoerful tank, extremly fast and dealing holy dmg, you encounter quite a few units who take double damage from this.

People must remember having a Massive armor and speed boost which can last over 70 seconds is a huge bonus and should not be over looked.

ubermancer · Jan 11, 2007, 05:38 AM // 05:38

Yeah but +40 armor does what for you exactly? Brings you up to Warrior level? (who are not unkillable...)

Melandru's is better for tanking IMO. No deep wound, no blind, no cripple, no weakness, and +200 health? HELL YES.

I say Balthazar needs an IAS too.

That said, Lyssa and Grenth are of course leet. Dwayna... dunno, could be cool, just never had a reason to try it.

Kit Engel · Jan 11, 2007, 05:46 AM // 05:46

Balthazar doesn't bring anything that other classes can't do really well... why not just take a warrior? With flail/rush you can have an IAS and movement speed pretty much whenever you need it.

Melandru and Grenth are tied for most useful, with Dwayna coming in a close second (really good, but only against hex-heavy areas... minor hexing a decent monk can easily deal with). Lyssa is nice but a bit too conditional for general use.

Ensign · Jan 11, 2007, 08:05 AM // 08:05

Grenth is the most dangerous in slugfests, as he gets to rip off your prot and lets your other physicals pound on a guy full-force.

Melandru is the most dangerous for executing tactics - it is virtually impossible to spike down, and very difficult to stop in small fights (where conditions dominate), making it an ideal character to threaten with on a split.

Of the remaining ones, Lyssa is the most dangerous, the extra damage from that skill hits *hard*. Dwayna is good in some matchups (hex immunity), but completely worthless in others, and it doesn't really enable any new tactics. Balthazar is just weak, the speed boost is easily duplicated (better!) by other skills, and +armor isn't worth spending your elite on. It's a cute PvE skill but nothing more.

Peace,
-CxE