Need Help With New Build

[skill]Reaper's Sweep[/skill]
[skill]Resurrect[/skill]
[skill]Essence Bond[/skill]
[skill]Vital Boon[/skill]
[skill]Zealous Renewal[/skill]
[skill]Heart of Holy Flame[/skill]
[skill]Faithful Intervention[/skill]
[skill]Mystic Sweep[/skill]

Scythe Mastery:12+1+3
Mysticism: 12+3

any skills i should change or skill ranks?

mainly for PvE

any tips would be appreciated

zealous renewal dosnt usually net much energy, id drop it. Also heart of holy flame is really only usefull Vs undead or if you are removing it. I would drop both of them and take mystic vigor and another attack skill.

Hmm..

1) Heart of Fury. You need this. 99% Dervish builds need this. This is the most important non-elite Dervish skill. I've seen many Dervishes without it. It's the best IAS in the game, assassins warriors and others would be thrilled to have this skill.

2) Reaper's Sweep is a no-no. It's one of the worst Dervish elites. Especially in PvE

3) Rebirth is better in PvE than Ressurect, but Ressurect will do.

4) Essence Bond. Uh, no. Stay out of "whammo" skills. With new monster AI, it's VERY unlikely that you will be their target. Especially with +health enchants you have. The AI will not prioritize you.

5) Vital Boon. It's fine skill in some combos, but you're using Earth Prayers just for this skill. Not good.

6) Heart of Holy Flame is not worth a skill slot.

7) Watchful Intervention is better than Faithful. You can pre-prot and cast it on more people, and it heals for more, and it triggers on 25% not on 50%. Triggering on 25% means it will save u when u'll be near death, and at 50% of health there are monks to do the healing. It's not difficult to bring Dervish to 50% health; therefore, you'll need to recast Faithful too often, which ... isnt good in the middle of the battle. Faithful Intervention is something like Mending, an enchant for lazy people. Lazy and battle dont go together

8) Mystic Sweep wont do on itself. Chilling Victory is the best Dervish PvE attack skill.

(and Zealous Renewal is good IMO, you can keep it; it does give a nice energy boost)


...now my advice is pick some good dervish elite which you like, and work around it. Put elite first, and then skills.


Dervish PvE elites, ranked from best to worse, IMO:
1) Avatar of Dwayna. (im sure my Juggernaut build is somewhere in the forum, if not i can retype it for you) This is by far the best PvE elite for 99% areas.
2) Avatar of Melandru. (goes with Wearying Strike)
3) Zealous Vow. (goes with fast attacks, like Mystic Sweep, Eremite's, Protector's Strike; and ideally Watch Yourself because you will gain adrenaline fast)

Situational Dervish PvE elites; better than the above ones in some situations, but should use as an exception not a rule:
1) Vow of Silence. (could be used with a Rt behind you, with Life and Reccuperation) This is a very interesting elite in some game areas.
2) Ebon Dust Aura. This skill can be in above group too, after Vow. It's ok if you want to play more on a defense and help the party, while still killing enemies.

Dervish PvE elites which can be fun, and using them is OK, but they are weaker than those in the first list:
1) Avatar of Balthazar. Many love the look of it, but in 99% game areas, Dwayna does much better. It's not a bad avatar as i said, it can be fun. But if you want optimal setup, pick Dwayna.
2) Avatar of Lyssa. Too situational to be really useful, but if you like the look, go ahead. Dont use it with scythe, use spear or daggers. Dont use sword because i cant stand swords. It reminds me of whammos. And you dont want to be a whammo as a Dervish, and a disgrace to your race

Dervish PvE elites which are useless for a Dervish in PvE:
(Disclaimer: i've seen attempts at using these elite, but never a build which would actually work better or as good as other builds. Im open to suggestions, and you can prove me wrong, but until then i dont consider these elites viable in PvE at least)
1) Onslaught. Simply put, it's not an elite for primary Dervishes.
2) Grenths Grasp. Useless in PvP, even more useless in PvE.
3) Reaper's Sweep. Uh, just no. There are better combos.
4) Pious Renewal. So a build using this in RA, but none for PvE. Maybe it would somehow work, but i have yet to see it.
5) Arcane Zeal. Others elite do it better, whatever you're about to do with this elite. But you can always prove me wrong. This elite can be theoretically ok, but im not interested in theories.
6) Vow of Strenght. Theoretically and ok elite. Practically, a very bad one. You cant use attacks, and Chilling Victory will do almost as much dmg in PvE as bonus from this skill. I use it on Melonni, because she knows how to use it (unlike some other dervish elites).
7) Wounding Strike. It's not that bad an elite. Just that Melandru+Wearying is better. Never mind avatar recharge, it pays off.
8) Avatar of Grenth. After the recent nerf, there is no reason to use this in PvE. Ever.



There. Hope it helped.

Vow of strength is a great elite. it save like 4 slots on your skillbar and you spend like a fourth of the energy. and you deal about the same damage. pwns avatars.

id agree with coloneh with mystic vigor, its a great skill, and if u can use it well you will pretty much self heal

Quote: Originally Posted by Coloneh

@ Servant of Kali ->

Reapers sweep is a fine elite i dont see why you dont like it, it does +42 dmg which is awesome on its own but then it also has the added bonus of a deep wound if they are under 50% hp good vs everyone but amazing vs bosses or tricky targets, yes it probably is more suited to PvP but it still works well in PvE.

I would always use a sythe with Avatar of Lyssa, you could be beating on 3 foes at once and doing extra damage whenever any of them use a skill of you were using a spear or daggers then you would have to focus on one target thus lowering its effectivness. Using it with Emerites attack and/or Mystic sweep is very effective due to thier short cast times you can really hit even shorter casting spells and skills.

Avatar of Dwayna is very good if you dont beleive in your monks, but if they seem compitent then why not use a skill that adds damage, like Avatar of Balthazar, Avatar of Lyssa or Reapers sweep.

Heart of fury is good but it has a annoyingly big energy cost and a fair cooldown time, its handy if you can find the energy but not essential.

Just my views, Im not knocking you just arguing my piont.

~A Leprechaun~

Reaper's Sweep is a bad elite. Why? Because there are other elites, which do the job better. For more detailed explanation:
http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...php?t=10117254

Quote: I would always use a sythe with Avatar of Lyssa, you could be beating on 3 foes at once and doing extra damage whenever any of them use a skill Yes i forgot about that. It's too situational, however, IMO. With Sweep and Eremites and Protectors might be OK.

Still, I feel that Lyssa is not the best choice for PvE, and it's not used at all in PvP either. ANet will continue increasing max energy, which is NOT the reason why this skill isnt used. The avatar duration needs to be increased, just as the others got decreased. Either that, or increase dmg, but i think dmg is fine, the duration is NOT.


btw, please note that i didnt say Lyssa is "bad" "horrible" etc. I named it under "fun and OK elites, but somewhat weaker than others".
This is true. Seriously, Dwayna and Melandru, and probably even Zealous Vow, will be more useful overall. That doesnt mean no one should play Lyssa; on contrary, i like the creativity.

Quote: Avatar of Dwayna is very good if you dont beleive in your monks, but if they seem compitent then why not use a skill that adds damage, like Avatar of Balthazar Balthazar does NOT add dmg, i dont know where did you take that from. It makes the dmg holy, which isnt armor-ignoring, and in 99% cases does absolutely nothing else in PvE than normal physical dmg.

Dwayna isnt about "believing monks". It's simply about using self-defense stuff while you still deal a nice amount of dmg. Just because you have Dwayna doesnt mean you dont have Chilling Victory, Heart of Fury, Victorious/Creepling/other etc.

There are many PvE areas where Dwayna totally rules. PvE monks are not PvP monks; it makes sense to have awesome self-survival while still dealing dmg. Because of scythe AoE and dmg, you can have both higher selfsurvival and dmg than any warrior build i've seen in PvE, thus far, in 99% game areas (i dont count those areas which are artifically made to be anti-Dervish anti-Assassin as such, as is Domain of Anguish).
Most people on this forum will PvE 99% of time with PUGs and PvE guildies, and not PvP guildies. Expecting the monks to heal everything is the same as expecting most warriors not to have sword and bad skills such as Mending.

The energy from mysticism is not upfront it still costs 10 energy meaning you only have 15 energy less, I not a big fan of using too many 10 energy skills. I never run my mysticism as high as 15, why would you? I would rather save the runes and my health and run it at 12-13. I dont have an enchanting mod and you cant say that to be a dervish you must have one, you dont. so for me its got more of a 13 second cooldown which isnt that good.

Avatar of Balthazar does add damage, more than dwayna anyway, the +33% speed boost means you can be hitting foes all the time not as much time running in between enemies and the holy damage would be good against warriors and, as its not elemental either, elementalists and rangers.

You have started the same thing that has happened to warriors, where people hijack threads and just shout "DRAGON SLASH!" as the answer to any question....

~A Leprechaun~

Quote: Originally Posted by A Leprechaun The energy from mysticism is not upfront That's irrelevant when you get experienced with Dervish.

Moreover, not-upfront is even better, as you can use pre-protting to gain energy. The strategy of pre-protting yourself as Dervish is not something you will find easily on the forum (or at least i've not seen it yet).

Basically, you precast enchantment before battle (for instance, in GvG, but works elsewhere too of course), then 5 sec later you precast another one, etc. By the time you engage in battle and waste some energy, these pre-protted enchantments end and give you energy.

I've seen a lot of Dervishes who use enchantments as if they were eles, or monk. Dervish has a lot of little unique playstyle features which many have not discovered yet. They charge into battle, and when they get near the enemy they cast all the enchants.

Quote: I never run my mysticism as high as 15, why would you? I would rather save the runes and my health and run it at 12-13 Because at 15 mysticism avatars have longer duration, Heart of Fury has longer duration, Watchful Intervention has longer duration etc etc, and i get more energy back.

Saving the runes when playing Dervish is one of the worse things you can do as Dervish, as Dervish has high health as is, and can afford 1 sup rune without a problem (most builds can), and even 2 runes.

"saving health" phrase is something you will not hear from any experienced PvE Dervish, and i doubt u'll hear it often in PvP either. Saving health is what you do when you're a monk in PvP. Not a Dervish in PvE.

Quote: I dont have an enchanting mod and you cant say that to be a dervish you must have one I would have been suprised if you said that you use enchanting mod.

I didnt say you need one to be a Dervish, i said you need one if you're experienced Dervish.

Quote: Avatar of Balthazar does add damage, more than dwayna anyway, the +33% speed boost means you can be hitting foes all the time not as much time running in between enemies Unlike in PvP, the speed bonus in PvE fighting is only theoretical. In practice, enemies dont really kite, and they are grouped. Mostly, it's just C+space. How often do you see meleers (warriors, dervishes..) having run stance in PvE? Exactly

Balthazar doesnt always do more dmg than Dwayna; what if you get hexed with Faintheartedness, or any of the thousand anti-melee hexes? The likelyhood of monk removing it off you, is equal to ele in the party Windborning me.

Quote: and the holy damage would be good against warriors and, as its not elemental either, elementalists and rangers. It's the same against rangers as physical. And it's slightly better against warriors who have +physical armor, true, but not to the point where i would consider it critically important (especially in Nightfall where the amount of warriors is very low, compared to Dervishes and others). So yes you're right, in some cases it indeed increase the dmg, but how much? Let's say a mob has 8 creatures of which 1 warrior. Let's say 2 somewhere. How much less dmg is that, if you dont do holy dmg? I could be wrong of course, i tried Heart of Holy Flame and .. it didnt really seem worthy of skillbar to me.

So in short, yes Balthazar has 33% speed boost, yes it has +40 armor, yes it has holy dmg... in the battle, the speed boost is negligible IMO, armor is ok but less worth than bonus Dwayna gives, and holy dmg is also negligible.

Compared to Melandru+Wearying, the dmg Balthazar does is much lower in PvE (deep wound +dmg bonus is huge for PvE as enemies die fast; melandru cannot be blinded, weaknessed or crippled which increases dmg), and Melandru isnt that much worse on defense (+150 health and immunity to degen from poison n disease let's say).

Compared to Dwayna, the defense of Balthazar is 3x lower (if not more), and more you advance in PvE more advantage you gain. A good Dervish with Avatar of Dwayna (+RoF +prot spirit) can do all nightfall missions naked, without armor, and constantly being in battle.
The dmg Dwayna does can be slightly smaller than Balthazar (*gasps* holy dmg and speed as you said), but in many areas it will in fact be higher (such as in FoW) because you will instantly remove all those annoying hexes of you, and continue hitting. No monk, especially PvE one, will remove hexes that fast, and some hardly remove any. Plenty of game areas with slow hexes as well (shiverpeaks?), which are no problem for Dwayna, but Balthazar will take longer to strike foes.

All in all, this is all theory. In practice, i've not seen Balthazar build which would work as good as Dwayna build i use. I've not seen one in RA either, while i can easily farm glad points with Dwayna.

Now, im not saying Balthazar is bad, but IMO it does lack a bit when compared to Melandru or Dwayna.

Quote: Originally Posted by gogoblender Pve is a completely diferent way of seeing gaming in gw and all people that attempt to put a pvp spin on pve attempts to build builds NOT for reasons of kills/over time but for OTHER reasons are killing the pve style of creative gaming. Dude, what on earth are you talking about? If you want to talk about flowers and which one smells the best for you, you can go to forum discussing flowers.

If you want to talk about game Guild Wars, and which skills are optimally better for the task they are used, then check this thread.

If you dont see the difference between Mending and Vigorious spirit, and both are the same to you, then go continue using Mending on your whammo and never against come to game forums dedicated to professions of discussions. Why? Because we dont discuss here whose armor looks the best, whether FoW or 15k. Who cares, it's up to you. Here we discuss logic, practice, theory and math, of why Mending gives less heal per energy than Vigorious, or why Backfire (a non elite skill) is better than Visions of Regret which is an elite.

Lyssa is far from situational. It activates on any skill, not just a skill type skill or a spell type skill. Combining it with Heart of Fury, Mystic, Eremite's, and Protector's Strike works incredibly well.
Since the avatar doesn't change your weapon's element, you can stack everything with orders. With the buff to ritualist weapon spells, Avatar of Lyssa is *the* fastest way to kill things on a dervish.

Dwayna is a cute avatar, and I like using it for looks. If I want to be effective, though, I would rather use Melandru or Lyssa in PvE. The reason is simple: because your monks can heal you. That's what they're there for.

Well, in PvE Melandru+Wearying is IMO the fastest way to kill with a Dervish, simply because of Deep Wound + dmg = more dmg. And enemies usually die fast enough. Still Lyssa is ok, and sometimes i play it in RA just for fun. Have to admit i havent really tried it in PvE, but i probably will soon BTW how do you handle energy? What do you use so you can spam those attack skills more often? Zealous Renewal? Zealous scythe mod too i assume? (dun have that one on a scythe, should get it perhaps)

As for Dwayna and monks, if you tank (which you should do anyway, since you can), you might get hit quite hard in later areas in Nightfall, and often you'll receive dmg bursts. Dwayna builds can handle this very well and still deal more dmg than a warrior. Sometimes the dmg will be big, and it's a problem for monks. They cant for instance keep prot spirit on you all the time and still heal, while you can since it costs 2x less for you, and RoF (=175hp heal with fast recharge) is free (zero energy cost). Try fighting The Drought and Droughlings you'll know what i mean Just.. too much dmg for a monk to heal just like that.

BTW this is all just a preferance, Dwayna Melandru etc will do too (havent tried Lyssa, will need to check that out i guess, since you're persisten.. but i still think Wearying Strike is better). I dont play the same builds in PvE all the time, nor do i see why others should

Deep wound only can take effect once, and it's capped at -100 max hp.
After the initial Wearying Strike your damage goes down.

I guess you could put Wearying on an AoL dervish, but I feel like the faster attacks with cast times do more good. Your attack speed becomes miles higher than any other class, you have the highest damage weapon in the game, and you're dealing very large amounts of armor ignoring damage.

One dervish set up like that is scary enough, but if you clone your set up on Melonni and get a friend to copy you, you just tear apart mobs like a paper shredder.
Ractoh made a similar warrior build a while back, but using AoL is superior in every way.
And yes, I do use both a zealous weapon and Zealous Renewal, though with the energy buff to AoL, it's not completely necessary.

Quote: Originally Posted by jesh

I disagree with you Kali on Faithful. Watchful has it's place but pre-prot party members is a monk's job not a dervish's job. I use faithful exclusively and in all honesty I rarely fall to 50% health with my build, which makes good use of a skill I don't see in this build but that I think would be helpful. Mystic Regen. While regen can't be your sole source of healing it's not supposed to be. Mystic Regen is more about damage mitigation. Before I get blasted for that statement allow me to explain, while Mystic Regen doesn't add armor or damage reduction directly it does add a more or less constant regeneration. Since the build doesn't utilize any strips then you're looking at max useable regen with plenty of reserve to offset any degen effects. 10 pips of regen makes the health loss from even the hardest of hits go away pretty quickly, thus the damage is mitigated. Most hits I take, outside of those nasty elementalist spikes, disappears within a couple of seconds under the effects of Mystic Regen. Faithful also augments Mystic Regen by giving you a maintenance free enchant to boost the regeneration rate.

Generally speaking I rarely fall below 75% health, outside of a spike but that's what Faithful is for. The only other critiques I have are that if you are going to use Zealoius renewal then you definitely want to have Heart of Fury there. The faster you can land those hits, the scythe attacks pretty slowly, the more energy you will net from Zealous. Definately drop the Wammo skills though. You don't have the attribute points invested to make them terribly effective anyway. I highly recommend a Warrior secondary for Wildblow. Free critical hits are nothing to sneeze at and for a dervish, who doesn't utilize adrenaline heavily if at all even with a warrior secondary, it's basically a 5 energy critical hit and that's awesome. Not to mention you'll be in high demand when you hit the next to the last mission in the game. If you are determined to keep the monk secondary though I'd say invest some points into the protection line of skills for damage mitigation.

Vow of strength build sinse you assked:
[skill]Vow Of Strength[/skill][skill]Heket's rampage[/skill][skill]Veil of Thorns[/skill][skill]Armor of Sanctity[/skill][skill]Mystic regeneration[/skill][skill]Comfort Animal[/skill][skill]Charm Animal[/skill]rebirth sig

Dire red crab

Scythe= 10
Earth= 15
Myst= 6
Beast mastery= 9

Quote: Reaper's Sweep is a no-no. It's one of the worst Dervish elites. Especially in PvE how can u say that in PVE against lvl 20-24's u can spike down somone at 50%hp with reapers and chilling victory and it is one of my key skills in my 130hp boss farmer