Sycthe mods: Vealous or Vampiric

What do you all think about this one? Vampiric is better damage, vealous is better energy gain. Which do you prefer?

That's a pretty tricky question, and it applies to all melee weapons, not just scythes.

Honestly, I think it just comes down to need of the build. If you're sucking your energy dry every fight, maybe the Zealous mod is an idea. Either that, or you just need to find a better way to manage your energy.

Vampiric is normally my mod of choice. With a nice attack speed buff, it also becomes a source of healing (albeit small), and the added damage bypasses all armor. If I don't need anything else, that's usually my first pick.

zealous all the way BUT only as said before the need of the build. otherwise ill go furious (for any adren based build) or sundering

zelouse since u have a good regen rate

I carry 4, zealous, vamp, ebon and Icy.

All depends on my build and where I'm going. Zealous and vamp bite the big one if you don't have a switch out weapon in areas with spread out mobs.

Sundering is the worst possible of any mod. Ever.

A properly run Dervish doesn't need a zealous or vamp mod. A good portion of the damage, energy gain, and health gain comes from the spells and selected scythe attacks.

In this, I disagree.

Very much so - except for farming builds I have found the same thing (and farming builds can require any strange combination of stuff - the rest of the post doesn't apply to them). For a normal build Vamp has a nice +5 armor ignoring damage but the -1 isn't always a nice thing. For a physical weapon - what other mod to use? Well, I really never need to zealous either - if I'm low on energy that mod isn't doing a thing, I have other severe problems. Except for certain builds I'm not applying poison, bleeding, crippled, deep wound, or weakness nor do I use/need adrenaline (and there are many quite good builds that fit into this category) so those mods do nothing for me. So that leaves one and only one mod: sundering. If attacking a really high armor mob then the occasional 20% armor penetration can get a decent spike - not something I want to rely on but if nothing better then it is a nice bonus.

Is it great? Not really, but it is better than nothing. All things being equal I agree - it is the most useless. But then, all things aren't equal and sometimes it is the best. Not really worth the price of the mod, I got mine in a green during the 3x drop weekend, but you are not alway better off with something else. I never use one for my warrior, I never run a build where one of the other mods is better - however for my dervish I find the sundering mod to be worthwhile on the physical damage only scythe.

Every time I've seen someone do the damage calculations on sundering vs vamp weapons its come to the conclusion that vamp outdamages sundering (even on high armor targets) and that the degen is easily countered by just attacking. When not attacking, switch to a different weapon, such as your elemental weapon.

My assassin has 3 dagger sets, vamp, zealous and icy (it was the first elemental mod I could get). When in combat I switch to whichever is appropriate for the current build/enemies (I do have some builds that need zealous, and if the enemy has high physical armor then elemental is best), otherwise I'm holding the icy daggers. I plan to do the same on my dervish, though my ranger is a different story with the different bow classes.

Disagree all you want, that doesn't change that sundering sucks.
http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...php?t=10033346

well when you dont wanna change your damage type (change to elemental) and dont require nything else because of a certain build (vamp, zealous, furious) then its the only real other option

There's numerous other snathe mods. Lengthening the duration of a condition is never bad, especially crippling now that damn near everything scatters to heal up. Sundering should never be an option other than when selling to complete idiots.

While I'm not normally a fan of sundering (it pretty much sucks on all weapons aside from scythes and ... yeah, bows in some situations), I must say I do like it on a scythe. I use Sundering when I run Wild blow, when sundering procs on a critical hit it hurts. Other than that, I carry both zealous and vamp scythes too and switch them depending on how the batle's going. Usually I don't need the energy from zealous tho, I always run at least 12 mysticism.

I prefer Zealous, i just love having energy

and yes, sundering is !@#$...though so many people hate it, yet still its over rated, lets put and end to this

Good discussion. I never really thought about the other mods such as condition lengthening, etc. But as I usually run high mysticism myself, I feel that zealous isn't going to be a high priority for me.

Zampiric...

I mean... Zealous.

Helps for the spamming of scythe attacks, I carry a Zealous and an Ebon for when I attack warriors - However for PvE I would carry around my zealous all the time, the energy helps.

Dervishes manage to do 140+ damage with an attack so I don't bother with mods aimed to add damage.

I too agree with this. I run with a zealous, vamp, and Furious. Frrious there for swith to avoid the degens, but also use for another build. (currently disclosed)

Vamp is nice for hitting for that constant extra damage. And both vamp is zealous is nice with there AoE attack.

But i admit with the proper usage and build, neither of these are really needed.

Interesting, thats a fair point to make, but you have to consider that, by extension, the same rule applies to just about every aspect of the game. Is it needed? No. Would it help? Yes. Same goes for all the skills on your skillbar, you could swap them for triple echo mending and still beat all 3 campaigns, thats just the way it works.

Anyway, it's situational, but if you're running out of energy as a dervish, you're probably doing something wrong... No I'm serious, you can't be running enough mysticism for a start, as with 12 Mys, dervs can spam 10E enchantments all day, despite their base energy pool of 25 - I get by with 25 just fine, no need for runes or insignias to increase the initial energy pool.

...So my vote goes to Vampiric or Crippling. ED- I didn't explain why, but I will now. It's as simple as this. 5-15 lifestealing per swing adds a significant ammount of dps. Yes, dervishes hit hard anyway, but I don't see anything wrong with wanting to hit harder. Especially since it will heal you as well, over and above the dervishes amazing self healing ability...

The question is "why do you use Sundering?", answer: to ignore armour. Why? to do more damage... ah but wait! Vampiric consistantly does more extra damage than Sundering does. SO yeah, as a few people above have said, Sundering is unquestionabely pointless at all times.

Sundering gets worse as enemies armor levels gets higher. 20% penetration sounds like more, but it actually works in reverse. The higher the aror, the higher the resistance, the less actual damage sundering is actually capable of. Not to mention it's only a one in five chance to boot. Furious at one in ten is even worse actually. Plus, I really can't see running any adenaline based attacks with a dervish. Spreading attributes across too many lines just weakens the character. A three tactics Watch Yourself or Shield's Up is a wasted skillslot.

In PvE sundering is pointless since DPS is king. In PvP sundering is nice on the heavier-hitting weapons. But that's not the point of this thread.

Zealous and vampiric have different uses, so just have both.

Specifically on a scythe I would go with
A) Zealous. Energy gain is sometimes a pain and it's nice to have a Zealous set.
B) Elemental. Never leave home without one.
C) Sundering over vamp on a scythe. This has already been discussed in length. With todays meta- I think aegis chains could make more of a comeback with the duration nerf to Grenth. With vamp out you'd be doing yourself possible less of a favor than more. You swing slow without an IAS so vamp is already a hard choice. I also think SoD could see more play therefore even more so hurting your use of vamp.
*Also on a side note when I monk and I see -3 or -5 from vamp I can easily tell what type of weapon and damage type they are using and can swap accordingly, therefor giving me +10 more armor vs. slashing or w/e.*

D) + energy scythe, a bow, shield/sword [+60 health], or enchanting swap.

http://www.teamquitter.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=415 Discussed in depth with some of the best in the game.