D/Any Balthazar's Fanatic

Quit tanking and kill some stuff. Avatar of Balth is trash. how do you expect to be in the front lines doing damage without being able to tank

i like conviction and mystic regen but i really love avatar of balthazar. Is it a waste because it doesn't add enough benefit later on in the game?i could see how it wouldn't be good later but now its awesome Most of the forms are gimmicks in PvE. PvP they have some utility since the matches rarely last long enough for you to be gimped by the high recharge times. Still as far as gimmick skills go though AoB blows more than the rest. +40 armor? Pointless. Any dervish worth their salt will either have conviction or Mystic REgen on their bar. Conviction is plenty of armor bonus and if you don't go that way mystic regen is like a damage sponge by itself. I run Mystic Regen on my EDA build and I top out at +15 pips of regen, granted only 10 at a time can be used but the extra five offsets any degen effects. The run speed is alright but unless you're well running someone somewhere what's the point? Holy Damage? Ha! Pointless unless you are fighting undead. For some reason some people believe that if it says holy damage it ignores armor, unfortunately this is not the case unless it is direct damage instead of weapon based damage. Dwayna and Melandru are probably the better choices for PvE Avatars. Lyssa is nice too for some heavy damage but not much in the way of additional utility. Reapers Sweep or EDA are by far more useful elites to have and EDA can be capped pretty early too.

Most of the forms are gimmicks in PvE. PvP they have some utility since the matches rarely last long enough for you to be gimped by the high recharge times. Still as far as gimmick skills go though AoB blows more than the rest. +40 armor? Pointless. Any dervish worth their salt will either have conviction or Mystic REgen on their bar. Conviction is plenty of armor bonus and if you don't go that way mystic regen is like a damage sponge by itself. I run Mystic Regen on my EDA build and I top out at +15 pips of regen, granted only 10 at a time can be used but the extra five offsets any degen effects. The run speed is alright but unless you're well running someone somewhere what's the point? Holy Damage? Ha! Pointless unless you are fighting undead. For some reason some people believe that if it says holy damage it ignores armor, unfortunately this is not the case unless it is direct damage instead of weapon based damage. Dwayna and Melandru are probably the better choices for PvE Avatars. Lyssa is nice too for some heavy damage but not much in the way of additional utility. Reapers Sweep or EDA are by far more useful elites to have and EDA can be capped pretty early too. if you would have further down on the page you might have seen the other build i put up but you wont like it anyway cuz it still has AoB in it

if you would have further down on the page you might have seen the other build i put up but you wont like it anyway cuz it still has AoB in it Well I was trying to give you a more objective opinion on why the AoB slot could be better used. Let us examine your more recent build shall we? I like the addition of conviction and Mystic regen and Faithful Intervention is also a good choice since it's maintenance free spike protection. Now you are still using AoB for an elite, which will get you through the first little bit of the game but once you hit, I'd say Desolation or even the latter half of vabbi , the utility is shot. Ebon Dust Aura, is my personal favorite. Basically you can become a blind bot and shut down all melee enemies. Reaper's sweep is great. Huge damage with high scythe mastery and the critical hits, which the dervish excels at, are incredibly powerful. IF you just have a hard on for avatars then might I suggest either Melandru or Dwayna. The reasons you listed for Balthazar were the ability to get to the enemy faster and the higher armor, in other words damage mitigation. Ok With Melandru you gain additional hitpoints, which with your regen = damage mitigation. In addition you are immune to conditions, like cripple, bleeding, burning, deep wound, weakness, poison. In other words your survivability is increased exponentially. With Dwayna we also have overlapping utility with balthazar. while you don't recieve extra hitpoints you do recieve healing when using an attack skill. You also strip a hex when you use an attack skill. Ok right there is your damage mitigation and a lot of snares are hexes, the nastier ones being used by Rain of Terror monsters in the later stages of the game. Balthazar just has a very limited utility in general.

Here let me show you my build it may give you some ideas on what to look for in syngery.

[skill]Victorious Sweep[/skill] This is a low cost scythe attack with good damage and a conditional heal

[skill]Wild Blow[/skill] This one is another low cost attack. Since dervishes don't utilize adrenaline it has almost no downside to it. It ends stances and it's a guranteed critical hit.

[skill]Faithful Intervention[/skill] This is cast immediately upon zoning in. It has no maintenance cost and it is spike protection which can save you. It is also a good indicator of when you are overpressured. If it triggers in combat it's time to kite out and restack your enchants.

[skill]Heart of Fury[/skill] Warriors wish they had this skill in their lines. It is a great IAS and should be precast before combat. when it drops it also drops burning on the enemy so it adds to damage as well as increasing your combat effectiveness.

[skill]Aura of Thorns[/skill] AoE snare and another one that drops a condition upon ending. This one drops bleeding which adds more DoT damage.

[skill]Mystic Regeneration[/skill] One of the better healing skills in the game. Relatively low cost for a lot of oomph. Generally speaking most mobs and even some PvP players cannot outdamage your rate of healing if you have enough enchants on you.

[skill]Ebon Dust Aura[/skill] with an ebon weapon in hand this makes the build. Since it is very difficult to tank in the traditional sense anymore, most enemies will blow past you to try to kill your backline squishies, this skill makes you more valuable since you can keep those melee foes from being able to hit your squishies. A Blind melee enemy is a useless one.