Attributes:
15 Mysticism (11+1+3)
10 Scythe Mastery (9+1)
9 Earth Prayers (8+1)
8 Tactics
Skills:
Chilling Victory
Victorious Sweep
Defy Pain {e}
Watch Yourself
Conviction
Heart of Fury
Vital Boon
General res
Ok so I was browsing the skills at a priest, as I sometimes do, and a skill that caught my eye was Defy Pain. 90 health at 0 strength imo is pretty good, and the added armour gave me 2 things to base a build on.
The idea for the build was to have pretty high health and armour, but also deal a good amount of dmg. With Defy Pain and Vital Boon up you should always have more health than your foe, which means that Chilling and Vic's health related effects will always be applied.
Although there are only 2 enchantments in this build, the reason for such high Mysticism was for HoF duration. Building adren quickly will need a constant (or near constant) ias skill, and Heart of Fury fills this slot, but maybe that amount of Mysticism attr is wasted? Need input there.
I haven't done extensive testing; I tried it out in general pve and ab (as both give a good variety of foes to test against) and it seemed to work ok. However it was lacking in direct self-heal. I almost always have Mystic Regen, however in a build which is meant to buff health, regen is less effective, and i'm not one to use the stupid combo of Pious Sig + Vital Boon, so i could do with ideas on that.
Input and ideas are very much appreciated, but please don't flame the build. I know that there are strong Derv elites, and I have no Strength attr, but the thing with Derv only builds (or atleast bars using a Derv elite) is that they all do simular things, or serve simular purposes, and so I wanted to move away and use an elite from the 2nd prof.
Thx in advance.
help with a build..
~ Dan ~
Servant of Kali
Hmm well... it's OK for fun, but quite honestly, i still dont get the point:
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OK constructive criticism:
1) You mentioned AB. You need a run skill there, which probably cancels Conviction in one way or another.
2) Defy Pain. You get 20 armor. Forget 90hp bonus, it's irrelevant on Dervish. So how exactly is that 20 armor better than +40 armor, +33% run speed and holy dmg, which would Balthazar give u 2/3 of the time. Remember that Defy Pain is adrenaline skill. You wont be always able to cast it in the beginning of the battle, which means Defy wont be up 24/7 either, plus, it wont be up when u need it the most (beginning of battle) when enemies hit the hardest. Also, if u cant hit the target (block, blind, slow/cripple), bye bye Defy.
3) With this build you're probably going to have energy surplus so rebuild accordingly. Having too much energy is as bad as having too little
~ Dan ~
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Originally Posted by Servant of Kali
So how exactly the build you posted has a different purpose?
It takes a different approach.
The whole point of this build was to not use a derv elite, and i really won't use an avatar unless in arenas. Yes i mentioned ab, but this would primarily be used for pve. There i will always have a monk, who will always remove conditions, therefore i will always hit my target. If you take into account there are alot of enemies in pve at one time, and the scythe can hit 3 targets... thats defy pain recharged in 2-3 swings, and watch yourself up at all times. Ok so the avatar may have more benefits, but i really don't like the downtimes, in which defy pain would have an advantage.
Why is the added health/armour irrelevant? The whole point of a derv is to be in the front lines, these are 2 important aspects for a melee char. I agree it could be more energy based (although chilling does strain it sometimes) so any suggestions? thx
It takes a different approach.The whole point of this build was to not use a derv elite, and i really won't use an avatar unless in arenas. Yes i mentioned ab, but this would primarily be used for pve. There i will always have a monk, who will always remove conditions, therefore i will always hit my target. If you take into account there are alot of enemies in pve at one time, and the scythe can hit 3 targets... thats defy pain recharged in 2-3 swings, and watch yourself up at all times. Ok so the avatar may have more benefits, but i really don't like the downtimes, in which defy pain would have an advantage.
Why is the added health/armour irrelevant? The whole point of a derv is to be in the front lines, these are 2 important aspects for a melee char. I agree it could be more energy based (although chilling does strain it sometimes) so any suggestions? thx
madman24749
You want a non Dervish elite that will work well with a Dervish?
Try Primal Rage, Coward!, Your All Alone!, Shield of Regeneration, Deflection, Charge!?
The added health/armour is pointless, if you want to be tank like go D/E and use an earth build with stuff like Obsidian flesh and Armour of Earth, Stoneflesh aura
Try Primal Rage, Coward!, Your All Alone!, Shield of Regeneration, Deflection, Charge!?
The added health/armour is pointless, if you want to be tank like go D/E and use an earth build with stuff like Obsidian flesh and Armour of Earth, Stoneflesh aura
Servant of Kali
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Originally Posted by dan-the-noob
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Ok so the avatar may have more benefits, but i really don't like the downtimes, in which defy pain would have an advantage.
Well it's up to you then. If you want to use a skill which is active 80% of time and which has a negligible benefit, vs a skill which lasts 66& of time, and has a great benefit, then that's up to you. Also, im not pro in PvE, but IIRC with the build you use, you usually wont be the primary target of the monsters, and you have no crowd control skills (like cripple), you dont have a single skill which helps a teammate in need... all in all, you can say it's a different approach than other Dervish builds, but it's not a better approach. I dont mind if you use this or any other build, but i will mind if you're trying to argument that the downtime of avatars is a valid reason not to use the skill. That's the same as saying Aegis is bad because it has a long recharge, long cast time, and is expensive, so it's better to use Shield Guardian. Shield Guardian has instant recharge, costs less and is cast faster, but there is a reason why no one uses it, and why Aegis is used a lot. ~ Dan ~
@ madman
No, it's not a tank, D/E does no dmg, its not an overload of defense, more of a balance, which I wanted extra input and ideas on but instead of a build being developed it basically has to be scrapped instead? lol.. Well I kinda like the idea of using Primal Rage, can't u put it into a build? expand maybe.. @ kali The approach is an adrenal skill, maybe not as the elite, but a focus of the build. No-one has really developed on the fact dervs can build quicker adren than wars in pve, not that i've seen anyway. And no, i'm not trying to argue avatars aren't good or anything, it's a personal opinion for me that i won't use them past RA. You said yourself its about playstyle, they aren't in mine really I like the idea of warrior stances as the elite, such as Primal Rage, or something adrenaline based to differ from other derv builds. If you can say why it is bad, such as "... is missing" then i can add that and therefore that aspect of the build is then fine. I wanted input on how to develop it or keep to a warrior stance/adrenal elite for the build basis, not told to scrap it just because an avatar can do a better job (which then makes it like every other derv avatar build, does it not?) EDIT: Yes i agree there is no skill that would help out a teamate, that's why i have monks in my party  If i want to heal, i play my proper support healing build. Dropping Watchful Intervention on someone isn't what i want with this build tbh.
~ Dan ~
On a sidenote, I put some thought into a build using Coward! as madman sugested.
Attributes: Scythe 12+1 Mysticism 12+1+3 (i know that 15 is the breakpoint, but 16 simply as there was nothing to drop excess points into) Skills Coward! Wild Blow Victorious Sweep Eremites Attack Mystic Vigor Heart of Fury Watchful Intervention res So, any better? It has dmg in wild blow, but also eremites considering you can be swarmed in pve. There's an ias, teamate saver in watchful intervention, decent self heal in vic sweep and mystic vigor, (but there is no need to overdo it when you can take a monk in your team) and who needs cripple when you have knockdown? For ab, you could simply switch out res for pious haste. However I still feel it's so simular to my other derv builds, as it ties down many derv staples. Using coward does add something different tho Thoughts? ArKaiN
Try the D/N build in the other thread, it uses contagion and its fun as hell.
~ Dan ~
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Originally Posted by ArKaiN
Try the D/N build in the other thread, it uses contagion and its fun as hell.
I've had it for a while thx, it really is fun
 but i wanted to try something different. Variety never hurts
Servant of Kali
You know, if you want adrenaline skills, you can also consider D/P. Go for the Eyes helps a lot when you're dervish with scythe. Im not really sure what elite but you can play around with it
~ Dan ~
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Originally Posted by Servant of Kali
You know, if you want adrenaline skills, you can also consider D/P. Go for the Eyes helps a lot when you're dervish with scythe. Im not really sure what elite but you can play around with it
Would Focused Anger be worth it for an even quicker Go For The Eyes charge up?
Servant of Kali
Yes, on a Paragon. I used to use that before, it was fun. But it's in primary attribute so does nothing with Dervish. Anyway i just checked elite list, none that really work on Dervish, so better stick to warrior or someone else.
~ Dan ~
Then how about the Coward build? I tried it in ab last night, i guess it's not much use in pve as 1 knockdown vs a mob...
 but It played pretty well, hardly died, saved others with watchful, and it's just so much fun For some reason i can't help but laugh when i knock someone over (I once chased the same person for an entire match spamming water trident ) so i think I will be sticking with the coward build above. Any improvements it needs? |