melonni?

is it just me or does melonni (sp?), the dervish hero, totally suck. she cant ever seem to cast enchantments right and she never lives long enough to be a suitable choice over koss. so is there any reason to take her other than the idea behind having a dervish hero?

One thing about heros; don't give them complicated builds. If shes not using enchantments correctly, the AI probably doesn't understand how to use them. Just give her a simple build to play (there are heaps floating around).

Alternatively, if you don't have any skills unlocked, you may want to look into that... She also plays certain parts in the Nightfall story, and 2 missions require having her in your party.

Personally, I don't use her, but I don't have any skills unlocked for Dervishes, compared to all of them with my Warrior.

Heres a simple build she can use.

[skill]Reaper's Sweep[/skill][skill]Wild Blow[/skill][skill]Lyssa's Assault[/skill][skill]Distracting Blow[/skill][skill]Vital Boon[/skill][skill]Heart of Fury[/skill](Not 100% sure if she uses this right)[skill]Signet of Pious Light[/skill][skill]Resurrection Signet[/skill]

Melonni seems to work alright for me. I almost always take her instead of Koss, as my skill-unlocking has progressed pretty much opposite to Marty's. Generally I give her a pretty basic Avatar of Balthazar build, with some self-enchantments but nothing too fancy. She doesn't keep all of them up as often as I would when I play Dervish myself, but I haven't noticed any major problems. As suggested above, probably the simple builds will be the most effective.

Crap, I keep trying to remember to post this. I found a build with which, I shit you not, Melonni is actually GOOD
http://www.pvxwiki.com/wiki/Build/N_Contagious_Reaper
She'll be spearheading the group of course, and unlike with every other build I've tried, she doesn't instantly kil herself with this one. Actually, not only that, but the makes everything Weak and Bleeding before they ever reach you, so (and this is amazing for anyone who's tried to use her), she becomes actually very good.

it's all about finding the skills that the ai uses right. i just use the cheesy don't-think-too-hard build that i used to take my dervish through nf:
[skill]Mystic Sweep[/skill][skill]Watchful Intervention[/skill][skill]Chilling Victory[/skill][skill]Heart of Fury[/skill][skill]Mystic Vigor[/skill][skill]Avatar of Balthazar[/skill][skill]Faithful Intervention[/skill][skill]Resurrect[/skill] though i used rebirth on my actual dervish. this is obviously a simple build but it works for off-tanking (usually targetting any warrior bosses or other heavy-duty melee with koss and targetting the second-most dangerous melee opponent with melonni). it's a little weak on dps but like i said: simple and mindless...easy skills to get early-on.

oh yeah, she uses wb and db well (though ai uses wb as a damage move instead of the normal stance-removal). i had [skill]Skull Crack[/skill] on one of mine for a while which was cute.

I use a simple Avatar of Balthazar build with four enchantments, including Mystic Regen, along with a couple attack skills, and she's great. I load her up with Windwalker Insigs and she rarely ever dies. I don't deal with the skills that remove enchantmets, since those builds are bound to confuse the AI.

I would not run an avatar build on her for the sole reason that in my opinion avatars without the new SS Dervish skill are not worth an elite slot.

I run:

12+1 +1 scythe
9+1 mysticism
9+1 earth prayers

Wounding strike (elite)
Victorious Sweep
Mystic Sweep
Vital Boon
Mystic regeneration
Conviction
(optional slot, I use armor of sanctity or add disrupting blow or wild blow)
Ress sig

The conditional deep wound of Reaper's sweep is something that Melonni seems to be poor at utilizing. I usually use her with two searing flames elementalists, which makes the AOE deep wound all the more attractive.