Oh noes, another build thread!

Vargs

Vargs

Academy Page

Join Date: Apr 2006

Happy Fun Rainbow Adventure

Rt/

Just recently got Nightfall, and decided to start a Dervish. Haven't gotten far yet, but I'd like to plan out a basic PvE build for the long term. After digging around through the dervish skills and checking out the builds of a few other people, I thought this might work. Note: I don't have GWEN

[skill]Mystic Sweep[/skill][skill]Victorious Sweep[/skill][skill]Eremite's Attack[/skill][skill]Heart of Fury[/skill][skill]Zealous Renewal[/skill][skill]Plague Touch[/skill][skill]Conviction[/skill][skill]Faithful Intervention[/skill]

I plan on ditching Eremite's Attack when I can get [skill]Reaper's Sweep[/skill]

Basic idea is that I'd have faithful intervention already on before a fight and use conviction as I run in, then try to get as many enemies as I can within zealous renewal range before popping heart of fury and hacking away with my 3 attack skills. Re-apply buffs as necessary.

Between zealous renewal and faithful intervention (which I picked mostly just to have an enchant up, but it doesn't seem terrible on it's own) I should pretty much always have 2 enchantments to feed mystic sweep, and usually a third with heart of fury.

I'm hoping between heart of fury + zealous renewal and mysticism I'll have enough energy to throw out a suitable amount of mystic sweeps, victorious sweeps, and eremite's attack/reaper's sweeps. Will I?

I couldn't really decide what to do with the conviction slot. +24 armor doesn't hurt and it's cheap, but keeping up 3 enchants already seems like a pain in the ass enough to keep buffs up, adding a fourth is going to be annoying. I definitely wouldn't mind changing that to something else.

What do you guys think, is this usable?

Coloneh

Coloneh

Furnace Stoker

Join Date: Nov 2006

D/W

its not to bad. reaper's is a good choice.
a few things though:

1. you need a rez. always bring a rez unless you never plan on playing with other humans.
2. Zealous renewal is unessicary. this is a low energy build, if you need energy bring a zealous scythe.
3. Faithful intervention sucks. get a better healing skill or dont bring one or something. thats not wort a skill slot.
4. conviction is alright. there are better choiced however.
5. good job getting HoF in there.

Kynareth Adeus

Academy Page

Join Date: Jan 2007

D/Mo

Yes, get a rez. Definately.

I had a build that was pretty fun a while ago, it looked fairly similar. It was something along the lines illustrated below:

Reaper's Sweep, Victorious Sweep, Twin Moon Sweep, Vital Boon, Mystic Regeneration, Armor of Sanctity, the skill whose name escapes me but involves crippling everyone who attacks you, and rebirth.

It was fairly decent.

Vargs

Vargs

Academy Page

Join Date: Apr 2006

Happy Fun Rainbow Adventure

Rt/

So what should I take instead of faithful intervention? Definitely need it to be an enchantment to help out mystic sweep.

[skill]mystic regeneration[/skill] perhaps? That's another 10 energy every 20 seconds too, so it would help justify zealous renewal.

I suppose I could ditch conviction for a res. I could go paragon secondary and get [skill]signet of return[/skill] and then pick up [skill]remedy signet[/skill] instead of plague touch, although I really do like plague touch especially considering being in touch range should be no problem for a melee class.



Yeah?

Kynareth Adeus

Academy Page

Join Date: Jan 2007

D/Mo

Mystic Regeneration is great.

The reason they say not to bring zealous renewal, actually, is not because you won't need energy, but rather because it rarely works well.

Coloneh

Coloneh

Furnace Stoker

Join Date: Nov 2006

D/W

no. its becasue he wont need the energy. it works fine. if you are running enchantments to fuel mystic sweep you fail to understand the skill. look at the activation time 3/4 of a second is way less than a normal scythe attack your prot monk should be putting some enchantments on you. the bonus damage isnt that great.

Kynareth Adeus

Academy Page

Join Date: Jan 2007

D/Mo

Quote:
Originally Posted by Coloneh
no. its becasue he wont need the energy. it works fine. if you are running enchantments to fuel mystic sweep you fail to understand the skill. look at the activation time 3/4 of a second is way less than a normal scythe attack your prot monk should be putting some enchantments on you. the bonus damage isnt that great. True that he won't need the energy, but I still argue that the lack of a need of energy is not why it's a bad skill. It's a bad skill because it's highly inefficient.

~ Dan ~

Forge Runner

Join Date: Dec 2006

D/

Coloneh pretty much summed it up. But my 2 cents on skills to replace:

[skill]Mystic Regeneration[/skill] instead of [skill]Conviction[/skill] (keep earth at 8 only).

[skill]Mystic Vigor[/skill] instead of [skill]Zealous Renewal[/skill]

Res instead of [skill]Faithful Intervention[/skill]

Plague Touch i guess can stay, although heroes remove my conditions way faster than i ever could

Vargs

Vargs

Academy Page

Join Date: Apr 2006

Happy Fun Rainbow Adventure

Rt/

Alright, so

[skill]Mystic Sweep[/skill][skill]Victorious Sweep[/skill][skill]Eremite's Attack[/skill][skill]Heart of Fury[/skill][skill]Mystic Vigor[/skill][skill]Signet of Return[/skill][skill]Mystic Regeneration[/skill][skill]Remedy Signet[/skill]

with Eremite's replaced by [skill]Reaper's sweep[/skill] later.

Anything else I should change?

I already have 2 skills that heal me, perhaps I should swap out victorious sweep for [skill]chilling victory[/skill]?
Gives me a bit of aoe and I end up spending less energy in the long run (10 every 10 seconds max instead of 5 every 4) Considering you can only get health back from victorious sweep when you already have plenty of health (generally), and I already have two direct attack skills, it seems like it may be a good choice. y/n?

~ Dan ~

Forge Runner

Join Date: Dec 2006

D/

Quote:
Originally Posted by Vargs
Alright, so

[skill]Mystic Sweep[/skill][skill]Victorious Sweep[/skill][skill]Eremite's Attack[/skill][skill]Heart of Fury[/skill][skill]Mystic Vigor[/skill][skill]Signet of Return[/skill][skill]Mystic Regeneration[/skill][skill]Remedy Signet[/skill]

with Eremite's replaced by [skill]Reaper's sweep[/skill] later.

Anything else I should change? That's fine except signet of return is.. on a derv. Res sig or sunspear rebirth would be best. Remedy is a suitable condition removal.

For your attributes i recommend: 7+1 earth; 10+1+1 mysticism; rest+1 scythe. That's just my layout with my preferred runes etc though.. as i always like having mysticism headpiece.

Syntonic

Lion's Arch Merchant

Join Date: Feb 2007

You could go monk secondary with a res and mending touch instead. Chilling victory is a nice ender but it does require a good amount of energy and a rather lengthy recharge time only to do conditional cold damage rather than straight damage. Generally not worth it unless you are going onslaught in my opinion but I'm sure others will say differently.

Cebe

Cebe

The 5th Celestial Boss

Join Date: Jul 2006

Inverness, Scotland

The Cult of Scaro [WHO]

E/

Quote:
Originally Posted by dan-the-noob
That's fine except signet of return is.. on a derv. Res sig or sunspear rebirth would be best. Remedy is a suitable condition removal. Signet of Return is no worse on a Dervish than it is on a Warrior. And it's a Hard Res, unlike Res Signet or SS Rebirth Signet.

Personally I prefer D/Rt for Death Pact and leave my condition removal to Flunkoro, who's more than adept at that.

Vargs

Vargs

Academy Page

Join Date: Apr 2006

Happy Fun Rainbow Adventure

Rt/

Quote:
Originally Posted by Syntonic
You could go monk secondary with a res and mending touch instead. Chilling victory is a nice ender but it does require a good amount of energy and a rather lengthy recharge time only to do conditional cold damage rather than straight damage. Generally not worth it unless you are going onslaught in my opinion but I'm sure others will say differently. I was definitely considering monk over paragon, but the signets cost no energy which is nice, although the 2 condition removal and slightly faster cast on mending touch is pretty nifty.

It's pretty apparent I wasn't too concerned with ressing in combat, when I have a signet I always get stingy with it and never use it anyways, so I just went with signet of return as more of an anti-wipe thing >.>

~ Dan ~

Forge Runner

Join Date: Dec 2006

D/

Quote:
Originally Posted by Celestial Beaver
Signet of Return is no worse on a Dervish than it is on a Warrior. And it's a Hard Res, unlike Res Signet or SS Rebirth Signet.
Personally I prefer D/Rt for Death Pact and leave my condition removal to Flunkoro, who's more than adept at that. Hard res is for recovering party wipes. If i have to do that more than once (meaning sunspear sig isn't charged) then i deserve to be back at the res shrine

I leave all the ress'ing to my heroes, death pact is great for mid-battle and after.

In those 6 seconds he's casting signet of return, i've killed 2 monsters

Coloneh

Coloneh

Furnace Stoker

Join Date: Nov 2006

D/W

Quote:
Originally Posted by Kynareth Adeus
True that he won't need the energy, but I still argue that the lack of a need of energy is not why it's a bad skill. It's a bad skill because it's highly inefficient. initial cost: 10e
duration: 20s
energy return: 4(myst) + number of foes hit
attack speed: 1.75s interval. about 11 swings in 20s

so: energy gained/lost=-10+4+11X... where X is the number of foes in front of you, even if there is 1 foe(there shouldn't be) you end up gaining 5 energy, and i cant see any reason why you wouldnt bring an IAS to increase your DPS, or hit more than one foe.

Sirius-NZ

Sirius-NZ

Wilds Pathfinder

Join Date: Oct 2007

Bellevue, WA (I know ... but I moved out of NZ)

Xen of Onslaught

D/

Where it stops working is if you have to use non-attack skills too much, but most good builds shouldn't... also, IAS + mystic + eremite's + multihit do greatly increase recovery.

But really, the only place it's going to make a difference is with Melandru or something... I don't have a lot of builds that really need that much energy recovery.

Vargs

Vargs

Academy Page

Join Date: Apr 2006

Happy Fun Rainbow Adventure

Rt/

Long post ahead, grab some popcorn and reading glasses.

Some more messing around, since after playing awhile I've found I rarely use my paragon skills. Hating Eremite's Sweep, and while Mystic is pretty good, I think that I like Chilling Victory a bit more. Doesn't go off as fast, but I love all the damage it does with a bunch of clumped enemies. Does more damage even to a single target over time too!

21 physical damage + 63 cold damage (assuming more health than opponent) = 84 damage.

vs

27 (assuming I have 3 enchants) x 2.5 (can do 2.5 mystic sweeps for every 10 seconds) = 67.5 damage.

Doing similar math, chilling victory also takes 10 energy every 10 seconds whereas mystic sweep takes 12.5 every 10 seconds.

Chilling gets even better against multiple targets. I don't see how the slightly faster swing of mystic sweep can keep up, especially since heart of fury makes the difference between attack speeds even smaller. Plus chilling is simply easier to use, since you have to use it less than half as often. That's important to me, since throwing out all these attacks and keeping up enchantments and making sure my position is good, and making sure my teammates are okay, and etc. can get a bit overwhelming.

Anyways,

[skill]Wild Blow[/skill][skill]Reaper's Sweep[/skill][skill]Chilling Victory[/skill][skill]Heart of Fury[/skill][skill]Mystic Vigor[/skill][skill]Resurrection Signet[/skill][skill]Mystic Regeneration[/skill][skill]Distracting Blow[/skill]

Res signet being sunspear rebirth, but the forums won't register it as existing -.-
If only Mystic Regeneration was a mysticism ability, I wouldn't have to worry about any attributes but Scythe Mastery and Mysticism >:(

Seems like I'll have plenty of energy. 8-10 sec cooldowns on my 3 main attacks for a total of 20 energy altogether. I figure I can get in some decent spike damage doing wild blow->chilling victory->reaper's sweep (assuming I have enough health to fulfill the requirements, which I've found so far I nearly always do). The similar cooldowns make them pretty easy to use too, just hit 3 keys every 9 secs or so.

Enchantments are semi cheap as well (15 energy every 20 seconds, and another 10 energy every 30 seconds - probably a bit longer for these since I don't always notice right away >.>), I may even have too much energy, although I'm not sure since I don't know exactly how fast I regen energy. Perhaps I should swap one of my skills for something better/more energy intensive. http://gw.gamewikis.org/wiki/Aura_of_Holy_Might looks good (can't get that to work on these forums either). I'm aware of the faction requirement to get/upgrade this, but do I need to complete the factions campaign to get to the NPC that sells this? Might take that over distracting blow or mystic vigor. That's another 10 energy every 25 seconds, think I'm pushing it too far energy-wise?

One thing I really like about this is that I don't have to stare down my buff bar so much since none of these enchantments do anything special when they end except heart of fury, which lasts shorter than it's cooldown anyways. So if I recast mystic regen or mystic vigor a bit early - who cares? Ease of use - it's a good thing and lets me focus my attention on other stuff. Although man, I would kill for some UI mods like in WoW. Hate having like 10 things on my bar and trying to figure out if my enchantments are still up and how much time they have left with all the icons moving around as stuff expires or gets added.

I'm stuck as a paragon secondary for awhile now though. Level 17 and just got to Blacktide Den, so I assume I'm nearing the completion of the beginning island. How much farther till I can change secondaries? I'm getting jealous of my heroes and their secondary changing antics.

It's kinda funny how throughout this thread my build has changed so much that I'm only using 2 skills from the first post.

Thanks for all the help so far, btw.

Bassu

Frost Gate Guardian

Join Date: Jan 2007

Cracow, Poland.

D/

I'm not sure but changing profession shouldn't be a problem... Just go to Balthazar's Temple and there's a NPC that changes your secondary for a small fee like 500 or something.

Vargs

Vargs

Academy Page

Join Date: Apr 2006

Happy Fun Rainbow Adventure

Rt/

Quote:
Originally Posted by Bassu
I'm not sure but changing profession shouldn't be a problem... Just go to Balthazar's Temple and there's a NPC that changes your secondary for a small fee like 500 or something. Just tried that, and he said "You must be ascended or closer to the stars to change your profession." :(

~ Dan ~

Forge Runner

Join Date: Dec 2006

D/

Solid build Vargs. You might wana swap distracting or wild blow for eremite's or mystic sweep.

Earth

Earth

Always Outnumbered

Join Date: Jul 2006

Quote:
Originally Posted by Vargs
I figure I can get in some decent spike damage doing wild blow->chilling victory->reaper's sweep It would be better doing Wild Blow -> Reaper's Sweep -> Chilling Victory. That's a killer.

Burst Cancel

Burst Cancel

Desert Nomad

Join Date: Dec 2006

Domain of Broken Game Mechanics

If you're playing H/H you can ditch Mystic Regen to spec 12/12 in scythe/mysticism. Normally I'd recommend Flail over HoF since you're already /W, but with Wild Blow that's not going to work. Also, I'd keep Distracting Blow; interrupts are handy - but if you ditch Regen you'll have an extra slot for Mystic/Eremite's. Win/win.

As an aside: you want enchantments to power Mystic; +30 is not trivial, especially on a 4s recharge. That doesn't, however, mean that you want to clog a bar with useless enchantments just to get the bonus. It means you want to bring Mystic on a bar that already uses several enchantments, or else bring Eremite's on a bar that doesn't.