Basic Guide to Playing Dervish

Quote: Originally Posted by Coloneh the entire part i quoted seems like jibberish. muchness? Oh, haha, "much of a muchness" is just a turn of phrase. I apologise, I fully understand how many people wouldn't really understand.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Coloneh Defensive mods will keep you alive on average way longer than fortitude mods. granted they do have no effect against armor ignoring/degen, so fortitude is mre universal. but most damage comes from elemental/physical sources. 70->75 is a noticeable difference. I'll look into the Defensive mod and amend as necessary when I have the time to consider it properly. For now I'll just clean up that "muchness" thing you don't like

This is actually pretty good... a lot better then some of the other "guides" people have posted here, at least this one has good information.

Quote: Originally Posted by bpphantom

rawr, I like this guide. ^_^

/applause

Hope it gets stickied...

Out with the old, in with the new. I've unstickied our last dervish guide (which hasn't been updated in over a year) and stickied this one.

Good job, Celest.

I didn't get the chance to say great job Celest!


So...great job man

Ok, let me run the numbers here.

Fortitude mod gives you 30 hp, no questions asked.
5 armor defensive mod reduces damage to 2^(-5/40), giving you an effective HP multiplier of 2^0.125 = 1.091. (9.1% boost).
So, if you have 500 HP, you will take as much damage (compared to before) as if you had 500 * 1.091 = 545 HP... so that's a 45 HP boost.

OK, I can see where that would come from. It's not a huge boost, and it doesn't work against armor-ignoring damage, but it is something (and scales with your HP).

P.S. With further thought, in the end it also depends whether the armor boost is enough to actually reduce the damage you're taking. If 8.2% reduction won't affect the numbers - i.e. if you're taking damage in small packets - you will get little benefit from the armor boost. If you're taking more than 10 damage a hit, there will be a difference - and in spots where the damage reduction is close to 8.2% (more likely to happen for 20 damage hits and over) you'll start to benefit from +5 armor more than you would from +30 hp.

So, fortitude is better if, uh, you're getting wanded to death. Or for armor-ignoring damage. Apart from that, defense, shelter or warding should do slightly better.

Sirius: Thanks for that. I'll try to simplify what you have there and add it to the OP.

Just thought I'd mention it. Pious Assault has recently been nerfed. It will remove an enchantment but it will not recharge instantly anymore.

Good write-up. Thanks.

Quote: Originally Posted by Deathroses

Impressive basic guide. Why try to compicate it by bringing in game play from later in the game. Whilst it could well be good to have, factions ranked skills are not really available to a dervish beginner without a lot of help. At least,not as far as I know. I will build a derv now, and see if I can have more success than with my last miserable failure!!

Quote: Originally Posted by Mr.Bimble

To get Faction skill you need to hit lvl 20 as soon as possible - do it, it's worth it.

What about Derv/Ranger? You didnt mention it in the secondary professions. I see the benefits for running with a ranger. and apply poison goes good with the other conditions a derv provides

At a certain mission in NF, I'm required to take a Dervish hero. I'm using the very basic Dervish build listed in the guide.

[skill]aura of thorns[/skill] [skill]mystic vigor[/skill] [skill]vital boon[/skill] [skill]signet of pious light[/skill] [skill]mystic sweep[/skill] [skill]eremite's attack[/skill] [skill]chilling victory[/skill] + REZ

I'm going to raise the Dervish to lvl 20 for the mission, at level 20, what should its' attribute spread be?

Just a question:

Is there a reason there's no writeup for Ranger as a secondary?

Quote: Originally Posted by Bront

Quote: Originally Posted by Bront

Quote: Originally Posted by smiznith What about Derv/Ranger? You didnt mention it in the secondary professions. I see the benefits for running with a ranger. and apply poison goes good with the other conditions a derv provides Apply Poison is cute, but crap. You're wasting a lot of energy on a skill that, essentially, does bugger-all damage.

Asides from EDA guys with Bows (Distracting Shot iz gud, and Volley) and maybe Heket's Rampage on a VoS guy (kinda dated, I'd rather have Flail or Drunken Master), /R doesn't have a whole lot to offer the Derv.

This is the damage output of a dated VoS guy - its nothing to balk at.`


Edit: At r6 vanguard, r6 norn, r6 kurzik