Avatars vs. Attack Elites in PvE

Thank you, Improvavel. In that case, the friend testing it (who admittedly could not give me exact lifesteal amounts - just said it was effing nuts, and was more than AoG steal alone) was not paying close enough attention and was forgetting that he was sitting on his Vamp Scythe.

That being said, I'm now /sadpanda. AoG + Nightmare Weapon + OotV + VampScythe is just so much prettiness in the form of lifesteal. I should have known that it would not be allowed. /grumble

Looks like I'm not packing an Orders anytime soon with my Derv. He's a fan of AoHM, and I can't refute that the damage increase from AoHM > OotV lifesteal. I'll just make sure that he gets liberal doses of Nightmare Weapon and Splinter Weapon, and uses his Vamp Scythe as much as possible.

In elite areas, AoM or AoD is the way to go, or so I've heard. It takes a lot of pressure off your monks.

The other avatars...They just seem pointless to me. Why bother going for an uber damage AoL build when the average sin is going to outdamage you anyway? Similiar deal with AoB and AoG. They're just not good enough at what they do. If you want to go with one of those builds then you might as well just make a Warrior or Sin (you'll be better at whatever you're trying to do).

That's why I usually go with WS. Spammable DW plus scythe attacks at least gives me some kind of niche that warriors can't match (sins can, but I also have [Save Yourselves!] on my bar, which scythe sins can't get). I find it better to be optimal in one area than suboptimal in many.

Hmmm...Seems to be some debate over AoM vs WS.

Doesn't seem that complicated to me. [Avatar of Melandru]+[Wearying Strike]+[Eternal Aura] gives you +100 HP and condition immunity, while [Wounding Strike] gives you two free slots to mess around with.

Either one could be better depending on the circumstances (like for example, whether or not you are going to be facing lots of conditions).

No, you're saving two. And those other skills you mentioned don't take that long to recharge. With a 20% enchanting mod (can't see why any self-respecting derv would forego this; defense or fortitude only makes you what, 6% tougher? Enchantments are a dervish's lifeblood), most of those are easily maintainable.

And a 90 dmg AoE every 30 sec isn't that good, especially since you won't be using it when you want dmg, but rather when you want to recharge your avatar.

Compare these builds:

[Avatar of Melandru][Wearying Strike][Eternal Aura][Save Yourselves!][Eremite's Attack][Attacker's Insight][Aura of Holy Might][Heart of Fury]

[Wounding Strike][Victorious Sweep][Mystic Sweep][Save Yourselves!][Eremite's Attack][Attacker's Insight][Aura of Holy Might][Heart of Fury]

Assuming that Wearying Strike is half the attack skill that stuff like mystic sweep or victorious sweep is (seems about right, nearly twice the recharge after all and is useless if for some reason your avatar gets interrupted), then that's 1.5 more attack skills you get. It's also much easier on the energy, so you can spam attack skills more often.

I'm not saying that AoM is bad or even remotely close to it (on the contrary, it's very good). I'm saying that since condition immunity is not that helpful unless there are a lot of conditions, that AoM is less useful than WS in those cases, just as WS isn't as good as AoM when there are a lot of conditions around.