...Holy *bleep*...

Quote: Originally Posted by reaper with no name

crit rate = 55%+?*?

Hmmm...Crap, I don't know how to do the multiplicative thing, so I'll just pretend for a minute that the base weapon crit adds with the crit modifier Afaik the calculation is the following:
Critical Strikes 14 --> +14% critical hit
Scythe Mastery 12 --> +17% critical hit
Critical Eye at 14 --> +14% critical hit
Way of the Master at 14 --> +31% critical hit

(1-0.14)*(1-0.17)*(1-0.14)*(1-0.31)=~0.42% chance for a non-crit
(1-0.42)=0.58% chance for a critical hit

Quote: Originally Posted by Grim Aragorn

when the goal of your build is to deal the most damage possible, it is indeed a waste And with the energy management, you can then spam the attacks to do the most damage, if you want to do 3 attack skills and be done for 10 seconds auto attacking go ahead, I've logged over 3000 hours on my derv, I've done the builds.

No,just no.This does not take into account the energy management of scythesins which means they can spam things like mystic sweep in very short amoutns of time. That and defense through crit def and the armour, making them more useful than dervs in everyway possible.

The build being used for comparison was using zealous vow for energy management.

It doesn't matter though, the error I suspected was found. I forgot to take into account the extra damage of crits, and that skewed my numbers.

Quote: Originally Posted by reaper with no name

It's not apples to watermelons; it's apples to genetically engineered super-apples.
but still..
apples and genetically engineered super-apples are so0oo different

Not in this case. The only difference here is, the sin is doing exactly what the dervish is doing, only better. As is usually the case.

Good math, Pretty numbers But 'Cher Wrong.

*facepalm*

Yes, yes, we know. I know. I had crunched the numbers before, I knew what the expected results were. I was just wondering why my results were different this second time around (ie, what did I mess up on this time). Someone pointed out that I forgot to include the extra damage from crits. That's what was messing up my numbers. Can we end the thread now please? Jeez...

dervish does dervish better than any other profession, if you dont understand that, then you dont understand the profession. /end

/facepalm
You might as well start a 16 Scythe Mastery + 20% Mastery mod dervish versus a 12 Scythe Mastery + 20% Mastery mod assassin

Its pointless, nobody would trade off -75 health just to bump their damage for a tiny amount. Anyway since you are so passionate about dervish being a superior scythe user, I can tell you that a Melandru dervish will outdamage any scythe users in conditions heavy areas. Immunity to conditions = 0 downtime when blinded / crippled = more succesful attacks.

p.s. the dervish is a support profession

That's not true. Dervishes are gimmick melee. Sure, they can do support, but if they were meant to be a support profession they would have less armor, no weapon proficiency, and would have a lot more skills devoted to support, rather than an entire attribute line devoted to survivability and condition spreading (earth prayers).

I'm not passionate about dervishes being the best scythe users. I know they aren't. Critical Strikes and a maintainable IAS > 4 more scythe mastery. That's why I was confused; the calculations I was doing weren't supporting that and I couldn't figure out why. I figured if anyone could tell me what I was missing in my numbers, it'd be the guys here. It turned out to be the extra damage from crits (silly me, how could I forget those? ). When that's taken into account (despite the fact that crit rates are multiplicative; another thing I messed up on), the scythe sin wins out in damage by a mile, just as expected.

Dervish support is very gimmicky, very much a secondary ability.

The most impressive thing I found about the Dervish's martial skills was the ability to spam Concussion Shot through Attacker's Insight. Niche, but cool. There's a build there if you add in D-Shot, Onslaught and some other stuff... should you find yourself bored one afternoon..! *cough* Anyway...

The maths pretty much confirms what I thought about A/D's too, which I'm happy about because I like the style. The Hand of the Forgotten scythe (the fist holding the curved dagger) just reinforces that assassin style even more

Dervishes were made a bit too convoluted. Mysticism is very unwieldy. I still want to like them though. Perhaps I have a tendency for counter-culture? The question is... what *should* a Dervish be good at anyway given that Rangers and Assassins in particular are just so totally sweet with a scythe?

Could Mysticism be changed to extent enchantment duration 2-4% per level and make them the masters of enchantment? It would be hilarious if they could use Shadow Arts enchants better than a sin! Hmm, maybe it's a new topic.

Dervish permasin? I like ^^

But really, in all seriousness, what the Dervish needs is a GOOD IAS and perhaps ways for more armor penetration and critical boost. A hybrid of both the CritScythe and StrScythe would be good.
More e-management is also called for.

Hah, Dervishes just seem so balanced that it's hard to pick out how to make them better.

One thing that would definitely be a treat is reducing the Avatar cast time to half a second for PvE. And every 5 points of Mysticism you have, you get one more energy pip.

EDIT:
What I'm definitely curious of is what does Anet think of Dervishes?

dervishes do have great IAS, heart of fury and onslaught are among the only enchant ias skills (not considering the vast array of pve only skills), pious fury is great in certain builds, and whirling charge is like a non elite version of primal rage..sure its conditional and cant be kept up quite as long, but primal rage makes you take double dmg, so that is also quite conditional.

ive been pwning all aspects of the game with my dervish since i picked up nightfall a couple years ago. maybe ill post some builds on here someday, but right now i have little motivation to give builds to this forum as nearly every thread on the derv board turns into a "omg why isnt my dervish good!?" qq fest. keep trying guys, the profession isnt totally gimped. theres plenty of stuff that needs to be adjusted, but its still a very good profession.

let me say this again, if you arent whoring enchants and using mysticism to its fullest, you arent getting the most out of your dervish.

and regarding what i said about support..support doesnt just need to come from a defensive standpoint, and you dont need to be a fully 'gimmicked' support build. dervishes have access to some very powerful heals, sig of pious light, imbue health, dwaynas touch, formerly mystic healing til it was nerfed pretty badly...and we have access to alot of aoe conditions and damage that can easily change the outcome of a battle.

Quote: Originally Posted by Celtus /snip A few things to point out:

- Heart of Fury and Whirling Charge are the only good IASs, Onslaught and anything else is a joke.
- Anything can "pwn" PvE.
- No one is saying Dervishes are bad, they're just comparably bad.

You forgot Mystic Twister and Mystic Sandstorm. Those can be pretty good (or at least one of them was, I forget which one) with the right build. And don't forget Reaper's Sweep (though that's really just a variant of the WS build). But all of this only reinforces that the dervish is gimmick melee. It doesn't really have any pure offensive or defensive builds that another profession can't do better, and that's the problem.

I've actually toyed with the notion of creating a healing dervish, but the closest I've ever come to actually doing it is putting Imbue Health on my bar in FA (helps quite a bit, actually, especially if there aren't enough monks around).

A) i dont use onslaught much. but if you think its a joke..tell that to the 'meta' pvp community that was obsessed with primal rage for months, onslaught is PR without the 'take double damage' part, and it still lets you have a stance....

B) though i have done everything in pve with my dervish, i am almost entirely a pvper, ive earned well over 4 million balthazar faction, 2500 glad pts, varying amounts of kurzick/lux rep and fame since NF release JUST with my dervish, with my own builds. (and i quit the game twice in that time, for a few months each..)

If anything i feel overpowered playing my dervish.

Im not trying to be condescending to the rest of the dervishes on here. But i mean come on, every thread in here is turning into a sob story about how warriors rangers and assassins can do certain things better than a dervish. Imho, post these things on those respective profession forums...instead of further discouraging dervish players from learning their profession.

All i want to say is good luck to all, and if a profession is fun for you, stick with it and explore your playing style and you'll find something that works for you.

onslaught is also an enchantment on a 20 second recharge in a mostly useless attribute line. primal rage, before its two subsequent nerfs, was a stance on a 4 second recharge, and gave 33/33 instead of 25/25. even after the two nerfs, primal rage is STILL miles ahead of onslaught

btw, earning a bunch of factions is hardly an indicator of effectiveness. i can do the same with a mending wammo if i wanted to. considering that a dervish is basically a mending wammo on steroids, the comparison is kinda appropriate.