My PvE Grenth dervish

If you can't take legitimate criticism, posting on a public forum might not be the stage for you.

None of us have said that your build isn't good or that you aren't rolling your way through PvE. What we have said is that there is room for improvement. Save Yourselves and Pain Inverter work at odds with each other, trying to argue against that point is fruitless. Perhaps there is something in your arsenal that you could slot for Pain Inverter? Most have suggested AoHM, and I'd tend to agree, but other things like Technobabble or another attack skill could be just as good. Victorious Sweep is fine, but I don't think that with your constant lifesteal that you actually need the health gain. Eremite's and Mystic have faster activation times and higher damage potential. If you feel you're that fragile, by all means stick with Victorious.

I'm not putting these suggestions out there to make you angry or to make fun of your build. I want you to just consider the options. Don't like them? Play the way you want, have fun with it, but just don't dismiss opinions with comments like "doesn't know much about GW." I've been around plenty, thanks.

I was using an AoG build for a bit, I had Whirling Charge and Mystic Vigor on my bar, just for extra healing. With a bond or 2 I was able to tank Shiro in NF so it wasn't too bad.

Any AoG is going to be pretty mediocre in damage as compared to other dervish. Nevertheless I still think AoG should go for lots of hits not huge damage in order to fully capitalise on its life steal (seeping through those bosses 0 damage skills is quite fun). I was thinking of a dagger AoG alternating between GLS and SA as leads for the dagger chain:
14 Mysticism
12 Dagger Mastery
4 Wind Prayers

Golden Lotus Strike | Sneak Attack | Fox Fangs | Death Blossom
Attacker's Insight | Heart of Fury | Eternal Aura | Avatar of Grenth

Let me put it to you guys this way, and then I'll stop responding to this thread.

I designed a build that will work for hard-mode hero-henching anywhere. That's my only goal, and it works. I did not design it to maximize damage. With 20 life-stealing per hit and a multiple-hit weapon otherwise known as a scythe, I'm focusing on maximizing hits, not maximizing damage. (Asuran scan is exactly the wrong kind of skill to put on a bar like that.) There are plenty of cookie-cutter dervish bars that cause more damage and you simply cannot hero-hench with them in HM. Showing us screen shots of how much damage MoD says your build can dish out is pointless. A build has to work in reality, not in MoD-land.

As for whether I can take legitimate criticism: let's put some emphasis on the word "legitimate." Criticism from people who say you can't use PI and SY! together isn't legitimate. I explained in my previous post why it's totally wrong (PI sends back packets for all damage taken by minions and spirits, which SY! doesn't cover), and yet people still mumble that "they work against each other." Yeah, I gotta say, that IS a comment from someone who doesn't know much about GW. They don't work against each other. One kills the foe and the other protects your party. My godmode war has hero-henched everything in the game and he has PI and SY! on his bar.

Uhuh...Again, why max hits/lifesteal when you can max damage.

What makes your bar H/H and no other cookie cutter H/Hable?

Your bar has same faults any other melee bar has, your EA could get rupted and your SoL on Grenth for awhile. You get get KD spammed, blinded, wtfe.

And if you read my post it says something like I used this for most of my H/H crap etc.
Test my build on the field and yours, mine isn't perfect, yours isn't either, mine is helluva lot better though.

Other then that, cool story bro.

^ Because scythes are slow and if you want to deal huge chunks of damage at a time, AoG is simply not a good elite to take as lifesteal is really meager for the scythe when there are better elites out there to boost your damage. Lifesteal shines when you go against certain mobs which have skills to boost armor / reduce damage / reflect damage hence you would want to maximise on hits instead of damage to fully capitalise on AoG's lifesteal.

See, here's your problem. You seem to be assuming that we are saying that your build won't work. We're not. We're saying that it would be better if you did this and this and this. And it would.

Replacing Pain Inverter with AoHM, for example, would increase the amount of damage you're dealing to multiple foes, which appears to be the point of your build (you say it's to do a lot of lifesteal to multiple enemies, but ultimately that just means "lots of damage that also happens to heal me and ignores armor to lots of enemies"; guess what? pain inverter is far more contrary to the stated purpose of your build than AoHM, because it only affects one foe and depends on that foe's attack power for it's own).

So, in other words, if you replaced PI with AoHM, your godmode build would be better at it's stated purpose.

Also, since you're trying to get in a lot of hits in a short period of time, Eremite's Attack or Mystic Sweep would do better than Victorious Sweep, because their lower activations mean slightly more attacks in less time. The reason to use victorious sweep over those is to heal yourself. In terms of dps it simply is less powerful due to it's normal acitivation time.

PI and SY! do work against each other somewhat, because inevitably some of the damage being dealt by the enemy is hitting your heroes and henchies. In fact, I'd be willing to wager they're being hit a lot, because heroes and henchies don't dodge AoE. It doesn't invalidate the strategy of using them together, but PI itself it not great for a build like yours in the first place that exists to hit a lot of foes at once.

Asuran Scan does not affect your ability to attack multiple foes. It merely makes you deal more damage to one of those foes. Where's the downside, other than the fact that it would require a PvE slot you can't afford.

Oh, yeah, one more thing I really need to mention: regardless of what you can take on with your build, no matter what areas you can clear, it sucks. Why? Because it's pointless. It's completely redundant. Consider the following:

Warrior's Endurance
Aura of Holy Might
Pain Inverter
Distracting Blow
"Save Yourselves!"
Eremite's Attack
Mystic Sweep
Lion's Comfort

This W/D beats your build in literally every way. Anything your build can do, he can do better.

No, I'm pointing out that his build is pointless.

What he's doing is essentially the same as giving a necromancer a bow. Sure, you might be able to clear a lot of areas with it, but it's never going to be a "good" build by any measure because it's simply redundant. A necromancer is never going to use a bow better than a ranger, so there's no point in the necromancer even trying. By the same token, there's really no point in the build this guy is trying to use.

Furthermore, he claims in the first post that his build is the best possible one for H/Hing, a claim that is clearly false. Heck, off the top of my head I was able to make one that fulfilled his build's stated goals better than it did.

Hero-henching is easy. This is nothing special.

(And yes, needs moar AoHM, moar asuran scan, and less avatar. 20 life stealing is bad when you can be taking 20% of their health off, inflicting bleeding, and doing huge damage all in 1 hit.)

Right... I think I see what you're trying to do here.

You're wanting to get as much life steal from AoG as possible and you're sacrificing on your normal damage to achieve that. You're trying to get the highest ratio of "Life Steal / Damage" as possible. Unfortunatly, this is a poor idea.
With your setup, you're losing out on a lot more damage than what you'll be gaining back from life steal (this is particularly true with Distracting Blow, which is of limited value). This is largely because you're not actually increasing the rate at which you deal Life Steal, but are drastically reducing the rate at which you deal damage.

Life Steal for a physical is of limited value and only serves to add to the damage already being done. Think of it as icing on a nice cake - you're trying to make a cake made only of icing and it is not going to work out very well.

You have limited utility (the only utility extends to SY's protection) and should therefore be trying to maximise on your damage potential as much as possible. Not bringing AoHM is rather foolish, you're passing up a lot of damage here.


Other finer points on your build can recieve some constructive criticism too. FGJ I don't think is necessary at all - in a decent sized mob you should be hitting 2 or 3 enemies at once under an IAS, so adrenaline for SY will already be building up quickly.
Pain Inverter is truly silly. It's a crutch skill for big bosses. Lose that and Distracting Strike and take another attack skill along with AoHM. Mystic Sweep would be good now you'd have at least 2 enchantments and with decent hero setups, you should reach 3. Sabway probably won't provide a 3rd unless you fit Prot Spirit and Aegis in there.

I'm running a slightly different build with AoG: I spec 5 in wind prayers and use attackers insight to spam 10e skills like chilling victory and lyssa's assault for energy, then end eternal aura with pious assault to start a new chain of attacks.

mysticism:11+1
scythe mastery: 12+1+1
Wind Prayers: 5

Pious Assault|Lyssa's Assault|Chilling Victory|Eternal Aura|Heart of Fury|Attacker's Insight|Avatar of Grenth|optional (res/armor boost/AoHM)

* Before aggro get your form up and use Attacker's Insight
* Heart of Fury > Eternal Aura
* Chilling Victory > Lyssa's Assault > Pious Assault > Attacker's Insight > Chilling Victory > Lyssa's Assault...

Only problem is a problem all dervs face in HM: no matter how much dmg you put out, you will always be the number one target for low AL, even with Conviction in the optional slot. 600hp isn't much when you are hit with 100+dmg each hit. AoG's Self heal is pretty important when you're a derv.

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Problem is not so much H/H but rather pugs with 2 HB monks with no or little prots, which is a common. Do I need to keep PS on myself then?

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