best rune/insignia combo for dervish armor?

Windwakers should be a no-brainer. Armor is better than health in general, and 20 AL is far better than 40 hp in specific. Between the enchants you have on your bar as a Dervish, and enchants your team should be tossing around (PS, SB, Aegis, Orders, etc.) you should never find yourself lacking for enchantments to proc it.

play without armor, more fun

im trying out windwalker+vitae on everything except chest has sup vigor+survivor and head has scythe rune and gloves mysticism rune.


vitae good or what other runes to substitute for them

I use windwalker on head, hands, legs, & feet. Radiant & Attunement on chest for more energy. What ever else your build needs. I personally don't think the superior vigor (+50 health) is worth the extra 16.9K for only +9 more health than the Major vigor (+41 health).

It depends on a lot of factors. I tend to switch armor depending on my build and/or the monsters in that particular area. General purpose I say Survivors are the best bet. Windwalkers are great if your running with an enchantment heavy build and/or party but you have to be weary of enchantment removal which makes them useless where as survivor is never useless its always there as extra red. Radiant and attunment runes are also useful but don't go overboard use an e-management skill.

I would choose blessed or windwalker over survivor. I'm not so much scared about enchantment stripping because imho the AL bonus is needed only when you are attacked and you are in danger, it's useless when nobody attacks you, so you should worry about enchantments only when you are hit.

In PvE there's a lot of enchantments flying around in battle (aegis, prot spirit, soa, sh, rof etc), and if you take some damage your heroes or enchies will always cast something on you, so even if your regular dervish enchantments get stripped, you will surely receive some other enchantments when you need them.

I would say that windwalker > blessed in general. The only thing that would make me choose blessed over windwalker is their lower cost, but if you can afford windwalker, go for them because, as i said above, when you are in danger you often receive some protection from monks, so imho it's easy to reach 3-4 enchantments when you need them, and this means +15-20 AL instead of +10 of blessed.

For PvP i quote ac1inferno: choose survivor because there you will receive focused armor-ignoring damage, while in PvE monsters deal mostly physical and elemental damage (reduced by armor). In the end, however, the difference between having +HP or +AL in terms of general survivability (hope the spelling is correct ) isn't so high, so you can safely choose which one you prefer.

I have to disagree, in PvP +armor is always the best you can get (ever wonder why every monk runs disciples?) So even on your scythe go for +5 armor instead of +30 hp, also bring a +7 vs physical, +7 vs elemental and ofc a +30 if you face bloodspike. And dont forget a spear + shield set.

I agree with the use of +armor on weapons' mods in PvE, but on the PvP part i've seen a lot of different thoughts, there's a really strong debate on armor vs health and nobody by now has brought really strong arguments for one idea or the other. For example: what's your arguments on the use of +armor also in PvP?

I've made my own calculations, and i found that in PvE, for the really high damage (mostly physical and elemental) dealt by monster, armor is often better, but in PvP the thing is different, there's more armor-ignoring damage, and i can't really tell which of the two (HP or AL) is better. I have run myself monk with disciples and survivor, but probably i haven't sufficient experience to choose one of them.

well i always run wind walkers then i have a +1+1 for every attribute head pieces as well as a +1+3 head piece for every attribute. Sup vigor on chest, +1 earth, + 1 scythe and another +1 wind hand pieces to switch around. Viate on legs then 3 feet, +1 earth + 1 wind and + 1 mysticism to switch around.

As a general rule of thumb for all my characters I put a Major Rune of Primary Attribute(Mysticism), 2 runes of Vitae , a Superior Vigor, and make different headpieces for the rest of my attributes with Major runes. I do this for ease of changing builds w/o changing armor. As for my Dervish, most of the time I have my Scythe headpiece on. I dont really need the extra +1 when specing into wind or earth.

Thats the generic way I set up all my toons then change according to specific build needs.

As for windwalkers vs blessed in PvE, I use blessed because of all the enchantment stripping and natural enchantment juggling associated with a Dervish. I think it adapts better to different teams and builds. Its a personal choice. Windwalker does provide twice the protection with 4 enchantments, but either way I dont think its going to make or break you. If your using Orders and/or know you will have monks that will spam enchantments, then windwalkers is preferable.

Regardless, take what you like best from these posts and have some fun out there!