Onslaught vs Avatar of Balthazar? (PvE focused)

Avatar of Balthazar

Pros:. Epic burning capabilities
. Extra armour
. Higher adrenaline gain
. Fully maintainable without needing to spec away from/too much in to mysticism (thus also less energy intensive
. Holy damage (though there is debate as to how effective this holy damage is)

Cons:
. Extra armour is only against physical
. No speed or IAS buff
. Needs enchanments to reach full potential

Onslaught

Pros
. Very good compression, combining IAS, speed buff and increased adrenaline
. No activation time
. By speccing into wind prayers you can unlock more combo options
. IAS with no adrenaline cost (unlike HoF it can be used upon entering a fight)
. Lots of energy focused skills/adrenaline based ones and the mysticism buff makes maintaining it easier

Cons
. Have to make an effort to maintain it/ energy intensive on top of other skills (some people just prefer slapping on an avatar)
. Lower adrenaline gain
. Have to spec in to wind prayers


I'm having a hard time weighing this up, on paper they're fairly even. I guess AoB would be better for HM thanks to AoE burning and holy damage, but the manoeuvrebility and no need for a specific IAS skill makes onslaught pretty appealing (obviously it'd be ace for PvP).

I'm thinking of leaning toward AoB for PvE just for the epic burning with either Heart of Fury or Drunken Master (with booze). Although I like moving fast, speed boosts are not that crucial in PvE.

How is Avatar of Balthazar good? Burning is heavy pressure but unless you are using Whirling charge you need teardowns to fuel enchant losses. The only reason to use Balth IMO is to fuel adrenaline skills like SY!, Mystic Sandstorm, Radiant Scythe since +20 armor to physical isn't impressive enough. Say you pump the most spammy enchants possible. It'll be every 6 seconds at best, 3 if you run 2 of them.

Avatar of Balthazar is anti-synergy. It is bar expansion. It needs enchant teardowns or Whirling charge to be any good. +33% adrenaline versus +25% is not that big a difference when you can slot more useful skills, including adrenaline boosters like "For great justice!".

Onslaught you can run easily on its own.

Template:OgGjkyqKLSdfabQXcfjhjbXFCAA

12+1+1 scythe
10+1 wind
8+1 mysticism

Grenth's aura --> survivability (20HP/1.125sec up to 60HP/1.125sec)
Onslaught --> 1.125sec attack rate
Victorious Sweep --> Mystic sweep is 1 activation now, and +16-18 even when condition is met so it's not worth slotting
Radiant Scythe
Crippling Victory/Chilling Victory/"Save Yourselves!"
Zealous Renewal (Swap for Eremite's Zeal if necessary or Intimidating Aura for more HP) --> fuels Victorious Sweep
"For Great Justice!"
Res

Quote: Originally Posted by LifeInfusion

How is Avatar of Balthazar good? Burning is heavy pressure but unless you are using Whirling charge you need teardowns to fuel enchant losses. The only reason to use Balth IMO is to fuel adrenaline skills like SY!, Mystic Sandstorm, Radiant Scythe since +20 armor to physical isn't impressive enough. Say you pump the most spammy enchants possible. It'll be every 6 seconds at best, 3 if you run 2 of them.

Avatar of Balthazar is anti-synergy. It is bar expansion. It needs enchant teardowns or Whirling charge to be any good. +33% adrenaline versus +25% is not that big a difference when you can slot more useful skills, including adrenaline boosters like "For great justice!".

Onslaught you can run easily on its own.

Template:OgGjkyqKLSdfabQXcfjhjbXFCAA Good point.

I haven't got the opportunity to sit down and test skills. Sorry for my uneducated response.

After playing around a bit, I'm having a sh*t ton of fun with onslaught. The AoE capabilties of reap impurites+withering aura makes up for burning. Currently using OgGjkuqKrSQXWgOXcf7gab7XhXA with h/h and feel midly invincible to boot. When I manage to play with a mate he slaps GDW on to make sure nothing breathes.

Quote: Originally Posted by LifeInfusion

Template:OgGjkyqKLSdfabQXcfjhjbXFCAA Res Sig? What?
I'd look at Twin Moon Sweep and Balth's Fury over the Res and FGJ. Eremite's Attack has something going for it and I'm not sure Crippling would be all that useful.
If only Whirling Charge didn't deal Cold damage...

I was thinking testing Avatar of Balthazar + Sand Shards + your idea of Withering Aura with Reap Impurities. Just theory crafting.

Quote: Originally Posted by Xenomortis Res Sig? What?
I'd look at Twin Moon Sweep and Balth's Fury over the Res and FGJ. Eremite's Attack has something going for it and I'm not sure Crippling would be all that useful.
If only Whirling Charge didn't deal Cold damage... Whirling charge is good because you don't need a teardown so heroes can use it properly. Res sig because I don't run UA heroes.

Balth rage is a flat +2 adrenaline though, every 10 seconds. FGJ= +1 every hit.

Eremite's is 6 recharge and +18 damage so there's no synergy there since you strip an enchant. It's more adrenaline gain due to hitting all adjacent but you need a feeder enchant. Might as well just slap on Mystic sweep. Twin moon makes the enchantments pop.

Obviously if you run this on a human dervish you have better things than res sig, like Whirlwind attack.

Quote:

Originally Posted by chuckles79 AoB with Holy Flame as an adrenal skill takes care of the IAS. Yes it's a slot taken up, but the two synergize very well. Bring along another adrenal attack and you have a frontline beast! Heart of Fury/Pious Fury you mean?

I have to add, earlier this morning I ran to capture Avatar of Balthazar with Onslaught equipped. In the time where I could use both at once, it was so hilariously broken XD

AoB with Holy Flame as an adrenal skill takes care of the IAS. Yes it's a slot taken up, but the two synergize very well. Bring along another adrenal attack and you have a frontline beast!

Quote: Originally Posted by LifeInfusion

Whirling charge is good because you don't need a teardown so heroes can use it properly. Res sig because I don't run UA heroes.

Balth rage is +2 adrenaline though.

Eremite's is 6 recharge and +18 damage so there's no synergy there since you strip an enchant. Might as well just slap on Mystic sweep.

Obviously if you run this on a human dervish you have better things than res sig. Why are we talking about melee heroes?
Eremite's works differently to Mystic. On the removal of an enchantment, it functions like Whirlwind Attack.
+2 adr is fine, along with the boost from Onslaught. It's an extra enchantment and you're not hit by a downtime.

Quote: Originally Posted by LifeInfusion

How is Avatar of Balthazar good? Burning is heavy pressure but unless you are using Whirling charge you need teardowns to fuel enchant losses. The only reason to use Balth IMO is to fuel adrenaline skills like SY!, Mystic Sandstorm, Radiant Scythe since +20 armor to physical isn't impressive enough. Say you pump the most spammy enchants possible. It'll be every 6 seconds at best, 3 if you run 2 of them.

Avatar of Balthazar is anti-synergy. It is bar expansion. It needs enchant teardowns or Whirling charge to be any good. +33% adrenaline versus +25% is not that big a difference when you can slot more useful skills, including adrenaline boosters like "For great justice!".

Onslaught you can run easily on its own.
I was going to say the exact same thing. Sure I can totally ignore the fact that I gain an adrenal boost and just go for spamming burning... but why? I'd rather just run onslaught and whatever I can find that synergizes with it (not hard).

Ok I've been playing a bit with both skills, and I must say that both are very good and combined with the right skills you can gain some really nice damage and skill chains.
I'be been trying AoB with this build and it works just nice for me.

OgCjkyqKLSjeuXIYlbihjhOX9gA

As for Onslaught I am starting to give it a better look right now

I thought about this some more. Another problem with Avatar of Balthazar is that since it changes to holy damage, you can't trigger barbs + MoP. You get the same issue when running stuff like staggering force, dust cloak, grenth's fingers, Heart of Holy Flame, Avatar of _____. Ebon dust aura and Grenth's fingers have the same issue, although since the dervish changes they both are rather lacking.

Unlike old AoHM, AoB doesn't boost damage.

However, if you want to run manual teardowns, AoB is idiotproof since you won't strip the form.

Unless you wanted to steer away from Wind Prayers I'd opt for Onslaught.
You just seem to have much, much more flexibility with Onslaught.
AoB is underwhelming right now, but maybe if you use another weapon AoB will come into it's own.
With Lyssa though balthazar's rage is triggering burning every 5 seconds no need to strip anything and will give back some adrenaline when you do strip it, and has synergy with every other derv enchantment.

I can't say I'm really sold on either of these for PvE.

Onslaught can be replicated too easily with Heart of Fury + Whirling Charge. 25% adrenaline is... pretty marginal. If you are hitting 3 enemies at once it will hardly matter, and if you hit 1 enemy at a time you are pretty much starving regardless unless you have dark fury or something on you. The bar compression I'm just not that into because most of your choices to put in that extra slot are going to be enchants that you want to strip, and without an Avatar stripping enchants is much weaker in the first place. Wind prayers in general is geared towards PvP, it just doesn't have a ton to offer PvE

Avatar of Balthazar is better, but still not amazing. +20 vs physical I couldn't care less about, but the burning can be good. The problem is that I don't think you are getting enough to be worth the sacrifice of an Orders character that the Holy damage stops you from using. AoB's adrenal boost just ends up being a poor replacement for Dark Fury, so all we have that really stands out is the constant burning.

I'm just not seeing a 'this is why I am awesome' part of these elites for PvE like I can with things like VoS/AoD/WS/RS. They can both make pretty decent builds, but the elites aren't standing out as letting you do something new and cool that non-elites can't do 75% as efficiently.

What so great about Reaper's Sweep? I don't see it being better than Earthshaker. I guess you could argue scythe is faster due to multi-hit, but Crude swing does quite well.

1.75*0.66=1.167, 1.5*0.75=1.125 so it's all about the multi-hit (and cripple?)

It isn't better then earth-shaker.
This is PvE discussion and reapers as a stand alone elite can't hit as many targets as earth shaker. Though I scythe could get adrenaline up faster. Hit 3 targets with zealous sweep and how thats adrenaline for each hit + adrenaline from zealous sweep going to fuel your reaper's sweep. Maybe because of the adrenaline mechanics with scythes your supposed to gather your 3 foes and form a way to spam this thing. With what flash enchants though? Earth breaker just wants your adrenaline this wants your enchants if your not using a 6r FE and your trying to spam this as you get the adrenaline good luck?
I can get 8 adrenaline pretty quickly with a scythe but, those flash enchants have recharges.

Reapers is cool. If you have 3 enemies you can perma-knocklock them. Strip Balthazar's rage, get adren back ftw. Not saying its amazing, but its an elite that feels good. Onslaught and AoB just feel... boring and unimpressive in their effects.

Nah Onslaughts cool, I hate moving slow, half my deaths are me getting impatient, im an impatient person, which is why when I bring W/ heroes they must have charge so I don't die of boredom, screw their min/maxing.

Tangent aside, Balthazar's rage is 10r for Reapers users, 7 if they've partnered it with Lyssa's haste, wheres the perma knock locking coming from? You need flash enchantments that recharge fast enough to keep up with your adrenaline gain to keep some knockdowns coming frequently.