Onslaught vs Avatar of Balthazar? (PvE focused)

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!

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.

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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.

Just hitting 3 targets at once should be enough to knocklock someone with a 3s knockdown. Balthazar's is for being able to go into battle with your adrenal skills 100% charged.